#i could technically arrange my schedule so i could start in April | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

feigeroman · 3 years

Text

Thomas Headcanons: Rebecca

In my headcanon, Rebecca is BR #34073, 249 Squadron, which in real life was left at Barry Scrapyard for about twenty years. It was later purchased for preservation in 1988, but to this day has yet to be restored (in fact, it’s been used as a source of spare parts for a couple of other Battle of Britain engines). I normally wouldn’t have chosen an engine that was already preserved, but as the real life 249 Squadron remains a kit of parts, I figured it couldn’t hurt to bend history a little.

It wasn’t until long after I decided this that I discovered that someone on the ERS team clearly had the same idea, as their character Squaddie is based on this exact engine as well. I promise the similarity was accidental on my part, but I think my version of Rebecca is different enough for me to get away with it.

Anyway, this means that Rebecca originally entered service in May 1948, and so is technically a BR engine. Her working life wasn’t terribly eventful, with only the occasional moment of drama to break the monotony. One of these moments came in 1952, when she was selected to take part in trials to compare the performances of the Light Pacifics, the Merchant Navies, and the then-new Britannia locomotives. History does not state who had the most success, but Rebecca’s way with words certainly helped brighten the sour moods of the losing engines!

Another moment of drama occurred a couple of years later when Rebecca unexpectedly caught fire. This was one of the more serious issues with her design, caused by a mixture of coal dust, ash and oil saturating her boiler lagging, Fortunately, this only happened to Rebecca once, but even that was once too often.

As built, the Light Pacifics had numerous problems stemming from their unique design, and so in the late 1950s, many of them were rebuilt along more conventional lines. Rebecca had long felt insecure about many of her problems - particularly her increased tendency to wheelslip - and hoped that she might be rebuilt too. Sadly, the rebuilding programme was cut short by the onset of Modernization, and so Rebecca retained her original shape until her withdrawal from BR service in 1964.

At this point, Rebecca’s story pretty much exactly parallels that of her real-life counterpart: After being withdrawn in 1964, she was moved to Barry Scrapyard, and ended up staying there for about twenty years, before being saved by a preservation group based in Brighton. However, I’ve backdated the latter event to 1985, to allow time for her lengthy restoration, prior to arriving on Sodor in 1989.

The Brighton group originally intended to restore and operate Rebecca themselves, but within two years, they’d realized the job was bigger than they could manage - or indeed afford - and they appealed for any outside help they could get. They eventually accepted an offer from the NWR, who agreed to undertake the restoration on the condition that Rebecca was allowed to work for them.

However, Rebecca’s restoration wasn’t carried out at Crovan’s Gate, as they were working at full capacity at the time, and didn’t have any room to spare. Instead, she was restored on the premises of the then-new heritage centre Steamtown in Carnforth, a stone’s throw from Sodor. As a result, the job ended up taking just under two years - a good chunk of which was spent arguing over what livery she should be painted in...

Some believed she should be painted in an imitation of the Southern's malachite green livery, but others argued that as she was built by BR, such a livery would be inauthentic. They instead pushed for one of the many BR liveries worn by the Light Pacifics, while further others made the case for one of the NWR's own house colours.

Eventually, the question was put forward to Rebecca herself, and she surprised everyone when she asked to be painted yellow. Officially, this was because her namesake squadron had been known as the Gold Coast Squadron - unofficially, she just really liked the colour yellow.

The actual application differs from that seen in canon. Instead of a fluorescent sunshine yellow, the exact shade is more akin to the golden ochre worn by LBSCR engines. And instead of what I like to call her corporate stripes, her lining more closely matches what a real Light Pacific would have.

In 1988, the NWR had hosted a series of events to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, among which were a series of railtours hauled by various war memorial engines. Afterwards, the point was made that the NWR had no such engine of its own, and the decision was made that because of her military name, Rebecca should have this honour.

It was only at this point that Rebecca officially became known as such. Obviously the real 249 Squadron had no connection with Sodor, and so another more local name was required. The name that met with the most favour was Rebecca Miller. The Second World War had only just broke out when Miller was made signalwoman at Tidmouth, and she quickly became famous for her expert handling of the increased traffic through the complex arrangement of lines outside the station. Sadly, Miller was killed during an air raid in April 1941, when her box was engulfed in flames after receiving a direct hit from an incendiary bomb. Her time on the NWR was brief, but her legacy was everlasting, and it was unanimously agreed that the railway’s war memorial engine should carry her name.

Rebecca (the engine) was still being restored in 1988, but luckily, it was determined that she would be ready by early 1989 - just in time to take part in celebrations commemorating the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of war. As it turned out, she was ready ahead of schedule, and she was pressed into NWR service to help handle a sudden surge in passenger traffic. Rebecca entered service already wearing her commemorative nameplates, but her official naming ceremony didn’t take place until that September.

Even by this time, Rebecca was still sensitive about her flawed design, and still held out hope that she might be rebuilt, in order to deal with those flaws. When she entered service, however, her first crew turned out to have been trained under ex-Southern drivers, and so were fully aware of the issues with Rebecca’s design. This meant they knew just how to get the best performance out of her, in spite of her problems.

Rebecca was upset by this, as it meant the chances of her being rebuilt started to dwindle further and further. There was a bit of conflict between engine and crew, but Rebecca came round to them in the end, and now likes them both very much. She still sometimes thinks about how much better she’d perform with a rebuild, but she knows now that with the right crew, it doesn’t really matter how many flaws her current design has.

Rebecca now primarily helps Gordon with the Wild Nor’ Wester express service, but she can also be found on other fast trains - both passenger and goods. She’s even come into her own as one of the regular engines on the Midnight Goods. Rebecca is also the main motive power for a special boat train which runs between Barrow-in-Furness and Kirk Ronan, connecting with cruise liners from all over the world.

Because of her light weight, Rebecca is also capable of travelling on most of the branch lines, and can be called in at a moment's notice to help cover shortages in motive power. However, because some lines can't accommodate her great length, such occasions are rare.

#thomas the tank engine #the railway series #sodor #island of sodor #north western railway #ttte headcanon #ttte analysis #ttte rebecca #rebecca the happy engine

57 notes · View notes

betweentheracks · 3 years

Text

Updates//Recent Inactivity

Hello all! This is me finally taking some time to sit down and offer up a rundown on how life is currently going as a means of explaining my inactivity. This is a personal post that is guaranteed to be both rambling and emotional so if that is not your cup of tea, I understand and happily advise you just skip over this post as it is not relevant to the actual content this blog was intended for.

EDITED: After reading this back I now realize this is really just me spilling the tea on my own life and is laughably dishy in details which is extremely not my usual stance on my personal privacy. But idk, it was cathartic so I'm leaving it as is despite the urge to redact 70% of what I say.

I'll start with the good news that I am officially out of lockdown and have remained COVID-19 free since my return home from the hospital. This also means my son finally was allowed to come home to me which is dazzling and exciting and also a little terrible too. He's at a precocious age where tantrums are the cool way to communicate and having been gone for so long completely thrashing his established routine has caused friction. He came home and his parent was not the same as when he left; is much weaker and less energetic than before, paler and shaky - but also there's the addition of my best friend having moved in to assist and take care of me/him while we all do our best to muddle through.

The readjustment has been rough and a lot of this week has made me incredibly thankful to have practically zero memory of how I was as a child. There have been injuries: I have been whacked in the face with the metal cover for a floor vent while dozing on the sofa instead of paying rapt attention to whatever silliness he was showing off to me, there was his complete dismissal of me asking him to stay back and away from the hot oven as I pulled lunch from it's fiery jaws only to then be faced with a toddler quickly approaching with his hand raised to touch so I naturally made a move to block him and in the process I let go of the oven door which slammed upward and clamped my arm tightly between it and the inside cavern of the oven while it was set to a roasty 400 degrees Fahrenheit - earning me a mangled arm with burns of varying degrees, and then we also had that fit where it seemed like a much more grand idea to scale the babygate cordoning the stairs and I had to rush up them to stop him from tumbling face first down two flights and of course did the falling all on my own and did it backwards then slammed painfully into the wall of the landing. This all happened within a 48hr time frame and makes me wonder why I am so catastrophically inclined.

I have bruises that range the majority of my spine courtesy of the wall and stairs, two minor first degree burns on my forearm that are in the shape of an equals and quite large despite the lack of actual pain I feel from them, and the underside of my forearm was instantly blistered then popped then melted down into a horrid glob of skin mush and sticky red-orange and is a second degree burn that I have been assured is no real cause for concern as long as I tend it with care. In all, I managed to escape my momjuries relatively unscathed and with a child that was scared senseless at having hurt his momma and is quick to listen and never stops cuddling me in the time since. Here's hoping he isn't significantly traumatized from this since exactly none of this is especially his fault and is due to my clumsy, accident-prone status in life.

So yes, The Toddler has returned home to me and after some happenings we have settled and are happy. However, his blast from the past father has suddenly just decided to reemerge after more than a year of radio silence and static and has slapped me with a custody petition. Hooray. While I have no worries on this matter due to my mother working for one of the top custody lawyers in the state and snagging him as my representation, and the utter lack of competency on my estranged baby daddy's end clearly being displayed in literally anything and everything the idiot does/says, I do have to now go through the overhaul of a custody case and that is just so weak and exhaustive. Not to mention the basis of his claims that I am not fit to raise a child are founded in my health concerns and the crazy work schedule I keep; ironically, my health is making it so that I have much less insane hours and makes this fairly moot but to each their own I guess. Also worth noting on this matter is that he only did this now because he was recently placed under penalty for child support back pay and nothing in this world matters to him like his money and this is his special way of getting one over on me for tampering with his meager earnings. (He's a wannabe musician - the soundcloud rapper sort, just so we are all on the same page here). If I thought for even a second this was a genuine desire to be an active and stable parent I would be a lot less pressed to act in favor of making it legally binding that he can only see him under a supervisory condition and share time evenly, but it just is not believable in the slightest.

So the thing is - my health is actually quite dismal presently. I'm due in for open heart surgery on the 8th of April and until then I have been doing my utmost to mind all the nagging I get from doctors, PT specialists, the surgeons that will be slicing and dicing me, and my in-family medical practitioner that sometimes remembers he is also my brother and not just an MD. But like, you guys, this surgery is terrifying and technically is two surgeries rolled into one. They'll be cracking my chest open and then stopping my heart while they lift it from where it sits sweetly unhinged and lopsided in my body and very finely shave away some of the excess muscle that has built up around the wall of my heart as well as some unfriendly scar tissue that has lingered since my last surgery years ago. Granted there is no accidental slip that nicks my ugly gargantuan heart and renders me as good as dead, once this first part is finished the other surgeon will need to be deft and very quick to place this ventricular assisting piece in the valve that has all but given up on functioning altogether and do so in the time remaining before the time limit for my heart being essentially unplugged from by body is up, which would also feasibly mean my death. Lots of exciting and terrible sounding consequences, am I right?

Well let's bear it in mind that I am just below 30 in age and therefore not duly experienced in the realm of facing down my own mortality via making all necessary legal arrangements and managing my affairs and assets so that, in event of my untimely death, the custody case still doesn't stand a chance of snatching my son away to the sad misfortune of being raised by a man that has stated openly he only has interest in his kids so far as what they can do for him/get for him in terms of benefit and that he would be unwilling to be hypocritical and never deter his children from drugs and a lifestyle of extremely questionable moral integrity and hygiene alike. Eugh. But I also have had to make sure there is a DNR in place just in case things go wrong during the operation, my will has also been finalized and notarized, all my savings and financial/material assets have been squared away to come into my child's inheritance when he is of age and, most importantly, a document that states clear and direct instructions for him to be placed in care of my mother or, if she is unwilling or incapable, he will be under custodial order and guardianship of my best friend whom he has always viewed as a pseudo-dad anyway. Legally binding and even in light of the paternity petition this document supersedes parental right by way of the provided evidence I have submitted to prove a lack of parental credibility. That's right, I spent days lowkey stalking and sleuthing about to capture what I needed to show this man for what he actually is and I have precisely zero guilt or shame for doing it; this is my child on the line and that means momma doesn't have to play by the rules of snitches getting stitches or whatever other scary street rules he tosses at me as idle threats. (He's done this routinely for all the years I have known him, and it is somehow both pathetic and hilarious because he knows for a fact that, if I wanted, I could throttle him in less time than it would take for him to form a rational thought between his drug soaked braincells - I was also a person of less than savory character not too long ago and can handle myself very well. But I digress because I am losing my track of thought.

After the surgery I will have so damn much PT and rehab, all of which will be specific to varying parts of my body that will need to be reworked and strengthened. Weeks, months of it really. This surgery is major and hits heavy enough that I will be in the hospital for at least 10-14 days just recovering from it without taking into consideration any number of complications that could pop up. Hell, if they get in there and find a situation worse than they currently have an understanding of in the limited capacity of cardiology tech can provide of such a gnarled beastly heart and realize they can't really do anything with it after all, I'll be added to the transplant list. I think this is more daunting to consider than the surgery, honestly.

In that way that doctors have about them, I was "comforted" by being informed that this was an inevitability and I would have been faced with this in a matter of years - less than a handful actually - but the way COVID-19 chewed through me sped it up. I'm sure my years of substance issues were also very helpful in this endeavor, but either way I still am unsure whether I feel better knowing this or not? Mostly I think I feel conflicted and hopeful tempered with the caution of life being super shady in the ways it has often brought me to the doorsteps of dying in situations that seem like odd chance. I also am gifted with being so capable in jinxing myself that I brought myself to COVID-19 ("The way life is going I'll probably square up with Rona next week or some bullshit." Positive test flagged within the following week) and also into labor ("Watch me go into labor on Labor Day since that would be the sort of universal pun that would strike my bad penny having ass." Indeed hatched my youngling on Labor Day of that year) by saying some things within the scope of my bad humor that instantly manifested as reality so I'm not taking any risks here lol.

The gist is that life is really stirring up the winds over here and so I haven't been online and posting anything that would make my blog valid in a fat minute. I do apologize for this and also for the fact that this post took me nearly a week to type up, but when things calm a little I will be back in full. For the time being I will be sporadic and do what I can when I can!

Thanks to anyone that read this mess all the way here! And a big thank you to all of you still supporting me!

#racks chats #entirely too long and too personal

30 notes · View notes

paralleljulieverse · 5 years

Photo

“One day I’ll be famous. I’ll be proper and prim...”

Sixty years ago, more or less to the week, the famed Italian painter Pietro Annigoni unveiled his latest masterwork: ‘Eliza’, Julie Andrews in ‘My Fair Lady’ (1959).

At the time, Annigoni was the most celebrated portraitist in the world. His dreamily romantic 1954-55 oil of Queen Elizabeth II catapulted the hitherto little known Italian painter to international fame (Wynne-Morgan: 17). Almost overnight, Annigoni became "the most sought-after portrait painter of the decade” (Shearer: 4) attracting a glittering line-up of celebrity subjects including Princess Margaret, Prince Philip, the Duchess of Devonshire, the Shah and Empress of Iran, the Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur and Margot Fonteyn. His services were so in demand that he reportedly “had to refuse thousands of commissions –– 90 out of every 100 ––as the queues of VIPs waiting to be immortalised stretched around the world” (Turner: 8).

It was against this backdrop that Julie Andrews’s longtime manager, Charles ‘Uncle Charlie’ Tucker, approached Annigoni in 1958 with an invitation to paint his client who was riding triumphant at the time as the star of My Fair Lady. Tucker made the approach via a mutual friend –– Max Farber, an American newspaper editor and PR man who handled publicity for Annigoni’s first US exhibition in 1957 (Randolph: 6) –– which no doubt helped seal the deal (”Surprise”: 7). In his memoirs, Annigoni (1977) recalls:

Although I hardly knew who Julie Andrews was then, I agreed, but nearly a year went by before I was able to start the portrait. On the day I arrived in London, the manager Charles Tucker, took me to see the show and to meet the young actress. I was pleasurably surprised by both and decided there and then to paint her in the costume and character of Eliza Doolittle, the show’s Cockney flowergirl (121).

The meeting of these two disparate celebrities –– the serious, gruff Continental painter and the trilling English Rose –– was the stuff of PR dreams and it drew considerable media attention. “There’s no need to say she is very pretty,” Annigoni is reported to have remarked as he sized up his subject in her backstage dressing-room, “But I expect I shall need some 30 sittings before I am satisfied” (”Surprise”: 7).

In the end, Julie went to sit for the artist at his Chelsea studio exactly 28 times between April and June 1959 (Rydon: 5). Following these sessions, Annigoni would continue to work on the painting for hours, often late into the night. Ever the perfectionist, he even arranged for a copy of Julie’s flower-girl costume to be sent over from Drury Lane and worn by a model so he could hone the finishing touches (ibid.).

Throughout the more than two month period of the portrait’s production, Julie continued to perform in My Fair Lady, as well as prepare for her wedding to Tony Walton in mid-May. It was a pressured schedule that inevitably led to the odd timing mishap, a source of great irritation to the exacting Annigoni. When, on one occasion, Julie arrived at his studio more than twenty minutes late, the artist was so enraged he refused to answer the door, necessitating a diplomatic flurry of contrite telephone calls to smooth his ruffled ego (Andrews: 258; Annigoni: 121). “He was an arrogant man,” Julie recounts, “the epitome of the temperamental artist” who “demanded total dedication and punctuality” (Andrews: 258).

For all his irascibility, Annigoni in his memoirs looked back fondly on Julie as “a very sweet girl” (Annigoni: 121). He was especially grateful when, after complaining of a pain in his right arm, Julie arranged for a special house call from Tony Walton’s doctor-father who diagnosed “a cracked humerus” and “treated it successfully” (122). Annigoni was, by all accounts, equally pleased with the portrait itself, quietly considering it to be one of his finer works (Rydon: 5).

Once the commission was complete and the portrait delivered, the enterprising Tucker set about negotiating the sale of reproduction rights to select newspaper and magazine outlets. It was a canny move that not only helped recoup much of the initial £2000 commission fee but ensured optimal publicity for both the portrait and its star (Annigoni: 122). Images of the painting were carried in the international press as far away as Australia (“Annigoni’s Fair Lady”: 122). In October, Tucker licensed Woman’s Own –– a high-circulation magazine that had previously published several stories on Annigoni –– to run a lavish full-colour centrefold “presentation copy” of the portrait (”Star Feature”: 29-31). This special issue was strategically timed to coincide with the PR lead-up to Julie’s four-part BBC TV series in November/December 1959, the first episode of which featured Annigoni as a celebrity guest (Cottrell: 126). Tucker also floated plans –– ultimately unrealised, alas –– for future portraits of Julie as Guinevere in Camelot and “all the different characters of every show she has been in” (Private Correspondence to Max Farber, 21 April 1959; see also “’My Fair Lady’ Star”: 4).

As with much of Annigoni’s work during this period, the Julie Andrews portrait was well received by the public and middlebrow commentators –– “a breathtaking canvas” (Rydon: 7); “surely will rank...in the future with the famous ‘Mona Lisa’" (Cartmel: 16) –– but it proved far less pleasing to ‘serious’ art critics. Indeed, for the most part, the arts intelligentsia of the day took a pretty dim view of Annigoni. The artist’s predilection for representational classicism, coupled with his vocal opposition to then fashionable traditions of abstract modernism, made him an "isolated anachronism” in the post-war arts scene and a frequent target of critical scorn (Turner: 8). Many critics dismissed Annigoni as little more than a technically-accomplished draughtsman, a “purveyor of Old Masterish pastiche” (Rogers: 96).

When the Julie Andrews portrait was shown at the annual Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1960, many reviews were openly derisive. “I suppose it has a faded Victorian charm,” sniffed The Observer (Clutton-Brock: 19). “Signor Pietro Annigoni’s Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady...belong[s] in every fibre to the times and dull skill of late Victoriana,” echoed the Daily Mail (Jeannerat 1960: 7). While The Stage huffed: “With his oil of Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady, Pietro Annigoni could not have been more conventional and unexciting if he had tried with all his might” (”Not Much”: 21).

The intervening passage of time and the resurgence of interest in figurative portraiture has afforded a less jaundiced view of Annigoni and his place in art history. Following the artist’s death in 1988, his work was subject to a growing critical reassessment that saw him redeemed as an important figure of twentieth-century ‘classical realism’ (Lack: 50-59). A 1995 feature-length documentary mounted a passionate defence of Annigoni as “a prolific and complex artist...a philosopher with the skill to capture a person’s soul” (Bond and Smith). Major retrospectives of his work have since been held around the world and in 2008 a dedicated Annigoni museum was inaugurated in the artist’s native Florence.

It is a context that encourages renewed consideration of Annigoni’s portrait of Julie Andrews as a serious artwork. Pace knee-jerk dismissals of it as mere decorative Victoriana, close reading reveals that, beyond the attractive veneer –– what one critic sneeringly termed “the prettiness of the chocolate-box” (Jeannerat 1961: 3) –– lies a work of considerable intelligence and interpretive depth. For all his technical realism, Annigoni approached the practice of portrait painting as effectively that of an expressive character-study. “I have always painted to please myself,” he declared, “and interpret the sitter as I see and understand [them]” (Shearer: 4). A good portrait needs to be accurate but also communicative, he believed, an expression of character and moral quality beyond the mere impression of outward appearance. It’s an approach that orients his portraits to structural and conceptual duplexity: “he captures the soul of beautiful women...but he also catches the deeper side” (Sullivan: 92).

Here, it is worth recalling the ‘official’ title of Annigoni’s portrait of Julie: ‘Eliza’, Julie Andrews in ‘My Fair Lady’ (Jackson: 84). It suggests that, far from a simple depiction of a single physical subject, the portrait is in fact a complex study of plural subjects. It ‘portrays’ Julie Andrews –– in technically consummate, if idealised, likeness –– but in the guise of Eliza Doolittle, a celebrated character as reimagined in a contemporary hit musical. There are thus three interacting spheres or layers of representation in the work: real person, fictional character, and theatrical role. Looking at the portrait, the observer’s mind moves inexorably between all three, posing an interpretive conundrum: are we looking at an actress in character or a character as realised by an actress?

Taking the idea of layering further, the portrait, like much of Annigoni’s work, is quite literally a work of layers. As part of his commitment to traditionalism, Annigoni was noted for his exacting use of Quattrocento production techniques. Chief among these was the practice of tempera grassa whereby an artwork is painstakingly created on a chalk-gessoed panel through composite layers of pigment mixed with a binding agent, typically egg and oil, interspersed with coats of lacquer (Cookson: 43ff). It is a labour-intensive form of stratified image-construction that lends Annigoni’s paintings their characteristic luminosity with dynamic hues and complex interplay of shadows and light. It also enhances their disarming trompe l’oeuil effect where minutely detailed realism –– limpid eyes, flesh flushed with sanguine warmth, textured fabric–– and precise geometric perspectivalism combine to simulate a sense of perceptual depth that draws the eye in and across the painting’s spatial field and its various objects (Hoopes: 21).

Annigoni’s portrait work is equally characterised by a parallel layering of compositional form. Much like his Renaissance masters, the artist typically sets his subjects in and against a background rich with symbolic import. His celebrated 1954-55 painting of the Queen, for example, was as famous for its romantic depiction of the young monarch resplendent in her ceremonial robes as for the fact that she appears Diana-like towering triumphant over a sylvan English landscape at misty dawn, gazing into “the light of...a new Elizabethan age” (Wynne-Morgan: 17).

In the case of the Julie Andrews portrait, Annigoni chose to depict his subject against a backdrop of peeling theatre posters. Such was the importance of this background to Annigoni’s vision that he reportedly scoured London to obtain historical playbills from the very date Shaw’s original production of Pygmalion, the source text for My Fair Lady, opened at His Majesty’s Theatre on April 11, 1914 (Rydon: 5). Cracked and peeling in burnished hues of faded gold and green, the backdrop is clearly redolent of age and historical memory. In fact, the curled strips of paper look not unlike autumn leaves falling with the passage of time. Combined with the work’s classical style and bronzed patina, it strikes a decided note of wistful, even melancholic, longing. But what redeems the endeavour from being a simple exercise in sentimental nostalgia –– a common criticism of Annigoni’s work –– is that this elegiac reference to times-gone-by sits within a broader frame of markedly mixed temporalities.

In a way that neatly parallels the painting’s fusion of representational levels mentioned above, the portrait conjoins past, present and future in convoluted, and ultimately irresolvable, ways. Out of the golden past of Edwardian theatrical history, Shaw’s Eliza –– herself a resurrection of the ancient Greek figure of Galatea –– is reborn anew in My Fair Lady, the contemporary hit show of the painting’s ‘present’ in the late-1950s. That she is embodied here in the form of Julie Andrews, a then-tender 23-year old on the cusp of global superstardom, adds additional layers of futurity to the mix –– as does the fact that Annigoni chose to paint Julie in Eliza’s early flower-girl guise where she is still dreaming of an as-yet-unknown “loverly” tomorrow.*

The multi-levelled temporality of the portrait was not lost on commentators at the time of the painting’s unveiling:

Annigoni has painted Julie Andrews, who created the leading musical ‘My Fair Lady’ but it is Shaw’s eternal Eliza (46 years old next year––the first performance was in April 1914) who shines through...The portrait was commissioned by Miss Andrews’ manager, Mr Charles Tucker. The woebegone waif, clutching her purse shawl, with her melting mouth and a tear n her cheek, will hand in house. Until he dies. He has willed the portrait to Miss Andrews, a legacy of her first fame (“Annigoni’s ‘Fair Lady’”: 122).

This 1959 prediction as to the ‘future’ of the portrait was close to the spirit, if not quite the letter, of what transpired. After hanging for many years in Tucker’s London office, the painting was eventually put up for auction at Sotheby’s in late-1975 where it generated considerable interest (Hickey: 9).* Following spirited bidding, the painting sold at fall of hammer to an anonymous bidder for £7000 (£60,000 in inflation adjusted prices) (Jackson: 84; Walker: 11). The bidder was subsequently revealed to be a proxy advocating on behalf of Blake Edwards who had bought the portrait as a gift for his wife. So, in the end, ‘Eliza’, Julie Andrews in ‘My Fair Lady’ came back full circle to its subject who, in her own words, is “thrilled to own it and it hangs in my home” (Andrews: 258).

Notes:

* Some commentators have pointed out that the portrait contains another coincidental allusion to the star’s future as one of the playbills glimpsed in the background appears to spell out the half-hidden words: The Sound of... “How prophetic!” notes Julie (Andrews: 258).

** Several sources, including Annigoni himself (1977: 122), state that the painting was put up for sale by Tucker’s widow after his death. The Sotheby’s catalogue does indeed list “Mrs Charles L. Tucker” as the lot consignor but Tucker was still alive in 1975––he passed four years later in 1979––so his wife’s name was possibly used for taxation purposes (”Obituary”: 6). In her memoir, Julie alludes to the fact that she and Tucker had a gradual professional alienation which resulted in a change of management sometime in the mid-60s (Andrews: 221). She also mentions apropos the auction that: “I heard that Charlie asked whether [the portrait was being bought] on my behalf, and he seemed happy when the fact was confirmed” (Andrews: 258).

Sources:

Andrews, Julie. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008.

Annigoni, Pietro and Wright, Robin. An Artist’s Life. London: W.H. Allen, 1977.

“Annigoni’s Fair Lady.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 11 October 1959: 122.

Bond, Richard and Smith, Stephen. Annigoni: Portrait of an Artist [DVD], Italy/Canada: Artatak/Rainbow Films, 1994.

Cartmel, Frank B. “Splendid.” Daily Express. 1 October 1959: 16.

Clutton-Brock, Alan. “New Non-Conformists.” The Observer. 1 May 1960:18-19.

Cookson, Dawn. Painting with Annigoni: A Halcyon Decade as a Student in Florence 1958-68. London : Unicorn Press, 2000.

Cottrell, John. Julie Andrews: The Story of a Star. London: Arthur Barker, 1968.

“Fair Deal.” The Guardian. 13 November 1975: 6.

Hickey, William. “Under the Hammer: Annigoni’s Fair Lady.” Daily Express. 29 October 1975: 9.

Hoopes, Donelson F. Pietro Annigoni: A Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Brooklyn Museum, 1969.

Jackson, Anne, ed. Art at Auction, The Year at Sotheby Park Bernet, 1975-1976. New York: Rizzoli, 1976.

Jeannerat, Pierre. “Christ at Cookham...the Epitaph of Genius.” Daily Mail. 29 April 1960: 7.

_________. “Just Chocolate (Annigoni flavour) Likenesses.” Daily Mail. 26 April 1961: 3

Lack, Richard. "Classical Realism: The Other Twentieth Century," Utne Reader. July /August 1989: 50-59.

Laws, Frederick. “Annigoni’s 1961 Old Masters So Depressing.” Daily Herald. 26 April 1961: 39.

McIlhany, Sterling. “Pietro Annigoni: Contemporary Florentine Master.” American Artist. 36: 359, June 1972: 24-30.

“’My Fair Lady’ Star Seen as Fairest of Them All.” The Age. 18 November 1959: 4.

“Not Much at the Academy.” The Stage. 5 May 1960: 21.

“Obituary: Charles L. Tucker Dies; Impressario [sic].” Hartford Courant. 14 May 1979: 6.

Randolph, Nancy. “Chit-Chat.” Daily News. 11 December 1957: 6.

Rogers, Malcolm. From Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II: Master Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery. London: Art Services International, 1993.

Shearer, Lloyd. “The Ladies Love His Portraits.” Parade. 5 January 1958: 4.

“Star Feature: Annigoni’s Portrait of Julie Andrews.” Woman’s Own. 3 October 1959: 29-31.

Sullivan, Robert. “Pietro Paints the Queen.” Daily News. 5 June 1955: 92.

“Surprise for Julie: Annigoni arrives to paint her.” Daily Express. 16 April 1959:

Turner, Francesca. “Annigoni: Isolated Anachronism.” Evening Post. 9 May 1977: 8.

Walker, John. “Meet...Understated Superstar.” Observer Magazine. 6 June 1976: 10-11.

Welles, John. “Meet Julie Andrews: Understated Superstar.” The Observer Magazine. 6 June 1976:

Wynne-Morgan, David. “Painter of the Queen: Annigoni, a Dazzling Story of Success.” The Age Literary Supplement. 15 December 1956: 17.

Zeri, Federico. Italian Paintings: Florentine School: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: MMA, 1971.

#julie andrews #Pietro Annigoni #My Fair Lady #eliza doolittle #portrait #artist #charles tucker #musical theatre #west end #Broadway #1959 #art #painting

20 notes · View notes

dhofberg · 6 years

Text

Going back;Take three

Well it has been 8 months since I left Lesvos the last time, and about five months since I decided to go back again. Once you know how things are, it’s hard to forget that for the refugees in Greece and many other places, things are rarely getting any better and mostly are worse as movement from Turkey to Europe is more difficult. Nevertheless landings in Lesvos continue and now those who hoped to seek asylum in Nirthern Europe are inevitably stranded for a long time in Greece. Two years ago they were able to bypass the Shengan rules that required asylum seekers to seek refuge and legal status in the first country in which they landed. But that has long ceased and now the requirement is in effect. Not because the Greek economy has improved or has become more welcoming to refugees, but because much of the EU has closed its borders to most refugees.

I have not followed things as closely as I had been. I quit Facebook for a couple of months in my frustration over (partly) political vitriol and even family members hateful messages. But I am back on now because it is actually helpful to look at posts of friends in Greece who write about goings on there.

I had thought this time I would work with Doc Mobile again, and I told them in April I was planning to return in October. Although the experience working last year in a tent, a construction zone, with a large dose of chaos and lack of adequate... well anything, the team was good and the organization’s founder Kai Whittsock undeniably had his heart in the right place. Unfortunately after giving them my dates, beginning to arrange housing with Paula, a doctor from Spain, they informed me that the schedule wasn’t going to work. Then Paula dropped out and they told me maybe it would work, but that they were no longer doing primary care. They had switched to doing psychological counseling and referrals for refugees with PTSD and other trauma induced mental disabilities. If you had followed my blog before, you know that almost all refugees had suffered trauma, almost all before fleeing their homes, and many of them since then, en route to Europe ( sexual assault, injuries from cruelty, near drownings, losing loved ones), and now still more trauma with the realization that they might be living in these horrible refugee camps for months to even years. In the US I screen patients for depression and sexual assault, and often make referrals to behavioral health department. Sometimes I even prescribe antidepressants. But even in rural Mendocino County where access to a psychologist or psychiatrist is not great, I would not consider myself trained to be their counselor in Spanish which I speak tolerably, or even in English. So the idea that non-Arabic and non-Farsi speaking medical professionals are doing that kind of counseling is puzzling to me. That is not something I can or should do.

So I began asking the people I know in Lesvos to tell me which medical organizations they would recommend and contacted a few. Now it looks as though I will be working with the group Kitrinos. They must have some credibility because the Greek government is allowing them to be providers inside Moría camp along with MSF, BRF (Dutch group),and KEELPNO.

If you are new to this blog, and don’t know the history, the camp is partly prison ( refugees from countries not recognized as having sufficient threat),and partly slum village inside a former Greek detention center built for 2,000 and last I heard “ housing” over 7,000. People there can come and go, they are not technically imprisoned, but until they are registered as asylum seekers, they have no real resources or ability to move freely off the Island and must wait months or years for their asylum hearings that typically take place in Athens.

This population from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo and many other places, have been unintentional neighbors having to share the inadequate sanitary facilities and the general squalor of the camp. Though there are many women and children there, and elders as well, I believe the largest group are young men. Think men who have been displaced from their homes by threat of violence, or actual loss of their homes and families. Some are educated and came from well off families, many others , especially those in their teenage years have lost several years now of schooling or work or building families to wars in these countries. They are restless and angry, and recently I have even heard there are factions of supporters of Assad who have also left the country because their towns are in shambles. And they come bearing grudges.

I always felt safe among the refugees before. It is especially easy to bond with people you have listened to and tried to help. They are grateful and gracious. I imagine I will feel that way again once I get there and start work in the clinic. But something tells me it could be very different this time due to the entrenchment of refugees at Moría, and the factions that may have carved deeper grooves of fear and mistrust of “others”. When every day in US politics and media we see how fearful people are of those who look or speak or think in some way unfamiliar, why would it be any better in a refugee camp?

My plan is to arrive in Greece around October 4, and spend the rest of the month working there.

I know I will take money to One Happy Family and Bashira, so if friends want to donate money again to help those in the refugee camps, I will be collecting community funds again. Once I am there I may l ow more specifically what is needed and decide to contribute to Katrinos, or even Doc Mobile, but I will wait and see until I have been there and know what’s what.

If you find articles about the refugee crisis you think are good or relevant, please send them to me via tumblr or Facebook or even email.

I will update about my work plans and will try to post a few times a week when I am working.

2 notes · View notes

samdukewieland · 4 years

Text

Stuck Inside Media Diary Week 6

It was during this week that it dawned on me just how many movies I’ve watched since when I started keeping track of it. Then I got to wondering how long I keep this going-it’s kind of a bit, but also not one totally. I guess as soon as I go back to work and no longer spend my days playing PlayStation for hours on end and there’s no longer The Ticket to listen to for the day, that’s when it stops. Got real close to breaking the streak this week, which is probably the most harrowing thing I’ve been through in about 7 weeks (for the record, Week 1 was not documented as there was not much to document).

Sunday, April 26

Mad Men, “The Mountain King”, “Meditations In An Emergency” [Season 2 Finale], “Out Of Town” [Season 3], “Love Among The Ruins”

California Don Draper/Dick Whitman is a real nice sweet spot that Mad Men taps into this season, or at the very least it comes across as much more interesting than the adventures of young Dick Whitman. It’s, obviously, the most honest we see Don/Dick whenever he’s around Anna and makes you realize just how much work he puts himself through to not be honest to anyone or himself. But to see Jon Hamm go between both characters really knocks you back on your ass-Draper is a pretty surface level “showy” character display, at least in the first season, and I’m glad they decided to flesh him out now like this, by giving the audience something that isn’t so wooden or warn out (wooden is usually an insult, but take it to mean like a gorgeously polished oak table or redwood or something else you could stare at for hours). That ending with him and Betty at the kitchen table is an incredible showcase for both of them (I used to be very dismissive of Betty, but I realize now that that was super unfair and dumb of me! so it’s been kind of eye opening re-watching this and realizing that January Jones was/is actually really good)

Season 3 is probably my favorite season of the show, from what my brain can recall and it really hits the ground running. You can feel the energy radiating off of it (when they were writing it they had already won their first Emmys and were already looking highly favored to repeat success in season 2).

Plot Against America, “Part 5″

Beef House, “Army Buddy Brad”, “Prunes”

Three Busy Debras, “A Very Debra Christmas”, “Cartwheel Club”

People really underrate Adult Swim and Cartoon Network, especially when you find yourself with an awkward amount of time before watching something at a scheduled time. Just nice li’l 15 minute (barely) long episodes before The Last Dance, that’s nice. Also I think the last time I talked about Debras I compared it to Stella which I stand by, but I’d also throw in Strangers With Candy and Pee Wee’s Playhouse. So if you like that kind of stuff.

The Last Dance, Parts 3 & 4

Dennis. Rodman. The downside of these episodes is that they go fully into the time jumping aspects that it didn’t do as heavily in the first two installments. I also think they might play better if they ran right after the first two parts, rather than have that week long simmer. That’s like the most critical thing I can say about them, and it really just boils down to “I want more now.” Love that Isiah Thomas has no shame in being in the doc, despite just being taken to the dome by e v e r y o n e featured in it. Probably the best example of “no such thing as bad press”-it should be taught in business school or wherever agents go to school.

Monty Python’s Life Of Brian, Jones 1979 [as of now this is available on Netflix]

This was, somehow, a big blind spot in my Monty Python catalog. I think I very quietly went through a contrarian phase of “Monty Python isn’t that funny” somewhere in college, probably a li’l in high school too. It’s definitely been a thing I’ve been worried about re-visiting (I can’t remember the last time I watched Holy Grail, which I considered a religious text) and wanted to keep at arm’s length. That was very uninteresting and there is nothing at all interesting in me admitting that this movie’s really fucking funny; I was cackling when they bring out the huge stone during the stoning scene. The alien thing, while I respect in a purely “well, we don’t know how to get from this point to this point with it ‘making sense’ so let’s just go all the way to nothing”-stance, I’m just pretty allergic to anything Gilliam (I’m guessing) thinks of as incredibly clever. Life Of Brian: good!

Monday, April 27

Parks And Recreation, “Tom’s Divorce”

This feels like a very underrated episode of Parks, not in the conversation a lot, which feels like an oversight. I also just realized that it’s a Harris episode, so that could be why I am trying to champion it right now. Honest, I didn’t know until two minutes ago.

Mad Men, “My Old Kentucky Home”

Mmmmm. There’s an image from “Old Kentucky Home” of Roger Sterling that is still so shocking and I’m using a great deal of restraint to not post it above (because it’s super-duper racist), but I am still in awe that a buddy of mine from college used/uses(?) it as a cover photo on one of his social media accounts. IF only I could be so bold as he, or Roger Sterling in black-face.

The Virgin Suicides, Coppola 1999 [as of now this is available on Prime]

Grew up in a pretty anti-Sofia household from at least one of my undisclosed older brothers. I was told very early on that she is overrated and not very good at what she does and I just never investigated to see if that was true or not until...well I guess last Monday night. Baby’s first Sofia Coppola movie, babe. Talk about a mood! I liked it, I think? Yer kind of a weirdo-guy if you really latch yerself onto loving The Virgin Suicides, but I guess I didn’t realize how much of the movie has Kirsten Dunst or the other sisters not talking before I saw it. Or that James Woods is a pretty convincing sad/quiet/weird guy (as tempting as it is to say that this is the last good thing James Woods was good in, the correct answer is Recess: Schools Out-maybe John Q ((I haven’t seen it.)) I wonder how many conflicting feelings Josh Hartnett inspired in teenage girls between 1999 and 2001. Great job, Sofia, sorry I’m late to the party and for the pre-conceived notions that were lodged into my stupid brain.

Tuesday, April 28

Mad Men, “The Arrangements”, “The Fog”

Attaboy to “The Arrangements” for giving Carla Gallo work (tsktsk for not finding a way to use her more). “The Fog” is pretty mediocre Sopranos karaoke episode; not great, but not as bad as I remember it being. The Betty being hazy sequences aren’t as long as I recalled them to be, so that was nice. Plus all the Gene stuff....man, I don’t know.

The Manchurian Candidate, Demme 2004 [as of now this is available on HBO]

Jonathan Demme is easily the most underrated director of his time, especially when it comes to shifting genres and putting such an overwhelmingly human touch to everything he works on. This is probably the movie that has the least amount of that, but it takes these wild swings and chances that you can’t help but respect the hell out of what you’re watching. It’s maybe the weirdest Denzel role I think I’ve ever seen, but he’s so good in it, but that’s just kind of the standard in Demme movies. What’s the worst performance you’ve ever seen in one of his movies? Is there one? I’ve never seen the original Manchurian Candidate so I don’t super know where or what this one lacks, but it’s so strange that it has made me want to go back and watch it again to try and understand or just watch the choices that Demme makes in this movie. How about Streep!

Joe Pera Talks With You, “Joe Pera Gives You A Piano Lesson”, “Joe Pera Watches Internet Videos With You”

I know I harp on this a lot, but it’s just so wholesome and I guess I’m just shocked that anything this wholesome could have Connor O’Malley’s prints all over it. I say that as an admirer of both things, but just can’t wrap my head around the two come together.

Wednesday, April 29

Something Wild, Demme 1986 [as of now this is available on HBO]

This movie’s incredible. I knew absolutely nothing about it going in, other than it was Demme and Jeff Daniels (every time I saw the poster, my brain just registered Melanie Griffith as Catherine O’Hara, because that’s who it looks like at a glance). I was floored, I couldn’t believe a movie like this existed and I just hadn’t seen it (though, to be fair, I can’t imagine a person who doesn’t love Jonathan Demme going out of their way to see this in 1986, let alone 2020). And I’ve got some apologizing to do to Melanie Griffith after being pretty underwhelmed by her in Working Girl, I loved her in this. I also can’t help but wonder who has had a worse life (in the face) because of cigarettes, Ray Liotta or Al Pacino? If you want actual good discussion on this movie, I can’t implore the Blank Check episode with Scott Aukerman where they talk about it (there was also nothing more, personally, of a relief than hearing them talk about how it reminded them of a David Lynch movie and After Hours, thoughts I also had while watching, but am by no means enough of a Lynch-head or have seen After Hours enough to confidently throw that out in the open without someone else saying it first).

Thursday, April 30

Mikey And Nicky, May 1976

About once a year Criterion does a 50% sale and lately I’ve tried to take advantage of that (having a disposable income really lends itself to doing this). This was a movie I knew nothing about, other than Peter Falk was in it and ya know what, I really like Peter Falk. I wasn’t expecting an all-night movie, I was barely expecting a crime/mob movie, but it technically is. It’s about so much more: cowardice, male-friendship, our weaknesses and shortcomings as people, Ned Beatty being pissed about driving around New York City and getting lost. I’ve thought about it a lot since watching it and I’m glad that I own it and can re-visit it whenever I want.

Parks And Recreation, “Christmas Scandal” & “Special”

Joe Pera Talks With You, “Joe Pera Has A Surprise For You”, “Joe Pera Helps You Write An Obituary”

When you just look at these titles on paper (or screen, rather) without actually seeing them, it’s a pretty good setup as a joke. However, this is when the season and show takes a very melancholy turn that’s incredibly moving. (I think he might’ve actually lost his grandmother between seasons-very possible I have this wrong, I just know the character was based on her)

Friday, May 1

Mad Men, “Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency”

Man, this episode.This is an all-timer on every level; not an ounce of fat on this one and maybe one of the funniest things to happen on this wonderful show.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix or, uh, just Dark Phoenix, Kinberg 2019 [as of now this is available on HBO]

Incredible that people in charge of an X-Men movie decided an actual team that should be depicted in this movie was Mystique (team leader, lol), Cyclops, Jean, Nightcrawler, Hank/Beast, Storm and Quicksilver. I mean yeh, this thing is really bad, potentially worse than Apocalypse, because that at least tried to have a personality. Though the train sequence here does have some redeeming qualities to it, so it might have the edge-I couldn’t tell you a single set piece from Apocalypse other than Oscar Isaac’s beautiful mug being caked in blue make-up (lol). Also, I gotta admit, mad respect to Kinberg for the incredible bait and switch with making Jessica Chastain look enough like some kind of mixture between Cassandra Nova and Emma Frost where you’re expecting her to be either of them and not just a shape-shifting alien.

Joe Pera Talks With You, “Joe Pera Shows You How To Do Good Fashion”, “Joe Pera Shows You How To Pack A Lunch”, “Joe Pera Talks With You On The First Day Of School”

I obviously want more episodes of this show, but if there were ever a perfect collection of stories, it was this.

Saturday, May 2

Top Chef, Season 17 episode 7

Tough, tough loss for Eric [insert Tom Colicchio “there’s always Last Chance Kitchen”] who I really admire and absolutely loved last season, I wish he had not gone on All-Stars this year, gained a couple more years, polish his technique and come back on the next All-Star season and sweep the floor. No shame in this loss though, because half of the competition this week was pretty dumb, though this was good build-up for Restaurant Wars, which the producers seem to always have hanging above their head as fan favorite and they feel like they need to throw Poochie in there.

Mad Men, “Seven Twenty Three”, “Souvenir”, “Wee Small Hours”, “The Color Blue”, “The Gypsy And The Hobo”, “The Grown-Ups”, “Shut The Door. Have A Seat”

I don’t know if I necessarily advise watching 7 episodes of Mad Men like I did this past Saturday. However, I think you’re kind of hard-pressed to not want to just keep the tap going on this one. Incredible stretch of episodes for January Jones and a real proper introduction to Henry Francis, probably a character I should hate, but have a lot of affection for. He might be the most sincere character on the show, which makes him pretty endearing. “Shut the Door. Have A Seat” is also one of the best getting the gang together sequences/movies I think I’ve ever seen. This is also a real, real tough stretch for Don, humanity wise, between his handling of poor Salvatore and his dealing with Betty once he finds out about she and Henry. Great season, great stuff.

The Death Of Stalin, Iannucci 2017 [as of now this is available on Netflix]

Despite knowing (possibly) an embarrassingly low amount about Russian history, I dug it. Felt like the joke was probably on me partially, because of how little I know about Russian history, but is that gonna make me not enjoy watching Jeffrey Tambor in Hank Kingsly form bounce off of Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Michael Palin and Jason Isaacs (holy shit, Jason Isaacs in this movie)? Nah. Though, be warned because this thing is probably ripe for your cousin who goes out of his way to tell you stuff like “well Doctor Strangelove is satire, that’s why it’s so genius.”

1 note · View note

thechasefiles · 5 years

Text

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 5/2/2019

Good MORNING #realdreamchasers! Here is The Chase Files Daily News Cap for Thursday 2nd May 2019. Remember you can read full articles for FREE via Barbados Today (BT) or Barbados Government Information Services (BGIS) OR by purchasing by purchasing a Daily Nation Newspaper (DN).

GOVERNMENT WORKING IN UNISON WITH WORKERS, ASSURES PM MOTTLEY – In her first May Day speech as Prime Minister, Mia Mottley has given the assurance that Government is working in unison with workers. Speaking to the scores of people gathered at the Barbados Workers’ Union Solidarity House headquarters this afternoon, Mottley said her Government had been actively engaging with the Social Partnership on all critical matters. “I have made a commitment and it is one from which my Government will never resile, that the basis of the best governance that we can bring to our people is to work together and to work collectively,” she said to loud applause. “And it is against that background that I ask you to judge my Government not by our words alone, but by our actions, because on the very first morning after swearing in a Government and a Cabinet at Bay Street, the very first meeting of this Government was with the Social Partnership of Barbados because we recognise that labour and capital and the Government and the Executive must work collectively to take us out of the bowels from which we were languishing in. “Every major decision whether it is in the context of national security, whether it is in the context of growth and development opportunities for this country that I will share with the country by the end of the month in greater detail, whether it is in the context of the difficult moments and decisions . . . it has been a joint decision,” the Prime Minister maintained. Mottley pointed out that there was still a long way for Barbados to go. However, she promised that Government would continue to be on the frontline of workers’ rights. (BT)

MP IAN GOODING-EDGHILL IS NEW TRANSPORT BOARD CHAIRMAN – Mere hours after accepting the resignation of former chairman of the Transport Board Gregory Nicholls, Prime Minister Mia Mottley has named his replacement. Ian Gooding-Edghill, the Member of Parliament for St Michael West Central is the new chairman. Mottley broke the news while delivering the feature address at the Barbados Workers’ Union May Day celebrations at its Solidarity House headquarters this afternoon. “Yesterday, the chairman resigned and I accepted it through my Minister. I have asked Ian Gooding-Edghill, who is a former chairman of the Transport Board and who is more than capable of meeting the obligations and the task of chairman to do and to accept that position and he has agreed. “I expect therefore that he will work with the board with immediate haste to help correct this unfortunate situation,” Mottley said. Gooding-Edghill is also the chairman of the National Insurance Board. (BT)

NICHOLLS I WAS NOT FIRED – ATTORNEY GREGORY NICHOLLS took to Facebook yesterday to defend his name, stating he was not fired as chairman of the board of directors of the Transport Board, neither was he accused of any infelicities. “I have resigned as chairman of the board of directors of the Transport Board today. I was not fired nor was I accused of any infelicities during my tenure. “All of the instances of [problems] . . . concerning the Transport Board occurred before my tenure and are well documented in the provisional report of the Auditor General who has just completed a special audit of the board. When this report is published, you will all get to see how difficult it was to turn around the Transport Board given the poor shape in which I inherited it,” Nicholls stated in the post. (DN)

MORE BUS PROBLEMS FOR COMMUTERS – A visit to the Fairchild Street and Princess Alice Bus Terminals yesterday, May Day, painted a picture similar to National Heroes Day on Monday where commuters were waiting hours in the two terminals. Most commuters declined to comment, however; at the Fairchild Street terminal around 2 p.m., one woman said she was waiting three-and-a-half hours for a Martin’s Bay bus. Although she was going straight to St John, there were others around who were not going the full route but were likewise stranded. The Transport Board had announced on its Facebook page over the weekend: “Our services will be operating on what would be the usual Sunday bus schedule on April 28 and May 1, 2019. (DN)

FOURTH PRESCHOOL GOING UP – Lawmakers today cleared the path for a charity to build its next nursery school with the Ministry of Education even as construction work has already started. In a parliamentary resolution, Government has vested 5,000 square metres of land in Government Hill, St Michael to the Maria Holder Memorial Trust under a lease arrangement for the construction of the fourth in a series of state-of-the-art preschools. The building on land adjacent to the Charles F Broome Memorial Primary School is to be leased to the Trust for 30 years at $1,500 annually, according to Minister of Housing, Lands and Rural Development Charles Griffith. He said the Ministry of Education and Technical and Vocational Training will be responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the school, which will be insured for about $2 million. Griffith praised the philanthropic foundation for its work, saying it should serve as an example for other local charities. During his presentation, which was dotted with the history of the Trust, Griffith said the charity was keen on promoting and supporting health care initiatives designed to improve the quality of life for children, the elderly and the vulnerable and assist with the education and training of youth in disadvantage and vulnerable situations. “They are making meaningful contribution in almost every single area. And I hope that at some point in time the constituency of St John can also benefit from the initiatives of this organization,” said the St John MP. Under a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Education signed with the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) administration, the charity opened the first school at Sharon, St Thomas, the second one at Gall Hill in Christ Church, and one in Oldbury in St Philip. A total of seven nursery schools were earmarked for construction, the other locations being Holders Hill, St James; Sayers Court, Christ Church and Deacons, St Michael. In his contribution, St Michael East MP Trevor Prescod, in whose constituency the new Government Hill nursery is to be built, said he was pleased with the work of the charity over the years. Highlighting the Trust’s other work, Prescod, the Minister of Environment and National Beautification, said he would be calling on the Trust for assistance in developing Government’s planned botanical gardens at Codrington, St Michael. “I would really like at some point to request them to contribute to the botanical gardens so they can come up and help us achieve the development of the botanical gardens which is so badly in need of funding,” said Prescod, adding that he was aware that the tu“a social conscience”. It was during the opening of the Welchman Hall, St Thomas play park under the Maria Holder Memorial Trust’s Eleven Play Parks project late last year that Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced that the promised National Botanical Garden would finally become a reality. At the time, chairman and co-founder of the trust Christopher Holder said he was willing to assist with the development of the botanical garden. A price tag has not yet been announced for the project. (BT)

PAY FOR FUN AND MAKE INVESTMENTS – If you have an extra $50 to spend, then you can take someone to the cinema to experience three hours of the Avengers: EndGame. If you had an extra $500 to spend, then you could have taken someone to experience about three hours of the Buju concert. Either way, you know that you are paying for fun. If you had the extra money, then you would not likely be disappointed that you spent it, regardless of how hard you worked for it. You had it, you spent it, and you enjoyed yourself. If you had not spent it on fun, then you would probably have spent it on something else, or given it to someone in need. Since you will have extra money sometimes, why not use some of it to get more money? With the additional money, you can: pay off your debts, help more people in need, and pay for a lot more fun. So, what can you legally do with an extra $50 or $500 to get more money? You can play the lottery. However, you will probably lose all of your money quickly. You can invest it in someone else’s business. However, if they desperately needed your investment to keep going, then there may be structural problems with that business, and you may lose that investment. You can invest it in your own business, but if your business is not yet profitable enough to pay your monthly expenses, then a return should not be expected. There are steps that you can take to make it probable that any extra money you invest will make more money. Before investing in any product, ask yourself these two questions. 1) Are similar products selling well now? 2) Is it likely that your product will sell when you are ready to bring it to the market? Once the answer to both of those questions is ‘yes’, then ask yourself one more question. 3) What is likely to cause you to lose all of your money? Let us test a few money-making ideas. What about planting, cultivating and selling beans? Are beans selling now? Yes. Will beans likely sell in two months when they are reaped? Yes. What will probably cause you to lose all of your money invested in this venture? Crop thefts by monkeys and humans is very likely, and you can do little about it at this time. So let us think of another product. What about investing in building a house to sell? Are houses selling well now? No, the housing market is depressed. Will the house likely sell in one year after it is constructed? No. The market is likely to continue to be depressed while BERT/IMF is managing the economy. If the housing market were not depressed, you could have grown your $50 or $500 investment – we will address that in the next article. What about an example that will work? That is the challenge. Before I tested the ideas, I thought that both of them were worthy investments. The test showed that while both ideas are good, they are just not wise investments at this time. Every product has customers. One challenge is to identify those who are willing to purchase your product before you invest in it. The euphoria of coming up with a good idea leads many to make an emotional decision. They then prematurely invest their money and lose it. Testing the idea with the questions reduces the risk that you will make an emotional decision. You can reduce the risk of failure by selecting a product from what you normally purchase in one week and making a business out of it. For example, you may eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. Since everyone needs to eat to survive, food will sell today and tomorrow. How can you lose your money with food? Preparing food that most people will not like, or cannot afford, or is inconvenient to purchase will likely do it. Since these risks are generally within your control, the next step is to design a business that avoids these risks. Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at [email protected] (BT)

DISTRICT 'D' MAGISTRATES’ COURT RELOCATING – Members of the public are asked to note that the District “D” Magistrates’ Court will remain closed until Friday, May 10. During this time, the payment and collection of maintenance money for that court will take place at the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court, Coleridge Street, St Michael. The District ‘D’ Magistrates’ Court will reopen on Monday, May 13, from the Cane Garden, St Thomas complex. The court was closed last week after staff reported smelling a strong odour in the administrative office, which permeated other areas of the building. As a result, only urgent matters were heard at the court following its closure on Wednesday, April 24. Registrar of the Supreme Court, Barbara Cooke-Alleyne, requested that a private environmental company investigate the source of the odour on Thursday, April 25, and it was confirmed that the odour was coming from a decaying mammal, which is believed to be a rodent. In a statement issued on Friday, Mrs Cooke-Alleyne said the company also identified a number of other environmental issues which could have a negative impact on the indoor air quality at the District ‘D’ Magistrates’ Court and its associated offices. This prompted the decision by the Registrar and Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Attorney General, Yvette Goddard, to close the court, and have it relocated to the Cane Garden, St Thomas complex. (BT)

ATTORNEY TO CROWN: ‘BRING THE EVIDENCE’ – Veteran attorney Angella Mitchell-Gittens today demanded that the Crown “bring the evidence and let us do something” in the murder case against her client, as the police prosecutor sought yet more time from the magistrate. She made the declaration this afternoon in response to the prosecutor’s request for another adjournment in the case against Adrian Obrian Williams, of Henley Land, St John who is charged in connection with the March 28, 2018 death of Jakeil Small. Mitchell-Gittens told Magistrate Douglas Frederick: “If this is a serious charge then the input or impetus must be on getting the files ready, so that we can get it out of the Magistrates’ Courts within two years and it cannot be good enough, Sir, that Mr Williams has been coming here from March of 2018 and the best you can hear from [the prosecution] is another 28 days. “If the matter is serious, Sir, everybody must treat it serious, especially the people who are bringing the charges. It cannot be because you charge him with murder… let him spend two years or three years because it is murder. If it is so serious, bring the evidence, let us commit to getting it to the High Court. “Unless their feet are held to the fire they do nothing and before we know it is five years… that is not good enough…. We must have standards. It can’t be good that they put a charge sheet say you are charged for murder [and] stop it there, what happens if he is acquitted? Who can give him back from March last year to [the time] he has spent in prison?” Mitchell-Gittens also stated that there must be standards as well as consequences in cases where accused persons cannot get bail in the Magistrates’ Court. She continued: “There must be a file, there must be something… or there must be consequences. I am asking that their feet are held to the fire especially in respect of matters where persons are not automatically granted bail… bring the evidence and let us do something…. Let it not be business as usual…. I would like something other than we are not yet ready…. That can’t be good enough after a man spend a year in prison [and you] aint’ ready yet.” In response, Station Sergeant Carrison Henry said he had heard the arguments of the defence lawyer and would address his seniors on the issue. “We are working on the file…. I am pleading with the officers to get these matters expedited,” the prosecutor assured the court just before the matter was adjourned until May 27. (BT)

HANDS OFF – “Do not put your hand on that lady again! Fellas who are conscious don’t beat on women especially pregnant woman,” Magistrate Douglas Frederick declared as he chastised an 18-year-old male who pleaded guilty to assault. Magistrate Frederick also told Clevere Joshua Javon Maycock, of Hinkson Gap, Baxters Road, St Michael that he needed “to be re-educated because when you get frustrated you can’t lash out like that”. Maycock had moments before pleaded guilty to unlawfully assaulting Kayla Hinds and damaging her cellular phone on April 27. Station Sergeant Carrison Henry told the magistrate that the accused and Hinds had been in a relationship for the past five years. But that relationship was filled with verbal and abusive situations with Maycock accusing Hinds of being involved with another man. As Hinds sat in the verandah with her phone, Maycock accosted her, accusing her of infidelity. Hinds responded with a similar counter-charge, to which he “cuffed” Hinds’ hands, causing her to drop the phone damaging it. “The lady is pregnant for me. We have been in a relationship for five years but broke up in March…. I was vex at the moment…. I did not directly hit she, I didn’t hit she to hurt she, I knocked the phone out of her hand,” Maycock explained even as he revealed that the complainant was 17 years old. The explanation did not suffice with the magistrate who asked Maycock: “How does that sound to you; she is pregnant with your child, your child and you hit her. Fellas who are conscious don’t beat women especially those pregnant with [their] child.” The magistrate then ordered a report into his life in preparation for sentencing. He was granted $2,500 bail, which he secured with one surety with a warning to keep his hands to himself. Maycock returns before the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on July 19. (BT)

UNPAID FINES LAND JONES ON REMAND – His decision to use marijuana after his doctor allegedly told him that he could not drink and smoke at the same time, has landed a 30-year-old man in trouble with the law. But that was just the beginning of Kemar Tito Jones’ legal troubles when he appeared in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court today. It was revealed that the Bridge Gap, St Michael resident had $3,500 in unpaid fines after he pleaded guilty to having $170 of the illegal substance in his possession on April 28. Police were on duty on that day at Brownes Beach near Pirates Cove when they saw Jones standing behind a building. They approached and a search, which Jones consented to, was conducted. Thirty-four small bags containing the vegetable matter were found in a larger bag. He was arrested and charged. “The doctor tell me don’t drink and smoke together to do one, so I decided to smoke,” said Jones in his defence. But with the unpaid fines and a warrant of arrest out for his arrest as well as his inability to pay the outstanding monies landed him on remand until May 10. (BT)

LOWE FACING GUN CHARGE – An allegation that he had an illegal firearm resulted in a 21-year-old man’s automatic remand at prison. Tre Decoursey Lowe, of Allamby Gap, Spooners Hill, St Michael is charged with having an unlicensed firearm in his possession on April 27. He was not required to plead to the indictable charge when he appeared before the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court this afternoon. But the first-time offender pleaded guilty to riding a bicycle on Spooners Hill on the same day without a helmet, a lamp, a bell and number plate. Sergeant St Clair Phillips said police were in the area around 11:10 p.m. when officers in an unmarked vehicle spotted Lowe riding. They signaled to him to stop but he evaded them at first by riding through a side road and was subsequently caught. He was ordered to pay costs on $25 for the bell and $25 for the helmet or spend seven days in prison. He was reprimanded and discharged on the other traffic charges. Sergeant Phillips also told Magistrate Douglas Frederick that a search warrant was carried out at Lowe’s residence the following day – April 28 – where 132 grammes of cannabis seeds worth $600 were found in his bedroom in a container. Lowe wasted no time and pleaded guilty to the charges of possession, possession with intent to supply and possession of a traffickable quantity of cannabis. “It was just seeds not vegetable matter. It was just seeds that I just gathered. I does smoke and just every time that I realise that the weed have in seeds I just put it aside,” said Lowe who explained that the drug was his way of relaxing as he was not working and trying to find a job. “I don’t lime on a block or nothing so,” he added. He was ordered to pay $800 or spend three months in prison. Lowe, who was remanded to Dodds, is to reappear before Magistrate Frederick on May 28 on the gun charge. (BT)

WPCS TO STUDENTS: WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS – Women police officers from the Northern Division today relayed a friendly message to schoolchildren as they embarked on the latest of three initiatives to foster stronger relationships with them. “We are your friends,” some 15 officers declared as an initiative dubbed Touchdownlaunched at Lester Vaughn, Frederick Smith, Darryl Jordan and Grantley Adams Memorial schools. Inspector Janice Ifill told Barbados TODAY: “We are just focusing on the students and having formal conversations about actions and consequences, peer pressure, positive influences and generally doing the right thing starting from now, because as we have been telling them, there are 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds, which is only three or four years older than them committing a number of horrendous crimes. “So we’re trying to nip it in the bud at this stage to let them know that is not the road and to let them know the police officers are their friends and if they know of anything they can speak to us, communicate with us one on one if they see something that is not right. “We are coming to them today to let them know we welcome them and we have open arms and they can come to us because we really need to take back our society in a good way and in quick time.” A similar project – Soft Touch – had also been carried out by women police constables in the Crab Hill, St Lucy area, which she described as a “soft approach” to policing. Inspector Ifill said there were also plans to go into primary schools under a third outreach operation, to be called Tender Touch. “We intend to go into the primary schools, but we haven’t gone there yet, but so far we have been greeted with good responses from both the schools and the public at large so we think we are getting somewhere,” Inspector Ifill said. (BT)

NEW OWNERS FOR TRIDENTS – Embattled Indian business tycoon Vijay Mallya will not have ownership of Barbados Tridents for the upcoming Caribbean Premier League (CPL) season, organisers said here on Tuesday. Speaking at a media conference, CPL chief executive Damien O’Donohoe said the league was in the process of wrapping up discussions with the relevant parties and new owners should be in place before the players draft scheduled for May 22 in London. Mallya is currently fighting extradition from the United Kingdom to his native India, where he is wanted by authorities to face alleged bank fraud and money laundering charges amounting to nearly US$1 billion. His mounting legal and financial woes have also impacted the franchise, with players yet to be paid in full for the 2018 season, which wrapped up last September. (DN)

BASA EYEING YOUTH – The Barbados Aquatic Sports Association (BASA) is turning their attention to young athletes. That is the assurance of president Tony Selby following the CARIFTA Aquatics Championships, which concluded with the open water competition at Carlisle Bay last Wednesday. “We definitely need to work a little more with the younger athletes. What I am observing is that a lot of the younger athletes in particular are not coming to training as often as the coaches would like and with all the other electronic and other activities taking place that’s becoming an even greater challenge,” Selby told MIDWEEK SPORT. (DN)

BURKE STANDS ALONE – Three-time national champion Mario Burke was simply super last weekend in the United States with a historic milestone at the prestigious Penn Relays in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. The 22-year-old former Harrison College student became the first athlete to win four gold medals in the same weekend in the 125-year history of the Relays, which have been staged since 1895. Burke won the men’s 100 metres for college athletes and was also a member of his University of Houston’s quartets that became only the sixth college to make a clean sweep of the 4x100, 4x200 and 4x400 sprint relays. (DN)

BARBADOS-BORN JOFRA ARCHER IN AN ENGLAND KIT – It is an image which seems to have taken forever to appear, probably for Jofra Archer, and most certainly for England cricket fans. And even though the sight of the country’s newest match-winning prospect in full England kit has arrived quicker than some expected, not least the man himself, images of him posing for official squad photos ahead of Friday’s ODI against Ireland show a man who looks ready for business. Barbados-born Archer, who recently became eligible to represent England after the ECB’s qualification period was reduced from seven years to three, is poised to make his debut after being included in the squads for the one-off ODI against Ireland on Friday, a T20I against Pakistan on Sunday and five ODIs against Pakistan. He was left out of England’s preliminary World Cup squad but the upcoming matches present an opportunity to press his case for inclusion in the final squad, which needs to be finalised by May 23. Archer’s supporters speak of his incredible talent, most recently showcased in his exploits for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL. For his part, Archer described the speed of his elevation to the England squad as overwhelming. “I’ve worked pretty much all my life for this moment and I just want to tackle it and put my best foot forward,” he said upon his selection. “Hopefully I get a chance to play and do myself justice.” But he also stated he did not “want to step on anyone’s toes”. Archer’s potential call-up for the World Cup has sparked debate among the squad’s incumbent fast bowlers. Some with reservations have argued that bringing a new player into a well-established set-up could destabilise the side, or be harsh on any player who misses out, having helped England become the top one-day side in the world. However, Alex Hales’ expulsion from all England squads – including for the World Cup – in the wake of his ban for using recreational drugs has dominated the agenda in the build-up to Archer’s debut, and has also led to three more players – Ben Duckett, Dawid Malan and James Vince – being included in the squads for the Ireland and Pakistan series. While Hales’ 21-day ban will have been served well before the World Cup, the ECB this week decided to withdraw him from their squads, citing a need for “creating the right environment within the team and ensuring that there are no unnecessary distractions”. Hales has not been a first-choice player in England’s white-ball squad for some time, but was seen as someone who could enhance the depth of the squad, particularly amid injuries to key and fringe players alike. His omission has opened the door for another face to appear in the England line-up, meaning that Archer won’t be alone in pressing his claims for a World Cup berth. (BT)

TOURISM ICON PASSES AWAY –Tourism pioneer Pat Nehaul died this morning at the age of 86. Nehaul, a former director of the Barbados Tourist Board, started her legendary career in the sector in the 1950’s as a receptionist at the airport for the Publicity Committee, which was later restructured as the Barbados Tourism Authority. Nehaul was noted for her service to the sector at various levels including accounts, marketing and public relations. She was also a director of the Barbados Gallery of Art Trust and the Art Collectors Club. Nehaul was the mother of three children, Partrick, Saki and Andrew. (BT)

For daily or breaking news reports follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter & Facebook. That’s all for today folks. There are 243 days left in the year. Shalom! #thechasefilesdailynewscap #thechasefiles# dailynewscapsbythechasefiles

0 notes

madeofpurestarlight · 7 years

Text

If This Was A Movie, VI

// While Effie Trinket is Hollywood’s darling and all her dreams seem to be finally coming true, Haymitch Abernathy is drinking himself into an early grave and shuts the world out completely. However, Plutarch Heavensbee decides it’s time for his comeback. The two main stars can’t stand each other and tension builds up soon, but as they dive in deep into this project, somewhere between shooting love scenes, fighting on-set, fighting off-set, opening up hesitantly and helping their younger colleagues deal with everything this world brings, they grow closer and closer, until one day they realize they’re not pretending anymore. | Hayffie Actors AU //

“FIRST TIME AGAIN”

April, Venice

“Here you are!” Plutarch’s cheeks were red when he saw Haymitch stumbling to the set from the make-up trailer with a creased screenplay in one hand and a leather jacket in another, hoping he didn’t look half as terrible as he did when he saw himself in the mirror that morning. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay.“ Haymitch waved it off with the screenplay and looked around. Everybody was already in their places, discussing something with each other, trying different angles and reviewing their technical storyboards. The set was bounded by black tape, and despite the team doing their best finding the least bustling location and Coin making a deal with the mayor and the police about reserving the place for a few days, there were some people curiously watching them from the passing boats or from the opposite streets.

Then he saw her, she was sitting in her chair with the script open in her lap and a mug of coffee in the throes of her pale fingers with insanely long red-painted nails. “Effie said you were… sick yesterday.” Haymitch looked Plutarch in his hard, pale eyes that weren’t buying that story for anything.

“Yeah,” he humored carefully, “ate something bad.”

Plutarch nodded, as if to himself, with a strange look on his permanently worried face. “Are you sure you can do this today?”

“Totally.” It didn’t sound very convincing, but it was enough for Plutarch who just quickly patted his back, too worried about his shooting schedule with Fulvia Cardew tapping at her expensive watch impatiently.

"Fine,” Plutarch said and left him standing there to give orders to the technical team.

Haymitch’s eyes met Effie’s. When he caught her gaze, her features hardened and she put her stuff on the side table by her chair, got up and walked up to him with an intimidating look on her face.

“Not now,” he grunted, already knowing very well what was about to come.

“Yes, now,” she snapped. A few extras have looked in her direction, but she ignored them. “Did you sleep well?”

“Can you turn the volume down, please? My head’s gonna fucking explode.”

“How about a thank you?”

“How about fucking off?”

“Haymitch, Effie,” Plutarch shouted, “you’re in Venice, get in the gondola!”

“We’re having a talk later,” she promised him in a hiss and walked angrily towards the wharf.

He watched her retreat with a growing headache and once more silently cursed her. The events of yesterday were strangely blurry. The last thing he properly remembered was jumping into the water for her… and then nothing except for dreams that were on the border of reality and fantasies that his delirious imagination was producing, and scents that he wasn’t familiar with and voices that he kind of sort of knew. It was confusing, but the note he had found beneath a bowl of cold soup on his nightstand both scared him and partly cleared things up.

He thought he wouldn’t be able to face anyone this morning, but that was mentioned on the note as well, in Effie’s right-tilted, elegant, curly handwriting – that if he’s not on the set by eight, showered, ready and with the script perfectly memorized, he was going to “regret it”.

The only thing he was currently genuinely regretting was not sending her to hell a little more vigorously when he first faced her in the New York hotel room back then.

He followed her steps, determined to get through with this as quickly as possible, and reluctantly accepted the gondolier’s help into the boat, ashamed of the way his fingers were trembling when he held his hand up in front of him. Him and Effie then found themselves in front of each other in the gondola, in a position they didn’t get to yesterday, frowning at each other while the technicians were adjusting the mics and cameras. Cressida was already in a boat next to them, and nodded in greetings while struggling with her camera’s lighting.

Plutarch walked up to them and crouched down with a conciliatory expression and the onset of an unappreciated pep talk.

“Haymitch, Effie,” he started calmly, placing a hand on each’s shoulder, “you are two adults. You have both been adults for some time now-“

“He’s implying you’re old,” Haymitch whispered to Effie and guaranteed himself a kick in the shin.

“-so I expect you to be acting like ones,” the director finished his sentence in a defeated sigh. “I don’t know what it is with everyone here. What have you done to each other except that he had accidentally pushed you off this damn boat?” he frowned at Effie and then looked at Haymitch. “And what is it with Katniss and Peeta?”

“What’s with them?” Haymitch furrowed his brows in sudden concern.

“I don’t know if they got these mannerisms from you two, but they’re refusing to spend time together after shooting,” Plutarch complained and made it sound like something equal to a tsunami wave in Kansas or meeting little green people with huge eyes on your midnight journey to the bathroom.

They have been here for two days, so, if Katniss and Peeta weren’t exactly friendly, well, Plutarch may have acted like he knew all about teenagers, but he had little sympathy for their motives. They were sixteen, barely knew each other and were forced to spend a lot of time together. No wonder they weren’t exactly thrilled to have sleepovers in their hotel rooms and take selfies in front of every historical building in Venice or whatever kids their age did these days.

“They’re just tired, Plutarch,” he reassured the director.

“I really hope so.” Plutarch put his hands on his knees and got up with a pained moan. “My back, okay- everybody knows what to do? Everyone is ready? Cressida?”

The woman with a green tattoo on the left side of her head that embraced her shaved skull like a nest of vipers pouted her dark-purple lips when she looked into the camera. “I don’t know. We could use better lightning.”

“I’m certainly not putting this off again,” Plutarch promised to everyone angrily and shot the two unhappy stars in the gondola one last warning look before rushing to have a look at what her camera was shooting on a small display by his seat. “What do you mean? It’s perfectly fine!” he shouted even though nobody would have trouble hearing him from his spot six yards away.

“You are right, we can always work on it in post-production,” Cressida rolled her eyes and looked at the other two cameramen, Pollux, who was in a boat behind them, and Castor, who was walking on the shore with a camera on a carriage. “You ready, guys?”

Plutarch waited for their raised thumbs and started briefly discussing something with Fulvia.

“He was right,” Effie said silently so the mics above them wouldn’t fully catch it, “we are professionals. We need to act as such. So-“

“Second take! Lights!”

“I have no problem with that,” Haymitch replied coldly, “you’re the one acting like a spoiled little brat.”

“Camera!”

“I hope you at least bothered to brush your teeth today, you drunk, immature-“

“Action!”

ii.

34. VENICE – EXT. / DAY

JACK and LORELAI are sitting opposite each other in a gondola. They are in the middle of a conversation.

LORELAI

I never thought we’d be here again someday.

JACK

(reaches out to caress her face)

Me too… it’s been too long.

LORELAI

Do you remember the first time we came here?

JACK

(smiles)

Yeah.

LORELAI

(looks at her wedding ring)

I haven’t taken it off in nineteen years.

JACK

I know it’s hard, but… we’re here now. We’re together.

LORELAI

You are right.

(looks around)

So, the Doge’s Palace…

JACK

Really? Again?

LORELAI

(giggles)

Come on.

JACK

Who am I, your guide?

LORELAI

My everything.

JACK

Aren’t we a little too old for this?

LORELAI

We are never too old for this.

JACK

(sighs, rolls eyes)

Lori…

LORELAI

Sorry. I just… I still can’t believe it.

JACK

There’s a lot of things we have to talk through.

LORELAI

Jack…

JACK

You’re married, Lorelai.

LORELAI

And yet, I’m here with you.

JACK

And it’s wrong.

LORELAI

And we’re happy. We’re fine.

JACK

I’m not denying that.

LORELAI

So what is your problem? What is your point?

We need to talk things trough. We need to come to an arrangement.

I do see a point in this, I think it’s worth it. You don’t?

JACK

I do. But it feels wrong.

LORELAI

I have been waiting for this for nineteen years. I have been

waiting for you for nineteen years. I’m not going to give this

up again just because you think that it feels wrong. Why would

you be here if you thought that it wasn’t worth it?

JACK

(hesitates)

Lori…

LORELAI

(waves it off)

Jack, let’s just enjoy that we’re here again, okay? We’re

together. We’ve got three more weeks ahead of us.

Let’s not spoil it.

(pauses)

Let’s just try to enjoy it. We will see.

JACK

I wanna be with you. It would just be easier if I knew

that it’s real.

LORELAI

What makes you think that it isn’t?

JACK

Because you’re not just mine anymore.

LORELAI

(leans in)

I missed you so much.

JACK

(cups her cheek, leans in as well)

So did I.

LORELAI

(whispers)

Would you feel bad about kissing me, too?

JACK

I really should.

Lorelai kisses Jack.

JACK (cont.)

But I don’t.

They start making out.

LORELAI

(moves away slightly)

Neither do I.

CUT

iii.

“Stop!”

Plutarch’s face was lit up with genuine excitement when he rushed to the spot that the gondola has stopped at, and was breathing a little too heavily when he finally got there. He looked on the verge of a heart attack, but also finally content.

“That was amazing!” he exclaimed.

Neither Haymitch or Effie managed to answer. They were still sitting uncomfortably close to each other; so close they could still smell each other’s scent, so close they could still feel their warmth. She was the one to move away first, the early morning sun playing with the color of her orbs and giving them various tones of blue, and smiled at Plutarch. It was a mindless gesture and he realized he felt a little stuck himself.

“You have excellent chemistry,” Plutarch carried on with his praise, looking as if he was about to burst, “I’m proud of you both. I knew you wouldn’t disappoint. So, let’s have it one more time.”

Haymitch noticed the emotions that splashed over Effie’s face and couldn’t help but take it personally when she railed at that idea. “I don’t think that’s necessary-“

“Effie,” Plutarch cut her off, still in good spirits, but the initial irritation creeping back into his voice, “that is up to me to decide, and I think that we should get one more take.”

“Why?” Haymitch gifted Effie with a shady look to which she only reacted by pursing her lips. He could still taste them on his own when he spoke. “I think it was fine, wasn’t it, Cressida?”

“It was great,” the camerawoman agreed and decently lowered her voice, “but if Plutarch thinks it’s for the best to try it again, just go along with it, okay?”

Him and Effie exchanged uncomfortable looks before giving up. “Fine.”

“Just one more time,” Plutarch promised and hurried back to his chair.

Effie sighed and Haymitch couldn’t help the annoyance that was slowly taking over him again. “Not now,” he pointed at the mics over them that were still on.

“So when?” she hissed.

“Just fuck it for now, you’re the one preaching about having a job to do all the time. Just let me do it,” he grunted and ran his fingers across the water’s shiny surface. He saw her scowl and couldn’t help but chuckle at her expression. “Does that bring back bad memories, huh?” he sprinkled the water at her, which resulted in a high-pitched scream that might give one the impression that he was attempting to drown her.

“You are so… stupid,” she spat desperately while wiping her blouse furiously.

“That’s that? Stupid? You got nothing better?” he rolled his eyes.

Plutarch’s voice stopped their banter once more. “Can you just save this for later? We need to work. Everyone ready? No grudges overshadowing your perfect performances? Awesome! Lights… camera… action!”

iv.

After the last flap, they got out of the boat, without either of them having an unasked-for bath, and to their great annoyance headed in the same direction – to the chairs to pick up their things and then to the make-up trailer to take it all off them again. They were walking side by side, Haymitch’s hands in his pocket, Effie’s arms crossed, and they were quiet and in strange sync when they gathered their stuff and ignored the stares of tourists from the opposite bank.

Effie broke the silence first. “Did you read the note?”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t have bothered to come otherwise.” Effie felt him hesitate when he inhaled with the purpose of adding something else. Not that she was hoping for a proper acknowledgement, because she’d be disappointed, anyway. “You covered up for me. Wouldn’t have expected that.”

"Someone has to be the bigger person,” she informed him haughtily. “I won’t lie, it did anger me, and I still think that you’re absolutely irresponsible, but I’ve already seen that you can do your job if pushed enough. Maybe you just need someone to keep pushing.”

He let his snigger speak for him, but it disappeared when someone pointed a phone at them and tried to snatch a picture. Effie looked at him curiously – she knew that he hated this kind of attention and that it was making him uncomfortable and anxious even, however, this was just another item form the list of things that were going to make all of this nearly impossible and that everyone had initially brushed off. “Why did you do it?”

“It’s none of your business,” he cut her off sternly and seemed surprised when she snatched his sleeve, ignoring the fact that someone might get that exact movement on camera or something like that, to stop him from walking out on her, which, as she realized, they have done after every encounter so far, and she had just decided to put a stop to that. “You got scared?”

Haymitch only prolonged his strides. “I don’t what I should be scared of.“

"Are you drunk right now?”

“I had something.” He stopped and hesitated, then decided there was no point in lying after what happened. “It would come back otherwise.”

She watched him with increasing unrest. “You need to get help.”

He just grunted in refusal. “I don’t want help.”

“You need to do something.” She sighed and crossed her arms over her white blouse again, bad feeling creeping upon her when she remembered what he looked like yesterday. “You were supposed to get sober before coming here. You promised.”

There was another moment of dither on his part. Effie tried hard to catch his eye, and eventually did – grey eyes that she used to admire on posters twenty years ago and that seemed to be the only part of him that hasn’t changed at all, maybe just had more personal tragedies to speak of. It was scary to think about him that way, as though she knew him. She didn’t and right now, she was almost sure she didn’t want to. “It’s hard to do that on your own.”

“But you didn’t have to do it on your own,” she argued, “I’m sure someone would have gladly offered you help.”

Haymitch gave her a peculiar look and started walking again. The group of tourists taking pictures of them has gone its own separate way, but he didn’t seem any more relaxed. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, I am offering you help. I don’t know why but I simply refuse to give up now. We have no time to get you fully sober, and it would be dangerous without a medical assistance, but-“

“Are you even listening to yourself?”

“Gradual reducing of everyday intake,” Effie blurted out, ready to name other possibilities that she didn’t even know of.

“Trinket… that’s what I’ve been trying. It doesn’t work. It’s always either too much or too little.” He shook his head again, a gesture he seemed to use every time he wanted to make someone feel inferior, but the joke was on him. It was very hard to make Effie Trinket feel inferior. Even if you were Haymitch Abernathy. “Why am I even talking to you.”

“Because Peeta and I have very likely saved your life yesterday,” she reminded him bluntly. They have finally reached the make-up trailer and she stopped him in his tracks again.

He turned to her with aggravation engraved in his features. Under the powder and corrector, he must have, for sure, looked completely worn-out. His eyes made it obvious. “It was nothing, it’s happened a thousand times before.”

“That’s sort of sad.”

“Thank the boy for me when you see him, though.”

He walked up the stairs to the trailer and wrestled with the handle before pushing it open with brute strength. Effie gripped the railing for stability in her high heels and slowly followed him, pouting in expectation.

“And what about me?”

“I bet that’s your most frequently used phrase, isn’t it.” He turned to her when she closed the door. They were alone in the trailer, or so it seemed. There were four vanities with make-up removers and cotton facial wipes, one full wall of lockers with make-up that had pictures of each actor on them for the make-up team to know what to use on who, and shelves with wigs with names by them, several pieces of each in various shapes and styles. There were usually bright fluorescent lights on at all times, but now the blinds were drawn and the trailer was dim. “We’re squared. I saved you and you helped me.��

“You didn’t save me-“

“Sure.” He walked up to one of the vanities and pulled out the chair for himself. “Are you gonna stare at me?”

“No,” she rolled her eyes, manners be damned. She didn’t know what it was about him that made him so annoying for her, but he was definitely bringing the worst out of her. He made her want to scream and cry at the same time, but she was slowly realizing that he was doing for the fun of it. He knew that he was annoying her, and kept on purposefully doing it. She came closer and measured him properly. This could be even fun. “Ladies first.”

“In your world,” he shrugged and attempted to sit down, but then she did something she had never done before, and that she had no idea what kind of reaction it might bring. She pulled the chair away from the trajectory his sitting-down movement, and he landed on the floor with a curse and the look of an utter shock on his face. “What the-“

Effie pouted again, then let a mischievous smile crack her lips. As embarrassing and childish as it was, she felt good about it. “That, my dear,” she said, placed one hand on her hip and showed him the door with the other, “is how it works in my world if you don’t listen to me.”

Haymitch got up clumsily and moved closer to her violently. So close she was afraid he was either going to kiss her or hit her, but she didn’t take half a step back nevertheless. In the end, he did neither. He just looked at her like he was seriously considering these two possibilities and then decided that he’d be better off letting her win this time. Or that was what she saw in his eyes.

Without a word, he walked out and smashed the door like a moody teenager getting told he was grounded.

And Effie decided that she hasn’t won until they’d be able to end a discussion without one of them running away as if it was the only thing keeping them from killing each other.

Which it most likely was.

May, Venice

To put it plainly, Haymitch’s life could have been simple. Simple and maybe even peaceful. He could have lived it out the way he had planned. He’d stay in his house, he’d read the same old books he had already read countless times before, he’d open new bottles each day, maybe, one day, he’d open them a little less frequently, and on Chaff’s insistence, he might go out from time to time. Otherwise, it would just be quiet and calm.

…and then God said: let’s get Effie Trinket into Haymitch Abernathy’s way.

Their mutual relationships didn’t even have time to fall beneath the freezing point after the little wet accident, but they didn’t dramatically improve after his little drunken escapade, either. They were just as annoyed with each other as before, though it had the aftertaste of debt now.

He was slowly becoming used to her weird quirks. He didn’t know it she had always been that way or if it was just due to all the stress she was apparently going through lately, but she was far from stable. She was easily irritable, very defensive, and he often caught her looking around in anxiety or doing some weird breathing exercises. Not that he cared, of course. He never said anything, he didn’t ask, partly because he didn’t need to hear her whole heartbreaking life story, partly because she wouldn’t have told him anyway, just like he wouldn’t have told her, but he did notice it despite the limited time they have spent together so far. It didn’t exactly worry him, he didn’t feel that fond of her, but it did concern him. He wondered if Plutarch knew.

Katniss Everdeen was a strange creature, but at least she wasn’t annoying. Her tension with Peeta was palpable. It wasn’t nice and he wondered what happened between the two of them that made them so hostile around each other - well, what made Katniss hostile, that was right, because Peeta wasn’t hostile at all. He was incredibly sweet toward her and she was either blind to every sign of affection or purposefully ignored his attempts at getting closer to her.

Overall, Katniss was difficult to deal with at times. She was stubborn to the point when it wasn’t funny anymore and wasn’t exactly the friendliest person you could come across. He’d seen her acting and he wondered what she was even doing here. She apparently wondered about that, too. There was no doubt that there was something to her - she wasn’t some tremendous talent, but she did have some sort of charisma. It was the vibe she gave off - a small town girl who started acting to make some money for her family and accidentally became famous in the process. It reminded him of himself, and the similarity in their backgrounds was what made them strangely compatible. They spent most of their time together in silence or making snarky remarks on other people’s account, and they were totally fine with it.

Peeta was nice. Maybe too nice, but he could stand his ground, too. He could do amazing things even if he was given very little to work with and compensated for Katniss’ grouchiness. He told Haymitch that he was planning on moving to New York after the shooting. He also liked baking and once brought some goods on set. And he could draw nicely, too - Haymitch learned that when he saw the quick sketch Peeta made for one scene’s layout when Plutarch and Cressida couldn’t quite settle on one camera angle.

Johanna and Finnick were old friends who have already starred beside each other in some comedy series and were therefore very close. They were very friendly as well. Well, maybe friendly only applied to Finnick. He was well-mannered, California guy with a cheeky whitened smile and a sense of humor consisting of mocking jabs and gentle sexual innuendos. Johanna’s innuendos weren’t as gentle; she was quite blunt, actually, liked to curse and seemed to hate Effie which gave her some bonus points in his eyes. She was from the small town of Naches in Washington and she once shared during dinner that she could throw axes and that she did for sport when she was a kid. Nobody accepted her offer to have a contest, but they all agreed with her complaints that there weren’t many bars downtown. Her and Finnick went out almost every night.

The remaining cast were extras so far, and the rest of the main cast, like Mags Cohen whom he knew thanks to Plutarch and who he learned was actually Finnick’s godmother, or Cashmere Lottway, about whom Peeta told him that was Effie’s biggest concurrent for the leading role and her well-known rival in general who only got a supporting character out of Plutarch’s indulgence, was supposed to come after Cannes, by the end of May, straight to Florence. Everybody here was obsessed with Cannes. Haymitch didn’t understand it – it was the one festival he had never been to and had no desire experiencing. It looked like no fun – just red carpets, flashing cameras, a lot of wealthy people pretending to be movie experts. Nothing for him.

Most of the scenes they were supposed to shoot here were centered around Katniss and Peeta, because Venice was the place of their characters’ honeymoon, which gave the others a lot of free time that there was no gripping way to kill.

Haymitch spent his days in his hotel room, reading, occasionally taking a swig from his flask and trying to not give into the urge to go to the nearest shop and buy all the liquor he could get his hands on. He wasn’t in withdrawal thanks to the small doses of alcohol he did get into his system daily, though.

And that was another aspect of this all.

True to his nature, Haymitch preferred to stay low-key most of the time and didn’t really talk to anyone here. But the trips from his room to the cafeteria or the moments before a rehearsal gave away the fact that his drinking was no secret and people, not from the main cast, but some of the crew and extras didn’t even bother to lower their voices or make sure that their staring wasn’t embarrassingly obvious. He was on the verge of yelling at them to mind their own business more than once.

Ever since Haymitch talked to Hazelle, neither of them contacted each other. There was no reason to. She was probably just as pissed as she was disappointed, and he had enough of his own problems. He had brief thoughts about visiting Seam before going away, but then second-guessed it and for a good reason. The fact that his face was on every news stand and the groundbreaking fact that Haymitch Abernathy has finally been cracked and went back to acting wasn’t contributing to making it a good idea, either.

Coin came on the second day and was, of course, displeased with everything. In her dully grey pant suit and a BlackBerry in her hand at all times, she was wandering around the set with an unreadable expression on her face, occasionally telling someone that they were doing their job wrong, and, if she was in an extra talkative humor, she’d also explain to them why they were doing it wrong. Haymitch was glad that he didn’t have to get back to the set for a few days.

Effie was spending a lot of time by the hotel pool – he saw her there every morning going for a swim, then having fruit salad for breakfast and lying with a magazine or a book on the sunbed. She was annoying and dead-set on getting him to dance as she whistles, but at least, from a respectful distance and the safety of his room’s balcony where he couldn’t hear her complaints and didn’t have to listen to her insults, it was nice to get to at least look at her, because she truly was beautiful, if a little too plastic for his taste, and the fact that there was a lot of touching ahead of them wasn’t helpful.

And then there was a surprise on the break of April and May, totally unplanned, and kind of concerning.

“Chaff?” Haymitch was just on his way from the cafeteria back to his room when he spotted his friend in the empty lobby with a suitcase by his side, talking to a receptionist. When he heard his voice, he told the receptionist to hold on for a second and walked up to him, throwing his arms around him. “Hey, hey, paws off, what are you doing here-“

“You’re an idiot,” Chaff told him simply when he pulled back. His round, dark eyes were scanning Haymitch like a lie-detector. “Trinket called me.”

“She didn’t,” Haymitch growled and looked back over his shoulder. She was sitting in the cafeteria with Finnick and Johanna, with whom she was in some heated discussion. Only a few days were enough to learn that she was incredibly argumentative and also had no idea what self-deprecating humor means, therefore there was no way she was ever going to get along with the younger woman. “When-“

Chaff shook his head empathically. “I know everything, and again – you’re an idiot. I told you not to play with this, to be careful-“

“I was careful,” Haymitch hissed, “I just… need to balance it.”

“I’m gonna balance you, don’t worry,” Chaff frowned at him.

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Apparently, you do, and since Trinket has proven herself to be no good at it, I’m here. I’m coming,” he raised his voice toward the annoyed receptionist who was still waiting there with a phone in her hand. He looked back at Haymitch and flashed him a smug smile. “That’s not the welcome I was expecting, though.”

Haymitch’s life could have been simple.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

#if this was a movie #hayffie #effie trinket #haymitch abernathy #my writing #thg fanfiction

7 notes · View notes

real-retail-stories · 7 years

Text

More from Amusement Park Food Service

Yes, more from the twenty-something girl that worked at a bar in an amusement park’s attached waterpark. Today I’ll go into detail about 1 of the 2 Labor Day weekends I got to spend there.

My 1st year was 2014. Most of our food service workers during the majority of the year with international workers. (The park had an arrangement with certain groups from other countries to support bringing in people on work visas for a few months at a time.) The 1st group of workers, usually from Asia, would work late March through the 1st part of June. The next group, usually from the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and for 2015, Thailand, would work June through part of August. Therefore, all of our internationals were gone by Labor Day weekend. And just fyi, the park is Saturdays & Sundays only April to mid-May and mid-August through September and Fridays to Sundays in October.

In 2014, we had 4 internationals and me as regular workers at the bar. They were all leaving before Labor Day weekend, which left me as the only regular for that busy weekend. The schedulers put a non-regular guy, “Bob”, with me. I’m there at 9, getting things ready. Bob saunters over and asks if he needs to get a till. I’m thinking, “What do you think? We have 2 registers and it could easily get busy.” So he goes off to get a till. I’m working on making nacho trays. When he gets back, he’s (slowly) setting up his drawer. The lead, “Brandon”, comes over with a clipboard, doing whatever. Bob is finishing up, and I’m thinking, since I have to show him how to do everything, maybe I should wait until Brandon’s left, so we wouldn’t get in each others’ way. I decide to just go ahead anyway. The main thing was to show him how to make the frozen cocktails and smoothies. Brandon leaves as I’m still going over stuff with Bob. The leads/supes had come by to tell me (since Bob was getting his till) to make sure we make nacho trays. I know how quickly the nachos go anyway, plus whatever we had leftover from the previous week had to be thrown out anyway to avoid serving stale chips, so we were starting with an empty nacho warmer. (We get big bags of Tostitos chips, and have to make 2 neat rows of chips in the tray. We do this to keep portions right.) After I finish explaining everything to Bob, I tell him we need to make nachos. He says we have enough and that he’s going to stand out in the rain. (Yes, it was raining on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.) I was thinking, “You’re not a lead or supe, you’re not even a regular here. You have no way of knowing how many we need.” Someone from the main building (it’s one big building that has an ice cream place, burger place, and pizza place all right next to each other) must have asked him to put the umbrellas for the tables in front of the building down, then later up, as the amount of rain coming down changed. Although with him, maybe he did it on his own. He was weird like that. Later, Brandon came back with clipboard to get my till out of the register so I could go on break. I locked it up and left. (It was slow enough because of the rain that Bob should have been fine by himself.) I go to the employee-only restaurant and eat. I had to talk to the office about something (probably being scheduled against my availability since that happened a lot). I still had some time on my break, so I was walking to one of the entrances to the back area where our restaurant is, but I see a regular at one of the bars in the main park. He comes up to me and says that they really need me back down in the water park, which is the direction he was coming from. I tell him that I still have time in my break. As we’re finishing up, I think he says something about the full time supe looking for me or something. I sit in the back area for a bit, but still leave earlier than I need to because I keep wondering what the heck is going on in the waterpark. As I leave the back area, I see the full time supe coming from the water park. I could tell she’s seen me, and we start walking to each other. She tells me that Bob was “telling everyone” that I didn’t show him how to do anything and left without saying anything. I tell her that I did show him how to do everything and Brandon was even there when I started. (As far as the leaving, that was technically true, but it shouldn’t take a genius to figure out that when a lead or supe comes over and has you pull your drawer out and lock it up, you’re either going on break or temporarily going somewhere that doesn’t require you to have a till.) The full time supe tells me that Brandon told the area supe the truth and the area supe told her. Thanks to Brandon speaking up for me, I wasn’t in trouble at least. It still bugs me, however, that it seemed like everyone was believing Bob’s accusations instead of relying on my performance during the year so far.

#submission #retail

44 notes · View notes

bigyack-com · 4 years

Text

A City Locks Down to Fight Coronavirus, but Robots Come and Go

If any place was prepared for quarantine, it was Milton Keynes. Two years before the pandemic, a start-up called Starship Technologies deployed a fleet of rolling delivery robots in the small city about 50 miles northwest of London.The squat six-wheeled robots shuttled groceries and dinner orders to homes and offices. As the coronavirus spread, Starship shifted the fleet even further into grocery deliveries. Locals like Emma Maslin could buy from the corner store with no human contact.“There’s no social interaction with a robot,” Ms. Maslin said.The sudden usefulness of the robots to people staying in their homes is a tantalizing hint of what the machines could one day accomplish — at least under ideal conditions. Milton Keynes, with a population of 270,000 and a vast network of bicycle paths, is perfectly suited to rolling robots. Demand has been so high in recent weeks, some residents have spent days trying to schedule a delivery.In recent years, companies from Silicon Valley to Somerville, Mass., have poured billions of dollars into the development of everything from self-driving cars to warehouse robots. The technology is rapidly improving. Robots can help with deliveries, transportation, recycling, manufacturing.But even simple tasks like robotic delivery still face myriad technical and logistical hurdles. The robots in Milton Keynes, for example, can carry no more than two bags of groceries.“You can’t do a big shop,” Ms. Maslin said. “They aren’t delivering from the superstores.”A pandemic may add to demand but does not change what you can deploy, said Elliot Katz, who helps run Phantom Auto, a start-up that helps companies remotely control autonomous vehicles when they encounter situations they cannot navigate on their own.“There is a limit to what a delivery bot can bring to a human,” Mr. Katz said. “But you have to start somewhere.”Industry veterans know this well. Gabe Sibley, an engineer and a professor who previously worked with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, started Zippy for sidewalk deliveries in 2017. But the San Francisco company quickly ran into challenges. The robots could move only at the pace of walking, around 1 mile per hour. That severely limits the delivery area, particularly for hot food, Mr. Sibley said.The company never deployed any robots, selling in 2018.“In this country, where we designed our cities around the car, the solution to sidewalk delivery is to use the roads,” Mr. Sibley said.Founded in 2014 and backed by more than $80 million, Starship Technologies is based in San Francisco, and it has deployed most of its robots on college campuses in the United States. Equipped with cameras, radar and other sensors, the robots navigate by matching their surroundings to digital maps built by the company in each new location.The company chose Milton Keynes for a wider deployment in part because the robots could navigate it with relative ease. Built after World War II, the city was carefully planned, with most streets laid out in a grid and bicycle and pedestrian paths, called “redways,” running beside them.When the Starship robots first arrived in Milton Keynes, one of the fastest-growing cities in Britain, Liss Page thought they were cute but pointless. “The first time I met one, it was stuck on the curb outside my house,” she said.Then, in early April, she opened a letter from the National Health Service advising her not to leave the house because her asthma and other conditions made her particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus. In the weeks that followed, the robots provided a much-needed connection to the outside world.Smaller deliveries suit Ms. Page because she lives alone. A longtime vegan, she can order nut milk and margarine straight to her door. But like the grocery vans that deliver larger orders across the city, the Starship robots are ultimately limited by what is on the shelves.“You pad out the order with things you don’t really need to make the delivery charge worthwhile,” Ms. Page said. “With the last delivery, all I got were the things I didn’t really need.”Residents like Ms. Page set deliveries through a smartphone app. They typically pay a British pound (about $1.20) for each delivery, but in Milton Keynes, Starship has raised the price to as much as £2 during the busiest times so more people will shop in off hours.The robots deliver groceries to doctors, nurses and other employees of the N.H.S. for free. They even join the Thursday night tribute to the N.H.S., blinking their headlights as residents clap and cheer from their doorsteps. The fleet of 80 robots will soon expand to 100.Though this may be the most extensive deployment of delivery robots in the world, others have popped up in recent years. In Christiansburg, Va., Paul and Susie Sensmeier can arrange drugstore and bakery deliveries via flying drone. Wing, which is a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has been offering drone deliveries in the area since the fall.They can order penne pasta, marinara sauce and toilet paper. But they can’t order prescription medicines via Wing — the drones are stocked at a Wing warehouse, not at a drugstore — and like the robots in Milton Keynes, the drones can carry only so much.“I can only get two muffins or two croissants,” Susie Sensmeier, 81, said.Companies like Wing and Starship hope they can expand the reach of these services and refine their skills. Now there is new impetus.“Overnight, delivery has gone from a convenience to a vital service,” said Starship’s chief executive, Lex Bayer. “Our fleets are driving nonstop, 14 hours a day.”In Milton Keynes, Starship has gradually expanded the reach of its service, doubling its fleet and teaming up with several new grocery stores. It recently started a service in Chevy Chase, Md., not far from Washington. The company can create digital maps for the robots in days.Ms. Page, a 51-year-old business analyst who has lived in Milton Keynes for more than a quarter-century, believes the service can become a viable business.“It just seemed like a vanity project before,” she said. “The pandemic has given them a platform to launch a real business.”But as much as the pandemic has lifted start-ups like Starship, it has also hurt them. Many of the college campuses where Starship deployed its robots have shut down. Though the company has worked to shift those robots to nearby locations, it has been forced to lay off employees and contractors. Janel Steinberg, a company spokeswoman, said the cuts were “primarily about rebalancing our work force to adapt to the demand in different locations.”Nuro, a start-up in Silicon Valley, has long promised larger robots that can drive on public roads. But it has not yet deployed these robots, and like most self-driving car companies, Nuro has been forced to curtail its testing. Rather than making deliveries, its robots are shuttling supplies across an old basketball stadium in Sacramento that has been converted into a temporary hospital.Sidewalk robots and flying drones also require human help. Starship and similar companies must monitor the progress of each robot from afar, and if anything goes wrong, remote operators take over. With social distancing, that has become more difficult. Remote operators who once worked in call centers have moved into their homes.Mr. Katz’s company, Phantom Auto, is now helping companies make the transition. “This is a very, very difficult problem to solve,” Mr. Katz said. “We are in the autonomy-doesn’t-quite-work-yet business.” Read the full article

0 notes

davidalatorreblog · 5 years

Text

Ken Henry says it could take 10 years to change NAB's culture – as it happened

National Australia Bank chairman follows CEO Andrew Thorburn in giving evidence to the banking royal commission. This blog is now closed • Analysis: The biggest banking scandal is that everyone knew – but still did nothing

6.01am GMT

Ken Henry, NAB chairman and former Treasury secretary, says culture is one of the hardest things to change about an organisation like a bank. He predicts it could take a decade to overhaul NAB’s culture.

Henry says it’s extremely hard to measure customer outcomes. The best measurement he knows of is customer complaints.

5.23am GMT

Henry’s thoughtful but academic and ponderous way of answering questions is starting to wear Orr down.

She asks Commissioner Hayne if this is an appropriate time to stop.

5.18am GMT

Henry says it’s incredibly hard to measure customer outcomes, rather than customer experience.

Orr: “How do you measure customer outcomes?”

5.11am GMT

Right.

Henry reckons it could take 10 years (!) to change the culture within NAB.

5.06am GMT

Henry’s answers, by the way, will help to inform Commissioner Hayne’s recommendations on the structure of Australia’s financial industry.

Will Hayne recommend a radical overhaul of the designated roles for Asic and Apra?

4.52am GMT

Orr asks Henry if he thinks there’s a role for regulators to play in ensuring that financial services entities have a culture which promotes proper values.

Henry wholeheartedly agrees. “Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Yes.”

4.47am GMT

Henry is very comfortable talking about the animating ideas of capitalism.

What are incentives? How do they work? What role does risk play in an organisation’s profit-seeking?

I wish it were but I don’t think it is. It’s not something that can be legislated.

“I don’t think it’s something that can be even legislated in principles and left to regulators to either seek to enforce, or even seek to have implemented in a supervisory capacity with particular institutions.

4.40am GMT

Orr: “So you believe boards should be accountable to our community now and our future community?”

Henry: “I do, indeed.”

4.37am GMT

Orr: “I want to make sure I understand your answer to my question?

Henry: “Mmm.”

4.26am GMT

An interesting dynamic has already developed between Orr and Henry.

Orr is trying to figure out how to get Henry to answer questions in a way that will suit the commission.

4.19am GMT

Orr takes Henry to a speech he gave to the Australian shareholders association conference in May this year.

A quote from Henry’s speech:

“When historians of finance look back on this period, they will identify an unusual level of corporate complacency driven by relatively benign macro economic conditions, and a long period of impressive return on equity performance.

“They will suggest that corporate leaders fell into believing that a sector capable of generating return on equities in the mid-teens for so many years couldn’t be doing a lot wrong.”

4.16am GMT

Orr: “What about the opening of fraudulent bank accounts by Wells Fargo in the US?

Henry: “Yes, I am familiar with that.

4.15am GMT

Orr is straight into it with an interesting line of questioning.

She wants to know how Henry, who was deeply involved with Australia’s governmental response to the global financial crisis, how he feels about the behaviour of the big banks since the GFC.

4.11am GMT

Senior counsel assisting Rowena Orr QC has taken over.

4.09am GMT

That last part gets heavy going, so I’ll spare you.

Thorburn has been excused.

4.06am GMT

Hodge: “And Asic has said that it thinks you should apply the same methodology to your licensees?

Thorburn: “Yes.

4.03am GMT

Hodge: “You’ve now agreed on your remediation method for NAB Financial Planning?

Thorburn: “Yes, we have.”

3.59am GMT

Hodge is starting to nail things down.

It’s obvious why NAB didn’t want to quickly recompense customers regardless of whether they signed up with NAB pre-Fofa or post-Fofa.

3.52am GMT

Thorburn: “There was a number of people involved, Mr Hodge. It’s not just Andrew Hagger. Sharon Cook was closely involved. And they were the two who had sort of day-to-day responsibility for it. I have ultimate accountability and David Gall as chief risk officer does have some responsibility as well.

“But at the time, I just don’t think we saw it with the clarity we do now. You know, it wasn’t an agenda item on a busy board schedule. It was a matter that had been going for two years.”

3.48am GMT

Hodge: “You don’t seem to have asked yourself the question why couldn’t we three see that we were not doing the right thing?”

Thorburn: “Well, I think – I see that now.”

3.46am GMT

Hodge: “And that you’re not recognising that even if Mr Hagger had been responsible for suggesting this methodology, that at least three senior executives who are still at the bank were aware of it and attended the board risk committee meeting which considered it, and they are you and Ms Cook, who reported on it, and Mr Gall?

Thorburn: “Yes.”

3.43am GMT

Hodge also pulls up Thorburn for repeatedly trying to blame Hagger.

Hodge: “What it seems like is that somebody looking at your statement and listening to the evidence that you’ve given today might think that you are, to the maximum extent possible, passing responsibility for this to Mr Hagger, the senior executive who has been made redundant and left the bank. Is that what you are doing?”

3.42am GMT

Hodge brings up a document.

It’s a memorandum for the NAB board summarising material regulatory engagement for December 2016.

3.35am GMT

Thorburn:

I think when you look back on it, Mr Hodge, I acknowledge we got this wrong. I think we were trying to – we had the right intent, but it – you know, we were looking at it too narrowly and too technically, and once you look back on it you see it’s a very – it’s obvious – there was a lot of complexity. I think that’s the other thing.

“We were dealing with 85,000 customers. We’re back to 2009. You know, it was – it was a pre-Fofa post-Fofa world. Leaving that argument aside. It was one of the most complex things we’ve had to face into.

Well, the files would have – were complex. What we’re talking about here is financial advice on complex matters for people. It went back to 2009. We had had a number of leaders involved in the business over that time. By the time we came to really face into this, it was – a lot of those had left. We didn’t have very good systems, Commissioner.

“We couldn’t – you know, we didn’t have digitisation like we do now, we had to go back to hardcopy files and couldn’t always find them and the advisers had moved on or the NAB financial planners had moved on and we couldn’t always find the file. So it was big and messy and complex. And I’m sorry about that, because that’s not good enough on our part.”

3.31am GMT

Thorburn says it was Hagger’s advice to try to make the distinction between pre-Fofa and post-Fofa customers.

Hagger was trying to justify treating pre-Fofa customers differently on the basis that NAB could have just kept them on commission-paying arrangements.

3.25am GMT

Thorburn is talking about who in NAB had responsibility for the bank’s remediation program.

He throws Andrew Hagger, NAB’s former head of wealth, under the bus.

3.12am GMT

Just before the lunch break, Thorburn had told Hodge that in April this year, he had had a meeting with Asic’s new chairman, James Shipton.

Shipton had impressed upon Thorburn that he was deeply unhappy with NAB’s attitude towards remediation.

3.10am GMT

And we’re back.

Senior counsel assisting Michael Hodge QC is asking NAB’s Andrew Thorburn about the NAB board’s consideration of an angry letter from ASIC in April this year.

2.42am GMT

In preparation for the afternoon session, here’s some info about Fofa: the future of financial advice laws.

That acronym may be chucked around this afternoon. I posted this info in last week’s blog but it may serve our interests again.

2.34am GMT

NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, has been doing his best impression of a good banker who understands the hurt Australians are feeling.

He knows bank scandals have been ripping through the economy in recent years, and he puts it down to drift – banks used to focus squarely on customers, but in the last three decades they have drifted towards greed and short-termism.

2.27am GMT

With that, the commission has broken for lunch.

We can expect Hodge to hammer this issue after the break so I hope Thorburn refreshes his jug of water.

2.26am GMT

Despite all of that, NAB then tried it on again.

Five months later, in a letter dated 13 April 2018 – that’s this year people, just seven months ago – NAB sent another proposal to Asic in relation to remediation.

2.15am GMT

So in other words, NAB was delaying, delaying, delaying.

Asic then sent NAB an outline of suspected offending in October 2017, so NAB got its lawyers involved.

2.07am GMT

This bit’s fascinating.

Heard of the expression “actions speak louder than words”?

1.59am GMT

Hodge moves on to how NAB has handled the remediation for customers who were charged advice service fees (ASFs) for services not provided.

Hodge: “I think you agree that it has taken too long?”

1.52am GMT

This is a strange exchange between Hodge and Thorburn, if you think about it.

We’re raking over old territory here.

1.41am GMT

Thorburn wants to make the point that these things were not done on purpose.

They were process errors.

It’s wrong. It’s absolutely wrong. I think dishonesty goes sort of to intent, is the only distinction I would draw. And I don’t think I’ve seen this case and others – some exceptions – where there was an intention to not do the right thing or maybe even a view, as you’re suggesting, an intention for it to be a problem from the start and someone to ignore it. I don’t think it was that.

“So I think it was wrong that we didn’t pick it up. And I think we got on to it reasonably quickly but it was a process error.

1.35am GMT

Hodge: “And in your statement … you offer some reasons for why you think the two events occurred?”

Thorburn: “Yes.”

1.28am GMT

Hodge: “And the other event that you’ve discussed in your statement is concerned with the discovery that there were accounts of deceased members that had been charged service fees?”

Thorburn: “That’s right.”

1.26am GMT

Hodge: “I’m going to ask you some questions about that just so you know to begin with, what I’m going to exclude is anything to do with the plan service fees, which, as you know, is now the subject of federal court proceedings which have been brought by Asic?”

Thorburn: “Yes.”

1.21am GMT

Hodge moves onto another topic.

Fees for no service.

1.09am GMT

We’re back from a short break.

And we’re onto remediation.

12.49am GMT

Hodge: “I’m interested in understanding why you think it took a royal commission to provoke that kind of critical self-examination?”

Thorburn:

That’s a good question. Well, because in my personal and professional experience, most transformation opportunities come out of pain.

“The commission, when you read the case studies, you say: ‘This is like, so upsetting and so damning, what went wrong?’ I remember one of the ones was the default interest. One [default interest rate] for one of our clients who was at the commission. I said to our team: ‘Why is it 18%?’ And there wasn’t a really good answer to that.

12.39am GMT

It’s easy to poke fun of analogies.

If you’re not feeling generous, it’s too easy to mock someone for using one.

12.25am GMT

Hodge: “I wonder whether, in your view, now with the benefit of hindsight, the move by retail banks into other areas, and particularly into wealth, has been a failure?”

Thorburn: “I think if you looked at the – I mean, if you looked at the raw evidence – [I] probably have to agree it had been. I don’t think it needed to be, but it probably has been.”

12.18am GMT

It’s actually fascinating listening to bank executives talk about remuneration.

It’s clear they spend a lot of time thinking about it.

12.06am GMT

Thorburn is asked about remuneration for bank staff.

Hodge wants to know if senior executives become harder to motivate when banks shift away from a system of remuneration that relies so heavily on bonuses.

11.48pm GMT

This is annoying listening to Thorburn’s evidence, to be honest.

He’s saying all the right things.

11.31pm GMT

Hodge wants to know what Thorburn is actually advocating for.

Hodge: “What I wonder is whether somebody listening to the points that you’re making might think that what you’re advocating for is a shift toward, or some would probably say back to, a more service-oriented and utilitarian view of banking?”

11.26pm GMT

Hodge asks Thorburn about the shift towards a sales culture.

Thorburn: “I think that started to happen. That was like a symptom of focusing on the short term. Focusing too much on growth, short-term growth that’s not really sustainable, and a sales culture was introduced, not just in our bank, in the system. And I think that created wrong outcomes as well. Unintended consequences.”

11.24pm GMT

Thorburn: “This company has been going 150 years and my role should be to make it stronger and better for the long run, not just for the next one or two years.”

11.24pm GMT

Thorburn: “If you go to my other points where I talk about becoming short-term, focus too much on the next six or 12 months, focus too much on the profit ... then I think you start to build some unsustainable foundations, you don’t invest enough, you don’t listen to customers enough.”

11.21pm GMT

Hodge is interested in a point Thorburn made in that letter that banks will build a sustainable business for all stakeholders if they get the “customer experience right”.

Hodge wants to know what “sustainable business” means.

11.11pm GMT

Senior counsel assisting the royal commission, Michael Hodge QC, is leading the questions today.

Hodges has taken Thorburn to a letter the CEO personally wrote to the royal commission, which accompanied NAB’s submission to the inquiry’s interim report.

10.58pm GMT

Good morning everyone,

Welcome back to Guardian Australia’s blog of the banking royal commission.

Continue reading... Ken Henry says it could take 10 years to change NAB's culture – as it happened published first on https://yuanex.tumblr.com

0 notes

titoslondon-blog · 6 years

Text

New Post has been published on Titos London

#Blog New Post has been published on http://www.titoslondon.co.uk/what-has-and-hasnt-changed-5-years-since-the-rana-plaza-disaster/

What has—and hasn’t—changed, 5 years since the Rana Plaza disaster

The 24th April 2013 started like any other day. I buzzed around the house getting ready to head into Eco-Age’s London headquarters, when I made out the word ‘Dhaka’ in a radio news report in the background. Anybody who has campaigned for a cleaner, safer fashion industry is alert to hearing the Bangladesh capital—the country is one of the world’s largest exporters of fast fashion, second only to China.

Details were still patchy—a building had collapsed, over 150 people were believed to be dead. Although Rana Plaza was reported as a multi-use complex, when I phoned my friend and fellow campaigner, British journalist Lucy Siegle, we instinctively knew it was a fashion factory. Workers interviewed from banks and shops said they noticed a crack in the building the day before and their companies sent them home. But one group was forced back into the building to continue working—the garment workers.

As the true horror emerged, our worst fears were realised. When the complex folded like a house of cards, killing 1,334 people, it exposed the true cost of our fast fashion habit. How to make sense of that terrible tragedy and the aftermath? I’ve found it almost impossible to reconcile. Rana Plaza cannot be shelved as an ‘act of god’ and, of course. neither was it deliberate. Technically the disaster qualifies as an accident, but to me and the many campaigners who challenge the fast fashion system, it was avoidable. Greed, speed, corporate irresponsibility and a business model built on exploiting the most vulnerable—lowly paid garment workers—were the root cause of the Rana Plaza collapse.

In Los Angeles, when film director Andrew Morgan saw the front page of The New York Times featuring a photo of two young boys—the same age as his own sons—desperately searching through the Rana Plaza rubble for their mother’s body, he was hit by the true cost of today’s apparel industry. “Why would two young kids be looking for their mother amid this chaos? No bomb had gone off, no earthquake…[Behind its] aspirational, fun, carefree aesthetic there was obviously some terrible hidden danger in the [fashion] industry. Immediately I needed to find out what was going on.”

Determined to unravel the $3 trillion global fashion industry, Morgan spent the next three years travelling to 30 countries collecting footage from factories, workshops, sometimes even homes, in garment industry hot spots. His 2015 documentary, The True Cost (available on Netflix) exposes the dark side of an industry that we all contribute to.

Around the crater that Rana Plaza left behind, as international news crews departed the scene, the relentless cycle of fashion clicked back into gear. Orders that couldn’t be completed at Rana Plaza were quietly transferred to one of Dhaka’s many other factories. The manufacturing army of predominantly young women reassembled. Survivors of Rana Plaza, who’d been pulled from the rubble, queued up at the gates of a new factory, traumatised but in desperate need of work.

On visits to Bangladesh I have been privileged enough to meet garment workers. More often than not, these encounters happen late in the evening as the workers stream out of the garment factories at a time when I’d be thinking about going to bed. This is all the spare time they have. At around 10pm I sit on the floor in a circle, with a dozen or so women who have been working since 7am. I learn about their lives—their migration from villages in the north where their kids are being looked after by relatives. I hear of their frustration that even after the Rana Plaza disaster, their hours remain unremittingly harsh, and their low wages and poor living conditions remain unchanged. And that’s before we even get onto the subject of whether or not they feel safe at work. They are quick to laugh despite all the hardship and very frank. “I am bored,” says a young woman. “This is a boring existence.” When I see them at work the next day, they avoid eye contact.

Those with life-changing injuries, who number over 2,500, began the fight for compensation, but in many cases progress was glacial. Over 700 orphans or at-risk children were created by Rana Plaza. The industry’s response was split into two main tracks: The Rana Plaza Arrangement—a compensation fund which brands pay into—and The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh—a five-year, legally-binding agreement between 200 brands and trade unions intended to promote a safer and healthier garment industry in Bangladesh. Some US brands decided to develop their own response known as the Alliance.

On the fifth anniversary of Rana Plaza, expect a flood of hefty self-congratulatory announcements coming from these bodies. In fact, it has already begun. “We are extremely proud of the progress we have made in just five short years,” a spokesman for the Alliance announced last month. “With all of the investments we have made in the training and empowerment of the workers themselves, factory remediation remains on schedule,” he continued. “If these gains are going to be sustained over the long-term, however, they must be owned and led locally, from within Bangladesh.” To me, this sounds like they are passing the buck.

The Accord meanwhile has been extended to run until 2021, but it’s alarming that only 60 brands have signed up for round two, down from 200. Still the message broadcast is that lessons have been learned and that factories in Dhaka are safer. But by how much? And what does less bad really mean? These are questions that have vexed the whole process and it makes me wonder—is it even possible to reform the fashion production system?

According to Siegle, the current approach simply isn’t working. “Progress has been painfully slow,” she tells me. “Research in Bangladesh by Dhaka University academics has flagged up delays and gaps in implementation from the outset.”

Siegle is also concerned that some brands have had to be taken to court to pay up. In January, $2.3 million was finally extracted from a global fashion brand (name redacted by the terms of the settlement) at The Hague to fund overdue remediation to factories. “When Rana Plaza happened it was clear a clock was ticking, but the timescale appears to have been lost and the next generation of garment workers has again been subjected to unsafe, unacceptable and in many cases illegal conditions,” she says. “It’s really hard to [communicate] that to the shopper when the Accord or Alliance says your jeans are made in a factory that could be 84 per cent safer than it was five years ago.” We should, she rightly believes, be aiming for something better.

In my own pursuit for something better, over the past year I’ve worked closely with lawyers affiliated with The Circle,Annie Lennox’s NGO dedicated to championing women’s rights, to compile a report reviewing the minimum and living wages, and the protection of workers’ rights in 14 major garment-producing countries. Our objective? To show brands they have a responsibility to treat garment workers fairly. We are now using trade law to try and implement this.

In the five years since the Rana Plaza tragedy, the industry has often claimed it’s spearheading change to ensure fashion changes forever. In reality, the required overhaul of this unsustainable and corrupt business model has in no way been achieved. While some factories provide safer working environments, they haven’t considered the fundamental right to a living wage, and vice versa.

To see the real engine of change, we need to take an outside perspective. I ask Andrew Morgan if he thinks any progress has been made five years on from the disaster that compelled him to make The True Cost. “In an industry increasingly fixated on profit at all cost, Rana Plaza was an undeniable warning that people ultimately and always pay the price for our careless consumption,” he says, “This warning, while ignored by most major fashion corporations, has ignited a new wave of activists and entrepreneurs dedicating themselves to the belief that we can and must create a more just, humane and sustainable future.” This is the true change ignited by that tragic, fateful day.

1/7 Livia Firth at the Green Carpet Fashion Awards, Italia

Image: Getty

Image: Reza Shahriar Rahman

Film still from The True Cost

Image: The True Cost

Film still from The True Cost

Image: The True Cost

The post What has—and hasn’t—changed, 5 years since the Rana Plaza disaster appeared first on VOGUE India.

0 notes

enzaime-blog · 6 years

Text

Spinal Cord Attack by Dogs and Emergency Treatment

New Story has been published on https://enzaime.com/spinal-cord-attack-dogs-emergency-treatment/

Spinal Cord Attack by Dogs and Emergency Treatment

How a team of specialists—and a loving family—helped a little girl heal in body and spirit.

Ask 7-year-old Kat what she wants to do when she grows up, and she’ll tell you, as if on cue, “To help hurting children and make them happy!”

Kat—short for Katarina—knows a lot about being happy. She loves playing with her friends, dancing, gymnastics, Legos, animals, the beach, and her close-knit family, which includes three doting older sisters.

But Kat also knows about hurting. Just before Christmas 2015—only a day before she turned 6—she was attacked by two large dogs. The unprovoked attack ripped all five nerves that extend down the length of her left arm from their roots, paralyzing the arm. It also injured her spinal cord, fractured her skull and left her with wounds all over her body.

“Kat technically died on the helicopter ride to the hospital and had to be revived,” says her mom, Sandy, who was seriously injured while trying to save her daughter.

Kat, surrounded by some of the members of her care team: from left to right, child life specialist Shereé Sheffer, pediatric neurologist Dr. Eboni Lance, occupational therapist Gayle Gross and educational specialist Patty Porter.

Kat was transported first to a hospital in Virginia, near where the attack happened, then to The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for further treatment, and then to Kennedy Krieger Institute’s inpatient hospital, a few blocks away from Johns Hopkins, to begin the long process of rehabilitation.

Her wounds were extensive, and her pain was excruciating. Her left arm’s nerves had suffered the worst possible kind of nerve injury, and nerve pain is far more intense than that of a flesh wound, explains Dr. Eric B. Levey, director of Kennedy Krieger’s Pediatric Pain Rehabilitation Program, and one of the doctors on Kat’s care team.

But it was Kat’s trauma that really worried Sandy. When Kat arrived at Kennedy Krieger, “even though the doctors had saved my daughter’s body, her mind was still trapped in the trauma,” Sandy says.

“She would just stare, blankly, her words frozen, her actions [those] of someone trying to escape from something horrifying.” Hospitals and doctors’ offices naturally became trigger points for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Child Life specialist Shereé Sheffer works with Kat.

Sandy was suffering from PTSD as well, and she worried how she’d help her daughter recover. Dr. Eboni Lance, a pediatric neurologist and one of Kat’s two attending doctors—the other was pediatric neurologist Dr. Joanna Burton, knew that caring for Kat also meant caring for her family members, “all of whom had experienced significant trauma,” she says.

Dr. Lance briefed members of Kat’s care team about Kat’s and Sandy’s conditions and kept them up to date as Kat’s physical and emotional therapies progressed. It would have been too traumatic for Sandy to have to talk about the attack every time Kat had an appointment.

The extra effort paid off: “It allowed me to step back from what was going on so that I could just be Kat’s mom”—not her medical history chronicler, too.

Ultimately, Kat’s care team included doctors, nurses, therapists and specialists from the Institute’s nursing, behavioral psychology, rehabilitation, child life, and physical and occupational therapy departments, and from Johns Hopkins’ surgery, plastic surgery and neurosurgery departments. Once, when Sandy was sitting at a conference table with several doctors discussing her daughter’s care plan, she started tearing up. Sandy recalls the doctor sitting next to her grabbing her hand and holding on, giving Sandy the emotional support she needed to get through the meeting.

Fairies to the Rescue

Kat and her occupational therapist, Gayle Gross.

One of Kat’s first tasks was to get up and walking again. She needed to keep her muscles moving so they wouldn’t atrophy, but her mind was still so stuck in the memory of the attack, and she was in so much pain, that she had little desire to do anything.

Kat’s therapists took a playful approach: They dressed up like fairies, dancing around Kat in her wheelchair, encouraging her to take those first, painful steps, Sandy says. Kat’s nurses filled her room with stuffed animals, changing the animals’ locations every day to make the room more interesting and less frightening.

Kat’s psychologists had some of the hardest work to do. “When PTSD took over, Kat would hide, toss her chair, pull my hair, and go back to that moment of survival,” Sandy says.

Her psychologists figured out that she liked checklists, so they developed a checklist of different coping mechanisms Kat could use when she felt anxious. “Kat’s family was really great at encouraging Kat to try out all of the different coping strategies—like deep breathing—that we recommended,” says Dr. Christi Culpepper, a psychologist at Kennedy Krieger.

One day, while Kat was having her blood pressure taken—a big PTSD trigger for her—she looked at the checklist and asked the nurse, “Can you give me a minute, please? I’m having a hard time.”

Now, more than a year later, Sandy says, “we don’t need the checklist anymore.”

No Place Like Home

Kat’s trauma was so acute that Dr. Lance made the decision to discharge Kat from the inpatient hospital only about a month after she’d been admitted. “The best move, for her and her family,” Dr. Lance says, “was going home and continuing her recovery there.”

Dr. Eboni Lance checks in with Kat.

It was better for her family, too. Sandy and her other daughters had become so traumatized by everything that had happened that they were having trouble just walking back to their car in the parking garage. Kennedy Krieger’s security guards “were always ready to escort us,” but it remained a daily stressor.

Being at home helped Kat—and her family—turn a corner. “A big part of Kat’s continued success has been the support she gets from her parents and sisters,” Dr. Lance says. “Without that, I don’t think she would have had the success that she’s had in her recovery.”

Before Kat left the hospital, her occupational therapists trained Sandy in the therapies Kat would need to continue doing. Dr. Lance helped arrange for additional therapy appointments closer to Kat’s home, and she encouraged Sandy to call her whenever she had any questions.

By April 2016, Kat was ready for a nerve transplant to try to restore some function to her paralyzed arm. Johns Hopkins surgeons Dr. Alan Belzberg and Dr. Richard Redett took nerves from her leg and used them to attach nerves from the right and left sides of her neck to damaged nerves in her left arm, explains Dr. Frank Pidcock, Kennedy Krieger’s vice president of rehabilitation.

Over the past few months, after nearly a year of rigorous occupational therapy, Kat’s started to get some feeling back in her left arm, and she can wiggle her left fingers a bit. She’s excited about the prospect of using her arm again, Sandy says.

Kat reads a book with educational specialist Patty Porter, left, and her mom, Sandy.

When Kat returned to school last fall, headaches and nerve pain kept sending her to the nurse’s office. Dr. Lance arranged for Patty Porter, one of Kennedy Krieger’s educational specialists, to work with her teachers to schedule rest breaks throughout the day. The breaks keep Kat from developing so much pain that she spends all day in the nurse’s office.

Attending school was crucial to Kat’s recovery, says Dr. Lance, who didn’t want Kat getting used to staying home all day.

By the time her birthday rolled around again, Kat was back. To celebrate, she donated her birthday and Christmas gifts to kids at Kennedy Krieger. She wanted to help the kids feel a little better during what’s supposed to be a festive time of year.

Kat still has a long recovery ahead of her, but as she gave away her gifts, she was no longer a little girl wracked with fear and pain.

She was a strong girl, happy to be getting her old self back, and ready to help other kids get their lives back, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reFEgXQ8BCw

#educational specialists #Kat’s recovery #Pediatric Pain #PTSD #Pediatrics

0 notes

plogan721 · 7 years

Text

Announcement: Traveling Plans

It has now come to my attention that you cannot go on the annual family vacation because someone decided that they needed to do everything on their vacation. This option usually costs an arm, a leg, their home, and their first-born child. Aww, the sacrifices we make as a family these days to make vacation living a fun adventure.

I am here to tell you that you do not have to do that type of sacrifice. Not at all, my friend. I want to tell you a little secret.

BUT FIRST ….

A little announcement ….

I started this project when I had 5 blogs and on the verge of creating what is now forming into P. Lynne Designs. I had to quit because I was burning out. I have been inching to get back to it, and that announcement is I am going to re-write my Disney Vacation book. You never saw it because of that burnout. I was adding too much, and I will be starting over again from the very beginning. I never truly planned out this book, and that is the second reason why I quit writing it. I never really planned on how much I was going to write. I can discuss all of that later. For right now, I want to get back started.

OK, enough of that, back to the secret that is a vacation…

The secret to a good vacation is planning. Notice I did not say the perfect vacation. If you are a Christian, you know that only God is perfect. Planning helps out a lot. Planning keeps you sane and focused of the task at hand, and the plan is to have fun. Planning for a vacation also helps you:

· Know how much money to spend

· What places in that area you want to see

· Where you want to eat

And so on ….

Here are the areas you need to concentrate when planning

1. Where do you want to go?

2. Time off (both parents and children)

3. Budget.

4. Where you are going to live for the next few days

5. Eating

6. Activities

7. Transportation

8. Packing

Now I could go on about this, but for now, I will make it brief.

The first part is where. I will use Disney Parks as an example. Let’s go with that for now. You have dreamed of Disney, your family loves Disney.

There are 6 different regions that hold a Disney Park Resort: 2 in the United States, 1 in Japan, 2 in China, and 1 in France. So, which one do you and your family want to visit?

For most people, it is obvious, go to the one in your country. This is a little bit tricky if you live in either the United States or China, where there are two sets of resort parks to choose from. Well, technically 3 if you are also close to Tokyo Disney. OK, you decided to go to Disney World.

Time Off

Once you decided where to go, the next question is when are you going? This depends on your job and your children’s schedule. The job is a no brainer. If you are new in your position or company, wait a year before going. Why? Consider this: There are people who have been there longer than you and have more experience than you. Your company may operate on the “Low man on the totem pole” method (AKA Seniority) or the “earned time off” Method (AKA PTO). In either case, it is best to wait a year to ask for any time off, so skip the vacation. If you have been there for a while, you know by now when you can ask for time off, and when you cannot. The tricky part is when you have kids in school.

School systems have gotten smarter since my last day in the 12th grade. I might say “dumber” since my last day, depending on where you live, and how much the school is willing to turn you into children services for a 5-day vacation to the “Mouse’s Florida Home”. As an aunt of 5 (3 of which are currently school-age children, 1 grown, and a great-nephew of age 2), I am in constant watch of the changes within the Columbus and Dayton Ohio school systems. They are not as bad as some of these school districts across the U.S. and in other countries. One school system in the UK can impose a fine on a parent if you pull your child out of school for anything but an illness. Another school district in Oklahoma, U.S. can turn a parent into children services if a child has several unexcused absences (equal to that of a week-long vacation). If this sounds like your school system, my suggestion is to do the typical Summer Vacation/Spring Break/Winter Break routine. It works out in the end and no one gets arrested, fined, or working out visitation rights with children services. Apparently, schools do not see an educational value in Disney.

What is your budget?

You can decide what your budget is this way: What is your income and how much you are willing to save. Disney has several options to work with every type of budget. Figure how much you are willing to spend on transportation, living arrangements, food, and activities. One website mentions a method called “Pre-trip costs”. They also said to allow for spurges, such as foods you never tried before, activities you never done before (I am thinking about trying a zipline course on my cruise in September, even though I am afraid of heights, LOL), and so on. If you allow these things, you feel less guilty when you overspend because it is already figured in the budget.

How are you getting there?

Plane, car, train, or bus. Teleportation is not yet available, and it probably will not be available in my lifetime, although I am not sure I want my atoms scattered throughout the cosmos for two seconds (thinking Star Trek thoughts, LOL). Anyway, since the last one is not available, you have to do a bit of snooping around for this part of your planning. What is the best price? How much will it cost you to get there and around? Again, it should be in the budget part of your planning. For example, from where I live, I can fly for 4 hours at the current rate of $484 (April 19, 2017) and returning April 25, 2017, which is the typical Disney Trip. (there is also a cheap trip of $107 I found in Google search). I can drive, which using my car (a 2008 Dodge Caliber), I need to get an oil change (it is screeching that right now), and gas is now $2.13 at the station where I live and in Orlando, Florida, it is $2.10 ($.03 difference, wow). My car is a gas guzzler, so I might opt for renting one. The average cost of an SUV per day is $44 (for now). Trains run about $1,200 for the round trip, and buses run about $141 for the trip to Orlando from where I live. Let’s rent a car.

Where to stay?

Now where are you going to stay? Disney World has two options: On-site, Off-site. This is the typical case for most theme parks today. The advantage between the two is when you stay on-site, there are a lot of things to do outside of the actual park itself, many of the amenities are free. Your transportation is free, activities are free at the resort (some, not all). The problem with Disney is there are so many resorts (which there are 23 of them), and they are divided between value, moderate, and deluxe. If you are the type of family that does not have that much money in the budget, always on the go, and you use the rooms as a stopping and sleeping point, maybe it is best to have a value resort. Deluxe resorts are high-end resorts and close the parks. Some may have eat-in kitchens, and you have lots of money to blow (splurge on).

Off-site (or Off property) are your Hotel 6, Holiday Inn Express, Sheraton, or even there are some places where you can rent a home for a week (Airbnb is considered). These places are your home. You do not have housekeeping to come and make your bed, make cute little animals. It is like you are living in your own home. Some properties even have their own pool at each home. You do need to leave the place where you found it. I have a link to the advantages and disadvantages of staying off and on site above.

I am going to stop there because this post is growing as I type. I know I have a lot of Disney World references in this post, and this is not sponsored by them at all. As I have explained many times that I am still a big kid at heart, and I love Disney. Your favorite vacation spot may be a cruise, Las Vegas, Spain, Italy, or even Africa. It may be a quiet romantic getaway for 2 without the kids, or girl friend’s “get away from it all trip.” Whatever the trip, the budget, and the time spend away from “normal life”, make it a good one by planning, budgeting, and “enjoying the moments” while there. The world is not going to cave in a week, and you deserve it.

from Blogger http://bit.ly/2ooOO0M via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes