tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13030299319891437152024-03-13T02:10:07.968+00:00XenonA/V Womanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08694234838250941963noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303029931989143715.post-15827674422204141682015-08-14T23:42:00.000+01:002016-01-26T21:08:19.586+00:0089573506<div style="text-align: justify;">
LEISTENSTEIN'S WINDOW (also called LEISTENSTEIN'S WELL) is the name given both to the apparatus and to the resulting phenomenon from which gravity beds and sodomite propulsion are derived. </div>
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<b>Nomenclature</b></div>
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While sometimes used interchangeably, <i>Leistenstein's Well</i> is increasingly applied to the apparatus, with<i> Leistenstein's Window</i> being reserved for the mercury interface effect. This article will follow that use. Dommety, Sodor and Leistenstein's original paper referred to the entire system as "the Window", while later works of the three have only served to confuse the terminology. </div>
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<b>Apparatus</b></div>
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While more commonly (and more reliably) encountered in the form of a Gravity Trellis comprising multiple wells, the Leistenstein's Window can be achieved with an individual well of 16 iron rods arranged in three layers. The bottom and top layers are of four rods (of length six units) arranged in a noughts-and-crosses-style grid (two unit squares). The middle layer is another such grid of four rods (of length 3√2 units) rotated by 45 degrees about the centre of the grid. The top and bottom layers are held two units apart, as a cube, with the middle layer sandwiched at the mid-way point. The three layers are joined at the four central nodes of each grid by four 'vertical' rods (of length nine units). Each rod describes a (c.4.5 units long) right-handed hyperbolic tangent across the central 22 units of height so as to interact with the node-points of the middle layer (in this way, a rod touching the top layer at the top right will touch the middle layer at the right and the bottom layer at the bottom right). The rods extend vertically by two units above the top layer and two units below the bottom layer. Lengths of the rods in all cases may be approximated, but should approach the appropriate ratios outlined. Crystal size is the only limiting factor (to date the largest viable unit length has been 4"). The resulting structure, called the H-frame, broadly resembles a 3D noughts-and-crosses grid:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnlQy-dN2azEGH_Pah52Yk0DuRcqo8kXWBWqljUxr1q4u2rW-RCgmZXTgN9aJ4Ny1upi15al5bjCYrbU7gQyIapMbTkhjBFq9tq1UI2yhtGQwJMbUoBs3Pg8uiYNJc2hjUPvxEjKvnaOc/s1600/leistensteinwell.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnlQy-dN2azEGH_Pah52Yk0DuRcqo8kXWBWqljUxr1q4u2rW-RCgmZXTgN9aJ4Ny1upi15al5bjCYrbU7gQyIapMbTkhjBFq9tq1UI2yhtGQwJMbUoBs3Pg8uiYNJc2hjUPvxEjKvnaOc/s640/leistensteinwell.png" width="600" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Leistenstein's Well: Top view (left); Side view (right)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Middle layer (pink) ; Leistenstein's Window (blue pecked)</span></div>
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The H-frame, thus constructed, serves as an electrode in an electrolytic sodomite solution until triangular crystals span each corner of the frame. Viewed from above, the top layer of crystals will mirror the lattice of the middle layer. The crystals on the middle layer will surround a central window of one unit square (depicted by the blue pecked line in the diagram above).<br />
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The crystalised apparatus is removed from the sodomite solution but a current is maintained through the H-frame at a sufficient strength as to gently fluoresce the highly energetic crystals.<br />
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Mercury is then poured into the well where an attractive force suspends the liquid metal as a film across the aperture at the centre of the middle layer: the Leistenstein's Window proper. Filming may also occur across other parts of the framework, although such films will not exhibit the more advanced phenomena outlined below.<br />
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<b>Development of the apparatus</b><br />
The H-frame was ascertained by Swarna Dommety at the Plaza in 2014, originally as a personal development exercise to create a sculpture in honour of Hull's UK City of Culture win. She noticed a small but palpable energy discharge from the crystals she'd grown on the frame, and began tinkering with the design to investigate the phenomenon. In this process she was assisted by her colleague, James Sodor, with whom she had previously worked on the sodomite project. Alexander Leistenstein was then invited to overlook the work and it was his suggestion to introduce the mercury in a desperate effort to track possible field effects. What he could not have anticipated was the glazing effect achieved. In an effort to test the resilience of the mercury film, the trio turned the apparatus on its side, and it was at that point that the gravitational effect became apparent. Sodor tested the effect with a ball bearing, before Leistenstein introduced first a plumb-line and later a camera into the experiments. A full account of the trio's original investigations can be found in Dommety, S., Sodor, J.E., and Leistenstein, A.A. (2016). "A laboratory-produced worm-hole phenomenon, and resultant gravity and energy effects", <i>New Journal of Physics</i>, 18 112003.<br />
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<b>Gravity effect</b><br />
A Leistenstein's Window exerts a gravitational pull in line with the location in which the crystals were formed. This pull decays as an inverse Fibonacci sequence at a rate of one step per 22 unit lengths: i.e. the first 44 units from the Window maintain a constant pull of <i>g</i>, reducing rapidly to 1/2 <i>g</i> at 66 units, 1/3 <i>g</i> at 88 units, 1/5 <i>g</i> at 110 units, 1/8 <i>g</i> at 132 units etc.<br />
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A Gravity Trellis, consisting of a number of linked H-Frames covered with a floor, is used to provide artificial gravity, not only in space but also in specialist applications on Earth.<br />
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A Gravity Trellis masks the effects of Earth gravity, casting an anti-gravitational shadow that ablates in equivalence to the aforementioned Fibonacci decay. This is especially beneficial as it means that any spacecraft built within such a shadow will effectively weigh only as much as the Gravity Trellis on which it stands, therefore requiring less energy to attain escape velocity. The same effect (in conjunction with the Fibonacci decay) can be employed in a spherical arrangement to create a gravity baffle, permitting near-zero-gravity environments on Earth.<br />
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<b>Wormhole effect</b><br />
Without the addition of an intervening floor, an object attracted to a Leistenstein Window will pass through the window and disappear. The mercury of the window is observed to glow a magenta pink when matter passes through; the glow being more intense in proportion to the speed and density of the transmitted object. An object partially passed through the Window will behave in a cohesive way (so a plumb line can continue to be manipulated as such once the plumb has disappeared through the mercury). Experiments with video cameras discovered early on that a second 'world' exists beyond the Window, although the precise location has been a matter of some debate.<br />
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The location beyond the window (the so-called Window World) is arid and atmospherically hostile: volcanic rock dominates the landscape, often at some distance below the window; there is a high density, high carbon, and often highly acidic atmosphere that led to early speculation that the location may be Venus. However, the climate is mild in comparison (the recorded temperature generally falls within 250-300°C, below Venus's coldest regions). Limited astronomical observations suggest a celestially local location, but there is debate as to precisely how local (studies are confounded by the atmospheric conditions). Leistenstein himself has speculated that the world may represent a parallel Earth of some kind, although he admits to having no evidential basis for this conjecture.<br />
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<b>Energy effect</b><br />
A Leistenstein Window radiates a small amount of heat from the Window World. Unchecked, the incremental effect of this heat can damage the surrounding sodomite crystals, potentially destroying the Window. However, it appears that most of the heat that ought otherwise to pass through from the Window World is somehow employed in maintaining the Window itself. Attempts to calculate the cooling effect this dissipation has upon the Window World have so far been inconclusive.<br />
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Perhaps most astonishingly, the high temperature atmosphere of the Window World can be employed as a heat reservoir energy source: the principle behind what is known as 'sodomite propulsion'. While a Leistenstein Window requires a constant supply of electrical energy to remain open, plus the necessary cooling (as well as the initial energy investment in the creation of the apparatus), this may be offset by the energy which can be generated from within the system. Indeed, a Gravity Trellis can be equipped to power and cool itself indefinitely. This, of course, raises significant questions, not least with respect to conservation of energy.</div>
A/V Womanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08694234838250941963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303029931989143715.post-18029567062557400952015-06-13T22:38:00.000+01:002015-06-13T22:38:19.683+01:00911819<div style="text-align: justify;">
IVAN METHUSELAH (21° October 1944 - 22° October 2014) was an <i>AVW</i> journalist from 2001 to his death in 2014. Born in Bath, his father was a Jewish refugee from Danzig and his mother managed three grocers' shops (<i>White's</i>) inherited from her father. The family was the first in their street to own a television set, though Ivan had already developed an interest in the moving image through childhood trips to the local picture house. In 1959, at the age of 15, Ivan began his journalistic career with an apprenticeship at the Keynsham Courier. He moved onto the staff of the Bristol Herald in 1962. </div>
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In 1972, Ivan met Hela Czerwińska, a Polish biologist and visiting scholar at the University of Bristol. The two had a daughter, Irene. Hela returned to Poland with Irene in 1976, and was later part of the dissident Polish <i>Flying University</i>. Ivan lost contact with Hela and Irene in 1981. </div>
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It is assumed that Hela and Irene's departure in 1976 was a contributory factor towards Ivan losing his job at the Bristol Herald that same year. He soon managed to find employment with the Cardiff Reporter but disliked working there, and in 1979 he moved north, taking a job at the Rotherham Recorder. In 1983 he submitted a review of <i>Return of the Jedi</i> to a local fanzine, and this was seen by the Recorder's editor, John Schofield, who was impressed with the writing and asked Ivan to shadow the syndicated film column they currently used at the paper. Schofield was happy with the trial and from early 1984 Ivan's film reviews became a regular feature for the Recorder. Ivan also contributed to television, theatre and concert reviews, and received a good deal of support early on for his enthusiastic and carefully scathing commentaries from miners' benefit performances. By the time his photograph was appearing on his by-line he had already curated his trademark large white beard and thick-framed glasses.</div>
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In 1992, Ivan published his first book: <i>After Endor</i>. Now considered a landmark in textual analysis, it is perhaps<i> </i>best summed up by the following excerpt: </div>
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The events in the final reel of Return of the Jedi leave us in no doubt
as to the fate of the Sanctuary Moon of Endor: the detonation of an
immense space-station in a low orbit, and the sort of 'fireworks' we see
during the celebrations spell nothing short of an Ewok holocaust... In
omitting to show this carnage, Lucas and his directors are making an
editorial decision which casts the Rebels as heroic victors, but the
truth is almost certainly far more complicated... the decision to end at
this particular point of celebration, when there is much unresolved
both in the present location and in the wider Galaxy is a political
decision: we view these events through the prism of propaganda... If the
Star Wars trilogy is a documentary cut in the interests of the
Rebellion, even the backstory crawls cannot be trusted and so it is that
we must ask ourselves "is this Evil Empire really so?" </blockquote>
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2001 saw Ivan's first involvement with <i>AVW</i> when <i>A/V Woman Productions</i> published Ivan's second book: <i>Buffy the
Homicidal Maniac</i>, an exploration of the value of life and the nature of
death in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then in October of that year he joined the <i>AView</i> editorial staff in the role he would occupy until his death. </div>
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In
2003 Ivan was diagnosed with a benign but inoperable tumour, the first effect of which was to reduce his bladder capacity beyond the length of most films. This was a great frustration to Ivan, who dubbed the tumour Margaret (after Margaret Thatcher, and with reference to Dennis Potter's Rupert). He shifted his energies to TV reviews, and in 2004 he embarked upon his much-celebrated Digi-Box Rationbook project which he ran for six years before Margaret put a stop to that too. Ivan continued
to engage with <i>AView</i> as much as health would allow (including collaborations with Aidan Ross: <i>Racing News</i> and <i>The Library of News</i>), and he presented a series of programmes on <i>ATV</i>, including arts magazine <i>The
Foyer</i>, film-club strand <i>Early Cinema</i> and the award-winning TV-criticism
show <i>Boxed In</i>. Throughout his time at <i>AVW</i> he was also part of the <i>AView Eurovision Jury</i>.</div>
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2012 was not a good year for Ivan. It began with the death of his cat, Lauren (after Lauren Laverne), who had been regularly namechecked in his columns. He said that
television died that same year (although he was referring to digital switchover
rather than ennui). It was also in 2012 that Ivan's tumour became malignant, and he was told not to expect to make his 70th birthday. </div>
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But like his Biblical namesake, Ivan Methuselah was intent upon living longer than might be considered usual under the circumstances. Six months prior to his 70th birthday he set up a Twitter account subtitled "Ivan Methuselah has six months to live tweet", and he was determined to see two things before he would accede to death: enjoy his birthday and make it to the end of the first Capaldi series of <i>Doctor Who</i>. He managed the former in a small celebration with friends, after which, at 10:39pm, he tweeted "Doctor Who seems a lot better this year." He died the following afternoon with three episodes left in the series.</div>
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When asked for his favourite film, Ivan famously replied: "well it's <i>Citizen Kane</i> but I usually tell people it's <i>Watership Down</i> to sound more interesting." </div>
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<![endif]-->Whitchurch, K. (2015): ""Europe Endless"; A/V Woman, 15(20)<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;">EUROPE ENDLESS<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;">A/V Woman; 19<sup>th</sup> May 2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;">HIS month I was
honoured to join the now legendary <i>AView</i> contingent at the mighty
Eurovision Song Contest.<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a> From this year our jury
consists of five members, because it takes three people to replace the now
sadly missed Ivan Methuselah<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a> who finally lost a
long-standing tussle against her pet cancer, Margaret, earlier this year on the
day after her 70<sup>th</sup> birthday. Perhaps you came across some of our
extensive coverage of Eurovision.<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a> I hope it was very
entertaining and not in the slightest a self-indulgent mess. I’m a very
optimistic person. Anyway, this article is about my month immersed in Europop
whimsy and Belgian lager.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The five of us: the old guard of Evan
Paris (music editor) and Chrissie Hammond (general editor), plus Karl Border
(technology), Miquita Imran (our new television editor) and myself (fashion;
don’t laugh!)<a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a> convened
at our main office on the morning of Wednesday 6<sup>th</sup>, our bulging
suitcases already proving too much for the young urchins employed beneath them.
Tearful relations and well-wishers waved us farewell as we boarded the private
train that would take us, via the Channel and Gibraltar tunnels to our host
nation, Morocco.<a href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We arrived at our Casablancan sidings on
Friday afternoon; there would be no luxury hotel rooms for us but our train is
a pretty plush one: The Shoveller<a href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a> is the <i>LNER</i>’s<a href="#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span></span></span></a> world-beating engine and
we had it hooked up to the finest residential carriages <i>ACNC</i> own. The
five of us were not the only occupants; we were accompanied by a small
diplomatic mission of the company’s ‘A&R’ division: at <i>A/V Woman</i>, a
trick is never missed to expand the imperial yoke.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do these mysterious salesmen do? Well
on the whole they keep themselves to themselves, occasionally bringing back
local businessmen and dignitaries to enjoy the splendour of our surroundings
and witness a marvel of Danish engineering (that’s Danish as in Doncaster, and
that’s a salesman’s joke). I am told that these parasitic tendrils (I mean that
in a purely scientific way) may expand the financial clout of our organization
by billions of pounds in a single week’s junket. Eurovision is not all schlager
and lager.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being an Islamic country (particularly in
the current climate), Morocco and Eurovision may seem a little incongruous, but
history thrives on such meetings of worlds. The state TV company organizing
this year’s contest know full well what’s coming, and it wouldn’t be coming if
they were minded not to grin and bear the sodomy and insobriety of our western
decadent selves. Eurovision thrives in a culture of pansies and piss-heads and
if the prospective host can’t accept that (as happened in Russia a few years
ago and will not, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) insist with a fervent
glint in their collective eye, happen again) then they shouldn’t be entering.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why then do so many African and Middle
Eastern nations want in? It’s a complicated mix of a desire for tourism, a
desire to kick the bottoms of the old Imperial powers, and a desire to simply
be seen on the same stage as the first world. In Eurovision, Luxembourg is a
more powerful entity than Germany, and, in the same way, Jordan can stick it to
Israel without getting its face blown off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so they pay the devil for this
privilege. If it means a few thousand alcohol consuming homosexuals swanning
into their capital and wiggling their bottoms provocatively at the odd Imam
then that’s a sacrifice worth making. Money so often speaks louder than Allah.
No, that’s unfair. Money is a means to an end, and the end might well be one of
social advancement. Fingers crossed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so it is that Casablanca is turning a
blind eye to the antics of the Eurovision char-à-banc, as it has with its
tourist trade for pretty much ever. Indeed, let’s be straight about this
(straight! ha) Morocco has something of a historical reputation for turning a
blind eye (and indeed a receptive bottom) to ‘that sort of thing’. What a man
does to another man in her own private pleasure-dome is between the two of them
and the ‘all-seeing’. Just don’t brandish it in my face, ta very much (which
is, save the occasional pocket, an almost universal truth).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is, of course, a certain section of
the gay community which is unhappy with this way of doing things, and it has
its reasons so to be. There is also, of course, a certain section of the
Islamic community which is unhappy with this way of doing things, albeit from a
rather different perspective. Both have been making their feelings felt, and it
has not all been pretty. It’s a battle that only antagonizes the opponent, such
is the fervour felt on each side of the debate. And so exotic rallies for both
camps are essentially self-defeating, just pissing off everybody with an ounce
of tolerance but little investment. Indeed, in a religious world the cards are
rather stacked against the ‘pride’ set, who can never out-argue eternal
damnation. The world is best turned through small degrees: come at it with a
crowbar and it’s liable to get defensive. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As aggressively polemic as the protests
have been, they have thankfully been handled with the sort of kid gloves that
made Morocco a gay paradise a few generations ago. We have not seen a
repetition of the scenes in Moscow, for which we must be thankful.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so, for the most part, the dance has
been a cordial one. Certainly, there’s plenty of booze to go round, which is
always important. Of course, there’s also a third wheel of tension at play
which has been much more of an elephant in the concert-hall: the war which dare
not speak its name.<a href="#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a> To
call the security presence oppressive would be a reasonable over-statement.
There’s very much a cordon in operation, beyond which you’re on your own.
Access to this bubble of assumed safety requires certain documents: tickets,
work papers or proof of residence. It isn’t an especially comfortable
arrangement, though the locals seem to tolerate it on the assumption that it
will prevent them from being blown up. In fairness it seems to have done the
job. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, back to the song contest. Or
rather, song contests, plural, for there are semi-finals to be considered. The
reason we have got here when we have is to be present for that most important
of events: the Western Final. The Western Final is somewhat deliberately
scheduled on the Saturday before the contest proper and in many of the
competing nations, ours increasingly included, it is seen as the contest of
most meaning. It was, of course, a concept initially mooted by our very own
Methuselah, and he was certainly rather proud to see it finally in operation.
For the uninterested among you, the Western Final is a semi-final event
consisting of the nations of northern and western Europe; that is to say the
nations of the Cold War era song contest. That is to say, before the Eastern
Bloc got involved and spoiled it for us. The top eight acts of Old Europe go
forth to meet the top eight acts of the Eastern Final, the top four acts of the
Southern Final and the hosts, Morocco, in the contest proper. But for many
competitors, a win in the local final is cherished enough. Sure, it would be
great to win the grand prix itself, but so long as we’re better than France and
Germany, that’s kind of what matters. The Western Final, by mimicking the
contest of old, replaces it effectively. We can, in fact, have our cake and be
thoroughly within our rights to ingest it: we have the Western Final and, if
we’re one of the top eight (which the UK tend to be) then we can play the
broader game too. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a great deal of attention
afforded to the Western Final, as one might expect. It is indisputably abustle.
We occupy one of the smaller commentary booths within the auditorium, which is
very much fine by us, despite it being a little on the cramped side. Evan still
feels that any sort of semi-final is wrong, but that’s something he must deal
with. The reality is that there are simply too many nations involved to do it
any other way. The rest of us feel that the current system offers the best
possible arrangement under the circumstances.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our presenting team consists of a young,
hip, slightly cheeky boy in a collarless shirt and jacket, and an older, more
stately woman in an ethnically flavoured dress, balancing a scarf somewhere
near the back of her immaculate hair-do. One could in no way shape or form
describe her as veiled; I’ve seen Iberian entries with more head-covering. It
is, in a way, a political gesture: an indicator of solidarity with the Islamic
world while at the same time an attempt to present a conventional westernized
front of the sort that goes down nicely with the tourists. On seeing the look I
began to wonder what sort of thing he might wear when not presenting a major
international competition of popular song. Perhaps a chadri, as I never did
catch a glimpse of her en drab. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>San Marino are first up, with some faintly
ethnic hard rock. It is easy to dismiss. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then it’s the UK’s turn: the cheeky retro
Carole and “My Heart Skips a Beat”: a good number with a catchy and temporally
interesting chorus but let down somewhat by the poor girl’s inability to hold
anything that might legitimately be described as a note. Unsurprising therefore
that the UK failed to make the cut. As did the next five acts. This suggests a
certain long-term memory problem in Western Europe, because Spain, at least,
were pretty interesting (three women throwing themselves about to some hardcore
flamenco disco) and most of the rest showed more than a little competence.
Still, only eight can go through. Also not in the eight but deserving of it
were Germany (with an electro-pop opera), the Netherlands (a pounding gay
anthem with more than a smattering of schlagery goodness) and the Vatican (four
men doing hymnal goth-metal). Making it through, after some moderately tense
voting, were Finland (a creepy anthemic ballad in a minor key), Sweden
(god-awful shoe-gazing rock with a cheesy chorus grafted onto it), Monaco (a
young woman performing a glitzy dance number), France (a suitably Moroccan
entry in an effort to capture the Southern vote), Belgium (an excitingly modern
electro-folk groove performed by three women and a man in matching costumes),
Luxembourg (a power-ballad), Liechtenstein (a whimsical waltz from a woman in a
big dress), and Iceland (a particularly annoying cartoon duet based around a
rock’n’roll / charleston synthesis). Of those, our favourites were the
Belgians.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With three days to kill before the next
semi: the Eastern round on Tuesday night, we slipped out of the ‘green zone’
and into the real word to experience some genuine Berber culture. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Morocco, for all its loveliness and
apparent tolerance is nonetheless not the nicest place in the world to live,
especially if you’re a journalist: the notion of a free press is probably
sufficient by itself to get you locked away. But one does have to balance this
a little with the reputations of nations south and east. In comparison to a
good many African states, Morocco is a liberal paradise. But it has some way to
go before it reaches Northern European levels of tolerance and freedom. Let’s
be bold about this: you wouldn’t want to live there. Visit, sure, by all means.
Live, not if you could help it. As with most things, this is particularly true
for women. Western fashions abound and as a non-Islamic tourist I have pretty
much the run of the place. But the lot of a Moroccan woman, while being
somewhat nicer than in some parts of the world, is still a bit shitty. While
laws have tried to bring about a greater sense of equality (particularly on a
financial level), they only go so far, and there’s still a sense of second
class even here in crazy cosmopolitan Casablanca. This is particularly obvious
of an evening, when the vast majority of women you see are tourists: wives have
homes and families with which to attend, while daughters are locked away for
their own safety and ‘modesty’. The occasional rebellious spirit turns up here
and there, but when you’re one of only a handful of women on the town,
surrounded by swarthy, sex-starved men, well, either you’re loose or you’re
rock hard (more often than not the former). Yes, being a local woman strikes me
as not much fun at all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Depressed by this thought, and having
consumed more couscous than is good for anyone, not to mention a heady quantity
of spiced stew and the bitterest teas imaginable, we crawled back to the
Eurovision camp where for the next couple of days we latched onto a festival of
local music. “In places like this”, Evan explained, “these samplers are always
a damn site better than the proper contest”. He’s unsurprisingly right.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so arrives Tuesday evening, and the
Eastern Final. This we watched on the beach, where a big screen had been
erected. Musically, it was the usual jumble of hard rock, club beats,
power-ballads and folk. Debuting Kazakhstan went with a menacing,
semi-electronic folk-metal onslaught that deserved real credit and was easily
the stand-out song of the night. Unsurprising therefore that it failed to make
the cut. Slovakia (moody folk), Slovenia (Euro-rock), Ukraine (sexy goth
dance), Russia (rousing and oddly Soviet power-ballad), Romania (a pretty,
Luxembourgish ballad by a pretty, Luxembourgish woman), Kosovo (thrash metal),
Hungary (glam rock) and Macedonia (a besuited gent doing some rather retro
chanson) were the eight finalists voted through, which was probably a fair
selection, the Kazak entry notwithstanding. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Wednesday we made a few video pieces
about the place before retiring to the luxury of our train and sampling some of
the finer goodies we’d brought with us on our journey.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so on to Thursday night: the start of
the weekend for many of the entrants in the Southern Final. This is a somewhat
depleted group: Palestine and Syria failed to select entrants on account of
being too busy fending off the Israelis, while Iraq have stayed away because
the contest clashes with its Mass Graves memorial day. Indeed, there was a good
deal of speculation as to whether or not Casablanca itself would be up for the
gig, given that the final falls on the 12<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the
terrorist bombings of 2003. But Morocco seems to have been keen to ignore any
sentimentalization of May 16<sup>th</sup>; “If we’d abandoned this contest, or
even rescheduled it, simply because of the date, it would’ve been another hit
for the terrorists, wouldn’t it?” explained a Moroccan TV spokesman. Still,
this is a city with a history of terrorist incidents, and the coincidence of
the date only served to exacerbate a perhaps not unreasonable fear given the
state of things. As it transpired, it was a fear unrealised, though to what
extent we owe our lives to the watertight security is unclear. If you were a
Moroccan suicide-bomber and Eurovision was in town, wouldn’t you be inclined to
blow your party popper there? A number of arrests were certainly made over the
course of the fortnight, with some particularly high profile swoops in the
weeks before. Whatever the truth of the matter, nothing exploded during our
visit that wasn’t meant to explode as part of the show.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poor old Israel. Whatever you might think
of them as a political entity, as a musical entity Israel have, on the whole,
been pretty impressive. But stuck in this Southern group, surrounded by Arab
Islamic nations, many of whom fail to recognize Israel at the best of times,
it’s going to struggle. In fairness, it has Greece, Cyprus, the Caucasian
states and the utterly out-of-place Malta in its potential defence, and since
the arrival of the three-semi system in 2012 they have twice edged Israel into
a final position (that’s 50% of the time). But when you go embarking upon
unpopular wars with your neighbours, you’re likely to lose a good deal of good
will, and it’s therefore perhaps unsurprising to see Israel taking nul points
this year in spite of the fact that they put in a cracking performance. The
other old guard nations of Greece, Cyprus, Turkey and Malta, also fell by the
wayside, and there’s an increasing sense of anger coming from these
Mediterranean nations: a sense that the Southern Final is unfair: that the Arab
states are an impenetrable block and whilever only five or six entries go
through from the Southern round the Mediterranean acts have little chance of
qualification. Perhaps if there wasn’t so much infighting in the Caucasian and
Mediterranean blocks they might stand a chance against the Arabs. In the long
term, if the war hots up in the Middle East, we might find the Southern group
sufficiently depleted that the Caucasus can join the Eastern Final and the
Mediterranean nations the Western Final without much difficulty. Failing that,
perhaps some increased partition of North Africa’s expansive nations could bump
the Southern group to the same size as its rivals, allowing another nation to
pass into the grand final. Neither seem altogether satisfactory solutions to
the problem, but it’s clear that, as good as things are for mainland Europe,
the Southern Final has some significant problems that need to be addressed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, progressing from Thursday night
were the Lebanon (feisty indie rock fronted by a woman), Jordan (up-beat
chanson), Algeria (an acid-jazz boy-band), Armenia (dark and ethnically charged
dance), and Libya (this year’s only full-on hip-hop finalist). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Friday night is Eurovision disco night:
easily the best night of the week: wall to wall Eurovision classics filling the
dance floor from 6pm to 3am. It’s a truly fantastic party and much continental
lager is consumed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then it comes to it: the Eurovision
Song Contest itself. This time we watch not from the venue, not from the beach,
nor from any number of programmed parties about the place; this one we watch
from our train. We have a smörgåsbord of international dishes and beverages
tailored (slightly) to the acts we are about to see. As nice as the beach was,
and the park where we watched the Southern Final on Thursday; and as privileged
as </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;">it is to see
the thing live from one of the commentary boxes, the fact of the matter is that
Eurovision is best viewed among a small group of friends on an insignificant
television surrounded by breads, cheeses and beers of various different
strengths and hues. It’s just the way of things. To do it in an expensive train
three miles away from the actual concert and 1,400 miles from home may seem a
bit stupid, but then Eurovision is stupid, so in that respect we are being
pretty consistent. We do at least get to breathe in a little of the atmosphere.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Twenty-two acts (including our first view
of the Moroccan number: suitably North African, but with little more than that
to its credit), and several bottles later we reach the interval act and the
moment at which we, the AView jury, must place our votes. I went as follows:
12pts - Belgium, 10pts - Ukraine, 8pts - Armenia, 7pts - Slovakia, 6pts - Finland,
5pts - Monaco, 4pts - France, 3pts - Libya, 2pts - Russia, 1pt – Hungary. As a
collective our points fell slightly differently, but not to any disturbing
degree.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The current voting system in the real
world is still a little more controversial than the stuff we get up to in our
own private train. The points from the semi-finals are carried over, putting
Russia in an immediate lead with the Lebanon second and Libya third. In the
final, juries can only vote for songs from outside their semi-final region, the
only exception being the Moroccan entry which enters the final on nul points
but can be voted for by any of the juries. The juries representing nations
knocked out in the semis have their votes presented en masse to save time, the
spokesperson being that of the nation with the highest unqualified song. This
helped bump Libya up into second place. From then on it is classic
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-10-12 voting all the way: arguably the best bit of the show. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since the big shake-up in 2012, national
broadcasters make the decision as to how their jury functions. Some countries
have persisted with simple juries (especially in the Middle East), others still
make use of the phone-vote (Eastern Europe in particular). In the UK, along
with much of North-West Europe, broadcast-aligned net-voting is the method of
census currently employed, and the UK was one of a number of nations giving
Libya the full twelve and easing them into that early second place. As night
wore on it became clear that this was going to be a two hare race between
Russia’s potent anthem and Libya’s rap grooves. As the final jury, Slovakia (automated
telephone tone vote) called in its results, Russia held a nine point lead over
its rival. But Slovakia would be unable to vote for Russia. Libya needed at
least 10pts from Slovakia, and so by this point those of us who were still
conscious were but inches from the screen; cheese smeared across our chins
(even I went up close, despite watching proceedings through the internal feed
of my robot eye). At eight points there was still no mention... “We give our
ten points to... who else but our delightful hosts, Morocco!” So... twelve or
nothing... The Slovakian spokesman knows that right now he’s the very centre of
the universe, and he makes the most of it. It’s amazing how annoying a
spokesman can make himself without even saying anything. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll spare you the agony, and let’s face
it, unless this article has made it to an anthology of my work at some distant
point in the future (and if it has, god help me that this article should be
considered worthy) the chances are you either know the result of the contest
already or you haven’t read this far. For those of you who <i>don’t</i> know,
and <i>have</i> read this far, you mythical beasts you (and for the poor,
underpaid editor of my anthology; dear child how I love you so; put this one
down and publish the one about oral sex instead<a href="#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a>), Libya won. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 90%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prizes dished and encores played, the
train sets off and we slope away to our sleeper cells for the long journey back
home, where complaints and conspiracies await our beady eyes in columns of
tabloid outrage. But in a year we’ll be back, just along the coast there, for
the second North African Eurovision, and I must say, I’m rather looking forward
to the prospect of a Libyan Eurovision Song Contest.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ƿ</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 90%;"></span></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>
Whitchurch described this article as “the worst piece of shit I’ve ever dared
to submit”. When asked to expand on her experiences in Morocco she replied “I’m
not a fucking travel writer; sorry.” When asked to write more about the contest
itself she said “What did we do the <i>AView </i>report for? I mean, I can copy
and paste that if you like, but I doubt the readers will be very interested.” “I
don’t like travel,” she once wrote; “I mean, I like exploring new places, but I
don’t like the getting from A to B and I don’t like all that stuff that comes
afterwards: telling people what you saw. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From someone who makes a living telling people
what they saw that might come as a curious statement, I know. But I just think
back to people’s holiday photos and how bored I used to get when relatives
started going on about what they did on the Tuesday afternoon.” I think there
was also an extent to which Whitchurch was frustrated by her inability to
properly give an eyewitness account given that her eyes were far from perfect.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ever since its establishment in 1998, <i>AView</i> had been reviewing
Eurovision Song Contests. In 2004 they established a regular jury consisting of
Evan Paris, Chrissie Hammond and Ivan Methuselah who in 2009 also went back and
reviewed every contest since the inaugural event of 1956. With the introduction
of the regional semi-final system in 2012, the <i>AView</i> jury began actually
attending the contest, reviewing the Western Final from inside the venue but
always insisting on watching the Grand Prix itself on television and surrounded
by copious quantities of food and alcohol.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ivan Methuselah (1944-2014): born in Bath to a Jewish refugee from Danzig and
the heiress to a small grocery empire. Entered journalism at the age of 15,
moving to Yorkshire at the turn of the 1980s and arriving at <i>AView</i> in
2001 as the magazine’s film and television reviewer. For eleven years he
struggled with bouts of ill health brought on by an inoperable but for the most
part benign tumour called Margaret. This caused him to concentrate his efforts
on television, most notably his celebrated Digi-box Rationbook column which
first launched in late 2004.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a> By
this point, <i>AView</i> were providing masses of video and textual on-line
material in support of their print output.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a>
Fashion was one of a number of roles Whitchurch assumed as part of the
magazine’s small body of London-based staff. In practice her ability to
function as a fashion correspondent had been greatly reduced by the loss of her
good eye in 2013, but her opinions on the subject were still immensely well
respected. Her place on the jury, though, was more down to her standing as a
senior journalist at <i>AView</i> than to her fashion brief. </div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a>
Morocco, whose first entry in the contest had been as early as 1980, secured
victory in 2014 with Halima Tazi’s “Salam”.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a>
Named with respect to <i>The Mallard</i>, and making particular reference to
the broad, flattened nose of the train, <i>The Shoveller</i> had recently
attained the status as the world’s fastest train after a number of
demonstration events and ‘diplomatic missions’ for <i>AVW</i> companies during
the course of 2015, it was put into service on the East Coast Mainline on 1<sup>st</sup>
January 2016. </div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span></span></span></a> <i>Loversall
& New Edlington Railways</i>, a deliberate backronym and the name of <i>ACNC</i>’s
Doncaster-based rail technology subsidiary. They were founded in 2010.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a> The
United States, operating primarily from Iraq and Afghanistan, had embarked upon
a full-scale invasion of Iran in 2013. Meanwhile, following on from its roundly
condemned occupation of Palestine in the same year, Israel had made a series of
what it described as ‘necessary security incursions for defensive purposes’ on
three of its neighbours: Syria, the Lebanon and Jordan. Syria’s infrastructure
had been particularly severely hit by the Israeli attacks. </div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a> I
have searched long and hard for an article about oral sex. Alas, <i>Xenon</i>
knows nothing of it.</div>
</div>
</div>
A/V Womanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08694234838250941963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303029931989143715.post-13215051862911592642015-05-10T22:09:00.000+01:002015-05-12T20:37:10.182+01:004641439<div style="text-align: justify;">
A NEW SOAP is a comic strip, a corresponding run of graphic novels, and a spin-off series of TV movies. The stories follow the fantastical adventures of a group of York students who include the four <i>AVW</i> founders and their friends (albeit depicted as being played by celebrities). The series is noted for its pop-culture references and local in-jokes. Such was the success of the series that its casting of Christopher Eccleston in the role of 'Doctor Who' (first established in 2000) was subsequently adopted by the BBC.<br />
<br />
The title, <i>A New Soap</i>, and the use of "Episode" to denote each part, is a deliberate homage to the original <i>Star Wars</i> film (aka <i>Episode IV: A New Hope</i>). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The comic strip</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Published as part of <i>AView</i>, it was written by Stew Chester and drawn by Alex Jefferson. The first strip appeared in February 1999. The last new serialisation concluded in May 2002.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The graphic novels</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>PPP</i> began publishing the strips in graphic novel form from early 2000. In May 2002 they published the first straight-to-book story: <i>The New Soap T-N-G</i>. This was followed in 2003 by <i>TARDIS Down</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The TV series</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The opening night of <i>ATV</i> featured a trailer for "Episode Nought: A New Soap" which aired on 6th May 2006. This was followed by adaptations of each book. In March 2008, <i>ANSX</i> became the only story to premiere in the TV format, while 2015's <i>The Foss Awakens</i> (another <i>Star Wars</i> pun) had a simultaneous release as a TV movie and a graphic novel.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Publication history:</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
THE PILOT EPISODES:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A group of students in a dorm at the University of York awake to find their cleaning lady has been murdered.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 1: A New Soap - 19th February 1999 (AView 01:04)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 2: A New Soap - 19th March 1999 (AView 01:05)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(graphic novel published March 2000, incorporating unissued Episode 3)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
THE CRYSTAL OF ENDERON:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The students are embroiled in the search for a magical crystal.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 4: A New Soap - 20th August 1999 (AView 01:10) (note: there was no Episode 3)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A New Soap: Episode 5 - 24th September 1999 (AView 01:11)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A New Soap: Episode 6 - 22nd October 1999 (AView 01:12)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 7 - 19th November 1999 (AView 02:01)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 8: The Christmas Special - 17th December 1999 (AView 02:03)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 9 - 7th January 2000 (AView 02:04)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(graphic novel published October 2000)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(TV adaptation, June 2006)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
THE SEARCH FOR TOSH:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The students are sucked into their television and must find their way back home.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 10 - 4th February 2000 (AView 02:06)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 11 - 18th February 2000 (AView 02:07)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 12 - 3rd March 2000 (AView 02:08)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 13 - 17th March 2000 (AView 02:09)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 14 - 31st March 2000 (AView 02:10)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Easter Special pt.I - 14th April 2000 (AView 02:11)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Easter Special pt.II - 28th April 2000 (AView 02:12)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(graphic novel published March 2001) </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(TV adaptation, July 2006)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
FRED HARRIS:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Still trapped in the television universe, the students learn that their only hope is to find Fred Harris.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 17 - 12th May 2000 (AView 02:13)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 18 - 26th May 2000 (AView 02:14)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 19 - 9th June 2000 (AView 02:15)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 20 - 23rd June 2000 (AView 02:16)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 21 - 7th July 2000 (AView 02:17)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(graphic novel published June 2001)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(TV adaptation, August 2006) </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
CARIBBEAN HOLIDAY SPECIAL:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The students find themselves cast adrift on the high seas.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 22 - 21st July 2000 (AView 02:18)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 23 - 4th August 2000 (AView 02:19)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 24 - 18th August 2000 (AView 02:20)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(graphic novel published August 2001, incorporating unissued Episode 25)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(TV adaptation, September 2006) </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
THE NEW SOAP PREQUELS:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Star Wars</i> spoof in which the students play characters from their history.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode <i>-n</i> - 1st September 2000 (AView 02:21)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The second episode - 15th September 2000 (AView 02:22)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The third episode - 29th September 2000 (AView 02:23)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(graphic novel published October 2001)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(TV adaptation, October 2006) </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
JIM V SIDDOR:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The students must face their deadliest enemy: Jim's dad.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 26: The Cheese of Ragnor - 27th October 2000 (AView 02:25) (note: there was no Episode 25)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 27: Recreational Winter Trapezoid - 24th November 2000 (AView 03:01)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 28: Good Morning Swansea - 8th December 2000 (AView 03:03)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 29: Narwhals Ate My Rhino Card - 29th December 2000 (AView 03:05)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Episode 30: The Final Episode - 12th January 2001 (AView 03:07)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(graphic novel published December 2001)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(TV adaptation, December 2006 (two episodes)) </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
THE T-N-G TRAILERS:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Eight vignettes to tease a forthcoming graphic novel.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Trailer 1 - 5th April 2002 (AView 04:18)<br />
Trailer 2 - 12th April 2002 (AView 04:19)<br />
Trailer 3 - 19th April 2002 (AView 04:20)<br />
Trailer 4 - 26th April 2002 (AView 04:21) (note: two different versions)<br />
Trailer 5 - 3rd May 2002 (AView 04:22)<br />
Trailer 6 - 10th May (AView 04:23)<br />
Trailer 7 - 17th May 2002 (AView 04:24)<br />
Trailer 8 - 24th May 2002 (AView 04:25)<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
THE NEW SOAP T-N-G:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Geese are plotting to destroy the Earth. Can our students stop them?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(published as a graphic novel, May 2002; no serialisation)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(TV adaptation, April 2007) </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
TARDIS DOWN:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The students are stranded on an alien planet without any female companionship. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(published as a graphic novel, December 2003; no serialisation)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(TV adaptation, July 2007) </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
BABYSHAM:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Six part series of stand-alone comics in which the students find themselves in Hell.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(published monthly: May-October 2004; last issue published in two different versions)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(TV adaptation, September/October 2007 (six episodes)) </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
EPISODE NOUGHT: A NEW SOAP:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
TV adaptation of the Pilot Episodes; first broadcast 6th May 2006.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
ANSX:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
TV movie, first shown 23rd March 2008. The students hatch a plan to escape Hell.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(graphic novel published November 2008)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A NEW SOAP: THE FOSS AWAKENS:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Simultaneously released as a TV movie and a graphic novel, Christmas 2015.</div>
A/V Womanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08694234838250941963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303029931989143715.post-13539251691189499462015-04-19T20:58:00.000+01:002015-04-19T21:01:08.629+01:009099.9395<div style="text-align: justify;">
RECORDIAU CLUSTCWYR (effectively <i>Earwax Records</i>, though not to be confused with the Sheffield-based sister-label of that name) were a recording studio and record label based in Cwmann, near Lampeter, Wales. The studio was established by Dafydd Morgan in 1974 to capitalise on the captive student population of the nearby (and newly expanded) St David's University College. The ensuing music scene was the subject of Evan Paris's 2000 book <i>The Locked Groove</i>, the introduction of which is given below:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
Regional music scenes vary wildly. While Manchester was
producing speed-upping angry punk, its neighbours in Liverpool were getting
into acid, and its neighbours on the other side, in Sheffield, were stealing
their mothers’ make-up and buying synthesisers. Such variation on such a local
scale continues even today despite our increasingly globalised world. Usually
some of it rises to the surface, bubbling into our consciousness and
influencing the bigger picture. Of the stuff that doesn’t, much might still
hope to find an underground national following through niche programming and
press. And then there’s the rest; the acts that never quite got there. That
Peel didn’t get around to listening to. That the NME chose to ignore. For
almost every musical scene in history there are the successes, the marginals
and the failures. The nation knows of the Human League, the musically curious
know of Cabaret Voltaire. Only the people around in Sheffield at the right time
know of Hula.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
A modicum of fame is available
for most scenes, but not all. Some may only ever hope of reaching cult
notoriety. And occasionally there is some part of the country that fails to
gain any attention at all. One such region is the subject of this book.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Wales has had its share of
attention over the years. Be it big vocal talents like Tom Jones and Shirley
Bassey, west-coast psyche-rock acts like Man, the underground successes of
Datblygu and their ilk, or the Ankst-era psychedelia of ‘90s bands like the
Gorkys and SFA (not to mention the immense success of recent dad-rockers The
Stereophonics). Much of the talent to have reached the attention of the English
ear filtered out through the north, through Liverpool labels like Probe Plus.
Even the Ankst scene was profoundly northern, based around the Caernarfon Bay
area. The other breeding ground for Welsh talent is to the south, in the
cities: Swansea and Cardiff. Down here, the talent tends to filter out through
the less scouted exit of Bristol.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Wales is something of a natural
fortress, and that which doesn’t seep out through the top or the bottom of the
country is not going to get out at all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The university town of Lampeter
is further from Swansea than Manchester is from either Liverpool or Sheffield,
and as far from Ankst country as Manchester is. It was there,
in the Teifi valley, that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dafydd Morgan
set up Recordiau Clustcwyr, a record company that has had absolutely no
commercial success outside of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the
Cardigan and Carmarthen area. Anthropologists take no end of excitement from
finding an isolated community hidden deep in the rainforests and untouched by
the rest of civilisation. Here, in the heart of Wales, is the musical
equivalent: a microcosm so trapped in its valley that it has become inbred.</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Clustcwyr</i>'s primary function was as a studio, but it also operated artist-paid pressing and a limited distribution model. Surprisingly few students engaged as far as the label side of the business, and the released material comes mostly from a network of inter-related artists operating in the Ceredigion/Carmarthenshire region. These artists were largely inherited from an earlier label:<i> Tapioca Records</i>, founded in 1959 but closed in 1974 following a suspicious fire at their isolated Joppa studio near Llanrhystud (15 miles away from <i>Clustcwyr</i>). Chief among the<i> Tapioca</i> acts were former Lampeter students turned art-rockers <i>Et Cetera</i>, and Caernarfon girl-band <i>Cathy Carrow and the Cookie Crumbs</i>. Any map of the <i>Clustcwyr</i> 'scene' starts with these two groups.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the late '70s, the label gained a strong reputation (locally speaking) for their punk output, typified by <i>Dirywio</i>'s legendary naked gig as part of their notorious 1978 "Anhrefn Yn Cymru" tour. Such antics, and <i>Dirywio</i>'s stage-managed rivalry with label-mates <i>The Seed </i>(formed by an ex-<i>Cookie Crumb</i>), served to bring <i>Clustcwyr</i> to a wider attention. The label maintained this momentum through the early-'80s with the chic yet cynical pop-rock of bands like <i>The Margarets</i> and <i>Helena's Box</i> (effectively a decapitated <i>Cookie Crumbs</i>). The latter would be <i>Clustcwyr</i>'s most successful act, and the one which came closest to breaking out, nearly being signed to <i>Island Records</i> in 1988 but breaking up instead.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sophisticated grunge-rock emerged after this, provided first by <i>The Angels of Death</i> (formed from the ashes of <i>Dirywio</i> and <i>The Seed</i>), ex-students <i>The Moisture Farmers,</i> and later <i>Rotten Fruit</i> (made up of former members of <i>The Margarets</i> and <i>Helena's Box</i>). But distribution levels fell throughout the '90s, and the label was continually being propped up by the same faces under different names (<i>The Angels of Death</i> would later be <i>Cyfeb</i> and later still <i>Diwydianfa</i>, in spite of an at-the-time unchanging lineup (a post-<i>Clustcwyr</i> iteration of <i>Diwydianfa </i>(with none of the original members) would, of course, become infamous for other reasons)). Furthermore, home recording technology was slowly eroding the studio side of the operation.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
From the mid-'90s onwards, the label shifted its focus to progressive folk acts such as <i>Llefrith</i> (another decapitation in the <i>Cookie Crumbs</i> / <i>Helena's Box</i> line) and Rhonwen Stephens (the last student on the label's books, and briefly also a member of <i>Llefrith)</i>. The new direction was sufficient to aid a small revival in fortunes, and a number of prodigal acts returned to the label, not least Sheffield-based <i>The Science Department</i> (an <i>Et Cetera</i> spin-off). This loose collective of electronic musicians introduced other Sheffield-scene acts to the valley, not least Chesterfield duo <i>MOSFET</i>. In 2001, a sister label, <i>Earwax Records</i>, was founded by <i>The Science Department</i> in Sheffield, and this introduced a brief period of cultural exchange. In 2002 the two labels merged as part of a buy-out by <i>ACNC Records</i> to create <i>RCE Records</i> (<b>R</b>ecordiau <b>C</b>lustcwyr / <b>E</b>arwax). In spite of the merger, the two labels retained their former identities, though many of the more experimental acts drifted to the Sheffield arm. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Following the buy-out, Dafydd Morgan emigrated to Mallorca. Gorwel Edwards, who had bankrolled the label in its early days and had co-managed since the mid-80s, stayed on at the helm, but was arrested for fraud in 2003, and declared bankrupt in 2004. Dafydd Morgan died later that year.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The continuing rise of home recording and paid tuition, general decline in record sales and record retailers, some unquestionably bad management, and a lack of investment finally took their toll on the two studios, and <i>RCE Records</i> were wound down in March 2006. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The barn that housed <i>Clustcwyr</i> had remained the property of Dafydd Morgan until his death in 2004. It was then bequeathed to John Craven (ex-<i>Et Cetera</i>) and Helena Jones (ex-<i>Cookie Crumbs;</i> ex-<i>Helena's Box</i>) -- the two artists had formerly hated each other, and had to perform a duet of "Some Velvet Morning" to receive the bequest; they now live together at the barn. The offices were converted into a flat, and the pair maintained the studios until 2007 when flooding destroyed much of the equipment. A good deal of the <i>Clustcwyr</i> back-catalogue was also severely damaged. The former studios have subsequently been repurposed as a practice space and venue. The Sheffield studios were likewise hit by flooding in 2007, and are now derelict.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
A/V Womanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08694234838250941963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303029931989143715.post-57417666579896479592015-04-13T23:31:00.000+01:002015-04-13T23:31:24.241+01:005<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>eN5 encryption</b> (the name refers to the substitution value of the letter N) is the standard text encryption mechanism utilised by <i>RAVEN</i>. It uses a 30-bit substitution code translated into a non-standard base carrying an additional chromatic data layer. Further encryption is generally applied to the resulting code using an assymetric peer key process.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The 30 bits are:</div>
<table border="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody>
<tr><td><div style="text-align: justify;">
a (8)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
b (chroma O)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
c (chroma R)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
d (chroma I)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
e (chroma G)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
f (9)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
g (2)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
h (6)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
i (17)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
j (7)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
k (18)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
l (1)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
m (chroma B)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
n (5)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
o (chroma Y)</div>
</td><td><div style="text-align: justify;">
p (3)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
q (Ø)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
r (13)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
s (X)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
t (19)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
u (4)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
v (15)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
w (14)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
x (O)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
y (chroma V)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
z (16)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
case indicator ($) </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
spacer (chroma K)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
alt toggle (§)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
clear (chroma W)</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
The precise details of the non-standard base formation are not made public but can to a large extent be deduced. The table below shows a typical encryption into a chromatic figure (colouring is illustrative and approximate; chromatic information is in reality encoded as a separate number string). Where appropriate, words are traditionally broken into units of five characters or less.<br />
<br /></div>
<table border="0" style="width: 100%px;">
<tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">quick</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">brown</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">fox</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">jumps</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">over</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">the</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">lazy</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">dog</span></td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">$the</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">quick</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">brown</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">fox</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">jumps</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">over</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">the</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">lazy</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">dog</span></td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">72249 G</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">K</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">124962 R 16</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">K</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">O 11 Y 109</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">K</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">9 Y 18</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">K</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">69 B 35</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">K</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Y 13 G 11</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">K</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">159 G</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">K</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">1319 V</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">K</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">I Y 2</span></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="1" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: white; font-size: small;">72249</span></td><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: small;">124962</span><span style="color: red; font-size: small;">16</span></td><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #783f04; font-size: small;">11</span><span style="color: yellow; font-size: small;">109</span></td><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">9<span style="color: yellow;">18</span></span></td><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">69<span style="color: cyan;">35</span></span></td><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-size: small;">13</span><span style="color: lime; font-size: small;">11</span></td><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">159</span></td><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: small;">1319</span></td><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple; font-size: small;">2</span>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">SXFHe</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">QULJcK</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">bRoWN</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">FoX</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">JUmPS</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">oVeR</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">THe</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">KZy</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">doG</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Superficially, the encryption is marginally lossy. The final line of the above table shows the result of a standard decryption of the chromatic figure (chromatic deductions are presented in lower case). Such aberrations are a deliberate layer of the encryption, and a simple demonstration of the process of loss can be seen with the example "lazy", where the letters L and A (encoded as 1 and 8) are reduced to K (encoded as 18). A reversal of this principle is found in "quick", where I (encoded as 17) is expanded to L and J (1 and 7). It should be understood that the precise mechanism by which such characters become expanded or reduced is governed by certain rules, and that not all such transformations are as straightforward. The exact process is governed by the base translation, but information about the input is required to generate an accurate output. To this end, alt toggles may be employed to convey further data packets for disambiguation, but in some eN5 encryptions these are deliberately withheld or may be sent separately. Likewise, the chromatic layer of the code may be separated from the main body. Without the chromatic layer, the permutations for decryption are immense. A popular but extremely basic encryption format uses a two-colour layer (chroma K and chroma W); such a decryption of the above figure would read SXFH QULJK RWN FX JUPS VR TH KZ G. Other variants of the two-colour model exchange word spacing for uniform character periods to further obscure the original text.</div>
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Assymetric peer key encryption of eN5 generally takes the form of a mathematical translation of one or both of the translation figure and/or the chromatic layer. eN5 alone is not an appropriate format for the transmission of sensitive data, unless used in conjunction with some form of assymetric cryptography.</div>
A/V Womanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08694234838250941963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303029931989143715.post-48433518804684793752015-04-12T18:42:00.000+01:002015-04-12T18:42:35.616+01:00100890<div style="text-align: justify;">
DIWYDIANFA (the name is a corruption of the Welsh for "Industry", and is taken from a misprint in a Welsh/English dictionary) were a left-wing Welsh Nationalist performance art collective who were responsible for the London Bomb. The name was first applied in 1996 to an aggressive rock band formerly known as <i>Cyfeb</i> (itself a rebranding of an earlier outfit: <i>The Angels of Death</i>).</div>
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<i>The Angels of Death</i> were formed in Carmarthen in 1980 as a backing band for Leeds-born guitarist John Craven. The original lineup consisted of former <i>Gong</i> guitarist Steve Hillage and session keyboardist Carl Whittington, plus Petra Corren and Dewi Newbold from legendary Welshpool punks <i>Dirywio</i>. Warren Smith, Adrian Mooney and Chris Holland of <i>Dirywio</i>'s old rivals <i>The Seed</i>, had replaced Hillage, Whittington and the erratic Newbold by 1984.</div>
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<i>The Seed</i> had been formed in Bangor in 1974, and had established themselves as an important Welsh Punk / New Wave act. Initially raw pub-rock, they progressed to a more mature punk sound before dabbling with electronics on their second album. Their rivalry with <i>Dirywio</i> was largely stage-managed by the <i>Clustcwyr</i> label. The later lineup of <i>The Angels of Death</i> was effectively a takeover by <i>The Seed</i> -- only bassist Iain Calloway was left behind from the old lineup, effectively replaced by Petra Corren.</div>
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Corren was unquestionably the leading influence within the group, and the source of their growing militancy. She instigated the name-change to <i>Cyfeb</i> in 1992, and, after a spell of pregnancy and child-rearing, the further metamorphosis into the noisier, hip-hop influenced <i>Diwydianfa</i>. </div>
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<i>Diwydianfa</i> released one 7" single each year from 1997 to 2002. The rest of their year was spent on political activism. <i>Diwydianfa</i> left the <i>Clustcwyr</i> label following the <i>ACNC </i>takeover in 2002, and subsequent releases were home-made productions.</div>
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Corren stood for Plaid Cymru in the 2005 general election but failed to win her seat. In 2008 she gained a place on the Carmarthenshire County Council, only to be expelled from Plaid two years later after an undisclosed incident involving the council's Chief Executive and an otter. In 2012 she retained her seat as an independent candidate. </div>
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Corren chose not to stand for re-election in 2016, instead rekindling <i>Diwydianfa</i> as a performance art collective, for the most-part with new (and no-longer strictly musical) personnel: membership of the group appears to have been somewhat fluid, and Corren herself took something of a back seat after the collective's 2017 stint at the Edinburgh Fringe. They embarked upon a tour of the UK, performing their anarchic blend of music, magic and dance in city centres. One part of their show was a disappearing act using a nuclear missile prop (intended as a metaphor for nuclear disarmament). It is not known where they originally got this prop (common speculation has it that Chris Holland bought it in a pub), but concert footage proves it had been on stage with <i>Diwydianfa</i> before their split with <i>Clustcwyr</i> in 2002. The disappearing missile formed part of a televised routine for <i>ATV</i>'s "Saturday Night at the Lindrick Palais" variety programme on 5° May 2018. One viewer wrote in to express concern that the missile was a genuine ex-Soviet weapon (or to congratulate the designer on their copy). Four days later, members of the <i>Diwydianfa </i>troupe (subsequently identified as Cam Jones, Ffion DeGroot, Daf Harris, Ed Llewellyn, Rosie Proctor, Clare Swinford, Alan Stevens, Em McLaren, and an otherwise unidentified performer known only as Hyzenflay) were performing in Trafalgar Square when the device exploded. The detonation is assumed to have been accidental.</div>
A/V Womanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08694234838250941963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303029931989143715.post-62946274580106901842015-04-11T22:16:00.000+01:002015-04-11T22:22:48.228+01:003000363CONSTANCE FELICITY KING (25° January 1959 - ), politician.<br />
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Born in Sheffield; raised in Laughton-en-le-Morthen, Rotherham; educated at University of York (Philosophy, 1977-80), University of Sheffield (Librarianship, 1980-1). </div>
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<b>Sheffield Central Library</b></div>
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Assistant Librarian (1981-2); Librarian (1982-6); Chief Librarian (1986-1989)</div>
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<b>Sheffield City Council</b></div>
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Arts Committee: lay member (1986-1989); council member (1988-1991)</div>
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Councillor (Labour), Sheffield Central ward (1988-2001)</div>
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Planning Committee: member (1991-1994); chair (1994-2000)</div>
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As a consequence of her meteoric library career (which owed much to her impressive interview skills and cool under pressure), King acquired a lay seat on the Sheffield City Council Arts Committee. An impassioned speech to the committee in 1987 helped persuade the city to abandon a costly bid for the 1991 <i>FISU Universiade</i> student games, and to focus instead on maintaining and developing critical city-centre infrastructure. Her performance encouraged her decision to run for council in 1988, and influenced her move to the city's planning committee, which she would go on to chair. During this period she was undoubtedly instrumental in the approval of a wealth of landmark building projects for ACNC, and she co-authored the city's Millennium development plan.</div>
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In 2001 she resigned the council, having been elected Labour Member of
Parliament for the new Rotherham constituency of West Lindrick (from 2007 simply Lindrick). In 2002 she gave evidence in the ACNC fraud trial.</div>
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<b>Parliamentary Career </b></div>
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Already notorious in Westminster circles for being a “conscientious
rebel” (as Tony Benn described her) in the governments of Tony Blair, she rose
to public attention in 2007 when she put herself forward as a candidate for
party leadership against Blair’s chosen successor Gordon Brown, citing the
principle that “leadership should be the choice of the party and not something
traded under the table in a restaurant” (a reference to the supposed 'Granita
Pact' in which Blair and Brown were understood to have agreed the terms of a
political succession). She entered her candidacy less than an hour and a half before
the deadline, having struggled to gain the required 45 nominations. King consistently
played down the ensuing leadership election campaign, describing it as “a
formality designed to affirm Gordon’s suitability for the job in the eyes of
the public”. However, as the campaign went on it became clear that King’s blend
of Old Labour economics and social libertarianism were going down well with a
significant core of the party membership, and the fact that King had voted
against the Iraq War was another factor in her favour. She ultimately attained
42% of the overall vote, winning the Affiliate college (60%) and Member college
(51%) but taking only 15% of the MP and MEP ballot. With such a share of the
vote it was inevitable that King would secure a cabinet position in Brown’s
government. It is understood that she was offered something approaching a free
choice of ministries, but whatever the truth of the matter, she accepted the
Department of Trade and Industry. It is also widely believed that Brown would not have called the 2007 election without significant persuasion from King.</div>
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Following the economic crisis of 2008, King was an advocate of bank nationalisation, and helped to establish the arm's-length oversight scheme by which banking debt was to be rebalanced. Her suggestion that Brown call another election in early 2009 to judge public support for tougher banking regulation was apparently considered but ultimately rejected. </div>
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King was untarnished by the parliamentary expenses scandals of 2009, but was concerned that the government should improve its image, especially after a severe kicking in the council elections. The 'National Government' reshuffle of June 2009 has the fingerprints of both King and Brown, but King's persuasive abilities were surely a factor in bringing it to fruition. She subsequently developed a strong working relationship with Liberal Democrat Treasury Minister Vince Cable. Later in 2009, King cemented her popularity by renationalising the East Coast rail franchise, and she followed this up in 2010 by blocking an American bid for the confectioner Cadbury's. By this point she was being characterised in the press as 'King Constance', an epithet she increasingly played up to. Her self-belief added to her persuasive powers, and was likely crucial in guiding the economic recovery. </div>
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King held onto her portfolio within the Brown/Clegg coalition that followed the 2012 election, and continued to pursue an effectively leftist agenda with Castle-like determination. As a Rotherham MP and former Sheffield councillor she was tangentially affected by the sex abuse scandals that emerged in the mid 2010s, and was swift to criticise former colleagues. But her own reputation remained largely untarnished. In 2015, Brown announced his intention to stand down from his position as PM, triggering a leadership contest. King put her name forward alongside David Miliband, Ed Miliband and Yvette Cooper, and won the first round of the election with 36% of the overall vote. However, after Ed Miliband and Yvette Cooper were eliminated and alternative votes applied, David Miliband was declared winner with an overall share of 50.02% against King's 49.98% -- as with 2007, King won both the Member college (53%) and Affiliate college (62%), but polled only 35% of MPs and MEPs. King was visibly disappointed to have lost so narrowly (a single MP would have swung things in her favour), but was nonetheless keen to use that narrowness to strengthen her economic brief and maintain her cabinet role overseeing Trade and Industry. King's election pitch had been criticised as too left-wing in comparison to David
Miliband's neo-Blairite stance (she had characterised the choice on offer
"ideology versus boring"), but she sought to use her strong showing as a means to reign in any Miliband-led drift back to "a dangerous Champagne Socialism" during the formation of the 2016 Manifesto. <br />
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Under the terms of the coalition agreement, Nick Clegg assumed Prime Ministerial duties going into the 2016 General Election. Labour gained 192 seats, against the Lib Dems' 189 and the Conservatives' 184: the closest three-way UK General Election result to date. Miliband and Clegg renegotiated the terms of the coalition, with Miliband as Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, and Clegg in a strengthened second role as First Lord of the Treasury (decoupled from its traditional association with the PM post). This move gave the Liberal Democrats a much greater control of economic management, sidelining King's more radical agenda. Many of King's supporters saw this move as a slight, and were quick to caricature David Miliband as a self-absorbed peacock astrut upon the world stage, handing government to the Lib Dems to keep it unsullied by the left wing of his own party.<br />
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King shifted her efforts towards addressing the clamour for greater federal powers across the UK. She advocated the creation of 12 assembly areas to coincide with the European Parliamentary Constituencies ("let's keep it simple, eh?", as she told the House of Commons), and was promoting this model in Birmingham at the time of the London Bomb. Her reactions to the incident, caught on camera, were unquestionably impressive. She later told Lana Botney: "I don't know whether it was just a growing-up-in-the-'80s-watching-Threads sort-of-thing, or what it was, but I just kind of feared the worst: it seemed the most likely fit for what we'd just experienced. It was either that or an asteroid or something, and I thought, well, whatever it is, it's going to pose the same sort of threat." Before any confirmation was received, King had aides and press gathering weather reports, enacting local emergency strategies, contacting experts and planning evacuation options. As the enormity of the crisis became clear, she remained focused on the humanitarian aspect, maintaining an open, candid, and often emotional dialogue with the press.</div>
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Following the devastation of the London Bomb, King found herself the most senior member of the coalition, and promptly called an emergency assembly in York for any surviving MPs. Only 47 attended the first such assembly: the so-called Meeting of the 47. The meeting set priorities and enacted emergency powers, establishing King as interim Prime Minister. King appointed a new temporary cabinet built largely of lay experts, while council members from across the country were drafted to the new Parliament to re-establish a representative democracy.</div>
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King now faced growing criticism from the more Hawkish element of her new Parliament (and indeed from media and the military) who demanded retaliatory action. Chief of the Defence Staff, General Eugene Medlev, revealed military intelligence suggesting Iranian responsibility, and this increased the pressure on King even further. King remained unconvinced by Medlev's evidence, and stressed the need to concentrate military minds upon the relief effort. Medlev ignored King (operating on the dubious principle that the elected Prime Minister and his nominated 'second' were both dead, thereby permitting the armed services to follow the tactical lead of the 'letter of last resort'), and ordered HMS Vengeance to ready for a nuclear strike against Iran. On 21° May several King-loyalists and cabinet members were arrested by military personnel. King herself was at Lindrick, examining evidence discovered by a team of monitoring journalists at <i>AVW</i> that the bomb was the work of a company of unconventional performance artists called <i>Diwydianfa</i>, and that the 'plot' had even been outlined on an <i>ATV</i> variety show a week earlier. <i>ISA</i> officers then set about smuggling King into a safe-house in Sheffield, as reports came through that troops from the Fulford barracks were blockading the ad hoc parliament at the University of York.<br />
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From her safe-house, King broadcast the <i>Diwydianfa</i> evidence, partially undermining Medlev's integrity. She also revealed that <i>Æ</i> had regained control of the <i>Teleforce</i> system and had just used it to neutralise a sea-launched missile attack on Iran such as the one Medlev had been advocating. She demanded the release of all parliamentary and cabinet personnel, and the immediate withdrawal of York troops. But Medlev refused to comply with her demands, and the rest is an unpleasant present.<br />
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<i>AVW</i> continues to assert King's rightful authority as UK Prime Minister.</div>
A/V Womanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08694234838250941963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303029931989143715.post-14655488049208887412015-03-31T20:41:00.001+01:002015-03-31T22:18:48.203+01:00613.107<b>Working hours</b><br />
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Full-time working hours are 35 hours per week (7 hours per day). Flexible working applies as standard and should be accommodated where possible, incorporating fixed hour rotas and minimum staffing levels where appropriate. </div>
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Full-time flexitime surplus/deficit should not exceed 35 hours.</div>
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Core working days are Monday to Friday. Weekend working is according to contract but is generally discouraged as far as possible.</div>
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Where applicable, core working hours (excluding flex-balance) are:</div>
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Start time: the later of 10am (local mean time) or dawn plus 1 hour. </div>
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Lunch allocation: flexi-minimum of 30 minutes; flexi-maximum of two hours; to be taken between noon and 2pm.</div>
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End time: the earlier of 4pm (local mean time) or dusk minus 1 hour.</div>
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<b>Leave entitlement</b></div>
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Full-time staff receive 25 days (175 hours) of basic leave entitlement, plus Bank Holidays. </div>
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A small number of staff may be required to work on Bank Holidays, but this is strongly discouraged. Where it occurs, Bank Holiday working is paid at time and a half plus lieu. </div>
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In addition to the basic leave entitlement, the following Set leave dates apply (except when falling outside core working days):</div>
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2° January</div>
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+ 3° January (only if falling on a Friday) </div>
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Summer Solstice (20° or 21° June)</div>
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+ the adjacent Monday or Friday if Summer Solstice falls on a Tuesday or Thursday</div>
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Yuletide (21°, 22°, 23°, 24°, 27°, 28°, 29°, 30° and 31° December)</div>
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+ 20° December (only if falling on a Monday)</div>
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Full Moon days, when not coincident with the above </div>
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(if Full Moon falls on a Tuesday, the holiday is taken on the adjacent Monday (unless that Monday is a Bank Holiday); if Full Moon falls on a Thursday, the holiday is taken on the adjacent Friday (unless that Friday is a Bank Holiday); if Full Moon falls on a Wednesday, and a Bank Holiday (or any of the Set leave days above) falls on a Monday or Friday in the same week, the Full Moon day is taken on the Tuesday or Thursday adjacent to the other holiday)</div>
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+ any single working day surrounded by weekend / holidays as a consequence of the above measures. </div>
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The number of the above dates varies from year to year but is usually above 15. As with Bank Holidays, some staff will be required to work on these days, but this is discouraged if possible. Where this occurs, work is paid at the standard rate plus lieu.</div>
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Bank Holidays and set days apply for part-time staff unless specifically stated in the contract. If a Bank Holiday falls outside normal working hours it is taken in lieu (pro-rata). If a Set day falls outside normal working hours it is NOT taken in lieu. Basic leave entitlement is calculated pro-rata.</div>
A/V Womanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08694234838250941963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303029931989143715.post-80619309598082577452015-03-30T21:46:00.000+01:002015-03-30T21:46:40.512+01:00613.7999<b>Staff identification number (SIN)</b><br />
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For the purposes of record keeping within Xenon, all staff are issued with an identification number. An individual's SIN also doubles as their user ID login for most online systems.</div>
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The process for generating this number is automated, and uses a simplified, achromatic iteration of a partial eN5 encryption. Owing to the nature of eN5 encryption, SIN length is variable, but generally falls within five to seven numbers.</div>
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The seed for the SIN uses the first letter of the preferred forename, the first two letters of the surname, and the final letter of the surname, plus an ascending ordinal for deduplication purposes. Where letters map chromatically, adjacent letters are employed.</div>
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While the SIN bears no direct relationship with a staff member's name, the prospect of partial (or in some cases whole) decryption means that we are willing to reassign SIN numbers for a change of name. Please note that such a reassignment is not conducted as a matter of course and must be specifically requested.</div>
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<b>Principle of the SIN</b></div>
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Many staff-members are intrigued as to how their number relates to their name. While the finer details of the eN5 encryption must necessarily be withheld in the interests of security, the following thumbnail offers a basic summary:</div>
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<b> </b></div>
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<b> <span style="color: red;">J</span> o h n <span style="color: red;">S <strike><span style="color: orange;">m</span></strike></span> <span style="color: red;">i </span>t<span style="color: red;"> h</span> <span style="color: red;"> A</span></b></div>
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The seed letters for <b>John Smith </b>should be J, S, M and H, but M is a chromatic character in eN5, so is replaced by the neighbouring letter I. A denotes that this is the first J-S-I-H seed to be issued. The corresponding output for this seed is therefore <b>445979</b>.</div>
A/V Womanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08694234838250941963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303029931989143715.post-29687222560960221532015-03-29T22:20:00.000+01:002015-04-15T20:58:30.372+01:00960338<div style="text-align: justify;">
KATE ELSPETH WHITCHURCH (22° January 1967 - 22° January 2017), commonly known as Wynn, was an <i>AVW</i> journalist from 2002 to her death in 2017. Born in Lytham St Annes and raised in Folkestone, she studied Art and Design at <i>Bristol Polytechnic</i> before embarking upon a retail purchasing career with <i>C&A</i>. In 1993 she was asked to write an article for <i>Elle</i> magazine, ushering her gradual switch from fashion buying to freelance journalism. In 1998 she left <i>C&A</i> to become a staff-writer for the newly launched <i>Red</i> magazine, and at the start of 2002 she moved to York to join <i>Cut</i>. </div>
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Her first piece for <i>Cut</i>, a commentary of a boys v girls football match, appeared on 15° January 2002. In May 2004 she was invited to write a piece for <i>A/V Woman</i> on the subject of 'legal' brothels. As part of her research she spent a week working as a prostitute in a London brothel, and the resulting article, published on 15° June 2004, did much to raise her journalistic profile.</div>
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As a consequence of an article for <i>Cut</i> on 22° March 2005, Whitchurch began to use gender-neutral pronouns in her work, and adopted the Old English letter <i>Wynn</i> (Ƿ) as a sign-off and a sobriquet (the use of further Old English characters in her writing was forbidden by editor Chrissie Hammond except “on special occasions and feast days”). </div>
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In May 2005 Whitchurch was appointed London Editor for <i>Cut</i>, and helped establish the <i>AVW</i> offices at 7 Goldhawk Road where she developed a brief but influential working partnership with <i>A/V Woman</i> Fashion Editor Eve Harper-St.James. Following Harper-St.James's promotion to editor of <i>A/V Woman</i> in December 2005, Whitchurch provided London coverage for both magazines.</div>
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Chrissie Hammond became editor of <i>AView</i> in November 2006, and Whitchurch's first of many articles in that publication came less than two months later. She subsequently took on the role of London Editor for all three <i>AVW</i> magazines. In November 2011, Whitchurch compiled and edited the notorious "Fuck" issue of <i>AView</i> when Hammond was arrested in the aftermath of the Star Wars debacle. </div>
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On 8° July 2013, Whitchurch lost her "good" eye to a falling box of <i>Special K</i> during an attack on a Worksop supermarket by a masked gunman (her left eye having sustained damage at the claws of a cat when she was five or six years old). As a consequence of her partial blindness, Whitchurch resigned her role as London Editor, assuming the largely ceremonial role of <i>AVW</i> Fashion Editor and temporarily relocating to Strafford to work on her acclaimed "Understanding Your Wardrobe" series for <i>Cut</i>. </div>
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In February 2014, Whitchurch was fitted with an experimental electronic eye developed by Dr Thomas Warwick at the <i>Plaza</i>. During the process she befriended fellow guinea-pig Ian Babsham who would go on to develop a number of technical modifications to the eye. </div>
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Whitchurch's status among <i>AVW</i>'s journalistic royalty was affirmed when she was elevated to the <i>AView Eurovision</i> jury for the magazine's 2015 Song Contest junket. Although she enjoyed the experience, she disliked writing it up for <i>A/V Woman</i>, describing her follow-up article as “the worst piece of shit I’ve ever dared to submit”. Her limited eyesight is believed to have proved a particular frustration to her during this period.</div>
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In July 2015, Whitchurch returned to the <i>Plaza</i> to participate in another of Dr Warwick's experiments: she underwent cranial surgery in order to be fitted with a ‘warwick-mesh’. After several months of practice and headaches, Whitchurch’s brain proved capable of picturing an impression of its previous activity. The experiment required all of Whitchurch's warwick feeds to be transmitted to a central database for future tests. She could access this data freely and went on to make regular use of it as an aid to memory. </div>
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Whitchurch spent the final two months of 2016 in Sheffield, tracing the last known movements of Ian Babsham who had gone missing in October of that year. Her search proved fruitless and she returned to London on New Year's Day 2017. </div>
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To mark Whitchurch's 50th birthday and her 15th year with <i>AVW</i>, <i>AView</i> editor Karl Border looked to her file for inspiration. Whitchurch had tried but failed to locate transsexual footballer Davi Jepson for her first piece, and so for an anniversary challenge Border set her the task of locating and interviewing not only Jepson but also her teammates from the 1997 FA Cup quarter-final. Whitchurch embarked upon this project on 2° January 2017. </div>
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As a matter of course, Whitchurch was left largely to her own devices when pursuing a piece, reporting back to her editors only when circumstances demanded. In this case Whitchurch put in a request to travel first to France, then to Poland and finally to Russia. These requests were met by an indulgent Border at the promise of what Whitchurch guaranteed would be a "fascinating and moving [article] with some eye-widening revelations". </div>
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On Sunday 22° January, the day of Whitchurch's 50th birthday, spectators of the <i>Swinston 360</i> rally race being held at the <i>Swinston Raceway Complex</i>, Russia, witnessed Whitchurch falling from a chapel roof, landing in the race track, and being run over by the rally leader: <i>AD</i>'s Chaz Crowley. The race was immediately abandoned, and Whitchurch was declared dead by circuit medics. News reached her colleagues at <i>A/V Woman</i> just in time for a planned birthday retrospective issue to be presaged by an obituary editorial. <br />
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A coroner's inquest reached a verdict of misadventure on 11° April 2017. Colleagues of Whitchurch were dismayed by this outcome and angered by the fact that her warwick-feed data had been withheld from the inquest on account of a strict confidentiality contract between Whitchurch and the <i>Plaza</i> team. This led to a range of conspiracy theories seeking to connect various parts of the <i>AVW</i> empire to the death. An attempt to overturn the verdict failed when it emerged that the warwick data had subsequently been erased. Global events scuppered any further efforts. </div>
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A year after Whitchurch's death, Border received from an anonymous source a canister of Super-8 film seemingly depicting warwicked stills from Whitchurch's mechanical eye taken at two minute intervals over the course of her last 20 days alive. This crucial reel of film was lost in the nuclear attack on London four months later. The attack killed Border, and nobody has been able to locate any detailed analysis he made of the reel's contents. </div>
A/V Womanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08694234838250941963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303029931989143715.post-47370191780248486562015-03-29T21:52:00.000+01:002015-04-11T22:16:47.113+01:00166<div style="text-align: justify;">
<abbr title="originally XEroxed Newspapers Online Network">XENON</abbr> was established by <i>AVW</i> in 1999 as an intranet newspaper cuttings archive. The project was led by Stew Chester and the database was formally launched on 1° January 2000. The brief was promptly expanded to include online and broadcast news material as well as print. Data harvesting was conducted by the <i>Babelsoft</i> team. <br />
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In 2004, following the acquisition of <i>ACNC</i> and the establishment of <i>Æ</i>, XENON was repurposed as an all-encompassing knowledge base and wiki for the newly expanded company. The original news archive service, rebadged as <i>XENON Archive</i>, was retained and extended as part of the nascent <i>Rhiannon Project</i>. <br />
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Following the Star Wars debacle of 2011, <i>AView</i> journalists took to the comparative privacy and stability of XENON as a mechanism for covert communication. It is generally understood that a number of entries were bastardized to incorporate coded messages, though the precise quantity and nature of such encryptions remains undetermined. In 2017/8, while conducting her investigation into the death of Kate Whitchurch, Eve Harper-St.James found "a most-concerning catalogue of errors, discrepancies and omissions" in the archives, which formed the subject of her 2019 work: <i>Scintillations.</i> </div>
A/V Womanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08694234838250941963noreply@blogger.com0