5

eN5 encryption (the name refers to the substitution value of the letter N) is the standard text encryption mechanism utilised by RAVEN. 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.

The 30 bits are:

a (8) b (chroma O) c (chroma R) d (chroma I) e (chroma G) f (9) g (2) h (6) i (17) j (7) k (18) l (1) m (chroma B) n (5) o (chroma Y)

p (3) q (Ø) r (13) s (X) t (19) u (4) v (15) w (14) x (O) y (chroma V) z (16) case indicator ($)  spacer (chroma K) alt toggle (§) clear (chroma W)

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.

The

quick

brown

fox

jumps

over

the

lazy

dog

$the

quick

brown

fox

jumps

over

the

lazy

dog

72249 G

K

124962 R 16

K

O 11 Y 109

K

9 Y 18

K

69 B 35

K

Y 13 G 11

K

159 G

K

1319 V

K

I Y 2

72249

12496216

11109

918

6935

1311

159

1319

2

SXFHe

QULJcK

bRoWN

FoX

JUmPS

oVeR

THe

KZy

doG

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.

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.

100890

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 Cyfeb (itself a rebranding of an earlier outfit: The Angels of Death).

The Angels of Death were formed in Carmarthen in 1980 as a backing band for Leeds-born guitarist John Craven. The original lineup consisted of former Gong guitarist Steve Hillage and session keyboardist Carl Whittington, plus Petra Corren and Dewi Newbold from legendary Welshpool punks Dirywio. Warren Smith, Adrian Mooney and Chris Holland of Dirywio's old rivals The Seed, had replaced Hillage, Whittington and the erratic Newbold by 1984.

The Seed 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 Dirywio was largely stage-managed by the Clustcwyr label. The later lineup of The Angels of Death was effectively a takeover by The Seed -- only bassist Iain Calloway was left behind from the old lineup, effectively replaced by Petra Corren.

Corren was unquestionably the leading influence within the group, and the source of their growing militancy. She instigated the name-change to Cyfeb in 1992, and, after a spell of pregnancy and child-rearing, the further metamorphosis into the noisier, hip-hop influenced Diwydianfa. 

Diwydianfa released one 7" single each year from 1997 to 2002. The rest of their year was spent on political activism. Diwydianfa left the Clustcwyr label following the ACNC takeover in 2002, and subsequent releases were home-made productions.

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.

Corren chose not to stand for re-election in 2016, instead rekindling Diwydianfa 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 Diwydianfa before their split with Clustcwyr in 2002. The disappearing missile formed part of a televised routine for ATV'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 Diwydianfa 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.

3000363

CONSTANCE FELICITY KING (25° January 1959 - ), politician.

Born in Sheffield; raised in Laughton-en-le-Morthen, Rotherham; educated at University of York (Philosophy, 1977-80), University of Sheffield (Librarianship, 1980-1). 

Sheffield Central Library

Assistant Librarian (1981-2); Librarian (1982-6); Chief Librarian (1986-1989)

Sheffield City Council

Arts Committee: lay member (1986-1989); council member (1988-1991)

Councillor (Labour), Sheffield Central ward (1988-2001)

Planning Committee: member (1991-1994); chair (1994-2000)

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 FISU Universiade 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.

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.

Parliamentary Career

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 AVW that the bomb was the work of a company of unconventional performance artists called Diwydianfa, and that the 'plot' had even been outlined on an ATV variety show a week earlier. ISA 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.

From her safe-house, King broadcast the Diwydianfa evidence, partially undermining Medlev's integrity. She also revealed that Æ had regained control of the Teleforce 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.

AVW continues to assert King's rightful authority as UK Prime Minister.

613.107

Working hours

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. 

Full-time flexitime surplus/deficit should not exceed 35 hours.

Core working days are Monday to Friday. Weekend working is according to contract but is generally discouraged as far as possible.

Where applicable, core working hours (excluding flex-balance) are:

Start time: the later of 10am (local mean time) or dawn plus 1 hour.

Lunch allocation: flexi-minimum of 30 minutes; flexi-maximum of two hours; to be taken between noon and 2pm.

End time: the earlier of 4pm (local mean time) or dusk minus 1 hour.

Leave entitlement

Full-time staff receive 25 days (175 hours) of basic leave entitlement, plus Bank Holidays.

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.

In addition to the basic leave entitlement, the following Set leave dates apply (except when falling outside core working days):

  2° January

      + 3° January (only if falling on a Friday) 

  Summer Solstice (20° or 21° June)

      + the adjacent Monday or Friday if Summer Solstice falls on a Tuesday or Thursday

  Yuletide (21°, 22°, 23°, 24°, 27°, 28°, 29°, 30° and 31° December)

      + 20° December (only if falling on a Monday)

  Full Moon days, when not coincident with the above 

(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)

+ any single working day surrounded by weekend / holidays as a consequence of the above measures.

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.

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.

613.7999

Staff identification number (SIN)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Principle of the SIN

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:

J o h n    S m i t h    A

The seed letters for John Smith 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 445979.

960338

KATE ELSPETH WHITCHURCH (22° January 1967 - 22° January 2017), commonly known as Wynn, was an AVW journalist from 2002 to her death in 2017. Born in Lytham St Annes and raised in Folkestone, she studied Art and Design at Bristol Polytechnic before embarking upon a retail purchasing career with C&A. In 1993 she was asked to write an article for Elle magazine, ushering her gradual switch from fashion buying to freelance journalism. In 1998 she left C&A to become a staff-writer for the newly launched Red magazine, and at the start of 2002 she moved to York to join Cut.    

Her first piece for Cut, 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 A/V Woman 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.

As a consequence of an article for Cut on 22° March 2005, Whitchurch began to use gender-neutral pronouns in her work, and adopted the Old English letter Wynn (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”).     

In May 2005 Whitchurch was appointed London Editor for Cut, and helped establish the AVW offices at 7 Goldhawk Road where she developed a brief but influential working partnership with A/V Woman Fashion Editor Eve Harper-St.James. Following Harper-St.James's promotion to editor of A/V Woman in December 2005, Whitchurch provided London coverage for both magazines.

Chrissie Hammond became editor of AView 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 AVW magazines. In November 2011, Whitchurch compiled and edited the notorious "Fuck" issue of AView when Hammond was arrested in the aftermath of the Star Wars debacle.     

On 8° July 2013, Whitchurch lost her "good" eye to a falling box of Special K 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 AVW Fashion Editor and temporarily relocating to Strafford to work on her acclaimed "Understanding Your Wardrobe" series for Cut.     

In February 2014, Whitchurch was fitted with an experimental electronic eye developed by Dr Thomas Warwick at the Plaza. During the process she befriended fellow guinea-pig Ian Babsham who would go on to develop a number of technical modifications to the eye.     

Whitchurch's status among AVW's journalistic royalty was affirmed when she was elevated to the AView Eurovision jury for the magazine's 2015 Song Contest junket. Although she enjoyed the experience, she disliked writing it up for A/V Woman, 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.

In July 2015, Whitchurch returned to the Plaza 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.     

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.     

To mark Whitchurch's 50th birthday and her 15th year with AVW, AView 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.     

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".     

On Sunday 22° January, the day of Whitchurch's 50th birthday, spectators of the Swinston 360 rally race being held at the Swinston Raceway Complex, Russia, witnessed Whitchurch falling from a chapel roof, landing in the race track, and being run over by the rally leader: AD's Chaz Crowley. The race was immediately abandoned, and Whitchurch was declared dead by circuit medics. News reached her colleagues at A/V Woman just in time for a planned birthday retrospective issue to be presaged by an obituary editorial.
     

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 Plaza team. This led to a range of conspiracy theories seeking to connect various parts of the AVW 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.     

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.     

166

XENON was established by AVW 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 Babelsoft team.

In 2004, following the acquisition of ACNC and the establishment of Æ, XENON was repurposed as an all-encompassing knowledge base and wiki for the newly expanded company. The original news archive service, rebadged as XENON Archive, was retained and extended as part of the nascent Rhiannon Project.

Following the Star Wars debacle of 2011, AView 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: Scintillations.