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An online shop claims that their Herbal Womb Detox Pearls will ‘cleanse’ your womb. (Picture: Etsy/Lalobaherbalism)
Teatoxes were bad enough. Detoxes in general, actually, appear to be total nonsense with little to no evidence of their claimed benefits. But at least chugging herbal tea and the occasional green juice wasn’t doing us too much harm.
That isn’t the case for the new detoxing trend to hit the internet: sticking tiny balls of herbs inside your vagina to ‘detox’ the womb.
Among others, a website called Embrace Pangaea is selling something called Herbal Womb Detox Pearls – little bags of ‘ancient herbs’ that customers are encouraged to insert deep into their vagina for up to three days to ‘cleanse the womb and return it to a balance state.’
Customers are encouraged to insert the balls of herbs deep into the vagina for up to three days. (Picture: Embrace Pangaea)
The website shows pictures of dramatic results – large pieces of discharge and blood being expelled through the vagina – and promises that the Detox Pearls can heal serious conditions such as yeast infections, endometriosis, fibroids, and bacteria vaginosis.
The seller also suggests that the pearls will detox your vagina and womb ‘spiritually’, describing the womb as ‘a vessel that can hold on to emotional, physical, and spiritual trauma and pain.’
Oh, and the pearls will apparently tighten your vagina – or, as the seller keeps claiming, your womb (which doesn’t seem like the part you’d want to be tightening).
But here’s the thing. It’s not just that the pearls have no scientific evidence to back up the claims, but also that the Herbal Womb Detox Pearls could be incredibly damaging.
Sellers claim the herbs can cure endometriosis, yeast infections, and more. (Picture: Etsy/Lalobaherbalism)
We spoke to Dr Vanessa McKay, a spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, who told us: ‘The vagina is designed to clean itself with natural secretions and should not require a ‘detox’.
‘It contains good bacteria, which are there to protect it. If these bacteria are disturbed it can lead to infection, such as bacterial vaginosis or thrush, and inflammation.
‘Perfumed products, soaps, gels, antiseptics, and vaginal douches can all affect the pH levels and the healthy balance of bacteria in the vagina, and cause irritation.’
And yes, perfumed products include whatever the heck is in those balls, which are also being sold on Etsy and Amazon.
But there appears to be no scientific evidence to back any of these claims up.(Picture: Etsy/LovePowerfully)
It’s also likely – as San Francisco based gynaecologist Dr. Jen Gunter notes on her blog – that any tightening caused by the ‘detox’ is probably the result of ‘something caustic or drying’. Again, a very bad thing.
Dr. Gunter explains that the balls will actually foster infections, not rid your womb of ‘toxins’ (WHICH DON’T EVEN EXIST, according to a lot of research out there).
‘These mesh “pearls” will just be a nidus for infection. The website actually provides proof of this as they have pictures of what they proudly claim to be the “discharge” users have removed from their vagina while using the pearls.
This is what happened when a woman sent men unsolicited vagina pics on a dating app
‘The vagina makes excess discharge when there is A) irritation B) infection C) an absence of good bacteria.
‘This discharge isn’t some toxic swill that the vagina was hiding that only the “pearls” could release, it’s a sign that these “pearls” are damaging.’
Plus, just like tampons, leaving a foreign object in your vagina for longer than a day could cause toxic shock syndrome.
In short, a terrible idea.
In short, we wouldn’t recommend these. (Picture: Lalobaherbalism)
The vagina can take care of itself, free of any unidentified herbs or detox treatments. If you’re experiencing any issues, Detox Pearls are not the solution.
Dr McKay reminds us: ‘Anyone who is worried about the way their vagina smells, or has noticed irritation or itching, should seek advice from their GP or pharmacist as they may have an infection that needs treatment.’
Rely on a professional that actually knows the vagina and only uses treatments that have been through rigorous testing – not some mysterious magical balls you find on the internet.
MORE: I used reusable sanitary towels and I liked it (and you should too)
MORE: You can now play music inside your vagina when pregnant to give your baby the time of their life
MORE: This artist wants you to wear her vagina around your neck
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The air travel data used in this study are owned by a third party, and were licensed for use under contract by International Air Travel Association (IATA)- Passenger Intelligence Services (PaxIS): <http://www.iata.org/services/statistics/intelligence/paxis/Pages/index.aspx> The same data can be purchased for use by any other researcher by contacting: Phil GENNAOUI Regional Manager -- Aviation Solutions (Asia Pacific) Tel: +65 6499 2314 \| Mob: +65 9827 0414 <[email protected]> \| [www.iata.org](http://www.iata.org)
Introduction {#sec004}
============
In May 2015, a Zika disease outbreak originated in Brazil, and by October 5, 2016, local transmission of the Zika virus had been reported in over 60 countries and territories, with over 750 thousand estimated cases \[[@pntd.0005487.ref001]\]. The World Health Organization (WHO) previously predicted that the virus would establish itself in all countries in the Americas except Canada and Chile \[[@pntd.0005487.ref002]\], and with few exceptions this scenario has proved true. Travel-imported cases have also been increasingly reported throughout the United States, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Western Europe, and China \[[@pntd.0005487.ref003]\], representing the first time Zika has been reported in many of these western countries.
The Zika virus was first isolated in 1947 in a sentinel monkey in the Zika forest of Uganda \[[@pntd.0005487.ref004]\] which gave the virus its name. It was first found in humans in 1952 \[[@pntd.0005487.ref005]\]. However, only 14 human cases were documented prior to 2007 \[[@pntd.0005487.ref006]\], and these were limited to small isolated epidemics in equatorial Africa and tropical Asia \[[@pntd.0005487.ref006]\]. Since the 1950s the virus has spread eastwards from Africa through Asia and the Pacific, culminating with the 2015-16 outbreak in Latin America \[[@pntd.0005487.ref007], [@pntd.0005487.ref008]\].
The first documented recent outbreak of Zika disease occurred on Yap Island in the Federated States of Micronesia in the North Pacific in 2007 with less than 200 acknowledged cases \[[@pntd.0005487.ref006]\]. In 2013 another outbreak occurred in French Polynesia, with around 28,000 suspected cases, at which point Zika began to be generally recognized as a re-emerging infectious disease \[[@pntd.0005487.ref009]\]. The outbreak subsequently spread from French Polynesia to other Pacific Islands including New Caledonia, Cook Island, and Easter Island, where autochthonous transmission cycles were established \[[@pntd.0005487.ref010]\]. Travel--imported cases were also documented in Japan \[[@pntd.0005487.ref011]\], Germany \[[@pntd.0005487.ref012]\] and Norway \[[@pntd.0005487.ref010]\], among other regions.
The recent outbreak in Latin America began in Brazil, with the first documented Zika case reported in May, 2015 \[[@pntd.0005487.ref013]\], although phylogenetic analyses of virus RNA sequences suggest that the virus was introduced into the Americas between May and December 2013 \[[@pntd.0005487.ref014]\]. The virus quickly spread from Brazil throughout Latin America; by February 2016, an estimated 31,555 cases were identified in Colombia alone \[[@pntd.0005487.ref002]\].
Historically, Zika infection has been associated with mild symptoms typically resembling and milder than those of related arboviruses such as dengue and chikungunya; many cases of infection show no symptoms at all. However, the recent outbreaks in French Polynesia and Latin America have been associated with much more serious clinical manifestations of the virus. In Brazil and French Polynesia, a link between Zika and a rare congenital disease, microcephaly, has been identified \[[@pntd.0005487.ref015]--[@pntd.0005487.ref022]\]. Additionally, Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) has been reported in patients infected with Zika, firstly in the 2013 French Polynesia outbreak \[[@pntd.0005487.ref023]\], and since in greater numbers in Brazil, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia, and Suriname \[[@pntd.0005487.ref022]\]. The unprecedented size of the outbreak, rate of spread, and potential links with microcephaly and GBS prompted the WHO to declare the current Zika virus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern \[[@pntd.0005487.ref024]\].
Zika now joins a list of arboviral diseases such as dengue and chikungunya that are being increasingly reported in new parts of the world, all likely introduced through global transport systems such as passenger air travel and maritime freight \[[@pntd.0005487.ref014], [@pntd.0005487.ref025]\]. Geographic spread of the virus occurs when infected travelers travel from affected regions to ones without local establishment of the disease, but in which the known and suspected vector species have established populations. Like dengue and chikungunya, Zika is known to be spread by *Aedes aegypti*; it is also strongly suspected to be spread by *Aedes albopictus*. While vectorial competence of *Ae. aegypti* is well established \[[@pntd.0005487.ref026]--[@pntd.0005487.ref029]\], and it is now confirmed to be the primary vector in spreading Zika \[[@pntd.0005487.ref030]--[@pntd.0005487.ref032]\], the capacity of *Ae. albopictus* as a secondary vector for spreading Zika is still unclear. There is evidence of the potential role of *Ae. albopictus* \[[@pntd.0005487.ref033], [@pntd.0005487.ref034]\], however, there is limited and conflicting quantitative estimate of its efficiency \[[@pntd.0005487.ref035], [@pntd.0005487.ref036]\]. Jupille *et. al.* \[[@pntd.0005487.ref035]\] found that both *Ae. aegypti* from Madeira Island and *Ae. albopictus* from France were able to transmit the Zika virus, however *Ae. albopictus* from France was found to be less suitable to sustain local transmission. Chouin-Carneiro *et. al.* \[[@pntd.0005487.ref036]\] observed high infection but low transmission rates for both *Ae. aegypti* and *Ae. albopictus*, while WHO \[[@pntd.0005487.ref031]\] notes the vector competence for both species is similar, but *Ae. albopictus* is considered to have lower vector capacity than *Ae. aegypti*. The outcomes from these studies suggests both species are capable of Zika transmission, while also highlighting the uncertainty in the role that *Ae. albopictus* may play in transmitting, spreading, and helping to maintain the virus in many areas of the world. Further, potential virus adaptation to new vectors, as demonstrated in the case of Chikungunya in La Reunion \[[@pntd.0005487.ref037], [@pntd.0005487.ref038]\], introduces additional uncertainties.
The uncertainty surrounding the vectorial competence of different *Aedes* species in spreading Zika serves as the main motivation for the present analysis. This study explicitly addresses the differences in the potential geographical risk of Zika spread and local disease cycle establishment if *Ae. aegypti* is the sole competent vector versus if both *Ae. aegypti* and *Ae. albopictus* are competent for this purpose. Scenarios which further vary in the relative capacity of *Ae. albopictus* as a secondary vector are also considered.
As noted earlier, available evidence indicates that the two species differ in their vectorial competence. Moreover, the two species also vary widely in their present geographic distribution: *Ae. aegypti* is mainly present in wet tropical regions, while *Ae. albopictus*, a much better disperser, has a wider global presence in temperate regions, including the northern United States and parts of Canada, southern regions of the Americas including Chile, parts of Western Australia and East Asia. The analysis presented here is global and carried out at the finest resolution (1 arc-minute) that was permitted by the available data. Some preliminary findings were reported earlier \[[@pntd.0005487.ref039]\] but the methodology was not described; all the analyses have been expanded and updated here and expectations from those preliminary findings were used to validate conclusions from the analysis using "back-testing".
Several recent studies have mapped the potential spread of Zika into new regions \[[@pntd.0005487.ref040]--[@pntd.0005487.ref043]\]. These studies differ from the present one in either the assumptions made about the competence of potential vector species, in the spatial resolution or geographical extent of the study areas used, or in the methodological tools that were used. Monaghan *et. al.* \[[@pntd.0005487.ref042]\] simulated *Ae. aegypti* and *Ae. albopictus* mosquito abundance based on meteorological models, and overlaid the results with travel and socioeconomic factors to estimate the cities in the United States with the highest expected cases of travel-imported Zika. Nah *et. al.* \[[@pntd.0005487.ref043]\] presented a global risk model for Zika importation which used survival analysis and publicly available epidemiological and air travel data to predict the risk of importation and local transmission of Zika at the country level. In one study, Bogoch *et. al.* \[[@pntd.0005487.ref040]\] presented an air travel-based risk map of Zika spread from Brazil into the rest of the Americas, and in another study modeled risk posed to Africa and the Asia Pacific region \[[@pntd.0005487.ref041]\]. Both works \[[@pntd.0005487.ref040], [@pntd.0005487.ref041]\] implicitly assumed Zika to be equally efficiently spread by both *Ae. aegypti* and *Ae. albopictus*, and all studies only considered airline travelers departing the Americas. However, on August 28, 2016 local Zika spread was confirmed in Singapore, and autochthonous Zika transmission has since been reported across multiple community clusters \[[@pntd.0005487.ref044]\]. With Singapore serving as a new potential source of Zika infected travelers, a substantially higher risk is posed to South and South-east Asia, where *Aedes* mosquito populations are well established, and Zika and dengue are endemic.
The present analysis extends previous work by presenting a global risk analysis based on a new mathematical framework to estimate Zika importation and establishment risk at a city level based on the most recent state of the outbreak, and accounting for uncertainties regarding the vectorial competence of *Ae. albopictus*. The risk analysis reported in this paper considers six scenarios, A, B, C, D, E and F, respectively, which vary in their assumed relative capacity of *Ae. albopictus* compared to *Ae. aegypti*, as a secondary spreading vector of Zika. The scenarios are bounded by two extreme assumptions; in Scenario A spread is assumed to be driven by *Ae. aegypti* presence alone, while in Scenario F spread is driven by *Ae. aegypti* and *Ae. albopictus* presence equally. In Scenarios B through E spread is driven predominately by *Ae. aegypti* presence with *Ae. albopictus* presence playing a lesser role. These scenarios are further described in the Materials and Methods section.
Besides air travel data, this work utilizes ecological vector habitat suitability models for *Ae. aegyti* and *Ae. albopictus* previously developed to analyze the role of air travel in the risk of geographical spread of dengue \[[@pntd.0005487.ref045]--[@pntd.0005487.ref047]\]. Those models are relevant to the risk of Zika spread because the same two vector species are implicated with one difference: while *Ae. aegypti* is known to be an efficient vector for both diseases, in the case of dengue *Ae. albopictus* is also known to be a competent but less efficient vector, whereas in the case of Zika it is a likely vector but its relative competence is unknown. Thus, the focus of this analysis will be on four questions:
1. For each scenario, what is the *expected relative risk posed to unaffected regions* by Zika-infected travelers arriving (by air) from known affected regions?
2. For each scenario, what is the *expected relative risk posed by airports in affected regions* by Zika-infected travelers departing (by air) to unaffected regions?
3. What are the intercontinental air travel routes that pose the highest risk of spreading Zika into new regions?
4. To what extent did *Ae. albopictus* play a secondary role in the 2015-2016 Zika pandemic in Latin America?
The analysis reported here only considers potential vectorial transmission of Zika. It ignores other modes of transmission that have been reported including sexual transmission \[[@pntd.0005487.ref022]\] and congenital transmission \[[@pntd.0005487.ref022]\].
Materials and methods {#sec005}
=====================
Throughout this analysis, the expected relative risk was computed as a function of three main components, the volume of travelers moving between Zika-affected regions and unaffected regions, the probabilistic expectation of established vector populations at the origin, and the probabilistic expectation of established vector populations at the destination. Because of the role of air travel, airports are central to this analysis as both origins and destinations for the spread of Zika. The vector suitability models and travel statistics used to compute passenger travel volumes are explained in further detail in the Data Section.
Risk model {#sec006}
----------
The following protocol was used for a scenario specific risk analysis. Six scenarios are considered, A--F, which vary in the assumed relative capacity of *Ae. albopictus* as a spreading vector of Zika. The six scenarios are bounded by Scenario A, where spread is assumed driven by air travel and *Ae. aegypti* presence alone, and Scenario F, where spread is assumed to be driven by air travel and both species equally. Scenario B, C, D and E represent cases where *Ae. albopictus* plays a secondary role to *Ae. aegypti*. Specifically, the relative capacity of *Ae. albopictus* compared with *Ae. aegypti* ranges from 10% to 75% across these scenarios. Assigned weights are used in the six scenarios to represent the relative capacity, and are *w* = 0, 0.10, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1 for Scenarios A--F, respectively. In Scenario A the assigned weight is 0, representing the case where *Ae. albopictus* has no capacity to spread Zika, while in Scenario F the assigned weight is equal to 1.0, representing equal capacity for the two species. The range of weights is selected to demonstrate the variability in the risk posed to or from a particular location as a function of the relative capacity of *Ae. albopictus* to transmit Zika. Because *Ae. aegypti* has been confirmed as the primary spreading vector of Zika, the sensitivity analysis is more focused on the lower relative capacities of *Ae. albopictus*, which is suspected to play a much lesser role. Given these six scenarios, the protocol consists of seven stages:
1. Identify the complete set of source airports, *S*, as those in countries in which autochthonous Zika transmission has been reported as of October 5, 2016 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) \[[@pntd.0005487.ref003]\].
2. Define the set of potentially at-risk destination airports *D*, as those airports located in cities in unaffected regions as of October 5, 2016 according to the CDC \[[@pntd.0005487.ref003]\].
3. Define $\sigma_{i}^{k}$, the relative habitat suitability for each airport *i* for each scenario *k* as a function of *Ae. aegypti* and *Ae. albopictus* established vector presence in each location, and the scenario specific weight, *w*. For Scenario *k*, the relative habitat suitability in the city served by airport *i*,is defined as: $$\sigma_{i}^{k} = 1 - \left\lbrack \left( 1 - \sigma_{i}^{ae} \right)\left( 1 - w*\sigma_{i}^{alb} \right) \right\rbrack$$ where $\sigma_{i}^{ae}$ is the relative habitat suitability of *Ae. aegypti* in the city served by airport *i*, $\sigma_{i}^{alb}$ is the relative habitat suitability of *Ae. albopictus* in the city served by airport *i*, and *w* is the weight assigned in scenario *k*, ranging between 0 and 1. When *w* = 0, $\sigma_{i}^{k} = \sigma_{i}^{ae}$, or simply the expected presence of *Ae. aegypti* in the city served by airport *i*. When *w* = 1, $\sigma_{i}^{k}$ is equivalent to the expected presence of either *Ae. aegypti* or *Ae. albopictus* in the city served by airport *i*. The habitat suitabilities for each vector are normalized to a 0-1 scale.
4. For each scenario *k*, compute the travel route risk for each origin-destination pair, *ij*, connecting a source airport, *i*, and an at-risk destination airport, *j*. Define the route risk as $$r_{ij}^{k} = V_{ij}\sigma_{i}^{k}\sigma_{j}^{k}$$ where *V*~*ij*~ is the volume of travel between origin airport *i* ∈ *S* and destination airport *j* ∈ *D*, and $\sigma_{i}^{k}$ is the relative vector habitat suitability for scenario *k* in the city served by airport *i*.
5. For each scenario *k*, compute the destination risk posed to each at-risk airport *j*, $d_{j}^{k}$, by aggregating the incoming route risks from all source airports in set *S*, $$d_{j}^{k} = \sum\limits_{i \in S}r_{ij}^{k}\mspace{600mu}\forall j \in D$$
6. For each scenario *k*, compute the origin risk posed by each source airport *i*, $o_{i}^{k}$, by aggregating the outgoing route risks across all connected at-risk destination airports in set *D*, $$o_{i}^{k} = \sum\limits_{j \in D}r_{ij}^{k}\mspace{600mu}\forall i \in S$$
7. For steps 5 and 6, the computed risks for each origin and destination for each scenario were normalized to the highest risk value in Scenario D as follows: ${\widetilde{d}}_{j}^{k} = \frac{d_{j}^{k}}{max_{j}d_{j}^{F}}\mspace{600mu}\forall j \in D$ and ${\widetilde{o}}_{i}^{k} = \frac{o_{i}^{k}}{max_{i}o_{i}^{F}}\mspace{600mu}\forall i \in S$, respectively, to reflect the expected relative risk (a value ranging between 0 and 1) posed in each scenario.
Back-testing {#sec007}
------------
A separate analysis was conducted to evaluate the performance of the risk model. The protocol described above was re-implemented, wherein the set of source airports, *S*, was defined as those in areas with autochthonous Zika transmission as of February 15, 2016 rather than October 5, 2016 \[[@pntd.0005487.ref039]\]. Between February 15 and October 5, 2016, 29 new countries and territories were added to the CDC list of affected regions. The ranking and relative risk quantified by the proposed model for each scenario for these 29 countries is presented and discussed. This analysis also serves to identify the sceanrio most consistent with the observed outbreak, and thus the role played by the secondary spreading vector, *Ae. albopictus*.
Data {#sec008}
----
The proposed risk model is based on data from the global air traffic network and species distribution models for the principle spreading vectors species.
### Travel data {#sec009}
The transportation data was obtained from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), and included origin, destination and stopover airports for all routes, as well as the calibrated passenger travel volumes for each route. The route-specific passenger travel volumes supplied by IATA were calibrated based on data from 240 airlines comprising 84% of global air traffic, and includes over 3400 airports. The passenger volumes were available at a monthly temporal resolution, which thus determined the temporal resolution of the model. The transportation data used in this paper were limited to passenger travel volumes and did not include cargo flights on which vectors could potentially be transported because the latter mode of Zika spread was excluded from this model. The analysis was done using flight paths and travel volumes for all routes in October 2015. These are the most recent data available for this annual period.
### Species distribution models {#sec010}
The risk for the establishment of Zika and potential cases of disease in an originally non-endemic area depends fundamentally on the ability of a vector to establish itself in that area, that is, on the ecological conditions for the vector there. When these ecological conditions are suitable, the disease may become endemic if the vector species successfully disperses to that area. A quantitative relative measure of the suitability of one area compared to another defines the relative ecological risk of that area \[[@pntd.0005487.ref048]--[@pntd.0005487.ref050]\]. If the ecological risk is low, such an establishment is highly unlikely. If that risk is high, then other factors, such as the (temporally) immediate ambient environmental conditions and the size of the founder population or the availability of hosts, become critical for establishment.
This analysis was based on habitat suitability for the two principal Zika vector species, *Ae. aegypti* and *Ae. albopictus*. The relative ecological risk for the establishment for each species was estimated using a global species distribution model at a 1 arc-minute resolution \[[@pntd.0005487.ref051], [@pntd.0005487.ref052]\] based on a maximum entropy algorithm incorporated in the Maxent software package \[[@pntd.0005487.ref053], [@pntd.0005487.ref054]\]. Details of these models have been published earlier in the context of risk of dengue spread through air travel \[[@pntd.0005487.ref045]--[@pntd.0005487.ref047]\]. The same algorithm has since been used by others to model the distribution of these species at a coarser spatial resolution \[[@pntd.0005487.ref055]\]. A different algorithm has been used by another group, also at a coarser resolution, to map the global distribution of the two vectors \[[@pntd.0005487.ref056]\], and the environmental suitability for Zika \[[@pntd.0005487.ref057]\]. While it is impossible to compare these results formally because of the differences in spatial resolution, the predicted distributions all appear to share the same geographical extent suggesting strongly that these models are good indicators of where these *Aedes* species are likely to be present.
In this risk analysis, it was assumed that these two species do not interact, that is, the probability of the presence of each is independent of that of the presence of the other. Thus, the probabilistic expectation of at least one of the vector species being present in a cell was calculated as the complement of the probability that neither is present, assuming statistical independence, as defined in [eq (1)](#pntd.0005487.e002){ref-type="disp-formula"}. The expectations are aggregated to the city level by averaging them over all the cells in the relevant geographical units. These expectations define the relative ecological risk for Zika in each cell. Habitat suitability for each city in this analysis was computed by aggregating across all cells in a circle with a radius of 50 km. This study does not explicitly account for population size or the human-to-vector ratio in a region, although the arrival travel volumes, which are included, are highly correlated to regional population levels.
Results {#sec011}
=======
The destination risk model results are illustrated in [Fig 1](#pntd.0005487.g001){ref-type="fig"}. The top 100 cities to which Zika may be imported from affected regions for scenarios A, C, D, E and F are shown. The results for Scenario B are too hard to distinguish from A and C in the figure, so it is left out. The size of the circle represents the estimated expected relative risk posed to each city, with the color indicating the scenario. For those cities which are served by more than one international airport, the relative risk for all airports which serve the given city are aggregated. Solid dark red indicates the risk from *Ae. aegypti* alone, *i.e.*, Scenario A, and the color of the circles lightens progressively from Scenario A to Scenario F. All risk values are computed using [eq (3)](#pntd.0005487.e010){ref-type="disp-formula"}, for their respective scenarios.
{#pntd.0005487.g001}
[S1 Table](#pntd.0005487.s001){ref-type="supplementary-material"} contains the list of the top 100 at risk destination cities included in the map for all six scenarios, including their corresponding rank, relative risk, and designated country.
To gain a better understanding of the risk posed by outgoing travelers, the risk posed by each city in a known affected region for exporting infected travelers is also assessed. The top 100 origin cities in the affected regions likely to export Zika to new regions are listed in [S2 Table](#pntd.0005487.s002){ref-type="supplementary-material"}, including their corresponding rank, relative risk, and designated country. Similarly to the destination risk, the relative risk at the city level is aggregated over all airports which serve a given city.
[S3](#pntd.0005487.s003){ref-type="supplementary-material"} and [S4](#pntd.0005487.s004){ref-type="supplementary-material"} Tables further breaks down the previous results to identify those routes which carry the most risk into and out of cities, and include the top 100 highest risk origin-destination city travel pairs for Scenario A and F, respectively.
Finally, in regard to validation, the model was run for each scenario using the set of sources as of February 15, 2016 along with travel data for February 2015. The destination risk results were aggregated to the country level, ranked and compared with the actual set of 29 counties/territories that were added to the CDC list of confirmed affected regions between February 15th, 2016 and October 5, 2016. Results from the back-testing analysis for each scenario are presented in [S5](#pntd.0005487.s005){ref-type="supplementary-material"} and [S6](#pntd.0005487.s006){ref-type="supplementary-material"} Tables. [S5 Table](#pntd.0005487.s005){ref-type="supplementary-material"} lists the set of 29 Countries with local Zika transmission confirmed between February 15 and October 5 and the relative ranking for each of those countries computed for each of the six scenarios. [S6 Table](#pntd.0005487.s006){ref-type="supplementary-material"} lists the top 29 countries at risk for the six scenarios. The results reveal Scenario A identified more of the 29 countries in it's top 29 ranking than the other three scenarios, however all scenarios identified at least 15 of the 29, in their top 29. A more detailed discussion of these results will be presented as part of the Discussion below.
Discussion {#sec012}
==========
By October 5, 2016 Zika had already become established throughout most of the Americas, which was also predicted by our earlier analysis \[[@pntd.0005487.ref039]\]. Based on the status of the outbreak in early October 2015, the results reveal the United States and South and Southeast Asia to be at greatest risk of Zika becoming locally established. This is true for all scenarios considered, although the top 100 set of cities and corresponding rank does vary among the six scenarios. The main differences being if *Ae. aegypti* is the only competent Zika vector, then risk of local establishment in north America is concentrated in Texas and Florida, with South and East Asia and Australia following closely. However, if *Ae. albopictus* is a competent vector of Zika, then there is increased risk of local establishment in much of Western Europe and the U.S., Canada, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, as well as South and East Asia. In total, the risk posed to each country is increased by at least a factor of three, when both species of mosquitoes are considered.
The destination cities at highest risk are similar across all scenarios, with Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Bangkok and Hong Kong topping all lists. As the assumed role of *Ae. albopictus* increases across the scenarios, the risk posed to major cities in the U.S. such as New York City and Los Angeles increases, as does the risk to major cities in Western Europe, specifically Rome, London, Paris and Amsterdam. When *Ae. albopictus* is considered an equal spreading vector, New York City becomes one of the top five at risk destinations, outranking Houston. The high risk posed to cities in Florida, Houston and New York is predominately due to the recent establishment of Zika in Miami. In fact, the Miami-to-Houston travel route is ranked in the top ten of all travel routes for Scenario A; however, it is replaced by the Miami-to-New York travel route for Scenario F. Within the U.S. our results are also consistent with those from \[[@pntd.0005487.ref042]\]; both studies conclude Texas and Florida are at highest risk, specifically Miami, Orlando and Houston. Increasingly, travel cases are being reported in almost all U.S. States, and other countries including Argentina, Chile, France, Italy, New Zealand \[[@pntd.0005487.ref022]\], which are all identified to be at high risk by our model.
The more recent increased risk posed to cities in Asia is predominately due to the local establishment of Zika in Singapore. Singapore is a global travel hub, with especially high connectivity to major cities throughout the Asia Pacific region, which also have established populations of *Aedes* mosquitoes, and are prone to outbreaks of dengue and even some small outbreaks of Zika. For this reason, cities in Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, India, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia are at high risk of importation resulting in local outbreaks. In fact, in September 2016 the CDC issued a Zika travel notice to 11 Zika endemic countries in Southeast Asia after confirmed local outbreaks in the region, however, the actual risk posed to locals and travelers remains unclear. Cities in Australia and New Zealand are similarly at increased risk due to the high travel connectivity with the Asia-Pacific region. For the scenarios which consider additional risk posed by *Ae. albopictus*, Tokyo, Japan as well as multiple European cities including Rome, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Lisbon, and even San Francisco are identified to be at risk of local establishment. Of the 20 highest ranked cities in Scenario F, four are served by at least two major airports, including Tokyo, London, Paris, and New York, which partially contributes to their increased risk of Zika importation and establishment, as illustrated in [Fig 1](#pntd.0005487.g001){ref-type="fig"}. The destinations at highest risk of Zika importation should prepare and implement mosquito surveillance and control efforts, in order to reduce the likelihood of local establishment, or, in those Southeast Asian cities where Zika is already endemic, the likelihood of new local outbreaks.
An additional means to control the spread of Zika is to conduct surveillance at the sources of travel to limit the number of outgoing cases. However, it is unrealistic to implement control at every airport in a region affected by Zika. By having a better understanding of the risk posed by individual airports and cities the available resources in a country can be optimally allocated. For all scenarios Singapore is identified as the highest risk origin. This is again due to its highly connected and globally central location. Miami, Florida, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Cancun, Mexico are ranked second, third, and fourth in all scenarios, with Nadi, Fiji and Nassau, Bahamas ranking 5th and 6th in scenarios A, B and C, and Sao Paulo, Brazil ranking 5th in Scenario D, E and F. This outcome is of particular concern because many of these cities are highly popular tourist destinations for many U.S. and European residents. In order to prevent further global spread and establishment of Zika, it is imperative that these major travel destinations get the local outbreaks under control.
In efforts to better understand the destination and origin rankings discussed previously, the city-level analysis was further disaggregated to explicitly identify the travel routes carrying the highest risk of spreading Zika into new regions. This type of analysis allows for the specific incoming and outgoing flights which pose the highest risk to be identified and targeted for mosquito surveillance and targeted passenger screening. As noted above, these route-level results are included in [S3](#pntd.0005487.s003){ref-type="supplementary-material"} and [S4](#pntd.0005487.s004){ref-type="supplementary-material"} Tables, for Scenario A and F only. For these two scenarios, six and eight of the highest risk routes originate in Singapore. When only *Ae. aegypti* is considered, six of the top ten highest risk routes depart Singapore for cities in south and east Asia, with the top one arriving in Bangkok, followed by Hong Kong. Three of the top ten routes arrive in Florida, from either San Juan or Nassau, and the travel route between Miami and Houston is listed 10th. For Scenario F, eight of the top ten highest risk routes depart Singapore to cities in Asia. The only two routes in the top ten list not departing Singapore are from San Juan to Orlando and Miami to New York. These routes align closely with the top origins and destinations discussed previously.
Model validation {#sec013}
----------------
As the Zika outbreak continues to progress, the number of countries with local transmission is increasing, and this was especially the case during the first half of 2016. The results presented thus far serve as projected relative risk estimates for each city, and can be used to identify the locations most likely to see imported cases followed by local outbreaks in the near future. However, in an attempt to evaluate the model's ability to accurately identify the regions most likely to experience future outbreaks, as well as identify the level of contribution of *Ae. albopictus* in the outbreak, we implemented the model using the state of the outbreak in February 15, 2016 (to define the set of high risk sources), and compared the model outcomes across all scenarios with the actual set of regions later confirmed to be infected. (These earlier results were partially noted in \[[@pntd.0005487.ref039]\]). In fact, all six scenarios ranked Miami, Florida as the top at-risk destination by a significant margin, and in late July, 2016 the first autochthonous Zika cycle in the United States was reported to have been established in the Miami, Florida region.
Between February 15th, 2016 and October 5, 2016 29 new counties or territories were added to the CDC list of confirmed affected regions. These countries are listed in [S5 Table](#pntd.0005487.s005){ref-type="supplementary-material"}. For each of the six scenarios considered, a country level ranking was computed by aggregating the incoming risk across all cities in a given country, and ranking the countries accordingly. These country-level results from the back-testing are presented in S5 with their respective ranking, alongside the list of new countries added to the CDC list during that time. All six scenarios identified at least 15 of the 29 countries in their respective top ranked 29. However, Scenario A outperformed the other five scenarios, with 21 of the top ranked 29 countries accounted for. As the assumed relative capacity of *Ae. albopictus* increased, the number of top ranked countries matching the 29 confirmed affected countries decreased. This result suggest that Scenario A, which only accounts for *Ae. aegypti* presence, is the most accurate model for identifying the regions most likely to experience local establishment in the future.
However, it is important to recognize the discrepancy in the rankings across scenarios highlights an important factor; when comparing the performance of the different scenarios it is important to distinguish between risk of importation and risk of local establishment, the later of which we are comparing the results with. In the five scenarios which account for the additional presence of *Ae. albopictus*, an increasing number of countries identified as high risk (these are listed in [S6 Table](#pntd.0005487.s006){ref-type="supplementary-material"}) are in more developed regions, compared with those countries identified by Scenario A. This discrepancy is because suitable habitats for *Ae. albopictus* expand much further north and south of the equator when compared with *Ae. aegypti*, therefore many cities in Europe, as well as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and major cities in the northern U.S. are at substantially increased risk of Zika establishment only if *Ae. albopictus* is a capable spreading vector. While these locations, critically, have established vector populations and have experienced a high number of imported cases \[[@pntd.0005487.ref003]\], with the sole exception of Miami, they did not lead to local establishment, likely due to the resources available for local mosquito control and surveillance. Therefore, until the capacity, or lack there of, of *Ae. albopictus* is confirmed, the cities identified at highest risk in all Scenarios should continue to be subject to a high level of surveillance.
Finally, the country level risk predictions in \[[@pntd.0005487.ref043]\] are also consistent with the outcomes of this study. After aggregating the city level relative risks to the country level, the United States and Argentina were identified to be at highest risk in the present study. Nah *et. al.* \[[@pntd.0005487.ref043]\] (who excluded the U.S.) also identified Argentina to be at highest risk of Zika importation, followed by Portugal, Uruguay, Spain, and Peru, which are also among our top ranked countries across the scenarios. While many of the same countries were identified to be at high risk by both models, discrepancies in the rankings exists for various reasons. Firstly, Nah *et. al.* \[[@pntd.0005487.ref043]\] estimated the risks of importation and local transmission separately, while our model combines the two within a single risk modeling framework. Secondly, the present study was conducted at a later state in the outbreak when more countries were confirmed to have local transmission; these countries are listed in \[[@pntd.0005487.ref043]\] as at-risk of importation, while in the present study they are considered to pose additional risk. Additionally, the present study is conducted at the city level instead of the country level, and due to the more spatially disaggregate analysis, the results can not be directly compared. Although the methodologies vary substantially between these studies, the consistency among the model results serves to further validate the present study.
The preliminary findings did not identify the Federated States of Micronesia or the Marshall Islands as high at-risk destinations of any rank, which highlights one of the potential limitations of this analysis that will be explicitly discussed below.
Limitations {#sec014}
-----------
This work takes a major step towards improving our understanding of the spreading risk posed by Zika, however there are six limitations of this analysis, including persistent uncertainties regarding epidemiological parameter estimates, which must be noted here and addressed in future research:
1. The back-testing showed that the preliminary finding based on the methodology used in this analysis failed to identify two apparently high risk destinations: the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. The reason for this is a limitation in the available travel data; airports in these countries had no incoming travel from regions with confirmed local cases. One possible explanation for this is that infected travelers' itineraries are not fully captured in the data set, *i.e.*, they had separate bookings so records of their complete travel history were absent. Such cases could include a traveler who holidayed in Brazil and became infected with Zika, then traveled to California for a few days on one booking, and then traveled to the Marshall Islands on a separate booking. While this passenger clearly represents a risk to the Marshall Islands, the incomplete travel data limits the ability of the model to identify this traveler as a potential source of infection. Real time mobility data from telecoms which tracks individuals over time is one possible means to address this issue. Another possible explanation for the discrepancy is incorrect epidemiological data, *i.e.*, the travel origin (of the individuals who introduced Zika into New Caledonia or Marshall Islands) was actually an affected region which had not yet been recognized as a source risk.
2. A second recognized limitation of this analysis is due to the lack of even more recent travel data. Over the last year global air travel increased on average at a steady rate, however certain regions of the world have grown faster than others \[[@pntd.0005487.ref058]\]. Specifically, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions have seen a slightly higher than average increases in air travel volumes. Furthermore, the computed risk in the analysis is systematically underestimated because flights originating in other areas historically endemic for Zika that are not currently reporting local transmission are not taken into account.
3. Zika could be efficiently spread by mosquito species other than *Ae. aegypti* and even *Ae. albopictus*. Ayres \[[@pntd.0005487.ref059]\] has recently pointed out that the virus has been collected from at least ten mosquito species from the genus *Aedes*, as well as from species from the genera *Anopheles*, *Culex*, and *Mansonia*, while Aliota *et. al.* \[[@pntd.0005487.ref060]\] confirmed neither *Culex pipiens* or *Ae. triseriatus* mosquitoes are competent Zika virus vectors. However, the presence of the virus does not automatically make the species an efficient vector for the disease. The risk analysis strategy that has been used in this analysis can be extended to take these details into account as shown by the risk maps for malaria in Africa produced by Moffett *et al* \[[@pntd.0005487.ref049]\]. As this analysis underscores for *Ae. albopictus*, relative vector competence has a substantial impact on the geographic risk profile, and further research into the parameters relevant to determining vector competencies is still necessary for Zika transmission.
4. This study accounts for a single mode of inter-regional travel, passenger air trips. Global geographical spread is delimited by travel almost entirely, and air travel captures the vast majority of long distance trips. However, shorter distance trips, especially over land, can be made using alternative travel modes such as car and bus, which are excluded from this study. Therefore, the results from this analysis likely underestimate the risk posed to destinations in close spatial proximity to affected regions. An example of this is Cameron County in Texas, where local cases have been confirmed. This county shares a border with Mexico, and there are high volumes of road travel between the two. To accurately capture multi-modal human mobility patterns either requires data from multiple transport sources, or data which is not linked to any specific transport mode, such as mobile phone data, which as noted previously, offers significant potential in modeling and predicting epidemic spreading risk.
5. In this study outbreak size is not explicitly accounted for at the set of sources, and is instead treated as a binary variable, *i.e.*, local transmission is either present or not. This can potentially lead to biases in the model, especially against countries that have substantially high travel volumes, but smaller outbreaks. In such a case the risk posed would be overestimated. This proposed risk analysis could easily be adapted to incorporate outbreak size in terms of cases, however, accurately estimating the number of cases in a given city at a given time at the global scale is, at this point, an unrealistic option. However, this would be a substantially useful data set were the proper public health authority to provide it, and could increase the accuracy of the model predictions.
6. Finally, this analysis ignores the role of potential spreading mechanisms other than human-to-human transmission mediated through a mosquito vector. In addition to the traditional spreading risk posed by mosquito populations, new potential spreading mechanisms have recently emerged for Zika. There have been several verified and potential documented cases of sexual transmission of Zika \[[@pntd.0005487.ref061]--[@pntd.0005487.ref063]\]. The virus has also been detected in the saliva \[[@pntd.0005487.ref064]\] and urine \[[@pntd.0005487.ref065]\] of infected individuals, and vertical cases of transmission have been documented in the Pacific Islands \[[@pntd.0005487.ref017]\]. The Zika virus has also been found in non-human primates, suggesting the possibility of maintenance and spread through alternative animal hosts \[[@pntd.0005487.ref004], [@pntd.0005487.ref033], [@pntd.0005487.ref066]--[@pntd.0005487.ref070]\]. While local establishment may depend on a variety of factors, vector habitat suitability will play a predominant role even though there may be other modes of transmission. Nonetheless, further research is necessary to understand if and where these potential modes of transmission are a factor in the local spreading risk of Zika. How such factors will necessitate modification of this risk analysis remains to be seen.
Conclusions {#sec015}
-----------
Results from this analysis highlight the substantial geographic and quantitative increase in global risk posed as a function of the relative capacity of *Ae. albopictus* as a secondary spreading vector of Zika, and reveal the set of cities at greatest risk of Zika importation and establishment. The results from the back-testing suggest that the geographic spread of Zika is driven primarily by *Ae. aegypti*, which is consistent with other studies \[[@pntd.0005487.ref030]--[@pntd.0005487.ref032]\]. However, the results from the different scenarios also highlight the increased risk posed to new parts of the world, specifically the U.S. and Europe, if *Ae. albopictus* were to become a more capable spreading vector. To control the spread of Zika geographically, local surveillance and control efforts are required in both known affected regions and at-risk regions yet to report cases. This is true for locations with reported travel-imported cases that have yet to see locally established cases.
As the Zika outbreak continues to spread internationally, so does the uncertainty surrounding the local transmission mechanisms and clinical manifestations of the disease. The possibility of direct human-to-human Zika transmission demands further immediate investigation, and the link between Zika and microcephaly and GBS are of vital concern. Lastly, the uncertainty associated with Zika risk is further compounded based on the implications from the analysis presented here which shows that the vector competence of *Ae. albopictus* relative to *Ae. aegypti* demands further investigation. This goal can only be achieved through a combination of field studies to collect a representative variety of strains of these vectors followed by laboratory studies of virus transmission.
Supporting information {#sec016}
======================
###### Top 100 Destination Cities at Risk under all Scenarios.
(PDF)
######
Click here for additional data file.
###### Top 100 Origin Cities Posing Risk under all Scenarios.
(PDF)
######
Click here for additional data file.
###### Top 100 High Risk Travel Routes under Scenario A.
(PDF)
######
Click here for additional data file.
###### Top 100 High Risk Travel Routes under Scenario D.
(PDF)
######
Click here for additional data file.
###### Set of Countries with local Zika transmission confirmed between February 15 and October 5 and relative ranking by Scenario.
(PDF)
######
Click here for additional data file.
###### Top 29 Countries identified at greatest risk by each scenario based on outbreak status as of February 15, 2016.
(PDF)
######
Click here for additional data file.
[^1]: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
[^2]: **Conceptualization:** LG SS.**Data curation:** LG SS NC.**Formal analysis:** LG SS NC.**Investigation:** LG SS NC.**Methodology:** LG SS.**Project administration:** LG SS.**Resources:** LG SS.**Software:** LG SS NC.**Supervision:** LG SS.**Validation:** LG SS NC.**Visualization:** LG SS NC.**Writing -- original draft:** LG SS.**Writing -- review & editing:** LG SS.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Central
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"It happens to Ferrari, McLaren, Hendrick, Roush, Gibbs, everybody else," Evernham said. "This is not a good year for us, but maybe it's a sign of us becoming a better company. I remember Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon going through little dry spells. Right now as a group, we're in a little bit of a dry spell."
A dry spell that has no definitive sign of letting up.
"Right now, we're doing everything we can to fix it," Evernham said. "The biggest issue is we still don't really understand what's wrong. Everybody asks us what's wrong and if we can fix it. We can't identify it, and that's the issue. We've not had anything jump up and give us a direction."
Last season, Kahne led all Nextel Cup drivers with six wins. This season, all three Evernham drivers have been nothing more than envious observers, watching as guys like Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick – plus first-timers Casey Mears and Martin Truex Jr., among others – have captured checkered flags instead of them.
But much like Evernham's success in his teens and early 20s as an amateur boxer, you can knock him and his teams down, but they keep getting up. And it's just a matter of time before they start punching back.
"We've got that confidence in ourselves and in our race team that we're going to get these Dodges and these Evernham cars turned around," Sadler said. "We've got the same people back in the shop that won the most poles and most races last year, so we've just got to get it turned around and going in the right direction and go from there."
While Kahne has not won since last October in Charlotte, Sadler's last trip to victory lane was 2004, long before he joined Evernham's team. While he marks his 300th career Cup start Sunday, Sadler has another streak he'd rather forget about: he hasn't won in 97 starts.
"Your confidence gets a little shaky when you don't win," Sadler said. "It seems like a long time since I last won a couple of races."
If he is to win Sunday, he'll have a long road to travel. He starts near the back of the field in 39th.
"I can win with this 19 team. I know I can," Sadler said. "Have we shown it this year? No, we have not. If we can just get in the right situation at the right track I think good things can happen."
Kahne feels likewise. Even though he starts 36th on Sunday and only has one top-10 finish thus far this season, he's ready to repeat last year's win here at MIS.
"I know we're fast or can be fast if things work out the way we want them to," said Kahne, who has four top-five finishes in six career starts at MIS. "I'm definitely confident. We're ready to win, ready to run up front."
Evernham continues to preach patience and fortitude to his 200-plus employees, that things eventually will turn around. But he admits it's sometimes hard to have to give one pep talk after another and still not see any positive results.
"It's really frustrating to me, but I think it's more frustrating because I see my people and I feel like I'm letting them down," Evernham said. "Ultimately, I'm still responsible for this; it's not their fault, it's my fault. I've done something wrong."
While he continues to try and right his own wayward ship, Evernham hasn't stopped looking toward the future, either. He told Yahoo! Sports that he's officially declared himself in the hunt to bring soon-to-be free agent Kyle Busch into the fold, potentially for a fourth team.
"I think the kind of thing I can offer Kyle a lot of people can't is I've been through a lot of the things he's going through and have gone through them with other drivers and in my own personal life," Evernham said. "If he wants to find a home that can be a long-term good place where people will work with him and a place where our goal is to build something as strong as Hendrick or Gibbs some day, I hope he takes a look at us."
George Gillett Jr., president of the National Hockey League's Montreal Canadiens, could play a key role in Evernham's quest to sign Busch for that potential fourth team. Evernham has been courting Gillett to become a minority investor in the organization, much like Boston Red Sox owner John Henry recently joined ranks with Jack Roush.
Evernham said a partnership with Gillett is getting closer, perhaps two months away from being completed. Evernham said he'd love to announce a deal in Montreal in early August for NASCAR's first-ever Busch Series race there.
"That'd be awesome," he said. "That would be good incentive for the attorneys to hurry up and get it done."
And maybe that good off-track news would be enough to get Evernham's teams moving in the right direction on the track.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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Pile-CC
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Annoying DRM in Digital Downloads
Digital downloads are great, but they tend to be less flexible than a physical purchase because the media you buy is often saddled with DRM (Digital Rights Management)--basically, code that restricts how you can use the media you legally purchased. DRM is fading as an issue with music downloads these days, as both the iTunes Music Store and Amazon.com currently have no DRM in their downloadable music files. But it's still a pain with movies, games, books, and other downloadable media.
Many apps claim to be able to strip the DRM out of your movies, but it's difficult to endorse them. Aside from the fact that they're somewhat pricey ($50 or so), you can't assume that they'll stay effective, since the developers are engaged in an endless cat-and-mouse game with the publishing companies. If DRM is getting in the way of your movie watching, your best bet is probably to buy the disc version of the movie and then rip a copy of it yourself with Handbrake so you can watch it however you like.
A second copyright protection system can foul up your viewing experience, too. If your Blu-ray movies or other 1080p content play only in low resolution, you might be running into HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection), an encryption scheme pioneered by Intel that attempts to prevent unauthorized movie copying or sharing by securing every video device involved in playback.
If you want to watch a Blu-ray movie from your PC, for example, your Blu-ray drive, video card, and display must be HDCP-compliant; otherwise, you won't get the best resolution possible, and the movie might not play at all. This situation is particularly painful for HDTV owners who have older 1080p TV sets and want to use component video (analog), since it's not HDCP compliant--you'll need to attach an additional device like HDfury to get it to work.
Games don't offer you the option of a DRM-free disc. If DRM is a deal-breaker for you, research your games before you buy them; Ubisoft is somewhat notorious for including DRM functions that require you to stay online and continually connected to the company's servers to play the game Assassin's Creed 2, and Blizzard Entertainment took a lot of flak for crippling offline play in StarCraft 2. Various pirate groups release cracked, DRM-free versions of popular games on file-sharing sites; but in using them you risk getting slapped with a DMCA violation or infected by malware, and some features or bug fixes might not work.
Restricted App Choices
Though you may be willing to accept a little DRM--after all, even Hollywood stars have to eat--not being able to install whatever you want on your iOS devices of choice probably still rankles you. Jailbreaking your iPhone or iPad is easy, but it also invalidates your warranty--and you don't want to throw away the $100 you spent on an AppleCare extension.
The obvious solution is to go for an Android device instead: You can install any app you want without voiding your warranty by downloading the .apk file onto your phone's memory card and using Apk Manager to install it. Even Android phones, like the Droid X, can prevent you from modifying or removing certain built-in apps, however. So regardless of whether you're an iOS loyalist or an Android upstart, you'll have to take matters into your own hands.
The good news is, jailbreaking your iOS device (or getting "root" access to your Android device) is perfectly legal. The bad news is, it will void your warranty. It's possible to reverse the jailbreak/rooting process by reinstalling your phone's original firmware, but that won't do you any good if your phone is unexpectedly "bricked" (read: not bootable) while in its jailbroken state and you need to bring it in for a warranty-covered repair.
Don't try any jailbreak or root methods without reading the comments and associated forum posts. If lots of people are having problems, wait until things get better. The iPhone Dev Team Blog, xda-developers, and PCWorld's own Geek Tech are all good places to learn how to liberate your phone.
Price-Match Prevarication
You've been here before: One store has the laptop you want at the price you want to pay, the other costs a little more but has a better return policy (and some store credit that you want to use up). Everyone has a price-matching guarantee--so no problem, right?
"We're sorry," the manager tells you, "these are two different laptops."
"What? But the specs are the same!" you cry.
"Look here," says the manager, "this USB port is on the left, not the right."
This scenario plays out fairly often around the holiday shopping season: A laptop vendor will sell a Best Buy-exclusive laptop for $300 (in limited quantities), and offer a similar (but not identical) model for $350 elsewhere. To avoid the Best Buy rush, astute consumers may try to price-match at the second store--only to get denied by that stray USB port. Regrettably, the only way to save yourself a wasted trip is to do your homework before rushing out the door for a cheap laptop.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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OpenWebText2
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Microstrip antennas for wave propagation heretofore provided have, in general, included a ground reference, and one or more thin flat conductive radiators to which is connected thin flat conductive feedlines. The radiators and feedlines have heretofore been mounted on a common dielectric layer of a relatively high cost. The dielectric material heretofore utilized in antennas of this type has been a teflon fiberglass which is a solid material having a dielectric constant of about 2.3 to 2.6. This material has been relatively expensive as on the order of one to several hundred dollars per square foot. The loss tangent (dissipation factor) is about 0.001 at 10.sup.9 Hz.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,803,623, 3,995,277, 3,987,455, 4,180,817 and Re. 29,911 are examples of prior art disclosures pertaining to microstrip antennas. There is a need for low cost, light weight, durable, readily mass producible antennas of useful bandwidth in a variety of mass market applications.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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USPTO Backgrounds
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Every year, several human cases of alveolar echinococcosis caused by *Echinococcus multilocularis* (Cyclophyllidea: Taeniidae) are reported in Hokkaido, Japan \[[@r12]\]. Human infection occurs through accidental ingestion of parasite eggs excreted in feces of carnivorous definitive hosts such as foxes and dogs. In Hokkaido, the tapeworm is maintained through a fox--vole sylvatic cycle with high endemicity (30--40% infection rate in the red fox) \[[@r8]\]. In endemic regions, pet dogs may also be infected with *E. multilocularis*, and are a potential source of infection of humans \[[@r1], [@r3], [@r9]\]. Dogs become infected with the tapeworm only when they prey on a metacestode-infected vole. Canine infection is assumed to be mostly dependent on a dog's behavior towards voles (which is mainly based on individual habit and/or discipline by the owner) and habitat, especially the distance from infected wild voles, rather than the dog's biological background (e.g., breed, age, or gender).
Dogs infected with *E. multilocularis* are mostly asymptomatic \[[@r2]\] making it difficult to detect infection through normal health checkups alone. Therefore, the risk of transmission from infected dogs to humans through shedding of parasite eggs remains a significant concern. Necropsy examination of stray/sheltered dogs (conducted in Hokkaido by the government since 1966) demonstrated 1.0% prevalence of *E. multilocularis*, but this may be an underestimate as the number of dogs examined has decreased in recent years \[[@r8]\]. A mass coprological study of pet dogs in Hokkaido in 1997--2007 revealed that *E. multilocularis* eggs were excreted in 0.3% of city dogs and 0.7% of dogs from towns and villages \[[@r14]\]. Study of shelter dogs in Sapporo city, Hokkaido, in 2013--2017 indicated infection in 1.9% of dogs by *E. multilocularis-*specific copro-DNA examination \[[@r7]\]. However, data for rural areas, where *E. multilocularis* is endemic among wild animals, is lacking. We therefore assessed pet dogs living in rural towns of eastern Hokkaido for *E. multilocularis* using copro-DNA and fecal egg examinations, along with interviews of owners regarding the dog's living conditions.
From March 2018 to March 2019, 98 dogs kept by 79 owners who brought their dogs to an animal clinic in eastern Hokkaido for care were included in this study. Stool sample collection and owner interviews were conducted by one of the co-authors (Yamada K., DVM). Dog came from at least six towns near Nakashibetsu, Shibetsu District, eastern Hokkaido, where land use is mainly pasture for dairy farming and the population density is 10.0--34.7 persons/km^2^. To increase the sensitivity of the tests, diagnostic deworming was conducted before fecal collection; dogs were administered the deworming agent praziquantel (5 mg/kg body weight) by the veterinarian and feces deposited the day after administration was collected for examination \[[@r4], [@r6]\]. Feces were heated to 70°C for 12 hr to inactivate *Echinococcus* eggs and then stored at −30°C until examination. Based on the results of a survey conducted at the time of fecal collection, the following information related to pathways of infection was obtained from the dog owners: 1) land use around the home (town, suburb, or farming area); 2) placement of dog's bed (always indoors or always/sometimes outdoors); and 3) history of running outdoors (always leashed when outdoors, accidently broke free, allowed to run free, or unknown).
Copro-DNA examination specific for *E. multilocularis* was performed on 3 g of feces, as previously described \[[@r6]\], followed by confirmation by sequencing analysis of the cytochrome *c* oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene \[[@r13]\]. Fecal egg examination was performed using 1 g of feces with a modified sucrose flotation method (specific gravity of 1.27) \[[@r5]\]. For species identification, eggs were collected from the supernatant of the centrifuge tube on a nylon mesh (pore size 20 *µ*m), and the COI and nuclear U1 spliceosomal RNA (U1 snRNA) genes were analyzed as previously described \[[@r7]\].
Copro-DNA examination identified 7 of 98 dogs (7.1%) as being positive and *E. multilocularis* was confirmed in all positive samples by sequencing analysis; these dogs were strongly suggested to be infected with *E. multilocularis.* Taeniid eggs ([Fig. 1](#fig_001){ref-type="fig"}Fig. 1.Egg of *Echinococcus multilocularis* detected in feces of a pet dog. The oncosphere was observed in the embryophore. Scale bar=50 *µ*m.) were detected by the flotation method (6 eggs per gram of feces) in one dog, which was also copro-DNA positive, and the eggs were identified to be from *E. multilocularis* by sequencing of the COI and U1 snRNA genes. Owner survey results concerning exposure of dogs to infection risk are shown in [Table 1](#tbl_001){ref-type="table"}Table 1Land use, exercise habits of pet dogs, and numbers of dogs with copro-DNA positive findings confirming *Echinococcus multilocularis* infectionCategoryItemNumber of dogsSurveyedCopro-DNA positive (%)Land use of the homeTown542 (3.7)Suburb111 (9.1)Farming area334 (12.1)Placement of dog's bedAlways indoors662 (3.0)Always/sometimes outdoors325 (15.6)History of running free outdoorsAlways leashed when outdoors203 (15.0)Accidentally broke free60Allowed to run free424 (9.5)Unknown300. Dogs that tested positive for copro-DNA were from homes with each type of land use. The prevalence in surveyed dogs was higher than that reported recently in sheltered dogs in Sapporo city using the same coprological methods \[[@r7]\]. The odds ratio of canine infections in the present study to those in that study was 3.9 (95% confidence interval 0.99--15.5), and the difference in infection risk was suspicious but not significant, consistent with a previous study by Nonaka *et al*. \[[@r14]\].
In the same area that was home to the surveyed dogs, fox feces was collected, following the methods of Morishima *et al*. \[[@r11]\], from areas that foxes are likely to use, such as the edges of agricultural fields and along paths or roads. Fecal collection was conducted twice, in July 2018 (n=73) and October 2018 (n=69). Fox feces were heat-treated as described above and subjected to copro-DNA and fecal egg examination. In the fox feces, 45 of 142 (31.7%) samples were positive for copro-DNA and 23 (16.2%) were positive for *E. multilocularis* eggs. The positive rate by copro-DNA examination in fox feces was compatible with the recent report of *E. multilocularis* prevalence in foxes in Hokkaido by necropsy \[[@r8]\]. Moreover, it was clearly shown that *E. multilocularis* eggs are included in fox feces deposited along roadsides in the study area, and that could serve as an infection source for the intermediate host wild voles (mainly *Myodes rufocanus bedfordiae* in Hokkaido), which inhabit pastures.
From questionnaires to owners of the dogs, 42 (42.9%) of the dogs included in our study were suspected of having a greater chance to capture an infected wild vole because they were permitted to run free outdoors. Four dogs with suspected infections had been allowed to run free on walks. When allowed to run free, even for only a few hours, dogs may catch infected voles when out of sight of their owners \[[@r10]\]; therefore, permitting dogs to run free should be avoided in *E. multilocularis*-endemic areas. However, among the other three dogs that were *E. multilocularis*-specific copro-DNA positive, two had a bed that was always placed indoors and were kept on a leash when outdoors. Considering that 16.2% of fox feces collected along the roadside contained detectable tapeworm eggs, infection of voles could occur in such locations. Although the home range of the vole *M. rufocanus bedfordiae* varies by population density, season and vegetation, it has been estimated at approximately 30 m \[[@r15]\]. Therefore, it is possible for dogs to encounter infected voles at the side of roads where owners take their pet dogs for walks, and the owners of dogs that became infected despite being always leashed reported walking their dogs in areas with thick grass, such as along roadsides near their houses.
In fecal egg examination, eggs of *Toxocara canis* were detected in one dog, and those of Capillariidae in two other dogs. The latter eggs might be from voles infected with adult worm of *Calodium hepaticum* (syn. *Capillaria hepatica*) and passed thorough the intestines of dogs that preyed on vole. Detection of capillariid eggs in dog feces supports the suggestion that dogs can catch wild voles and thus are at risk of infection with *E. multilocularis*. In fact, seven dogs in our study had been seen by their owners to have interest in and/or to catch a wild vole, one of which dogs was copro-DNA positive, although the total number of dogs that had such habits could not be evaluated due to most owners unfortunately not responding to our questioner concerning this point.
In this study using evaluation of *E. multilocularis* infection by copro-DNA and fecal egg examinations, a high prevalence of *E. multilocularis* was found in pet dogs in a rural area in eastern Hokkaido, Japan. In rural areas where *E. multilocularis* is endemic, pet dogs could more easily encounter the sylvatic cycle of *E. multilocularis* than in urban areas; transmission of the tapeworm from fox to vole and from vole to dog may be expected to occur easily. Therefore, owners should avoid allowing their dogs to run free, and should carefully observe their dog's activity on walks, even if the dogs are leashed. Moreover, regular screening of pet dogs for the tapeworms is recommended, and periodic administration of deworming agents is considered an important measure to prevent transmission from dogs to owners.
AUTHOR DISCLOSURE STATEMENT {#s1}
===========================
The authors have no relationships or support that might be perceived as constituting a conflict of interest.
This work was supported in part by Health and Labour Sciences Research Grant number H30-Shinkogyosei-Shitei-001.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Central
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Background {#Sec1}
==========
Among the profound changes that have occurred in the practice of medicine in the twenty-first century are greater sophistication, high-technological dependence, a personalized approach and extreme increases in costs. Modern preventive medicine uses proactive interventions, surgery and chronic use of preventive medications. Clinical reasoning and clinical decision-making have expanded from being almost exclusively based on deterministic pathophysiological principles to include clinical and population-based evidence \[[@CR1]\]. Current medical practice is also multi-disciplinary, mandating coordinated teamwork. The need for stronger links between medicine and public health is ongoing, and includes the need for a clinical and public health workforce trained to collaborate in a multi-disciplinary environment \[[@CR2], [@CR3]\]. Increasingly complex epidemiological research methods require physicians to acquire broad competencies in research methodologies and statistics to enable their critical appraisal of the literature when making clinical decisions. Physicians' use of evidence-based medicine (EBM) has gained importance for weighing benefits and harms of clinical decisions such as relating to diagnoses, disease prognosis and intervention.
In parallel to the above, many changes have occurred in medical education. Medical training has shifted from frontal teaching and an observer-apprentice approach to a task oriented approach \[[@CR4]\]. Recommendations of the 2010 Carnegie report, which are being implemented in the US and the UK, include for example, the need to strengthen connections between formal and experiential knowledge across the continuum of medical education \[[@CR4]\]. In addition, up-to-date teaching should emphasize an evidence-based approach that empowers the medical student to actively search, rank, appraise, interpret and implement the evidence that is relevant to individual patients \[[@CR5]\].
Preventive medicine, which is often the most cost-effective medical approach, has become mandatory, to restrain the increasing costs of chronic disease care. For many years, public health was a marginalized low profile discipline in medical education \[[@CR6]\]. However, there is growing concern among medical schools of gaps in knowledge and competence of physicians in areas such as clinical preventive services, quantitative methods of risk and outcomes assessment, the practice of community medicine, and health services organization and delivery \[[@CR7], [@CR8]\]. Consequently, several organizations including the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and the United Kingdom General Medical Council (GMC) have emphasized the importance of undergraduate medical training in the field of public health \[[@CR3], [@CR9]--[@CR11]\]. The effect of physician's health care practice on patients' health care practice was demonstrated in the positive relationship found between physicians and patients in influenza vaccination rates \[[@CR12]\].
The Sackler School of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University was founded in 1964 with the goal of educating highly professional, knowledgeable and compassionate physicians. In accordance with the above-mentioned concerns, and as part of the implementation of a revised curriculum, a committee of medical doctor faculty members who are board certified in public health and experienced in epidemiological research, was convened in 2012--2013. The task of the committee was to evaluate and update objectives for the public health curriculum for medical students; to review and revise the current curriculum; to introduce a revised curriculum in public health; and to introduce appropriate teaching methods in accordance with the competency-based medical education (CBME) approach \[[@CR13]\]. This paper presents the process and recommendations of the committee, which were approved and adopted by the teaching committee of the Tel Aviv Sackler Medical School, and implemented during the past 4 years.
Training medical students in public health {#Sec2}
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Awareness has grown over the past 2 decades, to the importance of the public health discipline to clinicians, and to the need to instill medical students with competencies in public health \[[@CR14]\]. The Consensus Conference on Undergraduate Public Health Education advocated that all undergraduate medical students have access to an education in public health \[[@CR3]\]. The Association of American Medical Colleges and The Healthy People Curriculum Task Force published recommendations to include a population health curriculum as part of the 4 years of medical training \[[@CR3]\]. The IOM has since called for the US public health system to evolve from a government-centered system to involve broad partnerships with healthcare and other organizations in communities \[[@CR15], [@CR16]\]. In the working document, 'Tomorrow's Doctors' \[[@CR17]--[@CR19]\], the UK GMC recommended that medical school education include education in disease prevention, sociological and psychological aspects of health and disease, population health, scientific research methods and critical appraisal of the literature \[[@CR18]\]. Medical schools in the US and the UK have been placing greater emphasis on the teaching of clinical prevention and health promotion \[[@CR3], [@CR19]\]. The need to dedicate a specific curriculum for the aspects of how the health system functions and what the role of the clinician in this system was recently recognized by the AMA educational consortium, which published a book on health systems science in medical education, calling to bring forth the "third pillar", which was until now "part of the hidden curriculum in medical education", intertwining with the other two (traditional) pillars: basic science and clinical science \[[@CR20]\]. The understanding of how physicians deliver care to patients, how patients receive care, and how health systems function, are recognized as a pillar which necessitate medical students training as part of the need to align medical education with the ongoing changes in health care delivery.
Examples of changes over the last decades in the curricula of public health training in several medical schools around the world {#Sec3}
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### Competencies in statistics and epidemiology as tools for conducting and understanding quantitative medical research {#Sec4}
A historical view of statistics training was that physicians need to know statistics primarily if they were conducting or going to conduct research during their medical career; and when conducting research, they could generally rely on professional consultation with statisticians \[[@CR21]\]. Nowadays, physicians use statistics and probability methods for a wide range of activities \[[@CR22]\]. Statistics and related competencies are used in daily clinical practice for understanding the validity and precision of study results, explaining risk to patients, comparing treatment protocols and outcomes, interpreting the relevance and implications of diagnostic test results, interacting with drug representatives and reading pharmaceutical literature \[[@CR10]\]. Physicians need to be capable of interpreting clinical epidemiology data and of understanding the limitations of research and statistical inference. The sophisticated statistical methods that are used in an increasing number of studies necessitate good understanding of statistics to appraise the scientific literature. Surveys conducted in various countries show a need for improving skills of epidemiological research, statistical inference and data analysis among physicians and medical students \[[@CR23]--[@CR26]\]. Almost half of UK physicians who responded to a questionnaire felt that statistics training did not seem useful during their attendance at medical school; however, 73% felt that statistics were relevant to their subsequent careers and that teaching statistics should include lectures, seminars and problem-based practical exercises \[[@CR10]\]. The authors recommended that statistical training should start early and continue throughout medical school; and be presented at an understandable level, which is practical and integrated with other subject areas \[[@CR10]\].
During the 1960's at Harvard Medical School there was a long-running required Biostatistics course. By the 1970s there was an elective course, taken by a third of the class that was called, "Introduction to Biostatistics and Epidemiology." By the early 1980s a clinical-decision making course was added; and today that same course would be called "Evidence Based Medicine" (EBM). In the last decade, Harvard Medical School implemented a course for first-year medical and dental students entitled "Clinical Epidemiology and Population Health" \[[@CR9]\]. The objectives of the course were to instill knowledge in basic epidemiology and biostatistics, causal inference, confounding and other issues related to research interpretation, decision making and skills for clinical and population-level interventions, health promotion and behavior change strategies, physicians' roles in the public health system and population level surveillance.
A few years ago, the University of Toronto initiated a 4 year course for undergraduate medical students, which broke down the barrier between the pre-clerkship period and clinical clerkships \[[@CR27]\]. Based on a longitudinal, "spiral" curriculum, the course revisits educational concepts at increasing levels of complexity across the curriculum. Descriptive epidemiology is taught in the first year, analytic epidemiology in the second year and clinical epidemiology in the third and fourth years. Similarly, the basic structure of the healthcare system is taught in the first year; then a project involving organization of community-based services in the second year; quality improvement and patient safety in the third year; and the effect of physicians' payment systems on quality of patient care in the fourth year. After the change in the organization of the course material into the longitudinal curriculum with no change in the number of hours of learning, the ranking of the University of Toronto's training in public health improved and became number one among all medical schools in Canada.
### Evidence based medicine {#Sec5}
The early introduction of EBM in medical schools has been effective in changing the thought process of the medical graduates. It was also found to increase the ability for logical and critical appraisal, better suited for the understanding of the disease process and subsequent management \[[@CR28]\]. In England, a six-week full time course linking EBM with ethics and the management of change in health services was introduced for third-year undergraduate medical students in Imperial College London \[[@CR29]\]. The students undertook projects such as hand washing in a neonatal unit to prevent infections, drug monitoring in the elderly to reduce the risk of falls, and the use of peak flow meters in the management of asthma. The course supported the notion that undergraduates and junior clinical students can adopt and promote significant changes that make clinical care more evidence-based.
### Health promotion {#Sec6}
Health Promotion is a resource for theoretical knowledge and practical skills in health issues, such as sexual health, nutrition, physical activity, exercise and fitness, weight control, and alcohol and tobacco control. In 2010, less than half of the schools in the UK included sports and exercise medicine as part of their curriculum. King's College London introduced exercise medicine, which focused on the health benefits of physical activity, the doctor's role in assessing and prescribing physical activity, and the physiological adaptations and risks of physical activity \[[@CR30]\]. The intervention significantly improved the confidence of preclinical medical students in their ability to counsel patients on the health benefits of physical activity, as well as their knowledge of recommended physical activity guidelines \[[@CR30]\]. Medical students who underwent obesity intervention education scored higher on relevant knowledge, had more self-confidence in physical activity and nutrition counseling, and took more waist-hip measurements \[[@CR31]\]. In a community health center serving a Latino immigrant population in the United States, a 9-month pilot course for medical students that combined didactic instruction in the social determinants of health with practical experience in developing, implementing and evaluating an intervention was shown to be feasible and effective \[[@CR32]\].
Summarizing the above, the urgent need to strengthen the education of medical students in the field of epidemiology and public health in an integrative manner during the pre-clinical and clinical years, has become evident in many countries and action has been taken. Several challenges have had to be met, including the "old" perception that this topic is of little relevance to clinical practice, low funding, low institutional priority and the competition with other traditional fields (e.g. anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and histology) \[[@CR33]\]. Nonetheless, recognition of the importance of this field has increased dramatically \[[@CR34]\].
Findings and insights {#Sec7}
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### The experience of Sackler Faculty of Medicine in the adoption implementation and evaluation of competency-based medical education in public health {#Sec8}
A committee was appointed in 2012 to propose a competencies oriented curriculum in public health for medical students. Our form of action was multistep, much like the Situational Model \[[@CR35]\] starting with mapping the courses provided by our department (the department for Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine) to the curriculum of the 6-year medical training. In parallel, we defined the required competencies, expected from a medical student and a clinician, in public health. We then looked into each course syllabus and pointed at gaps as well as overlaps between courses. Finally, we proposed a revised curriculum in public health that incorporates all of our conclusions and suggestions. This was presented to the Faculty of Medicine's Educational Committee and approved by the Dean after adjustments were made according to the Faculty's constraints. We continuously review the courses' evaluations students voluntarily and anonymously fill in the Web-based university portal, and modify the courses accordingly.
#### Defining the required competencies {#FPar1}
The committee defined 3 main goals of training of medical students according to their future needs and responsibilities: a) critical appraisal of the scientific literature to inform practice; b) conducting research using epidemiological tools and methods; and c) practicing and advocating health promotion and disease prevention in the clinic. Following these goals the main competencies physicians require were defined:Skills to appraise the quality of the various types of epidemiologic research and to acquire tools for comprehensive reading and understanding scientific literature according to EBM;Competency in efficient and precise literature search;Competency in basic statistical skills;Competency in planning and conducting research, i.e. knowledge of epidemiological methods including the various study designs, choice of an appropriate study population, methods for data collection, analysis and interpretation of study results;Competency in applying health promoting principles and strategies in the selection of disease prevention measures and recommendations;Competency in implementation of EBM techniques in public health decision making, e.g. immunizations and population screening; andCompetency in examining and analyzing disease trends from a population perspective.In addition, we identified the importance of understanding the structure of health systems and of increasing the awareness of the role of the physician in these systems as a means of better pursuing the skill of practicing and advocating health promotion and disease prevention in the clinic.
#### Identifying gaps and needs to meet the required competencies {#FPar2}
The committee performed an overview of all relevant education and training syllabus at the Sackler School of Medicine of the Tel-Aviv University. All lectures in each course were reviewed and overlapping topics given in more than one lecture were identified. This process also enabled detecting important topics that were absent in the curriculum. The committee met all teachers and instructors and reviewed the courses syllabus with them. Those with overlapping lectures were asked to meet and revise their courses so that no unnecessary overlaps persisted. Two new courses were planned to fill in the gaps in important topics. The entire 6 year curriculum was presented and approved, first to the faculty of the School of Public Health, and then to the faculty of Sackler School of Medicine (see Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}).Table 1The curricula before and after implementation of the revisions according to the year of medical schoolYearBeforeAfterCourse nameTotal number of hoursCourse nameTotal number of hours1Statistics78Epidemiology, Statistics, and Research methods1042Epidemiology39----2----Health promotion: The physician's role263Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM)16Tools for practicing evidence based medicine163----Selected paradigms in epidemiology and public health323Use of epidemiologic methods in clinical decision making10Use of epidemiologic methods in clinical decision making124----E-learning course in planning and writing research proposals for the M.D. thesis45Principles in planning and writing a research proposal6Personal meeting with the M.D. students to critically review their proposal for an M.D. thesis30 min6Clerkship in public health and epidemiology36Clerkship in public health and epidemiology36Total Hours185Total Hours230.5
#### Implementing the competency --based medical education approach {#FPar3}
The new public health curriculum in our medical school is based on a longitudinal approach and was designed to harmonize and integrate the clinical and public health teaching to increase relevance, and to address the above-mentioned competencies. The public health curriculum starts early in the first year of medical school and progresses systematically, with each year building on competencies already gained. The goal is efficient utilization of time and avoidance of repetitions. The limited timeframe allocated to public health training within the busy and competitive medical school curriculum is a constraint of the program.
The courses and skills provided in the longitudinal public-health curriculum as part of the 6 year medical training of the Sackler Medical School are the following (see Fig. [1](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}, illustrating the concept that epidemiology and statistics are the foundation, and are given a substantial number of hours in the curriculum, on which medical students are gradually building their public health knowledge, with the number of hours gradually decreasing yet the topics learned are more sophisticated, so that in their last year a relatively smaller, albeit very important, part of the clerkships will draw on this learning):Epidemiology, statistics, and research methods (1st year): this course was re-designed to achieve a comprehensive and integrative understanding of key epidemiologic and biostatistics methods. The goals of the course are to improve students' abilities to understand and interpret epidemiological studies and to provide practical experience in epidemiological research, study design, and key methods in biostatistics. Topics covered in the course include: the ability to integrate information and data, build statistical models, conduct data analysis, and acquire tools for decision making in selecting diagnostic tools and treatment protocols. Also emphasized are implementation of statistical and epidemiological tools for understanding disease risk and prevention, etiology and prognosis, and evaluating the success and clinical relevance of preventive interventions. The fundamentals of biostatistics and epidemiology are taught together, highlighting the relevance of these two disciplines to the understanding and interpretation of medical data.Health promotion: The physician's role (2nd year): This is one of two courses initiated following the committee's detection of gaps in training medical students. Using epidemiological concepts and terms acquired during the first year, students are introduced to the main concepts, principles, and methods of health promotion at the individual and population levels. Students practice communicating and marketing healthy lifestyle to patients and gain knowledge of the impact of a health promoting environment (e.g. media campaigns, regulatory tools at the local and the national levels) on adoption of a healthy lifestyle. The course started as an 8-week short course but was broadened during the year 2015--2016, to include three sessions on exercise and physical activity: the approach to medical examinations before starting a physical activity program in healthy and diseased patients; the responsibility of the physician to evaluate the level of physical activity of their patients and to encourage them to exercise (Hoffman, et al. 2016); and the comprehensive physical activity prescription, which is a required responsibility of physicians to be provided to each of their patients who enters an exercise program (Joy, et al. 2016). This last session includes the students' writing their own exercise prescription and a practical experience in training according to this prescription. An additional topic is a two lecture session in oral hygiene and its association to systemic diseases and medications.Selected paradigms in epidemiology and public health (3rd year): Following the basic course in epidemiology and biostatistics in the first year, this intensive one-week course gives an overview of the epidemiology of specific diseases and conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, infectious diseases, geriatric and childhood diseases, maternal and child health, and psychiatric illnesses. The course emphasizes the specific methodologies used for the study of these illnesses and conditions and presents the specific disease registries available. The second part of the course focuses on the national health system, and aims to elucidate the role of the clinician as a public health promoter in the national health system. The paradigm of combining health policy with clinical decision making is emphasized, using relevant and timely examples.Tools for practicing Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) (3rd year): Tools and techniques are provided for practicing EBM, by means of workshops and simulations of real life situations. At the end of the course, the student should be able to frame a clinical question in view of a specific clinical situation, search the medical literature, obtain the most relevant material, and critically appraise the literature so as to achieve the best available solution to the clinical question. This course reinforces the competencies provided in the first and second years and requires the student to apply them.The use of epidemiologic methods in clinical decision making (3rd year): This course provides the epidemiological background to the major body organs and systems taught in the third and fourth years, while focusing on how epidemiology is used for clinical decision-making. Specific examples are presented from body systems such as the gastrointestinal and urinary tracts. The course is intended to reinforce skills covered in the first year, while exploiting the advanced stage attained in the students' basic medical knowledge.E-learning course in planning and writing research proposals for the M.D. thesis (4th - 6th year): This electronic course is designed to provide students with the necessary competencies to develop research questions and to formulate the research methodology relevant to their MD thesis. The course is built on the knowledge and capabilities of implementing the competencies taught during previous years; and it is presented through a set of online guided tools.Clerkship in public health and epidemiology (6th year): Experiential learning in EBM in public health. During this 1 week interactive workshop the students experience the implementation of epidemiological tools from data collection and analysis to public health planning and decision making. The course includes practical examples such as prevention of cervical cancer or the implementation of various programs for secondary prevention of breast cancer and their impact on breast cancer mortality. As in other clinical clerkships, the students experience the process of decision making. In this case it relates to decisions in public health. At this stage, just before graduation, the students have most of the medical knowledge they will acquire during their MD degree. They have the ability to use clinical and epidemiological competencies to understand the broad range of considerations involved in health policy at the individual and population levels.Fig. 1Pyramid of the Public Health curriculum
#### Program evaluation {#FPar4}
The revised public health curriculum was implemented with first year students during 2013--2016/17. We have been revising and refining the courses of the first, second and third years according to feedback from students and lecturers. All courses in our school have a computerized feedback system, which is opened from the last lecture till the final exam, and is filled on a voluntary anonymous basis. In addition, meetings are held with the students' representatives to discuss their expectations and feedback, and an attempt to integrate necessary changes in the courses is continuously performed. In the coming academic year (2017--18) the last class from the old curriculum will graduate. At the end of this year we will conduct a survey among these students during the clerkship in public health to evaluate their perceived understanding of public health topics and of the competencies we intended to convey in our curriculum. We will repeat this survey among the following class -- the first to experience the full 6-years revised curriculum, and compare the results. In the future we intend to assess the quality of MD theses submitted at graduation, according to exposure to the intervention, and to compare evaluations of EBM skills during clinical clerkships. We expect more MD theses to be published as papers in peer-reviewed international journals.
Conclusions {#Sec9}
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Public Health topics have been taught by the Division of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine ever since the Sackler School of Medicine was established. The curriculum evolved over the years "bottoms up" and when a decision was made to implement a Competency Oriented approach to the medical curriculum at large we revised our curriculum. The Sackler School of Medicine committee re-designed a comprehensive curriculum in epidemiology and public health, which covers the range of topics central for current medical students' education in those fields. Among its goals, the revised curriculum focuses on competencies required to critically appraise medical scientific literature. The curriculum has been implemented and fits the national system of medical education, which spans over 6 years of training. Our longitudinal curriculum is based on the need for a competency-based medical education (CBME) approach and an emphasis on research methods in statistics and epidemiology, preventive medicine and the application of population health principles in medical education. This is in line with the international move towards improved integration in medical training, of public health concepts, practice and research methods.
Our intended outcome is that medical school graduates will be curious and have the motivation and competencies to obtain the evidence based information they need to provide scientifically sound care to their patients; that they will have the skills to conduct research and for critically evaluating existing evidence; and that they will maximize their role in disease prevention and healthy lifestyle promotion. By having developed a longitudinal exposure for students, they are reminded at all stages of their medical education about the importance and relevance of the sciences as the basis of medical knowledge and evidence as the basis for better medical care, prevention, and public health.
This paper was written in memory of the late Prof. Leon (Levi) Gordis, a distinguished epidemiologist with an international reputation, who taught in the Sackler School of Public Health and the Sackler School of Medicine during his last years, and mentored faculty members of our school.
Funding {#FPar6}
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None.
Disclosures {#FPar7}
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No financial disclosures were reported by the authors of this paper.
RD lead the committee and the writting of the manuscript. UG was a member of the committee and took part in writting the manuscript. LL conceived the program, nominated the committee and took part in writting the manuscript. MS took part in writting the manuscript. SS was a member of the committee and took part in writting the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Ethics approval and consent to participate {#FPar8}
==========================================
Not applicable.
Competing interests {#FPar9}
===================
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Publisher's Note {#FPar10}
================
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Central
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Brent Corrigan is all man: his lean body is packed with defined muscle. Andrew Stark towers over Brent, with a toned swimmer’s build and an epic, meaty boner. Brent swallows Andrew’s cock in an impressive display of deep throating, and it comes out even thicker and harder than it went in. Brent gasps and drools, exclaiming, ‘Big!’ and switches to Andrew’s enormous balls. Andrew’s craving for Brent’s hole is so intense, he literally rips Brent’s jeans off his body. With sexual fervor, Andrew drives his tongue, then his thumb, into Brent’s eager hole. On his hands and knees, Brent arches his back, offering direct access to his bubble butt. Andrew drives his cock home. They work together to find the deepest, most pleasurable angles of penetration. Sweat begins pouring down Brent’s smooth, hard torso. Cum bursts out of Brent’s cock like fireworks, as he swivels to capture Andrew’s load in his mouth.
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Pile-CC
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Thomas Dickens Arnold
Thomas Dickens Arnold (May 3, 1798 – May 26, 1870) was an American politician who served two terms in the United States House of Representatives, representing Tennessee's 2nd district from 1831 to 1833, and the 1st district from 1841 to 1843. A staunch opponent of Andrew Jackson, he spent his first term in Congress trying to thwart the Jackson Administration's agenda, and subsequently helped establish the Whig Party in Tennessee. He was twice gerrymandered out of office by Jackson's allies in the state legislature.
Described as "one of the most erratic politicians ever produced by East Tennessee," Arnold was remembered by his peers for his impassioned and unpredictable speeches, unwavering dedication to his positions, and ruthless use of wit and sarcasm. His attacks against Sam Houston in Congress provoked an assassination attempt from a Houston supporter in 1832. While Arnold provided vigorous opposition to Democrats such as Andrew Johnson, he frequently clashed with leaders of his own party, such as William "Parson" Brownlow and T.A.R. Nelson.
On the eve of the Civil War, Arnold remained solidly pro-Union. At the East Tennessee Convention, which met following Tennessee's secession from the Union in June 1861, Arnold advocated the separation of East Tennessee from the rest of the state, and called for the use of force if necessary. He remained openly defiant of the Confederacy for the duration of the war.
Early life
Arnold was born in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, on May 3, 1798. He moved with his parents to Knox County, Tennessee, in 1808. At the age of fourteen, he enlisted as a drummer boy in the War of 1812. During the war, he became horrified when General Andrew Jackson ordered a soldier court-martialed and shot for straggling, and developed a negative view of Jackson that he would retain for the rest of his life. After the war, he taught school in Knox and Grainger counties. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1822, and commenced practice in Knoxville, Tennessee.
In the mid-1820s, Arnold was one of the few Tennessee politicians who opposed the initiatives of Jackson. In 1825, he unsuccessfully ran for Congress against Jackson ally and three-term 2nd district incumbent John Cocke, losing by a vote of
4,770 to 3,343. When he again ran for the seat in 1827, he circulated a pamphlet in the 2nd district that assailed Jackson's character, and rehashed an oft-repeated accusation that Jackson was an adulterer. He was narrowly defeated by the pro-Jackson candidate, Pryor Lea, 3,688 votes to 3,316. In 1828, Arnold endorsed John Quincy Adams for president.
In 1829, Arnold again opposed Lea for the 2nd district seat, and was again narrowly defeated, 4,713 votes to 4,496. Arnold charged Lea with voter fraud, alleging that bribery and perjury had occurred, and suggesting that pro-Jackson state election officials had "prostituted and trampled under foot" the state's election laws. The House Committee on Elections dismissed his claim, however, citing lack of evidence.
1st congressional term
By the early 1830s, many East Tennesseans had grown frustrated with Lea's opposition to federally funded internal improvements, as the mountainous region's isolation was stalling its economic development. In 1831, Arnold was finally elected to Congress, edging Lea by a vote of 4,935 to 4,702.
During his first term in Congress, Arnold was the lone Anti-Jacksonite in the Tennessee delegation. He supported the national bank, an institution Jackson had long sought to eliminate, scoffing at the "obfuscated farragoes" of the bank's enemies, who had threatened him. He was the only Tennessee representative to vote against Congressman James K. Polk's bill calling for a sale of the government's stock in the bank, and was the only Tennessee representative to support a bill declaring the bank's deposits safe. He was also the only Tennessee representative to vote in favor of building a federal road connecting Buffalo and New Orleans, and the only Tennessee representative to vote against Jackson's Force Bill.
In 1832, Arnold blasted former Congressman Sam Houston, who had been found guilty of assaulting Congressman William Stanbery (an anti-Jacksonite), but had drawn only a reprimand for the attack. In May, a friend of Houston's, Morgan A. Heard, attacked Arnold as he descended the steps of the Capitol, initially attempting to club him with a large stick. After Arnold batted the stick away, Heard drew a sawed-off dueling pistol and fired one shot, grazing Arnold's shoulder. Arnold then proceeded to beat Heard with a sword cane, and was preparing to spear Heard with the cane when he was disarmed by Congressman Joseph Duncan, ending the melee.
Fed up with Arnold, Jackson's allies in the Tennessee General Assembly redrew Arnold's district, moving Jefferson and Cocke counties, where Arnold had his strongest support, to the 1st district. Undaunted, Arnold moved to Greeneville, in the 1st district, and challenged the 1st district incumbent, John Blair, in the 1833 election. In a three-way race that included William Blount Carter, Arnold placed third, winning just 1,747 votes to 3,236 for Blair and 2,642 for Carter. He ran for the 1st district seat in 1835 and 1837, but each time lost to Carter.
In 1836, Arnold was elected brigadier general of the Tennessee militia, and was thus frequently referred to as "General Arnold" by his contemporaries.
1840 election and 2nd congressional term
In 1840, Arnold was named the 1st district's elector for presidential candidate William Henry Harrison. In this role, Arnold canvassed relentlessly, confronting any Democratic speaker who ventured into the district, and following them from campaign stop to campaign stop until they left.
At a stop in Greeneville, Arnold, wearing a bizarre nankeen suit with blue, yellow and white stripes, debated an elegantly dressed Felix Grundy. Arnold continuously interrupted Grundy's speech, prompting Grundy to quip, "you are the noisiest man I ever met." Arnold followed Grundy's entourage to Rogersville, where Grundy spoke at the courthouse the following day. Still wearing the nankeen suit, which had been soaked and ruined by rain the night before, Arnold burst into the courthouse and shouted, "Here I am again!" After being denied entry, he led Whig supporters in a noisy sing-along until the Democratic crowd dispersed and Grundy hurried to the next stop.
Fueled by the regional fame he had acquired as an elector, Arnold again sought the 1st district seat in 1841. In April of that year, he engaged in a war of words with local Whig attorney, T.A.R. Nelson, who was irritated that Arnold had ignored the rules laid out at the local party convention when declaring his candidacy. After the two attacked each other in respective editorials, Arnold circulated a 48-page pamphlet in which he accused Nelson of trying to split the party, and went so far as to make fun of Nelson's limp. In a May 1841 editorial, Nelson wrote of Arnold, "I feel constrained to publish him as a liar, a scoundrel and a Coward."
In spite of his feud with Nelson, Arnold easily won the election in 1841. Like many of his fellow Whigs in Congress, he grew increasingly frustrated with President John Tyler, who had run with Harrison on the Whig ticket, but was proving hostile to many of the party's core initiatives. Following Tyler's veto of a Henry Clay bill calling for the establishment of a new national bank, Arnold dismissed Tyler as an "unfortunate miserable wretch." In 1842, Arnold came to the defense of John Quincy Adams when Congressman Henry A. Wise accused Adams of conspiring with the British to break up the United States.
After the state legislature again redrew his district, Arnold, realizing had little chance of being reelected, declined to run in 1843.
Later life and the Civil War
After leaving Congress, Arnold returned to the practice of law. Using the aggressive, emotional style that had made him successful in politics, he gradually built a sizeable clientele. Oliver Perry Temple, a fellow attorney and Whig, wrote of Arnold's courtroom tactics: "By ridicule on the one hand, and impassioned appeals on the other, he constantly excited laughter or tears, while his power of invective was simply terrible." Temple noted that Arnold occasionally won cases when facts and evidence were against him by stubbornly seizing on a trivial circumstance of the case and focusing the jury's attention on it.
In 1852, Arnold spoke at a Whig convention in Knoxville. For nearly an hour, he thrashed radical Whig newspaper editor William "Parson" Brownlow in what Temple described as the "bitterest and most taunting manner." Brownlow, who was in attendance, waited quietly for Arnold to finish, and then delivered an equally long retort. Brownlow subsequently entitled this speech, "Reply to Thomas 'Dog' Arnold, Ass."
In the years leading up to the Civil War, Arnold, like many of East Tennessee's Whigs, remained staunchly pro-Union. Throughout the first half of 1861, Arnold, Brownlow, Temple, Nelson, and other Whig leaders relentlessly canvassed East Tennessee to rally support for the Union cause. At the first session of the East Tennessee Convention in May 1861, Arnold delivered a two-hour speech that, according to Temple, was the "finest effort of his life."
At the convention's Greeneville session in June (which met after Tennessee had seceded from the Union), Arnold "warmly advocated" a series of resolutions that called for East Tennessee to break away from Tennessee and form a separate Union-aligned state, and to use violent force if necessary. Temple and others proposed a milder set of resolutions (which were eventually adopted) that petitioned the state legislature to let East Tennessee secede, but removed the resolution threatening violent force. Temple later recalled that Arnold mocked these resolutions as cowardly, and "poured a perfect broadside of ridicule and sarcasm."
Arnold spent most of the war at his home in Greeneville, ignoring threats to Union supporters who remained in the region while it was under Confederate control. His family was divided during the war, with two of his sons serving as officers in the Confederate Army.
After the war, Arnold resumed his practice of law. He died on May 26, 1870, while attending court in Jonesborough. He is interred in Greeneville's Oak Grove Cemetery.
See also
John Bell
John Netherland
References
Category:1798 births
Category:1870 deaths
Category:Burials in Tennessee
Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee
Category:People from Spotsylvania County, Virginia
Category:People from Greeneville, Tennessee
Category:Tennessee National Republicans
Category:Tennessee Whigs
Category:American militia generals
Category:Southern Unionists in the American Civil War
Category:National Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Category:Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Category:19th-century American politicians
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Introduction {#Sec1}
============
NAFLD is a common clinico-pathologic entity that includes a wide spectrum of liver disorders. This ranges from simple steatosis (excessive fat accumulation in liver) to steatohepatitis (liver cell injury and inflammation), advanced fibrosis and rarely, progression to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. It is marked by hepatic triglyceride (TRG) accumulation in liver parenchyma that adds to liver weight by at least 5%, however, it is not caused by consumption of alcohol^[@CR1],[@CR2]^.
NAFLD prevalence is increasing rapidly. This increase is quite noteworthy in western countries. According to Souza *et al*.^[@CR3]^ the prevalence of NAFLD is estimated at 45% in Hispanic-Americans, 33% in European-Americans and 24% in African-American. Other studies show that it can affect up to 30% of the general population^[@CR4]^. Its relative prevalence is estimated to be 69% among individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus/glucose intolerance^[@CR5]^ when diagnosed by ultrasonography, 87% when diagnosed using biopsy or magnetic resonance imaging^[@CR6],[@CR7]^. The literal pervasiveness of NAFLD still remains unidentified due to heterogeneity in diagnosis, the population under consideration and the degree of diversity across various factors associated therewith^[@CR8]^.
Although the pathogenic mechanism of NAFLD is incompletely understood, the majority of NAFLD patients remains oblivious of their diagnosis until some major complications are encountered or it is diagnosed during tests carried out for some other reasons^[@CR9]^. NAFLD bears bidirectional association with Metabolic Syndrome (MetS)^[@CR10]^. MetS is a cluster of risk factors that significantly exposes an individual to coronary heart disease, diabetes mellitus, endocrine-metabolic diseases and chronic renal failure^[@CR7],[@CR11],[@CR12]^. Hence a space is available to make use of these factors for diagnosis of NAFLD risks. In 2005, the clinical criteria Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP III) were updated by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the American Heart Association (AHA). According to ATP III, the MetS is diagnosed by the existence of three or more risk factors^[@CR6],[@CR13],[@CR14]^ given in Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}.Table 1Definition of the metabolic syndrome, according to recent classifications^[@CR13]^.Risk Factor/FeaturesNational Cholesterol Education Program, ATP-IIIInternational Diabetes FederationJoint statement of IDF, NHLBI, AHA, WHF, IAS, IASOAbdominal obesity, (waist circumference)\>102 cm (males), \>88 cm (females)≥94 cm (males), ≥80 cm (females)(ethnic differences)≥94 cm (males), ≥80 cm (females)(ethnic differences)Lipoprotein levelTRG ≥150 mg/dL or treated for dyslipidemiaTRG ≥150 mg/dL or treated for dyslipidemiaTRG ≥150 mg/dL or treated for dyslipidemiaHDL levelHDL-Chol \<40 mg/dL (males); \<50 mg/dL (females)HDL-Chol \<40 mg/dL (males); \<50 mg/dL (females)HDL-Chol \<40 mg/dL (males); \<50 mg/dL (females)Blood pressure≥130/85 mmHg or treated for Htx≥130/85 mmHg or treated for Htx≥130/85 mmHg or treated for HtxFasting Glucose (FG)≥110 mg/dL or treated for DM≥100 mg/dL or treated for DM≥100 mg/dL or treated for DM**Note**3 of the aboveAbdominal obesity + 2 of the above3 of the above**Associated RiskDefining Factors**0No abdominal adiposity and no other features of MetS1Abdominal adiposity2Abdominal adiposity +1 feature of MetS (i.e. atherogenic dyslipidemia, low HDL cholesterol and/or high TRG, hypertension or fasting hyperglycemia/glucose intolerance/diabetes)3Abdominal adiposity + 2 features of MetS4Abdominal adiposity + 3 features of MetSQuantitative score to estimate the impact of metabolic factors on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease^[@CR6]^. FG, Fasting glucose, HDL, high-density lipoprotein, BMI, body mass index, DM, Diabetes Mellitus, TRG, Triglyceride, MetS, metabolic syndrome.
There are several methods in the literature individually to diagnosis diabetes, kidney or heart disease. Parthiban *et al*.^[@CR15]^ proposed Naïve Bayes based method to diagnose heart disease using diabetic dataset that contain no prior information related to heart disease. However, there is no machine learning based method to identify NAFLD risk from diabetic dataset with no prior information related to NAFLD risk; using risk factors based on ATP III clinical criteria proposed in 2005 for metabolic syndrome to our knowledge.
Early stage detection and diagnosis of NAFLD risk is needed for a variety of reasons. If detected at an early stage and contained promptly, it may be possible to check NAFLD from getting worse and decrease the quantity of fat in liver effectively. About 50% of individuals with compensated cirrhosis owing to NAFLD would either require liver transplant or pass away due other disorders triggered by liver associated diseases^[@CR16]^. NAFLD individuals demonstrate significantly higher premature mortality rate than the general population^[@CR17]^. Identification of novel treatments is bound on the early and reliable identification of NAFLD risk.
Data mining has been of tremendous interest in healthcare community for some decades now, which identifies useful information by sifting through huge quantities of data using statistical as well as pattern recognition and mathematical techniques^[@CR18]^. In this setting, EMRs demonstrate a vital role through cognizing of repetitive clinical measurements related to a patient's condition over time along with vital signs, diagnosis, procedures, prescribed medications and demographics^[@CR19]^. In principle this comprehensive information from each medical encounter can be incorporated to build models that take the semantics of such data into account, use information and knowledge intelligently and effectively help disease prediction as well as progression^[@CR18]^. Hence it is needed to analyses the already available huge diabetic data sets to discover some incredible facts which may help in producing some prediction model.
To overcome the above-mentioned issues and provide for a rapid and detailed analysis of medical data the present study proposes a Decision Tree (DT) based prediction model to investigate the risk of developing NAFLD in the Canadian population using risk factors proposed for MetS by ATP III. It may be noted that the risk factors used in our proposed method are those that are put forward in Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP III) clinical criteria proposed in 2005 to diagnose metabolic syndrome and are not direct indicators of NAFLD.
Methodology {#Sec2}
===========
HealthCare data {#Sec3}
---------------
The data used in this research is acquired from the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN) which is a pioneer multi-disease EMR-based surveillance system of Canada. Data from all participating networks, provided by family physicians and other primary care providers, are aggregated into a single national database (<http://cpcssn.ca/>). CPCSSN contains 667907 records for a period ranging from 2003 to Sept 30, 2013 and every record comprises of various attributes regarding vital signs, diagnosis and demographics. This dataset has previously been used by Mashayekhi *et al*.^[@CR19]^ to assert the discriminability of the Framingham diabetes risk model in Canadian population. An abstract overview of CPCSSN dataset is given in Table [2](#Tab2){ref-type="table"}.Table 2Characteristics of the population in the Canadian primary care sentinel surveillance network database.PredictorsFindings**Demographic (Gender, Age)**Male, sample size (%)287964 (43)Female, sample size (%)379561, (57)Male age mean ±SD,Years47.2 ± 25.1Female age mean ± SD,Years49.5 ± 24.8**Vital Signs/ clinical measures**Diastolic BP mean ± SD, mm Hg73.3 ± 12.4Systolic BP, mean ± SD, mm Hg121.9 ± 16.9Unknown disease frequency (%)393344 (59)COPD frequency (%)15926 (2.4)Dementia frequency (%)12007 (1.8)Depression frequency (%)62682 (10)Diabetes Mellitus frequency (%)40637 (6)Epilepsy frequency (%)5553 (0.8)Hypertension frequency (%)88615 (13)Osteoarthritis frequency (%)47606 (7)Parkinson's Disease frequency (%)1825 (0.2)**Lab Values**FG, mean ± SD, mmol/L5.54 ± 1.91Triglycerides, mean ± SD, mmol/L1.43 ± 1.21HDL, sample size, mean ± SD, mmol/L1.38 ± 0.41BMI, mean ± SD, kg/m^2^26.54 ± 7.37SD, standard deviation; BP, Blood Pressure, BMI, body mass index, FG, Fasting glucose, HDL, high-density lipoprotein, COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.\*Some patients have more than 1 disease in the database.
The consolidation of healthcare information from healthcare centers and hospitals in CPCSSN is an on-going job; hence, not all the information related to risk factors considered for the NAFLD risk prediction are available for all individuals, thus restricting the size of data. At this stage the dataset on clinical measurements are partial, about 627,180 patients out of 667,907 do not bear information for all the factors that are considered in this research based on ATP III for the prediction of NAFLD. The records that contain information for all the related factors are considered in this research. Hence, the final research sample after preprocessing contains 40637 records that include approximately 59% women and 40% men.
An abstract detail of our study sample and 7 potentially relevant risk factors proposed by ATP (III) clinical criteria in 2005 for metabolic syndrome identification are used in the context of NAFLD as listed in Table [3](#Tab3){ref-type="table"}. Those are systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, high density lipoprotein (HDL) triglycerides (TRG), body mass index (BMI), and fasting blood glucose (FG). Additional demographic variables age and sex are also included in this study. All the records for lab values mentioned above for each patient are recorded in mmol/L and demographic and clinical characteristics are described using mean ± standard deviation for continuous variables and categorical data are expressed as frequencies and percentages.Table 3Characteristics of study samples without random under-sampling and with random under-sampling with uniform class distribution.PredictorsFindingsWithout random under-samplingWith random under-sampling**Demographic (Gender, Age)**Male, sample size16631473Female, sample size24006527Overall maximum age, Years10393Overall minimum age, Years919Overall age mean ± SD,Years61.2 ± 14.259.48 ± 12.74**Vital Signs/clinical measures**Systolic blood pressure, mean (SD), mm Hg125.5 ± 15.7127.3 ± 15.403Diastolic blood pressure mean (SD), mm Hg75.4 ± 9.777.064 ± 10.243**Lab Values**FG, mean ± SD, mmol/L5.4 ± 1.25.783 ± 1.935Triglycerides, mean ± SD, mmol/L1.4 ± 1.21.5 ± 1.31HDL, sample size, mean ± SD, mmol/L1.4 ± 0.41.248 ± 0.399BMI, mean ± SD, kg/m^2^28.5 ± 6.130.618 ± 6.164
The CPCSSN has received ethics approval from the research ethics boards of all host universities for all participating networks and from the Health Canada Research Ethics Board. All participating CPCSSN sentinel primary care providers provided written informed consent for the collection and analysis of their EMR data. All data are fully anonymized, using the PARAT tool from Privacy Analytics (Ottawa, Canada). The University of Engineering & Technology research ethics board provided a waiver of ethics review for this study. All animal experimental procedures were conducted in compliance with the guidelines and regulations for the use and care of animals. All methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.
Proposed method {#Sec4}
---------------
The study goal is to facilitate health care professionals/physicians in investigation or prediction of the risk of developing NAFLD in an individual using risk factors put forward in ATP III clinical criteria that are not direct indicators of NAFLD. As a crucial understanding of various risk factors and pathogenic mechanism of NAFLD is compulsory for individualized prevention, management and advanced diagnostic strategies. Let *D* be the Dataset and $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$D=\{{{\rm{S}}}_{1},{S}_{2},\ldots .,{S}_{{\rm{n}}}\}$$\end{document}$ where S~i~ represents record of a particular patient in *D* and $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$${\rm{n}}=1,2,3,\ldots ,\,40,637$$\end{document}$ and each $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$${{\rm{s}}}_{{\rm{i}}}=\{{{\rm{A}}}_{{\rm{i}}1},{{\rm{A}}}_{{\rm{i}}2},\ldots .,{{\rm{A}}}_{{\rm{im}}}\}$$\end{document}$ vector of risk factors of an instance in *D* and $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$${\rm{m}}=1,2,3,\ldots ,7$$\end{document}$. Nevertheless, the dataset of risk factors do not contain any class label whereas the evaluation and prognosis criteria based on DT that is a supervised classification algorithm. Hence, it is crucial to have categorical attributes upon which the dataset can be classified.
For this purpose we have taken quantitative scores to evaluate the impact of metabolic factors on NAFLD defined by the Italian Association for the Study of the Liver (IASF) depicted in Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}^[@CR6],[@CR13]^ along with a guideline explicitly defined for the Canadian population based on triglyceride (TRG) level^[@CR20]^. As it would be worth exploring whether these reference levels of TRG would affect the classification accuracy of the prediction model. So, these defined TRG levels are used as the reference value for determining of NAFLD risk. As a recent study revealed that the prevalence of NAFLD in individuals without metabolic syndrome was 6.1%^[@CR6],[@CR21]^. Furthermore, for ease of understanding, we convert TRG into ordinal categories, as the TRG attribute holds a range of numeric values. The risk of developing NAFLD in each patient is categorized into four mutually exclusive and exhaustive classes (1) Desirable; (2) Borderline-high; (3) High; (4) Very-High based on the values of TRG. This categorization has also been done based on the fact that a TRG value of 5.6 or \> 5.6 mmol/L is taken to be high TRG for Canadians^[@CR6]^. These categorizations are not gender specific and are based on Canadian guidelines as depicted in equations ([1](#Equ1){ref-type=""}), ([2](#Equ2){ref-type=""}), ([3](#Equ3){ref-type=""}) and ([4](#Equ4){ref-type=""}).
### Patient segmentation {#Sec5}
Risk classification and face-print: Let $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$D=\{{{\rm{s}}}_{1},\,{{\rm{s}}}_{2},\,\ldots ,{{\rm{s}}}_{{\rm{n}}}\}$$\end{document}$ where s~i~ is a training instance in *D* augmented with a class vector $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$${\rm{C}}=\{{{\rm{c}}}_{1},\,{{\rm{c}}}_{2},\,\ldots ,{{\rm{c}}}_{{\rm{k}}}\}$$\end{document}$ where C can assume at most four values as mentioned above in which two (Desirable (*L*~*D*~) and Borderline-High (*L*~*BH*~)) point to stability whereas the remaining two (High (*L*~*H*~) and Very-High (*L*~*VH*~) point to instability and high risk for developing NAFLD and each $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$${{\rm{s}}}_{{\rm{i}}}=\{{{\rm{A}}}_{{\rm{i}}1},\,{{\rm{A}}}_{{\rm{i}}2},\,\ldots ,{{\rm{A}}}_{{\rm{im}}}\}$$\end{document}$ vector of attributes of a training instance in *D* that contain systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, high density lipoprotein (HDL) triglycerides (TRG), body mass index (BMI), and fasting blood glucose (FG). Where the range of TRG of an individual *S*~*i*~ denoted by *R*~*TRG*(*Si*)~ and each *S*~*i*~ augmented with a class label based upon *R*~*TRG*~ and qualitative scoring criteria depicted in Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}.$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\forall \,S\in {\rm{D}}\,{\rm{and}}\,{C}_{Desirable}\in C\therefore \,{S}_{i}\in {C}_{Desiable}\iff {R}_{TRG(Si)} < {L}_{D}$$\end{document}$$$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\forall \,S\in {\rm{D}}\,{\rm{and}}\,{C}_{BorderlineHigh}\in C\therefore \,{S}_{i}\in {C}_{BorderlineHigh}\iff {L}_{D} < {R}_{TRG(Si)} < {L}_{BH}$$\end{document}$$$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\forall \,S\in {\rm{D}}\,{\rm{and}}\,{C}_{High}\in C\therefore \,{S}_{i}\in {C}_{High}\iff {L}_{BH} < {R}_{TRG(Si)} < {L}_{H}$$\end{document}$$$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\forall \,S\in {\rm{D}}\,{\rm{and}}\,{C}_{VeryHigh}\in C\therefore \,{S}_{i}\in {C}_{VeryHigh}\iff {L}_{H} < {R}_{TRG(Si)}\ge {L}_{VH}$$\end{document}$$where *L*~*D*~, *L*~*BH*~, *L*~*H*~, *L*~*VH*~ can hold values \<1.7, 2 0.2, 5.6 and \>5.6 mmol/L respectively^[@CR6],[@CR20]^.
The association of a particular individual to one of the above mentioned categories can then be evaluated using the above devised procedure depicted in equations ([1](#Equ1){ref-type=""}), ([2](#Equ2){ref-type=""}), ([3](#Equ3){ref-type=""}) and ([4](#Equ4){ref-type=""}). After evaluation process this association is considered as class label. Table [4](#Tab4){ref-type="table"} shows the study sample distribution across different categories that include categories that include (1) Desirable; (2) Borderline-High; (3) High; (4) Very-High based on the values of TRG. Then the instances are again stored in the database with befitting output label.Table 4Study sample distribution among different ordinal categories.CategoriesNAFLDN%Desirable3033274.6Borderline-High510512.6High501112.08Very-High1890.661Total40637100.0
Method for balancing class distribution {#Sec6}
---------------------------------------
Prediction models are often developed on class-imbalanced data this is especially true about healthcare informatics^[@CR22]^. A dataset is said to be imbalanced if there are significantly more data points of one class and fewer occurrences of the other class: for example, data gathered from screening programs usually include few patients with the disease (minority class samples) and many healthy subjects (majority class samples). Such models tend to achieve poor predictive accuracy in the minority class^[@CR23]^. In addition, lots of medical research involves dealing with rare, but important medical conditions/events or subject dropouts in the longitudinal study^[@CR24]--[@CR27]^. Dealing with imbalanced datasets entails approaches such as advanced and improved classification techniques or balancing classes in the training data (data preprocessing) before feeding the data as input to the data mining algorithm. The later technique is preferred as it has wider application and most widely used strategy to improve the predictive accuracy of the minority class.
The main strategy of balancing classes is to either increasing the frequency of the minority class or decreasing the frequency of the majority class. This is done to obtain approximately the same number of instances for both the classes in order to obtain a balanced distribution prior to building the prediction model. The data imbalance problem in our data is clearly shown in Table [4](#Tab4){ref-type="table"}.
The study sample distribution is imbalanced among above mentioned ordinal categories ((1) Desirable; (2) Borderline-High; (3) High; (4) Very-High) as shown in Table [4](#Tab4){ref-type="table"}. So, we adopted a random under-sampling method. Random Under-sampling aims to balance class distribution by randomly selecting majority class examples. This method is used when quantity of data is sufficient. By keeping all samples in the minority class and randomly selecting an equal number of samples in the majority class. This is done until the majority and minority class instances are balanced out, a balanced new dataset can be retrieved for further modeling. The dataset reduced to 936 records with balanced distribution for each class and an abstract detail in given in Table [3](#Tab3){ref-type="table"}.
Supervised machine learning {#Sec7}
===========================
Since the aim of this research is to analyze the risk of developing NAFLD in an individual and to facilitate physician or decision maker to evaluate risk progression in each individual to make informed choices about their management and improve health condition along with reduce healthcare cost. After evaluating NAFLD risk, the next step is to determine the contribution of each factor in the onset of NAFLD as facts are crucial to comprehend the prognosis.
From the knowledge discovery perspective, the capability to track and assess each step in the process of decision-making is one of the most important and primary factors for relying on the decisions gained from data mining techniques^[@CR28]^. Decision tree is one example of such methods that possess ability to communicate the results in a simple self-explanatory symbolic and visual format with satisfactory accuracy levels in various domains. It incorporates multiple predictors in a simple step by step manner, whose semantics are intuitively clear and easy to interpret for experts, as they can see the structure of decisions in the classifying process^[@CR28],[@CR29]^. Different alternative even without complete information in term of risk and probable values can be compared. Although current state-of-the art classifiers (e.g. Support Vector Machines^[@CR22],[@CR30],[@CR31]^) or ensembles of classifiers^[@CR32]--[@CR34]^ (e.g. Random Forest^[@CR35],[@CR36]^) significantly outperform classical decision tree classification models in terms of classification accuracy or other classification performance metrics, but not suitable for knowledge discovery process.
Therefore, the present study rationally involves J48 DT (C4.5) a promising technique for predictive modeling^[@CR37]^. Early stage prediction of risk for developing NAFLD is not sufficient; a physician or decision maker may also want to know the causes for developing NAFLD risk. The DT maps all risk factors rules to facilitate physician or decision maker to address each individual risk factor to make informed choices about their management. The resulting information may be useful for making interventions to halt or delay NAFLD onset. An abstract Over view can be seen in Fig. [1](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}.Figure 1Abstract overview of proposed methodology.
Decision tree classification {#Sec8}
----------------------------
Classification is a procedure of building a model of class attributes from a dataset, to assign a class label to previously unseen record as accurately as possible. DT is a supervised classification model aimed at partitioning data into homogeneous groups in term of variables to be predicted using entropy. If the partition of data is completely homogeneous, entropy will be zero. Entropy is a gauge to measure the level of disorder in data. Basically, it defines the quantity of information provided by an event. The lower the entropy of an event is (it is rare), the higher the information it provides. Information gain is based on decrease in entropy^[@CR37]^. DT is a tree like hierarchical structure that consists of branches (arcs) and three types of nodes, root, intermediate and leaf node respectively that correspond to the sequence of decision rules.
The attribute that divides the data efficiently is selected as a root node. Next, a child node is selected by calculating Information Gain or some other statistical measure. The branches coming from an internal node are labeled with values of the attribute that a particular node can assume and each branch from root to leaf node represent an if-then rule for the prediction of class for a newly seen instance. Decision trees are reasonable to build, easy to perceive and integrate with database systems^[@CR38],[@CR39]^. Several measures for optimal attribute selection are have been identified in the literature, such as gini index in CART, information gain in ID3 and gain ratio C4.5^[@CR40]^. Let $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$D=\{{{\rm{s}}}_{1},\,{{\rm{s}}}_{2},\,\ldots ,{{\rm{s}}}_{{\rm{n}}}\}$$\end{document}$ where s~i~ is a training instance in *D* augmented with a class vector $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$${{\rm{s}}}_{{\rm{i}}}=\{{{\rm{A}}}_{{\rm{i}}1},\,{{\rm{A}}}_{{\rm{i}}2},\,\ldots ,{{\rm{A}}}_{{\rm{im}}}\}$$\end{document}$ vector of attributes of a training instance in *D*. The following equations are used to measure the entropy and information gain.$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$Entropy(D)=-\sum _{i=1}^{n}{{\rm{p}}}_{{\rm{i}}}{\mathrm{log}}_{2}{{\rm{p}}}_{{\rm{i}}}$$\end{document}$$where p~i~ is the portion of data belonging to a particular Class and p~i~ = s~i~/c~i~. Given a set D of objects, and an attribute A,$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$${\rm{Information}}\,\_{\rm{Gain}}({\rm{D}},{\rm{A}})=Entropy(D)\,\sum _{j=1}^{l}({{\rm{p}}}_{{\rm{j}}}\,\times \,Entropy({{\rm{p}}}_{{\rm{j}}}))$$\end{document}$$where values (p~j~) is the set of all possible values for attribute A and *j* can be upto 1, 2, \..., *l*.
### J48 decision tree {#Sec9}
J48 is an open source java implementation of C4.5 algorithm in WEKA; primarily an extension of ID3 developed by Quinlan in 1986^[@CR41]^. It is a variation of information gain, generally used to overcome the effect of biasness. An attribute with the highest gain ratio is selected in order to build tree as a splitting attribute^[@CR37]^. Gain ratio based DT outperforms than information gain in terms of both accuracy and dealing complex tasks^[@CR11],[@CR38],[@CR42],[@CR43]^. Gain ratio, is defined as follows:$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$Gai{n}_{Ratio(D,A)}=\frac{Entropy(D){\sum }_{j=1}^{l}({{\rm{p}}}_{{\rm{j}}}\times Entropy({{\rm{p}}}_{{\rm{j}}}))}{Splitin{g}_{Info}}$$\end{document}$$
The experiments were run with following settings: The confidence factor that represents a threshold value of allowed inherent error in data (whether an attribute is inside the confidence interval of the assigned class) while pruning the decision is set to 0.5 along with Subtree raising pruning. The minimum number of instances at a single leaf node for which confidence interval is computed was set to 20 in order to obtain simpler and smaller decision trees. Binary split is set to false basically this selection criteria control the visual outlook of the tree. The developed decision tree is shown as Fig. [2](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}.Figure 2Decision tree drawn from CPCSSN Dataset.
Performance metrics {#Sec10}
-------------------
The level of effectiveness of the classification methods can be distinguished with number of correct and incorrect classifications in each possible case of the variables being classified. Given a particular classification algorithm and a data instance, there exist four possibilities. If the instance is positive and it is classified as positive, it is counted as a true positive (equation [8](#Equ8){ref-type=""}); if it is classified as negative, it is counted as a false negative. If the instance is negative and it is classified as negative, it is counted as a true negative; if it is classified as positive, it is counted as a false positive (equation [9](#Equ9){ref-type=""}).$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$TP=\frac{Correctly\,classified\,positives\,instances\,}{Total\,no.of\,positives}$$\end{document}$$$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$FP=\frac{Incorrectly\,classified\,negative\,instances}{Total\,no.of\,negative\,instances}$$\end{document}$$
To assess the discriminative capability of J48 classifier in both datasets as described above most frequently used performance measures such as Micro- and Macro-average of Precision, Recall and F-measure, Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC) and Area under Receiver Operating Characteristic (AROC) curves are incorporated as a tool. These are straightforward and well accepted comparison measure for multi class classifier^[@CR11],[@CR30],[@CR44]--[@CR46]^. Following formulas are used to measure above mentioned performance measures are shown below.$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$Precisio{n}_{\mu }=\frac{{\sum }_{n=1}^{l}T{P}_{n}}{{\sum }_{n=1}^{l}TP+FP}\quad Precisio{n}_{M}=\frac{{\sum }_{n=1}^{l}\frac{T{P}_{n}}{T{P}_{n}+F{P}_{n}}}{l}$$\end{document}$$$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$Recal{l}_{\mu }=\frac{{\sum }_{n=1}^{l}T{P}_{n}}{{\sum }_{n=1}^{l}T{P}_{n}+F{N}_{n}}\quad Recal{l}_{M}=\frac{{\sum }_{n=1}^{l}\frac{T{P}_{n}}{T{P}_{n}+F{N}_{n}}}{l}$$\end{document}$$$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$F-Measur{e}_{\mu }=\frac{2}{\frac{1}{Precisio{n}_{\mu }}+\frac{1}{Recal{l}_{\mu }}}$$\end{document}$$$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$MCC=\frac{(TP\times TN-FP\times FN)}{\sqrt{(TP+FP)(TP+FN)(TN+FP)(TN+FN)}}$$\end{document}$$where *l* is the number of classes, *TP* true positives instances, *TN*, true negative, *FP* the number of false positives and *FN* the number of false negatives.
MCC performance measure to evaluate the performance of our proposed model. In the most general case, MCC is a good compromise among discriminancy, consistency and coherent behaviors with imbalanced class distribution as in our case (see Table [4](#Tab4){ref-type="table"}) and randomization. It is in essence an association between the observed and predicted binary classifications; ranges between −1 and + 1. Where −1 depicts a perfect inverse prediction between prediction and observation and a coefficient of + 1 represents a perfect prediction, 0 no better than random prediction. MCC correlation coefficient value is calculated from confusion matrix for each class ((1) Desirable, (2) Borderline-High, (3) High, (4) Very-High).
We also incorporated the AROC curve for performance evaluation. It fundamentally characterizes by the amalgamation of sensitivity and specificity for individual possible cutoff value of the non-discrete test result that can be considered to express positive and negative test results. Theoretically, the AROC can have values ranges from 0 to 1, whereas a classifier with best discrimination capability will take the value of 1. Nevertheless, the practical lower bound for classification with random discrimination capability is 0.5 which indicate the classifier with no discriminative capability. Whereas classifiers that have AROC value significantly higher than 0.5 indicates that it has at least some power to discriminate. Supplementary notations related to AROC curves are.$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$${\rm{S}}ensitivity=Recall$$\end{document}$$$$\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$Specificity=\frac{TN}{FP+TN}$$\end{document}$$
Results {#Sec11}
=======
The multiclass labeled dataset of 7 risk factors for 40,637 individuals over a period of 10 years is incorporated in this study. The degree of distribution of each class is given in Table [4](#Tab4){ref-type="table"}. We incorporated both balanced and unbalanced datasets in order to obtain a better insight on for which settings the proposed technique contributes to the classic DT. Hold out method is adopted for model building. Both datasets are further divided into two subsets for training and testing 66% and 34% respectively. An abstract detail of each study sample is presented in Table [3](#Tab3){ref-type="table"}. Both datasets are then fed and mapped onto a decision tree using J48 (C4.5) algorithm in WEKA (3.8 Version). The experimental results obtained from both unbalanced and balanced datasets are presented in Tables [5](#Tab5){ref-type="table"} and [6](#Tab6){ref-type="table"} respectively.Table 5Detailed performance analysis of prediction model without random under-sampling.ClassDesirableBorderline_highHighVery_HighWeighted Avg.TP Rate0.9370.050.2960.0240.762FP Rate0.7770.030.0530.0010.542Precision~µ~0.780.4930.5730.1330.669Recall~µ~0.9370.4510.3960.0240.735F-Measure~µ~0.8510.2790.3490.040.676Precision~M~0.7570.5610.6510.4160.677Recall~M~0.8320.590.5030.3660.713MCC0.3280.2470.1950.0550.299AROC0.7480.6310.7380.5070.731Table 6Detailed performance analysis of prediction model with random under-sampling.ClassDesirableBorderline-HighHighVery_HighWeighted Avg.TP Rate0.5740.530.5110.6370.582FP Rate0.1080.1970.3740.110.223Precision~µ~0.620.5870.4680.6470.594Recall~µ~0.5160.6540.6720.6870.637F-Measure~µ~0.5920.6690.5040.5980.614Precision~M~0.6460.6030.5810.5970.610Recall~M~0.5470.6780.720.6670.661MCC0.2040.3770.1670.1640.276AROC0.7480.8120.6930.8090.746
The proposed method was able to classify 76% of the input instances correctly without random under-sampling. To evaluate the overall discriminative capability of multivariate classifier in Canadian healthcare data without random under-sampling different performance measure are used a tool. It exhibited a precision~µ~ of 66%, recall~µ~ of 73%, F-measure~µ~ of 67%, and AROC 73% on average, showing a fairly significant discriminative capability. The results for the all the cases show that MCC range from 0.055 to 0.328.
Random under-sampling results {#Sec12}
-----------------------------
In order to incorporate balance distribution among ordinal classes under-sampling is applied on CPCSSN database. By keeping all samples in the minority class and randomly selecting an equal number of samples in the majority class. This is done until the majority and minority class instances are balanced out, a balanced new dataset can be retrieved for further modeling. The dataset reduced to approximately 939 records with balanced distribution for each class and an abstract detail in given in Table [3](#Tab3){ref-type="table"}. In this case we have taken approximately 250 samples without replacement from each class and combined them with minority class (very-high). The balanced dataset is further divided into two subset training and test to build and validate the prediction model. The classifier, experimental settings and required parameters values for model building are explicitly mentioned in the method section.
To evaluate the overall discriminative capability of multivariate classifier different accuracy measures are used. Table [6](#Tab6){ref-type="table"} lists the results. Specificity enhanced compared to that without random under-sampling. In contrast, slight variation observed in the AROCs. The results btained from balanced dataset with random under-sampling exhibited a precision~µ~ of 59%, recall~µ~ of 63%, F-measure~µ~ of 61%, AROC 74% on average showing a fairly significant discriminative capability and MCC range from 0.164 to 0.377.
Discussion {#Sec13}
==========
As mentioned earlier NAFLD is associated with metabolic disturbances and both are bi-directionally associated. It is a very complex clinical condition with different etiology involving a multitude of physiological mechanisms and symptoms^[@CR14]^. Selecting potentially relevant data is crucial for building an efficient model from EMRs. Therefore, the major clinical factors considered in the ATP III clinical criteria for MetS are incorporated in the context of NAFLD as a basis for early stage screening of individuals at risk for developing NAFLD. Diabetes mellitus, NAFLD and metabolic syndrome frequently co-exist as they potentially share common risk factors of, imbalanced triglycerides and insulin resistance^[@CR47]^.
We have taken quantitative scores defined by the Italian Association for the Study of the Liver (IASF) depicted in Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}^[@CR6],[@CR13]^, along with a guideline explicitly defined for the Canadian population based on triglyceride (TRG) level^[@CR20]^ to evaluate the impact of metabolic factors on NAFLD risk; defined in equations ([1](#Equ1){ref-type=""}), ([2](#Equ2){ref-type=""}), ([3](#Equ3){ref-type=""}) and ([4](#Equ4){ref-type=""}).
Tomizawa *et al*.^[@CR48]^ performed multivariate regression analysis to evaluate the efficiency of various risk factors in the prediction of NAFLD. These factors include TRG, HDL, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), blood glucose (BG) and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c). Experimental results demonstrate that TGR was the parameter most significantly associated with NAFLD (χ^2^ = 9.89, *P* = 0.0017) and also highlight that TRG is an elevated marker of NAFLD. A recent study also revealed that prevalence of NAFLD in individuals without metabolic syndrome was 6.1%^[@CR6]^. So, in this research we have taken quantitative scores defined by IASF along with a guideline explicitly defined for the Canadian population based on triglyceride (TRG) level^[@CR20]^. These defined levels are used as the reference value for determining of NAFLD risk. This was the first step in the development of NAFLD risk prediction model.
Early stage prediction of risk for developing NAFLD is not sufficient; a physician or decision maker may also want to know the causes for developing NAFLD risk. DT is one of the machine learning techniques possess ability to communicate the results in a simple self-explanatory symbolic and visual format with satisfactory accuracy levels in various domains. It incorporates multiple predictors in a simple step by step manner, whose semantics are intuitively clear and easy to interpret for experts, as they can see the structure of decisions in the classifying process^[@CR28],[@CR29]^.
Hence, we evaluated J48 decision tree algorithm to identify contributing factors in the onset of NAFLD as facts are crucial to comprehend the prognosis. The most promising attribute with maximum information gain in our case HDL is selected as root. The root node is evaluated first when assessing NAFLD risk in an individual. If the range of HDL ≥ 1.3 the risk would be desirable that represent stability otherwise second node (BMI) with second highest information gain would be tested and this procedure continue until an instance is classified into one of the predefined categories mentioned above.
If we consider above rules, these rules are also valid according to medical perspective, as the analysis of NAFLD risk can also be done by the low HDL, high triglyceride and impaired FG^[@CR21],[@CR40],[@CR49]^. Considering the cutoff value of HDL ≥ 1.3, that is supported by previous studies for desirable risk level^[@CR6],[@CR14],[@CR43]^. Considering the second rule depicted in decision tree is also valid, latest research have depicted significant relation between low HDL, central obesity and the risk of developing NAFLD and/or MetS^[@CR3],[@CR6],[@CR21]^. The IDF and ATP III also define MetS as the manifestation of central obesity, along with any two of the following factors. (1) Increased TRG level, (2) Low HDL, (3) hypertension (Systolic BP ≥ 130 or Diastolic BP ≥ 85 mmHg), (4) FPG ≥ 100 mg/dL, or earlier diagnosed as diabetic). Furthermore, an interesting fact described in existing studies can also be extracted from the above mentioned decision tree that the prevalence of NAFLD is higher in men with an "inverted U shaped curve". It increases from young to middle-aged individual and declines in the elderly^[@CR6]^, whereas increases with age in women^[@CR50]^.
We also analyzed the performance of the predictive model on both with and without random under-sampling datasets taken from CPCSSN data. The AROC value reveals that the performance of the model on without random under-sampling data is 0.731 on average, as shown in Table [5](#Tab5){ref-type="table"}. Given the 40,637 individuals records enrolled in CPCSSN over a period of 10 years, we can also predict the occurrence of at least 4562 NAFLD incidents correctly. A large cohort study revealed that NAFLD is correlated with 26% higher 5-year overall healthcare expenditures^[@CR51]^. Thus limiting the economic burden of 4428 NAFLD patients.
Ordinarily, ultrasonography of abdomen is used to monitor the patients of NAFLD. Ultrasonography of abdomen test cost \$150--\$390 USD in the payment system for medical services in Canada if all individuals who underwent checkups are so tested, the total healthcare expenditure would rise by approximately 6,095,550 USD. Moreover, a significant large portion of these individuals would potentially be saved if individuals at high risk for developing NAFLD managed appropriately.
Furthermore, Table [6](#Tab6){ref-type="table"} demonstrates only a small variation in AROC using under-sampling. It did not increase the discriminability of predictive model and failed to incorporate informative records from the dataset. The AROC value of the predictive model depicts 0.746 discriminative ability of the classification using under-sampling. Some existing research have successfully applied under-sampling in predictive modeling^[@CR15],[@CR23]^ however, the current research do not support their findings. Under-sampling techniques those consider informative records from data are worth examining to improve predictive capability.
The present research has two major limitations. Firstly, the research is carried out mainly on Canadian population, caution is required in TRG guidelines incorporation as the reference value for determining NAFLD risk and results generalization when dealing with other population. Secondly, we employed J48 decision tree algorithm for building prediction model, and did not incorporate any other classification algorithm. Further advanced research on the effectiveness of other methods is advised.
Conclusion {#Sec14}
==========
Application of Data mining in analyzing the Electronic Medical Records is an efficient approach for discovering the existing relationships among variables that is ordinarily difficult to detect. From our proposed method we have shown that it can be exploited to extract implicit, useful, nontrivial associations even from factors that are not direct or explicit indicators of the class we are trying to predict. In this research we predicted the risk of developing NAFLD in an individual by incorporating noninvasive markers and gold standard machine learning method. The rationale behind our approach is divided in two parts: firstly relevant risk factors selection using ATP III clinical criteria proposed in 2005 for MetS and allocation of class label with respect to triglycerides (TRG) level along with qualitative scoring criteria proposed by IASF for extracting knowledge from the input data and evaluating the NAFLD risk in an individual. Secondly rule based reasoning and visualization of predictive results that can be employed in better understanding of the phenomena involving a multitude of physiological mechanisms and symptoms. The results demonstrate that the proposed technique is suitable with optimal discrimination for the assessment of NAFLD risk, understanding the contributing factors, producing accurate, specific and decision oriented rules to facilitate physician and make informed choices about their management and improve health condition. This can be extended to predict other type of ailments which arise from metabolic syndrome.
Sajida Perveen, Muhammad Shahbaz, Karim Keshavjee and Aziz Guergachi contributed equally to this work.
**Publisher\'s note:** Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This research project was partially supported by NSERC, CFI and OIT. We thank our colleagues at CPCSSN for their help with the datasets. No financial support was received for this study/work.
All authors contributed equally to the conception, design and development of the research. Sajida P. investigated/predicted the risk of developing NAFLD in an individual using risk factors put forward in ATP III clinical criteria. Muhammad S. provided the technical guidance for conducting the research, and analysis of the data. Karim K. critically revised the paper draft for the soundness of the research from the medical viewpoint. Aziz G. critically revised the paper draft for the soundness of the research from the machine learning viewpoint. All authors reviewed the manuscript before its submission.
Competing Interests {#FPar1}
===================
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Central
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Q:
setInterval not allow simultaneous click event - javascript
I have polling question for you. I am polling information every 20 seconds using setInterval, and have click events that when fired, they pass objects to a method. The problem comes when I click on a button and the event fires at the same time the poll restarts. If that happens, the object that is passed is undefined, which makes sense because when we restart the poll, the information is refreshed. So the question is, how/can one "block" an event from firing when a setInterval is restarting?
Thanks
A:
Going to show some dummy code to illustrate the idea of a queue while you refresh the data on the page:
$(function() {
var isRefreshing = true;
var queue = [];
setInterval(function() {
isRefreshing = true;
$.ajax({
/*
settings
*/
success: function() {
isRefreshing = false;
//process queue
var item;
while(item = queue.pop()) {//if order matters use shift
worker(item);
}
}
});
}, 20*1000);
var worker = function(/*params*/) {
//stuff
}
$("#my-element").click(function() {
var data = {};
if(isRefreshing) {
queue.push(data)
} else {
worker(data);
}
});
});
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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StackExchange
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Thoracoscopic excision of an intrathoracic mesothelial cyst in a child.
The aim of this study was to highlight the unique case of an intrathoracic mesothelial cyst in a 5-year-old child that was treated with a thoracoscopic resection. Mesothelial cysts are benign cysts lined by a single layer of mesothelial cells. These rare lesions can be found on, or adjacent to, serous membranes but are only occasionally located within the thorax. In children, less than 10 intrathoracic cases have been described thus far, most of which are diaphragmatic in origin. An asymptomatic 5-year-old female presented with a left-sided mediastinal mass incidentally discovered on a chest radiograph during a work-up for scoliosis. Magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated a hypodense, nonenhancing lesion measuring 3 x 2.5 x 8 cm in the left paravertebral region. Video-assisted thoracoscopy was employed for diagnosis and excision. The thin-walled cyst was dissected free from the pleura and completely excised thoracoscopically. Histopathology showed a benign, unilocular cyst lined with a cuboidal mesothelium that stained strongly positive for cytokeratin. Mediastinal mesothelial cysts have very rarely been reported in the pediatric population. In the case presented, the benign cyst was easily excised by using a minimally invasive thoracoscopic approach. Given the appropriate indications, we feel that thoracoscopic resection is well suited for such cases.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Abstracts
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Hi there!I am having the same issue! I got my HP Deskjet 840C installed correctly on my Vectorlinux PC, it is actually an old machine with only 256MB or RAM and Pentium-III 800Mhz processor. And I really am trying to figure out how to share my printer with my windows 7 machine, again on CUPS it shows that my printer is published. Ohh! one second, I think I forgot to set a static IP address on my Vectorlinux machine. ok! let me try do that and if I got things to work, I'll come back and post another reply!And Guys if anyone has a way of doing this, sharing the printer with another winodws based machine do share with us.Best wishes,
hey guys!I just noticed this post is two years old! waw! and i am the first one to reply to it. making me think!
anyways, i got my vectorlinux machine on a static IP address on my LAN, and again tried to add it on my windows machine (add my printer which is published on my vectorlinux machine), but no luck! there has to be a trick somewhere. I have always been a windows guy, and recently I decided to try a lightweight linux flavor for my old machine, so I am now trying to investigate the usual things on my vectorlinux machine.
I will carry on looking around the forum, maybe someone has a tip somewhere~sam~
Hi there!well, I finally found some instructions online and believe it or not I finally got my HP Deskjet 840c shared with my windows 7 machine! i mean, I really went like "WAW!!!" and "YAAAAYYYY!!!".
ok, here is how i did it:first on the Vectorlinux, make sure you are logged in as ROOT, and then in your browser type in: http://localhost:631/adminand remember, at times you will be asked to enter some username and password, so make sure you put in your ROOT as username and your Root's password.
now, with the above link, you will be able to add your new printer, and then make sure you check the box next to "make my published printers shared", or the one that means that, i can't remember the exact sentence now.
Next, once all this is done, go to your Windows XP or VISTA or 7, and go to the printers and devices options, and add a network printer, here you will probably see few options besides the TCP/IP port printer, but don't choose that, instead you have to choose the option next to "Enter printer's name", so here you have to enter the following path:http://vector-linux-ip-address:631/printers/vector-linux-printer-namenow translate the above to what reflects your real scenario. then you will be prompted to specify a printer type and driver and so on, follow the wizard and you are done.
one more thing, get to your new added printer properties and find the "Advanced" tab, and make sure you choose "send directly to printer".
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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Pile-CC
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Today in History FOR RELEASE SUNDAY, AUGUST 19, 2018, AT 12:00 A.M. EDT. Adv19
Today is Sunday, Aug. 19, the 231st day of 2018. There are 134 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On August 19, 2004, Google began trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, ending the day up $15.34 at $100.34.
On this date:
In A.D. 14, Caesar Augustus, Rome’s first emperor, died at age 76 after a reign lasting four decades; he was succeeded by his stepson Tiberius.
In 1812, the USS Constitution defeated the British frigate HMS Guerriere off Nova Scotia during the War of 1812, earning the nickname “Old Ironsides.”
In 1814, during the War of 1812, British forces landed at Benedict, Maryland, with the objective of capturing Washington D.C.
In 1909, the first automobile races were run at the just-opened Indianapolis Motor Speedway; the winner of the first event was auto engineer Louis Schwitzer, who drove a Stoddard-Dayton touring car twice around the 2.5-mile track at an average speed of 57.4 mph.
In 1934, a plebiscite in Germany approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler.
In 1936, the first of a series of show trials orchestrated by Soviet leader Josef Stalin began in Moscow as 16 defendants faced charges of conspiring against the government (all were convicted and executed).
In 1942, during World War II, about 6,000 Canadian and British soldiers launched a disastrous raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France, suffering more than 50-percent casualties.
In 1951, the owner of the St. Louis Browns, Bill Veeck (vehk), sent in Eddie Gaedel, a 3-foot-7 player with dwarfism, to pinch-hit in a game against Detroit. (In his only major league at-bat, Gaedel walked on four pitches and was replaced at first base by a pinch-runner.)
In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford won the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Kansas City.
In 1980, 301 people aboard a Saudi Arabian L-1011 died as the jetliner made a fiery emergency return to the Riyadh airport.
In 1987, a gun collector ran through Hungerford, England, 60 miles west of London, killing 16 people, including his mother, before turning his gun on himself.
Ten years ago: Tropical Storm Fay rolled ashore in Florida short of hurricane strength but mysteriously gained speed as it headed over land. Heavily armed insurgents in Afghanistan killed 10 French soldiers in a mountain ambush and then sent a squad of suicide bombers in a failed assault on a U.S. base near the Pakistan border. Russia and Georgia exchanged prisoners captured during their brief war. American Shawn Johnson won a gold medal on the balance beam at the Beijing games.
Five years ago: Olympian runner Oscar Pistorius was indicted in Pretoria, South Africa, on charges of murder and illegal possession of ammunition for the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his home on Valentine’s Day 2013; Pistorius maintained he’d mistaken her for an intruder. (He was initially convicted of manslaughter, but that was overturned and replaced with a murder conviction by South Africa’s Supreme Court. Pistorius is serving a 13-year prison sentence.) A train ran over a group of Hindu pilgrims at a crowded station in eastern India, killing at least 37 people.
One year ago: Thousands of demonstrators chanting anti-Nazi slogans and denouncing white nationalism upstaged a small group of conservatives in Boston who had gathered for a “free speech rally.” In Dallas, police on horseback broke up a scuffle at a cemetery between people rallying against white supremacy and supporters of Confederate monuments. Hundreds marched from downtown Atlanta to the home of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in protest of white supremacists and other hate groups. Duke University removed a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee after it was vandalized. Comedian and activist Dick Gregory, who broke racial barriers in the 1960s and later spread messages of social justice and nutritional health, died in Washington, D.C., at the age of 84.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
|
Pile-CC
|
Background {#Sec1}
==========
Human T cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is a retrovirus that causes an aggressive neoplasm of mature CD4^+^ T cells called adult T cell leukemia (ATL), as well as a variety of inflammatory diseases including uveitis, infectious dermatitis, Sjögren's syndrome, and HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) \[[@CR1]--[@CR8]\]. Although at least 5--10 million people are infected with HTLV-1 worldwide, only a small percentage will develop clinically relevant symptoms \[[@CR9]\]. The factors that determine the clinical outcome of HTLV-1 infection are not fully understood, but studies aimed at investigating the viral determinant of HTLV-1 pathogenicity have underscored the oncogenic potential of Tax and HBZ \[[@CR10]\].
Despite having a relatively small genome of approximately 9000 nt \[[@CR11]\], HTLV-1 expresses multiple gene products through the transcription of both strands of its proviral genome, complex mRNA splicing, and ribosomal frameshifting, resulting in the production of protease and polymerase enzymes, the structural Gag and Env proteins, and the non-structural proteins Tax, Rex, p21Rex, p30, p13, p12/p8, and HBZ. This review describes the biological properties of p13, a small protein encoded by the second open reading frame of the X region (*orf*-*II*) \[[@CR12]\]. As we explore here, recent studies have revealed interesting variations in p13 sequences isolated from different patients infected with HTLV-1 \[[@CR13], [@CR14]\] that may possibly be relevant to the life cycle and pathogenic properties of HTLV-1.
Expression and intracellular localization of p13 {#Sec2}
------------------------------------------------
Early studies of *orf*-*II* revealed that it codes for two proteins: p30, a 241-residue nuclear/nucleolar protein expressed from a doubly-spliced mRNA, and p13, an 87-residue protein coded by a singly-spliced mRNA corresponding to the carboxy-terminal portion of p30 \[[@CR12], [@CR15], [@CR16]\]. Analyses of the expression kinetics of the viral transcripts in infected cells showed that the p13 and p30 mRNAs accumulate late in the replication cycle, together with mRNAs encoding structural proteins \[[@CR17], [@CR18]\]. Initial studies carried out in a HeLa-derived cell line transiently transfected with p13 expression plasmids indicated that the protein accumulated in punctate structures located in the cytosol and perinuclear area, and in the nucleus but not nucleoli \[[@CR15]\]. Subsequent co-localization analysis with compartment markers revealed that the punctate structures containing p13 were in fact mitochondria \[[@CR19]\]. The results of mutational analyses and assays with GFP-tagged portions of p13 led to the identification of the minimal mitochondrial targeting signal (MTS) that is necessary and sufficient to determine the protein's mitochondrial accumulation (Fig. [1](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}) \[[@CR19]\]. Circular dichroism analysis showed that the p13 MTS folds into an amphipathic alpha helical structure containing four arginines \[[@CR20]\]. Unlike canonical MTS, the p13 MTS differs is not located at the amino terminus of the protein, it is not cleaved upon import, and it does not require the presence of the four arginines for mitochondrial localization \[[@CR20]\]. The mitochondrial localization of p13 was confirmed by confocal microscopy analysis and a combination of electron microscopy and biochemical fractionation studies, which revealed that p13 is mainly inserted in the inner mitochondrial membrane \[[@CR20]\]. Confocal microscopy analysis also confirmed mitochondrial localization in transfected primary rat embryo fibroblasts and the T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) cell line Jurkat \[[@CR21]\].Fig. 1p13 domain structure. Schematic representation of the domain structure of p13. AA indicates the amphipathic α-helix overlapping with the mitochondrial targeting signal (MTS, amino acids 21--35) and +++ indicates the four arginines present in the MTS. The transmembrane region (TM) includes amino acids 30--40. A region with a high flexibility score (H) spans amino acids 42--48. A predicted β-sheet structure spans amino acids 65--75. The proline-rich C-terminus contains two overlapping P-x-x-P motifs implicated in interactions with SH3 domain-containing proteins. A putative cryptic nuclear localization sequence (NLS) is mapped to a region spanning residues 43--80. This figure was adapted from Figure 1 in \[[@CR87]\]
The MTS of p13 acts as a dominant targeting signal that is necessary for the mitochondrial accumulation of p13, and is sufficient to direct the mitochondrial accumulation of heterologous proteins such as GFP \[[@CR19]\]. The 13-kDa size of p13 is well below the cut-off of the nuclear pore, suggesting that the protein should be able to freely diffuse in and out of the nucleus. As depicted in Fig. [1](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}, p13 is believed to contain a nuclear localization signal (NLS) positioned after its MTS. The existence of this NLS was inferred from observations from a series of deletion mutants of p30 fused to GFP \[[@CR22]\], and further analysis is required to verify its impact on p13's intracellular compartmentalization. A study by Andresen et al. showed that p13 becomes more stable when co-expressed with Tax, that it is modified by ubiquitination, and that a small fraction of p13 is localized to nuclear speckles containing Tax and SC35 (Fig. [2](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}) \[[@CR23]\]. Interestingly, the nuclear localization of p13 was more prominent when the protein was fused to green fluorescent protein (GFP) or to the hemagglutinin (HA) epitope tag (unpublished data). The nuclear accumulation of p13-GFP also appeared to be proportional to the expression levels of the protein (Fig. [2](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}). These findings suggest that p13 may accumulate in the nucleus when a certain concentration threshold is reached, which might be favored by Tax or the presence of tags such as ubiquitin.Fig. 2Intracellular localization of p13-GFP. **a** Confocal microscopy analysis of HeLa cells transfected with a p13-GFP-expressing plasmid and labelled with an antibody recognizing the mitochondrial protein HSP60 (Santa Cruz Biotechnology) and an Alexa-546-conjugated secondary antibody (Life Technologies). Nuclei were visualized using Vibrant DyeCycle Ruby (Life Technologies). Nuclei, mitochondria, and p13 are shown in blue, red, and green, respectively. **b** Quantitative analysis of the percentage of p13-GFP signal detected in nucleus in relation to the total p13-GFP signal measured in the same cell
Functional properties of p13 {#Sec3}
----------------------------
### Effects of p13 on K^+^ flux {#Sec4}
Studies carried out using synthetic p13 and purified mitochondria showed that the protein induces a potassium influx through the inner mitochondrial membrane (Δψ) \[[@CR20], [@CR24]\]. The entry of K^+^ increases the activity of the electron transport chain (ETC), which extrudes a higher number of H^+^ and thus balances the entry of K^+^ positive charges. Although this ramping up of the ETC maintains the potential of the mitochondrial membrane, it also favors the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Increased ROS may trigger the opening of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (PTP), an event that can lead to cell death \[[@CR25]\] (Fig. [3](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}).Fig. 3Overview of p13 biology. (1) p13 accumulates in the inner mitochondrial membrane. It induces an inward K^+^ current which leads to decreased mitochondrial membrane potential (Δψ) and a compensatory increase in the activity of the ETC, resulting in increased ROS production, and opening of the PTP, leading to mitochondrial swelling and apoptosis. p13 also interferes with the uptake of Ca^2+^ by mitochondria, which leads to an accumulation of cytosolic calcium. (2) When p13 is co-expressed with Tax, p13 becomes ubiquitinated and more stable. The protein partially accumulates in the nucleus, where p13 and Tax co-localize in nuclear speckles. (3) Interaction of p13 with farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase (FPase) interferes with Ras prenylation and targeting to the plasma membrane
Cells expressing p13 have fragmented mitochondria \[[@CR20]\]. The effect of p13 in both isolated mitochondria and in cells is dose-dependent: When p13 is low, the entry of K^+^ is counterbalanced by increased ETC activity. At higher levels of p13, cells show mitochondrial depolarization and substantial fragmentation. Although the four arginines in the amphipathic alpha helix are not essential for mitochondrial targeting, they are required to induce the inflow of K^+^ into mitochondria and for mitochondrial fragmentation \[[@CR20], [@CR24]\].
### p13 and mitochondrial ROS {#Sec5}
ROS are powerful second messengers that control multiple signal transduction pathways. Depending on their levels, ROS may favor cell proliferation, neoplastic transformation, or cell death. The effects of ROS in cell turnover have been compared to a rheostat \[[@CR26]\]: a moderate increase in ROS stimulates healthy resting cells to proliferate, and a further increase will favor tumor transformation. Excessive ROS production will lead to DNA damage and apoptotic cell death.
In agreement with observations made in isolated mitochondria, p13 was found to increase ROS production in several cell models (e.g. HeLa cells, primary T cells, and Jurkat T-ALL cells) \[[@CR25]\]. These findings suggest that, in the context of the viral life cycle, p13 might contribute to an expansion of the pool of infected T cells, but trigger apoptosis of infected cells that acquire a transformed phenotype. In line with this model, the expression of p13 has been shown to lead to the activation of primary T cells and increased apoptotic death of Jurkat T-ALL cells \[[@CR25]\].
### Role of p13 in calcium signaling {#Sec6}
p13 also influences the mitochondrial uptake of calcium ions. In response to physiological stimuli (nutrients, hormones, neurotransmitters), Ca^2+^ rapidly accumulates in the mitochondrial matrix, where it stimulates enzymes of oxidative metabolism to produce ATP \[[@CR27]\]. In contrast, mitochondrial calcium overload triggers sustained PTP opening, which leads to cell death \[[@CR28]\].
Experiments carried out using Ca^2+^-sensitive aequorin probes localized to different cellular compartments (mitochondria, ER, or cytosol) showed that p13 inhibits the influx of Ca^2+^ into mitochondria, resulting in a local increase in the cytosolic concentration of Ca^2+^ (Fig. [3](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}) \[[@CR29]\]. This effect is interesting in light of the crucial role of Ca^2+^ signaling in the activation and survival of T cells, the primary targets of HTLV-1 infection. It would be interesting to determine if p13 functionally interacts with p12, a small, hydrophobic *orf*-*I* protein that localizes in the ER, binds calreticulin, and increases cytosolic Ca^2+^ levels, resulting in the activation of nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT) \[[@CR15], [@CR30]\].
### Effects of p13 on cell signaling pathways {#Sec7}
Lefebvre et al. showed that p13 negatively influences the Ras signal transduction pathway by binding to farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase (FPase), a key enzyme in the synthesis of substrates necessary for the prenylation of Ras and its association with the plasma membrane (Fig. [2](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}) \[[@CR31]\]. This property may contribute to the ability of p13 to suppress the transformation of rat embryo fibroblasts driven by the combination of Ras and Myc \[[@CR32]\]. p13 also inhibits the proliferation of Jurkat cells when grown at high culture density and favors cell death under glucose deprivation or upon treatment with C2-ceramide, an inducer of the intrinsic pathway of apoptosis \[[@CR33]\].
The C-terminal portion of p13 (and p30) is rich in prolines, including those arranged in a sequence resembling P-x-x-P (PPII) helical motifs that interact with SH3 domain-containing proteins such as the Src family kinases (SFKs). Using in vitro binding and kinase assays, Tibaldi et al. confirmed that p13 is able to associate with SFKs Src, Fyn, Fgr, and Lyn \[[@CR34]\]. This interaction led to increased kinase activity, but the effect was blocked in the presence of a p13 peptide spanning residues 61--87. Further analysis of the p13-Lyn interaction provided evidence that p13 is able to direct Lyn to mitochondria, resulting in an accumulation of p13-Lyn complexes in the intermembrane space instead of the inner membrane location observed for p13 alone. This change in p13's submitochondrial localization was accompanied by an attenuation in the p13-mediated loss of mitochondrial membrane potential \[[@CR34]\]. These p13-SFK interactions share some similarities with properties described for HIV-1 Nef, whose interactions with the Hck, Lyn, and Src SFKs play a positive role in viral replication \[[@CR35], [@CR36]\].
The role of autophagy in recycling damaged or unneeded organelles has gained increased attention in recent years. Mitophagy is a mitochondria-specific subtype of this recycling mechanism that can be induced by different factors, including viral infection \[[@CR37]\]. Mitophagy induced by Hepatitis viruses B and C has been suggested to reduce apoptosis and increase viral persistence \[[@CR38], [@CR39]\]. Coxsackie B virus (CVB) uses the mitophagy process for its viral spread \[[@CR40]\], and classical swine fever virus (CSFV) induces mitophagy to inhibit apoptosis \[[@CR41]\]. The effects of p13 on mitochondrial depolarization, swelling, and general homeostasis might therefore trigger the mitophagy process. The role of p13 in regulating essential parts of the mitophagy pathway would be an interesting point of investigation for future studies.
### Impact of p13 on Tax function {#Sec8}
Studies on the interplay between p13 and Tax \[[@CR23]\] indicated that p13 binds directly to Tax and interferes with its ability to associate with CBP/p300, an interaction that is needed for Tax-mediated activation of transcription from the long terminal repeat (LTR) promoter. Together with its late expression kinetics, this property supports a role for p13 as an 'off' switch that favors entrance into a latent state of infection, which is likely important for virus persistence in the host \[[@CR23]\].
p13-like proteins in other deltaretroviruses {#Sec9}
--------------------------------------------
HTLV-1 is classified in the deltaretrovirus genus, together with the related HTLV-2, 3, and 4 orthologues that infect nonhuman primates as simian T cell leukemia virus (STLVs); and bovine leukemia virus (BLV). Due to their shared molecular features, the human and simian viruses are collectively referred to as primate T-lymphotropic viruses (PTLVs).
HTLV-2 circulates as 2 major subtypes, A and B, and is present mainly in South American indigenous populations, western and central Africa, and among intravenous drug users \[[@CR42]\]. The pathogenicity of HTLV-2 is not clearly defined \[[@CR43]\], but infection with this virus appears to significantly increase all-cause mortality \[[@CR44]\]. The HTLV-2 x-II *orf* codes for a protein named p28 that, despite limited sequence identity, shares several functional properties with HTLV-1 p30 \[[@CR45]\]. Transfection assays carried out using a plasmid coding for an HTLV-2A x-II *orf* carrying an epitope tag at the 3ʹ end did not reveal expression of any proteins smaller than p28, suggesting that HTLV-2A does not code for a p13 homologue \[[@CR46]\]. Analogous experiments have not been carried out for HTLV-2B.
HTLV-3 \[[@CR47], [@CR48]\] and HTLV-4 \[[@CR49]\] were identified in individuals from Cameroonian rainforests and are of unknown pathogenicity \[[@CR50]\]. As part of a detailed analysis of the coding potential of HTLV-4 isolate 1863LE, Switzer et al. identified an open reading frame (*orf*-*IV*) that codes for a 68-amino acid protein with 75% similarity to portions of p13 located after the MTS and transmembrane motif \[[@CR49]\]. Interestingly, alignment of this predicted protein with p13, HTLV-2 p28, and related *orfs* in STLV-2 (*orf*-*II*) and HTLV-3 (*orf*-*III*) revealed a highly conserved stretch of amino acids corresponding to p13 residues 59--84 in all of the sequences \[[@CR49]\]. Afonso et al. \[[@CR51]\] recently described a divergent STLV-1 isolate that contains mutations that affect splicing and/or codons that disrupt both the x-II and x-I *orfs*. An extension of this analysis to other STLVs and HTLVs showed disruption of either or both of these *orfs* in several other PTLVs \[[@CR51]\].
BLV is a widespread pathogen that infects cattle, water buffalo, and zebus, and causes B-lymphocytosis, leukemia, and lymphoma. Accessory proteins coded by BLV include G4, a 105-amino acid protein that is targeted to mitochondria, and to a lesser extent, to the nucleus \[[@CR31]\]. p13 and G4 share very little sequence identity (26.4%, unpublished data), and its mitochondrial targeting depends on both an amino-proximal hydrophobic alpha-helix and a more carboxy-terminal arginine-rich amphipathic alpha helix \[[@CR31]\]. In contrast to the tumor suppressor-like property observed for p13, BLV G4 cooperates with H-Ras in a rat embryo fibroblast transformation model, and is needed for BLV-driven tumor development in a sheep model \[[@CR52]\].
p13 and the host immune response {#Sec10}
--------------------------------
Several studies over the past decade have revealed important roles for mitochondria in immune responses \[[@CR53]\]. Many viruses encode mitochondrial proteins that are important for viral spread and persistence \[[@CR54]--[@CR56]\], and several viruses target MAVS (mitochondrial antiviral-signaling protein), a cellular protein localized in the outer mitochondrial membrane, mitochondrial-associated membranes, and peroxisomes that plays a critical role in innate immune response against RNA viruses \[[@CR57]--[@CR59]\]. The ability of HTLV-1 to infect monocytes suggests that the virus might impinge on the host's innate immune responses \[[@CR60]--[@CR63]\].
One way that p13 might impact the host's immune response could be through its regulation of cell death. Cell death mechanisms induced through mitochondrial pathways are known to enable the release of circular mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from mitochondria to the cytosol \[[@CR64]\]. The presence of mtDNA in the cytosol can further trigger inflammatory responses in the host through the cyclic GMP--AMP synthase (cGAS)-stimulator of interferon genes (STING) signaling pathway \[[@CR65], [@CR66]\]. The possible impact of p13 on anti-viral innate immunity is currently under investigation in our laboratories. The size and shape of mitochondria are controlled by the balance between mitochondrial fusion and fission \[[@CR67]\]. This dynamic is intimately connected to the pattern of differentiation and activation of cells involved in immune responses. Naive effector T cells have small, round mitochondria, and their activation to effector T cells increases mitochondrial fission \[[@CR68]\]. Mitochondrial fusion is prevalent in memory T cells, and results in elongated, tubular mitochondria and higher mitochondrial mass \[[@CR68]\]. In their initial description of alternatively spliced HTLV-1 mRNAs, Berneman et al. showed that the p13 mRNA was expressed in 6 out of 10 ATLL samples, but was not detected in 3 PBMC samples from healthy HTLV-1 carriers \[[@CR69]\]. It would be interesting to investigate if p13 might be involved in the selection of memory T-cells, which may represent the cell of origin of ATL \[[@CR70]\].
### In vivo studies of p13 {#Sec11}
In vivo studies performed in rabbits using the molecular clone ACH.1 or a derivative containing a mutation that abolished expression of both *orf*-*II* proteins (ACH.30/13.1) showed that animals inoculated with ACH.30/13.1 had lower proviral loads than animals inoculated with ACH.1. These results suggest that p13 and/or p30 might be essential for the maintenance of viral loads in vivo \[[@CR71]\]. The importance of p13 in vivo was confirmed in a more recent study of a molecular clone lacking the p13 initiation codon but still able to produce p30 \[[@CR72]\]. However, in both studies the p13 knock-out was obtained by substituting its ATG start codon with GAT, which also disrupts the HBZ *orf* coded on the antisense strand \[[@CR73]\]. New studies that do not interrupt the HBZ *orf* are thus needed to verify the importance of p13 alone.
Sequence variation of p13 {#Sec12}
-------------------------
While the HTLV-1 genome structure and sequence are in general highly conserved, sequence variations in HTLV-1 LTR segments are used to classify HTLV-1 isolates into 7 molecular subtypes with characteristic geographic distributions: subtypes A (further divided into 5 subgroups), B, C, D, E, F, and G \[[@CR9]\]. Several studies have been directed at identifying subtypes and variants that might correlate with the clinical characteristics of infected patients. A study by Nozuma et al. comparing isolates from asymptomatic carriers and HAM/TSP patients confirmed the virus's high degree of sequence conservation but also provided evidence for an association between HAM/TSP and infection with the "transcontinental" HTLV-1A subgroup \[[@CR14]\]. Interestingly, this subgroup also showed a significantly higher frequency of mutations, mainly single nucleotide substitutions \[[@CR14]\]. Kuramitsu investigated viral parameters associated with indeterminate HTLV-1 western blot (WB) results, defined as a lack of antibody reactivity against gp46Env and/or Gag proteins p53, p24 and p19, and observed that WB-indeterminate patients had a higher frequency of viral sequence variations compared to patients with positive WB results \[[@CR13]\]. Even more notable was the median proviral load, which was almost 100-fold lower in this group. Kuramitsu et al. suggest that the low proviral load might be due to mutations in the provirus that reduce viral replication and limit dissemination within the host \[[@CR13]\].
Using the datasets from these studies, we analyzed the p13 sequence in isolates from patients with different clinical characteristics. As a reference sequence, we used the p13 sequence coded by viral isolate ATK (accession number J02029.1), which was derived from a Japanese ATL patient and is considered to be a prototype for subtype A viruses \[[@CR11]\]. A search using the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST; <https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi>) yielded 69 hits obtained from published sequences \[[@CR12]--[@CR14], [@CR74]\]. Although the majority (78%) of the sequences shared 100% identity with p13 coded by ATK (not shown), 17 isolates showed amino acid variations (Fig. [4](#Fig4){ref-type="fig"}). Interestingly, two of these sequences have stop codons resulting in the early termination of p13 (isolates K1015 and AC0007, Fig. [4](#Fig4){ref-type="fig"}). K1015, an isolate from the WB-indeterminate group \[[@CR13]\], has an early termination codon at position 24 that results in the loss of all the domains essential for p13's intracellular targeting and functional properties. This isolate also has stop codons in Pol and Env (not shown). Isolate AC0007, from an asymptomatic carrier \[[@CR14]\], has a stop codon at position 54 and thus retains the MTS and transmembrane sequence, but lacks most of the putative nuclear localization sequence (NLS) of p13 (Fig. [4](#Fig4){ref-type="fig"}). Two other isolates have a single amino acid difference in the MTS domain. None of the sequences in the BLAST search matched with p13 coded by the CS-clone of HTLV-1, which was derived from a North American ATL patient \[[@CR75]\] and carries a single amino acid difference in the MTS and one in the putative NLS. All of the samples with variations in the MTS were from HAM/TSP or ATL patients who had positive WB results. None of the variations in the MTS involve the four arginines identified as critical for p13 function \[[@CR20]\].Fig. 4HTLV-1A p13 sequence alignments. GenBank accession numbers and isolate names are indicated in the left column. Isolate CS-HTLV \[[@CR75]\] is not deposited in GenBank. Its p13 sequence was determined by Sanger sequencing in our laboratory. Sequence variations are highlighted in pink. The mitochondrial targeting signal (MTS) and the putative nuclear localization sequence (NLS) are highlighted in yellow and blue, respectively. The multi-alignment was performed with the Mega7 program using default parameters
Amino acid variations within p13's putative NLS were identified in six of the sequences: three in the WB-indeterminate group, and three in the WB-positive group (Fig. [4](#Fig4){ref-type="fig"}) \[[@CR13]\]. Two of the latter sequences carried an asparagine in place of serine at position 70 (S70N). Although Kuramitsu et al. concluded that the samples from the group with indeterminate WB results had the highest frequency of sequence variations \[[@CR13]\], the majority of isolates with p13 variations were from patients with either an HTLV-1 associated disease or detectable antigens in WB analysis. Further studies are needed to determine if the variations observed in the patients with positive WB results or disease actually influence the function of p13. It is notable that the two isolates coding for truncated p13 proteins were obtained from asymptomatic carriers who did not have positive WB results, suggesting a possible link between p13 and disease development.
Sequence variations in p13 coded by HTLV-1 subtypes A and C {#Sec13}
-----------------------------------------------------------
HTLV-1 C, present mainly in Australia and Melanesia, has recently gained attention due to it high prevalence (in up to 40% of adults) in indigenous populations living in remote regions of central Australia \[[@CR76]\]. Unlike subtype A, subtype C seems to be more frequently associated with inflammatory disease in the lungs, causing bronchiectasis or bronchitis with high morbidity \[[@CR77], [@CR78]\]. However, cases of infectious dermatitis and ATL have also been reported for HTLV-1C \[[@CR79], [@CR80]\]. The reasons for the different pathogenic properties of the two subtypes are still unclear.
Pairwise sequence comparisons at the nucleotide and amino acid levels between HTLV-1A and HTLV-1C show that the structural genes, *gag*, *pol*, *pro*, and *env* are more highly conserved compared to the pX region, suggesting that the X-region proteins might contribute to the different clinical manifestations observed in infected individuals \[[@CR81]\]. To gain additional insight into the role of p13 in HTLV-1 pathogenesis, we extended our analysis to the p13 proteins coded by 37 subtype C sequences, 34 of which were isolated from Australian patients (Fig. [5](#Fig5){ref-type="fig"}) \[[@CR82]--[@CR85]\]. Sequence information for 4 amino-terminal amino acids was not available for 8 GenBank entries (prefix KC in Fig. [5](#Fig5){ref-type="fig"}). Since these amino acids were invariant in the other sequences, we chose to compare amino acids 5--87 for the full set of sequences. The analysis revealed 89--95% identity between ATK and the 37 HTLV-1C sequences, 90--100% identity among all HTLV-1C sequences, and 98--100% identity among the 34 Australian sequences, with 31 out of 34 showing 100% identity. Interestingly, all 34 Australian sequences share an 8-amino acid 'signature' that distinguishes them from ATK. The first three residues of this signature are present in the entire set of HTLV-1C sequences (Fig. [5](#Fig5){ref-type="fig"}).Fig. 5Alignments of p13 coded by HTLV-1A prototype ATK and 37 HTLV-1C isolates. GenBank accession numbers and/or isolate names are indicated in the left column. Patient isolates 9--31 are described in \[[@CR82]\]. Isolates from Australia are indicated in bold. Isolates NCP201, VAN-EM5, and MEL5 were obtained from New Caledonia, Vanuatu \[[@CR84]\], and the Solomon Islands \[[@CR85]\], respectively. Sequence variations are highlighted in pink. The mitochondrial targeting signal (MTS) and the putative nuclear localization sequence (NLS) are highlighted in yellow and blue, respectively. Arrows at the bottom of the figure indicate an 8-residue 'signature' present in all Australian isolates (see text). The multi-alignment was performed with the Mega7 program using default parameters
Overall, this analysis confirms similar amino acid sequences and conservation of the principal domains described for HTLV-1A p13, including the MTS, the transmembrane region, the putative NLS region and the P-x-x-P SH3 binding motif. It is notable that the MTS is perfectly matched among all of the sequences. Interestingly, three of the 'Australian signature' residues are located in the putative NLS region, and the last signature residue is a carboxy-terminal proline, which would add a third potential P-x-x-P motif.
Whether these changes affect the function of p13 and contribute to the distinct pathogenic properties of the HTLV-1C clade found in indigenous Australian patients \[[@CR83]\] should be a point of investigation in future studies.
Conclusions {#Sec14}
===========
Many studies have shed light on the expression, intracellular trafficking, and function of p13, but the function of this protein in the context of the complete viral genome remains elusive. Given the importance of mitochondria in anti-viral innate immunity, it will also be important to discover if, by targeting mitochondria, p13 may hamper the host cell's anti-viral responses. Notably, several other human tumor viruses also code for mitochondrial proteins, with diverse effects on mitochondrial function and the viral life cycle \[[@CR56]\].
In vivo study of a molecular clone of HTLV-1 without changing the start codon of HBZ is essential for determining the true importance of p13 in HTLV-1 infection. Galli et al. showed the possibility of utilizing humanized mice for studying the p12 protein of HTLV-1 in the whole virus using infected primary CD4^+^ cells \[[@CR86]\]. This model may be useful for better assessing the pathogenic potential of p13 and investigating the intracellular localization of the protein in different tissues in infected animals in vivo. The identification of new roles for mitochondria opens up new questions about the role of p13 in both the pathogenesis of HTLV-1 and in immune responses. HTLV-1C involves up to half of some communities in endemic foci in Australia. The remarkable concentration of this virus demands that the functional role of p13 be better understood, and presents an opportunity to investigate the effects of the different sequence variations in the functional domains of p13.
ATL
: Adult T cell leukemia
BLAST
: Basic local alignment search tool
CSFV
: Classical swine fever virus
CVB
: Coxsackie B virus
cGAS
: Cyclic GMP--AMP synthase
ER
: Endoplasmic reticulum
ETC
: Electron transport chain
FPase
: Farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase
GFP
: Green fluorescent protein
HA
: Hemagglutinin
HBZ
: HTLV-1 bZIP factor
HIV
: Human immunodeficiency virus
HSP
: Heat shock protein
HTLV
: Human T cell leukemia virus
HAM/TSP
: HTLV-1 associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis
LTR
: Long terminal repeat
MAVS
: Mitochondrial antiviral-signaling protein
mtDNA
: mitochondrial DNA
MTS
: Mitochondrial targeting signal
NLS
: Nuclear localization sequence
NFAT
: nuclear factor of activated T cells
*orf*
: Open reading frame
PTLV
: Primate T cell leukemia virus
PTP
: Permeability transition pore
ROS
: Reactive oxygen species
SFK
: Src family kinase
SH3
: Src homology 3
STING
: Stimulator of interferon genes
STLV
: Simian T cell leukemia virus
T-ALL
: T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia
WB
: Western blot
**Publisher\'s Note**
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
We thank D. Ahern for editorial support.
MO, MSB, SS, RM, DMD, GF, and VC wrote the manuscript.; MO aligned sequences and prepared figures; VC provided data shown in Fig. [3](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}, GK, DY, and DFJP provided HTLV-1C sequence information; MSB performed the experiments in Fig. [3](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}; DMD and SS aligned HTLV-1C sequences; All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
This work was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Center for Cancer Research, and federal funds from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, a grant from the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC) IG \# 17794 to VC, institutional funds from the University of Padua (to VC and DMD), and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (APP1129320 and APP1052979 to DFJP).
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in published articles cited in the review and/or are available in GenBank <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/>.
HTLV-1C p13 sequences from infected individuals were obtained from blood DNA obtained with informed consent in first language and written consent submitted in accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. This study was approved by the Central Australian Human Research Ethics Committee (CAHREC; Reference HREC-14-249).
Not applicable.
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Central
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A Neurophysiological examination of quality of learning in a feedback-based learning task.
The efficiency with which one processes external feedback contributes to the speed and quality of one's learning. Previous findings that the feedback related negativity (FRN) event related potential (ERP) is modulated by learning outcomes suggested that this ERP reflects the extent to which feedback is used by the learner to improve performance. To further test this suggestion, we measured whether the FRN and the fronto-central positivity (FCP) that follows it are modulated by learning slopes, and as a function of individual differences in learning outcomes. Participants were tasked with learning names (non-words) of 42 novel objects in a two-choice feedback-based visual learning task. The items were divided into three sets of 14 items, each presented in five learning blocks and a sixth test block. Individual learning slopes based on performance on the task, as well as FRN and FCP slopes based on positive and negative feedback related activation in each block were created for 53 participants. Our data pointed to an interaction between slopes of the FRN elicited by negative feedback and learning slopes, such that a sharper decrease in the amplitude of the FRN to negative feedback was associated with sharper learning slopes. We further examined the predictive power of the FRN and FCP elicited in the training blocks on the learning outcomes as measured by performance on the test blocks. We found that small FRN to negative feedback, large FRN to positive feedback, and large FCP to negative feedback in the first training block predicted better learning outcomes. These results add to the growing evidence that the processes giving rise to the FRN and FCP are sensitive to individual differences in the extent to which feedback is used for learning.
|
tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
|
PubMed Abstracts
|
Q:
Saving rooms in booking app
I have some website for hotel reservation.
People who are aligible, can choose a hotel, dates and capacity and pay for the order.
When the client make the decision and clicks the order button a few steps heppens:
Application check again for price and gathering order information
Saving rooms for the client to prevent overbooking
A timer set to 5 min for client order window (if time is gone the rooms are released)
If the client goes out the orger page a null_timer is trigered and
saved rooms are released
If the client starts order (in order page) he can't procced other
orders
$_SESSION['order_iddle'] and timer changes triggered from
client-side via ajax
JS trigger
window.onbeforeunload = function(){
timer_null();
return "";
}
PHP check
if ((!isset($_SESSION['order_iddle'])) || (!$_SESSION['order_iddle']) ) {
header('location: https://home-page/');
}
$_SESSION['order_iddle'] updates with timer in php.
timer_null() sends ajax request to php to update/check timer
Question 1:
This logic relies on onbeforeunload() function, but if the function not working in some browser we have trouble. If there a better way to trigger timer_null() when user go away from order page? Maybe in PHP?
Question 2:
When onbeforeunload() triggers and user clicks "Stay on the page", timer_null() triggered anyway.
Is there something to do with that?
Thanks)
A:
A better option would be to give the order an expiry value in your back end. This way you avoid triggering, problems when users don't use JS, problems when they stay on the page etc.
When they make an order set a value to the current time plus a number of minutes:
$order['expiry'] = time() + (5 * 60); // sets an expiry time for 5 minutes (5x60 seconds)
Then on a future page which checks whether the order is valid:
if (time() > $order['expiry']) {
throw new Exception('This order is not valid');
}
Catch that exception and return it to the user however you'd like.
Suggestions for wider use
You might have other things in your use case which require, for example, stock to be held for those five minutes. However if you incorporate this expiry into your data store as well then it can be used to check expiries on any future orders.
If you wanted to not have to be checking thousands of potentially expired records each time a new order is made you could create a sort of "clean-up" script to run automatically. If you've not used crontab before I suggest your read up on it, but a script set to run at midnight every day with crontab:
0 0 * * * php /var/www/my-clean-up-script.php
Then in the script itself (pseudo-code):
$expired_orders = database_query ( GET orders FROM table WHERE expired_time < current_time)
for each $expired_orders
database_query ( DELETE order)
Which should work for any queryable data store.
|
tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
|
StackExchange
|
Month: July 2014
Tips on booking your Wedding Bands In Ireland Firstly let me introduce myself. My name is Cathal Molloy – Booking co-ordinator and band member of Pink Champagne Wedding band, one of Irelands most sought after wedding bands. As i have been a band member and booking co-ordinator for Pink Champagne for nearly ten years, iRead more
|
tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
|
Pile-CC
|
All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Introduction {#sec001}
============
Thalassemia, a common hereditary hemoglobinopathy, is characterized by the abnormally low production of hemoglobin. The low levels of hemoglobin result in anemia, which necessitates treatment with frequent blood transfusions. In Iraq, the prevalence of thalassemia increased slightly between 2010 and 2015, from 33.5/100,000 to 37.1/100,000, whereas the incidence of the disease decreased, from 72.4/100,000 live births to 34.6/100,000 live births, during the same period \[[@pntd.0007880.ref001]\]. As a result of the regular transfusions required by individuals with thalassemia, many of these individuals acquire blood-borne infections. In Iraq, the same study that investigated the incidence and prevalence of thalassemia determined that patients were often infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV, 13.5%) or hepatitis B virus (0.4%) at some point during their lives \[[@pntd.0007880.ref001]\].
Viral hepatitis is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, worldwide, particularly in the tropics. It is caused by at least five distinct viruses, each with unique molecular characteristics and replication cycles but sharing a common tropism for the liver and causing overlapping clinical patterns of disease \[[@pntd.0007880.ref002]\]. The hepatitis viruses are the most common chronic blood-borne viruses associated with this disease, but other infectious agents have been suggested to cause viral hepatitis that are not directly attributed to the hepatitis viruses (non-A--E hepatitis). The latest virus suggested to have a role in non-A--E hepatitis is the SEN virus (SENV). This virus, discovered in 1999 in the blood of a human immunodeficiency virus-infected patient, is a 26-nm, single-stranded DNA virus that is distantly related to the TT virus \[[@pntd.0007880.ref003]\]. Phylogenetic analyses identified eight different SENV strains belonging to the *Circoviridae* family, a group of small DNA viruses that includes the TT virus \[[@pntd.0007880.ref004]\]. Of the 9 SENV genotypes identified, to date, two (SENV-D and SENV-H) have been extensively studied and are present in approximately 2% of blood donors in the USA, 2% of donors in Italy, and 10% of donors in Japan; they appear to be readily transmitted by blood transfusions and other common parenteral routes \[[@pntd.0007880.ref001]\].
SENV infections, particularly those caused by the D and H genotypes, are frequently associated with non-A--E hepatitis, giving rise to the suggestion that the virus may be the causative agent. However, there is no firm evidence of the virus causing hepatitis or worsening existing disease \[[@pntd.0007880.ref005],[@pntd.0007880.ref006]\]. Co-infections involving SENV and the hepatitis C virus (HCV) or hepatitis B virus (HBV) are also common because the viruses share similar transmission routes (e.g., blood transfusions) \[[@pntd.0007880.ref007]\]. Our previous study \[[@pntd.0007880.ref008]\], demonstrated the presence of SENV viremia in Iraqi patients with β-thalassemia who were and were not infected with HCV. Further, the study also demonstrated that both the D and H SENV genotypes were present in Iraqi patients and noted the impact of the viral infection on liver function indicators in infected individuals. As the previous study was relatively limited, this study investigate the potential for differential effects caused by the SENV D and H genotypes on patients with β-thalassemia.
Materials and methods {#sec002}
=====================
A total of 150 patients with β-thalassemia were referred to the Hereditary Blood Disease Center (Baghdad, Iraq) and included in this retrospective study. These individuals were divided into two groups, according to their HCV infection status; equal numbers (n = 75) were HCV-positive and HCV-negative. Another 75 individuals were randomly recruited into the study among the healthy blood donors attending the Iraqi National Center of Blood Transfusion. The healthy donors were afebrile, not jaundiced, did not demonstrate any signs of chronic liver disease; further, none had any known contact with individuals with jaundice. The ages of included participants ranged from 5 to 44 (mean, 18 ± 7.8) years and all received regular blood transfusions or donated blood between January and May 2018. All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the University of Anbar Ethical Approval Committee (authentication no. 31, December 6, 2017).
Serology {#sec003}
--------
### Liver function markers {#sec004}
A blood chemistry analyzer (Celercare M1, MNCHIP, Tianjin, China) and lyophilized liver function panel kits (MNCHIP) were used to determine levels of alanine transaminase (ALT), aspartate aminotransaminase (ASP), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), total serum bilirubin (TSB), and gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT).
### Detection of anti-HCV-antibodies {#sec005}
All serum samples were examined for the presence of anti-HCV antibodies using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits (Human Gesellschaft fur Biochemica und Diagnostica, Wiesbaden, Germany).
### Vitamins C and E and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) levels {#sec006}
ELISA-based double antibody sandwich kits (Shanghai Yehua Biological Technology, Shanghai, China) were used to assay levels of human vitamin C (catalog no. YHB3202Hu), vitamin E (catalog no. YHB3208Hu), and GPX (catalog no. YHB1369Hu) in patient serum samples.
Molecular study {#sec007}
---------------
### Nucleic acid extraction {#sec008}
Viral nucleic acid extraction kits (SaMag Viral Nucleic Acids Extraction Kit, Sacace Biotechnologies, Como, Italy) were used to extract SENV DNA and HCV RNA from participant plasma specimens. Briefly, the extraction process involved lysing, binding, washing, and eluting the nucleic acids. Frozen plasma samples were thawed at room temperature (15--25°C) and processed in an automated instrument (SaMag-12, Sacace Biotechnologies), after equilibrating to room temperature \[[@pntd.0007880.ref008]\].
### Nucleic acid concentration and purity {#sec009}
A quantum fluorometer (Promega, Madison, WI, USA) was utilized to measure the concentration of extracted nucleic acids; preprogrammed settings were available for quantitating DNA (QuantiFluor ds DNA, Promega) and RNA (QuantiFluor RNA, Promega). A volume (100 μL) of diluted nucleic acid sample (1 μL of nucleic acid + 99 μL buffer) was mixed with the appropriate QuantiFluor dye. After 5 minutes of incubation at room temperature, the DNA or RNA concentrations were determined in the fluorometer. The nucleic acid samples were also read in a spectrophotometer, equipped with Nanodrop software (ThermoFisher, Waltham, MA, USA), at 260 nm and 280 nm. If the results were between 1.7 and 1.9, the samples were considered to be contamination free and adequate for further analyses.
### HCV real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) quantification {#sec010}
HCV Real^TM^ Quant kits (Sacace Biotechnologies) were used for the quantitative detection of HCV in human plasma. Briefly, HCV RNA was extracted from plasma samples, amplified, and detected using fluorescent reporter dye probes specific for either HCV or immune complexed HCV. An internal control served as the extraction and amplification control for each individually processed specimen, allowing identification of possible inhibitions. Immune complexes were detected in a specifically labeled channel other than that used for HCV RNA. Real-time monitoring of fluorescence intensities allowed detection and quantification of the accumulating product without opening the reaction tube after real-time amplification. The internal control was detected on the FAM channel and HCV RNA on the CY3 channel. For each control and patient specimen, the concentration of HCV RNA was calculated using the following formula: HCV RNA copies/specimen (CY3 channel)/immune complexed RNA copies/specimen (FAM channel) × coefficient = IU HCV/mL. These results were also expressed as copies/mL by multiplying by 4 \[[@pntd.0007880.ref009], [@pntd.0007880.ref010]\].
### PCR amplification of SENV DNA {#sec011}
The primers used in the study were SENV-AI-IF (5\'TACTCCAACGACCAGCTAGACCT3\'), SENV-AI-IR (5\'GTTTGTGGTGAGCAGAACGGA3\') for the first step of PCR, SENV-D-1148 F (5\'GCAGTTGACCGCAAAGTTACAAGAG3\'), and SENV-D-1341 R (5\'GCAGTTGACCGCAAAGTTACAAGAG3\') for the secondly step of PCR (AlphaDNA, Montreal, QC, Canada). The template DNA and primers were added to a PCR tube, along with nuclease-free water, to a total volume of 50 μL. The PCR reaction was carried out in a 50-μL mixture containing *Taq* DNA polymerase, dATP, dGTP, dCTP, dTTP, 1.5 mM MgCl~2~, reaction buffer (pH 9), loading dye buffer (yellow and blue dyes), amplification primers (2 μL, each), target DNA (10 μL), and nuclease-free water \[[@pntd.0007880.ref008]\].
The SENV DNA was amplified for all study samples including healthy blood donors using nested conventional PCR, as follows. The first-round amplification was: 94° C for 4 min, 1 cycle for initial denaturation of the template; 35 cycles at 94° C for 40 s to denature the DNA; 55° C for 50 s, 35 cycles for annealing; 72° C for 50 s, 35 cycles for extension; finally, 72° C for 10 min, 1 cycle for final extension. The second PCR run was conducted as follows: 94° C for 4 min, 1 cycle for initial denaturation of the template; 35 cycles at 94° C for 30 s to denature the nucleic acid; 55° C for 50 s, 35 cycles for annealing; 72° C for 50 s, 35 cycles for extension; and 72° C for 10 min, 1 cycle for final extension.
Upon PCR completion, 10 μL of amplified DNA was mixed with 4 μL of Redsafe nucleic acid stain and loaded on to 2% agarose gels. After electrophoresis was complete, the gel was placed on an ultraviolet transilluminator and digitally documented.
### Sequencing {#sec012}
The National Instrumentation Center for Environmental Management (Seoul, Korea) sequenced the PCR products. Sanger dideoxynucleotide sequencing technique was dependent in this study. The sequences were then run through the standard gene BLAST program ([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/)) and sequences were aligned using the BioEdit program (Ibis Therapeutics, Carlsbad, CA, USA). An evolutionary analysis was conducted using Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis software (version 6, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA) \[[@pntd.0007880.ref011]\].
Statistical analysis {#sec013}
--------------------
Data are presented as percentages, means, standard deviations, and ranges. Significant differences between means (quantitative data) were examined using Students *t*-test for differences between two independent means, paired *t*-tests for differences between paired observations (or two dependent means), or analyses of variance for differences among more than two independent means. Significant differences between percentages (qualitative data) were determined using the Chi-square test, applying Yate\'s correction or Fisher's exact test when applicable. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS (ver. 22, IBM, Armonk, NY, USA); a P-value ≤ 0.05 was considered significant.
Results {#sec014}
=======
The patients with β-thalassemia and strongly suspected of having HCV infections were confirmed to be HCV-positive; the other 75 patients with thalassemia and the 75 healthy donors were confirmed to be HCV-negative. Nested conventional PCR was used to identify SENV infections, with the results revealing a significant occurrence of SENV infections among patients with thalassemia than among healthy donors. Agarose gel electrophoresis effectively differentiated between the 193-bp SENV-D and 118-bp SENV-H genotypes as well as demonstrated their co-occurrence in some individuals (Figs [1](#pntd.0007880.g001){ref-type="fig"} and [2](#pntd.0007880.g002){ref-type="fig"}).
{#pntd.0007880.g001}
{#pntd.0007880.g002}
[Table 1](#pntd.0007880.t001){ref-type="table"} shows that the frequency of SENV infections among patients with thalassemia (78%) was significantly higher than those observed in healthy blood donors (10%; P \< 0.05). [Table 1](#pntd.0007880.t001){ref-type="table"} also emphasizes that the prevalence of SENV infections in patients with thalassemia was not dependent on their HCV infection status. Interestingly, among the healthy blood donors with SENV infections, more SENV-positive individuals living in urban environments (9/51, 17.6%) than those are living in rural environments (1/24, 4.1%); this was a statistically significant (P = 0.003).
10.1371/journal.pntd.0007880.t001
###### SEN virus infection rates among healthy blood donors and among patients with β-thalassemia, with and without evidence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection.
{#pntd.0007880.t001g}
Patients with β-thalassemia Healthy donors
---------- ----------------------------- ---------------- ----------
Positive 60 (80%) 58 (77%) 10 (13%)
Negative 15 (20%) 17 (23%) 65 (87%)
\*Significant difference between proportions using the Pearson Chi-square test
SENV infection distribution, according to patient age, sex, and liver function indicators {#sec015}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Among patients with β-thalassemia, the highest frequencies of SENV-D (49.3%), SENV-H (37%), and combined SENV-D and SENV-H (13.7%) infections were recorded in patients 15--26 years old ([Table 2](#pntd.0007880.t002){ref-type="table"}). Interestingly, SENV infections were not observed among any of the youngest donors.
10.1371/journal.pntd.0007880.t002
###### Age distribution of SEN virus infections in patients with β-thalassemia and healthy blood donors.
{#pntd.0007880.t002g}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Age group\ SEN Virus genotype\ Total
(years)
--------------------- ------------------- --------------------- ---------------- ------------------ ----------------
**Patients** **3--14** **15 (60.0%)** **8 (32.0%)** **2 (8.0%)** **25 (21.2%)**
**15--26** **36 (49.3%)** **27(37.0%)** **10 (13.7%)** **73 (61.9%)**
**27--38** **8 (40.0%)** **6 (30.0%)** **6 (30%)** **20 (16.9%)**
**Total** **59 (50.0%)** **41 (34.7%)** **18 (15.3%)** **118 (100.0%)**
**Healthy donors** **3--14 (n = 8)** **0.00** **0.00** **0.00** **0.00**
**15--26 (n = 38)** **2 (50.0%)** **2 (50.0%)** **0.00** **4 (40.0%)**
**27--38 (n = 29)** **4 (67.0%)** **2 (33.0%)** **0** **6 (60.0%)**
**Total** **6 (60.0%)** **4 (40.0%)** **0** **10 (100.0%)**
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sex-based distribution of SENV genotypes was also determined ([Table 3](#pntd.0007880.t003){ref-type="table"}). Among those with β-thalessemia, a high percentage of males (52%) were infected with SENV-D, whereas SENV-H was more predominant among females (40.3%). Co-infections with both SENV-D and SENV-H were most commonly observed in males (18.0%). However, a statistically significant sex-based distribution was not observed for either SENV genotype ([Table 3](#pntd.0007880.t003){ref-type="table"}).
10.1371/journal.pntd.0007880.t003
###### Sex-based distribution of SEN virus infections in patients with β-thalassemia and healthy blood donors.
{#pntd.0007880.t003g}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sex SEN Virus genotypes\ Total
-------------------- ---------------- ---------------------- ---------------- --------------- --------
**Patients** **Females** **27 (47.4%)** **23 (40.3%)** **7 (12.3%)** **57**
**Males** **32 (52.5%)** **18 (29.5%)** **11 (18.0%)** **61**
**Total** **59 (50.0%)** **41 (34.7%)** **18 (15.3%)** **118**
**Healthy donors** **Females** **2 (66.7%)** **1 (33.3%)** **0**\ **3**
**Males** **4 (57.1%)** **3 (42.8%)** **0**\ **7**
**Total** **6 (60.0%)** **4 (40.0%)** **0** **10**
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Significant differences were found in the activities of key liver function indicators in HCV-negative patients with SENV infections, relative to the healthy donors ([Table 4](#pntd.0007880.t004){ref-type="table"}). In the patients with SENV infections, most of the measured liver function indicators were also higher than the normal levels associated with healthy liver function. Moreover, the HCV-negative patients with thalassemia also showed liver function indicator (ALT, AST, ALP, TSB) levels that were significantly elevated compared with similar patients without SENV infections. Among the healthy donors, significant differences were not noted for any of the liver function indicators, regardless of SENV infection status.
10.1371/journal.pntd.0007880.t004
###### Liver function indicators (mean ± SD) in hepatitis C virus-negative patients with β-thalassemia with and without SEN virus infections and in healthy blood donors.
{#pntd.0007880.t004g}
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parameter Patients with β-thalassemia P-value Healthy donors P-value
-------------------- ----------------------------- ------------- ---------------- -------------- ---------
**ALT (U/L)**\ 50.7 ± 13.6 30.7 ± 18.0 \<0.001 27.3 ± 7.02 \<0.001
**Normal: \<40**
**AST (U/L)**\ 50.8 ± 10.7 27.4 ± 10.5 0.001 24.2 ± 4.63 \<0.001
**Normal: \<40**
**ALP (U/L)**\ 135.9 ± 46.8 89.6 ± 17.1 \<0.001 71.1 ± 13.8 \<0.001
**Normal: \<125**
**GGT (U/L)**\ 50.1 ± 34.5 29.0 ± 6.5 0.229 27.6 ± 12.0 \<0.001
**Normal: \<50**
**TSB (mg/dL)**\ 2.7 ± 1.34 1.98 ± 1.07 0.001 0.99 ± 0.461 \<0.001
**Normal: \<1.46**
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALT, alanine transaminase; ASP, aspartate aminotransaminase; ALP, alkaline phosphatase; GGT, gamma-glutamyl transferase; TSB, total serum bilirubin
Comparing only HCV-negative patients with thalassemia to the healthy donors ([Table 5](#pntd.0007880.t005){ref-type="table"}), all liver function parameters, except GGT, were similarly elevated regardless of the genotype of the infecting SENV. This analysis revealed that GGT levels were significantly higher in patients with SENV-H infections compared with those observed in patients infected with SENV-D, combined SENV-D and H infections, or in healthy donors (all, P = 0.01). A notable increases in other liver function parameter levels were also observed in the patients with SENV-H infections, in comparison with those to those with SENV-D infections ([Table 5](#pntd.0007880.t005){ref-type="table"}), but these differences were not statistically significant.
10.1371/journal.pntd.0007880.t005
###### Liver function marker levels (mean ± SD) in hepatitis C virus-negative patients with β-thalassemia infected with SEN virus and in healthy donors.
{#pntd.0007880.t005g}
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liver function marker SEN Virus genotype P-value
----------------------- -------------------- ------------------ ------------------- ------------------ ------------
**ALT (IU/L)** **55.57 ± 18.5** **60.44 ± 35.7** **64.54 ± 16.4**\ **38.7 ± 18.0** **\<0.01**
**AST (IU/L)** **52.21 ± 30.9** **57.0 ± 17.6** **54.3 ± 17.1**\ **37.4 ± 15.5** **0.03**
**ALP (IU/L)** **134.4 ± 47.5** **143.2 ± 54.0** **135 ± 39.5**\ **103.5 ± 57.1** **\<0.01**
**TSB (mg/dL)** **2.61 ± 1.32** **2.87 ± 1.26** **3.24 ± 1.38**\ **1.7 ± 1.07** **0.01**
**GGT (IU/L)** **47.23 ± 28.6** **85.2 ± 51.2** **58.62 ± 18.3**\ **37.6 ± 32.5** **0.01**
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALT, alanine transaminase; ASP, aspartate aminotransaminase; ALP, alkaline phosphatase; GGT, gamma-glutamyl transferase; TSB, total serum bilirubin
This study also showed significant differences in serum vitamin C, vitamin E, and GPX levels between healthy blood donors and SENV-positive, HCV-negative patients with thalassemia ([Table 6](#pntd.0007880.t006){ref-type="table"}). However, there was no significant difference in the levels of vitamins C and E between SENV-positive and SENV-negative patients. Interestingly, the level of GPX was significantly lower in SENV-positive patients than in SENV-negative patients.
10.1371/journal.pntd.0007880.t006
###### Vitamin C, vitamin E, and glutathione peroxidase levels in healthy blood donors and in SEN virus (SENV)-positive and -negative patients with β-thalassemia without hepatitis C virus infections.
{#pntd.0007880.t006g}
Parameter Patients with β-thalassemia P-value Healthy donors P-value
---------------------------------- ----------------------------- --------------- ---------------- -------------- ---------
**Vitamin C (μmol/L)** 58.9 ± 37.9 63.8 ± 40.1 0.871 73.0 ± 18.0 0.002
**Vitamin E (μmol/L)** 32.4 ± 13.9 39.6 ± 15.1 0.628 44.6 ± 15.5 \<0.001
**Glutathione peroxidase (U/L)** 238.2 ± 121.7 312.2 ± 127.3 0.049 353.5 ± 59.3 \<0.001
Although infection with SENV resulted in lower levels of these three antioxidants in the SENV-positive, HCV-negative thalassemia patients, compared with controls, only the GPX level appeared to be significantly lower in patients infected with SENV-H (P = 0.04). The distribution of antioxidants, including vitamins C and E and GPX, in patients with thalassemia and infected with the two SENV genotypes showed that the GPX levels were significantly lower in patients infected with SENV-D or SENV-H, than for healthy donors ([Table 7](#pntd.0007880.t007){ref-type="table"}).
10.1371/journal.pntd.0007880.t007
###### Glutathione peroxidase and vitamin C and E levels (mean ± SD) hepatitis C virus-negative patients infected with SEN virus and in healthy donors.
{#pntd.0007880.t007g}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parameter SEN V Genotypes
----------------------------- ----------------- --------------- ---------------- --------------- -------
**Vitamin C**\ 56.1 ± 36.9 58.6 ± 40.4 57.571 ± 38.6\ 62.85 ± 40.1 0.871
**(μmol/L)**
**Vitamin E**\ 31.7 ± 11.9 30.2 ± 14.4 37.7 ± 7.0\ 33.6 ± 15.1 0.628
**(μmol/L)**
**Glutathione peroxidase**\ 227.0 ± 121.1 217.1 ± 116.8 221.8 ± 127.7\ 282.6 ± 127.3 0.04
**(U/L)**
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Molecular and phylogenetic analyses {#sec016}
-----------------------------------
As part of this study, 14 samples of amplified SENV DNA were sent for sequencing and phylogenetic analyses, including 2 (14.3%) from healthy blood donors (nos. 15 and 17) infected with SENV-H, 9 (64.3%) from patients with thalassemia (nos. 1, 5--7, 10, 19, 20, 22, and 23) infected with SENV-H, and 3 (21.4%) from patients with thalassemia (nos. 2, 3, and 4) co-infected with SENV-D and SENV-H ([Fig 3](#pntd.0007880.g003){ref-type="fig"}). An alignment study of SENV-H samples recovered from patients with thalassemia revealed a closely related genotype that is unique from samples isolated from patients in Iran, China, Japan, and France (GenBank accession numbers are documented in [Table 8](#pntd.0007880.t008){ref-type="table"}). Further, the sequencing of these genes revealed 85--97% compatibility with the global standard genes in GenBank.
{#pntd.0007880.g003}
10.1371/journal.pntd.0007880.t008
###### BLAST results of SEN virus genotype H DNA in GenBank, and DNA sequence compatibility with the global standard genes.
{#pntd.0007880.t008g}
Accession No. Country Source Compatibility
------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------- ------------------------------------- ---------------
1\. [AY206683.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY206683.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YZNAYC1R014) China SEN virus strain SENV-H Orf2 gene 93%
2\. [AB059353.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AB059353.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=2&RID=YZNAYC1R014) Japan SEN virus SENV-H gene 93%
3\. [KM593803.2](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/KM593803.2?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=3&RID=YZNAYC1R014) France SEN virus 92%
4\. [KM593802.2](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/KM593802.2?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=4&RID=YZNAYC1R014) France SEN virus 92%
5\. [GQ452053.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/GQ452053.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=5&RID=YZNAYC1R014) Iran SEN virus Guilan SENV-H4 ORF1 gene 97%
6\. [GQ452051.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/GQ452051.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=6&RID=YZNAYC1R014) Iran SEN virus Guilan SENV-H2 ORF1 gene 97%
7\. [AY183662.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY183662.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=7&RID=YZNAYC1R014) China SEN virus H gene 85%
8\. [GQ179972.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/GQ179972.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=8&RID=YZNAYC1R014) Iran SEN virus Guilan SENV-H1 ORF1 gene, 94%
9\. [AB856068.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AB856068.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=9&RID=YZNAYC1R014) Iran SEN virus SENV-H 91%
10\. [AB856070.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AB856070.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=10&RID=YZNAYC1R014) Iran SEN SENV-H 90%
In the SENV-H gene sequencing study of isolates no. 1--7, 10, 15, 17, 19, 20, 22, and 23, the sequences corresponded to sequences already present in GenBank, specifically accession numbers: [AY183662.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY183662.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YDE8NJY5015), KM593803.2, AY264849.1, AY206683.1, and AB059353.1. The sequencing results also revealed that after product alignment, the amplified SENV-H gene showed two types of substitutions (transition and transversion) compared with those in GenBank. Additionally, isolates 1 and 7 showed 100% identity with the sequence for AY183662.1. The remaining isolates yielded 92--99% identity; the low percentage of non-identity was due to transitions and transversions. The sequencing and BLAST analyses of the partial SENV-H genes and the types of gene polymorphisms are shown in [Table 9](#pntd.0007880.t009){ref-type="table"}.
10.1371/journal.pntd.0007880.t009
###### Characteristics of the clinical samples of SEN virus, genotype H.
{#pntd.0007880.t009g}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Isolate No. Type of substitution Location Nucleotide Sequence ID Identity
------------------ --------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------
**1** **---------------------------------** ID: [AY183662.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY183662.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YDE8NJY5015) 100%
**2** **Transversion** **135** **T\>A** ID: [KM593803.2](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/KM593803.2?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YBHK8538015) 92%\
**Transversion** **118** **A\>C**
Transition **116** **T\>C**
**Transversion** **112** **A\>T**
**Transversion** **97** **G\>C**
Transition **96** **T\>C**
**Transversion** **90** **G\>C**
**3** Transition **448** **G\>A** ID: [AY264849.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY264849.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YBJ3ADKH014) 97%
**Transversion** **443** **C\>A**
**Transversion** **441** **A\>C**
**4** Transition **926** **A\>G** ID: [AY206683.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY206683.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YBJ8YRNS014) 93%
Transition **999** **T\>C**
**Transversion** **896** **G\>C**
Transition **881** **A\>G**
Transition **872** **A\>G**
Transition **857** **T\>C**
**Transversion** **851** **T\>G**
**5** Transition **1076** **T\>C** ID: [AB059353.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AB059353.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YBJT1HAG014) 97%
**Transversion** **1070** **T\>G**
Transition **1061** **T\>C**
**6** Transition **860** **C\>T** ID: [AY183662.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY183662.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YBJZJNRK014) 94%
**Transversion** **855** **G\>T**
**Transversion** **853** **G\>T**
**Transversion** **852** **G\>C**
Transition **851** **G\>A**
Transition **850** **C\>T**
**7** ------------------------------------------- ID: AY183662.1 100%
**10** Transition **829** **G\>A** ID: [AY183662.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY183662.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YBKAGF6S014) 99%
**15** Transition **1076** **T\>C** ID: [AB059353.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AB059353.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YBMJE9NZ015) 97%
**Transversion** **1070** **T\>G**
Transition **1061** **T\>C**
**17** Transition **829** **G\>A** ID: [AY183662.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY183662.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YBMUZ57X015) 99%
**19** **Transversion** **868** **A\>T** ID: [AY183662.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY183662.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YBNCSDJ2015) 93%
**Transversion** **861** **C\>A**
**Transversion** **860** **C\>A**
**Transversion** **859** **T\>A**
**Transversion** **855** **G\>C**
**Transversion** **853** **G\>T**
**Transversion** **849** **T\>G**
**20** **Transversion** **868** **A\>T** ID: [AY183662.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY183662.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YBNKJ96P015) 92%
**Transversion** **861** **C\>A**
**Transversion** **860** **C\>A**
**Transversion** **859** **T\>A**
**Transversion** **855** **G\>C**
**Transversion** **853** **G\>T**
**Transversion** **849** **T\>G**
Transition **829** **G\>A**
**22** **Transversion** **868** **A\>T** ID: [AY183662.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY183662.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YBP76EJF015) 92%
**Transversion** **861** **C\>A**
**Transversion** **860** **C\>A**
**Transversion** **859** **T\>A**
**Transversion** **855** **G\>C**
**Transversion** **853** **G\>T**
**Transversion** **849** **T\>G**
Transition **829** **G\>A**
**23** **Transversion** **868** **A\>T** ID: [AY183662.1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/AY183662.1?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&blast_rank=1&RID=YBP76EJF015) 92%
**Transversion** **861** **C\>A**
**Transversion** **860** **C\>A**
**Transversion** **859** **T\>A**
**Transversion** **855** **G\>C**
**Transversion** **853** **G\>T**
**Transversion** **849** **T\>G**
Transition **829** **G\>A**
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discussion {#sec017}
==========
The present study was a follow-up study from an earlier investigation of SENV infections in patients with β-thalassemia, in Iraq \[[@pntd.0007880.ref008]\]. In addition to support the results from the earlier study, this study also sought to explore, in greater detail, after investigating the potential impact of SENV-H infections in patients with thalassemia. The study showed that the distribution of SENV-H is similar to that of SENV-D and that, generally, the physiological impacts of both genotypes of the virus are similar. However, the study also demonstrated that there are some differentiating hepatic effects, particularly related to GGT levels, in patients infected with SENV-H that are not observed in patients with SENV-D infections. SENV infections also appear to impact levels of some antioxidants in patients with adequate nutrition.
The present study confirmed that, in Iraq, SENV infections are more common in patients with thalassemia than in healthy donors. Furthermore, patients with thalassemia demonstrated similar frequencies of SENV infection, regardless of their HCV infection status. The high rate of SENV infections among these patients reflects the similarly high rate of HCV infections typically observed in these patients \[[@pntd.0007880.ref012]\]. The high rates of infection for SENV and HCV in this patient population may be due similar transmission risk factors, e.g., blood transfusions. Blood-borne infections, such as HCV, pose significant risks for patients with transfusion-dependent thalassemia \[[@pntd.0007880.ref008]\]. Furthe, the significantly greater occurrence of SENV infections among patients with thalassemia than among healthy donors remains suggestive of blood transfusions being the primary source of SENV infections in patients with thalassemia \[[@pntd.0007880.ref013]\]. Sani et al. \[[@pntd.0007880.ref014]\] reported SENV viremia in 90.0% of patients with thalassemia (regardless of their HCV infection status) and in 76.7% of patients with HCV infections. These results are similar to the SENV infection rates reported in Taiwan \[[@pntd.0007880.ref015]\]. It seems SENV infections in patients with thalassemia, regardless of their HCV status, have been suggested to further increase in paients need for blood transfusions \[[@pntd.0007880.ref016]\]. This may be of particular concern since SENV transmission may occur primarily via parenteral routes, e.g., blood transfusion, intravenous drug use, or hemodialysis \[[@pntd.0007880.ref017]\].
In this study, we also examined the age- and sex-based distributions of SENV infections. Among healthy donors, approximately 10.5% of 15--26-year and 20.7% of 27-38-year-old donors respectively were observed to have an evidence of SENV infections. There was no evidence of a significant sex-based predominance. The prevalence and age distribution of SENV infections in this Iraqi population differs somewhat from an analysis of SENV infections in Taiwan, where 25--30% of adolescents were observed to have SENV infections \[[@pntd.0007880.ref018]\]. Similar to the Taiwan study, however, there was a slight predominance of SENV-D infections compared with SENV-H infections. One major difference that was observed in the present study, compared with the Taiwan study, was that significantly more of the SENV infections in healthy Iraqi donors dwelt in urban areas. In the study of healthy adolescents in Taiwan \[[@pntd.0007880.ref018]\], there were significantly higher rates of SEN viremia among those residing in rural or mountainous locales than for those living in urban environments. Thus, SENV infections appear to occur in relatively young, healthy individuals, suggesting that the infection is unlikely to occur via a parenteral route in these individuals.
The SENV-H DNA samples recovered during the present study, from both patients with thalassemia and healthy donors, showed 97% compatibility with Iranian samples and 93% compatibility with samples from China. Moreover, the results showed that 93% and 92% compatibility with samples from Japan and France, respectively. Samples in each branch of the SENV-H phylogenetic tree have corresponding DNA sequences, most probably indicating that the virus has been transmitted via blood transfusions. This is likely because of the DNA sequence compatibility between blood donors and patients with thalassemia and because the H sequences in isolates from individuals co-infected with both SENV-D and SENV-H are the same as the H sequences in isolates from individuals SENV-H infections. Karimi and Bouzari found a 90.8% frequency of SENV infections among healthy blood donors as well as high nucleotide homology in the sequenced amplicons of isolates from patients with thalassemia and healthy donors \[[@pntd.0007880.ref004]\]. It is suggested that SENV-infected healthy blood donors act as partial sources of SENV transmission to patients with thalassemia and possibly to other individuals receiving transfusions. Karimi-Ratehkenari and Bouzari \[[@pntd.0007880.ref016]\] found that a 90.8% frequency of SENV infection among healthy blood donors as well as high nucleotide homology of sequenced amplicons between isolates from patients with thalassemia. These results suggest that SENV-infected healthy blood donors act as partial sources of SENV transmission to patients with thalassemia and possibly to other individuals receiving transfusions. Therefore, our study suggested that the most probable mode of transmission to patients with thalassemia was through blood transfusions, based on the sequence homology between donors and recipients.
Our previous study showed that liver enzyme levels were significantly increased in thalassemia patients infected with HCV and/or SENV and hence, there appeared to be some additional increase associated in liver marker levels in patients co-infected with both viruses as opposed with just one or the other \[[@pntd.0007880.ref008]\]. In the present study, we focused on the impacts of SENV infections in patients with thalassemia but who were not infected with HCV. The results of the current study showed and the liver function markers (ALT, ASP, AST, and TB) were elevated above normal values in HCV-negative patients with SENV infections which were significantly higher than in patients without either HCV or SENV infections or in healthy donors; the levels of the markers were similar between thalassemia patients not infected with either virus and healthy donors. Regardless, for most of the indicators of liver health, the elevations in marker levels were similar between patients infected with SENV-D and SENV-H. However, this was not the case for GGT. Among all HCV-negative patients with thalassemia, GGT levels significantly elevated compared to the donors but were not significantly above normal values. However, when GGT levels were examined in patients infected with different genotypes of SENV, the levels were significantly higher in patients infected with SENV-H than in those infected with SENV-D. Moreover, the GGT levels were considerably above the normal range. Individuals infected with both SENV-D and SENV-H had GGT levels that were intermediate to the levels in patients infected with only SENV-D or SENV-H.
GGT is a known marker of oxidative stress because of its role in the catabolism of extracellular GPX (representative of intracellular antioxidants). A previous study showed that serum GGT levels are associated with clinical outcomes, even after adjusting for the presence of liver disease and liver function test results. Specifically, GGT levels are reportedly associated with the presence of HCC in patients with HCV infections \[[@pntd.0007880.ref019]\]. Therefore, GGT levels might be predictive of HCC development in patients without cirrhosis, even after successful HCV eradication \[[@pntd.0007880.ref020]\]. These observations suggest that a similar correlation might exist for patients with elevated GGT levels associated with SENV-H infections.
The association of GGT with oxidative stress prompted additional evaluations of the association of certain antioxidant levels with SENV infections, in the current study. Vitamins C and E both have antioxidant properties and were two of the antioxidants examined in this study. Vitamin C is a natural, water-soluble, free radical scavenger with the ability to donate two electrons from the double bond of its 6-carbon chain. During this process, oxidized vitamin C generates a stable intermediate product, dehydroascorbic acid, which can be taken up by erythrocytes and reduced to vitamin C via endogenous glutathione reductase \[[@pntd.0007880.ref021]\]. In plasma, a relevant role of vitamin C is to restore α-tocopherol by oxidizing it. To be an effective antioxidant, the oxidized α-tocopherol must be reduced, but this process is slower than ascorbate recycling. Therefore, α-tocopherol is likely recycled in the cell membrane by a mechanism that involves enzymatic ascorbate recycling via α-tocopheroxyl \[[@pntd.0007880.ref022]\]. Some studies have suggested using dietary antioxidants, like vitamins C and E, to reduce liver enzyme levels in individuals with HCV infections \[[@pntd.0007880.ref023]\]. In the present study, we found that the levels of vitamins C and E were significantly lower in thalassemia patients than in the healthy donors. However, the levels were similar between patients with and without SENV infections. Additionally, there was no difference in vitamin C/E levels between patients infected with either genotype of SENV. There were also no differences in the levels of vitamins C and E associated with SENV-D or SENV-H infections. When the levels of GPX were examined in the same individuals, the levels were significantly lower in the thalassemia patients than in the healthy donors. Examination also revealed that the levels of GPX were lower in patients infected with SENV-H than in those infected with SENV-D. A decrease in GPX concentration in hepatitis patients might cause the effectiveness of GPX activity to be restricted, as manifested by the condensation of lipid peroxidation and the increased level of final products of their peroxidation.
This study subjected to some limitations. First, the retrospective design of the study makes it susceptible to the same type of bias that is common to all retrospective studies, particularly since consecutive patients were recruited for the study based on a clinical diagnosis that was suggestive of the presence of HCV infection. Second, the study population was relatively small. Additional studies will be needed to confirm the accuracy of the conclusions derived from the present study. Finally, since this study was limited to a specific area of Iraq, the ability to generalize the results to other geographic areas and ethnic groups of people is limited.
In conclusion, this study confirmed the results of our previous study that suggested that, in Iraq, the prevalence of SENV infections is higher in patients with β-thalassemia than in healthy blood donors, but that the presence of HCV infections does not affect the prevalence of SENV infections. Furthermore, this study was able to demonstrate the absence of a sex-based predominance of infection by the SENV D and H genotypes. The study also showed that, in the present population, the SENV-H DNA indicated a high degree of similarity with other global isolates deposited in GenBank, especially with those from Iran. SENV-H was also suggested to play a more pronounced role in raising serum levels of GGT. Finally, SENV infections were shown to depress levels of GPX to a greater extent than in patients without SENV infections.
Supporting information {#sec018}
======================
###### STROBE checklist.
(DOC)
######
Click here for additional data file.
The authors acknowledge Harkynn Consulting ([www.harkynn.com](http://www.harkynn.com/)) for English language editing assistance.
[^1]: No competing interests exist.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Central
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Saint-Denis-d'Anjou
Saint-Denis-d'Anjou is a commune in the Mayenne department in north-western France.
See also
Communes of Mayenne
References
INSEE commune file
Saintdenisdanjou
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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Wikipedia (en)
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Q:
Why does Don Corleone give in so easily in The Godfather?
One of the last acts of Don Corleone as Godfather is to bring back the peace by calling for a meeting of the five families. You can watch the scene here.
Corleone makes the case for why narcotics are something he wants to stay out of. Then another guy stands up and makes the case for narcotics. Corleone says he came there to reason and find the peace, and Barzini declares that the narcotics trade will commence despite what Corleone wants, and that Corleone will give up a lot of his power. Corleone gives a monologue where he doesn't seem to say much, and then just like that it's over.
Why did he give in so easily? He didn't even seem to put up a fight or to argue his case. I don't understand why he felt it was necessary to give Barzini and Tattaglia and his other enemies exactly what they wanted just to keep the peace. Surely they all wanted peace as well. Yet it seems like Don Corleone just got slapped in the face at the meeting.
A:
For Don Corleone, there were certain red lines you don't cross, and poisoning the people of your neighborhood with drugs was one of those red lines. It also didn't help that Sonny spoke up at the meeting the way he did. Essentially, Don Corleone realized that he had no leverage left among the other dons - they knew not only what his position was, but also who they could potentially exploit to get around that.
Spoiler ahead for further explanation:
Had Carlo not had Sonny killed in the tollbooth, it's entirely possible Sonny would have been convinced to go along with dealing drugs, even after the attempt on Don Corleone's life. Michael was the one wild card none of the other families knew what to make of him; as far as they were concerned, he was either weak like Fredo or just a simple civilian. That was what allowed them to think they could fool him into sitting down with a meeting with Barzini at the end of the film - they just didn't know that Don Corleone had warned him about that possibility before he died.
A:
I think this is made clearer in the book than in the movie. Vito Corleone is a very patient and calculating man. He is willing to wait and slowly manipulate things, unlike his angry and rash son Santino.
At the time of Santino's (Sonny) death Vito realizes that an all out war is costing him too much (the death of his son). He decides to stop the killing by meeting with all the families and agreeing to the drug trafficing. He also learns that the Barzini house is ultimately behind a plot to destroy his family.
In the book (where you can see into the minds of the characters) it is obvious that Vito Corleone doesn't forget or forgive insults. It may take him years, but he eventually enacts his revenge. He likely saw his time was over, given his failing health, and so decided to invest what time he had left into training Michael to take over (and ultimately get revenge). Santino was the oldest and the natural successor, even though he didn't have the temperment to be a good leader. Fredo was weak willed and less intelligent, particularly after the attack on his father (before that attack he was seen to be very tough). Michael was the only son that had the calculating mind of his father and the patience to wait for opportune moments.
In book and the movie Michael Corleone kills the heads of the houses and their co-conspirators (such as Moe Greene). The book concludes with the Corleone family once again ascerting themselves as the most powerful family in New York. The movies take a different turn, with Michael attempting to legitimize the business and get away from crime. Neither the book or the movie is clear about whether drug traffficing continued after Michael destroyed all his enemies. It is possible he reversed that position once he was the only one left standing.
A:
Don Corleone's first priority was his family's safety - especially Michael's. By signing peace treaty with others he ensured no one harmed Michael in any way and interfere with his homecoming.
But he was never weak as at the same time he warned others that he would not leave anyone who would try to harm his family -
"But I'm a superstitious man. And if some unlucky accident should befall him - If he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if he should hang himself in his jail cell - or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning, them I'm going to blame some of the people in this room, and that I do not forgive. But, that aside, let me say that I swear, on the souls of my grandchildren, that I will not be the one to break the peace we've made here today."
Also, he knew that he alone cannot go against Tattagallia and Barzini as they may seek support of other Dons. And none of the Dons at that time wanted an all out open war, so they may choose the stronger side which was apparently not of Don Corleone at that time.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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StackExchange
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895 F.2d 1415
Unpublished DispositionNOTICE: Sixth Circuit Rule 24(c) states that citation of unpublished dispositions is disfavored except for establishing res judicata, estoppel, or the law of the case and requires service of copies of cited unpublished dispositions of the Sixth Circuit.William WESLEY, Plaintiff-Appellant,v.George WILSON, Richard Seiter, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 89-3416.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Feb. 12, 1990.
1
Before NATHANIEL R. JONES and MILBURN, Circuit Judges, and ROBERT HOLMES BELL, District Judge.*
ORDER
2
William Wesley, an Ohio prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the judgment of the district court dismissing his complaint filed pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983.
3
Wesley alleged that he had been wrongfully denied classification to the least restrictive custody classification available to Ohio prisoners. Wesley claimed to be eligible for Minimum, Level 1 status but for Ohio's discriminatory and arbitrary policy of not allowing the classification to assaultive sex offenders.
4
The district court dismissed the complaint as frivolous pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1915(d). It is from that dismissal that Wesley appeals.
5
Upon review, we find no error. The complaint was properly dismissed as being frivolous. A complaint is frivolous "where it lacks an arguable basis either in law or fact." Neitzke v. Williams, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 1833 (1989). Claims which lack an arguable basis in law include claims of infringement of a legal interest which clearly does not exist.
6
Wesley claims the infringement of a legal interest which clearly does not exist. There is no inherent constitutional right to enjoy a particular security classification, Montayne v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 242 (1976), and Ohio law does not confer upon its prisoners a constitutionally protected liberty interest to any particular custody classification. Ohio Rev.Code Sec. 5120.11; Ohio Admin.Regs. Secs. 52120-9-21; -52; -53.
7
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is hereby affirmed pursuant to Rule 9(b)(5), Rules of the Sixth Circuit.
*
The Honorable Robert Holmes Bell, U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Michigan, sitting by designation
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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FreeLaw
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Joan Long
Joan Long (born Joan Dorothy Boundy; 20 July 1925 – 2 January 1999) (AM), was an Australian producer, writer and director best known for Caddie (1976). She was awarded as a Member of the Order of Australia in 1980 for her services to the film industry.
Early life
Long was born in Rushworth, Victoria and was the daughter of Katherine and Frances Boundy. She was brought up in a Methodist family and shared her childhood with four other siblings. Long went to Geelong High School and graduated from the University of Melbourne with a bachelor's degree in History. In 1948, Long made the decision of moving to Sydney, in order to pursue a career in film.
Joan started working at the Department of Interior (DOI)’s new film division, the Australian National Film Board. She was working as a secretary. Her main role was to assist Producer Stanley Hawse. She eventually started her direction debut in 1952 with a series of short documentaries and, in the process, became the second woman, after Catherine Duncan, to take on this role in the Commonwealth Film Unit, previously known as the Australian National Film Board.
After her marriage with Martin Long, she went on a 10-year break, in order to care for her two stepsons and her own son and daughter. She eventually came back to the Commonwealth Film Unit, and with her family in mind, she opted to work as a freelance scriptwriter rather than a full-time employee. However, as mentioned during her interview with Marie Knuckey, it was a decision that was frowned upon by certain people in her entourage: ¨What they said to my face was only a fraction of what they said to my back – you still get people who criticize the fact [that] you work […] No one questions a man's right to work or that his career should go on. Whereas women have had to justify their right to work.¨
Career
1968-71: The Picture That Moved, Paddington Lace and The Passionate Industry
Both The Picture That Moved: Australian Cinema 1896-1920 (1968) and The Passionate Industry: 1920-1930 (1971) were documentaries portraying the evolution of the Australian film industry the movies were a compilation of different excerpts of newsreels, features and photographs of the addressed periods. She also interviewed several actors who played or participated in these pictures. The two films were chosen to be among the Official Selections (Out of Competition category), at the 30th Cannes Film Festival, in 1977.
She also wrote Paddington Lace (1970), a film that depicts one of Sydney’s oldest suburbs, Paddington, a place that eventually became "Sydney’s artist colony".
Long won an AWGIE Award for each of these three films.
1975-77: Caddie and The Picture Show Man
She eventually left the Film Unit and the documentary field in order to pursue the fiction route.
Joan Long wrote the screenplay for Caddie (1976), which was based on the autobiography of Catherine ''Caddie'' Edmond, Caddie, A Sydney Barmaid. The story loosely recounted the life of Caddie Marsh as she desperately tried to hold her life together by getting a job as a barmaid in order to support her two kids, during the Great Depression in Sydney. The film is both a critique of the male-dominated society and its scrutiny on women, and a highlight on the implications of being a working-class single-mother during this period in time.
The film was done as part of Australia's participation in the International Women's Year. Caddie (1976) received a total of $390,000 in funding ($50,000 from the government) for its production. The film won 3 feature awards at the 18th Australian Film Institute Awards. Long’s script was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, but lost to Fred Schepisi’s The Devil's Playground.
Joan Long founded the company, Limelight Productions in 1975 and under its name, she continued to tackle subject matters related to the film industry. She started working on a script revolving around the adventure of a picture showman who traveled across the countryside to bring motion pictures to those who could not access them. The screenplay eventually became The Picture Show Man (1977) which she also worked on as producer. Additionally, the film was also her reaction to Caddie, "[she] wanted something light-hearted" that would get her mind away from the heaviness of her previous work.
1978-1988: Transition from writer to producer
After The Picture Show Man, Joan Long continued on her path as a producer and worked on various other films, with an emphasis on social justice and gender issues.
She worked as a producer with Margaret Kelly on Puberty Blues (1981), an adaptation of Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey’s book of the same name. The film is a coming of age story that follows two teenage girls in their important life stage. The feature also tackles different themes such as sex, drugs, school, etc.
She was involved in Silver City (1984) which was directed and originally written by Sophia Turkiewicz. After having seen the young filmmaker’s previous work Letter from Poland (1978), Long tried to bring one of Turkiewicz's other scripts, written in 1974, to the screen. After several modifications done on the original screenplay, Long decided to bring Australian playwright Tom Keneally on board to help forge a story. Eventually, on their eleventh draft, they got green-lit with a story that depicted the Polish post-war refugees’ journey to Australia, after World War II, focusing on a time that greatly shaped the nation’s current multiculturalism. The film addressed different themes such as identity, assimilation, culture, and ultimately, revolved around the refugees’ relation and interaction with their new home. The film screened throughout Australia, Europe and the United States.
Personal life
Since her early years, Long showed a passion for motion pictures and a desire to contribute to its expansion. She gradually learned her way through the industry, going from a secretarial job to working on productions as a director, writer and producer. However, her contribution was not limited to the silver screen, Long was also an active member among the Australian film community itself.
Joan Long became the first female president of the Australian Writers Guild (AWG), in 1972. During that same year's inquiry into the Australian Film Industry, Long who represented the AWG, was one of the two women present among the ninety-nine witnesses, and was, at one point, mistaken for a secretary by one of the male witnesses. She had also made it a mission of hers to preserve the industry's history. In 1984, she was appointed head for the National Film and Sound Archive’s first Advisory Committee.
In recognition of her contributions, she received the AWG's Dorothy Crawford Award, in 1991, and was given the Venus Award by the Women in Film and Television, in 1997.
Jennie Boddington wrote a eulogy for her long-time friend and colleague in which she described Joan as a "fire ball", with a "spirit of obligation, of service, of giving herself to the community" Even during her final years, she was supposedly working on a screenplay for a documentary about Australia’s famous pioneers of the silent-era, the McDonagh sisters (Paulette, Phyllis and Isabella).
Select credits
The Pictures That Moved (1968) (documentary) - writer
Paddington Lace (1970) (documentary) - writer
The Passionate Industry (1971) (documentary) - director, writer
Caddie (1976) - writer
The Picture Show Man (1977) - writer, producer
Puberty Blues (1981) - producer
Silver City (1984) - producer
Emerald City (1988) - producer
References
External links
Category:Australian film producers
Category:1925 births
Category:1999 deaths
Category:Australian film directors
Category:Australian women film directors
Category:Australian women film producers
Category:Australian filmmakers
Category:University of Melbourne women
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Wikipedia (en)
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Telman Malikov
Telman Malikov (born in Baku January 5, 1950) is an Azerbaijani scientist. He is a professor at Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics.
Early life
In 1972, Malikov graduated in Mechanics and Mathematics at Azerbaijan State University (now Baku State University (BSU)) with an honors diploma. That year, he went to Ganja State University (GSU) as a teacher. In December 1972 – 1975 he became a postgraduate at BSU. From 1976–1977 he worked at GSU. From 1977 to 2013 he worked at Azerbaijan Technology University in Ganja. From 1990 to 2005 he was a manager of the Higher Mathematics Department. From 2000 to 2013, he was rector of Azerbaijan Technology University. Starting in 2014 he began work at the University of Mathematics and Mechanics of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences.
Research
In 1972 Malikov entered postgraduate study at Azerbaijan State University. In 1976 he defended his dissertation on "The research of intrinsic processes in optimum systems" on "Differential and Integral equations". He earned the degree of physical-mathematics sciences.
In 2005, he defended his thesis on a "Discrete Mathematics and Mathematical Cybernetics", on the topic of "Necessary conditions for optimality in some of optimal management processes".
Malikov studied optimal management following the work of Q. T. Ahmadov, associate member of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences.
Malikov suggested new methods to obtain the necessary conditions for optimality in described processes with simple equations, integrodifferential equations, Goursat-Darboux and acted equations. His methods give an opportunity for optimality in some problems that were impossible to explore (for example, in processes with neutral type equations) and to obtain necessary conditions for optimality of special management in necessary conditions and different meanings. He authored more than 80 articles, 2 textbooks, 3 monographs, and crafted more than 10 inventions and patents. His scientific works were published in Russia, US, UK and in scientific journals.
Malikov led scientific investigators and advised doctoral candidates. In 2002, he was awarded with the "Gold Medal" of the French Association for industry for his achievements in education. He was a member of the defence council of doctors and candidates of sciences on Discrete Mathematics and Mathematical Cybernetics of Cybernetic Institute of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences.
References
Category:Azerbaijani mathematicians
Category:Living people
Category:1950 births
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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Wikipedia (en)
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Having completed the genomes of Loa loa, W. bancrofti, and O.volvulus, we have utilized the genomic data as the backdrop for performing a large number of proteomic studies. We have completed a large-scale proteomic characterization of almost all the major mammalian stages of Brugia malayi, resulting in the identification of more than 62% of the products predicted from the Brugia malayi draft genome. The analysis also yielded much of the proteome of Wolbachia, the obligate endosymbiont of Bm. Of the 11,610 predicted Bm gene products, 7,103 were definitively identified from adult male, adult female, blood-borne and uterine microfilariae, and infective L3 larvae. . Parasite sex- and stage-specific protein expression identified those pathways related to parasite differentiation and demonstrated stage-specific expression by the Bm endosymbiont Wolbachia as well. To understand better the developmental programs that underscore the transition between the mosquito-derived infective stage larvae (L3) to mammalian adapted L3s and to L4s following a molt, and the initial week of adaptation to the human host, we adapted an in vitro system that allowed for L3 development and subsequent molting to the L4. Using microarray and proteomic assessments at multiple times through this 9 day process we have not only identified those genes/pathways that are critical for the L3/L4 transition but we have also demonstrated by both pharmacologic inhibition (cysteine protease inhibition) and RNAi (of the critical CPLs) the critical role played by cysteine proteases in the early development of mammalian adapted L3s to L4s. We have recently performed shotgun mass spectroscopy on both human sera of patients with defined filarial infections, excretory/secretory (E/S) products of Loa loa microfilariae, all stages of the O. vovlulus worm, and appropriate controls to identify parasite derived biomarkers of active infection. This has led to identification of molecular targets that will be used to configure quantitative immunoassays for the rapid detection of active infection for O. volvulus and Loa loa. In that S stercoralis is a major pathogen in both normal and immunocompromised hosts, and very little is known, at the molecular level, about its makeup. We were able to manufacture microarrays comprising all 3571 clusters from first and infective third stage larvae (L1, L3i). We have since performed two important set of analyses, the first comparing L1 to L3i that identified the major transcriptional differences between infective and noninfective S. stercoralis larvae 29 that identified potential therapeutic and vaccine targets that were then tested experimentally 30. The second set of gene expression studies compared infective third stage larvae before (L3i) and 72 hours after (L3+) host invasion and showed that S. stercoralis larvae markedly downregulate expression of extracellular matrix and energy metabolism genes, and increase expression of genes encoding catalytic enzymes providing important clues toward an understanding of how Ss establishes itself following host invasion. From a pool of over 1,800 L. loa microfilaria (mf) expressed sequence tags, 18 candidate L. loa (Ll) mf-specific PCR targets were identified. Real-time PCR (qPCR) assays were developed for two targets (LLMF72 and LLMF269) and these have been used in the quantitative assessment of Loa loa microfilarial levels using both standard and isothermal methods.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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NIH ExPorter
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About this site
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Harris&Ewing Fourth Liberty Loan September 30, 1918Crowds gathered for a war-bond rally on Pennsylvania Avenue with the Capitol in the distance.
Ilargi: Yeah, yeah, initial claims are down a few thousand, so there's a party in the markets. Long-term unemployment keeps going up by at least as much as initial claims decrease, but that has no effect on investors. After all, productivity is on a roll. While hours are down, and so are wages. More work for less pay. Who could refuse such a deal? Extensions for homebuyer credits and long-term benefits. Extend and pretend, the economic version of don’t ask don't tell, rules the day.
There are many different regulatory reform plans, in several phases of the pipeline, for the financial world (or at least the financial US). Those from the Obama administration, which look hugely different from Sen. Chris Dodd's Senate proposals, while Rep. Barney Frank hangs somewhere in between with his House ideas. All three purport to address both the regulation of the banking system and the regulatory agencies themselves.
But without having read much of the details, I have zero faith in any plan that originates with Goldman's choice puppets Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, I wouldn't want a second hand car from Chris Dodd if he gave it away), and Barney Frank, smart and amusing as he can be, is as steeped in Washington establishment and campaign donations as they come. No matter what sort of plan will eventually be adopted, it will do nothing at all to address what's really going wrong.
As Dylan Ratigan says, the Obama/Geithner/Summers plan suggests we continue to hide 80% of the derivatives trade, so nobody will see that it consists of worthless paper. William Black on the plan:
If you took everything that would absolutely maximize the risk of producing a new and bigger crisis, every single policy, that would be the bill.
Ratigan this week issues a highly eloquent and passionate plea to fire Tim Geithner. Senator Maria Cantwell wonders why the Treasury Secretary still has his job. And Prof. William Black suggests Larry Summers should ride into the sunset at Geithner's side. These are calls I haven't seen before at that level, granted.
Ron Paul makes a lot of noise about a Fed audit, gets a ton of support, and then expresses (feigns?) surprise at the fact that his audit bill is watered down enough to lack any flavor. Does he really still now know where the wind blows from, after all these years? He seems smart and likeable enough, but I find that hard to swallow.
Paul's bill is probably most useful as an example of what happens to any proposal that goes through the Capitol Hill wringer. Everything comes out in 2-D, without any depth perception, assuring that nothing is done to hurt the interests of the capital that owns the 3-D machine and keeps it lubricated.
And that’s where the real problems are. You can come up with all sorts of grandiose plans on how to regulate or re-regulate regulatory agencies and the fields they are supposed to regulate, but you will never get any results, at least not positive ones, if you let these plans be drawn up by people who have or represent vested interests and resist any meaningful change every step of the way.
Firing a few people or writing up new regulation are things that miss the point. Auditing the Fed would be better, but is a fantasy under current conditions. Losing folks like Geithner, Summers or Bernanke doesn’t change anything, they are merely well-groomed facilitators for the existing system. And it's that system that would need to be changed, not the faces that represent it.
What makes the econo-political system in the US (and other countries) such a failure in the eyes of the average citizen is that money can buy political power, in the US to an almost unlimited degree. First, this means that "one man one vote" is a poorly hidden illusion. If money can buy power, it automatically and necessarily becomes "one dollar one vote". Second, the interests of wealthy individuals or corporations are often diagonally opposed to those of the average citizen. You would like to keep your money as much as possible, while the corporate world would like to take as much away from you as it can. And if you take a good look around, you will find that you're not exactly winning this one.
So even if you don't care much about your vote as long as you can have a car and a TV, you should still pay attention, because in the end you will see be left with next to nothing. And it's your own government, the very people you have voted for, who make sure that's the outcome.
The Treasury Department is the most important part of the US government when it comes to dealing with the economy, and certainly a financial crisis like the one we're in. That is obvious. What is less so is that the Treasury for many years has been filling its main positions with people straight out of the upper echelons of the nation's monied who’s who. The no.1 spot, Secretary of the Treasury, has long been reserved for those who could be relied on to serve the interests of the corporate world.
The names successive presidents have pulled out of their hats for the post tell an interesting story of a power shift from the industrial complex towards the financial world. Since Ronald Reagan brought in Merrill Lynch CEO Don Regan in 1981 (or was it the other way around?), it's finance all the way. Since Bill Clinton picked Robert Rubin picked Bill Clinton, it's all Goldman employees and friends. Many cross through the revolving doors several times. That's how you cement your grip if you’re Goldman.
When president-elect Obama announced his economic team some 11 months ago, a lot of people had doubts. Others, like me, didn't even have those. It was clear to me from the outset that Robert Rubin, Clinton's Treasury Secretary, 26-year Goldman Sachs veteran, prime Glass Steagall destroyer and guru to Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and many others, should not have been anywhere near that team. Nor should Summers or Geithner, for that matter.
Rubin and Summers had 10 years prior been directly responsible for the de-regulation that allowed Wall Street behemoths to establish their shape (and power) which had been proven to be most guilty for the financial crisis that already ran at full blast at the time of Obama's announcement. And not only that, they were the very working brains of the Wall Street behemoths, Trojan horses.
But the core is not the folks you see on TV, the Secretaries. Goldman Sachs has dozens of (former?) employees on strategic positions in the government and around it. By the way, their new main lobbyist is a former Barney Frank staffer. Ain't that just so cute? If you’re interested, there are lists of Goldman people here here and here and here, and I don't want to dwell on them too much.
I want to focus on the fact that in the US, money, not votes, can buy political power. And most of the money resides inside the banks, especially those on Wall Street. So the banks have bought the government.
And no, that is still not the entire story, and it's not even the worst of it. Because most of the money left today does not reside in the banks. They gambled it all away, and they are all bankrupt. The only real money left now resides in the government. Which has been bought by the banks. So they now control the entire nation without having a penny to their names.
Now, if you look at it from that angle, that's quite a feat, isn't it? It's like an obsessive-compulsive gambler who's managed to get hold of the family capital.
And you need to care about this because you are the family, and your home and pensions and those of your children have been put up as collateral for the next wager. Dylan Ratigan in conversation with William Black:
Ratigan: We have legalized the casino gambling with taxpayer money, literally. It is legal for proprietary trading, which is idle speculation, although perhaps well informed and profitable, with the use of taxpayer insured assets.
Black: We not only legalized it, we backstopped it. If you win, it all goes to you, if you lose, it all goes to the taxpayers, and the American people. That is insane. Everybody knows that’s insane.
I hope it's clear by now that none of the regulatory reform plans being floated these days will solve any of the real problems. They are not designed to do so. They are designed to invoke the image of a noble fight among different political factions to clean out the elements that have broken down the system. There will be no such fight.
Firing Tim Geithner will not solve the problem either. He may end up as the fall guy somewhere down the line, but he has a ways to go now people start to believe the recovery nonsense the media keep spouting. A ways to go , and a lot more damage to do. Still, if Geithner's forced out, his place will be filled by the next drone. People talk about Paul Volcker and Elizabeth Warren for the post, but they would be powerless sitting ducks in a bankers pond.
The only way to stop the bleeding is to separate money and politics. But the presidents, Senators and Congressmen who have the power to execute that separation have no desire to do so. They owe their very positions to the donations from the very corporations they would need to throw out of Washington. The Legislative and Executive branches of government are in the hands of private capital, without which they wouldn't be able to win a single election.
You would have to appeal to the Judicial branch, the Supreme Court, for a judgment on the legality of a federal republic being ruled by a few special interest groups. But the Supreme Court has long turned into a theater of political nominations. There is no independent court left.
Which makes it look like a pretty closed system. You are allowed to participate as onlookers in a Kabuki Theater, while your present and future wealth and happiness are being stolen away from you behind closed doors somewhere far away by shady characters who own their power to the fact that they have their hands on your money.
I think people mean well in general who propose firing the most prominent executives, or auditing hidden books filled with multi-trillion frauds and losses. But I don't think they realize how far we’ve come along this path. I’m quite sure people like Dylan Ratigan and Ron Paul would define the present conundrum as a financial crisis first and foremost, with a side-dish of political issues perhaps, but nothing that couldn't be solved with a good old fashioned hard fought democratic vote. What democracy would they suggest that vote take place in, though?
To even begin to solve the problem and stop the bleeding, you would have to fire the entire government in all its branches. And then start all over with people you can guarantee have never received a penny from the ruling classes. That looks like a steep cliff to climb.
Ilargi: Just a reminder: The Automatic Earth Fall Fund Drive is still on. See the top of the left hand column. You have been very generous over the past 4 weeks, thank you so very much, but we are still not even close to where we would like to be on that particular topic. And don't let's forget that our advertisers also eagerly await your attention.
A year ago it was revealed to the American people that our banking system was a legalized Ponzi scheme in which bank and insurance CEOs paid themselves billions of dollars in personal compensation to lend and insure assets with money they didn't have to customers who couldn't pay back the loans.
In those dark days between the fall of Lehman Brothers and before the presidential election, we were often carried through that time by the small glimmer of hope in that at least we would soon have a new leader who would hopefully fix this mess and punish those responsible. Yet in the past 9 months, not only has the administration not fixed anything, they have made things much worse for anyone who isn't a Wall Street banker. Therefore, we are past the point where anyone in power still gets the benefit of the doubt and the process of taking back our country for all citizens must begin now.
This is why I think we must ask if U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is still the right person for the job. It has become clear recently that back in his previous role as New York Federal Reserve Governor, he unnecessarily gave billions of dollars of US tax money to banks and insurance companies with few strings attached. And it is now becoming clear that his lack of meaningful action is helping many of these same banks steal more by legalizing their most economically dangerous, socially destructive and self-enriching practices.
Yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press, Secretary Geithner again endorsed House bank reform legislation that would allow, by my calculations, as much as 80%, or $475 trillion, of the bank's $600 trillion in crooked insurance schemes to still be held in secret. It was and is the secret risks held in this very market that led to our collapse in the first place and continue to pose massive future risk to the global economy.
He also continued to employ the bankers' favorite, and most ludicrous, lie : that the taxpayer must somehow continue to pay executives at companies like AIG ungodly sums of money under the threat that if we don't, somehow the taxpayer will never make their money back. Well let me tell you something, the taxpayer and our nation, will never get back the lost wealth taken under these false circumstances and this colossal breach of fiduciary duty. The idea that we must somehow perpetuate this system with our tax money and the future wealth of our children goes against the very American ideal of failure, adaptation and innovation, not to mention of our democracy.
Also last week, the Treasury Secretary endorsed a piece of legislation that instead of stopping a select few companies from profiting from the implicit taxpayer-guarantee of Too Big Too Fail seeks to officially condone it. If the most prized skill in our society economically is a competition to see who can lend and insure the most money without consequences, you have doomed our nation's people to lose everything in the world's largest ever betting parlor; and that is precisely the system this Treasury Secretary -- Tim Geithner -- is seeking to legalize in America today.
However, the smoking gun for Secretary Geithner comes from a recent Bloomberg FOIA disclosure regarding events from last November. It was then that New York Federal Reserve Governor Tim Geithner decided to deliver 100 cents on the dollar, in secret no less, to pay off the counter parties to the world's largest (and still un-investigated) insurance fraud -- AIG.
This full payoff with taxpayer dollars was carried out by Geithner after AIG's bank customers, such as Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale, had already previously agreed to taking as little as 40 cents on the dollar. Even after the GM autoworkers, bondholders and vendors all received a government-enforced haircut on their contracts, he still had the audacity to claim the "sanctity of contracts" in the dealings with these companies like AIG.
None of us were in the rooms when these decisions were made, so I don't pretend to know if Mr. Geithner was the one lone, sane voice of reason fighting against mysterious forces or the primary proponent. However, I fail to see the reasoning for why we continue to rely on those who were in the room when these horrendous decisions took place to be the same people that we choose to deal with their aftermath. There are just certain situations that are not suited for continuity. The best analogy I can think of is that it would be like asking Al Cowlings to spearhead the Nicole Brown Simpson murder investigation under the premise that he knows the layout and the "players" best.
The fact is that there are people who understand all of the intricacies of finance and policy as well as Secretary Geithner, but whose allegiances to the taxpayer are much clearer. People like Elizabeth Warren, Neil Barofsky, Rob Johnson, and Senator Maria Cantwell just to name a few. To stop the theft from continuing, it requires that the most basic rules of capitalism be applied to our banks and that our future national wealth be safeguarded by the US Government. The current custodian of America's wealth, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, is not doing a good job of either. The time for corrective action is now.
For the past nine months, the Obama team has waged a campaign of political convenience against lobbyists. Its policies against so-called special interests include: a refusal to accept lobbyists' campaign contributions, a ban on employing lobbyists within the administration, discouraging lobbyists' contact with government workers, new rules that will result in the public disclosure of every lobbyist who visits the White House, and a directive to exclude lobbyists from serving on department and federal agency boards and commissions.
All of this is meant to give the impression of purity. But this is illusory. At the same time that the White House has demonized lobbyists, it has allowed itself to be infiltrated by a different army—one made up of campaign contributors. These individuals can breeze past defenses designed to repel lobbyists.
Campaign contributors, especially those who bundled large contributions from others, have been embraced by this administration. Because they aren't formally registered or regulated in the way lobbyists are, they enjoy the benefits and privileges of serving in the heart of the administration. These contributors serve in critical foreign and domestic policy positions, as well as department and agency boards and commissions. Dozens of Obama for America National Finance Committee members have joined the administration. Most of them raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the campaign, according to the watchdog group the Center for Responsive Politics.
This inconsistent treatment does a disservice to federal policy making. Talented women and men who registered themselves as lobbyists under the Lobbying Disclosure Act are being excluded from contributing their expertise at a critical time in our nation's history. The irony of this ploy is that it discriminates against those individuals with the greatest obligations of transparency: lobbyists who register and file quarterly reports on their activities, as well as biannual reports on their political contributions. These are all publicly available. Instead, the White House favors individuals such as political contributors who have no obligation whatsoever to inform the public of the interests they represent in their interactions with the administration.
What's more, this administration's treatment of lobbyists has only decreased openness in the policy-making system. Lobbyists are now limiting their activities and deregistering themselves in order to avoid being stigmatized. If the administration truly wants to address its stated concerns about the influence of special interests, it should focus on what the public actually cares about: the influence of money on the policy-making process. Excluding and disadvantaging professional advocates who have not given any money to the president's campaign while giving campaign contributors a free pass is bad policy.
The White House has repeatedly claimed that it wants "to change the way business is done in Washington." If the Obama administration is serious about this goal, it should apply the same rules to those who raised over $10,000 for the president's campaign that already apply to lobbyists who did not contribute a cent.
Another one of the nation's largest lenders has filed for bankruptcy. On the brink for months, CIT filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sunday. The prepackaged plan allows CIT to restructure its debt while trying to keep badly needed loans flowing to thousands of mid-sized and small businesses. The plan keeps CIT's operations alive and makes it possible for the company to exit bankruptcy by year's end.
But here's the bad news: While senior debt holders will only lose 30% of their investment, we, the U.S. taxpayer, will lose the entire $2.3 billion we lent the company this summer. William Black, professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law is dumbfounded. "We put ourselves on the hook in a completely inept way where we lose first. We lose entirely as the taxpayers." Black, a former top federal banking regulator, blames Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for negotiating such a bad deal on behalf of the American public.
His argument goes as follows: The government was in no way obligated to lend the struggling CIT money and, in fact, initially refused to provide it bailout funds. More importantly, being the lender of last resort, the government should have guaranteed we'd be the first to get paid if CIT eventually filed Chapter 11. By failing to do so, "it's like he [Geithner] burned billions of dollars again in government money, our money, gratuitously," says Black.
Black believes the problem stems from regulators' fears that if the banks recognize a loss on the bad assets it will create a domino effect that will wipe out the entire financial system. "If that's true we've got to get rid of capitalism," he warns, "because if we can't recognize losses in a capitalist system we have no future."
With productivity high and real compensation low, companies captured the lion's share of the benefits of higher productivity in the form of profits. Inflationary pressures remained very low.
The huge increase in productivity explains why the U.S. economy could grow at a 3.5% annual rate in the third quarter even as jobs were being lost at a rapid pace. Obviously at some point we'll need to get everyone back in the labor force to support end user demand . That is unless we create a welfare state in which the working class supports the non-working class... or is that what we already have?
The Treasury Department now expects to hit the government’s debt limit in December, two months later than its initial estimate, after scaling back an emergency loan program as the financial crisis abated. Treasury Department officials said Wednesday they’re working closely with Congress to pass the legislation needed to boost the debt ceiling, currently at $12.1 trillion, and avoid an unprecedented default on the nation’s debt obligations.
Treasury also announced it is ending sales of 20-year inflation-protected securities and will offer similar 30-year securities starting next year. The government believes the longer maturity option will be more popular with investors. The legislation to increase the debt limit is expected to trigger a congressional debate over the government’s soaring deficits, which are projected to add another $9 trillion to the debt burden over the next decade.
The government initially estimated the debt ceiling would be hit last month, but in September it reduced one of the many emergency borrowing programs to $15 billion, from $200 billion. That cleared more room for the government’s other borrowing needs. Congress still faces the need to boost the debt limit by around $1 trillion. Some senators have said they will not support that action unless it is linked to the creation of a commission that would force Congress and the administration to take credible action to restrain soaring deficits.
The administration has said the current record deficits are needed to get the country out of a deep recession and stabilize the financial system, but that the President Barack Obama will put forward new proposals to trim future deficits when he sends his next budget to Congress in February.
For the budget year that ended on Sept. 30, the federal deficit hit an all-time high in dollar terms of $1.42 trillion. As a percent of the total economy, it stood at its highest level since the end of World War II. The jump reflected the massive spending from the $700 billion financial bailout fund and the $787 billion economic stimulus package designed to get the country out of the longest recession since the 1930s. "Deficits of this size are serious and ultimately unsustainable," White House budget director Peter Orszag said in a speech Tuesday.
The deficits are making it harder for the administration to extend politically popular stimulus programs, such as support for the unemployed and the tax credit for first-time homebuyers, without greatly increasing the size of future deficits. In its announcement Wednesday, Treasury said it decided to move to 30-year inflation protected securities, known as TIPS, because it believe the longer maturity would be more popular with investors. Treasury also offers TIPS in five- and 10-year maturities.
The value earned by an investor on a TIPS bond fluctuates with changes in the consumer price index, giving investors protection that the value of their bonds will not drop if inflation accelerates. Treasury also announced that it will raise $81 billion in its quarterly refunding operations next week including $40 billion in three-year notes to be auctioned on Monday, $25 billion in 10-year notes to be auctioned on Tuesday and $16 billion in 30-year bonds to be auctioned on Thursday.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) plans to circulate a draft bill of sweeping financial reforms as early as next week that breaks with the Obama administration and the House on two key issues, officials said.
The legislation, which is still being finalized, would consolidate federal responsibility for banking oversight, now assigned to four different agencies, into a single regulator. And, compared to the plan rolled out by the White House, Dodd's measure would grant less power to the Federal Reserve to curb activities that pose a risk to the entire financial system, the officials said. Under pressure from the administration to move quickly, Dodd now plans to move forward without bipartisan support, sources familiar with the matter said.
Dodd has said that he and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the committee's ranking Republican, have been holding regular meetings to talk about the pending legislation. But staff members on both sides of the aisle say the two men have yet to see eye to eye on a number of issues, from a proposal to create a new consumer agency to heightened government authority for dealing with large, troubled financial firms. "I don't think they ever got close to agreeing on it," said one Democratic staffer.
Whether the two sides ultimately will find middle ground remains unclear. "Sen. Shelby has not agreed to anything," his spokesman, Jonathan Graffeo, said Tuesday. "But we've yet to see the draft bill." Dodd hopes his committee will start the formal process of approving his bill as early as the week after next, spokeswoman Kirstin Brost said. Dodd's measure would reshape Washington's oversight of Wall Street on a more dramatic scale than a parallel effort in the House. The House bill would eliminate only the Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulates thrifts, while Dodd is looking to consolidate all four bank regulators into one.
An administration official, who has reviewed summaries of the bill, called Dodd's bill a good start and has expressed openness to the idea of a consolidated regulator. Meanwhile, the House Financial Services committee has moved forward its own version of the bill. That committee has passed legislation to regulate the largely unmonitored world of financial derivatives and to create a new federal agency that would monitor mortgages, credit cards and other loans to consumers. The House committee is set on Wednesday to debate the details of legislation giving the government broad power to keep watch for systemic risks to the economy and to wind down large, troubled financial companies.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who chairs the House committee, said he plans to move his version of the regulatory reform proposal through the entire House before the end of the year. "I don't have any question that it will be finished by the first week of December," Frank told reporters on Tuesday. The press conference by Frank and leaks about Dodd's plan were not coincidental, sources familiar with the matter said. The administration and Democratic lawmakers, who are all trying to keep the reform effort from losing steam, coordinated their publicity to illustrate that progress was being made.
Frank told reporters he was open to legislative changes that would allow the government to seize and dismantle large financial firms. For instance, he said he could agree to new language calling for these firms to be assessed upfront fees to cover the cost of a large firm's collapse. Earlier language called for charging the firms after a failure. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman Sheila Bair has questioned the wisdom of that latter approach, but the administration prefers assessing the fee afterwards.
Frank added that he wants to see the Consumer Financial Protection Agency led by Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, who was a key architect of the new agency. "I want Elizabeth Warren to be the first head of this agency," Frank said. But some Republicans oppose the agency altogether, saying it would unnecessarily reduce the availability of loans and other financial products.
A key Senate lawmaker is readying legislation that would dramatically redraw how the financial system is regulated, setting the chamber on a collision course with both the House of Representatives and the Obama administration, which have championed markedly different approaches.
The bill, which is being readied by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), would strip almost all bank-supervision powers from the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. In their place, the bill would create a new agency in charge of supervising all banks and bank-holding companies, even the country's largest and most complex institutions. Mr. Dodd's proposal also would create a powerful council of regulators, overseen by an independent White House appointee, charged with monitoring risks to the financial system.
Senate aides say the legislative plan could still be adjusted in coming days. In its current form, it has the potential to disrupt progress of the financial-regulation overhaul, one of the legislative priorities of the administration. Administration officials have billed the revamp as central to their effort to prevent a recurrence of last year's financial meltdown. Mr. Dodd's proposal stakes out an extreme position, and is likely to face major resistance, especially from the banking industry. His effort comes as he prepares for a tough re-election battle in 2010. Mr. Dodd has been criticized for being too cozy with the banking industry in the past. This year he has advanced various proposals attacking banking practices, such as a new law limiting certain credit-card fees.
Even if his regulatory-overhaul plan runs aground, it could help Mr. Dodd position himself as a populist lawmaker willing to wage war on powerful financial institutions. Legislation being ushered through the House by Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) differs in many ways from Mr. Dodd's proposal. Mr. Frank's series of bills, which could come to a full vote in the House in December, would eliminate the bank-supervisory powers of just one federal agency, not three. The Fed's role in bank regulation would be expanded, not diminished, with the Fed getting new responsibility for the nation's largest financial institutions. And in Mr. Frank's version, the council of regulators appears much less powerful than in Mr. Dodd's.
A final agreement is still months away. The House and Senate must pass their own bills, and differences between them will have to be reconciled. Mr. Dodd's plan to create a single national bank regulator is likely to draw fire. There are currently four different institutions with that responsibility. The banking industry has resisted such consolidation, worried that a single regulator would tend to favor large, national institutions at the expense of smaller ones. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair has pushed back against efforts to strip her agency of the power to supervise banks, describing a system of multiple regulators as the best guard against mistakes by any one of them. In October, appearing before Mr. Dodd's panel, Ms. Bair opposed consolidating supervision in one agency.
Under Mr. Dodd's plan, the FDIC would remain an insurer of deposits and the main agency overseeing bank failures. It also would be given the new job of dissolving large financial institutions on the brink of collapse. Fed officials have also strongly resisted proposals to strip their authority, such as their current oversight of 800 banks and 5,000 bank-parent companies. Mr. Dodd's proposal is expected to retain the Fed's ability to serve as a "lender of last resort" to the financial system. The Fed would be allowed to attend bank examinations conducted by the new megaregulator, to keep a "finger on the pulse" of the banking system, one congressional aide said.
Under the proposal, the Fed likely would emerge as a completely different agency, having lost most bank-supervisory powers and the ability to write and enforce consumer-protection rules. Mr. Dodd's bill will likely throw into question the future of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks, which is where most of the Fed's bank examiners are based. Instead, the Fed would focus mostly on monetary policy. Last month, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank's ability to conduct an "effective monetary policy" depended heavily on its role as a bank supervisor.
The Obama administration considered merging bank regulators as it was formulating its own proposals earlier this year, but officials say they nixed the idea as unlikely to get through Congress. An administration official said the White House has been briefed on Mr. Dodd's proposal. "I think we are going to start out with the presumption of as much consolidated regulation as we can," said Sen. Jack Reed (D., R.I.) a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee.
Proponents of consolidating agencies argue such a move would stop banks from shopping around for the regulator with the lightest touch. Mr. Dodd's plan is likely to face opposition within the Senate. Republicans are mostly lined up to oppose the creation of a new regulatory agency that would focus on consumer-oriented financial products.
Price Trends / WAR OF THE WORLDS: If you use a 20-year time horizon, and assume prices will return to the trend line, then our residential property bubble will bottom after values fall over 40% from current levels (see above (c) aka "(Y) – (Z)" aka "Loss Today to Bottom"). I make no predictions. I do watch numbers. The chart shows a catastrophe of falling real estate values loaded up on top of our current catastrophe in real estate values.
No one would question these numbers absent The War of the Worlds. The War of the Worlds is the United States Government versus aggregate borrower income. Uncle Sam is funding every new mortgage – high, low and in between (see chart below: the blue and red are government-backed loans). It takes very little imagination to see the world of real estate prices vaporizing without government support. If that support was lost, values would crash down faster than a big rock dropped into a shallow puddle.
While the federal government has deep pockets, at some point the persons who take out the mortgages will have to pay them. At that point the market should follow the pattern described above by the trend line. Reality bites. Prices for real estate are ultimately determined by our income, and if the trend represents a match of income and price, then the trend line is the picture of our future.
The CBO has a new "economic and budget issue brief" out on one of our favorite subjects, federal support for housing. The gist: there's a lot of it. I've written about this stuff before, but this time around one factoid especially caught my attention: The CBO estimated that about $230 billion went to supporting homeownership in 2009, and $60 billion to helping renters.
A little further on, there was this somewhat depressing observation:
Federal housing policy has long aimed to increase the rate of homeownership and, to a lesser extent, make rental housing affordable for low-income families. The nation has made more progress on the former goal than on the latter. Homeownership rates increased steadily throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, peaking in 2004 at just under 68 percent of all households ...
However, the proportion of households paying more than 30 percent of their income for housing—an amount that is often categorized as unaffordable in light of households' other needs—increased steadily from 1997 to 2007. The burden of housing's costs is more pronounced among renters than among owners: In 2007, 45 percent of renters (compared with 30 percent of owners) paid more than 30 percent of their income for housing.
So by turning homeownership subsidies into another middle class entitlement, we've actually made housing less affordable for lots of Americans. Brilliant!
First time home buyers have risen from a tiny percentage of the market for homes to making up a significant portion of the market. Even the panic at the end of 2008 barely slowed down the first timers. In the most troubled markets, such as Las Vegas, Nevada, the first time buyers are actually dominating the market. FHA loans are extremely popular with first time home buyers, which is one reason that the market for homes has become so dependent on the FHA.
It seems many people are takin advantae of two major prorams at the low end of the housin bubble: the FHA is aggressively promoting lending with only 3.5% down, and the $8k tax credit for buying a house less than $200k. A good realtor can apply the tax credit to last years taxes, making sure that the buyer actually gets the money right away, and the HUD is actually OK with using the $8k to make buying a home a no-money-down proposition. Remember horror stories of sellers who would pay make the slim downpayment, and leave the stupid investors with losses? Well, today that game is over, except for the government, which proves that stupidity in the private sector actually loses people money, causing them to change their ways. For the government, it's just more incentive to double down.
A person who can't afford a down payment should not be in a home. One needs capital to pay for routine maintenance, and most importantly, if something major happens, like if a heater breaks. A renter is someone who does not have the wherewithall to handle these large, unanticipated expenses. It is better for everyone if these people are renters, because otherwise a bad break leaves the property in poor shape, leading to a 'broken windows' problem.
No private bank would lend in such a manner, but FHA wants to take the risk, because unlike the greedy bank, it sees the 'bigger picture', presumably.
The government's program reminds me of the technique children independently discover to make it look like they've eaten up hated peas or carrots: spread them around the plate. Thus, the recent economic debacle is primarily centered on housing, especially lower-end housing financed by overeager lenders. The unavoidable endgame to this problem is fewer houses, and lower prices for those houses; demand was artificially high. But, we wouldn't want people to adjust, because every good Keynesian knows that all misallocations of resources in a complex economy can be solved via top down injections o fiat money, or "G"--they have the multipliers to prove it!
To the government every hangover needs a little more hair of the dog. A friend of mine says his rental real estate business is slow at the top end, because those renters are attracted to the FHA loan/$8k tax credit. Those kind of effects are basically unmeasurable, and what can't be measured is not counted. What about the complex dynamics implicated by the finite nature of the $8k tax credit? Preventing the pain with a temporary subsidy merely prolongs the amount of time spent in the doldrums (eg, 1933-39 was a period of very high unemployment).
Bad governments prioritize the seen over the unseen, the direct over the indirect. The sad fact is popular policies usually have highly concentrated benefits and highly distributed costs, and the politicians act like little children, hoping those watching do not notice stuff that's spread around.
More ammo for the housing bears here: Despite the dips in both the Case-Shiller and FHFA Home Price Indices, houses still aren't affordable based on historical price/income ratios. Historically, both indices have generally tracked Mean Household Income, but as this chart in a new report from St. Louis Fed (.pdf) indicates, as of the middle of this year, there's still no convergence. And based on the upswing in Case-Shiller numbers over the summer, that's still the case. Remove all of the extraordinary government support from the market, and it's easy to see prices dipping below the lines before they stabilize.
Being one of the most vigilant observers of the U.S. housing market – as well as one of the most vociferous critics of fraudulent “statistics”, there was little chance that Bloomberg's attempt to “rewrite history” would slip past me.
Here is the new version of “history” which Bloomberg spewed out Thursday:
About 18.8 million homes stood empty in the U.S. during the third quarter...The record-high was in the first quarter [of 2009] when 18.95 million homes were vacant.
Unless the U.S. propaganda-machine has also re-written the rules of arithmetic, then the 19 million empty homes which Bloomberg reported for last year (in February) is a larger number than the 18.95 million which Bloomberg claimed was a record this year.
Admittedly, as far as statistical lies go, this particular example is hardly earth-shattering. However, what is important is it clearly established the fact that U.S. propagandists are simply inventing numbers when they report “statistics”.
The really important departure from reality is how Bloomberg (and the rest of the U.S. propaganda-machine) have simply ignored the millions of already-foreclosed properties which U.S. banks are hiding from the market.
As I demonstrated in “Fantasy Housing Numbers a Prelude for NEXT U.S. Housing Crash”, U.S. banks are on track to record close to 5 million foreclosures and repossessions – just in the current year. However, they are only on pace to sell about 1.5 “distressed properties” (which also include “short sales”). This simple arithmetic means that U.S. banks are adding at least3.5 million empty homes to the millions of foreclosed properties they were already holding off the market prior to this year.
Obviously, if there were 19 million empty homes at the end of 2008, and at least 3.5 million more empty homes this year (just counting only those being held by U.S. banks), then the real total of U.S. empty homes today would be at least 22 million. Clearly, Bloomberg's claim of 18.8 million empty homes in the U.S. in the 3rd quarter of this year has absolutely no connection to the “real world”.
Presumably a major news organization like Bloomberg is able to keep track of its own prior published articles, which strongly suggests the deliberate attempt to deceive. Interestingly, Bloomberg's previous report on U.S. empty homes provides some data which strongly supports my assertion that U.S. banks have been accumulating vast quantities of foreclosed properties.
Bloomberg noted in February that at the end of the 3rd quarter of 2008 U.S. banks were holding $11.5 billion worth of foreclosed properties (in nominal value) – more than double what they held a year earlier. This doubling of the banks' inventories of foreclosed properties occurred during a year when there were 'only' 2.2 million foreclosures.
This year, U.S. banks are on pace to nearly double the total number of foreclosures from 2008 – yet all the reports from U.S. propaganda outlets indicate declining inventories of unsold homes, month after month.
This farce also extends to the new home market – except the fabrications are even more extreme. U.S. home-builders have been building roughly 50% more homes than they are selling, for every month for the last two years. This is why the U.S. propagandists never report “new home sales” and “new home starts” in the same article. Despite this horrendous discrepancy, and a long-term trend which can only end with mass-bankruptcies among home-builders, “inventories” of new homes have been reported as declining every month.
This sham just hit a new level of absurdity this week. When “new home sales” were reported this week, there was a “surprising” decline in the latest reading – and the previous month's number was revised lower. Yet in the same piece of propaganda it was reported that the inventory of new homes still supposedly declined in the last month.
Putting aside the huge, existing gap between new home starts and sales, one would think that the compulsive liars of the U.S. propaganda-machine would not have the audacity to report increasing “starts” of new homes, decreasing sales – and still claim that inventories were falling. Clearly this is nothing less than a "slap in the face" for market sheep - who are presumed to be so brain-dead that the propagandists can write 100% contradictory "facts" in the same article, and expect no one to notice.
Returning to the millions of foreclosed properties which U.S. banks are holding off the market, obviously part of the reason for this was to try to halt the collapse in housing prices. If U.S. banks had dumped an additional 5+ million homes onto the market (equal to a full year of demand by itself) then instead of the collapse in U.S. housing prices easing, it would still be accelerating.
However, as I pointed out in “Who OWNS Foreclosed U.S. Properties, Part II: the role of MERS”, there is a second reason for U.S. banks to hide all these millions of foreclosed properties: credit default swaps. This $50+ trillion market represents the phony “insurance” on the entire Wall Street Ponzi-scheme – which was the key to (so-called) “regulators” allowing the U.S. financial crime syndicate to leverage the entire financial sector by an utterly insane average of 30:1.
Now, with the U.S. housing market collapsing, these credit default swaps are being triggered. Selling these foreclosed properties locks-in the banks' losses – causing these massive obligations to come due. As I illustrated in “Bankster Sues Bankster – AGAIN”, in one example of a credit default swap, Citigroup (C) is suing Morgan Stanley (MS) to collect on this contract.
Even after the “collateral” which “backed” this insurance was liquidated, Morgan Stanley is still facing a pay-out of more than 300:1 based on the premiums it received for this insurance. While not every CDS will require 300:1 pay-outs, there is no reason that some of these payments could not exceed 300:1 – given the gross negligence of regulators in not requiring adequate collateral for this $50+ trillion “insurance market”.
If you take the billions in losses which U.S. banks are racking-up on foreclosed U.S. properties, and then start making 300:1 pay-outs on those losses, it doesn't take long for the entire U.S. financial system to appear hopelessly insolvent – even with the new, fraudulent accounting rules enacted in the U.S. in April.
For the benefit of new readers, I will repeat my warning: it is perilous to accept any U.S. government-reported statistics at “face value”. The absurd reading on 3rd-quarter GDP is a prime example.
The U.S. economy is supposedly now growing at a robust 3.5% annual rate. Wall Street is reporting “record profits” (and paying record bonuses). Yet the state of New York is desperately trying to close a $3 BILLION budget-gap – which has materialized over the same quarter where both Wall Street and the broader U.S. economy are supposedly thriving. Apparently Wall Street's fantasy "profits" are producing only fantasy tax revenues for the state of New York.
This entire Ponzi-scheme economy continues plunging toward collapse – and formal default on its massive, unpayable debts. Total public and private debt in the U.S. is now approximately $60 trillion, and this completely excludes the roughly $70 trillion in additional “unfunded liabilities” (for the federal government, alone). However, don't expect to hear the truth about this from the U.S. propaganda-machine.
The U.S. junk bond default rate rose to 11.3 percent in October from 10.8 percent in September as corporate America's credit quality worsened despite positive economic news, Standard & Poor's said on Tuesday. Eleven bond issuers defaulted in October, bringing the year-to-date total to 175, S&P said in a statement.
A global credit crisis and the worst recession since the 1930s have already triggered six of the 10 largest bankruptcies on record, including the failures of General Motors in June and CIT Group on Sunday. Numerous government lifelines, including near-zero interest rates, are beginning to relieve default pressures as the economy revives, however. S&P last month slashed its forecast for the default rate, saying a thawing of the bond markets after last year's credit crisis is helping more companies survive.
The agency expects defaults to fall to 6.9 percent by September 2010, compared with an earlier forecast of a rise to 13.9 percent by August 2010. A 6.9 percent rate would still be above the long-term average rate of 4.3 percent between 1981 and 2008, however. S&P's previous peak junk bond default rate was 12.7 percent in July 1991, based on records dating back to 1981.
Just call it a month in which the private-sector job market treaded water: It lost 203,000 jobs in October, following a revised 227,000 reduction in September, according to data compiled in the ADP National Employment Report. September's original loss estimate was 254,000. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had expected private employers to cut 200,000 jobs in October. Separately, job-placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said job cut announcements by U.S. employers fell to 55,679 in October, 16 percent lower than in September, CNMoney.com reported Wednesday.
ADP noted that the 203,000 private payroll cutback was the seventh straight monthly decline. Nevertheless, ADP added, "despite recent indications that overall economic activity is stabilizing, employment, which usually trails overall economic activity, is likely to decline for at least a few more months."
The job loss totals in October by business size were: 53,000 (large), 75,000 (medium), and 75,000 (small). Further, the services sector -- formerly a U.S. strength during the recent economic expansion -- lost 65,000 jobs in October. The goods-producing sector slashed 117,000 jobs and manufacturing shed 65,000 positions. The construction sector eliminated 51,000 jobs, its 33rd consecutive monthly decline, and brought total construction jobs lost since the January 2007 peak to 1.7 million.
Investors should monitor monthly job reports because job creation is positively correlated with corporate revenue and earning gains. And as corporate earnings go, so goes the U.S. stock market.
Job creation also is the key to consumption, which contributes greatly to U.S. GDP. However, given a decade of overconsumption and stagnant incomes in many job classifications, few economists expect spending patterns to return to the home equity/refinance-distorted, cash-flush years of the housing bubble. Nevertheless, many economists do expect both consumer spending and business investment to trend slightly higher in the quarters ahead.
Economic Analysis: Basically, the ADP October report on private-sector employment came in about as expected. Still, the optimist would see the continuing downtrend in job layoffs, which ADP noted. One of the ironies of the U.S. economy is that as it becomes more productive per employee, it takes fewer and fewer employees to perform the same tasks. This has the effect of reducing job gains and lengthening the recovery time to full employment. And that makes the task of policymakers and executives more difficult.
Even so, they must remain focused on job creation: The U.S. economy needs to create 150,000 to 200,000 jobs every month to lower unemployment. Also, investors should keep in mind that the more-telling job statistic, containing both private- and public-sector job data, is the U.S. Labor Department's monthly nonfarm payroll report, and the October data will be released Friday, Nov. 6 at 8:30 a.m. EST. It's expected to show a 175,000-job decline in October after a 263,000 loss in September, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists.
Ambac Financial Group Inc. swung to a third-quarter profit thanks to large mark-to-market gains on credit derivatives, which had cost the bond insurer billions in losses a year earlier. Shares surged 27% premarket to $1.41. The stock, which has tripled from an all-time low in March, remained down 15% for the year through Tuesday. A foray into insuring mortgage-backed securities, which soured along with the housing market and home loans, combined with weak consumer sentiment and economic contraction sent the bond-insurance industry into a tailspin.
But the housing market has shown signs of stabilization and Ambac has been terminating some contracts with counterparties to reduce risk exposure. Ambac, the nation's No. 2 bond insurer behind MBIA Inc. (MBIA), posted a profit of $2.19 billion, or $7.58 a share, compared to a year-earlier loss of $2.43 billion, or $8.45 a share. The latest results included $2.13 billion of mark-to-market gains on credit derivatives and $303 million in gains from reinsurance cancellations. The prior year had $2.71 billion in derivative losses.
More Americans filed bankruptcy in October than in any month since changes to U.S. bankruptcy laws in 2005 as unemployment and falling home prices prevented consumers from paying their debts. The number of individuals filing bankruptcy rose 25 percent to about 131,200 from a year earlier, according to data compiled from court records by Oklahoma City-based Jupiter ESources LLC. The 1.2 million bankruptcies filed through October have already surpassed last year’s total of 1.1 million.
Businesses also continued to struggle to pay creditors; corporate bankruptcies climbed about 30 percent from October 2008, according to Jupiter. Chapter 11 bankruptcies, where a company attempts to reorganize rather than liquidate, rose the most in four months to 1,327 in October, according to Jupiter.
"Despite the recovery, several sectors remain in crisis," Kurt M. Carlson, a bankruptcy lawyer at Chicago-based Much Shelist Denenberg Ament & Rubenstein P.C., said in an e-mail. "The real estate markets haven’t improved. Vacancy rates continue to climb. Those in manufacturing are cutting costs." The American Bankruptcy Institute estimates personal filings will reach 1.4 million by the end of the year. That would still be less the record 2.1 million bankruptcies in 2005, when 630,000 Americans filed in the two weeks before bankruptcy law revisions made it more difficult discharge debt.
Commercial bankruptcies among the nation's more than 25 million small businesses increased by 44% from the third quarter of 2008 to the third quarter of 2009, according to Equifax Inc., which analyzes its comprehensive small business database for the on-going study. Comparing the month of September 2008 to September 2009 shows an increase of 27 percent. There were 9361 bankruptcy filings in September 2009 throughout the U.S., up from 7386 a year ago, according to the data.
California remains the most negatively affected state with eight MSA's (metropolitan statistical areas) among the 15 areas with the most commercial bankruptcy filings during September 2009. Los Angeles, Riverside/San Bernardino and Sacramento metropolitan areas continued to lead the nation in small-business bankruptcy filings as they did at the end of the second quarter. The other MSA's with the most bankruptcy filings during the month include:
--Denver-Aurora, CO --Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, CA --San Diego-Carlsbad CA --Dallas-Plano-Irving, TX --Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA --California (excluding MSA's within the state) --Oakland-Fremont-Hayward, CA --Oregon (excluding MSA's within the state) --Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL --Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX --San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara CA --Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA"Economic pain is continuing for small businesses across the country. We're still seeing hefty increases in the number of bankruptcies in a lot of major metro areas." said Dr. Reza Barazesh head of North American research for Equifax's Commercial Information Solutions division.
"However, the 69 percent drop and 49 percent decline in bankruptcies in Charlotte and New York-White Plains respectively, and a 44 percent drop in Atlanta between the second and third quarters indicates that the East Coast may be experiencing an earlier recovery from the recession than the West Coast." Charlotte - number four in June - dropped out of the top 15 entirely to 39th; Atlanta dropped from fifth to 15th; and New York - White Plains dropped from eighth to 24th.
Equally consistent with this east/west difference over the same period, the 11th, 12th and 13th MSAs with the greatest number of bankruptcies at the end of the second quarter of 2009 -- Santa Ana-Anaheim, Denver and San Diego -- increased in rank to 5th, 4th, and 6th by the end of the third quarter. Santa Ana-Anaheim increased three percent, Denver was up 13 percent and San Diego increased four percent.
For its research, Equifax reviewed and analyzed small business data for the month of September, the most recent month for which complete data is available, and compared it with results from September 2008. Equifax defines a small business as a commercial entity of less than 100 employees.
In the theory wars, which are as much wars over policy choices, two very bad kinds of theories are driving out good theories. Keynesian economics, which had been nearly forgotten inside the macro field, has found new voices from outside. They take the position that fiscal "stimulus" of all kinds is effective against slumps of all causes. Their strategy is to defeat their only popular rivals, the neoclassicals, by deriding their view that the employment downturn involves a contraction of the labour supply.
Neoclassical equilibrium theory, which some macroeconomists had grown sceptical of, has also found new practitioners. They take the position that, aside from bad policy moves, recessions, even "great" ones, are caused by random market events and corrected by market adjustments. Demand stimulus is of no use, since there is no systematic shortage of demand. These spokesmen show little knowledge of the several theoretical perspectives in macroeconomics over the past 100 years. The "Keynesians" seem not to have studied Keynes and the neoclassicals misread or do not read Hayek. No wonder fallacies abound.
The fallacy of the "Keynesians" is their premise that all slumps, all of the time, are entirely the result of "co-ordination problems" – mis-expectations causing a deficiency of demand. Having modelled the effects of expectations decades ago, I know they have consequences. I agree that companies appeared to underestimate the cutbacks and price cuts of competitors on the way down. That excessive optimism signalled deficient demand for goods and labour. So any stimulus then may have had a Keynesian effect. By now, though, such optimism has surely been wrung out of the system. To pump up consumer or government demand would force interest rates up and asset prices down, possibly by enough to destroy more jobs than are created.
The fallacy of the neoclassicals is their tenet that total employment, though hit by shocks, can be said always to be heading back to some normal level. In this view, employment is impervious to shifts in any particular demand. If told that consumers are broke, they say that markets will respond by lowering interest rates until investment has filled the gap. If told that business investment looks weak and will not be getting the help of another housing boom, they say that a real exchange rate depreciation will fill the gap with an increase of net exports. They do not understand that interest rates cannot fall much in an open economy and that a weaker currency has contractionary effects on output supply that could spoil the expansion coming from the effects on export and import demands.
These fallacies lull analysts into the false sense that, one way or another, a full recovery lies ahead – thanks to government spending or to self-correcting market forces. As I see it, the poor state of balance sheets in households, banks and many companies augurs a "structural slump" of long duration. Employment will recover, quickly or slowly, only as far as investment demand will carry it. It is highly uncertain whether government spending on infrastructure would help, after taking into account the employment effects of the higher tax rates to pay for it.
The most profound fallacy is the newfangled idea that misalignment of incentives in banks caused the housing bubble – a bubble that, when it burst, shook the economy to its foundations. All can agree that increased lending and building ran into the awkward fact that costs increase when production is stepped up. On that account, prices sought a higher level. But that analysis does not capture the steep four-year climb in housing prices, which rose by more than 60 per cent.
To account for so large an increase, we have to recognise that expectations played a role. Speculators appear to have expected that housing prices would go sky-high, so prices took off and then went on climbing in anticipation that those high prices were getting closer. The banks, seeing the houses offered as collateral were worth more and more, responded by supplying an increasing flow of mortgage loans.
From this viewpoint, speculation drove the crisis. Misaligned incentives were not sufficient to do it – and not necessary either. Bubbles long predate bonuses. The crisis could have happened with a 1950s financial sector. The lesson the crisis teaches, though it is not yet grasped, is that there is no magic in the market: the expectations underlying asset prices cannot be "rational" relative to some known and agreed model since there is no such model.
The gravest error of the phony debate between two non-starters is that their superficial and mechanical character – the clockwork of the neoclassical system and the hydraulics of the Keynesian one – operate to distract policymakers from asking basic questions about the dynamism of the US and UK economies. Economics has paid a terrible price for its dalliances with the Keynesian and neoclassical theories. Now policymakers are being misled by the siren call of these same, hopelessly inadequate views.
The writer, winner of the 2006 Nobel prize in economics, is director of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University
It's the lack of monetary enforcement that will likely save Europe from overspending. European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet has proven throughout this financial crisis that he is his own man when it comes to navigating the euro-land banking system through the deflation and debt deleveraging storm. He has proven to be an excellent communicator, consensus builder, and a maverick among the world’s central bankers. To his credit, and much to the benefit of the 16-nation euro region, his policy positions of eschewing massive fiscal stimulus and rejecting excessive quantitative easing (QE) have proven that Trichet is no slave to fashion.
Many have pointed out that among the world’s prominent central bankers, he saw the looming financial meltdown and voiced his concerns while many others touted the new and wonderful world of financial engineering. Trichet was most concerned by the complexity and opaqueness of debt products that were beginning to dominate finance. On October 12, 2005, the Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan gave a speech to the National Italian American Foundation, and the following quotes reveal the en vogue thinking of the day: "The new instruments of risk dispersal have enabled the largest and most sophisticated banks, in their credit-granting role, to divest themselves of much credit risk by passing it to institutions with far less leverage…These increasingly complex financial instruments have contributed to the development of a far more flexible, efficient, and hence resilient financial system than the one that existed just a quarter-century ago."
The following month, in Basel, Switzerland, Trichet was quoted, "Perhaps there is an underestimation of risks by financial markets at the present juncture." Clearly, Trichet was unwilling to follow the siren call of the newly-engineered ‘Money for Nothing’ that clogged the balance sheets of banks, hedge funds and insurance companies on both sides of the Atlantic. As the financial meltdown began in 2007 and the Fed fell over itself in a rush to slash interest rates, Trichet and the ECB bucked the easy monetary policy trend and held rates firm through July 2008. In the U.S soon came TARP, TALF, an alphabet soup of bailouts, special lending facilities and asset purchases, and then a massive fiscal stimulus package. By the summer of 2009 the Fed had committed more than 12% of U.S. GDP to asset purchases under the guise of QE - all a desperate attempt to keep banks liquid and asset values artificially high. The UK soon followed, also committing more than 12% of annual GDP to its own QE program. Jean-Claude Trichet, on the other hand, was unwilling to provide funds for even 1% of aggregate GDP for the covered bond purchase program.
The European Union contains 27 member states, only 16 of which belong to the euro area, and the ECB cannot force any member state to undertake fiscal policy. They also have disparate needs: Spain, Greece, Iceland and much of the eastern bloc need capital infusions, while Germany, France and the UK think that such burdens are unfairly weighted. Hence, we see the International Monetary Fund playing the role of the ECB where direct cash infusion is required. In the end, it is the lack of monetary enforcement that will likely save Europe from overspending and committing hundreds of billions of euros in a vain attempt to prop up deflating asset values.
In the U.S., it would take a generation of above-average growth (combined with confiscatory taxation) to eliminate the projected deficits, given the recent actions of our central bankers and legislators. Japan tried stimulus in the nineties (to no avail), and the U.S. and the UK are playing the same game now. Jean-Claude Trichet, ever cautious, was recently quoted, "What is very important for a central bank is not to succumb to fashion… What we try to do is to take decisions, including when needed, bold decision that are designed…to preserve…monetary stability. We think we have reasonably struck the balance between those two considerations." (Bloomberg) Given Europe's lack of debt overload, I would agree. Trichet is no slave to fashion.
Since expressing ridicule skepticism about technical analysis a few months ago, we have been politely badgered by reader John Brims, who has been sending us charts and murmuring about wedges.
We will confess that we have not been listening too carefully, because, well, because we think technical analysis is a bunch of bullsh**.
But John has been persistent, so we'll give him his chance to shine.
John says the chart below indicates that the world is about end. So hang on to your hat!
Henry, I am going to give up on you. As a non believer you are missing out. These 5 wedges have clearly shown the end of each rally and on each occasion have signaled further heavy falls. The fifth wedge which I have sent you several times has just broken to the downside and indicates extremely heavy falls are now in the pipeline.
(Let us at least go on record as saying that we're generally bearish, too, for reasons having nothing to do with wedges.)
Concerns are mounting that efforts by governments and central banks to stoke a recovery will create a nasty side effect: asset bubbles in real-estate, stock and currency markets, especially in Asia. The World Bank warned Tuesday that the sudden reappearance of billions of dollars in investment capital in East Asia is "raising concerns about asset price bubbles" in equity markets across Asia and in real estate in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam. Also Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund cited "a risk" that surging Hong Kong asset prices are being driven by a flood of capital "divorced from fundamental forces of supply and demand."
Behind the trend are measures such as cutting interest rates and pumping money into the financial system, which have left parts of the world awash in cash and at risk of bubbles, or run-ups in asset prices beyond what economic fundamentals suggest are reasonable. Prices are surging across a host of markets. Gold, up about 44% this year, soared to a record high Tuesday. Copper is up about 50% in the past year. In the U.S., risky assets are rising rapidly in price: The risk spreads, or interest-rate premiums, on low-rated junk bonds have narrowed to about where they were in February 2008, before Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers fell, according to Barclays Capital.
Policy makers from Beijing to London, seared by the fallout from burst housing and credit bubbles, are searching for ways to head off new ones. How to handle a bubble "is one of the big two or three unanswered questions at the end of this crisis," says Adair Turner, chairman of the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority. Bank of Korea Governor Lee Seong-tae hinted last month he would raise interest rates, if necessary, to prevent Seoul's housing market from lurching out of control.
"This is the beginning of another big and excessive run-up in asset prices," said Simon Johnson, a former IMF chief economist. The symptoms of a frenzy are most evident in Asia and the Pacific, where economies are recovering most quickly. In Hong Kong, high-end real-estate prices are soaring. A luxury flat in the tony Midlevels district is expected to sell for US$55.6 million, or $9,200 a square foot, said developer Henderson Land Development Co. Elsewhere, a bidder at a city-run auction to operate food stands at February's Lunar New Year celebration recently paid a record US$63,225 for the right to occupy a 400-square-foot stall to sell fish balls and other snacks. Prices in the auction of 180 stalls were up 33% from 2008.
Over the summer, a Singapore condominium developer raised prices 5% the day before units went on sale. After dozens of would-be buyers lined up on a steamy night, the developer -- a joint venture of Hong Leong Group and Japan's Mitsui Fudosan -- held a lottery for a chance to bid on the units. Singapore home prices rose 15.8% in the third quarter, the fastest rate in 28 years. Australian real-estate markets also have heated up. After a Melbourne property-research firm recently predicted that average home prices will double over the next 12 years, a news report in Australia's Herald Sun said: "The staggering prediction shows the importance of buying a home as soon as you can afford it because the longer buyers delay, the more chance there is that their dream will slip out of their reach."
The Australian dollar has jumped about 35% over the past 12 months as investors borrow in U.S. dollars to purchase Australian currency. The practice is propelling stock and bond markets faster than in the U.S. and Europe. Currency traders are betting that the Australian central bank, which raised interest rates by 0.25% on Tuesday, the second rise in two months, will continue tightening. Asian stock prices are shooting up, in part due to low interest rates in the U.S. Investors looking for higher yields are borrowing in U.S. dollars and then pouring that money "into countries that are growing more rapidly," said Stephen Cecchetti, chief economist at the Bank for International Settlements, the central banks' central bank, which warned early of the last asset bubble and is beginning to do so again. "That runs the risk of creating property and equity booms in those countries."
About $53 billion has gone into emerging-market stock funds this year, according to data collector EPFR Global. Through Monday's trading, the broad MSCI Barra Emerging Markets Index this year was up 60.7%. Brazil was up 100%, and Indonesia had gains of 102.7%. Over the same period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 11.5%. Discerning a bubble is as difficult as preventing one. Rapidly rising prices aren't definitive proof. Stocks in Asian emerging markets currently trade at about two times book value, about average for the past 20 years, according to UBS. From 2004 to 2008, the price-to-book-value average was about three times. "This doesn't feel like a bubble," said Hugh Simon, chief executive of Hamon Investment Group, which manages Asia-investment funds. "There's too much skepticism" among investors.
To battle bubbles, policy makers are turning first to regulation. Singapore's authorities tightened mortgage requirements, ended real-estate stimulus policies and pledged to make more land available for development. South Korea regulators tightened real-estate lending requirements in seven districts around Seoul where prices have jumped. "Even those who say we should respond directly [and deflate bubbles] have no idea how to do it," said Laurence Meyer, a former Fed governor. "It is easy to take a philosophical position, but hard to become operational and practical about it."
Is this the time to worry about inflation? We are, after all, awash in money with stagnant output.
In the past year, the Federal Reserve has increased our monetary base by about 120 percent, more than double the previous highest annual increase over the past 50 years. The Fed has made huge loans to private lenders and bought over $1 trillion of mortgage securities and hundreds of billions of dollars of long-term treasury bonds. It has succeeded in lowering the federal funds rate below 1 percent—even, for most of the time, to less than half that. The goal, of course, is to force-feed money into the economy in the hope of sparking a recovery.
The mountain of reserves on bank balance sheets, which so scares the inflationary hawks, would normally encourage banks to lend and increase their profits. But while the Fed has been pumping money through the banks, little of it has entered the economic mainstream. Instead of boosting lending, the banks have just increased their reserves at the Fed by hundreds of billions of dollars.
The government may be borrowing more, but consumers and businesses are borrowing less. If anything, they are paying down their debts. Households will reduce their total debts by $200 billion this year, Forbes magazine projects, and banks and businesses by $2.3 trillion. Small-business lending will contract by at least $113 billion. Since the credit crisis began more than two years ago, credit available to consumers and the small-business sector—which employs half of the country's workforce—has contracted by trillions of dollars, mostly because of curtailment of credit card lines. The hope that new bank reserves would be available to prop up the faltering economy has not been fulfilled.
Inflation typically results from "too much money chasing too few goods." Today, too much supply is chasing too little demand. That, coupled with consumers' need to save money to rebuild their finances, raises the risk of deflation, not inflation. As workers compete for scarce jobs and companies underbid one another for sales, both wages and prices will remain under pressure. We began this crisis with household debt at its highest levels since the 1930s. Knowing that monthly mortgage payments don't shrink even if your paycheck does, families are trying to deleverage and work down what they fear is their excessive debt.
On top of that, households are suffering from substantial wealth losses tied to impaired equity portfolios and dropping home values. The combination of lower incomes and reduced wealth raises the likelihood that consumers will continue to boost their savings and pay down debt rather than spend more on consumption, which has put retail spending into one of its worst declines in decades. This is evidenced by retailers slashing inventories by record amounts, causing the percentage of capacity utilization in manufacturing to drop to the lowest reading in the 50-year history of the measure.
Demand growth would need to recover substantially to reverse the deflationary effects of low capacity utilization. For this, we would need a significant improvement in employment and hence spending. But the job market is even worse than the overall economy, and the prospect is that high levels of joblessness will persist beyond the end of the recession. Companies have cut the number of their employees and slashed other discretionary costs, such as advertising. This has significantly improved profit margins, even in the face of lower demand, but the higher profits are not coming from revenue growth but from lower costs, making it easier for companies to maintain or even cut prices rather than increase them.
Reduced spending by consumers and an extended high unemployment rate mean that we can look forward to a continuation of the output gap. This refers to the difference between the actual economic output and the most the economy could produce given the capital, know-how, and people available. That gap today is estimated to be between 8 and 10 percent, the largest on record. It makes for intense competition for scarce sales and jobs and results in continued downward pressure on prices.
It will take a long time to absorb the enormous slack of unused labor and production capacity created by the deepest recession since the 1930s—and it ain't really over yet. In the meantime, the labor market is showing a continuing decline in wages and in average hours worked per week (now down to 33 hours, the lowest in 60 years), suggesting it will be a long time before labor markets are strong enough to push up hourly wages and income.
Until employment grows enough to push wages, and income and production levels increase to more normal levels, the most pressing worry will be deflation, not inflation. This is evidenced by the financial markets. In 2007, according to Forbes.com, the Treasury Department issued $237 billion more in debt than it retired. This year, just through October, it has added a stunning $1.2 trillion to its obligations, or $4 billion a day. With such a dramatic increase in supply to sell, you would think that prices would fall and yields would rise. Instead, after approaching 4 percent in June, yields on the 10-year treasury note have fallen steadily.
Despite worries that the government's huge deficit will create inflation and cause interest rates to spike, the bond market is signaling that its focus is on the dismal economy and the contraction of private-sector debt.
This does not mean we can forget about the long-term projected accumulation of debts and deficits. They can pose a danger. They can reignite inflation, especially if the quirky, unpredictably volatile "animal spirits" of entrepreneurs begin to break through. Foreigners may also become apprehensive about their purchases of too many dollar-denominated debt instruments, since they fear that the most politically acceptable way for the United States to handle its growing debts to other countries is through inflation. So far, though, we have still been able to export T-bills (even if we can't export goods) to finance our fiscal deficits.
In any event, inflation is easier to put right than deflation. The Federal Reserve can suppress inflation by raising interest rates as high as required to squelch those animal spirits, and the Fed can do that very rapidly. But there is a limit to the Fed's ability to confront deflation, since it cannot cut nominal rates below zero in order to induce economic growth. Therefore, risking inflation is a better bet than erring on the side of deflation.
Above all, we must avoid a repetition of an adverse feedback loop that would run from the declining real economy into the financial sector. While banks are broadly stabilized, they have yet to begin to operate as adequate lenders to U.S. households and corporations. That is why premature monetary tightening could push our economy into an even deeper decline.
Of course, when the economy really turns, monetary authorities must have the will to reverse policy quickly, tightening instead of easing. It is not something politicians like doing. Hence, they have been prone to running up huge and long-term fiscal deficits—deficits that, at some point, risk the financial stability and economic strength of America.
We cannot afford to let political leaders fudge and muddle along. We must find a way to mandate the appointment of strongly independent budget monitors who would be charged with the obligation to pass public judgment on the fiscal condition of our nation, in both the short and long terms and program by program.
The Congressional Budget Office should be expanded to provide these cost and budget estimates, as it did for the healthcare debate. The CBO must be made even more independent and nonpartisan, with a regular obligation to make public its assessments. This is critical to prevent politicians from digging a bigger and bigger fiscal hole through deficit spending and the excessive accumulation of national debt in order to promote their re-election. That is the real danger emerging out of our present discontents.
So asked the New York Times this weekend in a 3,000 word article this weekend, that eventually came to the conclusion that a debt-for-equity swap was probably, sort of, the only answer to the bank’s problems.
However, the piece has drawn a furious response from Rochdale Research voluble banking analyst Richard X. Bove, who reckons the authors, Andrew Martin and Gretchen Morgenson, have completely missed the point: which is that Citi is already dead and the body is being dismembered.
What the writer does not understand is that Citigroup is already dead. It will not rise from its death experience. A small portion of what was Citigroup, called Citicorp, will arise as a very successful company. But Citicorp is not Citigroup and Citicorp is not too big to fail.
The New York Times article is typical of the backward looking pieces being written about this company. Plus, it is flawed by a lack of understanding as to what Citigroup was in the 1920s (I suggest the writers read Citibank by Harold van B. Cleveland and Thomas Huertas, or The Banker’s Life by George S. Moore, or Wriston by Philip Zweig if they really want to understand this period); a misreading of how powerful the company was (or really was not in the past decade when it was far from being number one across the board and was closer to being a minor factor in many businesses and places around the world) and what the company is now. Plus, Alan Greenspan did not save the banking industry in 1990 by cutting interest rates. This cliché is ridiculous.
Now, in order to understand where Citi is going, Bove adds, it is necessary to understand why it no longer exists.
In September 2007, this company had $2.4 trillion in assets. Two years later it had $1.9 trillion or $400 billion less. However, the company has been broken into two entities and the one that is to survive, Citicorp, only has $1.0 trillion in assets. Thus, the ongoing part of this company only has approximately 40% of what the old Citigroup controlled.Citigroup has sold huge portions of its company in the past two years and has huge portions left to be sold .
Bove goes on to list these businesses, but we won’t because it is just too long. However, his point is the Citi is now an experiment on how to liquidate a company that poses (or posed) a systemic risk.
Investors need to understand what the New York Times and others do not. Citigroup failed and is being liquidated. Citicorp is not too big to fail and is actually quite attractive. Once the liquidation of Citigroup is complete, investors will be left with a very attractive banking company with powerful niche positions. It should be owned..
Hence the prolific Bove has a “buy” rating and a $6.50 target price on Citi.
Back when gold began its first sharp ascent over $1000 per troy ounce in September, we at FT Alphaville wondered what, if anything, the move might have had to do with the IMF’s jumbo issue of $250bn worth of special drawing rights.
The International Monetary Fund has sold 200 tonnes of gold to the Reserve Bank of India, nearly half the total approved by the IMF executive board in September. Proceeds from the off-market sale amounted to .7 billion ($7.4bn), or 4.2 billion of special drawing rights, or SDR, a combination of currencies, the IMF said. Payment is expected to be in major currencies that make up the SDR. IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn welcomed the transaction as an important step toward achieving the objectives of the gold sales program, namely “to help put the fund’s finances on a sound long-term footing and enable us to step up much-needed concessional lending to the poorest countries”.
Which appears to explain gold’s recent unusual and simultaneous moves against the four main currencies that comprise the SDR basket: the dollar, the yen, sterling and the euro.
We speculate India might indeed be the first country to use its SDRs for currencies to buy IMF gold, although that’s not to say other reserves haven’t had the same idea with gold generally.
The new economic statistics put growth at a healthy 3.5% for the third quarter. We should be dancing in the streets. No one is, because no one has any faith in these numbers. Waves of money are sloshing through the system, creating a false rising tide that lifts all boats for the moment. The tide will recede. The boats aren't rising, they're bobbing, and will settle. No one believes the bad time is over. No one thinks we're entering a new age of abundance. No one thinks it will ever be the same as before 2008. Economists, statisticians, forecasters and market specialists will argue about what the new numbers mean, but no one believes them, either. Among the things swept away in 2008 was public confidence in the experts. The experts missed the crash. They'll miss the meaning of this moment, too.
The biggest threat to America right now is not government spending, huge deficits, foreign ownership of our debt, world terrorism, two wars, potential epidemics or nuts with nukes. The biggest long-term threat is that people are becoming and have become disheartened, that this condition is reaching critical mass, and that it afflicts most broadly and deeply those members of the American leadership class who are not in Washington, most especially those in business.
It is a story in two parts. The first: "They do not think they can make it better." I talked this week with a guy from Big Pharma, which we used to call "the drug companies" until we decided that didn't sound menacing enough. He is middle-aged, works in a significant position, and our conversation turned to the last great recession, in the late mid- to late 1970s and early '80s. We talked about how, in terms of numbers, that recession was in some ways worse than the one we're experiencing now. Interest rates were over 20%, and inflation and unemployment hit double digits.
America was in what might be called a functional depression, yet there was still a prevalent feeling of hope. Here's why. Everyone thought they could figure a way through. We knew we could find a path through the mess. In 1982 there were people saying, "If only we get rid of this guy Reagan, we can make it better!" Others said, "If we follow Reagan, he'll squeeze out inflation and lower taxes and we'll be America again, we'll be acting like Americans again." Everyone had a path through.
Now they don't. The most sophisticated Americans, experienced in how the country works on the ground, can't figure a way out. Have you heard, "If only we follow Obama and the Democrats, it will all get better"? Or, "If only we follow the Republicans, they'll make it all work again"? I bet you haven't, or not much. This is historic. This is something new in modern political history, and I'm not sure we're fully noticing it. Americans are starting to think the problems we are facing cannot be solved.
Part of the reason is that the problems—debt, spending, war—seem too big. But a larger part is that our government, from the White House through Congress and so many state and local governments, seems to be demonstrating every day that they cannot make things better. They are not offering a new path, they are only offering old paths—spend more, regulate more, tax more in an attempt to make us more healthy locally and nationally. And in the long term everyone—well, not those in government, but most everyone else—seems to know that won't work. It's not a way out. It's not a path through.
And so the disheartenedness of the leadership class, of those in business, of those who have something. This week the New York Post carried a report that 1.5 million people had left high-tax New York state between 2000 and 2008, more than a million of them from even higher-tax New York City. They took their tax dollars with them—in 2006 alone more than $4 billion. You know what New York, both state and city, will do to make up for the lost money. They'll raise taxes.
I talked with an executive this week with what we still call "the insurance companies" and will no doubt soon be calling Big Insura. (Take it away, Democratic National Committee.) He was thoughtful, reflective about the big picture. He talked about all the new proposed regulations on the industry. Rep. Barney Frank had just said on some cable show that the Democrats of the White House and Congress "are trying on every front to increase the role of government in the regulatory area." The executive said of Washington: "They don't understand that people can just stop, get out. I have friends and colleagues who've said to me 'I'm done.'" He spoke of his own increasing tax burden and said, "They don't understand that if they start to tax me so that I'm paying 60%, 55%, I'll stop."
He felt government doesn't understand that business in America is run by people, by human beings. Mr. Frank must believe America is populated by high-achieving robots who will obey whatever command he and his friends issue. But of course they're human, and they can become disheartened. They can pack it in, go elsewhere, quit what used to be called the rat race and might as well be called that again since the government seems to think they're all rats. (That would be you, Chamber of Commerce.)***And here is the second part of the story. While Americans feel increasingly disheartened, their leaders evince a mindless . . . one almost calls it optimism, but it is not that. It is a curious thing that those who feel most mistily affectionate toward America, and most protective toward it, are the most aware of its vulnerabilities, the most aware that it can be harmed. They don't see it as all-powerful, impregnable, unharmable. The loving have a sense of its limits.
When I see those in government, both locally and in Washington, spend and tax and come up each day with new ways to spend and tax—health care, cap and trade, etc.—I think: Why aren't they worried about the impact of what they're doing? Why do they think America is so strong it can take endless abuse?
I think I know part of the answer. It is that they've never seen things go dark. They came of age during the great abundance, circa 1980-2008 (or 1950-2008, take your pick), and they don't have the habit of worry. They talk about their "concerns"—they're big on that word. But they're not really concerned. They think America is the goose that lays the golden egg. Why not? She laid it in their laps. She laid it in grandpa's lap. They don't feel anxious, because they never had anything to be anxious about. They grew up in an America surrounded by phrases—"strongest nation in the world," "indispensable nation," "unipolar power," "highest standard of living"—and are not bright enough, or serious enough, to imagine that they can damage that, hurt it, even fatally.
We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists—they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They don't even notice.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown hailed a doubling of the bailout for the two largest British banks, saying the move will reduce the liabilities shouldered by taxpayers by as much as 300 billion pounds ($488 billion). The Treasury will inject 31.2 billion pounds into Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc, allowing the two institutions to scale back their dependence on government guarantees for their most toxic assets. It also pledged up to 8 billion pounds for Edinburgh-based RBS to use "in exceptional circumstances." To fund the injection, the Treasury may have to borrow an extra 13 billion pounds.
"We have been able to reduce the liability we have from insurance of some of the major banks in this country, and there is going to be a benefit to the taxpayer as a result of that," Brown said at a press conference in London today. "At the end of the day, banks will be paying money to the British public, not the other way round." Brown’s Labour government is seeking to claim credit for saving the financial system after the credit crisis triggered the first run on a U.K. institution in more than a century and forced the Treasury to take control of four banks. Last year, the government rescued RBS and Lloyds with 37 billion pounds of public money.
With an election no more than seven months away, Brown’s popularity has dwindled as the costs of the recession and the bank bailout put the public finances under their biggest strain since World War II. The Conservative opposition said today’s measures may not help the economy.
"Let’s not miss the elephant in the room," said George Osborne, the Conservative lawmaker who speaks on finance. "The government is having to put another 39.2 billion pounds of taxpayer’s money into the banks, a bigger bailout than the original bailout last autumn. There is no guarantee that it will get credit flowing." The Liberal Democrats said today’s move would allow the banks to wiggle out of agreements to increase lending to consumers and businesses, an assertion the Treasury denied. Ministers said RBS and Lloyds will be prevented from paying discretionary cash bonuses this year to staff earning more than 39,000 pounds.
"The bonus agreements in both banks are a sham" and government claims that the bailout will save taxpayer money are "simply not true, said Vince Cable, a Liberal Democrat lawmaker who speaks on finance. "Until we can split up the banks in a meaningful way, so that taxpayers will not be forced to underwrite casino activities, all banks should pay a premium for the explicit support they receive."
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said today’s agreements will spur competition in the banking industry by forcing both Lloyds and RBS to sell parts of their businesses accounting for about 10 percent of British retail banking. That, he said, will open the door to new banks to start up in the U.K. "I would like to see perhaps three new entrants coming onto the high street," Darling said on BBC Radio 4’s "Today" program. "We do need to be rigorous about competition. If you don’t you do find it hard to get credit and you do find it hard to get loans at the right price."
Under the terms of the agreement with RBS, the bank now will bear the costs of the first 60 billion pounds of any losses instead of 42 billion pounds it agreed to earlier this year. In exchange, the Treasury will allow RBS to take advantage of tax allowances worth up to 11 billion pounds that the bank originally had agreed to surrender to win Treasury protection. The Treasury will inject 25.5 billion pounds of capital into RBS, increasing its stake to 84.4 percent from 70.3 percent. It will maintain its 43 percent holding in Lloyds by paying 5.7 billion pounds for new shares being offered to existing stockholders.
Those purchases of shares will, all else being equal, add 13 billion pounds to the 220.8 billion pounds of central government cash borrowing forecast in the April budget, the Treasury said. There will be no impact on public-sector net borrowing, the government’s preferred measure, a spokesman said. Lloyds will escape the Treasury program to insure 260 billion pounds of its assets, reducing a fee of more than 15 billion pounds to 2.5 billion pounds. RBS’s insured assets will drop by 43 billion pounds to 282 billion pounds. By reducing the size of the Treasury’s umbrella protecting the two banks, taxpayers will shoulder smaller risks. So far, Darling has extended about 1.4 trillion pounds of support for the economy and financial institutions.
In April, the Treasury estimated potential losses on its support for the financial system at between 20 billion pounds and 50 billion pounds, or as much as 3.5 percent of national income. Today, Darling said he’d reduce that estimate in his pre-budget report, due within six weeks. "What we’ve got here is better structured, a better deal for the taxpayer," Darling said on BBC radio. "That does represent a major step forward."
Dutch banks worked for years to penetrate markets abroad. Now that ABN Amro has been split in three and ING is withdrawing to Europe, little remains of their efforts. For a long time the Dutch banks were among the world’s best, but now they are withdrawing to Europe and primarily their home market, involuntarily or otherwise.
In 2005 ING had a balance sheet total of 1,159 billion euros, just 100 billion less than French BNP Paribas. And ABN Amro was almost as large as Deutsche Bank. The two could measure up to the top banks in Europe. Last year Deutsche Bank and BNP grew to over 2,000 billion euros, but ABN Amro fell to 666 billion. Once ING has split itself up, the financial group will be only a shadow of its former self. ING and ABN Amro have fallen to the level of the 1990s, the period in which both major banks were created from mergers. It is a development that will affect the strategy for the coming years and which will also have consequences within the national borders. The competition will most likely become even tougher and the slimmed down institutions can become prey to takeovers once the recession is over.
"The scope of the financial sector gave the Netherlands a great deal of influence and prestige in the world, certainly considering the country’s size. There is good reason we are among the G20," says Sjoerd van Keulen, former CEO of SNS Reaal bank and since May chairman of the Holland Financial Centre, a foundation to boost the financial sector. "The scope of the financial sector is still relatively large, but our prestige has taken a blow." Not long ago there was talk of the creation of one Dutch financial superpower. At the beginning of 2007 the merger of ABN Amro and ING was in the works. It would have become a giant that could measure up to the largest banks in the world. But the merger failed and an exposure of the sector followed.
At the end of 2007 ABN Amro, the national financial flagship, was bought up by a consortium and split into three parts. The bank, which had a presence in 53 countries and followed Dutch businesses to every part of the globe, fell into foreign hands. It was the credit crisis that ensured that the Dutch part of the bank just barely survived, thanks to nationalisation by the government. When ABN Amro dropped out of the game, ING was still a player. The bank-insurer was one of the leading players in the world in its segment. That changed last week. ING found itself in major difficulties as a result of the credit crisis and required a bailout from the state not once, but twice, to stay afloat. Under pressure from the European Commission, which had to give permission for the government support to the bank, ING announced a drastic reorganisation. It will split into two parts in the coming years and sell internet bank ING Direct in the US, following orders from Brussels. ING will divest 45 percent of its balance sheet total. ING will no longer be a worldwide group, but a mid-sized European bank with its centre of gravity in the saturated markets of the Benelux.
The third largest Dutch bank, Rabobank, has emerged relatively unscathed from the crisis so far. The bank is the largest in the Netherlands, but is a relatively small player internationally, certainly in comparison to the ‘old’ ING and ABN Amro. The question is whether the situation is so bad that the financial sector, which accounts for just under 7 percent of the gross domestic product, is losing ground internationally. "Should you want a Dutch bank to have large subsidiaries in the US or Brazil? I don’t think so," says economist Jaap Koelewijn, professor of finance at Nyenrode. "Local competitors are often much larger and often do better."
The new reality for the international position will also have consequences for the domestic market. The fact that these two (former) major powers are becoming more dependent on the home market for their profits will have consequences for the other players. Competition is expected to increase in a market where rivalry is intense in all market segments and the margins are low. Added to this is the fact that new foreign players are appearing who have a great deal riding on securing a solid position. Deutsche Bank will soon buy ABN Amro subsidiary HBU. With the takeover of the thirteen regional consultancy offices and two offices in major cities the Germans will secure the position they so desire on the market for small and medium-sized enterprise.
And soon the Dutch banks will probably be able to expect yet another competitor. ING will create a new bank from the parts of the old company. This entity will have a market share of 6 percent on the mortgage market and about 500,000 saving accounts. The buyer will most likely be a foreign player. Sjoerd van Keulen would bet on it being a French company. "BNP has traditionally had a great interest in the Benelux, as has Crédit Agricole." So while the merger of Fortis Bank Nederland and ABN Amro and the bankruptcy of DSB create less competition, strong newcomers will also be joining the market.
The margins will probably only become smaller, which could in fact be reason for foreign players to stay away from the Dutch market, says Van Keulen. But even if the home country offers little growth, foreign banks will probably venture a try nonetheless. "If the economy picks up again, I see the Dutch institutions growing once again as well," says Van Keulen. "ING is still strong in Eastern Europe and Asia and ABN Amro will also rebuild its network for commercial banking in order to facilitate the business sector." Van Keulen says that in future, banks must not try to do everything for everyone, but should choose specific niches. That is something that banks should look into, the former CEO says. "The Netherlands is very good in payment transactions. And in financing sustainability projects, such as biomass and wind energy."
ABN Amro does indeed plan to combine the offices that it has acquired as part of the integration with Fortis. ABN Amro can merge the international network that it still has in the division for wealthy private individuals with Fortis’ foreign offices that support the business sector. This involves about 30 foreign offices, which could form the basis for ABN Amro’s new commercial bank for the Dutch business sector abroad. Does this threaten a return to the unbridled expansion of the 1990s once the recession dies down? "I do not see any large takeovers or a return to large-scale private banking on foreign markets," says Van Keulen. Koelewijn says the end of the economic malaise could bring about the round of European consolidations that experts have been forecasting for years. Dutch banks were long seen as buyers. But their new smaller size makes them more likely prey.
Keeping up appearances is about to get harder for China's top banks, and the country's banking regulator. Things still look good on the surface. Third quarter profits rose year-to-year at China's top four listed banks, with Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China each coincidentally reporting a 19% gain. This despite a narrowing of net interest margins, by between 60 and 80 basis points, since the government reduced the spread between deposit and lending rates a year ago. A massive expansion in bank loans has more than compensated for that inbuilt profit reduction.
What such robust growth masks, though, are cracks appearing in the banks' capital positions. This puts the China Banking Regulatory Commission, which plays an important role in guiding how much banks can lend each year, in a tricky position as the year comes to a close. Should it unleash another bank-lending splurge next year to help support the economy and bank profits, or should regulators slow things down to focus on protecting bank balance sheets?
Capital adequacy ratios remain comfortably above the regulator's 8% baseline, but they're in decline. At Bank of China, which has seen the fastest lending growth of the big four this year, capital adequacy had fallen to 11.63% at the end of September, from 13.43% at the start of 2009. Meanwhile, a risk already flagged by the CBRC is the banks' reliance on subordinated debt -- considered a low-quality source of capital -- for funding. Take Bank of China's long-term subordinated bonds out of its capital adequacy calculation, for example, and its ratio would be about 1 percentage point lower. Subordinated debt is potentially a systemic risk, too, with at least half the issuance held by other Chinese banks.
A concern that's accompanied the rise in lending is that large parts of the new loans made this year will eventually run into trouble. Here too, things appear tidier than they may actually be: Chinese banks hold high levels of so-called special mention loans, which are often rolled over or extended even when they've been non-performing for some time.
Aware of these frailties, but not wanting to be too strict, the CBRC has recently wavered. Having this summer proposed tough rules over the classification of subordinated debt, it watered down the proposals last month. Because banks front-load much of the year's lending, a slowdown in lending rates at the big banks is naturally occurring. Their share of new lending dropped to just 21% in September from around 70% in the first half of 2009. For the CBRC, the truly delicate decision is going to be whether to see to it that this slowdown continues through the new year.
Russia has warned the European Union that a new gas conflict is brewing with Ukraine, reviving memories of a previous dispute that led to fuel shortages across a swath of Central and Western Europe. Moscow is pointing the finger at internal politics in Kiev and is complaining about disputes over bills owed by Ukraine. The risk of a winter row over payments for gas by Ukraine was raised by Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, in a telephone conversation on Sunday with Fredrik Reinfeldt, his Swedish counterpart who is representing the EU.
Naftogaz, Ukraine’s main gas importer, must pay $500 million (£305 million) to Gazprom, the Russian energy group, by the weekend for gas consumed last month. The former Soviet republic survives on a lifefline of loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and has struggled to pay for gas imported from Russia. Yesterday, Mr Putin urged the EU to lend Ukraine money to buy gas and accused it of being ungenerous. "Let the Europeans throw in a lousy billion," he said. "Why have they gotten so stingy down there? Let them get something out of their pockets."
The Russian Prime Minister’s warning of a gas conflict relates to mounting tension in Ukraine between Yulia Tymoshenko, the country’s Prime Minister, and President Yuschenko. Both are candidates in presidential elections due to be held in January and Russia hopes that the winner will be more sympathetic to Moscow than the incumbent. According to Mr Putin, Mr Yuschenko is blocking the transfer of funds needed to pay for gas. Mr Putin insists that Ukraine has the funds to pay its gas bills but the money is being withheld. "According to the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine does have the money. Furthermore, the IMF thinks paying for Russian gas out of Ukraine’s foreign reserves is possible," Mr Putin said.
A fifth of Europe’s gas arrives in Europe through pipelines that traverse Ukraine. In January 2006, arguments over unpaid gas bills led to Gazprom cutting supplies to Ukraine, which in turn led to severe shortages felt across Central Europe and in Germany, Italy and France. However, the EU has been reluctant to step into the breach and lend money to Ukraine to pay for gas. The recession is increasing the financial pressure on Gazprom to secure payment, but it is also likely to stay the utility’s hand in any new winter threat to cut off supplies. Demand for gas has fallen sharply in Europe amid the contraction in industrial activity and Gazprom will be reluctant to take any action that might reduce shipments to European customers.
Europe’s big utilities, including E.ON, of Germany, Eni, of Italy, and GDF-Suez, of France, are clamouring for price renegotiations after a fall of almost two thirds in the spot price of natural gas. Plentiful supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) are undercutting Russia’s pipeline gas markets. To avoid Ukraine, Gazprom is building two new pipelines, including Nordstream, linking Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, and South Stream, under the Black Sea from Russia to the Balkans.
144 comments:
1) Today was an ascending triangle and the markets will "thrust" up on open tomorrow, hit resistance and selloff in a nasty wave [iii] down. This would be like the September 2nd 2008 kickoff when the market opened high day after Labor Day and then sold like a banshee all day long
2) Today or shortly tomorrow was an ending diagonal triangle. This is almost like option 1) above. They both imply practically the same thing. Nuance. However this option supports a big unfilled (point of recognition) gap down and selloff.
3) We get a very bullish day and the markets shoot higher with the inverse Head and Shoulder target in the backs of everyone's minds. This would be about 1090 on the SPX. Follow through then on Monday to hit the target. I don't like this scenario because of a) resistance b) DOW would probably make a new high if the SPX went to 1090. c) my counts would be stretched to the limit and I'd have to make a bunch of new charts. d) up volume ratio would probably be too much to support a Minute [ii] count.
4) My counts are all wrong and back to the drawing boards this weekend.
So basically we have a high chance of a big sell off tomorrow...maybe :)
Many of the November 2 thread's comments re. Unions were a bit much...
Like the unions are the cause of all of society's ills.
I worked for the railroads and GM, both bastions of unionization. While there were slothing workers, let's face it -- it was ALWAYS question of poor management which ran those companies into the ground.
If you provide poor service or poor products, it doesn't matter whether you are unionized or not what will happen in the long run.
I think the key point re. Unions and the visceral hate some quarters have for them is a rejection of any sort of collective action on a problem -- whether it is economic justice, health care, education or what ever.
If there is no collective action, TPTB call all the shorts. Look at the past 40 years.
If you're looking to find a presidential role model for what you are about to face, you need to go back much further in history. You have to look at Abraham Lincoln for guidance. Your most daunting task is not turning the economy around. You will be remembered in history as the man who either did or did not save the Republic.
Stern words there and here I thought Ilargi was of sunny disposition :P
You will need to demand that ALL companies in the US that can't survive on their own two legs, will be allowed and made to fail. You cannot save some taxpayers’ jobs at the expanse of all other taxpayers. The diseased parts of the economy will have to be cut out.
On Nov 4th - There ain't no cureOnce again the focus is on Obama,
If he wishes to prove himself to be a true leader, his mission will be to soothe the pain, to stem the bleeding, to minimize the suffering of the herd, and most of all to stop the lying and cheating that has come to define the nation, at the latest ever since Greenspan took over the Fed in 1987.
...
There will be enormous pressure on the new president to follow the path set by the IMF and the World Bank, whose solution has always been to live off the misery of people in far away corners of the planet. We can but hope that Obama has the guts to shut off access to that path. But I’m not sure of that by any means: it has been the American modus operandi for far too many years.
Does anyone else want a stiff drink?
On Nov 5th - BittersweetnessIlargi was happy about Obama winning but sad about loss of gay rights. One year later the O'man just turned out to be a GS puppet :(
I want to talk about the economy, Mr. President. I've seen who your economic advisers are, and that fills me not with pride but with a frozen chill. You know, Albert Einstein said that "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them." That is a very wise observation. Albert was as good a thinker as he was a physicist.
...
You need to withdraw all government support for Detroit, and let Ford and GM fail if they can't stand upright on their own. Same for all financial institutions. No more bail-outs, they just cut the trust level ever lower.
Two years ago on TOD canada, we just had an environmental round up by Stoneleigh
The dominant theme today is water, notably the effects of too much or too little of it. Climate change is predicted to impact on water supplies severely in many places, through both diminished rainfall and increased evaporation, while in other areas rainfall may increase to dangerous levels. Food supplies are also likely to be impacted. This has significant implications for the stability of the human societies affected, which has been recognized as a security issue for wider areas.
On the Canadian energy scene, resource royalties, pipeline construction and a reduction in natural gas drilling stand out. Oil and gas exploration continues in the Orphan Basin in the Newfoundland and Labrador deep offshore, and Alberta research institutes get excited about biodiesel from canola.
My apologies for not making my point clearer. I wasn't saying that Obama's being a Harvard-trained lawyer, Chicago-bred politician, and friend of Goldman Sachs precluded him from becoming comparable to the individuals you and others have mentioned ... only that it is very premature to make such comparisons and allusions. For example, there is a real good chance (Ilargi's posted advice notwithstanding) that the Goldman boyz will be running the public purse in Obama's administration just like they did in Bush's. We'll know a lot more about Obama's character shortly that we don't know now...keep your eye on his appointments...that will be the first sign of whether we can look forward to sage and prophet or to business as usual--but with eloquence this time instead of buffoonery.
“Paul's bill is probably most useful as an example of what happens to any proposal that goes through the Capitol Hill wringer. Everything comes out in 2-D, without any depth perception, assuring that nothing is done to hurt the interests of the capital that owns the 3-D machine and keeps it lubricated.
... if Geithner's forced out, his place will be filled by the next drone. People talk about Paul Volcker and Elizabeth Warren for the post, but they would be powerless sitting ducks in a bankers pond. ”
Only a dictator would be able to impose his will.Obama’s visions and plans ... dead in the water
To even begin to solve the problem and stop the bleeding, you would have to fire the entire government in all its branches. And then start all over with people you can guarantee have never received a penny from the ruling classes.
Ilargi - "What makes the econo-political system in the US (and other countries) such a failure in the eyes of the average citizen is that money can buy political power..."
True now... true a long time ago... true all these years.
Elections are mostly a farce, the two parties are like, NASCAR twins (hello Kunstler;-)) a Ford and a Chevy... same IC engine, same road, same destination, same everything except a few of the trappings!
We're in a box, and it sure as hell isn't an honest ballot box!
The only possible way out, other than some sort of violent combustion (which is not really a way out) is for a third party to somehow get a foothold. No, I am not holding my breath for that one.
Votes still carry the political day in America; it’s after election day when things inevitably get squirrelly and the special interests start exerting their influence, or should I say, the D and R become generic substitues for one another. Honestly, this topic is a broken record. And yet it is a topic unresolved. How many more times will the electorate witness the determined proclamations of campaign pledges become the shriveled compromises of governance? I say as long as that useful idiot, otherwise known as the partisan apologist, continues to take the WWF bait and believe in “Victory” on election night.
We live in the world of Bounderby now; a world of media interpellation that cons the dupes into believing that,they too, can become the statistical anomaly that confirms the by-the-bootstrap mantra. Americans don’t like to contemplate the statistical certainty of a very pedestrian existence; instead, we ignore “facts” and fantasize about future lives of luxury under the spell of media and entertainment glorifications. It is this state of stupefied fantasy, and a promise of a greater day in the economic sun, that impels the talk-radio foot soldiers to demonize unions and undercut social and economic safety nets for the working-class in America.
It only took a generation or two before Americans turned their backs on the very unions (just like Ronald Reagan did ) that marginalized economic stratification in the U.S. Believing themselves on the cusp of “making it big,” they agreed to turn the lights out on the middle-class...after all,it was "Morning in America" once again.
But I do have to hand it to them…The "Bullies of Humilty” did their work well.
Our societal trajectory can't be altered at this point. So what's the point of discussing it.
As soon as the government hits the debt ceiling, the center will crumble, chaos will reign for a period, and the military will step-in to fill the vacuum. There is absolutely nothing unique or remarkable about this course of events.
The only issue that seems interesting to me is whether or not individuals intend to fall in line and obey orders once their individual liberties are stripped away. Will you dare to fight the power, or will you put on your uniform and march to the beat of the drum.
What is the game plan for the government and the financial elites going forward is I guess what I keep wondering here? How deep does the rabbit hole go?
They have shown they can engineer an impressive rally. And they have obviously engaged in a coordinated campaign to make us feel as if we are coming out of the woods.....do they themselves believe this? Are they just crossing their fingers and hoping? Or are they aware of the coming maelstrom? Opinions?
And if they do know that the "S" is about to HTF why are they not trying to prepare the people for what is coming? If we are about to fall into the abyss you would think that there would be at least some attempt to recalibrate the expectations of 300 million Americans (not to mention the ROW) instead of constantly blowing borrowed sunshine up our collective arses.
If you were one of the elite that was driving the global economy and holding all the political power and you knew that we were headed for a financial crack up boom that would precede shortages of both food and fuel what would you do?
Keep in mind that if you let everyone know what you know there would be instant pandemonium.
If it were the Wolf in this position of informational and political advantage I would loot and pillage like no tomorrow in the hopes of securing me and my families place among the economic and physical survivors while continually pushing the green shoot meme in order to buy as much time as possible.
hmmmmm.....
again I ask....how deep does this rabbit hole go?
Are we already to the point where it is every man for himself (life and death struggle) and the PTB just have not told us yet?
Or are they waiting for the curtain to fall suddenly so that they can engage in history's biggest and baddest shock and awe campaign?
Why are the ones with all the power acting as if they don't give a rat’s ass about our future?
It's as if they know we just don't have one in which the rules of the past will apply. And I am talking about more than just an economic Depression......
And that is some truly scary shit. We are being treated like the (expendable) patsies that we are.
Ilargi,What is funny is a I am a huge Libertarian, but last election I was very encouraged by Obama's inclusion of Paul Volcker, and as Obama and McCain were identical candidates, I went with Obama in the hope that he really listened to Volcker.
Well color me unsurprised, but any vote today is a waste because any side is with the money, as you very well lay out tonite. I am not sure there is any remedy.
The rip offs are so obvious, the baloney (remember baloney is just a big hot dog) are out in the open an exposed, but yet nobody cares.
I think we may have missed a window for change last March and now everyone is too busy telling the story that it is 2007 again to listen.
The moment "that" starts here it will be time to find a quiet place and pull it in after yourself.
Either way ,by quiet collapse,or rebellion,The republics days are numbered.
You might see the attempt in the east to "maintain order"but in the west,the first time you see .mil shoot civilian types,look for a hole to hide in 'cause there is way way too many nutcakes with weapons here.Yes,I know the troops have "stuff"that boggles the mind.But I also know we are a nation of those types who fled repression in other lands.That "rebellion gene"is a American as apple pie. Think of the south...rising again to the tune of dixie
And all those others who fled,the protestant puritan,to the Hugonauts to the Scot-Irish...
And think of the right wing propaganda-machine in place now painting O-man as the next thing to Che'..."Hes going to steal your social security to give abortions to Mexicans!!!"
Sweet mother of Christ,This country is on a hair trigger now,with everyone wondering just how the hell they can get out of the mess their in be it too little money for too many bills...too many toys and no money...and no work...NO WORK.
Its becoming more plain for all to see that O-man is a tool of the powers that put him their.He is not even trying to hid it now.It sickens me to see those on the left still try and carry his water.
When it breaks "bad"everyone will see it ,just like that creep down in Argentina...who was "a man of the people"...and betrayed them so badly he became a national disgrace[and joke]
Having spent as much time and effort to seize power unto themselves,I am sure those of generational wealth will never give it up...the Waltons and the rest Like running things with politicians ready to tickle them with tax breaks any old time...It would take a dictator,and one born to poverty with a cruel heart to bring justice back to America.
Its strange though,having watched the destruction of the middle class,I cant help but wonder how soon the stone will turn a bit more and grind up those a bit higher on the scale.
Predatory capitalism eats its children...and as the saying goes"There can be only one"
All the white collar boys thought they were part of the kool kids...until they weren't.
Its going to keep eating its way UP the food chain now when all those boys & girls who thought just owning rentals....commercial real estate ,the "rentier" class,republicans all,now get their turn at being skinned alive by [their freinds at] the bank
The howls will be loud and pain-filled....
Put in lots more popcorn in your preps.The show is going to get real good soon...
The Propaganda Model for social control only works when you keep everyone fat and happy.
Once that's no longer possible (and we're getting pretty close) you need a cattle prod to keep people in line.
Most of the leadership is well aware of this fact. They don't want to go there publicly, but little hints of this awareness squeak through every now and then.
For example, witness the language deployed by Mr. Globalization himself, Tom Friedman, lamenting the failure of the House to pass Paulson's TARP legislation on the 1st try last year:-------------------
"I always said to myself: Our government is so broken that it can only work in response to a huge crisis. But now we’ve had a huge crisis, and the system still doesn’t seem to work. Our leaders, Republicans and Democrats, have gotten so out of practice of working together that even in the face of this system-threatening meltdown they could not agree on a rescue package, as if they lived on Mars and were just visiting us for the week, with no stake in the outcome. The story cannot end here. If it does, assume the fetal position. "----------------------
The whole shooting match would have to come down -- _EVERYTHING_ -- before any real hope for change or the like hits the table.
You cannot trade on the "outside" anymore. You have to be an "inside trader" (and, hence, a criminal) to make any real degree of money anymore, because the moves made which make the money are now so far behind the scenes, it's as if the whole shooting match was just one big government manipulation all along.
The biggest problem with that is the same question I would ask almost anyone who believes in what would end up the same kind of thing: How do you maintain any degree of societal order in the interim while a new situation is brought to the forefront?
How do you prevent Mad Max, or is Mad Max non-preventable now? (My guess: The latter.)
Cruise reflection:The majority of those on the cruise were retired, well off, middle class americans. I did not get the impression that they were traveling on their credit cards.They were aware that the abyss had been avoided by bailing out the banks.It was impossible to get away from the financial news since we got a daily news sheet and it generated casual discussion.Except for one or two, they did not demonstrate that they were aware of what we know at TAE.It’s as if they couldn’t care... As if they were expecting their money to outlast their remaining years on this earth. Markets go up markets go down and they had enough to enjoy their remaining years, no matter what the market was doing and they were intending to enjoy their remaining years. I expect that the majority will have died within the next 5 years.
Re: Do the elites know where we're headed and how bad things will get?
It would be worth your time to watch this interview between Charlie Rose and Jon Mack, the Chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley. The interview was recorded in January or February of 2009 and it involved an hour long discussion of the financial crisis.
[Jon Mack]: (shakes his head) I don't want to go there (laughs, hesitates). Well the worst scenario is that we continue this decline, unemployment goes to double digits, and we could end up in a very long, deep recession
There is a saying among some that we (the United States) are screwed, but they (everyone else) are screwed worse. What are your thoughts on this? I am not sure if I agree since the US is the most indebted country on the planet, perhaps in history. Debt = screwed the worst. Your thoughts?
I hesitate to submit this posting since this site basically features economic/political discussion; however, once in a while the discussion turns to self-sufficiency so I thought I would post these two YouTube clips featuring the magnificent Maria Martinez, the magical potter who hailed from New Mexico.
Truly, her work is a miracle, and if you watch the second clip you will see her firing process--directly from the earth.
Whilst you recognize the generosity of US, your readers, you express the concern that "much more funding" is needed. As I am performing to the "dime a day" criteria, I am a little perplexed about TAE's financial situation.
Perhaps a TARGET for funding would assist. It is not uncommon for successfull websites and blogs to state a target funding goal and to provide a graphic that demonstrates the level of achivement for that goal (like a fundraising thermometer for exmple).
You are doing "the good work" to quote Fallout 3's character "3 Dogs". Personally I retract from all "head against brick wall" type behaviour. Thankfully, there are those that don't mind a touch of concussion on a regular basis.
What is it that you indend to do, how are you going to do it, and how much finance do you need.
With Great Respect, (Stoneleigh as well. Dear God, I envy the Chosen, even if I no longer remember what a sexy blue halloween leg through a split frock is supposed to evoke....)
The year is 1996, the place:yahoo finance.A cry goes up: Comp USA has a website, now we'll all be rich!Some months pass, the stock languishes: the CEO is now an idiot, has no communication skills,does not know how to groom a quarterly report,...
The year is 2005, the place: Palatka Florida.Sign on the dotted line and flip that house it's easy enough.Rip out those oak cabinets and replace them with cherry. Put a granite slab on the countertop, soon you'll be rich...
The common man was in on this up to his ears.It was'nt only the banks or greedy CEOS there were also greedy and corrupt:
IMO his work is very useful as far as it goes. His concept of the financial world is the most accurate I've come across, and he's been writing about these concepts since I was still in elementary school. I just set his work in a larger context that incorporates resource limits in all their myriad manifestations.
I've read Conquer the Crash and found it full of sensible advice, and solid enough in presenting the argument for technical analysis, which we can take or leave as we see fit. But I've also read some rather unsettling anecdotes about some of Prechter's more outre advice:
suyog on March 21, 2007I am embarrassed to admit that I was a subscriber to the Elliot Wave newsletter back in 2002 and 2003. Back then Prechter was claiming that the ups and downs in Michael Jordans career and the popularity of Donald Trump's books was an indicator of popular sentiment. Hence you could time the stock market (I am not making this up!!) by following MJ's career and DT's book publishing schedule. And at least one issue of the newsletter claimed that the stock market was influenced by sun spots and hence you could predict it by tracking the number of sun spots. And then he has also claimed that you could predict the onset of the bear market by tracking the popularity of slasher/violent/horror films. So the mother of all bear markets was supposed to start when "Kill Bill" became a popular movie 3 years ago.
Commentary on the Oil Drum, 2007. This sounds like the ramblings of a real crackpot, or scheister given that he's charging advice for these gems. So if Jordan blows his knee out the markets will tank? Or soar?
Crankdom and wisdom needn't necessarily be mutually exclusive of course, cf Newton's extensive research into alchemy. Which dominates Prechter's output? Or did his analysis of MJ's dunk ratio truly correlate with the DJIA - or is the above a misrepresentation of his intent?
Stoneleigh, a little OT, but I wanted to follow-up one more time with a question regarding your seminal interview from last week. (I understand you generated some impressive page views - I hope I did my small part in spreading the word.)
Assuming we had a global currency, how effective would a world-wide central bank be in re-inflating the money supply to the extent that it would effectively reset major pricing functions?
This is a long winded way of asking what is the difference between default and devaluation, if in the end the result is the same: savers/creditors lose their investments and debtors start over with a clean slate?
Now, I well understand the main point that any single fiat currency which attempted to do so would simply suffer a run on its currency as holders mad a mad dash into alternatives. (As we have recently seen with gold.)
But isn't this to suggest that fiat currencies are vulnerable only as long as alternative means of exchange/stores of value exist? Would this still be necessarily true if we are all locked into a closed system?
I think it's an important point to make, because it gets to the heart of what we may be seeing. That is, if all G20 currencies are pegged to the $USD in some sort of reciprocal agreement, isn't the dollar then in effect acting as a global currency?
Once a global currency was in place, would it not then be an important component in directing & managing world-wide economic activity in an almost paternalistic manner? I mean, why leave it to individuals/groups that prey on rivalries, regional differences, etc that merely act to disturb the peace?
It seems your entire thesis rests on the assumption that while no single central bank, like the Fed, can combat world-wide capital flows, it doesn't appear to address the efficacy of a global bank. I'm beginning to think that we are much closer to this type of system than we may be aware, which would help explain why the crash may not be coming.
We may already be living in a managed matrix and not even be aware of our condition.
My 2¢'s worth, eyeballing the charts, it looks like we've had a series of drunken m's all going uphill since March. (except the DAX which now slopes downhill) There's a bounce with about a one-month period, and a sort of quarterly bigger-bounce. I suppose the chartists have precise metrics for such things.
So maybe we are forming another quarterly bounce this week? With another low around Dec. 1?
Regarding the recent comments on gambling, you are essentially gambling if you breathe. Farming? You're a gambler. I am mostly long the dollar, but also sitting in a leaky bucket with a buzzard just now.
As for predicting the stock market, I've rarely made anything. A little bit on ultrashorts last year, but I got in late. My timing is terrible, even for things like PMs. Last August I exited positions on Central Fund and a goldmine the FSN guys were promoting ... had I hung onto them a bit longer I could have broken even or slightly better.
But it's really hard to control one's emotions when one has a big wad of money riding on a prediction like that. As Stoneleigh said, it always seems wrong -- if you do what seems right you are just swimming with the big school of minnows. And if you leave the safety of that school, you have no guarantee of heading in the right direction.
Being a little cash strapped, I was going to hold off for a few months before contributing the the fund drive. But today's post prompted me to make a contribution, though small.
As has been stated by others, the problem goes beyond just the elite. It does permeate a great number within our society. Many people are both greedy and stupid. We may, indeed, be on a trajectory that can not be changed.
Yet if ever there is to be positive change within our society, this post is one of the messages that must be heard. Our society needs to fundamentally change its view on the role of central government.
My view may depart slightly from Ilargi's here, but here are my thoughts. The key seems to be to limit the centralization of power generally. Clearly, we do need systems of governance to mediate conflict, control crime and even regulate market behavior. But those systems need not rule over hundreds of millions of people. Once a political system reaches that level of influence, it is not a matter of choosing the right people who will not be bought and paid for. Moneyed interests will make sure those people are in power.
The federal government needs to shrink.
Too few people even perceive the fundamental problems in our political systems to begin to consider solutions. So even if I found that your ideas for solutions (assuming you could change enough minds to matter) differed from mine, I'm still glad to support you for casting such clear light on the issues.
In the long game, unemployment is only a short-term reference point. That is, it may only be a lagging indicator before the next bubble activity is successfully engaged so that we once again experience full employment.
If a composite global fiat currency can be managed to first flatten the pre-existing housing bubble (by executing an orderly default on individual component currencies currently experiencing excess reserves), AND then be directed towards blowing an entirely new bubble (say, health care, cap 'n trade, etc), then UE really is nothing more than a lagging indicator.
Of course, it means the world economy is being directed by those which seek to siphon off and profit disportionately to the amount of effort expended, but hey, that's life with the squid.
Not paying your mortgage frees up $1500/mo to spend on Crimmas presents.Christmas is getting a government bailout.
BOGUS Birth/Death Model added EIGHTY-SIX THOUSAND PHANTOM JOBS!!!!!
I am shocked the Gov't let the #'s go above 10%!!
Average duration of unemployment 29.6 weeks-all time high.Hours worked 33- another lowadjusted last month's #- + 30K - Did GS know that ?
You knew this was going to be bad when Obama wasn't out there yesterday touting his job on the economy like he has done in previous months.
WHEN IS THIS MADNESS GOING TO STOP GEITNER SHOULD BE FIRED
Given that Timmy cheated on his taxes and got found out and still got the job, I suspect that Timmy is gonna have to be caught running dog fights to lose his job over at the Tsy.
Me thinks some more stimulus is in order.
The rumors should start flying around 2:00 about meetings in Washington concerning an immediate STIMULUS 2.0. Why not go them one step further and just declare a "Day of Jubilee". That would double the stock market in about a week.
Short squeezes continue.09:45 am : Weighed down by a disappointing jobs report, stocks started the session in negative territory, but they have since made a strong, upward move to positive territory.Amid the upturn, shares of retailers are garnering particular support. As a group, retailers are up 1.5%. That's giving a lift to the consumer discretionary sector, which is up a solid 0.6%.
TPTB would, of course, love a world currency, but with the breakdown of globalization and the coming dog-eat-dog currency competitions, I don't think we are going to see it. I think they got the timing wrong and blew their plan to turn the entire globe into a one world feudal state. Instead they have set up the world for 50,000 baronies.
In a similar vein, why did the IMF sell the central bank of India 200 tons of gold this week? And how did the IMF accrue so much gold in the first place?
Assuming we had a global currency, how effective would a world-wide central bank be in re-inflating the money supply to the extent that it would effectively reset major pricing functions?
If we were to see the major globalizing trend continue, I think we would indeed be headed in the direction of a single currency (or at least one with a much broader reach than we have now). It would require trust, in that many parties would be surrendering a significant amount of sovereignty.
I would argue that globalization has already begun to go into reverse, and that we will see larger entities or spheres of control breaking down, rather than smaller ones continuing to aggregate. Trust is one of the first casualties of large scale contractions. They lead instead to beggar-thy-neighbour policies that are incompatible with globalization.
I can't see those who are undoubtedly pushing for greater globalized financial control managing to achieve anything in the time they have left before it all comes apart at the seams.
Repeating the comments sections of other sites in this comment section. There's something weird in that, like a house of mirrors or something. Not that I have anything against recycling per sé.
"Dow still over 10,000. " ¡We don't need no stinkeeen jobs! ""
Indeed, we don't. As long as the financial system has unlimited access to future tax revenues, who cares what you earn today?
Thing is, that’s not the whole story.
Many people think this can go on for ages, if not forever. But as Sen. Maria Cantwell says in one of the videos above (in this case the first one, please do see them all if you possibly can, they're all more than worth your while, seriously!), even in Las Vegas, when someone goes to the blackjack table, both the house and the players have to have capital behind their bets.
And that’s precisely what will terminate this game, and soon. In gambling terms (and that’s the best metaphor by far here), you either need to show your cash before you can sit at the table, or you will be made to show your cash or your hand at some point during the game. It all comes down to trust. The US government and its banking affiliates and/or puppeteers operate under the assumption that they will never be called on to show their hand (they think they’re the house), but that won’t last much longer. Not with unemployment numbers such as these. They back up their bets with future tax revenues, but unemployed people generate no tax revenues.
U6 is at 17.5%. Shadowstats' SGS Alternate is over 22%. That seriously hurts the credibility of what backs up US wagers.
Option 1 will be: Show us your hand.
Option 2: If you don’t show us your hand, we walk away from the table, but only after you pay up.
If you don't pay, you can't play. And if you can't play, you can't win.
This week I saw the flashy pundits on CNBC? at lunch time claiming that it was good that
prices are kept down by slave labor [in eg china]
[and the female pundit guffawed incredulously that there is no slave labor in china when the guest brought it up. they were all ganging up on the guest who was stating that not everything that lowers prices is good for american economy. when he gave example "slavery lowers prices for your VCR but that's not good", they loudly protested and contradicted him that yes slavery was good if it lowered their vcr price.
evil consciousless bastards herding public opinion toward slavery justification , just like the torture and war invasion liars / proponents on tv.
i rarely ever watch tv. probably why i still have some ethical reasoning left.
What comes first, de-globalization or the breakdown of global currency standards? But why must these occur? Isn't globalization and a coordinated currency regime just a managed feedback loop that can operate in either a positive or negative fashion?
So why let it go negative? Why must de-globalization necessarily occur? Regional rivalries & distrust that are too strong to overcome? What about the (supposed) benefits of full employment and economic activity that provide incentives for cooperation?
Why does de-globalization have to occur if a centralized supra-bank can manage the orderly suppression (extinguishing claims of composite currencies aka default) of the existing bubble, while setting parameters for new bubble activity?
It appears your entire thesis rests on psychology of the herd - one I grant is a powerful and compelling rationale. But it still depends on panic - a rushing for the exits. But what if we live in a closed system where there isn't any escape? What if the PTB have created a system were we must hang together to avoid assuredly hanging separately?
I hope that I am not appearing to either advocate or suggest that such a system exists. But at the same time, we should always be looking for flaws in a theory. It's the only way to know there may be certain possibilities, no matter how remote, that would disprove an entire construct.
Your reply seems to concede that if the PTB were able to restore a positive global trade/currency feed-back loop, then an entire set of predictions regarding certain economic outcomes would be invalidated.
And if this is indeed a fatal flaw in your logic, then we know for a fact that this is where the PTB are placing all their resources. So our futures rest in either their success or failure.
Which gets to my original point, why bother looking at short-term activity like UE? All we really need to monitor is whether the PTB can pull-off restoring the old regime. If so, back to bubble times; if not, then get ready for Mad Max.
I am embarrassed to admit that I was a subscriber to the Elliot Wave newsletter back in 2002 and 2003. Back then Prechter was claiming that the ups and downs in Michael Jordans career and the popularity of Donald Trump's books was an indicator of popular sentiment. Hence you could time the stock market (I am not making this up!!) by following MJ's career and DT's book publishing schedule.....And then he has also claimed that you could predict the onset of the bear market by tracking the popularity of slasher/violent/horror films.
Prechter does not say that these trends in popular culture drive the stock market. What he is saying is that changes in collective social mood drive both markets and popular culture trends. Markets respond more quickly as the time lag for acting on one's mood is very short (a few clicks or a phone call). That is why markets are leading indicators for many other trends with the same fundamental driver.
Essentially, Prechter is simply observing that optimistic/happy people express that mood in many ways. They listen to cheerful music, like to watch upbeat films with happy endings, appreciate beautiful art, wear bright colours (and show more skin in the process), vote for incumbents, start businesses (ie take risks), have children (since they are confident about the future of these children), appreciate the common humanity of people who are different etc etc.
Pessimistic/angry/fearful people act quite differently. They listen to angry and dischordant music (punk, grunge etc), they watch ever more violent horror films, they appreciate art that is deliberately ugly, they wear somber colours (and cover up), they vote to throw out incumbents, they become too risk averse to start businesses, they have fewer or no children, they come to see differences between people as being more significant than similarities, they lose trust in others and act accordingly, they find it harder to suppress violent impulses etc etc.
It's fairly easy to see how such constellations of behaviour can drive positive feedback spirals, as they generate self-fulfilling prophecies (albeit self-limiting ones). I suggest you read Bob Prechter's work on socionomics. You could start by watching History's Hidden Engine.
"Repeating the comments sections of other sites in this comment section. There's something weird in that, like a house of mirrors or something. Not that I have anything against recycling per sé."
Well, I did edit their the comment section for the most sarcastic, amusing, or interesting ones on the unemployment release topic. If I hadn't edited it, I would have just given it a heads up link. And I also figured, now that we are moderated, that if you objected, you could sit on it.
Thanks for your reply, Stoneleigh. I have considered buying Prechter's socionomics book if I can pick it up for a reasonable price.
Right off the bat I can think of a multitude of quite noteworthy movements in popular culture that seem wholly at odds with the sentiment of markets - the ascendancy of "grunge" music in the early 90s for instance. Was this the lagging trend for the '87 market crash or something? More likely I see it as endemic of the ever-widening wealth disparity in the US finding its outlet in ever nastier and more plebeian music; you could certainly gauge the mood of young people by its popularity, but damned if I can think of a way to turn this into an investment strategy. But I will keep hunting around for a copy of that book - and watch the video when I have the time.
I think what Wall Street requires to precipitate a collapse would be some extraordinarily good news. Perhaps the Second Coming, a $10 cure for all types of cancer, or a pill that gives men over 70 multiple orgasms would do it.
We always say the market is divorced from fundamentals; but it must be married to something. Perhaps the double-reverse reasoning was: good employment numbers = fed raising rates and strong dollars = unwind US$ carry trade = stocks tank; so perhaps there were large short positions built up in anticipation of better than expected payroll. When it didn't happen, and perhaps with GS et al. knowing the score and buying furiously at the open, the shorts rushed to cover.
The run-up didn't really hold, however. I watch a list of hot-money stocks and they are nearly all down today even with the indices green. The market is still nervous.
I think that only fools went short that didn't also go long to an extent. It's all too close to go all-in or all-out. That also points to a significant change in investing overall. There is very little trust or confidence left that holds anywhere beyond a 100 meter dash. It's not just nervousness, it really is paradise lost. Lots of money managers must sleep poorly, since they simply don't recognize the terrain they operate in.
And that's why I think it takes very little for them to pull out and go foe the dollar, as the only choice left available to them.
There is very little upside left, nobody sees S&P 1250, and tons of downside, since unemployment may well go to 12.5%. Little potential profit, an avalanche of potential losses. They're squeezing a dry lemon.
In the news footage about the Fort Hood shooting, what struck me was the details on that compound.
• It’s the biggest in the US, 52,000 (!) personnel. • For many soldiers, it’s the last base before going to Iraq or Afghanistan.• There are twice as many females as there are males. • The average age is 21. • Which means, because superiors are older, that the vast majority of "foot" soldiers are teenagers.
Can you even imagine the levels of loose and lewd hormones flying around? The infighting, the jealosuy, the gossip? Two teenage girls for every teenage boy? In the last stop before seeing battle, and potentially getting killed? Boys that are put in groups turn stupid, girls in groups turn mean.
That is worth a reality TV show, much as I despise the genre.
The average age of the combat soldier in WWII was 26. In Vietnam it was 19. (great clip). Is it even lower now?
I've always found military recruitment dishonest and disgusting, but nowadays in the USA it is particularly so. Military recruiters are in high schools almost every day, and in the county where I live they are even allowed to visit middle schools and distribute propaganda pamphlets in the cafeteria at lunch time. Recruiters are allowed to call students at home, invite them to eat out, and give them gifts. Schools in poorer neighborhoods and minority students are specifically targeted by military recruiters. Junior ROTC is in every high school in my county!!! Parents don't complain either. God and country, indeed!
Wages stagnated sometime in the 70's. And as the article states, no matter how many loans the FHA is willing to make, the payments still have to be made from the borrower's wages.
So would it be accurate to think that housing prices in the 70's, adjusted for inflation, would be the affordable level now? I don't know what the average 70's house price would be now, adjusted for inflation. I'm thinking it's less than the current median of something like $170k.
Also, in the 70's is when mothers started flooding into the work force, with housing prices quickly adjusting upward to take advantage of that 2-income ability to pay. This of course has been a hidden 'tax' on single-income households.
What cost $32500.00 in 1973 (average price of a home) would cost $155818.50 in 2008.
Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2008 and 1973,they would cost you $32500 (2008 prices) and $6625 in 1973.
However, the average price of a home in 2008 was about $240,000 not $156k. So housing prices blew past inflation by 60% or so, but meanwhile inflation is kicking everyones butt in all other categories as well.
So your housing is 60% more expensive than it was 35 years ago, oh and by the way all other items cost 5x as much
http://www.census.gov/const/uspricemon.pdf
What cost $12,900 (Average Salary) in 1973 would cost $61847.96 in 2008 dollars. So the average salary in 2008 seems to have kept pace with the average Salary over the past 35 years you have 60% more expensive housing, and all other items seems to cost 5x more.
Hence the move to a Double Income lifestyle and the societal issues that have resulted from the latch key child.
@ Ilargi, I've been watching the Ft. Hood story and noting changes in " the script " since last night. Three shooters down to one. One dead shooter now alive.It is curious to me that on a base with 50,000 soldiers and the local police force it took a shootout lasting several hours to wing one shooter? Either the information we are getting is false or those soldiers need more training before being sent anywhere.Deeply sad to learn how young the soldiers are. Can't help thinking about the Wall St crowd raking in bonuses for bankrupting the nation, not going to war to protect the goose that lays those golden eggs for them. Very obscene that Wall St. got H1N1 vaccine, jumping the queue so to speak. Clear as a bell whose important to this administration and whose not.If I were a General I wouldn't be turning my back on any of my officers. If a Major accomplished such havoc what about other officers? If that is the truth that is. Not, possibly, a sleeper cell? Whoops, not supposed to mention sleeper cells are we.The US military must be very edgy right now not knowing who and where the enemy is.And if I lived in a US occupied country I'd be doubly edgy knowing now whose landing on their shores with a gun and PTSD .Poor kids being sent out in such rough shape.But hey, they are still dancing on Wall St. the music is still playing....
Markets are not rational and they are not driven by the news of the day. Their movements are endogenous. We did not take out the October 19th high today. Unless we do, I still regard that as the high for the rally. Even if that high is taken out, IMO the remaining upside will be very limited and not worth the risk of pursuing. Any upward moves at this point are cashing-out opportunities.
"The only way to stop the bleeding is to separate money and politics."
But politics is mainly a negotiative process by which law can be altered, law must partially define how money can move.
It would seem we need to separate moneyed interests and politicians, and reconfigure the connection between money and law, so far as that politicians and lawmakers should themselves desire to remain poor and powerless in equal measure.
What of the Fed's independence, its policy is already supposed to remain free and separated from politics, partisan politics, have you seen this, have you heard about this? Seeing how that worked out, you might want to politicize the setting of interest rates to the fullest extent of the publics monetary misconceptions.
Nelson, I decided I liked diagonally (in the 2 seconds I took to do so) but yours is undoubtedly more theoretically correct. Just playing (with words). I often think I don't get to do that nearly enough.
I like the analogy of shooting rapids in a canoe or kayak in a canyon. You can't end the ride prematurely; you're probably going to get bunged up or worse; but if you want to survive you, had better pay rapt attention, learn how to read the water both 3 meters ahead and 100 meters ahead; and work your butt off when the situation requires it.
I find this story hugely ironic because of flood of militarism and hyper-masculinity that America has been awash in during recent years.
It does not speak well of the military establishment that the individual who stopped the Ft. Hood shooter was:
1) diminutive2) a civilian3) a woman!!!
This story really puts the lie to the mass media propaganda that the Usaco military is filled with supermen trained to be elite killing machines.
I'd also like to point out that the Usaco military budget is a joke. As someone who works in the MI-complex I can tell you that 75 to 80% of each budget dollar is consumed by bureaucracy, redundancy, inefficiency, or outright criminality.
The remaining 20 to 25% of each dollar is what actually makes it into the equipment or the hands of the beleaguered people on the front lines.
My post is critical, but understand that always enjoy reading your posts regardless of what you discuss. You've got a flare for words and phrasing that is most unique.
That said......
I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish by raising issues about the political/economic system.
Do you really think it can be fixed? Stating the obvious, that the system is controlled by corporate money, doesn't take us very far toward a solution. Besides, the corruption at the core of the system has been known and openly acknowledged for at least a decade. Money buys you power. Ask anybody you see on the street if that's true. I doubt you'll find dissenters. You aren't breaking new ground here.
What do you propose? Call your senator? Start a protest?
Waste of time (IMO).
Protests will happen soon enough, once the public realizes the social-safety-net has been removed. At that point, we'll have chickens running around with their heads cut off arguing about this and that and this and that and accomplishing exactly nothing apart from looting stores and making a general mess of things.
The generals will step-in, and by and large, the silent majority will welcome them.
"el gallinazo said...I like the analogy of shooting rapids in a canoe or kayak in a canyon. You can't end the ride prematurely; you're probably going to get bunged up or worse; but if you want to survive you, had better pay rapt attention, learn how to read the water both 3 meters ahead and 100 meters ahead; and work your butt off when the situation requires it."
And all this from you of all creatures. Tsk, tsk. Try flapping your wings.
"Do you really think it can be fixed? Stating the obvious, that the system is controlled by corporate money, doesn't take us very far toward a solution. Besides, the corruption at the core of the system has been known and openly acknowledged for at least a decade. Money buys you power. Ask anybody you see on the street if that's true. I doubt you'll find dissenters. You aren't breaking new ground here."
If you and I are both right, we'll see no-one calling for either an audit of the Fed or the firing of the likes of Geithner.
Nobody there was armed...it was a processing center. 2/3 were female. Few would be battle-troops and fewer would be elite. Mostly it would be those who man the supply lines -- war is ever thus -- and who are the soft underbelly of any war machine.
What it says to me is that being armed is a very significant advantage, and acting purposefully provides advantage as well.
* TPTB at a glance:- Obama is a tool of TPTB- TPTB know TSWHTF- TPTB should help people recalibrate their expectations- Soon the TPTB will turn on their own; Some will become the powers that were- TPTB believe slave labor is good for America- TPTB don't know what real work is- TPTB would love a world currency- Unions are The Power That Ain't
* Firing the entire government would be a black swan event; Military will replace the government; US Military bases are orgies waiting to happen; If the military kills one civilian all heck will break loose; The country is on a hair trigger; Nothing can stop Mad Max; It's every man for himself; We are all patsies now
* Propaganda only works when people are fat and happy; Money can by fatness and happiness; Fat and happy people procreate more often; Cruise ships prove that some people are still fat and happy; Propaganda fails at TAE because TAEers are sometimes fat or happy but never both
* Elections are a farce; A third party or limiting centalized power would solve all our problems; Since nothing can be fixed we should spend our time emoting
* Todays questions:- How high can a pitchfork fly?- How deep is the rabbit hole ?- Why bother with politics? - Will we fall in line or fall on our swords? - How can house prices rise without wages? - Why is the BDI up?
* Some libertarians voted for Obama in hopes he would listen to Volcker; Window for change is now closed
* US is screwed but not as screwed as everyone else; We are too far down the wrong road; US protects pipe industry with tariffs
* Maria Martinez skills and pottery are stunning; One pot sells for $1K+ on EBay
* Sophists and morons aren't mutually exclusive; They sometimes marry and produce offspring that become economists
* Double digit unemployment will hurt; Maybe this plus health care will bring the crash we so dearly hope for
* We don't need no stinking jobs; No jobs = Easy Money = Chicks for free; A multi-orgasm pill would make Ilargi a bull; Without chips you can't bet
* Popular culture doesn't drive the markets; They are both driven by tree gnomes but the market responds faster; Tree gnomes like horrible news; Tree gnomes are not rational and can't do math
* Stock market is entering the Bermuda Triangle; Rally is well engineered; The market is not up in gold or Euros; Only inside traders can be successful; The market is divorced from fundamentals; The market got the house and the fundamentals got the kids
* Stuff costs more in dollars than it did in 1973; Posting stupid charts is stupid; How you feel is less important than how you smell
@lord.bacon...I am strangely relieved to know there is no political solution to this " predicament ". Otherwise I'd be doing what I've always done, campaign for a saviour, spend my precious,meager resources on political donations, waste time listening to speeches of hope and then experiencing the disappointment and shame that comes with being taken in by the con.Won't be doing any of that anymore and I'm in Canada. Now I am a virus undermining the corrupt process speaking to all and sundry about what is going down. As a retired person I see paying attention and passing on the news as my contribution to society, to those who are too burdened after a day's labour to inform themselves.I speak to bus drivers and cabbies, store clerks etc, the folks I encounter as I go about my daily living. They may not prepare themselves but at least when TSHF they won't be in complete shock. I have been surprised of late how many people are picking up on the stench saying, " Ya, I know."As Stoneleigh says we are waiting for momentum and IMO that applies to more than the market. It takes awhile for folks to realize their betters aren't.
"Also, in the 70's is when mothers started flooding into the work force, with housing prices quickly adjusting upward to take advantage of that 2-income ability to pay. This of course has been a hidden 'tax' on single-income households.
Not that old canard again!Stop blaming liberation of married women for rising property prices. Monetary policy is the cause of the housing booms.
A hidden tax is actually imposed on secondary earners/employed mothers, not single households.This is meticulously documented in the book Taxing Women by Edward J McCaffery.
gylangirl said..."Hence the move to a Double Income lifestyle and the societal issues that have resulted from the latch key child.
This is nuts!
Yes, very nutty argument on your part to [once again] blame married women's incomes for society's ills. "Double income lifestyle" must be the new chauvenist term for "keep em barefoot and pregnant". "
I did not mean it like that, I don't care if a man or a woman works, my point was what used to affordable on a single income 35 years ago, now needs two.. thats all. Kids with a parent home, well, I think thats a more desirable choice than both working.
CCPO - "At the end of the day, if there is no faith in the system, and how can there be?, then the system will fail.It really is that simple."
I think you are right on here CCPO, however, I witness faith in this ailing system everyday by people all around me.
The reason for this is lack of experience. It's been generations now (the 1930's) since most folks here in the states have experienced anything like extreme hardship or system failure.
We are like the Titanic boarders, stepping confidently along... blissfully faithful in those who are at the helm, and in the integrity of this famous vessel!
It's not about deductive (or inductive) logic, or reasonable evaluation. Most people cannot think out of the box, or entertain the notion that their perspective is, or could be, flawed. This abundant life is about the only thing most of us have ever knew, or our fathers and mothers and grand-s .
I don't see that second-income realities SHOULD be necessarily sexist. Obviously part of the second-income value was realized in larger homes and arguably better lifestyles for the children. My own children have had private education in part due to my wife's employment.
However, I think part of the reality is that second incomes became necessary to maintain the status quo, and just happened to go a ways beyond, which in turn contributed to the run-up in house prices. It also required an additional car for many, and the growth of the service industry.
All of this contributed nicely to GDP, which in turn enabled national debt growth. In one view it is self-reinforcing cycle (positive feedback). In another it is a Ponzi scheme or house of cards, as these same large houses, extra cars, and additional consumption have us accelerating into a wall of finite resources. In many ways we have been accelerating when we should have been breaking.
I don't think one size fits all. My wife very much wants to be full-time stay-at-home, and we both like the "traditional" model. If you knew her I don't think you'd see that as subservient. As for barefoot and pregnant, we're past that stage, but I did once get a picture of her about 8 months along, barefoot, in the kitchen. :)
Bigelow - "...It can't be fixed. Our energies clearly belong elsewhere. This is why so many people pay no attention perhaps? They already know it instinctively or perhaps emotionally...."
I may have misconstrued your meaning here...
My take is this. I agree this complex predicament likely cannot be fixed. Tough, violent times are likely coming. But I do not live in a vacuum. I have Kids, grandkids, friends, neighbors, etc.
Where would that be?, the the "elsewhere" within which one's energies could or should be expended? People who "sense" the coming debacle and make no attempt to understand it nor to try to prepare themselves and those around them, I do not understand.
You, I am confident, are thinking and preparing yourself as are most TAE folks.
The Globe and Mail has an opinion piece that suggests we should be optimistic because most economists are currently pessimistic and they have always been wrong before:
http://tinyurl.com/yb8st8v
Of the 31 comments already posted, everyone is very derisive of the article (one even references Mish). If this reflects the herd mentality, it makes me worry that the market bubble is indeed going to stay inflated for awhile.
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- John S. Reed, who helped engineer the merger that created Citigroup Inc., apologized for his role in building a company that has taken $45 billion in direct U.S. aid and said banks that big should be divided into separate parts.
“I’m sorry,” Reed, 70, said in an interview yesterday.
OK, good enough. But get this:
From 1997 to 1999, Reed received salary and bonuses totaling $23.4 million, according to Citigroup filings. In 2000, he received a retirement bonus of $5 million, filings show. Citigroup provides him with an assistant and a New York office, for which he pays taxes, he said.
He made the common mistake of assuming that his peers all used a thought process similar to his own. Perhaps if everyone in the upper echelon of the organization would be satisfied with a mere $5 million, then the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act would not have been catastrophic. But no. The gangster mentality is such that if one guy gets $5 million, then the next wants $50 million.
"There is a saying among some that we (the United States) are screwed, but they (everyone else) are screwed worse. What are your thoughts on this? I am not sure if I agree since the US is the most indebted country on the planet, perhaps in history. Debt = screwed the worst. Your thoughts?"
Well, you didn't ask me. But here I am. :-)
On the contrary, as an usaco, I think there's a wonderful chance the US may be among the most screwed.
The critical word is "resilience" - and usacos are so totally not.
Most other countries have citizens with many fewer delusions, much better grasps of reality, and less vacuous self-pride.
I think the probability is very high that when the millions upon millions of us who live for Friday and professional sports- suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them, they will simply lapse into catatonia.
I look forward to watching the elites apply their cattle prods to the catatonics.
It is completley false therefore to blame the problem entirely on the elite."
Please note, the USA contains some 305 millions.
I'm sure it's very comforting to believe it's everyone's fault- but it's really not true. Look up the conversations in the past here on Aunt Martha.
And there are hundreds of millions of Aunt Marthas- who did not one single greedy dishonest thing. I think you have simply had no contact with the "non" elite. I do assure you, the small town bankers and real estate salesmen are all very much elite. They had money to invest- hundreds of millions never have an investment of any kind.
This discussion of two-income families vs stay-at-home parenting is interesting. When our son was born, nine years ago, my wife and I were very career oriented and were enjoying the things two good incomes bought. She was anxious to get back to work so we hired a full-time nanny and carried on. Having said that, we quickly came to appreciate how important it is to spend time with our boy so we stopped our extra-curricular pursuits to spend most of our free time with him. As time passed, we became less focussed on career and more focussed on child-rearing, family oriented things. With the very recent birth of our second child, my wife no longer works outside the home, there is no thought of a nanny and we both agree that child-rearing is the highest priority. Fortunately, we are able to live on a single income but have significantly cut back our material expectations to do so (BTW - the type of work I do pays less well than what most docs make). We have a lovely little boy who gets along well with everyone, does well at school and has no discipline issues whatsoever, at home or at school. When our daughter is a few years older, I am sure my wife will get back into the job market. This has nothing to do with emancipation of women, it's got everything to do with providing the best possible upbringing for our kids. I feel we are fortunate in being able to choose this approach and think that society should be oriented to give that opportunity to more people.
I read some of Plato's republic some time back, his state tries to neutralise the natural corruptive forces working on ruling classes by demanding they are philosophically grounded and therefore posses a strong moral centre. Presumably, dominant sociopaths and materialists would thus be shunned from rule.
"Plato spends much of The Republic narrating conversations about the Ideal State. But what about other forms of government? The discussion turns to four forms of government that cannot sustain themselves: timocracy, oligarchy (also called plutocracy), democracy and tyranny (also called despotism).
TimocracySocrates defines a timocracy as a government ruled by people who love honor and are selected according to the degree of honor they hold in society. Honor is often equated with wealth and possession so this kind of gilded government leads to the people valuing materialism above all things.
OligarchyThese temptations create a confusion between economic status and honor which is responsible for the emergence of oligarchy. In Book VIII, Socrates suggests that wealth will not help a pilot to navigate his ship. This injustice divides the rich and the poor, thus creating an environment for criminals and beggars to emerge. The rich are constantly plotting against the poor and vice versa.
DemocracyAs this socioeconomic divide grows, so do tensions between social classes. From the conflicts arising out of such tensions, democracy replaces the oligarchy preceding it. The poor overthrow the inexperienced oligarchs and soon grant liberties and freedoms to citizens. A visually appealing demagogue is soon lifted up to protect the interests of the lower class. However, with too much freedom, the people become drunk, and tyranny takes over.
TyrannyThe excessive freedoms granted to the citizens of a democracy ultimately leads to a tyranny, the furthest regressed type of government. These freedoms divide the people into three socioeconomic classes: the dominating class, the capitalists and the commoners. Tensions between the dominating class and the capitalists causes the commoners to seek out protection of their democratic liberties. They invest all their power in their democratic demagogue, who, in turn, becomes corrupted by the power and becomes a tyrant with a small entourage of his supporters for protection and absolute control of his people.
Ironically, the ideal state outlined by Socrates closely resembles a tyranny, but they are on opposite ends of the spectrum. This is because the philosopher king who rules in the ideal state is not self-centered but is dedicated to the good of the state insofar as the philosopher king is the one with knowledge."
Quite relevant still, though this idealistic system depends on philosophers being incorruptible because they know better than to desire wealth or power, and would therefore make good rulers.
If the system is irreparably broken, then devoting time and energy to a fix is a mistake. No point in acting to change the system. Devoting effort to, as you write “[k]ids, grandkids, friends, neighbors, etc.” and your own personal situation is a better alternative.
I was ranting one detail after another about the latest corrupt act by some one of the elite's liars and the person I was directing this at said “why do you need the details, don’t you know this already?” That could describe some of the motivations behind the disaffected that don’t care and don’t pay attention. What would be the point knowing?
There are more who will blame and act out on whom ever and whatever the Limbaughs and National Socialists types tell them to. I get angry at the evil that the Limbaughs do and wish he particularly would be stopped permanently. That is a stupid wish because he would become a martyr and all his followers would be “activated” and strike back at those they had been programmed to; certainly not Elite who are the problem.
For years I thought progressives might have a chance to move politics, with think tanks like the Rockridge Institute and the Center for Media and Democracy using the techniques of the elites against them for “higher purposes”. It is too late to change the system, if it was ever possible and I doubt that too. No point wasting time. Protect you and your’s against the system. I’m sure you too have the right idea.
In the ideal state of hereditary gravicy, all capital is subject to me, and only me; thus any moral issues or philosophical arguments concerning the justness of rule are righteously weighed, balanced and decided by me and mine, so causing people and monies to fall down or float away on my command, or depending on specific density,to assume substandard orbit around my pocket.
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must live."
"If the banks were more strictly regulated or broken up into smaller more manageable units would they be disadvantaged when competing globally?"
That was one of the sales pitches used to remove most public regulation of the finance, insurance and real estate factions (FIRE economy)allowing them to gamble with ever riskier "instruments". Heads they win, tails we lose.
"Is it because the banks have become unofficial extensions of the government?"
You may have that backwards. The decades of revolving door policies where regulators do the work for the regulated --in return for very nice positions in industries they regulated just as soon as they leave government-- created conflicts of interest; now no one cares. And who better to put in charge of the chicken coop anyway than the fox who knows all the ways other foxes might sneak in? Government is a captive of big banks as well as weapons makers, pharmaceutical and energy interests, and not least the depredations of black budget intelligence agencies. I don't think globalism is about competing as much as it is about setting up money making sure things for special groups.
Will wonders never cease? I am on the same page as Paleocon (and Mike for that matter), and on a very different page, for once, with gylangirl.
In the final analysis, house prices are a function of family income, and the two worker family was a very major factor in the inflation of house prices, just as the no worker family will be a very major factor for their reduction.
BTW - "gylan" is an uncommon first name, so I am not quite sure what Paleocon found on Google regarding it's "meaning". What am I missing? Gylan Kain?
Greenpa
Orlov develops your theme nicely regarding most modern Usacos incapable of anything but watching American Idol, eating lunch, and shouting "We're number one." It is one of his major themes as to why the collapse of the Soviet Union (for its population) was like falling out of a second floor window, while the collapse of the American Empire will be like the fifth floor. Except we have many more guns so we can shoot each other a lot easier than the Russians. Maybe Hannibal Lecter will be Time Magazine's Man of the Year 2013, with a photo sautéing a nice, slightly hepatitic liver with onions. Yummy!
There is a lot of anxiety and quiet panic going on among many gringos in Costa Rica regarding the imminent collapse of the USD. A lot of them are changing their money into Colones, which I find amusing. A lot of misinformation among some rather wealthy people. Bernard Madoff could do well here if he weren't locked up presently for getting caught doing what the whole "industry" is doing.. I had a moment of negative truth two days ago. A new friend's pick-up truck developed a totally dead, Norwegian Blue battery. We drove into town to get a new one. It cost $200, a Korean Rocket brand sealed model. I saw it in Miami for $85 three weeks ago.
Costa Rica has no shortage of lunch easters on the government payroll in high plsces, and the duties here are outrageous. The managers in the financial sector have doubled their income in the last ten years, and the gulf between the rich and the poor is growing rapidly. However, the court system appears more honest and just than the USA. There is trouble brewing in paradise. Gringo tourism, gringo development, and gringo retirees have blown a big bubble here and it's going to wind up all over the national face when it pops. I figure the solution will be to raise taxes to keep the luncheaters in lunches. Speaking of which, middle age people are almost as chunky here as Walmart shoppers with a cart full of Cheeze Doodles:-)
I did manage to rent today a rustic 3 bedroom house, sparsely furnished for $250 a month, plus maybe 5 hours a week of light labor using my plumbing, electrical, carpentry type skills. Only problem is that the only tool available seems to be a very large Leatherman I brought with me. CR changed the rules about 2000, and it seems that they will charge me a fortune to bring in my metal Greenlee box in storage in FL which has about 500 pounds of all my tools in it. The house is on a gorgeous five acre lot with towering cedars, fruit trees of all sorts, a spring feed swimming pool, and lots of sloths to relate to in my retirement.
I met a extended gringo family from Texas in their late sixties today who moved themselves and everything in their three bedroom house to CR having never visited here previously. Of course they got totally ripped off from stem to stern. Must be something in the water in Texas that blocks the cerebral synapses but makes the trigger finger quiver.
I am also going to take a look at the high mountain country of Panama eventually. They are making it much easier right now for pensioners than CR,. Also, they are using the USD as their currency, so I would be following a Stoneleigh rule and not have to worry about foreign exchange. I would just have to worry how to get my dollars from my bank to Panama when restrictions hit. Wonder if they will still let one fly around legally anywhere with $10,000 in Franklins the way they do now.
Ok, maybe I should have used useless instead of stupid. And we could make Europeans feel real rich by recalibrating Frankfurt or Amsterdam into USD. Or Zimbabweans poor. But the S&P could still not be deflated by the Euro. Or gold. The currency in which an exchange trades can't just be disconnected from it simply because it looks spiffy in a graph.
The fluctuations between currencies are integral parts of a stock exchange and the value of almost any company listed on it. You can argue, as I do, that the surge in gold exists primarily because for those looking at the USD. But that doesn't mean you can take the S&P of the past 5 years, look at gold over the past 5 years and claim that anything has changed. You can't, precisely because things would indeed have been different if the S&P were based on the value of gold. It's not, it's based on USD.
It really is Heizenberg: you can't know two variables at the same time, because looking at one fundamentally changes the other.
If you look at the dollar index, the dollar is judged against other currencies, no? If the dollar can be judged then what makes the S&P so special. particularly as it is denoted in dollars and currently those are inflating against almost anything one cares to measure them by? No uncertainty about all this, Heizenberg only comes into this matter in orrder to roll in his grave at the unprincipled way you use his principle.
However, I imagine that the groups you mentioned (banks, energy companies, etc.) don't always see eye to eye or have the same interests.
Do you think it would be correct to say that currently government at the highest levels acts as an arbitrator or mediator between these interests or is there one group or constituency that trumps all the others and as a result gets to call all or most of the shots?
In Cyprus-Limassol, the economy runs from the income from tourism and expats.The drop of incomes are going to make life miserable for all.There is a lot of historical buildings that need major maintenance and it will not get done.
Going back "home" for a better life may prove to be an unfulfilled wish.jal
There are several commodities exchanges around the world. They may all clear transactions in the local currencies. However, that does not not negate the fact that these same commodities are also traded on exchanges with currencies of different denominations.
There have been many charts recently of the performance of gold against the various major currencies over various recent/historical time standards. These comparisons are valid and interesting.
What this would leave us with is a liquidity pyramid which ends with bank loans, which are much more manageable and whose risk can be controlled. It would also leave the world with a fiat currency system, which would lose about 10x of its value overnight, thereby leading to an instantaneous and global unwind of fiat money, and rolling waves of domestically denominated hyperinflation. A spectacular race to the bottom of the asset pyramid. And who will rather commit suicide than see that happen: why the Federal Reserve of course.
Sure, you and Stoneleigh are welcome to come down anytime and defrost those frozen Canadian buns. But it is no five star accommodation. San Isidro is about an hour or two by bus from the Pacific beaches.
Re Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
What it basically says, if I recall correctly, is that the product of the delta of uncertainty of any two quantities which has the dimensions of Planck's constant (which I believe is erg-sec), cannot be less than Planck's constant divided by two pi. But Planck's constant is a very, very tiny number. But if you look at matter closely enough, it's like blowing up a grainy photograph. Reality is basically grainy.
But this can have a huge effect on the macroscopic universe. For example, without this quality in matter, stars wouldn't shine. Because the protons or nuclei would repulse each other too strongly regardless of the temperature to allow them to get close enough for the strong nuclear forces to "glue" them together. But the uncertainty principle allows a proton to pop out of it's position for a picosecond and reappear close enough to another proton to permit fusion. So it would be a freaking cold universe, sort of like Canada in February, without the uncertainty principle in action.
If Gravity does quantum as well as relativity, he is welcome to correct this. I learned it in the last academic course which I will take in this incarnation, and that is not a coincidence :-)
What is the game plan for the government and the financial elites going forward is I guess what I keep wondering here? How deep does the rabbit hole go?
They have shown they can engineer an impressive rally. And they have obviously engaged in a coordinated campaign to make us feel as if we are coming out of the woods.....do they themselves believe this? Are they just crossing their fingers and hoping? Or are they aware of the coming maelstrom? Opinions?
Hello Wolf,
I'm wonderin' if the powers that be can amortize their toxic debt to infinity and beyond. As long as the other players agree I don't see why they can't.
Well el Gal not being a Chemist/plumber but a mere and simple fisherman artist, I had to appeal to an a friends insight into the deeper aspects of these matters, so without further ado my buddy says:
" Thanks for the primer, El. I might mention that "the delta of uncertainty" makes no sense as a phrase. It's just the product of the uncertainties, or standard deviations in observables. Also, if you're in the mood for some heavy math and a bit of trust in the canonical commutator relationship (at the core of the uncertainty principle), you might want a look at the generalized uncertainty principle
Of course, by the correspondence principle, the effects of quantum mechanics on a macroscopic scale must correspond with our observations on such a scale (kinda self evident). Aside from a few things, like the double slit experiment (on single electrons/photons) and blackbody radiation, there's little in our world that's particularly quantum. Newton and Maxwell are fairly sufficient. If you can find a nonzero commutator relationship between the S&P and gold, perhaps you'll have something there. Otherwise, it is entirely NOT Heisenberg."
I noticed that particularity but didn't want to go there, must be my overly humble personality, but yes, "Over 70 multiple orgasms" within a reasonable timeframe, say a week, would have been a challenge even at age 12.
If you need a friend to help you on Heisenberg, I'm pretty sure you can't tell me much of anything on the topic.
If the S&P had been tallied in gold and not in USD over the past 5 years, the S&P itself would have behaved differently.
And yes, that is Heisenberg speaking. Loosely. There are things in the macro world too that you can't prove because of elements that influence each other.
if I hadn't met that girl 10 years ago, or last year, or yesterday, would I have been the same person? I cannot know. It is not knowable. If I had woken up at 8 AM this morning instead of at 6 AM, would the word have been as I experience it right now? I cannot, by definition, know.
Yeah I looked at the Heisenberg wiki page too. But my eyes glaze over at all the pitchforks and squiggles any more, I'm just glad I won't have to cough up that stuff on another P Chem test.
But my understanding of the Ultraviolet Catastrophe was this: if the Bohr atom were the correct model (a tiny solar system), and if electrons weren't restricted to their quantum states, they would emit electromagnetic radiation (like an oscillating electric charge makes radio waves) and lose energy, spiraling right in until they squat directly on the nucleus. The emitted radiation would be in the ultraviolet.
The wiki page has a different explanation revolving around black body radiation. But the bottom line is this: without Heisenberg's principle, and Planck's constant and Schrödinger and the rest of it, our universe could not exist.
If you need a friend to help you on Heisenberg, I'm pretty sure you can't tell me much of anything on the topic."
That is no argument !
ilargi you have told many to learn to read, I suggest that you might try the same and read what Jesse is saying not what you would want him to be saying.
I do not understand your animosity in that direction as I do not understand your desperation to be always right no matter how wrong you are shown to be. How can anyone trust the words of one who considers himself never wrong.
Blacksmith--I think it will be many, many years before we run out of hinges and doorknobs to salvage, such that actual smithing will be very useful. Surely beyond my lifespan.
Smithing should indeed be useful, although there may be times when finding sufficient energy could be a challenge. The same would go for glass-blowing. Glass used to be extremely valuable because of the energy required.
Metal joining--@snuffy and Greenpa. This I highly agree with. I have been thinking about taking a welding course and buying a TIG welder. I already own a MIG, not that I am any good with it. So, I would need to think of some way to practice joining metal. I have also thought about a small mill and lathe, but that would be pretty hard for me to get good at, to find a place to store and use.
I think you'd need to do some courses in order to climb the learning curve in time, but it sounds like a useful skill.
Electric vehicles--The need to practice metal joining would fit nicely with building electric bikes/EVs. Much cheaper transpo than cars. But, in a world in which Stoneleigh is predicting the end of access to gasoline, are we really going to have access to electric motors and controllers? I am not so sure.
Electric bikes could be useful for quite a while. I don't know easy it would be to make one without access to parts from elsewhere though. Working with ordinary bikes would be good, especially if you could get hold of some inventory of spare parts in advance. They'd probably make good barter goods if nothing else.
Motors--EVs suggest learning more about electronics, how to fix and control electric motors mainly. Also, how to build generators and whatnot. Building vehicles from salvage might have a lot of legs on it.
Sounds good to me.
Baker--I knew a guy who built a brick oven in his driveway and delivered bread by bicycle. I think this might work in the first and third phases of collapse, but I can't see people paying six dollars a loaf in the slide downwards. So then this is not really useful when I need it most, in the deflationary crash. Furthermore, I am not so sure the corporate megabakeries won't kick it into overdrive--we could see the conditions of medieval bread riots where bakeries are cutting the flour with gypsum or sawdust.
I think people will bake their own bread if they possibly can, as it doesn't require that much skill or special equipment. You'd be better off developing a specialist skill that people would be prepared to part with scarce cash for.
Brewing beer--I like drinking beer, but I have only made it at U-Brews. I think there are a lot of people who know a lot more about this than me.
Making beer and other alcoholic beverages will be very useful, as alcohol sterilizes water, even in small quantities. In England in Shakespeare's day everyone drank ale, even the babies, because the alternative was contaminated water that would likely kill you.
Carpenter--A lot of people have this skill, especially here in Vancouver where we have had an orgy of condo building.
This is a useful skill, if only to be able to do as much as possible for yourself, so that you won't need to use scarce cash to pay someone else to do such things for you. It might not earn you a living though.
Sewing--I am pretty good at sewing, thouh not great. But Vancouver actually has quite a Chinese sweatshop industry, so I don't see myself being competitive.
You probably wouldn't be competitive, as you say. As above, it's a good skill to have the basics of though. I could do this myself, but I'm not sure people would pay me for it. I spent some time as a handwork teacher at a Waldorf school, so there are many related skills I could use or teach (and we produce our own fiber).
Moonshiner--I have heard of a moonshine-fuelled fundraiser in my city, so some people are on this. I wonder if this will run afoul of the taxman as the government tries desperately to maintain revenues.
Yes, it would be risky as it will almost certainly be illegal. If you could live with the risk it would probably be lucrative though. Making and selling cigarettes would fall in the same category.
Gardener--Some people are gardening other people's yards, and even selling the produce at markets. I don't see this being entirely durable, as I imagine homeowners will start wanting to grow their own vegetables in their own yards.
People will almost certainly do this for themselves if they possibly can.
Urban orchardist--Walk around the city pruning and feeding fruit trees in peoples yards. Pick and sell fruit for as long as that is possible, and after that, rely on people giving you bags of fruit in exchange for your services.
This kind of skill-bartering model is likely to be important. Swapping goods and services will probably be more common than swapping either for money for a period of time, simply because people will have so little money that they won't want to part with whatever money they have.
Micro Food Processing--Locally process food and sell jars of it under the Vancouver brand. So, #2 tomatoes could be sold as pasta sauce. This leverages the local eating movement and gets me into the food supply industry, which I think is a good place to be. This would be a real business, and getting real loans is not something I feel that comfortable with right now.
I would definitely avoid the loans, as you say.
Deposit container supplier--Another business idea, needing real loans in a crshing economy. Anyhow, the idea is to provide reusable containers to food manufacturers for yogurt, beverages, sauces etc. This is happening for milk and beer already. It can be quite a savings to reuse containers, is very good for the environment, and will support local food. Could also be expanded to restaurants for take-out containers.
Sounds good, except for the loans part. Food storage will be a big issue in an energy constrained world, and a lot of people are going to end up giving themselves botulism. Learning and teaching food storage techniques (as Sharon Astyk does) will be valuable.
Sail Cargo--There is a sail freight association in the Pacific Northwest and some orgainc food moving by sail, maybe near San Francisco? I like sailing, but the power of the ocean scares me. Realistically, weather will get worse thanks to climate change and pirates would be expected. Also, the girlfriend will really not be too fond of this idea.
Piracy will be a given. Sail is very efficient transport in an energy constrained world though.
Last idea for the fantasy world of getting some land...plant nut trees, raise hogs that eat the nuts, and then make ham. In other words, specialize a bit in meat smoking and preservation.
Eating the nuts yourself would probably be a better idea. Access to dietary fats is going to be a very big issue going forward (as Dr J would no doubt be happy to explain).
Oh, and my mother's favourite--become the resident caretaker for an apartment building.
Not a bad idea at all. Being a jack-of-all-trades who uses his skills in exchange for accommodation and a measure of safety in numbers could work well.
To those misconstruing my prior comments as a) opposing the choice/value of stay at home moms or as b)denying that two income households are overly indebted: I do not say that.
1. I have been in these categories myself: nonmarried employed childless and married employed mom and married non-employed mom ["stay at home mom"]
2. I do not claim that women should or should not be one or the other category. Many like myself will transition from one to the other during their lifetimes.
3. My objection is when married women are induced by public policy/ cultural pressure to choose an option that does not serve their own and their family's economic /social needs.
4. It is a very short distance from the false claim that 'two income households drove up home prices for single income households' to the claim that 'married women ought be discouraged from paid employment'. This discriminatory line of thinking caused ongoing tax discrimination against secondary earners in the usa after 1948 [but not in europe]. Secondary earner tax policy was intentionally designed to get WWII married women out of the paid workforce and back into the home. Not one feminst .org has even bothered to get that 1948 era sex discrimination eliminated. Instead they blame mothers married [to higher income fathers] for "choosing" to leave the paid workforce. The same tax induces lower income women to eschew marriage altogether. Hence the CHRONIC single mother phenomena among poor Americans, which feminists support as a 'choice'& nonfeminists blame on the race's bad 'morals'.
5. While it is true that two income households cannot keep up these days; it is not due to dual incomes. ccpo, even elizabeth warren does not blame the problem on dual incomes but on low wages.
Correlation does not mean causation. One could likewise claim that the civil rights movement resulted in everyone's higher cost of housing - and college education for that matter - using the same correlative reasoning, and it too is wrong.
Rather, wages have not kept pace with inflation because of the reduced power of unions and because earned income is taxed more than non-earned income due to lobbying pressure from capital income interests. [Also nafta]
5. The rise in housing prices was caused by improper monetary policy ie supressed interest rates used to create a bubble. A low rate means lower monthly payments meaning you can afford to buy even 'more house'. Higher debt income ratios were irresponsibly hawked by mortgage bankers who sold the risk.
So single earners, blame your inability to afford a house on the Fed not dual income couples. Blame latchkey children on the worker's inability to afford childcare. America prioritized other subsidized needs as more important than workers' kids: war profiteering, health insurance profit, insane bank bailouts. Blame women's higher poverty rates on tax policies simultaneously forcing married high earners out of the workforce and forcing low earners to stay out of wedlock. This means that the number one factor predicting an American woman's poverty in old age is... Motherhood! Disgraceful.
And to Gylangirl et al. re: single or dual incomes...the big promise of progress and technology and capitalism has been to make our lives better--and often specifically to give us more free time. Instead, we work more than ever to buy more than ever, requiring ever more work hours.
It would be interesting, based on the time when dual incomes became 'necessary', to calculate what the possessions of that household would cost in today's dollars. Obviously the house itself will skew things, but no flat-screen TV, no playstation, no billions of toys, no electric can-opener, maybe no dryer, just a clothesline--et c.
I have a friend who has told me many times to stop worrying about the economy"Because its all made up...Really! this "economy"is a fiction that we all believe in".
I have the devils own time discounting his reasoning.Or his logic.
He believes that the "truly"wealthy will be bright enough to remember what happened to the french aristocracy after a comment about letting them eat cake came out...
I don't....
I think they are more of the mindset of that creep the "Insider",and have little understanding of the blackness that fills the heart of those who are hopeless,and feel cheated...those who have nothing left but some weapons and a bad attitude..
...and there are thousands and thousands of potentials being formed every day this grindingly slow decent continues.
The reason 100% of the senate voted to extend un-employment bennies was simple...They have seen the future from better info than you and me...and could not face the public for re-election with a no vote on their record.
Something I have noticed in the perusals of craigs list sailboats.Deflation.thousands and thousands of dollars dropping in price of exactly the boats I have been drooling over for the last couple of years.
The same boats that would have cost 25 grand 2 years ago are 10-12,and dropping fast...With my luck though,the same time they hit my range will be the same time I join the ranks of the un-employed again
...It may be sooner with the Kick-your-face-in attitude of management these days...work is not fun
Stoneleigh/Ruben: "Last idea for the fantasy world of getting some land...plant nut trees, raise hogs that eat the nuts, and then make ham. In other words, specialize a bit in meat smoking and preservation.
Eating the nuts yourself would probably be a better idea. Access to dietary fats is going to be a very big issue going forward (as Dr J would no doubt be happy to explain)."
:-) We so desperately NEEDED pigs this year. Working on getting there. We grow multiple tree/nut crops- and the way it worked out, one of them was a disaster- lost almost all of it. Because of weird ripening weather. The crop came down in such a fashion that it was about 20x as much work as usual to gather it.
Doesn't happen much; but count on it - it will happen. The pigs wouldn't have given a damn. They would have worked day and night eating everything.
The evidence from both American history and the actual fat analyses done on pata negra pigs in Spain is that pigs fed on nuts drastically alter their storage compounds. The Spaniards are maketing their jamon Iberico as coming from "olive trees on four legs." The fat is semi-liquid at room temperature, not hard, and definitely contains a lot of monounsaturates and Omega-3s.
Plus- cured pork is an extremely valuable, portable, and non-perishable trade item. Same reasons that before Prohibition in the US, 70% of the national apple crop was marketed as hard cider.
Even in good years, nut harvests are labor intensive. If you've got someone on your work force out with a broken leg, or whatever- you are going to lose a large proportion of the crop. Pigs will harvest it for you.
Which is not to say it's all easy. You must become an expert swineherd. A distant neighbor here heard about the "acorn" fed pata negra pigs, and the insane prices paid for it (over $150/lb sometimes)- went out and turned 80 some hogs into an unused oak woodlot, with a big acorn crop.
In 2 days, they were all dead. I'm not sure why- but there are a dozen possible reasons- chief suspect for me is the acorns were from red-black oaks, not white- black oak acorns are considerably more toxic. Pigs probably could have adapted- but not all at once.
The guy who did this was an idiot, of course- he insanely assumed all he had to do was follow the directions in the magazine- anyone who was already feeding 80 pigs should have known better.
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The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency may soon deport an immigrant father of seven who has lived in Montana for two decades, according to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) press release.
ICE agents detained Audemio Orozco-Ramirez when he checked in at a routine immigration appointment in Billings, Montana in August 2017, Yellowstone Public Radio reported. For the past five months, he has been held at the Denver Contract Detention Center, an immigration detention center used to hold people waiting for court proceedings in Aurora, Colorado.
“We had a phone call this morning from him saying that he might be deported within this week or next, he’s not sure,” his son Juan Orozco-Ramirez recently told Montana Public Radio (MTPR).
In a statement provided to ThinkProgress Thursday, an ICE spokesperson said Orozco-Ramirez’s status was pending “final disposition of proceedings before the immigration courts.”
Orozco-Ramirez came to the United States two decades ago, Great Falls Tribune reported. He was removed four times between September 2011 and November 2011 for illegally entering the United States at the U.S.-Mexico border, ICE spokesperson Carl Rusnok told ThinkProgress based on an official statement released last year. According to the Great Falls Tribune, ICE detained Orozco-Ramirez during a traffic stop in Montana in 2013. An inmate reportedly raped him while in ICE custody at a Boulder jail in Jefferson County. The jail settled a civil lawsuit for $125,000 in 2016 and “did not admit fault,” ACLU said. He was released from ICE custody on an order of supervision in October 2013, which requires some immigrants to report to an ICE office on a mandatory schedule, but that was terminated in August 2017 when he went in for his routine check-in.
“Orozco-Ramirez claimed that he was drugged and sexually assaulted while he was housed in Jefferson County (Montana) Jail in October 2013,” Rusnok said. “These claims against Jefferson County, Montana, were investigated by federal and state agencies; the results of these investigations concluded that Audemio Orozco-Ramirez was not drugged or sexually assaulted.”
Yet Orozco-Ramirez’s former attorney Shahid Haque claimed that video of the sexual assault was deleted.
“There’s no adequate explanation for the missing footage,” Haque recently told MTPR. “Their explanation as to why there’s no footage during the night in question was that they claimed motion sensors made the cameras turn off. But we were able to show, without a doubt, that the video cuts out while there’s motion.”
“He is the sole financial provider for all seven children,” Haque told MTPR last August. “Without his financial support it’s going to be difficult for the family to visit their father until he’s returned to Montana.”
Orozco-Ramirez’s children range between ages four and 19, according to the ACLU, six of whom are U.S. citizens. The oldest is a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient who was given temporary deportation relief and work authorization thanks to an Obama-era executive action. But he may not be able to travel to visit his father if he’s deported. That’s because the Trump administration has effectively ended advance parole, the only way for DACA recipients to exit and re-enter the United States.
“My mom doesn’t want us to go out there because she just had one of her brothers murdered by the bad people,” Juan told MTPR in reference to the thought of having to visit his father in Mexico if he gets deported. “Yeah, he was… it was bad he was decapitated, shot sixteen times, tortured, burned up.”
The ICE agency’s arrest of Orozco-Ramirez during his routine immigration check-in is set against the background of an administration steadfast in its commitment to broaden the scope of “criminal” violations punishable by deportation. Many immigrants, including people with green cards, who committed and served out criminal sentences decades ago are now finding themselves in ICE custody. The ICE agency detained prominent immigrant-rights activist Ravi Ragbir in New York City earlier this month for a 2001 conviction for wire fraud. Jean Montrevil, another immigrant rights activist who was convicted of possession of cocaine and served 11 years in prison, was deported to Haiti last week. And ICE agents recently detained Dr. Lukasz R. Niec, a Polish immigrant who holds a green card and lives in Michigan over “administrative violations” for misdemeanors he committed in 1992 as a teenager.
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Early retirement due to occupational injury: who is at risk?
As the workforce is rapidly ageing, research on the consequences of occupational injuries in older workers is becoming more important. One adverse outcome unique to older workers, early retirement, has significant negative social and economic consequences for workers and employers. Although linked to poor worker health, the roles of workplace factors and occupational injury have not been well-defined. Changes in retirement plans attributed to an occupational injury were studied in a population-based sample of 1,449 New Hampshire workers aged <or=55, using a mailed survey. Questions addressed pre-and post-injury health, job satisfaction, work capacity, nature and severity of injury, medical care, employer response, work status, pain, and financial problems. Eleven percent planned to retire earlier due to their work injury, and their outcomes were significantly worse. In a multivariate model, pre-injury dissatisfaction with the job and with medical care, and poor physical and mental health status were related to intent to retire early. These factors may represent opportunities for early identification and intervention with individuals at high risk for poor post-injury outcomes. Longitudinal studies are needed to confirm the importance of these preliminary findings.
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Tells you how she wishes she were your age Gives you to much homework to enjoy your life
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I got the book The Making of a Slayer for Christmas this year and there was a really beautiful letter from Amber Benson in the very beginning that I wanted to share.
“If there’s one thing I can say about my time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it’s that Alyson Hannigan was right: I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
I remember the exact conversation.
Alyson – who will forever be enshrined in the science fiction and fantasy lexicon as Buffy Summer’s best friend, Willow Rosenberg – was trying to explain to me how I was now part of something that wasn’t just entertainment, but a bona fide way of life. Of course, I had no idea what she was talking about. I was just there to do a couple of episodes of this sci-fi television show and that was it.
At least that’s what I thought – little did I know back then how much this “sci-fi television show” was going to change my life.
Because Alyson was right: Buffy is so much more than just entertainment. It’s a way of being that transcends its medium. It’s opened minds, changed hearts and shown people there are different and better ways to live – and it didn’t just do it at home in the United States. No, Buffy became a worldwide phenomenon.
Without preaching from a soapbox, it tackled the day’s hot-button issues, making grand statements about gender, sex, violence and inequality – without talking down to its audience. The writing was clever, the relationships felt real, and there was a least one character each of us could identify with. In a nutshell, Buffy was smart, and it made you feel smart for “getting it.”
But it wasn’t just intelligence that marked Buffy as something different. In a world rigged to make us feel alone and insignificant, Buffy gave us hope. It made us feel as though we were a part of something bigger than ourselves, that we belonged.
If someone like Joss Whedon could find his way in Hollywood; if he could create an imperfect human heroine like Buffy Summers and get someone as cool as Sarah Michelle Gellar to inhabit her, if this little mid-season replacement nobody cared about could get (and stay) on the air while, at the same time, growing a large and devoted audience of rabid fans . . . well, then maybe the Hellmouth was the place to be.
Even now, so many years after the end of the show, there are still new fans finding their way into Sunnydale. Buffy doesn’t care that they’re late to the game. She’s’ been waiting for them – and she accepts all of them exactly as they are. Besides, no matter how many times you may have seen an episode, there’s no such thing as an expert. I can guarantee there are always new and intriguing things to discover in Buffy; things that you somehow missed on previous viewings.
So as you dive into this lovely book, be prepared to lose yourself in its pages. As all initiated know: Once the Buffyverse has you in its clutches, it won’t ever let you go.”
– Amber Benson
I though all of us as Buffy fans could appreciate this. I hope you all can get the book. It’s absolutely amazing.
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That is just an amazing, lovely letter from Amber, and thank you for sharing it! I love what she says about the message of “hope”.
Even now, so many years after the end of the show, there are still new fans finding their way into Sunnydale. Buffy doesn’t care that they’re late to the game. She’s’ been waiting for them – and she accepts all of them exactly as they are.
I’m a newbie fan of the show this year, just discovering it and this astonishing fandom, and Buffy is my favorite character, so those words struck a very deep chord in me. Kudos, Ms Benson.
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Doesn’t sound too likely in the Destoryermen World Japan would be pretty cold and the Grik don’t work well in cold. Nearly as bad as the Peshawar Lancers World. So going forward from that unless there are other cold weather Grik we have not met before don’t think it would happen.
I was sniffing around the site & saw “Uncategorized” under the Categories heading, got curious since we never see any posts there. It turns out it’s the General Discussions page, but with no entries & no way to make an entry. There’s a part of the page listing # of comments & if you click that, you come here.
Just saw, “Posted March 17, 2016 by Taylor Anderson in category “Uncategorized, under the ROB cover above. I’ll see what’s there next.
Although I’ve only been reading the series for the last couple of years and am currently only half way through my second reading of the series it has got me thinking.
As posted above if the British came through with the French/Spanish/German/Italian forces and did not join them and managed to escape they may have found other groups that crossed over.
My thought is that a Crimean War convoy may have crossed over. Two or three transports, plus stores ships and maybe two or three warships might have crossed and found themselves in the Grik free north. As wives (normally 1 in 10) would have come with the troops there would be some say 3,000 men and 2-300 women and maybe even children crossed they would have been able to take over as the major modern force so could provide a refuge for the 20th century British and with that a major pain for the Axis forces. Plus the Axis forces one must assume also found human’s or ‘Cats’ to provide labour and support for their little empire.
And that also got me thinking that the Nussie’s may have also found others say those from 17th century colonies or even the AWI which again as the major modern force could have given them some major advantages.
Could be. The Black Sea was sailed by a whole lot of cultures, so it’s not hard to imagine a hypothetical HMS Resistance forming a Persian-Byzantine-Varangian-Turkish-Russian coalition and giving the League a severe migraine.
No-go on the East Coast – RoB says the NUS doesn’t want much to do with them because they’re tribal and xenophobic, and there’s not much reason for readers to doubt them yet.
Plus taking onto account that the Byzantine Coalition could have access to other ships that came through at the time of World War One or just before which could give them sufficient modern knowledge to support the British forces in 1940. With Battle wagons plus say a Ark Royal type carrier with Gloster Gladiators aircraft which out of date would be fairly easy to re-create they would be able keep the League off balance for some time.
Equally the League could have access to the descendants of Barbary pirates, the US forces sent in the early 1800’s to crush the pirates or even British troops & colonists from Tangiers in the 1680’s.
Then we have General Halik in Persia what if his ‘people’ make contact and after their involvement with Niwa and the Alliance might agree to support Byzantine Coalition and make things really hot for the League
Hey everybody, I’d appreciate it if you’d do me a favor. My direct contact feature has not been working. I even tested it myself. It is supposed to be fixed so I would appreciate it if some of you would test it for me. Thanks!
By the way, here’s a chance to make a real-time contribution: I need the colors of French and Italian tracers. I’ve found very vague references here and there, but I’m not satisfied. Anybody know for sure?
Sure. For French ships it was ship dependent for larger shells. Each capital ship was firing a specific color. Each shell had holes at the base to store colored powder. It’s the main cause for the premature explosion of a shell at Dakar as the shell was weakened by the drilled hole.
For smaller caliber it was red or white depending on the batch and/or the supplier.
Thanks, that’s what I thought. Looking for small arms tracer colors. And yes, they are less accurate at range due to weight variations as well as other things. Huh, you’re right. I forgot about the variable large caliber tracer compounds to distinguish whose fire was going where. US used dye to color the splashes. Good and bad. Useless at night of course, without spotlights—which could be good and bad too. ……..is it just me or have we already had this conversation? Ha! I get so many things running around in my head I sometimes think I need a brain enema.
I also had a check: tracers were not used all the time. After WW1 the idea was to use them as few as possible and to prefer registered fire to prevent observation.
Technically some incendiary/tracer bullets were also available (phosphorus) but they were dangerous to store and use (any leak means that you will get a sure fire). On naval ships and/or for a landing this is a big no-no.
That’s what brain enemas are for Matthieu. To flush unneeded (or unpleasant) things out of your head. Like you haven’t never given the rest of us reason to need one! As for tracer use, they never stopped using them at sea throughput the war. And not just in the pacific. During naval ops in the med, as late as landing in southern France, ships were chastised for shooting at enemy planes in the dark, particularly from blacked out anchorages. The tracers drew straight lines to their source. They were supposed to wait until they were attacked.
Large caliber tracers never went out of use in the pacific, even after virtually every ship’s fire was radar guided. Read any account of surigao strait. My favorite described salvos that looked like “ brightly lit passenger trains going over a hill “
I know nothing I believe is a translation of the German phrase: “Ich fas nicht” which the equivalent of the English “I don’t know”. Literally it’s “I know not” or “I hold not” (fas may be misspelled as I can’t find my German dictionary.) The phrase may be idiomatic to some dialects of German and not others. Anybody with more knowledge on the phrase jump in here.
Prize a signed Advanced Reader’s Copy ARC of “Pass of Fire” from Taylor Anderson
Write a transfer story. Yep you decide what comes out of the storm, US warship, Lemurian Love boat, Japanese destroyer allied with the United States in WW 2, a small fleet no more than five ships, or whatever. Met by a Lemurian captain who served on USS Walker or Mahan in 1942 to commanding DD 25 USS Zambezi River in 1945. You name your character’s and choose the sex, and how much of his backstory you wish to write.
Minimum five pages on your word processing software, and as large as will fit on FaceBook if you are long winded. I’d shoot for ten or so pages 😉 Save as a file on our Fan Fiction Page:
Say, that whole thing in Devil’s Due, with Bekiaa being thought of as a “savage” and a “barbarian” – do Republic Cats see other Mi-Anakka colonies the same way Romans would see Gauls or Scythians? Are their arts and sciences really that far ahead, or is it just bigotry?
I got to thinking. (Yes, I know, not that again!). In Pass of Fire it looks as though they’re going to try & take the pass. The Doms will fight back of course & the Leopardo may lend a hand (per the cover painting). A naval battle IN the pass will take time & restrict the maneuvering of the various ships & Leopardo in particular. It strikes me that they’ll still be fighting when the tide turns & starts running through the pass. It’ll be fascinating to see how Taylor describes it. Given the shape of the eastern shore line funneling in the tide, I think the bore will be significant. Slower steam & sailing ships may be driven ashore or onto shoals. Damaged & crippled ships may be overwhelmed entirely. Given some warning from Nancy’s by radio the allies may be able to get to sheltered bays, but it’ll still disrupt the battle & be a race to see who recovers the initiative first. I’m really stoked for it.
The pass itself looks wide enough. It would work, until Leopardo got into the mix. A line of slow ships is an excellent target for torpedoes. I wonder if any of the allies Eastern fleet mount torpedoes?
Don’t think there are ANY torpedo craft. Need some MTB’s fast. Teach Nussies how to build then, and and maybe E-boats.Shallow draft would be less affected by tidal bore, correct? And didn’t Oldendorf have PT’s at Surigao Strait? Set up and ICE plant in New Orleans.
But what they need is some P-1’s, even the older ones, for recon and harassing Doms. Maybe even a Washing Machine Charlie or two. With Leets promoted, perhaps Silva could be elevated to the Head of Dirty Tricks department.
Most of the MTBs were sunk in the attack on Kurokawa’s base (I think there’s only one left). They are quick to build, but it would still be months before the eastern fleet saw any… unless they already planned for it & sent a squadron over a while back in one of the floating dry docks.
Steve W: Touched a nerve, have I? There’s a happy middle ground between “build a dozen Bismarcks by next year” and “build more of the same and wait for a miracle to happen;” five books ago, you’d have said USS Ellis was a waste of resources too.
Steve M/Lou: There’s two Walker-class DDs about to launch, Mahan, Ellis and Gray are still fit for duty, and Walker should be done by next book. Even without MTBs, Gray and 2-3 more should be enough to choke the Pass with torps.
Motor torpedo boats are hardly optimal ships for trans-ocean campaign. And wasting torpedoes on Dom’s wooden frigates is just not cost-effective. NUS have rifle muzzle-loaders, which are more than enough to dealt with Dom’s ships.
With all respect, but the best Dom’s could have as armor, is wrought iron plates. Probably even multi-layered thin plates, bolted together. And it is added to their existing designs, which means that the ammount of armor and its thickness is very limited. We do not see any “proper” Dom’s ironckads yet.
Against muzzle-loading rifles, such armor is of very limited use. It could stop shells, but not solid shots or Pallizers.
Justin, it would depend on the book’s time frame.
If they’re assaulting the pass within a month or two of the Zambezi campaign, they won’t have anything but what’s already there. The allies essentially shot their bolt there navy wise & will have to keep what ships are left to support the land campaign.
If it’s months from ROB’s ending, then yes, they may have a DD or two there, or Reddy may bring the Gray over. It’ll take time though, 16,500 miles from the Zambezi (give or take a few hundred miles) to Panama at 10 knots (cruising speed) is 58 days. If they staged tankers along the route ahead of time, they could reduce that. At 20 knots, it still takes four weeks or so. The new ships are faster, but you can’t run at full speed continually without damaging your engines. Leaving from Baalkpan cuts about 5,500 miles, but is still a long haul.
Alexey, I think if they did have something with torpedoes mounted, it would be handy to have if/when the Leopardo enters the fight for the Doms. Her guns have comparable range to the 4″ allied weapons. She also mounts torpedoes & if a target presents itself (like an Empire liner) may use them. If heavily engaged you’re shooting everything you have at multiple targets. IIRC even with superior guns, the allied fleet took a pounding the last time they engaged the Doms. As far as MTBs go, they’d make the voyage either in a floating dry dock or stowed in a transport of some sort. They’re not suited for open ocean voyages, but could be useful in the confines of the pass.
From a naval standpoint, the Grik are done. The Union rules the waves at Africa. Gray should be sent to America to support the assault on the pass of fire. She would be best used there. The thing is, tactically the best thing to use there would be something like the armored barges used in the crimean war. The pass wont have much room for maneuver and it will be a slugfest against the forts. Armor barges and deck them out in guns and get in a shooting match. Gray isn’t heavily armored but her guns would be more useful there than at Africa where the fight will quickly move inland and too far for naval fire support.
Lou, the main Allied problem is that they are constantly get involved into the slugging matches, using the ship, that are simply not suited for that. Its another demonstration, why the “stay out of range and pound ’em with air power” was not the universal anwser until nukes and guided missiles came into play.
Well, Taylor can’t put all the details in the books, or we’d end up with 20-pound volumes like Clancy or JRR Tolkien. And since he’s more ordered than a lot of authors, he leaves a good framework to fill in.
OK, I’m the logistics nut. It makes more sense to me to teach powerboat building to allies who are familiar with oil refining & burning, propeller shafts, and coastal operations. They have wood a plenty; ship them a DE full of engines and a Clipper full of blueprints. Maybe Garrety can take a load of Nussies back to the Republic (I think it’s closer). But it’s going to be a long war, and a defensive navy close to its supply and industrial bases, can wage a pretty expensive war of attrition. Remember, the LOT doesn’t have an adequate industrial base. And by building up the Nussies, a peop;e with a solid idea of democracy, it might make them a little more appealing ally than the Doms or LOT, to the East Coast unknowns.
Matt’s right the Grik Navy has gone the way of the Peruvian and Ecuadorian navies. Esshk (for as long as he’s around before someone slips him a shiv or a Mickey) isn’t a big fan of the navy except to use up what’s left. The Hij may be getting a little uppity for his tastes; speaking of tastes, we know where the more vocal of the Hij may have gone.. gone for cookpots every one.
Which brings me back home to Walkers. They’ve got speed, range, but can defend shorelines, especially if backed up by air and coastal artillery. The LOT, on the other hand, doesn’t have a decent Caribbean base unless they seize Cuba, unlikely since they don’t have the power to project. All they sent to the Indian Ocean were one-way trippers.I vote for more Walkers, maybe a post-Walker design, with maybe a few Porters or Flashies thrown in for good measure. Yhe Union has to bottle up the Pope, if only to safeguard the Venezuelan oil fields.
I wonder if we’re going to find out more on the Mediterranean situation in Pass of Fire. Find out why they can’t or won’t commit their fleet to wiping out our heroes. The only thing I can come up with is their squall event was so large, it not only pulled most of their invasion fleet through, but also a good part of a British force coming to intercept it. The Brits may have linked up with another in-place civilization on the northern shores of the Med somewhere. They would probably have some of the refitted Queen Elizabeth class BBs &/or a BC or two. I’d love to see this beauty still operational after receiving a 1930s refit.https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/TigerSP1674.png/1200px-TigerSP1674.png
Could be. The Bosphorus and Dardanelles probably resemble canals right now; any civilization hiding behind them is going to be a real pain in the ass for the League to dislodge, especially with a couple of transplanted battlewagons to back them up.
Fun fact: the Renown class was originally supposed to be more R and QE battleships, but the contract was cancelled, then resurrected as a set of battlecruisers.
The Grik are in Persia for sure & probably in Turkey as well. Any civilization there would have probably been eaten by now. If the Dardanelles & Bosphorus are passible, the northern coasts Black Sea would be almost ideal for them. Too cold for the Grik, a defendable choke point to get to them & access to the Ploesti oil fields for fuel. If they aren’t passible for large ships, then I’d shoot for the Adriatic Sea area. Maybe Venice or Trieste.
Could be too, but they’d want to keep their ships… and then the Adriatic’s right next door to Tripoli.
My guess, they’d camp out with Teuta’s Ardiaei, right beside the mouth of the Adriatic and surrounded by mountains. Line the coast with mines and batteries, keep a running patrol of torpedo boats, garrison the the Dinarides against flanking invasions, and Bob’s your uncle.
I get they’d want to fortify the Straits of Otranto & patrol out of one of the nearby bays (like Vlore), but I don’t think they’d want their main base exposed like that. I’d be thinking defense in depth back around Trieste. They’d need to have hooked up with a good sized civilization to garrison The Dinaric Alps & mountains to the south. Aircraft & ground patrols & hidden observation posts with radios would be easier.
My uncle’s name was Leroy though, so who knows.
Yeah, but the Med Fleet’d need a good-sized civilization no matter what; the League came equipped for a land war and the RN did not.
AFAIK, we’ve only been talking about a sea-based threat so far. If the fascists decide to pull a Yamashita and attack from western Italy, Venice is history without an Apennine Line. From there it’s just three river crossings to Trieste.
That’s why I’d shoot for Trieste or maybe Rijeka. Although if there is a civilization in the area, the LOT would have to fight their way through it to get to either Trieste or Rijeka. The Brits could back up their allies with some dismounted light guns for towed artillery pieces & MGs. Defended river crossings are tough & to get there they’d have to cross the Apennines which would tear up their mechanized units & make getting heavy artillery through a bitch. The easier way would be a landing in the Genoa area, where the mountains are smaller hills & just a short hop to the Po River valley. From there, it’s a straight shot to the Adriatic coast. If there is a civilization there though, that’s prime territory & will probably be occupied. They’d have to fight their way through the locals backed by British support.
By now the Brits should be well established with the locals & have some industrial capacity, say at about the level of the Republic. They’d have more men & time to spread knowledge around than our guys did.
It’d be cool if the locals were a mixture of humans & Gentaa. Maybe the main Gentaa populations are in Europe & the Republic Gentaa are descendants of an exploration fleet caught in the Cape storm. The humans could be a mix of Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, maybe even some Minoans.
The surname could have morphed over the years to better fit the norms of the republic. Spellings do change after all.
Also Jin is an anglicized version of the mandarin which uses an entirely different writing system. And all members of the Chinese language family are tonal in nature so Jin doesn’t really convey the proper pronunciation anyways. When the Chinese ancestors crossed over the various systems for anglicizing mandarin didn’t exist, nor did anyone in the republic speak English at the time. So I think it’s fair to say they found their own way. To my knowledge the Chinese writing system is not used in the republic so the sounds had to be converted into the Latin alphabet in some way.
One of our members over on the Association has made a library of articles to research Destroyermen subjects he writes:
Johnathan Simpson
just wanted to post what might be some useful reference material..if anyone needs something specific, i’m sitting on around a Tb and a half of material. if you need a subject, just ask…
50 degree temps in Northern New England (after xub-zero last week) and thinking of summer, when a new volume will appear… Pam relents and marries Silva, a drunken Larry makes an unfortunate snack of Petey at the reception, and hopefully, Gravois gets it.
Reread some ancient history stuff a while ago. Given the ridiculous amount of succession crises and rebellions that hereditary rule creates, I’m surprised the Republic stills exists, much less keeps the Grik out.
Good point, historically, but the Republic is a little weird, and fairly complicated. It’s implied it took a lot of blood to build it, over the centuries, but once all that was over–say at least a century ago–there was never a large standing army. No need for one, since the Grik were reluctant to invade an inhospitable climate, and there was no place for the Republic to expand and become a “proper” empire. Most pre-war legions were composed more of regional reservists than anything else, one reason it took so long to gather the legions in the first place. The overall ruler, originally Caesar, increasingly “Kaiser,” is hereditary–to a degree–and must be confirmed by the Senate. If a candidate is unsuitable–and there are a variety of criteria for this–then other members of the “royal” family are considered. Because of different cultural influences, Repub royals enjoy a measure of respect and traditional reverence those in Rome never did, simply due to birth. Once a Kaiser is installed, only a 3/4 majority of Senators can remove him or her. He or she has fairly broad powers, but the Senate holds the purse strings. All this works, and manages to maintain the consent of the governed because everybody still needs to keep their constituents happy. Senators are selected by collections of regional electors, (call them People’s Tribunes, though I’ve never decided whether to actually call them that. It hasn’t mattered), who serve as a kind of electoral college, and who in turn are directly selected by the populace. On the other hand, they can be replaced at any time, and a sufficient number of them can recall and replace a Senator. As you can imagine, this would result in a lot of petty scheming and shifting alliances, but wouldn’t be as crazy or capricious as a direct democracy while eventually–theoretically–allowing the common folk to get their way. On the other hand, without imperial conquests sending tribute for a bread dole or something like that, a vibrant economy and employment is more important to the common folk than “bread and circuses” and the people would frown on their leaders blowing tax money on stuff like that–resulting in the recall of Tribunes, even Senators. By the same token, an unpopular war could do the same. One reason Senate funding and support for the Kaiser’s buildup was slow. Not that the majority of the people probably weren’t ready to finally do something about the Grik, but it would take time to convince them, and more time to convince the Tribunes and Senators they WERE convinced–while, like all politicians, they’d be worried how the resultant hardships, combat losses, and increased taxes might eventually turn public opinion, especially after the war is over. Make sense? Not perfect by any means, but probably pretty stable. At least in normal times.
Almost guaranteed. A Ming Dynasty contingent landing there & encountering a “monkey” civilization? They would consider them less than human to start & probably try to enslave or at least take over. After that has shaken out over some centuries, the Roman arrival, with all their arrogance & attitudes towards barbarians would set off another round of strife. Integrating those cultures into the existing Lemurian & Gentaa civilization would engender some serious indigestion. After those two incidents, they would be understandably leery of any new arrivals.
Chinese involvement with the Lemurians predates the republic, Phoenicians, Plutonic Egyptians, and possibly unmentioned others arrived earlier and the Gentaa myth of being a hybrid human-Lemurian cross. They arrived long before the arrival of the 10th century Romans (about 1,000 years prior to the 1940s) and they establish the republic. More recent arrivals join the republic, various Black Africans, any recent Ming Chinese residents, and the crew and prisoners of SMS Amerika.
the crazy thing is as the republic is very old I suspect that they have lost their early history’s. The Carthaginians and the other seafaring races around 1500 BC in our era are not mentioned (at least not by taylor).
10th century Romans? I have some rereading to do. They must have been from yet another AU, since the western Roman Empire fell in the 5th century. If we’re talking the eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), by the 10th century, they wouldn’t really look much like the classic Roman army, or be organized the same way. The Byzantine symbol does look suspiciously familiar though.https://i.pinimg.com/564x/2c/ef/da/2cefda8a2e83f22024d556f786891d84.jpg
Justin, thanks for the info. I think Taylor did settle on a Republic flag a few months ago. It was a merging of several concepts (yours, Nestor’s, Charles, mine & the drunk down the block).https://www.deviantart.com/loupy59/art/Republic-Battle-Flag-Provisional-v3-765076389
As far as who has shown up down south, if they ran into a strakka when they arrived, they could basically be blown there from anywhere & any period. I would have given better odds to a Phoenician or Carthaginian arrival than the Romans though. They weren’t much of a sea power.
The Romans had traders as far as Tanzania, so it’s not entirely implausible.
The map has the Romans settling on the west coast though, so it probably wasn’t that. Augustus commissioned a couple of expeditions to Lake Chad, and they left a garrison; perhaps nine centuries later, some emperor says “I want the legion on the Lacus Hippopotamus to journey to the Horn” and the poor bastards end up fighting dinosaurs all the way to Alex-aandra?
No reason to believe that the later periods were any less violent, either.
South Africa is temperate and not much larger than Ontario, so rebellions and economic reforms would be less of a problem than in Egypt/Rome/China. And the legionari-soldiers have a say in politics, so no Pompeys or Antonys.
But what if Caesar dies with no heir? Or the royal family starts a “heated” inheritance dispute? And why is the Senate allowed to confirm Caesar in the first place? There’s a whole lot of civil wars – and at least one Magna Carta – that we haven’t been made privy to yet.
While we’re at it, does Nig-Taak have a Kaiserina, or a Kronprinz/prinzessin? Might be a problem if a League bomber gets lucky and it turns out he doesn’t…
You’re welcome. I always enjoy the reaction to info I’ve never yet been able to find space for in the books. It took a lot of contemplation and it’s fun to watch you guys think about it too. Who knows building the republic might make a fun book someday.
I went to the book store today to see if ROB was out in paperback yet. I was trying to find out what the corrected specs were for the two row radials. No luck.
However, I saw DD & glanced at it to see whether our corrections made it in. They did. Pretty cool to see our inputs on paper! I didn’t check them all, as the page counts are different than the hardcover. I just found some of the easy ones. Yes, I could have gotten the Kindle version of ROB, but at $14, I’ll wait until it comes down in line with the rest of the series.
Y’all’s input is always appreciated. As I’ve said before, I think the way the specs get goofed up is that, when changes don’t match those in previous style sheets, appointed copyeditors default to earlier style sheets and change stuff back–all in a genuine, good faith effort to preserve continuity! This has been a never-ending battle. And even when they acknowledge my revisions for the paperbacks, they don’t always change the STYLE SHEETS so the same errors return again in later books. Very frustrating. In an ideal world, I would’ve had the same copyeditors from start to finish, and they would’ve recognized that the cast of characters and specs would evolve from book to book, but it just doesn’t work that way. In a sense, we’re all actually pretty lucky they let me include that (pretty big) chunk of stuff in the books at all, since extra pages (and ink!) means extra cost for them, for no return that fits their business model. Don’t forget, they didn’t even let me include the cutaway of Walker in the first few books! Now they don’t even squeal when I sometimes rather egregiously abandon the wordcount limit. FYI, my contracted wordcount is @ 150,000. The last few books have been @ 180,000+–and I sure don’t get paid more for those extra words! Ha!
So ultimately, yeah, considering that in the grand scheme of things, my complaints are like shooting BBs at a mountain fish, we should all be grateful they make ANY changes I recommend, and I’m sure grateful to you for helping me catch them. Plenty of cause for satisfaction for all who contribute here.
Just for splits and wiggles, started picking up new fiction off the library shelf and lo and behold, it seems like most authors have idiots for art directors. From bullets being fired cartridge and all towards the target, to a picture of the blond heroine (unfortunately, she’s brunette). Lou and Nestor, you guys could be making a fortune in the art business.
Pretty close, I imagine. I’ve been lucky that they occasionally incorporate a few of my suggestions. My greatest achievement came with my very first book, however, when I didn’t have any pull at all. What do you think of when you hear the words WWII destroyer? Probably a Fletcher, right? Well that’s what they tried to put on the first cover. Almost as bad as that Russian cover Alexey showed us that had a Japanese DD on it. Anyway, I threw an absolute walleyed fit and showered them with pics of 4-stackers, insisting that it was essential that readers see that on the cover. To my amazement, they caved, and I think I was right.
I’d rather see your handiwork than a Golden Dragon buffet of unrelated plot elements, or a Walker that looks like Tugboat Annie. Or perspective that looks like it was viewed through the bottom of a bottle. Eh, we buy it for Taylor’s work. But now that I’m into buying the hardcovers (lending library patrons refuse to wait a year), the dust jackets just slip away, lost forever…
Thanks for the vote of confidence (aw shucks!). Had I not been compelled to dedicate most of my waking hours to my day job to pay bills I guess I might have made some effort into taking art commissions. After all, the more time you dedicate to it the more efficient you become until you’re able to increase your output and visibility but more to the point, monetize it in a more reliable and consistent manner.
Anyway, I used to work for a book publisher and at that place cover artists were rarely given the chance to learn what the story is about. We had a romance imprint where the cover art usually consisted of bare chested Fabio striking a pose, replace the hanky with a rose but just rehash the same template for all titles.
A wire-controlled glider, launched & guided from parent plane. Just the most primitive gyro autopilot onboard (mainly to control the roll), and two simple electrical motors/solenoids to control rudder and elevators through the polarized relay. Onboard the parent plane, operator controlled glider through the kilometer-long wire, by simply connecting the glider servomotors with parent plane dynamo through the polarized relay. When no power is applied, rudder/elevator is put into a neutral position by simple springs.
Basically, it’s mid-XIX century remote control technology. Four wires in cable, two servomotors, one dynamo. Two wires to command “rudder left/rudder right” (by powering the servomotor & choosing the straight/reversed polarity), two to command “elevators up/down”. Ailerons are under gyro control all time.
Would the Allies have the know how to build a paintball gun, could it be mounted on a Fleashooter, and would it be safe to shoot it at another Fleashooter? If yes to all three, it seems like a good ATC training item.
They might be able to build one, but I don’t know if they’d be able to make the ball part holding the paint strong enough to withstand the launch velocity needed for long range work. Most paint guns are low velocity affairs, but for air to air training, you’d need to up that quite a bit to get the range needed. If they could, it would probably punch holes in the doped fabric of the Fleashooters. It might even hit hard enough to shatter the windshield & damage the wooden propeller. If I was them, I’d have to pass on the idea.
Yeah, the way they did it back in the day was to have a plane tow a banner way behind it and have the others shoot at it. Not ideal, can’t really learn deflection shooting that way. But without simulators or something akin to miles gear you can’t really train for that realistically anyways.
Drones, guys. Target drones. The lion’s share of US military anti-air efficiency later in the war was due to Radioplane target drones, which allowed gunners & pilots to be trained against maneuvering targets.
Well, as a probable half-measure – target glider with primitive gyro autopilot (1910s tech), towed into air by the plane. On altitude, glider would be released & then used as target. Cheap, but better than towed target.
Actually the army developed frangible bullets for the .30-06 cartridge and reinforced the structure on P-63’s (the ones that weren’t sent to the Soviet Union)among others and used them as manned targets for the trainee pilots to shoot at. The round was originally call the Cal.30 Ball frangible T44 and later type classified as the Ball Frangible M22. It used a 107 grain bullet composed of 50/50 powdered lead and Bakelite with a mv of 1360 fps from the machine gun trainer M9. Production in the later part of the war was 30 million rounds per months. See “History of Modern US Military Small Arms Ammunition Vol II 1940-1945 pages 87-91. Good project for Baalkpan Arsenal.
“Actually the army developed frangible bullets for the .30-06 cartridge and reinforced the structure on P-63’s (the ones that weren’t sent to the Soviet Union)among others and used them as manned targets for the trainee pilots to shoot at. ”
Problem is, that Alliance could not adopt that method – their machines aren’t metal and could not be armored much. So, towed targets & drones remain the only possible solutions.
Using frangible ball on the drone would reduce the damage and probably allow them to be used more than once. At this point using a drone one and shooting it down would be very expensive training. The frangible ball would break up on major structural members or the engine rather than causing serious damage. Yeas it would go through fabric, but that can be repaired or replaced easily. Wasting an engine or the radio control equipment on a single flight would be a prohibited waste of resources for the allies at this point. The army also had a method of coating the bullet tip with colored inks which would leave a colored mark on the aircraft of target sleeve so they could tell whose hits were which. When they get to that point frangible ball could be used for direct fire on tanks in training with sub caliber devices in AT guns or other artillery.
Target drone technology and command guided munitions actually arrived at about the same time. Both the Germans and Americans fielded radio controlled bombs during the war. The Fritz X famously sunk an Italian battleship after Italy surrendered.
So Taylor what books/series you have finished would your recommend to those who love your books? And guys what books or series you have finished that most remind you of the Destroyermen series? My favorite, other than Destroyermen, was SM Sterling’s Island in the sea to time series where the coastguard training ship Eagle and the Island of Nantucket go back in time.
I can also recommend the old master Robert Heinlein who’s been dead for over 30 years and yes all Heinlein’s works were political. Also check out P.T.Duetermann and D.C.Poyer, they both write contemporary or historical naval fiction. Dueterman has written some especially good fiction set during WW2. He usually interleaves the technology and tactics into the story in an interesting and central but not distracting way. Hans Helmut Kirst used in experiences in the German Army from 1933 to 1945 to write novels. In non-fiction read Storm of Steel (Im Stahlgewittern)by Ernst Junger, it’s his memoir of the Great War. I will warn you that the English translations were usually done by Brits who did their best to make a German come off as a public school Englishman.
That’s probably a good description of Heinlein’s adult works. His juveniles didn’t have much free love in them but plenty of libertarianism in them. One of the first writers of military sf was Phillip Francis Nowland in “Armageddon 2419 AD” the original Buck Rogers novel in 1928. It’s a good read and nothing like the later cartoon strip or the TV series.
Heinlein’s early stuff–Red Planet, Farmer in the Sky, Rocket Ship Galileo, etc., is what got me interested in sci-fi. Didn’t like his later stuff nearly as much, and didn’t discover it until I was already enjoying other authors I liked more–without the pornography
Justin, do you object to Mr. Ringo being “political” or do you object to his particular brand of “political”? I see Alexy objects to his particular brand. David Weber and John Ringo collaborated on the Prince Roger series. Taylor and Mr. Weber’s works are just as political as John Ringo’s and IMO have the same preference for modernism and its enlightenment values that John Ringo has. Mr. Weber and Taylor write works that if movies would be PG-13, whereas Mr. Ringo writes works that would be R or TV-Ma. None of the three are writing in a post-modernism vein.
It depends, are all his books like Troy Rising? Because if so, I’d counter with how Mr Weber and Mr Anderson realize that they’re writing stories, not manifestos or Author Tracts. They don’t do any blatant race bashing either.
With all respect, but Ringo problem is not the politic tones as themselves – as you correctly noted,
” Taylor and Mr. Weber’s works are just as political as John Ringo’s and IMO have the same preference for modernism and its enlightenment values that John Ringo has. ”
– but the style in which John Ringo basically shove his political views down the reader throat. Lack of tact, I dare say. Also (IMHO), because he worried more about heroes fighting the political agenda, rather than opposing characters, his bad guys are rather… dull and two-dimensional.
“Prince Roger” series is especially notorious, because the bad guys are so hypocritical, that basically they threw away their own agenda for more hypocrisy. The Saints who are ecologically-opposed of the human colonization of other planes are also living on the other planes, because Ringo wanted them to be as hypocritical as possible, forget about making sense. If he sacrificed a bit of hypocrisy, he could make them live on artificial space colonies and hollowed-out asteroids, which would make their anti-planetary colonization agenda much more sensible, while maintaining that they are still Bad Guys who are cruel and zealous (and more than willing to bend their agenda to suit their leader’s needs).
Also try Robert Adams’ Castaways In Time series. The first three were good, they kind of went down hill after that, with #6 being the last & worst. His ill health & death may have had something to do with it.
Gonna come out of hiding real quick to say that I love anything by Harry Turtledove, Ender’s Game , the “Honor Harrington” series by David Weber, the “Old Man’s War” series by John Scalzi, the “Gaunt’s Ghosts” series by Dan Abnett(It’s sharpe’s rifles in space), and the Horblower and Sharpe’s Rifles series. Also The Martian and the other book by that author.
Well I do, of course, but even I might consider that excessive. Would be hard to piece anything coherent back together. Opens a sack of confetti, mixed with leaves and dead grass. “Hey! My book is here!”
Time to remember the Greatest Generation, those who served & those who fell when the USA was attacked at Pearl Harbor. My dad was at sea on the USS Benham (DD-397), escorting the USS Enterprise that day. He said they all knew it was coming, when was the question. Which was answered, 7 Dec 1941.
I have a slight problem. I am about to start river of bones but I can’t remember if I read Devils Due. In Devils Due is that where the allies attacked the Grik Capital with bombers and Kurokawa get a League battleship?
Thank you Mr Anderson. Just finished reading your fifth book after noticing a super review of the series in the. Spectator magazine here in East Sussex England. I was born in 1940 so am fairly aware of WW2 but more of Vietnam war. Thanks again – do you know of a database of the lead characters?
A fast way to go to the index is put curser on COMMUNITY go down and click on Special: Categories. You will see that there is a broad Characters list (About 335 named characters in the books to date) and divisions in Male and Species. Say you wanted to know the percentage of Female Lemurian Characters (28) 28/335 x 100 = 8.35% 😉
Yeah, Jack Campbell is a friend, and they sent me Vanguard to blurb. Really liked it, and look forward to the next. As a friend, I’m ashamed that I’ve never had a chance to read the rest of his stuff–I don’t get time to read much fiction at all, it seems–but I loaded his “Lost Fleet” series on my Kindle some time ago. I plan to read it, (and catch up on a LOT of things I’ve missed) this coming summer.
I’ve read the lost fleet. Actually got into it around the same time I got into your series and went back and forth while waiting on releases. Cool to know you two are friends. Do you also know Harry Turtledove personally?
I read the whole thing. The first books are really interesting and fresh. Suddenly is becomes less interesting as the content is just the same. When he introduced the new aliens he almost jumped the shark. At the same time the new series (shattered stars IIRW) is interesting all characters are grey.
I don’t read prequels as I don’t like the idea.
His books are a little bit too US centered. I mean that the author uses far too much the current US morality and way of life to explain the way his Sci-Fi characters act.
Ex: a major plot is “the love between the admiral and the ship captain, something obviously forbidden as they belong to the same command line”… Something which is forbidden only in the US (most other countries don’t care or expect people to behave like adults). It’s something that Destroyermen have been able to avoid as each group has its own morality.
Ex2: politics are always corrupt and useless while admirals are perfect…
I dunno about #2 – Hemry/Campbell’s written plenty of horrible, power-hungry officers throughout the first six alone. Unlike, let’s say, Ian Douglas, it seems pretty clear that the grievances are with bad leaders in general.
Campbell shows what might happen in the military & civilian halls of power after a century of fruitless slaughter. There are some good politicians & some bad ones with many making bad decisions for the best of reasons & vice versa. As there are now. The same goes for the military forces, with a bitter twist. I don’t want to ruin it for Taylor with specifics though. I, personally, enjoyed the series immensely & the prequels are engaging in a new start, frontier sort of way.
When I described the series to a friend I said, imagine the main character is a decent normal starship captain. But nothing extraordinary. He comes out of cryosleep to find that the prevailing doctrine of the day is “fly us closer so I can hit them with my sword.”
During the was Europe basically committed suicide and destroyed itself with a tremendous enthusiasm. All available weapons were used. Nowadays some areas in my country remain in the red area: completely destroyed, too dangerous for re-habitation (a 2005-2006 experiment found 216 active shells, fuses and grenades on a 100m² area, digging only up to up a 15cm depth). They are unfit for population and heavily polluted). Event forests at the location are off-limit (trees are full of splinters and too dangerous for lumberjacks and the soil if full of lead, arsenic, phosgene…).
Today 60 heads of states come and each of them visits its own war graves. There are hundreds in my area. Not hundred of graves. Hundreds of cemeteries. Each of them with 1.000 to 50.000 graves.
If you select randomly a class of 100 men, by the end of the war one 34 are dead. 23 have been wounded at least once.
Rigth now Macron and Markel are at Rethondes (place of high significance as armistices if ww1 and ww2 were signed there). Right now Trump was also expected in Bois Belleau but he cancelled “because it’s raining” (while his advisers go!). I’m really close to there and yes, there it’s just raining a little bit. This is a shame…
Hey Matthieu. Yep, I made a lengthy “11-11-11-18” post on the “Goat’s Ass” urging folks to reflect on the sacrifice of all involved, and to honor all veterans.
As a Frenchman, your perspectives and observations are always noteworthy since you do, indeed, live upon one gigantic battlefield. It’s hard think of anyplace else on earth that has been fertilized by more blood throughout the centuries than France.
By the way, thanks for the other little note you sent. Much appreciated, and I’ll put the contents to good use.
Assuming the Germany in the world the League of Tripoli comes from has Enigma machines. It is possible the Germans if they have them provide the codes for the League if so until the League is aware of U-112’s defection the Union will have an intelligence bonanza.
According to Wiki, the Japanese and the Italians had simpler versions of Enigma-like devices (electromechanical rotary wheel code machines). If so, one wonders why one wasn’t salvaged from Amagi — perhaps because the Japanese ships then didn’t have one? But the knowledge of rotary wheel coders was known from the end of WWI, so the League may well know about them. Whether U-112 has one…
My guess is the league changed their codes after U-112 left so small chance of eavesdropping. However the union can make use of the enigma themselves. Without Alan Turing or someone of his caliber and a computer to go with him the league has no hope of cracking their own encryption system. This is going to be a big coup for the union and go a long way to securing their comms. Enigma is poorly suited to real time tactical comms though. That can only be fixed by better comms discipline.
The only problem I’m seeing is that IIRC, proper communication would require at least one rotor machine to transmit, and one for each recipient.
What the Union could do is take the Enigma apart, mass produce an earlier design, and put at least one in every single HQ. Still gives the Allies vital hands-on electromechnical knowledge, but the League might be able to figure the simpler machine out with enough time and resources.
Only if they have mathematicians. Number theorists and crypto experts aren’t all that common even on our world at this time. It’s highly unlikely they have anyone with the training. The League has more people but like the destroyermen their skill set in STEM is probably limited to the practical application of military hardware. Mechanical engineering and electrical engineering are going to be the most common. One big caveat is the French were big into sending their officers to get post graduate degrees. The Germans were too before the end of WW1 and their military colleges were shit down. It’s possible they may have an officer in the French contingent with a high level math degree however cracking enigma required putting the best mathematicians in Britain under one roof with a lot of resources. I don’t think that’s a feat the League could match.
As far as replicating the enigma goes, the destroyermen have experience dealing with electromechanical devices. They have been able to copy the fire control computer of Walker at least twice now and it is also an electromechanical computer. Copying an enigma won’t happen overnight but such a complex machine has to come with service and repair manuals and of course they have men trained on its use and maintenance. I think given time, especially with the skills already earned in precision machining through other projects they could make a functionally exact replica.
As far as use goes I agree. It’s for strategic comms. Not real time tactical comms. You put them on ships, at bases and in field HQs.
The key here is that it denies the league to snoop on all of their comms. The rest comes from constantly rotating codes groups from the USN code books as well as really clamping down on the rampant comms abuse in the ranks. Radio silence needs to be observed in combat areas before action starts and nothing should be broadcast in the clear. Frequencies and codes should be regularly rotated and any gear at risk of capture must be destroyed. These best practices are obvious when dealing with a technologically comparable foe but the Grik and Doms don’t have radio so bad habits have been allowed to grow. That should have changed a few books back when it became apparent they had infosec issues. If I were a union Intel officer my first priority would be to dispatch men to clean up the fleet’s and army’s act in regards to comms.
Mr. Anderson do you think when this series has finally come to a close you’d make a section in the back of the book like a Memorial to the Fallen? Commemorating all the Cats, Destroyermen, Impies, and so on who’ve been lost in this war to end all wars?
Interesting notion. I don’t know if the back of the final book is the best place for such a thing, though. The copy editor would probably cut it since it would be so long! On the other hand, Charles and others have kept a pretty good list on the Wiki. Might be another one of those things we could expand upon.
That’s very true. So many characters have come and gone that it’d probably be fifty pages of nothing but names! Still I’m glad you’re receptive to the idea itself. Honestly I don’t know how you can keep up with all the named characters you’ve made and where they’re all at.
I don’t think I could without the CoC at the end of the book. And you know, it’s amazingly sad when I delete names of characters who have died, and start prepping the CoC for the next book. Kind of makes it real. Weird.
What’s fun, though, is when “named characters” who have been mentioned from time to time, but never made the cast because they don’t get a “big part,” or POV, suddenly jump to the front and “make the credits.”
Yeah you’re right I can only imagine what that must be like. Especially for when some of the “Old Breed” of characters from book one finally bite the bullet. So far when I’ve read your books I’ve gotten into the tradition of whenever a character I felt particularly attached to got their send off, I’ll set Taps to play. After watching these characters for just about a decade now I feel it’s the only fitting send off when they go.
im a big fan have all the books in audio from audible.com. was just looking at audiobook.com and noticed a review of ROB by someone who obviously hasn’t listened to the previous books. they gave you a 1 out of 5 . it sounded like they thought this was a standalone book and i was confused till i looked at the book cover and realized the cover does not say book 13 or reference the series it just says destroyermen at the top. you may want to change that before too many bad reviews kill sales of the book series
Thanks for the heads up, John, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Maybe a marketing decision? The HCs all have a list of previous books inside–that’s where I always look to make sure I’m not jumping into something in the middle–but I guess there’s no real way to do that electronically. Then again, seems like Amazon (isn’t that where people buy Audibles?) usually states “#5 of 13” or something like that? Either way, I haven’t looked at the review you describe. Seems like most of the really negative ones usually read like either they didn’t read it, (lots of “reviewers” actually LIKE to trash highly ranked stuff just for hoots, believe it or not), they’re mad because they can’t get the Kindle for .99, (like I have anything to do with that), or they just honestly don’t like the story. Oh yeah, some people hate all the technical stuff, or character development, and others hate that there’s not enough character development and technical stuff??!!. Nothing I can do about any of that and you can’t please everybody so I just do my best to write the best story I can and let the hate roll off. I have big shoulders. As always, I DO appreciate good reviews, of course, and they really do help–so please feel free to post one of you’re inclined.
i have been an audible platinum member since before it was purchased by Amazon and yes they do state very clearly that a book is book 13 for example . the site i was browsing was audiobook.com . i have not used them before and was surprised by that review and that the ROB page did not show book number. they only listed 5 reviews but only the really negative review was accessable.
keep up the good work personnally i think you walk the line quite well between too much and not enough detail as well as the line between too much detail reguarding the gore of battle and brushing off that aspect of war .
Hey! Yesterday was Halloween! Easy to tell when I’m pretty absorbed in what I’m writing . . .
I’ve seen that magazine cover before, and I may actually HAVE it. Have to look. My grandfather started one of the first radio stations and recording studios in Texas, (Big Spring), certainly west of Ft Worth, back in 1927. As a news outlet, he received papers and magazines from all over the country, and along with the tens of thousands of 78s going back to the teens, he also had similar numbers of those papers and magazines, um, “archived,” here and there. For good or bad, he had a “never throw anything interesting away” attitude–which I share on a comparatively microscopic scale.
When my grandfather passed, I was tasked with cleaning everything out. This included his music/sporting goods store (also around since the 20s), basements in several buildings, (some flooded), and various storage/warehouses on other properties he owned. Trying to sort out what was valuable and what was junk, for the benefit of my grandmother, was my first real exposure to archeology.
Anyway, back to the point, I KNOW I’ve seen that magazine, and for every, say, 1000 cubic feet of stuff I trashed or liquidated, I may have kept a few cubic inches. This includes the cream (to my tastes) of 78s, a few radios dating back to the teens, (including the first US Army wireless transmitter for airplanes, and a couple of stacks of historically interesting magazines. Like my interest in first edition history books written during or immediately after their subject, (examples: “History of the War of 1898” c.1898, “The Great War” c. 1919, “Life of General Scott” c. 1852, “The Rough Riders” c. 1899,” I consider these magazines to be snapshots of period perception, uncolored by hindsight–and certainly by modern revisionist perspectives. (Hindsight might’ve been 20-20 once, but it is increasingly distorted).
Oh well. Weird that seeing that magazine cover conjured such a stream of revelations and observations!
Just finished River of Bones this morning and I have to say it was a fantastic ride all the way through. I can’t wait for June to roll around just to have Mr. Anderson hit me right in my feels like he’s done with each book so far.
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From a simple count, the current Federal Liberal/National Coalition government has 19 core ministerial positions, including the Prime Minister himself. These days in Australia, there are (according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics) just 98 men per 100 women. Yet somehow, of those 19 core ministerial positions, there are is just one woman …
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Over the weekend, Ian Thorpe, one of Australia’s most well-known athletes of the last two decades, came out. After being hounded by rumour for years and denying it, Thorpe admitted acknowledged* in an interview he was now happy to call himself gay. The saddest thing in the entire saga, of course, is that Thorpe felt he …
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In the Star Observer, Tim Scriven writes about CAAH (Community Action Against Homophobia), spiritedly defending the organisation’s production of post-election t-shirts labelled “Fuck Tony Abbott”. CAAH has taken the admirable step of signalling early that they won’t nod sagely while he destroys lives, mumbling that at least he has a …
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If there’s one thing we’ve learnt in this phase of the election, it’s that Tony Abbott is a man of fashion. Questionable fashion, of course, but fashion none-the-less. And he’s keen to make sure we all abide by that fashion. Consider his discussion with John Laws on talk-back radio, relegating marriage …
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As a man, and a gay man at that, I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to be a woman. I don’t know what it’s like to have the other reproductive organs, I don’t know what it’s like to breast feed, and I certainly don’t know what it’s like …
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In Homosexuality is natural. Fine. But what if homophobia is too?, Sean Thomas writes: [I]t is at least arguable that homophobia is unconscious – and inherited. … If we’re going to extend equal right to homosexuals, because homosexuality is perfectly natural, we also need to extend equal rights to homophobes, for …
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In the TV series, “Community“, the local community college, Greendale, tries to come up with the perfect mascot. However, attempting to be all-inclusive, and in no way favourable towards any one ethnicity or gender, they create the simultaneously bland and creepy “Greendale Human”. To me, this is a pertinent response …
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There is, I think, nothing quite as sad in the GBLTI community, as a homosexual who believes in keeping the status quo and insists we have “enough” rights. Over the last few days I’ve been seeing more friends post messages on Facebook to the extent of: If you don’t support …
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Australia, where we believe in a fair go for everyone! Well, unless you want to get married to someone of the same sex. Australia, where we believe in a fair go for all heterosexuals! (GLBTI are second classers.) Well, unless you’re an indigenous Australian under the auspice of the Northern …
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In The Age: Labor’s Right slams gay reform, the right leaning faction of the Labor party finally reveals that it doesn’t really care about representing the people, just some people – presumably the people who agree with it. Regarding the discussions within Labor about changing its official stance towards same-sex marriage: …
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IT and the Business
IT/Business alignment is critical to the success of any company. My Kindle eBook ("Stop, Collaborate and Listen") provides the necessary details for successfully aligning IT to the needs and purpose of the business. Click here for more information.
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Scandinavian progressive unit Cronian, the brainchild of Norwegian metal visionaries Øystein G. Brun (Borknagar) and Vintersorg (Vintersorg, Borknagar), has today premiered full new album, "Erathems." Check it out in the player below.
"Erathems" will see a North American release on November 12th via the Season of Mist Underground Activists Division. The album's track listing is as follows:
Scandinavian progressive unit Cronian, the brainchild of Norwegian metal visionaries Øystein G. Brun (Borkngar) and Vintersorg (Vintersorg, Borknagar), has released with the third new track from forthcoming album, "Erathems."
The new track, titled "Drifting Station" is streaming now in the player below, courtesy of New Noise Magazine.
"Erathems" will see a North American release on November 12th via the Season of Mist Underground Activists Division. The track listing is as follows:
Season of Mist is proud to welcome Scandinavian progressive act Cronian to its roster. The band is none other than the union of Borknagar mastermind Øystein G. Brun with Mr. V, also known as Vintersorg.
“I am so excited and honoured to join forces with Season of Mist for future albums with Cronian!” Øystein comments. “We have just finished up the third album and I don't even slightly blush when arguing out loud that it is the very pinnacle of my fairly long musical career. Musically and production-wise, it almost feels like a leap up and into another division. Mr. V and I have been working intensely and fully isolated over the last six months with this bastard of an album and we firmly regard this as our most catchy, aggressive, atmospheric and darken flavoured effort to date. I am pretty sure this album will blow the socks off of all those who liked our previous releases, as well as fans of Borkngar, Vintersorg and likewise. So being able to work with one of the most credible, passionate and professional labels around makes my day - and make us proud! So excited to get this album out! Cheers!”
Mr V adds: “A new album has left our 'systems' and is now finding its path throughout the musical world. It has surely been a great journey to write, record and complete this third album in the Cronian chronicle. The music finally matches our vision is and it’s been an intense period for me and Øystein to really get there. We’re also very pleased to now enter the relationship with Season of Mist to get this album out. Even if the music has been taking its path out of our bodies, it is still lingering in our minds… It’s stuck… And it feels just great. We’re so proud of this album and it’s just a pleasure to be reminded all the time of what a trip this has been.”
Swedish experimental symphonic black metal band Gravisphere, which consists of Mr. V(Vintersorg, Borknagar, Cronian, Fission, WaterClime) and A. Stenlund S (TME), has issued the following update regarding the progress of their debut album:
"All the songs for what shall become Gravisphere's first release are done! Eight songs of cosmic, dreaming, feeling, dark and visionary metal! We are truly pleased with the result and still feel that we have something new and fresh to contribute to the metal scene! The lyrics focuses around the vast emptiness of space and the notion mankind sometimes have that we may not be alone, even on our own planet."
Indie Recordings has released a free compilation, entitled "Christmas Carnage Vol. 1," for download. "Christmas Carnage Vol. 1" contains 14 tracks of metal with songs by Satyricon, Enslaved, Keep Of Kalessin, Audrey Horne, Stonegard and more, and will be available from December 24th to January 1, 2009. The entire album will be streamed in the player, and next to it you can choose to download either a package with mp3s or one with all the songs in lossless format. The downloads include complete artwork for the CD as well.
Indie Recordings has announced the signing of avant-garde metal act, CRONIAN.
The label has issued the following welcoming message:
"CRONIAN is a project by Borknagar's main songwriter/guitarist Øystein G. Brun and Vintersorg and as fans of both musicians and their respective bands it's an honour for us at Indie Recordings to get to work on this amazing band. They made a serious impact on the scene with their 2006 debut "Terra" and their second album is now settled and ready for take off." More...
VINTERSORG, the Swedish band led by BORKNAGAR frontman Andreas Hedlund (a.k.a. Vintersorg), have set "Solens Rotter" (Swedish for "The Sun's Roots") as the title of their new album, tentatively due before the end of the year via Napalm Records. The follow-up to 2004's "The Focusing Blur" will not feature contributions from Steve DiGiorgio (SADUS, SEBASTIAN BACH, TESTAMENT, DEATH) and drummer Asgeir Mickelson (SPIRAL ARCHITECT, BORKNAGAR), both of whom performed on the band's last two releases.
Vintersorg's collaboration with BORKNAGAR's Oystein G. Brun (guitars and programming), dubbed CRONIAN, will release their debut album, "Terra", in the U.S. on April 18 via Century Media Records. The CD, which was issued in Europe on March 27, was mastered by Dan Swano at Unisound.
Borknagar members' side project CRONIAN ( formerly known as ION) have officially signed a worldwide record deal with Century Media Records. After several rounds of discussions we inked a 3 record deal which both parties feel comfortable with.
CRONIAN is a duo consisting of Vintersorg and Rystein G. Brun. Already back in 1999 we had plans to do a project together, something beside respective bands like Vintersorg and Borknagar. The idea floated around for a few years in our minds, but in 2002 we started the actual process of constructing a musical expression, then under the name Ion. We had a mutual agreement to only proceed with the band if we managed to establish a unique and original sound. That's what we have done and that's what we prepare to show the world....
The debut album will be released early next year, a more specific date will be announced soon. The title of the album will be "Terra" and the album will contain 9 songs. Some song titles are: "Cronian", "The Alp", "Iceolated" and "Nonexistence".
ION, the Norwegian/Swedish project featuring BORKNAGAR members Oystein G. Brun (guitars and programming) and Vintersorg (vocals and programming), have officially changed their name to CRONIAN.
"Based on evaluation of the musical direction of ION, we have decided to change the name of our duo to CRONIAN," the band write in a statement. "We simply feel that this name, to a larger extent, reflects the general artistic approach of the band. Beside, the fact that there is another band rising with the name ION made our choice rather simple and inevitable. Therefore, we will from this day on officially use CRONIAN as the spearhead of our musical brotherhood.
"The recording of our debut album is in process and we intend to finish the album by the end of the year. What remains to be done is to settle the vocals, add some guitar melodies and obviously to do the mixing. The album will contain 9 songs of atmospheric, eerie and catchy music. Beware!
"We are now in the final round of settling a deal with Century Media Records. An official announcement will be issued soon.
"In regards to a future release we are interested to get in contact with up-and-coming graphic/visual artists. In the first place we are looking for a CRONIAN logo. For those interested, feel free to send us an idea, a draft or whatever. We cannot promise anything to anyone, but everybody will get a response. Feel free to contact us: [email protected]."
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Music publisher
Music publisher may refer to:
Music publisher (popular music), an entity responsible for songwriters and composers receiving payment when their compositions are used commercially
Music publisher (sheet music), publishers who issue printed sheet music
See also
History of music publishing
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Wikipedia (en)
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Workers Who Smoke Take More Sick Leave
The survey of 14,000 workers in Sweden between 1988
and 1991 published in the journal Tobacco Control, found
that smokers take 11 days more in sick leave than their
non-smoking counterparts, who took 25 days.
The researchers adjusted for the fact that smokers
tend to choose riskier jobs and have poorer underlying
health, which brought the difference in the number of
sick leave days down to eight, rather than 11.
Another survey conducted in the U.S. and released
in December 2006 also suggests that that workers who
smoke are less productive that workers who don’t, with
nearly half of workers who smoke taking between three and
six breaks a day (See
Survey: Smoke Breaks Burn Up Work Productivity
).
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What causes rectal bleeding in dogs?
A:
Quick Answer
According to the Fairmount Animal Hospital, rectal bleeding in dogs can be the result of any number of diseases or disorders of the colon, rectum or gastrointestinal tract, including anorectal disease, rectal prolapse, intestinal parasites or colonic ulcers. The color and consistency of the blood helps to pinpoint the problem.
Keep Learning
According to Fairmount Animal Hospital, anorectal diseases can result in rectal bleeding and other symptoms, such as frequent defecation and mucus or blood in the feces. In the case of anorectal disease or problems with the lower gastrointestinal tract, which includes the colon and rectum, the blood is unclotted and bright red. Bleeding as a result of problems in the upper gastrointestinal tract produces blood that is dark and thick. Rectal polyps, rectal prolapse, cancer and colonic ulcers and inflammation are also problems in the lower gastrointestinal tract that result in rectal bleeding.
According to Pet Health & Care, rectal bleeding occurs most commonly due to inflammation. Inflammation in both the colon and the rectum results in diarrhea and constipation. Upon noticing rectal bleeding in dogs, pet owners need to take the animal to the vet immediately, especially if it is accompanied by other symptoms, such as bleeding from other parts of the body and listlessness.
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2011 World Championship of Ski Mountaineering
The 2011 World Championship of Ski Mountaineering () were held instead of the originally 9th edition of the European Championships of Ski Mountaineering, why it was the first World Championship in an odd-numbered year, besides the Trofeo Mezzalama in 1975, which was the real first world championship of ski mountaineering. Instead, the 9th edition of the European championships was held in February 2012.
The 2011 World Championship, sanctioned by the International Ski Mountaineering Federation (ISMF) and held in Claut, Italy, lastet from February 19th to 25th, 2011. It was the first edition including a sprint race.
Results
Nation ranking and medals
(all age groups; without combination ranking medals)
Team race
event held on February 20, 2011
List of the best 10 relay teams by gender (some teams included "Espoirs" level athletes):
Vertical race
event held on February 22, 2011
List of the best 10 participants by gender (incl. "Espoirs" level):
Sprint
event held on February 23, 2011
List of the best 10 participants by gender:
Individual race
event held on February 24, 2011
List of the best 10 participants by gender:
Relay race
event held on February 25, 2011
List of the best 10 relay teams by gender (some teams included "Espoirs" level athletes):
Combination ranking
(vertical race, individual and team ranking)
List of the best 10 participants by gender:
References
External links
Rankings - World Championship 2011 - Claut / Italia, ISMF
#2011
World Championships of Ski Mountaineering
Category:Skiing competitions in Italy
Category:International sports competitions hosted by Italy
World Championships of Ski Mountaineering
Category:Province of Pordenone
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Wikipedia (en)
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Astrocyte glutamate transport: review of properties, regulation, and physiological functions.
Rapid removal of glutamate from the extracellular space is required for the survival and normal function of neurons. Although glutamate transporters are expressed by all CNS cell types, astrocytes are the cell type primarily responsible for glutamate uptake. Astrocyte glutamate uptake also plays a role in regulating the activity of glutamatergic synapses. Lastly, release of glutamate from astrocytes, via transporter reversal and other routes, can contribute to glutamate receptor activation. This review examines the mechanisms of astrocyte glutamate uptake and release, with particular focus on high-affinity Na(+)-dependent transporters. Transporter regulation, energetics, and physiological roles are discussed.
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PubMed Abstracts
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'PSV ook rond met Aziz Behich, linksback tekent voor drie seizoenen'
30 augustus 2018 10:21
De Telegraaf weet te melden dat PSV na de komst van Érick Gutiérrez ook rond is met Aziz Behich. Als de linksback later vandaag de medische keuring doorstaat, zal hij voor drie seizoenen tekenen in Eindhoven. PSV zal zo'n anderhalf miljoen euro betalen aan Bursaspor voor de international van Australië.
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Q:
Is it insecure to send a password in a `curl` command?
Here’s an example request we can make to the GitHub API:
curl 'https://api.github.com/authorizations' --user "USERNAME"
This will prompt for the account password, to continue:
Enter host password for user 'USERNAME':
If we don’t want to get the prompt, we can provide the password at the same time as the username:
curl 'https://api.github.com/authorizations' --user "USERNAME:PASSWORD"
But is this method less secure? Does curl send all the data at once, or does it first setup a secure connection, and only then send the USERNAME and PASSWORD?
A:
Regarding the connection there's no difference: the TLS is negotiated first and the HTTP request is secured by the TLS.
Locally this might be less secure, because:
The password gets saved to the command history (~/.bash_history) as a part of the command. Note: This can be avoided by adding a space in front of the command before running it (provided you have the setting ignorespace in variable HISTCONTROL).
On a shared system, it will usually be visible to others in ps, top and such, or by reading /proc/$pid/cmdline, for as long as the command is running.
Storing the password unsecured in a script might pose a security risk, depending on where the script itself is stored.
A:
But is this method less secure?
No, it is not if you use https. When you use HTTPS your complete transaction will be encrypted. But as @Esa mentioned it is insecure locally which you can avoid adding a space before your command so that the command will not be in your command history. If you are worried about exposing the command on the other users ps than hardening /proc would help you with that. Follow the link to enable hidepid.
Does curl send all the data at once, or does it first setup a secure connection, and only then send the USERNAME and PASSWORD?
No curl doesn't send all the data at once. Like other SSL/TLS connection, curl will initiate SSL handshake before passing any data.
You can inspect how your data is transferred with tcpdump, tshark or Wireshark like following, (after running tcpdump/tshark, run the curl command)
TCPDUMP
[root@arif]# tcpdump -i eth0 -n src host 192.168.1.1 and dst host 192.168.1.2 and port 443 -XX
Where,
-i: for listening on a specific interface which is in this case eth0
src host : Specifying source ip address
dst host : Specifying destination ip address
port: Specifying port 443 which is the default for SSL connection. You can change according to your requirement.
XX: For showing header, packet contents and link level header in HEX and ASCII.
You will start to see gibberish contents after a few packets. You also can grep your password from the packet with the following command,
[root@arif]# tcpdump -li eth0 -n src host 192.168.1.1 and dst host 192.168.1.2 and port 443 -XX | grep 'password'
If your password shows up there then your password did not get encrypted before transmission. Otherwise, you are okay.
TSHARK
[root@arif]# tshark -O tls "ip src 192.168.1.1 and ip dst 192.168.1.2" -x
Where,
-O: for mentioning protocol.
-x: for see packet contents.
you can grep your password with the above command too.
A:
The best way to protect from local users is to use a ".netrc" file. The curl man page should have details on how to use it.
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StackExchange
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Young Jack Mabry (Robert de Niro) watches golf on TV, ignoring his dissatisfied wife trying to get his attention. She tells him twice she plans to leave him. He jumps from his chair, races upstairs, grabs their sleeping child and threatens to throw her the window she leaves. She submits.
Cut. Grey-haired, wrinkled and smug Mabry, about to retire as prison parole officer, meets Stone (Edward Norton), an arsonist — his last case. Stone whines a self-righteous tale of having served his time, taken his punishment, and therefore “I deserve parole. I’ve been rehabilitated.” His corn-rowed hair, prison tattoos and con-like body posture negate his words. Mabry has spent years listening to criminals mouthing prison baloney to persuade him they merit parole. He doesn’t listen; he’s heard their lies before. Stone challenges him. What makes you better than me? “I don’t break the law.” Mabry self-righteously responds.
During his unpersuasive rap to get Mabry’s endorsement Stone adds shockingly intimate information. The shrewd convict notices Mabry’s discomfort as he rejoices in describing salacious details of his sex life with his wife, Lucetta (Milla Jovovich).
Having planted the seed of lust in the repressed Mabry, Stone convinces his wife, Lucetta, a distractingly attractive sex kitten, to contact the tight-assed Mabry. Lucetta’s childlike “openness” allows for an easy seduction of the sex-starved parole officer.
She displays convincing sincerity as she lusts with Mabry, as she does when supervising young children — her job. She relates to kids because she has not grown up – except in her body. The almost-retired parole officer does not suspect this innocence and concern for both him and her husband derive from a borderline personality that thrives on parental praise.
The affair, however, has unsettled the fragile façade built by the Mabrys. His wife, Madelyn (Frances Conroy), perceives something wrong with Mabry’s odd hours and increased remoteness. It unsettles her routine of booze, cigarettes and religious rituals that cover excruciating suffering nourished over decades of living with her inaccessible husband. In their isolated farmhouse without a farm, they sit on their porch or recite empty biblical passages before meals. Behind their façade of religious serenity lies scarcely controlled fury.
Stone’s scam to get Mabry to write a favorable parole report begins to work thanks to what Robin Williams might have said of Mabry: God gave man “a penis and a brain, but only enough blood to run one at a time.” As Mabry succumbs, Stone also changes. He inadvertently witnesses an act of prison violence. In the dead man’s eyes Stone seems to grasp the notion of compassion.
He realizes he cannot endure in the league of those who share the prison cells. He falls for “Zukangor,” a “spiritual” method of finding harmony, by turning sound into meditation and thus achieving soul purification — and reincarnation.
His epiphany, however, also changes his relationship with Lucetta, who adored Stone’s dominating, criminal personality – especially when he praised her. Indeed, she used sex to get Mabry’s favorable parole report, an activity she uses routinely to get men’s admiration.
Mabry begrudgingly submits his favorable report for Stone – against all his best judgment. But Lucetta does not receive Stone’s praise. Instead, thanks to his new religion, he has become distant towards her as he spouts spiritual babble. His once exciting vibrations have become boringly serene.
Mabry drives to and from work listening to religious radio. He releases energy by driving golf balls in an empty field. He and Mady attend Catholic Church regularly. Typical, well-adjusted, upright, law abiding and moral Americans. Not!
These characters, Republicans and Democrats, belong to “the great American public.” A criminal and parole officer, school teacher and house wife, have buried sick and evil acts that subconsciously drive their lives –a far cry from the American dream, unless you count nightmares. Mabry cannot free himself from the demons of needs he has repressed. His wife cannot drink away her anger. Stone, for all is wise-guy con-man attributes, begins to feel the need for some inner harmony in the prison atmosphere that offers harsh sound and ugly sights.
Lucetta’s apparent innocence, the delight in using her body, gives the appearance of having risen above the evil, egoistic motives and malice that grips the others. She stands as the apparent living and natural answer to the babbling radio preachers harping on sin and indeed to the basic values operating to curtail freedom in the land of the free. But her own chaos – a child in an adult’s body – belies this heroic stature. Like all the film’s characters, Lucetta strives for the unobtainable: security and freedom, stability and passion.
Director John Curran and screenwriter Angus MacLachlan weave the complicated characters into a searching collage of the modern American psyche. The surface composure of the Mabrys camouflages issues that confound millions – who die without resolving them. They all walk invisibly in the crowd.
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Dutch Swing College Band
The Dutch Swing College Band "DSCB" is a traditional dixieland band founded on 5 May 1945 by bandleader and clarinettist/saxophonist Peter Schilperoort.
Highly successful in their native home of The Netherlands, the band quickly found an international following. It has featured such musicians as Huub Janssen (drums), Henk Bosch van Drakestein (double bass), Kees van Dorser (trumpet), Dim Kesber (saxes), Jan Morks (clarinet), Wout Steenhuis (guitar), Arie Ligthart (banjo/guitar), Jaap van Kempen (banjo/guitar), Oscar Klein (trumpet), Dick Kaart (trombone), Ray Kaart (trumpet), Bert de Kort (cornet), Bert Boeren (trombone), Rod Mason, Rob Agerbeek (piano) - among many others.
The band continues to tour extensively, mainly in Europe and Scandinavia, and record directed by Bob Kaper, himself a member since 1967, following the former leader, Peter Schilperoort's death on 17 November 1990. Schilperoort had led the band for more than 45 years, albeit with a five-year sabbatical from 13 September 1955, when he left to pursue an engineering career before returning to lead the band again officially on 1 January 1960.
Line-up
Current
As of August 2013, the line-up is:
Bob Kaper, musical director, clarinet, altosaxophone, vocals
Ton van Bergeijk, banjo, guitar, vocals
Keesjan Hoogeboom, trumpet, vocals
Maurits Woudenberg, trombone
David Lukàcs, clarinet, soprano saxophone, baritone saxophone
Adrie Braat, double bass
Anton Burger, drums
Previous
As of January 2012, the line-up is:
Bob Kaper musical director, clarinet, altosaxophone, vocals
Ton van Bergeijk banjo, guitar, vocals
Keesjan Hoogeboom trumpet, vocals
Maurits Woudenberg trombone
Frits Kaatee clarinet, soprano saxophone, baritone saxophone
Adrie Braat double bass
Onno de Bruijn drums
Early
As of the end of 1945, the line-up was:
Frans Vink Jr leader, piano
Peter Schilperoort clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone
Joost van Os trumpet
Bill Brant trombone
Otto Gobius guitar
Henry Frohwein double bass
Tony Nüsser drums
Other key line-ups
1948-1952:
Peter Schilperoort leader, clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone;
Kees van Dorsser trumpet;
Wim Kolstee trombone;
Dim Kesber clarinet;
Joop Schrier piano;
Dick Bakker banjo;
Chris Bender double bass;
Arie Merkt drums.
1953-1955:
Peter Schilperoort leader, clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone;
Wybe Buma trumpet;
Wim Kolstee trombone;
Dim Kesber clarinet;
Joop Schrier piano;
Arie Ligthart banjo, guitar;
Bob van Oven double bass;
Andre Westendorp drums, trumpet.
1956-1959:
Joop Schrier leader, piano;
Wybe Buma trumpet;
Wim Kolstee trombone;
Dim Kesber clarinet, soprano sax;
Jan Morks clarinet;
Arie Ligthart banjo, guitar;
Bob van Oven double bass;
Martin Beenen drums.
1959-1961::
Peter Schilperoort leader, clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone;
Oscar Klein cornet, trumpet;
Dick Kaart trombone;
Jan Morks clarinet;
Arie Ligthart banjo, guitar;
Bob van Oven double bass;
Martin Beenen drums.
(In 1962 Louis de Lussanet replaces Martin Beenen on drums and Jan Morks departs)
1963-1964:
Peter Schilperoort leader, clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone;
Ray Kaart trumpet;
Dick Kaart trombone;
Arie Ligthart banjo, guitar;
Koos Serierse double bass;
Louis de Lussanet drums.
1965-1967:
Peter Schilperoort leader, clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone;
Ray Kaart trumpet;
Dick Kaart trombone;
Arie Ligthart banjo, guitar;
Bob van Oven double bass;
Peter Ypma drums.
1968-1969:
Peter Schilperoort leader, clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone;
Bert de Kort cornet;
Dick Kaart trombone;
Arie Ligthart banjo, guitar;
Chris Smildiger double bass;
Huub Janssen drums.
Bob Kaper added in 1969.
1970-1974:
Peter Schilperoort leader, clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone;
Bert de Kort cornet;
Dick Kaart trombone;
Bob Kaper clarinet;
Arie Ligthart banjo, guitar;
Henk Bosch van Drakestein double bass;
Huub Janssen drums.
1974-1978:
Peter Schilperoort leader, clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone;
Bert de Kort cornet;
Dick Kaart trombone;
Bob Kaper clarinet;
Jaap van Kempen banjo, guitar;
Henk Bosch van Drakestein double bass;
Huub Janssen drums.
1978-1980:
Peter Schilperoort leader, clarinet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone;
Ray Kaart trumpet;
Dick Kaart trombone;
Bob Kaper clarinet;
Jaap van Kempen banjo, guitar;
Henk Bosch van Drakestein double bass;
Huub Janssen drums.
1980-1982:
Peter Schilperoort leader, clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone;
Rod Mason trumpet, sousaphone;
Dick Kaart trombone, B-horn;
Bob Kaper clarinet, alto saxophone;
Fred McMurray piano;
Henk Bosch van Drakestein double bass;
Huub Janssen drums.
1988-1990
Peter Schilperoort leader, clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone;
Sytze van Duin trumpet;
Bob Kaper clarinet, alto saxophone;
Bert Boeren trombone;
Fred McMurray piano;
Henk Bosch van Drakestein double bass;
Huub Janssen drums.
1993:
Bob Kaper – leader, clarinet, alto saxophone;
Klaas Wit trumpet, Flugelhorn;
Bert Boeren trombone;
Fred McMurray piano;
Adrie Braat double bass;
Bob Dekker drums.
1996-1998:
Bob Kaper leader, clarinet, alto saxophone;
Michael Varekamp trumpet;
Bert Boeren trombone;
Fred McMurray piano;
Adrie Braat double bass;
Bob Dekker drums.
2000-2004:
Bob Kaper leader, clarinet, alto saxophone;
Bert de Kort cornet;
Frits Kaatee clarinet, baritone saxophone, soprano saxophone;
George Kaatee trombone;
Rob Agerbeek piano;
Ton van Bergeijk banjo, guitar;
Adrie Braat double bass;
Bob Dekker drums.
2004-2010
Bob Kaper leader, clarinet, alto saxophone;
Bert de Kort cornet;
Frits Kaatee clarinet, baritone saxophone, soprano saxophone;
George Kaatee trombone;
Marcel Hendriks piano;
Ton van Bergeijk banjo, guitar;
Adrie Braat double bass;
Han Brink drums.
Discography
With a recording history from 1945 to the present day in 2012 many albums and singles have been recorded. Recording media from 78 rpm discs, 33 and 45 rpm records and CDs and DVDs on variety of labels, including Philips and the band's own DSC production label.
As well as recording on its own, recordings were made with a number of notable US solo artists beginning in 1951 with Sidney Bechet and continuing into the 1970s with the likes of Jimmy Witherspoon in 1970, Joe Venuti in 1971, Teddy Wilson in 1972 and 1973, Billy Butterfield in 1973, Bud Freeman in 1975 and Wild Bill Davison in 1976.
Tracks recorded over the history of the band include amongst many others "Tin Roof Blues", "Apex Blues", "Panama", "Shake Rag", "Everything's Wrong, Ain't Nothing Right", "Freeze n' Melt", "Strange Peach", Royal Garden Blues, Jazz Me Blues, High Society, Out of the Gallion, At the Jazzband Ball, That's a Plenty, Nobody Knows When You Are Down and Out, Annie Street Rock, Figety Feet, "Margie".
Note: Decca 846 761-2 The Singles Collection Volume 1, other CDs are available
Albums
Dutch Swing College Band HOT ( Opnames van 1951-1956)
Dutch Swing College Band (25 cm LP met 8 nummers, datum onbekend)
Dixieland Goes Dutch (1955)
Dutch Swing College Band with Nelson Williams (1957)
Swing College At Home (1958)
Jazz at the Concertgebouw A'dam feat. Neva Raphaello. (1958)
Swinging Studio Sessions (1959)
The Band's Best (1959, 1960)
12 Jazz Classics (1961)
Party Favourites (May & June 1961)
At the Jazzband Ball (1961)
Dixie Gone Dutch (1962)
DSC At the European Jazz Festival (Comblain-la-Tour, Belgium 1962)
The Dutch Swing College Band at the Sport Palast Berlin (1962)
The Dutch Swing College Band Meets Teddy Wilson (1964)
Dutch Swing College Band goes Latin (1964)
20 Years DSC (Live at Sportpalast Berlin (1965)
Live Party (Maart 1965)
Reunion Jazz band (Sept 1966)
When the Swing comes Marching in (1968)
Dutch Swing College Band Meets Joe Venuti (1971)
Johnny Goes Dixie (feat. Johnny Meijer) (1974}
DSC 'Live' (1974)
Dutch Swing College Band and Bud Freeman (1975)
Dutch Swing College Band (1976)
DSC Hit Collection (1977)
'Still Blowing Strong' 34 Years (1978)
The Dutch Swing College Band Jubilee Concert (May 1980)
Digital Dixie (1981)
Digital Anniversary (1985)
Live 1974 (1997)
The Real Thing - European City Concerts (2003)
We Double Dare You (2004)
The Swing Code (2005)
Swing that Music (2006)
When You're Smiling - with Lils Mackintosh (2007)
My Tune - Single (2008)
My Inspiration (2009)
Jubilee Concert - recorded in The Hague on the occasion of the Band celebrating 65 years (2010)
Update (2012)
The Music Goes Round and Round - featuring Margriet Sjordsma (2014)
When the Swing comes marching on (2015)
LIVE! (2015)
Candlenight Blues - Single (2016)
The Dutch Swing College band Plays Royal Compositions of his majesty king Bhumibol Adulyadej (2016)
References
External links
Official website
Dutch Swing College Band playing in Germany youtube Retrieved 12-10-2007.
'Still Swinging' - 40 minute documentary (1976).
Category:Dixieland revival ensembles
Category:Dutch jazz ensembles
Category:Timeless Records artists
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Wikipedia (en)
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But first, back to that the hardware itself. By definition, planar magnetic headphones need more space to accommodate the 30mm flat driver. That's why the buds are much bigger than most in-ears. That said, the iSine may be tall, but it's relatively thin on the profile, like a small audio pancake. The part that goes in your ear is a regular bud, and all in, the headphone is light and comfortable enough to wear. If anything, the over-ear hooks are where any wearing issue comes in. Both myself, and one of the staff members at the IFA booth had to fiddle with them for a few seconds to get them set right. But once you're done, it's a comfortable ride.
The audio experience was promising. The usual caveats of testing on a show floor apply, but from the few minutes I had with the iSine, I listened to some Miles Davis, and the plucked guitars of Daylight by Alison Krauss (the company's demo music, not my choice). The picked strings in that bluegrass song were particularly crisp, clear and had an nice airy sound I've not really heard with most dynamic driver in-ears. In general, bass tones were subdued, but I didn't get chance to pump any throbbing dance music through them, so we'll wait and see.
Audeze is shipping two versions of the iSine, the difference is in the impedance which will be down to personal preference. There's also the option to choose between a regular 3.5mm connector and one with a lightning adapter -- something which will become much more common now it's almost certain that Apple is axing the headphone jack on the iPhone. Perhaps more interesting is that Audeze also had a demo pair that connect directly to the Oculus Rift. The company had to design a proprietary connector, working with Oculus' own bespoke technology, but you will be able to get an adapter to work with whichever set you buy, so it's a nice bit of bonus functionality if you're a Rift owner.
If you're curious about the iSine, you'll have to wait a month or so until it starts to ship, but for $399 you can pre-order a pair right now if you're already sold on the idea.
We're live all week from Berlin, Germany, for IFA 2016. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.
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List of Albanian films of the 2000s
This is a list of films produced in Albania during the 2000s.
Films
Parrullat (2001)
Tirana Viti Zero (2001)
Zefi (2001)
Edeni i braktisur (2002)
Lule të kuqe, lule të zeza (2003)
Nata pa hënë (2003)
Një ditë e mrekullueshme (2003)
Yllka (2003)
I dashur armik (2004)
Vals (2004)
Luleborë (2005)
Gjoleka, djali i Abazit (2006)
Syri magjik (2006)
Busulla (2007)
Mao Ce Dun (2007)
Koha e Kometës (2008)
Ne dhe Lenini (2008)
Sekretet (2008)
Shënjtorja (2008)
Të gjithë qajnë (2008)
Trishtimi i Zonjës Shnajder (2008)
Gjallë! (2009)
Kronikë provinciale (2009)
Lindje Perëndim Lindje (2009)
Muaj Mjalti (2009)
References
Category:Albanian films
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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Wikipedia (en)
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News Link •
Harper proposes state-sanctioned militia to patrol border11-24-2010 • http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2010/11/24/harper-p Sen. Jack Harper, a Republican from Surprise, said he plans to introduce legislation next year that would create a government-sanctioned militia that would be allowed to patrol the border to observe illegal activity and report it to enforcement autho
News Link •
Az. Infragard President Frank J. Grimmelmann11-15-2010 • azinfragard.org Was researching the board members of Infragard's Az. chapter just for the hell of it, to see who it is that working so closely with the FBI as "civilian" liazons with commercial industry.
News Link •
Arizona Sheriff used hidden database to misspend up to $80 million11-12-2010 • RawStory.com A hidden computer database recently discovered in the course of a racial profiling investigation shows Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio misspent up to $80 million in funds intended for jail operations, according to Maricopa County supervisors...
News Link •
Voting and ElectionsArizona has big upsets in U.S. House races11-03-2010 • Arizona Republic For the past two years, Arizona's U.S. House delegation has consisted of five Democrats and three Republicans.
Change is imminent, with Republicans making strong charges to keep the seats they held and take some they did not.
News Link •
Death PenaltyUK group says it’s suing over US execution drug11-03-2010 • Rawstory A group opposed to the death penalty filed suit to try to prevent a British company from exporting a drug used in the execution of American inmates. The Arizona Chief Deputy Attorney General said the state obtained from Britain the drug used to execu
News Link •
Wife of Maricopa County supervisor accused of sex with minor10-27-2010 • Arizona Republic Susan Brock, wife of Maricopa County Supervisor Fulton Brock, has been arrested on charges of sexual relations with a minor. Susan Brock, 48, was arrested and booked into Maricopa County Jail on allegations of child molestation.
News Link •
Phoenix Censors “Gun Safety for Kids”(AZ)10-22-2010 • www.freerepublic.com The city of Phoenix, in an apparently arbitrary move and without formal legal process, has forced CBS Outdoors to tear down 50 illuminated bus-shelter billboards under contract to promote gun safety training for children and their parents.
••
News Link •
AZ Capitol Times: Cities prepare for fight over funds11-29-2010 • fwix.com Arizona cities are preparing for a fight over the money they receive annually from the state, but it’s not entirely clear if Republican lawmakers are even planning on tinkering with the nearly 40-year-old program that sends hundreds of millions of
News Link •
Generous pension benefits for Arizona elected officials11-15-2010 • Arizona Republic There was a move in 2002 when Jane Dee Hull was Arizona's governor to raise her $95,000 salary because it was among the lowest of the nation's governors. The raise never materialized. But thanks to a generous pension system for Arizona's elected offi
News Link •
Marijuana ballot measure nears approval11-13-2010 • Capitol Media Services Arizona appears on the verge of finally getting a law that will allow patients to obtain marijuana legally.
Figures released late Friday show Proposition 203 ahead by 4,421 votes out of more than 1.6 million cast.
Maricopa County Recorder Helen
News Link •
TAXES: State2 programs spared, but Arizona budget hole grows11-03-2010 • Arizona Republic Arizona voters decided to keep two programs they approved years ago, rejecting measures that lawmakers say are crucial for balancing the budget.
Lawmakers had banked on the passage of Propositions 301 and 302 to help dig out of a deficit that in S
News Link •
Arizona's Top NewsState races: It's a Republican sweep11-03-2010 • AP Republicans look like they made it a clean sweep in the state's top offices, winning the races for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer and superintendent of public instruction.
News Link •
TAXES: LocalMesa, Chandler voters approve home rule overrides11-03-2010 • East Valley Tribune The home rule provision allows cities to spend more than a state-imposed limit that would base budgets on 1980s spending levels. The home rule provision only affects how much cities can spend, as cities without home rule can only spend according to t
News Link •
Drug WarPot legalization measure goes up in smoke, 57-43%11-03-2010 • AFP The so-called Proposition 19 -- one of a series of referendums held at the same time as mid-term polls -- were rejected by 57 percent against 43 percent in favor, said CNN, while Fox News and the LA Times also forecast a No vote.
Growing and selli
News Link •
Jordan Decker World Champion10-31-2010 • http://jordankickboxing.com WKA World Championship 2010 - Scotland October 2010 - VIDEO - Thanks to all of those FreedomsPhoenix Readers that helped make his trip possible with your donations. Jordan will be back in Arizona by tomorrow.
News Link •
Alleged Killer Cop's termination blocked by judge10-27-2010 • East Valley Tribune Phoenix police will have to wait to fire Richard Chrisman, the patrol officer charged with murder and aggravated assault in the death of an unarmed domestic violence suspect. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order
News Link •
State lawmakers preparing citizenship legislation10-19-2010 • AP The state senator in Arizona who wrote the nation's toughest law against illegal immigrants said Tuesday he's collecting support across the country from legislators to challenge automatic U.S. citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.
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The Minus 5 (album)
The Minus 5 is the self-titled seventh full-length album by American rock band The Minus 5. Featuring a lineup of Scott McCaughey, Peter Buck (of R.E.M.), Bill Rieflin, and John Ramberg, it was released in 2006 on Yep Roc records and features contributions from Kelly Hogan, Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, and Sean Nelson of Harvey Danger. It is often referred to as "The Gun Album".
Track listing
Rifle Called Goodbye – 3:02
Aw Shit Man – 1:41
Out There on the Maroon – 2:37
My Life as a Creep – 2:21
With a Gun – 4:33
Cemetery Row – 3:32
Twilight Distillery – 2:57
Cigarettes Coffee and Booze – 4:25
Leftover Life to Kill – 4:23
Hotel Senator – 2:56
Bought a Rope – 4:11
All Worn Out – 2:19
Original Luke – 3:02
Japanese edition bonus tracks
All the Time – 4:19
Teenage Idol – 2:35
References
Category:2006 albums
Category:The Minus 5 albums
Category:Yep Roc Records albums
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# The Impossible Boy
By Anna Martin
This is not your average love story.
Ben Easton is not your average romantic hero. He's a tattooed, badass, wannabe rock star, working in a perfectly horrible dive bar in Camden Town. His life is good, and he's totally unprepared for how one man will turn it upside down.
Stan isn't your average heroine. As a gender-fluid man, he proudly wears his blond hair long, his heels sky-high, and his make-up perfectly executed. A fashion industry prodigy, Stan is in London after stints working in Italy and New York City, and he quickly falls for Ben's devil-may-care attitude and the warm, soft heart Ben hides behind it.
Beneath the perfect, elegant exterior, Stan has plenty of scars from teenage battles with anorexia. And it only takes the slightest slip for his demons to rush back in while Ben is away touring with his band. With the band on the brink of a breakthrough, Ben is forced to find a way to balance the opportunity of a lifetime with caring for his beautiful boyfriend.
Table of Contents
Blurb
Dedication
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Part Two
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Author's Note
More from Anna Martin
Readers love Anna Martin
About the Author
By Anna Martin
Visit Dreamspinner Press
Copyright
With enormous gratitude to Gus and Jane; infinite thanks to Kira, who never gave up on my impossible story (even when I almost did); and Lynn, who gave this book a home when I never thought it would find one.
# Part One
# Chapter One
THERE WERE few places in the world where Stan could blend in. He'd been around the world more than once in his twenty-two years, and yet this little corner of North London seemed to be the spot for him. It felt right.
He'd taken the Northern line to Camden Town on the recommendation of a friend and spent hours wandering around the hundreds of stalls at the market there, buying a new leather jacket and a tartan scarf from a real Scottish person and some rings. He'd eaten in a vegan café that tempted him in with the most delicious smells. Then he'd gotten lost, taken a wrong turn, and ended up in a little pub tucked away out of sight of the main road.
It had just started to spit with rain, so he ducked inside.
This was his kind of pub—dim lighting, low tables, and parquet floor that must have cost a fortune. A huge statue of the Virgin Mary was behind the bar, but someone had painted an inverted pentagram on her cheek and created a tiny, perfectly fitting Mötley Crüe T-shirt for her to wear. The statue was adorned with multicoloured Christmas lights, even though it was April. Over the bar, a hammered, blackened copper sign proclaimed the place to be Buck Shot. There wasn't a sign over the door like most bars. Just a badass one inside.
"What can I get you?" the bartender asked as Stan nimbly slid onto one of the barstools. He was tall and lanky, his hair a thick mop that fell across his forehead, the sides shaved close.
"Um...." Stan looked over the specials, which were written in chalk on a blackboard behind the bar. "Do you have a blond beer?"
"We have a few."
"Your choice, then," Stan said.
"Sure thing."
When the guy turned away to pull a bottle from the fridge under the bar, Stan looked a little too hard at his backside. It was clad in very, very tight black jeans; his long, lean legs poured down into a pair of black Doc Martens. Wow.
"Three eighty."
"Sorry?"
"Three eighty," the bartender said with a smile.
"Oh." Stan fumbled for his wallet out of his own jeans, which were tight but nothing in comparison to this guy's. He wasn't used to the British currency yet and handed over a ten.
The pub was fairly quiet, although there seemed to be a steady stream of people walking in and out to smoke. The smell of cigarettes followed them back inside, mingling with the earthy smell of beer and the tang of sweat.
The cute bartender handed him the change, offered a quick smile, then turned to serve the next person. Stan sipped his beer and decided this might be his favourite place in the whole world. No one was even looking at him.
On impulse, he shrugged out of his battered leather jacket and pulled off the infinity scarf from around his neck. The action caused his hair to spill out down the back of his neck, the blond strands feathering out over his shoulders and down almost to his waist.
That made the cute bartender look. Stan didn't mind at all.
He finished the first pint, feeling warm and full and happy, then pulled his sketchpad out of his satchel so he could work a little while he had the next one. There was nowhere he needed to be anytime soon. Not until Monday morning, in fact.
"Another?"
Stan looked up to meet Cute Bartender's warm brown eyes. He nodded mutely for a moment, then found his voice and said, "Please."
While the bartender poured the beer from bottle to glass, Stan debated whether or not to try to make conversation with him. It wasn't normally his thing, and coming on too strong, or even at all, could be dangerous.
For the most part, men didn't like being come on to by a man who looked more like a girl. A hot girl. A really hot, slightly confusing girl. Stan knew what he looked like—he owned it.
This time he had a handful of change ready. He'd been collecting it periodically through the day, and it was weighing down his pockets.
"Can you help?" he said, fluttering his eyelashes just a tiny bit. "I don't quite know what all the coins do yet."
The cute bartender laughed and leaned in over the dark wood bar. "Sure. These are pound coins. I need three of them...." His fingertips brushed over Stan's palm as he sorted through the loose change, separating tens and twenties and fifty-pence pieces. He was wearing black nail polish, chipped around the edges. "Fifty, seventy, eighty. There you go."
"Thanks," Stan said with a half-smile.
"You're welcome, mate." He turned and deposited the money in the till, then turned back. "I take it you're new to these parts."
Stan nodded, secretly thrilled. "I just got here on Thursday, actually."
"Oh wow. From where?"
"Um, Russia originally," Stan said. He lifted the pint to his lips and took a small sip. It was good beer. The Brits definitely knew how to do microbrewing. "I've been living in Italy for the past year, though. And America before that."
"Probably why I couldn't quite place that accent. I'm Ben, by the way."
"Stan." He slipped his hand into the one Ben offered to him, finding it warm and dry, and squeezed slightly as he shook it. "Nice to meet you."
"Same."
As more people started to file into the pub, Ben's attention was stolen by those he was being paid to serve. Not that Stan minded all that much. He stayed perched on his stool to the side of the bar, sketching out ideas and designs while surreptitiously—he hoped—watching Ben work. By the time he finished his second pint, there was no use; he had no excuse to stay any longer, and he couldn't risk another drink or he'd be well and truly drunk.
He debated for long moments while swirling the last of his beer in the bottom of the glass, then impulsively tore a sheet of paper out of the pad and scrawled his name and phone number on it in looping script. After folding it twice he wrote "Ben" on the top and tucked the note under his almost-empty glass.
Without looking up or over the bar, Stan shrugged into his scarf and jacket and tucked his sketchbook carefully back into his satchel. With gentle fingers, he pulled his long hair free again, left it loose down his back, and combed it away from his face.
Before leaving, he glanced over at Ben, unable to stop himself, then lifted a hand in a wave. Ben nodded and smiled, and Stan strode out in his high-heeled boots.
"MATE," TONE breathed, Bristol audible in every long vowel as Ben unfolded the note, smiled, and tucked it into his back pocket. "Did she leave her number for you?"
Ben pressed his lips together and shook his head. "No."
Tone gave him a confused look.
"He left his number."
"You mean.... What the...?"
"It was a dude, Tone."
A pause. "You sure?"
"Yeah," Ben said with a laugh, unable to hold it in any longer. "He had an Adam's apple. And his name is Stan."
"I'm so confused," Tone grumbled, reaching for the mixer gun, then squeezed the button for soda. If the pub was empty, he'd direct it into his open mouth, but the boss was around, so it went into a glass. "I'm not gay, but I'd do her—him, all night long. That has to be the hottest guy in the whole fuckin' world."
Ben smiled to himself and moved to serve the next batch of people who had arrived at the bar. Secretly, he agreed with Tone, not that he would admit it just yet.
Being Saturday afternoon, the pub would get busy soon and stay that way for most of the night. He'd started at lunchtime and would be done by nine, giving him plenty of time to get over to band practice at Geordie's. They didn't often rehearse on a Saturday night—most of the people in the band preferred to go out and get rat-arsed instead. But Jez had some weed and was apparently in a sharing mood, so they'd all agreed to make an exception.
It would be nice to have a night off.
As expected, the crowds soon swelled in, and Ben worked steadily through the evening, his mind elsewhere.
Stan. Jesus, that man could start wars. Like a modern-day Helen of Troy. It seemed like everything had come together when his DNA was being formed—the angels were singing and created a perfect balance of cheekbones, angled jaw, sparkling grey eyes, and long, long blond hair. Like a fucking mermaid.
Ben had got stick from the other guys when he first started dating Alistair last year, even though it turned out to be a brief fling with the Frenchman that hadn't lasted much past the end of the summer. His mates didn't take the piss just because Ben was bi—they took the piss about everything. It was more to do with the fact Alistair was a poncey git who saw Ben as a bit of rough.
Well, Alistair had had his fling and slummed it with the real kids in London, then flounced off back to gay Paris as soon as the rain came in October. Well, fuck him. He was nowhere near as pretty as Stan.
When the end of his shift rolled around, Ben handed over to Mel with the obligatory high-five tap out and dragged Tone away from a bunch of girls who looked amused but slightly scared. Tone did that a lot. He meant well, but if the broad Bristolian accent wasn't enough, the shaggy beard and mass of curly hair gave him something of a Stig of the Dump look that tended to terrify the ladies.
"What?" Tone grumbled as they gathered up backpacks and guitar cases from the cellar. "I was in there, mate, I swear."
"Of course you were," Ben said soothingly. "Gotta get to Geordie's, though, before all the weed is gone."
Tone perked up at that idea and followed Ben to the Tube station with one of Ben's guitars slung over his shoulder.
The band had started out as a ragtag group of people who just got together to jam and do covers a few times a month. Ben had met them through Tone after he got the job at the pub and had mentioned that he played guitar. Not that well. His lack of skills didn't matter. Apparently, it was more a chance for the group to get together and smoke or get drunk.
In the year and a half since they started playing together, things had become more organised, and they had taken the big first step to actually playing in public. That meant needing a set, though, and not just a bunch of covers. Writing their own music was a big step up. It had caused weeks of rows.
There was still a dent in the side of Ben's head where Tone had thrown a drumstick at him, called him a "fucking Kiwi bastard," and stormed out of their rehearsal space. They had been best friends ever since.
Nowadays there were only a few places in London where the band could get together to practise—Buck Shot had a music venue attached by a big set of double doors at the back, which opened up when a band was on. During the day, or when it wasn't being used, the doors stayed closed, and Mel, the manager, let them use the stage. The acoustics were weird when the room wasn't full of people, but it was better than nothing. Plus, over half the band worked in the pub anyway, so it was easy to gather them in one place.
If the venue space was being used or if they wanted to do stuff that was only semi legal, they hung out at Geordie's mum's place, which was in Notting Hill and had a soundproofed basement. Ben had always thought Geordie—not his real name; he was just from Newcastle—lived the sort of life most people could only dream of.
Geordie's mum had won the lottery. Over sixty million on a normal Saturday night. It was crazy. The family had blown a load on a holiday to Magaluf, then set up in London so his mum could go and watch musicals to her heart's content. She had two kids at Sylvia Young Theatre School and threw her remaining millions at producers, with the hopes of funding a big hit.
For all of their nouveau-riche lifestyle, Geordie's mum was sound and didn't care that her only son was slumming around as a wannabe rock star. And she let the band rehearse in the basement. So Ben did his duty, flirted with her whenever he visited—mostly to annoy Geordie—and kept in her good graces.
"Alright, Sherrie?" Ben said when she opened the door. He leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek and a quick pat on the bum. He was one of the few people who could get away with it.
"You are naughty, Ben," she said with a laugh, then shooed them down to the basement, where the others were already gathered.
"Ben's got a girlfriend," Tone announced as soon as they both got over the threshold and shut the door behind them. "Well, sort of."
"Fuck's sake, Tone," Ben muttered. "I don't have a fucking girlfriend."
Geordie looked over, exhaled messily, and raised an eyebrow. "Coming back from the dark side, are you?"
"Nah." Ben held his hand out for the spliff and nodded in thanks when Geordie passed it over. "Men are so much less hassle than women."
"They don't bleed either," Tone mused. "Unless you do 'em really hard, anyway."
The group groaned in almost perfect harmony, and Summer threw a guitar pick at Tone's head. It missed by a mile.
"You're disgusting," she said.
"Tone" wasn't short for Tony or Antony, as most people assumed. His given name was Daniel, and he'd earned the nickname for his uncanny ability to lower the tone of a conversation, even when people assumed it was already at rock-bottom. They had a thing for nicknames in this band. Which was ironic, really, since they'd never really agreed on a name for the band itself. Having the Greek God of War as their moniker seemed apt.
Summer produced a bottle of rum from her bag, waved it invitingly, and said something about ice and mixers. Four heads turned towards Geordie, who stalled for a moment, then hauled himself to his feet, grumbling about being a fuckin' hostess.
"Love you, Geordie," Summer called after him.
"So, have we got any gigs lined up?" Ben asked.
Summer took responsibility for organising the gigs Ares played, mostly because she was the only one who the clubs would deal with. Ben did it sometimes, when he had time, but between working two part-time jobs and rehearsing, he didn't have much in the way of spare time.
At nineteen, Summer was the youngest in the band by a few years and had been introduced to the others via her on-again, off-again relationship with Geordie. Her singing voice was incredible, and she could strum along on a guitar, so they kept her around despite the drama. She wasn't bad to look at either—her dark hair was shaved on one side, and the rest of it fell in thick waves down her back. Slim and tanned, with her nose and tongue pierced, as well as stretchers in her ears, Summer did not live up to her sunshiny name. She was a source of constant disappointment to her mother, who lived in Stoke Newington and drove a Prius.
"Next month," she said. "Got us a slot in the venue on the seventeenth and—actually, I should wait for Geordie to tell you."
"Fuck Geordie," Tone said. "Tell us."
"She hasn't fucked Geordie in ages," Geordie said, taking the steps down to the basement two at a time. He had a bag of ice under one arm and a fizzed-up bottle of Coke in the other. He clutched a stack of plastic cups between his fingers.
Summer rolled her eyes. "I got us a slot supporting Racket City. Not first support, second. But it's at the Electric Ballroom, and it should be a really good gig. They're gonna put our names on the posters and everything."
"Fuckin' ace," Geordie said and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "Well done, gorgeous."
He started to pass the rum around for a celebratory drink, but mixing booze and weed gave Ben a headache, so he passed and rolled a cigarette instead.
"Sounds good," Ben said, then licked the paper to seal the rollie. "How long have we got?"
"Forty-five minutes. We need to pad out the set."
Their current set was about twenty-five minutes, tops, and that included the cover of "Teenage Kicks" they did to kick off every gig. They used the song to raise the energy and the atmosphere, and it was appreciated almost everywhere.
"Fuck," Ben muttered and took another drag on his cigarette. "Better get fuckin' started, then."
THE MAGAZINE had arranged Stan's flat in Bow, in a gated complex that had once, many years ago, housed a match factory. The red-bricked building in the East End of London had been split up into smaller flats, and Stan had been offered a neat, spacious one-bedroom home that was his for a year.
He'd only just moved, so some of his possessions were still in boxes, and all of those boxes were stacked in the living room. Stan kicked off his shoes, dumped his bags, and stared at the boxes for a long moment before turning on his heels and walking through to the kitchen. The green tea he preferred would help combat any lingering tipsiness from the two pints he'd just consumed.
The kettle whistled merrily on the stove when the water boiled, and he carefully deposited it into a chipped white china cup and tied the teabag around the handle. While it steeped, Stan twisted his long hair back onto itself and secured the knot with a pencil lying on the countertop. Although the weather was far from warm out, the Underground in London was close and humid, and the sweat on the back of his neck made his hair sticky.
Using the kettle as a mirror, he checked his make-up. Still perfect. Thank goodness. At least his eyeliner was supposed to be a little smudged. That was the look he'd gone for that morning—slightly tousled, rough and lost.
With a sigh, he took his tea back through to the living room and stared at the boxes some more. It was no use. He had every intention of working through his current contract, which was for a year, and possibly staying in London longer if things worked out. Of all the places he'd travelled to in the past few years, London was by far his favourite. With the way things were in Russia these days, he didn't feel safe going home anymore, even when his mama begged.
This was his life, now.
The tight jeans and loose, cut-up T-shirt he'd been wearing all day were not the right sort of clothes to do unpacking jobs in. Stan set down his tea on the coffee table—one of the few pieces of furniture he'd acquired so far—and went into his bedroom to change. Stuff wasn't any more organised in there. The only things he'd unpacked so far were his boxes of make-up and hair products, and a suitcase of clothes that was now spilling possessions onto the floor.
He knew, for sure, a pair of loose pyjama pants were hidden in this suitcase somewhere. He rifled through denim and leather and silk and soft, soft cotton, until he located the baggy red pants with the reindeer pattern. He wore them year-round. They were his most comfortable lounging-about pants.
The T-shirt was fine, and with his hair tied back, Stan could start the long, laborious task of creating his new home.
BY LATE the following morning, it was nearly done. All his clothes had been hung in the wardrobe, the things that needed to be ironed separated out and tossed over the back of a chair. He'd get to that... sooner or later. The only thing left to do was unpack the kitchen, and he had brought very little in the way of cooking utensils with him, so that wouldn't take long.
Stan yawned, feeling his muscles stretch and move with him, then padded back through to his bedroom to change. Food was the next thing on his agenda.
The box of Twinings tea was the only nutrition he had in the house, and the last thing he'd eaten was at Camden the previous lunchtime. From his exploring, he'd discovered plenty of fresh produce available on market stalls for much lower prices than he'd been warned he'd find in the capital. Yet so many people here seemed to shop in the supermarkets. It was the same in America. He couldn't get his head around the idea.
Not wanting to make a fuss to go out for simple groceries, not when he wasn't planning to run into anyone, anyway, Stan brushed his hair and gathered it into a loose ponytail at the nape of his neck. With an oversized powder brush, he swept MAC NC5 loose powder over his whole face, then filled in his eyebrows with an angled brush and mid-brown shadow. He'd recently acquired some Benefit bronzer, which was deliciously soft and blended perfectly, so he added a little of that to his cheekbones.
A quick lick of mascara finished the low-key—for him, at least—look. Stan changed into jeans and a black T-shirt, stamped his feet into heavy boots, and tucked his wallet, phone, and keys into his pockets.
Done.
It took a few minutes to get his bearings, and he doubled back more than once after taking a wrong turn. But it didn't take long to get to the long street—Brick Lane—lined with all its Indian restaurants and suspicious-looking cafés.
Stan found a grocer that looked good. A wide range of produce was displayed in wooden crates outside the front door, and an older portly gentleman with an apron and a beard sat on a stool behind the counter, an open newspaper spread in front of him.
"Mornin'," he said, barely looking up.
"Good morning."
There wasn't a basket, so Stan loaded vegetables up in his arms, things he recognised and a few he didn't. Mushrooms, peppers, courgettes, tomatoes. Some fruit too, rustic red apples, and limes to go in water.
It fell to the counter in a tumble of thuds, and the grocer looked up at him properly for the first time. His eyes widened comically.
"I'll... uh... I'll just ring this little lot up for you," he said, and Stan smiled again, suppressing his laughter.
"Thank you," he murmured demurely.
He couldn't be sure—either he was undercharged or this really was the place to come for good-value vegetables. Not that he minded, much. The old man got a good look, and Stan got a decent dinner.
With the blue-and-white-striped bag hanging from his fingertips, Stan moved on up the road.
WHEN HE arrived back at the flat, his wrists were hurting from carrying so much stuff. It was hard not to buy in bulk, not when all of the little shops seemed to cater to a multinational community, and rice was sold in bags that probably weighed more than he did.
He felt all warm and fuzzy seeing things here that he hadn't seen in years—not Russian food, but treats and sweets from Eastern Europe that his grandfather had brought back with him when returning from one of his many business trips.
Stan had tried to find some kind of logic or order in the kitchen but couldn't, and just deposited all his purchases in whatever cupboard they fit in. The morning had exhausted him, and he was still jet-lagged from travelling.
The flat had come partially furnished, which was a blessing, and Stan curled up on the sofa with his hands pillowing his cheek, content to look out over the courtyard through the open door and Juliet balcony. Buying a television was on his list of things to do, although not a priority. He had never been one for watching TV, and moving about so much over the past few years meant it had been almost impossible to keep up with the shows he liked.
With the summer warmth streaming in through the window, he was content to snuggle down on his surprisingly comfortable sofa and drift off to sleep.
THE RINGING phone startled Stan out of his foggy nap.
"Pronto?" he answered out of habit.
"Hello? Is that Stan?"
"Yes. Allo. Sorry. This is Stan."
The instinct to answer the phone in Italian had obviously not left him just yet. Stan felt the blush rise to his cheeks, and he held his fingers there, cursing his exceptionally pale skin, even though the caller obviously wouldn't judge his complexion.
"Hi. Uh... this is Ben. From the pub."
"Ben?"
"Yeah. You left me your number?"
"Oh gosh. I'm so sorry. I forgot.... I was just sleeping."
"I guessed." Ben's voice had taken on a soft, teasing tone.
"I didn't think you would call."
Stan stretched out across the couch, letting his knees click and hips clunk back into place. Each individual toe could crack of its own accord—something of a hidden talent and incredibly satisfying to do.
"I've just finished my shift. I wasn't sure if you were still around Camden."
"No. I'm sorry. I live in the east of London." Speaking English, especially when his brain hadn't quite woken up yet, was proving difficult. Stan could hear his own accent, thicker due to fatigue. Ben must have been too polite to mention it.
"That's a shame. Maybe you could let me know when you'll be over here again? Or I'm working next week. If you want to stop by the pub again, I mean."
"Yes. I'd like that. And then, maybe when you finish your shift again...."
"Yeah. We could...." A pause. "Go out, somewhere?" he finished lamely.
Stan smiled to himself. He hadn't even been sure Ben was interested, and now he was flustering over his words.
"That sounds good. I'll send you a message in the week. I have to work long hours, I expect. I start my new job on Monday."
"Good luck," Ben said. The sentiment sounded genuine. "Maybe we could go out on Friday to celebrate your first week. I'm on 'til six on Friday."
"That sounds good," Stan said and smiled to himself as he scratched his belly. "I'll look forward to it."
"Me too. Catch you later, Stan."
"Goodbye."
Stan pressed the End button and hugged his phone to his chest. He had a date. And he'd been in London less than a week.
# Chapter Two
NEW JOB. First day. The desperate desire to prove oneself.
Power dressing was definitely on the cards, but exactly how, Stan wasn't sure.
Hair and make-up had taken a full thirty minutes, not that this was entirely unusual. After washing and blow-drying his hair straight, he'd slicked it down with a dab of serum so it fell in a glossy wave. When it came to make-up... well, he'd amassed a collection so vast it was almost silly. He had boxes of the stuff, and only used a few of those things on a day-to-day basis.
In the end, with time ticking away, he'd gone for a classic smoky eye—dark liner, grey shadow, a lighter colour in the inner corners of his eyes to make them look bigger. He'd perfected the look a long time ago.
Now he just had to pick clothes. Standing in front of his wardrobe in a pair of very tight black boxers wasn't going to get him far.
In most situations, when Stan walked into a room it caused enough of a ripple of interest, without him going wild on the clothing front. But he was working for a fashion magazine.
"Come on, Stanislav," he muttered, flicking through the rows of wooden hangers. "Pick something."
Black skinny jeans tucked into black motorcycle boots, and an oversize, white, billowing shirt that was more than a little see-through. Edgy, but classy.
He had some chunky jewellery that had been given to him as a gift, the castoffs from a photo shoot he'd worked on in Italy. Rings on his fingers, long necklaces, and a slick of gloss over his lips.
On the weekend, he'd timed how long it would take getting to the magazine's offices in Spitalfields and added an extra half hour for the early morning commuter rush. He was fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.
A massive Mulberry bag—already packed—was ready and waiting by the door, along with his new leather jacket from Camden. Stan had a mirror, just a small one, hung next to the door for a final check before he left the flat.
Perfecto. Let's go.
He arrived early—which was good—and introduced himself to the waifish girl on reception. She stared. They all did.
The office wasn't as glamorous as Vogue Italia, but few places in the world were. Stan looked around while he waited for his new supervisor to come down and meet him, noting with interest some of the magazine spreads in huge, high-definition shots hanging on the walls.
Where most of the big Italian fashion magazines liked the sparse-and-clean look, here things were decidedly more chaotic. The reception area looked warm and inviting, with pictures of previous months' covers in large frames on the walls. Stan already knew he'd be reporting directly to one of the senior editors, but she was yet to arrive, and no one had come to find him yet to show him around.
"Can I get you coffee?" the receptionist asked, and Stan shook his head.
"No, thank you. Do you know where my office will be?"
"Um...."
It took a few minutes of clattering about on her keyboard and a phone call upstairs for her to direct him to the third floor, where someone would, apparently, be waiting to meet him. He nodded his thanks and walked to the shiny glass elevator.
The young woman who met him on the third floor was a chaotic explosion of bleached-blonde curls and a slightly saggy cardigan.
"Hi, I'm Kirsty," she said. "Sorry it's so cold in here—someone left the air con on overnight, and it's bloody freezing. You must be Stanislav."
"Stan," he said, extending his hand for her to shake. He noted her bitten-down fingernails and forced a shudder inwards.
"Nice to meet you. I'll be your assistant. Well, I'm the assistant for everyone who reports in to Victoria, but basically if you need anything, just give me a call."
Kirsty was nice, a little talkative, and willing to show him around the large third floor that was made up of a number of smaller offices. His was particularly tiny, a reflection, he was sure, of the fact he was new.
Stan was left alone in the office, which wasn't too bad at all, on consideration. From the looks he'd stolen into the other offices, it seemed most people decorated their working spaces to reflect their personalities, or maybe just the way they worked. For Stan, the clean white walls and neat glass-topped desk would be fine.
After checking no one was around, Stan stretched his arms out to his sides and turned a full circle in his new space, letting a grin creep onto his face.
"Let's get to work," he murmured under his breath.
BY MID-AFTERNOON Stan's head was frazzled from all the people he'd been introduced to, from other creative editors like himself to the terrifyingly tall, thin Victoria—not Vicky, Kirsty had impressed on him. Never Vicky—who ran the department. The woman had long, straight, dark hair and delicate designer spectacles, and had given Stan a very visible once-over before offering him a tiny smile and shaking his hand firmly. For some unknown reason, Stan got the impression he'd met his match.
He'd also gained a new respect for Kirsty, who ran around like a crazy person trying to satisfy the whims of all the different people she worked for. She offered coffee almost on the hour, every hour. Then she was going out to collect lunch. Stan elected to go with her and learned where the best places to eat were. He got a large salad from the delicatessen that made them fresh while he waited.
"You worked for Vogue before, right?" Kirsty asked as they walked back to the office. She was balancing two bags full of sandwiches and refused any help.
"Yes. In Milan."
"Milan," Kirsty sighed dreamily. "I can't imagine how awesome it must be to work for Vogue. In Milan. Most of the people here are hoping to go there, not leave."
"It was good," Stan conceded, rolling his shoulders and tipping his face up to the sun. "But I wanted a new challenge. It's such a different aesthetic here—much edgier, and the styles change so quickly. You need to keep your ear to the ground, watch the street fashion, let the people lead instead of the designers. That's interesting to me."
"I guess."
"Here we can't get away with running florals for spring. Can you even imagine?"
Kirsty laughed, a bright sound. "You'd be castrated."
"Darling," Stan said, giving her a pointed look. "But yes. I want to walk around London and let that be my inspiration, not the top-down politics where it's all decided and dictated months in advance."
"I think you'll fit in well here," Kirsty said. Stan squirmed under her scrutinizing. "You're different, but in the right way."
"I'm different everywhere," Stan said with a humourless laugh.
Kirsty left him in peace that afternoon, quickly learning he didn't like to be disturbed when deep in a project. It might only be his first day, but fashion didn't wait. He was going straight in, feet first—exactly how he liked it.
BY THE end of the week, Stan had developed a routine that suited him just fine. He was the first in the office most days, usually by seven in the morning, and left early to compensate. His instant, first impression of Kirsty was, to his shame, off the mark. She was sweet and smiling and highly efficient, but a tiger underneath when crossed. Stan had decided not to cross her.
He alone of his colleagues left the office at lunchtime and took the short walk to the deli with Kirsty. It was nice to get out of the office and get some fresh air to enjoy the breeze and the sunshine that he'd been promised wouldn't last. It was with Kirsty, out of all his new colleagues, that Stan found himself starting to bond.
As for Ben... they exchanged a few messages midweek, then, on Friday lunchtime, while Stan was eating his salad and reading the Guardian newspaper online, his phone buzzed again.
Are we still on for tonight?
From Ben. Stan made himself wait five minutes before responding.
Yes. I hope so!
Ben texted back immediately.
Great. Do you want to meet me at the pub? I finish my shift at six, then I thought we could go out for something to eat.
Food. Stan winced and wondered if it was the best time to bring up all his issues. Probably not.
That would be nice. I don't want to make a fuss, but I'm mostly vegan.
There. It was done. He leaned back in his chair and fiddled with his phone while waiting for Ben's response.
Oh, no worries. There's plenty of places to go around here. I don't eat meat very often. Not a problem. :)
"Thank God," Stan muttered and typed a quick response, then shut his phone back in his drawer so he wouldn't be tempted to send another message.
MANAGING HIS own workload meant most of the time Stan controlled his own working hours. No one challenged him if he disappeared for a while in the afternoon, or if he loaded his iPad up with stuff and took it home to work.
Coming in early was a habit he'd picked up in Italy, one no one here seemed to share. Some people didn't stumble in until ten. By that time, Stan was on his second coffee and well into his working day.
Since he had a date, and he had been working for hours already, Stan packed up and left the office at two in the afternoon. Some people weren't back from lunch yet, and he hadn't taken a break at all.
The Tube was busy, but nothing compared to rush hour, meaning he got back to his flat with plenty of time to take a shower, carefully keeping his hair out of the water.
With soft music playing in the background, Stan dried off and lay down on his bed, naked.
This wasn't quite meditation, but something akin to it that he'd done since he was a child. His mother had often caught him and thought it was a kinky thing, at least at first, until he grew up enough to request a lock on his door. It wasn't about being sexual, or masturbation, just... existing. Being. Acknowledging one's own mortality.
And a good opportunity to decide what he was going to wear for the date.
He didn't want to go too overboard, and even though he had a new maroon lipstick he wanted to try out, this probably wasn't the right time. The last time he'd seen Ben, he was relatively low-key, and without knowing what their plans for the evening would be, it was hard to decide.
Cigarette pants—incredibly tight, sandy colour, went well with everything. A very loose, black cotton tank that hung off his slim frame. Maybe a little more eyeliner than normal. His black motorcycle boots, a favourite, and good for walking in case they ended up having to go a distance.
Stan managed to reduce the contents of his Balenciaga bag to the pockets of his jacket—a thigh-length, sleeveless, tan trench coat that had blessedly large pockets and tied with a belt around his waist.
On impulse, just before leaving the flat, he took a detour to the bathroom and found a condom in one of his baskets of beauty products. His face flushed a little as he tucked it into the back of his wallet, not sure if this was the direction the evening would take. It felt good to be prepared, though.
Ben was still working when Stan arrived at the pub, admittedly early but better than being late. He sidled onto the same stool he'd sat on the last time he was here and pouted invitingly at Ben until he noticed and came over.
"I'm early. I'm sorry."
"It's fine. I can't go until Gem gets here to take over from me." Ben smiled. "You look great, by the way."
"Thanks."
"Can I get you a drink?"
"Um...."
Stan didn't want to drink, not this early in the evening, and not when he hadn't had anything to eat in hours. He got drunk quickly at the best of times.
"Can I get a tonic water with lime?"
"Wedge or cordial?"
"Wedge, please."
"No problem," Ben said with a wink and moved efficiently around the bar to fix the drink. The booths were buzzing with people but the bar itself was relatively quiet, leaving Stan with plenty of space to lean his elbows on the slightly sticky wood and play with his phone until Ben was ready.
Gem, it turned out, was a tall girl with multicoloured hair. It was streaked with blue and pink, mostly, with some blonde peeking out through the roots.
Stan surveyed her with the critical eye he'd developed since he started working in fashion. She was too curvy for couture—she actually had curves in the first place, which was too much for some fashion houses. But her look was delicious, her proportions exquisite, and she could get some editorial work, if she was interested. Stan decided to not say anything unless he got a chance to speak to her alone. He didn't want to offend.
"Right," Ben said, appearing from the cellar that apparently doubled as a staff room. He shrugged into his leather jacket, one covered in patches, and pulled a rolled cigarette out from behind his ear. "Ready?"
"Yes."
Ben waved goodbye to his friends but didn't stop to speak to them again, and briefly put his hand on Stan's lower back as they wandered out into the cool London evening.
"Do you mind if I...?" Ben said, gesturing with his cigarette.
"Oh, no. Not at all. I'd join you, but I had one on my way over."
Ben smiled and quickly lit the rollie. "I was thinking sushi," he said, leading them off up Camden High Street. "There's a good place not far from here, and I know they do vegan plates."
"I like sushi," Stan said. "That would be nice. Thank you. And sorry for—"
He didn't finish his sentence, Ben was already waving the apology away. "It's fine," he said. "Really. I like this restaurant anyway, and there's loads of places around here where you can get good vegan food."
Stan nodded. "How was work?" he asked, wanting to move away from his least favourite topic of conversation.
"Not bad," Ben took two quick drags on his cigarette and tossed it into the gutter, where it fizzed in the last of the previous night's rain. "I was on the early, so I started at lunchtime and opened up. I don't mind doing that—there's normally plenty to do, getting the delivery out and cleaning what they didn't get chance to do last night."
"Have you worked there long?"
"Yeah. It was my first job when I moved to London. I think I stay there for sentimental reasons sometimes... but the pay isn't bad, and I get to pretty much pick my hours. If I need time off, they let me have it. And we get good bands and stuff coming through. Here," Ben said, nodding to a tiny restaurant. The entrance was only six feet wide, a door with a window that was already steamed up. He let Stan go in first.
Inside, the smell of food was thick in the air. Stan was surprised—the restaurant was much larger on the inside than what it looked like from the street. The room stretched way back, and a staircase to the side suggested space for more tables upstairs.
"Two," Ben said from over Stan's shoulder, to a young Japanese girl who smiled at them and gestured for Stan to follow.
The little table was towards the back of the restaurant, pressed against a wall with other diners either side of them. Stan shrugged out of his jacket and hung it carefully over the back of his chair—he got the impression this wasn't the sort of place that would hold it for him. Ben did the same and they shuffled into seats.
"Tea?" she offered.
"Please," Ben said. Stan nodded. The waitress handed each of them a menu, then left them alone.
A rush of insecurity swept into Stan's stomach.
"So, we can order whatever, or there's a sharing plate they do for sushi... let me find it for you," Ben said. He was babbling. To think that Ben was nervous too was reassuring, and Stan forced himself to roll his shoulders, stretch his neck as surreptitiously as he could, crack his thumbs.
Ben turned his own menu around and pointed to a sharing plate.
"That looks good," Stan said with a nod.
"Yeah? Okay."
He smiled.
"It says vegetarian, but I can check if it's vegan. I expect so. They don't label things as vegan in here."
The server returned with the tea and placed the two delicate cups in front of them. Confirmed the food was vegan. Did a double take at Stan's flat chest.
"Green tea," she said, gesturing to the cups. "No milk."
Ben nodded, and she left.
"We ask if the food is vegan, then she mentions milk," Ben said with a laugh.
"I can't have cow's milk. I'm not allergic," Stan said. "What's the word... like allergic, but it's not that bad?"
"Intolerant?"
"Yes, that's it. I'm intolerant to cow's milk, so I can only have goat's milk or soya. I don't eat cheese anyway. I do like honey, though."
"London's probably one of the best places in the world to be vegan," Ben said. "There's plenty of cafés and restaurants that are vegan only. You just have to know where to go."
"I don't know many places here yet," Stan said with a laugh. "I live quite close to Victoria Park, so I walked around there the other day. That was nice. I keep meaning to go down to Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, all the tourist places, but I haven't built up the courage to do that yet."
"I hardly ever go into central now," Ben said, fiddling with his chopstick. "Not if I can help it, anyway. It's mental."
"Exactly! And I don't want to be one of those horrible tourists who just stands and looks up at everything. I was like that the first time I went to New York, and you can tell the people who live there, because they just give you this look...."
Ben laughed. "I know the one. You'll get to learn how to do it once you've lived here for a while. It's equal parts exasperation and derision."
"I'll look forward to that."
Stan reached for his green tea and sipped. He didn't normally talk this much—not just on dates, at all, and he suddenly felt self-conscious. Under the table, where no one could see, Ben tipped his ankle against Stan's. It wasn't sexy, or even suggestive. Just nice.
"So, tell me how your first week at work was," Ben said.
Stan cocked his head to the side. "It was okay. I have a lot of work to do already, but I was sort of expecting that. I took a week off between finishing my last job and starting this one, so I have had a break this year."
"You work in fashion?"
"Yes. I'm a fashion journalist."
"As you can tell," Ben said, with a self-deprecating smirk, "I'm not the most fashionable person in the world. I have no idea what a fashion journalist does."
"No, no," Stan protested. "Fashion is fleeting, but style is forever. You have a very striking style, Ben."
"Do I?"
"Yes." Under the table, Stan knocked his ankle back against Ben's. "I like the way you look."
"Thanks," Ben mumbled. He sipped his tea to hide his embarrassment. "Tell me about what a fashion journalist does, then."
"That's not necessarily easy. My job is quite varied. I got my start in blogging. Then I moved on to working for a magazine. Sometimes that means working on shoots. Sometimes I write articles or report from big runway shows."
"You moved here from Italy, right?"
"Mhmm."
"How come?"
"I wanted to take a step back. I was working for Vogue Italia, and it was so high-pressure, high stress, and I wanted to work for a smaller magazine where I could make more of an impact, instead of just being one of many."
"And you're young, to have a job in a magazine like Vogue...."
"Is that a sneaky way of asking how old I am?" Stan said, realising he was flirting too late to take it back. Ben held up his hands and laughed.
"You got me. I'm twenty-six. There. I went first."
"Twenty-two."
"Are you serious? Wow. I mean, you were working for Vogue when you were how old?"
"I left St Petersberg when I was fifteen. I had a chance to go to America, so I went, then within a few months, I was interning at a magazine. Unpaid, of course. I sort of snuck into doing this. Tell me about your job."
Stan was eager to move the conversation on, away from himself. He picked up his tea again, hoping that by occupying his mouth, Ben would do the talking for a while.
"Well, I work in the pub. As you know. And I've got a little freelance job tutoring, which is mostly after-school stuff."
"You teach?"
"Tutor," Ben corrected. "I did a qualification in it, and now I go round to people's houses and help their kids cram for exams. Some parents like me because I'm young and relatable and I look like this, so their kids get on with me better than some of the stuffy old ladies that do it."
Stan laughed and leaned back in his chair, holding his cup carefully close to his chest. "That sounds like fun."
"It is. I have to stay on top of a lot of the legislation that comes out and go to seminars a few times a year to keep on top of the game. Tutoring is a big-money business now, and parents all want the best for their kids."
"What subjects do you teach?"
"Maths and English, some music, science, and history. I specialise in music, but most of the time I do maths and English. Those are the important ones."
"Music?" Stan prompted. He liked the way Ben used his hands to demonstrate his point when he spoke, fingers drawing pictures in the air in front of him. He seemed utterly unselfconscious.
"Yeah. I play in a band, guitar, and I help kids mostly with the composition element of their GCSE."
"You're in a band?"
"Yeah." Ben smiled. "You should come see us sometime."
"I will," Stan said with a nod. His next question was lost as the server returned with plates of food. "Oh my gosh," he muttered. "We'll never eat all of this."
"You underestimate how much I can put away," Ben said, rolling up the sleeves of his long, black T-shirt, revealing the black-and-grey tattoos underneath. It seemed both arms were inked, from elbow to wrist, at very least. Ben caught him staring and winked.
"Later," he said. "Food first."
# Chapter Three
IT WAS good sushi, and Stan had been to Japan once with Italia, so he knew good sushi—and more importantly, bad sushi. Ben wasn't lying, he really could eat a lot, and Stan preferred to sit back and nibble while Ben talked and talked.
And ate.
"Please, tell me something," Ben said. "I really won't shut up otherwise."
"I don't want you to shut up."
"I do."
"Okay. Um...."
"What's the magazine like? Is it different to Vogue?"
Stan nodded slowly and carefully selected another piece of maki, dipped it in the rich, dark soy sauce, then put it to the side of his own plate before talking.
"It's very different from what I'm used to," he said. "I've worked for a few magazines now, and they all work in their own ways, of course, but the underlying structure is the same. I know my job, and I know I'm good at it, but I feel like I have to prove myself all over again."
Ben nodded. "Even though you're established, you still need to show the new people what you can do."
"Yes, exactly. And these people are a tough crowd. Is that what you say?"
He ate his maki while Ben answered.
"Yeah. That's right." He scratched his nose, but Stan still saw the smile Ben was trying to hide.
"There's some nice people, though. The subeditor I'm working for is terrifying. My assistant is very good. Competent."
"You have an assistant?" Ben sounded surprised.
"She works for the department," Stan was forced to admit. "I'm hoping to take her with me to a shoot next week."
"That's quick."
"That's journalism," Stan said with a grin. "Things move very quickly. I think one of the reasons why they hired me is because I can get straight into the job, no hesitating or learning things new. Apart from not knowing a single thing about London. That's very frustrating."
"But why you have an assistant," Ben said reasonably.
"Yes, I suppose."
Ben insisted on paying for dinner, which Stan thought was charming, then took Stan's hand as they walked out into the rapidly darkening London streets. They wandered back to the Tube station and the pub without discussing their direction, and all of a sudden Stan found himself back where he'd started. Almost.
"Do you want to go for a drink?" Ben asked, and Stan hesitated, considering it, really considering, before shaking his head.
"Not tonight. I've been at work all day, and...."
"It's fine. I understand." Ben stepped closer. A car rushed past them on the street. "Can I...?"
The question trailed into nothing as Stan nodded, leaning forward and up on his toes to close the distance between their lips. Ben kissed carefully, a steady press of his warm, soft lips against Stan's. Just when Stan felt a flutter of disappointment that it wouldn't be going any further, Ben cupped his jaw in his hand and flicked his tongue into Stan's mouth.
This was what Stan had been hoping for. He lowered his heels slowly, bringing Ben with him so Ben was leaning down, taking control of the hot, slick slide of two tongues, gasps of breath traded from one mouth to the other.
Stan tilted his head to the side, letting Ben control the angle but kissing with an enthusiasm he hadn't felt in a long time. This was kissing like he hadn't experienced—hot and wild and a little lost.
He was gasping for breath when Ben pulled away and pressed kisses under his ear, then down the side of his neck.
"Ben...."
"Yeah?" The word was mumbled against his collarbone.
"Do you want...?"
"Probably, yeah. We should...."
"Stop," Stan agreed. "For now."
"Yeah. Fuck."
Slowly Ben loosened his grip and smoothed Stan's hair back into place, running his hand down its length all the way to Stan's waist. The action sent a shiver down Stan's spine—at least, that was what Stan was blaming his reaction on. Physics. Biology?
"Am I going to see you again?"
"I bloody well hope so," Ben muttered.
Stan leaned in and kissed him again, quickly, then slower when Ben insisted. This kiss was even longer, and Stan had to arch his back, bending to the pressure of his slightly taller partner.
"Oh wow."
Ben laughed, kissed him again, then again, then sighed. "What Tube do you need to get?"
"Um, the black one. Northern line, but going south."
"Okay. I'm going in the other direction. I'll text you, if that's okay?"
"Yeah."
Ben reached for Stan's hand and squeezed it lightly. Somehow this felt even more intimate than the kiss.
"I'll see you soon."
"Okay."
"Goodnight, Stan."
"Goodnight."
WORKING DOUBLE shifts, plus band practice, plus trying to feed the spark of a new relationship meant Ben was almost always tired. He'd gotten used to insomnia as a teenager, the result of a massive shift in his lifestyle and the stress of his parents' divorce. These days he tried to meditate every night before going to sleep, although some nights he ended up crashing out and forgetting. Smoking didn't help.
"You look like shit," Jez said as Ben stumbled into the kitchen of the North London house they shared.
"Cheers."
"I meant it in a nice way. You not sleeping again?"
Jez wasn't exactly known for his subtlety. Tall and handsome and with an incredible singing voice, he was the ideal lead singer for the band, even though his look was slightly more clean-cut than Ben and the others. Jez kept his dark brown hair in a fashionable quiff, and preferred button-down shirts to the ripped-up T-shirts the rest of the band often wore. He was one of the few people, other than Tone, who knew about Ben's family and how he'd made the leap from Auckland to London.
"Did you get a shag out of last night, at least?"
"No," Ben said, carefully slotting two pieces of bread into the toaster. It was a death trap and even touching the outside could give a mild electric shock. "I think I need to take it slow with this one."
"That sucks. Not literally, of course."
"It's alright. I'm gonna see him again."
"You sound pretty sure about that."
Ben leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his bare chest, feeling the sticky edge against his back. The kitchen was fucking disgusting, but that's what happened when five blokes lived together. The rent was cheap and the landlord didn't bitch, and that was the best they could ask for, really.
"He was really nice," Ben said. "We had a good time."
"Alright. No need to be so defensive."
"I'm not defensive," Ben said, realising too late that he sounded exactly that. Jez's raised eyebrow told him the same. "Stan is...."
"Different?"
"You've been talking to Tone."
It was a simple matter of fact, not an accusation. Ben turned and opened the fridge, extracted jam, scraped the mould off the top before smothering it over his toast.
"All Tone said was that you were seeing the hottest nongirl he'd ever seen in his life."
"Stan isn't transgender. At least, I don't think he is. He's just a guy who looks like a girl."
"Ben." Jez grasped his bicep and squeezed. "If this guy makes you happy, I don't care if he dresses in drag to dance a hula every Saturday night."
"We're nowhere near that yet." Ben shrugged off the hand that was still gripping his arm.
"What, dancing the hula?"
"No," Ben said with a laugh. "Him making me happy."
"Oh."
Ben took a big bite of his toast and crunched on it while Jez finished making cups of tea for them both. He hadn't asked for one—Jez was just like that. Officially, Ben didn't have anything to do until later in the day, then it was back-to-back tutoring sessions for nearly six hours, with only a short break to dash across Hampstead from one appointment to the next.
They had done the planning for the sessions weeks ago, and the two families he had appointments with were fairly chilled. One, the first family, always invited him to stay for dinner, and he had a good relationship with the three sons he tutored. Ben had given his lunchtime shift to Tone, since he didn't want to have to leave early for his second job, which meant he had nothing to do for most of the afternoon.
"What time is it?" Ben asked. The clock on the oven had never shown the right time, not since they'd lived in the house.
"Uhh, twelve thirty," Jez said with a grin. "You got plans?"
"Not really. I might go down to Russell's and piss about on his guitars."
Russell was an old friend, their relationship forged on a mutual love of heavy metal and Russell's relaxed attitude about letting Ben and his friends sit around his shop and try out the instruments Ben thought he'd never be able to afford.
If Russell's place was close to one of Ben's favourite clothes shops, then that was just a fringe benefit.
"Don't forget rehearsal tonight. Starting at ten. Summer wants us to work on this song she wrote."
"Is it shit?" Ben asked around a mouthful of toast.
"Dunno yet. I guess we'll find out later."
STAN ROLLED his shoulders and finally pushed himself away from his desk. For the first time in hours he looked up and almost did a double take at the time. The day had run away from him.
As was the nature of things in journalism, he'd been pulled in to help out a project for the past few days, meaning his day-to-day work had slipped. He had pages of notes, scribbled in his favourite notebook at the launches he'd been invited to by designers. Those things weren't easy to get into, and Stan was eager to get his article written up and submitted to Victoria for approval.
The London fashion world was such an interesting place to work. Although the haute couture scene existed and operated in pretty much the same way it did in other major fashion cities, the underground, indie artist scene was another world entirely. That world was capturing Stan's imagination in a way nothing had for a long time, and he wanted to shine a light on the designers working in garages and basements and, in one case, his mother's attic. Unlike in haute couture fashion, these designers were creating incredible garments with no money, little training, and hardly any facilities. It was fascinating.
Stan reached for his phone and thumbed in his password to scroll through the list of messages and notifications. At least three missed calls were from Ben, and one "call me" text.
Stan grinned to himself and hit the button to call Ben back.
"Hey," he said, answering after the first ring.
"Hello. Sorry I missed your call. I've been busy."
"No worries. I just wanted—I was supposed to be tutoring tonight," Ben said, slightly breathless. Apparently the mere fact of the phone call was raising his heart rate. "But they called it off last-minute. There's a band playing at the venue, at the back of the Buck Shot, and I've been dying to check them out, if you wanna come with?"
"Oh," Stan said. "Um...."
"I know it's last-minute, but I thought you could just come over straight from work. I can make sure we both get dinner too."
"Um, Ben—"
"I'm sorry. I know you're probably busy at work."
"Ben!" Stan exclaimed, laughing. "I cannot answer you while you are talking."
"Sorry."
"Shh. I'd like to come. But I don't have time to go home and get changed."
"That's fine. Wear whatever you went to work in. No one will care." Stan was quiet for a moment. "Stan?"
"I'm wearing a dress." He sounded oddly defiant, even to himself.
"Oh. I don't care. Wait—I meant—"
"I know what you meant," Stan said. "Others might not be so generous, though."
"Stan. I want you to come. If you're not comfortable, that's fine. We can do it another time. But please don't think that what you wear makes any difference to me."
"Um. Okay."
"Great."
Stan said his goodbyes and put the phone down on his desk, then smoothed the silky fabric of his dress over his knees. He wasn't self-conscious. He'd worn dresses plenty of times before. It was just Ben's friends—a lot of them worked in the pub, and they hadn't been introduced officially yet. They probably already thought he was weird.
For the rest of the afternoon, he answered emails and did research for an article he was working on. He was supposed to be booking models for the shoot that would accompany it, but the photographer kept changing his mind on what he wanted, making the job much harder than it should have been.
He logged off and waved goodbye to his colleagues at four, wanting to make it across to Camden in time to get some dinner with Ben. Once again, he'd been surviving on green tea all day and his stomach was reminding him—loudly—that it was empty.
A man on the Tube stared at his bare legs for the entire journey. Stan stood, feeling more in control like this when the trains were busy than he did squashed between people on the seats. With his oversize bag hanging elegantly from one elbow, black, heeled ankle boots on his feet, and big, buggy sunglasses holding his hair back from his face, Stan felt decidedly glamorous. The guy was still a creep for staring, though.
Stan tossed his hair over his shoulder and nudged his sunglasses down onto his nose as he strode out of the station. Ben was outside the pub, leaning against the wall across the road where the smokers congregated. His mouth dropped open as Stan walked up. Flattered, Stan added a little wiggle to his hips as he sauntered over.
"Holy shit," Ben muttered. He dropped the cigarette butt and ground it out with the heel of his boot. "You look incredible."
Stan laughed. "Thank you. You look pretty good yourself." He put both his hands on Ben's chest, spreading his fingers over the soft cotton of the cut-up T-shirt. He leaned in and kissed Ben's cheek in greeting.
"Yeah, but seriously...." Ben frowned. "Tone is going to perv on you all night. I hope you know that."
"What does 'perv' mean?" Stan asked, rubbing away the faint lipstick mark from Ben's cheek with his thumb.
"It's like... to be all lecherous. Looking at you like he wants you."
"Well, he can't have me," Stan said with a little smile.
"Good. I'll make sure he knows that."
"What time do the bands start?" Stan asked, secretly liking when Ben reached for his hand and laced their fingers together.
"Not for half an hour yet. The first one is rubbish, though. I don't mind if we miss them. Did you eat yet?"
Stan shook his head.
"Okay. We should do that."
"We don't have to," Stan said, even as his stomach growled again at the mention of food.
"Stan, I need to eat. I don't mind if you don't, and I don't mind if you want to sit in the bar without me. But I haven't had anything since breakfast, and I'm starving."
"Me too," Stan said in a very small voice. Ben didn't acknowledge the admission and instead squeezed his hand.
"So, I was talking to Lena, who's one of the regulars, and she said there's a good place down at the Lock, if you're willing to risk street food."
"Sometimes street food is the best you can get."
"I completely agree with you," Ben said, leading them away from the pub and down towards Camden Lock. "Do you mind things that are spicy? This is Thai."
"No, I like Thai food. Sounds good to me."
Ben squeezed his hand again and swung their joined hands back and forth as they walked the short distance to the rows of food stalls, the smell of a hundred different cuisines mixing in the early evening air.
The food was served in foil containers, rice piled with some kind of vegetable curry that was made with coconut milk and spices. Instead of traditional seating areas, the Lock was lined with static mopeds and a long bar, so once Ben had collected—and paid for, at his insistence—the food, Stan took a seat gingerly, opting not to swing his leg over the wide leather seat.
"Are you wearing anything under that?" Ben asked cheekily, wiggling his eyebrows as he pushed one of the foil containers and a fork over to Stan.
"I'm sure you'd like to know," Stan told him with a smirk. He dug into the food, gasping at its heat. "Oh wow. This is good."
"Mm."
As well as being hot, there was a subtle chilli heat to the curry, which left Stan's mouth tingling. It was delicious—delicately flavoured with lemongrass and ginger and another flavour he couldn't quite put his finger on.
"Do you like it?" Stan asked. It was a mostly redundant question—Ben was shovelling the curry into his mouth with great enthusiasm.
"Yeah. This is good. We should come back here."
Stan laughed and delicately speared a snap pea with his plastic fork. Ben was so unashamedly interested—it was nice to be with someone who wasn't into playing games.
By the time they'd finished the food and cleared their table space, the sun was starting to set over the city, and Ben once again took Stan's hand as they walked back up towards the pub. They were both quiet, reflective, and Stan wondered just what it was about this man in particular that made him feel so light, so alive.
A small, fairly unenthusiastic crowd of people had gathered at the pub, spilling between the bar and the music venue, which had thrown its doors wide open.
"Ben!" someone yelled, and Ben turned just in time to avoid being barreled over by Tone, who was wearing a Cult T-shirt and a wide grin.
"Alright, Tone?" Ben mumbled.
"And, Stan, right?" Tone asked, holding his hand out for Stan to shake.
"Yes, hello."
"You're far too good-looking for Ben. If you fancy a bit of rough, I'm sure you can figure out where to find me."
"Fuck off, Tone," Ben said with a weary sigh and threw his arm around Stan's shoulder.
Stan laughed and turned his face against Ben's chest for a moment, hoping to hide the heat in his cheeks.
"Ah, you're alright, me babber," Tone said, giving Stan a hearty slap on the shoulder before ducking back behind the bar.
"What on earth does that mean?" Stan whispered as Ben guided them over to the bar, his hand slipping from Stan's shoulder to the dip in his lower back.
"It's Bristolian," Ben said with a laugh. "You learn to speak it after a while. It's an affectionate thing, from what I can figure out."
Tone let them skip the queue and poured two tall glasses of ale, charging them staff prices even when Stan insisted on handing over the money for the drinks. Ben had paid for dinner.
"Would you watch mine for a moment?" Stan asked after taking the first, refreshing sip. "I just want to go freshen up."
"Of course. The loos are over there."
He pointed to a door in the corner, and Stan nodded, quickly moving through the crowd.
After ducking into the female bathroom, Stan carefully set his bag down on the side of a sink and dug out his make-up bag. Things weren't too bad, since he'd touched up his make-up before leaving work.
Instead of reapplying his lipstick, Stan rubbed it away with a tissue and replaced it with a little touch of concealer, blending the colour to hide the rawness on his lips from the curry. If they were going to have a few drinks tonight, and maybe kiss a bit too, Stan didn't want to have to worry about the colour rubbing off.
He quickly fluffed up his hair, spritzed himself with a light cologne, and checked the dress for any marks or stains. It was a shift-style T-shirt dress, made with a fairly stiff satin fabric. Over the white background, huge brightly coloured flowers competed for space. It was one of Stan's favourite dresses, one he'd been given by the designer after he'd worked on a shoot for them.
A girl came into the bathroom behind him, nodded, and ducked into a stall. He nodded back, making eye contact in the mirror, then washed his hands and left. For a while now, he'd felt safer using the female bathrooms when he was out in public. Most of the time, the girls didn't mind him being in there, even when they could see that he was a boy.
The men, on the other hand, too frequently took exception to how he dressed.
Ben was looking slightly worried when Stan eased himself back into the space between Ben and the bar. Instead of saying anything, not when these words were still so unfamiliar to him, Stan leaned up and pressed a small kiss to Ben's cheek.
"You look incredible," Ben said, leaning down to whisper the words into Stan's ear.
"I think you told me that already."
"It bears repeating." He straightened and tucked a lock of Stan's long blond hair back behind his ear. "The next band is starting in a minute. Do you want to go in?"
Stan nodded. "Yeah."
"Okay. Come on."
The second band was good, the third very good, although Stan found himself spending an equal amount of time watching the musicians and the man he was with. They stood off to the side, and Ben kept a part of his body in contact with Stan's nearly all the time. It was affectionate, yet not overwhelming, and Stan felt himself relaxing against Ben's slim torso.
By the time the venue started to empty out, it was creeping up to eleven o'clock, and Stan, who had been awake since five that morning, was yawning.
"Let me walk you back to the Tube station," Ben said.
"Okay." It was easy to agree. Stan led the way this time, out onto the main road, where cars whizzed past at breakneck speed. A light rain had just started to fall over the city, and they ducked into the cover of the Tube station.
"Thank you so much for bringing me out tonight. I think I needed it."
"Anytime." Ben hesitated, and Stan wondered if he was going to be invited somewhere else again, so quickly after their date. "I'll give you a call soon, yeah?"
"I'd like that."
He let Ben kiss him goodbye, a sweet, lingering kiss with fingertips that gently clutched his hip bones. Stan forced himself to leave before Ben offered something more... something Stan wasn't sure he would be able to refuse.
The Tube journeys had become meditative already, even after such a short time in the city. Stan tuned out and got lost either in his imagination or in the echoes of music that filled his head while he reclined on one of the narrow seats, long legs stretched out in front of him.
Thoughts of the evening lingered in his head—the thick, cloggy air in the music venue, the thumping bassline he could feel through his feet, the warm reassurance of Ben leading him through the very new experience. This was so different to anything he'd had before. Not even in New York, where he'd discovered his independence and lost his virginity, had he felt so alive.
It took a little over half an hour to complete the journey, forty-five minutes by the time he walked past Bow Church to his apartment complex. Heavy-lidded and with aching limbs, Stan forced himself to take the stairs instead of the elevator and slipped inside his precious flat.
In here, things were just the way he liked them, his little cocoon safe from the world. Stan kicked off his heels, leaving them by the door, and padded barefoot through to the kitchen to make his habitual last cup of tea before bed.
It was much later than he would normally stay out, especially since he had work in the morning. Something about this kind of spontaneous night out felt very London—throwing caution to the wind and doing whatever he liked.
With the radio providing background noise, Stan took his tea through to the bathroom and showered with the cup balanced on the edge of the bath. Eyes closed, Stan let his hands trace the contours of his body, mapping out what each bone felt like under its thin covering of skin. This was how he measured himself, not with a tape or clothes or on a scale, but what his body felt like. He was putting on a little weight, around his middle and on his hips. He tried not to care and sipped some more of his tea before thoroughly washing his hair.
Without any encouragement, Stan's dick rose and filled until it was pressing against his hip bone, hard and insistent. He was good at ignoring it though and turned the temperature down to give his hair a nice shine as he rinsed the shampoo from it, letting the water do a secondary job of quelling his erection. Growing up in a strictly Russian Orthodox Christian family, he was used to suppressing his sexual urges, and even though he'd learned to express his gender in a way that felt natural and beautiful and right, finding a way to exert control over his sexuality was still lagging a way behind.
Stan stepped out of the shower and roughly towel-dried his body, then padded naked through to his bedroom with his tea. He turned the radio off, pulled on a pair of boxers, then crawled between the cool sheets on his bed.
Before settling down for the night, he set the alarm for the morning, then felt his stomach flutter when the phone vibrated in his hand with a message. From Ben.
Goodnight. Sweet dreams. x
Feeling giddy, Stan put the phone on his nightstand and turned out the light. When he rolled over and pulled a pillow to his chest, he couldn't help but bury his face in it and grin like a schoolgirl with her very first crush.
# Chapter Four
BEN WOKE to the sound of someone thundering down the hall and groaned. He was always bitching at the others about making noise on the rickety old stairs. His room was next to them, and any noise woke him straight up. Especially since his curtains were paper-thin and let in all the light.
He rolled over and checked his phone—it was a little after nine in the morning. He'd got to bed around four, after working until two, closing up, staying for a drink with the others on shift, then sitting on a night bus for far too long to get him home.
Because he, unlike the others, was a considerate bastard, Ben hadn't had a shower when he got in, not wanting to wake Jez, whose room was next to the bathroom. The shower too made plenty of noise while it gurgled to life. This meant Ben hadn't scrubbed the cloyingly sweet smell of alcohol from his skin, and in the early morning, combined with sleep and sweat, it made him feel sick.
There was no way he was going back to sleep now.
Ben threw off the covers onto the floor and sprawled on the pale blue sheet, feet hanging off the end of the bed. A long crack ran along the length of his textured ceiling. No point in reporting it to the landlord. He'd only be ignored again.
With a heaving sigh, Ben dragged himself out of bed and grabbed his towel from over the wardrobe door. He padded bare-arse naked down the hallway to the bathroom and prodded the old, rusting shower to life.
The water was freezing, which was a strange blessing—it shocked his body into wakefulness when the process usually took plenty of time. Ben had no idea whose shower gel he grabbed—it didn't matter really—and scrubbed it over his body, then used the same stuff on his hair. The mohawk had been up last night, but he wasn't going to bother with it again today, so he needed to get all of the sticky hairspray out.
After a few minutes, during which his balls retreated all the way inside his body, Ben shut off the water, rubbed the worst of it out of his hair, then wrapped the towel around his waist to go back to his bedroom.
The light coming in from the window was tinged a sickly pink from the curtains, so he threw them wide open to let the bright sunshine inside. It was going to be another hot day in the city, one of those that left him sweaty and gross after a short time outside and made the Underground pure hell.
With the faintest of breezes coming in through the open window, Ben sat back down on the edge of his bed and grabbed his phone. In the time he had taken to shower, a text message had come through from Stan.
Good morning x.
Ben grinned and his thumbs hovered over the keypad, not really knowing how to respond to that. It was an opening, for sure, but Stan was so hard to read.
Morning. What r u up to today?
The response was almost instantaneous.
Not much. It's a beautiful day, I don't want to stay inside.
So he was definitely angling for a date. Ben scratched at his chest and checked the diary on his phone. It was the only way he could keep track of his shifts at the bar, his tutoring appointments, and band rehearsals.
I'm rehearsing two til six this afternoon. Do you want to come with? It's really chilled.
Okay.
Ben arranged to meet him at Monument Underground Station, where they could both switch lines to go around to Notting Hill Gate, where Geordie lived. That still gave Ben a few hours to mess about, so he pulled on a pair of boxers and gathered up an armful of dirty clothes to stuff into the washing machine downstairs.
The ground floor of the house was quiet at this time in the morning. Ben set his washing on, then found a tin of tobacco on the kitchen table and swiped it.
It wasn't yet insanely hot outside, and to be fair, Ben wasn't wearing any clothes. They had more of a tiny courtyard than a garden, but it was an outdoor space where they could smoke without sitting on the side of the road, so he considered it a bonus.
Many, many years ago, someone had planted a few bushes around the edge of the courtyard, but these had long since died and all that was left were skinny, bare branches. The remaining cracked plant pot was used as an ashtray, filled with dirty, cigarette-butt-strewn water. It was rank.
Ben sat on the edge of a raised plant bed and quickly rolled a cigarette. When it was lit, he tipped his head all the way back to try to tempt some of the rays of sun onto his face. The hum of traffic from the other side of the house wasn't quite so loud here, and a few birds were cheeping from the other side of the fence. The family who lived behind them kept their garden slightly tidier, so actual life was sometimes tempted in there.
"Mornin'," a voice drawled from the kitchen door. Ben grunted in response and shielded his eyes to look up at Tone. "I wondered where me baccy had gone."
Ben threw him the tin. Tone caught it deftly and started rolling his own cigarette. He was wearing saggy boxers and a loose, holey T-shirt. A lot of people made the assumption Tone was fat, when he wasn't, not really. He had absolutely no idea how to dress himself beyond jeans and a T-shirt, and had been known to cry when one of his favourite items of clothing literally disintegrated. Most of his shopping for clothes was done at the supermarket.
This meant his T-shirts were either too big or too tight, stretched over his belly, which was, to be fair, slightly round. The rest of his upper body was toned, though, his arms and shoulders muscled from years of drumming. If he laid off the cider for a while, he might actually drop a few pounds, but that wasn't really likely.
Tone lit his rollie, adjusted his genitals, and offered the tin back to Ben.
"Nah, I'm done, thanks, mate."
"You're up early."
"Jarek woke me up when he decided to prance down the stairs like a herd of fucking elephants on parade."
"Wanker," Tone said sympathetically. "What are you up to today?"
"Rehearsal," Ben said, reminding him. "Stan's going to come along."
"Oh, is he now. You seem to be spending an awful lot of time with young Stanislav."
Ben laughed. "How do you know his name?"
"Facebook-stalked him, din't I?"
"You're such a creep, Tone."
Tone shrugged, unaffected by the insult. "He's, like, famous and stuff, Ben."
"Is he?"
"Yeah. He's got a blog, about fashion, and about fifty thousand followers on Instagram."
"Bloody hell." Ben stubbed out his cigarette and tossed it into the plant pot.
"It didn't say how many followers his blog has, though."
Tone contemplated the lit end of his cigarette, then turned to Ben, as if he expected a response.
"What?" Ben asked.
"Nothin'."
"I knew he worked in fashion," Ben said, feeling like he needed to fill the gap. "I guess that sort of thing matters in the industry he's in."
"Yeah."
"Have we got a Twitter account for the band?"
"I think Summer was sorting something out."
Ben shook his head. "It's a bloody miracle we get anything done half the time. We couldn't be more disorganised if we tried."
"Ah, it's only a bit of fun, right?"
"I guess. I'm going to go... get dressed." Ben stood, and Tone slapped his ass. "Wanker," Ben muttered as he walked away.
FOR THE rest of the morning, Ben did the things he hated having to do on the weekend—cleaning his room, washing his clothes, tidying the fuck up. Then he played two hours of ArcheAge and took a power nap before getting up again and getting dressed, ready to head over and meet Stan.
It took another ten minutes to get Tone out of the house—he couldn't find his drumsticks—and Ben made him carry his second guitar. He wasn't normally such a poser. Most of the time he only took his battered old Samick electric to rehearsals, but he wanted to take the acoustic today as well. It was nicer for jamming sessions, more mellow.
The Underground was, as expected, hotter than the ninth circle of hell, and Tone grumbled all the way to Monument, where they met Stan on the platform. He was wearing a loose cut-off T-shirt—which exposed his smooth, pale stomach—skinny jeans, and flip-flops. Ben couldn't help but stare, transfixed, at the tiny, fine line of hair that danced from Stan's bellybutton down under the waistband of his low-slung jeans.
The train wasn't due for two more minutes, so Ben leaned in to steal a kiss.
"No," Stan said, placing his palms on Ben's chest to keep him at a distance, then leaning in and pressing their lips together in the briefest peck. "I am truly disgusting. It's so hot down here."
"I know," Ben said. "Tone has been telling me. Repeatedly."
"I'm going to go buy some of those short-shorts," Tone said. "You know, the ones where your bum cheeks fall out of the bottom of them."
"Tone, I am regarded as an expert in the field of fashion," Stan said, mock serious. "And I speak for all of us when I say, please don't."
Ben laughed and grabbed Stan's hand, squeezing it once before letting go.
They waited for a Circle Line train, because those had been recently refurbished and were now, blessedly, air-conditioned, making for a much more comfortable last leg of their journey. The train pulled into the station and conversation was temporarily abandoned as they moved through the crowds to the exit. Ben tucked his Oyster card safely back into his bag once he got to the other side of the barriers and stretched his neck, looking for Tone and Stan, who had fallen behind.
"Fucking tourists," Ben muttered as they emerged onto the bright street.
"I have no idea how you find your way around," Stan said, finally letting Ben reach for his hand and thread their fingers together now they were outside.
Tone laughed. "You get used to it after a while. I figured out the Tubes first because that's all colour-coded, so you pick it up quicker. The buses are a fucking nightmare. The numbers don't make sense at all, so I kept getting lost."
"And Tone refuses to walk anywhere," Ben said, teasing.
"Fuck off," Tone said lightly. "I walk everywhere. Used to when I was back home too."
"Home is Bristol?" Stan asked.
"Yeah. Born and bred. Lived in Briz 'til I was twenty, then got dragged up here."
"If you ever get lost in London, you can tell where you are by looking at the bins," Ben said as they started down the road towards Geordie's house.
"Apparently we are in 'Litter,'" Stan said, teasing.
Tone made a choking noise, spluttered, then burst out laughing. "Fuckin' hell," he snorted. "Not that bit, mate—the other side."
"I know. I was joking," Stan said, sounding pleased he'd made Tone laugh. Tone laughed a lot, and it was a nice sound.
It only took a few minutes to walk to Geordie's house, along a street that was much brighter, and cleaner, than where they'd come from. The door to one of the houses was flung open as they approached.
"Who's this, then? New recruit?"
Stan smiled at the slightly curvy lady, with her big hair and bright lipstick. "Hello," he said.
"This is Stan," Ben said. "The guy I was telling you about."
"You weren't telling me anything," she said with a salacious grin. "You were mooning over the boy."
"Shut up, Sherrie," Ben muttered as Tone guffawed.
"Nice to meet you," Stan said and Ben pulled him away, down the stairs, before Sherrie could say anything more embarrassing.
The rest of the band were already assembled in the basement, but it didn't look like they'd made any attempt to set up. The drum kit was still stacked in one corner and a pile of guitar cases lay unopened in a corner.
Ben rolled his eyes, flopped into a beanbag, and tugged on Stan's hand until Stan relented and sat down on his lap.
"So, what do these little social occasions involve?" Stan asked, his voice low as he murmured into Ben's ear.
Ben grinned. "Smoking. Talking. Gossiping. Sometimes one of us will break out a guitar."
Stan laughed at that and tried to wriggle away, but Ben held on tight around his waist. "I'm afraid I'm not very musical. I'm not sure what I can add to the conversation."
The others settled down, and Stan leaned back against Ben's chest, seemingly content to watch the small group of people.
The on-again, off-again relationship between Summer and Geordie seemed to be very much on, again, and Stan turned away as Summer straddled Geordie's lap and started to slowly grind.
"Get a room," Tone called as he finished rolling a thick spliff and twisted the end closed. "Or I'll get Sherrie down here and ask her to give me a lap dance."
"That's my mum, you dick," Geordie said over Summer's shoulder. Tone just grinned.
"Are we just waiting for Jez?" Tone asked. "Or is Wiltshire turning up too?"
Jez had disappeared earlier that morning, braving central London in his hunt for something or another. He'd promised to be back in time for rehearsal and was now ten minutes late.
"Dan Wiltshire sometimes plays keyboard for us," Ben said for Stan's benefit. "He's really good but totally fucking unreliable."
Stan snorted. "Why do you keep him, then?"
"Because he's good. He doesn't like practising, though. He just wants to turn up and play gigs."
"Which means, when we get him on stage, he sucks," Summer added. "Come on, let's get started without them. Jez can pick up what he missed when he gets here."
Stan shuffled off Ben's lap and dragged one of the other beanbags closer, then sat back down on it with crossed legs. For a few minutes, Ben's total attention turned to his battered old acoustic, one of the first things he'd bought after he'd moved to London. It had history, this guitar; he could feel it in the wood and the strings and the noise that came out of it.
His thumb gently caressed the strings, teasing chords out of them. Due to the age of the guitar—it was made some point in the sixties—it often needed retuning. Ben was familiar with it, though, and quickly adjusted the tuning keys.
"What shall we start with, then?" Tone asked. "Shall I get me bongos out?"
Stan snorted with laughter.
"Don't be filthy, Stan," Tone said, winking at him.
"I'm not!"
"Let's start acoustic," Summer said. "Pick up where we left off on Wednesday?"
As they worked through the first song in their repertoire, Ben was acutely aware of Stan next to him, watching quietly. His voice felt a little rusty, probably from shouting at people over the noise in the bar last night, and he let Summer lead on the vocals for a few songs until Jez turned up. She had a nice voice, not quite as rough as most rock singers, but with a soulful growl that blended with Ben's voice well.
Jez arrived after they'd finished the second song, his face flushed with annoyance as much as the heat. "Fucking Underground improvement works," he muttered, grabbing his guitar and sitting down on Ben's other side to match their tuning to each other.
They played one more song before Ben stretched his arms over his head, letting his spine pop out. He chanced a look over at Stan, who was grinning at him.
"So?" he said.
"You're good," Stan said, nodding. "I like how you all start off doing your own thing, almost, then after a few minutes you start to blend. It's like watching you all learn to share."
Ben barked with laughter and leaned over to press a kiss to Stan's temple. "I'm never going to get bored of your way of looking at the world," he murmured, too quietly for the others to hear. Stan grinned and ruffled his hand through Ben's hair, then leaned back in his seat to listen to the next song.
AFTER ABOUT half an hour, Summer nudged Ben up to go get them all snacks, claiming it wasn't fair Geordie always did it.
"I'll go," Stan offered, unfolding his lean body from the beanbag.
"I don't mind," Ben grumbled.
Stan just grabbed Ben's wrist and led him out of the basement room. As soon as they got halfway up the stairs, he backed Ben up against the wall with a firm palm pressed against Ben's chest.
"Do you have any idea how sexy it is to watch you strumming on that guitar?" Stan asked in a low voice. He'd been focused on Ben's bitten-down fingernails for far too long now and wanted to kiss each raggedy nail. That was probably disgusting. He didn't care.
"What can I say," Ben said, smirking, "I'm good with my hands."
Stan laughed and leaned in to press their lips together, just softly at first, then taking things hot and fast with a slick tongue when Ben gripped his hips.
"Later," Ben said, breaking first and gently pushing Stan away. He laughed ruefully. "You're going to kill me one of these days."
Stan felt something hot curl in his belly and smiled, reaching up to push Ben's hair out of his face. "Okay," he said, then slipped his hand into Ben's to be led up to the kitchen.
Geordie's mum sat at a tall island, a steaming mug of coffee at her elbow and a book unfolded in front of her. The room was deliciously air-conditioned, and Stan lifted his face to the cool breeze coming from the unit above the door.
"We drew the short straw, got sent up for drinks," Ben said as Sherrie looked up.
"Help yourself," she said lightly. "Didn't mean to embarrass you earlier, Stan love," she added. "Me and Ben take the piss, you know?"
"It's fine," Stan said with a laugh. "I'm getting used to that."
"Where you from, love?" she asked, leaning her elbows on the island and closing the book. Stan glanced at Ben, who was pulling a selection of canned drinks out of the fridge and setting them on a tray. He clearly didn't need help.
"Um, Russia," Stan said, turning back to Sherrie. "My family live just outside St Petersburg."
"Ooh, cold there, innit?"
"Yes, especially in the winters."
"Little whisp of a thing like you, not surprised you left. Not that London's much nicer, though. It gets awful cold here too."
Stan nodded, then turned as a small person of unidentifiable gender toddled into the room.
"Emily!" Ben said and swept the child up into his arms, making her laugh. She babbled away, apparently pleased with this turn of events, only every third word intelligible to Stan's ears. "This is Sherrie's youngest," Ben said, coming over to introduce the little girl. "And my favourite," he added in a whisper.
"How old is she?" Stan asked. He liked kids. There were always plenty of them around when he was growing up. The very youngest ones were scary, though. So breakable.
"Dunno. 'Bout a year and a half, Sher?"
"Yeah, twenty months now," Sherrie said. She looked at Ben fondly as he sat Emily down on a counter and styled her hair up into a mohawk.
"Is that a...?" Stan asked.
"Wu-Tang Clan T-shirt?" Ben finished. "Yeah. I bought it for her."
Emily started poking Ben in the face, so he handed her back to Sherrie and returned to his rummaging, grabbing a few sharing-size bags of crisps and adding them to the tray.
"Okay, we better get back before Tone starts eating people," Ben said. "Thanks, Sher."
"No problem, love," she said. Her daughter had put her head down on Sherrie's shoulder for a cuddle, and Stan's heart clenched. He'd always loved watching mothers and their children interact.
"Stan," Ben said softly, and he startled at being caught, and walked out of the kitchen too quickly.
They made their way back downstairs in silence, though Stan shot Ben a worried look when the sound of raised voices met them halfway down. Ben just sighed and nodded for him to keep going.
"Farage is a twat," Tone said emphatically. "Protest vote, my arse. It's a Tory vote, and you all know it. If you want to protest vote, go Green. At least they're mostly harmless, unlike those Nazi wankers."
"Tone," Ben said sharply as he set the tray down. "No politics at rehearsals. You know that."
"He started it," Tone said, nodding at Jez, and pouted as he reached for a can of Irn-Bru.
"Well, I'm stopping it," Ben said. He stood up sharply and shook his head. "Fuck me, I sounded just like my mum then. Never mind. Go back to whatever it was you were arguing about."
"Protest votes," Summer said.
"No," Geordie groaned, pushing his hand through his curly mop of straw-coloured hair. "Please, no politics."
"That sounds like a great song title," Stan said as he sat down and helped himself to a Diet Coke. He was joking, but Summer looked at him and smiled widely.
"It does," she said. "Hang on, Geordie, where's that chord progression you wrote down the other night?"
"You mean, after we had that amazing sex?" he said as he rifled through a notebook.
"Oh, fuck off," she muttered.
Stan watched quietly after that as Geordie demonstrated the chords on his bass and Ben switched over to his electric guitar and started to pick up a melody to go over the top. He'd wondered how the hell this band ever managed to achieve anything; they seemed to communicate in arguments and were eclectic as friends, let alone as people coming together to make music.
Watching the song develop, though, seemed to change his opinion. "No Politics, Please" was a song about their differences, and when Tone broke out a kazoo for the chorus, Summer started laughing so hard she fell off her beanbag. Ben choked and tears streamed down his cheeks. That was Tone. Kazoo, bongos, and backwards trucker baseball hat, breaking down the song so it turned into "All About That Bass."
"How do you even know that song?" Summer asked him, breathless.
"Hey, I too am super curvalicious," Tone told her, completely straight-faced, causing Summer to collapse in giggles again.
It took about two hours for the group to polish up the new song, and then they played it slowly so Jez could write it all down, making sure he had the beats, lyrics, and chords recorded in his notebook before they put the instruments down.
"So, that's it, Stan love," Tone said. "That's how the magic happens."
"I'm impressed," Stan said seriously. "You're all very talented."
"Don't, you'll make me blush," Tone told him and made "aw, shucks" gestures.
Stan watched as Ben carefully set his guitar back in its case and stretched his fingers, cracking the knuckles. When he turned to Stan, his smile was beaming—gut-meltingly handsome, the childish features stretched into an expression of pure joy.
"Come here," he said quietly, and Stan couldn't resist him; he allowed himself to be pulled onto Ben's lap. "I really like that song," he said when Stan was settled.
"It's fun," Summer agreed. "I think it'll get people on our side. We should put it pretty early in the set."
"Agreed!" Tone said loudly. "I'll have to go and get more kazoos."
"Why?" Jez asked as Summer started to giggle again.
"I'll chuck 'em out into the audience, get people to play along with us," Tone said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Ben dropped his head to Stan's shoulder as he started to laugh, then kissed Stan's neck. As Stan settled back into Ben's arms, noticing that no one seemed to care at all that they were being affectionate in front of the others, he realised this was the happiest he'd been in a very long time.
# Chapter Five
IT HAD been one of those very long, very tiring days that wasn't anywhere near over yet. Stan had picked up takeout sushi on his way home and resumed work on his laptop as soon as he got there, a rapidly cooling green tea at one elbow, the half-eaten tray of sushi at the other. A quick glance at the clock told him he'd been working for close to twelve hours.
So when his phone rang, Stan seriously considered just letting it go to voicemail. Anything urgent would be emailed to him, he knew that much. The magazine had a huge photo shoot planned for the upcoming weekend, and somehow he'd been pulled onto the team in charge, even though his job was reporting the trend rather than creating it.
He glanced down at the phone, saw it was Ben, thought for a moment about how much he still had to do tonight, then answered it.
"Pronto?"
"Do you always answer the phone like that?"
"Old habits are hard to break." Stan lifted the cup of tea to his lips and sipped. "It's how everyone answers in Italy."
"Oh. What are you up to?"
"Working, still."
"Really? It's late, Stan."
"It's seven thirty."
"What time did you start this morning?"
"Six," Stan admitted.
"Close your laptop and back slowly away," Ben said in a dramatic voice. "Stop working. Now."
"I have," Stan said, laughing. "I'm talking to you, aren't I?"
"Good point. I was going to see if you wanted to come to the pub. But I'm guessing it's not a good time for you."
"Would you like to come over?" Stan asked, holding his phone between shoulder and ear as he flicked through a model spec. "I'm really too tired to come out tonight."
"Are you really working?" Ben asked.
"Yes."
"Then I'll leave you in peace."
"What if I could use a distraction?"
Ben was quiet for a moment. "Okay. You'll have to give me directions, though. I don't know where you live."
"Bow Quarter," Stan said, then gave the name of the apartment complex and told Ben how to get there from the closest Tube station.
"Give me... half an hour?"
"Sure. I can get this finished by then."
He hung up and looked around the flat. Fortunately, he kept it tidy most of the time, and it was clean, thanks to the cleaning service that came with the building. With his priorities now reshuffled, Stan pushed his laptop to one side and quickly gathered up the small pile of stuff that had accumulated around his preferred end of the sofa.
Precariously balancing everything in his arms, Stan took it all through to the kitchen and put things into various out-of-the-way places so the flat looked a little tidier.
He checked the bathroom, rifling through his plastic tub of grooming products to check the stash of condoms he'd left in there were still where he thought they were. He had four and decided that was plenty. Just in case, of course.
In his bedroom, Stan straightened the covers over the bed, then stood back and surveyed the room like an outsider might. It looked, in all honesty, like a teenage girl's room. All he needed to do was tack some posters on the wall and the look would be completed.
Clothes spilled from his wardrobe, over the chaise he'd picked up at a street sale, and a few things—scarves, mostly—draped over the wardrobe doors. His dresser was covered with face products, hair products, make-up, and several different types of brushes for both make-up and hair. Hairbands, bobby pins, that thing that allowed him to twist his hair up and hold it in place. He didn't know what the name was.
Stan had neither the time nor the inclination to start tidying that particular nuclear bomb site, so he turned, closed the door, and forced himself to forget about it.
He still had time before Ben was due, and the impending deadline helped him focus for the next twenty minutes, selecting half a dozen models and sending the request through to the agency, copying in Kirsty so she could go through the finer details in the morning.
He was in the middle of typing another email when the buzzer for his phone-entry system broke the silence. The phone was mounted to the wall next to the door, and Stan smiled stupidly as he went to answer it.
"Hello?"
"Mr Novikov?"
"Yes." Stan leaned back against the door and grinned into the phone. "This is he."
"There is a strange, degenerate sort of man asking to see you," Ben said in a silly, low voice. "Should I permit Mr Easton to enter?"
"Please do. That degenerate man is with me."
"I'm shocked, Mr Novikov. You seemed like such an upstanding citizen."
"Get up here, you dork," Stan said, laughing. "Follow the path all the way round 'til you get to block three. I'm on the second floor. Number 3240."
"Got it. I'll be there in a sec."
Stan replaced the phone on the hook, then paced his flat for the long minutes it took Ben to find his way through the complex. People got lost here all the time. The blocks weren't laid out in a logical order, though it was still light outside, so not so much chance of him falling in the pond.
When Ben knocked on the door, Stan nearly jumped out of his skin, then tripped over his feet as he rushed to answer it. Ben was leaning seductively against the door frame, his black jeans ripped in several places, clunky boots on his feet, a grey T-shirt with the NASA logo stretched tight across his toned chest.
Hair that Stan always had to resist running his hands through fell in a swoop across his forehead, and Ben grinned and smoldered at Stan until Stan grabbed his wrist, laughing, and pulled him inside.
"Hi," he said, leaning around Ben's slim frame to push the door closed. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?"
"Am I?"
"Yes."
"Should I take my boots off?"
Stan was barefoot, a pile of his own shoes next to the door.
"Do you mind? This place isn't mine. It belongs to the magazine, so I feel like I have to take extra-good care of it."
"No problem at all." He toed off the boots easily—apparently the laces weren't tied—then pulled his socks off too and shoved them into the boots. When he straightened again, Stan realised how close he was standing.
"Hi," Ben said softly. "Can I kiss you now?"
"Yes."
He took his time about it, shuffling even closer to Stan, putting his hands on Stan's slim hips and running his nose up and down the bridge of Stan's own before lightly brushing their lips together. Since he'd been admiring Ben's chest, Stan put his hands there, flattening his palms over the place where he knew Ben's nipples hid and tilting his head to the side, letting the kiss soothe and tease his lips open. Their tongues met slowly, then danced together as their bodies swayed, learning how different this could be when no one else could see.
Ben broke away first and pressed their foreheads together.
"I... uh... I just realised how this must look. I didn't come over here for sex."
Stan laughed softly and kissed Ben again, if only briefly.
"Okay."
"I mean, I do want to have sex with you. Eventually. But tonight I genuinely wanted to just spend time with you. I didn't mean to come in here and start grinding on you like a horny—mmph!"
Stan pushed him back against the door, and their laughing mouths met again in a funny sort of kiss, one that ended too soon, with Stan's head on Ben's shoulder, Ben's hands on Stan's ass, a familiar, comforting hug.
"Would you like the grand tour?" Stan asked as Ben groped and kneaded his ass.
"Go for it."
Showing Ben the bedroom seemed presumptuous, especially after Ben's fumbling explanation that he didn't come over for sex. Stan wouldn't have minded if that was where the night was headed, but there was something sweet and almost chivalrous about Ben wanting to wait, so he took sex mentally off the table. For tonight, at least.
The living room connected to the kitchen, and Stan lingered there, knowing people felt more comfortable in kitchens than he did and wanting to make Ben a drink, anyway.
"Tea?" he offered. "I don't have any beer in, I'm afraid."
"Tea would be great. I'm giving my liver a rest after the other night."
"What happened the other night?" Stan asked, fussing with the water and the kettle and finding two nice cups.
"Tone ordered gin online from some bloke who makes it in his shed, or something. It's good shit, but fuck me, that stuff is strong. I was drinking it with tonic, rather than straight like Tone was, and it still gave me the worst hangover I've had for a long time."
Stan huffed a laugh. "I like gin."
"One of them was rosemary-flavoured. It was good."
"Sounds... interesting."
Stan felt Ben step up close behind him, then strong hands settled on his waist, and Ben peppered soft kisses over Stan's neck. It was delicious, and Stan arched into the sensation, all thoughts of tea abandoned.
"You even taste good," Ben murmured.
"Um...."
Stan's mind had gone blank. He gripped the edge of the counter with straining fingers and fought the urge to grind his hips back against Ben's groin.
The kettle clicked, announcing it had boiled, and Stan blinked and forced himself to carefully pour the water over the two teabags.
"I have soy milk, if you'd like some."
"Yes, please."
Ben's breath was hot on Stan's neck, and he shuddered again before delicately moving out of Ben's grasp. When the tea was doctored to both their personal tastes, Stan led Ben back through to the living room and took his preferred end of the sofa.
"There's so much I don't know about you yet," Stan said as he shoved his laptop and the binder of model specs out of the way. "You're from New Zealand, right?"
"Yeah." Ben wriggled down on the sofa and grinned over the top of his cup. "Not many people can place the accent."
Stan shrugged, but smiled at the same time.
"I was an only child when we moved here when I was ten. We moved over the summer so I could start secondary school at the same time as all the other kids."
"You said your dad moved back?"
Ben nodded. "Yeah. My mum came here with him, because he got a job in Oxford. But they got divorced three years after we moved, and Mum refused to take me back to Auckland and disrupt my education again. She met Mark when I was in my last year of secondary school, and they got married a few years later. Then she decided she wanted more kids." Ben rolled his eyes. "At forty-two. Obviously she couldn't, so they did IVF, and she ended up with triplets."
Stan's eyes widened. "Three? Oh wow."
"Yeah." Ben snorted. "Huey, Dewey, and Louie."
"You aren't serious."
Ben laughed. "No. They're affectionate nicknames. Those kids are fucking terrors, though. They're four now. Probably the reason why I hardly ever see Mum anymore."
"That's sad. What about your dad?"
"We keep in touch," Ben said with a nod. "Skype, FaceTime, you know. It's alright."
"He doesn't come here?"
"No. And I don't go back there. It's a twenty-two-hour flight, and... I could only go for a couple of weeks, tops, because of work. It's just not worth it, really. When did you leave Russia?"
"It's a long story," Stan said with a little laugh.
"I've got time." As if to illustrate his point, Ben stretched his legs out in front of him. Stan smiled and leaned back into the couch. He wondered how far he could push this lazy indulgence with Ben, and snuck his feet over towards Ben's lap. Just as he'd hoped, Ben pulled them onto his thighs and gently stroked Stan's bare arches. "You told me you moved to America," Ben prompted.
"Yes. My mother's sister is a photographer, and she got a contract to work in New York for a year. I begged my mother to let me go, begged and begged her, and she said no for the longest time. I was too young. Then Ava—that's my aunt—was told she could take an assistant with her, but she didn't have time to hire someone, so she convinced my mother to let her take me."
"Is your family close?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well... my family is sort of spread out all over the place. It's hard to stay in contact. But some families—like Geordie's—they're all super-close with each other."
"Oh. I suppose... I think we're a typical Russian family. Russian Orthodox. Lots of children all over the place. Ava is something of the odd one out because she doesn't have any."
"Mm." Ben rubbed his hands over Stan's feet again. "So, you went to New York. I'm jealous, by the way."
"Oh, don't be," Stan said, rolling into the touch like a cat. "I spoke almost no English, and I had to go to school where I was looked at like I was a freak. I had to learn a whole new language, a new school system, make friends... and Ava would pull me out of class all the time to go help her. I learned more on photo shoots than I ever did in a classroom.
"Her contract was extended, so that happened for two and a half years. Then I graduated with my high school diploma—on time, with good grades, which is a miracle really. Ava wanted me to work full-time as her assistant then, unpaid, of course. I said no, went to one of the magazines, and asked for a job."
"You've got balls, that's for sure," Ben said with a laugh.
"I do," Stan said solemnly. "That was a few years ago, when fashion blogging was just taking off. But I'd had a blog all through high school, with pictures of myself and some I'd taken on the street. I've got a lot of followers, and one of the people there, at the magazine, had heard of me. So they said yes. The pay was horrible, but they sent me to Italy after about a year. Then Giovanni, he... what is the word? Hunted me?"
"Poached you?"
"Yes! That's it. Giovanni poached me and got me the job at Vogue Italia."
"That's one hell of a story."
"It's all true."
"Oh, I don't doubt that."
It was maybe more complex than Stan made out. His family had never really been happy with him moving away, but even at fifteen he was an "unusual child," and his father, at least, had recognised that Stan would have more of a chance in a more liberal country. Their society's easy homophobia, gay-bashing, and life-ruining accusations were something Stan's father couldn't protect him from, even if they weren't views he held himself. America was maybe Stan's only chance to thrive.
Stan's father was an imposing man, by most people's standards, but turned into the softest of giants around his kids. The ache of missing his family had been hardest the first few years in America, when everything around him felt strange and wrong. Stan had learned, through force of circumstance, to find family wherever he lived. Those he'd acquired at birth were a foundation, a constant in his life, and he knew he'd be welcomed back when—if—he ever returned.
At least now he could Skype with his mother so she could see he was well.
Using Stan's feet as an anchor, Ben leaned in and stole a kiss. Stan smiled as their lips rubbed together and he pressed his hand to Ben's cheek, holding them in place.
"Do you speak any Italian?" Ben asked when he settled back into his indolent slump.
"Of course. Apparently I can learn languages easily. Italian is more like English than Russian, so once I had learned English, it was easier to learn other European languages. Living somewhere helps." Stan reached for his tea, leaning over the edge of the sofa, then balancing it on his chest. "Tell me more about your family? Please?"
Ben sighed heavily, and Stan worried that he'd pushed too far. Then Ben started to speak. "Well, my mum is half Maori—that's Native New Zealander. Her father—my grandfather—he was Maori, and he married a white woman. Granddad died a year or so before we moved here. My mum would have never moved if he was still alive."
"You were close to him?"
"Yeah. I only had him and a grandmother on my dad's side who we never saw. He was this big bear of a man, huge, had all these traditional Maori tattoos all over his arms and chest. That's where this one comes from...."
Ben pulled up the sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal the design that covered his shoulder, part of his chest, and partway down his arm.
"It's a replica of Granddad's tattoo, or as far as we can tell. I only had some old photos to base it on. But it's like his. It was the first tattoo I ever got."
"But not your last."
"No," Ben said with a laugh. "The most recent one was this one."
He pulled up his T-shirt again, this time revealing a slim but toned stomach and an eagle tattoo that started on his sternum, the wings stretching out across the front of his ribs.
"That must have hurt," Stan said.
"Yeah. But it's cool, though, right?"
"I like all your tattoos."
"And this?" Ben asked, flicking the hoop in the corner of his bottom lip with his tongue.
"Yes, that too. For different reasons."
Ben laughed and jostled on the sofa, wrestling with Stan and almost causing the cup of tea to fall. When Stan protested, Ben carefully set it on the floor, then stretched out full-length, covering Stan's body with his own.
"Hi," Ben said softly.
"Hi, yourself."
Stan sighed into the kiss, a soft, sweet connection. Things between them were yet to heat up too far; they had danced around the idea, or even the possibility of sex for a while now, and Stan was starting to feel impatient. He wanted more.
"Can you stay tonight?" Stan asked, running his fingers through Ben's messy hair.
"I don't have anything with me. A toothbrush or anything."
"I can lend you things."
Ben wrinkled his nose. "Have you eaten?"
For a moment, Stan considered his day. "Not really," he admitted.
"Let's get some dinner."
They lay on the sofa kissing until Stan couldn't stand it any longer and nudged a recalcitrant Ben onto his side before their erections took control of their brains. With swollen lips, Stan wandered to his bathroom and relieved himself of the pressure on his bladder, although the one on his balls was more persistent.
"I don't want you to have to cook," Ben said, tapping on his phone when Stan returned to his living room. "I've got a list here of vegan places in London that deliver."
"That sounds fine to me."
"Do you want to look at a menu? Or I can just order anything."
"I trust you," Stan said and smiled before going to make more tea for them both.
The food arrived while they were watching a Saturday night talent competition, something Ben had complained he would receive hell for should he put it on at home. Stan thought it was hilarious and had quickly learned that Ben's running, grumbling commentary was almost as entertaining as the television.
"Here," Ben said, shifting his hips on the sofa to reach for his wallet when the buzzer rang. "I've got half."
"No, it's my turn."
"Stan—"
"I've got it," Stan said with a smile, passing through the kitchen to collect some money before answering the door.
Ben seemed to have been raised with old-fashioned family values, which Stan appreciated, even though it made him feel like the girl in the relationship. That wasn't always a bad thing, but occasionally he wanted to assert his independence and masculinity both.
After paying the delivery guy, Stan took the big brown paper bag through to the kitchen and started to unpack the boxes.
"Come and get it," he called in a sing-song voice, then laughed when Ben appeared quickly around the corner. "Help yourself."
"It smells good," Ben said as he pulled two plates from the cupboard.
"Mm. This papaya salad is amazing."
With plates piled high, they resumed positions on the sofa to watch the end of the talent show from opposite corners. Stan couldn't help but look over every few minutes where Ben was inelegantly shovelling food and rolling his eyes at the television. With a little flutter of something in his belly, Stan realised he could easily become accustomed to this.
# Chapter Six
BEN DIDN'T stay that night, even though he really wanted to. Nor the next night, when he went to Stan's with dinner he'd made himself—a Thai soup that was just perfectly spicy and spring rolls Stan reheated in the oven that had yet to be used. Ben had to show him how to turn it on.
The next night, Ben had band practice, then over the weekend he was working and Stan was busy with his epic photo shoot that was taking over so much of his working day. For those few days, Ben had to make do with text messages and the occasional phone call. He realised it was maybe more than a normal number of text messages when Tone threatened to steal Ben's phone and read every one aloud in the middle of the pub.
"Fuck off," Ben mumbled. "It's Stan."
"Of course it's bloody Stan," Tone said. "Who the fuck else is it likely to be?"
Despite working all weekend, Stan still had to go back to work on Monday morning, and from the brief conversation they shared on Monday night, Ben got the impression he was seriously tired. Their manic schedules had aligned on Tuesday—Ben wasn't working at the pub and his tutoring job finished at five, so he had plenty of time to head over to Bow and meet Stan as he got off the Tube.
"You look exhausted," Ben said as he took Stan's hand and led them out into the late afternoon sunshine.
"I am."
Stan had dark circles under his eyes that he'd done a good job of disguising with make-up, but they were still there, nonetheless. He looked weary, and Ben wanted nothing more than to kiss that bone-deep ache away. He knew it well.
Instead, he shouldered Stan's leather satchel and diverted them to a gastropub for dinner, somewhere Stan could order a mushroom risotto, and he could get cheesy chips. These sorts of pubs—the ones that tried a little too hard to be posh—were usually the last place Ben wanted to end up. He preferred them darker, grittier, grimier, but this was more Stan's scene. Refined. Sophisticated. Ben could do that. The food was good, Ben begrudgingly admitted, and decided if this became their local pub in Bow, he would probably be okay with that.
The sun was setting as they walked back to Bow Quarter, fingers loosely entwined, and the sky was turning a rich pink, streaked with purple, outlined with blue.
BACK AT the flat, Ben toed off his boots and padded through to the living room. He flopped on the sofa, then opened his arms for Stan to settle into his side. Nuzzling into his neck like a cat, Stan yawned widely, then settled down with his head on Ben's chest.
Ben turned on the TV and found a music channel that was playing a recording of a Foo Fighters gig, and he left it on for background noise. After a few minutes of Ben playing with the long silky strands of Stan's hair, Stan was almost asleep.
"Are you sure you want me to stay?" Ben asked softly. "I can get a cab back home."
"I want you to stay," Stan said. "Please."
"Okay." Ben ran his hands up and down Stan's sides. "I'll apologise in advance in case I do something...."
"Something?"
Ben blushed and laughed to himself. "That you don't want me to do?"
"I want you to do those things with me," Stan said, turning to put his chin on Ben's chest and look up at him properly. "I want that too."
"Are you sure?"
In that moment, Ben realised his hesitance came from his own fears and not any Stan was harbouring. He knew he didn't know everything there was to know about Stan yet; they hadn't been dating that long, and he was okay with figuring things out as they went along. They didn't need to know everything about each other before having sex. It was possible Stan wanted it just as much as Ben did... and that was almost as scary.
Stan kissed away his worry with impossibly soft lips and fingertips that fluttered over his cheeks. As Ben started to let go, to just touch and feel like Stan was, Stan slipped his hand into Ben's and tugged.
"Let me take you to bed."
"But you're tired," Ben said, half protesting, half teasing.
"Not anymore, I'm not."
Ben hadn't been in Stan's bedroom—there wasn't any need for him to. The curtains were pulled, so it was dark until Stan lit a tall lamp in the corner and another on his nightstand, casting the room in a soft glow.
He had a big double bed pushed against the wall and at the end of the room. Next to the window, a dressing table with a large mirror in front of it reflected the light coming in from the street. The sheets were navy blue and neatly tucked around the mattress.
Those impressions were formed in an instant as Stan tugged them towards the bed and shuffled up it, leaning on his elbows, inviting Ben to crawl up his body.
Stan was angles and bones, silky-smooth skin and the finest dusting of body hair. Ben tugged the shirt up over Stan's head and lightly kissed tiny pink nipples that puckered and kissed him back. Stan's hands grasped Ben's shoulders, his biceps, his waist; gently guiding and encouraging with breathy moans.
Ben wanted to take his time with this man, to explore this body that seemed so fragile and delicate under his. They undressed each other slowly, learning shapes and angles, discovering what lay beneath—the truth under Stan's daily illusion.
"You're so beautiful," Ben murmured as he moved his naked body over Stan's, rolling their hips together in a deep, aching grind.
"I'm...." Stan gasped, then laughed as friction caused their cocks to stick together.
"I want you, Stan. Can I be with you?"
"Yes. Oh yes. Please."
Ben kissed down the taught curve of Stan's neck and nibbled at his collarbone. "I'm going to need some stuff, sweetheart...."
"Oh," Stan said again and nuzzled into Ben's chest. "I have that. In my bathroom. I'll be right back."
He rolled elegantly off the bed, and Ben watched, unashamed, as a milky-white ass and incredibly long legs strode purposefully off to the other side of the flat. He had a feeling this was about to blow his mind, and he squeezed his balls, tugging them away from his body to relieve some of the tension building there.
Stan returned quickly, wielding a tube of K-Y and two condoms. He set both down on his nightstand, then lay down on his side and ran his hands over Ben's firm, flat chest.
"I like this," Stan said, tracing the lines of a tattoo.
"I like that you like it." Ben caught the finger and brought it to his lips for a kiss. "You're sure?"
Stan's smile was soft and bemused. "I've had sex before, Ben. I want it with you."
Ben didn't respond, instead leaning in to kiss Stan again. He snicked the top of the lube open and coated his palm with it, then slicked some over Stan's cock and pumped it slowly until Stan was lifting his hips up into the movement. With more lube, his fingers explored farther back, then circled and petted Stan's hole, spreading the silky wetness there.
Stan stretched his arms up over his head and pulled up his leg, planting his foot on the bed. Ben took that invitation and fumbled with the condom, smoothing it over his cock with lightly trembling fingers, then settled between those slim thighs.
He watched Stan's face carefully for signs of discomfort as he pushed inside. For a moment, he thought the distress twisting Stan's beautiful features was from that initial flash of pain, but as he settled into an easier position for them both, he mustered the courage to ask.
"You okay?" He punctuated his words with a kiss on Stan's cheek, another on his jaw.
"I—" Stan's breath caught on whatever he was going to stay, pain stealing the words.
"I'm just going to pull out for a moment," Ben murmured. Stan wrapped his fingers around Ben's arms, gripping hard enough to leave a bruise.
"It's my back," Stan said when Ben lay down next to him after discarding the condom in the bin at the end of the bed. "And I can't spread my legs wide enough without hurting them. I have this problem with my bones, and...."
"It's okay," Ben said.
"It's not. I want you, Ben...."
Ben reassured with kisses, an intimacy they both knew, comforting despite their naked bodies and the failed attempt at making love. With Stan gathered up in his arms, held safely from the discomfort of his own body, Ben let those wandering lips tell Stan it was going to be fine.
He groaned when Stan found his cock and wrapped his hand around it, squeezing gently and pulling on the still-hard flesh. After a moment of searching, Ben took Stan's cock and moved his hand in a matching rhythm.
"How about if we tried it," Ben said after a few moments of mutual pleasure, "like this."
He nudged Stan onto his side, facing away so Ben could spoon him from behind. His cock nestled between Stan's plump arse cheeks, a promise of what could come next.
"Oh," Stan said, a little moan of pleasure when Ben reached around to once again take his cock in hand. "This could be good."
Ben kissed his shoulder and smiled, then reached over to take the second condom and carefully rolled it down his cock. Used more lube.
"Tell me if you need me to stop," he said, then fitted their bodies back together again.
It still took a few minutes to work things out—how to kiss, where to touch, how to move to find the pleasure that would course through them both. Soon, though, Stan was crying out with pleasure instead of pain, for him to whimper into the arm pillowing his cheek.
"Ben," he whispered, then gasped the name again. "Oh wow. Oh my God."
Ben pressed forward again, his face tucked into the curve of Stan's shoulder, one hand on Stan's chest anchoring them together, the other wrapped around his cock.
"With me," Ben murmured. "I'm so close."
Words were lost to Stan, it seemed, and he cried out and cursed in a variety of languages as hot come spilled over Ben's fist. Ben grunted as the flash of pleasure chased his own come from his body, and for a moment he was paralysed, held at that point where there was no space between them, nothing at all.
Stan's bone-deep shudder forced them apart, and Ben laughed breathlessly as he once again tied off the condom and threw it away, then pulled Stan back into his arms.
"Better?"
"So, so much better," Stan said, the words muffled by lips that refused to stop kissing. "Oh wow, Ben."
"I'm glad you liked it."
He yawned widely, and Stan took on something of a mother-hen role, clucking and fussing and handing Ben back his boxers to sleep in.
"I'm just going to get cleaned up," Stan whispered, kissed Ben on the forehead, and left the room again.
When he returned, Ben was almost asleep, clutching the edge of the duvet. He cracked an eye open as Stan paused, then dressed in clean boxers and a T-shirt before crawling into bed too.
Ben grumbled unintelligible words and pulled Stan back into the same position they had made love in.
"Are you comfortable like this?" Stan asked in a low voice.
"I can only sleep with something against my chest," Ben admitted. It seemed so childish. He wanted to make sure Stan understood before he let sleep claim him. "I used to have a teddy bear when I was little, but I grew out of that, and since then, I have to be able to hold something or I can't sleep. Most of the time it's a pillow or a... a...." He yawned widely, then settled. "Or a blanket or something. I like it being you, though."
Stan kissed the hand wrapped around his shoulder. "We all have our quirks, I suppose."
For a few minutes, they both breathed deeply, settling into something that was safe. Theirs. Then, just before he fell asleep, Ben said, "I think I'm falling in love, Stan."
"I think I am too."
THE NEXT morning, Stan woke first and crept out of the bedroom, leaving Ben sleeping deeply. He grabbed his gym kit, which was always kept next to the door, and spent half an hour swimming, then half an hour running at the apartment complex's in-house gym.
It was almost nine in the morning by the time he arrived back at the flat, and he expected Ben to be up, maybe to be gone already, despite the note Stan had left imploring him to stay. But no. Ben was still asleep, lying on his back and snoring softly.
Deciding he would have to wake Ben soon, Stan took a shower and carefully washed his hair, then made two mugs of coffee and took them back to the bedroom. He had space on the nightstand for them both, and the little jug of soy milk, but only when he'd moved the bottle of lube to the top drawer.
Stan sat down on the edge of the bed, still wrapped in his towel.
"Ben," he whispered softly. "Ben."
A chink of light spilled through the curtains diagonally across Ben's body, highlighting his narrow hips, broad chest, and the dark tangle of tattoos. Ben's soft, boyish features were a part of his charm, even when the morning brought a soft fuzz on his chin.
"Izzat coffee?" Ben mumbled as he stretched like a cat, kicking the blankets down to his knees.
"Yeah. I'm not sure if you like it with soy milk, or black."
"Mmm... milk, if you've got it. Please."
Stan fussed over fixing the coffee as Ben hauled himself up into a sitting position, scratching his chest, belly, balls.
"What time is it?" Ben asked as Stan handed him the mug.
"Nine o'clock!"
"Really? What are you doing up so early?"
"Early?" Stan repeated with a laugh. "This is late for me." He took a sip of his coffee and hummed in appreciation. A light prickle at the back of his neck told him Ben was watching. "I got up and went to the gym while you were sleeping," he said in a rush, suddenly desperate to fill the silence. "I have some granola if you want breakfast, or we could go out...."
"Or we could stay in bed all day and you can let me do things to you," Ben said in a low voice.
Stan ducked his head to hide his blush. "Or that," he agreed in a soft mumble.
A warm hand wrapped around his wrist, and Stan was forced to set his coffee down next to where Ben had left his, and then Ben tugged and manipulated him until he sat astride Ben's strong thighs.
"God, you're beautiful," Ben said, tucking a wet strand of blond hair back behind Stan's ear.
"I—"
"Please don't argue with me."
Stan leaned in and kissed him softly, mostly to stem the source of those heat-raising compliments he was so unused to hearing. Oh, flattery was easy to give, and to receive, but that wasn't what Ben was offering.
When Ben's tongue flicked against his lips, Stan tilted his head, offering a better angle for a deep, searching kiss where tongues and lips moved in lyrical synchrony and Ben's hands gripped his waist.
"I don't think," Stan said as they moved apart and Ben's lips continued down his neck, "that I can take you inside me again right now."
"I don't need to be inside you to make you feel good," Ben murmured. Stan arched, tilting his neck back and inviting more of those sweet, teasing kisses. Between their bellies his erection started to rise.
With a soft growl, Ben flipped them both over so Stan was pinned to the bed, looking up into sleepy, horny eyes that smiled down at him with unashamed want.
"Do you mind if I suck your dick?"
Stan huffed a laugh. "No. Why would I?"
Ben kissed his earlobe, then left a trail of soft, tiny kisses down his neck. "I'm still figuring you out, Stan. I'm probably going to ask a lot of stupid questions until I get there."
"I'm still a boy," Stan said, tugging at the thick mop of dishevelled hair until Ben looked up at him. "I came to terms with that because it's something I can't change. But I like my cock. And I like it when you touch it."
Ben ran his fingers down Stan's body, and wrapped them around Stan's half-hard cock. He rubbed his thumb back and forth slowly, smiling when Stan's breathing jumped in response.
"If you wanted to change, you could, you know."
"I know. I'm okay with who I am, just like this."
"I think you're stunning, you know," Ben murmured, his lips skimming over Stan's neck. "You're possibly the most beautiful man I've ever seen."
"You can keep saying these things to me," Stan said, making Ben laugh.
"Okay."
Stan was already naked, his skin slightly damp from the shower, and Ben kissed down it, learning all the angles and contours of Stan's body. By the time his mouth met his hand, Stan's cock was thick and hard, the pink head peeking out from the delicate foreskin.
When Ben took it into his mouth, Stan knew he wasn't going to last long. Very few people had ever done this to him before, or showed his cock any kind of attention. Some men liked to pretend he didn't have a cock at all. With the love and care and very sexy attention Ben showered on Stan's body—all of it, not just the parts that looked good in a dress—Stan was starting to learn everything he'd been missing out on.
After only a few minutes, Stan was bucking up into Ben's mouth and crying out as he orgasmed, stars dancing across his vision as his body curled up tight, then exploded outwards in a shower of sparks.
Ben, Stan thought as the waves of pleasure pulsed through his body. Ben did that to me.
# Chapter Seven
STAN'S VISION hadn't quite returned to normal. He sprawled on his back, feeling more sexually satisfied than he had in a very long time, Ben's head on his stomach, looking up at him. Stan lazily wound his fingers through Ben's hair, smoothing the tangles and tugging at the roots.
Sex hair. The words entered Stan's mind without permission, and he grinned.
"I need to go back to my place," Ben said mournfully, rubbing his finger over Stan's nipple. "I need clean clothes."
"Okay. If I come with you, we could go out somewhere after?" Stan batted away the inquisitive fingertip; he didn't have the energy to go again, not so soon after the last time.
Ben pulled a face. "Where I live... it's not as nice as here."
"That doesn't matter to me."
"It's a dive, Stan. Proper grotty."
"What does 'grotty' mean?"
"Um," Ben laughed. "Dirty. A bit grimy. A mess. And falling apart."
Stan kissed Ben quickly on the lips, then darted out of bed before he could be pulled back into something else.
"I'll get ready, and you can go take a shower."
Ben grumbled and did as he was told, dragging himself through the flat to the bathroom while Stan threw the curtains and the window open and started his morning ritual.
With his hair already partly dry, there was no point in trying to make it smooth and straight. With some mousse and scrunching and his hairdryer on a low heat, he teased rough curls from the unruly strands and let the hairstyle lead the rest of his outfit choices.
Slightly mussed was a look he could do. He mentally picked out tight black jeans, high-top sneakers, and a loose, low-cut tank top, because it was going to be a warm day, he could tell already. A smoky eyeshadow and sketchy kohl liner, a quick slick of mascara, all on top of his usual base, and Ben was back from his half drowing while Stan stood in front of his wardrobe and pretended he hadn't figured out his outfit already.
He was naked.
It made him feel very desirable when he cocked his hip to the side and Ben hummed low in his throat, covering the room in a few short strides.
"Hmm?" Stan said as Ben's hands went to his waist, sliding down to his ass, groping briefly before travelling round to his front and gently cupping his soft cock in both hands.
In response, Ben attached his lips to Stan's neck, surely leaving a mark, hopefully one his hair would cover.
"You make me feel—" Stan said, then cut off the thought before he could voice it.
"Tell me."
"So feminine."
Ben gripped his chin in one hand, tilting Stan's head back to devour his mouth.
"We are never going to leave this house today," Stan said with a laugh as they broke apart once more.
"Jesus," Ben moaned as he pulled his hips away from their kissing. He dropped his head to Stan's shoulder and sighed deeply. "I'll behave."
"Oh, don't do that," Stan told him.
Feeling slightly sheepish, Stan turned on the radio and got dressed in silence, only watching out of the corner of his eye as Ben layered up in the clothes he'd been wearing the night before.
"Do you have everything?" Stan asked before they left. Ben still sat on the edge of the bed, lacing up his boots, but he nodded.
"If I've left stuff here, just hold on to it for me. I'll be back soon, I expect."
"Okay. That's good." He didn't say any more, still wary of letting too many emotions show despite Ben's whispered words the night before. He wasn't going to bring up pillow talk the next morning. He wasn't that guy.
It really was a beautiful day, and Stan felt guilty for having spent so much of it indoors already. Even if the time had been well spent.
They held hands as they walked the short distance to the Tube station in companionable silence, content to enjoy the balmy summer day London had blessed them with. The Tube, of course, was a hothouse of hell, and Ben took his clammy hand back, surreptitiously wiping it on the frayed knee of his jeans.
Stan noticed anyway and laughed at him.
The house Ben shared with the other boys was a standard mid-terrace in East Finchley, the small garden at the front covered over with paving stones through which weeds insistently poked up. It looked like where they might keep their bins; evidence of split bags littered the small area in a melee of banana peels and teabags.
"It's really not that nice," Ben insisted again as he unlocked the door and pushed at the peeling red paint, eventually kicking the bottom of the door to gain entry.
"It's fine, I promise," Stan said.
He was hit with the smell of marijuana as they stepped over the threshold, and Ben shut the door before any of the hazy smoke could escape.
"I'm home," he yelled in the direction of the room at the front of the house that overlooked the bin area, then immediately started up the stairs.
Stan followed, wincing at the steps with their threadbare carpet and suspicious stains. There was some kind of sticky... something on the banister, and he quickly drew back his hand.
At the top of the stairs, there was a bathroom, the sink, bath, and toilet all a pale blue with reddish rust around the taps. The shower curtain had black spots on it. Stan schooled his face into a neutral expression.
There were three bedrooms on this floor and another flight of stairs that Stan guessed led up to another room. But Ben had mentioned five of them living in the house.... He decided there was probably another bedroom on the ground floor.
"This is me," Ben said, stopping at the end of the hall, where the bedroom would look out over the street. "Um, do me a favour and close your eyes, count to twenty or something while I just... sort things...."
"Okay." Stan closed his eyes and heard Ben open the door. Ben took his hands, led him inside, then kicked the door shut. "One... two...."
"Slower than that!" Ben said, sounding panicked.
"Three-four-five," Stan said in a rush, teasing.
Things clunked and Ben muttered curses as he presumably cleaned up the room; throwing clothes around too if the rush of fabric that passed Stan's arm was anything to go by.
"Six... seven...."
"Shit, fuck, bollocks," Ben muttered. "I need to put some washing on."
"Eight, nine, ten...."
"Slower, Stan, for fuck's sake."
"How messy is this room, anyway?"
"I'm not going to answer that," Ben said in a low mutter.
"Eleven...."
Ben continued his tornado-like sweep of the room, and by the time Stan was up to eighteen, the window had been thrown open, letting the summer breeze into the room. He was secretly pleased. The room smelled... like it needed a window opening.
"Nineteen."
Before he could say "Twenty," Ben grabbed him around the waist and dipped him into a Hollywood movie-musical kiss, supporting his back perfectly so Stan could play the damsel in distress and be kissed like his man wanted to kiss him.
It was only slightly spoiled by the fact Ben was still kicking something under the bed when Stan opened his eyes.
"Hi."
"Hi."
Ben grinned. "Take a seat."
Ben didn't really have anywhere to sit, not a desk or anything, so Stan sat on the bed. It was low, and Ben had obviously made a hasty attempt at making it by throwing a duvet over the rumpled sheets.
"This is nice," Stan said.
"Oh, it's not. Well, it's alright. It's mine, so that's something, but it's not... you know... I wouldn't choose to live here, if I had any other options." Ben took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. "Okay. I just need to get changed, and then we can go."
"You said you need to put some washing on."
"Yeah, I can do that later."
"If you do it now, then you won't have to wait for it later," Stan said with a grin.
"Fine, I'll put some washing on!" Ben said, laughing. "I'll have to sort it out, mind."
"That's okay. I don't think we're in a rush."
While Ben changed, Stan looked around. The room was on the small side; the bed took up most of the available space because it was a double, and it was pushed into a corner. Even so, the edge of the bed at the head end was right under the windowsill.
Ben had a small chest of drawers with a TV on top and a game station—Stan didn't know what type—with long controllers attached that hung down like tentacles. A built-in wardrobe meant the entrance into the room was extremely narrow, but the wardrobe meant Ben had more storage space with two sliding mirrors on the front.
The walls were painted a strange bluish grey, but Ben had pinned posters to most of the available space—posters for bands and films and one of a girl with very large breasts in a very small bikini, standing in front of a sports car. She was squeezing a wet, soapy sponge down her front.
"Please don't look at that," Ben said, sounding embarrassed. "Tone got it for me as a birthday present, and he gets offended every time I try to take it down."
"Does Tone live here too?"
"Yeah. But downstairs out the back. It's a converted garage, which is great 'cos he can practise his drums and we can barely hear him in the rest of the house."
"Tone, then, and who else?"
"Jez," Ben said, dragging clothes out of the bottom of his closet to stuff into his already overflowing laundry bag. "Laurence, and this Polish bloke called Jarek who lives upstairs. He's alright, but he's a nurse, so we hardly ever see him. He works really weird shifts, so he never seems to be about when the rest of us are."
"All men," Stan said, offhand. While Ben was bent over to get to the dark corners of his closet, his butt was thrust right up in the air, and Stan couldn't help but admire it.
"Oh, it's fucking horrible," Ben said, straightening up. "They smell, and they don't clean up, and they sit around and smoke pot all the fucking time. I've probably got enough for two loads here, but I'll shove it all in. It'll be fine. It's a washer-dryer, so I can set it to dry too. Then I'll have clean clothes when I get home."
"Aren't you pleased I'm here, now?"
"Yeah, actually," Ben said. "I'm a bit scared to take you downstairs, though."
"Why?"
"Well, compared to the rest of the house, this room is Buckingham Palace. I never bring food up here, but I swear the others have plates and mugs that are growing new species of mould in their rooms."
"That's disgusting."
"And annoying," Ben agreed. "Especially when you cook something and there's nothing to eat it off because these fuckers can't clean up after themselves. I end up having to go through all their rooms, grabbing the dirty stuff and washing it up. I'm not their bloody mother."
"So it's not some kind of gay utopia, then, living in a house with four other men?" Stan teased.
"Four straight men," Ben corrected. "Four gay men would be great. We'd have an orgy every night. You couldn't pay me to touch these guys, though. I don't know where they've been. Or I do, in some instances, and that's even worse."
Ben looked around the room again, nodded, and threw the laundry bag over his shoulder. He'd changed into clean jeans and another ripped-up band T-shirt that looked strikingly similar to the first. These jeans had rips in the thighs as well as the knees. Stan wondered if they were like that when Ben bought them.
"Come on, then," Ben said. "I feel like I should get you one of those hospital masks." He held his hand over his nose and mouth. "Just in case you catch something."
"I doubt there's any airborne viruses hanging around here."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Ben said darkly.
The kitchen was as disgusting as promised. Ben led them through it quickly, wincing at the pile of dirty plates in the sink, and to a small room off the kitchen that housed a washing machine and shelves of DIY equipment.
Stan leaned against the doorframe as Ben shoved the dirty clothes into the washer—at least it looked like a large one, able to take the amount of stuff Ben was putting in there—and added washing powder and fabric softener before setting the dial, kicking the door closed, and pushing the button to start it.
"Done," he said, looking back at Stan with a proud smile.
"Good boy."
Ben laughed. "Come on. Let's get out of here—I don't want to hang around with the others. They'll only be getting high, and it's too nice to stay in and do that."
"Okay."
They walked back through the house, and Ben once again shouted into the smoke-filled front room and got a muffled shout back. He rolled his eyes and slammed the door shut behind them. Stan took a deep breath of clean air. It was saying something, that he considered the London smog "clean."
"I want to move out," Ben said as they walked back up the road. "I've been saving for ages. It's just so expensive to live around here. If I got a place of my own it would have to be further out, then I'd pay more to get around London."
"A catch-22," Stan said.
"Yeah. Exactly." Ben squeezed his hand. "So, what do you want to do? I was thinking we could go down to the South Bank, walk up along the Thames. It's touristy, but you get to see so much of London, all the big landmarks and things."
"Sounds perfect. I keep promising my mother I'll send her some pictures of London. She wants a photo of me by the palace."
"We can do that," Ben said with a nod. "Have you practised your bored Londoner face?"
Stan gave him his best disaffected eye-roll.
"Perfect. Come on, let's brave central."
They took the Tube down to London Bridge and walked over the famous bridge itself before starting the long walk along the Thames that would take them all the way to the palace. Even though the pavements were wide here, the assembled mix of joggers, dog walkers, and tourists made it a slow journey.
That didn't matter.
"Tell me about before you moved here," Ben said, and Stan sighed.
"Which bit?"
"It doesn't matter."
It was an easy question. It should have been, but Stan knew there was a questioning curiosity underneath. Ben knew Stan was hiding stuff from him, or holding back at least. He deserved to know.
Stan took a deep breath and looked over at the Thames, the boats with their loads of people ambling downriver, the huge wheel they called an eye watching peacefully over the capital.
"I'm anorexic," he said. Ben said nothing. "I used to be anorexic," he corrected, using the language he'd been encouraged to use since his recovery.
"Yeah?" Ben's voice was almost airily light, a clear invitation for Stan to keep talking, or not, depending on how he felt.
"Yes. I... when I was younger, I didn't know how to express this. I didn't know what was wrong with me. No one had given me the resources or the words to describe how I was feeling. I thought the way to fix it was to fix my body.
"It wasn't."
A group of children ran in front of them, causing Ben to rise up onto his toes to avoid trampling them. Parents shot apologetic looks, and Ben nodded and took hold of Stan's hand again.
"I could have died," Stan continued. "I almost did. My mother knew what was going on. I know that now but didn't at the time. She never tried to stop me, and I thought that meant I wasn't skinny enough yet. I thought as soon as I got to the point where I was a skeleton covered in skin, she would notice and stop me. It took me realising that she wasn't going to stop me, not ever, to go and ask someone else for help."
"How old were you?"
Stan shrugged. "Young. Thirteen, fourteen. My mother isn't a heartless person, you should know that. She just didn't see the illness underneath it all."
"Who did you ask for help?"
"It doesn't matter now. A friend. I got help, and I put some weight back on, and when I moved to New York with Ava, she got me a proper therapist. By then the damage was sort of already done. My bones didn't form properly because I deprived my body of so many nutrients when I was going through puberty. I don't think my body ever went through puberty properly, actually. Every time I thought about those pictures in the biology textbooks—those men with broad shoulders and hair all over the place—I freaked out. I didn't want to look like that, which only drove me to eat less. And all of those neuroses—I still have them, Ben. I'm still hung up on what I eat and when, what's clean enough for me to put in my mouth and what isn't."
"That's where the vegan thing comes from?"
"The vegan thing is sort of incidental," Stan said. "It was raw food—that was all I'd eat, raw, unprocessed food. I couldn't even eat anything that was cooked or baked, so as soon as someone boiled a carrot, I couldn't touch it. I know I'm still sick, in a way, because there's things I can't eat even if I tried. It's better now, though. I can eat in restaurants and order in and stuff, and I can drink alcohol if I'm careful and I keep track of my blood sugars and things like that. I even had some chocolate a little while back. Just a tiny piece, but you have no idea how much of a big deal that was to me."
"Do you have anyone here?" Ben asked, looking up at the endless blue sky. The gentle, soothing movement of his thumb on Stan's wrist was comfort enough. "I mean, do you need to see someone here to help you keep getting better?"
"I could," Stan said. "I suppose. I haven't been in therapy since I left the US—I sort of just get there by myself. Being around you helps."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I'm not sure why. You make me want to be... daring."
Ben smiled and he pulled them both over to the edge of the pavement where the wall was waist height, perfect for Stan to lean against while Ben kissed him carefully, then thoroughly.
"Daring enough for you?" Ben whispered, kissed Stan's neck, and took them back into the flow of people.
"You're...," Stan said with a laugh.
"Go on, finish that sentence."
"Wild! You're wild."
Ben laughed too, delighted, and pressed another kiss to Stan's cheek. "You make me this way. I'm usually very reserved."
"Of course you are," Stan said with a sarcastic eye-roll. He could feel the tops of his shoulders starting to burn and lamented his lack of sunscreen.
"No, really. It takes me ages to warm up to people. You're a notable exception. I think I'd like it if you had someone to talk to," he said, switching back to their earlier conversation.
"I'll think about it."
"Just because... I know I can't be there for everything for you. Even if I wanted to be. You're so brave."
"For not being anorexic anymore? That's not brave, Ben. That's basic human survival instinct."
"For lots of things," Ben said.
"It's why I don't model," Stan offered, wondering why he felt like he could open up like this when he was with Ben. Normally people had to drag information out of him, especially when it came to food and his eating disorder. "I don't want people to look at this body and idealise it. I don't have a healthy person's body. I'm sick."
"Have people asked you to model?"
"Only, like, twice a day," Stan said. "More if I go on a shoot. They always think I'm one of the models, and I get treated like shit until someone realises I'm actually in charge."
"Charming."
"Exactly. I know what happens to models in this industry, though—you can never be too thin or too pretty. If just one person told me I needed to lose weight, I know that could send me back on that downward spiral, and fuck no, I'm not going there again."
"You won't, because I won't let you," Ben said.
"Thank you."
"Does being able to be yourself help?"
"Sometimes," Stan said with a nod. He brushed his hair back with one hand and held it away from his neck, trying to encourage a breeze across his sweaty skin. "Being a girl brings its own set of problems. I was going to try hormone therapy once."
"Go on," Ben said, encouraging.
"I was seeing the therapist in New York, and she said she was happy to give me a referral to go and get female hormones so I could start transitioning. Being like this was enough to go there. We were talking about the side effects, and I couldn't do it."
"Which side effects?"
"The putting-on-weight ones," Stan said. He grinned up at Ben ruefully and led them to an empty bench under the shade of a tree. "She told me I'd start gaining weight on my hips and ass and chest and that just freaked me out. I got the prescription and everything, sat there with the box on my lap, wondering what the fuck was going to happen to me."
"Are breasts that scary?" Ben teased.
"Yes! Especially when they were going to be attached to me. It was the fat aspect of it. I'd spent years trying to control the shape of my body, and I'd been so successful at it. Those drugs were going to change me, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. All my wishing for a more feminine shape was right there in a white box and my fears stopped me from taking that step."
"Would you do it now? If you had the chance?"
"No," Stan said softly. "I'm in a different place now. It was only a couple of years ago, but I've kind of learned to accept what I've got."
"I like the way you are," Ben said. Stan shuffled over, and Ben wrapped an arm around his shoulders, the perfect position for Stan to drop his head to Ben's chest.
"I don't want to be a girl anymore."
"That's okay. You don't have to be."
"I might like being your girl, though."
Ben huffed a laugh and kissed his forehead. "Sweetheart, you can be my whatever you like."
"Okay. I can work with that."
"Come on," Ben said, and dragged Stan to his feet again. "We need to go and see if we can see the Queen."
Stan sighed dramatically. "There's a joke in there somewhere. I just can't be bothered to make it."
# Chapter Eight
WHEN A sharp knock sounded at his door, Stan nearly jumped out of his skin. He had to buzz in anyone who wanted to visit, or so he thought, so he rarely had any unannounced visitors.
He kept the security chain on when opening the door at first, then frowned and opened it all the way to let Ben in.
"Is everything okay?" he asked.
Ben nodded, his face set in a stony grimace. He leaned in and kissed Stan on the corner of his mouth, the action surprisingly tender for the bad mood that was clearly simmering.
"Tea?" Stan offered. "It comes with free sympathy."
"I'll just take the sympathy, please. We're all being kicked out of the house."
"What?" Stan said, shutting and securing the door once more. "Here, come and sit down."
He took Ben's hand and squeezed once in what he hoped was reassurance while Ben toed off his boots, then led them both to the sofa, Stan in his corner and Ben in the other. Ben rubbed his hands over his face, looking tired or angry, or both, and sighed.
"The house has asbestos in the ceilings that no one knew about, and there's a black mould infestation in the kitchen and through most of the back of the house. We think that's why Tone got sick. He's moved in with Geordie for the time being, because Sherrie insisted on it. The letting agency says we all have to get out, and they don't have anywhere else to put us right away."
"Fuck," Stan said.
"Yeah. It's shit. Apparently the bastard landlord says he'll put us up in a B&B, but that's only because he has to give us notice by law. If not, we could sue him."
"Stay with me," Stan said immediately. "You can move in here."
"Stan...."
"No," Stan insisted. "Please. I want you here." He reached for Ben's hand again and squeezed. Ben linked their fingers together and turned their hands over, then brushed his lips over Stan's knuckles.
"It's nice of you to offer. But we haven't been together that long. I don't want to push things too fast too soon."
Stan crawled into Ben's lap and gently cupped Ben's cheeks to draw him down into a kiss. "Think about it," he murmured. "You come home here every night. We can fix dinner together, watch some TV. You can play on your game-station thing, and I can go on my laptop. We hang out together and then go to bed and make love. Every night."
"Make love every night?"
"Trust you to just listen to that bit," Stan said with a laugh. He pushed his hand through Ben's floppy mop of hair. "Yes. We can make love for hours, and you don't have to ever go home for clean clothes, because this would be your home. Here with me."
"Stan."
"Would you move in with me?"
"Okay. Yeah," Ben said. A slow smile lit up his face. "Yeah, that would be good."
"Good," Stan agreed, then kissed him to seal the deal.
Ben rubbed at his tired eyes, then buried his face in the crease between Stan's shoulder and neck. Stan held him there, gently stroking his hair until Ben gave a big, heaving sigh.
"Come on," Stan said, climbing off Ben's lap and not waiting for him to follow.
In the bathroom, Stan turned on the shower and let the water warm up while he twisted his hair up and secured it with a big clip.
"Is this a voyeuristic thing?" Ben asked from the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed and a smirk playing at his lips. "Or am I supposed to join you?"
"Either works for me," Stan said.
Ben laughed and started stripping off.
It was a comfort thing, Stan decided as he ushered Ben into the shower, not a sex thing. He wanted Ben to stay the night now that they'd made a decision to live together. He wanted to show Ben how good it could be.
Ben dropped his head and shuffled under the wide spray of water. From there, Stan pulled him close so his chest was pressed against Ben's back, and with his hands liberally covered in Moroccan oil, he started to knead Ben's shoulders.
"Oh God," Ben groaned. He huffed a laugh.
"Is that okay?"
"More than okay."
When he was done, Stan switched to shampoo and worked it into Ben's hair, massaging it into his scalp.
"Want me to return the favour?" Ben asked, his voice low.
"No, I'm fine. Come on."
He switched the water off and stepped out of the cubicle, then wrapped himself in a towel and passed one to Ben. It wasn't late, but Stan was tired and Ben looked exhausted, so they went to Stan's bedroom—their bedroom—and pulled up a movie to watch on Stan's laptop.
Barely half an hour into the movie and Ben was asleep, his head on Stan's lap, snoring softly. Stan ran his fingers through Ben's still-damp hair and thought maybe, just maybe, this could work.
EVEN THOUGH Ben would have liked to take things slower, time was against them, and his landlord wanted him out of the hazardous house as soon as possible. That meant chucking most of his stuff in black bin bags and whatever boxes he could beg, borrow, or steal from the pub, then hauling it on the Underground over to Stan's place. Some of the bigger things—okay, just his TV—and anything slightly precious went in the final run in a taxi.
Since Tone was still on strict bed rest at Sherrie's, Ben ended up going through all of his stuff too, though he got a taxi over to Notting Hill with the whole lot rather than going back and forth again.
"I could have done it," Tone grumbled as Ben dumped the last duffel bag on the floor in Sherrie's spare room.
"No," Ben said, slightly breathless. "You couldn't. A thank you wouldn't go amiss, you miserable bastard."
"Thanks."
Tone was sitting back on the bed in boxers and a T-shirt, looking fed up and clashing wildly with Sherrie's décor. The room was decorated in pale colours and roses; Tone was dark and surly.
Feeling sorry for the guy who was admittedly his best mate, Ben reached into his backpack and drew out two bottles of beer.
"Aw, mate," Tone breathed. "Sherrie won't let me drink. You're a legend."
Ben laughed. "Bottle opener?"
"There's one on my keys."
Ben found the keys amongst the other junk on the dresser and popped the lids off both bottles, then sat down on the end of the bed and passed one to Tone.
"How're you feeling?" Ben asked.
Tone shrugged. "I feel alright, then I try to do something and I feel shit again. And I love Sherrie, don't get me wrong, but she's fucking scary when she shouts." He shuddered. "I tried to make a cup of tea yesterday, and she practically chewed me a new one."
Ben snorted. That sounded like the Sherrie he knew and loved.
"So what about you and Stan?" Tone asked.
"What about us?"
"You've only been seeing him a few weeks."
"It's been almost three months, Tone."
Tone shrugged. "Same diff."
Ben shrugged back and took a deep pull on the bottle of beer, then wiped his mouth with his arm. "He offered. I don't have anywhere better to go—God knows I don't want to go and stay with my mum—so it sounded like a good idea."
"What if it doesn't work out? What if it does?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ben said with a laugh.
"Guys like Stan...."
"Finish that sentence," Ben told him, his voice going suddenly dark and demanding.
"Alright, alright, keep your knickers on," Tone said, holding up his hand—the one not occupied by his bottle of beer. "I just meant you shouldn't lead him on. Don't move in with the guy if you're not serious."
"How do you know I'm not serious?"
"Fuck's sake, Ben. I'm not saying you're not." Tone stretched out, and his spine popped loudly. "He's important, then?"
"Yeah," Ben said. He sipped his beer. "I don't want to put a label on it yet. But he's important."
Tone didn't push for anything more, and Ben was grateful for that. It wasn't that he hadn't considered his relationship with Stan and what it really meant—he had, at length. He was from a family of men who didn't talk about their emotions, though, and definitely not about their partners. Ben couldn't remember ever seeing his dad tell his mum he loved her, which possibly had something to do with why they were divorced, come to think of it.
Ben left Tone in Sherrie's capable hands—much to Tone's distress, but when Sherrie got scary and demanded him out, Ben got out.
THE FIRST few hours were strange, as Ben brought a few battered suitcases of his things through the door and started unpacking his clothes into drawers. Stan fussed. He made tea, didn't drink it, then went back to watching Ben doing his thing.
"I've emptied half of the drawers," Stan said, hovering nervously at the door to the bedroom. "I can make more space in the wardrobe if you need me to."
Ben looked up from where he was stuffing underwear into a drawer—not folding any of it. "Then where will your clothes go?" he teased.
"I'll find somewhere."
"This is fine. Perfect. Thank you."
Stan nodded. "Do you want a cup of tea?"
"I'd love one."
After retreating to the kitchen, Stan fussed with the teapot and the kettle and found the right mugs, then rearranged the cupboard where he kept the mugs and cups until all the handles were facing the right way. Ben came in just as Stan was dumping the teabags into the recycling container.
"Thanks, love."
"That's okay. Do you want a biscuit? I bought some for you."
Ben paused in blowing across the surface of the tea to cool it and smiled without moving the mug from his lips. "No, thank you. This is fine."
"Okay."
Ben sipped his tea, set the mug down on the counter, then grabbed Stan's wrist and drew him close. Knowing he'd feel better after a hug, Stan let himself be folded into Ben's embrace and laid his cheek on Ben's chest, sighing heavily.
"If this isn't cool, then you just have to say," Ben told him, stroking his hand over Stan's hair. "We can do this for a trial period, and if it's not working, I can go live somewhere else. The last thing I want is for this to be the beginning of the end."
"I don't want that either. I want you here, Ben. I promise," Stan said, squeezing Ben tighter around his waist. "I'm just... scared, I suppose."
"Don't be scared. We'll be okay. What happened to promising to make love every night?" Ben teased. He pulled away enough to duck his head and press his lips to Stan's. Stan let himself be kissed, moving his lips slowly and parting them when Ben licked at his tongue.
"We can still do that," Stan said.
Ben grinned and kissed him again.
THE TRANSITION from boyfriends to live-in partners came smoothly, more smoothly than Stan had expected. He'd never lived with anyone other than family before; even when he was in Italy, he'd had a small, boxy studio flat he didn't have to share with anyone else.
He had a worry in the back of his mind that things would be different for them once Ben moved in, that his possessions would be moved around, and Ben would keep strange foods in the fridge and not do his share of the housework. Or, at the other end of the scale, that Ben would feel like the flat in Bow Quarter wasn't his own, that he was a guest or a lodger rather than a partner.
For the first few nights, they danced around each other; Ben had his routine, and Stan had his own, and they had to try to figure out how to layer their lives until they were seamlessly feathered together. Ben liked to play his guitar for an hour or two every night, either practicing or writing new stuff, or just messing around. He liked to have music or the TV on in the background when he cooked or messed around on his laptop.
Stan was used to the quiet, the only noise in his space being noise he made himself. It turned into a strange sort of comfort. It didn't matter whether he was working at the kitchen counter or in the living room while Ben was in bed, he was aware of there being another person around. It was different... a good different.
Neither of them were particularly competent cooks, though Ben was trying to improve his skills. When their schedules aligned and they were both at home for dinner at the same time, he cooked, an interesting variety of vegan meals from recipes he found online. Some experiments were more successful than others. His vegan lasagne was becoming Stan's favourite thing to eat.
"I'll wash up," Stan said as he cleared their plates to the sink.
"I can help."
"You cooked. I'll wash up," Stan insisted. Ben squeezed past and patted Stan's bum lightly on his way to the living room. Stan loved when he did that, though he would never admit it aloud.
He carefully portioned the leftovers into plastic tubs and left them on the side to cool before he put them in the fridge. Sometimes Ben took lunch with him when he went straight from the pub to one of his tutoring jobs, so these extra meals were useful.
The pan took a while to scrub clean; Stan left it to soak as he wiped down the surfaces and dried the plates, then stacked them neatly back in the cupboard.
"Stan?"
"Yes?"
"Come here."
Stan stuck his head around the door into the living room. "Hmm?"
Ben indicated the space next to him. "Dishes can wait."
"Okay. Two minutes."
"Stan," he whined.
"Two minutes!"
He used his two minutes to wash his hands and twist his hair back into a loose knot. Ben had some zombie show on the TV. Stan had never been particularly interested in television, beyond its use for helping him understand another language. For now, Stan was content to be snuggled.
He took his seat on the sofa, leaned back against Ben's chest and sighed.
"You okay, love?" Ben asked.
"Yeah. I'm good."
Ben kissed his head and ran his fingers gently through Stan's hair, undoing the knot, then started working it into a loose french braid.
"What are you doing?" Stan asked, sounding amused.
"Um. Braiding your hair?"
Stan leaned forward to give Ben more room. "How on earth do you know how to do a french braid?"
"I have a sister, remember?"
"You didn't tell me you had a sister. Only that they're triplets."
"Oh." Ben continued rhythmically folding strands of Stan's hair over and over itself. "Well, there's three of them, obviously. Freddie, Molly, and Sam."
"You've never lived with them, though?"
"No. But I babysit every now and then. It was weird.... I was twenty-three when my mum had them, and I had a girlfriend at the time. I could have had kids myself, you know? So I've never been that close to them. Mum showed me how to do Molly's hair when I stayed with them for a week over Christmas."
He finished off the braid, twisting it all the way to the finest strands of Stan's hair to keep it in place, then kissed the side of Stan's neck. Stan leaned back against Ben's chest and sighed again.
"Do you want children?"
"I don't know," Ben said honestly. "Do you?"
"No," Stan said, his voice low and maybe wistful. "I don't think I could do that."
Ben nodded, understanding, and held Stan a little tighter. Their TV show went to an advert break, and Stan got up and took their empty mugs to the kitchen to dump them in the sink. Remembering they were out of soy milk, he wrote it on the shopping list Ben had brought. It was magnetic and stuck to the fridge, so they shouldn't forget stuff like that anymore.
Since Ben had moved in, lazy evenings together doing absolutely nothing had become Stan's favourite part of his whole day. It had only been a week, but their lives seemed to fit together almost seamlessly. Sure, there were awkward moments, but Ben was a good guy. They worked it out.
Stan padded barefoot through to the bedroom and grabbed his box of nail polishes, then went back to the living room in time for the second half of the zombie program to start. Ben looked over and grinned.
"Time for a change?"
"Hmm. I think so. I have a new blouse I want to wear tomorrow."
"You accumulate new clothes like no one else I've ever known."
Stan shot him a cheeky smile. "Thank you."
"I'll do yours if you do mine."
Stan held up a bottle of electric pink and raised an eyebrow.
"I have no objection to pink," Ben said. "Was kinda hoping you had some black, though."
"I do," Stan laughed. He found the bottle and shook it out, then grabbed Ben's hand and inspected his nails. "You bite these."
"Yeah. Sorry."
"It's not hygienic."
"I know. Those file things freak me out, though." He shuddered. "The noise goes straight through me."
"I won't file them," Stan promised. "The pink is for my toenails."
"Oh." Ben sounded relieved. "I can do that."
"You first," Stan said, running his thumbs over his partner's horrendous cuticles. When he had more time, he was going to give Ben a proper manicure. For now, the black polish would cover up the worst of it.
"Okay," Ben said and leaned forward to steal a kiss from Stan's lips.
# Chapter Nine
STAN LET himself in the front door, toed off his Louboutins, and admired his shiny, pink toenails. Some kind of amazing smell was coming from the kitchen, and he padded in there, following his nose.
"Good evening," Ben drawled. He was stirring something on the stove that smelled deliciously of onions, garlic, and tomato.
"What's that?" Stan asked and wrapped his arms around Ben's waist from behind.
"Um... it's a caponata. Italian aubergine stew stuff. And I'm making a giant couscous salad to go with it."
"It smells amazing."
"Thank you."
Ben turned the burner off under the pan and moved it to one side, then turned in Stan's arms and placed a slow, precise kiss on his mouth. His lips tasted of tomato and garlic too, and Stan smiled into the kiss.
"Missed you today," Stan admitted when they broke apart with a sigh. "It was one of those slow days—we're in-between projects, and I just know it's going to go crazy in a few days' time, so I'm trying to get all my other stuff done before that kicks off."
"I hate those days," Ben said and kissed his forehead. "Do you want to get changed before dinner?"
"No, I'm fine for a minute."
Stan grabbed placemats from the drawer and quickly set the table while Ben dished up the food, and they hooked their ankles together under the table as soon as they sat down.
"This is good," Stan said after his first mouthful. "I like it."
Ben nodded. "Thanks. There's some leftover, if you want to take it for your lunch tomorrow. You can eat the caponata cold anyway."
"Okay," Stan said slowly, thinking over the idea. Leftovers for lunch. People did that, right? "Okay, I will. Thank you."
"No worries. You remember I've got work tonight?"
Stan pulled a face. He'd forgotten and had been thinking about a night on the sofa, then early to bed—not to sleep, of course. "What time?"
"I start at seven."
"I'll come with you."
Ben laughed. "You don't need to do that, baby."
"Am I not allowed out for a drink?"
"Of course you are. Of course. I didn't mean it like that."
"I know," Stan said and brushed his foot over Ben's ankle under the table. "I don't want to be cooped up tonight on my own."
"Come with me, then."
They cleaned up the kitchen together, and Stan ducked into the shower to wash his workday from his skin while Ben got changed into a different pair of black jeans and a long, soft, textured T-shirt.
"This is nice," Stan said, standing in front of Ben, wrapped in a towel and gently undoing the buttons on the front of the T-shirt. "It's not black."
"No," Ben said with a laugh. "Sometimes I wear things that aren't black."
"Well, it looks good on you. You should wear non-black-coloured shirts more often."
"Maybe I will," Ben said, and kissed Stan on the nose. "Come on, or I'll be late."
Ben went back into the living room, and after a moment, Stan heard the sound of the Xbox starting up. He quickly found a pair of skinny jeans and pulled them on, with a pair of flat boots, because his feet were still aching from his day walking around in killer heels that looked fabulous but were hell on his arches. He had a loose tank top that was only from Topshop but was nice enough for an evening at the pub, so he pulled that on and tied his hair back in a knot at the nape of his neck.
With time ticking, and aware he didn't want to make Ben late, Stan swept loose powder over his face, slicked on lip gloss, and used clear mascara on his lashes and eyebrows.
"Ready," he called out, spritzing on a light cologne before grabbing his phone and wallet as he rushed into the living room.
"You look hot," Ben said with a grin, and Stan laughed.
"Thanks. Come on."
As they walked down to the Tube station, Stan shot off a text to Kirsty, who he was sure had said she was out with her girlfriends somewhere around King's Cross for the evening. Camden wasn't so far from there, and she texted him back a few minutes later to say they'd meet him at the pub when they were done with their drinks.
"You can meet my work friends," Stan said, smiling up at Ben.
Ben grinned and threw his arm around Stan's shoulders.
For a Thursday night, the pub was fairly busy, a mixture of the after-work crowd that was yet to disperse and the others who looked like they were settling in for the evening. Ben kissed Stan full on the mouth, earning himself a hoot of appreciation from behind the bar, then ducked down into the cellar to lock away his wallet and grab his key fob that worked the till.
Since Tone was working, Stan hopped up onto one of the stools at his end of the bar and whistled at him between his teeth.
"Cheeky cunt," Tone said with genuine affection. "What do you want?"
"Vodka, please," Stan said, laughing. "With soda water and lime."
"You got it."
Tone fixed the drink quickly and slid it across the slightly sticky bar, waving away Stan's money. "Nah, this one's on me. How are you?"
Stan nodded his thanks and sipped the drink, which had been made with plenty of ice, just how he liked it. He could sit and talk with Tone for hours. He was an easy person to get along with, and they chatted amiably until Ben came up from the cellar, his arms full of a huge box.
"Thought I'd bring these up," he said, dumping the box on the floor with a clatter of bottles. "Refill ready for tonight."
"Thanks, mate," Tone said.
Stan had packed his iPad in his backpack before they left—his designer, tan leather backpack, not the scrappy thing Ben often used—and pulled this out to entertain himself, not wanting to distract Ben while he was working. Coming out to the pub was one thing, being a pain in the arse was another.
It didn't take long for Kirsty and her friends to arrive. They were slightly merry, and Kirsty was still wearing the same thing she'd had on at work, telling Stan she'd likely been out drinking since they finished at five.
"Stan!" she exclaimed as she skipped into the bar. Two other girls followed—one tall and dark with a pixie haircut, the other shorter and plump with gorgeous, glossy curls pulled back from her face with an Alice band. Stan grinned and slid down from his barstool to pull Kirsty into a brief embrace.
"This is Lara and Becky," she said, pointing to each girl in turn.
"Nice to meet you," Stan said with a nod. "Drink?"
He waited patiently at the bar while the girls ordered shots and cocktails, internally wincing at their choices but ultimately deciding not to comment. He'd pack extra painkillers in his bag for tomorrow, in case Kirsty needed to soothe a headache.
A booth had freed up while they were waiting, and it was much more sociable to sit and drink around a table rather than standing at the bar. They ended up talking shop for a couple of hours—Lara worked for another magazine, and Becky was a pattern cutter, so they had plenty in common.
Stan stole glances at Ben working as often as he dared. Ben had a way of moving around the bar that was oddly similar to how he played music; he was fluid and graceful and smiled a lot, even when the customers weren't particularly polite.
"Your boyfriend works here, doesn't he?" Kirsty asked, when she caught Stan looking.
He nodded. "Yes."
"Which one is your boyfriend?" Lara looked over at the bar, where Tone was doing some fancy tricks with a bottle of vodka to impress a group of girls.
Stan smiled at her. "Close your eyes and find the most beautiful man in the room. That one's mine."
The other girls sighed in unison, and Stan laughed. "He's the tall one behind the bar. With the dark hair."
"The guy with the beard?" Kirsty asked, sounding confused.
"No! That's Tone. He's a friend. The one with the undercut."
"Oh. He's lovely."
Stan nodded. "He is."
THE GIRLS couldn't stay long, only for a couple of drinks, and Stan air-kissed them goodbye before settling back into his booth. A moment later, Tone slid in next to him with another vodka and soda and a pint of something for himself.
"Hi," Tone said. "Just finished, thought I'd keep you company. Your friend is fit."
"I'll make sure I tell her," Stan said, amused.
Ben looked over from his place behind the bar, worry etched into the lines of his face. Stan smiled in what he hoped was reassurance. Ben turned away to serve another customer before Stan could figure out if he got the message or not.
"So, I wanted to ask you. Did you leave Russia because of all the gay stuff?" Tone asked.
"No, I left a long time before Putin brought in the law. But Russia has never been a particularly gay-friendly place. I wasn't out when I was living at home."
"And now?"
"You couldn't pay me to go back," Stan said honestly. He lifted his glass, slippery with condensation, to his lips and sipped the bitter liquid.
Tone snorted. "Don't blame you. So...."
"You can ask me anything, Tone. I'm not easily offended," Stan said with a grin.
"Alright," Tone said, obviously summoning bravado. "Are you a girl or a boy? Not your body, I mean. Like, your mind."
Stan couldn't help the rush of affection for this man who was trying so hard. He wasn't the big, offensive oaf the others seemed to think he was. Okay, so his phrasing wasn't great, but he cared enough to ask, and that mattered.
"This is going to be a long answer," Stan said with another laugh. "Are you ready for it?"
"Go for it, my love," Tone said, leaning back in the booth with his cider.
"Okay," Stan said, cricking his neck back and forth and wondering how the hell he was going to find the right words for this. And in English. He sighed, then continued. "So, for a long time we've accepted that sometimes things don't go according to plan when humans are developing. Babies are born with physical disabilities and have been for pretty much all of history. About a hundred and fifty years ago, doctors started to understand that sometimes things go wrong inside the body too, genetic or congenital deformities."
"Right."
"For about forty or fifty years, we've accepted that sometimes people are born with differences to their minds—not their physical brains, but their psyche or sense of self. Freud was pretty good at unravelling that stuff."
"Like someone being born with their body not matching who they feel they are," Tone said. "Transsexuals."
"Transgender," Stan corrected with a small smile. Tone nodded. "It's taking time, but a lot of Western countries are starting to accept that these differences in the mind are not fetishes or psychoses, but a part of who a person is. Just like we accept that some people's bodies develop differently and they look physically different to normal—whatever normal is—society is starting to accept that some people's minds and gender identities aren't 'normal' either."
"We're redefining 'normal,'" Tone said.
"Yes. We're trying. It's not easy. In my motherland homosexuality isn't accepted. To be myself there would mean opening myself up to all sorts of prejudices.
"And I don't fit neatly into the label of 'transgender,'" Stan said, reaching for his drink again. "I don't have any issue with trans people, but the whole concept of transgender relies on the given that there are two genders. A person might be born physically male and transition to be female. It's a very masculine view on the situation, if you'll excuse the generalisation—'oh look, she was born wrong, we can fix her.' And they do."
"Right," Tone said. "Are you saying that's wrong?"
"No, not at all. For some people that's exactly the right thing. But if you accept that sometimes a person is born the wrong physical gender, it's not such a huge leap to see that sometimes a person might be stuck between the two. Not male, not female, but a combination of both."
"And that's what you are?"
"Sort of," Stan said with a grin. "I'm still working it out. I'm a boy, Tone. My body is a boy's body and that's okay. It's more than being femme, though. I'm a boy with a lot of feminine traits, both in how I feel from day to day and how I like to dress, to present myself. I'm a boy and a girl both, in different ways. Some people call it gender-fluid."
"That's not easy to get your head around," Tone said.
"No. Because it doesn't follow the transgender narrative that the media likes. That 'wrong body, fix it, right body' storyline—it becomes a success story. But that's not me. I wasn't born the wrong sex for my gender. There is no easy, fix-it success story for being stuck between two genders, so it's not a story people hear very often. Gay men don't like me because I look like a girl. Straight men don't like me because I'm physically male."
"But Ben...."
"Ben is an exceptional human being."
"Nah, he's a bit of a prick, really," Tone said affectionately.
Stan grinned. "He sees the girl and likes her, and can touch the boy and like him too. He doesn't try and make me 'fit' into any tick-box category. He just lets me be."
Stan trailed his finger up and down the condensation on the side of his glass and considered his next question carefully. Tone sipped his pint and waited.
"Tone, can I overshare?"
"Yeah, go on, then. I might make you buy me another pint afterwards to help me forget, though."
Stan laughed. "I don't have anyone to talk girl talk with here."
"There was loads of bloody girls here earlier!" Tone protested.
"I know, but I work with one of them, and the others I've only just met."
"Oh God," Tone said. "Go on, then."
"He's just... the sex is so good," Stan said on a rush, dropping his arms to the table and his forehead to his hands. "I've never had sex that good before."
"Has he got a big cock?" Tone asked. "I'm just curious."
"You can't make fun of him, Tone."
"I won't."
Stan looked up to see Tone making a zipping gesture across his lips, then scratching at his beard. "He's perfect. I've been with other men before, but it's all been a bit...."
"Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am?" Tone suggested.
"Yes," Stan agreed with a laugh. "I used to just accept it. Most of my previous partners were older. And they liked to call me a 'tranny' or 'she-male,' or those sorts of things. I just accepted it, even if I didn't like it."
"Pardon the expression," Tone said, "but that sucks."
"Yes. Very much so. I never really understood how it can be like... like... two people together, you know? Not one man taking all the pleasure and the other lying there wondering what the fuss was about."
"You could always go and be the man taking all the pleasure for himself. Just sayin', you know."
Stan gave Tone a horrified look. "Oh no. I couldn't do that."
"So you're the girl in the relationship?"
Stan laughed loudly, and from the bar, Ben looked over with a questioning expression. Stan smiled at him in what he hoped was reassurance.
"If you like," he said.
"Should I call you 'she'?" Tone asked.
"No. 'He' is fine."
"I don't think I understand it all," Tone said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table.
"That's okay. You're listening. Most people don't even give me the chance to explain, so you're doing something very amazing by that fact alone."
"You're a nice guy. And a mate. And a really hot girl, which is confusing, but I won't make a pass at you 'cos Ben would knock my teeth out if I tried."
"Yes. He probably would. He's quite protective."
Tone drained his pint and nodded to Stan's now-empty glass. "Another? Vodka, right?"
"Yes, please," Stan said. "Ben knows what I like."
"I bet he does," Tone said with a lascivious wink.
Stan only laughed.
BEN GLANCED up from his game when Stan shuffled into the living room, then did a double take and almost dropped the controller.
"Holy shit," he murmured.
"Do you like it?" Stan asked, stretching one arm up the side of the doorframe and sticking his hip out.
"Holy shit," Ben said emphatically. Stan laughed and walked over to the sofa, his long legs easily eating up the distance.
"Do you need to stop your game or anything?" Stan purred.
"No... no. It's Assassin's Creed. I've played it before." Ben was captivated by the delicate lace covering Stan's almost-naked body. It was red, a deep, dark red that contrasted with the creamy paleness of Stan's skin, and fine enough to show plenty of that skin through the fabric. Ben reached out automatically, wanting to run his fingers along the line where the soft, scalloped edges of the lace rolled over Stan's hip, then pulled his hand back. "Is it... I mean, can I.... Can I touch?"
Stan smiled, his whole face lighting up. "Yeah. Of course."
Ben cupped those slim, angular hips in his hands and leaned in to nuzzle Stan's belly. The action was almost painful—he was hard already, his dick straining against the seam of his jeans.
"Fuck, you're gorgeous," Ben murmured.
Stan chuckled softly and ran his fingers through Ben's hair, gently tugging at the roots. "I wanted to look pretty for you. To try to look pretty for you."
With a gentle tug, Ben forced Stan off balance and neatly caught him again, then dragged him down until he was straddling Ben's thighs. They looked at each other for a long moment, lust burning between them, and then Stan leaned in and caught Ben's tongue between his own red-stained lips.
The kiss was as soft and sensual as Ben had come to expect from his lover—nothing was rushed, nothing was forced. Stan put it out there and Ben, well, he had no choice but to go with it. To ride whatever wonderful, exhilarating ride Stan was taking him on.
"Be with me again," Stan murmured as he kissed down Ben's neck. "I want you to fuck me."
"Uh-uh. No."
"No?"
"I'll make love to you. Someone like you...." He pulled back to push Stan's long hair out of his eyes, tucking it carefully behind his ear. "You don't get fucked."
"Okay. Then make love to me. Please."
Ben ran his hand down Stan's spine, feeling the bumps under the soft skin. He tugged his own T-shirt up, off, tossed it somewhere, and completely forgot it existed. Stan was smiling, a light in his grey eyes that Ben thought was possibly one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.
Stan pressed his hands to Ben's chest and kissed him again, rolling their hips together in a sensuous grind. Ben had spent years priding himself on being a pretty damn good lover—he liked sex, liked making other people feel good with their bodies. But Stan... Stan was something else.
With an almighty surge of effort, Ben grabbed Stan's ass and hauled them both up, grinning at Stan's squeal of protest, then his laugh as Ben carried them both through to the bedroom. He laid Stan down on the bed gently, then stood up and shucked off his jeans.
Stretched out on the bed like an offering, Stan threw one arm up over his head and trailed the fingers of the other lazily over his belly. Ben pressed his palm to his own erection and kicked out of his socks.
"Mmm," Stan hummed.
"Okay. I wanna make you feel good."
Ben knelt on the bed between Stan's spread thighs and pulled at the edge of the lace underwear, tugging it down until Stan's cock sprang free. Ben couldn't help but smile and nuzzled his cheek into Stan's belly, kissing and licking at the sensitive skin, then down over Stan's hip bones. Each little gasp and whimper poked and prodded at Ben's arousal, nudging him forward.
Instead of pushing the lace underwear all the way down, Ben carefully pulled Stan's cock and balls out and left the panties around his thighs. The skin on Stan's cock was as pale as the rest of his body, and he'd removed all of the hair from the area, so Ben knew this for certain. The only change in colour was the head of his cock, which was a deep, blushing pink. Ben studied it for a moment, then tugged the foreskin all the way back and licked the tip.
"Fuck," Stan gasped. His fingers wound into Ben's hair, tugging hard enough to make Ben gasp and get the picture.
Ben kissed one hip bone, then the other, then sucked as much of Stan's cock into his mouth as he could manage. It only took a few bobs up and down the length for him to be able to take it all the way into the back of his throat, and Ben pressed his hands to Stan's hips to keep him flat on the bed.
"Ben," Stan gasped. "Ben. Ben! Stop, stop, stop...."
Ben pulled off with a gasp. "Okay?" he rasped.
"Yeah. I want... I was gonna...."
"You can come in my mouth if you want."
"Fuck," Stan groaned and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "No. I want you to fuck me."
Ben huffed a laugh and reached for the lube on the nightstand. "I can do that."
With one of Stan's ankles on Ben's shoulder, Ben had perfect access to Stan's hole. He watched Stan's face carefully as he pressed one lube-slick finger into Stan's body, then two, then started to fuck him slowly with both fingers. A shiny pool of pre-come started to gather on Stan's belly, just under the incredibly pink head of his cock.
"Ben," Stan said again, a new way of expressing his tortured exasperation. "If you do not fuck me in a minute, I will get down there and fuck you."
Ben laughed, delighted, and pressed his lips to Stan's belly as he carefully pulled his fingers free of Stan's body. His lips danced over the smooth, flat muscles, then he blew a raspberry on the delicate curve of Stan's ribs, making him squirm and squeal.
"What are you doing?" Stan demanded, laughing manically.
"Roll over," Ben said, laughing too and reaching for a condom. He kissed Stan's shoulder, rolled the latex over his cock, then used more lube as Stan kicked the lace underwear off, rolled onto his side, and hugged his knees to his chest.
Stan sighed heavily, and Ben shifted forward, finding a good angle to press his cock into Stan's body, pausing for a moment, then pushing all the way in. Ben propped himself up on his elbow, the best possible angle to watch Stan's face while they made love.
With his eyes screwed tightly shut, Stan scrabbled blindly for Ben's hand, found it, then drew it around his body to press a firm palm against his chest. Ben picked up a slow, even thrusting back and forth, back and forth and cupped his hand over the lace cropped top, thumbing Stan's nipple.
"Worth the wait?" Ben asked, his voice low. "God, you feel good."
"Yeah." Stan laughed softly and squirmed. "Yes, it's good for me too."
Neither could last long like this; not with Stan's cock aching against his belly and the tightness of his body gripping Ben's cock as he eased slowly, purposefully in and out. He reached up and pushed Stan's long, fine hair back from his neck, and pressed his lips to the shell of Stan's ear.
"I'm close, baby. Can I come inside you?"
"Yes. Oh God, Ben."
Stan cried out as Ben nudged against his prostate, and with Ben's gentle fingers tugging his cock, he shuddered and came. For a second, Ben rode the high with his partner, completely entranced by the beauty of Stan's body mid-orgasm. Then his own body demanded release, and with his face pressed against Stan's shoulder, he lost control and came hard.
For a long moment, the silence in the room was deafening, and Ben was sure his ears were ringing. Then Stan let out a choked laugh, Ben shuddered, and carefully pulled his cock free of Stan's still-twitching hole.
"Fuck me gently with a chainsaw," Ben muttered, making Stan laugh again. "That was...."
"Incredible," Stan finished for him. He rolled over, kissed Ben's chest, then rolled back and got carefully out of the bed. "I'm just going to go... clean up."
Ben nodded and used his discarded underwear to wipe at his crotch. By the time Stan returned a few minutes later, blissfully naked now, Ben wasn't sure where the red lace cropped top had gone, but he hoped not too far. It was incredibly hot.
"Come here," he said on a yawn, lifting his arm so Stan could snuggle into his side. Stan's skin was cold, like it always was, and Ben tugged at the duvet until it covered them both. "You okay? I didn't hurt you?"
"No." Stan let his fingers trail over Ben's chest and yawned widely. "I'm fine. Thank you."
Ben pressed his lips to Stan's hair. "Okay. Good. G'night, baby."
"Goodnight."
# Chapter Ten
STAN'S ALARM beeped chirpily far too early in the morning, considering how late they'd been awake doing things the night before. He slapped it until it silenced, then rolled back into Ben's embrace for a few final minutes of warmth and comfort before the day dragged them away from each other.
Ben threw his arm around Stan's waist and grumbled unintelligibly as he buried his nose in the back of Stan's neck. These early morning moments were short but precious, and Stan let himself savour the warm peace for far longer than he should have before leaning back, kissing Ben's temple, then rolling out of bed.
Not so long ago, he would have considered this a late wake-up, but since Ben had moved in, their mornings were getting later and later. He couldn't blame Ben for it, not really; Ben worked late, especially when he closed up at the pub, and it took him a little while to unwind once he got home. Stan understood and didn't mind, even if Ben almost always woke him up when he finally came to bed.
Stan brushed his teeth while waiting for the shower to warm up, then enclosed himself in the glass cubicle. In his dream house, they'd have a tub—maybe one of those claw-footed tubs with antique-style taps. For now, though, the cubicle was fine.
After a minute or so, the bathroom door swung open and Ben stumbled in—his hair a hilarious mess, the black boxers he'd worn to bed riding very low on his slim hips.
Stan smiled and turned away as Ben proceeded to pee—loudly—grunting and grumbling to himself as he pushed his hair back with his free hand. Moments later, Stan felt a chill on his skin as Ben let himself into the shower.
"Good morning, Sunshine," Stan said, grinning, as Ben wrapped his arms around Stan's body.
"Mornin'," Ben huffed. He rocked them together back and forth under the water, his lips gathering up the little drops of water on Stan's neck.
"How come you're up so early?"
"Came to see if you'd soaped your balls up yet. Thought I could help."
Stan let a silly grin spread across his face, content that from behind him, Ben couldn't see it. He grabbed Ben's wrist and dragged it down his body, then cupped the hand around his cock and balls. Ben snorted with laughter into Stan's neck.
"Need soap?" Stan asked innocently.
"I never know what half the potions in here do." Ben let go of Stan's package and stretched both arms over his head, making his back crack. "I'm scared to touch them."
"Good," Stan said, poking him in the chest. "They're expensive."
He took Ben's palm and poured some of his silky, body-oil conditioning wash into it, then gestured for Ben to rub his hands together to lather it up. Ben took his time massaging the rich foam into Stan's skin, his palms skimming over Stan's chest and back, down his arms, then slowly rubbing his shoulders.
"You still sore from last night?" Ben asked, his fingers dancing down Stan's spine and skimming over his ass.
"I'm okay." Stan's cock was growing, throbbing gently, but he really, really didn't have time for this. "But I have to get to work."
Arching his back, Stan shot what he hoped was a sultry grin over his shoulder. "Maybe tonight you can fuck me like this."
Ben grabbed Stan's hips and rutted his own hard cock against the soft cheeks, groaning before pulling away and turning the temperature handle all the way round to freezing cold.
Stan shrieked and jumped back, then hit Ben on the chest. "What did you do that for?" he demanded, half laughing, half pissed-off.
"Because I want you so bad right now I could scream," Ben said, tipping his head back under the cold water. "You have absolutely no fucking idea how gorgeous you are."
Stan huffed, almost placated, got out of the shower, and wrapped a towel around his waist. "You have fun in there," he said and flounced back to the bedroom.
"STAN," VICTORIA said sharply.
Stan looked up from his computer, brushing his hair away from his face. His boss looked pissed, but that was her default expression, and he tried not to wither under her formidable gaze.
"Can I help?"
"We need an article on winter sun-holiday destinations."
Stan nodded slowly. "Okay. Can you email me a brief? And a deadline?"
"I'm going to need you to turn it around quickly. There's a gap in the layout. We had to pull Helen's smoothie article. It was...." She trailed off and shook her head. "Not good."
"I can do that."
"Okay, good. I know you have a life outside this place—sure, we all do, but for the next week, you live, eat, sleep, fucking breathe this thing. Don't let me down."
"I won't."
Victoria turned on her sharp heel and stalked off back down the hall. If he weren't used to working for women like this, with demands like this, and the blatant disregard for work-life balance, it would upset him. Or at least throw him off his game. Victoria wasn't as badass as she liked to think she was, though. He'd worked for worse people in Italy.
With a little regret, Stan saved the blog post he'd been working on and emailed it home to himself. It was going to have to wait. After a moment's hesitation, he picked up his phone and shot off a message to Ben.
Don't bother cooking tonight. I'll be late. Something came up. Love you.
A few moments later, he got a reply.
Love you too. Please make sure you order some dinner.
The mother-hen thing irked him sometimes, even though Stan got the impression that was just Ben. He did it to everyone.
In the old days, having his job take over his life didn't mean so much to Stan. His work was his life; there hadn't been much outside it to mess up. These days, though, it was different. Throwing himself into turning out a new article, including sourcing appropriate imagery and the research behind it, killed his social life. Killed it.
In the week it took to finish the article, Stan had to turn down Tone's offer of dinner one night when Ben was working, he missed band practice on Thursday night and the gig Ares played on Friday. He worked Saturday too, so he couldn't go down to the South Bank with Kirsty and her friends to mooch along and watch the world go by.
By six on Saturday, it was almost done, the layouts approved, and all he needed to do was get Victoria's sign-off on Monday morning and they could draw a line underneath the whole bloody thing. It had been a good project, in hindsight, and if he'd been given four weeks instead of one, he probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. As it was, his back ached, his eyes were itchy, and he'd gone to work that morning in jeans and one of Ben's band T-shirts. At least it was the weekend, so no one was around to see him looking so scruffy.
Stan let himself into the flat, dumped his bag next to the door, and toed off his shoes. It was quiet, even though he could tell the balcony doors were open, letting in the late afternoon breeze.
Ben was asleep on the sofa.
He had his hands pillowed under his cheek, bottom lip pouting as his chest rose and fell with each slow breath. Stan smiled and padded over to the sofa, then perched on the space made by the curve of Ben's body.
"Hey," he whispered softly, pushing Ben's hair back from his face. "Sleeping beauty."
"Hmm?" Ben smacked his lips and screwed up his face.
Stan giggled and leaned over to press a kiss to his forehead. "You all done?"
"Yep. Well, as done as I can be, for now."
"Good."
Ben pulled Stan's arm, knocking him off-balance and shifting onto his back with Stan on top of him.
"Well, that was inelegant. You could have just asked."
There was something about the way Ben pressed his face to Stan's hair, breathing deep, then laughing softly. It had become a warm, familiar gesture, something that encapsulated their relationship in one sweet moment.
"I missed you this week."
"I'm sorry," Stan said automatically.
"You don't need to apologise. I know you're busy. And your job is important."
"I work for a fashion magazine, Ben. It's not exactly life-or-death."
"It's important to you," Ben said, then yawned. "So it's important to me. Doesn't mean I don't miss you when you go AWOL, though."
"It doesn't happen very often."
"That's true."
"Are you working tonight?" Stan asked, pushing himself up onto his forearms so he could look down at Ben's sleepy face.
"No, I opened up earlier. Worked ten 'til five."
"Oh."
"What time is it now?"
"Almost seven."
Ben reached up and tucked Stan's hair back behind his ear. "You wanna do something tonight?"
"If by 'something' you mean watching a movie, ordering in dinner, maybe cracking open a bottle of wine... then yes. I want to do something."
"I actually picked up a bottle of that Pinot Grigio you like on the way home."
Stan leaned in and kissed him loudly. "I knew I kept you around for a reason."
When Ben squeezed his ass, Stan squealed with laughter.
"So, I have news," Ben said when he was done making Stan laugh and they had righted themselves into a seated position. "Sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but you've been busy...."
"No, that's okay," Stan said, tucking his hair behind his ear again. "Tell me now."
"We got offered a gig," Ben said with a rueful smile.
"Oh? That's good. Where is it?"
"It's more of a tour."
Stan gave him an even look, cocked his head to the side, waiting for an explanation.
"Okay, so it's a tour. For six weeks to start with, maybe more."
"Oh."
"Please don't look at me like that," Ben implored. "Please. I said I didn't want to go, but if I back out, then no one else can go either, and I can't be the one to hold them back. They'd never forgive me, and they're my friends."
"You have to follow your dreams," Stan said gently. "I know that."
"It's not my dream, though," Ben said with a harsh laugh. "It's theirs."
"You'll have fun. But what about work?" Stan asked.
"We'll get an allowance," Ben said. "It's not great, but we get a percentage of ticket sales too, so it really pays for us to do loads of promoting and stuff. Racket City is fairly well established now, so they've got their fan base. We're hoping they'll draw in the crowds. I know we're sold out in a couple of places already."
"That's great."
"Yeah. The kids break up for summer holidays next week, so my tutoring work always slows down this time of year. There's only a few parents who are hardcore enough to keep their kids in tutoring over the summer. I've called all of them and let them know, told them I can give them recommendations for other people if they still want a regular service."
"And the bar?"
"Oh, they don't care," Ben said, waving it off. "They'll get a load of temps in for a few weeks, Australian backpackers or whatever. The turnover in there is so high, anyway, they won't miss us."
"I'm sure they will."
Ben shrugged. "We've got our jobs still when we get back. That's the main thing."
"Yes."
"Stan."
"Hmm?"
"Tell me what you're thinking."
"I'm thinking...," Stan said slowly. "I'm thinking I'm going to miss you."
Ben dropped his forehead to Stan's. "I'm going to miss you too."
STAN HAD hesitated for days before deciding to follow his instinct and buy Ben the gift he'd been thinking about. It had come to him in a dream, or in the very first moments of being awake, when he was aware of Ben's strong arms around his waist and little else.
Ben had told him about liking being able to hold things close to his chest when he slept. So Stan wanted to buy him a teddy bear.
He already had a speech planned, mostly to direct at Tone, but also to anyone else who would be around. They weren't to make fun of Ben, not at all, because this was something Stan wanted to do for him. If he couldn't be there every night to give Ben something to hold, he wanted to pick the substitute.
After a little bit of research, he'd headed into Hamleys on a weekday afternoon. He was on his lunch break officially, and Stan knew no one would mind if he took a bit longer than an hour.
The store was busy, as he'd expected, but not horrendously so. After a few minutes of wandering around aimlessly, finding himself distracted by the flashing lights and music and pretty colours on the ground floor, he took the escalator up to the younger-children department.
Apparently it wasn't going to be as easy as just picking up a teddy bear.
The section was huge, stretching away with rows and rows of bears and bunnies and caterpillars and dinosaurs and monkeys and strange dolls with glassy eyes. Stan avoided those.
Slowing his pace, he started to wander down the aisles, letting his fingers trail over the different fabrics, wondering what Ben would like best. Not that Ben was the sort of guy who would ever consciously seek out a toy to cuddle at night. That was why Stan needed to do it for him.
He paused in front of a display of soft, soft animals. He was immediately drawn to a giraffe, one with a long neck and a baleful expression and fur so soft it was silky. Stan gently smoothed the fur over the giraffe's head and smiled to himself. He was just about to pick it up, when another animal caught his eye.
It was a bunny rabbit, one he'd initially dismissed. But this one was inky black, with long ears and a tiny, very pale pink nose.
"You'll do," Stan murmured, pleased with the weight of the toy, thinking of how well it would fit nicely snuggled up against Ben's chest. A black bunny rabbit. Very rock and roll.
The pretty girl on the desk offered to wrap it for him, and Stan nodded, delighting in the crinkly, red tissue paper that kept his rock-and-roll rabbit safe for the journey home. Stan tucked the shopping bag inside his handbag and nodded his thanks to the girl who had taken such care with the rabbit. It had an important job to do.
There weren't many weeks between Ben finding out about the tour and it actually happening, and the time seemed to fly by. Stan caught himself watching the clock constantly, at work, on the Tube, in the evenings when they curled around each other on the sofa and he put his fingers in Ben's hair and tried not to cling.
The bus was leaving from the pub, which made sense because Tone kept his drum set there, and it was empty in the mornings, and the pub had space to park the beast of a vehicle. No one in the band, and pretty much no one associated with the band, was a morning person.
Except Stan.
Stan hadn't slept the night before, too aware of the open suitcase in the corner of the room with piles of black clothes shoved into it. Even with Ben's arm around his waist and Ben's soft snores at his back, Stan couldn't find the soft slip into sleep. He was grieving already.
"Have you got a minute?" Stan asked as Ben finished hauling some big case into the tour bus's underbelly.
"Of course."
They slipped around to the other side of the bus, where no one could see them, and Stan slipped off one shoulder of his leather backpack.
"This is kind of stupid. But I got you something."
"Yeah?" Ben's face lit up with the prospect of a present, and the raw sickness in Stan's belly rolled again.
"Here," Stan said, pulling the red-tissue-wrapped package out of his bag. It had been hidden under his bed these past few weeks.
Ben kissed Stan's cheek, then tore into the paper. When he pulled the rabbit out, he laughed.
"Aww."
"It's because... because you like holding something when you sleep," Stan said quietly, hoping his voice didn't crack.
"Jesus, I love you," Ben murmured as he hauled Stan in close. The bunny was trapped between them, and Stan pressed his face to its fur, wanting the comfort it offered as much as Ben's arms.
"I got you something too," Ben said and reached into his pocket. For a moment, Stan was confused, and then his breath caught in his throat. "I can't offer you much," Ben said, "but I can promise you a lot. I want you to know that when we figure out whatever this is"—he waved his hand between them—"I'll make it happen. When we figure out what our family and our future will look like, I'll do whatever it takes to make that real for us."
He held out his hand, the thin gold band sitting in the centre of his palm. "Would you wear it?"
"Yeah. Yes. Of course. I don't understand, though...."
"I wasn't sure if you'd like diamonds," Ben said with a smile. "I know they're a girl's best friend and all.... I'll buy you diamonds one day. Until then...."
"Okay," Stan said, understanding now. He took the band—it really was incredibly delicate—and slipped it onto his finger. Suddenly his throat felt thick, and there was a stinging behind his eyes. Stan wasn't a crier, never had been, and he ducked his head to hide the emotion that was surely just singing out from his face.
"It suits you," Ben said.
"I wish you didn't have to go."
Stan threw himself back into Ben's embrace, letting the familiarity of being held soothe his frazzled nerves. He hadn't expected anything, least of all this, and it was a little overwhelming.
"Me too, baby," Ben said softly and buried his face in Stan's hair, holding him close so they could both disguise their tears.
"Ben?" someone yelled, making Ben squeeze Stan harder.
"What?" he yelled back.
"Need help with these fucking amps."
Ben silently pressed a kiss to Stan's temple and slipped away.
Stan sniffed, straightened up, and told himself to shake it off. When he followed Ben's steps back around the bus, Tone was leaning against the wall with a cigarette dangling from his fingers.
"What was that Ben had?" he asked. "He just took something into his bunk."
"You can't say anything mean to him, Tone," Stan said in his sternest voice. For some reason, his accent sounded thicker like this. "Please. I bought it for him, and I don't want it to be hidden away because he's too scared you'll make fun of him."
"What is it?" Tone asked, the edge of mischief dancing in his eyes.
"I'm not telling you," Stan said. "This is important to me, Tone. Do it for me?"
The burly Bristolian leaned down and enveloped Stan in a surprisingly gentle hug. "Ben has my back, and I've got his," Tone whispered. "I'll look after him for you. And don't worry—whatever your secret is, it's safe with me."
"Thank you," Stan said and squeezed Tone a little harder. "That means a lot."
"You got it."
Tone kissed Stan lightly on the cheek before pulling away and wandering off to check how the loading was going. When Stan looked up, Ben was standing on the steps of the bus, watching him with a curious expression.
"You want to see inside?" Ben asked.
"Yeah. Yes, please."
"Come on," Ben said, offering his hand.
The tour bus was long and narrow, with the sleeping area mostly upstairs and a line of couches on either side downstairs. There was one more fold-out bed at the back of the bus. Apparently this was Summer's area—she had claimed it as the sole girl on the tour. Stan didn't blame her for not wanting to sleep with the boys.
The bus had bunk beds upstairs, for both the band members and their small crew. They looked narrow to Stan, especially considering how tall Ben was.
"This is mine," Ben said, stopping at the bunk at the top of the stairs. A small curtain encircled the bed. "I already put Hades in there."
"Hades?"
"Yeah. That's what I named him."
Stan pressed his lips together. "You named your bunny rabbit after the Greek god of the underworld?"
In response, Ben kissed him hard. They walked back outside in silence.
"It's a nice bus," Stan said as they emerged in the bright sunlight again. He nudged his sunglasses back down onto his nose.
"Yeah. Sherrie saw the one we had hired to start with and said there was no way she was going to let us loose in that death trap. So she paid for an upgrade."
"I like Sherrie."
"Me too. You should stay in contact with her while we're away. She'll be worrying about us, so you could keep her company. I'm sure Geordie would appreciate it."
Stan heard the subtext—that Ben wanted Sherrie to keep Stan company too—and didn't call him out on it. Sherrie was nice. He could spend some time with her if it kept everyone happy. It wasn't a chore.
"I'm going to miss you so much," Ben said, wrapping his arms around Stan's shoulders.
"Please," Stan murmured. "Please don't. I don't want to cry in front of your friends."
They kissed instead, finding a shady spot to hide and make out until Jez started yelling about the fact they needed to go if they were going to get to Brighton in time to set up and sound check, and Ben was torn away from him, off for weeks of fun on his own.
Stan didn't cry; he rubbed his thumb over the ring Ben had given him and thought of Hades and didn't cry. He watched the bus disappear down the road and walked back to the Tube station and made it all the way back to the flat and onto the bed, with its sheets that still smelled like his lover. Then he cried.
# Chapter Eleven
WHILE BEN and the band went from Brighton to Bristol to Birmingham, Stan threw himself into his work. He'd always kept long hours at the office anyway, and he was getting obsessive and ridiculous until Sherrie called him and said Ben had called her and he was worried.
That was enough to make him stop, to take stock and wonder exactly what he wanted. He still had weeks more until Ben came home. It would be too easy to work himself into the ground, rising up through the ranks at the magazine, but where would that leave him when Ben got home? He couldn't just abandon it all again as soon as his boyfriend moved back to London.
There was the small matter of his blog too.
He had started it when he was still living in New York with his aunt, and even though he was only a teenager, back then he was already honing his sense of style and what made him tick. At school, he didn't dare dress nearly as fashionably as he did now. Being Russian, not speaking English too well, and being a slight, slim boy who was very definitely not heteronormative was hard enough, even in New York. He wasn't about to wear a dress to prom and wreck the thin veil of normality he draped over himself each morning before school.
The one place he'd felt free to let go and be himself was in his own room, alone, with the computer he'd saved and saved and begged for. It was his prized possession, his window into a community where he was assured people like him existed all around the world.
He wasn't a freak, or a disaster, or a fag, or any of the other names that got hurled at him at least once a week.
The blog started as Stan's outlet, his way of trying to piece together the things he knew about himself and the possibilities of what he could be in the future. It had grown, over the years, and when Stan started working in the fashion industry, he found himself in a place where he could talk, with real knowledge and passion about a hobby and a love that had become a career.
Even though his job at the magazine demanded long hours, Stan still spent a few hours every week putting articles together and releasing them on a semiregular schedule. His following was growing, and while Ben was away, he'd started to experiment with making video blogs along with his written and photography posts. His sketches too, made their way online, when he had the time to do them. Stan had always loved experimenting with designing clothes on paper. He was a disaster at the sewing machine, though, so his designs always remained purely hypothetical.
"Tea run?"
Stan looked up from his desk to where Kirsty was hovering in the doorway to his office, wearing what looked like last year's menswear shirt over a very short dress. He decided he liked the look and grinned at her.
"Yes, please. Peppermint. That colour is good on you."
She glanced down at the dark red and smiled back at him. "Thanks. I'll be about half an hour, okay?"
"No worries." He rummaged in his bag—okay, it was more than a bag; it was a Chloé, but he got it on sale and no one needed know—and handed her a ten-pound note. "Can you grab me a salad too, please? Anything without meat in it is fine."
"Got it," she said with a nod.
"Thank you," he said again, and Kirsty ducked into the next office along.
It was weird, now that they were friends, asking her to run errands for him at work, even if that was her job. One of the reasons Kirsty was so good as the departmental assistant was that really, she had little interest in fashion. She saw it as an industry, like any other, and her job was to make everyone else's lives easier.
If Stan sent her a layout to check, she'd look at it with a critical eye, spot any typos, correct his grammar, and suggest amends to the placement of the photographs if necessary. She didn't try to rewrite his work or change his style, which was, admittedly, pretty unique. Her no-nonsense attitude meant things got done, instead of debated or picked apart or critiqued.
His mind was full of florals and menswear when Kirsty returned with his peppermint tea and salad with falafels, which was just perfect.
"Did you get anything?" he asked as Kirsty turned to leave.
"Uh, yeah."
"If you want to eat lunch in here, you can," he said, leaning away from his computer for the first time in what felt like hours.
"Or you could leave," Kirsty said, teasing. "It's a beautiful day out there."
"If I leave, I'll never want to come back," he groaned. "I'd prefer to work through and leave earlier."
"Fair enough. I'll be back in a bit."
This was hell.
He needed a distraction.
THE THUMPING bass of the pre-show music throbbed through the whole building as Stan silently contemplated his reflection in a mirror in the ladies' bathroom. The walls were painted red, giving the whole room a womb-like feel, and other girls chattered and fussed around him.
With a practiced hand, Stan fluffed his hair, then carefully checked his eye make-up and smudged the dark powder on his eyelids with the pad of his pinkie finger. The other girls didn't even register to him.
Ben didn't know he was in Manchester. Tone did—Tone had helped Stan figure out what trains to get and how to make his way to the gig venue from the station. He'd also helped Stan find a reasonably nice hotel, which was only a few doors down from the venue, giving him space to be alone with Ben for a few precious hours.
"'Scuse me, love," a girl said, and Stan obligingly moved aside to let her use the sink. He threw his head back, shaking the sweaty hair away from his neck, and ducked back into the gig.
Ben's band had already been on—they were the support act. Stan had watched from the side of the venue, Ben's side, entranced by the man he adored thrashing around on a guitar like some kind of rock star. It was driving Stan mad to know Ben was backstage somewhere right now, possibly only feet away, not knowing Stan was here.
The main act wasn't due to start for another ten minutes or so, so there was a huge rush at the bar, and Stan couldn't bear to wait for it. He didn't have a bag with him, just a wallet and his phone stuffed into the back pocket of his achingly tight black jeans.
He startled when a hand landed on his shoulder, then almost leaped into Tone's arms.
"Hello," he said, then kissed Tone lightly on the cheek.
"Alright, my lover?" Tone growled, and Stan laughed. He hadn't realised quite how much he'd missed this big bear of a man.
"You were really good," Stan said. "So much better than in London."
"I'd say. Come on. I've got you a backstage pass."
"Really?"
"Yeah," Tone said with a grin. "Ben's going to shit his pants when he sees you."
"I think I am too."
Tone took Stan's hand and led him down the side of the venue to where a couple of large security guards stood by the door that would take them backstage. Tone leaned in and exchanged a few words, gestured back to Stan, and they got let in.
"It's a bit of a maze back here, so don't wander off," Tone said, letting go of Stan's hand when they were safely past the barriers. "The dressing rooms for the big bands are on this floor—we're upstairs."
Stan only nodded. Suddenly he felt sick.
Nearly two months had passed since Ben went off on tour. They had added more dates after the initial reviews had been good, and Stan had heard rumblings of taking the whole thing on to Europe. There was interest in Ares; people liked them, responded to their music. That kind of publicity couldn't be bought.
"How've you been, then?" Tone asked. He didn't get a response, though.
At the top of the stairs Stan caught sight of a familiar mop of dark hair. Ben was wearing his glasses, which told Stan Ben was tired, and his chest was sweaty and shirtless. Gorgeous.
"Never mind," Tone mumbled affectionately.
"Stan?" Ben said, the word barely audible from the other end of the corridor and the sudden rush of noise from the stage below them. Stan dropped all pretences and sprinted down the hallway to throw himself into Ben's arms.
"Oh my God," Ben murmured.
Stan wrapped his arms round Ben's neck, his legs around Ben's waist and clung. His cheek still fitted perfectly on Ben's shoulder, and he took deep breaths of slightly sweaty skin and felt like crying.
"I missed you."
"I missed you too," Ben said, his voice thick with emotion. "How did you get here?"
"On a train," Stan said, smiling as he slowly sank to his feet. "Tone helped. I wanted to surprise you."
"I'm surprised," Ben said. Any more words were forgotten as Stan closed the space between their lips and kissed like his heart was breaking. Ben's fingers ran softly through his hair, untangling and messing at the same time.
When Ben flicked his tongue into Stan's mouth, Stan pressed forward, aligning their hips and making a silent promise of more.
"Oi, get a room," someone yelled, and Stan pulled away reluctantly. Ben's hands still clutched Stan's hips, keeping him close enough to disguise their combined arousal.
Stan turned his head enough to see Geordie leering at them from the doorway to a dressing room and elegantly flipped his middle finger at the man he considered a friend. Geordie laughed delightedly and went back into the room.
"I have a hotel room," Stan said.
"Yeah?"
"It's not far away. If you want a night off the tour bus—"
"Oh, do I want that," Ben said with a groan and a laugh. "Yeah. Let's go."
"I also thought that maybe we can go out later." It was only just nine in the evening—plenty of time for them to enjoy the city. "To Canal Street. I want us to go and have fun."
"Yeah. I want...." Ben kissed up the side of Stan's neck. "I need to get you alone first, though. Give me ten fucking minutes, Stan. That's all it's going to take."
"A little longer than that, I hope," Stan said on a breathless laugh.
"No promises."
Ben grabbed a bag out of the dressing room while Stan stood in the doorway and waved lamely at the rest of the band, who were stretched out over sofas drinking whiskey. He blew a kiss to Tone before they left and got the others to laugh at that.
"I need to grab a few things off the bus," Ben said as they approached the venue's stage door. "It won't take me a minute."
"Okay."
More security guards loitered back here, although the area behind the venue was quiet for now, while the main act were playing. Ben ducked onto the bus while Stan stood outside and quickly smoked a cigarette, only now able to ease his fractured nerves.
"Do you still have...?" Stan said as Ben hopped back down and hit the button to close the bus door.
"Hades?" Ben finished for him, running his hand down Stan's arm. "Yeah. Of course."
Stan smiled inwardly. "Good. That's good."
"I wouldn't get rid of him, baby."
Ben slipped his hand into Stan's, and they turned away from the bus, away from the venue, down the street to the hotel and blessed solitude.
The hotel was nicer than Stan had anticipated. It was a chain, which meant he generally had low expectations, but the room was big and the bed was huge, comfortable, with plenty of pillows and a fluffy duvet. It took Stan's shaking hands three attempts to get the door to open, the red light mocking him while Ben's hands encircled his waist and his lips made promises on the back of his neck.
When the door finally flashed green and allowed them entry, Ben dumped his bag on the floor and pushed the deadbolt lock across.
"I don't know if I can make this romantic," he said, the apology clear in his voice. Stan walked backwards towards the bed, kicking off his shoes and unbuttoning his jeans.
"I don't need romantic. I need you."
"I can give you that."
They kicked out of clothes, garments flying around the room while they scrabbled in desperate haste for blessed nudity. Stan cried out as Ben kissed over his collarbone, licked his nipples, then licked up the length of his already straining cock.
"Please," Stan murmured, throwing his arm over his head and spreading his legs wide. "Please."
"We need...," Ben said, kicking his jeans off the rest of the way, then struggling out of his socks. Stan laughed and palmed his own cock, rubbing his thumb over the leaking head and wondering what on earth about this man made him so deliciously wanton.
"Got it all," Stan said. "Right there."
It was, too, a box of condoms and Stan's favourite kind of lube. Ben laughed and reached over, grabbed what he needed, then settled himself between Stan's legs.
"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes," he murmured, rubbing his hands up and down Stan's legs a few times before leaning in and stealing a kiss.
"I think about you every day," Stan said as Ben twisted the top off the lube and smeared a little over Stan's hole, then started to stretch him with gently inquisitive fingers. Stan gasped and writhed, and continued his confession. "Sometimes I think about you... you doing this, and I touch myself."
"Yeah?" Ben said, his voice low and dangerous. "Show me."
It felt like the most natural thing in the world for Stan to wrap his hand around his own cock and stroke it languorously while Ben's fingers continued to stretch and prep him.
"I think about you inside me," Stan said, his eyes squeezed closed, his voice sounding different. "I think about that, and sometimes it makes me—Ah!"
Ben pulled his fingers free and fumbled with a condom for too long—too long.
"Roll onto your side for me, baby," he said.
"I want it like this."
Ben kissed his knee. "I don't want to hurt you."
"You won't. I've been going to yoga classes. I wanted to get more flexible so we could... trust me, please, Ben. I can do it."
Leaning in once more, Ben kissed him softly, his gentleness belying the furious need between them.
"If I hurt you, tell me right away and we'll shift about, okay?"
"Yes. Okay. I promise. Please... I've been wanting this for so long."
It was true. Those times when he touched himself at night, Stan was thinking about lying back, just like this, and looking up into Ben's beautiful eyes while they made love. The form and function of the sex didn't really matter, he just wanted to overcome this physical malfunction that made the most intimate part of sex unavailable to them.
Ben scooped Stan's legs up and bent him back, almost in half as he guided his own cock into Stan's waiting body. It was a tight pinch at first, those few moments when the world stopped and the pain was breath-stealing, before the easy slide made everything all right again, and he could do what he'd been dying to do and open his eyes.
"When will you stop being this beautiful to me?" Ben murmured.
"I was just thinking the same thing. Oh my God."
Stan writhed on the bed, any discomfort in his hips forgotten as Ben started the familiar thrust and grind that defined sex between them. His legs were held high, thighs flush against Ben's chest, meaning there wasn't too much pressure on spreading them wide. It made the whole thing easier, and the angle... the angle was perfect for... perfect.
"I can't even think straight," Stan said with a laugh. He reached up and held on to Ben's strong arms, the biceps straining to hold his own body weight as he moved with painfully slow, even thrusts.
"Me either. Kiss me, please."
It felt more awkward to lean up like this, to try to let their lips do the talking for them. But Stan tried. And it was worth it.
"I'm okay," Stan said softly. "I promise. Let go. I want this too."
On the next thrust, Ben groaned, a noise that sounded like it had been ripped from his chest and Stan cried out as the head of Ben's perfect cock hit his prostate at just the right angle. It was messy and loud, and Stan was sure he wasn't normally the type to be loud during sex.
Still, Ben made him noisy and unashamed of his body and what it was capable of. This was wicked and delicious—pleasure and pain blending and underneath it all, the safe, undeniable knowledge that Ben loved him.
"I'm so close," Ben said, holding himself at the deepest point inside Stan's body.
"Let go."
Stan watched, fascinated, as Ben rocked his hips a few more times, then threw his head back, gave a silent scream of pleasure as his cock throbbed and twitched.
"Oh," Stan whispered, and the fingers that had been curled around his own cock were suddenly covered with hot, sticky release and the pleasure was bone-deep and muscle-melting.
While Ben pulled away and threw the condom unceremoniously onto the carpet next to the bed, Stan stretched and found nothing hurt as much as he thought it might. On instinct, he rolled onto his side and pulled his knees up to his chest.
"Come here," he said to Ben, who was trying to clean up himself. "We can have a shower in a minute."
"Are you okay?" Ben asked as he obligingly curled his body around Stan's.
"Yes. I feel... amazing."
"Good," Ben said and kissed Stan's shoulder as he kicked the duvet up over them both. "That was incredible."
"I wanted it for a while, so I had to go and do something about it," Stan said around a wide yawn.
"Yoga?"
"Yes. It increases flexibility while developing body and mind."
Ben snorted with laughter, then apologised with kisses. "If it's working, then I can't really complain."
"It is. They showed me how to stretch the muscles in my thighs and build up the strength there to support the problem with my hips. My bones. Make it better. Sorry, my English is terrible right now."
"It's fine."
"You broke my language," Stan murmured.
It was beyond reassuring to be held like this again. Their bodies weren't a perfect fit—Stan was made of too many sharp angles for him to fit neatly against anyone. But Ben had learned how to hold him close without hurting either of them, and it was the perfect position for him to kiss over Stan's neck, which was probably Stan's favourite thing in the whole world.
When Ben took a deep, shaky breath, Stan realised this separation had been as hard on Ben as it had been on him, and Ben probably needed this time as much as Stan did. It was quiet and reassuring. Loving.
"I love you, Ben," Stan said, bringing the hand anchored around his waist up to his lips.
"I love you too."
Wasn't that all that mattered?
AFTER LYING together like that for a little while, Stan dragged Ben out of the bed and into a hot shower, washing away the sweat from the gig and the evidence of their lovemaking. He let Ben wash his hair, fingers working out the knots in the long strands that looked impossibly darker under the water.
"It'll take me forever to dry it now," Stan grouched, even though it was worth it to feel this intimacy again.
"How long are you staying for?" Ben asked.
"I have an open ticket back to London. As long as I travel off-peak, I can go whenever."
Finally clean, they stumbled back into the bedroom, and Stan produced a bottle of wine to share while he got ready, and Ben turned on the TV.
"It's all crap, but I miss watching it," Ben said, sprawled naked on the bed. "Especially like this."
"Not much wandering around naked on the tour bus, then?" Stan teased.
He'd put on underwear and was sitting at the dressing table working the knots out of his hair, ready to blow-dry it into big, bouncy curls. That was the plan, anyway. In the mirror, Stan watched Ben scratch his tattooed belly, the sight of the black ink against the white sheets oddly artistic.
"Too much bloody wandering around naked," Ben said darkly.
"Tone?"
"However did you guess?"
"I like Tone," Stan said lightly. "He helped me figure out how to get here."
"I can't decide if I like the surprise, or if I wish I knew you'd be coming."
Stan shrugged. "I wanted to surprise you. I would have come out weeks ago, but work has suddenly got so busy, and I had to stay and help."
"That's okay. I know you work hard."
While Stan dried and styled his hair, Ben sprawled on the bed and sent text messages back and forth to his friends.
"They're in a pub," Ben said when Stan turned the hairdryer off. "Apparently it's not far from Canal Street, if that's where we're going."
"Yes! I want to dance."
"I'm not sure I'm much of a dancer, baby," Ben said with a rueful laugh.
"That doesn't matter. You can admire me dancing."
Ben grinned. Stan's stomach fizzed at the sight of his boyfriend so obviously happy.
They finished most of the bottle of wine, and Stan forced Ben into the bathroom to shave and get dressed, since he was nearly ready and Ben was still naked. It took great conviction for him to be stern when crawling back into bed together and fucking the night away sounded like such an appealing prospect.
He'd planned this outfit weeks ago, and Stan wriggled into his tight, tight black leather trousers and forced his feet into a pair of very high-heeled, black ankle boots. He didn't have much time to do his make-up, with how long his hair had taken, so it was the standard base to make do and red lips that emphasised his pout, and a reapplication of the already successful dark, smoky eyeshadow.
"What do you think?" Stan asked, striking a pose when Ben walked out of the bathroom wearing a variation on his "band T-shirt and black jeans" uniform.
"Holy crap," Ben said with a laugh. "Aren't you missing something?"
Stan looked down at his bare chest, then winked. "No. It's very warm out, you know."
"You're going to start a riot," Ben said, crossing the room and running his hands possessively over Stan's chest. "You're as tall as me now."
"Mhmm. I like these boots."
"Me too. Are you sure you can walk in them?"
"Of course," he lied.
It was getting late, so Stan ushered them both out of the room while Ben was still patting his pockets, checking for his phone, wallet, keys. This wasn't the night for a handbag, even though his bags were beautiful, and so Stan had been forced to shove his phone in his pocket too, along with a few notes and his ID.
"Do you know where we're going, or do we need to get a cab?" Ben asked as they emerged into the soupy summer heat.
"Honey, I need a taxi. These boots were not made for walking."
Ben laughed as he flagged one down and gave the driver directions. In the back seat, they didn't talk much but held hands over the leather. Ben's thumb ran back and forth over Stan's wrist in a warm, soothing gesture.
When they got to the pub, the others had clearly started without them.
"Stan!" Tone yelled from across the room. "Stan, my man. Vodka?"
Stan nodded, grinning stupidly, and gripped Ben's hand tightly as they wound through the tables to the bar.
"My man," Ben corrected him affectionately, and Tone pulled him into a hug, then planted a wet kiss on Ben's cheek. "You can get me one too, you bastard."
"Watch it," Stan said, playfully pushing Tone away.
"Aw, I love you both," Tone said. "The others are in the corner, if you want to sit down. I'll bring 'em over."
Stan nodded. "Thank you."
There weren't enough chairs for everyone; it was late, and the pub was clearly popular. Ben grumbled and had everyone shift down in the booth until there was room, then tugged Stan onto his lap.
"Comfy?" he asked, pushing Stan's hair away to murmur into his ear.
"Very."
Tone returned, carting a ridiculous number of drinks and bottles between his long fingers, then distributed them to the group.
"Just there, thanks, love," he said, and a barmaid set down another tray, this one filled with shot glasses.
"Lord, Tone, what have you bought now?" Jez asked as Tone started passing around glasses.
"Vodka. To toast our guest."
Stan lifted a glass and nodded. "Cheers," he said and knocked back the shot.
"Na zdorovje," Tone said in a surprisingly good attempt at a Russian accent. Stan laughed and shook his head, patting Tone on the arm.
"Nice try," Stan told him. "But no."
"Slainte," Summer offered and shuddered as the liquor hit her throat. "Jesus, Tone, are you trying to kill me?"
"Nope, just get you drunk enough that you'll let me feel your tits."
Summer rolled her eyes and apparently decided she wasn't going to dignify that with an answer. As Stan returned his shot glass to the tray, Summer grabbed his wrist, holding his hand up to the light.
"This is pretty," she said, nodding at the ring Stan still wore on his finger.
Ben dropped his chin to Stan's shoulder and squeezed his waist gently.
"Thank you," Stan said softly. He took his hand back and ran his thumb over the ring, feeling strangely protective of it and what it symbolised.
"I can't believe Ben has such good taste," Summer continued.
"Hey," Ben said, pretending to be annoyed. "I have amazing taste."
"Will the bride wear white?" Tone said, leaning back with his pint of cider and grinning at Stan. Stan decided he wasn't being made fun of, so he responded.
"I don't want to wear a dress when I get married, no," he said. "Probably a pair of very well-cut tuxedo pants... and some ridiculously expensive shirt."
Ben grinned. "I wouldn't expect anything less, darling."
"And what will the groom wear?" Summer asked. "You know he doesn't have any dress sense at all, Stan."
"The groom will wear," Stan said and paused dramatically, turning to Ben to cup his cheek in his hand. "Whatever the bride tells him to."
Summer burst into delighted laughter and dropped her head to Geordie's shoulder. He kissed the top of her head, and Stan guessed their relationship was on again.
"Are we doing Canal Street, then?" Summer asked, twirling her hair around her finger. "I think it'll be fun."
"Stan wants to dance," Ben said.
"Then we shall dance!" she declared grandly. "Which way?"
"You're coming?" Ben asked as Tone followed them down the street. He nodded sagely.
"I don't mind the gays."
"Well, I'm sure we're about to run into plenty of them."
"I don't even know where I want to go first," Stan said, skipping alongside them, managing to stay upright by sheer luck alone as he stumbled in his heels. "Not bars, though. I want to go to a club."
"We might not get in anywhere," Ben said. "It's late."
When Stan almost tripped again, Tone swept him up and on to his own back, made warning noises about dagger heels near his balls, and kept Stan in a secure piggyback as they negotiated the cobbled streets.
"They'll let me in," Stan said confidently. "Do they not know who I am?"
"You're a drunk Russian with the best legs in Britain," Tone teased.
"Indeed. They should be honoured to have me in their establishment."
As expected, the line outside the club was huge, but seemed to be moving fairly quickly. Jez and Geordie peeled off, heading in the vague direction of the bus, and Summer shouted obscenities at them until they disappeared out of sight. Ben managed to grab a bottle of water from a street vendor and pressed it into Stan's hands, begging him to drink.
"I get drunk quickly," Stan said mournfully. "I am a disgrace to my country."
Ben kissed him. It was a gentle kiss, sweet and reassuring. Stan smiled into it, reaching up to cup Ben's cheek.
"Come on, you're holding everyone up," Summer grouched, but she was smiling when Stan looked down at her. "You could be a supermodel, you know," she added.
Stan shrugged. "I could," he said. "But I don't want to be."
"Why not?"
"I know I work in fashion, but there are a lot of things wrong with the industry. I love that some photographers are using androgynous models and playing with those perceptions of what male and female 'should' look like. There's always a cost, though."
"Like what?" Summer asked.
She never got an answer—they reached the front of the line, and Stan got leered at by the staff at the door of the club.
"ID," one demanded.
Stan wriggled his identity card out of his pocket and handed it over. It was Italian, since he hadn't got around to ordering a British driving license yet.
The man's eyes flicked back and forth between the card and the man in front of him. Eventually he handed the card back.
"All right. Go on."
Ben insisted on paying the cover charge and kept his hand on Stan's back as they descended into the dark club, noise and heat and flashing lights immediately enveloping them. Apparently he didn't care about the fact Stan was all hot and sweaty.
"Do you want a drink?" Ben yelled.
"No! Dance with me."
Tone nodded and mouthed "go on," and then dragged Summer off towards the long, shiny bar. The club was huge, spanning several levels, but the main dance floor was within sight of the bar. That was good—Stan didn't want them all getting separated.
Lights pulsed from every direction as they joined the mass of hot, writhing bodies, and Stan wrapped his arms around Ben's neck and started to sway to the beat of the music.
"I knew you could dance, really," Stan said, his mouth close to Ben's ear so he'd be heard.
"Only with you."
"Yes. Only with me."
When their mouths met again, it was slower, Stan gripping the curve of Ben's strong arms as they rocked back and forth slowly, completely at odds with the regular thump-thump-thump of the music. Ben broke the kiss first, then wrapped his hands around Stan's waist and lifted him high, so his blond hair fell in a curtain straight down. He laughed, then threw his head back and hollered out to the night.
I'm in love!
I'm in love.
# Part Two
# Chapter Twelve
BEN WAS bone-deep tired when he finally, finally got back to the flat. It had been a long drive from, well, London to everywhere and back again.
After letting himself through the gate, Ben shouldered his bag, ignored all the aches and pains, and crossed the courtyard to the stairs that would take him back to Stan.
The weekend in Manchester had been incredible, but not nearly long enough, and that had been a couple of weeks ago now.
The band had spent the past few days driving down the east coast, stopping for an unscheduled gig in Cambridge. Someone Tone knew had heard about the tour and had booked them in last-minute. It had been worth it, from the band's point of view, but Ben missed his man.
They'd last spoken four days ago. Ben had tried texting to tell Stan about the gig but hadn't got any response. He hadn't picked up when Ben called either. The phone reception had been shit for the past few days, and even when Ben called again, Stan hadn't answered. He told himself it wasn't so unusual—Stan had a way of getting caught up with work, or his friends, or life in general. Ben still missed him, though. A deep, hurting ache, that even the sweetest black bunny rabbit couldn't ease.
"Stan?" Ben called as he let himself into the flat. The air in here was stale, and Ben wrinkled his nose at a bad smell that was coming from somewhere. "Stan?" he tried again. "Baby?"
He didn't get a response. Ben quickly checked the bedroom, which was neat, as always, then made his way back through to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and nearly gagged—the smell was coming from a tub of unidentifiable leftovers that was starting to turn green.
As he was dealing with the ungodly mess, Ben's heart rate started to increase. There was no way Stan would have let this happen. He was too fucking anal about keeping the place clean. Once he'd cleared the tub away, Ben grabbed his phone from his pocket and scrolled through his contacts. His last two messages had gone unanswered, but they were just Goodnight, I love yous, so it wasn't something he'd necessarily expected a response to.
Hand trembling, Ben pressed the button to dial Stan's phone. It went straight to voicemail.
He tried Sherrie instead.
"Hiya, Ben," she said, sounding stressed.
"Hey, Sherrie. Sorry to jump right to it, but have you heard from Stan recently? I just got home, and he's not here, and his phone is off."
"Sorry, sweetheart. Emily's been poorly the past week—I told him not to come over in case he caught anything from her. It's just a bug, but he's always looked like a strong wind could knock him over, you know?"
Ben knew.
He wondered if it was too extreme to go down to Stan's office. Probably, but he had a gnawing sort of panic in his stomach now, and he didn't like it one bit. After trying Stan's mobile again, with still no response, he made up his mind and only stopped to change his shirt before heading back down to the Tube.
The office was only a few stops away from Stan's flat, walking distance really, if it was a nice day and no one was wearing high-heeled shoes. Ben thought about that—the maybe forty-minute walk from Stan's flat to his office, and if Stan was on the Tube somewhere. No one got phone reception down here so....
The train pulled into the station, and Ben stumbled off it, headed up through the barriers, and blinked in the sunlight. He was only vaguely aware of where the office was, and it took him a moment, frantically looking around, to get his bearings.
He spotted the magazine's logo before anything else and his heart clenched again as he jogged across the street to the glass-fronted building.
"I'm sorry," Ben said, stopping at the reception desk and pushing his fingers through his hair, aware he was still fairly disgusting from being on a tour bus for the past few months. "I'm looking for Stan Novikov. He works here."
The receptionist gave him a slow, even stare.
"Stan hasn't been here for about a week. He's off sick." Her eyes were piercing, unnatural purple, contrasting with her copper-coloured skin and straight dark hair. Ben got the impression she dressed to intimidate.
He nodded, trying to keep his rising panic in check. "Okay. Well, I'm his partner, and I've just come from our flat, and he isn't there, so I'm getting a bit worried. Can I speak to his manager or something?"
The girl gave him another disparaging look and started flicking through a list of contacts in a laminated file. When she found the right name, she pushed a short series of numbers into the phone with taloned fingernails and waited for a response on the other end before picking up the receiver.
Ben stood back, waiting for the short conversation to be over, not wanting to appear too pushy.
"What's your name?" the receptionist snapped.
"Ben. Benjamin Easton."
She repeated the name to whomever she was talking to, then put the phone down.
"Victoria is on her way," she said. "You can sit down. Over there."
Ben nodded and took a seat on the very white sofa, aware his black jeans were dirty and would probably leave marks.
It didn't take long for a very tall, very slim black woman to appear. She made a beeline for Ben and hovered for a moment before sitting down.
"You're Ben," she said.
"Yes. Victoria?"
"Yes." The woman hesitated again, and Ben wondered just how bad it could possibly be. "Stan's in the hospital."
Pretty bad, then. "What happened?"
Victoria looked down at her hands. Her fingernails were painted purple and filed into points. "I'm not sure how much I should tell you. We have procedures in place to protect our employees' confidentiality."
"Stan's my partner." Ben's chest felt tight; the words came out in a voice he didn't recognise. "I—we—we're sort of engaged. You don't have to tell me everything, but I can't... I can't...."
Before he completely broke down, Victoria nodded and straightened her spine. "Stan collapsed at work a few days ago. We called an ambulance, and they took him into hospital. I don't know many details, but they were having trouble getting hold of his medical records. He has some kind of... mental health...."
"He used to have anorexia," Ben said bluntly.
"Yes," Victoria said and ducked her head. "I don't know all of the details, but it seems like he's relapsed. For lack of a better word."
"And he's been taken to hospital?"
"Whitechapel. The hospital there."
"Who's with him?"
Victoria looked confused. "I'm sorry?"
"Who's there with him? Who's looking after him?"
"Well, the doctors...."
"There's no one there?"
"No."
Ben stood abruptly. "Thank you for your time," he said stiffly. Without giving Victoria a chance to respond, he turned and strode out of the office.
From Stan's office, it was only a short Tube ride to Whitechapel, and the hospital was directly opposite the Tube station, so he didn't have far to walk.
Run.
There was no time to waste, not now that he knew Stan was alone. Something had happened, and he was in hospital, and he was alone, and Ben hadn't known anything about it. The sickness and anger and bone-shaking fear were colliding in his nervous system, making his heart pound and fingers tremble, and something in his belly churned.
Another reception desk, another receptionist. This time an older man with soft, smiling features.
"I've been out of town, and I just learned my partner has been brought in here," Ben said, forcing calm into his voice. "Stanislav Novikov."
He was directed to a third-floor ward, ignoring the signs on the walls that labelled Stan's condition before Ben even got to a doctor. The panic that had been churning in his belly and clawing at his chest almost peaked when he saw the words "Eating Disorder Ward," and Ben forced himself to stop, pressed his back against the wall, and took deep, slow breaths to calm down. There was no point in going to see Stan when he was having a panic attack.
Someone was waiting for him just inside the door. Apparently the nice man at reception had called up for him.
"Ben Easton?" she asked.
Ben nodded.
"I'm Leslie. I'm one of the nurses taking care of Stan."
Leslie looked like his mother. She was shortish, middle-aged, her fawn-coloured hair styled neatly around her face. She had wrinkles around her eyes, just light ones, and her skin looked soft with age and care. She wore a nurse's uniform, and Ben wanted to cry.
"Can you—" Ben choked. "Can you tell me what happened? Can I see him?"
"Stan's condition is critical," Leslie said, folding her arms across her chest. "We're tube-feeding him at the moment, and he's on an IV drip. We're running tests every twelve hours or so, but at the moment, it doesn't look good for his liver and kidneys."
"What does that mean?"
Leslie sighed and led him to the nurse's station. She rifled through a stack of files and pulled one free. "His internal organs started shutting down. All we can do is try to keep him stable at the moment, and once he's out of the woods, we can look at repairing some of that damage."
"Is he going to make it?"
"Mr Easton."
"Ben."
"Ben." She looked over her shoulder, making sure things on the ward were still calm. She scratched at her hair and turned back to him. "We're going to do our very best—"
"Please don't bullshit me," Ben said, interrupting her. "Please. Is he going to make it?"
"I don't think Stan is going to die. However, I don't know what sort of condition he will be in, physically and mentally, when he comes through the other side of this. Look, I'm just a nurse, but I've worked with eating disorders patients for nearly twenty years now. When he gets out of the woods, Stan has to change. He has to. There is no more relapsing. If he does this again, he will die, and there's nothing any of us can do to change that."
Ben slumped back against the wall and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. He felt a warm hand squeeze his shoulder in what he thought was comfort, and then the squeeze got harder.
"Look at me," Leslie said. Ben opened his eyes and sniffed. "If there's one thing I've learned working on this ward, it's that the people who make it are the ones who have something to fight for. Anorexia is a disease that needs to be fought, tooth and nail. Stan has something to fight for, Ben, if you give it to him."
Ben nodded. "Can I see him now?"
"Yeah," she said kindly. "Of course you can."
She led him through the maze-like ward to a small room. Stan was the only one in it, asleep on a bed that looked far too big for him, hooked up to an astonishing number of tubes and drips and monitors.
"Stan is sleeping a lot at the moment," Leslie said softly. "Which is a good thing. When he's asleep, he'll be recovering."
"When will he wake up?"
"I'm not sure. Possibly not while you're here. It's not a good idea to wake him, especially since his mental state is pretty fragile at the moment."
Ben stepped towards the bed and gently stroked the back of Stan's hand with his fingertip. "He's always been skinny," he murmured, almost to himself. "And I knew about the anorexia. He told me about it. He doesn't look...."
"Anorexia is a mental disease, not a physical one," Leslie said. She hadn't moved from her spot next to the open door. "It turns the people you love into liars."
"I only saw him a few weeks ago. He felt so strong then. He was doing yoga, and he said he felt great."
"I don't know what happened. One of the biggest challenges we've had with treating Stan is understanding what has been going on in the past couple of years. We only just got hold of his medical records and they're patchy at best, and in Italian or Russian at worst."
He turned to her and bit his lip. "I talk to him almost every day. I mean, if we miss a day or two, it doesn't matter, we usually text a lot too. I can't help but think if I'd called him, or got someone to check on him, or something."
"The 'what if' game will destroy you," Leslie said bluntly. "Don't play it."
"I missed him so much."
"He's not going anywhere. You can stay for a while."
Ben nodded and took a seat next to the bed, reaching out again to touch Stan's skin. It was a funny colour, greyish, though warm. He was alive.
Leslie had backed quietly out of the room, and the door snicked shut behind her. Ben slumped in his chair, exhaustion stealing the last of his energy.
"Fucking hell, baby," Ben whispered, pushing the heels of his hands against his face. "What the hell happened?"
# Chapter Thirteen
THERE WAS something about the smell of an empty venue that Ben had always found intoxicating. Sure, at night, when the place was packed full of people and the lights and the heat and the smell of the smoke machine hung thick in the air—that was magic.
During the day, though, that all got stripped back. With the harsh fluorescent lights on instead of the multicoloured stage lights, the place looked oddly sad. The black paint on the walls was flaking and peeling, thousands of years' worth of cobwebs tangled together on the ceiling, and the smell: stale sweat, the lingering acridness from those smoke machines, the sickly sweetness of spilled drinks.
Ben looked out over the venue, standing on a stage that, a few months ago, he was dreaming of playing on. Now it didn't matter. None of it did.
"Fuckin' hell," Tone said, dumping one of his bags on the stage as he looked out over the empty room. "Bit of a dive, innit?"
Ben turned to him incredulously, then shook his head when he saw Tone was joking. He'd seen enough bands play here over the years that playing the Brixton Academy made him feel like this was it. They had made it. Sort of.
"Okay," Ben said. "Can we do this as quickly as possible? I want to go and see Stan."
The others gathered on stage, dragging bags of equipment and guitar cases. Summer planted her hands on her hips and glowered at him.
"Ben. This is the biggest gig of our fucking lives. You can't half-arse your way through a soundcheck and make it up as we go along tonight. It needs to be good. This gig could launch us."
"If Stan wakes up, I won't even be going to the fucking gig," Ben bit back.
Anger flashed across Summer's eyes, and Tone grabbed Ben's wrist before either he or Summer could start something they couldn't resolve. "Come on," Tone mumbled and dragged Ben off the stage, down to the side door where they could sit on the step and share a cigarette.
"Call the hospital," Tone said simply as he rolled loose tobacco in thin white paper.
"I only spoke to them this morning," Ben said. He turned his phone around in his hand, over and over.
"Doesn't matter. Ask for that nurse—what's her name?"
"Leslie?"
"Yeah. Her. Ask for her."
Ben sighed but dialled the number anyway and waited to be connected to the nurse who was taking care of Stan. A few moments of conversation confirmed what he'd been told earlier—there had been no change since Ben had gone in for the first time a few days ago. Stan was stable but still in a critical situation.
"Thanks," Ben mumbled and rang off, then accepted the cigarette Tone handed him as he thumbed an update text to Kirsty. There was still something nasty clawing at his belly—the knowledge that apart from him, and Tone, and Kirsty, there wasn't anyone else Ben could go to about this.
"So?"
"He's the same as earlier."
"Are you going to come in and do the soundcheck and not be a dick to Summer?"
Ben nodded. "Yeah, alright."
"I get it," Tone said, then exhaled a lungful of smoke, looking at the grimy brick wall opposite the stage door. "I really do. Stan matters to you. He fucking well matters to all of us, mate. But you're the linchpin of this band."
"I'm not," Ben muttered.
"Mate. You so are. I know we've never really put anyone out there up front, and you do more harmonies than lead vocals, but when you get on stage, fucking magic happens. When we take that out of the equation, even when we rehearse without you, it's not the same. This band relies on you."
"Stan needs me right now. I know you guys do too, and you're my brothers, seriously, and I love you. But he's...."
"I know." Tone threw his arm around Ben's shoulders and squeezed him hard. "Let's do this gig tonight, fucking rock the place, then tomorrow we get to figure out what happens next. Okay?"
"Yeah. Okay."
The tension between them still dominated the soundcheck—Ben could feel Summer's eyes burning into his back as he rolled out the antique rug that always denoted his playing area on the left side of the stage. It was a tradition now. He liked the way it felt under his feet, rather than the hard boards of the stage. And it looked cool.
Soundcheck through the first half of the set was a chore, as it always was in a new venue as they figured out levels and what worked with the acoustics of the room. A moment, about ten minutes in, with roadies and noise boys and techs running around was when it clicked for Ben. This was about being a musician. Being a professional, rather than a guy who played a couple of songs in the back room of a pub with his mates.
The people at the venue—those techs and roadies—were doing their job to make him look good, make the whole lot of them sound good. They'd got back from what was supposed to be a short tour supporting a bigger band, and come out of it with the biggest gig of their lives. This was the time for working.
If his heart was elsewhere, then, well, Tone was right. Stan was okay for now.
By the time they were working through the second half of the set, Ben felt a strange combination of stress and comfort zinging through his veins. He knew this. Soundchecking had been a regular thing setting up for the gig for each night of the tour. Normally their slot was after the headline act had had their chance to set up, so Ares had a few scrambled minutes in which to make sure the levels were right before they got booted offstage.
Now they were running the entire set, and people were taking them seriously, as artists, not just a bunch of mates pissing about. They had time to run each song, to make sure it sounded good in the echoing space of the Academy.
"Do we have time to run 'Out of Here' again?" Summer asked as they finally finished up the last number in the set.
Ben groaned and ran his hands over his face, then pulled his guitar off and handed it to one of the sound-tech guys.
"You lot can if you want," he muttered. "I've got a headache. I'm going to go have a smoke and sleep before tonight."
Summer went to protest, but Tone said something under his breath that Ben didn't catch as he walked off the stage, out of the glare of the lights.
Technically, they weren't supposed to smoke backstage, but the dressing room smelled like weed, and Ben guessed he wasn't the first one to light up back here. He could hear the others arguing, the sound tinny over the relay, and he decided to ignore them. The gig would be fine, and they could spend hours rehearsing songs they could all play with their eyes shut and one hand tied behind their backs.
A battered sofa slumped in one corner of the dressing room under a large window. The glass was pebbled like the ones sometimes used in bathrooms. Ben pushed open the window, then dug into his backpack for the weed he'd got off Tone earlier in the day.
He skinned up quickly, and as the first drag on the joint hit his lungs, Ben felt himself starting to relax, just a little bit.
The others were still bitching on stage, so he guessed he wasn't going to be interrupted. There was something to be said for being home, even if he was actually pretty desperate to rewind the clock a few weeks and be back in Manchester, when things were amazing, so he could beg Stan to stay with them on tour and not go back to London on his own.
This city was home now, more than Auckland, definitely more than Oxford. This little corner of the world was his, where he fit in, with people who looked like he did and liked the same music and whose thoughts ran in similar directions.
Ben exhaled heavily, knowing the weed was making him philosophical. His headache had eased a little, but he was still bone-tired, unable to rest, the knots of tension coiled around his spine not allowing anything more than a few minutes' sleep at a time.
The sofa stank, when Ben put his head down on the arm, so he pulled his hoodie off and balled it into a pillow, trusting that Tone would come and get him when it was time to move. It was fucking uncomfortable, being curled up like this, and he wouldn't rest. Not really. Not while so much was still up in the air.
Still.
BEN BOUNCED a few times on the balls of his feet, shaking his hands as the lights on stage went down and the noise from the crowd rose into a roar. The tickets for the show had only been a couple of quid on the door, and it seemed the London audiences had caught the buzz from social media and turned up in numbers big enough to pack the venue.
This was undoubtedly the biggest crowd they'd played to yet, and it was their gig. Not a support act this time. He didn't have anywhere to hide.
Someone passed Ben a mic, and he nodded his thanks, waited for the signal from the tech that the mic was live before growling into it.
"Ladies and gentlemen... put your fucking hands together and give this bunch of wankers one hell of a welcome home.... It's Ares."
Tone led the way onto the stage, sprinting onto the riser that held his drum kit and smashing at it a few times as the audience screamed. The others all fell into position, and Jez picked up a low reverb on his guitar while Summer plinked a few random keys.
They had this down now, the opening to the show where Ben swaggered out, picked up his guitar, and threw the strap over his shoulder before Tone tapped out the four-four rhythm and they launched into the first song.
This was one they'd written while on the road out of sheer boredom. It had been one of those strange situations where everything seemed to collide at the right moment—the beat and the bass led the song through the first verse, but the melody of the chorus made it good. Better than good. Ben had been humming a note progression for days, and it had come to a head when they were on the bus travelling between Manchester and Glasgow.
He'd been sitting on his bunk, picking out the tune on his acoustic when Tone had found the rhythm, tapping it out on one of the amps. In the three-hour journey, they wrote the whole song, lyrics and all, soundchecked it that afternoon, and debuted the song in Glasgow that night.
It had been reworked and polished a bit since then, but Ben couldn't help but think Ares had really come together with "Out of Here."
"Are you ready for this, London?" Ben screamed into the mic before taking the lead on the vocals. "Don't know where you came from, don't matter where you been. All I know is, we're gonna get out of here."
The next song in the set was "London," which made perfect sense, even though the two songs had never been intended to sit side by side. "Out of Here" was about escaping from your home town for the bright lights of a city, and "London" was the band's tribute to the place that had become home, though the story was more about a hooker.
This crowd was completely on their side, and Ben was still baffled that they had managed to gather some kind of underground following, thanks to a few dodgy recordings of their gigs that had been posted on YouTube and social media. That was pretty much what it all came down to—people talking, someone saying they liked a song, downloading it illegally. From that alone they'd built up this small knot of fans, a following that was enthusiastic enough to get the Brixton Academy packed out for a homecoming gig. This was nothing like the night they'd played at the back of the pub, a small thing now, thinking back on it, even though it had been epic at the time. They had changed over the course of the tour, all of them, and Ares too.
Just after eleven the band got off stage, finishing, as always, with their rocked-out version of "Teenage Kicks."
"Do you like the Undertones?" Jez asked the crowd, waiting for their resounding roar before continuing. "Then you're going to be really fucking disappointed because we're about to murder a classic."
Before their audience had the chance to laugh, they launched into the song; this call and response had been perfected in the gigs that had come before. Despite the energy that was always blasted at them from the crowd during this song, for the past few weeks Ben had found it almost impossible to find the energy to go wild, to give it the screaming, raw energy the Undertones deserved. Tonight, though, he drove the song into a new pace, letting every one of his senses take him higher and higher until he was aware of the sweat on his face, the ache in his fingertips, the hoarseness at the back of his throat. The heat, the noise, the soreness in his retinas caused by the bright stage lights. One of his socks was twisted in his boot and it was uncomfortable. All of it.
As soon as he got backstage, Ben crashed.
The others were still buzzing, not that Ben blamed them. It had been the best gig they'd ever played by a long shot, giving their home town audience something truly special. Who knew when they'd get a gig again, especially one of this size, and they'd done it justice. He'd done it.
Instead of going out with the band to celebrate, Ben went home, to the flat he'd shared with Stan for only a few weeks before it all went to shit. He'd only slept for twenty minutes or so after the soundcheck before Tone had dragged him out to get food, and Ben had reluctantly admitted he needed to eat.
He walked around while time slipped away from him. The overwhelming feeling of helplessness was only getting stronger, and he had absolutely no idea how to handle that. He ended up in the bathroom, his back to the bath and his face in his hands.
Half a second later, he shuddered as the breath was stolen from his lungs, and he gasped again, his back seizing with the next convulsion.
In the back of his mind, he recognised this as a panic attack, even as black spots danced at the edges of his vision. His heart hammered in his chest, and his fingertips went numb, then surged back to life with throbbing pins and needles.
Ben stuck his head between his knees, not sure if this would do anything but needing to do something. He clutched the fabric of his jeans. Fought for the next breath, then the next one. Fuck, this hurt.
He looked up and his eyes fixed on a black lipstick case. Stan's lipstick.
Blinking the tears from his eyes, Ben pushed through the next heaving breath. Then the next one.
His chest still ached, so did his throat, but it was easing. As he finally caught his breath, Ben gave way to the tears he'd been holding back for so long. He finally understood why people said crying was cathartic. All the emotions he wasn't ready to feel pushed up to the surface, and he was forced to feel them all at once, and the only reasonable way to get rid of them was to cry it out.
After a while, feeling pathetic and sorry for himself, Ben stood and turned the tap on, letting the cold water run over his hands, then washed his face.
Even though all he wanted was to go back to the hospital and sleep in one of the awful visitors' chairs next to Stan's bed, he didn't want Stan to see a broken man in place of his boyfriend. No, to be strong for the person he loved, Ben had to be strong himself, and trying to stand up and be there for Stan meant sleeping, eating, showering.
Ben winced and sniffed his T-shirt. It was rank.
He stripped it off and tossed it into the laundry basket. He brushed his teeth, then went to the bedroom and pulled clean clothes out to sleep in. The sheets smelled familiar, another sign of home, and despite the absolute terror still clutching his heart, Ben crawled between the sheets and slipped into sleep as easy as a knife in butter.
THE INTENSIVE care ward had been a terrifying place. Stan hadn't been awake for a lot of it, but he could remember that. Something about the dim lights, the constant noise of machines humming and beeping around him, the stale smell of bodies, the harsh sting of antiseptic made it all so disconcerting. Something about that ward made him feel like he could die at any moment.
That wasn't necessarily an exaggeration.
The eating disorders ward had some fancy title, named after some guy who had donated a load of money to the hospital, according to Leslie. It didn't make the place any nicer, but after almost a week in the intensive care ward, he took what he could get.
Leslie had told him Ben had visited and he'd snapped at her that she should have woken him. Then he'd felt bad, and apologised, and decided he didn't want to see Ben after all. Or, more accurately, he didn't want Ben to see him.
The door to his room on this ward wasn't solid; instead it was dominated by a large window. Anyone could walk past and see into his space, which wasn't exactly helping with Stan's anxiety. It meant, though, that he could see when Leslie stepped up and knocked lightly on the glass.
He nodded, and she pushed the door open far enough to stick her head around.
"Ben's here," she said softly.
"Leslie." It was a plea. Don't make me make a decision.
Ben made it for him, gently pushing his way around Leslie and into the room.
"Hey," Stan said. He ached all over, but seeing Ben made another ache pang deep in his chest. Ben didn't deserve this. No one did.
"Hi."
"I'll come back in about half an hour to do your feed," Leslie said, then shut the door behind herself as she left.
Ben hovered for a moment, then his shoulders sagged and Stan felt the sickening, hot rush of guilt. He chewed at his lip and blinked back tears, wanting nothing more than to pull Ben into his arms and whisper apologies until everything was right again.
"Are you going to leave me?" Stan asked as Ben hovered close to the door. "If you are, go now. I don't need an explanation. Just go."
"I'm not leaving you," Ben said, his eyes wide, horrified. "Jesus, Stan."
"You want to stay?" Stan said. His voice was scratchy, his throat sore from the NG tube. "With me like this?"
"I'm not leaving you," he said again. This seemed to prompt him into action and he grabbed one of the hard plastic chairs next to the bed and slumped into it. After a second, he reached for Stan's hand.
"You could have called me," he continued. "Anytime, Stan. I would have come home if I knew you needed me."
Stan shook his head and let Ben thread their fingers together. "Not now, Ben."
"Huh?"
"Not now."
Stan tipped his head back, and Ben brushed his lips over his knuckles, and for a while, they sat in silence. Together.
Over the next few days, Ben traded off visiting hours with Kirsty as they took turns to come see him in-between his long periods of sleeping and seemingly infinite meetings with doctors and therapists. Kirsty was a wreck.
"I'm so sorry, Stan," she said for what felt like the hundredth time.
He didn't want to be too hard on her; every night this week she'd raced from the office to the hospital to be able to sit with him for an hour. It meant she'd travelled in the wrong direction and it would take her another hour to get home. She looked as wrecked as Ben and had taken to wearing her awful, old-lady lumpy cardigans again. He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. If only he had the strength for that.
"Don't be." Her pale green eyes filled with tears again and he gave her a stern look. "Stop it."
"I should have—"
"Stop it," he told her again. "I am serious, Kirsty."
"I'm sorry."
He let out a breathless laugh. "Distract me," he told her, stretching his arms up until his IV line pulled and his spine popped. "Tell me all the horrible things people are saying about each other at work."
He hadn't ever needed to ask her for that twice. She still hesitated for a moment before launching into a scathing review of what someone had said about someone else's choice in footwear, and Stan let the familiar rise and fall of her voice soothe him.
A BLACK bunny rabbit was sitting on the cabinet next to his bed when Stan returned from his therapy session, and a man hunched in the chair under the window. Tone looked fairly content to wait as Leslie helped Stan out of the wheelchair and hooked him back up to the monitor by his bedside.
"I'll come back in a bit," she said, looking over at Tone, then backing out of the room.
"Thank you," Stan murmured. He wasn't sure if she heard him or not.
"Alright, Stan?" Tone asked, his voice light.
"Tone," Stan said and shook his head, the action pulling at the tubes that had been inserted into his nose. "Go home. Please. I do not want you to see me like this."
He reached out and snagged Hades the bunny, then brought it up to his nose. The toy smelled like Ben, like his cologne and the stuff he put on his hair, and Stan's heart ached.
"No offence, mate, but you've got no chance," Tone said in his gentle burr. "I'm a bit pissed off that you didn't call me before now, to be honest."
Stan turned away and sniffed.
Tone was quiet for a few minutes as the beeps and whirrs of the machines, and the constant, quiet hum of the hospital filled the space between them. Stan's fingers twitched and threaded between Tone's in a quiet gesture of solidarity.
"I want to tell you about Kat," Tone said.
Stan turned to him and frowned. "You have a cat?"
Tone grinned and rubbed at his beard. "No. Kat was my girlfriend, when I lived in Bristol."
"Okay."
"She was... she was something else," Tone said with a warm smile, leaning back in his chair and releasing Stan's hand. He rubbed at his scruffy beard, and Stan noticed for the first time the few silvery threads among the darker hairs. Tone's age was almost completely unguessable—he could be anywhere between twenty-five and forty-five years old. "Gorgeous. She had dark hair but she used to dye it loads of different colours. I liked it best when she went red. It suited her somehow."
"What happened?" Stan asked, sure, for reasons he couldn't name, that something terrible had occurred.
"She was hit by a drunk driver," Tone said slowly. "One Friday night in town. She wasn't drunk—just on her way out with friends for a few in the pub where I worked at the time. The guy didn't stop, but he didn't get much further either. He ran off the road and hit a wall. The doctors told me after that, the force of the impact would have snapped her neck. The chances were, she didn't know anything, was probably dead before she knew she'd been hit."
"Oh, Tone," Stan sighed.
"Kat was the love of my life," he said. "I adored that girl. We were only kids—twenty-two—but I knew I wanted to marry her and have a whole bunch of sprogs. That was our plan. I was just waiting 'til I earned enough money to be able to look after her properly. Whenever people would ask when we were getting married, she'd tell them I couldn't afford her. She was teasing, but she was right. I was going to do right by her. Buy a house, get her a sparkly ring, spend our lives together.
"She," Tone started, then rubbed his hands over his face and sighed. "Kat was a beautiful person. On the outside and inside. Someone took her from me, and it broke me, Stan. I broke."
When Stan reached out, Tone let him take his hand.
"I thought, for a very long time, I was going to go after her. Chase her into whatever world she's in now, be with her there."
"You were going to kill yourself."
"Yes," Tone said simply. "As far as I was concerned, a life without Kat in it wasn't worth living. It took someone dragging me to London to sort myself out."
"And now?" Stan asked.
Tone smiled and started to unbutton the flannel shirt he was wearing, revealing pale skin and dark hairs on his chest. On his collarbone was a tattoo of a grey cat, curled up asleep.
"I keep her with me," he said simply.
"Why do you tell me these things?" Stan asked wearily.
"Because I know what it's like to be at rock-bottom," Tone said. "I know what it's like to feel you can't get out of bed, you can't wash yourself or feed yourself or even breathe without effort. I also know the only way you can get out of that absolute pit of depression is with the love of your friends. I had someone take me out of Bristol and get me to somewhere I could start again, not forgetting Kat—never forgetting her—but finding my place in a world where she doesn't exist. There isn't going to be anyone who comes and asks if you want help. I'm going to barge right in and be here whether you want me or not."
"I want you," Stan said softly. "Well—not in that way."
Tone laughed, the sound obscenely loud in the quiet room. "Good. I think Ben might rip my balls off if I come on to you like that."
"You're bigger than him," Stan pointed out.
"True. He could likely still kick my arse, though."
"Was it Ben who brought you here? To London?" Stan asked.
"No. I met him after I arrived. It was someone else."
Stan decided not to push, and let his head drop back against the pillow. The conversation had exhausted him, and he felt sleep taking over.
"Tone?" he said softly.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
"Anytime, mate. Anytime."
THE NEXT time he woke, Tone had gone and Ben had taken his place at the vigil point at Stan's side. Stan stretched, feeling his muscles protest at the movement, then sighed as he relaxed back against the pillows.
"Hey," Ben said softly.
"There is no need to speak to me like I am dying," Stan snapped. "I am still very much alive."
"Sorry."
Ben looked like shit. His hair needed to be cut or styled or something; it looked like a bird's nest. He had dark circles under his eyes, which were bloodshot.
Stan reached for him and watched as their fingers slowly twined together. Ben brushed his lips over the back of Stan's knuckles, then laid his cheek down on them.
"Are you sleeping?" Stan asked, extracting his hand to smooth it through Ben's hair.
"Not really. I miss you."
His eyes flickered at the sweet attention, dark lashes landing on his cheeks, revealing his blue-veined eyelids. Stan felt a smile tug at the corner of his lips, and he dug his fingernails into Ben's hair, scratching his scalp, making Ben hum with pleasure.
For a long time, all they needed was this. Stan wasn't tired, not really, not even exhausted like he had been for so long. This was so familiar; being quiet together, just existing alongside another person.
When Stan thought Ben might have fallen asleep, he managed to tear his eyes away from Ben's relaxed face and looked around the room. Tone had brought flowers, not ones that smelled too strong, an explosion of bright yellow, pink, and white roses. They sat in a vase to the left of his bed, and Stan smiled at the sight as he brushed his fingers through Ben's hair again.
There was a small table under the window on the far side of the room where someone—Stan guessed Tone, again—had left a bunch of fat green grapes, some San Pellegrino bottled water, and a massive box of chocolates from Hotel Chocolat. For some reason, this made him smile again. Tone didn't care what anyone else thought and probably didn't see anything wrong with taking chocolates to a guy who had been hospitalised for an eating disorder. He'd probably smuggled them in so the nurses didn't know.
Under his hand, Ben stirred, and he twisted until his lips were resting against the pulse point on Stan's wrist. Stan stroked his cheek with his thumb and sighed.
"Tell me about the band," he said softly. "What happened after the tour?"
Ben kissed his wrist again and leaned back in the chair, bringing his feet up until his Chucks were caught on the edge of the seat. He threw his arms up and over the chair's back and stretched, popping his spine.
"We recorded an EP when we were moving around," he said. "I told you about that, right?"
"Bits of it, yeah."
"Well, it's all done now. The whole thing needs to be mixed, but we can't really afford to pay someone to do it for us, so Jez is messing about with it. There's two songs on the website now, and we're hoping to launch 'Out of Here' as a single next month."
"That would be amazing. My boyfriend, the rock star."
Ben grinned then, as Stan had hoped he would. "I wouldn't go that far."
"I would. That's what I'm going to tell everyone around here."
"I don't mind everyone knowing you have a boyfriend," Ben said. He was smiling properly now, not the half-arsed, concerned "how are you" smiles Stan had been seeing from him the past few days.
"I heard you had a pretty good gig at the Academy too. I wish I could have been there."
Ben nodded. "You've been talking to Tone."
"Oh yes. He tells me a lot."
"It's weird how close you are."
"Really?"
Shrugging, Ben blushed and smiled. "He's my best mate, you know? My best mate and my boyfriend." He played with a rip across the knee of his jeans. "Will you tell me what happened?"
Stan sighed and tipped his head back against the huge white pillow. Even though Ben had been visiting for a while, he hadn't asked this. Stan had been waiting for the questioning; it was almost a relief for Ben to have finally caved.
"I wish I knew myself."
"Just talk to me. Everything was so amazing in Manchester."
"It was." Stan smiled at the memory of that night, of feeling so alive, so in love with life and this man. "I got back, and it was just all so... I missed you so much, but I couldn't dwell on that. There was so much to do, at work, and it was all so busy."
The hospital room was always too warm, so Stan kept the window cranked open, knowing he was lucky to be in a room where this was possible. He was always uncomfortable here; stripped of his clothes and his make-up and all the things that made him feel like himself, the rounder, softer person that he'd created. The Stan who had thousands of followers on Instagram and thousands more on his blog, the person with the carefully crafted public persona wasn't allowed to exist in here.
Stan lifted his head and gathered his long hair into a ponytail, wrapping it around on itself to keep it off his sticky neck.
"I wouldn't have thought about it if the doctors here hadn't forced me to," he admitted. "It was how I used to be, all the time, and I suppose I never saw anything wrong with it."
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
Wasn't that just it, though? Ben would always be there, he'd always understand, even when it was hard, even when Stan didn't want to talk because letting this out made him feel more vulnerable than he had ever allowed himself to feel before.
"I used to drink a black tea for breakfast," Stan said with a heavy, weary sigh, "then have some sushi around three or four. Just a few pieces, you know, because the other girls in the office would nag if I didn't eat anything. Then I'd get home around eight, sometimes later, and work on the blog for a few hours. It's going really well—or it was, anyway. Blogging is so fickle. They've probably all abandoned me now. Anyway," he sighed again. "I had a green tea before bed, and that was it. Sometimes a handful of nuts in the evening, if I remembered to eat them."
"Fuck," Ben said.
"It wasn't a conscious thing. I didn't get up in the morning and actively decide not to eat anything. It just happened, you know, I got back into old habits. The way things are when...."
"Finish that sentence."
"When someone isn't there to watch out for me."
Ben was silent for a few moments. "Is this my fault?"
"No! Not at all. Please don't think that. Ben, I... I... I lie here at night and I can't sleep because all I do all fucking day is sleep, and I think about how you hold me when we're in bed together and how you make love to me like I matter. I hate that I'm stuck here, and I hate that it's my fault, and I don't want to be one of those people who is so dependent on their partner that they cannot function on their own. But I need you, Ben, and that scares me even more than the thought of not being healthy." He pushed angry tears away from his cheeks and refused to look over at Ben. Stan sniffed, blinked, and more tears fell. "I love you, but I know I don't want our relationship to be you looking after me for the next fifty or sixty or seventy years. I want to be your partner."
"You are," Ben said. "I... fuck this shit. Come here."
"What?"
Ben pushed himself out of the chair and pulled the heart monitor from Stan's finger. The feeding tube and his IV drip both snaked off to the left of his body, meaning with the heart monitor gone, Ben could get into the bed next to Stan and pull him awkwardly into his arms.
It took a few minutes of shifting and gently moving the tubes and drip out of the way, then Stan was cradled in the safest place he knew; head on Ben's chest, sat sideways on Ben's lap with his arms wrapped solidly around Stan's waist.
"Better?" Ben murmured.
"Yeah."
"Stan?"
"Hmm?"
"Who the fuck brought you chocolates?"
"Oh." Stan giggled and spread his palm over Ben's chest, stretching his fingers so he could touch as much of his boyfriend as possible. "Tone, I think."
"When I see him, I'm going to kick his head in."
"Please don't. I don't mind. He came to see me earlier. He's very sweet."
Ben brushed his lips back and forth over Stan's hair, back and forth, back and forth. "Better now?" he asked.
"Yes. So much better."
It was. Ben's chest was strong and solid under Stan's cheek, his skin warm, smelling of sweat and smoke and fabric softener. His arms held Stan securely, not too tight, but certainly not letting him go anywhere. It was nothing more, nothing less, than absolute security.
# Chapter Fourteen
OVER THE next few days, Stan and Ben proceeded to piss each other the hell off. Ben was bone-tired, unable to sleep without his stupid bunny rabbit or Stan to hold, forcing himself to eat because it seemed grossly hypocritical if he didn't. He went from band practice to the hospital, picking up shifts at the bar when they needed him, then back to an empty flat, and felt hollow and exhausted.
Stan was pissed off about being kept in the hospital when he felt ready to go home. The collapse that had taken him to the Accident and Emergency Department in the first place had been attributed to a urinary tract infection, something that had been cleared up with a course of antibiotics. He wasn't being discharged yet, though. The doctors wanted to keep a closer eye both on his weight and attitude to eating, and monitor his kidney and liver function.
Ben's weariness and Stan's acidic attitude clashed, the resulting friction only smoothed by Tone's creamy baritone and Kirsty's gentle motherly fussing. Tone and Kirsty had jobs, though, and couldn't commit the same time to Stan's bedside that Ben could.
Stan was still too thin. Ben brushed his fingertips back and forth over Stan's wrist, knowing his partner would likely always be somewhere on the scale of "too thin," and that it would be his job to monitor that scale for the rest of their lives. It was a responsibility he was going to take seriously but keep to the back of his mind. Watching Stan like a hawk wasn't going to do either of their mental states any good.
"You don't look at me like you used to," Stan said plaintively, looking down at Ben with big, sorrowful eyes.
"What do you mean?"
"You used to touch me different too. You look at me and touch me like I'm about to break."
"Well, what do you want?" Ben snapped.
"I want you to grab my ass. You used to grab my ass all the time."
Ben sighed heavily and looked away. "It's difficult when you're in a hospital bed, Stan. For fuck's sake."
"You don't want to fuck me anymore."
"No," Ben said, hating the sharpness in his voice. "Not right now I don't, Stan."
"Go away," Stan mumbled, and turned his head to the window.
"No," Ben repeated. "You know what? No. We're going to do this, and I'm going to sound like an utter bastard, but fuck you, Stan. Fuck you. When we're together, it's incredible. I've never in my life felt the way I do when we have sex, because you matter to me. That's why there's a ring on your finger, and that's why I made a promise to you. Because when we make love, it's not about me or you or bodies or getting off, it's about what we are as people, and what we mean to each other.
"Right now I don't feel like your lover," Ben said, slapping his hand on the edge of the mattress. "And I don't feel like fucking you, because even though I love you to the stars and back, and I will do anything for you, this body and this version of you isn't one that turns me on. I don't get hard thinking about you like this. I don't think about bending you over a fucking hospital bed and pounding your ass. I want you to get healthy, come home, and we can make love again. That's what I want."
"What if...?"
"There is no 'what if,'" Ben said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "I love you. That's it. That has to be enough to make you want those things, Stan. I can't give you any more than that. I love you. Please. If you love me too, the only thing I want you to promise me is to never take the man I love away from me. Never take the man who made my life complete away. I would never be able to forgive you if you did that."
"Ben," Stan said, and when Ben looked up, tears were rolling down his cheeks. Ben pushed his palms over his own wet cheeks, sniffing. "Take me home. Please."
"I'll get you there," Ben said. "I promise."
STAN'S NURSE was all in favour of the feeding tube coming out, which was the first step in the process to getting Stan out of the ward and back to the flat. It was uncomfortable, worse than it going in, somehow, as they gently extracted the long, flexible tube from his nose. Ben held his hand and scowled at Leslie while she spoke soothingly to Stan as she completed the procedure.
Almost as soon as it was out, Stan started to feel better. He'd be kept in the hospital for a while longer, for observation on the eating disorders ward, but Leslie was confident they were working towards letting him go home.
"Soon?" he pressed as she passed him a meal-replacement shake for his dinner. It was too soon for him to go back to solid foods, not after he'd been tube fed for the past two weeks, and the shakes meant high-calorie, high-nutrition meals.
"It's up to you, love," she said. "Find your reason to get out of here, and you'll get there quicker."
"I'm going home to live with my partner," Stan said decisively. "To be with Ben."
"There you go, then. Drink it."
He did, sipping and wrinkling his nose at the artificial sweetness.
Ben had brought Stan's laptop and some clothes—real clothes, that he was allowed to wear now he'd been upgraded and taken off high-level observation. Stan was encouraged to interact with other patients on the ward, though he often found himself depressed by their stories and preferred to sit in his room and work.
The blog he'd been running for years had continued without him with only a very small blip in his posting schedule. Stan had warred with himself for a few days on whether or not he was going to come clean and admit why he hadn't been responding to messages, comments, or tweets for a few weeks. In the end, he gave an edited version of the truth and wrote an article that danced around his personal experiences while discussing eating disorders in the fashion industry as a whole.
In the past, Stan had written about gender identity—at times at length—plus-size fashion, LGBT issues, and more, so his readers were used to his own particular brand, which combined his insider industry knowledge with things that affected him personally.
When he woke up, acutely aware Ben wasn't next to him, and the rabbit in the crook of his elbow giving only a small amount of comfort, Stan knew things were changing around him. The constant, annoying beep of the monitors was gone now that he'd been moved to a new ward. He had been given a room of his own—a luxury, and he knew it—because of some argument around his gender. Putting him in a room with another boy or a girl was fraught with too much politics for the hospital administration staff to handle.
That meant no one asked about Hades, and even though his day was regulated in terms of meals and activities and group therapy and individual therapy, he was allowed to get up and turn on his laptop and work on things that were important to him. And that was important.
After about half an hour, Stan flipped the lid of the laptop down and stretched, then rolled out of bed and padded through to his bathroom. When he'd first moved into this room, Stan thought it was almost like a hotel. That was, until he noticed all the little things that were a constant reminder that he was being watched, all the time, and he was still in hospital.
He didn't have a shower so much as a wet room, with handles on the walls and a flip-down seat for when the person using it didn't feel strong enough to stand. That had shocked Stan, after he was admitted here, how he didn't feel strong enough to stand up on his own. He'd been running between his flat and work in heels, on the Underground, lugging around his laptop and a huge bag, and he'd been fine. Then, after he'd collapsed, he couldn't even stand up on his own any more.
It was like he had been running on a combination of grief and fury, and once that emotion was sucked from his body, he didn't have anything left.
There wasn't a mirror in the bathroom. Stan knew why.
He turned on the water and shed his clothes, then stuck his hand under the shower to wait for it to warm up. Kirsty had gone out and bought Stan's favourite type of shampoo and shower gel. Even though the shampoo was expensive, she didn't say anything or ask for the money back. She'd found the conditioner that went with it too and scowled at Stan so hard when he tried to say something about getting some cash out to cover it. Kirsty was the sort of friend people had talked about, Stan had read about, but hadn't really known existed.
He ducked under the spray and sighed, letting the warm water be its own kind of comfort. A few minutes later, a light knock sounded from the doorframe. He wasn't yet allowed a door between the bathroom and the bedroom.
"Stan?"
"Yeah?"
"You okay?"
"I'm just taking a shower," he said, trying not to be annoyed. The nurse was only doing her job.
"You should have called for me. I'll just wait in here."
"Fine." And he definitely snapped that word out.
He still took his time, lathering the shampoo through his hair and washing all the suds out before doing it again, then slicking it through with conditioner. Washing his body was harder, but Kirsty had bought him one of those fuzzy shower-sponge things so Stan didn't have to feel all of his protruding bones, a constant reminder of how deathly skinny he was. It helped. A little.
When he was done, he wrapped his hair in a towel turban and pulled a dressing gown around his shoulders.
"Okay?" the nurse asked when he stepped back into his room.
He nodded.
"Good. Breakfast will be in the canteen in half an hour. You think you can be ready for that?"
He nodded again.
She smiled and left.
Being able to pick out his own clothes and put on make-up in the morning had made more of a difference than anything else. This too was monitored, and Stan was often asked to explain the choices he'd made. Why that shirt? Why lip gloss today, when he hadn't the day before? Why this hairstyle?
When Leslie knocked on the door and let herself into the room, Stan had just finished tying his hair up into a loose knot at the base of his neck.
"Can I come in?" she asked. She always asked. None of the other nurses did.
"Of course. Good morning," Stan said, straightening up on the bed.
"Morning. You're up early."
"I suppose."
"Sleep well?"
Stan nodded. "Not as well as if I were at home." It wasn't meant to be rude, just a simple statement. He'd never sleep as well here as he did with Ben. He gestured to the bed, and Leslie came and sat down on the end.
Technically, she wasn't his nurse anymore. She worked on the intensive care ward, but she still came in to see Stan when she was working, usually before her shift started, or just after she'd finished.
"I was talking to Dr Cardwell," she said. "He thinks we should be able to get you home in the next few days. You didn't hear that from me, though."
"Really?" he asked, trying, and failing, to not get his hopes up.
Leslie smiled and nodded. "Yep. I'm so pleased you decided to stay here, Stan. I'm not sure if you see the difference, but I certainly do."
She spoke like this, about Stan's "choices," like he'd been the one to make decisions about himself since he'd been admitted. He hadn't. Things had been done to him—like the feeding tube—decisions made for him.
He reached for her hand and squeezed. Stan thought they both probably knew he wouldn't keep in contact when he left, not with the nurses or the therapists, or anyone else from the hospital.
"Thanks," he said. "I have to be at breakfast in a minute."
"I'm going that way. Let me walk with you." She brushed her hand over Stan's shoulder, silently admiring the cut of his shirt. "Your hair looks nice today."
"Thanks," he said, and smiled.
TONE SET the pint down with far more force than was necessary, and Ben nodded his thanks without looking up. Then he set down two shot glasses of clear liquid.
"Oh, fucking hell, Tone," Ben grumbled. "I'm not in the mood for getting hammered."
"Too late," Tone said. "Drink up."
Ben did the shot—tequila—and shuddered, chasing it with his beer, which made his stomach turn.
"Good boy." Tone took his own shot neatly, then pushed the two glasses to the edge of the table. They leaned back in the comfy booth, the surroundings of the pub familiar, even though so much had changed over the course of one short summer.
"I'm really not in the mood for this," Ben said.
"I know, mate. I know."
"Why does he talk to you and not me?" Ben heard the petulant tone to his voice, did nothing to hide it.
"Uh, rude," Tone drawled. He sipped his pint and grinned. "Dunno. Me and Stan... in a parallel universe, we'd make beautiful babies."
Ben laughed once, hard, the sound unfamiliar in his ears. "That's so fucking weird," he said on another laugh.
They were quiet for a few moments, not an uncomfortable silence; they knew each other too well, and had done for too long, for this to matter.
"Tell me what's going through your head," Tone said simply.
"I don't even know myself. Stan is so... he's... he needs me. And that's so fucking weird, because I don't think anyone has ever needed me before."
"What about me?"
Ben laughed softly. "Yeah, alright. You need me to haul your fat arse home after a night out. But with Stan—I'm starting to realise we mean more to each other than I thought we did. And before we left on tour, I put a fucking ring on his finger."
"Stan's stronger than you give him credit for."
"Is he?"
Tone nodded sagely. "He's got this inner steel, you know? He'll keep fighting."
"I don't know how I can stay in the band," Ben said. He expected some kind of lightness to follow this confession, for it to suddenly feel like the weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and Tone would be able to help him fix it all. Instead, he got an angry, incredulous stare.
"You are shitting me, right?" Tone demanded.
"No. Stan needs me, you said it yourself. He'll keep fighting if he has me, and I have no idea how I'm supposed to keep going and touring and all that shit if it means he gets left at home. He's out of chances now, Tone. You know that. There is no more relapse. Once more means he could die, and I can't let that happen. I can't."
"Why does it have to be one or the other?" Tone demanded. "Can't you have both?"
"Do you know what the life of a touring musician is like?" Ben said, struggling to get his point across. "We're going to be working our arses off now, especially because we don't have a record deal and representation to do all the other crap for us. The band can survive without me. Stan can't."
"It sounds like you've made your decision already. So, what? You're just going to walk?" Tone chugged half of his pint, then pushed the glass away. "Fuck that, Ben. You're what makes us."
"Dude. That sounds so gay."
Tone snorted with laughter but turned away so Ben couldn't see the amusement on his face.
"Ares won't make it without you, Ben," Tone said. When he turned back, his expression was neutral. "We won't."
"The EP is already recorded. You can release it, and—"
"And what? Suddenly our lead guitarist walks away? How are we supposed to handle that?"
"Replace me." The thought burned in Ben's chest. The very last thing he wanted was to see some other twat up on stage playing with his friends.
"No," Tone said simply.
"Tone."
"I'm not fucking around," Tone said. "We'll work something out. You can't walk away from Stan, and you can't walk away from the band. So we'll figure it out."
"I don't know what the answer is," Ben said. "All I know is that I have to give Stan my full attention now. I can't half-arse my way through this relationship."
Tone shook his head. "Do you hear yourself?"
"What do you mean?"
"Stan is good, Ben. He's good. He needs help, he needs support, but he is a strong guy. The hardest thing for you to do now is not to be there for him, but to let him be strong for himself. That's what he needs to build his confidence back up—not someone doing that shit for him, but someone standing right next to him cheering him on. Let him do it himself; just be there while he's doing it."
"For a simple West Country bastard, you do sometimes talk sense," Ben said. "Yeah. Alright. I'll try."
"What's he like in bed?" Tone asked.
"What?" Ben laughed at the sudden change in direction. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah. Is he good?"
"You're such a pervert." Ben drained the last of his pint. "Yeah. The sex is incredible."
"He thinks so too," Tone said.
"We really need to get you laid. The thought of you wanking to fantasies of me and Stan doing the nasty is... nasty."
"Hey, when your boyfriend is that hot, you have to accept people are going to wonder what he looks like naked."
"Right now, even I don't know what he looks like naked. Hey... why are you taking him chocolate?" It had been bugging Ben ever since he saw the care package Tone had put together.
Tone shrugged. "Thought he might fancy some."
"Tone. He's in hospital for an eating disorder."
"Doesn't mean he doesn't like chocolate. Look, Ben. I love you. You know that. But you're missing the point with Stan. It's not about food, or being a picky eater. It's about being in control when you feel like everything else in your life is falling apart around you. You know after Kat died I turned into a total alcoholic. That wasn't because I liked the taste of booze. It was because I had no idea how to cope. This is how Stan is dealing with not knowing how to cope. The food isn't the issue, same as the booze wasn't the issue for me. The issue is control."
"Sorry," Ben mumbled. "I should give you more credit." He ran his hands over his face, exasperated and dejected in equal measures.
"You don't need to be Stan's saviour, Ben. He doesn't need one. What he needs is his boyfriend. Giving him something to get up for in the morning. The food issue... well, I can't speak for him, but for me, sorting my life out made the drinking problem go away."
"What sorted your life out, then?" Ben rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a tension headache starting there.
Tone grinned. "You fuckers. The band."
Shit.
"Look, mate, I'm sorry."
Suddenly Ben felt very selfish. The division of loyalties between Stan and Ares was so much more complicated now. It wasn't a question of Stan's health and a group of people who would survive without him, it was one person he loved or another group of people he loved. How the fuck could he make that decision?
"It's okay," Tone said. "I'm in a better place now. But we have something, Ben. Hardly anyone makes it in this fucking industry, and we have a real shot. We're going to have to work our arses off, but there's a chance. We have to take it, to ride it and see what happens. Not to would be an insult to the good name of rock and roll."
Ben laughed again and nodded to Tone's empty glass. "Pint?"
Tone shook his head. "Nah. I told Sherrie I'd watch Emily for a few hours."
"Since when did you turn into the Babysitter's Club?"
Tone flipped him the bird. "Since I lived with them for weeks, you wanker. Emily loves me. Sherrie has a new man friend who wants to take her out. I don't feel like I can say no to her."
"Fair enough," Ben said. "I'll probably go back and see Stan again."
"Remember," Tone said, sliding out of the booth. "Support him as he builds himself up. Don't do it for him. And if he wants to give me that Kirsty's phone number, I'd take real good care of it, I promise."
Ben got out of his seat and, on impulse, wrapped his arms around Tone in a massive bear hug. Tone squeezed back so hard Ben felt his spine pop.
"Thank you," Ben said. "Seriously. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Be an even more massive prick than you already are," Tone said with absolute gravity. "I love you, man."
"Love you too."
"This is all a bit gay for me," Tone said, not letting go of Ben, or even loosening his grip.
"Don't worry," Ben whispered. "It's not catching."
# Chapter Fifteen
SHERRIE LOOKED around the table, taking stock of each of them in turn. Ben couldn't help but think something was seriously wrong. For one, he and the rest of the band looked ridiculously out of place in Sherrie's dining room. It was a huge, high-ceilinged, very white space, with a glossy, black table and bright pink printed wallpaper along one wall. Incredibly smart, and shiny, and clean, in direct contrast to the scruffy, messy, or downright dirty group of people who sat at the table. Ben had put his hands down on the tabletop and left smudges—now his hands were tucked safely under his thighs.
"Um," Sherrie started, then looked down at her lap. "Okay, this is weird."
"Want me to lower the tone for you, Sher?" Tone asked, giving her a wink. "'Cos your tits look amazing in that top."
"Tone. That's my mum," Geordie said with a groan.
Ben snorted and at least some of the tension broke.
"I just wanted to talk to you about where you're all living," Sherrie said, sounding self-conscious. She still hadn't looked up. "I mean, Tone's still here, and Ben's with Stan. But he's going to lose the flat, right, Ben?"
Ben nodded and waited for Sherrie to look up before he spoke. "If he leaves his job, and I think he's going to, then yeah. We'll have to move out. The flat is owned by the magazine. We're just renting it."
"What are you gonna do?"
"I don't know yet. We'll figure something out."
"Just tell them, Mum," Geordie said softly. He sat next to Sherrie and reached out to squeeze her hand gently.
"I've spoken to a financial advisor, and I want to buy another house. As an investment thing, like."
"Okay," Ben said slowly.
"I thought I could find somewhere up around Camden where you all work, and you could live there."
"What, all of us?" Tone asked.
Sherrie nodded. "Yeah. I'd work it out so all you lot needed to do was cover the bills. The rent should be pretty cheap."
"Sherrie," Jez said. He'd been sitting quietly at the head of the table. "That's a lot, you know." He shook his head.
"It would be an investment piece, like I said. When you're all grown up and want to move out, I can sell it on. Or my girls can live there. I'll find somewhere with enough bedrooms so you've all got your own room. If you're all serious about making the band work...."
"We are," Jez said.
"Well, then, living together has to be a good thing. We can find somewhere that has rehearsal space too."
"Mum," Geordie said, and she grinned at him.
"Yes, darling?"
Tone snorted. "Darling," he repeated, mocking.
"This is pretty amazing."
"Not really. If I was that amazing, I would have bought you your own house, instead of sticking the money in a trust fund until you turn thirty."
"Yeah, I'm not sure I've forgiven you for that yet. Can I help pick the house?"
"Of course you can."
"Don't make it too nice," Tone said. "I wouldn't feel right living somewhere proper posh."
"Yeah," Summer agreed. "It needs to have.... What do they call it? Character."
"Preferably somewhere a bit dank and miserable," Ben said, teasing now, but Tone was nodding.
"Great," Sherrie said. "I need to find a seven-bedroom house in bloody Hampstead Heath and drop five mil on the place, but make sure it's got some asbestos to make you all feel at home."
"You got it, Sher," Tone said, rocking his chair back onto its two rear legs. At Sherrie's disapproving cluck, he dropped it back to all fours.
"Geordie's right, Sherrie," Summer said, leaning to grab Sherrie's hand. "You don't know what this means to us. It might mean we actually make something of the band."
Sherrie shook her head. "All I've ever wanted was to see my kids happy," she said. "Money ain't got much to do with it really, but sometimes it helps." Her grin turned a little watery. "Not sure when I adopted all you lot, but somehow you turned into my kids as well. I want that fucking band to work just as much as the rest of you."
That seemed to decide it. Ben had to admit, getting them all under the same roof would probably do wonders for the band. They were scattered all over London at the moment, and even though they still congregated at Sherrie's house to rehearse, it was getting harder and harder to coordinate time for everyone to get together. No way could they finish an album the way they were going.
As the others ducked out of the dining room, heading to the kitchen and the promise of snacks, Ben hung back until he was alone with Sherrie.
"You alright, Ben love? How's Stan?"
"He's okay," Ben said. "Doing a lot better actually. He should be coming home soon."
"Maybe he can move straight into the new house."
Ben rolled his shoulders, feeling suddenly nervous. Sherrie was already doing such a nice thing for them; it seemed incredibly selfish to ask her for more.
"That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about," he said. He leaned against the doorframe, then remembered it was white and he probably shouldn't. "Stan is.... I mean, he's amazing, but he's got a lot of hang-ups about being tidy and clean and what he eats. I'm pretty sure he'd be up for living with everyone in theory, but in practice?" He shook his head. "I don't want to sound like the most ungrateful prick on the planet."
Sherrie shook her head. "I get it," she said. "Maybe I can look for somewhere that has a flat above the garage for you two, hmm?"
"I can't ask you for that."
"You're not asking," she said, taking his hand and squeezing. "I'm offering. God knows I feel guilty enough for not keeping an eye on Stan while you were away. This is the least I can do."
"No one blames you for that, Sher," Ben said. "He wasn't your responsibility."
"No, but he's one of you lot, isn't he? One of my kids."
Ben smiled at her, his throat suddenly thick. She squeezed his hand again, then dropped it.
"You go take care of him, love. I'll make sure you're both okay."
"Thanks, Sherrie."
Ben put off telling Stan about the new house for a couple of days, not wanting to remind him about the realities that were waiting for him outside the hospital room. He was making good progress, Leslie was pleased with him, and the regular therapy sessions were starting to rebuild his confidence. Ben knew Stan's goal was to get out as soon as possible, and he couldn't help but feel torn between his desire to have Stan home and to leave him where he was, with all the professional help that came with his stay on the eating disorders ward.
It took Sherrie and Geordie only a couple of days to find a house that fit all of the requirements that had been thrown at them. Sherrie called it a "fixer-upper" and, checking out the pictures online, Ben had to agree.
The house was in a good area, a short bus ride or a longer walk down to the pub if he had to work, only a few streets away from a Tube station that would take him anywhere he wanted to go around London, and with a huge basement where the band could rehearse without disturbing their—likely very posh—neighbours.
Thought you and Stan could have the attic, Geordie told Ben via text message.
There was only one picture of the attic conversion room on the estate agent's website, but it looked like the space was a recent refurbishment. It covered about two thirds of the house's impressive floor space and included an en suite bathroom.
Ben didn't have any furniture of his own, and Sherrie had said she'd kit the place out, but he had some savings set aside and let his mind wander to how he'd set about decorating the room.
Yeah, thanks mate, he texted back.
He didn't have time to say anything else—he was at the top of the escalators at the Tube station and his phone signal was about to disappear.
Their own sofa, he decided as he finally squeezed onto a train and leaned against a door because there were no seats left. With their own sofa, they could watch TV upstairs on their own if they didn't want to socialize with the others. He'd put Stan's sketches on the walls and get a nice, sturdy bed for the two of them.
It was easy to daydream on the Tube; it was one of those places where he wasn't expected to concentrate on anything or interact with anyone, and his mind could fill in all the gaps and come up with possibilities—solutions, instead of problems.
His face was familiar on the ward now, and the nurses waved Ben through without stopping or questioning. He nodded to Leslie, who was sitting at the front desk, and knocked before letting himself into Stan's room.
"Hi," Ben said with a warm smile, pleased to see Stan sitting in the chair next to his bed with his laptop open. He quickly crossed the room and placed soft kisses on Stan's lips.
"Hi, yourself," Stan said when Ben pulled away. "Did you get a haircut?"
"Yeah," Ben admitted, running his hand over his head. "I think they cut the sides too short."
He'd pulled the length of his hair back and secured it with an elastic, keeping the weight off his sweaty neck. He sat down on the edge of the bed, since Stan was in the visitor's chair, and gripped the edge of the mattress.
"I like it," Stan said.
He was back to looking almost normal, in the clothes Ben had brought in for him. It was just jeans and one of Ben's shirts—a blue one, rolled up to the elbows, with a white tank underneath it. Ben thought he looked beautiful.
"I need to talk to you—" he started at the same time Stan spoke.
"Ben, there's something—"
They both laughed, and Ben inclined his head. "After you."
Stan took a deep breath and snapped the lid of his laptop shut. "I'm going to quit my job," he said in a rush.
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I'm still going to write for the magazine, but freelance, instead of being on the staff. I've contacted a few other people I know too, to ask if I can pick up freelance work with them. I think I can keep a much better schedule if I'm in charge of my own workload instead of constantly being pulled onto other things."
"That sounds good," Ben said, nodding. "I mean, you were working ridiculous hours before. If you freelance, then you should be able to control it all a bit better, right?"
"That's the idea," Stan said. He fiddled with the end of his hair, which had been folded into a long braid. "It means I lose the flat, though. It came with the job, and the magazine is going to want it back. I'm not sure how long I have left...."
He trailed off as Ben started to laugh, then held his hands up in apology. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, baby," he said, still grinning. "I just—I came here to talk to you because Sherrie is buying a house. For the band. So we can all live together."
"Oh," Stan said slowly.
"I came over to ask you to move in with us. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."
Stan pressed his lips together, trying to hide a smile. "Oh," he said again.
Ben slid off the bed and crouched down in front of Stan, pulling both his hands forward and gripping them lightly. "We have our own room," he said. "Geordie texted me to say there's an attic room that's huge, bigger than the others. And it has its own bathroom, which is separate to the rest of the house. I don't know how you feel about living with other people—especially when those people are my friends, who are fucking weird. But it'll be our space up there. The two of us together."
"You know what I want?" Stan said with a sigh.
"Go on. Surprise me."
Stan grinned. "I want... a night in on the sofa, with some horrible film playing on the TV so we don't have to watch it. I want to wear your pyjama pants and an old T-shirt and snuggle."
"Is that it?"
He laughed. "Yeah, pretty much. I want just the two of us, you know? Me and you."
"Snuggling." Ben said the word like he was testing it out. "Do we do that?"
"Yes," Stan said gravely. "You are a very competent snuggler."
"In that case," Ben said, then brushed his lips over Stan's knuckles, "let's work on getting you home. So we can snuggle."
MOVING STUFF out of Stan's flat and into the new house was something Ben expected to do on his own. He'd moved so many times over the past few months, he was starting to get sick of the sight of boxes, especially when they were filled with his stuff.
This time, though, it was something more permanent. Or so he hoped.
Instead of spending a day trying to move all of Stan's things, and treating shit that wasn't his own with respect, Ben bit the proverbial bullet and forked out for a moving company to do the work for him. The cost of the exercise made him wince when he thought about it, so he tried, very hard, not to think at all.
The upshot was, the entire contents of the flat in Bow Quarter were expertly packed, carried downstairs by people who weren't Ben, transported across London to Hampstead Heath, and carried back up three flights of stairs to the attic bedroom. The boxes were dumped in the middle of the room ready for Ben to unpack, and he was ultimately grateful he'd forked over the cash.
He'd spent most of the day "supervising" as the others moved in in drips and drabs. No one was particularly organised, which wasn't surprising in the least. The only things that were taken care of were musical instruments, set up in careful formation in the basement while boxes of clothes and DVDs were scattered through the rest of the house.
If Sherrie hadn't turned up with boxes of pizza and demanded they "clear their shit up," Ben was sure boxes would have remained stacked in the hall for months to come. As it was, Sherrie was scary, plus she owned this place, and they were all still slightly in awe of the fact she would do something so nice for them.
Now all Ben needed was for Stan to come home.
# Chapter Sixteen
STAN SIGHED and tipped his head back. This was his favourite chair in the common room, the one that had a good angle to see out the window and the TV, if he wanted to watch it. TV use was carefully monitored and only the most bland and untriggering of shows allowed, so they were currently all being lulled to sleep by some gardening show.
They were in fucking London. No one here had a fucking garden.
Stan's therapist—or one of them, anyway—was very insistent that Stan integrate himself into the community here. James wanted him to interact with the other residents, to play cards with them, to pick up a knitting class. James didn't seem to realise Stan was a very social person, that he loved being around people, but being surrounded by other eating disorder patients only reminded him he had his own eating disorder to deal with. Stan didn't want to see suffering and pain at every turn. He wanted to see vibrancy and joy.
Still, the best way to escape was to play the game and make the effort, and to make the progress he really needed to make it in the real world. There was something very comforting about the thought of going to live in a house full of people. He'd never particularly wanted that before, but now, having his friends around him seemed like an appropriate new chapter.
"Stan?"
He looked up to where Leslie was standing in the doorway to the common room. Stan smiled at her and unfolded himself from the chair, then rushed over to give her a hug. Leslie stopped by almost every other day, a bright point in this depressing place.
"I've got some news," she said as they stepped into the hall. "I spoke to Dr Caldwell. They're going to soft-release you."
"Does that mean I can go home?"
"Yes." She beamed at him. "You need to come back for all your therapies, but you're essentially an outpatient."
"Oh my God." Stan threw himself into her arms again and tried not to sob.
"It's going to take a day or so to get everything sorted for you," she said, gently rubbing his back. "And I'd expect you're going to spend a lot of time going back and forth to different appointments, so prepare yourself for that."
"Okay. But I can go home. With Ben."
"You can."
"I need to call him."
"Then we should do that."
STAN NEVER expected it to be easy. Nothing about the past month and a half had been easy. Nothing about the few months before that had been easy either. All in all, it had been a pretty rocky year.
Ben turned up with Tone, which was probably a good thing. Tone was the only person who was able to keep Ben's mother-hen instincts under control; while Ben wanted to cluck and fuss and do every little thing for Stan, Tone shrugged, called him a prick, and went for a smoke.
"Partner," Stan said, making loose fists and rapping his knuckles against Ben's chest. "Lover. Not carer. Not nurse. Okay?"
Ben kissed the knuckles. "I'll try. I promise to try."
Stan sighed and relaxed into Ben's arms.
"Kirsty said she's sorry she couldn't come help you get home, but she's busy with work. She's going to come over and see the new house later this week."
"Sounds good," Stan mumbled against Ben's chest.
He had paperwork to fill in—so much paperwork—and an agreement between Stan and his primary doctor that any sign of a relapse would mean he was immediately brought back onto the ward for observation. There were lists and nutrition plans and therapy schedules, and Stan wasn't allowed to miss any of those for the time being either. He had responsibilities and the number of a cab service that worked with the hospital and would turn up at his house to take him to his appointments whether Stan called them or not. It was a good service.
Finally, finally, they were allowed to leave. As the automatic doors closed behind them, Stan felt a sudden rush of nerves. He wasn't on his own again, not yet, but this was undoubtedly the first step towards that.
"How are you doing?" Ben asked when they were in the cab. Dirty city rain was pounding at the windows, unseasonable yet strangely welcome.
"Good," Stan told him. "I'm excited to see the house."
"You're gonna love it," Tone said. "The kitchen is huge."
"Are you done decorating?"
"Pretty much," Ben said.
"We've got some bloke coming round next week to put proper lights up in the basement," Tone said. "At the moment, we've just got a bunch of lamps down there. It's the only place we can practise without seriously pissing off the neighbours."
"Sounds good."
"And Summer wants to redecorate the living room," Tone said, scratching his belly. "Something about it being too prissy. There's like, flowery wallpaper in there at the moment. I said she should paint it black and be done with it."
"I can help," Stan offered. "I like doing things like that."
Tone grinned. "You should definitely talk to her."
"How's it all working out? You all living together?"
"Well, we arranged a cleaning service after three days," Ben said. "After Jez threw a plate at Geordie's head because he refused to wash it up."
Stan snorted with laughter.
"We've got a fucking dishwasher, for fuck's sake. Anyway. So now we have a cleaner who comes over three times a week to do the kitchen and bathrooms and the living room. When we split the cost between all of us, it's not too bad and it saves on the arguments."
"Sounds like a sensible plan to me."
The rain had eased off by the time they got back to the house. Stan had spent the past ten minutes plastered to the window, becoming steadily more shocked at the size and opulence of the houses in this neighbourhood.
"We don't really live here," he breathed as the car pulled over.
"We really do," Tone said. He passed the driver a few notes and swatted at Stan's hand when he tried to give him some money back.
"This place is gorgeous."
The ground-floor exterior was painted a pale cream, like the other houses on the road, and the upper floors were all exposed brick. It was set back from the road and had a shiny, dark blue front door and a hedge to offer a little privacy.
So classy.
So very not Ares.
Ben shouldered Stan's bag and took Stan's hand, then gently tugged him up the path.
"I've got your keys inside," Ben said.
He used his own set to open the door, revealing a light, bright, airy hallway and curving staircase.
"This must be a joke."
"Nope," Tone said, shutting the door with a bump of his hip. "Take your shoes off, please. There's a cupboard there for you to put them in."
"Oh shit, sorry," Stan said, immediately toeing at his Vans.
"He's winding you up, love," Ben murmured.
"I'm taking them off anyway," Stan insisted. "I can't believe I live here."
"Want to see our room?"
Stan nodded. "Yeah."
"I'll leave you to it," Tone said. "I'm gonna make some lunch."
Ben took Stan's hand again and led him up, and up, and up. Normally this many stairs wouldn't be a problem, but Stan wasn't exactly at full strength. By the time they reached the attic, he was almost out of breath.
"You okay?" Ben asked.
"Fine." Stan waved it off, not wanting the attention.
"So, um, this is it," Ben said as he pushed the door open. "I've kind of fixed it up a bit."
The attic room was bigger than Stan was expecting. Ben had told him a few things already, that he'd repainted and bought new blinds for the skylights. It didn't seem to matter that the walls were a rich, navy blue; there was so much light pouring in from the windows at the front and skylights at the back, the room wasn't dark at all.
The floors were all exposed wood, rich and textured, and their bed was a beautiful, antique-brass double. Ben had brought over the few pieces of furniture Stan had purchased: a lamp, the coffee table, a colourful textured rug. Some familiar things, to make it feel like home.
"The bathroom is back there," Ben said, coming up behind Stan and wrapping one arm around his waist, dropping his chin to Stan's shoulder. "All those cupboards at the back are wardrobes. I hung your stuff up, but you can reorganise it when you're ready. Oh, and I didn't want to set your dressing table up yet, because I wasn't sure where it should go. It's all here, though, when you're ready for it."
Stan turned in Ben's embrace and wrapped his arms around Ben's neck.
"This is amazing. Thank you."
"I just wanted us to have a space. You know. That's ours. It's not quite a home of our own, but it's our little piece of the world."
Stan tangled his fingers in Ben's hair. "I love you so much."
Ben rubbed their noses together. "Love you too."
"Can we take a nap?"
"Yeah." Ben grinned. "A nap sounds pretty good to me."
STAN WAS woken by one of his alarms. They went off at regular intervals, to remind him to eat.
Ben was already awake, propped up on one elbow with a book between them.
"You're awake," he murmured.
"Mm. I need one of my shakes."
"Want me to get it for you?"
"I can do it," Stan said, stretching. "I kind of want to see the rest of the house too."
"Okay."
Ben leaned over and kissed him very, very carefully. They hadn't been alone like this since—fuck—since Manchester. That was a hell of a long time Ben had gone without sex. Stan tugged him down until Ben's familiar, comforting weight was pressing Stan back into the bed. Ben flicked his tongue into Stan's mouth, and, God, they needed this.
"I missed you," Stan breathed over Ben's lips. "So fucking much."
Ben gave him a sad smile and brushed his thumb back and forth over Stan's cheekbone. "You're not cleared for 'strenuous physical activity' yet, love."
"That's okay. I'll just lie here and you can do all the work."
Ben hid his laugh in Stan's shoulder. "Come on. You need your shake."
"Fine," Stan sighed.
Tone wanted a pizza party to celebrate Stan coming home. For a split second after he'd suggested it, Stan thought Ben might actually punch Tone on the nose. He didn't, though, just explained in a tight voice that maybe it wasn't the best idea.
Stan thought the whole thing was hilarious. He sat at the wide kitchen island and watched, amused, as his new housemates emerged from different corners of the building to welcome him home.
He decided it wouldn't take long for this to feel like home.
That night they all piled down into the basement for "band practice." Stan wasn't exactly sure what the rehearsal schedule for the band looked like anymore, now that they all lived together.
Band practice was supposed to start at seven.
They didn't even get instruments out until ten.
There was pizza, too much pizza for the six of them really, but Tone could easily eat one by himself, so they managed. Then there was beer, and Stan waved that away—half a slice of pizza he could just about stomach. Beer on top of that was out of the question.
Then there was weed, which Stan had never been a fan of before he met Ben. He'd smoked it some in the US. It wasn't really as much of a thing in Italy. Italy was where he'd got addicted to cigarettes.
"Right!" Summer said, falling over herself laughing. "We need to work."
"Should I go?" Stan asked. He stretched lazily, arms over his head, aware his shirt had ridden up only because of the look in Ben's eyes.
Three different people said no at the same time, so he settled back into the beanbag.
This basement was a little smaller than the one they had been rehearsing in before, at Sherrie's house. It was good for reasons Stan wasn't able to explain. The dark, moody room with its low ceiling and excellent acoustics made for one hell of a practice space.
Ben pulled out his acoustic guitar and shifted about on his big beanbag until he was comfortable. He'd ordered a whole bunch of custom guitar picks—Stan was finding them everywhere—and pulled one of them out of his back pocket.
"Where do you want to start?" Geordie asked, thumbing a few notes on his bass.
The boys all looked to Summer, who rolled her eyes. "Why am I always the one who organises you all?"
"Because you're so good at it, darling," Geordie told her.
She snorted. "Okay, well I want to run 'London,' so let's start there."
To Stan's right, Jez exhaled and passed him the blunt so he could pick up his guitar and plug it into the amp. Stan nodded his thanks and took a long drag on it, making the end smoulder.
"Stan," Ben said softly and Stan turned to him, smiling. "You're hilarious when you're high."
"You're...."
Stan couldn't finish that sentence. Tone had already started banging out the intro to the song on his bongos, which were apparently his rehearsal and song-writing drums of choice.
It wasn't a proper run-through of the songs, more like a way to remind everyone what their musical parts and harmonies were. Proper rehearsals happened with the band playing their instruments all plugged in. Stan had been privy to enough of these sessions to know how they'd work: Summer would pick some songs she thought were rusty, pull a keyboard onto her lap, and nudge them through a few run-throughs.
The house was quiet, apart from their little underground space. They'd rehearsed until about two in the morning, not seriously, just messing around with old songs and new. Getting high. Making out. Teaching Stan the kazoo part to "No Politics, Please." Ben had laughed until he complained his sides were hurting, and it felt like the world was recalibrating. Like they were finding a way through everything that had happened over the past few months.
When they fell into bed, Ben pressed a familiar black bunny rabbit into Stan's hand.
"I don't need him anymore," Ben said, his voice husky from the weed. "I can hold you tonight."
"And tomorrow," Stan said.
"And tomorrow."
# Chapter Seventeen
THE NEW routine meant Stan was often up, out of bed, dressed, and almost done with breakfast by the time Ben emerged from their room. They exchanged kisses while Ben made coffee, and then Stan skipped out for his outpatient appointment.
Depending on what day of the week it was, he spent between an hour and four at the hospital, meeting with different therapists, doctors, and nutritionists. He had good days and bad days; days when the very last thing he wanted to do was choke down another high-calorie shake and smell the tangy antiseptic of the hospital corridors, others when he ate toast and coffee with Leslie in the cafeteria after meeting with Dr Caldwell.
In the afternoons, when Ben wasn't working at the bar or tutoring, they curled up on the couch in their room and closed the rest of the world out. Just for an hour, maybe two, sometimes to make love, other times to have some quiet space with just the two of them.
It was almost like being back in the flat at Bow Quarter. Only a few months had passed, but to Stan it felt like a lifetime ago.
"So, my dad got in touch."
Stan looked up, surprised. "Yeah?"
He'd been curled up on the sofa, watching Antiques Roadshow, with his feet on Ben's lap.
"Yeah. He's, uh...." Ben pushed his hand through his hair. "He's getting married in a couple of weeks. Someplace in the south of France."
"That's a long way from New Zealand," Stan said with a small laugh.
"I know. His girlfriend is from Italy, and apparently her parents own this villa. Anyway, he wants me to go."
"Oh."
"Yeah. I'm really sorry, baby. I think I'm going to be gone for about a week."
Stan's stomach clenched at the thought of being away from Ben again, especially for so long, but he forced his face into a mask and nodded in what he hoped was reassurance. "That's okay. I'll be fine."
"Tone is going to hang out with you. I already spoke to him about it."
"Ben." Stan forced himself to unclench his jaw and shifted off Ben's lap to look at him properly. "I am a grown man. I do not need a babysitter."
"Did I say you did? Tone's not your keeper. He's your friend, Stan. I know you don't like it when people take care of you, but we do it because we love you. Okay?"
Stan blew out a hard breath. "Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Ben murmured, pulling Stan back onto his lap. "I won't go if you don't want me to."
"Don't do that. It's your dad. You should be there."
"Yeah. Thing is, he left a long time ago. I'm going to spend the rest of my life with you." He thumbed over the ring Stan had taken to wearing again, now he was out of hospital.
"Are you going to tell him about me?"
"Yeah."
"You don't have to."
"I wish I could take you with me," Ben said, just gently groping at Stan's arse. "The next family thing, though. You'll come, right?"
"Of course. I want to meet your triplets."
Ben hid his grin in Stan's hair. "They'll adore you. Oh my God. You'll have to prepare yourself. I swear they won't put you down."
"Your mum too."
"Everyone," Ben said.
"Okay. Good."
TONE HAD said Ben needed to get away. Insisted on it, in fact. Stan was getting better; they could all see that. He fitted into the rhythm of the house like he was meant to be there, or even more than that, like they needed him to complete the symphony. Summer liked having another "girl" in the house. Tone and Stan got on like a house on fire. Jez and Geordie pulled Stan in with no questions, no hesitations. He was one of them.
Ben knew he hovered, and he definitely knew how much it drove Stan crazy when he did. He wasn't doing it on purpose. The thought of maybe losing Stan again was more than a little terrifying, and Ben wanted to keep him safe.
Okay, he really did need to get away.
He got the train out to the airport to fly to Toulouse, leaving Stan in bed with warm, sleepy kisses. Maybe that would be the worst part of it; not being able to sleep with Stan against his chest for a whole week. They'd only just got that back; it was hard to think of losing it again.
FRANCE WAS hot enough to make Ben irritable, and full of relatives he only knew in the vaguest of terms. It was awkward, being reintroduced to cousins he hadn't seen in almost fifteen years. They looked at him like he was some strange creature, a hunched vampire in black clothes while they breezed around in summer dresses and khaki shorts and baseball caps.
Ben bought a baseball cap from a little tourist shop in the town. It was black.
At least he had his own room.
All the cousins were sharing, but Ben got to stay in the niceish hotel next door to the villa because there wasn't enough room for everyone. His drunk uncle was down the hall, and a few of his soon-to-be stepmother's family and friends. The hotel was small, family-owned, and had probably once been a privately owned villa too.
He left the terrace doors open to tempt a breeze in while he kicked back on the bed and connected to Wi-Fi.
"Ben."
Hearing Stan's voice was pretty much all Ben needed. He grinned and waved at his iPad, feeling stupid and not caring.
"Hey, baby. How are you?"
"Good." Stan smiled, and there was a new kind of light in his eyes. He seemed to be a younger, more carefree person than the one Ben had met back at the beginning of the year. "Tone is cooking tonight. Kirsty's coming over too, but they keep saying it's not a date."
"Oh God. The last thing you need is food poisoning."
Stan laughed and pushed his fingers through his hair. "He's making TFC."
"TFC?"
"Tone's Fried Chicken."
Ben huffed a laugh and shook his head. "What are you going to eat, then?"
"I might try some."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. I've been working with Amrita on trying new things. Tone says I'm addicted to chocolate now."
Amrita was Stan's therapist. He'd just gone from four sessions a week to two and seemed to be coping well. Ben found himself starting to relax and smiled at the serene expression on Stan's face.
"I've only been gone a few days. What happened to you?"
Stan reached out and touched the screen of his iPad from the other side. "I missed you."
"Missed you too. My stepmum said to pass on her love."
"Bless her. Tell her I said thank you."
Ben leaned back in the deck chair next to the pool and caught Stan up on everything that had been happening. It was a warm day in Toulouse, balmy and breezy, so Ben had huddled himself under a large deck umbrella to stop his skin from burning. He'd done that already—burned—on the day he'd arrived, and now his skin was gross and peeling.
The wedding had happened the day before, but people were hanging around for a few more days before going back to wherever they'd come from. It was years since Ben had seen his dad and uncle, and the two of them had got rip-roaringly drunk early on in the trip.
At the bar, Ben had decided it would be a good time to come out.
His dad had been confused, his eyes, so like Ben's, glazed over from the alcohol.
"You're gay? Like a poofter?"
"Cheers, Dad," Ben had muttered and ducked his head, hiding behind the thick mop of hair that was, once again, not pulled up into a mohawk.
He'd explained about Stan in the best way that his father would understand—that Stan wasn't exactly a masculine sort of guy, that he danced to his own tune, and fuck anyone who didn't like it. Maybe he could blame the French wine, or the late hour, or the fact they hadn't seen each other in so long, but Ben's inhibitions were practically non-existent, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket to show his dad pictures of the two of them together.
"That's a bloke?" Ben's uncle had asked, incredulous. He made the picture of Stan bigger, then continued swiping through the photos. "He doesn't look like a bloody bloke to me."
"I told you. Stan is different."
Ben's dad had shaken his head, pushing the phone away. "Do you love him, Ben?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I do."
"Then nothing else matters."
Ben repeated those words back to Stan, loving the soft blush that rose in his cheeks.
"I have your father's approval, then?"
"I guess so. Not that you needed it."
"Oh, I know. It's still nice."
"Yeah. I'll be home in a couple of days, baby. You're going to be okay until then?"
"Of course. Tone's looking after me."
"I know. That's what I'm afraid of."
IT HAD been hard for Ben to keep his mind away from the last time he'd come home to Stan, when his boyfriend wasn't at home and everything went to shit. He'd called Stan twice since he landed back at Gatwick and had fiddled with his phone the whole time he was on the Underground, annoyed that he had no signal to text Stan again.
He had to force himself not to run down the road to the house, even though a light, misty rain was falling and no one would probably have paid any attention to him.
Finally, finally, he was shoving his key into the lock on the blue door and shouting out for Stan.
"Hi," Stan said, stepping out of the kitchen at the back of the house.
Ben dropped his bag, pushed the door closed, and grinned.
Stan was wearing black jeans and a baggy T-shirt Ben thought might be one of his own. His hair was loose around his shoulders, and he looked good. Stan paused for a moment, his hand on the doorframe, then ran down the hall and launched himself into Ben's arms.
"You like doing that, don't you?" Ben murmured against Stan's neck, appreciating the quick, hard laugh Stan gave him in response. He cupped Stan's ass in both hands and turned them both around, then pressed Stan back against the wall so he could kiss him.
"You've been gone too long," Stan said, his lips brushing against Ben's. "I put on three pounds and masturbated twice."
"Three pounds? Where? Let me find them."
With one hand easily supporting the weight of Stan's body, Ben pushed his other hand up under the T-shirt and dug his fingers into Stan's ribs to make him laugh and squirm.
"I love you," Ben said as he moved his lips to the pulse point in Stan's neck and rested there. "I don't tell you enough. I love you."
"I love you too. Take me to bed."
Ben's mouth stretched into a grin. "It's the middle of the afternoon."
"No one's home. Please, Ben."
"Oh, alright," Ben said with a long-suffering sigh neither of them believed.
It took longer than it should have, stumbling over each other in their rush to get upstairs to the sanctuary of their room. Stan kept it tidy when Ben wasn't around to mess it up, and one of the skylight windows was cracked open, letting a soft breeze into the room.
Ben noticed all of that, even as Stan pulled Ben's T-shirt up over his head and tossed it in a corner somewhere, then ran his hands possessively over Ben's chest.
"God, I missed you," Stan murmured as he kissed from one shoulder to the next.
"Missed you too. Fuck. Take some clothes off, would you?"
Stan was laughing as they stumbled towards the bed, kicking off shoes and wriggling out of jeans that were always too tight. When they were down to underwear, Ben pulled Stan close to his chest and held him there, desperate for the feel of their skin pressed together. Stan ran his fingers through Ben's hair and kissed him slowly, deep and needing.
"Want me inside you?" Ben asked, mouthing softly at Stan's neck.
Stan shook his head. They were building up to that again.
"Just want to feel you."
"We can do that."
Ben kissed over Stan's chest, licking and nibbling, taking both of Stan's nipples into his mouth in turn and lapping at them until Stan was arching up into the touch. His fingers were in Ben's hair, tugging and insistent, pulling him back up from where he'd been licking Stan's hip bones for a slow, sure kiss.
"Off, off," Stan muttered, using his bare feet to nudge Ben's boxers down over his hips.
Ben was laughing as he helped, then kicked the last of his clothes off as he settled down next to Stan, running his fingers over Stan's long, lean body.
"You still want me... even like this?"
Ben ran his fingernails over Stan's ribs. Sure, they still stood out a little. But Stan was so much better than he had been before.
"I want all of you." He skimmed his fingers down again to press his palm to Stan's cock. "I love every part of you. All of it."
Stan whimpered in the back of his throat, and Ben chased the noise away with more kisses, slipping his hand into Stan's tight, black boxers and gently stroking his cock. Stan grabbed for Ben's dick too, making it about both of them, and for long minutes they let slow kisses and frantic hands take over.
"There's lube and stuff in the drawer," Ben said. "You're closest."
STAN WAS a little out of breath already, just from kissing and petting, but oh God, did lube make things better. And he was closest.
As expected, when he leaned over, Ben dove for his ass, kissing and licking his lower back and tugging the boxers the rest of the way off. Stan was giggling when he rolled back over with the tube and let Ben nuzzle into his hip.
"Can I...?"
"Always."
That wasn't strictly true. Being on the receiving end of a blowjob wasn't always Stan's favourite thing, but Ben always asked, and Stan loved that he did. It helped that Ben was really, really good at sucking his dick. He was always so gentle and he did that thing with his tongue and—Stan arched off the bed and a noise he didn't recognise was ripped from his throat.
"Oh fuck."
Ben gently tugged on his balls, staving off the imminent orgasm, and muttered something about lube.
Stan handed it to him blind.
After some fumbling Ben grunted out a curse or two, then his slick hand wrapped around both Stan's dick and his own and oh fuck, that was a brilliant idea.
It also meant they could kiss, sloppy and loose, as Ben worked their cocks together, and Stan was on some kind of hair trigger from missing him. That had to be the explanation because he was so close to coming and Ben was panting above him, nipping at Stan's collarbone and it was perfect.
The pleasure trembled through Stan's body, filling him and making his heart ache with love for this man. He curled his fingers around the back of Ben's neck, holding him close, and Ben's kisses were whisper-light over Stan's lips.
"I love you," Ben murmured. "Come with me. I love you."
Stan didn't cry out, didn't buck or thrash like he sometimes did when his orgasm hit like a sucker punch to the gut. His toes contracted and something pulled in his belly and the noise that escaped his lips was a sob.
This lovemaking soothed him, and as they climaxed together, vibrating with shared pleasure, Stan found a part of himself clicking into place. He was a lover. A partner. The two of them together made something, created something, and it was beautiful and unique and theirs.
Ben fell forward as he caught his breath. Stan wrapped both arms around his back, silently begging him to stay close, please, just a little longer. His finger stole into Ben's hair, all inky blackness and silky smooth as he stroked it back.
When Ben kissed him again, it was to gather the salty tears from Stan's cheeks, then to share them with his lips.
"Don't leave me, please," Stan murmured. "I missed you too much. I can live without you, but God, Ben, I don't want to."
"Not leaving you," Ben said. His voice sounded thick. "Me and you."
They wriggled for a few moments, Ben cleaning up their bellies with a discarded T-shirt, then rolling onto his back and bringing Stan to sprawl on top of him. Stan dragged the duvet up to cover his naked back and pressed his face to Ben's neck, strangely pleased when Ben wrapped one arm around his waist and settled the other hand on his ass.
They lay together like that for a while, snoozing a little, Ben's hand brushing back and forth over the smooth skin of Stan's ass. This was familiar, loving, perfect; all the things Stan had ever wanted from a relationship.
When they woke up again, the sky outside was almost luminous pink, the clouds reflecting a vibrantly setting sun. Ben started the task of untangling Stan's hair with his fingers; an excuse, Stan always thought, for them to be touching.
"What did you think of me when we first met?"
Ben frowned and pushed a long strand of Stan's hair away from his face, tucking it neatly behind his ear. "What do you mean? When you first came into the pub?"
"Yes. I'm curious."
"Well...."
"I won't think any different of you, I promise. I really just want to know."
"I'm pretty sure I thought you were a girl when you first walked in," Ben said. "I was serving Gary, one of the regulars, and I looked up and saw this long-legged goddess striding through the pub. You walked in and I had to fight Tone to be allowed to serve you."
"Really?" Stan said with a laugh.
"Oh yeah. You know what Tone's like—he sees a pretty girl, and he's all over her."
"He's not a creep, though," Stan said, feeling strangely protective of his newest best friend.
"If you say so," Ben said. "He let me come over, anyway, and I thought you were even more beautiful up close."
"You're just saying that."
Ben laughed and kissed Stan's cheek. "Nope. I realised you were a boy pretty quickly. Then you asked for a beer, and the rest is history."
"You called me."
"Yeah. Well, you were the one with enough balls to leave your number for me."
Stan shrugged. "I figured you could call me, and that would be great, or you wouldn't. London is a big city. I could easily avoid you for the rest of my life."
Ben laughed and pressed a kiss to Stan's neck. "I was scared to call you."
"Why?"
"Because you might have answered."
"You're so silly," Stan said with a long sigh. He let the moment linger between them, fresh air and sweat and spunk, then kissed the shell of Ben's ear. "I'm really glad you called."
"Me too, baby. Me too."
# Chapter Eighteen
BEN WOKE alone in his bed. He stretched, searching for Stan's familiar warm weight, and met nothing but cool sheets.
That wasn't so unusual. Stan had never really broken his habit of rising early, though Ben was often aware of him slipping out of bed. A quick glance at the clock on the bedside table told him it was only eight thirty, ridiculously early for a Sunday, but if Stan wasn't in bed with him, Ben wasn't interested in being there alone.
With a groan, he heaved himself up and stumbled through to the small en suite bathroom. It took a few minutes for him to feel normal again—face washed, bladder emptied, a pair of boxers pulled on to cover his naked ass. And a T-shirt, after a moment's hesitation.
Ben guessed no one else was awake yet, probably just Stan, pottering around as he liked to do. Instead he found both Stan and Tone in the conservatory at the back of the house doing what looked like yoga.
"Stan?"
"Shh," Stan said softly. He was sat cross-legged on a yoga mat, hands on his knees, spine straight, breathing evenly. Ben couldn't help letting his lips twitch into a smile. Stan's long hair was flowing softly down his back, a shiny waterfall of blond, over the very loose, white tank top he'd put on over tight, grey yoga pants.
Next to him was Tone. Wearing a battered Jack Daniels T-shirt and black boxers, his beard scruffy, he also sat on a yoga mat, breathing deeply.
Ben turned back around and went to the kitchen to make coffee.
It was late September, and autumn was being unseasonably kind to them. For a week or more, it had been warm, midsummer temperature, and Stan in particular was making the most of the last of the sunshine. In the kitchen, the sun streamed in through the low window, and Ben took his time wandering around, seeking out biscuits to go with his coffee, tidying away the last few things they'd used the night before. Kirsty had come over for dinner again. Ben was starting to lose faith in Tone's protestations that they were "just friends."
When the coffee was done brewing, Ben made himself a large mug and wandered back through to the conservatory. He knew nothing about yoga, though he was pretty sure Stan and Tone were doing the "downward dog." Not wanting to laugh at them, he left again and went into the living room, turned on the TV, and muted the sound as he switched it to the BBC News channel.
A few minutes later, Stan came in and planted himself decisively on Ben's lap.
"Morning," Ben said softly.
"Morning." Stan stole his coffee cup and took a sip. Then winced and handed it back.
"What were you doing?"
"Sun salutations," Stan said easily. He took one of Ben's biscuits instead.
"Okay."
"It's a great way to get your blood moving. A good start to the day."
"Why was Tone doing it with you?"
"Because he likes yoga too." Stan kissed Ben on the cheek. "Can we go out somewhere today?"
"Of course."
They stayed like that, curled up on the sofa for most of the morning. The house slowly woke up around them, people moving, the old corners creaking and groaning as people stumbled towards showers to wash away the lingering hangovers.
Ben had pulled a blanket from the back of the sofa and wrapped it around them both. Stan was clearly cold after his workout but refused to leave Ben's lap to go to get dressed. It suited them both just fine to cuddle together for warmth. Ben brushed his lips up and down Stan's neck, gathering the scent and the taste of him, keeping his arms secure around Stan's waist.
"I am so ridiculously in love with you."
Stan turned and gave him one of his most devastating smiles. Leaning in slowly, he bumped their noses together.
"I know."
Summer thundered down the stairs before anyone else. Ben didn't know where Tone had disappeared to after his sun salutations, but he definitely wasn't around the ground floor anywhere. Summer stuck her pink-haired head around the living room door, rolled her eyes at both of them, then headed to the kitchen. After a moment, the radio came on, and Ben shifted on the sofa, stretching his legs out until his knees clunked.
"Do you want some breakfast?"
Stan nodded. "Sure. I think I still have some strawberries left from yesterday."
Ben kissed him again, because he could, and for all the other reasons he was currently unable to name.
On lazy days, no one really got dressed. It was an unwritten house rule. Summer had spent enough time with the guys on tour that she paid absolutely no attention at all to when they wandered around naked. In the kitchen, Summer was wearing what looked like men's pyjama bottoms and a tank top, one that was tight enough to make Tone leery when he reappeared. Whether Kirsty was his girlfriend in the making or not clearly didn't make any difference.
"Mornin'," Tone drawled.
"How are you feeling?" Stan asked, going to the kettle to boil water for tea. Unlike the others, he still preferred green tea in the mornings.
"Not bad. You might be onto something with this yoga malarkey," Tone said with a grin. Stan rolled his eyes, and Ben thought he was making some effort not to do the same.
One by one, the kitchen filled up with the rest of their housemates. Tone lit all the burners on the hob and pulled down half a dozen pans, starting the process of a full English. Ben was thrown a loaf of bread, and he got started on the toast-making process, sat on the counter next to the toaster.
"Here," Tone said, and Ben looked up to see him place a bowl of porridge in front of Stan, who sat at their huge kitchen table. Stan grinned.
"Thanks."
Ben said nothing, just watched as Stan upended his bowl of carefully prepared strawberries on top of the porridge and started eating.
"How come he does that for you?" Ben asked Tone in a low voice.
"What?"
"Eats."
Tone snorted. "Because I don't make a big song and dance about it." The like you do was silent, but clearly implied.
Ben still pouted.
"Look, mate," Tone said, going back to the hob and forcing Ben to follow him. "You still don't get it. We joke about those chocolates, but do you know how long it took him to eat them?"
"No," Ben said, looking over his shoulder to make sure Stan wasn't overhearing their conversation. He was talking to Summer, though, not paying any attention to them.
"Over a month. And there wasn't even a dozen chocolates in the box."
"He was a vegan and you gave him fried chicken."
Tone rolled his eyes so hard Ben thought it must have hurt. "Jesus. He ate half a piece and picked most of the coating off. I'm not some magic, anti-anorexia fairy. You spend so much time worrying about shit you don't see the bigger picture."
The next batch of toast popped up, and Ben loaded the pieces onto a plate, burning his fingers in the process.
"Bigger picture," he muttered.
"Yeah," Tone said. "Bigger fucking picture. And chill the fuck out. You want bacon?"
"Nah, just eggs, please."
Tone passed him the huge frying pan, and Ben piled the eggs on top of his toast, then went and sat down next to Stan. "That good?" he asked.
Stan nodded. "Yeah. I know he only does it in the microwave, but whenever I try, it goes all gluey."
"Tone has a special affinity with microwaves," Ben said, pleased when Stan laughed.
"Yeah, he does."
"Hey, hey," Summer yelled suddenly. "Shut up, shut up."
She was frowning hard and Tone looked over at her, worry clear in his eyes.
"What's wrong?"
"Shush." She waved a hand at him demonstratively and reached over to turn up the radio.
"...is a band I saw a few weeks back at the Brixton Academy," the radio DJ said. "They're new, they recently toured with Racket City, and they're really good, amazing live, so go see them if you can. I got sent an advance copy of their EP, and it's pretty awesome. I'm going to play you one of the songs off that record now—this is Ares with 'Out of Here.'"
Ben felt his jaw drop as the first clashing chords—his clashing chords came through their little radio.
"Holy shit," he breathed.
"What the fuck?" Tone demanded as Ben heard his own voice start to sing the main melody. "What radio station is this?"
"Radio One," Summer said. She was shaking her head in disbelief. "It's Radio fucking One, you guys."
"I didn't think...," Jez started, then shook his head and pushed his fingers into his hair. "I never thought they'd actually play it."
"You sent them it?" Geordie demanded.
"Well yeah," Jez said. "I sent it to a bunch of radio stations. We finished the mix, and it was sounding good, so I just...."
"Tweet them," Stan said. "From the band account. Quickly."
Summer fumbled for her phone and tapped at it furiously. Ben could feel his heart thumping hard in his chest. They were being played on the biggest radio station in the UK. If they wanted a big break, this was likely it.
"Done," Summer said. "I hope they get it."
"They'll have social media guys waiting for something like this," Stan told her. "Just hang on."
The song ended, and Summer shushed them all again.
"That was Ares and 'Out of Here,'" the DJ said. "It seems like you guys like it. We've had a whole load of tweets and texts about this song, so go check them out if you can—they're an unsigned band creating some great new music. Next up is the news and weather."
Ben shook his head slowly. "Did we just get a shout-out from Radio One?"
Summer looked like she was about to boil over with excitement. Then she broke, jumping up from her spot at the table and into Geordie's arms, squealing and laughing. Geordie laughed and spun her around, then planted a big kiss on her lips.
"Right," Jez said, clearly amused at the affection on display. "Now the real work starts."
IT WAS possibly the last balmy, warm evening of the year. Stan had convinced Ben to stay in bed for a little afternoon delight, while the rest of the band fled the house to start setting up at the Buck Shot. Jez had arranged a gig there, the last one in London before they headed out on tour again, this time with the intention of covering as much of Europe as they could. Festival season was over, but there was still plenty of interest in live music at this time of year, especially as universities started building their weekend gig schedules.
The difference was, this time Stan was going with them.
He didn't quite have an official job within the Ares machine yet, but it was something to do with blogging, social media, industry contacts, tour planning, and making sure none of the band got arrested. The adverts he'd set up on his own blog were turning in some income, and the EP was selling well enough to fund at least part of the tour. Unbeknownst to the band, Stan had arranged for part of the gig tonight to be filmed, and that footage would make up part of their first music video. They didn't know about that yet either.
In the week since the song had been played on Radio One, things had gone slightly mental. They'd gained tens of thousands of Twitter followers, seemingly out of nowhere, and a few other radio stations had picked up the song and played it. The website had been radically overhauled to accommodate the traffic heading towards it, and Jez had figured out how to get the EP onto iTunes. They'd had interview requests. From both magazines and radio stations. And calls from agents. They were still trying to figure out what to do with that.
"You ready?" Ben called.
Stan took a deep breath and fluffed his hair for the last time.
"Coming."
After plenty of internal debate, he'd decided to wear a dress for the gig. The last time he'd worn something feminine was before he went into hospital, and he knew Ben noticed. Unlike Tone, Ben was still dancing around Stan's illness, treating him like he was something precious and fragile. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. There was room in his life for someone who treated him like a queen, and also for someone who ignored Stan's protests of veganism and plied him with chocolate and fried chicken and porridge.
For tonight, Stan had curled his hair into big, bouncy waves. The dress was a long, black slick of diaphanous fabric that fell to just below his knees. He was wearing his black Louboutin ankle boots, the ones that made him feel powerful and feminine and badass. Plenty of dark eyeshadow finished the look.
"Stan," Ben said, his voice exasperated as he stuck his head around the bedroom door. "Holy shit, you look incredible."
"Too much?"
"Definitely not. If I didn't have a gig to get to, I'd stay home and just take it all off you."
Stan laughed. "Okay. I'm ready."
They caught a cab to the pub—because heels—and they were far too close to bother getting the Tube. The cab dropped them off on the wrong side of the road because it was easier than trying to turn around in Friday night traffic.
Ben slipped his hand into Stan's as they waited at the pedestrian crossing and Stan felt something flutter in his belly, like it often did when he had a chance to be affectionate with Ben in public like this. The sun was just starting to set over Camden. This was when the real fun started in their little corner of London—the sun went down and the boys came out to play.
A young girl was waiting to cross the road, holding hands with her mother. Stan looked down at her pretty face and pigtails and grinned.
The little girl grabbed the hem of Ben's black T-shirt and tugged.
"Alice," the mother scolded. Ben shook his head at her—he didn't mind.
"Is she a princess?" Alice stage-whispered.
Stan did a double take; firstly at the pronoun, secondly at the title. From the look on Ben's face he was trying, very hard, not to laugh.
"Yeah," he said. "She is. But don't tell anyone, okay?"
"Okay," Alice said, then turned back to her mother, an excited expression on her face.
"Sorry," Alice's mum said.
"Not a problem," Stan said softly.
The lights turned, traffic stopped, and Ben pulled Stan into a run across the road.
"Princess, eh?" Stan asked as they came to a stop in front of the pub. Ben laughed, tipping his head back to expose his throat.
"Yeah. My princess, anyway."
Stan let Ben pull him into a long, slow kiss. He reached up to wind his arms around Ben's shoulders, hanging on as they swayed together and Ben's hands drifted down to squeeze Stan's ass. Someone passing by whistled at them and Stan broke away with a laugh, kissing Ben's nose instead.
"You ready for this?" Stan asked. Ben seemed to understand. Tonight was the start of something new for all of them. The end of one era, the beginning of the next one.
"As long as I can do it with my princess, I can do anything," Ben murmured, the words soft against Stan's lips. Stan smiled and pulled himself just a tiny bit closer to Ben's solid chest. "With my beautiful, impossible boy."
# Author's Note
THE IMPOSSIBLE Boy has been quite a journey for me. It's taken me about four years to write this novel, during which time the world has changed a lot. Parts of Camden Market have been torn down to make way for a high-speed train line (the Thai food stall was a real place, though it's now gone). Women like Laverne Cox and Caitlin Jenner have brought mainstream attention to what it means to be transgender. The great trans bathroom debate has risen and fallen. All of this happened after I'd written the bulk of the story.
I've honestly never been so scared of a book the way I am of this one. This is, after all, not my story to tell. I'm not a trans or gender-fluid person, which made me agonise over whether I was telling this story in the "right" way. I expect I always will. It came down to writing something which was true to these two characters and their individual experiences, not trying to generalise or brush over the more complex issues, and letting this story be just its own thing in a growing world of trans narratives. I believe, very passionately, that everyone should be able to read a love story about someone like themselves.
A transgender/gender-fluid romance will always be a difficult pitch, so thank you, dear reader, for giving this one a chance.
# More from Anna Martin
When you realize you want to marry your best friend at age six, life should follow a pretty predictable path, right? Maybe not.
As a kid, Evan King thought Scott Sparrow was the most amazing person he'd ever met. At seventeen, his crush runs a little deeper, and nothing seems simple anymore. Scott is more interested in football and girls than playing superheroes, and Evan's attention is focused on getting into art school. A late-night drunken kiss is something to be forgotten, not obsessed over for the next ten years.
When life suddenly brings them back together, it doesn't take much for the flame Evan carried for Scott nearly all his life to come roaring back, and Evan discovers that life sometimes has a strange way of coming full circle.
Adam Hemlock rules the elite New Harbor Academy. With his mother in Paris, he throws hedonistic, alcohol- and drug-fueled parties for his equally rich, desperately bored classmates. How's a guy who lives life to the extreme to stay entertained? Take on a challenge, of course, and hope the exhilaration of the play-by-play fallout chases away the indifference. At the big pre-senior-year bash, Adam's offered a dare—seduce the new kid. Adam initially laughs off the idea but changes his mind when he sees Jared.
Jared Rawell has spent the past two years at a Texas military school, where his father sent him to "pray away the gay." He sees the academy in more liberal Washington as a chance to start over and achieve the grades he needs to get into an Ivy League school. When a beautiful but terrifying girl offers Jared a deal—don't sleep with Adam Hemlock and she'll help Jared get through senior year—he sees no reason to say no. But nothing is as simple as it seems.
With layers of hidden agendas, backstabbing, lying, cheating, drugs, and entitled teenage egos, Jared and Adam must navigate a high school minefield while waiting for the inevitable explosion.
After growing up in a rough part of town, George Maguire worked his way out of Manchester and to a career as a design engineer. Alexander van Amsberg, an architecture student at the University of Edinburgh, wasn't the sort of guy he normally had explosive, hotel-room one-night-stands with. Alex was charming, classy, and, as George later learns, Prince of the Netherlands.
Fate brings them together again, and Alex makes sure to get his sexy stranger's phone number this time. Despite all the reasons why they shouldn't work, something clicks, and Alex thinks that this time, he might have found the right guy. But Alex's aristocratic ex stirs up trouble in the press for George and his humble family, and Alex realizes he has to get real about having a boyfriend from the wrong side of town.
While George acknowledges his modest upbringing, he doesn't let anyone insult his family. Life's no fairy tale, and regardless of his royal title, Alex might destroy his one chance for happily ever after.
After spending most of his life in special schools, Caleb Stone now faces public high school in his senior year, a prospect that both excites him and threatens to overwhelm his social anxiety. As a deaf teenager, he's closed himself off to the world. He speaks a shorthand with his parents and even finds it hard to use American Sign Language with people in his local deaf community. But Caleb finds comfort in his love of photography. Everything he can't express in real life, he posts on his Tumblr.
Struggling to reconcile his resentment for his father's cruelty with the grief of losing a parent, Luc Le Bautillier scrolls through Tumblr searching for someone who might understand his goth look and effeminate nature. When Luc reblogs a photo by Caleb, sparking a conversation, they both find it easier to make friends online than in person.
Luc and Caleb confront their fears about the opinions of the outside world to meet in New York City. Despite Caleb's increasing confidence, his parents worry he's not ready for the trials ahead. But communication comes in many forms—when you learn the signs.
Ellis Broad never imagined he would end up a single father before he turned twenty-nine. Then again, most of his expectations for the future evaporated when his husband of three years filed for divorce, leaving Ellis as their six-month-old son Harrison's only parent. After the divorce Ellis hides, working from home on his small graphic design business so he can be a full-time dad. He succeeds until Zane Hadlin stumbles into his life.
Zane is everything Ellis desires and everything he fears at the same time. A former gang member from the wrong side of the tracks, Zane turned his life around after his older brother was killed in a shooting. Now an artist, Zane shows Ellis a path back into the world and all he's been missing out on.
The only problem is, Ellis's ex-husband hasn't quite gone for good, and his digging into Zane's past could drag up secrets no one is prepared to deal with.
# Readers love Anna Martin
Five Times My Best Friend Kissed Me
"The chemistry between Scott and Evan is very well written and I just had a great time reading this book in one sitting. I hope you enjoy this fun, lovable story."
—Three Books Over The Rainbow
"I highly recommend this to all lovers of MM romance, and if you love slow burn, there's very few that are more slow burn than this one, but are so worth the wait when the sparks ignite!"
—Hearts on Fire Reviews
My Prince
"All over a very sweet, hot and romantic story. Recommended to all romance lovers!!!"
—Reading is the new SEXY
"It's wonderful period: CHARMING and WITTY and a little dirty, with an absolutely perfect HEA."
—My Fiction Nook
Signs
"It was so perfect, and so sweet, and it swept me away so thoroughly that it left me with no choice but to give it a well deserved 5 star review."
—Watch and Word Society
"I can't praise this high enough! 6 of 5 hearts!"
—The Kimi-chan Experience
ANNA MARTIN is from a picturesque seaside village in the southwest of England and now lives in the slightly arty, slightly quirky city of Bristol. After spending most of her childhood making up stories, she studied English literature at university before attempting to turn her hand as a professional writer.
Apart from being physically dependent on her laptop, Anna is enthusiastic about writing and producing local grassroots theater (especially at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where she can be found every summer), going to visit friends in other countries, baking weird and wonderful sweets, learning to play the ukulele, and Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk.
Anna claims her entire career is due to the love, support, prereading, and creative ass kicking provided by her best friend Jennifer. Jennifer refuses to accept responsibility for anything Anna has written.
Second place winner of the 2012 Goodreads M/M Romance Member's Choice Award "Best Musician/Rockstars" for Tattoos & Teacups.
Website: annamartin-fiction.com
Twitter: @missannamartin
Tumblr: annamartinwrites.tumblr.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/annamartinfiction
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/5251288.Anna_Martin
# By Anna Martin
Cricket
Cuddling (Dreamspinner Anthology)
Dr. Feelgood (Dreamspinner Anthology)
Five Times My Best Friend Kissed Me
The Impossible Boy
Jurassic Heart
Kid Gloves
Les faits accomplis
My Prince
Signs
_With Tia Fielding_ : Solitude
Summer Son
Tattoos & Teacups
Two Tickets to Paradise (Dreamspinner Anthology)
ANOTHER WAY
Another Way
Of Being Yours
To Say I Love You
_With M.J. O'Shea_
JUST DESSERTS
Macarons at Midnight
Soufflés at Sunrise
Devil's Food at Dusk
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Published by
DREAMSPINNER PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Impossible Boy
© 2017 Anna Martin.
Cover Art
© 2017 Garrett Leigh.
http://blackjazzpress.com
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.
ISBN: 978-1-63533-204-9
Digital ISBN: 978-1-63533-205-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016915097
Published January 2017
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
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The unOfficial Rodyk & Davidson Website(Home of the Yeo Cheow Tong scandal)
Rodyk got rid of Helen Yeo, just like the Singapore Government
fired of her husband, Yeo Cheow Tong (thanks in no small part to us).Tamil Philip Jeyaratnam has taken over Mrs Yeo's place - she is out!!!
Click to look inside the book!Now, available in Kindle and Paperback!Free Kindle if you purchase Paperback. After buying Paperback, go for the Kindle!
Available in Singapore via Amazon & Book Depository (free shipping)International Best Seller!
Also at AmazonUK!!! And from Amazon UK, Canada, China, France, Germany, and Japan.
Rodyk & Davidson LLP is a full-service leading Singapore law firm with offices in Singapore and Shanghai and associated offices in Jakarta and New Delhi. Rodyk also has some very interesting connections in narco-states Myanmar, Afghanistan - and now Morocco!
Rodyk's International Crime and Narco Networks
Rodyk's Narco Connections
Indonesia
Singapore!
Center of it all (until Jan 1, 2011)!
narco-state Myanmar!
narco-state Afghanistan!
James Riady, convicted in the USA and banned from the USA!
Now, he is the boss of Helen Rodyk's disgraced husband, Yeo Cheow Tong.
Yeo Cheow Tong fired as cabinet minister, fired from Singapore Parliament, thrown out of the PAP, now Riady's boy!
He used is influence to ban Escape from Paradise from Singapore. Yeo's action was illegal since Escape from Paradise was NOT banned by the Singapore government.
We almost caught up with Yeo in London in 2003, as were were being followed by two Singapore intelligence officers.
Helen Yeo, wife of Yeo Cheow Tong.
Helen's "First Dude" is in the background. She lost all that money on property!
Now Helen is longer be the managing partner of Rodyk - she is OUT!
We sued her in the United States District Court, District of Arizona, but she never dared appear.
The Bistro is a unique institution in Kabul. And also is its owner. For 35 years Dan de Mirmont has been plying his trade in Asia, from China where he was selling arms to Burma, where he set up a French restaurant, to Taiwan where he taught French, or Cambodia, where he enjoyed the beauties Angkor.
In 1967 Dan traveled from the south of France to become a diplomat at the Quai d'Orsay, then he made a connection with Israel, where he became a mercenary for three years.
Has infiltrated Singapore's Public Service Commission, where he will "approve" Singapore Civil Service hirings and salaries. As such, he has a role in determining who gets promoted and who does not.
Philip Jeyaretnam has taken over the management of Rodyk after serving as Helen Yeo's henchman for years.
He is the brother ofTamil Kenneth Jeyaretnam, and the son of failed politician Tamil J. B Jeyaretnam, both partners of convicted terrorist Balraj Naidu - who has served his sentence in the U.S. and was deported back to Singapore on December 18, 2013.
It is very dangerous and unwise of Singapore to place Philip on the Public Service Commission. There he can promote his drunken brother's influence and further the cause of the Tamils in their power grab in Singapore.
Jeyaretnam also said the Reform Party would help Naidu find legal counsel in the United States, and he and another party official attended an October 5 court proceeding in the extradition case.Wikileaks (below)
Kenneth is a spoiled rich kid (and drunkard) from United World College, who left Singapore for England, and, on his father's death, took over his father's party with the help of Balldev Naidu. Talk about nepotism! More...
On October 18, 2010, a Baltimore federal court jury convicted Balraj Naidu, a citizen of Sngapore, for providing material support for selling U.S. weapons to a terrorist organization. Naidu was sentenced to 57 months, imprisonment by a U.S. federal jury in Baltimore of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
After serving his sentence, Naidu was deported from the U.S. and arrived in Singapore on Wednesday, December 18, 2013.
Let’s not forget that Kenneth Jeraretnam’s father, and failed politician, J. B. Jeyaretnam, was the lawyer who helped Naidu change his name so Naidu could hide.
As they say, "You can run, but you can't hide."
Convicted in the U.S.
Tamil Terrorist Singaporean Haniffa bin Osman . As a terrorist, he worked with Naidu.
WASHINGTON A Singapore man has been extradited to the U.S. to stand trial on charges stemming from his alleged role in a conspiracy to illegally export radio frequency modules to Iran, which were later found in unexploded improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq.
Lim Yong Nam, aka Steven Lim, 42, was extradited from Indonesia to stand trial in the District of Columbia. Lim was in the same gang as Tamil terrists Balldev Naidu and Haniffa bin Osman.
Lim faces one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of smuggling, one count of illegal export of goods from the United States to Iran, one count of making false statements to the United States government and one count of making false statements to law enforcement.
“Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have injured or killed thousands of military service members overseas. The U.S.-made products Mr. Lim is accused of illegally exporting were found in several of the devices used against America’s warfighters,” said ICE Director Saldaña.
Falsly exporting U.S. made bomb-making equipment to Iran to kill Americans seems to be quite OK Singapore Judge Choo Han Teck who freed Lim in Singapore.
Tamils take over Rodyk as Helen Yeo is booted out!
She was just a little too "controversial," and the activities of her husband, Yeo Cheow Tong don't help.
Helen's karki (stooge), Philip Jeyaretnam, has replaced her at Rodyk. Helen Yeo, her husband and her sister had become involved to too many shady deals.
Philip Jeyaretnam has stated, "There are a number of things which Helen has built for the firm and which I would plan to continue, these include Rodyk's ... regional strategy - which includes China, Indonesia and to a lesser extent India."
I received a message today from MDA, Singapore's Media Development Authority, regarding our book, Escape from Paradise. MDA is responsible for the difficult task of censoring books and other media in accordance with Singapore's values.
The message is below and shows that our book was not censored or banned by Singapore. It was removed from Singapore's National Library, and no longer sold in Singapore due to the strong-armed tactics and threats to bookstores from Helen Yeo, wife of former cabinet minister Yeo Cheow Tong.
Due to the actions of Helen Yeo, our book, Escape from Paradise, has been misrepresented to be a book against Singapore, when this is not the case.
Escape from Paradise is the story of a family starting with the Tiger Balm Kings, the Aw brothers in Burma, down to a present day member of that family, a young lady in Singapore.
Escape from Paradise has received all 5-star reviews on Amazon, and has been extremely well-reviewed by its readers - except for one person - Helen Yeo.
I refer to your query on the book "Escape from Paradise". Publications are self regulated by the industry, with importers referring them to the MDA when they are in doubt. "Escape from Paradise" has not been submitted to the MDA.
In response to Alan Shadrake's being arrested in Singapore over his book, Once a Jolly Hangman, and Helen Yeo's threats to sue for libel over Escape from Paradise, on July 19th, the US Senate passed a bill to shield US journalists, authors, and publishers from "libel tourists" who file suit in countries where they expect to get the most favorable ruling. The Senate approved the measure in a "unanimous consent" voice vote.
The popular legislation headed to the House of Representatives, which was expected to approve it and send the measure to US President Barack Obama to sign into law.
Backers of the bill have cited Singapore as the major country where weak libel safeguards attract lawsuits that unfairly harm US journalists, writers and publishers.
The measure would prevent US federal courts from recognizing or enforcing a foreign judgment for defamation that is inconsistent with the first amendment of the US Constitution and would bar foreign parties in such cases from targeting the US assets of an American author, journalist, or publisher as part of any damages.
Helen Yeo, together with the IRAS, Singapore's property assessor, with the suspected help of her husband, then Cabinet Minister Yeo Cheow Tong, altered dates in the title deeds or some legal documents to help May Chu's father to hide his asset as May Chu's mum was seeking divorce.
The property was listed as sold, before it was was actually sold.
The official government document proving this assertion was subsequently taken down by IRA Singapore, but too late, it was posted at Escape from Paradise website. Helen Yeo was stupid enough to blow up the whole matter by taking the law into her own hand - misrepresenting.
Our condolences to Helen Yeo on the humiliating firing of her husband, Yeo Cheow Tong, from his position as Singapore Cabinet Minister. Now she must also live with the fact that her husband is has lost his ministerial job and even been thrown out of parliament.
We understand Mr. Yeo has made some bad investments, and hope the Yeos don't go broke.
Were Yeo Cheow Tong and his wife, Helen Yeo, in debt for millions - facing bankruptcy?
Did Singapore pay the Yeos tens of millions to keep the banks from pulling their loans?
Was this done to avoid a scandal at the expense of the Singapore taxpayers?
How is this going to affect Rodyk - STAY TUNED!
(The infamous TT Durai formerly worked at Rodyk)
Rodyk is a full-service law firm with offices in Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Before its merger with Rodyk, Helen Yeo & Partners had a fake office in a dress shop in Rangoon. Click for the fake office. Go to the bottom of the page to "Yangon Office - check the address. It is the same as Helen's spy sister Juliana Tan's shop - J'S IRRAWADDY DREAM, 59, Taw Win Rd, shown on this site - the contact info is the same!!!
Rodyk represents a diverse clientele in a broad spectrum of industries and businesses, providing comprehensive representation across all major areas of the law and leveraging regional offices and international networks for global representation.
Rodyk lost the S$31,359.53 lawsuit to the author of the book, Escape from Paradise, for overcharging. Managing partner, Helen Yeo, and her husband, Singapore Cabinet Minister Yeo Cheow Tong, were able to get Escape from Paradise banned in Singapore. This shows how Rodyk can use its influence for YOUR case. (See sidebar for more information.
Rodyk's team of lawyers is ready to help you. Helen should be especially eager to work hard, as it has been reported that her husband, Cabinet Minster Yeo Cheow Tong, has run into financial difficulties. According to reports, he purchased apartments with only 10% down, and the rents no longer cover his mortgage payments. Any help you can give -- please!
The advantages of the Singapore's rogue legal system are:
Singapore has virtually no extradition treaties with neighboring countries. This makes Singapore an excellent haven for crooks from the region. If you are a crook, try Rodyk!
Singapore is not a signatory to the Hague Convention. If you are in Singapore this gives excellent protection from foreign law suits. It will be virtually impossible for foreign courts to effect legal service on you. A Singapore judge must serve the papers. Now would a Singapore judge serve Helen Yeo, wife of Singapore Cabinet Minister Yeo Cheow Tong, with a lawsuit coming from the authors of Escape from Paradise? Certainly not!
Rodyk has an Anglo-Saxon name, which may lead our clients to believe we are staffed with those familiar with expensive foreign talents, familiar with British and American law. In truth, both Rodyk & Davidson are long gone.
Helen Yeo and Deacon Haroldbring you Word of Jesus Christ the Lord!
Religious services were conducted by Helen Yeo and Deacon Harold at the RELC, 30, Orange Grove Road
Admission was only 50 bucks.
Helen Yeo
A devout Catholic, is ready to save your soul. Helen is a third generation Catholic, baptised into the sacred church at birth and married at the Nativity Church in Hougang. She is presently trying to increase her bible knowledge through a bible study group and also in the Little Rock Scripture program at St Ignatius Church.
Deacon Harold
A great Foreign Talent, Deacon Harold brings you the Word of Christ from the USA. Deacon Harold currently works as the security coordinator for the Salem-Keizer school district. Don't mess with the deacon!!!
Helen Yeo's husband, Singapore disgraced former Cabinet Minister Yeo Cheow Tong
leads the way to our Lord Jesus Christ in keeping with the Catholic religion of his wife, Helen Yeo!
Yeo Cheow Tong
Helen Yeo - Beloved Family Photo Album
Her mother with Ang Mohs (white men!)
Out on boat - who knows what went on, there?
We received this photos of Helen Yeo's mother with some friends. They seem to prefer Ang Moh (white guy) boyfriends!
The photos were taken back in 1949, or 1950. They were submitted to us by a kind friend of Helen Yeo's mother, who writes, "Your mother knows my sister but not me. I am acquainted with your uncles, Ng Hong Kim and Ng Hong Lim."
Yes, Helen's uncles are the famous Ng brothers.
Keep sending in your Helen Yeo photos and stories. We will be happy to publish them.
Isn't that Helen's mother playing SPG (Singapore Party Gir) to a bunch of
Ang Mohs (White guys)?
¶1. (C) Singapore citizen Balraj Naidu Ragavan is under U.S. indictment for violating the Arms Export Control Act and committing other crimes in connection with attempts to broker weapons sales to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2006. The United States formally requested Naidu's extradition on July 9. Singapore authorities then arrested Naidu for violations of Singapore's Strategic Goods Control Act and released him on bail after seizing his passport. They rearrested him on September 22 on a warrant arising from the U.S. extradition request, and preliminary extradition proceedings began shortly thereafter. The court has not yet scheduled the final extradition hearing, but Embassy law enforcement officials who are following the proceeding expect the matter to move quickly.
Opposition Party Surprised by Arrest of Former Official--------------------------------------------------------
¶2. (C) Naidu was until recently on the central executive council of the Reform Party, a small political party founded in 2008 by the late opposition icon J.B. Jeyaretnam; Naidu remains a party member. J.B. Jeyaretnam's son Kenneth now heads the Reform Party after wrapping up a career in hedge fund management spent mostly in Hong Kong and London. When the news of Naidu's arrest and possible extradition broke, Kenneth Jeyaretnam was quoted by local media as saying that it came as a "complete surprise" to him. Jeyaretnam added that the allegations against Naidu pertained to a time before the Reform Party existed and the party had no knowledge of the case. Jeyaretnam also said the Reform Party would help Naidu find legal counsel in the United States, and he and another party official attended an October 5 court proceeding in the extradition case. Jeyaretnam declared he was confident that Naidu would receive a fair trial in the United States.
¶3. (SBU) Singapore's broadsheet newspaper, the government-linked Straits Times, has heavily emphasized Naidu's Reform Party connection in its reporting on the case. Its September 30 coverage ran under the title "Reform Party man wanted in U.S.: U.S. govt seeks extradition of businessman to face terror charges." The October 6 follow-up report also highlighted Naidu's opposition links with the headline "Reform Party backs man wanted in U.S." - though the article itself reported that Kenneth Jeyaretnam had simply cited the legal presumption of Naidu's innocence. Half of each article dwelled on Naidu's links to the Reform Party and the party's response to the allegations against him.
Helen's Revenge
Helen Yeo, ex-Managing Partner of Rodyk takes revenge over author, because Rodyk lost a lawsuit to the author, had to pay damages, and Rodyk senior partner disbarred for misconduct.
Helen Yeo, takes out her revenge by having author's book banned in Singapore
Wife of owner tricked into believing that the house was sold before it was sold.
Helen Yeo was involved in the sale of May Chu's parent's house at 69 Holland Road to Indonesian fugitive and crook, Liem Tek Siong (alias Sjamsul Nursalim, alias Liem Tjoen Ho). The proceeds of the sale (S$4 to 8 million) went to the client's father, Lee Teng Jin (grandson of Aw Boon Par), despite his ongoing divorce and a legal caveat.
The property was recorded as sold, before it was actually sold. This tricked May Chu's mother into believing the she could not claim the house as part of her divorce settlement. This enabled her husband, Lee Teng Jin, to flee Singapore with the proceeds.
Seller's family maintains that the sale was in contravention of the Bankruptcy Act, due to the time between the sale of the properties and the owner’s bankruptcy.
Seller of 69 Holland Road (now rebuilt as Holland Mews) Disappeared for 10 years, and has now reappeared!
May Chu Hardings father, Lee Teng Jin, subsequently disappeared with the funds from the sale of his house, and was hiding out for 10 years.
On July 9, 2005, he was again seen in Singapore, according to an email Mrs. Harding received from the Singapore police.
On October 20, 2005 he appeared in Singapore Family Court to face his former wife, Mabel Wee and was discharged from bankruptcy since returning to Singapore.
Subsequently, Lee attempted to sue his former girlfiend. Guess she got some of his money, what?
At present, he is back living happily in Singapore.
Jackie Lee Teng Jin
Disappeared for 10 years
Helen Yeo Threatens to Sue Former Client's Husband
Helen Yeo, Rodyk's Managing Partner, later threatened to sue May Chu's husband to have his book banned in Singapore.
Helen Yeo's Husband Attacks Client
Helen Yeo, with the influence of her husband, Singapore Cabinet Minister Yeo Cheow Tong, succeeded in having our book, Escape from Paradise, banned from Singapore's bookstores and removed from Singapore's National Library. Nevertheless, the book has been Amazon's best seller in Singapore for the past eleven years.
Helen Yeo dodges author's US Lawsuit
Helen Yeo never did sue, but we sued her in the US Federal District Court, Districtof Arizona over the banning of Escape from Paradise.
Helen Yeo never appeared, and could not be served other than going through a corrupt Singapore judge. This is because Singapore, a rogue state, is not a signatory to the Hague Convention - thereby protecting its crooks from international legal service.
Our process server is on watch should Helen Yeo travel to the United States.
To defend ourselves against Rodyk's revenge, we have set up two websites to expose Helen Yeo, and her clients.
If you are a client of Rodyk & Davidson of Singapore you are putting yourself at risk!
If you become a client of Rodyk & Davidson, you may well wind up on one of our websites. The decision is yours.
Indonesian fugitive, Liem Tek Siong, alias Sjamsul Nursalim, alias Liem Tjoen Ho. "Indonesian officials have complained that Singapore is dragging its heels in signing an extradition deal because it does not want to lose billions of dollars allegedly deposited there by corrupt Indonesian businessmen." Rodyk is proudly keeping this guy out of jail!
Securities crook Raymond Lum, alias Lum Chang, Singapore's Honorary Consul to Ghana. Guilty of insider trading in the US, and fined US$2.25 million by the United States government.Singapore Airlines,Silk Air
Central Provident Fund (how can the Singapore government deal with such people?)
Philip Jeyaretnam was Helen Yeo's favorite karki (stooge) until she was booted out of Rodyk.
Unlike his father, who has been sued and bankrupted by opposition politicians, Judas Philip has chosen to side with the establishment. He also assisted Helen with the banning of Escape from Paradise. Jeyaretnam, himself, is an author. He wrote Abraham's Choice, and acqua' book, on sale at gay bookstores.
He is allegedly connected to terrorists wanted by the U.S. Government, through his connection with his brother, Kenneth Jeyaretnam, backer of Balldev Naidu, who was extradited from Singapore to the U.S. There he was and convicted and imprisoned as a terrorist.
"Right now, Singapore law as an entity is still largely unknown to many of the Chinese parties.
"Chinese companies coming out of China to this part of the world is slowly emerging. And as these companies continue to grow in terms of sophistication and financial investment, this is an issue that's going to be more and more crucial in the years to come."
Of course Singapore law as an entity is still unknown to the China. Like others, China has yet to learn that Singapore law is no law at all -- simply a collection of corrupt judges and lawyers.
Rodyk Partner Disbarred
Over Sordid Affair with Client
Rodyk partner, Dennis Singham. was subseqently disbarred for having an affair with one of his female Rodyk clients! Singham disappeared, and all that was left was his calling card, which he gave to Mrs. Harding.
The case for which Dennis Singham of Rodyk was suspended from practice:
The Law Society of Singapore v Singham M Dennis[2000] SGDSC 7
Tribunal: Disciplinary Committee
1. Mr Dennis Mahendran Singham ("the Respondent") is an advocate and solicitor of some 25 years' standing. He is now a partner in the firm of Dennis Singham Teresa Chan & Partners.
2. It is alleged on the part of the Law Society that sexual encounters took place between the Respondent and Ms Leong while the Respondent stood in a professional relationship with her. In the event, the Respondent was charged before this Committee as follows (the alternative charge having been added after the commencement of the hearing):
CHARGE
4. Dennis is guilty of grossly improper conduct in the discharge of his professional duties within the meaning of Section 83(2)(b) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161,1997 Revised Edition) in that he did carry on a sexual relationship with one Angela Leong, in which firm he was a Partner sometime between 20th April 1995 and the 18th October 1995 during which period he was the solicitor having the conduct of divorce proceedings instituted in the High Court by the said Angela Leong .
ALTERNATIVE CHARGE
5. Dennis is guilty of such misconduct unbefitting an advocate and solicitor as an officer of the Supreme Court or as a member of an honourable profession within the meaning of Section 83(2)(h) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161,1997 Revised Edition) in that he did carry on a sexual relationship with one Angela Leong in which firm he was a Partner sometime between the 20th April 1995 and the 18th October 1995 during which period he was the solicitor having the conduct of divorce proceedings instituted in the High Court by the said Angela Leong.
10. The learned Judicial Commissioner's direction resulted in the appointment of this Disciplinary Committee, to hear and investigate the charges against the Respondent referred to above.
THE CASE FOR THE LAW SOCIETY
11. The Law Society's case was that the Respondent had conduct of the proceedings for the dissolution of Ms Leong's marriage, instituted by Rodyk & Davidson on her behalf, and that the Respondent carried on a sexual relationship with Ms Leong while a solicitor and client relationship was in existence between them.
THE ISSUES IN THIS INQUIRY
MS LEONG'S EVIDENCE
14. Ms Leong's evidence in chief was by way of an affidavit ("the second affidavit"). The exhibits referred to in this section are those annexed to the second affidavit. This, essentially, was Ms Leong's story:
15. She first met the Respondent on the 10th April, in his office. She retained him as her solicitor for the purposes of instituting divorce proceedings against Peter Yeo, and gave him instructions concerning the state of her marriage. A second meeting was held two days later, for the purposes of drafting the petition.
16. Following the meeting, the Respondent gave Ms Leong a lift back to her office, during the course of which he suggested that Ms Leong should use his chauffeur to drive her mother to hospital for twice weekly dialysis.
17. A second meeting took place between Ms Leong and the Respondent a few mornings later, for the purpose of drafting the petition. The Respondent invited Ms Leong to lunch. The Respondent was attentive, spoke about his own marital problems, and paid the bill for the lunch.
18. A third meeting was then held. All three meetings took place between the 10th and 19th April. The Respondent again invited Ms Leong to lunch, this time at an expensive Italian restaurant. The Respondent remarked that he would not have considered taking his wife to such a restaurant. He professed that he had been attracted to Ms Leong from the day she had first walked into his office. As they left the restaurant, the Respondent kissed Ms Leong on the cheek. Shortly after this meeting, the Respondent went to England for a brief visit. While there he telephoned Ms Leong, but she was out. After his return to Singapore the Respondent repeatedly invited Ms Leong out for drinks at the American Club. This became a daily routine.
47. Accordingly, this issue is answered in the affirmative.
Whether a sexual relationship between the Respondent and Ms Leong took place while the Respondent was Ms Leong's solicitor.
48. The Committee answers this issue in the affirmative. It concluded, on the basis of Ms Leong's evidence, which the Committee accepted, and exhibits AL-4 and AL-5 above, that the Respondent and Ms Leong had sex for the first time during their stay at the Shangri-la Hotel in Kuala Lumpur between the 12th and 15th May and again, at the same venue, from the 25th to 29th May. The Committee rejected, as wholly incredible, the Respondent's evidence that sexual relations only began after the decree nisi was pronounced on the 6th July.
49. Furthermore, the Committee accepted Ms Leong's evidence that, following the move to No. 53 Jalan Puteh Jemah, she and the Respondent had sexual relations on numerous occasions at that address and, both before and after the move, in the Respondent's parked car in the Botanical Gardens.
50. The Respondent admits to having had sexual relations with Ms Leong after the 6th July, but claims that the relationship at this level only began after the solicitor and client relationship had ceased to subsist. The Committee rejects that assertion.
51. The Committee finds as a fact that sexual relations took place between the Respondent and Ms Leong on a regular basis between Decree Nisi and Decree Absolute, in Singapore, Pangkor Laut, Paris and London. The Committee concludes, as a matter of law, that a relationship of solicitor and client subsisted between the Respondent and Ms Leong throughout this period.
55. The Committee was left in no doubt, as a matter of fact, that sexual relations took place between the Respondent and Ms Leong while the Respondent was Ms Leong's solicitor and incidentally but importantly, that as a matter of law and fact, the relationship occurred while Ms Leong's marriage to Peter Yeo continued to subsist.
56. Issue 2 is accordingly answered in the affirmative.
Whether the Respondent's conduct, in engaging in a sexual relationship with Ms Leong while he was her solicitor, amounted to grossly improper conduct within the meaning of Section 83(2)(b) of the Act; alternatively, whether by reason of such conduct the Respondent was guilty of misconduct unbefitting an advocate and solicitor, within the meaning of Section 83(2)(h) of the Act.
63. While it is true to say that the sexual relations which took place between the Respondent and Ms Leong were consensual, the Committee accepted Ms Leong's evidence to the effect that the Respondent lavished attention and blandishments on her at a time when she was emotionally vulnerable. The Committee does not regard it as necessary or proper to determine whether the Respondent deliberately stood in the way of a reconciliation between Ms Leong and her then husband, since this factor does not constitute an element of the charge, or of the amended charge.
64. Suffice it to say that it was open to Ms Leong, at anytime after she caused proceedings to be commenced against her husband, to change her mind, relent and take him back. The Respondent compromised Ms Leong's freedom to exercise her mind in this way. He may have concluded that Ms Leong had shut the door to reconciliation (she had, for example, made a police report against Peter Yeo), but that was not a judgment it was proper for the Respondent to make. Having made it, he set about wooing Ms Leong to the point of declaring, at a time when her marriage to Peter Yeo still subsisted, that she would one day become his wife. That, in the view of this Committee, amounted to conduct on the part of the Respondent which was wholly unacceptable of an advocate and solicitor, in that he placed his personal interests in direct conflict with the possible interests or wishes of Ms Leong. After all, she had once before been reconciled with Peter Yeo. Up until the day before the Decree Nisi was pronounced, Peter Yeo was begging for a reconciliation. Had it not been for the Respondent's all-pervading presence, a reconciliation might have come about again. After all, Ms Leong had no children, and that her closest relative was a seriously ailing mother.
65. Accordingly, we had no hesitation in concluding that the Respondent was guilty of a disciplinable offence. The question which exercised our minds was whether his behaviour should rightly be described as "grossly improper', in the sense of flagrantly wrong; or whether his conduct might more aptly be represented as "unbecoming", in the sense of being unsuitable or inappropriate.
66. After considerable deliberation, we took the view that, in all the circumstances, the Respondent's conduct was grossly improper. In so concluding we took into account the fact that, in our assessment, Ms Leong is an intelligent, articulate and resourceful woman who ultimately turned her unfortunate experience with the Respondent to her financial advantage. We were nevertheless left in no doubt that the Respondent deliberately set out to seduce Ms Leong at a time when she was relatively defenceless, and that he did so while she remained married, and thus in a position to effect a reconciliation with Peter Yeo, if she was so minded. As a senior lawyer of some 25 years' standing, the Respondent would have been aware that his professional duty throughout this period was to act solely in Ms Leong's interests. He manifestly failed to do so.
67. In the event, we answer the third issue in the affirmative and determine that the Respondent is guilty of the charge of grossly improper conduct in the discharge of his professional duties under section 83(2)(b) of the Act.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bioadhesive, bioerodible tablet for the extended and controlled release of active ingredients. More particularly, the present invention relates to a progressive hydration tablet for adhesion to the wall of a body cavity for the sustained release of active ingredients without premature degradation of the active ingredients caused by metabolism, or by moisture, enzymes or pH effects.
2. Description of the Related Art
Medications and other pharmaceutical products have traditionally been administered in doses via oral ingestion, nasal sprays or injections. These delivery methods have proven ineffective for patients needing a prolonged and constant supply of an active ingredient delivered to the bloodstream. Particularly difficult are patients needing dosing during sleep time hours. For these patients, intravenous venous lines, slow-dissolving pills, and suppositories or transdermal patches have been prescribed. However, the inconvenience and discomfort of IVs, the short life span of many ingested active ingredients from gastrointestinal degradation or first-pass liver metabolism, and the inability of many products to be comfortably delivered transdermally in suitable doses or in controlled concentrations have proven these methods unsatisfactory.
Previous artisans have attempted to meet the needs of the art by developing products for the transmucosal administration of active ingredients. For example, certain active ingredients can be administered quickly into the bloodstream via the walls of a body cavity, such as the buccal or vaginal cavities, without the risk of first pass hepatic degradation. Generally, delivery of active ingredients through mucosal surfaces may be enhanced by the use of bioadhesive formulations. However, one particular area where those in the art have attempted, but heretofore failed, to meet the needs of the art is in developing a bioadhesive tablet useful for sustained release applications without risking degradation of the active ingredient before it is actually released.
"Sustained release" generally refers to continuous or sporadic release of an active ingredient over an extended time after a single administration, whereby the level of active ingredient available to the host patient often is maintained at some constant level over a period of time. As used herein, it is also intended to cover the situation where the release of an active ingredient is controlled over a period at time wherein the level of active ingredient available to the host (bioavailable) may be at a variable but predetermined level at a particular instant in time of treatment.
The sustained release bioadhesive tablets known in the art can be generally broken down into two categories: (1) tablets consisting of water soluble carbomers, and (2) tablets consisting of insoluble polymers. Both types of tablets have proven unsatisfactory for many applications. For example, numerous artisans have attempted to formulate a suitable sustained release bioadhesive tablet from water soluble carbomers, such as carbomer 934P or CARBOPOL.TM. 974 resin (commercially available from B.F. Goodrich, Cleveland, Ohio). However, such tablets often are only able to adhere to the wall of a body cavity for short periods of time, e.g., six hours or less. Also, these tablets are easily dislodged from the wall of a body cavity and thus place patients using such tablets buccally at risk of asphyxiation. Furthermore, these prior art tablets inherently become hydrated relatively quickly and thus may prematurely expose the reservoir of active ingredient to degradation by moisture or by enzymes from the host environment such as from bacteria in the septic oral or vaginal cavities.
Similarly, tablets comprised of insoluble polymers, such as polycarbophil, have proven unsuitable for many applications. For example, although polycarbophil tablets are capable of prolonged attachment to the wall of a body cavity, such tablets do not adhere immediately, making them impractical for certain treatments such a buccal delivery of active ingredients to patients during sleep time hours. Further, such tablets often do not soften sufficiently to provide comfort and imperceptibility, or provide safety from potential aspiration of the tablet.
Furthermore, for example, neither type of prior art tablet is particularly suitable for treating many conditions. As alluded to previously, there are numerous medical conditions in which a sustained and/or controlled release of active ingredient(s) is desired for any of numerous reasons including, for example, to alleviate the impact of first-pass hepatic metabolism of the active ingredient or the risk of premature degradation of the active ingredient by moisture, pH effects, or enzymes, or to attain the comfort and convenience offered by a suitable bioadhesive tablet. Such conditions include, but are not limited to, for example, those needing treatment with an active ingredient that may be, but is not limited to, a glycoprotein, protein, sex hormone, anti-hormone, nitrate, beta-agonist, beta-antagonist, opioid, opioid-antagonist, antidepressant, HMG CoA (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl Coenzyme A) reductase inhibitor, antihistamine, ACE (angiotensin converting enzyme) inhibitor, and/or prostaglandin. Heretofore the art has required such patents to undergo the more invasive and less suitable techniques and methods of delivery described above.
To illustrate the need in the art, consider hypogonadal men, for example. Hypogonadism in man is characterized by a deficiency or absence of endogenous testosterone production. Abnormally low levels of testosterone may place men at risk of "Andropause", wherein men are at greater risk of cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, and osteoporosis.
Testosterone has traditionally been used to treat hypogonadal men. However, to be most effective, the treatment must be capable of complete physiologic testosterone replacement. Moreover, the treatment must be capable of providing sustained levels of testosterone through the night, preferably sustaining a peak in the middle of the night. Transdermal testosterone patches typically produce only sub-physiologic levels and thus incomplete relief. Similarly, the prior art buccal tablets hereintofore described would be ineffective or impractical for such sustained testosterone delivery.
The hormone testosterone, like many other drugs, including many other proteins and glycoproteins, undergoes high first pass metabolism. Accordingly, as will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, buccal or vaginal tablets consisting of materials that are incapable of keeping the interior reservoir of the tablet in the dry state for prolonged periods are inherently incapable of preventing dissolution and swallowing or dissolution and rapid absorption through the muscosa of the active ingredient. Furthermore, as will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, tablets which are unable to quickly adhere to the target area or are able to become dislodged are impractical for treatments which use night-time delivery, such as testosterone treatment.
Furthermore, as will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, the advantages of a sustained release, bioadhesive tablet according to the present invention are not limited to the treatment of hypogonadism in men. For example, patients often require sustained release hormone treatment for various conditions. In addition, other medications, such as steroids for treating such conditions as asthma, involve treatments where desired peak levels are at night during sleep-time hours. Accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that there exists a long-felt, yet unresolved, need to develop a bioadhesive, sustained release tablet to overcome the aforementioned needs of the art, including, but not limited to, the delivery of therapeutically effective amounts of an active ingredient which may be metabolized or otherwise degraded by moisture, enzymes, or pH effects, such as glycoproteins, proteins, sex hormones, anti-hormones, nitrates, beta-agonists, beta-antagonists, opioids, opioid-antagonists antidepressants, HMG CoA reductase inhibitors, antihistamines, ACE inhibitors, and/or prostaglandins.
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Instagram DM (Direct Message) is the single biggest networking or business development opportunity of this decade. Eventually users will have greater privacy permissions, allowing them to block direct messages from occurring on the platform. As of right now, this does not exist, with Instagram allowing you to DM any user on the service. Here’s my step by step guide to deriving the most value from this unprecedented opportunity. Do this, and you will win!
How to Network in 2019:
In a world full of salespeople, there are so many individuals just trying to market, sell, or take advantage of you and not enough people thinking “How can I actually solve your problem?” or “How can I actually bring you value?” The key is to connect first, provide value, and THEN given the right opportunity presents itself, ASK.
This is the essence of my book “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” because remember: business lasts a lifetime not a day.
With that said, Instagram is one of the most under-utilized resources where you can connect with anyone from a social media influencer to a nearby business to a Fortune 100 CEO, all the way up to a famous celebrity if you are persistent enough 😉
Here’s what you need to know:
Connecting on Instagram: The 5 Keys to Remember
The More The Better — You need to do this 10–100–500 times a day.
1. Find New Instagram Accounts to Target
In the world of social, there is a lot of noise. First you need to locate your point of interest by doing a quick search through Instagram. The beauty is that you can find a near infinite amount of leads through a number of unique ways. You can choose to search by location, hashtag or user.
If you’re a business and you want to grow your reach, start by searching hashtags for the most used terms in your industry.
As a reference to an example I will develop later, let’s say you cut hair. So you’re a hairdresser on the Upper East Side of New York. You can easily begin your Instagram strategy by searching the hashtag “haircut” or filtering by location using the address of your store. Look at the top and most recent posts and start examining each account. Too many people get caught up thinking they have to identify people with 100,000 plus followers. Unless you’re a big time business with a big budget, you don’t need this approach. If you can activate “micro-influencers,” or people with smaller followings but tremendous engagement that live nearby, you can win.
2. Look at the Instagram Profile and Audit Their Account
Spend about 30 seconds scrolling through their account(s) and understanding their likes, dislikes and activity.
There are so many people out there who focus on top level metrics like follower count when trying to determine which accounts to reach out to. The truth is, even though follower count can be important, there are a ton of examples of accounts that might have high follower count but produce zero ROI for a business. For example, accounts can buy their followers, do “follow for follow” tactics to grow their following, etc.
In other words, follower count does not equal attention.
REMEMBER: Pay Attention to Engagement!
Even if the account only has 190 followers but every single post that user creates has 60 likes and 20 comments, REACH OUT via Instagram DM. If the relationship between their following and their engagement is strong, that means that they have their audience’s ATTENTION, which is so crucial in today’s digital world.
So pay attention to micro-influencers that are within the region you’re targeting. They can provide tremendous value to you and your business and all it takes is a single direct message to start building a relationship.
Look at their posts and consider: Do they interact? Do they engage? Do they post regularly? Do their fans like them?
This is the key to success.
3. Bring Them Value
My one reservation with this article is that it’s just gonna turn a lot of you into spam bots. That you’re just gonna control copy, go into DM and start pasting and getting banned or paused by Instagram, because you’re literally just spamming random accounts. The entirety of this post is to get you to understand how you can bring them value.
Right now, your entire energy is predicated on what can I get out of this? Of course you can DM The Rock, DM Warren Buffett, DM Tyra Banks, DM some founder that you love, but if you don’t consider what that person actually needs or wants you will never get through. This is the number one arbitrage for success. If you are not providing value, they will not respond.
The key to any tactic — and this is THE tactic — is to provide more value to the other person, especially when they’re the one with the leverage. Formulate your proposition and prepare to do what is so crucially important in today’s digital world. Send the DM.
Remember: your value proposition is how you can help solve the problem they are currently experiencing or haven’t thought of yet.
4. Direct Message
This one is easy but a lot of you still don’t understand.
Open up Instagram and find the three little dots in the top right corner of an individual’s account, click the dots, then select “send message.”
5. Rinse and Repeat
Success is a numbers game. Be prepared to get 100 no’s for every yes. Most people won’t even reply. But don’t get discouraged and don’t be romantic. It’s part of the game. Many people at the top have similar skills. A LOT of companies and individuals and influencers can bring you A LOT of value, and opportunity. Needless to say, most individuals are fairly well connected, and many might be friends or employees of the person you are trying to reach.
For example, The Rock might not DM you back, but a 3rd or 4th tier celebrity might. The CEO of Versace might not hit you back for a fashion internship, but another lesser known fashion brand might. And if you spend a few months or years getting experience at a smaller brand, a bigger brand (or influencer) might take you more seriously. It’ll help build your personal brand too.
Getting one “yes” will build your foundation. Keep the ball rolling and use your work and speed to gain momentum.
You all need to be doing this 10–100–500 times a day.
Now You Have To Deliver
This is one very important piece that I only touched on in my original video: “It’s Going Down in The DM”
Once you get the opportunity, you need to deliver. Don’t be upset if you DM 900 people and 2 say yes and you fail to deliver. Ultimately skill and execution are everything. Direct Messages just help you get your foot in the door.
Recalling The Arbitrage of 2003 Email Marketing and Blogs
So, you might be asking yourself, “Gary, isn’t this just messaging people on social media? Why do you care so much about it?”
And my answer is that an opportunity like this comes around once in a decade, where a new platform arises, and you have unprecedented access to individuals you never had before. This happened in the early days of email marketing in 1995/1996 and again in 2003/2004 with the first set of internet blogs. I remember the day when CEO’s were sending out email newsletters and marketing themselves! All the while leaving their phone number as the contact for support. The same thing happened in 2003/2004 when blogging became a thing.
The first adopters (those in “the know”) and usually working at the top were well positioned as early adopters looking to try the latest thing. People who had multi-million dollar salaries in business and media would open themselves up to the internet with the ability to comment, contact and connect.
So Why Do I Think Instagram is Important?
Well — What’s the one difference between Instagram and your app?
700 Million Users
This is what I had to say in 2015
“I think that Instagram will be easily one of the top two social networks in America and globally. It’s going to be a major force. It’s a beast, it is the current social network of the moment and I think it’s an incredibly important platform and I’m very, very bullish on it and as somebody who day trades attention, I think it’s massive.”
You can find the link to my original video HERE.
Clearly this played out.
Some individuals literally have 100+ million followers on the platform. But here is one way I promise you that you will not build your Instagram profile: By not doing anything. By sitting and having a beer with your friend and complaining that it’s so hard to build your account. Search hashtags, click them, look at the account, see how you can bring them value, DM them, go in soft, bring more value, rinse and repeat. Two, three, four, five thousand times.
Whether or not you’re going to go all-in on Instagram DM like this article suggests, you should still take the platform seriously. Very seriously. Instagram is showing zero signs of slowing down and is quickly becoming a behemoth of a platform. The team there has been very calculated in releasing platform updates and the latest of those updates just goes to show how big of a role it’s going to play in the communication of both brands and people.
I Want You to Do the Research on Instagram
I truly want you to search every hashtag. I want you to search grocery store, local butcher, plumber, marketing, design, coffee, everything! When you search for it on Instagram there is going to be a hashtag. I want you to spend 25 minutes researching every picture in your specific niche that has the hashtag plumber, or gardener, or coffee and see if it’s the account of a plumbing company, or a flower delivery business or a coffee shop.
Look at the top posts and learn about these accounts. This is all education and regardless of the outcome you will at least be informed by new knowledge of your industry and who is winning in the social media space.
This is all just work, and it’s free!
Trust me, you are going to find a custom design firm in Toronto. Or a coffee shop in New York, or a plumber in rural Idaho. They will have 148,000 followers. Or 600. Or 6000. Look at what they post.
NOW, Send message. Say, “Yo, this is me, I’m the best at gardening, I can cut hair, or I’m a really good plumber and I would love to help.”
It’s that simple.
The same advice applies to being a web developer or designer. I want you to click the URL on every account and look at their website. If they have a good website, leave them alone. If the website sucks, I want you to go back into Instagram and hit the top right corner three dots on that person’s profile. Just say “Hi, love what you do, but your website needs work, I’ve got a thing that’s $500 upfront, $25 a month and you will crush it and you will make a return on your investment in one day, let alone one year, once I transition you to mobile and relink to it on your Instagram account. You will convert better.”
That’s it. It’s really not that hard.
And if you’re in school, or you hate your job, or you want to connect, I want you to do this for three to five to seven hours every single day. Which means that you’ll message between 70 and 250 people a day and you will do a lot of business.
Knowing me, business development, is one of the pillars of my success. The reason I’m good at business development is I try to bring more value to the other person first. I think about it as the bare mechanics of all business. If you have down time, why not business develop? The fact that you can business develop on your iPhone and on Instagram, and Twitter and Snapchat and Facebook is insane. And if you offer something in return, three out of 37 people will take you up on it. The first 200 might say no, or nothing at all, but the next person might say “yes” and then you business develop and things start happening.
More Example Time
I really want to drill this home, so I am creating this content to reiterate myself and really articulate the way to win.
Here is another real world example for you to think through.
Let’s talk about the fitness hashtag. You know only 190,000,000 engagements in the top posts and most recent. So now you search the hashtag, you go to a top post, you find an account, you click it. He’s got 88,000 Followers.
I see he’s a Black Belt and he’s a coffee lover. He’s also my personal trainer and lives in NY 😉
Let’s just say for whatever reason I want to do product placement and I have a new shake or energy drink or hoodies. I would hit this person up and say, “Jordan, love what you do, would love to connect.” Right? Or, “Would love to send you my favorite wines,” if I was in the wine business. Or, “Would love to make three to four videos for your Instagram account. On me.” And that’s the key. It’s ‘or’ and ‘I would love to give you.’
Click Here To Tweet!
If you’re asking, you don’t have the leverage. Anytime I’m hitting somebody up, regardless if I’m bigger or smaller than them I’m trying to give them love. Let’s say you like hip hop and you love Chance The Rapper. So you go to Chance The Rapper’s profile and he’s got 2.9 million followers. He’s getting hit up a million times a day. When you send him a message, here’s what to say:
“Chance, I make videos. I’ll make you the best Instagram videos for free for an entire year. Your account will go to 7 million. Let alone 2.9. I won’t bother you, I’ll just work. I’ll need access at times but you control that. Let me know. Look at my work on my Insta. Much love.”
Do that. Over and over and over. And you will win.
But DM is just the entry point. You have to make sure your Instagram account and your execution is on point. You can’t just DM Chance and have no prior experience and say I want to make videos for you. You have to show that you can execute and provide value.
Start by making awesome Instagram videos for your friends, or your uncle, or your dog. Do something to show that you can execute and make great work! It doesn’t cost a lot of money. If you have a smart phone and access to the internet you can not complain!
Start a blog on Medium, create a podcast with your phone on Soundcloud and interview your friends. Start taking photos and become an iPhone-ographer. Help your friends edit their vlogs. Whatever it is, you have to do. You have to use the resources available to you. Walk in to your local hardware store and say “Hey Rick — I know you have never heard of Instagram but it’s a really cool platform and I think it could drive better conversion to your business through hashtags and promotional content” followed by “I make videos and would love to make your hardware shop a 30 second ad to help you launch your social profile.”
Please guys. I want you to win.
Making a video on Instagram may literally take you 10 minutes from concept to execution. If you are just starting, frequency of content is more important than quality. You just have to put something out and see how the world reacts. Then you can learn and grow.
What If I’m a Small Business?
Great. Back to my example about my barber Manny —@barbarossa
I go to a barber on the Upper East Side. His name is Manny and he has never used Instagram in his life (until I showed him how 😉 and now he’s crushing it. His entire business is built on word of mouth. So here is another example of what Manny should do.
If you are a business trying to sell, use your audience and grow your reach through DM.
For Manny, he can search the Upper East Side, and see everybody who’s posting in the area. You can literally see that someone recently posted from a nearby restaurant, click on their account, and message them saying, “I like your Instagram account. If you would like a free haircut, I’d love to have you come by.” What’s great about this is that these are all individuals who already like to share their lives. So if they come, it’s likely they’ll give you a shout out. This is word of mouth on steroids.
THE FUNDAMENTAL KEY is always and forever providing other people more value.
Click Here To Tweet
I just don’t see people doing it and it is absolutely going down on Instagram DM.
What If I’m an Influencer?
Even better. I want this to be heavy example time. If you’re an influencer, DM can be a tremendous asset to engage with your fans. Just sending a simple message like “Thank you ❤” can mean the world.
I had a conversation with football superstar Brad Wing and this is what I had to say:
You should check the Giants hashtag and literally just DM that person. Just say “Awesome.” And they’ll be like, “Holy crap.” It will open up so many doors and provide the human element of being an influencer that so many of you lack. All of the sudden, when you do that and engage with them as the Giant’s punter whether they know you or not, you will win. Before you know it, that same fan could be setting you up with a business meeting or their brother happens to be the VP of sales at Reebok and wants to a do a shoe placement or a sneaker deal.
What If I’m a Musician or an Artist?
To me, vlogs are the answer. DM’ing Drock on Instagram to get your song on DailyVee is the answer. Every single rapper, every single artist should literally DM and message every single vlogger that has 100,000 views per video and give them free music to put in their vlogs. This is literally how simple it is. If you are good enough you will win. People have no idea how much influence they can get from having their music in one random blog. Having an influencer listen to or promote your work is the ultimate word of mouth and three years from now, some random person discovers that episode and happens to be an exec at a huge record label like Sony and your life is literally forever made!
It’s all just work. Three of those 79 people say, “Yo, send me a song, a shirt, a quote, a photo.” One of those three that you send a shirt puts it in their store, one popular model with a million+ followers walks in, wears it, takes one picture and away you go.
Hustling. 24/7 on Instagram DM. It is the 2017 opportunity.
GO DO.
Thanks for reading! 🙂 Say Hello to me on Instagram. I’m @garyvee
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In defense of the Avengers 4 title shenanigans
Nearly two years of speculation about what the fourth Avengers movie would be called finally ended Friday when Marvel Studios casually dropped the film’s first trailer and unveiled the title as Avengers: Endgame. Some fans are now frustrated wondering what the point of holding that information back for so long really was, especially when it involved the Russo Brothers straight up lying in order to keep the mystery alive.
I’m here to defend them and explain why the way things played out makes perfect sense.
It was back in 2014 when Marvel announced the Avengers’ long-awaited confrontation with Thanos would be split across two installments with Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 releasing in May 2018 and Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2 following in May 2019.
It wasn’t long before the studio began to backtrack, with Kevin Feige insisting in subsequent interviews that these were actually two distinct stories and not one story cut in two.
It seemed Marvel, and especially Disney, had gotten cold feet about releasing their finale in two parts, likely after seeing other two-parters like The Hunger Games: Mockingjay struggle at the box office. The two-parter formula popularized by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hadn’t worked for everyone, with audiences often feeling less enticed to go see a movie that it’s clear from the title alone is not yet finished.
So Marvel decided to drop the Part 2 from the second movie, leaving the first installment as Avengers: Infinity War and keeping Part 2 untitled. Fans immediately began to speculate about what the name of the second movie could be, and their curiosity was greatly intensified when Feige suggested in an interview that the reason this information was being withheld was that the title is actually a spoiler for Infinity War.
This wildly intriguing statement only drew more fans into the increasingly engrossing puzzle. What on Earth kind of title could actually be a spoiler for a previous movie?
Feige, clearly, was not intentionally aiming for this reaction. He wasn’t even the one to bring up the idea of the title being a spoiler; an interviewer simply asked him if that’s the case, and he answered in the affirmative. He would later regret this and walk it back after witnessing firsthand the firestorm he unintentionally created, but the clarification that the title isn’t a spoiler never really stopped the original bit of information from spreading.
Infinity War released in April 2018, and in its wake, no title announcement came; it wasn’t included at the end of the credits at some fans had theorized. Everyone had their own guesses at the name of the follow-up, with one popular one being that it would be called Endgame. That would make sense, considering the word “endgame” had now come up in two Avengers sequels in a row; Tony referenced the endgame in Age of Ultron, and in a key moment in Infinity War, Doctor Strange had said, “We’re in the endgame now.”
But the Russo Brothers soon declared in an interview with Uproxx that the film’s title was not spoken in Infinity War, which would rule out Endgame — and which we now know was a straight up lie. But to be fair to them, what were they supposed to say? If they were to answer yes to that question, that would ruin the whole point of keeping the title a secret to begin with. Answering with “no comment” would only make fans assume the answer was yes, so their only choice was to lie in order to maintain the secret.
Now, that begs the question: was maintaining the secret a worthwhile endeavor? What was the point of all of it?
Well, with Infinity War, the Russos were clearly hoping for audiences to feel like the Avengers were going to vanquish Thanos at the end — specifically leading us to believe that Thor would kill him — so when this massive summer blockbuster concluded with the villain not only winning, but killing half of all life in the universe, it would be one of the most mindblowing twists in the history of tentpole action films.
Marvel also clearly wanted audiences to go into the movie feeling like they were about to witness the Avengers’ last stand, and not just one part of their last stand. That was essential both from a marketing perspective – so audiences didn’t feel they were about to see half a movie and that they could simply wait until next year to see the complete story back to back – and from a storytelling perspective. If audiences think they bought a ticket to see a triumphant, conclusive ending to this story, and instead they’re sent back into the lobby having witnessed half of their beloved characters die, that makes Thanos’ victory even more of a gut punch.
Now imagine if heading into Infinity War, it was widely known that one year later, there was going to be a film called Avengers: Endgame. Sure, it was already known that another Avengers sequel was going to follow Infinity War, but with so little having been publicized about it, it was easy for casual fans to have it out of their mind or not even learn about it at all. On the other hand, it kind of ruins the finality of one movie when it’s known that it’s going to be immediately followed by a sequel that literally has the word “end” in it. This is likely what Feige meant by the title being a spoiler; it’s not that it was called “Avengers: The One After Everyone Dies,” but “Avengers: Endgame” could potentially clue general audiences into the fact that Infinity War ends on a cliffhanger and is not itself the endgame.
So Marvel’s plan was to completely much talk of Avengers 4 at all pre-Infinity War, with this including the promotional campaign; those who watched the film’s stars on the late night circuit may have noticed that the fact that another movie would follow shortly after Infinity War rarely came up. Then, once it became widely known that Infinity War ended on a cliffhanger, Marvel would shift gears and begin to promote the next movie, rather than have to attempt to promote two movies at once and making audiences feel like the full story wouldn’t be over until 2019. Hardcore fans knew all this already just from following the project’s production, but why let everyone in on the secret who didn’t already spoil it for themselves?
This put people like Kevin Feige and the Russo Brothers in a tough situation when they were asked about the title in interviews. It’s easy to assume when you see a headline like “Kevin Feige Reveals the Title for Avengers 4 Is a Spoiler for Infinity War” or “The Russo Brothers Reveal the Closest Avengers Title Guess” that they volunteered that information, holding a full-on press conference to make sure it gets out there. But more often than not, they’re just being put on the spot in an interview, trying to dance around the subject of the title as much as they can not because there’s necessarily any great secret to it, but because they’re rather not talk about a fourth movie before the third one even comes out.
At some point, it seems it became clear to people like the Russo Brothers that this intrigue for the title was only building up suspense and generating additional hype, at which point I would guess that a decision was made behind the scenes to delay the reveal even longer than initially planned. Just think of how much discussion the anticipation for the title generated for Avengers 4 all throughout the fall, compared to if the end credits for Infinity War just casually dropped it, i.e. “Thanos will return in Avengers: Endgame.” And think of how much the mystery made you jump at the chance to immediately watch the trailer the second it hit to find out the answer, since it was left out of the video title.
Personally, I’m happy to have had the title kept off my radar during my first viewing of Infinity War. I’m someone who keeps up with the production of MCU movies closely and was, therefore, well aware that Thanos is the villain of Avengers 4 before seeing Infinity War. I was also pretty sure that Infinity War would end with Thanos’ infamous snap, as originally depicted in the comics. But Avengers 4 being so completely underdiscussed, and seeming more like a vague project off in the distance rather than something tangible with a name and logo, allowed me to not think about it much while watching Infinity War and get sucked into the story as the grand finale. If the title was out there, a giant “AVENGERS: ENDGAME” would be stuck in my head during the first viewing.
Besides, I’ll never forget the experience of, on Friday morning, looking up on Twitter and nearly spitting out my coffee when I saw a video titled “Marvel Studios’ Avengers – Trailer” posted. At first, I thought that, after all that, Marvel was just calling the movie “Avengers.” I then thought that perhaps they were actually going to start marketing it without a title, just cutting to the release date with no name being revealed.
But as the logo began to form, it became clear that a subtitle was coming, too, and those five to eight seconds of suspense as I realized that, after all this speculation and hype, I was about to find out the title of Avengers 4 was pure bliss, and it made the whole journey worth it. The fact that the title itself wasn’t necessarily anything that special is kind of beside the point.
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HPV Vaccine Protects Against Cervical Cancer Precursors
Action Points
Explain that the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine offered excellent protection against the precursors (CIN2 and CIN3) of invasive cervical cancer, plus partial protection against four other nonvaccine oncogenic HPV types.
Note that an important finding of the first study was the high efficacy of the bivalent HPV vaccine (Cervarix) particularly among adolescent girls not yet sexually active.
The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine offered excellent protection against the precursors (CIN2 and CIN3) of invasive cervical cancer, plus partial protection against four other nonvaccine oncogenic HPV types, according to two studies.
An important finding of the first study was the high efficacy of the bivalent HPV vaccine (Cervarix) particularly among adolescent girls not yet sexually active. These results, published in The Lancet Oncology, suggest the importance of modifying screening programs to target early adolescents, said Matti Lehtinen, PhD, of the University of Tampere in Finland.
The four-year end-of-study analysis of PATRICIA (PApilloma TRIal against Cancer In young Adults) showed excellent efficacy against CIN3+ and adenocarcinoma in situ irrespective of HPV DNA in the lesion. The trial included almost 19,000 healthy women ages 15 to 25, who were HPV-naive at baseline, with no more than six lifetime sexual partners.
The women -- who were from 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, Latin America, and North America -- were randomly assigned to receive the HPV-16/18 vaccine, which targets about 70% of cervical cancers, or a control (hepatitis A vaccine).
Vaccine efficacy against CIN3+ associated with HPV-16/18 was 100% (95% CI 85.5 to 100) in the total vaccinated cohort of women with no evidence of infection (TVC-naive) and 45.7% (CI 22.9 to 62.2) in the total vaccinated cohort group (TVC).
Vaccine efficacy against all CIN3+ (irrespective of HPV type and including lesions with no HPV DNA detected) was 93.2% (CI 78.9 to 98.7) in young women not infected with HPV (TVC-naive) versus 45.6% (CI 28.8 to 58.7) in the total vaccinated cohort (TVC group). In the TVC-naive women, vaccine efficacy against all CIN3+ was higher than 90% in all age groups.
In the previously unexposed women (TVC), vaccine efficacy against all CIN3+ and CIN3+ associated with HPV-16/18 was highest in the 15 to 17 age group, and decreased progressively in the 18 to 20 and 21 to 25 age groups. Vaccine efficacy against all adenocarcinoma in situ was 100% in the never-infected group and 76.9% in the total vaccinated cohort (TVC).
Serious adverse events occurred in 835 (9%) and 829 (8.9%) of women in the vaccine and control groups, respectively. Only ten events (0.1%) and five events (0.1%), respectively, were considered to be related to vaccination.
Study limitations included the fact that the distribution of women from various countries across the different cohorts may weaken the study's generalizability. Also, the exclusion of women with more than six lifetime sexual partners lessened generalizability, especially in the 21 to 25 year age group in the TVC, where some of the excluded women most likely had multiple infections.
Population-based vaccination that incorporates the HPV-16/18 vaccine and high coverage of young adolescents before their sexual debut will probably achieve maximum benefits, Dr. Lehtinen wrote. The researchers also noted substantial vaccine efficacy in a population approximating the general population of sexually active women, suggesting that catch-up vaccination would provide some benefit.
In a second Lancet Oncology study analyzing results from the PATRICIA trial, Cosette Wheeler, PhD, of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and colleagues reported that the bivalent HPV vaccine showed cross-protection efficacy against four oncogenic nonvaccine HPV types in different trial cohorts representing diverse groups of women:
HPV-33
HPV-31
HPV-45
HPV-51
These four types, plus HP-16/18, cause about 85% of cervical cancer they said. Furthermore, there is a particularly high risk of HPV-33 infection progressing to cervical lesions, while HPV-45 is over-represented in adenocarcinoma.
Consistent vaccine efficacy against persistent infection and CIN2+ (with or without HPV-16/18 coinfection) was seen across cohorts for HPV-33, HPV-31, HPV-45, and HPV-51, the researchers reported
In the most conservative analysis of vaccine efficacy against CIN2+, where all cases coinfected with HPV-16/18 were removed, vaccine efficacy was noted for HPV-33 in all cohorts, and for HPV-31 in two other groups: ATP-E (no evidence of infection at the outset with the HPV type under analysis) and TVC-naive (uninfected at the outset).
Vaccine efficacy against CIN2+ was associated with the composite of 12 nonvaccine HPV types, with or without HPV-16/18 coinfection, at 46.8% in the ATP-E group, 56.2% in the TVC-naive group, and 34.2% in the TVC group. Corresponding values for CIN3+ were 73.8% in ATP-E group, 91.4% in the TVC-naive group, and 47.5% in the TVC group.
Overall, Wheeler said, these findings suggest that the the cross-protective efficacy of the vaccine when given to HPV-naive women might provide additional protection against cervical cancer but long-term follow-up is needed.
In an accompanying commentary, Mark Schiffman, PhD, and Sholom Wacholder, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., wrote that increasing coverage, particularly of sexually-naive adolescent females, is the most important public health issue in HPV vaccine efforts. Nonetheless, they said, despite vaccine efficacy near 100% in HPV-naive women, the efficacy in the total vaccinated group decreased steeply with increasing age.
They also expressed concern about low vaccination rates in areas where cervical cancer and mortality rates are high; where alternative prevention is inadequate; and where current vaccines are too expensive and often difficult to deliver.
The long-term proof of the safety of HPV vaccine is a public-health priority. Use will increase as public trust in safety increases, they concluded.
The Lehtinen study was funded by GlaxoSmithKline, the makers of Cervarix.
All investigators at clinical sites, including Lehtinen, were funded through their institutions.
Many of the researchers are employees of GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals; G. Dubin holds a relevant patent. Other firms contributing to the study include Merck Sharpe & Dohme, and Roche Molecular Systems.
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Longitudinal study on pubertal insulin resistance.
Previous cross-sectional studies show that puberty is associated with a reduction in insulin sensitivity (S(I)), but no longitudinal studies have examined this change in detail. This study is a longitudinal study in 60 children (33 male and 27 female subjects; 32 Caucasian and 28 African-American) examined at Tanner stage I (age 9.2 +/- 1.4 years) and after 2.0 +/- 0.6 years of follow-up, by which time 29 children remained at Tanner stage I and 31 had progressed to Tanner stage III or IV. Tanner stage was assessed by physical examination. S(I), the acute insulin response (AIR), and the disposition index (DI) were determined by the tolbutamide-modified intravenous glucose tolerance test and minimal modeling, body fat mass was assessed by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, visceral fat was determined by computed tomography, and fasting blood was analyzed for hormone levels. In children progressing to Tanner stage III, S(I) fell significantly by 32% (4.4 +/- 3.0 to 3.0 +/- 1.7 x 10(-4)min(-1)/[microIU/ml]), AIR increased by 30%, DI fell by 27%, and there was a significant increase in fasting glucose (93.5 +/- 5.0 to 97.0 +/- 4.1 mg/dl) and insulin (14.3 +/- 8.1 to 18.6 +/- 11.0 microIU/ml). In children remaining at Tanner stage I, there was a slight increase in S(I) (6.4 +/- 3.1 to 7.4 +/- 3.5 x 10(-4)min(-1)/[microIU/ml]) with no significant change in AIR or fasting glucose and insulin. The pubertal fall in S(I) was more consistent in African-Americans; remained significant after controlling for age, sex, and change in fat mass, visceral fat, and fat-free mass; and was similar in children at low, medium, and high body fat. Change in S(I) was not significantly related to change in fasting hormone levels, but change in AIR was significantly related to change in androstendione (r = 0.39; P = 0.04). Pubertal transition from Tanner stage I to Tanner stage III was associated with a 32% reduction in S(I,) and increases in fasting glucose, insulin, and AIR. These changes were similar across sex, ethnicity, and obesity. The significant fall in DI suggests conservation in beta-cell function or an inadequate beta-cell response to the fall in S(I). The fall in S(I) was not associated with changes in body fat, visceral fat, IGF-I, androgens, or estradiol.
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Читайте также на "Цензор.НЕТ": Эстонский суд признал законным решение правительства об экстрадиции в Украину местного жителя, воевавшего за "ЛНР"
Читайте также на "Цензор.НЕТ": НАТО направит 4000 солдат в страны Балтии для сдерживания агрессии РФ
По словам пресс-секретаря Министерства юстиции Марии-Элизы Туулик, в настоящее время Поляков уже находится в Украине, сообщает портал err.ee , передает Цензор.НЕТ На вопрос, как осуществлялась доставка Полякова в Украину и куда конкретно его отправили, пресс-секретарь не ответила, взяв время на уточнение информации.Отмечается, что еще в понедельник Минюст не стал раскрывать данные о том, когда конкретно Полякова могут передать Украине.С ходатайством о выдаче Полякова в Эстонию 3 августа прошлого года обратилась Генеральная прокуратура Украины. Решение о выдаче Украине Полякова было принято правительством Таави Рыйваса в декабре прошлого года. В законную силу оно вступило 17 июня 2016 года.Согласно озвученному в Эстонии подозрению, 34-летний Поляков входил в террористическое объединение. С июня 2014 года, как утверждает Государственная прокуратура, он воевал в Луганске и его окрестностях против украинских силовиков.Напомним, в феврале 2015 года полиция безопасности задержала Полякова в Нарве на границе при выезде из Эстонии в Россию на автобусе. Он намеревался добраться до Луганска и присоединиться к отрядам, воюющим против киевских властей. Позже в ходе обыска у Полякова обнаружили запрещенное к использованию в гражданском обороте оружие и боеприпасы. В 2014 году он два раза уже посещал Луганск, каждый раз пробыв там по месяцу. Источник: https://censor.net/ru/n395472
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When hate invades a space known for tolerance, figuring out how to react can be the hardest part of the aftermath. The national conversation about the Orlando massacre has been focused on gun control and terrorism, and rightfully so, but there's an aspect to the discussion being avoided by the media: the impact gay bars have on the LGBTQ community.
Every queer person remembers their first gay bar. Good or bad, it's always more than just a bar experience. When you spend your life being a sexual minority, the gay bar is often the only outlet available to shape a sense of identity, an understanding, and a community.
The gay bar is often the only outlet available to shape a sense of identity, an understanding, and a community.
I first found my gay bar, my community, my refuge at Attitude Bar in St. Louis, Missouri in 1998. I can't remember if it was an all-ages night, but somehow I got in even though I was under 21. I remember looking around at the literal rainbow of people—black, white, male, female, young, old, skinny, fat—and feeling a sense of calm. It felt like I was holding on to this weird anxiety that I couldn't understand, and then all of a sudden it clicked, and the anxiety was gone, and finally I could stop hiding my Madonna CDs in Led Zeppelin CD cases.
I asked notable LGBTQ artists, writers, actors, and comedians about their first gay bar experience and the impact it had on their lives. Sometimes the story is good, sometimes it is bad, but one thing is for sure: everyone's first gay bar experience is a story. And everyone has one. In sharing their stories, they are taking a stance against hate, and honoring every victim of violence based on hate.
Getty Images
George Takei
I was a little apprehensive about going down an alley to a door with a red light over it. But I walked in and was immediately enwrapped by the warm scent of beer. There were guys playing pool and others standing around. There were guys sitting at the bar, some sitting intimately close together. The bartender was a good looking, friendly guy. My tension disappeared and I loosened. My guard eased, and I sat at the bar and started a conversation with a guy. It felt liberating. For the first time ever, I felt free.
Smallz & Raskind Getty Images
Cameron Esposito
I was 19 and went to an 18+ gay club outside Nashville with my older sister. She lived there at the time and we went with an older out friend of hers. I didn't yet realize I was gay–and she didn't know yet I was either–but the subtle messaging that it was okay to be gay and that gay spaces could be fun and welcoming mattered so much to me that when I did eventually begin dating women, she was the first person I told.
Frazer Harrison Getty Images
Bryan Safi
The first gay bar I went to was in the West Village, and I went alone. I must have walked past it a dozen times before I got the courage to go inside. The thing I remember most clearly is a group of guys playing pool and talking about Kate Burton's performance in Hedda Gabler. It was Heaven.
Mark Metcalfe Getty Images
Jake Shears
I was 18 and had an ID that I found from some 30 year old dude... I realized if I dressed in drag, the bouncer would be none the wiser. So every Friday I would dress in drag and go by myself to a bar called 21st Century Foxes in Seattle. I called myself Cubic Zirconia and got up every week and did a James Bond number.
JB Lacroix Getty Images
Perez Hilton
Before I ever set foot in a gay club or bar, I went to the now defunct the Big Cup coffee shop in NYC's Chelsea neighborhood. I not only felt safe there but I also felt so accepted and welcome. Thank you to all of the gay business owners who are brave enough to create these homes for us, for creating jobs for our own and for creating community.
David Livingston Getty Images
Heather Matarazzo
My first gay bar was the Meow Mix on the Lower East Side in New York City. It was the first time in my life that I was surrounded by other lesbians. The feeling of finally being able to feel safe and at home with others who were like me was incredible. I never knew what it was to be a part of a community before then, and for the first time I didn't feel alone. I felt free, exalted, and full of deep joy.
Santiago Felipe Getty Images
Bob the Drag Queen
The first time I went to a gay bar was to the Mad Hatter in Columbus, Georgia, and the drag queen used to work at the Applebee's. I haven't stopped dancing since.
Jean Claude Dhien Getty Images
Frank DeCaro
My college friends at Northwestern and I were out of the closet big time, which, let me tell you, was a lot less common on campus in 1980 than it is now. As freshman that year, armed with our fake ID's, we would go every week to a gay bar in Chicago called the Bistro. It was a safe space, somewhere where we could be our outrageous selves and dance the night away. We never went home with anyone else. We were too young, too strange, too New Wave. We learned to be comfortable in our own skin there, dancing to Sylvester, Divine, and Lime. Thirty-six years later, I'm still close to all six members of that diverse group. I'll never like anyone better than I like those guys and never like a bar better than I did that place.
NBC Getty Images
Rhea Butcher
The first gay bar I ever went to was in my hometown of Akron, Ohio. I was both terrified and exhilarated. I remember looking and being looked at, and for the first time it was by people with whom I felt a strong community and, in retrospect, a familial connection.
Mike Windle Getty Images
Drew Droege
It was 1996. I was in college at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina, directing a production of Steel Magnolias and wearing lots of large olive turtlenecks with pleated khaki shorts. I was hosting weekly screenings of Female Trouble to shock and educate my friends. But I really didn't quite know what I was doing. Somehow I heard about this bar far off of Silas Creek Parkway. Three of my friends and I ventured down a long country road for about half an hour—we were honestly terrified. We landed at a strip mall, with a dollar store and a gold exchange and a small watering hole with a rainbow flag in the window called the Odyssey. We were not 21. We were trembling. We were welcomed inside. Sweet creepy smoke engulfed our nostrils, neon danced across our faces, people of all shapes and ages were celebrating together, and we all were free. To everyone around us, nothing special was happening. To the four of us from Wake Forest, everything special was happening.
Andrew Toth Getty Images
Omar Sharif, Jr.
The first time I went to a gay bar was in Montreal. It was a club called Unity. Wow, that name has taken new significance this week. Coming from Egypt, and growing up to scenes of gay-frequented establishments being violently raided by authorities, I was terrified. Within moments of arriving at Unity, however, I found community, love and acceptance. I felt safe to finally be myself.
Mike Pont Getty Images
Eliot Glazer
I'd say that going to my first gay bar was jarring. I didn't really get the appeal. There's almost something too "cool" when a gay guy says he's "not into the scene," which I've admittedly used as code for "I'm too smart to care about fitting in." But in the wake of Orlando, I'm reminded that a gay bar is not just a haven. Even though I disagree with a lot of the self-imposed rules gay men put upon ourselves, we are, at our core, still a community. An incredibly strong, active, and united front that broke down barriers at Stonewall, fought tooth and nail against a disease ignored by our government, and that has shaped global culture such that people of all ages, genders, and backgrounds are increasingly able to live their lives openly and honestly. And now, oddly enough, we may be the very people who bring about gun reform so that weapons of war no longer end up in the hands of maniacal, simple-minded, self-important cowards.
Jean Claude Dhien Getty Images
Michael Musto
In the 1970s, I went with a friend to the Barefoot Boy, a glitzy gay dance club on East 39th Street. I was initially nervous, but quickly became thrilled to find there was a world of sophisticated people with good dance moves and great senses of humor. I'd found my family.
Georgie Wileman Getty Images
Stephon Mendoza
On Halloween of 2013, I was 17 years old with a fake ID living in New York City. After being denied entrance at a straight club, I immediately took a cab with one of my gay friends and headed to XL nightclub. Once I arrived I was greeted by a six-foot-tall drag queen, and I knew my ruffle neckpiece and leather leggings would fit right in. Everyone welcomed me with open arms, and after dancing all night long I knew this was a place filled with acceptance, love, and positive energy.
Mike Pont Getty Images
Jeffery Self
I can't entirely recall my first gay bar experience as it most likely coincided with my first double vodka tonic experience. I do remember, however, that it was with a fake ID in New York City when I was 20. I remember feeling safe and free and extremely overwhelmed by the hot people. Today, when I visit a new city, I try to go to the local gay bar. It's a beautiful way to immediately feel at home. Even if you know no one there and even if you're all from different walks of life or ages or interests: there's something tribal. And it's beautiful. Go to your nearest gay bar, request "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," and just LIVE.
Beck Starr Getty Images
Christopher Rice
In 1996, if you wanted to be gay, you went to a bar. Period. There was really nowhere else to go to feel comfortable. In most American cities, if you went on a date with another man among the general public, you might do something to give yourself away, turning yourself into a target for either ridicule or violence. When I came out, I was thirsting for my own version of the prom I'd never had, the romantic movie dates I'd never been on, and the potential for all of those things was at the gay bar. It was literally the only place where I could feel comfortable expressing desires I had left pent up my entire life. But we were constantly being threatened. Our space was always being invaded. Sometimes they would be drunk closet cases that would seem like they'd wandered in by mistake, and at first, there would be something sexy about them. Like maybe they were there to be converted. Or to fall in love. But a lot of times these guys would make threats. A friend of mine who I knew from local theatre left the bar one night with a beautiful guy who'd been hitting on him for a while. As soon as they reached a dark corner, a gang of the guy's friends set upon him and beat him so badly his jaw was wired shut for weeks and he had to eat through a straw. In cities like New Orleans and Atlanta, everyone thought the gay neighborhoods were safe, but the truth was, these little comfortable pockets were only a ten-minute drive from some hotbed of religious fundamentalism, and it didn't take any effort at all for bigots to bring their madness to our doorstep.
JB Lacroix Getty Images
Zackary Drucker
I spent the first decade of my adult years in nightlife. I always felt like there was an unregulated and anything-is-possible element there, which is why people are drawn to it. I have seen violence erupt in a club more than once and have also been a target of that violence. Wherever unrestrained desire is expressed, there also exists an impulse to destroy that freedom; one person's utopia is another's dystopia. Without accepting each other's difference, or our own for that matter, we lose our humanity. LGBT uprisings and activism have originated directly from nightlife—so many significant moments in our history have occurred in bars and clubs. I hope that queer communities in the future will not be relegated to bars and clubs, but will be everywhere.
Kim Newmoney
Gabe Liedman
Every time I go out to a gay bar with friends, we run into more friends. Always. Walk in the door as a group of three, and you're eight in no time. It's where we meet each other, it's where we talk about work. For a natural introvert like me, gay bars are an exercise in being loved and known, where I have conversations without @-symbols. It's good to be physically present sometimes and accepted that way.
Slaven Vlasic Getty Images
Judy Gold
Imagine hiding a secret about yourself for your entire life—a secret that, if revealed, could cost you your job, your home, your family, your friends, and perhaps even your future. Imagine discovering in your youth that your true identity is considered shameful, disgusting, a mental illness, and illegal. You are terrified of being "found out," so you painstakingly overindulge in activities to prove to the outside world that you're just like them, that you're normal. You push away your disgraceful feelings like a lineman pushes his opponent at the 1st yard line.
Then imagine one day taking the biggest risk of your life by simply opening a door—a tangible door—and walking into a place where you no longer have to hide, a place where scores and scores of people who had shared the same secret surround you. But in this special place, the people had relinquished their secret, even if just for a few hours, and they were okay. In fact, they were more than okay. They were happy, proud and fearless. There was no shame or self loathing—only love, acceptance, and the best damn dance music you had ever heard in your life.
Bobby Quillard
Kit Williamson
I had my first kiss in a gay bar in New Orleans when I was 16. I had just come out to my sister, and I went to visit her at college. She brought me to the bar, cracked open a book in the corner, and told me to go "mingle." It was pretty crowded; there weren't any seats so I leaned against a trash can. My heart was beating fast, and I couldn't make eye contact with anyone. Finally, this kind of nerdy guy with glasses came up to talk to me. He was in town from Chile. We made out while Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" played on the TV screen. I started to get scared he wanted to take things further—probably because he told me he wanted to take things further—and I wasn't ready for that (guess I was the one that was "torn"). But part of me was grateful to have such a mundane problem. I remember being terrified of hurting his feelings, but also feeling like for the first time in my life that I was normal. I told him I had to go to the bathroom, grabbed my sister, and ran into the night. I go back to that trash can every time I visit New Orleans.
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Treatment Approaches for Patients and High-Risk Women {#S1}
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Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological malignancy, with the majority of high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC) cases being diagnosed in late stages of disease \[for a comprehensive review see Bast ([@B1])\]. The current American Cancer Society statistics estimates that the 5-year survival is 44% when all disease stages are included but declines to 25% if only advanced stage cases are considered ([@B1]--[@B3]). Initial treatment for HGSC patients involves debulking surgery, which typically includes a combination of hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, and removal of the omentum, followed by therapy using platinum compounds and taxanes ([@B4], [@B5]). While platinum-based chemotherapy improves patient survival, the treatment is also very toxic; in addition, disease relapse following treatment and the acquisition of platinum chemoresistance are frequent events, suggesting a need for alternative treatment modalities ([@B6]). One strategy involves the addition of bevacizumab, a monoclonal antibody targeting VEGF-A, which has been tested together with standard chemotherapy in the setting of platinum-resistant recurrent disease. Indeed, the combination of an anti-angiogenic compound and single-agent chemotherapy improved objective response rates and progression free survival in comparison with chemotherapy alone, but the overall survival trend was not significant ([@B7]). An alternative strategy, which is aimed at reducing both the treatment toxicity and recurrence rates, proposes the administration of lower doses of carboplatin plus paclitaxel given once a week for 18 weeks instead of standard doses administered every 3 weeks for six cycles. Interestingly, this modified weekly regimen of reduced chemotherapeutic doses has recently been found to not only be an effective option for first-line treatment but, most importantly, to be associated with an enhanced quality of life as assessed physically, socially, emotionally, and functionally ([@B8]).
New treatment approaches could be beneficial not only for patients but also for women at increased risk for developing the disease. A recent study, which included a broadly spanning, exome-wide analysis of both ovarian cancer somatic and germline mutations, has estimated that more than 20% of women likely have an inherited predisposition to ovarian cancer ([@B9]). The most studied mutations involve the *BRCA* family of tumor suppressor genes, which confer an increased risk for developing breast and ovarian cancers ([@B10]). The lifetime risk for developing breast cancer in *BRCA* mutation carriers varies between 56 and 84% while the ovarian cancer risk ranges from 36--46% to 10--27% for women with *BRCA1* and *BRCA2* mutations, respectively ([@B11]). In addition, lifetime risks for both breast and ovarian cancers due to *BRCA* mutations appear to have increased over time, possibly due to lower physical activity and higher BMIs ([@B12]). When assessing individual patient risks for ovarian cancer it is important to note that irrespective of genetic risk, women with irregular menstrual cycles experience a 2.4 times greater incidence of death due to ovarian cancer ([@B13]).
Quality of Life after Prophylactic Surgery in High-Risk Women {#S2}
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The mean age at the time of diagnosis for the average population is 63 years; by comparison, the mean age for BRCA mutation carriers is considerably lower at 50.8 years. For both groups, the cancer risk increases with age, especially after menopause. Consequently, the current recommendation for *BRCA* carriers is to undergo risk-reducing surgery once childbearing is completed, since they tend to be diagnosed at an earlier age than sporadic ovarian cancer ([@B14]). Standard prophylactic surgical options include bilateral mastectomy and salpingo-oophorectomy, which confer the most substantial reduction in cancer risk and increase in life expectancy ([@B10], [@B15], [@B16]). Studies looking at the efficacy of bilateral prophylactic salpingo-oophorectomy in *BRCA* mutation carriers concluded that it not only resulted in a 96% reduction in the risk of developing coelomic epithelial cancers but also decreased the breast cancer risk by 53% in comparison with *BRCA* mutation carriers who chose not to undergo the procedure ([@B14]). Despite the drastic risk-reduction associated with prophylactic surgery, it is far from an ideal treatment approach. In addition to being stripped of their inherently female characteristics, women who choose to undergo a combination of mastectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, and hysterectomy are faced with a significant decrease in their quality of life, premature menopause, hot flashes, decreased cognition and sexual function, and increased risk of osteoporosis and cardiac mortality ([@B14], [@B17]--[@B19]). The use of hormone therapy and other medications may mitigate some of these adverse effects. Nevertheless, hormone replacement therapy is controversial, especially in high-risk women, as it has been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer ([@B20]). While an elective oophorectomy procedure may correlate negatively with life expectancy in women at average risk, the procedure remains beneficial for women at increased risk ([@B21]). Despite the possible negative physiological and psychological impacts of prophylactic oophorectomy, women at increased risk for developing HGSC report less anxiety about developing the disease, which they believe compensates for undesirable side effects ([@B16]). The primary cause of depression reported amongst post-surgical women is due to sexual dysfunction ([@B21]). In addition, *BRCA* mutation carriers may also experience the fear of transmitting a hereditary disease to their children. Women with these reproductive concerns could choose to investigate alternative methods, including *in vitro* fertilization and screening of embryos via preimplantation genetic diagnosis in order to eliminate the chance of transmitting faulty *BRCA* genes to their children ([@B17]).
Non-Surgical Risk-Reduction Approaches in *BRCA* Mutation Carriers {#S3}
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There are limited risk-reducing approaches for women with *BRCA* mutations who choose not to undergo prophylactic surgery ([@B22]). Current strategies include early breast cancer screening consisting of annual mammogram and breast MRI. In addition, gynecologic cancer screening consists of baseline transvaginal ultrasound and CA-125 serum level measurements followed by frequent monitoring using ROCA evaluation protocols. Breast cancer screening results in early tumor detection and a survival advantage; in contrast, ovarian cancer screening has yet to be associated with a significant reduction in mortality ([@B23]). For example, 63% of ovarian cancers detected were stage IIC or higher in a comprehensive study of over 6000 high-risk women ([@B23]). This can be partially attributed to the fact that current screening options are limited and not best suited to detect early-stage cancers ([@B24]). An alternative strategy involves the use of chemopreventive methods, including selective estrogen receptor inhibitors, tamoxifen and raloxifene, in addition to oral contraceptives ([@B15]). Oral contraceptives have indeed been shown to decrease the risk of developing ovarian cancer in the general population ([@B25]). However, the use of oral contraceptives in *BRCA* mutation carriers, while beneficial for ovarian cancer prevention, may be associated with an increased risk for developing breast cancers ([@B26], [@B27]).
Development of Imaging Technologies Aimed at Early Detection and Improving Patient Outcome {#S4}
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As mentioned above, the vast majority of both familial and spontaneous HGSC cases are diagnosed in advanced stages, at which point the prognosis is poor ([@B28]). Because there are few clear early symptoms, developing effective methods for early detection is paramount to improving long-term patient survival ([@B29]). Current methods of detection include non-invasive screenings using serum CA-125, ultrasound, sonography, CT, and MRI scans ([@B30], [@B31]). A laparoscopic procedure may also be used to provide an image of the lower abdominal organs, as well as attain a biopsy, which is necessary in order to confirm cancer diagnosis. These tools can give information regarding the size, composition, and location of the tumor and whether it has spread, which will be important for disease staging and treatment plans ([@B28], [@B32]). In terms of early detection, it is important to note that current imaging technologies are not able to distinguish precursor lesions inside the fallopian tube or ovary, two of the tumor initiation sites for HGSC. Novel *in vivo* imaging devices, such as confocal microlaparoscopes, which are instrumental in providing live images of abnormal regions and guiding biopsies, may be better equipped to assist with early tumor diagnosis ([@B33]). Images obtained by these probes in real-time during surgery have shown a clear distinction between normal and abnormal regions within the ovarian surface epithelium ([@B33]). Furthermore, studies using a flexible microlaparoscope have demonstrated the ability to provide high-resolution images of early stage cancer inside the fallopian tube in the intra-operative setting, thereby facilitating both an earlier diagnosis and accurate disease staging ([@B34]). Since these procedures have shown merit in surgical settings, they may become a viable complementary option to traditional biopsies as future modalities of disease confirmation ([@B33]). Nevertheless, the specificity and sensitivity of this method have yet to be determined in clinical trials and there are also drawbacks associated with this procedure. For example, the image quality produced by the microlaparoscope is diminished when compared to traditional laparoscopes due to a smaller scope size, focal distance, and a reduced light output. Procedural complications may also arise from a lack of tight correlation between the movement of the instrument handle and instrument movement in the surgical field due to its increased flexibility ([@B35]). Other considerations include a reduced imaging depth, which may limit the ability to view cells below the tissue surface layer, as well as the development of non-toxic and non-mutagenic contrast-enhancing agents ([@B33]). Nevertheless, the device can successfully image organs *in vivo* without major complications ([@B33]) and needs to be carefully evaluated in future clinical trials.
Another widely used primary diagnostic tool for women seeking evaluation of a pelvic mass is transvaginal sonography (TVS). Traditional TVS technologies are being replaced by contrast enhanced transvaginal sonography (CE-TVS) and transvaginal color Doppler sonography (TV-CDS), which can better depict the tumor morphology by analyzing its microvasculature ([@B31]). In a study aimed at evaluating the diagnostic ability of contrast enhanced 3-dimensional power Doppler sonography (CE-3D) relative to conventional 3D Doppler sonography, the CE-3D technology showed 95.6% accuracy in distinguishing between benign and cancerous tumors compared to 86.7% accuracy for the conventional method ([@B36]). Contrast-enhancing agents coupled with transvaginal and Doppler sonography may merit further investigation as an early screening tool for women at risk. It is worth mentioning that the development of selective means for tumor imaging is critical not only for early detection but also for improving patient outcome ([@B29]). Thus, the use of selective intraoperative tumor imaging devices has the potential to both improve disease staging and enhance precision during cytoreductive surgery as it allows for better visualization of tumors ([@B37]). For example, a combination of functional *in vivo* and anatomical *ex vivo* X-ray micro-computed tomography (μCT) can provide a highly detailed three-dimensional analysis of the tumor micromorphology, vascularization, and accurately quantify relative blood volumes (rBV) in tumors, which can further inform treatment plans ([@B38]). Most importantly, the study has found a direct correlation between microvascular parameters (i.e., vessel size, the complexity of vessel branching) and tumor angiogenesis and aggressiveness ([@B38]).
Further advances have been made in ultrasound technology as well. Photoacoustic imaging is an emerging technology based on the photoacoustic effect, which is generated when tissues are pulsed with non-ionizing lasers. This results in a transient thermoelastic expansion and emission of an acoustic wave, which is detected by ultrasonic transducers and converted into images ([@B39]). A study evaluating biodegradable photoacoustic imaging agents in animal models of ovarian cancer found that cellulose nanoparticles produced high contrast signals. Interestingly, cellulose nanoparticles demonstrated a significant increase in signal when compared to gold nanoparticles, which are commonly used in photoacoustic imaging. Unfortunately, this imaging agent only proved to be biodegradable *ex vivo*. For the purpose of reducing toxicity and to facilitate clinical translation, further research will need to focus on nanoparticles that biodegrade within the mammalian circulatory system ([@B40]).
A strong emphasis is currently placed on evaluating imaging agents that are safe to use in patients and allow the visualization of early or recurrent tumors. Current research in ovarian cancer investigates the use of the folate receptor α (FR-α) and HER-2 as targeted agents for tumor-specific fluorescence imaging. Thus, FR-α is overexpressed in the majority of epithelial ovarian cancers, especially in HGSC tumors with a high risk of recurrence. Increased FR-α expression is detected not only in primary tumors but also in metastatic foci and recurrent tumors ([@B41]). Most importantly, chemotherapy does not appear to significantly alter FR-α expression in patient tumors ([@B37], [@B41]). In addition, FR-α-targeted fluorescent agents are able to selectively enhance imaging of tumor cells ([@B37]). PPF, an FR-targeted probe that is well suited for both PET and optical imaging was investigated *in vivo* in a trial using primary cell xenografts, *in vitro* with primary human ovarian cancer cells, and *ex vivo* with omentum removed from xenografts ([@B42]). PPF injected either intraperitoneally or intravenously was able to identify FR-positive primary HGSC tumors and their metastases to the omentum. As FR is overexpressed in HGSC, FR-targeted probes, such as PPF, may bear great utility in the clinical setting. This method could be ideal for guiding surgery due to the non-invasive, high-resolution, real-time images it produces ([@B42]). The unique features of this novel imaging tool may prove useful for ovarian cancer detection and monitoring. Furthermore, fluorescence imaging using FR-α-targeted agents could play a critical role during debulking surgery, as current methods of imaging are not tumor-specific.
Fluorescence imaging has been shown to detect a greater number of tumors when compared to conventional methods. Interestingly, a vinblastine folate-targeted drug, vintafolide, when used in combination with a diagnostic imaging tool, etarfolatide, may merit attention as a means to advance personalized treatments. Thus, etarfolatide imaging has been used successfully to select patients with FR-positive platinum-resistant ovarian tumors who may benefit from folate-targeted therapy ([@B43]). This novel combination of folate-targeted agents for imaging and treatment resulted in a marked increase in progression free survival for platinum-resistant patients. Based on the highly selective nature of this treatment, the drug efficacy was reported to be greater and its toxicity decreased compared to standard therapy ([@B43]). An alternative strategy for selective tumor imaging involves the use of the HER-2 biomarker, which is overexpressed in advanced HGSC cases ([@B44]). Imaging using HER-2-targeted magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles allows both magnetic resonance and optical imaging of peritoneal tumors when used in orthotopic ovarian xenograft models ([@B45]). This technology, which enables tumor imaging with high specificity and resolution, can be instrumental in drug delivery and image-guided surgery ([@B44], [@B45]). A third strategy involves the development of near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) imaging technologies, which have been successfully tested *in vivo* in both pancreatic and ovarian cancer models as an alternative to ultrasound, CT, and MRI scans ([@B46]). Gene expression profiling was instrumental in identifying proteases relevant to tumors, which further enabled the development of protease-specific NIRF probes. Such probes can provide not only a higher resolution for molecular-guided detection of early tumors but also the ability to distinguish between inflammation and cancer ([@B46]). Similarly, an alpha(v)beta(3-) integrin targeted NIRF probe was used successfully in ovarian xenograft models to optimize debulking surgery ([@B47]). Furthermore, the increased target to background ratio, high sensitivity (95%), specificity (88%), and diagnostic accuracy (96.5%) of this imaging system suggest that the NIRF-targeted platform is well suited for clinical translation and may be able to provide highly accurate images of small tumor lesions that are otherwise difficult to detect ([@B47]).
Plasma tumor biomarkers for the detection of early tumors and precursor lesions have been difficult to identify. CA-125 is presently used to help diagnose ovarian cancer, mainly for late stage cases, and to predict the chance of tumor recurrence ([@B48]). Nevertheless, CA-125 is not always a reliable biomarker for early stage tumors due to its lack of sensitivity ([@B48]). Large screening studies are currently underway to determine the sensitivity and specificity of a combined monitoring protocol using serum CA-125 levels and TVS for early diagnosis. The screening is based on an improved algorithm designed by Dr. Steven Skates to identify cancer risk based on rising trends in individual CA-125 levels ([@B1]). An alternative strategy involves the combined evaluation of multiple biomarkers in addition to CA-125. Research suggests that the addition of HE4, leptin, prolactin, osteopontin, insulin-like growth factor-II, CEA, and soluble vCAM cancer biomarkers to CA-125 serum surveillance protocols may result in a better diagnostic reliability when compared to CA-125 alone ([@B1], [@B25]). It is worth noting that recent studies suggest that a significant proportion of HGSC tumors originate from precursor lesions \[serous tubal intraepithelial carcinoma (STIC)\] located within the fallopian tube rather than the ovary, and this is the case especially in *BRCA* women ([@B1], [@B49]). Consequently, the development of serum screening tests and methods of diagnostic imaging need to include markers characteristic for the fallopian tube/fimbria in addition to the ovary. Currently, small early tumors within the fallopian tube cannot be detected via ultrasound or by measuring serum CA-125 levels ([@B50]). Comprehensive screening of such lesions through endometrial cytological testing may be a promising method for the early detection of HGSC in high-risk women and BRCA mutation carriers. Otsuka et al. reported that tumor cells shed from tubal STICs could be detected through careful examination of endometrial cytological samples ([@B50]). This would enhance the early detection rates for HGSC tumors as the occurrence of false positives through cytological testing appears to be low ([@B50]). Interestingly, this pilot study was able to detect malignant cells in five patients for whom imaging results were normal; three of them presented with no symptoms and were later diagnosed with early-stage HGSCs ([@B50]). In addition to further confirming the tubal site of origin for HGSC cases, the study also reported a 4-fold increase in the number of high-grade serous tumors being detected using this method when compared to other ovarian cancer subtypes ([@B50]). In contrast, the direct testing of cervicovaginal cytological samples yielded positive results in only one of five patients, suggesting that this is not an efficient means of detecting early-stage HGSC tumors.
Generation of Improved Animal Models that Closely Resemble HGSC {#S5}
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In addition to aiding in the development of new imaging techniques, murine models of ovarian cancer are integral to drug development and disease pathogenesis studies ([@B46], [@B51]). While several genetically engineered mouse models (GEMM) have been previously developed for endometrioid ovarian cancer ([@B52]--[@B54]), clinically relevant models for HGSC have been difficult to generate. This could be due to model designs based solely on a traditional view of disease pathogenesis, such as the ovarian origin hypothesis. New clinical protocols, which involve the sequential sectioning and examination of the fimbrial (SEE-FIM) end of the fallopian tube pioneered by Dr. Christopher Crum, have identified precursor lesions for HGSC arising in secretory cells of the fallopian tube, namely p53 signatures and STICs ([@B55]--[@B58]). In addition, several groups have been instrumental in leading efforts for refining murine HGSC models. Recently, the first genetic model of *de novo* HGSC originating in fallopian tubal secretory epithelial cells (FTSEC) has been generated, which recapitulates key genetic alterations (*BRCA, TP53*, and *PTEN*) and precursor lesions (STICs) that are hallmarks of the human disease ([@B59]). In addition to offering mechanistic insight into the origin and pathogenesis of HGSC, this model provides a platform to explore tumor sensitivity to novel therapeutic agents and diagnostic imaging methods that include the distal fallopian tube in addition to the ovary ([@B59]). Recently, a second genetically engineered model of HGSC was described using the Ovgp-1 promoter to target SV40 large T-antigen-induced tumorigenesis in the fallopian tube ([@B60]). This model also displays neoplastic lesions of the fallopian tube that resemble human STICs and p53 signatures. The murine ovarian carcinomas have molecular characteristics that strongly resemble the human disease as well. Furthermore, gene expression analysis studies of Ovgp-1-driven tumors have identified a novel biomarker, topoisomerase II-alpha, which is overexpressed with mutant TP53 in both murine and human STICs and HGSCs but not in normal adjacent tissues ([@B60]). Most importantly, this model provides independent support for the hypothesis that HGSC may be primarily tubal in origin and mirrors the clinical progression of human HGSCs ([@B61]). The development of FTSEC-driven animal models will be instrumental in providing a platform to test newly emerging data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) in an *in vivo* relevant system. The goal of the research community is to develop ovarian cancer models that recapitulate not only novel genetic/genomic alterations but also the histopathology and clinical behavior of HGSCs. Resolving the pathogenesis of HGSC and its precursor lesions will likely enable more efficient methods for early detection, tumor imaging, and cancer prevention. Furthermore, by using a combination of murine model studies and epidemiological data from patients, it will be important to determine if premenopausal women with *BRCA* mutations can be offered risk-reduction surgery in a multi-step procedure without undergoing surgical menopause and loss of fertility in their younger years.
As a complement to genetically engineered models, personalized patient-derived murine xenografts ("avatar mice") have been developed, which are able to more accurately predict tumor responses to therapy. Xenograft tumor models have been used for decades to examine the behavior of various types of therapies within a living system ([@B62]). They can closely resemble the molecular and histological characteristics of the human cancer they are derived from ([@B63], [@B64]) and demonstrate clinical relevance by predicting the activity and effects of trial therapies ([@B65]). However, their predictive ability varies dramatically based on the cancer being studied, and multiple therapies, which tested well in xenografts, did not ultimately result in successful clinical trials ([@B66]--[@B68]). While traditional xenografts are created by generating and then engrafting established cell lines ([@B51]), a subcategory of xenografts produced by direct transfer of patient tumor tissue into immunocompromised mice (also known as explant xenografts or tumorgrafts) has mimicked the drug effects seen in humans much more closely than cell line xenografts ([@B69]). Furthermore, one study of personalized tumorgrafts involving a broad range of human-derived tumors and anticancer therapies demonstrated a positive clinical predictive value for drug resistance over 90% of the time ([@B70]). Unlike human cell cultures, which tend to result in increasingly homogenous populations with successive passages, direct tissue transplants more accurately represent the heterogeneous makeup and genetic diversity of the original tumor, including its relative cell proportions and overall genomic profile ([@B71], [@B72]). These tumor sections can be implanted orthotopically within the homologous source tissue in addition to being dispersed into the body cavity via intraperitoneal injection, as is the case for cell line xenografts ([@B73], [@B74]). Using these techniques, avatar models have been generated that closely recapitulate the tumor of a specific donor patient. This has led to the identification of personalized therapeutic regimens by creating a tailored stand-in for patient tumors prior to or alongside treatment ([@B75]). The use of tumorgraft testing surrogates, which are generated by using a specific patient's own tissue, has increased over the last decade. This trend was initiated by a recent study that described the use of xenograft technologies to create personalized tumorgrafts for a total of 14 patients with a variety of cancer types ([@B76]). The study results identified optimal, non-obvious treatment choices with a high rate of clinical success ([@B76]). This process has been performed with similar success in models of lung ([@B77]), pancreatic ([@B78]), prostate ([@B79]), breast ([@B80], [@B81]), and fallopian tube ([@B82]) cancers. In addition to being highly representative of the morphology and progression of human cancers, it was found that the success of tumor engraftment is by itself a prognostic indicator of disease outcome for women with newly diagnosed breast cancer ([@B80]).
While GEMM and xenografts both strive to generate accurate models of human disease and their usage at times overlaps, they have individual features best suited to distinct roles in cancer research. Tumors that develop from a xenograft retain the natural genetic alterations derived from the original source ([@B63], [@B83]). Conversely, GEM models must recreate these changes based on the result of investigation or hypothesis, and therefore they often cannot replicate the complexity and genomic diversity found in patient tumors ([@B74]). In cancers with high variance in molecular alterations between patients, tumorgrafts should be used to test therapies in models that more accurately represent individual tumors ([@B77]), since generalized results from GEMM studies will not be applicable. Personalized tumorgrafts have also been used to identify changes in drug resistance at specific stages of disease by grafting repeatedly from the same patient at different time points ([@B63]). Furthermore, avatar models could also allow the preemptive identification of new treatment strategies necessary when a patient develops resistance to clinically available therapies ([@B84]). Being able to determine tumor sensitivity and drug resistance for each individual patient upfront would allow oncologists to attempt experimental treatments with a higher probability of success while retaining conventional therapies as an option ([@B85]). In contrast, GEMMs have attributes superior to avatar models when it comes to studying the origin of the disease, precursor lesions, tumor progression, and the contribution of the immune system to cancer pathogenesis by allowing the inducible targeting of key genes in a tissue-specific manner in immunocompetent mice ([@B86]). There are several challenges in creating avatar mice relative to GEM and cell line xenograft models, including the need for surgical extraction of adequate tumor samples from the patient, ideally including accessory tissue ([@B72]), and a high rate of implantation failure ([@B85]). While tumor heterogeneity is represented, the microenvironment is typically not. This drawback, combined with the use of immunocompromised mice, restricts how similarly avatar models behave when compared to human disease. Such limitations could be overcome by incorporating recent xenograft advancements. The tumor microenvironment can be retained in a xenograft by grafting stroma alongside the tumor ([@B75]) and the use of "humanized" models preserve immune system functionality after engraftment ([@B87]). Besides technical concerns, there is a high financial barrier for creating new avatar lines ([@B75]). However, once tissues have been extracted and implanted, human tumors can be serially passaged in mice, archived, and later repropagated from tumor banks ([@B82]). The generation of tumor banks enables the repeated testing and study of patient tumors from a small number of original extractions.
Further development of representative mouse models of HGSC is an urgent need for the field ([@B88]) and tumorgrafts have attributes suited to this subtype. HGSCs are characterized by rapid metastasis ([@B89]) and tumorgraft models were reported to metastasize to regions similar to those seen in patients ([@B90]). HGSCs are also characterized by genomic instability ([@B51]) and tumorgrafts were shown to accurately retain the genomic profile of the original patient sample in animal models throughout multiple grafts ([@B72]). Avatar mice have been generated for fallopian tube carcinoma ([@B82]), which supports their viability for ovarian cancer, particularly in conjunction with the tubal origin hypothesis ([@B91]). This year, the first large-scale tumorgraft mouse study of ovarian cancer was published, consisting of 168 engrafted models from patient samples, which were representative of the entire spectrum of the disease ([@B83]). As in previous tumorgraft studies, the models closely resembled the patients they were derived from. The majority of models that developed ascites originated from patients with ascites, which is notable as the development of ascites is characteristic of HGSC ([@B89]). Consistent with prior comparisons between cell line xenografts and donor patient platinum sensitivity in ovarian cancer ([@B92]), all of the ovarian models tested for platinum sensitivity had the same type of response as the donor patient ([@B83]). It has been suggested that the tumor microenvironment may play a role in the high rate of relapse and increased drug resistance seen in HGSC ([@B93]). These ovarian tumorgrafts strongly resemble the source microenvironment by inducing the formation of tumor stroma ([@B83]). As shown in a larger tumorgraft study ([@B72]), the ovarian models closely resembled the source patient's genomic alterations after engraftment and the grafts implanted in clinically relevant sites. Finally, just as demonstrated previously ([@B80]), the initial success of a graft tended to correlate negatively with patient survival ([@B83]). This extensive study demonstrates the feasibility of ovarian tumorgrafts as patient surrogates, particularly given the reasonably accurate representation of the disease diversity ([@B94]). Consequently, the generation of avatar mouse models for HGSC is expected to assist oncologists with establishing individual resistance profiles quickly in a surrogate model following biopsy and informing patients of therapy choices in real-time ([@B85]).
Avatar tumorgrafts have been found to be highly predictive models clinically and the generation of such models can aid with drug design on an individual patient basis ([@B67], [@B76]). The use of avatar models alongside patients in concurrent clinical trials has already been proposed ([@B75]), though it is noted that variance in how accurately these strains reflect human disease, including the contribution of the immune system, can be a confounding factor. In recent years, there has been renewed interest in harnessing the immune system to target cancers ([@B95], [@B96]), often achieved by blocking the inhibitors of immune reactions elicited by tumor cells. This approach has led to considerable success, such as the use of ipilimumab immunotherapy in metastatic melanoma ([@B96]). Ipilimumab is a monoclonal antibody against CTLA-4 and promotes effective antitumor targeting by cytotoxic T lymphocytes. Therapies targeting CTLA-4 have also been investigated in ovarian cancer; a combined treatment, which involves blockade of CTLA-4 and PD-1 and boosts the immune system, was found to induce tumor rejection in 75% of tumor models examined ([@B97]). In addition, the endothelium of many tumors may function as a primary defense against immune system activation by creating a physical protective barrier for the tumor and resisting immune cell invasion ([@B98]). It remains to be seen whether the development of effective immunotherapies will increase the efficacy of conventional therapies and achieve durable remissions in patients ([@B96]). Notably, it was recently demonstrated that traditional therapeutic regimens could be modified to effectively recruit the immune system in the setting of platinum-resistant relapsed disease ([@B6]). While platinum and paclitaxel are often delivered at maximum tolerable doses, the dose-dense chemotherapy study demonstrates that delivery of conventional drugs in low doses within frequent intervals can enhance natural antitumor immune responses and reduce immunosuppression, thus leading to increased treatment efficacy ([@B6]). Thus, a dose-dense chemotherapy regimen was successful in promoting the antitumor CD8^+^ T-cell response in both mouse models and patients and reduced the tumor ability to suppress the immune system. This bodes well for further optimization of such treatments for individual needs, particularly as an extended weekly, dose-dense carboplatin and paclitaxel regimen has been shown to be effective in heavily pre-treated, recurrent, platinum-resistant ovarian cancer patients ([@B99]). Clearly, optimizing these treatments for patients requires a clinically translatable graft model. Xenograft models with an implanted functional human immune system have been previously developed to investigate viral and immune disease ([@B100]). Interestingly, such models were shown to be functional in cancer as well ([@B87]). A key benefit of GEMMs over xenografts has always been that they retain normal immune function ([@B51]). However, a xenograft with a humanized immune system, which is interacting with human tumor cells, may be more translatable to designing immunotherapies for patients based on individual needs. While GEMMs may ultimately prove more useful than avatar models for understanding the intricate details of HGSC origin and progression, personalized tumorgrafts will be key for the design of individual therapeutic regimens.
Conclusions {#S6}
===========
Advances in tumor screening and imaging may help determine the optimal time to employ risk-reducing surgical approaches in women at high risk for HGSC, including *BRCA* mutation carriers. Prophylactic surgery offers the most significant reduction in the risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers, as current surveillance methods are not effective enough to lend support for ovarian conservation in premenopausal women at high risk. Bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy is, however, associated with multiple physiological and psychosocial side effects that may contribute to a decrease in the quality of life and a loss of fertility in younger women. Consequently, the use of endometrial cytological testing in high-risk women or improved *in vivo* imaging devices (i.e., confocal microlaparoscopes, photoacoustic imaging, μCT, and contrast enhanced 3D Doppler sonography) could prove to be more effective for both early detection and treatment. In addition, alternative strategies for tumor-specific imaging, which involve the use of FR-α-targeted fluorescent agents, HER-2-targeted magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles, or protease-specific NIRF probes, merit further investigation as selective tools for early tumor detection, monitoring, and image-guided surgery. It is worth noting that animal models are a valuable tool in ovarian cancer research for the purpose of developing and testing novel imaging technologies, biomarkers, and experimental treatments. However, there are currently a limited number of animal models available for HGSC. Advances in tumor xenograft technologies have enabled the development of personalized avatar mouse models, which have emerged as an ideal drug-testing platform, especially in concurrent clinical trials. Additionally, tumorgrafts appear to have qualities well suited to model HGSC. We suggest that avatars have the potential to improve patient outcome and quality of life by reducing the cost and toxicity of ineffective imaging and treatment.
Author Contributions {#S7}
====================
Anders W. Ohman, Noor Hasan, and Daniela M. Dinulescu wrote the manuscript.
Conflict of Interest Statement {#S8}
==============================
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
This work is supported by grants awarded to Daniela M. Dinulescu by the DOD OCRP (W81XWH-10-1-0263, W81XWH-14-1-0092, and W81XWH-14-1-0205), American Cancer Society (RSG-13-083-01-TBG), NIH (1R03CA189462-01), Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Liz Tilberis award, Burroughs-Wellcome Fund Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences 1005320.01, V Foundation for Cancer Research Scholar Award, Rivkin Foundation, and the Mildred Moorman Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.
Abbreviations {#S9}
=============
FR-α, folate receptor α; FTSEC, fallopian tubal secretory epithelial cell; GEMM, genetically engineered mouse models; HGSC, high-grade serous carcinoma; NIRF, near-infrared fluorescence; STIC, serous tubal intraepithelial carcinoma; TCGA, the Cancer Genome Atlas.
[^1]: Edited by: Elise Kohn, National Cancer Institute, USA
[^2]: Reviewed by: Tian-Li Wang, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA; Christina Annunziata, National Cancer Institute, USA
[^3]: ^†^Anders W. Ohman and Noor Hasan have contributed equally to this work.
[^4]: This article was submitted to Women's Cancer, a section of the journal Frontiers in Oncology.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Central
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1. An interesting question from an unlikely source
One wouldn't normally turn to the Edmonton Journal's Cult of Hockey blog for anything particularly enlightening about the Calgary Flames. David Staples is an unapologetic homer and thus everything he deigns to write about the Oilers' southern neighbors is very heavily tinged with trollisms, as you'd expect. Which is fine, because you wouldn't normally come to Flames Nation or any other Calgary-based site for the kind of unbiased coverage of the Edmonton Oilers.
Now that the tables have turned, and it is the Flames who bleed goals, the site seems to be reveling even more in every Calgarian failure. But in doing so this weekend, I noticed that they asked a pretty decent question: Where, exactly, does Calgary finish this season? The informal poll on the site, which got a little more than 1,100 votes from people you'd mostly assume to be Edmontonians, seemed largely skewed toward "very bad indeed."
More than 81 percent of respondents said they thought Calgary would finish somewhere between 26th and 30th, and they're probably right. The 81 people who voted "In the playoffs" are clearly joking or mentally unstable, and either way need some serious institutional help. But it got me thinking: I've joked a lot about how Calgary is going to be the worst team in the league this season, but are they really going to be THAT bad?
You have to be unremittingly awful more or less from front to back these days to finish dead last, and there is more than one team that fits that bill this year. After thinking about it, though, I'd say, yeah I do think Calgary is in the running for 30th in a pretty clear three-horse race with Florida or Buffalo. And I think both of those teams have pretty creditable reasons why they won't finish last. I'm not sure the Flames do. Here are a few reasons why.
2. This might be the worst forward group in the league
When you're going through a rebuild obviously you are going to shed your better, older players to stockpile picks and prospects. I sincerely doubt the Flames are expecting anything much in the way of offensive production from the guys they got from Iginla and Tanguay and to a lesser extent Comeau and Bouwmeester, and they'd be right not to.
The problem with this is that the Flames finished with 128 goals last season, already below league average and right at the league mean. They lost something like close to 40 from the team last year, and I don't know where they get anywhere near that many back. Even if you're insanely optimistic about Sven Baertschi's ability to score — and I've seen people predicting him for 50 points this season, which is crazy — the team's only replacements for the lost goals were David Jones and TJ Galiardi, who combined for 23 points last season.
Matt Stajan has caught a lot of undue flak both around here and league-wide in the past two years, when he's been perfectly fine (but overpaid and overprotected) for the role he's been given. Now, though, he's looking like the No. 1 center. You can't be overly excited for that if you're hoping the Flames score more than 2.4 goals per game or so.
This is a team built with "checking" forwards who are "tough to play against" but not tough to keep the puck against and probably not tough to score against. This is going to be a major point of concern. Maybe the team's biggest.
3. A very, painfully average defense
It must be said that any blue line headlined by Dennis Wideman and Mark Giordano isn't exactly going to inspire confidence, but beyond that, there's TJ Brodie and his great experimental contract and…
Ahem.
This defense is patchwork or worse once you get outside the top-3, and the top-3 is already neck-and-neck with Edmonton for the worst in the division. You're going to have to get used to the idea of seeing one of Chris Butler, Derek Smith, Shane O'Brien or Kris Russell getting close to or slightly above 20 minutes a night. Every night. All season. Does that make anyone else dizzy just thinking about it?
Giordano and Wideman topped 23 and 25 minutes a night last year, and someone has to replace the 25-plus Bouwmeester also received. That is almost certainly going to be done by committee.
This isn't an outright bad defense, I don't think, but it's also shallow as hell, and if anything happens to anyone in the top-3 (say, underperformance or an injury) then this is going to be a catastrophe. Especially because…
4. The goaltending is anyone's guess
Obviously this is the big question mark, isn't it? What does Karri Ramo do in his first year back in the NHL? Boom, bust or right in the middle, no one knows for sure. Even if he's average, though, you'd expect him to be in line for picking up a lot of losses. Not that he's not used to it.
And if things go sideways for Ramo, which they very well could, the other options are career backup Joey MacDonald and the third- or-fourth best goalie in the Swiss league last season. Again, I think this is something that's done very much by committee unless Ramo really knocks everyone in the league on their asses with a big season. That, like Baertschi's first 50-point season, seems a bit of a pipe dream. If Ramo is anything better than average that'd be great for him.
Of course, this all ignores that the Flames' goaltending gave up 32 more goals than the average offense scored last season, and its goalies were statistically the worst since the 2005 lockout, meaning that even if Ramo really tanks it he and his buddies might not be as bad as Kiprusoff and Co. was last year.
In the end, though, I think even a substantial improvement in goaltending wouldn't get around to making up for the fact that no one on the team can hold the puck well enough to save this team from itself. Are they a 30th-place team? If, like, two things go wrong, I think that's a very reasonable expectation.
5. You know what that means…
I really gotta update that.
Yer ol' buddy Lambert is handsome and great and everyone loves him. Also you can visit his regular blog at The Two-Line Pass or follow him on Twitter. Lucky you!
Is it really so crazy to expect Sven to score in that 45-55 point range? In the last 2 full seasons, guys like Blake Comeau, Drew Stafford, Ryan Smyth, Nick Foligno, RJ Umberger and Marcus Johannsen have done it.
It still seems totally premature to be counting the Flames in the bottom three. Feaster has cap room to change the team up before the season begins and add one or two impact players. Jones could return to form from two years ago. Galliardi was getting top line minutes in S.J. Ramo could be at least average. Knight could make an impact on faceoffs, powerplay possession. Brodie could continue his development arc. The defence will be more physical than last year. Cundare could help the pp.
The whole cloud around the Flames seems overdone to me. If anyone dares to say they could make the playoffs they're labelled a moron. It's a major case of hostile groupthink with a yearning for the #1 -#3 draft choices. Maybe after 10 regular season games I'll give up on the season, but let's see how they gell. There are a lot of new "pieces" in the mix.
See the neat thing about sports is anything can happen. Maybe just maybe Jones recovers from a bad year and scores 20 goals and maybe some other players pitch in too. That would sure be neat if other players could score and not the ones just traded away.
Your uninformed opinions are usually laughable, you sound like someone who hasn't actually watched the flames or anyone who will play or has played for the team, you just hear what other people are saying and then make it more negative and slap it on a page. The only reason I read your articles is to see what kind of garbage you decided to dig up.
It is a bit misleading to point out that the Flames scored 128 goals (in a short season) and that they lost 40 goals in trades (presumably from a season of 82 games? And in years in which Iggy put up goals at the pace of his prime, and Tanguay had not become whiny) and then say that Jones and Galliardi only put up 23 points (in a short season again)There have been losses certainly, but everyone's ice-time will improve.
Also, we were dreadful last year, and still managed to not end up lower than 25. It is hard to predict, but the some of the teams below us are talented, but so dysfunctional that they may be worse again. For as much front end talent as they have, the Oil finished with three goals less. Colorado, also with great forwards, had 12 less. As much as we all hope for great drafts for a couple of years, without league worst goaltending again, I don't see last place happening. There are plenty of teams that are better at crapping the bed than we are.
Kind of funny how when we are good we aren't good enough, and when we are bad, we aren't bad enough.
Everybody points to the Flames lack of an elite top line of forwards as evidence that they're going to get spanked this season. Well, Edmonton has that elite line and still got spanked last season, even with excellent goal-tending. Also, anyone who thinks Calgary's blue line is as weak as Edmonton's is smokin' something.
One thing the Flames do have plenty of is mediocrity. If you took both teams top lines out, what's left of the Flames would absolutely murder what's left of the Oilers. This is consequential because a top line, no matter how great they are, is only on the ice for about one third of the game.
You can't predict a team's performance based only on its elite players. The Flames are unlikely to make the playoffs next season, but a lot of stars are going to have to cross for a bottom five finish unless Feaster moves some more veterans out before they have a chance to make a significant impact.
Fair enough, but not expecting much of the Flames this year strikes me as a fairly rational assessment. The club hasn't made the post-season since 2010, they haven't won a playoff series in nearly a decade and they now have zero elite talent. Not to mention, the re-alignment plunked them into one of the toughest divisions in the league.
Let's put it another way...if you had to bet money, would you bet it on the Flames making the playoffs?
It's certainly okay as a fans to always hope for the best - sometimes crazy things happen. But there's also nothing wrong with understanding that the club faces long odds.
It is a bit misleading to point out that the Flames scored 128 goals (in a short season) and that they lost 40 goals in trades (presumably from a season of 82 games? And in years in which Iggy put up goals at the pace of his prime, and Tanguay had not become whiny) and then say that Jones and Galliardi only put up 23 points (in a short season again)There have been losses certainly, but everyone's ice-time will improve.
Also, we were dreadful last year, and still managed to not end up lower than 25. It is hard to predict, but the some of the teams below us are talented, but so dysfunctional that they may be worse again. For as much front end talent as they have, the Oil finished with three goals less. Colorado, also with great forwards, had 12 less. As much as we all hope for great drafts for a couple of years, without league worst goaltending again, I don't see last place happening. There are plenty of teams that are better at crapping the bed than we are.
Kind of funny how when we are good we aren't good enough, and when we are bad, we aren't bad enough.
Yeah, this is what I'm thinking too... yes the Flames "lost" 40 goals that they had last year but the bulk of those will be made up for by what we are bringing in + elevations from folk due to the absences (eg. Iginla & Tanguay's PP minutes will now be allocated to others who can expect to score more via being granted additional icetime with the man advantage). Iginla was on pace for a 23G (82 games) season while with the Flames last year. Captain/Face-of-the-franchise/all-time leader/blah blah blah... 23G isn't that hard to make up.
I don't think they'll be completely replaced but I would wager the difference ends up fairly marginal.
The big loss is Bouwmeester's defensive work... that just can't be replaced by committee with any degree of equivalency. Opposingly as a result of how awful Kipper and Co. were last year the team is almost certainly going to have an improvement in goaltender performance.
The Flames aren't as bad as some want to make them out to be... they'll be bad but not that bad.
I think the Flames end up fifth-sixth again... If the Flames are going to bottom out I'd rather they bottom out in 2014-2015 anyways.
"Kind of funny how when we are good we aren't good enough, and when we are bad, we aren't bad enough."
I think that is where we are constantly referred to as 'mediocre. "
I don't think we will look like a last place team for the 1st half of the season but after the deadline, we will be in basement battle. Although I've said before, there is much parity in the league. We saw TBL and COL have miracle seasons in the last few years, its not completely unfathomable that we see one in CGY but I'm not counting on it. It would be the worst thing that could happen at this point in terms of a rebuild.
I agree on all fronts. Being bad in 2014 and 2015 could mean Ekblad and McDavid which would obviously be massive to getting back into the playoffs and contending but enduring 164 games of crap over the next 2 years, is gonna suck.
Let's keep things in perspective here. We know this is year 1 of the rebuild. We know we are going to suck. Badly. We also know that we are in a division chock full of stingy defenses and good goaltending (LA, Vcr, Phx, SJ), and we couldn't score much last year. So, take a deep breath, enjoy the development of all those prospects, have fun speculating on our top three pick in the 2014 draft, and pray that management is competent enough to properly guide this rebuild (i.e., not like the Oilers). And we'll get plenty of close up views of some undoubtedly classic Tortorella spazz-outs.
I agree. I don't think this is the team we start the season with. I can see a move or two as we get closer to training camp. There are a few teams currently over the cap, and a handful that are near it, with key FA's to sign. Moves will need to be made. If Feaster can make a smart deal or two, there could be some decent acquisitions.
But it's going to be rough. We'll see a few games that will be great and show the potential of this rebuild but overall it's a young team and they'll be inconsistent. And they're just not that good yet.
See the neat thing about sports is anything can happen. Maybe just maybe Jones recovers from a bad year and scores 20 goals and maybe some other players pitch in too. That would sure be neat if other players could score and not the ones just traded away.
Your uninformed opinions are usually laughable, you sound like someone who hasn't actually watched the flames or anyone who will play or has played for the team, you just hear what other people are saying and then make it more negative and slap it on a page. The only reason I read your articles is to see what kind of garbage you decided to dig up.
Normally I'd be all over giving Lambert the business for being a nattering nabob of negativity, but in this case I don't think he is way off base.
An honest look at Calgary's team shows no genuine first line talent, no top pairing quality defensemen, and no legit starting goaltender.
That's a lot of holes that need to be filled over the next few years. That said, we do have a very nice set of wingers for lines 2 thru 4, and several quality defenders who can fill the 2nd and 3rd pairings. So the depth is Ok, it's everywhere else that needs help.
Compare this to Nashville who have a superstar netminder, and multiple quality defensemen to mask the problems of a much less than average set of forwards.
Or to Edmonton, who have legitimate, even elite 1st line talent (Hall is now among the elite), but lack depth everywhere else on the roster (especially on D and in net).
Which isn't to say there isn't hope. TJ Brodie might evolve into a top pairing defender. Sean Monahan might be our long lost #1 center. Sven may turn out to be the replacement for Iggy's offense on the wing. Backlund might be a guy who can capably handle heavy opposition and push the water back, and Ramo might be a league average netiminder.
Lambert gets my goat when he starts with the premise that whatever Feaster does is the wrong thing. But he is right when he points out that the Flames have a long, long road ahead of them before we can return to being anything like 'good'.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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Pile-CC
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Q:
Get SQL xml attribute value using variable
I have a SQL function that takes a variable called attribute, which is the xml attribute I want to get the value from. xmlPath is the full XML string.
My xml looks like this:
<EventSpecificData>
<Keyword>
<Word>myWord</Word>
<Occurences>1</Occurences>
<Context>context</Context>
</Keyword>
</EventSpecificData>
I want to get the value for <Word>, so I pass in /Keyword/Word and set a variable to:
set @value = @xmlPath.value('(/EventSpecificData/@attribute)[1]', 'varchar(max)')
However, I don't think @attribute is actually inserting the variables string. Is there another way to do this?
A:
Here are a couple of solutions for you.
Sample data:
declare @xml xml
set @xml =
'<EventSpecificData>
<Keyword>
<Word>myWord</Word>
<Occurences>1</Occurences>
<Context>context</Context>
</Keyword>
</EventSpecificData>'
Get the first value from node named Word regardless of parents. Use // to do a deep search and use local-name() to match node name.
declare @Attribute varchar(max)
set @Attribute = 'Word'
select @xml.value('(//*[local-name() = sql:variable("@Attribute")])[1]', 'varchar(max)')
Provide parent node name and attribute in separate variables using local-name() in two levels.
declare @Node varchar(max)
declare @Attribute varchar(max)
set @Attribute = 'Word'
set @Node = 'Keyword'
select @xml.value('(/EventSpecificData
/*[local-name() = sql:variable("@Node")]
/*[local-name() = sql:variable("@Attribute")])[1]', 'varchar(max)')
Since the parameter to nodes have to be a string literal it invites to use dynamic sql to solve this. It could look something like this to make it work with your original variable content.
set @Attribute = 'Keyword/Word'
declare @SQL nvarchar(max)
set @SQL = 'select @xml.value(''(/EventSpecificData/'+@Attribute+')[1]'', ''varchar(max)'')'
exec sp_executesql @SQL, N'@xml xml', @xml
But you should be aware of that if you use this you are wide open to SQL Injection attacks. Some devious end-user might come up with a attribute string that looks like this:
set @Attribute = 'Keyword/Word)[1]'', ''varchar(max)'') select @@version --'
Executing the dynamic SQL with that will give you two result sets. The select @@version is just there to show some harmless code but it might be much worse stuff in there.
You can use quotename() to prevent the SQL injection attack. It will at least prevent the attempt made by me.
set @Attribute = 'Keyword/Word'
set @SQL = 'select @xml.value('+quotename('(/EventSpecificData/'+@Attribute+')[1]', '''')+', ''varchar(max)'')'
exec sp_executesql @SQL, N'@xml xml', @xml
Is the last version using quotename()safe? Have a look at this article by Erland Sommarskog The Curse and Blessings of Dynamic SQL.
Quote:
So with quotename() and quotestring(), do we have as good protection
against SQL injection as we have with parameterised commands? Maybe. I
don't know of any way to inject SQL that slips through quotename() or
quotestring(). Nevertheless, you are interpolating user input into the
SQL string, whereas with parameterised commands, you don't.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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StackExchange
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Henry Bowman
Born to an affluent family, Henry grows up in the outer suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri, attending a premier private school and ultimately earning a degree in geology and economics. He is fascinated with weaponry from an early age and becomes somewhat of a phenomenon within the gun culture by his early teens. At the same time, he is taught to fly small planes before the early death of his father from cancer. In his late youth and early adulthood, Henry experiences two traumas. Witnessing the rape of a young girl, he murders the rapists and is a bit surprised that he feels no emotion about having done so. As a college student, he is raped by a gang of thugs. He descends into despair and alcoholism until a former high school classmate is able to get him into AA. Vowing to overcome the emotional impacts he...
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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Pile-CC
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“ This contains one to three items. Since it's so heavy, only DK can carry it around. ” —Super Smash Bros. instruction manual
A Crate (箱, Box) is an item that has appeared in every game in the Super Smash Bros. series. Crates are containers which can hold various different items or up to three of the same item. Because Crates are very heavy, a character who has picked up a Crate will not be able to jump or attack at all while holding it, and they cannot be picked up in mid-air. After being picked up, a Crate can be thrown in any regular direction (up, forward, backward, or down). Crates are very similar to Barrels.
Exploding Crates are "dud" Crates that do not contain items and explode when destroyed, delivering strong damage and knockback to players caught in the explosion, even to the player who threw the crate. In all five games, every crate has a one in eight chance of being an exploding crate.
In the original game, a character who has picked up a crate will not be able to move at all (in addition to being unable to jump or attack). However, Donkey Kong exclusively has a special ability allowing him to move and jump freely while holding a Crate.
Melee. Falco carrying a crate in
Characters (other than Donkey Kong) carrying a Crate can now move very slowly while holding it, but cannot walk off ledges; if the control stick is held down, the character and the Crate will both tumble off the ledge and they will drop the Crate. Donkey Kong retains his ability to move freely while holding Crates and other heavy objects.
In this game, Crates have a small random chance of containing an enemy from Adventure Mode, such as a ReDead, Goomba, or an Octorok. When they are thrown at opponents, they can deal 18%-22% damage and have a decent amount of knockback.
Crates, along with Barrels, can now have a different appearance depending on the stage played on. On futuristic stages such as Lylat Cruise, they take on a futuristic appearance. On more fantasy-based stages such as Yoshi's Island, the crates will look like wrapped-up presents.[1] Donkey Kong gains knockback-based super armor when carrying a crate, similar to his forward throw.
Crate types chart [ edit ]
Rolling Crates [ edit ]
The Rolling Crate in action.
Rolling Crates are a type of Crate that appear in Brawl, SSB4, and Ultimate. These Crates are identified by their tiny, black wheels on the bottom, and can oftentimes go unnoticed. They also always spawn at the same angle, unlike normal crates. If a player hits this Crate without destroying it, it will start sliding in the direction it was hit. Characters hit by the Rolling Crate will take damage and lots of knockback depending on the speed of the Crate, and the Crate normally breaks. Since characters can stand on top of them, players can take a ride on a Rolling Crate when it's been hit.
The various crate designs in SSB4.
Crates (including rolling crates) return in Super Smash Bros. 4. The futuristic crate now sports a new design, with the Smash logo on the sides. The present crate has been redesigned as well, with an obvious lid and no horizontal ribbons on the sides.
In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, for unknown reasons, all familiar stages except for Smashville use the normal wooden design regardless of the crate design they had in Brawl.
Crate types chart (3DS) [ edit ]
Crate types chart (Wii U) [ edit ]
Crates and Rolling Crates return in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, using their designs from Super Smash Bros. 4.
Crate types chart [ edit ]
Damage throughout the series [ edit ]
This article or section may require additional technical data.
The editor who added this tag elaborates: Needs Smash 64 Damage
You can discuss this issue on the talk page or this page to improve it.
Action SSB Melee Brawl 3DS/Wii U Throw 21% 17% 17% 18% Explosion throw 44% 41% 40% 41% Up tilt throw 21% 21% 21% 21% Up tilt throw explosion 43% 43% 44% Down tilt throw 21% 24% N/A N/A Down tilt throw explosion 46% N/A N/A Forward smash throw 23% 22% 20% 18-27% Explosion forward smash throw 44% 50% 50% Up smash throw 21% 21% 24-32% Up smash throw explosion 43% 43% 47-55% Down smash throw 27% N/A N/A Down smash throw explosion 49% N/A N/A Air throw (DK) 21% 21% 20% Air throw explosion (DK) 36% 43% 43% Air up tilt throw (DK) 22% 21% 30% Air up tilt throw explosion (DK) 43% 43% 52% Air down tilt throw (DK) 23% 21% 21% Air down tilt throw explosion (DK) 45% 44% 43% Air forward smash throw (DK) 25% 23% 18-28% Explosion air forward smash throw (DK) 45% 45% 40-51% Air up smash throw (DK) 21% 21% 33% Air up smash throw explosion (DK) 43% 43% 56% Air down smash throw (DK) 27% 21% 21% Air down smash throw explosion (DK) 39% 44% 44%
Trophies [ edit ]
Melee trophy [ edit ]
Melee. Crate trophy in
Crate
A Crate will release lots of items when it's broken open. It's very heavy, so unless your character is strong, you’ll walk slowly while under its burden. You can throw Crates up, down, left or right, but it's hard to hit opponents because the throwing process takes time. Every now and then, a Crate will explode under duress.
: Super Smash Bros. (04/99)
Brawl trophies [ edit ]
Brawl. Crate trophy in
Crates
Item holders. You can destroy these to get at the items they contain, but be careful, because they will sometimes explode when broken. In Super Smash Bros. Melee, crates were uniform in design, but this time around, their appearance will change to match the stages. They'll sometimes look futuristic--other times, they'll look like presents with fancy ribbons.
: Super Smash Bros. : Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Brawl. Rolling Crates trophy in
Rolling Crates
Special crates that look like normal ones but have four wheels attached to the undersides. However, what is more obvious is the "cart" that the wheels are attached to, and the fact that Rolling Crates will always be placed squarely on the stage, and never at an angle. Try to destroy these and they will go rolling along, smashing everyone in their path. When a rolling crate is destroyed, it will reveal the same sorts of items found in normal crates. You can also jump on a rolling crate for a fun ride.
: Super Smash Bros. Brawl
SSB4 trophies [ edit ]
for 3DS. Crates trophy in
Wii U. Crates trophy in
Crates Throw or attack this crate to bust it open and get the goodies hidden inside. The crate may look different based on the stage you're battling on, but the items inside won't change. Sometimes these things can explode, however, so it's best to be very crateful around them... Just throw or attack crates to get at the goodies inside! Their appearance changes depending on the stage, so maybe you'll get a wooden crate, or...maybe you won't. That doesn't change how it is on the inside, though, which is a good life lesson. Also, it may just explode if you attack it - another important life lesson from us to you. : Super Smash Bros. : Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
for 3DS. Rolling Crates trophy in
Wii U. Rolling Crates trophy in
Rolling Crates A normal-looking box, this one actually has wheels on the bottom. Just give the box a little nudge—its own weight will turn it into a rolling weapon. It's possible to ride on top of it, but you certainly aren't traveling in style. Be sure to stop the box or jump off before it hits something! These boxes look perfectly normal until you notice the wheels underneath. Or until you put one on a slope and watch it roll away! You can attack a rolling crate for the items inside, or send it hurtling towards your enemies. You can even jump on top and go for a ride - just make sure you get off again before you hit something! : Super Smash Bros. Brawl : Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Trivia [ edit ]
In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U in update 1.1.0, rarely when a crate is broken, certain items will briefly float in mid-air before falling on the ground.
in update 1.1.0, rarely when a crate is broken, certain items will briefly float in mid-air before falling on the ground. In Brawl and both versions of SSB4 , it is possible for a fighter to momentarily perform their "crate pick-up" animation without actually picking the crate up. This only seems to happen if they are a slight distance away or in front of the actual crate.
and both versions of , it is possible for a fighter to momentarily perform their "crate pick-up" animation without actually picking the crate up. This only seems to happen if they are a slight distance away or in front of the actual crate. On the image for Milestones in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U , blue and green present crates are shown, despite only red presents being usable.
, blue and green present crates are shown, despite only red presents being usable. In both versions of SSB4 , if a character gets grabbed when turning around while carrying a crate or another heavy item, they will face the background instead of the screen. This is known as the Backwards Glitch and it was first found by DeadDraco[1]. This only works with playable characters whose positions get mirrored when turning around, so they can face the screen regardless of whether they're facing right or left. The characters who can perform this glitch are: Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Bowser Jr., Wario, Kirby, Charizard, Jigglypuff, Greninja, Duck Hunt, R.O.B., Dr. Mario, Pac-Man, Mega Man, Sonic, Mii Brawler, Mewtwo and Ryu.[2] [3]
, if a character gets grabbed when turning around while carrying a crate or another heavy item, they will face the background instead of the screen. This is known as the and it was first found by DeadDraco[1]. This only works with playable characters whose positions get mirrored when turning around, so they can face the screen regardless of whether they're facing right or left.
References [ edit ]
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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OpenWebText2
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Computer simulation study of a simple cubatic mesogenic lattice model.
Over the last , the possible existence of a cubatic mesophase, possessing cubic orientational order (i.e., along three mutually orthogonal axes) but no translational one, has been addressed theoretically, and predicted in some cases, where the investigated interaction models involved hard-core repulsion only; on the other hand, no experimental realizations of such a phase are known at the time being. The present paper addresses a very simple cubatic mesogenic lattice model, involving continuous interactions; we consider particles possessing Oh symmetry, whose centers of mass are associated with a three-dimensional simple-cubic lattice; the pair potential is taken to be isotropic in orientation space, and restricted to nearest neighboring sites; let the two orthonormal triads {uj, j=1, 2, 3} and {vk, k=1, 2, 3} define orientations of a pair of interacting particles, and let fjk=vj.uk. The interaction model studied here is defined by the simplest nontrivial (quartic) polynomial in the scalar products f jk, consistent with the assumed symmetry and favoring orientational order; it is, so to speak, the cubatic counterpart of the Lebwohl-Lasher model for uniaxial nematics. The model was investigated by mean field theory and Monte Carlo simulation, and found to produce a low-temperature cubatically ordered phase, undergoing a first order transition to the isotropic phase at higher temperature; the mean field treatment yielded results in reasonable qualitative agreement with simulation.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Abstracts
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---
abstract: 'In this paper we derive the Markowitz-optimal, deterministic-execution trajectory for a trader who wishes to buy or sell a large position of a share which evolves as a geometric Brownian motion in contrast to the arithmetic model which prevails in the existing literature. Our calculations include a general temporary impact, rather than a specific function. Additionally, we point out—under our setting—what are the necessary ingredients to tackle the problem with adaptive execution trajectories. We provide a couple of examples which illustrate the results. We would like to stress the fact that in this paper we use understandable user-friendly techniques.'
address:
- |
Statistics Department, Columbia University\
1255 Amsterdam Ave. Room 1005, New York, N.Y., 10027.
- |
Mathematics Department, CINVESTAV-IPN\
Av. Instituto PolitŽcnico Nacional \#2508, Col. San Pedro Zacatenco, México, D.F., C.P. 07360
author:
- 'Gerardo Hernandez-del-Valle'
- 'Carlos G. Pacheco-Gonzalez'
date: 'October 14, 2009'
title: Optimal execution of equity with geometric price process
---
Introduction
============
The problem of optimal execution is a very general problem in which a trader who wishes to buy or sell a [*large*]{} position $K$ of a given asset $S$—for instance wheat, shares, derivatives, etc.—is confronted with the dilemma of executing slowly or as quick as possible. In the first case he/she would be exposed to volatility, and in the second to the laws of offer and demand. Thus the trader most hedge between the [*market impact*]{} (due to his trade) and the [*volatility*]{} (due to the market).
The key ingredients to study this optimization problem are: (1) The modeling of the asset—which is typically modeled as a geometric Brownian process. (2) The modeling of the so-called market impact which heuristically suggests the existence of an instantaneous impact—so-called [*temporary*]{}—and a cumulative component referred to as [*permanent*]{}. And finally (3) one should establish a criteria of optimality.
The main [*aim*]{} of this paper is to study and characterize the so-called Markowitz-optimal open-loop execution trajectory, in terms of nonlinear second order, ordinary differential equations (Theorems \[thm1\] and \[thm2\]). The above is done for a trader who wishes to buy or sell a large position $K$ of shares $S$ which evolve as a geometric Brownian motion (although in the existing literature it is considered an arithmetic Brownian motion for this problem). In this paper we only deal with deterministic strategies, also called [*open loop*]{} controls; however, we point out—in Section \[cinco\]—the key ingredients to address the problem with adaptive strategies, also termed [*Markovian*]{} controls (work in progress).
The main [*motivation*]{} of this work is on one hand economic, but on the other the effect of [*market impact*]{} in the valuation of contingent claims, and its connection with optimal execution of [*derivatives*]{}. Intuitively, for this kind of problem, one would expect to consider adaptive strategies to tackle the questions, although it seems natural to first understand the deterministic case. An important element in our analysis, will be the use of a linear stochastic differential equation, first used—to our knowledge—by Brennan and Schwartz (1980) in their study of interest rates.
The problem of minimizing expected overall liquidity costs has been analyzed using different market models by Bertsimas and Lo (1998), Obizhaeva and Wang, and Alfonsi et al. (2007a,2007b), just to mention a few. However, these approaches miss the volatility risk associated with time delay. Instead, Almgren and Chriss (1999,2000), suggested studying and solving a mean-variance optimization for sales revenues in the class of deterministic strategies. Further, on Almgren and Lorenz (2007) allowed for intertemporal updating and proved that this can [*strictly*]{} improve the mean-variance performance. Nevertheless, in Schied and Schöneborn (2007), the authors study the original problem of expected utility maximization with CARA utility functions. Their main result states that for CARA investors there is surprisingly no added utility from allowing for intertemporal updating of strategies. Finally, we mention that the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman approach has also recently been studied in Forsyth (2009). Our paper is organized as follows: In Section 2 we introduce our model, assumptions and auxiliary results. Namely through a couple of subsequent Propositions we characterize and compute—by use of a Brennan-Schwartz type process (\[brennan\])—the moments of certain random variable that is relevant in our optimization problem. Section 3 is devoted to deriving and proving the characterization of our optimal trading strategies and the optimal value function as well. After that, in Section 4, we present a couple of examples in order to exemplify the procedure derived in Section 3. We first compare Almgren and Chriss trajectory with ours, and in Example 2 we use a temporary market impact $h$ to the power $3/5$ as suggested in the empirical study of Almgren [*et. al.*]{}’s (2005). We conclude the paper, in Section 5, by pointing out the key ingredients in the study of adaptive execution strategies.
Auxiliary Results
=================
In this section, we describe the dynamics of the asset $S$, the so-called market impact, and we introduce the Brennan-Schwartz process. This process will allow us not only to compute the moments of the optimization argument, but also to represent it in terms of an SDE. For the remainder of this section, let $c(t)$ be a fixed and differentiable function for $0\leq t\leq T<\infty$.
The model.
----------
Let the price of the share $S$ of a given company evolve as a geometric process, where the random component $B$ is standard Brownian motion, i.e. $$\begin{aligned}
dS_t&=&S_t\left[\left(g(c(t))+\frac{dh(c(t))}{dt}\right)dt+\sigma dB_t\right],\qquad S_0=s,\end{aligned}$$ and where $g$ and $h$ represent respectively the permanent—which accumulates over time—and instantaneous temporary impact. Thus, the [*future*]{} effective price per share due to our trade can be modelled as $$\begin{aligned}
\label{price}
S_t=s\exp\left\{\int_0^ug(c(v))dv+h(c(u))-\frac{1}{2}\sigma^2u+\sigma B_u\right\},\end{aligned}$$ where $\sigma>0$ is an estimable parameter.\
\(a) Note that that process $\ln(S)$, where $S$ is as in (\[price\]), coincides precisely with the “standard” notion of both permanent and temporary impact. That is, if we model the price process as arithmetic Brownian motion: $$\begin{aligned}
dS_t=\sigma dB_t+g(c(t))dt+\frac{dh}{dt}(c(t)),\qquad S_0=s\end{aligned}$$ then $$\begin{aligned}
S_t-s=\int_0^tg(c(u))du+h(c(t))+\sigma B_t.\end{aligned}$$ Hence, the first term in the right-hand side of the equality is [*accumulating*]{} over time, on the other hand, the second term is [*not*]{}.\
(b) Next, observe that the process $c$ can be thought of as a control, which in turn may be:
1. an admissible process $c$ which is adapted to the natural filtration $\mathcal{F}^S$ of the associated process (\[price\]) is called a [*feedback control*]{},
2. an admissible process $c$ which can be written in the form $c_t=u(t,S_t)$ for some measurable map $u$ is called [*Markovian control*]{}, notice that any Markovian control is a feedback control,
3. a deterministic processes of the family of admissible controls are called [*open loop controls*]{}.
\(c) In this paper we will only deal with open loop controls, yet to study feedback controls it will become quite useful to introduce the so-called Brennan-Schwartz process, introduced in the next subsection. The reason being, that to derive the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation—see Section 5—it is more convenient to have a diffusion instead of an average of a diffusion.
Averaged geometric and Brennan-Schwartz processes
-------------------------------------------------
In order to study our problem we will introduce the following averaged geometric Brownian process: $$\begin{aligned}
\label{chi}
\xi_t&:=&\int_0^tc(u)S_udu,\qquad t\geq 0.\end{aligned}$$ By (\[price\]) we can express $\xi_t$ as $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber \xi_t&=&\int_0^t c(u)se^{\int_0^ug(c(v))dv+h(c(u))-\frac{1}{2}\sigma^2u+\sigma B_u}du.\end{aligned}$$ Thus, if $c(u)$ represents the number of shares bought or sold at time $u$ at price $S_u$, then $\xi_t$ represents the total amount spent or earned by the trader up to time $t$.
To compute the moments of $\xi$ we will use the following linear non-homogeneous stochastic differential equation $$\begin{aligned}
\label{brennan}
dX_t&=&\left[c(t)-\left(g(c(t))+\frac{dh(c(t))}{dt}-\sigma^2\right)X_t\right]dt-\sigma X_tdB_t\\
\nonumber X_0&=&0,\end{aligned}$$ which has been used for instance by Brennan and Schwartz (1980) in the modeling of interest rates, by Kawaguchi and Morimoto (2007) in environmental economics, and which may also be used to study the density of averaged geometric Brownian motion \[see for instance, Linetsky (2004)\].
In general, its usefulness is due to the fact that one may construct a Brennan-Schwartz process $X$ which satisfies $$X\stackrel{\mathcal{D}}{=}\xi,$$ where $\stackrel{\mathcal{D}}{=}$ stands for equality in distribution. In this paper, it is used, together with Itô’s lemma to show that $\xi=S\cdot X$, which alternatively will allow us to compute the second moment of $\xi$ in terms of an iterated integral, indeed:
\[prop1\] Let processes $S$, $\xi$, and $X$ be as in (\[price\]), (\[chi\]), and (\[brennan\]), respectively, then $$\begin{aligned}
\xi_t=S_t\cdot X_t,\qquad t\geq 0\end{aligned}$$ and $$\begin{aligned}
d\xi^2_t=2\xi_tS_t c(t)dt.\end{aligned}$$
By Itô’s lemma $$\begin{aligned}
d(S_t\cdot X_t)&=&S_tdX_t+X_tdS_t+dX_tdS_t\\
&=&S_tc(t)dt-S_tX_t\left(g(c(t))+\frac{dh(c(t))}{dt}\right)dt+S_tX_t\sigma^2dt\\
&&-\sigma S_tX_tdB_t+X_tS_t\left(g(c(t))+\frac{dh(c(t))}{dt}\right)dt\\
&&+\sigma X_tS_tdB_t-\sigma^2S_tX_tdt\\
&=&c(t)S_tdt\\
&=&\xi_t.\end{aligned}$$ Furthermore, for the second moment of $\xi$ it follows that $$\begin{aligned}
d\xi^2_t&=&2X_tS^2_tdX_t+2X^2_tS_tdS_t+S^2_t(dX_t)^2+X^2_t(dS_t)^2\\
&&+4X_tS_t(dX_t\cdot dS_t)\\
&=&2X_tS^2_tsc(t)dt-2X_tS^2_t\left(g(c(t))+\frac{dh(c(t))}{dt}\right)X_tdt\\
&&+2X_tS^2_t\sigma^2X_tdt-2X_tS^2_t\sigma X_tdB_t\\
&&+2X^2_tS_t\left(g(c(t))+\frac{dh(c(t))}{dt}\right)S_tdt+2X^2_tS_t\sigma S_tdB_t\\
&&+S^2_t\sigma^2X^2_tdt+X^2_t\sigma^2S^2_tdt-4X_tS_t\sigma^2X_tS_tdt\\
&=&2X_tS^2_tc(t)dt\\
&=&2\xi_t S_t c(t)dt,\end{aligned}$$ as claimed.
The previous proposition may be derived directly from the integration by parts formula. Yet, this characterization will be useful in the study, for instance, of the optimal trading schedule of derivatives or in the determination of Markovian controls.
Moments of $\xi$
----------------
Now, by Proposition \[prop1\], it is straightforward to compute the first two moments of $\xi_t$ which will be used to solve our optimal execution problem.
Let $\xi$ be as in (\[chi\]). Then $$\begin{aligned}
\label{uno}\mathbb{E}[\xi_t]&=&\int_0^t c(u)s\exp\left\{\int_0^ug(c(v))dv+h(c(u))\right\}du \\
\label{dos}\mathbb{E}[\xi^2_t]&=&2\int_0^tc(u)se^{\int_0^ug(c(n))dn+h(c(u))}\\
\nonumber&&\quad \times\left(\int_0^uc(v)se^{\int_0^vg(c(w))dw+h(c(v))+\sigma^2v}dv\right)du.\end{aligned}$$
By (\[chi\]): $$\begin{aligned}
\mathbb{E}[\xi_t]&=&\int_0^tc(u)s\mathbb{E}[S_u]du\\
&=&\int_0^t c(u)s\exp\left\{\int_0^ug(c(v))dv+h(c(u))\right\}du.\end{aligned}$$ From Proposition \[prop1\]: $$\begin{aligned}
\mathbb{E}[\xi^2_t]&=&2\mathbb{E}\left[\int_0^tc(u)sS_u\xi_udu\right]\\
&=&2\mathbb{E}\left[\int_0^tc(u)s^2S_u\left(\int_0^uc(v)sS_vdv\right)du\right]\\
\nonumber&=&2\int_0^tc(u)s^2\left(\int_0^uc(v)s\mathbb{E}[S_uS_v]dv\right)du.\end{aligned}$$ Therefore, since $$\begin{aligned}
\mathbb{E}\left[e^{\sigma B_u+\sigma B_v}\right]&=&\mathbb{E}\left[e^{\sigma(B_u-B_v)+2\sigma B_v}\right]\\
&=&\mathbb{E}\left[e^{\sigma(B_u-B_v)}\right]\mathbb{E}\left[e^{2\sigma B_v}\right]\\
&=&e^{\frac{1}{2}\sigma^2(u-v)}e^{2\sigma^2 v},\end{aligned}$$ it follows that $$\begin{aligned}
\mathbb{E}[\xi^2_t]&=&2\int_0^tc(u)se^{\int_0^ug(c(n))dn+h(c(u))}\\
&&\quad \times\left(\int_0^uc(v)se^{\int_0^vg(c(w))dw+h(c(v))+\sigma^2v}dv\right)du.\end{aligned}$$
Markowitz Optimal open-loop Trading trajectory
==============================================
In this section we derive a Markowitz-optimal open-loop trading strategy, Theorem \[thm1\] and \[thm2\], employing the auxiliary results derived in the previous section.
Execution shortfall
-------------------
If the size of the trade $K$ is “relatively” small we would expect the market impact to be negligible, that is, the trader should execute $K$ immediately. Thus, it seems natural to compare the actual total gains (losses) $\xi_T$ with the impact-free quantity $Ks$ by introducing the so-called execution shortfall $Y$ defined as $$\begin{aligned}
\label{short}
Y:=\xi_T-Ks.\end{aligned}$$
If we use Markowitz optimization criterion, then our problem is equivalent to finding the trading trajectory $\{c(t)|0\leq t\leq T\}$ which minimizes simultaneously the expected shortfall given a fixed risk-aversion level $\lambda$ characterized by the volatility of $Y$: $$\begin{aligned}
\label{optimize}
\nonumber J[c(\cdot)]&:=&\mathbb{E}[Y]+\lambda \mathbb{V}[Y]\\
&=&\lambda\mathbb{E}[\xi^2_T]+\mathbb{E}[\xi_T]-\lambda (\mathbb{E}[\xi_T])^2-Ks.\end{aligned}$$ In fact, if $\lambda>0$ then (\[optimize\]) has a unique solution, which may be represented in the following integral form:
\[prop3\] Suppose that the permanent impact $g$ is linear, i.e. $$g(x)=\alpha x,$$ for some $\alpha>0$ as suggested by Almgren [*et. al.*]{} (2005) empirical study. Let $$\begin{aligned}
\label{f}
f(x):=\int_0^x c(u)du,\qquad f'(x):=c(x)\end{aligned}$$ and $$\begin{aligned}
\gamma_1(u,f,f')&:=&\int_0^usf'(v)e^{\alpha f(v)+ h(f'(v))+\sigma^2 v}dv,\\
\gamma(u,f,f')&:=&\int_0^usf'(v)e^{\alpha f(v)+ h(f'(v))}dv.
%A&:=&(1+2\lambda Ks-2Ks).\end{aligned}$$ Then $J[c(\cdot)]$ in (\[optimize\]) can be expressed as: $$\begin{aligned}
\int_0^T\left\{\left[2\lambda \left(\gamma_1(u)-\gamma(u)\right)+1\right]f'(u)se^{\alpha f(u)+ h(f'(u))}-\frac{\lambda Ks}{T}\right\}du.\end{aligned}$$
Setting $$\begin{aligned}
f(x):=\int_0^x c(u)du,\end{aligned}$$ we have $f'(x):=c(x)$. Hence, using the integration by parts formula, $$\begin{aligned}
&&\int_0^tsf'(x)e^{\alpha f(x)+h(f'(x))}\left(\int_0^xsf'(y)e^{\alpha f(y)+h(f'(y))}dy\right)dx\\
&&=\left(\int_0^tsf'(x)e^{\alpha f(x)+h(f'(x))}dx\right)\left(\int_0^tsf'(x)e^{\alpha f(x)+h(f'(x))}dx\right)\\
&&\enskip -\int_0^tsf'(x)e^{\alpha f(x)+ h(f'(x))}\left(\int_0^xsf'(y)e^{\alpha f(y)+h(f'(y))}dy\right)dx\end{aligned}$$ implies $$\begin{aligned}
&&\nonumber\left(\int_0^tsf'(x)e^{\alpha f(x)+h(f'(x))}dx\right)^2\\
\nonumber&&\quad=2\int_0^tsf'(x)e^{\alpha f(x)+h(f'(x))}\left(\int_0^xsf'(y)e^{\alpha f(y)+h(f'(y))}dy\right)dx\\
\nonumber &&\quad=\left(\mathbb{E}[\xi_t]\right)^2.\end{aligned}$$ Thus, by (\[uno\]) and (\[dos\]), $$\begin{aligned}
\gamma_1(u)&:=&\int_0^usf'(v)e^{\alpha f(v)+h(f'(v))+\sigma^2 v}dv,\\
\gamma(u)&:=&\int_0^usf'(v)e^{\alpha f(v)+h(f'(v))}dv,
%A&:=&(1+2\lambda Ks-2Ks).\end{aligned}$$ It follows that $$\begin{aligned}
&&J[c(\cdot)]\\
&&\enskip=2\lambda\int_0^Tf'(u)se^{\alpha f(u)+ h(f'(u))}\gamma_1(u)du+\int_0^T f'(u)se^{\alpha f(u)+ h(f'(u))}du\\
&&\qquad-\int_0^T2\lambda f'(u)se^{\alpha f(u)+ h(f'(u))}\gamma(u)du- K s\\
&&\enskip=\int_0^T\left\{\left(2\lambda\gamma_1(u)+1-2\lambda\gamma(u)\right)f'(u)se^{\alpha f(u)+ h(f'(u))}-\frac{Ks}{T}\right\}du.\end{aligned}$$ as claimed.
Observe that this last expression has the following functional form in terms of $f$: $$\begin{aligned}
\label{j}
J(f)=\int_0^t\mathcal{L}(\gamma_1(u,f,f'),\gamma(u,f,f'),f(u),f'(u))du.\end{aligned}$$ Letting $$\begin{aligned}
F(f(u),f'(u)):=sf'(u)\exp\left\{\alpha f(u)+h(f'(u))\right\},\end{aligned}$$ we may re-express (\[j\]) as $$\begin{aligned}
J(f)=\int_0^T\left(2\lambda\int_0^uF(f(v),f'(v))(e^{\sigma^2 v}-1)dv+1\right)F(f(u),f'(u))du.\end{aligned}$$ In particular
\[thm1\] Suppose that $\lambda=0$. Then, the open-loop trading schedule $c^*$ is determined by a function $f_1$ which solves the following system $$\begin{aligned}
\label{ee}
\frac{\partial F}{\partial f_1}-\frac{d}{dz}\frac{\partial F}{\partial f'_1}=0,
\end{aligned}$$ with $f_1(0)=0$ and $f_1(T)=K$.
If $\lambda=0$, that is, if we only wish to minimize expected execution shortfall, then: $$\begin{aligned}
J(f)=\int_0^TF(f(u),f'(u))du,
\end{aligned}$$ and thus equation (\[ee\]) follows from the Euler-Lagrange equation \[see for instance Gelfand and Fomin (2000)\].
\[ex1\] [Let $T=\alpha=1$ and both temporary and permanent impact be linear, i.e. $g(x)=x$, $h(x)=x$, hence: $$\begin{aligned}
F(f(u),f'(u))=f'(u)\exp\left\{f(u)+f'(u)\right\}.\end{aligned}$$ Thus, if one wishes to minimize the [*expected*]{} execution shortfall one should execute according to: $$\begin{aligned}
f'(u)-f''(u)-(1+f'(u))(f'(u)+f''(u))=0,\end{aligned}$$ given that $f(0)=0$, and $f(1)=K$. ]{}
Note that as $\lambda$ increases the client is willing to be more exposed to risk. This idea is equivalent to saying that he/she is willing to increase the speed of execution. Hence we have that for $\lambda>0$, the optimal trajectory will dominate $f_1$: $$f(s)\geq f_1(s),\qquad 0\leq s\leq T$$ In other words we may decompose $f(s)=f_1(s)+f_2(s)$. This last observation together with our constraint $f(0)=0$, $f(T)=K$, lead to the following two facts: $$\begin{aligned}
f_2(t)&\geq& 0,\qquad 0\leq t\leq T\\
f_2(0)=f_2(T)&=&0.\end{aligned}$$
The previous remark and equation (\[j\]) suggest a 2 step procedure to find the optimal trajectory $f$. Namely, first find $f_1$ and given that information solve for $f=f_1+f_2$
\[thm2\] The optimal differentiable trajectory $f$ which solves (\[j\]) is given by $f_1+f_2$, where $f_1$ is given in Theorem 3.3 and $f_2$ satisfies for $0\leq v\leq T$: $$\begin{aligned}
&&f_2(u)\left(2\lambda\int_0^uF^1(f(v),f'(v))dv+1\right)\cdot\left[\frac{\partial F}{\partial f}-\frac{d}{du}\left(\frac{\partial F}{\partial f'}\right)\right]\\
&&\qquad +2\lambda\int_0^uf_2(v)\left[\frac{\partial F^1}{\partial f}-\frac{d}{dv}\left(\frac{\partial F^1}{\partial f'}\right)\right]dv\cdot F(f(u),f'(u))=0,\end{aligned}$$ where $f_2(0)=f_2(T)=0$.
The idea is to follow the derivation of the Euler-Lagrange equation \[see for instance, Gelfand and Fomin (2000)\], but in this case, the unknown function $f_2$ will play the role of the perturbation. Thus, it is essential the fact that $f_2(0)=f_2(T)=0$.
Let $$\begin{aligned}
f(v)&=&f_1(v)+f_2(v)\\
g_\epsilon(v)&=&f_1(v)+\epsilon f_2(v)\end{aligned}$$ where $f_2(0)=0=f_2(T)$ and $$\begin{aligned}
J(\epsilon)=\int_0^T\left(2\lambda\int_0^uF(g_\epsilon(v),g_\epsilon'(v))(e^{\sigma^2v}-1)dv+1\right)F(g_\epsilon(u),g_\epsilon'(u))du\end{aligned}$$ then $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{dJ}{d\epsilon}(\epsilon)&=&\int_0^T\left(2\lambda\int_0^u\frac{dF}{d\epsilon}(g_\epsilon(v),g_\epsilon'(v))(e^{\sigma^2v}-1)dv\right)\\
&&\enskip\times F(g_\epsilon(u),g_\epsilon'(u))du\\
&&+\int_0^T\left(2\lambda\int_0^uF(g_\epsilon(v),g_\epsilon'(v))(e^{\sigma^2v}-1)dv+1\right)\\
&&\enskip\times\frac{dF}{d\epsilon}(g_\epsilon(u),g_\epsilon'(u))du\\
&=&\int_0^T\left(2\lambda\int_0^u\left(f_2(v)\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon}+f_2'(v)\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon'}\right)(e^{\sigma^2v}-1)dv\right)\\
&&\enskip\times F(g_\epsilon(u),g_\epsilon'(u))du\\
&&+\int_0^T\left(2\lambda\int_0^uF(g_\epsilon(v),g_\epsilon'(v))(e^{\sigma^2v}-1)dv+1\right)\\
&&\enskip\times\left(f_2(u)\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon}+f_2'(u)\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon'}\right)du\end{aligned}$$ if we set $$\begin{aligned}
\gamma_\epsilon(u)=2\lambda\int_0^uF(g_\epsilon(v),g_\epsilon'(v))(e^{\sigma^2v}-1)dv+1\end{aligned}$$ and by the integration by parts formula we have that $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{dJ}{d\epsilon}(\epsilon)&=&\int_0^T\Bigg{(}2\lambda\int_0^uf_2(v)(e^{\sigma^2v}-1)\left[\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon}-\frac{d}{dv}\left\{\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon'}\right\}\right]dv\\
&&\quad-2\lambda\int_0^uf_2(v)\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon'}\sigma^2e^{\sigma^2v}dv\\
&&\quad+2\lambda f_2(u)\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon'}(e^{\sigma^2u}-1)\Bigg{)}F(g_\epsilon(u),g_\epsilon'(u))du\\
&&+\int_0^T\gamma_\epsilon(u)f_2(u)\left[\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon}-\frac{d}{du}\left(\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon'}\right)\right]du\\
&&-\int_0^Tf_2(u)\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon'}\frac{d}{du}\left(\gamma_\epsilon(u)\right)du\end{aligned}$$ Let us compute $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{d}{du}(\gamma_\epsilon(u))=2\lambda F(g_\epsilon(u),g_\epsilon'(u))(e^{\sigma^2u}-1)\end{aligned}$$ which yields $$\begin{aligned}
J'(\epsilon)&=&\int_0^T\Bigg{(}2\lambda\int_0^uf_2(v)(e^{\sigma^2v}-1)\left[\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon}-\frac{d}{dv}\left\{\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon'}\right\}\right]dv\\
&&\qquad-2\lambda\int_0^uf_2(v)\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon'}\sigma^2e^{\sigma^2v}dv\Bigg{)} F(g_\epsilon(u),g_\epsilon'(u))du\\
&&+\int_0^T\gamma_\epsilon(u)f_2(u)\left[\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon}-\frac{d}{du}\left(\frac{\partial F}{\partial g_\epsilon'}\right)\right]du.\end{aligned}$$ But observe that when $J'(1)$ we have $$\begin{aligned}
J'(1)&=&\int_0^T\Bigg{(}2\lambda\int_0^uf_2(v)(e^{\sigma^2v}-1)\left[\frac{\partial F}{\partial f}-\frac{d}{dv}\left\{\frac{\partial F}{\partial f'}\right\}\right]dv\\
&&\qquad-2\lambda\int_0^uf_2(v)\frac{\partial F}{\partial f'}\sigma^2e^{\sigma^2v}dv\Bigg{)} F(f(u),f'(u))du\\
&&+\int_0^T\gamma_1(u)f_2(u)\left[\frac{\partial F}{\partial f}-\frac{d}{du}\left(\frac{\partial F}{\partial f'}\right)\right]du\\
&=&0.\end{aligned}$$ Now, given that $f_2(0)=f_2(T)=0$ and from the fundamental lemma of Calculus of variations we have that: $$\begin{aligned}
&&f_2(u)\gamma_1(u)\left[\frac{\partial F}{\partial f}-\frac{d}{du}\left(\frac{\partial F}{\partial f'}\right)\right]\\
&&\qquad +2\lambda\int_0^uf_2(v)\left[\frac{\partial F^1}{\partial f}-\frac{d}{dv}\left(\frac{\partial F^1}{\partial f'}\right)\right]dv\cdot F(f(u),f'(u))=0\end{aligned}$$ with the constraint that $f_2(u)>0$ for $u\in(0,T)$ and $f_2(T)=f_2(0)=0$. or $$\begin{aligned}
&&f_2(u)\left(2\lambda\int_0^uF^1(f(v),f'(v))dv+1\right)\cdot\left[\frac{\partial F}{\partial f}-\frac{d}{du}\left(\frac{\partial F}{\partial f'}\right)\right]\\
&&\qquad +2\lambda\int_0^uf_2(v)\left[\frac{\partial F^1}{\partial f}-\frac{d}{dv}\left(\frac{\partial F^1}{\partial f'}\right)\right]dv\cdot F(f(u),f'(u))=0\end{aligned}$$ as claimed.
\[ex2\] ([*cont*]{}.) [With linear and temporary impact as before, that is $g(x)=x$ and $h(x)=x$. You may find the optimal trading trajectory $f$ for arbitrary $\lambda\geq 0$ by first determining $f_1$, using Theorem \[thm1\], next you determine $f_2$ by use of Theorem \[thm2\]. That is, letting: $$\begin{aligned}
F(f(v),f'(v))&=&f'(v)\exp\left\{f(v)+f'(v)\right\}\\
F^1(f(v),f'(v))&=&F(f(v),f'(v))(e^{\sigma^2v}-1)\end{aligned}$$ Theorem \[thm2\] states that $f_2$ satisfies the following identity $$\begin{aligned}
&&-f_2(u)\left\{2f''(u)+f'(u)\left[f'(u)+f''(u)\right]\right\}\\
&&\qquad\times\left(2\lambda\int_0^uF^1(f(v),f'(v))dv+1\right)\\
&&\qquad+ 2\lambda f'(u)\int_0^uf_2(u)\left[\frac{\partial F^1}{\partial f}-\frac{d}{dv}\left(\frac{\partial F^1}{\partial f'}\right)\right]dv=0\end{aligned}$$ where $$\begin{aligned}
&&\frac{\partial F^1}{\partial f}-\frac{d}{du}\left(\frac{\partial F^1}{\partial f'}\right)\\
&&\quad=e^{f(u)+f'(u)}\\
&&\qquad\times-\left[\left\{2f''(u)+f'(u)(f'(u)+f''(u))\right\}(e^u-1)+(1+f'(u))e^u\right].\end{aligned}$$ ]{}
Examples
========
Example
-------
The first example we want to study is the case in which both the temporary and the permanent impact are linear as in Examples \[ex1\] and \[ex2\]. The motivation is to compare our results with those obtained by Almgren and Chriss (2000). In this example we have set $T=1$ and $K=3$. The solutions have been numerically calculated using Theorems \[thm1\] and \[thm2\] and then plotted in Figures 1 and 2.
It may be observed that, as one would expect, the solutions are not the same and in fact—under the present conditions—our strategy dominates Almgren and Chriss.
Example
-------
The next example we want to study is the case in which the permanent impact is some power less than 1. Namely $h(x)=x^{3/5}$, and the permanent is linear. First from Theorem \[thm1\] we have that $$\begin{aligned}
F(f_1(u),f'_1(u)):=sf'_1(u)\exp\left\{f_1(u)+(f'_1(u))^{3/5}\right\}\end{aligned}$$ and $f_1$ is the solution to: $$\begin{aligned}
f'_1-\left(f'_1+\frac{3}{3}\frac{f''_1}{(f'_1)^{2/5}}\right)-\left(\frac{3}{5}\right)^2\frac{f''_1}{(f'_1)^{2/5}}-\frac{3}{5}(f'_1)^{3/5}\left(f'_1+\frac{3}{5}\frac{f''_1}{(f'_1)^{2/5}}\right)=0,\end{aligned}$$ $f_1(0)=0$ and $f_1(T)=K$. In particular, with $T=1$ and $K=3$ as in the previous example we have plotted our result in Figure 3. Note that the sublinear impact has increased the speed of execution. Next, we computed the Markowitz-optimal open-loop trajectory, with $\lambda=1$ by first computing $f_2$ as described in Theorem \[thm2\].
The previous exercise suggests that if one chooses the temporary impact to be sub-linear, the solution—with all the other parameters fixed—will always dominate its linear counterpart. On the other hand, if the temporary impact is super-linear, the solution will be dominated by its linear counterpart.
A natural question is: What is the correct form of $h$ given our model?
Remarks on Markovian controls {#cinco}
=============================
As pointed out in the introduction, we have only dealt with [*differentiable*]{} deterministic controls—also known as open loop controls. Furthermore, our criteria of optimal is in the [*Markowitz*]{} sense. A couple of natural and reasonable question arise: how can we study [*feedback controls*]{}? How can we optimize with respect to general utility functions? Namely, given some utility function $U$ we want to find a trajectory $c$ such that $$\begin{aligned}
\sup_{c\in\mathcal{U}}\mathbb{E}_{t,x}[U(Y)]\end{aligned}$$ where $\mathcal{U}$ is the set of admissible controls and $Y=\xi-KT$ is the execution shortfall. But $\xi$ is in general a very difficult creature to characterize, unless you [**observe**]{} that you may construct a diffusion with the following dynamics: $$\begin{aligned}
dX_t=\left(c_t+\left[g(c_t)+\frac{dh}{dt}(c_t)\right]X_t\right)dt+\sigma X_tdB_t,\qquad X_0=0\end{aligned}$$ that is equal in distribution to $\xi$, i.e. $$\begin{aligned}
\xi_t\stackrel{\mathcal{D}}{=}X_t,\qquad \forall t.\end{aligned}$$ Thus $$\begin{aligned}
\sup_{c\in\mathcal{U}}\mathbb{E}_{t,x}[U(Y)]=\sup_{c\in\mathcal{U}}\mathbb{E}_{t,x}[U(X_T-KT)]\end{aligned}$$ and now you may proceed to derive the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. It is precisely this question, which the authors are investigating presently.
[xx]{} A. Alfonsi, A. Schied and A. Schulz (2007a) [*Optimal execution strategies in limit order books with general shape functions*]{}, Preprint, QP Lab and TU Berlin. A. Alfonsi, A. Schied and A. Schulz (2007b) [*Constrained portfolio liquidation in a limit order book model*]{} Preprint, QP Lab and TU Berlin. R. Almgren and N. Chriss (1999) Value under liquidation, [*Risk*]{}. R. Almgren and N. Chriss (2000) Optimal Execution of Portfolio Transactions, [*J. Risk*]{}. [**3**]{} (2). R. Almgren, C. Thum , E. Hauptmann, and H. Li (2005) [*Direct Estimation of Equity Market Impact*]{} D. Bertsimas and D. Lo (1998) Optimal control of execution costs, [*Journal of Financial Markets*]{}. [**1**]{}. M.J. Brennan, and E. Schwartz (1979) A Continuous Time Approach to the Pricing of Bonds, [*J. of Banking and Finance*]{}. [**3**]{}. P.A. Forsyth (2009) Hamilton Jacobi Bellman Approach to Optimal Trade Schedule, Preprint. I.M. Gelfand, and S.V. Fomin (2000) [*Calculus of Variations*]{} New York: Dover Publications. K. Kawaguchi, and H. Morimoto (2007) Long-run average welfare in a pollution accumulation model, [*J. of Economic Dynamics and Control*]{}, [**31**]{}. V. Linetsky (2004) Spectral Expansions for Asian (Average Price) Options, [*Operations Research*]{}, [**52**]{}, pp.856–867. A. Obizhaeva, and J. Wang (2005) Optimal Trading Strategy and Supply/Demand Dynamics. [*J. Financial Markets*]{} A. Schied, and T. Schöneborn (2007) [*Optimal portfolio liquidation for CARA investors*]{}, Preprint, QP Lab and TU Berlin
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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ArXiv
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Although Joseph Conrad (December 3, 1857–August 3, 1924) remains best-known for penning the high school English curriculum staple Heart of Darkness in 1899, much of his writing bears a profound philosophical quality, exploring the depths of psychology, morality, the creative impulse, and other pillars of existence. From the preface to his era-appropriately inappropriately titled 1897 novella The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’: A Tale of the Sea (public library; public domain) comes a beautiful and poignant addition to history’s greatest definitions of art and a fine complement to last week’s illustrated insights on art by Susan Sontag.
Conrad writes:
A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line. And art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect. It is an attempt to find in its forms, in its colors, in its light, in its shadows, in the aspects of matter and in the facts of life what of each is fundamental, what is enduring and essential — their one illuminating and convincing quality–the very truth of their existence. The artist, then, like the thinker or the scientist, seeks the truth and makes his appeal. Impressed by the aspect of the world the thinker plunges into ideas, the scientist into facts — whence, presently, emerging they make their appeal to those qualities of our being that fit us best for the hazardous enterprise of living. They speak authoritatively to our common-sense, to our intelligence, to our desire of peace or to our desire of unrest; not seldom to our prejudices, sometimes to our fears, often to our egoism — but always to our credulity. And their words are heard with reverence, for their concern is with weighty matters: with the cultivation of our minds and the proper care of our bodies, with the attainment of our ambitions, with the perfection of the means and the glorification of our precious aims. It is otherwise with the artist. Confronted by the same enigmatical spectacle the artist descends within himself, and in that lonely region of stress and strife, if he be deserving and fortunate, he finds the terms of his appeal. His appeal is made to our less obvious capacities: to that part of our nature which, because of the warlike conditions of existence, is necessarily kept out of sight within the more resisting and hard qualities — like the vulnerable body within a steel armor. His appeal is less loud, more profound, less distinct, more stirring — and sooner forgotten. Yet its effect endures forever. The changing wisdom of successive generations discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition — and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation — and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity — the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.
In essence, Conrad’s description falls somewhere between Henry Miller’s conception of the artist and Neil deGrasse Tyson’s conception of the scientist. Conrad proceeds to offer an insightful addition to other famous meditations on truth vs. fiction, extolling music — like Susan Sontag did — as the highest of the arts:
Fiction — if it at all aspires to be art — appeals to temperament. And in truth it must be, like painting, like music, like all art, the appeal of one temperament to all the other innumerable temperaments whose subtle and resistless power endows passing events with their true meaning, and creates the moral, the emotional atmosphere of the place and time. Such an appeal to be effective must be an impression conveyed through the senses; and, in fact, it cannot be made in any other way, because temperament, whether individual or collective, is not amenable to persuasion. All art, therefore, appeals primarily to the senses, and the artistic aim when expressing itself in written words must also make its appeal through the senses, if its high desire is to reach the secret spring of responsive emotions. It must strenuously aspire to the plasticity of sculpture, to the color of painting, and to the magic suggestiveness of music — which is the art of arts. And it is only through complete, unswerving devotion to the perfect blending of form and substance; it is only through an unremitting never-discouraged care for the shape and ring of sentences that an approach can be made to plasticity, to color, and that the light of magic suggestiveness may be brought to play for an evanescent instant over the commonplace surface of words: of the old, old words, worn thin, defaced by ages of careless usage. The sincere endeavor to accomplish that creative task, to go as far on that road as his strength will carry him, to go undeterred by faltering, weariness or reproach, is the only valid justification for the worker in prose. And if his conscience is clear, his answer to those who in the fullness of a wisdom which looks for immediate profit, demand specifically to be edified, consoled, amused; who demand to be promptly improved, or encouraged, or frightened, or shocked, or charmed, must run thus: — My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand — and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.
Conrad speaks to the sincerity and solidarity that bind great art and its audience:
To snatch in a moment of courage, from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life, is only the beginning of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is to hold up unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued fragment before all eyes in the light of a sincere mood. It is to show its vibration, its color, its form; and through its movement, its form, and its color, reveal the substance of its truth — disclose its inspiring secret: the stress and passion within the core of each convincing moment. In a single-minded attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and fortunate, one may perchance attain to such clearness of sincerity that at last the presented vision of regret or pity, of terror or birth, shall awaken in the hearts of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable solidarity; of the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, in joy, in hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to each other and all mankind to the visible world.
Conrad concludes with a beautiful metaphor that captures the essence of art as both construct and context:
Sometimes, stretched at ease in the shade of a roadside tree, we watch the motions of a labourer in a distant field, and after a time, begin to wonder languidly as to what the fellow may be at. We watch the movements of his body, the waving of his arms, we see him bend down, stand up, hesitate, begin again. It may add to the charm of an idle hour to be told the purpose of his exertions. If we know he is trying to lift a stone, to dig a ditch, to uproot a stump, we look with a more real interest at his efforts; we are disposed to condone the jar of his agitation upon the restfulness of the landscape; and even, if in a brotherly frame of mind, we may bring ourselves to forgive his failure. We understood his object, and, after all, the fellow has tried, and perhaps he had not the strength — and perhaps he had not the knowledge. We forgive, go on our way — and forget. And so it is with the workman of art. Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off. And thus, doubtful of strength to travel so far, we talk a little about the aim — the aim of art, which, like life itself, is inspiring, difficult — obscured by mists. It is not in the clear logic of a triumphant conclusion; it is not in the unveiling of one of those heartless secrets which are called the Laws of Nature. It is not less great, but only more difficult. To arrest, for the space of a breath, the hands busy about the work of the earth, and compel men entranced by the sight of distant goals to glance for a moment at the surrounding vision of form and color, of sunshine and shadows; to make them pause for a look, for a sigh, for a smile — such is the aim, difficult and evanescent, and reserved only for a few to achieve. But sometimes, by the deserving and the fortunate, even that task is accomplished. And when it is accomplished — behold! — all the truth of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile — and the return to an eternal rest.
The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ is available as a free digital download in multiple formats from Project Gutenberg.
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Ron Paul's Victory
Since this week marks the 79th birthday of Campaign for Liberty Chairman Ron Paul and the two-year anniversary of the infamous 2012 GOP Convention, where the establishment rammed through a rules change designed to disenfranchise the grassroots, this week seems like a good time to revisit Jim Antle's 2012 article on why Ron Paul was the true victor in 2012:
After decades of laboring in obscurity in the House, casting lonely no votes, Paul has captured the imagination of millions with his two Republican presidential campaigns. Now the GOP conference can vote 238-1 on an issue of interest to him and actually have “Dr. No” on the winning side.
That’s not to say Paul has prevailed in any final sense. Mitt Romney is about as far from Ron Paul as a Republican presidential nominee can be. The Republican National Committee is working hard to ensure that the delegate rules make it difficult to mount even a phony opposition to the party establishment, like Rick Santorum, much less a principled constitutionalists alternative like Paul.
Romney covets Paul’s voters. His running mate Paul Ryan practically begged for them. This is a positive step. Republican leaders once recognized the appeal of Pat Buchanan’s brigades too, trying to win them over with Bob Dole’s clumsy invocation of “fair trade” and George W. Bush’s solemn promises of a “humble foreign policy without such lip service changing the GOP. Perhaps today’s promises to actually declare wars and promote sound money are similar gestures.
Yet the rapid progress in a short period of time is undeniable. So too is the enthusiastic group of supporters rallying behind Paul’s message, even as he prepares to retire from the House and leave electoral politics. While no one can replace a Ron Paul, he does have a small but growing band of successors.
There was a time in recent memory when Paul’s ideas about monetary policy were as marginal as his foreign policy convictions remain among GOP elites. Today they are moving inexorably toward the mainstream. Paul’s dutiful defense of the unpopular has paid dividends before. With work and more than a little luck, it could again.
Whether the proceedings in Tampa end with the final gavel in the hall or the first wind gusts in a vulnerable densely populated area, there will be two enduring images. One will be of Romney winning the nomination, resulting either in his assumption of presidential power or his return to irrelevance after November. The other will be of Ron Paul, rallying his young troops one last time as a candidate in his own right.
The large crowd applauding Romney wants only a winner. Nearly everyone in that convention hall outside his own relatives would be indifferent if he was replaced with another cookie-cutter politician. The people cheering Paul are looking for victory over the long term and can’t imagine another standard-bearer.
Jim is one of the numerous great speakers at LPAC 2014. Jim, head of the Daily Caller News Foundation, as well as contributor to RARE Liberty and The American Conservative, has that all-too-rare combination of excellent reporting skills, a passion for liberty, and an understanding that the Republican establishment is part of the problem. His book, Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped, is one of the best examinations of the damage done by "Big Government Conservatives" during the Bush years, the ongoing civil war between the liberty movement and the establishment, and why the victory of the liberty movement is essential if the GOP is to remain a major party and the country is going to avoid a major economic calamity.
In addition to Jim and other great speakers, LPAC 2014 will provide you with the training you need to beat the statists in both parties, build on the progress we have made in the past few years, and win back our lost liberties.
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Be sure to include your name, daytime phone number, address, name and phone number of legal next-of-kin, method of payment, and the name of the funeral home/crematory to contact for verification of death.
Duct taping the bridge: clever marketing?
Re "Two-and-a-half years, this issue is even more clear: is the bridge safe?" (Editorial, June 29): Bay Bridge inspectors are now putting duct tape over cracks and rust on the bridge. Wow, what a marketing bonanza for the makers of duct tape.
They can advertise "The London Bridge may be falling down, but our duct tape is keeping the Bay Bridge safe and sound."
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Join the Discussion
The Sacramento Bee is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere on the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.
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Florida, as we’ve been told repeatedly over the last couple of months, is about to throw off the shackles of underperforming offensive schemes and unleash the hounds with Kurt Roper’s super-duper new pedal to the metal spread attack.
Still, I can’t help but wonder if Muschamp has completely bought into what’s coming. Take this quote:
Muschamp rattled off a series of statistics that convinced him that running and passing out of a shotgun will fit the team’s personnel better than last year’s system. For example, in 2012, the Gators averaged 6.8 yards per running play out of the shotgun, and more than 60 percent completion percentage on passes from the gun. When Driskel was under center, Florida was a shade over 4 yards per carry, and its completion percentage was less than 50 percent.
2012 stats? It took him more than an entire season to glom onto that? I believe I detect a faint whiff of reluctance there.
If it takes Roper a while to get the kinks worked out – and let’s face it, there are a lot of kinks to work out – how patient do you think Boom will be?
8 responses to “Boom goes the shotgun.”
Senator, I think of it slightly differently on Boom. I still can’t figure out whether he is a good coach or not. I think he has made some bad choices in offensive coordinator hires, it is all exacerbated by the fact that he chose to emphasize a Saban-like vision of offense, withouth the personnel to do much of anything offensively. My confusion is frankly exacerbated by hiring Roper. Was it a last ditch effort to save his job OR an admission that what he was doing was not going to work so he is “settling” for a sub prime football (spread, tempo, etc) vs. actually developing a passer, OL, and WRs.
that said, I think the biggest sidebar story (literally) is how overrated UF’s defense has been the past two seasons. Aaron’s first half meltdown in 2012 prevented what could have been an embarrassing blowout against their defense. Keep in mind how many points we scored against them in one half in 2013 and what we did to them when we needed to run out the clock the past 3 years.
“Comment: The team’s strength turned into almost as big a liability late in the season. Injuries were a problem. So was the amount of time spent on the field because the offense couldn’t move the ball. There is enough talent to be among the best units in the SEC.”
mdcgtp, good comments. I’m also of the opinion (fearfully) that the jury is still out on Boom..but the evidence seems to point towards a verdict of “not especially competent.”. Still, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him get it together and be very competitive this year. And while I hope he doesn’t (can’t), I keep thinking about the old movie, “Wait Until Dark” where the bad (really bad) guy is supposedly finished and then suddenly and suprisingly regains his strength and bearing long enough to scare the shit out of everyone in the audience (yep, I screamed too!). Georgia needs to pound Florida and Tennessee into the stone age while they’re still down…Like the end of “Bonnie and Clyde”…That’s the way I’d like to see it play out.
P.S. I just get the love for FU coming from the media. Where are the offensive players to make this all happen? Certainly not in Gainesville. Wasn’t the media singing pretty much the same tune last year? Look what happened.
Quote Of The Day
“It brings back a great Bulldog running back in Thomas who has NFL playing experience and has had success as a college coach at multiple schools. He also inherits a position that has been built to an elite level by Bryan. And it gives Bryan the opportunity to return to coaching the position he played and the one where he cut his teeth serving as a graduate assistant under wide receiver coach John Eason here at UGA. It also provides him with a new experience as a passing game coordinator.” -- Mark Richt, AB-H, 2/16/15
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Trends in the incidence of childhood type 1 diabetes mellitus in Beijing based on hospitalization data from 1995 to 2010.
To study the incidence trend of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) in children in Beijing from 1995 to 2010, to compare it with incidences reported worldwide and to predict the requirement of medical resources in the future. This study involved newly diagnosed T1DM cases younger than 15 years of age in the Beijing Children's Hospital from January 1995 to December 2010. We calculated the incidence of T1DM children in Beijing according to hospitalization data and Beijing's population. We defined it as the underestimated incidence rate (UE-IR). The UE-IRs of T1DM ranged from around 0.88/100,000 to 2.37/100,000 for children in Beijing younger than 15 years of age from 1995 to 2010. The UE-IR increased faster in boys (1.47 times) and in the age group of 0-4 years (1.89 times) after 2003. The UE-IR was greatest in children aged 5-9 years (1.81/100,000) followed by the age of puberty (10-14 years, 1.76/100,000). The predicted number of new T1DM cases in Beijing will increase 1.97 times over the next 10 years. The incidence trend of T1DM was increasing gradually in those younger than 15 years of age in Beijing. The incidence of younger children and boys grew faster. The 5- to 14-year-old children represented a high-risk population of T1DM. The number of predicted new T1DM cases will grow rapidly. This means that we should train more health care providers for pediatric diabetes patients, in order to achieve high-quality medical care and to be able to prevent or postpone chronic complications.
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Illustration : Jim Cooke ( GMG )
Today, we’re talking about doors, gym TVs, pull-ups, broadcaster fights, and more.
Before we get nut deep into the Funbag, you should know that the DEADSPIN AWARDS are taking place in New York next week, and you can go! It’s true! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hang out with BLOGGERS, and it only comes around once a year! So grab your ticket here and get your dancing shoes on. For $20 you get free booze all night. I lived in New York for six years and I can attest that this is the single greatest bargain in the history of New York alcoholism.
Also, in order to prepare for the awards, and to get the annual Williams Sonoma roast in proper shape, there’s no Funbag next week. You will live.
Now … Your letters!
Klay:
Has Trump read The Constitution?
Of course he hasn’t read The Constitution, but that’s easily his most defensible shortcoming. You know who else hasn’t read The Constitution? Me. That’s who. I remember that I had to memorize the preamble in school, and I remember that we were supposed to have some vague knowledge of the Bill of Rights. Otherwise, I glazed over the rest. The Constitution is the Terms & Conditions of America. I agreed to it without ever bothering to look at the fine print, and it’s a good thing I didn’t because HOO BOY GET A LOAD OF THIS SHIT:
“Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy...”
Well that’s just fucking GREAT. Way to sneak that in, framer guys. I’m sure Congress hasn’t exploited that loophole AT ALL. This whole document reads like the old SNL Dean Witter parody ads. “Once a year, we will write each broker’s name on a slip of paper and then place the slips in a hat. Each broker will then draw a slip of paper from the hat. He will buy a gift for the broker whose name he has drawn. He will be that broker’s Secret Santa.”
You can’t blame me for not reading this thing. Everyone should have a working knowledge of civics, least of all the goddamn President, but The Constitution reads like an owner’s manual with 600 pages deliberately missing. There’s nothing in here about people FaceTiming in public. NOTHING! What good is it if I still have to listen to people watch YouTube without headphones at the airport?
The fact that the Constitution is relatively short and vague for a nation’s founding document is, in theory, a good thing. But it also means that every evil asshole gets to breeze through it, pretend they’re a Constitutional scholar, and then exploit its obvious blind spots. I can’t believe we have nine people appointed specifically to divine the desires of a bunch of old dead motherfuckers, and then we allow those people to use their interpretations of those desires as the basis for how 350 million goddamn people get to live their lives. No wonder we’re so fucked! This shit ain’t working! We treat the Constitution as holy writ when it was scribbled down by a bunch of old syphilitic bozos! I say we BURN The Constitution! Burn it and replace it with some sort of video tutorial. Swipe right to increase the estate tax!
Douglas:
My office building has automatic doors which are operated by those big, square, silver/steel buttons. The same kind of buttons/openers are installed outside the men’s room. I maintain that if you are not in a wheelchair, you are a lazy fuck if you use the button to open the front door, and a double lazy ass fuck if you use it to open the men’s room. Am I wrong?
Probably not, but you should see my kids RUSH to push that button. It’s a gigantic blue button that magically opens a door, Jedi-style. You think any child is turning that down? FUCK AND NO. Pushing that button feels like you’re launching a missile attack. I can’t blame them for their zeal. My kids fight over that button more than they fight over elevator buttons, and they fight FOREVER over elevator buttons. I have to assign each kid to an elevator button to push, and then one of the older kids will violate protocol and push the UP button out of turn. And then, it’s tears forever. I just avoid buildings altogether these days.
I’ll freely admit that I’ve pushed the big door button myself a few times, because A) I am impatient believe that pushing the button will make the door open faster (?), and B) Around here the automatic doors are always broken. Either the foot pad doesn’t work, or the button doesn’t. Or sometimes the automatic door only opens halfway and then I have to storm through it like a DEA agent on a cocaine bust. Automatic doors have roughly the same hit rate as automatic toilets.
Michael:
What is the most watched television show on gym televisions? Not the main gym ones that play weird music videos and provide cooking tips that you will never use because your two types of gym-folk either live off of whey powder or leave the gym and hit up an Arby’s on the way home (I am in group two). The small individual TVs on the treadmills and such, providing cardio-doers with endless amounts of dull, soundless entertainment.
As a professional Gym Goer, I know the answer to this. I can even provide you with a ranked list of the SIX INDUSPUTABLE PILLARS of gym TV:
Fox & Friends. It’s true. The people who watch Fox News watch Fox News and NOTHING else, ever. That means nearly half of all gym TVs are tuned into Fox at any given moment. There is no worse feeling than walking into some windowless hotel gym with two machines and a deflated yoga ball and seeing an 80-year-old in jeans walking on a treadmill to fucking Steve Doocy and company. That’s when I decide to take a walk outside instead.
SportsCenter. I don’t think I’ve sat down and actually watched a full SportsCenter since, like, 1998. I’m only now acquainted with it through my gym television, which works roughly 10 percent of the time. There, I get a fleeting glimpse of what SportsCenter currently looks like. There is always a host I can’t identify (I think every ESPN employee gets to host a SportsCenter once a year). There’s a Chris Nolan-style whirling camera shot circling around the new studio. And then there is the Top 10 and the Not Top 10 playing on a near constant loop. I’m not sure SportsCenter has played a fresh highlight since the Buttfumble.
Bloomberg. I swear to you that every unoccupied gym television is tuned to Bloomberg, and I have no idea why. At 5 a.m., the gym must just get flooded with stock bros who have to know what’s going on in the Asian markets so they can get work and SLAY some fucking trades. I don’t know why you can’t just check your phone instead of having a dimestore Jim Cramer give you real-time updates on how Intel is feeling about the next fiscal quarter (SPOILER: They’re bullish!).
Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. The undisputed heavyweight champion of gym food viewing. Watching Guy Fieri while working out is the optimal way of consuming Guy Fieri content. I get to feel superior because Guy is usually digging into a burger the size of Florida while I’m burnin’ heavy calories, but I also get to salivate over that exact same burger. It’s perfect for someone with my particular brand of self-loathing. I can’t believe he’s eating that … I would like to eat that.
Today. The funniest thing about The Today Show is that it’s insanely profitable despite the fact that no one EVER pays attention to it. Four million people tune in every day and don’t hear a word of it. And the best part is that no one involved in the production seems to be aware of this. They actually think they’re important people, and not replaceable cogs working the weekday morning equivalent of a Yule Log. It’s an illness.
Whatever garbage is on CNN. Do you like news, but hate Fox? Well, what if I told you there’s a network out there that has news but sucks in an entirely DIFFERENT way?
Tom:
Are there any professional athletes who cannot do a full pullup?
You’ve seen Phil Mickelson, right? I’m surprised Phil Mickelson can swing a golf club without one of his titties slapping him on the chin.
By the way, I know people are pissed that they paid $20 for Phil’s PPV with Tiger Woods, only to discover that Bleacher Report made the stream free. But dude, if you’re stupid enough to pay for that shit, you get what you deserve. That would be like paying $20 to watch the Pro Bowl. I have zero sympathy. Did you really think either of those guys would care about the outcome? Why not take $20 and shove it up your dick instead? Do you know that they mic’ed up both those puds for the whole event? Who could possibly want that? Listening to Tiger Woods speak is like undergoing elective surgery. And even Phil Mickelson’s family doesn’t want to hear Phil Mickelson banter for four hours.
Anyway, there are probably a bunch more pro athletes who can’t do a pull-up, and they have my eternal sympathy. I haven’t been able to do one since roughly 2010. It feels amazing when you can do a pull-up. You feel like a goddamn superhero. No wonder Ben Affleck films himself doing them in every movie he makes. I used to be able to do them in front of my kids, like at the playground and stuff. LOOGIT HOW STRONG DAD IS GRRRRRRRRRRR. Now when I hang from any bar it feels like my shoulders are about to rip apart. I’m never gonna be able to do a pull-up again and that’s a terrible bit of knowledge to harbor. No wonder I drink like John Daly now.
Moe:
I just read “Travels With My Aunt” by Graham Greene and in it, there’s a dude who carries a notebook, times every single piss he takes, and writes it down. There aren’t people like that in real life. Are there?
Oh, sure. As always, if there’s a weird strain of obsessive behavior out there, rest assured man has exhibited it. I myself had to keep a piss journal when I underwent physical therapy for a weak bladder. I would take a piss and then make a little hatch mark in my journal. That way, I could track my progress and see if doing kegel exercises with my butthole was really helping me piss less. And it worked, for a while. Tracking your activity gives you a deeper awareness of your bad habits and makes you think twice before indulging in them. Then I got tired of keeping a journal and went back to peeing 80 times a day like a frightened toddler.
I have tried to keep pee journals. I have tried to keep weightlifting journals. I have tried to keep food journals. I have NEVER been able to stick with any of them. Logging that shit on a daily basis is not only tedious, but I found that having a nice dinner and some wine and then having to go note it in some fucking diary sucked the joy out of it. It was like narc-ing on myself. No thank you. I prefer to never know anything about anything I do. Life is much more tolerable that way. If you think I enabled that new screen time tracker on my phone, you don’t know me very well.
HALFTIME!
Josue:
Lie detector tests are bullshit right?
Yes, but I still want to be administered one. In my daydreams, I get accused of a super high-profile murder, and then a pair of grizzled cops drag me into THE BOX for 16 hours of torturous interrogation. And then I tell Detective Pzyzborski (he’s Polish), “Listen man, I didn’t do it! I’LL TAKE A POLYGRAPH TO PROVE IT, BITCHES.” And then the cops are like, “Oh wow, this guy’s insisting on a polygraph. He must be innocent if he’s that bold!” Then I get set free and the government hands me a check for $10 million for sullying my good name.
Anyway, you are right that lie detector tests aren’t usually admissible in court unless both sides agree to it, and no good lawyer would ever do that. This is why I look forward to the President taking a lie detector test and READILY agreeing to have it presented as evidence over the vehement objections of his counsel. That’ll be a good day online.
By the way, the average psychopath may be able to trick a polygraph by wholly inhabiting their lies, but I do not possess such superpowers. If I ever had to take a lie detector test, I would suffer a panic attack and not only confess to the murder, but to seven OTHER murders that I also didn’t commit. I would fold like the Titans’ offensive line. I would cry and shit my pants and the cops would be completely disgusted with my open display of cowardice. It takes nothing to break me. I have no spine, literally or figuratively.
Rory:
You can only watch movies from one decade for the rest of your life. Which one do you choose?
It’s probably this decade and that’s because I have three kids, which means I never get to see new movies anymore. Back when I was a teenager, I saw every goddamn movie there was. Ever see Imaginary Crimes, the coming-of-age tale starring Fairuza Balk, with Harvey Keitel as her deadbeat father?* I have. That’s because I had TIME back in the 90s. I had all the time in the world to watch every movie ever made. I feel like every guy has an insufferable “movie buff” phase, and your late teens/early 20s is the prime spot for it. I remember actually caring about the Oscars back then. God, what a shithead I was.
Anyway, since children, movies have been a fucking black hole for me. Every movie I’ve watched for the past decade has had a talking Labrador in it. I got a lot of catching up to do, and a lot of Fast & Furious movies to choose from. So gimme this decade or the last. I love a lot of old movies like True Romance and Star Wars, but I never REALLY need to see them again. I don’t want anything from the 20th Century. I know the ‘70s are considered the golden age of filmmaking, but a lot of those movies were matinee dreck, and even the good ones were, let’s say GENEROUS with pacing compared to modern movies. I’m not the kind of asshole that needs to spend the rest of his life dissecting old Hal Ashby movies. I want the newest, freshest garbage possible.
*It’s a pretty good movie. There’s also a scene where Keitel gets mad at Balk for needing money before she explains she needs it for Kotex. So that’s neat.
Matt:
How did people get the idea that Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is a Christmas song and, more importantly, how do we make it stop?
I think I know the answer to this. Pentatonix covered it for a Christmas special two years ago, and I guess that gave other people license to run with it. Ergo, Pentatonix must be destroyed. That is not a good Christmas song. That’s not a good song, period. Remember when Kate McKinnon dressed up as Hillary and sang it after the 2016 election? JESUS. That song is cloying garbage used to fill up sad musical sequences on hospital shows. If you wanna listen to that song on a rainy day, that’s your prerogative, but keep it the hell away from MY Christmas. All potential nominees for the holiday music canon should have to be approved by a committee, and that committee should consist of me and only me. Leonard Cohen, you are fucking OUT.
Ben:
You end too many sentences with ‘, man’...man.
Look, man ... that’s how you know I’m REAL.
Aaron:
I’ve been a dedicated griller and part-time smokeboy for the better part of two decades now. In that time, I’ve sampled literally hundreds of BBQ sauces, everything from discount store brands to top shelf exotic flavors that can only be procured at specialty retailers in the deepest hillbilly and hipster enclaves. I’ve also dabbled in creating my own concoctions, with mixed results. Then, just last night, as I gobbled down the last of my weekly pork chop allotment, I had an epiphany: the tastiest, most versatile sauce I’ve come across is ... Open Pit. Fight me.
That’s fine. When my wife and I are feeling lazy, we buy a package of drumsticks, smother them in Sweet Baby Ray’s and then stick them in the oven. That shit turns into sugar glue after roughly two hours. It’s an easy way to have “barbecue” if you don’t feel like hunkering over a fire pit for hours on end. You’re not gonna get struck by lightning if you use bottled sauce when you want to.
Personally, I am a barbecue sauce whore. I like them all. I don’t scoff at South Carolina mustard sauce. I don’t stand on a mount and declare KC barbecue sauce as the only True Barbecue Sauce. It all tastes pretty good to me (expect for Alabama white sauce, which can go straight to hell). People who get provincial about that shit are denying themselves the pleasure of eating the widest possible variety of smoked and basted meats. I like it all. Give me your Open Pit sacrilege. I won’t turn my nose up at it.
By the way, my favorite homemade BBQ sauce is a bastardized Carolina sauce with tomato paste, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, a bit of ketchup, and some hot sauce. It takes roughly three seconds to make and does the job nicely with pork shoulder or whatever hunk of smoked fat you have sitting before you.
Tim:
What does it say about the Colts and Luck that this plaque was on sale at the Colts Pro Shop this weekend?
It’s not so sad now that he’s BACK! I don’t know what kind of steroids they injected into Luck’s shoulder, but I want them. Shoot them into my balls so I can fight live elephants. I bet I could even do a pullup again with those drugs. HAND THEM OVER, IRSAY.
Anyway, I am genuinely overjoyed at Luck’s recovery. I watched him beat the Dolphins on Sunday and it was vintage Luck in that even when the Colts were down, you knew that Luck would come back and Miami would completely wilt. It was inevitable. The second the Dolphins went up 10, they were doomed. It’s great to have Luck back, and it’s great that his coach is no longer a 1990s PE teacher. These are all good developments.
In fact, it’s been an absurdly positive NFL season thus far. Luck is back. All the best QBs have remained relatively healthy. The Rams, Saints and Chiefs are historically fun. The Packers fucking SUCK. This has been the best NFL season in ages, which means that it’s destined to end with everyone hurt and the fucking Patriots traipsing into the Super Bowl yet again. Can’t we just sabotage their plane or something?
Jake:
The scuffle between the Detroit Tigers announcers had me thinking: what broadcasting duo would you like to see fight one another? Would you want to see an even fight or a one-sided affair?
Oh, I’d like to see Jim Nantz get his ass beat like a Jimbo Fisher relative. The twist is that I don’t want Tony Romo to administer the beating. Like, I know it it would be funny for the normally amiable Romo to blow a gasket and start wailing on Nantz, and having Nantz cry out, “I thought we were FRIENDS!”
But no, no I want NICK FALDO to do it. I want the Masters to open with that soft painting music, and then I want Nantz to be like, “Hello Friends,” and then I want Faldo to be like, “Friend? YOU SLEPT WITH MY WIFE, YOU WANKER!” And then I want him to tear out Nantz’s spleen live on the air. Imagine the heartbreak in Nantz’s eyes, knowing that his bloody demise came on the hallowed grounds of Augusta National. He thought this was a gentleman’s game, but NO! Instead of a green jacket he got a black coffin! Now THAT is a pay-per-view I’d buy, folks.
The other obvious choice here is Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy. Those two clearly dislike one another and try to hide it by merely pretending to dislike one another. It’s painful and horrible, and I’m ready for the veil to drop. I want them throwing down and I want Van Gundy clutching to Jackson’s leg like a fucking Denver boot. That’s the content that all NBA fans crave.
Email of the week!
Scott:
One fall day while in college, I was driving down a side street on my way to work, and some dude walks out between parked cars. Typical college kid, not looking and just walking out, as I’d done dozens of times, too. I slam on my brakes, but it’s not really that close to hitting him. Then he looks at me and I see the birthmark on his face. I damn near hit Drew Brees with my car during his (and my) senior year at Purdue. I instantly think ‘Oh god, I was almost the most hated person on campus.’ That was the only time I ever saw him in person, outside of the stadium during games, even though our college years overlapped almost exactly. I didn’t stop shaking for two hours. Now, he’s got this all-time passing yardage record, and watching had me wondering, like this weird ‘alternate history of Drew Brees’ story, could I have impacted all of NFL history if I’d been driving just 10 mph faster? Did my shitty Ford Tempo win New Orleans a Super Bowl because it took so long to accelerate? Have you ever nearly changed history and avoided it out of stupid luck?
I don’t think so. But maybe one day I’ll have the privilege of nearly accidentally killing Putin. You never know!
|
tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
|
OpenWebText2
|
Q:
jQuery causing page re-load on iPhone
I'm using this piece of jQuery to show a message to my users on first visit and on click of the 'info' button.
$(document).ready(function()
{
if(!localStorage.newVisitor) {
localStorage.newVisitor="true";
$('#popUp').fadeIn(300);
}
$('#popUp').click(function(){
$('#popUp').fadeOut(300);
});
$('#info').click(function(){
$('#popUp').fadeIn(300);
}
);
});
The html is essentially:
<div id="popUp">Hello</div>
<a id="info">Info</a>
The CSS:
#popUp {
display: none;
}
This is all hunky dory in safari, but when I transfer this to the iPhone for testing, every time I tap the 'Info' button, the popup shows, but then the page instatly refreshes so the message is then reset to it's hidden state.
Any Ideas why this is so anyone?
Thanks!
A:
Try this:
$('#info').click(function(e){
e.preventDefault();
$('#popUp').fadeIn(300);
});
Btw, your <a> tag should have an href attribute:
<a id="info" href="#">Info</a>
A:
Replace you this:
<a id="info">Info</a>
To this:
<span id="info">Info</span>
CSS:
#info{cursor:pointer;}
Because you are targeting the id for the click you dont need the <a>, as the <a> tag has certain behaviors that it wants to do for example jump to a point on a page or move to another page.
|
tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
|
StackExchange
|
Peter Molyneux Q&A @ GameSpot
by Dhruin, 2006-08-15 12:23:00
Coming out of the GameSpot's UK office is an interview with Peter Molyneux. This one doesn't have any direct relevancy to RPGs with nary a mention of Fable 2 but some of the general development comments may be of interest. For example, Peter sees the PC as more of a "casual" platform, World of Warcraft aside:
GSUK: The Movies and Black & White 2 didn't enjoy the same level of success as previous Lionhead titles, despite being critically well received. Would you put their lack of success down to marketing?
PM: It's very easy to blame marketing departments and publishers when sales don't live up to expectations, but in reality there are many, many reasons for what happened, so I'll just focus on three. Firstly, the PC market has been declining; the number of PC-only titles that have been successful is nonexistent. And, in fact, The Movies was, in sales terms, the most successful original IP over the Christmas period. Secondly, launching any game over the Christmas period is challenging, as there is so much focus on a few games which have massive marketing budgets behind them. Thirdly, I think the type of people playing and buying PC games has changed. If you exclude World of Warcraft, there seems to be many more casual gamers playing games on the PC than hardcore gamers.
|
tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
|
Pile-CC
|
All relevant data are included within the paper. The study was approved by the Bioethics Committee of the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. Participants were informed verbally and in written format, that (I) participation was voluntary and students could opt out at any time without any consequence, (II) confidentiality and anonymity were guaranteed, (III) and the data would be guarded carefully by our research team for the only purpose of this scientific study. Data contain potentially identifying information and sensitive participants information. For all these reasons and following the indications of the Bioethics Committee of the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela the authors must not uploaded the dataset to a stable, public repository. However, the authors agree to make freely available any materials and data described in the publication upon reasonable request to <[email protected]>. principal investigator of this proyect and proffesor of Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.
Introduction {#sec005}
============
Alcohol is the most commonly consumed psychoactive substance worldwide \[[@pone.0193741.ref001]\]. Alcohol use often begins in early adolescence, a period when risky behaviours such as substance use are common \[[@pone.0193741.ref002]\]. Recent reports indicate that 47% of young Europeans have consumed alcohol at or before the age of 13 years \[[@pone.0193741.ref003]\]. In a Spanish survey, 21% of students reported being intoxicated in the 30 days prior to the evaluation, representing one of the highest mean rates among European countries \[[@pone.0193741.ref003]\]. Binge drinking (BD), a particular type of risky alcohol consumption, is defined as the consumption of large amounts of alcohol in a short period of time, with blood alcohol concentrations reaching up to 0.08 g/dl\[[@pone.0193741.ref004]\]. This pattern of consumption, is replacing among young people traditional alcohol use in Spain (one in four young people between the ages of 14 and 18 years partake in BD) \[[@pone.0193741.ref005]\]. BD has been associated with a wide range of negative consequences (e.g. neurocognitive deficits, other drug use, risky sexual behaviour), for both the drinkers themselves and also for others in their close environment \[[@pone.0193741.ref006],[@pone.0193741.ref007]\].
In recent years, a great deal of scientific research has been conducted worldwide with the aim of understanding alcohol use in young people and designing effective prevention strategies. Identifying individual explanatory factors for this type of behaviour is crucial for obtaining accurate information about where we should focus our efforts. Some risk factors prevail among university students, although with some variations due to socio-cultural differences \[[@pone.0193741.ref008]\].
Age of onset of alcohol consumption is sometimes considered one of the most influential of these risk factors. Early age of onset has been associated with life-threatening outcomes, increased levels of RC throughout adolescence and greater risk of dependence during adulthood \[[@pone.0193741.ref009],[@pone.0193741.ref010]\]. Most university students tend to drink more heavily than their non-student peers \[[@pone.0193741.ref011]\]. Although BD often starts during late adolescence, a large proportion of students seem to acquire this unhealthy pattern of consumption during their first years at university. In a study involving 1,894 first-year university students in the USA, Weitzman \[[@pone.0193741.ref012]\] found that 1 in 4 first started to partake in BD at university, probably because of environmental and temporal characteristics specific to the university environment \[[@pone.0193741.ref011]\].
Despite the importance of risky drinking patterns, longitudinal data regarding prevalence rates amongst university students -a population particularly at risk for alcohol-related problems- is still scarce. Thus, we wondered about the extent to which risky patterns of alcohol consumption in Spain are acquired at university or, conversely, are already established before university. We therefore decided to study the possible differences in long-term temporal trends in RC and BD in university students who had already started to follow these alcohol use patterns before going to university and those who began while attending university. On the basis of previous risk factors identified in this cohort \[[@pone.0193741.ref013]\], we also attempted to identify variables that induce university students to engage in RC and BD when they had not previously followed such patterns of consumption. The identification of such factors may help in the design of comprehensive prevention and intervention approaches adapted to an environment where alcohol tends to be widely available and prevalent \[[@pone.0193741.ref014]\].
Materials and methods {#sec006}
=====================
Design, population and sample {#sec007}
-----------------------------
We carried out a cohort study among university students (Compostela Cohort 2005, Spain), between November 2005 and February 2015. We used cluster sampling to select the participants. Thus, at least one of the first-year classes was randomly selected from each of the 33 university faculties or departments (a total of 53 classes). The number of classes selected in each university faculty or department was proportional to the number of students. All students present in the class on the day of the survey were invited to participate in the study (n = 1382). A total of 99.06% of the students completed the questionnaire at the beginning of the study. Abstinent students were excluded from the association analysis, although the numbers are included in the sample description. This study was approved by the Bioethics Committee of the University de Santiago de Compostela. Subjects were informed both verbally and in written format (within the questionnaire) that participation was voluntary, anonymous, and the possibility to opt-out was available at any time. Subjects were informed that they were free to fill in or refuse to fill in the questionnaire. This procedure was approved by the Bioethics Committee.
Data collection procedure {#sec008}
-------------------------
Two teams of researchers visited each first-year classroom in November 2005 and invited all students present in the class to participate in the study. Participants were evaluated via a self-administered questionnaire in the same classroom (1st questionnaire). In November 2007, the same team of researchers visited the third-year classroom in order to follow-up with the students. Participants were re-evaluated via a self-administered questionnaire (2nd questionnaire). The questionnaires were linked using birth date, sex, university department, and class. Students who provided a phone number in the first or second questionnaire were further evaluated by phone at 4.5-, 6.5-, and 9.0- year follow-ups (3rd, 4th and 5th questionnaires). On all five occasions, alcohol use was measured with the Galician validated version of the AUDIT \[[@pone.0193741.ref015],[@pone.0193741.ref016]\]. In addition to the AUDIT, another questionnaire that asked about the potential factors associated with alcohol use was also administered (educational level and alcohol use by parents, alcohol-related problems and age of onset of alcohol use). One of the items in the second questionnaire specifically referred to alcohol-related expectancies. In this question, the students were required to rank 14 expectancies about the effects of alcohol (it adds fun, it helps me to socialize, to feel more relaxed, to forget about problems, to endure problems, it causes irritability, anxiety, depression, confusion, sleep-related problems, nervousness, aggression, loss of control, heaviness/drowsiness). This question was generated using items from a questionnaire previously administered to young Spanish adults \[[@pone.0193741.ref017]\]. More details about data collection are available in the following reference \[[@pone.0193741.ref013]\].
Definition of variables {#sec009}
-----------------------
### Independent variables {#sec010}
Several socio-demographic variables were considered: gender, place of residence (parental home/away from the parental home), and maternal educational level (primary school/high school/university). Four categories were defined for age of onset of alcohol use (after 16 years old, at age 16, at age 15, before the age of 15).
Finally, taking the number of positive and negative expectancies into account, a score ranging from 0 to 14 was generated (0 being the maximum of negative expectancies and 14 the maximum of positive expectancies). The scores were divided into tertiles.
### Dependent variables {#sec011}
1. Risky consumption (RC). Dichotomous variable generated from the AUDIT score. A different cut-off value was established according to gender: = \>5 for women; and = \>6 for men. These cut-offs are recommended in the Galician validated version of the AUDIT \[[@pone.0193741.ref016]\].
2. Binge drinking (BD). This is a dichotomous variable generated from the third AUDIT question "How often do you have 6 or more alcoholic drinks per occasion?", which was coded as follows: never = 0, less than once a month = 0, once a month = 1, once a week = 1, daily or almost daily = 1. The sensitivity and specificity of this question with this cut-off value are respectively 0.72 and 0.73, and the area under the curve is 0.767 (95% CI: 0.718--0.816) \[[@pone.0193741.ref018]\].
Statistical analysis {#sec012}
--------------------
We used multilevel logistic regression for repeated measures to obtain adjusted Odds Ratios (ORs) for independent variables from the final RC and BD models. Confidence intervals of 95% (95% CI) were calculated for both proportions and means. These models are more flexible than traditional models and therefore allow us to work with correlated data. This was the case here as the same subject was measured several times and the responses were strongly correlated, thus creating a dependency structure. The university faculty/department and classroom were considered random variables. We decided not to impute missing data, as analysis of the distribution of missing values enabled us to assume the non-existence of any patterns in the distribution of missing values. Maximal models were generated, including all theoretical independent variables according to the literature. Final models were generated from the maximal models. The nonsignificant independent variables were eliminated from this maximum model when the coefficients of the main exposure variables did not vary by more than 10% and the value of Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) decreased. Data were analyzed using Generalized Linear Mixed Models in SPSS v.20 statistical software.
Results {#sec013}
=======
The characteristics of the samples of women and men are summarized in Tables [1](#pone.0193741.t001){ref-type="table"} and [2](#pone.0193741.t002){ref-type="table"}. There were no significant differences in any of these variables in either females or males.
10.1371/journal.pone.0193741.t001
###### Characteristics of female initial sample and follow-up samples.
{#pone.0193741.t001g}
Percentage or mean (95%CI)
---------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------- ------------------- ------------------- ------------------- ------------------- -------
**Maternal educational level**
Primary school 41.8 (38.4--45.3) 44.2 (40.1--48.4) 43.1 (38.3--48.3) 47.3 (41.3--54.1) 45.7 (40.1--51.8)
High school 33.6 (30.2--37.1) 30.5 (26.4--34.7) 30.6 (25.8--35.8) 26.5 (20.4--33.3) 28.1 (22.5--34.2)
University 24.6 (21.2--28.1) 25.3 (21.3--29.6) 26.3 (21.4--31.4) 26.1 (20.1--32.9) 26.2 (20.7--32.4) 0.642
**Residence**
In parental home 24.7 (22.1--27.5) 22.9 (19.7--26.1) 22.2 (18.5--26.0) 22.1 (18.1--26.1) 20.9 (16.5--25.1)
Away from the parental home 75.3 (72.6--78.0) 77.1 (74.0--80.3) 77.8 (74.1--81.6) 77.9 (73.9--81.9) 79.1 (74.9--83.5) 0.720
**Positive expectations about alcohol**
Low 37.1 (33.4--40.9) 37.5 (33.2--42.1) 36.5 (31.4--42.0) 36.5 (30.9--42.3) 37.9 (31.7--44.3)
Medium 34.0 (30.3--37.8) 32.6 (28.3--37.3) 34.6 (29.4--40.1) 35.4 (29.8--41.1) 34.8 (28.6--41.2)
High 28.9 (25.2--32.7) 29.9 (25.5--34.5) 28.9(23.7--34.4) 28.1 (22.5--33.8) 27.2 (21.0--33.6) 0.999
**Age of onset of alcohol use**
After age 16 19.0 (16.5--21.8) 17.9 (14.9--21.3) 16.5 (13.0--20.5) 16.7 (12.1--22.5) 14.5 (10.5--19.2)
Age 16 38.9 (35.6--42.2) 38.1 (34.1--42.2) 36.8 (32.0--41.7) 40.1(33.6--46.8) 36.6 (30.9--42.6)
Age 15 25.6 (22.7--28.7) 25.9 (22.3--29.6) 26.5 (22.2--31.1) 26.4 (20.8--32.7) 28.3 (23.0--34.0)
Before age 15 16.5 (14.0--19.7) 18.1 (15.0--21.5) 20.3 (16.4--24.5) 16.7 (12.1--22.5) 20.7 (16.0--25.9) 0.438
**Binge drinking**[^a^](#t001fn001){ref-type="table-fn"}
Never 61.2 (58.2--64.3) 61.3 (57.7--65.1) 59.0 (54.7--63.7) 59.4 (53.8--65.5) 60.0 (54.8--65.4)
Less than once a month 20.9 (17.8--23.9) 20.9 (17.3--24.7) 23.4 (19.1--28.1) 22.2 (16.5--28.3) 22.5 (17.2--27.9)
Monthly 9.8 (6.7--12.8) 9.1 (5.5--12.9) 9.1 (4.8--13.8) 9.8 (4.1--15.9) 9.8 (4.6--15.3)
More frequently 8.2 (5.1--11.2) 8.7 (5.1--12.5) 8.5 (4.1--13.2) 8.6 (3.0--14.8) 7.7 (2.5--13.1) 0.999
**AUDIT: Total (mean)** 5.4 (5.2--5.7) 5.6 (5.1--5.8) 5.6 (5.2--6.0) 5.6 (5.0--6.1) 5.3 (4.9--5.8) 0.884
^a^ Question 3 of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT).
10.1371/journal.pone.0193741.t002
###### Characteristics of male initial sample and follow-up samples.
{#pone.0193741.t002g}
Percentage or mean (95%CI)
---------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------- ------------------- ------------------- ------------------- ------------------- -------
**Maternal educational level**
Primary school 32.0 (26.5--37.8) 35.8 (28.4--43.3) 41.6 (32.8--50.8) 43.0 (31.6--54.8) 41.6 (31.5--53.5)
High school 27.6 (22.1--33.3) 27.4 (19.9--34.9) 25.5 (16.8--34.7) 24.1 (12.7--35.8) 27.0 (16.8--38.9)
University 40.3 (34.8--46.0) 36.8 (29.3--44.3) 32.8 (24.1--42.0) 32.9 (21.5--44.7) 31.5 (21.3--43.4) 0.449
**Residence**
In the parental home 29.7(25.1--34.5) 27.8 (21.9--34.1) 28.8 (21.6--36.4) 31.6 (23.9--40.6) 28.9 (20.0--38.3)
Away from the parental home 70.3 (65.7--75.1) 72.2 (66.3--78.5) 71.2 (64.0--78.9) 68.4 (60.7--77.4) 71.7 (62.2--80.5) 0.949
**Positive expectations about alcohol**
Low 29.7 (23.7--36.0) 33.0 (25.1--41.0) 34.2 (25.0--44.3) 35.4 (25.3--46.4) 31.6 (20.3--43.7)
Medium 38.0 (32.0--44.4) 30.7 (22.9--38.8) 31.7 (22.5--41.8) 32.3 (22.2--43.4) 30.4 (19.0--42.5)
High 32.3 (26.3--38.7) 36.3 (28.5--44.4) 34.2 (25.0--44.3) 32.3 (22.2--43.4) 38.0 (26.6--50.0) 0.705
**Age of onset of alcohol use**
After age 16 18.1 (12.5--24.1) 16.8 (9.2--24.7) 15.5 (6.9--25.5) 16.4 (6.0--29.7) 18.2 (7.8--30.3)
Age 16 36.9 (31.2--42.8) 41.0 (33.5--49.0) 44.0 (35.3--54.0) 50.7 (40.3--64.0) 48.1 (37.7--60.1)
Age 15 21.6 (15.9--27.5) 20.2 (12.7--28.2) 21.6 (12.9--1.6) 23.9 (13.4--37.2) 20.8 (10.4--32.8)
Before age 15 23.4 (17.8--29.4) 22.0 (14.4--30.0) 19.0 (10.3--9.0) 9.0 (0.0--22.3) 13.0 (2.6--25.1) 0.381
**Binge drinking**[^a^](#t002fn001){ref-type="table-fn"}
Never 39.1 (34.0--44.7) 43.2 (36.4--50.6) 42.4 (34.5--51.7) 46.9 (37.0--58.9) 45.6 (35.6--56.5)
Less than once a month 25.3 (20.2--31.0) 20.4 (13.6--27.8) 21.6 (13.7--30.8) 21.0 (11.1--33.0) 21.1 (11.1--32.1)
Monthly 12.7 (7.5--18.3) 14.6 (7.8--22.0) 13.7 (5.7--22.9) 17.3 (7.4--29.3) 15.6 (5.6--26.5)
More frequently 22.9 (17.8--28.6) 21.8 (15.0--29.2) 22.3 (14.4--31.6) 14.8 (4.9--26.8) 17.8 (7.8--28.8) 0.905
**AUDIT: Total (mean)** 7.8 (7.2--8.4) 7.4 (6.6--8.2) 7.3 (6.4--8.2) 6.5 (5.4--7.6) 7.1 (6.0--8.2) 0.784
^a^ Question 3 of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT).
At the beginning of the study, the rates of prevalence of RC and BD among females were 51.5% (95% CI: 48.4--54.6) and 17.9% (95% CI: 15.6--20.3), while among males the respective rates were 58.0% (95% CI: 52.9--63.0) and 35.6% (95% CI: 30.7--40.5). As shown in Tables [3](#pone.0193741.t003){ref-type="table"} and [4](#pone.0193741.t004){ref-type="table"}, the percentage of subjects partaking in RC or BD was always lower in females than in males at ages 20, 22, 24 and 27. The prevalence decreased in those students who already engaged in RC or BD before going to university, particularly for BD among women (see [Table 3](#pone.0193741.t003){ref-type="table"}). For all subjects, regardless of gender or the age of onset of alcohol use, the greatest decrease in the prevalence of both RC and BD always occurred between the ages of 22 and 24 years ([Table 3](#pone.0193741.t003){ref-type="table"}).
10.1371/journal.pone.0193741.t003
###### Percentages of subjects partaking in risky consumption and binge drinking at age 20, 22, 24 and 27 years, among subjects already partaking in each of these consumption patterns at age 18.
{#pone.0193741.t003g}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Females Males
----------------------------------------- ------------ ------------------------------------------------ ------------ ------------------------------------------------ ----------- ----------- --------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------------------------------------------- ----------- ------------------------------------------------ ----------- -----------------------------------------------
**Maternal educational level**
Primary school 74.3 (136) 58.9 (95) 18.0 (61) 30.3 (76) 36.2 (47) 25.8 (31) 0 (21) 21.4 (26) 87.9 (33) 65.4 (26) 28.6 (14) 33.3 (18) 81.8 (22) 52.9 (17) 27.3 (11) 36.4 (11)
High school 79.6 (113) 59.0 (78) 20.0 (40) 26.0 (50) 52.5 (40) 32.0 (25) 7.1 (14) 23.5 (17) 79.3 (29) 85.0 (20) 12.5 (8) 54.5 (11) 84.2 (19) 80.0 (15) 20.0 (5) 50.0 (8)
University 84.2 (95) 70.3 (74) 17.5 (40) 40.4 (52) 59.4 (32) 44.0 (25) 7.1 (14) 11.5 (14) 90.0 (50) 68.8 (32) 47.4 (19) 47.6 (21) 63.6 (33) 64.7 (17) 44.4 (9) 27.3 (11)
**Residence**
In parental home 72.3 (65) 53.3 (45) 16.7 (30) 27.6 (29) 47.6 (21) 25.0 (12) 10.0 (10) 19.6 (6) 82.1 (28) 73.7 (19) 45.5 (11) 27.3 (11) 68.4 (19) 75.0 (12) 42.9 (7) 16.7 (6)
Away from home 80.3 (279) 64.4 (202) 18.9 (111) 32.9 (149) 48.0 (98) 34.8 (69) 2.6 (39) 0 (51) 87.1 (85) 71.7 (60) 32.3 (31) 48.7 (39) 76.8 (56) 63.2 (38) 31.6 (19) 41.7 (24)
**Positive expectancies about alcohol**
Low 72.6 (62) 47.6 (42) 12.5 (24) 25.0 (32) 25.0 (16) 20.0 (10) 0 (6) 16.7 (6) 87.5 (16) 53.8 (13) 22.2 (9) 57.1 (7) 87.5 (8) 16.7 (6) 20.0 (5) 75.0 (4)
Medium 77.7 (121) 57.4 (94) 21.8 (55) 27.1 (69) 45.7 (35) 26.9 (26) 0 (14) 10.5 (19) 83.3 (36) 69.2 (26) 54.5 (11) 62.5 (16) 72.7 (22) 71.4 (14) 50.0 (6) 28.8 (7)
High 79.8 (124) 71.3[\*](#t003fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (87) 17.0 (47) 42.4[\*](#t003fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (59) 58.0 (50) 36.4 (33) 5 (20) 13.0 (23) 87.5 (48) 77.4 (31) 33.0 (18) 27.3 (22) 72.7 (33) 77.3[\*](#t003fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (22) 25.0 (12) 35.7 (14)
**Age of onset of alcohol use**
After age 16 76.5 (34) 72.2 (18) 22.2 (9) 7.7 (13) 28.6 (7) 60.0 (5) 50 (2) 0 (4) 100 (11) 66.7 (9) 20.0 (5) 33.3 (6) 71.4 (7) 50.0 (6) 33.3 (3) 50.0 (4)
Age 16 79.8 (119) 56.0 (84) 17.3 (52) 29.5 (61) 46.4 (28) 18.8 (16) 9.1 (11) 8.3 (12) 87.8 (41) 83.9 (31) 50.0 (22) 40.0 (25) 70.8 (24) 72.2 (18) 42.9 (14) 42.9 (14)
Age 15 81.9 (105) 66.2 (67) 13.0 (46) 31.6 (57) 50.0 (40) 35.7 (28) 0 (18) 23.8 (21) 82.6 (23) 56.2 (16) 22.2 (9) 33.3 (9) 66.7 (15) 66.7 (9) 40.0 (5) 0 (5)
Before age 15 75.0 (84) 63.6 (66) 28.1 (32) 40.0 (45) 51.2 (43) 35.5 (31) 0[\*](#t003fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (17) 15.8 (9) 91.2 (34) 75.0 (20) 0 (5) 62.5 (8) 82.1 (28) 68.8 (16) 0 (3) 33.3 (6)
**Total of subjects 95% Cl:**\ **78.8**\ **62.3**\ **18.4**\ **32.0**[+](#t003fn003){ref-type="table-fn"}\ **47.9**\ **33.3**\ **4.1**\ **17.5**[+](#t003fn003){ref-type="table-fn"}\ **86.0**\ **72.2**\ **35.7**\ **44.0**[+](#t003fn003){ref-type="table-fn"}\ **74.7**\ **66.0**\ **34.6**\ **36.7**[+](#t003fn003){ref-type="table-fn"}\
**Lower**\ **74.5**\ **56.3**\ **12.0**\ **25.2**\ **38.9**\ **23.1**\ **0.0**\ **7.7**\ **79.6**\ **62.3**\ **21.2**\ **30.2**\ **68.4**\ **52.9**\ **16.3**\ **19.4**\
**Upper** **83.7** **68.4** **24.8** **38.9** **56.9** **43.6** **9.6** **27.4** **92.3** **82.0** **50.5** **57.8** **84.5** **79.1** **52.9** **53.9**
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: The total number of subjects is shown between brackets.
\*Significant differences among categories of exposition. χ^2^ test, p\<0.05.
^+^Significant differences among ages. χ^2^ test, p\<0.05.
10.1371/journal.pone.0193741.t004
###### Percentages of subjects partaking in risky consumption and binge drinking at age 20, 22, 24 and 27 years, among subjects who did not partake in each of these consumption patterns at age 18.
{#pone.0193741.t004g}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Females Males
----------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------ ----------- ---------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------ ----------- ---------------------------------------------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------------------------------------------- ----------- ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ -----------------------------------------------
**Maternal educational level**
Primary school 21.7 (157) 20.6 (102) 6.2 (64) 6.9 (72) 8.1 (246) 8.4 (166) 6.7 (104) 3.3 122) 35.9 (39) 29.0 (31) 5.0 (20) 15.8 (19) 16.0 (50) 22.5 (40) 0 (23) 11.5 (26)
High school 25.8 (89) 22.6 (62) 0 (30) 4.9 (41) 11.1 (162) 17.4 (115) 3.6 (56) 0 (74) 34.6 (26) 40.0 (15) 9.1 (11) 7.7 (13) 19.4 (36) 30.0 (20) 7.1 (14) 12.5 (16)
University 26.0 (53) 21.7 (46) 6.9 (29) 12.1 (33) 12.5 (136) 11.6 (95) 0 (55) 2.8 (71) 29.2 (24) 30.8 (13) 14.3 (7) 28.6 (7) 22.0 (41) 39.3 (28) 23.5[\*](#t004fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (17) 11.8 (17)
**Residence**
In parental home 16.1 (87) 22.8 (57) 3.0 (33) 5.1 (39) 5.3 (131) 11.1 (90) 1.9 (53) 0 (62) 31.0 (29) 23.8 (21) 0 (16) 13.3 (15) 13.2 (38) 10.7 (28) 5.0 (20) 5.0 (20)
Away from home 27.4[\*](#t004fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (234) 20.6 (155) 5.5 (91) 8.3 (108) 11.6[\*](#t004fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (415) 12.2 (288) 4.9 (163) 2.9 (206) 34.9 (63) 38.5 (39) 13.0 (23) 16.0 (25) 20.7 (92) 39.3[\*](#t004fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (61) 11.4 (35) 15.0 (40)
**Positive expectancies about alcohol**
Low 17.5 (154) 16.0 (106) 2.9 (68) 5.1 (78) 5.5 (200) 6.5 (138) 2.3 (86) 2.9 (104) 25.6 (43) 32.1 (28) 5.0 (20) 22.2 (18) 15.7 (51) 20.0 (35) 0 (24) 9.5 (21)
Medium 29.9 (67) 32.6 (46) 12.0 (25) 12.5 (32) 11.1 (153) 16.7 (114) 7.6 (66) 1.2 (82) 47.4 (19) 25.0 (12) 12.5 (8) 0 (8) 21.2 (33) 25.0 (24) 23.1 (13) 29.4 (17)
High 25.0 (48) 26.7 (30) 0 (19) 5.0 (20) 13.9[\*](#t004fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (122) 13.1[\*](#t004fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (84) 2.2 (46) 3.6 (56) 41.2 (17) 40.0 (10) 0 (5) 12.5 (8) 18.8 (32) 52.6[\*](#t004fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (19) 9.1 (11) 0[\*](#t004fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (16)
**Age of onset of alcohol use**
After age 16 25.7 (70) 12.5 (48) 3.4 (29) 0 (27) 7.2 (97) 6.6 (61) 5.6 (36) 0 (36) 38.9 (18) 55.6 (9) 16.7 (6) 25.0 (8) 27.3 (22) 33.3 (12) 0 (8) 10.0 (10)
Age 16 30.4 (102) 28.6 (63) 10.3 (39) 12.5 (40) 14.0 (193) 17.6 (131) 5.0 (80) 2.2 (89) 50.0 (30) 40.0 (20) 16.7 (12) 16.7 (12) 25.5 (47) 33.3 (33) 25.0 (20) 8.7 (23)
Age 15 42.2 (45) 48.3 (29) 7.1 (14) 19.0 (21) 12.7 (110) 15.4 (78) 0 (42) 1.8 (57) 41.7 (12) 55.6 (9) 0 (7) 28.6 (7) 20.0 (20) 43.8 (16) 0 (11) 27.3 (11)
Before age 15 19.0 (21) 26.7[\*](#t004fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (15) 0 (6) 8.3 (12) 9.7 (62) 12.0 (50) 14.3 (21) 7.9 (38) 50.0 (4) 0 (2) 0 (1) 0 (2) 20.0 (10) 33.3 (10) 0 (3) 0 (4)
**Total of subjects 95% Cl:**\ **24.0**\ **21.0**\ **4.8**\ **7.5**[+](#t004fn003){ref-type="table-fn"}\ **10.0**\ **11.8**\ **4.1**\ **2.2**[+](#t004fn003){ref-type="table-fn"}\ **33.7**\ **33.3**\ **7.7**\ **15.0**[+](#t004fn003){ref-type="table-fn"}\ **18.3**\ **30.3**\ **9.1**\ **11.7**[+](#t004fn003){ref-type="table-fn"}\
**Lower**\ **19.4**\ **15.6**\ **1.1**\ **3.2**\ **7.5**\ **8.6**\ **1.5**\ **0.5**\ **24.0**\ **21.4**\ **0.0**\ **3.9**\ **11.7**\ **20.8**\ **1.5**\ **4.5**\
**Upper** **28.6** **26.5** **8.5** **11.7** **12.5** **15.1** **6.8** **4.0** **43.4** **45.3** **16.1** **26.1** **24.9** **39.9** **16.7** **18.9**
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: The total number of subjects is shown between brackets.
\*Significant differences among categories of exposition. χ^2^ test, p\<0.05.
^+^Significant differences among ages. χ^2^ test, p\<0.01.
Figs [1](#pone.0193741.g001){ref-type="fig"}, [2](#pone.0193741.g002){ref-type="fig"}, [3](#pone.0193741.g003){ref-type="fig"} and [4](#pone.0193741.g004){ref-type="fig"} show the trends in the prevalence of RC and BD during the study period for students who had followed and students had not followed RC and BD patterns of alcohol use at age 18. The prevalence rates were significantly lower throughout the study in students who did not follow these consumption patterns at the beginning of study than in those who already partook in these types of behaviour. At age 27 years the differences for RC and BD were respectively 24 and 29 pp for females and 15 and 25 pp for males.
{#pone.0193741.g001}
{#pone.0193741.g002}
{#pone.0193741.g003}
{#pone.0193741.g004}
In relation to the factors associated with engaging in RC or BD after starting university, the multivariate analysis presented in [Table 5](#pone.0193741.t005){ref-type="table"} reveals that age of drinking onset is one of the most influential factors for both women (OR = 8.14 for RC and OR = 5.53 for BD) and men (OR = 2.91 for RC and OR = 2.80 for BD), with the risk being significantly higher among women. In the final logistic regression models, the categories "at age 15" and "before the age of 15" were grouped taking into account that the OR for those starting alcohol at age 15 and those starting before the age of 15 was the same.
10.1371/journal.pone.0193741.t005
###### Influence of different variables on risky consumption and binge drinking in subjects who did not partake in either of these consumption patterns at age 18--19 years.
{#pone.0193741.t005g}
Multivariate analysis[^a^](#t005fn001){ref-type="table-fn"}
----------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------- ------------------- -------------------
**Age of onset of alcohol use**
At age 17 or elder 1 1 1 1
At age 16 8.14 (4.35--15.25) 2.91 (1.41--6.00) 5.53 (2.71--9.65) 2.80 (1.36--5.74)
At age 15 and before age 15 6.63 (3.32--13.24) 2.52 (1.07--5.92) 4.69 (2.28--9.28) 2.25 (1.09--5.94)
**Residence**
In parental home 1 1
Away from the parental home 1.77 (1.05--3.00) 3.43 (1.60--7.38)
**Positive expectancies about alcohol**
Low 1 1
Medium 1.82 (1.08--3.06) 1.96 (1.18--3.25)
High 1.48 (0.75--2.95) 1.80 (1.05--3.08)
**Age of participants**
20--21 years 1 1 1 1
22--23 years 0.98 (0.55--1.75) 0.94 (0.46--1.93) 1.24 (0.79--1.95) 2.08 (1.08--4.04)
24--25 years 0.09 (0.05--0.17) 0.15 (0.04--0.53) 0.40 (0.19--0.83) 0.47 (0.17--1.27)
27--28 years 0.15 (0.08--0.31) 0.30 (0.11--0.81) 0.24 (0.11--0.50) 0.60 (0.24--1.50)
^a^ Adjusted by all variables included in the column.
^¥^ Number of subject measures included in the model: 693.
^£^ Number of subject measures included in the model: 231.
\* Number of subject measures included in the model: 1250.
^+^ Number of subject measures included in the model: 334.
Among women, positive expectancies about alcohol consumption increased the risk of engaging in RC and BD at university (OR = 1.82 and OR = 1.96 respectively) while in men no such influence was observed. Living outside the family home increased the risk of starting BD at university in both men (OR = 3.43) and women (OR = 1.77). In both women and men, age of participants was a protective factor for engaging in BD (OR = 0.24 and OR = 0.60) and RC (OR = 0.15 and OR = 0.30) at university. We measured paternal and maternal alcohol use and educational level. None of these variables showed association with RC or BD.
Discussion {#sec014}
==========
The study findings show that the rates of prevalence of both Risky consumption (RC) and Binge drinking (BD) at age 27 years were much greater among university students who already followed these consumption patterns at age 18 years, particularly among women. The age of onset of alcohol consumption proved the most important risk factor for students who had not previously partaken in RC or BD on starting university to engage in these alcohol use patterns, with the risk being significantly higher among women. Living outside the family home also increased the possibility that university students, both male and female, would start BD at university, which highlights the relevance of campus drinking culture \[[@pone.0193741.ref019],[@pone.0193741.ref020]\]. Finally, only women who did not follow these patterns of consumption before attending university were influenced by having positive expectancies regarding alcohol consumption.
Previous studies have shown that risky alcohol consumption is described by an inverted-U curve that peaks in the early 20s \[[@pone.0193741.ref021],[@pone.0193741.ref022]\], as demonstrated in this cohort \[[@pone.0193741.ref013]\]. However, the trend appears to differ depending on the "drinking status" at the beginning of the university period. Thus, for students who did not engage in RC or BD patterns of consumption before going to university, the distribution of these patterns was described by a bell-shaped curve. On the contrary, among those students who already partook in RC or BD before starting university, there was a steady decrease in the prevalence after late adolescence, in both men and women. Women who already followed a BD pattern of alcohol use, showed a decrease in consumption by more than 50% in only two years. Nonetheless, despite the clear reduction in excessive alcohol consumption, this group exhibited the highest prevalence throughout the follow-up period. The most plausible interpretation for the trend showed by this group is that we were actually observing the maximum peak (18--19 years) and the progressive upward trend occurred before reaching this age, as suggested by Bewick \[[@pone.0193741.ref023]\].
The prevalence rates of RC and BD, as we already mentioned, were lower during the study in those students who did not follow these patterns of consumption at the beginning of the study than in those students who did partake in these types of behaviour. The prevalence of RC at age 27 years were 4.2% in females and 2.9% in males, while for BD the prevalence rates were 7.8% and 3.9%. These results show that engaging in these patterns of consumption at an early age has a greater effect on alcohol consumption at age 27 years in women than in men.
A common trend in all groups, regardless of gender, consumption pattern or the age of onset, is the marked decrease in the prevalence of the patterns of consumption between ages of 22 and 24 years. This may be due to the fact that at the age of 24 years most of the participants had completed their university studies and began working. According to many authors this vital period is accompanied by the acquisition of adult roles with new responsibilities, causing young people to abandon certain types of behaviour, such as the patterns of alcohol consumption under consideration \[[@pone.0193741.ref024]\].
Regarding gender differences, rates of consumption have always been higher in men than in women. Although in young people gender differences in alcohol consumption are tending to decrease \[[@pone.0193741.ref025]\], in most European countries consumption is still generally more prevalent among men \[[@pone.0193741.ref025]--[@pone.0193741.ref027]\]. In the present study, we found that such gender differences were much more pronounced for BD, regardless of the age of onset, which may be partly due to the fact that the cut-off point we used to identify BD practitioners did not differentiate between genders. Thus, the prevalence of BD may have been underestimated in women, in whom the amount of alcohol ingested to be considered BD is lower \[[@pone.0193741.ref004]\].
Although the rates were much lower at the end of the study, the prevalence of risky consumption observed in 27-year-olds remained high, contradicting the traditional idea that these types of consumption are inherent in, but limited to young adulthood \[[@pone.0193741.ref028],[@pone.0193741.ref029]\]. The rates were especially high among those who already followed these types of patterns before entering the university. It has been demonstrated that heavy drinking during adolescence is associated with neurocognitive alterations (e.g. inhibitory control, working memory) that at the same time might contribute to perpetuating the heavy drinking behaviour \[[@pone.0193741.ref030],[@pone.0193741.ref031]\]. If we consider that BD peaks during the early twenties and then gradually declines, this result is particularly important as a significant number of young people seem to maintain these patterns during emerging adulthood, probably constituting a special at-risk subgroup for further alcohol escalation and other psychiatric disorders in adulthood \[[@pone.0193741.ref032]\]. Our findings appear to be consistent with those of longitudinal studies carried out in other countries, which also conclude that a considerable number of people maintained patterns of excessive drinking during adulthood \[[@pone.0193741.ref033]\]. The high level of youth unemployment caused by the economic crisis in Spain \[[@pone.0193741.ref034]\] may be delaying the assumption of adult roles and thus contribute to the continuance of risky consumption observed in the present study.
Age of drinking onset was the most important factor influencing those university students who did not previously partake in RC or BD and who then engaged in them at university. We found that even in subjects who did not follow the RC or BD patterns at 18 years old but had begun to consume alcohol at an early age (before the age of 16), the risk of engaging in BD or RC from age 19 onwards was between 5 and 8 times higher in women and more than 2 times higher in men, than if the age of onset of alcohol use was older (at 17 years old or older). The age of onset has already been shown to have an important influence on the pattern of alcohol consumption during late adolescence in the study cohort \[[@pone.0193741.ref013]\]; however, the present study highlights the fact that the age of onset is not only a risk factor for engaging in excessive drinking during late adolescence but also during university years (students aged 19 and over), emphasizing the long-term influence of this important risk factor \[[@pone.0193741.ref035]\].
The multivariate analysis revealed that living away from the family home increased the risk that university students, regardless of gender, would engage in BD at age 19 years or older, which may be associated with the reduction in parental monitoring and living in a more permissive environment \[[@pone.0193741.ref036],[@pone.0193741.ref037]\]. This was not observed for RC. The differences regarding the influence of the place of residence on both types of consumptions may be partly explained by a greater normalization of non-BD consumptions among Mediterranean cultures. Moreover, peer pressure within the campus environment is likely to promote binge drinking behaviour, as peers may directly provide alcohol, act as role models or make BD appear common and acceptable. \[[@pone.0193741.ref038]\]
Among those women who did not follow these patterns of consumption at the beginning of the university period, having positive expectancies regarding alcohol use seems to increase the risk of engaging in both RC (OR = 1.82) and BD (OR = 1.96) at university. Although our findings are consistent with the results of several studies (greater effect of positive expectancies in women (e.g., \[[@pone.0193741.ref039],[@pone.0193741.ref040]\]), other researchers have observed this effect among males (e.g. \[[@pone.0193741.ref041],[@pone.0193741.ref042]\]). Thus, more studies are needed to clarify this point. Numerous studies have shown that relative to moderate drinkers, young people with risky patterns of alcohol consumption tend to have higher expectations of the positive effects of alcohol (e.g. social facilitation) and lower expectations of the negative effects (e.g. risks and aggression) \[[@pone.0193741.ref043]\]. In fact, positive alcohol expectancies have been shown to be a risk factor for initiation of alcohol consumption and further escalation in alcohol use \[[@pone.0193741.ref044]\], especially for BD \[[@pone.0193741.ref045]--[@pone.0193741.ref049]\]. Conversely, negative expectancies may be a protective factor for heavy drinking in young people \[[@pone.0193741.ref050],[@pone.0193741.ref051]\]. This factor (diminishing positive and enhancing negative beliefs) may be a key aspect in developing prevention and intervention strategies \[[@pone.0193741.ref051],[@pone.0193741.ref052]\].
Finally, the age of the subjects acts as a protective factor, reducing the risk of students engaging in both patterns of consumption throughout their time at university. These results are consistent with the figures that represent the trends in both patterns of consumption, where the prevalence tends to decline as the subjects become older. This is also confirmed by the fact that these types of behaviour are characteristic of young rather than older adults \[[@pone.0193741.ref053]\].
There are four main limitations to this study: 1) As in other cohort studies, the loss of subjects at follow-up can lead to selection bias. Nonetheless, there were no significant differences among participants throughout the study period, suggesting the absence of such bias; 2) Information bias, which is always likely when a self-reported data is used. To minimize this, we used the AUDIT, a questionnaire that has been validated internationally among adolescents and young adults; 3) The third question of the AUDIT does not allow for gender differences, so that the prevalence of BD in women is underestimated in this study, by not taking into account women who drink 5 drinks on a single occasion. However, this only affects descriptive outcomes and not the statistical findings; and 4). The question about expectancies was not specifically validated and therefore expectancies may not have been correctly measured.
In conclusion, engaging in RC and BD before the age of 18 years leads to much higher prevalence of these patterns of alcohol use throughout young adulthood in university students. Having started drinking alcohol at a younger age increases the risk of engaging in these patterns during the time at university. Living outside the family home increases the risk of starting BD from the age of 19 years, and positive expectancies increase the likelihood of women engaging in RC and BD at this age. In light of these findings, it is essential to implement preventive measures that hinder access to alcohol by minors (before going to university) as well as environmental strategies within the university environment.
[^1]: **Competing Interests:**The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
|
tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
|
PubMed Central
|
Q:
Navbar changing from transparent to black on scroll / resize - load?
So I have a JS that allows me to get my navbar to change from transparent at the top of the screen, to black once you start scrolling.
However, with this script my page loads (on refresh for ex) and the bar starts off black and slowly fades to transparent.
How can I edit this code so that on load (AT THE TOP) the bar is always transparent. And only on scroll or resize it changes.
**Please don't point out that I have "load" in the JS.. without this it starts off black until i scroll down then back up to the top.
function checkScroll() {
var startY = $('.navbar').height() * 1; //The point where the navbar changes in px
if ($(window).scrollTop() > startY) {
$('.navbar').addClass("navbar-inverse");
} else {
$('.navbar').removeClass("navbar-inverse");
}
}
if ($('.navbar').length > 0) {
$(window).on("scroll load resize", function() {
checkScroll();
});
}
body {
height: 1000px;
}
.btn-gs {
background: blue;
border: 2px solid blue;
padding: 5px 23px !important;
border-radius: 25px;
font-weight: 500;
letter-spacing: 1px;
margin-top: 25px;
color: #fff !important;
text-transform: uppercase;
&.btn-gs-lg {
padding: 10px 33px !important;
.transition(background-color ease .3s);
&: hover {
background-color: transparent;
}
}
&.btn-gs-lg-alt {
padding: 10px 33px !important;
.transition(background-color ease .3s);
&: hover {
background-color: lighten(blue, 10%);
}
}
}
.navbar.navbar-inverse {
background: transparent;
transition: all .5s linear;
border: none !important;
}
.navbar.navbar-inverse.scrolled {
background: black;
}
.navbar-alt {
height: 80px;
}
.navbar-brand-alt {
padding: 0;
}
.navbar-signup {
margin-top: 3px;
margin-left: 10px;
}
.navbar-right-alt {
position: static !important;
padding-top: 20px !important;
a {
color: #fff !important;
font-size: 16px !important;
text-transform: uppercase;
&: hover {
color: darken(blue, 10%) !important;
}
}
}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>Title Page</title>
<!-- Bootstrap CSS -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.6/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-1q8mTJOASx8j1Au+a5WDVnPi2lkFfwwEAa8hDDdjZlpLegxhjVME1fgjWPGmkzs7" crossorigin="anonymous">
</head>
<body>
<div class="navbar navbar-inverse navbar-alt navbar-fixed-top scrolled">
<div class="container">
<div class="navbar-header">
<a href="#" class="navbar-brand navbar-brand-alt">
<img src="#" />
</a>
</div>
<button type="button" class="navbar-toggle collapse" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#o-navbar-collapse" aria-expanded="false">
<span class="sr-only">Toggle Navigation</span>
<span class="icon-bar"></span>
<span class="icon-bar"></span>
<span class="icon-bar"></span>
</button>
<div class="navbar-collapse collapse" id="o-navbar-collapse" aria-expanded="false" style="height:1px;">
<ul class="nav navbar-nav navbar-right navbar-signup">
<li>
<a href="#" class="btn-gs">
<i class="fa fa-paper-plane-o"></i>
Free Trial
</a>
</li>
</ul>
<ul class="nav navbar-nav navbar-right navbar-right-alt">
<li>
<a href="#home">Home</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#features">Features</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#faq">FAQ</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#pricing">Pricing</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</html>
TIA.
A:
The issue is class navbar-inverse in your div.
bootstarp applies blackbackground color on the element where this class is used.
you should remove this class from html and use the below code in script.
Hope this helps.
if ($(window).scrollTop() > startY) {
$('.navbar').addClass("navbar-inverse");} else {
$('.navbar').removeClass("navbar-inverse");}
updated snippet
function checkScroll() {
var startY = $('.navbar').height() * 1; //The point where the navbar changes in px
if ($(window).scrollTop() > startY)
{
$(".navbar").fadeIn(1, function() {
$(this).css({opacity: 1.0});
$(this).addClass("navbar-inverse")
});
}
else
{
$(".navbar").fadeIn(1000, function() {
if($(window).scrollTop() <= startY)
{
$(this).fadeOut(1000, function()
{
$(this).css({opacity: 1.0}); $(this).removeClass("navbar-inverse")
});
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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StackExchange
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______Rules:★ Only Anime and Manga★ No watermarks or subtitles★ I’ll set a deadline when all parts are taken★ I will send the audio via Sendspace★ 720p or 1080 HD quality★ No Hentai or Ecchi ★ First come, First serve★ Upload part on your YouTube Channel★ Have Fun
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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Pile-CC
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43 17 17 1 3 35 54 717 87 Problem 14. It should be a narrow 4. 80 at an organ or tissue level, where the geometry is rather more complex than the spherical case and foreign currency trading dealer medium is non homogeneous, is only possible by Monte Carlo simulation, which was briefly reviewed in this chapter. Dose: 4 g 16 times daily; maximum dose: 1632 gd. A tour de force of structural biology. Aminoglycoside antibiotics promote misreading of the genetic code and prevent translocation by increasing the nonspecific (codon-independent) affinity of tRNAs for the A site.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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Pile-CC
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---
abstract: 'In this article, we construct partial periodic quotients of groups which have a non-elementary acylindrical action on a hyperbolic space. In particular, we provide infinite quotients of mapping class groups where a fixed power of every pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism is identified with a periodic or reducible element.'
author:
- Rémi Coulon
title: 'Partial periodic quotient of groups acting on a hyperbolic space.'
---
*Rémi Coulon*\
Department of Mathematics, Vanderbilt University\
Stevenson Center 1326, Nashville TN 37240, USA\
`[email protected]`\
`http://www.math.vanderbilt.edu/\simcoulonrb/`
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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ArXiv
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Jim O’Neill’s high profile prediction on Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey (the “MINTs”) as future economic giants has caused quite a stir in the media. Over the next few weeks IDG Connect will be looking at these countries in a bit more detail. Kathryn Cave investigates Nigeria.
Back at the start of the 2000s a Nigerian girl called Choma was in her early twenties and living in her parents’ palatial property on the river at Richmond, Surrey (UK). She had a degree from Buckingham University and full Western education, via the exorbitant British boarding school system. And yet once her full time study had ended the immigration letters started arriving.
Strikingly, Choma was absolutely terrified of being sent back to Lagos. Despite her rugby-tough exterior, ample financial cushioning and father in the Nigerian government, she desperately wanted to avoid a life of lawlessness, lack of infrastructure and frequent power outages. In the end she was deported anyway, but her fear neatly highlights some of the core issues still facing the country today. Even for the extensive diaspora who crave local food and culture, ‘home’ is still not always the place they want to be.
Sprawling over nearly a thousand square kilometres, Nigeria is nestled in the Western corner of Africa on the Gulf of Guinea. This is a vast space with a population of 168.8 million - more than three times that of South Africa, the main economic powerhouse on the African continent. On top of which it boasts massive reserves of natural resources and generates incredible wealth for a tiny - extremely lucky - bunch of individuals at the very top.
“Nigeria is second [economy in Africa] and it has the potential to grow bigger than South Africa in the future,” says Babatunde Afolayan IDC Analyst for West Africa. “There is a lot of oil money. There are lots of minerals. It is still the giant of Africa but it is not being effective because we have not been able to tackle problems of education, power and security.”
“It fundamentally stands out for its large population, its significant natural resources, its high urbanisation rate and its youth demographic,” agrees Franklin Nnebe, Managing Director, Nnebe Business Services. “What is remarkable is that the Nigerian economy has grown between 6-7% on average over the past decade despite serious governance failure.”
Division
In the capital Lagos, Disney-style houses exist cheek-by-jowl with horrific slums. Yet the wider sense of community is intense and many rich people have ‘shanty townships’ of poorer family members living in the grounds of their extensive estates. As high volumes of migrants flock into the city each day it only serves to intensify the gap, and prompt ever more exclusive, high-tech developments like the ambitious Eko Atlantic which is currently under construction.
Divisions don’t end in the city either. The whole country is fractured into 36 states, along with the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. These are subsequently broken down into hundreds of Local Government Areas. Whilst more sub divisions occur in ethnic nationalities (there are over 250), language (there are over 400), religion (of which there are three main ones) and even climate (where varying weather conditions exist between North and South.)
“The best available solution to Nigeria’s political and economic problems is to divide the country,” the Osun Defender argued recently. This is a view which is widely debated across the board.
Education
Yet the biggest threat to the country’s future economic success is poor education says Afolayan. “Most people, especially those in the Northern regions, believe in Islamic education,” he explains. “This forms a huge part of the population. [And in] Islamic education all they do is learn in the Arabic language, learn the Islamic way of life and learn from the Koran.”
This stands at odds with “the Western type of education [where people learn] the formal way of doing the alphabet and numbers. And it is not just in the North,” he continues. “Even in the South East [things are not ideal, as] it is traditional to send children to learn a trade with family members instead of completing a proper western education.”
People like Choma, who come from well-heeled Lagos families and can afford the high foreign fees, will usually study abroad. “The reasons for this, is to make themselves relevant to companies so they can work outside the country,” explains Afolayan. There are also serious higher education problems on the ground.
Last year all government universities went on a continuous five-month strike. This started in June and ended in December and was in no way an extraordinary occurrence. “These things happen every year,” says Afolayan. “If people don’t go out of school for a month, they’ll go out of school for two weeks… or as long as five months - it happens.”
Foreign governments hold regular education fairs in the capital. These are sponsored by organisations like the US Consulate and British High Commission and all tout for Nigerian student business. Even neighbouring countries, like Ghana attracts a lot of young, wealthy Nigerians to study.
After they graduate “a lot of these people would still like to come back to Nigeria and work,” clarifies Afolyan. “But if problems like power and security are not resolved these people might not return.”
Power
The power situation on the ground is the divinest irony of all in Nigeria. This is a country which has an economy rooted in fuel, yet this barely translates to usable electricity. Houses run on private generators. Petrol is bought on the black market. And aside from the great international hotels in Lagos, nothing runs efficiently.
“The state-owned utility [company] managed in 50 years to install just 4,000 MW of firm electricity capacity for Nigeria's population of 160 million,” explains Nnebe by way of context. “[This is] the equivalent of what is typically available to a city of 1 million in the UK.”
“With the privatization of the state power utility last year, investors such as Jim O'Neill are betting on the fact that a Nigeria unshackled from ridiculously insufficient electricity supply and the high costs of private electricity generation will soar to new highs,” adds Nnebe. “Indeed aside from increased cost savings, electricity will transform whole areas of the Nigerian economy and grow manufacturing, agri-processing and information technology.”
Afolayan believes that many of these power problems actually stem from inadequate education: “One of the reasons that the power sector has not been as effective as it could be is because of corruption. When the education improves people will understand how things should work and how reliable infrastructure should be. Also, things like vandalisation of the power supply won’t happen anymore.”
Infrastructure
The intermittent power might be the biggest single problem facing the country, but infrastructure across the board is incredibly poor. “Corruption in the Nigerian government is on a scale seen in few places on earth and has created infrastructure that can best be described as hellish,” explains Nnebe.
“The rudimentary rail system built by the British colonial authorities over 50 years ago collapsed and practically died under a series of Nigerian military and civilian administrations,” continues Nnebe. “Over 60% of Nigerian roads today lie in disrepair with whole stretches of highways littered with pot holes and sometimes disappearing entirely. Public waterworks in cities were [even] left to run dry [and] sewage systems were never built.”
However on the positive side, out of this poor system “business-savvy Nigerian entrepreneurs” have stepped into the breach explains Nnebe. “[These] have driven growth in banking, telecommunications, entertainment and hospitality by creatively implementing infrastructure work.”
“Today, Nigeria has one of the world's largest installed capacity of privately owned petrol and diesel-fired generators (estimated at over 10,000 MW). Boreholes supply more than 98% of water supply in both commercial and residential buildings,” he adds.
Security
The lack of proper order has led to wider problems which remain at odds with how most European and US firms expect to do business. “Apart from infrastructural issues, corruption, extortion by government agents,” says Nnebe, “[and] a weak judiciary have created an almost lawless business environment where only the strong survive.”
Afolayan’s concern is that this lack of security “might see a situation where the big giants who have invested in the economy start to pull out to the country.” He describes, for example, how Shell and Chevron recently removed themselves from the Olokola Liquefied Natural Gas Project OLNPG and how one of the “major reasons” was security. “If these security concerns are not dealt with it will be a big barrier for Nigeria.”
Future
Nigeria still has a long way to go to make the top 20 economies list in 2050. “The current situation right now doesn’t support this,” argues Afolayan, “unless you begin to look at the fact that government is trying to reform.”
“We don’t know if these reforms will work out,” he continues. “But if they do work out, Nigeria will be close to being one of the biggest 20 economies by 2050. If not, I don’t think it will be there.”
Afolayan stresses, aside from government change, a lot of the county’s hope lies in IT and telecoms: “There has been a lot of IT growth. A lot of payments are not done online because of the cashless policy introduced by the CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria). These sectors are really growing. And IT projects have improved tremendously over the last two or three years.”
People
Due to conspicuous problems within the country, Nigeria still suffers a significant brain drain. “Three or four years back a lot of Nigerians were starting to return back to do business,” says Afolayan. “But most of these people came back because they did not have the right immigration papers. Now people are starting to try and see if they can settle outside of the country again.”
On the other hand “a lot of global companies are coming in trying to put footprints down here and one of the things there are trying to do is bring in the Nigerians who work with them,” he continues.
In the end the potential of any country largely comes down to the people within in. One of the big unifying factors between all the MINTs is the large young population. Yet if this pool is not harnessed properly it could become worse than useless.
Do you think Jim O’Neill’s predictions about Nigeria are correct?
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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OpenWebText2
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Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Okay, here's the deal. A long time ago I had a conversation with myself on whether or not I would go full 'fangirl' on my blog, and I decided it would be in my best interest to avoid that happening. I also decided to keep my blog to book reviews instead of TV show/Movie stuff, but I think I'll be stepping outside those boundaries in this post. At least it won't be too much of a stretch since this will touch on the books as well as the show.
I'm talking Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire here, people. Thar be spoilers ahead!
But real quick before that, I'll get the Dreamland update out of the way, just in case you aren't interested in yet another post about Jon Snow. (EF YOU OLLY! amirite?)
So the rewrites are going exceptionally well. I think changing up my formatting schedule has helped that. I left a lot of notes to myself to correct things while I was writing my first draft and that list of honey do's is almost completed! I actually think I still have a good chance to finish today and then dig in on the polishing for my beta reader as early as tomorrow. That's a huge step done in the completion of the book. You will definitely have the first part of Dreamland in your hands before the end of the year!
Okay, so on to my rambles, and I will warn everyone again, this will contain show/book spoilers.
*** SPOILERS AHEAD ***
There, that should do it.
So the hype for the Game of Thrones season 5 finale was strong. I had my expectations up, although not as high as they were at the end of season 4. Then, I was so deflated with the lack of a certain character's reemergence, but a glimmer of hope still remained for season 5. When I saw the title of episode 10, Mother's Mercy, the hype started to build again. Like so many other book-readers out there, we were almost positive that Mother's Mercy was pointing towards that same certain character that did not appear.
And then Daniel Portman, the actor that plays Podrick Payne, was quoted as saying that episode 10 would 'break the internet!'
Hype train, full steam ahead!
So I watched Hardhome (S5E8) and kept my silence... well, I had too cuz it was so hard to breath after watching that episode. Thank you D&D for showing us what actually happened at Hardhome instead of hearing it from some news reports.
After The Dance with Dragons (S5E9) I remained mute... well, because I was crying tears of sadness for Shireen and then awesomeness for Dany... Guys, that episode was a fucking rollercoaster for my emotions.
Then came Mother's Mercy (S5E10), the episode that was supposed to end all episodes.
And it didn't... or so I thought, but I'll get to that in a moment.
The hype and expectations were so high for me for this episode, that I couldn't help being a little disappointed. My definition of 'breaking the internet' would have needed something to shock book readers AS WELL as show watchers. I needed LSH to be in that episode, or the confirmation that Azor Ahai was reborn... something... anything! But we got"For the watch!" which I knew was coming, yet hated seeing it. Jon was my favorite book character and out of all the tragedy that happened in those books, the only scene to make me shed a tear was the one prior to him getting shish-kabobed, although that was cut from the show. (which was fine with me, it didn't fit into the show storyline.)
So I hopped on reddit to see the reaction threads in r/gameofthrones, and I giggled as I scrolled through them all. (We do that cuz we're a bunch of assholes.)
Then it began... my internet began to break in a way I never considered.
You see, A Dance with Dragons released in 2011. I've known that Jon has been dead/not dead for the past four years, and for some reason, I've been okay with that. He obviously isn't going to stay dead! He can't. HE JUST CAN'T, PEOPLE!! My belief in this has been unwaveringly firm, at least until the aftermath of Mother's Mercy hit.
Don't get me wrong, I still firmly believe Jon is not gone for good. I believe Mel will rez him, that he is the champion of the light, (Azor Ahai if you will) and although he might be a bit darker as was Dondarrion, he'll still be Jon Snow.
But it's hard to be still that little voice inside me going "what if?"
Because Kit Harrington in his interviews is saying, "Oh yeah, Jon is dead. Deader than a door nail. Now I can explore more possibilities." (that is not verbatim, duh.) As well as D&D saying he's dead. Well, of course he's dead. He's just going to be revived again so he can do his grand thing, whatever that may be.
But.... What if?
Oh shut up, little voice.
So my internet has been broken since the morning after "For the Watch." The only thing that comes up in the search engine is Game of Thrones related. I can't stay away from westeros.com, watchersonthewall.com, the wiki's, the subreddits.... I swear I'll be rereading the books by the end of summer. I am completely and totally obsessed at this point. I need the next book, Martin!!! NEED! I haven't felt this taut with anticipation since the ending of book 7 of wheel of time... and then Jordan smacked us in the face with Crossroads of Twilight. Don't do that Martin. Give us what we want!
So in my broken internet, there are a lot of odd theories out there. Man do I love pulling out the tinfoil and settling down with some crazy-ass theory. I've read R+L=D and B+A=J... lolno. And my favorite nutty theory is Lyanna is still alive and happy as a certain Septa traveling with the Golden Company. What??? No... And.. omg... Drogo+Dany=Tyrion, the time traveling fetus. BWAHAHAH! I love this stuff...
So here's some of my thoughts, but I am always, and I mean ALWAYS open to reading other's thoughts and theories.
Lyanna is dead... but why is she the only woman to have a statue in the crypts?
Lemora is probably the Mad Maid, although part of me really wants her to be Ashara Dayne.
God would I love it if Daario was Euron, but I doubt that's even possible.
Coldhands is not Benjen, I'm sorry. I don't think we've seen the last of Benjen, but I also don't think he's alive anymore.
Varys is a mermaid? ROFL! I can't even comment on that one. He is also a HE... And not Illyrio's wife.
Aegon is a Blackfyre, but he doesn't know it, and Jon Connington definitely doesn't know it.
Bran is never leaving that cave physically again.
Jaime will kill Cersei, after she tries to make use of the wildfire the Mad King left behind.
HR=HS. Man, do I love love love this theory! The chances of it being true are pretty slim, but Howland Reed has to come into play at some point in a big way in the next book/season.
Tywin Lannister was sterile.
Roose Bolton is not a vampire.
But my main theory, one so prevalent it might as well be cannon now, is R+L=J. The only thing I'd like to add on this is the promise me, Ned. I have read a lot of theories, and I know I can't be the only one out there to think this, but I also haven't read this anywhere yet.
Lyanna wasn't begging Ned to promise her to raise Jon and keep him safe. That was something that Ned would have done on his own. She was, instead, begging Ned to tell Jon who he really was, and I don't just mean a Targ. Rhaegar was consumed with the three heads of the dragon, and he firmly believed that the heads were his offspring, and that one of his offspring would be the Prince that was Promised. It stands to reason that Lyanna, a young, impressionable girl that is in love with this immaculate prince, would have also fallen in love with his passion.
This is the promise that Ned made to her, and the broken promise he laments in the black cells. He never told Jon what his destiny was/is, that she believed him to be the Prince that was Promised.
There is more, there is always more, but I think that's enough for today. I will add, that I am looking forward to any and all surprises that Martin is going to throw at us. Prove us all wrong! Muwah!
Unhooking my mind from Martin's world has been difficult, but it's time to get to the editing station. Everyone remember to have a safe and wonderful Fourth of July weekend!
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
So this post should have been up yesterday. I had intended to write it, but there was one scene I was toying with that I thought I was so close to being finished with. I told myself I would give my blog a little lovin' as soon as that scene was done. If I let myself get distracted, it would never be finished. I've been struggling with it for four days now!
And I did it. I finally finished it, but I never actually got around to the blog. Sorry about that!
This book was an original, dark fantasy. (my favorite genre.) Lots of mystery involving a type of supernatural being that I've never read about before. In fact, I would actually love to explore the lore behind them... or him, as it was very intriguing.
The story set up was great, and although there were some parts that made me wonder why we were being told about certain things, it all came back around in the end. There didn't seem to be anything left open ended, (ya know, except that one thing that was intentionally left open ended that makes me hope for a second book.)
One part was a little confusing when half the book was 3rd person and then switched to 1st person for a good portion, then back to 3rd person again. I was listening to the book on audible, so I'm not sure if there was something actually written in the book that made this make more sense, but it did throw me off at first.
Speaking of audible, Pamela Lawrence did an excellent job narrating the book. Her character voices were consistent to where I knew who was speaking before the dialog tags were read. She can really put emotion into the characters too, make you feel for their situation.
Overall, I think it was a decent read and the book is really well reviewed. If you're looking for something with a little romance (not graphic) and an original story, you might want to give this a try. Wasn't my favorite book from Constant, (I loved Dead Trees) but still a good book. Also, the cover art is beautiful.
Now, that gets me caught up a little bit. I'm still two reviews behind and halfway through another book! Weee!! So hard to keep up.
In Dreamland news, I'm super happy with how the rewrites are going this time around. Hard not to start trying to polish, but I had a lot of cleaning up to do with the first couple of chapters. At least half of that is done now. I still have a lot of work to go, but I'm excited! I never feel this good when facing edits, so this is an improvement!
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Happy Tuesday morning! Time to get back to it and get some of these reviews out of the way before I forget them. I'm getting behind!
There are a couple things I'd like to get out of the way before I jump into the review. May has been a very busy month for me, hence the lack of posts. My husband and I celebrated our 7th anniversary, my eldest son graduated high school, and my daughter now has her first car. It has been somewhat hectic! The astonishing thing was that I actually found the time to finish the Dreamland - Part One manuscript in the midst of all that! Yes, you heard me! First draft is DONE!
*does Snoopy dance*
The rewrites are already underway, but this is the area where is difficult for me to gauge a timeline. I can think I'm on track and then end up having to rewrite a full two scenes or some such. I still think I'll be able to be done before summer is over, though. Then the editing and polishing stage can begin and that doesn't take near as long. Hopefully my estimated release date of late this year is accurate! I think it might be!
Now on to the review.
Vengeance of the Iron Dwarf was more exciting than the last installment, Rise of the King. As I stated in the review for Rise, it was mostly setup, and a lot of what was set up came to fruition in Vengeance of the Iron Dwarf. DO YOU LIKE DRAGONS?? I like dragons, and we get some very satisfying and unique scenes here. The waging war is huge in scope, involving a lot of towns I've been familiar with for decades. Things don't end up well for a lot of them, and it was a very emotional read.
There was a distance in the books from some of the characters, especially the humans. Mainly because we don't know them as all the old humans we knew have been dead for centuries, and a lot of the dwarves were just names or acquaintances before. We spend just as much time in those perspectives as we do our Companions of the Hall.
Sept 1st Release!
This stories's scope was vast and covered a world changing event. One that needed to be told and was a very satisfying to read. That being said, I do miss the single adventures of the Companions. The smaller ones, where only those directly involved matter. I hope the next book in the Drizzt saga takes us back there. I do think the artwork that's up on Amazon now is stunning.
Hopefully, some loose ends finally get tied up in this next trilogy, plus I am missing Artemis! What the heck has he been up too? I think I'm looking forward to this next set of books more than I did this last trilogy due to how much I love the underdark. I can't wait for them to get the chaos they think they want! With the way Salvatore can deliver a truly satisfying scene, I'm sure I won't be disappointed.
Okay, one review down, two more to go. Told you I was behind! I'll try to get those up quickly before I get to caught up in the rewrites and my brain turns to mush.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Just a quick post since I was MIA last week. I intentionally skipped my normal Tuesday review because I... well.. wasn't ready to write a review yet. I figured I'd be able to get one up this Tuesday, and besides, I'm known for doing that anyway. Sounded like a good plan except I didn't expect to get hit with the mother of all stomach viruses on Sunday.
Oy... Just know these past couple days have been horrible. I will spare you the gory details.
Anyway, due to this virus rampaging through my digestive system, I lost three days of writing. Three days without a word! I was doing so well, too. It was almost certain I could finish the first draft by the end of the month, and I still think I can. We have 2 weeks left, and I only have 2 chapters to go. I think I can do it.. right? Yeah... I think I can do it. I'm getting back on that horse today.
There are a few upsides to being sick. I'm caught up on all my TV shows now (except for The Walking Dead, that one I just couldn't do.) AND I did got to watch the Game of Thrones premiere live. Oh, so excited for this season! I can't wait until Drogon finally makes his appearance.
Anyway, I'll be back later this week with my review. This one will be on R.A. Salvatore's Vengeance of the Iron Dwarf, and then next week I'll have an indie review for Mastic by Eli Constant, which I'm nearly finished with.
This post feels like it's been all over the place, but I don't have it in me to correct it right now. Sorries!
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
BAM! Five Stars! That was a no brainer for me. Any book that keeps me up until 3am because I Can't. Stop. Reading, gets a top-notch review from me. Don't believe me? Check out my fitbit captured stats the night I finished Hero of Ages.
I'm crazy addicted to reading, guys. Totally obsessive compulsive, and I LOVE IT!
So, back to Mistborn. This will be a review on the first three books in the series, The Final Empire, Well of Ascension and Hero of Ages, since it's all one continuous story. I half read, half listened to the books. Michael Kramer once again narrates, but this time he also does the female POV's. Although I missed Kate Reading, Kramer does an excellent job as always. His character accents helped bring the story to life and were pretty consistent all the way through. There was also one character whose voice deepened by the third book, which I thought was an very good portrayal of growth, because... well.. that character had seen some shit by then. It was a nice touch.
The series is more of an urban fantasy, and is set in a world that was conquered by the Lord Ruler one thousand years in the past. There are Noblemen (the Lord Ruler's followers) and the Skaa (the slaves punished by the Lord Ruler for not following him.) Pretty simple set up.
The Lord Ruler is a very mysterious entity and Sanderson did a fascinating job with his slow unveiling of this particular big bad. The Lord Ruler is seen as a god, his powers in Allomancy (the worlds magic system) far greater than any of the Noblemen that follow him. The Skaa have little to no hope in achieving freedom until our antagonist, Vin, joins up with a Skaa thieving crew intent on the impossible task of overthrowing the Lord Ruler.
The three books mostly follow Vin, who is only sixteen when we first meet her, but the books span a few years and she grows into a competent young woman by the end. Although some of the reveals were pretty heavy handed, I'll admit that Sanderson really had me wondering how he was going to wrap everything up. Not one possible ending that I thought up was even close to what happened, and that night spent reading until the wee hours of the morning was truly worth it. Tears were shed. I was so caught up in this world that I had to take a short hiatus before I started my next book.
Which is Vengeance of the Iron Dwarf. Can I get a WHAT WHAT from the Drizzt fans out there? Oh, yeah! (I'm already halfway through... Did I mention I'm behind on reviews? NEway...)
So Camp NaNoWrimo is starting tomorrow, and I've entered in the estimated 25k words I have left to write for the first draft. That should be an easy goal to hit, so a release by the end of this year is looking highly likely! Are you Phoenix fans excited yet? If you weren't aware, you can find the prologue online over here. Just a little taste of where this next installment is heading... at least for one of our loveable Phoenix, anyway.
Well, that's all I have for today! Have a great week and happy reading, as always!
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Here we are at another wonderful Tuesday! I hope everyone is enjoying their week so far!
Yeah.... nevermind. I'm not this cheerful in the morning. Honestly, it's dangerous to talk to me before 10am. I am not fully functional. There's a good chance I could have forgotten to brush my hair before I left the house. For best results for all parties involved, contact me after noon.
We should probably just move on to the review, whadaya say?
Recently, I finished another indie book, Darkness of the Womb, by Richard B. Knight. This is the first book by a very promising new author and one to keep an eye on.
Darkness of the Womb is a good mix of fantasy and horror, and it's the good kind of horror. Psychological. The story is about an unborn child who doesn't want to be born. He is on a mission to abort himself and the story details the journey of his parents as they try to save him. Human traits are personified as antagonists and unlikely heroes, each one identified with signature colors that result in a very vivid story.
Although the structure of the story felt weak in some places, it was still an enthralling read. Knight did an excellent job with his characters and I found myself invested in the side characters as much as the main. I would call it a dark fairy-tale, and it receives a solid 4 stars from me. I enjoyed the book so much, I will probably be grabbing his second novel as well.
When I finished Darkness of the Womb, I jumped into Mistborn... Man... what a wild ride that was. That will probably be my next review.
Aside from all the maniacal reading I've been doing lately, I've put in a lot of work on the consolidation of After and I'm pleased to announce that the paperback and e-book are available now! With a brand new cover! If you've already purchased all three books, the consolidated book doesn't offer any new content, although it might be a bit cleaner as far as editing goes. It does however, have the first teaser chapter of Dreamland at the back.
Oh my!
No need to rush out(over?) and buy it just for the teaser. I have a brand new page up for Dreamland updates alone, and you can find it there. You'll also notice I've finally added a timeline for publication as well as some interesting stats. That date isn't set in stone as of yet, but I do plan to be finished with the first manuscript by the end of April. Things have been going so well with the writing lately, I don't want to say anything else or I'll jinx myself!
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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Pile-CC
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Introduction
============
Metabolism can be broadly defined as the chemical processes that occur within a living organism to maintain life. Substrate/energy metabolism refers to the process of conversion or transfer of carbon/energy from one molecule to another. This is achieved through highly dynamic and strictly regulated metabolic pathways composed of a series of enzyme-catalyzed reactions, facilitating conversion of an initial substrate to a final end product. It is essential that these processes retain sufficient flexibility, thereby maintaining nutrient and energy balance within a physiologic range (ie, metabolic homeostasis). By definition, metabolism is in constant flux, requiring consideration of the fourth dimension (ie, time). This consideration highlights the need for consideration of temporal orchestration of metabolism at the whole body, tissue, and substrate-specific levels. Circadian (derived from the Latin terms circa- and -diem, meaning "around the day") rhythms refer to processes that occur in an approximately 24-hour timescale. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to provide a comprehensive overview of circadian rhythms in metabolic homeostasis, including the relative contributions of extrinsic (eg, insulin) and intrinsic (eg, circadian clocks) factors governing these rhythms, and highlight the pathologic consequences following their disruption.
Rhythms in metabolism
=====================
Given the focus of this paper, it is important to define "circadian rhythms in metabolism". Technically, to be considered "circadian", processes must 1) oscillate with a periodicity of 24 hours under constant conditions (ie, in the absence of external cues); 2) be entrainable to external cues; and 3) persist across a range of physiological temperatures.[@b1-nss-8-163] In reality, the majority of studies investigate diurnal or time-of-day-dependent, as opposed to circadian, rhythms because of the presence of external cues (eg, light/dark cycle). Nomenclature has developed to refer to these paradigms separately, where zeitgeber time (ZT) defines the time during light/dark cycles (ZT0 being the beginning of the light phase) and circadian time defines the time during constant conditions (eg, constant darkness). Accordingly, here we consider both circadian and diurnal rhythms. Metabolic flux through a pathway can be assessed in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro through a number of methodologies including, but not limited to, following the rate of substrate utilization (eg, oxygen consumption in isolated mitochondria, cells, permeabolized tissues, or in vivo respirometry) or product generation (eg, accumulation of labeled products in cells/tissues). In the latter case, both stable isotopes and radiolabeled tracers have been utilized successfully in intact tissues and cells. Collectively, these parameters are considered primary measures of metabolism ([Figure 1](#f1-nss-8-163){ref-type="fig"}). Metabolite analysis, both unbiased (metabolomics), and/or candidate assessments offer supplemental information. However, since these assessments are at "steady-state" levels, they may not directly indicate the flux of carbon through a pathway, and are thus considered secondary measures. This point is exemplified by intramyocellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels; during exercise, ATP levels decrease slightly in cardiac muscle (ie, steady-state metabolite), yet rates of ATP synthesis (ie, flux) increase dramatically to meet energetic demands.[@b2-nss-8-163] Similar to metabolite measures, the assessment of the activity of an enzyme in an in vitro assay is considered a secondary measure of metabolism (as enzymatic activity in situ is dependent on substrate and allosteric effector levels, subcellular localization, and protein--protein interactions, which are not recapitulated in in vitro assays). In contrast, protein and gene expression (as well as posttranslational modifications) are far removed from metabolic fluxes and can be considered tertiary measures, which have the potential to provide mechanistic insight with regards to causes (and in some cases, consequences) of perturbations in metabolic fluxes. The following subsections will focus initially on rhythms in macronutrient (ie, carbohydrate, lipid, and protein) utilization in numerous tissues involved in metabolic homeostasis (eg, intestine, liver, adipose, and skeletal muscle). [Figure 2](#f2-nss-8-163){ref-type="fig"} summarizes the information explained in this section, and highlights time-of-day-dependent metabolic rhythms in ad libitum fed rodents. In all cases, hypotheses will be provided regarding the potential physiologic advantage of temporal synchronization of these processes.
Carbohydrate
------------
Carbohydrates are complex biomolecules (mono-, di-, and polysaccharides) representing the most abundant carbon source on Earth; for the sake of simplicity, we will focus on glucose metabolism. As with other nutrients, glucose homeostasis is the product of dietary intake and digestion/absorption, endogenous production, and tissue utilization. To maintain blood glucose levels within a physiological range, these processes must work in concert, an undertaking involving the interplay of multiple organ systems. Diurnal patterns of feeding and concomitant rhythms in blood glucose levels have been observed in humans and animal models. Carbohydrate preference is increased early in the feeding period (with a later shift toward proteins and fats).[@b3-nss-8-163]--[@b5-nss-8-163] Following ingestion, polysaccharides (eg, starch) are hydrolyzed to di- and monosaccharides by α-amylase. Parotid and pancreatic α-amylase activities exhibit a rhythm in both fed and fasted rats, peaking during the middle of the light phase,[@b6-nss-8-163]--[@b8-nss-8-163] likely in anticipation of food intake. The rate of glucose absorption in the small intestine also fluctuates throughout the day;[@b9-nss-8-163] glucose uptake in the intestine (duodenum, jejunum, and ileum) is increased during the middle of the active period, both in vivo (in situ intestinal loop) and ex vivo (isolated tissues).[@b10-nss-8-163]--[@b13-nss-8-163] These findings are consistent with increased gene and protein expression of intestinal sodium--glucose cotransporter 1 and GLUT5, as well as GLUT2 (which is responsible for exporting monosaccharides from intestinal epithelial cells into the bloodstream) at the beginning of the active period.[@b13-nss-8-163]--[@b15-nss-8-163] Collectively, these findings illustrate temporal synchrony between anticipation of food intake (α-amylase), carbohydrate preference, and glucose absorption.
Circulating glucose levels are a function of reciprocal rates of glucose import into, and export from, the blood. Interestingly, following a bolus infusion of glucose, circulating glucose levels increase to different extents depending on the time of day,[@b16-nss-8-163] with the lowest increment at the beginning of the active period in both rodents and humans,[@b17-nss-8-163] reflecting time-of-day-dependent differences in rates of glucose disposal by tissues, such as liver, skeletal muscle, and adipose.[@b18-nss-8-163]--[@b20-nss-8-163] Upon uptake into target tissues, glucose has multiple oxidative and nonoxidative fates. This includes storage as glycogen. In both the liver and skeletal muscle, glycogen synthesis peaks at the end of the active period (whereas glycogen breakdown peaks at the end of the sleep period).[@b21-nss-8-163]--[@b25-nss-8-163] In isolated skeletal muscle, rhythms in insulin-mediated glucose disposal have been reported; glycogen synthesis exhibits a biphasic pattern in rat soleus muscle, peaking at both the onset of the active and sleep phases.[@b26-nss-8-163] During periods of fasting, hepatic glucose output increases to help maintain homeostasis, in part, due to increased gluconeogenesis. Importantly, tracer studies have revealed that gluconeogenic flux peaks at the end of the sleep (fasting) period, which is associated with greater hepatic phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase expression.[@b27-nss-8-163]
Collectively, rhythms in carbohydrate metabolism are apparent at multiple levels, likely optimizing performance and homeostasis during daily fluctuations in energetic demands (eg, increase blood glucose at the beginning of active period in anticipation of foraging for food, avoiding predation, etc) and feeding status (eg, increased production of α-amylase and insulin at the beginning of the active period to maximize efficient carbohydrate digestion and glucose uptake).
Lipid
-----
As with other nutrients, protein and amino acid homeostasis is achieved through a balance between ingestion/digestion/absorption, de novo synthesis, and utilization. Evidence for stringent protein homeostasis includes observations that mice given foods of differing protein content modify their food intake to consume the same total protein amount.[@b3-nss-8-163] In terms of rhythms, preference for protein-enriched foods increases later in the active period.[@b4-nss-8-163] Following ingestion, proteins are hydrolyzed by digestive enzymes and broken down into di- and tripeptides, as well as amino acids. Pepsinogen, a major digestive enzyme, is secreted in a time-of-day-dependent manner, peaking in the middle of the rest period. Conversely, pepsinogen activation peaks during the active period due to increased acid secretion at this time.[@b28-nss-8-163] Similarly, chymotrypsin secretion peaks during the active period in rats. Interestingly, rhythms in the profile of pancreatic secretions persisted, albeit severely attenuated, during 48 hours fasting[@b29-nss-8-163] suggesting anticipation, as opposed to response, of food consumption. Meal feeding-induced pancreatic secretions also exhibit a time-of-day dependence in pigs, with greater responses during the active period.[@b30-nss-8-163] Peptide and amino acid absorption in the small intestine occurs in a diurnal fashion, peaking during the active phase, in association with increased gene[@b13-nss-8-163] and protein[@b31-nss-8-163] expression (peak at ZT12, both) of peptide transporter 1. Rhythms in circulating levels of amino acids (asparagine and tryptophan) are present in humans and rodents, with increased levels in the late active period compared to waking.[@b32-nss-8-163]--[@b35-nss-8-163] When healthy human subjects consumed a high protein load in the morning (8 am), a greater acute increase of amino acids in the circulation was observed, compared to the same protein load in the evening (8 pm).[@b32-nss-8-163] However, the peak in circulating amino acid levels is independent of total dietary protein intake and is unchanged by either high or low protein diets.[@b32-nss-8-163]
Circulating amino acids are not only derived from protein digestion and absorption; multiple tissues generate and release distinct amino acids in a quantitatively appreciable manner. Two examples include alanine and glutamine. In the latter case, skeletal muscle is considered a major site of glutamine synthesis and release, which appears to occur in a time-of-day-dependent manner.[@b36-nss-8-163]--[@b38-nss-8-163] Proteolysis is also a significant means of mobilizing "stored" amino acids. Two major mechanisms involved in protein and organelle turnover include the proteasome and autophagy.[@b39-nss-8-163],[@b40-nss-8-163] Remarkably, little information is available regarding time-of-day-dependent rhythms in proteasome-mediated protein breakdown. Indirect evidence stems from microarray studies, having identified a number of ubiquitin ligases and proteasome components as fluctuating at a gene expression level in a time-of-day-dependent manner.[@b41-nss-8-163] Accumulating evidence suggests that autophagic degradation of subcellular constituents occurs in a diurnal fashion. Electron micrographs initially revealed that autophagic vacuole accumulation varies over the course of the day, suggesting greatest autophagy during the sleep phase in the rat liver (and heart).[@b42-nss-8-163],[@b43-nss-8-163] Furthermore, injecting mice with a lysosomal protease inhibitor leupeptin (which inhibits terminal stages of autophagosome breakdown) exposed increased autophagic flux in the liver during the sleep phase.[@b44-nss-8-163]
Circulating amino acids are taken up and utilized by cells for a number of purposes, including catabolism, conversion to other nitrogen-containing compounds (eg, carnitine, creatine, neurotransmitters, etc), and incorporation into protein. The latter process appears to be time-of-day dependent. Protein synthesis in skeletal muscle peaks during the dark phase, corresponding to a period of increased food intake, increased circulating amino acids, and increased insulin in nocturnal rodents.[@b45-nss-8-163] In contrast, protein synthesis appears to peak at the end of the active period in the liver, and in the middle of the sleep phase for the heart.[@b46-nss-8-163],[@b47-nss-8-163] Collectively, these observations suggest that time-of-day-dependent rhythms in amino acid metabolism differ in distinct tissues, which is likely important for whole-body homeostasis. However, several questions remain unanswered, including details regarding the importance of circadian rhythms in protein turnover and the relative contributions of amino acid utilization versus de novo synthesis in circulating level rhythms.
Lipid
-----
Lipids are more than just a metabolic fuel source, serving also as membrane constituents and modulators of transcription/translation, signaling transduction, and cell death. Accordingly, perturbations in lipid homeostasis can lead to a host of pathologies, including diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease. Rhythms in processes affecting lipid homeostasis have been reported at multiple levels. For example, macronutrient preference studies indicate a greater desire for fat-enriched foods later in the active period.[@b3-nss-8-163] Upon ingestion, lipids are emulsified by bile salts and enzymatically digested by lipases into fatty acids and monoacylglycerides. Diurnal rhythms in bile acid synthesis were identified decades ago in rats, peaking during the dark period,[@b48-nss-8-163] immediately following peak expression of cholesterol 7α-hydroxylase -- the rate-limiting enzyme in bile acid synthesis.[@b49-nss-8-163]--[@b52-nss-8-163] Rhythms in total bile acid synthesis in rats in vivo persist during fasting, suggesting anticipation of food intake.[@b48-nss-8-163] These rhythms were similar for individual bile acids (cholate, chenodeoxycholate, α/β-muricholate) investigated, which all reached a maximum during the active phase.[@b48-nss-8-163] Likewise, rhythms in lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activity in the heart and skeletal muscle are highest during the active period.[@b53-nss-8-163] Following digestion, fatty acids and monoacylglycerides are absorbed into the intestinal enterocytes for further processing and packaging. Using in situ loops of small intestine, greater rates of cholesterol and lipid absorption have been reported during the active phase.[@b13-nss-8-163] Dietary lipids are then packaged into chylomicrons within enterocytes, before being secreted into the lymphatics. Packaging/secretion of chylomicrons is regulated in part by the intestinal microsomal triglyceride transfer protein (MTP); MTP mRNA, protein, and activity increase during the active phase in enterocytes.[@b13-nss-8-163],[@b54-nss-8-163]
Diurnal rhythms in circulating lipid species have been reported in humans and animal models.[@b55-nss-8-163]--[@b60-nss-8-163] Liquid chromatography/gas chromatography--mass spectroscopy analysis of blood samples taken from males under "constant conditions" (40 hours constant dim light, hourly nutrition, enforced posture with no sleep) revealed peak circulating lipids between morning and noon.[@b55-nss-8-163] Interestingly, in a lipidomic study in healthy humans, a significant variation of peaks of different lipid species measured between individuals was found, suggesting the existence of metabolomic chronotypes.[@b56-nss-8-163] In order for esterified fatty acids within circulating triglyceride to enter a tissue, it must be released, a reaction catalyzed by LPL; LPL activity exhibits a diurnal pattern in various tissues, peaking during the active phase in adipose.[@b61-nss-8-163] De novo fatty acid synthesis requires enzymes such as acetyl-CoA carboxylase, fatty acid synthase, and fatty acid-binding protein, which are all more abundant during the active phase.[@b62-nss-8-163] Synthesis of triglycerides in the liver occurs in a rhythmic fashion, increasing during the feeding period.[@b63-nss-8-163],[@b64-nss-8-163] Conversely, breakdown of triglycerides and mobilization of free fatty acids from adipose tissue also fluctuate rhythmically, which are increased during the light phase in ad libitum fed rats.[@b65-nss-8-163]
Extrinsic mediators
===================
Circadian rhythms in metabolism could be driven by various extrinsic or intrinsic mediators. A collection of extrinsic factors known to regulate metabolic processes oscillate in a time-of-day-dependent manner, often being considered a reflection of environmental and/or behavioral rhythms. Diurnal rhythms in neuroendocrine factors, and/or target tissue sensitivity, undoubtedly serve to optimize diverse metabolic demands throughout daily cycles of feeding and fasting, as well as rest and activity. Here, four key metabolically relevant neurohumoral factors (ie, insulin, cortisol, growth hormone, epinephrine/norepinephrine) will be discussed, although others likely play important roles (eg, melatonin, ghrelin, adiponectin, leptin, testosterone).
Insulin
-------
Insulin, produced/secreted by pancreatic β-cells, plays an important role in nutrient sensing.[@b66-nss-8-163] During the postprandial state, increased insulin secretion stimulates nutrient uptake, utilization, and storage in metabolically active tissues, including the liver, adipose tissue, and muscle.[@b66-nss-8-163] For example, insulin: 1) increases glucose uptake via translocation of GLUT4 to the membrane in muscle and adipose; 2) attenuates hepatic gluconeogenesis; 3) stimulates glyconeogenesis in liver and muscle; and 4) activates protein synthesis in numerous tissues. Circulating insulin levels fluctuate in a time-of-day-dependent manner (peaking late in the active period). Increased food intake during the active period does not appear to be the sole determinant of these rhythms, as insulin secretion rhythms persist when food is equally distributed over the day.[@b67-nss-8-163]--[@b70-nss-8-163] In addition, rats given six discrete meals throughout the day (calories consumed were not different between meals) showed the greatest insulin secretion 2 hours into the active period.[@b19-nss-8-163],[@b68-nss-8-163] Whole-body insulin sensitivity also exhibits a time-of-day dependence, peaking in the middle of the active period. Interestingly, both insulin and glucose levels acutely increase in the circulation immediately prior to waking, independent of feeding, an event termed the "Dawn Phenomenon".[@b71-nss-8-163],[@b72-nss-8-163] This surge in blood glucose in the period prior to waking is likely secondary to relative hepatic insulin resistance, thus preparing the animal for the transition to activity (and increased glucose utilization). Collectively, insulin secretion and sensitivity appear to be temporally organized, likely in anticipation of increased activity upon waking, as well as increased food intake during the active period.
Cortisol
--------
Cortisol is a catabolic glucocorticoid hormone secreted by the adrenal glands in the hypothalamic--pituitary--adrenal axis; hypothalamic release of corticotropin-releasing hormone stimulates pituitary release of adrenocorticotropic hormone, which in turn stimulates cortisol secretion. Cortisol modulates numerous metabolic processes, including stimulation of glycogenolysis, lipolysis, and proteolysis. Cortisol elicits a biphasic effect on glucose homeostasis, acutely inhibiting insulin secretion, and chronically inducing insulin resistance.[@b73-nss-8-163],[@b74-nss-8-163] In humans, circulating cortisol levels peak in the early morning (\~1 am),[@b75-nss-8-163],[@b76-nss-8-163] promoting fuel mobilization at this time.[@b77-nss-8-163] The impact of corticosterone on metabolic homeostasis is time-of-day-dependent; hydrocortisone infused at 1 pm (elevated at abnormal time) versus 5 am (elevated at normal time) results in augmented plasma glucose and insulin levels in humans.[@b74-nss-8-163] Collectively, diurnal rhythms in cortisol secretion and sensitivity likely serve to increase fuel availability at the beginning of the active period, in anticipation of increased energy expenditure upon waking.
Growth hormone
--------------
Growth hormone (GH) is an anabolic hormone produced/secreted from the anterior pituitary gland. GH has pronounced effects on glucose, lipid, and protein metabolism. In essence, GH serves to promote protein synthesis, lipolysis (thereby shifting reliance toward fat oxidation), and gluconeogenesis, as well as eliciting insulin resistance.[@b78-nss-8-163] Circulating GH levels exhibit an ultradian pattern, which is species-, sex-, age-, and time-of-day-dependent.[@b79-nss-8-163]--[@b81-nss-8-163] GH secretion is triggered by GH- releasing hormone and is reduced by somatostatin; time-of-day-dependent rhythms in GH correspond more closely with GH- releasing hormone (relative to somatostatin).[@b82-nss-8-163],[@b83-nss-8-163] Increased GH levels during the rest/sleep period potentially function to increase circulating fatty acids, attenuating glucose (and amino acid) oxidation, thereby contributing toward increased glucose availability upon waking.[@b84-nss-8-163]--[@b86-nss-8-163] Morning versus evening administration of GH (in GH-deficient subjects) showed differential effects, suggesting that only evening GH restored the metabolic profile of GH-proficient individuals.[@b87-nss-8-163] Collectively, circadian rhythms in GH appear to maintain metabolic homeostasis during sleep and may contribute to the anticipatory increase in blood glucose prior to waking.
Epinephrine/norepinephrine
--------------------------
Epinephrine and norepinephrine are catecholamines synthesized from the amino acids tyrosine and phenylalanine. Epinephrine and norepinephrine are produced in the adrenal medulla and serve to mobilize energy by increasing glycogenolysis in liver and skeletal muscle, as well as lipolysis, following sympathetic nervous stimulation (ie, during the fight-or-flight response or exercise). Early findings in humans and animals have shown diurnal and circadian rhythms for both catecholamines in the circulation, with a trough during the relative rest phase.[@b88-nss-8-163],[@b89-nss-8-163] Scheer et al[@b90-nss-8-163] found that exercise performed in the morning resulted in an accentuated increase in catecholamine release in humans. Interestingly, a diurnal rhythm in adipose tissue sensitivity to epinephrine-stimulated lipolysis is highest at the end of the active period in rats.[@b91-nss-8-163] Norepinephrine also functions as an important neurotransmitter in the sympathetic nervous system and has central effects on feeding behavior; administration of hypothalamic norepinephrine suppresses feeding behavior in the dark phase and stimulates feeding behavior in the light phase of rats.[@b92-nss-8-163]
Intrinsic mediators
===================
Various metabolically relevant neurohumoral factors oscillate in a time-of-day-dependent manner. Many of these neurohumoral factors oscillate concomitantly with daily fluctuations in behaviors and are associated with predicted timing of distinct metabolic processes (eg, increased hepatic glycogen synthesis during the awake period, when insulin levels are elevated in ad libitum-fed animals). Such observations have led to models suggesting that rhythms in metabolic parameters are consequent to behavioral fluctuations, while neurohumoral factors serve as mediators. This "response" or "adaptation" model, therefore, relies on alterations in extrinsic factors to initiate perturbations in metabolism. However, this dogmatic model has been challenged in recent years, in light of observations that intrinsic mechanisms play a significant role. For example, multiple metabolic oscillations persist during constant conditions and/or dyssynchrony of organisms from a normal 24-hour environment. In the latter case, enforcing either 20-hour or 28-hour sleep/wake and feeding/fasting cycles in human subjects reveals persistent 24-hour rhythms in circulating nutrients (eg, glucose, lipids) and neurohumoral factors (eg, norepinephrine).[@b90-nss-8-163],[@b93-nss-8-163] As such, an "intrinsic" or "anticipation" model has developed, wherein modulation of metabolic processes over the course of the day occurs independently of fluctuations in the environment. In reality, both models likely work in a coordinated fashion, facilitating metabolic homeostasis in the face of predicted fluctuations in energy supply/demand, yet ensuring sufficient flexibility in the event of abrupt changes in the environment. The "Circadian clocks" section reviews evidence that circadian clocks serve as an intrinsic mechanism modulating metabolic processes over the course of the day.
Circadian clocks
----------------
Circadian clocks are transcriptionally based cell autonomous mechanisms modulating biological processes in a temporally appropriate manner.[@b1-nss-8-163] This mechanism enables anticipation of environmental/extracellular/extrinsic stimuli and stresses prior to their onset. Circadian clocks have been identified in various organisms, ranging from distinct bacteria to both plants and animals.[@b94-nss-8-163] The mammalian circadian clock is composed of more than 15 transcriptional modulators, forming an interconnecting series of positive and negative feedback loops, with a free-running periodicity of approximately 24 hours.[@b1-nss-8-163],[@b94-nss-8-163] Central to the mechanism reside two bHLH-PAS-containing transcription factors, CLOCK and BMAL1. Upon heterodimerization, CLOCK/BMAL1 binds to E-boxes within promoters of target genes, invariably resulting in induction.[@b95-nss-8-163],[@b96-nss-8-163] These target genes include core clock components that generate negative feedback loops, such as multiple Period (PER1/2/3) and Cryptochrome (CRY1/2) isoforms, as well as REV-ERBα.[@b97-nss-8-163]--[@b99-nss-8-163] Once these proteins accumulate, PER/CRY heterodimers and REV-ERBα translocate back into the nucleus and negatively affect the CLOCK/BMAL1 heterodimer. More specifically, PER/CRY bind directly to CLOCK/BMAL1 (interfering with induction of target genes), while REV-ERBα binds to the promoter of the BMAL1 gene (repressing expression).[@b97-nss-8-163]--[@b99-nss-8-163] Additional negative feedback loop components likely exist (eg, DEC1/2).[@b100-nss-8-163]
Several aspects of the mammalian circadian clock warrant brief discussion. First, significant redundancy exists within the mechanism; overlapping functions of several core clock components include cryptochromes, periods, and CLOCK (redundancy with NPAS2). Indeed, mouse models of core clock component homozygous deletion reveal that only BMAL1 is essential for complete operation of the mammalian circadian clock (ie, clock function remains following genetic manipulation of other components, albeit with differences in the timing \[ie, periodicity\]).[@b101-nss-8-163] Second, although the clock mechanism is transcriptionally based, a number of posttranslational modifications are essential for normal operation (ie, correct phase and periodicity). For example, CK1α-mediated phosphorylation affects the stability of the Period isoforms, which is essential for delaying accumulation of this negative loop protein (relative to mRNA).[@b102-nss-8-163] Additional posttranslational modifications of clock components have been described, including acetylation, SUMoylation, ADP-ribosylation, and O-GlcNAcylation.[@b37-nss-8-163],[@b103-nss-8-163]--[@b107-nss-8-163] Indeed, CLOCK possesses a histone acetyltransferase domain, which appears to be important for modulating acetylation and transcriptional activity of BMAL1.[@b108-nss-8-163] Third, circadian clocks have been described in essentially all mammalian cells, and can be classified depending upon tissue location. The central circadian clock is composed of a collection of approximately 10,000 specialized neurons within a region of the hypothalamus known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN).[@b109-nss-8-163] Peripheral circadian clocks are located in non-SCN cells (including other central nervous system regions). Although cell autonomous in nature, a hierarchy appears to exist, in a manner in which the SCN orchestrates the peripheral clocks. Entrainment of the SCN (primary example includes light entrainment via the retinohypothalamic tract), which results in neurohumoral fluctuations (via direct neural connections from the SCN, humoral factors released from the SCN, and/or behavior-induced changes in non-SCN-derived entrainment factors), is believed to modulate peripheral oscillator timing.[@b1-nss-8-163],[@b109-nss-8-163] However, it is noteworthy that SCN and peripheral clocks can be dissociated remarkably easily through various behaviors, including alteration of food intake patterns (as discussed in the following sections).
Clock components influence a multitude of target genes (beyond the clock mechanism itself), known as clock output or controlled genes, which in turn modulate cellular functions. It has been estimated that circadian clocks regulate as much as 13% of the transcriptome, in both a time-of-day- and tissue-dependent manner.[@b110-nss-8-163] Unbiased microarray and bioinformatics approaches suggest that clock-controlled genes can be assigned to a diverse set of biological/cellular functions, including transcription, translation, signal transduction, and metabolism.[@b110-nss-8-163]--[@b113-nss-8-163] Clock control of transcriptional activators/repressors allows amplification of a number of genes regulated by this mechanism (albeit indirectly). Translation (and protein degradation) is essential not only for the circadian clock to influence cellular functions (ie, daily turnover of proteins/enzymes within a functional cascade) but also for the normal operation of the clock mechanism itself. Clock control of signal transduction is likely critical for anticipation, allowing appropriate responsiveness to a stimulus/stress in a temporally appropriate manner. Circadian regulation of metabolic processes likely allows the cell to anticipate fluctuations in nutrient/energy supply and demand. Evidence in support of direct clock control of metabolism will now be discussed.
Clock control of metabolism
---------------------------
The hypothesis that circadian clocks regulate metabolic homeostasis, both directly (eg, expression of enzymes within a distinct metabolic pathway) and indirectly (eg, secretion of metabolically relevant neurohumoral factors) has received increasing interest over the past several decades. Here, we will focus primarily on cell and animal model (surgical and genetic)-based evidence suggesting a potential role for circadian clocks in metabolic homeostasis and discuss how they likely work in synchrony with extrinsic influences. In the latter case, significant attention will be given to insulin because of its established governing activity over intermediary metabolism. As before, only studies directly interrogating metabolic processes/parameters remain a major focus, while alterations in gene/protein expression will be considered possible mechanistic mediators ([Figure 1](#f1-nss-8-163){ref-type="fig"}). Although not discussed in detail here, it is important to note that circadian clock components (such as BMAL1 and CLOCK) may influence gene expression and metabolic processes independent of their circadian clock function.
Whole body
----------
Disruption of circadian clock function influences metabolic homeostasis at multiple levels. At the whole-body level, both markers of acute (eg, nutrient clearance) and chronic (eg, body weight), metabolic perturbations have been interrogated. Initial SCN-ablation studies (a strategy that impairs not only central but also peripheral clock function) reported altered body weight in various rodent models.[@b114-nss-8-163]--[@b116-nss-8-163] This intervention also results in profound alterations in glucose homeostasis, affecting both insulin-dependent and independent glucose disposal.[@b16-nss-8-163] Animal models of genetic manipulation of circadian clock components have also been investigated. Of these, germline CLOCK^∆19^ mutant (loss of Exon 19 of the CLOCK gene, resulting in a dominant negative mutant) and BMAL1 null mice have been investigated to the largest extent (due to marked impact on circadian clock function); it is noteworthy that metabolic parameters have been investigated in other genetic models (eg, knockout \[KO\]/mutation of various PER and CRY isoforms), albeit to a lesser extent. In terms of body weight regulation, CLOCK^∆19^ mutant mice present with increased adiposity (on the B6 background), while BMAL1 null mice are more susceptible to high-fat-diet-induced adiposity (at a young age).[@b117-nss-8-163],[@b118-nss-8-163] Both CLOCK^∆19^ mutant and BMAL1 null mice exhibit decreased glucose tolerance, as indicated by an elevated amount of glucose in the circulation following an acute (\<2 hours) glucose load.[@b119-nss-8-163] Conversely, lipid tolerance is increased in CLOCK^∆19^ mutant (ie, decreased triglyceride in circulation following an acute lipid load).[@b120-nss-8-163] Collectively, these data suggest that disruption of circadian clocks alters both long- (eg, adiposity) and short-term (eg, glucose/lipid tolerance) metabolic homeostasis. In contrast, an extensive literature search was unable to identify information regarding the impact of circadian clock disruption on protein/amino acid tolerance.
Consistent with the first law of thermodynamics, alterations in adiposity/body weight suggest an imbalance between caloric intake and energy expenditure. This could arise through perturbations in food intake, digestion, and/or absorption following circadian clock disruption, as well as the balance between catabolic and anabolic pathways involved in nutrient/energy homeostasis. Evidence exists suggesting clock control of all these parameters. For example, CLOCK^∆19^ mutant and BMAL1 null mice exhibit abnormalities in day--night patterns of food intake, such that a more even distribution of caloric intake is observed over the 24-hour day (as opposed to typical food intake predominance during the active/dark phase).[@b117-nss-8-163],[@b121-nss-8-163] Somewhat surprisingly, when both food intake and energy expenditure were investigated in BMAL1 null mice, no differences in total daily values of these parameters were found (although day--night differences were abolished).[@b121-nss-8-163] These data suggest that normal rhythms are important for metabolic homeostasis. Indeed, when sleep phase feeding is enforced in wild-type mice, increased adiposity is observed.[@b122-nss-8-163],[@b123-nss-8-163] Robust alterations in digestion/absorption have been reported, particularly for CLOCK^∆19^ mutant mice; these mice present with impaired lipid absorption, particularly on the Jcl:ICR background, likely due to clock control of MTP in intestinal epithelial cells.[@b13-nss-8-163],[@b54-nss-8-163],[@b58-nss-8-163],[@b120-nss-8-163] Collectively, these data lead to speculation that differences in digestion/absorption following circadian clock disruption contribute to increased weight gain, in the absence of daily total caloric intake and/or energy expenditure.
Glucose homeostasis following an acute glucose load illustrates the importance of balancing anabolic and catabolic processes, being orchestrated by fluctuations in insulin secretion and sensitivity. Amassing evidence suggests circadian clock control of insulin secretion. CLOCK^∆19^ mutant mice exhibit decreased insulin levels during glucose tolerance tests compared to wild-type mice (when the glucose challenge is given either orally or intraperitoneally, thereby eliminating contributions of absorption).[@b124-nss-8-163] Similarly, islets isolated from these mice have blunted glucose-stimulated insulin secretion.[@b124-nss-8-163] Consistent with direct clock control, 24-hour oscillations in insulin gene expression persist in serum synchronized insulinoma cells.[@b125-nss-8-163] Furthermore, rhythms in insulin secretion persist during constant conditions, including continuous nutrition.[@b68-nss-8-163] Importantly, β-cell-specific BMAL1 null mice exhibit impaired insulin secretion.[@b70-nss-8-163],[@b124-nss-8-163] Collectively, these data strongly support the concept that the circadian clock within the pancreatic β-cell directly modulates insulin secretion. In contrast to insulin secretion, the regulation of insulin sensitivity by cell autonomous clocks appears to be less conclusive. Insulin sensitivity oscillates over the course of the day, at both the whole-body and individual tissue level. With regards to control of these oscillations by circadian clocks, insulin tolerance tests suggested increased insulin sensitivity in CLOCK^∆19^ mutant and BMAL1 null mice.[@b119-nss-8-163],[@b126-nss-8-163] However, utilization of hyperinsulinemic--euglycemic clamps (a more sensitive method for the assessment of whole-body insulin sensitivity) revealed decreased insulin-mediated glucose disposal in BMAL1 null mice (associated with decreased activation of insulin signaling components in the liver).[@b118-nss-8-163] As outlined, investigation of clock control of insulin signaling in distinct tissues suggests cell type-specific regulation.
The aforementioned studies strongly support the concept that circadian clocks affect metabolic homeostasis at multiple levels. Important questions relate to the relative roles of cell-type-specific circadian clocks, as well as how they integrate with extrinsic signals (eg, insulin) in an intact animal over the course of the day. Recent studies utilizing mouse models of tissue-specific circadian clock disruption have provided significant insight. Given known roles for liver, muscle, and adipose tissue, insights provided from models of genetic manipulation of circadian clocks within these tissues will be discussed next.
Liver
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The liver plays a pivotal role in glucose, lipid, and protein/nitrogen homeostasis. Anatomically, the liver serves as a first pass for dietary carbohydrate and amino acids, receiving these nutrients via the hepatic portal vein. Postprandial rise in both circulating nutrients and insulin suppresses hepatic glucose production, concomitant with stimulation of anabolic processes, such as glycogenesis and lipogenesis. Potential regulation of liver metabolism by circadian clocks has been implied through use of germline genetic manipulations (eg, CLOCK^∆19^ mutant, BMAL1 null, and Cry1/2 double KO mice), resulting in perturbations of hepatic levels of lipogenesis, gluconeogenesis, and fatty acid β-oxidation, concomitant with alterations in insulin signaling components.[@b119-nss-8-163],[@b127-nss-8-163]--[@b130-nss-8-163] To address a potential role for the hepatocyte circadian clock, both tissue-specific genetic manipulations in vivo and isolated cell culture systems have been employed. Lamia et al[@b131-nss-8-163] reported that hepatocyte-specific BMAL1 null mice exhibit increased glucose and insulin tolerance, as well as a propensity for fasting-induced hypoglycemia; this was associated with decreased expression of genes involved in gluconeogenesis (eg, glucose 6-phosphatase and glucose transporter 2). These observations are consistent with at least two scenarios, wherein the hepatocyte circadian clock: 1) directly regulates gluconeogenic enzymes and/or 2) indirectly modulates hepatic sensitivity to neurohumoral factors known to influence gluconeogenesis (eg, β-adrenergic and insulin stimulation). However, knockdown of BMAL1 in isolated hepatocytes decreases insulin-stimulated AKT activation (which would promote, not attenuate, gluconeogenesis).[@b128-nss-8-163] In contrast, the decrease in hepatic insulin sensitivity following liver-specific BMAL1 disruption is associated with decreased lipogenesis, as well as expression of enzymes known to regulate this metabolic process.[@b128-nss-8-163] It is noteworthy that Lipton et al[@b46-nss-8-163] have recently suggested a role for BMAL1 in protein synthesis regulation, potentially through direct interaction with the translation machinery. However, germline BMAL1 null mice were investigated, and as such, the relative role of the hepatocyte circadian clock in protein turnover in vivo remains to be established.
Muscle
------
Skeletal muscle is a metabolically diverse organ, capable of utilizing various substrates, depending on the conditions. Following ingestion of a carbohydrate-rich meal, skeletal muscle is responsible for approximately 60% of postprandial glucose disposal (ie, insulin-mediated). Insulin sensitivity and glucose utilization exhibit time-of-day-dependent oscillations in both intact skeletal muscle ex vivo as well as cultured myocytes in vitro.[@b26-nss-8-163],[@b132-nss-8-163] These data led Dyar et al[@b133-nss-8-163] to investigate the potential role of the skeletal myocyte circadian clock as a modulator of these processes. Through use of both constitutive and inducible skeletal myocyte-specific BMAL1 null mouse models, insulin-mediated skeletal muscle glucose uptake and oxidation were found to be dependent on the myocyte circadian clock. This was associated with clock control of GLUT4 (insulin-responsive glucose transporter), TBC1D1 (modulator of GLUT4 translocation), as well as PDP1 (a regulator of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex). Somewhat surprisingly, no major differences in glucose or insulin tolerance were observed following ablation of BMAL1 in skeletal muscle, nor were differences in insulin-mediated AKT activation.[@b133-nss-8-163] Collectively, these findings suggest that the skeletal myocyte circadian clock directly regulates muscle glucose utilization but is not essential for maintenance of whole-body glucose homeostasis. However, it is important to note that time-of-day-dependent rhythms in insulin-mediated glucose utilization were not assessed, leaving the role of cell autonomous clocks on rhythms in skeletal muscle glucose utilization unanswered. Interestingly, cardiac muscle from cardiomyocyte-specific BMAL1 KO mice (CBK), as well as cardiomyocyte-specific CLOCK^∆19^ mutant mice (CCM), also exhibits decreased glucose uptake and oxidation, associated with a loss of time-of-day-dependent rhythms in metabolism, suggesting that intramyocellular circadian clocks influence glucose utilization in all striated muscles over the course of the day.[@b37-nss-8-163],[@b112-nss-8-163],[@b134-nss-8-163] In contrast, little is known regarding the role of the myocyte circadian clock on lipid, ketone body, and/or protein metabolism. Studies in CBK and CCM hearts reveal increased fatty acid oxidation, decreased triglyceride synthesis, decreased ketone body oxidation, decreased leucine oxidation, and increased protein synthesis, suggesting that the intramyocyte clock likely influences muscle metabolism at multiple levels.[@b37-nss-8-163],[@b112-nss-8-163],[@b134-nss-8-163],[@b135-nss-8-163]
Adipose tissue
--------------
White and brown adipocytes have distinct roles in metabolic homeostasis. White adipocytes play an important role in the storage of excess nutrients in the form of triglyceride, as well as serving as an endocrine organ for a number of metabolically active adipokines (eg, leptin, adiponectin). Brown adipocytes are enriched with mitochondria, playing an important role in thermogenesis and energy expenditure. Given that both circulating nutrients and body temperature are circadian regulated, it is not surprising that emerging evidence suggests regulation of metabolic homeostasis by the circadian clock within the adipocyte. One of the first studies specifically investigating the contribution of the adipocyte circadian clock was in *Drosophila*, wherein targeted disruption of this mechanism through genetic means resulted in increased food intake during the inactive/sleep phase.[@b136-nss-8-163] More recently, Paschos et al[@b137-nss-8-163] made similar observations in mice; adipocyte-specific BMAL1 null mice exhibit increased adiposity and inappropriate food intake during the inactive phase. The latter study suggested that altered fatty acid processing in adipocyte-specific BMAL1 null mice led to an imbalance in circulating polyunsaturated fatty acids, which in turn perturbed rhythmic feeding patterns. Despite increased adiposity, no differences in insulin sensitivity were identified between adipocyte-specific BMAL1 null mice and littermate controls.[@b137-nss-8-163] The precise impact of the adipocyte circadian clock on de novo fatty acid synthesis or triglyceride turnover remains unknown. In terms of brown adipocytes and thermogenesis, both germline and adipocyte-specific BMAL1 null mice exhibit increased brown adipose tissue mass and are more cold tolerant, relative to wild-type controls.[@b138-nss-8-163],[@b139-nss-8-163] Studies by Gerhart-Hines et al[@b140-nss-8-163] suggest that REV-ERBα likely serves as a mediator of clock control of thermogenesis.
Physiologic roles and pathologic consequences
=============================================
Temporal partitioning is important for sequestering processes ranging from behaviors (such as feeding, activity, and sleep) to cellular processes (such as transcription, translation, and metabolism). In doing so, circadian regulation increases an organism's potential to be evolutionarily successful.[@b141-nss-8-163] A selective advantage exists for organisms that have the ability to anticipate time-of-day-dependent demands, thus being better prepared for the onset of predictable stressors. Examples include the availability or absence of food during feeding and fasting cycles, as well as physical activity associated with hunting, foraging, and avoiding predation. Rhythms in feeding and activity exist in both nocturnal and diurnal animals, and while anticipation to these behaviors is conferred by circadian clocks, both behaviors also fine-tune circadian rhythms in peripheral tissues.[@b142-nss-8-163],[@b143-nss-8-163] More specifically, the time at which food is consumed, or when exercise is performed, can entrain circadian clocks and therefore modulate rhythms in metabolism. Conversely, abnormalities in these behaviors will lead to circadian misalignment, associated with development of a host of cardiometabolic diseases. This section discusses the interrelationship between anticipation of, and entrainment to, behaviors such as food intake and exercise, in the context of circadian regulation of metabolism, as well as pathological consequences due to impairment of this relationship.
Food intake
-----------
### Rhythms in feeding
It is essential to the survival of an organism to successfully acquire sufficient calories to match the energetic demands of life. Organisms have evolved various mechanisms to obtain, process, and store nutrients, many of which are under circadian control (illustrated in [Figure 2](#f2-nss-8-163){ref-type="fig"}). Under normal conditions, animals generally consume the majority of their calories during the active period (corresponding to the dark phase for nocturnal rodents).[@b4-nss-8-163],[@b117-nss-8-163],[@b144-nss-8-163],[@b145-nss-8-163] In anticipation of feeding, animals will acutely increase spontaneous activity (known as food-anticipatory activity), likely to maximize food availability opportunities.[@b146-nss-8-163] Food-anticipatory activity is dampened during ad libitum feeding schedules, as seen in the majority of laboratory-based conditions, but is evident during time-restricted feeding schedules.[@b147-nss-8-163]--[@b149-nss-8-163]
Through the use of genetically modified mouse models, the roles of circadian clocks on feeding patterns have been investigated. For example, CLOCK^∆19^ mutant mice display hyperphagia, associated with diminished time-of-day-dependent rhythms in feeding, consuming equal amounts of food during the daytime and the night.[@b117-nss-8-163] Similarly, deletion of Per2 in mice (mPer2^−/−^) abolished feeding rhythms, resulting in an increase in the amount of food consumed during the sleep (light) phase. Daytime hyperphagia in mPer2^−/−^ mice was linked with α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (a neuroendocrine factor important in appetite regulation), which is normally increased during the sleep phase. Acute α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone supplementation at the onset of sleep restored rhythmic food intake in mPer2^−/−^ mice.[@b150-nss-8-163] Liu et al[@b151-nss-8-163] have also highlighted a role for Per1 phosphorylation in diurnal feeding patterns; mutation of Per1 (at S714 residue) shortened the period of feeding, resulting in dyssynchrony between feeding and metabolic rhythms. As mentioned earlier, rhythms in food intake are also disrupted in adipocyte-specific BMAL1 null mice, resulting in increased food intake during the sleep phase.[@b137-nss-8-163] Collectively, these observations strongly support circadian clock influence over time-of-day-dependent rhythms in food intake.
### Feeding-induced clock entrainment
Circadian clocks undoubtedly aid in the synchronization of anticipated food availability with metabolic processes. To maintain this selective advantage, clocks, therefore, must remain sufficiently responsive to fluctuations in the timing of food availability, to maintain synchronization. It is, therefore, not surprising that the timing of food intake has emerged as one of the strongest entrainment factors (zeitgeber) of peripheral circadian clocks. Evidence for such a concept was first described by Damiola et al,[@b143-nss-8-163] who reported phase shifts in clock component gene oscillations in the liver, kidney, and heart following restriction of food intake to the sleep phase. In contrast, the central (SCN) clock retained synchrony with the light/dark cycle (as opposed to feeding/fasting cycle). These initial studies also suggested that the rate of resynchronization of peripheral clocks in response to food intake was tissue specific, with the most rapid rate of resynchronization in the liver.[@b143-nss-8-163] Feeding-induced resynchronization has subsequently been reported in multiple studies.[@b152-nss-8-163],[@b153-nss-8-163] Collectively, these studies suggest that restricted feeding influences not only the phase but also the amplitude of clock gene oscillations in a tissue-specific manner. Such observations suggest differential responsiveness of organs to feeding-derived entrainment factors, relative to other signals (eg, direct innervation from the SCN). To date, the identity of a single feeding-derived entrainment factor is unknown, although multiple candidates have been proposed, including nutrient-derived signals (eg, O-GlcNAcylation).[@b37-nss-8-163]
### Cardiometabolic consequence of disrupting the feeding--clock relationship
Under physiologic conditions, synchrony is achieved between rhythms in feeding/fasting and metabolic processes, mediated in large part by circadian clocks. When dyssychrony occurs, through perturbations in the timing of food intake and/or circadian clock function, metabolic homeostasis is invariably disrupted, resulting in cardiometabolic diseases. Evidence for this concept stems from studies investigating metabolic perturbations during time-of-day-restricted feeding regimes and/or following specific disruption of circadian clocks. Multiple indices of whole-body metabolism, including body temperature, oxygen consumption (VO~2~), and respiratory exchange ratio (RER or respiratory quotient \[RQ\]), display robust circadian rhythms during ad libitum fed conditions, all of which are higher during the active period. Restricting food intake to the sleep phase revealed pronounced phase shifts of time-of-day-dependent rhythms in these parameters, tending to increase during the light phase concomitant with food intake.[@b154-nss-8-163]--[@b158-nss-8-163] In a study by Vollmers et al,[@b159-nss-8-163] light phase-restricted feeding shifted the peak, and increased the amplitude of the oscillation in RQ compared to ad libitum fed mice. Importantly, Bray et al[@b152-nss-8-163] revealed that not all parameters shifted to the same extent in response to light phase-restricted feeding, wherein substrate utilization (RQ) shifted by 10.3 hours (similar to food intake), rhythms in physical activity hardly shifted (only 0.5 hour), whereas rhythms in energy expenditure shifted by an intermediate level (6.6 hours). Thus, light phase-restricted feeding results in metabolic dyssynchrony at the whole-body level. Additional markers of dyssynchrony/metabolic perturbation following light phase-restricted feeding include phase shifts and/or loss of the rhythms of circulating glucose, insulin, cortisol, and triglycerides, as well as increased adiposity. These impairments in metabolic homeostasis are associated with differential clock gene shifts in distinct tissues, resulting in circadian dyssynchrony between organs.[@b152-nss-8-163] Interestingly, genetic manipulation of circadian clock gene components invariably results in impaired metabolic homeostasis and adiposity (as already detailed). Collectively, these observations suggest that light phase-restricted feeding impairs metabolic homeostasis, potentially through disruption of circadian clocks in a tissue-specific manner.
Unlike rodents, humans tend to eat discrete meals at distinct times of the day. In addition, few individuals consume all their calories during the inactive/sleep period. For these reasons, several studies have been designed to investigate whether consumption of calorically dense meals and/or of specific macronutrient content at certain time windows within the active period affects cardiometabolic parameters. In mice, consumption of a high-fat meal at the end of the active period was associated with increased adiposity, decreased glucose tolerance, hyperinsulinemia, and decreased cardiac function (relative to mice fed the same high-fat meal during the beginning of the active period).[@b123-nss-8-163],[@b160-nss-8-163] Interestingly, when placed on a high-fat diet in an ad libitum fashion, mice consume an abnormally high proportion of calories during the sleep phase, associated with phase and amplitude effects on peripheral circadian clock gene oscillations, as well as increased adiposity and depressed glucose and insulin tolerance.[@b62-nss-8-163] However, limiting consumption of a high diet only to the active period resulted in improvements in these cardiometabolic parameters (relative to ad libitum high-fat feeding), and increased the amplitude of circadian clock gene expression in multiple metabolically relevant peripheral tissues (eg, liver).[@b52-nss-8-163]
Exercise
--------
### Rhythms in exercise
Spontaneous physical activity clearly exhibits a circadian rhythm. When presented with a running wheel, mice voluntarily run for a greater amount during the awake period; persistence of this rhythm in constant darkness reveals that these rhythms are driven by circadian clocks. Similarly, a number of studies have reported time-of-day-dependent rhythms in exercise performance.[@b161-nss-8-163]--[@b166-nss-8-163] For example, sprint swim times,[@b167-nss-8-163] as well as running speed, power, and distance covered,[@b165-nss-8-163] are all faster in humans during afternoon trials. Interestingly, this corresponds to a time of day at which body temperature is increased. However, normalizing afternoon and morning body temperatures (ie, actively or passively cooling the body in the afternoon or heating in the morning) only partially accounts for performance.[@b168-nss-8-163],[@b169-nss-8-163] Rhythms in heat dissipation capacity (ie, vasodilation and sweating) during exercise may also modulate performance.[@b170-nss-8-163],[@b171-nss-8-163] Evidence suggests that the intrinsic properties within muscle, such as calcium handling and ATPase activity, contribute in a significant manner.[@b172-nss-8-163],[@b173-nss-8-163] Interestingly, recent findings suggest that individuals may achieve maximal exercise performance (assessed by cardiovascular endurance test) at different times of day, depending on their chronotype (ie, their individual tendency toward being a morning lark or night owl).[@b174-nss-8-163] Such observations suggest that intrinsic mechanisms (eg, circadian clocks) modulate exercise performance in a time-of-day-dependent fashion.
### Exercise-induced clock entrainment
Exercise has emerged as a potent nonphotic zeitgeber in both animal models and humans.[@b175-nss-8-163]--[@b178-nss-8-163] Mice exercised under constant darkness phase advance in response to exercise bouts during the subjective day, suggesting effects on the SCN clock.[@b179-nss-8-163] Furthermore, blinded mice also phase advance when given access to a running wheel.[@b180-nss-8-163] Exercise performed during the morning versus evening can differentially regulate core body temperature, melatonin, and parasympathetic tone in humans, in such a way that suggests exercise in the morning may benefit, whereas exercise in the evening may negatively impact, rhythms and sleep in humans.[@b181-nss-8-163] Indeed, nocturnal exercise of both high and low intensity significantly phase delays rhythms in melatonin and thyroid-stimulating hormone in humans.[@b182-nss-8-163] Exercise also influences the expression of clock genes in rodent peripheral tissues, consistent with entrainment.[@b183-nss-8-163],[@b184-nss-8-163] Furthermore, exercise directly increases clock gene expression in human and equine muscles.[@b185-nss-8-163],[@b186-nss-8-163] The temporal prescription of exercise can also be used to reduce entrainment time to a shift in light/dark cycle; re-entrainment occurred more rapidly following intermittent access to a running wheel during the beginning of the new active period,[@b176-nss-8-163],[@b187-nss-8-163],[@b188-nss-8-163] but was slower when running wheel access was restricted to the light phase.[@b187-nss-8-163],[@b188-nss-8-163] Collectively, these data support the concept that exercise entrains both central and peripheral clocks, which in turn likely maintains synchrony between metabolic processes and anticipated periods of energetic demand.
### Consequence of disrupting the exercise--clock relationship
It is somewhat difficult to dissociate the role of circadian clocks in exercise performance and adaptation, as numerous models of genetically disrupted clock function display underlying pathology. For example, cardiac and skeletal muscles in CLOCK^∆19^ mutant, as well as Bmal1 and Rev-erb-α null, mice exhibit disorganized ultrastructure, defective contractile function, decreased mitochondrial volume, and impaired mitochondrial respiration.[@b112-nss-8-163],[@b134-nss-8-163],[@b189-nss-8-163]--[@b192-nss-8-163] To dissociate potential adverse developmental effects, a recent study utilized an inducible Bmal1 KO restricted to skeletal muscle. Compared to constitutive skeletal muscle-specific Bmal1^−/−^ mice, the inducible model did not display the same ultrastructural or contractile abnormalities.[@b133-nss-8-163] In fact, muscle-specific Bmal1^−/−^ mice displayed reduced in vivo contractile force, while inducible Bmal1^−/−^ mice were similar to controls. However, adaptation to exercise was not investigated. Interestingly, Pastore et al[@b193-nss-8-163] exercised CLOCK^∆19^ mutant mice for 8 weeks and found that, despite having initially reduced exercise capacity (perhaps attributable to underlying deficits in cardiac and skeletal muscles), these mice were still able to adapt to exercise training (voluntary wheel running). Collectively, these findings suggest that a functional clock may be important in development and basal exercise performance, but may not be essential for adaptation. Additional studies are required to address this further, as well as related questions, such as whether the cardiometabolic benefits of exercise (eg, improved insulin sensitivity) are mediated in part by synchronizing circadian clocks, whether cell autonomous clocks influence time-of-day-dependent rhythms in exercise performance (perhaps through regulation of metabolic processes), and/or whether circadian clocks play a significant role in cardiovascular benefits of exercise (eg, physiologic cardiac hypertrophy).
Summary
=======
Circadian rhythms in metabolism undoubtedly play critical roles in metabolic homeostasis. These rhythms appear to be the product of both anticipation of, and adaptation to, fluctuations in energy/nutrient supply/demand (secondary to changes in feeding and activity status). Accordingly, disruption of synchrony (through environmental and/or genetic means) invariably leads to impairment of metabolic homeostasis (evidenced by obesity, diabetes mellitus). Future studies are required to address multiple unanswered questions related to mediation of these rhythms (eg, relative roles of extrinsic versus intrinsic factors), their impact on exercise performance, and whether disruption contributes to cardiometabolic diseases in humans.
This work was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (HL-074259 \[MEY\], HL-106199 \[MEY\], and HL-107709 \[MEY\]). GRM was supported by a training grant from the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research (1T32 HD-071866) and a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the American Heart Association (16POST27010009 \[GRM\]).
**Disclosure**
The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.
{#f1-nss-8-163}
{#f2-nss-8-163}
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Central
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Pilot im Raum-Zeit-Kontinuum
Donnern auf der Startbahn. Körper werden in Sitze gedrückt. Die Beschleunigung nimmt zu. Der Druck erhöht sich. Dann das gewaltsame Abheben und der Steigflug. Minimale Beleuchtung in der Kabine. Die Erdoberfläche rast vorüber. Die Welt wird kleiner. Braun, grau, grün. Parzelliert, verschwimmt. Nach dem Durchbrechen der Homosphäre senkt sich die Nase der Maschine in die Horizontale. Endloses Blau. Und Ruhe kehrt ein. Die Luft im Inneren schmeckt nach Zahnseide. Menschen transpirieren. Knistern erfüllt die Lautsprecher. Dann eine männliche Stimme: Hallo, hier spricht Ihr Captain. Wir befinden uns im Raum der Kinästhesie. Die Zwischenzone. Das ist das Ziel. Ein anderes werden wir nicht erreichen. Ab jetzt sind wir für immer unterwegs, von nun an auf uns allein gestellt. Mit einem Krachen der Boxen endet die Durchsage. Der Pilot schaltet ab, schiebt das Mikrophon hoch, schnallt sich los. Auf zehntausend Meter Höhe ist er in seinem Schreibsetting angekommen. Er fängt zu tippen an, die Schreibmaschine auf den Knien.
Der Pilot ist Jürgen Ploog. „Ferne Routen – Die Grips Fragmente“ verarbeitet Erfahrungen aus seinem Leben als Flieger, Reisender und Autor. 33 Jahre lang war er unterwegs, die meiste Zeit auf Langstrecke. Seit etwa fünfzig Jahren veröffentlicht er Artikel, Essays, Bücher, Fragmente, Cut-ups, Logbücher. Seine Sprache ist präzise wie bei wenigen anderen Autoren der heutigen Zeit. Er hat jahrelang mit der Cut-up-Technik gearbeitet. Sie eröffnet die Möglichkeit, weit in das Leben eines ewig Reisenden einzudringen, und kommt gleichzeitig der ständigen Verschiebung des Raum-Zeitkontinuums näher. Härteres Schreiben ist kaum vorstellbar. Im Cut-up ist ein gewaltiges Schnittverhältnis nicht unüblich. Im Laufe der Jahrzehnte hat Ploog eine eigene Methode entwickelt, einen geschriebenen Plexus aus Alphabet, Sprache, Assoziationen, Déjà-vus, Träumen, Erinnerungen, medialem Sampling, und zuletzt (Grips-) Fragmenten. Literatur ist ein Stimulanzangebot. Und die Sprache ein Mittel, welches Zweifel wachruft, Leser zu sein, was ohnehin eine bloße Haltung darstellt. In „Ferne Routen“ legt er mehrere Folien übereinander. Jede einzelne bildet eine Realität ab, zusammen ergeben sie einen Raum. Eine Ebene zeigt Entropolis, Städte, die ineinander übergehen, eine endlose Megacity traumhafter, vermischter Raumzeit. Auf anderer Ebene erzählt er von einer obskuren Organisation mit Namen „die Unsichtbare Hand“ (UH), eine Organisation für heikle Aufgaben. Die Hauptfigur (Grips) ist unter anderem als Pilot für sie tätig. Sie stellt Nachrichten, Unterlagen und in seltenen Fällen sogar Menschen zu, die man lieber unterm Radar halten möchte. Eine weitere Ebene beschreibt Schlaf und Träume. Im Schlaf bereist der Träumende Welten, sammelt Erfahrungen transsinnlicher Art. Er schüttelt Teile der Wirklichkeit von sich ab. Er reist. Vor ihm liegen seine Ängste und Erfolge in verschobener Topographie, zu Teilen von oben betrachtet, wie aus einem Cockpit. Im Traum, wie auch in Entropolis begegnen Grips Frauen. Geliebte und Prostituierte. Nie ist er sicher, ob sie ihn lieben oder töten wollen. Sie schlafen mit ihm, leben bei ihm, verschwinden und verfolgen ihn im Koordinatensystem der Grade, wie Succubi aus der Zwischenzone von Vergangenheit und Zukunft. Und Grips flüchtet. Er begibt sich auf die fernen Routen, zeichnet auf, was des Weges kommt. Reisen ist, die oktroyierte Realität zu überwinden. Und Sex das Ziel aller Reisen. Auf die Frage: Wo hat es dir am besten gefallen, antwortet Grips: an Orten, die inzwischen verschwunden sind.
Haften bleiben fragmentarische Episoden, die das Erzählte verwandeln – in eine Geschichte vom permanenten Zustand, unterwegs zu sein; inklusive Euphorie, Kater, Entzug, Rückfall. Doch bevor sich ein fahler Geschmack von Verschwendung ausbreiten kann, bedient sich Ploog der Kunst, mit einem Satz auf eine andere Ebene der Realität zu wechseln, man betritt erneut den ästhetischen Raum der Bewegung. Und von seinen Wänden hallt die Schönheit des Geschriebenen in die Menschen hinein, um sich dort zu entfalten.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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OpenWebText2
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In general, as coated tools, there are inserts which are detachably attached to the tip portion of an insert holder used for turning or plaining of a work material, such as various types of steels and cast iron, drills used for drilling or the like of the work material, and solid type end mills used for facing, grooving, shoulder milling, and the like of the work material. In addition, as coated tools, indexable end mills and the like are also known which include inserts detachably attached thereto and perform cutting in the same manner as the solid type end mills.
For example, as described in PTL 1, as a coated tool, a coated tool is known in which a hard coating layer including a layer made of complex nitride of Al, Cr, and B (hereinafter, referred to as (Al, Cr, B)N) is vapor-deposited on the surface of a body (hereinafter, referred to as a tool body) made of tungsten carbide (hereinafter, referred to as WC)-based cemented carbide. Regarding the conventional coated tool, it is known that the (Al, Cr, B)N layer forming the hard coating layer is excellent in adhesion, high-temperature oxidation resistance, and wear resistance and thus exhibits excellent cutting performance.
In addition, regarding the conventional coated tool, it is known that coatings are formed by an ion plating method or a sputtering method. For example, regarding the coating formation using arc ion plating, a method using an arc ion plating apparatus 100 as shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B is known. The arc ion plating apparatus 100 includes: a rotating table 101 on which tool bodies (cemented carbide bodies) 1 are placed; a heater 102 for heating the tool bodies 1, a reaction gas inlet 103 for introducing a reaction gas; a gas outlet 104 for discharging the gas to the outside of the system; two anode electrodes 111 and 112; and two cathode electrodes 113 and 114. The anode electrode 111 and the cathode electrode 113 are connected to an arc power supply 115 provided outside the apparatus 100, the anode electrode 112 and the cathode electrode 114 are connected to an arc power supply 116 provided outside the apparatus 100, and the rotating table 101 is connected to a bias power supply 117 provided outside the apparatus 100. The tool bodies (cemented carbide bodies) 1 are mounted on the rotating table 101 in the arc ion plating apparatus 100, the tool bodies 1 are heated to a temperature of 500° C. by the heater 102, nitrogen gas as the reaction gas is introduced into the apparatus 100 through the reaction gas inlet 103 to form a reaction atmosphere at 2 Pa, and a bias voltage of −100 V is applied to the tool bodies 1 from the bias power supply 117. It is also known that under such conditions, a current of 90 A is supplied by the arc power supply 115 to between the anode electrode 111 and the cathode electrode 113 in which an Al—Cr—B alloy (Al—Cr—B alloy target) with a predetermined composition is set, so as to generate arc discharge such that the (Al, Cr, B)N is vapor-deposited on the surface of the tool bodies 1 and thus a coated tool can be produced.
In addition, as described in PTL 2, as a coated tool, a coated tool is known in which a hard coating layer including a layer made of complex nitride of Al, Cr, and Si is vapor-deposited on the surface of a body (hereinafter, referred to as a tool body) made of tungsten carbide (hereinafter, referred to as WC)-based cemented carbide. Regarding the conventional coated tool, it is known that the layer made of complex nitride of Al, Cr, and Si forming the hard coating layer is excellent in adhesion, high-temperature oxidation resistance, and wear resistance and thus exhibits excellent cutting performance.
In addition, regarding the conventional coated tool, it is known that coatings are formed by an ion plating method or a sputtering method. For example, regarding the coating formation using arc ion plating, a method using an arc ion plating apparatus 200 as shown in FIGS. 4A and 4B is known. The arc ion plating apparatus 200 includes: a rotating table 201 on which tool bodies (cemented carbide bodies) 2 are placed; a heater 202 for heating the tool bodies 2; a reaction gas inlet 203 for introducing a reaction gas, a gas outlet 204 for discharging the gas to the outside of the system; two anode electrodes 211 and 212; and two cathode electrodes 213 and 214. The anode electrode 211 and the cathode electrode 213 are connected to an arc power supply 215 provided outside the apparatus 200, the anode electrode 212 and the cathode electrode 214 are connected to an arc power supply 216 provided outside the apparatus 200, and the rotating table 201 is connected to a bias power supply 217 provided outside the apparatus 200. The tool bodies (cemented carbide bodies) 2 are mounted on the rotating table 201 in the arc ion plating apparatus 200, the tool bodies 2 are heated to a temperature of 500° C. by the heater 202, nitrogen gas as the reaction gas is introduced into the apparatus 200 through the reaction gas inlet 203 to form a reaction atmosphere at 2 Pa, and a bias voltage of −100 V is applied to the tool bodies 2 from the bias power supply 217. It is also known that under such conditions, a current of 90 A is supplied by the arc power supply 215 to between anode electrode 211 and the cathode electrode 213 in which an Al—Cr—Si alloy (Al—Cr—Si alloy target) with a predetermined composition is set, so as to generate arc discharge such that the complex nitride of Al, Cr, and Si is vapor-deposited on the surface of the tool bodies 2 and thus a coated tool can be produced.
However, regarding the coated tool, in order to further improve cutting performance, particularly chipping resistance, wear resistance, and the like, various suggestions on the structure of the hard coating layer have been made.
For example, in PTL 3, as a coated tool improved in fracturing resistance by suppressing the fracturing of the coating layer on the rake face, and also improved in wear resistance of the flank face, the following coated tool (end mill) is described. That is, a coated tool (end mill) is described in which the coating layer is formed of columnar crystal grains, the thickness of the coating layer on the rake face is smaller than that on the flank face, the coating layer is formed of two layer regions including a lower layer region formed on the coating layer body side and an upper layer region which has a greater average grain width than that of the lower layer region and is formed on the surface side of the coating layer, the ratio of the thickness of the upper layer region to the thickness of the coating layer on the rake face is less than the ratio of the thickness of the upper layer region to the thickness of the coating layer on the flank face, and the average grain width of the columnar crystal grains on the rake face is smaller than the average grain width of the columnar crystal grains on the flank face.
In addition, for example, in PTL 4, as a coated tool with a coating compatibly satisfying wear resistance and toughness and having excellent adhesion to a base material, the following coated tool is described. That is, a coated tool is described in which the coating formed on the base material includes a first coating layer, the first coating layer includes a fine structure region and a coarse structure region, the compound forming the fine structure region has an average grain size of 10 nm to 200 nm, the fine structure region exists in a range from the surface side of the first coating layer to a thickness of 50% or greater with respect to the thickness of the entire first coating layer, and has an average compressive stress in a range of −4 GPa to −2 GPa, the first coating layer has a stress distribution in the thickness direction thereof, and has two or more maximum or minimum values in the stress distribution, and the maximum or minimum values located closer to the surface side in the thickness direction have higher compressive stress.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
|
USPTO Backgrounds
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Girl told she has no right to opinion because she's 'white' and 'blonde'
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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OpenWebText2
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1. Introduction
===============
Cerebrovascular disease is the most common neurological disease and one of leading causes of death and serious disability worldwide.^\[[@R1]\]^ The mortality in the first 30 days after stroke ranges from 9% to 23%.^\[[@R2]\]^ Approximately 50% of stroke survivals suffer from mild hemiparesis, and 26% of the others have to be placed in care facilities due to their inability to perform daily living.^\[[@R3]\]^
Cancer has been proven to be a risk factor for thromboembolic disease, which reduces the survival rate and has become one of the main causes of deaths in cancer patients.^\[[@R4],[@R5]\]^ However, whether those cancer patients are at a higher risk of cerebrovascular disease remains an important issue for studies. An autopsy study as early as 3 decades ago showed that ischemic cerebral infarcts were found in 14.6% of cancer patients.^\[[@R6]\]^ A large Korean nationwide longitudinal study including 820,491 cancer patients demonstrated various cancers might underlie an increasing risk of hemorrhagic and ischemic strokes.^\[[@R7]\]^ Cancer-related causes of stroke have been postulated, including direct tumor-related vessel compressing or infiltration, tumor occlusion, coagulopathy by tumor cell-derived cytokines, and treatment-related adverse effects.^\[[@R8]\]^
Based on the 2011 estimates from global cancer statistics, about 138,100 men and 127,900 women died from pancreatic cancer, which respectively represented the eighth and ninth leading cause of cancer deaths for male and female populations in that year.^\[[@R9]\]^ Cancer has been ranked as the first leading cause of death for more than 30 years in Taiwan. The age-adjust incidence rate for pancreatic cancer were 6.94 and 5.12 per 100,000 persons for male and female population, respectively.^\[[@R10]\]^ The disease has become the sixth and eighth leading cancer death for population in Taiwan.^\[[@R10]\]^
Clinical studies revealed 17% to 57% patients with pancreatic cancer could develop thromboembolic disease.^\[[@R11]\]^ Patients may have the deep vein thrombosis embolize into brain. Pancreatic cancer patients comorbid with pulmonary embolism, portal vein thrombosis, arterial thromboembolism or disseminated intravascular coagulation, and may further develop other cardiovascular disorders. The pathogenesis of this prothrombotic state seems to be related to the generation of an intrinsic hypercoagulable state initiated by pancreatic cancer cells through a series of complex coagulation cascades.^\[[@R11]\]^ However, whether pancreatic cancer is associated with elevated risk of subsequent cerebrovascular disease has not been well evaluated.
In this study, we hypothesized that pancreatic cancer patients exhibit increased incidence of stroke compared to those noncancer counterparts. We used the claims data in the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) of Taiwan to conduct a population-based retrospective cohort study to investigate the stroke risk in newly diagnosed pancreatic cancer patients.
2. Materials and methods
========================
2.1. Data sources
-----------------
In 1995, the Taiwan government launched a universal single-payer health insurance, the Taiwan National Health Insurance program, which currently covers almost 99% of the entire 23.7 million population of Taiwan.^\[[@R12]\]^ The National Health Insurance Administration Ministry of Health and Welfare (NHIAMHW) in Taiwan authorized the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) to manage the claims data and establish NHIRD for research. For the present study, we obtained 2 longitudinal health insurance databases from NHRI. These 2 databases contain all medical records including inpatient and outpatient claims from 1996 to 2011. One database was for catastrophic illness patients and another one contained records of 1 million insured people randomly selected from the year 2000 registry for beneficiaries. Cancer patients could apply a catastrophic illness certificate for exempting from copayment under NHIAMHW guideline. In Taiwan, patient with disease diagnosis without valid supporting clinical findings may be considered a medical fraud, and the treating physician or hospital can be punished with a penalty by NHIAMHW. Diseases were coded using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM).
To protect patient privacy, the NHRI scrambled identification numbers of insured people and replaced with anonymous identification numbers for linking data files. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards at Show Chwan Memorial Hospital (SCMH IRB No. 1020401) and the Research Ethics Committee at China Medical University and Hospital, in Taiwan (CMUH104-REC2-115).
2.2. Sampled subjects
---------------------
From the medical claims of catastrophic illness patients, we identified 11,304 patients newly diagnosed with pancreatic malignancy from 2000 to 2009. From these patients, 7479 persons were included in the pancreatic malignancy cohort, after excluding patients with other type of malignancy history \[including head and neck (ICD-9-CM: 140--149), other digestive (ICD-9-CM: 150--156 and 158--189), respiratory (ICD-9-CM: 160--165), bone, connective tissue, skin and breast (ICD-9-CM: 170--176), genitourinary (ICD-9-CM: 179--189), lymphatic and hematopoietic tissue (ICD-9-CM: 200--208), and unspecified site (ICD-9-CM: 190--199, n = 682)\], stroke history (ICD-9-CM: 430--438, n = 3022), and \<20 years of age (n = 121). The date with the diagnosis of pancreatic malignancy was defined as index date.
The comparison cohort consisted of adult individuals (age ≥ 20 years) without the history of malignancy (ICD-9-CM: 140--208) and stroke, randomly selected from population without cancer matched by propensity score, with the sample size 4-fold of the pancreatic malignancy cohort. We used a logistic regression to calculate propensity score by estimating the probability of patients with pancreatic malignancy assignment based on age, sex, index date, and baseline comorbidities by greedy algorithm.
2.3. Outcome measures and comorbidities
---------------------------------------
Individuals were monitored from the date entering the study cohorts until the date with stroke diagnosed, or censored because of death or withdrawal from the insurance program, or until a maximum of 3 follow-up years by the end of 2011, whichever came first. Sums of follow-up person-years were calculated for both cohorts. We evaluated both hemorrhagic stroke (ICD-9-CM: 430--432) and ischemic stroke (ICD-9-CM: 433--438). In addition to sex and age, we also incorporated the baseline comorbid diseases as potential confounding factors. The comorbidity included hypertension (ICD-9-CM codes 401--405), diabetes (ICD-9-CM code 250), hyperlipidemia (ICD-9-CM code 272), coronary artery disease (ICD-9-CM codes 410--413, 414.0, 414.8), and atrial fibrillation (ICD-9-CM code 427.31).
2.4. Statistical analysis
-------------------------
The proportionate distributions of demographic characteristics (sex and age) and comorbidities were compared between cohorts with and without pancreatic cancer. We used standardized difference to present the difference of distributions of sex, age, and comorbidities between the 2 cohorts. When the absolute value of standardized difference is less than 0.1, the distribution was in balance between the 2 cohorts. We also estimated the stroke risk by the follow-up time (0--6, 7--12, 13--24, \>24 months) and stroke type. We used Kaplan--Meier analysis to calculate and plot the cumulative incidence of stroke for the 2 cohorts, and the difference was tested using log-rank test. Ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic stroke were also evaluated. Incidence density rates (per 1000 person-years) of stroke were calculated for the 2 study cohorts. Incidence was the new stroke cases divided by the sum of follow-up person-years during the study period. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to assess the pancreatic cancer cohort to the comparison cohort hazard ratio (HR) of stroke with 95% confidence interval (CI). Multivariable model was used to calculate the adjusted HR after controlling for sex, age, and all comorbidities. Because pancreatic cancer patients had a higher mortality, we further used Cox model to estimate the Fine and Gray\'s subdistribution hazard ratio (SHR) of stroke accounting for the competing risk of death.^\[[@R13]\]^ We used the scaled Schoenfeld residuals to test the Cox proportional hazards assumption, the assumption was not violated. We managed and analyzed the data using SAS 9.4 software (SAS Institute, Cary, NC) and draw the cumulative incidence curve using SPSS statistical software (version 18.0 for windows; IBM Corp, New York, NY). Statistical significance was defined at 2-tailed *P*-value less than .05.
3. Results
==========
This study included 7479 patients in the pancreatic cancer cohort and 29,916 individuals without the cancer in the comparison cohort, with similar distributions in sex, age, and comorbidities (Table [1](#T1){ref-type="table"}). There were more men than women and more than half of them were the elderly. In both cohorts, hypertension (near 46.0%) was the most prevalent comorbidity, followed by diabetes, hyperlipidemia and coronary artery disease, and least prevalent with atrial fibrillation (\<2.0%).
######
Demographic characteristics and comorbidities of pancreatic cancer patients and subjects in the comparison cohort.
After a 3-year of follow-up period, the cumulative incidence of all stroke was 1.8% greater in pancreatic cancer patients than in comparisons (5.5% vs 3.7%), mainly for the hemorrhagic stroke (*P* \< .001, log-rank test) (Fig. [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}). The incidence density of all strokes was 2.3-fold greater in the pancreatic cancer cohort than in comparisons (28.5 vs 12.3 per 1000 person-years), with an adjusted HR of 2.74 (95% CI = 2.31--3.24) or a SHR of 2.04 (95% CI = 1.74--2.40) (Table [2](#T2){ref-type="table"}). The stroke incidence was greater in men than in women and increased with age. Relative to comparisons, younger pancreatic cancer patients were at a greater stroke hazard than older patients.
{#F1}
######
Incidence of stroke and pancreatic cancer cohort relative to comparison cohort hazard ratios for stroke.
A high incidence of 46.6 per 1000 person-years appeared within 6 months after the cancer diagnosed in the pancreatic cancer cohort, with an adjusted HR of 4.37 (95% CI = 3.45--5.54) or a SHR of 3.87 (95% CI = 3.08--4.86), relative to the comparison cohort (Table [3](#T3){ref-type="table"}). The stroke incidence declined with time to 7.54 per 1000 person-years 24 months after the cancer had been diagnosed. On the other hand, the stroke incidence occurred constantly in the comparison cohort during the follow-up period. This temporal pattern of stroke was mainly because of ischemic stroke.
######
Incidence and pancreatic cancer cohort relative to comparison cohort hazard ratio of stroke by stroke type and follow-up duration in multivariable Cox model.
4. Discussion
=============
This nationwide population-based cohort study revealed a substantially increased stroke risk for patients with pancreatic cancer, particularly in the first half year of the follow-up period. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first longitudinal study using nation-wide data to investigate the likelihood of higher incidence risk of stroke in association with pancreatic cancer. Our results highlight the crucial role for clinicians of management and therapeutic strategy for pancreatic cancer patients.
Our data revealed a markedly elevated risk of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke among patients with pancreatic cancer. The risk is substantially higher during the first 6 months after the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Several cohort studies have shown similar findings for patients with other cancers.^\[[@R6]--[@R9],[@R14]\]^ Zoller et al^\[[@R7]\]^ conducted a nationwide follow-up study in Sweden and found several cancer types are associated with an increased risk of hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke during the first 6 months after diagnosis of cancers.^\[[@R7]\]^ In addition, a population-based cohort study from Taiwan also revealed that lung cancer is associated with increased risk of subsequent stroke within 1 year after diagnosis for men and 2 years after diagnosis for women.^\[[@R14]\]^ These study results suggest that the pathophysiological mechanisms of stroke might differ between patients with and without cancer.
The plausible mechanisms of the association between cancers and stroke, such as cancer-related, treatment-related, and conventional stroke mechanisms (CSM), have been postulated.^\[[@R8]\]^ A recent Korean study has reported that of all stroke cases, 40% were found outside of CSM, indicating that stroke patients without CSM could be regarded as cancer-related stroke patients.^\[[@R15]\]^ Furthermore, cancer-related mechanisms of stroke include direct tumor-related vessel compressing or infiltration, tumor occlusion, and intrinsic hypercoagulable state caused by tumor cells.^\[[@R8]\]^
There are evidences suggesting an association between ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke and the presence of metastasis, indicating that both tumor burden (tumor emboli, vessel compression, or infiltration) and cancer-associated coagulopathy can underlie or enhance the occurrence of stroke in cancer patients.^\[[@R7],[@R16]\]^ In our study, stroke occurred in a short mean follow-up duration (i.e., 0.8 year), and approximately 80% of pancreatic cancer patients had tumor metastasis (data not shown), suggesting that the metastatic state at least play a partial role in augmenting the risks of stroke in the pancreatic cancer group.^\[[@R17]\]^ Among potential treatment-related mechanisms for stroke occurrence in cancer patients,^\[[@R8]\]^ chemotherapy, instead of surgery, is the main treatment option for most pancreatic cancer patients when diagnosed with distant metastasis. Cytostatic agents could cause not only thrombogenesis but also bleeding through their side effects of thrombocytopenia.^\[[@R18]\]^
Comorbidities may increase the stroke risk much greater for pancreatic cancer patients than for controls. Our further data analysis showed that the impact was the strongest for the cancer patients with atrial fibrillation, with an incidence of 68.8 per 1000 person-years, which was 2.5-fold greater than those without atrial fibrillation. Cancer patients with hypertension were also at a 2-fold greater stroke risk than those without the comorbidity (40.8 vs 19.8 per 1000 person-years) (Data shown in Supplementary Table 1). It is important to note that near half of the study population had hypertension.
In our study, pancreatic cancer patients also had a higher risk of hemorrhagic stroke within 6 months after cancer diagnosis. However, the mechanisms underlying hemorrhagic stroke could not be clarified in this study, although various possible mechanisms should be considered such as tumor invasion to the vessel system, tumor necrosis, neovascularization, chemotherapy-related thrombocytopenia, and postradiation complications.^\[[@R7],[@R19]\]^ Otherwise, another indirect possibility that should not be ignored is that the majority of tumors (∼70%) involving the pancreatic head usually cause obstructive cholestasis,^\[[@R20]\]^ thereby underlying liver dysfunction, malnutrition, and elevated prothrombin time/international normalized ratio, all which could increase the risk of hemorrhagic stroke.^\[[@R21]\]^
The incidence of stroke declined rapidly beyond 6 months after the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. The postulated causes could be due to the decreased tumor burden after treatment intervention, cessation of cytostatic agents (decreased chemotherapy-related complications) or death-related selective bias in the cancer group.^\[[@R18],[@R21]\]^ With comprehensive clinical information unavailable in present study, such as surgical intervention, dosage and location of the radiotherapy, treatment duration and regimen of chemotherapy and laboratory data, further research is warranted to clarify these problems.
The strength of this study lies in using the large population data as our data source, which covers more than 99% of the population in Taiwan.^\[[@R11]\]^ With a large sample size and timely tracking period, results of this cohort study are highly representative. However, there are several limitations in our study. First, we used the inpatient data to establish the pancreatic cancer cohort, which means that stroke subjects without admission were not included in our analysis. This could under estimate not only the incidence of stroke but also their comorbidity status. Second, certain lifestyle information or demographic variables as potential confounding factors, such as smoking, alcohol, exercise habit, and body mass index, were not available in the claims data, and thus could not be further adjusted in this study. Alcohol consumption and smoking are suggested to be the risks of many cancers and stroke.^\[[@R22]--[@R24]\]^ Ultimately, the NHIRD does not provide the information of cancer stage, and laboratory data, which prevented us from identifying the cancer-related mechanisms of stroke.
5. Conclusions
==============
In this retrospective cohort study, patients with pancreatic cancer were at an elevated risk of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke. Patients with the cancer diagnosed deserve sufficient follow-up care, particularly during the first 6 months after the diagnosis of cancer and for those with comorbidity. Further studies to clarify the mechanisms of stroke in cancer patients are needed to provide treatment strategies for preventing stroke.
6. Author contributions
=======================
**Conceptualization:** P.-C. Chan, C.-H. Yeh.
**Data curation:** P.-C. Chan, M.-H. Hsu.
**Formal analysis:** P.-C. Chan, C.-H. Yeh, W.-L. Chang.
**Investigation:** P.-C. Chan, C.-H. Yeh.
**Methodology:** C.-H. Yeh, W.-L. Chang, M.-H. Hsu.
**Resources:** C.-H. Yeh, C.-H. Muo, K.-S. Chang, B.-T. Wu, C.-H. Lai, C.-H. Lee, H. Ting, F.-C. Sung.
**Software:** C.-H. Lai.
**Supervision:** H. Ting, F.-C. Sung.
**Validation:** C.-H. Muo, K.-S. Chang, C.Y. Hsu, B.-T. Wu.
**Visualization:** P.-C. Chan, C.-H. Yeh, C.-H. Lee.
**Writing -- original draft:** P.-C. Chan, C.-H. Yeh.
**Writing -- review & editing:** H. Ting, F.-C. Sung.
Supplementary Material
======================
###### Supplemental Digital Content
Abbreviations: aHR = adjusted hazard ratio, CI = confidence interval, CMUH = China Medical University and Hospital, CSM = conventional stroke mechanisms, HR = hazard ratio, ICD-9-CM = International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification, IRB = Institutional Review Boards, NHIAMHW = National Health Insurance Administration Ministry of Health and Welfare, NHIRD = National Health Insurance Research Database, NHRI = National Health Research Institutes, REC = Research Ethics Committee, SAS = Statistical Analysis System, SCMH = Show Chwan Memorial Hospital, SHR = subdistribution hazard ratio, SPSS = statistical analysis in social science.
P-CC and C-HY contributed equally to this study.
Funding: This study is supported in part by Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare Clinical Trial Center (MOHW106-TDU-B-212-113004); Academia Sinica Taiwan Biobank, Stroke Biosignature Project (BM10501010037); NRPB Stroke Clinical Trial Consortium (MOST 105-2325-B-039-003); Tseng-Lien Lin Foundation, Taichung, Taiwan; Taiwan Brain Disease Foundation, Taipei, Taiwan; Katsuzo and Kiyo Aoshima Memorial Funds, Japan; China Medical University Hospital; CMU under the Aim for Top University Plan of the Ministry of Education, Taiwan.
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Supplemental Digital Content is available for this article.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Central
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Q:
Print booklet like in Adobe InDesign for PDF files?
I use the print booklet feature in Adobe InDesign to print little booklets. I actually then slice the booklet down the middle to have convenient half-size pages printed front and backside. Works great.
Problem now is we've segmented or documents to make an InDesign book and it no longer gives us the option to print booklets.
How can I print booklets like that with just a PDF file. I was really surprised Adobe Acrobat not only didn't have a print booklet feature, but it also doesn't have any mechanism whatsoever to print front and back of pages with 2-up!
There must be a PDF reader that can do this or extension to acrobat, right?
A:
If your document exports to PDF as individual pages (i.e., not as spreads), then it's easy to do in Acrobat. The booklet printing functionality in InDesign didn't make it past CS3.
Select Print
In the dialog, under "Paper Sizing and Handling" choose "Booklet"
Select which subset of pages to print: Both Sides, Front Side Only or Back Side Only.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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StackExchange
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528 F.2d 536
Henry J. KIRKSEY et al., Individually and on behalf of allothers similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants,v.BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF HINDS COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI et al.,Defendants-Appellees.
No. 75--2212.
United States Court of Appeals,Fifth Circuit.
Feb. 24, 1976.Rehearing En Banc GrantedMay 12, 1976.
Frank R. Parker, Herman Wilson, Lawyers' Comm. for Civil Rights Under Law, Jackson, Miss., for plaintiff-appellants.
Jessica Dunsay Silver, Atty., Appellate Section, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Div., Appellate Division, Washington, D.C., amicus curiae.
Thomas H. Watkins, John M. Putnam, William Allain, Jackson, Miss., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
Before BELL, COLEMAN and GEE, Circuit Judges.
GEE, Circuit Judge:
1
Plaintiffs appeal from the decree of the district court adopting and promulgating a redistricting plan for the election of county supervisors and others1 in Hinds County, Mississippi, a central-Mississippi county and the seat of the state capital. They properly represent a class: all black registered voters of Hinds County qualified to vote for county officers elected from its districts. Their basic complaint is that the court's plan dilutes and cancels out black voting strength for these offices. We affirm.
History of this Litigation
2
In 1969, pursuant to court order, the county was reapportioned to comply with the equal vote requirements of Avery v. Midland County.2 In mid-1971 this suit attacked that plan as wanting section 53 clearance by the Attorney General, as diluting the black franchise, and as malapportioning the county under Avery. A three-judge court, convened at plaintiffs' request to consider the section 5 count, was dissolved when plaintiffs nonsuited that count. In late 1972, the district court, acting on stipulated 1970 census data and after conferring with counsel, found that in light of the 1970 data the 1969 plan clearly malapportioned the county,4 and it ordered the defendant supervisors to submit a new plan correcting the population discrepancies, 'formulated without regard to the race, creed, sex or national origin of any citizen of Hinds County . . ..'
3
The following June, the supervisors filed their recommended plan5 with the district court. Plaintiffs filed timely objections and their own suggested plan, which essentially created two districts out of the black residential bloc in Jackson and joined the remainder of the bloc to three rural districts covering the rest of the county. After a lengthy delay--slightly over a year--trial on the merits was had, and an opinion and judgment followed in April 1975. The opinion incorporated many findings of fact, summarized in significant part hereinafter, a few of which are attacked as erroneous. On the basis of these findings and its conclusions of law, the court approved the supervisors' plan, authorized and directed the supervisors to put it into effect, and rejected plaintiffs' plan.
4
Before us plaintiffs challenge these actions of the district court and seek attorneys' fees.
The Court's Findings
5
The court's findings of fact are extensive and are, in the main, not disputed by plaintiffs.6 They commence with matters relating to the background and history of this litigation, such as the bona fide nature of the 1969 redistricting attempt, the court's directing the defendant supervisors to prepare a new plan, and the requirement that this plan be formulated without reference to race, etc. as criteria.
6
Hinds County is described in them as demographically and economically similar to many other areas of the South:7 a main town or city, in and around which population is concentrated, surrounded by a less-developed and sparsely-populated hinterland. The population figures for Hinds County, by the 1970 census, are noted to be 214,973, of whom 130,590 (60.75%) are white, 84,064 (39.10%) are black, and the remaining 317 (0.15%) are of other races. For the City of Jackson, the proportions are similar: 60.1% (92,651) of its residents are white, 39.7% (61,063) are black, and 0.1% (254) are of other races.
7
Next, the court examines the parties' proposed plans for reapportionment and finds both clearly acceptable, the largest population variance between districts in either being less than four percent. Considering first the defendant supervisors' plan, the court found it
8
does achieve the primary goal of a reapportionment plan of equality of population within constitutional guidelines, while at the same time equalizing as nearly as practical under the circumstances the important subsidiary factors of road and bridge mileage and land area, assigning to each district substantial numbers of both urban and rural residents. This result is accomplished under the Board plan with a minimal disturbance or change of existing election districts and voting places.
9
Noting that '(t)he plaintiffs are critical of the (supervisors') proposed plan's utilization of long corridors into the City of Jackson from the rural land mass in order to achieve the required equalization of population,' the court observed that 'it is absolutely impossible to draw five districts without splitting the urban area of Jackson into five parts and still realize the other desirable planning objectives of equalization of road and bridge maintenance responsibilities and the substantial equalization of areas between the districts.'8 And though 'the utilization of the long corridors into an urban area does create rather unusual looking supervisors' districts,' the court found that the boundary lines of the districts 'do follow, so far as possible, natural boundaries such as rivers, highways, railways, and other landmarks traditionally used to designate district boundaries.'
10
The court next considered expert testimony by the architect of the supervisors' plan that he compiled no racial data concerning the plan before drawing it and, as ordered, gave no consideration to race in his drafting of it. The court found as a fact--a finding that is not assigned as error to us--that race was 'wholly disregarded' in preparation of that plan. Finally, the court set out raw population tables for the pre-1969 districts, for districts under the 1969 plan, and for the supervisors' proposed plan. These show that under the pre-1969 plan blacks held great majorities (about 76% and 68%) in two of the five districts but that these were each egregiously malapportioned under the Avery rule.9 As to the 1969 plan, the figures indicate white majorities in each of its five districts, some probably decisive (68/32) and some perhaps not (54/46), as well as serious, doubtless-invalidating malapportionment.10 The 1973 or proposed supervisors' plan reflected proper apportionment and the following racial proportions in the general population:
11
The court next discussed testimony offered by an expert witness for plaintiffs about voting-age (as contrasted with general) population proportions in the county and, by extrapolation only, in the districts. By this analysis, because of the systematic departure of adult blacks from Hinds County, the black/white voting-age proportions in the county were calculated at roughly 34/66. Admittedly extrapolating on the assumption that this county-wide proportion would hold roughly true for each district, the expert indicated that, as is obvious, the already commanding white majorities in Districts 1, 3 and 4 would be increased, and that the black majorities in Districts 2 and 5 would become voting-age minorities of 48% and 48.6%, respectively. The court thought that these conclusions, though subject to an uncertainty of 1 to 2% inherent in the extrapolation, were 'to some extent' confirmed by calculations from census data made by another of plaintiffs' expert witnesses.11 An offer of proof made by plaintiffs' first expert about registered black voters in Districts 2 and 5 placed the percentages of registered blacks at about 41% for each, though the evidence was excluded because the study from which it was drawn was not offered in evidence, a ruling to which no error is assigned.
12
Next reviewed by the court was a considerable list of discriminatory actions taken in the past against black voters in Hinds County and in the state generally. These include such matters as the total lack of any success by black candidates in county elections, past poll tax, literacy and property qualifications on the franchise, and so on, as well as past behavior of Hinds County supervisors indicating unresponsiveness to the black citizen: systematic exclusion of blacks from jury rolls, maintenance of discriminatory educational facilities in the county, etc., some of which had been removed by past orders of the court itself in earlier cases.12 In this connection, however, the court noted that these practices had decreased rapidly in number and severity in recent years, and that no evidence of denial of registration on racial grounds since enactment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act appeared in the record. In view of this and of testimony about the registration of thousands of eligible blacks since 1965, the court ascribed the failure of Hinds County blacks to register to lack of interest rather than to official discouragement. On these and other considerations detailed in the record, the court found that past abuses have no current significant effect in Hinds County on black access to the political process. So concluding, the court approved the supervisors' plan as offering the 40% black segment of Hinds County's populace a realistic opportunity to elect officials of its choice in two districts and a significant voice in the other three. Plaintiffs' plan was found deliberately to create two 'safe' black districts (66/33 and 68/31), both entirely urban with no significant road or bridge mileage, and thus to fail both on constitutional and practical grounds. Having so found the facts, the district court proceeded to legal conclusions which we will consider shortly. Before doing so, we turn aside to take up the suggestion of the United States as amicus curiae that the court could not implement the plan submitted by the supervisors without submitting it first to the Attorney General for section 5 clearance.
Section 5 Approval
13
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended by 42 U.S.C. § 1973c (Supp.1976), requires clearance from the District Court for the District of Columbia or the United States Attorney General before a state or one of its political subdivisions covered by the Act implements any standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that in effect on November 1, 1964. According to the Supreme Court in Connor v. Johnson, 402 U.S. 690, 91 S.Ct. 1760, 29 L.Ed.2d 268 (1971), as interpreted by this circuit in Zimmer v. McKeithan, 467 F.2d 1381 (5th Cir. 1972), rev'd on other grounds on rehearing en banc, 485 F.2d 1297 (1973), section 5 applies to plans produced by political subdivisions reapportioning themselves but not to 'court ordered plans resulting from equitable jurisdiction over adversary proceedings.' Id. at 1383 (emphasis in original).
14
Amicus argues, however, that section 5 applies to court-approved plans unless they are court-formulated. Thus, amicus' rule would subject to section 5's prior-approval requirement those proposed plans that the court adopts as submitted but not those prepared by the court itself or those adapted from a party's suggestions with minor changes. The suggested rule is not a practical one. Under it, for example, a party is penalized13 for submitting a plan thought by the court to be completely adequate but rewarded for the near-adequate submission that requires minor revision. And one plan embodied in a court decree is subjected to screening by the Attorney General, though another--just as fully embodied--is not. More fundamentally, plaintiffs' contention misses the point of Connor and Zimmer.
15
For we think it the true rule that application of section 5 turns on the source from which a plan derives its legal force: if from a state instrumentality, section 5 applies; if from a court, it does not. Here the district court instructed the county Board to develop a plan, found the plan constitutionally acceptable, and ordered its implementation.14 Thus, the plan drew its legal force from the court and does not require section 5 clearance.
Validity of the Plan Adopted
16
One who would offer to a district court a suggested electoral redistricting of such a county as Hinds must walk a narrow line. To begin with, the physical situation presented is inherently difficult: a rural county containing one significant metropolis, which itself encompasses a racial enclave, and a black population that must not be "designedly or otherwise" treated so as to minimize its voting strength. Burns v. Richardson, 384 U.S. 73, 88, 86 S.Ct. 1286, 1294, 16 L.Ed.2d 376, 388 (1966) (emphasis added), quoting Fortson v. Dorsey, 379 U.S. 433, 439, 85 S.Ct. 498, 501, 13 L.Ed.2d 401, 405 (1965).15 On the other hand, the minority "is not constitutionally entitled to an apportionment structure designed to maximize its political advantage."16 And so it appears the designer's lines should17 be drawn so as to avoid favoring and must be drawn so as not to disfavor the minority group of which the internal racial bloc is a part. Perhaps it would be prudent, he may reflect, to draw no lines at all, since their location is such a ticklish matter. But this option is all but eliminated by Connor v. Johnson, 402 U.S. 690, 91 S.Ct. 1760, 29 L.Ed.2d 268 (1971), and its holding that multi-member districts are not favored in court-ordered plans. Lines must usually be drawn, it seems; and, at least where election districts for county supervisors are concerned, practical considerations urge that they be drawn so as to include proportionate urban and rural areas within each district, since the supervisors' duties are, while perhaps primarily rural-oriented,18 far from exclusively so. Finally, of course, under Avery the districts must contain about the same number of people. A task indeed$ One which, with the addition of only a tincture of malice or exasperation to the cloud of seemingly overlapping negatives set out above, can be cast as impossible.
17
Nevertheless, it is not. We recognize that it is of the essence of a court's duty to articulate the law in such a form that it can be followed. A failure to do so--especially in an area so vexed as this--leaves those who must plan and act without guidance. Worse, enunciation of impractical or conflicting principles leaves them paralyzed, unsure of the criteria by which their conduct will be measured in the event. Our most recent statement or synthesis of the principles governing this case is that of Judge Rives, quoting Judge Hill in part, to be found in his opinion for the panel majority in Gilbert v. Sterrett:
18
The constitutional test actually applied by the district court was stated in its opinion as follows:
19
It is well established that to prove the existence of a constitutionally impermissible redisricting (sic) plan in the absence of malapportionment, plaintiffs must show (1) a racially motivated gerrymander, or a plan drawn along racial lines,3 or (2) the
20
apportionment plan would operate to minimize or cancel out the voting strength of racial or political elements of the voting population.4 An
21
apportionment scheme is not constitutionally impermissible merely because its lines are not carefully drawn to ensure representation to sizable racial, ethnic, economic or religious groups.5
22
Though stated in different language, that standard of law does not differ materially from the standard as variously stated by this Court in Zimmer v. McKeithen (en banc), 5 Cir. 1973, 485 F.2d 1297, 1303; Turner v. McKeithen, 5 Cir. 1973, 490 F.2d 191, 193--197; Moore v. Leflore County Board of Election Commissioners, 5 Cir. 1974, 502 F.2d 621, 623, 624; Robinson v. Commissioners Court, Anderson County, 5 Cir. 1974, 505 F.2d 674.
23
509 F.2d at 1390--91.
24
Applying these principles to this case, the rule against racial gerrymanders and plans drawn along racial lines is satisfied by the supervisors' plan. Its draftsman testified that, as instructed, he drew it without reference to race. His evidence is not disputed, and its weight is not overcome by the facial appearance of the plan. On this evidence the district court found it was drawn without reference to race, and its finding is not clearly erroneous. Plaintiffs' plan, to the contrary, obviously runs afoul of the rule and is unacceptable. As noted above, it creates two voting districts, neither with significant road or bridge mileage or rural population, out of the core of the black population concentration in Jackson. Whether or not it is, as the court below found, a racial gerrymander, it is plainly drawn along racial lines alone and is obviously designed to secure two of five seats for the minority enclave while conceding three 'safe' seats to the white majority.
25
It remains to determine whether the supervisors' plan approved by the court below, though not by design, otherwise--that is, unintentionally--operates to minimize minority voting power in an impermissible way. To determine whether that power is minimized, we must first ascertain its proper or natural magnitude, its expectable effect under normal conditions when neither weakened nor enhanced. And this is simply stated: in an infinite series of elections, any 35% of the electorate should elect 35% of the candidates whom it favors or, in other words, it should receive proportionate representation. As applied to any hypothetical five-man board, then, our 35% voting bloc should be represented by two out of five officials favored by it about three-fourths of the time and by only one of the other fourth. This model illustrates its normal voting strength.
26
Plaintiffs are correct when they insist that we consider whether the impact of the black vote in Hinds County is diminished by the proposed plan. Where they err is in their selected model against which diminishment is to be measured. Plaintiffs focus on preserving intact the black geographical cluster in northern and central Jackson and would have us determine diminishment by inquiring merely whether the proposed district lines divide it. But of course they do. Any likely division of the county would do so except one drawn on racial lines with the purpose of securing safe 'black' or 'white' seats on the board of supervisors. Plaintiffs' focus is too narrow, their approach too mechanical, at this stage of the inquiry. There being no intended gerrymander, the proper present focus of inquiry is not a map area19 but the voting power of the entire black populace of Hinds County, and the model against which its claimed diminishment must be measured is, as indicated above, the number of seats on the board proportionate to that population's percentage of the whole.
27
So tested, the conclusion of the district court stands firm that
28
the black voting strength in Hinds County is not minimized or cancelled out by the 1973 Board plan, but on the contrary, the Board plan offers black residents of Hinds County, who constitute less than 40% of the total population thereof, a realistic opportunity to elect officials of their choice, whether they be white or black, in two supervisor's districts and significantly affect the election of county officials in the three remaining supervisors' districts . . ..20
29
In so holding, we are especially mindful of the unusual deference our court has been accustomed to accord the trial court's local perspective in such matters21 and of the results and general course of reasoning in our factually similar recent cases of Gilbert v. Sterrett, quoted supra, Robinson v. Commissioner's Court, supra note 21, Moore v. Leflore County Board, 502 F.2d 621 (5th Cir. 1974), and Howard v. Adams County Board, 453 F.2d 455 (5th Cir. 1972). Finally, we caution drafters of redistricting plans against the temptation to deliberate division along racial lines, geographic or proportional. This is not what we here approve. What we do approve is the preparation of plans honestly devised on nonracial and rational criteria that, when tested against proportional norms, deny to no group an equal access to the political process or a fair chance to realize its full voting potential--even one based on the irrelevant criterion of race.
30
Plaintiffs not having prevailed, they are not entitled to attorneys' fees. See Sapp v. Renfroe, 511 F.2d 172, 178 (5th Cir. 1975).
31
Affirmed.
32
ON PETITION FOR REHEARING AND PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
33
Before BROWN, Chief Judge WISDOM, GEWIN, THORNBERRY, COLEMAN, GOLDBERG, AINSWORTH, GODBOLD, DYER, MORGAN, CLARK, RONEY, GEE and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.
BY THE COURT:
34
A member of the Court in active service having requested a poll on the application for rehearing en banc and a majority of the judges in active service having voted in favor of granting a rehearing en banc.
35
IT IS ORDERED that the cause shall be reheard by the Court en banc with oral argument on a date hereafter to be fixed. The Clerk will specify a briefing schedule for the filing of supplemental briefs.
1
The supervisors' duties comprise, in main, maintenance of county roads and bridges, care of the needy, levy of county taxes, maintenance of the county courthouse and jail, planning and zoning in unincorporated county areas, and providing for public health and welfare in the county. The supervisors' districts also serve as election districts for members of the county board of education, justices of the peace and constables
2
390 U.S. 474, 88 S.Ct. 1114, 20 L.Ed. 45 (1968)
3
Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c (1970), as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c (Supp. 1976)
4
Finding, also, however, that it was a good-faith effort to comply with the court's order and had resulted in substantial equality in districts as of December 1969, when it was implemented
5
Prepared by independent consultants who followed, as they testified and the lower court found, the court's instruction to disregard race, etc
6
Plaintiffs' factual attack is limited mainly, if not entirely, to one on ultimate facts or legal conclusions of the district court:
(T)he District Court concluded--erroneously we believe--that plaintiffs have failed to prove that their voting strength is minimized or cancelled out 'in any way' by the Board's plan, and that the Board's plan offers Hinds County Blacks a 'realistic opportunity to elect officials of their choice, whether white or black, in two supervisors' districts . . .' (Mem.Op., pp. 26--27). The dispersal of the heavy Black population concentration in Jackson was justified as 'necessary . . . in order to achieve equalization of population with approximate equalization of road mileage and land area' (id., p. 13). Past denials to Hinds County Blacks of equal access to the political process were considered irrelevant (id., p. 33). The court sustained the Board's 1973 redistricting plan as meeting all constitutional requirements, and rejected plaintiffs' alternative plan, based on Census tracts, as 'intentional gerrymandering' to create two safe Black majority districts (id., p. 34).
These latter findings, we contend, are completely inconsistent with the District Court's own findings on fragmentation of Black voting strength, are contrary to the uncontradicted and undisputed evidence in this case, are unsupported by substantial evidence, and are clearly erroneous. Rule 52(a), F.R.Civ.P.
7
See Moore v. Leflore County Bd., 502 F.2d 621 (5th Cir. 1974) (Greenwood, Miss.), noted in the district court's findings, and Howard v. Adams County Bd., 453 F.2d 455 (5th Cir. 1972) (Nachez, Miss.)
8
The court also found that these considerations had 'always' been a legitimate concern of the supervisors. Cf. note 1 supra
9
One of them contained less than six thousand people and the other less than eight thousand, while another district exceeded one hundred thousand in population--the ideal being about forty-three thousand
10
Though not so severe as under the pre-1969 plan: the largest 1969-plan district included just over 51,000 souls and the smallest, 33,336, as compared to the 43,000 ideal
11
Recognized by the court as an expert generally in political science, especially as to political behavior and attitudes, but not in county redistricting. These calculations indicated a black voting-age population in each of the two districts of about 47%
12
E.g., Love v. McGee, 297 F.Supp. 1314 (S.D.Miss.1968) (jury service)
13
In the sense that the plan must pass additional scrutiny before it can become effective
14
Unlike Connor v. Waller, 421 U.S. 656, 95 S.Ct. 2003, 44 L.Ed.2d 486 (1975) (per curiam), where the Court required section 5 clearance of a court-approved plan voluntarily enacted by a state legislature. The D.C. Circuit recognized a similar distinction in Harper v. Levi, 520 F.2d 53, 72 & nn. 161, 164, 165 (D.C.Cir.1975), which required section 5 approval of a court-ordered substitute plan adopted by a state legislature after litigation had successfully challenged the legislature's prior, voluntarily enacted plan
15
See cases cited note 7 supra
16
Gilbert v. Sterrett, 509 F.2d 1389, 1394 (5th Cir. 1975), quoting Turner v. McKeithen, 490 F.2d 191, 197 (5th Cir. 1973). See generally Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U.S. 124, 91 S.Ct. 1858, 29 L.Ed.2d 363 (1971)
17
Perhaps 'must' here also, for to favor one of two racial groups seems necessarily to disfavor the other, and each presumably has equal constitutional rights in the franchise
18
See note 1 supra
3
Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U.S. 52, 84 S.Ct. 603, 11 L.Ed.2d 512 (1964); Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.2d 110 (1960); Howard v. Adams County Board of Supervisors, 453 F.2d 455 (5th Cir. 1972), cert. denied 407 U.S. 925, 92 S.Ct. 2461, 32 L.Ed.2d 812 (1972)
4
Burns v. Richardson, 384 U.S. 73, 86 S.Ct. 1286, 16 L.Ed.2d 376 (1966); Howard v. Adams County Board of Supervisors, 453 F.2d 455 (5th Cir. 1972), cert. denied 407 U.S. 925, 92 S.Ct. 2461, 32 L.Ed.2d 812 (1972)
5
Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U.S. 124, 91 S.Ct. 1858, 29 L.Ed.2d 363 (1971)
19
Of course, the unusual shapes of the proposed districts are important. But the shapes are chiefly relevant to the question of whether the plan is a racial gerrymander. Once we accept the district court's unchallenged findings that the plan was drawn without reference to race and that the districts reasonably follow natural boundaries, see p. 538 supra, the significance of the geographic shapes is almost exhausted. They may, for example, indicate nothing more than a political gerrymander, an inhabitant of the thicket at present out of season to courts. See Jimenez v. Hidalgo County Water Imp. Dist. No. 2, 68 F.R.D. 668, 672--75 (S.D.Tex.1975)
20
This is not to say that other arrangements giving fair effect to a 35% share of the electoral power might not be equally acceptable. As we noted in Turner v. McKeithen, 490 F.2d 191, 197 n. 24 (5th Cir. 1973):
There is no agreement on whether the political interests of a minority group are best maximized by an overwhelming majority in a single district, bare majorities in more than one district or a substantial proportion of the voters in a number of districts. See, e.g., Wright v. Rockefeller, 1964, 376 U.S. 52, 84 S.Ct. 603, 11 L.Ed.2d 512.
21
Robinson v. Commissioner's Court, 505 F.2d 674, 679 (1974); cf. White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 769; 93 S.Ct. 2332, 2341; 37 L.Ed.2d 314, 326 (1973)
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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FreeLaw
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This year, I will not buy any new ski gear
I recently mentioned how much I look forward to rely on POWDER’s annual buyers’ guide/kick-off issue dropping into my mailbox of floating as if by magic carrier owl onto a news stand. I like everything about it. It is one part guilty pleasure, one part aspirational guide to living and one part pretty, pretty pictures.
More than the gear itself, I’ve come to admire the folks who test it out. Here are about two dozen sinewy, tan in the right places (and some of the wrong ones), toothy, hard-charging, hard-partying rippers. People you would like to know or would at least lie and say you met at some point were someone to ask, “Do you know ___?”
Local heroes and denizens of some of the biggest peaks in the land who have dedicated their lives to living their EDM-filled neon snow globe dream.
Nothing seems beyond the realm of possibility for these folks and while I sit and admire them underneath spectral office fluorescents inhaling a special as-yet-undiscovered breed of asbestos, they are somehow able to cobble together a hoary offseason existence harvesting alpaca yarn, running rowboat cartels off the Nicaraguan coast and Instagramming for whatever type of cave-dwelling posterity that’ll exist a thousand years from now. They put it all together house sitting for Dick Cheney or nannying Scott Glenn’s grandkids while skiing a million vertical feet per season and still have enough in the legs and coffers for an epic Gaper Day featuring a vintage pair of red, white and blue iSki mirrored shades and a Look fanny pack. Whether it’s through multiple jobs or multiple trust funds, they make it happen. And I fall for it — for them — season after season.
I ingest the gear guide, because when one of them cleverly quips, “Buttery in the trees but not on toast” I not only feel like I’m in on the joke — but I wish I’d made it. Purchasing top-reviewed picks for skis, boots and misc. accessories (is this the year I get an airbag? I mean, it’s not just for conversation-starting, it may save my life like it did Saugstad’s) is my way of surreptitiously joining their club, doing more than just peeking behind their prized curtain of white smoky bliss. Pulling the same stuff off the shelf and skiing the same terrain means I eventually get to join them, to be one of them. Right? Right?
^ This is the reason we all want things. Things make us feel like a part of something. Things make us feel like someone, or maybe closer to someone. For some, it’s cars or handbags or scarves. For others it’s books or records or plants or pets. For the majority of us, it’s food.
We are all raised to want. And we want what we want and we want a little more what we can’t have. We admire people who live in houses bigger than ours for which to store more of their stuff. We thumb through catalogs to see sample homes — what we want ours to be. But really what’s on display is a tasteful discourse in lack of clutter. That’s what we want, clean surfaces, dishes without dried red sauce on the rim, a piece of fruit that sits proudly on still life summit, not melting in a dreadful moldy mash at the base of the bowl. Somehow all of this will make the tension go away.
For the majority in this country, there are serving trays and candlesticks and wreaths for every calendar page turn. Some crafty broad on pinterest who has enough time for all that and to create chalk art chalkboards that look like a gentrified neighborhood coffee shop menu to announce what grades her children are going into this year.
***
A giant lot next to the pool I swim at broke ground a few months ago, and on what used to be a bell pepper field a trio of suburban Phoenix-looking tan buildings rise a mile from downtown San Luis Obispo. It was a perfect infill project, I surmised. Urban-type live/work housing where some magic courtyard brings people together in a…in a Piazza. A Piazza, just like Dave Chappelle says it back to Tom Hanks on the treadmill in You’ve Got Mail.
Will it become this? A Piazza? No. It’s going to be three massive storage units things. Boomers who sell their homes in Los Angeles or the greater Bay Area are here to downsize and they need a place to store all those wreaths and dishes and graded papers of yours they don’t want to throw out. Plus all those trays.
No matter how many things we acquire, the eventual outcome for all of us is we die. There may be a few things we leave behind that are important. Maybe a letter (if you ever bothered to write a letter or two I guarantee the recipient would be so mystified that they would keep it to their own grave and certainly recall it at yours.) Maybe some kind of artwork you either curated or created. Maybe a book you gave or received with something written on the inside cover red paper next to the part of the jacket where you carefully scissored off the price. Maybe you traveled with it and stuck your used boarding pass to Buenos Aires in between page(s) 322 and 323. And maybe someone will run across it in a used bookstore one day and decide to travel too. This way, and only this way, is how your former property can elicit change.
But new skis, boots, pants, goggles, gloves and poles — all of that matte-finished glory spotted with your fingerprints — that goes away. It goes away like a seersucker suit or a evening bag or the left-behind one of those pearl earrings grandmother gave you for 8th grade graduation. No matter how cambered or how dynamic the center axis of the ski is for better balance in powder but keeping it appropriately explosive off the snow, it’s all going to fade.
Should I give in and buy a pair of skis this year, maybe in a decade they’ll occupy the dusty corner of the ski locker, still clinging to the tattered edge of the quiver just like the phone I was using five years ago sits terminally black and permanently off in some drawer. I come across it once in awhile and wonder what photos are on there and who may someday see them one day. I think of selling it online, or fixing the cobweb cracks on the forlorn screen, one that I so tenderly used to rake my thumb over and over and over to bring me some type of temporary respite. Now that it’s been discarded, I view those moments trapped on there only as pieces of real life that were missed, not captured.
Right now we have on this earth what appears to be enough stuff to get us through the end and even a shit ton of leftovers to create relics for whomever comes next. We have enough homes and enough cars and enough pools (both above and below ground.) There is enough chemically treated hardwood from China and double vanities for seemingly everyone who goes on TV as a house hunting couple. There are enough jars and door handles and staplers and old video game units floating somewhere in space and accessible only via eBay. SUVs with third row seating to suck poison fuel from the ground like fruit punch, we have tons.
I know the whole thing — the agreement we’ve reached in this country — is that there’s always something we need to get. It helps with jobs. It helps cover up these inevitable truths about the planet becoming less habitable for all mammals by the day and our role in the consumer food chain directly expediting that process. Giant drink cup to concert t-shirt to a garden hose that looks like a crumpled bit of foreskin and recoils back when you’re not using it. All the shit. We need it. We need it all like baby Moses needed a basket to get on the river and find his new life.
My grandmother used to shop at I. Magnin. She put on white shopping gloves, which seemed to make her fingers almost too slippery to handle her giant Cadillac steering wheel, as she navigated the aquamarine two-door with the aquamarine leather into the city for a binge. A few of the artifacts she rescued from the dust-free glass shelves of that era — a ceramic serving bowl centerpiece with hand painted Meyer lemons stacked atop it and a print of a California poppy that looks like it was smooshed in a giant dictionary — can be found in my mother’s current home.
Today, I look at these things with wonder as they will always seem out of place not embedded with the rest of my grandmother’s unblemished wicker furniture, spectacularly clean stove top and backyard pool shimmering like an agate after dusk. These things are set to crawl through at least another generation or two, hopefully, before they are broken or discarded or swallowed whole by this rebelling planet. I recognize that at one point these iconic family items were new and purchased that way. Perhaps they came in an impressively wrapped box with a silver bow and a signature I. Magnin sticker. And my grandmother, in the moment, was ultimately proud and satisfied.
So maybe the skis I want so badly but am trying so hard not to buy will fall down the generational elevator shaft to someone who will appreciate them, or, at the very least, find them interesting enough to affix a shot glass to the top sheet or hang them on the wall. These, after all, were grandpa’s skis and what a life of pleasure he did lead in the extraordinary time of snow.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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Pile-CC
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This invention relates to monitoring liquid level in tanks, and more particularly to a system and method for manually determining and electronically indicating a liquid level condition within a tank.
The determination of liquid level, such as the level of liquefied petroleum (LP) gas, propane, butane, and so on, in transportable and stationary storage tanks is often inconvenient for vehicle operators, will-call status customers and others where a mechanical gauge head and sending unit are installed in the tank. Such customers must visually read the gauge head to determine the liquid level condition of the tank, then call a fuel supply company for tank refill. For some portable tanks, such as those used to power forklifts, generators, and other equipment, the operator is usually not in a position to constantly monitor the fuel level since the gauge head is out of the operator's view. Accordingly, the equipment can run out of fuel at a location remote from the replacement tank, causing equipment downtime and loss of revenue, power, and other conditions until the empty tank can be replaced.
For stationary tanks, located at a place of residence or business for example, a person must exit the building, approach the tank and move a protective cover located over the gauge head and other fittings in order to ascertain whether or not a fuel supply company should be contacted for refilling the tank. Consequently, many stationary tanks also run out of fuel at the most inconvenient times, such as during heating, cooking, bathing, and so on. However, such inconveniences can potentially lead to more serious consequences, such as frozen pipes during winter conditions and the attendant damage and repair costs, health degradation when exposed to low temperature conditions, and so on. The difficulty in ascertaining fuel level within the tank is exacerbated when access to the gauge head is not possible for numerous reasons, such as the location of the gauge head, physical limitations of the user, and so on.
Portable and permanently installed storage tanks for pressurized fuel and other liquids, such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), propane, butane, and so on, typically include a fuel sending unit mounted at the center or end of the tank for view by an observer. The sending unit typically includes a float that rides on the surface of the liquid. The float is connected to a pivoting float arm which is in turn connected to the lower end of a driven shaft that rotates about its axis in response to float movement. A drive magnet is typically located at the upper end of the driven shaft that magnetically couples with a driven magnet inside the gauge head, which is associated with an indicator and gauge plate with scale markings thereon, so that rotational movement of the drive magnet in response to float movement induces the driven magnet to rotate a proportional amount and rotate the indicator across the scale, to thereby display a liquid level condition of the tank to an observer. One such device for determining liquid level within LPG or fuel oil tanks is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,041,650 to Swindler, et al., and includes a sensing probe having a movable float arm coupled by gears to the lower end of a rotatable drive shaft. A magnet is mounted to the upper end of the shaft and extends into a passage of a gauge head for magnetic coupling with a level indicating dial. A change in liquid level within the tank causes movement of the float arm and thus rotation of the indicating dial with respect to a stationary gauge plate with liquid level indicia printed thereon, to thereby show the amount of liquid within the tank. These types of liquid level gauges must be manually accessed and visually observed to determine the position of the indicating dial with respect to the gauge plate, and is often inconvenient to do so, as discussed above.
In order to facilitate the reading of liquid level, and due to the number of portable and stationary tanks with pre-existing sending units having a magnet at the top of a rotatable drive shaft inside the tank, a liquid level gauge, which allows both manual and electronic determination of the liquid level within the tank, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,564,632 to Ross, Jr., the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. This patent discloses a gauge head for mounting to a tank and a dial assembly for mounting to the gauge head. The dial assembly includes a base, which is in turn connected to the gauge head. A magnetically-driven indicating dial, or pointer magnet, is rotatably mounted on the base above a stationary gauge plate also mounted on the base. The gauge plate includes scale indicia around its periphery relating to liquid level in the tank. The relative position of the magnetically-driven indicating dial and the gauge plate can be viewed by a user for manually determining liquid level within the tank. This gauge also enables electronic determination of the liquid level by the provision of a circular pointer magnet with a variable thickness. The pointer magnet rotates in response to the rotation of one or more tank magnets, as disclosed in the Swindler, et al. patent referenced above. The variable thickness of the pointer magnet creates a linearly variable magnetic flux around the periphery of the magnet. A transparent lens or cover is connected to the base for enclosing and protecting the components of the dial assembly. The transparent nature of the cover allows a user to view the indicating dial and gauge plate to visually ascertain the liquid level. A channel is formed in the cover for receiving a removable magnetic detector with a single Hall-effect sensor. The channel is located at a position to ensure that the pointer magnet and the gauge plate with liquid level indicia are not obfuscated, thereby allowing the simultaneous visual observation of the liquid level and electronic determination thereof by electronically sensing a change in the magnetic flux of the pointer magnet, and thus its angular position with respect to the magnetic detector. The angular position of the pointer magnet is indicative of liquid level in the tank. The electronic signal produced by the magnetic detector can be sent to a remote location for viewing by a user or further processing, notifying a distributor of LPG or the like of the liquid level condition within the tank for scheduling delivery of LPG, and so on.
Although the above-described system is adequate for manually and electronically indicating liquid level, the specially shaped pointer magnet with variable thickness is a specialty item that is relatively expensive to manufacture when compared to ordinary magnets, requires calibration, and thus increases manufacturing time and costs, thereby increasing the overall cost of the gauge head.
It would therefore be desirous to overcome one or more disadvantages of liquid level gauges associated with storage tanks as discussed above.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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USPTO Backgrounds
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Q:
How can I install libEGL.dylib on MacOS?
I'm trying to use EGL via LWJGL on MacOS to use offscreen rendering.
It seems to throw an exception of the missing library libEGL.dylib.
I couldn't find this library on package distribution service like brew.
However, I could find several minor repositories on Github containing libEGL.dylib. I don't think this is safe to use.
How can I find the binary officially, or find the source to build?
A:
There isn't any canonical libEGL implementation. The header files are part of the standard, but the implementation isn't.
MoltenGL has a binary download available (the second one, "OpenGL ES 2 for macOS").
If you prefer an open-source implementation, Google's ANGLE also implements EGL and supposedly supports macOS. And for what it's worth, it appears that Apple is using this in WebKit for iOS as well.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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StackExchange
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54 So.3d 523 (2010)
Willie McGRIFF, Appellant,
v.
The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 3D10-3137.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
December 29, 2010.
Willie McGriff, in proper person.
Bill McCollum, Attorney General, for appellee.
Before SHEPHERD and SALTER, JJ., and SCHWARTZ, Senior Judge.
PER CURIAM.
This is the tenth post-judgment case brought to this Court by the defendant. All have been meritless, and at least those filed since 2007 have also been successive and frivolous. We affirm the trial court's denial of the latest motion, but in doing so we find that "enough is enough." Isley v. State, 652 So.2d 409, 410 (Fla. 5th DCA 1995).
Accordingly, Willie McGriff is now directed to show cause, within thirty days from the date of this opinion, why he should not be prohibited from filing any further pro se appeals, pleadings, motions, or petitions both here and in the lower court relating to his convictions and sentences in circuit court case numbers 91-20674; 85-32434; 86-749. Absent a showing *524 of good cause, we intend to direct the Clerk of the Third District Court of Appeal to refuse to accept any such papers relating to these circuit court case numbers unless they have been reviewed and signed by an attorney who is a duly licensed member of The Florida Bar in good standing.
Additionally, and absent a showing of good cause, any such further and unauthorized pro se filings by the defendant will subject him to appropriate sanctions. See State v. Spencer, 751 So.2d 47, 48 (Fla. 1999).
Affirmed.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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FreeLaw
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Norepinephrine accelerates HIV replication via protein kinase A-dependent effects on cytokine production.
To explore the role of sympathetic nervous system activation in HIV pathogenesis, we examined the effect of the neuroeffector molecule norepinephrine (NE) on HIV-1 replication in quiescently infected PBMCs that were subsequently activated with Abs to CD3 and CD28. NE accelerated HIV-1 replication at concentrations ranging from 10(-8) to 10(-5) M. This effect could be mimicked by protein kinase A (PKA) activators (forskolin or dibutyryl-cAMP) and abrogated by beta-adrenoreceptor antagonists or the PKA inhibitor rp-cAMP, indicating transduction via the adrenoreceptor signaling pathway. NE reduced cellular activation and altered the production of several HIV-modulating cytokines: IL-10 and IFN-gamma were markedly suppressed; TNF-alpha, IL-1beta, IL-2, IL-4, and IL-6 were mildly suppressed; and levels of IL-12 were not significantly altered. The addition of either exogenous IFN-gamma or IL-10 abrogated the effect of NE on virus production. Thus PKA-dependent suppression of cytokine production appears to mediate the enhancement of HIV-1 replication by NE.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Abstracts
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The high prevalence of unsafe sexual behaviors among acute psychiatric inpatients. Implications for AIDS prevention.
We conducted a study to determine the prevalence and sociodemographic distribution of unsafe sexual behaviors among psychiatric inpatients and to investigate an association between crack cocaine use and these behaviors. Two hundred thirty-nine patients admitted to two Philadelphia hospitals during a 12-month period were interviewed to obtain a detailed sexual history and substance abuse history. A history of multiple sex partners was reported by 42.6% of male patients and 13.0% of female patients (p < .01). A history of receptive anal intercourse in the past 6 months was reported by 11.6% of females and 2.1% of males (p < .05). Only about half the study subjects who were sexually active reported ever using a condom during the past 6 months. Crack cocaine use among males and cocaine use among females was statistically significantly associated with a history of having sex with a high risk partner. This study draws attention to the role of crack cocaine and other types of cocaine in the spread of human immunodeficiency virus infection in this population and the need for intensive acquired immunodeficiency syndrome prevention programs on inpatient psychiatric units.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Abstracts
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Pages
7.09.2008
Signs of Testosterone Poisoning, Exhibit A
.
"Only men are capable of aesthetic greatness."
.
This was said in what year: 1600, 1850, 1955, 2008?
.
.
Well, probably in all of them, but this particular quote dates from three days ago. "Women make up 50 per cent or more of classes at art school. Yet they fade away in their late 20s or 30s. Maybe it's something to do with bearing children," says British art critic Brian Sewer, er Sewell, in a July 6 feature from The Independent. .
.
Uh, maybe it has something to do with bearing the brunt of art history as it has been taught, with critics and curators following those teachings, and--I hate to say this--with some women curators so eager for a piece of the androgenic pie that they deny there's an issue.
18 comments:
Does anyone take someone like Brian Sewell seriously? Especially after clueless comments like that, how can he even claim to understand artistic quality?
That article in the Independent was rather amusing in how it tied artistic success to auction prices. Last time I checked, auctions were not where you find objective, scholarly criticism, but were home to knee-jerk financially-inspired reactions.
It's not that I take Brian Sewell seriously, but that in the 21st century this kind of thinking still exists. It's like saying the earth is flat, or that it was made in six days, or that the universe revolves around it.
The relationship of auction prices to success is a secondary issue for me (not that it's not important, but others can address it). It's the blatant sexism of Sewell's comment, which illustrates how little understanding he has about the way sexism has been institutionalized.
Sewell may be the most awkward and outspoken proponent of the thought, but--and here, auction prices are a good indicator--he's not alone in his thinking.
Well I think the auction records influence what is taught in art history very much. More and more all the time, and not just what's at auction but in the big time art market in general. Koons gets big money and he is being taught. How about Cindy Sherman? She is mega now and not just because of the "iconographic images." It was that big sale to MOMA which sealed the deal. And no one would be talking about Marlene Dumas if it were not for the place she gained in the market.
What does this have to do with aesthetics? Not much really, but it's all in the hands of who is writing (and then teaching) the verdicts and the history. So it ends up mattering very much.
There's a local gallery here which shows excellent work and consistently sells too. But I've noticed that there was always many more red dots for the male artists every single time - and it just kills me.
Maybe the fact that "greatness" is often defined by prejudiced men is why there are so few "great" women artists. How many centuries did it take before Gentileschi was known for the great artist she is. How long did it take the art "experts" to correct the many errors in history books about women artists? Most art histories still contain glaring errors and ignore important artists just because they were (are) women. I sure would like to see more recognition of the extra challenges that women face, including dealing with idiots like Sewell who, alas, is not alone in his ignorance and nastiness. Linda Nochlin's essay was written 50 (?) years ago and obviously the fight is now over yet. I should introduce myself - I have been, until now, a lurker and appreciative reader of your blog but this sort of old boys comment makes me see red.
Your pictures say it all about the greatness of artists who are women, Joanne. That Sewell obviously has his hand in his pants while issuing his edicts. I hope he can find his sceptre because it obviously rules his life.
Hi Joanne,It is baffling and disappointing that such attitudes and conditions still exist. If we look at it as a manifestation of dogma, it boils down to raw power struggle. And dogma is employed to protect or solidify one's power. History has been a hot topic over on Eva's blog, and I think it ties in to this discussion -- the history gets written by those who have the power and the vested interest in holding on to power. The sorry state of the world is direct evidence that men are still very much in control. As for art -- there is a very big difference in intention between Koons and Dumas, a contrast of power-centered artifice against deep personal exploration. The market has gotten so powerful that it is causing artists to buy into its dogma -- to actually value its power. In reality it seems to be miraculous that artists like Dumas have made such inroads into such a long established structure without really being corrupted. Not to discount Sewell's despicable remarks, but Rush Limbaugh says shit like that all the time -- they feed on the shock value of their pronouncements. It's hard to believe even they believe what they're saying -- they're desperately scared of losing their power.
Sigh....I was just checking out (online, because I live in Cleveland) 'Remix: New Modernities in a Post Indian World' at the Smithsonian Nat'l. Museum of the American Indian (NYC.) Their tagline: '15 artists describe what it means to be indigenous through photo, video, painting and sculpture.'15 MALE artists. I'd love to get a response from some of the native women artists on this!
Yes, history gets written by those in power. But as artists with elecronic media at our disposal, we have more power than ever. That's why JT Kirkland's project, Artists Reviewing Artists, is good (he's "Thinking About Art" on my blogroll), and why John Tallman's upcoming project will be good (he's "Color Chunks" on the blogroll.
It's why we need to write about this stuff on our blogs, comment on it on others (thanks, everyone, for commenting here). It's why we need to write about women artists, and to include our male friends who get it.
And it's a good reason for artists to curate. Not just to get our ideas out into the world, but to make sure those ideas are represented equally. It's a lot of work to make a show that includes women and men in equal measure, that includes artists of varying ethnicities and ages--all while showing work that manifests the curatorial idea. But it's a responsibility. And a pleasure, because there is so much good art outside the box.
By the way, "s.a." is Steven Alexander, who has a terrific blog in which he writes about many artists of the geometric persuasion, including Helen Miranda Wilson, Anne Seidman, Eva Lake and moi. The actual link in on my blogroll. Here's the URL: http://stevenalexanderjournal.blogspot.com/
And since we're talking about geometry, Geoform is another great resource. Link on the blogroll, URl here: www.geoform.net
Terrific post. Hits on an area that I have been reading on blogs everywhere lately. I studied about the imbalance when I was in art school and hoped that when it became my turn to hit the real world, things would have turned around. HA! I just returned from a trip to Italy and it was never more apparent how lopsided the art world truly is. I did have the pleasure of seeing Judith with the Head of Holofenes in the Uffizi, the highlight of my trip, Artemesia has always been one of my heroes.
I believe that with the internet being so accessible these days and with blogs of artists who point these injustices out, there is an opportunity to hopefully turn the imbalance around. Keeping my fingers crossed for that to happen.
I didn't know that penis envy was still an art form it seems so 90ties
when I lived in Berlin a few years ago you couldn't get a show if you where not an east german female artist or atleast had vagina as a pass portand shure it made me pissedand brought out the best of my chauvistic traits but then I remembered my feminine sideand got layed insteadwhat I am saying isas of lately art has become like fashion and undergoes trendsso if sexism is still in trend stop buying into it by reaffirming that it still exists instead get on the fun wagon and humor the band
Links
Artists Choose Artists
Artist Annell Livingston writes about my work for the new blog, Vasari 21, founded by Ann Landi. Click pic for info and a link
Recent Solo: "Silk Road"
"Joanne Mattera: The Silk Road Series" was at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont, New York, May-July. Some paintings are available for viewing at the gallery. Click pic for gallery info
Recent: August Geometry
More than just a summer show. Au-gust: adjective, respected and impressive. At the Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta. Click pic for info
Recent
I'm having a great year of exhibitions and catalogs. This volume, published by Space Gallery, Denver, on the occasion of the exhibition, "Pattern: Geometric|Organic," is viewable online and available for sale as a hard-copy volume. Click pic for exhibition info and a link to the catalog. That's my "Chromatic Geometry 29" on the cover
James Panero Reviews Doppler Shift
Writing in The New Criterion, Panero calls Doppler Shift "a smart group show, " noting the work of "artists who interest me most these days." There's a nice shout out to Mary Birmingham, the curator; to Mel Prest, who originated the concept; and to me, among others. Click pic for the review
Search This Blog
Translate
"Textility," curated by Mary Birmingham and myself for the Visual Art Center of New Jersey, Summit (where Birmingham is the chief curator), looked at contemporary painting, sculpture and work on paper in which textile elements were referenced or employed. The exhibition is over, but you can see this exhibition on line. Click on the links below to read and see more.
Review of Textility
Click pic to access review. Then click on page images to enlarge them for legibility
Stephen Haller: Remembering Morandi
When he was a young man, the New York art dealer Stephen Haller had a brief but life-changing friendship with Giorgio Morandi, who was nearing the end of his days. Click pic below for story.
Haller holding a photograph of himself with Morandi in the early Sixties. Click pic for story
Followers
My book, The Art of Encaustic Painting, was published by Watson-Guptill in 2001. It's the first commercially published book on contemporary encaustic. There are three sections: history, with images of the famed Greco-Egyptian Fayum portraits; a gallery of contemporary painting and sculpture (including the work of Jasper Johns, Kay WalkingStick, Heather Hutchison, Johannes Girardoni and myself), and technical information, including an interview with Michael Duffy, a conservator at the Museum of Modern Art.
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The long-term objective of this research is to develop powerful statistical methods for the analysis of data from genetic epidemiology studies. While voluminous data are becoming available owing to the Human Genome Project and rapid advancement of high throughput genotyping technology, powerful statistical methods are needed for ultimate success in identifying predisposing genetic variants and their environmental modifiers. This project focuses on developing statistical methods for analyzing genetic association studies on perinatal or early-life diseases. These studies very often adopt a retrospective case-control design, but they have a distinct feature in that offspring of mother cases/controls (for perinatal diseases) or parents of offspring cases/controls (for early-life diseases) are also recruited. Thus these studies have information on both unrelated case-control comparisons and genotype/haplotype transmissions within families. Another important feature of these studies is that the covariate distribution in the study population is structured so that genetic and environmental variables are usually independent within families. The fact that such independence does not hold in the case population under the alternative hypothesis provides further information on the association beyond standard case-control comparison. These studies usually seek to evaluate effects of both maternal and offspring genotypes/haplotypes, their interactions, and gene-environment interactions. Building on currently available approaches for analysis of case-control association studies and case-parent triads, we propose novel efficient estimation and testing methods that can account for the retrospective case-control design and incorporate the family information on the genotype/haplotype transmission and the structure in the covariate distribution. Classical logistic regression for case-control studies applies for most of the analysis but is less efficient due to the ignorance of family information and covariate structure. The Transmission/Disequilibrium type test or likelihood-based methods for analyzing case-parent triads discard the controls and/or their parents and cannot estimate all parameters of interest (e.g., main effects of environmental exposures). Our methods range from profile-likelihood methods and estimating-function based methods to hybrid methods based on the conditional likelihood for case triads and pseudo-likelihoods. This project is motivated by and will be applied to ongoing scientific studies at the University of Pennsylvania on which the PI is collaborating, and the phenotypes include pre-term birth, preeclampsia, hypospadias, and asthma. Our methods also have broad implications to the study of phenotypes other than perinatal and early-life diseases. We will develop large sample theories for the proposed methods, evaluate their finite sample performance by simulation studies, and demonstrate their usefulness using real data. Fully documented software to implement these methods for public use will be provided using freely available statistical package R.
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Neil Nitin Mukesh, who stars in Sooraj Barjatya’s next, claims that he has been offered a role in American TV series ‘Game of Thrones’.Neil Nitin Mukesh is already reaping the benefits of working in the Salman Khan starrer Diwali release Prem Ratan Dhan Payo.Mirror has learnt that the film’s action director Greg Powell, who’s worked on high profile Hollywood projects like Avengers: Age of Ultron, Fast and Furious 6 and the Harry Potter series, and is currently the stunt director of Game of Thrones, has offered Neil a role in the hit show.“Greg has directed two sword-fighting sequences in PRDP for which I had to train for over a month in order to get the stance and wrist movements right. He seemed pretty impressed with all the hard work I put in and made the offer when we were shooting for the climax scene a few months ago,” Neil, who is a huge GoT fan, says excitedly, adding that someone from the show’s production team is expected to come down by the month-end for further discussions.According to Neil, his role in the show will be quite similar to the one in PRDP. “I play a royal in both and also feature in combat scenes,” he says. The actor is also all praise for Greg, “He is extremely humble and professional. I feel honoured that I got to work with him,” he says, adding that the Khaleesi, Jon Snow and the Imp are his favourite characters from the show.Apart from its graphic violence, GoT is known for its nudity and sex. Is Neil comfortable with it? “I have gone nude for Jail, so why not for this? I am okay with it if it’s required for my character. I am not intimidated by it as an actor,” he concludes.
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Davies made his senior debut for West Brom in the FA Cup third round replay against Reading on 17 January 2006 at the Madejski Stadium, at the age of 18 years, which Albion lost 3–2 after extra time. Davies came on as a substitute for Junichi Inamoto in the 89th minute, but it proved to be the Welshman's only senior game for the club.
He was released by Albion at the end of the 2006–07 season, and was offered a two year contract at Spanish side Barakaldo CF. After a nightmare spell in Spain, Davies returned to England, where he was thrown a lifeline by Northern Premier League club Hednesford Town, who signed him in February 2008. He played ten times for the Pitmen, scoring three goals, before he was released at the end of the season. Hednesford had offered Davies a contract, but he decided to look elsewhere for a dealHe joined Oxford United in the Conference National on a short-term deal in July 2008 after a trial at the club.
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Let Facebook Fan Page Help Your Business
There are lots of ways that Facebook Page can assist businesses locate new clients who are involved in services and products they give as well as being able to keep in contact along with their present customers.
Facebook is authentic and a good creative strategy to interact with people and to inform them of what is going on along with your business. You’ll be able to share special bulletins and even talk with people instantly, cheers to Facebook Fan Pages. Fb is becoming a big part of the present business market and definitely will further be a bigger part of the future business world. It’s right up there with Google.
More and more people join FB daily and it is just gets even bigger and much better. You do not want to miss out on this exciting chance, therefore don’t wait around to obtain your business known on this site. Many people don’t realize how big the internet will likely be in the 90’s and missed out on valuable approaches to improve their business. Continue reading to discover how Facebook can assist your business to succeed.
Facebook Fan Pages permits your business to possess its own page that will result in earning cash. We will talk about two completely different types of Facebook Fan Pages. One is beneficial to your business and the other isn’t.
The Facebook Fan Page which isn’t valuable — we’ll discuss the boring Facebook Fan Page first. This page has been around for two years and only has six “likes” (6 persons are interested in it).
This is a great illustration of what you should NOT do if you wish to attract clients:
1. Regular tabs only – there aren’t any unique tabs aside from those that every Fb page has. *Make tabs that will turn your page into a small web page.
2. There isn’t any reason to check out the page more than once.
*You have to offer people a reason to “like” your web page. A professional Fan Page may have your fans going back often to discover what’s going on with your site.
3. No Interaction. *There’s nothing on the “Wall” to get people’s interest. This type of page is boring and will not bring you new clients. There is no reason for people to visit your page again and that’s why there are just 6 people interested in it out of the millions that are available.
The Facebook Page That Will Get You Noticed:
1. Unique tabs that offer something which a customer would like a free report etcetera.
2. Give people a true reason to savor your page.
3. Characteristics that customers can connect with.
In case you are eager to know more about building FB pages, visit this link.
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A small figure in an oversized Flowered Up T-shirt dances around the rim of a dark and very fetid cave. "Shit!" says Jeremy Deller. "Woah!" He ducks as the first bat rising from the crater crashes into him. In the silence of the Texan countryside, the stirring of millions of bats below ground is like the wind getting up. Then the occupants of the cave emerge in a spiralling column, rising into the sky like smoke.
There is lightning on the horizon, a storm coming in, and the flitter of bat wings sounds like a gentle rain on leaves. The bat detector haphazardly taped to the top of one of Deller's three cameras makes a frantic squelching noise. "It's a sort of electronic music, isn't it?" says the Turner prize-winning artist delightedly, filming the sunset emergence of one of the largest gatherings of mammals in the world.
Apart from the bats, the biggest attraction in this desolate corner of Texas is the state's largest live oak tree. On the road to Utopia, every vehicle is an enormous pickup. We pass a dead armadillo and stop in a metal shed for a hot taco lunch. It has been 38C (100F)for 100 days. Crows peck the eyes of a dead deer. Deller has travelled to these bone-dry creeks to gather footage for an "unbearable" 3D nature film, the climax to his new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery called Joy In People. Given that title, a bat film is a typically unexpected touch.
With his slight frame and darting, curious eyes, there is something of the elf about Deller. The 45-year-old plans to survive the week filming bats on a large tub of mixed nuts. The last time he was in the US he turned orange from drinking too much carrot juice. "I don't really cook," he says dryly. It is surprising that such an English eccentric is not only fond of America but owns a piece of it. He bought five acres near Death Valley for $2,000. "I've got a skyscraper, an oil rig, helipad," he says. A sly joke is never far away. He bought the land with his residency money from an American museum. He doesn't know if the museum approved. But he did use it for art – a friend recorded a live album of banjo music there.
His life as an artist was awakened by an American: as a shy 20-year-old who hadn't studied art, he met Andy Warhol at the Ritz on the artist's last visit to Britain. "I was young, definitely, and relatively pretty," says Deller. "When I met him in London, he said to me and my mate: 'Oh you should come out to the Factory – we're doing something for MTV.' I thought, I'm actually going to take up this offer because this is never going to happen again. And so I did." He hung out with Warhol in New York, gossiping, and saw that "you can create your own world, which is what he did. It was definitely a moment of clarity. I thought I would try to get by on my wits creatively, whatever that meant."
When Deller was a child growing up in south London, his father, who worked in local government, would take him to galleries and museums. "When you go as a child, you're not intimidated by it when you grow up. You just think it's something that you can do," he says. Deller studied history of art at university and then got a "small taste" of office work "nearly killed me". So he lived at home for most of his 20s devising small-scale "interventions" – road signs on the streets commemorating Beatles manager Brian Epstein (about whom Deller had a curious fixation) and bumper stickers reading "I love joyriding" which he attached to a police car in Middlesbrough. His parents were baffled and Deller says he didn't enjoy it at the time – his biggest success was selling his T-shirts declaring "My booze hell" and "My drug shame" in tabloid headlines at Covent Garden – but these years of "semi-employment" sound like a wellspring of creativity. "Everyone has the potential to be creative. It's just having the time and the space. I don't think artists are special. A lot of people do. That's the great product of marketing artists – 'they are different and special'. I don't believe that. You see as much creativity outside the art world as inside it. I mean, all children are creative."
Deller's Hayward show, which he calls his "mid-career retrospective", will celebrate this period with a recreation of his childhood bedroom and his first ever exhibition, held at home while his parents were on holiday. He has retrieved "all the crap" still lodged in his parents' home; stuff under his old bed is now part of an exhibition. "It's become official art now," he says, amused. His life as art; it sounds like his Tracey Emin moment. "Sort of. Don't say that," he whispers sotto voce. "Horrible thought. I can't bear her." Can visitors bounce on your childhood bed? "Yes," he says very decisively.
Deller's breakthrough came in 1997, when he persuaded a brass band to perform house music. The result, Acid Brass, attracted loads of admirers (his favourite track was What Time Is Love? by KLF) "and I realised from then on, I can do this and I can do it the way I want to do it. I don't have to make things any more, I can just work with people, and do these funny projects." In 2001, Deller persuaded former miners and police to restage the "battle of Orgreave", the seminal conflict in the miners' strike, as if it were a medieval re-enactment. "Some people would just see that as wrong – to expect former miners to relive this terrible moment in their lives and in the history of mining in Britain. Often what I ask people to do might seem a bit, well, 'wrong' is probably the best word really, or slightly absurd. It's the way you handle it that makes it OK. It's very easy to exploit people, isn't it? It's one of the easiest things to do."
For an artist known for his generous, collaborative approach, working with animals is "a tricky relationship". Deller tries to "do things that aren't exploitative even if the idea itself seems to be ridiculous or absurd, like the recreation of the battle in the miners' strike," he explains when we retreat from the bat cave to the porch of his log cabin. He sits in a rocking chair and I offer him a pack of repugnant beef jerky, hoping he might devour it "as I tear apart my peers, eating them alive", nods Deller. Disappointingly, he is a recent convert to vegetariansim and has also vowed not to talk so freely about fellow artists after a Guardian interview a few years ago in which he slagged off both Emin and Damien Hirst. Only later I learn that Deller breaks his vegetarian vows in spectacular style at the Hog Pit, a Texan eatery favoured by the biker community.
Why bats? One evening Deller was watching School of Saatchi – a reality TV show in which Charles Saatchi set out to discover the next big thing. "There was some poor sod trying to cut a piece of wood and create a sculpture and I turned over to BBC1 and it was David Attenborough and time-lapse photography of sea anemones under Arctic ice. The art in that photography was so much more amazing than someone trying to create a crappy sculpture."
Deller filmed the bats here once before as an unpredictable end to Memory Bucket, his 2003 film about Texas which became part of his Turner prize-winning exhibition, but was not happy with the results. He says he is "interested in the way they can co-exist pretty peacefully with each other. It's incredible to live as close to other mammals. We can't do it." He wonders how well this explains his desire to make a better bat movie. "I do it because I can do it. I'm allowed to do it. A lot of art – or certainly what I do – is related to that; having an opportunity."
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Deller has resisted the opportunity to make money. His work cannot be easily commodified. At times his projects seem almost wilful financial suicide. He lives in a modest flat on the grimy Holloway Road, north London, with his girlfriend, Tasha Amini, "a proper artist" – a painter. "There's enough stuff in the world," he says of churning out artistic objects. "I'm definitely more interested in ideas than I am in money. A disregard for money is always interesting." Are contemporary artists too motivated by money? "Some are. And that's a legacy of Andy Warhol."
For someone who eschews commodification, his love of Warhol may seem odd but Deller argues a celebration of materialism was only part of Warhol's legacy. "Because his art sells for so much, that's all people can think of when they think of him now – money. Actually his legacy is about ideas."
Deller venerates ideas. Part of his exhibition includes a section called My Failures – ideas that were never realised. These are variously silly (getting Iggy Pop to pose for life-drawing classes before a group of unsuspecting artists), brave (proposing a statue of Dr David Kelly looking as if he was about to jump from the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square) and thought-provoking. "I like art that exists in people's minds more so than it does in reality," he says – art that people tell each other about. In the 1970s, the artist Chris Burden was shot in the arm with a gun as a piece of work. "I doubt if he made much money out of that but as an idea they don't come much stronger, and you'll never forget that I've told you that."
Whether what Deller does is art, and where you find him in his work, troubles some critics. On a previous visit to America he toured the country with an Iraqi man, a US soldier and a car that had been blown up by a Baghdad bomb. This provocation must have created a great debate, especially when they pulled up at the rightwing college that hosts George W Bush's library. Actually, says Deller, it was more a "conversation piece". This is a characteristic choice of words. "Initially we were terrified we were going to get shot or lynched," he says. But the most grief he got was from anti-war protesters who demanded he make explicitly political statements with the bombed car. "We wanted to make it more neutral so anyone could talk to us and didn't feel like they were being used," he says. "It's almost a scientific experiment – what would happen if you added this car with these people to a trip around America? I was standing back and observing the reaction. I'm not necessarily in the middle of the work or getting in its way but I'm definitely on the edges of it, the fringes, seeing how it all goes."
And so it is with the bats. While Deller records some sound, takes stills and edits the final film, the 3D shoot is undertaken by a group of quirky Americans. ("Our musician makes gothic music. Our voiceover man sounds like he is from a horror film. Our offices are black inside. We have a very alternative group of people," says the 3D boss Greg Passmore, who arrives with two colleagues in a big RV, a pink-haired German and a pale-skinned young cameraman who looks like he might live in a bat cave.) Artists shape and sculpt things. Deller doesn't. "I like that losing control of projects and letting people take some sort of ownership and get on with it in their own way. It doesn't bother me. I'm not a control freak and I'm not a very technical person but maybe I'm a bit lazy as well."
Deller resists "that old view of the artist being an exceptional person or a shaman" so strongly that some critics question whether he is an artist at all. He believes debates over whether his collaborations are art or not are a dull media preoccupation. "The public don't mind. They are not interested. If something is good and interesting and they enjoy it … Whether it is 'art' or not is not really part of the conversation," he says. "The public are ahead of the media."
Deller has a knack for being perceptibly ahead of trends. A decade ago he was collaborating with the Women's Institute, celebrating traditional craft skills and folk art. Now flower arranging, knitting and Keep Calm and Carry On needleworks are mainstream. The real world quickly catches up with Deller's subversions. He once made a £250 cocktail at Stringfellows; now there are £35,000 cocktails on offer in London clubs. "If culture is keeping up with you it's a kind of competition and I don't mind that," he says. His bat film fits into the current vogue for artists such as Björk and Chris Watson to produce work directly inspired by the natural world. "It's not a terrible thing to be associated with," says Deller agreeably.
Back in London, Deller sits in his flat editing the 3D bat film. From the first flashes of thousands of bats clinging to the cave roof, pink mouths opening like baby birds, it slowly builds into a visceral swarm in flight. The bats move so fast they look like an abstract pattern; even slowed down, their screams sound like Space Invaders. Towards the end of the seven-minute film, the emergence of bats slows, and a weird, restless tranquillity returns, just like the experience of this miraculous gathering of mammals in the wild. Deller wanted his film to be almost more than people could bear but is now having second thoughts. "You have to be very careful people aren't going to be running out screaming after two minutes," he says. "Kids will either really love it or it will traumatise them."
After bats, Deller has a busy year ahead of him: he is producing a show for Bruce Lacey, an octogenarian artist from Norfolk and "total bohemian" who has led the kind of extraordinary life with a flagrant disregard for money that Deller approves of. He also wants to make a bench from a compacted Range Rover. It sounds like a very pointed piece of art but, true to form, he will leave people to work out for themselves what the bench comes from. Giving what he calls "a useless object" a "social function" is political, he reluctantly concedes, "because I hate those cars. If ever I'm going to be killed in London it is probably by someone driving a Range Rover because they are the worst drivers. The people who drive them obviously have some sort of personality problem. Usually they are on the phone at the same time as they are driving it. And not indicating. They are borderline psychopaths, I imagine."
Jeremy Deller: Joy in People opens at the Hayward Gallery, London SE1 on 22 February and runs until 13 May 2012
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A 78-year-old pensioner in the United Kingdom was arrested and jailed for stabbing an armed robber to death in his home.
From The Telegraph:
A pensioner has been arrested after a suspected burglar was killed during a violent tussle at his home. …In a statement Scotland Yard said: “At 00:45hrs on Wednesday, 4 April, police were called by a homeowner to reports of a burglary in progress at an address in South Park Crescent, Hither Green SE6, and a man injured. “The 78-year-old resident found two males inside the address. A struggle ensued between one of the males and the homeowner. The man, aged 37, sustained a stab wound to the upper body.” The home owner suffered bruising to his arms and his injuries are not life threatening. Police arrested him on suspicion of grievous bodily harm before then arresting him on suspicion of murder. He was taken to a south London police station where he remains at this time.
He’s been rotting in jail for over two days.
From The Daily Mail:
Neighbours of a pensioner accused of stabbing a burglar to death have leapt to his defence, saying he should be given a medal – not a murder charge. The 78-year-old homeowner, Richard Osborn-Brooks, was upstairs asleep with his wife when he was woken by two men breaking into his suburban home in Hither Green, south-east London in the early hours of yesterday. One, 38, was armed with a screwdriver, but was left with stab wounds to the chest after a struggle ensued inside the house. He later collapsed and died in hospital. Mr Osborn-Brooks has been arrested on suspicion of murder, but his neighbours have slammed the justice system, claiming he was well within his rights. His friend Tony Guest, 61, posted on Facebook to say he ‘deserves a medal and should be let free’.
It’s illegal to defend yourself from armed robbers in Cuck Island. It’s against the law to criticize Allah. It’s also against the law to criticize the Pakistani grooming gangs raping white British girls on an “industrial scale.”
Truth telling = race hate. The police investigated me for this crime. #TelfordGrooming pic.twitter.com/AH4ajkH0D7 — Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) March 19, 2018
No @BBCNews not Oxford men. Majority Pakistani Muslim men. Your euphemisms are getting desperate. What next? Star signs? Mostly Sagittarius? pic.twitter.com/wvPsEFG24O — Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) March 25, 2018
This has to be the first time in history a nation has made it effectively illegal for the majority population to defend themselves from hostile outsiders.
The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!
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Introduction {#Sec1}
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It is well acknowledged that female body attractiveness and body size assessments play important roles in women's social behaviour, mental and physical health (e.g. eating disorder). Previous research has indicated those factors related to women's health and fertility, such as body mass index (BMI), body fat and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), are correlated with body attractiveness and size judgements (Singh, [@CR21]; Tovée, Reinhardt, Emery, & Cornelissen, [@CR30]; Weeden & Sabini, [@CR32]; Singh & Singh, [@CR22]). For instance, slender figures with low WHR and large breasts are often rated as more attractive (Singh & Young, [@CR23]). Consequently, the waist--hip and chest regions tend to transmit diagnostic cues for body attractiveness and size judgements, and attract more frequent visual inspection than other local body features from young female viewers in the tasks of free viewing, body attractiveness and body size judgements (Cornelissen, Hancock, Kiviniemi, George, & Tovée, [@CR2]; Hall, Hogue, & Guo, [@CR10], [@CR11]; Cundall & Guo, [@CR3]).
Interestingly, when viewing other female bodies with high attractiveness rating and preferred body size, women's gaze allocation is modulated by their own body satisfaction and body composition (Cundall & Guo, [@CR3]). It has been reported that women with low own body satisfaction scores tended to engage more in body comparison with the others (measured via Physical Appearance Comparison Scale, PACS) to evaluate their own body appearance, and this internal-driven comparison process could be manifested in their body-viewing gaze allocation (Cundall & Guo, [@CR3]). They often looked less at the body regions rated high in own-body satisfaction, but looked more at those regions rated low in own-body satisfaction, implying satisfaction might reduce the need for comparison of those body parts which they felt confident about (Jansen, Nederkoorn, & Mulkens, [@CR14]; Cundall & Guo, [@CR3]). Taken together, this individualised gaze comparison process and stereotypical pattern of gaze concentration at the waist--hip and chest regions indicate that body-viewing gaze behaviour in young women might be driven by the need for social comparison to establish or improve one's own attractiveness (Hahn & Perrett, [@CR9]), as suggested by the mate selection theory which postulates women judge their own attractiveness relative to other women to assess their own likelihood for successful mate selection or to monitor potential attractive competitors posing a greater threat to partner sexual fidelity (Pawlowski & Dunbar, [@CR18]; Hughes, Harrison, & Gallup, [@CR13]; O'Connor & Feinberg, [@CR17]).
However, there are two limiting factors which may affect the generalisation of these research findings on female body perception and associated viewing behaviour. The first one is race effect. The typical design in previous research is to examine women's body perception in viewing of female body images of the same racial group (e.g. Hall et al., [@CR10], [@CR11]; Cundall & Guo, [@CR3]). However, the idealised female body shape and WHR alter across cultures and are subject to societal influence. For instance, women with a lower BMI (\~ 20 to 22) and around 0.7 WHR are perceived as the most attractive in Western culture (Tovée, Edmonds, & Vuong, [@CR29]), whereas heavier bodies are preferred in non-Western culture (e.g. 0.8 WHR for African and 0.9 WHR for native south Americans) (Sugiyama, [@CR25]; Tovée, Swami, Furnham, & Mangalparsad, [@CR28]; Reeve, Kelly, & Welling, [@CR19]). It is, therefore, unclear to what extent the observed Caucasian body attractiveness judgement and body-viewing gaze behaviour in Caucasian viewers could be extended to view female bodies of other races. Given our current multi-culture society and the existence of clear differences in body shape and body composition across racial groups (e.g. when compared with Caucasian, Africans tend to have longer legs but shorter torsos, whilst Asian typically show the opposite pattern; Seeman, [@CR20]), it would be interesting and valid to examine whether Caucasian women would use the same cognitive strategy to assess female bodies of different races. Previous research has shown that own-race individuals are considered more familiar, resulting in an in-group favouritism (Zebrowitz, Bronstad, & Lee, [@CR33]). Therefore, by adding race as a factor, we could examine whether a race-invariant mental representation of body attractiveness (including diagnostic bodily cues for attractiveness judgement) would exist in young Caucasian women, and whether the social comparison process, a potential mechanism underlying female body perception, differs according to the race of female body being assessed.
The second limiting factor is the viewing perspective. Previous body perception studies commonly use female body images in full frontal view. Naturalistic body perception, however, involves different viewing perspectives that can change the visibility of local body features and reveal the body shape in varying details (e.g. rear view would provide more accurate assessment about hip size than frontal view). As recent research has noticed that exploring the same face from different viewing angles could quantitatively influence facial expression judgement (e.g. perceived expression intensity) and gaze allocation at local facial features (Guo & Shaw, [@CR8]), it is plausible that varying viewpoints may modify gaze distribution in body viewing and subsequently influence body attractiveness and body size judgements.
Clearly, research on body perception using images of women of different racial groups in multiple viewing perspectives would have higher ecological validity. Hence, this eye-tracking study was designed to systematically address the identified research limitations in female body perception. To mimic real world situations, we presented high-resolution body images of well-controlled Caucasian, Asian and African avatars in a continuum of common dress sizes in full frontal, mid-profile and rear view, and asked young healthy Caucasian female viewers to rate the perceived body attractiveness and body size. Their gaze distributions in body viewing were then correlated with their behavioural ratings, their own body composition measurements (BMI, WHR and chest size) and regional body satisfaction ratings. Guided by previous findings, we hypothesised that (1) participants would attend to waist--hip and chest regions to assess body attractiveness and body size regardless of model race (Cundall & Guo, [@CR3]); (2) partipcants would show rating preference for Caucasian models due to in-group favouritism (Zebrowitz et al., [@CR33]); (3) body-viewing gaze allocation at a given body feature would vary across viewpoints, similar to those reported in face-viewing gaze behaviour (Guo & Shaw, [@CR8]); (4) participants' own body composition, regional body dissatisfaction and their tendency for social and body comparisons (measured via PACS) would increase their gaze allocation to the concerned body regions (Cundall & Guo, [@CR3]).
Materials and methods {#Sec2}
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Participants {#Sec3}
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Advertising through the university subject pool, 36 Caucasian female undergraduate students, aged between 19 and 23 years (20.14 ± 0.17, mean ± SEM), were recruited to participate in this study in return for course credit. All participants reported sexual orientation (31 heterosexual, 3 bisexual and 2 homosexual), no history of eating disorders and had normal or corrected-to-normal visual acuity. Prior to the study, the research purpose, experimental tasks and procedure had been explained to the participants, and written informed consent was obtained from each of them. The Ethical Committee in School of Psychology, University of Lincoln, approved this study (PSY171858), and all procedures complied with the British Psychological Society Code of Ethics and Conduct.
Body images {#Sec4}
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Full-colour high-resolution female body images dressed in plain black underwear (computer-generated avatars) were created via a free online virtual fitting room (<http://www.trymetail.com>). Measurements of typical UK dress sizes commonly found in high street stores (obtained from <http://www.asos.com>) were entered into the software to produce full body images depicting seven dress sizes ranging from UK6 to UK18 (size 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18; height and inner leg measurements were standardised at 165 and 74 cm, respectively; breast cup sizes ranged from AA to C and increased in parallel to dress size). To make the body images more representative of the general population, for each dress size, nine avatars were created to represent three different races (Caucasian, Asian and African) and three different cup sizes. Each avatar had similar age, the same hairstyle and similar facial expression with no distinctive facial or body markings. In total, 63 images (7 dress sizes × 3 races × 3 cup sizes) were created for the testing. Each image showed the same avatar from three different viewing perspectives: frontal view, 45° mid-profile view, and 135° rear-profile view (i.e. the three viewing perspectives were presented simultaneously; see Fig. [1](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"} for an example). The size of the images was set to 900 × 450 pixels (34.62° × 17.31°).
Fig. 1Body image example of a female Caucasian avatar in UK dress size 10
The digitized body images were presented through a ViSaGe graphics system (Cambridge Research Systems, UK) and displayed on a non-interlaced gamma-corrected colour monitor (30 cd/m^2^ background luminance, 100 Hz frame rate, Mitsubishi Diamond Pro2070SB) with the resolution of 1024 × 768 pixels. At a viewing distance of 57 cm, the monitor subtended a visual angle of 40° × 30°.
Procedure {#Sec5}
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During the eye-tracking experiment, the participants sat in a chair with their head restrained by a chin rest and viewed the display binocularly. Horizontal and vertical eye positions from the dominant eye (determined through the hole-in-card test) were measured using a pupil-centre/cornea-reflection Video Eyetracker Toolbox with 250 Hz sampling frequency and up to 0.25° accuracy (Cambridge Research Systems, UK). Eye movement signals were first calibrated by instructing the participant to follow a fixation point (FP, 0.3° diameter, 15 cd/m^2^ luminance) displayed randomly at one of nine positions (3 × 3 matrix) across the monitor (distance between adjacent FP positions was 10°).
After the calibration procedure, the participants pressed the response box to initiate a trial. The trial was started with an FP randomly displayed 10° left or right to the screen centre to minimize central fixation bias and possible spatial attention bias to the left visual field. If the participant maintained fixation for 1 s, the FP disappeared and a testing image was presented at the centre of the screen for 5 s. The participants were instructed to "rate body attractiveness and body size as accurately as possible", and verbally report the perceived body attractiveness rating on a 9-point scale (1 represents 'not attractive at all' and 9 represents 'extremely attractive') and body size rating on a scale ranging from UK size 6--18. During the testing no feedback was given, and each body image was displayed once in a random order.
Considering that own-body satisfaction measures might temporarily enhance own-body awareness and consequently affect body-viewing gaze behaviour, the body satisfaction measures were conducted after the eye-tracking task to avoid potential carryover effects. Participants were required to complete three questionnaires which included the following. (1) Body composition: participants' weight, height, waist and hip sizes were measured to calculate BMI (weight/height^2^) and WHR. Participants' actual bra size, actual UK dress size, ideal (self-preferred) bra size, ideal dress size and ideal waist and hip sizes were also recorded through self-report measures. (2) Body satisfaction: participants self-rated their satisfaction with each of six body regions (face, breasts, waist, hip, arms and legs) on a 9-point scale, 1 being the most dissatisfied and 9 being the most satisfied. (3) Physical Appearance Comparison Scale (PACS; Thompson, Heinberg, & Tantleff, [@CR27]): PACS is a five-item scale used to measure an individual's tendency to use social comparison to evaluate their own appearance. It includes items such as "In social situations, I sometimes compare my figure to the figures of other people" and responses range from never (1) to always (5).
Data analysis {#Sec6}
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All the collected data were analysed off-line. For eye movement data, the software developed in Matlab computed horizontal and vertical eye displacement signals as a function of time to determine eye velocity and position. Fixation locations were then extracted from raw eye-tracking data using velocity (less than 0.2° eye displacement at a velocity of less than 20°/s) and duration (greater than 50 ms) criteria (Guo, Mahmoodi, Robertson, &Young, [@CR7]). To determine gaze allocation within key body regions (Hall et al., [@CR10]; Cundall & Guo, [@CR3]), each body was divided into five regions of interest: face (including hair), upper body (from the base of the neck to the end of the rib cage), waist--hip region (including stomach, hips, and pubic region), arms (including hands) and legs (including feet). The viewing time allocated to each region was normalised in proportion to total viewing time sampled in that trial.
A series of repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVAs) was conducted to examine the effect of avatar race and dress size on participants' body attractiveness and body size judgements, and the effect of viewing perspective and avatar race on their body-viewing gaze allocation. For each ANOVA, Greenhouse--Geisser correction was applied where sphericity was violated, and a Bonferroni adjustment was made for post hoc multiple comparisons.
Results {#Sec7}
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Effect of avatar race and dress size on body attractiveness and body size judgements {#Sec8}
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Body attractiveness judgement: to explore to what extent body attractiveness judgements were affected by avatar race and dress size, a 3 (race) × 7 (dress size) ANOVA was conducted with attractiveness rating as the dependent variable. The analysis revealed significant main effect of avatar race (*F*(1.69, 59.13) = 17.22, *p* \< 0.001, $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\eta _{{\text{p}}}^{2}$$\end{document}$ = 0.33; Fig. [2](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}) with Caucasian receiving the highest attractiveness rating (Caucasian vs Asian, *p* \< 0.001; Caucasian vs African, *p* = 0.007) and Asian and African receiving indistinguishable ratings (*p* = 0.08), and significant main effect of dress size (*F*(1.95, 68.15) = 68.59, *p* \< 0.001, $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\eta _{{\text{p}}}^{2}$$\end{document}$ = 0.66) with size 8/10 and 18 rated as the most and least attractive, respectively, and larger sizes (14--18) rated less attractive than smaller sizes (6--12, all *p*s \< 0.05). The significant race × dress size interaction (*F*(5.35, 187.17) = 5.09, *p* \< 0.001, $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\eta _{{\text{p}}}^{2}$$\end{document}$ = 0.13) further demonstrated that the most attractive dress size was a size 8 or 10 for Caucasian (size 8: 7.29 ± 0.17, size 10: 7.31 ± 0.14, *p* = 1.00) and Asian avatars (size 8: 6.5 ± 0.17, size 10: 6.22 ± 0.14, *p* = 0.76), but a size 6 (6.6 ± 0.23), 8 (6.91 ± 0.22) or 10 (6.58 ± 0.21) for African avatars (size 6 vs size 8, *p* = 0.29; size 6 vs size 10, *p* = 1.00; size 8 vs size 10, *p* = 0.25), whereas the least attractive dress size was a size 18 for all avatar races (Caucasian 4.72 ± 0.24, Asian 4.13 ± 0.21, African 4.29 ± 0.24).
Fig. 2Attractiveness ratings for each avatar race in each dress size. Error bars represent SEM
Body size judgement: to explore whether body size judgements were affected by avatar race and dress size, a 3 (race) × 7 (dress size) ANOVA was conducted with body size estimation error for each dress size (reported size − actual dress size) as the dependent variable. The analysis revealed significant main effect of avatar race (*F*(2, 70) = 74.52, *p* \< 0.001, $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\eta _{{\text{p}}}^{2}$$\end{document}$ = 0.68; Fig. [3](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}) and dress size (*F*(3.45, 120.85) = 77.00, *p* \< 0.001, $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\eta _{{\text{p}}}^{2}$$\end{document}$ = 0.69), and significant interaction effect (*F*(7.62, 266.64) = 9.57, *p* \< 0.001, $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\eta _{{\text{p}}}^{2}$$\end{document}$ = 0.22). Generally, participants tended to overestimate for smaller dress sizes (6--12) and underestimate for larger dress sizes (14--18; all *p*s \< 0.05). The magnitudes of their estimation errors were systematically correlated with the changes of actual avatar dress size (from size 6 to 18, the mean estimation errors were 0.94 ± 0.13, 0.66 ± 0.15, 0.19 ± 0.16, 0.09 ± 0.16, − 0.69 ± 0.16, − 1.11 ± 0.13, and − 1.14 ± 0.14 respectively; *r* = − 0.98, *p* \< 0.001). Furthermore, the directions of these estimation errors (overestimation vs underestimation) were avatar race dependent, especially for sizes 10--14. For example, participants underestimated dress size if avatars were a Caucasian size 10 (− 0.23 ± 0.17) or 12 (− 0.69 ± 0.16), yet overestimated dress size if they were a size 10 or 12 Asian and African avatars; whereas for size 14, they would underestimate both Caucasian and Asian avatars. Analysis of linear regression further indicated that the averaged break points between overestimation and underestimation for Caucasian, Asian and African avatars were size 9.23, 11.07 and 13.53, respectively.
Fig. 3Mean body size estimation error between reported and actual size for each dress size and avatar race. Error bars represent SEM
Effect of viewing perspective and avatar race on body-viewing gaze allocation {#Sec9}
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To further examine how gaze allocation at each body region altered across viewing perspectives and avatar races, a 3 (viewing perspective) × 3 (race) × 5 (body region) ANOVA was conducted. The analysis revealed significant main effect of viewing perspective (*F*(1.23, 43.08) = 67.21, *p* \< 0.001, $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\eta _{{\text{p}}}^{2}$$\end{document}$ = 0.66; Fig. [4](#Fig4){ref-type="fig"}) with the frontal-view avatar attracting the largest amount of viewing time (44.47% ± 2.09), followed by the mid-profile view (31.54% ± 2.10) and then the rear-view avatar (10.75% ± 0.74) (frontal vs mid-profile view, *p* = 0.007; frontal vs rear view, *p* \< 0.001; frontal vs rear view, *p* \< 0.001), and significant main effect of body region (*F*(2.34, 81.73) = 49.97, *p* \< 0.001, $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\eta _{{\text{p}}}^{2}$$\end{document}$ = 0.59) with the upper-body region attracting the highest proportion of viewing time followed by the waist--hip region and the head, whereas both the legs and arms received the least but indistinguishable proportion of viewing time (upper-body vs other body regions, all *ps* \< 0.001; waist--hip vs head, *p* = 0.78; waist--hip or head vs other body regions, *p* \< 0.01; legs vs arms, *p* = 1.00; legs or arms vs other body regions, *p* \< 0.01). The significant viewing perspective × body region interaction (*F*(3.68, 128.87) = 17.99, *p* \< 0.001, $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\eta _{{\text{p}}}^{2}$$\end{document}$ = 0.34) further revealed that the upper body in the frontal view attracted the largest amount of viewing (20.25% ± 1.78) and the legs in the rear view attracted the least (0.75% ± 0.12). Furthermore, for bodies in both the frontal and mid-profile views, the upper body tended to receive the longest viewing, followed by the waist--hip and head, and then the legs and arms (upper body vs waist--hip/head vs legs/arms, all *p*s \< 0.05; waist--hip vs head, *p* \> 0.05; legs vs arms, *p* \> 0.05); whereas for bodies in the rear view, the upper-body and waist--hip tended to receive similar amount of viewing time (*p* \> 0.05) that was also longer than the head, arms and legs (upper body/waist--hip vs head/ arms/legs, all *p*s \< 0.05). Additionally, there was no significant race effect (*F*(2, 70) = 0.33, *p* = 0.72, $\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\eta _{{\text{p}}}^{2}$$\end{document}$ = 0.01) or other interaction effects, suggesting avatar race had no clear impact on the body-viewing gaze allocation.
Fig. 4Average proportion of viewing time directed at individual body regions in each avatar race presented at frontal, mid-profile and rear-profile view. Error bars represent SEM
Individual differences in body perception and associated body-viewing gaze behaviour {#Sec10}
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A series of correlational analysis were then performed to examine to what extent participants' own body composition (BMI, WHR and chest size) and their self-rated body satisfaction (body region satisfaction: face, chest, waist, hip, arms, legs and their body ideals) would affect their assessment of other female bodies (attractiveness rating and body size estimation) and associated gaze allocation at each local body region (proportion of viewing time at face, upper body, waist--hip, arms and legs) in each viewing perspective (frontal view, mid-profile view and rear view). As the avatar race did not show any impact on the body-viewing gaze behaviour, participants' gaze allocation at different avatar races was collapsed together for the correlational analysis.
### Objective measurements of own body composition {#Sec11}
Across our participants, their BMI ranged from 16.7 to 36.7 (23.64 ± 0.69), waist--hip ratio ranged from 0.68 to 1.04 (0.82 ± 0.01), and chest size ranged from cup size A to F with the average of a C cup. Pearson correlations did not reveal any significant association between own body composition (BMI, WHR and chest size) and body assessment of the others (body attractiveness ratings and body size estimations, all *p*s \> 0.05), but there was a significant positive correlation between BMI and PACS (*r* = 0.40, *p* = 0.02; Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}) and a significant negative correlation between WHR and PACS (*r* = − 0.34, *p* = 0.04), suggesting that a higher BMI results in more social comparisons, whereas a smaller WHR results in less comparisons being made. There were also significant negative correlations between BMI and own leg satisfaction scores (*r* = − 0.38, *p* = 0.02; Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}), between chest size and arms satisfaction scores (*r* = − 0.41, *p* = 0.01), and between chest size and leg satisfaction scores (*r* = − 0.43, *p* = 0.01), suggesting that a larger BMI and chest size tended to result in more dissatisfaction with own arms and legs. Furthermore, when considering their ideal body size (self-reported preferred chest size, waist and hip sizes), there were significant negative correlations between BMI or chest size and all ideal body size indicators (all *p*s \< 0.05; Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}), indicating a preference for a slim body for those with higher BMI and larger chest size. No significant correlation was found between WHR and ideal body size (all *p*s \> 0.05).
Table 1Correlation analysis between objective measurements of own body composition and subjective satisfaction of own body compositionMeasured BMIMeasured WHRMeasured chest sizePACS0.40 (0.02) \*− 0.34 (0.04) \*0.31 (0.06)Subjective satisfactionFace0.18 (0.29)− 0.07 (0.71)− 0.17 (0.32)Chest0.26 (0.13)0.17 (0.32)0.32 (0.06)Waist− 0.24 (0.17)− 0.31 (0.07)− 0.30 (0.07)Hips− 0.32 (0.06)− 0.08 (0.65)− 0.20 (0.26)Arms− 0.30 (0.07)− 0.10 (0.58)− 0.41 (0.01) \*Legs− 0.38 (0.02) \*0.26 (0.13)− 0.43 (0.01) \*Ideal sizeChest− 0.55 (0.01) \*\*0.15 (0.39)− 0.80 (0.01) \*\*Waist− 0.35 (0.03) \*0.06 (0.75)− 0.34 (0.04) \*Hips− 0.53 (0.01) \*\*− 0.01 (0.93)− 0.41 (0.01) \*Note: values in the table represent *r* value (*p* value). \**p* \< 0.05, \*\**p* \< 0.01
For the associated body-viewing gaze allocation, significant positive correlations were only found between participants' BMI and viewing time at the upper-body region in mid-profile view (*r* = 0.35, *p* = 0.04; Table [2](#Tab2){ref-type="table"}), and between WHR and viewing time at the upper-body region in mid-profile view (*r* = 0.4, *p* = 0.02). No other significant correlations were observed.
Table 2Correlation analysis between objective measurements of own body composition and viewing time directed at individual body regions at frontal, mid-profile and rear-profile viewsMeasured BMIMeasured WHRMeasured chest sizeFrontal Head− 0.24 (0.15)− 0.28 (0.10)− 0.08 (0.66) Upper body− 0.10 (0.56)− 0.01 (0.96)0.04 (0.81) Waist--hip− 0.07 (0.70)− 0.04 (0.82)0.17 (0.33) Arms0.10 (0.57)− 0.06 (0.73)− 0.05 (0.80) Legs− 0.02 (0.93)− 0.16 (0.34)0.06 (0.72)Mid-profile Head− 0.16 (0.34)− 0.23 (0.18)− 0.10 (0.57) Upper body0.35 (0.04)\*0.40 (0.02)\*0.04 (0.81) Waist--hip0.14 (0.41)0.15 (0.39)0.01 (0.94) Arms0.08 (0.66)0.13 (0.46)0.03 (0.88) Legs− 0.06 (0.73)− 0.06 (0.74)0.07 (0.69)Rear profile Head− 0.22 (0.20)− 0.16 (0.34)− 0.16 (0.36) Upper body− 0.07 (0.70)0.28 (0.10)− 0.17 (0.33) Waist--hip− 0.16 (0.37)0.29 (0.09)− 0.15 (0.37) Arms− 0.20 (0.26)− 0.03 (0.87)− 0.14 (0.41) Legs− 0.06 (0.75)− 0.11 (0.52)− 0.01 (0.94)Values in the table represent *r* values (*p* value). \**p* \< 0.05, \*\**p* \< 0.01
### Subjective satisfaction of own body composition {#Sec12}
The participants had an average PACS score of 26.72 ± 1.55 (ranging from 8 to 44) and overall body satisfaction score (across all body regions) of 5.51 ± 0.73. They were most satisfied with their waist (5.89 ± 0.28), followed by face (5.83 ± 0.27), chest (5.64 ± 0.31), legs (5.31 ± 0.31), hips (5.25 ± 0.33) and then arms (5.14 ± 0.29). There was no significant association between PACS or overall own body satisfaction score and body assessment of the others (body attractiveness ratings and body size estimations, all *ps* \> 0.05), but there was a significant negative correlation between overall body satisfaction and PACS (*r* = − 0.36, *p* = 0.03), indicating those scoring lower in body satisfaction tended to undertake more frequent appearance comparisons.
For the body-viewing gaze allocation, significant negative correlations were found between PACS and viewing time at the waist--hip region in the rear-view image (*r* = − 0.44, *p* \< 0.01; Table [3](#Tab3){ref-type="table"}), and between own leg satisfaction scores and viewing time at the leg region in the frontal-view image (*r* = − 0.45, *p* \< 0.01). Furthermore, positive correlations were found between own arm satisfaction and viewing times at the face region in both the frontal-view (*r* = 0.47, *p* \< 0.01) and mid-profile view images (*r* = 0.51, *p* \< 0.01). No other significant correlations were observed.
Table 3Correlation analysis between subjective satisfaction of own body composition and viewing time directed at individual body regions at frontal, mid-profile and rear-profile viewsPACSFaceChestWaistHipsArmsLegsFrontal Head− 0.30 (0.08)0.07 (0.69)− 0.25 (0.15)0.21 (0.22)0.17 (0.32)0.47 (0.01) \*\*0.19 (0.27) Upper body0.28 (0.10)− 0.18 (0.30)0.05 (0.76)0.07 (0.67)− 0.21 (0.22)− 0.22 (0.19)− 0.10 (0.57) Waist--hip− 0.14 (0.41)− 0.22 (0.20)0.09 (0.59)− 0.27 (0.11)− 0.01 (0.99)− 0.02 (0.91)− 0.25 (0.14) Arms0.10 (0.56)0.06 (0.74)0.01 (0.94)0.10 (0.57)0.06 (0.73)0.07 (0.61)− 0.17 (0.31) Legs0.16 (0.35)0.08 (0.65)0.06 (0.71)0.04 (0.82)0.15 (0.39)− 0.12 (0.47)− 0.45 (0.01)\*\*Mid-profile Head− 0.29 (0.08)0.01 (0.99)− 0.15 (0.38)0.11 (0.51)0.12 (0.49)0.51 (0.01)\*\*0.17 (0.33) Upper body0.12 (0.49)0.13 (0.45)0.09 (0.59)− 0.08 (0.64)− 0.19 (0.27)− 0.22 (0.20)0.24 (0.16) Waist--hip0.12 (0.48)0.31 (0.68)0.02 (0.93)− 0.01 (0.98)0.16 (0.37)− 0.21 (0.21)0.03 (0.86) Arms− 0.02 (0.92)− 0.01 (0.99)0.15 (0.39)− 0.02 (0.89)− 0.02 (0.93)− 0.06 (0.75)0.05 (0.75) Legs0.04 (0.83)0.27 (0.11)− 0.03 (0.85)0.29 (0.08)0.03 (0.88)0.03 (0.88)− 0.28 (0.10)Rear-profile Head− 0.08 (0.64)− 0.04 (0.82)− 0.11 (0.53)0.03 (0.86)0.10 (0.55)0.32 (0.06)0.15 (0.40) Upper body− 0.04 (0.83)− 0.14 (0.40)0.17 (0.33)− 0.04 (0.84)− 0.24 (0.15)0.08 (0.65)0.10 (0.55) Waist--hip− 0.44 (0.01)\*\*0.05 (0.77)− 0.11 (0.52)0.06 (0.71)0.22 (0.19)0.16 (0.36)0.09 (0.62) Arms0.09 (0.62)− 0.14 (0.43)0.24 (0.15)0.14 (0.42)− 0.21 (0.22)− 0.16 (0.34)0.15 (0.39) Legs− 0.09 (0.59)0.04 (0.83)0.05 (0.76)0.19 (0.28)0.06 (0.72)0.06 (0.72)− 0.24 (0.16)Values in the table represent *r* value (*p* value)\**p* \< 0.05, \*\**p* \< 0.01
Discussion {#Sec13}
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This study aimed to extend previous research on female body perception by specifically examining how the model race and viewing perspective could affect body attractiveness and body size judgements, and associated body-viewing gaze behaviour. Additionally, the effect of individual differences (relating to the measurements of own body composition, body satisfaction and frequency of social comparison) on this body perception process was considered.
Our analysis showed that the avatar race had an evident impact on the body attractiveness and body size judgements. Overall, Caucasian avatars were rated as more attractive (except for size 6) and slimmer (except for size 6 and 8) than Asian and African avatars, suggesting that an in-group favouritism (Zebrowitz et al., [@CR33]) may have caused the preference of familiar, own racial group avatars by our Caucasian participants. The effect of in-group favouritism (e.g. own-race advantages) has also been reported in face identity (Walker & Tanaka, [@CR31]) and facial expression recognition (Elfenbein & Ambady, [@CR4], [@CR5]), in which human recognition performance is biased (with increased recognition accuracy and shortened reaction time) towards their own as opposed to another race's faces. Our Caucasian participants, however, did not make more accurate body size judgements for Caucasian avatars than for Asian or African avatars. Perhaps, different cognitive processes are needed for in-group favouritism in face recognition (i.e. categorical judgement) and body perception (i.e. quantity judgement). Nevertheless, our observation in this study implies the possible existence of a template of attractiveness that, for Caucasians, does not match up with the body structure and composition that occur in individuals of Asian and African origin. It should be noted though that the within-subject research design in this study might not fully reveal the magnitude of in-group favouritism in body perception, as our participants might be aware of the social desirability of their responses given the sensitivity of race-related issues in our society. This might have subsequently affected their ratings of body attractiveness and size. It would be interesting to revisit this research question with a between-subject research design.
Irrespective of avatar races, bodies in larger dress sizes (UK 14--18) were consistently rated less attractive than those in smaller ones (UK 6--12), with size 8/10 and 18 being rated as the most and least attractive, respectively. This observation was in agreement with previous research using body images of Caucasian models (Cundall & Guo, [@CR3]). Clearly, although there are anatomical and preferential differences in body shape and composition cross-culturally (such as preferred WHR; Sugiyama, [@CR25]; Tovée et al., [@CR28]), young Caucasian women showed an overall preference for slimmer body size in all tested races, perhaps as a result of thinner female bodies being portrayed as the ideal body shape (particularly) within media platforms (Jiang & Vartanian, [@CR15]). From this perspective, female representation of body attractiveness has an evolutionary foundation, which is arguably reinforced through societal influences.
Interestingly, when judging body size, participants consistently overestimated the smaller dress sizes (UK6, 8), whilst the larger sizes (UK16, 18) were underestimated. This might be partly caused by the participants' desire of conforming to social etiquette, in which it is inappropriate to call someone skinny or fat (Swami et al., [@CR26]). The cognitive bias in quantative judgements (Hastie & Dawes, 2001), such as an tendency to shift towards the middle of the scale when there is uncertainty in magnitude judgments, might be another contributing factor. It is also possible for the purpose of self-protection, as estimating body sizes closer to own body size would potentially protect self-esteem. In contrast, body size estimations were most accurate for size 10 and 12 avatars, as these sizes are likely to elicit less self-concern about own body size which resulted in more accurate judgements.
Regarding the associated body-viewing gaze behaviour, the avatar race showed no impact on our participants' body-viewing gaze distribution, indicating their preference for Caucasian avatars was not reflected on the cognitive processing stage of body information selection and extraction. In other words, irrespective of avatar races, the same bodily cues were sampled and analyzed by our participants for assessing body attractiveness and body size. The viewing perspectives, on the other hand, could modify the amount of time directed at the whole body. Across different viewpoints, the frontal-view body tended to attract the highest proportion of viewing time, followed by the mid-profile view and then the rear-view body. It seems that the frontal and mid-profile views are more informative for judging female body shape.
Interestingly, although the viewing time allocated at a given body feature (e.g. waist--hip) was quantitatively different across viewpoints, the overall pattern of gaze distribution at different local body features (e.g. head, upper body, waist--hip, legs and arms) was qualitatively similar across viewpoints (Fig. [4](#Fig4){ref-type="fig"}). In particular for both the frontal and mid-profile views, the upper-body region attracted the largest proportion of viewing time, followed by the waist--hip region then the heads, and finally the legs and arms. These findings are consistent with previous observation that both the upper-body and waist--hip regions provide diagnostic cues in assessing sexual maturity, body attractiveness and body size (Cornelissen et al., [@CR2]; Lykins, Ferris, & Graham, [@CR16]; Garza, Heredia, & Cieslicka, [@CR6]).
A reverse pattern of gaze distribution, in which the waist--hip attracted the largest proportion of viewing time followed by the upper body, was observed when the avatars were dressed in full clothes (rather than dressed in underwear in this study) and consequently visual cues from the upper body (e.g. chest size) became more ambiguous (Cundall & Guo, [@CR3]). This would imply that only body features containing clear diagnostic information are likely to receive detailed visual inspection in body viewing and explains why the avatars in this study, who were dressed in underwear, received a large amount of gaze at the upper-body region.
The least amount of visual inspection was directed at the legs and arms, respectively, due to the limited amount of information they provide on body attractiveness and body size perception. In the context of mate selection theory (Buss, [@CR1]), these body features receive little attention from men when looking for a mate (Hall et al., [@CR10]) and thus receive little attention from women when assessing competition and individual mate value.
Regarding individual differences in female body perception, our participants' own body composition measurements (e.g. BMI, WHR, chest size) and satisfaction level did not affect their judgement of other women's body attractiveness and body size, but could influence their gaze allocation at local body features. Specifically, individuals with higher BMI and WHR tended to look more at the upper-body region in mid-profile view. As chest is more visible in mid-profile view and consequently its shape and size can be more accurately judged, longer gaze allocation at this region could be for comparative purpose. For example, mate selection theory would suggest that BMI and WHR impact women's own attractiveness level or 'market' value, and the female chest region is indicative of attractiveness (Singh & Young, [@CR23]; Cornelissen et al., [@CR2]). Therefore, women with a larger BMI and WHR (hence with less attractiveness level) view this body region longer as they have a greater need to evaluate other women's 'market' value. Indeed, within our participant group, those with higher BMI and WHR were also more likely to engage in social comparison with other women (indicated by higher PACS scores), possibly due to their dissimilar to the idealised slender frame which is glamorised in Western societies (Smolak & Murnen, [@CR24]). Alternatively, this region attracted more visual attention due to it being less changeable than BMI and WHR. Therefore, gaze allocation was diverted to this neighbouring region (relative to waist--hip) for self-protection purposes (Cundall & Guo, [@CR3]).
Additionally, those individuals scoring higher in PACS attended less often at the waist--hip region in the rear-view bodies, further indicating that the rear view was probably less informative for female body assessment and social comparison than the frontal and mid-profile views. Among self-rated own body feature satisfaction scores, only leg satisfaction score was negatively correlated with viewing at the leg region in the frontal-view bodies, suggesting those participants with high leg satisfaction allocated gaze at alternative body regions. Unlike previous research (e.g. Jansen et al., [@CR14]; Cundall & Guo, [@CR3]), this less frequent own body satisfaction-related gaze comparison or avoidant behaviour (i.e. women look more or less at the body regions rated low in own-body satisfaction) observed in this study may be (at least partly) explained by the clothing effect. Our avatars were dressed in underwear, hence containing little ambiguous information regarding body composition (e.g. waist--hip size) and reducing prolonged viewing and analysis of local bodily cues.
In conclusion, this study has enriched the current research literature by demonstrating an in-group favouritism in body perception, in which body attractiveness and body size judgements are influenced by the viewed body race. The body-viewing gaze allocation, on the other hand, is not affected by the body race but can be modulated by the viewing perspectives. Furthermore, the participants' own body composition and satisfaction level could influence their gaze allocation at local body features in body viewing. Taken together, it seems that both body perception and body-viewing gaze behaviour are subject to group and individual biases.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Central
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Introduction {#sec1-1}
============
The prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) has steadily increased over the last few decades.\[[@ref1][@ref2]\] Multiple factors including improvements in life expectancy and increasing prevalence of comorbid conditions such as hypertension and diabetes have contributed to this rise. CKD has impacts the health-related quality of life (HRQoL). There is minimal literature on HRQoL in CKD patients from low and middle-income countries, including India.\[[@ref3][@ref4][@ref5][@ref6][@ref7][@ref8][@ref9][@ref10][@ref11][@ref12][@ref13]\] A few issues unique to the developing world which could potentially affect the HRQoL include age, economic status, literacy level, loss of employment, and gender bias. Apart from the disease and its complications, socioeconomic and cultural environment of the patients also play a major role in determining HRQoL. HRQoL is a neglected aspect of CKD care, as the available resources will be often diverted to address the general medical needs. Measurements of HRQoL would aid the physician to have a better understanding of the disease from patient\'s perspective and would aid in optimal supportive care. There is only limited data on HRQoL in CKD from Indian subcontinent.\[[@ref4][@ref5][@ref6][@ref9][@ref10][@ref11][@ref12][@ref13]\] Most of the Indian studies are limited to patients having advanced CKD or end stage renal disease (ESRD). Considering the social and cultural diversity in India, there can be significant differences in HRQoL and its determinants across the country. The current study intends to assess the HRQoL and its determinants in CKD 3 to 5D using a kidney disease-specific tool (Kidney Disease Quality of Life (\[KDQOL\]-SF™).
Materials and Methods {#sec1-2}
=====================
This study was done in a tertiary referral center in South India, which predominantly caters to patients from socially and economically backward areas. The study included adult patients with CKD stage 3 to 5D. Patients with CKD 5D required more than 3 months dialysis vintage for recruitment. All patients attending nephrology outpatient and dialysis clinics were given consecutive numbers and entered in a register. A systematic random sampling was employed to select the study participants. Patients with a history of kidney transplantation, pregnancy, receiving immunosuppression, malignancy, psychiatric illness, and significant impairment of hearing, speech, or cognitive disturbances were excluded. The Institute Ethics Committee approved the study protocol. The study was conducted from January to May 2015.
HRQoL was assessed with KDQOL-SF™, v. 1.3 Questionnaire from RAND Corporation (refer website: <http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/www/external/health/surveys_tools/kdqol/kdqol13.pdf>). It is a validated quality of life instrument that combines the generic SF-36 instrument with a kidney disease-specific instrument. The English questionnaire has been validated in Indian population.\[[@ref9]\] Validation studies have been undertaken in Indian languages including Kannada, Marathi, and Hindi.\[[@ref10][@ref11][@ref12]\] A study with a translated Tamil version has also been published.\[[@ref13]\]
The SF 36 assess the HRQoL in eight domains (physical functioning, role limitations caused by physical problems, role limitations caused by emotional problems, pain, general health, energy/fatigue, emotional well-being, and social function). Results from SF 36 are further summarized into a physical composite summary (PCS) and a mental composite summary (MCS) score.
The kidney disease-specific instrument assesses the burden of kidney disease in eleven domains (symptoms/problems of kidney disease, burden of kidney disease, effects of kidney disease, work status, cognitive function, quality of social interaction, sexual function, sleep, social support, patient satisfaction, and dialysis staff encouragement). Each domain is scored on a 100-point scale, with higher scores representing better QoL. The individual scores can be averaged to a kidney disease component summary score (KDCS).\[[@ref14]\] The tool had already been used in predialysis patients after excluding the dialysis-specific component (dialysis staff encouragement and patient satisfaction).
The questionnaire was translated to local language according to the instructions given by RAND corporation. The translation was done by professional translators. A pilot testing with 10 patients was undertaken to assess the cultural suitability, and the inputs were used for formulating the final version. The first author was trained for administering the questionnaire. Even though KDQOL-SF™ is a self-reported questionnaire, considering the high proportion of illiterate participants, the first author administered the questionnaire by an interview to all the study participants.
Statistical methods {#sec2-1}
-------------------
All categorical variables were expressed as frequencies and percentages, and continuous variables were expressed as mean with standard deviation or median with range. Student\'s *t*-test was used to compare the scores between hemodialysis (HD) and CAPD. ANOVA was used to compare the scores between the different stages of CKD from 3 to 5D. Student\'s *t*-test was also used to identify the significant changes in the KDCS, PCS, and MCS scores between categorical variables. A multiple linear regression analysis was done to identify the predictors of KDCS, PCS, and MCS. *P* \< 0.05 was considered significant. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 19 (IBM Corporation; Armonk, NY, US).
Results {#sec1-3}
=======
Two hundred and four patients were randomly selected from the nephrology outpatient clinic during the study period. The dialysis-specific component was excluded as predialysis patients were also included in the study. The sexual function component was also excluded from final analysis because of poor response from the participants.
The mean age of the study population was 49.14 ± 13.63 years. About 68% of participants were males. About 90% of the study population were hailing from rural areas. The etiology of CKD is given in [Figure 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}. The most common etiology was CKD of unidentified etiology (CKD u). The baseline demographic and clinical characteristics are shown in [Table 1](#T1){ref-type="table"}. There was a high proportion of loss of employment resulting from disease. Prior to the diagnosis of kidney disease, 85.3% (*n* = 174; 134 males and 40 females) were employed; but only 19.1% were employed at the time of enrollment to the study.
{#F1}
######
Baseline demographic and clinical characteristics of study population
Measurements of HRQoL with the summary scores of the entire study population and across different categories of CKD are shown in [Table 2](#T2){ref-type="table"}. A significant decline was noticed in 5/8 kidney disease-specific domains from CKD 3 to 5D. The domains under SF 36 also showed decreasing scores, but only energy/fatigue and social function showed a significant difference with increasing severity of CKD. There was no difference in the composite scores between patients on hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis \[[Table 3](#T3){ref-type="table"}\]. HD patients had lower scores for general health, emotional status, and disease burden.
######
Health-related quality of life in the study population
######
Health-related quality of life in hemodialysis versus continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis
Effect of selected clinical and social parameters on kidney disease component summary, physical composite summary, and mental composite summary scores {#sec2-2}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The impact of selected social and clinical parameters (age, gender, occupation, literacy rate, marital status, hemoglobin, albumin, phosphorus, and parathyroid hormone) on the composite scores is given in [Table 4](#T4){ref-type="table"}. Illiterate and unemployed persons had significantly lower KDCS, PCS, and MCS scores whereas gender and marital status had no impact. Female gender was associated with lower scores in only two individual domains -- burden of kidney disease (33.27 ± 22.26 vs 39.83 ± 21.56.; *P* = 0.046) and physical function (43.08 ± 22. 87 vs. 51.83 ± 26.19; *P* = 0.02). The presence of comorbidities such as diabetes and hypertension had no impact on the composite scores. On multiple linear regression analysis, the predictors of KDCS were unemployment (*P* \< 0.001) and illiteracy (*P* = 0.03). Unemployment (*P* \< 0.001) and age (*P* \< 0.001) were predictors of PCS whereas literacy level (*P* \< 0.001) was predictive of MCS \[[Table 5](#T5){ref-type="table"}\]. Age was analyzed as a continuous variable whereas others were categorical.
######
Impact on social and clinical parameters on kidney disease component score, physical composite summary, and mental composite summary scores
######
Results of multiple linear regression analysis
Discussion {#sec1-4}
==========
There is only limited information on HRQoL in Indian patients with CKD; most of the data is restricted to patients with ESRD. This study attempted to find out the quality of life and the determinants across CKD 3 to 5D in an underprivileged, predominantly rural population with high rates of illiteracy and unemployment.
The etiologic spectrum of CKD in the current study is different, with more than half of the population having CKD u. A high prevalence of CKD u varying from 57.4% to 66.7% has been reported in predominantly agricultural communities from various countries including India, Srilanka, Egypt, and Central America.\[[@ref15]\] The proportion of CKD u in the current study stands much higher than what is reported from the CKD registry of India.\[[@ref16]\]
The mean age of the study population is similar to previous studies from India.\[[@ref2][@ref4][@ref5][@ref6]\] We observed a significant decline in KDCS with increasing severity of CKD. Among individual domains, work status scores were affected to a greater degree. Eighty five percent of the study population had prior employment, but at the time of recruitment, only one-fifth were employed. This might be secondary to the fact that majority of the patients (65%) were daily laborers involved in agricultural/construction activities that require hard physical labor. The physical effects of kidney disease might negatively affect performance at work, which eventually leads to loss of employment.
There is only limited information on HRQoL and its determinants in predialysis patients. There is conflicting data on the effect of decreasing renal function on KDCS, PCS, and MCS assessed by KDQOL. We observed that KDCS declined with worsening renal function whereas the PCS and MCS showed a nonsignificant declining trend. A study from North America reported a contrasting picture with all three composite scores showing a progressive decline with advancing kidney disease.\[[@ref8]\] On the other hand, a Canadian study reported no differences in HRQoL between predialysis and ESRD patients, but they excluded patients with early CKD.\[[@ref17]\] The same study reported that existential well-being showed a moderate association with HRQOL.\[[@ref17]\] A German study reported no significant differences in MCS across the entire spectrum of CKD.\[[@ref18]\] A study from Brazil reported findings similar to our study. Even though CKD patients had lower KDCS, MCS, and PCS when compared to the general population, the values did not vary between the different stages of CKD\[[@ref19]\]. Literature from India using KDQOL is limited to patients with ESRD. The nonsignificant trends in PCS and MCS could result from the comparatively younger age of study population where the tolerance to nonspecific factors might be higher. As the general living standards are poor, the focus might be entirely on the effects of disease *per se* which would account for the decline in KDCS with progressive disease. The MCS was higher when compared to PCS, reflecting the psychologic adaptation to chronic illness. MCS and PCS could be affected by multiple factors other than the medical disease. Apart from the physical, clinical, and functional parameters, factors such as the sociocultural environment, economic status, emotional status, accessibility to medical care, and spiritual attitudes possibly play a significant role in an individual\'s perception of life and disease.\[[@ref17][@ref18][@ref19][@ref20]\] These parameters could not be assessed with the current tool for HRQOL.
There was no difference in the KDCS, PCS, or MCS between patients on CAPD and HD. Even though the composite scores were comparable, HD patients had more burden of disease, poor general health, and lower emotional well-being. The impact of dialysis modality on HRQoL is inconclusive. As CAPD is associated with better patient autonomy, it would provide better emotional well-being. Frequent hospital visits and cannulations, complications associated with dialysis, and empiric dialysis prescriptions might account for the higher disease burden and poor emotional status in HD patients. An Indian study reported better physical and emotional well-being for patients on CAPD.\[[@ref21]\] The comparatively lesser number of CAPD patients in the current study would have affected the results.
We tried to analyze the impact of selected demographic and clinical variables on KDCS, PCS, and MCS. We observed that socioeconomic factors had a greater impact on HRQoL than the clinical variables. Unemployment and illiteracy were associated with significantly poor KDCS, MCS, and PCS. A similar observation was made by Cruz *et al*. in a CKD cohort that had a similar etiologic profile and socioeconomic status as in the current study.\[[@ref19]\]
Increasing age, presence of comorbidities, and lower levels of hemoglobin have been reported to be associated with poor PCS and KDCS scores.\[[@ref4][@ref12][@ref14][@ref16][@ref22][@ref23]\] We found that lower hemoglobin levels were associated with poor KDCS and PCS whereas older age was associated with poor PCS. The presence of comorbidities had no impact on HRQoL. The relatively younger age and comparatively lesser proportion of patients with comorbid conditions such as diabetes and coronary artery disease would account for this finding. Even though hypertension was present in three-fourth of the study population, it could be easily controlled with drugs. We did not attempt to assess the impact of income on HRQoL as the per capita income was much lower compared to the national average. We did not try to analyze the effect of alcoholism and smoking on HRQoL. Majority of patients were male and they had quit smoking and drinking by the time they were diagnosed to have CKD.
Female gender is considered to be associated with poor HRQOL.\[[@ref4][@ref8][@ref17][@ref18][@ref24]\] We did not find a significant difference in the composite scores stratified by gender. This finding is rather surprising considering the fact that the study was conducted in a rural population where gender inequality is rampant. Females had inferior scores in individual domains with significantly lower scores in disease burden, cognitive function, and physical function. In the current study, males outnumbered females and the sample size might not be sufficient enough to detect a significant difference.
In our study, socioeconomic parameters emerged as a major determinant of HRQOL. Apart from anemia, other disease-related comorbidities had no major impact on QOL. Understanding the social and cultural environment of the patient is absolutely essential for optimal health care delivery. Patients with chronic medical illness need a holistic approach with a thorough understanding of the individual\'s perception to the disease. The policy makers should focus on measures such as education, social security, and vocational rehabilitation.
The results of the current study should be interpreted with the following limitations. Even though we could identify an association between certain parameters and HRQoL, a causal relationship could not be ascertained due to the observational nature of the study. Further longitudinal studies are required to determine a causal relationship. The impact of parameters such as gender and dialysis modality could not be determined correctly because of the relatively small numbers of participants. Dialysis prescription was empirical, and adequacy was not measured. There might be residual confounding factors such as accessibility to health care, pill burden, compliance with therapy, capacity to cope with stress, malnutrition, social, cultural, and religious practices which could affect HRQoL, for which data were not collected.
Conclusion {#sec1-5}
==========
The results of the current study indicates that HRQoL declines with advanced stages of CKD. The kidney disease-specific domains are affected to a greater extent. Socioeconomic parameters have a major impact on HRQoL in underprivileged populations. Steps such as anemia correction and patient-centered health education could potentially improve the quality of life. Employment loss resulting from disease could be tackled by strengthening the social security measures and job retraining to suit the physical effects of the disease. Understanding the sociocultural environment of the patient is extremely important for effective health care delivery. A better understanding of HRQoL and its determinants would help to formulate individualized treatment strategies.
Financial support and sponsorship {#sec2-3}
---------------------------------
Nil.
Conflicts of interest {#sec2-4}
---------------------
There are no conflicts of interest.
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tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small
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PubMed Central
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