Julius Ceasar Expository Essay

-intoduction Brutus and Cassius, is there a diffrence, or are they the same? In the drama Julius Caesar, Caesar is the ruler of Rome. A lot of the Romans do not like Caesar, but they respect him as ruler, except for a a hand full who are planning to kill Caesar. This group of people are called the conspirasors -Comparison Both Brutus and Cassius greatly love Rome and care deeply for the Republic.Cassius`s love of Rome stems more from a love of what his country has to offer him personally, but he is deeply patriotic and genuinely upset that â€Å"these wide walls encompass but one man. † After all, Cassius is describes as Titinius as â€Å"the last of all the Romans. † Both Brutus and Cassius, alternate between a belief in fate and a conviction that they possess free will. Cassius says â€Å"the fault†¦ lies not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings. † Later, however, he rejects this claim saying that he no longer â€Å"holds Epicurus strong. Brutus says â€Å"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to victory,† but his encounter with Caesar's ghost makes him doubt this belief. -Differences Brutus is actually friends with Caesar and highly respects him and what he does. Brutus is honorable and is pretty much friends with everyone. Cassius is good at manipulating people, and he is not fond of Caesar. He does not want Caesar to have all the power that he has now. He will do whatever he has to in order to make Caesar to stand down.

The teaching assistants role in developing childrens learning

The function of the Teaching Assistant has changed significantly in recent old ages ( Cheminais, 2008 ) and has, due to the authoritiess 2003 enterprise to alter the staffing construction within schools ( OfSTED. , 2004 ) , led to legion publications and surveies refering the effectivity of these alterations. Historically, learning helpers, or aides as they were sometimes once known, ( Clayton, 1993 ) were non learning grownups who helped qualified instructors by transporting out twenty-four hours to twenty-four hours administrative undertakings, and provided pastoral attention to kids. Several old ages subsequently the Government ( LGC. , 1998 ) outlined proposals for using a greater figure of support staff in order to supply even more support for students and instructors. They besides announced suggestions for a â€Å" more effectual usage of, and better preparation for, learning helpers and other school support staff † which, along with a subsequent OfSTED reappraisal, ( 2002a, p6 ) declared the demand for preparation that would, â€Å" fit any proposed construction of makings and to ease calling patterned advance. † The execution of national occupational criterions for learning helpers, approved in 2001, and the HLTA position introduced in 2003, ( TDA. , 2008 ) , offered committed support staff the chance to get the accomplishments to go more complete pedagogues. In other words, working as a instruction helper had become a calling, and so began the existent argument about the function of the instruction helper. In my experience, the rubric of ‘teaching helper ‘ is interpreted in a assortment of ways. Nevertheless, a common subject that I have encountered is that most learning helpers have the possible to be effectual pedagogues and are hence of import elements in the development of independent larning. How good this potency is utilized, nevertheless, is less clear and depends on the employer ‘s reading of the function along with appropriate preparation and development chances ( Department for Education and Skills, 2000, pp15-16 ) . In order to develop acquisition, learning helpers ought to hold a good apprehension of how kids learn. Piaget ( Slavin, 1994a ) , described the procedure as the creative activity of new thoughts by accommodating those already known. This was followed by Vygotsky ‘s claims ( Slavin, 1994b, p49 ) that kids move between zones when larning. He describes this as them traveling out of their comfort zone and towards their possible via their â€Å" zone of proximal development † through the usage of societal interaction. In order to incite this patterned advance, grownups need to supply chances for treatment and geographic expedition between kids and themselves. This besides has the possible to enable kids to detect and research linguistic communication, besides critical to a kid ‘s advancement ( Bruner, 1983, pp 64-66 ) . A instruction helper must be cognizant of the student ‘s current degree of apprehension and so cognize how to â€Å" scaffold † new larning . They must besides cognize when to retreat support to enable the kid to construct on, win and be responsible for their ain advancement. Furthermore, with current category sizes in the part of up to 30 students, a category instructor may be unable to offer such an single attack to turn toing the theories of the philosophers, and so it could be considered the function of the skilled instruction helper to make this. During my recent study of loath readers, carried out as a preliminary to the debut of an enterprise to advance reading, I discovered that the students had formulated an sentiment that reading was a job to be undertaken with animus and merely when instructed to make so. It became evident that these kids had encountered a assortment of barriers that had influenced their attitude and ability to read [ See Appendix A ] . Many of these barriers are authoritative illustrations of Erikson ‘s â€Å" Industry versus Inferiority Crisis † ( Slavin, 1994c, p56 ) , whereby outside influences have contributed towards a student organizing a negative ego image of themselves as readers. In order to get the better of this, the students needed the support of an â€Å" enabling grownup † as described by Chambers ( 1991 ) . This provided them with a function theoretical account, a positive attitude towards reading and an chance to portion and discourse reading experiences. This inspir ed in them a new willingness and enjoyment of reading, the result of which became evident in their apprehension of written text. The kids besides began composing with enthusiasm, utilizing their ain cognition and experiences ; as a consequence, they had taken control of their ain acquisition. The kids ‘s responses to the inaugural [ See Appendix B ] , demonstrated that they felt empowered by the fact that they were detecting new linguistic communication for themselves ( Gross, 1992a ) and were straight responsible for the advancement that they were doing. These rules apply to all kids, although some kids with SEN necessitate a higher degree of support traditionally provided by learning helpers ( Alborz et al, 2009 ) . This has antecedently been an country for argument with The Daily Telegraph ( 2009 ) printing an article claiming that research shows that, â€Å" Students make less advancement in schoolrooms where schools employ more teaching helpers † . The article states that learning helpers frequently support lower attaining students, ensuing in them being less supported by a qualified instructor and to them doing limited advancement, although it does non look to take into history the preparation of the instruction helpers. While reexamining the impact of work force remodeling, a study by OfSTED ( 2004 ) stated that when a instruction helper is appointed to work with carefully chosen students and is provided with the appropriate preparation to make so efficaciously, the students make important advancement. This is every bit good as the obvious benefits of supplying the instructor with more clip to concentrate on other students. In a recent observation of a twelvemonth 5 category, it was obvious that the usage of a instruction helper to supply kids with linguistic communication troubles with individualized, single aid benefited the targeted students and the category as a whole. The support enabled the kids to entree the course of study in a mainstream schoolroom while leting the category instructor to concentrate on the bulk of the students. The instruction helper ‘s intercession involved the re-enforcing of the whole category instruction, simplification of vocabulary and offering congratulations, encouragement and feedback on the undertaking. The support gave the students the assurance to take part in category treatments and enabled them to see new linguistic communication in context ; a critical facet of developing new constructs ( Gross, 1992b ) . Following the lesson, the instruction helper besides provided the instructor with appraisal and monitoring feedback to enable appraisal of and for larning . This appraisal has become a important portion of the function of the instruction helper and supports the instructor and student by enabling distinction and personalised larning to go every twenty-four hours pattern ( Kay, 2005 ) . Guidance published by the NFER ( 2002, cited in Department for Education and Skills, 2005, p.22 ) found that when instructors and learning helpers work in partnership, the consequences are a more effectual degree of learning and larning. An illustration of this is a scenario I have experienced late where a skilled instruction helper supported the acquisition of the bulk of the category while the category instructor focused on the kids with SEN. As a consequence of the instructor and instruction helper holding spent clip working together to be after the lesson, the instruction helper was able to help students in their accomplishment of the acquisition aims. By implementing a combination of all of these attacks and with effectual preparation and counsel, learning helpers can supply priceless support for all kids within any lesson. Supporting behaviour direction and supplying an alternate degree of perceptual experience within the schoolroom are besides cardinal facets of being an effectual instruction helper. In day-to-day Literacy lessons, I have observed a instruction helper back uping a student with ADHD and have no uncertainty that without her presence, the category instructor would hold to pass a big proportion of the lesson settling the kid and turn toing low degree distractions. Personal experience has shown me that kids with emotional or behavioral troubles respond positively to the support of a instruction helper with whom they can hammer a good grownup / kid relationship. This can lend towards the societal and emotional well-being of the kid as outlined in a reappraisal by Alborz et Al. ( 2009 ) ; nevertheless he besides found that this type of intercession does hold the possible to make a barrier between the supported kids, their equals and instructors. The instruction helper ‘s must, hence, h ave a good apprehension of the students demands in order to forestall this. Besides the chance to back up kids ‘s larning during lesson clip, learning helpers continue to transport out administrative undertakings in order to back up the category instructor and the school as a whole. The National Agreement ( ATL et al. 2003, p.2 ) , implemented as portion of the authoritiess workforce remodelling enterprise, states that instructors should non pass their clip transporting out administrative duties that do non do full usage of their accomplishments and expertness, but that these undertakings should be completed by support staff. The defined undertakings include the readying of schoolroom resources and puting up of shows. These responsibilities must besides, hence, be considered the duty of the instruction helper. Many of the administrative duties have an impact on the physical milieus, and hence contribute towards ( Primary National Strategy, 2004 ) making a positive ethos and the creative activity of a successful acquisition environment. In pattern, neve rtheless, the demand for learning helpers to be more involved in the bringing of lessons agencies that they have less clip for transporting out administrative responsibilities which relays these responsibilities back into the custodies of the instructors ( OfSTED, 2002b, p8 ) . In my experience, learning helpers offer unconditioned support for the school in which they are employed. Many carry out responsibilities beyond their on the job hours, supplying curriculum enrichment activities and on a regular basis being at the head of fund raising events. They often are able to supply a connexion between parents, local communities and their schools as they frequently live in close propinquity to their workplace. This is a valuable portion of their function as it enables learning staff to be cognizant of local issues and provides a nexus between parents and schools ( Logan, E. & A ; Feiler, A. 2006 ) . In decision, a instruction helper ‘s function is to offer individualized acquisition, pastoral attention and administrative aid. They encourage good acquisition by supplying priceless differentiated larning support to persons and groups of students. Skilled teaching helpers promote enjoyment and accomplishment in a safe, nurturing environment while lending to the academic and emotional well-being of all kids. They set up positive relationships with parents and assist students to go successful members of the school and wider community. ( 1639 words )

The Influence of Globalization on Movies

The Influence of Globalization on movies Nowadays, movies, which are the most important entertainment of people, has spent much more money and time than before by a growing number of people. Different kinds of new movies play nearly everyday; and the way to watch a movie isn’t confined to the cinema. Along with the improvement of digital postproduction and digital effect is applied to the movies, they make people to be personally on the scene when you watch a movie. In the past twenty years, the changes of the ways to watch a movie and the movie technology have already influenced entertainment for people deeply. As we know, globalization on movies and films’ changes in the past twenty years had an effect on people’s daily life, so it was the reason for choosing this topic. We worked out six questionnaires about the project after deciding on the topic. We had 3 yes/no questions, for instance, do you like watching movies, how many movies do you watch per month and traditional movies are more valuable than commercial movies. In addition, we had a multiple choice in our survey, it is â€Å"Which kind of films do you like†. Besides these, two open questions were chosen, one is â€Å"What aspects of movie do you think have changed? †, another is â€Å"Which ways do you often watch movies? †. Our group planned to ask 12 people to answer the questions when we were finishing the questionnaires, so each group’s member needed to ask 3 people about the questions. Only my roommates were asked, and all questions were answered by a pencil. These men who were asked to answer the questions because of convenience; I could take up too much of their time to explain the project, the topic and the detail of the questions, too. The result was collected together when we finished asking the questions. The outcome of our survey is that all the interviewees like to watch movies. However, half of them watch movies less than 5 per month, nearly half of the interviewees watch 6 to 10 movies per month . Only one interviewee watches movies more than 20 per month. Disaster film and comedy film are the most popular movies among the interviewees, many people watch science fiction film and cartoon film as well. Fewer interviewees like watching crime film. A majority of people consider that movies’ theme need to change most because they want to watch a variety of movies. Meanwhile, the way to watch a movie is infinite variety, such as internet, at home by a DVD, cinema and web TV phone. Most interviewees also believe that traditional movies are more valuable than commercial movies. It can be seen from the survey’s figures that the ways to watch a movie and the movie technology have changed most in the past twenty years. Over the past days, only cinema was supplied for people who wanted to watch a movie. But now, more and more people watch movies at home through Family Cinema and computer because they make people comfortably. People can sit on the sofa even or lie in bed to watch a movie, and they are able to have some food and drink at the same time. However, in my opinion, movies’ changes which affect entertainment of people most is movie technology, particularly is computer digital special effects’ appearance. Digital special effect is not only a supplement for film editing, it have already penetrated into every aspect of movies, such as screenplay, scene, stage-ties and postproduction. The directors’ imagination is also at liberty to gallop on through the digital special effect. It makes people to be personally on the scene and shock each audience’s ghost. There is no doubt that people’s daily life is closed related to movies, and they play a very significant role in people’s entertainment life. Movies’ changes have never terminated in the past twenty years, and film industry has undergone enormous changes.

Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 40

Marketing - Essay Example Our sponsors are currently all the leading brands and we have been able to increase our ROI from 10% to 20% since last year. The best aspect of working with our team is that we have done proper research about our market and we have complete understanding about our target market and the customers. We have designed all our marketing activities in accordance with the needs of our market so that all their demands are easily fulfilled and our company can expand its services to other States as well. The grocery shopping on the website gives an awesome experience and it is rightly said that the store provides access to all the grocery items with utmost ease. There is enough evidence about the success of this website but more details need to be provided about the investors. However, the life of Chicago people has eased out to a greater extent as they can easily purchase all their groceries in less period of time. Hence, it would have been more beneficial if some details about the products and services offered at the website are provided which will give a snapshot of the range of products offered by

IT Managers, Data Access and Privacy Research Paper

IT Managers, Data Access and Privacy - Research Paper Example Formally speaking, â€Å"protection of  data  from unauthorized (accidental or intentional) modification, destruction, or disclosure† is the definition.† (Its, 2012) as quoted at the Institute of Telecommunication Science Colorado. Data is everywhere around man. Present in different forms, it becomes of utmost importance when it holds value as information. The data pertinent to an organization needs to be kept from any alterations or maltreatment so as to prevent it from being damaged or being misused by unauthorized personnel. Thus the security that needs to be associated with all forms of data is referred to as data security. Privacy â€Å"Freedom from unauthorized intrusion† (Merriam-webmaster, 2012) is the formal way privacy may be explained. It may well be used interchangeably with data security as data also needs to be kept private in order to be secured. It is this Privacy that keeps the level of data and knowledge management at distinct levels within a n organization. The discussion further proceeds with how data security and privacy issues are catered with the IT managers and Project Managers respectively. Bottom of Form IT MANAGERS VERSUS PROJECT MANAGERS: Project managers as compared to IT managers bear limited responsibility. The main role of project managers is to manage and handover a working project to a company, Afterwards the IT managers take over the running and overall execution of that project. Both the managers can be compared in terms of employee volume as project managers maintain and manage a very limited crew throughout their task whereas IT managers manage and fulfill the IT needs of whole organization. The main activities performed through the information system of an organization are always monitored and tested under IT managers. The requirements of business process re-engineering are initiated by the IT management and it always seeks a better IT system for an organization. Project managers on the other hand te nd to reduce the workload by keeping the new requirements from springing up. IT managers are responsible for chipping in and processing the data of whole organization. This role demands imposition of certain ethical obligations regarding data sharing and security. The issue of data security is related to both i.e. organizational data (internal data, like personal data of employee etc.) and business data (external data like trade volumes and bidding details etc.). IT managers are responsible for safeguarding internal and external data. Regarding personal data of employee various hazards can easily be anticipated in case of any mishandling of data. For example all or few of the employee information like, employee history, increments, promotion evaluations, compensation offered by the company, previous employment record, salary amount, social security number and account information if leaked out, can not only be misused against that employee, but would also create a significantly negat ive impact on the whole organization. The usage and sharing of such information must be done under tightest scrutiny. The system designed for the purpose may be highly secure but the usage and sharing of data highly depends on the authorized IT personnel. There may be Standard Operating Procedures for data management and security but what if those rules are not properly enforced or followed.

Madonnas Of Echo Park Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Madonnas Of Echo Park - Essay Example There is one specific scene in the novel about how couple of girls and their mothers went to a place called El Guanaco, a Mercado in Echo Park. This scene is related to the title of the book â€Å"Madonnas of Echo Park† because El Guanaco Madonna’s preference site where she shot her video. From this scene, we can point out many arguments on identity Americanization and pop culture. The novel can also assume the title Amexicans since it illustrates the Mexican immigrants. However, â€Å"The Madonnas Of Echo Park† would be a better title because it shows the creativity and theme of the novel. The title Amexicans only gives the reader the idea of Mexican immigrants, but Madonnas Of Echo Park gives the reader the idea of losing identity and becoming part of American and how pop culture plays a big role. Americanization has made miscommunication between the main character Aurora and her mother Felicia. Since Aurora has become completely Americanized, her mother Felicia is forced to use English as a form of communication something that she is not used to. â€Å" Sientate delante de tu madre, por favor,’ right next to Alma, so she would be the same height as the rest of the girls... ‘I don’t want to, ‘ she said in English† (Skyhorse 48). This quote illustrates the story’s theme of Americanization. Aurora has become completely American, hence her English response. This does not mean that she cannot speak her native language Spanish but it is because of the American influence. Aurora has lost her identity and became American to achieve the American dream. Even though, the title â€Å"Amexicans† describes the races and the transition of Mexicans becoming Americanized to achieve American dream. The idea of this title would be how Mexicans liv e in their lives in the United States. Yet it does not give the readers the main theme of the novel, which is not the races, but the Americanization. Every character in the novel is

Power Point Presentation in Lectures Research Paper

Power Point Presentation in Lectures - Research Paper Example From the practical perspective, the utilization of Power Point presentations in classroom enhances students' learning, facilitates their participation and engagement, reduces boredom from educational process and improves student-teacher interaction. Students normally feel comfortable to direct questions to specific parts of the Power Point presentation, which evidently indicates they are engaged with the lesson and the presentation tool used in the classroom. The power point presentation also benefits the students who are absent. Teacher can print a copy of the Power Point lesson and give this to students upon their return to class. Power Point presentations can be used on a teacher's web site. Parents and students can access the site and get key information that has been discussed in class. This technology can even be integrated with a web based programs like Blackboard, and assessments can be given over the material presented in the Power Point lesson. Stein, Silbert, and Carnine in their book Designing Effective Mathematics Instruction: A Direct Instruction Approach, made the point that the organization of the learning environment was critical to the success of learners: "The way in which teachers organize the learning environment determines how successful learners will be in constructing the meaning that teachers intend to convey" (Stein et al., 1997, p2). Following this line of thought, it is evident that careful preparation of the learning environment (such as through the development of power point) contributes to student learning. This idea is supported by Stein and his colleagues who note: "The use of power point is the perfect tool to allow for the teacher to follow their scripted lesson while engaging with the students and also provides that visual guide for the student to follow and help stay connected with the lesson being taught" (Stein et al., 1997, p.123). The process of establishing a well-structured classroom enviro nment that incorporates new technologies can help model the expectations mentioned above that are expected outside of the classroom while also creating a very constructive and effective learning environment within the classroom. The constructivist approach of actively constructing knowledge through personal experience contrasts with the traditional approach to learning which states that students are empty containers who store knowledge in the same form they receive it. From the perspective of using Power Point presentation in the classroom, constructivists rely on teaching practices that are rich in student-teacher interactions that help the student come to the understanding of what they need to learn. These interactions help the student construct meaning and understanding. The role of the constructivist teacher is to assist students as they create constructions or frameworks of their understandings. It has been stated that there are six ways in which teachers can assist their students' performance: modeling, contingency, managing, feedback, instructing, questioning, and cognitive feedback (Goos, Galbraith, Renshaw, Geiger, 2003).

Research paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 9

Research paper - Essay Example The advent of video and the internet has made the porn business boom and generate billions of dollars in revenue (Boyle 8). The writer chose this particular subject to find out if the criticisms against pornography are valid. In addition, he wanted to discover if there are positive effects of watching pornography. The writer reviewed various scholarly peer-reviewed articles on pornography and its results to understand why the business has grown to such a size despite serious criticisms against it. Another objective was to increase the writers knowledge on the subject of pornography. This would enable him to make a personal, unbiased conclusion on the subject; whether the benefits outweigh the costs and vice versa. The pornography industry churns out over 13000 videos and generates revenue in the range of 10 billion and 14 billion dollars. The Free Speech Coalition is credited for the increased presence of pornography. Adult content has entered the society to such an extent that it has become unavoidable (Mikkola 316-320). It is a fact that pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry, just like weapons businesses and drug trafficking. Despite its huge profitability, most of the actresses are girls and women captured in war, kidnapped, sold by their parents, driven by poverty, violence and incest. They landed into the control of pimps, landlords, advertisers and law enforcers. These actresses are not well paid and the profits go to their "employers." Pornography categories have increased dramatically. Consumers, therefore, have a wide array to choose from and many end up liking a particular category more than the others. The main problem in figuring this point out is that there are very few actresses and producers who come out into the open to discuss how much on average a pornstar is paid (Fraterrigo 1262). It is claimed that pornography denies men the opportunity of being intimate in

Examine the role played by the GATT and the World Trade Organisation Essay

Examine the role played by the GATT and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in regulating international trade. What were the difficult issues it faced in the Doh - Essay Example The agreements are arrived at through a series of negotiating 'rounds', which are named after the location where the talks take place. The current round of talks are known as the Doha Round after Doha Qatar and include negotiations on goods, services, and intellectual property. In 1947, several nations came together in the post World War II environment to remove protectionist tariffs and foster international trade co-operation. GATT has never been recognised as an official international organisation and refers only to the body of agreements among its member nations. GATT's primary mechanism for regulating and stimulating international trade has been tariff reduction and elimination. "In the late forties, the average duty on industrial products imposed by developing countries was around 40 per cent ad valorem. As a result of the Uruguay Round and the previous Rounds, the average duty is as low as 3.9 per cent" (United Nations Conference 2003, p.45). While GATT experienced much success through the reduction of tariffs, many nations remained reluctant to enter into agreements that addressed other aspects of trade. The initial agreements were successful not only by freezing and reducing tariffs; they also discouraged the formation of preferential trade agreements. GATT was based on the concept of the "Unconditional Most Favored Nation" (MFN) status. This policy mandated that all members treat each other member with the same status as their most favoured trading partner. This gives equal access to all members and stimulates open trade. Some preferential agreements, based on geographical proximity, have been allowed under GATT. The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional trade bloc that grew out of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Though it promoted preferential regional trade, it was allowed under a waiver of GATT's no-new-preferences rule (Kenwood 1999, p.285). Lower tariffs and equal access to markets is the foundation of GATT. Though the preamble of the GATT states that its purpose is the "reduction of tariffs and other barriers to trade and to the elimination of discriminatory treatment in international commerce", the agreements spread into many other areas (University of British Columbia 1998). One of the main thrusts of GATT has been the elimination of quantitative restrictions. Quotas and import restrictions had placed a serious impediment to world trade in the years 1913-1950. Quotas were even more damaging to trade than tariffs because they set a strict limitation on trade. GATT addressed this issue by condemning quantitative trade restrictions except for extreme situations such as short-term balance of payment purposes and for the protection of 'infant' industries (Kenwood 1999, p.242). The reduction of tariffs and the elimination of quantitative restrictions were primarily responsible for the UK's global trade growth in the last half of the 20th century. In the period 1913-1950 the UK had a negligi ble export growth rate. Under GATT the growth rate had increased to 5% for the period 1990-1996 (Kenwood 1999, p.24). GATT has also addressed other issues that promote free trade and the fair treatment of its members. The Uruguay round, 1986-1994, was designed to meet the challenges of technology and communications. The talks were directly responsible for $740 billion in tariff cuts and it has been estimated that global trade would increase by $270 billion a year and that the world would be over $500 billion

Sarans Essays Essay Example for Free

Sarans Essays Essay The ancient ideal the Greeks in ancient times and education the tendency today job oriented education the drawbacks of specialization education for livelihood. The ancient ideal of education was that education should be for life and not for livelihood. Knowledge was regarded as an end in itself and not a means to an end. The ancient ideal of education was a liberal one. Students were required to make a study of a variety of subjects, so that they could make a comparative study and develop their judgement and critical faculty. Knowledge was looked upon as a valuable possession which one had to try to acquire with much trouble and difficulty. Ancient scholars thought nothing of travelling to distant, lands to drink at the fountain head of knowledge. They would seek learned teachers and become their willing disciples. The ancient Greeks held the view that education had to help a man to have a balanced and well-integrated personality. It had to help him to achieve harmony within his own being by attaining a balance of body, mind and spirit. It had also to help him to achieve harmony with his environment and his fellow human beings. Education for life is meant to make a man liberal, tolerant and broad minded in his outlook. The tendency today, however, is towards providing for a Business Education or an Education for Livelihood. Todays education is a job oriented education. As a result of this, many Business Colleges have sprung up which are supposed to train people for particular jobs. The knowledge imparted in these colleges is rather limited in scope. It is restricted to whatever is connected with a special profession or trade. Though specialization is supposed to lean to thoroughness and efficiency, it has its own drawback. The students who go in for a Business Education become narrow minded. They lack tolerance and the ability to understand anothers point of view. They study everything from the view point of usefulness and not for aesthetic pleasure. They may not be able to relax and enjoy a book for its own sake if it has no connection with their trade or profession. They may never be able to enter and enjoy the magic regions of art and literature. Education for livelihood does not encourage a student to think for himself and to develop his creative and critical faculties. As his field of study is very narrow, he does not have a chance to make a comparative study, to judge the merits and demerits of other subjects.

The Social Determinants Of Childhood Obesity Health Essay

The Social Determinants Of Childhood Obesity Health Essay Childhood obesity is an international problem in the 21st century. In Hong Kong, it is easy for us to find the increasing trend of child obesity rate from the media. Why does the problem happen in Hong Kong? Are there any solutions to reduce the childhood obesity? In this paper, I will firstly to talk about the seriousness of childhood obesity in Hong Kong. Then, I will explore the childhood obesity from the social determinants. Then, I will talk about the solutions of this health problem by using health promotion strategies. The current situation of childhood obesity in Hong Kong Childhood obesity as an international health problem Childhood obesity is now becoming a worldwide problem nowadays. Obesity means a people who accumulates too much body fat and he or she will face on health problems in the future (Haslam James, 2005). According to World Health Organization (2012a), obesity is one of the serious health problems in the 21st century and now there are 170 million overweight children who are under 18 years old. Also, more than 40 million children in the world under the age of five were overweight in 2010 (World Health Organization, 2012b).In every year, there are at least 2.6 million people die because of overweight or obese (World health organization, 2012c). The negative effects from childhood obesity Childhood obesity causes different problems in childrens development and health. LeBow (1986) had come out three potential dangers of not treating the fat child, including persistent obesity, barriers in the life and potential health threats. He thinks that obese children are stigmatized from peers, parents and society in the childrens development. This will leads them to enter into vicious circle that they have low self-esteem and become fatter and fatter. Many obese children think that they will still obese and it continues after they grow (Peckham et al., 1985; Stunkard Burt, 1967). Yung (2009) has illustrated what diseases may lead by childhood obesity (See Figure 1). He also mentioned that if government fails to curb childhood obesity, there will be a lot of youngsters suffering from the diseases in the future. Figure 1: Classification of medical and psychosocial consequences of childhood obesity (Yung, 2009). The numbers and phenomenon of childhood obesity in Hong Kong In Hong Kong, there is an increasing trend on the overall childhood obesity rate. Appendix 1 shows the latest data on childhood obesity in Hong Kong. According to the [emailprotected] Campaign (2012a), the overall obesity rate increases from 16.4% to 20.9% in the past 15 years. The numbers also show out that boys are easily to become obese than girls with around 5-10% of disparity on the obesity in different gender. Besides the data from the government, more information reflects that the potential crisis on suffering from other diseases related to childhood obesity. A cross-sectional study from CUHK shows out that about 13% of boys and 11% of girls were obese in examining around 2 600 children aged 6-13 (Sung, 2007). It also mentioned that about 10% and 3% of the children were detected on having three or more and four or more of the six cardiovascular risk factors respectively, including high systolic blood pressure or diastolic blood pressure, high blood triglyceride, low blood high-density lipoprotein, high blood low-density lipoprotein, high blood glucose and high blood insulin (Sung, 2007). Also, patients are getting younger and younger to suffer from diabetes or cardiovascular diseases because of childhood obesity (Wan jiu xue tong, 2007). Therefore, childhood obesity has become a major health care issue in Hong Kong from the facts in both statistics and news reports. In the next part, I will talk about the social determinants of childhood obesity. The social determinants of the childhood obesity The framework of social determinants in analyzing the childhood obesity According to World Health Organization (2012d), social determinants of health include life, development and health system afforded by the distribution of power and resource. It also shows out the phenomenon as health inequity which affects peoples health status. World Health Organization Western Pacific South-East Asia (2008) had set up some index to evaluate the public health in Asia Pacific. In this time, I will borrow the framework to analysis childhood obesity in Hong Kong with adjusting the index and adding related factors (See Figure 2). The reason of adopting this framework is to show out how our social settings make childhood obesity instead of attributing to self-responsibility from individual. I also add the item main stakeholders because they are the main media to lead the things happening in society. Factors Main stakeholders Original meanings Adjusted meanings Income and poverty Family Overall economic situation Overall economic situation Economic status of the grassroots Lifestyle Family Eating habits Physical activities Eating habits Physical activities Personal growth Education School Literacy rate School setting Culture and knowledge Society Not including Traditions, views and knowledge of food Figure 2: The framework to analysis the childhood obesity in Hong Kong Family Family is one important sector in enforcing the childhood obesity because they have the most responsibility to take care their children. From our born to independence, it is not only fulfill childrens basic life but also learning the foundation of knowledge and skills. Therefore, they have an important responsibility in forming the childhood obesity. Income and poverty Economic status affects peoples health in their life. World Health Organization Western Pacific South-East Asia (2008) mentioned that poor people are hard to maintain their health because they lack of resource to access health service and take actions to prevent diseases. It also mentioned that Hong Kong is regarded as a high-income country from the World Bank in 2008. It also has a better medical system comparing to other developed countries. At the same time, there is a big disparity between the rich and the poor with high gini index around 53.3% (Central Intelligence Agency, 2007). So, the overall economic situation and economic status of the grassroots should be attended on analyzing the health problem in different class. Meals with more meat and less vegetables are common after the improvement of economy. Every Hong Kong people consume 150KG meats in 2011 which is more than the US (Gang ren shi rou, 2012). Many parents regard children should eat more meat in their meals because of their physical development. Some parents even do not limit the amount of meat to their children because they think they should provide the best to their children if they can. In hence, children may bring up an unbalance diet. Parents will become more difficult to improve children into correct diet. When the children eat too much meat unconsciously, it will cause child obesity if the children lacks of enough exercise at the same time. To the grassroots, fast-food is easily to lead childhood obesity. It is because poor children in Hong Kong usually follow their mothers, who are usually the new immigrants, to the fast food shops. According to Chan, Deave and Greenhalgh (2010), fast-food shops are good places for them to meet other parents and friends. They also think it is a more safety places than playgrounds. Additionally, Hong Kong style fast food is unhealthy. For example, 2 pieces of Western Toast (à ¨Ã‚ ¥Ã‚ ¿Ãƒ ¥Ã‚ ¤Ã… ¡Ãƒ ¥Ã‚ £Ã‚ «) have 356 kcal, 19g fat, 116mg cholesterol, 513mg sodium and 8g saturated fat (Xiao xue sheng san, 2004). It is easy for children to overtake nutrition and harmful substances as Trans fats. Except the grassroots, having too much fast food is also common for normal families. According to Chan, Deave and Greenhalgh (2010), long-hours culture is always happened on adults. To save time, some parents may buy fast-food or pre-prepared food as dinner to their children. Some children may provide holding meal in the evening and it always leads them not to eat dinner very late at night. Children eat too much fast food chronically and it will easily to become child obesity. Lifestyle Lifestyle is the way a person lives. From the World Health Organization Western Pacific South-East Asia (2008), diet and physical activity are the ways to promote and maintain good health in a country. Obesity means the unbalance state in high diet and low physical activities. Family should make sure their children to have enough nutrition but not overdose. Unhealthy meals are one of the main factors to cause childhood obesity. Except having fast food or meals with more meat and less vegetables, another source of unhealthy meal is from bad cooking habits both from Chinese and Western. One of the examples is that Chinese prefer to use more oil and animal fat to cook the meal so the children have higher Cholesterol levels than foreign children (Fu mu tai qian, 1999). Another example is that Western meals may have high calories but low fiber as Baked Pork Chop with Rice containing over 1,200 calories (Yuan li zhu pai fan, 2003). If parents do not count nutrition intake, children will eat too much and it will become obese very easily. Another factor for childhood obesity is lacking exercise. Doing exercise is a way to consume extra nutrition and maintain personal health. According to the Community Sports Committee of the Sports Commission (2012), about 80% tested children thinks that they have enough exercise but only 9% fulfill the US standard of physical fitness. Lacking exercise of Hong Kong children has lasted over 10 years. There are few reasons to explain the phenomenon. The first reason is the school setting and I will explain later. The two one is the sense from parents. If parents are active in doing exercise, their children will also have more sense to do the exercise. Unfortunately, there are around 35% of parents with no participation in sports and more than 60% of families cannot arrange family sports time during each weekend (Community Sports Committee of the Sports Commission, 2012). The third one is the children spend too much time on different electronic screen. According to the Community Sports Committee of the Sports Commission (2012), about 40% of Hong Kong children aged 7-12 spend more than 5 hours on sedentary activities like studying and recreation. If children spend more time on the screen, they will have less time to do the exercise. School Schools are another important stakeholder in solving the childhood obesity. It is because children spend 1/3 of the whole day in schools for learning. If a school can convey enough health information through lessons and activities to the students, they can sustain their health on their lifetime and produce less health problems when they grow up. Education Public concerns on education are largely on formal education issues in a school setting. World Health Organization Western Pacific South-East Asia. (2008) evaluates the public health in different countries by assessing the literacy rate and enrollment rate. In Hong Kong, compulsory education is provided to the children for leading high literacy rate and enrollment rate, which are 94% and 74% respectively (World Health Organization Western Pacific South-East Asia, 2008). So, it seems the childhood obesity may not relate to insufficient knowledge. According to the Community Sports Committee of the Sports Commission (2012), the tested children reflect that too much school work is the barriers for doing exercise. Therefore, school setting may be a good way to observe childhood obesity. Unhealthy food provided by the tuck shops and lunch supplies lead childhood obesity. Although Education Bureau and Department of Health create different guidelines to encourage schools for providing healthy food, there are still a lot of schools providing unhealthy food through tuck shops and meals. According to Chen (2008), 90% of primary schools still sell unhealthy snacks in their tuck shops. Maintaining revenue and student tastes are the reasons for the tuck shops continuing to provide unhealthy food. Also, guidelines cannot limit the schools to provide unhealthy food. Over 40% of primary schools still provide unqualified meals without enough vegetables and fruits (Si cheng xiao xue, 2009). 80% of kindergartens provide unqualified meals with over intake of fat, salt and health food products (Du Cai, 2011). If children eat too much unhealthy food without enough exercise, it is not difficult for them to become obese. Indifference on Physical Education and play areas is another reason to lead childhood obesity. Normally, students in primary schools have 2-3 Physical Education lessons with 35 minutes per lesson in each week. Only 22 minutes are doing exercise and even 4 minutes for moderate to vigorous exercise can be done in each Physical Education lesson (Chen, 2006). For kindergarten students, there are only 20 minutes for physical activities (Chan, Deave and Greenhalgh, 2010). Many schools also do not allow students to run during the recess because of not enough space and safety to everyone. It is a backward concept criticized by Dr. Patrick Lau who is a professor of the Department of Physical Education at Hong Kong Baptist University (Jia Xiao jin pao, 2005). Students can only conduct static activities which leads them have no chances to do the exercises. This will let students cannot release the extra nutrition which will cause obesity. Over-emphasizing on academic subjects is also the problem for childhood obesity. Starting from Primary 4, students are forced to put more efforts on academic subjects because of a good path for a better secondary school and university. Sometimes, Physical Education lessons are sacrificed for academic subject lessons or classroom guidance. Also, tutorial classes after school is very common in Hong Kong.. Whether primary school or secondary school students, they will always spend some time after school to attend those lessons. This will reduce the students chance to do enough exercise to prevent child obesity in their leisure time. Society Society is the third stakeholder in solving the childhood obesity. It is because society has a force to integrate and coordinate different people and organizations for solving the problem. Also, it has the most influence on promoting healthy lifestyle. Culture and knowledge Culture is the values, beliefs, behavior and material objects that together form a peoples way of life (Macionis, 2006). Knowledge is someone who familiarizes somebody or something on facts, information, descriptions, or skills from experience or education. Culture and knowledge are directly affecting peoples mind and behavior. Some Chinese tradition proverbs do not encourage children to do the exercise in their daily life. One is called Fat equals to blessing (à ¨Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¥Ãƒ ¦Ã‹Å" ¯Ãƒ §Ã‚ ¦Ã‚ Ãƒ ¦Ã‚ °Ã‚ £). It means if a person is fatter, it also equals to a stable life. This is more popular to old generation because they have lower education level comparing to the young couples. Another one is called diligent makes contribution and games are no use (à ¥Ã¢â‚¬ ¹Ã‚ ¤Ãƒ ¦Ã…“†°Ãƒ ¥Ã…  Ã… ¸Ã‚ ¼Ã…’à ¦Ã‹â€ Ã‚ ²Ãƒ §Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¡Ãƒ §Ã¢â‚¬ ºÃ…  ). These concepts are widely in our society so that exercise is not preferred. For example, some grandparents may think that English is important than games because of low walkability and limited opportunities (Chan, Deave and Greenhalgh, 2010). Fast food culture is also common in Hong Kong. It is not difficult for us to find a fast food shop in urban areas. They always promote their food or promotion on different media as TV or websites. The culture is very fit in Hong Kong because fast food strengths on efficiency which matches long working hours. On the other side, children loves to eat fast food too because it fits their taste. The information of nutrition is not very clear to Hong Kong people. Although Hong Kong has nutrition labels since 2010, there are still around 40% people not or seldom attending the labels (Janice, Mingo Sharon, 2011). Public are always late to know some of the products which is not as health as they imagine. According to Huang and Xin (2006), the content of sugar, salt and fat are over the normal standard in many corn chips. Because of the social determinants in childhood obesity, the obesity rate for overall primary school students raises from around 16 % to around 21% in the past 10 decade. In the next part, I will introduce the health promotion strategies to reduce the problems of child obesity. The health promotion strategies to tackle the childhood obesity Health promotion means a process to lead people for improving their health with increasing the sense and applying the behavior. The responsibility of health promotion is not only at the health sector, but also to reach healthy lifestyles (World Health Organization, 1986). To solve the childhood obesity, I regard five approaches to health promotion by Naidoo and Wills (2000) and social marketing should be used to solve childhood obesity in Hong Kong. It is because it can easily to assess what strategies Hong Kong has done and anything should be improved during the promotion. In the next part, I will talk about what stakeholders would be needed to conduct the health promotion. Then I will focus on the five approaches with related measures to solve the problem, introducing current measures and new measures. Stakeholders for health promotion In the social promotion, there will be two stakeholders to conduct the health promotion. One is the government and another one is the Non-Government Organizations. Government Government is very important in the health promotion. It will have different cooperation between hospitals, clinics, District Council, sport facilities, schools and families. Non-Government Organizations. Non-Government Organizations are always the forerunner to sense the problems in society. They are also strength on the flexibility when they promote in small organizations. It is because there are so many plans conducting to reduce childhood obesity, I can only use some famous examples to talk about how the strategies apply in our daily life. First, figure 3 shows the effects of the six approaches to health promotion in child obese. The medical approach Prevention and treatment Behavior change Encouraging somebody to adopt health behaviors The educational approach Providing knowledge and skills for personal choice in applying health behavior Empowerment Powering up somebody to concern and help in the issue Social change Creating choices with suitable cost, availability or accessibility Social marketing and media Increasing public awareness on particular concepts or behavior and stimulate publics mind for the response Figure 3: The effects of the six approaches to health promotion in child obese Source: Naidoo and Wills (2000) Promotions from government Medical system in stopping childhood obesity This system will focus on the prevention and treatment of childhood obesity in the media way. This is using the medical approach because of prevention and treatment in childhood obesity. Nowadays, Hong Kong had created the family health service and student health service for the children to check their health status from their born to 18 years old. It also connects with Specialist for the referral to treat the obese children. Maternal and Child Health Centres and Student Health Service Centre are distributed in different areas for children to do body check. Different Student Health Service Centre has the connection with hospitals in the same network. For example, the centre in South Kwai Chung can refer the children to Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at Princess Margaret Hospital. The government can use the centres for scanning out the obese children from the checking on BMI, blood pressure and urine. Overweight or obese children will refer to assessment centres or Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine in hospitals. They will do more body checking as exsanguinate to confirm their body status and give suitable treatment to them as Nutritionist for health meal suggestions. This approach is to find out the obese children and reduce the deterioration of them. Social marketing Social marketing and media is common used by local government. The promotion is using a simple and clear way to focus on single concept or behavior, The usage is to raise public awareness on particular concepts or behavior and stimulate publics mind for the response. For example, the government had promoted the concept of Two Plus three Every Day through the TV advertisements. The aim of this advertisement is to explain the importance of enough amounts of vegetables and fruits in daily life. It also presents the examples on how do we count on eating enough vegetables and fruits. Campaign cooperating with schools [emailprotected] is one of the campaigns to promote healthy lifestyle in eating. It uses educational approaches to do the promotion because the plan provides teaching materials for school to spread the knowledge to parents and students for choosing health meals in daily life. Except teaching, the scheme wants schools to provide more healthy food to the students by giving them some guidelines. For example, there are over 20 documents to help schools for choosing suitable food supplies for tuck shop and lunch ([emailprotected] Campaign, 2012b). Through this approach, government prefers schools and students can choose the more healthy meals by themselves. Promotions from Non-government Organizations Smart Kids Fitness project This project was created by Centre for Health Education and Health Promotion from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. There is cooperation between the professionals, schools and parents. This plan includes teacher training and support, needs assessment and progress monitoring, parent training and supports, tailor-made weight-management plan for individual students, 12-week weight management intervention programme and school-based health promotion programme (Centre for Health Education and Health Promotion, 2008). Figure 4 shows the concepts of the project. Figure 4: A Health Promoting Schools Approach in Addressing the Problem of Childhood Obesity (Source: Centre for Health Education and Health Promotion, 2008) It contains different approaches for its promotion. Firstly, Education approach is used to teachers, parents and students with related knowledge. The project strengths at using behavioral approach and empowerment approach. Through the tailor-made weight-management plan and 12-week weight management intervention programme, students had created the sense to supervise their own health and try to improve their health with changing their habits with their parents. This can also power up their confidence to manage their health. Last but not least, the organization thinks that it is success because they can create sustainability on the participators (Centre for Health Education and Health Promotion, 2008). Recommendations for reducing childhood obesity To me, different strategies applied by the government and non-government organizations are needed in reducing childhood obesity. From my observation, I regard many strategies focus on creating health lifestyle but little on food choices and easy exercise which can do it everything. So I will suggest two directions for increasing the approach of behavior change and social change. Firstly, the government can cooperate to Green Monday, which is a non-government organization for promoting vegetarian food on each Monday for health and environment. For example, Cafe De Coral is one of the restaurants to join Green Monday. It will provide 2 dishes of vegetarian food on the Green Monday. The government can encourage food suppliers to join by adding the conditions in the tenders of tuck shop and lunch suppliers. Specific details need to be discussed but I may suggest some conditions to explain the idea. For example, tuck shops and lunch suppliers need to provide at least 50% of healthy food and drinks on Green Monday. If the bidders can meet the conditions, he or she will have the advantages in bidding the contracts or having subsides in operating the business. The reasons of promoting the day are to respond some of the tuck shops or lunch suppliers still providing too much unhealthy food to the students for many years and create a sense to students that they can cho ose for eating healthier meals. Secondly, the government can promote easy exercises for urban people. One of the social determinants is parents and children have no sense to do the exercise. Climbing stairs activities and fitness walking are two examples for the promotion. Both exercise are easy to learn and do it in the surrounding areas as park or blocks. They are also suitable to whole family members. These exercises may increase the incentives to people for doing exercise. Conclusion To conclude, Hong Kong is an international city who also has childhood obesity as other countries in the 21st century. Everyone knows that obesity is harmful to adults and child but it is different to change personal lifestyle because society contains different elements which are not benefit to our health. Although our government and non-government organizations try their best to change the situation, there are still a lot of children who are living in unhealthy life. But I think we should have confidence to face on the childhood obesity because social atmosphere of healthy lifestyle will be informed gradually if we insist for healthy lifestyle.

Guilloche Pattern Algorithms

Guilloche Pattern Algorithms Documents are protected from forgeries now a days by complex patterns such as guilloches which are efficiently used in currency, identity cards, auto registration certificate, fiscal marks, policy forms and licenses, travel documents, tickets etc. Guilloches are intricate patterns have high efficiency. These are difficult combination of thin and continue lines which have a difficult structure and clear spacing of 1-2mm. These additionally are called periodic parts, and usually present document pictures, for example, multi dimensional images, watermarks that rehash themselves in different courses in order to add the flavor of complexity in it. Although these patterns were utilized as a part of old circumstances as decorative elements; architectural designs; on gold and silver coins; on watches; with the evolution of technology these motives are used in the modern times on currency, holograms, official, documents etc. This dissertation describes the algorithms for outlining guilloche pattern. Guilloche elements are created step by step. Firstly, the algorithms are intended for basic structures. Bases designed are a line, a circle, an ellipse, a polygon, an ellipses arc, circumscribed polygon in circle and ellipse, stars concave and convex, floral pattern. Also the complex patterns are generated from the combination of basic bases. The structures are designed using concepts of co-ordinate geometry and calculation of pixels in MATLAB. These basic structures are formed by creating various functions. Function creations are designed with some functionality. The rotation (rotation of single element from 0Â ° to 360Â °), the phase difference (sets the phase shifting of function), the interval (sets the measure of the periodic repetitions) and many more functionality is depicted in chapters. Functions are the objects defined by a user and implemented for the depiction of bends and surfaces. These patterns can be set with the concept of pixels that amalgamate. Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Guilloche Pattern Guilloche is a decorative, architectural element and an engraving technique which is very intricate, yet precise, recursive pattern or design. Guilloche is synonymous with the term Engine Turning or Rose Engine. The technique of engine turning, alluded to as architectural ornament in French when the French engineer Guillot, United Nations agency fancied a machine that might scratch fine patterns and styles on auriferous. Machine improved upon the longer overwhelming apply of creating similar styles by hand. It is engraved on jewelry and watches, erected on stones or wood for architecture. These are vintage plan components that were much of the time utilized for against duplicating security essentially on banknotes, travel permits, checks and authentications amid the previous two hundred years. These are additionally called symmetrical examples, archives insurance from frauds has dependably been one of the real assignments in any general public at all circumstances. Due to its high potency guilloches, currently a days architectural ornament style is in our daily life, as an example bills, checks, ID cards, passports, driver licenses, automobiles registration certificates, business enterprise marks, policy forms and licenses, travel documents, tickets, and several other documents together with tutorial diplomas or certificates. Any reasonable document needs some complicated graphics to keep the persons identity secretive. Guilloche pattern are periodic patterns usually casted on documents pictures as holograms, watermarks or architectural ornament components that are largely used to secure from fraud and falsification. The guilloche images are difficult blend of narrow and continuous lines that have a troublesome structure and typical spacing of 1-2 millimeter unit or any appropriate activity. Fundamental structure can be of these sorts for outlining: a line, an ellipse, a polygon, a rectangle, a poly-line, an ellipses arc, an oval, a spline, a spiral, an evolvent, a lissage. These are utilized to outline different sorts of complex guilloche design. Guilloche provides the extremely high level of security. Its composition cannot be precisely reproduced on a digital manigraph so far. The terribly tiny thickness of lines and the constant modification of curvature of each line produce insuperable obstacles to a block with associate meager for these days discrimination capability. 1.2 Historical Background The earthenware rooftop tiles tiles are appeared in the second quarter of the seventh century BC on the Temple of Apollo at Corinth in Greece. Firstly the innovation spread to Italy, in third and fourth quarters of that century where tiles are found at Poggio Civitate (Murlo) and Acquarossa in Etruria. At Poggio Civitate, tiled roofs occur on a workshop alluded to as the Southeast Building. At Acquarossa, these patterns were designed on roofs and lower parts of buildings. Also the most earliest tiled rooftops residential designs are altogether in view of these patterns. The same fundamental tile forms as occur on the first Corinthian roof alluded to as flat pan tiles and convex cowl tiles square measure used, with adjustments in scale and style (littler size, isolate container and cover components). At Acquarossa, a similar sort of cavetto sima with shaded tongue example is found among the most punctual compositional earthenware pieces from Sicily, at Syracuse furthermore, a revetment plaque with the same double guilloche design is found in the early 6th century BC, on the Temple of Artemis in Corfu, and in Sicily. Attempts to explain these shared features (e.g., exchange Greek items where the guilloche is repeated on bronzes and painted pottery) have failed to explain their identical placement in the roofing systems. The perirrhanterion is subsidized by sculpted figures stand for potnia theron, the same spiritual being recognized by Nielsen within the picture of the early Poggio Civitate workshop roof wherever feminine heads area unit flanked by feline heads. Temple in Corfu for tongue and guilloche patterns rather than just paint, can be attributed to employment of local workers and the following of local traditions and preferences. The artisans going with Demaratus would apparently have prepared neighborhood specialists in specialized matters of generation and sent them out to set up nearby workshops. In ancient times the dining room was decorated by some symmetric patterns of Roman Villas and these patterns were inherited from Greek. It is used in the Chedworth Roman Villa in the United Kingdom. Since 1903, the main large and intricate swastika meander (decorative boarder) pattern of this dining room has received much attention and is more complex. The creators developed a simple geometric algorithm in its generation. In the past 100 years such patterns have been analyzed and compared predominantly by means of the symmetry properties they possess are getter options. According to Radovic and Jablan the theory of symmetry, virtually taken from mathematical natural philosophy, is perhaps not the only suggests that, and may not be the only clarification for the event of ancient anti-symmetric design. Even algorithmic, machine, and standard approaches. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica defines the term Guilloche as an architectural element, a French word for an ornament, either painted or carved, which was one in all the principal ornamental bands used by the Greeks in their temples or on their vases. The definition Guilloches are single, double or triple; they in-corporates a collection of circles equal one from the opposite and enclosed in an exceedingly band that winds spherical them and interlaces.

The Changing Mattress Industry in America Essay -- Business Industry A

The Changing Mattress Industry in America Changes in the global environment in conjunction with the deepest and most prolonged economic downturn since the Great Depression have started what I believe is a sea change in the domestic mattress industry. Factors such as declining new home sales, tightening of consumer credit, the consumer confidence index still well below pre-recessionary levels (Wang, 2010) and unemployment hovering near 10% have all contributed to the end of conspicuous consumption for big-ticket items like mattresses and foundations (‘mattresses’). Mattress manufacturers will need to lower material and manufacturing costs, develop products that differentiate them from their competitors, or develop new channels of distribution in order to remain viable in rapidly changing global and task environments. Domestic production of mattresses in 2010 will be slightly below $6 billion, and almost 16% less than the peak mattress production of 2007. (International Sleep Products Association, 2010). Many consumers have lost confidence in the economic state of the country and therefore have begun to believe that, as Newt Gingrich said recently, "if you can’t afford to buy a house, don’t buy it." (Gingrich, 2010). The economic downturn has signaled the end of conspicuous consumption, defined as â€Å"the act or practice of spending money on expensive things that are not necessary in order to impress other people†. (Merrian-Webster's Leaner's Dictionary, 2010). Identify functional and dysfunctional control systems within your own organization I am currently a Senior Vice-President of Sales for King Koil Licensing Company (KKLC). KKLC is a company who licenses mattress-manufacturing facilities, called licensees, both domestically a... ...ll Irwin. King Koil Licensing Company. (2010, December). YOUR identity, YOUR comfort, YOUR sleep . Retrieved December 28, 2010, from comfortsolutions.com: YOUR identity, YOUR comfort, YOUR sleep Merrian-Webster's Leaner's Dictionary. (2010, December). Retrieved December 26, 2101, from Merrian-Webster's Leaner's Dictionary: http://east.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conspicuous%20consumption Michael J. Breus, P. (2006, March 15). Sleep Disorders Guide. Retrieved December 27, 2010, from WebMd.com: http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/important-sleep-habits?page=2 Perry, D. (2010, June 21). Top Bedding Producers. Furniture Today , pp. 12-13. Wang, H. (2010, July 27). The Consumer Confidence Index hit an all-time low of 25.3 in February 2009. Retrieved December 25, 2010, from Sparxoo: http://sparxoo.com/market-stats/consumer-confidence-index-february-2009/

Choosing Between Low-Fat and Low-Carb Diets Essay -- Energy and Intake

Kay’s compromise is setting her up for troubles. She is doing the acceptable thing by researching the issue however she has missed some finer points. While fats at 9 calories per gram do in fact yield more calories per gram than carbohydrates which are 4 calories per gram and as such do indeed have a greater potential for energy use she is misguided in her thinking and taking an approach where she drops her carbohydrates low and takes in high fat in her diet is perverting the facts. A diet of the energy-dense fats will not be better for her in this event. She needs to trust and listen to her coach and their recommendation for her to see a sports nutrition professional. It will take following a properly guided meal plan for her to be competitive in this event and remain healthy. As Fink points out, Carbohydrates, in the form of glucose, are the main source of fuel for all physical activity. Fats on the other hand are primarily used as a fuel source while resting and when performing moderately to low intensity exercises. (Fink, 2012, p.3) It’s these facts that are so significant. The event she participates in will be fairly short yet very intense with that in mind as an 800-meter track athlete the Carbohydrates are going to serve her the best. She will require immediate as well as a short sustained use of energy for her event. While she will be using both energy systems Fink states she will mainly be using anaerobic energy system which â€Å"is a major contributor to intense activities that last from 1 to 3 minutes.† (Fink, 2012, p. 50) Undoubtedly Kay must be experiencing some undesired results during her races which she wants to correct. She is managing to do the correct thing by seeking nutrition as the answer. She is cur... ...etermine which adjustments actually need to be made. If Kay is currently truly following a well planned high carbohydrate diet then her issue will be her training. Works Cited AERENHOUTS, D., DERIEMAEKER, P., HEBBELINCK, M., & CLARYS, P. (2011). Energy and macronutrient intake in adolescent sprint athletes: A follow-up study. Journal Of Sports Sciences, 29(1), 73-82. Fink, Heather Hedrick., Alan E. Mikesky, and Lisa A. Burgoon. (2012). Practical Applications in Sports Nutrition,3rd edition. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Hunt, J. (2011). We Can Raise American Distance Runners To Gold Medal Levels. Track Coach, (196), 6239-6247. Rosenkranz, R. R., Cook, C. M., & Haub, M. D. (2007). Endurance Training on Low-Carbohydrate and Grain-Based Diets: A Case Study. International Journal Of Sport Nutrition & Exercise Metabolism, 17(3), 296-309

Causes of WWI

Newspapers, literature, music, parades, propaganda, and theatre all fueled Nationalism Our nation is special, unique and superior Can not be defeated Our government and military will win any conflict Royal, politicians, and diplomats fueled this belief and pushed this belief Such hype ND arrogance led many to believe war was good, Inevitable, and would only prove their arrogant belief Europe had not seen War or experienced significant military loss for decades which only added to their misfiles Examples Many people like the British thought the war would be over in a matter of months Thought it was spiritual with God on your side†¦ ND war enthusiasm Felt entitled to more land Militarism Militarism AND THE EUROPEAN ARMS race were both contributing factors to WWW When a country decides to grow and focus on their military Spent a lot of money on weapons/defense Drafting folks into militaryThe dreadnought (battleship) LED TO THE WAR using power of weapons to destroy others Alliances made alliances even if they weren't â€Å"mad† at the other country 2) Sucked in other HUGE countries to help them in war 3) Led to world wide war Otherwise would've been local war Triple Alliance Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy Triple Entente Russia, France, Britain Imperialism Industrialism Building factors, big business's In order to be a successful factory, you needed materials Everybody wanted something, natural competition out of industrialization Hungry for resources, coal, tin, steel Mechanisms of war to buildCompetition over territory When Austria annexes Bosnia The blackhead didn't like it (Yugoslavian nationalists) Want their own kind of Serbian Yugoslavian empire Their way of saying how they disapprove is by assassinating Archduke Ferdinand June 24, 1918 Gabriel Principia Austria declares war on Serbia, as a result of the assassination because of the assassination Russia sides with Serbia Weapons of War Machine Guns Used as defensive weapon Took 4 men to opera te 1 gun Usually positioned on flat tripod Fired 400-600 rounds p minute Short burst shot Rapidly overeat without cooling mechanism (water)Had to carry large amounts of water to big battles IF they ran out of water, they would use urine Tanks Protected soldiers inside and behind Helped get people across â€Å"no-man's land† Awkward and uncomfortable but useful, but hot Poison Gas Burned skin Destroyed lungs Used them to put in trenches Gas might blow toward your men Trenches Weren't very hospitable Dug by soldiers who were going to fight No Man's Land Land between trench's Filled u=of bombs, mud, holes, barbed wire Health Giants rats, lice, cooties are body lice Rats and pests Weather Muddy and cold, trench foot (cool temp and wet foot) Deteriorating foot Salted meat and crackers Boredom Played cars, letters, go out and shoot rats Chores Soccer Game During Christmas Truce Traumas Trench foot Trench fever Sickness and disease Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PETS) Caused by bei ng in battle or war for an extended amount of time Also known as shell shock Suffer from nightmares and horrors Families were changed Soldiers came back and weren't the same Still have PETS through relatives dying Three Key Battles of WWW The Battle of Verdure Feb. 21-Deck 16 1916 Ten month battle BTW France and Germany Neither side gained much of an advantage Roughly half a million lost on each side No advantage for either side Battle of Jutland Naval battle Gave allies control of sea, British now had most powerful Ana Sea superiority America was supporting by sending supplies over ships Only major naval battle of WWW Meanwhile, Germany focuses on U-boat Children in War Girl scouts Raised cookies Collected peach pits for gas masks Made gardens Boy scouts Looked out for incoming ships Victory gardens with schools Red Cross Poems Motivations of a poet were the horrors and question their existence of God John Peal Bishop – were in the war and questioning GodJoyce Killer  œ why friends died and questioning God Archibald Manacles – talking about mother nature Woodrow Wilson President, reelected again for no war Reluctant to Join WWW He had to because of the Louisiana (ship that was sunk) Ship was sunk because USA was transporting Britain weapons and food Zimmerman Telegram German ambassador Sent coded message to Mexico that said: Join the war and you'll get land British coded it out and told USA Toward the end of the war, Willow's wrote document called â€Å"14 Points† that said to be a lasting peace and no more war Make a league of nations New George Washington† David Lloyd Jorge British prime Up to him to work with French Had to negotiate on how to work together Oversaw the building of the royal navy. ar (navy) Convoy is key – group of soldiers in unison Sent a bunch of ships, scouting, and looking for u boats If you can't keep supplies going to Europe, then your men will be out of food, bullets, medicine, and soldiers Geo rge Clemencies â€Å"Curious George† Key drafter in treaty of Versailles Much of French countryside was completely destroyed French suffered greatly since it was destroying their country Easy to point a finger on Curious George, now there was a reason to be mad at Paris was evacuated Mad at Germany, made sure Germany paid for the war Gassed by John Singer Sergeant Aftermath of a mustard gas attack Bravery of soldiers Wounded and dead soldiers all over the ground The soldiers have blindfolds over their eyes to try to protect their eyes from the burning gas Hispanics and Native Americans Lots of people had prejudices against people not white in the war Stereotype that certain type of people, considering their not white enough, as being unable to contribute Many Hispanics served (200,00) David Barley changed his name to go in front, blended inNative Americans were code talkers Anyone who could speak Chickasaws were pulled to send messages Letters and Interviews Hildebrand Scan N o money Hard to get Job Injured (one leg/arm) Many died from illness Flu was going through Lied to get in because thy wanted to fight so badly Myth of war was going to have a great experience Censored letters Didn't' want people to lose support Didn't want people to tell horrible experiences Squashes their spirits Always going to stay positive Economic and Social Aspects of World War I War bonds – whenever you buy a war bond, it gave money to the government so they loud use it on the army After the war, you would get a small interest back 20 Billion dollars Social aspects Private industries donated Woman in work force Black markets emerging Victories exaggerated for morale A lot of propaganda Women are going to get more Jobs then they ever had since so many men were overseas Social Effects Most went for heroism Gas warfare caused fear (mustard gas) for soldiers Restricted rights in Britain WWW government restricted people that they couldn't say bad stuff about the government Social Rights Huge propaganda Illegal to criticize gob Social Impact New field of occupation Health, manufacturing guns Better conditions Increase of nurses Increase of transport/services African Americans Thought it would give them better treatment and opportunity They split the blacks and whites into 92nd and 93rd infantry Weren't many blacks in the Ana Some fought alongside the French Awarded by French for their bravery Most women got factory Jobs and nurse Jobs Harlem Hellfire's It took them 4 trains and 2 ferries to transport black veterans Punished for killing people Race riot at camp Discrimination Wanted higher wages and better working conditionsThere was residential segregation Great Migration – blacks living in the south saw opportunities for better work and less racism up north Go up north and look for a place to live Said they were told by people that they can't live in a certain part of town Many blacks like Henry Johnson were given awards for how hard they fough t Blacks felt like they had to prove themselves The Treaty of Versailles End cap of war This treaty is so important in understanding WI Central Powers Germany – mil dead Austral-Hugger -1. 2 mil dead Turkey 325,000 dead Bulgaria – 100,000 dead Total losses – 8. 5 mil dead, 2. Mil wounded The Big Three David Lloyd George (Britain), Clemencies (France), and Woodrow Wilson (America) Italy had an alliance with Germany when the war started and remained neutral in the war until they finally sided with Allied forces This caused Italy to technically be the fourth Big country in the war, but were not involved in signing of the treaty much Russia had Just gotten out of â€Å"Stalin's Purge† > great loss David Lloyd George of Britain wanted Germany to be punished but he didn't not want to be kicked out of office for punishing to little.His goal was to punish Germany for their crimes but not o much Woodrow Wilson didn't want much movement in the treaty, he believed i t was up to Europe, but he still believed in punishing Germany The only thing he really wanted was a league of nations set in place in Europe, The league of Nation was a council of European countries working together Clemencies wanted revenge of Germany Terms of Treaty Military Terms Germany was to have a very limited army The army force was reduced to 100,00 men Only 6 naval ships No tanks No air force No gas weapons No heavy artillery General Terms of The Treaty Germany had to admit responsibility for the war meaning he had to pay all the image he caused, they had to pay over 6 mil 6 hundred pounds and the repair their own country. The league of nation was set up to keep the peace, but not the way Wilson wanted it to be The Germans only had two options, sign the treaty, or be invaded The treaty gave away 13. % of Germany's land to other countries and almost it all of it's colonies in other parts of world It also demoralized the western part of Germany for 1 5 years Sum: Germany ha d to take blame for the war and took away it's weapons Negotiation The treaty was negotiated from Jan 1919 to June 1919 The treaty had 15 parts and 440 articles IT ended the war officially on June 28 1919 The Germans started disobeying this disagreement in the sass's Hitler denounced treaty altogether in 1935 ON September 1, 1939 Hitler attacked Poland The impact of WWW on Women outside, dealing with forestry, service and cars, police force, nurses on the front line, fixing equipment, running messages, playing sports,†hello girl† – telephone operators, helped communication between trenches and lieutenants.Widowed, women had to adjust to man, (PETS) Juggle with career, kids,(single mom duty) Toward the end of the war, men come back and want all these Jobs back Women are old â€Å"it's your patriotic duty to go back home† forced to go back home Men in army want their Jobs back from blacks and women Because they played a key role in the economy, 19th amendment will be passed – right to vote Flu Pandemic 1918 and 1919 Originated from Spain, they called it the Spanish flu Kills more people than the war Roughly 20-40 million people died Conditions of warfare (training in facilities) going to forts and camps and the conditions that they live in are very congested If someone got the flu, it was easily caught Same thing in the trenches t Flu killed people within 24 hours, a lot of people survived, but more people diedPeople war masks to prevent from flu Resources were limited as to keeping up with the sick Schools, churches, gems, to lay out bodies and help people Doctors and nurses were in shortage Elevates to the point where your respiratory system and blood causes your system to fail How the US Got Ready for WWW Draft people (selective service act) Age 21-30 were drafted Some volunteered 3 million men served Dodge draft, religious reasons to not fight Raise money Liberty bonds Espionage Act – worried about others spying on us Go after people who aid the enemy German spies in US (terrorist from Germany) Sedition act Don't criticize government or the war effort Propaganda Committee of Public information Posters Movies Demonic or villainies Remember causes of war Harlem Hell fighters Most honored army Black people People had their own music Jazz) Jazz age came Women Women in WWW don't get much real attention Women did lots of munitions work Dangerous work, often lost fingers, could lose their life They were the ones who made sure the men overseas had bullets, shells, guns, and uniforms in which to fight. They pushed and moved heavy trucks Learned to mix chemicals Assemble airplanes Learned to weld and rivet Got to vote Operate machine tools

Designer Babies Essay

My interest in designer babies was first sparked by a book I was required to read in high school, Brave New World. For my class I was required to do a little research on this book, and as I was searching the Internet I came across a website on designer babies. Although Brave New World is not a book about designer babies, the altering of human genes described in the book is a concept very similar to designer babies. The possibility of a society made up of genetically altered humans, such as the one in this book, is becoming very real with the help of advancements in technology. In vision one day you and your significant other are going to the doctor because you are planning to have a baby, but you are not going to the doctor for a check up. You are going to pick out the sex, characteristic traits, and physical features (eye color, hair color skin color, etc.) of your baby. Crazy right? To think, one day we will have the technology and resources to do this. Although this topic of †Å"designing your baby† is fairly new and the science has not been perfected, it is a very big possibility in our near future. The issue with this technology is whether it should be allowed or not. Parents always want the very best for their children, but my morals lead me to believe that parents should not be allowed to alter their children in this way. In this exploratory essay I hope to find solid and specific information to help me decide my stance on this question: Should parents be allowed to design what their children look like? In English 2000 we were introduced to online search engines that could be used to find information on our topics. The search engine I found the most handy was the EBCO Host website. This site lead me to many resourceful articles that truly helped me better understand the topic of designer babies. The first resource I came across is titled Designer Babies: Eugenics Repackaged or Consumer Options? By Stephen L. Baird, technology education teacher at Bayside Middle School, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Baird describes how journalists are the ones who have coined the term â€Å"Designer Babies†. He goes onto to explain that this term is simply a shortened phrase that represents certain reproductive technologies that allow expecting parents to have more control on the birth outcomes of their child (15). Read Also:  Exploratory Essay Topics In vitro  fertilization (IVF) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) are two procedures of genetic engineering that are described through specific cases throughout this document. â€Å"Almost three decades ago, on July 25, 1978, Louise Brown, the first â€Å"test-tube baby† was born. The world’s first â€Å"test-tube† baby arrived amid a storm of protest and hand-wringing about science gone amok, human animal hybrids, and the rebirth of eugenics† (Baird 12). This â€Å"test-tube† case is the first case explained by Baird. The purpose for this example case is to describe how using the in vitro fertilization reproductive technique is not necessarily a bad thing. Although many voices of the public spoke against Brown, the â€Å"test-tube† baby, she was born as a completely normal human child. This is just one of the multiple cases that show the views and opinions of the public. Baird captures the various arguments against designer babies and arguments for designer babies. Some people share the opinion that there is nothing wrong with designer babies because they assist in preventing particular genetic diseases and reduce the emotional and financial burden for parents of children with these altered genetic diseases (Baird 15). On the other hand, certain people feel strongly against designer babies because creating â€Å"perfect† children could evolve into changes in the physical appearance of the children before they are even born (Baird 15). Baird’s document on designer babies was very informative in a way that helped me better understand the different sides of the argument on designer babies. I also felt as if this source gave me a better understanding on the basics of this topic such as the medical terms and procedures. Baird’s work could be very enlightening for individuals who do not have a complete understanding of what it means to be a designer baby. For example, before reading this I simply assumed designer babies were meant for physical alterations, and did not consider it to be beneficial to health alterations such as preventing genetic diseases. This paper did not hinder me to be for or against designer babies because I received equal information on both sides of the issue. My second source, Designing Babies: What the Future Holds, came from the same search engine as the previous article. This article was written by Dr.  Yury Verlinsky, graduate, postgraduate and PhD of Kharkov University. Verlinsky goes into detail about the different meanings the public has of designer babies. His definitions of designer babies include the sex of a child being chosen, testing embryos for unwanted disorders and diseases, or for cosmetic reasons (24). Verlinsky goes through the multiple views on the advantages and disadvantages of allowing parents to use the technology to create designer babies. One particular advantage of designer babies, pointed out by Verlinsky, that caught my attention was, â€Å"insurance companies, for example, may refuse to cover newborn malformations that could have been corrected before implantation† (25). This goes to show how people may be economically pressured into the technologies of designer babies. I found that this particular a rticle had a lot of the same factual information as the previous article. Certain ideas from the two articles stuck out in similar ways. Even some of the same phrases were repeated in both articles that I have come across. Although there were similarities, this article also brought some new ideas to my attention. The first article contained many real life cases while this article used many hypothetical possibilities. Some of the hypothetical possibilities were a little out of the box, but they really got me to think about the circumstances that the designer baby technology could lead to. Finally my third source, also coming from the same search engine, is A Brave New World of Designer Babies By Sonia Suter. This particular article goes in depth about the similarities and differences of the eugenics and neoeugenics movements. As stated by Suter, the eugenics movement can be explained as â€Å"the mission to reduce disease in the population, the efforts to protect the public fisc, and the goal of reducing suffering. What makes â€Å"eugenics† such a complex term is that its practitioners were well intentioned and it meant different things to different people† (900). Suter also explains the meaning of neoeugenics, â€Å"Neoeugenics strives towards â€Å"good birth† at the individual, rather than state level† (900). When Suter says at the individual level, he is referring to the fact that designing babies is an individual procedure that is a voluntary choice of the parent. In Suter’s mission to analyze the meaning of neoeugenics he brin gs us as far back to the times of eugenics brought about by Hitler. Hitler was responsible for a  mass genocide of individuals that did not fit his mold of the perfect human. In a way this is similar to the purpose of using gene alterations to make your designer baby. Suter describes how the main difference between eugenics and neoeugenics is the severity of the two (948). Suter states â€Å"neoeugenics appears less threatening than eugenics† (948). In the world we live in today we always want what is best for our offspring and ourselves. Suter explains, that those who disagree with designer babies could very possibly fall under the pressures of taking part in these sciences because they do not want their own children to be disadvantaged to the ones that chose to use these technological advances (965). I found that my final article gave me the most information about the perspectives people have on designer babies. Since the study of designer babies is fairly new, I like how this document uses something from the past to help me relate it to something. This article really went in depth about the positives and negatives of designer babies. Some people are certain that using designer baby technology can help prevent diseases, while others are absolutely opposed to it. These articles have tremendously improved my understanding of designer babies. I was not aware of how truly in depth this term goes. As of now, I would not say I have a solid stance on the question I proposed at the beginning of my essay; should parents be allowed to design their babies? There are just so many different things that this term means and many different sides of the argument. I do not believe that this is a straightforward yes or no question. This is a complex issue that I need to do more research on. At this point, I do not think there is a problem with parents wanting to protect their children and prevent diseases their child is susceptible to in the future, but to physically and characteristically alter a child based on how you want your child to look and act is something I still feel is not something humans should be able to control. Works Cited Baird, Stephen L. â€Å"Designer Babies: Eugenics Repackaged Or Consumer Options? (Cover Story).† Technology Teacher 66.7 (2007): 12-16. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Feb. 2014. Damiano, Laura. â€Å"When Parents Can Choose To Have The ‘Perfect’ Child: Why Fertility Clinics Should Be Required To Report Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis Data.† Family Court Review 49.4 (2011): 846-859. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. Schenker, Joseph G. Ethical Dilemmas In Assisted Reproductive Technologies. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 6 Feb. 2014. Suter, Sonia M. â€Å"A Brave New World Of Designer Babies?.† Berkeley Technology Law Journal 22.2 (2007): 897-969. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Feb. 2014 Verlinsky, Yury. â€Å"Designing Babies: What The Future Holds.† Reproductive Biomedicine Online (Reproductive Healthcare Limited) 10.(2005): 24-26. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.

Part One Saturday

I Every parking space in Church Row was taken by nine o'clock in the morning. Darkly clothed mourners moved, singly, in pairs and in groups, up and down the street, converging, like a stream of iron filings drawn to a magnet, on St Michael and All Saints. The path leading to the church doors became crowded, then overflowed; those who were displaced fanned out among the graves, seeking safe spots to stand between the headstones, fearful of trampling on the dead, yet unwilling to move too far from the church entrance. It was clear to everyone that there would not be enough pews for all the people who had come to say goodbye to Barry Fairbrother. His co-workers from the bank, who were grouped around the most extravagant of the Sweetlove tombs, wished that the august representative from head office would move on and take his inane small-talk and his clumsy jokes with him. Lauren, Holly and Jennifer from the rowing team had separated from their parents to huddle together in the shade of a mossy-fingered yew. Parish councillors, a motley bunch, talked solemnly in the middle of the path: a clutch of balding heads and thick-lensed glasses; a smattering of black straw hats and cultured pearls. Men from the squash and golf clubs hailed each other in subdued fashion; old friends from university recognized each other from afar and edged together; and in between milled what seemed to be most of Pagford, in their smartest and most sombre-hued clothes. The air droned with quiet conversations; faces flickered, watching and waiting. Tessa Wall's best coat, which was of grey wool, was cut so tightly around the armholes that she could not raise her arms above chest height. Standing beside her son on one side of the church path, she was exchanging sad little smiles and waves with acquaintances, while continuing to argue with Fats through lips she was trying not to move too obviously. ‘For God's sake, Stu. He was your father's best friend. Just this once, show some consideration.' ‘No one told me it was going to go on this bloody long. You told me it'd be over by half-past eleven.' ‘Don't swear. I said we'd leave St Michael's at about half-past eleven – ‘ ‘ – so I thought it'd be over, didn't I? So I arranged to meet Arf.' ‘But you've got to come to the burial, your father's a pall-bearer! Ring Arf and tell him it'll have to be tomorrow instead.' ‘He can't do tomorrow. Anyway, I haven't got my mobile on me. Cubby told me not to bring it to church.' ‘Don't call your father Cubby! You can ring Arf on mine,' said Tessa, burrowing in her pocket. ‘I don't know his number by heart,' lied Fats coldly. She and Colin had eaten dinner without Fats the previous evening, because he had cycled up to Andrew's place, where they were working on their English project together. That, at any rate, was the story Fats had given his mother, and Tessa had pretended to believe it. It suited her too well to have Fats out of the way, incapable of upsetting Colin. At least he was wearing the new suit that Tessa had bought for him in Yarvil. She had lost her temper at him in the third shop, because he had looked like a scarecrow in everything he had tried on, gawky and graceless, and she had thought angrily that he was doing it on purpose; that he could have inflated the suit with a sense of fitness if he chose. ‘Shh!' said Tessa pre-emptively. Fats was not speaking, but Colin was approaching them, leading the Jawandas; he seemed, in his overwrought state, to be confusing the role of pall-bearer with that of usher; hovering by the gates, welcoming people. Parminder looked grim and gaunt in her sari, with her children trailing behind her; Vikram, in his dark suit, looked like a film star. A few yards from the church doors, Samantha Mollison was waiting beside her husband, looking up at the bright off-white sky and musing on all the wasted sunshine beating down on top of the high ceiling of cloud. She was refusing to be dislodged from the hard-surfaced path, no matter how many old ladies had to cool their ankles in the grass; her patent-leather high heels might sink into the soft earth, and become dirty and clogged. When acquaintances hailed them, Miles and Samantha responded pleasantly, but they were not speaking to each other. They had had a row the previous evening. A few people had asked after Lexie and Libby, who usually came home at weekends, but both girls were staying over at friends' houses. Samantha knew that Miles regretted their absence; he loved playing paterfamilias in public. Perhaps, she thought, with a most pleasurable leap of fury, he would ask her and the girls to pose with him for a picture on his election leaflets. She would enjoy telling him what she thought of that idea. She could tell that he was surprised by the turnout. No doubt he was regretting that he did not have a starring role in the forthcoming service; it would have been an ideal opportunity to begin a surreptitious campaign for Barry's seat on the council with this big audience of captive voters. Samantha made a mental note to drop a sarcastic allusion to the missed opportunity when a suitable occasion arose. ‘Gavin!' called Miles, at the sight of a familiar, fair and narrow head. ‘Oh, hi, Miles. Hi, Sam.' Gavin's new black tie shone against his white shirt. There were violet bags under his light eyes. Samantha leaned in on tiptoes, so that he could not decently avoid kissing her on the cheek and inhaling her musky perfume. ‘Big turnout, isn't it?' Gavin said, gazing around. ‘Gavin's a pall-bearer,' Miles told his wife, in precisely the way that he would have announced that a small and unpromising child had been awarded a book token for effort. In truth, he had been a little surprised when Gavin had told him he had been accorded this honour. Miles had vaguely imagined that he and Samantha would be privileged guests, surrounded by a certain aura of mystery and importance, having been at the deathbed. It might have been a nice gesture if Mary, or somebody close to Mary, had asked him, Miles, to read a lesson, or say a few words to acknowledge the important part he had played in Barry's final moments. Samantha was deliberately unsurprised that Gavin had been singled out. ‘You and Barry were quite close, weren't you, Gav?' Gavin nodded. He felt jittery and a little sick. He had had a very bad night's sleep, waking in the early hours from horrible dreams in which, first, he had dropped the coffin, so that Barry's body spilt out onto the church floor; and, secondly, he had overslept, missed the funeral, and arrived at St Michael and All Saints to find Mary alone in the graveyard, white-faced and furious, screaming at him that he had ruined the whole thing. ‘I'm not sure where I ought to be,' he said, looking around. ‘I've never done this before.' ‘Nothing to it, mate,' said Miles. ‘There's only one requirement, really. Don't drop anything, hehehe.' Miles' girlish laugh contrasted oddly with his deep speaking voice. Neither Gavin nor Samantha smiled. Colin Wall loomed out of the mass of bodies. Big and awkward-looking, with his high, knobbly forehead, he always made Samantha think of Frankenstein's monster. ‘Gavin,' he said. ‘There you are. I think we should probably stand out on the pavement, they'll be here in a few minutes.' ‘Right-ho,' said Gavin, relieved to be ordered around. ‘Colin,' said Miles, with a nod. ‘Yes, hello,' said Colin, flustered, before turning away and forcing his way back through the mass of mourners. Then came another small flurry of movement, and Samantha heard Howard's loud voice: ‘Excuse me †¦ so sorry †¦ trying to join our family †¦' The crowd parted to avoid his belly, and Howard was revealed, immense in a velvet-faced overcoat. Shirley and Maureen bobbed in his wake, Shirley neat and composed in navy blue, Maureen scrawny as a carrion bird, in a hat with a small black veil. ‘Hello, hello,' said Howard, kissing Samantha firmly on both cheeks. ‘And how's Sammy?' Her answer was swallowed up in a widespread, awkward shuffling, as everybody began retreating backwards off the path: there was a certain discreet jockeying for position; nobody wanted to relinquish their claim to a place near the church entrance. With this cleaving in two of the crowd, familiar individuals were revealed like separate pips along the break. Samantha spotted the Jawandas: coffee-brown faces among all the whey; Vikram, absurdly handsome in his dark suit; Parminder dressed in a sari (why did she do it? Didn't she know she was playing right into the likes of Howard and Shirley's hands?) and beside her, dumpy little Tessa Wall in a grey coat, which was straining at the buttons. Mary Fairbrother and the children were walking slowly up the path to the church. Mary was terribly pale, and appeared pounds thinner. Could she have lost so much weight in six days? She was holding one of the twins' hands, with her other arm around the shoulders of her younger son, and the eldest, Fergus, marching behind. She walked with her eyes fixed straight ahead, her soft mouth pursed tight. Other family members followed Mary and the children; the procession moved over the threshold and was swallowed up in the dingy interior of the church. Everyone else moved towards the doors at once, which resulted in an undignified jam. The Mollisons found themselves shunted together with the Jawandas. ‘After you, Mr Jawanda, sir, after you †¦' boomed Howard, holding out an arm to let the surgeon walk in first. But Howard made sure to use his bulk to prevent anybody else taking precedence over him, and followed Vikram immediately through the entrance, leaving their families to follow on. A royal-blue carpet ran the length of the aisle of St Michael and All Saints. Golden stars glimmered on the vaulted ceiling; brass plaques reflected the glow of the hanging lamps. The stained-glass windows were elaborate and gorgeously hued. Halfway down the nave, on the epistle side, St Michael himself stared down from the largest window, clad in silver armour. Sky-blue wings curved out of his shoulders; in one hand he held aloft a sword, in the other, a pair of golden scales. A sandalled foot rested on the back of a writhing bat-winged Satan, who was dark grey in colour and attempting to raise himself. The saint's expression was serene. Howard stopped level with St Michael and indicated that his party should file into the pew on the left; Vikram turned right into the opposite one. While the remaining Mollisons, and Maureen, filed past him into the pew, Howard remained planted on the royal-blue carpet, and addressed Parminder as she passed him. ‘Dreadful, this. Barry. Awful shock.' ‘Yes,' she said, loathing him. ‘I always think those frocks look comfy; are they?' he added, nodding at her sari. She did not answer, but took her place beside Jaswant. Howard sat down too, making of himself a prodigious plug at the end of the pew that would seal it off to newcomers. Shirley's eyes were fixed respectfully on her knees, and her hands were clasped, apparently in prayer, but she was really mulling over Howard and Parminder's little exchange about the sari. Shirley belonged to a section of Pagford that quietly lamented the fact that the Old Vicarage, which had been built long ago to house a High Church vicar with mutton-chop whiskers and a starched-aproned staff, was now home to a family of Hindus (Shirley had never quite grasped what religion the Jawandas were). She thought that if she and Howard went to the temple, or the mosque, or wherever it was the Jawandas worshipped, they would doubtless be required to cover their heads and remove their shoes and who knew what else, otherwise there would be outcry. Yet it was acceptable for Parminder to flaunt her sari in church. It was not as though Parminder did not have normal clothes, for she wore them to work every day. The double standard of it all was what rankled; not a thought for the disrespect it s howed to their religion, and, by extension, to Barry Fairbrother himself, of whom she was supposed to have been so fond. Shirley unclasped her hands, raised her head, and gave her attention over to the outfits of people who were passing, and of the size and number of Barry's floral tributes. Some of these had been heaped up against the communion rail. Shirley spotted the offering from the council, for which she and Howard had organized the collection. It was a large, round traditional wreath of white and blue flowers, which were the colours of Pagford's arms. Their flowers and all the other wreaths were overshadowed by the life-sized oar, made of bronze chrysanthemums, which the girls' rowing team had given. Sukhvinder turned in her pew to look for Lauren, whose florist mother had made the oar; she wanted to mime that she had seen it and liked it, but the crowd was dense and she could not spot Lauren anywhere. Sukhvinder was mournfully proud that they had done it, especially when she saw that people were pointing it out to each other as they settled themselves in their seats. Five of the eight girls on the team had stumped up money for the oar. Lauren had told Sukhvinder how she had tracked down Krystal Weedon at lunchtime, and exposed herself to the piss-taking of Krystal's friends, who were sitting smoking on a low wall by the newsagent's. Lauren had asked Krystal if she wanted to chip in. ‘Yeah, I will, all righ',' Krystal had said; but she had not, so her name was not on the card. Nor, as far as Sukhvinder could see, had Krystal come to the funeral. Sukhvinder's insides were like lead, but the ache of her left forearm coupled with the sharp twinges of pain when she moved it was a counter-irritant, and at least Fats Wall, glowering in his black suit, was nowhere near her. He had not made eye contact with her when their two families had met, briefly, in the churchyard; he was restrained by the presence of their parents, as he was sometimes restrained by the presence of Andrew Price. Late the previous evening, her anonymous cyber-torturer had sent her a black and white picture of a naked Victorian child, covered in soft dark hair. She had seen it and deleted it while dressing for the funeral. When had she last been happy? She knew that in a different life, long before anyone had grunted at her, she had sat in this church, and been quite content for years; she had sung hymns with gusto at Christmas, Easter and Harvest Festival. She had always liked St Michael, with his pretty, feminine, Pre-Raphaelite face, his curly golden hair †¦ but this morning, for the first time, she saw him differently, with his foot resting almost casually on that writhing dark devil; she found his untroubled expression sinister and arrogant. The pews were packed. Muffled clunks, echoing footsteps and quiet rustlings animated the dusty air as the unlucky ones continued to file in at the back of the church and took up standing room along the left-hand wall. Some hopeful souls tiptoed down the aisle in case of an overlooked place in the crammed pews. Howard remained immovable and firm, until Shirley tapped his shoulder and whispered, ‘Aubrey and Julia!' At which Howard turned massively, and waved the service sheet to attract the Fawleys' attention. They came briskly down the carpeted aisle: Aubrey, tall, thin and balding in his dark suit, Julia with her light-red hair pulled back into a chignon. They smiled their thanks as Howard moved along, shunting the others up, making sure that the Fawleys had plenty of room. Samantha was jammed so tightly between Miles and Maureen that she could feel Maureen's sharp hip joint pressing into her flesh on one side and the keys in Miles' pocket on the other. Furious, she attempted to secure herself a centimetre or so more room, but neither Miles nor Maureen had anywhere else to go, so she stared straight ahead, and turned her thoughts vengefully to Vikram, who had lost none of his appeal in the month or so since she had last seen him. He was so conspicuously, irrefutably good-looking, it was silly; it made you want to laugh. With his long legs and his broad shoulders, and the flatness of his belly where his shirt tucked into his trousers, and those dark eyes with the thick black lashes, he looked like a god compared to other Pagford men, who were so slack and pallid and porky. As Miles leaned forward to exchange whispered pleasantries with Julia Fawley, his keys ground painfully into Samantha's upper thigh, and she imagined Vikram ripping open the navy wrap dress she was wearing, and in her fantasy she had omitted to put on the matching camisole that concealed her deep canyon of cleavage †¦ The organ stops creaked and silence fell, except for a soft persistent rustle. Heads turned: the coffin was coming up the aisle. The pall-bearers were almost comically mismatched: Barry's brothers were both five foot six, and Colin Wall, at the rear, six foot two, so that the back end of the coffin was considerably higher than the front. The coffin itself was not made of polished mahogany, but of wickerwork. It's a bloody picnic basket! thought Howard, outraged. Looks of surprise flitted across many faces as the willow box passed them, but some had known all about the coffin in advance. Mary had told Tessa (who had told Parminder) how the choice of material had been made by Fergus, Barry's eldest son, who wanted willow because it was a sustainable, quick-growing material and therefore environmentally friendly. Fergus was a passionate enthusiast for all things green and ecologically sound. Parminder liked the willow coffin better, much better, than the stout wooden box in which most English disposed of their dead. Her grandmother had always had a superstitious fear of the soul being trapped inside something heavy and solid, deploring the way that British undertakers nailed down the lids. The pall-bearers lowered the coffin onto the brocade-draped bier and retreated: Barry's son, brothers and brother-in-law edged into the front pews, and Colin walked jerkily back to join his family. For two quaking seconds Gavin hesitated. Parminder could tell that he was unsure of where to go, his only option to walk back down the aisle under the eyes of three hundred people. But Mary must have made a sign to him, because he ducked, blushing furiously, into the front pew beside Barry's mother. Parminder had only ever spoken to Gavin when she had tested and treated him for chlamydia. He had never met her gaze again. ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die †¦' The vicar did not sound as if he were thinking about the sense of the words issuing from his mouth, but only about his own delivery, which was sing-song and rhythmic. Parminder was familiar with his style; she had attended carol services for years with all the other St Thomas's parents. Long acquaintance had not reconciled her to the white-faced warrior saint staring down at her, nor all the dark wood, the hard pews, the alien altar with its jewelled golden cross, nor the dirgey hymns, which she found chilly and unsettling. So she withdrew her attention from the self-conscious drone of the vicar and thought again of her father. She had seen him out of the kitchen window, flat on his face, while her radio continued to blare from on top of the rabbit hutch. He had been lying there for two hours while she, her mother and her sisters had been browsing in Topshop. She could still feel her father's shoulder beneath his hot shirt as she had shaken it. ‘Dadiii. Dadiiiii.' They had scattered Darshan's ashes in the sad little River Rea in Birmingham. Parminder could remember the dull clay look of its surface, on an overcast day in June, and the stream of tiny white and grey flakes floating away from her. The organ clunked and wheezed into life, and she got to her feet with everybody else. She caught a glimpse of the backs of Niamh and Siobhan's red-gold heads; they were exactly the age she had been when Darshan had been taken from them. Parminder experienced a rush of tenderness, and an awful ache, and a confused desire to hold them and to tell them that she knew, she knew, she understood †¦ Morning has broken, like the first morning †¦ Gavin could hear a shrill treble from along the row: Barry's younger son's voice had not yet broken. He knew that Declan had chosen the hymn. That was another of the ghastly details of the service that Mary had chosen to share with him. He was finding the funeral an even worse ordeal than he had expected. He thought it might have been better with a wooden coffin; he had had an awful, visceral awareness of Barry's body inside that light wickerwork case; the physical weight of him was shocking. All those complacently staring people, as he walked up the aisle; did they not understand what he was actually carrying? Then had come the ghastly moment when he had realized that nobody had saved him a place, and that he would have to walk all the way back again while everybody stared, and hide among the standees at the back †¦ but instead he had been forced to sit in the first pew, horribly exposed. It was like being in the front seat of a rollercoaster, bearing the brunt of every awful twist and lurch. Sitting there, mere feet from Siobhan's sunflower, its head as big as a saucepan lid, in the middle of a big burst of yellow freesias and daylilies, he actually wished that Kay had come with him; he could not believe it, but there it was. He would have been consoled by the presence of somebody who was on his side; somebody simply to keep him a seat. He had not considered what a sad bastard he might look, turning up alone. The hymn ended. Barry's older brother walked to the front to speak. Gavin did not know how he could bear to do it, with Barry's corpse lying right in front of him beneath the sunflower (grown from seed, over months); nor how Mary could sit so quietly, with her head bowed, apparently looking at the hands clasped in her lap. Gavin tried, actively, to provide his own interior interference, so as to dilute the impact of the eulogy. He's going to tell the story about Barry meeting Mary, once he's got past this kid stuff †¦ happy childhood, high jinks, yeah, yeah †¦ Come on, move it along †¦ They would have to put Barry back in the car, and drive all the way to Yarvil to bury him in the cemetery there, because the tiny graveyard of St Michael and All Saints had been declared full twenty years previously. Gavin imagined lowering the wickerwork coffin into the grave under the eyes of this crowd. Carrying it in and out of the church would be nothing compared to that †¦ One of the twins was crying. Out of the corner of his eye, Gavin saw Mary reach out a hand to hold her daughter's. Let's get on with it, for fuck's sake. Please. ‘I think it's fair to say that Barry always knew his own mind,' Barry's brother was saying hoarsely. He had got a few laughs with tales of Barry's scrapes in childhood. The strain in his voice was palpable. ‘He was twenty-four when we went off on my stag weekend to Liverpool. First night there, we leave the campsite and go off to the pub, and there behind the bar is the landlord's student daughter, a beautiful blonde, helping out on a Saturday night. Barry spent the whole night propping up the bar, chatting her up, getting her into trouble with her dad and pretending he didn't know who the rowdy lot in the corner were.' A weak laugh. Mary's head was drooping; both hands were clutching those of the child on either side. ‘He told me that night, back in the tent, that he was going to marry her. I thought, Hang on, I'm the one who's supposed to be drunk.' Another little titter. ‘Baz made us go back to the same pub the next night. When we got home, the first thing he did was buy her a postcard and send it to her, telling her he'd be back next weekend. They were married a year to the day after they met, and I think everyone who knew them would agree that Barry knew a good thing when he saw it. They went on to have four beautiful children, Fergus, Niamh, Siobhan and Declan †¦' Gavin breathed carefully in and out, in and out, trying not to listen, and wondering what on earth his own brother would find to say about him under the same circumstances. He had not had Barry's luck; his romantic life did not make a pretty story. He had never walked into a pub and found the perfect wife standing there, blonde, smiling and ready to serve him a pint. No, he had had Lisa, who had never seemed to think him up to scratch; seven years of escalating warfare had culminated in a dose of the clap; and then, with barely a break, there had been Kay, clinging to him like an aggressive and threatening barnacle †¦ But, all the same, he would ring her later, because he didn't think he would be able to stand going back to his empty cottage after this. He would be honest, and tell her how horrible and stressful the funeral had been, and that he wished she had come with him. That would surely deflect any lingering umbrage about their row. He did not want to be alone tonight. Two pews back, Colin Wall was sobbing, with small but audible gasps, into a large, wet handkerchief. Tessa's hand rested on his thigh, exerting gentle pressure. She was thinking about Barry; about how she had relied upon him to help her with Colin; of the consolation of shared laughter; of Barry's boundless generosity of spirit. She could see him clearly, short and ruddy, jiving with Parminder at their last party; imitating Howard Mollison's strictures on the Fields; advising Colin tactfully, as only he could have done, to accept Fats' behaviour as adolescent, rather than sociopathic. Tessa was scared of what the loss of Barry Fairbrother would mean to the man beside her; scared of how they would manage to accommodate this huge ragged absence; scared that Colin had made a vow to the dead that he could not keep, and that he did not realize how little Mary, to whom he kept wanting to talk, liked him. And through all Tessa's anxiety and sorrow was threaded the usual worry, like an itchy little worm: Fats, and how she was going to avert an explosion, how she would make him come with them to the burial, or how she might hide from Colin that he had not come – which might, after all, be easier. ‘We are going to finish today's service with a song chosen by Barry's daughters, Niamh and Siobhan, which meant a lot to them and their father,' said the vicar. He managed, by his tone, to disassociate himself personally from what was about to happen. The beat of the drum rang so loudly through hidden speakers that the congregation jumped. A loud American voice was saying ‘uh huh, uh huh' and Jay-Z rapped: Good girl gone bad – Take three – Action. No clouds in my storms †¦ Let it rain, I hydroplane into fame Comin' down with the Dow Jones †¦ Some people thought that it was a mistake: Howard and Shirley threw outraged glances at each other, but nobody pressed stop, or ran up the aisle apologizing. Then a powerful, sexy female voice started to sing: You had my heart And we'll never be worlds apart Maybe in magazines But you'll still be my star †¦ The pall-bearers were carrying the wicker coffin back down the aisle, and Mary and the children were following. †¦ Now that it's raining more than ever Know that we'll still have each other You can stand under my umbuh-rella You can stand under my umbuh-rella The congregation filed slowly out of the church, trying not to walk in time to the beat of the song. II Andrew Price took the handlebars of his father's racing bicycle and walked it carefully out of the garage, making sure that he did not scrape the car. Down the stone steps and through the metal gate he carried it; then, in the lane, he put his foot on one pedal, scooted a few yards and swung his other leg over the saddle. He soared left onto the vertiginously sloping hillside road and sped, without touching his brakes, down towards Pagford. The hedgerows and sky blurred; he imagined himself in a velodrome as the wind whipped his clean hair and his stinging face, which he had just scrubbed clean. Level with the Fairbrothers' wedge-shaped garden he applied the brakes, because some months previously he had taken this sharp turn too fast and fallen off, and had had to return home immediately with his jeans ripped open and grazes all down one side of his face †¦ He freewheeled, with only one hand on the bars, into Church Row, and enjoyed a second, though lesser, downhill burst of speed, slightly checked when he saw that they were loading a coffin onto a hearse outside the church, and that a dark-clothed crowd was spilling out between the heavy wooden doors. Andrew pedalled furiously around the corner and out of sight. He did not want to see Fats emerging from church with a distraught Cubby, wearing the cheap suit and tie that he had described with comical disgust during yesterday's English lesson. It would have been like interrupting his friend having a crap. As Andrew cycled slowly around the Square, he slicked his hair back off his face with one hand, wondering what the cold air had done to his purple-red acne and whether the anti-bacterial face wash had done anything to soothe the angry look of it. And he told himself the cover story: he had come from Fats' house (which he might have done, there was no reason why not), which meant that Hope Street was as obvious a route down to the river as cutting through the first side street. Therefore there was no need for Gaia Bawden (if she happened to be looking out of the window of her house, and happened to see him, and happened to recognize him) to think that he had come this way because of her. Andrew did not anticipate having to explain to her his reason for cycling up her street, but he still held the fake story in his mind, because he believed it gave him an air of cool detachment. He simply wanted to know which was her house. Twice already, at weekends, he had cycled along the short terraced street, every nerve in his body tingling, but he had been unable, as yet, to discover which house harboured the Grail. All he knew, from his furtive glimpses through the dirty school-bus windows, was that she lived on the right hand even-numbered side. As he turned the corner, he tried to compose his features, acting the part of a man cycling slowly towards the river by the most direct route, lost in his own serious thoughts, but ready to acknowledge a classmate, should they show themselves †¦ She was there. On the pavement. Andrew's legs continued to pump, though he could not feel the pedals, and he was suddenly aware how thin the tyres were on which he balanced. She was rummaging in her leather handbag, her copper-brown hair hanging around her face. Number ten on the door ajar behind her, and a black T-shirt falling short of her waist; a band of bare skin, and a heavy belt and tight jeans †¦ when he was almost past her, she closed the door and turned; her hair fell back from her beautiful face, and she said, quite clearly, in her London voice, ‘Oh, hi.' ‘Hi,' he said. His legs kept pedalling. Six feet away, twelve feet away; why hadn't he stopped? Shock kept him moving, he dared not look back; he was at the end of her street already; for fuck's sake don't fall off; he turned the corner, too stunned to gauge whether he was more relieved or disappointed that he had left her behind. Holy shit. He cycled on towards the wooded area at the base of Pargetter Hill, where the river glinted intermittently through the trees, but he could see nothing except Gaia burned onto his retina like neon. The narrow road turned into an earthy footpath, and the gentle breeze off the water caressed his face, which he did not think had turned red, because it had all happened so quickly. ‘Fucking hell!' he said aloud to the fresh air and the deserted path. He raked excitedly through this magnificent, unexpected treasure trove: her perfect body, revealed in tight denim and stretchy cotton; number ten behind her, on a chipped, shabby blue door; ‘oh, hi', easily and naturally – so his features were definitely logged somewhere in the mind that lived behind the astonishing face. The bike jolted on the newly pebbly and rough ground. Elated, Andrew dismounted only when he began to overbalance. He wheeled the bicycle on through the trees, emerging onto the narrow riverbank, where he slung the bicycle down on the ground among the wood anemones that had opened like tiny white stars since his last visit. His father had said, when he first started to borrow the bike: ‘You chain it up if you're going in a shop. I'm warning you, if that gets nicked †¦' But the chain was not long enough to go around any of the trees and, in any case, the further he rode from his father the less Andrew feared him. Still thinking about the inches of flat, bare midriff and Gaia's exquisite face, Andrew strode to the place where the bank met the eroded side of the hill, which hung like an earthy, rocky cliff in a sheer face above the fast-flowing green water. The narrowest lip of slippery, crumbling bank ran along the bottom of the hillside. The only way of navigating it, if your feet had grown to be twice the length they had been when they had first made the trip, was to edge along sideways, pressed to the sheer face, holding tight to roots and bits of protruding rock. The mulchy green smell of the river and of wet soil was deeply familiar to Andrew, as was the sensation of this narrow ledge of earth and grass under his feet, and the cracks and rocks he sought with his hands on the hillside. He and Fats had found the secret place when they were eleven years old. They had known that what they were doing was forbidden and dangerous; they had been warned about the river. Terrified, but determined not to tell each other so, they had sidled along this tricky ledge, grabbing at anything that protruded from the rocky wall and, at the very narrowest point, clutching fistfuls of each other's T-shirts. Years of practice enabled Andrew, though his mind was barely on the job, to move crab-wise along the solid wall of earth and rock with the water gushing three feet beneath his trainers; then with a deft duck and swing, he was inside the fissure in the hillside that they had found so long ago. Back then, it had seemed like a divine reward for their daring. He could no longer stand up in it; but, slightly larger than a two-man tent, it was big enough for two teenage boys to lie, side by side, with the river rushing past and the trees dappling their view of the sky, framed by the triangular entrance. The first time they had been here, they had poked and dug at the back wall with sticks, but they had not found a secret passageway leading to the abbey above; so they gloried instead in the fact that they alone had discovered the hiding place, and swore that it would be their secret in perpetuity. Andrew had a vague memory of a solemn oath, spit and swearwords. They had called it the Cave when they had first discovered it, but it was now, and had been for some time past, the Cubby Hole. The little recess smelt earthy, though the sloping ceiling was made of rock. A dark green tidemark showed that it had flooded in the past, not quite to the roof. The floor was covered in their cigarette butts and cardboard roaches. Andrew sat down, with his legs dangling over the sludge-green water, and pulled his cigarettes and lighter out of his jacket, bought with the last of his birthday money, now that his allowance had been stopped. He lit up, inhaled deeply, and relived the glorious encounter with Gaia Bawden in as much detail as he could ring out of it: narrow waist and curving hips; creamy skin between leather and T-shirt; full, wide mouth; ‘oh, hi'. It was the first time he had seen her out of school uniform. Where was she going, alone with her leather handbag? What was there in Pagford for her to do on a Saturday morning? Was she perhaps catching the bus into Yarvil? What did she get up to when she was out of his sight; what feminine mysteries absorbed her? And he asked himself for the umpteenth time whether it was conceivable that flesh and bone wrought like that could contain a banal personality. It was only Gaia who had ever made him wonder this: the idea of body and soul as separate entities had never once occurred to him until he had clapped eyes on her. Even while trying to imagine what her breasts would look and feel like, judged by the visual evidence he had managed to gather through a slightly translucent school shirt, and what he knew was a white bra, he could not believe that the allure she held for him was exclusively physical. She had a way of moving that moved him as much as music, which was what moved him most of all. Surely the spirit animating that peerless body must be unusual too? Why would nature make a vessel like that, if not to contain something still more valuable? Andrew knew what naked women looked like, because there were no parental controls on the computer in Fats' conversion bedroom. Together they had explored as much online porn as they could access for free: shaven vulvas; pink labia pulled wide to show darkly gaping slits; spread buttocks revealing the puckered buttons of anuses; thickly lipsticked mouths, dripping semen. Andrew's excitement was underpinned, always, by the panicky awareness that you could only hear Mrs Wall approaching the room when she reached the creaking halfway stair. Sometimes they found weirdness that made them roar with laughter, even when Andrew was unsure whether he was more excited or repulsed (whips and saddles, harnesses, ropes, hoses; and once, at which even Fats had not managed to laugh, close-ups of metal-bolted contraptions, and needles protruding from soft flesh, and women's faces frozen, screaming). Together he and Fats had become connoisseurs of silicone-enhanced breasts, enormous, taut and round. ‘Plastic,' one of them would point out, matter of factly, as they sat in front of the monitor with the door wedged shut against Fats' parents. The on-screen blonde's arms were raised as she sat astride some hairy man, her big brown-nippled breasts hanging off her narrow rib cage like bowling balls, thin, shiny purple lines under each of them showing where the silicone had been inserted. You could almost tell how they would feel, looking at them: firm, as if there were a football underneath the skin. Andrew could imagine nothing more erotic than a natural breast; soft and spongy and perhaps a little springy, and the nipples (he hoped) contrastingly hard. And all of these images blurred in his mind, late at night, with the possibilities offered by real girls, human girls, and the little you managed to feel through clothes if you managed to move in close enough. Niamh was the less pretty of the Fairbrother twins, but she had been the more willing, in the stuffy drama hall, during the Christmas disco. Half hidden by the musty stage curtain in a dark corner, they had pressed against each other, and Andrew had put his tongue into her mouth. His hands had inched as far as her bra strap and no further, because she kept pulling away. He had been driven, chiefly, by the knowledge that somewhere outside in the darkness, Fats was going further. And now his brain teemed and throbbed with Gaia. She was both the sexiest girl he had ever seen and the source of another, entirely inexplicable yearning. Certain chord changes, certain beats, made the very core of him shiver, and so did something about Gaia Bawden. He lit a new cigarette from the end of the first and threw the butt into the water below. Then he heard a familiar scuffling, and leaned forward to see Fats, still wearing his funeral suit, spread-eagled on the hill wall, moving from hand-hold to hand-hold as he edged along the narrow lip of bank, towards the opening where Andrew sat. ‘Fats.' ‘Arf.' Andrew pulled in his legs to give Fats room to climb into the Cubby Hole. ‘Fucking hell,' said Fats, when he had clambered inside. He was spider-like in his awkwardness, with his long limbs, his skinniness emphasized by the black suit. Andrew handed him a cigarette. Fats always lit up as though he were in a high wind, one hand cupped around the flame to shield it, scowling slightly. He inhaled, blew a smoke ring out of the Cubby Hole and loosened the dark grey tie around his neck. He appeared older and not, after all, so very foolish in the suit, which bore traces of earth on the knees and cuffs from the journey to the cave. ‘You'd think they were bum chums,' Fats said, after he had taken another powerful drag on his cigarette. ‘Cubby upset, was he?' ‘Upset? He's having fucking hysterics. He's given himself hiccups. He's worse than the fucking widow.' Andrew laughed. Fats blew another smoke ring and pulled at one of his overlarge ears. ‘I bowed out early. They haven't even buried him yet.' They smoked in silence for a minute, both looking out at the sludgy river. As he smoked, Andrew contemplated the words ‘bowed out early', and the amount of autonomy Fats seemed to have, compared to himself. Simon and his fury stood between Andrew and too much freedom: in Hilltop House, you sometimes copped for punishment simply because you were present. Andrew's imagination had once been caught by a strange little module in their philosophy and religion class, in which primitive gods had been discussed in all their arbitrary wrath and violence, and the attempts of early civilizations to placate them. He had thought then of the nature of justice as he had come to know it: of his father as a pagan god, and of his mother as the high priestess of the cult, who attempted to interpret and intercede, usually failing, yet still insisting, in the face of all the evidence, that there was an underlying magnanimity and reasonableness to her deity. Fats rested his head against the stone side of the Cubby Hole and blew smoke rings at the ceiling. He was thinking about what he wanted to tell Andrew. He had been mentally rehearsing the way he would start, all through the funeral service, while his father gulped and sobbed into his handkerchief. Fats was so excited by the prospect of telling, that he was having difficulty containing himself; but he was determined not to blurt it out. The telling of it was, to Fats, of almost equal importance to the doing of it. He did not want Andrew to think that he had hurried here to say it. ‘You know how Fairbrother was on the Parish Council?' said Andrew. ‘Yeah,' said Fats, glad that Andrew had initiated a space-filler conversation. ‘Si-Pie's saying he's going to stand for his seat.' ‘Si-Pie is?' Fats frowned at Andrew. ‘What the fuck's got into him?' ‘He reckons Fairbrother was getting backhanders from some contractor.' Andrew had heard Simon discussing it with Ruth in the kitchen that morning. It had explained everything. ‘He wants a bit of the action.' ‘That wasn't Barry Fairbrother,' said Fats, laughing as he flicked ash onto the cave floor. ‘And that wasn't the Parish Council. That was What's-his-name Frierly, up in Yarvil. He was on the school board at Winterdown. Cubby had a fucking fit. Local press calling him for a comment and all that. Frierly got done for it. Doesn't Si-Pie read the Yarvil and District Gazette?' Andrew stared at Fats. ‘Fucking typical.' He ground out his cigarette on the earthy floor, embarrassed by his father's idiocy. Simon had got the wrong end of the stick yet again. He spurned the local community, sneered at their concerns, was proud of his isolation in his poxy little house on the hill; then he got a bit of misinformation and decided to expose his family to humiliation on the basis of it. ‘Crooked as fuck, Si-Pie, isn't he?' said Fats. They called him Si-Pie because that was Ruth's nickname for her husband. Fats had heard her use it once, when he had been over for his tea, and had never called Simon anything else since. ‘Yeah, he is,' said Andrew, wondering whether he would be able to dissuade his father from standing by telling him he had the wrong man and the wrong council. ‘Bit of a coincidence,' said Fats, ‘because Cubby's standing as well.' Fats exhaled through his nostrils, staring at the crevice wall over Andrew's head. ‘So will voters go for the cunt,' he said, ‘or the twat?' Andrew laughed. There was little he enjoyed more than hearing his father called a cunt by Fats. ‘Now have a shifty at this,' said Fats, jamming his cigarette between his lips and patting his hips, even though he knew that the envelope was in the inside breast pocket. ‘Here you go,' he said, pulling it out and opening it to show Andrew the contents: brown peppercorn-sized pods in a powdery mix of shrivelled stalks and leaves. ‘Sensimilla, that is.' ‘What is it?' ‘Tips and shoots of your basic unfertilized marijuana plant,' said Fats, ‘specially prepared for your smoking pleasure.' ‘What's the difference between that and the normal stuff?' asked Andrew, with whom Fats had split several lumps of waxy black cannabis resin in the Cubby Hole. ‘Just a different smoke, isn't it?' said Fats, stubbing out his own cigarette. He took a packet of Rizlas from his pocket, drew out three of the fragile papers and gummed them together. ‘Did you get it off Kirby?' asked Andrew, poking at and sniffing the contents of the envelope. Everyone knew Skye Kirby was the go-to man for drugs. He was a year above them, in the lower sixth. His grandfather was an old hippy, who had been up in court several times for growing his own. ‘Yeah. Mind, there's a bloke called Obbo,' said Fats, slitting cigarettes and emptying the tobacco onto the papers, ‘in the Fields, who'll get you anything. Fucking smack, if you want it.' ‘You don't want smack, though,' said Andrew, watching Fats' face. ‘Nah,' said Fats, taking the envelope back, and sprinkling the sensimilla onto the tobacco. He rolled the joint together, licking the end of the papers to seal it, poking the roach in more neatly, twisting the end into a point. ‘Nice,' he said happily. He had planned to tell Andrew his news after introducing the sensimilla as a kind of warm-up act. He held out his hand for Andrew's lighter, inserted the cardboarded end between his own lips and lit up, taking a deep, contemplative drag, blowing out the smoke in a long blue jet, then repeating the process. ‘Mmm,' he said, holding the smoke in his lungs, and imitating Cubby, whom Tessa had given a wine course one Christmas. ‘Herby. A strong aftertaste. Overtones of †¦ fuck †¦' He experienced a massive headrush, even though he was sitting, and exhaled, laughing. ‘†¦ try that.' Andrew leaned across and took the joint, giggling in anticipation, and at the beatific smile on Fats' face, which was quite at odds with his usual constipated scowl. Andrew inhaled and felt the power of the drug radiate out from his lungs, unwinding and loosening him. Another drag, and he thought that it was like having your mind shaken out like a duvet, so that it resettled without creases, so that everything became smooth and simple and easy and good. ‘Nice,' he echoed Fats, smiling at the sound of his own voice. He passed the joint back into Fat's waiting fingers and savoured this sense of well-being. ‘So, you wanna hear something interesting?' said Fats, grinning uncontrollably. ‘Go on.' ‘I fucked her last night.' Andrew nearly said ‘who?', before his befuddled brain remembered: Krystal Weedon, of course; Krystal Weedon, who else? ‘Where?' he asked, stupidly. It was not what he wanted to know. Fats stretched out on his back in his funeral suit, his feet towards the river. Wordlessly, Andrew stretched out beside him, in the opposite direction. They had slept like this, ‘top and tail', when they had stayed overnight at each other's houses as children. Andrew gazed up at the rocky ceiling, where the blue smoke hung, slowly furling, and waited to hear everything. ‘I told Cubby and Tess I was at yours, so you know,' said Fats. He passed the joint into Andrew's reaching fingers, then linked his long hands on his chest, and listened to himself telling. ‘Then I got the bus to the Fields. Met her outside Oddbins.' ‘By Tesco's?' asked Andrew. He did not know why he kept asking dumb questions. ‘Yeah,' said Fats. ‘We went to the rec. There's trees in the corner behind the public bogs. Nice and private. It was getting dark.' Fats shifted position and Andrew handed back the joint. ‘Getting in's harder than I thought it would be,' said Fats, and Andrew was mesmerized, half inclined to laugh, afraid of missing every unvarnished detail Fats could give him. ‘She was wetter when I was fingering her.' A giggle rose like trapped gas in Andrew's chest, but was stifled there. ‘Lot of pushing to get in properly. It's tighter than I thought.' Andrew saw a jet of smoke rise from the place where Fats' head must be. ‘I came in about ten seconds. It feels fucking great once you're in.' Andrew fought back laughter, in case there was more. ‘I wore a johnny. It'd be better without.' He pushed the joint back into Andrew's hand. Andrew pulled on it, thinking. Harder to get in than you thought; over in ten seconds. It didn't sound much; yet what wouldn't he give? He imagined Gaia Bawden flat on her back for him and, without meaning to, let out a small groan, which Fats did not seem to hear. Lost in a fug of erotic images, pulling on the joint, Andrew lay with his erection on the patch of earth his body was warming and listened to the soft rush of the water a few feet from his head. ‘What matters, Arf?' asked Fats, after a long, dreamy pause. His head swimming pleasantly, Andrew answered, ‘Sex.' ‘Yeah,' said Fats, delighted. ‘Fucking. That's what matters. Propogun †¦ propogating the species. Throw away the johnnies. Multiply.' ‘Yeah,' said Andrew, laughing. ‘And death,' said Fats. He had been taken aback by the reality of that coffin, and how little material lay between all the watching vultures and an actual corpse. He was not sorry that he had left before it disappeared into the ground. ‘Gotta be, hasn't it? Death.' ‘Yeah,' said Andrew, thinking of war and car crashes, and dying in blazes of speed and glory. ‘Yeah,' said Fats. ‘Fucking and dying. That's it, innit? Fucking and dying. That's life.' ‘Trying to get a fuck and trying not to die.' ‘Or trying to die,' said Fats. ‘Some people. Risking it.' ‘Yeah. Risking it.' There was more silence, and their hiding place was cool and hazy. ‘And music,' said Andrew quietly, watching the blue smoke hanging beneath the dark rock. ‘Yeah,' said Fats, in the distance. ‘And music.' The river rushed on past the Cubby Hole.