Piove grigio, oggi, e tra un’ora sarò dalla bambina, a fare ripetizioni: più altro, in realtà, le leggerò i libri di Roald Dahl e proverò a metterle in testa che Lady GaGa è una cretina (impresa non semplice). Mi pagano pure, per farlo. Novembre gocciola via con questo diluvio ostinato, domani si spalancherà dicembre, poco tempo a Natale, già le luci graffiano vetrine e cieli: però non mi sento ancora in atmosfera. È un periodo stranito, non strano. Sono felice, ma in un modo insolito: mi sento disorientata da presenze calde e assenze altrettanto palpabili, da un’università in standby, traslochi un po’ malinconici, amici annichiliti dal dolore che non so come aiutare, istinti di scrittura senza incalanature disciplinate, progetti abbozzati sul retro di depliant (che finisco sempre per buttare); disorientata dal bisogno di avere uno spazio elastico, un contenitore immenso, un’incertezza piena di respiro. Accendo incensi in una camera che presto non sarà più mia, e cerco d’immaginare la neve. Un anno fa ero a Cardiff, in un tumulto di vita e colore e incontri speciali: già un anno. E quanto è imploso, in quest’anno lunghissimo. Ora provo un amore nuovo, denso, che è lo stupore di fronte a un incontro inaspettato, che per una volta riesce a tenermi ferma, a placarmi, con tutta la dolcezza di cui è capace: come raddrizzare la pioggia; eppure è capitato. Intanto continua a piovere grigio, in questo schifo di pianura, ma per fortuna continuano anche a capitare i libri, i viaggi, il vino, i concerti. Capitano le giornate in spiaggia, a sbirciare com’è il mare d’autunno, capita un parquet nuovo da calpestare a piedi nudi, il parlare di Charlie Chaplin – al centro per i prelievi – con un’infermiera. Probabilmente, per avere un futuro in questa meravigliosa Italia, dovrò fare il parlamentare o il trans (una bella lotta), però, oggi pomeriggio, nonostante il tempaccio, mi verrebbe voglia di berci su un bicchiere di tequila e crogiolarmi nell’idea che, comunque vada, avrò un’ora per insultare Lady GaGa: sono soddisfazioni. E io sono pioggia raddrizzata.

This is Part 2 of a series; Part 1 dealt with how much professional camera kit can actually cost and can be found here.

All of my wedding packages include 10 hours of wedding photography and a pre-wedding shoot. In Part 2 of this series I am going to briefly discuss the cost of the pre-wedding shoot.

I say cost but to be honest it doesn’t cost the bride and groom anything – it is included in all of the standard packages and all of the bespoke packages I put together. (Ok, to be even more honest the cost is included in the mark-up etc but that would be giving away another part of this series!)

A pre-wedding shoot is a great thing for both the couple and myself. It allows us to get to know each other better, get to practise some of the poses that they wish to use, they get used to having a camera in their faces and being told to “smile with your eyes!” all the time by me but, and this is the most important part, they get used to having me around. I mean, lets face it, I’m gonna be with the bride for 10 hours and probably more. That’s a long time – so she needs to make sure that she feels totally comfortable with me and my tea making abilities!!

Anyway, a typical pre-wedding shoot will take about 1/2 day. Thats about 4 hours and will include my travel time to and from the venue the couple have chosen and the shoot itself.

After that it will take me about another 1/2 day to sort the images out, colour correct them etc and upload them to my secure website (click here for a preview).

So a pre-wedding shoot takes about 8 hours of work, or a full day to most people.

We now need to start the ball rolling and think about how much do photographers earn!! A teaser for Part 4!!

I would like to earn £50,000 BEFORE tax, National Insurance, Pensions etc etc. To work out the day rate I need to charge therefore is pretty simple. 50,000 / 365 = 136

So each day I need to work I need to earn £136.

There are lots of questions I am sure you are dying to ask and this is a pretty simple explanation remember and the real maths are a bit more complicated. But ask yourself this:

“If I my wedding photographer is only charging £300 how does he or she make a living?”

I had a client in July who in all honesty expected me to offer a pre-wedidng shoot and a full day of wedding photography for £250 and that included ALL of the images from the pre-wedding shoot AND the wedding itself.

More to follow ladies and gents!

Andrew Miller

www.andrew-miller.co.uk

www.rubusphotos.co.uk

Coldplay’s debut Parachutes is just swept in under the rug of the noughties by seven months, but it’s still being listened to around the world today. Just look at the simple, instantly iconic album art. Just like Chris Martin’s pointless, circular lyrics (High Speed was named after a washing machine setting) it doesn’t need to be analysed. It just sits there being perfect, pretty and inoffensive.

Parachutes (album cover)

But Parachutes isn’t my choice for our class’s wrangling over the album of the decade because of its legacy. If I were just choosing it for this, I’d have to acknowledge the legions of Coldplay-haters out there. Not to mention Snow Patrol. Coldplay have indeed gone down some silly roads.

Second album A Rush of Blood to the Head began the movement towards becoming U2 with Clocks, and when X & Y was released while I was in sixth form, it was the greatest anticlimax the world had known. The feverish build-up to its release was slammed all over the airwaves, the headlines, the rest of it. But the first single was Speed of Sound, an uninteresting track which tried to cash in on the Clocks ‘beat’. Unfortunately this amazing “messing with time signatures” thing was, err, pretty common long before 2003:

This album is the choice of the decade for me because it is perfectly unified – a joy to listen to. A friend of mine once said you start humming the next song before the last has even finished. In these days of downloading one song at a time, how many albums can you say you’d never listen to on shuffle?

It manages to do this by mixing memorable melodic hits like Yellow and Trouble with more forgettable, but perfectly pitched songs like Don’t Panic and Sparks. The fact that they were still inoffensive back in 2000 means they can be universally appreciated and liked, if not adored.

And the effect of Parachutes as an album, once the lights are switched off and the laptop shut down, is one of calm, unadulterated bliss. After years of Coldplay-hating, it reminds you Chris Martin actually has a beautiful voice.

And it reminds you that when he wasn’t trying to curry favour with the mass market, he wrote and arranged chillout songs which were utterly, utterly effortless. None of the bluster of the later work. I always thought Coldplay was one of those bands that got worse and worse as time went on, a point proved by early track See You Soon.

But the point still stands. If I have to choose one full album, it’s got to be the earliest one. It’s simple, pleasant, well-written and wonderfully mixed. ‘Nuff said. Vote for it here, and follow the debate / read other blogs using the #albumofthedecade tag on Twitter.

As one of the key players behind the Llandaff based artists’ resource TactileBosch, Kim Fielding has been playing a pivotal role in the development of the Cardiff contemporary art scene for many years. This solo exhibition, Sidewinder, was inspired by the snake of the same name – you know the one that ripples effortlessly across desert sand leaving only strange curved indentations of its progress.

Although there are no appearances here of the eponymous serpent, Fielding seems fascinated by the idea of the Sidewinder as one of nature’s immaculate machines. There is something about the idea of a mechanically perfect device – usually predatory – that can operate without rationality that must lie at the root of many a nightmare.  Fielding explores this fear/fascination in a series of projected video pieces of male nudes and some uncanny macro close ups of sand and crabs.

Anyone who has ever gone exploring through rock pools knows that Crabs are creepy little monsters in miniature. Alternately fascinating or frightening. Fielding photographs them in extreme close up. At these distances – a fraction of an inch – only a small part of the image can be in focus with the rest blending away to a fuzzy dream, a blurry lair in which the oversized monster dwells.

In other pictures he photographs oily ripples in the sand or in the dark corners of rock pools and then, by the disarmingly simple process of duplicating and inverting the image (left to right) he creates a shocking geometrical perfection out of nature’s random sludge.

The rest of the space is given over to a number of video pieces which are projected variously against the walls or through net curtains. Some of these are large, taking up the whole height of the gallery whilst others are small with the projector aimed into a small corner of the room and one is in a cupboard under the stairs in a space barely large enough for one viewer at a time.

Most of the video pieces are essentially depictions of male nudes, swaying, writhing, twisting in movements that allude back to the idea of nature’s perfect machine. These bodies, all male, mostly young, are lit simply and processed mainly using slow motion or repeated, ghosted frames. In one a blindfolded boy fumbles around a room trying to find his own shadows on the walls and in another – under the stairs – a young man disrobes slowly whilst rolling on the floor covered in water or perhaps it’s oil. It’s an unusual image of masculinity. It avoids the usual hunky well-hung clichés of male nudes and reaches for a more sensual, willowy portrayal.

The real stand-out piece was a video called simply Crab which uses the talents of physical theatre actor Jaakko Tenhunen. In a genuinely freakish piece, Jaakko contorts his body and scuttles around sideway on all fours through the dark haunted-house corridors of TactileBosch’s old studio complex. It’s perhaps too much to call it shocking or disturbing but in an age of CGI monsters there is something brilliantly grotesque about these half human-half insect creatures achieved not through clever electronics but purely through the use of the amazing physicality of the actor and simple, low tech lighting.

(This review first appeared in The Western Mail 27.11.09)

San Diego Real Estate is here to share information about real estate in san diego.  We will show you the latest deals that are out there, tricks and tips about buying houses or commercial property and much more.  Stay tuned!

OK, so it turns out I lied about not posting today. It’s not because I’m a dishonest professor, though. It’s just that I couldn’t resist drawing your attention to the new results that have just been released by the European Space Agency. To whet your appetite, have a shufty at this exquisite far infrared spectrum of the star VY Canis Majoris taken using the SPIRE instrument for which Cardiff is the lead institute.

VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) is a red hypergiant, an enormous evolved star located in the constellation Canis Major. With a radius 2600 times that of the Sun, it is the largest known star and it is also one of the most luminous stars known. It is located about 4900 light years away from Earth, has a luminosity in excess of 100,000  solar luminosities, and a mass in the range 30-40 solar masses.

The shell of gas it has ejected displays a complex structure, the so-created circumstellar envelope is among the most remarkable chemical laboratories known in the universe, creating a rich set of organic and inorganic molecules and dust species. Through stellar winds, these inorganic and organic compounds are injected into the interstellar medium, from which new stars orbited by new planets may form. Most of the carbon supporting life on planet Earth was probably made by this kind of evolved star. VY CMa is close to the end of its life and could explode as a supernova at any time.

Spectroscopic results may be a bit less photogenic than pretty pictures, but they often yield much more physically relevant information than simple images. As I’ve mentioned before, it is in spectroscopy where we find the difference between astronomy and astrophysics (or, less politely, between stamp collecting and science).  In this case the spectrum gives a detailed breakdown of the chemical mixture present in the matter ejected by this star.

You can find other stunning examples of Herschel’s infrared spectroscopic capabilities here and you can read more about the involvement of Cardiff astronomers in these stunning new science results on our own pages here.

There’s also a story on the BBC Website.

There hasn’t been any “copying and pasting of news” this week – it’s been a busy one with a lot of deadlines. It’ll return come Monday. I also went to the launch on Baker Street last night of Trading Places, a new book by award-winning photographer and all-round good chap Steve Bloom. Also my dad. So that’s why posts have been scant: but it’s Friday, so I thought I’d cheer you all up with a few tips on how to survive the Christmas do…

The Christmas party: that perfect time to let your hair down and throw your reputation to the winds. What other time of year can you mock your boss, flirt with your co-workers and dance in your knickers, all at once?

But as legions of office drones know, that opportunity comes with a priceless hangover.

A good story was told by Adam, of High Street, Cardiff city centre. Things went wrong at his old job when fire fighters got more than they bargained for in a call-out.

Adam said: “My old work, a now-defunct bank, had a Christmas party in the office in 2003. There was a buffet, an awards ceremony for the year’s work, and karaoke machine, with added smoke machine.

“So the party was in full swing, people singing, people dancing and the smoke machine smoking. After about two hours of this, some men dressed in fireman outfits arrived at the office. Some of the female staff – including managers – assumed these were strippers.

“They started, well, gyrating around the men, trying to take off their ‘outfits’. The thing is though, they were actual firemen: the smoke machine had set the alarms off.

“Not surprisingly, that was the last Christmas party we were given in that office.”

So how does the humble worker bee prevent getting into pickles like these? Here are some ideas. Which type are you?

FOR THE NEW GUY

You have got to be extra-careful. For you have just entered a parallel world, in which your every move will be scrutinised to fit with the ‘banter’ of man-all-man employees who’ve been spending longer with each other than their wives for several decades.

So if you’ve been waiting for that perfect time to share your secret love of musicals, discuss French theatre, come out as gay or, worse, as a vegan, your first Christmas party isn’t it.

And beware, because it will seem like a good idea when you’re nine pints down and standing on the table without trousers or dignity.

Instead the best policy is cower in the corner, if possible with other trainees, and talk about ludicrously safe subjects.

Think along the lines of cars, ties (not shoes), bitter (not lager) and possibly politics, but make sure you tow the standard line: “Just how bad is that Gordon Brown?” Or you could stick to the ergonomic management keyboard:

FOR THE NEW GIRL

You’re over here. The punch is over there. In the middle is overweight Gwyn from accounts who always puts himself deliberately between you and the photocopier so you have to squeeze past.

This should be as good a hint as any not to drink anything. You’re young, fresh-faced, intelligent and unknown to you most people in the office are competing to be you, or worse, especially in Gwyn’s case.

So if they get you drunk, you’ll slowly turn into them: following the downward course until spring, when someone even younger and prettier comes in and sure enough, you want to be her.

Or, worse, you’ll canoodle in the corner with lovestruck Gwyn who, come 2010, will make sure he’s not only blocking the photocopier, but also the vending machine, water cooler and door.

But you’ve not got the same option as the New Guy. You can’t lurk in the corner with the fairer sex and a G&T, because unlike office guys, who mumble into their pints and keep eyes on ties, office girls will make sure they’re heard.

So it’s a no-go, especially if they have any gossip on Gwyn. The best bet is to flirt briefly with everything in the room – and walk away with your head held high.

FOR THE SAD HACK IN THE CORNER

You’re the only person older than the boss, so to rub in the fact you didn’t succeed even more you’ll be asked to toast him/her. If you’re sober, this will be an excellent exercise in brown-nosing. If you’re not, it’ll be an exercise in damage limitation.

You will be inclined to make a cruel joke. Do not bend to this temptation. It will probably come out wrong, meaning after 26 years of the same old story at the office do, you’ll be repeating yourself again in the new year. Someone else will get that promotion, and you’ll be stuck counting down the days on your free calendar to the next party.

You’ll also be inclined to do your famous boss-impression. Unfortunately, its fame is probably due to an in-joke among your younger colleagues, and isn’t actually funny. Plus, impressions at office dos are seldom better than that dance Ricky Gervais did in The Office. Often, they’re worse.

So don’t do it. And especially, please, don’t try and impersonate Ricky Gervais. Just no.

FOR THE BOSS

Finally, if you’re the boss and you’ve not been told about the office party, it could be a surprise do for you.

Be prepared to walk through that door after ‘urgent business’ calls you in to be greeted with party poppers and bubbly by the whole staff. By the time they’ve finished stroking your ego you won’t be able to get your head through the door.

But it more likely means you’ve not been invited.

So a word of caution: have a good think about how well-liked you are. Do you bend, bad breath and all, over the hunched shoulders of your well-meaning employees and whine you-could-probably-do-this advice in their ears?

Do you give motivational speeches standing on tables where you use star-charts and words like “self-fulfilment”? Do you keep everyone on past 5.30pm in the name of “building a community spirit”?

If any of these things apply to you, you are probably one of those Hated Bosses you’ve heard so much about. Your best bet would be to stay at home with your kids. They’re too young to realise how irritating you are yet.

Children’s writer and illustrator Lauren Child will be exhibiting her work in Cardiff this Winter. From November 21^st 2009 to January 31^st 2010 Cardiff Museum is host to Green Drops and Moonsquirters: The Utterly Imaginative World of Lauren Child. Visitors are invited to step inside the pages of some of the UK’s best-loved children’s books including favourites Charlie and Lola, Clarice Bean and That Pesky Rat.

I visited the exhibition at Cardiff Museum one lunch time this week. I’d read an article in the press stressing the exhibition’s appeal to adults and children alike but I still had reservations. I’d have felt more comfortable had a child been holding my hand as I entered the foyer. As predicted the exhibition was located in an upstairs room that through the glass double-doors could be mistaken for the museum nursery. Inside, a young dad was losing patience with his son who on being told it was time to go home began tossing plastic fish fingers over the roof of Charlie and Lola’s model kitchen. I felt like an imposter. Framed illustrations were positioned on the walls at an average height of 4ft and the entrances to the different areas (each depicting a different scene from a Child story) were equally child-friendly but the snippets of text were worth stooping for. Publishers turned down numerous attempts from Child to get her books on shop shelves, believing the books to be ‘too sophisticated’. But from what I could gather, Child captured the voice of the child wonderfully. When the books made their transferal to the screen,  Child opted against auditioning young actors in favour of using amateurs to preserve the natural irregularity of her characters’ dialogue that makes her books distinctive and made for great listening when the books went on to be produced as a television series by the BBC. Who can forget the voice of Lola who ‘will not ever never eat a tomato’?

The Princess and the Pea area of the exhibition has more to offer those after a behind-the-scenes look into the technical process of book production. Child collaborated with professional portrait photographer Polly Borland to illustrate The Princess and the Pea. A series of display boxes house miniature modelled depictions of some of the story’s key scenes which are brought to life by Child’s cut-out cardboard characters. Borland skilfully photographed the contents of each box manipulating light to create the desired effect, even using tin foil to represent a flash of lightening in an eerie storm scene of the princess in the woods.

Child shares some of her own favourite illustrations with the visiting public, including work donated to the exhibition by Quentin Blake whose specifically scrawly style can be seen replicated in Child’s own work. But it is the paintings of illustrator Angela Barret that Child claims to admire most. I too was mesmerised by an original oil painting of Barret’s depicting Snow White lying in her casket surrounded by the seven dwarves. As Child addresses, Barret’s attention to detail is admirable. A photograph of the original oil painting cannot do it justice, but it can begin to demonstrate Barret’s style, that by contrast to Child’s is intricately delicate.

Whether you’re a child at heart or a children’s writer/illustrator in the making, the exhibition is sure to get your creative juices flowing. I left the museum with a very different mind-set to that which I entered with. I never got to the bottom of what Green Drops and Moonsquirters are, but what I do know is that writing and illustrating your own children’s book is certainly not child’s play.

…have been amazing!!!

I’ve found out that Fiffy (my car) is not In actual fact going to be a ‘write-off’, as the garage first told me. They rang me yesturday morning, & said that she’s all fixed up, & the paintwork is all done. & earlier this afternoon, they rang again to say my car is ready to be picked up 2moro! Alas, that means I will be £300 lighter (but at least I don’t need to fork out for a brand-new motor).

Talking of ‘Forks’…last nite Dave & I saw the second installment of the Twilight (read *Twatlight*) franchise BTW what is up w/advertising it as ‘The Twilight Saga:…’?! It was v good indeed. I’ve read all the books, like a good little fan-girl, so I know what to expect, but the no. of shirt-less guys was laughable, as was R Pattz’ portrayal of a constipated block of ice. Good but could have been better, I guess the film is never as good as the book. Oh, & the trailers for Avatar & Sherlock Holmes look amazing!!!

Before we went to the cinema, we had a slight matter of Dave meeting my extended family! He’s obv already met Mum (that was scary enough!), & most of my girlies @ work, but last nite he met The Horners! Aka my Auntie & Pippy, & my sisters from another mother Kelsey & Aaron i guess the time was right for the people who I love in my life to finally meet, & I loved it! Dave was lush (who incidently looked H.O.T.! as fuck!) w/them all, & they were equally cute (inquisitive but cute). Ooo! Almost forgot-I drove us to my Grandma’s old house before, just to share another part of me w/him. I haven’t seen it in over a year & alot’s changed but it holds lots of memories. I wish she could have met him.

Today has also been equally fun! Today I had a day off, courtsey of Sherry, who is kindly working my shift on HER day off. Mum also had a day off & so we decided to ‘go over the bridge’ & visit Barry Island, Wales! The place of all things ‘Gavin & Stacey’! We started off early, on the road by 10am, & we called in @ Costa for refreshments (read *life-juice*) making it to Barry by 12ish. It was pissing it down, but we had a laugh! Took loads of pics (some are on Twitter) but it was freezing so we only spent about 3/4hr there, until we headed into Cardiff for a bit of girly shopping.
We had lunch in Pillars for lunch (it’s tradition!) & then we spent around about an hr in the amazing Cardiff Primark I bought some cute dresses, hot panties, & a new umbrella all for £30! Amazing!
Leaving Cardiff we got royally lost, but that’s the fun in a road-trip! Today we spent quality time together, & it made us stronger Balance!

Back in Bristol, home dry, I’m glad to be home! Ate some sushi, pjs on super early, make-up off & chilling whilst watching the new series of Gavin & Stacey. Amazing!

Joanna Geary, Web Development Editor for The Times talked to CJS about how she started her career in journalism.

Learning where, when, why and how successful journalists like Joanna first found their feet in the industry is a topic that has fascinated me because since the age of sixteen, I’ve been working toward getting a paid job in journalism. Now I’m at CJS there’s an even greater sense of wanting to make that goal. 

My formidable friend, Harriet Masterson graduated from Reading University the same year as  I graduated from Winchester University.  Next week she’ll begin her first ‘this is what I’ve dreamt about’  job with the production company, Spank . Harriet is a hardworking, sincere and creative woman. I know she’ll cringe when she reads this but I’m bursting with pride .

‘What happens now?’ I asked her, when she telephoned me with the news. ‘I mean, the battle for three years was getting IN and now… your IN. ‘

She replied dreamily, ‘I know..it hasn’t quite sunk in yet.’

Harriet and I aren’t competitive friends. Perhaps a reason for this is we’ve always taken the next step together and have been level footing in our general life aspirations. So now she’s started her career we’re for the first time, out of sync. Jealousy isn’t the emotion I’m feeling,  I’m just desperate to join her in the world of work, so, what do I need to do to get there?

Cue Joanna Geary’s talk.  Joanna inspired me because she struggled to get where she is. Always the second choice for jobs and unable to afford the course I’m on, she eventually got her break as a business reporter for the Birmingham Post.

When they found out she was blogging outside of her work, she was given a new challenge: creating a network of thirty-five blogs in two weeks. She exceeded expectations, creating a dynamic, regional network. Something no other regional paper was doing at the time.

Joanna  was building  a strong network in London, through Twitter. When she tweeted, ‘ going to London, any one want to meet?’ a  journalist from The Times responded and following on from this she was offered a job  at The Times.

Joanna is a woman who has made things happen for herself.  She’s created a brand for herself through blogging and Twitter.  She was using her blog to ask questions no one else in the industry was asking. She was never overly conscious of the fact ‘the right people’ were reading and watching what she was doing. I mean, her following didn’t inhibit her writing. I find her older blog posts sometimes rambling, sometimes unstructured but to me that mirrors a free-flowing thought pattern, similar to my own.

I know it will be tough, really tough, getting that first paid job in the media. But Joanna is a great example of someone who doesn’t fall down when the business structure around her is. Last August 40% of her colleagues were made redundant at The Birmingham Post. The remaining 60% had to reapply. Some journalists who’ve lost their jobs have started creating hyperlocal sites. So, there is no straight route into getting that job anymore. t’s all zig zags. But, thats ok. I’ve never followed straight lines. Isn’t  it much more fun drawing your own and making a new pattern?

What a week it has been for Watford strikers Heidar Helguson and Danny Graham. Not only did they help the Hornets to a 3-0 victory against Scunthorpe, but the duo also made major strides in the Actim Index. Helguson`s brace earned him the highest score of the week – 52 points – and moved him up 116 places to 184th overall, while Graham posted the third highest score for a striker, with his 39 points moving him up two places to sit third in the rankings.

Kevin Nolan is trying his best to single-handedly get Newcastle back into the Premier League at the first time of asking. The former Bolton midfielder scored his ninth goal of the season in Monday`s 1-0 win at Preston - not the first time his goals have proved crucial for the Magpies. His decisive strike against North End helped him to 40 points – the second best for a midfielder this week – and kept him at the top of the Actim Index.

Middlesbrough winger Adam Johnson moved into second place overall with a score of 16 points for the week, while Cardiff schemer Peter Whittingham dropped to fourth and Bristol City striker Nicky Maynard slipped to fifth place in the Actim rankings.

Darren Ambrose is enjoying his best season in years with Crystal Palace, and as a result is making steady progress up the Actim Index standings. Ambrose scored his 11th goal of an electric campaign to help the Eagles take a point against Coventry, but that strike was his fifth in as many matches. He earned 38 points for the week and moved up 19 places to break into the top 20 at 19th.

Dean Shiels` impressive form continued last weekend as he scored his fourth goal in five games to help Doncaster to a 2-0 win against QPR. The Northern Ireland international`s display earned him 48 points and a place alongside Watford`s Helguson in the Team of the Week attack.

Mark Bunn (23 points), who saved a penalty in Sheffield United`s 1-0 win at home to Peterborough, is the goalkeeper in the Team of the Week, while his Blades team-mate Chris Morgan (28) is in defence alongside Swansea`s Federico Bessone (39), Carl Dickinson of Barnsley (34) and Tommy Spurr of Sheffield Wednesday (25 points). West Brom`s Chris Brunt posted the highest score of the weekend for a midfielder – 47 – and he is joined in the Team of the Week by Nolan, Ambrose and Reading`s Jobi McAnuff (36 points). Helguson and Shiels form the strike partnership.

View the latest Actim Index >

Having been in Cardiff for three months now there is something quite clear about this part of the world towards the end of the year – it never stops raining.

Waiting for a taxi in the rain, Cardiff

Having lived inland in Oxford, and equally in Nottingham I have never experienced persistent pouring of water from the skies in the UK – and my house in Oxford has been flooded twice in the past six-years.

The only similar example of this sort of whether I know of is when I travelled around South-East Asia and without warning the heavens would open and suddenly the ground would be dominated by puddles – though at least after five minutes it would pass and the sun would shine.

The Welsh capital has thankfully not been subjected to the disasters in Cockermouth, Cumbria, though the size of my puddle outside my front door seems to continually expand.

Indeed in October 2009, South Wales and the South West experienced more rainfall than any other region according to the Met Office (stats) – though it was still below average (0.85 of normal). There was 112.5mm of rainfall during the month, ahead of the North West of England and North of Wales with 104.2mm (again still below average but the closest to what it ought to be, at .97).

Make sure you buy a brolly when visiting Cardiff!

PUBS in rural Vale of Glamorgan have been resilient to the recession, but must innovate to survive, say industry campaigners. With almost 1,500 pubs in the UK having shut their doors in 2008 because of the economic climate and the smoking ban, fears that the Vale’s network of country drinking holes are on borrowed time have grown.

Read more at Vale of Cheers, the website of Glamorgan postgraduate student Delme Parfitt.

I went to a PACT meeting in Butetown last night where a police officer was talking about dealing with the growing problem of khat use in the city. It’s been a problem brought up at lots of meetings before, but this was the first step residents had seen towards an official response.

It’s a tough issue from officialdom’s point of view. Khat is legal to buy in the UK, but tends to be associated with various forms of anti-social behavior. For Butetown’s residents, noise and littering are the biggest problems; users often congregate in public areas to take it, leaving rubbish behind them.

But short of fully criminalising the drug, no-one really knows what to do about it. Technically the dealers are selling it without a license and without paying tax, but the Inland Revenue seem to think mounting operations on these grounds wouldn’t be worth the hassle.

PC Vince Donovan is a community development officer of the Channel Project, a police scheme looking at softly-softly approaches to preventing the radicalisation of Muslim youths. With the slightly tenuous link that khat is leaving young minds susceptible to extremist ideology, PC Donovan has set up a focus group in Cardiff looking at what can be done about its usage in the city.

For now, the plan is to issue a questionnaire early next year to users and relatives of users in Butetown, Grangetown and Riverside, in order to compile a report for the Welsh Assembly Government by the end of the year. The idea is to find out more about the reasons people have for taking khat, and perceptions of the impact it has on health and the community generally.

Encouragingly, the focus-group isn’t just made up of po-faced health experts and police officers. It includes the Somali Youth Association and various elders of the Somali and Yemeni community. Particular efforts have been put into finding women from both communities to get involved with the process – given that khat is largely used by men, their wives and daughters are important to talk to in looking at the impact of the drug on family life.

The counter-terrorist credentials of this project clearly look a little suspect, but I don’t think it’s pursuing a hard-line criminalisation agenda either. PC Donovan genuinely seemed to have community concerns at heart; he dealt with the usual PACT-meeting heckling with good humour, and was keen to hear about residents’ own experiences of living in an area where the drug is used. Quite what effect he expects the report to have is unclear, but I think he’s asking the right questions.

On a more general note, let’s have a poll on khat criminalisation. I think I’m going for ‘no’, on libertarian grounds, but I’m not all that sure. Leave some comments if you have a strong opinion either way.

You may have seen Case Study Panelist Jon Amundson, City of Richland, at Nexus 09 this year. ImageSource would like to congratulate Jon and the City for winning both the ImageSource Customer Partner Award for the Biggest Return on Investment, as well as an InfoWorld 100 Award!

The InfoWorld 100 Awards recognize 100 IT organizations that have innovatively utilized different technologies through implementations and integrations to meet business goals. The City of Richland was recognized for its use of different technologies together, such as Oracle, ABBYY, Cardiff and ILINX. To read more about the InfoWorld 100 Awards, visit www.infoworld.com.

Nexus 10 is less than a year away! Registration is open and seating is limited! To reserve your spot at a discounted price of $195, visit www.NexusECM.com to register for Nexus 10. Use discount code NEXUS10SPL. After November 30th, the price goes up to $295!

To follow the latest information on Nexus, check us out on Twitter: @nexusecm

Kristina Parma
Corporate Communications Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

Atrium - home of Creative and Cultural Industries

By Abhijan Barua . The Atrium hosted a careers seminar for students across South Wales to attend and meet a panel of successful professionals from different media fields. Co-organised by Skillset Screen Academy Wales and the Royal Television Society, the seminar panel was chaired by international award winning theatre director Ceri Sherlock.

Also on the panel were S4C and Al Jazeera television producer Nia Ceidiog, web designer Aled Parry, director Phil John, and assistant editor at BBC for multimedia news Ceri Jackson. More than 50 students attended this event from different institutions across South Wales such as Coleg Glan Hafren, Newport University, Cardiff University, and of course the Atrium itself.

 The panellists shared their career experiences with the students and spoke about the origins of their passions for their respective careers.

Notable was Ceri Jackson’s account of how her love for journalism began while accompanying her father, also a journalist, to the press box at Sophia Gardens many years ago. She went on to illustrate how students shouldn’t take one knock back to mean failure, when she accounted for her own master plans falling flat as she got turned down for a traineeship all those years ago.

She told how she did unpaid work experiences on local London newspapers, then had a chance conversation with the editor – getting her a place in the traineeship at Hendon and Finchley Times. From there she made a name for herself while working for Bella magazine before moving on to the Daily Mail, and finally BBC Wales.

Following the panellists sharing their career experiences, all students were broken up into groups of 12 allowing the panellists to go around the room and chat with them on a more personal level.

S4C’s Tim Hartley, also a Royal Television Society fellow, was one of the main organisers of this event and he feels the main purpose of it is to assist students get an idea of what it’s like to attempt to gain that elusive first foothold in an industry before establishing themselves.

He said: “The idea is to share experiences with those about to enter a similar line of work. Our panellists are from a wide sector of interest so we can break down traditional barriers between presentation and production, or public and private sector.

“It is important this way to try and involve young people in to an industry that’s currently changing as new technologies converge. We can’t talk about the industry in terms of just the television or a single source.

“There are different means, sources of funding and distribution platforms. It can be a scary world out there for someone just starting off but very very exciting too.”

Johnathan Williams is a very busy man. He TB tests cattle on 180 farms in Wales. So, I was really happy when he took time out to talk to me about his thoughts on the proposed badger cull in Wales.

Johnathan has been a vet for twenty years. He told me the most challenging time in his twenty-year career was the Foot and Mouth outbreaks of 2001. Nowadays, trying to stop the spread of Bovine TB is keeping him on his toes. Interestingly, Johnathan told me the spread of Bovine TB today could be linked to the Foot and Mouth outbreak of  2001. After Foot and Mouth, the country had to repopulate a national herd in decimated areas. In this repopulation process, cattle were not tested rigorously, so TB spread to other areas.

Johnathan told me Bovine TB is a slow developing disease. The cattle develop lesions in the lungs and it can be much later on when they show the symptoms of heavy breathing, coughing and spluttering. Pre-movement testing is therefore vital because a cow with TB can appear healthy.

Remember the BCG test you had as a child? The pre-movement test is very similar to that. Johnathan injects a tiny amount of the TB virus with multi-inject needles. He’ll then return seventy-two hours later to see if there has been a reaction.

If a cow has a positive reaction it must be culled. The herd is then tested every sixty days. A farm must have two clear results if they want to move their cattle. Until this time they can only move their cattle to slaughter.

 What’s it like delivering the bad news to farmers? I asked Johnathan.

He told me the farming community is very strong-minded. There’s a sense of collective responsibility and an understanding this disease must be brought under control. If a farm tests positive, this is ultimately seen as a good thing for the wider farming community. Because isn’t dealing with the known far less dangerous than dealing with the unknown? He also pointed out farmers get compensation for the cattle they loose and this certainly helps.

 Does he believe a badger cull will stop the spread of Bovine TB?

Like myself, Johnathan seemed lost in the conflicting reports. He cited a report in Ireland, which showed a badger cull had a positive result, and then he cited a report by the ISG group that showed culling badgers would spread Bovine TB. His only clear answer to the whole debate was the introduction of a TB vaccination for cattle. However Johnathan believes this solution could be five or six years away.

 Of course, Bovine TB testing is just one of Jonathan’s daily tasks. There are Blue Tongue vaccines to deliver and difficult labours to assist with. Johnathan says there’s no doubt in his mind that there’s an interchange of Bovine TB between cattle and the badger. But his priority is testing the cattle and helping farmers to get their herd moving again.

Joanna Geary - The Times Something Something Something

Last week we had a talk from twentysomething Times “Web Development Editor” (yup, she says it’s a made-up title too) Joanna Geary.

The motto which skyrocketed her into her dream job, through failing to get onto several courses and eventually becoming a web-savvy Birmingham business hack who had to reapply for her own job, is this: If you don’t know, ask someone who does.

I prefer the wording on her own website – If content is King, collaboration is Queen. But it’s all the same thing, and it’s a theory she really put to the test on the Birmingham Post.

What she did was set up a network of 35 blogs from experts around the city – university professors to sportsmen – on every topic under the sun. All working for free. Her job as a journalist was, in a more pure way than ever, merely to organise the news, not to make it.

And that was in the days before blogs really broke news! Since Freedom of Information became well-known among non-media types, bloggers and sites like Help Me Investigate – again in Brum, they’re really hot on this stuff – have been… Queen. To us Kings, apparently.

And just when I was thinking about this then sure enough, one popped up in my back home back yard – the Ashford Resistance. Follow them on Twitter. While it looks like a bunch of Marxists have just discovered the net (because that’s exactly what’s happened) it’s not just ranting and raving.

In fact, with investigative posts like this and a controversial patch to work in:

• former Times news editor and Tory MP / Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green voted even against his party on gay rights and was briefly famous last year when his office got searched
• and my village, Wye, nearly quintupled in size when council leader Paul Clokie signed a secret ‘concordat’ allowing Imperial College to destroy a vast greenfield site and which was defeated by an internet campaign AND made into a book

… they could be on to something. Watch that space. And breathe after reading that sentence.

But there’s another reason to get on board the blogwagon, too. In these tough times, my notes from the end of Joanna’s lecture say it all.

I'm the one eating a guy's arm

13th-15th November was Bath CU Weekend Away. Until now I’ve somehow managed to find plenty of other ways to put off doing coursework rather than write this.

Spinning Plates & Road Deaths

The main speaker, a guy called Pete Greasley, started out by saying that while he comes away from a lot of Christian conferences feeling guilty and burdened with all the things he should be doing or needs to change in his life, this weekend he was just going to talk about Jesus. I don’t think other conferences are necessarily bad for pricking our consciences and maybe making us think about things we should or shouldn’t be doing that we wouldn’t otherwise have thought about, but I was very happy with his approach.

I do prefer speakers who have a clear structure to their talks, it did seem at times that he hadn’t planned precisely where he was going with things, but he had some very encouraging things to say. Two illustrations particularly stood out for me.

One was related to the introductory statement where we are bombarded with the things we should be doing as Christians, things can easily add up like more and more spinning plates and it’s a struggle to keep them all going. Well, since there’s nothing we need to do to be saved, stop worrying about them. Just concentrate on loving God, and the rest will happen naturally. I don’t think that means we don’t need to put any effort into living a life of consistent Christian integrity (I’ve been listening to Joel Beeke again), but if a plate falls occasionally, it’s not a disaster, thankfully there’s nothing we can do to stop God loving us.

The other challenged how we think about the sacrifice Christ made for us. Particularly for those of us brought up to go to church every Sunday, it’s easy to forget just how much our salvation cost and take it for granted. Pete spoke of a person crossing the road who’s about to get hit by a car, but another man pushes him out of the way and dies himself. All the onlookers would be very impressed by the way the man put someone else’s life before his own, but that feeling would be nothing compared to the man who was saved. For him it’s personal, that man died for ME. He would think about it every day for the rest of his life, “I wouldn’t be here, if it wasn’t for that man’s sacrifice”. Jesus deserves that kind of appreciation from us.

Proper Hymns & Tigger vs. Eeyore

I liked how Pete kept quoting proper hymns like Thou art the everlasting word, Man of Sorrows, what a name, and I Stand Amazed. I agree with him that we should sing about God, not about how much we love him, or what we’re going to do for him, but about his love for us and what he’s done for us. I think a lot of the time, older hymns are better for this, most of the half decent modern songs steal from old hymns anyway (what’s wrong with the original Amazing Grace that people have to extend it? or When I Survey that we have to have that chorus about the “wondeful cross”, the cross itself wasn’t wonderful, it was horrific), and sticking the word Grace or Blessed into a song repeatedly doesn’t mean it has good words. Starting at the weekend we keep singing Grace Unmeasured, Vast and Free at CU, actually it does have some really good lyrics, but the chorus annoys me, it’s mainly the tune that I don’t like (I can’t hit that high note, and was struggling to jump octaves) and that’s just my personal taste. Sooo… I’ll shut up about that now, because I think I sound like enough of a grumpy old man already, and there actually are some really good modern songs/hymns/is there a defined difference? out there, it’s just that there’s a lot of rubbish too. Sorry, this post is about a really really good weekend.

If I (or anyone who knows me) had to choose between Tigger and Eeyore to describe myself, it would be no contest: I’m Eeyore. Pete kind of used these as symbols of worship styles. I was going to comment on Tigger after hearing part of a discussion by someone else, but I think I’ll sound too negative again, and that wouldn’t reflect what I would be trying to say. An Eeyore attitude “It’s a church, not much of a church…” is definitely not right.

Comparing Cadbury’s & A Ceilidh

Last year was the first time I went on the weekend away. One of the highlights that made me feel stupid for not going the previous 3 years was the games in the afternoon. That didn’t happen this year, so no Wotsit Face, no chance to see the CU President (at the time) eating a banana through a pair of tights pulled over his head, nor the VP eating mars bars out of baked beans using just her teeth to pick them up. Something was supposed to happen in the afternoon, but was cancelled due to the weather, so whatever was planned remains a mystery.

Instead we had a Ceilidh in the evening (more middle of the night, really, started at 11.30pm). I’m really not into dancing but will have a go if I’m told exactly what to do, and even – dare I admit it? – find it quite enjoyable. Not sure about the person barking out orders to man up and ask someone to dance when said person wasn’t even taking part themselves though , as it turned out I didn’t need to ask anyone, people came to me :-p
Apologies to anyone I might have kicked or made a toal mess of what I was supposed to be doing with them.

The Cabaret was again brilliant, James & Matt’s Fantabulous Band were predictable, but it didn’t matter, the Fletch Sketch was hilariously weird, and the juggling and eating simultaneously was very impressive. It was slightly disappointing that 5 West Life couldn’t put in another performance this time around (although the band name wouldn’t make much sense to freshers now anyway), but CU Blind Date made up for it. Genius.

I recently heard a BBC Radio 4 documentary with Ed Byrne about the demise of student union bars. Apparently, despite the growth in student numbers, sales of alcohol in student unions have halved in the last decade. His downbeat (at least to me) conclusion is that hardly anyone seems in the slightest bit bothered.

In my day, students didn’t have mobile phones, and the interweb barely existed. So to meet up with friends from other parts of the campus, we’d wander up to “The Ram” (our union watering hole) to see who was around. The Student Bar was slightly grotty, but it was cheap, friendly, and it was ours. It reflected our personality, we planned and ran the events, the food, the music. That personality and ‘closeness’ helped it stay in our minds. We all still remember The Ram fondly, even if we acknowledge its griminess through the clear lenses of 20 years’ hindsight

Earlier this month I organised my brother’s Stag Do in Cardiff, although this part of our experience could have been obvious in any city in the UK: in fact, that’s my point. Cardiff has undergone a terrific transformation in recent years. The City Centre has mostly been revamped with bright and shiny shops, new pedestrian zones and swanky bars and hotels. Noone in our group was very familiar with Cardiff, but the general perception was that there would be lots of ‘chain bars’ that could be good for a drink or two. How right we were.

Around every corner there was a ha-ha, Revolution, Steam Bar, or tiger tiger nightclub. These places often boast huge glass frontages to better show the potential drinkers outside all the beautiful / trendy / smart people within; all of them glorified fishbowls. And it was obvious that in many towns and cities around the UK, the same sort of people were circulating around the same furniture, listening to the same piped playlists, in the same brands of clothes, drinking the same bottled beers or ’speciality’ cocktails served by staff in the same uniforms.

In their search to deliver ‘a consistent brand experience’, it feels to me like these bars and clubs have removed their soul. The constrictions of this branded ‘experience’ has sucked the life out of them. You can almost see the designers’ sketches of the decor and layouts, and hear the brainstorming meetings that developed Private Karaoke Rooms or theme nights.

I’m not saying I prefer the seediness of a student bar, but we did have a very good time at The Queens Vaults, a ‘proper pub’ with massive screen, pool tables and beer at barely £2/pint (compared to £3.50+ elsewhere). It’s definitely not to everyone’s tastes, and probably not even to mine. But it had a strong sense of who it wanted to be and just went out and did it, and that made it different, something I remember in a good way.

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