#Berkeley Square 1998

[autumncottageattic]

Berkeley Square 1998 XII

#Berkeley Square 1998 #Berkeley Square #britsh tv-series #costume drama

[valeryhlyv]

Maison Hermès is a building in Tokyo, Japan. It is located at 5-4-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo. Constructed between 1998 and 2001, it was designed by Renzo Piano assisted by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson of Berkeley, California and in collaboration with Takenaka Corporation. The building is the flagship store and corporate headquarters of Hermès, the French luxury empire of Jean-Louis Dumas. It is a 6,000 square metre (65,000 square feet) structure that houses workshops and offices, a shopping space, exhibition areas and multimedia quarters. In addition to a roof garden at the top of the building, there is also a recess which divides the long facade into two, forming a courtyard that delivers an access to the subway two levels below.

#architecture #design #tokyo #japan #building

[barbiewritesstuff]

Church Encounters: Chapter 16 (part 1)

-- I don't really know what to say, except I'm sorry... this is 11k words long... Also we did a LOT of research to plan this fictional honeymoon and we didn't want anything to go to waste so enjoy this semi-educational chapter :)

This fic was written in collaboration with my wonderful friend @lgg5989 who is posting this on her tumblr and her AO3. She also made the gorgeous moodboard below!

Comments and reblogs are appreciated! We also take blurb requests for the church Encounter Universe (we're taking a second to get to them for now but we're doing them, I promise)

Previous Part

Taglist: @acarboni21 @unsurebuttrying @dempy @peaches-1998 @bbooks-and-teas @roosterscock @positivelyholland --

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome onboard Flight 6TG with service from JFK to Rome, Italy. We are currently second in line for take-off and are expected to be in the air in approximately five minutes time. We ask that you please fasten your seatbelts at this time and secure all baggage underneath your seat or in the overhead compartments. We also ask that your seats and table trays are in the upright position for take-off. Please turn off all personal electronic devices, including laptops and cell phones. Smoking is prohibited for the duration of the flight. Thank you for choosing Delta Airlines. Enjoy your flight.” The pilot announced through the comms. 

“Jake,” you whimpered,”I have to -- err -- I have to admit something,” you stuttered out. 

Jake had been leafing through his book, trying to find the page he had lost upon landing in New York. He had tried finding it during the wait for the flight to Italy but the book was nearing a thousand pages and he could only remember the word ‘caravan’, you privately thought he’d still be looking by the time you were due to land in almost nine hours. 

Hearing the tone of your voice made him look up with worried eyes, “Everything okay, darlin’”

“It’s just that -- erm --” you hesitated, “It’s just that I’m afraid of flying,” you finally spat out.

Jake looked at you and burst out laughing, “Sure you are,” he replied.

His laugh quietened down when he saw you were serious. His eyes swept over your face, taking in your fearful eyes, paled skin and moist skin.

“Oh, you’re not joking,” he said, “I don’t get it.”

“It’s a large metal can hurtling through the air, Jake,” you squeaked out, Jake opened his mouth to speak. You knew what he was about to tell you, it was the same thing Cyclone said, and Annie or Audrey whenever you took a plane. 

You weren’t sure why it scared you so much but it wasn’t just flying. Standing on a stool, or going up stairs and looking down had the same effect and when, at the academy, they had made you walk a catwalk, you had to be taken to the medbay after a panic attack and a fainting spell. 

But when you sat in the backseat of an F18, it didn’t feel the same. Even though the speeds were higher and crashes deadlier, the fact that you had some control over the aircraft seemed to make all fear dissipate.

“I don’t like it as a passenger,” is all you could reply to Jake’s silent question.

He considered your response for a minute, “Okaaaay,” he said, “I guess that’s fair?” 

You squeezed as close as you could to him in your seat, your hand reaching out to take his, “I’m just going to borrow this for a moment,” you said, trying to lighten the mood with some humour as you sat anxiously waiting for the plane to start down the runway. Your back was still, Jake’s hand held tightly in yours, and your eyes staring straight forward to the front of the plane.

Jake put his book on his knee and took your hand, placing a gentle kiss on your knuckles, “Its going to be alright darlin’.” 

You nodded, “I know but that doesn’t help the anxiety, unfortunately.” 

Jake put his mouth right next to your ear, he started humming a song. You weren’t sure what song at first, but then you recognized it as A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square. Closing your eyes, you tried to relax into the deep rumble coming from his chest, but it just wouldn't work. 

When the plane started to taxi from the gate, your grip on Jake’s hand got tighter than before. He pressed a kiss to the side of your head, whispering to you, “It’s going to be alright, darlin’. I’m right here, I’ve gotcha.” 

During take-off, you were pretty sure that you crushed Jake’s hand. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any lasting damage. 

Once the plane was in the air you felt slightly more comfortable but you still hadn’t released his hand. Jake didn’t complain though. He had resumed the search for the lost page in his book. 

The flight was fairly uneventful, and you couldn’t have been more grateful. By the end however, if the flight itself wasn’t already grinding on your nerves, the baby that had been crying for the last hour was. 

You thanked God above when the stewardess came over the intercom system, “Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing in Rome shortly. If you have a connecting flight please be sure to check that it is still on time. The stewardesses are coming around now to collect any trash. Please stow all try tables and unsecured items for landing, thank you for flying Delta Airlines.” 

You looked at Jake enviously, you had booked a late flight out of the US to ensure that you arrived in Rome during the late morning. You had been planning on sleeping during the flight, but with your anxiety about flying you hadn’t caught any shut eye. Jake had snored practically the whole flight, only waking when you elbowed him because the old lady across the aisle was shooting him dirty looks for disturbing her knitting. 

Once the flight had landed, you deboarded the plane and made your way through customs. After checking your Visa and the card you had filled in on board to the border control officer, they let you through to baggage claim. As you had been one of the last ones to check in in Annapolis, you guessed your suitcases would arrive last on the conveyor belt. You were right, thirty minutes after passing through customs, you finally spotted your luggage coming onto the belt. 

Jake grabbed it for the both of you and the two of you made your way out of the airport and into a taxi. The ride was nice, but you and Jake were both ready to stretch your legs after the long flight. Jake helped you out of the taxi when you got to the hotel a quiet, “My lady,” falling from his lips as he held a hand out to you. 

You laughed at his antics as the two of you made your way into the hotel, Jake checking in using his fluent italian 

You had taken care of the wedding and booked, made and decorated most of the event but he had insisted you let him take care of the honeymoon. The Hotel, therefore, had been a complete surprise. You knew Jake would spring for something a little nicer, but the Bio Hotel Raphael exceeded all expectations.

The entrance had been beautiful, with the luscious green vines climbing up the front of the building and fighting for wall space with other greenery, but once you had walked into the lobby your breath caught as you took everything in. The receptionist handed Jake the keys as you ran your finger over the detailed carving of the large oak front desk, he led you to the lifts, squeezing your hand as the box left the ground floor and stifling a laugh when it stopped rather harshly and you squeezed your eyes shut and gasped.

Jake unlocked the hotel’s door. He pushed it open and bowed, “Mrs Seresin,” he said, letting you pass first.

“Not sure I’ll ever get used to that,” you said, turning around to look back at him, “Not sure I want to, though, I like the butterflies,” 

He grabbed you by the waist, pulling you as close to him as he could and capturing your lips in his. He broke the kiss a few moments later, moving his head to rest right next to your ear, “If those butterflies ever go, tell me. I’d be more than happy to put something else in there instead,” he whispered, letting you go with a laugh.

“You’re a pig, Mr. Seresin,” you joked,

Jake hummed, “I see what you mean about the butterflies,” he said, grabbing you again, “And you didn’t seem to mind me being a pig back in Annapolis… I seem to remember you liking it very much.”

“Jake! At least keep your voice down, the door is still open,” you laughed,

“And,” Jake said, flipping you around in his arms. Moving one arm to rest by your waist he pressed your hips into his own and added, “you haven’t even seen the room yet.”

Your breath caught in your lungs as you took in the room. As you stepped out of the entryway, removing your shoes so as to not mark the beautiful hardwood floors, you came face to face with a gorgeous antique desk, decorated with a magnifying glass, a leatherbound book of Rome’s history and a beautiful lamp. You ran your hand against the cool wooden surface briefly before turning towards the rest of the room. 

Jake was already lying on the bed, having removed his shoes and unbuttoned the top of his shirt and unbuckled his belt. He had sunk into the mattress of the King sized bed and laid there with his eyes closed, a peaceful expression etched on his face.

You marvelled at the quaint living room, two elegant blue chairs sat opposite of each other across a dark oak coffee table, an expresso love seat took up the space between them. Taking off the light jacket you had worn on the plane and in the airport, you moved to the bathroom. Upon opening the door, you let out a gasp. The first thing your eyes latched on was the beautiful marble bathtub. It was huge, your mind wandering to how many people it could possibly fit and if your new husband would like to share the bath. 

The marble floor and walls shone bright in the white light of the overhead lamp. The dual vanity counter was set on a teak wood cabinet, the light colour of the wood complementing the white marble that was tied into every element of the bathroom.

Wandering back into the bedroom, you found Jake right where you left him, “You’ll have to drag me out of here when it’s time to check out,” you told him, falling back into the mattress to join him on the bed. You cursed under your breath, “It’s like laying on a cloud. Yeah, I am never leaving this place.” 

“That’s a shame, there’s a great rooftop bar…” he said, his voice quiet, like he was on the brink of sleep once again.

You paused for a moment, “Technically, I wouldn’t be leaving the hotel…” you replied.

“You are so easy to persuade,” he laughed, “We can go after we shower and get out of our flight clothes. I feel like I smell like airport air freshener.”

Jake pushed himself off of the bed, shedding his clothes in front of you before stepping into the bathroom, “You know, I reckon we can fit two people in that bathtub,” he called out to you a second later. 

“Is that so?” you replied, a little smirk making its way onto your face.

“Want to try?” he asked, appearing at the door. 

Jake leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest. Your eyes swept over him, taking in the bulging muscles in his arms, his toned thighs and his dark, blown-out pupils. 

“Only if you make me,” you replied. 

In a second, Jake had crossed the distance between the bathroom and the bed and joined you on the mattress. He straddled your waist, making quick work of removing your shirt, before unbuttoning your jeans and leaving the bed to shimmy them off. Then, Jake scooped you up bridal style, eliciting a giggle from you.

“Your wish is my command, Mrs. Seresin,” he breathed into your ear as he carried you to the bathroom.

----

“Room service!” The waiter announced through the door, waking you up. Jake had already been awake for hours, and by the looks of it he had both been to the Hotel gym and on a run around Rome, no doubt scouting out some of the places he had planned to take you to see.

After relieving the waiter of his tray, Jake carried it through to the terrace, dropping off a coffee by your bedside to entice you out of the covers. You joined him ten minutes later after a quick shower and getting dressed in a pair of white linen trousers and a black top. You sat down next to him, both of your chairs turned away from the sliding glass door and towards Rome, over which the sun had started to rise.

“So, what’s the plan?” you asked as you finished your last bite of croissant and washed it down with a glass of orange juice.

Jake downed his espresso, “Well, your aunt is taking us for coffee in about three hours,” he said. Your aunt and that evening’s activity were the only things you had asked Jake to include in the planning for Rome. She lived by Piazza Navona, roughly fifteen minutes away from where you were staying, in a townhouse squeezed between two cafés. You had spent many summers sitting with her on the balcony overlooking the piazza sipping coffee and listening to classical music as she painstakingly tried teaching you Italian. Although you could pick languages up relatively easily, younger you had been more interested in people watching to listen to your Aunt Caitlyn. 

After killing time with Jake and little else, you finally got ready to go. You fished out a pair of white tennis shoes and checked out nothing was missing from your bag while Jake fastened his belt, then made your way downstairs and onto the paved roads of Rome. Fifteen minutes later, you were knocking on your aunt’s bright yellow door using the lion’s head knocker.

When she opened the door, she was angrily shouting at someone on the phone, ranting about something you didn’t understand. The only words you managed to catch were Freud, Picasso and mother, which posed more questions than it answered but from the smile on Jake’s face, he had caught all of it and immediately took a liking to Aunt Caitlyn. You walked inside the house, careful not to run into any of the piles of books she had laying about.

She slammed the phone down on her coffee table so hard some leftover coffee flew out of a nearby mug and let out a shaky breath. She closed her eyes to collect herself for a moment, “Y/n, Darling,” she said a minute later with a large smile, “It has been so long!” Aunt Caitlyn threw her arms around you, hugging you tight. Then, seeing Jake, she added, “And you must be Giacobbe,” embracing him as well.

“Jacob, actually. I was the only one not to get the Italian name,” he explained. Your aunt looked at him as if to decide whether or not that would bother her, after a few moments, she shrugged, “Do you have many siblings, Jacob?”

“One sister and two brothers,” Jake replied, “My sister is engaged and both of my brothers are married with children,” he anticipated.

Your aunt picked up the spilt cup and a few more on her way to the kitchen. You heard her empty them in her sink and place them in the dishwasher before turning it on.

“Yes, his sister got engaged at our wedding actually,” you said, looking around the house. Your aunt had always been chaotic and her living quarters reflected that, from piles of books lining the walls to loose sheets of papers littering the floor.

“Ah yes! Sorry I couldn’t make it to the wedding, we got a new set of paintings at the museums and they needed me in restauration,” she said, “I thought we could have coffee near the Pantheon, it’s nicer than next door,” she added, picking up her handbag and walking out into the street. Ten minutes later, Aunt Caitlyn ushered you into a chair after turning them towards the monument. A waiter came by to take your orders and you all settled into a comfortable silence for a few minutes.

“I take it you work for a museum?” Jake asked.

Aunt Caitlyn hummed, “Galleria Borghese, I’m the head of restoration for all paintings and artefacts there. I hear you are a pilot,” she added, taking a sip of her coffee almost as soon as the waiter set it down in front of her. 

“Yes, ma’am. I’ve just recently been promoted to Lieutenant Commander,” Jake said proudly. You gave him a smile, squeezing his hand in yours. 

Your aunt hummed, a sour look coming over her face, “Hum, too much creamer. So you are going to be able to take care of our girl right? She deserves the best.”

Jake coughed, choking on his coffee, the unexpected question making you shoot your aunt  fierce look, “Auntie…” you started. 

“What? I want to make sure the man knows what I expect, the lord knows my dear sister-in-law didn’t,” she said quietly, her voice sounding bitter. 

Your heart warmed, it was good to know that she thought your mother’s treatment of you to be unfair. Jake cleared his throat before answering your aunt’s interrogation, “Y/n is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. The only thing she isn’t above in my life is God.” 

Aunt Caitlyn nodded, “Good, be sure to keep it that way. I’d hate for the Admiral to get a call from an old friend.” 

You saw some of the blood drain out of Jake’s face at the thought, “Of course, we wouldn’t want that.” 

The three of you sat in a somewhat comfortable silence for a few more minutes before Aunt Caitlyn’s coffee ran out. Standing up, she pulled you into a hug, “I better be going, the museum opens soon. Maybe the two of you can come by today for a private tour, humm?”

“That sounds great Auntie, we will see you this afternoon,” you said, squeezing her tightly before settling down in your seat again. 

“Alright young man, keep her safe. I’ll see both of you later,” she said, pointing a stern finger at Jake before shooting him a smile and making her way down the street towards the Galleria Borghese. 

“Sorry about that, had I realised that she would interrogate you–” you started, but Jake cut you off. 

“It’s alright, she is protective of you, and it’s not like I haven’t heard it all before from your sisters,” he said with a smile, bringing your hand up to his lips and placing a delicate kiss to your knuckles, “Are you ready mi amore?” 

“I believe so, where are we heading?” you asked, gathering up your belongings from the chair you had been seated in. 

“Trevi’s fountain!” Jake said excitedly as he placed some money on the table to pay for your coffees. 

The two of you enjoyed the walk, taking a few detours to stop in other piazzas before coming upon the fountain. As you stood there, looking up at the intricate design of the fountain, you felt Jake’s arms wrap around you from behind, “What do you think?” he asked. 

“I think it's beautiful,” you said. You and Jake had managed to make it to the front of the fountain and you found yourself distracted by its clear blue water. The crowd surrounding the fountain was pressing around the two of you more intensely and it made you nervous. Feeling you stiffen in his arms, Jake pulled you more firmly into his chest, effectively blocking you from the strangers around you. You felt his breath on your neck before his deep voice echoed into your ear, “Did you know that this fountain was constructed in the 18th century?” he asked. 

You cleared your throat, closing your eyes and letting his arms and voice envelope you in a comfortable warmth, “No, I didn’t,” you said. 

You could feel his mouth form a smile near your ear, “There’s this saying, a myth really, about throwing coins into the fountain. If you throw only one, you’ll return to Rome. If you throw two, you’ll fall in love with an attractive Italian. And if you throw three, you’ll marry the person that you met,” he said, pausing a moment before removing one arm from your waist. You felt him dig around in his pocket, and upon opening your eyes, saw he had presented you with three coins, “How many are you going to throw darlin’?”

You let out a laugh, pressing a kiss to his lips, “Only one. I’ve already fallen in love with an attractive Italian, and he just married me.” 

Jake smiled at you with his megawatt grin before pressing a kiss to your forehead. Feeling better than before, you collected one of the coins from his hand and tossed it into the fountain. Settling back in his arms, you and Jake stood at the edge for another moment before you said, “Are you ready?” 

“If you are darlin’,” he replied, pulling away from your back and taking your hand. Jake’s large frame split the crowd around you easily and you slipped past people behind him. Taking lead, Jake slipped your arm into his, leading you north of the Trevi Fountain and towards the Spanish Steps. You passed through a few piazzas and past a department store before coming to a stop at the bottom of the steps in the Piazza di Spagna. 

Looking up the one hundred and thirty-five steps, you shaded your eyes with your hand. The late morning sun was bright against your eyes. A warm hand on your arm startled you, looking over at where Jake was standing you saw that he was holding out a pair of sunglasses to you. Taking them from him, you smiled as you put them on. They were one of his pairs, but since the two of you had started dating, he began carrying two sets of sunglasses on him. You had a bad habit of forgetting yours. 

Placing the Ray-Bans on your face, you gave him a smile, “How do I look?” 

“Beautiful, as always,” Jake said, slipping his own pair on his eyes before pressing a kiss to your forehead. 

The two of you climbed the steps hand in hand, stopping along the way to admire the views provided by the steps and people watch. When you got to the top, you sat on a bench outside of the Trinita dei Monti, the Church of the Most Holy Trinity on the Mounts. 

As the time grew closer and closer to eleven in the morning, a small group of people gathered around the front of the church. Jake turned to you, “They are doing a tour, do you want to join?”

“Sure!” you said, springing up from the bench excitedly and joining the line. Jake paid the admission fee only after confirming with you that it was alright if the tour was in Italian. As you moved with the group through the church, Jake translated for you quietly. You were entranced by the paintings, statues, stained glass, and tapestries that they had preserved and on display. The convent was quiet except for the sound of your feet on the ground and the tour guide’s smooth voice. 

The tour lasted an hour and thirty minutes and by the time you were done, you and Jake were ready to grab some lunch before meeting your aunt at the museum. The walk was going to be twenty minutes, but after being cooped up in an aeroplane for the long flight, you didn’t mind. Along the way, you stopped at a cafe, both of you ordering coffees and lunch. 

“Are you having fun so far?” Jake asked. 

“Yes! I can’t believe we have another ten days of this before we have to go home. I don’t know how you managed it,” you said, taking another bite from your sandwich. 

“Well, when you’re married to the Admiral’s daughter, you get some special treatment now and then,” Jake said, a smirk on his face. 

Letting out a surprised laugh you responded, “You didn’t!” 

“Oh I did, but he didn’t mind too much,” Jake said, “I might be paying for it later, hopefully he will take it easy on me.” 

“What did you trade him for?” you asked, knowing very well how Beau worked. 

“I may or may not have offered up some free babysitting services,” Jake said, a nervous look on his face. 

You laughed again, “Oh my, you are really in trouble then.” 

“Yeah, it’s a good thing I have you to help me, right?” he asked, wiping his mouth with a napkin. 

You let out a quiet humm, “I suppose since I have thus far enjoyed our vacation, there isn’t a reason I couldn’t help you.”

“Good, because I don’t know if I could handle all of his kids at one time. Peter and Matthew are more than a handful by themselves,” he replied, sounding rather relieved at the news. 

Once you had finished lunch, and Jake paid, you finished your walk to the Galleria Borghese. You had let your aunt know that you would be there soon and she met you on the steps outside of the museum. 

“Ah, sweet girl, how was the fountain, and the steps?” she asked, embracing you in a tight hug like she hadn’t just seen you that morning. 

“It was wonderful! A bit crowded, but they were both good to see. We also toured the Trinita dei Monti,” you told her, stepping back from her hug and letting her guide you into the building, Jake following close behind. 

“Good, good. I was hoping it wouldn’t be too busy for you, but this is a popular time to visit,” she said. As you walked through the front doors of the museum, she waved to the woman sitting behind the ticket counter, “These two are with me Luciana,” she called out. 

As she guided you around the museum, telling you the history of each painting, statue, and mural, the time flew by. When you looked down at your watch, you were surprised to find that it was almost six in the evening and you had been walking around the gallery for four hours. 

“Goodness,” you said, cutting off your aunt’s explanation of another painting hanging in the gallery. 

“What’s that love?” she asked, turning to look at you. 

“I just didn’t realise the time,” you said quickly, “We should go back to the hotel or we will be late for the opera.” 

“You’re right dear, shall I give you and Jacob a ride back?” she asked. 

“That would be great,” you said, “We can meet you at the Opera once we are dressed.” 

“Alright, let’s go then,” Aunt Catilyn said, leading the two of you to her car. She had never been overly worried about what people thought of her wealth or status, and her car reflected that. It was nothing special, just a little Camry to get her from point A to B. You offered Jake the front seat, but he declined, “You sit up front with your aunt, I’ll be okay,” he insisted. 

You laughed when he squished himself into the back seat, his legs cramped against your seat back. Your aunt made short work of the drive, and soon you and Jake were back in your hotel room. The length of the day was starting to catch up to you and the bed looked so inviting. Jake caught the longing look you shot at the bed, “No, no, you need to get ready. I’ll order us some room service okay?”

You let out a disappointed huff, “Okay, can I have a double shot of espresso in mine please?” 

Jake let out a quiet laugh before pressing a kiss to your lips, “Of course baby, I’ll make it a double.” 

Nodding, you made your way into the bathroom to freshen up. A few minutes into your shower, you heard the door to the bathroom open, “Coffee will be here in a few,” Jake said, you could see him through the steamed up glass of the shower door. 

“Okay, I’ll be done in a minute,” you called back, but before you could shut off the water, the door opened behind you, “Jake!” you squealed. 

“What? I need a shower too, we are conserving water!” he said, laughter in his voice as he pulled you back against him. 

Wrestling yourself half heartedly out of his grip you opened the door and stepped out on to the bath mat, “You are a pig Mr. Seresin,” you said once again, wrapping a white fluffy towel around yourself. 

“That’s Lieutenant Commander Seresin to you ma’am,” Jake shot back, his smile visible through the steam built up on the glass. 

You stuck your tongue out at him before making your way to the bedroom. Pulling one of the nicer dresses you packed for the trip from your bag, you laid it on the bed and went about getting dressed. 

When you heard the shower stop a moment later, you walked back into the bathroom, holding the front of the dress up on your chest, “Jake, could you do the back up for me?” you asked, turning to present him with the half zipped dress. 

He wrapped the towel around his waist before stepping towards you, “Of course darlin’,” he replied, his voice deeper than usual. You felt him run a hand up your spine before pressing a kiss to the back of your neck. His hands followed the same path back down before doing up the zip in one fluid motion. 

Just as he moved his hands back around to your waist, there was a knock on the door. Picking Jake’s wallet up off the coffee table, you tipped room service for the coffees before taking a sip of your delicious brew, “Coffee’s here,” you called to him. 

“Okay, be ready in a minute,” he called back, you found him in the bedroom putting on the clothes you had laid out for him on the bed, buttoning up the crisp blue shirt and belting up the black slacks while you ran around the room to find your cardigan and a change of shoes. Rome, while beautiful, was entirely unsuited for the pair of heels you had wanted to wear. 

As if on cue, reception called as you laced up your tennis shoes. You went down to meet the cab, gingerly climbing in and sitting quietly as the man made animated conversation with Jake before stepping back out to take in the building of the Teatro dell’Opera. You had been here before for a few auditions but you had never taken the main entrance. Cast and musicians either took the stage door, or the service door round the back. As you stepped into the magnificent theatre, you found yourself nostalgic for the terrible lighting and uneven tiles backstage, something you had cursed almost ten years ago as you tried to negotiate it in your pointe shoes. 

Box number seven had never been your favourite to sit in but your aunt swore by it. Proud owner of a seasonal ticket, she somehow always managed to snatch the box whenever she came and by the way the doorman had greeted her, you wondered if she didn’t have an inside man. Still you had to admit that it offered a great view of the stage.

“Who did Elena say she was again?” Aunt Caitlyn asked as you walked into the box, dropping off your bag by the foot of the chair and trying to make yourself comfortable on the lumpy velvet seat.

“Isn’t it written on the card?” you asked, shimmying in your seat. Your aunt shrugged, “She’s playing Marie,” you replied. 

You had met Elena on your first audition in Rome. You were the two youngest girls, clearly at a disadvantage as all the others seemed so familiar with both the stage and the cast but something had shined through that day as out of the fifty-something young girls the directors had seen, both you and Elena had been cast as Gingersnaps. Striking up a friendship had been rough at first. You spoke English and Elena spoke Russian but you had found a happy middle in French, a language you had taken an immediate liking to in school and seemed to have a talent for despite the hostile grammar and difficult pronunciation. Even now, whenever you found a minute to chat, talking was done in French. 

She had messaged you out of the blue roughly three months ago after having completed a course to become a professor in ballet at the National Dance Academy. Since then, you had chatted nearly every day, shocking her with the news of your wedding and being surprised in return when she announced the birth of a little baby girl in December. In order to catch up, she had extended free tickets and a backstage pass. 

The curtain rose over the stage as the orchestra played the overture and the ballet began. After nearly two hours of dancing including a short intermission, and a few mistakes which you were fairly certain only you caught, it was time to meet Elena by the wings.

"Ça va ma cocotte? Ça fait tellement longtemps!” Elena exclaimed, jumping through the door before you could even touch the handle. She threw her arms around you, squeezing the boning of the corset uncomfortably against you, “Oui, ils ne nous ont même pas donné de nouveaux costumes…” she lamented. You took another look at the costume. The blue dress looked old and worn, pinned in some places and taken in or let out in others. Elena was right, it seemed to have lived through a ballet or three too many. 

“Pas grave,” she said, watching you frown at the state of the dress you had both dreamt of wearing once upon a time. You reached to touch the tulle where it had snagged against something but she swatted your hand away, “Tu ne me présentes pas?” she asked, giving you a pointed look and a nod towards Jake.

“Right, oui. Introductions, sorry,” you told Jake, “Jake this is Elena,” then, turning back towards your friend, “Elena, voici mon mari, Jake,” 

“Mon Dieu, ils sont tous aussi beaux en Amérique?" she asked, shooting you a wink. You usually minded when people commented on Jake’s appearance, not that you would ever admit that you were jealous, of course, but your brain seemed insistent on hearing ‘he’s out of your league’ when the only thing people said was ‘he’s handsome’. When it came from Elena however, you found you didn’t mind, probably because you knew she was rather happily paired with the Nutcracker Prince himself.

“Il parle français?” she asked, suddenly panicked Jake might have understood. 

You shook your head, with a smile,“Anglais et Italien,” you reassured her.

“Russian, too,” Jake said, “Not much, though,” he added when Elena understood.

“Sdelay yey bol'no, i ya sdelayu to zhe samoye s toboy,” she smiled. 

Jake grinned at her threat. You were a wonderful woman, someone that many people held dear and someone people couldn’t help but want to protect. He had been told to treat you right so many times now and with the same tone of voice that he could have heard the first part of that sentence in any language and he would have been able to complete the second part by himself. ‘Don’t hurt her or I will do the same to you,’ was now firmly in the top ten things people had most often told him.

“ya by nikogda,” he replied, with a little nod of the head. Of course he would never.

“Je l’aime bien, Y/n,” Elena winked at you again. The entire exchange had flown over your head but you were happy they both seemed to get along, “Venez, je vais vous presenter la famille,” she said, grabbing you by the wrist and dragging you inside.

You had met Nikola before, albeit briefly and over skype, still when he saw the three of you approach with his wife he jumped up from his seat and greeted you like an old friend. 

“My English is poor,” he said in an apologetic tone of voice, “I can understand but you will have to speak slowly. My name is Nikola Popov, I am Elena’s husband,” he added with a thick russian accent.

“This,” he said, moving back to point towards a pushchair, “is our son. His name is Dmitri.”

Elena advanced towards the pushchair, lifting the baby out of it and cradling the five and a half month old in her arms, “Tu veux le tenir?” she asked, already knowing your answer. You had never in your life passed up on holding a baby and you suspected that if you ever did it would only be because you were already holding one.

You nodded furiously under Jake’s amused gaze. Elena gave you her son, depositing him into your arms with a look of warning which you only understood when she let go of the boy and his full weight became apparent. Dmitri looked at you with two large blue eyes searching your face for any sign of recognition, when he found none, his face twisted in a frown. The little boy’s eyes filled with tears and his bottom lip quivered, but when you smiled, gently taking in his little fist into your bigger hand, all traces of sadness vanished and he returned a large toothless grin. You gently let go of his fist to tickle his tummy, eliciting a round of delighted giggles.

“Il est mignon,” you stated, “He’s adorable,” you translated to Jake, who nodded without even looking at the child but instead staring directly at you. You raised an eyebrow at his unreadable expression but he just winked.

"Ça fait envie, non?” Elena giggled, her laugh matching her son’s to a T. It did make you want one, especially when you looked at his cherub-like face and you could see Elena’s nose and ears and Nikola’s eyes and smile. 

Dmitri giggled again, reaching out to you. You flipped him upright carefully so he hung out in front of you. His little hands came up to touch your face, gently petting your cheeks and then your hair, seemingly mesmerised by your golden curls unaware they were much the same as his. 

A thought fluttered through your head as you smiled at the boy, ‘I hope they have Jake’s eyes,’ you thought. The image of a little girl not much older than Dmitri appeared in your mind, bringing with it a wave of butterflies, she had your curly blonde locks, Jake’s bright green eyes and that Seresin smile that could make you do just about anything. 

Dancers changed back into their regular clothes and slowly made their way out of the wings and into the cool Roman night. Before you left, Elena dragged you towards the stage, giving you a pair of pointe shoes. Behind you, Nikola fiddled with his phone, connecting it to the theatre’s speakers. Music echoed through the walls of the empty Opera House. You took a few tentative steps, the shoes having been broken in by Elena and moulded to her feet felt strange and uncomfortable to you but confident that you would not be breaking your ankle, you followed her lead, dancing a few steps of the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy. 

As you finished, you marvelled at how well you had remembered all the steps. You and Elena had often practised together as you spent your summers together, careful not to wake up your aunt as you twirled and pirouetted your way into the night. 

A flash woke you up from your reverie and you looked back at Nikola who had taken out his phone and snapped a picture of the two of you. You walked over to him and looked over his shoulder to see a surprisingly nice photo of your and Elena pulling concentrated faces as you danced. To the left of the frame you saw Jake, looking at you with a bright smile, his phone out as he filmed. 

—

The next morning came quickly as you and Jake spent only some of the night sleeping. Your aunt was kind enough to take you to the Colosseum in the morning and the two of you enjoyed the day together. Jake had scheduled a tour of the ruins in the morning and you both were quickly worn out from your lack of sleep and the walking from the previous day. The long walk through the Colosseum had taken you through the ruins and under the Colosseum where gladiators used to prepare for battle against one another. 

When the tour was over Jake took you to a cafe overlooking the Arch of Constantine. The ceremonial arch was the place where the great rulers of ancient Rome returned to the city after a victorious battle. 

After eating your fill of pasta marinara you finished your lunch with an espresso. Jake took your hand and led you to the Roman Forum, where you had another tour awaiting you. After viewing the crumbling ruins, the tour guide along the way explaining how the forum used to be used for all kinds of events, you were thoroughly amazed by the fact that the ruins were still standing all of these years later. 

Once your second tour of the day was done, you insisted on taking a break at another cafe. The coffee in Italy was something to die for and you wouldn’t be passing up any opportunity to have another barista’s creation. Dragging Jake into a corner cafe on the way to Palatine Hill, you ordered two cups of coffee as well as a plate of cookies and cannolis. 

“This is your secret isn’t it?” Jake asked, his mouth full of a bite of cookie. 

You looked at him, confused, “What do you mean?” you asked, taking another sip of your latte. 

“This is how you are so sweet all the time, they do say you are what you eat,” he said, giving you a wink. 

You tried to hold back the laugh, but you couldn’t help it. Everyone in the cafe turned to look at you when you burst out laughing at Jake’s innuendo. 

“You are so funny, mio amore,” you said when your laughter subsided, trailing one finger up his arm gently, watching as he got goosebumps from the slight action. 

Leaning in close to him, you whispered in his ear, “You haven’t seen how sweet I can be.” 

Jake looked at you with wide eyes as you pulled away from him, “Is that a promise.” 

“I don’t know, you’ll have to find out,” you said, daring him to rise to the challenge, before he could respond, you finished the last of your drink, “Let’s go husband, I believe we have one last tour to go on,” you said, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the cafe. 

The Domus Aurea tour at Palatine Hill was in ruins like the rest of the Roman buildings you had visited that day, but it was more beautiful, in your opinion, than even the Colosseum. The dirt walls of the building were still standing strong, a dark tan against the blue skyline. As you were guided through the buildings you couldn’t believe that people were lucky enough to live near something so beautiful all the time. 

You were sure people might say the same about the United States’ National Parks, but at that moment, you weren’t sure you would believe them. Once the tour was over, you and Jake meandered your way back to the hotel. The long walk was killing your feet, but the time spent together was worth every moment of pain. 

When you finally made it back to the room, the two of you enjoyed a relaxing bath together before ordering room service for the evening. The Caesar salad that you received was one of the best you ever had and the hotel’s dessert selection did not disappoint. 

You laid back against the headboard of the bed, your eyes closed as Jake rubbed the soles of your feet from the long day of walking. 

“Are you having fun?” he asked. 

Opening your eyes, you saw the vulnerability on his face, “Yes, I’m having a wonderful time. You are in charge of planning all the vacations from here on out.” 

Jake laughed at you, “Are you sure? You seem tired.” 

“I am tired, but it is a good tired, I promise,” you replied, smiling at him sleepily. 

“Alright Princess, well let’s get you to bed then, we have another early morning tomorrow,” he said, pressing a kiss to the sole of your foot before letting it drop to the bed. 

“What are we doing?” you asked through a yawn as you got up and peeled the sheets back on the bed. 

Jake hummed, “I can’t tell you, it's a surprise.” 

Jake climbed into bed next to you, and you laid your head on the pillow, you were content to never move from Jake’s arms again. His warm chest pressed to your back, and his quiet breathing sounding in your ear. 

“Goodnight mi amore,” Jake said into your hair, pressing a kiss to the back of your head. 

“Sweet dreams Jakey,” you replied, your eyes already closed as sleep started to drag you under, hopefully you would get to have a lie in tomorrow morning. 

—-

You were woken up in the morning by Jake climbing out of the bed, leaving your back cold without his body heat. 

“Where ‘r you goin’?” you called after him sleepily. 

Jake turned around, coming back to the bed for a moment, he pressed a kiss to your cheek before saying in a whisper, “To shower, we have an early morning this morning for my surprise.” 

You let out a groan, “Jake, we are supposed to relax on our honeymoon.” 

“Come on darlin’, you’re going to like it I promise,” he said, “Come shower with me?” 

“Coffee?” you asked, cracking one eye to glare up at him blearily. 

He laughed quietly before grabbing your hand, pulling you into a sitting position on the bed, “I’ve got it coming princess, come on, time to shower.” 

“Be there in a minute,” you said, rubbing the sleep from your eyes, watching as your husband turned and made his way into the bathroom. You heard the shower start, deciding to appease him, you climbed out of bed. Walking into the bathroom, you squinted your eyes at the harsh light. 

“Why did you have to be a morning person?” you asked as you put toothpaste on your toothbrush. 

Jake wiped some of the steam from the glass of the shower to look at you, “Because the Lord wanted you to get up earlier,” he replied, a smile cresting over his face. 

“Speaking of the Lord,” you said after spitting into the sink, “I think we can attend mass with my aunt, if you want.” 

Jake hummed, “I think that sounds like a plan, why don’t we see what we feel like doing after my surprise?” 

“Okay,” you said, stripping off your clothes to join him in the shower, “What do I need to wear for your surprise?” you asked, flinching at the heat from the water, “Goodness!” you almost shouted into the bathroom, moving away from the steamy spray, “I thought you only took cold showers!”

“Darlin’ we’re married, I’m not taking another cold shower for the rest of my life,” Jake said, turning the water dial down so the water would cool off for you. He nuzzled his head into your neck, “Speaking of a cold shower, if I don’t get out now, I might have to go back on that promise.” 

He pressed a kiss to the side of your neck before opening the shower door and grabbing his towel from the rack. You watched as he sauntered out of the bathroom after putting some gel in his wet hair. 

When you had finished in the shower, you pulled yourself from under the calming spray. After you dried off and did your skincare routine by the sink, you wandered into the bedroom to find that Jake had laid out an outfit for you: A white maxi dress and a cream coloured woollen jumper that he had paired with your usual white tennis shoes.

“This looks nice,” you said, glancing over at Jake who was dressed in a tan t-shirt with a pair of slacks. 

“I’m allowed to dress up for my wife, aren’t I?” he asked, looking over at you while he snapped his watch on to his wrist. 

Squinting your eyes at him, you said, “I’ll figure out this surprise eventually, Seresin.” 

“Sure you will darlin’, but until then, get dressed, I don’t want to be late!” he teased, rubbing his hand across the top of your bare back. 

When the two of you left the hotel twenty minutes later, a cup of coffee in your hand, you still had no idea where he was taking you. Jake signalled a taxi and held the door open as you climbed in first. Leaning into the front seat, he whispered something to the driver, not allowing you to hear the destination. 

The ride was a quick fifteen minutes, and Jake kept you distracted the entire time, pointing at different buildings and cafes as they passed by. When you climbed out of the cab you were surprised by the crowd, looking up you recognized the church immediately as Saint Peter’s Basilica. 

“We are at the Vatican?” you asked, your voice sounding excited even to yourself. 

“Honey, we are Roman Catholic, of all the places to visit in Rome this had to be one of them,” he said sarcastically. 

You gave him a light hearted smack across the chest before walking towards the crowd, “Where are we all heading?” 

“You’ll see,” he answered, winking at you as he took your hand in his own and led you towards the doors of the church. 

When you got inside, Jake presented two tickets to a man just inside the door and he let you both inside the breathtaking church. You found a seat in one of the hundreds of pews that filled the room. Suddenly feeling self conscious, you turned to Jake, “I didn’t bring my veil.” 

He gave you a small smile before pulling a neatly folded piece of fabric from his pocket, “I knew you wouldn’t want to come without it, I grabbed it from your case this morning.” 

You pressed a kiss to his cheek, “Thank you, do you think you could help me?” you asked, trying to position the veil on your freshly cleaned hair. Jake’s hand disappeared back into his pocket, pulling out two bobby pins. He helped you straighten the veil on your head before he threaded the pins through it and into your hair. 

A bell rang, signalling the beginning of the mass, and you both stood up, facing the front of the glorious church that was now packed to the brim. Jake took your hand in his, and you felt him give it a little squeeze when the pope himself walked up the aisle holding the holy bible up for all to see. You let out a quiet gasp, realising that you were about to attend not just any mass, but a pope’s mass. 

“You didn’t,” you whispered to him quietly under your breath, shock and surprise filling your voice. 

“I did,” he said, a smile splitting his face.

The mass was read in Latin, which neither you or Jake could understand a word of, but that didn’t matter. People from all nations and languages were standing in the church and the chorus of voices that spoke through mass wasn’t just one language but several. The two of you managed to keep up with what was happening, Jake still pressing a kiss to your cheek when it was time to share peace. 

When the mass was over, as you were leaving the church, disappointed that you had to leave so soon. Jake glanced back at you and you tried to cover up your disappointment with a smile, but he still caught it. 

“Don’t worry, we’re coming back,” he said, “I figured I should feed you first.” 

You gave him a genuine smile, “That sounds lovely!” 

Jake took you to brunch at a quaint cafe just outside of Saint Peter’s Square. Once the two of you had eaten your fill, you walked back through the square and into the church. Jake presented tickets for a tour and you waited for a large enough group to join before he took you around the large church and some of its grounds. The ticket included the opportunity to climb the steps up the Dome and get a view from the top of the church across Rome. You looked at Jake nervously as you boarded the lift that would take you to the steps. He took your hand in his and whispered in your ear, “It’ll be okay, I’m right here, alright?”

You nodded at him silently, gripping his hand tight. He pressed a kiss to your forehead as the lift started moving. Glancing out the glass windows, you were able to take in the breathtaking art that decorated the walls of the church. When the lift came to a stop you both climbed out along with the rest of the tour group and started climbing the remaining stairs that the lift didn't cut out, all three hundred and twenty of them. 

When you climbed the last step, you thought that your journey was over, but you were sorely mistaken. You watched with horror as the tour guide started walking in a small path around the edge of the dome before disappearing through another hidden doorway on the other side, leading somewhere else. You turned to Jake with wide eyes and he squeezed your hand again, “You can do it baby, we will let the rest of the group go first.” 

An older man placed his hand on Jake’s arm, “Actually why don’t you two go first, that way you know we are all right behind you!”

You looked between Jake’s questioning face and the man, “Alright, we will go out first then,” you said, trying to give him a polite smile. 

“No pressure dear,” his wife added, “I used to be terrified of this climb and now I love it, just take your time.”

Nodding, you let Jake lead you to the doorway. He went first, gently pulling you along with him onto the walk path. There was a short railing but not one enough to make it comfortable for you. Gripping his hand tightly, you followed him around the dome, trying for the life of you to keep your eyes facing up and not look down towards the floor. When you finally made it to the other doorway, you were almost blinded by the light from the sun.

When you pushed it open you were surprised to find that you were standing on the roof of St. Peter’s Basilica. You felt your hand clench around Jake’s in a death grip as you stepped out onto the roof, but when you realised that there were tall, human height, railings around the decking, you let out a sigh of relief. You felt safer up here than on the narrow walk path at the top of the dome. 

Jake led you towards an edge and the two of you looked out into the distance Jake pulled out his phone, taking a few pictures of the skyline. The older couple from earlier approached you, “Honey, would you mind taking our picture? We can take one for the two of you as well.” 

“Of course,” you said, taking her phone and holding it up, “Big smiles!” you said before clicking the shutter a few times before handing their phone back to them. 

She took Jake’s offered phone from him, waiting as he wrapped one of his big arms around your shoulders, pulling you into his side. 

#fanfic #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick #top gun x reader #fanfiction #original fic #hangman x reader #jake hangman seresin #jake seresin #hangman top gun

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Magnetar eruptions in nearby galaxies On April 15, 2020, a brief burst of high-energy light swept through the solar system, triggering instruments on several NASA and European spacecraft. Now, multiple international science teams conclude that the blast came from a supermagnetized stellar remnant known as a magnetar located in a neighboring galaxy. This finding confirms long-held suspicions that some gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) - cosmic eruptions detected in the sky almost daily - are in fact powerful flares from magnetars relatively close to home. "This has always been regarded as a possibility, and several GRBs observed since 2005 have provided tantalizing evidence," said Kevin Hurley, a Senior Space Fellow with the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, who joined several scientists to discuss the burst at the virtual 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. "The April 15 event is a game changer because we found that the burst almost certainly lies within the disk of the nearby galaxy NGC 253." Papers analyzing different aspects of the event and its implications were published on Jan. 13 in the journals Nature and Nature Astronomy. GRBs, the most powerful explosions in the cosmos, can be detected across billions of light-years. Those lasting less than about two seconds, called short GRBs, occur when a pair of orbiting neutron stars - both the crushed remnants of exploded stars - spiral into each other and merge. Astronomers confirmed this scenario for at least some short GRBs in 2017, when a burst followed the arrival of gravitational waves - ripples in space-time - produced when neutron stars merged 130 million light-years away. Magnetars are neutron stars with the strongest-known magnetic fields, with up to a thousand times the intensity of typical neutron stars and up to 10 trillion times the strength of a refrigerator magnet. Modest disturbances to the magnetic field can cause magnetars to erupt with sporadic X-ray bursts for weeks or longer. Rarely, magnetars produce enormous eruptions called giant flares that produce gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light. Most of the 29 magnetars now cataloged in our Milky Way galaxy exhibit occasional X-ray activity, but only two have produced giant flares. The most recent event, detected on Dec. 27, 2004, produced measurable changes in Earth's upper atmosphere despite erupting from a magnetar located about 28,000 light-years away. Shortly before 4:42 a.m. EDT on April 15, 2020, a brief, powerful burst of X-rays and gamma rays swept past Mars, triggering the Russian High Energy Neutron Detector aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2001. About 6.6 minutes later, the burst triggered the Russian Konus instrument aboard NASA's Wind satellite, which orbits a point between Earth and the Sun located about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) away. After another 4.5 seconds, the radiation passed Earth, triggering instruments on NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, as well as on the European Space Agency's INTEGRAL satellite and Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) aboard the International Space Station. The eruption occurred beyond the field of view of the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) on NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, so its onboard computer did not alert astronomers on the ground. However, thanks to a new capability called the Gamma-ray Urgent Archiver for Novel Opportunities (GUANO), the Swift team can beam back BAT data when other satellites trigger on a burst. Analysis of this data provided additional insight into the event. The pulse of radiation lasted just 140 milliseconds - as fast as the blink of an eye or a finger snap. The Fermi, Swift, Wind, Mars Odyssey and INTEGRAL missions all participate in a GRB-locating system called the InterPlanetary Network (IPN). Now funded by the Fermi project, the IPN has operated since the late 1970s using different spacecraft located throughout the solar system. Because the signal reached each detector at different times, any pair of them can help narrow down a burst's location in the sky. The greater the distances between spacecraft, the better the technique's precision. The IPN placed the April 15 burst, called GRB 200415A, squarely in the central region of NGC 253, a bright spiral galaxy located about 11.4 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor. This is the most precise sky position yet determined for a magnetar located beyond the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite of our galaxy and host to a giant flare in 1979, the first ever detected. Giant flares from magnetars in the Milky Way and its satellites evolve in a distinct way, with a rapid rise to peak brightness followed by a more gradual tail of fluctuating emission. These variations result from the magnetar's rotation, which repeatedly brings the flare location in and out of view from Earth, much like a lighthouse. Observing this fluctuating tail is conclusive evidence of a giant flare. Seen from millions of light-years away, though, this emission is too dim to detect with today's instruments. Because these signatures are missing, giant flares in our galactic neighborhood may be masquerading as much more distant and powerful merger-type GRBs. A detailed analysis of data from Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) and Swift's BAT provides strong evidence that the April 15 event was unlike any burst associated with mergers, noted Oliver Roberts, an associate scientist at Universities Space Research Association's Science and Technology Institute in Huntsville, Alabama, who led the study. In particular, this was the first giant flare known to occur since Fermi's 2008 launch, and the GBM's ability to resolve changes at microsecond timescales proved critical. The observations reveal multiple pulses, with the first one appearing in just 77 microseconds - about 13 times the speed of a camera flash and nearly 100 times faster than the rise of the fastest GRBs produced by mergers. The GBM also detected rapid variations in energy over the course of the flare that have never been observed before. "Giant flares within our galaxy are so brilliant that they overwhelm our instruments, leaving them to hang onto their secrets," Roberts said. "For the first time, GRB 200415A and distant flares like it allow our instruments to capture every feature and explore these powerful eruptions in unparalleled depth." Giant flares are poorly understood, but astronomers think they result from a sudden rearrangement of the magnetic field. One possibility is that the field high above the surface of the magnetar may become too twisted, suddenly releasing energy as it settles into a more stable configuration. Alternatively, a mechanical failure of the magnetar's crust - a starquake - may trigger the sudden reconfiguration. Roberts and his colleagues say the data show some evidence of seismic vibrations during the eruption. The highest-energy X-rays recorded by Fermi's GBM reached 3 million electron volts (MeV), or about a million times the energy of blue light, itself a record for giant flares. The researchers say this emission arose from a cloud of ejected electrons and positrons moving at about 99% the speed of light. The short duration of the emission and its changing brightness and energy reflect the magnetar's rotation, ramping up and down like the headlights of a car making a turn. Roberts describes it as starting off as an opaque blob - he pictures it as resembling a photon torpedo from the "Star Trek" franchise - that expands and diffuses as it travels. The torpedo also factors into one of the event's biggest surprises. Fermi's main instrument, the Large Area Telescope (LAT), also detected three gamma rays, with energies of 480 MeV, 1.3 billion electron volts (GeV), and 1.7 GeV - the highest-energy light ever detected from a magnetar giant flare. What's surprising is that all of these gamma rays appeared long after the flare had diminished in other instruments. Nicola Omodei, a senior research scientist at Stanford University in California, led the LAT team investigating these gamma rays, which arrived between 19 seconds and 4.7 minutes after the main event. The scientists conclude that this signal most likely comes from the magnetar flare. "For the LAT to detect a random short GRB in the same region of the sky and at nearly the same time as the flare, we would have to wait, on average, at least 6 million years," he explained. A magnetar produces a steady outflow of fast-moving particles. As it moves through space, this outflow plows into, slows, and diverts interstellar gas. The gas piles up, becomes heated and compressed, and forms a type of shock wave called a bow shock. In the model proposed by the LAT team, the flare's initial pulse of gamma rays travels outward at the speed of light, followed by the cloud of ejected matter, which is moving nearly as fast. After several days, they both reach the bow shock. The gamma rays pass through. Seconds later, the cloud of particles - now expanded into a vast, thin shell - collides with accumulated gas at the bow shock. This interaction creates shock waves that accelerate particles, producing the highest-energy gamma rays after the main burst. The April 15 flare proves that these events constitute their own class of GRBs. Eric Burns, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, led a study investigating additional suspects using data from numerous missions. The findings will appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Bursts near the galaxy M81 in 2005 and the Andromeda galaxy (M31) in 2007 had already been suggested to be giant flares, and the team additionally identified a flare in M83, also seen in 2007 but newly reported. Add to these the giant flare from 1979 and those observed in our Milky Way in 1998 and 2004. "It's a small sample, but we now have a better idea of their true energies, and how far we can detect them," Burns said. "A few percent of short GRBs may really be magnetar giant flares. In fact, they may be the most common high-energy outbursts we've detected so far beyond our galaxy - about five times more frequent than supernovae." IMAGE....The giant flare, cataloged as GRB 200415A, reached detectors on different NASA spacecraft at different times. Each instrument pair established its possible location in different swaths of the sky, but the bands intersect in the central part of the bright spiral galaxy NGC 253. This is the most precise position yet established for a magnetar located well beyond our galaxy. CREDIT NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #news #NASA

[no-dull-days]

Bogota, Colombia

Exploring Bogota's Misunderstood History

Three weeks in to Colombia, I headed to the infamous Bogota . As dawn approached, I arrived at the North Terminal. 14 hours had passed during the night bus from Popayan. The trek to Bogota took us through the Andes mountains, hairpin curves, and peculiar weather. I was suspicious as we drove by uneasy scenery. I’d researched every other destination prior to arrival. Bogota was the exception.

History: During the 1980’s & 90’s Bogota was the most dangerous city in the world. I'll bet you think it's danger emanated from drug cartels…More people were killed in Bogota by buses and cars than by military or political problems. Children feared being hit by a car, truck, or bus. Public transportation was a mafia run business. Buses would block traffic or run people over on the sidewalk. The people of Bogota were ashamed of the city. There was a lack of infrastructure coupled by low security and high safety concerns. Residents had zero faith in the future. Leaders didn’t know where to go or what to do. Bogota had no vision, no model and no money. It was known as the worst place in Latin America.

In 1998 Enrique Peñalosa was elected mayor of Bogota. During a visit to Europe, Peñalosa said, “as a fish needs to swim, we need to walk. Not in order to survive, but in order to be happy.” In regards to Bogota, Peñalosa was convinced, crime and poverty were connected to Bogota’s design — how the city was structured.

Something had to be done, considering Bogota’s population grew from 100k to 7 million in 100 years. Peñalosa created automobile restrictions. In the following ten years, Bogota’s murder rate fell a whopping 70%! From the highest in the world to less than that of Washington DC.

Bogota’s bus system was modeled after a Brazilian city. Today, Bogota has an internationally acclaimed bus system. Public transportation has brought the community together. Take Avenida el Dorado— there’s what seems to be endless miles of road dedicated solely to pedestrians. On Sundays, over a million people show up to ride, walk and socialize. It’s the safest place in the city. By way of urban design, a city for the people was created.

It changed beyond belief. We changed the city more for people than for cars.

— Enrique Peñalosa

As a statement of priorities, Avenida el Dorado was built to go through the poorest communities. It’s the longest pedestrian walkway on the continent. Buses and parks are all connected causing entire neighborhoods to interact. When communities know one another, crime rates fall and the quality of life improves. Locals even denounced those who violated the system.

Public transportation was a multi billion dollar industry. By placing mafia members on the board of directors and giving them stock options, the system evolved. A power play considering the mob could crush the city.

Bogota’s large sidewalks show people are equally or more valuable than automobiles. These and other changes made it more difficult for people to access businesses which led to a movement to impeach Peñalosa. People soon realized public interests come before private interests. This urban design proclaims a bicyclist is just as important as a $30,000 automobile. Bogota’s mayor, Peñalosa, left office with the highest approval rating of any mayor in history.

This is one iota of Bogota’s history. The powerful drug cartels of the 80s who ruled cities such as Medellin, Bogota, and Miami were historical times no doubt. Seeing the murals, sites, and stomping grounds of these tumultuous times was spine-tingling.

I explored the Halls of Justice where Supreme Court Justices were assassinated and many others were killed or held hostage. I’ve watched dozens of documentaries on Colombia and Pablo Escobar’s reign over Bogota. Walking around the city was like being in a history book.

The history was so thick, it almost rivaled The Lost City of Petra’s history! Escobar and the drug cartels pillaged Bogota and ran the city at some points. Escobar practically owned the police. He was both loved and hated by fellow Colombians. He also made the Forbes Top 10 List. Netflix’s, ‘Narcos’, does a great job of documenting what happened during this time. Both enthralling, and terrifying.

My Experience: Upon arrival, I had no plans. My Spanish had drastically improved. I was sociable, yet cautious. Violent crime still occurs at random. After Cartagena, I discovered it was tough finding a place to stay in advance. Taxis can be dangerous and I didn’t know how far I’d be from my destination. There were times I’d arrive in a new city, by plane or bus after dark. I didn’t think it was wise to take a bus or walk through unfamiliar neighborhoods. Speaking far from perfect Spanish and carrying thousands of dollars of electronics didn’t ease the situation.

All through Colombia, ATMs dispense pesos. Many of the bills are COL$50,000 and finding change can be difficult. Exchange rates and small bills was another barrier. If you’re traveling to Colombia, I’d recommend learning how to count to 100,000 in Spanish.

I rented a room in the common style five bedroom home for COL$50,000/24 hours. This gave me time to make plans, look at a map and figure out where I wanted to stay thereafter. I had a queen bed with a private bathroom. 15 minutes later, I was walking to another bus. I paid special attention to the landmarks because addresses were beyond my understanding. Getting lost was no fun.

Perhaps my favorite thing to do in Bogota was play tejo. Tejo can be played for fun with points or in professional tournaments. The object of the game is to throw fairly heavy discs at small triangle packets filled with gunpowder. Points are acquired when there’s a ferocious bang! They sound like revolvers firing at random. It’s fun playing in lanes with 30 people. It sounds like a fire fight. Only difference is, everyone’s drinking beers and smoking various substances. Players stand about 40 feet away and the gun powder packets are about 3 inches. They sit in a clay bay at a 45 degree angle.

Aside from tejo, sampling mouthwatering exotic fruits was a meal in itself. I sampled literally dozens of fruits I never knew existed. Fruits with vibrant colors and bizarre shapes with funky names. Outrageous natural flavors. I’d return to Bogota just for the fruits!

Though Bogota’s fruits were an enlightening experience, it made me sad and angry. I thought of Monsanto — the massive evil corporation based in the US that’s burned farmers in more ways than god intended. I thought of the politicians and lobbyists that support GMOs — special seeds created from the same corporation that developed Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Between fresh fruits in Bogota, godly organic produce in the rural Nicaraguan mountains and Panamanian islands, I practically had steam coming outta my ears. I drank water from a stream near Ecuador. It was the purest, most amazing water I’ve ever had. If you know what food and water should taste like, it should make you absolutely livid that corporations and politicians are taking control of our food supply and destroying our water for bigger profits.

La Candelaria: I made a friend at the bus stop who guided me to La Candelaria in Bogota. La Candelaria is a hipster neighborhood that reminded me of Berkeley and San Francisco. Graffiti on every corner, VW’s, head shops, music stores, and reggae music all flooded by local college students.

The nightlife here was unique. Hundreds of people mingled throughout the area on bicycles and mopeds. The energy was comforting and it was refreshing to meet a wide array of travelers in this area who spoke broken English.

The daunting feelings of massive Bogota subsided when I found a great hostel in this neighborhood. I got a private room and bathroom for COL$60,000/night. I met other international travelers. I had a solid internet connection, private living quarters, a hot shower, and food from all over the world in my neighborhood.

In the following days, I explored the city on bicycle — by guided tour and on my own. Two friends and I rode around for five hours with a Bogota local. We saw cemeteries, tasted the world’s finest coffee, learned about political graffiti, human rights, Pablo Escobar, terrorism, cocaine, Buddhism, the upper class, and people who lived in sewers. We learned about the Emerald Industry and agriculture.

Attractions: The city of Bogota, home to about 10 million people, is a massive city. It resides at 8,660 ft in the Andes Mountains. The air is a little thin, but I got used to it. You’d really need many months to see everything the city has to offer. I enjoyed the hike to the top of the Monserrate.

Monserrate is a mountain that dominates the city center of Bogota, the capital city of Colombia. It rises to 10,341 ft above the sea level, where there is a church built in the 17th century. — Wikipedia

Bolivar Square is a huge plaza with government buildings, tremendous history and usually the location of concerts and festivals. It’s a great place to socialize and take in the open air. I also enjoyed the Bogota Botanical Gardens. It too was a nice place to casually walk around, mingle, and learn something new.

However, I enjoyed Parque 93 moreso. It reminded me of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco where singles, families, couples, bikers, and dog walkers all come together for lunch, reading the newspaper, and snoozing in the sunshine. The bike tour was probably my favorite though. There’s a number of companies throughout the city. If you’re looking for nightlife in Bogota, I can vouch for that too. If you’re a social butterfly, workaholic, party animal, foodie, or entrepreneur, Bogota has plenty to offer.

[kwebtv]

Berkeley Square  -  BBC One -  May 10, 1998  -  July 19, 1998

Period Drama (10 episodes)

Running Time:  60 minutes

Stars:

The Lamson-Scribener household

Tabitha Wady as Lydia Weston

Rosemary Leach as Nanny Collins

Rupert Frazer as Lord George Lamson-Scribener

Briony Glassco as Lady Constance Lamson-Scribener

Nicholas Irons as Lord Hugh Lamson-Scribener

Peter Forbes as Fowler

The Hutchinson household

Victoria Smurfit as Hannah Randall

Sophie Walker as Isabel Hutchinson

Rosalind Knight as Great-Aunt Effie

Ruth Sheen as Nanny Simmons

Adam Hayes as Bertie Hutchinson

The St. John household

Clare Wilkie as Matty Wickham

Jason O'Mara as Ned Jones

Hermione Norris as Victoria St. John

Sean Murray as Arnold St. John

Kate Williams as Mrs. McClusky

Maggie McCarthy as Cook

Amy Hodge as Pringle

And

Etela Pardo as Mrs. Bronowski

William Scott-Masson as Captain Mason

Stuart Laing as Jack Wickham

#Berkeley Square #TV #BBC One #Period Drama #1990's #Title

[recycledmoviecostumes]

This beautifully detailed Edwardian gown has been used at least seven times over the years. The first known use of the costume was on Anna Palk as Kitty Westlake in the 1974 first season episode of Affairs of the Heart entitled Bessie. In 1976 it was worn by Jennifer Daniel as Eleanor in an episode of The Duchess of Duke Street entitled The Outsiders. In 1998 the costume was seen again in Berkeley Square, where it was worn by Hermione Norris as Victoria St. John. It appeared again that same year on Jenny Agutter as Mrs. Bruce in Bramwell: Our Brave Boys. In 2002 the costume was worn in The Forsyte Saga on Amanda Root as Winifred Dartie, and in 2013 it was seen on Zoe Tapper as Ellen Love in Mr.Selfridge. Most recently the gown was worn by Eleanor Tomlinson as Georgie Raoul-Duval in the 2018 film Colette.      

Costume Credit:  Shrewsbury Lasses, Katie S.

E-mail Submissions: [email protected]

Follow: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest 

#Eleanor tomlinson #colette #manda root #the forsyte saga #zoe tapper #Mr.Selfridge #berkeley square #hermoine norris #jennifer daniel #the duchess of duke street #anna palm #affairs of the heart #costume drama #period drama

[silverpetticoat]

'Berkeley Square,' The Complete Series: Secrets and Romance!

'Berkeley Square,' The Complete Series: Secrets and Romance! A TV review of the 1998 BBC Berkeley Square series with Jason O' Mara and Victoria Smurfit.

#berkeleysquare #perioddrama #britishdrama #romantic #historical #costumedrama #tvreview #review #classic

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.13

1373 – Julian of Norwich has visions which are later transcribed in her Revelations of Divine Love. 1515 – Mary Tudor, Queen of France, and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, are officially married at Greenwich. 1568 – Battle of Langside: The forces of Mary, Queen of Scots, are defeated by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, Earl of Moray, her half-brother. 1619 – Dutch statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt is executed in The Hague after being convicted of treason. 1779 – War of the Bavarian Succession: Russian and French mediators at the Congress of Teschen negotiate an end to the war. In the agreement Austria receives the part of its territory that was taken from it (the Innviertel). 1780 – The Cumberland Compact is signed by leaders of the settlers in early Tennessee. 1787 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England, with eleven ships full of convicts (the "First Fleet") to establish a penal colony in Australia. 1804 – Forces sent by Yusuf Karamanli of Tripoli to retake Derna from the Americans attack the city. 1830 – Ecuador gains its independence from Gran Colombia. 1846 – Mexican–American War: The United States declares war on Mexico. 1861 – American Civil War: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognizes the Confederacy as having belligerent rights. 1861 – The Great Comet of 1861 is discovered by John Tebbutt of Windsor, New South Wales, Australia. 1861 – Pakistan's (then a part of British India) first railway line opens, from Karachi to Kotri. 1862 – The USS Planter, a steamer and gunship, steals through Confederate lines and is passed to the Union, by a southern slave, Robert Smalls, who later was officially appointed as captain, becoming the first black man to command a United States ship. 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Resaca: The battle begins with Union General Sherman fighting toward Atlanta. 1865 – American Civil War: Battle of Palmito Ranch: In far south Texas, the last land battle of the Civil War ends with a Confederate victory. 1880 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway. 1888 – With the passage of the Lei Áurea ("Golden Law"), Empire of Brazil abolishes slavery. 1909 – The first Giro d'Italia starts from Milan. Italian cyclist Luigi Ganna will be the winner. 1912 – The Royal Flying Corps, the forerunner of the Royal Air Force, is established in the United Kingdom. 1917 – Three children report the first apparition of Our Lady of Fátima in Fátima, Portugal. 1939 – The first commercial FM radio station in the United States is launched in Bloomfield, Connecticut. The station later becomes WDRC-FM. 1940 – World War II: Germany's conquest of France begins as the German army crosses the Meuse. Winston Churchill makes his "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech to the House of Commons. 1940 – Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands flees her country to Great Britain after the German invasion. Princess Juliana takes her children to Canada for their safety. 1941 – World War II: Yugoslav royal colonel Dragoljub Mihailović starts fighting against German occupation troops, beginning the Serbian resistance. 1943 – World War II: Operations Vulcan and Strike force the surrender of the last Axis troops in Tunisia. 1948 – Arab–Israeli War: The Kfar Etzion massacre is committed by Arab irregulars, the day before the declaration of independence of the state of Israel on May 14. 1950 – The first round of the Formula One World Championship is held at Silverstone. 1951 – The 400th anniversary of the founding of the National University of San Marcos is commemorated by the opening of the first large-capacity stadium in Peru. 1952 – The Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India, holds its first sitting. 1954 – The anti-National Service Riots, by Chinese middle school students in Singapore, take place. 1954 – The original Broadway production of The Pajama Game opens and runs for another 1,063 performances. Later received three Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical, and Best Choreography. 1958 – During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice President Richard Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators. 1958 – May 1958 crisis: A group of French military officers lead a coup in Algiers demanding that a government of national unity be formed with Charles de Gaulle at its head in order to defend French control of Algeria. 1958 – Ben Carlin becomes the first (and only) person to circumnavigate the world by amphibious vehicle, having travelled over 17,000 kilometres (11,000 mi) by sea and 62,000 kilometres (39,000 mi) by land during a ten-year journey. 1960 – Hundreds of University of California, Berkeley students congregate for the first day of protest against a visit by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. 1967 – Dr. Zakir Husain becomes the third President of India. He is the first Muslim President of the Indian Union. He holds this position until August 24, 1969. 1969 – May 13 Incident involving sectarian violence in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 1971 – Over 900 unarmed Bengali Hindus are murdered in the Demra massacre. 1972 – Faulty electrical wiring ignites a fire underneath the Playtown Cabaret in Osaka, Japan. Blocked exits and non-functional elevators lead to 118 fatalities, with many victims leaping to their deaths. 1972 – The Troubles: A car bombing outside a crowded pub in Belfast sparks a two-day gun battle involving the Provisional IRA, Ulster Volunteer Force and British Army. Seven people are killed and over 66 injured. 1980 – An F3 tornado hits Kalamazoo County, Michigan. President Jimmy Carter declares it a federal disaster area. 1981 – Mehmet Ali Ağca attempts to assassinate Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square in Rome. The Pope is rushed to the Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic to undergo emergency surgery and survives. 1985 – Police bombed MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia to end a stand-off, killing six adults and five children, and destroying the homes of 250 city residents. 1989 – Large groups of students occupy Tiananmen Square and begin a hunger strike. 1990 – The Dinamo–Red Star riot took place at Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb, Croatia between the Bad Blue Boys (fans of Dinamo Zagreb) and the Delije (fans of Red Star Belgrade). 1992 – Li Hongzhi gives the first public lecture on Falun Gong in Changchun, People's Republic of China. 1995 – Alison Hargreaves, a 33-year-old British mother, becomes the first woman to conquer Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas. 1996 – Severe thunderstorms and a tornado in Bangladesh kill 600 people. 1998 – Race riots break out in Jakarta, Indonesia, where shops owned by Indonesians of Chinese descent are looted and women raped. 1998 – India carries out two nuclear tests at Pokhran, following the three conducted on May 11. The United States and Japan impose economic sanctions on India. 2005 – Andijan uprising, Uzbekistan; Troops open fire on crowds of protestors after a prison break; at least 187 people were killed according to official estimates. 2006 – São Paulo violence: Rebellions occur in several prisons in Brazil. 2011 – Two bombs explode in the Charsadda District of Pakistan killing 98 people and wounding 140 others. 2012 – Forty-nine dismembered bodies are discovered by Mexican authorities on Mexican Federal Highway 40. 2013 – Kermit Gosnell, a U.S. abortion physician, is found guilty in Pennsylvania of three counts of murder of newborn infants, one count of involuntary manslaughter, and various other charges. In total, more than 100 babies were killed at Gosnell's abortion clinic. 2014 – An explosion at an underground coal mine in southwest Turkey kills 301 miners. 2018 – Nine people die after the suicide bombing of three Indonesian churches in Surabaya, Indonesia.

#Events

[man-creates-dinosaurs]

It seems like the only time I make a post anymore is to write an obituary, which is pretty sad. But this past Tuesday - October 9th - beloved stop-motion animator Will Vinton passed away at age 70. Vinton is best remembered as the creator of such popular ad campaigns as the California Raisins and the Domino’s Pizza Noid, which he brought to life via claymation. Vinton was born on Nov. 17th, 1947, in McMinnville, Oregon, which is just southwest of Portland. His father was a car dealer and his mother a banker and bookkeeper. Will enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley with his aim being to studying architecture. Though seemingly a million miles away from singing fruits made of clay, it was Vinton’s interest in architecture - specifically the intricate Modernist stylings of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí - that lead to his career in claymation. “If I really wanted to be inspired by designs like Gaudí’s, I had to throw away the T square and straight edge and grab some Plasticine clay,” said Vinton in a 2011 speech delivered to the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Denver, Colorado, “I started modeling and designing by way of sculpting.” It was this which lead Vinton into experimenting with stop-motion claymation and eventually to his first short-film, CLOSED MONDAYS (1974), which took 18-months to shoot but resulted in Vinton winning an Academy Award for best animated short. Vinton would go on to found his own production company, Will Vinton Studios*, where he would produce more short films like MARTIN THE COBBLER (1977), based on the Tolstoy short story; the Oscar nominated RIP VAN WINKLE (1978); THE LITTLE PRINCE (1979); and eventually his first full-length animated feature THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN (1985), which he also directed. If you’ve never seen it MARK TWAIN is brilliant with the stand-out sequence being an utterly nightmarish adaptation of Twain’s never completed existentialist novel “The Mysterious Stranger” (1897-1908). In the mid-1980s, Vinton was contracted to do stop-motion effects for Disney’s RETURN TO OZ (1985); a film intended to serve as an unofficial sequel to the classic 1939 THE WIZARD OF OZ produced by MGM and starring Judy Garland. RETURN is actually much closer to the original Oz books by L. Frank Baum, which means that it is a decidedly darker and more surreal film then the ‘39 musical. As a result it was a box-office flop, but did garner Vinton yet another Oscar nomination for his frightening stop-motion Nome King. But we’re here to talk about dinosaurs and like almost all stop-motion animators Vinton also tried his hand at bringing those terrible lizards back to life. In 1980, Vinton created a 13-minute educational short called DINOSAURS which is presented in the style of an elementary school presentation in which a dinosaur obsessed student named Phillip vies for the attention of his rambunctious classmates while doing a class presentation on dinosaurs. You can find it on Archive.org. The claymation dinosaurs start off cartoonish with an anthropomorphic Styracosaurus named Herb and T. rex named, what else, Rex but eventually gives way to more “realistic” dinosaurs as the short goes on. The dinosaurs are far from paleontologically accurate with multiple species from different geological eras co-existing and some engaging in some decidedly strange behaviors (such as a Brontosaurus that seems to be devouring the eggs in another dino’s nest!), but the overall look and feel of the sequence is wonderful with the only downside being the combination of Phillip’s increasingly spasmodic narration coupled with the incessant commentary from his classmates.     In 1985 the documentary MORE DINOSAURS, hosted by Gary Owens and Eric Boardman, featured an abridged version of the same animation sans Phillip and his classmates’ peanut gallery commentary. This is how I originally saw Vinton’s DINOSAURS and in my opinion is the superior way to view it. Unfortunately it’s not available online - though it is on DVD. What is online, and embedded above, is the 1987 documentary, DINOSAURS! – A FUN-FILLED TRIP BACK IN TIME!, which again featured the unabridged short along with a new 15-minute prologue in which Phillip is played by actor Fred Savage - of THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987) and THE WONDER YEARS (1988-93) - despite the obvious fact that Savage’s voice is not the same as the original Phillip.  *It’s worth noting that Will Vinton Studios was the forerunner of Laika, the stop-motion powerhouse currently responsible for such films as CORALINE (2009), PARANORMAN (2012), and KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS (2016). Unfortunately the circumstances under which this transition took place are rather melancholy. Basically, in the 1990s, Will Vinton opened his studio to investors. In 1998, Phil Knight, owner of Nike, bought a controlling share of the company, evidently because his son was an aspiring stop-motion animator. Eventually, in 2002, Vinton was kicked out of his own company and Knight’s son was promoted to president. In 2005 the company was rebranded as Laika.       

#will vinton #fred savage #stop-motion animation #stop-motion #dinosaur #dinosaurs #dinosaur movies #claymation

[mythicallore]

10 Haunted Places: England

England has long enjoyed a most haunted legacy, and with a long and bloody history, it's hardly a surprise that almost every city, town and village all share an abundance of ghostly tales of specters and things that go bump in the night. From country houses, castles and prisons to the wilderness of the moors and beyond you can find screaming skulls, haunted houses, headless spirits and even a forest that echoes with the blood-curdling screams of the long dead.

1. Screaming Skull of Bettiscombe Manor

Bettiscombe Manor is home to the legend of a screaming skull. In the 19th century, John Frederick Pinney returned from Nevis with a faithful Jamaican slave who soon after passed away of tuberculosis. His only request was to have his body returned to his home country, but Pinney refused and buried the man in the cemetery at St. Stephen's Church. Afterwards, the village and Pinney were plagued with bad luck and spectral screams from the cemetery. The manor house was beset by rattling windows and slamming doors, such that Pinney brought the exhumed body into his home and refused to discard it. The body decayed, leaving only the skull in ever removed from Bettiscombe the skull will resume it unearthly screaming and a dreadful fate will fall upon the house.

2. The Ghost of Bodmin Jail

Bodmin Jail is a historic former prisoners of war in Cornwall on the edge of the nearby moor. Currently, it is home to a museum similar to The London Dungeons for its gory displays of prisoners' offenses and punishments. Before closing in 1927, the jail was the sight of a Naval  prison, over 50 public executions, and, for a time during World War II, a cache of national treasures. Many ghosts have been spotted at this defunct prison, including a wandering spectral woman, gaunt faces peering from cells, and a woman who attempts to drag children away in a section of the old Lower Floor. Reportedly, the latter is the ghost of a woman who murdered her youngest son. The most malevolent ghost at Bodmin Prison calls the dank dungeon home and is known to place its cold hand upon visitors' shoulders.

3. Dartmoor Hell Hounds

The Dartmoor area of England has everything that a ghost hunter could ask for - fog shrouded moorlands, vast swaths of windswept rock, and several ghastly spirits. Perhaps most terrifying are the yeth or yell demons, so named for the inhuman wails they make while rambling through the area's woods. According to Devon folklore, these headless fogs are alternately the feral souls of unbaptized children or the half-made spirits of unborn ones. In either case, they are doomed to haunt the moors in packs and scream wildly while hunting for those foolish enough to venture outside after dark. Supposedly, their yells drive their prey mad, and if they catch you, you'll be dragged off never to be seen again. Most memorably, the yeth hounds were the main inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles.

4. The Ancient Ram Inn

This historical inn in Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire is England's most haunted Bed-and-Breakfast, with 20 ghosts at the last estimate. The current owner of the Ancient Ram Inn were subject to spectral attacks as soon as they moved into the former pub. Upon investigation, they discovered that this Cotswolds cottage had been built upon a pagan burial ground in 1145. During a renovation, they even found daggers and small bones and theorized that it had been the site of child sacrifice. Among the ghosts at the Ancient Ram Inn are a wandering, murdered girl named Rose, a regal high priestess, and a randy male sex demon. Despite some guests fleeing into the night after hearing children's screams or seeing floating furniture, the inn is currently inundated with ghost hunters and horror writers. Even the world's oldest paranormal research organization, The Ghost Club, visited in 2003, though they failed to produce evidence of the hauntings.

5. Village of Pluckley

Pluckley village in Kent was awarded the Guinness Book of Records title of 'most haunted village in Britain', and for good reason. Over fifteen ghosts call Pluckley home, these include a highwayman killed during a swordfight, a schoolmaster found hanged by a group of children and an old Gypsy woman who burned to death in a fire who appears on the bridge casually smoking a pipe. There is also the specter of a horse-drawn carriage that rides through the village accompanied by the eerie sound of horses hooves. Along with a haunted pub, brickworks and cemetery, just south of the village lies the 'Screaming Woods', also known as Pluckley forest, from which villagers and visitors alike regularly hear the sound of the blood-curdling screams made by wandering souls of long dead men and women who became lost in the forest.

6. Langham Hotel

The 5 star Langham Hotel is the grand dame of London establishments. Opened in 1865 and styled on a Renaissance palace, the hotel has reputedly the most haunted hotel room in the country. There are five ghosts that regularly make an appearance at the hotel. The most active of them is the spirit of a German Prince, who jumped to his death out of a window, just before the start of the First World War. He haunts the fourth floor; guests have seen him walking through walls and he is well know for moving objects from place to place. Room 333 is the most haunted room in the entire hotel, there have been numerous sighting of a man in Victorian evening dress who walks toward guests while they lay in their beds, his arms outstretched and eyes empty, before vanishing into thin air.

7. 50 Berkeley Square

The four-story, brick townhouse at 50 Berkeley Square in Mayfair, London was constructed in the late 18th century for Britain's Prime Minister. After his death, an elderly woman lived there, and it was then rented in 1859 by an eccentric Mr. Myers. After being jilted at the altar, he slowly went mad, and number 50 fell into disrepair. Rumor spread of an attic room haunted by a tortured youth, murdered child, or monstrous man. Soon, legends abounded of maids and soldiers alike going mad after staying in the house. In one story, two sailors who entered the home unaware of its reputation awoke to a monstrous presence and fled, but one tripped and died from head trauma. By 1998, 50 Berkeley Square was both the oldest unaltered building and most haunted house in London and to this day, a police notice stands on the wall inside the house that proclaims that the upper floors cannot be used for any purpose. May all who see it heed its warning.

8. The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

Perhaps the most famous specter on this lis os that of Lady Dorothy, sister to Prime Minister Robert Walpole and wife of Viscount Charles Townshend. Due to her husband's hot temper, she lived a trouble life in the country house of Raynham Hall in Norfolk, England - and was often limited to her rooms. A hundred years after dying from smallpox in 1726, Dorothy's ghost in a brown brocade dress was first spotted during Christmas festivities. A year later, the Brown Lady mocked a skeptical Captain Frederick Marrat who'd requested to stay in her haunted rooms, causing him to shoot her ghost in the face. She vanished until 1926, when two visitors saw her on the stairs. Then, in 1936, she became famous when Country Life magazine photographers captured her image, though she has scarcely been seen since.

9. The Tulip Staircase

Historically, the Queen's House section of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich has been its fair share of hauntings, from a woman gliding through walls to unexplained choral chanting. However, few had captured clear evidence of this 4,000 year old structure's ghosts until retired Reverend Ralph Hardy of White Rock, British Columbia took a picture if a shrouded figure on the Tulip Staircase in 1966. Legends told of a maid who died after being thrown from the highest banister and regularly appeared to visitors as a pale figure mopping blood at the base of the staircase. Convinced that he had captured a ghost, Hardly sent the photograph to a London ghost club, who arrived a year later to hold a seance. The notes from that event provide some sense of the disturbing events that occurred that night - with a bell ringing and a luminous stone appearing before the handwriting became indecipherable. To this day, visitors and staff alike regularly report ghost sightings.

10. Tower of London

The Tower of London's historic complex sits on the River Thames' north bank and hides a bloody legacy of torture going back to its founding in 1066. You're likely to see the ghosts of Henry VI, Margaret Pole, Lady Jane Grey, and the illegitimate Prince Edward V and Richard, who were murdered and hidden beneath a staircase. Ann Boleyn famously walks the grounds where she was beheaded in 1536 with her head under her arm. In addition, several guards have witnessed other-worldly apparitions, including one beefeater who died of fright in 1816 after being attacked by a spectral bear. Even the spectators as the Countess of Salisbury's execution linger here, still shocked by the eleven cuts of her inexperienced executioner.

http://www.theoccultmuseum.com/english-ghost-stories/

#paranormal #cryptid #england

[autumncottageattic]

Berkeley Square 1998 part XI

#Berkeley Square 1998 #Berkeley Square #costume drama #british tv-seris

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Friedrich Nietzsche was most famously concerned with the problem of nihilism. All societies, in his view, rely on implicit value judgments. If the foundations of these are lost, he predicts terrible consequences: widespread apathy or violent, fanatical attempts to reclaim a sense of purpose, or perhaps both. We talk about values a lot, and we know they do something, but we have little idea how. Compounding this is uncertainty over their loss. Nihilism is not a choice or intellectual commitment, but a thing that comes upon you. As Nietzsche put it in 1885: ‘Nihilism stands at the door. Whence comes this uncanniest of all guests?’

Part of the answer comes from understanding how values connect to knowledge and action. In Seeing Like a State (1998), the political scientist James C Scott classifies knowledge in two ways: epistemic knowledge, which can be quantified, theorised and transmitted in abstract, and metis (from the classical Greek), which concerns knowledge gained from practical experience, such as personal relationships, traditions, habits and psychological states. Metis governs local experience: farming the family’s land, for example, rather than agronomic study. We all recognise it; it’s why we hire for experience. For instance, Jane and Martha have identical diplomas, but if Jane’s first shift was on Tuesday and Martha’s was in 1970, then Martha will have certain tricks and habits to expedite her work. Still, it’s not easy to quantify just what that is: Martha has metis, and metis can’t easily be reproduced. If it were trainable, it would have been in Jane’s training.

Scott’s genius is to compare metis to local traditions. Over a long enough time, habits and behaviours are selected for and passed down, just as evolution selects helpful traits. A successful group will institutionalise an irreducibly complex set of cultural tools that relate to its environment. Since these are metis, and not epistemic, they won’t always be obvious or quantifiable. Scott recounts dozens of examples of customs that might appear backwards, confused, unscientific – yet when they’re banned or discouraged, productivity collapses. He calls this the problem of ‘legibility’.

Epistemic theories rely on isolated, abstracted environments capable of taxonomy, but these are far removed from the dynamic, interconnected systems of nature and human culture. Metis, by contrast, develops within complex, ‘illegible’ environments, and thus works with them. But that also means its application is limited to a specific act, rather than a broader theory. Outsiders want to know why something works, but locals will explain it in a language unintelligible to them.

These practices and traditions are, of course, more than work experience. They’re used to efficiently solve political problems. In The Righteous Mind (2012), the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt describes Balinese rice farmers who needed to coordinate irrigation along a river. Since they were politically divided into small familial units – called subaks – they needed to rely on means older than governance to ensure cooperation:

The ingenious religious solution to this problem of social engineering was to place a small temple at every fork in the irrigation system. The god in each such temple united all the subaks that were downstream from it into a community that worshipped that god, thereby helping the subaks to resolve their disputes more amicably. This arrangement minimised the cheating and deception that would otherwise flourish in a zero-sum division of water. The system made it possible for thousands of farmers, spread over hundreds of square kilometres, to cooperate without the need for central government, inspectors and courts.

This still occurs. A 2017 paper by the economists Nathan Nunn of Harvard University and Raul Sanchez de la Sierra of the University of California, Berkeley mentions gri-gri, a magical powder that witchdoctors manufacture. In 2012, following a period of widespread banditry and state insecurity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, gri-gri came to a village elder in a dream. Applying this powder made the user bulletproof, and it worked so well that neighbouring communities swiftly adopted it. The reason was simple: groups fight better than individuals, and more people will dare to fight if they believe they are bulletproof. Hence, a village using gri-gri was more likely to survive.

Gri-gri and water temples are kinds of metis, but they require belief in larger structures: respectively, magic and gods. However these structures first developed, it’s critical that they rest on more than mere faith or tradition. Shared values provide conviction for greater actions, but those values are certified by the success of those actions. Gri-gri’s success is an empirical testament to magic, and its utility inclines one towards trusting more activities by witchdoctors. Nunn and Sanchez de la Sierra point out that

many of [the spells] appear to provide individuals with a greater sense of security and confidence, which could serve to … reduce their anxiety and thus improve their performance. For example, most of the spells provide protection, whether it be from drought, disease, attacks on the village or even to harm potential thieves – and thieves also believe in their efficacy, which acts as a deterrent.

In other words: these practices and institutions serve several different roles, all bound up in one another. This intermingling exacerbates the problem of legibility.

When we discuss changing values, we often think top-down: a new and persuasive ideology that took hold for intellectual reasons. What Scott and the adoption of gri-gri suggest is the opposite: the motive force of values requires a degree of certainty that is dependent on action. It was gri-gri’s empirical demonstration that allowed it spread it to neighbouring villages, not its poetry. The inverse to this is also important: we can improve on a specific task, but other roles need time to sediment and evolve. Trade the temples for a government, and you have zero-sum bickering. Explain the game theory behind gri-gri, and no one will fight with it. The utility of a cultural institution first allows adoption, but its maintenance allows metis ample time to tinker and perfect.

If we’ve lost faith in certain values, then I doubt this was because of academic debates. The 20th century profoundly changed labour, technology and social organisation in the Western world. It’s hard to imagine that this didn’t change metis, or render older forms of metis irrelevant. While the values of metis might still be desired – or even identified with – they lack the same certainty they once had. Nothing can prove them and thus justify the higher claims. ‘Faith without works is dead,’ as the Bible said, but faith without metis is unbelievable.” - Lou Keep, “Whence comes nihilism, the uncanniest of all guests?” Aeon. January 2, 2018.

#epistemic knowledge #lived knowledge #james c scott #legibility #values #cultures values #technique #metis #social organisation

[architectnews]

Faulkner Architects tucks Forest House into wooded site near Lake Tahoe

Concrete, steel and glass define the exterior of this California holiday home by US firm Faulkner Architects hidden in the trees of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The Forest House is located in the town of Truckee. The two-storey dwelling sits on a gently sloping, two-acre site near the north shore of Lake Tahoe.

The dwelling is in Truckee

Rectangular in plan, the home was designed to minimise its impact on the site, according to Faulkner Architects, which has offices in both Truckee and Berkeley, California.

More than 100 tall trees – including Jeffrey and sugar pines, and white and red firs – encircle the dwelling.

Forest conditions inform the house's colours

For the facades, the team paired board-formed concrete and reflective glass with an ebony-hued steel rainscreen.

The screen is made of angled slats, spaced one inch (2.5 centimetres) apart, and is meant to resemble the texture and function of tree bark.

On the south elevation, the team incorporated long, covered decks, which offer a place to relax and take in the scenery.

Decking provides easy access to the scenery outside

The home's main entrance is on the north, where a pathway leads to a recessed front door marked by a green-glass panel. A similar panel was used in the foyer.

"Translucent green-glass screens bathe the entrance in a colour that associates with the tone of the surrounding evergreen forest," the team said.

The ground floor houses both public and private areas. The central portion holds an open living and dining area, and a kitchen that flows into a family room. The western portion contains the main suite, while a study and garage are located on the east side of the plan.

The open living space

Centrally placed stairs lead to the upper level to the three bedrooms. In total, the home encompasses 4,500 square feet (418 square metres).

Rooms feature neutral colours, contemporary decor and earthy materials. Reclaimed teak wood was used for floors and ceilings, while walls are formed of exposed concrete and white gypsum board.

The main suite has a metal fireplace

In the main suite and living room, the team installed fireplaces with metal surrounds.

"Polished, galvanised steel panels at the fireplaces reflect images and movement of the inhabitants throughout the day," the studio said.

Playful skylights illuminate the house

Light fixtures and fire sprinklers are concealed with thin recesses in the ceiling. Large skylights funnel natural light into the dwelling.

"Three-dimensional skylights wrap from the roof down the wall, allowing light to pour in and offering views to the stars at night," the architects said.

A view of the skylights from outside

The home is designed to be durable and low-maintenance. Moreover, enhanced glazing and a radiant heating system help with energy efficiency.

Formed by Greg Faulkner in 1998, Faulkner Architects has completed a number of homes in wooded settings. Others include a holiday home in Sonoma Valley that resembles a barn and a dwelling just outside of San Francisco wrapped in weathering steel.

Photography is by Joe Fletcher.

Project credits:

Architecture: Faulkner Architects Architecture design team: Gregory Faulkner (principal), Breanne Penrod (project manager) Contractor: Glennwood Mountain Homes Interior designer: Rory Torrigiani, Natalie Zirbel Civil engineer: Shaw Engineering Structural engineer: CFBR Structural Group Mechanical engineer: Sugarpine Engineering Electrical engineer: Sugarpine Engineering Geotechnical engineer: NV5 Lighting: Faulkner Architects

The post Faulkner Architects tucks Forest House into wooded site near Lake Tahoe appeared first on Dezeen.

#Architecture – Dezeen

[acsversace-news]

The first thing you need to know about FX’s American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace is that it’s not really about Gianni Versace. While O.J. Simpson—and his fame, his race and his abusive history—were central to Ryan Murphy’s true-crime anthology in its first season, this story focuses on the man who killed Versace and the society that aided in that murder.

The new season is based on Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History, a 450-page tome the journalist Maureen Orth published in 1999. Much of the book is devoted to the life story of Cunanan, the 27-year-old spree killer who shot Versace in 1997. Her reporting is thorough and revealing, but much of her analysis is dated. When Orth explores Cunanan’s demimonde of meth, escorts, sugar daddies and BDSM, it feels as though she’s unaware that this milieu isn’t representative of gay male culture as a whole.

Especially considering that Murphy—who is gay and has created some groundbreaking queer characters—has also been known to perpetuate the occasional homophobic stereotypes, the interplay between the book and the series is bound to give us plenty to discuss. At the very least, Vulgar Favors is handy for determining which parts of the show are confirmed fact and which are purely conjecture. (I’ll also be using Deborah Ball’s House of Versace, a breezy history of Gianni, his family, and the brand from 2010, along with a few other sources.)

I don’t want to call these recaps “fact-checks,” though, because fiction doesn’t have any responsibility to stick to the official record. Instead, I’ll look at how the discrepancies between what Orth dug up and what Murphy depicts reveal the show’s real agenda. These pieces may take a different form from week to week, but since the premiere was mostly a reenactment of the crime and its immediate aftermath, we’ll start with some pretty basic background stuff.

July 15, 1997

Orth’s book ends with the death of Versace and the intensified hunt for Cunanan, who had already killed four men by the time he came to Miami Beach. American Crime Story begins with the murder and goes backward from there. It’s a promising approach, because the real suspense here is in the question of how the smart, charismatic, cultured young man we meet in flashbacks ended up on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

The show sticks fairly close to the facts in recounting what happened on the day Gianni Versace (Édgar Ramírez) died. He really was returning home from an early-morning excursion to buy magazines when Andrew, played by Darren Criss in a performance that’s already riveting, gunned him down on the steps of his palatial home (more on that later). One bullet also killed a turtle dove—a symbol that initially led authorities to suspect a Mafia hit. While Versace’s longtime partner, Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin), stayed at the designer’s side, the couple’s neighbor Lazaro Quintana chased Andrew until Andrew pulled a gun on him. Versace was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he was declared dead at 9:21 AM.

Cops really did spot someone who matched Andrew’s description on the roof of a parking garage around the same time, but he escaped. (Orth doesn’t mention them tackling the wrong man.) It’s not clear what he was doing later that day, when police found the stolen red truck Andrew had abandoned and he became the suspect. The scenes that show him changing into fresh clothes and watching gleefully as the media descends on Versace’s house aren’t just plausible; they underscore how easily Andrew blended in among the town’s gay beachgoers.

One character to keep an eye on is FBI agent Keith Evans (Jay R. Ferguson). The Bureau was searching for Cunanan long before he killed Versace, and Evans was its man in Miami. Sadly, he was also inexperienced and unfamiliar with the city’s gay community. Sgt. Lori Wieder, the lesbian cop played by Dascha Polanco, wasn’t on the scene that day, but the officers who were there did find boxes of undistributed Wanted flyers in Evans’ trunk. The scene where the pawnshop owner complains to police about the legally mandated transaction form she’d filed a week earlier, which included Cunanan’s full name, is another embarrassing real-life detail. But the emphasis Murphy, who directed the episode, places on Evans’ neglect of his assignment is crucial, because it’s the first suggestion that law enforcement’s homophobia—its literal fear of engaging with gay men—contributed to its failure.

October 1990

Did Versace really know his killer? Well, sort of.

It’s true that Versace designed the costumes for a production of Capriccio at the San Francisco Opera, and stayed in the city during its run in 1990. At the time, Cunanan was living rent-free in Berkeley with his friend Liz Coté (Annaleigh Ashford), who Orth describes as a “rich and spacey debutante,” and her husband, Phil Merrill (Nico Evers-Swindell)—the couple we see in the flashback. A fixture in SF’s gay scene, Andrew met Versace at a club called Colossus. But, Orth reports, it was the designer who approached him: “I know you,” said Versace. “Lago di Como, no?” he asked, referring to his Italian lake house. It was, most likely, a flimsy pickup line. Andrew, who’d never been to Italy but had also never heard a flattering lie he couldn’t get behind, went along with it. On another night, Versace, Andrew, and a local playboy named Harry de Wildt were spotted together in a limo.

That dreamy encounter after the opera, though? It’s pure fantasy, although Andrew was known to lie about his Filipino father knowing Imelda Marcos, owning pineapple plantations and having a boyfriend. What’s important here is the conversation about Andrew’s future. “You are creative?” Versace asks, and his date answers in the affirmative. In fact, the only things Andrew ever created were fictions about himself, passed off as fact. (I won’t get too deep into that, because his lying is sure to come up later in the show.) “I’m sure you’re going to be someone really special one day,” says Versace. The distance between Andrew’s ambitions and the life he ended up with—as well as the reasons why he was such a failure—is going to be important.

The Family Business

The episode’s strangest divergence from the facts comes during the same scene. Versace explains the history of his company’s Medusa logo, recounting that he first spotted the image while playing in ruins as a child in Calabria. In fact, as Ball notes in House of Versace, he borrowed his logo from a door knocker at the Milan palazzo he bought in 1981. Perhaps we’re supposed to suspect Versace is a liar, too, but I’m inclined to believe the line is pure exposition, a hint of the designer’s humble beginnings that will soon become relevant to Andrew’s story.

Meanwhile, Versace’s mourning siblings/business partners, Donatella (Penélope Cruz) and Santo (Giovanni Cirfiera) provide some insight into the company’s status in 1997. Poor Cruz, normally a fantastic actress, has a thankless role (and a distracting accent) in this episode. All she does is sob, scream and provide dry background info that writer Tom Rob Smith doesn’t bother surrounding with believable human dialogue. For the record, it’s true that Santo, the oldest Versace sibling and the company’s most pragmatic voice, wanted to take the business public. And Gianni, after accepting a large dividend to subsidize his lavish lifestyle, agreed to do so. The plan was to make an initial public offering in the summer of 1998. It never happened. Two decades later, Gianni Versace S.p.A. remains a billion-dollar private company. None of this is particularly interesting, so here’s hoping it becomes relevant to the Cunanan story eventually!

Gianni Versace’s Fucking Insane House

There isn’t much art in this workmanlike premiere, but it does begin with a shot of the clouds painted over Versace’s bed that leads to a lovely, nearly wordless sequence contrasting Gianni’s civilized morning with Andrew’s primal scream. If you paid attention to the Renaissance-style art and the stained-glass windows and the gold accents and the massive tiled courtyard, it probably occurred to you that Versace’s home was totally off the wall. (“If Donald Trump had taste,” I said to myself, “this is what Mar-a-Lago would look like.”) Surely it was exaggerated for TV?

Actually, it was not. Built in 1930, Casa Casuarina, as the home was known, was inspired by Christopher Columbus’s son Diego’s residence in the Dominican Republic. In the courtyard of the 20,000-square-foot villa were busts of Columbus, Pocahontas, Mussolini and Confucius (all of which Versace kept). After Versace bought the property in 1992, he spent a million dollars restoring it. An army of artists and artisans filled the place with murals, mosaics and baroque furniture. Versace published a typically bizarre coffee-table book about his many bonkers properties in 1996, and in it you can find photos of the family frolicking poolside at Casa Casuarina alongside busy interiors and shots of naked men ironing. My favorite page shows a close-up of a burger, fries and a milkshake served on gilded Versace china, atop an ornate gold table. America! If you can’t track down a copy, this Google Image search should give you an idea. Look, here’s a bare-assed dude with a lampshade over his head! See you next week!

#acs versace #vice #recap #review #article #2.01 #january 2018

[victorianwhitechapel]

“Dark” Annie Chapman

Annie Chapman (b. Annie Eliza Smith; aka Dark Annie; Annie Siffey, Sievey or Sivvey)

Birth date: September 1841 Attacked and killed (age): September 8, 1888 (47)

Complexion: Pallid Eyes colour: Blue Hair colour: Dark Brown Height: 5′ (152 cm) Ocupation: crochet work, flower seller, beggar, casual prostitution

Clothes at the time of murder/discovery: A long black figured coat that came down to her knees; a black skirt; a brown bodice; another bodice; 2 petticoats; a large pocket worn under the skirt and tied about the waist with strings (empty when found); lace up boots; red and white striped woollen stockings; neckerchief, white with a wide red border (folded tri-corner and knotted at the front of her neck. she is wearing the scarf in this manner when she leaves Crossingham’s).

Resting place: Manor Park Cemetery & Crematorium, Forest Gate.

***

Early life

It is not known the exact day of Annie Eliza Smith’s birthday, but she was born in September 1841 (Find A Grave memorial website says the 1st of September, but without sources) in Knightsbridge (West London) to George Smith of Harrow Road, a Private, 2nd Battalion of Lifeguards (at the time of his death he was listed as a servant) and Ruth Chapman of Market Street.

Annie’s parents were married on February 22, 1842, 6 months after Annie was born. The marriage took place in Paddington (in the London borough of Westminster). Annie was baptised on the 23rd  April 1842 at Christchurch, St Pancras (London borough of Camden). The church was local to where her father George Smith was stationed at Upper Albany Street by Regents Park, but their address was recorded on the register as Knightsbridge.

She had three younger sisters, Emily Latitia (b.1844), Georgina (b.1856) and Mirium Ruth (b.1858), and a younger brother, Fountain Hamilton (b. 1861). The sisters appeared not to get along with Annie. She had three more siblings, George William Thomas, baptised at the same church as hers, on the 2nd June 1844; Miriam, baptised on 25th January 1852, and William christened on 1st February 1854 at Christchurch, St Pancras, who sadly died after 5 months. He was buried on the 3rd June at Holy Trinity, Brompton. The family lived at Raphael Street at that time and their sadness did not end there. George William Thomas died aged 12 and was buried only thirteen days after his younger brother, and Miriam also sadly died in June 1854, exactly the same quarter that the deaths of George William Thomas and William were recorded. Georgina, Mirium Ruth and Fountain Hamilton were all baptised on the same day in Sept 29 1867 and their dates of birth are given in each entry showing they were aged 11, 9 and 6 at baptism.

Annie married John Chapman, a coachman, on May 1, 1869 at All Saints Church in the Knightsbridge district of London. She was 28. Their residence on the marriage certificate is listed as 29 Montpelier Place, Brompton. This is also where her mother lived until her death in 1893.

In 1870 they moved to 1 Brook Mews in Bayswater (within the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in central London), and their first daughter Emily Ruth was born. John worked as a Domestic Head Coachman. In 1873 they moved to 17 South Bruton Mews, Berkeley Square (West End, City of Westminster) when their second daughter, Annie Georgina, was born. In 1880 they had a son, John Alfred, who was a cripple and sent to a home or charity school. In 1881 they moved to Windsor where John took a job as a domestic coachman. Sadly, Emily Ruth died of meningitis at the age of twelve. Then John worked for a farm bailiff, Josiah Weeks.

Annie and John separated by mutual consent in 1884 or 1885. The reason is uncertain. A police report says it was because of her “drunken and immoral ways.” She was arrested several times in Windsor for drunkenness and it is believed her husband was also a heavy drinker.

John Chapman semi-regularly paid his wife 10 shillings per week by Post Office order until his death on Christmas day in 1886, aged 44. At the time of his death he was living at Grove Road, Windsor. He died of cirrhosis of the liver and dropsy. Annie found out about his death through her brother-in-law who lived in Oxford Street, Whitechapel. On telling her friend Amelia Palmer about it she cried. Palmer said that even two years later she seemed downcast when speaking of her children and how “since the death of her husband she seemed to have given away all together.”

Later life

Sometime during 1886 she was living with a sieve maker named John “Jack” Sivvey (unknown whether this is a nickname or not) at the common lodging house at 30 Dorset Street, Spitalfields. Although they never did marry, she was by then known as Annie Sivvey or Sievey/Siffey). He left her soon after her husband’s death, probably when the money stopped coming. He moved to Notting Hill.

From May or June 1888, Annie was living consistently at Crossingham’s Lodging House at 35 Dorset Street, Spitalfields, which catered for approximately 300 people. The deputy was Timothy Donovan. She paid 8d (4p) for a double bed.

More recently, Annie had been having a relationship with Edward Stanley, a bricklayer’s mate, known as the Pensioner. At the time of Annie’s murder he was living at 1 Osborn Place, Whitechapel. Stanley and Annie spent weekends together at Crossingham’s. Stanley instructed Donovan to turn Annie away if she tried to enter with another man. He often paid for Annie’s bed as well as that of  fellow lodger Eliza Cooper. They spent Saturdays and Sundays together, parting between 1:00 and 3:00 AM on Sundays. Stanley said that he had known Annie in Windsor.

Annie lived worked doing crochet-work and selling flowers. In mid to late August of 1888 she ran into her brother Fountain Smith on Commercial Road. She said she was hard up but would not tell him where she was living. He gave her 2 shillings.

[Next post]

***

Portrayed in films:

Barbara Windsor in A Study in Terror (1965)

Deirdre Costello in Jack the Ripper TV series (1988)

June Brown in Murder by Decree (1979) (no picture)

Katrin Cartlidge in From Hell (2001)

Karen Brace in Ginger (2016) (no picture)

Source & first photo: Wikipedia

***

To know more:

ACKROYD, Peter et al. (2008): Jack the Ripper and the East End. 

ALEXANDER, G. (2015): Jack The Ripper: Case Solved?

BEGG, Paul (2003): Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History.  

BEGG, Paul (2013): Jack The Ripper. The Facts. 

BEGG, Paul; FIDO, Martin & SKINNER, Keith (1996): The Jack The Ripper A – Z. The Ultimate Guide to the Ripper Mystery. 

CHISHOLM, Alexander; DiGRAZIA, Christopher-Michael & YOST, Dave (2002): The News from Whitechapel: Jack the Ripper in the “Daily Telegraph”. 

CULLEN, Tom (1965): Autumn of Terror: Jack the Ripper, his crimes and times. 

EDDLESTON, John J. (2001): Jack the Ripper: An Encyclopedia. 

EVANS, Stewart P. & RUMBELOW, Donald (2006): Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates.  EVANS, Stewart P. & SKINNER, Keith (2000): The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. 

FROST, Rebecca (2018): The Ripper’s Victims in Print. The Rethoric Portrayals Since 1929. 

HINTON, Bob (1998): From Hell. Jack the Ripper Mistery. 

HODGSON, Peter (2011): Jack the Ripper. Through the Mists of Time. 

HUME, Robert (2019): The hidden lives of Jack the Ripper’s victims. 

JAKUBOWSKI, Maxim & BRAUND, Nathan (1999): The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper. 

JONES, Richard (2008): Jack the Ripper. The Casebook. 

MAGELLAN, Karyo (2005): By Ear and Eyes: The Witechapel Murders, Jack the Ripper and the Murder of Mary Kelly.

MARRIOTT, Trevor (2005): Jack the Ripper: The 21st Century Investigation.  MATTHEWS, Rupert (2013): Jack the Ripper’s Street of Terror: Life during the reign of Victorian London’s most brutal killer. 

PRIESTLEY, Mick P. (2018): One Autumn in Whitechapel. 

RANDALL, Anthony J. (2013): Jack the Ripper. Blood lines. 

RUBENHOLD, Hallie (2019): The Untold Lives of the Women killed by Jack the Ripper / The Lives of Jack the Ripper’s Women. 

RUMBELOW, Donald (1975): Jack The Ripper: The Complete Casebook.

RUMBELOW, Donald (2004): The Complete Jack the Ripper: Fully Revised and Updated. 

SHELDEN, Neal E. (2013): Mary Jane Kelly and the Victims of Jack the Ripper: The 125th Anniversary. 

SHELDEN STUBBINGS, Neal (2017): The Victims of Jack the Ripper. 

SKINNER, Keith & EVANS, Stewart P. (2000): The Ultimate Jack The Ripper Sourcebook. 

SUGDEN, Philip (1994, 2002): The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. 

TROW, Meirion James (2009): Jack the Ripper: Quest for a Killer.  TROW, Meirion James (2012): Hunting Jack: Abberline and the Whitechapel murders. 

WHITEHEAD, Mark; RIVETT, Miriam (2006): Jack the Ripper. 

WHITTINGTON-EGAN, Richard (1975, 2015): Jack the Ripper. The definitive Casebook.  WOOD, Simon Daryl (2015): Deconstructing Jack: The Secret History of the Whitechapel Murders. 

Wikipedia

Casebook - Annie Chapman

(Wiki) Casebook - Annie Chapman

Casebook - Annie Chapman’s timeline

Casebook - Annie Chapman’s inquest transcription

Casebook - Annie Chapman’s messages forum

Casebook - Annie Chapman’s discussion forum

Find a Grave

JTR Forums - Annie Chapman

Jack the Ripper 1888 - Annie Chapman

Jack the Ripper 1888 - The Murder of Annie Chapman

Ripper Vision - Annie Chapman

Jack the Ripper Tour - Hanbury Street

Jack the Ripper Tour - RIP Annie Chapman

Whitechapel Jack - Annie Chapman

Jack The Ripper - Annie Chapman

Jack the Ripper map - Annie Chapman

The Jack the Ripper Tour - Annie Chapman

The Jack the Ripper wakl - Annie Chapman

Jack the Ripper blogspot - Annie Chapman

#Annie Chapman #Dark Annie #Deirdre Costello #Jack the Ripper 1988 #Katrin Cartlidge #From Hell 2001 #a study in terror #Barbara Windsor #Annie Eliza Smith #Annie Siffey #Annie Sievey #Annie Sivvey #Dark Annie Chapman #1841 #1869 #1870 #1873 #1880 #1884 #1886 #1888 #1840s #1860s #1870s #1880s #Eliza Cooper #John Chapman #Dorset Street #Amelia Palmer #Eward Stanley