#centre commercial alma | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

newsaboutmavie · 4 years

Text

#discoveringaragón No.9: Alquézar

Des fois, les choses les plus spontanées sont les meilleures. Le lundi nous réservions notre logement, le jeudi nous étions déjá là. Les souvenirs de ce merveilleux weekend m’ont aidés passer des moments heureux pendant les heures le plus obscures de la quarantaine.

Manchmal, da sind die spontansten Sachen einfach die besten. Am Montag buchten wir die Unterkunft, am Donnerstag ging’s schon los. Die Erinnerungen an dieses wunderschöne Wochenende haben mir in so mancher dunklen Stunde der Quarantäne ein bisschen Licht gegeben.

A veces, las cosas más espontáneas son las mejores. Reservamos el alojamiento el lunes, y el jueves ya nos fuimos. Los recuerdos de este fin de semana maravilloso me procuraron alguna hora de felicidad en los momentos más oscuros de la cuarentena.

Alquézar

Ce village médiéval au coeur de la Sierra de Guara, est placé sur une colline stratégique. C’est impossible s’approcher au village sans être vu à des kilomètres de distance. Ceci était déjà apprécié par les Arabes, qui y construisirent une forteresse au 9ème siècle (de ça aussi le nombre, al-qasr = forteresse). Pendant son apogée, Alquézar a été un centre commercial très important, d’où les trois ponts dans ses immédiats. Seulement ceux avec du $$$ pouvaient construir des ponts! Avec le commencement du 20ème siècle et l’industrialisation espagnole, la dépopulation commença, et Alquézar ne put pas se sauver. La population était très pauvre et pendant des années, le village était presque abandonné. Il fut sauvé par le tourisme (opinion controverse). Presque tous les édifices ont été restaurés et transformés en hôtels ou appartements touristiques. Presque personne y habite pendant l’année entière, on critique que le village ait perdu son âme. Spécialement en été il y a beaucoup de monde, mais quand nous le visitons (début mars) on y trouva personne. Un vent gelé soufflait et nous entrait dans les os, malgré le soleil, et après une courte promenade dans les rues étroites nous nous réfugiions dans la chaleur de notre logement.

Dieses mittelalterliche Dorf liegt im Herzen der Sierra de Guara, auf einer strategisch hervorragenden Stelle. Es ist unmöglich sich anzunähern, ohne schon kilometerweit entfernt entdeckt zu werden. Das wussten bereits die Araber zu schätzen, als sie dort im 9. Jahrhundert eine Festung bauen ließen (daher auch der Name, Al-Qasr = Festung). In seiner Blütezeit muss Alquézar ein sehr wichtiges Handelszentrum gewesen sein. Davon zeugen die drei Brücken, die sich in unmittelbarer Nähe befinden. Brückenbauen war nur was für Leute mit $$$! Mit dem Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts und der Industrialisierung Spaniens begann aber das Dörfersterben, und Alquézar konnte sich nicht retten. Die Bevölkerung war bitterarm und musste das Dorf nach und nach verlassen. Einige Jahre war es fast komplett ausgestorben, aber schlussendlich wurde es durch den Tourismus gerettet (kontroverse Meinung). Mittlerweile sind so gut wie alle Gebäude aufwendig restauriert worden und der Ort ist wunderschön. Es wohnt kaum jemand das ganze Jahr über hier, und die meisten Häuser sind Touristenwohnungen - was manche Leute wirklich schade finden, da das Dorf keine wirkliche “Seele” mehr hat. Besonders im Sommer ist hier richtig viel los, aber als wir dort waren (Anfang März) haben wir nur ganz wenige Touristen angetroffen. Es pfiff ein eisiger Wind, der sich trotz Sonne in unsere Knochen kroch, und nach einem kurzen Spaziergang durch’s Dorf flüchteten wir in die angenehme Wärme unseres Apartments.

Este pueblo medieval se encuentra en el corazón de la Sierra de Guara, posicionado estratégicamente encima de una colina. Es imposible acercarse sin ser visto a kilómetros de distancia. Esto lo apreciaban ya los musúlmanes, que construyeron una fortaleza en este mismo lugar en el siglo IX (de allí el nombre, al-qasr = fortaleza). Durante su periodo de florecimiento, Alquézar fue un centro comercial muy importante. Esto se sabe gracias a los tres puentes que se encuentran en sus alrededores inmediatos. ¡Solo los con $$$ podían permitirse puentes! Con el inicio del siglo XX y la industrialización española, empezó la despoblación, y Alquézar no pudo salvarse. La población era pobrísima y durante unos cuantos años el pueblo estuvo básicamente abandonado. Finalmente fue salvado por el turismo (opinión controvertida), y casi todos los edificios fueron restaurados minuciosamente. Hoy en día casi nadie vive aquí el año entero, y la mayoría de las casas son hoteles o pisos turísticos, lo que mucha gente critica ya que el pueblo no tiene una verdadera “alma”. En verano es muy visitado, pero cuando fuimos nosotros (inicios de marzo) nos encontramos solo con unos pocos turistas. Soplaba un viento helado, que nos entraba en los huesos a pesar del sol, así que después de un corto paseo por las callecitas nos refugiamos en el calor acogedor del piso.

Rio Vero

Alquézar est situé au final du canyon du fleuve Vero. La région est peuplée depuis 40.000 années - les nombreuses peintures rupestres (patrimoine UNESCO depuis 1998) le témoignent. On y trouve des exemples des trois styles classiques de peinture qui existent en Europe. Incroyable, non? Quelques caves sont de libre accès, autres seulement visitables avec un guide. Le deuxième jour de notre séjour nous randonnions à l’autre rive, passant un des fameux ponts, jusqu’au village Asque et retournant par un autre pont. Le paysage était époustouflant: des oliviers centenaires, des amandiers en fleur, vautours qui faisaient leurs circles en haut de nos têtes. Les marques du temps dans les murs du canyon. L’après-midi on avait réservé des entrées pour l’attraction la plus connue de Alquézar, les Pasarelas del Rio Vero. Sur des passerelles ancrées dans la pierre on visite le canyon passant jusqu’au dessus de l’eau. En été, il y a la queue pour entrer, donc je vous recommande de visiter hors saison - en plus le fleuve emporte plus d’eau!

Alquézar liegt am Ende der Schlucht des Flusses Vero. Die Gegend ist schon seit 40.000 Jahren bewohnt - davon zeugen die zahlreichen Höhlenmalereien, die seit 1998 zum UNESCO Weltkulturerbe gehören. Man findet dort Beispiele aller drei Malereirichtungen, die in Europa existieren. Schon unglaublich, oder? Manche Höhlen kann man frei besichtigen, andere nur mit einer Führung. Am zweiten Tag unseres Aufenthalts wanderten wir rüber auf das andere Ufer, über eine der besagten Brücken, ins Dorf Asque und dann wieder über eine andere Brücke zurück. Die Landschaft war atemberaubend schön: jahrhundertealte Olivenbäume, blühende Mandelbäume, Geier die majestätisch über unseren Köpfen kreisten. Die Spuren der Zeit an den Wänden der Schlucht. Wir trafen keine einzige Menschenseele. Am Nachmittag hatten wir die wohl berühmteste Sehenswürdigkeit Alquézars gebucht, die Pasarelas del Rio Vero. Über Stege geht man ganz nah am Wasser ein Stück der Schlucht entlang. Im Sommer muss man dort Schlange stehen, ich kann also wirklich empfehlen außerhalb der Saison dorthin zu fahren. Außerdem führt der Fluss dann auch mehr Wasser, was die Landschaft umso schöner macht.

Alquézar se sitúa al final del cañón del Rio Vera. La zona está habitada desde hace 40.000 años - eso demuestran las pinturas rupestres que desde 1998 están clasificadas como patrimonio UNESCO-. Se pueden encontrar ejemplos de los tres estilos clásicos presentes en Europa. Increíble, ¿no? Algunas cuevas se pueden visitar libremente, otras sólo con guía. El segundo día de nuestra estancia nos fuimos a la otra orilla del río, pasando por uno de los famoso puentes, hasta el pueblo Asque, y luego de vuelta por otro puente. El paisaje era maravilloso: olivos centenarios, almendros en flor, buitres sobrevolando majestuosamente encima de nuestras cabezas. Los signos del tiempo en las paredes del cañón. No vimos ni una sola alma humana. Por la tarde teníamos reservadas entradas en la atracción más famosa de Alquézar, las pasarelas del Río Vero. Se puede visitar una parte del cañón, pasando justo encima del agua. En verano hay que hacer cola, así que os recomiendo ir fuera de temporada, ya que además el río lleva más agua.

Sierra de Guara

Le samedi, nous fîmes un petit roadtrip en voiture à Aínsa, via le Embalse Mediano et de Grado et Barbastro. Aínsa ressemble à Alquézar : un village fantôme touristique - village est peut être un peu exagéré car la partie ancienne se compose d'exactement deux rues (qui sont cependant très bien conservées). Pendant la dictature de Franco, plusieurs barrages et réservoirs ont été construits en Espagne. L'Espagne avait déjà un problème d'eau à cette époque et les énormes constructions étaient pour la plupart intégrées dans le paysage sans aucune considération de pertes. Ce fut également le cas de l'Embalse de Mediano, qui a inondé le village de Mediano alors que des gens y vivaient encore. Aujourd'hui, on voit le clocher de l'église s'élever du réservoir. Mais apparemment, ce n'est pas un spectacle rare en Espagne ; il y aurait des centaines de villages qui auraient été contraints de céder la place à des bâtiments plus ou moins utiles.

Am Samstag unternahmen wir einen kleinen Roadtrip nach Aínsa und zurück, über den Embalse Mediano und de Grado und Barbastro. Aínsa ist ähnlich wie Alquézar ein touristisches Geisterdorf - Dorf ist ein bisschen übertrieben denn der alte Teil besteht aus exakt zwei Straßen (die aber sehr gut erhalten sind). Während der Franco-Diktatur wurden in Spanien etliche Dämme und Stauseen gebaut. Spanien hatte schon damals ein Wasserproblem und die riesigen Konstruktionen wurden meist ohne Rücksicht auf Verluste in die Landschaft gesetzt. Das war auch der Fall beim Embalse de Mediano, der das Dorf Mediano unter Wasser setzte als dort noch Menschen wohnten. Heute sieht man den Kirchturm aus dem Stausee ragen. In Spanien ist das anscheinend aber kein seltener Anblick; es soll hunderte Dörfer geben, die gezwungen wurden, mehr oder minder nützlichen Bauten zu weichen.

El sábado hicimos un pequeño road trip hasta Aínsa, pasando por el Embalse de Mediano y de Grado y Barbastro a la vuelta. Aínsa es parecido a Alquézar, un pueblo turístico fantasma - aunque llamarlo pueblo es un poco exagerado, ya que la parte vieja son exactamente dos calles (muy bien conservadas, eso sí). Durante la dictadura franquista, al gobierno les dio por construir un montón de diques y embalses un poco por todos los lados. España ya tenía problemas de agua en aquellos tiempos, y las construcciones gigantescas fueron posicionadas sin importar las consecuencias. Ese fue el caso también de Mediano, un pueblo que fue inundado cuando aún estaba habitado. Hoy se ve aún el campanario sobresaliendo en medio del embalse. Pero en España esto no es algo raro; se dice que hay cientos de pueblos que fueron obligados a dar paso a edificaciones más o menos útiles.

Tozal de Guara

Le dernier jour, nous osions escalader le Tozal de Guara, la plus haute montagne du Parque Naturelle. Il y a un peu plus de 1000 mètres de différence d'altitude entre le parking et le sommet, qui peut être couvert en 11 kilomètres environ. L'ascension n'est pas très difficile, à l'exception d'un court tronçon sur une prairie où l'on perd le chemin pour un court moment. La différence de température était immense : lorsque nous sommes partis, nous transpirions au soleil en manches courtes, mais une fois que nous avons atteint la limite de la végétation, nous ne pouvions pas porter suffisamment de couches car il y avait un vent fort et glacé. Heureusement, quelques nuages se sont déplacés devant le soleil, et la neige qui était encore sur le sommet ne nous a pas trop aveuglés. Nous avons été récompensés par une vue imprenable sur les Pyrénées. Sur le chemin du retour, nous avons rencontré des chèvres sauvages - la journée fuit donc un grand succès.

An unserem letzten Tag wagten wir den Aufstieg auf den Tozal de Guara, dem höchsten Berg des Naturgebiets. Knapp über 1000 Höhenmeter sind es vom Parkplatz bis zum Gipfel, die man in etwa 11 Kilometern bewältigt. Der Aufstieg ist nicht sonderlich schwer, abgesehen von einem kurzen Stück auf einer Wiese, bei der man den Weg kurz verliert. Der Temperaturunterschied war heftig: als wir losgingen, schwitzten wir in der Sonne in kurzen Ärmeln, doch an der Vegetationsgrenze angekommen konnten wir nicht genug Schichten tragen, denn es ging ein eisiger, heftiger Wind. Zum Glück zogen ein paar Wolken vor die Sonne, und der Schnee der noch am Gipfel lag blendete uns somit nicht allzusehr. Wir wurden mit einem atemberaubenden Ausblick auf die Pyrenäen belohnt. Am Rückweg trafen wir ein paar wilde Ziegen - der Tag war also ein ganzer Erfolg.

El último día nos atrevimos a ascender el Tozal de Guara, el pico más alto del Parque Natural. Unos 1000 metros de altura separan el parking de la cumbre, que hay que hacer en unos 11 kilómetros. El ascenso no es especialmente difícil, a parte de un corto trozo en un prado donde se pierde un poco el camino. La diferencia de temperatura fue brutal: empezamos sudando en manga corta, pero cuando llegamos a la frontera vegetal, no podíamos llevar suficientes capas, porque soplaba un viento helado. Afortunadamente una nube tapó el sol, así que la nieve en la cumbre no nos deslumbró demasiado. Fuimos recompensados con una vista maravillosa del Pirineo. En la vuelta, nos encontramos con unas cabras salvajes - el día fue todo un éxito-.

youtube

1 note · View note

cawamedia · 5 years

Text

Almaty, formerly known as Alma-Ata, is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of around 2,040,000 people, about 11% of the country’s total population and more than 2,7 million in its built-up area that encompasses Talgar, Boraldai, Otegen Batyr and many other suburbs. It served as capital of the Kazakh state in its various forms from 1929 to 1997, under the influence of the then Soviet Union and its appointees. In 1997, the government relocated the capital to Astana (today known as “Nur-Sultan” as of 23 March 2019) in the north of the country and about 12 hours away by train.

youtube

Almaty continues as the major commercial and cultural centre of Kazakhstan, as well as its most populous and most cosmopolitan city. The city is located in the mountainous area of southern Kazakhstan in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau at an elevation of 700–900 m (2,300–3,000 feet), where the Large and Small Almatinka rivers run into the plain.

The city has been part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the area of music since November 2017. The name Almaty has its roots in the medieval settlement Almatu, that existed near the present-day city. A disputed theory holds that the name is derived from the Kazakh word for ‘apple’ (алма), and is often translated as “full of apples”. Originally it was Almatau which means Apple Mountain. The Russian version of the name was Alma-Ata (Kaz. Father of Apples). Since gaining its independence from the Soviet Union, the use of the Kazakh Almaty is accepted.

Double Tree Hilton Almaty Recommended hotel accommodation DoubleTree by Hilton Almaty is a bright and modern hotel in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains, just a 5-minute walk to Baikonur Metro Station, Almaty Central Stadium and Kazakh State Circus. Discover local artists’ works at the bustling Arbat Market or see shows at the Abay Kazakh State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, all 6 minutes away. We’re also 10 minutes from the Botanical Garden, Green Bazaar and Central State Museum of Kazakhstan.

Multimediacenter of Traditional Music Traditional music school of Zhetysu – One of the traditional Kazakh musical school of Kui and zhyr came from the Zhetysu region. The authors such as Kebekbay, Nogaybay, Kenen, Kapez are representatives of this school. Founders of “School of Zhetysu zhyrau art” Kaban, Suyinbay, Zhambyl and Umbetali had a vital influence on the formation of poetry and zhyr. Uniqueness of “School of Zhentysu kui art” is it’s antiquity. All kui compositions are based on the events from the Kazakh history. The composers such as Bayserke, Kozheke, Mergenbay, Erdeneuly, Tilendi Atabaiuly, had made big contribution to the school of kui.

National craft center Qazag Oner Qazaq-Oner is a center of artisans with the purpose of development of external and inner tourism. This is a kazakhstani first unique project that develop and promote the national-applied arts of our nation. Qazaq-Oner artisan center is including training, production, shopping, cultural and historical and entertainments. Our guests can spend their time useful and interesting.

State Museum of Arts of Republic of Kazakhstan In January 1984 the museum was named after People’s Artist of the Kazakh SSR A. Kasteyev (1904-1973). Abilkhan Kasteev was a Kazakhstani painter. He was highly decorated, winning the National Artist of Kazakh SSR, and The Laureate of the Chokan Valikhanov State Premium of the Kazakh SSR. He was awarded the Order of October Revolution, and two Orders of Labour Red Flag. Kasteev was born in a small village in Taldykorgan Region and studied at the Nadezhda Krupskaya art studio in Almaty. He painted more than a thousand paintings in oil and water-colours. Some of his works are on display in the State Tretyakov Gallery, in the State Museum of East Nations Art, in the Central Museum of USSR Revolution by Lenin Order in Moscow, and in the State Museum of Fine Arts of Kazakhstan. Currently, the A. Kasteyev State Museum of Arts of the Republic of Kazakhstan is the largest art museum and the country’s leading research, cultural and educational center in the field of fine arts. Rich, diverse, precious collection gives a vivid picture of the artistic culture of Kazakhstan, Europe and Asia, the masters of past ages and the present time. Number of exhibits of the main fund of the museum is more than 25 000 units.

Cablecar to Kok-tobe Hill The hill the TV mast stands on, is the highest point of the city in Almaty at 1100 metres and the mast itself is 350 meters tall, and built in stainless steel (No heavy concrete). The viewpoint from Kok-tobe is well worth a visit with the panoramic views of the city in all directions. A cable car ride is a really very good way to the top of Kok-tobe Hill, and see the view of surrounding mountains, the start of which is located close to the Hotel Kazakhstan. The cable car goes over some of the oldest parts of Almaty. On the top you find a nice souvenir shop and a wonderful statue of the Beatles.

Navat restaurant lunch. NAVAT – a vivid example of the legendary Eastern cultures meeting and receiving respected guests. NAVAT is an oasis for lovers of oriental cuisine among the noise and bustle of the city.

youtube

Alasha restaurant dinner with Kazakh Beshbarmak basically means “five fingers” in Kazakhstan. It is probably the most popular dish in the land. The name five fingers is what is required to enjoy it, all five of them. Typically this dish is made with either horse meat or mutton. Beef is sometimes used but the others are much more common. In fact horse meat is so common in Kazakhstan that Olympians had to beg the Olympic committee to allow them to bring it the games so that they could maintain their normal diet. Needless to say, you can certainly enjoy this dish made with beef or lamb and be authentic. This dish is almost always served on a large platter to be enjoyed by guests on a Darsakstan (either a low table or clear cloth over a rug, on the floor) . Be sure to use all five fingers, it is a real treat and fun to do. This is also almost always served with a bowl of the broth on the side called shorpa. See https://www.internationalcuisine.com/kazakh-shorpa/ for the the proper way to serve it. Also if you don’t have the time to make the noodles from scratch, you can use lasagna noodles as a fine substitute. A delicious main dish from Kazakhstan.

youtube

Almaty – the largest city in Kazakhstan Almaty, formerly known as Alma-Ata, is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of around 2,040,000 people, about 11% of the country's total population and more than 2,7 million in its built-up area that encompasses Talgar, Boraldai, Otegen Batyr and many other suburbs.

2 notes · View notes

architectnews · 3 years

Text

Estudio Herreros's Munch museum rises above Oslo’s waterfront

Architecture firm Estudio Herreros has completed a 13-storey museum building dedicated to the work of artist Edvard Munch, which the studio claimed provides "a new reference point in Oslo's skyline".

Estudio Herreros building on the Oslo waterfront houses the world's largest collection of works by the artist best known for painting The Scream.

The museum occupies a prominent location on Oslo's waterfront

The Munch museum occupies a prominent site on the waterfront adjacent to the Oslo Opera House completed by Norwegian firm Snøhetta in 2008.

The building rises to a height of 57.4 metres above the shore and is five times larger than the original museum located in the Norwegian capital's Tøyen area.

The museum has an angular form

The museum provides over 26,000 square metres of exhibition spaces across its 13 storeys, with the top floor containing an observation deck overlooking the city.

"Greeting people both day and night, Munch is a new reference point in Oslo's skyline that gives locals and visitors an overview and orientation within the city, the surrounding mountains and the Oslo fjord," said lead architect Juan Herreros.

The building's angular form appears to lean towards the nearby opera house and the historical city centre. The form is intended to present a welcoming gesture that invites visitors to enter at all times of the day.

A podium structure at the base contains a lobby that merges with the surrounding public space and anchors the building in the new Bjørvika neighbourhood.

It has views across the city from the upper floors

The lobby contains recreational, commercial and cultural spaces that will be used for hosting events such as concerts, lectures or workshops for children.

The museum's main functions are organised by height, with vertical circulation guiding visitors from the lobby through the exhibition spaces and on towards the terraces, observation deck and restaurant on the top floor.

"The new Munch proposes to experience art within a broader set of public spaces and social experiences," said Estudio Herreros.

"It will be an extension of the public urban space in Bjørvika, inviting everybody to enter and transforming the museum into an everyday life facility."

The facade has a rippled effect

Alongside the extensive exhibits dedicated to Munch's oeuvre, the museum will contain spaces outlining the history of Oslo throughout the centuries. Different viewpoints on each level will express the connection between the artist and his native city.

Gallery spaces are designed to display artworks of vastly different scales. The 11 exhibition halls include intimate rooms for presenting smaller works on paper, while enormous paintings such as the 11.5-metre-wide Alma Mater mural will be exhibited in galleries with ceiling heights of up to seven metres.

"The diversity of gallery spaces distributed over an even larger number of storeys allows for wide variations in ceiling heights and room sizes," the architecture studio added.

"The neutrality of the galleries and their integrated design enables optimum facilities to be allocated for both permanent and temporary exhibitions, giving all protagonism to the art."

Undulating aluminium panels cover the building

The building is wrapped in a skin made from recycled, perforated aluminium panels with varying levels of transparency.

The metal surfaces reflect the shifting quality of light throughout the days and seasons, whilst allowing artificial light to filter through at night.

Recycled materials are used throughout the building, which is designed to meet Passivhaus standards for environmentally friendly construction along with low-energy heating and cooling.

From the interior the mesh is transparent

The Munch museum is scheduled to open to the public on 22 October 2021. Alongside Munch's artworks, it will host temporary exhibitions by both Norwegian and international artists influenced by Munch's work.

Estudio Herreros has offices in Madrid, New York City and Mexico City. Its founder, Juan Herreros, originally worked alongside Inaki Abalos in the 1980s before setting up Herreros Arquitectos. Herreros now runs the studio with partner Jens Richter.

Elsewhere in Oslo, Snøhetta recently unveiled plans to redesign and extend a museum dedicated to Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl.

The post Estudio Herreros's Munch museum rises above Oslo’s waterfront appeared first on Dezeen.

#Architecture – Dezeen

0 notes

glass-kilimanjaro · 3 years

Text

Stephen Hawking

Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge at the time of his death.[18][19][8] He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009.

Hawking was born in Oxford into a family of doctors. Hawking began his university education at University College, Oxford in October 1959 at the age of 17, where he received a first-class BA (Hons.) degree in physics. He began his graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge in October 1962, where he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology in March 1966. During this period—in 1963—Hawking was diagnosed with an early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease) that gradually paralysed him over the decades.[20][21] After the loss of his speech, he was able to communicate through a speech-generating device—initially through use of a handheld switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle.

Hawking's scientific works included a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Initially, Hawking radiation was controversial. By the late 1970s and following the publication of further research, the discovery was widely accepted as a significant breakthrough in theoretical physics. Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He was a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.[22][23]

Hawking achieved commercial success with several works of popular science in which he discussed his theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time appeared on the Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Hawking was a Fellow of the Royal Society, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. In 2002, Hawking was ranked number 25 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He died on 14 March 2018 at the age of 76, after living with motor neurone disease for more than 50 years.Hawking began his schooling at the Byron House School in Highgate, London. He later blamed its "progressive methods" for his failure to learn to read while at the school.[42][35] In St Albans, the eight-year-old Hawking attended St Albans High School for Girls for a few months. At that time, younger boys could attend one of the houses.[41][43]Hawking attended two independent (i.e. fee-paying) schools, first Radlett School[43] and from September 1952, St Albans School,[25][44] after passing the eleven-plus a year early.[45] The family placed a high value on education.[35] Hawking's father wanted his son to attend the well-regarded Westminster School, but the 13-year-old Hawking was ill on the day of the scholarship examination. His family could not afford the school fees without the financial aid of a scholarship, so Hawking remained at St Albans.[46][47] A positive consequence was that Hawking remained close to a group of friends with whom he enjoyed board games, the manufacture of fireworks, model aeroplanes and boats,[48] and long discussions about Christianity and extrasensory perception.[49] From 1958 on, with the help of the mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta, they built a computer from clock parts, an old telephone switchboard and other recycled components.[50][51]Although known at school as "Einstein", Hawking was not initially successful academically.[52] With time, he began to show considerable aptitude for scientific subjects and, inspired by Tahta, decided to read mathematics at university.[53][54][55] Hawking's father advised him to study medicine, concerned that there were few jobs for mathematics graduates.[56] He also wanted his son to attend University College, Oxford, his own alma mater. As it was not possible to read mathematics there at the time, Hawking decided to study physics and chemistry. Despite his headmaster's advice to wait until the next year, Hawking was awarded a scholarship after taking the examinations in March 1959.[57][58]Undergraduate yearsHawking began his university education at University College, Oxford,[25] in October 1959 at the age of 17.[59] For the first 18 months, he was bored and lonely – he found the academic work "ridiculously easy".[60][61] His physics tutor, Robert Berman, later said, "It was only necessary for him to know that something could be done, and he could do it without looking to see how other people did it."[4] A change occurred during his second and third year when, according to Berman, Hawking made more of an effort "to be one of the boys". He developed into a popular, lively and witty college member, interested in classical music and science fiction.[59] Part of the transformation resulted from his decision to join the college boat club, the University College Boat Club, where he coxed a rowing crew.[62][63] The rowing coach at the time noted that Hawking cultivated a daredevil image, steering his crew on risky courses that led to damaged boats.[62][64] Hawking estimated that he studied about 1,000 hours during his three years at Oxford. These unimpressive study habits made sitting his finals a challenge, and he decided to answer only theoretical physics questions rather than those requiring factual knowledge. A first-class honours degree was a condition of acceptance for his planned graduate study in cosmology at the University of Cambridge.[65][66] Anxious, he slept poorly the night before the examinations, and the final result was on the borderline between first- and second-class honours, making a viva (oral examination) with the Oxford examiners necessary.[66][67]Hawking was concerned that he was viewed as a lazy and difficult student. So, when asked at the viva to describe his plans, he said, "If you award me a First, I will go to Cambridge. If I receive a Second, I shall stay in Oxford, so I expect you will give me a First."[66][68] He was held in higher regard than he believed; as Berman commented, the examiners "were intelligent enough to realise they were talking to someone far cleverer than most of themselves".[66] After receiving a first-class BA (Hons.) degree in physics and completing a trip to Iran with a friend, he began his graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in October 1962.[25][69][70]Graduate yearsHawking's first year as a doctoral student was difficult. He was initially disappointed to find that he had been assigned Dennis William Sciama, one of the founders of modern cosmology, as a supervisor rather than the noted astronomer Fred Hoyle,[71][72] and he found his training in mathematics inadequate for work in general relativity and cosmology.[73] After being diagnosed with motor neurone disease, Hawking fell into a depression – though his doctors advised that he continue with his studies, he felt there was little point.[74] His disease progressed slower than doctors had predicted. Although Hawking had difficulty walking unsupported, and his speech was almost unintelligible, an initial diagnosis that he had only two years to live proved unfounded. With Sciama's encouragement, he returned to his work.[75][76] Hawking started developing a reputation for brilliance and brashness when he publicly challenged the work of Fred Hoyle and his student Jayant Narlikar at a lecture in June 1964.[77][78]When Hawking began his graduate studies, there was much debate in the physics community about the prevailing theories of the creation of the universe: the Big Bang and Steady State theories.[79] Inspired by Roger Penrose's theorem of a spacetime singularity in the centre of black holes, Hawking applied the same thinking to the entire universe; and, during 1965, he wrote his thesis on this topic.[80][81] Hawking's thesis[82] was approved in 1966.[82] There were other positive developments: Hawking received a research fellowship at Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge;[83] he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology, in March 1966;[84] and his essay "Singularities and the Geometry of Space-Time" shared top honours with one by Penrose to win that year's prestigious Adams Prize.[85][84]CareerPart of a series onPhysical cosmologyBig Bang · UniverseAge of the universeChronology of the universeEarly universe[show]Expansion · Future[show]Components · Structure[show]Experiments[show]Scientists[hide]AaronsonAlfvénAlpherBharadwajCopernicusde SitterDickeEddingtonEhlersEinsteinEllisFriedmannGalileoGamowGuthHubbleLemaîtreLindeMatherNewtonPenziasRubinSchmidtSchwarzschildSmootStarobinskySteinhardtSuntzeffSunyaevTolmanWilsonZeldovichSubject history[show] Category Astronomy portalvte1966–1975In his work, and in collaboration with Penrose, Hawking extended the singularity theorem concepts first explored in his doctoral thesis. This included not only the existence of singularities but also the theory that the universe might have started as a singularity. Their joint essay was the runner-up in the 1968 Gravity Research Foundation competition.[86][87] In 1970, they published a proof that if the universe obeys the general theory of relativity and fits any of the models of physical cosmology developed by Alexander Friedmann, then it must have begun as a singularity.[88][89][90] In 1969, Hawking accepted a specially created Fellowship for Distinction in Science to remain at Caius.[91]In 1970, Hawking postulated what became known as the second law of black hole dynamics, that the event horizon of a black hole can never get smaller.[92] With James M. Bardeen and Brandon Carter, he proposed the four laws of black hole mechanics, drawing an analogy with thermodynamics.[93] To Hawking's irritation, Jacob Bekenstein, a graduate student of John Wheeler, went further—and ultimately correctly—to apply thermodynamic concepts literally.[94][95]In the early 1970s, Hawking's work with Carter, Werner Israel, and David C. Robinson strongly supported Wheeler's no-hair theorem, one that states that no matter what the original material from which a black hole is created, it can be completely described by the properties of mass, electrical charge and rotation.[96][97] His essay titled "Black Holes" won the Gravity Research Foundation Award in January 1971.[98] Hawking's first book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, written with George Ellis, was published in 1973.[99]Beginning in 1973, Hawking moved into the study of quantum gravity and quantum mechanics.[100][99] His work in this area was spurred by a visit to Moscow and discussions with Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich and Alexei Starobinsky, whose work showed that according to the uncertainty principle, rotating black holes emit particles.[101] To Hawking's annoyance, his much-checked calculations produced findings that contradicted his second law, which claimed black holes could never get smaller,[102] and supported Bekenstein's reasoning about their entropy.[101][103]His results, which Hawking presented from 1974, showed that black holes emit radiation, known today as Hawking radiation, which may continue until they exhaust their energy and evaporate.[104][105][106] Initially, Hawking radiation was controversial. By the late 1970s and following the publication of further research, the discovery was widely accepted as a significant breakthrough in theoretical physics.[107][108][109] Hawking was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1974, a few weeks after the announcement of Hawking radiation. At the time, he was one of the youngest scientists to become a Fellow.[110][111]Hawking was appointed to the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Visiting Professorship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1974. He worked with a friend on the faculty, Kip Thorne,[112][8] and engaged him in a scientific wager about whether the X-ray source Cygnus X-1 was a black hole. The wager was an "insurance policy" against the proposition that black holes did not exist.[113] Hawking acknowledged that he had lost the bet in 1990, a bet that was the first of several he was to make with Thorne and others.[114] Hawking had maintained ties to Caltech, spending a month there almost every year since this first visit.[115]1975–1990Hawking returned to Cambridge in 1975 to a more academically senior post, as reader in gravitational physics. The mid to late 1970s were a period of growing public interest in black holes and the physicists who were studying them. Hawking was regularly interviewed for print and television.[116][117] He also received increasing academic recognition of his work.[118] In 1975, he was awarded both the Eddington Medal and the Pius XI Gold Medal, and in 1976 the Dannie Heineman Prize, the Maxwell Medal and Prize and the Hughes Medal.[119][120] He was appointed a professor with a chair in gravitational physics in 1977.[121] The following year he received the Albert Einstein Medal and an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford.[122][118]In 1979, Hawking was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.[118][123] His inaugural lecture in this role was titled: "Is the End in Sight for Theoretical Physics?" and proposed N=8 Supergravity as the leading theory to solve many of the outstanding problems physicists were studying.[124] His promotion coincided with a health crisis which led to his accepting, albeit reluctantly, some nursing services at home.[125] At the same time, he was also making a transition in his approach to physics, becoming more intuitive and speculative rather than insisting on mathematical proofs. "I would rather be right than rigorous", he told Kip Thorne.[126] In 1981, he proposed that information in a black hole is irretrievably lost when a black hole evaporates. This information paradox violates the fundamental tenet of quantum mechanics, and led to years of debate, including "the Black Hole War" with Leonard Susskind and Gerard 't Hooft.[127][128]Hawking at an ALS convention in San Francisco in the 1980sCosmological inflation – a theory proposing that following the Big Bang, the universe initially expanded incredibly rapidly before settling down to a slower expansion – was proposed by Alan Guth and also developed by Andrei Linde.[129] Following a conference in Moscow in October 1981, Hawking and Gary Gibbons[8] organised a three-week Nuffield Workshop in the summer of 1982 on "The Very Early Universe" at Cambridge University, a workshop that focused mainly on inflation theory.[130][131][132] Hawking also began a new line of quantum theory research into the origin of the universe. In 1981 at a Vatican conference, he presented work suggesting that there might be no boundary – or beginning or ending – to the universe.[133][134]Hawking subsequently developed the research in collaboration with Jim Hartle,[8] and in 1983 they published a model, known as the Hartle–Hawking state. It proposed that prior to the Planck epoch, the universe had no boundary in space-time; before the Big Bang, time did not exist and the concept of the beginning of the universe is meaningless.[135] The initial singularity of the classical Big Bang models was replaced with a region akin to the North Pole. One cannot travel north of the North Pole, but there is no boundary there – it is simply the point where all north-running lines meet and end.[136][137] Initially, the no-boundary proposal predicted a closed universe, which had implications about the existence of God. As Hawking explained, "If the universe has no boundaries but is self-contained... then God would not have had any freedom to choose how the universe began."[138]Hawking did not rule out the existence of a Creator, asking in A Brief History of Time "Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence?"[139], also stating "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God"[140]; in his early work, Hawking spoke of God in a metaphorical sense. In the same book he suggested that the existence of God was not necessary to explain the origin of the universe. Later discussions with Neil Turok led to the realisation that the existence of God was also compatible with an open universe.[141]Further work by Hawking in the area of arrows of time led to the 1985 publication of a paper theorising that if the no-boundary proposition were correct, then when the universe stopped expanding and eventually collapsed, time would run backwards.[142] A paper by Don Page and independent calculations by Raymond Laflamme led Hawking to withdraw this concept.[143] Honours continued to be awarded: in 1981 he was awarded the American Franklin Medal,[144] and in the 1982 New Year Honours appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).[145][146][147] These awards did not significantly change Hawking's financial status, and motivated by the need to finance his children's education and home expenses, he decided in 1982 to write a popular book about the universe that would be accessible to the general public.[148][149] Instead of publishing with an academic press, he signed a contract with Bantam Books, a mass market publisher, and received a large advance for his book.[150][151] A first draft of the book, called A Brief History of Time, was completed in 1984.[152]One of the first messages Hawking produced with his speech-generating device was a request for his assistant to help him finish writing A Brief History of Time.[153] Peter Guzzardi, his editor at Bantam, pushed him to explain his ideas clearly in non-technical language, a process that required many revisions from an increasingly irritated Hawking.[154] The book was published in April 1988 in the US and in June in the UK, and it proved to be an extraordinary success, rising quickly to the top of best-seller lists in both countries and remaining there for months.[155][156][157] The book was translated into many languages,[158] and ultimately sold an estimated 9 million copies.[157]Media attention was intense,[158] and a Newsweek magazine cover and a television special both described him as "Master of the Universe".[159] Success led to significant financial rewards, but also the challenges of celebrity status.[160] Hawking travelled extensively to promote his work, and enjoyed partying and dancing into the small hours.[158] A difficulty refusing the invitations and visitors left him limited time for work and his students.[161] Some colleagues were resentful of the attention Hawking received, feeling it was due to his disability.[162][163]He received further academic recognition, including five more honorary degrees,[159] the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1985),[164] the Paul Dirac Medal (1987)[159] and, jointly with Penrose, the prestigious Wolf Prize (1988).[165] In the 1989 Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Companion of Honour (CH).[161][166] He reportedly declined a knighthood in the late 1990s in objection to the UK's science funding policy.[167][168]1990–2000Hawking with string theoristsDavid Gross and Edward Witten at the 2001 Strings Conference, TIFR, IndiaHawking pursued his work in physics: in 1993 he co-edited a book on Euclidean quantum gravity with Gary Gibbons and published a collected edition of his own articles on black holes and the Big Bang.[169] In 1994, at Cambridge's Newton Institute, Hawking and Penrose delivered a series of six lectures that were published in 1996 as "The Nature of Space and Time".[170] In 1997, he conceded a 1991 public scientific wager made with Kip Thorne and John Preskill of Caltech. Hawking had bet that Penrose's proposal of a "cosmic censorship conjecture" – that there could be no "naked singularities" unclothed within a horizon – was correct.[171]After discovering his concession might have been premature, a new and more refined wager was made. This one specified that such singularities would occur without extra conditions.[172] The same year, Thorne, Hawking and Preskill made another bet, this time concerning the black hole information paradox.[173][174] Thorne and Hawking argued that since general relativity made it impossible for black holes to radiate and lose information, the mass-energy and information carried by Hawking radiation must be "new", and not from inside the black hole event horizon. Since this contradicted the quantum mechanics of microcausality, quantum mechanics theory would need to be rewritten. Preskill argued the opposite, that since quantum mechanics suggests that the information emitted by a black hole relates to information that fell in at an earlier time, the concept of black holes given by general relativity must be modified in some way.[175]Hawking also maintained his public profile, including bringing science to a wider audience. A film version of A Brief History of Time, directed by Errol Morris and produced by Steven Spielberg, premiered in 1992. Hawking had wanted the film to be scientific rather than biographical, but he was persuaded otherwise. The film, while a critical success, was not widely released.[176] A popular-level collection of essays, interviews, and talks titled Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays was published in 1993,[177] and a six-part television series Stephen Hawking's Universe and a companion book appeared in 1997. As Hawking insisted, this time the focus was entirely on science.[178][179]2000–2018Hawking at the Bibliothèque nationale de France to inaugurate the Laboratory of Astronomy and Particles in Paris, and the French release of his work God Created the Integers, 5 May 2006Hawking continued his writings for a popular audience, publishing The Universe in a Nutshell in 2001,[180] and A Briefer History of Time, which he wrote in 2005 with Leonard Mlodinow to update his earlier works with the aim of making them accessible to a wider audience, and God Created the Integers, which appeared in 2006.[181] Along with Thomas Hertog at CERN and Jim Hartle, from 2006 on Hawking developed a theory of "top-down cosmology", which says that the universe had not one unique initial state but many different ones, and therefore that it is inappropriate to formulate a theory that predicts the universe's current configuration from one particular initial state.[182] Top-down cosmology posits that the present "selects" the past from a superposition of many possible histories. In doing so, the theory suggests a possible resolution of the fine-tuning question.[183][184]Hawking continued to travel widely, including trips to Chile, Easter Island, South Africa, Spain (to receive the Fonseca Prize in 2008),[185][186] Canada,[187] and numerous trips to the United States.[188] For practical reasons related to his disability, Hawking increasingly travelled by private jet, and by 2011 that had become his only mode of international travel.[189]Hawking with University of Oxford librarian Richard Ovenden (left) and naturalist David Attenborough (right) at the opening of the Weston Library, Oxford, in March 2015. Ovenden awarded the Bodley Medal to Hawking and Attenborough at the ceremony.By 2003, consensus among physicists was growing that Hawking was wrong about the loss of information in a black hole.[190] In a 2004 lecture in Dublin, he conceded his 1997 bet with Preskill, but described his own, somewhat controversial solution to the information paradox problem, involving the possibility that black holes have more than one topology.[191][175] In the 2005 paper he published on the subject, he argued that the information paradox was explained by examining all the alternative histories of universes, with the information loss in those with black holes being cancelled out by those without such loss.[174][192] In January 2014, he called the alleged loss of information in black holes his "biggest blunder".[193]As part of another longstanding scientific dispute, Hawking had emphatically argued, and bet, that the Higgs boson would never be found.[194] The particle was proposed to exist as part of the Higgs field theory by Peter Higgs in 1964. Hawking and Higgs engaged in a heated and public debate over the matter in 2002 and again in 2008, with Higgs criticising Hawking's work and complaining that Hawking's "celebrity status gives him instant credibility that others do not have."[195] The particle was discovered in July 2012 at CERN following construction of the Large Hadron Collider. Hawking quickly conceded that he had lost his bet[196][197] and said that Higgs should win the Nobel Prize for Physics,[198] which he did in 2013.[199]Hawking holding a public lecture at the Stockholm Waterfront congress centre, 24 August 2015In 2007, Hawking and his daughter Lucy published George's Secret Key to the Universe, a children's book designed to explain theoretical physics in an accessible fashion and featuring characters similar to those in the Hawking family.[200] The book was followed by sequels in 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2016.[201]In 2002, following a UK-wide vote, the BBC included Hawking in their list of the 100 Greatest Britons.[202] He was awarded the Copley Medal from the Royal Society (2006),[203] the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is America's highest civilian honour (2009),[204] and the Russian Special Fundamental Physics Prize (2013).[205]Several buildings have been named after him, including the Stephen W. Hawking Science Museum in San Salvador, El Salvador,[206] the Stephen Hawking Building in Cambridge,[207] and the Stephen Hawking Centre at the Perimeter Institute in Canada.[208] Appropriately, given Hawking's association with time, he unveiled the mechanical "Chronophage" (or time-eating) Corpus Clock at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in September 2008.[209][210]During his career, Hawking supervised 39 successful PhD students.[3] One doctoral student did not successfully complete the PhD.[3][better source needed] As required by Cambridge University regulations, Hawking retired as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 2009.[123][211] Despite suggestions that he might leave the United Kingdom as a protest against public funding cuts to basic scientific research,[212] Hawking worked as director of research at the Cambridge University Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.[213]On 28 June 2009, as a tongue-in-cheek test of his 1992 conjecture that travel into the past is effectively impossible, Hawking held a party open to all, complete with hors d'oeuvres and iced champagne, but publicised the party only after it was over so that only time-travellers would know to attend; as expected, nobody showed up to the party.[214]On 20 July 2015, Hawking helped launch Breakthrough Initiatives, an effort to search for extraterrestrial life.[215] Hawking created Stephen Hawking: Expedition New Earth, a documentary on space colonisation, as a 2017 episode of Tomorrow's World.[216][217]In August 2015, Hawking said that not all information is lost when something enters a black hole and there might be a possibility to retrieve information from a black hole according to his theory.[218] In July 2017, Hawking was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Imperial College London.[219]Hawking's final paper – A smooth exit from eternal inflation? – was posthumously published in the Journal of High Energy Physics on 27 April 2018.[220][221]

0 notes

rencontre-et-bons-plans · 3 years

Text

Shopping : rendez-vous à Alma dans la ville de Rennes

Envie d’une journée shopping avec vos amis ? Alors, rendez-vous au centre commercial Alma à Rennes pour découvrir les 102 boutiques ainsi que les 15 points de restauration disponibles.

#Shopping #Rennes

0 notes

retrogeographie · 1 year

Photo

Rennes, le centre commercial Alma.

credit: Jean-Claude Houssin, musée de Bretagne, diapositive.

Collection écomusée de la bintinais, musée de Bretagne.

#rennes #alma #bretagne #centre commercial alma #supermarché mammouth #grande distribution #retro géographie

36 notes · View notes

un-enfant-immature · 4 years

Text

UK femtech startup Astinno, which is working on a wearable to combat hot flushes, picks up grant worth $450k

London-based femtech hardware startup Astinno has picked up an Innovate UK grant worth £360k ($450k) to fund further testing of a wearable it’s developing for women experiencing a perimenopause symptom known as hot flushes.

The sensor-packed device, which it’s calling Grace, is being designed to detect the onset of a hot flush and apply cooling to a woman’s wrist to combat the reaction — in a process it likens to running your wrists under a cold tap.

The aim is for algorithmically triggered cooling to be done in a timely enough manner to prevent hot flushes from running their usual unpleasant and uncomfortable course. While the bracelet wearable itself is being designed to look like a chunky piece of statement jewellery.

The femtech category in general has attracted an influx of funding in recent years, as venture capitalists slowly catch up to the opportunities available in products and services catering to women’s health issues.

But it’s fair to say menopause remains a still under-addresed segment within the category. Although there are now signs that more attention is being paid to issues that affect many hundreds of millions of middle aged (and some younger) women around the world.

The team working on Grace has built several prototypes to date, per founder Peter Astbury. He says some limited user tested has also been done. But they’ve yet to robustly prove efficacy of the core tech — hence taking grant funding for more advanced testing. At this stage of development there’s also no timeline for when a product might be brought to market.

Astinno and Morgan IAT, its commercial partner on the project, have been awarded the Innovate UK money via a publicly funded UK SMART grants scheme (the pair are getting match funding via the scheme, with the public body putting up 70% and Astinno and Morgan IAT funding the other 30% of their respective costs).

Loughborough University — Astbury’s alma mater — is also involved as a research party, and is being funded for 100% of its grant costs.

“Several prototypes have been created so far, mainly by myself having received electronics and design training as part of my degree at Loughborough University,” says Astbury. “Shortly after leaving university I also briefly worked with an electronics company who helped to refine some of the components within the Grace product.

“Morgan IAT has the crucial technical role of developing a number of prototypes in conjunction with Astinno. This includes both hardware and software development, building many more advanced prototypes that are being tested, refined and then tested again.

“We’re working with three researchers from Loughborough University which brings together industry leading expertise in menopause psychology and physiology. Based at the National Centre for Sports and Exercise Medicine, the researchers are using their fantastic lab facilities to test Grace, meaning that everything we’re doing is being validated by professional research. Once this step is complete, we’ll have more of an idea regarding product release time-frames.”

Astbury founded the startup last summer — but had begun work on the concept for Grace several years before, during his final year at Loughborough, back in 2016.

“As a member of Loughborough’s business incubator, ‘The Studio’, I was awarded an enterprise grant which helped to fund the business. I have also been putting my User Experience design skills and expertise to good use, contracting for start-ups and larger healthcare companies on a part-time basis to ‘bootstrap’ development,” he adds.

The idea for the wearable came after Astbury conducted user research by talking to women about their menopausal symptoms and hearing about their coping strategies for hot flushes and the night sweats that can be induced.

“A woman was telling me about her symptoms and how she coped with them until now. She would wake up ten to fifteen times each night due to her night sweats. Each time, she would go to the bathroom and run her wrists under cold water which helped the flush to subside. Looking into this method in more depth, it became clear that cooling an area of skin can indeed be extremely effective and there are lots of women that use this technique,” he explains.

“During a hot flush, your brain mistakenly thinks that you are becoming too warm and causes your body to lose heat. This results in sweating, a reddening of the skin and shortness of breath. The skin, however, acts like your body’s thermometer, passing information to your brain. By applying cooling to the skin at the right time, we’re harnessing the body’s natural temperature regulation system. The brain receives signals that you are cool and, in turn, the body reacts in a way that is directly opposite to a hot flush.”

“The real key to Grace is accurately and reliably pre-empting hot flushes (the automated nature of the bracelet) so that cooling can be applied at the earliest stage possible,” he adds. “We’re doing that using a specific line-up of sensor technology and algorithms all working together but I’m afraid the details of that can’t be disclosed publicly yet.”

Astbury says he was keen to get grant funding at this stage of product development to avoid dilution of the business, given VCs would require their chunk of equity.

“One of the best things about Innovate UK for a science-based start-up like Astinno is that it doesn’t contribute to the dilution of your business,” he notes. “By the end of a successful grant project, a company becomes a much more attractive investment from the perspective of both investors and the start-up. I have had discussions with multiple angels/VC’s and will maintain those relationships, however a grant was the best option for us at this stage.”

Blossom Capital’s Louise Samet talks hormone tracking and femtech bets

#TechCrunch

0 notes

partylocationsilbs611-blog · 4 years

Text

The Ultimate Guide To Private Event Space

Have an affordable or potentially cost-free ceremony as well as reception by holding the events at your house or that of a close friend, family members member or neighbor. A home, yard, barn or in other places on the residential or commercial property can finish the job. However, you'll require to take into consideration the expense of tables, chairs, dinnerware, designs גני אירועים בצפון and various other things if you do not currently have them or recognize someone who will certainly provide them to you.

" Oftentimes, the numbers will demonstrate that you're investing the very same, otherwise more, with this situation." If your house can not fit the wedding celebration, a temporary rental house or hotel collection might. These locations use privacy as well as room for the wedding celebration party to http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=events hall prepare, plus an area to crash after the lengthy, tiring day.

Filter your search by areas that are "suitable for occasions." We spotted a castle-style house in San Luis Obispo, The golden state, starting at $350 per night as well as a lighthouse on the Massachusetts shore from $500 per night. Keep in mind that rates might differ based on the day of the week or season, as well as occasions might cost additional.

Have a smaller sized guest listing as well as wish to commemorate in vogue? An in-suite ceremony or reception at a hotel or hotel in locations like Las Las vega and also Hawaii typically cost a few hundred to a couple of thousand bucks per night. Numerous nationwide, state and city parks, including coastlines as well as gardens, work as scenic, inexpensive locations.

youtube

While some public places are free, the majority of cost concerning a couple hundred dollars. Prices may rise and fall depending upon the particular area, number of visitors, existence of food or alcohol, length of event, insurance policy fees and also other aspects. Consult the website's neighborhood government for information. Consider a block party for your nuptials.

You can have a bbq, employ food vehicles or make it a potluck. But you may be needed to obtain additional licenses or licenses to offer food and also alcohol. See your city government website or town hall for details. Begin your marriage surrounded by books, art or artefacts. Collections and also galleries, especially smaller sized or much less sought-after ones, might have reasonable price.

Getting My Party Room To Work

Aquariums and also zoos supply animal fans with exotic setups and also close proximity to wild animals, typically at a cost effective price. As a bonus, some use a portion of the event continues to aid conservation as well as education efforts. Couples can wed at the Jaguar Cove in Seattle's Timberland Park Zoo for $600, plus a minimum $1,500 catering cost.

A full-service place will have food, tables, chairs, recipes as well as tools in-house, which can save cash compared to employing outdoors suppliers. Rent a boat for nautical weddings on a lake, river or sea. Or conserve money by combining the wedding event as well as honeymoon; some cruise lines use packages for wedding events at sea.

Having the ceremony or function at your alma mater or a picturesque school can be a reliable money-saving strategy. Some secondary schools and universities lease out their sports fields, amphitheaters, dining halls or various other occasion rooms at competitive prices. For example, event charges at Ohio University begin at $100 as well as wedding event bundles at the University of California, Berkeley's arboretum start at $1,200.

With sensational architecture as well as charming lights, a historical flick or doing arts cinema can establish the scene for an enchanting wedding celebration. Couples can have a ceremony for $600 or an event and reception for $1,600 at the Michigan Theatre in Jackson, Michigan. Have the ceremony as well as reception at the very same area.

Negotiate. Bertino states locations that bill a minimum food cost as well as area rental charge occasionally will forgo the charge if you ask. Trim the guest list. With fewer guests, you might get a smaller area. Select an off-peak time. Choose a month, day of the week or time of day that's not in high demand and also you may get a break on the cost.

Method "blank rooms" very carefully. Places that require you to bring everything in yourself-- like tables, chairs and also audio devices-- can obtain costly. Compute exactly how much it would certainly set you back to rent or buy everything you need versus choosing a place that gives the fundamentals. Pay with a charge card.

Some Of Party Locations

Usage cards responsibly, as well as do not invest greater than you can afford to pay off. Take your time. Completely study choices and contrast prices to locate a place you like that suits your budget plan.

Getting My Event Centre To Work

Our objective is really simple; develop backgrounds that enhance the all-natural beauty and functionality of the location with our trademark classy functions as well as centers so you can produce beautiful memories that will certainly last permanently. THE SPRINGS occasion locations have adequate space to handle big events while still keeping a silent and intimate setting.

0 notes

ourxcountryadventure · 5 years

Text

July 28, 2019: Travel Day 3 Marvelous Maritime Meteorological Mix

This morning we awoke in St. John New Brunswick at Rockwood Campground a really lovely and well-kept property in St John proper. It is run by the St John Horticultural Association. Not fancy, but very clean and quiet with a great view of the Harbour. That being said our site was grassy and had shade, whereas others for bigger units were simply in large gravel parking areas side by side. It reminded us of the campgrounds in Alaska.

We left the campground early after a quick breakfast and headed downtown to old St John. The streets were lovely, lined with classic commercial buildings and gorgeous Victorian houses; each one unique in size, stature and colour. We headed to the Carleton Martello Tower that sits upon one of the highest points of the city. It is a National Parks site and so we found our nation’s red lawn chairs too full of dew to be sat upon but we posed nonetheless.

From St John we headed around the 825 a scenic route towards St Martins where we would start our exploration of the Bay of Fundy. Our ultimate destination: Hopewell Rocks, identified by Simon as a site that he wished to experience. We had checked the Tide Tables for optimum arrival time and so we planned our day around that.

The trip around the 825 was encouraged by the presence of a directional sign to a lighthouse. We followed the signs diligently through a pretty part of the country and then found ourselves back on the main highway following said signs to St Martins at which time they became a bit confusing and we raised the white flag and went in to a local store for assistance. I was so glad that I did because it was worth the effort. The young man at the counter became very animated during his explanation of the directions. He waved his hands and raised his voice in the style of a “Valley Girl” and said the following when I asked about the direction of the Quaco (pronounced Quaaco) lighthouse:

“Okay, you are going to go out of her and turn left and then turn left again and you will come to a road that is a dead end and you will think it is the spot where they could film a teenage slasher flick - really it’s like that - that’s what I think every time and you will see the barrier and a lighthouse and just walk around the barrier and you are there.”

The trip to the Lighthouse was a hit made even more so by the presence of a single bearded man driving a beat-up blue Ford van circa 1984 in the parking lot. Cue the slasher music!

The fog horn blew a deafening warning blast every 30 seconds, the fog was rolling in off the Bay, there were cliffs and wildflowers and waves and awesome everywhere you looked.

We left the lighthouse and headed back in to St Martins village. It is a quaint spot with a Harbour where the ships were at dock on the red mud of the ocean floor, they have a beautiful information centre housed in a lovely lighthouse, two covered bridges and a selection of restaurants and shops for tourists. We left after taking some photos. I was excited to drive across our second covered bridge but was fooled as tucked in behind was a modern single lane that took us towards The Fundy Trail the next part of our adventure.

The Fundy Trail is 30 km long for cars and many more kilomètres long for hikers. It cost us around $30 for a family pass. The trail hugs the Fundy shoreline for the most part and gave us lots of opportunity for vistas of the Bay both from great heights and at shore level. We traveled approx 2/3 of the way and stopped at an amazing beach for a walk. The tide was going out and so we had lots of opportunity to walk out and find treasures. We even spotted seals fishing for their dinner just at the shoreline.

The facilities within the Fundy Trail Park are immaculately well created and kept and it has been done through the work of a volunteer board of directors that operates as a non-profit. An amazing accomplishment that needs to be experienced!

From the Fundy Trail we had to back-track a bit to get to our next adventure: Fundy National Park. Because we were traveling through the park there was not a charge for us to experience the pretty surroundings of the coniferous forest and the mountainous hills that climbed up and then down to the water and the town of Alma. We found some red chairs for a selfie and then went down to the town to find some lunch.

Alma is a TOURIST town. There was a lot of people walking and looking and the infrastructure of hotels and restaurants to support the throngs that visit.

We grabbed some takeout and went in search of a picnic table and lucky for us there were none to be had because it meant that we happily ended up at a local beach spot on the road to Cape Enrage (we didn’t visit this site but I love its name!). We pulled in to a pull-off, that looked like it had been created not by anything but years of locals pulling off and set off for the beach, to find we were in the edge of a cliff overlooking the Bay of Fundy from 120 feet elevation. We spread our trusty picnic blanket out and swung our legs around and had our lunch. Simon went exploring determined to find the pathway down as there were several people on the beach below. He found it! A narrow trail along which someone had tied a rope to make the climb up and down possible.

Not one to be deterred by obstacles, Simon also scaled the red sand cliff to come back up and tell us that he had found said trail and so I went down with him a second time and we explored the beach. This time our wildlife experience involved the discovery of two hermit crabs who were not as enthused as we were about our meeting.

We left the beach and headed east towards Hopewell Rocks. The Rocks are in Shepody Bay and there is a cost to visiting them during the opening hours. We arrived at 2:45 right on schedule for low tide for that day. A family rate again augmented by shuttle fee of $4 each there and back for three of us (and one chaperone free to support Julien )was the cost of seeing this natural wonder. The shuttles are long golf carts that seat 8 people including the driver. We had a private shuttle down to the bottom of the hill along a beautifully manicured driveway to the top of the four flights of stairs to walk to the ocean floor and amongst the rocks. People (kids) coming up were covered in thick red mud and outdoor showers were provided at the top of the stairs to de-coat yourself. Down we went! Julien was a trooper with the stairs. We were able to walk all around the rocks and marvel how at high tide the kayakers would be boating way above our heads. We really enjoyed our experience at Hopewell Rocks the interpretive Centre was well done and there was a beautiful gift shop where we made some purchases of souvenirs.

From Hopewell Rocks we traveled back up to Moncton and across to the coast to approach the Confederation Bridge from the North. Once on the Bridge we marveled at the engineering feat it is to have created. In fact we had a conversation ahead of time about all the comments Syl our road builder would make about the bridge.

On to the Island around 6pm we traveled to Linkletter Provincial Park to be greeted with 37km/hour wind gusts. The Alaskan tent got a work out — Syl even had it tied to a tree! The camper and truck were swaying and the wind was wreaking havoc on anything not tied down. The Park itself was lovely and we enjoyed how clean and organized it was. The washrooms were brand new and there wasn’t a leaf out of place on the grounds.

0 notes

conversci · 5 years

Text

Publish or Perish

The future of academic publishing and biomedical research Tuesday, 18 June 2019

Australia’s medical research community has in recent years faced important pressures and challenges. Funding cuts, uncertain research career prospects and research careers cut short, the push for better research translation for social impact are among some of the issues that are confronting many researchers. We have convened a panel to discuss an emerging issue for the local biomedical research community: the disruption to academic publishing and its likely impact on the sector.

Academic journals have been the longstanding method for scientists to communicate new knowledge and ideas to their peers. They are influential in building the reputation and career of researchers as well as the reputation and ranking of research institutes and universities, in securing research funding, and in facilitating translation for impact. Access to this new knowledge is only possible through a subscription model where scientists or institutions pay to access journals, commonly referred to as the paywall barrier. As a result, publishing of academic journals has also become a major business.

The digital revolution is disrupting academic publishing. Digital journals have changed the nature of and access to scholarly academic material through new distribution channels. Authors are bypassing subscription-based publishing and adopting an Open Access publishing model, where no payment is required to access articles or journals. In the biomedical sciences, examples of Open Access is represented by journals such as PLOS (Public Library of Science) and BioMed Central.

Open Access publishing is gaining support, with a growing number of universities in the US and Europe deciding not to renew traditional multi-year licences with journal publishers. The European Union has resolved that all European scientific publications should be accessible by Open Access from 2020. A largely European-based initiative, Coalition S, is also insisting that by 2020, it will be mandatory that any research funded by consortium members be freely and immediately available to the public.

The disruption of academic publishing is a global phenomenon, but what impact may it may have on our biomedical research community?

What are the features of the Open Access model?

How should researchers choose between publishing in traditional or Open Access journals?

Will Open Access publishing result in better outcomes – for researchers, universities, research institutes and the economy?

Will Open Access result in better innovation?

How are our universities and funding bodies responding to this new publishing model?

We are bringing together a panel of experts representing the key stakeholders in Australian biomedical research to address and other questions.

Our panel members:

Professor James McCluskey AO, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), University of Melbourne

Dr Julie Glover, Executive Director of the Research Foundations Branch,National Health and Medical Research Council

Dr Glenn Begley, CEO, BioCurate Ltd

Dr Clare Fedele, Senior Postdoctoral Researcher, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Mr James Mercer, Regional Sales Director Oceania, Springer Nature

Professor Beth Webster (Moderator), Director, Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology

Who will benefit by attending?

Researchers, particularly in the sciences, bioengineering and computing disciplines

Businesses related to the biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and medical technology industries

Undergraduate and postgraduate students

Anyone interested in the future of biomedical research in Australia

Professor James McCluskey

James McCluskey AO, FAA, FAHMS B Med Sci (UWA), MBBS (UWA), FRACP, FRCPA, MD (UWA) is Deputy Vice Chancellor Research and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor in Microbiology and Immunology at The University of Melbourne.

He trained in Perth as a physician and as a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health (USA). He has held senior positions at Monash University, Flinders University and the Australian Red Cross Blood Service in Adelaide, South Australia. He established the SA unrelated bone marrow donor registry.

He has published more than 320 scientific articles on HLA, immunogenetics, antigen presentation and immune recognition. His work has spanned transplantation biology, autoimmunity, T cell hypersensitivity and recognition of non-peptide ligands by unconventional T cells.

He led the development, funding and establishment of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and coordinated the team that won a USD$50M grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies to help to establish a new Fellowship program focused on indigenous leadership to effect social change.

He is a past President of the Australasian Society for Immunology, The Australasian & South East Asian Tissue Typing Society and the International Histocompatibility Workshop Group.

He has been a director of more than 10 independent medical research institutes and cooperative research centres.

Dr Julie Glover

Dr Glover is the Executive Director of the Research Foundations Branch. This includes responsibility for directing NHMRC’s research support schemes, leading strategic research activities and international collaborations.

Dr Glover completed a PhD in the Faculty of Science at the Australian National University in 1996 and held research positions until joining the Bureau of Rural Sciences in 2002. In 2007 Julie moved into the Innovation Division of the Department of Industry and spent the next four years developing and delivering key innovation policies. Dr Glover joined NHMRC as a Director in 2011.

Dr C. Glenn Begley M.B., B.S., Ph.D., F.R.A.C.P., F.R.C.P.A., F.R.C.Path., F.A.H.M.S.

Dr Begley is the inaugural CEO of BioCurate, a joint initiative of Monash and Melbourne Universities and created to provide commercial focus in the early phases of drug development.

He served as Chief Scientific Officer at Akriveia Therapeutics, California (2016-2027) and TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals, Pennsylvania (2012-2016). From 2002-2012, he was Vice-President and Global Head of Hematology/Oncology Research at Amgen, Thousand Oaks, California, responsible for building, directing and integrating Amgen’s 5 research sites. There he highlighted the issue of research integrity and scientific reproducibility.

Since then he has made multiple presentations on the subject of scientific integrity including to President Obama's Science Council, the White House, US National Institutes of Health, US Academies of Science, US National Institute of Standards and Technology, the British Broadcasting Company, Wellcome Trust, Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, and numerous Universities, Research Institutes and companies.

Before Amgen he had over 20 years of clinical experience in medical oncology and hematology. His personal research focused on regulation of hematopoietic cells and translational clinical trials. His early studies, in Prof Donald Metcalf’s department first described human G-CSF, and in later clinical studies, performed in Professor Richard Fox’s Department at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the group first demonstrated that G-CSF-"mobilized" blood stem cells hastened hematopoietic recovery, a finding that revolutionized bone-marrow transplantation.

His honors include being elected as the first Foreign Fellow to the American Society of Clinical Investigation in 2000, to the Association of American Physicians in 2008, and in 2014 to the Research "Hall of Fame" at his alma mater, the Royal Melbourne Hospital and to the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.

Dr Clare Fedele

Dr Clare Fedele is a cancer scientist and Strategic Research Communications Officer at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.

She has a PhD in biochemistry from Monash University and has been the recipient of prestigious fellowships from the NHMRC and the Victorian Cancer Agency.

Clare is passionate about science outreach and is a regular on ABC Melbourne Breakfast radio, where she brings biomedical science stories to life.

In 2017 Clare was named a Superstar of STEM by Science and Technology Australia, a federal program aimed at increasing the public visibility of female leaders in STEM industries.

Mr James Mercer

James Mercer is the Regional Sales Director Oceania, Springer Nature. He has worked in academic publishing in commercial roles for 20 years. Joining Springer in 2008 he has been responsible for Springer Nature’s sales in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Between 2004 and 2008 he was responsible for Oxford University Press’ journals business across the Asia-Pacific region.

Prior to joining OUP James fulfilled a number of positions at Blackwell’s in the UK after graduating from the University of Leeds in 1999.

Professor Beth Webster

Beth Webster is the Director of the Centre for Transformative Innovation at Swinburne University. Previously she was Director at Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia and Professorial Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research. She has a PhD from the University of Cambridge. She has undertaken wide-ranging research on the economics of innovation, intellectual property, as well as more general research on the performance of Australian enterprises. This includes over 100 articles in refereed journals.

Recent government clients include the Commonwealth Departments of Industry, Technology and Resources; Employment; Education, Training; IP Australia; the Fair Pay Commission; AusAID and the Victorian Departments of Treasury and Finance and Environment, the European Commission, the OECD and the Garnaut Climate Change Review. Industry clients include IBM, Medicines Australia; the Business Council of Australia.

In recent years she has undertaken many studies on industry performance, both using BLADE and other relevant datasets, for the Victorian Government, The Australia Department of Industry, Austrade, IP Australia, The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade inter alia.

Event details:

Date: Tuesday, 18 June 2019

Time: 6.00pm – 7.30pm

Venue:

Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre A

Elisabeth Murdoch Building, Spencer Road

University of Melbourne

Parkville

#csnpast

0 notes

freelanews-blog · 5 years

Text

YUSUF Olaolu ALI, SAN – Iconic in Legal Practice and Scholarship

Born over six decades ago, Mallam Yusuf Olaolu Ali, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, is the Principal Partner of the Ilorin, Kwara State headquartered Yusuf Ali & Co. (Ghalib Chambers), a leading law firm in Nigeria that parades lawyers with vast experience in various practice areas, all of who are dedicated legal practitioners, specialising in the practice of all aspects of corporate, commercial and financial law in the country. Rising from a humble beginning, Ali, who attributes his foray into the Law profession as a result of a divine ordering of his life and steps by the Almighty Allah, has combined such virtues as faith (in God), hard work, passion (for the profession), integrity, honesty, humility and patience to attain the pinnacle of the profession, becoming a Senior Advocate of Nigeria in 1997. He is, today, not only an iconic legal practitioner who is renowned and respected across Nigeria and beyond its shores, but an inspiration to present and upcoming generations of lawyers, other professionals, and even a myriad of people in the larger society whom he has touched at one time or the other and in one way or another with his philanthropic gestures that cut across creeds and communities. Young Yusuf started his early educational life, when he was enrolled in a local Quranic school and in a formal school in 1960. After his primary education, he went to a secondary modern school for three years, he worked briefly before he gained admission to Ibadan Boys High School, Ibadan, where he passed his school certificate with grade one. He was the Labour Prefect He again worked briefly as a clerical officer in the old Oyo state Ministry of Finance as a tax officer posted to Igboora in 1977 and at Lagelu Grammar School as a Laboratory Attendant in 1978. He gained admission to the then University of Ife, now (Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife) in 1978 and graduated with a 2nd Class Upper Division for his Bachelor of Laws degree. He was a winner of the prestigious Federal Merit Award for undergraduates and a University Scholar while an undergraduate at Ife. He attended the Nigerian Law School, where he also passed with a 2nd Class Upper Division. About a decade after graduation, Yusuf Ali went back to his alma mater for his Masters programme which he completed with flying colours in 1991 when he bagged his LLM. He was appointed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria in 1989, as a Notary Public. He attained the highest professional honor at the Nigerian Bar in 1997, when he was conferred with the prestigious and honorable title of Senior Advocate of Nigeria , S.A.N. Yusuf Ali has been in active legal practice since the time he was called to the bar. He joined the law Firm of Adegboyega Awomolo & Co in 1983 and rose to become a partner before he left to found his own law Firm Ghalib chambers, in June 1994 with offices at Ilorin, Lagos and Abuja. Yusuf Ali SAN is a member of many professional bodies such as: Nigerian Bar Association; International Bar Association; American Bar Association; Commonwealth Lawyers Association, among others. An Associate Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Ilorin, he has delivered more than 300 papers on different and diverse topics at various fora, including the International Bar Association Conferences, Commonwealth Law Association conferences , Annual Conferences of the Nigerian Bar Association, among others. He had contributed more than 20 Chapters to various legal books and has to his credit more than 40 published learned articles in learned journals in the field of litigation, Commercial Law, jurisprudence , practice and procedure, constitutional law, in local and international law journals. He is a litigator and arbitrator per excellence and has transversed all the superior courts of record from the high courts to the Supreme Court in the course of his over three decades of legal practice. He has also acted as counsel and arbitrator in many arbitral proceedings. He is knowledgeable in Islamic finance and jurisprudence and has attended many arbitral conferences within and outside the shores of Nigeria especially those organised by IBA and ABA. He is the Author of the book, “Anatomy of Corruption In Nigeria: Issues, Challenges And Solutions.” A well travelled man, Ali has visited all the continents of the world for professional and educational purposes. A very passionate philanthropist that he is, Yusuf Ali has been using the vehicle of YUSUF O. ALI FOUNDATION of which he is the Founder and sole Financier so far, to intervene in many public institutions by donating: A Twin Dormitory of 40 bed spaces to the University of Ilorin; an Eighty bed Hostel to the Osun State University; a Ten Bed fully equipped Advanced Trauma Centre to the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital; Thirty unit ICT center to the Faculty of Law Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife; Thirty unit ICT center to the College of Law, Crescent University Abeokuta Ogun State; Endowment of the Crescent University College of Law Building; Forty unit E Resource center to the Kwara State polytechnic , Ilorin; A brand new Kia Rio 2014 Model to the University of Ibadan for the use of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies of the university; and a Twenty Room Luxurious Hostel to Fountain University, Osogbo, just to mention a very few. In recognition and appreciation of his consistently rising status and exemplary contributions to scholarship, the profession and the larger society, he has won and conferred with many fellowships such as: Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, (FCIArb) (UK); Fellow Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb) (Nigeria); Member Chartered Institute of Taxation Nigeria (CITN); Fellow Society for Peace Studies and Practice (FSPSP); Fellow Dispute Resolution Institute (F. DRI); Honourary Fellow, Nigerian Minning And Geosciences Society. Additionally, Yusuf Ali has been awarded more than 250 honours from within and outside of Nigeria. He is listed in the American Biograhical Institute’s Who is Who, as well as in Nigeria’s Who is Who. Read the full article

#MallamYusufOlaoluAli #SAN

0 notes

aleesblog · 7 years

Text

Remembrance hump of Garrincha published in The Blizzard

Bird of Passage

A personal quest into the life-story of Garrincha, Brazil’s unrefined legend

By Andrew Lees

1st June 2017

Money talks but it don't sing and dance, and it don't walk

Neil Diamond

Under an unremarkable sky there were four of us out on the backstreet making our rings fly. I thrust my ring away then pulled it in, creating ellipses in the summer air. If it dared to slip I coaxed it back up, bending my knees and bracing my shoulders as I tried to circle the sun. Jill Clapham and Karen Pullen were streets ahead, looping their hoops in a swaying 2/4 rhythm and creating double flirts with their ductile hips. That morning as the larks rose into the sky above Little Switzerland I twirled my first ton.

At two o’clock we all ran in to watch Sweden play Brazil. My father was already crouched in front of our Bush console. I sat beside him on the hearthrug and my mother brought in a jug of Kia-Ora orange squash. On the other side of the bulbous screen a thickset man in a raincoat was triumphantly brandishing a large Swedish flag. The magic mirror then moved its focus to show the opposing teams jogging up and down uncomfortably in the silent rain. At last the referee blew his whistle and the final was afoot. A quarter of an hour into the game the commentator informed us that the effervescent Brazilian fans were singing, “Samba, Samba” even though they were losing 1-0. Garrincha, their right-winger attacked from the fringes. Twice in succession in the first half, he beat three players and his inch-perfect goalmouth crosses resulted in Vavá goals. As the game went on my eyes were drawn more and more to this hunched man who never passed the ball. On 29 June 1958 I was transported to a field of dreams somewhere on another planet.

That winter I gave up hula-hooping and started to kick a rubber ball against our coal house door. I learned to keep the pill on the ground, tame its wicked bounce and make it run. I gained a rhythm that allowed me to twist and dart past imaginary opponents. I found that with the slightest of taps from my left foot I was able to alter the ball’s speed and trajectory. I kept my feet apart, flexed my body and imagined I was Garrincha. My ball slept with me under the sheets as I listened to Bobby Vee on my portable radio.

I set unregistered record after record with that small rubber ball and became a star of the school playground. It was also the last time the skylarks darted out of the turf and diminished to dark specks in the porcelain sky, the last time they would sing their hearts out, momentarily disembodied as they summoned the sun.

It was now 1959 and I had started to go to football matches with my father. I loved the communal walk to the ground, the baying wit of the tribe and the surging swell of bodies tumbling down the terraces. But what I watched on the pitch was a war in which tough men battled it out for a paltry win bonus. The game was prosaic, forbidding and merciless and bore no resemblance to the fluidity of the Brazilian champions.

In the summer of 1966 I got to watch Brazil play for a second time. Garrincha emerged from the Goodison Park tunnel wearing the number 16 shirt. His unstoppable swerving banana kick that had hit the top right hand corner of the Park End net three days earlier had led me to anticipate a repeat performance of the mesmeric sequence of steps I had watched as an 11 year old with my father. After the band had played the national anthems Brazil’s bandy-legged outside-right ambled over to position himself next to two policemen patrolling the far touchline.

Under the floodlights and with the Liverpool crowd’s chants of “Hungary, Hungary” and “ee ay adio ” echoing in their ears Flórián Albert and Ferenc Bene set about putting the ageing world champions to the sword with fast incisive counter-attacks. Just before half-time Kenneth Wolstenholme, the BBC sportscaster, lamented, “Ah, Garrincha seems to have gone now. He has lost all the feistiness and fire and that devastating burst of speed.”

In the second half I noticed that Garrincha sometimes came inside looking for help and on the rare occasions when he tried to get round the outside of the Hungarian defence he was easily cut off and forced to pass. At the final whistle a delirium of appreciation burst forth, as toilet rolls rained onto the pitch. A stray balloon blew up from the Gwladys Street terrace, drifting forlornly in the direction of Stanley Park.

It is 2006 and I am sitting in the Bar Vesuvio in the old cocoa port of Ilhéus watching Botafogo play Vasco da Gama. The ball rarely leaves the ground and always seems to be angled perfectly through the narrowest of channels. Periodically it shoots out to the flanks and is then rifled back across the box. In this game corners and throw-ins are irrelevant. The ball dips and bends as it fires towards goal. Then out of the blue a Botafogo player goes round his opponent on the outside and I blurt out the words, “Alma de Garrincha.” An old man sitting beside me smiled kindly and said, “Garrincha jogou futebol do mesmo modo que viveu sua vida, divertindo-se e irresponsalvelmente!” [Garrincha played football the same way he lived his life, pleasing himself and running wild!]

Back in England football was now an acceptable topic of conversation in the hospital canteen. In fact there were many similarities between the modus operandi of university teaching hospitals and Premier League football clubs. One Tuesday lunchtime after rounds I explained that ‘Garrincha’ was a drab little Brazilian bird with a buzzing flight and a bubbly song that could not survive in a cage. Nobody had heard of Garrincha.

I then got out my laptop and showed them extracts from the 1963 Cinema Novo film Alegria do Povo [The Happiness of the People]. The film begins with black and white photographs of Garrincha to a soundtrack of samba. I fast-forwarded so they could see the Lone Star of Botafogo mesmerising his opponents in the Maracanã stadium.

One of the house officers, a Manchester United supporter reflected, “He plays a bit like George Best.” I replied caustically that Garrincha was Best, Stanley Matthews and John Barnes and a snake charmer rolled into one. “What’s more you don’t need slow motion/3D/surround sound from 23 angles to prove he has more tricks than Messi and more grace than Ronaldo.” I knew that my fuzzy evidence had not convinced them. They smiled benignly but knew their chief was basking in the emotional overglow of an unhealthy reminiscence bump.

Undeterred I continued to watch web compilations of the Little Bird’s sillage, much of which had been posthumously embellished by music. To Moacyr Franco’s song Balada no.7 (Mané Garrincha) I watch him double back before arrowing away to the right. A magnet seemed to be always attracting him to the margin of the pitch. His style was casual, irreverent and highly improbable but never disrespectful. He tormented and teased but never mocked. He was wordless and indefinable. For Garrincha, football was no more than a series of duels against instantly forgettable defenders and foreplay was far more enjoyable than scoring. The more joyous he made the crowd, the sterner became his facial expression. He was football’s Buster Keaton cracking jokes with his bandy legs and dancing to the gaps in the music. In one game playing for Botafogo he was even admonished by the official for flirtatious play. He was a one-man carnival who could turn life upside down with his antics. ‘Seu Mané’ expunged the prison of cause and effect from the game of football.

By the second half of the 19th century Lancashire cotton goods had become almost worthless in Brazil. Even the turbines coming in on the Liverpool boats from Manchester were in far less demand. As a consequence the 1000 or so English expatriates began to invest more in local textile production. John Sherrington, a man who had strong commercial links with Manchester, purchased a stretch of verdant land that nestled below the forested Serra dos Órgãos in the centre of the sate of Rio de Janeiro. Here in 1878 in the grounds of the old fazenda he and his two Brazilian partners constructed a textile mill. The project got off to an ill-omened start when the ancient tree said to have been more than 50m tall and with a trunk circumference greater than 30 human arm spans came down during the construction of a road, but within a few years the factory was functional, converting natural fibres into yarn and then fabric.

The municipality of Pau Grande in the district of Vila Inhomirim 50km outside Rio de Janeiro already had a small railway line. It had been constructed by the English engineer William Bragge in 1853 and connected Raiz da Serra and the Imperial City of Petrópolis with the wharf in the small port of Mauá at the mouth of the Rio Inhomirim. This railway provided a reliable form of transport from the mill to the coast.

The Francisco dos Santos family were descendants of the Fulni-ô Indians, who after being ousted from their coastal homeland by the Portuguese had settled in Águas Belas, a municipality close to the Rio Ipanema. Although they had finally been hounded down near Quebrangulo and forced to take the surname of their oppressor these ‘people of the river and stones’ refused to bow to outside discipline. As their traditional lifestyle was eroded some of their number assimilated with renegade black slaves in the quilombo hideouts of the Brazilian outback.

Manuel Francisco dos Santos was the first to travel the 2000km from the tribal homelands to the boomtown dominated by the mill owned by the América Fabril company. Although the landscape bore similarities with the countryside on the borders of the states of Alagoas and Pernambuco from where he had travelled, Pau Grande itself more closely resembled Delph or Saddleworth on the Pennine ridge.

The several hundred labourers had come from all over Brazil but the mill managers were exclusively English. In return for the privileges of secure employment and accommodation the predominantly illiterate mill workers were obliged to comply with the strict discipline and moral code of the British Empire. Mr Hall, the manager, would sometimes deal with misdemeanours that had occurred outside the factory by administering a caning to the miscreant. Mr Smith, the director, emphasised the virtues of hard work and self discipline and encouraged football on the premise of ‘healthy body, healthy mind’.

On 28 October 1933 Manuel’s brother Amaro dos Santos, who worked at América Fabril as a security guard, became a father for the fifth time. The midwife was the first to notice that the baby boy’s left leg bent out and the right turned in. Manuel Francisco dos Santos had to grow up fast and his love of trapping and caging birds led his older sister Rosa to nickname him Garrincha. In his school reports he was described as quiet but mischievous and impulsive and his teachers considered him uneducable. For the young Mané by far the best thing about Pau Grande was a secluded potholed stretch of grass 60m by 40m high on a bluff that overlooked the factory. There were days when he would return two or three times for peladas [kickabouts]. Barefooted and dressed only in shorts Garrincha and a couple of mates would regularly thrash older opponents. His hunting spear was the ball and his prey lay nestled in the back of the net guarded by a goalkeeper. When he was not running with the ball he would be fishing or hunting with his friends Pincel and Swing, two brothers from the neighbouring Raiz de Serra.

His first job, at 14, was in the cotton room of the mill with its blistering heat, lung-damaging dust and deafening machines. The air had to be kept hot and humid in this the most unpleasant working environment of the factory to prevent the thread from breaking. He was always going absent, often to drink cachaça in a local bar or have sex with the mill girls at the back of the small football stadium belonging to SC Pau Grande, which had been founded in 1908 by workers from the factory. His employers soon gave up any hope of getting a decent day’s work out of him and it was only his footballing deftness that saved him from the sack. With Garrincha in SC Pau Grande’s side the factory team went two years without a defeat.

The coach likened Garrincha to Saci, the pipe-smoking mulatto imp whose spellbinding one-legged footwork created whirlwinds of chaos wherever he went. It was impossible to outrun Saci, who could make himself disappear at will. Sometimes he would transform into Matita Pereira, an elusive bird whose melancholic song seemed to come from nowhere. The only way to placate this legendary trickster was to leave him a bottle of cachaça.

Eventually Garrincha’s dazzling dribbles came to the attention of scouts from Rio de Janeiro and he was offered trials for the big clubs. He arrived at Vasco da Gama’s São Januário ground without boots, turned up late for a trial with São Cristóvão and when asked to stay overnight by Fluminense feared for his job and returned on the last train home. His insouciance counted heavily against him. Eventually a supporter and scout from Botafogo, a modest football and regatta club, but one that had a strong journalistic and intellectual following, dragged SC Pau Grande’s number 7 back to the capital.

On clapping eyes on Garrincha, the Botafogo coach Gentil Cardoso is said to have muttered, “Now they’re bringing cripples to me.” He then asked the young bumpkin, “How do you play, son?” to which Garrincha replied, “With boots!” After watching him kick a ball around Cardoso had seen enough to throw Garrincha into the first-team squad’s practice match. After the game the Brazil left-back Nílton Santos, who had been nutmegged for the first time in his career by the upstart, is said to have told Cardoso that the boy was a monster and should be signed on the spot if only to prevent him being snapped up by one of their rivals. The Rio press enthusiastically heralded Garrincha’s signing as a professional footballer in 1953. Their only criticism was “the boy dribbles too much.”

In Sweden in 1958, Garrincha was the best in the world in his position. Four years later in Chile he was the finest player in the world. After he had been officially announced as the player of the tournament, the poet Vinicius de Moraes composed the sonnet 'O Anjo das Pernas Tortas' [The Angel with Twisted Legs]:

'Didi passes and Garrincha advances

Observing intently the leather glued to his foot

He dribbles once, then again, then rests

Measuring the moment to attack

Then by second nature he launches forward

Faster than the speed of thought.'

In his June 1962 article “O Escrete de Loucos” [The Squad of Madmen] published in Fatos & Fotos, Nelson Rodrigues, the great Brazilian cronista reported that the European squads had been working on strategies to stop Garrincha but had not taken into account that the Brazilian team was a phenomenon made up of pranksters who played the game from the soul. In the last minutes of the final against Czechoslovakia, Garrincha had turned the opposition to stone. One defender even put his hands on his hips in total capitulation. Regarding the earlier 3-1 victory against England in the quarter-final, Rodrigues wrote, “The Englishman plays football whereas the Brazilian lives and suffers every move.”

Garrincha fathered fourteen children by five different women. One of them, Ulf, was born after the 1958 World Cup final and grew up in Sweden1. Garrincha had a lengthy and tempestuous relationship with the samba diva Elza Soares. He drank heavily and was responsible for the death of his mother-in-law in a car accident where he was drunk behind the wheel. When he finally hung up his boots, after a brief comeback with the small Rio club Olaria in 1972, he faded into oblivion. One of his last public appearances was at the carnival in Rio de Janeiro. The shots of his hunched bloated figure sitting alone on the front of the Mangueira samba school float saddened the nation.

Following Garrincha’s death from the complications of alcoholism on 20 January 1983, Hamilton Pereira da Silva, a poet and a politician from Tocantins, composed Requiem for an Angel:

They stood in the cortege

And offered him wings

Multicoloured wings

Vermilion, white

Chocolate

Grey

Hang gliding on the wing

For you who lived as an angel for so many years

These wings would have been meaningless

Before the eyes of the people

In the magical glow

Of those Sunday afternoons…

Two days after the announcement of Garrincha’s death, the poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade published an article entitled “Mané and the Dream” in the Jornal do Brasil in which he declared that football had become a panacea for Brazil’s sickness. Garrincha had been a reluctant hero who had temporarily banished the nation’s inferiority complex and inspired the have-nots to greater things, He pleaded for another Garrincha to rekindle the nation’s dreams: “The god that rules football is sardonic and insincere. Garrincha was one of his envoys, delegated to make a mockery of everything and everyone in his stadiums. The god of football is also cruel because he concealed from Garrincha the faculty to realise his mission as a divine agent.”

In his imagined chronicle Diario do Tarde Paulo Mendes Campos wrote that the rules of Association Football did not apply when Garrincha was on the pitch. The pushes, trips and shoves against him went unpunished and it was only when the embarrassed defender fearful of ridicule by the crowd pulled at his shirt that the complicit referee would be reluctantly forced to award a foul.

Despite these chansons de geste by Brazil’s greatest living writers and poets, the truth of the matter was that Seu Mané’s trickery defied literary description. Football was not an art. Garrincha had held a mirror up to the nation.

His body was taken from the clinic in Botafogo to the Maracanã stadium. Nílton Santos insisted that his teammate be buried in Pau Grande and not in the new mausoleum for professional footballers in the Jardim da Saudade. Traffic came to a halt on the Avenida Brasil as the cortège passed by with mourners crowding the sides of the road and others throwing flowers from the overhead bridges. “Garrincha you made the world smile and now you make it cry” had been daubed on a tree. As the mayhem of cars finally approached Pau Grande the bottleneck became so great that people were forced to abandon their vehicles and walk to the little church.

Seu Mané had played the game for its own sake. His fancy footwork, element of surprise and capacity for improvisation had nourished the nation’s soul. A memorial stone was placed in the cemetery. Its inscription read, “He was a sweet child. He spoke with the birds.” Tostão, his teammate, would write on the 20th anniversary of Mané’s death, “Garrincha was much more than a dribbler, a ballet dancer and a showman, he was a star.”

My sentimental quest begins at the Botafogo Sports and Regatta Club on Avenida Venceslau Brás. It’s now used mainly by the young socios (members) to play volleyball and basketball. A picture of Nílton Santos in the entrance reminds the club of its glory years. His black and white striped shirt with its lone star hangs in a display case next to the trophy cabinet.

When Garrincha played for Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas it was a deeply superstitious club. The day before the game a mass communion with eggnog, milk and biscuits would took place and on match day the club’s silk curtains were tied up to symbolise the ensnarement of the opponents’ legs. An hour before the game each player was compelled to take a mud bath and eat three apples. An ex-Fluminense player had to be included in every team. Before each game a stray mongrel called Biriba would piss on the leg of a player. When things were going badly for the team the Botafogo president would release the little dog from the stand to run onto the pitch and distract the opposition. Biriba became so important at the club that he was included in one of Botafogo’s championship winning team photographs.

I set off past the Aterro do Flamengo with its fenced playgrounds full of youths playing football, I look over at the Marina da Glória with the mist-topped Sugar Loaf in the background, heading for Praça Quinze where the boats come in from Niterói. Out in the bay the Ilha das Cobras is surrounded by frigates. I drive fast on the Linha Vermelha heading north in the direction of Galeão. To my left is the vast sprawl of the Complexo do Alemão favela, the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz and the toy-town church of Nossa Senhora da Penha perched on its sacred mount. I reach the artificial brine lake designed to deter the favelados from hanging around the beaches of the Zona Sur and then drive north towards the Federal University Hospital block where I had lectured the day before. A nauseating smell of sewage fills the air. I head north-east through the teeming run-down districts of Baixada Fluminense, which are full of old trucks, new schools and stray dogs.

In Casa-Grande & Senzala [The Master and the Slaves], Gilberto Freyre uses the term bagaceira – the shed where the dry pulpy residue left after the extraction of sugar is stored – as a metonym for the exploitative plantation culture. Freyre wrote that “Brazil is sugar and sugar is the Black” and both were linked in the collective unconscious with sensuality and sexuality. Bagaceira was later used to refer generically to marginalised riff-raff. Football had provided Garrincha with an escape route from enslavement but when all the fibre had been squeezed out of him cachaça left him as bagaceira.

The municipality of Magé with its farming communities guarded by the Dedo de Deus mountain marks the official leaving of Rio de Janeiro. We turn right along a bumpy narrow road filled with buses and motorcyclists, cross the single lane railway track, go past a man on a horse and open roadside kiosks selling tyres. The people seem gentler and more approachable than in Grande Rio. At a birosca that sells buns and cachaça I stop to ask the way to Pau Grande. Chortling, the bar owner points to his groin and says, “Aqui está.” “Pau grande”, I later learned, was slang in Brazilian Portuguese for “big cock”.

After another 15 minutes drive the Estadio Mané Garrincha, the home of SC Pau Grande, comes into view, its rustic white walls and small arched entrance resemble an Andalusian village bullring. The grass is lush and samba drifts from the television in the clubhouse. The president, plump, with a Zapata moustache and dressed only in fading khaki shorts, greets me effusively. In one corner of the clubhouse are three cases of memorabilia, one filled with small trophies, the other two with crumpled newspaper cuttings and posters defining the ascent of the Little Bird. One of the pictures shows an 11-year-old Garrincha sticking out in a team of men and another his father Amaro, looking down affectionately on his young son from a small wooden veranda. In some of the group photographs there are boys who resembled my own teammates from school, pale solemn faces, straight brown hair and small chins.

The president tells me that Garrincha used to love to return to Pau Grande for a pelada with his old friends after playing at the Maracanã. Over a glass of cachaça he tells me the club are hoping to raise money to create a small museum. He also reminds me that the black and white striped SC Pau Grande strip is identical to that of Botafogo except for the star. I offer him money to buy a ball, but he refuses and we settle for just another photograph. I then walk down the cobbled road to the centre of the village where a small bust of Garrincha greets the few visitors. To its right are a series of murals illustrating how Pau Grande used to look in its prime.

América Fabril closed in 1971 and its buildings now operate as a distribution centre for mineral water but the Neo-Gothic grey and white Capela de Sant’Ana that had been overwhelmed by Botafogo supporters at Garrincha’s funeral is unchanged. A car blasting out propaganda for Sandra Garrincha, a candidate in the Magé prefectural elections, drives by, followed by a group of young girls waving flags in support of her campaign.

I ask one of the security guards at the gate of the old factory if I can have a look around. The factory looks much the same as it did in the days when it produced cloth. The chimneystack is still standing but there are now vast empty spaces giving parts of it the appearance of a vacant exhibition space. In some of the rooms machines rumble away bottling water from the mountain springs. I thank my guide and walk back into the village in the direction of the lemon bungalow which the Brazilian football federation had bought Garrincha for his part in the World Cup victory in Chile in 1962. Two of Garrincha’s friendly grandnieces are standing on the veranda talking to a young man astride his bicycle. Grilles guard the windows of the house even though I am told there is still next to no crime in Pau Grande. There is a mural of Garrincha’s head in his playing days at the front door and on the wall of the house looking onto the street is written the legendary number 7 he carried on his back and the words “jogando certo com as pernas tortas” [playing straight with twisted legs]. One of the girls invites me to enter a small shrine at the side of the house. Among the photographs and medallions is a framed tribute fastened on one of the walls:

'Garrinchando

'Garrincha pretends that he despises the ball, but she knew he would always come back to pick her up.

The dribble was his courtship.

Garrincha, you passed through life, overcoming all obstacles that were put before you. But in the end that relentless adversary Death defeated your dribble.

From that moment on the ball and the football universe became orphans of the most blessed contorted legs football has ever known.'

Pau Grande is still full of gente boa. Doors do not need to be locked at night. Round the corner from Garrincha’s old house an elderly man tells me that the former mill town is still full of Garrincha’s ancestors. He then leads me up a path behind the houses that reminds me of the Brackenwood edgeland of my childhood, full of weeds, plastic bottles and butterflies. After a short walk up a steep incline we reach an empty white outhouse with two palomino horses tied up outside. 20 metres below the high bank is a clearing strewn with twigs and leaves. At either end are goal posts without nets. I climb down and start to run close to the right edge where patches of grass grow sheltered by overhanging trees. I pause. I then sidestep to the right and accelerate. I twist round with my back to the goal, shimmy and shoot. I feel free. When I can fly no more I sit on a bench behind the far goalposts. Once I have gained my breath I rise and walk to the edge of the ridge and look down on the mill, the little chapel and the orderly rows of houses.

An hour later I drive on up to the cemetery at Raiz da Serra. As I am parking the car, a skeletal drunk in shorts, sandals and a fading orange shirt staggers out of the Encontro dos Amigos bar offering to guide me to Garrincha’s grave. He tells me that the previous Friday three Vasco da Gama players had made the pilgrimage from Rio to pray for inspiration before their game against Flamengo. Tucked away in the middle of a row of closely packed tombstones I am shown a faded inscription, which says “Here lies the man who was the happiness of the people Mané Garrincha.” On the worn headstone his date of death is recorded incorrectly as 20 January 1985. There are no flowers or graffiti. A singer and friend Agnaldo Timóteo had paid for the funeral, the tombstone had been paid for by his captain Nílton Santos and a local family called Rogonisky had allowed Garrincha’s remains to be buried in the same grave as their 10-year-old son who had been killed in a road traffic accident.

I then climb up to look at the newer but equally stark and neglected obelisk. Written on a memorial tablet are the words:

'Garrincha

The Happiness of Pau Grande

The Happiness of Magé

The Happiness of Brazil

The Happiness of the World.'

As I sit in silence in this deserted cemetery I think that it could only have been my great-grandfathers’ deep loyalty to street, neighbourhood and even mill that prevented them packing their bags during the slump. It was in towns like Oldham that association football first changed from a game played by gentlemen into a profitable attractive Saturday afternoon spectator sport. As I sit by Garrincha’s grave I see their familiar faces under their flat caps, their trunks bent over by the damp and onerous labour, hurrying past the smokestacks and rows of terraced houses to Boundary Park. The Latics were yet another stabilising devotion that stopped them sailing down to Rio on a Lamport and Holt steamer.

Football has been hijacked by television money and sponsorship deals. It was now much more of a spectacle but had fewer magic moments. Running fast with the ball glued to your toes was high risk and was decried by millionaire coaches. Wingers like Garrincha (outside rights and lefts) had been replaced by a new breed of wing-backs that could attack and defend. Power and victory were what counted these days.

A small brown wren-like bird with a large cocked-up tail, sharp beak and shiny black cap flits under a neighbouring headstone and interrupts my litany of regrets. Dusk is falling and with a heavy heart I leave through the dark forests on the steep ascent to Petrópolis. I am now certain that when I have started to dribble my lines, when I can no longer remember my date of birth or the names of my children the alchemist will still be around beckoning me to come and join him for a pedala in the clearing above the cotton mill.

1 note · View note

blackkudos · 7 years

Text

Kerry Washington

Kerry Marisa Washington (born January 31, 1977) is an American actress. Since 2012, Washington has gained wide public recognition for starring in the ABC drama Scandal, a Shonda Rhimes series in which she plays Olivia Pope, a crisis management expert to politicians and power brokers in Washington DC. For her role, she has been nominated twice for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series.

Washington is also known for her roles as Della Bea Robinson, in the film Ray (2004), as Kay in The Last King of Scotland (2006), as Alicia Masters in the live-action Fantastic Four films of 2005 and 2007, and as Broomhilda von Schaft in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012). She has also starred in the independent films Our Song (2000), The Dead Girl (2006), Mother and Child (2009) and Night Catches Us (2010). In 2016, she portrayed Anita Hill in the HBO television film Confirmation and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie.

In April 2014, Time magazine included Washington in its annual "Time 100" list.

Early life

Washington was born in the Bronx, New York City, the daughter of Valerie, a professor and educational consultant, and Earl Washington, a real estate broker. Her father's family is of African American origin, having migrated from South Carolina to Brooklyn. Her mother's family is from Manhattan, and Washington has said that her mother is from a "mixed-race background but from Jamaica, so she is partly English and Scottish and Native American, but also descended from African slaves in the Caribbean." Through her mother, she is a cousin of the former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Washington performed with the TADA! Youth Theater teen group and attended the Spence School in Manhattan from her pre-teen years until graduating from high school in 1994. At age 13, she was taken to watch Nelson Mandela speak at Yankee Stadium upon his release from prison. She attended George Washington University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1998 with a double major in anthropology and sociology. She also studied at Michael Howard Studios in New York City.

Career

1994–2008

Washington got her Screen Actors Guild (SAG) card as a requirement for a commercial that she starred in. Washington made her screen debut in the ABC telefilm Magical Make-Over (1994). She was in the cast of the 1996 PBS sketch comedy-style educational series Standard Deviants, and she appeared in the short "3D" and the feature film Our Song in 2000. She went on to appear in several movies, including Save the Last Dance (2001) and The Human Stain (2003). In 2002 she played Chris Rock's love interest in the spy thriller Bad Company, a film that represented a turning point for her, in that it was the first time in her career that she had made enough money annually to qualify for health insurance under SAG.

In 2004, she played the female lead in Spike Lee's She Hate Me, and she received strong reviews for her performance. After 2004, she held parts in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Little Man (2006), I Think I Love My Wife (2007), and as a wife of 1970s Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the UK historical drama The Last King of Scotland (2006). Washington has also appeared in the recurring role of Chelina Hall on the ABC television series Boston Legal, and in several episodes of the A&E cable-TV series 100 Centre Street. In 2007, she co-directed and appeared in the music video for hip-hop artist Common's song, "I Want You", the fourth single from his album Finding Forever and became a spokesperson for L'Oréal, appearing in commercials and ads alongside fellow actresses, Scarlett Johansson and Eva Longoria, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, Dian Sastrowardoyo, Aishwarya Rai, Maya Karin and model Doutzen Kroes.

2009–2015

Washington narrated the critically acclaimed documentary about the New Orleans-based teenage TBC Brass Band, From the Mouthpiece on Back. She also appears in Maxwell's "Bad Habits" video. In 2009 Washington performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

In 2010, she made her Broadway debut in David Mamet's Race, alongside James Spader (with whom she worked on "Boston Legal"), David Alan Grier, and Richard Thomas. She also appeared in Tyler Perry's 2010 film For Colored Girls. In October 2011, it was confirmed that she would star in Quentin Tarantino's film Django Unchained, which was released in 2012 and received widespread critical acclaim. She was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2012 along with 175 other individuals.

In 2013, Washington ranked No. 2 in People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful people and was named Woman of the Year by Glamourmagazine. The same year, she ranked No. 20 on Forbes magazine's annual list of the highest-paid actors in television and was announced as the new face of Neutrogena skin care. Washington hosted Saturday Night Live on November 2, 2013, where she impersonated Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey in a cold opening sketch that satirized criticism of Saturday Night Live for not having had any black female cast members for many years.

Scandal

Since April 2012, Washington has starred in the ABC drama series Scandal, created by Shonda Rimes, as Olivia Pope, a crisis manager who runs her own crisis management firm called Pope & Associates in Washington, D.C.. In this position, she works for high-profile figures, most notably the President of the United States, who is also her lover. The show has been a commercial and critical success, and has been called one of the most talked about drama series on Facebook and Twitter by BuzzFeed. Its success has also drawn attention to racial questions in television, as Washington is the first African-American actress to lead an American network drama series since 1974, when Teresa Graves starred in the crime drama Get Christie Love! on ABC. Tanzina Vega of The New York Times has written that Washington's casting "has prompted discussion among academics and fans of the show about whether Scandal represents a new era of post-racial television, in which cast members are ethnically diverse but are not defined by their race or ethnicity."

Washington's performance has earned positive reviews, and in 2013, she won the award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series at the 44th NAACP Image Awards and was also presented with the NAACP President's Award. The same year, she was named "Favorite actress" and Scandal "Favorite Drama" of the year at TV Guide's Magazine Fan Favorite Awards and was also crowned 2013's "TV Star of the Year" by the editors of the magazine. For her work in the second season of Scandal, Washington was nominated for an Emmy at the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards and 66th Primetime Emmy Awards, becoming the first African-American woman to be nominated in the category of Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 18 years. She was also nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series as well as a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Drama Series.

In addition to Washington's acting, her costumes as Olivia Pope have attracted positive attention, prompting Vanity Fair to name the character one of "The Top Ten Best-Dressed TV Characters" in 2013. According to the show's costume designer, Lyn Paolo, the success of Olivia Pope's wardrobe is based on "this idea of having [her character] wear such soft, feminine colors in a man's world". In 2014, Washington and Paolo won the Influencer Award at the 2014 Ace Fashion Awards for Olivia Pope's stylish clothes on the show.

The Boston Globe ranked Scandal tenth place of its list of "Top 10 political TV shows" in 2015.

2016–present

In 2014, Washington announced her involvement in Malcolm D. Lee's Is He the One? a romantic comedy from MGM. She played the lead role in Confirmation, an HBO movie directed by Rick Famuyiwa about Anita Hill's testimony during Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination, which aired in 2016.

In August, it was announced that Washington would be producing a new ABC television show, Patrol, about female LAPD police officers.

For her role in Confirmation, Washington was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards, as well as the Critics' Choice Awards' equivalent the same year. Confirmationwas also nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie at the Emmys, as well.

Personal life

Washington was engaged to actor David Moscow from October 2004 to March 2007. Washington married NFL player Nnamdi Asomugha on June 24, 2013 in Hailey, Idaho. They have a daughter, Isabelle Amarachi, born April 2014 and a son named Caleb Kelechi Asomugha, born October 5, 2016.

As a sort of souvenir or memento, she usually tries to keep something from every character that she plays, such as an item of wardrobe or a piece of furniture from the house the character lived in.

On May 19, 2013, she was the commencement speaker for her alma mater, George Washington University. Before giving her commencement address she was presented with an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts.

Activism

In 2007, Washington and other celebrities joined for the 2007 Lee National Denim Day, supporting the Women’s Cancer Programs of the Entertainment Industry Foundation. In September 2012, Washington spoke at the Democratic National Convention in favor of re-electing Barack Obama with her speech focusing on addressing voter apathy.

Washington is also a supporter of gay rights. In August 2013, she was named an honorary chairperson of the GLSEN Respect Awards; and she received the GLAAD Vanguard Award on March 21, 2015. In June 2016, the Human Rights Campaign released a video in tribute to the victims of the 2016 Orlando gay nightclub shooting; in the video, Washington and others told the stories of the people killed there.

She is a member of the Creative Coalition; which is a board of actors, writers, musicians, and producers that explore issues that are at the forefront of national discourse. She is also a member of V-Day, a global movement that brings awareness to violence against women and girls.

In March 2016, Washington and fellow ShondaLand colleagues, Ellen Pompeo, Viola Davis and Shonda Rhimes, appeared in a commercial endorsing Hillary Clinton for President.

Wikipedia

#Kerry Washington

5 notes · View notes