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liam-93-productions · 3 years

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Liam’s full interview with Tings Magazine - Part 2

Note: the interview was recorded in may 2020.

You had the support system of Harry, Louis, Niall and Zayn during your teen years. When that support system stopped, having to deal with it by yourself, did that seem like a harder loss than it did leading up to that? It felt more like an identity crisis because that was like your crutch almost, being a part of the band. It got to the point where it was almost invincible. But that kind of got let go. I had serious questions about whether I wanted to be a solo artist. My thing was if the right song came then I wil, then obviously “Strip That Down” came along and I couldn’t really say no. It’s a bit crazy, especially being released on such a pedestal. You don’t want to undo your legacy for what you set for yourself because you achieve so much so quickly. It’s kind of funny. I was playing poker the other day for a charity. Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul and a couple of big Hollywood celebrities at this one table and me, which was the most random thing ever. They were like, “I’ve got questions that I like to ask people at the poker table. What was your first job?” Everyone was like I was a paperboy, or I was that, and I was like my first job was One Direction. And Bryan Cranston was like “You can’t really go anywhere from there. You’ve set yourself a hard task.” And I thought it was really funny, but it’s so true. One Direction was such a massive thing and I think we were all just existing since One Direction and in a sense, the hype of the comeback is the thing that’s kept us bubbling along. For sure, from that start, it was this massive identity crisis, you were a part of this unit and you knew how you fit in the unit. You knew the part that you played and as soon as that was gone, you couldn’t play the same role and carry on that way because the other units weren’t there to put it all together if that makes sense. So, you really had to try to discover who you were but in the public eye. That was stressful.

How was that process for you, other than being stressful? How did you go about doing that? Really badly (laughs).

Not at all. I disagree with that. You are very much different now than you were then. And you’ve grown into who you are now in a really amazing way. Was part of this identity something that was brewing during your time at One Direction. I feel like you hear Zayn do interviews and he’s been very clear about feeling different than how he’s been projected in One Direction and the identity that he’s become now. Was that the same case for you? Or was it more of a discovery process where you had no idea who you were when you left? Oh no, it was a complete discovery process. I mean if you look as simple as clothes. We were told what to wear at the start. It was like having four twin sisters. It was like ‘you can’t wear that’, ‘I’m wearing this’. So, we each got our thing. Mine was like plaid shirts. And for two years of my life, I just wore plaid shirts because that was my thing. Then we came out of that and went into this black phase where we all wore black t-shirts and black jeans or white t-shirts and black jeans. And when you come out of it and you don’t have to wear black t-shirts and jeans anymore, I was like, ‘what the hell do I wear?’ I went through a complete transition of clothes and different things. And that is only one element of your life, your appearance, what you look like. For other things, for humor, you only experience the same humor for five years, around the same people. Then that changes. You meet other people. And we become more into the P.C. generation of things and it was like “we can’t say this anymore. We can’t do that”. And that was like another thing. As you try to develop, you make several mistakes. I went through the gangster rap phase. And it is the same with music as well. At first, it was like all the chains and rap, it was like escape the boyband scenario for me.

The Miley Cyrus effect. The Disney to bad girl effect. Exactly, I wanted to escape and identify myself differently. And I kind of pushed that to as many limitsas it could go to. Ever since then, as you get older, you realize that time is a wonderful thing. Instead of being on a race to be a certain someone because all your role models are so far ahead of you because they are already there, but they didn’t start there. For me, when I got into acting and doing auditions most recently, I started looking at actors that I love. Brad Pitt is one of my favorite, favorite people, you know, who’s transitioned to being the most amazing person, who has his own identity. I was thinking, how did he do it? So, I watched an interview of him at twenty-six. You have to watch it. He barely answers a question in the interview, you can’t believe it’s the Brad Pitt you see now.

That’s thirty years of media training in between. Exactly! And this was when he did his first role. I already had my first role, being in One Direction, so I’m even further on than he was at my age. I don’t have to worry so much now I just have to have trust in the process of whatever life is, I know this sounds a little bit around about the house, but I just think you have to take a back seat and move steadily into things. When you are a kid, you are in such a rush. You’re like I want it now. I want to be this guy. When I did my Hugo thing, it was all about muscles and training, and I was looking at Mark Wahlberg. And Mark Wahlberg is freakin’ Mark Wahlberg! It’s a taken him years and years to be Mark Wahlberg. It’s just where you set your sights for your role models, I guess. It’s the little thing that it has to come now and that’s what pop stardom is like, because you need it right now because you are already in it. I’m not waiting to come up, I’m already in it.

Quick and constant. There’s this constant need to feed the system or you’re out of the system. Yeah, and it’s easier for artists nowadays. If you look at NSYNC, after they broke up, it was like, unfortunately, nobody really cared about what J.C. and the other boys were doing. So, they didn’t get the articles. Now, it’s like you are your own charge in that. You can be the front page of so-and-so if you really want to be. You just have to do the right thing on your channel. So, it’s like being able to be in charge of that stuff helps artists a lot more these days. But once again, that’s pressure because we are all in charge of our press and media from our phones. Whereas, they would have to go into work and have someone lay our the interviews or they wouldn’t get them. So, I suppose it’s a different type of pressure really.

Yeah, and it’s a different landscape. They would have it laid out for them, and those interviews would last months and months, where today it’s like one day. Then it’s swipe up, swipe left, and onto the next thing. The lifespan of what we put out is so much shorter. That’s the ting. I had TikTok out yesterday and I haven’t really invested a lot of time into something. But I made this really stupid song about cookies that went with my video. I literally just made this fun song in my house and we were like “Screw it” let’s make a music video for it. We did like one of those Lonely Island type videos and put it out. It’s one of the pieces of content that I cared about the most because I made the whole song and whatever. It was fun, and I wanted people to enjoy it the same way I did. But even when you post something like that, I see some people where it just goes completely over their heads, that this is just a fun thing to look at. It doens’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean that my next album is going to be about freakin’ cookies or whatever. I think we’ve lost some of the lightheartedness, having to take ourselves so seriously all the time. It doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s like, you can view the average time that someone looked at a post, so it’s that cutthroat. If they stayed on for five seconds or whatever, the average time should be the full time and if it’s not, the post was bad. You have that power now, but it’s in seconds. Even the average time someone came on to look at it, it’s down to the seconds.

You brought up the hype of a reunion and relevancy and keeping that alive. That interest. Where does that stand? There’s a lot of conflicting articles about a One Direction reunion. What can you say or not say, what’s the official word? To be honest with you, I keep mixing up the words reunion and anniversary. Our anniversary is coming up; it’s ten years that we created the band which is amazing. It’s a huge achievement for all of us. Every so often, I’ll accidentally say reunion and I’ll be like “oh my Dog, that conflicts another report.” I’ve been really clear that there’s not a reunion, just because I know music schedules. Harry just put out a music video and that’s got two years in it before we even think about a reunion. And I just don’t think everyone’s done yet. I think everyone’s enjoying their time, making their own workm that little bit of freedom. Um, and One direction is not exactly a side career that you can have. It requires you to be fully in it. Until we can all stop and commit to the band for whatever reason, I don’t think it can come back. I think there will be a reunion and I’m excited about it and I think it’s be a lot of fun. It will be interesting to see if we have the same essence that we had as kids.

Essence meaning synergy on stage or camaraderie? I think a little bit of both. I mean One Direction was such a free time, and people enjoyed the fact that it was five lads on a stage having a good time. They didn’t care if we sang in tune or if we fell over. That’s what the show was about. It was chaotic. We’ve all become these more polished popstars. I don’t know if we have the same carefreeness about us, is what I’m worries about. But it’s been nice we’ve all been talking, staying in touch. It’s the first time that everyone’s spoken in the last five years. It’s just nice that everyone’s grown into being nice people. There’s none of them that I really hate. Everyone’s grown up into nice young men who just gone on a bit further from where you left them.

Who are you closest to? Do you speak to any of them regularly? We have a big respect for each other. And I don’t think we give each other enough credit for how we’ve helped each other as well. I speak more to Louis and Niall than I do anybody else. I speak to Harry on occasion. I think we don’t have very much in common as people. There’s nothing wrong with us. We just don’t have as much in common. And Zayn, sadly, has fallen completely by the ... which is terrible. I feel for him sometimes, but at the same point, he made his decision on that. And it’s not something you can go back to lightly. If I saw him on the street, would I say hello? 100 percent. It doesn’t bother me, intrusively. I’ve already spoken about his great news. Having been through it myself, ... it’s interesting. I just think it’s a lonely scenario to be in, not being able to speak to the other people that helped you get to where you are.

If you were to guess, or maybe you already know, would you see that reunion including Zayn or is that over and done with? I think it’s over and done with, for the time being. You can never fully discount it because you had the Robbie Williams Take That scenario. I remember watching that concert when I was in the band. It was so interesting that they were in a band, he left and had all the success he had, and came back. He had his own section of the show which I thought was interesting. They weren’t down in the dumps. They had some of the biggest hits in Britain. I don’t think you can fully discount it. I know for now it’s not possible. I think, for now, it would take certain people to admit wrong in a scenario and I don’t see that happening because they don’t even realize it yet. That’s a little further down the line.

If a reunion happens, how do you think you would envision that creatively? Everyone has such different formed identities. I actually think that we’ve picked up on that already, not knowing what is about to happen next. I remember from the tour screens from the very last tour. The introduction with the songs showed us on video doing different things. It set us apart ever so slightly. But I feel like if we came back together, it would be a celebration of what One Direction was, what is now, and each of the members. I think the tour screens would Harry is a completely different aesthetic that I was. I just think the band’s name is completely ironic because everyone has gone in opposite directions. Maybe, that’s the point of the name. I don’t know. Yeah, I just think it would fit back together quite seamlessly, for completely different reasons.

#liam payne #liam's interviews #tings magazine #05.11.2020

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canyouhearthelight · 3 years

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The Miys, Ch. 127

Annnnd a-one, and a-two, and a queue-queue-queue!

This chapter has one of my favorite things in the world to write - Interpersonal relationships (if you are surprised, I’m going to assume you are new here....).

Specifically, one of my biggest pet-peeves is when friends or siblings are written in a way that shows that the author doesn’t actually have any friends or siblings they are close enough to that all rules of societal politeness go whizzing into some far-off dimension as soon as they are in proximity.

When I get to write a chapter with such close friends/ersatz-siblings and also have @baelpenrose cackling and egging me on, it literally makes my whole day.

P.S: If anyone has wondered about the ages of the characters, several are clearly lined out in this chapter......

EDIT: Fixed some insane formatting issues.

“The food festival, Sophia? Really?” an incredulous voice asked before the door to my office even opened all the way.

I resisted the urge to scream, but did surrender to pinching the bridge of my nose and breathing slowly. “Hello, Arthur. Do come in. Long time no see. Of course I’m not busy…” My one day each week to have a few hours to myself - no mentees, no assistant, even Tyche was off work….

“We saw each other last night when I came over for dinner after sparring with Conor, and you’re never busy on Saturdays, Alistair makes sure of it.” He dragged a chair in front of my desk for what I felt was the sole purpose of putting his boots on my desk instead of the conference table.

“I thought you two didn’t even like each other, how did you - “

He waved a hand dismissively. “Enemy of my best friend’s enemy is my friend, that sort of thing. Anyway - “

“Did you just call me my own worst - “

“You are, let’s not pretend otherwise. Anyway.” Arthur arched an eyebrow at me and waited for any further objections, but I couldn’t think of any. “The Food Festival. It’s my one favorite tradition on this ship until armed combat becomes a spectator sport, and you are putting Parvati and Hannah in charge of it?”

After a beat pause to make sure he was done, I glared at him. “Everyone has asked me that, and I don’t understand the issue. They’ve both helped in the past, even before they started training to replace me. I’ve handed more and more off to them each time, and they did great! Plus, they have three months, it will be fi - Wait, why do you even care, Arthur?”

He held up one finger with the authority of a deity who would have smited me if he could. “One, Parvati Fletcher does not like mapo tofu. You do. Specifically, you like it from that one vendor who grows her own Sichuan peppercorns and uses them like they are an infinite resource. Two, I spend entirely too much time working with Zach Khan, and he won’t shut up about how stressed Hannah is. Three - “ I was seriously starting to get concerned he actually could smite me at this point - “As much as I love you in the most platonic way possible, you are an obsessive, compulsive perfectionist who insists on doing everything herself and running herself into the ground so that everyone else has the time of their lives. So why are you trusting this, the largest and oldest event on the Ark, entirely to other people?” Dropping his boots from the desk, he leaned forward, palms down until we were nearly nose to nose.

“Sophia Reid, I swear on any god I can kill if you are dying…”

“WHAT!?” I squawked, jerking back and standing so fast I knocked my chair over. “For the love of little fish, I’m not dying! I haven’t had a near death experience in four years, thank you.”

“Three, not counting the fact that there is a reason Alistair makes you drink anything through a straw anymore.”

“How did - Nevermind.” I shook my head and tried to focus on the topic at hand. “No, I’m not dying. Nor am I injured, having a midlife crisis, rethinking my life choices any more than I ever do, or so much as in possession of a stuffy nose.” Taking a deep breath, I rolled my eyes and started counting off before I could stop myself. “Conor and Maverick and I are fine. No, I’m not arguing with Tyche again. Yes, I’m still going to therapy. Else is fine. No new sentient plagues or rogue cult leaders that I’m aware of. Nor have I become immortal, queen of the universe, savior of humanity, pregnant by Noah, or possessed.” Carefully, I picked my chair back up and sat down.

“Good...to… know?” He gave me a funny look. “Who asked the most disturbing one?”

“Immortal or Savior of Humanity?” I asked for clarification. “Those were Maverick and Derek, respectively.”

The look only got worse. “I meant ‘pregnant by Noah’, but fascinating to see where your priorities lie….?”

“Oh. That was Charly.”

“Dammit,” he swore softly. “I had her pegged for ‘possessed’.”

“I’m pretty sure she is, but the suggestion that I am came from Tyche, on no fewer than 3 occasions, by 4 different entities. She seemed pretty hopeful that Else was potentially mind-controlling me in an effort to make me take a nap,” I admitted.

“That tracks.” A nod of approval prefaced the question I had been avoiding - successfully, thus far, I might add. “Now that you’ve ruled out every possible plausible reason that you would entrust this to literally anyone other than a clone of yourself, why?”

“Why what?” My face was composed in an expression of innocence so convincing that I probably deserved an Oscar.

“I can and will convince Charly to turn all your coffee to decaf, so help me, Sophia.”

Realizing that he was, legitimately, worried about me and at the limits of his usually-impressive patience, I held up my hands in surrender. “Fine. You get the scoop. Please record this and send me the loop, so I can just flick it at people who ask, please?” When he nodded, I exhaled slowly. “It is no secret to anyone that I never wanted this job. I made the mistake of establishing the Food Festival, which as you point out is the largest event of the cycle on the Ark - the last three years, literally everyone attended in some capacity.” When he opened his mouth to argue, I held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t get me wrong. I love the Festival. What basically started out as a potluck because we were homesick and needed to meet - you know, the rest of humanity - is a huge, three day holiday. It’s amazing!” I spun in my chair, arms flung wide for emphasis, before stopping to face him.

“It also consumes my life, for months, to prepare for. And that’s just implementing changes to make it more accessible so people don’t miss out! That doesn’t include adding things to make it more interesting or keep it from getting boring, or whatever. I literally don’t have time to do any of that!”

“So, you’re inflicting this on them instead?”

“Inflicting?” I snorted. “Hardly. This is their final exam, their capstone project, their dissertation. If they pull this off, I will gladly hand the entire office over to whoever is elected, cheerfully and knowing the Ark is in good hands. But, they have to pull this off. It’s the only major part of being Councilor of Resources and Relations that they haven’t done yet by themselves.”

He rubbed his face, looking somewhat impressed. “That’s honestly not what I was expecting.”

“I don’t think it ever is, honestly.” I shrugged at the question he glanced towards me. “For Evan, it was coordinating the weapons exhibitions. Charly managed to pre-empt her own by designing more efficient aqueducts and filtration for when we reach Von - you know, the ones that also produce light?”

“Of course she would invent glow-in-the-dark plumbing. Who else?” Something caught up with him. “Evania Josue got away with planning an event? Seriously?”

“Oh, that’s right… you weren’t on Level One…” I murmured. When he only looked more confused, I clarified. “She was Maverick’s co-pilot when we needed people to pilot the Ark, which was not designed to pilot manually, via dead reckoning, using cameras pointed out the few viewports we have, for several weeks after the sensors were sabotaged.”

“She was whose co-pilot?”

“You really never heard this story? You practically live with seven people who were there…”

“Usually I get the bits about ‘Sophia nearly got her brains bashed out’ and ‘that traitorous bitch’, then start tuning out while I try to decide what it would take to get Charly to teach me necromancy… If Evan was the co-pilot, then why is Maverick….”

“Not in line to replace any Councilors? Arthur, we know that would be a disaster for him.”

He nodded reluctantly. “Your younger partner is a nice boy.”

“For fuck’s sake, he’s thirty seven!” I groaned.

“Nice man, whatever,” he waved off. “Which is exactly what I would like for you as a partner. You need nice partners, and blunt siblings. But I see what you mean about him being a Councilor… he’d be miserable.”

“What was yours?” I asked mischievously, dropping my chin onto my hands.

That earned me a flat stare, until he finally surrendered when I didn’t flinch. “The Twentieth/Early Twenty First History curriculum.”

“Seriously?” That had literally been the first thing he had done when Eino tapped him as a possible successor.

“I didn’t budge on points even he admitted he would have, out of fear of offending people.”

“Which is a fear you very much lack,” I pointed out.

“The truth is the truth. Coating it in sugar only makes it taste worse.” He shrugged nonchalantly before suddenly looking dangerously like he was thinking again. “There’s two of them.”

“Yes, Arthur. Hanna and Paravati are, in fact, two distinct and separate women-type-lady-people.”

“Thank you, Fee, I was well aware.” I suppressed a growl at the nickname - he knew I hated it. “I meant, only one can win the election, smartass.”

“Better to be a smartass than a dumbass,” I muttered.

“Sophia, you are forty five. Please grow up just a hair?”

“Tyche doesn’t want to be HR forever, you know.”

That brought his mind to a visibly screeching halt. “Wait, what?”

“What what?” I asked. “She does it because she is phenomenal at it, but it isn’t her passion. She only stuck around as long as she did to make sure I didn’t trip over a chair and brain myself while I was at work. When I’m gone, she’s gone, loser take the spoils.”

He whistled softly before shaking his head. “It’s bizarre to think of you two retiring around the same time I’m just starting the position.”

“I’ll have been a Councilor for a decade when I step down,” I pointed out. I almost included unless I die first, but that never seemed to be as funny as I thought it was.

“But you aren’t that much older than me,” he sighed dramatically. “Anti-aging technology is frustrating.”

“Annnnd this is a natural extension of your career, with a ten year break thereabouts the middle.” My grin was so bright it made him scowl before I finally got a begrudging smile. “Think of it as getting elected head of the school board.”

The groan he let out probably echoed for several levels throughout the ship. I had basically just pointed out that he was becoming that which he most hated.

Or not. He seemed to recover with a gleam in his eye. “Pfft. Dean of Students, at the very least.”

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#the miys #humans are weird #found family #siblings #humans will pack bond with anything #aliens #post apocalyse #post post apocalypse #science fiction #original science fiction #haw #hfy

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tinyshe · 3 years

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[copy, save and share censored information; fight for freedom of information]

COVID-19 Injection Campaign Violates Bioethics Laws

Story at-a-glance

Safety data analysis and reporting in clinical trials of the COVID jabs appear to have been manipulated in at least some cases. One method for manipulating randomized clinical trial safety data is to only analyze the “per protocol” treatment group (those who completed all doses and were fully compliant with the study design) as opposed to “intent to treat” which would include all patients that have signed informed consent

For example, if a participant only accepted one dose and trial protocol called for two, under a “per protocol” analysis, adverse events they experienced would be dismissed and not included in the safety analysis. This is a classic way to manipulate safety data in clinical research, and it's usually forbidden

Since the COVID shots only have emergency use authorization, they are experimental products and, as such, they are not authorized for marketing

Bioethics are written into federal law. As an experimental trial participant, you have the right to receive full disclosure of any adverse event risks. Full disclosure of risks is not being done, and in fact is being suppressed

Adverse event risks must also be communicated in a way that you can comprehend what the risks are, and the acceptance of an experimental product must be fully voluntary and uncoerced. Enticement is strictly forbidden

As the inventor of the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine platform, Dr. Robert Malone is one of the most qualified individuals to opine on the benefits and potential risks of this technology.

His background includes a medical degree from Northwestern University, a master's degree from Salk Institute, a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from UC Davis, a Giannini fellowship in pathology and a post-graduate fellowship in global clinical research at Harvard.

He taught pathology to medical students for about a decade at the University of Maryland and the University of California Davis, and then became an associate professor of surgery at Uniformed Services, University of the Health Sciences, where he launched a major research institute focused on breast cancer and high-throughput screening in genomics for breast cancer.

After that, he helped found a company called Inovio, which has brought forth a number of gene therapy discoveries, including vaccines, and the use of pulsed electrical fields as a delivery method. After 9/11, a colleague at the University of Maryland's department of business and economic development connected him with Dynport Vaccine Company, a startup that had received a DoD contract to manage its biodefense products.

"That's when I transitioned from being more of an academic to the advanced development world of clinical research, regulatory affairs, project management, compliance, quality assurance — all of that stuff that goes into actually making a product," Malone explains.

"It was a huge epiphany that the world really didn't need more academic thought leaders and [that] I was wasting my time focusing on that. What the world really needed was that people understood the underlying technology and the discovery research world, but also understood advanced development, which is that drug development is a highly-regulated world. And there aren't very many of those.

So, I set out to become really expert in that latter part and worked with the government, particularly in biodefense and vaccine development, for a couple of decades. And that brings me to the present.

I've captured a couple of billion dollars in grants and contracts for companies that I've worked with, and clients from the government, from BARDA [Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority], from the Department of Defense and others."

COVID-19 'Vaccines' Are Gene Therapy

I've been accused of falsely stating that these COVID shots are not vaccines but gene modifying interventions. However, even Malone agrees with this statement, and as the inventor of the technology, he should know. He points out that in Germany, by law you cannot refer to this technology as a genetic vaccine or gene therapy vaccine. "The German government has specifically outlawed the use of gene therapy-based vaccine as a term," he says.

With his background, and having received the COVID shot himself, he can hardly be called an "anti-vaxxer" and/or someone who doesn't believe in gene therapies. Yet, he recently went public with concerns about the safety of rolling out this kind of technology on a mass scale, and the unethical ways in which they're being promoted.

As has become the trend, he was immediately censored. Wikileaks even went so far as to erase him from the historical section of the mRNA vaccine page and his own personal Wikipedia page was removed. All references to Malone inventing the mRNA technology were removed and attributed to a variety of institutions instead.

Blowing the Whistle

Malone's public involvement with the COVID jab issue began with a short essay1 reflecting on the bioethics of the current campaign to get a needle in every arm. This essay grew out of a conversation he'd had with a Canadian physician. Malone's essay catalyzed an interview with Bret Weinstein in June 2021 on the DarkHorse Podcast.

This isn't the first time Malone has spoken out against unethical behavior in science. He was also a whistleblower in the Jesse Gelsinger death case,2 back in 1999. Gelsinger was a young man who had a rare metabolic disorder called ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency syndrome (OTCD), where dangerous amounts of ammonia build up in your blood.

He'd been diagnosed at the age of 2, and was managing his condition with a regimen of nearly 50 drugs a day. At 17, Gelsinger signed up for an investigational gene therapy. Like the COVID shots, the therapy involved injecting a gene attached to an adenovirus, which would be integrated into his DNA to permanently produce an enzyme that prevents ammonia buildup.

Gelsinger was the 18th person to receive the gene therapy, and while the others had only experienced mild side effects, Gelsinger had a severe response after scientists at the University of Pennsylvania administered adenoviruses doses that were far above what had been approved by the corresponding safety committee.

Gelsinger became disoriented and developed jaundice and acute inflammation, followed by a rare blood clotting disorder and multi-organ failure. He was dead within days. Even a decade later, Gelsinger's death is still considered the biggest setback for gene therapy.3

"When the Jesse Gelsinger events happened, I also had long been a deep insider in the gene therapy space, so I had specific knowledge of what had happened at Penn — the ethical transgressions, shall we say, that occurred — and had awareness, again, just like now, of the technology," Malone says. "So, I was able to make sense of things that otherwise were obscure for journalists and even other scientists."

After speaking out about the ethical transgressions that contributed to Gelsinger's death (dosing which exceeded approved levels), Malone became a "persona non-grata" in the gene therapy community. In other words, he was blacklisted by his peers and prevented from participating in gene therapy research.

"That's part of why I went in a different direction with my career and focused on government work and biodefense, supporting the Department of Defense," Malone says. "The lesson learned for me is that I'm able to be resilient, together with my wife's support.

Another key lesson was that your friends will support you through times of crisis if you behave with integrity and maintain your friendships and treat people with respect. I also had a lot of support for having spoken out and taken an ethical high road on that and not compromised myself …

It's part of why I'm comfortable [speaking out now]. People tell me that I come across as balanced and calm. But yes, this is a little bit frightening and once again, [I'm] putting my career on the line. But once again many of my colleagues in the government are grateful that I'm speaking this way. They are not able to have a voice because of their jobs and government policies about speaking out."

Public Responses to Censorship Make a Difference

As explained by Malone, he's been heavily censored since his three-hour interview with Brett Weinstein. LinkedIn even deleted his account. However, LinkedIn users all around the world canceled their accounts in protest and wrote the company, explaining their cancellations were in protest of Malone being censored.

The social media uproar culminated in a major news article in a mainstream Italian paper, which appears to have pushed LinkedIn over the edge. LinkedIn eventually reinstated Malone's account and even sent him a letter of apology.

"I don't think I've ever heard of a company writing a letter of apology after delisting and deleting somebody," he says. "My sins were 'profound,'" he says sarcastically, "They were that I outed the chairman of the board of directors of Reuters who is also sitting on the board of Pfizer, for cross-posting the Wall Street Journal article on vaccine toxicity risks, and well, basically for complaining about censorship.

So, they sent me my list of sins with six different posts that were to pretty much anybody's eye innocuous, which I then took and cross-posted onto Twitter. So, that revealed the absurdity of that … The note [of apology] that I received basically said, 'Look, we don't have the expertise to censor you, but if you cross the line, we have the right to summarily delete you again and so mind your manners.'"

The Repurposing of Drugs to Combat Pandemics

In recent years, Malone has been involved in yet another startup company (Atheric Pharmaceuticals), in collaboration with the DoD, that focused on repurposing drugs to combat Zika infection. That company went bankrupt for lack of investor interest in repurposing drugs for treating infectious diseases.

When the COVID-19 outbreak began, he got a call from a colleague who works in the intelligence community in Wuhan, China, who urged him to put together a team to investigate the possibility of repurposing old drugs against COVID.

His team is currently about to enter clinical trials for a number of licensed off-patent drugs. That said, his biggest contribution so far is probably his commentary on the bioethics of what is going on.

"Both my wife and I are deeply ethical people," he says. "We're high school sweethearts. We try really hard to live ethical lives and to help our fellow man as well as the animals in our lives. So that's just the place we come from. It's bedrock. We're not rich people.

I recall a long telephone call with the Canadian physician that poured his heart out about the situation in Canada that he's encountering, both with vaccine administration in primary practice, and also in administering alternative therapies to outpatients, which generally have no therapies available.

I mean, the position is a bit shocking — in the emergency rooms all across the world. Basically, you go to the ER and if your O2 sets are down, pushing towards 80, they say, 'Well, go [home] and come back when your lips are blue.' And that's the essence of it. They don't really offer anything.

So many physicians, including this gentleman in Canada, have been seeking alternative strategies and they've tested and administered these various agents. We've heard of fluvoxamine, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine. There are many, many others now, including those that we're working with (famotidine and celecoxib) that seem to have therapeutic benefit when administered early to shut down this hyperinflammatory response.

So, he shared this and the stories of multiple reports of vaccine adverse events that in his clinical judgment were clearly vaccine related, some of them quite serious, and that the Canadian government would summarily dispose of those as non-related even though in his clinical judgment, they clearly were related.

He spoke about the enticement of children in Canada with ice cream and the willingness of the Canadian government to administer vaccine to children without their parents or guardians consent after enticing them with ice cream cones, and some of the other things that I just found shocking ...

It mirrors what we're seeing across the world, where governments are taking liberties with people's health and their rights without real legislative authorization to do so in most cases."

Core Bioethical Principles Are Being Violated

Malone and his wife Jill are both trained in bioethics, so after listening to this Canadian colleague, he decided he could help by writing a lay press opinion piece about the bioethics of experimental vaccines under emergency use authorization.

"I have intimate knowledge of not only the emergency use authorization legislation, the FDA policies behind it, I even know the people that wrote it," Malone says.

"So, we dove in, refreshed our memories on the whole history of the modern bioethics construct that briefly runs from Nuremberg Trials to the Nuremberg Code, to Helsinki Accord, to the Belmont Report in the United States, and to the common rule that exists in the code of federal regulations."

In summary, since the COVID shots only have emergency use authorization status, they are experimental products, and as such, they are not authorized for marketing. The core bioethical principles that apply therefore involve three key components:

1. Bioethics are written into federal law — As an experimental trial participant, which is what everyone is at the moment who accepts a COVID shot, you have the right to receive full disclosure of any adverse event risks. Based on that disclosure, you then have the right to decide whether you want to participate.

Adverse event risk disclosure should be provided at the level of detail disclosed in any drug package insert. However, the COVID shots have no such insert or detailed disclosure, and adverse event reports are even being suppressed and censored from the public.

Instead, as explained by the FDA,4 since the COVID shots are not yet licensed,5 rather than providing a package insert, the FDA directs health care providers to access a lengthy, online "fact sheet" that lists both clinical trial adverse events and ongoing updates of adverse events reported after EUA administration to the public.

A shorter, separate, online fact sheet with far less information in it is available for patients — but, provider or patient, you still have to know where to look up each of the three EUA vaccines separately on the FDA website to access those fact sheets.6

2. Adverse event risks must be communicated in a way that you can comprehend what the risks are — This means the disclosure must be written in eighth grade language. In clinical trials, researchers must actually verify participants' comprehension of the risks.

3. The acceptance of an experimental product must be fully voluntary and uncoerced — enticement is forbidden. "I argue that all of this public messaging that we've all been bombarded with … constitutes coercion," Malone says.

"The most egregious example of this that I've ever seen, is the federal government identifying 12 people … and labeling them as the dirty dozen, [saying] that they are responsible for causing death because they are disseminating what the government has determined to be misleading information about vaccines. This is mind boggling to me and to most of my colleagues."

How Falsehoods Are Getting Top Billing

As you probably know, I am on that "disinformation dozen" list. The irony of this situation is that government officials are really the ones contributing to the deaths by not adhering to bioethical principles that are enshrined in law. It's a classic case of 1984 Orwellian doublespeak.

As I mention in the interview, the "misinformation dozen" list is the creation of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a shady organization funded by dark money that sprung up less than two years ago.

"Yeah, you don't even have to go to dark money. It's out in the open. There's this Trusted News Initiative led by the BBC. They announced … last fall that they have integrated Big Tech, Big Media and new media, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, et cetera, into an organization that was intended to control false narratives relating to elections, but they decided to turn it on what they perceived as false narratives for vaccines," Malone says.

"As if that wasn't enough, the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have announced initiatives where they're making block grants to Facebook, which is then funding these new pop-up fact-checker organizations … [that] are employing methods to smear people and to ban information …

What happens is these fact-checker organizations will make their pseudo fact check, like what I experienced with Reuters — which was transparently false, their fact check — and then the media will recycle the fact check. So that moves up in the Google ranking and they're citing themselves. That's what's going on. And it's sponsored by the likes of Wellcome Trust and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and they're quite proud of it."

Why Target Children and Pregnant Women?

Considering the unknown risks involved, why are governments and vaccine makers pushing so hard for children and pregnant women to participate in this experiment? Both have an extremely low risk for complications from COVID-19, which makes adverse effects of the vaccine all the more unacceptable, if not all together intolerable.

There's the appearance that there was manipulation of safety data analysis and reporting in the Phase 1, 2, 3 clinical trials … by focusing on patients who had completed the study per protocol, as opposed to those that entered the study as intended to treat. [If] you've only accepted one dose of vaccine under those clinical trial protocols and you have an adverse event … that information about the adverse event … is lost. It's not included in the safety analysis. This is a classic way to manipulate safety data in clinical research, and it's strictly forbidden. ~ Dr. Robert Malone

Making matters worse, there's no process in place to capture all side effects. Somehow, this was left out, and there's evidence to suggest this was done intentionally.

"I think it's important for the listenership to recognize that what we have is still an emerging understanding of what the adverse events are," Malone says. "I could tell you the story of how the cardiotoxicity adverse event was recognized, and it was not through official channels. There is [also] the appearance that the CDC is deliberately under-reporting adverse events to the public.

And there's the appearance that there was manipulation of safety data analysis and reporting in the Phase 1, 2, 3 clinical trials for some of these products by focusing on patients who had completed the study per protocol, as opposed to those that entered the study as intended to treat.

That's a subtle distinction, but what it means is that if you've only accepted one dose of vaccine under those clinical trial protocols and you have an adverse event, and you decide to drop it out, or they gently suggest that you shouldn't take the second dose, that information about the adverse events that you received — which would have made you at even higher risk for the second dose — is lost. It's not included in the safety analysis.

This is a classic way to manipulate safety data in clinical research, and it's strictly forbidden. So, the FDA is onto that trick. Normally, if I was to do that, I would get slapped down immediately. Why they allow these large drug companies to do this (if, in fact they did) — and you can't claim that Pfizer didn't know what they were doing — is beyond me.

Now that we know about the adverse events associated with the cardiotoxicity in adolescents and the damage to the heart and the deaths associated with that, people can start to do calculations based on official CDC data, [but] those data are flawed.

They probably under-report the true adverse event rate by about a 100-fold if you're relying on the various historic analysis information. But you can look at those data. And if you're a data scientist, you can do the calculations that the CDC is not doing and not disclosing to us about risk benefit.

The ones that I've seen done by well-trained and highly experienced specialists, people that work for the insurance industry that do this for a living … come out literally upside down."

If the clinical trials did not include patients dropped after Dose 1 in the safety analysis, this would indicate a "per protocol" safety analysis was performed, and therefore that the safety data analyses leading to the emergency use authorizations were not based on rigorous safety assessments.

Multiple patients claiming to have been included in COVID-19 clinical trials have also reported on social media that their reports were excluded from final safety analyses, although this cannot be verified.

Risks Significantly Outweigh Benefits

A study7 posted July 7, 2021, which looked at deaths occurring in children in the U.K. during the first 12 months of the pandemic, found 99.995% of children diagnosed with COVID-19 survived.

By July 19, 2021, in the United States, a total of 335 children under 18 had died with a COVID-19 diagnosis on their death certificate.8 An analysis by Marty Makary and colleagues at Johns Hopkins, together with FAIR Health, showed none of the children under 18 who died and were diagnosed with COVID-19 between April and August 2020 were free of preexisting medical conditions such as cancer.9

Now, while the average healthy child has a minuscule chance of dying from COVID-19, and their risk of developing heart inflammation from the COVID jab is also quite low, the risk associated with the injection is still significantly greater than any risk associated with the natural infection. As explained by Malone:

"That ratio comes out suggesting that there will be more lives lost to receipt of the 'vaccine' in a universal vaccine campaign than there would be if all those kids were infected by SARS-CoV-2. This upside-down ratio appears to extend or very close to equivalent at least up to the age of 30.

So, we're in a position where the data that we have are admittedly flawed. Is that by intent or what? From my standpoint, the data are the data, so I can't smoke out what somebody within health and human services intended to do, but I can look at the data, and others can.

And the data absolutely do not support a positive risk-benefit ratio for vaccination of infants through young adults, based on any normal criteria. So then why are they doing this crazy stuff? It seems to all be wrapped around the axle of the need to justify universal vaccination.

I argue that this is actually a mid-century policy that goes back to the '50s and the '60s polio vaccine campaign, when the government and world health authorities established a position that it was OK to lie, to withhold information about risk for vaccines, because to have the full spectrum of information about the risks of vaccines would cause people to not accept the vaccine.

So, 'Shut up, we know it's best for you and don't question us' is a firmly authoritarian position. It is intrinsically authoritarian and paternalistic. It's exactly the kind of stuff that George Orwell wrote about in his book '1984.' It was a warning … of how governments and authoritarian structures will behave and do behave."

Denial of Vaccine Dangers Has Been Federal Policy Since 1984

Ironically, Malone points out that in the 1984 Federal Register,10 it's stated that posting information into the federal register about vaccine risks that jeopardizes vaccine I uptake shall be suppressed.

"So, it's a clear federal policy going back to 1984," Malone says. "This is the way they're going to handle things. And they're going to handle it with the noble lie of saying, 'No, there are no risks and what we're doing is fully justified' …

I don't think we have to go to imagining some grand conspiracy at Davos between certain individuals. I think this is an emergent phenomena of the intersection of old-school thinking about information management and new-school capabilities and technologies.

I think the CDC, HHS, WHO, and Wellcome Trust or Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, etcetera, have just grossly misread the population, certainly in the United States. And so now we're in a position where before, according to Del Bigtree, there was about 1% to 2% of people that self-identified as anti-vaxxers, and we're now [above] 40%. Clearly, about 40 to 50% of the population are just dug in. They're not going to accept these vaccines.

The White House now finds it necessary to have a special group to identify and target 12 American citizens for what they believe to be vaccine disinformation, and to make a big public press announcement about it. Don't they have anything else to do? It seems like the world has got bigger problems than Dr. Mercola, but what do I know?

The whole thing is mind-bending. And a lot of people, including many Europeans, are really lit up over this. They remember. European intellectuals are very aware of the dynamics that happened in Germany in the 1930s … I think this could be a turning point in a lot of things."

The Powers That Be Have Been Given Free Reign

While Malone is not interested in speculating about the intentions behind all this malfeasance, he's intimately familiar with the power of Big Pharma to manipulate governments. As detailed in other articles, several of the COVID injection makers have a rich history of illegal activity and unethical behavior, and now they have been given free reign to do as they please.

They're been completely absolved from liability if and when something goes wrong with these injections, and governments are enticing and bullying citizens to participate in Big Pharma's experiment.

"If you give that kind of liberty and power to a global multinational and absolve them of any accountability, they will serve their stockholders," Malone says. "They are not geared to serving the rest of us, whatever they may say in their press releases.

That's just how big pharma behaves, and we've chosen this model. Messaging having to do with alternative treatments and the importance of wellness, those are not consistent with the 'Take this pill, pay your price and shut up' kind of business model.

Personally, I think that Mr. Gates and his foundation have done enormous irreparable harm to world health community through his actions and his own personal biases. He has really distorted global public health. At some point, there will be books written about this, and I'm sure an enormous number of Ph.D. theses will be granted. But meanwhile, we all have to live with it."

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bryonysimcox · 4 years

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The internal battle of forced monotony: Week 13, Spain

The negative emotions associated with isolation have reared their ugly heads this week. Amid tales of homemade ramen, torrential rain and a new film we’re working on, this post also reflects on the less positive moods that lockdown has gifted us.

Life feels more surreal as each week passes. The end of our sixth week in lockdown also marks a quarter of a year since we set off from England in our freshly converted campervan. When I frame it like that, our overland adventure to date both stretches back into eternity and only feels like a couple of days ago. Little did we know that ‘life on the road’ would entail confinement indoors and restrictions on all kinds of activities, like going to a cafe, seeing friends, making videos and driving through Europe.

There’s certainly something deep within me that is inherently optimistic. Even though if I was realistic about it, I knew that the ‘State of Alarm’ here in Spain would likely extend beyond the date of 26th April (which had already been extended twice), I had sort of psyched myself up towards regaining some of our freedom on that date. So when one morning this week, I flicked my phone onto the website for EL Pais (a major Spanish newspaper) and Pedro Sánchez had announced he was set to ask congress for another extension until the 9th May, my heart sank.

If there’s one thing I’ve wanted this weekly blog to be, it’s authentic. I’ve wanted to use it as a record of where I’ve been - not only geographically, but emotionally, and that means reflecting on the lows as well as the highs.

It’s hard putting into words the feeling of being so helpless in your own life - the feeling I’m experiencing now in lockdown. I guess one way that this helplessness has taken effect is in my increased empathy and consideration for people who live much larger parts of their lives facing uncertainty and helplessness - whether that be living under an unstable dictatorship, drought and famine, civil war or poverty. It’s not that I’ve only just started caring about these people, but in experiencing a fraction of the emotions that they must be going through, my sympathy deepens into something much more.

I’m so used to being in control. I trust that I will wake up tomorrow and night will turn to day; that I will put my keys in the ignition and the van will start; that I will be safe from persecution and oppression and that I will be able to access food and water. Even the element of my life which is the most uncertain as we undertake this overland adventure, which is money, is usually tempered by the knowledge that George and I have the skills and resources to find work, even if it has to be something we don’t particularly like. And yet now, life has thrown us a curveball. Coronavirus has left us spinning out of control.

Not feeling in control of my life has sapped my motivation. I still manage to get out of bed, and get various things done for our film channel Broaden or just general life admin, and I still eat well and exercise where possible. But things have lost their shiny glow, and I lose the energy to focus on a task for long.

It’s not like every waking moment I’ve spent has been devoid of positive energy. Back at the start of the week we ventured out to the supermarket on foot which was a welcome change of scene, I sat out in the sun and bleached my hair with lemon juice, and George learnt to eat crisps in a handstand. We laugh, we have fun and we create little activities like this to pass the time. But somehow, even investing in positivity like this can be tiring. You spend one day trying really hard to be grateful for what you’ve got in this time of crisis, and focus on celebrating the silver linings of copious free time, only to wake up the next day with your energy reserves run dry. Is anyone feeling this too? I know I’m not alone.

(images, left to right) Bleaching my hair with lemon juice, filming snippets for our upcoming ‘Place Portraits’ video and learning to eat crisps in a handstand.

Meanwhile, frontline workers continue to fight for us all. To save our lives.

The juxtaposition of the chilling images we see on the news about Covid-19 against the confines of the little cottage we’re currently staying in is bizarre. Each day I read new statistics about people dying, articles about PPE shortages and quotes from global health authorities telling us the worst is yet to come.The boredom and helplessness I’m feeling shrink in comparison to the intensity of this global pandemic. My emotions seem petty and mundane, perhaps even pathetic. And yet, something tells me these emotions are still legitimate. That all of our emotions are legitimate, as we each attempt to process the situation and what it could mean for the future.

The future is no longer a thing which feels predictable. We have stepped over the cliff edge, and as each day that the pandemic unfolds, we are in new territory. Of course, one of the opportunities presented by such an enormous global event is the chance to reassess how we live on this planet, redefining the new ‘normal’.

I have always been interested in the study of the future, and using different approaches to imagine how it may play out. And yet whilst there are opportunities amid the crisis, right now, I’m terrified by what I see. Yes, there are clues and behaviour changes that we can use to project future scenarios, but most of what is in front of us is completely unknown. We don’t know how long we have to work from home, furlough our staff, keep our children educated and occupied indoors or talk to loved ones through a screen. We don’t know what horrors tomorrow’s headlines will bring.

It feels like the world is staring into a dark abyss, reaching out for something to hold onto.

From a selfish perspective, not having any control over the future is a huge spanner in the works. Driving across Europe in a van and working as freelance videographers is the least ‘essential activity’ there could be, and we are conscious that governments have much more to focus on than two British travellers running out of money and desperate to continue their adventure. But it’s still so disheartening to be at the whim of something, something bigger and greater than you, particularly in light of the arduous year we spent preparing for this trip. There have certainly been a few tears here this week, and waves of the same emotions I felt when building the van and knowing there was a chance we would have to give up.

The weather really hasn’t helped lift the mood either. This region of Spain faced endless days of torrential rain this week which rendered the garden inundated and the road flooded. We couldn’t even get out to the supermarket and even worse, a leak developed in the roof of our van! It all felt rather doom and gloom.

(images, left to right) Torrential rain turned the road into a river, the point where we had to reverse all the way back home and couldn’t get to the supermarket, and a neighbouring lane which is closed off by Police.

One of the other realisations that brought me crashing down this week was sussing out that we’ll still be in lockdown for George’s thirtieth birthday. He’s not even someone who cares much for birthdays, but it had always been such an important milestone in my head and I was really looking forward to doing something nice together - going to a restaurant or watching live music or mooching around a city. Hilariously, back when we left Sydney we made a plan with our friends to have a reunion for George’s 30th… in Goa, India! It’s actually quite amusing to see how monumentally wrong we were in predicting the future, as we are thousands of miles off India right now.

All that said, George has been a cornerstone. Not just to comfort me about his birthday, but to be there through this all. We sort of balance one another out, ready with a positive mindset and hug when the other one is feeling super low.

If there’s one thing life in lockdown has strengthened, it’s our relationship.

On a lighter note, George embarked on a grand mission to make the best homemade ramen on Sunday. It all started with the broth, inspired by a zany French chef he follows on YouTube, and by mid-morning the cottage was filled with the smell of this incredible broth combining vegetable peelings with burnt garlic, ginger, miso paste and soy. What started as a broth-making test unfolded across the day, and saw him make handmade noodles, a sticky garlic and sesame sauce, soy soaked eggs and grilled tomatoes. Needless to say, watching George’s ramen odyssey was definitely the most entertainment I had all day!

(images, left to right) George’s homemade noodles (as food stocks were running low), the finished ramen, and the delicious oily and fatty broth in progress.

The two of us have also been working on a new video that will be released on the Broaden YouTube this Saturday (25th April). It’s a far cry from ‘The Hundred Miler’, but hopefully will be well-received nonetheless. It’s called ‘Place Portraits’, and we filmed it back in Paris, in the first week on the road back when temperatures lingered around zero degrees. Whilst we haven’t been as excited about making videos as we usually would be, I continue to be grateful to have a creative focus amid the pandemic, and being stuck inside is forcing me to get inventive with ideas for upcoming projects.

I also love seeing things that people have baked, sung, written, built and performed across the world each day online. The internet can be an incredible place.

As I write this, I reflect on a rocky week battling the internal voices and contradictory emotions of lockdown.

It’s a strangely tiring combination: of not knowing what the future looks like and trying to make sense of a world devoid of human contact or normal routines. Each day, let alone this whole week, has been filled with so many highs and lows that by the evening, I’m left feeling exhausted and churned up inside.

But we made it. We made it another week in lockdown and I’m so glad I have this blog as a place to reflect. I hope it’s also a place where my honesty (and in this week’s post, my negativity) makes you not feel so alone in your emotions.

As if she knew I needed her right now, Mother Nature has finally blessed us with glorious sunshine and I can already feel my mood lifting. Perhaps the pain associated with this period is also signifying something else: growth. As we face this together, and all of the ugly emotions that come along with it, we learn more about ourselves and human nature, and in doing so, we grow.

p.s. apologies if this week’s post was all doom and gloom! If it was, may I redirect you to last week’s ‘photo essay’ as a soothing antidote.

#traveldiaries #life in lockdown #covid-19 #estado de alarma #coronavirus #BryonyandGeorge #suzithevan #digitalnomads #vanliving

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alicethruthelookingglass · 7 years

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In Conversation with Colin Morgan & Lindy Heymann

By: Lindy Heymann, Director & Co-Writer, The Laughing King - May 30, 2017

LINDY HEYMANN: You’re an incredible actor who is hugely in demand – it was a big ask from me. What persuaded you to do a short film for free?

COLIN MORGAN: Well, firstly, thanks so much. It's really kind of you to say that, and I can’t tell you how much it means to have people believe in you and support you. For me, there was very little persuasion involved when a script like yours is so strong. It's a sure thing for me when I connect with something on a creative emotional level. I just want to be involved in storytelling, whatever the circumstances.

I know you say it was a big ask, but I never thought it was. I felt honoured that you considered me. But it's interesting, because I suppose I hadn't really broached that subject matter before. And the fact that you saw something in me that gave you confidence to hand me the reins also says that you understand me as an artist too. So it was very much about working with you too - especially after the work we got to do together on Humans on that great scene between Ruth [Bradley, who plays DI Karen Voss/Beatrice] and me.

It's an amazing story of chance and coincidence how it all came about, isn't it. Do you want to talk about how it all transpired?

LINDY: It was obviously meant to be? Right from the beginning I had you in mind to play Jake. We had just finished the script, and I hadn't worked out how I was going to approach you.

Then around that time, I was asked to shadow the director, China Moo Young, on a new show called Humans. I remember I turned up to the shoot only to realise that YOU were starring in it. How crazy was that!

I may not have got the opportunity to talk to you, but they were running behind on the schedule, and China asked me if I would direct a few scenes for her. One of them was with you and Ruth. It was a very layered and emotionally charged scene that had to be shot very quickly. And it was walking back together afterwards that I knew I had to ask you. I remember I sent it to you on a Monday and by the Friday you'd told me you were up for it. I was over the moon – it was an incredible moment for me and the project!

In the film, there is actually very little dialogue. Yet you manage to tell us so much about Jake’s interior thoughts and feelings. Do you have a method to get this across?

COLIN: That was the power of the script for me. The lost loneliness of Jake sort of gave me the impression that he had gone beyond words, beyond talking, and beyond trying to articulate what no-one can understand anyway. He's also not allowing words to affect him, quite literally cutting off communication with his phone.

A lot of what I feel sometimes is an instinct and a kind of inhabiting of the swirl of thoughts that could potentially be going on within a character. Making a sort of sense of it. For me to walk the line of trying to meet the character halfway, I suppose. I find it hard to articulate myself, but it's making it as true and as real for myself as possible. Whatever self-deception I need to adopt to do that - I will do whatever it takes to get there.

Did you always imagine that dialogue would play a small role in the final version? What was your starting point in beginning to put such a tough personal matter for you onto paper?

LINDY: The concept of the film actually came from screenwriter, Leigh Campbell, who also wrote my feature film Kicks. She had written a one page idea and asked me to read it. I knew immediately that I had to direct it, and begged her to let me collaborate with her on the script. It resonated so much with my own experience of losing my brother.

Leigh had originally conceived it as Jake's mother searching for him. I asked her if we could switch it to his sister. As soon as we did, I realised that I had so much I had to say.

Actually there was quite a lot of dialogue written in early drafts. But as we progressed, I understood that what was happening inside Jake's head, and that his quiet intention was way more emotional and powerful than anything he could say. So gradually the dialogue got more and more stripped back.

Unless you have been in that situation yourself, taking your own life is such a complex thing to get your head around. How did you prepare for the role?

COLIN: I had a few research books from previous projects which I referenced for insight. You also lent me that great book by Matt Haig, "Reasons To Stay Alive", which I think is a book everyone should read. I tend to fuel myself up both factually and imaginatively as much as possible before any project. Then I place a lot of trust that "on the day" it will colour and evoke what I need, trying to remain as open as possible to what's going to come out or what isn't.

It's such a delicate and unpredictable process in this whole business. It's always fearful, and self-doubt is constant, but the story and the character usually always prevail. And yes, this particular matter of suicide is so, so complex and hard to get your head around. But I guess I felt a sort of insight that was unexpected for me, and I guess that brought some peace in a way.

What about exploring deeper into this subject matter creatively for you? Did it open up any new understanding for you in the cases of your brother and friend?

LINDY: Yes, I think I felt the same way. In some ways the film was very cathartic for me. I think for years the way I had dealt with my brother's suicide was to create my own interpretation of why it happened. I found a way to be philosophical about it. I was only 21 when it happened (Marcus was two years younger). In some ways I was too young to process an event like suicide.

It was only when I experienced it in my life a second time, when my dear friend Shaun took his own life at 49, that I knew I had to face the subject head on. I was seeking to understand how someone could feel that suicide is an answer. Making a film about it and exploring it from a character’s point of view helped me do this.

Quite a few people in Blackpool approached the crew whilst we were filming and shared many of their own stories with us. How did people respond to you? Wasn’t there that guy who approached you when you were trying to break the £50 note?

COLIN: Ha, yes, sometimes people can be blinkered in public situations and not see the whole scenario. So yes, in the scene where the guy selling the postcards wouldn't take my 50 quid note, a guy did come up and very helpfully give me directions to the nearest bank where he was sure they would give me change. That was actually a lovely human moment in the midst of everything that I just loved.

I know we talked a lot about Blackpool as a "character" in itself. Was that always the location you had in mind?

LINDY: Blackpool was there right from the beginning. Leigh had been there, and it had inspired the whole film. The title… everything. makers.

It's a very atmospheric place. A Northern British seaside town that in many ways only makes sense when it’s packed full of families and holiday-

We shot there in early May, so the season hadn’t quite begun yet. It has a stunning coastline and the sea is epic - it’s as if it’s calling you - and the beach is vast especially when the tide is out. Sadly, some people do choose it as a place to end their life, and in a way, I can understand why. It does feel like the edge of the world.

At one point it looked like we weren't going to be allowed to shoot there, as Tim Burton was using Blackpool as a location for his movie (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children) and had the run of the town for six weeks. Fortunately, our producer knew Tim Burton’s location manager, and they gave us their blessing to shoot on the section of beach and pier that we'd always envisaged. Another piece of good fortune for us.

In looking back now, what if anything did you take anything away from the experience of playing Jake?

COLIN: Well I think I said to you on the day we shot the scene where Jake walks into the sea, I think I said: "I can understand how it makes sense". And I know it may seem a little scary to get that insight. But to me I understood there and then, unexpectedly, having done all the preparation and putting myself in his situation. I had this sort of expanse of understanding, and it didn't frighten me.

LINDY: We shot your walk into the sea handheld (Edu Grau our DOP was following you). I was running alongside holding a handheld monitor so that I could watch the shot. And I remember that I was transfixed and I lost my breath watching you. It was so affecting that some of the crew were crying. It was as if Jake’s walk into the sea was a release for him rather than an ending somehow. It made me think about it from Marcus’ and Shaun’s perspective, rather than my own. That I think has really helped me - so thank you.

If you’re in crisis, don’t be a statistic. Stay. There are people who can help.

#Colin Morgan #The Laughing King

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jsamtaylor · 7 years

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#VoicesofYA

The marvelous Hetal Avanee (one of my fellow Pitch Warriors!) tagged me last week in a challenge called #VoicesofYA created by writer Caitlin Lambert. Here, at last, are my answers to the ten questions on writing and YA books (two of the things I love most in this world).

ABOUT THE WRITERS

What draws you to YA?

I’ve been asking myself this for a while, because it’s a question often posed to YA writers. To me, there is so much potential and possibility in YA. When you’re a teenager, you’re figuring out your identity and the world is open with so many paths to take. And teenagers feel everything so deeply, so there’s plenty of room for emotion on the page. They are honest and dig deep into issues as they figure out themselves and the world around them. I also love how the YA book world paves the way in being more inclusive of diverse voices and backgrounds. (Yes, there’s still a long way to go, but I’m also encouraged at the diverse voices that are appearing on bookstore and library shelves, and I want to read them all.) I love the energy in YA books, and how quickly they move—especially in SFF! YA books are a sheer delight to read.

Describe your writing process. Do you like outlines and structure, or seeing where the story takes you?

I always do at least a little outlining. I need to know the gist on the characters I’m writing about, and what I’m writing toward. So, I’ll need at least some idea of the ending, and I try to have mapped out the other major plot points of the story (inciting incident, point of no return, midpoint gamechanger, dark night of the soul crisis). But, especially during early drafts, I give myself permission to explore any ideas that strike me while writing. I keep my rough drafts to myself, and this lets me have the freedom to explore my world and characters, without troubling whether the words are perfectly connected or would make sense to someone else. Having that freedom in the first draft does make for a lot of work when it comes to revision, yes, but it’s also helped me stretch my mind and open myself to ideas that never occurred to me in my first outlines. In my Fire manuscript, some of my best plot twists, and the best villain, came to me only after I was more than halfway through that rough draft.

How long have you been writing? Where are you in your journey?

I’ve kind of never not been writing. As a child, even before I knew how to write, I’d draw picture stories, sheet after sheet after sheet, without any words. Or, I’d draw elaborate pictures on the inside cover of my coloring books, and make up elaborate stories about them as I worked. In third grade, we wrote little books and made covers out of construction paper, and my story folder was the largest of anyone’s in class (I had to wrap both arms around it when we brought them out for writing time, so all my little books wouldn’t come spilling onto the floor). In high school, I knew I wanted to become a writer when I grew up … but I didn’t really know how to get myself there. I studied creative writing in college, but it wasn’t until after college and grad school that I really buckled down with a vision of making my writing dreams into a career. I joined SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators), made more writing friends and found critique partners, and starting writing as much as I could and even querying. I have a couple shelved manuscripts (one of which I may go back to—I won’t talk about the very first one, though!). My next manuscript however, a fantasy inspired by ancient Babylon, got me into Pitch Wars last year (in a very roundabout way, more about that here), annnnnnd, it recently won the YA category in the 2017 New Voices in Children’s Literature Tassy Walden award! I also have my beloved Fire manuscript, which is close to being complete, a new project that I’m starting to revise … and another idea knocking around my brain, because my mind likes to keep things complicated. Heh.

What do you need to write? Coffee? Music?

Music always helps! I love movie and video game soundtracks, and often pick one or two for a particular project and listen to it on repeat for hours while writing and editing. I’ll also make Pandora stations for particular projects as well.

If you could offer one piece of advice to another writer (OTHER THAN “don’t give up”), what would it be?

Write the story you need to tell. Write what appeals to you! Yes, it’s good to pay attention to the market and what is currently selling and where the gaps are—but ultimately, you have to be passionate about your story. After your craft skills are honed and polished, your passion for the story will determine how strong it can become, and your enthusiasm will be evident on the page and carry over to the readers. There’s often a lot of talk between writers about what’s selling and what isn’t, what’s “trending” and what’s “dead.” Last week on Twitter there was a statement going around, someone insisting that YA contemporary was “dead,” and I saw some rising writers worried about this. It’s always alarming to hear that that genre you write, the one that calls to you most, isn’t selling. But amidst these tweets were reassuring words from established authors, who while writing their own books had heard similar ominous words. But they persisted in the stories they loved--and now we know them and love them too.

It seems there’s often someone knocking the marketability or quality of a particular genre. When I was taking my creative writing classes in college, my professors were adamant that we write only short literary fiction for adults. That was the only type of literature they thought had any merit. But you see, I was always a YA writer--I just didn’t know it. Even in these classes, though, my stories were about teenagers; that’s where my mind goes. “Write about something else,” I was told. “Write about different agents, different circumstances.” But I didn’t want to. So rather than changing what I wrote, I changed my surroundings. Soon after finishing grad school, I joined SCBWI and connected myself with other YA writers who could help me get where I needed to go. So don’t let your writing path be derailed by what you’re afraid will or won’t sell, or what someone else says you should be writing. Instead, look to connect yourself with the writers and industry folks who can help you get were your writing heart longs to go.

ABOUT THE BOOKS

What book still has you reeling from its plot twist? (*no spoilers please*)

Jeff Zentner’s The Serpent King. Ohhhh, if I ever meet him ...

What books are you most anticipating for this year?

Kathryn Ormsbee’s Tash Hearts Tolstoy. I. NEED. THIS. BOOK. From the moment I first heard about it, I needed this book in my life. Is it June 7th yet?

Sandhya Menon’s When Dimple Met Rishi. So many people keep talking about how great this book is and gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I want it now.

Kiersten White’s Now I Rise. The first book (And I Darken) basically ran all my feels through the meat grinder last year, but of course I have to read on to find out what happens next. It’s cathartic, it really is.

In your opinion, which YA book/series has the most unique premise?

Ahhhhhhh, so many my brain is short-circuiting! Okay, I think Mackenzie Lee’s This Monstrous Thing is the most creative approach to a retelling that I’ve ever seen, working with the historical context of the real Frankenstein text to create an alternate history for the novel. Bonus: Steampunk! (And, in a time when I keep hearing people claim that steampunk is “dead.”)

What is your all-time favorite quote from YA lit?

From Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower: "And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.” It kind of sums up everything I love about YA books--that sense of unlimited possibility and potential.

What book do you most hope will have a movie adaption?

Roshani Chokshi’s A Crown of Wishes! Gorgeous, gripping book, and I can only imagine how brilliant it would be to get this world on a huge screen. Someone please do this, yes?

Next Up: Maria Hossain and Lindsay Hess!

#VoicesofYA

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bryonysimcox · 4 years

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Thoughts on Mindfulness, Onions and Jealousy: Week 10, Spain

It’s hard to fathom that we’ve entered double digits as I count the weeks we’ve been living away from the UK, and even harder to fathom the coronavirus crisis that the world continues to face. This week, I explore mindfulness, barbequed spring onions and the evils of jealousy.

The last week of March has brought both sunshine and rain here in Catalonia. Sunday was glorious, and the warm rays of sun felt like nature’s invitation to take the afternoon off from film editing and staring at screens. Even I, who usually finds it hard to ‘just’ chill out, responded to this invitation and slowed right down, sipping cheap Spanish lager and whiling the day away with a good book. By contrast, there have been numerous days of solid rain here too. Temperatures have dropped and George and I remain huddled inside, wrapped in layers and eternally grateful to have a house to stay in throughout lockdown.

It looks like the weather in the UK has been pretty glorious. It’s sod’s law that after a long winter, when Brits are finally ready to get out and about, everyone is required to stay at home and can only see and admire the sunshine from afar.

This state of lockdown is undoubtedly a reminder of our need to access nature, especially for those who are living in urban areas and apartments.

The flipside to the restrictions, of course, is that reduced travel and activity means reduced carbon emissions and pollutants. Like many others, my heart has been lifted by photos of Venice’s canals which now run clear, satellite imagery and data showing dramatically reduced air pollution in major cities, or sound recordings of magnificent birdsong made audible thanks to minimal traffic. Similarly, whilst I’m not a huge fan of the rain, it’s a real blessing here in Catalonia, a region which is often very dry. The land around us in the cottage is looking more luscious than ever, and the rain is doing wonders for the green beans, olives, herbs and spring onions (or ‘calcots’, but more on them later) which grow here.

(images) Mother nature’s gifts.

I’ve been feeling infinitely more connected to nature while living in lockdown. Not necessarily because we’re staying in the countryside, though that helps, but perhaps because I’m increasingly aware of my dependence on it. The natural world (which we often forget were a part of) provides us with the sustenance we need to survive, and I can’t help but feel like empty supermarket shelves in the UK are a symbol of how disconnected people are to where food actually comes from, and the supply chain which starts with mother nature.

Nature is not only essential as a source of food but as a source of energy from which we nurture our minds.

The alarming spread of coronavirus and its devastating and far-reaching effects threaten to overwhelm me. As I mentioned in last week’s post, I constantly feel at the edge of this overwhelm, ready to be swept under by the noise and chaos of news headlines which just keep getting worse. In an active effort to address these feelings without adopting a ‘keep calm and carry on’ approach of outright avoidance, I have started to practice mindfulness, using breathwork techniques from Gaba Podcast’s daily sessions.

Nature has become a central part of my amateur mindfulness practice, as it provides a constant calming presence in the now on which to focus. Simple things in the natural world have proven incredibly grounding, like the cycle from day to night, the passing of clouds across the sky, the sound of little birds scuffling across the roof of the cottage and the fresh aroma of soil after it’s rained. Of course these elements don’t erase the existence of Covid-19 and the lives it is both threatening and taking, but they provide a counterweight to the noise and anticipatory grief that I’m experiencing.

(images) Stuff can get pretty overwhelming at the moment, so the natural world has become a steadfast element on which to rest my focus.

I have also been thinking about the way in which nature is not just a resource to be taken from, for our wellbeing and our existence, but something to give back to. I’ve been inspired by so many people I follow online, and their mutual apprehension that this could be a pivotal point of change for the world. Their shared thoughts and musings suppose that we might move away from our addiction with consumption and competition, and towards more regenerative cultures. Friend and ex-colleague, Adam Russell, has written a fantastic summary of ten books worth reading if you’re interested in regenerative cultures and living in harmony with the planet. The summary can be found at the Saltbush Projects website, which documents the pretty cool journey that Adam and his family are taking in suburban Australia, of growing food, making things and living more simply. Adam’s project is one of a few which are inspiring George and I to shape up our own dreams for a self-sustaining lifestyle and off-grid house.

Amid panic, paranoia and overwhelm, I am optimistic about a different future in which equality, sustainability and community emerge as the shared values by which we live.

Unlike the accounts of our adventures before lockdown, I don’t have much to report on a day-by-day basis. Back during our time in France and our initial month in Spain it felt as though every day was rammed with new experiences and places that George and I had visited in the van! Now though, the days start to merge into one, and I have lost my usual motivation to spring out of bed and into action. I try not to beat myself up about it, and in fact have leaned into the ‘not-knowing’ of the future and the monotony of the present. I trust that one day, somehow, our travels will continue, and try to reaffirm the motto “I’m exactly where I need to be” even when it can feel super frustrating that all life plans are on hold for the time being.

(images, left to right) Layered up in lockdown as it rains outside, watching a live stream DJ set from England complete with visuals created (live, too) remotely by my brother in Scotland!, and slowing down and soaking up the sun on Sunday.

The monotony of the present has also allowed for me to reflect inwardly. I think a crisis of the magnitude that the world currently faces puts certain things into perspective, and after another week filled with skype calls and catch-ups, I don’t think I’m alone in my increase in philosophical thoughts. The insecurities of weight gain, obsessions with career progression, anticipation for planned holidays, fixations with buying new things and other everyday thoughts shared amongst my friends and I now seem like petty hiccups in the grand scheme of life.

Food, friends, our health and shared prosperity feel like the only things that matter anymore.

On that note, I’ve been thinking about jealousy - a strange and ugly emotion that I have grappled with for years. In last week’s post I talked about my shifting relationship with social media in recent weeks, and the possibility that sharing things like photos and status updates can be perceived as insensitive, and perhaps even trigger jealousy. Whilst it could have seemed that I was referring to jealousy induced by the things that I post, I have also been thinking about my own jealousy, and taking a tiny step back from Instagram and Facebook has been part of that.

As a child, I remember being preoccupied with other people’s looks and achievements. I think at one point I even claimed to my mum that I wanted to be my best friend! That jealous streak is something which has filtered through my life, and it’s probably only in the last five years that I really feel like I’ve faced up to it. Jealousy is horrible for so many reasons, but for me, not only did it make me feel rubbish but it also impeded my ability to be happy for others. Instead of relishing in shared pride for a friend or family member’s success or good fortune, that success would become a cruel tool to devalue myself. It would push my focus away from them, and back onto me, leaving me both as a crap friend and a selfish individual.

(Image) I’ve grappled with jealous over the years, a muddy and confusing emotion that threatens your ability to reflect on yourself and others.

This period of lockdown feels like a closing chapter for me in addressing jealousy, which is perhaps why I’m sharing it even if it seems personal, in the hope that it may be of use to someone else.

When I say ‘closing chapter’, it’s not as though jealousy will never rear its ugly head again, because of course it will. But the common cause of tackling this horrible virus has been a trigger for me to consolidate what I’ve been practicing these last five years: to turn jealousy around into more constructive feelings, like pride and admiration for others, and aspiration or contentment for myself. All that said, it is really hard to find coherent words to explain my relationship with jealousy, and I do not at all profess to be immune to it! I only hope that I can continue to address it head on, rather than suppress it and let it eat away at me.

On the topic of eating, food has become a crucial part of mentally surviving lockdown! George and I have been cherishing the opportunity to take longer to cook, to experiment with new recipes, and even new ingredients (if we can find them in the tightly controlled supermarkets). I know we’re not alone in this, and have heard stories of friends’ first homemade loaf of bread, experiments with pickling and fermentation, making pasta by hand and brewing beer at home. By cooking and eating more slowly, I think we are also showing our appreciation to nature, and re-assigning value to a ritual intrinsic to humanity.

Calçots, as I mentioned at the start, have been a magical little food discovery for the two of us. A type of green onion renowned in Catalonia, calçots are best cooked on an open fire. After letting them crisping up for five minutes, you peel the blackened outer skin off to reveal a sweet and juicy inner, which when dipped in romesco sauce, is absolutely delicious.

(images, left to right) Calçots in the garden, roasting over a fire, and ready for dipping in sauce.

The sauce, known as ‘Salsa de Calçots’, can be made at home with blanched almonds, hot peppers, garlic, tomatoes and olive oil, but we actually picked some up in the supermarket. A few nights this week, we’ve had the pleasure of cooking calçots like this, and not only do they taste incredible, but they’re messy, fun and super simple.

While it could sound ridiculous, small experiences like cooking fresh spring onions on an open fire have transcended into special, almost spiritual moments of communion for me. I believe we need these glimpses of normality and conviviality to survive what is an extreme and scary time.

As it sinks in that we could all be living like this for a while now, let’s not forget to look after ourselves and others. Rather than settle for judgement and jealousy, I am trying to equip myself with kindness and compassion, a choice inspired by the nurses and doctors, farmers and supermarket workers, respirator-makers and scrubs-sewers, soup kitchen volunteers and careworkers, newly-appointed homeschoolers and online mindfulness coaches.

These people give me hope.

#traveldiaries #SuziTheVan #BryonyandGeorge #digitalnomads #lifeinlockdown #covid-19 #coronavirus #estadodealarma #overlandadventures #vanlife #hiacevan #toyotahiace

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