As I've mentioned before, it's only stealing if you claim a drill as your own and fail to give attribution. In the firearms-training business, the good guys give credit and the bad guys steal drills, but we all use drills and training ideas that come from others. The 3-Second Drill is a good example. I heard of it from writer/trainer Rich Grassi, who saw a video of Safariland's Scott Carnahan demonstrating the drill. If you were to ask Carnahan he would probably tell you he got the drill from someone else—and so on and so on.
To run the 3-Second Drill you will need your pistol, 21 rounds of ammunition and the target of your choice. A steel target will work fine if you maintain a safe distance, or you can use a paper target with a center scoring area to start the drill up close, say at 3 yards. Have a training partner time you or use the self-timer function of an electronic shot timer. Start by drawing and firing one shot within 3 seconds. Next, draw and fire two shots within 3 seconds, then three shots within 3 seconds, followed by four, then five and six shots, each within the same 3-second window of time.
This sounds pretty simple, but there are some things you should bear in mind. You need a smooth, quick drawstroke to pull this off. If your draw isn't up to speed, don't push it until you have done sufficient dry practice. If you aren't comfortable running the drill from the holster, you can do it from a low-ready, muzzle-down, starting position. Thinking of each shot string as a separate drill will help you concentrate on getting your hits, and it goes without saying that a good grip, shooting stance, trigger press and proper use of the sights are necessary for success. If you're working from the holster, separating the six stages of the drill will help prevent you from speed holstering—that is, slamming the gun back in the holster—a dangerous practice that must be avoided. Make it a point to always holster slowly, reluctantly and carefully.
You can mix this drill up by shooting it at different ranges. If you're successful at 5 yards, for example, move back and try it again at 7 yards. You can shoot it with your training pistol, but should also run it with your carry gun shooting from concealment. Any time you change pistols or holsters you ought to run the 3-Second Drill again to assure yourself that all is well. Since the drill requires 21 rounds, you're going to be reloading at some point, possibly several times, so incorporate a speed reload when necessary as part of the drill.
Like many shooting-related things in life, the 3-Second Drill sounds easy, but it may be a little harder than it seems. However, if you can accomplish it with your carry pistol and ammunition, you're well on the way to mastering your defensive handgun.


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In This Article Language and Law
Social Science of Legal Language
Before and After the Trial
In Western, Non-Western, and (Post)colonial Contexts
Legal Texts, Materiality, and Meaning-Making
Humanities Scholarship of Legal Language
Legal Narrativity
Law, Rhetoric, and Theory
Legal Semiotics
Justin B. Richland, Anna Weichselbraun
The emergence since the 1970s of social scientific and humanistic studies of law that orient to its linguistic, discursive, and textual features has added both empirical and critical theoretical perspectives to a study of legal language that diverges dramatically from what once was the domain of technicians of legal text and rhetoric. Resonant with the "linguistic turn" of the social sciences and the "sociocultural turn" of humanities, researchers with backgrounds in sociology, anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, semiotics, and literature, among others, have converged around the structure and use of language and discourse in the expression and operation of the law. The earliest work in this area focused on the face-to-face interactions that constitute the legal process, including witness examination, judge-lawyer or judge-litigant exchanges, plea barging discourses, and even juror deliberation and lawyer-client interactions that happen out of public view. Much of it was conducted by social scientists and legal scholars taking seriously the main thesis of American legal realism, that law must be understood in the details of its actual processes, discursive or otherwise, and not just through the interpretive logics and internal histories of its legislative and judicial texts. More recently however, law and humanities scholars, as well as some social scientists, have returned to the language of legal texts, analyzing how their content is informed by narrative tropes from their sociocultural surround, but likewise by their materiality and mediation as documents, records, and files, of which the circulation between social actors figure importantly in law's making. While their different disciplinary commitments result in different positions on a variety of methodological concerns—i.e., the need for empirical data to support their claims, the possibility and necessity of posing larger critical and/or normative interventions, and/or the value of offering policy reform recommendations, among others—most of these studies nonetheless concur on a basic vision of language use as a medium not only for reference to, but fundamentally for construction of social realities and orders. Legal language is thus understood as a central mode for the exercise of social power through law, and, increasingly, a focus of inquiry that figures centrally in sociolegal studies that considers how law is always a hermeneutic and empirical phenomenon. What counts as legal language scholarship is necessarily broadly scoped, ever widening, and susceptible to varied opinions about how to delimit it. Legal language scholarship is taken here to be all analyses of law—from both the social sciences and the humanities—that suggest a commitment to understanding law's discursive and textual dimensions and their impact in shaping law's force in the world. In the following sections, provided first is a list of texts that offers an overview of law and language scholarship, then a section listing Journals dedicated to sociolinguistic, semiotic, and interpretive approaches to law. The article then presents organized additional key scholarship, according to its origins in social scientific or humanities disciplines, with subheadings in each of these sections as relevant to important themes in the law and language literature.
A number of works have been published that offer overviews of law and language scholarship. But, given the breadth of the field, and the productivity of its analytics, most of these overviews provide a view of only portions of this scholarship. Danet 1980 is perhaps the earliest overview of the emerging field of language and law scholarship, approaching the matter from a sociolinguistic perspective. Levi and Walker 1990 is an important early collection of chapters from many late-20th- and early-21st-century leaders in conversation analytic, linguistic anthropological, and forensic linguistic approaches to legal discourses. Mertz 1994 reflects its author's training as both a linguistic anthropologist and a law scholar with interests in critical theories of law and American legal realism, and also scholarship on the language of non-Western dispute discourses and dispute resolution processes. In the latter, the author follows up on the important review piece published in Brenneis 1988, which takes up the question of the language of disputing more broadly—in formal and informal settings, and in both Euro-American and non–Euro-American cultural contexts. This same period saw the publication of Shuy 1993, a volume reviewing how language is treated as evidence in criminal proceedings and the problems that often come with its misuse. Brooks and Gewirtz 1996 takes up the field of legal storytelling, reviewing it for its commitments to critical race, classical rhetorical, and literary theoretical takes on law. Two important volumes come from the University of Chicago Press's Series in Language and Legal Discourse: Conley and O'Barr 1998, and shortly thereafter, Solan and Tiersma 2005 (cited under Before and After the Trial). Both are introductions to language and law scholarship, with the former taking up scholarship that considers the microdetails of law's language practices as constitutive of law's social force, while the latter considers language practices in the contexts and content of criminal law and its administration. Other reviews have appeared that consider aspects of law's textualities, including Amsterdam and Bruner 2002 (cited under Legal Narrativity), an important study of narrativity in Supreme Court opinions; Solan's forensic linguistic study of statutory language (see Solan 2010, cited under Legal Texts, Materiality, and Meaning-Making); but also Hull 2012a and Mawani 2012 (both cited under Legal Texts, Materiality, and Meaning-Making) that consider the way documents, and documentation, figure in law's social force. Finally, Richland 2013 provides a recent overview of legal language scholarship, attempting to cast the net broadly to consider how early-21st-century work in the field reflects the growing interface between linguistic anthropology, actor-network theory, and legal narratology.
Brenneis, Donald. 1988. Language and disputing. Annual Review of Anthropology 17:221–237.
DOI: 10.1146/annurev.an.17.100188.001253E-mail Citation »
Combining legal anthropology and discourse-oriented linguistic anthropology, this essay offers an early take on analyzing Anglo-American courtroom language in the broader context of dispute interactions (both "legal" and nonlegal) from cultures across the globe. Provides a useful summary of methodological commitments of this literature—including the use of audio recording, transcription and its close analysis, and the reliance on public data.
Brooks, Peter, and Paul Gewirtz. 1996. Law's stories: Narrative and rhetoric in the law. New Haven, CT: Yale Law Review.
An edited volume from a leading scholar of law and literature (Brooks) and a law scholar interested in legal storytelling (Gewirtz), the volume considers the use of narrative and storytelling as elements of legal practice, and also the ways in which literature about law might offer insights into the hermeneutic dimensions of law. An important volume that is still cited for bringing law and literature scholarship in conversation with legal practice, and vice versa.
Conley, John M., and William M. O'Barr. 1998. Just words: Law, language, power. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
An overview of legal language scholarship that focuses on how power works through the law. The authors argue for combining macroanalytic Foucaultian understanding of discourse with a microlinguistic analysis of law talk in various contexts of use. Includes chapters on the "revictimization" of rape victims through witness examination, mediation interactions, natural history of disputes, discourses of law in cross-cultural perspective, and discourses of law in historical perspective. A second edition appeared in 2004.
Danet, Brenda. 1980. Language in the legal process. Law and Society Review 14.3: 445–564.
Introduces many of the normative, theoretical, and empirical themes that are developed later in the literature, including the role of legal language in the construction of social worlds, as a mode of legal power, the relationship between language form and use in law, and the effects and possibilities of reforming legal language.
Levi, Judith N., and Anne Graffam Walker, eds. 1990. Language in the judicial process. New York: Springer.
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4899-3719-3E-mail Citation »
An influential edited volume of which the contributors would go on to be leaders in law and language scholarship, including Susan Berk-Seligson, John M. Conley and William M. O'Barr, Douglas Maynard, and Austin Sarat. One of its chief strengths is showing the interdisciplinary spread of legal language scholarship, including sociolinguists, conversation analysts, linguistic anthropologists, legal academics, and forensic linguists.
Mertz, Elizabeth. 1994. Legal language: Pragmatics, poetics, and social power. Annual Review of Anthropology 23:435–455.
Review of scholarship on legal language, placing some of it in the context of linguistic-anthropological scholarship, especially around issues of performativity, (meta)pragmatics, and language ideology. Mertz also discusses studies of legal language from within the legal academic establishment, considering how the relationship between law, power, and language has been taken up by critical race theory and feminist legal studies.
Richland, Justin B. 2013. Jurisdiction: Grounding law in language. Annual Review of Anthropology 42:209–226.
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-092412-155526E-mail Citation »
Reviews legal language scholarship since Mertz 1994, with an eye toward theorizing the field through notions of Jurisdiction and Perpetuity—concepts borrowed from Anglo-American law and redeployed as a way of understanding how legal language specifically works to (re)produce law's legitimacy, authority, and power through specific metaphors of institutional space and time.
Shuy, Roger W. 1993. Language crimes: The use and abuse of language evidence in the courtroom. Oxford: Blackwell.
A benchmark work in the field of forensic linguistics by one of its leading voices, Shuy talks about how sociolinguistic approaches to language use can upend many of the assumptions about language and communication that tacitly inform how language evidence (such as taped conversations) are relied upon in criminal proceedings. The volume is a good combination of reflections from his own experiences as an expert witness and trenchant linguistic analysis. Reprinted in 1996.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Ţărmure may refer to several villages in Romania:

 Ţărmure, a village in Hălmagiu Commune, Arad County
 Ţărmure, a village in Sărmășag Commune, Sălaj County

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


what is the most important component of a tank without transport capacity ??? – the CANNON !!!!
of course i know, that there are different types of tanks existing. and depending on their function the cannon is not always that important as it is at a shadowsword.


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Arkansas Gov. and Legislature Locked in Fight Over Abortion Bans
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Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe (D).Winthrop Rockefeller Institute/Flickr
In Arkansas, Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe is finding himself at odds with an extreme anti-abortion legislature, vetoing one bill that would ban abortion at 12 weeks and another bill that bans them after 20 weeks. The Republican-controlled legislature overrode his veto on the 20-week ban last week, and will attempt to do so on the 12-week ban as well.
Beebe vetoed the 12-week ban, called Senate Bill 134, on Monday. The bill is "blatantly unconstitutional," Beebe said in a statement:
In short, because it would impose a ban on a woman's right to choose an elective, nontherapeutic abortion well before viability, Senate Bill 134 blatantly contradicts the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court. When I was sworn in as Governor I took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend both the Arkansas Constitution and the Constitution of the United States. I take that oath seriously.
Last week, Beebe vetoed House Bill 1037, a measure banning abortions after 20 weeks. But the legislature had enough votes to override his veto, making Arkansas the ninth state to impose this type of ban in the past three years. These bans contradict the Supreme Court's previous ruling that abortion should be legal up until the point that the fetus is viable—which is usually 24 weeks or later. (The Center for Reproductive Rights has filed suit against one of those laws in Arizona.)
But Arkansas' latest bill goes ever farther, and if the legislature overrides Beebe's veto, it will be the strictest ban in the country. "Lawmakers in Arkansas are placing women's lives on the line by passing the most severe ban on access to safe, legal medical care this country has seen in recent years," Talcott Camp, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a press release. "Nobody can predict what kinds of decisions a woman may have to make during a pregnancy, and it is outrageous for politicians to attempt to interfere in this serious and personal decision that a woman has to make with her family and her doctor."
Beebe isn't stridently pro-choice; NARAL Pro-Choice America says he has a "mixed" record. The main argument he gave for vetoing the 12-week ban is that it will cost the state a lot of money to defend the inevitable legal challenges. "The adoption of blatantly unconstitutional laws can be very costly to the taxpayers of our State," he said, noting that a 1999 case against a previous state abortion law cost the government $147,000 in legal fees. "Lawsuits challenging unconstitutional laws also result in the losing party—in this case, the State—being ordered to pay the costs and attorneys' fees incurred by the litigants who successfully challenge the law. Those costs and fees can be significant."
Arkansas Accepts Medicaid Expansion, But Not Via Medicaid
Arkansas Advances Anti-Abortion "Heartbeat" Bill
Arkansas Moves to Limit Abortion Access
Arkansas School Board Facebooker: Gays Should Die
Kristina Rizga


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Articles Home » Fan Activity » An Afternoon with Josette Simon - October 2016
An Afternoon with Josette Simon - October 2016
An Afternoon with Josette Simon, OBE
The Lost Theatre, Wandsworth
Sunday 2nd October 2016
On 14th September, Ian Kubiak announced the sensational news that Josette Simon would appear in the first of Cygnus Alpha's new intimate 'Afternoons With...'. This was a rare opportunity to meet Josette and hear her speak about her career and charity work, but with only six weeks between the announcement and the event itself, many of her fans were unable to go. Despite this, it was a very successful afternoon. Funds were raised for the Alzheimer's Society, and the raffle of a teleport bracelet raised a further £100 for Parkinson's UK. Those of us who were lucky enough to go had a wonderful time, and we hope Josette will appear at future events.
Report by Susan Bowden
Dayna Mellanby sated her curiosity with a kiss in her first encounter with Kerr Avon. The envy of every woman in the country? Well, it didn't stop me liking the young weapons expert who would soon become a member of the Liberator crew. I admired the character and hoped to meet the actress – but as time went by, glimpsing a dodo in my local shopping centre seemed more likely than ever encountering Ms Simon at a convention.
I took a break from Blake's 7 in the late '90s and will always regret missing out on unique events. Ian Kubiak's announcement of 'An Afternoon with Josette Simon' meant I had to find a way to attend the Lost Theatre on Sunday 2nd October. I didn't want this to be a lost opportunity.
Selling all the tickets within a six week time frame wasn't going to be easy. And on the day there wasn't a massive queue outside the theatre - the same venue as Cygnus Alpha 1. But it did mean we all had great seats.
There were quite a few familiar faces at the event, with a tangible buzz of excitement amongst the audience at the thought of meeting Josette Simon. Travisina, Mistletoe Minor and I were joined by Anniew, with Mr Olag and the Supreme Commander rounding out those representing Horizon.
The day's schedule followed the same format as previous Cygnus Alpha events, and included a photoshoot, an interview with Josette and an autograph session.
Everyone commented on Josette's beauty; her stunning good looks are seemingly timeless. I admit to feeling a bit nervous. I'd never met her and wasn't sure what to expect. But her smile is instantly recognisable; she exchanged pleasantries with everyone and looked relaxed throughout the photoshoot.
Ian had clearly done his homework and it showed throughout his interview with Josette. Her fascinating career includes television, film and stage, even though she didn't originally have any plans to become an actress.
Josette described herself as having been a shy child; head down at the back of the class, with a "Don't look at me" expression on her face. Her decision to attend drama school came following performances in the chorus of Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. A slow realisation; she knew it was what she wanted to do. It probably didn't hurt that the late Alan Rickman, obviously recognising her potential, told her she should pursue acting.
Josette touched on her film career, recalling the meticulous research she undertook in order to play Dr. Ramphele in the 1997 film, Cry Freedom. She talked a bit about Richard Attenborough; how he called everyone 'darling' and 'luvvie' on set because he couldn't remember their names.
Josette mentioned her preference for guest roles, rather than a long-running part, in television series such as the hospital drama Casualty. And during a discussion about Death in Paradise, she and everyone in the theatre agreed that filming in the Caribbean is infinitely preferable to a location shoot in Peckham.
Moving on to talking about her stage career, Josette admitted to finding Shakespeare dry at school. She learned to appreciate it while studying at the Central School of Speech and Drama, but was told that she wasn't likely to be cast in leading Shakespearean roles. This warning wasn't issued because she lacked passion and talent… it was all down to her skin colour. Josette is an advocate of colour-blind casting and she certainly didn't allow outdated ideas to deter her from becoming a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Josette explained the RSC process: if you do well in a minor role, you move up a level and are offered a slightly bigger role, which leads to moving up another level, and should all go well, you will eventually (hopefully) be offered a leading role. Happily this happened with Josette in 1985 when she played the lead role of Rosalie in Love's Labour's Lost.
During her interview with Ian, Josette revealed she will be playing Cleopatra in the RSC's production of Antony and Cleopatra from March 2017. The show will run for seven months at Stratford-upon-Avon before transferring to London for a further six months. Josette will have a say in casting, and during the audience Q & A session, Anniew asked who would be her Antony (a question I whispered into her ear.) And although Josette told us she hasn't yet made a decision – the actor will have to be available for the full run – I couldn't resist asking if she had someone in mind.
"Yes," she replied. She has a list of possible leading men! We were obviously waiting for her to divulge names from her list, so she added with a smile, "but I'm not going to tell you here today."
I'm really looking forward to the production – it will be a real treat to watch her in Antony and Cleopatra.
Josette further talked about a future guest role in a TV series; so secret she couldn't reveal what it was to anyone. But if I had to guess, I would take a stab at Broadchurch. Mostly because she described how the scripts for this 'secret show' were watermarked and thrown away once they completed filming.
While Josette's principle reason for attending Sunday's interview was to highlight the Alzheimer's Society, she was more than happy to discuss her time on B7. She talked about Dayna as a role model; it wasn't about colour or gender – Dayna was simply a skilled crew member.
Josette spoke about how the cast were all great friends: as the youngest addition to the cast, she recalled Paul Darrow's paternal protectiveness as well as his renowned teasing, while Jaqueline Pearce, a far cry from the manipulative Servalan, was always maternal towards Josette.
She talked about some of the costumes Dayna wore, preferring the practical jumpsuits to the more flimsy outfits. She also spoke about her memories of filming Moloch. The actors couldn't stop laughing at the puppet and were reprimanded with the words: "Yes, it was funny the first time, but can we get back to work now?" As we know, they never did manage to keep straight faces, and the original scene had to be adapted accordingly.
Josette does believe Dayna died in the final episode, but had the BBC commissioned a fifth series, in line with Chris Boucher writing in anyone who wished to return to the show, then depending on work commitments, she would have liked to resume playing Dayna in Blake's 7.
Contrary to comments she's read on social media which accuse her of snubbing her role as Dayna and her time on Blake's 7 since the show ended in 1981, Josette explained that she doesn't like to revisit previous projects – she prefers to "keep moving forward." Her philosophy is "Do something that scares you."
Ian asked Josette about working at Big Finish on their Doctor Who audios. There were those in the audience who were pleased to hear that she's recorded a second audio, this time with Tom Baker, in a title yet to be released. Naturally, this led to the question: 'Would you consider resuming your role as Dayna in their Blake's 7 audio range?'
I held my breath, already knowing the answer but hoping, somehow, here at the theatre, there would be a different response. But no, she won't be returning to her role as Dayna; she's quite adamant about that. But with the addendum, "Never say never." It's a tiny grain of hope, perhaps!
I can't pretend it didn't leave me disappointed. Having the original Dayna on any future B7 All Cast releases from Big Finish would be wonderful. I would also very much like to hear a story that focuses on Avon and Dayna following the events in Aftermath - exploring through the medium of audio what I still regard as their paternal/big brother relationship.
Why doesn't Josette attend conventions? Well, she did talk briefly about her reasons. I feel her ideas about conventions have been a bit misguided. She believes people at events want her to stay in character as Dayna.
Josette is involved in extensive charity work, some of which she discussed with Ian during her interview. She raises awareness and funds and has participated in memory walks. "Memory Walk sees thousands of people raising money for a world without dementia across England, Wales and Northern Ireland." Memorywalk.org.uk
Josette's mother suffered from Alzheimer's, and speaking poignantly about dealing with the debilitating illness, she reminded us that everybody has a story – someone slowly counting change at the supermarket check-out could be living with a dementia-related illness. Showing patience rather than 'tutting' may make all the difference to somebody who's already feeling confused.
Explaining her reasons for becoming involved with several deaf charities, Josette told us about her friend's son who was born deaf. She decided to learn sign language because she wanted to communicate with him. Josette is an accomplished signer who is qualified to teach – which she demonstrated on Sunday - patiently instructing an audience member to introduce himself using sign language.
Josette engages with her audience, she's inspiring and compelling. At the end of the interview, everyone in the theatre gave her a standing ovation. And because we'd listened avidly to her signing tutorial, we were further able to thank her in sign language, waving our hands in the air for silent applause.
A short break at this point gave us the chance to buy refreshments, whilst indulging in everyone's favourite convention pastimes: talking, laughing and cringing at their pictures from the photoshoot. It should be noted that Josette looked amazing in all of them.
The autograph session followed, and happy to chat as she personalised photos, books and memorabilia, Josette signed with the same friendliness she'd shown throughout the afternoon. I told her I admired her work with the Alzheimer's Society and chatted a bit about how much I liked Dayna. I made sure I passed on everybody's good wishes, explaining how many would have liked to meet her but couldn't make it today. She asked me to return her best wishes to all at Horizon.
Ian Kubiak and his team should be justifiably proud of what they accomplished. I believe the event at the Lost theatre benefited from having fewer attendees than at Cygnus Alpha. We probably numbered around forty in total. Everything ran smoothly with coordinated organisation, and Ian's interview with Josette was probably his best to date. I will look forward to attending more of his planned 'Afternoon with...' events.
Josette Simon is amazing, beautiful and has a great sense of humour. She couldn't have been more accommodating. I admire her passion, honesty, kindness and dedication. Thirty-six plus years since Dayna Mellanby first graced our TV screens, I can honestly say it was worth the wait to meet such a talented and classy lady.
Mr Olag had to leave to catch his train, but a few of us rounded off the afternoon with hot drinks at Waterloo station. It's always a pleasure to sit and talk with friends about Blake's 7 and this was a lovely way to complete a truly brilliant day.
Report by Anne Worrall
Travelling by train to a Blakes 7 event is the perfect preparation for it. Steel gantries give way to scrubland, iron sheds with rotating protuberances on their roofs hint at strange science, warehouses clad with opalescent plastic wink in intermittent sunshine and cupolas suddenly thrust themselves into the sky: the unmistakable B7 environmental mix of deserted places, industrial, classic (early maniac) and modern architecture and corrugated metal. Relating the landscape to scenes from the series racks up my excitement that Dayna will be waiting to greet me at the end of my journey and I'll meet the real, flesh and blood person who created the role.
There she is: Josette Simon - even more beautiful than she was thirty odd years ago - gracefully arranged in a red chair. No sooner have I muttered, "Age shall not wither her," than it's announced that she will be playing Cleopatra for the Royal Shakespeare Company next year!
And what an infinite variety of experiences her interview with Ian Kubrick reveals:
The first thing Josette tells us is that she had no intention of being an actress. She planned to go to University to study languages. As a child she was shy and intensely private and spent spent much of her time quietly observing others from the back of the classroom - she was about as undramatic as you could get. Then a friend persuaded her to go with her to an audition for a role in the chorus for Joseph and the Amazing Coloured Dreamcoat. They were both accepted and for the first time she performed on stage and enjoyed the experience. The show was revived over several seasons and she continued to perform in it alongside Alan Rickman who became a dear friend. We can thank him for suggesting to her that she should make acting her career. But she still resisted until, in her final year at school, she suddenly knew that it was all she wanted to do. Despite the protests of her parents and Headteacher, she applied for and obtained a place at the Central School for Speech and Drama.
I was surprised to learn that Josette was still at drama school when she played Dayna, and shocked when she told us that the head of the school informed her that being black would be an obstacle to obtaining the leading classic roles she dreamed of acting. Thank goodness times have changed. Fortunately, she didn't let the warning deter her, and over the years the quality of her work has been recognised and she is now a respected leading actress with companies like the RSC. She sees herself as an actress who is black, rather than as a black actress, and expects to to get work because she is right for the production, not because of her ethnicity.
Ian then led Josette to talk about her performance in the film Cry Freedom, in which she was controversially cast by Sir Richard Attenborough as Dr. Mamphela Ramphele. Black South Africans were up in arms because she was a British born actress, but she researched the role thoroughly to do it justice and her performance mollified them. It was fascinating to hear Josette's views on this controversy. While she acknowledged it would have been ideal to cast a South African in the part, she explained that getting the right balance of actors in a piece is essential if a film is to work, so it isn't always possible. In the course of this exchange she also revealed that Sir Richard became another close friend and the amusing insight that he only called people ''darling'' because he had an exceptionally poor memory for names.
Encouraged to talk about her career in popular programmes, Josette admitted to loving her stint on Casualty because Frances Liveley was a strong female role. Death in Paradise was great because she got to visit the Caribbean and also to be Don Warrington's worst nightmare. Merlin was her first experience in acting against green screen. Her appearance in the show impressed her daughter, because following the transmission of her episode, she was mobbed at the school gates for her autograph.
We also learned that Josette has strong views on how Shakespeare should be taught in school. She hates classroom dissection of scenes; she believes they must be acted to be understood. She is proud that the BBC children's version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which she played Titania, was not dumbed down. Every word spoken was written by Shakespeare, yet it was still an accessible production. Josette obviously has a penchant for strong female roles, and we can see her Cleopatra, (the ultimate in strong female roles, except, possibly, that of Supreme Commander), in Stratford-upon-Avon in March 2017 and later in London. Her Antony is yet to be cast.
Ian then moved on to ask Josette about her contributions to various charities, particularly the Alzheimer's Society. They revealed that each of them had a parent affected by the disease. The popular phrase, "suffering from Alzheimer's" is, they agreed, a misnomer. It's not something the suffer endures but a life-changing illness that they live with daily. Although the popular perception is that it's all about memory loss, in fact it cruelly twists perceptions. For example, a black mat outside a supermarket may be perceived as a deep hole, and crossing it becomes impossible for someone with the condition. Josette's mother saw the swirly patterns on the family carpet as snakes and and for the rest of her life felt the same terror as if they had been real. We were urged to remember these examples and to be a little more patient if we encountered someone with Alzheimer's.
Josette, we discovered, is also a patron of Life and Deaf, having learned sign language in order to communicate with her best friend's little boy. She went on to master it up to NVQ level 3 so they could talk in depth as he got older. One attendee was given a master class in basic signing and, either because of Josette's superior teaching or his ability to learn, quickly mastered how to sign his name!
Altogether, Josette is a patron of five societies. Her OBE is not only deserved but hard won.
Blakes 7
Then, just as I was beginning to resign myself that Blakes 7 was off the agenda, Ian brought the conversation round to her time on the show and addressed every question we fans have been asking for the past thirty years!
He began by asking whether, as is often reported, Josette was ashamed of her time on the show. Her reply was a natural and immediate denial. She told us that she had loved being Dayna and was proud of her work on Blakes 7. It was very good fun.
Was it true that there had been friction between various cast members? Was this why she avoided conventions? Again, Josette's reply was immediate: this was not true at all. They had been a close, happy group. As the youngest, she had felt protected; Paul and Jacqueline had acted like parents. Well, not so much Paul, she admitted. She had been very naive and he had teased her a lot. But Jacqueline was very motherly. Josette had only happy memories of that time.
So why doesn't she go to conventions? This of course was the $64,000 question. The one we all wanted answered.
Josette reminded us that she had attended two conventions after the show finished, but she hadn't enjoyed them. She felt that she was required 'to be Dayna' all day, and had found this tiring. As we all suppressed the urge to assure her that it wasn't Dayna we had queued up to see, she told us that she is as intensely private today as she was as a child, and I for one felt that this was a more likely explanation. Being Dayna, rather than herself, would have provided camouflage and ensured that she didn't let slip anything she would prefer to keep private, but it would also have been exhausting.
While we digested this disappointing news, Ian questioned Josette about her work for Big Finish. Could we at least hope she would reprise Dayna for them? Again, disappointment.
Josette loves working for the company Big Finish - their lunches are legendary - and she enjoyed contributing to two Dr Who adventures, one with Paul McGann and one with Tom Baker. But she does not want to play Dayna again. As far as she is concerned, that is over for her, and returning to the role would not provide the creative challenge she is looking for.
Then, a ray of hope. Perhaps moved by our piteous groaning, she did promise she would never say that she would never play Dayna again.
Buoyed by this, we listened attentively as Josette reminisced more about her time on the show. Quarries (she reckons they must have gone to every quarry in England) and being cold all the time were vividly recalled. She also remembers that they were all very naughty and got told off a lot - particularly for laughing helplessly at some of the monsters they encountered.
Here Josette gave an affectionate account of meeting Moloch (we think) but as she mixed him up with the Kairopan eating spider and seemed to place the encounter in Dorian's cave, it was difficult to be certain! Further questions from Ian and the audience revealed that her memories of the show are warm but a little hazy. Of course she was very young when she did Blake's 7 and hasn't revisited it at any point since the 1980s, so it's understandable.
We also discovered that Josette hadn't watched any of season one and two before being cast in the show, because she doesn't really like science fiction. The episode Blake was a shock to the cast when they realised they were all going to die, and yes, as far as she's concerned, Dayna did die in the tracking gallery - in fact, as far as she's concerned, they all died. She didn't know that Chris Boucher said that if the series had been renewed, he would have resurrected any cast member willing to return. She would probably have returned for another season if she'd been asked.
Curse you, BBC, for not commissioning that fifth series!
All too soon, the interview was over and it was time for autographs. And how patient and welcoming Josette was as she signed our pictures, books, CDs; home at last among her fans.
Thank you Ian Kubiak, for organising such a super afternoon. Your organisation was faultless, your team efficient and helpful, the interview wonderful.
Thank you Josette, for being such a lovely guest.
We stood, we clapped, we waved our hands in the air to demonstrate our love and appreciation.
Back on the train, as the Blakes 7 landscapes were slowly swallowed up by the encroaching dark, I hoped that Josette had taken as much pleasure as I had from the interview. I was disappointed, of course, that she isn't itching to play Dayna again and keep the character alive, but I understood her decision. It chimes with her life motto: "Always choose the most frightening path." Playing Dayna again would not provide a big enough challenge - though perhaps if she had been more strongly characterised, Josette might have been more keen to return to her.
I just hope that she agrees to do another intimate signing and interview some time in the near future, so that more of you get a chance to meet her.
She really is a very special human being.
Photos of Josette at event by Diane Gies
Josette in Loves Labours Lost and Merchant of Venice by Reg Wilson and Joe Cocks, copyright RSC
Josette as Dayna copyright BBC
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Audio	/ Intercom / Talkback / products
Clear-Com Debuts 2.4GHZ Freespeak II Wireless Intercom
September 6th 2015 - 09:00 AM
Clear-Com Freespeak II intercom.
First presentation of 2.4GHz and 1.9GHz versions in Europe, demonstrating expanded level of flexibility and production coverage.
Since its release, the Clear-Com FreeSpeak II 1.9GHz system has proven to be an exceptional wireless intercom for large-scale broadcasts and live productions.Today, FreeSpeak II is being used by broadcasters and in live stage performances such as Television Galicia, UK's BBC Northern Ireland, Spain's Telecinco and Broadway's Tony award-winning Best Musical, The Lion King.
Given the success of the 1.9GHz system, Clear-Com now introduces the 2.4GHz version to meet market demands from many countries where the 1.9GHz band is prohibited for use. FreeSpeak II 2.4GHz offers identical capabilities as the 1.9GHz, and can operate as a standalone or an integrated wireless intercom solution with Clear-Com's Eclipse HX matrix system.
Although the FreeSpeak II 2.4GHz version uses a separate yet similar set of beltpacks and transceiver antennas compared to the 1.9GHz version, the same base station or integrated matrix solution can co-operate with a mix of 1.9GHz and 2.4GHz beltpacks and antennas; thus increasing both the quantity of wireless users and cell roaming area.
Super Bowl to Use IP and Network-Based Audio
Every Super Bowl is a showcase of the latest broadcast technology, whether video or audio. For the 53rd Super Bowl broadcast, CBS Sports will use almost exclusively IP and network-based audio.
The Far-Reaching Benefits of IP-based Audio Stageboxes
Networked modular audio stageboxes have been around for a while and were hailed as a convenient alternative to clunky snakes and the huge patch bays that came with them. Unlike analog stage- and wallboxes, which usually only transmit signals to…
Audio Over IP - Making It Work - Part 3
Multicasting is an incredibly powerful tool used in broadcast infrastructures to efficiently distribute streams of audio, video, and metadata. In this article, we look at the advantages of multicasting, how it works, and the alternatives that overcome some of its…
Thomas Riedel On IP Networking and Intercom Developments
Riedel is best known for its expertise in intercoms, but in the last decade the company has diversified into media networks with the MediorNet products. The company's products are found at prestigious events from Formula One motor racing to t…
The Benefits of Remote Production for Live Events
The live events industry has grown dramatically. Driven by audiences for smaller sports, new viewing behavior and the opportunity for new revenue. As broadcasters face increasing competition from new media players such as OTT distribution and streaming, both stations and…
Germany's Lanxess Arena Expands Riedel Intercoms To Support Multiple Live Events
Telos Infinity IP Intercom Used at Lollapalooza Brazil
Riedel Brings New Artist Intercom To InfoComm 2019
Riedel Creates Unified Signal Transport For Denmark-Based Fjord Film
Riedel Offers New Node With 1024 Non-Blocking Ports In A 2 RU Package


The main objective of this work was prediction of the moisture content of papaw during hot air-drying in a cabinet dryer using both mathematical and GMDH (group method of data handling). The influence of air temperatures (40, 50 and 60°C) and fruit slices thickness (3, 5, 7 mm) on moisture ratio were investigated. Exactly 50% of the data points were used for training and 50% for testing. Furthermore, eight well-known empirical models were subjected to experimental data for modeling of the drying process. The determination coefficient (R2 ) and root mean square error (RMSE) computed for the GMDH model were 0.9960 and 0.0220. Among the empirical models considered, the Two terms model, was found to be more suitable for predicting drying of papaw fruit slices with the values of R2 =0.9974 and RMSE=0.0123. Thus, it was deduced that the estimation of moisture content of papaw fruit could be modelled by GMDH method as good as the best empirical models.


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Mystery Ailment Killing Endangered Pelicans Hundreds of California Brown Pelicans from Baja to Washington state have been found dead or sick far from their coastal home. One pelican was found in New Mexico, wandering in the snow at an elevation of 7,000 feet.
Mystery Ailment Killing Endangered Pelicans
Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/99421698/99482973" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
January 19, 20092:52 PM ET
Gloria Hillard
Pelicans recover at the International Bird Rescue and Research Center in San Pedro, Calif. Cynthia Hurley For NPR hide caption
Cynthia Hurley For NPR
Pelicans recover at the International Bird Rescue and Research Center in San Pedro, Calif.
Handler Neil Uelman checks out a recovering pelican at the rehabilitation center. Cynthia Hurley For NPR hide caption
Handler Neil Uelman checks out a recovering pelican at the rehabilitation center.
Rehabilitation manager Julie King examines a bird at the center. Cynthia Hurley for NPR hide caption
Rehabilitation manager Julie King examines a bird at the center.
The International Bird Rescue And Research Center
If you see a bird in distress, call the injured bird hotline: 1-866-WILD911
They're a familiar sight along the California coast — birds with 6-foot wingspans gliding in a V formation above the ocean. But something is happening to the California Brown Pelican. Hundreds are dying, and wildlife rescuers don't know why.
As volunteers Dave Weeshoff and Bob Beckler approach a small flock at a fishing pier in San Pedro — a popular hangout for the pelicans — most of the long-necked birds gently take to the air. Not all of them, though. Those are the ones Weeshoff and Beckler are looking for.
One pelican floats in the water looking distressed. Weeshoff drapes a small white sheet over the bird to calm it. As he picks up the pelican, it looks as though he's holding a small child in a Halloween ghost costume. He carefully folds the bird into a carrier.
"He's hungry," Weeshoff says. "He's skinny, no kidding. He ate a couple of pieces before I caught him; I don't think it's enough."
Symptoms Without A Cause
At the International Bird Rescue and Research Center in San Pedro, they've taken in more than 45 ailing pelicans in the past two weeks. Rehabilitation manager Julie King and her staff have been working around the clock trying to save them.
"The symptoms they've been coming in with are a general weakness," King says. "They've been starving, emaciated, dehydrated and a little bit disoriented."
In previous years, she says, the endangered pelicans have been plagued with domoic acid poisoning, a neurotoxin found in algae blooms. But that doesn't seem to be the primary cause of the current decline.
"Generally, birds that come in with domoic acid poisoning have some fairly severe neurological symptoms, which none of the birds are exhibiting — other than disorientation," King says.
Initial blood and tissue tests have shown trace amounts of domoic acid, but researchers believe it may be playing a secondary role to a larger problem. What that larger problem is, they don't yet know. Meanwhile, hundreds of birds from Baja to Washington state have been found dead or sick far from their coastal home. One pelican was found in New Mexico, wandering in the snow at an elevation of 7,000 feet.
Survival Is Hard Enough
The federal government wants to remove the bird from the endangered species list, but wildlife rescuers say that's a mistake. Even without a mysterious ailment, Weeshoff says, the majestic birds have a hard time surviving.
"Every day, we see fish hooks," he says. "Almost every day, we see gun shots, pellet guns, BB guns, that sort of thing. Monofilament fishing line. So there's just a lot of different pressures on these birds in terms of being able to survive out in the wild."
For now, the pelicans that are rehabilitating in the center's large aviary and water pool are the lucky ones. These birds, King says, are showing signs of improvement.
"That we'll actually be able to release the ones we have is definitely our biggest hope," King says. "Our main goal is always to do what we can for them as quickly as we can and [send] them back into the environment."


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Go to Ammon and Moab
By Daniel Gordis • Monday, February 25, 2013
3 Comments E-mail Print
Between the Jewish holidays of the fall, on the one hand, and those of the spring and summer, on the other, lie two additional holidays which seemingly have nothing to do with each other: Hanukkah and Purim. Despite their many obvious differences, Hanukkah and Purim share a number of characteristics. They are the two primary post-biblical holidays, nowhere even hinted at in the Torah. And in terms of their political implications, they are opposite sides of the same coin. One focuses on Jewish survival through the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem; the other focuses on the challenges of Jewish survival in the Diaspora. Thus, both raise the critical question of why the Jewish people still survives, when so many other ancient peoples have disappeared.
Purim is therefore an appropriate time to consider a delightful rabbinic passage that reflects on the challenges involved in surviving without sovereignty. It suggests how land and nation, so completely interwoven in contemporary Zionist thought, were seen as inextricably linked long ago, when the restoration of Jewish sovereignty was but a dream.
As the biblical Book of Esther (1:10-15) relates,
On the seventh day, when the king was merry with wine, he commanded . . . the seven eunuchs who ministered to King Ahasuerus, to bring Queen Vashti before the king wearing the crown royal, to show the peoples and the princes her beauty; for she was very beautiful. But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's command . . . ; the king was incensed, and his fury burned within him. Then the king said to the wise men, who knew the times . . . What shall be done to Queen Vashti for failing to obey the command of King Ahasuerus?
For the rabbis, this passage was an invitation to interpret; in the talmudic tractate which deals with Purim (Megillah 12b), we find the following:
"And the king said to the wise men." Who are the wise men? — The Rabbis. "Who knew the times": that is, who knew how to intercalate years and fix new moons. He said to them: Try her for me. They said [to themselves]: What shall we do? If we tell him to put her to death, to-morrow he will become sober again and he will require her from us. Shall we tell him to let her go? She will lose all her respect for royalty. So they said to him: From the day when the Temple was destroyed and we were exiled from our land, wisdom has been taken from us and we do not know how to judge capital cases. Go to Ammon and Moab who have remained in their places like wine that has settled on its lees. They spoke to him thus with good reason, since it is written (Jeremiah 48:11): "Moab hath been secure from his youth, and he is settled on his lees, and has not been poured from vessel to vessel, neither has he gone into exile. Therefore his fine flavor has remained, and his bouquet is unspoiled."
It is a playful passage. The rabbis, who are mere subjects of idolatrous Babylonian rulers, use this passage from the Book of Esther to allow themselves a flight of fancy. Like children who imagine themselves as sports heroes or the president, the rabbis ask, "Who were those wise men with whom the King consulted?" "Us!" they insist. "We, the rabbis, are those to whom Ahasuerus turned." In their reverie, they have become insiders in the king's court, valued for their counsel. They based this, in part, on the somewhat obscure phrase "who knew the times." What does the Bible mean when it says that the king's advisors were men who "knew the times?" It means, the rabbis imagined, those who knew how calculate the dates of the Jewish calendar year. And who was that? The rabbis, of course.
But the rabbis don't allow themselves to daydream for long. So fear-filled are Jewish lives that even their reveries are littered with the dangers that life regularly forced them to confront.
The king is furious with Vashti, who humiliated him by refusing to appear in his court (the rabbis explain her refusal by assuming that he had wanted her to appear naked), and now must decide how to deal with her. So he turns to his new trusted advisors, the rabbis, and asks them what to do. The request for counsel scares them, for the king's request for advice draws them into an impossibly dangerous situation. If they suggest that he pardon Vashti, he may think that they have impugned the authority of the throne. If they suggest that he execute her, however, what will happen to them when the drunkard Ahasuerus sobers up and asks for the Queen?
The rabbis, therefore, have to escape the very predicament their reverie has created. Having imagined a world in which they have insinuated themselves into the king's court, they now have to escape from it. To do that, ironically, they must disparage themselves and suggest that the king turn to the Moabites, synonymous in biblical parlance with implacable enemies of the Jews. And why do the rabbis suggest the Moabites? Because unlike the Jews, Moab has never been exiled from its land. Like a fine wine which has aged on its lees, Moab has not moved for eternity. Exiled from their ancestral homeland to Babylonia, the Jews are not a fine wine. They are a cheap version, no longer able to adjudicate capital cases. If the king wants real experts, he ought to turn to Moab, their mortal enemies.
It's a charming tale, but also a devastatingly self-deprecating one. The emotional need for an adolescent reverie in which one genuinely matters is itself a sign that maturity and self-confidence are either yet to come or already lost. But to then be terrified of the very imaginary world one has created is even worse. And, finally, to escape that artificial world by granting your mortal enemy the coveted position you just imagined for yourself makes the entire affair even more demeaning.
This rabbinic tale, though, is no mere child's play. It is, in its own way, derivative of an ancient Jewish political philosophic tradition which, like modern nation-state theory, argues that the ideal for human beings is one in which peoples disperse "by their lands, each with their language, their claims, and their nations." (Gen 10:5) The rabbis are painfully aware that even the most alluring of fantasies of power and normalcy, as long as Jews are bereft of sovereignty, will remain just that—fantasy. Exile, by its nature, robs them of ethnic authenticity. Genuine peoplehood requires homeland and sovereignty; even the powers of reverie can do nothing to change that basic facet of the human condition.
In typical rabbinic fashion, however, this sobering rabbinic fantasy cannot help but close with a redeeming glimmer of hope. In offering Moab as substitute adjudicators, the rabbis have injected Moab into the very peril from which they had to extricate themselves. Now Moab will have to deal with the king's wrath, whether they pardon Vashti or execute her. Moab will meet the nasty end that the rabbis barely avoided.
The rabbis even cite a biblical basis for this prediction. The very chapter of Jeremiah which asserts that Moab has "settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel," foretells a very different end for Moab:
On all the rooftops of Moab and in its squares, there is nothing but lamentation; for I have broken Moab like a vessel no one wants, declares the Lord. . . . Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, because he hath magnified himself against the Lord. (Jeremiah 48:38, 42)
Even in depths of the Jews' exile, to which no end was in sight, the rabbinic tradition could not help but imagine a day in which the enemies of the Jews would be subdued and the Jewish people would return, sovereign, to its ancestral homeland. Their fundamental political claim, that ethnicity and its culture can best thrive in what today is called the ethnic nation-state, is out of vogue today. The awarding of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union is perhaps the most obvious reflection of this contemporary disposition.
Holidays like Hanukkah and Purim, despite appearances to the contrary, are anything but child's play. They are serious and political, and ought to be seen as persistent, annual rejoinders to the implicit dismissive attitude to the nation-state so common today. They are, in fact, also reminders that the political worldview at the heart of Zionism, marginalized precisely because of its abiding insistence on the link between ethnicity and territory, is not nearly as new in Jewish consciousness as many people like to suggest.
The rabbis of the Talmud would not be in the least bit surprised that precisely because of its renewed sovereignty, the Jewish people can now dream with a self-confidence that the rabbis themselves could scarcely imagine.
Daniel Gordis is Senior Vice President and Koret Distinguished Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.
Tags: Babylonia, Bible, Book of Esther, Diaspora, Ethnicity, Exile, Hanukkah, nation-state, nationalism, Persia, Purim, Rabbinic Age, Rabbis, Redemption, Religion, Talmud, Temple, Zionism
jacquesb on February 25, 2013 at 7:58 am (Reply)
Nations (complex concept) will never vanish except if all the Idioms vanish on the planet...
idiom structures the Group which drifted it from Ur Sprache der Mensheit: the basis of human language which is an evoluting system by excellence.....
EU Nobem is a childish kidding event....
Bible doesn't tell us that the Mankind or the Humans will assemble under Mount Zion at Messiah's Time but the NATIONS.....
People who vanished forgot abandoned their Idiom and their Faith, whatever the cause and the good reason of it.
India China Germanic Latins didn't even if they changed their minds in faith (Iberics becoming speaking low Latin and Making their Spanish.)
Jess became Nationalists when Nationlism became out of date and unwished after WWII...Paradox. But EU remains as Germany Austria CZech France and so on...forn ever so far...Not a Christmas british one color jelly cake....
Albert Eisen on February 25, 2013 at 1:19 pm (Reply)
RE: The rabbis of the Talmud would not be in the least bit surprised that precisely because of its renewed sovereignty, the Jewish people can now dream with a self-confidence that the rabbis themselves could scarcely imagine.
Albert's comment:
The Palestinian Mullahs are in the same position now, as the Jewish Rabbis then, and showing all the signs of the same tenacity.
Jeff on March 3, 2013 at 4:51 pm (Reply)
This article is a combination of hubristic ignorance, lack of sophistication, transparent projection, and ridiculous anachrocentrism.
On what basis does the author so glibly dismiss the idea that the Babylonian king had Jewish counselors? It seems fairly clear from contemporary sources that he actually did (a phenomenon that has been consistent in kingdoms and empires for millenia. The rabbis of the talmud are childish daydreamers? Seriously?
The one with an evidently "emotional need for an adolescent reverie in which one genuinely matters" is the author.


Kenya's legendary footballer and a longtime supporter of Manchester United Joe Kadenge outside Old Trafford Stadium.
Football legend Joe Kadenge has suffered stroke and is currently admitted at Nairobi Hospital.
The former Maragoli United, Abaluhya FC and Harambee Stars play maker, commonly remembered by the 'Kadenge na mpira' slogan, was rushed to hospital early in the morning where relatives, friends and football enthusiasts are already flocking to wish him well.
According to his son Rodgers Kadenge, the legend who initially had health problems, had been enjoying good health of late until suffering the stroke.
"He started showing signs of suffering stroke on Tuesday and it must have been triggered by the death of my sister Everlyne who passed on in the US on Saturday," Rodgers told People Sports.
Kadenge played for Maragoli United, and scored the fastest ever goal in the Kenyan Premier League. He also played club football for Abaluhya United, winning the Kenyan Premier League in 1966.


One of my best friends is from Mexico and went to culinary school in Mexico City. She met her husband when he was an exchange student staying with her family. They later married and she moved to Texas where my family is from. I met Maria when she and her husband opened a Mexican restaurant near where we lived. It was some of the best food I've ever had in my life and over the next several years Maria taught me most of what I know about cooking. Texas summers are stifling and we would spend the time at her husband's family ranch house talking and cooking while drinking horchata (sweetened, spiced rice milk), jamaica (hibiscus tea), or tequila.
One thing I love about Mexican food is that the bulk of it is naturally gluten-free and I'm looking forward to making Maria's dishes and sharing them with you. Tonight I'm cooking one of my favorite vegetables, tomatillos.
1. Saute onion, jalapeno and garlic in olive oil over medium heat.
2. Once onion is translucent and lightly starting to brown add tomatillos, chicken, lime juice and season with salt and pepper.
3. Continue to cook over medium heat about 15-20 minutes until tomatillos cook down and change from bright green to yellow-green in color. The tomatillos will become saucy and resemble stewed tomatoes.
Note: This would also be delicious with leftover pork roast or beef roast that you want to stretch into another meal.


I recently rode the inaugural UK edition of the Grinduro on the Isle of Arran on the west coast of Scotland with colleague, racing partner and gravel diva Reuben Bakker-Dyos. I'm now ready to report back on what we learned from our — as is now typical of anything we undertake — rather eventful adventure.
Despite being only a few hours drive from where I grew up in the Highlands, I'd never actually made the journey over the Firth of Clyde from Ardrossan to the Isle of Arran before the Grinduro.
Arriving a few days earlier than Reuben to cover the launch of Fabric and Charge's new wares for 2018, I began my stay by enjoying a beer on the deck of the ferry over to the island (a hard life, I know), giving me the opportunity to take in the incredible views of this very special place.
Divided by the Highland Boundary Fault, Arran is often said to be like a miniature version of Scotland, with the more mountainous northern end of the island dominated by the towering granite mass of Goat Fell, while the more low-lying southern end feels considerably more bucolic.
Arran has long been a popular destination for cyclists, with the quality of the roads and trails that circumnavigate and cut through the island said to be among the best out there.
Despite only having time to sample a small selection of what was on offer, I would have to agree that it's some of the best riding I've ever enjoyed in Scotland.
If you fancy visiting Arran for a riding jolly you can catch a train from Glasgow to Ardrossan every half hour or so, with the hour-long ferry journey to the island costing a mere £3.80 for cyclists travelling without a car.
Trust me, if you're ever in this part of the world you'd be a fool not to visit.
More information on riding on the island can be found via Visit Arran and Arran Bike Club.
I've been lucky enough to take part in a bunch of really great events this year — some really hard, some very eventful — but I can say without doubt that the Grinduro is the most fun 'race' I've done in years.
Reuben recently described me as a part-time cyclist — which isn't strictly true, I just choose to distract myself with other stupid cycling pursuits — and I'm happy to admit to the fact that I definitely go through waves of being interested in training to ride hard. Thus, the Grinduro was the perfect race for cycling-slackers like me.
With only four short timed sections on the day, I could cruise the remaining 80-ish-percent of the course at a "conversational pace", enjoying the scenery, persistent rain and good company, and riding hard only when it suited my listless temperament (a temperament only made less-fussed by the copious quantities of amber nectar quaffed on the run up to the event).
In the end I finished fifth in my category and 29th overall (I clearly hadn't drunk enough) and enjoyed feeling fresh before every one of the stages, some of which were stupidly technical for a gravel bike, and all the beautiful riding in between.
I've really put my Velo Orange Pass Hunter Disc through the works this year and I think the Grinduro might have been the #tangerinedreamboat's greatest test yet.
I had hoped to recreate the 'wheel-mullet' setup that I ran at the Dirty Reiver for the Grinduro, but a last minute shortage of appropriate tyres — in other words, I forgot to get a hold of the tyres I needed before the event — forced me to go on the scrounge around the BikeRadar office and a pair of 650x47c WTB Horizon tyres was all I could find in time.
Mounted up to a pair of Hunt Adventure Sport wheels, these plump-puppies ballooned up to a reassuringly chunky size that felt absolutely incredible on fire roads, tarmac and broken surfaces.
While not quite as fast rolling on smooth surfaces as the 700x35c Compass Bon Jon tyres I've been testing, the grip that the Horizons offer in the corners is quite unlike anything else I've tried before.
However, they were absolutely not the right choice for the singletrack sections that made up a lot of the Grinduro course.
The Horizon's very light chevron patterned tread did a surprisingly good job in these sections, but I spent a lot of my day sideways and on more than a few occasions on the ground.
It didn't really matter of course as I was just out there to have fun, but a hardtail mountain bike with a mud-friendly tread was definitely the right choice for the day.
I've known Stu Allan and Graham Cottingham via the ol' Insta-gs for a while now, but the Grinduro was the first time I'd had the chance to ride with either of them.
These two are notable for their seriously impressive, fixed-gear, trans-Scotland exploits, so it should come as no surprise that they decided to tackle the 80km Grinduro course on almost-matching Surly Steamrollers.
I rode the second half of the course with the fixie king (Stu) and prince of Scotland (Graham) — along with honorary GoPro-er in Reuben's absence, Benedict Pfender — and they spent their time just behind me on descents and miles in front on a lot of the climbs. Seriously impressive stuff on a single-gear, one-brake setup.
I clearly wasn't the only one who was impressed because the duo took home the Spirit of Grinduro Award — a special edition Grinduro Charge Plug.
Poor Reuben tried his best to ride with his swollen flipper-like-phalanges on the day, but after only 10km he was forced to pull out because he was likely to damage his already injured paw on the relatively savage course.
He's been off the bike for a few weeks now and it's driving him crazy. Leave positive healing vibes in the comments below!
Were any of our readers at the Grinduro on Arran? Or are any of you planning on attending the event in California? Leave your snaps from the event in the comments below!


Read Trev's preview before playing your Caulfield Quaddie this Saturday.
Track/Course – Rails out 6m – Last time rails were in this position it favoured the middle of the track.
Hit line nicely second up over shorter trip. Gets out to distance where she hit her peak figure last prep.
Produced career best rating last start over this distance. Doesnt have to run to same figure here to be competitive.
Racing consistently this distance range. Has slightly better draw today.
No luck past couple. Well graded with claim here if can return to form.
Even run last start. Should be ready to perform to near best here fourth up.
Not suited last start week down the straight. Held up in run, solid win before that. Looks suited out to this trip.
Honest run last start in Sydeny. Form out of those races has been good. Has solid claims here.
Had excuses last week when hung badly in the straight. Can improve here.
Racing well over this distance. Has claims.
Solid enough forst run down ther straight. Has good record this trip, maps well.
Not suited last start on a softish track. Better suited here back on the dry. Good record this trip.
Won last start for first time in almost two years. Not sure it can repeat but doesn't need to run to last start figures to still be competetive here.
Hit line good last start over slightly shorter trip. Should be competeitive here. Has run well this way of going in the past.
Hit the line nicely last start over slightly shorter trip. Has dropped significantly in weight here.
Won past two in lesser grade. Rises in class here but drops significantly in weight. Is on the quick back up for the first time but has solid claims.


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