#business barratt

[creativitytoexplore]

European stocks fall as Bank of England boost fades; Stoxx 600 down 1.6%

European stocks fall as Bank of England boost fades; Stoxx 600 down 1.6%

Euro zone economic sentiment continues to deteriorate The European Commission’s economic sentiment indicator, which aggregates business and consumer confidence surveys, fell to 93.7 in September from 97.3 in August, its lowest point since November 2020. Confidence plummeted across economic sectors amid a broad increase in inflation expectations, despite the European Central Bank‘s commitment to…

[beardedmrbean]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX and NASA on Sunday successfully launched their joint Crew-8 mission to the International Space Station from the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Together, NASA and SpaceX launched a crew of four to the ISS in the Dragon spacecraft, marking SpaceX’s eighth crew rotation mission to the ISS within NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Sunday's launch was the third attempt, after it was scrubbed twice before because of bad weather.

Engineers determined that a small crack on the hatch seal wouldn't present enough of an issue to abort the launch, and the mission achieved liftoff at 10:53 p.m. Mission crew members on the ground cheered when the first-stage booster separated and Dragon proceeded toward space shortly before 11 p.m.

The NASA astronauts are commander Matthew Dominick, pilot Michael Barratt, mission specialist Jeanette Epps and Russian Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, who is also acting as mission specialist. It is the first mission to the ISS for all except Barratt, who is making his third visit.

The Dragon spacecraft was launched by the Falcon 9 rocket, which SpaceX describes as a “reusable, two-stage rocket,” making it the first reusable rocket of its kind. Once it detaches from Dragon, it will land at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The crew, set to return in the fall, will spend six months at the ISS. Days ago, administrators revealed they had found a small air leak at the space station.

“It’s not an impact to Crew-8, but I didn’t want anybody to be surprised,” ISS Program Manager Joel Montalbano said at a Crew-8 mission briefing. He said that managers don’t believe the leak will affect crew safety but that “teams are watching it.” 

While aboard the ISS, often referred to as a “floating laboratory," the crew will perform more than 200 science experiments as part of the long-term mission to prepare humanity for long-term stays in space. 

Some of the experiments include taking stem cells to space to study their effects on degenerative disease, as well as looking at the cellular impact of microgravity and ultraviolet radiation on plants, with hopes that plants can remain an increasingly important part of nourishment during such lengthy stays.

The crew will also experiment with pressure cuffs on legs to see whether they alleviate health problems, including fluid shifts in astronauts in space experiencing weightlessness. With no gravity on the ISS, fluids in the body tend to shift upward toward the head, which can cause health problems with eye and head pressure — something astronauts are all too familiar with. 

Spirulina, often used in smoothies down on Earth, is also being sent to space on the Crew-8 mission. The astronauts look to see whether microalgae could help to remove CO₂ from the air, providing both food and oxygen for astronauts. 

It has been a busy year for SpaceX, which undertook almost 100 launches within the past year.

Asked about the seemingly routine nature of the increasingly busy launch schedule, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson cautioned against letting guards down. 

“Spaceflight is hard. Spaceflight is risky. ... You never want to get into the frame of mind that it is so routine,” he said. “Every time we launch, it’s white-knuckle time, and especially if humans are on top.”

[glassprism]

Is there a separate video of Gina Beck in masquerade? Besides the bootleg from 2008? I saw a gifset of her with dear Simon Bailey. Gina is my favourite Christine and she is the prettiest! I wish she had played Christine for more years (and in the rah concert). She was still young when she left the show... So unfair

Yes, there are two other released videos of her besides the 2008 one with Ramin Karimloo and Simon Bailey (and possibly another two that are unreleased).

One is from, I wanna say August 18, 2010, and has David Shannon as the Phantom and Simon Bailey as Raoul. That video is complete.

The second is from August 24, 2010, and also has David Shannon as Raoul and Will Barratt as Raoul (I believe Bailey left the show a little before cast change for another show and Barratt, the understudy, was promoted to principal and maintained that into the next cast change). That video is missing a few scenes from the beginning of each act.

As for unreleased videos, there's supposedly one from 2009 with Nic Greenshields as the Phantom and Gina Beck as Christine, and presumably with Simon Bailey as Raoul. I've only ever seen it listed on one site, the filmer's, but they never traded it out and it was a bit suspicious because their one screencap of the video was the same as one from the Ramin Karimloo video.

And of course, there's the rumored video of John Owen-Jones with Gina Beck when she emergency covered on December 23, 2010, also with Will Barratt as Raoul. Only two clips were put on YouTube of that, but otherwise, nothing has shown up of it.

At any rate, by the time Gina Beck left Phantom, she had been in the role for 2 years, which is a pretty decent length for actors in the West End production, and it seems like many are ready to take on other roles after that. As for the RAH concert, Gina Beck was invited to be part of the ensemble as with many of the other London alumni, but she was busy in another show. So even if she was cast, she had other obligations at the time.

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

Haunted by Kat Martin

Have you ever felt a chill in the air, visited a place and felt a presence, seen a ghost, wondered if some places might be evil magnets? I revisited past experiences and thought about some of these topics as I read about Jerome, Arizona and this novel set in this real historical town.

What I liked:

* Jenny Spencer: owner of Copper Star Saloon and Hotel, bartender, consultant, good friend, divorced, open-minded, caring, kind, responsible, rather attracted to Cain

* Cain Barratt: wealthy self-made man, raised by his grandmother-Nell, bad boy in HS, miner, footloose, ranch owner, bought & is refurbishing Grandview Hotel, attracted to Jenny * That the town is real and many of the historical anecdotes are set in fact

* The plot, setting, pacing, and writing

* The prologue that sets the stage for ghostly happenings later – and how they play out

* Wondering if the bad things happening to both Jenny and Cain are related or separate – then finding out what was really happening and who was/wasn’t behind it all

* Nell: Cain’s grandmother and inspiration to buy the hotel and her suggestion of Cleo as a person to help Jenny with the situation in room ten of her hotel

* Nick Faraday: ex-military, private investigator, intriguing and worthy of a book of his own

* The creep-factor and wondering how I would deal with some of the things that occurred in this book

* That all of the threads were tied up at the end – though not all in the story had a happy ending

* reading on the authors website that this is second of three books in a trilogy and trying to figure out how this book and Ghost Illusion are related other than that there are paranormal elements and historical events that might create hauntings

What I didn’t like:

* Who and what I was meant not to like

* Thinking about how evil and ruthless some of the people were in this book – I can’t imagine doing some of the things that they did to humans or animals

Did I like this book? Yes

Would I read more by this author? Yes

Thank you to the author, Kensington Books and NetGalley for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4-5 Stars

BLURB

A captivating and twisting tale where a murder in 1898 and one in 2024 dovetail and connect in unexpected ways from New York Times bestselling author Kat Martin and perfect for readers of J.A. Jance, Tony Hillerman, and Ramona Emerson’s Shutter. 1898: Robbery, prostitution, and violence are commonplace in the fabulously rich copper mining city of Jerome, Arizona. But a brutal murder sets the stage for a series of strange events that will echo far into the future. 2024: Jenny Spencer’s Copper Star Saloon and Hotel is one of the best-loved attractions in the popular tourist destination, but eerie occurrences in the newly renovated wing are souring business. Cain Barrett, the wealthy owner of the nearby Grandview Hotel, has his eye on Jenny. He’ll help her any way he can, but Cain has problems of his own . . . A brutal murder at the Copper Star, entries in a dusty journal, and ghostly sightings at both hotels . . . is the connection a figment of Jenny’s imagination, or a threat to her life? And who is causing trouble for Cain? As they work together to solve the mystery, Cain vows not to let anything, or anyone—living or dead—stand between him and the woman he has come to love.

[usnewsrank]

Equities Update: Barratt, Hilton Food, Markets…

  Hilton Food on road to recovery      Adam Vettese, Market Analyst at investment platform eToro, says: “These numbers show steady progress and growth in profitability as Hilton Food Group shares creep up to their highest in 2 years. Runaway inflation caused huge problems for the business and decimated the share price from which it has recovered 100% from its lows since the turn of last…

[accapitalmarket]

Slowing US job openings kept equities lower, USD down

UK stocks fell on Wednesday amid global growth worries, with weak US job openings data adding to concerns that the world's largest economy is slowing.

The US Bureau of Labour Statistics said the number of job openings fell to 7.673 million on the last business day of July from a downwardly revised total of 7.910 million in June. It was the lowest total since 2021 and well below the consensus forecast for 8.090 million.

The figures came ahead of Friday's eagerly awaited August US non-farm payrolls report which will likely determine the pace of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. Weak July payrolls caused a big drop in global stock markets at the start of last month amid fears the US economy could tumble into recession.

On Tuesday, US stocks plunged afresh led by the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite which shed 3.3% with AI chip darling Nvidia alone down 9.5%. The falls followed weak US manufacturing data which revived fears about the health of the economy just as the Federal Reserve is expected to sanction a first cut in interest rates at its policy meeting later this month. Wednesday’s data seemed to back up those fears, indicating a softening in the US labor market.

The data dragged the US dollar lower benefitting the pound, which rose 0.2% against the greenback to 1.3140. But sterling was weaker versus the euro, losing 0.12% at 1.1861 after robust purchasing managers index (PMI) data from both the UK and the eurozone.

The seasonally adjusted UK PMI composite output index rose to 53.8 in August, up from 52.8 in July. Meanwhile, the eurozone composite PMI rose to 51.0 from 50.2 in July.

As US stock markets stabilised after the bruising session on Tuesday, the main benchmarks in London also came off their worst levels but remained weak. At the close, the blue-chip FTSE 100 index was 0.3% lower at 8,269, while the broader FTSE 250 was flat at 20,808.

Among the fallers, housebuilder Barratt Developments shed 4.6% after reporting a 76% drop in profit, the result of lower home completions, weaker average selling prices and reduced margins. Others in the sector were dragged lower too, with Persimmon off 3.3% and Taylor Wimpey down 2.6%.

Insurer Direct Line fell 2.4% after its first half pretax profit and dividend fell short of market expectations, despite a marked improvement from the year before.

Warehouses developer Segro lost 1.2% after agreeing a deal to buy FTSE 250 listed peer Tritax EuroBox, which gained 3.8%. Under the deal Tritax EuroBox shareholders will receive 0.0765 of a new Segro share for every Tritax EuroBox share held.

Luxury goods retailer Burberry dropped 3.7% ahead of its long-expected demotion from the FTSE 100 after 15 years in the index, a move confirmed after the London market close. Burberry will swap places with insurer Hiscox, which moves up from the FTSE 250 index. Hiscox edged up 0.8%.

Recently floated tech firm Raspberry Pi Holdings is the only promotion to the FTSE 250 index, at the expense of IP Group. Raspberry Pi shares were down 3.4% on Wednesday, while IP shares added 4.4%, not enough to put off the inevitable.

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Trading margin forex and CFDs carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Investors could experience losses in excess of total deposits. You do not have ownership of the underlying assets. AC Capital Market (V) Ltd is the product issuer and distributor. Please read and consider our Product Disclosure Statement and Terms and Conditions, and fully understand the risks involved before deciding to acquire any of the financial products provided by us.

The content of this market commentary is owned by AC Capital Market (V) Ltd. Any illegal reproduction of this content will result in immediate legal action.

[bamcapitalreviews]

What Helped My Business in Its Early Days | CEO Ivan Barratt

What Helped My Business in Its Early Days | CEO Ivan Barratt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWXV3pzZfkk Visit https://capital.thebamcompanies.com/ & see why accredited investors choose to grow their wealth with BAM Capital. via BAM Capital https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLufWyEaqPxDDfTwwNWZ1lQ July 19, 2024 at 07:58AM

[insidecroydon]

Purley residents reject Purley 'pool' plan backed by Perry

Space at a premium: residents have produced evidence to back up their claims about the busy multi-storey car park. Developers misleadingly say there is no demand for parking in Purley Our shadowy multi-millionaire developers based in off-shore tax havens correspondent, BARRATT HOLMES, on an outbreak of common sense, and serious reservations, over proposals for a massive retirement home…

[spacenutspod]

Despite multiple scrubs and delays due to weather violations, SpaceX broke its own cadence record in January with 10 launches and landings in a calendar month. Those weather challenges have prevailed into February. Between these and the pad logistics related to launching the Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission, PACE satellite, USSF-124, and an upcoming crewed mission, it currently looks unlikely that the company will repeat this target by the end of February. Nonetheless, SpaceX continues to set milestones, with Falcon 9’s 300th mission occurring with the launch of the IM-1 on Feb. 15. The company almost launched a Falcon 9 from each of its three key launch pads within eight hours on the busy evening of Feb. 14, but the Starlink Group 7-14 mission was scrubbed while on the pad. Two further non-Starlink missions on Falcon 9 are planned from the east coast in the next couple of weeks. The most anticipated of these will be SpaceX’s eighth crew rotation mission to the International Space Station (ISS), carrying commander Matthew Dominick, pilot Michael Barratt, and mission specialists Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. Crew Dragon Endeavour is flying for the fifth time on Crew-8. This crew can expect to see cargo arrivals during their stay on the ISS from Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus, SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon, and Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane. The astronauts will also get to greet the crew of the Boeing Crew Flight Test during their stay when Starliner arrives in April. Launching on Falcon 9 this week is a new high-throughput communications satellite for Indonesia, which has a 15-year expected lifespan and will strengthen the communications architecture across the archipelago. SpaceX will also loft an additional batch of Starlink satellites into the Group 6 shell. Falcon 9 launches its 300th mission, Intuitive Machine’s IM-1 mission, on Feb. 15. (Credit: Max Evans for NSF) Rocket Lab’s Electron is scheduled to launch Astroscale’s ADRAS-J demonstration mission, which plans to make advancements toward the removal of large-scale space debris from low-Earth orbit. In this first phase of the project, the spacecraft will illustrate a safe and methodical approach toward an unresponsive object in orbit (a discarded rocket upper stage), capturing images and other data as it then orientates around the stage, demonstrating that it can maintain a fixed position close by. Lastly, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch its first Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) rocket since May 2023, delivering the successor to the INSAT-3DR weather research satellite. Sporting a six-channel imager and a 19-channel sounder, the INSAT-3DS will provide meteorological and disaster warning services to India from a geostationary orbit. SpaceX Falcon 9 – Starlink Group 7-14 SpaceX will launch another stack of Starlink satellites on Feb. 15 at 1:34 PM PST (21:34 UTC) from Space Launch Complex (SLC) 4E out of Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Starlink Group 7-14 will carry a payload of 22 Starlink v2 Mini satellites. They will be headed to an inclined 53-degree orbit on a southeastern trajectory with an expected initial orbit of approximately 286 by 295 kilometers. The satellites will be added to the thousands of active Starlink satellites in orbit, giving internet to people all over the world. The booster for this mission is B1082, which will be taking its second flight with this mission. It will land on the Of Course I Still Love You autonomous droneship, which will be stationed 610 kilometers downrange on the west coast. This will be the 29th total orbital launch of 2024 and the 300th launch of Falcon 9.  JAXA/MHI H3-22 | VEP 4, CE-SAT-1E & TIRSAT The second flight of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) H3-22 rocket is set for Feb. 17 at 9:22 AM JST (00:22 UTC) from LA-Y2 out of the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. H3 is classified as a medium-lift launch vehicle and uses cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in its first and second stages, with two or four optional SRBs. This mission will use two boosters along with a short payload fairing, taking three payloads into a Sun-synchronous orbit. The first flight of H3 experienced a failure of the second engine ignitor, causing the test payload to fall short of orbit. While flight two was originally planned to launch the ALOS-4 Earth observation satellite, the vehicle failure caused JAXA to elect to fly the Vehicle Evaluation Payload-4 (VEP-4) mass simulator, although there are also two small satellites onboard for this flight. CE-SAT-1E is a 70-kilogram Earth observation satellite built by Canon Electronics Inc., and TIRSAT is a five-kilogram 3U cubesat from Japan Space Systems to test infrared sensors for Earth observation. While there is an inherent risk to flying an unproven rocket, the customers are confident in the new vehicle’s ability to take their payloads to orbit. GSLV Mk II | INSAT-3DS The INSAT-3DS weather research satellite is scheduled for launch on an Indian GSLV rocket from the Second Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, on Feb. 17 at 5:35 PM IST (12:05 UTC). This will be the 7th flight for the INSAT series of satellites and is the successor to the INSAT-3DR satellite, which was similarly delivered to a geostationary orbit by an expendable GSLV back in September 2016. GSLV-F14/INSAT-3DS Mission:The mission is set for lift-off on February 17, 2024, at 17:30 Hrs. IST from SDSC-SHAR, Sriharikota. In its 16th flight, the GSLV aims to deploy INSAT-3DS, a meteorological and disaster warning satellite. The mission is fully funded by the… pic.twitter.com/s4I6Z8S2Vw — ISRO (@isro) February 8, 2024 Built by ISRO, this advanced meteorological satellite will deliver weather surveillance, forecasting, and disaster warning services to India. The mission is fully funded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences. An onboard six-channel imager is complemented by a 19-channel sounder, and the satellite will also provide a Satellite Aided Search & Rescue transponder and a message relay for terrestrial data collection platforms. Electron/Curie | On Closer Inspection Rocket Lab’s ‘On Closer Inspection’ mission is scheduled to launch on an Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand, during a five-hour window that opens on Feb. 18 at 11:45 UTC. Onboard is the Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) spacecraft, which was selected by JAXA as the initial phase of their Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration Project. ADRAS-J craft approaches the unresponsive discarded upper stage of an H-IIA rocket. (Credit: Astroscale) The goal of the mission is to safely approach, characterize, and fly an observational inspection path around a large uncommunicative piece of space debris in low-Earth orbit. It will follow a series of measures and processes set out in November 2021 after consultation with various space agencies, ministries, and industry experts, including leading private space companies. For this demonstration, the target is the upper stage of a discarded Japanese H-IIA rocket which is still orbiting at around 600 kilometers in altitude. The ADRAS-J craft will approach the stage using a series of corkscrew-style “safety ellipse” maneuvers. Once close, it will continue to execute a series of “Rendezvous and Proximity Operations,” which are a combination of maneuvers and data collection. Images and data will be collected as the spacecraft then performs a further fly-around maneuver, determining the target’s spin rate and axis so that the craft can demonstrate a safe orientation around it. ADRAS-J will complete the demonstration by settling into a stable position a short distance away, aligned with the object’s orientation. In the next phase, the target object would be actively engaged and removed from orbit. This mission is directly informing the company’s other ongoing programs, including Astroscale’s End-of-Life Services by Astroscale-Multiple and Astroscale’s Clearing Outer Space Mission through Innovative Capture missions, which is part of the UK’s Active Debris Removal initiative. Indonesian TelkomSat HTS-113BT is loaded into its container inside the clean room (Credit: Thales Alenia Space) Falcon 9 Block 5 | TelkomSat HTS-113BT The launch of TelkomSat HTS-113BT atop a Falcon 9 is scheduled to occur from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station during a two-hour window that opens on Feb. 20 at 3:11 PM ET (20:11 UTC), deploying the 4,000-kilogram satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit. Designed, built, and operated by Thales Alenia Space for the state-owned PT Telkom Satelit Indonesia, or TelkomSat, this new broadband communications satellite will strengthen the telecommunications structure across the archipelago. Operating in the Ku- and C-bands, this high-throughout communication satellite is built upon the Spacebus-4000B2 platform and will provide over 32 billion bits per second (Gbps) capacity from its position in geostationary orbit, stationed at 113 degrees east. The satellite left Thales Alenia Space’s clean rooms in Cannes, France, late last year and was shipped to the Cape from Nice, arriving at Port Canaveral in late January to then make a final trip to the integration facility. Thales Alenia Space will be delivering in-orbit support throughout the satellite’s expected 15-year lifecycle, as well as providing the ground control segment and on-site training and support for the customer’s engineering team. Starlink v2 Mini satellites prior to deployment (Credit: SpaceX) Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 7-15 SpaceX will launch the next batch of 22 Starlink v2 Mini satellites from the west coast no earlier than Feb. 20 from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The booster for this flight, which is currently unknown, will land on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You, which will be waiting downrange. The satellites will be sent on a southeastern trajectory into an initial orbit of approximately 286 by 296 kilometers, inclined 53 degrees. Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-39 The latest addition to the Group 6 shell of the Starlink constellation will launch from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Base no earlier than Feb. 24. The booster for this flight is currently unkown, as is the droneship on which it will make its recovery landing further downrange. The payload is another 23 Starlink v2 Mini satellites headed for a low-Earth orbit. Falcon 9 Block 5 | Crew-8 Crew Dragon Endeavour will be carrying SpaceX’s eighth crew rotation mission to the ISS, carrying commander Matthew Dominick, pilot Michael Barratt, and two mission specialists Jeanette Epps and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. Epps was previously assigned to a Boeing Starliner mission but was later moved to Crew-8. Launch is scheduled to fly from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center on March 1 at 12:04 AM ET (05:04 UTC) All crew members except pilot Michael Barratt are making their first flight into space on this mission. Barratt previously served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 19/20 and has spent a total of 212 days in space, including time aboard Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-133 mission in 2011. SpaceX Crew-8 – Left to Right: Roscosmos cosmonaut and Mission Specialist Alexander Grebenkin, Pilot Michael Barratt, Commander Matthew Dominick, and Mission Specialist Jeanette Epps. (Credit: SpaceX) This is the ninth human spaceflight as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew program and the maiden flight for booster B1083, which will return to the Cape to land at Landing Zone 1 a few miles south of LC-39A. This is the fifth flight of C206 Endeavour, which has also launched crew for the Axiom-1, Crew-2, Crew-6, and the historic Demo-2 missions. Dragon will perform a series of maneuvers before docking autonomously with the forward-facing port of the Station’s Harmony module. The four astronauts will meet the members of the Expedition 70 crew and spend a few days of handover with the outgoing Crew-7 crew, who will then undock from the Station and splash down off the coast of Florida. During their stay, this crew can expect to see the arrival of three different cargo craft — Cygnus (NG-21), Cargo Dragon (CRS-30), and the maiden flight of Sierra Space’s long-anticipated Dream Chaser spaceplane. They can also look forward to greeting the astronauts of Boeing’s Crew Flight Test on Starliner in April, as well as welcoming three new crew members who are scheduled to arrive on a Soyuz in March (MS-25). They will also see Loral O’Hara depart back to Earth on a Soyuz. (Lead image: Astroscale’s ADRAS-J spacecraft. Credit: Astroscale) The post Launch Roundup: SpaceX to launch next ISS crew rotation; Electron launches debris removal demonstration appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.

[mandyjane-lifedesign]

CHRISTMAS GIFT IDEAS: Give your loved one fine art for Christmas – that’s fun, useable and sensibly-priced

Wondering what to get that special someone for Christmas? Want to get them something different, aesthetically pleasing but still affordable? Driftwood Designs has the gift you’re looking for. Driftwood Designs beautifully incorporates the work of Welsh artist and illustrator Lizzie Spikes. Her passion is creating colourful illustrations that can be translated to homewares, cards, prints and so much more. This means her art can be incorporated into people’s everyday lives in the form of practical objects such as oven gloves, lamp shades, coasters, aprons and even clocks. Lizzie and her business partner Becky Barratt are both native to Wales and their love of home and the Welsh coastline and countryside is evident in many of the designs. Driftwood Designs has grown from a home-based business to three shops across Wales, that are as popular with locals as they are with tourists. Driftwood Designs also has an online shop, which is packed to the rafters with gift ideas. In case you are wondering where to begin, we’ve pulled out a few stars of the show to get you started: MUSHROOMS TIN SIGN   You can purchase Lizzie’s art on various materials from posters to framed prints, canvas to – this little gem - the tin sign. Reminiscent of days long gone, tin signs are trending again and every home should have one. The mushrooms tin sign from Driftwood Designs has illustrations of 27 different types of mushroom, toadstool and fungi with an identification list at the bottom. Perfect for your loved one’s kitchen wall if they like to cook, or even forage for, mushrooms. And if fauna is more their bag than flora, the sheep tin sign is another similarly fun design. Measures 203 x 151mm RRP: £10.00 Website: https://driftwooddesigns.co.uk/shop/products/mushrooms-small-tin-sign/   WOODLAND OVEN GLOVES   The Driftwood range of oven gloves features some quirky designs, including illustrations of well-known Welsh seaside towns and beautiful countryside designs. For something really special and unique, the Woodland Oven Gloves are a great gift for your favourite cook. The vibrant colours and gorgeous design are bound to be a conversation starter for any nature lover. RRP: £25.00 Website: https://driftwooddesigns.co.uk/shop/products/woodland-oven-gloves/       DAFFODIL BAG     Think Wales, think daffodils and this beautiful design will appeal to lovers of that beautiful country and those who are still to visit. With the vibrant flowers catching the eye in the foreground and the rolling hills in the background, this idyllic rural scene will look great over the shoulder of your friend or relative as they go about their day-to-day lives. These are part of a matching range, including tea-towels, mugs, aprons and even a lampshade, meaning you can help them build their collection at each special occasion. RRP: £15.00 Website: https://driftwooddesigns.co.uk/product-category/all-homewares/bags-all-homewares/   SUNSET AND STARLINGS LAMPSHADE     For a more extravagant gift, the Driftwoods Design lightshades offer another unique treat that would look fabulous in any room and definitely stand out from the crowd. In particular, Lizzie’s lovely Sunset and Starlings design has been printed onto fabric, so the lampshade can be hand-finished to order in the Driftwood Designs workshop. The vibrant autumnal colours are eye catching and soothing and your favourite home-body will love it! RRP: £62.00 Website: https://driftwooddesigns.co.uk/shop/products/sunset-and-starlings-lampshade/   CARDS AND STOCKING FILLERS   With such fabulous designs at accessible prices, you may want to stock up on the some of the gorgeous Christmas cards available too. With illustrations ranging from traditional Welsh, idyllic snowscapes, cutesy villages, seasonal seafronts and good old fashioned traditional Christmas scenes, your recipient will put your card in pride of place, knowing it’s a cut above the rest. And with Driftwood Designs being so sensibly priced means you can stock up on some fabulous stocking fillers or even your secret Santa surprise. For under £5 you can get magnets, badges, notebooks, coasters, car stickers, badges and keyrings. And while they are low on price they are high on style, showcasing Lizzie’s signature panache. Image:  Calon Coasters.png     Photo by freestocks on Unsplash featured image. Read the full article

[dgenxi123]

Digital Marketing Agencies in Kochi

Elevate Your Brand: The Crucial Role of Digital Marketing in Today's Business World

At Dgenxi , we are guided by a passion for providing our clients the persistent competitive advantage they deserve. Dgenxi is a top-tier digital marketing company that has been serving businesses since 2001.

In order to succeed in the current competitive industry, we have been providing clients with the best solutions possible by utilising our experience across a variety of technologies and experiences. We specialise in site designing and development, digital marketing, eCommerce development,content marketing and a variety of additional services that motivate you to measure and enhance your online results.

Services Offered:

 Search Engine Optimization

 Email Marketing

 Influencer Marketing

 Web Development

 E-commerce Website Development 

 Social Media Marketing

Prominent Clients:

  South Indian Bank

  Emaar

  Barratt Hotel

  Indus Motors

  Damac

Contact Details:

·       Phone: 94955****

·       Email: contact@dgenxi.com

·       Website: http://dgenxi.free.nf

·       Address: Zone 2, 219, Mavelipuram, Kakkanad, Kochi,Kerala 682030

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Last week I did a crash course in all the Julia Davis things, which I meant to post about at the time and then didn’t because I was too busy working. But it was fun. Here’s my updated folder:

I went through all that in a few days last week, except for Human Remains, which I saw last year. It was very good, and it made me want to see more of Julia Davis, but I think that was when I got distracted by No More Jockeys and promptly forgot that anything in the world besides No More Jockeys existed until I’d seen every single episode, wondering how on Earth it had taken me so long to get to that show that was clearly tailor-made to appeal to me.

Anyway. On another recommendation this year, I finally got into Julia Davis properly. Downloaded all the stuff in the screenshotted folder and worked through it probably too quickly. Starting with Nighty Night, the show I mainly knew from having seen people on that old comedy message board talk about it like it was the worst thing in the absolute world. That’s what I learned, last year when I got into reading old (early-to-mid-00s) on a British message board dedicated to comedy but mainly populated by people who fucking hated all comedians and comedy shows except Chris Morris and maybe Stewart Lee, though even he was on thin ice. The things I learned were: John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman were not kidding when they said people hated them back in the day. Josie Long is not exaggerating when she says she avoids the internet these days because of some horrific stuff that was up there about her early in her career. The genius Garth Marenghi was widely panned when it first came out (and I guess recent Ayoade revelations might suggest a right side of history there, but it’s fine, the recent audiobooks are things Matthew Holenss is doing alone). They also hated The Office when it first came out, which is definitely the right side of history. And Little Britain, while I’m giving them credit for being on the right side of history. People who had dedicated an entire website to loving Chris Morris passionately hated Nathan Barley, which I maintain is the incorrect opinion, and I will continue to maintain that until the day Julian Barratt gets canceled (yeah Noel’s done fucked up stuff and Richard Ayoade’s a transphobe, but surely someone from that Boosh show is all right – Julian was the quiet one, right?).

Is it coming across that I was more – to unironically use a word that has been used ironically so often that I barely feel like it can still be used in its real sense anymore, but I can’t think of a better one – triggered than I’d have expected to be by the Russell Brand shit this weekend, and am kind of seeing the world through a prism of everything and everyone is shit? There was no good reason to go off on a tangent about toxic shit from the 00s Britcom world right now. Genuinely, sorry about that. I’m trying to write about some TV shows that I liked. Julia Davis is not responsible for any reprehensible actions of her husband’s friends.

So. The other thing I learned from reading all those old comedy threads was the people fucking hated Nighty Night. That Nighty Night represented everything that’s wrong with comedy these days (those days being 2004), how the comedians from previous generations, back when comedy was great, would barely be able to look at the horrifying stage of the industry as it is now that these talentless young comics (ie. Ricky Gervais) have ruined it. The whole concept of “dark” comedy has fallen so far that they’re even letting women write it now, and look at the horrible result that is Nighty Night!

That’s what I knew about it, and I knew they were probably wrong, but I thought I’d check to make sure, and yep, it turns out they were wrong. Okay, I have to admit, season 2 was pretty bad. It had some good moments, but it was rough overall. Season 1, however, I thought was excellent. I enjoyed it so much.

Season 1 features Julia Davis, Kevin Eldon, Rebecca Front, and the guy who sat next to Mr. Bean while he at a sandwich and hosted about eight episodes of WILTY before getting fired because it turned out he’d had sex. Yes I know Angus Deayton has done a lot of thing besides that, because that’s how I know him. The first three I think are absolutely perfect in their roles. Angus Deayton is fine. Honestly, I don’t think he was bad or anything. I was just really, really stuck by how good the other three were, and not so much with him.

Rebecca Front plays a woman with MS who uses a wheelchair, and there’s a fair question there about whether this counts a representation or whether it’s using a disability for cheap jokes, but I tentatively come down on believe it’s the former. Obviously ideally the role would have been played by an actor who’s an actual wheelchair user, but there is so little representation for that, and this was treated as part of her character, not as constant jokes about it. She was possibly the only sympathetic character in the entire show, and the showed the challenges she faced from not being able to walk as legitimate parts of her path in life, not as excuses to laugh at her.

It is, as people said, the darkest of the dark comedies. Its opening scene is absolutely perfect, as Kevin Eldon finds out he has cancer and Julia Davis immediately makes it about herself. Sets the scene for the whole thing. My only criticism of season 1 might be that I wish Kevin Eldon had had a bigger role. I thought he was excellent, both the actor and the character.

I loved the way they used the tension. I’m not always a fan of cringe comedy, and this was a lot of that, but I thought it was done really intelligently. It wasn’t an easy watch. At one point I put on an episode of 30 Rock, the way I sometimes do after I see a horror movie, to recalibrate my brain from the darkness to which it’s been subjected. But it was really good.

I loved the ending, where they (spoiler alert, for this show from 2004) escalated things in a way that was extreme but still managed to make sense with the character. This moment when you realize “Oh shit, she’s not just a manipulative fucked up person, she’s a God damn serial killer”, and it recontextualizes the whole thing, knowing you’ve been watching the adventures of a woman capable of murder. I love a good recontextualization, in pretty much anything.

Unfortunately, an ending like that rather precludes a strong second season. Season 1 worked because we were seeing violent horrifying impulses set upon the mundane backdrop of suburbia. Watching her have to sublimate her deeply awful nature into polite society. In season 2, she’s left polite society behind, literally and figuratively, so it’s not as interesting anymore. Also, I didn’t really understand the plot anymore. I could buy that she grew obsessed with Angus Deayton as a distraction from the husband she hated, but not that she’d give up her life for him even once that was behind her. For most of season 2, I kept saying… come on, why would you do this? It’s only Angus Deayton.

Anyway, that was her opening gambit. After that, I watched the shows she made in years after that. One that got picked up for multiple episodes – Hunderby, Camping, Sally4Ever; and ones that only made one episode – Lizze and Sarah, and Morning Has Broken. They were certainly interesting to all watch in a row. There are a lot of similarities among them. What I learned from all those shows at once is Kevin Eldon is a terrible husband who should probably be murdered, no one wants to have sex with Alex Macqueen, and Julia Davis keeps trying to outdo herself as worst person in the world.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I got really into feminist blogs. I remember that around that time (2008-2012-ish), it was really popular for people to write articles about the concept of the “unlikeable female character”. The way female characters don’t get to be truly unlikeable, they have to be femme fatales that are mysterious and charming and sexy. And female characters who do genuinely unlikeable things get hated by the same audience that love a male “anti-hero”, even if he is objectively worse than that female character. There were all these feminist blog posts saying we need more genuinely unlikeable female characters in the media, we won’t have media equality until women can be just as shitty as men on screen.

Most of those blogs were American, which is a pity, because they’d have loved Julia Davis. She plays a very similar character every time, and it’s horrifying, but like a car crash, where you can’t look away. Her characters’ defining traits tend to be that she’s the really sex woman who gets away with her bullshit because everyone wants to have sex with her, and, okay, someone could make a fair point that it’s a bit weird for Julia Davis to always cast herself in that role. However, there was one exception to this: in Hunderby, she played a character where the running joke was that no one wanted to have sex with her. In that show, every time they made that joke, I thought… oh, come on. Have you seen Julia Davis? How do you expect us to buy that she’s unattractive? So, I guess it’s fair enough for her to normally cast herself in a role that’s more in line with reality.

I can’t decide which one was my favourite. I really liked the language in Hunderby; she did that one so well. It’s a parody of period pieces, and I’m not all that into period pieces, but I know just enough about them to get a lot of the jokes in Hunderby that point out their cliches (there are probably some that went over my head, though). But the fun thing is that doing a period piece gave her an excuse to write a whole language just for that show, a sort of parody of old time-y English, and that brought in so many opportunities for more jokes. So often, a mundane line could be funny just because of the word choice.

Obviously, as a member of Team Gay People, I have to consider Sally4Ever as a potential favourite. Aside from it featuring a gay romance between Julia Davis and April from Peep Show (yes I know Catherine Shepherd has done other things, I saw Peep Show as a teenager so everyone in it is still what they were then in my mind, that guy on WILY is just Mark Corrigan behind a desk), which is great, I thought it might have been the strongest iteration of what she’d been trying to do for years. The character played by Julia Davis could have been the same person as her character from Nighty Night, if that character had moved to a new town and changed her name after the events of Nighty Night. And started dating women, but only for opportunistic reasons.

It was basically the same character, but updated to match the way Julia Davis had improved as writer. She was written just slightly more subtly (still not really subtle – subtle doesn’t seem to be Davis’ thing – but more subtle than Nighty Night), in a way that was so funny. Also, I liked how the perspective changed. Sally4Ever was like if Nighty Night were written from Rebecca Front’s perspective, in that it started out being from the perspective of the woman she victimized, and then we slowly watched the effect she had on that woman, rather than seeing it all from Julia’s perspective. But we could infer all of Julia’s motivations from the perspective we got.

Sally4Ever also featured Julian Barratt, and I like anything that features Julian Barratt. I liked the part where someone told Julian Barratt’s character that he just “has one of those faces that looks like a widower”, which is weirdly accurate, I thought. I was impressed with the writers for coming up with that amusing observation, and then I remembered that the writer is Julia Davis, which of course makes it much funnier.

Julia Davis’ real-life marriage makes a lot of that show funnier, given the central battle between her and Julian’s characters. Some comedy couples go the Stewart Lee/Bridget Christie route, in which they aren’t even willing to say each other’s name on stage, barely acknowledge each other’s existence, except in the vaguest references. Some go the David Mitchell/Victoria Coren Mitchell route, in which they will sometimes appear together on TV and play on their relationship, but very much have their own separate careers with clear boundaries between them. Some go the Jon Richardson/Lucy Beaumont route, in which they build their whole career around each other. And some, apparently, go the Julia Davis route, in which she writes in a whole long plotline where she and her real-life husband Julian Barratt are locked in a deeply horrifying – genuinely horrifying, in the “this belongs in the horror genre” sense of the word – psychosexual battle against each other for the affections of another woman. In which they both, on separate occasions, threaten murder against the other.

So I thought Sally4Ever was excellent, but I still think my favourite of the lot might be Camping. It was just so strong overall, not a single weak episode. I thought every character added something to it, though Vicki Pepperdine, I think, really stole the show. Every time her character said anything, I was impressed with how well she was written and acted.

I thought the plot of that one was well done, all the little details coming out just a thread or two at a time, keeping me engaged all the way through. It wasn’t as harrowing as Nighty Night, but it still had the significant escalation at the end that felt both over-the-top and completely earned. The characters were so well drawn and provide so many different and complex funny interactions. I thought it was brilliant. The two pilots were fun too. Of the two of them, Morning Has Broken is the one that I wish had more episodes. That one seemed to have potential, I’m disappointed that it never went farther. They introduced all these interesting characters in this well drawn situation, with some intrigue and reasons to want to know more. Lizzie and Sarah, the one she wrote with Jessica Hynes, was fun on its own. But I did sort of feel like I’d gotten the point by the end of it.

So that's Julia Davis. It's definitely the sort of thing I should have watched before now. Those feminist blogs were right, we do need more unlikable female characters in the world. And Julia Davis is a hell of a start.

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GBP drops despite inflation rebounds, UK100 closes higher

UK stocks rose and sterling fell on Wednesday as a below-forecast increase in UK inflation, albeit the first rise since December bolstered hopes for further Bank of England rate cuts.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said UK consumer price index (CPI) inflation increased to 2.2% year-on-year in July, up from 2.0% in June, however, that was below forecasts for a rise to 2.3%. On a monthly basis, CPI declined by 0.2% in July, compared to an increase of 0.1% in June from May.

Meanwhile, UK producer prices rose 0.4% annually in July, after being flat in June which had been upwardly revised from a previously reported decline of 0.4%. On a monthly basis, producer input prices edged down by 0.1%, a slowing from a fall of 0.4% in June.

On currency markets, the pound shed 0.12% versus the US dollar to 1.2841 and lost 0.38% against the euro at 1.1651. But sterling recovered from lows against the dollar after weaker than forecast US inflation data also nailed on expectations for a first Federal Reserve rate cut next month.

US CPI rose increased by 0.2% in July, after falling 0.1% in June, in line with economists' expectations, and the annual increase in inflation slowed to below 3.0% for the first time since early 2021. Wall Street stock indexes all pushed higher following the inflation news.

At the stock market close in London, the blue-chip FTSE 100 index was 0.6% higher at 8,281, while the broader FTSE 250 was up 1.0% at 20,952.

Housebuilders rose on interest rate cut hopes, with Persimmon adding 3.4% and Barratt Developments gaining 3.8%. The sector also cheered ONS data showing UK house prices rose by 2.7% in the 12 months to June to an average of £288,000. June's annual increase was the same as May's, which was the joint-highest since March 2023.

Gaming stocks also saw good support. Playtech surged 13.8% higher after revealing it is holding talks with Flutter Entertainment regarding the possible sale of its Snaitech Italian gambling business. Flutter itself jumped 10.4% as the Paddy Power and Betfair group lifted its full-year guidance after a better-than-expected second-quarter performance. And Ladbrokes owner Entain benefited in kind, gaining 4.5%.

Elsewhere, blue-chip insurer Aviva rose 0.7% after reporting a 14% rise in interim operating profits. But on the FTSE 250, Balfour Beatty fell 2.5% after the infrastructure construction contractor reported a fall in first-half underlying profit although it hiked its interim dividend by 9% and said it expected annual earnings to grow.

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