#had this epiphany at approximately four am last night

[agnesandhilda]

the key difference between kaiser and isagi as guys who boost their self-esteem by beating others is that isagi isn't satisfied by overcoming opponents who aren't a match for his skill while kaiser exclusively picks fights he thinks he can win 

[averagemarvelbitch]

Undercover Love / STONY

Summary: The hospital bills keep on coming and Steve doesn’t know how to help his mother. He decides the army is his best bet. Destiny has a different idea, though, and puts Dr. Erskine and Project Rebirth on his path. Soon, he becomes Captain America and a special forces SHIELD agent with a dream team, ready to take on even the most dangerous missions.

A few years later, Director Carter’s nephew is kidnapped by the Ten Rings and it’s Captain America and the Avengers to the rescue! Falling in love with said nephew wasn’t on Steve’s plans, but he isn’t complaining.

Director Carter might complain. If she ever finds out.

TAGS: Secret Agents AU / Stony / Alternate Universe

Chapters: 3/?

---

The Strategic Homeland Intervention and Enforcement Logistics Division, also known as SHIELD, was a secret organization. In fact, they were so secret that most agents, even the ones with a high level clearance, didn’t know who they worked for. Steve and Bucky were both Level 7 in the scale, being outranked only by their handler, Agent Coulson, Commander Hill and Deputy Director Fury. SHIELD believed in compartmentalizing every piece of information. Nobody spills our secrets, Fury once explained to them after a particularly bad mission, because no one knows them all. It wasn’t something Steve was comfortable with, to be honest, but he learned to live with it all the same. And so, every agent, from level 1 to 9, knew a little piece of information that the others didn’t know. There was only one thing none of them knew: the Director’s identity.

The name and face of the Director of SHIELD was such a well kept secret that it had become a bit of a legend amongst the agents. Some said he was a military man who had singlehandedly fought against the enemy’s forces and emerged victorious, saving Fury in the process, who had lost an eye during said battle. Others said he was, in fact, the President of the United States and SHIELD was just a cover for the government to do in secret things it couldn’t do in public. And then there were the agents who thought the Director was actually Nick Fury himself and he was just trying to create some sort of mystique around his true identity. Steve had heard all of these theories in the last five years he’d worked for SHIELD. He had even created some himself when curiosity got the best of him. Maybe it said something about him that not once, in all these years, he pictured the fearsome Director of SHIELD as a beautiful brunette wearing bright red lipstick.

Steve discreetly looked around the table, trying to read his fellow agents. The red headed woman sitting next to him seemed unfazed by Fury’s introduction of the Director at first glance, but Steve could swear he’d noticed her eyebrows going slightly up for a moment before she schooled her features once more. The man on her side, however, had no such reservations. His eyes were wide, mouth hanging open, and he stayed like that for a few good seconds before the red head not so subtly kicked him in the chin, as if trying to remind the poor sap to be at least somewhat professional about the whole ordeal. Steve didn’t need to see Bucky’s face at all; his soft holy shit was reaction enough.

“Well, I believe I do not need to reinforce how absolutely vital it is that my identity remains a secret”, the woman said with a faded English accent, taking a seat in front of them, “And I will be so very cross if this particular secret leaves this room”, she looked at each one of them for a moment before continuing to speak. “Very well. You have been chosen for this mission not only because of your skills and frankly stellar records, but because, according to Deputy Director Fury, Commander Hill and Agent Coulson, you are trustworthy. This mission is not just about SHIELD security, it’s also… personal to me”.

“So that’s why we were contacted through the super secret channel”, the blonde man said as if he’d just had an epiphany.

“Precisely, Agent Barton. Agent Coulson, if you please”.

Agent Coulson got up, buttoning his suit, and walked towards the wall, where a map suddenly appeared.

“Yesterday, at approximately twelve hundred hours, the Director’s nephew, known as The Mechanic, disappeared nearby the Kunar Province, in Afghanistan”, Coulson explained, marking the spot in the map, ”He was being escorted by American soldiers back to the Bagram Air Base after a missile presentation when his convoy was attacked by members of a group known as the Ten Rings”.

“Shit”, Bucky swore softly under his breath just as Natasha exhaled, her shoulders suddenly going stiff with tension.

“The terrorist group has made no contact with neither family nor work relations of the prisoner, which leads us to believe that they are not interested in money. The Mechanic is quite the ingenious engineer and is the sole developer of most of the technology SHIELD uses, including our weapons, communication equipment and espionage gadgets. If this information fell in the wrong hands, it could mean the end of SHIELD”.

“Your mission”, the Director continued, making all agents turn their full attention to her once more, “is to locate my nephew and bring him home. Alive”, she added, stressing the last word. “You will fly to Bagram Air Base, where you will meet Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes. He will accompany you in your searches. Are there any questions?”

When none of the agents said anything, she nodded sharply. “Good luck, agents. I trust you’ll bring my nephew back to me as soon as possible”.

“You leave in fifteen minutes”, Fury suddenly said from behind them with a forceful tone, making everyone but Natasha jump on their chairs, “Get up, gear up, and meet me at Deck 03. Go”.

---

Pain. That was all Tony knew in that moment. A kind of pain that he’d never experienced before in his life, the kind that burned his insides, twisted his guts and pressed on his bones, as if wanting to break them into tiny pieces. He trashed around the small cot, or at least he tried to. He turned his head to look at his hands and found both were bound by metal chains. His breathing became even more erratic and he felt the tears streaming down his face as he tried to scream through the rag stuffed in his mouth.

A man suddenly appeared on his line of vision. He looked at Tony with semi closed eyes and a frown, his lips pressed thin against each other. He said something in another language, something the young engineer couldn’t quite understand. Another voice filled the room, replying to whatever the man with kind eyes had said. The man looked regretful for a moment, turning his eyes to the scalpel in his hand and then back to Tony. He sighed.

“This will hurt, Mr. Stark. But it is the only way to save your life. I am very sorry”, he whispered softly near Tony’s ear before nodding to someone. Immediately, two strong hands took hold of the engineer’s head from behind, holding him in place. All he could see was the filthy ceiling. His eyes followed the small light bulb going back and forth, as if trying to hypnotize him. And then he felt it. Something sharp and cold and hard cutting through the skin in his chest. He screamed, closing his hands with such force that the nails pierced the palm. The cutting continued, and so did the pain. Tony could feel his heart beating faster than ever in his ears. He felt the sweat coming off his skin, the bile rising in his throat as he so desperately tried to keep it down. They’re cutting me open, he thought, wide eyes going from one side to the other, they’re cutting me open.

He could feel something moving through the skin and into him, going around, searching for something. Then, the feeling disappeared and he heard a soft klink noise. His voice was starting to become hoarse. He hadn’t even noticed he was still screaming. His wide eyes suddenly started blinking and the screams stopped. The room was slowly fading. The voices going softer and softer, lower and lower, until Tony finally passed out, going completely limp in the cot. I’m going to die, he thought to himself before succumbing to the darkness.

---

It was already nightfall when the team finally arrived at Bagram Air Base, the cold air of the desert slipping through their clothes as they exited the quinjet. A tall, dark skinned man was waiting for them. He stood there, in the middle of the base, hands behind his back, waiting for the team to approach him with a serious, if not worried, expression. He quickly extended his hand when Steve came close enough to grab it.

“Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes, at your service, sir”, he said as Steve shook his hand, “I’m happy to see you, I have to say. We’ll need all the help we can get to locate T…”

“We use codenames only in missions like this, Lieutenant”, Steve cut him off midsentence, “These are Black Widow, Hawkeye, Winter Soldier and I’m Captain America”.

The corners of Rhode’s mouth went slightly up at the last one as he clearly tried to stop himself from laughing. Steve was very used to that reaction and so he didn’t take offense in it.

“Here”, Natasha said, giving the man a small earpiece, which he promptly put in his ear, “All communications go through this and nothing else. From this moment forward, you will be Lieutenant, understood?”

Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes nodded sharply.

“We need to know everything that’s happened since the target was taken, spare no details”, Steve informed him.

“Follow me, Captain. You can have some food while I debrief you on the situation”.

They followed the Lieutenant inside one of the barracks and into a small room. There was a table in the middle of it, with four plates of food lying around. Clint quickly sat down and took one, stuffing his mouth with whatever it was the plate contained, looking quite happy.

“The target arrived two days ago in a private jet for a missile presentation. He spent the night in this Air Base and we left for a testing area near Kunar in the morning. The presentation happened as planned. The target was supposed to come back with me, but decided to join Beta Team instead. The convoy left at thirteen hundred hours, as planned”.

“Any reason why he refused to go with you?” Natasha asked, putting a small piece of bread in her mouth.

“He was being a dick to me because I missed his birthday”, Rhodes explained, shaking his head with a fond smile, “Said he rather go in the funvee”.

“You know the target?”

“Yes”.

“Well, that complicates things”, Bucky replied, crossing his arms.

“My relationship with the target will not affect this mission, Soldier”, Rhodes promised, and then continued explaining, “They were attacked around here”, he pointed at the map, “a few miles outside Kunar. All soldiers in the convoy were killed in combat. This was the target’s last known location”.

“Do the Ten Rings usually work in that area?” Clint asked with his mouth full.

“No. There’d never been a sighting of them near Kunar until yesterday. That’s what’s bothering me. They knew we were coming and they knew who was with us. But the thing is, no one knew T… the target“, Rhodes quickly corrected himself, “was coming that day”.

“Maybe you have a mole amongst your soldiers”, Natasha offered.

“The only people who knew he was coming were me, his aunt and his business partner. The soldiers only found out when we left for the presentation. Even if someone had tipped off the Ten Rings, they would need at least a full day to move that much fire power to our exact location. It’s not impossible, but it’s just… highly unlikely”.

“Is there anything else we need to know, Lieutenant?”

“Nothing relevant, Captain”, he replied, hands behind his back once more, “We’ll start the searches tomorrow at zero six hundred hours. The target is a major contributor to the U.S. Military so they’re focusing a lot of resources on this, not only soldiers but high tech equipment as well. It should help”.

“I’m sure we’ll find him soon enough, Lieutenant”, Steve replied, softening his expression, “Very soon”.

---

Tony hated many things. He hated when Rhodey put ketchup on his pasta, he hated when his bagels came with sesame seed, and he hated mustard. He hated when his dad told him that he wasn’t good enough and he hated the fact that his parents were gone and he was all alone. Tony Stark hated a whole lot of things, but he was pretty sure that there was nothing in his life that he hated more than the desert. His prison cell looked more like a Batcave, if Batman had lost all his money, sold all his tech to pay his debts and had decided to lock himself in it to live the rest of his days as a hermit. And let’s not mention the fact that a few weeks ago, Tony had gone through open-heart surgery with no anesthetics and had now a deep hole in his body the size of a small fist to which a car battery was attached, being the only thing stopping the shards of a bomb HE had made from crawling to his heart and killing him. All of that was bad, very bad, and of course Tony hated the whole situation, but it was the desert he hated the most.

The extremely hot days and excruciating cold nights were driving him crazy. Well, there was also the whole torture thing going on, like how they water boarded him every single day for hours as he desperately held to his car battery, trying to keep it from getting wet like his life depended on it ― and it did. Yeah, the torture thing didn’t help his mood, but honestly, it was all the desert’s fault. Stupid desert.

But he couldn’t think like that, couldn’t dwell on his hatred for the sand and the damn heat and the stupid cold. No, he couldn’t dwell on that because today was a special day. Today, whatever day it was, was the day Tony finally gave in and promised Abu Bakaar that he would build them the Jericho. Of course, he had absolutely no intention whatsoever to give the most dangerous terrorist group on this side of the planet a special missile that could destroy an entire city in less than minutes. No, sir. He had a much better idea. He was going to burn all of them, burn the entire war camp to the ground, and then Yinsen and he would step on their ashes as they walked to freedom. That’s what he was going to do.

Because he was Tony Stark and Stark men were made of iron. And the fucking Ten Rings would regret the very day they decided to mess with Anthony Edward Stark.

---

Three months. They had been searching for the target for the last three months. Steve had had long missions before. Sometimes an undercover op. or shadowing a target could go on for days, even weeks. But three months. He’d never been on a mission that lasted three whole months. And what was worse… there was nothing new. There was no new information, no tip, not even a bloody sign as to where the target was or even if he was still alive. In all honesty, Steve had lost all hope to finding the Mechanic alive a long time ago and it seemed that his teammates agreed with him. The U.S. Army and Air Force had withdrawn their people and resources after a month of searches with no result, and had even tried to declare the target Killed in Action. Steve guessed the Director had had some very stern words with them because soon after they received the news that Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes was given a sort of leave to continue to search for the target with the SHIELD agents and that no more claims would be made until the target was found ― dead or alive.

The worst part about all of it was Rhodes. Every morning they left the Air Base on a helicopter and they would search every inch of the wide, unending desert. And every night they would return without so much as a whiff of the Mechanic’s whereabouts. Steve could tell this mission was taking a toll on the Lieutenant’s spirit. Every night his eyes would grow sadder, his shoulders falling a bit more, his expression a bit darker. He would lock himself in his rooms as soon as they stepped inside the barracks and would only resurface in the morning with renewed determination, marching towards the helicopter as if today was finally the day.

“Can I just say what everybody is thinking?” Clint shouted through the loud noise made by the helicopter. Natasha, who was piloting it, pursed her lips, knowing that whatever her partner was about to say, it would not be good.

“Don’t, Hawkeye”, Bucky warned, eye still trained outside, looking for possible hideouts.

“I’m just saying, man. It’s been three months. There is no way a civilian survives three months in the hands of some fucked up terrorists. The guy is dead. Better accept it now and be done with it”.

“You don’t know him. He’s not like any other civilian. He…” But whatever he was, they would never know because Rhodes was interrupted by a sudden loud noise that sounded an awful lot like an explosion.

“There’s smoke. There, near the mountains!”, Bucky shouted, pointed at the place where thick, black smoke was rising slowly.

“GO THERE! HE’S THERE!”

“How can you know that?”

“Big explosion? That’s definitely Tony! GO! GO!”, Rhodes screamed at the top of his lungs. He seemed so happy, so full of hope, that Steve didn’t even bother to remind him of the codename rule.

It took Natasha a good fifteen minutes to land the helicopter near the exploded area. She waited inside as the others fought through the dark smoke, covering their mouths and noses as they walked inside what seemed to be a former war camp. There were bodies everywhere, melted faces and body parts scattered around as if it was some gruesome horror movie. The smell of burned flesh was unbearable.

“CLEAR”, Steve heard Clint shout from one side.

“ALSO CLEAR”, Bucky replied from the other.

“There’s no one alive here”.

“He did this”, Rhodes insisted, looking around, “He escaped. We need to check the area around it”.

“Lieutenant…”, Steve started to disagree, but the man gave him no chance.

“You listen to me, Captain, he is alive. Tony did this, he escaped. I don’t know how, but he did. So we’re going to check the surrounding areas or so help me God you fuckers can walk back to the fucking base and I’ll do it myself, do you understand?”

The three men exchanged a look before nodding. They radioed the base, giving them the coordinates for the war camp before getting into the helicopter once more. For the next three hours they flew around the exploded area, eyes wide open, trying to catch anything out of the ordinary. Natasha was just about to tell them they were running out of gas when she spotted something.

“THERE! IT LOOKS LIKE A PERSON!”, she shouted to the others.

She turned the helicopter around and smiled. Sure enough, there he was, with a shirt wrapped around his head, swinging his arms. The man felt to the ground just as Rhodey jumped out of the chopper, running towards him as fast as he could, Steve and Bucky right behind him. Rhodey fell on his knees right in front of his best friend, the biggest smile on his face.

“How was the funvee, asshole?”, he asked, hugging the smaller man, “Next time, you ride with me”.

The brunette nodded with a small smile and eyes full of tears before burying his head on Rhode’s neck with a soft cry.

“Here, let me”, Steve offered the Lieutenant, carefully taking the smaller man in his arms.

Steve couldn’t believe how young the target looked, how vulnerable. He couldn’t be more than twenty years old. How could a man so young survive something so horrible? Better yet, how could some this young escape from one of the most feared terrorist groups in the world? He carefully put the young man inside the helicopter, stepping aside so Natasha could insert an IV bag on his arm.

“Are you okay?” Rhodes asked, sitting next to his friend with a worried expression.

“Who the hell are these people? They don’t look military”, the target asked, lying his head on Rhodes’ shoulder.

“They’re SHIELD agents”.

“They’re shit”.

“HEY”, Clint complained from his seat in the front, turning around to glare at the target, “A little gratitude would be nice. We did just rescue you, jackass”.

“Hawkeye”, Natasha warned in a low tone.

Tony huffed, rolling his eyes. “You didn’t rescue me. You spent three months doing God knows what while I rescued myself. The only thing you’re doing right now is giving me a ride. You’re my Uber. And you’re definitely two stars. I’m writing my review right now, takes too fucking long to show up and doesn’t even have fucking candy. Bullshit”.

Steve snorted before quickly composing himself. “We’re glad you’re okay, sir”.

“Why is he calling me sir? Has it been three months or three years? Am I old? Rhodey, am I old? Be honest”.

“Figures not even a traumatic experience would shut you up, Tones”, Rhodey joked before kissing his best friend’s forehead and lying his own head on top of Tony’s, “Don’t ever do that to me again, okay?”

“Yeah”, Tony replied, his eyes losing focus for a second as he touched his own chest where, Steve had just noticed, a faint blue light was coming through the shirt. His eyes met Tony’s for a moment before the young man looked away, closing his eyes with a long sigh. He would tell Rhodey about the arc reactor later. Right now, all he wanted to do was to close his eyes and think of home.

Home. And then the real work would begin.

---

Leave a comment and/or ask to be tagged // Feed my caffeine addiction

[snowpatrolfanclubbrazil]

A remarkably purgative release born from addiction, vulnerability and recovery, the Jacknife Lee-produced Wildness marks Snow Patrol’s long-awaited return after seven years. Striking a midpoint between the band’s evolved pop-rock prowess with lyrics tackling darkness, alienation and living in the moment, it’s an album capturing the Gary Lightbody-fronted band at both their most vital and creatively inspired in years. In a candid conversation with Brian Coney, Lightbody discusses addiction, success, writer’s block, confronting one’s demons, whittling 600 songs down to 20, the importance of patience, the deceptive imprint of Krautrock artists, Fela Kuti and others on Wildness, as well as why he has no desire to write another ‘Chasing Cars’. Wildness is, of course, Show Patrol’s first album in seven years. But does it feel that long? It’s funny because in some ways it feels like no time at all. And in other ways it’s an endless, undefinable amount of time that it almost feels like we’re starting from scratch again. I’m not sure how I feel about either of those things but in terms of live, we’re sounding better than we’ve ever sounded, so that feels like a regeneration in a lot of ways. The album feels like that, too. In terms of a personal thing, I went through the mill to make this record. It broke me a lot of times but it put me back together as well. Was that pressure you put on yourself, the record company, a precedent you set with previous albums or was it a combination of all of those things? Nobody put any pressure on me. The rest of the guys in the band didn’t put any pressure on me, the record company didn’t, the management didn’t – it was really just the pressure I put on myself, really. That’s the only thing that was on my mind. I was aware that, whether they were saying it or not, people were waiting for something. It was nagging at me. I didn’t have access to writing at that time. I start writing in 2013 and four of those five years were spent unable to write songs for Snow Patrol, really.

I dislike the phrase writer’s block but was it that, or did it stem from what you had been dealing with in your own life? I think it was deeper than writer’s block because I didn’t have anything to write about – that’s what I felt. I feel like writer’s block is when you have a subject and you can’t put your finger on what you want to write about or the words won’t come. With this, it was more a case of me not knowing what I wanted to write about, at all. I guess getting sober was the first step to unlocking what I needed to write about. But at that stage I didn’t even know. The two things were running parallel to one another and then they starting turning inwards towards each other and would eventually meet. But at that stage it was still parallel lines. I was trying to get myself right and not really thinking about the music. They intertwined at one point. There is almost an institutionalised expectation for artists who are playing night after night to drink; to keep things going and ticking over. In terms of getting sober, did you have an epiphany when you were on hiatus or was it something that happened when the band was active?

In 2007, we were in the middle of the Eyes Open tour in America and it was pretty intense. We were doing three acoustic sessions at different radio stations every day, and then the gig at night, and press and whatnot in every city that we were in. I lost my voice, and I was drinking every night, as well. Me being an idiot at the time,I thought, “Well, how have I lost my voice? It’s always been there.” So I went to a doctor and it turned out I had polyps at the time. Long story short: we had to take a break and rescheduled those shows. We took a month off and I saw a vocal coach for the first time. Snow Patrol had been going for 14 years at that point and I never had any vocal training – kind of like Ferris Bueller, “never had one lesson”. I would advise every singer to go see a vocal coach, for your own sanity and for the health of your own voice. We’re all young at one point and we all think that we’re invincible, but it doesn’t last forever. There’s a finite amount of times you can drive the thing in fifth gear with a fucking foot on the floor before you run out of gas. Since then, I stopped drinking on tour, unless I had a day or two off after a gig. But when we were off tour – in those days it was only every a week or two, or maybe a month between tours if we were lucky – I would have a bunch of fun. But unfortunately when the tour finished in 2012 and there’s no album until 2017, that’s an awful lot of time spent having that fun. What happened in that time was that in the first five years of those seven years I drank excessively, almost every day. Certainly running up until when I stopped drinking, I was drinking every day. Initially I had to stop due to a medical thing, but I then wanted to stay stopped, because I started to become aware of life happening. Before, I was burying life in booze. When you were writing lyrics for the album, which was obviously over a period of time, were you reluctant to be vulnerable? Did you consciously think, for example, “Ok, I’m going to delve into issues with depression on this song”, or “I’m going to confront my struggles with alcohol on this song”? Garret (“Jacknife” Lee) played a lot of music in the studio during downtime in the studio. At one point, he put on Nick Cave’s new album at the time, Skeleton Tree. At the end of the first track, ‘Jesus Alone’, I just put it on again. And again and again. We listened to it about ten times. Jacknife and Nathan (Connolly, Snow Patrol lead guitarist/backing vocalist) saw me starting to write something so they were to the shop and said they’d be back in half an hour. By the time they got back I’d written ‘A Youth Written In Fire’, which is my favourite song on the record, and that’s when I knew what the record needed to be about. It needed to strip away everything and just let all of the things that I had been afraid of, all of the things that I had been running from, all of the things that I wanted to hide from people, because I was scared that they would be appalled by the thoughts that were going on my head – I had to let it all spill out. It was kind of liberating, and terrifying, in its own way, to realise that this is what I had to do. It was the only thing that was finally going to scratch the itch of this record. It was a case of “Bare everything. It doesn’t matter.” I can vividly recall whenever Snow Patrol exploded back in 2004 with the release of ‘Run’. A lot of people were taken by how joyous that song, and Final Straw generally, was. Now, your music still has that, but it now confronts what makes so many of us – from mental health, addiction and far beyond – vulnerable. Do you feel that people can benefit from how open you are on this record?

I would never presume to guess what would be going on in somebody else’s life, and I hate it when other people try to guess what’s going on in mine. But in terms of the experiences that I’ve already had with this record, such as meeting people after shows, a lot of people have been very sweet and asking how I am. I’m fine, by the way, everybody – I really am. I’m better than ever. But they’ve also been saying that because of what I’ve said and what I’ve written, that they have found it easier to talk about stuff that they’ve not been able to talk about. It does mean an awful lot to me. So many musicians strive to be great at crafting great pop songs. It’s something that you naturally excel at. But did you approach the whole songwriting process differently on this album, or did you go at it like you always did in the past? I wrote a lot of songs for this record. The lyrics as I say was a bigger case of writer’s block and they didn’t come easy, but the music came quite easily. I wrote over 600 songs that we whittled down to 20 that we recorded. A lot of them took themselves out of the running by not being good – a hell of a lot of them – but for me it’s always been a case of always writing and writing and writing and writing. Most of the time, you immediately know when a song is going to work, and that’s maybe 1 in 10 or 1 in 20. If you’re lucky. Fucking hell, it’s probably much bigger than that. 1 in 50? I don’t know. But it’s funny because people reading this might think, “Well, why keep writing if it’s not coming?” But one thing leads to another. I’m very aware of not trying to take shortcuts, because I never took shortcuts before. What kind of shortcuts? Like a template. People sometimes say to me, “Do you ever think of writing another ‘Chasing Cars’?” and I’m like, “No, because I don’t know how.” It’s like, yes, I could write a song exactly like ‘Chasing Cars’, or something that approximates it. But what would be the point? There would be no point artistically. There would be no point – well, I don’t even think about things commercially, or at least not until they’re about to come out, and I think, “Well, is there a single we can put out?” It would be such a hollow experience to try to emulate something that we’ve done before. I actually got asked in a recent interview, “Do you think you’ll ever have the same success again that you had with ‘Chasing Cars’?” The answer to that question is, honestly, no. How could you? It was a moment.

Yeah, it’s such a time-capsuled thing. It’s strange how some people view things like this one-dimensionally. On this album, there’s a lot of subtlety and there’s a lot of depth to songs, as well as experimentation in terms of instruments that are used. But at the heart of it is really catchy songs. You said ‘A Youth Written In Fire’ is your favourite track on there. Why is that? What it symbolises – that letting go of the fear of talking about something that I’ve found so hard to talk about. I was drinking on my own. A lot. People didn’t know. The band didn’t know. I was taking drugs on my own a fair bit. It’s that fear of being found out, when what was I afraid of? Nobody went, “You fucking asshole!” Nobody. Not a single person. And even if somebody did, what does it matter? Do I think I’m an asshole? Did I used to think I was an asshole? Yes. I had a lot of self-loathing and a lot of self-hatred. But I don’t have it anymore. Nor do I think I’m the shit, either. I just have a normal amount of appreciation for myself, and I think it’s healthy to actually like yourself and enjoy being in your own company. If you are in your own company and you hate yourself and can’t look at yourself in the mirror, and every time you do, you think, “You’re a fucking cunt”, that is a dangerous place to be. You need to speak to somebody. You need to reach out. You need to fucking change the pattern that you’re in. Which is what I’ve done and I hope that I’ve conveyed that on this record.

But yes, that’s what that song means to me. It’s the first song that I properly wrote for the album. It took a long, long time – it’s almost an album within itself, because of the amount of time it took to write. When it came, it came to me in twenty minutes. It was like, “This is still in me. This is how I used to write songs.” I still have that fucking muscular twitch, that I can turn on. Like Usain Bolt, I can still run the 100 metres. Not that I want to compare myself to elite athletes, but actually, I suppose I’m more of a Mo Farah style-runner nowadays. But, now and again, I still have the other side to me, too. I can still run the sprint. I may be mistaken, but I read earlier that ‘Life and Death’ was co-written by Jacknife, yourself and… members of German Krautrock masters Can? There’s a Can sample in it. Pretty much the whole song is driven by the Can sample. I think we drop in and out at times, but certainly when it kicks in, the chugging thing, that’s in there. We were listening to a lot of Krautrock, a lot of African music like Fela Kuti, William Onyeabor, and artists like Peter Gabriel, Nick Cave and lots of soul music. When you’re in the studio with Garret it’s a constant bombardment. If we were in there listening to just a bunch of guitar music we wouldn’t have made the album that we’ve made. You’re always kept on your toes with Garret.

More than ever before, there are so many younger bands and artists striving for success, fame, validation, financial reward and all the rest. From your own perspective, what advice would you give to younger artists who feel like they have the musical ability, but just not the means or luck to make it happen? Don’t rush it. Don’t let your ambition get the better of your good sense. I think until you get ten or twenty people that you trust telling you that you’re fucking awesome, don’t be doing anything rash. I can’t speak for pop music as it seems to be this constant carousel of people coming in and going out, but with bands, it’s really important that the thing that you want from your career, even if you don’t know you want it, is endurance. You want longevity. You might know that you want but you do. You fucking do. You have to have patience for that. Patience that was beaten into me, not given to me gently. If I could give anybody advice, it’s to try and just to take your foot off the gas, just a little bit, make sure you have great songs, make sure you’ve played your fucking socks off to no one before you play to someone. We played to fucking one person one night. We played to twenty people one night. We played so many of those gigs that we thought that nothing was ever going to happen. And, sometimes, you also have to be fine with the fact that might be the case. It took us ten years to have a hit, and there was plenty of times during that period that I thought it was never going to happen. I got to a place in myself that I thought, “Well, that’s just it. It won’t happen.” That’s when it fucking happened. It’s hard to define the endurance thing, but I would say that if you think that you have an album when you only have ten songs, you’re wrong. You’re absolutely, 100% wrong. You have an album when you have 100 songs. Write as many songs as you possibly can before you pick ten. Obviously, you’re perspective has shifted a lot of over the years. There’s been different versions of Snow Patrol: pre-success, success, massive success, downtime and now your return. But what is it that motivates you nowadays? We’ve already been lucky with this album run. Belfast was a moment. So was Derry. Cork was another. It was a strange one because we hadn’t played Cork in a long time and we didn’t know what to expect and it was a fucking amazing gig. It was at the Opera House – a beautiful, beautiful place. Those are the moments. There’s going to be some other moments that we’re not going to enjoy and that’s just the way life is. I think I’m just trying to be as level-headed as possible. I used to be someone who was trying to predict the future all of the time. “What if this happens? What if that happens?” That is the biggest waste of time in any pursuit that anyone could possibly ever do. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. That’s why I don’t look too far ahead in the diary these days. I used to be counting the days on a tour and stuff but maybe that shows you weren’t in the right place.

Wildness is out now

[bustedraw]

11/13-11/14

(It took two days to get all this down, hence the title of this post)

It’s Tuesday morning, approximately 8:44am. November 13th, 2018.

This will be lengthy as I have a hefty amount to unload and unpack.

I have not written a post in quite some time due to improved circumstances. I guess that’s a good thing, all things considered. The last post titled ‘Wrong Question, Wrong Answer’ was written on April 28th, 2018. It’s been almost 7 months since I’ve sat down and purged my thoughts. I know I wrote a post before the last one, but I had a shitty wifi connection which prevented me from posting it. Here it is:

Title: The Dust in Your Lungs

March 5th, 2018 at 2:35pm

I want to sleep but I can’t. I’ve been averaging 3-4hrs a night for the past 2+ weeks. It’s exhausting. I know my body needs more rest to function, so how am I able to get through an entire day? I’m still trying to figure out this new medication. I feel a little better about things.. My attitude is starting to shift. I’m trying to live intentionally and not just go through the motions. I’m trying to let things come to me. I’m also trying to take action.

This abrupt and drastic change has really made me reevaluate everything in my life. I’m confident I made the best decision, given the circumstances. It’s still hard to fully accept. This wound is fresh. I’m relearning, I’m unlearning.

But you play in the street at night…

I feel so happy and liberated. I also feel so fucking sad it hurts. What is missing? What am I not seeing? I’m keeping my eyes open.

...A lot has changed since then, and for the better I must say.

Let’s catch up, shall we?

Since I last posted I’ve made some huge, life-changing decisions. It’s insane to think about how much has happened over the past few months.

Change is inevitable and those who are most likely to accomplish great things are the ones who adapt with ease and grace. They do so by embracing the uncertain, and welcoming the discomfort.  Saying ‘yes’ to propositions and opportunities that will undoubtedly prove to be challenging, but not impossible. Without obstacles, without resistance, without uncertainty we cannot expect to grow, to learn, to develop our abilities. One must view each scenario as a way to better themselves. One must utilize the space around them to expand and reach new dimensions.

A somewhat brief summary of what’s happened:

After deciding to drop 3 of the 4 classes I was taking I started to pick up more hours at the Savannah Room. Over the following couple of months I realized I didn’t like the work environment, or the people. I became apathetic and felt like I was wasting my potential. Most of all, I was tired of working in the food service industry with irregular hours. I left at the end of April/beginning of May. There was a period of time where I was unsure of what my next job would be, what my future would look like.

In the middle of May I went down to St. Simon’s Island with Hannah and jack. We stayed for about a week and it was refreshing to get away from everything. During this visit I matched with a guy named David on Tinder. I was bored and I wasn’t taking it seriously since I didn’t live in the area- nothing serious would happen, shit, probably nothing at all to be completely honest. But I was wrong.

We ended up talking every single day over the next two weeks or so. I really began to like him a lot… But I lived in Athens, and he lived in the Savannah area. Was this realistic? Perhaps..

I ended up driving four hours down to Richmond Hill to stay with him for a couple of days. I was so nervous and anxious- I didn’t know what to expect. As soon as I walked in the door and saw him face-to-face I realized I made the right choice. We connected instantly and I felt so comfortable with him.

I continued seeing David over the summer, driving back and forth from Athens to Richmond Hill. He helped me move in to my new 1BR apartment at the beginning of August and built me a bed frame. We became ‘official’ on July 18th. Since then, it’s felt more of like a ‘we’ vibe, not ‘me and you’.

From May-October I worked as a customer service representative at a custom t-shirt company. I genuinely enjoyed working there so much. Everyone was so nice and I loved helping people, even though it was frustrating at times. That job taught me a lot, but the most important thing I took away from it was that I love working with and helping people. I like solving problems. I’m good at it. I realized this is the career path I want to pursue. It is a profession I can thrive in.

In early summer I had an epiphany that I am not meant to return to school. That chapter of my life is over for good, and I’m at peace with that decision. It wasn’t until after days of feeling dread and anxiety that I finally understood school was one of the primary sources of my depression and stress. I let it go and I’m happy I did. I have no regrets.

On September 28th I had a seizure while I was at work. It was in response to my dosage being too high on one of the medications I was taking at the time. My supervisor called 911 and an ambulance took me to the hospital. Everything turned out to be fine, but it was a really scary experience. I feel like this year I’ve gone to the doctor so many times for various reasons. The waiting room almost feels like a second home.

In the state of GA one cannot legally drive for 6 months from having a seizure which means I won’t be able to get behind the wheel, legally, until March 28th. Losing my ability to drive put a strain on me and David’s relationship. I decided to quit my job and move down to Richmond Hill to be with him. That was about 2 and a half weeks ago.

Now, I am jobless and I don’t have a car. I’m actively looking for work but due to the circumstances I am fairly limited. Everything will work out in the end, but right now I feel a bit discouraged. One day at a time.

[wecankillpeoplenav]

representation matters

On last week’s 99th episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the precinct’s resident terrifying(ly awesome) Detective Rosa Diaz came out as bisexual.

A handful of words in a scene less than a minute long, a scene thrown in among all the other wonderful scenes that made this landmark 22-minute masterpiece of an episode. It was not a *GASP* cliffhanger moment, and there was no indication that the scene was all that significant - it did not precede a commercial break, which is often indicative of “oh wait- there’s more!” it was simply a moment between two friends, not an epiphany nor a revelation. it was simply a moment of honesty, a few sentences to the backdrop of the Texas Boyles’s cow-orgy soundtrack.

It was two sentences. 

“I’m dating a woman. I’m bi.”

It was classic Rosa Diaz - brief, direct, to the point. And it was so much more.

Rosa Diaz knows she’s a cop. She is the kind of woman who does own an axe. She knows everything about bikes and is highly (frighteningly) proprietary of her own. She oozes swagger and knows she’s a badass. She’s very aware that she scares people, and she likes it that way.

Of course, if people are scared of you, they won’t push against your boundaries. That, too, is classic Diaz. She’s erected a barbed wire fence around the human part of her and is all cop.

In the first two seasons, Rosa’s running gag was the fact that no one knew where she lived, or ‘any details about my life.’ 

She wasn’t a standoffish character nor was she a passive observer; she definitely involved herself and joined in the fun and games the precinct is famous for (”Jimmy Jabs! Jimmy Jabs!”). She was always daring, rebellious, and famously has blood on all but one of her vast collection of leather jackets. She’s always been funny in a deadpan sort of way - ‘RoboCop. I love that movie. It has everything I like. Gratuitous violence.’ She is very matter-of-fact and practical, two attributes that work well to cover any possible show of softness.

From the start, Diaz believed in and loved the squad as a whole, although it could be argued that if she did venture so far as to name any of them a friend, it would be her Police Academy buddy Jake Peralta of the thousand push-ups. We did watch as she developed a reluctant but obvious affection for fellow detective Amy Santiago’s Amy-ness. Her Sergeant, the amazing Terry Jeffords, was always determined to get closer to the real Rosa Diaz. Colleague Charles Boyle, whose initial over-the-top, never-to-be-requited love for Rosa somehow went from creepy fanatic wannabe lover to someone who is now one of Rosa’s closest friends on the show, with Charles all sweetness, Diaz all snark. Gina makes her laugh, Hitchcock and Scully make her threaten them with myriad sharp implements, and Captain Raymond Holt inspired great respect, from a distance. She was never the eager-to-build-closeness kind of character. She appreciated the rest of her squad, but never seemed to actively encourage a depth of friendship beyond serving and protecting together. 

We knew she lived close enough to the station to squeeze in a shower when, in 48 Hours, Jake screwed up everyone’s weekend by jumping the proverbial gun on an arrest with no evidence. We knew, based on a brief flashback and offhand comment, that she chose Amy’s Thanksgiving celebration over her own sister’s because she had zero desire to attend the latter, which appeared fairly torturous and uncomfortable. We learned about her deep dark past as a ballet dancer - but only because Terry refused to let the topic go, and eventually found out that it was, unsurprisingly, that charming Diaz brand of threat and intimidation that derailed her dance career.

We knew Dias was and is viciously loyal, the cop you’d want at your back. She was always the scary-as-hell Detective Diaz, but it has only been over the course of the show that we’ve come to get an understanding of who Rosa is.

In the second season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine we are given two disparate views of Detective Diaz, as a cop and as a girlfriend. First is in ‘The Return of the Pontiac Bandit,’ in which Jake ultimately gives up his dream of catching the devious Doug Judy to help revitalize Rosa’s stagnant task force investigation. What results is a ‘major win’ for her task force, and the squad duly celebrates that win with a drink at their bar of choice, Shaw’s. Here, post-win, she is straight up giddy. Her last scene with Jake features a giggly, smiley Rosa we’d never seen. Jake had never seen this Rosa either - when she says she can’t stop smiling, his face telegraphs his thoughts, which are pretty much ‘What. Is. Happening.’

The squad is aware that Rosa, circa season two, is dating none other than her CO’s nephew Marcus, much to her chagrin (or, more accurately, uncomfortable loathing). Here we get the joy of watching her relationship with that CO as it develops. Rosa is deeply discomfited at the thought of her work life and personal life colliding, but she finds the perfect match in her equally taciturn captain. With Holt, Rosa finds a confidant who will listen to the occasional thoughts and worries she barely manages to discuss. You can see that it physically pains her to address her emotions, and none but Captain Holt can offer her what she needs: someone to talk to who would understand the underlying feelings she so hates acknowledging, but would never presume (or want!) to poke and prod and try making her actually talk about those feelings.

Later in the season, with Boyle’s encouragement, Rosa’s romance with Marcus gradually becomes more serious. By the late season two Boyle-Linetti wedding, Rosa admits to Charles that inviting her boyfriend as a plus-one seemed too... big. But she does it anyway, mid-reception, and upon Marcus’s arrival, she verbalizes her growing feelings by telling him those three magic words.

But she isn’t glowing. She is awkward, unsure, uneasy - the opposite of everything Detective Diaz is known for. She is not celebrating finding love, not like she did the night she celebrated her Giggle Pig Task Force. She is, if anything, scared. Because Rosa Diaz doesn’t say ‘I love you.’ Rosa Diaz doesn’t do emotional bonding. Rosa Diaz doesn’t smile giddily. 

And yet, task force win? Infectiously grinning Diaz. But “I love you”? Terrified, anxious, why-did-I-say-this-emotions-are-stupid Rosa.

When the Rosa-Marcus relationship ends, part of the reason is precisely because of “I love yous” and all that emotional connecting. Hilariously, and sweetly, she and Holt practice acting out the big breakup, and as always, Holt is by her side in his uniquely Holt way. His squad is as much his family as his nephew.

In season three, Jake reveals feeling put-out and hurt that his partnership with Rosa is nothing like that of their Scotland Yard equivalent, the detestable Swedes, who know every horrifying detail about each other. By the episode’s end, Rosa, recognizing Jake’s hurt and wanting, but not exactly knowing how, to ease it, chooses to tell Jake she’s dating someone. 

She has to down approximately five thousand shots of liquor before she’s able to actually tell Jake her new boyfriend’s name, though. 

Later in season three, Rosa experiences a hormone-fueled bout of madness with the brilliantly weird appearance of Adrien Pimento, former undercover agent, current borderline psycho. It’s made clear that Rosa has no problem talking about sex, or about sharing public displays of aggressive affection. The Pimento-Diaz relationship is a sex-charged whirlwind, shocking to the squad (and not a little traumatizing for Terry) as it goes from heated public indecency to full-on relationship, whatever that means in the world of Adrian Pimento. 

At this point, we’ve started seeing more of the layers that make Rosa a person, not just Detective Diaz, but those layers are still coated in teflon. Yes, she will admit that the claim to Robocop being her favorite movie was a lie. In fact, Rosa’s real love is director Nancy Myers’s work. She will also threaten bodily harm if you tease her about her real cinematic love.

Then Pimento is forced to fake his own death, and we see Rosa emoting (albeit in a stilted manner) in front of a crowd of strangers at his ‘funeral.’ She confides in Amy about how worried she is for Adrian, wonders why he hasn’t come back to her, and nearly causes a panic attack for Amy when Rosa looks at her friend and colleague with tears in her eyes.

Season four brings the joyous and creepily-sex-charged return of Pimento. Rosa does love him,  in an entirely dysfunctional way. I personally think his absolute insane (probably PTSD-driven) antics are the appealing factor. After all, he doesn’t know the difference between being hungry and being horny. Pimento is a pedal-to-the-metal type who brings out Rosa’s fun, spontaneous, crazy side. She’s intoxicated by it all, but when Jake and Amy separately confront the couple about not being ready for marriage, Rosa recognizes the truth in Amy’s words. She doesn’t say get aggressive and curse them out or tell Amy to stay out of her life. Instead, she considers what she’s hearing and realizes that (per usual) Amy is dead-on.

So now we have a Rosa who isn’t quite so violent when it comes to other people trying to connect with her, a Rosa who has proven that she is capable of romantic love and is working on navigating its treacherous depths with Adrian. We have a Rosa whose relationship with Holt has strengthened to the point that he asks her for advice, a Rosa who advocates for Amy as union rep, a Rosa who’s memorized an entire monologue from her favorite tv show - and is willing to recite it word for word with Jake at her side.

We also have a Rosa who reaches out a little more. When she becomes convinced that Pimento is cheating on her, she goes to Terry and Amy and willingly shares her fears. She reaches out for help in figuring out the mystery that is pimento. Ultimately, she tells them enough to make her realize she’s concocted a fictional love affair in what’s really an act of self-sabotage. At some point she’s realized that Pimento is passion and paranoia and psychotic hilarity. But none of that is in any way healthy. She doesn’t want this man, but she is unsure of her moves and wants to force his hand rather than reveal her own, thereby creating his imaginary affair.

This is a Rosa who’s discovering what is right for her and what she wants in herself and from others. This is a Rosa discovering that having friends might just be on the “pro” side of life, and that to show emotion isn’t showing weakness. This is a Rosa who recognizes that she gets to make her own life decisions, which includes making the decision to share herself with those closest to her.

And then of course, we have Big House, season five Rosa in prison. It is acknowledged that she spent time in solitary, given ample silence and isolation in which to reflect on who she is. And this self-reflective Rosa, who is, more than anything, lonely, slowly started letting the people who love her get a tiny glimpse of the emotions she’s always been too scared to express.

She showed vulnerability to Terry and Holt while in jail; she showed insecurity over her conflicting feelings for Pimento and actively sought advice from her friends. She rebonded with her family. She actually chose to unzip that leather jacket, revealing the custom family t-shirt and the fact that the shirts were her idea.

As a character, Rosa is at a major turning point. Once no one knew where she lived; now she’s bringing Jake to dinner. Once she answered Kevin’s question about her family with something along the lines of, ‘I have one.’ Now she’s celebrating holidays with that family, and we’re meeting her parents. Once she enjoyed talking about casual sex - never emotional attachment, pure physicality - like when in the very beginning of the show her advice to help Jake get over his slump was flying to Montreal and getting laid. 

And now... now she is WILLINGLY, happily chatting on the phone with her significant other - where once she hated that Marcus always wanted to talk about things. She is easily, naturally saying things like, “I’d much rather be hanging out with you.” TO SOMEONE OTHER THAN HER OWN REFLECTION. She is discovering herself in bits and pieces, and part of the discovery is that (and here I’m leaning on Stephanie Beatriz and her comments about Rosa’s sexuality) she doesn’t have to deny the part of herself that is attracted to both genders. Steph said Rosa’s bisexuality was always kind of there; she plays the character and knows Rosa better than any of us, and she recognized the deep emotional imbalance in her character as Rosa consistently rejected an intrinsic part of herself. Because sexuality is intrinsic. Even for someone who is asexual, sexuality is part of their very identity, albeit in a way different from heteronormative standards. 

Some people are born with crappy vision, some people are born without a sex drive. Some people are born with prodigy-level talent, some people are born ready to love anyone, regardless of something so menial as gender. We’re all born people, though.

Rosa Diaz is gay, and she’s finally ready to let people know. She is finding the courage to acknowledge who she is to a family that (based on the little we know) is very traditional. The character is finding that courage so that she can be her true self without feeling the need to keep any pieces hidden in a security deposit box. Rosa may never be the type to talk about her feelings or to delve, vocally, into her sexual identity, but she is the type to claim it and make it her own. She is pinpointing personal attributes that she perhaps considered shameful and embarrassing and she’s saying - maybe in a whisper, right now, because nothing is overnight - fuck you, world, this is me. I am strong and brave and beautiful for it, and I’m not hiding in the shadows your bigotry casts for another second. I’m embracing every aspect of myself, because there is only one me, and that me has a voice, and even if it’s shaky now, it will grow louder, it will grow harder, I will be a force to be reckoned with.

Rosa Diaz is finding her voice, finding her identity, exploring the depths of what makes her uniquely her.

And that’s exactly what we, as viewers, should be doing.

For those of you out there who are already “over” the Rosa Revelation, who want the LGBTQ+ community to stop shouting pride from the rooftops already... maybe you need a little time in solitary. Start reflecting. Stop getting irritated with the deserved celebration of a bisexual woman of color claiming herself for herself. And maybe think about why you’re bothered in the slightest by the celebrators and the celebration. About why you’re annoyed or feel defensive. Find your mental security deposit lockbox, where your hidden pieces lie. Find the courage of those like Rosa Diaz, like Stephanie Beatriz, and look at all the parts of you. Bring them into the light. You just might see something wonderful.

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New Post has been published on http://webpostingpro.com/barmy-army-founder-issues-bangladesh-tour-travel-warning-to-england-supporters/

Barmy Army founder issues Bangladesh tour travel warning to England supporters

The founder of England supporters’ group the Barmy Military has urged lovers not to make non-refundable travel arrangements for the group’s excursion of Bangladesh.

Living in England

England will play three one-day internationals and two Exams in Bangladesh from October 7 after the England and Wales Cricket Board’s security adviser Reg Dickason dominated the journey may want to move ahead with suitable security measures. Whilst the games can be without difficulty monitored in a small organization, though, Barmy Navy founder Paul Burnham has concerns about enthusiasts.military rank chart

Making their own arrangements and journeying one by one from respectable excursion agencies.

I do recognize a few people who have booked up already and have got their flights. We are actually going to try and get in touch with them and provide them the records that we’ve got. ‘In the intervening time, we’d propose every person against purchasing non-refundable flights and lodging.

England is due to name their Test and ODI squads for the excursion on September 16, with players together with captain Eoin Morgan still considering their participation.

England facts

ECB director Andrew Strauss warned on Wednesday that any participant who opts out can be giving a possibility to his alternative to ‘stake a claim’ for an ordinary place inside the aspect.

At the same time as Burnham pledged the Barmy Army will ‘travel and support whatever 11 players are put out’, he accepts there may be a heightened hazard – the United Kingdom government’s overseas tour advice warns of the possibility of violent protests because of sizeable moves.

He stated: ‘There may be countrywide strikes that they speak approximately on the website, and is it definitely crucial travel for the fans to move over? It just feels like plenty stronger recommendation not to head than previously.’

Information About Joining The Pakistan Army

Perhaps you can have thought of enrolling in the navy, in case you manifest to be a Pakistan resident, do now not panic, there are a variety of strategies you may use to arrive at your goals. The collection system entails several stages. Read through to recognize the diverse methods to enroll inside the Pakistan defense force.

PMA are long guides which can be inducted into the Pakistan army to the officials at the rank of 2d. Generally, these courses are taken two times a yr. Once is completed all through the iciness at the same time as the other for the duration of the summer time. Thereupon, all who’re willing to enroll in the Pakistan military must check the eligibility standards supplied by the utility sites. The candidate must skip thru the subsequent:

-Registration -Initial test -ISSB -Clinical check

1. Registration:

It all begins with utility. You are required to fill in all your info on the software paperwork and later submit them to the relevant navy recruitment and choice facilities. With the technological development, You are capable of making an online utility. Upon the receiving of the utility, you’ll be given a slip to appear in the Initial check. This registration begins at around July.

2. Initial Checks: 

Upon the validation of the registration, applicants are referred to as for the Initial check. This degree accommodates of several Exams which includes on-line, Medical and bodily Checks.

A) on-line check: This comprises of Tests on verbal, non-verbal and educational Tests. Verbal contains ninety-four questions which must be completed inside 30 minutes. Non-verbal comprises of 96 questions which also requires being attempted in the half-hour. Instructional take a look at has 50 questions and similarly, requires 30 minutes. Each verbal and non-verbal Assessments comprise of commonplace sense questions. They are intended to offer a range of your prudence.

B) Clinical take a look at: Here, the applicants are commissioned a physician to have a look at their top,

Weight, bones, and plenty of fitness conditions. All applicants observed with fitness troubles are disqualified from continuing with the navy schooling.

C) physical test: All applicants declared suit through the physician are summoned for a physical fitness evaluation. They are made to run, push-ups, reach-united states among other bodily health schemes. You need to remember that not many individuals get thru this degree, thereupon, you need to hold yourself a match too relaxed a task inside the army.

3. ISSB:

That is the inter-services choice board. That is the maximum versatile a part of every person’s software. You are best legible to apply twice for your complete lifestyles. Failure to go through it the second one time results in an eternal disqualification for a position inside the Pakistan military.

Epiphanies in Bangladesh

The whirling of the fan above my head unfolds heat in my claustrophobic room like wildfire. Beads of sweat regarded on my skin and quick evaporated, making room for the subsequent round of salty dew. The engine roared under me and despatched my frame into waves of motion sickness; I was trapped between the warmth and colossal vibrations.

I laid on my stiff mattress and started on the plaster of the top bunk in hopes that my old buddy, sleep, might quickly pay me a go to. However, while there was no signal of the long lost traveler my thoughts began to flow away; right here I used to be on a ship in Bangladesh’s Sundarbans filming a documentary, But how did I am getting here?

Opportunity knocked on my door once I received an invitation to fly out to Bangladesh as part of a small crew to the movie a documentary just a week earlier. Despite not understanding all and sundry or any of the preparations, I without delay began packing my baggage and getting ready for the unknown.bangladesh same hotel

Fortunately enough, the unknown turned into the first-rate.

We had been a total of thirteen newshounds and filmmakers from around the arena who have been all on the same undertaking; to depict the splendor of Bangladesh. We stayed in the capital, Dhaka, for the primary 1/2 of the experience in which we met numerous ministers, visited historic museums and attended the kingdom’s biggest party, The Bangla New 12 months. We then flew to The Sundarbans, which is defined as the biggest mangroves inside the world and domestic to the famous Bengal Tiger, and stayed on a ship and explored the rivers and jungles for the remainder of the ride. And for each step and every occasion, I used to be there with my camera, documenting the whole lot.Bangladesh newspaper

Among the heat, loss of sleep and lugging around heavy equipment, I didn’t have the time to comprehend the reality of what was unfolding until my remaining night on the ship. My shoulders were sore and my feet have been blistered, However as I subsequently had a moment to myself I realized how the past few days have been some of the happiest of my life. And why need to or not it’s another manner?

  Some Interesting Facts About York, England

Did you recognize that York’s minster has its own police force – it is authentic! The best different cathedral within the world that could boast that is St. Peter’s in Rome which has its own police force inside the shape of the Swiss Guards. Here we’ve compiled a listing of exciting data about York.

There is a street in York referred to as The Shambles which is in which historical butchers used to ply their exchange. The upper stories of the fifteenth-century houses lean inwards to date that the roofs on either facet almost contact. Walking this street, you may be aware raised pavements either facet of the main cobbled avenue which shapes the channel through which the butchers could wash away offal and blood. York is steeped in medieval records, the battlement partitions and bars (gates) to the town were built all through this period and are still greatly preserved nowadays. Clifford’s Tower is a popular traveler hang-out nowadays but has a grisly beyond, getting its named from Roger de Clifford who changed into hung using chains from its battlements after the Struggle of Boroughbridge in 1322.

The minster is the 2nd largest gothic cathedral in Europe and its creation took an incredible 250 years

The minster also has its personal police pressure, the handiest another cathedral inside the world that may boast that is St. Peter’s in Rome which has the Swiss Guards. York’s first Minster turned into built for the baptism of Anglo-Saxon King Edwin of Northumbria in 627. The authentic church changed into a small wooden production that had been constructed for the baptism and became later rebuilt in stone on Edwin’s orders.

York has featured in lots of film and Television collection sets through the years, such as Brideshead Revisited and Robinson Crusoe. York also has more than 360 pubs, at least one for each day of the yr. York’s financial system was as soon as largely driven by the railways and the chocolate enterprise and indeed nowadays you may nonetheless scent cocoa in the air while Strolling around the metropolis’s streets.

York holds the United Kingdom’s largest meals competition

Held every September and lasting 10 days. York additionally has its very own race path and annual music competition. The Association of Voluntary Guides delivers unfastened hour On foot tours of York every day. The excursions begin in Exhibition Rectangular, among April and October – There is commonly 1 inside the morning at 10 o’clock and one at 2 pm (check with vacationer data on arrival in York). The tours are unfastened, informative and informal, and there is no need to book you just flip up.

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Hyperallergic: Enduring Voices: The Legacy of Nat Hentoff

There have been dozens of obituaries for Nat Hentoff over the past week. He was memorialized in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and anywhere else a person could hope to be, with obituaries detailing his intellectual prowess and expertise on a myriad of subjects. Despite the plethora of responses to his passing, I cannot help but wonder how he is going to be remembered, and indeed if he is going to be remembered in the long run. Hentoff was a producer, not a star, nor even the type of director who gave himself an occasional cameo. History is not much good for remembering producers, despite the fact that no shows go on without them. Hentoff wrote himself out of many of his works and used a light touch in his interviews in order to focus entirely on the people he interviewed: their stories, their lives, their voices. This is what makes those pieces so rich. It’s why his subjects trusted him. He was a good listener. One of the best, it seems.

I dwelled on the “elegant riffs and the sweet harmonies” in the Times obituary: “the legendary jazz writer and civil libertarian who called himself a troublemaker and proved it with a shelf of books and a mountain of essays on free speech, wayward politics, elegant riffs and the sweet harmonies of the Constitution died on Saturday [at age 91] at his home in Manhattan … surrounded by his family members and listening to Billie Holiday.”

Hentoff worked at the Village Voice for fifty years, alongside a handful of agile writers populating their independent America with flair, teeth, and supple sentences. For my cohorts and me, they changed journalism.

Hentoff’s art was to highlight the art of others and he was so successful that he is in danger of being left out of the stories he stepped aside to make room for.

Any way you want to look at it he was prolific. There are many strands of Nat Hentoff, which, in both scope and depth, are hard to wrap your head around.

Known for books such as Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya (with Nate Shapiro) and The Jazz Life, his big themes (section titles of The Nat Hentoff Reader, 2001) include the condition of liberty, the passion of creation, the persistence of race, and the beast of politics. His lesser-known books are as rich and illuminating as his best known. These include Peace Agitator: The Story of A.J. Muste; a spirited and heterodox biography of Cardinal O’Connor, to whom Hentoff warmly referred as “my friend the Cardinal”; and (a personal favorite) his understated, rough-cut Young Adult novel Jazz Country, billed on the dust jacket as, “the story of a white teen-ager’s struggle to make it in the black man’s world of jazz.”

My own hope is that some day there will be a well-selected collection of Hentoff’s music writing, that will stand side by side with such classics as Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, a fellow writer and traveler who chronicled his own towering century.

For those less familiar with Hentoff, he may be one of the best-known Zelig figures that you’ve never heard of. Witness Hentoff taking the stand in Lenny Bruce’s obscenity trial, and placing himself in the line of fire, as William F. Buckley berated the specter of Black Power on his TV program Firing Line. As Camera 2 turned to Hentoff in the latter, he matter-of-factly explained that the truth of Black Power is that it did “not exist as yet,” which is why black people and groups such as the Black Panthers were organizing under its banner. Aboard Bob Dylan’s bus for the Rolling Thunder Revue tour with Joan Baez, listening to Allen Ginsberg holding forth; on the go again on a chilly night in April 1955, backstage among the 40-plus musicians at Charlie Parker’s memorial concert at Carnegie Hall, which Hentoff co-produced and to which he contributed program copy; or in the studio with Cecil Taylor and Abbey Lincoln producing the album We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite.

Though I did not always share his opinions and positions, I respected, even lionized Hentoff. He had an unabashed sense of rabidity about what he was here to do, and how to keep on doing it. I was not alone. David Lewis asked the poet Amiri Baraka what Nat Hentoff’s reputation was among jazz musicians. Baraka shook his head and laughed, “I don’t know, what’s the reputation of the Bible in Church?”

From the age of 15, as a muckraker for the mimeographed Boston City Reporter, where he wrote about anti-Semitism, to articles drafted the past few months (see his June 2016 article “Trump’s Dangerous War on Press Freedom,” as timely as it is distressing), Hentoff never stopped.

Some of the Hentoff tributes over the past week focus on his political writings, others on his jazz criticism. He himself understood that his articles, books, and producing were interconnected. Both politics and American creative music are share the clear-eyed goal that the fight for freedom never ends. For writers and musicians like myself, certain of his most powerful books are emancipations.

How did Nat Hentoff become Nat Hentoff? In his memoir Boston Boy, one exchange becomes a central trope of his identity: I was twenty, sitting at the bar in a struggling Boston jazz club, alongside Duke Ellington’s longtime tenor saxophonist — the large, often volatile, Ben Webster.… Ben had just finished a set with an earnest but stolid local rhythm section, and he had lifted them, as if in a huge fist, into a groove that at least approximated swinging. “You see,” Ben said, triumphant: “If the rhythm section ain’t making it, go for yourself.”

That principle of Ben’s music and his life, which were the same, has stayed with me. If I’m to have a headstone, I’d like that to be on it.

In Jazz Country, another elder black musician explains to the young white protagonist that you don’t have to play jazz to swing, you can “swing in other ways.” And that was Nat’s own story of how he translated he values of music and the Jazz life into his own writing and worldview. It is more than an honorific gesture that he was the first nonmusician to be recognized as a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

He said one of his favorite Ellington songs was “What Am I Here For?” It always struck me as a strange choice. I like a few versions of the song, but never felt moved by it. Still, I’d give it a close listen, trying to hear what Nat heard it in. As it turned out, the song held a private meaning for him. His autobiography Boston Boy provides a clue.

At age 15, he still didn’t know what he was here for, but he began to find out when he was recruited “as apprentice journalists for a muckraking newspaper — actually a four-page mimeographed sheet — the Boston City Reporter.” He reflected, “The only payment was that for me, it put a personal pulse, a rhythm, to Duke Ellington’s song.”

Hentoff took the song and question to heart. He knew enough to know that the question has no one answer, but that, in any case, the lived life is its expression.

For Hentoff listening was as essential as food, clothing, and shelter. It was basic need, and yet listening and “being there” were starting points; you then had to “make it” in the moment. This meant allowing conversations to go in unexpected directions. More than once Hentoff quotes cornet player Bix Beiderbecke, who learned to play by ear, obsessively listening to records: “That’s one thing I like about jazz, kid. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Do you?”

*

Strange as it may sound for a writer of his accomplishments, Hentoff believed that his most lasting achievement would not be one of his books, but in fact a television program that he helped produce one Sunday afternoon in 1957.

CBS asked Hentoff and Whitney Balliett to create a jazz program for the network. They selected the musicians and worked with them on the numbers to be played. The line-up included Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Jo Jones, Roy Eldridge, Gerry Mulligan, Mal Waldren, Milt Hinton, Osie Johnson, Vic Dickenson, Doc Cheatham, Danny Barker.

The show, The Sounds of Jazz, exemplified Hentoff’s light touch. The bare studio would be the stage. Against protocol, the cameramen were told “not to worry about being caught in someone else’s shot.” According to Hentoff, in his introduction to Listen to the Stories: Nat Hentoff on Jazz and Country Music (1995), permission was given for the cameramen to use their judgment on any “particularly arresting shots” and “not wait for the control room” for directions.

A seemingly minor detail, Hentoff relates that the musicians were “told to dress as they would for a rehearsal,” which meant that Holiday would not wear a dress and “most of the musicians wore their hats.” The details of the set up reveal Hentoff’s process in action. You can see the musicians sharing stories in their own private language in a small intimate setting.

The session’s moment of truth is Lester Young’s one course solo on “Fine and Mellow,” sung by Billie Holiday. Hentoff’s telling of it gives me the chills:

When The Sounds of Jazz was on the air, we in the control room were moving in time to the music until something happened that nobody had anticipated. It was an epiphany, a wordless remembrance of things past between Lester Young (“Prez” she [Holiday] had nicknamed him long ago) and Billie Holiday (“Lady Day” had been his name for her).

They had once been very close, but for reasons unknown they had grown far apart. During the week before airtime they had avoided each other. And Lester Young, sick and weak, had to be replaced [on an earlier part of the show] on the big-band numbers. All he had left was Billie’s number. I told him before the show started that he didn’t have to stand up for his solo; he could stay seated.

Billie was seated on a stool … She began to sing. In the control room we leaned forward. The song “Fine and Mellow” was one of the few blues in her repertory. She sang about trouble long in mind, with some kicks along the way. Her sound was tart, tender, knowing. And she was sinuously swinging.

It was time for Prez. He stood up and played the sparest, purest blues chorus I have ever heard. Nodding, smiling, Billie was inside the music. Her eyes met his. It was as if they were in another, familiar place, a very private place. I felt a tear, and so did [CBS producer Robert] Herridge.

As I dwell on Hentoff’s life and work I keep thinking how much poorer the history of jazz would be without him. I think about his liner notes for John Coltrane’s Giant Steps or his exceptional “Dizzy in the Sunlight” portraits of Dizzy Gillespie — more essays than I can name here. Hentoff wrote in such a way that we felt we were hearing something for ourselves when we were in fact hearing it through Nat’s scrupulous ear.

As Hentoff developed as a writer his questions became deeper about the person and deeper still about the bigger picture of one’s own life.

He was an early commentator on the cultural and racial politics of jazz, critiquing the white culture of jazz critics and even DownBeat magazine while he worked there. According to scholar Nichole Rustin he “was perhaps the most articulate white critic on the subject of race and its attendant discourses of power, agency, and class within jazz culture and on the national scene. Black musicians felt that they could trust Hentoff because of his deep knowledge about jazz history and its practitioners, and his respect for their ideas.”

If Hentoff is the voice of jazz writing, as he has been called, it is because he always allowed the voices of the musicians to take the lead. A typical Hentoff piece seems to tell you everything you need to know: a note or two from Nat, a quote or two from the musician, and then you’re off, on your own to immediately search for the music.

Here are the lead paragraphs for Hentoff’s “Every Night, I Begin Again.���

In the Ellington sense, Hank Jones is serenely beyond category. If I owned a nightclub, I’d give Jones a lifetime contract. Unlike some musicians who memorize attractive “licks,” as they used to be called, Jones is a true improviser. He is “the sound of surprise,” to use Whitney Balliett’s phrase for jazz as it ought to be.

Furthermore, Jones is a melodist, a lyrical storyteller. “In a way,” he [Jones] told me recently, “I have a singing approach to the piano. I play very long lines that connect with each other to tell a musical story. The sentences become paragraphs, and as for the colors — well, the harmonies are what the lines are built on.”

In many ways Hentoff’s significance has been acknowledged, and in others it has not been. Hentoff’s 1957 review of Thelonious Monk’s Brilliant Corners and his startling interview “Just Call Him Thelonious,” both provided a much needed window into Monk as a person, musician, and composer at a critical moment in Monk’s life and career.

A favorite line from Hentoff’s introduction to his interview with Monk, is “When he has something to say, he says it in his music.” Indeed, Hentoff’s critical evaluation of the pianist proved decisive.

I do not wish to overstate Hentoff’s significance, or the role he played in such critical receptions, yet it would be wrong to understate them too. It’s a hedge for other writers or historians whom might just wish to rush directly to the gold of the quotes and miss the alchemist in the shadows of such brilliant corners.

In high school my best friend’s father, who was an encyclopedia of American music, told me that when he first heard Monk he thought he was playing chopsticks. Later I came to admire his honesty about how he heard Monk. We want to believe that we can see and hear the most vital art and its contours, mysteries, and wily beauty, but more often than not trusted guides are needed.

In the end, so many of the people whom Hentoff interviewed said things to him that they either couldn’t or wouldn’t say to anyone else. This is the power of listening, but these conversations grew out of real relationships and mutual trust. And so it is, his interviews, conversations, and many books, starting with Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz by the Men Who Made It, are a cultural treasure and inheritance. Hentoff never needed or wanted to be center stage, and that may have been the right-sized understanding of the role of a critic, and especially a white critic, in the jazz world. For me, Hentoff stands as one of the greatest sidemen in the history of jazz.

The post Enduring Voices: The Legacy of Nat Hentoff appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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Barmy Army founder issues Bangladesh tour travel warning to England supporters

The founder of England supporters’ group the Barmy Military has urged lovers not to make non-refundable travel arrangements for the group’s excursion of Bangladesh.

Living in England

England will play three one-day internationals and two Exams in Bangladesh from October 7 after the England and Wales Cricket Board’s security adviser Reg Dickason dominated the journey may want to move ahead with suitable security measures. Whilst the games can be without difficulty monitored in a small organization, though, Barmy Navy founder Paul Burnham has concerns about enthusiasts.military rank chart

Making their own arrangements and journeying one by one from respectable excursion agencies.

I do recognize a few people who have booked up already and have got their flights. We are actually going to try and get in touch with them and provide them the records that we’ve got. ‘In the intervening time, we’d propose every person against purchasing non-refundable flights and lodging.

England is due to name their Test and ODI squads for the excursion on September 16, with players together with captain Eoin Morgan still considering their participation.

England facts

ECB director Andrew Strauss warned on Wednesday that any participant who opts out can be giving a possibility to his alternative to ‘stake a claim’ for an ordinary place inside the aspect.

At the same time as Burnham pledged the Barmy Army will ‘travel and support whatever 11 players are put out’, he accepts there may be a heightened hazard – the United Kingdom government’s overseas tour advice warns of the possibility of violent protests because of sizeable moves.

He stated: ‘There may be countrywide strikes that they speak approximately on the website, and is it definitely crucial travel for the fans to move over? It just feels like plenty stronger recommendation not to head than previously.’

Information About Joining The Pakistan Army

Perhaps you can have thought of enrolling in the navy, in case you manifest to be a Pakistan resident, do now not panic, there are a variety of strategies you may use to arrive at your goals. The collection system entails several stages. Read through to recognize the diverse methods to enroll inside the Pakistan defense force.

PMA are long guides which can be inducted into the Pakistan army to the officials at the rank of 2d. Generally, these courses are taken two times a yr. Once is completed all through the iciness at the same time as the other for the duration of the summer time. Thereupon, all who’re willing to enroll in the Pakistan military must check the eligibility standards supplied by the utility sites. The candidate must skip thru the subsequent:

-Registration -Initial test -ISSB -Clinical check

1. Registration:

It all begins with utility. You are required to fill in all your info on the software paperwork and later submit them to the relevant navy recruitment and choice facilities. With the technological development, You are capable of making an online utility. Upon the receiving of the utility, you’ll be given a slip to appear in the Initial check. This registration begins at around July.

2. Initial Checks: 

Upon the validation of the registration, applicants are referred to as for the Initial check. This degree accommodates of several Exams which includes on-line, Medical and bodily Checks.

A) on-line check: This comprises of Tests on verbal, non-verbal and educational Tests. Verbal contains ninety-four questions which must be completed inside 30 minutes. Non-verbal comprises of 96 questions which also requires being attempted in the half-hour. Instructional take a look at has 50 questions and similarly, requires 30 minutes. Each verbal and non-verbal Assessments comprise of commonplace sense questions. They are intended to offer a range of your prudence.

B) Clinical take a look at: Here, the applicants are commissioned a physician to have a look at their top,

Weight, bones, and plenty of fitness conditions. All applicants observed with fitness troubles are disqualified from continuing with the navy schooling.

C) physical test: All applicants declared suit through the physician are summoned for a physical fitness evaluation. They are made to run, push-ups, reach-united states among other bodily health schemes. You need to remember that not many individuals get thru this degree, thereupon, you need to hold yourself a match too relaxed a task inside the army.

3. ISSB:

That is the inter-services choice board. That is the maximum versatile a part of every person’s software. You are best legible to apply twice for your complete lifestyles. Failure to go through it the second one time results in an eternal disqualification for a position inside the Pakistan military.

Epiphanies in Bangladesh

The whirling of the fan above my head unfolds heat in my claustrophobic room like wildfire. Beads of sweat regarded on my skin and quick evaporated, making room for the subsequent round of salty dew. The engine roared under me and despatched my frame into waves of motion sickness; I was trapped between the warmth and colossal vibrations.

I laid on my stiff mattress and started on the plaster of the top bunk in hopes that my old buddy, sleep, might quickly pay me a go to. However, while there was no signal of the long lost traveler my thoughts began to flow away; right here I used to be on a ship in Bangladesh’s Sundarbans filming a documentary, But how did I am getting here?

Opportunity knocked on my door once I received an invitation to fly out to Bangladesh as part of a small crew to the movie a documentary just a week earlier. Despite not understanding all and sundry or any of the preparations, I without delay began packing my baggage and getting ready for the unknown.bangladesh same hotel

Fortunately enough, the unknown turned into the first-rate.

We had been a total of thirteen newshounds and filmmakers from around the arena who have been all on the same undertaking; to depict the splendor of Bangladesh. We stayed in the capital, Dhaka, for the primary 1/2 of the experience in which we met numerous ministers, visited historic museums and attended the kingdom’s biggest party, The Bangla New 12 months. We then flew to The Sundarbans, which is defined as the biggest mangroves inside the world and domestic to the famous Bengal Tiger, and stayed on a ship and explored the rivers and jungles for the remainder of the ride. And for each step and every occasion, I used to be there with my camera, documenting the whole lot.Bangladesh newspaper

Among the heat, loss of sleep and lugging around heavy equipment, I didn’t have the time to comprehend the reality of what was unfolding until my remaining night on the ship. My shoulders were sore and my feet have been blistered, However as I subsequently had a moment to myself I realized how the past few days have been some of the happiest of my life. And why need to or not it’s another manner?

  Some Interesting Facts About York, England

Did you recognize that York’s minster has its own police force – it is authentic! The best different cathedral within the world that could boast that is St. Peter’s in Rome which has its own police force inside the shape of the Swiss Guards. Here we’ve compiled a listing of exciting data about York.

There is a street in York referred to as The Shambles which is in which historical butchers used to ply their exchange. The upper stories of the fifteenth-century houses lean inwards to date that the roofs on either facet almost contact. Walking this street, you may be aware raised pavements either facet of the main cobbled avenue which shapes the channel through which the butchers could wash away offal and blood. York is steeped in medieval records, the battlement partitions and bars (gates) to the town were built all through this period and are still greatly preserved nowadays. Clifford’s Tower is a popular traveler hang-out nowadays but has a grisly beyond, getting its named from Roger de Clifford who changed into hung using chains from its battlements after the Struggle of Boroughbridge in 1322.

The minster is the 2nd largest gothic cathedral in Europe and its creation took an incredible 250 years

The minster also has its personal police pressure, the handiest another cathedral inside the world that may boast that is St. Peter’s in Rome which has the Swiss Guards. York’s first Minster turned into built for the baptism of Anglo-Saxon King Edwin of Northumbria in 627. The authentic church changed into a small wooden production that had been constructed for the baptism and became later rebuilt in stone on Edwin’s orders.

York has featured in lots of film and Television collection sets through the years, such as Brideshead Revisited and Robinson Crusoe. York also has more than 360 pubs, at least one for each day of the yr. York’s financial system was as soon as largely driven by the railways and the chocolate enterprise and indeed nowadays you may nonetheless scent cocoa in the air while Strolling around the metropolis’s streets.

York holds the United Kingdom’s largest meals competition

Held every September and lasting 10 days. York additionally has its very own race path and annual music competition. The Association of Voluntary Guides delivers unfastened hour On foot tours of York every day. The excursions begin in Exhibition Rectangular, among April and October – There is commonly 1 inside the morning at 10 o’clock and one at 2 pm (check with vacationer data on arrival in York). The tours are unfastened, informative and informal, and there is no need to book you just flip up.