#it has the oxford logo on it which is like whatever

[kittycatcarla]

Every. Single. Time. I leave my shoulder bag on the floor my cat just comes to it WITHIN SECONDS and just.. sits on it

And it's always this specifc bag. Regardless if its empty or full. But just this ome bag. Not my school backpack, nu my mom's or sister's bags, but just this one blue bag

Granted, he did piss on it like 3 years ago but im not so sure whether its related or if they have a common cause

But he just likes to sit on it

[adorethedistance]

Something to Lose - Luke Patterson X Covington!Reader

JATP masterlist

Requested: luke imagine idea so Luke’s old gf is dead and she’s calebs daughter and is trying to get him to stay with her instead of cross over and then he doenst show up in stand tall . I just had this idea and near had a fit trying to get it down love ur writing also 💖

Warnings: angst, a lot of crying, I don’t even think there’s swearing in this one.

Words: 2293

A/n: I hope I did the request justice. This was kinda stressful the entire time writing it just bc of all the ideas that came. Like I’d be writing and then my brain would be like ‘hey what if this happened’ and then I’m like ‘oh that’s evil. put it in the fic.’ you know?

I begin nervously playing with the tulle skirt of my above-the-knee length party dress. I wanted a mini but dad refused to let me be visible to ghosts and lifers in anything ‘revealing’, so we compromised on above the knee. It’s a pretty dress, the black long sleeves are sheer and the back is completely open, and that’s as scandalous as dad would allow. Ironic considering his dancers’ costumes are cut out fringe leotards and nude tights.

And speaking of dancers,

“Who was that?” I ask Francesca as she comes to stand next to me by the black music stands, branded with the infamous Hollywood Ghost Club logo.

“Who was who?”She takes a tiny sip of water and readjusts her massive blue and purple feather headdress. Dad always chooses the most extravagant costumes. Sometimes I wonder how they’re able to dance without falling over from being so… top heavy I guess?

“That guy you were dancing in front of in the denim coat?”

“What are you talking about? I was dancing in front of Willie.”

“Nice try, I know that was Angie. Maybe next time.” On the first day the girls set foot in the place they were such amazing dancers, dad invited them to perform front and center if they wanted to join the club. The downside was he could never tell them apart. I don’t know how though, they’re not indiscernibly identical. I made it my goal to always be able to tell them apart, and they made it their goal to get me to mix them up just once.

“We’re gonna get you one of these days.”

“Yeah, sure. But, uh, do you know who he is?”

“I don’t but maybe you will?”

“What?” Glancing up to Fran’s face she gives me a look and directs me with her eyes before smiling smugly and walking away. I follow her gaze to see my dad standing on the far side of their table, talking with the attractive stranger. His excitement makes his every movement animated and he can’t even seem to string a coherent sentence. Inviting them to sit down, dad starts saying something about Willie and magic? The conversation doesn’t last long and once he leaves, I debate whether or not to approach the handsome stranger.

“Who are we looking at?” I’m startled when I hear Angie’s voice in my right ear.

“Oh. The one at the front table in the denim overcoat.”

“You mean the one Franny was dancing in front of?”

“She already tried that.”

“Dammit!” I laugh at yet another failed attempt.

“I don’t even know why you guys bother anymore.”

“Whatever. Why are we staring at him?”

“I’m debating whether or not I should talk to him.” Angie sends me a look that says ‘have more faith in yourself’ which I gleefully ignore.

“Shoot your shot. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“My dad could interrupt and say something totally embarrassing. He wasn’t done talking to them, he just had to do rounds.”

“Girl, have you seen how many people are here tonight? He’s not gonna be done any time soon, so go while you still have some time!” Angie punctuates her sentence by gently pushing me forward, and I stumble in the direction of the cute stranger. The sudden jerky movement seems to catch his attention and his eyes soften once they meet mine. He smiles softly as a greeting and when I return the look, he takes that as an invitation to walk my way. I’m standing in the middle of the dance floor, frozen partially out of fear and partly out of curiosity.

“Hey, I’m Luke,” denim extends his hand politely and… extremely flusteredly? He sounds breathless and a touch fearful. I’m used to the energy as the club intimidates first-timers. I take his hand,

“Y/n.” Omitting my last name tends to do me a lot of good.

“Wow. That’s really pretty,”

“It’s nothing special.”

“You’re really pretty.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“So, uh-“ he trails off in search of a conversation starter, “What brings you to the Hollywood Ghost Club?”

“Oh, you know... just uhm- just a night out.”

“Do you come to the Club a lot?”

“You could say that. It’s pretty much a second home.”

“Y/n, darling. There you are!” Luke watches my face drop from its pleasant ‘chatting with guests’ expression, to a relaxed almost-frown.

“Here I am.”

“And I see you’ve met Luke.”

“Yes sir.”

“I trust my daughter is keeping you in good company?”

“Your daughter?” Luke nearly chokes on the mystical air of the Hollywood Ghost Club.

“I did not choke!”

“You choked.” Luke and I argue over the details of how we met, in the backstage/dressing room area of the Club. It feels like lifetimes ago, but it wasn’t. And yet in such a short time, we had become completely infatuated and comfortable with one another. So much so that me wearing a floor-length evening gown and jewels doesn’t make me feel out of place with his jeans and flannel shirt.

Despite my light laughter, Luke’s face is fairly flat. He’s beginning to stare off into space, inattentive from our lull in the conversation.

“Hey, you okay?” He snaps back into reality.

“Uh, yeah.”

“You don’t sound so sure.” After a long moment of hesitation, he begins to speak, not looking up from the scuff on the linoleum flooring.

“Y/n, I have something to tell you.”

“What’s up?”

“The boys and I… We… we have unfinished business…”

“Of course you do. That’s why you’re here- why all of us are here.”

“We’re gonna play the Orpheum tonight. At seven.”

“That’s so cool! Tha-” I feel my words trapped in my throat. “That’s your unfinished business... Play the show you never got to before you died.” I feel a well of tears flooding my bottom lash line. They’re not tears of sadness. “That’s your unfinished business. And you’re playing there tonight. Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you found out?!” I cry out in anguish. Luke’s face falls from a somber reluctance to break the news, to utter heartbreak.

“Y/n, I-”

“I thought we had something.”

“We do!”

“Then why would you wait to tell me until,” I check the analog clock on the wall behind him, “An hour before you go?!”

“I wanted to enjoy our last day together without having to think about it. I didn’t think it’d make you this angry.”

“Well, I am angry, Luke!” My sentence is punctuated by Luke getting zapped by a jolt of electricity. He groans as he tries to remain standing upright. The tears streaming down my face slow from a mix of anger to extreme worry.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Your dad gave us a ‘club stamp’ that first night we left.” My face falls slack as I register what he’s just said. Without another word, I furiously push out of my chair and out of the dressing room. Each stride is larger than the last as I let my legs carry me into the wings of the Club’s circular stage. When I have the familiar silver tinsel entrance in sight, I stop cold in my tracks. In front of me stands Alex, in a dazzling pink coat and diamond-covered oxfords, and Reggie, in a luxurious red vest and coat covered in black floral detailing. In front of them stands my father in his extravagant purple number that’s reminiscent of his outfits he wore when performing.

My frustrated steps carried me into his sight and the volume of my strides drew the two boys’ attention behind them. Luke. Luke stupidly followed me out here, and father merely looks at me and blinks authoritatively before redirecting his gaze onto my boyfriend.

“There you are. I knew I was missing a third musketeer.” With a snap of his fingers, dad has poofed Luke out from behind me and poofs him back in between his bandmates. When he reappears he’s wearing a deep blue suit with a black, tiered chiffon collar and bowtie.

“Isn’t it nice that you’re all here together?” Dad launches into his huge speech, seemingly convincing them to stay at the club. He mentions everything they want can be theirs here like Willie, the glory of performing, connection with an audience. As he speaks, he steps forward and reaches up. I go to yell and reach for Luke, but nothing comes out. There’s no sound coming from my mouth, and the undersurface of my black heels feel frozen solid to the ground. Dad notices my movement and shoots me a look to knock it off. Luke sees and as he moves to turn his head, dad reaches up to keep his focus forward before adjusting Luke’s collar for him. He continues with his big speech as another jolt graces all three boys at once.

“I suggest you accept my offer because the clock is ticking,” he downs one more sip of water, preparing to perform, “Ouch. You know where to find me.”

When he disappears onto the stage, I’m released from my spot and the momentum of my struggling launches me forward. Luke turns around just in time to catch me and once he does he doesn’t release me from his arms.

“Luke, I didn’t-”

“Shhh. It’s okay. You’re okay.” He holds me in his arms, one hand on my head to cradle me close to his chest and the other wrapped soothingly around my waist.

“He’s right,” I choke out my words through heavy sobs, “You don’t know that the Orpheum is really your unfinished business. What if it’s not? These jolts could kill you, Luke. For good. My dad may be powerful, but he doesn’t have the power to bring you back from this.”

When I look up, Luke has a heartbroken expression painted all over his face. Before I can speak again, Alex poofs out from beside us. Sharing a worried expression, Luke and I look out onto the stage where dad has him soloing front and center.

“I-I-I, I made a-a promise-”

“To Julie, I know. But if she’s really as wonderful, and as kind, and understanding, and loving as you describe her to be, won’t she understand?” Luke’s expression softens in realization.

“You’re actually considering staying with Caleb?” Reggie asks Luke incredulously. Before he can receive an answer, he, too, is poofed out onto the stage in Alex’s previous spot, to play a jazzy bass solo. Luke looks all around the backstage area, at the audience, between his band members, and at my dad. Finally, his eyes settle on mine. I can’t read his expression; I wish I knew what was going on inside his head.

“Stay.”

Luke and I run out of time when dad calls his name. He’s poofed us apart so I’m frozen against the downstage wall, out of sight from the audience, and Luke is struggling his way onto the stage.

Dad has him soloing for the audience, to create a musical dialogue between the two of them. Luke, conflicted, looks between me and my dad unsure of how to feel. The performer side of him must be loving the high that comes with performing in the club, but the loyal side of him, I can tell, is yearning for Julie.

When the song ends, the three boys share a single look of concern and remorse, no doubt for Julie. I can’t help but feel selfish asking him to stay. It’s not fair for me to ask him to choose between me and her... But that’s not what I’m asking. If all three of them stay here, they don’t risk dying for good. Surely Julie can understand choosing life, or the afterlife rather, over freedom is a rational trade.

Coming to his senses Luke runs off stage.

“Y/n-”

“It’s selfish of me to ask you to stay-”

“I’m staying.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to die, Y/n. If that means I have to play in your dad’s band, fine. But at least we can be together.” Luke runs the pad of his thumb across my cheek to wipe away the tear shed out of joy. Our moment is ended when Alex and Reggie have also returned backstage.

“Boys, if we stay here, we’ll get to live and make music for as long as we want.”

“You said it yourself, we made a promise. To Julie.” Reggie almost looks like he wants to cry.

“If this is what you want- to spend eternity playing jazz solos behind Caleb -I can’t stop you. But I’m not gonna let Julie down. Not again.” Alex searches Luke’s face for any hesitation. When he doesn’t find the change of heart he’s looking for, Alex nods and fidgets with his drumsticks in one hand. The sudden swell of emotion leads the two of them to hug each other tightly; I can’t imagine their pain of knowing they might never see each other again. When they let go, Luke and Reggie share in a hug and the heartache pulls Alex into their hug.

“Can you do me a favor?” Luke asks, sniffling away a few tears. Reggie and Alex nod,

“Anything.”

“Will you tell Julie she’s a star for me, one last time?” A sharp jolt hits the three of them in unison once more; a signal that it’s really time to say goodbye. With sorrowful smiles, Alex and Reggie poof out of the Hollywood Ghost Club for the last time.

When he turns around, Luke’s face is red and puffy from crying and the sight breaks my heart clean in half. I pull him into a hug and press a lingering kiss to his cheek.

“I love you, Luke.”

“I love you, Y/n.”

***

A/n: YOWZA this really made my heart hurt for Julie sm. I love her and if this were canon I’d have actually kermit.

Taglist: @caitsymichelle13 @kaitlyn2907 @itz-jas @crybabyddl @kcd15 @kinda-really-lost @calamitykaty @morganayennefertyrell @n0wornever @dream-a-little-bigger-x @mrstodorooki @vicesvsvirturesfanfic @curlybrownhairedboys @amazinggracy @kaitieskidmore1 @asdfghjkl-fanfics @ghostlygreenbean @juliefromaustralia @merceret @jemimah-b99 @ifilwtmfc @thesweetestsinner @imsydneywalker @lovesanimals @thebloodthirstyvampress @bumbleberry-pie @losers-club6 @tefilovesreading @dmcfarland1@joynerxmercer @kexrtiz @talk-on-the-street @phantompogues @konciousdreamer @sunsetcurvej

[voiceless-terror]

Proficient in PowerPoint (The Magnus Archives)

Summary:

“Why are there so many animations?” Jon tapped his foot impatiently through the unnecessarily arduous process of getting to the next page. “I’m not a child. This is for Elias, not a primary school.”

“I thought they looked nice…” Martin said softly, shuffling his feet. “I can take them out, if you’d like-”

“They’re wonderful Martin, don’t listen to him."

Jon has to make a presentation for Elias. Sasha, Tim, and Martin help, with dubious results.

“It’s standard procedure, Jon. Every new department head does a presentation.”   “But I-” Jon left off with a sigh. Being called up to his boss’s office at the beginning of the day to be informed that he would be making a presentation to all of his intimidating colleagues (and superiors, if he were being honest) was not the way Jon wanted to start his Monday. Besides, what was he going to say? How could he explain this mess of an Archive that was currently under his command? That he didn’t really know what an Archivist did, and that when he googled the position it didn’t seem anything like what Elias had described? He might as well get in front of the room, announce his resignation and go home. Somedays this felt like the best course of action.

 He’d heard the whispers following the email announcing his promotion to Head Archivist.  “Him?”  was said more than once. A few scoffs, a few appraising eyes from the other department heads who were all at least a decade older than him. Even Sasha and Tim had given him a sort of silent treatment, only speaking to him in short sentences and one-word answers in the weeks that immediately followed.

Elias seemed to sense his unease. “It doesn’t have to be long. Just a rundown, a simple assessment of the Archives as they are and what you plan on implementing during your tenure. Perhaps a little about you and your team. Introduce yourself. Everyone’s eager to learn a bit more about you.” Jon very much doubted that.

 “Well the Archives, in my “assessment,” are currently a mess.” His candor was not appreciated. Elias was not amused.

 “A mess that you’re going to fix,” Elias gave him a withering glance. “I assumed you could handle this, but if that’s not the case-”

 “No, I-” He sighed again, the only sound he was capable of making. “Al-Alright. You said it was this Friday, correct?”

 “Yes!” Elias gave him a brief smile and ushered him out of the door with a hand on his shoulder, signaling the conversation was over. “Let me know if you have any issues. Not that you will, of course.”  Of course.

 The door shut behind him and Rosie gave him a sympathetic look from her seat. “You hang in there, alright? You’ll do just fine.” Either Jon looked that pathetic, or Rosie truly did eavesdrop on every conversation.

 Perhaps a bit of both.

 __________

 It was Wednesday evening and Jon was staring at a blank screen.

 Everyone else was packing up for the day while he sat in his chair, stewing over what words to write. He should be recording statements like Elias  wanted, not putting together some bureaucratic nonsense so the others could ‘get to know him and his plans.’ He didn’t really have a plan for the Archives besides digitization, and even that was going disastrously. Should he even mention the tapes? He’d likely be met with scorn and laughter. Elias may find them promising, but anyone who took one look at their equipment said otherwise. Google told him that he should share fun facts about the team but that seemed highly unprofessional. Who cared that he liked to watch documentaries in what little spare time he had? Instead, he’d written a very bare-bones outline of what he’d like to say but for some reason typing it out was impossible. The only thing he’d managed to get was a layout and font in neutral, unobtrusive colors. This was very important to him. 

 “Still stuck on the presentation, Jon?”

 Sasha was leaning against the doorway with a gentle smile on her face. She knew how hard it was for Jon to get his thoughts together sometimes and was always a sympathetic ear when it got particularly bad. She seemed to have finally settled into her role (whatever that may be) and was talking to him more and more. Though no one in the department had any experience in archiving, Sasha at least had more concrete ideas.

 “Yes, I’m just-” he sighed, taking his glasses off and rubbing his temples to ward off the approaching headache. “I’ve got no idea what he wants. What is a ‘rundown’ and how can I have one with the Archives like...this?” He gestured to his mess of an office, currently drowning in paper and cardboard boxes.

 “Well, what do you have so far?” Jon grimaced and handed over his notebook, filled with messy scribbles and half-finished ideas. Sasha skimmed it and made a few promising noises; Jon hated the part of himself that sought her approval. She finished and looked up with a grin. “How about you let me have a go at it? You know I love this sort of thing, and then you’ll have some time to record that statement tomorrow, hm?”

 “I-really? Would that be okay? I don’t want you to have to- I mean, it’s my job.”

 “I’m your assistant, Jon,” she interrupted with a placating hand. “So let me assist you!” Her offer seemed very genuine. Jon was loath to ask for help or admit to trouble even in the best of cases, but Sasha had a way of wearing him down with one well-placed smile. He decided to take the hand offered. 

 “Thank you, Sasha. Really.” He leaned back in his chair and gave her a grateful smile, glad for any progress made on the project.

 “And it’s no problem. Really.” She tucked his notebook into her bag and gave a cheerful nod.  “I’ll show you what we come up with!”

  ______

Jon yawned into his fist for the fourth time in an hour. The Amy Patel statement wouldn’t record on the computer so unfortunately he brought out the tape recorder. For some reason every time he recorded to tape he came away exhausted and anxious, unsettled by the words he spoke. Luckily he managed to get to the follow up recorded without too many interruptions- usually one of his assistants would come banging on the door and he’d be forced to start over for the sake of professionalism. 

 “Knock knock!” 

  Speak of the devil.  Tim grinned at him from the doorway, Martin standing close behind him.

 “Yes?” he asked shortly, straightening the files on his desk. “Do you need something?”

 “Your presentation, as requested!” Tim bestowed upon him a flash drive with much pomp and circumstance. “You’re welcome.”

 “Oh! Er, I thought I gave that to Sasha?” He looked in surprise at the device before him. He wasn’t expecting them to actually finish everything- he also wasn’t expecting anyone but Sasha to help him out. If Tim and Martin helped out as well... “I’ll uh, check it out in a few moments, thank you.

 “But I want to show you now, boss!” Tim’s voice reached the whiny pitch that he knew Jon loathed. He sighed however, and plugged it in. After a few moments a window popped open, with a file labeled  Jonny’s First Work Presentation.  He rolled his eyes while Tim snickered.  I’ll need to change that before the meeting…

 The file looked...hellish, to say the least. Jon spied on the first few slides a strange and ugly gradient background that faded from bright green to black, along with garish rainbow WordArt. He was almost afraid to click on anything, lest it blind him or inspire a seizure.

 “It’s really best viewed in slideshow mode,” Tim nudged Jon’s hand out of the way and made it so, the full screen now proudly showing the title page-  Jonathan Sims’ New and Improved Archives!!   Martin and Tim leaned in over his shoulder, the latter clearly excited to showcase his work.  That’s never good.

 “That’s far too many exclamation points, Tim.”

 “There are never enough exclamation points, Jon.”

 The next slide came in with a sort of shutter effect that did nothing to minimize the horrendous resizing done on the Magnus Institute logo, which had been stretched to fit almost the entire page and was unrecognizable due to pixilation. Jon gritted his teeth. “This is unnecessary.”

 “Wow, everyone’s a critic,” Tim rolled his eyes.

 “I-I can probably find a logo with better resolution,” Martin offered timidly. Jon had almost forgotten he was in the room. 

 The next pages were not much better- the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of ‘archive,’ the audio pronunciation for it had a page to itself. There were several collages of books and artifacts (these looked handmade, as if someone had copy and pasted several finds from google images). Jon felt his anger grow with each laborious click. Was this someone’s idea of a joke? Where was Sasha? “Is there anything of actual substance in this?” he asked, huffing as the current slide disintegrated out of view in a dramatic fashion.

 “God, so impatient! We’re building up to it.” A few more clicks. They got to a page covered with cartoon ghosts and nothing else. “Watch this!” With a click the ghosts all flew away, a clunky piece of animation that revealed  Jonathan Sims’ Plan of ATTACK!!

 “I did that one,” Martin announced in his ear with not a little pride.

 The ‘plan of attack’ included bullet points (which were also little ghosts) regarding the new digitization and accessibility project in clear, cogent prose which must have been the work of Sasha. The rest, however- random paragraphs about ‘synergy’ and ‘dynamic team players’- was clearly unsalvageable and designed to make him the laughing stock of the institute. 

 “I can’t...this is unusable, Tim!”

 “Keep reading! There’s good content there. God, there’s no accounting for taste these days, is there Martin?” Martin did not answer. What could Martin have said? Each page was worse than the last- the current slide had only a picture of what looked to be an ancient Egyptian scroll and nothing else.

 “This is the definition of unusable.”

 “No it’s not!” Tim argued though he was on the verge of laughter. He was smiling, clearly enjoying the entire scenario. “Look, I even put a ‘Meet the Team’ section-” He clicked through the slides, each piece of text gliding across the screen in an obnoxious star pattern. 

 “Why are there so many animations?” Jon tapped his foot impatiently through the unnecessarily arduous process of getting to the next page. “I’m not a child. This is for Elias, not a primary school.”

 “I thought they looked nice…” Martin said softly, shuffling his feet. “I can take them out, if you’d like-”

 “They’re wonderful Martin, don’t listen to him,” Tim had finally reached the first slide of his ‘Meet the Team’ section. Instead of starting with Jon it began with an incredibly large photo of Tim, smiling and winking at the camera.  Naturally.

 “Tim Stoker: A Gentleman and a Scholar,” Jon read aloud. “I’m not saying that. And shouldn’t we be starting with me? I ask for one thing-”

 “I saved the best for last, of course! Martin, you’ll  love this,” Tim began frantically clicking through animations, taking a full minute to get to Jon’s slide. “Ta-da!”

  Jonathan Sims: The Man, the Myth, the Legendary Archivist

 It was a picture of Jon from a happy hour years ago, smiling broadly with half-lidded eyes and sprawled across the bar in a state of disarray. He had a vague memory of Sasha snapping the photo before he fell to the ground and vomited everything he drank.  No no no no  - he attempted to slam down the laptop screen before Martin could see but the damage was done. The man was red and stuttering, clearly embarrassed for Jon. He took a deep breath, attempting to calm down. He contemplated his options- double homicide or self-immolation. Both seemed equally appealing in the moment. 

 “Please leave,” he fumed, his own face a tomato red as he stared at the floor. “Now.”

 “Aw boss, don’t be like that-”

  “Now!”  Two sets of footsteps scurried from the room as Jon threw his head into his hands.

 He had quite a bit of work to do.

 _____________

 Of course he scrapped almost all of it, keeping only the informative parts that Sasha had written.  This is why you should do things yourself. ‘Assist’ my ass. 

 Jon had kept the door closed for the rest of the afternoon, ignoring both the plaintive apologies from Tim and Martin and Sasha’s insistent knocking. He wanted to blame her for letting the other two get involved, wanted to yell and stamp and maybe throw a thing or two. But it was  his  job. He shouldn’t have left it all to them.  Lazy, incompetent, his mind raged but the words were aimed at himself. Perhaps that’s why they sabotaged the slideshow, to tell him they weren’t going to do his dirty work. Hazing the new boss.  Did they realize how important this was to him? Did they even care? He already looked like a fool- why not double down on it?

 He took the ‘Meet the Team’ page down, his fingers angrily punched the ‘delete’ key for every picture and turned it into one slide with only their names and positions.  That’s all they need to know, really.  He managed to throw together a few slides on a new organizational system and something about research follow up, but it all rang false and hollow- any academic would see right through this bullshit attempt. Even the digitization slides seemed trite- why was this his first order of business?  What the hell are you doing?

 It was late into the night when he finally finished, though the presentation was nowhere near what he wanted it to be. The clock informed him it was only ten though, so he still had some time before the last train. He was just going to rest his eyes for a minute and then he’d get up and go.  Just a minute...

  ____________

And then it was tomorrow.

 Fuck.  Fuck! 

 Jon woke up with his head pillowed in his arms and his back almost completely immobile. He squinted at the clock-  7:00 AM. He tripped down the hallway and into the bathroom to freshen up, splashing cold water on his face and cursing under his breath. How embarrassing to be caught in yesterday’s clothes- if he switched out his sweater vest for a blazer, they might not notice. His wardrobe was nothing if not consistent and boring. His hair tamed into some semblance of neatness, Jon went on to his next stop, the break room for a cup of coffee and then finally, back to his office to survey the finished product and perhaps do a few run-throughs.

 He settled in his seat and pressed the power button to coax his laptop out of sleep. The clock on the wall ticked a steady, droning rhythm that somewhat calmed his racing heart and he took a sip of coffee, savoring the bitter flavor. His eyes flickered down to the screen- still black. He pressed it again. Nothing. He looked to the side of the computer, noticing the lack of power cord.  Oh, it’s not plugged in. That’ll do it. He solved that problem quickly and tried again.  

 Again, nothing. He pushed it harder, hurting his finger with the intensity behind it. The screen remained black.

 It was then that Jonathan Sims screamed.

 _____________

It was nine in the morning and he still had no idea what to do. No amount of coaxing, either through nice words or obscenities had managed to wake it up. He removed the battery and put it back in. He prayed to several gods, none of which he believed in. He kicked the desk and promptly fell to the ground, screaming in pain. IT didn’t come in until ten, and his meeting was at nine-thirty. He was well and truly fucked.

 But then he heard footsteps coming down the hall and he dashed to meet them, hoping it was the person he needed. And it was.

 “Sasha!” he panted, taking in heaving, gulping breaths. “Help!”

 “Oh God Jon, is this one of your asthma attacks? Do you have your inhaler?” Her eyes widened and her hands fluttered nervously. ‘I’ve told you-”

 “No,” he grabbed her by the shoulders, feeling more unhinged by the moment. “I-I lost it. The PowerPoint. My laptop won’t turn on, and-”

 “Breathe, Jon! That’s no trouble at all. I can get into your drive, no worries!” she said, pushing him into a chair and booting up her laptop. Jon put a hand to his chest, attempting to follow her advice.  See, it’s fine!  “Where did you save it? On your ShareDrive or on the general Archives one? I’ll need your credentials if it’s the former.”

 His heart dropped.  No no no no. He’d done the one thing Sasha had always warned him against.  “I-I saved it to the desktop…”

 “Oh Jon.”

 And that's when he spiraled. He was going to have to walk into that meeting, hands empty, and face the firing squad. Elias will know he should have never hired him and everyone there will nod and agree that the stupid boy who couldn’t do one simple task does not belong at the table with the rest of him and Jon will be sent on his way, back to research if he’s lucky or fired if he’s not and he can’t do one fucking thing right-

 “Jon. Jon!”  Sasha had a hand on his shoulder, firm and grounding. “Fucking  breathe. It’s fine, you’re fine! Here.” She slipped the flash drive from yesterday into his hand and he groaned, attempting to pass it back

 “I can’t use that one, you know I can’t-”

 “No, this one’s different, I promise,” She grabbed his chin, forcing him to meet her eyes. “I tried to tell you yesterday- I’m sorry about all of that. It wasn’t funny. We fixed it.” She seemed honest, sincere. But Jon was still hesitant, taking in shaking breaths.

 “This isn’t a joke?”

 “I swear. Here, use my laptop.” She passed it over and Jon paused, considering his options, which were few.

 So Jon took the flash drive and laptop and left, ignoring Martin’s greetings as he brushed by him on his way up to the conference room.  Here goes.

 _____________

 “Erm, h-hello,” Jon coughed, clearing his throat. “I’m Jonathan Sims, the new Head Archivist, as Elias...already said, I guess.” He let out a nervous laugh which no one returned. Elias nodded, urging him to go on.

 Jon had made his way to the room with fifteen minutes to spare, giving him some time to boot up the computer and load the presentation. A quick, nervous glance let him know that it was much changed- at least the first few slides. He shook hands with each department head as they came in, trying to see which of their smiles and congratulations were sincere. The answer? Very few. This was not comforting. 

 His hands shook as he clicked his way to the first slide, his heart pounded in his chest to reveal-

  Bringing the Archives into the 21st Century- A Plan for Updating and Digitizing the Institute's Statements

  Well that’s not bad at all.

 He began to speak, his voice gaining clarity and confidence with every sentence. The presentation was lovely- incorporating his preferred neutral color scheme, a great improvement on the nauseating colors of before. The animations were minimal and sleek, making the transitions meld seamlessly from slide to slide. There was a bit introducing Gertrude’s past work and a dig at her filing system that earned him a laugh. There were new slides regarding the preservation of documents, a new organizational structure, the introduction of a database. All ideas they’d briefly spoken about before committing themselves fully to the digitization process as Elias instructed. Everything was written in his favored academic tone- so natural that Jon found himself speaking extemporaneously on the slides he felt more comfortable with. It was all met with approving nods and a studious gaze from Elias that Jon couldn’t parse. There was also no mention of the tapes.

 The dreaded ‘Meet the Team’ section had been heavily reworked- each one of them had the headshot from their IDs (poor Martin had his eyes closed) and a mention of which department they’d transferred from, along with their credentials. It was professional and informative, everything Jon had wanted it to be. Sasha had outdone herself.  Sasha should be the one making this presentation. 

 He tried to ignore the guilt settling in his chest, even as he smiled back at the approval from the academics he so desperately craved. He clicked to the last slide, which had their contact information and-  oh. It was a picture taken from his birthday a few weeks back, where they all looked fairly presentable and were smiling, no idea of the task ahead of them. Elias was there too; Rosie had taken the picture at Tim’s insistence. His audience tittered, though it seemed to be in good humor rather than mocking.

 “Ah, yes. Th-Thank you for your time.” He quickly turned it off and stared at the ground, his face warm with both embarrassment and a creeping sense of belonging that he didn’t know what to do with. He was startled when a small round of applause began and he looked up with wide eyes to find a smiling audience. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elias nod and smile as well and he finally felt the sense of accomplishment he’d longed for since the start of his promotion.  

 The room cleared rather quickly (no one really wanted to be in a Friday meeting, after all) but Jon was stopped by a tall, smiling woman he had only seen in passing. “Sonya from Artefact Storage,” she reminded him, shaking his hand again and giving him a warm smile. “I’m looking forward to talking to you more about that database. I was always telling Gertrude she needed one, but of course she never listened to me. Stubborn to the end!” He could only stutter, too overwhelmed to formulate a proper response. A hand reached out to his shoulder.

 “That was nicely done, Archivist.” For some reason the title made Jon feel odd, like he was having an honor bestowed that he had not yet earned. Elias wasn’t that much taller than him, but he always seemed to loom over Jon. “Quite the presentation. Lots of...ideas. But I must stress the importance of getting the statements-”

 “On tape, yes, yes,” Jon said, quick to agree. “I just thought, er- I should let them know some of our other objectives, as well?”  Seems like Sasha wanted to, at least.

 “As long as you don’t forget yours,” A pointed glance. Jon gulped nervously, shoving a hand in his pocket. “Still, a good job all around. That Sasha of yours seems like a good asset. Enjoy your weekend.”

 Jon froze in the doorway. Did he know?  Of course not, don’t be silly.  He shook his head and left the room. Well, at least that’s over with.

 ____________

 “Did it go alright?” Sasha asked immediately upon his entrance. He managed a self-deprecating smile. 

 “Surprisingly, yes. That was-  thank you, I guess.”

 “No trouble at all,” Tim jumped out from the break room, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “Always knew you had it in you. A consummate performer, I was telling our Martin-”

  “Tim!”  He scowled and tried in vain to shove him away, still irritated by his presence.

 “Seriously, though. Sorry about all of that before. Just trying to lighten the mood, I swear we wouldn’t have actually left you with that-”

 “It’s- It’s fine,” Jon sighed, reluctantly giving in to Tim’s insistent affection. “Well, not really, but it turned out alright in the end.” Sasha gave an encouraging grin.

 “Did you like the photo?” Martin asked anxiously, hovering in the corner of the room. Jon paused. He considered telling him no, that he would have never put it in there himself and considered it rather unprofessional on the whole, but one look at Martin’s face told him that was the wrong move.

 “Yes, Martin,” he said, summoning up the equivalent of a smile. “I liked the photo.”

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27142390

[zillyeh]

The Worst Kind of Found Family (part 1)

Word count: 1381

Content warning: Voss is in this

Synopsis: After returning from a long, long time away from Delhon City, Salvad makes... an acquaintance. Or two.

Google Doc

    Returning to the city after so long was… almost bizarre. Louder in ways, quieter in others. Salvad’s old hive had been in a state of mild disrepair when he returned, but Tiger had no qualms with finding a dusty corner to make her nest. The cats… Had slightly more difficult a time adjusting, but he was sure they’d be fine eventually. Maybe after he’d cleaned any. 

    The cops had just… left the scene of his kidnapping as it was, which he was thankfully unconscious throughout. It felt like just another mess to fix. And dust, looking at the inches that had accumulated while he was away.

   Starting with himself had been a better choice, though. Showered, clean shaven, but needing a haircut badly was much better. Though, he wasn’t sure if he didn’t like the way his hair hung around his shoulders… how his curls framed his face. He had been pondering that in the mirror when his doorbell rang, scaring the absolute shit out of him. Eclair bolted for the door when she heard it, zooming across his hive like mad.

   “I’m coming!” He called when it went off again, glad he’d been able to at least get dressed. He felt a creeping anxiety about who was at his door as he crossed his living room. He didn’t really have any friends. Not that he thought would catch up with him, anyway…

   The troll at his door was about his height, give or take an inch or two. Teal and scarred to all hell, but handsome nonetheless. He stood with his hands on his hips, a relaxed smile touching his green rimmed orange sclera. His odd eyes lit up when Salvad opened the door in a way that made him… uncomfortable, to say the least.

   “Hiya!” He said pleasantly, “Salvad Aarika, right?”

   “...Correct.” Sal said hesitantly, keeping the door partially closed. He didn't quite strike him as cop… But… Close. 

   “Oh good.” The freckled tealblood said with a clap. “There’s someone who wants to meet you.”

   “Is that someone… you?” The urge to slam the door was strong, yet still too rude for Sal to cope with doing. Though the cats were trying to get past him... “If this is about my… incident a few months ago I’m not-”

   “Oh, no, no no no, no. Well, kind of, but-” Sal slowly started to close the door anyway, but was met with one of the teal’s fancy oxfords between it and the frame.

   “Hold on now, let me finish, my god.” He insisted, keeping his foot there. “I’m here to deliver a message and that’s it, but I figured it’d be nicer to say hi to the younger Mr. Aarika.” He slipped a letter in the gap of the door between two fingers. Sal was almost immediately overwhelmed by the flowery… painfully familiar scent of it. That was… Hameil’s favorite… 

   “I can’t go unless you take this, kid.” The tealblood insisted, wiggling it in Salvad’s face. 

   “Ugh.” Salvad snatched the gold and yellow envelope from his hand, greedier than he thought he would be to smell that cologne again. He turned the letter over in his hand, his own name elegantly scripted across the front and a wax seal with… his own symbol? holding the back closed. 

   “Who the hell are you, anyway?" Sal demanded, wrenching the door back open some. 

   “That’s in there too.” He said, taking a decent step back with his hands up. “Impatience really gets you nowhere, but given the circumstances I’ll introduce myself. Name’s Voss.” 

   “Voss.” Salvad repeated, flipping open the envelope to find a heavy, gold inlaid card inside, with that same loopy handwriting and golden pen.

   “Voschi.” Voss grinned, gesturing to himself. “Voschi Horjan at your service. Well, not yours, but you know.”

   Salvad stopped listening after Horjan, pulling the small, one sided card out. The only writing was on the front, but there was a perfume company logo on the back that Sal immediately recognized. 

Dearest Salvad,     First, my deepest, most sincere condolences for all you’ve lost so many months ago. I had intended to send this the night I’d heard, but you had already left by the time I’d had anything of value penned.    Second, I do hope this doesn’t catch you at a bad time. I’ve instructed Voschi to be delicate, as I am unsure how you shall receive this. If you would be so inclined, I would like to meet you out at one of my establishments tomorrow. 10 o’ clock. I do believe we have much to discuss, more than I could begin to describe on such a small canvas.       Do send darling Voss home with a response. I’ve included the name and address of my favorite café in the envelope as well. It's a bit of a ride from where you live, but I hope you’ll indulge me just this once, sweetheart.

All my love,

                       Amillo Aarika

   Salvad looked to Voss for some explanation other than the one he was thinking of.

   “You have got to be kidding me.”

   “Do I look the joking type, Mr. Aarika?” Voss asked, his lopsided grin not exactly giving off a jesterly energy.

    “You certainly aren’t “delicate,” Mr. Horjan.” Salvad scoffed, tucking the card back in the envelope. Voss snorted.

    “Voss, I beg of you.” He said. “Got an answer? I’m not allowed to leave til I get one.”

   “Not allowed..?” Sal looked between him and the letter, stepping fully outside so the desperate cats behind him didn’t escape. Voss nodded.

   “Mr. S- er, A’s orders, y’see. The old man’s dying to meet you for reasons I hope you can guess.”

    That was all but a confirmation to Salvad’s creeping feeling. That- He couldn’t have an ancestor, could he? That felt too… high blooded, for him. And if he was still alive… that probably meant…

   “This isn’t some elaborate prank, is it?” Salvad had just been in the middle of a… scandal felt wrong, but that had to have been how papers reported on it. Two highbloods dead and he's the only one who walked away? Anyone could be trying to do anything. 

   “He’ll be happy to know you’re cautious, at least.” Voss said with a sigh. He yanked his shirt up and out of his pants, pulling down his waistband enough for Salvad to see far too much of his lower hip. On which sat the overly familiar curve of his symbol. Stylized, of course, and intwined with the one Voss wore on his shirt pocket.

   “I ain’t get this for you, big boy.” He said, readjusting his clothes once Sal abashedly looked away.

   “Prove it.” Salvad huffed. What a way to attempt to prove himself truthful. Still...

   “Oh that one’s up to you, kiddo. Mr. Aarika ain’t opposed to a hive call either, but he figured here might not be the bestest of places, y’know? Answer? Place has drinks, ah, suited to your new tastes.”

    Salvad let out a long, exasperated sigh. What the fuck was happening? He slid the address out of his envelope. Hm… that was pretty far- almost the other side of the city- but it was a very public, busy street, if he remembered correctly. Who’s to say he’d make it there, though? This Voss character could be a stalker. Or a serial killer. Both. But… Did Salvad have anything to lose? Certainly not now. He’d come home, but what was even here for him anymore? The cats? Tiger? They’d sort out their food chain without him.

    Maybe Amillo could offer some… direction, if he was real. 

    “Whatever. Fine, I’ll be there.”

    “Great!” Voss said with another clap. “And, before I take my leave, might I just say the resemblance is absolutely stunning? I really couldn’t believe it when I saw your-” Voss very suddenly stood straighter, eyes rapidly blinking for a good five seconds before his posture relaxed again.

    “Uh, what was I saying?” He asked a little confused, a touch of bloodshot blue right around his eyes. He sniffed and wiped at his nose, shaking his marred head a bit. “Oh, right, Mr. Aarika will be thrilled to see you. Pleasure, Salvad.” Voss beamed at him one more time, clumsily skipping off the few steps up to Sal’s door.

    Maybe showing up tomorrow was going to be a bad idea...

[onyxinc]

                 DECEMBER  10TH   :   𝑮𝑶𝑳𝑫𝑬𝑵 𝑹𝑰𝑵𝑮𝑺

𝐀𝐃𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓  𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐊  𝐃𝐀𝐘  𝐓𝐖𝐎  :   tell  us  about  your  character’s  fashion  sense.   (   click  source  link  for  pinterest  board   )

01   :   if  you  really  think  about  it,   jace  has  never  actually  picked  out  his  own  clothes.   growing  up,   he  would  wear  whatever  his  mom  chose  for  him  at  kohl’s,   target,   or  old  navy.   up  until  high  school,   his  carol - approved  uniform  typically  consisted  of  jeans  or  cargo  pants,   graphic  t -  shirts  adorned  with  superheroes  or  science  puns,   and  a  hoodie   ---   usually  in  his  favorite  color,   green.

despite  money  being  perpetually  tight,   frank  always  insisted  that  a  quality  pair  of  shoes  was  worth  the  investment.   as  a  kid,   jace  typically  wore  the  same  pair  of  nikes  or  adidas  until  they  were  run  through  with  holes.   to  this  day,   he  doesn’t  hesitate  to  splurge  on  shoes   ---   though  that  doesn’t  say  much,   as  he  doesn’t  hesitate  to  splurge  on  anything.

for  personal  reasons,   every  throwback  photo  of  him  in  a  graphic  tee  has  been  erased  from  the  internet.

02  :   jace’s  stylist,   renaldo  ortiz,   has  been  dressing  him  almost  as  long  as  he’s  been  in  the  public  eye.   when  jace  interviewed  potential  candidates  and  most  of  them  blew  smoke  up  his  ass  to  garner  favor,   renaldo  was  the  only  one  who  kept  it  real.   he  insulted  jace’s  pants  and  the  rest  is  history !

renaldo  is  a  big  fan  of  the  tailored  look,   hence  why  jace’s  clothes  are  typically  on  the  more  form - fitting  side.   very  early  on  he  decided  the  exposed  ankle  would  be  jace’s  signature,   so  most  of  the  pants  in  his  closet  are  deliberately  cropped  or  left  long  with  the  intention  of  being  cuffed.

he  knows  jace  pretty  well  at  this  point,   and  this  very  much  bleeds  into  the  way  he  dresses  him.   renaldo  tries  to  stock  jace’s  closet  with  pieces  that  are,   in  his  words,   idiot  proof   ---   meaning  he  should  be  able  to  grab  just  about  any  top  and  bottom  and  they’ll  somewhat  work  together.

with  jace  living  overseas  a  good  chunk  out  of  the  year  and  renaldo’s  tendency  to  float  between  fashion - forward  cities,   they  mostly  communicate  through  facetime   ---   though  he  has  a  london  pied - a - terre  and  selfridge’s  connections  should  he  ever  need  to  visit  in  person.

03   :   as  his  room  at  strathmore  doesn’t  have  much  by  way  of  closet  space,   the  rest  of  his  clothing   (   namely  formal  wear  from  past  events   )   is  held  in  his  manhattan  penthouse  or  a  climate - controlled  storage  locker  only  renaldo  and  himself  have  access  to.

04   :   since  joining  his  circlet,   he’s  started  to  wear  a  lot  more  black  and  likes  to  incorporate  onyx  elements  into  his  formal  wear  as  a  little  wink  towards  the  society.

his  fashion  sense  is  very  much  an  evolving  thing,   and  he’s  trying  to  take  a  more  active  role  in  dressing  himself.   whenever  he  attempts  to  branch  out  and  try  something  new,   he  always  sends  a  photo  to  garebear  to  get  his  opinion   ---   which  doesn’t  really  make  sense,   as  he  dresses  a  lot  like  jason  1.0.

i  just  really  want  him  to  wear  a  davies  suit

celebrity  inspiration   :   chris  evans,   chris  pine,   david  beckham,   david  gandy,   joe  alwyn,   jake  gyllenhaal,   henry  golding,   oscar  isaac,   ryan  gosling,   william  jackson  harper,   zac  efron

aesthetic   :   platinum  and  onyx  links  fastened  to  one’s  cuffs,   crisp  collared  shirts  folded  neatly  in  a  drawer,   pullover  sweaters  in  a  rainbow  of  neutrals,   a  slim - fit  pair  of  slacks  tailored  to  the  ankle,   a  freshly - ironed  oxford  with  several  buttons  undone,   pulling  on  a  sport  coat  and  wishing  it  was  a  hoodie,   jet  black  workout  clothes  with  strategically  placed  reflective  panels  for  early  morning  jogs,   the  initials  ‘j.a.s.’  stitched  into  the  lining  of  every  jacket,   a  tattered  green  baseball  cap  with  the  knowme  logo  on  it,   pairs  of  shoes  lined  up  like  soldiers  in  formation,   a  vegan  leather  commuter  bag  slung  over  one’s  shoulder,   a  pair  of  gloves  with  tech -  touch  fingertips.

[hellolittleogre]

Idiots in Love, 2nd chapter, part 2

Billy, squinting into the darkness: Is that a Good Decision I see before me?

“Welcome everybody!” Horne opened. “This is our second GSA student pub for the year and we are really excited! Last year during orientation one of the things that kept coming up was that our members want help in building queer relationships and networks, so we are taking the first step today, and have arranged Speed dating for Friends!”

Billy wants to groan, he didn’t want to speed date for friends, he barely wants to speed date for the chance of a hookup, and yet here he is, trapped  like a fox in a snare.

“Your goal for tonight,” Horne continues “is to make a connection with a stranger. And if somebody sits down opposite you that is not a person you’d think you’d have something in common with, just give them a chance and see where it leads you.” 

Horne smiles shyly at the room, giving the impression of a man who is uneasy in front of a crowd, in spite of being a tenured professor.

A bell clanged and a girl with bangs and bottle red hair sits down opposite Billy and starts talking about Care Bears.

Half an hour later Billy’s head is aching and he’s not even sure he is gay anymore. These people are just fucking weird. One person Billy couldn’t even tell the gender of said it was a “genderqueer Oxford boy dyke” and Billy could sort of puzzle out four of those words individually, but he has no idea where and how the Oxford fit into anything, or which of the boy or the dyke had a bearing on what kind of persons they would be interested in? Was it a boy dyke or a boy dyke? And how were you a boy dyke anyway, wasn’t the whole point of being a lesbian that they were not boys?

One woman tells him that saying “straight” as in the fucking direction, is upholding the “heterosexual hegemony” and that he should always say “gayly forward” instead and that he should write to his congress representative to petition to have it changed on GPS voices to end directional oppression , which is...is just, what?

Next is this guy who looks Billy over for a second before he got his out his phone, saying, without even looking up: “Sorry not my type” as he swipes left and left and left, which is just fucking rude, especially since they were ostensibly here to “speed date for friends”. Like Billy was is even his type enough to talk to for a whole minute. Unfortunately he can’t think of anything cutting to say before the bell chimes and they were all switching anyway (something he now, thanks to Goodnight, knows is called esprit de escalier) and Billy sits down in front of a handsome, dark haired guy with a t-shirt that not only stretched nicely over his chest, but also featured the logo of Billy’s gym.

The guys’s name is Bartholomew, which is a fucking stupid name, but Billy has become much more lenient on stupid names since he met Goodnight, and he’s funny. They talk about the gym, about college and films and when the bell rings Bart waves to the person behind to pass by their table so they can continue talking.

“You are the hottest guy I’ve met this evening,” he smiles and if Billy wasn’t not so taken with the experience of having a guy (!) say he’s hot (!!) to his face(!!!) he would describe that smile as oily. “I’m not letting you go now, some of these other people are psychos.”

“The care bear girl?” Billy ask in sympathy and Bart laugh. 

“Yes! And some guy who wont stop talking about fucking squirrels.”

“Is that as in, uh, goddamn-fucking, squirrels or as in fucking squirrels?” 

Bart  leans over the table and looking into Billy’s eyes with earnest desperation, his eyes dark and gleaming.

“I don’t know,” he whispers urgently and Billy broke out in a startled laugh. When the bell rings he’s still  laughing and Bart gets his phone out.

“Could I get your number? I’d better move on before the mountain man gets me for ruining the spirit or whatever.” 

Billy hesitates for a second before thinking oh, what the hell. It feels like a small victory when his phone vibrates with the incoming text. Bart stands next to the table, popping his hip against the edge and leaning down on one arm to smile at Billy. He is a little taller, rangy and whipcord, with the beginnings of a receding hairline and Billy thinks he might be a little into that.

“You’re cute,” he smiles, looking Billy up and down, “And pretty built too. I’m normally a strictly “no fats, no femmes, no Asians” type of guy you know? But for you I might make an exception.” Bart winks and smiles like a wolf, all teeth before he saunters off to the next table, hand raised in nonchalant goodbye.

Billy’s first feeling is one of insulted astonishment because who the fuck just says something like that like its normal? And the way he had said it, like it was completely normal, something Billy should know about, have heard of, an established fucking phrase, a good natured joke. Is he so alien to the gay world that there is a fucking phrase for it?

 And Billy has given him his number. He might call. Jesus Christ, the entitled asshole might call and Billy has no idea what to say to him, other than to ask him to fuck all the way off.

He is still working on scraping his jaw off the floor when Goodnight sits down opposite him.  He looks good, there is a flush to his cheeks and his eyes are sparkling and it’s lucky that t-shirt is normally delegated to the bottom of his closet because if he wore it more often it’s likely Billy would just fail right out of college in pure distraction. He is all that yet all Billy can feel in that moment is overwhelming relief at a familiar face.  Someone who can help him make sense of what the fuck just happened.

(Billy knows what the hell happened, but just like when he was twelve and a car pulled up next to his bike and the driver yelled “Go back to your own country” at him and then drove off, some part of him refuses to accept that this has actually happened and is trying to reconstruct the narrative into something else)

“You have got to help me, I just gave my number to a complete asshole,” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth and Goody blinks at him.

“Of course..anything” he says, looking puzzled at Billy and then down at the table. Without even knowing he’s done it Billy’s both hands has grabbed on to Goody’s where it’s resting on the table, one hand gripping onto his fingers and palm and the other curled around his wrist, in desperate urgency. Embarrassed Billy let go of one hand but experimentally held on with the other and tried not to flush with pleasure when Goody adjusted his grip to hold on more securely.

“Is “no fats, no femmes no Asians” a thing?” Billy asks, voice rising and watches Goody’s face twist into that grimace of discomfort liberal white people get when confronted with how racism affects people who are not them.

“I’m sorry,” Goodnight says, shaking his head “I think yeah,its a, uh, a thing.”

“Right,” and wow, if Billy didn’t want to make kisses on Goodnight’s stupid face so bad he would opt out of this gay thing before it even started. “Why is it a thing?”

“I’m sorry that had to be the first thing out of the gate,” Goodnight answers, he’s sounding both pissed off and uncomfortable. “I mean there is a lot to unpack, with racism and internalised homophobia in the gay community, I might not be the best person…, I... ” he trailed off. “I didn’t even know you were here.”

“I thought you were out with Sam.”

“Oh he’s here, this was all Sam’s idea, the bastard. He thinks I’m too solitary here and I need to get out more, build some queer networks. We were quite involved in the GSA at home so...I mean, he means well you know?” Goody’s free hand sketch a gesture through the air that could mean quite a lot of things.

“I’ve never been before. I’m not sure I like it.”

“Yeah, you mentioned an asshole?” Goodnight says wryly, one side of his mouth ticking up in a smile and Billy groans. Goodnight had started growing a beard since Christmas and it should by all rights have looked stupid but it also framed his mouth so every time Billy looks at him his gaze gets stuck on the plump swell of Goody’s lower lip and his charmingly crooked teeth. It is deeply unfair.

Billy is halfway through relating the incident when he realise that he is loud, he has his hands out and he has forgotten about half the room. 

After the incident in the gym showers Billy hadn’t spoken in school for a week. He’d learned to be quiet, to not really talk to anybody besides Jujin. It had been a joke amongst the guys at the gym that with Billy you either picked up sign language or telepathy, because it wasn’t like he was going to talk. It was as if he had decided that as long as he was quiet he could mask it, could hide himself away under a gruff exterior, under a stereotype of stoicism and coldness. But a year at college had chipped away at the facade and the realisation that without even knowing how it had happened he is out of his shell hits like a blow to the head. He talks in class and with friends, makes small talk in the coffee shop and if you ask Red or Vas or anyone to describe him they were more likely to say that “loud opinionated bastard” rather than that “Asian kid who doesn’t talk”. It is a good feeling. His hair is long enough now that he can pull it back into a bun on the top of his head. People sometimes call him ma’m in stores and his Halmi has asked if he wanted money for a haircut, but the point is that he had let his hair grow without worrying what it might say about him, that people might look at him and think “gay”.

“And now he has your phone number?”Goodnight ask, eyebrows disappearing into his hairline in consternation.

“Yeah,” Billy says grimly.

“I have a revolutionary idea, and that is that you block his number, and if he insists on calling I’ll answer instead and say he’s called, um, like the number service, or Fats Gay Bakery in Louisiana. Or the morgue!”

Billy smiles. “Pansy’s Dancing school.”

“Miss Pansy speakin’” Goody says, exaggerating his southern accent. “Oh sugar, why don’ you come on down and give us a whirl? We are just full up of fat Asian drag queens, an’ the girls are all dyin’ to see you.”

“You realise that the second you actually do that it will be my Mom on the phone, right? And then she’ll really think I’m living it up.”

“She’ll send you another bottle of pharmacy lube. Does the army surplus store sell lube? Like a no brand gallon of lube. We could lay out a rubber mat, pour it out and have a very strange fetish party in our dorm.”

“Make a slide in the corridor. And a human bowling alley.” 

Goody let out a high pitched, undignified giggle. “Really build some queer networks.”

When the bell rings again Billy is laughing almost too hard to hear it and he doesn’t think he makes too good an impression on anybody else, red-faced and giggling and as soon as the bell rang for the final time he looks around for Goody and Sam.

They are by a table at the back wall, Sam sitting down with a beer and Goodnight standing up and talking with a tall guy, the last person in his dating run. Billy had met him earlier in the evening, he was part of the Socialist Rambler’s club and spoke very glowingly of Horne. Coming closer something about Goodnight looked eerily familiar to Billy, something in his posture, the soft smile and the way he tilts his head just so.

He is flirting, and the reason Billy can tell it is flirting is because Goody does the same to him.

He recognises that soft curve of Goody’s body, and the way he’s looking up through his lashes, recognised it from nights and nights in their room, from how Goodnight looked at him, his hands dancing and fluttering around Billy, leaning his chin on the back of his knuckles and just looking at Billy like he is the most interesting, compelling, thing in the universe even if he’s just talking about going down to the corner store for milk. He’d held Billy’s hand the whole time at the table without even questioning it and Billy had just ignored all these things because it was much safer to believe that Goodnight was unavailable.

And Sam is sitting right next to him, just there, poking at his phone and looking content, but Sam must be able to see it too. Must have seen Goodnight and Billy and known. Billy is pretty sure nobody knew about his crush on Goody, not because he's an expert at hiding it, but because nobody would be looking, or recognise what they were seeing. But Sam would know. Sam would recognise that Goodnight was having...having an an, an… emotional affair with Billy right in front of his very eyes, and Billy suddenly feels sick to his stomach, with a spinning sense of nausea over what he's done.

Sam, who’s been nothing but kind to him, who befriended Billy with good humour and ease in spite of Billy’s initial spiky attitude. While Billy looked on Goodnight had given the tall guy a final slinky smile and sat down next to Sam, arm easily around his shoulder and their heads tight together to look at whatever Sam was doing on his phone, stealing a sip from his beer without even looking up. The swirling anxiety rose up from Billy’s gut and before he knew it he has set course for the bathroom, confused emotions thumbling round and round inside him like a spinning drum.

Grace had raised Billy to be fastidious, and under normal circumstances he would rather be dead than on the floor of a public bathroom,but since he felt like he would rather be dead than anywhere right now, germs and sticky floors seemed the least of his worries. The tiles are cool and the sound of the bar lessened, and Billy pulls his knees up to lean his forehead against them and tries to even out his breathing and not vomit. He feels terrible, like food poisoning and lying to his mom all rolled up into one clawing, cold-sweaty emotion that held his stomach in a terrible grip. 

“You all right there?” Billy look up at Sam, nod,and then he has to look away again when another roiling wave of nausea hit. He isn't all right.

“Yeah sure you're all right,” Sam says and reached down to hoist Billy up. “ that's why you're sitting on the floor in the toilets, because you are so all right. C’mon up you go.”

Billy allowed Sam to hustle him to the sinks and obediently washes his face and hands,before Sam grabs him by the scruff of his neck and drags him to their table like a lost puppy.

“Billy, Sam, I'm just going to the bar,you want a beer?”

“I want a beer,” Sam says, “and he’ll have a ginger ale or a coke.”

“People found nearly hurling in the bathroom don't get beer,” Sam says when Billy gives him an indignant stare. “So Goody said you met some asshole?” He continues, sitting down next to Billy. 

Billy tells him all about it, and Sam listened and nodded. 

“Where do I even go if I'm not welcome here?” Billy finish, finally out of steam. Talking it through he’s realised how much it bothers him, yeah he was out to his parents but they had yet to see any of that in practice, and he still hasn’t said anything to the rest of his family, he hadn't told his grandma or his cousins, and he had sort of thought that was what the gay community was for, to support you if things got hairy with your own family but if he was as unwelcome there as he might be at home, then what? 

“I'm going to have to be in it right?” he asks Sam. “I mean, I thought I could be gay without being gay, you know? If.. if it was just...who I liked, I could just skip the..the.. demonstrations and limp wrists and being covered in glitter and walking like a girl but that's not how it works? And if I want to change it I have to get in there and be a part of it, right?”  

“It does sound like you’d have a better chance than when doing nothing?” Sam admits mildly.

“What’s going on?” Good sits down with them, carefully handing Billy a glass of ginger ale and Sam a bottle.

“Billy is solving systemic racism in queer spaces by committing to being a full time gay,” Sam says  and Goody nods appreciatively.

“Mazel tov!” he says and his smile makes Billy’s ears hot and he cant help glancing self-conciously at Sam because this must look so weird and then he froze like a deer in headlights when he spots Bart on the other side of the bar. 

“Sam! Goody! Asshole o’clock!” he all but squeaks in panic and Sam immediately slapped Goody's shoulder when he cranes his head to look. 

“Don't fucking look Goody!” he snaps, while managing to keep his face entirely relaxed. “Is he coming over?” he asks Billy who threw a glance over at the bar

“Not yet but he looks like he might ,” Billy says miserably. It's not that he's afraid of telling the bastard to fuck off, it's just that he'd rather not. He also feels a hot surge of shame for giving out his number to the first guy who was even remotely nice to him.

“Ok” says Sam, clearly thinking very hard and gaze still glued at the table. “Billy, get in closer to Goodnight, and Goody put your arm around him.”

Both Goodnight and Billy froze and then Goody muttered something that sounded like aw what the hell, and gave Sam a dark glare and swung his arm around Billy's shoulders pulling him in close. It wasn't too weird, to be honest they were closer than this on most days, however on most days they were not in front of Goody’s fucking boyfriend. Being this close actually made Billy relax, made him braver than he usually would be, he was always so busy with holding himself back whenever Goody touched him, but this time actually dare to snuggle closer, and leans his forehead against Goody’s temple with something of a sigh of relief. 

“Thank you,” he mutters against Goody's throat and can feel Goody’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. 

“Any...anytime,” Goody replies somewhat unsteadily and shuffles closer and Billy makes himself small, molding himself against Goody’s side. It is heavenly. Goody smells good, and familiar and it feels like Billy's skin is buzzing with pleasure. For once he doesn’t give a crap about what sort of weird thing Sam and Goody have going on, maybe it’s an open relationship? In any case Goody's own damn boyfriend is right there so he can show some shame for once if he's worried about it. Billy is taking a break from worrying right now.

“Is he still looking?” he asks Sam who very unobtrusively glance towards the bar.

“Guy with the forehead, right?”

Billy nods. 

“Yeah he’s still looking,” Sam says, frowning, “You could be stuck like this for the rest of the evening,” the last he said with a slightly pointed emphasis to Goodnight and Billy could feel him shrug minutely.

“I’ve definitely been stuck in worse places,” he says warmly and Billy does his best not to blush and settles in more comfortably..

“For sure you have, Goodnight.”Sam says and grins like a shark. “Has ever he told you the time he got stuck for three hours in his hookups basement without pants?  Goody makes an indignant noise next to him, sounding like a wet cat.

“Sam! For the last time, we were not hooking up! I was tutoring him. In French.The lack of pants was…. incidental.Circumstantial evidence at best.”

“The lack of pants might be circumstantial evidence but as such its highly incriminating,” Sam says winking at Billy while Goody continues to sputter.

“So Goodnight had the worst crush on this complete boneheaded football guy-”

“He was not boneheaded Sam, he was dyslexic-”

“And they were in the basement fooling around and Goody here lost his pants because at heart he’s a slut-”

“A faint heart never fucked a bobcat Sam, not that we were. We were conjugating french verbs and I spilled soda! Billy, don’t listen to him, I’m a paragon of virtue, anyway, spilled soda on my trousers and Stephen had gone upstairs to get me a pair to borrow when a friend of his came around -”

“His girlfriend Goodnight! So of course he had to pretend there was absolutely nobody in his basement and he thought that the best way to get you out safely was to distract her upstairs and you then you could sneak out, except for the fact that Goody here had no pants on and were stuck down there.”

“He was looking out for me, thats all. Preserving my dignity, however his family came home just after that and he had to go to dinner because they were very strict about that sort of thing, Billy and it wasn’t like I could go through his house pantsless so…”

The story is long and meandering but culminated in Sam idling his car like a getaway driver for Goody as he wriggled out of the tiny basement window like a skinny red-faced eel in only his underwear, having to make an undignified scramble across the backyard before he could dive headfirst into Sam’s car.

Billy decides that he likes Sam’s laugh, which makes his front teeth stick out just enough to make his handsome face just the slightest bit dorky.Billy can imagine him twenty years from now happily making dad jokes and singing along to oldies on the radio. Next to Billy Goodnight rolls his eyes excessively and sucks his teeth in an effort to hide his smile.

A while later Goodnight is more or less propped up against Billy, warm and boneless and slightly hicchoughy, jumping thoughtlessly between Louisiana French and English, his hand tangled in Billy’s hair, pulling slightly every now and it felt good in a way Billy had to try really hard not to think about in public. Bouge has dripped off pretty early on, after Goodnight had made a show of nosing affectionately along Billy's hairline and over his ear, but Billy feel pretty unrepentant about not telling Goodnight or Sam about it.  

“Maybe we should get going?” Sam says with a meaningful look at Goody who is rosy and droopy and thoroughly charming and Billy nod. He's been on ginger ale rations the whole evening apart from a few sips from Goodnight's bottle and is pretty much sober. 

In the cold night air Goody sobers up a little and he and Sam talk about who they had met and if anything interesting had come up. 

“I love a good old GSA meeting,” Goody says happily. “Makes me feel nostalgic for high school. The only thing that could make it perfect was it the abstinence society had the room opposite, do you remember that Sam? Our best recruitment pool.”

“Were you involved in your GSA in high school?” Billy asks, a little wistfully (he can vividly remember walking miles in roundabout ways to avoid the corridor where the information leaflet sat, just in case anybody could see him next the rainbow flag and make the obvious connection. Being subconsciously closeted had sucked balls). 

“Involved?” Goody scoff, “we started the GSA in our school.” He gazed out in front of him as if looking out over conquered realms, his face fond and nostalgic. “I was gay. Sam was straight. It was a fated alliance!” Goody says, expansively and throws an arm around Sam’s shoulder and trying to pull him down to kiss his cheek. They weren't much for PDAs and Billy can tell it is more for the sake of being obnoxious than anything else. 

It makes Billy laugh. “So you got together after high school then?” 

“What?” Goody says so abruptly that it makes Billy falter a little, unsure where he had lost the thread. 

“Um,you said Sam was the straight part, so obviously he’d, uh, let go of that when you started dating?”

Both Goody and Sam freeze up, staring at him. It ought to look funny, the two of them standing stock still in the freezing night and staring, Goody halfway trying to climb up on Sam, one leg thrown over his waist and arms locked around his shoulder in an attempt to reach his face. 

“We what?” Sam says, sounding stunned. 

Goody is hastily scrabbling to let go of Sam, who is just as quick in letting go of his coat and scarf and they stumble apart, still staring at Billy. 

“You thought we were together?” Goody ask, waving his hand between Sam and himself. 

“Yeah?” It seems still to Billy like no big deal, he can’t understand why they are acting so weird.

“Oh my god,” Goody says and Sam turns away with a hand over his face, making an odd high pitched noise. 

“We’re not together. Really really not!”

“You're not? I thought you were dating?”

“No we’re just best friends!” Goody says frantically.” I mean, of course there is nothing just about being friends, and not to demean the sacred bond of friendship, and Sam is the other half of my soul (“I’m really not,” Sam cut in) but I, we, we’re not dating. At all.”

“Ok, so, uh you just have sex?” Billy asks, bewildered.

Goody’s mouth drop open in a scandalised “O” in horror and Sam is still turned away, shoulders heaving with laughter.

“No! Of course not, I could never with Sam! That would be…” he makes an aborted gesture indicating the complete impossibility of him and Sam which Billy thinks was pretty damn insulting given that he’d seen it with his own two eyes. 

“But you go on cute dates! You know each other’s coffee orders. You have a picture in an Our First Date Frame!” 

This is true, it sat on Goodnights cork board, and Billy hadn't noticed it until Goody had moved it to pin the secret Valentines card. It’s a fucking adorable photo from the top of the Empire State Building with a windswept baby Goody in a striped t-shirt holding hands with, and beaming at, an equally baby faced Sam in truly regrettable glasses.

Goody opened his mouth but Billy is on a roll, and also quite indignant that they would try to keep this from him.

“You sleep in the same bed! You make out! I don’t know why you’d think I wouldn't be cool with it.”

Both Sam and Goody look somewhat sheepish, and Goodnight keeps shaking his head.

“We have been best friends since high school but we’re really not together. I, I might give Sam ….a...a….a” Goody fumbled for words, “a chaste peck every now and then, but I’d hardly go so far as making out more...ah..uh…”

“More like you have a chronic allergy to personal space?” Sam supplies smoothly and Goody nod eagerly and as realised what Sam had said he glares at him

“Sam!” he spits indignantly.

“No really?”Sam asks Billy affably,, “how long had you known each other before he was basically picking wax out of your ears?”

And well, put it like that. Billy could remember their first introduction lecture where Goody had casually put a hand on the back of Billy’s chair and lent into his personal space like it was nothing, while Billy sat there stiff as a rod and tried to not act like a spooked cat. And then finally, finally Billy felt like a lightbulb went off, throwing everything in blinding, illuminating light.

“So, you, you are not together?” he asks and Goody stares back at him, seemingly struck by the same thing, mouth half open and his eyes enormous in the dark, shaking his head.

“Yeah,” he says breathlessly.  “I mean no, no we’re not together.”

“And, uh, and you’re not seeing anyone?” Billy stutters, his heart beating like a steam engine and Goody looks at him, almost dazed.

“No, no I’m not, I’m not seeing anyone,” he says, eyes glued to Billy’s.

“Oh,okay,” Billy says stupidly, his face feels weird and it takes a moment before he realised he was smiling, widely and helplessly, that bright smile that only came out rarely and Goodnight is smiling back equally dopiley. Sam standing in between them and looking from one to the other, his eyebrows climbing higher and higher with each turn.

“Ok, I have no idea what the fuck is going on here but its subzero out here and I hear one half of Goody’s paltry doormroom bed calling my name so lets move it people.”

“Sure Sam,”  Goody says unusually docile, wrapping an arm around Sam’s waist. “Onward!” Billy wraps his arm around Sam’s waist from the other side so his hand can rest on Goody’s elbow.

“Onward!” he agrees cheerily. Sam looks unimpressed from one head to the other.

“Don’t know what the fucks wrong with either of you but let's go home anyway,” he says and Billy can feel Goodnight move his hand so it's loosely wrapped around Billy’s wrist, catching the thin skin between his glove and sleeves.  Goody’s fingers feel cold and bony and absolutely, absolutely amazing.

[theuniversitychallengereview]

UC 49.7-49.10

Every so often I manifest an incoherent plan to stop watching YouTube, borne out of some inchoate idea to do with productivity, but then I’ll watch a video so mundanely profound and inspiring that gives me more of a creative boost than any amount of time I would save by not watching 20-minute explainers on Game of Thrones lore. On this occasion that video was this, on the toolbox fallacy.

Simply, as the Passion of the Nerd puts it in his video, its the idea that one can’t do (x), until one has (y) - or, the lie one tells oneself in order to put off doing something, whatever that something may be. In my case, as is so often the case, the (y) is time. I haven’t written a blog for early two months, and in that period I told myself repeatedly that I was just waiting for that big long stretch of time where I could sit down and get everything done at once. 

But that never happens, and the longer you go without starting, the bigger the pile gets, so eventually it becomes impossible to get through everything at once without a parcel of time so monstrously huge it is terrifiyng in its own right. 

And thats where the fallacy comes in - you don’t need everything to be perfect in order to get started, and once you’ve started, you don’t need everything to go perfectly either. You just need to start. So lets get started.

Episode 7 - Jesus, Oxford vs Manchester

I live in Manchester now (aside: before I got my job here I applied for a PhD at ManUni with a guy called Dr Kiss, a sliding doors moment which could have resulted in my failing to qualify for a University Challenge team for a record eight times in a row, assuming it was a three year doctorate), which should make them my second team, but to be honest they’ve probably held that title for a while anyway. Like Michael Schumacher in his glory days, or Roger Federer in his prime, the University of Manchester produced consistent levels of supreme performance in the Challenge between 2005 and 2014 that gained them many fans, myself included. 

They reached nine out of ten semi finals in that time, and brought the fight to the Oxbridge duopoly with four series victories. Jesus haven’t had anywhere near as much success in the Paxman Era, but won the penultimate Bamber series against Imperial in 1986.

Manchester are mascotted by a bee, the buzzy symbol of the city; and Jesus are sponsored by a jumper? Thats what it looks like anyway, it might just be a bit of draping with the college logo on it. A lot of the Oxbridge teams do this, but there may as well be nothing there because its pretty half assed. 

Its the Jumpersquad who unravel the night’s first clue, with Cashman taking the ten points for the Cashmere Collective. Manchester equalised with the next Starter, and moved into the lead with a full set on the third. A delightful picture round on Premier League football team finishing positions followed, but Manchester could only manage one (I took the hat-trick, naturally). I always enjoy it when the setters put the sports questions into inventive UC formats.

The Mancunians would get into triple figures before Jesus could build on their opening points, but two Starters in a row got them out of the quagmire, and a third, the music round, brought them within thirty points again. However, they were helped out a little bit by Paxman allowing ‘They Must Be Giants’ in place of ‘They Might Be Giants’. I guess accuracy doesn’t matter as much when its merely pop culture.

This would prove the end of Oxford’s comeback though, as Manchester surged ahead with eighty five of the next hundred points to seal the victory with plenty of time to go. They must have known they had it in the bag as well, because at this point they sat back and let Jesus race for a high scoring loser spot, which they may well get.

Final Score: Jesus, Oxford 145 - 185 Manchester

Episode 8 - Durham vs Trinity, Cam

Durham reached the semi finals last series, the third time they have done so since they won their only title of the Paxman Era in 2000, having also claimed a Bamber Trophy in 1977. Trinity won under Jeremy’s stewardship in 1995 and 2014, along with a victory in 1974, making this a match-up between two of only three teams (the other being The Open University) to have won the Challenge in both of its iterations. 

Adding further weight to the not-so-mythical myth that Durham is a surrogate for Oxbridge, the Northern team have also got a jumper-y object as their mascot (at this point I have realised that there is a proper word for what those things are, but I’m in too deep with this jumper thing. Is it just a banner? A sigil?). I’m glad to see that Trinity have tried though, and are proudly displaying what looks to be a hand-knitted bear (possibly Sooty from Sooty and Sweep?).

Durham charged out of the blocks with four of the first five Starters and ten of their first twelve bonuses. Trinity would have to wake up soon if they didn’t want to get blown completely away. Fortunately they heard their alarm clock when it next went off and in the blink of an eye they were ahead. 

Wait, surely not... *checks notes* No, I was right first time round, following a 90-20 opening stint, Trinity went 80-0 to turn the game on its head. Now it was Durham’s turn to feel shell-shocked, but they took the next Starter and we were level again. A hundred each. The game was being played like rugby, with one team smashing forward until the momentum could be stopped, at which point the tide would flo the other way. Scintillating quizzing.

The turnovers started coming faster, with a frenetic back and forth developing. It was Trinity who finally managed to stamp their authority on proceedings, opening up a significant lead with only a few minutes remaining. Durham would need to work even quicker than in the early stages to add further topsy-turviness to this topsy-turvy match, but they couldn’t manage it. A brief spurt at the death may however be enough to drag them into the play-offs.

Final Score: Durham 145 - 200 Trinity, Cam

Episode 9 - LSE vs Courtauld Institute of Art

Like I said in the introduction, the longer you leave something before starting, the more difficult it is to start because of how much you’ll have to do once you start. Another issue with this blog in particular, is that the more you have to do at once, the more difficult it becomes to not just write the exact same things over and over again. If I do one per week then even if I do repeat myself word for word then I don’t realise because seven days if far too long to remember anything for, and ignorance is bliss etc. With a big batch like this one then it becomes painfully obvious how many times I use the word Starter, even if it is somewhat necessary.

Oh well, lets start with a recap of the two teams previous appearances... LSE made the final in 1996, losing a high-scoring match against local rivals Imperial. They made the semis two years later, and the quarters in 2009, meaning that they’ve been elimiated at every stage of the competition apart from the second round. For Courtauld, it would be a success to be knocked out at that stage, having lost their only two matches, in 2015 and 2018.

Courtauld took the first points of the evening with the amusing fact that the Nobel Peace Prize hasn’t been awarded on a number of occasions due to a lack of deserving recipients (could they do the same with the British Prime Minister?). LSE fumbled a science starter, leaving the board (in this case the circuit board which makes up the buzzers) wide open, but Courtauld can’t even guess, which amuses Paxman no end - “they don’t study a lot of that [at an art institute], do they?”.

They know Shakespeare though, and take the picture Starter on one of his ‘lost rhymes’. The match ambles on slowly, at a far more leisurely pace than last weeks (a good thing about this batching is that I can reference the previous games with the confidence that I’ll be understood), and its Courtauld who are ambling slightly faster than their London counterparts.

With a few minutes remaining, LSE decde to give it a go, with Engels cheekily waving Paxman on after another science Starter was left unanswered. I just spent about fifteen minutes trying to make a gif of this, but the websites kept crashing and the one I did make was only loading as a picture here. So if you can just imagine it that would be great.

Final Score: LSE 90 - 145 Courtauld

Episode 10 - Goldsmiths vs Southampton

Goldsmiths lost on their first Challenge appearance, and made it to the second round last year, the only other time they’ve made it to the televised rounds. If they continue their current trajectory they’ll make it to the quarter finals this time out, which is the furthest their first round opponents Southampton have made it in the Paxman Era, in 2014.

The Southampton mascot, a fluffy deer, has fallen off of the table between the middle players and has consequently gained some camoflague so you have to squint to figure out what it is. I don’t know if it was placed there on purpose, or if they simply didn’t notice that their mascot resembled that scene from Bambi. Goldsmiths have a teddy bear who is wearing graduation robes, indicating that they award degrees to cuddly toys - where will the liberal agenda take us next?

Paxman informs us that Goldsmith’s Sibley hails from the same Canadian town as human PA system Eric Monkman, and when he introduces himself you can detect a similar lilt to his accent, but without the sense that you’ve accidentally sat on the volume button. 

It is he who takes the first Starter of the evening, and indeed the second too - perhaps he does bear some more relation to his noisy neighbour. Goldsmiths took two more on the bounce to go 70 points clear. They were unlucky not to be further ahead, having guessed wrongly between both York and Leeds and Southampton and Portsmouth on the picture round (with no other clues its pretty hard to tell the difference between 20 miles on an unannotated map).

Maybe it was the mention of Southampton (and its misidentification) that woke the Southern side up, but they claimed their first points on the next Starter, along with two bonuses on the Lake District that I knew too, but only because I was literally in Windermere at the weekend.

Once they’d figured out that you need to buzz in and answer questions in order to win the game, Southampton were actually pretty good, and their confidence seemed to grow with every point they put on the board (in this case the circuit board which makes up the - hang on, I’ve already done this one, haven’t I? See, I told you this whole repeating malarkey was difficult), and they polish up two of three bonuses on haikus which describe chemical elements (I missed the explanation of the question format when I watched this the first time, so was astounded that they had even been discussing anything with any conviction. “Just doing your job holding plants together. No fireworks, no fuss”. I mean, what is that on about?)

In fact, just as Southampton remembered how to play, Goldsmiths forgot, and they only managed to shake themselves of this malaise twice more for the rest of the match, allowing Southampton to canter away, mostly unchallenged. 

Final Score: Goldsmiths 95 - 175 Southampton

Phew! That was a big one - well done if you made it all the way to the end. I still have two more to catch up on, but I haven’t even watched those episodes yet so I’ll just do them as regular posts, hopefully tomorrow. 

I’d also like to give a huge thanks to Tough Soles who are supporting me on Patreon! (sorry for falling so far behind - I’ll catch up soon)

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 108: Nippon Safes, Inc. – Introduction

Written by Torch

Doesn’t look very safe to me

Two years after my first ever playthrough for The Adventure Gamer, I’m finally up for another. Quite the gap, but – surprise! – we’re still doing games from 1992! We sure are taking our time here, or perhaps 1992 was just a particularly bountiful year. Either way, the next game up is Nippon Safes, Inc. This game was developed by Dynabyte software, an Italian game creator. I couldn’t find a lot of information about this company, but running a couple of Italian wikis through Google translate helped a little.

Dynabyte. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that it’s a portmanteau of dynamite and byte

Dynabyte made 6 games in all, of which 3 were adventure games. Nippon was the first in 1992, followed by Tequila & Boom Boom – a cartoonish western themed adventure named starring anthropomorphic animals – in 1994, and finally Big Red Adventure in 1995 ( 1997 on Amiga ).

Can you spot the KGB agent? ( It’s a trick question. They’re all KBG agents )

Big Red is a direct sequel to Nippon, but I doubt Tequila is related. Not sure how they’d make that work… In 1997 they either changed their name to Ludomedia or disbanded and then created a new company named Ludomedia, I can’t tell for sure. Either way they went out of business the same year, so I guess it doesn’t matter much.

Logos from ‘95-97 Can’t put my finger on it, but it’s like they didn’t fully commit to the new company name

That’s pretty much all I could dig up about Dynabyte, so if any Italian readers see this and know more, please feel free to chip in.

So let’s get back to the game at hand. I read about Nippon Safes Inc. in an Amiga magazine many years ago, and the cartoony graphics kind of caught my eye, but that’s the extent of my familiarity with this game, so I’ll start off by checking out the manual, to see what I can expect.

The story begins like this: “In the most disreputable parts of the Japanese metropolis of Tyoko,a shady character wanders around looking suspicious. What can this mysterious person be up to?”

Talk about suspense building.. To help me learn more about this mysterious character, I will be able to control the dynamic trio of….

“DOUG NUTS. He is an electronics genius who uses his knowledge for not exactly a lawful purpose (with meagre results). His career as an electronics engineer at Oxford ended abruptly when he was caught fiddling the results of the exams stored in the faculty computer. After moving to Japan, the homeland of electronics, he has problems with the law each time one of his breaking in gadgets doesn’t work quite like it was meant to.”

“DINO FAGIOLI. A former boxer of Italian origin, basically a good and honest soul,often falls into the traps set by people taking advantage of the fact that he tends not to think very hard. After a series of defeats in the boxing world, he boarded a ship bound for Japan as a deckhand. After getting into the umpteenth scrape he was thrown off the ship in Tyoko, where he is trying to make ends meet.”

“DONNA FATALE. A variety actress, she abandoned a promising career as a ballet dancer to follow the path of the glittering world of show business. She arrived in Tyoko dazzled by the promises of a self-styled impressario who, after having squandered all her possessions, left her to a life on the border of legality.”

Ok, so brains, brawn and… show tunes? How’s that for diversity? According to the manual, these guys are linked together, and I’ll be able to play them either one at a time, or I can alternate between them. This is referred to as something called the “Parallaction system”. Yes, “parallaction”. As in… “parallel action”. These Dynabyte guys seem to have a thing for wordplay. You may also have noticed that the name of the city where the action takes place is “Tyoko”. That’s not a typo ( or a tyopo – sorry, couldn’t resist ). The manual states that the city of Tyoko is located “somewhere not better identified half way between Tokyo and Kyoto as the crow flies.”

Easily one of the safest mountains to climb

In general, the manual has a certain… let’s call it “Lost in translation” vibe to it. In addition to character introductions, it also contains a test quiz, to help me decide which of the characters I should play. Hmm.. I thought I’m supposed to play them all eventually? Anyway, here’s an example question:

1)YOU ARE ON STAGE.YOU MUST CHEER UP THE EVENING.WHAT DO YOU DO?

I bring out all my artistic gifts. NA Nothing.I would feel out of place. NE Ever heard the one about the airship? WA

It doesn’t say how this helps me decide on a character though. Each answer corresponds to a 2-letter combination, and there are 6 questions so I can end up with a “word” like NARAKIWANAHO. I have no idea how this will help me with such an all-important decision, but hopefully we’ll find out when I actually start playing the game.

Lastly, the manual contains some information (fun facts) about Japan that may or may not be related to copy protection, including but not limited to Japanese written language, the geisha, fish, public baths, hotels and railways. This is actually a fairly interesting and a fun read, both for its content and for the sometimes strange English. Take this section about the subway trains:

To understand just how crowded they are, you should know that most stations have “oshiya”, or throwers-in. These are people charged with pushing the passengers inside the carriages. Each passenger is determined to get in, in order to reach his place of work on time, but the doors of the carriages will not work until until everyone has either got in or out. Since the other passengers are far to well-bred to interfere, these “oshiya” with their impecabble white gloves, help the poor devil make up his mind.

Having read through the manual, I feel ready to take on the game itself. The game is listed as working in ScummVM with a “Good” support level, but in for authenticity, I’ll be playing in Dosbox.

Tough call, but I’ll probably go for japanese engr… soll…sorry! English!

So join me next time as I make my way through the thriving metropolis of Tyo… wait, what?

So it WAS a tyopo after all

Anyway, prepare for a barrage of “safe”-related puns ( or maybe it’s better to Nipp(on) the whole thing in the bud ) as we explore the cartoony world of bank robberies and who knows what other crimes in an imaginary Japanese city.

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no CAPs will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. As this is an introduction post, it’s an opportunity for readers to bet 10 CAPs (only if they already have them) that I won’t be able to solve a puzzle without putting in an official Request for Assistance: remember to use ROT13 for betting. If you get it right, you will be rewarded with 50 CAPs in return. It’s also your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Voters can predict whatever score they want, regardless of whether someone else has already chosen it.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-108-nippon-safes-inc-introduction/

[laurenelizabethmclaughlin-blog]

Post-Truth Rhetoric’s Relationship to Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

The world of politics as we know it today is different than the past, much different. New terms and sayings have been introduced to our dialogue, and speaking of dialogue, there’s very little to be found anymore. The terms “fake news” was thrown around repeatedly during the 2016 election, and continues to be currently, especially by our President, who will freely call any source, no matter how reputable it is “fake” if it goes against him and what he preaches. With fake news comes post-truth, and if you haven’t heard of it, you’re not alone. Post-truth is a term that’s been around for a while, but gained notoriety during the rise of Trump, and the spread of questionable news and news sources. It’s so “trendy” that it was Oxford Dictionary’s “Word of the Year” in 2016. A post-truth world is one that centers around appeals to emotion and leaves credible sources and the real truth in the dust. Enter ethos, pathos, and logos, (three classic persuasion tools), and appeal to emotions is precisely what pathos deals with and takes advantage of. Post-truth exists regardless of facts and is basically a reiteration of bullshit. People have emotions, that’s what makes us able to be empathetic humans. But what happens when these emotions completely take over your thoughts, and lead to a complete ignorance of your logic and logos? 

Bruce McComiskey is a professor of rhetoric at The University of Alabama at Birmingham who wrote a book focused specifically on post-truth called Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition in which he discusses our current political climate and how it relates to rhetoric. He says, “In a post-truth communication landscape, people (especially politicians) say whatever might work in a given situation, whatever might generate the desired result, without any regard to the truth, value, or facticity of statements” (McComiskey, p. 6). This sums up post-truth pretty well, and gives readers an overview of what exactly it is. In a class on democracy and rhetoric I’m currently taking at Syracuse University, we’ve discussed post truth's relationship to ethos, pathos, and logos and how they’re all connected. Politics today are less logic based, and more emotion based. Decisions are no longer made by the head, but instead, the heart, and these emotions invoke pathos. Politicians are at a point where they will say anything to persuade and appeal to voters, regardless of whether or not it’s the truth. But post-truth also deals with and many times post-truth disregards all logic. Ethos is also hurt by post-truth as we have discussed in class because people can find a "news" source to back up almost anything they want to believe. Credibility is out, and click-bait is in when post-truth takes over. Pathos is already set up to help post-truth rhetoric, as appeals to emotion are what keep post-truth relevant, as many people replace logic with emotion when practicing bullshit or spreading something that isn't fact. 

Every morning I listen to a podcast from The New York Times called “The Daily”, and this morning’s topic, October 31st, could not have been more timely as the host, Kevin Roose, was discussing Facebook and politics. He interviewed a couple who developed their own right-wing opinion and news website, “Mad World News”, to see where they’re coming from and how they got started. The owner and founder Cory Pebble claims, “If you can make a good story sound like a bad story, you’ll have a viral story”. The point behind the podcast is that both right and left wing news sites are developed in order to trigger anger, and you guessed it, play on your emotions, to make you believe something that you might normally question. Anger gets people fired up, and makes them more passionate about things they believe to be true. This is post-truth, and is a strong example to its relationship to ethos, pathos, and logos. This touches a little about social media, and politics, but I will be discussing this further in my next post. However, our reaction to post-truth news isn’t necessarily our fault , a 2017 CNN study that scanned participants brains as they discussed politics showed that our brain has a natural reaction to certain aspects of political conversations. The study found that, “when the participants were presented with evidence that challenged the political statements they agreed with, increased activity occurred in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and decreased activity in the orbitofrontal cortex. The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex is associated with emotion regulation and the orbitofrontal cortex with cognitive flexibility”. (Howard, 2017). This explains the science behind appeals to emotion and how it affects your political beliefs and stances. 

However, pathos is not the only of the three effected by post-truth. Logos and ethos are also thrown into that mix, but in a different way. Ethos, the appeal to credibility is damaged, because many times people are using, I hate to say it but, “fake” news outlets to spread stories that make them angry and get them fired up, even if the facts aren’t necessarily all there. Logos, the appeal to logic also goes out the window when it comes to emotions. I will touch on this more in a later post, but people tend to forget what they believe in, and what they know is right when other factors, such as strong emotions, come into play.

[omniversalobservations]

The Simulated Multiverse (2021)

Virk: In this book I ended up going back and revisiting what Philip K. Dick was saying. There’s the famous quote, that we live in a simulated reality, a computer program reality, back in the ‘70s, but there was a second part of that quote that gets ignored a lot of times. He said that if we changed variables, we would have the impression that we were living the same events again and again, as if we were saying the same things.

I went back and interviewed his wife, Tessa, and found that he was really saying that we live in a universe that is not just a computer program, but that somebody is messing with these variables all the time. It’s resulting in different timelines. His book The Man in the High Castle, which was a recent Amazon series, he claimed that it was a timeline that he remembered actually happening, as opposed to a thing that he just made up. He believed that whoever was running the simulation rewound and then reran it again with different variables to see what it would be like.

That was part of the impetus for writing this new book, looking at this from a science fiction point of view to say, “Could this really be happening? What does science say about it? Is there other evidence of people remembering other timelines and things happening differently?” And from the video game perspective, how would we actually build something like that? Taking a look into that. That’s what the new book is all about.

GamesBeat: One thing that was interesting about Rodney’s film was the whole Matrix defense. I wondered how much you looked at that part of the problem. A lot of this is great fun to theorize about, but there are people who take it too seriously.

Virk: That’s true. I can’t say I looked into it as much as he has. He spent time talking to the guy who shot his parents. As I understand it, the Matrix defense wasn’t necessarily successful in a legal sense. But it was used. I look at the flip side of that, which is that people have been theorizing something like this for a long time. It’s not just a recent phenomenon, this idea that the world around us isn’t the real world. Most major religions have said basically the same thing. Both the western traditions, Christianity and Judaism, as well as eastern religions like Hinduism. They’ve been telling us that the world is Maya, that it’s an illusion, and that somebody is watching and recording it. In the Islamic traditions you have very specific angels whose job it is to record every little thing you do and put it in the scroll of deeds.

You can use the argument, and religions do, that this tells you to behave differently, because most of the morality of the world’s religions comes from this idea that we are being watched and everything we do is important to how things will turn out after this particular run of the game ends. In the eastern traditions you go back, of course. You have another life. But that’s an aspect that I explored pretty thoroughly in the previous book and a bit in this one as well. You can take it in different directions. It doesn’t by itself necessarily mean you’re just going to get crazy people going off. In another way you can say it means you need to take your actions more seriously, because those actions will have repercussions.

GamesBeat: It feels like simulation theory has also broken into the mainstream with things like Marvel’s movies, like Avengers Endgame.

Virk: Yeah, the idea that it’s not just a simulated universe, but that there are multiple timelines. I like to use the point that, as popular culture catches up with science, you start to see a proliferation. Things pass what I call the 10-year-old test. If you go back to the 20th century, the idea that there were other planets, other solar systems, wasn’t that normal. But then everybody became comfortable with it when you had superheroes like Superman. You’d explain that they’re from another planet. Kids found that to be not a problem, even though parents might have thought it was kind of weird at the time.

Now my 10-year-old nephews are talking about a multiverse with superheroes. The superheroes come not just from another planet, but another version of the universe. It’s become very common with things like the Arrowverse and the Flash, and now with Loki, where they actually have diagrams where they’re watching it. That’s similar to what I talk about in this book, the idea that you have these branching timelines going in different directions. The public is becoming more comfortable with this idea of the quantum multiverse, which is where the science comes from, all from quantum mechanics. You have the idea that every time we make a decision, it spawns off another parallel timeline or parallel universe.

When I looked into it even more, it turns out that it’s not just about possible parallel futures. There’s something called a delayed choice experiment. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that one. The best way to explain it, consider a distant quasar that’s, say, a billion light-years away. Suppose light is coming to us from there and there’s a black hole or galaxy, some gravitationally large object, in between. Let’s say that’s only a million light-years away from us. The light has to go to the left or to the right. It has to make a choice. We can measure whether particular photons went this way or that.

What the delayed choice experiment tells us is that even though the choice had to be made a million years ago when that light went to the left or right of that galaxy or black hole, it’s not until we measure it now that the choice is actually made. Now we’re saying there are actually multiple possible paths in addition to possible futures. Even Schrodinger, who didn’t like the idea of the collapse of probability waves, he called them multiple simultaneous histories. That was back in the ‘40s, even before Hugh Everett came up with the many worlds theory, which was in the ‘60s.

This idea was very intriguing to me. It said that physics–the simulation hypothesis is telling us that space isn’t what we think it is. It’s actually pixels. Then quantum mechanics is telling us that time isn’t what we think it is. The past and the future are very different. If you put this all together, how do you bring this together? It turns out that computer games and this idea that we have a game state that has all the bits in the world encapsulated into it, that’s a good way to think about the present moment in time. It’s just a series of bits that are being rendered. What we call these possible futures are different changes to those bits.

Moving forward and then moving past, when we say there are multiple pasts, they’re all like different nodes in the graph. I call that the multiverse graph, which is a new model based on a bunch of stuff that’s out there that I introduced in this book. That way you can think of nodes of game states as all the possible places that you could end up in your game. Kind of like the old adventure games, like a Zork, where you have a little map of the rooms. This is every place I can go. I can go north or south and get there. If you think of that on a big scale–let’s say there’s 10 to the 80th power particles in the universe or whatever the number is. You have that many bits. Each game state is a variation of those bits. You have a whole bunch of nodes, and what we call time is how we go through those nodes.

From the point of view of video games, it’s just like running, saving a game state, and rerunning that game again to see what would happen. You’re running simulations to see what might happen within that. That’s one of the models that we came up with here.

GamesBeat: What are some of the terms that you use here, like the Mandela Effect?

Virk: The Mandela Effect is this weird effect where some people, a subset of people, remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the ‘80s or early ‘90s. Of course that didn’t happen in our timeline. He got out of prison, went and became president of South Africa, and then he died in 2013. So many people remembered things like this. It turns out that wasn’t the only one. A number of people remember the tank guy in Tiananmen Square being killed. They remember talking about it with people. But in our reality that didn’t happen. The tank didn’t actually run him over.

It turns out there’s a whole bunch of these events. Some of them are small, like the spelling of Jiffy peanut butter. There’s no such thing. There’s only Jif. Logos get a lot of attention, or the Berenstain Bears versus the Bernstein Bears. There’s a lot of that online, and scientists tend to dismiss it, as I did originally when I first heard about it. It’s just faulty memory, right? But when you get into bigger things, events that people remember having conversations about, like Jewish families asking why these bears are Jewish because it’s spelled “-stein,” but it turns out it’s not spelled that, so why didn’t an adult correct them to say it’s not spelled in a Jewish way? Or a woman who remembers going to see Nelson Mandela in prison, but finding she couldn’t because he was ill, and then she came back and he’d died a few weeks later. It’s what I call proximity.

Anyway, the Mandela Effect by itself, many scientists don’t believe in it, but I said in this book, “Well, what if they’re actually remembering, like Philip K. Dick said, these alternate timelines?” What if they’re remembering a slightly different path through this multiverse? Then I found out that quantum physics doesn’t disallow that. It allows this idea of remembering different pasts, and then you get entangled within groups and you create new timelines. That’s why the Mandela Effect was included, because it’s a fun, colorful way to talk about this idea of multiple pasts in addition to multiple futures.

The other one is quantum computing. There was a scientist at Oxford named David Deutsch. Before they had physical quantum computers, he had this idea that quantum computers could break modern cryptography, RSA cryptography or SHA-256. The question is, how could that happen? You would need to do more calculations than there are atoms in the universe. But there’s an algorithm called Shor’s Algorithm that can do it pretty quickly. He theorized that what was happening was you were actually using the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics. You take your qubits, you give them all the possible values, zero and one, and each of those is a different universe. They all compute simultaneously and you figure out the one you want.

That’s one way to think about quantum computing, which is the multiverse way. It’s one that’s a legitimate interpretation. But what happens to those other universes when you’re computing? It turns out that if you’re doing a computation, you run your code and you discard those. They end up in a garbage collection. What if that is what’s happening with time itself? What if we’re trying out different possible paths, and then we figure out the ones that are the most optimal? Kind of like a game would, or an AI would. We’re using this mechanism and then when we come back, what if there’s little glitches? You come back to the glitch in the Matrix. Some people are remembering some of those possible paths while other people are remembering other possible paths.

You can define quantum computing almost as a kind of search. I came up with the second term for this book, which I call the core loop. It’s operating on the multiverse graph. You can tell I’m a computer scientist from that. I think in terms of depth-first searches or breadth-first searches of a series of nodes. What if, just like an AI does in a game, we’re saying, what are the possible paths we can take from here? Then we try those out and play the game to that point. We save the results and come back and move forward. That’s how I came up with that idea and why I included quantum computing, because it’s fundamental.

Source: VentureBeat

(image via GoodReads)

[luxuryfakewatches]

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ts of case design is how they make these thr replica watchee styles. The smallest is the Light, which comes in 26mm and 38

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mm sizes. Not only is it distinctive in size, but the proportions are also different, making it look lighter with thinner walls and a smaller crown. The thickness of conventional glasses has been increased to 33 and 40, making the material more masculine. Finally, and perhaps most surprising, is the Bold. The thickness is 43 mm, although larger, but the sides are also much thicker, giving the appearance of ruggedly durable.

The 4R36 movement can be seen on the back of the showcase.

The Oyster case, symbol of water resistance

When viewing in office light or direct sunlight, the gradients of various colors are highlighted in the three finishes used by each dial. The center's sun-ray finish works well under different lighting conditions, alternating from light blue to dark blue depending on the conditions.

Price: $6,450.

Berluti Oxford "tattoo" dragon pattern.

Base price: $275,000.

Despite elegant vintage influences, the new model leaves no room for nostalgia. This is ensured by modern attributes such as the black dial with a fine sunburst finish, to which the silver-colored totalizers of small seconds and 30-minute counters gi watches replicave real depth. A red border along the minute track and the “Flyback” lettering in striking red create exciting contrasts. They are picked up by the slim red stop second hand in the middle and complemented by the tachymeter scale and the date at 6 o'clock. The strap made of anthracite-colored kudu leather with a roughened surface, decorated with red stitching and an 18-car fake watches nyc at rose gold pin buckle, also has a strong character.

Case polished black high-tech ceramic, monobloc construction, pressed-on case back made of titanium with black PVD coating and sapphire crystal, crown made of polished black high-tech ceramic, water-resistant up to a pressure of 10 bar (100m), dimensions 43.0 x 50.5 x 12 , 3 (W x L x H in mm) Glass domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on both sides, movement 11½ E replica watchesTA C07.671, automatic movement, 25 jewels, 4 hands, date at 6 o'clock, up to 80 hours power reserve, water-resistant up to a pressure of 10 bar (100m) black dial with sunbeam pattern, rhodium-colored, applied indices, power reserve display at 9 o'clock, black dial ring, rhodium-colored moving anchor symbol, silver-colored rado and automatic logos, rhodium-colored hands, black leather strap, expandable folding clasp made of hardened stainless steel,Polished black high-tech ceramic cover

Version: Pen, Ball, Thin Line Pen.

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Let us now turn to the classic writing instrument - the Montblanc masterpiece. There is probably not much to say about it. Except that Montblanc has reissued this fountain pen in a very nice matt black version. According to the manufacturer, the famous pens of 110 years ago also looked like this - at least as far as the ma replica watches tt surface is concerned. At that time, a material called ebonite was used for Montblanc writing instruments, which was also used for piano keys, mouthpieces of wind instruments and tobacco pipes. Today, Montblanc uses a synthetic resin called resin for its writing instruments. Whatever the case, this fountain pen is discreet, shapely and noble. The nib is handmade, made of 585/14 K gold and ruthenium-plated. If you do not know ruthenium, it belongs to the so-called platinum metals. Of course, the Montblanc masterpiece is not only available as a piston fountain pen, but also as a ballpoint pen, rollerball and co.

But the best example of the benefits of plastic for high-end watch companies is Rolex. Rolex is known to use wheels coated with Teflon (not solid Teflon, but metal) in automatic chaining mechanisms, mainly because Teflon (PTFE) has the lowest coefficient of friction of any solid.

Motion: Quartz.

CASE: Stainless steel, steel back, water-resistant to 3 atm, diameter 32.8 mm, height 6.4 mm GLASS: sapphire crystal DIAL: sketch paper-colored, with colored dial ring depending on the reference number HANDS: black oxidized MOVEMENT: CALIBER Alpha - in-house manufacture caliber with manual winding , WORK HEIGHT 2.6 mm, DIAMETER 10 ½ lines (23.3 m fake watchesm) POWER RESERVE approx. 43 hours SPECIAL FEATURES: Second stop, Glashütte ratchet, Glashütte three-quarter plate, fine adjustment in six layer fine replica watchess, 17 rubies, temperature-blued screws, rhodium-plated movement surfaces with Glashütte stripes and NOMOS. Perlage, ratchet and crown wheel with Glashütte sunburst STRAP: Horween Genuine Shell Cordovan black, strap width 17 mm

One of the most consistent and interesting things I've observed in the wake of the watch world's evolving micro-branding segment is the democratization of materials and craftsmanship that was once exclusive to high-end products. It has changed my understanding of the concept of luxury and has definitely redefined my perception of value. So, let's? re talking about Bleau.

Unfortunately, the Akrivia AK-06 did not make the shortlist for the 2017 Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix!

Some of the salmon dials are indeed soft colours, while others have a deeper, richer look that gives them a more vintage feel.

[vibionet-blog]

The Best Spring-Summer Footwear Trends For 2019

Nowadays, it's difficult to stay aware of the shoe publicity cycle, don't bother each new enormously foreseen drop. It merits staying aware of more extensive tennis shoe patterns, however, in addition to what's new with shrewd shoes. Why? Since change is hatching. There has never been more innovation in our shoes, making footwear increasingly specialized and progressively agreeable in the meantime. Keen shoes are getting progressively easygoing, while a few mentors get dressier. And afterward there's the dazzling exhibit of structures accessible today – your footwear gives you a chance to convey your style and your independence superior to nearly whatever else in your closet. So what are you wearing? These are the spring-summer footwear patterns we're in venture with this year.

The Return Of The Boat Shoe

Deck shoes haven't been cool for quite a while. Shockingly they've been discolored with the 'opulent' brush, and as any piece of clothing related with old cash can identify with, that is not something to be thankful for. Yet, proceeding with the unending cycle of things returning style, deck shoes are getting a charge out of a renaissance. 'Road prep' is certifiably not a generally utilized term, however it maybe ought to be. The deck shoe is the footwear of decision for this new style clan, which has received such pieces of clothing as the rugby shirt, corduroy anything, Oxford shirts and chinos, yet executed them in marginally cooler ways. Chinos for instance might be intentionally more extensive of cut. The deck shoes are somewhat extraordinary as well – they may include thick commando soles, or be improved with not so much specifying but rather more of a sandal feel. The fact of the matter being you're bound to see them on city lanes than the deck of a yacht. – Charlie Thomas, senior editor

Seriously Bold Colours We've constantly thought that it was simpler to slip into shading when the sun is sparkling. Pastel pink simply doesn't fill in too when it's tossing it down. Its no big surprise then that various footwear brands are plunging into their chronicles for an inconspicuous summer reexamination by sprinkling their exemplary outlines with an inviting shade. English high road footwear store Clark has done as such with its desert boot and Wallabee shapes (the marvelous mud is especially striking) while Converse keeps on switching up its excellent Chuck 70 with a bigger number of hues than a celebration's sparkle stall. Simply ensure you temper that shading fly with a nonpartisan shading some pants or shorts. – Richard Jones, staff writer

Sliders Get Smart Prior to their arrival to the vanguard of men's design, sliders were specialty, most broadly worn by fathers with socks in summer for a trek down to the grocery store. The main resurgence of the slider riffed on this terrible taste giving asphalts an overwhelming bit of shamelessly intense styling. Be that as it may, this year, the sliders have thoughts over their station and have gone all upmarket. I'm not catching this' meaning for summer's laziest shoe? Indeed, for a starter logos have scarpered for small marking past a classy embellished logo. While past cycles of sliders grasped clean off, mess safe materials, the current year's best plans use softened cowhide, pebbled calfskin and patent cowhide for a considerably more adult and pared back take. The outcomes possess that get all mid-ground, adding a touch of smoothness to custom-made shorts in the daytime and being just about satisfactory to wear with cloth pants to a bar (just in case you're in tropical climes, mind). – Luke Sampson, associate editor

Gum Soles Keep Things Retro Retro mentors are the footwear pattern that won't quit. Eighties b-ball shoes and stout nineties styles imply that numerous sneakerheads keep something like one foot before and this mid year, gum bottom shoes will hold that back-to-the-future vibe going. You see the toffee-shaded bottom on skate shoes and b-ball shoes, retro sprinters and football easygoing coaches. Every one of them review foul exercise center classes from years back and in doing as such tap into the unquenchable market for return sportswear. They're a smidgen preppy, a tad streetwear however whatever your clan, the conflict of hues between the upper and the padded sole gives your footwear an inconspicuous focal point that works with custom fitted pants superior to anything it completes a couple of joggers. – Ian Taylor, editor-in-chief

Sustainability Is Everything It's impudent of us to consider maintainable style a pattern as such. In any case, there's no denying that over the previous year the business has had its eyes solidly opened to the requirement for more eco-cognizant methods for making garments. Enormous name shoe brands like Adidas and Nike have swore to remove unsustainable practices, yet the genuine pioneers are the brands who've been doing it from their very beginnings. English name Stella McCartney has had the capacity to join its high style smarts with an outstanding manageable proclamation to make one of the must-have shoes this season, the stout magnum opus that is the Loop, while we're seeing the straightforward however compelling kicks of smooth French feasible tennis shoe brand Veja wherever right now. Design's impression has far to go, yet these attractive shoes are a positive development. – Richard Jones, staff writer

Smart Shoes Get Chunky (And Comfy) Stout soles don't have all the earmarks of being going anyplace. We previously observed them flood in prevalence on the base of appalling tennis shoes a couple of years back, and now they've advanced on more brilliant shoes, which generally highlighted thin cowhide soles. These stout soles give a touch of an edge to progressively formal styles, lifting them from the drop business meanings they've frequently been related with. They may be white Vibram wedge soles, lightweight and agreeable, or progressively forceful commando soles that are prepared to handle anything you toss at them. Search for softened cowhide styles with thick soles this spring – a loafer maybe – which would combine well with either fitting or easygoing dress on the end of the week. – Charlie Thomas, senior editor

Techno Trainers Get Another Update Indeed, we know, in fact talking all mentors are specialized, however while a few coaches (most strikingly the insignificant kind) go to agonies to conceal their nuts, fasteners and sciency developments, specialized coaches wear their usefulness boisterous and pleased. A webbed sole here or a flexible side trim there, the best specialized coaches demonstrate their activities outwardly and should appear as though they're prepared for execution. For styles that have execution to coordinate their outward appearance, look to the typical presumes, for example, Nike, Adidas which go to torments to include the most recent footwear wizardry. With styling as specialized mentors look like something you've tossed on at an impulse, focus on what you're wearing on your base half blundering more brilliant than expected and maintaining a strategic distance from light or medium wash pants no matter what. – Luke Sampson, associate editor

Skate Shoes Are Everywhere Skatewear is altogether grown up. No longer only for children hanging out on the edge of town, skate brands like Palace have been setting the menswear motivation while great skater staples have invaded style clans of each sort. There are hoodies at the workplace, logos all over the place, Vans worn with fitting as much as a hard-wearing pair of Dickies. What's more, additional confirmation originates from the way that it's not simply any semblance of Vans and Converse making great skater tennis shoe styles. Presently any semblance of Grenson and Common Projects are making brilliant renditions of slip-ons, smooth enough to combine with a jacket. Also, grisly agreeable for sure. – Ian Taylor, editor-in-chief

Trail And Hiking Shoes Will Peak Climbing boots were especially 'in' amid winter so it makes sense their younger sibling and sisters, trail sprinters and the somewhat unconventional climbing shoe, would convey the tasteful light into the bright months. Trailblazers Balenciaga as of late took on the trail sprinter, unmistakably pulled in to the numerous layers and stout soles, two highlights resounded in the trail sprinter's advertised cousin, the thick mentor. The key is to use those layers and cull for a blast of shading, enough shades at any rate to make you the discussion of the workplace. On the other hand, the ascent of the shoe is down to an odd re-evaluation for the clumpy footwear of German shoemaker Birkenstock. As disparaged as Crocs before, the brand has seen its stock significantly ascend through coordinated efforts with the absolute coolest brands on earth including Rick Owens and Valentino. Impersonation is obviously the most elevated type of adulation and the viable shoe, by method for our German companions, is presently a mid year must have. – Richard Jones, staff writer

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[kadobeclothing]

A Guide To Men’s Shoe Colour Combinations

If it’s true that a man’s outfit is assessed from his shoes up, then it’s their shade that first colours someone’s judgement. Footwear, like everything else in menswear, has grown less rigid recently — these days you can wear Oxfords with jeans and trainers with a suit. But the key to pulling either off is in colour-matching; get the shade wrong, and you can look like a car salesman on a night out or like you’ve changed into your comfy shoes for your commute.And as with everything else in your wardrobe, nailing colour is at once the simplest and the hardest thing about getting dressed in the morning. It’s easy to stick to tonal combinations — black shoes with black trousers, brown shoes with tan chinos — and never put a foot wrong. But it’s a path that can swiftly lead to sartorial tedium as well as financial ruin. Unless you intend to only ever wear a couple of colours of trousers, you’d need a rainbow of footwear to give you enough options.“A black pair of shoes would be the smartest colour, in my opinion, because it’s an absolute must-have in every man’s wardrobe,” says Andrew Nicholas Vieira, senior director of men’s product development at Aldo. “Everyone needs a clean, simple black leather lace-up.“Your next colour in line would be tan. That’s where I’d recommend opting for a style with more detailing, like toe cap or brogue. Overall, I don’t believe there’s a least-smart colour, but the true miss would be not exploring your options. My recommendation would be to have fun with your decorated silhouettes and keep your black pairs classic.”For the shoe colour novice, there are some basic rules to guide your choice each morning.Block colours are always smarter than anything multicoloured.Generally, darker tones are smarter than lighter. They’re more versatile, too.Smartness is dictated by decoration as well as shade: black Derbies are smarter than tan, but chocolate Oxfords can be more refined than both.Trainers and smart shoes obey different rules: white Oxfords are slightly weird, but white trainers will work with anything in your wardrobe.It doesn’t matter what colour your shoes are if they’re scuffed. Find a polish that matches, or a neutral polish if you’ve gone for something wilder, and keep them in good nick. They’ll last longer, too.If you’re wearing something bright on your feet, then anchor them with neutrals elsewhere. Bold shoes are easier to pull off if you’re not also wearing a Hawaiian shirt.Black ShoesIn almost every circumstance, black shoes are the smartest version in any category.“A pair of black Oxfords is probably the most dressed-up shoe you can have in your wardrobe,” says Luke McDonald, stylist at men’s online styling service Thread. “And that limits what other clothes you can wear them with.” You can think of them a little like a black blazer; they look great dressed up, but try them with jeans and you begin to look like a street magician.To start from the top down, black should be your go-to for black tailoring, whether you need something for black tie or just a formal work shoe. “They also team well with grey or charcoal tailoring, particularly in more formal offices,” says McDonald. Despite what some folks think, wearing black with blue won’t bruise your sartorial ego, although stick to darker shades of navy rather than something more celebratory, like royal blue.Casual trousers are trickier. If you’re going to wear black shoes with chinos in the brown spectrum, then stick to less formal styles. “A derby looks better than an Oxford as it’s a bit chunkier and more relaxed,” says McDonald. The same goes with jeans. “Oxfords would only ever work with very slim black jeans, and even then you’re going to look like a forgotten member of the Libertines.” If you insist on black shoes with your dark denim, then it’s best to go for something like Chelsea boots or Dr. Martens.If you’re the kind of guy who likes his chinos colourful, then the sudden shift to black shoes can feel a bit severe. You can lessen the impact by cuffing the hems and even losing the socks, and making your shoe style as dressed-down as possible — loafers are preferable to anything with laces.Finally, you should probably avoid shorts and black shoes once you’re out of school uniform.Brown ShoesBrown is the most forgiving shade of smart shoes. The breadth of browns available means that there’s a tone for almost any situation, bar the very smartest offices; even a pair of bespoke chocolate John Lobbs will have you blackballed in some investment banks. But with anything other than a black suit or tuxedo, brown shoes add personality and feel a touch less stuffy.“The lighter the shade, the more relaxed the look,” says McDonald, “particularly if you add detail, too.” A pair of brown brogues are less formal than the same shade Oxfords, for example.Away from tailoring, brown should be your go-to for chinos of any colour, although be careful not to match too closely; like with double denim, you want at least two shades of difference between your trousers and your shoes, lest you look like you’re wearing the bottom half of a onesie.Darker browns look great with indigo denim but can work just as well with more washed out shades. Just make sure that you step down into a less formal style — suede Chelsea boots are perfect, as are chunky brown worker boots.Black jeans and brown shoes is a minefield of differing opinion and one not worth marching into if you’ve any personal doubts. But if you’re confident, then it’s a look that can work, so long as you stick to shoes in a shade that’s nearer black than tan. Although again, boots are easier to pull off, here, particularly Chelseas, which give you the air of someone who’s just left One Direction to find a direction of their own.Oxblood ShoesThough technically a colour, oxblood can act almost as a neutral. They tend to work in almost exactly the same way as brown, although because they’re a touch bolder. They tend to lend whatever you’re wearing an ounce or two more of personality. “Making a statement with smart shoes shouldn’t mean going too far out of your comfort zone,” says Vieira. “Instead of opting for an extravagant style, it could be as simple as integrating new colourways in silhouettes you already wear on a daily basis.”That said, it’s still easier to pull off oxblood if you dress them down a touch; Derbies are a more versatile choice than Oxfords because, while they won’t work with your smartest suits, you can wear them with everything from navy tailoring to jeans and chinos. That said, if you live in suits, a pair of burnished, oxblood Oxfords, with a Berluti-style patina, can be a distinctive way to make them feel more varied. They’re particularly good for making your workwear wedding-ready.Casual styles offer much more leeway. The oxblood penny loafer is a classic and can be your summer go-to with anything from light-wash denim to tan, navy and even colourful chinos. Ditch the socks and cuff the hems for a Dickie-Greenleaf-on-the-Riviera feel.Tan ShoesTan is brown’s most casual tone. “It’s best on more relaxed styles like brogue derbies or boots,” says McDonald. “Tan suede shoes can also look good, but you need to wear them with fairly informal outfits.” In smarter styles, tan is a good way to personalise an outfit — the kind of look-at-me tailoring that pervades Pitti Uomo is often accessorised by a tan loafer or brogue. It’s a particularly good anchor for brighter shades of blue or to take the stuffiness out of patterns like pinstripes.Tan works well with jeans of all shades and chinos of any colour, especially in summer when they serve to lighten your look up a bit. You can even get away with wearing tan shoes with shorts, particularly if you go with something laceless like a penny loafer or something with texture, like suede.Blue ShoesBlue can be an uncomfortable colour for smart shoes — though it’s a staple neutral everywhere else in your wardrobe, shiny blue leather tends to look a little try-hard. Once you step into more casual styles, however, blue is a perfect way to add some personality to looks. Textured leathers like nubuck work well in navy, says Vieira, and can even be worn as a pop of unexpected colour in black casual outfits.Like nubuck, suede is an Elvis-approved way to pull off blue shoes; the raised nap adds a depth that you don’t get with leather, which makes blue shoes seem considered rather than flashy. So long as you don’t try to dress them up too far, blue suede brogues work well with any colour of suit (so long as it’s not black) and the same for chinos, particularly with an ankle-flashing roll.More casual still, navy is perfect for desert and chukka boots, especially since it’s dark enough not to show rainspots if you do get caught in a shower. “Both styles look great with jeans,” says McDonald. “They’re rugged, but still smart enough for a nice restaurant or bar.” But again, try not to match your shoes and trouser shades too closely. If in doubt, use a brighter sock in a complementary shade, like red, to break things up a little bit.White TrainersWhen Common Projects launched its Achilles Low almost 15 years ago, the Italian-American shoe brand helped cement a new category in menswear: the sneaker that acted like a smart shoe. Though all-white tennis shoes weren’t new — Adidas was already pumping out Stan Smiths, although not quite in the numbers they do post-Common Projects — they weren’t something that you could wear as easily with a suit as you could with denim shorts.But now, so long as you get a completely clean pair, free from logos and crafted in premium leather, white minimalist trainers can be worn with just about anything (in the right context, of course; they’re probably not the best thing to pair with tailoring for partnership interviews at your law firm).They’ll work with any suit, even black — although you’re best swapping the shirt and tie for something like a roll neck or long-sleeved polo — and look great with any pair of jeans, from premium Japanese selvedge to shredded stonewash. Same for chinos, for shorts, for parachute pants; whatever trousers you’ve got, white trainers will work.In fact, the only tricky thing about white trainers is keeping them that way. “Box-fresh versions work with a suit,” says McDonald. “Battered, stained sneakers don’t. To keep them pristine, prep them with Crep Protect spray, and then keep some babywipes in your bag or desk drawer for touch-ups during the day.”Colourful TrainersWhere white trainers led, its brighter plumaged brethren followed. Time was that bold-hued sneakers were only for exercise. Now, they’ve crept from the streets into offices, an eye-catching way to show your affinity for the latest hype brand and Nike drop. “But all those colours make them much less versatile,” says McDonald. “In fact, they only really work with neutrals, unless you’re able to pull off some very advanced colour-matching.” Even then, you’re liable to leave onlookers with a migraine.Because colourful trainers are so casual, you’re wisest sticking to jeans (anything from white to washed to black is fine), joggers (think grey, black or navy) or chinos (tan and navy are safest). ”You should let your shoes do the talking,” says McDonald. “If they’re the brightest thing in your outfit, then they’ll draw the eye. If you have too many other bright colours, people won’t know where to look.” Source link

source https://www.kadobeclothing.store/a-guide-to-mens-shoe-colour-combinations/

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

5 Nov 2019: Cities and boxes. Health data. Political ads.

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

[Image: Brittainy Newman/NYT]

Cities and boxes: convenient delivery is a growing problem

It’s all in the delivery: Amazon makes grocery delivery free with Prime, ends $15/month fee under pressure from Walmart, whose rival click and collect service was cheaper. Wider picture: the first map of America’s food supply chain.

This is a great read, and shows you what online shopping does to cities: 15% of New York City households receive a package every day - that’s 1.5 million packages, and it’s putting the city under a lot of stress.  

“In some neighborhoods, Amazon’s ubiquitous boxes are stacked and sorted on the sidewalk, sometimes on top of coverings spread out like picnic blankets. ‘They are using public space as their private warehouse [...] That is not what the sidewalk is for.’” 

The delivery networks (Amazon, Fedex etc) are building warehouses closer to customers, to cover the “last mile” more efficiently. But even so there are traffic, carbon/pollution emissions and safety arguments in favour of click and collect, as long as the collect bit reduces the number of car and van journeys.

It feels as if internet-era retailing is now back to being a last-man-standing game of tremendous capital spending and lowered gross margin to win and keep customers who want speed and convenience. You wonder if all of this can ever be sustained.

Health data

Google is buying fitness-tracker company Fitbit, the second-largest product in the “wearables” sector (and the company would probably still be independent and thriving had Apple not done so well with its Watch). There’s an interesting question about the data though. 

“Similar to our other products, with wearables, we will be transparent about the data we collect and why. We will never sell personal information to anyone. Fitbit health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads. And we will give Fitbit users the choice to review, move, or delete their data.”

Now, some readers might be suspicious about that. There’s history of arms-length health tech acquisitions eventually being absorbed into the corporate parent (see Deepmind, though maybe they’ve been diligent about keeping the Deepmind data separated, you cannot know). 

There are wider health concerns because Fitbits are used by some insurance companies to provide proof of activity, which makes your insurance premia lower. Here’s a UK/US example: Vitality. It isn’t crystal clear what data Fitbit sends to Vitality, but their page for a different device says “The Vitality Member app takes your step and heart rate workout data from Apple Health and uses that data to reward Vitality activity points [...] Opening and refreshing your Vitality Member app is the only way to send Apple Health data to Vitality to sync your activity.” (There were also some concerns a few years ago about a Facebook-owned app getting access to Vitality data.)

But you’d hope that the potential reputational risk would be really significant if it later came out that Google just scooped up the Fitbit data and used it to target you with ads for hedge trimmers and retirement planning. Significant enough that it wouldn’t be worth doing, you’d hope! Maybe this whole thing is just a big tech company fearful that it might miss the next big thing, so it’s trying a bit of... everything. Or preventing someone else buying Fitbit.

The wider context for Google is that it’s about search: Google is “looking to make it easier for doctors to search medical records, and to improve the quality of health-related search results for consumers across Google and YouTube”.

Is anything else happening in Big Tech x Health Data? Yes.

Amazon is buying Health Navigator, which does “online symptom checking and triage tools to companies that are looking to route patients to the right place”. Amzn will offer Health Navigator to employees as part of its internal pilot of Amazon Care clinics.

Facebook vows strict privacy safeguards as it rolls out preventive-health tool.

Sustainable John Lewis

“John Lewis has stopped selling 5p single-use plastic carrier bags at its Oxford store as part of a major trial to test and change shoppers’ behaviour. The sustainability initiatives, which were unveiled on Monday, are aimed at encouraging a “reduce, reuse and return” culture among customers and could provide a model for its other shops.”

Facebook and political advertising

Following on from last week, Facebook decided to leave all political speech and ads up [1] and said it’s about free speech and debate, and “it’s not about the money”. It probably *isn’t* about the money - it’s that Facebook are culturally allergic to activities that don’t scale or aren’t algorithmable (so eg effective content moderation will always be resisted at some level).

Twitter took a better position, and one that’s a decent swipe at FB, Twitboss pointing out that “it‘s not credible for us to say: “We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad… well… they can say whatever they want! ””.

[1] There are exceptions though. Someone made some pro-Brexit ads that FB rejected because the ads didn’t say who were promoting them. And in the US someone announced they’d stand as a candidate and deliberately use fake ads - FB didn’t like that. 

(Also from Facebook: a new logo for the parent company, to distinguish the company from the product. The logo has both a shouty ALL-CAPS style and a retro all-of-the-colours 2014 feel. 2014 was a simpler, easier time for FACEBOOK.)

Money

Perhaps all platforms eventually expand until they include financial services? Facebook has a patent for a method of comparing a user’s financial transactions to their peers. If you own several social platforms that are about performative showing-off communicating with friends, it probably makes business sense to lean in to “keeping up with the joneses”.

And Uber announces deeper push into financial services with Uber Money.

Other news

Co-op Bank starts trial of Good Loop’s ethical ad tech.

Tesco and Co-op bosses join forces with plan to fix unfair system: Our solution to reform business rates and save the High Street - “First, cut business rates for all retailers by 20 per cent. Second, level the playing field on tax between online and high street shops by introducing an online sales levy of 2 per cent on the sale of physical goods.”

Why internet-era CTOs hire developers (rather than outsourcing).

News for all of Office365’s fans! Microsoft is combining Word, Excel and Powerpoint into a single mobile app for Android users. And Yammer is being updated and integrated more closely with Outlook, Sharepoint etc.

“The farm has both left- and right-wing troll accounts. That makes their smear and support campaigns more believable: instead of just taking one position for a client, it sends trolls to work both sides, blowing hot air into a discussion, generating conflict and traffic” - life working on a troll farm.

History of the design of the Bloomberg keyboard (the Bloomberg terminal is the Wall Street trader’s computing workhorse). This story is surprisingly interesting as it goes from mad, custom designs to something more like a standard computer keyboard.

Previous newsletters:

Most opened newsletter in the last month: Uber buys grocery delivery co. Most clicked story: Workshop Tactics kit.

News 1 year ago: Just walk out - unintended consequences in checkoutless stores.

News 2 years ago: Politically weaponised social media and election influence.

Co-op Digital news and events

Co-operate: why we prioritised ‘What’s happening’ - “Balancing and satisfying user needs and commercial needs is our top priority in Co-op Digital. But in Co-operate’s case, it was more efficient for us to lay some groundwork first. Choosing to focus on What’s happening as the first product meant we could move quickly and boost team and stakeholder morale, and thinking ahead about what would be sensible and beneficial to us in the future influenced what we built first.”

Public events, most of them at Federation House:

Human values in software production - Tue 5 Nov 6pm.

SenseMaker workshop: exploring the potential for sensor journalism - Wed 6 Nov 6pm.

Practitioners Forum: vital lessons for key co-operators - Thu 7 Nov at the Studio, Manchester.

Northern Azure User Group November Meetup - Tue 12 Nov 6pm.

Content Design Manchester Public Meet-up - Wed 13 Nov 6.30pm. 

Pods Up North , an event for podcasters - Sat 23 Nov 9am..

Mind the Product - MTP Engage - Fri 7 Feb 2020 - you can get early bird tickets now.

Internal events:

All hands - Tue 5 Nov 2pm at Fed defiant.

Co-operate show & tell - Wed 6 Nov 3pm at Fed 6.

Data management show & tell - Thu 7 Nov 2.30pm at Angel Sq 13th floor breakout.

Membership show & tell - Fri 8 Nov 3pm at Fed 6 kitchen.

Food ecommerce show & tell - Mon 11 Nov 10.15am at Fed 5.

Delivery community of practice - Mon 11 Nov 1.30pm at Fed house.

Health show & tell - Tue 12 Nov 2.30pm at Fed 5 kitchen.

Targeted marketing and data ecosystem show & tell - Wed 13 Nov at Angel Sq 13th floor breakout.

Membership show & tell - Fri 15 Nov 3pm at Fed 6 kitchen.

More events at Federation House - and you can contact the events team at  federation.events@coopdigital.co.uk. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West. 

Thank you for reading

Thank you, beloved readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to the newsletterbot’s keyboard gerbil @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend!

If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

[gyrlversion]

Thousands of eco-warriors pour into London to bring city to standstill

Environmental protesters will paralyse London‘s roads today by creating human barricades at five landmarks.

Organisers of the Extinction Rebellion group claim up to 30,000 eco-protesters are expected to block major routes from 9am. Scotland Yard warned drivers to expect road closures and widespread disruption in the capital. 

The movement, which is demanding the Government takes urgent action on climate change and wildlife declines, has been backed by actress Dame Emma Thompson and former archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams. 

Climate protest group Extinction Rebellion set up camp in London’s Hyde Park yesterday before today’s plans for disruption

The campaigners, who include the granddaughter of a baronet, are demanding the introduction of a legally binding policy to reduce carbon emission to net zero by 2025. 

They say they will continue to block key roads in London for weeks and ‘escalate civil disobedience’ if their demands are not met. 

Humans have declared war on nature, says ex-archbishop of Canterbury

Humans have declared war on nature and put progress before the planet, the former archbishop of Canterbury said on the eve of environmental protests aimed at bringing London to a standstill.

Dr Rowan Williams said the world is in a crisis which could be called ‘being at war with ourselves’.

He spoke at a meditation event outside St Paul’s Cathedral in the capital attended by activists preparing to take part in mass demonstrations organised by the Extinction Rebellion group.

Sitting on the ground amid protesters who held flags and banners, he said: ‘We have declared war on our nature when we declare war on the natural world.

‘We are at war with ourselves when we are at war with our neighbour, whether that neighbour is human or non-human.

‘We are here tonight to declare that we do not wish to be at war. We wish to make peace with ourselves by making peace with our neighbour earth and with our God.’

Praying at the all-faith gathering, he added: ‘We confess that we have polluted our own atmosphere, causing global warming and climate change that have increased poverty in many parts of our planet.

‘We have contributed to crises and been more concerned with getting gold than keeping our planet green. We have loved progress more than the planet. We are sorry.’

Extinction Rebellion, which describes itself as a non-violent direct action and civil disobedience group, said the protests at major central London locations including Parliament Square and Oxford Circus from Monday ‘will be bringing London to a standstill for up to two weeks’.

The first stage of their global ‘Rebellion Week’ will see human barricades at Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square and Piccadilly Circus.

Their goal is to shut down vital roads and transport links, causing misery for commuters and keeping over-stretched police officers busy for hours. 

The so-called festival of action will see food stalls set up and talks given in the middle of the road throughout the day. Some protesters even plan to super-glue their hands to objects in the road and each other. 

One of those expected on the streets is Tamsin Omond, the granddaughter of Dorset baronet Sir Thomas Lees. The 35-year-old went to Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. 

The most prominent figure in Extinction Rebellion is Left-wing academic Roger Hallam, whose stated ambition for the group is to ‘bring down all the regimes in the world and replace them’, starting with Britain.

Last November, Extinction Rebellion blocked bridges across London to bring chaos to the capital. 

In February, they took part in a nationwide school strike and on April 1, during one of the Brexit debates, a group of their protesters stripped off in the House of Commons. 

Speaking at a meditation on the eve of the protests Dr Williams said humans had declared war on nature.

He said: ‘We are here tonight to declare that we do not wish to be at war. We wish to make peace with ourselves by making peace with our neighbour Earth and with our God.’

Thompson has previously said of the demonstrations: ‘It is time to stand up and save our home.’

The Met Police said it was aware of the protests. 

Officers said their operational response to camping ‘would be dependent on what if any other issues might be ongoing at the time’. 

On April 1, during one of the Brexit debates, a group of Extinction Rebellion protesters stripped off in the House of Commons 

Extinction Rebellion protesters sit after pouring fake blood onto the ground in London outside Downing Street on March 9

Scotland Yard said they have ‘appropriate policing plans’ in place for the demonstrations and that officers will be used from across the force ‘to support the public order operation during the coming weeks’.

Protests across Europe 

Today will see people in at least 80 cities in more than 33 countries hold similar climate demonstrations.

The first protest of the day was held at Schuman Square in Brussels this morning as protesters formed a human ‘XR’ logo – the same as that of Extinction Rebellion.

The Extinction Rebellion ‘Rebellion Week’ begins at Schuman Square in Brussels today as protesters form a human ‘XR’ logo

Police advised people travelling around London in the coming days to allow extra time for their journey in the event of road closures and general disruption.

A spokesman for the organisers said: ‘The International Rebellion begins and Extinction Rebellion will be bringing London to a standstill for up to two weeks.

‘They will be blocking five of the city’s busiest and most iconic locations in a non-violent, peaceful act of rebellion where they invite people to join them for several days of creative, artist-led resistance.’

Demonstrators arrived at London’s Hyde Park yesterday, some having journeyed to the city on foot in recent weeks from various parts of the UK for what is described as an ‘International Rebellion’. 

While organisers encouraged people to set up camp in Hyde Park overnight into this morning, they were warned they could be breaking the law by doing so is an offence under Royal Parks legislation.

A spokesman for The Royal Parks said Extinction Rebellion had not asked for permission to begin the protest in the park and that camping is not allowed.

DOMINIC LAWSON: Deluded middle-class climate warriors can’t see the real danger of their bright idea 

 Claire Perry said her encounter with this (until now) obscure group had been ‘good and productive’

Getting to see a government minister isn’t easy. I’d challenge any reader to see how long it takes to persuade the civil servants manning the bureaucratic barricades to let you bend a minister’s ear about whatever concerns you.

Yet somehow they found a space in the diary for a group called Extinction Rebellion (XR) to lobby the Minister of State for Energy, Claire Perry.

Ms Perry told the Mail on Sunday that her encounter with this (until now) obscure group had been ‘good and productive’.

Really? Extinction Rebellion is this week launching mass protests designed to shut down or obstruct transport links, causing (more) misery to commuters and business. If that’s the result of ‘productive’ talks, I wonder what would happen if they had gone badly.

But making Britain hell for business (and anyone who drives a car) is what Extinction Rebellion stands for. As the Energy Minister must know, its mission is to ‘save the planet’ by eliminating Britain’s CO2 emissions entirely by 2025.

Brutish

Or in other words, to reduce us to a state of mere subsistence, last seen in the pre-industrial age when life was (for the great majority) nasty, brutish and short.

As if to emphasise the primitiveness to which they wish us to return, this is the group which on April Fool’s Day performed a naked protest in the public gallery of the House of Commons.

Actually, this is the only way people with such views could take part (so to speak) in parliamentary debate. Because any party which tried to get MPs elected on a policy of mass immiseration would not win a single seat. There might be some thousands of middle-class students and drop-outs sufficiently aesthetically offended by mass consumerism to vote for such a manifesto, but that would be it.

This is the group which on April Fool’s Day performed a naked protest in the public gallery of the House of Commons

Unsurprisingly, the leaders of this movement tend to come from well-to-do homes, which have never experienced scarcity or privation. 

The figures behind the demonstrations planned for this week include Tamsin Omond, granddaughter of the Dorset baronet Sir Thomas Lees

The figures behind the demonstrations planned for this week include Tamsin Omond, granddaughter of the Dorset baronet Sir Thomas Lees; Stuart Basden (who said his week in prison after an earlier action was ‘a bit like boarding school’); and George Barda, son of the distinguished stage and music photographer Clive Barda OBE FRSA and a 43-year-old postgraduate student at King’s College London.

I am distantly related to one of the inspirations for this movement, the environmentalist author and journalist George Monbiot (we are both scions of the family which created the J Lyons catering and food manufacturing empire). Monbiot is anything but a hypocrite. He leads the life he preaches to others: he doesn’t own a car, never flies and, so far as I know, survives on a purely plant-based diet.

Last week, Monbiot appeared on Frankie Boyle’s television show, New World Order, and was cheered by the youthful audience when he demanded action to end economic growth, adding that this meant ‘we’ve got to go straight to the heart of capitalism and overthrow it’.

Monbiot has been consistent in this: in 2007 he wrote an article for the Guardian welcoming the prospect of a recession, even though, as he acknowledged, ‘it would cause some people to lose their jobs and homes’. (He got his wish: it turned out not to be popular).

But if it’s the planet you want to save, and you believe its very existence is threatened by excessive emissions of CO2, then what happens in this country is almost beside the point. The UK contributes little more than one per cent of global CO2 emissions. Even if the inhabitants of these islands were reduced by an environmentalist version of the Cambodian dictator Pol Pot to a state of pre-industrial and self-sufficient subsistence farming — no wicked imports of food via boat or plane — it would have a minuscule effect on the planet’s future.

In fact, the UK — chiefly through the steady closure of the domestic coal industry — has been in the vanguard of reducing CO2 emissions: in 2018, our emissions were at their lowest levels in 120 years.

Activists from Extinction Rebellion block off a road at Parliament Square, London, during a protest in October last year

The group yesterday set up camp in London’s Hyde park ahead of plans to cause widespread disruption across London later

It’s not British politicians that groups such as Extinction Rebellion should be haranguing and demonstrating against, but those in the People’s Republic of China. That is the nation responsible for 60 per cent of the growth in global CO2 emissions over the past decade.

And China is currently building almost 260 gigawatts of new coal-fired power generating capacity — in itself almost the size of the entire U.S. coal-fired capacity.

The trouble is the Chinese state would treat rather robustly any Extinction Rebellion activists who attempted to demonstrate on its busiest streets, or to mount a naked protest in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. I don’t recommend they try that.

Plunder

Nor should we be so critical of the Chinese. They, as we in the West did before them, are using cheap energy wrenched from the Earth’s resources to escape from lives of almost unimaginable poverty. And it was economic growth which ultimately created the circumstances in which peace rather than conflict became the normal state of human affairs: nations could prosper and enrich themselves through trade rather than the plunder of neighbours in a zero-sum world.

If the likes of Extinction Rebellion were to get their way, it is something like that bleak past which would be revisited upon us. And the political forces emerging from that would be truly terrifying.

If she is still in the habit of seeking their opinions, Claire Perry might point that out to the delusional middle-class climate warriors.

Who’s ready to get arrested? Undercover with the eco-activist group Extinction Rebellion who plan to bring London to a halt on Monday – and are as ruthlessly professional as they are deluded

By HOLLY BANCROFT FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY 

Cigarette break: XR training volunteer Clare Farrell

I’m sitting in a cavernous community hall in East London with a group of eco-activists huddled in thick jackets against the cold.

We’re being drilled for our arrest – like soldiers being trained for capture and interrogation by the enemy.

Our tutor is a sixtysomething woman with fuzzy white hair who knows all about civil disobedience and its legal consequences.

She explains passionately that we must not speak to the police, other than to give our name and date of birth.

We must not get drunk before the ‘action’ in just a few days’ time.

And we should consider wearing adult nappies – in case we’re locked up for hours in a police van with no access to a lavatory. Or if we decide to chain ourselves to railings, barriers or whatever else to cause maximum disruption.

Welcome to Extinction Rebellion (XR), the revolutionary protest group hell-bent on eliminating fossil fuels from Britain.

To achieve this, they are planning an onslaught of civil disobedience on a scale rarely seen in this country. And I’m here undercover as a new recruit, or ‘rebel’ as they call it.

My induction took place late last month in an anonymous office block near Euston station. I’m told XR was given the space for free by a well-placed sympathiser.

A lift takes me to the fourth floor �� an open-plan space with a smattering of desks and some 40 new recruits, an even mix of male and female, all casually dressed.

A handmade poster by the lifts is daubed ‘Eco not Ego’. A large sign warns us to avoid ‘suppression juice’ – that’s alcohol – so we can ‘rebel with a clear body and mind’. Brightly coloured banners hang from the ceiling – ‘No Brexit in a dead planet’, says one – while a giant papier-mâché skeleton of some big beast lies, under construction, in the corner.

This introductory meeting is led by a bearded XR activist called Greg, who lives in a squat in West London with other members of the group. His first move is to lead us in an awkward ‘ice breaker’. Sitting in rows on school chairs, we’re instructed to stick both arms in the air and waggle from side to side, chanting ‘woo-hoo’.

Then comes a minute’s silence for ‘the dying planet’. Struggling not to laugh, I bowed my head with the others, eyes down.

‘Devote some of your brain to imagining the kind of world you want to create,’ says Greg. ‘To get through this struggle together, we need to hold tight to our dream.’

We’re asked to think of one word to describe the world we want – and shouts of ‘harmony’, ‘sharing’ and ‘green’ come from around the room. ‘Courageous’, mutters a boy in a long beige trench coat sitting next to me. 

Questions follow. The volunteers are keen, but concerned. 

A charity worker with short blonde hair says she is worried about XR’s policy of deliberately getting arrested.

Not that she’s against breaking the law – just that it might deter volunteers who cannot take the risk of getting into trouble.

Eating her dinner from a Tupperware box, another young woman raises concerns about XR’s links to Labour’s hard-Left Momentum faction. George agrees XR and Momentum have a good relationship.

Preparing for action: A photo of an XR meeting taken by our undercover reporter. There is no suggestion those pictured are all intending to break the law

Then we are told to get in a long line, arranged in order of willingness to get arrested. It is time to hone our tactics and strategy for the forthcoming ‘rebellion week’ – which starts tomorrow.

‘Move around the room according to what you feel,’ says Naomi, one of the lead activists.

‘The question is this: how arrestable are you in XR?’

A handful immediately place themselves at one end of the room, the extreme that signifies: ‘Yes, I really wish to be arrested right now.’ A few walk to the opposite side, meaning: ‘Absolutely not.’

I’m with the majority shuffling around in the middle amid embarrassed laughter. This position says: ‘Maybe, let’s think about it.’

They ask us how far we’ll go. Will we commit a litany of protest crimes – smashing windows, defacing buildings? Will we glue ourselves to doors or block roads using ‘swarming’ – sitting down for a few minutes at a time to stop traffic?

‘I’m comfortable with spray paint that permanently damages but not breaking windows,’ states a woman in her 30s from a refugee charity.

‘I’m somewhere between the permanent spray paint and the chalk spray paint,’ says a man studying for a PhD in environmental activism. ‘They can’t charge you with criminal damage if you use chalk paint.’

‘Training session’: XR potential recruits Greg, left, and George

After an hour or so, we’re all split up into what they call ‘affinity’ groups based on how radical they judge us to be. They don’t seem to think I’m very revolutionary.

Roles are assigned for the forthcoming ‘action’. Our group has a ‘wellbeing co-ordinator’, a ‘legal observer’ and a ‘media organiser’.

Middle-class zealots who’ll make Monday a misery for millions 

The most prominent – and radical – of the XR leaders is failed organic farmer and PhD student Roger Hallam

Failed farmer wants a world revolution 

The most prominent – and radical – of the XR leaders is failed organic farmer and PhD student Roger Hallam.

After years in a succession of Left-wing groups, the 52-year-old says the ‘name of the game’ for XR is to ‘bring down all the regimes in the world and replace them’. Hallam (above) says paralysing traffic will eventually cause food shortages and trigger uprisings.

In a recent interview, he said XR protesters should be ready to cause disruption through personal ‘sacrifice’. If necessary, they ‘should be willing to die’.

XR co-founder Stuart Basden, 36, a middle-class writer from Bristol

Co-founder says jail’s like boarding school 

XR co-founder Stuart Basden, 36, a middle-class writer from Bristol (above), has goals that go way beyond a desire to curb global warming.

Indeed, he has claimed: ‘XR isn’t about the climate. You see, the climate’s breakdown is a symptom of a toxic system that has infected the ways we relate to each other as humans and to all life.’

Basden has urged XR followers to embrace going to prison – where he spent a week after defacing London’s City Hall with spray paint last year – saying it is ‘a bit like boarding school’

Tasmin Osmond, 35, is a veteran of ‘direct actions’

Veteran campaigner from baronet family 

Tasmin Osmond, 35, is a veteran of ‘direct actions’ which had little to do with climate change, such as Occupy London, the poverty protest which set up a camp outside St Paul’s cathedral in 2011.

The granddaughter of Dorset baronet Sir Thomas Lees, Omond (above) went to Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where she read English.

She was thrown out of anti-aviation group Plane Stupid after saying the green movement ‘brand’ was ‘unwashed, unshaven and up a tree’, and this ‘doesn’t represent me’.

George Barda, 43, believes the ‘Criminal UK Government’ is to blame for climate change

Student who’s on Putin’s TV channel 

George Barda, 43, believes the ‘Criminal UK Government’ is to blame for climate change.

A post-graduate student at prestigious King’s College in London, the son of classical music and stage photographer Clive Barda still finds time to be a dedicated revolutionary and camped outside St Paul’s cathedral in the Occupy London campaign.

Today, Barda (above) is a director of XR parent company Compassionate Revolution and regularly appears on Russia Today, Russia’s controversial British TV channel.

How far would we go for the movement? A Scottish actress in her 20s tells us she’s planning to recruit her mother. ‘I think I’d be OK with being arrested,’ she adds. ‘It’s just that I’m so in and out of the country, I work between here and Paris. I don’t know if I would be able to make my court date, so I don’t know if it would work out.’

Another young woman, a university student, says she’ll bring her harp along to keep us entertained during ‘rebellion week’. Before the meeting breaks up, the organisers call for mature women willing to be trained as ‘de-escalators’.

These are the people asked to calm down frustrated members of the public, particularly drivers, trapped in the traffic jams we’re going to cause.

Then the evening comes to a conclusion with repeated chants of ‘Extinction… Rebellion’ from the hardened activists, who then treat us to an impromptu and utterly excruciating dance.

A beat box starts blaring, one long-haired man sways expansively, arms waving out of time, the others jig about. I leave, armed with XR stickers and posters to plaster on the streets.

The group gives me constant updates through the WhatsApp messaging system, and a few days later I’m back in the office block for another training session. This time, it’s altogether more alarming.

An activist in her 20s called Jess lays out XR’s terrifying vision of the future: ‘We want to build a structure, a community and test prototypes for the coming structural collapse of the regimes of Western democracies. And we see this as inevitable – this has to happen.’

Now, we’re drawn further into the plans for illegal protest, and made to take part in role-play scenarios of activists clashing with the police.

The golden rule is to stay silent when confronted by police – unless we quote from a self-righteous prepared statement outlining our supposed right to break the law as a ‘conscientious protector’ of Planet Earth.

And we must never, ever identify any of the XR organisers in case they are charged with inciting illegal activities.

Activists who plan to ‘lock on’ by super-gluing themselves to public property are warned to expect a long wait, as few police officers are trained to dissolve the glue.

The hope is to cause the maximum amount of chaos. They might even have activists locked on at five separate protest points in London. If we are seized by the police, we must make our bodies go floppy, to tie up more officers as they attempt to carry us away.

I endure a further marathon training session at a climbing centre in North London.

We’re being addressed by the white-haired lady, who I now know is press officer Jayne Forbes. Stating her own readiness for martyrdom and jail, she tells us that: ‘I’m an older person with no responsibilities.

‘I’m prepared to go to prison and I think we are privileged in this country to have prisons that are relatively acceptable.

‘If I was living in Brazil or something, I could get killed as an activist. Our prisons are not bad compared to many in the world.’

She tells us never to agree to a caution because that would be ‘an admission of guilt’.

We must never accept the help of a duty solicitor because they would be ‘pally with the police’. I’m learning a great deal.

We’re advised only to bring an old-fashioned ‘burner’ mobile phone to the protest in case the police want to seize the device as evidence.

I’m told a paperback will help me while away the long hours in a police cell – and that I can ask for up to three blankets from the custody officers.

I now have a list of ‘friendly’ solicitors on a small sheet of paper reminding me of my legal rights. Can we get vegan food in prison? XR thinks the answer is ‘yes’.

By the time I say my goodbyes, I’m truly worried. If this week goes according to plan for Extinction Rebellion, I know that many of its members will be only too delighted to learn first-hand about the inside of our police cells and our prisons – believing they have come one step closer to making their dangerous plan a reality.

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How To Look Good In Wide-Leg Trousers (It’s Easier Than You Think)

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It’s not hard to remember a time when wide-leg trousers were considered one of those beyond-the-pale pieces that fashion designers periodically tried to foist on sceptical menfolk, perhaps out of boredom, or “for banter”.

Sure, wide-leg trousers made an impact on the runway. Okay, so they created a striking silhouette. And yes, they had swagger. But off the runway? They were an unacceptable breach of breeches conduct. Sheer pantaloon-acy, to be given an equally wide berth.

But as you perform your umpteenth series of pulse squats to squeeze into your skinny-fit jeans, or dislocate your ankle to get your foot through that drainpipe leg opening, do you ever stop to think that there might be another way? That it might be time to broaden your horizons?

Menswear’s brains trust certainly thinks there’s room for a roomier trouser style. Many of today’s biggest trends prefer a wider leg: street-friendly skatewear, pleated mid-century styles and voluminous tailoring are all generous and flattering below the belt.

The Rise Of Wide-Leg Trousers

Revolutionary though they may seem, wide-leg trousers are not exactly a novel concept. ‘Oxford bags’ as they became known date back to the 1920s, when stunting undergrads at the eponymous university wore trousers with hems of up to 40 inches in circumference – and looked like dons. Frank Sinatra did wide-leg trousers his way in the 1950s, as did Marlon Brando. And David Bowie did frankly whatever the hell he wanted in the 1970s – which included wide-leg trousers.

“Yes, but Bowie was a sartorial extraterrestrial,” you cry. True, but even for us style earthlings, wide-leg trousers are more wearable than you probably imagine. They are undoubtedly a statement – but that means you don’t really need to try that hard.

Thankfully, fashion is cyclical, and wide-leg trousers are getting another long-overdue play. After years of spray-on oppression, high-end fashion houses and streetwear labels alike are freeing men from their stonewash straightjacket. And crucially, dissenting designers challenging the constricting doctrine are practising what they preach by wearing them, proving that they look unusually good in real life too.

Marlon Brando

4 Ways To Wear Wide-Leg Trousers

None of this is to say that to be fashion-forward, you need to run a belt through two tents. Yes, the runway end of the trouser fit spectrum has lurched dramatically flappier. But that means that, for those who’ve spent the last decade peeling their trousers off every evening, it’s time to inch up into something roomier. Here are four ways to pump up the volume.

Casual

For those new to the relaxed-leg fit, casual looks are the easiest way to experiment. “Start off with a classic colour or fabric, such as navy or black in cotton or a wool-blend,” says Mr Porter style director Olie Arnold. “Denim is also an easy way into the trend.”

To balance out all that extra down below, think simple. “Wear with a well-fitting crew-neck T-shirt or Henley. Many wider trousers have traditional front pleats and a higher waist; tuck the top in to highlight this feature.” It’s a move approved by Jude Law, back in his Dickie Greenleaf days.

Smart-Casual

It’s not just the cut of clothes that has been gradually relaxing over the last few years. Dress codes have also loosened up, making relaxed-leg trousers an excellent way to nail everyday smart-casual.

The trick here is to keep everything else simple so that the trousers are the only wild card in the deck. Think tonal shirts, roll necks and muted bombers. Not only will you feel confident enough to wear them that way, but you’ll also be doing ‘a thing’ without really doing all that much.

Smart

All that extra material necessitates a nipped-in waist, whether in the form of a cropped jacket or a tailored one, to prevent you ballooning. Luckily, looser-fitting trousers can work in business-casual offices, provided you make up for the more relaxed fit by dialling up the styling. “A well-cut pair of pleated trousers can bring a rakish touch to a formal look by pairing with a deconstructed blazer, a crisp shirt and some polished Derby shoes,” says Arnold.

When wearing a blazer with relaxed-fit trousers, you can also alleviate the impact by rolling the hems, so the trousers swing, rather than puddle. “A slightly shorter pair of wide-leg trousers in black can be ideal for the office when worn with a tucked in slim shirt, to balance the voluminous shape.”

Streetwear

Could you imagine suddenly being able to move around with ease. Put things in your pocket. Sit down without a cheese-cutter bisecting your crotch. Sounds truly liberating, right? It is. And it’s a feeling some have known for decades.

Whether it’s the streetwear crowd or the skate lot that regularly riff on workwear, wider legs have long been the go-to. Not that you need to resemble a Slim-Fast ‘after’ photo to get the look. Simply prioritise trousers cut from thick cotton twills and denim rather than anything that belongs on Savile Row, and pair these with relaxed (but not baggy) logo sweatshirts, hoodies and chore jackets.

6 Tips For Wearing Wide-Leg Trousers

Create Contrast

Unlike skinny jeans, which can make it seem as if your torso is teetering on a pair of cricket stumps, relaxed-fit trousers add some heft to the lower part of the body. Just don’t make the mistake of echoing that up top.

“The main mistake people make with wide-leg trousers, is going wide everywhere else,” says Giles Farnham, head of the River Island Style Studio. “If wearing relaxed trousers, everything else should be fitted, otherwise you look like you’re wearing a big brother’s hand-me-downs. Wide trousers worn with a fitted shirt looks considered. Wide trousers and a baggy shirt just looks scruffy.”

Pleats Are Your Friend

Once reserved for men who had more hair coming out of their ears than the top of their head, pleated trousers have recently been rescued from the bingo hall by designers. This subtle crease down the front of the trouser leg is a godsend to men who are no strangers to the squat rack, as it adds extra fabric around the thigh and seat. Which also means you can breathe easy when the mercury starts rising.

“With a slightly roomier cut, pleated trousers are perfect for relaxed, summer dressing,” says Arnold. “Make sure the trousers have a slightly cropped profile, which will ensure they feel current and on trend. Keep the rest of the look simple with a crisp shirt, T-shirt or piece of knitwear, so those well-executed pleats remain the focus.”

Nail The Fit

The graph of fit against physique follows a bell curve. To pull off spray-on-skinny or David Bowie loose requires a body that would work on a runway. But move to the middle with relaxed and straight cuts and things get more forgiving.

However wide you go, getting the fit right is key. With that much extra material already on show, the world doesn’t need to see your underwear as well. Make sure the trousers or jeans hit near your waist, not hips, or you’ll look like a kid who got dressed out of dad’s wardrobe (and not in the good way).

Pick Your Shoes Wisely

As is the case with most looks, the right shoe can make or break this trend. The original baggy boys were students at Oxford in the 1920s, who wore extreme wide-leg trousers over their knickerbockers, which the university had outlawed. While we’d avoid using yours to smuggle contraband underwear, it is worth stealing one move from the OGs; a pair of shoes that don’t get drowned out.

“The wider silhouette in the leg is complemented by a wider, round toe like you get on a pair of sneakers,” says Farnham. “Avoid slightly pointier, narrow shoes such as loafers as they will jar with the loose fabric and end up looking like you’ve been taking style tips from Chabuddy G from BBC Three’s People Just Do Nothing.”

Consider Fabrics

There’s a fine line between Marlon Brando and Margery from Bradford (no offence, Margery). When it comes to straight rather than tapered-leg trousers in particular, staying on the right side of history comes down to the fabric.

To avoid the mum abroad look, think heavier materials to keep everything from billowing in every gust of wind. “In winter, try a richer wool fabric like flannel and in summer a thicker linen,” says Farnham. “Thicker materials also gather well on the shoe.”

Stick To Neutrals

Wide-leg trousers are a statement in their own right, so steer well clear of loud colours or printed styles and opt for an understated neutral design instead. Black, grey or navy versions are a great place to start as they will slot effortlessly into your wardrobe and combine well with everything you already own.

Alternatively, if you want something decidedly more casual, try a pair of relaxed-cut chinos in stone or khaki. They will look superb teamed with a white Oxford button-down, linen shirt or plain tee.

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