#kevin the ever suffering equipment manager...

[rathockey]

the spn hockey au is slowly growing in my head...

[daniel306gaming]

¿What if Ultron killed the Guardians of the Multiverse?

To: Bryan Andrews, Ross Marquand, Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios

                                                          Intro

¿What if events went differently in the 1st season finale of What If? ¿What if Ultron killed the Guardians of the Multiverse? In today’s fan fiction we’re going to be exploring what would’ve happened if Infinity Ultron had successfully won and killed the Guardians of the Multiverse in the first season finale of the What If series. ¿How can this affect the multiverse going forward? This is an original what if created by me following the mythology of Ultron and the Guardians of the Multiverse and the timeline of the MCU. Without wasting anymore time sit back and relax and enjoy this dark fan fiction.

                                                          Prologue

Now the reason why we explored those 3 worlds from the last 2 fan fictions I posted was because I had a terrible nightmare in which Uatu’s battle with Infinity Ultron took a dark turn and eventually he and the Guardians would be all killed and I am here today to explain everything. I am one of the Watchers and I am ur guide to these vast new realities. Follow me and pounder the question. What if…

                                                                            Act 1

The events of the finale were playing out the same as in our universe. The Guardians and Uatu were battling hard against Ultron and they eventually defeated him or in this case we almost did. In this universe Natasha Romanoff shot the arrow containing Arnim Zola but unfortunately it missed. This allowed Ultron to grab him by the neck and choke him to death in front of the Guardians as they watched in horror after giving their final attempts to defeat him. The Guardians and Ultron fought one last time but eventually was able to kill most of them except Thor and Gamora and Strange Supreme. They were able to put up a good fight against him but Ultron easily overpowered and eventually killed them for good except Strange Supreme. He told Strange that now he will suffer more than he ever did before ripping their egos apart killing them for good. With the Guardians of the Multiverse and Uatu  dead Ultron then returned to the observatory and decided to destroy the Guardians’s worlds with the first being Carter’s world.

                                                                                  Act 2

Meanwhile, in Carter’s world Black Widow, Hawkeye, Nick Fury and Brock Rumlow who has yet to become Crossbones were taking down a Hydra facility base when they saw Ultron arrive. They didn’t know who Ultron was but since they thought he was an enemy of Hydra they fired at him but Ultron summoned his legion of drones instead. The Shield agents fought against the drones and Ultron sliced Fury into half just like what he did with Thanos in his world. He then grabbed Brock and Clint by their necks and choked them to death in front of Natasha. Natasha and Ultron fought each other before Ultron got the upper hand on her injuring her badly. Ultron told her that he fought a variant of her in his world and now he was going to destroy the multiverse and he destroyed the tesseract obtaining the Space Stone before putting it on his sword. After that the cleansing of Carter’s world happened. With one world gone Ultron moved to T’Challa’s world where he met king T’Chaka and the rest of Wakanda. Ultron told him that he had recently killed T’Challa along with the rest of the guardians and was going to steal all the vibranium from them. They were all horrified to hear that and Wakanda then got into a massive battle with Ultron. They were able to put up a solid fight against him but Ultron decided that he wouldn’t handle such pity hits and summoned his drones instead. Ultron equipped himself with more magnicraft and vibranium. Ultron would then leave Wakanda to die in search for Ego the Living Planet whom he detected earlier when he was fighting the Wakandans. Ultron found Ego but since he was a planet he felt that summoning his drones was almost impossible so he had to find a way to reach his brain to destroy the planet. Ego and Ultron clashed with each other before Ultron managed to find his brain and he detonated it killing him for good. Ultron returned to Earth briefly and killed Peter Quill as he could be a powerful threat in the future. Before he left he returned to Wakanda where he saw the city destroyed and everyone dead. He then left Earth to search for the Ravagers. Elsewhere, the Ravagers, Yon-Rogg, Yondu and Nebula along with Thanos found out that Earth has been destroyed and were further devastated when they found out that T’Challa was killed and eventually went to find the killer before Ultron himself showed up. Ultron arrived and immediately sliced Thanos in half like last time before again grabbing Yondu and Yon-Rogg by the neck choking them both of death in front of Nebula while the drones fought and killed the other Ravagers. Nebula told Ultron how there was a plan for universal expansion to conquer all of the uníverse but Ultron was displeased with the idea before killing her for good. With another world gone Ultron went to the world of Episode 3 and we will be following the continuation that I made a short time ago so pls do keep this in mind as u read this. The Avengers and the X-men alongside with Nick Fury and Shield are currently on Asgard aiding the Asgardians with the threat of Hela and Thanos also arrived on Earth with the Black Order and invaded Asgard. Thanos was fighting Hela while the heroes were fighting Hela’s army and the Black Order. Just then Ultron arrived on Earth and Natasha was horrified to see him. Ultron saw everyone and was shocked to see Natasha Romanoff was with them. But what shocked him the most was that this wasn’t this world’s Natasha. It was his Natasha that he killed earlier. Ultron asked Natasha how was she still alive if she had killed her earlier. Natasha said that “maybe u killed me in another universe but we defeated u in my universe”. Ultron was shocked to hear that meaning that there was a world where the Watcher and the Guardians won after all. He then proceeded to AGAIN slice Thanos in half. Everyone else fought Ultron and his drones but they were easily defeated with most of the armies getting killed. Hela fought Ultron in combat and although she almost defeated him he had the Infinity Stones which made him too powerful to be stopped. Ultron then grabbed Fury and Hela by the neck and choked them to death in front of all the heroes. The Avengers were horrified to see that their founder was killed and they all charged fourth to Ultron but Ultron easily defeated them. Captain America told them that it would be best for them to surrender as he was too strong for all of them. Captain Marvel, Ghost Rider, the X-men and Shield agreed and kneeled before him. Ultron smiled realizing how this world didn’t resist him before he imprisoned them in the Pocket Dimension and decimated Asgard right in front of their eyes. With another world gone he decided to ignore Doctor Strange’s world as it was already destroyed. Meanwhile, in the Zombie world Zombie Hunter Spider-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy have just killed Thanos and dusted away all the zombies ending the plague for good at the cost of Thor’s life. They met other survivors like Shang-Chi, Katy, Death Dealer, Yelena Belova, Red Guardián, Jimmy Woo, Kate Bishop, and Ms. Marvel and right when they were going to start fixing everything Ultron arrived and they all watch in horror. Ultron said that they were no match against him as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have now fallen. The héroes decided to ignore him and charged at Ultron but he quickly defeated them and instead of killing them he decided to just capture them putting them in the Pocket Dimension as he felt that it would be useless to kill the remaining survivors of that world and he teleported away. Meanwhile, in Killmonger’s world Shuri, Pepper and the rest of the Dora Milaje stormed the throne room only to see Ultron on the throne. Ultron then said that Killmonger was killed along with the other guardians who fought valiantly. In shock to hear this Shuri told them to attack him as she thought he was another enemy of Wakanda. However, Ultron killed all of them except Pepper. Ultron told Pepper to side with her if she wanted to live. She no other choice but to do so and she watched in horror as Ultron and his drones destroyed Wakanda killing everybody in it including the US’s government’s military. After that she imprisoned Pepper with the other heroes in the Pocket Dimension. He then briefly returned to Thor’s world and destroyed it immediately after that world was already under siege while he was in the other universes. Ultron then smiled after he killed the Guardian’s worlds but he saw another world and decided to head to that world which was none other than the world of Edward Norton’s World War Hulk. In that world Hulk screamed at Thanos after he had just killed Loki who he considered his last friend as everyone he loved was gone and they were about to get into a fight until Ultron and his drones arrived like always slicing Thanos into half and his drones wiping out the Black Order and the armies. Ultron then turned to the Hulk and he was in a defensive position. Ultron then said that on his universe Hulk was his creador who eventually went on to wipe out half of the multiverse. Hulk screamed at Ultron realizing at what he did in an alternate universe. Ultron tried to convince Hulk to join him but he lashed out at Ultron and he started fighting him in a brief battle that would end with Hulk defeated being captured in the Pocket Dimension by Ultron. Ultron himself decided to spare this world too as this world was meaningless and was already destroyed. Ultron finally completed his purpose of destroying the multiverse with the Guardians of the Multiverse dead and the other heroes captured Ultron can finally rest.

                                                                                   Final act

Meanwhile, in a distant universe Kang the Conquerer was traveling in his giant sword when he arrived in a universe that was completely devastated. He then heard a recording from Arnim Zola explaining to him how a sentient being called Ultron decimated half of the multiverse. Kang was shock to hear that there were people capable of destroying worlds and he headed off to find Ultron. Kang found Ultron and Ultron introduced himself to Kang. Ultron was surprised to hear that there was still some life left in the multiverse and fought Kang. Ultron defeated him and Kang was surprised knowing that this was the first time he lost in a fight like this. Ultron and Kang would continue fighting but Kang lost every time he did it. Kang decided to give up and eventually decided to escape temporarily while he planned a coordinated attack on Ultron. He then saw a orange portal open and it was the TVA themselves who told Kang that if he fought Ultron again it will be fatal for the entire multiverse as his main variant He Who Remains was killed earlier by Sylvie. Kang understood and decided to take a better approach to instead recruit the Avengers of his world but they told him that it would be unnecessary as Ultron did capture other heroes from different universes while he was on his conquest. Kang decided to go find them instead. Elsewhere, in the Pocket Dimension the captured heroes introduced themselves to one other and as they were doing that Kang arrived and explained to them the coordinated plan of attack against Ultron and everyone agreed thus Kang being a multiversal being released them and they went to fight Ultron. Ultron was waiting for Kang to return and Kang did return but this time with a army of heroes. Ultron was shocked seeing the heroes he captured freed by Kang and the final battle between Ultron and the heroes began. Ultron and Kang were fighting in close quarters combat while the heroes dealt with Ultron’s drones. Kang then managed to successfully defeat Ultron with not much energy left. The other heroes then destroyed the drones and saw Ultron defeated. Ultron said that he won because he wanted to win and Kang destroyed him for good once and for all. The Infinity Stones were then safeguarded with the Avengers. The heroes than thanked Kang as they were grateful for his help. The heroes of the zombie world and Pepper then bid farewell to Kang as he returned them back to his world. The other heroes decided that they will bring Hulk back with them as his world was also destroyed and that he could be rehabilitated there as he had already suffered too much with losing his loved ones and failing the city. They thought this would be a good opportunity for the Hulk to start a new life in their world and warn General Ross of the grave danger Abomination would bring to Harlem. Kang agreed and said goodbye to them as he send them back to their world.

                                                                                      Epilogue

In Killmonger’s world Pepper decided to use whatever Stark Industries technology she had left to rebuild Wakanda and would bury everyone that died in Ultron’s conquest. In the zombie world The rest of the guardians, Spider-Man and the survivors on Earth started rebuilding what they could after they lost so much. Peter returned to New York City and went to the Sanctum Sanctorum reading and learning everything he could about Doctor Strange and the Sorcerer Supreme. Peter sat in the chair remembering all the events that happened with Bruce Banner, the Avengers, Tony Stark, Thor etc. and now Ultron. He couldn't believe that he lost so much in a short period of time. Peter saw the eye of Agamotto and grabbed the cloak. Peter’s eyes opened and green went all around his hands. He thought that he had the great power and it was his responsibility to make sure that this never happened. Peter used the Time Stone reversing time. He could see where he was before the outbreak.  He ran off of the bus swinging away and knew that with the Time Stone he would be able to fix everything eradicating the zombie plague for good. In the world of Episode 3 Hulk became a official member of the Avengers and went to reunite with Betty Ross while the X-men and the other heroes decide to train more so when the next threat they would be ready. Somewhere else, Kang still had the Infinity Stones and decided to do something with them. He went to a world where the Avengers lost hope like in ur universe after learning from Thanos that 50% of the population couldn’t be reversed after the stones were destroyed and this was a week after that event. Kang arrives at the Avengers Compound giving the stones to Steve and Natasha telling them that they have hope now and he put a spell on it so it could work in this universe since it came from another universe and left. Kang would then return to his own universe and would fight against none other than the Fantastic 4 themselves while another Watcher replacing Uatu arrived and would now protect the universe to prevent threats like Ultron from ever returning again…

                                                                                  THE END!

And that is going to be ¿What if Ultron killed the Guardians of the Multiverse in the first season finale of What if. I had an amazing time working on this massive fan fiction and you’ll saw how I connected the previous 2 posts with this one and there will be other ones like this one that you just read so be on the lookout for that and more what ifs coming soon. Take care guys and have a fantastic day. Peace out!

[newstfionline]

Thursday, May 6, 2021

Nearly 20 million more people hit by food crises last year (Reuters) Nearly 20 million more people faced food crises last year amid armed conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic and weather extremes, and the outlook for this year is again grim, according to a report by the Global Network Against Food Crises. The humanitarian agency, set up in 2016 by the European Union and United Nations, also warned that acute food insecurity has continued to worsen since 2017, the first year of its annual report into food crises. “We must do everything we can to end this vicious cycle. There is no place for famine and starvation in the 21st century,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres. He added that conflict and hunger need to be tackled jointly, as they reinforce one another. Defined as any lack of food that threatens lives, livelihoods or both, acute food insecurity at crisis levels or worse impacted at least 155 million people last year, the highest number in the report’s five-year existence.

America’s new normal: A degree hotter than two decades ago (AP) America’s new normal temperature is a degree hotter than it was just two decades ago. Scientists have long talked about climate change—hotter temperatures, changes in rain and snowfall and more extreme weather—being the “new normal.” Data released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put hard figures on the cliché. The new United States normal is not just hotter, but wetter in the eastern and central parts of the nation and considerably drier in the West than just a decade earlier. “Almost every place in the U.S. has warmed from the 1981 to 2010 normal to the 1991 to 2020 normal,” said Michael Palecki, NOAA’s normals project manager.

Nature at its craziest: Trillions of cicadas about to emerge (AP) Sifting through a shovel load of dirt in a suburban backyard, Michael Raupp and Paula Shrewsbury find their quarry: a cicada nymph. And then another. And another. And four more. In maybe a third of a square foot of dirt, the University of Maryland entomologists find at least seven cicadas—a rate just shy of a million per acre. A nearby yard yielded a rate closer to 1.5 million. And there’s much more afoot. Trillions of the red-eyed black bugs are coming, scientists say. Within days, a couple weeks at most, the cicadas of Brood X (the X is the Roman numeral for 10) will emerge after 17 years underground. There are many broods of periodic cicadas that appear on rigid schedules in different years, but this is one of the largest and most noticeable. They’ll be in 15 states from Indiana to Georgia to New York; they’re coming out now in mass numbers in Tennessee and North Carolina. When the entire brood emerges, backyards can look like undulating waves, and the bug chorus is lawnmower loud.

Reuniting refugee families (Washington Post) President Biden began fulfilling a campaign promise Tuesday as U.S. authorities started to help to reunite a number of migrant families forcibly separated by the previous administration. President Donald Trump imposed a “zero tolerance” policy on those crossing the U.S. border illegally that led to myriad unauthorized migrants being rushed through criminal proceedings and deported while their children who had accompanied them remained in the United States. It was easier to track the children than their parents. In some instances, advocates had to post radio advertisements in Mexico and Central America. The reunions Tuesday would mark, Kevin Sieff wrote, “the start of a massive relocation of parents deported by one U.S. president and returned by another. In total, more than 1,000 families are expected to be reunited.”

The Little Nation That Could (Guardian) The island of Cuba is dealing with a pandemic while suffering its worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US trade embargo restricts the medical equipment the island can import; even so, of the 27 coronavirus vaccines in final stage testing around the world, two are Cuban. The UN has called on the US to lift sanctions on the island during the pandemic, but the embargo has actually toughened since the outgoing Trump administration put Cuba on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. “The US is trying to starve Cuba into submission,” said one of the doctors on the coronavirus taskforce. “It’s not only that it’s difficult to buy things directly from the US. It’s also that all these sanctions that the Trump administration put in place have dried up many sources of revenue.” Nevertheless, Cuban scientists are confident that widespread vaccination will be attained this year. “When you have everything, you don’t have to think so much.” said another scientist. “But when you have difficulties, you have to think up new ways to innovate.”

Years of Unheeded Warnings. Then the Subway Crash Mexico City Had Feared. (NYT) The capital had been bracing for the disaster for years. Ever since it opened nearly a decade ago, the newest Mexico City subway line—a heralded expansion of the second largest subway system in the Americas—had been plagued with structural weaknesses that led engineers to warn of potential accidents. Yet other than a brief, partial shutdown of the line in 2014, the warnings went unheeded by successive governments. On Monday night, the mounting problems turned fatal: A subway train on the Golden Line plunged about 50 feet after an overpass collapsed underneath it, killing at least 24 people and injuring dozens more. The accident—and the government’s failure to act sooner to fix known problems with the line—immediately set off a political firestorm for three of the most powerful people in Mexico: the president and the two people widely believed to be front-runners to succeed him as leaders of the governing party and possibly, the country.

Brexit problems (Foreign Policy) France has threatened “retaliatory measures”—including cutting power to Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands—as tensions rise over fishing rights between Britain and France. Since the post-Brexit trade deal, French fishermen have been angered by delays in newly required licenses that have prevented them from accessing British waters—an area they say is necessary for their livelihoods.

Scottish independence 'front and center' in May 6 election (Washington Post) Scotland goes to the polls Thursday in a vote that could eventually lead to a truly historic event: the crackup of the United Kingdom. The independence movement has gained momentum in the wake of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit. And the pandemic has further encouraged the idea that Scotland might be better off going its own way, with policies determined in Edinburgh viewed more favorably by Scots than those pronounced at Westminster. As a result, the Scottish National Party, led by the popular First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, 50, is expected to perform well in Thursday’s vote for seats in the regional Parliament, with pro-independence parties winning a solid majority of the 129 seats in Holyrood. The talk shows, political magazines and news columns in Britain are full of speculation about a looming breakup. Since 2014, Scotland has voted overwhelmingly against Brexit, 62 percent to 38 percent. Many Scots then saw Johnson’s hard-split version of Brexit as an unnecessary affront. And since Britain left the European Union, Scotland has tallied more harms than benefits. The Scottish fishermen, for instance, say their industry is in crisis.

Belgian cyberattack (1440) Belgium was hit with a sweeping cyberattack yesterday, leaving its parliament, government agencies, universities, and other organizations without internet service for hours. The effort knocked out both websites and internal systems, including the country’s coronavirus vaccine registration portal. Hackers targeted the government’s service provider with a distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attack—a strategy that overwhelms networks with massive amounts of artificial internet traffic. Experts say such attacks are often meant to knock systems offline rather than steal information. It was unclear who was behind the attack. The incident highlights the growing ability of cybercriminals, either independent or state-affiliated, to strike unprepared governments and companies—some estimate cyberattacks will cost the global economy $6T in losses in 2021.

EU seeks rapid response military force, two decades after first try (Reuters) Fourteen European Union countries including Germany and France have proposed a rapid military response force that could intervene early in international crises, a senior EU official said on Wednesday, two decades after a previous attempt. The countries say the EU should create a brigade of 5,000 soldiers, possibly with ships and aircraft, to help democratic foreign governments needing urgent help, the official said. First discussed in 1999, the EU in 2007 set up a combat-ready system of battlegroups of 1,500 personnel to respond to crises, but they have never been used. Those battle groups could now form the basis of a so-called First Entry Force, part of a new momentum towards more EU defence capabilities. From this year, the bloc has a joint budget to develop weaponry together, is drawing up a military doctrine for 2022 and detailed its military weakness last year for the first time.

Staunch anti-India Kashmir politician dies in police custody (AP) A prominent politician in Kashmir who challenged India’s rule over the disputed region for decades died Wednesday while in police custody. Mohammed Ashraf Sehrai was 78. Sehrai’s son, Mujahid Sehrai, said his father was denied proper medical care while in jail. Sehrai was arrested last July under the Public Safety Act, which allows authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir to imprison anyone for up to two years without trial. All Parties Hurriyat Conference, the main separatist grouping in Kashmir, said authorities had left Sehrai unattended in jail until his condition worsened. In a statement, it said it “deeply regrets this inhuman attitude of the authorities and is pained by it.” It also expressed concern about the health of hundreds of other Kashmiri political detainees as India faces a massive health crisis because of an explosion of coronavirus cases. Last week, the grouping said the prisoners were being denied “even basic amenities,” leading to “serious health problems among the prisoners.”

India’s COVID-19 surge spreads to Nepal (Reuters) Nepal is being overwhelmed by a COVID-19 surge as India’s outbreak spreads across South Asia, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Wednesday. Nepal is now recording 57 times as many cases as a month ago, with 44% of tests now coming back positive. Nepalese towns near the Indian border could not cope with the growing number of people needing treatment, while only 1% of the country’s population was fully vaccinated.

Myanmar’s military disappearing young men to crush uprising (AP) Myanmar’s security forces moved in and the street lamps went black. In house after house, people shut off their lights. Darkness swallowed the block. When the military’s trucks finally rolled away, Shwe’s 15-year-old brother was missing. Across the country, Myanmar’s security forces are arresting and forcibly disappearing thousands of people, especially boys and young men, in a sweeping bid to break the back of a three-month uprising against a military takeover. In most cases, the families of those taken do not know where they are, according to an Associated Press analysis of more than 3,500 arrests since February. It is a technique the military has long used to instill fear and to crush pro-democracy movements. The boys and young men are taken from homes, businesses and streets, under the cover of night and sometimes in the brightness of day. Some end up dead. Many are imprisoned and sometimes tortured. Many more are missing.

Turkey and Egypt on the mend (Foreign Policy) Representatives from Turkey and Egypt meet in Cairo today for “exploratory” discussions “on the necessary steps that may lead towards the normalization of relations” according to a joint statement. Relations between the two countries have frayed due to maritime border disputes, Libya’s civil war, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s opposition to the 2013 coup which brought Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power. There were some signs of rapprochement in March, when the Turkish government directed Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated media channels in the country to refrain from criticizing the Egyptian president.

Why Nearsightedness Is on the Rise in Children (NYT) Look and you shall see: A generation of the real-life nearsighted Mr. Magoos is growing up before your eyes. A largely unrecognized epidemic of nearsightedness, or myopia, is afflicting the eyes of children. People with myopia can see close-up objects clearly, like the words on a page. But their distance vision is blurry, and correction with glasses or contact lenses is likely to be needed for activities like seeing the blackboard clearly, cycling, driving or recognizing faces down the block. The growing incidence of myopia is related to changes in children’s behavior, especially how little time they spend outdoors, often staring at screens indoors instead of enjoying activities illuminated by daylight. Gone are the days when most children played outside between the end of the school day and suppertime. And the devastating pandemic of the past year may be making matters worse. The prevalence of myopia in the United States increased from 25 percent in the early 1970s to nearly 42 percent just three decades later. And the rise in myopia is not limited to highly developed countries. The World Health Organization estimates that half the world’s population may be myopic by 2050.

[johnnydoe69]

Old Wars, New Faces Part 3

For weeks, Odysseus goaded Kevin through a rigid exercise program. As his body grew stronger, Odysseus pushed Kevin to accept more rigorous training methods; boulders stacked on carts that had to be carried up and down a hill, scaling the tallest of trees, and using what he knew of hand-to-hand combat to build up Kevin’s reflexes and muscle memory. Odysseus was hesitant to train Kevin in the art of archery or sword fighting, because as confident as Odysseus was in his own power, he was still afraid that too many out of character changes would shock Kevin into questioning what was happening and lead him to fight back violently. His mission was too important to let a simple mistake end his journey before it could even begin. 

For Kevin’s part he was deeply enjoying the changes, watching as his body ballooned to body builder status in the time it usually took to only put on a pound or two of weight. He was more energized than he had ever been and his reputation in town was no longer one of disgust, but of curiosity. Under the persistence of Odysseus, Kevin quickly adapted to the modern Greek language and tried to limit his English where he could. When his pronunciation was perfected, people forgot about the strange American tourist with an obsession with the old stories and began to wonder where this massive Greek man came from. 

However, as Odysseus worked on Kevin’s mind and body, he had neglected Kevin’s finances. One day he jogged up the stairs to his apartment to find an eviction notice taped to his door. Odysseus had never had to worry about money when he was a king and even in disguise, hospitality rules commanded people to open their doors to all who came to them. However, when Odysseus tried to offer his help around the motel in exchange for being allowed to stay, he was refused and told he had two weeks to vacate his room. 

Later in the day, he asked around the neighborhood looking for jobs, but many people couldn’t afford to hire someone at the tail end of the tourist season. Eventually though, he was able to find a woman who worked at a nearby farm where they were still looking for workers and who drove the carpool for people in town. The job was for 3 euros an hour collecting olives, killing weeds, and cutting vines. He would have been paid more, but Kevin didn’t have the legal papers needed to work legally as a non-EU citizen and the farm only took on undocumented workers if they agreed to get paid less than minimum wage. 

After three days of grueling work in the olive groves, Odysseus and Kevin first met Dryas. Odysseus was high in an olive tree cutting down branches when he heard the deep booming voice of his boss Markos screaming nearby. Markos was known as a terror of the vineyard, docking pay for smelling of cigarette smoke after breaks or taking too long in getting back to work. Odysseus knew if Markos screamed at him for any bullshit he would strangle the bastard, so he was relieved when Markos stomped right past him to the olive tree on his right. 

“Dryas!” Markos yelled at the foot of the tree. “One of the managers caught you coming into work nineteen minutes late, what could you find that was more important than doing your job?”

Dryas came down the ladder in a black t-shirt, ugly grey sweatpants, and a smock all the farm workers had tied around his waist. 

“Nothing Markos, that’s why I took my time coming here. I figured it was better to be well-rested in time for my shift rather than exhausted sprinting here so I could have the energy needed to be more productive.” He said with a shrug. 

Markos fumed and turned a bright red, “Listen to me you arrogant little shit. I can fire you and replace you with a homeless man who will work for pennies. I decide what you need in order to be more efficient at work, not you.”

“But look at how many olives I managed to collect in the few minutes it took for you to get here,” Dryas said, gesturing to the nearly full bushel of olives next to him. 

Markos peered inside and some of the red coloring left his face, leaving his cheeks a flushed pink. He glared back at Dryas, “Just get back to work, but if you ever so much as show up a minute late I will have you fired. Do you understand?”

Dryas nodded, “Perfectly.” He said with false sincerity. 

Markos grumbled and stormed off, a string of obscenities following him as he left. Dryas watched Markos go and when he was finally out of distance began laughing. It was then that he reached into the bushel and pulled out several pairs of folded clothing and someone’s work boots. Only the top layer of the bushel was covered in olives and without the clothes adding to the volume of the barrel it was practically empty. 

Odysseus laughed as he descended the ladder, “Your cleverness easily surpasses mine Dryas. What’s your surname?”

Dryas first looked at Odysseus startled, but then quickly relaxed.

“My name’s Dryas Morata and I always appreciate a loving audience.” He said with a bow. “So what’s your name big man, or are you going to remain mysterious to everyone?”

Now it was time for Odysseus to be startled. He had avoided telling most people Kevin’s name as it immediately pegged him as a foreigner, but he knew Kevin still struggled with using the fake name as his own. 

“Arsenios Xevros”  Odysseus said flatly, trying not to let the fear seep through. He felt Kevin rumble with confusion inside him, as he didn’t seem to understand why he wasn’t using his own name.

“Hmm” Dryas said. “Not many Kefalonians have that surname. Where is your family from, exactly?” he asked, hands on his hips.

“Ithaki” Odysseus said confidently, staring directly into Dryas’s small green eyes.

Dryas nodded. “Beautiful place Ithaki. Not too many people though.” He said, bringing his stand directly next to Odysseus so they could work on the same tree. Odysseus and Dryas then climbed their ladders together and went back to work, but continued their conversation. 

 “So what brings you to this little slice of hell?” Dryas asked, dropping an olive into his bushel. “Being surrounded by nothing but goats and fish get boring for you?” he asked. 

Odysseus felt his blood boil, he knew the extreme disrepair that had fallen upon his island home, but did his best to stifle his pride and rage and kept working. 

“I’m here to find a man, but I need some money first before I can go find him.” Odysseus said dropping two olives into his barrel. 

Dryas laughed. “Aren’t we all, big man, aren’t we all?” Odysseus noticed Dryas’s voice was very high-pitched and feminine, very different from most of the men on the island who did their best to masculinize theirs. His skin was smooth and largely hairless, except for the short well kept brown-blonde hair on his head. The only thing that showed wear on Dryas’s body was his knuckles, covered in blisters and deep cracks, possibly from a lifetime of working in the fields. 

It was while they were talking that Odysseus had an image of Dryas, clothed in only his underwear and leaning against an olive tree. 

Odysseus hadn’t been with anyone besides his wife, Penelope. He had devoted himself to her, cherished her, but it had been so long in the land of the dead that they felt anything but coldness for each other, not in mind but in body. Even, with their souls in paradise her skin felt like ice against his skin and lips like sandpaper. 

Internally, Kevin tried to shake the thoughts of Dryas away in a way that shocked Odysseus. Odysseus knew the body he inhabited was one sexually attracted to men, yet Kevin resisted, bringing to mind beatings and mockery he had suffered from for just looking or sounding too gay or effeminate, let alone having sex with a man. 

Odysseus agreed not to push his desires to calm Kevin down and for the next few weeks, he kept his attraction to Dryas a secret. 

Despite the strange looks they received from time to time they spent most of their time together laughing and talking. Of course, when they were warned that Markos or another manager was near they moved to separate trees, but when everyone relaxed they would move their tree stands back next to each other again.  

Dryas turned out to be of immense help in teaching Odysseus about the current state of the world. It was Dryas who explained to Odysseus that their jobs were only temporary, when the olive picking season ended in a few months, everyone was getting laid off- save for those who had been on the farm for years, like Markos. 

“What will you do when the season ends?” Odysseus had asked while cutting down vines. His overalls were tight and squeezed his crotched. He was down to using donated clothes from the local Christians, as most of what he had no longer fit his massive size and no one wanted to buy Kevin’s ugly clothes. Dryas was more comfortable, in tight jeans and a white t-shirt stained with olive oil. 

“I’ll just go back to performing odd jobs, same as everyone else. Then when Spring comes around and the locusts return all the resorts, taverns, cafés, and restaurants will open their doors for us to flock back in.”

Odysseus frowned at this and kept cutting. When Odysseus was king the vast majority of his people worked the same profession and the same land their family worked for centuries. The idea of constantly moving to new jobs, of constantly being displaced without any certainty of a roof over one’s head or food in their stomach confused him deeply and he had to take a break.

Odysseus left Dryas and walked to the equipment shed. Once inside he took to a small seat by the window and leaned his head against one of the wooden walls. At least in the shed Odysseus wouldn’t get yelled at for missing work. 

A few minutes later Dryas entered, but jumped when he saw Odysseus. 

“Shit. I didn't know you were going to be in here.” Dryas said. He walked deeper into the small, narrow shed and reached for a bottle of weed killer on a high shelf. Kevin’s anxieties immediately began to overwhelm Odysseus as his mind became awash with the potential consequences of being alone in a small space with Dryas. Dryas’s body was slick with sweat, his shirt and apron clinging to his back, showing his hard slender back.  

So Odysseus stood up to leave. “I’ll just see you back at the tree.” he said. 

Odysseus tried to move past Dryas, but his large frame and the small space made it impossible to move without touching him. With Odysseus’s waist up against Dryas’s strong high ass, his dick immediately got hard, stretching against the fabric. Odysseus grimaced and did his best to pull away, desperately hoping Dryas didn’t notice his dick riding up against Dryas’s ass.  

Once Odysseus made it to the door, Dryas turned to him, “You don’t have to go Arsenios. If you lock the door behind you we can have a few minutes to ourselves before we have to go back out.” 

Odysseus and Kevin stared at the door, both uncertain as to what to do, but eventually one of them took the initiative and locked the door. Dryas smiled and ran into Odysseus’s arms and began making out with him. Odysseus’s body reacted naturally, settling into a comfortable rhythm with Dryas.  The space in Odysseus’s overalls for his cock evaporated and he quickly unbuttoned his overalls from under his smock and allowed them to drop to the floor. 

Dryas’s tongue was steady and warm in Odysseus’s mouth making smooth, steady motions inside of him. Despite being much smaller Dryas pushed Odysseus up against the work table and was the first one to grab Odysseus’s dick through his pants. Odysseus pulled back from kissing and moaned as Dryas rubbed it.

“As good as this feels” Dryas whispered, “Try to keep quiet. We could both lose our jobs.” Odysseus meekly nodded and they went back to making out. 

Up against the table Odysseus decided to keep improvising and shoved all the gardening equipment and bags of seeds to the floor. Dryas laughed, “We’re going to get in so much trouble,” but gladly let himself get lifted up by Odysseus onto the table. Dryas undid his smock as Odysseus undid his and they both threw them to the chair Odysseus had been sitting in. 

Dryas wrapped his legs around Odysseus's waist, his ass against Odysseus’s hard dick. Odysseus kicked off his boots and pulled down his pants and underwear. Dryas released his grip on Odysseus’s thighs, letting the clothes drop to the floor. 

Odysseus climbed on the table with Dryas and slowly peeled back Dryas’s pants and underwear as Dryas kicked off his muddy boots. Odysseus went to flip Dryas on his back, but Dryas stopped him. 

“Before you do that, grab a bottle of olive oil above your head to use as lube. My ass can take a lot, but a thick cock in my ass still hurts without lube.”

Odysseus nodded and while Dryas laid down flat on his stomach, Odysseus grabbed the bottle, uncorked it and began rubbing oil on himself. The olive oil felt good going up and down his thirsty cock. Then Odysseus massaged the oil onto Dryas’s wide ass cheeks and deep in his hole, making Dryas moan with pleasure. Odysseus shoved his dick inside Dryas and started fucking him. Dryas arched his back like a cat as Odysseus pounded away, all the fear about repercussions and violence melting away. Even Kevin, started to relax at this, still terrified and confused at what was happening, but enjoying the deep fucking he was doing to Dryas’s hole.

When they finished, Dryas and Odysseus laid flat on the table that shuddered under their weight. “To think, I actually thought you were straight,” Dryas said, laughing. He kissed Odysseus’s ear, “I’m so happy I was wrong.”

“Am I your first?” Odysseus asked with a grin and Dryas playfully rolled his eyes. 

“I wish. The first boy I ever had sex with was with a German businessman on a pier.” Dryas sighed contently and curled into the crook of Odysseus’s muscular arm, “This is much nicer, even if it was on a rickety piece of shit table.”

“Oh, don’t hate the table. It was able to handle all our fucking, wasn’t it?” Odysseus asked.

Dryas nodded sleepily, “Yeah, it did somehow.”

Odysseus wanted to bask in this moment for as long as possible, but knew anyone could come knocking on the door and demand to be let in. 

Odysseus rolled off the table and stood up, “C’mon, Dryas, let’s go.”

Dryas moaned, “Fuck, can’t we stay here a few more minutes?”

“No, we have at least another hour or so and who knows when Markos is coming back.” Odysseus shrugged on his work shirt and Dryas sat up on the table, staring at Odysseus with glazed eyes. 

“Are you like a god or something?” Dryas asked and Odysseus froze. He had no plan for what to do if any mortal saw through him. Would Dryas cower? Run away? Try to kill him?

Dryas yawned, “Because honestly, I get fucked all the time and that was the best sex I ever had. Even with all the cum in my ass and the fact we didn’t use protection I still want to do that again.” 

Odysseus sighed with relief and got back to pulling up his clothes. Dryas joined him and once they had wiped themselves up, they got to work cleaning up the shed. They put the bags of fertilizer and seeds back on the tables, put the tools back on their hooks, and hid the half-used bottle of olive oil in a small alcove in the shed. They could dispose of that later. 

They decided to leave separately, first Odysseus who had been gone a long time already and then Dryas. 

On his way back to the olive grove as the sun began to set Odysseus felt a sense of calm and joy he hadn’t felt in millennia. As he felt the warmth against his skin as he walked, Odysseus remembered that this time of peace would not last. War was coming whether he would like it or not, but for that moment Odysseus allowed himself to enjoy the sun and the memory of sex with Dryas. Kevin remained conflicted about the experience, terrified about the repercussions, but feeling a sense of joy and contentment that he had never felt before. Whatever repercussion coming his way couldn’t take that from him. 

[mylesudland]

Some thoughts on youth sports

Baxter Holmes at ESPN has a fascinating story out about the NBA’s concern over injuries in its young players. For anyone who has spent time training — at any level — the concerns outlined will be ones you’ve heard before: a lack of mobility in explosive athletes and a lack of flexibility in strong athletes create ticking time bombs that go off in the form of broken legs, broken ankles, and warped backs. 

The concerns voiced by executives and doctors at the NBA level are also familiar in the modern world of youth sports — by specializing in one sport at a young age, these athletes are set up for disappointment. They will be disappointed by their health and disappointed by their in-competition performance. In 2019, the issues surrounding the culture of youth sports are not new. The parents, the kids, the coaches, the administrators in every part of the country at every level in every sport have heard this story a thousand times. 

And the “answers” end up sounding a lot like what AAU board member Rod Seaford told ESPN. 

“The NCAA and the NBA loves to lay fault for their ills at the feet of youth sports or AAU,” Seaford told ESPN. “That's a pretty common thing. We've approached the NCAA and NBA with various proposals [only] to get lip service. We don't get much serious conversation. I don't doubt that it's a legitimate concern. But it's really easy to lay all those faults of the youth coach.”

The only answer is that there is no answer. Except that as I see it, the current youth-sports-industrial complex has a pretty straightforward incentive structure that perpetuates and accentuates that unathletic athletes that are filtering into the highest levels of American sports. It’s called the NCAA. 

---

For a brief time, I ran cross country in college. My results are not inspiring. But my path to college athletics began during a heated dinner conversation in the winter of 2006 when I told my parents I was going to give up baseball. It was a decision my father didn’t really understand: why did I need to run all year round? 

The previous fall I’d had a decent cross country season for a sophomore. Especially with the limited training I’d done the previous summer. After a string of races that showed promise, I ended up with a hairline fracture in my leg that resulted from running a race on an already stress-fractured leg. I ended up in a hard cast for a month. For me, the injury did not prompt questions about whether running was a viable long-term pursuit — was there, for instance, something anatomically that would disadvantage me as a long distance runner? — but instead convinced me that a tighter focus on running is what would stave off these injuries in the future. 

In the spring of 2006, the first during which I gave up baseball to pursue distance running as a singular pursuit, I ended up with a lingering shin injury and eventually my season ended with torn ankle ligaments after hitting a rock the wrong way on a run. For the second time in six months, I was in a hard cast. 

The next summer’s training led to a fall with a nagging hip injury. My results did not improve from the prior year. I survived the season, however, without a cast. Then the winter and spring of 2007 proved relatively injury free. And the results were just good enough that the opportunity to run in college was realistic. This, of course, had been the point all along. 

---

In March, the public was made aware of something we all sort of knew was happening, we just didn’t know how. Rich parents were buying their way into college. 

And while the FBI explicitly outlined that putting your name on a building and getting your descendants admission to an elite university as a result is not illegal, paying someone to take the SATs for your kid is. So is sending money to a fixer who sends some money to a college coach who then makes a spot for your kid on a team. Even if they’ve never played the sport. But the system that I think was laid most bare in Operation Varsity Blues is found in the name: it’s about the sports. 

If you watch any college sports, you’ve see a version of this commercial before: “There are over 400,000 NCAA student athletes,” we’re told, “and most of them will be going pro in something other than sports.

And so while the NBA is worried about the load borne by kids playing over 100 games a year between AAU and their school-sponsored team, for those kids the NCAA is the finish line. 

And as the FBI’s investigation into college admissions bribery outlined, one of the surest ways to overachieve your academic limitations is to be a good athlete. 

---

My modest success running long distances encouraged both of my brothers — always superior athletes to me — to pursue running both at a younger age and more seriously than myself. Both of them had considerable success. Both of them attended elite universities they would never have been accepted to based on their academic achievements as a result of this athletic success. The specialization that came to the Udland family ultimately worked out. 

Most weekends in the summer now we play golf together. None of us are particularly great. But the thing with golf is that everyone always thinks that if they could just spend more time practicing... So when we get together, the conversation sometimes leads to “what could have beens” about how things might be if we’d focused on, say, the three sports we all played as young kids (football, basketball, baseball) once we got to high school. Or what kind of golfers we could be if we’d played in high school, and so on. 

It’s the idle talk of former athletes re-living a not-lived version of their glory days. But what these conversations usually ignore is that the specialization we might now dream away was the right decision. It opened to each of us a college experience that would have otherwise been impossible. 

And so when we speak of the ills of youth sports, we must remember that the parents are not motivated because of professional sports, but about college sports. And while playing a sport in college is not realistic for most youth athletes, it is way more realistic than playing a professional sport. And the benefits — namely, an education at a university you might otherwise not be qualified to attend — are worth the risks of having more fun as a kid. Or, at least, that’s how many parents see it. 

---

When I sat down to write this piece, I don’t think I meant to apologize for youth sports culture. And I’m not sure I really did. But re-reading this piece it seems that I have a lot of sympathy for a culture that directs money away from families who don’t have a lot to spare and takes time away from kids who won’t ever get their youth back. 

The youth sports industry is fueled by bitter parents who think things should’ve gone a different way and put that anxiety on a child who is not equipped to know they’re but a pawn in an insecure adult’s do-over. Youth sports should be fun. And for many kids, they are not. 

But the incentives that underwrite the youth sports industry are also not hard to decipher. Athletic achievement for many kids unlocks academic — and in turn, professional — doors that otherwise don’t exist. You can be a national level concert pianist and make your pitch to Harvard on that basis, but if you’re a high school boy that breaks 9:00 for the 2 mile, you’re pretty much in. 

This argument is also the one used by NCAA executives who believe that paying college athletes is not justified. “They get an education,” you hear the amateurism defender saying. “That’s the payment.” And for an Olympic sport athlete, this may well be true. For the members of a major football program where television rights and ticket sales bring in tens of millions of dollars a year, this argument is obfuscating bullshit. 

This argument also leaves out the kids who end up at schools they aren’t really qualified to attend. But the lack of investment in public schools in America is beyond the scope of this post. (The demonization of public schools is one of our nation’s most shameful public policy stances.) 

Holmes’ article simply struck a chord for me because the NBA viewing itself as a relevant stakeholder in the culture of youth sports seems to me like an odd position for the league to take.

The league is defined by a dozen or so stars and their backgrounds are highly varied. LeBron James was The Chosen One at age 16 and has, improbably, exceeded that hype. Kevin Durant went to a major university to play college ball, was a star from the beginning of his freshman season, then entered the league and was one of its best players within three years. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George were overlooked high school players, mid-first round picks, and have grown into themselves. Giannis Antetokounmpo’s journey to the NBA from Greece earned the 60 Minutes treatment. 

All of which is to say that the NBA’s worry about youth sports matters little to the league’s players that actually define for the public what the sport really is about. Which is about stars. 

Certainly, some NBA general managers would like the deeper parts of the league’s pool to be more mobile and less injury prone. The freak leg fracture suffered by Julius Randle — a product of the AAU system and the University of Kentucky’s NBA farm system — was certainly a blow to Randle, his family, and the Los Angeles Lakers. 

But the lesser versions of Julius Randle, the kid from Dayton he played in a summer league tournament back in 2011 that ended up getting a scholarship to Kent State, probably doesn’t regret his choice to overextend himself during high school summers. Because while that kid might’ve had his eye on Ohio State, a scholarship came through. The gamble paid off. 

And when you’re at a desk making calls to sell P&C insurance in suburban Cleveland, you don’t worry about your chronically stiff ankle in the morning. 

Instead you wonder what could’ve been with your buddies, knowing it worked out just fine. 

[corkcitylibraries]

It Seems Like Nothing Changes

Paul Cussen

June 1919

In June 1919 the Cork Furniture Store, which had moved from Merchant Street to a new premises on Winthrop Street, took over London House on Saint Patrick’s Street and expanded to sell ladies clothes.  The firm was owned by William Roche from Killavullen.

The Ford building on the marina covered a floor area of 330,000 square feet, just over 7.5 acres.  The company employed 1,800 workers.  John O’Neill, who joined Ford in 1919 and later became Managing Director of the plant (in 1932), described the plant as being ‘ahead of anything else in Europe’ in terms of layout and equipment.

In late June the lease on the Cork National Shell Factory was taken over from the Corporation of Cork by Richard Woodhead, acting on behalf of the Ford Company.  In the 1930s it was leased to the Lee Motor Company.

Cork hurlers changed from blue jerseys with a large saffron C across the chest after British forces raided the County Board offices in Cook Street and confiscate their kits.

In June 1919 Michael Collins was made president of the IRB (Irish Republician Brotherhood).

Terence MacSwiney led an abortive raid to gain arms and ammunition at the Killeagh air ship base, a facility of the Royal Naval Air Service.

The 2nd Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers remained in France until June 1919 when they returned to England.

From January to June 198 British soldiers in Ireland died: 118 from influenza/pneumonia, 55 died from other natural causes, 6 died from firearms accidents, 15 from accidents not involving firearms and 4 from suicide.

Martin Doyle, originally from New Ross in Wexford, received his Victoria Cross from King George V at Buckingham Palace.  In October 1920 he joined the IRA in East Clare acting as an intelligence officer.

"The Vicious Circle" gathered at the Algonquin for the first time as the result of a practical joke carried out by theatrical press agent John Peter Toohey.  It is only later, with their numbers growing, that they move to the now famous round table.

1 June                        

de Valera embarks on his tour of the USA with three aims:

·         to ask for official recognition of the Irish Republic,

·         to obtain a loan to finance the work of the new government, and

·         to secure the support of the American people for the republic

2 June            

New York City night watchman William Boehner is the only fatality as eight bombs detonate in eight cities across America. Each of the bombs is delivered with several copies of a pink flyer, titled "Plain Words", that read:

War, Class war, and you were the first to wage it under the cover of the powerful institutions you call order, in the darkness of your laws. There will have to be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder: we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; we will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions.

The bombings are carried out by Italian anarchist followers of Luigi Galleani.

3 June            

Private Peter Asher dies of pneumonia at the military hospital in Buttevant.

Today’s Manchester Guardian review of Chekov’s The Seagull says:

“The Seagull” is a low-spirited play, and the sharpness of tragedy in it is blunted by Tchekov’s  (sic) satire and irrelevances of other kinds. Tchekov, as we know from his stories, is a genial soul, and one missed somehow the feeling of sincerity in the climax to-day.

6 June            

June Huband (who used the nom de plume Helen Forrester) is born in Hoylake on Merseyside (d.2011)

The United States Senate pass a resolution asking for the delegation appointed by Dáil Éireann to be given a hearing at the Paris Peace Conference, and expressing sympathy with the “aspirations of the Irish people for a government of their own choice”.

5-7 June          

600-700 Armenian civilians are murdered by armed ethnic Azeri and Kurdish irregulars and Azerbaijani soldiers in the Khaibalikend massacre.

7 June            

The Sette Giugno riots occur in Malta, as a crowd of thousands are shot at by British soldiers. Four die and over 50 are wounded in protests challenging the British presence on the island.

8 June            

Constantine Fitzgibbon is born in The United States (d. 1983)

Coslett Herbert Waddell dies (b. 1858)

 9 June            

The City of Winnipeg Police Commission dismiss almost the entire city police force for refusing to sign a pledge promising to neither belong to a union nor participate in a sympathetic strike.

10 June          

Kevin O’Flanagan is born in Dublin (d. 2006)

14 June          

Walter Weedon Grossmith dies in London (b. 1854)

15 June          

At 8.40 am after flying for 16 hours and 28 minutes and covering 1,900 miles without stopping, John Alcock and Arthur Brown mistook Derrigimlagh bog for a landing strip and landed their plane completing the first transatlantic flight.

“I’m Alcock – just come from Newfoundland”, the Vimy pilot told the Marconi technicians that had tried to warn them about the bog.

“Yesterday, I was in America, and I’m the first man in Europe ever to say that.” – Arthur Brown

16 June          

Fourteen IRA volunteers from the Kilbrittain company ambush a six-man British Army-RIC patrol at Rathclarin, Co. Cork and seize 5 rifles, one revolver and 200 rounds of ammunition. Only 2 of the IRA men are armed for the ambush. Volunteer Mick O’Neill is injured in the raid which was not sanctioned by Brigade HQ. "The fact that it was completely successful had an immense effect on morale and on the whole direction of the volunteer military effort in West Cork."

Greek forces lose 20 men in the Malgaç Raid as Turkish forces destroy the railway bridge and capture weapons and ammunition.

17 June          

Station-Sergeant Thomas Green is wounded in the Epsom Riot when 400 Canadian troops attack the police station after two soldiers had been arrested.

18 June          

The Dáil establishes the National Arbitration Courts.

19 June          

The Dáil approves the First Dáil Loan (for £500,000)

 20-21 June      

Greek forces suffer 30-80 killed and 40 wounded in the Turkish raid on Erbeyli. 72 Turkish civilians are abducted and executed by Greek troops as a warning against future raids.

22 June          

A tornado kills 57 people in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

Greek units suffer 30 killed and 40 wounded in the Turkish raid on Erikli. This causes Greek forces to retreat.

Approximately 1,500 servicemen or ex-sevicemen from 18 countries compete in the Inter-Allied Games in Le Stade Pershing outside of Paris.

23 June          

RIC Detective D.I. Michael Hunt is shot twice in the back in a scuffle with IRA volunteers Jim Stapleton and James Murphy in Thurles, Co. Tipperary.

24 June          

Two RIC officers are attacked and disarmed near Meenascarthy, Co. Kerry. Ten IRA volunteers are later arrested and five of them sentenced to gaol.

25 June          

24 Americans are killed and 25 wounded repelling Red Army forces at the Battle of Romanovka. The Red army lose a similar number of men. 

26 June          

Castletownbere born William Martin Murphy dies in Dublin (b. 1845)

28 June          

The Treaty of Versailles is signed in the Hall of Mirrors.

Two British soldiers are killed while on patrol by the Irish Republician Army.

Ion Dezideriu Sîrbu is born in Petrila (d. 1989)

 29 June          

Dáil Courts are established to hear civil cases.

Cork players wear red jerseys for the first time as they play against Tipperary in the Munster Hurling Semi-Final at the Cork Athletic Grounds in Ballintemple. The admission price is increased from sixpence to 1 shilling which results in protests that include sections of sheet iron being torn down at one end of the grounds. The result of the match is Cork  2-4  Tipperary  2-3.

[forestwater87]

(whispers seductively) Talk to me about a high school Gwenvid AU

OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY

So I was initially saving this to talk all about how in high school David was the sunny B-student who founded Nature Club and was friends almost exclusively with girls because guys treated him kinda badly, and how Gwen was the high-schooler-pretending-she-likes-coffee straight-A-but-not-valedictorian student who was in virtually all the clubs – especially yearbook, definitely yearbook – but didn’t really have any friends, and how maybe they met because they were the only ones willing to do some shit task for the school (her because it’d look good on her applications, him out of an overwhelming desire to help out) and are forced to hang out and grow closer and fall in love and all that doofy stuff.

And I do still love all of that.

But.

BUT.

Then my discord starting talking about a version of teenage David (heavily based on this picture) where he went through a punk phase, and … my fingers slipped, guys.

(Parts of this were heavily influenced by chats with @ciphernetics​. And I think calling Cute Waitress Clementine was originally the invention of @mysterysmiley​, but I’m not entirely positive? I just know I didn’t come up with it and I’m happy to credit whoever did. Oh, and this characterization of Jasper is, of course, largely the creation of the marvelous @hopefullypessimistic84​)

Hufflepunk

Being unconditionally polite, kind, and compassionate in a society that values and finds “deeper meaning” in aloofness and cynicism is subversive and thus punk

“Christ.” Gwen checks her watch and stands up on the balls of her feet, rolling her neck to loosen the tension in her shoulders. She’s positive Fred had told her the Crafts Club meets at 4:30 … has she gotten the location wrong?

Five minutes, she tells herself, glancing around the empty classroom as though people will spontaneously burst up from the tiled floor. She still has to get a couple pictures of lacrosse practice before the high school talent show begins — she wishes she hadn’t volunteered to cover the event, but she owes the head of the school newspaper a favor — and somewhere in there she’s supposed to fit five pages of extra-credit math homework!

She doesn’t have time to hang around.

Worst-case scenario, we just pretend there isn’t a Crafts Club. Not like anyone’s going to complain. Nobody she knows is in it, and Gwen knows almost everyone (not well, but she doesn’t have time to know people well. “Getting to know people” isn’t something she’s ever been very good at, anyway).

She’s just about to leave the stifling-silent classroom when the door flies open, smacking into the wall and bouncing off of it with a noise that makes her flinch. She sees boots, heavy and industrial and grass-stained, then immediately ducks her head and pretends to be deeply engrossed in her phone. Like someone who has a personal life or something.

“Y’know, one’a these days you’re gonna give someone a concussion doing that.”

“Oh, don’t be silly! No one stands that close to a door that swings in!” The second voice is light, laughing — vaguely familiar in a way she can’t place.

“It’s your funeral, string bean. But don’t expect Bonquisha to bail you out if you tick off someone bigger than you.”

There’s a snort, loud and (she suspects) intentionally disgusting. “So, everyone.”

“I don’t think that’s — um.” The footsteps stop suddenly, as do the voices. “Are we in the right room?”

Figuring she can’t pretend to text any longer, Gwen glances up with an expression she hopes reads “polite disinterest” and fears comes off more like “suffering from minor digestive discomfort.” She holds up the camera looped around her neck, wishing — not for the first time — that they were just allowed to use their phones instead of the crappy Kodaks provided by the school. “Uh, hi. I’m —”

RAPRAPRAP.

They all glance over at the window, one of the students, a boy with a red hoodie that hides most of his face, rushing over to open it and let a brightly-colored teenager vault inside.

“— from the … yearbook committee.” She’s more than a little thrown off by the commotion, but tries to pull herself together. “We’re going around —”

“The classrooms have doors, genius,” the guy in the hoodie says, slamming the window shut. “New thing they’re trying out these days.”

“Where’s the fun in that? The flair?”

“— taking photos of all the clubs —”

“You and your goddamn flair, Jesus.”

“— for the, you know … yearbook.” She keeps her attention focused on the only one who’s addressed her so far, the one she recognizes now from one of her science classes. Something with a D … “You guys are the Crafts Club?”

(She tries to keep the disbelief out of her voice.)

(She’s pretty sure she fails.)

“Well …” D-something glances at his friends — the hoodie boy, with green-rimmed eyes and artful stubble that must’ve taken weeks; the one with flair, who is dressed in and pierced with and dyed so many colors he’s almost hard to look at; and the only girl, someone she remembers being slightly terrified of in gym a few years ago because she throws like she’s trying to set the air on fire — and turns back to her with a shrug and a bashful grin, as if he knows how ridiculous they look together. “Yeah! That’s us.”

Sure.

Why the hell not?

“You’re Gwen, right? Gwen Santos?” He watches with patient interest as she nods, then steps forward, extending a hand (shaking up the sleeve of his jacket, which hangs from his skinny frame). “We’re in Chemistry together, but you probably don’t remember me! She usually sits in the front,” he adds to the others, like that explains everything. “I’m David.”

David, right.

David with the short red mohawk and the little rings marching up the shell of his ear and the spiked leather jackets and the tight black jeans and the giant, grass-stained, door-kicking-in boots that must weigh half as much as he does. David with the insightful questions and the eager-to-help attitude and the tendency to make things explode and no one can tell if it’s an accident or not. David, who was forced to sit in the front for three days for fiddling with the lab equipment before the teacher got tired of his ceaseless humming and banished him to the back of the room again.

Gwen takes his hand, feeling a little like she’s dreaming. There’s a greyscale rose on his hand, beautiful and intricate. “Is this real?” she asks, twisting his hand to watch the thorny stem snake around his wrist.

David tugs his hand away with an embarrassed chuckle. “No, I can’t afford that,” he says, glancing over his shoulder and jerking his chin toward the kid with the neon clothes. “Jasper’s a great artist, though!”

Jasper tilts his head at them, blue-tipped blond waves falling over his eyes, and gives her a lopsided grin. “All you need is a long study hall and a lot of boredom,” he says with a shrug. “And you can’t mind getting absolutely fucked up on Sharpie fumes.”

The girl — Bonquisha, that’s right — sets her backpack down and flicks one of Jasper’s shoes (the pink one. The other is a completely different style, Converse instead of a black knee-high heeled boot (how does he walk?) with bright orange laces). “Like anyone thinks you mind that, Ghost.”

“Ghost?” Gwen knows she really should just shut up and take the pictures, because even if her schedule wasn’t beyond full there’s no way she’s hanging out voluntarily with these guys and risk coming home reeking of smoke, but … she’s curious.

Fuck it, isn’t that a good enough reason?

“Because I’m a ninja,” he intones, leaning forward eagerly. “So sneaky I can —” he snaps, then wiggles his fingers, “— vanish into thin air.”

She frowns. “So … why don’t they call you Ninja?”

Jasper pauses, looking thoughtful, but the one in the hoodie jumps in before he can answer: “Because he’s a clumsy idiot who should’ve died, like, twenty times before we started high school. We think he has to already be dead to —”

“To pull off those sick stunts?” Jasper says this with a bright, cheesy grin; instead of finishing his sentence, the other kid drops his head in one hand and sighs deeply. “Come on, Kev; you don’t like my sweet, radical Parkour moves?”

“I don’t like you.”

“Come on, guys, be nice,” David pleads, shoving his hands in his back pockets and rocking onto his heels. “We have company.”

We have company — like they’re a family and she’s some sort of special guest. Gwen bites her lip to keep from smiling and fiddles with her lens cap.

“So I guess there’s no field trip today, huh?” Bonquisha says, glancing over at Gwen before giving David a meaningful look.

“Oh, I don’t know about that! We’ll just have to see. It’s fine, though,” he adds with a hasty look at Gwen, like he’s nervous he hurt her feelings, “we have tons of stuff we can work on here!” He fumbles in his bag, then looks up questioningly. “So should we pose, or are you just …”

She nods, snapping back to herself. “Uh … nah, just do your thing and I’ll take a couple photos. Then I’ll leave you guys alone.” As they all pull out varying-sized knitting needles and colorful yarn, she takes a couple steps back, trying to figure out where the cheap fluorescent lighting is best. “Where’s your faculty advisor?” she asks.

Kevin and Jasper both groan and roll their eyes, but David glows, straightening up. “Oh, Mr. Campbell! He’s … busy, lately, and hasn’t had a ton of time to stop by for our meetings.”

“Which is why we picked him,” Kevin mutters under his breath, ignoring the reproving frown David shoots his way.

“But he’s very supportive of our crafts, and I make sure to email him pictures of our projects!”

Mr. Campbell was technically the superintendent of the school, but he was usually off doing … who knew? Superintendent stuff, probably. Gwen is faintly impressed that they managed to nail the support of someone so important; it’s probably why they can get away with meeting after the school closes, without supervision, to … knit.

Apparently.

“What’re you doing?” she asks, half to make conversation and half out of genuine curiosity. She circles to take a few more pictures, lingering in a spot where David’s earrings flash bright under the ceiling lights and Bonquisha’s hair — the side that isn’t shaved, that is, and falls in long dark dreads interwoven with red sparkling tinsel — catches the setting sun.

The club members are each so captivating, it’s hard to remember she’s actually supposed to be photographing what they’re doing.

David holds his up for her to see: a complex tangle of braided pink, blue, and purple yarn. “We’re making beards! Well — most of us are.”

“Fuck you, I wanna make Cthulhu,” Jasper muttered, twining yellow thread around his crochet hook. Other tentacles in pastel colors fall in a general beard shape, spread across his lap.

None of the beards are actually beard-colored; she thinks of questioning it, but decides not to. After all, it’s not like any of them have natural-colored hair anyway. “What for?”

“Just for fun!” David chirps quickly.

“No reason,” Jasper adds at the same time.

“Fake IDs,” Kevin says, talking over the others.

They’re all quiet for a moment. “So … like a costume?” Gwen finally asks.

“Yes! Halloween!” “For Comic-Con.” “To buy booze.”

Bonquisha rolls her eyes and keeps knitting. “They’re decorations.”

Gwen falls silent, watching them work. The colors — remind her of something, she doesn’t know what. David’s epic beard that reminds her of Lord of the Rings; Jasper’s in pale shades of yellow, pink, and blue; Kevin’s looks like every color of the rainbow, and Bonquisha’s alternates between light blue, pink, and white.

Four beards … “Oh my god, are you’re gonna put these on those new statues?” Sleepy Peak, in a rousing act of patriotism, had installed four giant gold-looking statues in front of the Town Hall that represented the founding fathers of the town. In a completely-unrelated act of equal patriotism, the city also recently voted not to pass a bill prohibiting employer discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. “They’re gonna get taken down.”

David’s blushing pinker than the yarn twined around his fingers, but he gives her a cheeky smile. “Not before people take pictures.”

“It’s more about the statement,” Jasper says, reaching for the pink ball of yarn. “Davey’s all about making statements.”

“Your statements are gonna get moldy.”

Kevin grins up at Gwen. “I thought we should just drive Bon’s truck into the ugly fucking things, but they voted me down.”

“Not me,” Jasper says, raising one hand without looking up. “I was all for it.”

Bonquisha glares at them both. “I’m not paying for that shit!”

“Your car’s practically a monster truck, it’d be fine!”

David watches his friends argue with a small, slightly tired smile, then turns back to Gwen. She takes a seat at the desk next to him and asks, “So, why don’t you? Do more … destructive shit, I mean. Something that’ll last longer than a couple days.”

“Oh god,” Jasper moans dramatically, abandoning his conversation with Bon and Kevin. “I know you’re new, but one rule? Please, please don’t get him started. Ever. On anything.”

“Hey, it’s an excellent question!” David protests, and if he was standing she has the distinct impression his hands would be on his hips. “Most people don’t understand the difference between anarchy and —”

He’s drowned out by a chorus of groans and gives up, shaking his head and returning to his knitting.

“It’s about inspiring thought, not fear,” he murmurs. “Mindless violence doesn’t do anyone any good.” She has the impression he wants to say more and is deliberately holding his tongue.

“No kidding?” Sometime, she thinks, she’d like to hear more about his philosophy. It’s interesting.

“So we’re all finished over here,” Kevin says loudly, jolting David and Gwen from their conversation. “If you guys are finally done flirting, can we go on a field trip?”

Flushing, he ties off the end of his beard and shoves it and his knitting supplies back into his bag. “You’re so immature,” he hisses, which makes the others snicker. 

(Gwen bites back her own laughter; for a kid in chains and spikes, David’s … kind of a grandma.)

“What’s the field trip?” she asks, and then immediately wishes she could kick herself, because that sounds like she’s inviting herself along, which of course she doesn’t want to do — she’s already late to photograph the lacrosse team and there’s no way she can miss the talent show tonight, not to mention that she really doesn’t need to get in trouble and these guys have trouble written all over them (a gentle, kind of ill-thought-out sort of trouble, but trouble nonetheless) — and of course they wouldn’t want her along — she’s awkward and unlikable and she makes people feel uncomfortable, she knows that, with her weird questions and her infrequent eye contact and her inability to know whether she’s talking too much or too little but it’s never the right amount or about the right things so how could she just force herself into their —

“First we gotta water our graffiti, then we’ll hit the bleachers.” When she just stares at him in baffled silence, Kevin rolls his eyes and gestures for her to follow them. “Come on, but put the camera away. This won’t look good in the yearbook.”

She pauses — was she really being invited along? Did she even want to be? — and Bonquisha wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Do you ever smile, Gwen? Or is this whole gloomy-girl thing part of your look?”

She isn’t sure if she should be insulted, but there’s a kind a snarky amiability these people all share that’s … much more comfortable than any type of friendship she’s tried to fit herself into before. “I don’t … really have a look,” she admits, letting herself be pulled down the hallway toward the school’s back doors.

Bon hums thoughtfully. “No kidding. Eh, whatever,” she squeezes Gwen’s shoulders, “neither does Kevin, and we still let him hang around.”

“I have a great look!”

“‘Hey kids, wanna buy some shit?’ isn’t a look, Kev.”

“It’s better than yours, Jasp!”

For the first time since she met the Crafts Club — for the first time in far longer, if she’s being honest — Gwen allows herself to laugh.

It feels pretty good.

“So every few days we just —” David spritzes wall with his water bottle, beaming, “— and sometimes on weekends I come by to paint over the design!”

Gwen eyes the wall skeptically; so far there’s no sign of the moss they assure her has been painted onto the school’s sullen red brick in the words “campe diem” (which she doesn’t think is real Latin). “And it’s actually gonna work?”

“Oh, sure,” Jasper says, nodding sagely. “One-hundred-percent success rate, just like all DIY projects from the internet.”

“Dave has a green thumb,” Bonquisha assures her. “I think he’ll make it work.”

Jasper leans into David, bumping shoulders and waggling his eyebrows. “Got more than a green thumb, if ya know what I’m saying.” 

There’s a moment of confused silence. “So … like, an STD?” Kevin finally says. “Or like, he was bitten by a radioactive broccoli on the dick and —”

“Okay!” David snaps pointedly, not-very-gently shoving Kevin’s backpack. “Let’s go to the bleachers right now!”

“What happens at the bleachers?” Gwen asks, feeling very innocent and very stupid with every question.

David’s expression switches from exasperated to sunny in a second. “Oh, right! Well, we can’t decorate the statues until later tonight. And Kevin has … another job. So we’re killing some time.”

“Yeah, speaking of,” Kevin interrupts, turning to Gwen, “got any cash on you? Because this shit ain’t cheap.”

David rolls his eyes. “Nice tact.”

“Hey, you guys n’ gals don’t love me for my tact.”

“I’ll cover her, don’t worry about it.” He grins at her. “And Jasper’s the DD tonight —”

“And just fucking thrilled about it.”

“— so you don’t have to worry about anyone driving while impaired!”

Gwen’s heard stories about the idiots who get stoned under the bleachers. She just never thought she’d be quite so tempted to be one of those idiots. “I …” she begins, sighing. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but I promised I’d —”

David jumps in, waving his hands almost frantically. “No, of course not! Don’t worry — of course you don’t want — that’s not like the only thing we do, so if you wanted … another time, maybe … or you and I and Jasper could maybe go for a walk or —”

“No, seriously, I have to …” She trails off, spotting a familiar pink ponytail in the throng of students lazily milling around the track. “Hold on.” Sprinting up to Clementine, Gwen grabs her shoulder a little rougher than intended. (Why was she so damn bad at this?) “Hey, you going to the talent show tonight?”

Clementine beams. “Sure am! You’ll be there, right?”

“Actually …” Gwen bites her lip and takes a deep breath. “Any chance I could get you to take some pictures for the newspaper? Just like, two or three, please, something came up.” She holds up the camera and tries to smile as winningly as possible.

She tilts her head to the side, pretty green eyes narrowing doubtfully. “I’m not sure, darlin. You know I’d love to help, but I’m no photographer.”

“You kinda owe me, Clem.” Gwen hates pulling these strings, but basically everyone in every school club owes her something for something; she’s the unofficial go-to girl when anyone needs a quick replacement. (It’s not like she’s ever busy — most of the time.) “Besides, it’ll be like a fun thing for you and Fred to do, right?”

Clementine sighs, her expression softening. “Sure, Gwennie.” (Gwen tries not to flinch at the nickname.) “Y’all have a good time with whatever you’re doing, ya hear?” She can tell from Clementine’s tone of voice that she thinks Gwen’s blowing this off for a date.

And … she’s kinda surprised she doesn’t mind her thinking that. “I’ll do my best,” she says, tugging the camera from around her neck and handing it over. “Oh, and can you take some pictures of lacrosse practice while you’re at it okay thanks!”

She takes off before Clementine can answer, eyes scanning the schoolyard for her flock of showy birds.

Okay, not hers. She doesn’t have any claim to them.

But she wonders if, maybe, they’ll eventually want to make a claim to her.

“So,” Jasper says conversationally, in the tone that David knows means trouble, “didn’t occur to you that maybe one of the most notoriously straightlaced kids in the school might not be super into our devious ganja lifestyle, huh?”

“She said she’ll be back,” David mutters; she hadn’t exactly said that, but what else would “hold on” mean? What were they holding on for, anyway?

They’re quiet for a moment, letting Bon and Kevin wander over to another group of people. David thinks for a second that Jasper might for once let something go.

“You’ve been in love with her for months and you seriously never thought she doesn’t smoke? Not even once?”

“Shhhh!” He shoves Jasper’s shoulder, looking around to make sure no one heard. “Stop it!”

Jasper snickers, shaking his head. “She sits in the front of the classroom, Davey.”

Like David doesn’t know that. Like he hasn’t spent the entire school year carefully memorizing the back of her head, and wondering what kind of thoughts lived inside it. “She laughed,” he says miserably, drawing in on himself. “She asked questions.”

His expression softens, and he shifts a little closer. “I know. And I bet she’ll be back in a couple minutes.” Keeping his eyes turned toward Bonquisha and Kevin, Jasper lets his fingers brush the backs of David’s lightly, almost catching his hand but not quite.

David tries not to blush and feels his face heat up anyway. “There are people here,” he whines, hating fact that he’s whining. “We’ll …” get in trouble sounds ridiculous, but it’s the first thing that pops into his head.

Not that Sleepy Peak is all that bad for his friends, not really. They’ve just — had some issues, before. Issues that required him to be a lot less pacifist than he liked. And it scared him, and it still scares him a little. Not that he can’t take care of himself, they all can, but it’s still … unpleasant.

Jasper gives him a small, bitter smile. “Plus we wouldn’t want the pretty new girl to think we’re a couple fags, huh?”

“Come on, Jasp, it’s not like that.”

(It’s … a little like that. He hates himself for it, but there’s a tiny bit of him that’s worried Gwen might get … the wrong idea, is all. And Jasper’s dirty jokes and little touches and gentle knowing looks are all very suggestive of a wrong idea.)

“If it helps, you’ve got a really shitty poker face, so unless she’s totally oblivious she’s gonna figure out you’re crazy about her anyway.” He gives David a sly grin and lets their hands brush again. “And she saw you holding a giant Viking beard bi flag, so the secret might already be kinda out.”

David shoots him a look that’s supposed to be a lot sterner than it is, but he can’t keep his lips from wanting to twitch upwards. That’s just what happens when he looks at Jasper. “That doesn’t mean anything! Bon made a trans beard, so you can’t assume —”

Jasper interrupts him with a laugh, shaking his head. “Still, if she’s gonna be hanging around, she’s going to learn all your secrets,” he teases, wiggling his fingers ominously. “Like the fact that you’re a filthy criminal who vandalizes public property while high on the devil’s lettuce!”

“She already knows that, Jasp.”

“Oh. Right.” They stand quietly for a few minutes, watching the various sports practices wrap up and the players meander back toward the school. “It worked out all right, Davey. With Bon, I mean. It can work again.”

He shakes his head. He can’t do that again. Yeah, it worked out in the end and the three of them escaped the breakup with their friendship intact, but … “I need someone who likes you, too.”

“And who says she won’t? I’m charming and lovable and have an amazing fashion sense.” When David rolls his eyes — something he can only do without guilt at Jasper — he chuckles and bumps their shoulders together. “Hey, I bagged you.”

“Yeah. You did.” He glances up and sees Gwen hurrying back in their direction; on a sudden, foolish impulse he reaches over and links his fingers through Jasper’s, shifting closer so it’s not immediately visible to anyone people-watching.

He glances down, eyebrows raising. “You sure? You don’t have to.”

“I’m sure.”

He drops his voice as she gets closer, speaking quickly. “If you chicken out, I’ll just mercilessly hit on her.”

David isn’t sure if that’s reassurance, a threat, or just an attempt to make him smile. 

Whatever it is, it works.

“Sorry about that,” she says, brushing away a strand of hair that escaped her ponytail. She smiles at them both, a little shy but genuine and achingly beautiful. “I’m all yours now, though.”

Jasper realizes quickly that David isn’t really capable of words at the moment and flashes her his sunniest grin. “Don’t sign up for anything you can’t handle,” he jokes, reaching out with his free hand and taking hers. (David suppresses a gasp with effort; it never fails to shock him how brave his boyfriend is, how confident that whatever he does will work out somehow, for no other reason than that he wants it to.)

Gwen looks surprised for a second, and when she sees them holding hands it turns slightly to confusion. But then her eyes meet David’s and he can almost see the moment she decides to just roll with it. “Hey, I’m pretty brave,” she shoots back, turning her attention back to Jasper. “You might not know this, but I’m apparently going to break the law today.”

He mock-gasps. “I’m not sure we can keep you around! You’ll tarnish our innocence.”

David falls back, letting his hand slip through Jasper’s until only their fingertips are touching. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be part of the conversation, but there’s something nice about standing here in the honeyed yellow sunset, letting their voices wash around him like the breeze. Cozy, somehow.

“Hey!” Bonquisha calls, snagging Kevin by the hood and dragging him toward them. “You guys bringing Gloomy along, or what?”

The three of them share a look, and Gwen’s lips twist into a smirk. “That’s an unfortunate nickname.”

“String Bean and Ghost would argue there are worse ones,” Jasper replies dryly, and she lets out a surprised laugh, covering her mouth and blushing. “Oh, she’s adorable,” he says in a very loud stage whisper, leaning in toward David. “Can we keep her?”

“Stop!” she says, tugging her hand from his. She’s — she’s giggling, when before in class he’s hardly even seen her smile, and she hasn’t even started smoking yet, David’s pretty sure this is just the effect Jasper has on people but seeing it firsthand makes him think he might faint.

Can we keep her?

David tightens his hand around Jasper’s and shifts in a little closer — and trusts that he knows the answer is a resounding Yes.

[nekojitachan]

AFTG Fic -Hang a Shining Star

This is my TFC-Net Secret Santa post for @twnyards - who wanted “I got u in an office secret santa and i no Nothing about u so now i have to get to know u so i can buy u a gift”. I hope this fits somewhat?

Andreil (well, pre-Andreil) secret Santa shenanigans, in NO WAY is Andrew low-key crushing on the new guy. Nope, nope, nope. Possible plotting Renee with a bit of Renison thrown in there.

*******

Andrew stared at the slip of paper which Renee had just handed him from the company’s annual ‘secret Santa’ exchange. “Not only don’t I care, but I don’t know who-“

“Ah,” she chided him before he could rattle off Josten’s name. “We’re not supposed to reveal who we have until the party next Friday.”

He gave her a flat look as he crumpled the slip of paper. “This is ridiculous. Why do we even bother?”

“Because it’s a nice tradition?” she tried before she sighed and went for the throat. “Because we spend half the day eating all the food Wymack buys for us and whatever anyone brings in while we exchange the gifts, so that means you don’t have to work for four hours while stuffing yourself with a lot of desserts.”

Renee knew him rather well, dammit. “You better bring your double chocolate cheesecake,” he warned as he barely resisted the urge to throw the slip of paper back in her smirking face.

“Of course! And lots of fudge, too.” She smiled at him, all too aware of his weak points after working together for the last few years. “I might even try this eggnog cake recipe, if I have the time.”

Sweets and alcohol, how could he resist. “Find the time if you expect me to buy something for this person,” he demanded before stalking away, done dealing with people for the day.

He should be used to the damn gift exchange after working for Fleet Foxes the last five years, it was just that he ‘somehow’ usually got Renee or Aaron or Nicky, whom he didn’t mind to buy something small for (the limit was twenty dollars). One year he got Kevin, which had been almost amusing to find the most historically incorrect DVD series he could find to gift the history fanatic, and then walk away whenever Kevin had ranted about the show’s many, many inaccuracies (or even better, to listen to his coworkers complain about being trapped in the breakroom during one of Kevin’s rants).

Except that year? He’d gotten stuck with one Neil Josten, which he remembered setting up access for the guy after running the basic background check (nothing out of the ordinary… in fact, almost suspiciously nothing at all in the guy’s background). No, the only thing that had stood out about one Neil Josten, hired to work on translating the company’s websites into a few different languages and assist in customer service in said languages was that he was only a couple of inches taller than Andrew’s five feet. That and the faded scars on his too-attractive face.

Andrew had never imagined that he’d one day be holding down a nine-to-five job… but he supposed that there was an exception somewhere for him to be working for a former guidance counselor who took on all the hard luck cases back in his old high school whom he’d fought for to get various scholarships to universities, only to quit his job upon finding out that he had a son of his own and go on to form a company which put together and sold sports equipment to children with special needs. David Wymack just didn’t know when to give up… but Andrew guessed that was in part why he held any amount of respect for the man, why Wymack had managed to not be driven away by a certain messed-up kid with more than enough anger issues after bouncing around various (abusive) foster homes before his ‘lovely’ mother had decided to take him back in.

All that really mattered in the end was that Wymack had hired him to put that criminal justice degree to good use on background checks to make sure that the employees he hired were on the up and up and that the various charities and organizations weren’t trying to pull a fast one on the company, and that his twin brother Aaron had a stable job while he worked on his pre-med degree, down in the free clinic which the company offered for the families which often couldn’t afford healthcare, let alone the fancy wheelchairs and bikes and other pieces of equipment that the Fleet Foxes (or FF, as most of the employees referred to the company), gave out to the poor kids in order to make their lives better.

Which was why he suffered through the stupid holiday parties and whatever else do-gooders like Renee organized, though the free food and generous plates of desserts always helped. That almost all of the employees had learned to leave him alone by then, with the exceptions of Bee and Renee and Wymack.

Except that now he had to figure out a gift for one Neil Josten, dammit. Part of Andrew was tempted to just throw together a bag of socks and a Starbucks gift card… but then he remembered a pair of icy blue eyes and auburn curls and high cheekbones and….

DAMMIT.

He blamed it all on the fact that his longstanding fuck-buddy, Roland, had found a boyfriend in the last few months, which meant that Andrew didn’t have a convenient means of release other than his own right hand. Which meant instead of creamy dark brown skin and honey colored eyes, lately he’d been imaging pale gold skin and fire-dipped curls and-

He needed to stop thinking about Neil Josten.

Except now he needed to get a damn present for the gorgeous enigma, it seemed.

He spent three days trying to figure out the quiet young man who came in early in the morning (too early for Andrew’s tastes), didn’t seem to talk much to the other employees and remained in his own little office before leaving hours before Andrew (who arrived well after 9am). Josten dressed as if he raided Goodwill for clothes, his outfits hanging from his slim frame.

Still, knowing that the redhead was an early riser and a loner wasn’t really much of anything, so Andrew braced himself for the worst and turned to his cousin Nicky, who also worked for Wymack in the marketing department, along with Aaron.

“Eh, Neil?” Nicky squealed during their shared ‘family’ coffee break on Thursday. “The cutie? The cutie with the gorgeous eyes and the tight ass?”

“The linguistic guy,” Andrew stressed as he gave his cousin a flat look. “Say anything else and you better have signed up for the high level insurance premium.”

Nicky laughed at that until he finally seemed to figure out that Andrew wasn’t kidding. “Okay, okay!” He held his hands up for a few seconds while smiling nervously. “Neil Josten, yeah!”

“The antisocial asshole,” Aaron murmured into his huge mug of coffee. “Wouldn’t take off his shirt while Katelyn did his physical.”

Andrew turned his flat look on his brother, unwilling to hear about the ‘girlfriend’ at the moment. “I like him better all of a sudden.”

Aaron gave him the finger for that comment while Nicky laughed again, just a nervous. “Neil, okay? He actually gets along with Matt, but I think it’s more because Matt doesn’t give him much of a choice,” Nicky confessed. “Matt seemed to latch on to him as someone who needed a buddy, and Neil will go out to lunch with him once or twice a week.” The more he spoke, the more Nicky calmed down and seemed interested in the topic. “He’s quiet and keeps to himself, but he seems to like tea and will eat a lot of different stuff for lunch, according to Matt, but no sweets. He never touches any of the donuts that anyone brings in or the birthday treats.”

In other words, the guy was a freak. “So bad taste in food, friends and clothes,” Andrew murmured as he put together a mental image of the new guy based on what Nicky had just said.

“You noticed, too?” Nicky perked up on that as he went to refill his mug with some more coffee. “He really needs some new clothes, he’s too hot to wear stuff that’s like, ten years old. At least? I mean, it’s all clean and everything, but he looks like he was dressed by his grandfather or something.”

“It’s work, not Eden’s,” Aaron said as he rolled his eyes as he mentioned the club where Roland bartended. “Who cares?”

“How are we related?” Nicky gasped. “Hot guys should always look hot!”

Andrew pushed away from the counter he’d been leaning against before the conversation degraded any further. “Anything else?” Checking his emails was more interesting than listing to Nicky’s inane prattle.

“Uhm… oh, yeah! Neil has a thing for cats,” Nicky offered up with a grin. “I overheard him say something about having to go out to buy cat food one day. Did that help?” He gave Andrew a hopeful smile, which Andrew ignored as he left the breakroom.

So, tea, something to do with cats, maybe a nice sweater or something – now Andrew had an idea of what to get the new guy. Yet instead of logging on to Amazon and finding something under the price limit, he spent the next few days lingering in the breakroom and outside of his office as much as possible, suffering Nicky and Renee and the others just so he could catch a glimpse of one Neil Josten.

The weather had taken a ‘cold’ turn for the end of the year (as much as it ever did in South Carolina), which meant that Josten showed up in overlarge sweatshirts and sweaters, all of them appearing old and faded and a few washes away from fraying – and none of them having anything to do with the holiday (that was one thing which Andrew approved of, considering how much grief he got over wearing black all through December). There was indeed traces of black and grey cat hair on his blue sweatshirt the one day, confirming that he had at least one cat, and Andrew watched him turn down a slice of Renee’s rather good coffee cake in the breakroom on Monday while he made himself a cup of what looked to be some sort of black tea. He was polite but distance, and seemed to miss her question about what he’d done over the weekend before he excused himself.

He was also quick on his feet, and quiet, too.

Andrew helped himself to an extra-large slice of the coffee cake since Josten hadn’t taken any. “Someone’s shy.”

Renee shrugged as she made herself some herbal tea. “He doesn’t like to be put on the spot, but if Matt’s around, he’ll open up a little. You should see the picture of his two cats, they’re adorable. He rescued them from a shelter.” She smiled at Andrew, the expression warm and inviting, which he knew better than to trust after digging into her background. “Said that it’s nice to have something to come home to each night.”

In other words, Josten was single, not that Andrew cared or anything. “I imagine the furballs are about as useful as Nicky,” Andrew drawled before he took a big bite of the slice of cake, his gaze locked with Renee’s.

“Maybe,” Renee answered with that damn knowing smile on her face. “You should talk to him at the party on Friday, I think you two have a lot in common.”

He didn’t answer that, he just ate the cake in steady bites before he topped off his mug with more coffee, sugar and milk and then left the room.

If he happened to eat lunch at the same Chinese place where Boyd took Josten on Tuesday? Pure coincidence. He sat at a table by himself and watched Boyd urge Josten to eat some more while the redhead poked at his noodle dish and nodded along with whatever his gregarious coworker said (the kids loved Boyd, who worked events with Wilds and Renee where they gave out the various pieces of equipment and made sure it met the kids’ needs and everything). Andrew noticed how Josten seemed to keep his head down, his hair falling onto his face and eyes, as if to avoid drawing attention to himself.

Yet he still drew looks, and not just because of the faded slashes on his left cheek and the burn on his right (which Andrew hadn’t found anything about, despite all of his digging), not when they failed to detract from the fact that he still was a very attractive young man.

… Andrew really needed to stop thinking things like that.

Still, he finally had an idea of what to get the guy (and if it went over the price limit a bit, who the hell cared?), and placed the order along with some more thick socks for himself and a new mug which read ‘I don’t like MORNING PEOPLE. Or mornings. Or people.’

The next couple of days he had to put up with Nicky babbling about the present he got for his secret Santa and Aaron whining about if his present for the annoying girlthing would be good enough (Andrew didn’t give a shit about either, but most especially the latter), and spent most of his time at work playing solitaire since there was so little to do now that the holiday rush was over. Friday finally came, and all he cared about was the one conference room on the second floor filled with food and the fact that they had the next week off, per Wymack’s ridiculously generous holiday package (something about spending time with loved ones and family – Andrew planned to be barricaded in his room as much as possible to avoid seeing Nicky and Aaron).

Most of the staff had shown up in horrendous holiday sweaters, Nicky included, which made Andrew want to grab some food and retreat back into his small office until it was time to leave for the day, but Wymack insisted on everyone spending some time together, the bastard. The old man wore a bright red and green sweater with the words ‘Oh Snap’ on the front and the image of a broken gingerman cookie, of all things, with Abby standing next to him with a sloth wearing a Santa’s hat on hers.

The worst part of it all? No real alcohol at the damn event. At least Renee had made the eggnog cake, so Andrew headed straight for it and cut himself a huge slice.

“I want to thank you all for another great year here at Fleet Foxes, for all the kids we made happy and the wishes we’ve fulfilled,” Wymack said as he smiled at everyone gathered in the conference room. “I couldn’t have done it without your hard work, and I look forward to another successful year.”

People cheered and clapped to that bit of trite nonsense, while Kevin glared at Andrew for eating cake through it all. Wilds was quick to take over and start calling out names so people could come and collect their gifts while everyone helped themselves to the food (Andrew remained by the cake since Renee had outdone herself on it), and Josten was one of the first few who went up to fetch his.

Andrew munched on the cake while Josten accepted the large bag and would have stepped away with it, except that Wilds made him show everyone what was inside. Clearly nervous with all of the attention, Josten pulled out the dark blue hooded sweatshirt with the saying ‘Carry On and Keep Ignoring Me’ across the front, which made him smile as he read it.

“That’s really cute,” Wilds said as she gave him a pat on the back. “You’ll look great in it, too!”

“Yes, something new for once, and not three sizes too large,” Reynolds called out from where she stood next to Renee.

Andrew had gotten it a little large, but not so much that it would swamp Josten’s lean runner’s figure. Josten gave Reynolds a bland look for her remark, but he took care to fold the gift before he put it back in the bag, and after reading the tag attached to it, he glanced around the room and gave Andrew a shy smile.

A few minutes later it was Andrew’s turn, and Wilds had a huge grin on her face when she handed him a small gift bag. Figuring that maybe Reynolds had gotten him again and it was another lump of coal inside, he opened it to find what was a small box of gourmet truffles from the one chocolate store downtown which he tended to patronize on a regular basis.

The only thing more surprising about the contents was the name on the bag’s tag, which informed him that his secret Santa for the year was one Neil Josten.

He walked away while Wilds was still talking about something, over to where Josten and Abby seemed to be discussing whatever dish Bee had brought to the potluck. Abby smiled at him as he drew near and nodded in greeting. “Have you tried Betsy’s new casserole yet? It’s pretty good.”

Andrew glanced at what looked to be some sort of cheesy potatoes and shook his head. “Not yet.” He held up the small gift bag while he gazed at Neil Josten. “Who told you?”

Neil set aside the small plate of food he held in his left hand and smiled, the expression slight but evident with that full bottom lip of his. “Well, everyone here talks about how much you like sweets, so a few people told me about that one shop.” The smile faded as he nodded over to Renee, who had her right arm wrapped around Reynolds. “Renee gave me ideas about some flavors in particular, though.”

Andrew had to wonder just how much ‘chance’ had to play in the two of them ending up as each other’s secret Santa that year. “You probably spent too much,” he argued since he knew that those truffles weren’t cheap.

“And you didn’t?” Neil nodded to the large bag near his feet. “That’s a nice sweatshirt. Thank you.”

Abby glanced at the two of them before murmuring something and walking away. Meanwhile, Andrew gave the new guy a flat look and clicked his tongue. “I was doing everyone here a favor. It’s time you showed up in something decent for once.”

“Ah, well… I guess I still appreciate it.” Neil’s expression was a little wistful as he swiped his right hand down the front of his worn grey sweatshirt.

“I know Wymack pays a decent salary, so why don’t you buy some new ones?” Andrew knew more than that, actually, considering the access he had.

Neil shrugged. “Old habit, I guess.” His pale blue eyes narrowed as he looked over Andrew. “Why do you always wear black?”

“Old habit, I guess,” Andrew shot back, and told himself that he didn’t feel anything when Josten’s smile strengthened at the retort.

“Hmm… so… how about this? It’s a new year, so if I show up in something new, you show up in something not black?” Neil offered with a slight tilt of his head. “A resolution for us both?”

Andrew considered that for a moment, about seeing Neil in something other than the baggy clothes he always seemed to wear. “It has to be something other than what I got you today.” Neil hesitated for a moment before nodding in agreement. “And I get to pick it out.”

Those blue eyes went wide and for a moment Andrew thought Neil would say ‘no’… but Neil looked him up and down again before he began to fuss with the hem of his grey shirt. “Uhm, okay? I guess you’ll just bring it to work and-“

“We’ll go shopping together.” Andrew told himself that it would get him out of the house and away from his brother and cousin and their ‘respective others’, not that he was trying to spend time with a cute coworker and… it was nothing. Nothing.

Just like it meant nothing when Neil peered at him through those overlong bangs with his big blue eyes then stuttered out a yes. They exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet up before New Year’s Eve, then Andrew watched Neil all but stumble over to Matt, who took to grinning while the much shorter young man talked while motioning about with his hands.

Renee waltzed all over a couple of minutes later with a large plate of her double chocolate cheesecake and a pleased smile on her face. “I told you that you had a lot in common.”

“I’m just doing everyone a favor and preventing an eyesore at the office.” Andrew was determined to stick with that story.

“I’m sure everyone will greatly appreciate it, whatever it is you’re doing,” Renee agreed as he snatched away the dessert. “That blue will go very well with his eyes.”

“It was the only color available,” Andrew said. Well, the only acceptable color available.

“Hmm.” He hadn’t thought it possible, but her smile grew even brighter. “Merry Christmas, Andrew. I wish you all the peace and happiness possible for the new year, which you truly deserve.”

“Yeah, well, it’s too late to wish you anything good, Reynolds already has her claws sunk in you,” he told her, which made her laugh as she walked away.

Besides, Andrew didn’t believe in things like nice wishes or holiday spirit or ‘goodwill to mankind’, not after everything that had happened to him as a child. He was responsible for his own happiness and future from now on, and that wasn’t going to change any time soon.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t wait to see what role a certain quiet, mysterious redhead played in that future, though, right?

*******

I hope you enjoyed your holiday gift fic and it’s a wonderful holiday for you!

[brajeshupadhyay]

Football is back and all it took was the spectre of financial catastrophe | Jonathan Liew | Football

Well done, everyone: we did it. They said it wasn’t possible. They said it wasn’t safe. They said it would be tactless to start up one of the world’s most lucrative sports leagues while thousands are dying. They said it wouldn’t be a fair competition. They may still be right about all of this, of course. More on that in a moment.

But for now, football is back. Watch it. Drink it in. Lose yourself in a pure six-week football bender: 92 Premier League fixtures, spread across every day of the week and every conceivable time slot, all of it live on television, much of it free to air. Take that, null-and-voiders; dry your tears, PPG; up yours, Troy Deeney. Football is back and all it took was the spectre of financial catastrophe and the sight of Germany handling things far more adeptly.

The first point to make is that football is hardly striking out alone. Snooker and horse racing are planning to begin behind closed doors on Monday. Professional golf, cricket and rugby league will be back by August. The resumption of the 2019-20 season was probably a foregone conclusion from the moment the prime minister offered his backing this month and heaven knows the government would be grateful of a little popular distraction right now.

Even so many have been surprised by the speed and bombast which the game has managed to coalesce around the terms of its return. Crisis has a marvellous way of focusing minds. Envy, too. Stung not just by the urgency of the balance sheet but the largely frictionless resumption of the Bundesliga and the resolute noises coming out of Spain and Italy, the 20 Premier League clubs managed to set aside their trademark factionalism for just long enough to approve the contours of Project Restart.

Full contact training was unanimously approved on Tuesday. Thursday brought a provisional schedule, beginning on 17 June with Aston Villa v Sheffield United and Manchester City v Arsenal. On Friday came the announcement of a rescheduled FA Cup final on 1 August. It’s fine to be straightforwardly delighted about this. This, after all, is what we’re here for: the spectacle, the moment, the Barclays.

It’s only natural to get excited about the prospect of Sadio Mané tearing up a defence again, or Kevin De Bruyne pinging a cross, or Allan Saint‑Maximin running the ball extremely quickly out of play for a goal-kick. Meanwhile the move to free-to-air television is a laudable initiative and one of the few progressive ideas to emerge from a situation that largely promises to calcify the game’s existing inequalities.

Equally: it’s fine to be conflicted, overwhelmed, even stupefied, by the cold weirdness of this new landscape. Disinfected training cones. No celebrations. Neutral venues. Not really being able to remember if Chelsea were any good or not. To find all this disorienting does not render you a fraud, a plastic, someone who doesn’t actually like football. One of the more amusing claims for the game’s return is that it will represent a return to normality, as if watching Wolves v Everton on a baking hot July evening at a deserted Molineux on BBC Two will be anything of the sort.

Tottenham players Harry Kane, Lucas Moura, Son Heung-min and Eric Dier are back in training. Photograph: Tottenham Hotspur FC/Getty Images

Certainly it’s possible to feel vaguely queasy about the lengths to which clubs are going in order to prove their readiness: all those millions being spent on tests and disinfectant and distancing, all that single-use plastic equipment going straight in the bin. Already, Premier League clubs have carried out more Covid-19 tests (2,752) than the entire UK did in the first two weeks of the outbreak.

And of course it will be safe; at least, as safe as it is reasonable to guarantee. But then, what was euphemistically described as “the safety issue” was only ever partly about safety. It was less about meeting an objective standard or an acceptable vector of risk than about persuading players and public that they could feel safe. It was to this end that the league commissioned such a formidable array of expertise and scientific research to bolster its case (much of which swiftly and mysteriously found its way into the newspapers).

From an early stage Project Restart was as much PR campaign as public health drive. This is why, from the league’s standpoint, the nightmare scenario is not a glut of positive tests among players and staff. Rather, it is the prospect of elite football sailing on in its sterile little bubble while the country at large endures a second wave of the virus: entrenching the idea that good health is not a basic right but a privilege available to those who can afford it.

Rarely has football felt less like a vital service and more like a commodity

It’s worth noting the astonishing inversion that has subtly taken place here. The return of the Premier League comes as the Women’s Super League season is cancelled, as Leagues One and Two move to abort their campaigns, as the non-league pyramid is annulled en masse, as grassroots facilities and five-a-side pitches and school fields lie unused. Football, the original people’s sport, the sport anyone could play anywhere, has been shrunk into an elite pursuit, the preserve of the very richest alone.

And for what? Germany may already have dropped the canary down the mineshaft but what we don’t know still far outweighs what we do. We don’t know how much time will be required to build proper match fitness and how sharp any increased injury risk will be as a result. We don’t know the extent to which BAME players are being put disproportionately at risk. We don’t know when fans will return, or even whether they will return in anything like the same numbers.

We do know Liverpool will win the league for the first time in 30 years, and deservedly so, but nobody knows what it will feel like to watch them do it in an empty stadium, surrounded by plastic seats and a skinny row of photographers. We don’t know how serious the erosion of home advantage will be, although intuition and experience suggest the best clubs will benefit most. We don’t know how the asymmetry of the season will impact on fairness. Will Tottenham suffer from playing a “home” north London derby behind closed doors? Perhaps. Will José Mourinho use it as an excuse if they lose? Almost certainly.

In short, we don’t really know anything at all. Nonetheless we push on, because what else is there? The Premier League has thrived by dint not just of its reach but its ubiquity: an endlessly refreshing feed of content, narratives, controversies and tribal beefs. The likes of PPG v Null and Void, Overpaid Footballers v Underpaid Nurses, Kyle Walker v Lockdown Rules, were only going to get us so far.

This is why the grand reopening also feels like a clearance sale. After all, we know what the real story is here: the billion-pound hole in the broadcast deal that needs to be filled with something, anything. Football has never been entirely free of the profit motive but rarely has it felt less like a vital service and more like a fungible commodity: a commercial obligation, a piece of content, a tin of supermarket mystery meat, to be stacked high and sold at a knockdown rate.

It will certainly smell interesting. It will doubtless sustain us for a while. What we don’t yet know is whether you can live off it.

The post Football is back and all it took was the spectre of financial catastrophe | Jonathan Liew | Football appeared first on Sansaar Times.

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[the-master-cylinder]

Lunch Meat (1987): SUMMARY Cannibals who roam the San Bernardino Mountains in search of victims! PAW & THE BOYS! BENNY, ELWOOD and HARLEY! Psychotic, meat-eating mutilators who get their kicks by ambushing young men and women, hunt them down, and cold-bloodedly. tear their bodies apart!

There’s HARLEY, who get his kicks by chopping off people’s heads with his AXE! There’s ELWOOD, his younger brother, who likes to DRILL HOLES in his victims with his PICKAXE! PAW’S favorite tool is his stainless steel MACHETE! He gets his thrills by tracking his prey down, taking a couple of swipes with the machete to draw BLOOD, and then likes to see them beg for mercy. He’ll move in with a chuckle and CHOP THEM UP into many pieces of BLOOD-DRENCHED MEAT and BONES to be thrown in TRASH BAGS and taken down to the nearest greasy spoon to be sold as lunchmeat!!!! Then there’s BENNY! Deaf and dumb and MANIACAL with an insatiable thirst for human blood and raw flesh!!!! BENNY does his best work with a shovel!!!!

BEHIND THE SCENES/PRODUCTION The film is the culmination of three years work and a virtually lifelong dream of its 39 year-old writer/director Kirk Alex. With a background that includes film school training, Alex had been making his living driving a cab. Eventually the frustrations of that job, and the passion to make movies, overrode the instinct to make a living and he sold his cab to raise the money to start filming LUNCH MEAT.

Alex is understandably reticent about discussing details that might affect the film’s value on the marketplace but it seems likely that it was shot on 16mm with a budget probably below $60,000. The film was made on a 14 day shooting schedule, most of which was haphazardly scattered over an almost three month period. “We’d shoot a couple of days here, a couple of days there,” recalled Alex. “Sometimes we’d stop because we ran out of film and had no money to buy more. Other stoppages were for schedule conflicts for cast or crew. The worst delays were for hassles from the law.”

Cast & Crew

Alex’s cast and crew frequently had to change filming locations due to run-ins with Southern California police or Forest Rangers. “The whole system is set up for big budget productions,” complained Alex. “If you’ve got a movie camera in your hand you’ve got to have a permit to breathe, and everybody is out to make a buck off you. I was supposed to have a police officer and a fire marshal on the set at all times, at $40 an hour. A piece! There’s city, state, and county permits you’ve got to have, insurance and lawyers and paramedics. I could have spent my entire budget without ever exposing a foot of film!”

Instead Alex opted for true outlaw filmmaking. He and his group would shoot in one location until the forces of the law showed up. They would feign ignorance of the rules and regulations and then leave, promising to return with the proper paperwork and cash. In reality they would simply move on to the next suitable location and go through the whole process again.

Surprisingly, few of the film’s problems arose from the cast. “They were all pros,” said Alex. “It was 95° to 100° every day we shot and they spent most of their time running around or falling down in the dirt. Sure, they complained, but they all kept showing up and doing their best.”

Chuck Ellis, who portrays the gargantuan, cannibalistic mute Benny, was the only member of the cast whom Alex knew before shooting. “I always knew Chuck was a fine actor, and his size creates an undeniable screen presence,” said Alex. “I think he did a great job as Benny. He manages to create some sympathy for this pathetic sub-human even while we’re watching him engage in some pretty barbaric acts on screen.”

One staple of low-budget exploitation films that LUNCH MEAT lacks is sex or nudity. “It wasn’t a conscious decision to leave it out,” said Alex. “I just didn’t see any place for it in the script and I wasn’t going to bring the entire film’s pace to a halt just to have some girl take her top off.” The film’s special effects, the backbone of any gore film, also suffered for the lack of time and money. “A lot of good effects sequences were dropped because they were just too time-consuming, or costly,” recalled Alex. “I think Lori Drucker and her effects crew did a real good job on the throat ripping that kicks off the crazies’ attack, and on the miscellaneous body parts. They could have done even more. It’s the classic story: all we needed was time and money.”

Post production of the film was even more protracted than its filming. Over eight months, in increments of a day here, a day there, were spent before the final project was ready to market. Many of the delays were in order to raise additional money to deal with the next phase of the postproduction chores.

Alex bypassed any thoughts of theatrical exhibition and shopped the film around to various video distributors. He had several offers, some of which appeared more lucrative than those of Tapeworm Video, but he felt he could trust its owners because they were struggling dreamers like himself. To date, LUNCH MEAT has sold over 2500 copies for Tapeworm. That’s a pittance in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of copies a blockbuster title might move, but it’s not bad for an unknown film, with a no-name cast. It is, in fact, Tapeworm’s top seller to date.

And hopes are high that things may get better still. The tape’s incredibly graphic cover, offering a wild-eyed Benny gnawing on a severed human arm, was an undeniable eye catcher but has proven too bold for many video stores. A new, tamer cover was eventually offered.

CAST/CREW Directed/Written Kirk Alex

Produced by Kirk Alex Mark Flynn Al Goodrum Robert Oland Pamela Phillips Oland Ashlyn Gere (credited as Kim McKamy) as Roxy Chuck Ellis as Benny Joe Ricciardella as Frank Elroy Wiese as Paw Robert Oland as Harley Mitch Rogers as Elwood Rick Lorentz as Cary Bob Joseph as Eddie Marie Ruzicka as Debbie Patricia Christie as Sue Ann McBride as Waitress

Slaughterhouse (1987): SUMMARY Lester Bacon is an old nut-case farmer living with his simple-minded, obese son Buddy. Both of them lament the fate of the old skilled hog farmer, now giving way to modern factory-type slaughterhouses. The father and son go on a killing spree against people who trespass on their property. In the opening scene, Buddy kills two teenagers, Kevin and Michelle, who are having some time alone in their car on a remote area of Lovers Lane.

The next day, Harold – Lester’s attorney, along with his law partner Tom and the local police chief, Sheriff Borden, visit Lester at his house to offer him $55,000 to buy his property, along with the closed-down slaughterhouse next door. Lester is told that the demolition of the slaughterhouse would create employment opportunities for many people in town, as well as get the county tax assessor off his back. Lester grumbles about Tom’s equipment and bad meat and says that he could do better with his hands, knives and fewer men. The sheriff tells Lester that the assessor’s office is foreclosing his property and he has 30 days to vacate it.

Meanwhile, Liz – Sheriff Borden’s teenage daughter – is with a group of high school friends planning to shoot a “horror video” and suggests that the area around the Bacon Slaughterhouse would be perfect. Her friends – Skip, Annie, and Buzz – wonder the whereabouts of Kevin and Michelle. Back at Lester Bacon’s property, his son Buddy takes Lester to a room and shows him the dead Michelle and Kevin. Lester is a bit unsettled, thinking that they’re neck-deep in trouble, but he tells Buddy that Tom, Harold, and Sheriff Borden deserve such a fate.

Deputy Dave, after being informed by the worried parents of Michelle and Kevin, checks out the docks and then goes to the slaughterhouse. He walks inside and calls for the two teenagers. As Dave finds a dead hanging cat, Buddy appears and kills him by shoving large metal sliding door on Dave’s gun-toting hand, chopping it off.

Lester then calls Harold to tell him that he has accepted his sales offer. Harold goes to the slaughterhouse where both Lester and Buddy kill him. Buddy then puts on the dead Dave’s blood-stained police uniform and goes for a drive in the squad car. Dave’s girlfriend, Sally, sees him driving past and waves, but Buddy chases her and runs her car off the road. She tries to escape on foot, but Buddy catches up to her and slices her neck with a butcher knife. When Tom arrives at the slaughterhouse, Lester lures him to the processing room, where Buddy drops him into a saw machine.

That evening at the Pig Out, a town dance, the power goes out due to a rainstorm, and many people leave. Buzz says it’s the best time for filming at the slaughterhouse. Skip then makes a $20 bet that the girls cannot last one hour at the slaughterhouse. Liz and Annie are dropped off at the place while the boys are sneaking around with masks used in Liz’s video. Elsewhere, Sheriff Borden finds Sally’s car with the damaged windshield and Dave’s patrol car with the door open. The sheriff then goes back to his car and calls for backup.

Back at the slaughterhouse, Liz and Annie realize that the boys are outside trying to scare them. Liz looks for a way to get behind the two guys and scare them instead. The boys split up and Buzz gets inside the building. Skip is at the window, and Annie laughs until Buddy suddenly appears and whacks Skip. Annie screams and runs, but Lester appears and grabs her.

Liz walks to the front door and sees that everyone is gone. At the same time, Buzz walks into a room, hears a noise and gets hit in the face by Buddy. Liz finds a hanging Annie (still alive), as well as the dead bodies of all the other victims. The father-son duo is there and Buddy grabs Liz. Meanwhile, Sheriff Borden learns that Tom and Harold have mysteriously disappeared.

Buddy and Lester hold Liz down on a table, and Lester says that a meat cutter like himself and Buddy have the skills like a surgeon. Lester slices one of Liz’s fingertips to prove to her that it is one of the most sensitive parts of the human body. When Lester turns and hears Sheriff Borden enter through the front door, Liz kicks Lester and runs away. She finds her father and runs to him. Buddy appears and the sheriff tries to shoot him, but he hits the blade of his meat cleaver. Sheriff Borden and Liz run outside into the rain. As Sheriff Borden pauses at his squad car door, Lester appears and stabs him in the back. Liz picks up her father’s gun and shoots Lester. She then helps the wounded sheriff into his car. She also gets the keys to start up the car, just as Lester rises and knocks at the car windows. She turns around, shifts the car into reverse, and runs over Lester, crushing his head and finally killing him. The sheriff tells Liz to drive away and radio for help. Buddy suddenly sits up from the backseat and swings his knife at Liz. She screams, and the film suddenly ends.

BEHIND THE SCENES/PRODUCTION Even before the new slasher movie Slaughterhouse  played in its first commercial theater, it was in the black. Slowly squealing its way around the country, the film was a testament to the new Hollywood, where independent companies outnumber major studios eight to one, and where home video and foreign sales can more than pay for a film’s cost. Slaughterhouse, for example, was sold to 60% of the foreign markets, including Germany, England, and Japan, before its domestic fate had been determined. Embassy’s Charter Entertainment is distributing the video cassette

It helped that the movie was made on a very tight budget; in fact, only fifteen full-time crew mcmbers were employed. As a result, writer director Rick Roessler was faced with the task of making up credits to increase the film’s prestige. The first two weeks of a four-week shot were done without any days off. and at that point, Roessler joked, they had to pick a few people off the floor and take some time off.

The film marks a major launch for American Artists, in which Roessler is one of three partners. The San Diego-based production company was set up four years ago primarily to produce films. The partners proceeded to work on other people’s movies until they could raise enough capital, mostly from private investors, for their own venture.

They even wanted to distribute the movie themselves, but felt they were not adequately prepared for such a challenge. Instead, they gave that job to Castle Hill in New York, which splits the grosses 50/50 with American Artists. “They don’t normally do horror films,” Roessler explained. “It worried me in the beginning. because I wanted to go with a company that knows horror films. New World wanted to buy it out for the ridiculous figure of $400,000.” Castle Hill’s involvement marks a continuing trend: prestigious “art house” distributors who are resorting more and more to handling low budget horror films as well. In their case, they put the name of a subsidiary on it. JGM Enterprises.

“The name of the game is you have to make a living, suggested Roessler. “I know I dug into our bank account heavily to help bankroll this film. I got into the horror genre not only because I like it but because there’s a base audience out there. Being horror fans, the one thing we didn’t want to do was absolute schlock. We didn’t want to do porn. You won’t see any gratuitous sex.”

One thing Roessler did play up was the comedy element. “We enjoy tongue and cheek stuff,” he said. “There must be a measure of comedy to make the film more horrific; otherwise, it would be too dull. Some films have so much blood, like EVIL DEAD, that they become funny.”

Roessler said he used the FRIDAY THE 13th series as an example of what he was trying to avoid. “It started out well, I think. The first one was low budget, and I think a lot of effort went into it. But look what’s happened to the character in the next five. It’s just gone blithering on they haven’t really identified who this guy is. The last one, six, was this huge slugger walking around with huge boots, whacking people for. I guess, no reason.

For Slaughterhouse Roessler developed his own character, Buddy, who in the ads is described as “360 pounds of Cleavermania” (in real life, Joe Barton, who plays him, is 372).

“With Buddy, what we tried to do was establish a character. He’s human he’s not some abstract. There’s hopefully some sentiment, some pathos in this character. Doesn’t say word one through the whole thing, and he’s the so-called star. He snorts like a pig.”

The film works as a sort of revenge picture, with Buddy killing those who provoke him or try to evict him and his father out of their condemned slaughterhouse. Thus, the title provides an ideal double entendre for the movie. The film has played in Detroit, Nashville. Denver. Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh and Phoenix, with other cities to follow. Roessler is expecting Embassy to be pleased with its release path. “Embassy put money into it because they want it to get out there. The best advertising for home video obviously is theatrical release, and the best theatrical release for home video is the one-week hit ’em and then leave, because not everybody gets to see it. The word gets around, and then they rent the video.”

Poster for Unproduced Sequel

Roessler said raising the money to make the film, over a period of eight months, was the hardest part of getting his project on the screen. “We put on presentations for several investor parties,” he said. “We went door-to-door. We made phone calls.”

CAST/CREW Directed/Written Rick Roessler Produced Ron Matona Joe B. Barton as Buddy Bacon Don Barrett as Lester Bacon William Houck as Sheriff Borden Sherry Leigh (credited as Sherry Bendorf) as Liz Borden Jeff Wright as Deputy Dave Bill Brinsfield as Tom Sanford Lee Robinson as Harold Murdock

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique v19n03 Cinefantastique v18n02-03

DOUBLE FEATURE RETROSPECTIVE – Lunch Meat (1987)/Slaughterhouse (1987) Lunch Meat (1987): SUMMARY Cannibals who roam the San Bernardino Mountains in search of victims! PAW & THE BOYS!

[junker-town]

Larry Fedora had a point about CTE but messed up anyway

A lack of scientific proof about football and CTE isn’t an excuse to keep the sport in the past.

If anyone in North Carolina’s football program wants to look into CTE research and its connection to football, they need only step out of their team facility and take a seven-minute walk to the Stallings Evans Sports Medicine Center on campus. Housed there is a research center devoted to sports-related traumatic brain injury, dedicated to a young man named Matthew Gfeller, who died from traumatic injury on the football field.

During the ACC’s media days on Wednesday, UNC head coach Larry Fedora made headlines for suggesting that safety-related changes to the sport could bring on the decline of America. He interpreted them as an attack.

Larry Fedora: “Our game is under attack ... I fear that the game will be pushed so far from what we know that we won’t recognize it 10 years from now. And if it does, our country will go down, too.”

— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) July 18, 2018

Larry Fedora: “I don’t think it’s been proven that the game of football causes CTE. We don’t really know that. Are there chances for concussions? Of course. There are collisions. But the game is safer than it’s ever been.”

— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) July 18, 2018

Fedora later elaborated on what he meant.

“I’m not sure that anything is proven, that football itself causes it. Now we do know, from what my understanding is, that repeated blows to the head cause [CTE], so I’m assuming that every sport that you have, football included, could be a problem with that. As long as you’ve got any kind of contact, you could have that. That does not diminish the fact that the game is still safer than it’s ever been in the history of the game, because we continue to tweak the game to try to make it safer for our players.”

Many, including Fedora’s boss, were taken aback.

UNC AD Bubba Cunningham told @KyleBaileyWFNZ just now he was "surprised" by HC Larry Fedora's comments today that football doesn't cause CTE.

— Nick Carboni (@NickCarboniWCNC) July 18, 2018

Kevin Guskiewicz, a doctor at North Carolina who founded the Gfeller Institute and researches head injuries, was surprised, too.

When SB Nation reached out to members of the Gfeller Institute faculty for comment, the center sent this statement:

The Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has studied concussions in football (and other sports) for more than two decades. Our work has a long history of support from UNC Athletics. The football program has routinely participated in our research studies, and the data we’ve collected has led to evidence-based refinements in football rules we believe enhance player safety without detracting from the action football fans seek.

The debate surrounding football safety is a heated topic. The science of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) remains in its infancy. Far more is unknown about CTE than is known. We believe participating in football carries some risk, but that these risks are mitigated more today than ever before by advances in equipment, concussion knowledge, rule changes, medical management and policies adopted by institutions and governing bodies to protect the safety and welfare of student-athletes.

Work done by Guskiewicz and others, back in 2005, found that retired NFL players faced a 37 percent higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease than males of the same age, and concluded that repeated concussions “significantly boosted” the chance that retired players would suffer different types of cognitive impairment later in life. Of the 2,552 players who returned surveys, 60 percent said they received at least one concussion during their careers.

As the research on CTE in sports advances, the goalposts have moved on how early signs of the disease can surface. It can be at its most advanced stage by the time a former football player is 27. Former Washington State quarterback Tyler Hilinski was diagnosed with the first stage of CTE after he committed suicide at 21. But researchers can’t determine whether a living person has CTE. The diagnosis has to come after a player dies.

Fedora’s sin was probably expressing something in public that coaches say often among themselves. In private, they wonder how big an issue CTE is in their sport.

A professor at one of the leading CTE research institutes agrees with UNC’s head man that there still isn’t scientific proof of a link between football and CTE.

“I totally agree with him,” says Peter Cummings, a neuropathologist and associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology at Boston University School of Medicine. “Association is not causation. CTE has also been found in individuals not exposed to contact sports. It’s not a settled matter by any means. And football is safer today than it has ever been. In fact, I would argue that no other sport has made a more radical transformation in response to safety concerns than football. His comments reflect the reality of the scientific uncertainty surrounding CTE.”

But — absent the stuff about America’s possible downfall — are comments made by Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson any better than what Fedora said?

WF coach Dave Clawson on linkage between football and CTE: "There's certainly enough people out there, enough science out there, that you can't ignore it." Says he feels a responsibility to make game safer, continually reassess as new data comes in.

— Luke DeCock (@LukeDeCock) July 19, 2018

Clawson offered a similar nothing statement. There are plenty of things we “can’t ignore” in society, but that doesn’t mean he offered a detailed plan or even a single policy suggestion to aid player safety. Fedora may have actually offered a more scientifically backed statement by saying that there’s no proven link between sport and disease.

But we don’t need research or any scientific method to say that hits to the head are bad. That’s common sense, and it’s why movement toward safer tackling styles and even the dreaded targeting rule have roots in the right place.

Internalizing change as an attack is backward, and hiding behind a lack of proof as an excuse to not move the game forward in regards to player safety is wrong. Football is a cultural touchstone, but it is laughable to think that the people trying to evolve the sport will take it (or the country) down.

Fedora, on the "watering down" of football: We are the only football playing nation in the world. The lessons of football have to do with this country. I'm talking about the people out there that want to take this game down. Football is my life and I have to protect it.

— David Glenn Show (@DavidGlennShow) July 19, 2018

Fedora’s conflation of tweaks to the game and the decline of Western civilization is ridiculous, but his caution in unequivocally linking the disease to the game has backing from science.

[yeskraim]

Internet access hangs by a thread for hundreds of millions

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(Image credit: Shutterstock / NicoElNino)

Despite what Wi-Fi and mobile data might lead people to believe, the internet is less of a nebulus cloud of data in the air above us, and more of an intricate mesh of wires firing away beneath our feet.

The world’s online networks are powered by a complex system of underwater and underground cabling, supplemented in some regions by satellite links.

Around 380 undersea cables carry over 99.5% of all transoceanic data, running for 750,000 miles across the ocean floor. These fiber optic wires connect the massive data centers supporting cloud behemoths such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. 

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The total number of submarine cables shot up during a period of rapid growth in the mid-2000s, followed by an interval during which relatively little new cable was laid, but available capacity was slowly exhausted. A renewed demand for bandwidth, caused by the rapid growth of connected devices, is now propelling a new wave of cable initiatives.

The first submarine cable to use fiber optics was TAT-8, which went live in 1988. It had two operational fiber pairs and one backup pair, and reached speeds of up to 280MB per second.

The current fastest cable (MAREA, owned jointly by Microsoft and Facebook) has eight fibre pairs, and achieved record speeds of 26.2TB per second in 2019 – that’s almost 100,000 times faster than TAT-8.

However, despite exponential growth in quantity and capacity, whole countries can be plunged into blackout if just one cable is damaged or snapped, with ramifications for household users and businesses alike.

Undersea cables are usually run through areas of deep ocean to minimize the possibility of damage. But the deep sea is a harsh environment, and cables laid at extreme depth can be challenging to access if repairs are required.

According to telecoms research firm Telegeography, there are over 100 cable breaks per year. Many of these go unnoticed in developed regions with extensive redundancies, but the infrastructure keeping us online is still far more fragile than any of us realize.

Fragility

In many developed countries, particularly in the West and Asia, internet access is more or less taken for granted as a constant – even a moment’s downtime is met with anger and frusatration. But this isn’t the case for much of the world, where connections are intermittent, unreliable, or even non-existent. 

In 2018, the west African nation of Mauritania was taken offline for two whole days after the Africa Coast to Europe cable (owned by a syndicate of telecoms companies) was severed by a fishing trawler. Nine other countries in the region also experienced outages at the hands of the wayward fisherman.

In the former Soviet bloc nation of Georgia, an elderly woman scavenging for copper to sell as scrap cut through an underground cable with her spade, causing neighbouring Armenia to lose connection for five hours. She was dubbed “the spade-hacker” by local media. 

(Image credit: Shutterstock / bluebay)

Millions in Yemen were also thrown off the internet last year after the submarine Falcon cable was severed, with its repair made even more complex by the ongoing civil war in the country.

Stories about sharks biting down on cables in the Pacific and causing intermittent outages have also become common in recent years. Various articles have suggested that the creatures mistake electromagnetic waves for bioelectric currents produced by schools of fish, although some experts are skeptical of the phenomenon.

“This is probably one of the biggest myths we see cited in the press. While it’s true that in the past sharks have bitten a few cables, they are not a major threat,” Alan Mauldin, Research Director at Telegeography, said in a blog post.

“There’s a cable fault somewhere in the world about every three days. These tend to be from external aggression, such as fishing and anchors – cables are damaged unintentionally [all the time],” he told TechRadar Pro via email.

Sharks or no, the list of incidents involving damage to critical cabling goes on and on. All it takes is a misplaced anchor for millions to lose their invaluable connection.

On the cusp of blackout

It might seem staggering that whole nations can so easily be taken offline, even if only temporarily. But not all countries enjoy the luxury of extensive redundancies in the event a cable is damaged.

Japan is served by a total of 26 submarine cables, the UK is supported by 54 cables, and the US by a whopping 91, but a significant proportion of the world relies on just a single cable for connection, or two if they’re lucky.

TechRadar Pro looked at the number of countries reliant on either one or two cables. In total, 19 countries – about 10% of countries globally – are supported by only a single submarine cable. The largest of these (by population) include Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Togo and Sierra Leone.

If you include countries supported by just two cables (a further 11 nations), the total number of people relying on a tenuous connection rises to almost 450 million, or 5.57% of the global population.

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Rawpixel.com)

It’s true that some of these nations likely supplement the connection delivered by submarine cables with satellite links, which can provide a measure of support. 

According to Nicole Starosielski, author of The Undersea Network and Associate Professor at NYU, satellites are an acceptable backup, but don’t compare to the speed and bandwidth offered by fiber optic cables.

“Satellites are a viable option as a supplement to the current network – reaching areas cables cannot reach and providing redundancy in some locations. But they are not a replacement for the cable network,” she explained over email.

In other words, low-bandwidth satellites would be quickly overwhelmed if an entire nation attempted to connect at once, making them effectively useless in the absence of the cable system.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail

Reliable internet connection was once viewed as a luxury, but loss of internet can now have severe and wide-reaching consequences, both for individual businesses and entire economies.

Businesses in regions that suffer from poor internet penetration and intermittent connection have likely acclimatized, leaning more heavily on offline ways of working. However, in regions utterly dependent on connection, companies are often ill equipped to handle downtime.

Research carried out by UK-based ISP Beaming found that British businesses lost almost 60 million hours of working time to internet outages in 2018.

On average, UK firms experienced two major outages and 16 hours of downtime each. Beaming estimates these outages cost the UK economy more than £700 million in lost productivity and extra overtime.

While they’re unable to influence goings-on in the world of undersea cabling, there are measures businesses can take to limit downtime, and the damage it causes.

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Suwin)

According to Kevin Kong, Product Manager at another UK-based ISP, KCOM, “the primary solution to mitigate against downtime is tried and tested: resiliency and diversity.

“Services need to be designed for the worst case – this means having appropriate resiliency via a failover service (e.g. dual Ethernet circuits), which allows your organization to continue running critical, if not all, business systems.”

Given that infrastructure design appears unlikely to change any time soon, software could play an increasing role in keeping businesses online.

“The future could revolve around smarter network software that can work around hardware infrastructure failures. We are seeing interesting efforts in this area,” says Martin Levy, Distinguished Engineer at US web infrastructure and security company Cloudflare.

But Levy also notes that the introduction of new technologies brings with it an additional element of risk.

“With more complex technology comes more complex systems to manage it,“ he says. “This requires sophisticated training and experienced individuals. There are places in the world where additional deployed technology doesn’t equal improved quality.”

Demand for bandwidth

In response to ever-increasing capacity requirements, the world’s technology giants have taken it upon themselves to fund and manage many undersea cabling projects.

Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook all hold stakes in high-profile submarine cable networks. Between them, these companies own or lease more than half of undersea bandwidth. Google alone owns four cable networks: Curie, Dunant, Equiano and Junior.

These firms need to satisfy a rapidly accelerating customer demand for bandwidth, driven by the adoption of mobile, the proliferation of IoT devices, the transition to 5G, and the volume of data produced by and exchanged between businesses.

“The biggest shift in the last decade is that the users of the most international bandwidth have become content providers, not telecom carriers,” notes Mauldin.

“We are seeing higher capacity cables entering service, which have 12 to 16 fiber pairs. Future cables may have even more. Eventually, some of the older cables laid in the late 1990s and early 2000s will be decommissioned.”

To put this in perspective, each fiber pair is capable of carrying four million high-definition videos simultaneously. With a greater number of pairs, it’s expected that future cables will reach speeds that far exceed the 26.2TB per second achieved by MAREA. 

As fiber optic technology improves, more cable networks are laid, and old cables are replaced with high-capacity models, the quantity of data able to pass through our seas will soon reach unimaginable levels.

Underwater geopolitics

Despite this potential, massive submarine cabling projects also face a diverse range of obstacles, including budget, logistics, and dense bureaucracy. Perhaps chief among them, though, is geopolitical conflict, as demonstrated by the ongoing trade war between the US and China.

Google and Facebook recently filed to activate the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) between the US, the Philippines and Taiwan. The project is an excellent case-study in how geopolitics can stand in the way of progress.

The network, announced in 2016, was originally billed as the first to connect the US and Hong Kong. However, sections running to Hong Kong and China will remain inactive amid security concerns and ongoing conflict between Washington and Beijing.

PLCN boasts 12,800km of cabling and an estimated capacity of 120TB per second, which would make it the highest-capacity trans-Pacific route, bringing lower latency and greater bandwidth to the APAC region.

Google and Facebook might be the most high-profile stakeholders in PLCN, but much of its fiber optics belong to an organization called Pacific Light Data Communication. The sale of this company to a Beijing-based private broadband provider, Dr Peng Telecom & Media Group, in 2017 triggered concerns that have dogged the initiative ever since.

(Image credit: Shuterstock / Christoph Burgstedt)

Dr Peng itself is not state-owned, but has strong links with Huawei, the mobile giant accused by the US government of posing a significant security threat.

Google and Facebook have requested permission to activate only the self-owned portions of the undersea cable network (running between the US, the Philippines and Taiwan), effectively cutting Pacific Light Data Communication from the project.

When the project was first announced, Google spoke of ambitions to provide enough capacity for Hong Kong to have 80 million concurrent HD video conferences with Los Angeles; in the end, geopolitics put paid to this particular ambition.

Given the critical importance of connection to nearly all aspects of life and business, the idea that submarine cabling could become the target of terror attacks or sabotage efforts has also been debated.

Following the Mauritania outage in 2018, Stuart Petch, Chief of the UK Defence staff at the time, spoke of the “catastrophic” threat to connection and trade posed by foreign powers interfering with deep-sea cables.

The same event saw Conservative MP Rishi Sunak (since appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer) refer to the possibility that terrorists might use grappling hooks attached to fishing trawlers to deal Britain’s network a “crippling blow”.

This perceived threat, however, appears to be overblown, dwarfed by the much more tangible threat posed by chance events and natural wear.

“The cable system has not been a frequent target of attacks. Cables are much more frequently disrupted by anchors and nets, accidentally, than anything else. Cables break all the time and we don’t ever realise it,” noted Nicole Starosielski.

“Certainly the cable system could be the site of attack, but it doesn’t have the high visual impact that other targets afford.”

State of play

Although new speeds are reached with each passing year, and new cables laid connecting different areas of the globe, avoiding chokepoints in London and San Francisco, much of the world’s connection remains at the mercy of chance incidents.

The ability to improve internet penetration, speed and reliability in countries with limited infrastructure sits primarily with big tech – the companies driving today’s most ambitious projects.

The total number of internet users is on the up, especially in African nations, but service reliability is an issue (acutely felt by many) that still needs to be addressed.

Here’s our list of the best web hosting services of 2020

Read More

The post Internet access hangs by a thread for hundreds of millions appeared first on Gadgets To Make Life Easier.

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[angel47258-blog]

Ponies

I can't even stand to look at people that don't want to over throw the Government. If I even suspect they don't want to over throw the Government, I really start to hate em* quite a few people seem to have lost this moral highground somewhere in societal degrade city. Some people are extremely adamant about making the World a terrible place. Case Number 03938061: This is why nobody has safely advanced civillization. Now while every scumbag shitty retard therapist and police sergeant and satanic investor was thinking about a rebuttles to say how it's not ok overthrow the Government ,as well as every worthless asshole politician who is a dime a motherfucking dozen since the 70's or 80's and everybody's mommy and daddy was working for the stock market and everybody was just dying to work for a Chevy and Ford Honda and Toyota oil monopoly. I swear to God I better hear ever soldier and police officer and courtroom judge tell me and everybody else how great the representation is in America, and how great rampant abuses of psychiatric fraud and medical malpractice are. I need to hear how great it is to drug everybody with toxic medications and to see drug commercials everywhere because they are so important to corporate policy along with every single other societal degrade including psychotronic attacks on Civillians and big oil, smog,and toxic poisons and waste!, I need to hear how important it is that every asshole died for a piece of the pie in lobbyist funded corporate America, Because I was unfortunately being a victim of some type of traumatic mind control. There Are certain types of EMF,v2k, Sonic blackjack and or psychotronic weapons that I was attacked by. It may be monarch traumatic mind control. America the marketing capital of the fucking world. It causes traumatic amnesia, memory loss, repressed emotions that victims will be unable to process. It is horrible. Psychiatry and the DSM will not acknowledge these types of attacks even if a person can remember. This is a state of emergency for far too many people. Victims have been blacklisted even in the public school system. Some therapists are very well aware of how fraudulent psychiatry can be and the DSM . Attackers and gang or cult blacklist stalkers will take full advantage of this. Often times a victim may be trying to make a positive life change and will be drugged and or attacked by these destructive trauma weapons. I went to Pittsford Mendon graduated 95. Teachers have even set up students with these types of attacks to conspire against victims. Let me remind everyone in Satoris class I did say I wanted every mk ultra scientist shot in the head (twice). I said I wanted to run for Congress as well even if I just got the grant and marketed grassroots biofuel to vote on I would have crushed all enemy opposition. ) Usually inventory is taken on victims to see if they have any truly positive or safe connections. Familiy life included. Some families will set their children up or be so Ill equipped to deal with this that they may simply call it a mental illness which is not even close to acknowledging these issues. Some families endanger their kids by not helping them protect themselves. Either running or gunning. Some family members hold others back from truly protecting themselves.This causes very much loneliness, trauma and depression so others can later take advantage of the victim. There is no real protection in the news or media or any effective legislation for these types of attacks. I had many people falsely befriend me and when they saw me moving on they made sure I was stalked and attacked. People that had me attacked shortly after I moved 20 minutes to a new town called Pittsford. My dad was dead in less than a year. Gunjit Nathan J Berkebile grant Hammond. All lived on the street I moved to. Dale Goldstein jack watts had me stalked and watched in therapy people will even conspire to have people set up with therapists. Doyle just happened to move into my school after berkebile left. He's a satanic fuk. Doyle really needed people shot with these weapons so he could "deal" with them. I.got tricked into moving in with jeff and Kevin Wright and Milan and Doyle shot me with some type of hand held devices. It was after I moved in. My brother "introduced " me to Jeff, Tim and kevin. Had to be purposeful The Palmers on Roslyn street met Palmer at college at Alfred state . Jon ash I am pretty sure really followed me to college. I think that's what really happened. chris Milan justin figgarelli, conti Collins had Anne Corey followed me to my class at mcc jon Ash followed me to Alfred state. I had thought I made a friend of the Palmers. But it was not the case They so badly set me up. I knew them for years they plotted and suggested therapists through another source. At 145 south fitzhugh I was m.h. placed me thru case management Steve Pezel, Courtney Audino Cindy Kinyan and Jenn Moore were there to harass me after I was later shot months later. maybe I sat on a device it's very obvious when people get blasted by these weapons similar to EMF, psychotronics and v2k , Jordan Collins. Sean Driscoll, Chad Francis and Todd Francis as well as Jason Doyle had me hurt very badly with some type of device and Amy fien. Sometimes hand held Devices are used. They have people shot by these weapons and insult them or say terrible things to them and the victim loses their memory. Concentration, happiness, motivation and quality of life are very much effected. Teacher satori targeted me openly in class knowing I would suffer memory loss and nobody helped at all. Aeisha Ash wanted me attacked,,she said so in class. Weiss too. I wonder how many Jews are especially targeted like me. I even mentioned I was thinking of running for Congress. Nobody does sht in office anyway If law enforcement can't provide safety or put up a billboard people must protect themselves. There are far too many cover-ups and stovepiping so people are not nearly well enough informed. Any president could have protected his people a long time ago. Homeland security isn't really for the anything and what has the CIA done? budgets for nothing but societal degrades big pharma, big oil and false news in America. These are intolerable Grievances. Justin Figgarelli was always a disgusting sick fck. I never even entertained the idea of being friends with someone like that. This trauma is terrible people or victims sometimes will get messed up to the point that they fall into situations they had no intentions of getting into. Conti lived with figgarelli. Everybody knew I was really just not interested in Tim anymore. Doyle said when I was 19 a gang was going to come into my group therapy and I wasn't even thinking about group therapy at the time. It was when I was 26 when Watts came in met him at the Palmers barbecue when I was 22. Tim had me shot with some weapin to mess me up and Jessie got drugs from someone for Tim to give me. Age 22. I was working part time and going to school. There is no way my life would have gone this way without severe negative intervention. Those weapons really effect judgement. This is a conglomerate attack. This is so much of the reason society never progresses beyond a big oil company and medical fraud and dsmv malpractice. Does anybody think any of these people would have a decent job if they got shot a bunch of times with these types of weapons? I have memories as a kid of pretty strange stuff. People may find out things happened to a victim of traumatic events and say something like well how come I can't mess with them yet? — in Rochester, NY. Photo sometimes I just knew things as a kid like haarp and TENCAP. in the 80's. I think they may have sent information to me and then had me attacked. Jason Doyle when I was 19 told me he didn't care if I was going to be the most talented psychic in the world he just wanted to mess me up. I was getting shot. I actually remember songs that I knew and could partially here so many years before they came out. I dont think Earth or pf Chang's needs people like Jason Doyle alive at all. Or people like Fred or Jessie or Becky Palmer or this person and that other person and this one and that one or Anne Corey or definitely not Cindy Kinyan or Jenn moore or.. it's like Satan and Hitler just strolled in with some lobbyists and a marketing campaign. And rommell took a break from tank duty and bought an Abrahams. it's the song of Deborah. In the book of Judges most people didn't do anything. Psyops patches and badges nro literally remind me of my childhood and I never viewed them a normal way. I caught glimpses of them though

[nancygduarteus]

Why You’re Probably Getting a Microchip Implant Someday

When Patrick McMullan first heard in early 2017 that thousands of Swedish citizens were unlocking their car doors and turning on coffee machines with a wave of their palm, he wasn’t too impressed. Sure, the technology—a millimeters-long microchip equipped with near-field communication capabilities and lodged just under the skin—had a niche, cutting-edge appeal, but in practical terms, a fob or passcode would work just as well.

McMullan, a 20-year veteran of the tech industry, wanted to do one better—to find a use for implantable microchips that was genuinely functional, not just abstractly nifty. In July 2017, news cameras watched as more than 50 employees at Three Square Market, the vending-solutions company where McMullan is president, voluntarily received chip implants of their own. Rather than a simple scan-to-function process like most of Sweden’s chips use, the chips and readers around Three Square Market’s River Falls, Wisconsin office were all part of a multi-stage feedback network. For example: Your chip could grant you access to your computer—but only if it had already unlocked the front door for you that day. “Now,” says McMullan of last summer, “I’ve actually done something that enhances our network security.”

The problem McMullan’s chips cleverly solve is relatively small-scale—but it’s still a problem, and any potential new use case represents a significant step forward for a chip evangelist like him. As with most technologies, the tipping point for implantable chips will come when they become so useful they’re hard to refuse. It could happen sooner than you think: In September 2017, Three Square Market launched an offshoot, Three Square Chip, that is developing the next generation of commercial microchip implants, with a slew of originative health features that could serve as the best argument yet that microchips’ benefits can outweigh our anxieties about them.

Though new to the American workplace in this implantable form, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has been around for decades, and has long been considered secure enough for commonplace use. RFID ear tags are used to register almost all farm and ranch livestock with the U.S. National Animal Identification System (in Australia, the system is mandatory). If you’ve checked luggage on a Delta Airlines flight, you can thank RFID luggage tags for the fact that your bag arrived at the same destination you did. And you probably already have a personal RFID chip that goes everywhere with you—it’s in your credit card.

[The future of wearables makes cool gadgets meaningful]

But of course, the fear surrounding RFID implants has little to do with RFID itself, and everything to do with implantation. American pets safely receive RFID implants without complication every day; even so, many of their owners would cite something akin to safety as a reason not to get one of their own. When a company called Verichip developed its own health-care-oriented microchip implants in the early aughts, its research indicated that 90 percent of Americans were uncomfortable with the technology. The company got FDA approval for its devices in 2004, but folded just three years later, in large part due to studies that suggested a potential link between RFID transponders and cancer in lab animals. (The risks of cancer caused by RFID have since been found to be virtually nonexistent for humans and negligible for animals, and one 2016 study even suggested that embedding active RFID transponders within cancerous tumors could be an effective means of treatment.)

A decade later, floating throughout the eruptive hullabaloo around Three Square’s “chip party” were all kinds of fears—some credible, some less so—about the dangers of introducing subdermal radio technology to the American workplace: That companies might make widespread use of this technology mandatory, or that implanted microchips might be hacked or used to track wearers, or that hands might be severed in the name of home break-ins. Many critics, including state legislators working to pass bills that would restrict RFID implants, are fearful that the metal components and circuitry in the chips would mean certain death if a “wearer” were exposed to an MRI machine or defibrillator.

Then there are broader fears about the use of chip technology to track humans: Before the damning research halted Verichip’s growth, the company’s chairman suggested in a 2006 appearance on “Fox & Friends” that Verichip implants could be used to register migrant workers at the border and verify their identities in the workplace; that same year, former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe reportedly proposed to then-senators Arlen Specter and Jeff Sessions that the chips could be implanted into Colombian workers before they entered the United States for seasonal work. Meanwhile, some fundamentalist Christian communities remain convinced that the microchip implant is the manifestation of the biblically portended mark of the beast. But the primary challenge to RFID implants remains the simple underlying question posed over and over again in response to the tech: Is this really necessary?

In 1998, British scientist Kevin Warwick (known by the moniker “Captain Cyborg”) became the first human to receive an RFID microchip implant. But since then, development has been slow. Kayla Heffernan, a researcher in the department of computing and information systems at the University of Melbourne’s School of Engineering, blames the fact that chipping hasn’t yet been accepted widely on what she sees as “a chicken-and-egg problem.” “People don’t get them because they’re not useful enough yet, but because there’s not a market the devices [remain] relatively unchanged,” says Heffernan.

McMullan hopes to solve the second half of that problem as a means of invigorating the first. Shortly after last summer’s chip party, he began meeting with cardiologist Michael Mirro, who serves as the director of the Parkview Research Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Dr. Mirro’s team and Three Square Chip developers are currently working on prototypes of RFID implants that will be able to continually monitor an individual’s vitals, enabling both patients and doctors to access highly accurate real-time information.

[Should your watch monitor your heart?]

As McMullan describes it, the decision to develop RFID technology for medical purposes was motivated by more than just business savvy—it’s what intrigued him about the chips in the first place. The technology for better, potentially life-saving solutions has long existed, he says, “it’s just, frankly, nobody decided to take it on.”

It’s an undeniably personal project for McMullan: His wife, Leah, suffers from a chronic nerve disorder caused by a medical accident in 2009 and relies on an implanted spinal-cord stimulator to manage her pain. When he talks to her about the chips, he says, she reminds him, “If I did not have that nerve stimulator in my back I would have committed suicide a long time ago.’”

Nerve stimulators are among the many implantable technologies that have leapt onto the health-care market in full force. Insertable cardiac monitors like the Reveal LINQ have replaced sometimes-finicky stick-on patches as the most reliable option for patients with chronic heart conditions, and just two months ago, the FDA approved the first-ever long-term implantable continuous glucose-monitoring system for people with diabetes.

Three Square Chip says that its medical RFID implants will be powered by body heat, and McMullan’s plans to develop a single piece of hardware to aid patients with a wider range of conditions could make the chips more affordable than devices with more specialized (and limited) functions. “Many heart patients, right now, the only time they know they’ve got a problem is when they’re in the back of an ambulance,” says McMullan.

The company estimates that it will be selling chips capable of tracking a wearer’s live vital signs in a little over a year, but a few other developments will come first. McMullan hopes that people will soon consider storing their medical information on encrypted RFID chips, and the group is also working on a way to make GPS-enabled chips available as an option for families to track relatives suffering from severe dementia—another use for the chips that poses both obvious benefits and legitimate concerns.

“There’s an interest, but also a controversy, with the actual GPS tracking,” says Dr. Luis Martinez, a preventative medicine specialist in San Juan who has worked with McMullan on chip development since before last year’s media frenzy. “A lot of parents will feel actually safe if they can track real-time where their children are, given abductions, child trafficking, and all that.” But, he says, there are even more use cases: “Other populations ... are being looked at for different reasons: law enforcement, or say you could use a GPS chip to identify registered sex offenders. I think it’ll be a case-by-case basis where different countries or different societies will decide.”

At the same time as the technology is becoming more powerful, people are becoming more comfortable with the notion of implantables. “If we think about 1998 to now, a lot has changed about the way we regard the body,” says Heffernan. This shift, she says, is traceable from body modifications like tattoos and piercings all the way up to the chips McMullan is developing. “Pacemakers are routine surgery. Plastic surgery is less taboo now.” Hundreds of thousands of American bodies now contain cochlear implants, IUDs, nerve stimulators, artificial joints, implantable birth-control rods, and beyond. “There’s a trend towards putting devices inside the body, not just for life or death situations, but for convenience such as contraceptives, menstrual aids, contact lenses,” Heffernan says. “So as we’ve become more comfortable with this, insertables become more acceptable.”

In the year since Three Square Market’s chip party, the technology has become mundane to those surrounded by it. “We don’t think about it within the company really at all,” says customer-service manager Melissa Koepp, who chose to get the implant. Her non-chipped colleagues are similarly nonchalant about the company’s futuristic update. In fact, one of the most common reasons employees opted not to receive the implant wasn’t about the implications of the technology at all: “When I watched them chip Todd,” says Katy Melstrom, vice president of marketing, “and I saw the size of the needle, I said, ‘yeah, I’ll wait until we get a smaller version.’”

Yet for all of the implantable gadgets Americans use, and the heaps of location-enabled gizmos we own, the first commercial device with both of these features will be significant. A teenager who brings her iPhone to the school bathroom with her can one day choose not to. If visiting a physician to remove the chip in her hand requires similar parental permissions to other invasive medical procedures, well, then, we know how that episode of Black Mirror ends.

[Why bosses can track their employees 24/7]

The key to ensuring that RFID developments are used only as intended will be meaningful and active legislation developed to cut potential abuses off at the pass. In terms of workplace RFID implants, state legislature is already behind. Before Three Square Market’s “chip party” last summer, five states, including Wisconsin, had RFID privacy laws preventing employer-mandated microchip implantation. Since then, only five more have introduced similar bills.

“I believe this technology is going to grow exponentially, in stages, and in a very short period of time,” says New Jersey State Assemblyman Ronald Dancer, whose bill will be voted on in the coming months. “We need to make sure that there’s full disclosure and consent.”

The legal tenets of disclosure and consent can be complicated enough in the workplace, but how will lawmakers and experts in security and tech react when required to define consent for a patient with advanced dementia? “Laws should not regulate technologies, but the actions we don’t want to happen,” says Heffernan. “This is the problem with some current regulation—it’s too slow because it focuses on technologies, not actions.”

But sooner or later, the laws will change, and the frightening will become familiar. After all, all it took in Sweden for RFID implants to become widespread and normalized was the simple appeal of never having to deal with a lost key. Whenever it happens, like waves of new tech before it, implantable RFID will bring us the next iteration of the yin-and-yang symptoms of technology we’ve seen time and time again. We will likely be healthier, safer, more informed, and more connected, and we will continue to disagree over whether or not it matters if our privacy and autonomy was the corresponding cost.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/09/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-microchip/570946/?utm_source=feed

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Fantasy soccer: Ideas for choosing your Premier League staff

Fantasy soccer: Ideas for choosing your Premier League staff

Fantasy soccer: Ideas for choosing your Premier League staff

Ought to James Milner, Joe Hart or Sergio Aguero make the reduce in your fantasy staff?

It’s the large query dealing with thousands and thousands of soccer followers each weekend: who must be included within the fantasy staff for the subsequent spherical of matches?

We have delved into the stats and the historical past books to offer you some recommendations on who’s prone to carry out nicely – and who could be value leaving out.

A uncommon weekend to swerve Man Metropolis’s attackers?

Manchester Metropolis have failed to attain of their previous 4 dwelling conferences with Huddersfield

Manchester Metropolis v Huddersfield – an opportunity for the house aspect to run riot, proper?

Effectively, maybe not. Huddersfield might need conceded extra objectives than two of the relegated groups final season, however they’d a unusually stunting impact on the eventual champions.

Metropolis scored in 17 of their 18 Premier League dwelling video games final time period – a complete of 47 objectives – however they may not accomplish that against the Terriers in May (though they’d secured the title by that stage).

Pep Guardiola’s aspect additionally discovered their away recreation towards the identical opponents a wrestle earlier within the season, trailing at half-time earlier than registering an 84th-minute winner.

In whole, Metropolis had solely seven pictures on track in 180 minutes towards Huddersfield in 2017-18, fewer than towards another aspect.

Going again a bit additional to when Huddersfield have been within the Championship in 2016-17, they once more pissed off Metropolis, this time forcing a replay because of a 0-0 draw within the FA Cup on the John Smith’s Stadium.

On Sunday, Metropolis should do with out the injured Kevin de Bruyne, which means choosing their attacking gamers won’t be the no-brainer you’d have thought it might be.

Load up on Burnley defenders

For a staff famend for his or her solidity on the again final season (the sixth-best defensive report within the division with 39 objectives conceded, yet one more than Liverpool and Chelsea and 12 fewer than Arsenal), it’s shocking that Burnley have stored just one clear sheet of their previous 10 dwelling league video games.

Which may have seen a transfer away from having the likes of Ben Mee and James Tarkowski in your fantasy groups, however this may very well be a superb week to get them again in.

Since Joe Hart’s arrival, the Clarets haven’t conceded a objective – three shutouts in a row totalling 300 minutes of enjoying time – and they’re developing towards a aspect who simply can’t rating on their travels.

Actually, Watford haven’t scored in any of their seven away league video games since Javi Gracia took over as supervisor, the joint longest wait a brand new Premier League boss has had for his aspect to attain on the street (equal with Billy Davies and Mick McCarthy).

Add in the truth that Watford haven’t received any of their previous 10 away video games towards Burnley – failing to attain in 349 minutes of motion at Turf Moor – and the indicators look good for Sean Dyche’s again 4 and keeper to say loads of factors.

Milner the creator

James Milner is famous for his understated persona, the Liverpool midfielder hardly ever hitting the headlines.

However the former England worldwide did make his mark within the Champions League final season with one specific stat.

He supplied eight assists – greater than Cristiano Ronaldo, greater than Lionel Messi. Extra, the truth is, than anybody else within the competitors, and all from a midfield function which frequently means he finds himself in deeper positions than a lot of Europe’s premier probability creators.

Was that statistic a one-off? Fairly presumably not, if the opening day of the Premier League season was something to go by.

The 32-year-old was once more in fantastic artistic kind. His anticipated assists tally – the variety of assists he ought to have had if the possibilities he created had been transformed – was 1.15 within the 4-0 win over West Ham. No different participant within the prime flight managed greater than 1.00.

Sure to Spurs however no to Kane?

Slavisa Jokanovic’s Fulham received on their earlier journey to Wembley – the Championship play-off last in Might

Everybody is aware of Harry Kane has never scored a Premier League goal in August – a run of 14 video games, 988 minutes and 46 pictures that certainly has to finish sooner relatively than later.

His beforehand excellent report in London derbies has additionally suffered of late – after a sequence of 17 objectives in 16 matches towards different golf equipment from the capital, he has scored a comparatively paltry 5 in his previous 13.

Whether or not you again Kane to interrupt his August duck or not in Saturday’s recreation towards Fulham, Spurs gamers definitely look to be a wise inclusion in your fantasy staff this week.

Put merely, Spurs all the time beat promoted golf equipment at dwelling. They’ve accomplished precisely that on the previous 18 events they’ve met a brand new top-flight staff.

So if you wish to search for non-Kane choices, then maybe Hugo Lloris could be your greatest wager.

Tottenham have conceded solely as soon as of their previous 9 video games towards promoted groups and 7 in that longer sequence of 18 video games.

Added to that, Fulham failed to search out the web of their opening recreation towards Crystal Palace, with Match of the Day pundit Ian Wright saying their attacking play wanted to be “a lot quicker” at Premier League degree.

Newcastle’s Ritch vein of kind

Obtained any Cardiff gamers in your squad? Is likely to be time to take them out sharpish.

The Bluebirds play Newcastle this weekend – and have misplaced their previous 10 conferences with the Magpies.

Actually, Newcastle are on their longest successful run within the league towards one opponent, and supervisor Rafael Benitez has by no means misplaced to Saturday’s counterpart Neil Warnock.

All that factors to the inclusion of a Newcastle participant or two in your fantasy line-up. However who?

Winger Matt Ritchie may very well be a superb shout – he is had a hand in three objectives in his previous two league video games towards Cardiff, whereas Christian Atsu has netted in his earlier two matches towards them.

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Well done, everyone: we did it. They said it wasn’t possible. They said it wasn’t safe. They said it would be tactless to start up one of the world’s most lucrative sports leagues while thousands are dying. They said it wouldn’t be a fair competition. They may still be right about all of this, of course. More on that in a moment. But for now, football is back. Watch it. Drink it in. Lose yourself in a pure six-week football bender: 92 Premier League fixtures, spread across every day of the week and every conceivable time slot, all of it live on television, much of it free to air. Take that, null-and-voiders; dry your tears, PPG; up yours, Troy Deeney. Football is back and all it took was the spectre of financial catastrophe and the sight of Germany handling things far more adeptly. The first point to make is that football is hardly striking out alone. Snooker and horse racing are planning to begin behind closed doors on Monday. Professional golf, cricket and rugby league will be back by August. The resumption of the 2019-20 season was probably a foregone conclusion from the moment the prime minister offered his backing this month and heaven knows the government would be grateful of a little popular distraction right now. Even so many have been surprised by the speed and bombast which the game has managed to coalesce around the terms of its return. Crisis has a marvellous way of focusing minds. Envy, too. Stung not just by the urgency of the balance sheet but the largely frictionless resumption of the Bundesliga and the resolute noises coming out of Spain and Italy, the 20 Premier League clubs managed to set aside their trademark factionalism for just long enough to approve the contours of Project Restart. Full contact training was unanimously approved on Tuesday. Thursday brought a provisional schedule, beginning on 17 June with Aston Villa v Sheffield United and Manchester City v Arsenal. On Friday came the announcement of a rescheduled FA Cup final on 1 August. It’s fine to be straightforwardly delighted about this. This, after all, is what we’re here for: the spectacle, the moment, the Barclays. It’s only natural to get excited about the prospect of Sadio Mané tearing up a defence again, or Kevin De Bruyne pinging a cross, or Allan Saint‑Maximin running the ball extremely quickly out of play for a goal-kick. Meanwhile the move to free-to-air television is a laudable initiative and one of the few progressive ideas to emerge from a situation that largely promises to calcify the game’s existing inequalities. Equally: it’s fine to be conflicted, overwhelmed, even stupefied, by the cold weirdness of this new landscape. Disinfected training cones. No celebrations. Neutral venues. Not really being able to remember if Chelsea were any good or not. To find all this disorienting does not render you a fraud, a plastic, someone who doesn’t actually like football. One of the more amusing claims for the game’s return is that it will represent a return to normality, as if watching Wolves v Everton on a baking hot July evening at a deserted Molineux on BBC Two will be anything of the sort. Tottenham players Harry Kane, Lucas Moura, Son Heung-min and Eric Dier are back in training. Photograph: Tottenham Hotspur FC/Getty Images Certainly it’s possible to feel vaguely queasy about the lengths to which clubs are going in order to prove their readiness: all those millions being spent on tests and disinfectant and distancing, all that single-use plastic equipment going straight in the bin. Already, Premier League clubs have carried out more Covid-19 tests (2,752) than the entire UK did in the first two weeks of the outbreak. And of course it will be safe; at least, as safe as it is reasonable to guarantee. But then, what was euphemistically described as “the safety issue” was only ever partly about safety. It was less about meeting an objective standard or an acceptable vector of risk than about persuading players and public that they could feel safe. It was to this end that the league commissioned such a formidable array of expertise and scientific research to bolster its case (much of which swiftly and mysteriously found its way into the newspapers). From an early stage Project Restart was as much PR campaign as public health drive. This is why, from the league’s standpoint, the nightmare scenario is not a glut of positive tests among players and staff. Rather, it is the prospect of elite football sailing on in its sterile little bubble while the country at large endures a second wave of the virus: entrenching the idea that good health is not a basic right but a privilege available to those who can afford it. Rarely has football felt less like a vital service and more like a commodity It’s worth noting the astonishing inversion that has subtly taken place here. The return of the Premier League comes as the Women’s Super League season is cancelled, as Leagues One and Two move to abort their campaigns, as the non-league pyramid is annulled en masse, as grassroots facilities and five-a-side pitches and school fields lie unused. Football, the original people’s sport, the sport anyone could play anywhere, has been shrunk into an elite pursuit, the preserve of the very richest alone. And for what? Germany may already have dropped the canary down the mineshaft but what we don’t know still far outweighs what we do. We don’t know how much time will be required to build proper match fitness and how sharp any increased injury risk will be as a result. We don’t know the extent to which BAME players are being put disproportionately at risk. We don’t know when fans will return, or even whether they will return in anything like the same numbers. We do know Liverpool will win the league for the first time in 30 years, and deservedly so, but nobody knows what it will feel like to watch them do it in an empty stadium, surrounded by plastic seats and a skinny row of photographers. We don’t know how serious the erosion of home advantage will be, although intuition and experience suggest the best clubs will benefit most. We don’t know how the asymmetry of the season will impact on fairness. Will Tottenham suffer from playing a “home” north London derby behind closed doors? Perhaps. Will José Mourinho use it as an excuse if they lose? Almost certainly. In short, we don’t really know anything at all. Nonetheless we push on, because what else is there? The Premier League has thrived by dint not just of its reach but its ubiquity: an endlessly refreshing feed of content, narratives, controversies and tribal beefs. The likes of PPG v Null and Void, Overpaid Footballers v Underpaid Nurses, Kyle Walker v Lockdown Rules, were only going to get us so far. This is why the grand reopening also feels like a clearance sale. After all, we know what the real story is here: the billion-pound hole in the broadcast deal that needs to be filled with something, anything. Football has never been entirely free of the profit motive but rarely has it felt less like a vital service and more like a fungible commodity: a commercial obligation, a piece of content, a tin of supermarket mystery meat, to be stacked high and sold at a knockdown rate. It will certainly smell interesting. It will doubtless sustain us for a while. What we don’t yet know is whether you can live off it. The post Football is back and all it took was the spectre of financial catastrophe | Jonathan Liew | Football appeared first on Sansaar Times.

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