• Let’s Sing ‘Jingle Bells’

    The question where and when Pierpont originally composed the song that would become known as “Jingle Bells”. A plaque at 19 High Street in the center of Medford Square in Medford, Massachusetts commemorates the “birthplace” of “Jingle Bells,” and claims that Pierpont wrote the song there in 1850, at what was then the Simpson Tavern. According to the Medford Historical Society, the song was inspired by the town’s popular sleigh races during the 19th century. “Jingle Bells” was originally copyrighted with the name “One Horse Open Sleigh” on September 16, 1857. Mrs. Otis Waterman, one of Pierpoint’s friends, described the song as a “merry little jingle”, which became part of its new name when published in 1859 under the revised title of “Jingle Bells, or the One Horse Open Sleigh.” The song has since passed into the public domain. The date of the song’s copyright casts some doubt on the theory that Pierpont wrote the song in Medford, since by that date he was the organist and music director of the Unitarian Church in Savannah, Georgia, where his brother, Rev. John Pierpont Jr., was employed. In August of the same year, James Pierpont married the daughter of the mayor of Savannah. He stayed on in the city even after the church closed due to its abolitionist leanings. “Jingle Bells” is one of the best-known and commonly sung American songs in the world. It was written by James Lord Pierpont (1822–1893) and published under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh” in the autumn of 1857. It has been claimed that it was originally written to be sung by a Sunday school choir; however, historians dispute this, stating that it was much too “racy” (and secular) to be sung by a children’s church choir in the days it was written. Although originally intended for the Thanksgiving season, and having no connection to Christmas, it became associated with Christmas music and the holiday season in general decades after it was first performed on Washington Street in Boston in 1857. Some area choirs adopted it as part of their repertoire in the 1860s and 1870s, and it was featured in a variety of parlor-song and college anthologies in the 1880s. It was first recorded in 1889 on an Edison cylinder. “Jingle Bells” was often used as a drinking song at parties: people would jingle the ice in their glasses as they sang. The double-meaning of “upsot” was thought humorous, and a sleigh ride gave an unescorted couple a rare chance to be together, unchaperoned, in distant woods or fields, with all the opportunities that afforded.

    Music historian James Fuld notes that “the word jingle in the title and opening phrase is apparently an imperative verb.” In the winter in New England in pre-automobile days, it was common to adorn horses’ harnesses with straps bearing bells as a way to avoid collisions at blind intersections, since a horse-drawn sleigh in snow makes almost no noise. The rhythm of the tune mimics that of a trotting horse’s bells. However, “jingle bells” is commonly taken to mean a certain kind of bell. Let’s sing Jingle Bells
    Dashing through the snow
    In a one-horse open sleigh
    O’er the fields we go
    Laughing all the way

    Bells on bob tail ring
    Making spirits bright
    What fun it is to ride and sing
    A sleighing song tonight!

    Jingle bells, jingle bells,
    Jingle all the way.
    Oh! what fun it is to ride
    In a one-horse open sleigh.

    Jingle bells, jingle bells,
    Jingle all the way;
    Oh! what fun it is to ride
    In a one-horse open sleigh.

    The original 1857 “Jingle Bells” had a slightly different chorus featuring a more classical-style melody. The “I V vi iii IV I V I” chord progression is a common theme in classical music; except for the final two chord changes, the melody as originally written follows the same chord progression as Pachelbel’s Canon; the tune would later become more closely associated with another Christmas song, “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas,” which appeared about twenty years after “Jingle Bells”. The “Jingle Bells” tune is used in French and German songs, although the lyrics are unrelated to the English lyrics. Both songs celebrate winter fun, as in the English version. The French song, titled “Vive le vent” (“Long Live the Wind”), was written by Francis Blanche and contains references to Father Time, Baby New Year, and New Year’s Day. There are several German versions of “Jingle Bells”, including the popular Roy Black versions of Christkindl and Christmastime. “Jingle Bells” was first recorded by Will Lyle on October 30,1889 on an Edison cylinder however no surviving copies are known.

  • Christmas Films..Do You Remember Holiday Inn

    In May 1940, Irving Berlin signed an exclusive contract with Paramount Pictures to write songs for a film musical based on his idea of an inn that opened only on public holidays. Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire were the stars of Holiday Inn with support from Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale. Produced and directed by Mark Sandrich, filming took place between November 1941 and January 1942. Holiday Inn had its premiere at the New York Paramount Theatre August 4, 1942. It was a success in the US and the UK, the highest-grossing film musical to that time. It was expected that “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” would be the big song. While that song did very well, it was “White Christmas” that topped the charts in October 1942 and stayed there for eleven weeks. Another Berlin song, “Happy Holiday,” is featured over the opening credits and within the film storyline. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii occurred halfway through filming. As a result, the Fourth of July segment was expanded beyond Fred Astaire’s firecracker dance to include the patriotic number that highlights the strength of the US military. Many segments of the film are preceded by shots of a calendar with a visual symbol of the given holiday. For November, an animated turkey is shown running back and forth between the third and fourth Thursdays, finally shrugging its shoulders in confusion. This is a satirical reference to the “Franksgiving” controversy when President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to expand the Christmas shopping season by declaring Thanksgiving a week earlier than before, leading to Congress setting Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November by law. Holiday Inn is a 1942 American musical film directed by Mark Sandrich and starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. With music by Irving Berlin, the composer wrote twelve songs specifically for the film, the best known being “White Christmas.” The film features the complete reuse of “Easter Parade,” written by Berlin for the 1933 Broadway revue As Thousands Cheer. The film’s choreography was by Danny Dare. The film received a 1943 Academy Award for Best Original Song (Irving Berlin for “White Christmas”), as well as Academy Award nominations for Best Score (Robert Emmett Dolan) and Best Original Story (Irving Berlin). Jim Hardy (Bing Crosby), Ted Hanover (Fred Astaire), and Lila Dixon (Virginia Dale) have a musical act popular in the New York City nightlife scene. On Christmas Eve, Jim prepares to give his last performance as part of the act before marrying Lila and retiring with her to a farm in Connecticut. At the last minute, Lila decides she is not ready to stop performing, and that she has fallen in love with Ted. She tells Jim that she will stay on as Ted’s dancing partner. While heartbroken, Jim follows through with his plan and bids the act goodbye. One year later on Christmas Eve, Jim is back in New York City. Farm life has proven difficult; he plans to turn his farm into an entertainment venue called Holiday Inn, to be open only on public holidays.

    On Christmas Day, Linda arrives at Holiday Inn, where she meets Jim—both realizing they were fooling each other the previous evening. Jim is preparing the place for New Year’s Eve, and they take to each other immediately. Jim sings her his new song, “White Christmas,” which he would have performed had the inn been open that night. Later that week, on New Year’s Eve, Holiday Inn opens to a packed house. The song that would become “White Christmas” was conceived by Berlin on the set of the film Top Hat in 1935. He hummed the melody to Astaire and the film’s director Mark Sandrich as a song possibility for a future Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle. Astaire loved the tune, but Sandrich passed on it. Berlin’s assignment for Paramount was to write a song about each of the major holidays of the year. He found that writing a song about Christmas was the most challenging, due to his Jewish upbringing. When Crosby first heard Berlin play “White Christmas” in 1941 at the first rehearsals, he did not immediately recognize its full potential. Crosby simply said: “I don’t think we have any problems with that one, Irving.” Although White Christmas has become iconic, this was not the original intention. The song Be Careful, It’s My Heart, played during the Valentine’s Day section of the film, was originally intended to be a bigger hit when production of Holiday Inn commenced. The song is used during the Christmas holiday sections of the movie, most notably when it is introduced to Linda Mason (Reynolds) by Jim Hardy (Crosby) while she is trying to obtain a position in the shows at the inn. Hardy begins playing the song to her allowing her to join him and eventually perform solo. The song is also reprised near the end of the movie. Full-length studio recordings of the film’s songs, differing slightly from those in the movie, were made for commercial release. Initially issued on 78rpm records, they were later collected on LP, cassette and CD. These are the song recordings taken directly from the movie and are often confused with the ones above released to the public.

    Holiday Inn was released on VHS in 1986 and again in 1992. It was first released on DVD paired with another Crosby vehicle, Going My Way (1944). It added a trailer for each film and some text-based extras. This version is also available in many boxed set collections of holiday-themed or Crosby-themed movies. In 2006 it was released as a single-disc “Special Edition” featuring a commentary by Ken Barnes, with interspersed archival comments by Crosby and Astaire. It also included A Couple of Song and Dance Men, a documentary on Astaire and Crosby; All-Singing All-Dancing, a featurette on audio recording of movie musicals; and a reissue theatrical trailer. In 2014 it was released on Blu-ray as a single disc edition featuring both black and white and colorized versions and all previous DVD extras. The success of the song “White Christmas” eventually led to another film based on the song, White Christmas (1954), which starred Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen. It was an extremely loose remake of Holiday Inn, with a plot again involving an inn, but otherwise different from the earlier film. Fred Astaire was offered the second lead in the new film, but after reading the script, he declined. The role was then offered to Donald O’Connor, but he was injured before filming began. Danny Kaye ultimately took the role.

  • So Where Exactly is Lapland ??

    Lapland or Sápmi, an ethno-cultural region stretching over northern Fennoscandia (parts of Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Russia). The area of Lapland was split between two counties of the Swedish Realm from 1634 to 1809. The northern and western areas were part of Västerbotten County, while the southern areas were part of Ostrobothnia County (after 1755 Oulu County). The northern and western areas were transferred in 1809 to Oulu County, which became Oulu Province. Under the royalist constitution of Finland during the first half of 1918, Lapland was to become a Grand Principality and part of the inheritance of the proposed king of Finland. Lapland Province was separated from Oulu Province in 1938. During the Interim Peace and beginning of the Continuation War the government of Finland allowed the Nazi German Army to station itself in Lapland as a part of Operation Barbarossa. After Finland made a separate peace with the Soviet Union in 1944, the Soviet Union demanded that Finland expel the German army from her soil. The result was the Lapland War, during which almost the whole civilian population of Lapland was evacuated. The Germans used scorched earth tactics in Lapland, before they withdrew to Norway. Forty to forty-seven percent of the dwellings in Lapland and 417 kilometres (259 mi) of railroads were destroyed, 9,500 kilometres (5,900 mi) of roadways were mined, destroyed or were unusable, and 675 bridges and 3,700 kilometres (2,300 mi) of telephone lines were destroyed. Ninety percent of Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland, was burned to the ground, with only a few pre-war buildings surviving the destruction. After the Second World War, Petsamo municipality and part of Salla municipality were ceded to the Soviet Union. The decades following the war were a period of rebuilding, industrialization and fast economic growth. Large hydroelectric plants and mines were established and cities, roads and bridges were rebuilt from the destruction of the war. In the late 20th century the economy of Lapland started to decline, mines and factories became unprofitable and the population started to decline rapidly across most of the region. The provinces of Finland were abolished on January 1, 2010, but Lapland was reorganised as one of the new regions that replaced them. Sápmi (Northern Sami: [?sapmi]), in English commonly known as Lapland (/?læpl?nd/), is the cultural region traditionally inhabited by the Sami people, traditionally known in English as Lapps. Sápmi is located in Northern Europe and includes the northern parts of Fennoscandia. The region stretches over four countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. On the north it is bounded by the Barents Sea, on the west by the Norwegian Sea and on the east by the White Sea. Despite being the namesake of the region, the Sami people are estimated to only make up around 5% of its total population. No political organization advocates secession, although several groups desire more territorial autonomy and/or more self-determination for the region’s indigenous population.

    Sápmi is the name in North Sami, while the Julev Sami name is Sábme and the South Sami name is Saemie. In Norwegian and Swedish the term Sameland is often used. In modern Swedish and Norwegian, Sápmi is known as “Sameland”, but in older Swedish it was known as “Lappmarken”, “Lappland”, and Finnmark, respectively. Originally these two names did refer to the entire Sápmi, but subsequently became applied to areas exclusively inhabited by the Sami. “Lappland” (Laponia) became the name of Sweden’s northernmost province (landskap) which in 1809 was split into one part that remained Swedish and one part falling under Finland (which became part of the Russian Empire). “Lappland” survives as the name of both Sweden’s northernmost province and Finland’s, also containing part of the old Ostrobothnian province. The climate is subarctic and vegetation is sparse, except in the densely forested southern portion. The mountainous west coast has significantly milder winters and more precipitation than the large areas east of the mountain chain. North of the Arctic Circle polar night characterize the winter season and midnight sun the summer season—both phenomena are longer the further north you go. Traditionally, the Sami divide the year in eight seasons instead of four. Sápmi contains valuable mineral deposits, particularly iron ore in Sweden, copper in Norway, and nickel and apatite in Russia. Reindeer, wolf, bear, and birds are the main forms of animal life, in addition to a myriad of insects in the short summer. Sea and river fisheries abound in the region. Steamers are operated on some of the lakes, and many ports are ice-free throughout the year. All ports along the Norwegian Sea in the west and the Barents Sea in the northeast to Murmansk are ice-free all year. The Gulf of Bothnia usually freezes over in winter. The ocean floor to the north and west of Sápmi has deposits of petroleum and natural gas. The inner parts of Sápmi are often referred to as Lapland or Lappi, a name deriving from a former name given to the Sami, which is today considered derogatory by many Sami. The name is also found on the Russian side as Laplandige (the name of a natural reservation) and the Norwegian county of Finnmark is sometimes titled the “Norwegian Lapland”, especially by the travel industry. Lappi- appears as a common component of place-names throughout central and southern Finland as well; in many cases it probably refers to earlier Sami presence, though in some cases the underlying meaning may be merely “periphery” or “outlying district”. The approximate number of people living in Sápmi is about 2 million, though it is difficult to give the precise number of inhabitants since certain counties and provinces only include parts of Sápmi. It is also quite difficult to account for the distribution of ethnic groups as many people have double or multiple ethnic identities—both seeing themselves as members of the majority population and being part of one or more minority groups.

    There has been a long association between Christmas and Lapland. (THE SANTA CLAUS VILLAGE AT THE ARCTIC CIRCLE IN ROVANIEMI, LAPLAND) You can meet Santa Claus and cross the magical Arctic Circle every day at the Santa Claus Village in Lapland in Finland. It might be better to stay near Rovaniemi and visit Father Christmas Village or SantaPark, or go further north to Levi or Yllas for a traditional Finnish experience? Finnish Lapland is a good place to visit for a magical, festive atmosphere but you are right to be wary of over-commercialisation. There are new programmes introduced every year but some of these can suffer from being impersonal, The trick is to examine every detail of the itinerary, from how long you spend with Santa, which activities are included and how the gifts are organised. Expect to pay at least £2,000 for a family of four on a two- or three-night stay in a log cabin or hotel, including flights, transfers and meals. The climate can be harsh. Throughout the seven-month winter, you can expect little more than five hours of sunlight with temperatures dropping well below freezing and sometimes as low as -20 to -40C. But during daylight hours the sun often shines, the air is still and very dry, so as long as you dress properly, the cold is perfectly bearable.

  • History of the Christmas Pudding

    There is a popular myth that plum pudding’s association with Christmas goes back to a custom in medieval England that the “pudding should be made on the 25th Sunday after Trinity, that it be prepared with 13 ingredients to represent Christ and the 12 apostles, and that every family member stir it in turn from east to west to honour the Magi and their journey in that direction”. However, recipes for plum puddings appear mainly, if not entirely, in the 17th century and later. The collect for the Sunday before Advent in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer begins with the words “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works…”. This led to the custom of preparing Christmas puddings on that day which became known as Stir-up Sunday. Puddings possible ancestors include savoury puddings such as those in Harleian MS 279, crustades, malaches whyte, creme boiled (a kind of stirred custard), and sippets. Various ingredients and methods of these older recipes appear in early plum puddings. Pudding predecessors often contained meat, as well as sweet ingredients, and prior to being steamed in a cloth the ingredients may have been stuffed into the gut or stomach of an animal – like the Scottish haggis or sausages. One of the earliest plum pudding recipes is given by Mary Kettilby in her 1714 book A Collection of above Three Hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery. There is a popular and wholly unsubstantiated myth that in 1714, King George I (sometimes known as the Pudding King) requested that plum pudding be served as part of his royal feast in his first Christmas in England. As techniques for meat preserving improved in the 18th century, the savoury element of both the mince pie and the plum pottage diminished as the sweet content increased. People began adding dried fruit and sugar. The mince pie kept its name, though the pottage was increasingly referred to as plum pudding. Although the latter was always a celebratory dish it was originally eaten at the Harvest festival, not Christmas. It was not until the 1830s that the cannonball of flour, fruits, suet, sugar and spices, all topped with holly, made a definite appearance, becoming more and more associated with Christmas. The East Sussex cook Eliza Acton was the first to refer to it as “Christmas Pudding” in her bestselling 1845 book Modern Cookery for Private Families. Throughout the colonial period, the pudding was a symbol of unity throughout the British Empire. In 1927, the Empire Marketing Board (EMB) wrote a letter to the Master of the Royal Household, requesting a copy of the recipe used to make the Christmas pudding for the royal family. The King and Queen granted Leo Amery, the head of the EMB, permission to use the recipe in a publication in the following November. The royal chef, André Cédard, provided the recipe.

    In order to distribute the recipe, the EMB had to overcome two challenges: size and ingredients. First, the original recipe was measured to serve 40 people, including the entire royal family and their guests. The EMB was challenged to rework the recipe to serve only 8 people. Second, the ingredients used to make the pudding had to be changed to reflect the ideals of the Empire. The origins of each ingredient had to be carefully manipulated to represent each of the Empire’s many colonies. Brandy from Cyprus and nutmeg from the West Indies, which had been inadvertently forgotten in previous recipes, made special appearances. Unfortunately, there were a number of colonies that produced the same foodstuffs. The final recipe included Australian currants, South African stoned raisins, Canadian apples, Jamaican rum, and English Beer, among other ingredients all sourced from somewhere in the Empire. The custom of eating Christmas pudding was carried to many parts of the world by British colonists. It is a common dish in the Republic of Ireland, it is often eaten in many other countries. In America, the traditions of the Christmas Pudding had already arrived in pre-revolutionary days. Traditionally puddings were made on or immediately after the Sunday “next before Advent”, i.e. four to five weeks before Christmas. The collect for that Sunday in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, as it was used from the 16th century (and still is in traditional churches). The day became known as “Stir-up Sunday”. Traditionally everyone in the household, or at least every child, gave the mixture a stir and made a wish while doing so. It was common practice to include small silver coins in the pudding mixture, which could be kept by the person whose serving included them. The usual choice was a silver threepence or a sixpence. The coin was believed to bring wealth in the coming year.

    Christmas pudding is a type of pudding traditionally served as part of the Christmas dinner in the UK, Ireland and in other countries where it has been brought by British emigrants. It has its origins in medieval England, and is sometimes known as plum pudding or just “pud”, though this can also refer to other kinds of boiled pudding involving dried fruit. Despite the name “plum pudding,” the pudding contains no actual plums due to the pre-Victorian use of the word “plums” as a term for raisins. The pudding is composed of many dried fruits held together by egg and suet, sometimes moistened by treacle or molasses and flavoured with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and other spices. The pudding is usually aged for a month or more, or even a year; the high alcohol content of the pudding prevents it from spoiling during this time. Many households have their own recipe for Christmas pudding, some handed down through families for generations. Essentially the recipe brings together what traditionally were expensive or luxurious ingredients — notably the sweet spices that are so important in developing its distinctive rich aroma, and usually made with suet. It is very dark in appearance — very nearly black — as a result of the dark sugars and black treacle in most recipes, and its long cooking time. The mixture can be moistened with the juice of citrus fruits, brandy and other alcohol (some recipes call for dark beers such as mild, stout or porter). Prior to the 19th century, the English Christmas pudding was boiled in a pudding cloth, and often represented as round. The new Victorian era fashion involved putting the batter into a basin and then steaming it, followed by unwrapping the pudding, placing it on a platter, and decorating the top with a sprig of holly. Christmas puddings have very good keeping properties and many families keep one back from Christmas to be eaten at another celebration later in the year, often at Easter. Constance Spry records that it was not uncommon to go so far as to make each year’s pudding the previous Christmas.

  • Do you Play Volleyball ?

    The complete rules are extensive, but simply, play proceeds as follows: a player on one of the teams begins a ‘rally’ by serving the ball (tossing or releasing it and then hitting it with a hand or arm), from behind the back boundary line of the court, over the net, and into the receiving team’s court. The receiving team must not let the ball be grounded within their court. The team may touch the ball up to 3 times but individual players may not touch the ball twice consecutively. Typically, the first two touches are used to set up for an attack, an attempt to direct the ball back over the net in such a way that the serving team is unable to prevent it from being grounded in their court. The rally continues, with each team allowed as many as three consecutive touches, until either: a team makes a kill, grounding the ball on the opponent’s court and winning the rally; or a team commits a fault and loses the rally. The team that wins the rally is awarded a point, and serves the ball to start the next rally. A few of the most common faults include, causing the ball to touch the ground or floor outside the opponents’ court or without first passing over the net, catching and throwing the ball, double hit: two consecutive contacts with the ball made by the same player, four consecutive contacts with the ball made by the same team, net foul: touching the net during play, foot fault: the foot crosses over the boundary line when serving. The ball is usually played with the hands or arms, but players can legally strike or push (short contact) the ball with any part of the body. A number of consistent techniques have evolved in volleyball, including spiking and blocking (because these plays are made above the top of the net, the vertical jump is an athletic skill emphasized in the sport) as well as passing, setting, and specialized player positions and offensive and defensive structures. Nudists were early adopters of the game with regular organized play in clubs as early as the late 1920s. By the 1960s, a volleyball court had become standard in almost all nudist/naturist clubs. The history of Olympic volleyball traces back to the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, where volleyball was played as part of an American sports demonstration event.

    The Olympic volleyball tournament was originally a simple competition: all teams played against each other’s team and then were ranked by wins, set average, and point average. One disadvantage of the round-robin system was that medal winners could be determined before the end of the games, making the audience lose interest in the outcome of the remaining matches. To cope with this situation, the competition was split into two phases with the addition of a “final round” elimination tournament consisting of quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals matches in 1972. The number of teams involved in the Olympic tournament has grown steadily since 1964. Since 1996, both men’s and women’s events count twelve participant nations. The U.S.S.R. won men’s gold in both 1964 and 1968. After taking bronze in 1964 and silver in 1968, Japan finally won the gold for men’s volleyball in 1972. Women’s gold went to Japan in 1964 and again in 1976. That year, the introduction of a new offensive skill, the backrow attack, allowed Poland to win the men’s competition over the Soviets in a very tight five-set match. Since the strongest teams in men’s volleyball at the time belonged to the Eastern Bloc, the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics did not have as great an effect on these events as it had on the women’s. The U.S.S.R. collected their third Olympic Gold Medal in men’s volleyball with a 3–1 victory over Bulgaria (the Soviet women won that year as well, their third gold as well). With the U.S.S.R. boycotting the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the U.S. was able to sweep Brazil in the finals to win the men’s gold medal. Italy won its first medal (bronze in the men’s competition) in 1984, foreshadowing a rise in prominence for their volleyball teams. The 1984 women’s tournament was also won by a rising force, China. There are many variations on the basic rules of volleyball. By far the most popular of these is beach volleyball, which is played on sand with two people per team, and rivals the main sport in popularity.

  • Groom of the Stool…An Intimate Job

    The Groom of the Stool was, in the earliest times, a male servant in the household of an English monarch who was responsible for assisting the king in excretion and ablution, whilst maintaining an aura of royal decorum over the proceedings. The appellation “Groom of the Close Stool” derived from the item of furniture used as a toilet. It also appears as “Grom of the Stole” as the word “Groom” comes from the Old Low Franconian word “Grom”. The physical intimacy of the role naturally led to him becoming a man in whom much confidence was placed by his royal master and with whom many royal secrets were shared as a matter of course. This secret information—while it would never have been revealed, to the discredit of his honour—in turn led to him becoming feared and respected and therefore powerful within the royal court in his own right. The office developed gradually over decades and centuries into one of administration of the royal finances, and under Henry VII, the Groom of the Stool became a powerful official involved in setting national fiscal policy, under the “chamber system”. In the early years of Henry VIII’s reign, the title was awarded to court companions of the king who spent time with him in the privy chamber. These were generally the sons of noblemen or important members of the gentry. In time they came to act as virtual personal secretaries to the king, carrying out a variety of administrative tasks within his private rooms. The position was an especially prized one, as it allowed unobstructed access to the king, “the mere word of the Gentleman of the Privy Chamber was sufficient evidence in itself of the king’s will”, and the Groom of the Stool bore “the indefinable charisma of the monarchy”. By the Tudor age, the Groom of the Stool was a substantial figure like Hugh Denys (d.1511) who was a member of the Gloucestershire gentry, married to an aristocratic wife, and who died possessing at least four manors. The function was transformed into that of a virtual minister of the royal treasury, being then an essential figure in the king’s management of fiscal policy. The office was exclusively one serving male monarchs, so on the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, it was replaced by the First Lady of the Bedchamber, first held by Kat Ashley.

    In British Royal Households, First Lady of the Bedchamber is the title of the highest of the Ladies of the Bedchamber, those holding the official position of personal attendants on a queen or princess. The title had its equivalent in several European royal courts. The position is traditionally held by a female member of a noble family. During the Tudor dynasty (1485-1603), the First Lady of the Bedchamber was called Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber. She had the highest rank among the Ladies of the Bedchamber, and their role was to act as the attendants and companions of the royal woman. The First Lady of the Bedchamber of a queen consort was the equivalent of the post of First Lord of the Bedchamber to a king. The First Lord of the Bedchamber combined his post with the office of Groom of the Stool, who was in charge of the staff of the bedchamber and served as the keeper of the sovereigns stole or official robe. When the sovereign was female, the post of Groom of the Stoles was given to the First Lady of the Bedchamber. This created some confusion between the office of First Lady of the Bedchamber and the office of Mistress of the Robes, who was originally in charge of the queen’s robes or “stoles”. The result was a blur between the offices of First Lady of the Bedchamber and Mistress of the Robes, who were often combined during the 17th-century and 18th-century, until a strict organisation was finally set between them in the 1760s. The office effectively came to an end when it was “neutralised” in 1559. On the accession of James I, the male office was revived as the senior Lord of the Bedchamber, who always was a great nobleman who had considerable power because of its intimate access to the king. During the reign of Charles I, the term “stool” appears to have lost its original signification of chair. The office fell into disuse with the accession of Queen Victoria, though her husband, Prince Albert, and their son, Edward, Prince of Wales employed similar courtiers, now renamed “Groom of the Stole”, from the Latin stola, a long outer garment or robe worn by Roman ladies. Often when the visit of a modern monarch is planned, for example during the construction of a new building, a special royal lavatory pavilion is built for the occasion.

    A close stool was an early type of portable toilet, made in the shape of a cabinet or box at sitting height with an opening in the top. The external structure contained a pewter or earthenware chamberpot to receive the user’s excrement and urine when he or she sat on it; this was normally covered (closed) by a folding lid. “Stool” has two relevant meanings: as a type of seat and as human feces. Close stools were used from the Middle Ages (the Oxford English Dictionary gives the first citation as 1410) until the introduction of the indoor flush toilet. The close stool was sometimes called a necessary stool or a night stool. The eighteenth-century euphemism was convenience; the term was further euphemised in the nineteenth century with the term night commode, which John Gloag suggested may have derived its significance from a design for a “balance night stool” in Thomas Sheraton’s Cabinet Dictionary (London, 1803); Sheraton’s design was “made to have the appearance of a small commode standing upon legs; when it is used the seat part presses down to a proper height by the hand, and afterwards it rises by means of lead weights, hung to the seat, by lines passing over pulleys at each end, all which are enclosed in a case.” This appears to be the link between “commode” as an elegant article of French furniture, and “commode” as a prosaic invalid toilet. “Close stool,” in turn, is itself a euphemism for toilet chair. One meaning of commode survived into the twentieth century to refer to the flush toilet; “toilet” itself originally euphemistic.


The NHS is attempting to deter GPs from prescribing medicines which are available over the counter for a fraction of the cost.

Paracetamol, suncream, cough treatments and indigestion tablets could be included in future reviews.

But for now, the list includes items which could save the NHS up to £400 million per year.

Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: "Given the financial mess the NHS has found itself in for some years now, it is a wonder these low-cost household products were provided for in the first place - particularly when vital cancer drugs are being rationed.

"While this review is a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough.

"There will need to be significantly more radical cutbacks and a complete rethink of the system in order to achieve a financially sustainable and efficient health service."

Here are some of the items available on prescription that are being considered as part of the consultation:

Gluten-free foods

The amounts of gluten-free staple foods a sufferer can receive each month are controlled by the National Prescribing Guidelines.

Travel vaccines

Vaccines for typhoid, hepatitis A and cholera and a combined jab for diptheria, polio and tetanus are usually available free on the NHS.

The health service offers the vaccinations free of charge because they protect against diseases deemed to present the greatest risk to public health if brought into the country by travellers.

Some countries require visitors to be vaccinated against diseases such as yellow fever or meningitis prior to arrival, while travellers to some parts of the world are advised to have inoculations against a range of other diseases, including tuberculosis, hepatitis B, Japanese encephalitis and tick-borne encephalitis.

These are not usually available on the NHS and can cost around £50 for each dose.

Co-proxamol is used for mild to moderate pain relief is a combination of two active ingredients, dextropropoxyphene and paracetamol, which is typically included as a lower 350mg dose compared with the standard 500mg dose of paracetamol when taken alone.

There is limited evidence suggesting co-proxamol is more effective at treating pain than a regular dose of paracetamol, for either acute or chronic use.

There have been previous concerns that the drug has been linked to suicides and poisonings and it was gradually phased out from wide use between 2007 and 2007.

Omega-3 and fish oils

Naturally-occurring oils from certain breeds of fish such as salmon and mackerel have typically been prescribed to promote a healthy heart for patients at risk of heart disease.

The fatty acid omega-3 usually comes in capsule form and has been used to help prevent irregular heartbeats and reduce the risk of clotting by making the blood less sticky.

Historic concerns about prescribing omega-3 stem from limited evidence suggesting the fatty acid is effective in capsule form, and little to categorically suggest what a recommended adult daily intake should be.


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World of Tanks -TIGER 131 ''Limited edition''
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World of Tanks -TIGER 131 ''Limited edition''

Τιμή μονάδος (Τεμάχιο): €45.00

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Μοντέλο σε κλίμακα. Αποτελείται από πλαστικά κομμάτια και χρειάζεται συναρμολόγηση και βάψιμο . Type: Tanks Period: Second World War Country: Germany Skill: 3 Model Dim.: 24,0 cm Special LIMITED EDITION of only 1500 pieces Box enriched by hologram with sequential number THE BOX CONTAIN: 1 MODEL KIT - 1 LIQUID CEMENT - 1 TANK GUIDE - 1 POSTER (42x29,7cm) - WORLD oF TANKS DECALS - INVITE CODE - BONUS CODE For a tank that has grown such an amazing reputation, very few real Tigers remain. Only six reasonably complete vehicles still exist and of these Tiger 131 is undoubtedly the most famous. Serial number 250122 came off the Henschel production line in February 1943 and was issued to the 504 Heavy Tank Battalion. In early March it was shipped from Sicily to Tunis as part of Hitler’s belated reinforcement of his North African Army. The tank was captured at the end of April and as the first complete Tiger to be seized in the West, it was filmed and photographed and later brought to Britain for extensive analysis. Why Tiger 131? The tank was issued to the commander of Number 3 Platoon. The number signifies the company, the platoon and the place of the tank within that platoon, hence 131. In 1951 Tiger 131 was passed to the Tank Museum where it has been a popular exhibit ever since. It’s return to working order in the early 2000’s meant it became the only running Tiger 1 and this, in the age of the internet, has led to millions of viewings online of the tank running at events. Its involvement in the Fury movie of 2014 and its appearance in the World of Tanks game has only added to its exposure – making it now probably the most famous tank in the world F Sand 4720AP F.S. 30475 F Olive Drab US Army 4728AP F.S. 34084

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Barclay’s released some interesting data this morning indicating the exponential growth of smart phones as a percentage of total handsets shipped. A corollary to this is a subsequent explosion in mobile data and mobile internet penetration.

Interestingly enough, the top sites on mobile phones, according to ComScore, differs from the rest of the web only by having a higher ranking for carrier sites, presumably for checking minutes.

In parallel, there has been a huge explosion in the number of mobile apps: 65,000 for Apple alone at last count. Those interactions, and uses of the web, are very different than the uses of the web above.

As Google in particular articulates that in the end, web-apps will win on the mobile phone instead of dedicated apps. At this point, given that smart phones have some penetration, there doesn’t yet seem to be much evidence that web apps will win. Perhaps the rise of the WebKit browsers in mobile phones and HTML 5 will change all this.


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Jorge Luis Borges

Destiny (Expression) Number 9

He was born on Thursday August 24th 1899, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Jorge Luis Borges is the humanitarian. He is attracted to a cause or a movement whose purpose is to make a better world. Jorge is extremely idealistic, sometimes to the point of being naive about people or methods. He has great compassion and seeks to create a more humane society. Jorge is drawn to those who suffer physically or are at the hand of injustice. He is the righter of wrongs. Jorge Luis Borges' deepest intention is to transform the world.

He is willing to sacrifice in order to advance his cause. Indeed, this seems to be a theme in Borges' life. From time to time, he finds himself involved in a project whose very life depends upon his willingness to sacrifice something that relates directly to his ego.

Jorge Luis Borges is highly idealistic. He is also a visionary, with the ability to influence and direct the masses. Deep inside, Jorge longs for the love and approval of the many, and seeks fame.

Part of Jorge's hunger for fame has to do with his need for validation; Jorge is his own harshest critic.

Jorge Luis Borges realizes his greatest satisfaction when he is involved in some activity that directly benefits the public good. Politics, law, protection of the environment, teaching, and healing are areas in which Borges would succeed.

Jorge has a broad view of humanity and is not shackled with prejudice. He should have friends and associates from all walks of life, all colors and religious backgrounds. People fascinate and enrich him. A wide diversity of people and experiences stimulate and bring forth qualities within Jorge Luis Borges that would otherwise lay dormant.

He has an abundance of artistic talent. Many with Jorge's Destiny number find themselves in the arts, especially in literature, painting, and the visual and performing arts.

The number 9 indicates the completion of a cycle or a block of learning. The 9 Expression suggests that Jorge Luis Borges has reached the point where a breakthrough can occur; during this lifetime Jorge can apply all that he has learned along his evolutionary path and complete a major stage in his development. This is why we find many geniuses with Destiny 9.

Jorge Luis Borges has the ability to synthesize many diverse bits of knowledge into a unified whole.

His appearance is important. Borges is keenly aware of how others perceive him. As a result, others see Jorge as a person with a great deal of control. Conversely, Jorge Luis Borges is charismatic. Despite the cool and distant personality he projects, people are attracted to him.

Jorge tends to express his love somewhat impersonally. He tends to be preoccupied with his vision or cause, and sometimes overlook the needs of those closest to him. Borges needs to be reminded to give his love more personally and more openly. Ironically, Jorge Luis Borges is a very loving and sincere person, but often neglectful in expressing what he truly feels.

In the same way, Jorge can overlook his own needs. He can avoid sharing his deeper feelings, creating a reservoir of emotion. Jorge Luis Borges tends to postpone his personal satisfaction in favor of some larger work. He should try to be more spontaneous and courageous about showing his real self, including his vulnerability.

Borges' basic belief in the goodness of humanity is unshakable. This causes him to encourage the best in people, but occasionally makes him vulnerable to being taken advantage of. Jorge is not a very good judge of character.

The surest way to personal satisfaction is for Jorge Luis Borges to become part of some larger social cause. His nature is to serve. Jorge is happiest when he feels he is helping to advance the human race.

You and Jorge

Your Name:
 F  M
Your Date of Birth:

About Jorge's Destiny (Expression) number

The Destiny number reveals the talents, abilities, and shortcomings that were with Jorge Luis Borges when he entered his human body. His name, and the numbers derived from it, reveals Jorge's development, as well as the talents and issues he will be working with during this life.

Read more about our interpretation of Jorge Luis Borges' destiny (expression) number . . .

Other celebrities with the destiny number 9 as Jorge Luis Borges

Portrait of Luis Fonsi
Portrait of Emilia Clarke
Portrait of Emma Watson
Portrait of Harry Styles
Portrait of LaVar Ball
Portrait of Kaley Cuoco
Portrait of Song Hye-kyo
Portrait of Alicia Vikander
Portrait of Frida Kahlo
Portrait of Natalie Dormer


Explain how the Industrial Revolution changed the way Americans lived and worked.

Expert Answers
mrkirschner eNotes educator| Certified Educator

The Industrial Revolution in the United States transformed the American culture in many ways. The United States became an urban civilization as farmers and immigrants moved to cities to secure work in the factories. Women left the home or their work as domestic servants to work in the textile factories. Children were also employed in factories in large numbers. Industrialism resulted in lower cost and greater variety of consumer goods available for purchase.

With the increase in goods that was caused by industrialism, transportation systems were developed to easily move product. At first, it was the river and canal systems, but later the railroads that were utilized to move goods. The result of the improved transportation system is that it made the country seem smaller and created greater cultural cohesion between different regions of the United States. In addition to transportation, communication systems were improved with the telegraph and later the telephone.

The Industrial Revolution also changed the social class system of the United States. It created a great wealth gap between the workers and the industrialists. Despite this income gap, it did create opportunities for social mobility as a new middle class slowly emerged. This occurred as demand for bankers, managers, and teachers increased because of the factory system.


Hirenanduru To Tikekarwadi Trains

Following is the list of all the trains running between Hirenanduru to TikekarwadiRailwayStations:
Hyderabad bijapur Pass... Hirenanduru 02:48 Tikekarwadi 06:04 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Book
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More About - Hirenanduru To Tikekarwadi Trains

Are you looking for train from Hirenanduru to Tikekarwadi? If yes, know about some of the major trains that run between these stations. Here are some trains that run from Hirenanduru to Tikekarwadi are Hyderabad bijapur Passenger and etc. You can board your train from different stations such as Hirenanduru. Choose trains that take approximately 3 hrs 16 mins to 3 hours 16 mins. There are different trains passing from various stations from Mumbai. The stations include Hirenanduru( like Hyderabad bijapur Passenger ).


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Using Partition Wizard to create an extra drive

From the above you can see that the F Drive has been created. The 616GB in the F Drive formerly belonged to the C Drive which then had 917GB and now has only 300GB. (The addition is only to facilitate the explanation. Informaticians know that the figures do not really add up as your arithmetic does!)

Let's do it step by step

To give confidence to the more timid among you I have created a few screenshots using Partition Wizard on my laptop. As my laptop is less "powerful" than my desktop, the size of the C: drive (also called partition) is of course smaller than that mentioned earlier. The image below is what you see when you first launch the "Partition Wizard" programme. You start by clicking on "Launch application".

This will open a new page which gives the state of the hard disks that are in your laptop (you can see that there are 69.77GB for the C: drive and 69.51GB for the D: drive). As I am going to split the C: drive I click on it to highlight it. When I do this a new page will open, giving all kinds of options on the left pane. Since we are going to create a new drive we will have to choose the "Split Partition" option from there. You will see that in the highlighted C: drive, 33.34GB have already been used by the Windows Operating System, leaving 36.43GB free.

The screenshot below is what you see when you click on "Split Partition". You don't have to accept the sizes of the two proposed drives that you see (52.05GB for C: and 17.72GB for F: which is the name of the new drive that has been attributed). It is completely up to you to decide how much data space you want to give to the new drive you are going to create.

In my case I have decided to give 30GB to the new drive (F:), leaving 40GB for the repartitioned C: drive. To do this I "seize" the handle at the middle and "pull" it a bit more towards the left. This will decrease the size of C: and increase the size of the F: drive proportionately. The result is what you see in the screenshot below:

Having gone through all the above steps, if for some reason you are worried and prefer not to make any changes, all you have to do is to close the programme and no changes will be made. But if you want to make the changes make sure you click on "Apply" on the top left corner. Only then will your changes be validated. You will be asked to restart your computer so that Partition Wizard will be able to repartition the C: drive into two. It might take some time (nearly 15 minutes in my case) for it to do this. And that's it! The screenshot below shows the new state of the hard disks that are available in my laptop. You might want to compare it with the screenshot when we first started to see the difference.

Note: It might be a good idea to copy the above steps on a piece of paper before you start.


Ra Paulette What He Reveals Inside This Cave Is Incredible!

Ra Paulette has been walking alone into New Mexico’s desert to work.

The American artist spend’s his time carving a sandstone cave that he found, turning it into a wonderful subterranean space full of light.

The reason for this artwork is to create an environment that would inspire “spiritual renewal and personal well being.”

Ra Paulette was always struck by the relationship between humans, nature, and the inner soul.

A solitary walk through a forest is more than a casual stroll, it becomes an introspective pilgrimage.

I guarantee this video will blow your mind.


Artifact #3

At the core of a teacher’s practice is their planning. Planning is the process by which a teacher determines the outcomes they seek for their students (whether at a course, unit or daily lesson plan level) and then determines the best plan to allow for students to reach those desired outcomes. Having clear goals is important to making planning purposeful and useful. There were many a time when I planned for a lesson, only to realize after I taught the lesson that I had no clear outcome in mind. This was evident whenever I felt that I did not know where students stood at the end of a lesson in their understanding of a given concept. That lack of feedback informed me of a failure in my planning. A teacher must know where their students stand, as all lessons will fall to the wayside if students are at one place, and the teacher assumes they are at another. The remedy is to backwards plan. With the assessment in mind, a teacher can correctly determine what students will need to know in order to achieve the goals as measured by the assessment. Assessments are ultimately forms of feedback, and the more feedback a teacher has, the better they can adjust to help their students.

Teachers at ConneXions School for the Arts use the Understanding by Design Unit Plan template. This unit plan template (Blank UbD Template, 6b, j, r, v; 7f, g) guides the teacher to plan backwards from their desired outcomes for independent student actions, with assessments that give feedback on how students are reaching those outcomes. At ConneXions our final assessments are known as exhibitions, which ask students to present a final project in front of a panel of teachers (Example Chemistry Exhibition, 6e, g, k, t). This rigorous experience for students must be supported with learning activities that allow students to build skills throughout the semester to achieve high marks on their exhibitions.

In order to plan for students to achieve the desired outcomes I had for the course, I needed to devise unit plans that were integrated with and built upon one another. To align my units in this matter, I started a course planning document. This is a working document, and I am always tweaking it or changing it based on how the students respond to the course (Course Planning for Technology ’13, 7c, l, p, q). Within a unit, I would develop a learning plan that would sequence how topics were introduced to students and what assessments I would use (whether formative or summative) to determine if students are progressing satisfactorily. All of this would be aligned to objectives from the unit. Here is an example of my alignment of lesson objectives to assessment items for my chemistry class (Cookin’ Chemistry Alignment, 6a, b, o, t, v; 7b, k).

At the daily lesson plan level, I build in multiple opportunities for student feedback. During a lesson, I utilize a technique known as “whiteboarding” quite often. Students have a dry-erase marker and a sheet protector with a blank paper or a template inside of it. The surface is erasable and students can answer a question on the board, and hold the board up in my direction so that I can give them immediate feedback on whether they got a practice question right or wrong. For example, during a lesson on electrons students were practicing how to determine electron configuration. I created a whiteboard template which allowed students to practice the strategy for determining electron configuration in a non-stakes, safe environment. At the end of a lesson, I normally give an exit ticket based on the lesson (Sample Exit Ticket, 6g, j, t). Students will take the exit ticket on a scantron, which they can then scan with my computer’s camera. Once they do that, they get instant feedback on the assessment and that information is inputted into my master tracker (Instant Feedback and Mastery Tracker, 6l, s, t, v). Sometimes students may not succeed on the exit ticket, and I will reinforce the concept of the lesson by making it part of the catalyst (what I call my “warm-up drill”) the following day (Catalyst, 7f, l, q; 8p, s). This sort of adjustment is important and it helps students realize that it is okay to take time to come to terms with concepts. Once I provide them with reinforcement through flexible planning, they can succeed in my class.

The teacher must also provide students with multiple modes of expressing their understanding of the content. While I make use of exit tickets, that is one method and I must utilize others to ensure that I am meeting the needs of students who may struggle with multiple choice questions. Students can show their proficiency in many other ways including written products, oral presentations, or a created product (i.e. a PowerPoint presentation or the creation of a chemical compound). In my technology class, I wanted students to show their proficiency in developing a professional PowerPoint presentation. I decided to assign them a project that asked them to create a PowerPoint about themselves and the impact of their community on them. The rubric then outlined exactly what expectations I had for them for the PowerPoint itself, along with the content. The project was a good way for to see how their PowerPoint skills were progressing, and I learned a lot about my students (Community PowerPoint Presentation Rubric, 8a, k, l, m, n, o, q, r). Appealing to student interests and learning styles makes teaching purposeful, effective, and honestly, more exciting.

Even with different assessment methods, many times students are set-up to fail because they are not given equal access to content. Students are unique individuals and they do not all learn in the same fashion. The teacher must provide multiple modes of access to the content. This might include presenting information in written or visual form or having students engage in a laboratory experience. In chemistry class, laboratory experiences have been vital to helping students deal with abstract concepts. In chemistry, there is a section of the curriculum that expects students to understand the behavior of electrons and the effects of their excitation. This is something that happens at a microlevel and students have a hard time understanding how these micro-scale changes play out on a macro-scale. To help students with this concept, I set-up a Flame Test lab that asked students to subject various compounds with varying electronic configurations to a heat source which excites electrons resulting in the production of a distinct flame color. The distinct color allows for identification of unknown compounds, once the colors match. This gave students a practical application of the concept and it was more engaging than reading a lengthy explanation (Flame Test Lab, 8a, g, h, p). Sometimes labs are not appropriate for every learning situation. In those cases, I try to make available to students various modes of access to content. A given lesson in my class will have guided notes (Guided Notes Example, 8a, d, h, p), a graphic organizer (example: Converting Units Organizer, 8e, l, m) and exemplars (example: Community PowerPoint Exemplar Presentation, 8a, d, j) for students to use and reference. Students can use whichever tool they find the most helpful. This is also important for students with individualized education plans, that allows for them to make the use of aids to help them access content. In my lesson plans, I outline which students need such accommodations and I note the types of accommodations they are receiving in the class for that lesson (Lesson Plan IEP Example, 8c, h, q). Planning with all of these things in mind can be difficult, but it has paid off in terms of student engagement and achievement of desired outcomes.

Overall, purposeful planning is key to strong teacher practice. In order to plan well, teachers must receive feedback from students on their progress and they must adjust as needed. Lessons plans which align with the goals of the course must be engaging and provide access to content for all learners. Our students are unique, and that is okay. It is our job to help each of them succeed.


October Musings, Time Pressure!

While the sun continues to shine (at least when I wrote this in early October!), and the afternoons are warm, there is a definite feeling in the air of the change of seasons. Cooler nights, falling leaves, the sun hanging lower in the sky—all of these announce Fall. I have always enjoyed the season of Fall, welcoming cozy evenings with candles and a fire and a pot of soup cooking on the stove. But when my children were young, I can recall this time of year being an incredibly stressful time. The transition back to school or other daily routines, early mornings, and long full days of activities was hard to adjust to after the slowness of summer. There was a sense of there never being enough time to do the things we wanted, in the relaxed way that we wanted.

In my practice, I often hear parents talking about their struggle with having enough time to do everything they feel they need to, or their struggle to be on time to school, work and other activities. Mornings become a time of anxiety and mounting frustration as the clock ticks off the minutes and your toddler runs defiantly away from you, kicking off the shoes you finally got on.  Or your preschooler has decided to see how many bites she can get out of one waffle which means eating very, very slowly.   Or perhaps your kindergartner decides that you are the meanest parent in the world and they have a meltdown about brushing teeth.

For some perspective, remember that humans survived for thousands of years without knowing the “time” beyond when it got dark and light. Our current adherence to minutes (seconds!!) is a relatively recent phenomenon. It is one that is not a good match for the clock that young children run on. Children’s sense of time is fluid, in the moment and without awareness of the consequences of their actions.   They can be amazing models of the concept of mindfulness as they embrace the present.

While we do want to support our kids as they learn about time, sometimes it is helpful to shift our expectations and be with them in their perception of time. Try an experiment with a “time-free” day or block of time. Imagine not having  the pressure of needing to be somewhere at a certain time. Activities can simply last as long as they do.   Getting dressed is optional, and empty stomachs decide when it’s time to eat. A “time-free” experience means that no one uses the clock to determine what happens next. Cell phones are off, clocks face the wall, digital read-outs are taped over. Or perhaps you are out and about and consciously ignore any indicators of time, letting interest decide what happens next.   This experience can be quite challenging for adults who have learned to construct their lives according to time. Try it and see what you notice!

While time-free days can be wonderful, we do live in a society where there are expectations about things happening at a certain time. So what can you do when you are finding yourself getting frazzled by time pressure? Read on for some ideas!

When you are moving through the morning routine and glance at the clock to see you are now running late, first take a deep breath. Try to reduce the stress in your body which dictates that you have to do something about this such as yell at your child to hurry up, or snap at your toddler when they insist on doing something themselves. As a mom said in a group recently about being late to school—“I mean really, I just need to remember, this is PRESCHOOL. In the big scheme of things, being late to preschool is not something to get stressed out about.” Not to say that there aren’t times when being late does have big consequences (e.g. big work presentation) but hopefully those times are few and far between.

If running late happens repeatedly, then this is information you can use to explore making changes in your morning routine. Perhaps try laying clothes out the night before…in your bedroom so when your child gets dressed they don’t see potentially distracting play items. Or change your clocks forward so you have 15 minutes extra time in the morning. Or tell yourself a different start time (school really starts at 8:45 instead of 9:00!) and work towards that time. This gives you a little leeway to handle unexpected drama in the morning.

Often the investment of a little time to understand just why it is so important that your child find matching purple socks can actually get you out the door sooner (who knew that they had made an agreement with a friend that they would BOTH have purple socks on and surprise their teacher). Try saying something like: “Help me understand why this is important.” Or, “I can see this is really important to you. What can I do to help?” Or even, “Hmmm. You feel very strongly that you need more time to finish your project but I’m noticing that school starts in 15 minutes…and it takes us 15 minutes to get to school. What should we do?”

Watch out for emotionally-driven directives. Become aware that when we have strong emotions, such as anger or frustration, there is often an accompanying sense of urgency. Something has to be done! Now!  If you can work at reducing your tension level you may notice that the sense of urgency will go away. Your child will not turn into an axe murderer if you don’t immediately “do something” about the fact that they just pushed their little brother on the way to the car. You are more apt to find a good response if you take a moment to get yourself dialed down before responding to your child.

Invite your child to participate in a conversation about time/being late. Maybe you will arrive somewhere and notice that yours is the last car to pull up. You can have a conversation about this and what it means with your child/ren.   “Wow! The parking lot is pretty empty. Looks like all your friends are here.” (pause, refrain from desire to lecture child with comments about how if they had only…..then you wouldn’t be late). Perhaps ask, with curiosity,(for kids who are verbal)  “what works for you about being late?   What is hard for you?” Try to listen to your child’s response. Perhaps being late does work for them because they don’t like how busy and stimulating it feels with everyone else around when you are on time. Or maybe they enjoy making a grand entrance and having the attention of the class focus on them (or perhaps this is the part that is hard?). Take a moment to connect with your child and invite them into the conversation. Then you can always offer a hug–it only take a few seconds but leave lasting impressions.

Most of all, take a deep breath and remember what is truly important to you. Will rushing, and being late truly have the consequences you think? Yes, others may notice you are late to school. Yes, your child may be the last one there. And the only one in pajamas. Without shoes. But again, this is preschool. Or daycare. Or elementary school. Perhaps the message you are sending is that you value your relationship with your child more than what others may think of you. And your child is getting the message that your relationship with them is important, and you will respect what is important to them.  A pretty good recipe for raising respectful kids!


Meridian - Crafted for a Lifetime

A film exploring Meridian’s uncompromising commitment to craftsmanship and innovation and its passion for making the highest quality products. "We achieve this by being absolutely dedicated to the highest quality craftsmanship. Designed and built solely in the UK the team here know every single element of every product inside out."


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Medicine LibreTexts

1.3: What Are Nutrients?

Learning Objective

  • Define the word “nutrient” and identify the six classes of nutrients essential for health.
  • List the three energy-yielding nutrients and their energy contribution.

What is in Food?

The foods we eat contain nutrients. Nutrients are substances required by the body to perform its basic functions. Nutrients must be obtained from diet, since the human body does not synthesize them. Nutrients are used to produce energy, detect and respond to environmental surroundings, move, excrete wastes, respire (breathe), grow, and reproduce. There are six classes of nutrients required for the body to function and maintain overall health. These are carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, water, vitamins, and minerals. Foods also contain nonnutrients that may be harmful (such as cholesterol, dyes, and preservatives) or beneficial (such as antioxidants).

Figure 1.3.1: The Six Classes of Nutrients. Source:

Carbohydrates are molecules composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The major food sources of carbohydrates are grains, milk, fruits, and starchy vegetables like potatoes. Nonstarchy vegetables also contain carbohydrates, but in lesser quantities. Carbohydrates are broadly classified into two forms based on their chemical structure: fast-releasing carbohydrates, often called simple sugars, and slow-releasing carbohydrates.

Figure 1.3.2: The Macronutrients: Carbohydrates, Lipids, Protein, and Water

Slow-releasing carbohydrates are long chains of simple sugars that can be branched or unbranched. During digestion, the body breaks down all slow-releasing carbohydrates to simple sugars, mostly glucose. Glucose is then transported to all our cells where it is stored, used to make energy, or used to build macromolecules. Fiber is also a slow-releasing carbohydrate, but it cannot be broken down in the human body and passes through the digestive tract undigested unless the bacteria that inhabit the gut break it down.

One gram of carbohydrates yields four kilocalories of energy for the cells in the body to perform work. In addition to providing energy and serving as building blocks for bigger macromolecules, carbohydrates are essential for proper functioning of the nervous system, heart, and kidneys. As mentioned, glucose can be stored in the body for future use. In humans, the storage molecule of carbohydrates is called glycogen and in plants it is known as starches. Glycogen and starches are slow-releasing carbohydrates.

Lipids are also a family of molecules composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, but unlike carbohydrates, they are insoluble in water. Lipids are found predominately in butter, oils, meats, dairy products, nuts, and seeds, and in many processed foods. The three main types of lipids are triglycerides (triacylglycerols), phospholipids, and sterols. The main job of lipids is to store energy. Lipids provide more energy per gram than carbohydrates (nine kilocalories per gram of lipids versus four kilocalories per gram of carbohydrates). In addition to energy storage, lipids serve as cell membranes, surround and protect organs, aid in temperature regulation, and regulate many other functions in the body.

There is one other nutrient that we must have in large quantities: water. Water does not contain carbon, but is composed of two hydrogens and one oxygen per molecule of water. More than 60 percent of your total body weight is water. Without it, nothing could be transported in or out of the body, chemical reactions would not occur, organs would not be cushioned, and body temperature would fluctuate widely. On average, an adult consumes just over two liters of water per day from food and drink. According to the “rule of threes,” a generalization supported by survival experts, a person can survive three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, and three weeks without food. Since water is so critical for life’s basic processes, the amount of water input and output is supremely important, a topic we will explore in detail in Chapter 7.

Micronutrients are nutrients required by the body in lesser amounts, but are still essential for carrying out bodily functions. Micronutrients include all the essential minerals and vitamins. There are sixteen essential minerals and thirteen vitamins (See Table 1.3.1 and Table 1.3.2 for a complete list and their major functions). In contrast to carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins, micronutrients are not directly used for making energy, but they assist in the process as being part of enzymes (i.e., coenzymes). Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions in the body and are involved in all aspects of body functions from producing energy, to digesting nutrients, to building macromolecules. Micronutrients play many roles in the body.

Table 1.3.1: Minerals and Their Major Functions
Minerals Major Functions
Sodium Fluid balance, nerve transmission, muscle contraction
Chloride Fluid balance, stomach acid production
Potassium Fluid balance, nerve transmission, muscle contraction
Phosphorus Bone and teeth health maintenance, acid-base balance
Magnesium Protein production, nerve transmission, muscle contraction
Sulfur Protein production
Iron Carries oxygen, assists in energy production
Iodine Thyroid hormone production, growth, metabolism
Selenium Antioxidant
Copper Coenzyme, iron metabolism
Manganese Coenzyme
Fluoride Bone and teeth health maintenance, tooth decay prevention
Chromium Assists insulin in glucose metabolism
Molybdenum Coenzyme

Table 1.3.2: Vitamins and Their Major Functions
Vitamins Major Functions
B1 (thiamine) Coenzyme, energy metabolism assistance
B2 (riboflavin) Coenzyme, energy metabolism assistance
B3 (niacin) Coenzyme, energy metabolism assistance
B5 (pantothenic acid) Coenzyme, energy metabolism assistance
B6 (pyroxidine) Coenzyme, amino acid synthesis assistance
Biotin Coenzyme
Folate Coenzyme, essential for growth
B12 (cobalamin) Coenzyme, red blood cell synthesis
C Collagen synthesis, antioxidant
A Vision, reproduction, immune system function
D Bone and teeth health maintenance, immune system function
E Antioxidant, cell membrane protection
K Bone and teeth health maintenance, blood clotting

Vitamin deficiencies can cause severe health problems. For example, a deficiency in niacin causes a disease called pellagra, which was common in the early twentieth century in some parts of America. The common signs and symptoms of pellagra are known as the “4D’s—diarrhea, dermatitis, dementia, and death.” Until scientists found out that better diets relieved the signs and symptoms of pellagra, many people with the disease ended up in insane asylums awaiting death (Video 1.3.1). Other vitamins were also found to prevent certain disorders and diseases such as scurvy (vitamin C), night blindness (vitamin A), and rickets (vitamin D).

Video 1.3.1: This video provides a brief history of Dr. Joseph Goldberger’s discovery that pellagra was a diet-related disease.

Food Energy and Food Quality

Though this is only Chapter 1, you have already seen the words "Calories" and "Energy" used several times.  In everyday life you have probably heard people talk about how many Calories they burned on the treadmill or how many Calories are listed on a bag of chips.  Calories, are a measure of energy.  It takes quite a lot of Calories (energy) to keep us alive.  Even if a person is in a coma, they still burn approximately 1000 Calories of energy in order for: their heart to beat, their blood to circulate, their lungs to breathe, etc... We burn even more calories when we exercise.  The carbohydrates, fats and proteins we eat and drink provide calories for us (and alcohol as well if we choose to consume it).  Sometimes people refer to these nutrients as "energy yielding".  As you read above, carbohydrates provide 4 Calories for every gram we consume; proteins provide 4 Calories for every gram we consume; fats provide 9 Calories for every gram we consume and alcohol provides 7 Calories of energy for every gram we consume.  Vitamins, minerals and water do not provide any calories, even though they are still essential nutrients.  Please watch the following Ted Ed video called "What is a Calorie" which will describe in more detail what a Calorie is and why you may want to know how many Calories you are consuming compared to how many you are burning each day.

One measurement of food quality is the amount of nutrients it contains relative to the amount of energy (Calories) it provides. High-quality foods are nutrient dense, meaning they contain lots of the nutrients relative to the amount of Calories they provide. Nutrient-dense foods are the opposite of “empty-calorie” foods such as carbonated sugary soft drinks, which provide many calories and very little, if any, other nutrients. Food quality is additionally associated with its taste, texture, appearance, microbial content, and how much consumers like it.

Food: A Better Source of Nutrients

It is better to get all your micronutrients from the foods you eat as opposed to from supplements. Supplements contain only what is listed on the label, but foods contain many more macronutrients, micronutrients, and other chemicals, like antioxidants that benefit health. While vitamins, multivitamins, and supplements are a $20 billion industry in this country and more than 50 percent of Americans purchase and use them daily, there is no consistent evidence that they are better than food in promoting health and preventing disease. Dr. Marian Neuhouser, associate of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, says that “…scientific data are lacking on the long-term health benefits of supplements. To our surprise, we found that multivitamins did not lower the risk of the most common cancers and also had no impact on heart disease.”Woodward, K. “Multivitamins Each Day Will Not Keep Common Cancers Away; Largest Study of Its Kind Provides Definitive Evidence that Multivitamins Will Not Reduce Risk of Cancer or Heart Disease in Postmenopausal Women.” Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Center News 16 (February 2009).

Key Takeaways

  • Foods contain nutrients that are essential for our bodies to function.
  • One measurement of food quality is the amount of essential nutrients a food contains relative to the amount of energy it has (nutrient density).

Discussion Starters

  1. Make a list of some of your favorite foods and visit the “What’s In the Foods You Eat?” search tool provided by the USDA. What are some of the nutrients found in your favorite foods?

  2. Have a discussion in class on the “progression of science” and its significance to human health as depicted in the video on pellagra (Video 1.3.1).


Remedial Massage and Myotherapy for RSI

melbourne remedial massage
Remedial Massage MelbourneWhat is RSI?

RSI is an overuse injury, it happens from repetition of the same movements causing inflammation and damage to the soft tissues (muscles, nerves, tendons and tendon sheaths etc.)

How Can Remedial Massage or Myotherapy at Melbourne Natural Therapies Help?

Our Remedial Massage Therapists and Myotherapists use many different techniques to alleviate RSI symptoms including deep tissue massage, cupping, trigger point therapy, dry needling and low level laser therapy. Depending on your specific presentation our therapists will design a treatment program based on your individual issue. RSI is an umbrella term covering many different issues and as such each individual will find different treatment works for them.

Our Remedial massage therapists and Myotherapists will also give you home maintenance stretches and exercises to facilitate healing in the early stages and minimise the risk of the symptoms returning. As RSI is caused by repetitive actions that are generally part of our daily activities, clients find it hard (if not impossible) to cease these actions, so it is vital to implement a maintenance regime to manage RSI and prevent recurrence.

Prevention Is Better Than Cure!

When the symptoms of RSI are present you have already created substantial damage and inflammation to the area, this can mean much more treatment is necessary to get the condition back to a manageable state. Clients that manage their RSI with home exercise and stretches end up seeing us a lot less over the years which is much better for their bodies and their wallets.

What Can I Do?

Take Breaks
This is really important! However just taking a break isn’t enough, make sure you get some movement during your break such as rolling shoulders and wrists and walk if you can.

Use good posture
This is a tricky one. The question is, what is good posture? This is different for everyone so the best thing is to have your posture assessed. Some businesses have a staff member that takes care of this, if you don’t you can speak to our practitioner Cal Savage.

Use an ergonomically designed workstation.
Once again hopefully your work has an ergonomist. If not feel free to ask us what we can do for your business.

Exercise regularly
Doing nothing all week and then pushing yourself at the weekends is likely to do more harm than good and may increase your chances of injury. In the long run, regular gentle to moderate exercise is going to be more useful for muscles health, flexibility, wellbeing and enjoyment!

Only use the computer as much as you have to
I know this sounds obvious but maybe have a think about the things you could do during your day that could be done off the computer. Also in your time outside work hours try to enjoy activities that keep you away from the computer. Sorry but pokemon go isn’t a great choice for hands, wrists, arms and neck posture!

If you are experiencing RSI feel free to give us a call and book in for a free assessment.

Melbourne Combined Natural Therapies
03 9645 9923

Remedial Massage Bookings Still Available

For Today With Rani


In Brief

18 March 2015

Vibrating magnetic balls stimulate brain wirelessly

IT’S time for a shake-up. There is a new way to stimulate the brain, using tiny vibrating particles.

The technique is a twist on deep brain stimulation, which involves sticking electrodes into the brain to prompt neurons to fire. It has shown promise for treating illnesses including Parkinson’s and depression, but can’t be done without invasive surgery.

To see if she could take the electrodes out of the picture, Polina Anikeeva at MIT turned to cellular receptors called TRPV1. These make nerve cells fire when exposed to high temperatures or the heat created by eating chillies. What if it were possible to remotely stimulate the receptors?

One way of doing this is to inject magnetic nanoparticles into the brain and apply an oscillating magnetic field. As the jostling nanoparticles align with the field, they give off heat that TRPV1 receptors on neurons pick up – causing them to fire.

Anikeeva’s team tested their technique on three mice. A month later, the nanoparticles – which are approved for use in people – were still able to stimulate the brain. The team are now monitoring the mice to see how long the effects last and how safe the technique is in the long term (Science,