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Born in Dublin in 1959, Dermot Bolger is poet, playwright and novelist whose many novels include The Journey Home, The Valparaiso Voyage and The Family on Paradise Pier. His fifteen plays include, The Lament for Arthur Cleary, which received The Samuel Beckett Award in Britain and most recently his acclaimed adaptation of Ulysses. His latest collection of poems, The Venice Suite: A Voyage Through Loss , appeared in 2012, along with a novella, The Fall of Ireland. He regularly writes for most of Ireland’s national newspapers and in 2012 was named Newspaper Commentator of the Year.
Following a degree in Zoology and a Masters in Media Studies, Juanita Browne published her first book, ‘Ireland’s Mammals’ in 2005; ‘Kildare’s Natural Heritage’ in 2008; and she is currently working on a children’s wildlife book ‘My First Book of Irish Animals’, due to be published in November 2014. She works as a researcher for natural history documentaries for television and radio and is a Heritage Expert with the Heritage in Schools Scheme, visiting primary schools to talk to children about Ireland's wildlife. But in addition to her love of wildlife Juanita also loves her tea, and in 2013 published "Put the Kettle On: Ireland's Love Affair with Tea" with Collins Press.
Jennifer Burke is a Dublin-based contemporary fiction author. In 2013, a TV3 camera crew burst into her office where she works as a solicitor to announce that she had won their Write A Bestseller competition. The prize was a three book deal with Poolbeg Press and her first novel, The Secret Son, was published in September 2013 to critical acclaim. Levi’s Gift, her second novel, will be published in September 2014. Jennifer also writes shorter fiction. She contributed a short story to the 2013 book If I Was A Child Again, in aid of Barnardos, and was published in the 2012 From the Well Anthology. For the past three years, Jennifer has been shortlisted in the Fish Flash Fiction competition. www.jenniferburke.ie
Born and bred in Dublin, Ireland, Colette came to writing late in life after a chequered career that included computer programming and marketing insurance products.
It was only when she grew tired and bored with office life that Colette finally picked up a pen. She sent off a few chapters of her first book, Too Little, Too Late, to Poolbeg Publishers and was offered a three-book contract on the back of it. That first book went to number one and Colette subsequently secured a contract in the UK. She has since produced fourteen novels that are available worldwide.
Since incurring the wrath of his first editor in 1960 by making Hitchcock¹s Psycho his film of the year, veteran cineast Ciaran Carty has consistently championed the arts, developing a career as one of Ireland¹s leading critics and broadcasters. He was deputy editor of the Sunday Independent before becoming arts editor for the Sunday Tribune. Since 1988 he has edited the New Irish Writing page for both the Tribune and the Irish Independent, and is curator of the prestigious annual Hennessy Literary Awards.
Eileen Casey is a poet, fiction writer and regular contributor to journals and magazines. A recipient of a Hennessy Literary Award (Emerging Fiction) and a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship (Poetry), she holds an M.Phil in Creative Writing from The School of English, Trinity College, Dublin.
Poetry in public places exhibitions include Reading Fire, Writing Flame, Seagulls, and The Jane Austen Sewing Kit. Her most recent collection, A Fascination with Fabric, (Arlen House 2014) is a selection of essays and memoir published over the last decade in Ireland’s Own. Arts Council Bursaries were awarded in 2010/2011.
Dr. Tom Clonan is the Irish Times Security Analyst. He lectures in the School of Media, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland’s oldest Journalism school. He lives in Dublin and has four children. He served as an officer in the Irish Army from 1989 and has direct experience of the conflicts in Ireland, Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia. As Irish Times Security Analyst, Clonan has had exclusive access to all aspects of the Global War on Terror including experiences in Iraq, Syria, continental Europe and Guantanamo Bay. He also provides expert military and security analysis to Irish national television and radio, and international broadcasters including the BBC and Sky News. Tom is author of the bestselling Blood, Sweat and Tears: An Irish Soldier’s Story of Love and Loss.
Dr Declan Collinge. Born Dublin. Attended Drimnagh Castle schools in an all Irish class. Graduate of UCD with a PhD in Anglo-Irish literature. Was a teacher and lectured in Maynooth in Anglo-Irish literature. Has published 4 collections of poetry in Irish: Sealgaireacht, Faoi Léigear, Teachtaireacht Téacsa and Súnámaí. Has published 2 collections in English: Fearful Symmetry and Common Ground as well as The Lonely Hush of Eve Selected and New Poems.
Has published 20 Irish textbooks from Saibhreas to Gléasnótaí. Plays guitar and harmonica. Married with 3 married daughters and lives in Templeogue. His eldest daughter, Dr Nessa Collinge, works in UCD library and was a contestant on Masterchef! He is a keen amateur ornithologist.
Aoife is a 31-year-old mother of three from Dublin, now living in Kildare. All of her life she has known that she is adopted, but she could never have imagined the ups and downs she would face when finding her birth parents.
Her's is a beautiful story of a girl filled with admiration and respect for the wonderful couple she has called Mum and Dad for as long as she can remember. A girl who also showed unimaginable insight and maturity when confronting her birth parents and understanding their decisions - the ones that shaped the rest of her life.
In telling her story Aoife is a breath of fresh air and Searching for Me - My Adoption Story, is sure to help those in similar situations as well as enlighten those for whom adoption was never, and never will be, an issue.
Anna Davies is Professor of
Geography at Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD). She obtained her
PhD from Cambridge University and lectured at Kings College London before her
current appointment at TCD. Anna conducts research in the arena of
environmental governance particularly focusing on the ways in which different
actors and institutions attempt to mediate environmental management within the
areas such as waste, water, food and climate change. She has published widely
in this field including more than 50 peer reviewed publications. Anna is on the
editorial board of Local Environment: the international journal for justice and
sustainability and Geography Compass, she is an independent member of National
Economic and Social Council advising the Irish Government on environmental
policy and is also on the management board of The Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun;
a social enterprise dedicated to providing community employment and training
via innovative reuse enterprises. Anna is currently Principal Investigator of
CONSENSUS, an EPA-funded project examining consumption, environment and
sustainability project: www.consensus.ie
Sarah Davis-Goff was born and raised in north County Dublin. She went to college at a small, strange liberal arts college called St John’s in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and went on to receive an MA in Publishing from Oxford Brookes University. She gained experience with Penguin in London and Continuum in New York before moving back to Dublin, where she worked with The Lilliput Press. Here she was credited with discovering novelist Donal Ryan, and she met business partner and Tramp co-founder Lisa Coen.
Theo Dorgan was born in Cork in 1953; he has made his home in Dublin for many years.
Poet, prose writer, editor and translator, he has also written scripts for film documentaries and worked as a presenter of literature programmes on radio and television for over 25 years. Theo's latest collection of poetry Nine Bright Shiners is being launched by Deadalus Press this Autumn.
Theo Dorgan is a member of Aosdána
Rob Doyle’s debut novel 'Here are the Young Men' was published by Lilliput Press in May 2014. His fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review, Gorse, The Moth, The Penny Dreadful, and elsewhere. His work has also appeared on RTÉ national radio and the BBC World Service, and has been translated into French and Serbian. He studied Philosophy and Psychoanalysis at Trinity College Dublin. After several years abroad, he now lives in Dublin.
Myles Dungan is an historian and well-known radio broadcaster with RTÉ Radio 1. He currently presents ‘The History Show’. He presented the ‘Drivetime’ programme on Radio 1 for twelve years and also presented the RTÉ arts programme ‘Rattlebag’ from 2000 to 2006. He is the author of a number of books on various historical topics. These include Irish Voices from the Great War (1995), They Shall Grow Not Old (1997), The Theft of the Irish Crown Jewels (2003), How the Irish Won the West (2005), The Captain and the King: William O’Shea, Parnell and Late Victorian
Catherine Dunne is the author of nine novels including The Things We Know Now, which won the 700th anniversary Giovanni Boccaccio International Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Eason Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2013.
Catherine has also been short listed for, among others, the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award and the Italian Booksellers’ Prize. She was appointed one of five judges for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2014.
Catherine has also published one work of non-fiction: a social history of Irish immigrants in London, called An Unconsidered People. Her work has been translated into several languages.
Christine Dwyer Hickey
Christine Dwyer Hickey has published six novels and one short story collection. The Cold Eye of Heaven (Atlantic Books UK) won the Irish Novel of the Year 2012 and was nominated for the IMPAC award. Tatty (New Island and Vintage uk) was nominated for The Orange Prize and was one of the 50 Irish Novels of the Decade. Last Train from Liguria (Atlantic Books) was nominated for the Prix L’Européen de Littérature. Her short story collection The House on Parkgate Street and other Dublin Stories (New Island) was published in November 2013. Her first play Snow Angels premiered at the Project Arts Centre in March 2014 to full houses and wide critical acclaim. Her seventh novel, The Lives of Women will be published in May 2015 by Atlantic Books.
She is a member of Aosdana.
A horticulturist, garden writer and garden designer, Fionnuala Fallon has been the gardening correspondent for The Irish Times since 2011 and is also a longtime regular contributor to other publications including The Irish Garden magazine. Her first book, From the Ground Up: How Ireland is Growing Its Own produced in collaboration with her photographer husband Richard Johnston, was published by Collins Press in 2012.
Born in New York City to Irish actor parents, Oona Frawley spent a lot of her childhood backstage, hearing plays through green room speakers, cueing her father for roles and listening to her mother sing. Her parents’ attachment to Ireland meant that the family travelled ‘home’ once a year. Oona eventually settled in Ireland in 1999 full-time, and completed her Ph.D (City University of NY) in 2001. Prior to becoming a full-time academic Oona worked in a beer factory, and as a lifeguard, a waitress, an ad copywriter, and a freelance editor. Oona has taught at UCD, QUB and TCD, and has lectured English at Maynooth since 2008. She is married, has two children, and runs daily – slowly but compulsively. Flight is her first novel.
Brian Gallagher is a full-time writer whose plays and short stories have been produced in Ireland, Britain and Canada. His first book of historical fiction for young readers was Across the Divide, set in the 1913 Dublin Lockout, followed by Taking Sides, set against the background of the Civil War, and Secrets and Shadows, an exciting spy novel that begins with the North Strand bombings during World War II.
Mia Gallagher’s short fiction has been published in Ireland, the UK and US. Her collection You First won the START award (2005) and she was also shortlisted for Hennessy, Fish and Trevor/Bowen Awards. Her debut novel HellFire (Penguin Ireland, 2006) was widely acclaimed and won the Irish Tatler Literature Award (2007). Extracts from her second novel have been published in Literary Imagination (OUP), Spolia (New York) and Colony (Dublin) and will feature in two new anthologies from New Island in 2015, one a dual-language publication with Guanda (Milan). Mia has received several Bursaries for Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland and was writer-in-residence with IADT/dlr Arts Office (2009-2010). Mia is currently on the Board of the Irish Writers Centre.
Ciara Geraghty is the author of Now That I’ve Found You (published in July 2014), Lifesaving for Beginners, Saving Grace, Becoming Scarlett and Finding Mr Flood. She lives in Dublin with her husband, three children and a dog. You can find out more at www.ciarageraghty.com or follow her on Twitter @CiaraGeraghty
‘A most gripping read…humorous and heartbreaking’ Image on Lifesaving for Beginners
‘A beautifully written, somewhat whimsical and very encouraging tale about grabbing hold of life’s reins, breaking away from the monotony of a dull routine and following your dreams … emotional, joyous … I adored it’ Daily Mail on Finding Mr Flood
‘A perfect mix of romance and comedy … witty, sharp and intelligent’ RTÉ Guide on Becoming Scarlett
Born in Dublin, Ireland, Shauna has lived in Mexico, Spain and England. She currently lives in County Kildare, Ireland with her family. Her fiction has been published widely and she has read from her work and presented on writing at conferences in Europe and the USA. She holds a PhD (Writing) from the University of South Wales. She volunteers in Fighting Words, a creative writing centre in inner city Dublin. She is on the Arts Council of Ireland Writers in Prisons Panel and has taught creative writing at certificate level at NUI Maynooth. She currently works with MPhil students in creative writing at the University of South Wales. Her debut novel Happiness Comes from Nowhere was published in 2012.
Liz Gillis is from Dublin and worked as a local history researcher in the St. Nicholas of Myra centre from 2004 to 2006, during which time she collaborated on a number of exhibitions relating to the history of Dublin. Liz is an exciting new historian whose passion for Irish history is clear through her work. Born and reared in the Liberties, she's done an excellent job at helping to preserve the area's history. She is the author of The Fall of Dublin, Revolution in Dublin, and the upcoming book Revolutionary Women. She also works in Kilmainham Gaol, where you may have been lucky enough to have her as your guide.
Mark Graham is the renowned Conker Champion of Ireland, All-Ireland Bucket-Singing Champion and the sixth-best bog snorkeler in Ireland. Rejected by the banks as he looked to start on the journey to home ownership, Mark started in an altogether more interesting and exciting journey to attend three festivals a week for a year.
In his entertaining book A Year of Festivals in Ireland, Mark paints a picture not of a broken and maudlin country that lost the run of itself, but of a people with a wealth of character, imagination, generosity, wildness, curiosity, creativity and an insatiable hunger for fun and divilment. The surprising array of weird and wonderful festivals around Ireland are matched and surpassed by the cohort of characters and clients who attend them. Throwing himself into the thick of these gatherings may have nearly killed him, but he survived his year of festivals, enjoyed almost every minute and was left with a tale or two to tell.
Lisa Marie Griffith
Waterford born Lisa Marie Griffith studied history at University College Dublin and went on to study for a PhD at Trinity College. She became fascinated by the history of Dublin and throughout her studies worked as a walking tour guide in Dublin. She also presented a radio series on Anna Livia (now Dublin City FM) for two years on Dublin history. She taught history and is now Coordinator of the Cultural and Heritage Studies Programme at the National Print Museum in Dublin. She is the author of Stones of Dublin: A History of Dublin in Ten Buildings published by The Collins Press in September 2014.
One of Granta’s Best of British writers under 40, Xiaolu Guo is profound, incisive, funny and often disturbingly accurate. Guo is author of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction, and Writer and Director of UFO in Her Eyes, “City of Venice” prize at the Venice Film Festival. Xiaolu is in Ireland as a part of an international project, called Weather Stations that places literature and storytelling at the heart of discussions about climate change.
Weather Stations brings Oisín McGann and Tallaght Community Arts together with international Writers in Residence, who are working with cultural organisations in Berlin, London, Melbourne and Warsaw, to explore how literature can inspire new ways of living in the context of the most fundamental challenge facing humanity today – our changing climate. Xiaolu Guo says: “Weather Stations is a wonderful opportunity to explore and develop in new directions my concerns with the environment, human culture and its often destructive presence, but also the resilience and potential of self-renewal of the human spirit.”
Sue Hassett grew up in Cork and now lives in Dublin. Her current work in progress, Acquittances 1, 2, 3, is a fictional story set in a mixed English and Irish family who live in Cork city and west Cork in the 1960's, 197's and 1980's. Acquittances 1,2,3 explores 'difference' in Irish society, as experienced by its main character, Alanna, in her childhood, teen years and young adulthood. Sue is editor of Sláinte - Alternative and Complementary Medicine in Ireland, published by Wolfhound 1991. She has carried out a range of commissioned social research and has worked in independent publishing.
Liam Hayes is a former Meath GAA footballer and journalist Liam Hayes is the award-winning sports writer and best-selling author of Out of Our Skins and Heffo: A Brilliant Mind.
Rosanne Hewitt-Cromwell has been locked in a love affair with cake and baking for as long as she can remember, from the early days listening as her mam sang happily in the kitchen, delicious sweet smells filling the house, right up to today, standing in her very own kitchen singing and baking more treats than her poor husband can eat.
Some favourites from Rosanne's popular baking blog, www.LikeMamUsedtoBake.com, are included in her latest book alongside a whole host of new recipes from childhood memories and experiments in her kitchen. From the ever-popular mint-crisp pie, almond fingers and upside-down cake, to her addictive rocky road, there really is something to suit all tastes. Rosanne even dedicates a chapter to Christmas baking, her favourite time of year. Peppered throughout with helpful hints and strolls down memory lane, Like Mam Used to Bake is much more than a cookbook.
Dublin-born Neil Horgan was Managing Director of a large travel firm for years, and after a life-changing event took a leap of faith to become a professional storyteller. Now a graduate of the International School of Storytelling, Emerson College, UK, Neil has told stories in London, Nepal and India. He has just finished a series of six storytelling shows at the Powerscourt Townhouse Theatre. He specialises in healing stories from around the world, as well as biographical pieces from his own varied life experience.
"Stunning honesty, riveting brave storytelling, a modern-day Seanachi"
- The John Murray Show, RTE Radio 1
He is Writer in Residence for Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council 2014-2015. He co-runs the monthly arts event Nighthawks at the Cobalt’ and is co-founder and facilitator of the Inklinks Project, a creative writing initiative centred around a young writers’ club in Clondalkin. He also teaches creative writing to adults and to teens in secondary schools across Ireland.
In 2011, he was nominated for the Dublin Fringe's 'Little Gem' Award for the play he co-wrote with Stephen James Smith and Kalle Ryan - Three Men Talking About Things They Kinda Know About - which has toured Ireland and sold out in Bristol, London and Paris.
Colm contributes to RTÉ Radio One’s Arena and is currently working on his first novel. His debut collection, Don’t Go There, was released in 2012 and is available from www.salmonpoetry.com He is one of the organisers of Lingo, Ireland’s first Spoken Word festival, taking place this October.
Conor Kostick is a writer and a medieval historian living in Dublin. His current research project - for the University of Nottingham - is on medieval climate extremes and their impact on society. He has discovered, for example, unusual patterns relating cold weather and outbreaks of epidemics. His most recent history book is Strongbow, the story of the Norman invasion of Ireland.
As a novelist, Conor mainly writes science-fiction and has won several awards, including the Special Merit Award of the Reading Association of Ireland, 'in recognition of his significant contribution to writing for children in Ireland.' His most popular book, Epic, has been translated into twelve other languages.
Over the years, Conor has been involved in several campaigns concerning the climate and was the organiser of a protest to shut down the nuclear power plant at Sellafield.
After a six-publisher bidding war, his debut novel Red Sky in Morning was published to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic in 2013. It was an Amazon.com Book of the Month, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, a Huffington Post book of the week and The Daily Beast’s Hot Read. It was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, where Lynch was hailed as “a lapidary young master”. It was a book of the year in The Irish Times, The Toronto Star, the Irish Independent and the Sunday Business Post.
His second novel The Black Snow was published this spring in the UK and Ireland. It was hailed as “masterful” and “a significant achievement” by The Sunday Times, “dazzling” by The Sunday Business Post and “powerful” by the Irish Times, which praised his ability to “reinvent the English language”. It will be published in America by Little, Brown in Spring 2015.
Paul was born in Limerick in 1977, grew up in Donegal, and is now living in Dublin. He was the chief film critic of Ireland’s Sunday Tribune newspaper from 2007 to 2011, when the newspaper folded. He has written regularly for many Irish newspapers and has written regularly for The Sunday Times on film.
Dave Lordan is a writer, editor and creative writing workshop leader based in Dublin. He is the first writer to win Ireland’s three national prizes for young poets, the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 2005, the Rupert and Eithne Strong Award in 2008 and the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Award in 2011 for his collections The Boy in The Ring and Invitation to a Sacrifice, both published by Salmon. In 2010 Mary McEvoy starred in his debut play Jo Bangles at the Mill Theatre, directed by Caroline Fitzgerald. Wurm Press published his acclaimed short fiction debut First Book of Frags in 2013. Also in 2013, in association with RTÉ Arena and New Island Books, he designed and led Ireland’s first ever on-air creative writing course. Alongside Karl Parkinson he makes up the popular performance poetry duo Droppin The Act and he is a renownedly passionate performer of his own work. Lordan is a contributing editor for The Stinging Fly and he teaches contemporary poetry and critical theory on the MA in Poetry Studies at the Mater Dei Institute of DCU.
John Lowe, the Money Doctor, has over 30 years’ experience in the finance sector and is an authorized independent financial adviser, Fellow of the Institute of Bankers and successfully completed the Chartered Director course. John is best known for his popular books on personal finance, The Money Doctor and The Money Doctor Finance Annuals. John currently writes a weekly column for the Sunday Business Post and the Irish Daily Star and is a commentator on radio stations across Ireland.
The Money Doctor 2015 will be published on November 6th 2014.
Rory McConville has been working in the comic book industry since he was sixteen. In that time he has written for DC Comics, Newbold Enterprises, Shadowline Comics and Fan-Atic Press. He is the author of Big Jim: Jim Larkin and the 1913 Lockout.
Oisín McGann is currently Writer in Residence for Weather Stations with Tallaght Community Arts. He was born in Dublin and spent his childhood there and in Drogheda, County Louth. He studied at Ballyfermot Senior College and Dun Laoghaire School of Art and Design, and went on to work in illustration, design and film animation, later moving to London to work as an art director and copy writer in advertising.
He now lives back in Ireland and works full time as a writer and illustrator. He has produced numerous books for all ages of reader, including the Mad Grandad series and The Forbidden Files series. He has produced nine Young Adult novels; The Gods And Their Machines, The Harvest Tide Project, Under Fragile Stone, Small-Minded Giants, Ancient Appetites (the first book in the steampunk series, The Wildenstern Saga), Strangled Silence as well as The Wisdom of Dead Men and Merciless Reason (the second and third Wildenstern books). His latest novel, Rat-Runners, was released in March 2013.
Zoe Miller’s latest book The Husband’s Confession was published earlier this year. Zoe loves
exploring family relationships in her books which always feature memorable characters. Her latest offering does not disappoint!
Geraldine Mills is a poet and short fiction writer. She has four collections of poetry and three of short stories. She was awarded an Arts Council Bursary in 2006 for
The Weight of Feathers (Arlen House), and a Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in 2007. She was the Millennium winner of the Hennessy/Tribune Emerging Fiction Award and the overall winner of the New Irish Writer Award for her story ‘Lick of the Lizard’. She is a mentor with NUI Galway and is an online tutor in the short story with Creative Writing Ink. Her third short story collection Hellkite (Arlen House) was launched in 2013.
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Nuala Ní Chonchúir was born in Dublin in 1970; she lives in East Galway. Her fourth short story collection Mother America was published by New Island in 2012. A chapbook of flash Of Dublin and Other Fictions was published in the US in late 2013 by Tower Press and nuala's second novel The closet of Savage Mementos appeared April 2014 from New Island. Penguin USA and Penguin Canada will publish Nuala’s third novel, Miss Emily, about the poet Emily Dickinson and her Irish maid, in 2015. www.nualanichonchuir.com
Joe O’Brien needs little or no introduction. He is the author of 9 Alfie Green books, for the younger reader, and the fantasy novel Beyond the Cherry Tree as well as three books in the Danny Wilde GAA series for older reders. Joe will be talking about his Alfie Green books and will go down a storm with all our readers from 1st to 3rd class.
Sheila O' Flanagan is an international bestselling author with fifteen books to her name. Her latest novel, If You Were Me was published in July 2014. Her novels including Stand By Me, Bad Behaviour and Suddenly Single have been translated into over twenty languages. The former financial services executive has won the Irish Tattler Woman of the Year for Literature award and currently is a director of the Irish Sports Council.
Sheila O'Flanagan is the author of Dreaming of a Stranger, Caroline's Sister, Isobel's Wedding, Suddenly Single, Far From Over, My Favourite Goodbye, He's Got to Go, Too Good to be True, Anyone But Him, How Will I Know, Yours Faithfully, Bad Behaviour, Someone Special, The Perfect Man, Stand By Me, All For You and the short story collections, Connections, Destinations and A Season to Remember.
Peadar Ó Guilín
In September 2007, Peadar Ó Guilín published his first novel, The Inferior, which the Times Educational Supplement called "a stark, dark tale, written with great energy and confidence and some arresting reflections on human nature." Foreign editors liked it too, and over the following years, it was to be translated into numerous languages from Turkish to Korean, from Italian to Japanese.
Two more titles were to follow: The Deserter in 2011, and the closing volume, The Volunteer, in June 2014.
Peadar also loves writing at shorter lengths. His stories have appeared in numerous venues, including Black Gate magazine and an anthology celebrating the best of the iconic Weird Tales. More recently, his work has been turning up in podcasts. Listeners can find his Irish horror stories on pseudopod.org. Peadar has also explored environmentalism through the medium of traditional fantasy. Two of his stories in this vein, The Sunshine Baron, and Heartless, can be listened to free of charge on podcastle.org.
Peadar currently lives in Dublin, where he toils day and night for a giant computer corporation. So, please be nice to him ;)
Professor Des O'Neill
Professor Desmond (Des) O’Neill, a specialist in geriatric and stroke medicine, is also a writer and commentator in national media. Based in Tallaght Hospital and Trinity College Dublin, his practice and research are focussed on ageing and the neurosciences, and how they interact with the humanities. His particular interest in the longevity dividend - the many ways in which we have gained from our increase in life span - has contributed to national and international initiatives in many aspects of ageing. In 2010 he was awarded the All Ireland Inspirational Life Award for his work on behalf of older people.
Although it is something that affects all of us, directly or indirectly, ageing can all too often be perceived negatively. Ageing and Caring is an essential, positive guide for older people, their carers and their families. It seeks to outline not only the challenges that can arise from ageing but also how active and rewarding life can continue to be in old age.
Nessa O’Mahony was born in Dublin and lives in Rathfarnham where she works as a freelance teacher and writer. She won the National Women’s Poetry Competition in 1997 and was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Prize and Hennessy Literature Awards. She was awarded an Arts Council of Ireland literature bursary in 2004 and 2011, a Simba Gill Fellowship in 2005 and an artists’ bursary from South Dublin County Council in 2007.
She has published three books – Bar Talk, appeared (1999), Trapping a Ghost (2005) and In Sight of Home (2009). A fourth, Her Father’s Daughter, is published by Salmon this year.
Colm is a critically-acclaimed stand-up comedian, columnist, broadcaster and bestselling author. His stand-up has featured on RTÉ’s Late Late Show and Comedy Central and he has gigged in Canada, USA, Japan, South Africa and all over Europe. He writes a weekly column for The Irish Examiner and the BBC World Service Business Show In the Balance. His two books about the social and cultural phenomenen The Irish Mammy were both in the bestseller list for months and his Twitter account @irishmammies has over 145,000 followers.
Tom is the author of three Puffin fiction series for children: Football Academy, Foul Play and The Squad. He has also written a rugby story, Scrum! for Barrington Stoke. His first novel Foul Play was short listed for the Blue Peter Book Award. Black Op won the 2013 Solihull Children’s Book Award. Ghost Stadium is currently shortlisted for Leicester Libraries Our Best Book Award 2014.
Nicola Pierce is the author of two books for children, Spirit of the Titanic and City of Fate, both featuring well known historical events. Her newer title City of Fate is set in Stalingrad during World War II and is described by Guardian Children’s Books as “gripping, exciting and unimaginably shattering”.
Marion Reynolds attended Trinity College, Dublin where she read English Language and Literature. She has an M.A. in Communications from Dublin City University. She was a teacher of English and Drama in Ireland and a lecturer in English Literature and Media Studies in the U.K. Originally from Dublin, she now lives in West Cork with her husband and has two grownup children. She has been a regular contributor to the Irish Examiner and the Evening Echo, writing articles, book reviews and interviews with writers. She has also contributed to The Irish Times and had a regular column in the Evening Herald. She has had a number of short stories published. She was a joint winner of the Novel Fair 2013, organised by the Irish Writers’ Centre.She is a member of the Irish Writers' Centre and has attended a number of writing courses there.
Donal Ryan is from Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. He lives in Limerick with his wife Anne Marie and their two young children. He is Writer-in-Residence at the University of Limerick.
Donal’s number one bestselling debut novel, The Spinning Heart, co-published by The Lilliput Press and Doubleday Ireland, won two Irish Book Awards in 2012 and the Guardian First Book Award in 2013. It was a finalist for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize.
Donal’s second novel, The Thing About December, topped the Irish bestseller charts shortly after its release in October 2013. It was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2013 and was on the five-strong shortlist for the Kerry Group Novel of the Year for 2014.
Donal’s novels are published worldwide and have been translated into several languages.
Patrick Ryan has worked as a teacher and professional storyteller for over thirty years. He regularly tours Britain, Europe and the US performing, lecturing and conducting a variety of workshops. Patrick has written for the BBC and has also actively participated in several major storytelling projects.
Patrick is based in London. He grew up in Illinois in the USA, and attended the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago. He taught primary school in the USA and Britain for ten years. In 2004 he completed his doctoral degree at the University of Glamorgan, where he is currently a research fellow at the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling.
Daniel Seery is a writer from Dublin. His work has appeared in local and national publications including The Irish Times, The Stinging Fly and REA Journal and he has worked on a number of public arts commissions. In 2012 he was the resident writer in the Axis Centre, Ballymun. He has also been shortlisted for an RTÉ drama competition, has recently been one of the winners of the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair competition and he has written and directed a play The One We Left Behind which ran in the Irish Writers’ Centre in May 2012 and in the Helix in August 2012. His debut novel A Model Partner was published by Liberties Press in March 2014.
John Sheahan is a Dublin legend. A notable Irish violinist, tin whistle player, folk musician and composer, he is the last surviving member of the original and definitive five member line-up of world famous band, The Dubliners. John is a composer in his own right of such beloved tunes as The Marino Waltz and, in recent years, a poet of considerable reputation. His conversation with Dermot Bolger will include extracts from his poetry, his music and reminiscences about the famous friends and musicians with whom he embarked on a lifetime of music.
Valerie Sirr has published poems, flash fictions and short stories in Ireland, UK, US, Australia and Asia. Several of her stories have been broadcast on RTE radio.
Valerie's collection of short stories received Arts Council funding to be published in 2014. She has won national and international literary awards including in 2008 when she received the overall Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Writer and the Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Fiction. Arts Council and South Dublin County Council bursaries were awarded in 2000 and 2008. She holds an M.Phil. in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin.
Storey was born and brought up in
Michael J. Whelan is a soldier-poet, writer & historian (Curator – Irish Air Corps Aviation Museum) living in Tallaght County Dublin. He served as a United Nations peacekeeper with the Irish Army in South Lebanon and Kosovo during the conflicts in those countries, which informs much of his poetry. He was 2nd Place Winner in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2011, 3rd Place Winner in the Jonathon Swift Awards 2012, shortlisted in the Doire Press and Cork Literary Manuscript Competitions and selected for the Eigse Eireann/Poetry Ireland Introductions 2012. His work has appeared in the An Cosantoir, Hennessy New Irish Writing, Poetry Ireland Review, the Red Line Book Festival and many other literary magazines and newspapers. A number of his poems appeared most recently in The Hundred Years War - Modern War Poems anthology edited by Neil Astley and published by Bloodaxe (UK) He has published two books The Battle of Jadotville: Irish Soldiers in Combat in the Congo, 1961 (2006) and Allegiances Compromised: Faith, Honour & Allegiance - Ex British Soldiers in the Irish Army 1913 - 1924 (2011). He was awarded an MA in Modern History from the National University of Ireland (2006) and an Arts Bursary for Literature from the South Dublin Arts Office in June 2014. To sample his work visit michaeljwhelan.wordpress.com/
Enda Wyley was born in Dublin and has published four collections of poetry with the Dedalus Press: Eating Baby Jesus (1994), Socrates in the Garden (1998), Poems For Breakfast (2004) and To Wake to This (2009). She has twice been a winner in the British National Poetry Competition and was the inaugural recipient of The Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize. She has also received an M.A. in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. She has been widely anthologised, including in the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Irish Women's Writing and Tradition, Vols. 4 & 5, The Harvard Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry 2010 and The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women's Poetry 2011. She is also a published children's author and her books include The Silver Notebook and Boo and Bear. Her book for 7-9 year olds I Won't Go to China! was awarded a Reading Association of Ireland Special Merit Award 2011. Borrowed Space: New and Selected Poems is due from Dedalus in September 2014.

domain: library


Chopin and Champagne by Candlelight in London
London, 1901 Arts Club
About the Event
Celebrate the end of the week with a pre‐dinner (6.30pm) or post‐dinner (9pm) performance of Chopin, complete with a complimentary champagne reception!
Concert pianist, Warren Mailley‐Smith recently became the first British pianist to perform the complete works of Chopin in one series of concerts, from memory. He continues his successful monthly series at the exclusive 1901 Arts Club into 2022 with another 8 programmes of Chopin's greatest masterpieces. Forget your busy week and treat yourself to an evening of relaxing and invigorating classical music performed with charm and humour by one of the UK’s most brilliant musicians.
“Tall and talented, Warren Mailley‐Smith is the embodiment of a modern romantic concert pianist…” – Musical Opinion
Champagne will be offered 30 minutes prior to the concert
- Chopin, Frederic – Barcarolle
- Chopin, Frederic – Berceuse
- Chopin, Frederic – Waltz in E flat major
- Chopin, Frederic – Polonaise in B flat (Op posthum)
- Chopin, Frederic – Mazurka in C
- Chopin, Frederic – Souvenirs de Paganini
- Chopin, Frederic – Heroic Polonaise
1901 Arts Club, 7 Exton Street, London, United Kingdom — Google Maps


Insurance Needs Analytics Talent, But Can It Compete With Big Tech?
Current labor shortages are now impacting almost every sector of the U.S. economy, and commercial insurance is no exception.
‘It’s probably the worst that I’ve seen in the last 30 years,’ Tom Veale, president, TRISTAR Insurance Group, said of the shortage.
‘It’s everything from underwriters to loss control reps to claims professionals. It’s pretty much across the line. IT is the hardest hit, followed by claims adjusters.’
Insurers are increasingly relying on technologies like automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to bridge the gap, transforming the industry in a variety of ways, and causing a race to find the best analytics talent to manage and interpret all that data.
‘The technology is being used to replace a lot of the clerical functions, but it’s also being used to augment the jobs of our claims professionals,’ Veale said.


text:
What it's like to be a singleton during the Coronovirus
Musings of a 30-something year old singleton
"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” - Eli Wiesel
I thought I was an independent woman until the Coronovirus epidemic hit in March 2020. Prior to this, I eschewed on relying on guys for anything and thought the more independent I was, the more "successful" I would be by modern standards.
But when there is an epidemic going on, your perspective changes 180 degrees. I feel strong on the outside, yet vulnerable inside. I put on a smile for dates and friends and family members to "try to live Life as normal" but inside, I'm trembling. I wonder what tomorrow is going to hold or which unknown tomorrow will bring. Why is it that the future that seemed so structured and secure and moored feels so nebulous and uncertain and chaotic in the course of a night?
The last six months seem like a long extended night accentuated by bouts of happiness and joy and self-discoveries. Yet, this sense of night is always lurking in my mind and in the back of my head and consciousness, threatening to engulf and overshadow the peace and fragility of the status quo I desperately try to maintain in the comforts of my home here in the suburbs of Chicago.
Here, surrounded by lush trees and sinewy branches and inky-black nights peppered with brightly-lit stars, I feel removed and sheltered from the surreal reality I'm bombarded with through the news - the vicious news cycle which wreaks havoc on my orderly, logical and what- I-would-like-to-think-conscientious mind on a daily basis.. But there is a war raging in the U.S. - not only an epidemiological war but a political, class-based, racial and gender war.
As a young woman in her late 30s, I am caught in a generational beckoning - one that is too strong to ignore and feels like a roaring tide. It is beckoning for change and for a revolution - not an instantaneous, overnight one but one that is mounted on incremental changes built and fought for by millions of young members of this generation. I shudder when I imagine and try to envision this potential, but also have to fight against the temptation of comfort, security, inertia, and just my familiarity with the status quo. But it is the status quo which frighten me and is bolting me out of my comfort zone and the false sense that "everything was and is okay."
What is normal anyway? Is the normal the discrimination I face on an almost daily basis because of my gender and the entrenched structural injustices in the U.S.? Is the normal the veneer of racial civility I encounter in my predominantly Caucasian neighborhood, but belying centuries-old prejudices and biases? Is the normal the fragile racial disintegration in the U.S. that is still reminiscent of the Jim Crow era and invokes laws and policies written by our imperfect forefathers? Is the normal the news of hate-motivated attacks against members of the LGBT or trans-sexual community? Is the normal racial slurs thrown at members of the Asian-American community because of this virus that supposedly emerged in China? Is the normal the insecurity I feel for myself and for the future generation because of this deeply divided, partisan, ideologically-driven society or the hatred and chaos and racist rhetoric that is bursting at the seams of this fragile and carefully-wrought peace of American society? How do I live and deal with the daily simmering insecurity I feel on a daily basis because I don't have the luxury of wealth or the privilege of a spouse or the comforts or trappings of my parents' wealth? The only thing I feel and breathe is myself - raw, wrought with insecurity, vulnerable, naive and wide-eyed yet scared shitless!
We, as a generation, are at a moment of reckoning - not only in terms of the aforementioned epidemiological, public health, gender-based, racial and inequity issues that plague the U.S. society - but also in terms of U.S.' tenuous policies and response to climate change and the lack of political inclusiveness and fairness and the need for greater transparency and accountability in politics and governance - so a vulnerable woman like myself CAN HAVE A SAFETY NET and feel safe and secure as I go to sleep. I need to feel that I can claim the United States as my home - despite my bicultural heritage and background - because I AM WANTED HERE and there exist policies that protect my inherent sense of integrity and dignity and rights.
A Stanford professor said recently that there exists a need in U.S. society for "poetic thinking" that is antithetical to the tyranny of rhetoric, rigidity, hierarchy and ignorance that we as Americans have witnessed on an almost daily basis, especially in the last four years under the current administration. This poetic thinking should stretch us beyond the dictatorial boundaries of the tyrannical form of thought to motivate us to become better human beings and to embrace our imaginations, humanity and each other. This poetic thinking should encourage greater generosity and humanistic thinking which seem to be badly needed at the end of a long NIGHT, as I described in the beginning. Fortunately, the renowned writer Eli Wiesel reminds us that at the end of a long night follows morning. He continued to state, "There is divine beauty in learning... To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences [my italics], their quests. And so are you [my italics]" I hope that this night of reckoning that is facing the U.S. through many forms of crises we've seen in the last six months since the beginning of the epidemic teaches us to embody strength and resilience and to usher in the morning with hope, fortitude and with all of our lived experiences.
So back to my original introduction of my "singleton" status and how it is affected by only the sociopolitical and economic situation in the U.S. but the geopolitical implications of this epidemic....I thought long and carefully about this. If I had a partner or a spouse, I would be more sheltered and secure from the impact of this epidemic-not only on a psychological level but also economically. .. I watch with envy as my "wealthier" friends (including a self-proclaimed millionaire) are moving to other parts of the U.S. to escape this epidemic and to places where it is safer. But with only me and myself to rely on seemingly at times- with all the visceral emotions and uncertainties and dilemma that accompany this state - I am a more alive and fuller human being in some ways - free to empathize with this beautiful, broken world around me. So i know I'm okay. At the end of the day, despite the seemingly long hours of the "night," I can somehow summon the courage to keep going and to walk courageously and to breathe a sigh of relief which says "I will be okay."
If you liked this story, please feel free to tip so that I can write more in the near future! :)

domain: literature


text:
Virgin Media prepares for London listing to attract new UK investors
Tuesday 29 September 2009
Virgin Media is pushing ahead with plans to take a secondary listing in the UK as it looks to raise its domestic profile and the number of its investors. The company, which provides television, broadband and telephone packages to customers in the UK, is listed on the Nasdaq stock market in the US.
Virgin revealed earlier this year that it was considering a secondary listing in London and yesterday it announced an "intention to proceed". It has called in the investment bank Goldman Sachs to run the process.
Neil Berkett, the chief executive of Virgin Media, said the company was at an "inflection point" after a robust financial performance and was "extremely attractive" for investors. "Our products are not just high value, but a must-have," he claimed.
Fewer than 10 per cent of Virgin Media's existing shareholders are based in the UK, and the ability to buy its shares in sterling will make it more attractive to British investors. "We started to think about our UK investor base and broadening it. We are testing local appetite," Mr Berkett added.
He would not be drawn on whether Virgin Media might completely switch its listing to the UK, saying that was something for "further down the line". Virgin will not issue new shares for the listing. "This is not a capital raising exercise," Mr Berkett said.
It is only the fifth company to take a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange in the past decade, and Mr Berkett said there was "no precedent for a company taking a secondary listing in its home market". The shares will not be eligible for the FTSE's indices, but with a market cap of $4bn (£2.5bn) in the US it would most likely have made the blue-chip FTSE 100 index.
Virgin has lodged its prospectus to admit shares with the Official List at the Financial Services Authority. It will begin trading on Thursday under the ticker symbol VMED. "Nasdaq will remain the core centre of liquidity," Mr Berkett added.
Virgin was formed out of NTL and Telewest, which were both listed in the US, and Virgin Mobile. It was rebranded as Virgin Media three years ago.
- 1 BBC told new political editor must be 'impartial' with Nick Robinson reportedly stepping down
- 2 Humans of New York image of crying gay teen receives best response yet from Ellen DeGeneres
- 3 Number of young homeless people in Britain is 'more than three times the official figures'
- 4 Motorists taunt suicidal woman on bridge and tell her to 'get on with it'
- 5 The map showing the most dangerous tourist destinations in Europe, according to the Foreign Office
BBC told new political editor must be 'impartial' with Nick Robinson reportedly stepping down
Isis propaganda video shows 25 Syrian soldiers executed by teenage militants in Palmyra
Humans of New York image of crying gay teen receives best response yet from Ellen DeGeneres
Number of young homeless people in Britain is 'more than three times the official figures'
The map showing the most dangerous tourist destinations in Europe, according to the Foreign Office
More Britons believe that multiculturalism makes the country worse - not better, says poll
Nathan Collier: Montana man inspired by same-sex marriage ruling requests right to wed two wives
Greece crisis: IMF was pushed around by Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy – and now it is being humiliated
'I wish the BBC would stop calling it Islamic State' – David Cameron unleashes frustration at broadcaster
Forget little green men – aliens will look like humans, says Cambridge University evolution expert
Girl, 7, stares down hate preacher at Ohio festival with pro-LGBT rainbow flag gesture
iJobs Money & Business
£15000 - £17000 per annum: Recruitment Genius: This company offers a range of ...
£15000 - £16000 per annum: Recruitment Genius: Customer Service Advisors are r...
£20000 - £25000 per annum + OTE £45K: SThree: SThree were established in 1986....
£40000 - £60000 per annum: Recruitment Genius: A Compliance Manager is require...

domain: geography


Isuzu India has introduced a new Ruby Red exterior paint scheme to its D-Max V-Cross pickup lineup. The new Isuzu D-Max V-Cross Ruby Red is now available at Rs 13.16 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi). In addition to the newly introduced colour, the pickup comes in five different shades – Titanium Silver, Orchid Brown, Cosmic Black, Splash White and Obsidian Grey.
No cosmetic and mechanical changes have been made to the vehicle. The Isuzu D-Max V-Cross features the same 2,499cc four-cylinder VGS turbocharged diesel engine linked to a 5-speed manual transmission. This motor delivers a claimed power of 134bhp at 3,600rpm and a maximum torque of 320Nm between 1,800rpm and 2,800rpm. Read: Isuzu MU-X – All You Need To Know
The pickup comes with the four-wheel drive (4WD) system. Features such as high ride suspension, all-new Isuzu gravity response intelligent platform (iGRIP), shift-on-the-fly 4WD with high torque mode and engine with flat torque curve add more to its off-road capabilities.
Carrying an aerodynamic design, the Isuzu D-Max V-Cross features projector headlamps with Fresnel blister, chrome highlights, muscular fenders and roof rails. The company is also offering a pack of accessories on the pickup including D-Box with bed liner, chrome set, entertainment system, side bar, sports bar with bed liner, illuminated rocker plate, door visor and carpet mat. SUV WARS – Isuzu MU-X Vs Toyota Fortuner Vs Ford Endeavour
Inside, the pickup has twin cockpit interior design with dual tone and silver accents. The list of features includes a 7-inch touchscreen infotainment system, a multi-information display, auto AC with integrated controls and pollen filter, wrap-around 6-way adjustable driver seat, integrated keyless entry and steering mounted audio controls.
Safety duties are taken care of by dual airbags, ABS with EBD and brake assist, ISOFIX anchorages for child seat, engine immobiliser, pedestrian friendly front fascia, rear defogger and front fog lamps.


text:
Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
by Jane Yolen
Compact | Rate recommendations
No current Talk conversations about this book.
References to this work on external resources.
Wikipedia in English
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0152699538, Hardcover)
From such sacred sites as Easter Island and the Mayan temple of Copán to Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall and the Christian cathedrals of Europe, this magnificent collection of poems and paintings captures the essence of twelve holy and magical places throughout the world. A notes section gives information about further research into each of the places.
(retrieved from Amazon Mon, 30 Sep 2013 13:48:53 -0400)
A collection of poems about different places around the world that are considered sacred by various cultures, including Mecca, the Ganges River, and Christian cathedrals.
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text:
FCA Discussion Paper: ‘Sustainability Disclosure Requirements and Investment Labels’ (DP21/4) Innovate Finance response
About Innovate Finance
Innovate Finance is the independent industry body that represents and advances the global FinTech community in the UK. Innovate Finance’s mission is to accelerate the UK's leading role in the financial services sector by directly supporting the next generation of technology-led innovators.
The UK FinTech sector encompasses businesses from seed-stage start-ups to global financial institutions, illustrating the change that is occurring across the financial services industry. Since its inception in the era following the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, FinTech has been synonymous with delivering transparency, innovation and inclusivity to financial services. As well as creating new businesses and new jobs, it has fundamentally changed the way in which consumers and businesses access finance.
Innovate Finance welcomes the opportunity to respond to the FCA’s Discussion Paper ‘Sustainability Disclosure Requirements and Investment Labels’ (“DP21/4”). Innovate Finance considers that FinTech has a central role to play in supporting the transition to a Net Zero economy: creating tools and infrastructure, which will allow businesses to develop Net Zero-related products and services and ensure compliance with climate risk related regulations; enabling consumers to take action that aligns spending and investment with Net Zero outcomes; and embedding Net Zero in capital markets, so that capital is deployed to meet climate-related targets.
While the majority of Innovate Finance’s membership body is not directly in-scope of the FCA’s proposals, we welcome greater transparency and a standardised approach to disclosures and reporting for Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) matters. Innovate Finance considers that greater access to data will be critical to the success of the transition to a Net Zero economy, and we would call on the FCA to work with other regulators and government to build on facilitating access to data, which goes beyond the proposals outlined in the Discussion Paper.
Our response to the Discussion Paper is structured in terms of headline submissions, and we would be happy to discuss this response in more detail with the FCA and/or facilitate discussions directly with our members and the wider FinTech ecosystem.
Access to data and enhanced data analysis will drive successful Net Zero outcomes, facilitate further innovation and accelerate the need for regulators to embed Supervisory Technology
In line with aspirations set out in both the FCA’s Data and ESG strategy documents, Innovate Finance encourages the FCA to:
- Share - subject to market participants’ consent - anonymised, aggregated data sets, and make it mandatory to provide disclosures in a machine-readable format. Making it mandatory to provide disclosures in a machine-readable format would allow for ease of monitoring and supervision of the new regime, more efficient data analysis, and create new opportunities for regulatory technology solutions to be developed by the private sector. Additionally, if market participants’ data sets were made available (in a similar vein to the synthetic data sets provided to participants in the regulator’s Digital Sandbox), then this could unlock further innovative solutions. There are already fantastic use cases that leverage available data; one of our members, for example, has been working with partners to model and categorise transactional data (e.g. carbon numbers associated with ISIN numbers), which has revealed valuable insights about the broader value chain. Lastly, while outside the ambit of this Discussion Paper, our members consider that creating an ‘open data’ framework i.e. broadening the data available to consumers and other market participants, beyond traditional financial disclosures, such as data from the retail sector and other industries, would provide a more holistic overview of all actors’ carbon footprints and accelerate transition to a Net Zero economy.
- Adopt more technology-led ways in which to monitor compliance with the new sustainability disclosure and investment labels requirements. TechSprints on model driven, machine readable and executable regulatory reporting have proven that the regulator and regulated firms can build a workable model where real-time updates can be shared by firms. Technology-driven supervision could offer a real-time, or near real-time, way in which to determine the efficacy of the new regime. We note the Digital Sandbox is also exploring the use of digital ledger technology in the context of assurance for market participants’ ESG data. We would also encourage the regulator to explore the extent to which embedded supervision [a framework that allows compliance with regulatory requirements to be automatically monitored by reading the ledger, reducing the need for firms to actively collect, verify and deliver data] can be deployed. The FCA should assess lessons learned from the current ESG Digital Sandbox in developing the proposals.
- Support and incentivise firms’ automation of climate-related regulatory reporting. We invite the FCA to support and incentivise firms to switch from manual reporting (via spreadsheet) towards more innovation-led solutions for climate-related reporting, whether developed in-house or by third party providers. The underlying aim should be to drive the production of high quality data sets, which is central to assurance and the development of new, innovative products, while ensuring reporting is not overly burdensome to firms. Our members consider that data from all market participants - be they small, medium or large firms - is essential in order to drive impactful change. To that end, the FCA’s approach to incentivising the move to innovation-led reporting needs to provide sufficient lead time to small and mid-size firms, enabling them to prepare and invest in reporting-related solutions.
Design principles for consumer-facing disclosures
The design principles underpinning consumer-facing disclosure documents are critical in ensuring the documents aid consumers’ understanding of the features of retail investment products and can contribute to better informed financial decision making. Innovate Finance would encourage both the FCA and the newly created Disclosures and Labels Advisory Group (“DLAG”) to:
- Consider the lessons to be learned from the design of other disclosure documents: for example, the EU’s PRIIPs Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 1286/2014) introduced key information documents (“KID”) for retail investors, but a 2020 review found that consumers struggled to correctly answer “understandability” questions based on the KID. We note that the FCA recognises the complexity of the KID, and this is included in the UK’s PRIIPs review work programme.
- Actively focus on and embed accessibility and inclusivity in the design process. It will be necessary to test that disclosures for retail investors are readily understood and accessible for all - we welcome the FCA’s commitment to engage with consumers to explore elements of the consumer-facing disclosures. A number of our members have deep expertise in the design of accessible and inclusive products and services; if the FCA and/or DLAG would find it helpful to leverage this knowledge, Innovate Finance would be happy to facilitate discussions with our members.
- Ensure consumer-facing disclosures are fit for the modern age. Whilst we are mindful of issues around digital exclusion, the design principles should reflect that a growing majority of retail consumers engage with financial services through digital channels, so centring the design on an analogue approach to disclosures would be inappropriate. This consideration coupled with the FCA’s behavioural design expertise should be used to inform the format, length, etc of the disclosure documents.

domain: economics


text:
The Last of Us: is it necessary to watch this movie?
The general enthusiasm surrounding The Last of Us made you want to watch it, but youre opposed to that concept as it was just based on a video game you never played yet? We truly understand you, but assure yourself that you don’t have any fears. Now we explain why.
The Last of Us television series is going to air this week on HBO and simultaneously in Italy on Sky. In this case, Naughty Dogs is the film’s theme. The story was then told by the viewer with a sense of humor and self-awareness, without the need for the viewer to learn firsthand. The performance of Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey and the rest of the cast makes the game easy.
Many gamers would like to watch it, even though they already knew about the story. It is a very important piece of the story, with the sequence of events and the character character’s storyline a long way out. The series last of us provides some deeper insights and a number of changes that make the vision extremely well recommended even for those who have listened to the video game and that have been with the entire decade. It’s great for fans of Naughty Dogs work to know that every intervention has been successfully implemented in collaboration with Neil Druckman, the author of The Last of Us, in which he’s here as a showrunner and a writer with Craig Mazin, and the director of the second episode of The Infected.
Have we erased your doubts? Do you think that none of the Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal have played The Last of Us: Druckmann specifically asked them not toso that they could give the characters a unique interpretation and not influence the same kind of musical drama that of Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, the voices of the video game.
While you were at it, please remember that the show is scheduled for tonight. If you want to get involved, you can watch the two previous episodes with Sky Atlantic and Now TV.

domain: entertainment


text:
Found January 28, 2013 on
NY Rangers Blog:
Through five games, Marian Gaborik—not Rick Nash—has been the most efficient offensive force on the Rangers, tallying five goals and three assists. Should that surprise you? Not at all, because all Gaborik has done with the Rangers, when healthy, is produce. Recall his 42-goal first season and 41-goal effort last year and you'll realize Gaborik has cemented himself with this team.
The Nash to Broadway move almost has you forget the Rangers still have a game-changer in Gaborik—a wonderful luxury few teams can afford.
Since being put on a line with Nash and Brad Richards, Gaborik has taken off, notching a hat trick against Boston and scoring two goals against Toronto. A lot of negativity was projected towards Gaborik early this season (some going as far to say he should be traded), but his game has been elevated since being placed on the Rangers' super first line.
Torts sang Gabby's praises recently, talking about how much he's changed and matured since h...
BEST OF MAXIM
According to Andrew Gross at Rangers Rants, Torts juggled the line combos today at practice with both his even strength and power play units. Gross reported the following line combos:
Should these lines stay in tact, it appears Hagelin is moving up the second line and Pyatt is going back to the...
One thing that has struck me about the WIld so far has been the low goal output thus far. In 4 games, they are averaging only 2.5 goals a game, with their greatest output a 4 goal night on opening night. This has probably been the greatest frustration with the Wild since they came into existence. Even when Marian Gaborik was here, the Wild just never seemed able to score.
2012-2013 Records: Flyers (2-4), Rangers (2-3)
NYR Leading Scorer: Marian Gaborik (5-3-8)
PHI Leading Scorer: Claude Giroux (2-2-2)
NYR Goaltender: Henrik Lundqvist (5 GP, 3.14 GAA, .893 SV%)
PHI Goaltender: Ilya Bryzgalov (5 GP, 2.22 GAA, .923 SV%)
Rick Nash-Brad Richards-Marian Gaborik
Carl Hagelin-Derek Stepan-Ryan Callahan
Taylor Pyatt-Brian Boyle-Benn Ferriero...
Rick Nash has 1 goal on 26 shots. As well as he has played, and it has been very, very well, that's somewhat of a problem.
— Dave Lozo (@DaveLozo) January 30, 2013
Nash has five assists and is a +5.
...you know what's strange, until I saw this tweet I didn't even notice. His game is so complete, he's been helping the Rangers win (see his five assists...
By Dave Buscema, The Sports Xchange NEW YORK -- Marc Staal's first goal of the season tied the game in the third period. His hard shot a few minutes later was deflected and poked in by teammate Marian Gaborik to give the New York Rangers a come-from-behind 5-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. Brian Boyle later added a goal and Gaborik...
After a poor start, the New York Rangers appear to be getting on track. That also seemed to be the case for the Philadelphia Flyers - until their last outing.
These Atlantic Division rivals meet for the second time in six days Tuesday night in a matchup of teams trying to move past sputtering beginnings.
The Rangers (2-3-0) have looked better in winning two of three since stumbling...
Vinny Prospal scored from a hard angle at 1:22 of the third and Sergei Bobrovsky had 24 saves to lead the Columbus Blue Jackets past the Dallas Stars 2-1 on Monday night, ending a four-game losing streak.
It was the Blue Jackets' first victory since opening night in Nashville in a shootout. They had been outscored 16-6 since while mustering just a point in a shootout loss to...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Vinny Prospal scored from a hard angle at 1:22 of the third and Sergei Bobrovsky had 24 saves to lead the Columbus Blue Jackets past the Dallas Stars 2-1 on Monday night, ending a four-game losing streak.
It was the Blue Jackets' first victory since opening night in Nashville in a shootout. They had been outscored 16-6 since while mustering just a point...
Tonight’s breakdown is courtesy of myself and The Suit. All in all, the Rangers outplayed the Maple Leafs for most of the contest, but a few defensive miscues and a subpar power play prevented the Rangers from running away with the win early in the contest. Instead they had to battle it out for the W in the third period.
On to the goals…
Leafs 1, Rangers 0
This goal was just...
Photo Credit: AP/Mark Humphrey
Stagnant. That’s the word I would use to describe the Nashville Predators’ offense after a terrible showing in St. Louis. While firstly, credit deserves to go to the Blues, the Predators played miserable hockey. They were too predictable, too stale, too shy, and too unsettled, and maybe even too small to beat the Blues. While Trotz and company are...

domain: sports


text:
Ruth La’Ontra Biography
Ruth La’Ontra is serious about her Kingdom assignment. From a young age, she knew God called her to sing. She currently serves as a worship leader, singer, and songwriter. As she ages, Ruth continues to thrive and become better at her craft. Accolades, fame, and fortune have followed her as she pursues her God-given talent. Ruth has chosen to remain focused on the assignment rather than the benefits that come with it.
Ruth La’Ontra Age, Family, and Husband
Ruth comes from a deeply rooted Christian family. She was born on 22nd July 1992 in Aberdeen, North Carolina. Her family, straight from her grandparents, have been pastors and evangelists. She is the daughter of Arvetra and Ruth C Jones who are the lead pastors of Come as You Are Evangelistic Center. Following the Christian way became natural to Ruth and her two siblings. Ruth carried the name Jones with her professionally but later dropped it after her marriage to her long-time friend Kashif Horton. The two are blessed with two children as of 2022.
Ruth and her siblings have been singing since they were children. The artist remembers herself singing as early as age 2. At age 8, she was opening for nationally recognized artists such as Helen Baylor. She carried the same energy and enthusiasm while in High school. She was the member and the lead vocalist of the Teen Pure-N-Heart choir that received an award in the 27th annual stellar gospel music award for the album Teen Pure B Heart. The success she has as a teenager prepared her for a bigger stage coming in future.
In 2013, she released her debut album So Good. The Album was an immediate success. It charted on Billboard’s Top Gospel Albums and Heatseekers Albums charts. Music from the album filled the airwaves before releasing her sophomore album, I Got You, in 2017. Like the previous album, I Got You did well on the charts. Anthony Brown and Justin Savage were major influences in making her second Album. I Got You features songs such as Reight, Salt, Kingdom, Tis so Sweet, in My Name, and on the Way.
Despite the success she has had, Ruth has also gone through some challenges that have threatened her consistency, One of her major shoulders to lean on, her aunt passed on unexpectedly. The experience was greatly painful to Ruth, limiting her ability to write and sing. However, after a lot of prayer and support from friends, God helped Ruth. She regained her strength and wrote a song about the experience.
Although modern society is demanding contemporary gospel music, Ruth has held her stand on the main Christian belief. She believes in spreading the word of Christ and the gospel to the ends of the world. Her kingdom assignment is to reach the lost through her talent.
Ruth La’Ontra Net Worth and Instagram
When she is not singing, Ruth is teaching music to upcoming musicians in her local church. She also does charity work in her local area. La’Ontra also gets invitations to speak and lead worship in other churches. Her talent and fame have attracted fortune on her side. This has made her a successful woman financially. Ruth’s net worth could be approximately $5 million. Her followers can catch her on Instagram where she updates people about her next moves.

domain: celebrity


text:
To carry or not to carry? That is no longer the question.
One month after a federal judge’s ruling, District officials have conceded that the city’s long-standing ban on carrying guns in public must be scrapped and replaced with a new law that will allow at least some law-abiding city residents to bear arms on city streets.
With only a 90-day stay of the ruling in place, the effort to write a new law is on a fast track, but it remains fraught with political, legal and policy complications. Among the issues to be resolved: Will the city allow only the open carrying of arms, “concealed carry,” or both? Will “sensitive areas” near national landmarks or government buildings be deemed gun-free zones? And to what extent will non-resident gun owners be permitted to bring their weapons into the city?

domain: politics


text:
Classes & Workshops
Participants will learn the practice, tradition, and philosophy of Mindfulness. Equal emphasis is placed on Relational Mindfulness (deep listening, mindful speech, how we are with each other), Applied Mindfulness (application at home, work, and recreational settings), and Compassion Practices, in addition to formal meditation practice.
All classes include:
Mindfulness practice (silent)
Moving mindfulness (Tai Chi, Qigong)
Compassion & Gratitude meditation
Group shares & discussion
Walk the Middle Way classes are facilitated in Circle, and designed to build trust, community, and to cultivate acceptance, curiosity, and the courage to speak your truth.
Young Adults (18-24) - Teens (14-18)
All young people deserve a place where they can feel heard, valued, and fully embraced and accepted for who they are.
Our youth are facing more stress, overwhelm, and constant stimulation than in any previous era. Walk the Middle Way mindfulness classes create a safe haven where young people can join a supportive community of youth-practitioners dedicated to getting curious about the challenges they face, and cultivating an inner stillness to help navigate the many emotions young people experience.
Youth Mindfulness Classes, in addition to formal mindfulness practice, create spaces for young people to share intimately, and to walk a journey of self-discovery around their core values, and how they want to show up in the world. Special circle-classes are also offered for Youth Leadership, and bringing together youth of different races, ethnicities and sexual orientations together for Cross-Cultural Dialog.
Walk the Middle Way believes schools, the youth who attend them, and the educators who serve them, are our most precious institutions.
We support a vision that schools should not only be places of academic learning, but communities that help cultivate the heart, inspire young people, and have a standard of well-being that serves to protect the minds and bodies of all who attend.
Our school-based programs fuse together Mindfulness, Restorative Practices, Community-Building Circles, and Social-Emotional Learning that aim to empower all six foundational wings of every school community:
Mental Health Practitioners
Our hope is to empower educators and students with practices to become more aware of their emotions, body sensations, and communication, that are couched in compassionate and sustainable circle-facilitation that help schools flourish as a community of learning. All mindfulness and restorative programs are designed to create positive, supportive, and nurturing relationships between all adults and young people in schools.
We believe that people deserve to be treated like human beings in organizations and workplaces.
Our mindfulness & wellness classes help shift a workplace culture to one that values employee health & wellness, self-care, and creating space and breathing room to help your staff process and release the emotions that build up from increasingly high day-to-day demands.
Walk the Middle Way is committed to facilitating workshops and classes that allow employees to feel fully embraced, empowered, and valued in the full spectrum of their humanity, rather than being treated like a number or a statistic that exists only to meet a bottom line.
All organizational mindfulness classes include:
Introduction to Mindfulness (class-series)
Applied Mindfulness - How to incorporate mindfulness skills throughout the work-day
Relational Mindfulness - How to deepen listening, communication and awareness
Self-Care & Compassion - Cultivating greater kindness towards self and colleagues

domain: psychology


text:
What to do when established health care treatments do not provide adequate help to patients in great need is a pressing issue for clinical practitioners. Use of non-validated options when standard treatments have been exhausted may be justified in individual cases and has over time led to much progress in medicine [1, 2]. However, such use should take place within some procedural framework protecting patient interests and avoiding decisions primarily driven by the self-interest of the treating physician, clinic, hospital, or commercial agent [2,3,4,5].
This need for caution is a leitmotif in Timothy Daly and colleagues’ paper discussing new non-validated interventions for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) . As they point out, there is still no treatment that can make significant improvement to the health of symptomatic AD patients. This also means that there is a great public interest in identifying novel, effective treatments. The authors’ perhaps main concern in their paper is the publication of what they see as grave overstatements by researchers in the field,Footnote 1 and the accompanying risk of luring individual patients and clinicians, and even health care organizations, into believing that reliable options already exist when this is not the case. In drawing attention to these points, they raise important epistemological and ethical issues pertaining to adequate procedures and communication of new non-validated treatment. In what follows, I will deal with some of these issues, with a focus on adequate procedures for use of new non-validated treatment in health care.
Is the declaration of Helsinki too permissive?
The ethical starting point for the clinic is that established, validated treatments should be used when relevant to cure disease, slow disease development, improve or protect capabilities affected by disease, or alleviate suffering. This position can easily be defended from a utilitarian perspective but can also fit well with duty-based and rights-based approaches to ethics . Non-validated treatments, however, should ideally not be used until they have been validated, due to the uncertainty of benefits and risk of harm . This suggests that research is an imperative in the clinical setting . However, when established treatment options are exhausted and no relevant research projects are available, clinicians and patients face a choice between putting a halt to curative efforts and proceeding into the (partly) unknown.
When and how such a step toward novel treatments should be taken is a topic of debate which has been addressed on several occasions in recent years [2, 5, 13,14,15,16]. For instance, two Swedish commission documents were published in the aftermath of the Macchiarini scandal, in which trachea surgery with artificial implants was performed in Sweden, with mortal outcome, as a novel, acclaimed last-resort treatment on patients whose need for last-resort treatment was later questioned [17,18,19,20].Footnote 2 According to paragraph 37 of the Declaration of Helsinki, the handling of novel treatments should be very much up to the treating doctor and the concerned patient: “In the treatment of an individual patient, where proven interventions … have been ineffective, the physician, after seeking expert advice, with informed consent from the patient or a legally authorised representative, may use an unproven intervention if in the physician’s judgement it offers hope of saving life, re-establishing health or alleviating suffering” . Daly and colleagues find these criteria too permissive given that the proposal lacks a review system . This claim seems to hinge on how the quite unspecific “seeking expert advice” should be understood—is the declaration referring to formal approval or only stipulating the need for some expert consideration, such as discussing with colleagues or reading a couple of papers?
Ethical review of treatment in the context of research
Similar to the guidelines for AD innovation outlined by Daly et al. at the end of their paper , two Swedish commissions have proposed procedures that involve external review [18, 19]. Both commissions argued that use of urgent non-validated treatment in a single case could be acceptable without including the patient in research, but not in repeated cases; those should instead be handled within an ethically approved clinical study [18, 19]. A similar stance has been taken by the International Society for Stem Cell Research . There are scientific and ethical reasons to favor such an approach. If planned as research from the beginning, use of non-validated interventions is more likely to produce the information needed to draw scientific conclusions. An important ethical benefit of including novel treatments under the rubric of research is that (in many countries) there is already a research-ethical review system in place to conduct external evaluation of their ethical feasibility. With procedures formally disposing non-validated treatments toward a research framework, it would probably also be more difficult for clinical research disguised as mere clinical practice to avoid ethical review .
However, there are also potential downsides to applying a strict research approach to novel treatments. First, with regard to rare diseases, there is the risk that many studies will remain unfinished because researchers never manage to gather a sufficient number of cases to allow for meaningful statistical analysis. For such diseases, it could be more pragmatic to require case reports and open storage of data instead of ethically approved clinical trials. At the same time, research-ethical review might be justified even if there never will be a proper study—this seems to be the position recently argued for by Jake Earl . Second, since an essential aspect of research protocols is strictness (every individual in the same study arm, experiment group or control group, should receive the same treatment), adjustments in accordance with the needs of an individual patient are disfavored. If the justification for initiating a research project was to have a final chance to successfully treat a patient, then it would seem unfortunate that the research protocol, rather than the patient’s individual needs, should steer what exact measures are taken. Nonetheless, it is difficult to judge the weight of this particular argument considering that a reasonable objective of introducing new treatments at the clinic is to find out if they work. Third, if treatment needs are urgent, then it is not always tenable to wait for a response from the ethical review board, so it is questionable whether research-ethical approval should be mandatory in order to distribute a treatment in very pressing cases. Even if there is time to await the verdict of research-ethical review, it is debatable why the board’s decision should be followed in the particular case at hand. Treatment decisions should arguably be made by health care providers and not by research-ethical review boards. The response from the review board should be decisive regarding planned research but is not reasonably treated as the final word when it comes to decisions about individual patients . To summarize, even though the idea of initiating research when more patient cases are to be expected is laudable, as in the case of Alzheimer’s disease, such an approach must not be allowed to hinder treatment or the spreading of information where patients in need of a specific novel treatment are rare.
Procedure for new non-validated treatments at the hospital level
Daly and colleagues call for external review of new non-validated treatments, since they believe that it is not right to leave decisions about novel interventions entirely up to individual doctors and consenting patients , a view supported by others [1, 2, 5, 18, 19]. But if it is not right that research-ethical review boards have the final say on whether or not to initiate novel treatment in individual cases either, then who should? The head of the clinic seems to be a natural choice, as a way of moving decisions about approval away from treating doctors; the introduction of novel treatments at the clinic is, after all, a concern for the clinic and not just for individual clinicians. Discussion among senior physicians at the clinic is needed in any case when something out of the ordinary is considered—options should be evaluated, including weighing the pros and cons of the suggested novel treatment for the patient in question. One means of assisting reflection on the justification for introducing new non-validated treatments could be to appoint a hospital advisory board dedicated to such considerations, preferably including legal and ethical experts in addition to one or more senior physicians.Footnote 3
The Macchiarini scandal, mentioned above, took place within Swedish public health care. Should the procedure for handling new non-validated treatments be any different in a private for-profit hospital? I think not. There might be an implicit presumption in asking this question that in for-profit contexts there is an even greater risk that considerations other than the best interest of the patient will influence the decision-making process. It is beyond the scope of this commentary to evaluate such risk, but if the presumption is correct, then the problem probably permeates choices at all levels of health care provision and not specifically new non-validated practice, which in turn suggests that it needs to be politically dealt with at a much more basic level. However, it is conceivable that a health care system that emphasizes consumer choice more strongly than medical need might be inclined to give greater weight to patient wishes than to medical expertise in pressing situations.Footnote 4 Since wishes sometimes rest on false hope and misrepresentations about the likelihood of success, it remains crucial that doctors listen, inform, and ensure realistic expectations of outcomes.
Reasonable grounds for thinking a novel treatment will work
That a treatment is not validated means that there is no firm evidence regarding its effects. However, this is not to say that nothing speaks either in favor of or against its use. If there were no precedents of any kind, practical or theoretical, then the treatment would be a total blind shot—introducing novel treatments could never be recommended on that basis. It is reasonable to require some support for novel treatments; the more research documentation, the better. One needs to know not only about expected treatment effects, but also about positive and negative side effects. Patient involvement is necessary when it comes to evaluating what steps could be worth taking.
Sometimes when novel treatments are considered, only a few clinical studies have been published—or, worse, only a few case studies—and there is limited clinical experience. Then information from existing data in combination with good theoretical reasons, preferably relating to a specific mechanism, is needed. If there is no empirical support concerning the specific treatment and medical context at hand, then this dearth offers strong reason not to use the novel treatment; but at times there may nevertheless be reason to believe it would work, either because it has worked in other contexts that involve the same kind of mechanism or because there is a good theoretical basis for thinking such an intervention could be effective. This could be acceptable grounds for approving new non-validated treatments in some cases—where the patient is willing to take the chance and the treating doctor’s and concerned hospital’s well-considered judgment is that the treatment might work and provide the patient some improvement. When one talks about new non-validated treatments, uncertainty is unavoidably at the heart of the matter. Ultimately, once all the available evidence has been considered, reflective, reciprocal, shared professional judgment is all the medical basis for a decision there is.
Let me provide one example of what a decision situation might be like: In Stockholm a committee evaluating use of non-validated treatments at one of the larger hospitals approved treatment in a case where a patient was on his way to starving to death because his intestines were unable to take up nourishment properly. No identical precedents were found in the literature, but there were a few documented cases involving patients with very short intestines (which also reduces the ability to take up nourishment), where a certain medication was able to increase uptake. There were no observed negative side effects. The suggestion from the clinic was to provide the present patient with the medication and observe the effects closely. The only perceived alternative option at that stage was palliative care.
As argued by Dominic Wilkinson and Julian Savulescu, the expected utility of a treatment does not have to be positive in the individual case at hand if the patient is a competent consenting adult . Perhaps one should still insist that the procedural framework applied for new non-validated treatments should be such that their utility can reasonably be expected to be positive. This condition could be met if the procedural framework leaves room for exploration and innovation in the clinical context, with certain restraints, which means that new effective treatments can be the useful output in the long run.
There are conflicting interests relating to new non-validated treatments. On the one hand, health care providers can do much good by identifying novel working treatments when the established ones fail. On the other hand, patients must not become guinea pigs for improvising clinicians or status-searching clinics. A procedural framework for the handling of new non-validated treatments needs to be in place. As a starting point, support for novel treatments should primarily rest on systematic research in the form of clinical trials. However, getting an approved clinical trial in place is not always feasible in urgent last-resort cases or when a disease is very rare. In such cases, decisions about whether or not to proceed with a novel treatment, if the patient approves, are clinical, not research-ethical; they should be made at the clinic after due consideration of existing empirical and theoretical knowledge.
Previous investigations never led to prosecution, but recently a legal case was opened based on the understanding that Paolo Macchiarini’s trachea surgery was neither legal research nor acceptable treatment .
Different solutions may be feasible under different legislation. But where legal responsibility rests with the clinic and/or the treating doctor, final decisions cannot be made by other bodies. Decisions not to try a novel treatment should primarily lie with the treating doctor, ideally after shared decision-making with the patient.
To avoid possible misunderstandings: there is no necessary connection between for-profit health care and a consumer-choice approach to health care delivery. There are for-profit hospitals in Sweden, but all health care provision in the country is legally obliged to focus on patient needs, rather than patient demands.
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Helgesson, G. What is a reasonable framework for new non-validated treatments?. Theor Med Bioeth 41, 239–245 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-020-09537-6

domain: medical


Eduardo Verastegui recorded a song dedicated to Benedict XVI
January 25, 2012. (Romereports.com) The actor and film producer Eduardo Verastegui has recorded a new song for the pope’s upcoming visit to Mexico. In March, Benedict XVI will make his first visit to the country. While the official agenda for the visit was being confirmed, the star of the film “Bella” wanted to do something to welcome the pope.
Verastegui was part of the group Kairo that also released a solo album. In the past, he’s performed with singers like Alejandro Sanz, Shakira and Gloria Estefan at the taping of “The Last Goodbye,” an emotional song dedicated to the victims of the September 11th attacks.
Not much is known about the melody of the song dedicated to Benedict XVI. But it’s planned to be released in a few weeks and will probably become one of the most popular song in Latin music this March.