A combined team of security agents have arrested over 30 people mainly used at our Jota area of Lagos. They accused them of trying to cause problems during elections as they had no pvcs on them. However, the suspects told Plants TV News that they were returning from a night shift job. They accused Plants TV News that they were returning from a night shift job as they had no pvcs on them. They accused Plants TV News that they were returning from a night shift job as they had no pvcs on them. They accused Plants TV News that they were returning from a night shift job as they had no pvcs on them.


I've rarely been so excited by any conference. I think there was so much. However much you go to lots of conferences, which I do, and however much you work internationally on climate change, which I do, I don't think I've ever been to a conference which has had so many, opened up so many new perspectives on ways forward, new visions of where we could be. It was extraordinary bringing together so many different perspectives over the last two days in terms of ideas about the changing city, technology in the city, the green city. But getting all those voices in one place, it's been fantastic. I mean, I learned a huge amount and so to me, walking in yesterday morning and walking out this afternoon, my whole perspectives have changed. So I thought it was terrific. I was very interested in a lot of the dialogue, particularly the dialogue between industry and government. I thought that that was really well achieved with the input of academia kind of influencing the agenda as well and making people think about social consequences and the ethical consequences of all this technological development. That's the first time that I'm taking part of this conference and I think it was very, very interesting. I found it was not enough to talk about smaller cities and the behaviour of the people and more about organisations and I would really feel that they have to concentrate on that. The obvious thing that for me was missing, that I thought that there was a mismatch between the global geographic distribution of the urban age and where these questions are really pertinent and who was in the room and what were the dominant debates, which were still essentially Anglo-Saxon with some exceptions. So, you know, I understand the reason for that at being in London and so forth, but I think that that was obviously something that, you know, a better balance could have been achieved. But it was a stimulating, almost overwhelming experience, just the amount of data, the amount of ideas, the amount of experiments, the perspectives and in that sense it was tremendously successful. We need to completely rethink about the models that have been applied in the past and one thing is for sure to understand the very big difference between the cities of the developed world and the cities in the developing world because there I think we have a very big shift in agenda on how to tackle the problem. Risk management and identifying security for risk management for cities in the future was a key subject that came up again and again and of course the use of how technology can play its role and the big discussion is it really technology as the saviour or technology as the element, the tool to help us achieve what we want to achieve and I think there may be people of difference of opinions. The architects building buildings is not designing cities and we can't leave planning cities and designing them up to architects or to planners. We've got to make room for people to make their own spaces in between the buildings. How that's done I have no idea but that's the only way to build a city. What if there is a sea level rise? What if there's another hurricane? What if the urbanisation is so rapid and the city is not fit for purpose? So we need to think about these things so all city leaders, all the world over and institutions need now I think to have their vision this is the direction we want to go in and as Juan Carlos said we've got to get that vision right. The vision of urbanisation at the moment for most of the world is not right. This was the best urban age conference of all the ones I've been to, I haven't been to all of them but I think it just gave pragmatic advice and a very positive vision of where our cities could head with some harsh realities and it's really up to these kind of conferences to share the lessons, set the vision and get on with the business of getting stuff done.


What the anti-establishment group has to do is is take it beyond just Donald Trump, right? Right. As long as just this it's this movement that's circled around Donald Trump and views Donald Trump as the savior I mean, but what a what an unreliable person to base your movement upon, right? But Trump I think by accident Stumbled into this movement that he thought he could use to make himself very very popular And I think sort of ended up trying to harness these sentiments these these grievances Where people were realizing they were being screwed essentially by the federal government That the ruling class didn't care about them and in fact hated them And you start to see that right under Obama with his Disparaging remarks about you know these these hillbillies with their guns and their Christianity and all of that stuff And then Hillary Clinton clearly hated these people as well. She hated half the country Right and so half the country didn't didn't like being hated Uh and Trump for whatever reason seemed to pick up on that Even though it had nothing to do with his prior life or his own personal ideology or anything like that, right? And so I think then he just kind of went along with it And I guess that's how he ended up being hated In washington because he seemed to be sort of speaking for the half the country that didn't like being denounced regularly By washington insiders But as if it's just trump then the fbi will succeed In getting rid of whatever power those people might have hoped to have So yeah, you're gonna need state-level people. You're gonna need people in uh corporate america people in educational institutions Who are willing to say these things and really represent Those those people and that's going to take a lot of hard work because these organizations have really reached the point Where they're just getting rid of anybody who doesn't toe the washington line Um, but maybe the the only first place you start to begin that rebuilding process is in the state Legislatures and then in the governor's mansions. Maybe that's really the only place That these sorts of uh trump voters have any power Left, but yeah, it's it's maybe time to move beyond trump the guy I mean He's 78 he'll be 78 years old if he runs for president in 2024 We really need another 80 year old and one like trump who who appoints john bolton to an important position Who in who points pompeo appoints people like christopher ray I mean clearly not a competent administrator not someone who could actually implement any sort of important movement So yeah, it's it's gotta be a non trump thing. It's it's time to to get over trump But but realize what was good Mostly an accident about trump and and try to do something With that, but it's been good that the fbi has shown its true colors by its willingness to basically investigate A guy just really clearly because he was a political enemy of the current oligarchy in charge and So it's it's got to be a more sophisticated movement than we love donald trump Well, that's the beauty of it Is that again? I if when dc gets what it wants if it removes trump from being able to run legally in 2024 Didn't they've cleared the pathway, right? Like they they they their own actions again Like they're so obsessed with with that sort of like revenge politics that they don't recognize what the next step is I can if you take trump off the board, I guess what you're gonna get You're gonna get someone you're gonna get trump as martyr figure and you're gonna get someone more competent than trump coming in and You know, it's that's that's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of it But you know as we conclude, uh, I did do see now you have some some republican congressmen again Outright calling for the elimination of the fbi. Dr. Paul go goes are who's a very interesting member Dr. Goes are if you are need of a witness At a at an upcoming congressional hearing talk about the elimination of the fbi. May I recommend mr Ryan mcmacon


I don't expect that you know how to live. You've been running, perhaps even hiding. I don't expect that you know how to live. You've been fighting so hard, trying to survive. You remember the warmth of your mother's womb before you learned of the world's denial of the color of your skin.  Yes, you were born, but with all of this how could you possibly claim to be alive? By the time the illness of the decade came so many other illnesses had already consumed you. You walk the earth with borrowed courage in a capsule.   Have you forgotten how to breathe? Heal Mdagamah. Sikon. Sogusegeil. Convince us. You know how to live.  Our people believe that every human being, male or female has got two minds. The mother mind and the warrior month. We must awaken the mother mind within us. We must feel what is going on in the world. Today we stand in memory of a woman who would become a martyr for our community. That was 1979. Today is 2019. And all you have to do is look at the current headlines to see that Bonita's heartbreaking story feels all too familiar. Saaz. Now Saaz is the special anti-robbery squad unit which the government rebranded to SWAT. After disbanding the said Saaz over three times and twice in one year. Saaz have a track record of more daylight robbery than actual robbers. They've murdered more innocent citizens than murderers in the society.  Constantly exhibiting their lack of intelligence and training by harassing Nigerians either because of our look, the hair we have, the cars we drive or if we have tattoos on our bodies.  Human trafficking continues to be a challenge for government in South Africa. Statistics show that 23% of children who are abducted are never found. Delaying the treatment of non-COVID cases will cause the health system to suffer for decades if we don't act now. We mustn't just listen to newspapers. We must ourselves feel. It is said by our Zulu people that we may think with their pelvic area where children grow and are born. We must think that way. I must no longer look at a tree but I must see a living entity like me in that thing. I must no longer look at a stone but I must see the future lying dormant in that stone. What minerals are there? We must think like grandmothers. And can we please also say a huge thank you to Tayu for the wonderful translation and presentation. Wish that she had been here, because I have so many questions that I would have loved to ask her. She is, of course, a South African-based artist, multidisciplinary artist, and I don't need to tell you about how astonishing her work is because we have just seen this amazing film. But she uses her work to explore issues of spirituality, ancestry, commemoration, and the indigenous culture of indigenous African knowledge, the tacit knowledge that we have, a really beautiful artist. But stories are told in so many different ways and as storytellers we know that when we tell a story it will hit people in different ways and it will hit people at different times depending on where they are in that journey of life. And her way of exploring these stories is as you have seen through the visual arts, but I'm going to tell you a story because my form of expression is through the oral tradition. And I am also interested in issues of ancestry and spirituality and the importance of passing down these stories, of handing down our names because every single one of us here, we are who we are because of where we have come from and our stories do not start with us. They do not start with our parents or our grandparents. They go further back, much, much further back.  And this woman found herself living in a land far, far away from the land of her childhood.  And the mother would tell her daughter stories. Story after story after story. And when she was very young, she would tell the stories of the fish who swam in the sea. She would reach into the stories of her childhood and tell the stories of the animals who lived in the forest. She would tell her daughter stories of the eagles and birds that flew across the skies and the girl would listen.  And sometimes the mother would reach into the stories of the world in which she now lived and she would tell her daughter stories of princesses who pricked their fingers on spinning wheels. Stories of little children who got lost in the forest and found sweet candy houses. Story after story after story. Filled this young girl's imagination. But as she grew, but was still a young girl, her mother became ill.  And she tried to fight it as hard as she could, but as time passed, she found herself becoming weaker and weaker and she knew that she might not make it after all. But there were things that her daughter needed to know, important things. And so the nature of her stories began to change. She introduced the shadow man, a creature who in one story appeared as a slithering beast. In another story, he was a great cloud of dust and in yet another he was a beautiful golden angel. But the girl was young and she did not understand these new stories and she begged her mother to tell her the old stories but her mother insisted, there are things that you need to know. But time passed and the girl grew up and the mother still grew weaker and weaker and weaker until she knew that she had no time left and it was then that she took a box, she opened up the lid and she began to pour in new stories. The myths, the legends, the folk tales, the memories. Usim sahau nyanya, usim sahau rahami, usim sahau rehema, usim sahau grandfather, grandmother. She poured in her stories, memories, ideas, languages. She poured them all in and when there was nothing left for her to say, she closed the box and she fell backwards onto her bed, wheezing, desperate for breath. Just then her daughter walked in and the mother beckoned her. The girl approached cautiously, not wanting to disturb or cause her mother pain. But the mother beckoned her forward and gifted her the box. The girl took it, but it was then that the mother noticed that death had entered the room and she pleaded silently for just a little more time. Death took pity on the woman and he stepped back and the mother held her daughter to her chest. She stroked her curls and with every ounce of energy that she possessed, she began to sing one of her favourite tunes. And she was gone and that is my little story for you. I wrote that story for a show that I performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019 now. And it was looking at the legacy of colonialism and slavery and how sometimes we are often separated from our stories. And of course, I don't know if some of you noticed, but I drew on my Scottish cultural heritage as well as some of my Kenyan cultural heritage. But stories, as I said, are told in different ways. And we have now a new kind of story. I'm really, really pleased, slightly disappointed that again he's not here, but David Ellington has created this wonderful film, Liberty. And through his work as an actor, using his physicality, using his hands, using his expressions, he explores his world view as a black man, as a gay man, as a deaf man in this world that we live in.  He has performed at the opening ceremony of the Paralympics. He has taken part in so many different dramas on television, on The Last Leg, in a documentary called Extraordinary Bodies. So I'm really, really pleased to welcome the next film. Thank you very much. Notions of freedom in ourselves often does come from the stories that we believe about ourselves, the stories that we tell of ourselves. And those stories come down, pass down the generations.  And I keep forgetting actually about the audience at home. So hello, welcome. And I hope that you are also enjoying these films and the stories as well. Yeah, this story that I'm going to tell you is a story again from Blood and Gold, the show that I did in 2019. And it's inspired by a true story, a story of a young man whose name was Ahmed Sheik.  And in Scotland we, I suppose we call it the Stephen Lawrence case of Scotland because nobody was ever brought to justice for his murder. But I think that for me the story is also important, just having watched and listened to the stories that have been told here because we can have all the stories in ourselves but we have no control about the stories that other people take into themselves and the stories that have been passed down and we actually live with the consequences of the stories that exist in our societies. And so it's so important that every single one of us finds a way to tell our stories because the story, the two films that we've just seen, such important messages that come through.  They loved him. They thought he was the most precious thing in the entire world. And where they lived was a beautiful land and from a distance you might think it was paradise but if you got closer you would see that there was a poison in this land and this poison crept into the hearts of the rulers and it stripped them of their humanity and their compassion encasing them in a cold hard shell and so life was difficult for the little family but every single evening they would sit down they would eat together and they would tell story after story.  But he was so curious and so smart that his parents began to wonder that perhaps this boy might be the one to help rid their land of this poison but to do that he needed skills he needed knowledge and experience something he could not find in his own land but there was a place far away the land in the sky and stories abounded of this place it was filled with opportunity filled with wisdom and knowledge anything could happen but it was far and it was difficult to get to so they began to save all their money and they built it up all the pieces of gold they placed it in a bag and the young boy he grew up and older and older into a young man and then it was time for him to take the journey they gave him the bag of gold they packed him some food and off he went he crossed the shimmering sands he climbed up the mountains he crossed the rivers he marched and he marched and he marched until he saw a rope descending from the sky he had arrived and he grabbed that rope and he started to climb higher and higher but the land in the sky does not accept people too easily and when they saw this young man beginning his ascent they sent wind and rain to knock him off the rope but the young man gripped on as hard as he could and when the wind and the rain had eased he continued to climb higher and higher but the land in the sky does not accept people too easily and when they saw him continue his journey they poured oil down that rope and he began to slip and slide and he gripped on with his fingernails and his teeth and when the sun had dried up that oil he continued to climb but the land in the sky does not accept people too easily and when they saw the young man they sent hornets that stung his shoulders stung his back, stung his legs he cried out with pain but he continued to climb and just as he was approaching the land in the sky they set fire to that rope and as he saw it beginning to fray he brought out the gold and when they saw it gleamed they smiled, their eyes widened they grabbed the young man and they welcomed him in and as he looked around he saw that his parents were right it was a beautiful place and there were many opportunities everything that he wanted to do was available to him and so he dived right in and he made friends with people who had come from distant lands like his own and some who had only ever known the land in the sky but they saw the names sparkling in his eyes they saw the starlight pour out of him and they loved him and he loved them in return but one day the sun was shining high in the sky they felt the warmth on their skin and they knew that this was a good day to go out and enjoy themselves so off they went dressed up in their finery they went to their favorite restaurants they drank their favorite drinks the band was playing and they were dancing and shaking and shimmying and having a wonderful time when suddenly he saw the most beautiful woman in the world her hair was the color of the sun and her smile was as white as the world and she saw the starlight pouring out of him and it wasn't long before they were engaged in conversation telling each other all kinds of wonderful things but on the other side of the room there was a young man with a furrowed brow and he was swirling his drink and he was staring at this young couple he did not like what he saw because for him he was empty he did not know where he came from who he came from instead he heard the stories that he had been fed of the others and as he watched them the shadow man began to slither across the cobblestones up the table leg over the top and into his drink and when the young man with the furrowed brow peered in the shadow man began to cast his spell look at him all smiles and laughter look at him what he's after violent aggressive no sense of shame always in trouble always to blame I tell you all the time this beast it wants to gorge it wants to feast it wants to take the good the just but you can stop him and emboldened by these words the young man with the furrowed brow stood up the shadow man swirled around him taking words sharpening them into weapons and handing them over and the young man with the furrowed brow did not see any sparkling eyes or starlight instead there was a hideous creature a head too big for its body large eyes protruding out of its head its fists were clenched ready to smash and crush and destroy and he took those weapons and he aimed them at the beast and the young man with the sparkling eyes he felt the words pierce his skin and he whipped around to face his enemy and there it was a loathsome creature saliva dripping from its jaws it was hunched over hungry thirsty for blood its claws glistened in the moonlight and it lunged and soon the two of them were tearing at each other ripping and gouging slicing and smashing flinging each other to the ground pounding when suddenly there was a glint and the young man with the sparkling eyes he fell backwards onto the ground he clutched his stomach he looked up to the skies and he saw the moon and the stars and he heard the voices slowly starting to call him home humwanga gumali nyanya babu and as he heard their names resound in his head he slowly closed his eyes his arms fell to his side his chest stilled and his body slowly began to fragment into a thousand tiny shards of light and they floated upwards sparkling and twinkling towards the sky and far away in a distant land there was a husband and wife sitting around a fire preparing a delicious meal when they noticed there was a bright new star it reminded them of their son the starlight in his eyes and they imagined all the wonderful adventures that he was having in the land in the sky I have this here for the simple reason that there is too much for me to remember because our next performance is going to be by the wonderful Raymond Antrovas who was born in London to an English mother and a Jamaican father so mixed, mixed heritage and he is the author of To Sweet and Bitter and the Perseverance here comes the list of accolades which I always love doing this because it must make you feel so good listening to it in 2019 he became the first ever poet to be awarded the Raphbone Folio Prize for the best work of literature in any genre and other accolades include the Ted Hughes Award the PBS Winter Choice a Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Guardian Poetry Book of the Year 2018 and he has also been shortlisted for the Griffin Prize, Ford Prize, T.S. Eliot Prize he was also awarded the Geoffrey Derma Prize judged by Ocean Vuong for his poem Sound Machine and his poem Jamaican British this is a good one was added to the GCSE syllabus in 2019 which I think also deserves a round of applause so yes, wonderful so he is going to be here sharing his poetry with us accompanied by the wonderful Katrina Nisbet who is a child of deaf parents this is how she communicated with British Sign Language at home and through this she understood the importance of gesture, body, language and facial expression which we've already seen through the films we have already seen on the stage we are now going to see it again she began dancing at a young age and believes that the link between British Sign Language and dance is a powerful tool within her work that allows storytelling without spoken dialogue in 2017 she founded Deaf Jam Fitness which is a project that delivers dance to the deaf community so if you could please welcome Raymond and Katrina to the stage Hello my name is Raymond thank you so much for having me here having us here I'm going to perform some poems from this book it's called All the Names Given and it begins looking at my surname so my surname is Antrobus and I leave the country a lot I'm going to come back in to the UK border 99% of the time I get asked where is this name Antrobus from has anyone heard this name before by show of hands has anyone come across the name Antrobus before one person big up the one person at the back so most people assume it's from foreign it's something else but Antrobus is actually an English name it's a name that is so English but it's become foreign to itself it's a Norse name it's a locational name because there's a little village in Cheshire called Antrobus and that's where my name comes from so I went to this village my grandmother had always spoken to me about it and I went there with my mother and I wrote about the day that I spent there I should also say that I am the grandson of preachers my grandfather was a preacher that kind of comes into some of the work as well Antrobus or land of angels wherever you are you touch the bark of trees different yet familiar Shizlok Milos I can be fiendish I can't be English some with shaved heads some with cane rows muttering themselves into notebooks the barman's eyes his arms become sharp gates when I claim to be English my mother born here my grandfather for local preacher oh well then welcome he says or land your angels there are enigmas in my darkness I stare at the crest of gold lines behind the bar I scar the cross of davidic's line behind the bar hear my ghosts say fiendish English the barman calls the whole village and my name does the rounds my mother drives us to antrobus hall two german shepherds surround the car I climb out it's raining the dogs jump their paws scraping a new coat of earth from my chest a farmer appears asked if we're descended from Edmund Antrobus Sir Edmund Antrobus Third Baronet Slaver, beloved father Ovesia, owner of plantations in Jamaica British Guyana and St. Kitts I shake my head avoid the farmer's eye my mother and I tread the cemetery of St. Mark's Antrobus and see everyone here buried here is of Antrobus and we look up and see hawks in the ash tree and sparrows in the wheat fields and the rain soaks stones of Antrobus and after we walk for slick mirrors of wet roads the curves of barbers lane between trees I take a photo of our shadows flung over the red berry bushes like black coats this next poem is called Language Science Sound of connection across time so one of the most powerful things that I have inherited physically are my grandfather's sermons and every now and then I've got a stack of them and every now and then I go in and I read some at random and this is the only poem I've written so far where I've taken some of the language from my grandfather and put it into the poem Language Science How shall it be known what is spoken for ye shall speak in the air 1. Corinthian 14. 8. 9 J. K. Antrobus grandfather I drench you returning your reading glasses to your eyes opening your Bible pointing at the words you couldn't say you pointed at mercy and failure and then you pointed at your white hair and your lips and then at the ceiling of your church as if it were the roof of your own mouth you stood as much as a stone plaques on the walls or the pews which were wood a word which once meant tree all the men that raised me are dead those bastards I'm one self-pity and prick of a son how do I bring back men who couldn't speak men lost in books drinks, graves where do I turn knowing they left the hot taps running I want to say sorry cut the hedges in your face so I can read your lips her taste funny that my mother was a clown a college dropout who joined the circus with another clown who made inflatable giants it's funny his name was George a Marxist who swore he was serious when he said the men who tried to mow him down in a car were sent by Thatcher so he fled England to hide where my mother pulled another man at a scar and reggae night in Hatney who was tall and afroed and swooned her under her music I'm Seymour he said pointing at his eyes saying the more I see the more I see and she burnt George who was serious when he said he didn't want children he left England to find my mother pregnant and he struck her in the face but ended up staying in the same house saying it helped raise the child but wasn't serious he left and my mother and Seymour who was my father raised my sister and me and 30 years later my mother says she's holding her head higher at 70 she never needed a man of course I wonder where her taste came from her own father was quiet detached and serious all his life reaching out his arms for God while his children crawled at his feet arose my father called my mother rose for short once I asked him how he ever worked out between them the sex he smirked the sex was that good I was 12 and betrayed but I'd seen him in my mother's garden that summer growing sunflowers I'd seen him paint all the walls in her house I'd seen him bend by my mother's bicycle mend her tires rock his head to a record she was playing and ask her if he could borrow it I'd seen the way he walked down the street grinning with new music once I'd seen him stand behind my mother's market store when a woman held up a necklace my mother made and asked him how much it was he turned to my mother said rose and he said it like something in him grew towards the light this poem is in the voice of a friend of mine who I hadn't seen since school and I bumped into him outside a chicken shop and it's funny wherever I go in the world when I come back I'm always like you know what you know where I'm really from I'm really from I know there's something about Hattney that will always be in me something very specific it's history, it's sound, it's music and that's something that grabs me in poetry that poetry is music from the place you were born and so when I bumped into this friend of mine I came away thinking man I'm going to have to write this poem it's in his voice and it's called and that chicken wins and that boss man salt in them and that don't assault man give man a napkin big man no steroid and that dark times, new street lights and that and house man I'm getting by and that still boy them harass not beefing, not tag man still trap cycle man peddling and that unrolled new pavements leveled and that we E8 East Manet got to adapt our kingdom got no land to hand back man chat breeze, chat trade wins and that you out ends got good job legit and that, lots off man them, stayed plotting and that raw way flower shorts, you were hipster and that man gone vegan no chicken wins and that this next poem is for a friend of mine Tyrone Givens who commits suicide a few years ago and what happened to him was so wild and unexpected but also totally avoidable and I was asked to write a poem in response to a human rights declaration and one of the human rights declarations is number 5 which reads no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment and my friend Tyrone had ended up in a situation where he was about to start a prison sentence and he had his hearing aids taken away from him and asked for them again and again in prison, never got his hearing aids and we lost him in that spiral for Tyrone Givens the paper said putting him in jail without his hearing aids was like putting him in a hole in the ground there are no hymns for deaf boys but who can tell we're deaf without speaking to us Tyrone's name was misspelled in the HMP Pentonville prison system once I was handcuffed shoved into a police van I didn't hear the officer say why I was saved by my friend's mother who threw herself in the road and refused to let the van drive away who could have saved Tyrone James Baldwin attempted suicide after each of his loves jumps from bridges or overdosed he killed his characters made them kill themselves Rufus Richard black men who couldn't live like this Tyrone I won writing awards bought new hearing aids and heard my name through the war I bought a signed board rainbow the man who sold it to me didn't know you me or Baldwin I feel I rescued it I feel failed Tyrone the last time I saw you alive I dropped my pen on the staircase didn't hear it fall but you saw and ran down to get it handed it to me before disappearing said you might need this this poem is called plantation paint it's after the poet Lorna Goodison who is a painter and a poet former lawyer of Jamaica and this painting which I saw while living in New Orleans which is called plantation burial this painting is still currently in the historic New Orleans collection painted in 1860 oil on canvas by John Antrobus and Tabitha is the name of my wife Tabitha the art conservator squints at the color tells me the paint depicting the black of these men huddled for a burial will decay before the cypress trees surrounding them will decay there are several kinds of black she says and the cypress trees surrounding them is all I see as we stand alive in this otherwise empty gallery why am I like this what am I like who does it matter to all details question my way of seeing I worry what kind of black would mark me I am not the paint made from vine twigs or burnt shells I am not the lamp full of oil Tabitha tell me how you paint me I am closer to the white painter with my name but I am to the black preacher his hands wide to the sky the mahogany rot of heaven sorry but you know by now but I can't mention trees without every shade of my family appearing and disappearing this is a poem I wrote while in therapy in talk therapy I find myself needing to check myself into therapy when I'm writing a lot and a lot of things come up and for those probably people here that have done therapy I've spent a lot of time I've spent the last 10 years different kinds of therapy and I found this a useful thing a useful practice to have alongside writing poetry so this poem came out a lot of the questions that came out of a particular therapy session which I didn't want to put up in a poem but kind of ended up doing that anyway I ran away from home to see how long it would take my mother to notice are you my drunk teacher who took our game of rounders way too seriously are you the boy who said I had the ugliest smile on the playground are you the girl who toe punted my balls and made me a piss sack of blood the girlfriend who slept with women behind my back said it wasn't cheating what I'm saying would you be my friend I spent hours in the house alone as a child I left fingerprints on my sister's CD so the music kept skipping I wanted her friends to be my friends but I wasn't invited to her parties are you the party are you my dad lying on the sofa saying I'll soon be dead when I pull what is existentialism of my mother's shelf Simone de Beauvoir says the origin of my transcendence appears futile I don't know what that means so I put it back who loves me I'm testing everyone I need space for all my old and new gooey needs and projections I need constant blaring validation alarms give me award ceremonies please observe my wall of fame best second guessing over achiever monologue while drying dishes best self-promoter at the charity fundraiser best awkward silence in a moving vehicle best bad advice to a couple in crisis best non-smoker in the smoking area most self-centered fear during the global pandemic lifetime achievement award for most convincing head nod in a crowded pub most triggered person in an empty house this is my last poem thank you so much for listening and watching I deeply we deeply appreciate your eyes and your ears this poem is called Sutton Road Cemetery after even Boland his mother had driven him back to London in the half light he sighed in the passenger seat he stopped by the south end seas as the winds picked up and clouds thinned into English women over stone to said nothing of their names as he skimmed them wide across the waves earlier when he'd found the grave of his great grandmother by the elderberry tree it was the one time he wanted someone white to appear to ask where he was from it would have been no skin of him to point at her stone and say here could we have another round of applause for Raymond and Papina just really beautiful beautiful we have unfortunately come to the end of this evening but Raymond and myself will be signing books outside in the foyer and you've heard a very small selection but yes if you would like to read more I'm also interested in kind of reading the one with the different the Hackney language because I don't know the Hackney language so like a whole other language so yes we'll be in the foyer afterwards but just to say a huge thank you to Raymond and to Katrina but also to the Africa rights team to Marcel for bringing us all together to Tayu for her amazing work that must be mind jumping from everywhere basically and also to the team up here as well who have done an amazing job with the technicals and also to and David Ellington for the amazing films that they have given to us and to you guys as well for coming today and to everybody who is at home and joining us there so another round of applause for everybody just to end tonight with just some questions, some thoughts this is all about the names that we inherit we take on an awful lot and sometimes names can liberate us and give us a sense of pride and inform and inspire us of who we are and sometimes names can also imprison us or entrap us in different ways and it's not just the names of people it's also just when you were talking about Hackney it's a name so names trigger things inside us as well and sometimes these names they allow us to manifest our own truth and sometimes they limit what we are capable of and sometimes we don't even know who we truly are because we believe ourselves to be this particular name that we have attached ourselves to so I just want you to think of a name either one that has been passed down or one that you have acquired for yourself it's a story that has been told to you and just think of one of these names and if it is a name that brings you joy, that brings you love, that pushes you forward that guides you and gives you a sense of who you are the names need to be spoken into being to keep them present but if it is a name that you feel limits you and keeps you backwards because we are not our ancestors we are ourselves we are just a conversation with that name and think about it's time to let it go so thank you very very much and we shall see you downstairs, thank you


Another one around integration. It's been important during the COVID times. We've had a number of integration scenarios, whether it was for vaccine certificates or reporting of adverse events to global repositories where it was needed to make use of notifications in order to exchange data to an external HTTP address. So using the same notifications which previously you were able to send as SMS or as email or as in-system notifications, you can use this as a webhook that allows you to exchange data to an external address. This is just one step forward down a larger interoperability path that you'll see in the coming releases where we're going to be adding additional webhooks that allow for integration through not only these kinds of external connections to addresses but also perhaps using something like Kafka. So you will see more of that in the 238, 239, 240 roadmap that we'll be publishing soon in the next month or so. And we're going to try to be as transparent as possible with all of the interoperability strategies that we're pursuing and the way to connect to various systems. At the moment, this is available to you today. You can make use of this to connect to any external service that you needed to through the notifications functionality.


my way. What's up? I'm going to give you an expensive video here. Welcome to another video, guys. So into this video, I want to talk to you guys about my investment strategy. I've been getting a ton of questions from people asking me how I go about doing it. So I want to explain to you guys a little bit how the way my investments are structured. With the stock market, just a little bit about my background, I really got active or started really showing interest and learning about the stock market back in 2009 after the 2008 crash. When that crash happened, a ton of people benefited in the market, but low. And then when things started rolling back, they made a ton of money. And I felt like I missed out on that because I didn't even know what I was doing. So I really started putting in the work and learning. So fast forward today. At least I've actually developed my own strategy that works for me. And again, guys, this is my way of looking at it. It might not be the same way that you are going to look at it. So before you start telling me that Mr. V, your strategy is wrong, I want to make sure that this is not a one-size-fit-all. So before we get started, guys, if you're new to the channel, talk about how to earn money, how to save money, how to invest and build worth. So if that's something that interests you, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and any notification bell so you don't miss out on new content. So what's my investment strategy? So if I look across my portfolios, it's actually broken down into three sections, right? The first part of it is just put and don't worry about it, which is retirement accounts. I'm talking about 401k, Roth IRAs and traditional IRAs, right? So I put money in there, some through my employer and others like the IRA accounts, the ones that I contribute into. So those I'm holding long term and not even worry, I'll just keep putting money in there. And in those accounts, mostly you would see stuff like some index funds and some ETFs and a few individual stocks here and there, but mostly from the perspective of just letting it run and grow and just keep putting money into. So then the second part is what I call my income account, which is my dividend portfolio that I've actually shown you guys here. It used to be in M1 Finance, but now I moved it over to Weibo. So if you haven't already checked that video, I'm going to hook it up here so you can definitely go check it out. So in that account, I'm investing in dividend paying stocks, good, solid, blowchips dividend paying stocks. So some of the stocks, monthly dividends, others do pay quarterly dividends. But my goal with that portfolio is to grow it to the point where I can get a monthly dividend of say $1,000 or $2,000 a month just from those stocks. Is it there yet? No, but it's a long ways to go. But I mean, I just take it one dollar at a time, just keep putting money in the account. Then the last part of my portfolio is what I call my growth account. And the growth one is I look at stocks that I think would explode. I mean, I buy those as soon as they explode and make the profit. I don't want to take the risk. I take that money and put it somewhere else. So it's just to get the growth out of it. So an example would be if you invest in something like, I'd say, Draft King, which is a spot betting stock. And so who knows, it's just something that they could get soon or whatever. So if they start, I can buy that as a growth stock in my portfolio. And let it grow as soon as it gets to a point where I feel comfortable, I can set a style a lot. So if anything would happen, I don't lose all the money. I take the profit and I can reinvest that profit. So those are the three main components of my portfolio. So and then on top of that, I also do some sort of day trading, early morning trading, where I try to get at least $250 a day. My goal is to grow that number as soon as I fine tune my strategy or grow that number to say 300, 400, 500 and just keep doing it and getting better. So that is how my portfolio is structured and how I invest my money. So three again, just to recap, three main components have the retirement component, you have the growth component and then you have the income component. So let me know in the comment section how do you structure your investments? Do you have everything just bundled up or do you have them separated as I have mine? And then the platforms that I have my portfolios in, I have my retirement accounts, I have them in Vanguard. My growth account, again, like I said, is in Weibo. And then my dividend account is actually in Weibo as well. Reason why I have my dividend account in Weibo is because they pay interest on your stocks if you enroll in the stock lending program, which is definitely awesome. So that's it, guys. Let me know in the comment section again. If you have any questions about my approach, let me know. Let me know what your strategy is. How do you structure everything?  So like, share, subscribe. YouTube tells me that 90 percent of you guys watching haven't already subscribed to my channel. So go ahead, hit that subscribe button and the notification bell so you don't miss out on your content. And as always, guys, stay motivated.


Let's go with one from Yosemite Sam, someone who has been on the podcast before. Right, let's go for it. No, not on YouTube premium. Very commonly used, and yet remains a very misunderstood concept slash metaphor within the autiverse. The autiverse! After all, aren't we all somewhere on the spectrum? This term on the spectrum is a very polite term and has a waft of mildness about it.  They use on the spectrum as kind of a buffer to smooth out the edges, avoid stigma maybe. And quite rightly, there is a lot of stigma around autism. But I think it's confusing because people don't really understand what on the spectrum means. So someone might say... Yeah, it's usually been the case in my life that when I've used on the spectrum, people have asked me to elaborate on that. And it is definitely like a way for some people to avoid like saying the word autism. Well, I'm on the mild end of the spectrum because I can drive, live alone, talk, dress myself. So let's clarify what it actually means. So just for everybody's knowledge, the podcast that I was saying about that I had you as Sammy Samon was the... I think we talked about demisexuality, which is quite interesting. It was like the first time that I came across something like that. This video is sponsored by Teemo, the visual planning app. Since it was first identified in the early 20th century, thought to be a form of schizophrenia. The term autism was coined by a Swiss psychologist called Oigen... I wrote this down... Oigenblurla. I had a lot of fun trying not to say Jürgen Blurla. Unpopularized or unpopularized by Leo Kanner and everyone's favorite, Hans Asperger, who were in their eyes talking about two different things. Classical or Kanner autism and... Yeah, it's really interesting. I read a book called Neurotribes, which I also had the person who wrote that on the pod, a guy called Steve Silberman. And he was talking about the back and forth that Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger had. It used to just be called Kanner syndrome and then Asperger syndrome. And they had some kind of beef with each other, which is cool to know. Asperger syndrome. And it was only as recently as the 1980s that a scientist named Lorna Wing established the concept of the autistic spectrum. In her own words, the autistic spectrum consists of a group of disorders of development with lifelong effects and that have in common a triad of impairments in social interaction, communication, imagination and behavior, narrow and repetitive pattern of behavior. The spectrum includes, but in wider than, the syndromes originally described by Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger. So once and for all, the person who coined the term clearly says we are not all on the autistic spectrum. In case there was still any confusion about that. You've got to be autistic to be in the club, says Lorna Wing, although I still personally find her description of autism inaccurate and somewhat problematic. But this concept really changed things and started the gradual increase of diagnoses, otherwise known as the autism epidemic. As the result of the accumulation of findings from biologic, psychological and clinical research views of the etiology and nature of childhood autism have evolved and changed since Kanner, 1943, published his first description of the syndrome that bears his name. However, disagreements continue concerning the clinical criteria for diagnosis and the boundaries between autism and other conditions in which there are impairments of skills and abnormalities of behavior. Does anyone? Yeah, I think the thing with Kanner, I don't know if it was Kanner or not, it might have been a different psychologist, but I think they were wanting to patent the diagnosis so that they could make money from middle-class white people. Because it had such tight restrictions on what he considered to be autistic, to the point where it literally was just almost impossible to get the diagnosis. But yeah, we'll keep going with this. You guys just feel really bad about themselves every time you read this stuff. And these disagreements that she mentions are still ongoing within the psychological community over 30 years later. In fact, when the DSM was last updated in 2013 to the DSM-5, this was when there was so much confusion around who got diagnosed with what subset of autism that these subtypes of different disorders within the spectrum was just abolished, and the new diagnosis, autism spectrum disorder, was created.  I haven't heard that before, although I do know about the different subtypes. It's interesting because they have removed a lot of different sub parts of autism, but they've replaced it with something that I'd probably say is equally problematic for most people because it's classified from ASD 1, 2, and 3. So because of that, it's really paying a lot of attention to functioning labels, I think, which I think could also be something problematic. It's kind of like they replaced one thing that autistic people don't like with another thing. Interesting. People, myself included, prefer the term ASC, autism spectrum condition. Not least, I would imagine the Dutch translation of it into a disorder, results in autism spectrum, which is a rather unfortunate acronym that is now in all my medical files. But if you were diagnosed using the older version of the DSM, which is the DSM-4 or the ICD equivalent, you would have been given a diagnosis of Autistic Disorder, Asperger's Disorder, Rett's Disorder, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder. That sounds dangerous. PDD-NOS, which stands for Pervasive Development Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified, which is possibly the catchiest of all the names and is certainly no way confusing. And when I looked at the diagnostic criteria for all these so-called separate conditions, I really saw when they just said, screw it, because there is a lot of crossover and ambiguity and it's really open to interpretation, which is not what you want in a diagnostic document. And of course, we know that no two autistic people are the same. If you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person that is now so overused, it is becoming cliche. We know we don't like to be a cliche on this channel, so I don't say it anymore. But it is true, and the concept of the spectrum is a way for accounting for all these individual differences. However, there are still a lot of people who seem to think it's a linear spectrum going from a little bit autistic to super-duper autistic. First of all, that's not a spectrum, that's a gradient, isn't it? So let's just take the visible light spectrum, otherwise known as color. So you might go from a shorter wavelength to a longer wavelength, but that doesn't make red more colorful or more high-functioning than blue. In the same way, there is no more autistic. And that's something that is really hard for people to understand because... I suppose I'm a little bit confused about the... Because whenever I've seen it in scientific textbooks, it is from... Like the wavelengths do correlate with the color that you have. But I suppose not the actual intensity of the color, which I think that's what they're getting at. Some autistic people display their traits in a really obvious way or have commonly occurring comorbidities that people mistake for more severe autism. So of course, having these comorbidities like epilepsy or severe learning disability or apraxia, which is the cause of some autistic non-speakers inability to speak. Of course, this is going to have a significant impact on your life and presumably the lives of the people around you, the people who care for you. And I'm not trying to erase the lived experiences of people who need, for example, substantial care are more disabled by their condition or by society's inaccessibility to the... But I think the issue with this is that these autistic people that do need this level of care that they're talking about, they do tend to have learning disabilities. And that is true. And it's a co-occurring condition. It's not like an inherent thing with being autistic. That their autism presents. So you can really understand where people get this idea of severe versus mild autism. But people have this idea that some traits are worse to have than others or are more severe because they more obviously impact your ability to live independently or work. But when you think of us, very few of us actually live completely independently. So it's the problem really that some autistic people can't work. It's the problem that they are not useful under capitalism. This is what makes their autism severe. Hands up those who've been personally radicalized by bread tubes since the start of the pandemic. But I want to step away for a moment from the professionals and their bickering about labels and diagnostic criteria and instead try to explain the experiential viewpoint of the autistic spectrum as in from someone who is autistic, what does it feel like? And talking to other autistic people, how do we perceive the spectrum? Because actually we are kind of the authority in our own lives and some of us have a lot to say about it. So let's imagine the spectrum as this hypothetical color wheel and every autistic person has a different color or rather different color combinations. But they're all validly colorful, right? And some combinations affect our lives in different ways and in ways that make it easier. Some of them also are much more visible to people. Like if you have social communication or you struggle to find the words to communicate with people or you're non-verbal, it's obviously gonna impact the way that people see you a lot more than I don't know, perhaps trying to think of a good comparison there. Something else, something else that's autistic has having like a special interest. Like some people can be really like hyper focused on things almost to a point that it like causes them issues like to their detriment. I've had many situations like when I've had some kind of really big projects that I needed to get on with and do and I've been like really, really invested in it and really hyper focused from the moment I woke up to the moment that I went to sleep just constantly. And it got to a point where I actually like I got really dehydrated, like really severely dehydrated because I wasn't taking breaks and I wasn't really eating that much either. So I always had like a stomach ache during that time. So it's not, yeah, I think it's a lot like especially when trying to explain it to the general society, general neurotypicals than breadtuber where everyone made banana bread mid pandemic. Interesting, I wonder why that is. Harder to live in society. For example, someone who is able to mask very well may find it easier to kind of on the surface fit into conventional society at the detriment to their own mental health. And in this metaphor society is grayscale, I guess. So someone who has their traits in in kind of like the blues, the blues might blend in with the grays more than someone who is bright red and really is obviously not gray. And if you're blue, people might think you're just a funny shade of gray. Why do you feel the need to label yourself as colorful? Let's make it more concrete by looking at two actual autistic traits. Take, for example, stimming and someone who stims in a really obvious way, maybe loud vocal stims. That is something that really has a big effect on your life. It can be a barrier to employment, education, recreation. Everywhere you go, people will look at you and usually with negative expressions like fear, disgust or pity. On the other hand, let's look at extreme noise sensitivity, also an autistic trait. If for someone with this trait, being in certain situations can be extremely painful and or confusing. You might have to avoid certain places completely or at certain times of day. You might need to wear ear defenders or headphones or ear plugs to the detriment of maybe hearing important things that are going around you or even listening to what he looks like. Because in a lot of the situations where I would want to use ear defenders like or some kind of noise canceling thing, it tends to be in places where there's a lot of like, there's a lot of people talking and like conversations going on like in a group setting somewhere in public. Like I find that really difficult like to actually hear people. So sometimes it's literally just do I decide to like meet my own sensory needs in terms of not hearing all this crazy background noise or like actually be able to contribute to the conversation. That is that that is a big issue. I don't really know how to figure that out. I did I do have some some active noise canceling stuff. So it's it's kind of you know um it it's a that that was the reason why I got it so that I could like hear people. It didn't really turn out that way sadly. It's not it's not it's not good enough. JennyM says I have focus on drawing and painting and can forget to eat quite often totally. Yeah it's it's an issue um sometimes if my executive function is really bad and like I'm struggling to transition between one thing to another I can get into long periods of time particularly in the evenings where I'm just really focused in on something and it can really just prevent me from getting off to sleep so I forget to take my meds and I forget to like relax and not do work related things and just chill and it just doesn't work. I was totally wrong on that one then. Yeah it's it's not about making banana bread. It's a little bit different. So I'm trying to keep an eye on the chat but I'm also realizing that because of the way that my streaming software is set up at the moment it's becoming a little bit difficult to um sort out. Hello Angela why you no sleep?  So I thought I'd try a different time you know. I have a lot of period like I don't tend to go to sleep very early don't tend to wake up very early either so I'm a bit of a night owl so I'm cool with this you know. It'd be nice to like watch some videos check some stuff out play some games it's basically the way that I chill anyway. Boring ear defenders so you have theoretical person A and theoretical person B of course being theoretical some people will have both of these traits but neither one is more autistic neither trait is more autistic they both had different challenges which are different solutions and different accommodations within work and school they both occupy their own space on the spectrum and obviously autistic people don't just have a single trait each we all have so many different traits in so many different categories these unique combination of different traits can also become more or less pronounced depending on a variety of factors including stress. So using myself as an example I am five months postpartum at the time of filming and during these five months my noise sensitivity and general sensory overload has become very bad because I have so much noise and sensory input on a daily basis and because of this it doesn't take much to send me over the top I've had more meltdowns since giving birth and normally speaking I don't have a lot of meltdowns but this doesn't mean that I'm more autistic than before I had kids yes kids I had a second one it just me yeah I cannot I do not like I think I talked to the aspie world about their experience with having children it's um it's not something that I feel like I can tackle at this point in my life but maybe maybe in the future but yeah that the hormone your hormones can change after after you you know you could bear before you get pregnant it's um it's quite it can be quite a challenging time for a lot of people especially with like the postpartum depression thing that that happens. It means that I have more stress on my personal pressure points and so a lot of things that we think are autistic traits are actually reactions to pressure points and all our pressure points will be different and result in different outcomes and behaviors noise, light, change in routine, a global pandemic we all have different strengths weaknesses and sensitivities so it's just impossible to compare us and there's no reason to other than people really like to tell you how much you must not be suffering compared to this other person often a theoretical person or someone who is like the nephew of someone they know I don't know why it's always in it is it's always it's always people that that it's like the nephew all I know like someone within my family like not someone within your immediate family because they tend to be a bit more kind of chill but someone that you know loosely and and what they're like comparison really is the thief of joy because oh my god F you and this isn't to say that I think there is no value in categorization I'm autistic I love categorization but rather than attempting to create separate diagnoses it seems more valuable to me to try to determine different neurodivergent archetypes for example the autistic ADHD combo which you are most likely watching right now that's me although I don't have an official ADHD diagnosis yet how many emails from viewers do I need to get saying I think you're probably ADHD before it's official I mean really but it's funny because the autism ADHD combo which I can almost I'm getting pretty good at identifying other people now this combination separates me out from a lot of just autistic people and take for example those who really well I do get that impression from watching the content like it definitely seems that when when we were chatting that I don't know anyone who's autistic ADHD that I've interviewed they tend to be a bit more chatty like I don't need to fill in as much of the blank space I've got a pretty good rate of stuff like that but I think the thing is is like I'm trying to go for an ADHD diagnosis because I find that most of the issues that I have is around executive function and transitions and like I think the reason why I haven't gone for it so like in the past is because the medications that I'm on they're very much like a sedative medication so they made me feel very sleepy and tired most of the time um so I'm not really sure what that will look like probably going to be in like two years or so so gonna have to wait for that don't like change in routine and it really really stresses them out I don't do terribly well with last minute changes um and when I have my my personal pressure points like the sensory stuff stressed I do less well with these last minute changes go figure so the more stress I have the more my autistic traits kind of pop out but there is this other part of me that is a bit like change it change it we want the type of mean something new something new I get that sorry and my autistic self is hiding inside me quietly weeping so I've touched on a couple of things that I talked about in the previous videos maybe check them out after this one the algorithm likes that by the way and some of you may have spotted I have new merch if you want to check that out there is a merch bar underneath or you can just find my merch somewhere I'm sure be nice in the comments remember everyone's a human being apart from the bots and take care and I'll see you next time bye awesome check out the merch check out the merch I've got merch the problem with this is I'm just gesturing wildly at my that was cool that is a you a sunny sound I would highly recommend going and check out the the podcast um if that's something that you'd be interested in


The chance to qualify with a pistol is usually reserved for officers and military police, but other Marines who are interested can still qualify by becoming a combat marksmanship coach. It gives a lot of knowledge on what to do with the pistol, how to shoot the pistol with the rifle as well, how to coach. It's definitely a really good course to go through. CMC instructors push their students for better marksmanship and encourage leadership and mentoring skills vital to all Marines. When I have a shooter and they're hitting black, you know, I'm right there behind them, cheering them on and everything like that, and if I have a shooter that's making mistakes, I mean, it's a good feeling to actually be able to help somebody and correct what they're doing wrong and start hitting the black. Lance Corporal Joshua IV, Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan.