Casboiler, please forget. Always use a registered gas installer, or you could risk everything. Find one at orgii.ie. You're listening to Gene Cullen. And you're very welcome back. And the time here on Highland is just gone 18 minutes past seven this Sunday night. And as promised in the studio with me, I've got Maria Rush, who is director of Letra Kenne Musical Society's forthcoming production of the Adams family. Maria, you are very welcome. Thank you for having me, Gene. It's nice to see you. So for those of you who may have been tuned in to Greg's show on Friday, you've been treated to three of the characters performing in harmony. It sounded great in the studio. So what's it going to be like in the theatre? It's going to be epic. And I mean, that was, we chose that piece of music on Friday because it's kind of probably the most well known. You know, a lot of the music in this show isn't really well known. So we wanted to do something that people would recognise, but it's not the most beautiful piece of music at all.  And of course, you're going to do the Adams family back in March, 2020, but after two nice COVID, unfortunately struck and that was the end of that. Was it hard to resurrect it again, Maria? It was, it definitely was, Gene. Like we had originally thought that we would bring that back as our first show post-COVID. But as Kenneth Tyne came close to sitting down as a committee to think about what we would do for our first show back, none of us really wanted to go back to the Adams family. We almost felt as a team that we would be stepping back. Now, we knew at some point we would come back to the Adams family. It just didn't seem right for us to pick up where we left off. We kind of wanted to take a break. So we went with something completely opposite with Kinky Boots. And I think it was the best thing we ever could have done, you know, for ourselves. It really gave us, it gave us that passion back. And I suppose after three years out, it also gave us the confidence to go back to it again, you know? So we did decide to go back to it, but we've come at it from a very fresh angle. We have a new musical director. We have a new choreographer. We have a new stage management team. We have a new Wednesday. We have a new Lucas. We have a new Pugsley. We did recast the adult parts in their original roles. We were delighted when we asked them would they come back? We kind of thought we might have to start to audition again, but thankfully all the adult roles were happy to come back. But we have quite a new influx of people into the ensemble as well, which is brilliant. So even as director, I haven't even looked back at the older version or the 2020 version. I didn't go back and revisit it. I didn't, I even got a new script because I didn't want to be in any way influenced by what I'd done before. So yes, it's our second time doing the Adams family, the musical, but this is a completely different show to what we put on in 2020. Yeah. And you were saying there that there's a mix of old faces and new ones as well. And just looking down the cast members, I say, well, Giles as like, I think the first one he did was the Pirate King a number of years ago. And it's been nearly in everyone ever since that. And the likes of Donald and Nicola. But there are lots of new faces there as well, Maria. Lots of new faces. So we have Sarah Terry Sweeney is back playing Morticia. She was Morticia the first time round.   And she's comically brilliant on stage. She really is. She can, she can go from the extremes have been really, really poignant and humble and vulnerable to absolute comedy gold. Her daughter now in real life, Ella, is playing Wednesday in the show. And they are a force to be reckoned with, the two of them. They're just whatever Sarah, and I don't think she'll make me say in this, whatever amazing voice Sarah has, Wednesdays or Ella's is just up again. You know, she's just, it's so nice to see the two of them together. We have Sean Bonner back as Fester and he is the highlight of the show. He's brilliant. Another highlight would be Granny. So played by Nicola Shields. This is Nicola's 23rd show with the LMS. So she's just, yeah, some of the one-liners that she comes out with is they're just brilliant. She's really, really funny. We have young Ethan Barron playing Pugsley. So Ethan would have been on stage just for a few moments in Kinky Boots, played young Lola, but again, an incredibly talented young man. And then we have the Beinegee family who are being played by Chris Dolly, Katrina Solon or Katrina Doherty. And Lucas is a new member to the society. So he's Jamie Lee Gallagher from Strabam and again is just taking the part as his own and really, really impressive since day one in rehearsals. And of course, Donal is lurch. And I just was about to say Donal is lurch. Donal, yeah, this part is, it's just so much fun to see Donal in this part. I suppose as assistant director as well, Donal's so busy trying to keep everybody else right that this part suits him down to the ground at the moment because he's able to, you know, he's not worried about lines, let's put it like that, but he has so much to do on stage. He's very much on stage the whole show. And sure, no better man for that role than himself. And I suppose like every other musical and play around, you were spoiled for choice. It was a difficult decision, I'm sure, to get the cast together, Maria. Well, we auditioned again for Wednesday and Lucas and Pugsley. I can't remember the numbers, but I know we had a full room of wannabe Wednesdays and every single one of them, the talent, it was like going to a concert the first night of the auditions. You were just listening to brilliant, brilliant vocals, lovely acting and all these young girls could all have played it. You know, they were brilliant. It came down to Amy, Galvin and Ella. Ella won the hearts of the cast the minute she opened her voice, or the committee, sorry, the minute she opened her mouth, she was amazing. Amy is playing Wednesday on the Saturday matinee. Often when you, as a director, have understudies working, there's always a little bit of a worry that the understudies stepping on stage is going to throw the dynamic of the show or is going to be something that you need to be nervous about or worry about, but not with Amy. She is for 16 years old.  And herself and Ella have been working really closely together, so it's really lovely to see her watching everything that Ella's doing and even their rehearsal during the week where Amy played the role. Ella was there, taking notes and giving her feedback. And, yeah, that generation are just incredible.  And last year, in Kinky Books, Emma Stewart was the choreographer, and he was on stage as well, but the choreography last year was just absolutely fabulous. Emma is, I mean, I travelled to London quite often. I go and see shows in the West End all the time. I've been on Broadway, and what Emmett can do with a cast and what he can do himself as a performer is would equally fit on a stage on the West End. Not only is he a wonderful choreographer, he has a way about him, and he can see gaps in things, and he can see where magic can be injected in. It's an absolute pleasure to work with him. I first worked with Emmett in Straban, probably around 2005 or 2006, where we did West Side Story, and he was only about 15 or 16 at the time. I played Anita, and to cross-pass with him again last year was amazing, but to see him now as an adult and as a professional, he's just fantastic, so I'm really, really excited to let people see not only what he has created on the stage, but also him, because he's on stage performing and dancing himself, and that in itself is a treat for anybody in an audience. Oh, he was amazing last year. And of course, Jared Bradley back as MD, Stewart, you couldn't have a veteran MD. Jared's back as a MD. Jared will have been MD in my first show 20 years ago, and then himself, Mark was there the last time his brother was there. I think Mark might be in the orchestra this time. I'm actually going to have to meet the orchestra now after this interview, so I'll see. But Jared has, again, to be able to work with such a big group of people and to bring out the best in everybody is such a gift, and between Emmett and Jared, like we were so, so blessed with the kind of lead group that we have. He has a great wit about him, great sense of humour, but is so incredibly professional and meticulous and will not lose the harmony or leave a line out just because it's difficult. He will keep at it until it's done. Yeah, no, he's a joy to work with. And I heard you saying to Greg on Friday that it's not like the film or it's completely different. It's completely different. And the story is crazy. You know, the actual plot of the show is if you sit and look at the actual storyline of it, you nearly think, what's this about? But because, and I said this to Greg, because we already know the characters and we're thrown into a moment in time in their lives, there's no need for us to try and establish who's who. And we're able to just jump into an ordinary day with them, but this is no ordinary day. You know, this is a day where all the ancestors from the afterlife have come back to Earth for this one particular occasion, which just happens to be the day that Wednesday announces to her father that she's getting married to what Gita refers to as a normal person, because the Addams family, as we all know, are anything but. And then there's that really famous line that grandma says to find normal, which opens up so many different, you know, thematic conversations and things. We have Fester, who's in love with the moon.  And the comedy that comes from that is just incredible. And then you have the Beinekees who are also, while they're the, and I keep saying normal with inverted commas here, they're deemed to be not normal, but they have their own chaos going on in their lives. There's an unhappy marriage. There's a, the wife is just, Alice's part is one of the nicest parts in the whole show. She comes across at the start, has been really, really ditsy and just, she's just, for want of a better term, she's kind of a broken housewife, you know? She's, she's, and then as things develop, and she learns from Merteshe, and everything comes undone, everything's unraveled in both the Addams family and the Beineke family. And at the end, they realise that actually they're all the same, you know? So there's some, and the performance that Katrina gives in, at the end of Act One is, it's something special, it really is. And all of this happens within 24 hours. Yeah, within 24 hours. And it's quite a short show, you know? It's not overly long. There's no part where you're sitting and thinking, God, we have another 20 pages of script to get through here. It all goes so quickly. There's one musical number after another, and they get bigger and bigger, and more complicated and more beautiful as they go. Some really, really beautiful music in this, and some lovely kind of uplifting, upbeat pop type music as well. And the comedy is what keeps us going, even in rehearsals today. My husband came in to see what was going on, and he's laughing at parts that we weren't even aware that people would laugh at. So this is now where I love to see the audience response. And the lines, when you're listening to lines for six months, twice a week, and over and over again, you kind of forget the beauty of the comedy that's there, but people will be rolling in the aisles laughing. Yeah, especially with the likes of Granny and Mal and Lurch and Fester. I mean, this is a comedy, it's a slapstick comedy, but it's got a lovely message to it as well. And as with a fun show for all age groups, Maria? For all ages, a lot of the humour will be quite maybe dark, so I'm innuendo with such, but it's nothing that they're not seeing on The Simpsons or, I mean, my own two. My oldest girl is, she's in the show for about 15 seconds, just in a little clip we've put together, and then the eight-year-old, she's laughing away at her. So, yeah, definitely suitable for everybody. Yeah, it's fun, it's real good escapism. And I suppose the irony of it is that when we left that show in 2020, and it was all about, you know, deaths, and it was quite dark from that point of view. I think that's possibly why we didn't want to go straight back into it after the whole pandemic, but the comedy and it is beyond all of that. You know, it really is so, so funny. And it kicks off on Tuesday the 5th, runs to the night with the matinee on the ninth as well. Yes, so there's a matinee at half past two on the Saturday also. Our show is at eight o'clock every night, so we run. We have Monday night, we have our own dress rehearsal, then we open to the public Tuesday night, and we have two shows on the Saturday. The tickets are selling quite nicely at the moment. I think there's only about 40 tickets left for Friday, something similar for Saturday. Generally, as you know yourself, Jane from shows, when the Friday and Saturday sell, the rest will go very quickly where people realise, oh, hang on, I need to get this. And we're very lucky as a society in the town, there's so many societies and so many brilliant groups in the town, putting on shows all the time. So we're very grateful for the support that we do get from. The people come to see us every year, but the likes of the Adams family hopefully will bring a new influx of people who want to come because of the Wednesday connection and the whole idea of the Adams family from their childhood as well. And of course, it hasn't been put on locally. I don't even know if it's ever been put on in Ireland before. I don't know. I know that it was possibly done in Port Rush. I don't know. I think it has been done. I know it has been done in the country because the set is coming from Golley. And they have, you know, we're using a set and we've brought in a set that has been used before. It's a very popular school of production. It was done just in Oma there before Christmas. I think actually Emmett was choreographer for that one as well. So it's a show that a certain generation definitely know. And it's a show, I think, that will go on for a long time because it is so universal and it is so funny and it is so enjoyable. Well, I'm looking forward to having my tickets for Tuesday night. And as always, I'm sure the bar will be up there and the best of luck with it. And thank you so much for taking time off your rehearsals. Now we have a four hour rehearsal earlier this morning and now we're heading for our orchestra call, which is always a really exciting night for the cast. So thank you as always for your support, Jane. And we'll see you on Tuesday. Perfect.


Hey everybody, I'm Lance Coyke. Today we're wrapping up our warmup talk. So we talked about self-myofascial release and foam rolling stuff. Yeah, you might not need it, but yeah, you could also do it. Yeah, it might make you feel better. Okay, that's step one, foam rolling. Step two is maybe just some general movement, move around, especially if you've been sitting down all day or especially if you just woke up. All that stuff is really responding well, responds really well to just general movement. So sometimes that's really good for you. Step three, muscle activation.    What am I always using? My calves and my neck and my back and my maybe pecs. Spoiler alert, that's where the body compensates. And think about those things. Don't activate necessarily the things that are already activated, but definitely activate the things that are under activated. Maybe those over activated things will start to relax. But if it's not enough, then step four, do your dynamic mobility, do maybe even some stretching stuff to further inhibit the things that are overactive because inhibiting things that are overactive is more important, not just as important, but more important than turning on the right things. The reason that turning on the right things works is because it turns off the right things as well. Step five, quick one today. Start sweating, just do stuff. Don't take too much rest, don't dilly-dally too much. It's okay if you wanna talk to someone. It's okay if you wanna decompress after your long day or whatever. But don't call it a warm-up if you haven't started sweating yet. Try to move around a lot, get that heart rate elevated over 120 beats per minute and get some stuff going, maybe even a little bit of muscle burn. All that is really good. And if you just rush through whatever sets that you're doing, whatever exercises that you're doing, you will challenge the cardiovascular system. You will turn on the aerobic system in all your little muscles there or hopefully big muscles. And your body will be ready to start making energy and it will be ready for whatever you wanna throw at it during your workout. That is step five for writing your own warm-ups. Hopefully these five steps make some sense. I've thought a lot about warm-ups, probably too much, probably not enough about real workouts. I have previously written an hour-long warm-up for somebody because I wanted to cover all my bases.  I will never do that again. I'm here to help you cut away the unessential stuff so that you can keep the things that are really going to be big bang for your buck.


This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. Hello and welcome to Youth in Action. In today's program, we have Martin Gauzu, the in-tech program manager at Nairobi Trust. Martin, Karibu Sana to the show. Tell us what is Nairobi Trust? Thank you, Granis, and thank you for coming to the Youth in Action program. Nairobi Trust is an organization and profit organization that bridges the social economy gap and targets our young people from an under-resourced background, equipping them with ICT and probability scales. The organization was started 23 years ago and over a period of those 23 years, we have impacted over 100,000 young people with ICT scales. Yes. So what is the drive behind Nairobi Trust? The drive behind Nairobi Trust, actually Nairobi Trust was founded by three Dutch ladies. They came in Kenya in 1999 and they were dealing with this organization called Motherhood Youth Sport Association, MAISAR. And they thought, how can we empower these young boys and girls who are playing football within MAISAR? And that's how they coined the Nairobi Trust. So our roots are from Netherlands and we are happy to have been in existence for that long. Our drive is to ensure like the young people from under-resourced background or urban informal settlement get vocational ICT skills that can get them entry-level jobs within the ICT sub-sector. So what platforms do you use to encourage the youth development in this trust? Actually, positive development is one of our philosophies. We have two philosophies within Nairobi's. Positive youth development and digital opportunities. Over a long period of time, people have been seeing young people as people who create chaos. But we realize that young people have a lot of energy, they have a lot of creativity and they have a broader thing. So we decided, how can we harness that potential and make it in good use? So we want to see young people not as a problem to the society, but as a population that has what it takes to take this country forward. And harnessing the youth's potential takes a collective unit. So how do you incorporate the elderly generation into these programs? About a collective effort, I would like to underscore something here. Nairobi's believes in partnership. And in everything that we do, we have anchoring into the partnership. And how we encompass the elderly is also we have other programs that target even people who are beyond the ages of 24. We have programs that target women. And we realize like these young people, they have mothers, they have fathers. How do we ensure that they are the start what the young people do when they come to Nairobi's? And that's how we encompass everyone. We also even have programs for the kids. For instance, we have a program we have been piloting with Google called OPEA. And it focuses on training young people how to learn mathematics using fun way. There is a mobile application and there is this fun way like if John had five apples and he had two, how many was he left with? Like teaching simple education in multiplication, addition, division. And apart from the ICT program that we have for young people, we also have a program on SRHR, sexual production, early productive health and rights. We are cognizant of our young people, they have sexual needs. And you have to teach them about how to know about their rights and even how to access services. So how do people get to access you at Nairobi's and how do they join the programs? Thank you very much for that question. How people access us. One, you can get us through a social media. That's one avenue. But as I mentioned, you are so much anchored into partnership. So we partner with the community-based local organization like Kei and Kisumu will be targeting the local organization to help us immobilization. So some of these young people, they are already working with those community-based organizations. So you are going to reach them and tell them we have this program. And how can people join the program? We always have our application online. For instance, in Kisumu, if one wants to join the program, their application is appriakis.negrobits.com.  And then after that, we are going to contact you and invite you for an interview. So would you mention specifically the programs for the kids, for the young people in their names and what they do? Nairobi's one of its core programs is ICT or the training program that's in ICT. And that program is called Intec in food, innovation and technology. And the Intec program has six programs, sub-programs inside it. One of them is a DLP, which is a 12-weeks course or digital-classic program. It takes 12 weeks. And within 12 weeks, we teach young people the basics of ICT, graphic design, digital marketing, online work, life skills and soft skills. And eventually, they graduate and certificate level. Then the other program within Intec, it's called AMP or Advanced Multimedia Program. And AMP, now the students who have gone through the DLP transition to the AMP. So that is six weeks course or you can call nine months, which is divided into two segments. We have 24 weeks in class training and 12 weeks industrial attachment. So once they get to the AMP, the first two months, they are trained design and development. That's coding. After eight weeks, they specialize for 16 weeks and either do design or my display design or front-end web development. And after they are done with the 24 weeks in class, they proceed to industrial attachment for another 12 weeks. That's a total of 36 weeks. AMP is a diploma level. DLP is a certificate level. Apart from those mainstream programs, we also have a program called VAT, which is a one-week long training, a short program that focuses on teaching people how to become digital storytellers using smartphones. So that one, we can take it to any organization that you are partnered with. Even here in KBC, if you need, we come and teach maybe part of your team about digital storytelling using their smartphone. We can organize a program for them. Another program that we have is a program called LMI, Labor Market Integration. And this program within the intake ensures that the people who finish through our program, we are able to present them other internships. So it has a free dedicated personnel who goes through internship or even making company visit to ensure the people who are in those internships, they are doing what's expected of them, including signing their logbooks. We also have a program called Co-Arcumen. And we realize we are producing very good graphic designer. We are producing very good developers, but they were liking life skills and soft skills. What we did, our Co-Arcumen ensures that we prepare them for the job market. And Co-Arcumen takes 20% of our training. So every Friday when you have training, we bring guest trainers. We can even invite you to come to have, speak to our students. We don't even do it ourselves. We invite the market expert to come and speak with our students. We conduct even mock interviews. We conduct even pitching events for our students and even giving them feedback before they go to the job market, including giving their job applications and their CVs and cover letters. I am curious to understand, are these trainings pro bono or does someone have to pay up for it? Our programs are sponsored. To train one person from the DLP to the AMP level, this costs us like a hard-lead outside Kenya Shelling. But we don't give our programs for free. And this is because we have free arise. If you give things for free, they take it for granted. So our programs, we introduce something co-commitment thing. And for our DLP level, the center that pays most pays 5,000. And here in Kisumu, we'll be charging 3,500 for 12 weeks. In our AMP level, we charge 6,500. So in total, someone going through our program from the DLP to the AMP, they pay a maximum of 11,500. Whereas it costs us hardly that much to train that young person. Yes. And how long is the training? The DLP, as I mentioned, is 12 weeks. For the AMP, it takes 36 weeks. So in total, the entire intake program is 12 months or one year. Yes. And how have the programs helped so far? As I mentioned earlier, we have impacted over 100,000 young people, giving them ICT skills that introduce them to the job market. And I can confidently say that our program has been very successful. We have been people working for Microsoft, people working for Google, people working for Bank of Kigari, people working for Ikute Bank, people working for Edu International, booking.com, all those companies. And if you go to any major design agency in Nairobi, maybe Skarnat, School Digital, Ogilvy, Zorojo, you are going to find our students or our graduates who are working there as designers or web developers. Yes. So are those trainings full-time or it's depending on someone's program? It's a very strict program. For the intake program, both the DLP and the AMP within the intake, they are very time-intensive. So for the DLP in some of our center within Nairobi, the training is full day for five days a week, for two weeks. Here in Kisuno, we'll be running the DLP for half a day, five days a week, for two weeks. For the AMP, that's not negotiable. The training has to be full day for five days a week, for 24 weeks in class training and 12 weeks in industrial attachment full day. So they are quite time-intensive and the content is quite packed from the program. If I take you through the program, you're going to see the content of it. It's not just normal computer packages, it goes through the normal computer packages. And we have to teach all these skills within that short duration. And how are you able to mobilize such commitment from a young person who has just finished school and they're like, I'm not going into books again? One, our program is not like an ordinary, it's like a vocation training. We focus on hard sound skills. We are not even testing like you have an exam to do at the end of it. We focus on you acquiring skills. And you try to make our learning to be very fun.  And we correlate with young people. We even board. We have that board between us and our students. And even it cost me for me to go to become informal to them. I'll be provided they feel accommodated. So when you mention ICT in a normal African setting, it sounds like math. It's difficult. So how are you able to break down to someone for that they can understand that this is important for them? ICT is quite complex. And based on how you stick there, you see on the ICT spectrum, there is like the hard level coding. There is a low level coding. But as we focus on creativity, and anyone can become creative, maybe you, a small kid, or even someone who is aged, and it's not even hard for anyone to to understand coding. And the way we teach, we make it to be even understood is because we focus on practical. We don't teach the only us. Yes, I'm going to add the only here. But by the end of that, if I'm telling you, we need to develop a website, I want to see the website by the end of this. And another thing, I also take hold your hard during the program, I won't tell you to create something that I haven't shown you. So I'll show you how we go about it. Then I'm going to give you like the assignment for you to look at the same, same thing that's there. And again, there is a lot of training that's coming and a lot of people embracing the IC team. So it's becoming widely accepted within our African context. You speak so firmly like a teacher or a mentor. Is it something you also do? I have trained for over 10 years. And actually, to underscore this, I started training when I was in high school. I'm the one who trained our business and history classes in Formula and Formula in the high school that I was there. So I started training from for a long time. When I came to Nairobi in 2008, my sister paid my first course in computer packages, 10 computer packages for five hours by that time. And after three weeks, I finished all the 10 packages. And in January of 2009, I went back to the same college and asked for a training job. And I turned there for another six months until June of 2009. In October 2009, I heard about Nairobi. I applied and that's why I joined Nairobi. I'm a beneficiary of Nairobi. And I graduated in December 2011 with a diploma in multimedia design from Nairobi. Then in October 2012, I went back to Nairobi as a trainer. And I trained there from 2012 to 2017, April. After that, I left and went to the corporate world. But I came back in 2020, October again. And I have been training Nairobots until August this year when I stopped training because I'm kind of focusing on scaling on other regions. Because for the longest, Nairobots has been based in Nairobi. But we thought of scaling to other counties. And in this line, we are focusing in Kisumu and Mombasa. And I have brought the scaling program to Kisumu County. In your training area and as Nairobots growing to other levels, what other challenges have you encountered during that journey? There are a lot of challenges, especially the ICT sector is very dynamic. And you have to always be on top of the things. Today, we are doing things this way. Tomorrow, things are being done differently. You can never afford to sleep. And despite us having other responsibilities, I have to ensure even the curriculum that we train is up to date. I can even sleep today. Tomorrow, I come up with a totally new different curriculum to ensure our curriculum is responsive to the job market. We don't just train, we even listen to our business partner who hire our beneficiary to ensure whatever your training is relevant in the job market. And another challenge that we get, you find some young people who don't take this seriously. And it's a pain because I always tell young people, I got whatever I have where I am today because of Nairobots. If I didn't take it seriously, I couldn't be who I am today. And remember, I came from a disadvantaged background. Despite having finished my class aid, I couldn't make it to the campus. I missed the joint admission board with three points on it. My parents couldn't educate me to campus because one of that felt capable. And was it not for Nairobots? I couldn't have got what I have today. And I'm a proud software developer. I code on a day to day basis. I'm going to create two very complex systems. And I'm happy. But when I see young people playing with these opportunities, that's a sad affair to me. Another thing you may find we don't have like support everywhere we go. They are even parents who don't have a program very well. And although we have been trying to reach the communities to create sensitization for them to be able to decide the program and embrace it. So those are some of the challenges. Another challenge that we have heard is us getting accreditation by Netativator. And because Netativator is Nairobots, we believe in a dynamic curriculum. Netativator, whenever you go to submit for a curriculum, they need like a, they are using quite an outdated curriculum for us. And I need a curriculum that doesn't tire me. I need a curriculum that's going to give this young person an edge to the job market. A skill that young person can work, not even in rockery but internationally. And especially with mostly more job nowadays, I'm looking for people working with modern, most recent and modern technologies. Yes. And there are certain misconceptions around the tech world whereby people say when we get into ICT, it's dangerous. There are dangerous platforms out there. So how do you set the record straight and educate people on that? ICT is like a two-sided coin. It has its own advantages and disadvantages. It has its own benefits, its own dangers. It's like just fire. Fire, it's both dangerous and very useful. But we never say we'll never use fire, right? Yes, we always continue using fire.  That's very possible. How we see ICT has the same, same pros and cons. If you're not very careful, you're going to fire yourself in the backside, even on the backside of the road. Because if you're using the internet to scam people, there is an article within our road that can even make you rather job agile centers for that. But also it has its own good side. One, it's creating employment. There I think it also enhances our communication, like how we can communicate to people who are in other places out of Africa or even in this country. It's all possible through the ICT. Another good thing about ICT is how things are changing. Things are changing very fast, rapidly. Long time, like a few years ago, you could only go to a shopping mall and shop there. Nowadays you have the commerce, the online commerce.  And those are, that's one thing, that's an advantage of the ICT. But we can never forsake ICT because of its cons. What we need to do is to create sensitization. And if we do that, people will be more aware of the dangers and be able to avoid them. So as Nairobits, do you create that sensitization as well? Yes, we do that very well. I have teached my students about the dangers of the internet. And we have another program that's an impact program called SIDP, Skills for Inclusive Digital Participation. This one is a very flexible course, happens for at most five days a week, two hours a day, targeting youth, women and people with disabilities. And this one targets cortical excluded groups, like those small bogus who don't know half ICT skills. Imagine taking them a program for five days, for two hours a day, and they can be able to grant digital skills. And they can be able to do, to know how to sell their things online using social platform like WhatsApp, status, Instagram and Facebook. We also teach them about being safe online, even how to create a safe strong password. We also teach them about fake news, especially actually one of the impact that we got from that program because so far you have seen over three thousand young people in young people, women and people with disabilities in Nairobi and Mombasa. One of the feedback that we got was a mother who said, at least I know what my sons or my daughters do, once they get on their phones. That's a very strong message coming from Anelda Lilly. And even ladies who are as old as 65 years of age going through that program. It's very flexible and we even try to teach it in a way that says it's the easiest way. We teach these ladies and these young people and these people with disabilities about government e-services like e-cities and tax filing the KRA portal and so on and so forth, so that they can know like this exists. And even if they go to seek that service in a cyber cafe, they are informed. Even one of, it also came in so hard because we did the program prior to the August election, general election. And a lot of people said we were able to identify the fake news. They can be able to know news from credible sources. So it's our collective responsibility to ensure people are sensitized and they are aware of the dangers also as we disseminate the benefits of the ICT to the communities. Speaking of inclusivity, there are certain youths who are already working in different sectors but would want to join your program. Do you have online courses or online training programs that you help to incorporate them as well? Currently, that's not happening, but they have some good news. In June, we are in the process of developing our LMS, learning management system. And this LMS is supposed now to extract these skills to people who cannot be able to commit full day. It's an online self-running, a self-paced learning that you can do. But on another hand, you're going to use it as our IGV, income-generating venture. Because remember, we are a trust, a non-profit. We rely on donor funding. And sometimes this funding even, they are no longer there. How can you sustain the mainstream program? So when you open the LMS, it will be a paid service. You can get there, check out with your M-Pesa or your credit card and be able to get a course that you can do. You can learn online at your own pace and be able to get our certificate eventually. You spoke of salvaging opportunities. So what can you tell a young person out there who they see the opportunities being grabbed by other people, but they're still waiting for other more opportunities? What can you tell them? Me, what I can tell young people is, first, we need to get the mentality of being given things.  I tell young people, your today defines your future. Make an investment today and you're going to reap the benefits tomorrow. My word to them is, if you see these opportunities, grab them and grab them, please, because that can be defining your future. Thank you so much, Martin. I have learned, I have been educated. I will put that into practice. The investment you make today is what will give you fruits tomorrow. Do not worry about the stipend because the skill you will get is more than the stipend. That opportunity you're seeing lying there, but you do not know how to get to it, run for it, you will get the networks, you will get the marketing, and soon enough, you will reap the benefits. You have been watching Youth in Action. I am


PSA is the best grading company and I'm about to tell you why. Grading has become a huge phenomenon in the collectibles market. Trading cards from sports to TCGs and even video game grading has seen a crazy rise in popularity. When it comes to TCGs, there are a few options when it comes to grading. PSA, BGS and CGC are the biggest names in the grading world. I'm going to tell you why PSA is the best choice for anyone who wants to grade their cards. What's up guys? We're back with another epic video. Today we're talking about graded cards. It's a very popular topic in TCGs. People have very strong opinions. They love PSA.  They love BGS. They hate BGS. As we know, we've had our struggles with PSA on this channel. We've had good luck. We've had bad luck. But there's also other options. So PSA is the most popular when it comes to trading cards. By most popular I mean the most people use PSA compared to everything else. Like, BGS is second, CGC is probably third and then there's a numerous amount of smaller grading companies opening up recently. However, just because PSA is the largest in the market does not mean that they're universally accepted as the best. We know this. If I ever post a PSA video, you check the comments. There's a ton of people saying I hate PSA. It's awful. They're inconsistent. They do things wrong for multiple reasons. Some of it is deserved. Some of it is not.  They love CGC. They think that they're the best for whatever reason. CGC is strict so it's better. BGS has sub grades so it's better. Some of the reasons that they like these better are actually good reasons and some are just false beliefs. I'm going to give you guys my reason that I like PSA much better than BGS and much better than CGC and we're going to start off with the slabs. The main comparison I want to make between slabs is between PSA and BGS. The others, I don't really use as much because one, CGC doesn't do Yu-Gi-Oh and the others I'm basically saying you should not use in general. So basically the big two. We have. Genzo and Genzo. We got two different slabs here. We got a Jim Mint and PSA. Let's check this slab out. I really like how the PSA slabs look. They just really fit the card well. They have had a point where they were too big but for the most part they fit perfectly and the cards in there, it displays really nicely. You can see the foiling really well. The labels are not great. We know that but I think, I don't know, I like them for some reason. They just feel like they've always been like that so it just kind of fits for me. People really hate about the slabs and there's often, you know, look at this. Like what is that? I mean just a big old scrap, there's scrapes, there's scuffs, there's all kinds of stuff like I just graded this, there's already a scratch on it, you know, stuff like that. The slabs come a little beat up sometimes which is definitely a minus. I'm not a big fan of that they do that but I do love the slabs in general especially when they're not damaged or like messed up. Then BGS, see look at this. I mean this is, I just don't love them. I know people like Rhymes style loves these. He's always like you're crazy. They're way better in PSA. But I personally, I mean just look at this.  Like the cart is just kind of in no man's land there, you know, there's all kinds of extra room here. The nice thing about how thick the slabs are, you feel like your cart is in a brick. Like there's no way it's getting damaged. You're like it's twice as wide as the PSA slab. So it is definitely protected in there but I just don't really love how like huge it is and it's really like pointy on the edges. PSA has the rounded edges so I like that a little better. Another thing to note is BGS also gets stuff in the slabs. I've got an example right here, the Genzo. So check this out. Hair right in the slab which is just kind of nasty. So I'm not a big fan of that. It's not like the stuff like on the cart. I mean it would probably come off if I just re-graded or re-cased it but like just the fact that that's in there is very annoying. So BGS is a culprit for doing that as well. Probably not as much as PSA but they do come with broken slabs and you know stuff in the case occasionally. Then we're just going to take a quick look at the CGC slab just because I do have one sent by a viewer so thanks again for doing that. I really love these slabs. I'm a huge fan of them. Still don't grade Yu-Gi-Oh! But maybe when they do I will get some because I really like these clear ones. Circular edges which is I'm a big fan of. I think they look really clean so I'm not a huge fan of the label but it's kind of growing on me to be honest. So I do like these. And then I just have this for a quick look.  Some of these new ones look better than this. I mean this is like one of the worst I've seen. It's like a meme. World class grading. Not so world class. Here's another example. Also PSA brings the best value to the table. It's not disputable. If you compare the prices they're much higher. However, if you're comparing to BGS and you use a PSA 10, if you compare it to a BGS 10, BGS 10 is actually going to be more but the actual chances of grading a BGS 10 is extremely low. Unless you're submitting like brand new cards, if you're doing vintage cards you're gonna have to submit probably a hundred cards to get a BGS 10 maybe even more whereas with a PSA 10 you're gonna get, we've had some bad luck recently but I got 13 out of 23 the other day.  Usually you'll probably get like one out of five, one out of ten or something if it's a 10. It varies from card to card but the chances are much, much higher to get a PSA 10 over a BGS 10. So that's why you can't really compare those two prices because if you do BGS is gonna win out by a decent amount but the actual percentage chance of grading it is so low that it's not actually comparable. That is why you kind of have to compare PSA 10s to BGS 9.5. So for BGS if I was to get three 9.5s and a nine here that would be an overall 9.5 then it goes all the way up to two 10s upgrades and two 9.5s is also a 9.5. So anywhere in that range is a 9.5. This is what people compare to PSA 10s. But when you actually compare those, PSA 10s are worth way more. I'm gonna use Dark Magician from Ghost from the Past. PSA 10 versus Dark Magician, Ghost from the Past, 9.5, the Ghost Rears. I'm gonna pop prices up for both of them and you can see that the Dark Magician PSA 10 goes for significantly more than the 9.5. This is a huge plus for PSA. If you want to grade and you get yourself a 10, the value is nearly double a 9.5 most of the time. And then if you were to get a nine, the price isn't that far off of a 9.5. So your risk is you don't get the 10 and you get a nine, but you really don't lose that much compared to if you send it to BGS and got a 9.5. The plus side for BGS is you do have that chance at the BGS 10 and the black label, which is when you get all 10 subgrades. And if you actually hit that black label, which is probably one in a thousand cards for the old school, maybe even more, you hit it big because those cards are worth 10 times of PSA 10 sometimes. Like they're insane. They're way higher, maybe not 10 times, but they're way, way more. So if you do actually get that lucky, that's kind of the good side of BGS. CGC, I can't speak to the prices for Yu-Gi-Oh yet because they don't grade them, but I do know that the prices are lower than PSA. I'm not sure where they are compared to BGS, but I'm guessing they're a little lower because they are newer. And finally, let's get into every other grading company, even the newest ones. If you don't have a big name like one of the top three, especially PSA BGS like top two, the value on the card is like way lower, which is why it's not really worth it to use those grading companies. If you want your card slab just for collection, then maybe go for it, but most people are not grading their cards just for their collection. They want there to be some value there while they collect. Also, we need to talk about the cost of submission. So PSA recently closed and opened back up and raised their prices once again. They're up to $300 Super Express, $200 Express, and we have yet to see what their regular service will be because it's not back yet, which a lot of people say that's insanely expensive. We should use something else. Let's try BGS. Let's check out BGS prices to see how they compare. BGS is also closed, all but their top level service levels, which is the $250 level, I believe. So that is comparable to your Super Express. $300 versus $250.  They have $125 option at that, but there's no sub grades. And that's one of the main draws of BGS. So if you don't use the sub grades, it's kind of pointless and it does hurt the value a little bit. BGS cards with sub grades do better than BGS cards. Without sub grades in the same grade. Then if you look at the lower levels, the tier below has not been reopened, so it could get a raised price, we're not sure yet. It's at $150. So you compare that to the $200, it's $50 less again. Then the tier below that is $50. That's what PSA was before they closed. So that's comparable. And then finally, they have a $35, whatever they call it, like economy or whatever, compare that to PSA's bulk. It's actually more. I think PSA's probably gonna raise it, but it's $35 a piece. So they're actually not that much cheaper. So the actual cheaper part doesn't really help because then you grade them and the value is less. So you spend nearly the same amount to get less value. Now that we've gone through some of the prices, I wanna mention something that a lot of people mention in all my comments. Every time I do a PSA submission and they think something's inconsistent. Like in my last submission, we had some off-center cards get 10s. We had, in the previous sub, we got eights and then this time we got 10s or whatever, they think this is inconsistent. PSA's inconsistent, that's their conclusion from the couple of videos they saw. BGS must be way more consistent. I've seen a video where they were consistent. You guys have to take into account sample size. First of all, there's tons and tons of submissions. There's always gonna be a little bit of inconsistency. If you get the right two subs next to each other, they're gonna seem super inconsistent, but overall, they're fairly consistent. BGS is the same way. They're not super consistent either. If you go check out my friend, VintageYugioh's video, I'm gonna link it up in the eye. Go check it out. He compared the same card.  He thought they were way too low. So he cracked all of them and re-subbed them. Nearly every subgrade changed. Not every grade, every subgrade. So there's four different subgrades per card. There were changes like three and four per card. Like there would go from a nine to a 9.5 and nine to an eight and eight to a 9.5, a 10 to an 8.5. Like it was insane, like very inconsistent. It just shows that every grading company is gonna be a little bit inconsistent. I want you guys to go check that out before you leave any comments about how consistent BGS is. It's really interesting. It was a really cool video. So I want you guys to go check that out. This whole video is my opinion of why I use PSA. I like their slabs better. That is 100% opinion. A lot of people don't like their slabs better. So it doesn't really matter to them. They have to, you have to make your own choice on that one. Then the factual part of why I use PSA. The value is higher and you have a better chance of getting the top grade. So black labels and tents for BGS are hardly ever graded, which is just not that fun to collect 9.5s in my opinion. I like collecting the top grade. And that value part of PSA is just a huge draw. When you grade something, you spend a lot of money to grade it. You're collecting something. It's really cool when it has value. When you can actually sell something if you need to and you can make a little bit of money. And that's why PSA is just a no-brainer for me. The value that we've talked about plus the fact that I like the aesthetics more. We've already shown the cases. I just like those cases more than BGS. So the fact that I can have more value in the cards that I'm collecting for basically the same cost for a better looking case in my opinion. It just, it's a no-brainer. I feel like I, and personally, it's a no-brainer for PSA. I know other people are huge BGS case fans. And that case would be a little bit different because like you're getting worse value but you like how it looks better. You think they protect the card better. You know, you think they're a better company, whatever. I personally think PSA is just the best. That's just my opinion. So that wraps up why I prefer PSA over any other grading company. BGS being second. I don't really like them for the most part. Leave your comments in the comments section. Let me know what you think. Why you don't like PSA, why you do. Why you like BGS, why you don't. CGC, do you wanna see them grading Yu-Gi-Oh soon? I would like to do it. I would like to submit to them. And let me know any underdogs you think that I should have mentioned some new grading company that's pretty good. I am personally very skeptical about new grading companies but let me know if there's something I should check out.  I think it'd be a lot of fun. So thank you guys for watching this video. It was a good time. I'm sure there'll be a lot of strong opinions in the comments. It'll be a good time to go check out the comments section maybe get into a little back and forth about PSA, BGS, nah, nah, nah. Okay, that's for this video. I'll see you guys later. Peace.


Good morning. How are you folks? Great. Having fun already? So, it's so nice to be here. Two years later, actually. This is the first event that we're hosting in person in the U.S. after two years, and fun enough is exactly where we left it off. I know some of you were here in 2019. Some of us lost some weight. Some of us put up some weight through the pandemic. You definitely all look much taller than on Zoom. Our team has grown a lot, same as our community. So, I'm really excited to be here to give you an update, and most importantly for you to hear from our contributors and the leaders of our project, both old faces and new faces. Before we jump into it, a couple of housekeeping notes. First of all, I want to thank our sponsors here. It has been, you know, it's a complex time to organize events, and I want to thank our leader sponsors, Databricks, Symphony and TouchScare. You're going to hear from them later today. And also, thanks to our contributor sponsors, Glue42, Sonatype and Whitesource. Thank you. This event will not have been possible without you folks. And then a couple of housekeeping notes. I, you know, this is an event we have over 450 people registered today. This is an event that is made to build connections in person. You know, as open source communities, we're very lucky to be able to still be productive and effective in a distributed fashion. There simply are things that you can't replace, you know, in terms of building collaboration across projects. So we do have a networking app. It's called Brella. Download it, reach out to folks here, try to make connections, don't stalk people. And I hope you're going to be able to make many new connections to help the growth of our community. And then make some noise. This is an industry that, I gotta say, is hard to engage from a social standpoint. But you know, we do have hashtags. We do have social handles there. Help us, you know, making noise and making, you know, the word, spread the word about phenocent, especially what you hear today about hopefully so many exciting news in open source and financial services.  So please take a look at the Code of Conduct, the Event Code of Conduct, if you haven't done so yet. And you know, I want to thank you for, you know, abiding to the health and safety measures.  We have been trying to make sure that again, this is an event that makes everyone feel comfortable. So I really appreciate you taking care of that. And without further ado, before I actually move to the first speaker for today, I want to also thank Kozak who will be hosting a attendee reception after today's, you know, close of show. And we are actually hosting a fitness get together after the onsite reception. I'm not going to tell you where it is. So we're going to do it a little bit funny today. If you come to our booth, you'll know where the speakeasy is. Or, you know, as long as you stick with us until the end of the day, we'll maybe be kind enough to reveal it during closing remarks. And so again, I want to thank you all for being here. We expect this to be an amazing day. You know, we're so happy and be helpful to the fitness team to have you here and just really to be back in person. It's been a long, I think, 18 months for all of us.


Autolight and its 98,000 dealers bring you Mr. Peter Lofford in tonight's presentation of Suspense Tonight Autolight presents a classic study of suspense a new dramatization of one of the most terrifying stories ever written Wilkie Collins a terribly strange bed our star mr. Peter Lofford What is so wonderful as a day in June why a world famous auto light spark plugs of course have what? I said world famous auto light spark plugs are tops half because they're ignition engineered Designed and built by ignition experts to give the best performance money can buy That's why auto light spark plugs are specified as original equipment on many leading makes of our finest cars trucks and tractors But what does spark plugs have to do with June why half June is the perfect time to get your car tuned up to get the Spark plugs checked for summer driving so friends see your auto light spark plug dealer soon He's a specialist on spark plug cleaning and adjustment for all makes of cars and if replacements are needed He will install ignition engineered auto light spark plugs either resistor or standard type Vest suited to your car and your style of driving Remember from bumper to tail light. You're always right with auto light and now auto light presents Mr. Peter Lofford in Wilkie Collins story a terribly strange bed hoping once again to keep you in suspense Shortly after my education at college was finished. I happened to be staying in Paris with an English friend We were both young man and lived I'm afraid rather a while life in the city of our sojourn and Thus had probed the various refined pleasures suitable to our class and Search for others less elegant Search for them in the neighborhood of the Palais Royal which lies covetly against the dark river Sain and From each closed doorway the small echoings of small promises That one every that doorway there. Oh, you're drunk Gerald pleasantly Exquisitely modestly delicately am I drunk and therefore Therefore what Gerald the doorway? I have suggested at the word frascati painted on it noble word Noble mysteries. I've been there. Oh Sly sly sly and traitor's friend you have been there and alone slyly and without me And it has a ghastly kind of respectability five Frank respectability and it would not amuse me Come along Gerald come along That's it Gerald you're coming along very nicely what I want Gerald. Oh, what you want? Want and you shall find want and you shall find what I want is somewhere where we can see a little genuine Blaggard poverty stricken gaming with no false gingerbread glitter thrown all over it no gingerbread for my friend Thank you a place not fashionable not respectable a Place of evil perhaps and of emotions.  Yes only amusement wait black all of it All of it red this time red. Oh not passion then intoxication perhaps. Yes intoxication as I have never known it intoxication Yes Yes Yes, which has become red Great wins all of it red and 10,000 more for all which has become passion which has become passion red red wings now The black croupier Permit me to restore to their proper place the two coins which were dropped There in their proper place a thousand francs a tall man and quite fat pinched into a frogden braided serto a Man of gargling bloodshot eyes mangy moustaches and a broken nose And the dirtiest pair of hands I ever saw Yet in the mad excitement his look his hands held no repelling influence on me For now in the mad excitement in the reckless triumph. I was ready to accept even such as he was wonderful lucky sure sir I pledge you my word of honor as an old soldier in the course of me long experience in this sort of thing never But never have I seen such luck as yours. Thank you. Go on sir boldly handsomely break the bank I assure you sir. I have every intention do it then sir. Go on break the bank My gallant English comrade boldly break the bank all of it black And I did go on went on at such a rate that in an hour Gentlemen the bank has discontinued for tonight in an hour in an hour of a kind of ecstasy I'd never known all the notes and all the gold in the bank now lay in a heap under my hands The whole floating capital of the gambling house under my hands waiting to pour into my pockets No No, no No, not in your pockets for no breeches pockets, whatever sold could hold such heavy winnings But then how may I take your pocket ankle chief, sir? Thank you Tie it up sir tie it up in your handkerchief as we used to tie up a bit of dinner in the army Shove it in Now answer to tight double knots each way with your permission And the money safe Thank you feel it feel it sir hard and round hard and round as a cannonball feel it Champagne sir, I will buy you champagne. No, thank you. I will for your friend. They're Henry's friend Amiable gracious Englishman Champagne champagne for the friend of the conqueror of the bank and for me come sirs to my table I Am Fabian Nero gallant sirs and you Henry Calder and this is my friend Gerald titsch now Henry Gerald Fabian lovely lovely lovely Henry and Gerald Fabian Hey, we are friends aren't we who have touched your sleeves to have you seated here beside me? This old soldier's heart will burst my eyes will weep my hands. Ah, the champagne A toast gentlemen a toast to not for me, please. Oh, of course not for you Gerald and I then you when Gerald Fabian a toast To the goddess fortune who embraced tonight our Henry and smiled secretly upon him and nestled very close The goddess fortune gentlemen an English cheer Gerald you were tipsy before now you Henry not to permit the golden blood of France to flow through the veins of this vivacious Englishman and Gerald your friend Oh Drink Gerald toast to France To the present company to the groupie and the groupie's wife and the groupie's daughter the groupie's daughters and the ladies elsewhere And to ladies I should like coffee Fabian a coffee coffee for me and for Gerald For intoxication will coffee it shall be a coffee coffee for the darling of fortune coffee The word pronounced by Fabian Nero seemed to have a magical effect on the company present They suddenly had lost interest and and all rose to the park Probably they had expected to profit by my intoxication by the proffering of champagne Finding I would have none of it had now abandoned all hope of thriving pleasantly on my winnings Whatever their motive might be at any rate.  You will find it strong and good. Thank you Strong and good handsome, sir Here you are sir Thank you for I am pouched with thirst And it was kind of you and of Fabian and gracious and Generous, how wise you are Henry to drink this coffee of Millie's the coffee of Millie Prudom Millie Prudom Divine Millie beautiful Millie Prudom Will you have coffee? No champagne Millie To drink your beauty Why sir then your friend Gerald to drink coffee and rid yourself of your little amiable exaltation of spirits before you think of going home And you must my good and gracious friend who full with all that money With all that money to take home tonight, it is a sacred duty to yourself to have your wits about you Drink Henry drink your coffee You are known to be a winner to an enormous extent by several gentlemen present tonight Who are but mortal men sir and have their own amiable weaknesses? drink Henry Who'd surely rob and murder if you were to wait? Wait, oh Christian I'm ill. I'm very poor. He is ill very ill. I will weep Henry is ill and I'm drunk Millie will sob will you solve Millie ill? a fit of giddiness The room world's round and round curious Henry Your voice Defends me Furiously oh my dear friend my dear friend Madness to go home in your state would be robbed murdered You need a walking and then asleep and not a murdering a walking and then sleep and in a safe place Sleep in a safe place the place of Millie Proudhon a rooming house above the game room and that Capital beds of Millie's rooming house.  I will help you About me that's the dear Gerald come Incher Henry here the choicest room of Millie Proudhon the capital bed there and the tasteful furnishing and the deep sleep to be had And the safe one till tomorrow Henry. I don't know how to thank you You have thanked me enough already with the exaltation of your splendid company and that I could have been of some small service to your small malady Oh Millie Go to come in here Henry wants to sleep Those of my memory Oh Millie Proudhon see Gerald passed into his particular oblivion in the middle of a sentence. I Walked over and locked the door Then I took my money my winnings wrapped in a handkerchief and placed beneath the pillow of my bed. I Lay down My senses still swam and I looked up at the heavily brocaded canopy and it seemed to move Somehow to move And for an instant I thought This was a terribly strange bed Auto light is bringing you mr. Peter Lawford in Wilkie Collins a terribly strange bed tonight's presentation in radio's outstanding theater of thrills suspense Well Harlow vacation times nearly here. Yes hap but not for spark plugs They're the very heart of your car's ignition system And if they're not right the chances are you won't get smooth and efficient engine operation During summer's hot and heavy driving. That's why now is the time to check them a Harlow Yes hap and when replacements are needed wise drivers insist on ignition engineered auto light spark plugs like the famous auto light resistor spark plug That's the amazing double life spark plug that gives top performance for twice as long as ordinary spark plugs And the auto light resistor is only one of a complete line of auto light spark plugs designed for every use right Harlow Right hap so friends see your auto light spark plug dealer tomorrow for a spark plug checkup And if you need replacements take nothing less than ignition engineered auto light spark plugs either standard or resistor type You'll be glad you did because from bumper to tail light. You're always right with auto light And now auto light brings back to our Hollywood soundstage mr. Peter Lawford in Elliot Lewis's production of a terribly strange bed a Tail well calculated to keep you in Suspense I could not sleep Restlessness took me over and I got out of bed That was the dim quiet flicker of a single candle And next to it a wash stand I plunged my face into the water There was a single chair, and I sat down and tried to compose myself Slowly slowly the giddiness left me shutter and a window Shutter attached by a single hinge and flapping against the side of the house And no lock on the window no way of locking the window Gerald Gerald are you up? Where where in a room over the gaming place? It's all right. I've locked the door, but the window and there's a window I was wide awake, and every one of my senses seem to be preternaturally sharpened Piano and a song I had never heard and then behind it the laughter Wide awake yet somehow the effects of whatever drug I had drunk seems suddenly to arise again and For an instant toy with my perception so that I reached for the wall to steady myself as I fall down leaned against the wall for support The moment their voices wavered and fled a kind of melancholy sees me I Walked over to the window and looked out looked out upon blackness a swarm of blackness no shapes definable could be made out Through the gloom Except a lighter grayness of a sort as if an abutment of some kind I supposed Directly across the window and somewhat below it But how far across into what length below I could not determine For all purposes then I knew only that we were above the street level and some three stories And having felt the walls directly adjacent the window. I found them to be sheer No one could enter there. I walked over to the bed and took a pillow and placed it beneath Gerald's head The bed again, and I lay down This bed that now I was lying upon I must again describe to you A four-post bed with a regular top line with chints The regular fringe balance all around It was ridiculous now that I tried to sleep. I couldn't even close my eyes I Resolved then to beguile the tedium of my wakefulness by making inventory of every article of furniture. I could see window washstand chest chair dressing table picture Upon the wall opposite the bed a picture A fellow in a high Spanish hat crowned with a plume of towering feathers Swarthy sinister Ruffian looking upward it might be at some tall gallows on which he was going to be hanged Such was the picture Another chair handle stick Picture It seemed to be moving The hat had been pulled over the eyes and there The hat itself was gone The hat was gone the plumes that was the bed move now Now it was at a brief and terrible dream. How could the top of a bed move? Brief terrible dream trick of the eye and the mind's going down for a moment into sleep Yet I let my mind say it The top of the bed had moved Gerald Gerald wake up. Well, open your eyes. Well now watch quietly Keep your voice in a quiet tone. Why why what listen? Above you Directly above you. Look. There's a picture. You see it. Yes a minute ago. The man was wearing a hat He was wearing a hat. Now. He is not Listen to me Where there was a hat is now a peephole and we are being watched All right, Henry, I'll stay where you are But be alert. All right, honey. Yes What are you going to do? Make sure of a thing what thing the bed what? Keep your eye on the canopy. I'm going to lie in the bed now Gerald and make sure that they're not trying to murder us Oh by feigning sleep what by feigning sleep Gerald just that quiet Yes, I am constitution anything but timid I have been on more than one occasion in peril of my life And I have not lost my self-possession for an instant But when the conviction settled on my mind that the bed top was actually moving it loosed a feeling within me foreign lace through with terror So I lay there motionless speechless breathless The candle spent went out, but the moonlight still bright in the room I lay there it descended The whole canopy came down close down Henry I Lay there Henry literally spellbound by what was happening out of bed But once I could not tell whether reality was here or my imagination was taking hold quickly before they're close Closer Henry Gerald's voice shattered this warm sea of fascination that bound me and I Left from the bed look look Henry. Yes there the middle of the bed top the huge wooden screw like a press To smother me and relieve me of my winnings and then kill you The light of the morning Gerald and look it comes up and through the window across the narrow shaft another building We can leave it. Not I what no not I my legs are still unsteady if I should stand up on that still I fall into space then wait and hurry. Yes, hurry the rest of my story is soon told From the building next door. I reached the ground and saw police With them I returned and mr. Fabian was seized as was mrs. Proudhon The police congratulated me on my good fortune and Gerald's on his And told us that they would probably never know how many people had been smothered in this diabolical bed So tightly was the canopy pressed to the bed that I could not retrieve my money The mechanism had to be released from the room above The police paid us go and finding ourselves walking homeward Gerald said to me I know a place where gambling is carried on at such a fever pitch that you'll be carried to the heights of excitement Needless to imagine I refused to go along with Gerald My adventure cured me of ever again trying rouge and why as an amusement The sight of a green cloth with packs of cards and heaps of money on it Well henceforth wouldn't be associated in my mind With the sight of a bed canopy descending to suffocate me in the silence and the darkness of the night Suspense Presented by auto light tonight star mr. Peter Loughard Here are the results of the great $100,000 auto light family charity drawing over five million two hundred thousand entries were received for this event Last week the final drawing was held in New York under the supervision of a distinguished committee Here are the names in the order of their selection $50,000 will be distributed to the charity or charities Designated by Desi L. Irish of Vallejo, California $20,000 will go to the charity or charities designated by Lucille foissy of Miami, Florida $5,000 to the charity designated by Vincent W. Sistler of Howe, Indiana $3,000 to the charity designated by Stuart Smith of Ogdensburg, New York and $2,000 to the charity designated by L. G. Bridgewater of Kennewick, Washington These people and 20 others who will each designate $1,000 to their favorite charities have all been notified And now this is Harlow Wilcox Wishing you a summer of safe driving with the reminder that wherever you travel from bumper to tail light You're always right with auto light Next Tuesday night June 15th We will continue with a new series of suspense programs at that time and through the summer We hope that you will join us and that we will be able each Tuesday night to keep you in Suspense Suspense is produced and directed by Elliot Lewis with music composed by Lucian Morrowick and conducted by Lud Blusken a Terribly strange bed was adapted for suspense by Morton Fine and David Freedkin from the story by Wilkie Collins In tonight's story Ben Wright was heard as Gerald Paula Winslow as Mildred Joseph Kearns as Fabian and Vic Perrin as the croupier Peter Loughard may currently be seen co-starring in the Columbia picture. It should happen to you and Remember suspense continues on Tuesday nights beginning next week at which time we will present the earth is made of glass This type spark plugs auto lights stay full batteries and auto light original service parts at your neighborhood auto light dealers Which to auto light? This is the CBS radio network


A few weeks ago somebody asked me, why did you call yourself a rambling activist? And I had to explain, I didn't call myself that. It was a label I was given. But the reasons are a little more complicated. The pain is where I used to play as a child. I'd walk out of here, pick berries from the hedgerows, pick mushrooms in the fields, watch the birds, watch the wildlife, the hare's boxing, and bit by bit, over many years, it was taken away. What's your response to that? It becomes very personal. What you identify with is being taken away from you. That's what made me into an environmentalist. But more than that, it made me into an activist. Real change involves acts of transgression. It doesn't matter if your environment is being taken away or you're responding to that. To take that on requires transgression. Rambling made me transgress. It's because if you're walking on land, in England at least, walking on land is an act of transgression. You're walking on what is portrayed to be somebody's private property, even though you have a right to do so. If you look at an ordinance survey map, it shows you various paths. And it always says that a path on the map is not evidence of a real path on the ground. The problem is, as time has gone by, it's become more complex to exercise your rights in the countryside as they've tried to open the countryside up. And it's all about this battle between land rights and access rights. And now we have permitted paths and trails and your rights there aren't the same. And then you have the whole category of access land, where you have all sorts of restrictions on what you can and can't do, otherwise you lose your rights of access. Following footpath is a legal exercise. There's a thing called the definitive map. And that tells you where all the legal paths are and you have a right to walk. And by understanding that, you get to realise how local government works, how paths are created and how they're maintained. And that makes you political because you suddenly realise that how paths are maintained, how your rights are looked after is a political act. Here we have a style. It's broken. It's overgrown. Most people can be put up by this, but what can you do about it? You need to be a passive participant. It's your legal right to clear these obstructions. What the Highways Act allows, section 333, I make clear as much as the obstruction as is necessary to pass. And so when I go out walking, I take my little secretors and as I progress, I just keep the paths clear. It's my legal right to do so. The law says that. And yet many ramblers feel quite uncomfortable when they see me doing this. Here's the clear gap. The style is, of course, a responsibility of the local authority. That's for another day. And so I'll progress my way up the hill. Come to this style, and this is quite interesting. This is the county boundary. Oxfordshire this side, Northamptonshire on the other side. And what you find is, when you start rambling, different local authorities implement the law differently. Different officers implement the law differently. This is Northamptonshire's definitive map. Slightly different design. In Northamptonshire, they privatised council services. And so the officers react very differently to complaints. In addition to secretors, they also carry a small saw. A few months ago, a tree had come down. You can see people have been trying to struggle around the edge. My choice, I went through the middle of it. It only took me 15 minutes to do. You can become part of enforcing your rights. And that is what makes them real. Coming to the other side of the county boundary, you find this. This is the ancient road. Before they created the new road, this hollow way was for centuries the road. As you get into paths, you realise that the world changes. You can see the progression of things in the countryside perhaps more easily than you can in the towns. It was this process of learning, of engaging, of exercising rights, which turned just rambling activism into a greater idea of activism, of transgressing those things which perhaps we don't talk about, perhaps we let lie. Because it was a way of facilitating my access to the countryside, my involvement in the countryside, and enjoying that which I had a legal right to do, but perhaps not everybody wanted to enable me to do. Getting to the top of the hill, you get a view across Bambry and the Ironstone slab beyond. A bit cloudy today. The mists are coming in and out, but it's a very nice place to view the town on a clear day. But as I turn to carry on my way, what do I find? Barbed wire. This isn't legal. It's quite ironic that it's over the top of the footpath sign because it shows the farmer has done it quite recently. The law says this shouldn't be here. If I try and cross this dial, I could hurt myself. So as well as the secateurs and the saw, I also carry, wrapped up to keep them dry, a pair of very heavy-duty wire pippers. This isn't for clipping the wire. This is for taking the barbs off. What's illegal here isn't the wire. It's the barbs. So by taking the barbs away, I'm not only making it safe for me to continue. I'm actually making the piece of wire that's illegal, legal. Now what the law says, section 164, the High Rays Act, the High Rays Authority can tell a farmer that he has six months to remove the barbed wire. Well, that means there's six months of people who might be hurting themselves. I mean, I might get hurt as I cross the wire. You can see there's a big scratch in my arm there from the bramble as I went through the style by the bridge earlier. This is property.  I'm very soon after getting into footpath and access, I got into criminal damage law because you are doing certain things which of themselves are illegal. What the law actually says that you can do certain things which damage property in order to avoid harm to you or to the interests of other people. This is section 5, the Criminal Damage Act. What it says is if you have a good reason for needing to do the damage in order to protect other people's interests, property or well-being and it's required to be done immediately, then you can go ahead and you can take that action. That sounds quite obscure, quite minimal. It's actually the basis for some very major protest actions. This is the most recent where a pair tried to get at some jets which are going to Saudi Arabia which would have bombed Yemen and they were acquitted because they had a good reason for doing so. As I progressed through rambling and footpath and become an environmentalist, I certainly realised all that stuff I learnt for the innocent idea of rambling was also applicable to the idea of activism and that came to a head at nearby USAF Crownton in 1985. And today we're using a public ride, right? It's still open, they haven't closed it or they haven't yet and using the protection of the Hyros Act in 1980 to come to the side in 1949 and 1968 we are perfectly legally travelling across a front-line communication fence. Those walks across Crownton later got me involved in all sorts of other campaigns where this idea of using the law to effect change as our right as being part of this society became really useful and since then I've gone on to do many other things but it still comes down to this idea of transgression that sometimes the law itself enables you to be transgressive. For example, in 1992 I jumped over the fence into an outlying compound of the Harwell Laboratory to find the Atomic Energy Authority were illegally dumping radioactive waste. In a society where certain interests dominate to enforce the legal rights of those who have them but are ignored is a transgressive act and over history it's minorities enforcing their legal rights and the social transgression that creates which creates change. This is the inward journey of activism this is how activism allows you to express yourself, your beliefs, your ideals and make them concrete in the real world and effect change, real change that does in the end make that greater social change happen.


It's all recorded. This is what Allah SWT says, إِنَّكُمْ نَتَسْتَمْسِخُمْ We were recording everything that you were doing. There's nothing that will be hidden except, except. And this is in the dunya, you have something called Sony Procat. This is what, if you combine this and then when you have a recording, you can just make cuts, you edit it, you can take it out. If people do this all the time, they edit what they record it. Our editing system, our Allah Procat, is Toba. If you want to edit your life, make Toba.  Ask Allah for forgiveness. And Allah SWT will forgive you. Allah SWT says in the Qur'an, he says, You will see on that day the believers, you follow the believers, men and women. And this is the only book from the world religion that has men and women. You show me any other book in which men and women are put on equal status other than the Book of Allah SWT that will show me any book. The Hindu scriptures, the Buddhist scriptures, the Jewish scriptures, the Christian scriptures, show me where it says, believing men and believing men. In so many verses. You have good news on this day. Good news on this day. You will have rivers on the shores of which rivers flow. That is the word of those that I mean. That is the great reward. You will have rivers on the shores of which rivers flow. That is the great reward. You will have rivers on the shores of which rivers flow. That is the great reward.