The research that I've been working on for many years is studying the chemistry of molecules called porphyrins. A porphyrin is a donut shaped molecule. So it's a molecule in a ring shape. The ring contains 20 carbons and four nitrogens and they're held together with covalent bonds. It's pretty much the same color as blood and that's because porphyrins are the molecules that give blood their red color. What lives in that hole in the middle is iron. It's a single iron atom so although iron is a metal in this example it's not participating in metallic bonding which occurs when you've got a whole ensemble of metal atoms. It's a single metal atom that actually forms covalent bonds to the four nitrogen atoms. It's it's the part of him that you know carries oxygen and in the gap above the iron atom that's where it couldn't bonds to oxygen. The thing that most people can kind of grab on to is that you've got iron and oxygen and water and that usually gives rust but how come my blood doesn't rust and it's because iron and oxygen in water just iron and air forms really strong bonds with oxygen and so it kind of goes energetically all the way down hill to rust and it's a one-way chemical reaction but the really important thing about hemoglobin the iron in hemoglobin sitting in the middle of the porphyrin is that the porphyrin and the protein that wraps around it changes the interaction between iron and oxygen so iron forms a much weaker bond with oxygen so just strong enough to hang on while it transports around your body but at the same time weak enough that when it gets to your tissues it can fall off. That doughnut shape it's actually the bright red color of blood comes from that doughnut shape and if you take that same doughnut shape and just modify it a little bit change a little bit of the bonding between some of the carbon atoms and take out iron and put in magnesium instead of being red it's green and that's the pigment and chlorophyll so then it does something completely different it uses the green color to absorb sunlight energy and what it does is it absorbs the energy and then it's the first step in a whole chain that passes that energy along to drive photosynthesis because both of those molecules are sort of doughnut shaped and brightly colored so if we can use their capability to either change the chemistry of the metal iron that sits in the middle like we do in hemoglobin with iron or use the fact that they're brightly colored which means they're really good at absorbing light energy if we can harness those properties then we can use them for example in light harvesting systems to make a new kind of you know photochemical cell their doughnut shaped so that you can lie them on surfaces where you can stack them up you know in hemoglobin that the porphyrin tucks inside a little pocket in a protein but we can design other little pockets that the porphyrin will tuck inside so I don't actually study stuff to do with blood I study the way in which that molecule has special properties and as an example there's a very closely related molecule if we cut it in half and put a boron atom then we make something that fluoresces bright green and so we figured out a way to attach that directly to a sugar so we can make sugars light up we can make sugars glow the other thing about those porphyrin molecules again the red ones is we know they're brightly colored which means they're really good at absorbing light energy so we've also had a project where we put them on surfaces and then we use them to absorb some light energy and transmit that energy to the surface and then in the presence of a gas molecule like say a contaminant that you might want to measure in the air like nitrogen oxides if there's a gas molecule in the air that interacts with the porphyrin on the surface it will change the interaction with the surface in a way that we can measure so we can use that same molecule in a gas sensing system


You can ask questions now if you want. It would be nice if you get to the microphone, because, okay, correct, I know where you're going. So, he is asking, the TCGA is a resource of samples as well as data, how are we going to act as a bio bank? We're not. The reason we're not is because we are legally impeded to do so. When we got the MTAs to get the samples, we said that they were going to be used for TCGA by TCGA on TCGA. We are not authorized to give them away, okay? That's the first thing. It's a big thing. If I give them away outside the TCGA, you all know if you have participated in AWGs, the analysis working groups always have these bright ideas of things to do, which are great. They're outside the platforms that we use at TCGA, which is not great, which means that in order to do them, we have to find a center that is part of TCGA that is willing to do it, and we need to find funds that are not TCGA that are going to pay for those platforms to be done, because we cannot send the samples outside. And on top of everything, orange doesn't suit me well. It's not my color. So if I give these samples away, I will end up in orange. So the other thing is we don't have that much left after we did all these platforms. There's really, really little left. And testament to that is that we couldn't do RPPA even when Gordon was as nice as he was to do whatever samples we send him without payment, I may say. We couldn't do all the samples, because most of them were depleted, or some of them were depleted, and I tell you, after we gave for RPPA, most of them are now depleted. And also, you can imagine, we get requests for analytes and samples. I get, I don't know, about 8 to 10 a week. I get so many that I have a form letter that goes, we cannot give them to you because one, two, three, four. Okay, so it will be impossible to actually give these samples away in a fair, we are not set up to do this. Well, they can, they can come to us and I will see if I have enough funds to make the validation happen. But it will have to be in the context of our system. We have WGAs. Well, we have WGAs, we have plenty. We have never, we have done for every single sample, we never used them. Okay, so this will be it for that discussion. And now it's my pleasure to introduce, sorry, I mean, Katie, come here. Okay, she's the chair, okay? And I'm introducing the keynote speaker, but she's the chair, so she should be here. Okay, so Paul Cohen is going to talk about the big mechanism program at DARPA. We tried to get Paul for last year and then we had things going on, it didn't work right. And so we went ahead and tried to invite him this time. And he was gracious enough last year to say yes and then we couldn't and that he was gracious enough to say yes again, even if we cancel on him last year, he's a very nice man. And he's going to talk to us about what DARPA, you know what DARPA is, do you? It's the, what's, it's the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. There you go. So it's a research agency that on the side of the fence does advance projects. And in fact, a lot of things that we carry around these days and we could not live without are a result of DARPA, okay? So it starts at the defense projects, but it ends up going to the whole community. So he's going to talk to us about something that is really, really interesting, which is how to decombolute very complicated systems and they have a really neat way of doing it. So it's my pleasure to introduce to you Paul Cohen. You may not know him because, again, he's working in DARPA, but he's a very bright guy and he, I imagine that his talk will, will, will flower you. Thank you for coming, Paul. Thank you. Thank you, JC, for your kind, kind introduction.


Hello and welcome to the session. I am Shashi and I am going to help you with the following question. Question says, A, B and C, D are respectively arcs of two concentric circles of radii 21 cm and 7 cm and centre O. If angle A O V is equal to 30 degrees, find the area of the shaded region. This is the given figure 12.32. First of all, let us understand that area of sector of a circle is equal to theta upon 360 multiplied by pi r square. Here, r is the radius of the circle and theta is the angle of the sector in degrees. Now we will use this formula as our key idea to solve the given question. Let us now start with the solution. Now we are given that A, B and C, D are arcs of two concentric circles having common centre O and radius of the outer circle is 21 cm and radius of inner circle is 7 cm and angle theta that is angle subtended by both the arcs C, D and A, B at the centre of the circle is equal to 30 degrees. Area of this shaded region below area of shaded region is equal to area of sector O, A, B minus area of sector O, C, D. So first of all, we will find out area of sector is equal to theta upon 360 multiplied by pi r square. Area of sector O, A, B is equal to 30 upon 360 multiplied by pi multiplied by square of 21 below. Here, theta is equal to radius of the outer circle is equal to 21 cm. So area of sector O, A, B is equal to 30 upon 360 multiplied by pi multiplied by square of 21. Now we will substitute value of pi here. So area of sector O, A, B is equal to 30 upon 360 multiplied by 22 upon 7 multiplied by 21 multiplied by 21 cm square. Now 0 will get cancelled from new return and denominator. You know 7 multiplied by 3 is equal to 21. So we will cancel common factor 7. Now 3 multiplied by 12 is equal to 36. Here, you know 3 multiplied by 4 is equal to 12. Also 2 multiplied by 2 is equal to 4 and 2 multiplied by 11 is equal to 22. Now we get 2 3 1 upon 2 cm square is equal to area of sector O, A, B. Area of sector O is equal to 30 upon 360 multiplied by pi multiplied by square of 7 cm square. Clearly we can see in this sector radius is equal to 7 cm and theta is equal to 30 degrees. So substituting corresponding values of theta and r in formula of area of sector we get this expression. Now substituting value of pi that is 22 upon 7 in this expression we get area of sector O, C, D is equal to 30 upon 360 multiplied by 22 upon 7 multiplied by 7 multiplied by 7 cm square. 0 and 0 will get cancelled. 7 will get cancelled by 7. We know 3 multiplied by 12 is equal to 36. Now 2 multiplied by 6 is equal to 12 and 2 multiplied by 11 is equal to 22. Now simplifying we get 77 upon 6 cm square is equal to area of sector O, C, D. Now we know area of this shaded region is equal to area of sector O, A, B minus area of sector O, C, D. So we can write area of shaded region is equal to area of sector O, A, B minus area of sector O, C, D. Now substituting corresponding values of area of sector O, A, B and area of sector O, C, D in this expression we get area of shaded region is equal to 231 upon 2 minus 77 upon 6 cm square. Now simplifying we get 693 minus 77 upon 6 cm square. Now subtracting these two terms we get 616 upon 6 cm square. Now we will cancel common factor 2 from numerator and denominator both and we get 308 upon 3 cm square is equal to area of shaded region. So clearly we can see area of this shaded region is equal to 308 upon 3 cm square. This is our required answer. This completes the session. Hope you understood the solution. Take care and keep smiling.


Taking part and having fun with other schools. Log and Jump, Triple Jump, Speed Bounce, Target Phone, Seated Phone. These are Southcams District Council's Paralympics for young people aged 9 to 19. Every child should have an opportunity. We really strongly believe in equality of opportunity in Southcams and these children demonstrate the determination and courage in abundance. And their teachers see the inspiration that this sort of event gives them. And so we really think this is an equality of opportunity for everybody.


We are continuing to learn more about COVID-19 and as we learn more we get a better sense of how long this is going to last And maybe you know, it's a really vague timeline, but we kind of learn How long approximately we'll be dealing with this and given how Americans just aren't taking this seriously It seemed previously as if this isn't going to go away. Just naturally We're going to need a vaccine to accelerate the end of this pandemic although We're learning that a vaccine might not actually be our saving grace after all unfortunately because infectious disease experts are suggesting that a vaccine Even if it becomes widely available and is affordable Might not actually offer full immunity. Now, of course, it's too early to know that for sure But this is a possibility that I think a lot of us Hadn't entertained even though we knew that this could very well be the case Vaccine might not be our saving grace However, another thing that we were kind of banking on was if a vaccine alone Wouldn't stop the spread of the pandemic then maybe, you know, some type of herd immunity if we see a combination of A vaccine and herd immunity if enough people get it and become immune then that would essentially halt the spread of COVID-19 Although that's something that also doesn't seem likely as well because the immunity enjoyed by recovered patients may not actually last forever In fact, COVID-19 reinfections are now popping up Which basically diminishes any hope that we had of herd immunity and as Vox's declay accurately explains Wait, I can catch COVID twice. My 50 year old patient asked in disbelief It was the beginning of July and he had just tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 the virus that causes COVID-19 For a second time three months after a previous infection while there's still much We don't understand about immunity to this new illness a small but growing number of cases like his suggests the answer Is yes COVID-19 may also be much worse the second time around during his first infection My patient experienced the mild cough and sore throat His second infection in contrast was marked by a high fever shortness of breath and hypoxia Resulting in multiple trips to the hospital recent reports and conversations with physician colleagues suggest My patient is not alone two patients in new jersey For instance appear to have contracted COVID-19 a second time Almost two months after fully recovering from their first infection Daniel Griffin a physician and researcher at Columbia University in New York Recently described a case of presumed reinfection on the this week in virology podcast It is possible But unlikely that my patient had a single infection that lasted three months Some COVID-19 patients now dubbed long haulers do appear to suffer persistent infections and symptoms My patient however cleared his infection He had two negative PCR tests after his first infection and felt healthy for nearly six weeks Also troubling is that my patient's case and others like his made him the hope for natural herd immunity Herd immunity depends on the theory that our immune systems once exposed to a pathogen Will collectively protect us as a community from reinfection and further spread There are several pathways out of this pandemic including safe effective and available therapeutics and vaccines as well as herd immunity Or some combination thereof experts generally consider natural herd immunity a worst-case scenario backup plan It requires mass infection and in the case of COVID-19 Massive loss of life because of the disease's fatality rate before protection takes hold Herd immunity was promoted by experts in sweden and early on in the pandemic in the uk with devastating results Now there is a caveat to this story with this particular patient that this doctor writes about They did not receive an antibody test. So maybe it's the case that this person You know just didn't create a strong enough antibody response thus allowing for the relapse or the reinfection I should say But this is really really just it's it's like a gut punch to hear this right because everything that we looked at to be You know our hope It seems like it's falling apart right if a vaccine wasn't going to do it then I guess maybe herd immunity but that's not going to do it so The implication is that we have to be really realistic About what we're dealing with and how long it's going to last especially considering That americans aren't going to take this seriously and if americans don't take it seriously Then the rest of the world will also suffer because of our irresponsibility um, but we're going to deal with this for quite some time and the uh, World health organization just issued a really stark warning about just that as andrea germanos of common dreams reports The head of the world health organization warned monday that a return to the old normal was not in the foreseeable future And urged global leaders to act cooperatively to control the coronavirus pandemic Let me be blunt too many countries are headed in the wrong direction Who director general dr. Tejros adhanom? Gabe braceyus I probably butcher that name said in a media briefing tejros remarks came as the total number of total coronavirus cases continued taking upward nearing 13 million globally more than 570,000 covet 19 deaths have been recorded worldwide Over 134,000 of which were in the united states the united states which has the highest number of cases in the world Recorded over 3.2 million cases as of monday an increase of over 60,000 sunday infections continued to rise in dozens of us states including florida which on sunday Broke the national record for the largest single day increase in coronavirus cases with over 15,000 The who chief didn't single out the us in his comments But noted the epicenter of the virus remains in the americas where more than 50 of the world's cases have been recorded The trajectory of the pandemic if governments fail to roll out a comprehensive strategy Focused on suppressing transmission and saving lives and individuals don't take public health measures like wearing masks is clear So tejros if the basics aren't followed there is only one way this pandemic is going to go tejros said It's going to get worse and worse and worse. I want to be straight with you He continued there will be no return to the old normal for the foreseeable future But he stressed it is never too late to take decisive action and in response to his warning there We're not going to take decisive action. Donald trump's administration has washed their hands of this issue In fact trump is formally withdrawing us from the world health organization on top of that He's tweeting conspiracy theories about how the media the cdc experts are lying about covet 19 All to hurt him and the economy because if you hurt the economy by you know advocating for prolonged shutdowns Then you then hurt donald trump in turn Except this isn't about donald trump. This is happening in the world And we've just decided we're not going to take it serious. So it's going to be here For a really long time and it's not just going to be here for a long time It's going to get worse and worse and worse. This is this is catastrophic. I don't know what else to say I mean right when we flatten the curve and it kind of looks like we're taking this seriously We see cases skyrocket and as they're skyrocketing we're taking it less seriously now than we were back in march I mean, this is just it's tiring. It's really tiring And about a month or so ago I did a segment where I talked about how, you know, um experts are saying social distancing may be necessary all the way until 2022 except That was kind of like a worst case scenario Now it's not looking like that's going to be a worst case scenario It seems like it's going to be the likely case scenario or that the worst case scenario will be what actually comes to fruition Because we're just not taking it seriously and look it's not just the united states Who's handling it like absolute idiots? It's other countries as well But nobody is doing as poorly as the united states where the government has just completely ignored it And it's not even trying to help save, you know, the economy not even Providing any relief To americans with the exception of a one-time $1,200 payment. I just I don't know what to say. This is going to destabilize the world It's going to hurt the economy long term and cause a great depression and people are going to die because of this And it's just it's deeply depressing By the time We hit november We're gonna be at around 200 000 deaths due to covet 19 in the united states alone according to some experts based on projections And that is so heartbreaking to consider 200 000 people in america alone died But not to mention all the people around the world hundreds of thousands of people who are dying Because humanity just can't get its act together. It can't get its act together To stop a pandemic. It doesn't seem to want to get its act together to stop climate catastrophe I mean, it just seems like our species hasn't advanced enough To stop these types of wicked problems We're just pretending like they're not a thing and whatever consequences come to fruition as a result of these catastrophes We're just letting it happen. So it's sad, but this is the harsh reality. We can't Promise ourselves that it's going to get better once a vaccine becomes available because that's wishful thinking Maybe it will happen But I mean the doctrine that a physician from the vox article said that it's really not actually a good thing to promote this idea that you know herd immunity or a vaccine is going to Stop this pandemic because then that won't encourage people to engage in risky activity They may think well, you know, if they're immune from COVID-19 after they get it Maybe they should just go contract it and get it over with and then they could resume life as normal Or you know, just not worry about it because the vaccine is coming out. No, that's wishful thinking We have to be proactive and the fact that we're not actually aggressively Taking on this pandemic It shows that this is going to be the new normal for quite some time for the world And that's really deeply depressing. But that's the fact of reality. I can't sugarcoat it


Hello, I'm Stephen Parkin and I'm one of the curators on the British Libraries Exhibition on Leonardo, along with my colleague Andrea Clark and Giuliana Barroni from Birkbeck College in the University of London. The manuscripts that we put together in the exhibition show us the extraordinary range of his working methods, the experimental way that he approached the observation, the analysis and the understanding of nature. In the Codex Leicester we have drawings which show him inventing devices to measure the speed and the current of water flow. There are also thought experiments where that he is sort of thinking through something and he does that in his notebooks on paper and we can see Leonardo thinking a possibility, a hypothesis through. What I wanted to point out here in terms of the themes of the exhibition, which as we've said is studying water in motion, but motion more generally also in terms of human bodies and human facial features, is Leonardo's interest in hair and in the way it moves and in the way it curls and in particular this head of lader at the bottom where the spirals of her curls of her platted hair are studied with extraordinary detail. If we refer back for a moment to the Codex Leicester, the treatise on water he was preparing and if we look at the small drawings in the margin of the Codex Leicester, here we see how the obstacle, the rectangular obstacle which is placed in the water flow creates again curls and spirals in the flow of the current as it tries to get past the obstacle. Putting the drawings together with the drawings in the Codex Leicester show us how Leonardo was interested in what connected multiple natural phenomena, the underlying patterns of natural phenomena and also how his interest in motion affected his work as a painter.


Good day, my lovely listeners. You are listening to the Forty Auty podcast. Tune in every week to explore inspiring stories and insightful information that dive headfirst into the world of autism and mental health. With all those tantalising tongue twisters out of the way, let's get into the show. Day and welcome back to the Forty Auty podcast with your host as always, Mr. Thomas Henley. Today, it's been very windy in the UK, just your local weather forecast update. And I'm feeling good today. Today, we've got a bit of a shorter episodes than usual. We're going to be chatting to Dan from the Aspie world, all about autism and parenting, not just parenting an autistic child, but being an autistic parent as well, which is something that I think over the course of my life, I've been kind of thinking about the possibility of having a prodigy, progeny, prodigy, prodigy, prodigy, progeny, having a, having a kid. But, you know, sometimes with all the issues that come with autism, like executive functioning, maybe some of the mental health stuff, I'm a bit, I'm a bit on the tentative side around it. I'm going to ask Dan a little bit about his experience. But before we do that, I just want to introduce him to anybody who don't know him. He is one of the biggest, if not the biggest autism YouTuber out there. He's a coach. With my help, I think one set of one of the autism shows, didn't we? Yeah. I think, I feel like I've met you twice though, but maybe it was the one time when I just kind of like, I don't know, but we definitely met in Manchester a couple of months ago. Yeah. That was a nice one. It was good. It's always good to put, like, see people in real life after seeing them on the screen for so long. It really is. So, yeah.  I mean, they're good questions. So, you know, I've been running the Ask The World YouTube channel now since 2013, but I have been going full hammer on it since 2017, maybe 2016, because, like, you know, I upload my first video in 2013, but I didn't do anything until, like, you know, 2016, probably, you know, like, where I was like, God, this is what I'm going to do. And then, like, I was, I finished university in 2017 and I was like, that's it, you know, I'm just going to go full hammer on YouTube. So yeah, since then I've been kind of doing it. So it does take a while, you know, it takes, but you got to know what you're doing. There's no, there's no luck involved in YouTube. It's definitely a, it's definitely a strategy. But in terms of what made me do it was, I was diagnosed in 2013 with Asperger syndrome as it was back then, and ADHD and some other bits and pieces. And then I was like, oh, man, I knew nothing about autism or Asperger's or anything like that. So I was like, oh, geez. So I went online and I'm obviously dyslexic as well. So, you know, reading blogs and things wasn't really my forte. So I was like, dang it, I'm going to go on YouTube. So on YouTube typing like, Asperger syndrome, and I couldn't really find anything. So the stuff I saw was just like, these dudes are really depressing. Like Asperger syndrome, whenever it hates me, I was like, oh, geez, man. I just felt like, you know, I'd felt worse after watching the videos.    Or, hey, maybe I can talk about the cool things in my life to make it entertaining, or maybe you can talk about the bad things in my life, make it entertaining and help people, or of all that. So I did that. And my first video sucked, but like it gradually got better.  Develop them over time. Yeah, exactly. Like that's the kind of key there. But, you know, I'm glad I did because like I was like the first person to do it. It was like, nobody, there was no like autistic kind of YouTubers. There was none. So I was like, you know, sorry, I'll do it. And then it was it's amazing because there's so many now. I'm like, whoa, I love this. You know, I love the fact that like I inspire these people to do this stuff. Well, I hope anyway. Unless it's the same idea, like, you know, years apart. Well, it's the same kind of thing with the the like social media communities. Like, I mean, the one that I'm most involved in is the one on Instagram. And like when I started off, it was hard to like find people to like message and DM and like try and get them on the podcast. Yeah, now. Oh my God, it's just like it's flooded with accounts and people. I'm like, oh, Jesus.  So I every every every odd day that I find like new and budding in Instagram influencer. Yeah, this Instagram is actually responsible for like the I think it was something like in 2020, it was responsible for like 90% of the millionaires that were made in America because it's just such a big business opportunity on Instagram.  I think like so many people are telling to Instagram now because obviously there's more opportunity with video. And it is a great platform. It does something about Instagram, which is very kind of like it's very relatable to everybody. And I really like that. I do like Instagram. I actually just had a video go viral on Instagram. I've got like half a million views on a video the other day. What was that? It was I did a video on just a just a real dude, you know, talking about how like the flickering of light. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you must have seen that one. Yeah, I've seen it. Yeah. And then I was just in the toy store, right? Like 609,000 views. So I was in the toy store and I was like, dude, I said to my my girlfriend, I was like, can you see this light? She's like, no.  I can't stand and see that it's happened all the time. And she's like, I can't see it. I was like, what? So I randomly have my camera open on my phone and it picked up the light. I thought, I can explain this because I can show the flicker on the camera because the camera was running at 24 frames a second or 60 frames a second or so. The frame rate was different. So it was able to pick up the the flicker. So I did that and I put it on TikTok first and then it just blew up on TikTok again, like half a million views on TikTok. And I was like, oh, so I put it on Instagram. Same thing, half a million views on Instagram. I was like, holy smokes. So yeah, I mean, the video did really well. Actually, yeah, my TikTok blew up because of that. So I went from like pretty much nothing on TikTok for like 22,000 followers now. So getting there. That's a good sign. Yeah, it was really good. It was really good. Cool, man. So as far as like the sort of the main topics that I wanted to cover.    Because you're not just becoming a parent. Like you're becoming a parent for the first time and that child is making you a parent for the first time, you know? Sure. It's an interesting experience, almost a spiritual experience because you kind of like earn like a hierarchy, you know?  You know, you've created life and you have this thing in front of you but then you have to like play the hand of the universe and to keep it alive and do the best for it. It's kind of scary to me. It's kind of like, yeah, you know, it's not scary. It's kind of really cool because like, you know, because I was like 31, 32 and I'm like, got from was like 28, 29 or whatever.   You said at the beginning though, like you said, you know, you were scared of having offspring and then passing on issues to offspring, right? Which is, which is a huge concern of mine. But then I was like, yeah, but, you know, there's so much like, there's so much like help available, right? If you know how to access it. And plus it's me. So like, you know, I do this for a living, I help people for a living. So I was like, I can help my kid, you know, if they have issues, maybe they, and I was like, look, there's a chance they won't have issues. But which we'll get on to in a bit. But in terms of, in terms of like prep, I basically kind of like literally sat down because there's some, there's like, so when you talk about preparation, there's no mental preparation you can do. But there's some physical preparation you can do. You can make sure that you've got everything you need, right? So I kind of like made a list of everything we needed and just like bought everything straight away. And so we had this like huge list of stuff and it was a buy and like, and so that to me was like the prep work for it, right? But there was no, there was no, there's nothing you could do to prepare yourself for what it is.   It's kind of like those things come secondary and then you have to prepare the kid first.   And you know what I mean? So it's like, it's super interesting. Like I, yeah, it doesn't mean you could prepare yourself but it was, you know, yeah, it's good. It's good. I forgot the rest of the question. No, I think you answered it pretty well, that.  I think, you know, I feel like sort of the early stages sort of going up to, you know, primary school top that, you know, I feel like I could probably do pretty well, but I'm always worried in the back of my head, it's like, oh my God, are they gonna have the same experiences that I've had? Yeah, I feel the exact same thing, but I do have an answer for that. But I think as far as like difficulties that I have, I think, you know, the executive functioning of mental health on my end is one of the reasons why I'm a bit tentative about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, that was like one of my, you know, the school thing was really hard. Like I feel like school is so, like my experience at school was terrible. That stuff was, I'm swearing, was awful, right? And like, even like primary school, secondary school, school, school, like the whole thing just sucked. And I relayed this to my partner.   So we decided to homeschool. We were like, we're gonna homeschool. And we have this rule actually.  And so we have to respect his choice, you know, like that's not, we don't dominate somebody's life. We just guide them in the best way we can. You know, we don't make their decisions.    And so my kid was like, I want to go to school. We're like, oh shoot. And we spent all his money buying this homeschool stuff. And we're like, oh, okay. So we thought, okay. So we found this really cool school locally, which my partner's sister works at, funny enough. And it was the best school locally. And it's a Welsh school as well. Cause obviously we're living in Wales and we wanted them to have bilingual upbringing. So anyway, this is interesting. We, we got him initiated in the school and he was difficult. Like the integration was super difficult because like he was on like the list to be tested for all sorts of stuff. And they were kind of like, you know, and it was a bad experience. The first class he went to was a bad experience. They were like, does he play with other children? I was like, well, I dunno, it's been COVID. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. And they were like, you know, cause we'd never had this experience with him before because we'd never been around other kids with him. And then they were, they were just really, they were just, it was a bad experience. But then that teacher left and a new teacher came in and this new teacher's kid is on the spectrum, right? And so this new teacher was like, just dead cool. And she like, she was like, oh, we're doing this, that and the other. And so we had a huge, there was loads, there's loads of issues. I could say here all day talking about issues like, how, you know, getting him past the gate, you know? Like to go into the school. Like that, that on itself was just a nightmare. But in terms of- I relate to the, the getting past the gate when I used to do a bit of special needs, TAing. Yeah. I had to do that a few times. And it did so weird, right? Because like he'd walk, he'd like run up to the gate and then freak out.  And then, but yeah, but now, funny enough, like yesterday, I went to pick him up now. So he's, he's been there a year. He's in a full-time position there now. And he's in a class with his actual auntie, which is cool. And he loves it. But the cool thing, there's two cool things. The first thing is that the schooling had changed the way that we, so when you and I were in school, right? It was a sit down at a desk. And if you can't sit down at a desk, there's something wrong with you. And that's the issue. You're the issue, right? Not the establishment, but it's changed now.  It's called like, like a rotation development. So it's indoor, outdoor place. So the doors are always open. So they can go outside if they want to. And you never sat at a desk doing something. You're always in small little groups doing like different tasks and play learning and all these things. Like they did Macaton and they did yoga and they did all these kinds of things, right? And I was like, oh, he smells. And the cool thing about it is that the school have a catchment criteria. So they did certain things with him yesterday. And then so we had a conversation. So now they have to send him for assessment for hypermobility and find motor skill issues and all the other stuff. The lovely things that come with autism.  He doesn't play with kids. He plays on his own and all that sort of. So it's kind of like, where I was terrified of that experience for him, he's actually in a really good place because the teachers are looking out for those things to then say, okay, this is what we do in this situation. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So- A little more holistic sort of- Yeah. Case by case kind of- Exactly. And I- Attitudes. And I think this whole new approach to schooling is, is an initiative here in Wales. I don't know if it's everywhere in the UK, but it's definitely here in Wales. So I'm kind of like really blessed. And so, yeah. So, you know, all those fears I had, you know, it's kind of helped me therapeutically because going to the school with him and helping him go in there, I'm feeling way more at ease with it.  And like, you know, and this is the thing, you'll learn this. When you have a kid, it's like holding a very thin glass ball and you don't wanna drop it because it could smash anyway. It's so delicate, you know, you don't want anyone to touch this thing, you know? I had such bad anxiety when like family members would pick up my kid when he was a little baby. I'd like, I'd be crying and shaking and stuff because I'd be like, so like, oh my God. And I was so protective because it was difficult, you know, like, you know, we give like personalities to shoes and stuff and we have a bad time throwing out all clothes.  Especially for autistic people, as we feel things deeper. And so having other people holding was crazy.  Yeah, exactly. And you know, but then again, but yeah, it's good now because he's like, he loves school and yeah, I was just like, wow. And so yeah, it's definitely helped me think about, you know, it's helping me as well. And I think that's a good thing, you know? There's therapy there, so. That's awesome, man. Thanks, buddy. Well, I guess like, could you give us like a couple of, or maybe one for each about like the positives and negatives about being an autistic parent? Do you find that there's certain aspects that you struggle with and certain aspects that you really flourishing? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so I'll give you the negatives. Straight off the bat, the worst part is sensory processing, noise, food textures, and being tapped out.    And it's like the spoon theory, but your kid takes all his spoons from like 9 a.m. It's like, all the spoons are gone, it's like, shh. So it's kind of like, you know, no spoons and you have to kind of plod along.  So, sorry, stims. So he does his like, does like, I'm like, ah! Like, and it's so loud. And so like, it's like the funniest household ever. So I'm saying, I wear headphones on and he's like, ah! I'm like, ah! And he's obsessed with sirens. Like, you know, air raid sirens. He's obsessed with air raid sirens. We watch countless TikTok videos of air raid sirens. It's the most bizarre obsession ever, but I even have to buy him one. And then, so we watch these air raid sirens and he imitates air raid sirens. Oh my God.  Like it's just horrendous. But the good thing, I mean, this is kind of like a weird byproduct is because obviously you have a lot of anxiety and fear with autism, you know, you're kind of like fearful of certain things. Like you're like, I'm fearful of like going anywhere on my own, right? Because I always feel kind of quite intimidated by people or like say, even down to small things, like say you were scared of spiders, right? But with a kid, you're in charge and making sure that they feel safe and you're protecting them. So to take my kid anywhere, like to town or to a grocery store or to a market, you kind of like put on this like bulletproof vest a little bit and you're like, yeah, man, I can, I'm going to nail this. So you kind of have this. Or your focus is on needs.  You become somebody else, like in a good way. Like it's not masking, it's like, it's almost like overcoming certain fears. They never really go away.  And like same with spiders and stuff. Like say, spiders and hatch, you have to teach him, like, oh, he's our friend and the spiders on his journey through life and we get him out. And we're very Buddhist here.  And like bees, right? Like I used to be so like triggered by bees, there's a noise and like what's flying next to you. Oh my goodness. Honestly, that stuff is the worst. But now it's kind of like, I teach him like, oh, the bees are our friend. Hello, Mr. B and they come and land on us. Now I can have like bees land on me and stuff. And I'm like, wow, look how beautiful it is. She's like, whoa, you know, I can never have those things. But so you learn, like kids teach you so much. And I think that's a beautiful thing. But for autistic people, there's so much that you can gain. If you're open to just being, there's so much more you can gain from that experience. It's really interesting. My God. So I guess like one of the last things that I wanted to to chat about is, you know, if, you know, people are watching us and, you know, thinking to themselves like, even if they're just young, you know, they're in their early 20s, mid 20s. And they're kind of like, hmm, I don't I don't know about this whole being apparent thing. But they kind of have an inkling that it's something that they might want, they might want to do in the future. What kind of advice would you give to those autistic people wanting to start a family?  So you can go and sit in it like what do you expect a birth? What do you expect? Like you can go to and you can even actually have a walk around the the the midwifery unit in the local hospital. That's kind of cool. Those things are super important because what you want to do is you want to know what the experience is like. And that's what I wanted. So I set myself up for the Lamar's classes straight away. Also, there's actually extra help.  You can just say to them, you say to the midwives and the care team, you say, look, I've got just some leads and what are the helps available? And they just throw help you do. Like and what they do is they come to the house and you go through. Like we had this that. So, yeah, this is something really important, actually. We had a like a trainer come to the house and she would sit down with us every week and we'd have like a course book and we'd go through it and it'd be like, if you're in this situation, this is what happens.  Yeah, you know, like bands do this. Yeah, like and it's it was it was algorithmic, you know. And but it was logical. So like rather than like one thing was like, if your kid is screaming, you know, don't scream back, it's not going to get you anywhere. Sit down and give them a hug or or tell them validate their feelings. Or, you know, and it's just like, oh, shoot, you know, and stuff that you think like, holy smokes, like, but the stuff that people would kind of come to eventually because they are, you know, they're not everybody's on the autism spectrum, right? So it's not just black and white people. So people would go all around the way and they'd find out that. But if but for us, it's like, you know, I'd be like, OK, kids broken, take it back, you know, like, but but they teach you all these things. And that was really cool. And all that is available. You just have to ask for it. And the other thing I would do is I would spend time around people with children, but don't look at how the parents are dealing with it, because every parent is different. Look at how the children react to life, because that really gives you because a lot of people do this mistake. They they look at people parenting and try and see what they would be like as parents, but you're looking at somebody else's life. You know, that's yeah, or somebody else is a person.  You know, I suppose as well, like if you have, for example, if you were around at someone's house, you know, you're in their house, you're in the vicinity, and it's not always going to be the same if it was them, their kids, and you come into kind of hang around with them. It's not not the same as just daily life, kind of. Exactly. It's not it's not just like, you know, the bed time routine or whatever it's completely different. Right. But the thing is you want to look at, you want to see how kids react to things and kids are so funny.  So they just rely on you for everything they just need to know. And and that's cool because you get to tell them honest truths and you know, you shout on them from some things. But like, but it's good because it prepares you that prepares you because that's the stuff that people don't tell you.  And then and now what?   I mean, it's crazy. So the best way. Yeah.  We bought like a prep machine so that we can make bottles exactly precisely at any time of day. We we made sure we had everything we needed so that there was never an ambiguity of like, oh, we don't have this thing and the baby Christ, you know what I mean? My son actually had a severe reflux, which sounds just like a reflux. Yeah, that's the reflux. And it was just absolutely horrendous.  Like, apparently, it's like it's like a heart attack for a kid. Like, that's what it feels like. And it's just like screaming in pain. And I said, burning your trachea. Bounce him up and down the whole time. And yeah. And he was admitted to hospital at eight weeks old and stuff like that. Like just crazy stuff. Like it was just, yeah, it was absolutely crazy. But, you know, we learnt loads from that. But, you know, even if he didn't have a reflux, it would still be a that that's like the most difficult part, because you're adapting to a new type. You've got a new person in the house.  Right. That's what it feels like when you have a guest in your house, right? It's weird, isn't it? Yeah. And I used to feel really weird when guests like my friends just sleep over my house like when I when I was growing up, I was like, weird, I just want to go home. But like, it's my time to be alone, chill. Yeah, exactly. Like it's that kind of comfort zone.  Right. But you have to kind of adapt to like, shoot, you know, how are we doing it? But it's fun.  And this is the thing I'd say anything that's worth having should be hard work. You know, we don't we don't just get up every day and somebody gives us money. We work hard for our money. We, you know, we don't just get up every day and like life just happens. You know, we work hard at life. And so everything is hard work. And those things are rewarding, you know, nobody does. Nobody puts hard work in something and gets nothing out, you know, what that's that's not how thermodynamics works.  I'm really surprised about the amount of support that's available.  It fills me with a lot of confidence, as I'll definitely say that. And I know that there are some different options that you can go for as far as education, which is, I think the main thing for me. Yeah. Yeah. But I know, I mean, I have a little.  It's one of my mom's friends, daughter, who's who's on the autistic spectrum. And I help them sort of go through sort of pick up different traits to tell the occupational therapist, you know, about the awesome man. And I guess sort of do some stuff to kind of work on on the confidence, you know, kids at that age are around about 10 years old. Yeah, they tend to struggle with the the environments and stuff, and especially at school, like, you know, if they've had like a long break and then they come back and. So I kind of I do have experience of it. I think it's just it's. It's just it's a very, very.  And but looking after a child, it's another thing. Like, yeah, you know, the thing about getting back to the support stuff, though, is that you have a health visitors as well, right? And the health visitors are there like you can phone them any time. And even the midwives, you can phone them any time. Be like, dude, I need some help. Like, I have no idea what I'm doing. And like the health visitors, they come and visit you every week. You know, you just had a baby in the lunch. Like, could you baby? See you later. They're like a few days. Like, you know, that's why I thought that's what I thought when I was thinking about it. So it's why I was, you know, so keen to chat to you about it. Because it's yeah, no, they, they, they, you know, and and so the mid and the midwife team and the, the, the, um, uh, the, uh, what did I just say? What did I call them at the, the, uh, the health visitors, they know that you, they know that you have issues because you put it down and you're kind of like your, your pregnancy planning. And so they, they always, they love like, how are you doing? You know what I mean? Like, do you need any help in it? And so I was like, oh yeah. And that's how I kind of got into that course, the, the post course about like children learning and all that kind of stuff and how do you deal with home life and things. Um, I think they still have the book somewhere, man. Like it's amazing. Like they just, and it was so good. And they check in and they'd be like, can you complete the sheet by next week?  Like, wake up at 4am. Concent. Like a kid wants to wake up every couple of hours for feeding when they're super tiny. And it's just, I mean, it doesn't last forever.    But then you look back, geez, that was four years ago, man. You know what I mean? And like, it's just, it's like, wow, that didn't last long. Really did it. And it's, it's cool. It's a good thing. So. So it's been really, really, really, really good to talk to you again, Dan.  And as far as education, I think it's, it's, it's definitely something worth considering very, um, seriously. Like it's not just a, you know, just a, well, I want to be a parent. It's, um, I think it's, I like that there's all that prep in place. And yeah, I mean, obviously there are going to be challenges and different challenges depending on whether they're autistic or not. But yeah, it's, um, really, really interesting to, uh, to hear your thoughts on it. Cool. So before we sort of end the episode, do you have any links that you want, want me to share about? Yeah. I mean, like, if you just, like, it's super simple. If you want to follow me on any social media platform, I mean, literally mean anyone, it's just at the ASP world. So T-H-E-A-S-P-I-E-W-O-I-L-D with the symbol before it. Um, and you can find me on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, uh, V-E-R-O, everything, uh, and yeah, all of them, every single one. Get on it, man. And we upload videos. Oh, we also got a podcast and a blog. So yeah, I upload videos every single day. Yeah. So yeah, we do, we do a ton of stuff and I love it. And if you like this episode, make sure to go over to the ASP world podcast because, um, we, we did an episode of a little while ago, didn't we? Yeah. A short one, 20 minutes. Um, that one is, that one's only available for my public, sorry, my private community at the moment, but there is an edited version of it coming out in the next month or so. Very cool. Very cool. So thank you very much for everyone listening in. Uh, we're going to go through a bit of a song of the day. Dan, what is your song of the day? That was, that was an awful, that was an awful introduction to the segment. Um, but basically, uh, what's your song and, uh, why do you like it? Cool. There you go. This song is called Charlie be quiet by Charlie Puth and, uh, or Charlie Puth and it's only just come out, but the reason I like it is because, um, Charlie Puth definitely has ADHD and I'd say he's on the spectrum as well because he has perfect pitch. Uh, very interesting guy. He's a YouTuber as well, but he, uh, did the song called Charlie be quiet and it's kind of like a story about people telling us to be quiet. Um, you have to lower the tone, which I find very relatable because I'm very loud and the ADHD makes me go like all day. So it's a good song and it's great. It's a great song. It's a great song right here. Cool. Very nice. I will add that to playlist, which is always down at the bottom of the description, uh, Charlie be quiet by Charlie Puth, Puth, Puth. Okay. I think you have pronunciations important. It is, it is Charlie Puth. I said, I kept saying Charlie Puth and then I heard him say Charlie Puth. And I was like, Oh man, that's how you say your name. It's like, I'm pretty sure he knows that say his own name, man. Dang it. Yeah. So yeah, that's funny. Well, um, of course, if you enjoyed this episode and you want to see more, make sure to, if you're on a podcasting service, Spotify, Apple podcast, Google, make sure to give us a rating. Very much appreciated. Preferably the five star variety. Um, if you could be so kind. It's like Uber. We give you a ride. You give us a five star, right? Yeah. Five star and some, some cold out cash. Yeah, buddy. Lightweight. Oh man. I love it. So yeah, um, if you want to catch up on the podcast, make sure to check out the YouTube channel, Thomas Hanley, uh, links always in the description podcast available on pretty much all podcast streaming services. And if you want to keep up to date with my life, how things are going, the work that I'm doing, head over to Instagram or pretty much any social media platforms, but primarily Instagram, which is at Thomas Hanley UK. And yeah, uh, I hope you guys are doing well. And, um, it's been really, really, really great to talk to you, Dan. And I hope you guys have a very, very lovely day. See you later, folks. Peace. Peace. Peace.


Hello and welcome to this lesson where we will go over blood brothers, which is a modern tragedy by Willie Russell Now as you can see behind me Essentially what I thought would be really useful is to summarize using a mind map the entire plot in a nutshell so that you can Get a general understanding especially if you're advising this play for your exams for your coursework Okay, so what we're going to do within this lesson is basically go over all the main events that occur within this Modern tragedy, okay? Remember a modern tragedy or any type of tragedy is a play or a story Where you have a protagonist who tends to have a fatal flaw that leads to the downfall, okay? And of course in blood brothers. They are two protagonists Mickey and Edward both of whom are twins, okay? You could also arguably add Mrs. Johnstone, okay? But the main protagonists of course are the twins so let's go over the main series and sequence of events that lead of course to the Ultimate downfall and deaths of both twins, okay plot spoiler alert now the play and the Entire narrative begins when we learn about Mrs. Johnstone.  She already has lots of children lots of mouths to feed and she's really struggling to even keep up all these different children in terms of just looking after them and caring for them, okay and She discovers to her shock that she is pregnant with twins, okay, so she's wondering what I'm gonna do I'm just a cleaner. I literally can't afford the current children I have let alone add more children to my family. How will I feed them now? She is working for a boss and a lady who's called Mrs. Lyons She is what we would consider an upper middle class lady and woman who has a husband That's very financially stable and she's a stay-at-home woman who has been wanting to have a child for such a long time But she's not able to bear her own children now She realizes that her cleaner her employee Mrs. Johnstone is pregnant and she doesn't know what to do and Mrs. Lyons who really wants a child basically makes a bug in with her, okay? She makes a Faustian packed with her and she persuades Mrs. Johnstone to part with just one of her sons, okay? She tells Mrs. Johnstone look I'll definitely look after your son. Trust me. He's gonna be in good hands and on top of that You know, can you afford really to look after this child as a cleaner? Okay, and Mrs. Johnstone who was struggling to know what she's gonna do with these two twins This is music to her is initially, okay? So Mrs. Johnstone is persuaded and she does give her one of her sons and Mrs. Johnstone keeps one of the children, okay? So Mrs. Lyons has the son called Edward who's gonna be raised by her whilst Mrs. Johnstone keeps Mickey, okay? The other twin and of course they both promise that they will never let these two children know that they are related However, Mrs. Johnstone continues working for her and of course Mrs. Lyons who has a husband He's been traveling. She kind of she's very scheming So she figures out a way to kind of appear that like she's pregnant Her husband isn't there for most of the time anyway And then she manages to convince her husband that they did have a baby They're finally conceived and of course her husband Mr. Lyons is very happy, okay? So they raise a family and of course Mrs. Lyons within this family is anyone that knows that Edward is not her biological son Now Mrs. Lyons keeps of course employing Mrs. Johnstone But she gradually begins to dislike how Mrs. Johnstone when she comes in she fusses over Edward Of course Edward is her son So Mrs. Johnstone sometimes will fuss over her or over him rather whilst she's working around the house Mrs. Lyons who's very possessive of her son She doesn't like this and of course also remember that Mrs. Lyons is quite classist So also she doesn't really want Edward to have any of the you know working-class habits or attributes that her mother will have Okay, so she really doesn't like this and she ends up Firing Mrs. Johnstone who feels betrayed, okay? So even if Mrs. Lyons does offer her a payout Mrs. Johnstone does feel quite betrayed because she thought she would at least have the chance to see her son grow up Now there's a period which of course fast forwards And then we realize that Mrs. Johnstone and her son Mickey as well as her family lead a very separate life a much more difficult life as working-class people to Mrs. Lyons her husband as well as Edward, okay? However at seven years old both Mickey and Edward finally meet become really good friends and Adding to the mix is within the estate that Mickey lives in Linda the female friend the you know girl child They become a trio of three really good inseparable friends the only difference and of course at this age They don't quite understand class, okay? So Edward just kind of sees Mickey as somebody who really looks up to he gets a bit of a snobby primary school So he really just likes how edgy both his friend Mickey and Linda really are okay He really enjoys this so they become friends and they get into a little bit of trouble Okay, so Edward starts kind of mimicking What Linda and Mickey do as well as the other children the other working-class children and they start throwing stones up windows Which gets them into trouble with the police now Mrs. Lyons? Finds this out. Okay, and the police Catch all the children the police treat Mickey quite harshly when the police approaches Mrs. Johnstone He's very stern He tells Mickey and of course also his older brother who's called Sammy who's developed a reputation for being a little bit of a bad Mrs. Johnstone is really punished quite heavily in terms of the police giving her a stern warning when the police however talks to Mrs Lyons and Edward okay telling her that Edward has gotten himself into a little bit of trouble for throwing stones at windows Okay, he is much more kinder to her. He says, you know make sure I understand children like Edward can be a little bit You know boisterous, but be careful and again We can see here that even society begins to treat Edward much more favorably as a middle-class son of Prosperous parents then Mickey who's a working-class son of a single mother However, this is not enough Mrs. Lyons. She doesn't like this. She doesn't like the fact that her son is associating With his twin of course Edward does not know Mickey and Edward do not make the connection that they are twins Okay, so Mrs. Lyons convinces her husband that they need to move and they do so Okay, so they move and then again, there's a separation so Mrs. Lyons always comes in and Separates creates a wall between Edward and Mickey However, we then also realize of course the Johnstones who were housed by the council They can't afford to live in their own accommodation and also Linda whose family is housed by the council They are told that they're going to be rehoused and they end up moving to the same area That Mrs. Lyons and her husband as always Edward have moved to so then the story moves forward it starts shifting very quickly Okay, the play especially in that to really start speeding up in the narrative and the sequence of events get faster and faster So then Mickey, Linda and Edward end up reuniting as friends now as Teenagers okay in this new environment and of course we still know that there's a massive difference between Edward who goes to private school This is Mickey and Linda who goes to state school not a great quality of education They kind of get into a bit of trouble Mickey doesn't get great grades in his school And we start seeing an even bigger divide between Edward's life whereby he ends up aiming for and going to university versus Mickey who doesn't get any Qualifications and Linda who falls pregnant quite early. Okay, so Mickey Linda and Edward of course reunite again and become friends as teenagers until Edward ends up going off to university but of course Edward wants to carry on being friends and You know the Edward promises every time he comes back from university. He really wants to hang out Okay, now we then realize that Linda who? Her and Mickey of course now they mature and they become romantically involved and she ends up falling pregnant Okay, and she ends up falling pregnant fairly early And we also get the undertone that Edward might be in love with her But he hides this from her now Edward Linda falls pregnant and Mickey does marry her He does the right thing. He marries her. However Mickey Gets a factory job after he marries Linda and ultimately he ends up losing this factory job because of layoffs and We start realizing that whilst Edwards life is becoming much more stable. He's getting a good qualification He's going to get a much better paid job. He's going to have a lot of stability and in fact his dad is also an employer Mickey will find himself in the cycle of poverty that his own mother experiences the cycle of poverty Bad pay and constant insecurity and of course also he will become the father that becomes worried How can I provide for my wife Linda and our child? Okay now? Unemployed because Mickey falls unemployed. He loses his factory job He is given a proposition by his older brother Sammy the naughty one who becomes a criminal now Sammy Kind of portrays to make you look this crime a promissory. You're gonna be absolutely fine Okay, we're gonna get just this quick money. You need it. I need it. Let's do it Okay, so an unemployed Mickey commits a crime with Sammy. However, they are caught and they both end up going to prison Okay, which carries on that cycle of poverty amongst the working classes and also now we're seeing how the law treats Mickey quite harshly This is how the law will favor Edward and protect Edward whose middle class then in jail Mickey gets depressed. Okay, he finds that his life is going in a downward spiral He gets depressed he starts using pills to help with his depression However, he becomes addicted and he becomes almost a different person and even once he comes out Linda finds that there's an emotional disconnect between them and Don't forget Edward still lives in the same city and Linda and Edward still have a connection going on Okay, so Mickey ends up leaving prison after doing a stint in prison. He gets a new job However, we realize that Linda and Edward now they Kind of start having a light romance and they basically have an affair. Okay, which Mickey discovers and he becomes Devastated Edward who has everything is going to take the only good thing away from him Which is Linda and he cannot have it. So this therefore Accelerates the tragedy because Mickey ends up getting Sammy's gun He finds Edward at the town hall where he works. Okay, so he's getting a really nice comfortable job at the town hall He finds Edward and he threatens to kill him and of course Mickey who's in a rage his mother Mrs Johnstone is chasing him Mickey don't do this don't do this don't do this Okay, and Mrs. Johnstone is really really struggling whether she should reveal to him that they are related They are brothers indeed or to kind of try to control the situation She's figuring out what can I do to stop this tragedy from happening. However Ultimately Mrs. Johnstone because she realizes that Mickey is serious about committing this crime She reveals to both of them that they are twins Mickey who's waving around a gun ends up accidentally killing Edward as the police arrive and As Edward dies the police do shoot Mickey and Mickey also dies Okay, which of course finishes off this tragedy, which makes us really deeply reflect on class divisions And how life is very different depending on the environment that you grow up in okay And this is especially shown between both protagonists a character of Edward versus the character of Mickey Okay, so that's really it when it comes to understanding the sequence of events that happen within blood brothers And how especially within act 2 this tragedy accelerates to its ultimate tragic ending


Now the Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifani Okora has urged Nigerians not to be deceived by the leadership of the all-progressive Congress APC, as it does not mean well for them. Okora said this while signing the 10 bills and the 2023 appropriation bill in government house, Asaba. It called on the youths to have hope in Nigeria as the PDP would turn around your situation. In the market, you see the beauty of what you learn on a board that was beat by this administration repeats after they have been destroyed during the crisis several years ago. We feel proud that we truly have talked to the eyes of our people. There are many things we speak about. So I think it's time for the APC in this day to shut up their mouths and not be deceived by those who do not mean well for our states and for our nation. Today, the Nigeria that we have as a country is troubled. Our people are beginning to lose hope. That's like our children and our women. There is hope on the way. And I believe very strongly that there is hope on the way. I believe very strongly that we are able to turn around and ensure a gain. On his part, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Sharif Abu-Ruwe, however, commended the executive arm of government for the excellent work relationship with members of the assembly. The importance of these bills to the state cannot be over-executed. This prompted the House to consider the passage of the bills with all the attention they deserve. The bills are data state, manufacturer and use of canoe boats bill 2022. The bill gave the first reading on the 5th of December 2021, second reading 25th of January 2022. Third reading half past 26th January 2022.


This project actually has a different objective to the NEA's collection and reporting of data. Contrary to the fact that Dr. Thich Nguyen made, it was never my intention to correct, replace, or audit or even question the NEA's data. In fact, I depended upon their data. My objective was quite different. My problem arose because of my runover. I run over an exercise at a distance. If you exercise in one place, if you run a tennis court or football field, if you can see or smell haze, then go inside. But if you run, as I do, a 10K loop, or if you cycle a 30K loop, or if you paddle a 15K loop, you face a very real possibility, if you're in borderline haze conditions, of going out, running for an hour in no haze, and then turning for home and being confronted by a wall of haze and an hour of ground and cover to get back home. The question for me was, wouldn't it be nice if we had closer to real-time, at the time, three-hour data, and a much finer grain than just one-fifths of Singapore? Perhaps 50 or 60 sensors. I looked into it a bit, and there's a few ways of measuring haze, or measuring particular matters specifically. The amazingly expensive way, and Dr. Alvish ensured a picture of a station running more or less these sensors, actually captures a particular matter for 24 hours, and you then weigh it, sort of micrograms, and work out the density of the air. It's very expensive, it's labor-intensive, slow, but it's very accurate. Somewhat cheaper is the beater decay system. So this is actually running air through a piece of cloth strip, and then putting it into a chamber with a beater radiation source, and measuring how much beater radiation is absorbed, and then actually infer how much matter has been collected in the tape during five minutes. Both of these are great. They are a solid basis for publishing data for medical, legal, and diplomatic purposes, and the NEA uses, principally, the one on the right, by suspect, one on the left. However, these are all thousands, tens, or hundreds of thousands of dollars a piece, which needless to say, I can't afford one awful little loan, 50. So, I took a different tack. I said, well, there are these really cheap dust sensors. They're about 12 US dollars. They're used, typically, in air purifiers. They're used in infrared beam to count particles that are floating through the beam. They're not exactly, they don't measure the whole of a particular matter, and in fact, they're completely blind to most of the haze there. They can only see things one micron bigger. But my guess was that the haze has a fairly consistent composition. So if the one micron stop is going through, then it's probably indicative of the haze going up at the same time. So, I put together a prototype to work this way. I take the dust sensor, spark core, put it in a box, find a bunch of volunteers to stick it on their balconies, and use their Wi-Fi at home to send me a sample every 30 seconds, and to make the map that you saw at the beginning. The device itself looks something like that.  Some holes for air to come in and out. In this case, it's sitting on the sheltered power in the balcony on a condo. The device inside is minimalism at large. There's an infrared ideal on the right, which is emitting infrared. There's a photodiode up here at the left, whose current changes, the amount of light changes. Then the barrels with your lens, and then there's a resistor, which is a heater, which is creating the connection current to keep the air moving through it. So, as particles of dust, one micron or larger, enter the sensor, the amount of current flowing through the photodiode dips. To get a sense of the optics, the guy at the teardown actually put an ordinary, visible light LED in place of the photodiode that they put the lens in. So there's a focus just about the resistor. So there's actually how it really is focused on what is traffic about the resistor. This was the same guy who reverse-engineered the schematic, because the manufacturer doesn't. The electronics geeks in the room might notice, we use P1, I'll see at the bottom. The important fact is there's no feedback. So unlike reading a thermometer with an Arduino, where you're reading an analog value, the output of this one's either on or off. It's actually that it's pulsed with modulated. So you're actually measuring how much at the time the output spends low. The more time it spends low, the more particles there are breaking the beam and reducing the current through the photodiode. The manufacturer doesn't publish a formula, but this chart. So I found somebody else using it who had actually done a fitted curve, which is that second holiday piece there, which is basically given the ratio, the fraction of the time that the output of the sensor spends down. What does that mean in terms of concentration? It can nearly hit 10 particles per 100th of a cubic foot, which is an amazingly convenient measure. So what the system delivers is a series of events using the Spark API. And so the key numbers are about the middle, the ones they will see. Notice they do jump around a bit. And so you do have to average more than one sample, but whether you do two minutes or five minutes is a choice you can make after the data has been gathered rather than prejudging it with the device. And it's the basis for being able to make decisions about how close to real-time data it is. I used a very crude linear approximation. The measurements from that our sensor do move with the NEA's data. That was my first indication that I was off to something that might actually work. But I do need to keep from meeting people this is an approximation, and all of the data is extrapolated. It's not something that replaces the expensive instruments. The outpoints, in fact, I don't know which numbers the data streams available to developers in the means of congratulations public, but in fact in the map that I publish it's just the five colours, the same colours that the NEA uses for the five bands of BSI. And they correspond approximately. So this is great. Here we have a measurement, we have a thing, it's all great. There's one rather serious problem left, and it's humidity. So it turns out that this method of measurement has a fundamental problem. The dates on this curve has been known about for a rather long time that as the humidity in the air goes up the amount of scattering that occurs goes up drastically. And so you're reading numbers between 0% and about 60% relative humidity. This depends on the aerosolver detail. Then it's all reading accurately. Once you get above 60%, the reading for the same concentration gets higher and higher and higher in this case under 10-fold between 80 and 95%. And of course in this country the humidity spends most of its time in that range. And so there's a serious problem with the data coming out being more affected by how humidity air is than by how much haze there is. So this is an ongoing difference with the needs of racing. I won't go through that in detail at the time. So the big things that I learned out of this were one, that the NEA is risk-wise important. When my project came to the teaching of the newspapers, they approached me and said, okay, for sure they've now spoken to the NEA. There was no interference of any kind. And in fact, when I happened to meet him later at a e-cam, I think, as he said, sorry, a lot of questions, he then connected me with the Chief Science Officer for pollution control.  And the need to deal with IT people gets in the way of even the best of intentions, as I'm sure half of them would know. Most of us have been there. Another important lesson was that the smart core was too mature. If you're working with a device on your desktop that you're learning with, then a recently kick-started or outfunded component is fine. But when you're deploying dozens of them to run unsupervised places you can't easily get to for months or years, then little problems become a major holiday network. So that was a... I like the device like the people, but that was a choice I wish I hadn't made because a couple of the issues with the maturity of the devices had gone in the way and I couldn't fix them because of the way they were deployed. Finding appropriate volunteers was difficult. 80% of people in Singapore live in places that do not have bad money as a power that's on them. And those that do are all in one part of the island. I can't sweat any longer what's people who want to help. The correlation between them and where it seems to be turned out to be really poor. But the really big discovery was that the one micron proxy, the near and far beam is actually a modest proxy for measuring the intensity of the haze in Singapore. I do get inquiries about other places and the answer is I don't know. Beijing, for example, has a whole lot of stuff in its air that it isn't haze. And so the correlation work that I've done is critically dependent upon what the air is made of. I have yet to have answers on whether that's via what it's where. I'm starting to work on expanding the work into places where there are no apartments. I've been offered science where there's no infrastructure and I object strenuously to paying $220 a month to Telco to send a very small amount of sensitive data. So we're looking at these Norwegian radio modules. I will talk about this in a conference session on the weekend. But the major number is the minus one in DBM. That's about 1,000 times as sensitive as the Wi-Fi receiver in my Lenovo. Meaning that on paper these things have a multi-kilometer range despite operating entirely within the low power device limits in our mass inspection. But if you can't get much data around you can't web browse with it. But to move a few samples from sensors you're talking about, I think these are $50. They're not expensive to us at all. They're like an inch long. They're very small. So I'm working towards putting those in and I'll talk more about that on the weekend if you wish to hear about it. So I've got 10 to 12 sensors operating now. I'd like to get to $50 or $60. How much time? Go to the minute. Okay. I have still failed to get the archival and live data feeds up and running. But I'll do those fairly soon and probably to back end source. But what I particularly want to do is add the humidity sensors, mesh modules, and also the battery and charger for solar power in a couple of places. In light of time I will cover a lot of small detail in our conference session on the weekend. I've already plugged in. I will also be doing a session on something a bit preposterous. Later this year I tend to bounce radio signals off the moon. So I will also do a talk on that on the weekend. Anyone who's into radio electronics or long distance communications, this should be your interest. Thank you.