Hi everybody it's Sam at Mixed Up Craft thank you for watching today so I have my latest design team package from Trimcraft, I've already had a little sneak peek and it's amazing so let's get into it. Okay so I'm going to start with these paper packs first so this is the Dovecraft premium collection and this is their new Happy You. It is rose gold enough said it's absolutely stunning I love this so much this is the 8x8 and here is the 12x12 okay I'll just do this smaller one because the designs are exactly the same on the 12x12 they would just be blown up you get this overview page here which is perfect for using as well so here we have see how well this oh yeah it does picks up perfectly look at that gorgeous marble effect absolutely stunning wow love this so you get three of each design then you've got this one here which is covered in glitter again it's got that rose rose gold throughout this gorgeous foiled effect this is really picking up lovely with the camera today look at this I think this might be my favorite one all those geometric shapes absolutely love it you've got the marble there and then these soft past kind of dusky pink color and then that rose gold and then you've got this one here and that one that's a beautiful background just that lovely marble effect you got this one here which is kind of like yeah it's like paint splats which again perfect for backgrounds and then you've got a geometric heart I've got a heart die actually which is very similar to that so that's going to work really nicely in fact it is like this it might even be a Dovecraft die from a while back now I will have to dig that out this one's really cool and you can fussy cut these especially on the larger I compare it in size there we go so those will be perfect for using as toppers so you've got dream smile choose happy dream big make it happen enjoy every moment yeah I think that's about it really nice then we have this one here you are loved and that's just repeated all over there and like a diamond shape and then you've got here be happy be bright be you that's really nice and then that lovely triangle one there as well so gorgeous paper pack it's going to be already yeah because there's some fussy cutting in there which is great I can already see some cards coming together quite quickly so 12 by 12 and the 8 by 8 okay and this is all the amazing accessories to match the paper packs I've just shared so this one here I believe is everything inside this one is the buttons and I think maybe and some bows maybe they're just waiting on these to arrive so let me just show you these first of all so I imagine you're going to have a pack with these bows really really pretty and they're really soft so they're going to sit perfectly on your cards I just show you them really nice and shiny and then these rose gold buttons so I imagine there's going to be a pack of each of them because that's pretty standard for the dovecraft collection you usually get your buttons and bows and things I think standing out for me straight away are these and they're going to work perfectly in my planner but also equally they're going to look great on cards as well so the smile and you've got that again that geometric heart so they're really nice then I also like where is it oh here we are the dies oh look there it is so I think I might have a slightly larger one for maybe a way back so I'll have a little look at that one but here you've got be happy be bright be you in that same shape there which matches obviously the paper pack lovely smile die cut there that look nice layered up just so you've got quite a deep sentiment and then those hearts there really nice like that a lot beautiful sequence here it's like a dull rose gold rather than shiny although they look like they're quite shiny there I think that's more the packaging but they are quite a dull matte finish which I really like so I'm looking forward to using those lovely washes here so you've got love and again that's just another let's have a little look just another geometric print really nice it's going to complement the cards nicely and I'll just show you that one in a bit more detail there we go you can see there it's all foiled so that's really nice then we've got the stamp and be happy be bright stamp as well so two little clear photopolymer stamps there which are nice I really like these these are like your Polaroid photo frame how nice they can look especially for scrapbook layouts really like them you can imagine having like three photos in fact I've already then I've decided I'm definitely going to be doing that that look really nice having them all framed and then have like these attached here already I just love it because it is so easy to work with then we've got these faceted glitter enamel dots but they are faceted so you can feel it it's probably hard to pick up in the picture but can you see all the little square faceted sides as I move that in the light so it almost looks like it looks like a diamond you know the way it catches when it moves really really pretty again all matching perfectly that's where guys this is just like Christmas the feeling you get when your presents are under the tree this is what it was like when the trim craft delivery comes so thank you guys you know how much I love and appreciate this these are heart charms and they are metal ones really nice yeah and they just attach and I like that they're attached separately I hate it when they attach it all on one thing so when you take one off you have to take them all off and I like to keep when I'm working through my design team stuff I like to keep it all together so this way I can but they're really nice look lovely hanging off of gift bags you know the drill they are just perfect for finishing off projects then we got some nice ribbons here so you've got again that same heart that runs throughout geometric foiled print there you can see hang on there we go you can see the foiling that it catches in the light there so that's really nice be happy be bright be you yep that continues the hearts and dream big so again really nice positive quite motivational words throughout this one so I think that's gonna yeah it's definitely going to get used a lot I really like it these here are your puffy stickers I loved the puffy stickers and use them loads with the nature's grace collection when that was out so I know that these are going to get used loads again that lovely heart that runs throughout enjoy every moment smile make it happen it's all those same exactly the same elements that you see in the paper packs but this time with the puffy stickers and they are lovely so I'll probably be purchasing extras of those because they will get used lots good old paper flowers you know I love my paper flowers so these again match nicely so you get 16 there these are your sentiment toppers so you've got here just two you've got the dream big but you've got one two three four five six really good really thick ones those so they're lovely and then these here you are loved and then these wonderful really nice really sparkly alphabet number alphabet and number sticker pack this is going to work perfectly you can see here for a scrapbook layout with these with these yeah it's all coming together the washi tape I can feel it already so that's definitely going to be top on my list and then obviously the buttons and the bows so that is all of the new happy you dovecraft premium collection and then this is the gorgeous dovecraft secret garden collection so this is the 8 by 8 and the 12 by 12 this one is in aid of mind charity so a minimum of 10 000 pound will be donated to the mind from sales of this collection so any part what I show you so if you did if you go into the range if you go to any of your online stores anything that you purchase from this collection will help go towards that minimum of 10 000 pounds that's really lovely and that was the same with the fairy tales collection that I shared in my last dt package so yeah really nice okay so I've opened this one up already and I'll just give you a flip through again you've got the overview of what you've got here and then if we go on in here because this I like that they're not sealed with like that gum that they have because it does sometimes buckle your card or your papers when you pull them from the pack and sometimes you can't get it off so I love that this has none it's just all free papers so you've got these three here which you've just got this really nice kind of sprig over the front with the gray background this beautiful one here and this is what I love about this collection is the color palette I like this purple with the green and then you've got the pops of that like purple blue it's really really nice soft colors so you've got this one it's got some script writing behind it there as well so you've got those three then you've got this one here just for you and with love perfect for it's got you know a masculine and feminine feel to it then you've got that one there so that's like that purpley blue background with the flowers running through really like the images on this one you've got herbs garden and then you've got your trowel and your fork and then the spade and the larger fork this is garden and stuff really really nice and then this one here has got all lavender over the front it also tells you the meaning of lavender the latin of lavender so yeah like that then you've got this nice kind of tartan checked print which looks good look at those love them and the bigger versions on here even those as well but for fussy cutting gonna be absolutely brilliant love them lots really really cute then you've got this nice rose print with that real nice lemon background here you've got your different herbs you've got bay mint sage thyme tarragon mint think I said that one already yeah again really nice and then this one I love these so easy to cut out and just finishes off the cards perfectly she's got garden flowers number two lavender herbs more flower more birds yeah really nice even in primrose and then the last one flips one over look at that and you're gonna love the little embellishments that match this this is probably my favorite I think for this pack I love that wellington boot with the flowers coming out of it I just love everything about that I think it's such a lovely image so yeah imagine the slightly larger versions of that in that 12 by 12 it's going to look gorgeous and you can see them there as well okay so I think trim craft you've excelled yourself with the embellishments to match the papers because these are just absolutely amazing so my favorite are the welly boots the little signs and where is it the birds oh my god so these are wooden toppers and just look at how cute that is let me just get my there we go and it's really thick you've got a little sticky dot there if you want to but it's gonna tie it up to you how you use this but it's gorgeous and the same the welly boot and they are wooden really thick such good quality and they look just like the picture as well sometimes when you see things made in different materials in terms of embellishments and stuff they kind of get a little bit distorted or color change but that is exactly the same so again look how lovely and these are all perfect for using on gift bags cards gift boxes scrapbook layouts just any kind of 3d decorative projects that you might be doing so you get six wooden toppers in each pack so even if you just buy the paper packs those are definitely something that I would say is to get as an add-on because you can't get those there's nothing similar out there to those those are one-of-a-kind and I just think they're gorgeous then you got the signs so these are eight sentiment toppers and I like that you get eight of them really really nice so you've got with love and that would hang beautifully and you know what that would have worked really well with and that's my the little crates that I've made I made that pop-up crate card imagine that hanging off the side you could turn it over and have something that you wanted you you know write something yourself on there as well so you've got with love you've got happy birthday so you've got yes it's just with love and happy birthday so you get four of each so those are just gorgeous absolutely amazing okay another favorite miss these these are 10 it says 10 wooden shapes but it's look if you paint these white you've got to pick it fence oh how amazing is that going to look around a gift box or something obviously or you know just along the bottom of a card there but again they're wooden you can just stress them like I said cover them you can heat emboss them oh my mind is absolutely going mad right now this is genuine excitement guys is there just so adorable okay then we have the wooden frames now you know this is the one thing I always struggle with in these collections I don't know what it is I promised myself last time and I did use them in some tutorials I used them on a scrapbook layout I think I used them on a card so I am slowly using them more and more but these are the wooden frames and again they are lovely they're perfect for framing you know like a little sticker you might fussy cut some of the paper you die cut some of these and you can frame them so they do work I just I don't know what it is with me I just never it's not something I just go and grab but there you go so you've got four of each color you've got the green like the lavender color and again that purpley blue okay just a bit overwhelmed with this one there's so much these are your paper blossoms so I've had these with some other of the collections but I like the leaf shapes that they've done here I'll try not to bring them all out like all over the place but you know they're just really nice you've got that minty color and then you've got that one there you've got different styles you've got that one and then you've got it in the darker so it's quite nice to have that variety and then you've got these small ones as well so there's the small and there's the other color and you get 30 so there's actually more in this than I think there's been in previous ones so I think there was only maybe 20 or 24 I think so and you get the big ones there so much to layer up and play around perfect add a nice embellishment in the middle okay then you've got the 15 flower pearls so they're nice like a die cut flower on some smooth like shiny cardstock and then you've got the large pearl in the middle so they're nice instant flowers for you then you've also got these paper flowers which you've got the diamondy in them really nice and then you've got the bunting and this is always good it works with so many card styles you get tons in there 60 mini bunting and twine so again perfect especially for this themed kind of collection then we've got these puffy stickers here okay so there you go you can just see it's a lot of the same images just shrunk down really nice love the the big fork there you've got your trowel and the smaller fork welcome to my garden isn't that lovely so these are your eight sentiment toppers and I'm just taking it out so you can see it better but you've got just for you happy birthday lots of love and then just for you again happy birthday so they repeat but just with different colored backgrounds so you get eight of those then you've got your five cotton ribbons so you've got kind of like the black flowers there at the top the birds happy days then some nice kind of foliage and then just for you at the bottom then some lovely charms here so these are eight metal bird charms really cute love them and then you've got your do the washi tape there so there's that one really nice subtle floral print and this one here a little look a whole lot of lovely oh I like that one I love that saying really nice okay and then we finish here with eight cutting dies and five clear stumps so again you've got the wellington boot there you've got a little plant pot with a sign some sprigs your spade sorry your trowel and your fork this one says I love my garden I really like that you got the bird and you got that lovely flower there so they're really nice and then this one you've got lovely days and then you've got garden in french and there you go you can see a bit better there so there's your lavender and the bird and you can depending on how you paint that you can really change the bird itself so you could make that into a robin you could make it into a blue tit you could make it into what else we've got we've got starlings and swallows and all kinds of things sparrows and probably same ones that it wouldn't be but you know what I mean you can change it up and then you've got that one there which looks like the poppy so yeah really like them okay so completely spoiled completely overwhelmed I'll put it away now that's what I tend to do is put it away and then go back to it because otherwise yeah my mind's all over the place but what amazing two new dovecraft collections so I would love to know what your favorite one is is it on the left the happy you or the secret garden on the right I am like this because I'm really drawn to all these beautiful accessories here the picket fence the wellington boot the bird but then I'm loving the rose gold over here so you can see really different projects will be made with this so that's why I love again receiving this design team package because it does allow you to really change up your style from you know one day to the next so I hope you've liked what I've shared with you today it's going to be a thumbs up if you did and subscribe to my channel so you get to see now what I'm going to make with all this lovely stuff thanks for watching bye


The next item of business is portfolio questions, and portfolios this week is net zero energy and transport. If a member wishes to request a supplementary, they should press the request-to-speak button during the relevant question or enter the letters RTS in the chat function during the relevant question. I call question number one, Martin Whipfield. I am very grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer. To ask the Scottish Government what assessment is made of the potential impact of the retirement of Hunterson B and Tornes on Scotland's CO2 emissions. Modelling undertaken as part of the analysis underpinning the climate change plan and the energy strategy and just transition plan does not show any significant impact to the closure of Hunterson B or Tornes nuclear power stations on Scotland's CO2 emissions. Under this modelling, the reduction in electricity generation from nuclear power plants in Scotland has been and will be compensated for by the vast expansion of low-cost renewables and flexible technologies such as storage but not by fossil fuel plants. I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary for that answer, and he will of course be aware that Sweden, which like Scotland has deployed both wind and hydro power, has now reversed its nuclear phase-out policy and is planning to build new nuclear stations as part of its robust low-carbon mix. Sweden's power is 40 times cleaner and has the lowest electricity sector carbon emissions of any EU country, so can I press the cabinet secretary to use his influence on whoever should lead the next administration to drop the opposition to nuclear power and build on the current base load that we have? Of course, I can remind the chamber that Scotland took 30 per cent of its power from nuclear energy in 2021, not 97 per cent of the renewables that it has in the past been claimed. Shouldn't Scotland follow the Swedish model for cleaner, reliable and cheaper energy, or alternatively the cabinet secretary is not minded to influence those who will follow the First Minister? How are we going to do this? Our position in terms of traditional fission nuclear power has not changed as set out within the energy strategy, which is out for consultation at present moment, and we have set out very clearly how we will meet our energy needs between now and 2045, which is a ramping-up of renewable energy, plus alongside using new technologies such as carbon capture and other sources of storage, which are all starting to develop and progress here in Scotland, which will provide us with the capacity that we require for our energy needs going forward. I cannot particularly comment on the position that Sweden has taken in these matters, but if the member wants to look at what is happening right here, right now in Scotland, for example, today, at this present time, about over 60 per cent of our electricity is coming from renewable sources, and there are times when it is significantly higher than that. What we want to do is to build in that good progress and to make sure that we get the economic benefits that go along with that. Lord Daemon of the Climate Change Committee said that he welcomed the UK Government's recent commitment to nuclear and its role in helping us to achieve net zero, yet, as we have just heard, the Scottish Government sets its face against this technology and refuses to acknowledge its part in decarbonising Scotland's future. What gives the cabinet secretary such confidence that he and his threadbare energy strategy are right, and that the Climate Change Committee is wrong? There is a considerable amount of research and evidence that underpins our energy strategy, which I am sure the member will recognise. It demonstrates that we are very much blessed here in Scotland with significant natural resources, particularly renewable resources, which will meet our energy needs going forward. However, as colleagues are great advocates of the way in which we should deliver nuclear energy in the future is through small, moderate reactors, which they think are going to be the life-saving change that will provide this base load in the future. The reality is that SMRs do not even have approval and are many years away from even getting technological approval. The fact that they could actually even provide any generation in this decade is highly unlikely in itself. They wedded themselves to a technology that is not even approved for use yet and is likely not to be even delivering any energy in this decade alone, which is why we need to move on with the technologies that are on the market, which meet our climate change needs and will deliver the base load capacity that we require in the future. Nuclear power is costly and leaves a long and toxic legacy behind for future generations to come. Given that nuclear generation costs double the price of offshore wind, does the cabinet secretary agree with me that it not only makes environmental sense to focus our investment on truly renewable energy options, but it also makes economic sense as well? Members need to recognise that, when it comes to traditional nuclear generation, it presents serious waste and environmental concerns. The costs that are associated with that have to be built into the price, which consumers then have to pay back over many, many decades, in some cases hundreds of years. That is why, for example, if you look at nuclear power, it is a very poor value for consumers. The Crown Tract for Difference figures show that electricity generated by Hinkley Point C is based at £92.50 per megawatt hour, whereas electricity generated from the latest offshore wind sites is priced at £39.65 per megawatt hour, significantly lower. The problem with having a greater reliance on nuclear energy is that it pushes up customers' prices. It makes it more expensive for them as a result than if you look at what has been invested in the UK. That is exactly what it will do. Not only create the environmental and waste legacy problems that consumers have to pay for, but advocates of it are advocating higher prices for consumers because it is a much more expensive form of electricity to produce. To ask the Scottish Government how it engages with local communities to ensure their transport needs are met. The Scottish Government engages with communities on a variety of different transport matters. I co-chair the national transport strategy delivery board with Councillor McGregor on COSLA, which also co-produced our route map for reduction in car kilometres. The second strategic projects review received 14,000 ideas from stakeholders right across the country, which were refined into the final 45 recommendations. In December, the draft long-term plan for vessels and ports was published and shared with stakeholders, and we will go into public consultation in the coming months. The minister will be aware that it has been announced that the Coronarius crossing will have a further restrictions placed on what is already a restricted service, which is being covered by a 47-year-old reserve vessel because of refit delays to a 23-year-old vessel. This is the route that, even before the latest issues, was at breaking point. As well as the impact on local residents and visitors, any new restrictions would mean significant additional costs for the many businesses that operate locally. This is our crisis. Can the minister advise me what discussions she has had with Highland Council about the latest restrictions and what support the Scottish Government has been able to offer? Given the wider issues that are facing local ferry services in my region, can the minister also advise me when she was first made aware that the reopening of Uekaba would be delayed, whether she was required to sign off that decision and, if so, when she did? I thank the member for his question. He knows that I have engaged with Highland Council on this matter and, of course, directly with the member. Additionally, I have also undertaken to visit and to meet local elected members to see the ferry for myself. Of course, we have engaged with the Highland Council and, in relation to the discussions that are on-going this week, my officials are going to be providing me with further advice later this week. On the point that he asked in relation to Uekaba, I was informed about that development on Wednesday of this week. I was not required as minister to sign off on it as some of the delays there have related to weather impacts, but he will be well versed in the situation at Uekaba. I do believe that the mitigation that we were able to bring to that effect on the local community was a better solution than that was originally planned. However, in relation more broadly to some of the challenges committed to working with the member and the Highland Council in finding a suitable mitigation, recognising some of the challenges presented by the age of the vessel that he cited today. Transport agencies such as Hyal and companies such as Loganair clearly have a key role in ensuring that the voice of local communities is heard. Does the minister agree that both organisations need to listen to Highland communities more attentively than they have in recent days when many lifeline air services have been cancelled for weeks and end? Obviously, as we heard in the chamber earlier this week, the focus for our Government ministers is very much on addressing the underlying issue, which is to settle the Hyal pay dispute. I know how concerning the suspension of services is for communities' impact, and I very much recognise the importance of those routes that I met with Loganair this morning. I asked them to restore services earlier than 1 May should a settlement to Hyal be reached this week. Now ministers have approved a new proposal from Hyal, and it is now sitting with the Hyal Board to negotiate a settlement with the unions as soon as possible. The minister will be aware that I wrote to her earlier this week about Loganair's announcement that the intent to reduce services between Inverness and Ireland airports. For Shetland, the ability to get to the mainland is further reduced because currently one of Serco-Northlake's vessel is on its annual refit, so it is in dry dock. What assessment has the minister made on the reduction of services and Irelanders' transport needs in this situation? I have been assured that Irelanders' needs will be met by the current provision. However, I have yet to have sight of Ms Wishart's correspondence, so I am more than happy to speak to her directly on this matter, recognising the very real impact with the community that she serves. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the continued repair works to the M8 motorway in Glasgow, including its financial implications. The M8 Woodside Viaduct is a vital element of the motorway serving Glasgow in Scotland. Its repairs are extremely complex and are being delivered on an operational motorway that is used by approximately 150,000 vehicles daily. Works to install props at 23 separate locations are programmed for completion for late 2024, when lane restrictions on the M8s can be removed. Temporary works are well under way. The final design costs and programme for the permanent repairs will be informed by a trial repair being undertaken this summer, and officials in the contractor are exploring options to reduce timescales. It is well over a year since the works on the Woodside Viaducts have begun, yet there has been absolutely no consultation with Glaswegians and the cost looks set to surpass the £100 million mark by the time of completion, the biggest infrastructure spend in Glasgow this year. Those temporary repair works might be necessary in the short term, but given our commitment to reducing climate emissions and promoting active and public transport options, can I ask the minister if she will commit today to ensuring that before any new permanent works are commissioned, the Government will undertake a full public consultation exercise that examines the viability of the viaduct and looks at alternative options and international examples for how it may be replaced in the longer term. I thank the member for his question. I have been out to visit and to learn a bit more about the complicated works that are on-going on the M8 at the current time. I remind the member that the decision to restrict traffic lanes at that time was taken for safety reasons because reducing the live traffic loading on the structure was a really key aspect to that management. Demolishing the structure itself in relation to the member's suggestion about alternatives was ruled out, of course, due to some of the impacts that that would have had on local businesses. I think that the member spoke about a lack of consultation. That has not been my experience thus far of the works, but if the member would like to share more detail on that with me, I would be more than happy to take that up with Transport Scotland. Just in relation to the project costs, of course, those will remain under continuous review. The overall repair estimate is not yet available because the design is not yet complete, and that will be informed by the repair trial in the summer of 2023. I fully agree that we should be reducing car miles, and we need a just transition in due course. The M8 is absolutely essential to my constituents and many others, not just in the west of Scotland but beyond. It is important for business, it is important for tourism and it is important for the residents. Can the minister assure us that she is fully committed to the M8? I agree with the sentiment of the member's question. Keeping the M8 in Glasgow operational is really vital to ensure that communities such as those in Mr Mason's constituency can continue to operate. Particularly in the current financial climate, that is quite important. The Government absolutely remains committed to working with the council and met Glasgow City Council on this matter earlier today, on bringing about those more positive environmental changes for the city. I think more broadly in line with our policy to reduce vehicle kilometres travel by 20 per cent by 2030. The council has funding awards of over £43 million to deliver a wide range of active travel projects. Those include, of course, connecting Woodside, and that has seen a 300 per cent increase in cycling and the York Hills cycling village. The Glasgow bus partnership too has been awarded £3.6 million from our bus partnership fund to implement and investigate bus priority in the city region. I know that the local authority is really keen to take some of that work forward at pace. Presiding Officer, to ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting local authorities to invest in bus services. New Transport Act powers brought in in June of last year provide local authorities with the powers to run their own bus services. Further legislation on partnerships and franchising is expected by the end of this year to provide further delivery options for local bus services. The Scottish Government allocated £410 million in 2022-23 to support bus services and concessionary travel across Scotland. The bus partnership and the community bus fund are designed to complement those new powers and support local councils investment. Presiding Officer, I have no doubt that the Government recognises the importance of bus services having made the welcome move to give under 22s free bus travel. I am however struggling to find a national strategy to get more people onto buses. Specifically, I suggest that the cost is a barrier for low-income families. We see bus fares capped at £2 a journey in England and in Greater Manchester the mayor has achieved significant investment that means fares are capped and bus usage has increased by 10 per cent over the last few months. What is the plan for Scotland? What is the Government going to do to make bus travel more affordable for low-income families? I think more broadly to the member's point. I think we've discussed this in previous portfolio questions, Presiding Officer. I'm sympathetic to the point that the member makes, particularly in relation to affordability. That's why I reconvened the bus task force last year and we're working with the sector to try and improve affordability because we know that bus is the most affordable form of public transport. I think it's also important to remember when we compare Scotland to other parts of the UK that Scotland's provision of support to the bus sector differs markedly from other parts of the UK. For example, we have the most generous concessory travel scheme in the UK. We invest over £300 million annually to provide free bus travel to over 2 million people in Scotland. That doesn't exist in any other part of the UK in the same way. We also provided over £223 million of emergency funding to support the bus sector throughout the pandemic. More broadly, we've been able to provide additionality in terms of our funding for bus partnership work. The member's point about affordability is a fair one. That's why I'm keen to take that forward with the bus task force and the bus operators who deliver services on the ground. I met with the chief executive of SBT last week in my constituency of Glasgow, Kelvin. One of the primary concerns was the chronic shortage of bus drivers affecting bus operators the length and breadth of the country. Could the minister outline what support it is providing regarding recruitment and retention of bus drivers to alleviate some of the pressures that are faced by bus services and the ones that are experiencing them? I met with SBT myself two weeks ago, and they raised similar challenges with men. As the member will be aware, there is a current shortage of drivers for buses, which is being exacerbated by Brexit, which is preventing people from coming to Scotland from the EU to work freely. We have repeatedly sought a formal role in determining what occupations are in the shortage occupation list for devolved nations. Unfortunately, that has not yet materialised in relation to the UK Government, so bus drivers are not included in the shortage occupation list. I understand that the UK Government will be reviewing that, and we have asked for full involvement in that process. We are also working with operators, as I mentioned in my response to Mr Rowley, and partners right across the public sector to promote the bus sector as a place to work, while recognising that many of the levers remain reserved to the UK Government for the current time. Bus services are on the brink of collapse across Scotland. McGill is planning 13 per cent cuts to services in Renfrewshire and Inverclyde alone. The Government needs to intervene to protect services and cap fares now, but there can be no more blank checks for private operators. There needs to be conditions attached to provide commercial information necessary to take local buses back under public control. We cannot go on this and we cannot afford to wait for action. Labour believes that the Government should provide franchising powers, guidance and devolved resources to local transport authorities to make that happen urgently. What will the minister do now to bring local buses under local control? I understand very much the sentiment of that question. I think that there is a challenge to the Government currently in relation to the way in which we fund the bus sector and how that can be sustainable into the future, given that most operators in Scotland are privately owned. I think that there is a need for greater conditionality. Of course, there is a level of conditionality attached to NSG funding in relation to fares being capped at a certain level. The Transport Act gives operators a number of powers, including bus franchising. There will be secondary legislation coming forward on that later this year. I think that there are great opportunities to work with our operators to that end, and I continue to work with our operators directly through the bus task force. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what plans it has to introduce free rail travel for companions of deafblind people. I confirmed to Parliament last December that the current fares arrangements for companions accompanying visually impaired NEC plus 1 car holders on rail journeys would be reviewed as part of the Scottish Government's on-going fare fares review, which is being undertaken to ensure that we have a sustainable and integrated approach to public transport fares, one that supports the long-term viability of our public transport system. That review will be published later this year, with the launch of a public consultation on a draft vision for public transport, which will give people the opportunity to shape the future of public transport in Scotland. I thank the minister for that answer. Deafblind Scotland headquarters is in my constituency, and this is the most concerning issue that he raised with me. The cost is prohibitive for blind or partially sighted people to travel on the train because their essential companion has to pay. I understand that it is free in some routes, but presently there is no national standard fare structure for communicators. Does the minister agree that ending geographical inequalities would benefit users and rail staff? I accept the premise of Ms Mackay's question. I alluded to my original answer. I responded to a member's debate on this very topic last year. I accept the points that are made by the member, and I think that Mr Simpson led a member's debate on this last year in a similar vein. The varying level that we have of discounted rail travel provided by local councils in the existing scheme can, of course, lead to a level of confusion for passengers and staff. That is why I have asked my officials in Transport Scotland to consider the details of all that as part of our fair fares review, which I will report later this year. I apologise for being slightly late to the start of this session. To ask the Scottish Government whether it has plans to extend free bus travel to everyone under the age of 26. The Scottish Government's concessionary bus travel schemes are the most generous in the UK, with more than 2 million people across Scotland now eligible for free bus travel. The under-26 concessionary fares review, which was published in September of last year, considered options to extend concessionary travel for those aged under 26. It recognised that extending concessionary travel in this way would have obvious implications in relation to affordability. The Scottish Government has no plans at the current time to extend the concessionary travel scheme further to people under 26. I thank the minister for that answer and say that, given the cost of living crisis that many students in particular are now facing, they do not qualify for the under-22 bus pass, and having met them, they are now struggling to cope financially, as for some of them, getting to college or university or part-time work to can mean that they are paying in the region of £40 to £50 a week as a minimum, and that is just for bus travel. Will she commit to consider the issue further? Talk to NUS Scotland to understand the barriers that many students face, because it is not just paying out now, it is an investment in the future and getting young people to commit to being on public transport for the future, and that can only be good for our bus services and our climate. I am sympathetic to the point that the member raises. I think that she has asked me a number of written parliamentary questions on this matter additionally. More broadly, I am more than happy to meet with NUS on this matter. As I outlined, I think that in my response to Mr Rowley, we do provide significant levels of funding and support to our bus operators in Scotland, who are largely privately owned. It is important that the member reflects on that point, given that this is public money. However, it is also worthwhile to say that every college and university has a discretionary fund, and that is intended to give assistance to students who experience financial difficulties. I encourage the member to engage directly with colleges and universities, perhaps via University Scotland, but each institution ultimately is responsible for deciding which students should receive payments from that fund. There may be an opportunity via that route, but I am more than happy to meet with the member or with NUS on this issue. However, I just highlight the considerable financial support that this Government already provides to the bus sector. For example, it invests £3 million annually to give free bus travel to more than 2 million people. It appears that the Labour Party has been out of power for so long that it has forgotten that really good ideas like that need to be paid for. Does the minister agree that if the Labour Party wants to see progressive entitlements that are extended to more people, it has to get behind the position of this Parliament having all the powers of independence so that it can deliver those good ideas? I very much agree with Mr Fairlie's question. Obviously, as I have mentioned in response to other members, our concessionary travel schemes are making bus travel more affordable. They are helping people to access education, leisure and work. We are enabling children and young people to travel sustainably early on in their lives while cutting transport emissions. That is something that every party in the chamber would welcome. I am very concerned about young people being able to access the free bus travel in rural areas. Bus operators such as Muffet and Williamson are making a decision about whether to buy new buses, and they are concerned that the electric buses will not be able to service rural communities. If they buy a diesel bus, can they be guaranteed that they will be able to use it for the full lifetime of the bus? I thank the member for his question. In relation to more rural operators—I think that he cites Muffet and Williamson, who were, of course, one of the operators that I used when I was at school in Fife many moons ago—this was a challenge in relation to some of our ScotZiv funding at the last funding round. As a result of that, I asked Transport Scotland to adapt the scheme that we had to make it more suitable for smaller rural operators. In the summer of last year, I announced an additional £500,000 through the zero-emission bus market transition scheme to help smaller operators, such as Muffet and Williamson, to access some of our decarbonisation funding. Now, if Muffet and Williamson have not been able to access that, I am more than happy to speak to the member directly and to provide what assistance my officials in Transport Scotland can or I can as transport minister. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will remove its presumption against oil and gas from its draft energy strategy and just transition plan, in the event that it received significant feedback in favour of such a move. Cabinet Secretary. The draft energy strategy and just transition plan is open to public consultation until the 9th of May. We welcome views from a broad spectrum of respondents as possible. At this stage, we are not pre-empting those responses. The draft strategy clearly sets out the oil and gas available for extraction from the waters off the coast of Scotland, is a declining resource in our respective of the climate imperative as an already established mature basin in gradual decline. Planning for a just transition to our net zero energy system and securing alternative employment and economic opportunities for workers is essential. Scotland's energy transformation is therefore urgent and inevitable. David Whitehouse, the chief executive of offshore energies UK, has warned that Scotland will be £6 billion a year poorer by 2030 if the devolved Government press ahead with the draft energy strategy and an acceleration away from oil and gas production. That will have a devastating impact not just to the north-east economy but Scotland as a whole, with less money for the NHS, less money for teachers and less money for the most vulnerable in society. Will the cabinet secretary commit to working with the industry to avoid such a catastrophic damage to our economy? I discussed this very issue with David Whitehouse earlier on this week. Of course, the figure he is referring to is figures that we have set out in our assessment of the mature nature of the north-sea oil basin and the need for a just transition. The figures are not unfamiliar to us. The challenge is in recognising that it is a mature basin and that it will be in decline or is in decline and that we will see jobs being lost as a question in which we ramp up the deployment of renewables in order to support the transition into clean green energy. That is exactly what will set out in our draft energy strategy. I can assure the member that during the course of this consultation period and once we receive all those consultation responses, including, I hope, the member's response to the consultation, given his apparent stated interest in this issue, is that we will take an approach that is informed on the basis of evidence in supporting the approach that we take. I have no doubt that the member will want to set that out in his own submission to the consultation. Thank you, cabinet secretary. That concludes portfolio questions. There will be a short pause before we move on to the next item of business to allow front bench teams to change positions you do wish. Thank you.


Welcome to the second preview show of the week here at Vitality Stadium. Neil Perritt joins me as we look ahead to another big fixture in the Premier League. Here's what's coming up today. We'll be looking back at that defeat in the Carribell Cup to Burton. We'll also be joined by none other than Arnout Dan Juma. And finally we'll be looking ahead to tomorrow's game against West Ham United here at Vitality Stadium. Well, we're going to start back at that game on Wednesday night and that defeat to Burton in the Carribell Cup. ac nid yw'r cyffredig ddych chi'n gyfieithio'n ddweud, fe ddim yn ddechrau'n gweithio. Mae'n ddiddorol yn garllangol i gyd, fel y penynio'r gweithio. Mae'n ddiddorol i gael ei gael ei gael ei gael. Mae'n gweithio'n gweithio, fel Simon Francis, Lloyd Kelly, ac Arn Outdown Dwyma eraf yn ddod. Ffortunatley, West Ham had a similar chasening experience in their game against Oxford United so you can see that both teams will certainly be able to put things right on when they meet tomorrow. It was a strange second half, wasn't it? The floodlights, they went on and off three different times and it was certainly very disruptive for both sets of players. Very disruptive for both sets of players. Obviously we were looking to get the goal back at the time as well so that would have disrupted our flow. You really have to feel for the supporters though going through that having to drive all the way up there, see the team lose in the way they did and then staying there for an extra half an hour because of three floodlight failures. Nobody's fault outside of everybody's control unfortunately, but like you said it's one to draw a line under. Let's look forward to the West Ham game. One positive to come from the game, Simon Francis' first minutes since Boxing Day, that for him would have been quite a reward for all of his hard work. I'm sure that on the journey home Simon Francis would have been absolutely delighted the fact that he's got those minutes under his belt like you said it's been nine months. It's been a long, grawling, hard nine months recovering from a bad injury and he's one of the older guys to suffer the injury as well. It would have been a great night for him. He would have been as disappointed as everybody else with the performance and the result and barring out of the competition that we've met the quarterfinals in for the last two years. So like I say, let's get Frenno back into the Premier League squad and move on. The first proper look as well at Lloyd Kelly and Arnaud Danjima, they both played a part last night and their first competitive appearance for the club. Once again, I'm not saying that these games are there to get people back, to get people's fitness back. They're there to be won and to progress in the cup, but a silver lining if you like is the fact that Frenno and Lloyd Kelly and Arnaud Danjima made their competitive comebacks. Frenno and Lloyd Kelly obviously played in the under-21s last week, but the more players that the manager can have has disposed all the better. We've still got other players to come back down Gosling and Junior Stanislaus and David Brooks. Once the whole squad is fitting available, you wouldn't want to swap places with the manager. You wouldn't want to try and pick a team from that squad. And they're slowly coming back aren't they? Simon Francis, Lloyd Kelly, Arnaud Danjima. It's not just a boost for them, but a boost for the whole squad isn't it? Like I said, once they're all there, they're fit and firing and ready to go, it's going to be a really, really difficult team to pick. And not only a difficult team, it's going to be a difficult bench to pick from the manager because lots of people have been saying for a manager to turn around and look at his bench and see seven established, if you like, Premier League players to choose from, how you can change and turn a game when you make substitutions then. Absolutely. Well, after the game last night, Eddie Howell spoke to AFCB TV to give his thoughts on the defeat. Eddie, a frustrating night for your side. What are your thoughts on that one? Yeah, he's usually disappointed. I really feel for the supporters who made the journey to watch that today. That was disappointing. Never got going in the game, never showed our true qualities, our capabilities. Yeah, we're feeling the pain for them tonight. And just talk us through that second half. It was a bizarre second half. The floodlights went off three times. It must have been difficult to stay focused during that period. It was difficult. I wouldn't say difficult to stay focused. We can't use it as an excuse. The first half performance was well off the levels that we expect. The second half was better. Yes, it was a fragmented half and difficult to build true momentum into it, but that's not the reason we lost. You said the second half was better there. What did you make of the substitutions when they came on? Yeah, we tried to change. We were changing a lot to try and get a foothold in the game. We weren't the dominant team tonight, really, for many phases of that game. That's hugely frustrating with the quality that we had on the pitch. So we were trying to change systems and ways of playing to try and get that control that we needed. We had it for elements of both halves, but nowhere near the level that we would expect. But fully deserved to win today. You can't take anything away from their performance. And a word on Simon Francis. It was his first competitive minute since Boxing Day. How did he feel that he got on? I thought he did really well. I think it's great to have him back. He's a huge presence in the dressing room and at the football club. He did very well. Lloyd Kelly, as well, was his debut for the club of first competitive appearance for him. Likewise, how did he feel that he did? I think Lloyd will be better for the game. I think he hasn't played for a long period of time. And I think we know his capabilities. We think he's an outstanding talent. He will only get better. But found it difficult tonight. I think the whole team did to get any type of composure on the ball and look really controlled. So work for us to do. And just finally, the game against West Ham on Saturday. What are your thoughts ahead of that one? Well, we need to respond back at home on the back of two really good Premier League wins. We need to try and erase this from the memory pretty quickly, but learn the lessons from it and focus on the next match. Well, that was Eddie Howell speaking to AFCB TV after last night's defeat. You can also hear from Simon Francis on our website and across our social media. Now then, as you can see, we have been joined by none other than Arnaud Danjima. Arnaud, thank you for joining us. Just tell us what the last couple of months have been like. How are you settling in here at Bournemouth? It's getting good to be fair. I recently found a place to live in. I've been in the hotel for some weeks now. Obviously, the injury was a bit bothersome. It was frustrating to get injured at the beginning of the season. But, yeah, I'm grateful that it's over now and I'm looking forward to making some minutes for the club. And how did you respond to that?  How was that mentally for you? Yeah, it was really frustrating, especially for me.  So, to get injured at the beginning of the season was really, really frustrating. But, yeah, then again, I'm really happy that it's over now and I'm really looking forward to making some minutes. What do you find the main differences are between living in England and living in Holland and Belgium? The first thing, obviously, is that they drive on the left. But I'm used to it now. Yeah, no, I think Belgium and Holland are quite similar. But to be honest, in England, a lot is different. You know, just the general things where, yeah, what they use to live for, like, they pay in pounds, we pay in euros, you know, all those kind of stuff. But, yeah, to be fair, the lads and the staff, everybody helped me in to settle good. So, I really didn't have any problems settling in. Obviously, we all think this is a really nice part of the country to live. What do you think about living in this part of England? No, it's good, of course. The weather here is a lot better than the other place in England. And, no, to turn out, it's been a good experience. And you've been here a couple of months now. How welcoming have your teammates been in that time? No, I've had a very warm welcome. I'm used to the club now. In the first weeks, it was all about getting used to the new teammates, the staff, the training and stuff like that. But, yeah, it feels like home now, so it's good. And just tell us about Eddie Howe and his training sessions. A lot of the players say they're very intense. Do you find that as well? Yeah, yeah, no, it's no lie that the training is very intense. But then again, I think that's good and that's what you need to play in the Premier League, so it will only benefit us. And you got your first run out against Burton in the Carabao Cup. It wasn't the result we were looking for. But just tell us about your own performance that night.  Yeah, I was absolutely delighted to come off the bench to get my first official minutes in. But, yeah, then again, if you lose 2-0 in the cup, it's frustrating. You would rather come in a win. But, yeah, I'm not unhappy about my performance. I did what I could. I played personally a good game, but then again, if you lose 2-0, that really doesn't matter. So, yeah, it's a bit off both. The supporters will be desperate to know how close you are to knocking on the door for the Premier League. So how close are you if the manager said, are you ready for Saturday? Are you? No, I've been ready from the first second I've been here, so I'm ready, I'm ready. Even though you've had the injury setback, you're fully over that now? Yeah, yeah, no. The injury will not have a huge impact on me. It has just been some few weeks to recover, but quality is permanent, so I'm hoping to show what I've got. And just finally on out West Ham at home here on the weekend in the Premier League. Your back fit, you played your first competitive minutes earlier in the week. You must be really looking forward to it. Yeah, I've been looking forward to every minute as well as yesterday. So, now the next step is now making some minutes in the Premier League and, yeah, doing the best I can for the club and for the team. Well, Anna, thank you very much for joining us. I'm sure we're all very much looking forward to seeing you out on that pitch. Now then, our attention turns to that game against West Ham on the weekend, and it was quite the performance last time out here at Vitality Stadium. On the edge of the six-yard box, Wilson looking to break out. He's got Fraser, who scoops it past his man. Can he keep that one in right? Fraser, he will. He gets his head up to see who's arriving in the middle for him. Fraser continues to run. Diolch slides in. Catches Fraser late. Runs to Callum. Wilson! What a buck! Beautifully with a Terry's top scorer, and he smashed it with his right foot. No chance for Ramianski. Deadlock broken. Eight minutes into the second half. I think all the big guns are out of the way as they try and put Brooks to it. There's a real chance here for a second. Brooks to King for the Terries. Joshua King from close range puts the game to bed. Well, that was last time out here at Vitality Stadium. Neil, a different game this time last year, and we're going into this one, and it's a top six clash. It's just what you wanted, isn't it? We're six, then they're fifth. All to play for. It just so happens to be Westtown. We have so many good games against Westtown. Lots of goals. Got a good record against them, particularly at home. Did the double over them last season. All to play for, like I said. What I like about this game is, I'm not going to say it's going to define anybody's season, but we're coming into this game on the back of two wins. Three wins. All of a sudden you start thinking, we could do something really good this season with three wins under our belt. A defeat would obviously check things, but it's not the worst. We've equalled our best start to a season as we did last season. So really, really looking forward to this one against an informed Westtown team. Westtown, they had a brilliant result against Man United last week. They'll be high on confidence, won't they? Yes, they will. Everybody's talking about Manchester United having a sticky patch, and they clearly are. But even so, you've still got to beat them. What a feather in the cap is, I remember when we beat Manchester United here, it was just one of the most outstanding results of the season and probably of the club's history. To beat Manchester United is a fantastic result. It's put them into fifth place there on 11 points. One more point than we've got, which is why there's so much at stake on Saturday. And it's worth mentioning as well. We didn't have a great result in the week against Burton. They did not have a good result against Oxford losing 4-0. Two teams are going to be licking their wounds. I know that the personnel will probably change quite dramatically. But both managers were at the helm for those games, so they'll certainly be probably using that as a motivational tool for their players. But let's look a little just a few days further back at the win at Salampton, the win against Everton. We can take those two performances and those two results into the game and play with real confidence. And as you mentioned, three wins in a row would be quite something, wouldn't it? And a real statement to the rest of the teams in the league? Well, we all know how easy it is to go on a winless run in the Premier League. You look at our record since we've been in the league and you look at all the teams around us. You can go seven, eight, nine games without winning a game. So to win three, it's like winning the lottery really, if you can. And you've got to look at the fixtures. There's more points to be had there in the weeks to come. So to go into the Arsenal game on the back of three wins, what massive confidence that would give us? And in terms of West Ham, they've certainly got some players to look out for, signing Hallor in the summer. They've also got the likes of Felipe Anderson as well. Got a wealth of talent. The squad's definitely improved since last season. Jack Wilshire, who's here on loan, a much-vaunted player while he was here on loan, is obviously there as well. Obviously that their squad is really, really good. They've got 11 points from their opening games. They've just beaten Manchester United. They've got a very good manager there as well. So they're going to be formidable opposition as they always are. And as for us, we talked a little bit about it earlier, but players coming back from injury as opposed to just getting injuries, which is something we haven't seen for quite some time, is it? Well, definitely. Whilst you could argue that last night's performance hasn't given the manager a selection headache, but he will be looking at the team against Southampton. Is there any possible improvements he could make there? There might be. There might not. He might stick with the same team. But if not to have people like Simon Francis, Lloyd Kelly, Arnaud Danjouma, possibly in contention, even if it is just for the bench, what a great wealth of options that could give him. And as for Callen Wilson, four goals in his last three Premier League appearances and he just loves playing against West Ham, doesn't he? Scoring in both fixtures against them last season? Certain players seem to enjoy and do well against certain clubs. I know we spoke about it the other week when we played Everton. Joshua King seems to score goals against Everton. I was looking at Callen's record earlier. He's got six goals in six performances against West Ham. That hat-trick as well. In first Premier League win, he got that hat-trick against West Ham. Yeah, that 4-3 in, I think that was August 2015. Our first Premier League win, as you said, our first Premier League hat-trick. We've got three Premier League hat-tricks. Two of them have been against West Ham. Joshua King got one as well. So Callen's got a fantastic record. He didn't score for the first couple of games of this season and everybody was saying, well, you know, Callen's on a bit of a drought and then boom, all of a sudden he gets four goals. You know, and he's certainly helping everybody's FPL teams who's made him captain like I have as well. So that's great. What a very good choice indeed. If you are Ever 18 and you want to have a go at predicting the score this weekend, you can head over to the Manchester website and you could win four tickets to our next home game against Norwich City. That's all we've got time for today. If you are coming to Vitality Stadium tomorrow, we hope you enjoy the game. But if not, keep an eye on all of our social media channels and the website for the latest updates. Bye for now.


Okay, good afternoon folks, Larry Pesavento for TFNN, mid-morning update. We had a big move in stocks early this morning. They gave a little bit of it back. The Dow Jones Industrial Average Boys and Girls, believe it or not, from December the 12th of 2022 actually went all the way up to the exact 61% retracement at 33,826. Actually, that's a misnomer, folks. It only went 33,825, so it missed it by one point so far. So I'm sure it's going to go up and close above it today, but it's amazing the fact that it did hit that number. And it sold off for a few hundred points, and of course it's coming back, but Russell was a little bit weaker, the Nasdaq was much weaker, it's still down all the day. S&P was sharply, we got up as high as $41.58, and we sold down to $41.28, nothing to go to this market there at 30 points, and that market is just a heartbeat. The other thing is that Treasury bonds are strong, the price of gold is strong, the US dollar has weakened up. It started strong last night, but then it gave it up, and the euro, the pound, all of them came back really strong, and so the dollar is weakening, i.e. things going down on the currency front for the US dollar, up for other currencies down on the US dollar. The big news, of course, over the weekend was the fact that the Saudis have raised their price, or actually they dropped production, okay, that's what they did, 1.1 million barrels a day, and that meant the price of oil jumped up about $7 a barrel early in the morning. It spent most of the day up about $4 to $5 a barrel, and it's just sitting there ever since that time. In a long-term trend, of course, we had a high of $120 here back last March when the fighting was going on in Ukraine, but the market only got as high as $81.50 per barrel, which matched the high that we made six and a half months ago. So that's going to be a really interesting one to see how things are going. So I'm going to be doing two hours straight today, tomorrow and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We have a holiday coming up. I'm taking an extra day, so that'll be fun, but we're going to be doing two hours a day. So that's it for today. We'll be Jeff Hughes of Alpha Insights. So stay tuned for 24-7. Let's trade what you see and not what you think. We'll be right back.


Hello, and welcome back to the craft box. My name is Brinton today. We are on episode 5 I think of completionist crafter Welcome back. It's been a while last time well previous episodes we managed to get through all of these all of the The Equipment items and today we are starting the furniture items. We're just gonna head over to plant life We're gonna get this one We're gonna get a couple of these actually these require. Oh, you know what? We're gonna do them because fishing is free still at the moment We'll do four today I think that's four right three four. Yeah, that is correct Um, so yeah, most of these tapestries require a fish of some kind which is quite cool Yeah, so Yeah, um, we've got a lot to go because There's like three pages of tapestries um, there are two pages of tapestries and a um horse comps And also a whole bunch of these things two pages of these things Some decorations and then we've already done those and then jewels as well So we're still gonna be here for a while. This is probably gonna go on forever But I mean whatever it's something. Um, so yeah, I'm gonna go and actually wait What do we need so? Don't even know what we're doing. Um, it was the um The garden lot which is a plant life Let's just go here the garden lot. Well, um, we need A imp card and two simple wells. Let me just write this down I've decided that we're not going to be using that spreadsheet that I made anymore just because it's kind of annoying um Yeah, so I'll be back once I've got all of the things that we're gonna need today Okay, so today we actually need a lot of things. Um, the recipes for the tapestries actually generally quite difficult so Yeah, um, this series is all The this series also works really well if you, uh, um Uh, keeping up with the reagent hunter series, which kind of shows you we Where I find the best to get a whole bunch of the, um reagents that you can collect off the ground Um, there's only one episode of that currently but there will be definitely more in the future Probably I think once a week from now on So Yeah, this series is best with that series as well. They kind of go hand in hand. Um Essentially what we need is we need, uh, Let's um hit here. So we need I need six onyx onyx Um, I've already got some already you need 10 total. I've already got four um, we also need some 30 glass vials Which can we find here? No, we can't Oh, okay, we need to go over to Celestia probably would be a good place to go most likely Um, yeah, this is going to be a lot of me running around a bit Um, we also need a whole bunch of tc's as well So That'll be fun. Um, we also need to get Five sharks there I think that's the one That you can find in Uh The place called Um old town, I think that's one in old town Yeah, so you can either find it in the ice house the acropolis, which is another house or old town Obviously in the pond next to a juror tango tree Um, I'm pretty sure I've already got them. I think you had to get them for the fishing quest to start with Um, so yeah, he's not they're not too difficult. They are common. So if you're like a high fishing level just go through and um Read some in the pool winnow ice and try and fish all of the ice ones. Um How many do we need we needed 32 simple vials? um Not 100 Let's click 10 times. It would be fine. Okay, 32 simple vials And glass vials as well We needed 30 of those Click 30 times. Okay, sounds good. Actually 29 um And We also need a whole bunch of tesis, which I will be collecting off camera um So, yeah, shark spear come um old town And You also need to craft a dagger of absolution um a moon banner I assume that's a crafting one. You actually need two daggers of absolution and moon benefit these four specific things um So, yeah, I'll be back in just a bit once I've collected everything else Okay, let's craft some things. Uh, these are only the basic. So where's basic over here? Um Not everything just yet, but we can do the The garden lot Which is One imp which you can get from the bizarre one black coal and simple vial which you can get from the reagent vendors cat tail um Easy peasy acorns go and look at the acorn slash miswood video. That's the reagent hunter thing um Yep, those are those ones and then I think we have to pop over to the other thing for these ones Is that correct? It is for housing crafting station okay, so now for this we need to do a um This one we can do so that is A mega distract which you can get from Fitzhum in the arcanum five shark spear fishing An old town dagger of solution. You can eat a craft that will find them bizarre simple vial again found at any reagent vendor um Cat tail again easy water lily find cat tail. There'll be a video coming up about water lily and cat tail soon Uh leather straps, um bizarre is a good idea Um, we can't quite do that one yet Uh This one castle tours death shield Fitzhum in the library dagger of solution again craft will find in the bizarre Pyrite it just drops randomly. So have you should have some by now Uh mistwood go and check my mistwood video acorn go and check my mistwood slash acorn video onyx again just any reagent vendor Boom, uh, so we're actually adding on as well. We are creating the moon banner So that is just a frost beetle a black coal um two simple vials a deep mushroom that is Can be quite difficult to get so there'll be a video about that bone Again, that's kind of a mob drop sort of thing. There'll be a video on that eventually as well um this We had to create in order to create the aquila gardens Which we've got all but the nightshade and the baguio the baguio treasure cards are so difficult Um, so i'm going to be back in a bit once i've got this we are just actually going to go and place the tapestries inside Um, I think we're just going to fill up the south with tapestries for fun because why not? um might as well So we crafted the garden lot the ambrose tapestry the castle a magic tapestry and also the moon banner which is again from uh From adora tango tree It's just um slightly different. Where does this portal lead? interesting, um Where is it it's in wall hangings somewhere There we go ambrose's house and castle tours Look at that. Okay And then what's that interesting um Can you wait? Oh, no, that's warm. Don't worry. I thought that was a deck for a second So basically this leads to ambrose and that leads to castle tours, obviously a very self-explanatory um We're gonna see how many of ta- well, obviously there's gonna be we're gonna craft all of the tapestries in the game We're gonna see how many walls we can fill with tapestries. I mean, I don't really like decorating So we're just gonna fill it with tapestries. Why not? Um, so yeah, I'll be back in just a sec Finally back that took forever. I think I was sitting in the bazaar for two hours trying to get the um last of the um Uh, beguiles It can take forever. So If you want to get beguiles You're gonna have to sit in the bazaar for a bit or find someone who has Find someone who has them. I suppose Um, really difficult and they're really expensive as well. So be careful. But otherwise, um, moon banner we crafted before Uh, glass files obviously just from the vendor in celestia Hector plasm, bazaar or drop nightshade. Um, deep mushrooms And stone block just really easy Create there we go. Look at that. We did it. It's gone. Put this one up Honestly, that took way too long I'm like, yeah, this video won't take too long to record or take what like 30 minutes max Nope nearly three hours. That's fun. Um, okay, let's put this up Can I go there? I can't fit it doesn't fit. No, can I go here? Nope, okay. Well, we gotta move to the next area. We'll go over here then So, yeah, that is the tapestry to Um, the garden of hispirides, which is the aqua garden. So, yeah That is today's episode. Can we actually move this over? That'd be great. I would really love it if we could like Might move it right over. Okay, that's apparently as far over as possible If we move this one, maybe I don't know fit now, please Nope, okay. Well, that's a bit of a shame. Um But yeah, anyway, thank you for watching room until you like and subscribe and if you've already subscribed press the weird little bell So you know exactly when I post another video and a member craft outside the box


So I will be presenting this work that is joined with my colleague Luis Felipe López Calva, who recently just moved to UNDP in New York, also with Professor Nora Lustig from Tulen University and Daniel Valderrama from Georgetown University. The main idea of this study was to be a background paper to a recent regional study we did at the World Bank on Waging Equality. And this paper focused mostly on some stylized facts to provide some context to that study. Later on I will go over a few points that we didn't do in the study, but we focused mostly on some equilibrium results in terms of earnings as the result of the dynamics between supply, demand and institutional factors in the labor market in Latin American countries. So some context of income inequality in Latin America. This kind of data is all data, but just in general, when we divide the world in terms of the geographical areas as the World Bank does, the growth, the analyzed income growth of the bottom two quintiles of the income distribution grew the largest with respect to the other regions globally. And particularly that ratio of the growth rates of the bottom 40% was almost twice as the mean average incomes when looking at household income data, which certainly you can imagine translated into a steady decline in income inequality. And the topic of total income inequality actually has been widely studied in a region like Latin America by colleagues in Universidad de la Plata Cedlas, Leonardo Gasparini and Guillermo Cruz's, also by Nora Lustig and Lopez Calva, some World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank studies, and Courtney and others. So depending on whether you believe in some sort of averages of genies, there has been a significant decline that has been reported since 2003 across the region, either if you have unweighted or population-weighted averages of genies. We also have another diagram that includes, if you pull all the microdata from household service, you more or less get the same graph for Latin America. And Nora had some issues putting that one together because it will be like the genie coefficient of all Latin Americans, but I think that one is in the paper. But still, even if Latin America experienced such an important decline in total income inequality, it still remains as the second most unequal region in the world, just behind Sub-Saharan Africa. This graph shows the benchmarking of inequality in Latin America with respect to other developing regions. It's quite challenging because Latin America mostly measures welfare with income information, and other regions typically use consumption information, but we borrow some factors of conversion from Alvaredo and Gasparini from the handbook of inequality, and we end up with this comparison in which Latin America certainly is far away from the most equal region in the world that is Europe and Central Asia. So what is behind this recent trend in declining inequality in Latin America? So when you use a sort of non-parametric decomposition to understand those declines, there is not a clear trend in the early 90s from early 2000s in terms of those trends. I mean, few countries experienced small declines in total income inequality, others experienced an increase in total income inequality, but if you really look at the second panel that was from early 2000s to 2011, 2013, in all countries both in Costa Rica, from the 17 countries we have in the satellite database that we use, experience a decline in the total income inequality. And when you decompose, what are the factors that explain such a decline, if you look at the blue bar, that blue bar actually tells us the contribution of labor incomes, and the white bar tells the contribution of the quantities of labor in terms of demographics and the new entrants into the labor markets, and certainly the social protection and remittances have some additional relevance in terms of such a decline that is this gray bar. But overall, the message here is just with the exception of Costa Rica, all other countries in Latin America experience a decline in total income inequality in Latin America, and it has been reported in previous studies. But then the issue here from the previous graph really is that there has been a substantial and statistically significant decline in earnings inequality in Latin America, starting around 2002-2003, which when you use some sort of comparable data from ILO Global Wage Report, you find out that for non-Latin American countries there has been certainly movements in both directions, so there is not a trend that compares to what happened in Latin America. Given that this panel is also to compare other middle income countries, we try to use this Global Wage Index from ILO to include other countries' high income and high middle income countries into this graph. And we have two panels, basically the panel in the top and the differences between, in the Y-axis, we have the annualized change in labor earnings measured by the Gini coefficient, and the X-axis is the labor earnings Gini. And the top panel is in the decade of the 90s. The panel in the bottom is in the decade of the 2000s. And as you can see, all these blue bubbles represent Latin American countries, which departed for a high levels of labor income inequality, and even though there were some significant declines in the first decade of the 2000s, still the levels of labor earnings and the quality is high with respect to other countries in the world. But getting to what explains this success story, so the contribution of this story is that different to other literature that has been thinking about this before, we have a more comprehensive approach. What has, what have been done in other studies is focusing a little bit on the fall in the education premium, some papers by Manacorda and others, and Gasparini and Kornia, they focus particularly on the skill premium. And there's a lot of country studies, again, also focusing on this type of price effects, the changes in the skill premium for Mexico, Chile, Panama, and several set of Latin American countries. More recently, Messina and Fernandez applied a broader framework also to understand the effects of experience premium in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. And we really are closer to a paper by Cebedo and others, but in that paper they have a non-parametric approach of the compositions and we try to do is to follow more a framework from those of you who are familiar with the work by outdoor and cats in the U.S., we try to follow that framework for the analysis of earnings and equality in Latin America. So the contribution of this study, we believe, is that we try to get a little bit more into the details of the main determinants of labor income inequality. And to a lesser extent, we try to contrast this in the paper with the trends with other middle income and high income countries. And we present some stylized facts in terms of which percentage of such variance in earnings and equality we can explain from observables, skills, experience, gender, urban, rural residents. And we also tend to explain which part of that we are not able to explain with the data we have. And the importance of this study is that we have a regional approach with these 17 countries in the satellite data that I understand Garry's book also used, the satellite data that covers more than 90% of the total population in the region. And we take also a long-term perspective, departing from the early 90s, and actually the last version of the paper we tried to update it up to 2016. So if I don't have time to go in detail with the illustrations of each one of our main results, here's an overview of our findings. The main one is that as shown before, there is evidence of this trend reversal in labor income inequality after 2002 for 16 out of the 17 countries we have data for, which is supported first by a substantial expansion in the real early earnings at the bottom of the distribution. Secondly, through a steady decline in the education premium, driven by a larger growth in labor earnings among the on a skill and low skill, relatively to those with high school and college education. Also we find that this is a new result and is part of the contribution of the study and a steady fall in the experience premium in which most experienced workers have seen a reduction in almost half of their premium with respect to younger workers. On this one, we don't have an explanation of the channels but some hypothesis this has to do with skills of solicence and other things related to demand. I think Santiago Levy and Felipe also had this story in Latin America in which they show that there are a lot of demand factors that might be explaining why we observe this decline in education premium and possible experience premium by not creating enough good jobs. Also, we find small effects in the gender wage gap and we find a substantial effect in the urban rural earnings gap which declined during the 2000s which is correlated with this period in Latin America called the commodity boom in which was higher terms of trade particularly for South America. And then we find that there is a key role of unobservables in such a trench in which inequality which unfortunately with the data we have we cannot explain but this is our typically associated with efforts or with soft skills and with other information which we really don't have in this labor force service. So the framework we use is the one from cats, outer and cats and the mule and cats, Kearney and an outer in which basically we try to go through unpacking the effects and the drivers of earnings inequality through the observables and also try to have something to say in terms of the unobservables. And in general, as I mentioned before, some of the shortcomings of this paper is that we really don't get into the mechanisms at play that explains those effects through the education premium experience premium and so on about the other background papers of this regional story on which inequality actually discuss some of these effects in terms of relative supplies for the effects and I mean this idea of the paradox of progress in which you have more educated people joining the labor market and then there is not enough labor demand responding to such an increase in relative supplies that actually reduces the wage premium at the top of the skill distribution. Also, there are a few background papers dealing with topics related to minimum wages, which are relatively high in Brazil and Colombia and unionization factors and so on. But those are beyond of this study so I will not have a response for those type of questions. So what we do? So by basic definitions of the data and what assumptions of this study, we just run very basic Minsterian equations in a semi-parametric way in which we define multiple domain specifications for the following, early earnings of the main occupation of full-time workers between 15 and 65 years of age. Second, education is defined in three categories, college, high school and primary education. Experience refers to potential experience which is a drawback from the data we have but we believe it's a good proxy for experience that typically is your age minus six minus the years of education and we divide that in five groups, zero to five up to more than 31 years of experience and then gender and urban are defined as collected in the survey and then we assume that this function in the Minster is a linear function so we can talk about each result as the response to workers' characteristics directly. So a few of you probably saw this graph also in this Outdoor and Cuts paper for the US but just flip in the sense that in Latin America what we observe is that in the early period of the 90s of 2003-2004 there is some sort of stagnation of earnings. It doesn't matter in which part of the earnings distribution you were, either in the bottom 10%, 90% in the median, there was not a lot of movements on real, early earnings but after that and maybe associated to the commodity boom in terms of trade in South America there was an effect in which the bottom part of the earnings grew more than the top part of the earnings distribution and this was mostly driven by what happened in South America that again are the countries that experience better results in terms of trade driven again by the higher demand of commodities such as China, India and so on and this is what happened in Central America and Mexico really there was not a lot of movements in earnings if any, there were some negative shocks that affected that, certainly the issues of crime and violence in Central America and migration to the US and then the global financial crisis that affected a lot of Mexico particularly the top part of the earnings distribution like the percentile 90. This is more or less how the growing scale looks for earnings in which it was somewhat unequalizing in the first period and very progressive in the second period and now moving into the second main result that is the education premium in general the ratios of and the gray line is either the differences in which ratios either are observed or the results of the mincerian equation it doesn't matter but in general there was a decline of about 25% in the education premium between college and primary and I believe also in the education premium between high school and primary that is reflected in this wage index for high school and college with respect to primary school this is just to show the strong association that exists between the decline in labor income inequality and education premium we try to include information from other countries including Russia from the Russia monitoring surveys from South Africa from Turkey and from the US hopefully Haroun can tell us what happened with South Africa that is a big outlier here in which there was an increase in earnings inequality that declined in the education premium and that one I don't know much this is one of the most interesting results of the paper that is the one related to the experience premium in which we really got from the early 90s there has been a reduction of almost in half on the experience premium with respect to the benchmark zero to five years of experience with respect to every other level of experience premium unfortunately we don't provide an explanation of what is happening here there is some hypothesis related to automation related to this routine manual and abstract tasks and so on but we have not been able to respond to this let me move quickly into the results for the gender gap and the urban rural gap the gender gap actually was caught in Latin America in the previous period and certainly a little bit more in the second period of analysis while there was a significant decline in the urban rural earnings gap there is a very good paper by Leo Gasparini in Argentina presenting precisely this urban rural gap and associating this to the commodity boom and how that benefited earnings in rural areas finally the topic related to the role of unobservables in the data to explain this wage variation so basically it doesn't matter basically the period we cannot explain about 30% of wage inequality with information on education, experience gender and location and one of our colleagues at the bank through a more sophisticated model a more complete model in which included interactions in all these characteristics and even a sector of activity and occupation and the most she could get out of observables was about 50% of the explanation which really leave us still an important task to understand which are the other factors that explain these declining wage inequality this is the summary of results the relevant columns are the last two which present the decline in each one of these relative returns either in education potential experience, gender and area of residence and what we can observe is that the annual rate has a negative which is associated with the declining labor earnings and particularly the last column is the one in which since 2003 such a decline has been larger so just as a matter of conclusion again we believe our main result is the one related to experience the experience premium which we certainly would like to explore further and also as I would like to invite you to take a look at the other background papers of the wage inequality report which presents a country case studies with some of these dealing with some of these channels to supply the manner of institutional factors and certainly there is a research agenda for us in terms of thinking how other factors such as self skills efforts and others are also important in terms of defining the changes in earnings inequality


Bored and Brilliant is one of my new favorite phrases. It's been in my head ever since New Tech City introduced it to me in their current podcast series, challenging me and countless others to step back from our habitual and unconscious infatuation with the parasitic technology known as the cell phone. I want to be brilliant, but I'm hesitant to become bored. And so I fill every spare moment with a combination of taps and swipes all the while forgetting that my brain is not shaped like an apple. But this needs to change because it is in the midst of pursuing, discovering and embracing boredom that moments of brilliance will surface.


We've already seen comparison between numbers. 3 less than 5 is true. 7 greater than or equal to 9 is false. It's also possible to compare strings in Python. When you do a string comparison, for example, cat less than dog, Python compares them in lexicographic order, like what you'd find in a dictionary. The word cat appears before dog, so this expression is true. How does string comparison work? The secret is that, at the CPU level, characters are represented by numbers. Remember how you might have done secret codes in school where A was 1, B is 2, C is 3, and so on? And you could encode a word with numbers. Computers use a similar but much more sophisticated encoding system called Unicode, where numbers are assigned to uppercase, lowercase, and other characters, including those from non-English character sets. If you want to know the numeric code for any character, use the OR to function. For example, the character code for the lowercase letter M is 109, and an exclamation point has number 33. When you're doing string comparisons, and everything in the string is uppercase or lowercase, there's no problem. But because uppercase letters have lower numeric codes than lowercase, if you compare upper and lowercase words, you might get some surprises. That's why it's often a good idea to convert strings to all upper or all lowercase before you compare them.