#i still have hope for a united Ireland
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Eurovision 2023 Songs ABRIDGED
Yes, I’m doing that again. You’re welcome! 😙
Once again, this is for humor purpose, don’t take it too seriously.
Albania: treasure your family, it’s not going to be there forever 👨👩👧👧
Armenia: I want to meet my soulmate 🥺
Australia: dare to try new things 🤩
Austria: yeah, fuck the music industry, it just exploits artists 👻
Azerbaijan: we broke up but I still think about you 🥺
Belgium: you got me to love myself 🥰
Croatia: yeah, fuck Russia 😈
Cyprus: you’re toxic as hell, girl 😠
Czechia: yeah, fuck gender inequality 🧕
Denmark: I’m afraid of starting a relationship because it might go bad 😥
Estonia: I want to connect with people 🤗
Finland: it’s Friday, I’m tired as fuck, I just want to party and get drunk 🥴
France: I have changed, for good and for ill 😌
Georgia: I have faith there will be better days 😌
Germany: we are made of beautiful and ugly things 🤩
Greece: it’s those who are broken that help others more 🥰
Iceland: I got out of a toxic relationship and I’m euphoric 😃
Ireland: treasure your uniqueness 🌈
Israel: I’m rare and precious, like a mythical creature 🦄
Italy: I’m a hopeless romantic 🥺
Latvia: I lost hope in this world 😔
Lithuania: I got out of depression thanks to you 🥰
Malta: I’d rather stay at home than get out and party 😴
Moldova: I shall marry you in the forest under the sun and moon 🦌
Netherlands: I lost fascination with life and I’m scared I’m wasting time 😥
Norway: I’m a goddamn queen 👸
Poland: I slept with half the jury because sure as hell I can’t sing I am sexy and want to party 🥴
Portugal: oh fuck I’ve fallen in love and I’m a mess 😵
Romania: I’ve fallen head over heels for a girl who’s toying with me 🙃
San Marino: oh wow, you’re sexy, wanna come home with me? 😍
Serbia: the world is severely fucked up 😡
Slovenia: our generation sees no hope in the future, so we at least we enjoy the moment 🙃
Spain: I love you, my child 👩👧
Sweden: I want the only man I cannot have 🥰
Switzerland: our generation feels trapped in the wars caused by people who don’t care about us 😡
Ukraine: we are stronger than they think 😡
United Kingdom: I got cheated on, so now I’m having fun without him 😏
Eurovision Songs Abridged
2021 | 2022
#three heavy metal songs and several depressed/angry millennial songs#this is going to be an interesting year#eurovision 2023#eurovision#esc 23
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By Any Other Name
Book: Bloodbound
Pairing: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Lucy West)
Rating: Teen
Word count: 876
Summary: Do Kamilah and Carmilla have anything in common besides some consonants and vowels?
A/N: For @vampirkit. Happy Valentine's Day! I've loved your Lucy since I stumbled upon your post introducing her, so I was thrilled to see I was your secret admirer. I hope you like this little story starring Lucy and Kamilah.
(Please let me know if your sense of humor isn't as unhinged as mine, and I'll write you something sane instead 🤭)
@choicesficwriterscreations @choicesfebruary2024 (Eros) @choicesfandomappreciation @choicespride (prompt: wine)
By Any Other Name
Lucy’s wine glass rests forgotten on the coffee table. It’s an excellent vintage, one that Kamilah saved for a special occasion and has just uncorked for Lucy's birthday. But as it turns out, a wine older than the United States of America isn’t the biggest surprise of the evening. Granted, Lucy is used to being stunned speechless by Kamilah’s stories, but this one might take the birthday cake.
“You were the inspiration for Carmilla.”
“Yes.”
“Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu.”
“Mhmm.”
“Carmilla published in the 1870s.”
“Lucy. If you have a point, make it.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just… how did this happen? And why am I only hearing about it now?”
Kamilah sighs and takes a sip from her own glass, her eyes closing in pleasure for a moment. “One of the best wines I’ve had in decades. What were you saying?”
Good lord. Sometimes being with a woman who’s two thousand years old can be exasperating. Lucy may be 150 herself, but she has a healthy (human still, she admits) dose of impatience. Kamilah? Kamilah doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
“How did you end up inspiring Carmilla? I thought she was based on Elizabeth Báthory!”
“You would,” Kamilah says dryly. “History doesn’t often care about the truth.”
Lucy tilts Kamilah’s chin up with one finger. “I’m going to need the story, babe. The whole story.”
Kamilah rolls her eyes, but her lips twitch. She will never admit it, but they both know full well how much she loves it when Lucy calls her babe.
“I briefly traveled to Ireland in 1870. Gaius knew a man who knew a man who…”
“Knew a man?”
She gives Lucy a flat stare. “Are you telling the story, or am I?”
“Sorry. Continue.”
“Who knew a mortal fascinated by our kind.”
“Sheridan Le Fanu.”
“Yes. See, he was attacked by a vampire when he was a very young man...”
“So he was afraid of us?”
“Oh, no. The reckless fool accosted the poor woman with so many questions that she decided it wasn’t worth the hassle.”
“Is that a note of admiration I detect?”
“Absolutely not. I admire no mortal.”
Lucy is too eager to hear the rest of the story to argue. “Okay, okay, the story?”
Kamilah sighs, long-suffering, but she proceeds. “Sheridan invited me to stay at his home. Every evening before I left the house, we drank whiskey and he threw every question under the sun at me.”
Lucy can’t help it. She snickers. “Under the sun?”
“Quiet.” Undisturbed, Kamilah presses on. “He severely tried my patience, but he was still my host. I answered some of them.”
“Only some?”
“I had intercepted a letter meant for the editor of The Dark Blue. I knew he was planning to write about it, and I didn’t want every reader of that nonsensical serial to know every little detail about our kind.” She rolls her eyes again. “I shouldn’t have bothered. He still got it all wrong. No matter how many times I told him that vampires can’t shapeshift, he made Carmilla transform into a cat-like creature.”
“I wondered about that! I mean, a black cat? It seems a little on the nose.”
“Precisely.” Kamilah sips her wine, then shrugs. “At least he didn’t turn us into bats. He left that particular brand of nonsense to Stoker.”
“Okay, but why do you think you were the inspiration for Carmilla herself? She doesn’t look like you.”
“She wouldn’t. I’m not Vlad; Sheridan knew better than to immortalize me too clearly. I would’ve killed him, host or not.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t read the story until I returned to America. The similarities were too obvious to ignore, so I wrote him a letter demanding an explanation.”
“What did he say?”
“He denied that Carmilla was based on me.”
“But you didn’t believe him?”
“If he wanted to be so discreet, he shouldn’t have given her a name so like mine.”
“It does seem an awfully big coincidence if fictional Carmilla has no relation to real life Kamilah,” Lucy admits. “But look on the bright side! Thanks to him, countless young women have dreamed about you.”
Kamilah gives her a haughtily amused look. “Lucy, I don’t need his help to make women dream about me.” She trails a finger down Lucy’s cheek, all the way to her collarbone. “Do I?”
She swallows. Hard. “Can’t argue with that.”
“That aside, he nonetheless made me out to be some sort of… of… corrupter.” Obviously incensed, she pushes her hair back. “I've never in my life seduced anyone who didn’t want to be seduced.”
“Still,” Lucy says, as casually as possible. “I wouldn’t mind being corrupted by you.”
Kamilah smiles, cupping Lucy’s cheek tenderly. “My love, at this point, I’m not sure who’d be corrupting whom.”
She pushes Kamilah back and straddles her. The older vampire only lifts an elegant brow. “I believe you’ve made my point for me.”
Lucy grins, her lips hovering over Kamilah’s. “Oh babe, I’m about to do a lot more for you.”
She kisses her jaw, then her neck, before she moves lower. Kamilah may have all the cool stories, she decides, but Lucy has her own ways of making her speechless.
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The Strange Disappearance of Kenny Veach
The Mojave Desert, located in the southwestern United States, is a brutal and unforgiving landscape.
Sprawling over parts of four states; California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah, the area is so vast that entire European countries like Ireland and Iceland could fit comfortably within its boundaries.
The “high desert” is prone to extreme temperatures and arid conditions. In November of 2014, an American hiker named Kenny Veach had a strange encounter with a mysterious cave in the Sheep Mountain area, just north of Las Vegas.
Once, he posted: “I hike over mountain top after mountain top and sleep on peaks under the stars . . . Sometimes I have to scale giant cliffs to get myself out of a jam, but I always make it back.”
He was proud of the fact that there was only one time that he had to be rescued on one of his adventures, and that was when he injured his leg at the top of a mountain.
Tired of the daily Monday-through-Friday grind, Kenny wanted to be his own boss, be in charge of his own life, and have the free time to immerse himself in his desert explorations.
So, he quit his day job and decided to be an inventor. He started a YouTube channel, documenting his creations and his forays into the desert.
It was in June of 2014, using the name Snakebitmcgee, Kenny left a comment in response to a YouTube video that read: That ain’t nothing. I am a long-distance hiker. One time, during one of my hikes out by Nellis Air Force Base, I found a hidden cave.
The entrance to the cave was shaped like a perfect capital M. I always enter every cave I find, but as I began to enter this particular cave, my whole body began to vibrate.
The closer I got to the cave entrance, the worse the vibrating became. Suddenly, I became very scared and high-tailed it out of there. That was one of the strangest things that ever happened to me.
Unbeknownst to Kenny and the rest of the world, that comment would have tragic consequences.
Kenny’s comment on that video sparked a flurry of requests for him to prove his claim.
Since he hadn’t documented the first trip to what would become known as “the M cave”, he needed to go back to the area to locate it and, this time, document what he found.
On his second search for the cave, he went armed with a 9-millimeter handgun and a video camera.
He documented some wildlife and found a whole horde of pine nuts that he gleefully ate on camera. He stood next to an abandoned mine shaft and rather sheepishly declared that he was unable to find the cave on his second hike.
Much to Kenny’s dismay, that video was met with criticism. Many thought he had made the whole thing up, and the public demanded proof of his claim of a mysterious cave with supernatural properties.
Viewers actively encouraged, and some even dared Kenny to go back out to the mountain range a third time.
However, one comment on his video, which has since been deleted, read, “No! Do not go back there. If you find that cave entrance, don’t go in, you won’t get out.”
Whether that comment was made by somebody teasing Kenny or whether it was a serious warning by somebody who was personally familiar with the cave is unknown.
Regarding the M cave, Kenny said, “I solo hike across mountain tops that most people wouldn’t dare go. I have been in more caves than I can count. I play with rattlesnakes for fun. But this one particular cave was beyond anything I had ever encountered.”
Hoping to put the naysayers in their place, Kenny hiked out to the territory a third time.
On the 10th of November 2014, Kenny once again made his way to the Sheep Mountain area, which is close to the U.S. Air Force installation called Area 51, known for its speculated connection to UFOs and secret government experiments.
It’s located near Groom Lake and is within the Nevada Test and Training Range. As late as 2012, the U.S. government denied the existence of Area 51, and it is still closed to the public.
Both ground and aerial searches were conducted, but no sign of Kenny could be found.
Dave Cummings from Red Rock Search & Rescue reported finding Kenny’s cell phone next to an abandoned vertical mine shaft, where he filmed part of the M cave video.
Specially trained individuals were called in to conduct a search of the mine. Unfortunately, aside from his vehicle and his cell phone, no trace of Kenny was ever found.
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It's that time of year when you are going to see some "Irish" t-shirts in stores and can get your Shamrock Shake at Mickey D's. There will be St. Patrick's Day parades this weekend and next.
And I just want to be a nerdy know-it-all for a second. St Patrick's Day was originally a religious holiday (as most holidays were, holy + day = holiday); it still is in some places, like some actual Irish people from Ireland who believe in God--though the American parade/festival mentality seems to be gaining steam in some parts of Ireland, I am told.
St Patrick's Day as we know it is deeply rooted in the United States. Though it's been celebrated here since 1600 in the territory that became Florida, the tenor of the holiday greatly changed after the Great Famine of Ireland.
You may have been told in school that the famine occurred because a blight wiped out potato crops in Ireland. This is true but doesn't address the crux of the matter.
The blight started in North America and travelled to Ireland and into much of Europe. But we only think of it as an Irish problem because the Irish were too poor to eat other foods.
Some scholars have said it was a "man made crisis" and I agree that is true. Other crops in Ireland were not affected by the blight, in fact, this time was considered one of "plenty", but all that food was used to feed the English. Not the Irish.
Nor were the English quick on providing aid, "There is such a tendency to exaggeration and inaccuracy in Irish reports that delay in acting on them is always desirable," said Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel after initial reports of the catastrophe.
Workhouses designed to assist the poor and starving were closed prematurely. "The only way to prevent the people from becoming habitually dependent on Government is to bring the food depots to a close," said Charles Trevelyan, the man who was literally in charge of famine relief. He also said some gems like, Sure the famine is bad but "the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people" was the real problem. Great guy; he became a Baronet.
The soup kitchens, which replaced the workhouses were also closed prematurely, were widely believed to serve portions too small even for children and lacking any nutritional value due to them being watered down to feed more people than anticipated by the brilliant British government.
A million people died in Ireland from famine and disease and nearly 2 million left Ireland for other parts of the world. Including my father's family. (If they survived the "Coffin Ships" leaving their home.)
So when I said above that the tenor of the holiday changed, it was because of increasing Irish Nationalism and anger at Britain. Now, Ireland is a Republic (though it's not unified, yet) and we are proud of those who stayed and fought to make that happen.
We are also proud just to still be alive anywhere. The population of Ireland is 6.9 million now--slowly nearing the 8.5 million it was home to before the famine--but people with Irish ancestry across the world has been measured to be about 80 million people. Take that, Sir Robert Peel.
The English actively tried to kill us. Nevertheless, we persisted. A lot.
I hope you have a Happy St. Paddy's Day (it's Paddy not Patty). Drink some Guinness. Dance some jigs. Definitely eat some potatoes (Boil 'em! Mash 'em! Stick 'em in a stew!) But please remember that when people are starving, you should feed them. Don't be like the English government.
In fact, as I write this there is a crisis in Turkey and Syria. It just so happens that the Sultan of Turkey wanted to donate money to Ireland (10,000 pounds) but since Queen Victoria donated just 2,000, he was told it would be against protocol.
#st patricks day#saint patrick#ireland#irish american#the great famine#irish potato famine#st paddys day#turkey#turkey earthquake#syria earthquake#immigration#sir robert peel#england#queen victoria#Charles Trevelyan#republic of ireland#nothern ireland
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who’s excited for stats so far?? i bet none of you are but i’m inflicting them anyway! ...under a cut.
so far, though, we have 198 separate submissions across 166 works!
so far the longest submission piece is 551 words long! wow! there are also another 3 submissions that are over 300 words long, and one piece has 797 words across 7 submissions!
the shortest submission, to contrast, is 5 words long! that’s also great!
there are currently 4 artists that have had 3 pieces of art each submitted, and 8 artists that have had 2 pieces. that means there’s currently 137 other artists! oh sorry, while i was drafting this post we got a fourth submission for one of the four.
how about things anyone can go look at? there are currently 7 pieces of public art that have been submitted! four of them are from canada (and 3 are from the calgary specifically), one is in the netherlands, one is in spain, and one is in new york. the fourth canadian one also has copies in spain, japan, and arkansas. there are also 3 submitted buildings! two are in spain, and one is in thailand!
gender! we’ve got 122 pieces from male artists, and 32 pieces by female artists! yes that doesn’t add up to 166, the other 12 are either multiple artists, unknown artists, or i felt like a creeper trying to trawl through their tumblr/website and it wasn’t in their bio. sadly, we don’t have any openly trans, nb, or otherwise genderqueer artists submitted (where openly is “i could find it in the same 5 second google search to determine nationalities”)
even more niche stats! the largest submission (that isn’t a building, a cave, or public art) is 2.15 m (7 ft 1 in) x 34.14 m (112.0 ft) and weighs 4 tons! close behind it is another that's approximately 3.7m x 25.2m (12ft x 72.9ft) but weighs significantly less! i did not feel like mathing which had more square footage.
the smallest submission (that is, a physical piece in real life, digital art can be insanely small) is 5.9 x 6 cm (2 5/16 x 2 3/8 in.)!
how about locations? excluding the multiple copies ones, there are 32 pieces located in the united states, 9 in spain, 8 in france, 6 in canada, 5 in england, 4 in italy, 3 each in russia, australia and mexico, 2 each in the netherlands, wales, scotland, and ireland, and 1 each in israel, finland, germany, portugal, poland, japan, austria, ecuador, thailand, latvia, singapore, belgium, and argentina! i know that doesn’t add up but there’s a lot of pieces in private collections, owned by the artist, or we just couldn’t find their location, sadly.
artist nationalities get a lot more variable! i did my best to look up every artist i could and include their birth country and the country they did their works in! except john singer sargent because he just didn’t want to settle down and i didn’t want to give him like six different countries.
starting off, we have 43 submissions by american artists! 18 by french artists, 17 by english, 8 each by canadians and italians, 6 each by russians and spaniards, 5 each by chinese, irish, and germans, 4 each by dutch, mexican and belgians, 3 by latvians, 2 each by finnish, polish, scottish, malay, serbian, and armenians, and 1 each by portuguese, japanese, austrian, ecuadorian, thai, swiss, argentine, cuban, kazhak, colombian, danish, and iranian!
i do not currently have stats for jewish artists for you, because i forgot to write it down my first time through wiki, and now i have to go through all ~140 articles and websites again. relatedly: there are 8 works by known-to-be-gay artists, but i’m already running into wikipedia going “well he sure did a lot of male nudes but he also might have had relationships with women” and i am feeling uncomfortable poking through people’s private lives so... i hope you don’t mind it i stop... counting..... i mean if they’re open about it i’ll write it down still.
how about the ages of works? there are 4 things from before the 1400s, 3 from the 1400s, 6 from the 1500s, 3 from the 1600s, and 2 from the 1700s! 5 from 1800-1850, 4 from 1850-1880, 10 from the 1880s, and 9 from the 1890s! 9 from the 1900s (that is, 1900-1909), 5 from the 1910s, 5 from the 1920s, 4 from the 1930s, 4 from the 1940s, and 6 from the 1950s! 3 from the 60s, 4 from the 70s, 7 from the 80s, 15 from the 90s, 12 from the new oughts, 17 from the 2010s, and 13 from the 2020s! and three ongoing projects!
and to wrap things up: there are 101 paintings, 12 sculptures, 17 what i’m calling installations (they’re often mixed media or unusual media, i would give examples but i feel like i would bias submissions), 6 photographs, 2 pieces of textile art, and 21 digital arts, drawings, or comics!
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you're like the only person i've seen on here from northern ireland who actually loves northern ireland - what do you think makes it so great? (really sorry if this seems rude, i'm just interested in how the opinions can be so wildly different)
thank you very much for the ask, anon!
my online presence as a northern ireland stan account is mainly caused by holding the following opinion:
it is an unfortunate truth that the moment you are clocked in most other places in the anglophone world as being northern irish [usually after having been compelled to say the word "how"], people like to offer you their views on the place.
these views aren't always negative, but they always - especially if they come from people who consider themselves part of the irish diaspora [and my st patrick's day sermon to you all is "irish-americans, learn to stay in your lane"] - relate to a northern ireland which doesn't actually exist. people might cast us as uncivilised fools living in a 1970s time-capsule of unrelenting violence, they might cast us as a great bunch of lads bouncing around feeling the derry girls fantasy, but they never care very much about the actual experience of living here in 2024.
and - indeed - the experience of choosing to live here. i like ni because i was born here, and so all of the formative experiences of my early life took place while drinking a tin in some field or other, but it's also somewhere i have returned to, after having gone to university and begun my medical training in england.
and this is an aspect of irish life which doesn't have a huge presence in the way we think and talk about irishness. so much irish history is bound up in migration - in leaving the motherland and longing for it from afar - and in the diaspora experience that we rarely think about the fact that people have always and will always come to ireland. people - whether returning here or coming to study or coming to live forever or coming to live until they too can return home - choose every day to put down roots in northern ireland, despite all its faults and its flaws.
and it bothers me that this is constantly forgotten in all the giving out we all do about the place.
because - yes - this is a country which is fucked up in a huge number of ways. our politics is corrupt and nonsensical even when up against the bin fire which is the rest of the united kingdom. our people are beset by poverty and deprivation [and i will of course acknowledge that i am someone who lives here with a well-paid, stable job]. our sectarian wound is still bleeding, heavily. we have not seen justice for the atrocities perpetuated against us by the british state during the troubles, nor for the atrocities we perpetuated against our own at the same time. we have not learned from our own experiences of discrimination when it comes to discriminating against people who live here who are not white, who are not christian, or who are immigrants. it rains for a good three quarters of the year.
but as i grow older, i find i have less and less time both for pure and grinding cynicism in the face of this situation and for the conviction that the grass might be greener somewhere else. i think this latter is a particular issue in the irish national character - a sort of "ah well, things are shite and they'd only be better if x happened". in the north, i think we're especially beset by this - "the country can't improve until there's a united ireland" [or, if you're on the other side, "the country can't improve until the fenians stop complaining"].
but we have a lot to be proud of and a lot to be hopeful for as we keep going.
because northern ireland is also a place whose history is about peace as much as it is about war. it's the birthplace of the best member of girls aloud. it's somewhere people have mobilised only recently for pay and working conditions on a par with the rest of the uk, and will keep mobilising until we win. it's introduced the world to the fact that protestants keep toasters in cupboards. it's a place whose own fight for reproductive justice has rather flown under the radar in comparison to that of the republic of ireland, but which is no less active. it's a place where it's perfectly acceptable to be served apple and mars bar sandwiches at a funeral [provided the deceased was presbyterian]. it's a place where you never have to become invested in the nation's performance in international sporting competitions and can get blind drunk as god intended. it's a place with great patter.
it's a place which has perfected street art... in a sense. it's a place where you can get unusual soft drinks delivered to your door by a sinister figure called the minerals man. it's a place which recognises that balaclavas are chic. it's the only place on earth you can buy fifteens and a cowboy supper, whether or not you actually should do the latter. it's a place where you can turn bomb scares to your advantage by using them as an excuse to swerve parties you didn't want to attend. it's a place whose people have not given up their fight for justice, who still grieve and remember the dead and the disappeared. it's a place people travel across the world to make their home and enrich with their presence. it's a place where the quality of life is genuinely improving, and which we can continue to improve if we don't give into the idea that nothing can ever change. it's a cold and rainy little country, filled with nondescript grey housing estates and burned out cars, which also looks like this:
happy st patrick's day.
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By Kamal Almashharawi
I was a young child, living in the Jabaliya area, in the north of Gaza, when I first saw an Israeli soldier up close. The Israel Defense Forces invaded the camp and our home. They stayed for three days. After that, I was afraid of Israelis. I always thought that they were coming to kill or kidnap me.
And yet I know the world can be better. I’ve seen how people in other conflicts have worked toward coexistence, and I know that one day I will work to better Gaza, to rebuild our community and to move forward. But this week I took the only opportunity that secured my immediate future: to flee.
I’m a Palestinian raised in the Gaza Strip, so I have long known conflict. My family are refugees from 1948; my grandmother used to tell me really great stories about our village, Al Muharraqa. It was on the eastern border of Gaza, about nine miles from Gaza City.
Still, every other time there has been a war in Gaza, it hasn’t really come to this level of intensity. This is the first time in my life I really didn’t know where to go or if I would survive at all. But because I have seen a different version of this world, I still held out hope.
Seven years after those first soldiers invaded my home, I met Israelis on my own terms. I was 15; my brother encouraged me to apply to attend Seeds of Peace, a summer camp in the United States that promotes coexistence and looks for future community leaders. Seeds gave me a full scholarship. It was 2015; one year after another war with Israel and seven years into the blockade that made travel into and out of Gaza nearly impossible. Attending camp was my first chance to leave the strip. The opportunity changed my life.
Gazans don’t really get to meet people outside the region. We don’t really get to travel and explore the world. With Seeds, I not only got to see beyond Gaza, I also learned how to describe my story in a way that touched others, connecting my life to the lives of others. I took the chance because I wanted Israelis and others to see how a Gazan has lived and survived. I wanted them to learn that we deserve to live. And I wanted to educate them about the culture here in Gaza in a way that could push them to take serious actions back in their communities.
Mr. Almashharawi this summer in Maine, second from right, with Seeds of Peace staff members from the United States, the Middle East and South Asia.Credit...Bobbie Gottschalk
After Seeds, I continued to take courses in political science and peace building. I attended law school at Al-Azhar University in Gaza and focused on conflict resolution. Two years ago, I attended a program based in Jerusalem — remotely — that also helped me build the skills I need to work toward peace building in and outside the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. I traveled to Belfast, Northern Ireland, and met with people who had been involved in reaching the Good Friday Agreement. I now have friends from conflict zones around the world. And, this summer, Seeds of Peace asked me to help plan and set up its community action program, trying to teach the kids how to take serious actions in their communities.
Meanwhile, I went to work as a legal officer at a solar energy company, SunBox, trying to bring electricity to Gazans who, even before this conflict, would often go many hours without power. I had relocated to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for my work. I returned to Gaza for my sister’s wedding party and to visit my company’s solar projects in Gaza just before Oct. 7.
The past seven weeks were horrendous. When the war began, I was with 85 members of my family. We didn’t stay in one place for long. Instead, we moved across the strip from Gaza City to Khan Younis, Khan Younis to Rafah, Rafah to Khan Younis and then back to Gaza City, to my parents’ home, forever in search of safety.
For weeks, our daily routine consisted of finding clean water to drink and charging our phones. Even that could take hours and hours. Each morning, some people would go to get bread, some people to get other food and some people to get water. The luckiest were those who came back with something. But then as the fighting got closer, we had to hide in our basement, and we couldn’t go out at all.
We returned to Khan Younis earlier this month, traveling for hours by foot and donkey cart. All around us were shots and explosions. The roads were full of sand and sewage and bodies. It was very dangerous, but we couldn’t stay in Gaza City — all the kids in my family were starting to get sick. We simply had nothing to give them. I myself had gone days without food. Nothing felt certain.
Then, on Thursday, I had the enormous good fortune to cross into Egypt with part of my family, including my parents. To depart Gaza is excruciating. We leave behind friends and family to face the continued horrific reality of life lived between the rubble of their houses. I am so grateful my family has survived but saddened the people of Gaza are not surviving.
After all this, I still know two things for sure: Civilians should not be in the middle of this, and coexistence remains the only solution to this conflict.
I think there are two main steps toward making this happen. The first is on the personal and community level: People need to believe that there’s a chance for both peoples to exist at the same time and live peacefully. This could happen through schools, starting from raising awareness and promoting coexistence activities. That was a major part of what happened in Northern Ireland.
But there then must be another step at the government and international level. Countries and governments around the world have to promote the idea of coexistence and acceptance that both peoples deserve to live on the same land, peacefully, without the need to be biased toward one people over another.
I believe in coexistence as a solution because I’m fed up. And the more than two million people living in Gaza are fed up with conflicts. We need to live peacefully, as the people live on the other side of the fence. I think it’s possible; there just needs to be more effort invested in making it happen.
It’s going to take so much time to rebuild everything. But the devastation I see is not just about reconstructing those pieces of concrete. It’s about the stories behind those walls and houses. We need to restore those lives, those stories, too. And for that we need people to care about those stories — the very sort of connections I’ve made in my experiences with conflict resolution.
I think we can rebuild, even if it takes 50 or 60 years. We can find global interest in reinvesting in projects affected or damaged by the war. We need peace. Whatever the war does to this beautiful place, we will fix it. When I return, I will work to fix it.
#israel#palestine#creating a vision for a shared future#with no occupation#no subjugation#with security for all#may we in the west#do our part to support the peacemakers#so they can do the work to create the conditions for peace#the will on both sides to grant painful concessions#so that all may thrive in a more just future#Kamal Almashharawi
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ok what am I supposed to do now the one for the money, two for the show is done!!!?! I would love more lord while I go back a reread everything from the beginning!
If you’re taking requests maybe quick snapshots of the year apart? Not to get too personal but I have a crush and I’ve been stalking their social media but like in a chill way (or I’m trying to) I imagine reader and Joel both seeing each others accomplishments or posts or being tagged in things and just being happy for each other but also….the longing
A Soulmate Who Wasn't Meant to Be
Pairing: rockstar!joel miller x actress!reader
Author's note: this is so angsty i'm sorry
Summary: This ask
Warnings: angst, yearning, oh it's so sad
Joel Miller's New Album Set to Break Records
Everything We Know About Joel Miller's New Album Glass House
Glass House Expected to Go Platinum Before Next Month
What Songs on Joel Miller's New Album Are About Famous Actress Ex?
You almost text Joel about the headlines and theories flooding your timeline. Almost. You actually started typing out a message before reading the last message you sent him almost four months ago and quickly deleting it. You're happy for him. You really are. In the pictures from his album release party, he looked insanely happy, posing with Ellie and Sarah and hugging his musician friends in celebration. He even played one of his newest songs, "Love-in-idleness," at the party with only his acoustic guitar and that deep voice of his. You think you would know it's about you even if he didn't tell you about it before you left. Love-in-idleness is the flower used in A Midsummer Night's Dream to make a love potion to unite the couples. It's common knowledge, but Joel might be one of the only people in the world who knows how much that play means to you. The song quickly becomes one of your favorites, but you don't tell him.
You scroll through his social media unashamedly. Dave Grohl and half the world congratulates him on his album release. He's making the music he's always wanted to make. Sarah told you she got into UCLA, and Ellie is drawing again. He's happy. They all are. So, why do you feel so shitty? Neither of you has deleted the pictures of each other from your profiles. It feels like a staring contest, seeing who will hold the torch of your relationship longer. It doesn't help that people are screenshotting the pictures of you together to "add context" to Joel's lyrics. The one that makes you break down is a quick snapshot someone took of you leaning on him in Central Park when you were watching the guitarist with lyrics from "The Yellow Subway."
She knows more than me. You better believe
That city couldn't hold her right, but then
I couldn't either.
Despite the heartbreaking lyrics, you two look comfortable together— your head on his shoulder and his hand in yours. You cry in between scenes, ruining your makeup and having a mini-therapy session with your makeup artist, Saoirse, as a result. You don't post anything about his new album, but you put on a happy face and post snapshots from your time spent in Ireland thus far. Pitchers of Guinness, the Cliffs of Moher, stunningly green mornings, and a picture of you and the film crew hiding out in a tent while the rain comes down around you. Joel likes the photos but makes no other move to communicate with you.
You wonder if he's torturing himself in the same way you are. You wonder if he's waiting for a headline about you dating someone new like you are for him. You wonder if he's hurting the way you are. Selfishly, you hope he is because that means he still thinks of you. You also want him to hurt because he hurt you. You still love him, but you can't be the woman who crawls back to someone who can't trust her with things, like telling her the mother of his child is back in town.
This is what's best. It's what needs to happen. You need to be here, working, and he needs to be there, being a dad and making music. It doesn't make it any easier or soothe the ache in your heart, but it's necessary. It's for your own good. Right?
Right?
#one for the money two for the show#rockstar!joel x actress!reader#rockstar!joel miller#tlou au#the last of us au#joel miller fic#joel miller requests
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Even though I've been watching for years I still don't understand all the ins and outs of the running order (I only know that being in the first half of the final is bad?) but I'm looking forward to hearing you talk about it and learning more 😌
How to get the best out of Eurovision running order 101 👩🏫
Rule of thumb: the later, the better. Especially if you try to win. Nobody has ever won Eurovision performing second.
Allocation draw for the semi-finals is held in January, Big-5 countries draw their half for the final during the opening ceremony, and semi-final qualifiers draw their halfs for the grand final at the press conferences after their semi. Producers then decide the running order and it is accepted by EBU. The only exception is the host country, which draws their place in the running order randomly during the EBU meeting in March. Try to be lucky.
In semi-final the second half has better qualification rate than the first half. Second and third place have the worst qualification rates.
To avoid performing second place, try not to be annoying and/or from these countries: Estonia (2013 & 2021) Latvia (2014 & 2022), Israel (2014 & 2022), Ireland (2015 & 2019), Poland (2016 & 2017), Romania (2018 & 2022), Albania (2019 & 2021).
Usually a maximum of five songs qualify from the first half, the only exception so far being the first semi of 2018 with six qualifiers from the first half. The usual split is 3/7, 4/6 or 5/5.
Hope that you get to perform last. But if your song is an uptempo, performed on the last spot of the semi-final and you qualify, be prepared to open the grand final (Belgium 2016, Israel 2017, Ukraine 2018, Czech Republic 2022).
Hope for a place right before or right after a commercial break. If you want to ensure a spot after a break, bring a big prop that needs extra time to get ready on stage (United Kingdom 2017, Ireland 2021, Australia 2022).
The producers give the favorites best places in the running order, usually as late as possible in their half. You can try to influence that by betting for your own country so it gets high up in the odds (Malta 2021).
If there are many favorites or frontrunners, they are not placed back-to-back. Being the one entry sandwiched between two favorites is not great so try to avoid that (Cyprus 2015, Denmark 2017, United Kingdom 2019).
The running order isn’t everything. Of the last ten winners, five came from the first half and five from the second half. Eight times out of ten, the winning song was performed earlier than the one that placed second. Most important thing is to have a great song, all the rest follows.
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Loves Revolution
Chapter 4
Pairing: Bradley Bradshaw (as Micheal Collins) x Jake Seresin (as Harry Boland) x OC! Madison Cassidy
Summary: Bradley, Jake and Maddie have been friends for many years ongoing. Bradley from Cork and Jake and Madison from the troubled Dublin, have been close for life. Now fighting in the 1916 Easter rising and the ongoing history to the Treaty and the independence of Ireland their story lives on.
Warning: Mentions of gun use, ptsd, mentions of death, mentions of shooting, flirting, mentions of abuse, description of dead body, death, blood, drinking, cursing, SMUT
You didn't want it to end this way, not now, not ever. De Valera decided to go to the United States of America to tell them about your troubles with the English and to get some sponsorship.
You always wanted to go to America, see the land everyone wished for but you were stuck in this shitty hole instead. You couldn't do anything about it, there was no proper escape and your only chance of going De Valera didn't choose you to be on his side. He chose Jake.
Which leads you to know. Both of you are standing on the train platform, have his arms wrapped around you as you pull him close. He pulls you on tighter than ever before, to take the moment and taste it. He wanted to capture the moment and save it.
He didn't want to leave you. Not now after everything that has happened. He told Bradley about the two of you, you and Jake established something between the two of you but this was his job. His job was to serve his country until Ireland was free again.
"Mads, I'll be back in no time," he whispers to you, kissing the top of your head as his pointer finger lifts your chin so his lips mix with yours. It was a sense of euphoria. Your final kiss until the future. You don't know how long he'll be gone so you take the moment to savour it.
"I got to go Mads. Bradley will take care of you. I'll be back to win this," one last kiss and you two part. One last kiss and he's gone.
You stand there for a moment, finally letting go. You couldn't stay here much longer, the plan is still on and people could easily recognise you for what you've done in the past.
You start to walk back to the entrance of the but you were getting stopped by two loyal Irish police officers. You try to avoid them but they catch you. One thing that Jake said before leaving was this. Bradley will take care of you.
"Hey lads, can't a man just say goodbye to his wife," Bradley comes and grabs you by the hip and tilts you into a kiss. His lips collide with yours aggressively and you can't fight him off you.
Once the guards walk away he lets you go and you look at him in fury. You were fuming. He just kissed you. He just broke your trust. "Bradley l, where in the hell you think you can treat me like that?!" You whisper shouted at him but he lays a finger on your lips and says.
"I promised Jake I'd take care of you and I just saved your ass."
It's been a months since Jake left. Apparently him and De Valera were making some progress in the United States but who knew. You responded against the English. Shooting in the streets, in their own homes, public meetings but they got you back.
They caught one of your men. You don't know where you don't know how but they were brutal. They tortured the young lad to death and then shot him. They tossed his body out of a moving vehicle on the streets and that was just the bare minimum.
They shot at a Gaelic game. They came in with their guns and artillery and shot at the crowd and players. Adults, kids, and players lost their lives that day. There was no hope, that's how it felt.
Every time you hit the English, they hit back harder.
You needed to relax. To take a break from the cruel reality you were stuck in, desperate to get out. You run yourself a bath and get one of your books.
You strip off your layers and hang the previously worn clothing on the small chair in your room, entering the bathroom already naked. You remove the top slip of that fluffy dress, removing the tip layer of the skirt.
You remove the button up top, undoing each of the black little buttons that go across the front. It leaves you to the white, puffy layer of your dress as you quickly remove it letting it pool around your feet.
You are left only in your undergarments and a light corset. You've always hated corsets but as much as they bring you discomfort they are useful in such situations and places. You undo ever ribbon the crisscrossed the back. You unpin your bra letting it down on the floor and remove your lace panties.
You slip into the warm water, lying on your stomach. It was hard to read this way but otherwise you wouldn't have got reading and instead you'd soak the book.
You let yourself soak. The water was just fine to soak away your deep thoughts. Ever since Jake left you and Bradley bonded in a weird way, you couldn't quite explain what it was but it was there. The warm water just helped you forget, it was a cleansing mechanism for this exact situation.
"Shit sorry," Bradley said entering the bathroom but you didn't even notice him come in until he let out the apology. You smile at him and sink a little bit lower to allow yourself to cover up even if it's in the slightest way.
"Don't worry about it. You don't have to leave," you let out, plumping your delicate lips, saying it with a slight plea. Bradley took a step forward and you gave him an approving nod and put your book down. You flipped from your stomach onto your back, exposing your tender breasts to the air and his view.
Your nipples were peaking. The warm water is not calming down the heat you feel since he's entered. You slightly push your hips upwards as you wave him over more and he takes another step and begins to strip.
He takes off his fancy trousers, undoing that top button and taking his time to undo the small zipper that was across his crotch. He started to undo the white, milky button top, going at every single button, as they undo in his fingers. He slips off his elegant suit jacket and it ends up on the floor. He kicks off his shoes and slips down his boxers, exposing his large cock that springs back onto his stomach and you lift yourself to give him room to slip behind you.
He takes the offer. Holding on tightly to each side of the bath, slipping in behind you until he got comfortable. Once he's settled you lower yourself against him, feeling his hard, rock on against your ass cheek. You lean back fully on him and Bradley begins to kiss your neck, bit by bit he covers your collar bone and neck in love marks and bites.
You let out groans and moans every once in a while and begin to slowly move your hips back and forth. Bradley is soo mesmerized in kissing your neck that barely notices when you ask him a question. "You sent out your men?"
He stops for a second, pulling off your neck as he looks at you as you turn your head to make eye contact with him. He looks you in the eye for a good two seconds then answers. "This time we strike harder, no matter what."
After that bath, things went dirty and unforgotten. Your wrapped in your towel as you sit down on your bed in the hotel as Bradley on has a towel wrapped around his waist as he peaks through the tiniest gap in the curtains that cover the windows.
The curtains block the view of one of the most modest streets of the city, hiding you away from the outside danger. "Bradley?" You ask. You need to know, and you needed the information now. You expected him to turn around and look at you but he was starting out the window at the streets and responded to you with a hum.
"How did we do?" You needed to know if any of your men where treated like trash like the previous one and the one previous that one and the one before them. You needed to know if you've sent out innocent boys to die again.
"Let's hope we hit harder."
Current taglist:
@callsign-magnolia
@shanimallina87
@callsign-dexter
@rosiahills22
@horseslovers2016
@djs8891
@hookslove1592
@emma8895eb
@hardballoonlove
@kmc1989
@dempy
@mamachasesmayhem
@senawashere
@emma8895eb
@buckysteveloki-me
@sweetwhispersofchaos
@a-beaverhausen
@emma8895eb
#jake seresin#hangman x reader#hangman top gun#top gun hangman#jake hangman seresin#jake seresin imagine#jake seresin x reader#jake seresin x you#jake seresin x y/n#jake hangman fic#jake hangman x reader#jake hangman x you#jake hangman imagine#hangman imagine#hangman fanfiction#hangman seresin#bradley rooster bradshaw#bradley bradshaw x reader#bradley rooster x reader#bradley rooster x y/n#rooster x reader#rooster x you#rooster top gun#rooster bradshaw#top gun smut
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Hi I’m so sorry if this sounds stupid but what do you mean that there’s more than one country in the UK? I’m on anon because I don’t want to get hate 😭😭😭
hi anon! don't feel bad about asking questions, and if anyone is rude to you in the replies to this i will be having stern words with them privately. or publicly. we'll see where my tolerance for rudeness takes me.
this is your warning, other people that read this, you will be nice to this anon or i will take your kneecaps out with my makita drill. and remember, ymmv.
(also, i was kicked out of my history classes at 14 for being a little shit so my understanding of uk history and politics is pretty shaky, so if i get something horrifically wrong, do let me know - politely.)
okay, so. tl;dr version: the UK or united kingdom is comprised of four nations which are: england, scotland, wales and nothern ireland. they all have their own flags, their own culture, their own governments and their own laws. some people that are welsh, scottish, northern irish or english may refer to themselves as british or they may refer to themselves as their particular national identity. (wales = welsh, scotland = scottish, england = english, northern ireland = northern irish or irish*)
each nation in that makes up the uk are VERY proud of their national identities (and rightfully so), so you will get people that refuse to be called british and would rather use their national identifier instead. for example, a scottish person will most likely prefer to be called scottish rather than british. (why? easy peasy: politics and colonialism.)
anecdotally, i've found it's usually english people that are more comfortable with using british rather than scottish, welsh or northern irish people. i think this can cause a false equivalence that every british person must be english, which is wrong. you will get an absolute bollocking if you call a welsh or scottish person english so just don't do it.
(*a quick but very important sidenote: northern ireland and ireland are different countries for political reasons that basically boil down to: the united kingdom colonised ireland, fucked shit up, ireland rightfully were completely pissed off by this and broke away from the united kingdom. i think six (6) counties in the north of ireland decided to stay as part of the uk and so there's a soft border between the republic of ireland and northern ireland. that's the short answer that glosses over some truly horrendous things that the united kingdom did to ireland and northern ireland and still continues to do even now. as the result of this, some people in northern ireland will refer to themselves as irish, some refer to themselves as northern irish, some as british. the reasons for this are bit complicated but can be boiled down to (you guessed it) political, colonial and religious reasons.)
anyway, i hope my answer helped you anon!
#pfh answers#pfh talks about england#(but not really)#also to any irish followers i may have - i am so very sorry if i've fucked this up or i've got something wrong#but just know that i know that you're irish and not british (unless you're from northern ireland and want to be called british)#basically treat the national identities of the uk like pronouns: when someone corrects you on their national identity don't be a dick#and continue to call them by the wrong label. apologise and correct yourself
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Hey Sam,
I’m wondering if you could give us (I’m hoping I’m not alone with these lacunae) a quick overview of the 1D tours in chronological order, album they were promoting AND the aesthetics (that sofa? the cartoon graphics? the jungle gym stage?). It’s still a bit of a “long time ago” jumble for me… and I can kinda tell by how long Harry’s hair is or how flowery his outfits when something happened, but I’ve never sat down to piece it together. And the way I imagine you to be, you’ll just know it off the top of your head!
If it’s no trouble, of course.
Many thanks in advance (hehe!)
Ailo
Hey Ailo <3,
So I am going to make this small so it fits better. So before we had Up All Night, which was their first album in 2011, that started with WMYB as its main single, One Direction was on the XFactor Tour, which ran from February to April of 2011. They didn't really have any special arrangements for their stage there because they were not the only act performing.
Following the release of Up All Night in November of 2011, the boys embarked on their Up All Night Tour in December 2011, with the UK and Ireland tour. They spent the first half of the year on this Tour, going around the world and touring with Big Time Rush in the United States. This was the tour that had the boys sitting on a couch. It also had plenty of silly moments due to the introduction of Twitter questions.
This tour went on until July of 2012, which was in line with the next release. LWWY came out in August of 2012, leading to a massive push to break the United States with Little Things in October and a set of concerts in Madison Square Garden in December 2012.
The next tour was the Take Me Home Tour which was named after the album that came out in Nov. 2012. The tour began on 23 February 2013 in London, England, and concluded on 3 November 2013 in Chiba, Japan. This was the tour of the crazy superhero graphics and the floating stage between the A stage and B stage in the crowd.
The final stage set was the massive jungle gym-looking set used for the Where We Are tour and the On The Road Again Tour. It featured a bunch of insane-looking pathways to run around on and a B stage that rose from stage level to about a story up so the entire stadium could see them. This stage was used during the stadium tours, with its massive screens and walkway allowing the boys to run around and be seen by everyone. The behind-the-scenes for the movie from San Siro shows just how huge the stage was. The stage colors changed from red to blue and yellow between the two tours.
#asks#one direction tours#one direction#on the road again#otra#where we are#wwa tour#tmh tour#take me home#uan tour#up all night#xfactor tour
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It went over people’s heads yesterday b/c there’s so much happening but the UK’s anti-boycott bill was not stopped at its Third Reading on the 10th. So now, it need only pass through the House of Lords for the government to hold public bodies ‘accountable’ to it.
Here is a petition to put your name down showing you disagree - evidence of how large protest will be when the Lords accept it. With large enough numbers, it might deter them, but I’m not hopeful. I have more specific action in mind going forward.
(This is a bit more north Irish centric but worth mentioning)
Unless they ever get their shit together, I have abandoned support of Sinn Féin. I strongly encourage other nationalists to do the same. I don’t know how good their work is in the south, but in the north, they’re equal to the DUP to me now. Might as well be the same party, different colours at this point.
Of the recent bills passed through UK parliament regarding occupied Palestine (and now, possibly, the right to abstain from business with human rights abusers of any flag as peaceful protest), Sinn Féin has continued to stick to its symbolic protest, its abstentionism, in spite of increasingly dire circumstances.
Why continue to give them seats at Westminster if they won’t be used even in times of crisis, in times where the politics of UK will determine that of the world?
Idealised inaction does not work in a non-ideal world. Remaining quite literally neutral on genocide over an Irish-centric hypothetical, while tangible harm comes to our fellow victims of occupation, makes you complicit in their murder. Sinn Féin are complicit in their murder.
Our Palestinian cousins deserve better. Our friends all across SWANA, as they now face a repeat of 2000s racism campaigns by western media outlets and politicians, need better.
Besides protesting directly (though kinda pointless because Stormont is still unoccupied and not all of us have ways to Westminister), I think it’s clear SDLP should be voted in where possible as MPs at the next election.
They have been present, and voted against, every recent bill regarding the lack of restraints on Israel. And while they are too neutral on nationalism for me personally, Alliance has consistently seen its deputy leader vote in Westminster against most of its worst bills. I’m grateful for his work.
We have to do more. Boycotting Starbucks and McDonalds and HP and all that isn’t enough. All those occupied and unfree shall never be at peace. There is no point in a united Ireland built by those complicit in violent imperialism. Should that happen, we will have become that of which some lost their lives protesting. It’s only right we take power off of people who won’t prioritise the victims of imperialism when the situation demands it.
#wow this got long#I’m a cartoonist and an animator and all that other stuff I am on here . but I’m a person first#politics r not the only way forward ofc . but I imagine listing ways to do that might put a target on my back#and given where I live specifically . let’s not#irish politics#northern ireland#uk politics#Irish nationalism#free Palestine#Yemen#Irish#Ireland#no one is free until we are all free
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Thanks for showing your dolls and giving information about them! I agree, it’s always fun to learn about other dolls even if it’s not what I personally collect.
Since you’re into ocean liners and the Titanic, have you been to the Molly Brown House Museum? (Sorry if you’ve answered this in a previous post, I haven’t been able to go through your entire blog yet).
I have not, unfortunately. It is on the other side of the world for me, since i'm European. The furthest I've been for my ocean liners is Northern Ireland and that was amazing
BUT I plan to go to the USA someday, and then I'll check it all out (warning for fan girl behavior, proceed on your own risk i got carried away):
the titanic museum in tennessee, because I've seen so much cool things about it, especially the tilting deck simulator thing
Queen Mary in Long Beach, such a pretty ship
Molly Browns museum, as you mentioned! I'm excited to see where my favorite passenger was living
New York Harbour to check out the old Cunard Line/Cunard-White Star Line pier, you can still see the old letters
and see where they place The United States (that's a ship). They want to move it from Philadelphia to it's old place in the New York harbour. I hope they manage to restore her because this is a tragic sight
And I'm so sorry for acting like such a fan girl now, but I have to say that this might be one of the coolest things I have done, because i have visited some titanic things, the best and closest to the original ships being in belfast.
When I was in Belfast, I stayed at the Titanic hotel which is the old Harland and Wolff office (the ones that build the Olympic class + a lot of white star line ships) so I stayed in the old rooms that they used.
The drawing room:
The presentation room:
The dry dock:
And the Nomadic, titanics tender ship<3 and the only white star line ships left in the world
Sorry for that I got carried away I just love ships so much I'm done now
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Cold comfort
By Steve Pratt 28th November 2013 (X)
CHARLIE COX is no stranger to period projects with movies The Merchant Of Venice with Al Pacino, Casanova alongside Heath Ledger, and Stardust opposite Claire Danes, as well as TV series Boardwalk Empire to his name.
The one-off 1970s espionage thriller Legacy might be another period piece, but he is at least moving forward through the decades. “It’s the most modern I have ever done,” he says.
Based on the novel by Alan Judd, the story is set in 1974 in the middle of the Cold War, when Cox’s character, Charles, joins MI6 as a trainee spy. “He has come from the Royal Engineers, which means he would have been posted in Belfast in the mid-1960s, and the back story we have mostly invented is that he was in the bomb disposal unit and probably lost his best friend,” says Cox.
“Because of that, he wanted to become more involved in what is referred to as ‘the front line of the war’, be it the Cold War or Northern Ireland, and saw the move to MI6 as being part of that.”
He is still training when asked to revive his former friendship with Viktor Koslov (Andrew Scott), a Russian diplomat he knew at university, with a view to “turning” him. But Viktor has his own agenda and reveals a shocking truth about Charles’ family that threatens to derail him personally and professionally.
“Andrew Scott happens to be one of my favourite actors of all time,” says Cox of the Olivier Award-winning star, who plays Moriarty in the Sherlock series.
“I had never met him, but we have the same agent, and I got his number and sent a text saying, ‘I really hope we get to work with each other’. Six months later, this came up.”
He knows another of his co-stars, Romola Garai, who plays fellow agent Anna, extremely well because he introduced her to his best friend, Sam Hoare, and the two now have a daughter together.
“Before I found out she was going to be doing it, I got a text from him saying, ‘Buddy, you’re going to be kissing my wife’.” Cox says.
In preparation, Cox watched “a few cool documentaries about the period” and understands the enduring fascination with the Cold War. “The fact that there wasn’t any actual fighting [in the West] is really intriguing,” he says.
“And I know in my life, impending doom is so much worse than something actually happening, because when it does, you can rationalise it in some way and take some action. “But when you are waiting for something that could happen, your mind goes into all the different scenarios, and living with that [creates] a sense of vulnerability.”
He has a small but pivotal role in a movie with the working title Dracula Untold under way. “Yes, more vampires, obviously we are not bored of them yet – or maybe we are,” he says. “I am only doing two scenes, but it is a bit different for me, very evil. He is described as the father of all vampires. Other than that, I am not sure what’s coming up.”
Maybe something contemporary? “Oh yeah,” says Cox. “I’d love to say ‘Mate’ in a movie.”
~*~
#well I found another old Charlie interview...just call me the Charlie Cox archivist lol 😊#UGH ''very evil'' and ''the father of all vampires''...*cries about never getting to see his scenes as Caligula* T_T#charlie cox#charles thoroughgood#legacy 2013#romola garai#andrew scott#sam hoare#interview#article
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2 October 2023: Queen Rania urged young leaders to make the most of their time to further the cause of peace, a “lifelong mission” that requires “not only every ounce of our strength, but every ounce of our time.”
She made her remarks in the United Kingdom, while speaking to a gathering of over 2,000 youth activists and leaders at the One Young World Summit in Northern Ireland’s city of Belfast. This year’s summit commemorates the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement between the British and Irish governments, which was signed in Belfast. (Source: Petra)
Thinking back to the year 1998, Her Majesty recalled how the signing of this agreement inspired His Majesty the late King Hussein to remain hopeful about achieving peace in the Middle East. She also highlighted King Hussein’s role in the Wye River negotiations, which took place that same year, as he was battling cancer and undergoing chemotherapy.
She argued that, despite his poor health, he insisted on traveling to the United States to push for the signing of a memorandum between Palestinians and Israelis that aimed to resume the implementation of the Oslo II Accord.
“He saw our time on earth for what it is: finite, fragile, and never to be taken for granted,” Queen Rania said. She also relayed the late King’s words at the agreement’s signing, where he said, “If I had an ounce of strength, I would have done my utmost to be here, and to help in any way I can.”
“Cancer reminded King Hussein once again of how limited time can be. And once again, he chose to live in the fullness of that time…to give meaning to every moment he had so that future generations could live in peace,” she said.
Her Majesty explained that despite time’s limited nature, “hope can endure the test of time,” and people can expand the time we have “by using it well.”
The Queen also emphasized the urgency of the world’s biggest challenges, from polarization in politics to growing refugee crises, climate change, and ongoing discrimination and gender inequality.
“At a time when we’re talking about advanced technologies like AI, it is preposterous that many still fall back on the primitive thinking that the color of one’s complexion determines their worth. And it’s shameful that gender equality is still a goal, not a reality,” she said.
Noting that, 25 years after the Wye River Memorandum, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains a prominent example of an overlooked emergency in need of peaceful resolution, Her Majesty called attention to the injustice and brutality that Palestinians are subjected to on a daily basis.
“Already in 2023, more Palestinians have died at the hands of Israelis than in any of the past 15 years. And every second of every minute of every day, millions of Palestinians are being robbed of their freedom, their rights…their very identity,” she stated. “Palestinian families are being uprooted from their land. Worshippers at Al Aqsa are attacked and brutalized, while 12-year olds are jailed just for throwing stones.”
Her Majesty therefore urged leaders to exert every effort in achieving lasting peace and progress, recommending that they join His Majesty King Abdullah, who, despite headwinds, “continues to walk the hard, and often lonely, path of peace.”
“It is time we populate that path,” she said, asking leaders everywhere to “snap out of complacency and put in the hard work that lasting peace requires—in the Middle East and elsewhere.”
Queen Rania also underscored the need to remain committed to hope in order to resolve pressing issues, explaining that despite having reason for cynicism, hope remains “a choice – a decision we make, irrespective of the circumstances.”
Referring once again to the Good Friday Agreement, Her Majesty noted that after its signing, it took nine more years of negotiations for the terms of the agreement to come into fruition. She also cited the years-long efforts of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which provided restorative justice following the end of apartheid.
“Miracles don’t happen overnight. Complex problems defy hasty fixes,” Queen Rania said. “You cannot secure peace with the stroke of a pen any more than heal a bullet with a Band-Aid. The truth is, we have to take our time in order to use it well.”
Noting the difference in approach among many modern politicians, Her Majesty said, “Today, many political leaders cater to the now; they care more about the next election cycle than the next generation. And many seem more inclined to break treaties than broker them.”
The Queen also pointed out that it is ironic that those most affected by conflict are often excluded from conversations about long-lasting reconciliation, “even though they have the greatest motivation to find the creative compromises that genuine peace demands.”
One Young World is a global platform that identifies, connects, and promotes young leaders from around the world, hosting an annual summit that convenes in a different city each year. Considered one of the world’s largest youth leadership summits, this year it takes place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from 2-5 October.
Summit participants, who are working to accelerate social impact, include a number of young leaders from over 190 countries and more than 250 organizations. The participants are invited to deliver speeches and participate in workshops, and networking opportunities, as well as receive counselling by influential figures attending the summit. In previous years, counselors included U.S. President Bill Clinton, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the late South African human rights activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
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