your town your choice : issue 37

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ONLY £1 ISSUE 37 BRINGING POSITIVE NEWS TO POSITIVE PEOPLE YOUR TOWN YOUR CHOICE YOUR TOWN YOUR CHOICE YOUR TOWN YOUR CHOICE YOUR TOWN YOUR CHOICE YOUR TOWN YOUR CHOICE YOUR TOWN YOUR CHOICE YOUR TOWN YOUR CHOICE YOUR TOWN YOUR CHOICE YOUR TOWN YOUR CHOICE

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Page 1: Your Town Your Choice : Issue 37

ONLY£1

ISSUE37

BRINGING POSITIVE NEWS TO POSITIVE PEOPLE

YOUR TOWNYOUR CHOICEYOUR TOWNYOUR CHOICEYOUR TOWNYOUR CHOICEYOUR TOWNYOUR CHOICEYOUR TOWNYOUR CHOICEYOUR TOWNYOUR CHOICEYOUR TOWNYOUR CHOICEYOUR TOWNYOUR CHOICEYOUR TOWNYOUR CHOICE

Page 2: Your Town Your Choice : Issue 37

2 www.ytyc.co.uk

YOURTOWNYOURCHOICE

Page 3: Your Town Your Choice : Issue 37

www.ytyc.co.uk 3

InCannes Magazine is published byIndependent News Ltd (c) copyright 2011

Company reg. 06735182

DESIGN

Stef [email protected]

Tel: 0871 2341991FAX: 0871 2341992

CITY LIFE MAGAZINESSTUDIO C, 41 EDITH GROVE

CHELSEA, LONDON SW10 0LB

EDITORDuncan Williams

(Mobile 07960 829 615)

[email protected]

SALESAmanda Knatchford

Nacer NibAndrew Pescud

Scott Clancy

DESIGNStef Hayes

[email protected]

CityLife Magazine is published byIndependent News Ltd (c) copyright 2011.

Company reg. 06735182

ISSUE 37

ISSN 1750-8967

Independent News Ltd has always been a firm believer inthe power of British regional publishing and see our brand hasa pivotal role in the future of independent local publishing.

“Everybody wins’” says newspaper Chairman, DuncanWilliams. “We go that little bit extra to ensure our titles are ofmaximum benefit to readers, advertisers and theircommunities...”

And the reasons for this are very clear...

“...because what some people seem to have alreadyforgotten is that the News of the World fiasco, and ultimateclosure and job losses that followed, was dictated not my anymoral whim on the part of the publisher but by the fact thatall of its advertisers pulled out and boycotted the titled. RupertMurdoch claiming that this was some sort of moral decision onhis behalf is a bit rich. Advertising is the financial lifeblood ofthe newspaper and magazine industry. As publishers we allknow that.”

So, we say once again - a heart felt THANK YOU forsupporting our titles.

A big thank-you to allour regional advertisers

Duncan Williams, Chairman and CEO -INDEPENDENT NEWS LTD and INDEPENDENT MAGAZINES LTD.

Tel: 0871234 1991 E: [email protected]: facebook.com/independentnewspapers

Page 4: Your Town Your Choice : Issue 37

4 www.ytyc.co.uk

Is Boris the best

investment for our capital?

A commentary for YTYC by Lief Schneider.

Don’t be fooled by the odd socks -the Mayor’s success is no accident,

Londoners make up the most fickle, cynical,often scathing constituency on earth.

So just how did the politico who refused to be “spun”win the hearts and minds of the world’s harshest critics?

I have always strongly believed that the rise and rise of Boris is noaccident. His successful pitch to win the hearts and minds of Londonerswas pure genius - a coup pulled off by those with a deep understanding ofthe London mindset.

For Boris, I believe, is a perfect example of a public figure that satisfiesthe basic human needs and yearnings of a sophisticated urban audience.

Ironically, Londoners chose him for many of the same reasons thatthey chose Red Ken before him. They are, in numerous ways, mirrorimages of each other.

From a reputation management point of view, Boris is a dream casestudy; a formula built in heaven. Because when it comes toentrepreneurial go-getting, all-tolerating but all-seeing London, there is abasic set of rules that you need to follow…

Londoners hate being taken for fools

The timing was perfect. Boris was first voted in after 11 years of NewLabour rule. This was a period of increasing paranoia for the Labourparty, when their spokespeople were clearly constrained by the “partyline”. Londoners, with their love of free speech and independentmindedness, didn’t like it. Yes, they voted for Ken Livingstone. But hewas initially the independent candidate. Londoners don’t like theprescriptive or being prescribed to and were fed up to the back teethwith New Labour yes-men.

Londoners have a sense of humour

From Berwick Street’s fruit sellers to the City’s top traders, Londonershave a sense of humour. Which means they can both stick two fingersup to the politically correct rest of the world and vote in Boris. Andthey can understand his jokes.

Londoners like mavericks and eccentrics

If you’re born in London, as I am, you learn before you can walk thatLondon is far too eclectic and busy a place to bother with fitting in.Survival lies in differentiation. If you come to London in search of thebright lights and streets paved with gold - you don’t do it because youwant to conform.

Londoners like ideas

Boris announces ideas like there’s no tomorrow. Teach classics tounderprivileged children; revive the Fleet River and make London thenew Venice; create a landing strip on an island in the Thames. Most ofthese don’t stick. But occasionally they do - and very successfully - suchas Boris bikes and banning alcohol on public transport. As arguablythe most entrepreneurial people in the world, Londoners understandthat not all ideas are practicable, but it’s important to have them.

Londoners are cultured and well rounded

With his sideline in history books and documentaries and his clumsyrunning routine - not to mention his editorship of The Spectator -Boris Johnson is something of a renaissance man, not just another one-dimensional politician.

YOURTOWNYOURCHOICE

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www.ytyc.co.uk 5

Londoners are big-picture folkListening to Boris speak, as I have done several times, canbe quite cringy. He may get it right, or he may be utterlyunprepared and fumble when asked for a breakdown ofnuts and bolts. But this rarely seems to matter. Londonerswant to know the top line, not the detail.

Londoners aren’t censorious about sexYou don’t come to London to curtain twitch. An immigrantmember of my own family used to say the reason she hadadopted London as her home was because you could walknaked down Piccadilly and no one would even look. She didn’twant to walk naked down Piccadilly, she explained, but she likedthe thought that she could.

While Boris would probably have been thrown out long ago ifthere were such a thing as “Mayor of the Home Counties”,Londoners are tolerant and liberal. You want to have a mistress?Go ahead – it’s your funeral. It’s not that Londoners celebratesexual impropriety and transgression – it’s just that they don’t careeither way.

Londoners like confidence…One balmy summer evening in a Clerkenwell foyer where it was toohot to wait for my business partner Fiona Bartosch (herself a formerpress advisor to the New Labour great and the good, and, she wouldwant me to point out, a Ken Livingstone fan), I found myself wonderingtowards an outside table at a pub at the bottom of Herbal Hill.

Who should be sitting at the next table with some young workcolleagues, but Stanley Johnson, Mr Johnson Senior? And what did hetalk about for the entire half hour I was waiting there? Well, Boris, orany other offspring, would have died. Proud dad went on and onabout his beloved son. Like Maureen Lipman’s Jewish grandmotherin the classic BT ads, every “ology” Boris ever got was hailed by hisfather as a triumph. It was a fascinating insight into the backstoryof Boris – a man who has not come from the chilly fridge, stiffupper lip, toughen-em-up stablesof some of his Etoncontemporaries.

London is no place for wallflowers. Andanyone who still believes that the capital is a hotbed ofnegativity hasn’t taken a look at the City’s ever-burgeoningskyline recently. Boris isn’t a wallflower. He has believed frombirth that, like Bob the Builder and Barack Obama, he cando it, yes, he can.

…but they also like shynessLondon isn’t like New York. It’s not brash. It’s open-minded and confident, yet still informed and influencedby British reserve. And it’s a funny old thing: Boris is ablusher. When he falls in a poisonous canal he’s helpingto clean up, or forgets his figures, or is apologising to thepeople of Liverpool, Boris blushes. And for that, weadore him.

Lief Schneider is a director of Schneider Bartosch Communications. Shespecialises in profile building and reputation management, and advises

some of the capital’s most prominent business leaders and people in thepublic eye. Lief doesn’t mince her words and applies a common sense approach

to communications and business strategy. An unrepentant smoker and urbanista,she is a regular media commentator. Ideas expressed here are hers and not those of

anyone else in the company.

Page 6: Your Town Your Choice : Issue 37

With the enormousworldwide success ofthe French silent filmTHE ARTIST, we take

a look at thepioneers of cinema's

evolving years -when pictures

really did say athousand words...

6 www.ytyc.co.uk

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Page 7: Your Town Your Choice : Issue 37

YOURTOWNYOURCHOICEYOURTOWNYOURCHOICE

For the first twenty years of motion picture history most silent films wereshort--only a few minutes in length. At first a novelty, and then increasingly anart form and literary form, silent films reached greater complexity and lengthin the early 1910's. The films on the list above represent the greatestachievements of the silent era, which ended--after years of experimentation--in 1929 when a means of recording sound that would be synchronous with therecorded image was discovered. Few silent films were made in the 1930s, withthe exception of Charlie Chaplin, whose character of the Tramp perfectedexpressive physical moves in many short films in the 1910's and 1920s. Whenthe silent era ended, Chaplin refused to go along with sound; instead, hemaintained the melodramatic Tramp as his mainstay in City Lights (1931) andModern Times (1936). The trademarks of Chaplin's Tramp were his ill-fittingsuit, floppy over-sized shoes and a bowler hat, and his ever-present cane. Amemorable image is Chaplin's Tramp shuffling off, penguin-like, into thesunset and spinning his cane whimsically as he exits. He represented the "littleguy," the underdog, someone who used wit and whimsy to defeat hisadversaries.

Eisenstein's contribution to the development of cinema rested primarily inhis theory of editing, or montage, which focused on the collision of oppositesin order to create a new entity. One of the greatest achievements in editing isthe Odessa Steps sequence, in his film Potemkin (1925). Eisenstein intercutbetween shots of townspeople trapped on the steps by Czarist troops, and shotsof the troops firing down upon the crowd. Members of the crowd becameindividual characters to viewers as the montage continued. Within the editingtrack the fate of these individuals was played out. A mother picks up her deadchild and confronts the troops. Then she is shot. A student looks on in terrorand then flees--his fate uncertain. An old woman prays to be spared, but she iskilled by a soldier who slashes her face with his saber. When a woman holdingher baby carriage is killed, she falls to the steps, and the carriage begins aprecipitous decline--shots of the baby crying are intercut with wide shots of thecarriage rolling down the steps. To Eisenstein, each individual shot contributedan energy within the editing track that yielded far more than the sum total ofshots. In other words, the "combination" of shots through editing created anew entity, based on the expressive emotional energy unleashed through theediting process.

Brian De Palma imitated the Odessa Steps sequence in The Untouchables(1987) in a scene where Kevin Costner, playing Eliot Ness, and his companionsare waiting to ambush several mobsters. This confrontation is punctuated bythe use of the baby carriage plummeting down a long series of steps while thegood guys and the bag guys remain in a standoff. A more effective homage toEisenstein can be seen in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse, Now (1976),when at the end of the film a cow is slaughtered ritualistically by the nativepeople deep in the Vietnamese jungle. Shots of the slaughter are intercut withshots of the Martin Sheen character wielding a machete against the hulkingMarlon Brando character, the crazed former American officer who hasretreated to the jungle from the horrors of war and has become a sort of deityto the native people in his compound. Coppola was aware of a famous scenein Eistenstein's Strike (1925), when two dramatic scenes are intercut: one ofCzarist troops massacre peasants, another of a cow being butchered.

Although the technology for making movies was invented in 1895, asignificant realization of the potential for film as art occurs with theappearance of D. W. Griffith's 1915 full-length epic, Birth of a Nation. In

this film Griffith utilized crosscutting (parallel editing) effectively, particularly atthe climax, when a number of editing tracks play off one another. He alsoportrayed battle scenes magnificently, with action in one set of shots movingfrom left to right, while action in another set of shots moves from right to left.But Griffith's work is diminished severely by the overt racism employed incharacterizations and plotting and the positive portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan.As a sidelight, readers interested in films about Griffith should check GoodMorning, Babylon (1987), directed by the Taviani brothers. It tells the story oftwo Italian immigrants who become carpenters on the set of Griffith's epicfilm Intolerance (1916). The English actor Charles Dance plays Griffith.Other well-known Griffith melodramas include Broken Blossoms (1919) andWay Down East (1920).

The German directors listed deserve credit for their experimentationwith unusual camera angles and complex stage settings. Two examples ofthis approach is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) by Robert Wieneand the nightmare-like Nosferatu (1919) by F. W. Murnau. The latteris also credited with perfecting the use of visual language in The LastLaugh (1924), a film about a lonely old man who is ridiculed byothers. Few titles are used in the film because Murnau is able tocommunicate meaning by virtue of well-placed visual cues. Oneof the most unforgettable openings to a film is the opening scenefrom M (1931), directed by Fritz Lang. In that opening a childis shown playing with a ball. These shots are intercut withshots of the child's mother setting the table for a meal. Asthe scenes progress, it becomes evident that someone isfollowing the child. Meanwhile, the mother completes thetable setting. The last shot in the scene shows the ballrolling away. Where is the child? The murderer (M) hastaken her. Fritz Lang went on to make films inAmerica in the 1930s and 1940s. Another Germandirector who went to Hollywood is F. W. Murnau.He made his first American film in 1927. Thefilm, Sunrise, portrayed a married man'sdownfall when he is seduced by an evil darktemptress.

A last note: the 1922 film Nanook ofthe North, directed by the AmericanRobert Flaherty, is often credited as thefirst great achievement ofdocumentary (or non-fiction) film.Flaherty lived among the Eskimosfor six months, edited the film backin America, and was lauded forhis achievement when the filmpremiered in New York City.Only a few documentary titleswill appear in the lists offilms that follow. I hopeyou will enjoy perusingthese lists and considerrenting titles you havenot viewed before.

The Frenchman Louis Lumiere is sometimes credited as theinventor of the motion picture camera in 1895. Other inventorspreceded him, and Lumiere's achievement should always beconsidered in the context of this creative period. Lumiere's portable,suitcase-sized cinematographe served as a camera, film processing unit,and projector all in one. He could shoot footage in the morning,process it in the afternoon, and then project it to an audience thatevening. His first film was the arrival of the express train at Ciotat.Other subjects included workers leaving the factory gates, a child beingfed by his parents, people enjoying a picnic along a river. The ease ofuse and portability of his device soon made it the rage in France.Cinematographes soon were in the hands of Lumiere followers all overthe world, and the motion picture era began. The American ThomasAlva Edison was a competitor of Lumiere's, and his invention predatedLumiere's. But Edison's motion picture camera was bulky and notportable. The "promoter" in Lumiere made the difference in thiscompetition. For a good description of these historical developments,read Erik Barnouw's Documentary: A History of the Non-FictionFilm, 2nd revised edition, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993.

Films from the Silent EraYEAR FILM DIRECTOR COUNTRY1915 Birth of a Nation D. W. Griffith USA1919 Broken Blossoms D. W. Griffith USA1919 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Robert Wiene Germany1922 Nosferatu F. W. Murnau Germany1922 Nanook of the North Robert J. Flaherty USA1924 The Last Laugh F. W. Murnau Germany1925 Strike Sergei Eisenstein Russian1925 Potemkin Sergei Eisenstein Russian1925 The Gold Rush Charlie Chaplin USA1925 The Street of Sorrow G. W. Pabst Germany1926 Metropolis Fritz Lang Germany1927 Sunrise F. W. Murnau Germany

Dawn of a Golden Age :

www.ytyc.co.uk 7

Page 8: Your Town Your Choice : Issue 37

8 www.ytyc.co.uk8 City Life Magazine

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YOURTOWNYOURCHOICE

Page 9: Your Town Your Choice : Issue 37

www.ytyc.co.uk 25

Issue 4

Issue 23

Get yourfivea day

nal magazine?cal franchise opportunities.

BLE THROUGHOUT THE UK

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LEADING south coastrestaurateur, Simon Scutt,together with London magazinepublisher, Duncan Williams, gottogether to promote Britain’s newfound love of food.

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Issue 12

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YOURTOWNYOURCHOICE

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10 www.ytyc.co.uk

YOURTOWNYOURCHOICE

Page 11: Your Town Your Choice : Issue 37

Cu

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and

keep

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for

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.

• Add the oil, butter shallots, garlic together andstart to heat.

• Put the mussels and prawns into the pan and putthe lid on.

• Keep looking occasionally at the contents to see ifthe mussel shells have opened and the prawns haveturned pink.

• When the shells have opened add the wine firstand put the lid back on for a minute

• Take off the heat for a second and add the creamto your taste stirring into the rest of the contents.

• Serve in one large bowl, feeding each other.

Parsley can be used to garnish and a finger bowl withwater and piece of lemon is a good idea. Some crustybread for the left over juice works well. Enjoy withthe rest of the chilled White Wine - Macon Villagesor Macon Lugny are good choices.

Be careful not to add any salt before the musselshells have opened (they contain a little salt water)

Half kilo of cleaned Scottishmussels

200 grams of tiger prawns withshells on.

Half glass of dry white wine

Splash of olive oil

Knob of butter

1 shallot (finely chopped)

1 garlic clove (finely chopped)

Double cream(1 or 2 tablespoons)

Salt & pepper to taste

Saucepan with lid

METHOD

INGREDIENTS

PREPARATION TIME: 10 minsCOST: Approx. £15 (with a reasonable bottle of wine)

YOURTOWNYOURCHOICE

www.ytyc.co.uk 11

Tiger

Prawns &

Mussels

Page 12: Your Town Your Choice : Issue 37

... so, givethe job toDavidBeckham

SO the great Muhammad Ali has made it to 70. The world’s greatest everboxer has just celebrated that milestone birthday - and it gives us all a chanceto reflect on the man who could also arguably claim the title of the greatestsportsman ever. Yes, he was that good – beating the bulldozing Joe Frazier twiceand, through a tactical bit of genius (the so-called rope-a-dope tactics), alsoemerging victorious over the supposedly unbeatable George Foreman when theman-mountain submitted to fatigue in their titanic bout in Zaire in 1974.

But Ali is even more than all that: his influence and significance as a humanbeing and an icon spread much wider than a mere sporting legend.

Ali, christened Cassius Clay, famously refused to fight in Vietnam - a moralstance based upon his publicly held belief that ‘the Vietnamese have donenothing to hurt me’. He expanded upon that belief when he said, ‘Hatingpeople because of their colour is wrong and it doesn’t matter which colour doesthe hating. It’s just plain wrong.’

And on religion he said, ‘Religions all have different names, but they allcontain the same truths. ... I think the people of our religion should be tolerantand understand people believe different things.’

As he grew older, Ali became more interested in becoming the spokesmanof his generation and transcended sport with his words and beliefs.

So it was great to see him hit 70, if also sad as he shook uncontrollably - alegacy of the punishment he took in the ring in his later bouts. It is a shamethat the men who controlled his career did not have the same humanity of theman they fleeced – they should have pulled him out or persuaded him not tofight the likes of Larry Holmes, who gave him a real battering.

The man is a legend – I very much doubt there will be another sportsmanwho manages to match his achievements, both within their sport and out of it.

Ali we love you.

YOURTOWNYOURCHOICE

12 www.ytyc.co.uk

Page 13: Your Town Your Choice : Issue 37

AN increasing number of my colleagues in the Press boxes around thecountry have jumped on an ageist bandwagon of late. Yes, almost every sportshack I speak to is unflinching in his or her belief that two of thegreatest footballers of the modern era should NOT be allowedanywhere near the Great British team in the London Olympics thissummer. They contend that the two men are finished, burnt out andtoo slow - and that the two slots in the squad should go to muchyounger, faster boys.

I am referring, of course, to the ongoing debate over whether England’sDavid Beckham and Wales’ Ryan Giggs should be in GB boss Stuart Pearce’sfinal squad.

My opinion is this: there will be plenty of other youngsters in the 23-mansquad and each team is allowed three over-age players. So why not chooseGiggsy and Becks?

Their experience will prove invaluable to the young lads and they will addtechnical skills in terms of free kicks and set plays that could bring the oddgoal or three. And, let’s be honest here, we are not going to win the darnedthing anyway! Not with Pearce in charge - he is an honest battler but lackstactical nous…a modern day Kevin Keegan if you will - and not when we aregoing to be up against the wonderful talents of Argentina and Portugal.

So, as hosts, it surely therefore makes sense for us to maximise our presenceand impact in the tournament. With Becks and Giggsy in there, I can tell youfor sure that everyone will be talking about Team GB and make us theirsecond team after their own countries.

Choosing the pair is a win-win no-brainer, so come on Pearce…pick Becksand Giggsy, they’ll be proud to represent the nation and they’re bring us muchprestige as the host nation.

TALKING of Argentina (and Lionel Messi who may well be one of THEIRover-age players!), I was saddened to see Pele doing the little man down recently.

Many pundits claim Pele is the greatest footballer of all time - and a fineambassador for the game nowadays. I have to say I disagree on both points. Hemight have built himself up as the greatest, but he was too much of a goody-goodyin my book and did not have the charisma or mischief to be the best.

That accolade has to go to another Argentine, the naughty but wonderful DiegoMaradona, who won the World Cup for his country in 1986, almost single-handedly. And, led by Maradona, Italian club Napoli won their only Serie A Italiantitle in 1986/87. Again he achieved it with a team with talents much less stellar thanhis genius. No way was it as tough for Pele - he played for Brazil, with magical stars allaround him in the team.

And now Pele is getting a bit mean in his old age. When asked by French newspaperLe Monde whether Messi could now legitimately be called the greatest player EVER,Pele replied resentfully, “When Messi's scored 1,283 goals like me, when he’s won threeWorld Cups, we’ll talk about it.æ

What a sad old bugger he has become! He was asked the question just after Messi hadwon Fifa’s Ballon d’Or for the best player in the world for a THIRD SUCCESSIVEyear.

Surely he could have joined in the salute to a truly wonderful player by sayingsomething like, ‘Well, he is going the right way about it!’ Instead he demeaned himselfand his reputation on the world stage by taking it personally…a real own goal on thePR front that one, Pele…

and play Becks andGiggsy in the Olympics

FRANK WORRALL writes the best news reportsespecially for your WEEKLY SPORT!

For more information on Frank and his bestselling sports books,see www.weeklysport.co.uk

Weekly Sport readers can buy Frank’s insightful book on Sir Alex Ferguson for thespecial price of only £2.86 on Kindle (retail price £17.99 for the hardback)

that’s anotherfine Messi

you’ve got into!

Pele -

Ignore the cynics

YOURTOWNYOURCHOICE

www.ytyc.co.uk 13

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14 www.ytyc.co.uk

For more info check outwww.themedianet.org or contact

[email protected]

Join us for an exciting day of discussion, fellowship,encouragement and inspiration. We’ll have inputfrom some great Christian media professionals

including the BBC’s Rev Richard Coles.

We’ll be looking at issues from phone hacking and mediaethics, to job insecurity, gamification and augmented reality.It will be a fantastic opportunity to meet, pray for and share

experiences with other Christians working in the mediafrom all over the country.

£12 Coffee, refreshments and lunch included

theMediaNet and

Christians In Journalism conference

Saturday 3rd March 9am-5pm

St. James’ Church, Clerkenwell, London

Page 15: Your Town Your Choice : Issue 37

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