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This thread was originally written and published in January 2024.
The pub in the picture below has been in the news for the wrong reasons recently but, despite its rather forbidding appearance these days, it’s a very important pub. It is a surviving example, serving its original purpose, of only a handful of such inter-war hostelries that were built in Edinburgh; the roadhouse. But these nine public houses didn’t just appear for no reason, they were the culmination of and response to a long political and social struggle around public drinking in the first half of the 20th century. Shall we unravel their story?
The Anchor Inn on West Granton Road.The short version of the roadhouse story is this: they are a blend of 1930s architecture and design glamour that were used by the licensed trade to entice a new generation of sophisticated, Holywood-inspired, upmarket, car-driving drinkers. That’s partly true, but is by no means the full story.
1934 Dunlop Tyres advert showing cars arriving at an Art Deco roadhouse. © Illustrated London NewsTo understand how Edinburgh got its roadhouses we have to go back to 1913 when the Temperance movement was at the peak of its power and the Temperance (Scotland) Act was passed. This was also known as the Local Veto Act as it allowed localities to force referendums on going dry – although this only applied to public houses, not restaurants or hotels. The veto ballots could be called by 10% of registered electors in a burgh, parish or ward petitioning for it. There were 3 options on the bill:
- No Change, i.e. the area would stay wet
- Limitation – there would be a 25% reduction in licences in the area
- No Licence, i.e. prohibition
The No Licence option required a supermajority of 55% to pass, representing at least 35% of all electors in the area. If that hurdle failed to be passed, these votes were then counted towards Limitation.
British Women’s Temperance Association banner of the Scottish Christian Union, 1900. © Edinburgh City LibrariesThe Act had unforeseen consequences though: the brewers and licensed trade circled their wagons and got organised, forming defence committees to coordinate their response. They also put off investment in their estates in case of an unfavourable ballot; why spend money with the threat of a loss of licence hanging over you? As a result the quality of pubs got worse, not better. But the Temperance Movement had to wait until the conclusion of WW1 before making their next move. This came in 1920 to coincide with local elections and they launched their Pussyfoot Campaign to coordinate mass petitioning for local veto ballots across Scotland. This was named after an American prohibition campaigner who arrived in the UK in 1919, who had a tactic of pussyfooting around pubs incognito to gather evidence against them. And so in December 1920, Edinburgh (amongst many other Scottish localities) held its first Local Veto ballot. The terms of the act meant that public houses had to shut during polling hours. The Evening News reported record trade in Musselburgh as the city’s drinkers fled to the sanctuary of the Honest Toun for the day.
“Edinburgh Drouths Annex Musselburgh”. Edinburgh Evening News – 6th December 1920But after the last pint glasses had been emptied, the last drams downed and the ballot papers counted, the Temperance Movement were in for a disappointment: Edinburgh voted firmly for No Change in every ward – 68% overall. No Licence got 29%, less than half of what was needed, with a small minority voting for Limitation. The city would stayed wet. The Movement tried again in 1923 and although the polls shifted a few percent, once again every ward voted for a majority of No Change. Things were closest in Morningside where it was 51:46% between status quo and prohibition. You can spot something of a definite inner city / suburban and social order based split in the numbers.
Edinburgh 1920 & 1923 Local Veto Act, results for “No Change” by Ward.So it was now 1923, 10 years since the Temperance Act was passed, and neither the Movement or the more moderate Reformers were any further forward in the city and the trade still refused to invest in their estates. And so the quality of pubs continued to deteriorate. Many in the trade did recognise the need to improve, however they wanted the threat of the 1913 Act pulling the rug from under their feet to be gone before they put their money where their mouths were. They were supported politically in this by reformers, led by Lord Novar in the House of Lords and Lord Salvesen of the Scottish Public House Reform League. The Reformers took as their template the New Model Inn developed by Harry Redfern for the Government in the Carlisle district after WW1 which aimed to use better design and an improved service offering to reduce drunkenness.
The Redfern Inn at Etterby, CarlisleDespite the deliberately anachronistic appearance, these were a modern ideal of a public house, full of design innovations that we now take for granted. These included the practice of seated drinking around tables in open saloons where all corners and entries and exits could be viewed from the bar line; traditionally most pubs indulged in drinking standing around a small service bar, or in small rooms where what happened in the room stayed in the room. Public bars were accompanied by relaxed lounge bars, where women were tolerated in the company of their husbands, hot food was served and other wholesome diversions such as reading, writing and games rooms were included. The Scottish Reformers called these the Improved Public House on the Carlisle Model. Interestingly, they declined to follow a different but more local and established form of reformed public house; the Gothenburg. The Goth movement grew out of that city and had been established cooperatively across Scottish mining communities, but particularly in the Lothians and Fife. It is likely that the Goth principles were too Temperate and too verging on Socialism for the trade to accept.
The Prestongrange Goth, Prestonpans. CC-by-SA 2.0 Richard WebbReform was all well and good in practice, however the trade still had to get through the Licensing Courts, which were stuffed with conservatively-minded councillors who were frequently aligned with the Church and were heavily lobbied by well organised Temperance campaigners and their lawyers. The Courts were able to make it very difficult for new licenses to be obtained and all too easy for old ones to be lost. Over time they managed to reduce the overall numbers of licences in the City by granting fewer than were removed or expired.
The end result of all this was that there was a period of almost 20 years when no new pubs were built in Edinburgh. Things came to a head in 1933 when the President of the Edinburgh Local Veto Defence Association petitioned for a licence for a new inn in the new district of Balgreen. Robert Russell Hogg had kept a pub next to the City Chambers for 21 years, which the Corporation now wanted him to give up to allow them to extend that building. He pushed a test case to allow an Improved Tavern in an otherwise dry district as a direct challenge to Temperance – stipulating he wanted to be out of the city centre and in an area where he would not have to compete with established trade. Hogg was a keen reformer and stated he wanted “an inn after the English type, something the trade would be proud to have in Edinburgh“.
The Temperance Movement had thus far managed to keep all of Edinburgh’s new peripheral council housing schemes effectively “dry” by preventing licenses for pubs and off-licence grocers. They had a lot to lose here and rallied their troops; a petition of 181 owners and occupiers in the district against Hogg’s application was organised. The ministers of Saughtonhall Congregational Church, the Cairns Memorial Church and Stenhouse Church of Scotland all lodged protests. But lose lose they did, by 9-1 votes at the licensing court. And so on December 24th 1934, Edinburgh’s first newly built pub in at least 20 years opened; The Wheatsheaf Inn on Balgreen Road. It was in an Scottish interpretation of the Arts & Crafts style by architects Lorimer & Matthew. Hogg took out adverts calling it “Auld Reekie’s New Modern Inn“.
Promotional postcard for the Wheatsheef, showing interior of the establishment. Reproduced with kind permission of Sarah M (@sazz_mck).When it opened it was almost 1/3 mile from the nearest house. It was spacious, with a large, open “tap room” with no corners that could not be observed from the bar line, a kitchen and dining room, a garden, car park and a flat for the landlord upstairs. To cock a snoot at the Temperance Movement, Hogg had an ornamental sculpture added with a legend taken from Omar Khayyam installed above the front door: “AND AS THE COCK CREW THOSE WHO STOOD BEFORE THE TAVERN SHOUTED OPEN THEN THE DOOR“.
Wheatsheaf, the main door was on the right, below the chimney and carving over the lintel. Picture by Fiona Coutts, via British Listed Buildings.The Lord Provost was supportive of the new initiative, and hoped it would help put an end to the scourge of Vertical Drinking (or Perpendicular Drinking as he particularly called it). This was the practice of drinking standing around a serving hatch or bar (which many howffs at the time basically were), rather than seated politely around tables. The Improved Public House genie was now out of the bottle, but others in the trade held back a bit to see how Hogg got on. When it was clear he wad a success on his hands, others decided to join in on the action. The Licensing Courts sat twice a year and so the next two applications had to wait until April 1935.
First up was a widow, Mrs Johan Thom, who kept the Stenhouse Inn by Liberton. She wanted an Improved Pub to replace this old country tavern which she had run with her late husband and her application was successful. The Arts & Craft style Greenend Inn opened on Gilmerton Road on March 23rd 1936, but it has always almost been known by the nickname of its predecessor, The Robin’s Nest. You can see that particular bird on the prominent external sign. These elaborate, painted tavern signs were an import from England where the brewery trade had been trying to revive their ancient art. Mrs Thom had gone all out on the latest facilities, with lounge and public bars, a tea room, restaurant, “parking and accommodation for cars” and a skittle alley! The skittle alley (or space devoted to such other such traditional, wholesome games) would become something of a feature of the roadhouses.
The Greenend Inn, Edinburgh Evening News- 30 June 1936The other application made at this time was something altogether different from these Arts & Crafts reinterpretations of the traditional Olde English country tavern, something instead inspired by the glamour of Hollywood and the ocean liner. This was the Maybury Roadhouse; “Scotland’s premier commercial establishment of the 1930s“.
Artist’s Impression of the Maybury Roadhouse. Edinburgh Evening News- 01 May 1935Gone here were old world comforts of wood and the fireplace and in were sleek Streamline Moderne architecture (by Paterson & Broom) and the glitz of neon lights and jazz bands, the cocktail bar, the grill restaurant, the ballroom, balconies, a mezzanine gallery and rooftop garden. The Maybury opened on 19th November 1936, despite 260 objections by the Temperance Movement and the usual protests of local ministers. Its licensees were Messrs P. McDougall, who had been in the trade for over 40 years, and it cost them £10,000 to build (c. £584k in 2023). Although sometimes referred to as a “roadhouse hotel“, actually a defining feature of the roadhouse was that they were not hotels, the Dundee Licensing Court defined them in 1937 as “a house which supplied all the services of the hotel without sleeping accommodation“. Certainly it was the ultimate expression of the roadhouse concept in Scotland, and endures (as a casino) as one of the finest monuments to Art Deco in the country.
Maybury Gala Casino, CC-by-SA 2.0 Thomas NugentThe scale and ostentatious glamour of the Maybury was a one-off, but it influenced subsequent applications in the city. Six months after its licence was granted, in October 1935, Mrs Jemima Hood Gair petitioned for a new roadhouse on Niddrie Mains Road to serve the housing estates there with all the latest features, including a billiards room. She had been in the trade herself for 11 years after the death of her husband and kept a licensed grocer at West Adam Street and a pub on Couper Street in Leith. The Temperance Movement were furious – this was a blatant attempt to introduce the public house to a housing scheme they considered to be dry (even though men who wanted to just went into town to drink) and sent in their lawyer, Duncan Maclennan SSC, to lead the objections. By 8 votes to 1, she prevailed, on the condition she relinquished her two existing premises, a compromise position that resulted in a net reduction in licences of one in the city. She was also obliged to serve hot meals as had been proposed. The White House opened on 18th October 1936, in an Art Deco style by Leith architects W. N. Thomson. It featured two public bars, a saloon, cocktail bar, a lounge bar, a skittle alley and billiards and darts rooms, as well as a cafe-cum-restaurant.
Opening announcement for the White House, Evening News, 22 October 1936. Mrs Gair is in the centre of the lower image, in the coat with dark fur lapels.The April 1936 licensing committee takes us back where we started, the Anchor Inn on West Granton Road. This application, by James Birrell Rintoul, was approved that year to an Art Deco design by Thomas Bowhill Gibson, better known as a cinema architect (including The Dominion in Morningside). The Anchor is probably the furthest from the model of the Roadhouse of the lot; in reality it was just a modern and vaguely upmarket public house decorated with contemporary architectural details. The Temperance Movement were probably right to see it as merely a way to get a public house into an otherwise dry estate. They managed to make it a close run thing at the Licensing Court, again Duncan Maclennan SSC opposed, as well as all 36 church ministers in Leith. Rintoul relied on the casting vote of Lord Provost Gumley to get it through and was obliged to provide “hot luncheons, high teas, cooked food“.
The year following The Anchor, three roadhouse licenses were granted. The first to open was the Hillburn Roadhouse which was the project of John Maclennan Oman and his wife Nellie who kept a number of pubs across the city and been in the trade over 40 years. Despite it being, then, well away from anything else, they still struggled to get a licence and had to have it granted on appeal.
The Hillburn Roadhouse, a contemporary photograph provided by Colin Dale to a book by Malcolm Cant.It featured all the usual roadhouse facilities, with three bars, a “first class restaurant” (serving luncheons, snacks, afternoon teas, grills, dinners, suppers etc.), an off-licence shop, car parking and “commanding a fine view of the Pentland Hills“. Latterly run as the Fairmile Inn and suffering the indignity of a Scottish & Newcastle ski chalet-themed 1970s refurbishment, the Hillburn sat empty for a number of years, unloved and unwanted, and was demolished in 2013. It’s the only Edinburgh roadhouse to suffer this fate.
Hillburn Roadhouse skittles alley. RIAS photo, picture from a book by Malcolm CantJohnnie Oman died in 1942. Nellie continued to run the Hillburn, living in the flat above, until retiring to the Grange in 1956. One of their other bars, the Duddingston Arms in Craigmillar, has long been known as Oman’s in their honour. It’s proximity to The White House can’t just be a coincidence, the Omans can’t have missed this new establishment along the road from them and were undoubtedly inspired by it.
Oman’s bar on Peffer Place. The finest glass brick pub facade in Edinburgh.The following month after the Hillburn opened, James Daly opened the Abercorn Inn on the Portobello Road, near the Northfield and Piershill housing schemes. He too had to go to appeal to get permission for it. His establishment was back to the Arts & Crafts Style of the Robin’s Nest (and although I can’t find an architect name for either, I’d put money on them being one and the same)
The (former) Abercorn Inn. Photo © SelfIt opened “in the Old English Style” on September 16th 1938 and had almost exactly the same facilities as its lookalike. The opening announcement proudly concluded that “Only First-Class Ales and Finest Whiskies and Wines Stocked“.
Opening announcement for the Abercorn Inn, 16th September 1938The last of the trio of 1937 roadhouses opened on 11th October 1938, the House O’ Hill on the Queensferry Road at Blackhall. The licensee was Edward Cranston, a wine and spirit merchant whose premises included that now known as The King’s Wark on the Shore in Leith. Again it followed the Arts & Crafts style, but contrary to some sources was a new building and not converted from an older tavern or coaching house.
The House O’ Hill on the right, with the English-style pub sign outside. From an old postcard.It too proved controversial, not because it was in a dry scheme this time, but because of its genteel surroundings. Lord Provost Gumley struggled to be heard over cries of “No!” and “Shame!” when announcing the granting of its licence. The 238 objectors claimed it was not Temperance that was their objection, but that the Queensferry Road was too busy during the day and too quiet at night to be acceptable for the motor car traffic “of the young and gay” that such an establishment would undoubtedly attract. But once again they failed to block it, and it opened with a mock-Tudor main bar with an “Old English style brick fireplace” and equipped with “small tables and comfortable modern chairs“. The “high-class restaurant” could seat 100, there was a games room with its own bar and a cocktail bar with feature lighting. Outside there were decorative gardens with fir trees and Japanese shrubs, and a car park for 25 vehicles. For as many years as I can remember, the place has been used as offices, but still retains its Olde English style pub signboard out front
The House O’ Hill these days, as offices for the Scottish Grocers FederationNot all roadhouses got through the Licensing Court however, and the objectors were able to stop a few. One on East Milton Road was declined due to its proximity to two boarding houses for girls. Another at Stenhouse Road was knocked back, as was one on Northfield Broadway. The latter would eventually be built post-war, with the curious name of the Right Wing. This came from its landlord, Hibs’ legendary “Famous Five” right winger, Gordon Smith. It was demolished in 2018 for a speculative development which has yet to be built five years later.
The Right Wing in 2008.But that’s a postwar roadhouse, and we’re here to talk about inter-war roadhouses. The last of these was approved at the licensing court of April 1938 and was one of two competing schemes on opposite corners of Parkhead Gardens at Sighthill, then a new and somewhat upmarket estate of privately rented houses and flats. Messrs. Mitchell, caterers, were successful in their application, but the opening was delayed until February 1st 1940 owing to the outbreak of war. The named it the Silver Wing in connection with the glamour of aviation. The green-tiled pagoda tower over the entrance is distinctive, but it’s not an early prototype for an all-you-can-eat Chinese Buffet! No, one of the directors of Messrs Mitchell & Co. had a pilots licence, and wanted the place to have an aeronautical theme. That pagoda is actually a control tower! The main bar floor was laid out as an aviators compass, the cocktail bar was called “The Cockpit” and painted panels and engraved mirrors around the bars represented flight-themed scenes, including of the Luftwaffe bombing raids over the Firth of Forth in October 1939. As well as a skittle alley it had a ballroom with capacity for 200 dancers.
The Silver Wing at SightillThe Silver Wing was a forces favourite for dances during WW2 – being conveniently close to the RAF at Turnhouse (the officers preferred the Maybury) and also a prisoner of war camp a bit along the Calder Road.
A Company, Edinburgh Home Guard, dance at the Silver Wing, Evening News, January 11th 1941Although only nine roadhouses were built in Edinburgh in the inter-war period, they did a fairly comprehensive job at positioning themselves on the principal approach roads from the city; staying true to the roadhouse ideal, even if some were really just glorified local pubs.
Map of Edinburgh’s inter-war roadhouse inns. Purple pins are establishments.The Temperance Movement and the Local Veto polls never went away despite these reformist pubs, indeed it may have galvanised some in the movment. The last such referendum in Edinburgh was in Corstorphine & Cramond ward in 1938 where 76% voted for No Change. Polls continued in Scotland into the 1970s, before final abolition in 1976. You can still drink in the Anchor Inn, Robin’s Nest, Silver Wing and the Maybury (although the latter is a Casino, so you need to join first). The White House is looking good, but is a (dry) community facility. The Abercorn, House O’ Hill and Wheatsheaf are commercial premises.
The White House after 2011 refurbishment – pic by Smith Scott Mullan AssociatesIf you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site (including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget) by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.
These threads © 2017-2023, Andy Arthur
#architecture #ArtDeco #Balgreen #Blackhall #Edinburgh #Liberton #LocalPolitics #Niddrie #publicHouses #pubs #temperance #Written2024
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With the #food prices currently rising,
I'm glad that I started learning how to #cook these last few years.
- Buy in bulk
- Cook in bulk (aka. meal prep)
- Store some in the freezer
- Win#cooking your own food is not only very useful (and tasty), but you also save money.
And save time if you cook in bulk.
I did some rough maths,
Depending on the recipe, every meal costs me around 1$ to 3$ each.
You have to invest in kitchen gear and tools though.
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"Invest in your own experience. Do the work." - Futurist Jim Carroll
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Futurist Jim Carroll is writing a series, The Art of the Infinite Pivot, based on 36 lessons from his 36 years as a solo entrepreneur, working as a nomadic worker in the global freelance economy. The series is unfolding here, and at pivot.jimcarroll.com.
--Yesterday, I told you to waste time on frivolous things.
I encouraged you to play with the "toys" that others dismiss, because that’s where the future hides. But once you find a "toy" that hums with the signal of a major disruptive trend, you have to make a choice: do you stay a spectator, or do you become a practitioner?
The Infinite Pivot requires you to move from "playing" to "doing," and in doing so, developing the critical skills and insight you need to successfully pivot into your next version of you.
A key philosophy I’ve followed throughout my 36-year voyage is that if I’m going to speak or write about a disruptive trend, I’ve got to have hands-on experience with it. I refuse to be a "slideshow strategist" who simply repeats what they read in a trade magazine. If I haven't touched it, I don't feel I have the right to talk about it.
It's one thing to see the "frivolous" potential of a trend; it's another to understand its soul.
So with that being the case, I learn through doing.
Linux as a foundation? I didn't just read about it; I became a Linux geek, building and managing the very server infrastructure that powers my digital presence. Smart home trends? I didn't just buy a hub; I built a living laboratory of interconnected sensors and complex logic. Self-driving cars? I didn't just watch the videos; I invested ten grand in Tesla's FSD. (The hands-on "phantom braking" moments taught me more about the reality of AI than any white paper ever could, and the fact it won't be real for quite some time. DNA-based preventative medicine? I didn't just track the news; I had my 23andMe done and took a deep dive into my personal healthcare genome to see the future of personalized wellness firsthand.
Do you get the point? I can’t go on stage and speak about future trends if I don't have a deep, visceral understanding of those trends.
In an era of shallow, AI-generated summaries and surface-level takes, your greatest competitive advantage is tactile truth. While everyone else is talking about the future, you are busy wiring it. Putting it together.Making it real. Getting into the weeds with it.
Don't just watch the future happen.
Get your hands dirty.
Put in the work.
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Futurist Jim Carroll believes that learning is what most of us are doing for a living.**#DoTheWork** **#Experience** **#HandsOn** **#Practice** **#Learning** **#Investment** **#Authenticity** **#Tactile** **#Mastery** **#Pivot** **#Depth** **#Practitioner** **#Skills** **#Insight** **#Future** **#Trends** **#Freelance** **#Lessons** **#Effort** **#Building** **#Understanding** **#Authority**
Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2026/04/decoding-tomorrow-the-infinite-pivot-series-16-invest-in-your-own-experience-do-the-work/
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The global health community has long grappled with the challenge of providing effective, scalable training to health workers, particularly in resource-constrained settings.
In recent years, digital learning platforms have emerged as a potential solution, promising to deliver accessible, engaging, and impactful training at scale.
Imagine a digital platform intended to train health workers at scale.
Their theory of change rests on a few key assumptions:
- Offering simplified, mobile-friendly courses will make training more accessible to health workers.
- Incorporating videos and case studies will keep learners engaged.
- Quizzes and knowledge checks will ensure learning happens.
- Certificates, continuing education credits, and small incentives will motivate course completion.
- Growing the user base through marketing and partnerships is the path to impact.
On the surface, this seems sensible.
Mobile optimization recognizes health workers’ technological realities.
Multimedia content seems more engaging than pure text.
Assessments appear to verify learning.
Incentives promise to drive uptake.
Scale feels synonymous with success.
While well-intentioned, such a platform risks falling into the trap of a behaviorist learning agenda.
This is an approach that, despite its prevalence, is a pedagogical dead-end with limited potential for driving meaningful, sustained improvements in health worker performance and health outcomes.
It is a paradigm that views learners as passive recipients of information, where exposure equals knowledge acquisition.
It is a model that privileges standardization over personalization, content consumption over knowledge creation, and extrinsic rewards over intrinsic motivation.
It fails to account for the rich diversity of prior experiences, contexts, and challenges that health workers bring to their learning.
Most critically, it neglects the higher-order skills – the critical thinking, the adaptive expertise, the self-directed learning capacity – that are most predictive of real-world performance.
Clicking through screens of information about neonatal care, for example, is not the same as developing the situational judgment to adapt guidelines to a complex clinical scenario, nor the reflective practice to continuously improve.
Moreover, the metrics typically prioritized by behaviorist platforms – user registrations, course completions, assessment scores – are often vanity metrics.
They create an illusion of progress while obscuring the metrics that truly matter: behavior change, performance improvement, and health outcomes.
A health worker may complete a generic course on neonatal care, for example, but this does not necessarily translate into the situational judgment to adapt guidelines to complex clinical scenarios, nor the reflective practice to continuously improve.
The behaviorist paradigm’s emphasis on information transmission and standardized content may stem from an implicit assumption that health workers at the community level do not require higher-order critical thinking skills – that they simply need a predetermined set of knowledge and procedures.
This view is not only paternalistic and insulting, but it is also fundamentally misguided.
A robust body of scientific evidence on learning culture and performance demonstrates that the most effective organizations are those that foster continuous learning, critical reflection, and adaptive problem-solving at all levels.
Health workers at the frontlines face complex, unpredictable challenges that demand situational judgment, creative thinking, and the ability to learn from experience.
Failing to cultivate these capacities not only underestimates the potential of these health workers, but it also constrains the performance and resilience of health systems as a whole.
Even if such a platform achieves its growth targets, it is unlikely to realize its impact goals.
Health workers may dutifully click through courses, but genuine transformative learning remains elusive.
The alternative lies in a learning agenda grounded in advances of the last three decades learning science.
These advances remain largely unknown or ignored in global health.
This approach positions health workers as active, knowledgeable agents, rich in experience and expertise.
It designs learning experiences not merely to transmit information, but to foster critical reflection, dialogue, and problem-solving.
It replaces generic content with authentic, context-specific challenges, and isolated study with collaborative sense-making in peer networks.
It recognizes intrinsic motivation – the desire to grow, to serve, to make a difference – as the most potent driver of learning.
Here, success is measured not in superficial metrics, but in meaningful outcomes: capacity to lead change in facilities and communities that leads to tangible improvements in the quality of care.
Global health leaders faces a choice: to settle for the illusion of progress, or to invest in the deep, difficult work of authentic learning and systemic change, commensurate with the complexity and urgency of the task at hand.
Image: The Geneva Learning Foundation Collection © 2024
https://redasadki.me/2024/06/30/learn-health-but-beware-of-the-behaviorist-trap/
#behaviorism #eLearning #healthTraining #HealthLearn #HRH #HumanResourcesForHealth #learningCulture #learningStrategy #workforceDevelopment
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Continuous learning is lacking in immunization.
This lack may be an underestimated barrier to the “Big Catch-Up” and finding zero-dose children
This was a key finding presented at Gavi’s Zero-Dose Learning Hub (ZDLH) webinar “Equity in Action: Local Strategies for Reaching Zero-Dose Children and Communities” on 24 January 2024.
The finding is based on analysis large-scale measurements conducted by the Geneva Learning Foundation in 2020 and 2022, with more than 10,000 immunization staff from all levels of the health system, job categories, and contexts, responding from over 90 countries.
YearnContinuous learningDialogue & InquiryTeam learningEmbedded SystemsEmpowered PeopleSystem ConnectionStrategic Leadership202038303.614.68–4.814.685.104.83202261853.764.714.864.934.725.234.93TGLF learning culture and performance global measurements (2020 and 2022) uising the Dimensions of Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ)What does this finding actually mean?
In immunization, the following gaps in continuous learning are likely to be hindering performance.
- Relatively few learning opportunities for immunization staff
- Limitations on the ability for staff to experiment and take risks
- Low tolerance for failure when trying something new
- A focus on completing immunization tasks rather than developing skills and future capacity
- Lack of encouragement for on-the-job learning
This gap hurts more than ever when adapting strategies to reach “zero-dose” children.
These are children who have not been reached when immunization staff carry out what they usually do.
The traditional learning model is one in which knowledge is codified into lengthy guidelines that are then expected to trickle down from the national team to the local levels, with local staff competencies focused on following instructions, not learning, experimenting, or preparing for the future.
For many immunization staff, this is the reference model that has helped eradicate polio, for example, and to achieve impressive gains that have saved millions of children’s lives.
It can therefore be difficult to understand why closing persistent equity gaps and getting life-saving vaccines to every child would now require transforming this model.
Yet, there is growing evidence that peer learning and experience sharing between health workers does help surface creative, context-specific solutions tailored to the barriers faced by under-immunized communities.
Such learning can be embedded into work, unlike formal training that requires staff to stop work (reducing performance to zero) in order to learn.
Yet the predominant culture does little to motivate or empower these workers to recognize or reward such work-based learning.
Furthermore, without opportunities to develop skills, try new approaches, and learn from both successes and failures, staff may become demotivated and ineffective.
This is not an argument to invest in formal training.
Investment in formal training has failed to measurably translate into improved immunization performance.
Worse, the per diem economy of extrinsic incentives for formal training has, in some places, led to absurdity: some health workers may earn more by sitting in classrooms than from doing their work.
With a weak culture of learning, the system likely misses out on practices that make a difference.
This is the “how” that bridges the gap between best practice and what it takes to apply it in a specific context.
The same evidence also demonstrates a consistently-strong correlation between strengthened continuous learning and performance.
Investment in continuous learning is simple, costs surprisingly little given its scalability and effectiveness.
Calculating the relative effectiveness of expert coaching, peer learning, and cascade training
How does the scalability of peer learning compare to expert-led coaching ‘fellowships’?
That means investment in continuous learning is already proven to result in improved performance.
We call this “learning-based work”.
References
Watkins, K.E. and Marsick, V.J., 2023. Chapter 4. Learning informally at work: Reframing learning and development. In Rethinking Workplace Learning and Development. Edward Elgar Publishing. Excerpt: https://redasadki.me/2023/11/04/how-we-reframed-learning-and-development-learning-based-complex-work/
The Geneva Learning Foundation. From exchange to action: Summary report of Gavi Zero-Dose Learning Hub inter-country exchanges. Geneva: The Geneva Learning Foundation, 2023. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10132961
The Geneva Learning Foundation. Motivation, Learning Culture and Immunization Programme Performance: Practitioner Perspectives (IA2030 Case Study 7) (1.0); Geneva: The Geneva Learning Foundation, 2022. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7004304
Image: The Geneva Learning Foundation Collection © 2024
#continuousLearning #DLOQ #Gavi #immunization #KarenEWatkins #learningCulture #performance #TheBigCatchUp #zeroDoseChildren #ZeroDoseLearningHubZDLH_
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Found this today: https://merchant.licindia.in/LICMerchant/portlets/util/ValidateReceipt/Validate.jpf - Helps to verify the LIC premium receipts. I still invest in #lic #lifeinsurancecorporationofindia so yeah, is good for me.
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January Update 1/14/2026
- First update of 2026! Wow, hard to believe we’re already in this year. I can’t believe it. The last year went by so quickly with everything. Happy to be approaching some big events coming up. More details forthcoming.
- Had a good last week with two literary magazines accepting some of my work. Both acceptances in a 24 hour period. Really made me feel good. It feels weird to talk about these successes. I wasn’t really raised in an environment where you celebrated these things without some sort of guilt or takedown being on the backside of it. Hard to market success when you have this emotional baggage. I’m working on it.
- For every acceptance it seems like there are about 10 or 15 rejections. If you could see my submission tracker the amount of red is like an 80’s slasher flick. I constantly get rejections in my email. I suffer about them all the time, so celebrating the positivity feels like sort of a must.
- For years I have mainly used WordPress for my sharing of information and content, despite other places being more keen and prevalent. This is partially my innate shyness, but also what I write. Literary horror isn’t something you just talk about in a post or picture, but something you pull people into. Curiosity is your marketing, and the flash and giggle of social media doesn’t necessarily match up with it always. I sort of lure you in with less, so marketing has been a struggle for me. As I shift into traditional publishing more, I know I’ll have to continue to enhance my content and message. I’ll be sharing things more across all platforms.
- Beware the Ills and the Greenland Diaries continue to get shared on here in pieces every Monday and Friday. They have posts built for the next eight months so plenty of time to invest in the story and read it leisurely.
- I’m not sure what I’ll be doing for events this year. 13 Gears doesn’t sound like it is going to happen, and some of these other events are simply too expensive to justify. Twin Cities Con is a yes. The rest is sort of up in the air. Don’t know the details quite yet. Might be just smaller events like breweries, and potentially a new con.
- I’m thoroughly addicted to Cliar Obscur: Expedition 33. We’ve been playing it like crazy. What an incredible game. Reminds me so much of Legend of Dragoon. I’ve loved everything about it. I highly recommend it.
- Almost done with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Our anime list is out of control. The backlog is huge. I’m not sure when we’ll get through it, but Mob Psycho is next.
- Self-published projects coming up include a Greenland Diaries Omnibus of short fiction, with new material. For sure that one will be produced at some point this year, probably in Fall 2026 for Halloween.
- Alrighty, well, that is my sort of January Update. I have a lot going on this month. I’ll share those links to my new publications when they’re out and live. Thank you everyone for the continued support. Stay healthy! Stay safe!
#author #authorUpdate #behindTheScenes #blogging #books #creativeProcess #fantasy #fiction #horror #monsters #patrickWMarsh #reading #theGreenlandDiaries #workInProgress #writerSLife #writing #writingGoals #writingJourney #writingLife #writingProgress #writingUpdate
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Here's your quote of the week from #SnoopDog on #AI
"Well I got a motherf*cking AI right now that they did made for me. This n***** could talk to me. I'm like, man this thing can hold a real conversation? Like real for real? Like it's blowing my mind because I watched movies on this as a kid years ago. When I see this sh*t I'm like what is going on? And I heard the dude, the old dude that created AI saying, "This is not safe, 'cause the AIs got their own minds, and these motherf*ckers gonna start doing their own sh*t. I'm like, are we in a f*cking movie right now, or what? The f*ck man? So do I need to invest in AI so I can have one with me? Or like, do y'all know? Sh*t, what the f*ck?" I'm lost, I don't know."
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/05/snoop-dogg-on-ai-risk-sh-what-the-f/ -
5 Best Adobe InDesign Resume Templates in 2026
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Seriously, your resume is a design artifact. As a creative professional, it is simultaneously your introduction, your proof of concept, and your first portfolio piece — all before a hiring manager reads a single bullet point. So why would you hand that responsibility to an AI text generator or a generic word-processor template?
The best resume templates for designers in 2026 are built in Adobe InDesign. That is not a preference — it is a professional standard. InDesign gives you typographic precision, modular layout control, and print-ready output that no other tool matches at the same level. Furthermore, a beautifully crafted InDesign resume signals something a plain document never can: that you already understand how professional visual communication works.
So, here we go. In this review, we cover the five best InDesign resume templates available right now. Each one earned its place here for a specific reason. Together, they represent a clear picture of what a standout creative job application looks like in 2026.
Why Do Designers Still Need Premium Resume Templates in 2026?
This is a fair question. AI-generated resumes are everywhere. Tools that auto-format your LinkedIn profile into a downloadable PDF have never been more accessible. So why invest in a premium InDesign resume template at all?
Because the creative job market rewards exactly the things AI-generated documents lack: intentional layout decisions, typographic authority, and a clear visual identity. A hiring manager at a branding agency or design studio sees hundreds of applications. Most look the same. Most come from the same tools. Consequently, a well-designed InDesign resume template immediately creates a different first impression — one that communicates craft before a single word registers.
There is also a deeper argument here. Submitting an AI-generated resume for a creative role is a subtle signal that you do not take visual presentation seriously. That is a damaging impression to make in a field where presentation is literally the work. Investing in a professional InDesign layout template — and customizing it with care — shows that you understand the stakes.
Additionally, InDesign resume templates offer something that browser-based tools cannot: absolute layout fidelity. Every element stays exactly where you place it. Typography renders correctly in print and PDF export. Master pages keep your multi-page document consistent throughout. These are not small advantages — they are the difference between a document that looks designed and one that merely looks finished.
What Makes Adobe InDesign the Gold Standard for Professional Resume Design?
Adobe InDesign is the industry-standard layout tool for editorial design, branding, and print production. Consequently, it is also the most capable environment for building a resume that behaves like a designed document rather than a formatted text file.
Specifically, InDesign offers paragraph and character styles that let you apply consistent typography across your entire document in seconds. Its baseline grid system aligns every line of text with mathematical precision. Master pages ensure that repeated elements — headers, footers, page numbers, column rules — stay consistent without manual adjustment. Moreover, InDesign exports print-ready PDFs with embedded fonts, precise color values, and clean bleed settings when needed.
For creatives applying to design studios, advertising agencies, architecture firms, or any role where visual judgment matters, these capabilities translate directly into competitive advantage. Your resume becomes a demonstration of your skills, not just a description of them.
The 5 Best Resume Templates for Adobe InDesign in 2026
The following five InDesign templates represent the strongest options available for creative professionals right now. Each template addresses a different application scenario, aesthetic direction, and career stage. However, all five share one quality: they communicate professional design intent clearly and immediately.
I want to introduce a framework here that I call the Application Signal Spectrum — an editorial concept describing the range of impressions a resume layout creates, from purely functional at one end to boldly expressive at the other. The best InDesign resume templates position themselves strategically along this spectrum rather than defaulting to either extreme. Each of the following five templates occupies a distinct and deliberate position.
1. Modular Resume and Cover Letter Template — The Structural Benchmark
Adobe InDesign Resume and Cover Letter Template in A4 for Job Applications by Designcy StudioThis Adobe InDesign resume and cover letter template by Designcy Studio is the most architecturally rigorous option in this selection. Its defining characteristic is modular grid construction — a layout system where every text block, divider, and visual element occupies a clearly defined module within a strict column structure.
Download the template from Adobe StockWhy does that matter? Because modular grid design is the same structural logic that governs brand identity systems, editorial layouts, and annual report design. When you submit a resume built on modular architecture, you are demonstrating fluency in a foundational design principle. That is a signal that resonates with senior designers and creative directors immediately.
The template covers both resume and cover letter pages. It uses clean typographic hierarchy and strategic whitespace to guide the reader’s eye without visual noise. Furthermore, the A4 format ensures international compatibility — an important practical consideration for creatives applying across multiple markets.
Customizing this template in Adobe InDesign is straightforward. Open the .indd file, navigate to the Paragraph Styles panel to modify type settings globally, and use the master page to update headers or recurring layout elements site-wide. Swapping color values is equally clean — update the document’s swatch library and all linked elements update simultaneously.
This template sits at the structured, authoritative end of the Application Signal Spectrum. It works best for graphic designers, brand strategists, art directors, and editorial designers who want their layout intelligence to be immediately legible.
2. Clean Minimalist Resume and Cover Letter Template — The Less-Is-More Argument
Clean Adobe InDesign Resume and Cover Letter Template for Job Seekers by Designcy Studio.The clean InDesign resume and cover letter template by Designcy Studio takes a fundamentally different position. Where the modular template asserts structural complexity, this one argues — convincingly — for reduction. Every element earns its place. Nothing decorative survives the edit.
Download the template from Adobe StockThis is harder to pull off than it sounds. Minimalism in resume design is frequently mistaken for simplicity, but the two are not the same. True minimalism requires acute judgment about what stays and what goes. Accordingly, this template works because it makes those editorial decisions for you at the layout level — and makes them correctly.
The typographic palette is restrained, using weight contrast and spatial rhythm to create hierarchy without relying on color or graphic ornamentation. The cover letter page mirrors the resume’s visual logic, creating a coherent application set. Together, they present a unified identity that reads as considered rather than spare.
For creatives applying to studios with a refined, editorial aesthetic — think independent agencies, cultural institutions, luxury brand consultancies — this template communicates exactly the right frequency. It signals that you understand the value of restraint, which is one of the most sophisticated things a visual communicator can demonstrate.
To customize this template in InDesign, use the Text tool to replace placeholder content while preserving the existing paragraph styles. Resist the urge to add elements. The template’s power lives in its discipline, and breaking that discipline undermines its entire argument.
3. Interactive Resume Presentation Template — The New Application Format
Interactive Resume Presentation Template by E-Type for Adobe InDesignThis interactive resume presentation template by E-Type represents a genuinely new category of creative job application document. Rather than presenting your credentials as a standard single-page or two-page resume, it frames your application as a designed presentation — a multi-page document built to be shared digitally as an interactive PDF.
Download the template from Adobe StockThis format reflects a real shift in how creative applications work in 2026. Email-based applications with attached PDFs have largely replaced printed submissions. Meanwhile, hiring managers reviewing candidates on-screen respond differently to a document that feels like a designed artifact rather than a form. This template closes that gap deliberately.
The layout uses structured presentation pages to separate resume content, portfolio highlights, and a professional statement into distinct, designed spreads. The result looks more like a brand presentation deck than a traditional resume — but it retains all the informational content a recruiter expects. Additionally, the interactive PDF functionality adds embedded hyperlinks and navigation, which makes it genuinely useful as a digital document rather than just visually impressive.
I consider this template the most forward-looking option in this selection. It anticipates where creative applications are heading: toward designed documents that work as much as presentations as they do as CVs. Consequently, it positions you ahead of candidates still submitting conventional single-page formats.
Customizing this InDesign template requires slightly more familiarity with the software. Use the Pages panel to navigate between presentation spreads. Modify each spread independently while preserving master page elements. Export as an interactive PDF from the File > Export menu, selecting Adobe PDF (Interactive) to retain all hyperlink functionality.
4. Designer Resume Portfolio Presentation Template — The Visual Identity Statement
Download a creative designer resume portfolio presentation template by E-Type for use in Adobe InDesign.The designer resume portfolio presentation template by E-Type is the most visually expressive option in this roundup. It explicitly merges resume and portfolio into a single, designed document, creating what I would call a Credential-Portfolio Hybrid — an editorial concept describing a job application format that presents professional credentials and visual work simultaneously within a unified layout system.
Download the template from Adobe StockThe template is built for designers who have strong visual work to show and want their application document to function as a first taste of that work. Its layout accommodates portfolio imagery alongside career history, skills, and professional summary — all within a cohesive typographic and spatial framework. Furthermore, the design vocabulary is contemporary and confident without crossing into decorative excess.
This is the template to choose when you are applying to a role where creative direction, visual storytelling, or design leadership is central to the job. It communicates that your design thinking operates at a system level — that you can manage complex visual information coherently across multiple pages.
Notably, the template’s expressive quality means that customization choices matter more here than with the more restrained options. The imagery you choose, the colors you select, and the typography you apply will shape the document’s overall identity significantly. Use InDesign’s Links panel to update image placements cleanly, and update the Character Styles panel to modify typographic accents without breaking the layout’s internal logic.
5. Professional Curriculum Vitae Template — The Timeless Classic
Professional Curriculum Vitae Template for Adobe InDesignThe professional curriculum vitae template for Adobe InDesign is the most versatile option in this selection. It takes a classically structured approach to the CV format — clear sections, strong typographic hierarchy, and a layout that reads efficiently under any reviewing condition.
Download the template from Adobe StockThis template works for the widest range of creative roles. Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, art director, UX designer, or creative strategist, this CV template’s visual language is professional enough to hold up in any context without being corporate. The structure follows established CV conventions — which means recruiters and hiring managers can navigate it intuitively — while the typographic execution and spatial composition clearly elevate it above standard word processor output.
The strength of this template is its flexibility. Because its design language is authoritative rather than stylistically specific, you can customize it broadly without losing coherence. Adjust the color palette, swap the typefaces via InDesign’s paragraph style controls, and the template adapts to your personal visual identity without resistance.
For creatives early in their careers — or those making a transition into a new creative discipline — this template provides a professional foundation that communicates seriousness without requiring extensive InDesign experience to customize effectively.
How to Customize InDesign Resume Templates Professionally
Opening an InDesign template for the first time can feel unfamiliar if you are used to word processors. However, the workflow is more intuitive than it appears once you understand the core tools.
Start with the Paragraph Styles panel. This is where the template’s typographic system lives. Every text style — body copy, section headers, name treatments, labels — has a saved style you can modify globally. Change the font or size in one style, and every instance of that style updates across the entire document instantly. This is one of InDesign’s most powerful advantages for resume customization.
Next, examine the master pages. In the Pages panel, you will find one or more master page spreads. These contain recurring elements — column rules, header bands, page geometry — that appear on every document page. Edit the master page rather than individual pages when you want site-wide layout changes.
For color customization, open the Swatches panel. Professional InDesign templates define colors as named swatches. When you modify a swatch value, every element using that swatch color updates automatically. This makes rebranding the entire document to your personal color palette a matter of minutes rather than hours.
Finally, export your finished resume as a PDF. Use File > Export and select Adobe PDF (Print) for standard submission or Adobe PDF (Interactive) for digital-first applications with embedded hyperlinks. Both options produce print-ready, professionally rendered output that looks exactly as designed across all devices and viewing environments.
The AI Resume Problem: Why Generic Applications Cost Creative Professionals Jobs
Let me be direct about something that matters here. AI-generated resumes are a real risk for creative job seekers in 2026 — not because they look unprofessional to an automated tracking system, but because they look generic to a human designer who reviews creative applications for a living.
A creative director reviewing your application makes a judgment about your visual sensibility before they read your job title. The layout, typography, and spatial composition of your resume all contribute to that first impression. Specifically, an AI-generated resume signals that you either do not know how to use professional layout tools, or that you do not think your application document deserves that investment of skill and time.
Neither impression is one you want to create. Furthermore, the irony is significant: applying for a creative role with an AI-generated document effectively argues against your own candidacy as a visual communicator.
Investing in a premium InDesign resume template is, therefore, not just a formatting decision. It is a professional statement. It says that you understand the relationship between form and content, that you respect the reader’s visual experience, and that you apply design thinking to your own professional materials — not just to client work.
That argument is worth making. And a well-designed InDesign template is exactly the right tool to make it.
What to Look for in the Best InDesign Resume Templates for Creative Roles
Not every InDesign template is worth your time. Several key qualities separate genuinely professional InDesign templates from those that merely look polished in preview thumbnails.
First, the template should use a proper paragraph style system. Templates that rely on manually formatted text rather than structured styles are fragile — any edits risk breaking the typographic consistency. Additionally, the grid system should be explicit. A well-built InDesign template uses visible guides or a document grid to anchor layout elements, making it clear exactly how the spatial system works and how to maintain it when adding content.
Second, the template should export cleanly as a PDF without font substitution or layout shifts. This means all fonts used in the template must be either embedded or replaceable with fonts you have licensed. Before committing to a template, verify that the required fonts are available to you through Adobe Fonts, which is included with any Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.
Third, the template should include both resume and cover letter pages as a matched set. A cohesive application set — where both documents share the same visual language — creates a stronger impression than a mismatched pair. Four of the five templates in this article include this pairing. That is not a coincidence.
Frequently Asked Questions About InDesign Resume Templates
Do I need Adobe InDesign experience to use these resume templates?
Basic InDesign familiarity is helpful, but beginners can work with these templates using the Text tool, Paragraph Styles panel, and Swatches panel — the three core tools for resume customization. Adobe’s InDesign tutorials, available free through the Adobe Help Center, cover all the necessary skills in under two hours. Moreover, InDesign’s interface is significantly more approachable for document editing than it is for building layouts from scratch.
Can I use InDesign resume templates if I have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription?
Yes. Adobe InDesign is included in the Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan and in standalone InDesign subscriptions. If you already use Photoshop or Illustrator through Creative Cloud, InDesign is likely already part of your plan. Check the Creative Cloud desktop app to confirm which apps your subscription includes.
Are InDesign resume templates compatible with A4 and US Letter formats?
Most professional InDesign resume templates are designed in A4 format. However, InDesign makes it straightforward to adjust page dimensions — go to File > Document Setup and change the page size. Note that you may need to reposition some layout elements after resizing. Several of the templates in this article support both formats or can be adapted with minimal adjustment.
How do I change fonts in an InDesign resume template?
Open the Paragraph Styles panel (Type > Paragraph Styles). Double-click any style to open its options, then navigate to Basic Character Formats to change the font. Because the entire template uses named paragraph styles, changing the font in one style updates every instance of that style throughout the document. Adobe Fonts, included with Creative Cloud, provides access to thousands of professional typefaces directly within InDesign.
Are these InDesign resume templates suitable for non-designers?
Yes, particularly the Professional CV Template and the Clean Minimalist Resume and Cover Letter Template. Both use restrained, universally legible typographic systems that work equally well for photographers, architects, art directors, creative strategists, copywriters, and other creative professionals who work adjacent to graphic design. The key requirement is that your role involves some dimension of visual or creative judgment, because the professional design quality of an InDesign resume template speaks most directly to hiring managers in creative fields.
What is the difference between a resume and a CV template in InDesign?
A resume is typically a one- to two-page document tailored to a specific role, common in the United States and Canada. A CV (curriculum vitae) is a more comprehensive professional document covering full career history, publications, awards, and education — standard in Europe, academia, and many international creative industries. Several InDesign templates in this article cover both formats, or are flexible enough to serve either purpose depending on how you configure the content.
Why should I invest in a premium InDesign template instead of using a free resume builder?
Free resume builders produce documents that look like free resume builder outputs. Specifically, they rely on template systems designed for mass production rather than individual expression, which means hundreds of other applicants are submitting visually identical documents. A premium InDesign resume template gives you a professionally designed, fully customizable layout that you control entirely — from typography to color to spatial composition. For a creative professional, that level of control is not a luxury. It is a baseline professional standard.
Feel free to find more CV and resume layouts in the Templates section here at WE AND THE COLOR.
#AdobeInDesign #AdobeStock #InDesignTemplate #InDesignTemplates #resume #resumeTemplate #resumeTemplates #resumes -
Interesting question here about #Denmark 's rapidly increasing bioenergy use to replace fossil fuels.
Denmark imports wood from USA forests and burns them for electricity.
Yearly increasing emissions from bioenergy mean, the area is expanded yearly as well on which forest is killed for Denmark.The increasing emissions from LULUCF of this activity are being accounted for in the USA. Or not, who knows.
Likewise, whether Denmark buys wood pellets made from ground litter, as they claim, also no one knows. More likely, profit-smelling private investors are felling old forests/are killing ecosystems.And all of this for the least efficient energy fuel: wood. One might argue, burning fossil gas is more sustainable because you need less of it for the same amount of energy.
Meanwhile, science is also undecided whether or not old forest stores more carbon than re-planted young forest. I side with old forests anytime –if nothing else, because of the biodiversity it hosts which we can't afford to lose anymore.Aside from LULUCF emissions accounting, ie disturbed soil, lost sink, there's an important disadvantage in introducing bioenergy use while our myopic economic system governs the dynamics down the line:
greedy profitability and blind Growth!Growth!
AND while Denmark is electrifying formerly fossil fuelled stuff = Growth!Growth!³
Expect growing³ "need" for felled trees. But tree re-growth naturally won't be able to serve this growing demand ➡️the result is, forest area felled increases³ in parallel.
Introducing growing demand for felled trees reminds me of the aviation industry now yodelling "Old cooking fat makes our fuel sustainable!"
All the while planning with 5% growth/year.
Are you guys ready to eat 5% more fish and chips year on year to keep planes flying and satisfy the Growth!Growth! idiocy?Bioenergy in a closed loop without demand growth is sustainable even with slow-growing trees: assign 1 plot and never allow a second plot. Period.
But in our growth-reliant, profit-driven economic and societal system, when you
create demand for felled trees by
allowing private money to invest in infrastructure and machinery,
the demand grows [for profits=for trees] inevitably as well.Which then also increases emissions and kills carbon sinks and biodiversity.
Life cycle emission analysis has to account for such systemically driven follow-up dynamics.
And when seen side-by-side, the LCA of renewable energy from PV and wind turbines wins.
PV begets PV, just look at roofs in neighborhoods. You'll seldom see only a single roof with PV. Because of the psychological pull-effect when 1 house gets PV, the neighbours remember that they too "always wanted PV", and now finally see this constant reminder for also starting the project. 🖖🏽#co2emissions #bioenergy #forest #LULUCF #energy #RenewableEnergy
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Got money?
(e.g. your income or livelihood is stable enough not to affect covering next month's needs, plus some fun for a life worth living)
Now may be good to invest in local organisations.
Time, energy, money, equipment, networking, social media, cleaning, babysitting, etc.My opinion? Focus on: youth groups, public health education, adult retraining, intercommunity outreach, and mutual aid.
Plus any fallible online orgs you believe in, e.g.
Internet Archive, Wikipedia, Posteo.de, Ecosia, PillowFort, Signal, SonarPen, specific indie devs and artists, Nebula, MakerTube.net, LiberaPay, Artisans Coop, etc.LINK YOUR FAVES too! 📝 🫵📑
Repeated small support is more reliable than big irregular donations, but 'better is always better'.
(also hi If you like how I phrase things and try to help people,
throw me $2 USD, £2 GBP, etc. Very thank. Much many.https://ko-fi.com/mxverda or https://patreon.com/MxVerdaArt or https://mxverda.itch.io/ or https://liberapay.com/MxVerda/ or https://subscribestar.adult/mxverde or https://artistree.io/mxverda or https://twitch.tv/mxverda or https://paypal.me/mxverda
)#active #ActiveListening #Communication #Comms #info #Information #Idea #Ideas #learn #learning #learningEnglish #LearningEveryday #ed #edu #EduTooter #education #EducationForAll #lang #LangDev #lang_en #language #linguist #linguistics #collocation #corpus #attention #PayAttention #focus #AmbientFocus #intent #meditation #mediation #arbitration #conflict #ConflictResolution #VeRantDa #VeRamble
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CW: Online dating ridiculousness
...and now I've been banned from R4R.
Why? They didn't tell me at first. So I asked. They told me I'd violated Rule #3, "no exchanges for money or goods."
Here is what they apparently interpreted as me asking for money or goods:
"This is addressed to the many scammers and pig butchers on Reddit: I will not send anyone money, gift cards, or cryptocurrency. I will not invest in your investment schemes. I won't install your scam software. If you ask me for any of these things I will report you and block you immediately."
I appealed, of course, because what I wrote was the OPPOSITE of violating Rule 3; it was upholding it! No response yet, but I have to assume that I was the victim of a particularly stupid bot. Whether or not I'll be unbanned is anybody's guess.
You know, this is why we really need some sort of Fediverse-based dating platform.
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This #osmAPP is really growing it's appeal for me. The built-in editor seems ideal for simple edits, that a lot of people with one-off edits do (e.g editing businesses, or POIs)
I used to push for #onosm.org , or
#osmybiz.osm.ch, but this now appears to be a more user-friendly option, without asking the end-user to invest in learning a mainstream #OpenStreetMap editor.It uses "Edit Place" (sic) for every feature you can edit. Perhaps, a generic "Edit feature" or "Edit this" is better?
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Brace yourselves comic connoisseurs and gaming geeks for an episode that will have you questioning reality itself! In this multiversal misadventure we delve into the depths of X-Men Next Dimension, a game that dared to challenge the boundaries of the comic book universe.
But wait, there’s more! We’ve got a special guest star joining us on this cosmic crusade – the one and only Lex W from the Wednesday Toast podcast! Prepare to be dazzled by his wit, charm, and encyclopedic knowledge of all things mutant-related.
As we navigate through the Operation Zero Tolerance storyline, we’ll uncover the secrets behind this dimension-hopping extravaganza. From mind-bending plot twists to jaw-dropping gameplay mechanics, no stone will be left unturned in our quest for truth, justice, and the ultimate gaming experience.
So grab your controllers, strap on your adamantium seatbelts, and get ready for a wild ride through the annals of X-Men history. This episode is sure to leave you questioning your own reality – or at least wondering why you didn’t invest in a Cerebro helmet sooner.
Excelsior, true believers! The adventure awaits!
Learn such things as:
- HOLY CRAP THEY CAN BASE A GAME ON A SPECIFIC COMIC RUN?!
- Is it a sequel if nobody knows it’s a sequel?
- How did I time this episode so well with X-Men 97?
- Just kidding, you won’t learn that because I don’t know either!
- And so much more!
You can find Lex on Twitter, Threads, and Instagram @wednesdaypull. And of course there’s always Wednesday Toast on Twitter or Spotify. You should listen to that, it’s fun.
If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in.
If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store.
Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix.
You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicscast on Twitter and in the Play Comics Podcast Fan Group on Facebook.
A big thanks to It’s Probably (not) Aliens and the Stealth Hammer Kickstarter campaign for the promos today.
Intro/Outro Music by Best Day, whose favorite X-Man is Deadpool.
https://playcomics.com/x-men-next-dimension-with-lex-w-wednesday-toast/
#Activision #Bastion #Beast #BetsyBraddock #Bishop #Blob #Cyclops #DarkPhoenix #ExaktEntertainment #Forge #Gambit #Gamecube #Havok #Juggernaut #LadyDeathstrike #LexW #Magneto #Marvel #Mystique #Nightcrawler #ParadoxDevelopment #Phoenix #PlayStation2 #Psylocke #Pyro #Rogue #Sabertooth #Sentinal #Storm #Toad #Wolverine #XMen #Xbox
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Using #MintMobile for on this trip - they offer unlimited data but the moments I actually had data available were in very sparse pockets of Berlin for short periods of time. Phone calls worked, despite the occasional dropped call here and there. A lot of places offer wifi and it forced me to be off my phone when being a tourist, but I would invest in a data eSIM in the future.
Google Maps offline data was a godsend.
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#Capitalists: Keep grinding! Never stop going hard! There's no limit to how much profits you can reap! Never sleep.
#Degrowth people like me: Stop grinding yourself to death. Stop going hard. Start slowing down & relishing a more simple life. Invest in extra naps.
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Rubio Tells Iran Invest in People—But U.S. Military Spending Exposes Hypocrisy
Rubio says Iran should invest in its people, but U.S. military spending vs healthcare reveals deep hypocrisy and misplaced moral authority.
#AmericanExceptionalism #ForeignPolicy #geopolitics #healthcareCrisis #Iran #MarcoRubio #militaryIndustrialComplex #nuclearWeapons #politicalHypocrisy #progressiveAnalysis #USMilitarySpending #warEconomy https://wp.me/p1OjMZ-oO1 -
A post to gush about new and old toys, because most of my local friends don't give a fuck:
Two weeks ago after the release of the incredible #assembly64 client for mac/winders/linux from Hackers With Style, I was so impressed with the software, I ordered a cartridge based, cycle-exact floppy drive emulator PACKED with extra features called the #1541Ultimate II+ from #Gideon's Logic.
For those not directly plugged in to the Commodorkosphere, Gideon is the genius who's creations from which the re-re-re-resurrected #commodore brand built their flagship products.
So the 1541U2 arrived two days ago. I got it set up on the C64c I've been playing with since the 1980s and connected to it from Assembly64 on my macbook over ethernet and everything worked perfectly, first try. Awesome!
44 years worth of music, graphics, demos, games and tools is a staggering amount of material to sift through, but with this combination of software and hardware, it's all at my fingertips to use immediately on real hardware by simple double-click.
This is key because as with anything, when there's a lot of it, a lot of it sucks. Instead of hours wasted scavenger hunting and unpacking disk images or even actual disks, it's all a double click away. If it sucks, no sunk cost, no frustration, just clicky clicky on the next thing and it copies over, loads and launches.
(or it can be routed to a local emulator, too... or both. Why not both? )
Anyway it's the most fun I've had with my C64 since my dad let me start using the modem back in 1990. Also no more frustrations from 40 year old floppy drives giving up mid-access, neither.
Hell this 1541U is so great, I decided to order the C64 Ultimate instead of continuing to invest in clever hacks and sketchy fixes for my ever-aging collection of OG Commodore hardware. I'm not holding my breath but it would be amazing if it showed up in time for this year's #revision easter democene party.
Anyway that's my #retro #commodore ted talk for today. If you're on the fence about buying new hardware for old computers, I can tell ya Gideon's products are worth every euro.
resources:
ultimate64.com/
assembly64.hackerswithstyle.se/assembly/index.html
www.commodore.net/
So how about you? On board with the new hotness yet? Do you love it?
-/// -
On WordPress and the Eleventy Experiment
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhilst I have found WordPress to be a useful tool since around 2005 or so, recent changes have encouraged me to dump the platform. The first of these changes was when WordPress moved to react because this made the site slower, and heavier to use. React also has links to Facebook, and I try to avoid Facebook related projects when possible.
The second reason is that WordPress now feels clunky and heavy. If you want to write a blog post you have so many bells and whistles that to write a blog post, you need to jump through three or four hoops, before you start writing. Recently they changed the layout so I had to adapt to a different setup.
JetPack and the Rising Paywall for Functions
One of the key problems with WordPress, that I see getting worse, is how Jetpack is hijacking and paywalling functionality that should be free, or if not free, then affordable. There was a time when I agreed to pay for vaultpress, and jetpack, until they increased their prices. The issue is that the prices rose to four or five times their original prices. They also added the pay monthly tax for basic functions.
As a result of enturdification WordPress has gone from being Free and Open Source to pay to win. You pay for social features. You pay for image optimisation. You pay for backup. You pay for CSS optimisation. In the end WordPress might be free and open source, for basic features, but not all.
ActivityPub and Jetpack
Recently I deactivated Jetpack due to the rising paywall. In the process I noticed that my WordPress blog was defederated. It stopped posting to Mastodon instances, and to BlueSky. Behind the scenes Jetpack swallowed Activitypub so that the plugin is a remnant, a legacy plugin.
By removing Jetpack I broke my blog’s connection with the Fediverse, but in the process I was given a strong push towards mothballing WordPress.
The Eleventy Opportunity
Eleventy is a JavaScript static site generator. To get basic functionality tutorials can help, especially if you’re learning JavaScript and CSS. If you’re more experienced, or motivated to experiment, then you can attempt to get a site up and running via experimentation with AI.
Think Laterally and Then Play
If the last three to five days have taught me anything it is that you should not think in straight lines when you’re playing with AI. Instead you should run a thought experiment first. To elaborate, the natural instinct is to use the activitypub plugin to federate your blog. The issue is that the fediverse wants you to push content. If you write a post it wants you to say “Hey I wrote a post and here’s the URL”. If you go the Activitypub plugin route you write a blog post, but you’re hitchhiking for attention. You’re waiting for people to notice and toot your posts, and for the fediverse to start paying attention.
I spent two days trying to get Eleventy and Hugo to be noticed by the Fediverse. This was a complete failure, and AI just got me to try iterations that didn’t work until I said “No” and then “no” and then “no” and eventually Gemini got the message and that’s when we began to think laterally.
Two Scripts Later
My first thought was to go through my indieweb.social profile and find all my blog post mentions and take the mastodon id from each and add it to the markdown file of each post. This took little trial and error, which feels great.
What did take plenty of trial and error was the share.js to work properly. The first problem that I saw was that images weren’t loading properly. I tried to get help from Gemini, and it offered one solution, and then twenty more, and we made invisible progress. I told it “I want to use the right meta tags and eventually everything was working, but still invisible.
Eventually I noticed that for some reason Gemini had written code that spliced the filename’s yyyy-mm-dd away so it was looking for “post-title” rather than “yyyy-mm-dd-post-title”. Once we fixed this and ran a build the post, and image loaded perfectly and that’s when the blog became “federated” once again.
The Other Scripts
I have:
- create-post to create the frontmatter for a post and open it in vim.
- migrate-images for when I wanted to migrate images from one logic to another.
- sync-mastodon which went through my mastodon history and added mastodon id to each md file
- share.js to use mastodon’s API to create and share the latest post automatically.
Two of these scripts will be used daily, and the others are useful once, early in the migration process. They might not look like much but they save hours of time and effort for me as a human being, doing things at a human pace. A JS script does it in seconds, if that.
And Finally
To remain positive, Eleventy feels like an opportunity, whereas WordPress feels like it is sliding behind a paywall. My blog doesn’t generate an income so I don’t want to pay for basic functionality. I’d rather invest in learning about new things, as I have, by shifting towards blogging with Eleventy and Hugo before that.
#cost #eleventy #experimentation #wordpress -
a native internet protocol for social media ~ Jack Dorsey
[All of the below is Dorsey’s blog on how he thinks Twitter and social media should be operated. I have bolded some sections in addition to the few places he bolded. I completely agree with what Dorsey is saying and hope all readers of ABN and in the world read what he has written. I have taken the liberty of posting his entire blog post here to ensure we have a copy of it. ABN]
There’s a lot of conversation around the #TwitterFiles. Here’s my take, and thoughts on how to fix the issues identified.
I’ll start with the principles I’ve come to believe…based on everything I’ve learned and experienced through my past actions as a Twitter co-founder and lead:
1) Social media must be resilient to corporate and government control.
2) Only the original author may remove content they produce.
3) Moderation is best implemented by algorithmic choice.
The Twitter when I led it and the Twitter of today do not meet any of these principles. This is my fault alone, as I completely gave up pushing for them when an activist entered our stock in 2020. I no longer had hope of achieving any of it as a public company with no defense mechanisms (lack of dual-class shares being a key one). I planned my exit at that moment knowing I was no longer right for the company.
The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves. This burdened the company with too much power, and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets). I generally think companies have become far too powerful, and that became completely clear to me with our suspension of Trump’s account. As I’ve said before, we did the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society. Much more about this here:jack@jackI do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter, or how we got here. After a clear warning we’d take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter. Was this correct?12:16 AM – 14 Jan 2021I continue to believe there was no ill intent or hidden agendas, and everyone acted according to the best information we had at the time. Of course mistakes were made. But if we had focused more on tools for the people using the service rather than tools for us, and moved much faster towards absolute transparency, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation of needing a fresh reset (which I am supportive of). Again, I own all of this and our actions, and all I can do is work to make it right.
Back to the principles. Of course governments want to shape and control the public conversation, and will use every method at their disposal to do so, including the media. And the power a corporation wields to do the same is only growing. It’s critical that the people have tools to resist this, and that those tools are ultimately owned by the people. Allowing a government or a few corporations to own the public conversation is a path towards centralized control.
I’m a strong believer that any content produced by someone for the internet should be permanent until the original author chooses to delete it. It should be always available and addressable. Content takedowns and suspensions should not be possible. Doing so complicates important context, learning, and enforcement of illegal activity. There are significant issues with this stance of course, but starting with this principle will allow for far better solutions than we have today. The internet is trending towards a world were storage is “free” and infinite, which places all the actual value on how to discover and see content.
Which brings me to the last principle: moderation. I don’t believe a centralized system can do content moderation globally. It can only be done through ranking and relevance algorithms, the more localized the better. But instead of a company or government building and controlling these solely, people should be able to build and choose from algorithms that best match their criteria, or not have to use any at all. A “follow” action should always deliver every bit of content from the corresponding account, and the algorithms should be able to comb through everything else through a relevance lens that an individual determines. There’s a default “G-rated” algorithm, and then there’s everything else one can imagine.
The only way I know of to truly live up to these 3 principles is a free and open protocol for social media, that is not owned by a single company or group of companies, and is resilient to corporate and government influence. The problem today is that we have companies who own both the protocol and discovery of content. Which ultimately puts one person in charge of what’s available and seen, or not. This is by definition a single point of failure, no matter how great the person, and over time will fracture the public conversation, and may lead to more control by governments and corporations around the world.
I believe many companies can build a phenomenal business off an open protocol. For proof, look at both the web and email. The biggest problem with these models however is that the discovery mechanisms are far too proprietary and fixed instead of open or extendable. Companies can build many profitable services that complement rather than lock down how we access this massive collection of conversation. There is no need to own or host it themselves.
Many of you won’t trust this solution just because it’s me stating it. I get it, but that’s exactly the point. Trusting any one individual with this comes with compromises, not to mention being way too heavy a burden for the individual. It has to be something akin to what bitcoin has shown to be possible. If you want proof of this, get out of the US and European bubble of the bitcoin price fluctuations and learn how real people are using it for censorship resistance in Africa and Central/South America.
I do still wish for Twitter, and every company, to become uncomfortably transparent in all their actions, and I wish I forced more of that years ago. I do believe absolute transparency builds trust. As for the files, I wish they were released Wikileaks-style, with many more eyes and interpretations to consider. And along with that, commitments of transparency for present and future actions. I’m hopeful all of this will happen. There’s nothing to hide…only a lot to learn from. The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and doesn’t solve anything. If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof.
As far as the free and open social media protocol goes, there are many competing projects: @bluesky is one with the AT Protocol, Mastodon another, Matrix yet another…and there will be many more. One will have a chance at becoming a standard like HTTP or SMTP. This isn’t about a “decentralized Twitter.” This is a focused and urgent push for a foundational core technology standard to make social media a native part of the internet. I believe this is critical both to Twitter’s future, and the public conversation’s ability to truly serve the people, which helps hold governments and corporations accountable. And hopefully makes it all a lot more fun and informative again.
💸🛠️🌐
To accelerate open internet and protocol work, I’m going to open a new category of #startsmall grants: “open internet development.” It will start with a focus of giving cash and equity grants to engineering teams working on social media and private communication protocols, bitcoin, and a web-only mobile OS. I’ll make some grants next week, starting with $1mm/yr to Signal. Please let me know other great candidates for this money.link to original #analysis #BigTech #freedom #moralityEthics #technology #thought -
The thread about Edinburgh’s roadhouses; when the glamour of art deco hostelries took on the Temperance Movement (and won!)
This thread was originally written and published in January 2024.
The pub in the picture below has been in the news for the wrong reasons recently but, despite its rather forbidding appearance these days, it’s a very important pub. It is a surviving example, serving its original purpose, of only a handful of such inter-war hostelries that were built in Edinburgh; the roadhouse. But these nine public houses didn’t just appear for no reason, they were the culmination of and response to a long political and social struggle around public drinking in the first half of the 20th century. Shall we unravel their story?
The Anchor Inn on West Granton Road.The short version of the roadhouse story is this: they are a blend of 1930s architecture and design glamour that were used by the licensed trade to entice a new generation of sophisticated, Holywood-inspired, upmarket, car-driving drinkers. That’s partly true, but is by no means the full story.
1934 Dunlop Tyres advert showing cars arriving at an Art Deco roadhouse. © Illustrated London NewsTo understand how Edinburgh got its roadhouses we have to go back to 1913 when the Temperance movement was at the peak of its power and the Temperance (Scotland) Act was passed. This was also known as the Local Veto Act as it allowed localities to force referendums on going dry – although this only applied to public houses, not restaurants or hotels. The veto ballots could be called by 10% of registered electors in a burgh, parish or ward petitioning for it. There were 3 options on the bill:
- No Change, i.e. the area would stay wet
- Limitation – there would be a 25% reduction in licences in the area
- No Licence, i.e. prohibition
The No Licence option required a supermajority of 55% to pass, representing at least 35% of all electors in the area. If that hurdle failed to be passed, these votes were then counted towards Limitation.
British Women’s Temperance Association banner of the Scottish Christian Union, 1900. © Edinburgh City LibrariesThe Act had unforeseen consequences though: the brewers and licensed trade circled their wagons and got organised, forming defence committees to coordinate their response. They also put off investment in their estates in case of an unfavourable ballot; why spend money with the threat of a loss of licence hanging over you? As a result the quality of pubs got worse, not better. But the Temperance Movement had to wait until the conclusion of WW1 before making their next move. This came in 1920 to coincide with local elections and they launched their Pussyfoot Campaign to coordinate mass petitioning for local veto ballots across Scotland. This was named after an American prohibition campaigner who arrived in the UK in 1919, who had a tactic of pussyfooting around pubs incognito to gather evidence against them. And so in December 1920, Edinburgh (amongst many other Scottish localities) held its first Local Veto ballot. The terms of the act meant that public houses had to shut during polling hours. The Evening News reported record trade in Musselburgh as the city’s drinkers fled to the sanctuary of the Honest Toun for the day.
“Edinburgh Drouths Annex Musselburgh”. Edinburgh Evening News – 6th December 1920But after the last pint glasses had been emptied, the last drams downed and the ballot papers counted, the Temperance Movement were in for a disappointment: Edinburgh voted firmly for No Change in every ward – 68% overall. No Licence got 29%, less than half of what was needed, with a small minority voting for Limitation. The city would stayed wet. The Movement tried again in 1923 and although the polls shifted a few percent, once again every ward voted for a majority of No Change. Things were closest in Morningside where it was 51:46% between status quo and prohibition. You can spot something of a definite inner city / suburban and social order based split in the numbers.
Edinburgh 1920 & 1923 Local Veto Act, results for “No Change” by Ward.So it was now 1923, 10 years since the Temperance Act was passed, and neither the Movement or the more moderate Reformers were any further forward in the city and the trade still refused to invest in their estates. And so the quality of pubs continued to deteriorate. Many in the trade did recognise the need to improve, however they wanted the threat of the 1913 Act pulling the rug from under their feet to be gone before they put their money where their mouths were. They were supported politically in this by reformers, led by Lord Novar in the House of Lords and Lord Salvesen of the Scottish Public House Reform League. The Reformers took as their template the New Model Inn developed by Harry Redfern for the Government in the Carlisle district after WW1 which aimed to use better design and an improved service offering to reduce drunkenness.
The Redfern Inn at Etterby, CarlisleDespite the deliberately anachronistic appearance, these were a modern ideal of a public house, full of design innovations that we now take for granted. These included the practice of seated drinking around tables in open saloons where all corners and entries and exits could be viewed from the bar line; traditionally most pubs indulged in drinking standing around a small service bar, or in small rooms where what happened in the room stayed in the room. Public bars were accompanied by relaxed lounge bars, where women were tolerated in the company of their husbands, hot food was served and other wholesome diversions such as reading, writing and games rooms were included. The Scottish Reformers called these the Improved Public House on the Carlisle Model. Interestingly, they declined to follow a different but more local and established form of reformed public house; the Gothenburg. The Goth movement grew out of that city and had been established cooperatively across Scottish mining communities, but particularly in the Lothians and Fife. It is likely that the Goth principles were too Temperate and too verging on Socialism for the trade to accept.
The Prestongrange Goth, Prestonpans. CC-by-SA 2.0 Richard WebbReform was all well and good in practice, however the trade still had to get through the Licensing Courts, which were stuffed with conservatively-minded councillors who were frequently aligned with the Church and were heavily lobbied by well organised Temperance campaigners and their lawyers. The Courts were able to make it very difficult for new licenses to be obtained and all too easy for old ones to be lost. Over time they managed to reduce the overall numbers of licences in the City by granting fewer than were removed or expired.
The end result of all this was that there was a period of almost 20 years when no new pubs were built in Edinburgh. Things came to a head in 1933 when the President of the Edinburgh Local Veto Defence Association petitioned for a licence for a new inn in the new district of Balgreen. Robert Russell Hogg had kept a pub next to the City Chambers for 21 years, which the Corporation now wanted him to give up to allow them to extend that building. He pushed a test case to allow an Improved Tavern in an otherwise dry district as a direct challenge to Temperance – stipulating he wanted to be out of the city centre and in an area where he would not have to compete with established trade. Hogg was a keen reformer and stated he wanted “an inn after the English type, something the trade would be proud to have in Edinburgh“.
The Temperance Movement had thus far managed to keep all of Edinburgh’s new peripheral council housing schemes effectively “dry” by preventing licenses for pubs and off-licence grocers. They had a lot to lose here and rallied their troops; a petition of 181 owners and occupiers in the district against Hogg’s application was organised. The ministers of Saughtonhall Congregational Church, the Cairns Memorial Church and Stenhouse Church of Scotland all lodged protests. But lose lose they did, by 9-1 votes at the licensing court. And so on December 24th 1934, Edinburgh’s first newly built pub in at least 20 years opened; The Wheatsheaf Inn on Balgreen Road. It was in an Scottish interpretation of the Arts & Crafts style by architects Lorimer & Matthew. Hogg took out adverts calling it “Auld Reekie’s New Modern Inn“.
Promotional postcard for the Wheatsheef, showing interior of the establishment. Reproduced with kind permission of Sarah M (@sazz_mck).When it opened it was almost 1/3 mile from the nearest house. It was spacious, with a large, open “tap room” with no corners that could not be observed from the bar line, a kitchen and dining room, a garden, car park and a flat for the landlord upstairs. To cock a snoot at the Temperance Movement, Hogg had an ornamental sculpture added with a legend taken from Omar Khayyam installed above the front door: “AND AS THE COCK CREW THOSE WHO STOOD BEFORE THE TAVERN SHOUTED OPEN THEN THE DOOR“.
Wheatsheaf, the main door was on the right, below the chimney and carving over the lintel. Picture by Fiona Coutts, via British Listed Buildings.The Lord Provost was supportive of the new initiative, and hoped it would help put an end to the scourge of Vertical Drinking (or Perpendicular Drinking as he particularly called it). This was the practice of drinking standing around a serving hatch or bar (which many howffs at the time basically were), rather than seated politely around tables. The Improved Public House genie was now out of the bottle, but others in the trade held back a bit to see how Hogg got on. When it was clear he wad a success on his hands, others decided to join in on the action. The Licensing Courts sat twice a year and so the next two applications had to wait until April 1935.
First up was a widow, Mrs Johan Thom, who kept the Stenhouse Inn by Liberton. She wanted an Improved Pub to replace this old country tavern which she had run with her late husband and her application was successful. The Arts & Craft style Greenend Inn opened on Gilmerton Road on March 23rd 1936, but it has always almost been known by the nickname of its predecessor, The Robin’s Nest. You can see that particular bird on the prominent external sign. These elaborate, painted tavern signs were an import from England where the brewery trade had been trying to revive their ancient art. Mrs Thom had gone all out on the latest facilities, with lounge and public bars, a tea room, restaurant, “parking and accommodation for cars” and a skittle alley! The skittle alley (or space devoted to such other such traditional, wholesome games) would become something of a feature of the roadhouses.
The Greenend Inn, Edinburgh Evening News- 30 June 1936The other application made at this time was something altogether different from these Arts & Crafts reinterpretations of the traditional Olde English country tavern, something instead inspired by the glamour of Hollywood and the ocean liner. This was the Maybury Roadhouse; “Scotland’s premier commercial establishment of the 1930s“.
Artist’s Impression of the Maybury Roadhouse. Edinburgh Evening News- 01 May 1935Gone here were old world comforts of wood and the fireplace and in were sleek Streamline Moderne architecture (by Paterson & Broom) and the glitz of neon lights and jazz bands, the cocktail bar, the grill restaurant, the ballroom, balconies and a mezzanine gallery to watch it all from. As a nod to its ocean liner-influenced architectural styling, there was a rooftop garden complete with a quoits deck . The Maybury opened on 19th November 1936, despite 260 objections by the Temperance Movement and the usual protests of local ministers. Its licensees were Messrs P. McDougall, who had been in the trade for over 40 years, and it cost them £10,000 to build (c. £584k in 2023). Although sometimes referred to as a “roadhouse hotel“, actually a defining feature of the roadhouse was that they were not hotels, the Dundee Licensing Court defined them in 1937 as “a house which supplied all the services of the hotel without sleeping accommodation“. Certainly it was the ultimate expression of the roadhouse concept in Scotland, and endures (as a casino) as one of the finest monuments to Art Deco in the country. During WW2 it was a popular hangout for the officers from the nearby RAF base at Turnhouse and during renovation work in 1988 it was found that the roof structure had been damaged by gun emplacements fitted for the protection of that airfield during that conflict.
Maybury Gala Casino, CC-by-SA 2.0 Thomas NugentThe scale and ostentatious glamour of the Maybury was a one-off, but it influenced subsequent applications in the city. Six months after its licence was granted, in October 1935, Mrs Jemima Hood Gair petitioned for a new roadhouse on Niddrie Mains Road to serve the housing estates there with all the latest features, including a billiards room. She had been in the trade herself for 11 years after the death of her husband and kept a licensed grocer at West Adam Street and a pub on Couper Street in Leith. The Temperance Movement were furious – this was a blatant attempt to introduce the public house to a housing scheme they considered to be dry (even though men who wanted to just went into town to drink) and sent in their lawyer, Duncan Maclennan SSC, to lead the objections. By 8 votes to 1, she prevailed, on the condition she relinquished her two existing premises, a compromise position that resulted in a net reduction in licences of one in the city. She was also obliged to serve hot meals as had been proposed. The White House opened on 18th October 1936, in an Art Deco style by Leith architects W. N. Thomson. It featured two public bars, a saloon, cocktail bar, a lounge bar, a skittle alley and billiards and darts rooms, as well as a cafe-cum-restaurant.
Opening announcement for the White House, Evening News, 22 October 1936. Mrs Gair is in the centre of the lower image, in the coat with dark fur lapels.The April 1936 licensing committee takes us back where we started, the Anchor Inn on West Granton Road. This application, by James Birrell Rintoul, was approved that year to an Art Deco design by Thomas Bowhill Gibson, better known as a cinema architect (including The Dominion in Morningside). The Anchor is probably the furthest from the model of the Roadhouse of the lot; in reality it was just a modern and vaguely upmarket public house decorated with contemporary architectural details. The Temperance Movement were probably right to see it as merely a way to get a public house into an otherwise dry estate. They managed to make it a close run thing at the Licensing Court, again Duncan Maclennan SSC opposed, as well as all 36 church ministers in Leith. Rintoul relied on the casting vote of Lord Provost Gumley to get it through and was obliged to provide “hot luncheons, high teas, cooked food“.
The year following The Anchor, three roadhouse licenses were granted. The first to open was the Hillburn Roadhouse which was the project of John Maclennan Oman and his wife Nellie who kept a number of pubs across the city and been in the trade over 40 years. Despite it being, then, well away from anything else, they still struggled to get a licence and had to have it granted on appeal.
The Hillburn Roadhouse, a contemporary photograph provided by Colin Dale to a book by Malcolm Cant.It featured all the usual roadhouse facilities, with three bars, a “first class restaurant” (serving luncheons, snacks, afternoon teas, grills, dinners, suppers etc.), an off-licence shop, car parking and “commanding a fine view of the Pentland Hills“. Latterly run as the Fairmile Inn and suffering the indignity of a Scottish & Newcastle ski chalet-themed 1970s refurbishment, the Hillburn sat empty for a number of years, unloved and unwanted, and was demolished in 2013. It’s the only Edinburgh roadhouse to suffer this fate.
Hillburn Roadhouse skittles alley. RIAS photo, picture from a book by Malcolm CantJohnnie Oman died in 1942. Nellie continued to run the Hillburn, living in the flat above, until retiring to the Grange in 1956. One of their other bars, the Duddingston Arms in Craigmillar, has long been known as Oman’s in their honour. It’s proximity to The White House can’t just be a coincidence, the Omans can’t have missed this new establishment along the road from them and were undoubtedly inspired by it.
Oman’s bar on Peffer Place. The finest glass brick pub facade in Edinburgh.The following month after the Hillburn opened, James Daly opened the Abercorn Inn on the Portobello Road, near the Northfield and Piershill housing schemes. He too had to go to appeal to get permission for it. His establishment was back to the Arts & Crafts Style of the Robin’s Nest (and although I can’t find an architect name for either, I’d put money on them being one and the same)
The (former) Abercorn Inn. Photo © SelfIt opened “in the Old English Style” on September 16th 1938 and had almost exactly the same facilities as its lookalike. The opening announcement proudly concluded that “Only First-Class Ales and Finest Whiskies and Wines Stocked“.
Opening announcement for the Abercorn Inn, 16th September 1938The last of the trio of 1937 roadhouses opened on 11th October 1938, the House O’ Hill on the Queensferry Road at Blackhall. The licensee was Edward Cranston, a wine and spirit merchant whose premises included that now known as The King’s Wark on the Shore in Leith. Again it followed the Arts & Crafts style, but contrary to some sources was a new building and not converted from an older tavern or coaching house.
The House O’ Hill on the right, with the English-style pub sign outside. From an old postcard.It too proved controversial, not because it was in a dry scheme this time, but because of its genteel surroundings. Lord Provost Gumley struggled to be heard over cries of “No!” and “Shame!” when announcing the granting of its licence. The 238 objectors claimed it was not Temperance that was their objection, but that the Queensferry Road was too busy during the day and too quiet at night to be acceptable for the motor car traffic “of the young and gay” that such an establishment would undoubtedly attract. But once again they failed to block it, and it opened with a mock-Tudor main bar with an “Old English style brick fireplace” and equipped with “small tables and comfortable modern chairs“. The “high-class restaurant” could seat 100, there was a games room with its own bar and a cocktail bar with feature lighting. Outside there were decorative gardens with fir trees and Japanese shrubs, and a car park for 25 vehicles. For as many years as I can remember, the place has been used as offices, but still retains its Olde English style pub signboard out front
The House O’ Hill these days, as offices for the Scottish Grocers FederationNot all roadhouses got through the Licensing Court however, and the objectors were able to stop a few. One on East Milton Road was declined due to its proximity to two boarding houses for girls. Another at Stenhouse Road was knocked back, as was one on Northfield Broadway. The latter would eventually be built post-war, with the curious name of the Right Wing. This came from its landlord, Hibs’ legendary “Famous Five” right winger, Gordon Smith. It was demolished in 2018 for a speculative development which has yet to be built five years later.
The Right Wing in 2008.But that’s a postwar roadhouse, and we’re here to talk about inter-war roadhouses. The last of these was approved at the licensing court of April 1938 and was one of two competing schemes on opposite corners of Parkhead Gardens at Sighthill, then a new and somewhat upmarket estate of privately rented houses and flats. Messrs. Mitchell, caterers, were successful in their application, but the opening was delayed until February 1st 1940 owing to the outbreak of war. The named it the Silver Wing in connection with the glamour of aviation. The green-tiled pagoda tower over the entrance is distinctive, but it’s not an early prototype for an all-you-can-eat Chinese Buffet! No, one of the directors of Messrs Mitchell & Co. had a pilots licence, and wanted the place to have an aeronautical theme. That pagoda is actually a control tower! The main bar floor was laid out as an aviators compass, the cocktail bar was called “The Cockpit” and painted panels and engraved mirrors around the bars represented flight-themed scenes, including of the Luftwaffe bombing raids over the Firth of Forth in October 1939. As well as a skittle alley it had a ballroom with capacity for 200 dancers.
The Silver Wing at SightillThe Silver Wing was a forces favourite for dances during WW2 – being conveniently close to the RAF at Turnhouse (the officers preferred the Maybury) and also a prisoner of war camp a bit along the Calder Road.
A Company, Edinburgh Home Guard, dance at the Silver Wing, Evening News, January 11th 1941Although only nine roadhouses were built in Edinburgh in the inter-war period, they did a fairly comprehensive job at positioning themselves on the principal approach roads from the city; staying true to the roadhouse ideal, even if some were really just glorified local pubs.
Map of Edinburgh’s inter-war roadhouse inns. Purple pins are establishments.The Temperance Movement and the Local Veto polls never went away despite these reformist pubs, indeed it may have galvanised some in the movment. The last such referendum in Edinburgh was in Corstorphine & Cramond ward in 1938 where 76% voted for No Change. Polls continued in Scotland into the 1970s, before final abolition in 1976. You can still drink in the Anchor Inn, Robin’s Nest, Silver Wing and the Maybury (although the latter is a Casino, so you need to join first). The White House is looking good, but is a (dry) community facility. The Abercorn, House O’ Hill and Wheatsheaf are commercial premises.
The White House after 2011 refurbishment – pic by Smith Scott Mullan AssociatesIf you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.
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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
A WALK IN THE PARK WITH WILLA COWARD
The ground at Huron Natural Area was slippery with a coating of late-March snow when I met musician and concert photographer Willa Coward for a walk. Despite wearing footwear better suited for dry conditions, we ventured onto the trails to experience the beauty of the area and talk about the local arts scene.
Coward has been playing drums for most of her life, and is a member of the bands Body Nest, One More Lane and A Horse Named Friday. She has training and experience on the saxophone as well, but despite engaging in vocal exercises, Coward does not consider herself a singer.
“I know how to scream pretty well,” she said. “I can go really loud.”
Her talent for large vocal production led Coward to join a screamo band, a punk style which she describes as cathartic, emotional and hardcore. Not content to stick with one style, Coward also plays chamber folk, power violence, psych rock and shoegaze post rock.
“[I]t really is…all types of music that I’m drawn to,” Coward said. “There’s nothing that really deters me.”
With such a diverse range of styles in her repertoire, Coward lets the music dictate what she brings to her performance, focusing on the needs of the piece to guide her contribution.
“I basically come at it with whatever feels right, whatever is adding to the song,” she said.
Originally from Caledon, Coward came to Waterloo to pursue music studies at Laurier and was in her second year when the pandemic hit. Burn-out and the challenges of lockdown meant that she chose to leave the program halfway through.
“It had been the longest time since I played for the sake of playing, or just for the love of it,” Coward said. “[S]chool and I just didn’t really work well together.”
Coward turned her attention to practice and performance but also invested in building the local music community. As we walked along the boardwalk surrounding the pond before heading up another slippery trail, Coward talked about the importance of bringing people together to experience shows, and the emotions that can accompany music.
“I just wanted there to be more music, more things for people to go to, because…they’re pretty necessary,” Coward said. “COVID hit, and everything just became so scattered and dispersed. There wasn’t really that core…to tie people together.”
The community in the region felt welcoming to Coward, which is why she wanted to invest in building local shows. She described people showing up for the love of the scene, and relationships growing from those connections.
“I feel like…we have a very good community based here, especially in terms of music,” she said.
Community and music connect through photography, another artistic outlet that Coward pursues. She brought her camera when she went to music venues, and began shooting the shows that she was attending, learning through trial and error.
“I didn’t know what I was doing at all. I was winging it!” Coward said. “It was just something I hold really close to heart. It’s nice to have that documentation…to say that it happened, and it was important to a lot of people.”
Coward shoots music shows on a film camera, preferring that medium to digital. Film facilitates other connections; people will approach her at shows to talk about her technique and process. Coward told me about finding a local store to develop film.
“[It’s] run by the sweetest older couple who I would trust with my life,” she said.
We left the trail area and returned to the covered shelter by the natural playground with a view of the art murals to finish our conversation. For Coward, coming to Huron Natural Area meant a return to a site of fond memories. Two years ago, she spent part of her birthday on a hike here at a time of year when the landscape was green and lush.
“I remember being so taken aback by it…I could have walked for hours,” she said.
For Coward, green spaces are where she can focus on herself and be solitary while appreciating nature. Being outside allows her to connect to the sensory experience and helps her when dealing with difficult situations.
“It’s very calming,” she said. “It puts you back into your body.”
We finish our interview by discussing movies. Coward enjoys films that show a quiet reflection of daily life, as well as off-beat cult comedy classics, a further example of the variety of art that she surrounds herself with.
With a handful of new movie recommendations each, we ended our discussion and parted ways, and Willa Coward returned to her life and work in the community of local artists
#AWalkInThePark #AmyNeufeld #artisticOutlet #boardwalk #Caledon #Column #COVID #CraigBecker #HuronNaturalArea #localMusic #Love #musicStudies #performance #photography #relationships #scene #waterloo #willaCoward
-
A WALK IN THE PARK WITH WILLA COWARD
The ground at Huron Natural Area was slippery with a coating of late-March snow when I met musician and concert photographer Willa Coward for a walk. Despite wearing footwear better suited for dry conditions, we ventured onto the trails to experience the beauty of the area and talk about the local arts scene.
Coward has been playing drums for most of her life, and is a member of the bands Body Nest, One More Lane and A Horse Named Friday. She has training and experience on the saxophone as well, but despite engaging in vocal exercises, Coward does not consider herself a singer.
“I know how to scream pretty well,” she said. “I can go really loud.”
Her talent for large vocal production led Coward to join a screamo band, a punk style which she describes as cathartic, emotional and hardcore. Not content to stick with one style, Coward also plays chamber folk, power violence, psych rock and shoegaze post rock.
“[I]t really is…all types of music that I’m drawn to,” Coward said. “There’s nothing that really deters me.”
With such a diverse range of styles in her repertoire, Coward lets the music dictate what she brings to her performance, focusing on the needs of the piece to guide her contribution.
“I basically come at it with whatever feels right, whatever is adding to the song,” she said.
Originally from Caledon, Coward came to Waterloo to pursue music studies at Laurier and was in her second year when the pandemic hit. Burn-out and the challenges of lockdown meant that she chose to leave the program halfway through.
“It had been the longest time since I played for the sake of playing, or just for the love of it,” Coward said. “[S]chool and I just didn’t really work well together.”
Coward turned her attention to practice and performance but also invested in building the local music community. As we walked along the boardwalk surrounding the pond before heading up another slippery trail, Coward talked about the importance of bringing people together to experience shows, and the emotions that can accompany music.
“I just wanted there to be more music, more things for people to go to, because…they’re pretty necessary,” Coward said. “COVID hit, and everything just became so scattered and dispersed. There wasn’t really that core…to tie people together.”
The community in the region felt welcoming to Coward, which is why she wanted to invest in building local shows. She described people showing up for the love of the scene, and relationships growing from those connections.
“I feel like…we have a very good community based here, especially in terms of music,” she said.
Community and music connect through photography, another artistic outlet that Coward pursues. She brought her camera when she went to music venues, and began shooting the shows that she was attending, learning through trial and error.
“I didn’t know what I was doing at all. I was winging it!” Coward said. “It was just something I hold really close to heart. It’s nice to have that documentation…to say that it happened, and it was important to a lot of people.”
Coward shoots music shows on a film camera, preferring that medium to digital. Film facilitates other connections; people will approach her at shows to talk about her technique and process. Coward told me about finding a local store to develop film.
“[It’s] run by the sweetest older couple who I would trust with my life,” she said.
We left the trail area and returned to the covered shelter by the natural playground with a view of the art murals to finish our conversation. For Coward, coming to Huron Natural Area meant a return to a site of fond memories. Two years ago, she spent part of her birthday on a hike here at a time of year when the landscape was green and lush.
“I remember being so taken aback by it…I could have walked for hours,” she said.
For Coward, green spaces are where she can focus on herself and be solitary while appreciating nature. Being outside allows her to connect to the sensory experience and helps her when dealing with difficult situations.
“It’s very calming,” she said. “It puts you back into your body.”
We finish our interview by discussing movies. Coward enjoys films that show a quiet reflection of daily life, as well as off-beat cult comedy classics, a further example of the variety of art that she surrounds herself with.
With a handful of new movie recommendations each, we ended our discussion and parted ways, and Willa Coward returned to her life and work in the community of local artists
#AWalkInThePark #AmyNeufeld #artisticOutlet #boardwalk #Caledon #Column #COVID #CraigBecker #HuronNaturalArea #localMusic #Love #musicStudies #performance #photography #relationships #scene #waterloo #willaCoward
-
A WALK IN THE PARK WITH WILLA COWARD
The ground at Huron Natural Area was slippery with a coating of late-March snow when I met musician and concert photographer Willa Coward for a walk. Despite wearing footwear better suited for dry conditions, we ventured onto the trails to experience the beauty of the area and talk about the local arts scene.
Coward has been playing drums for most of her life, and is a member of the bands Body Nest, One More Lane and A Horse Named Friday. She has training and experience on the saxophone as well, but despite engaging in vocal exercises, Coward does not consider herself a singer.
“I know how to scream pretty well,” she said. “I can go really loud.”
Her talent for large vocal production led Coward to join a screamo band, a punk style which she describes as cathartic, emotional and hardcore. Not content to stick with one style, Coward also plays chamber folk, power violence, psych rock and shoegaze post rock.
“[I]t really is…all types of music that I’m drawn to,” Coward said. “There’s nothing that really deters me.”
With such a diverse range of styles in her repertoire, Coward lets the music dictate what she brings to her performance, focusing on the needs of the piece to guide her contribution.
“I basically come at it with whatever feels right, whatever is adding to the song,” she said.
Originally from Caledon, Coward came to Waterloo to pursue music studies at Laurier and was in her second year when the pandemic hit. Burn-out and the challenges of lockdown meant that she chose to leave the program halfway through.
“It had been the longest time since I played for the sake of playing, or just for the love of it,” Coward said. “[S]chool and I just didn’t really work well together.”
Coward turned her attention to practice and performance but also invested in building the local music community. As we walked along the boardwalk surrounding the pond before heading up another slippery trail, Coward talked about the importance of bringing people together to experience shows, and the emotions that can accompany music.
“I just wanted there to be more music, more things for people to go to, because…they’re pretty necessary,” Coward said. “COVID hit, and everything just became so scattered and dispersed. There wasn’t really that core…to tie people together.”
The community in the region felt welcoming to Coward, which is why she wanted to invest in building local shows. She described people showing up for the love of the scene, and relationships growing from those connections.
“I feel like…we have a very good community based here, especially in terms of music,” she said.
Community and music connect through photography, another artistic outlet that Coward pursues. She brought her camera when she went to music venues, and began shooting the shows that she was attending, learning through trial and error.
“I didn’t know what I was doing at all. I was winging it!” Coward said. “It was just something I hold really close to heart. It’s nice to have that documentation…to say that it happened, and it was important to a lot of people.”
Coward shoots music shows on a film camera, preferring that medium to digital. Film facilitates other connections; people will approach her at shows to talk about her technique and process. Coward told me about finding a local store to develop film.
“[It’s] run by the sweetest older couple who I would trust with my life,” she said.
We left the trail area and returned to the covered shelter by the natural playground with a view of the art murals to finish our conversation. For Coward, coming to Huron Natural Area meant a return to a site of fond memories. Two years ago, she spent part of her birthday on a hike here at a time of year when the landscape was green and lush.
“I remember being so taken aback by it…I could have walked for hours,” she said.
For Coward, green spaces are where she can focus on herself and be solitary while appreciating nature. Being outside allows her to connect to the sensory experience and helps her when dealing with difficult situations.
“It’s very calming,” she said. “It puts you back into your body.”
We finish our interview by discussing movies. Coward enjoys films that show a quiet reflection of daily life, as well as off-beat cult comedy classics, a further example of the variety of art that she surrounds herself with.
With a handful of new movie recommendations each, we ended our discussion and parted ways, and Willa Coward returned to her life and work in the community of local artists
#AWalkInThePark #AmyNeufeld #artisticOutlet #boardwalk #Caledon #Column #COVID #CraigBecker #HuronNaturalArea #localMusic #Love #musicStudies #performance #photography #relationships #scene #waterloo #willaCoward
-
A WALK IN THE PARK WITH WILLA COWARD
The ground at Huron Natural Area was slippery with a coating of late-March snow when I met musician and concert photographer Willa Coward for a walk. Despite wearing footwear better suited for dry conditions, we ventured onto the trails to experience the beauty of the area and talk about the local arts scene.
Coward has been playing drums for most of her life, and is a member of the bands Body Nest, One More Lane and A Horse Named Friday. She has training and experience on the saxophone as well, but despite engaging in vocal exercises, Coward does not consider herself a singer.
“I know how to scream pretty well,” she said. “I can go really loud.”
Her talent for large vocal production led Coward to join a screamo band, a punk style which she describes as cathartic, emotional and hardcore. Not content to stick with one style, Coward also plays chamber folk, power violence, psych rock and shoegaze post rock.
“[I]t really is…all types of music that I’m drawn to,” Coward said. “There’s nothing that really deters me.”
With such a diverse range of styles in her repertoire, Coward lets the music dictate what she brings to her performance, focusing on the needs of the piece to guide her contribution.
“I basically come at it with whatever feels right, whatever is adding to the song,” she said.
Originally from Caledon, Coward came to Waterloo to pursue music studies at Laurier and was in her second year when the pandemic hit. Burn-out and the challenges of lockdown meant that she chose to leave the program halfway through.
“It had been the longest time since I played for the sake of playing, or just for the love of it,” Coward said. “[S]chool and I just didn’t really work well together.”
Coward turned her attention to practice and performance but also invested in building the local music community. As we walked along the boardwalk surrounding the pond before heading up another slippery trail, Coward talked about the importance of bringing people together to experience shows, and the emotions that can accompany music.
“I just wanted there to be more music, more things for people to go to, because…they’re pretty necessary,” Coward said. “COVID hit, and everything just became so scattered and dispersed. There wasn’t really that core…to tie people together.”
The community in the region felt welcoming to Coward, which is why she wanted to invest in building local shows. She described people showing up for the love of the scene, and relationships growing from those connections.
“I feel like…we have a very good community based here, especially in terms of music,” she said.
Community and music connect through photography, another artistic outlet that Coward pursues. She brought her camera when she went to music venues, and began shooting the shows that she was attending, learning through trial and error.
“I didn’t know what I was doing at all. I was winging it!” Coward said. “It was just something I hold really close to heart. It’s nice to have that documentation…to say that it happened, and it was important to a lot of people.”
Coward shoots music shows on a film camera, preferring that medium to digital. Film facilitates other connections; people will approach her at shows to talk about her technique and process. Coward told me about finding a local store to develop film.
“[It’s] run by the sweetest older couple who I would trust with my life,” she said.
We left the trail area and returned to the covered shelter by the natural playground with a view of the art murals to finish our conversation. For Coward, coming to Huron Natural Area meant a return to a site of fond memories. Two years ago, she spent part of her birthday on a hike here at a time of year when the landscape was green and lush.
“I remember being so taken aback by it…I could have walked for hours,” she said.
For Coward, green spaces are where she can focus on herself and be solitary while appreciating nature. Being outside allows her to connect to the sensory experience and helps her when dealing with difficult situations.
“It’s very calming,” she said. “It puts you back into your body.”
We finish our interview by discussing movies. Coward enjoys films that show a quiet reflection of daily life, as well as off-beat cult comedy classics, a further example of the variety of art that she surrounds herself with.
With a handful of new movie recommendations each, we ended our discussion and parted ways, and Willa Coward returned to her life and work in the community of local artists
#AWalkInThePark #AmyNeufeld #artisticOutlet #boardwalk #Caledon #Column #COVID #CraigBecker #HuronNaturalArea #localMusic #Love #musicStudies #performance #photography #relationships #scene #waterloo #willaCoward
-
A WALK IN THE PARK WITH WILLA COWARD
The ground at Huron Natural Area was slippery with a coating of late-March snow when I met musician and concert photographer Willa Coward for a walk. Despite wearing footwear better suited for dry conditions, we ventured onto the trails to experience the beauty of the area and talk about the local arts scene.
Coward has been playing drums for most of her life, and is a member of the bands Body Nest, One More Lane and A Horse Named Friday. She has training and experience on the saxophone as well, but despite engaging in vocal exercises, Coward does not consider herself a singer.
“I know how to scream pretty well,” she said. “I can go really loud.”
Her talent for large vocal production led Coward to join a screamo band, a punk style which she describes as cathartic, emotional and hardcore. Not content to stick with one style, Coward also plays chamber folk, power violence, psych rock and shoegaze post rock.
“[I]t really is…all types of music that I’m drawn to,” Coward said. “There’s nothing that really deters me.”
With such a diverse range of styles in her repertoire, Coward lets the music dictate what she brings to her performance, focusing on the needs of the piece to guide her contribution.
“I basically come at it with whatever feels right, whatever is adding to the song,” she said.
Originally from Caledon, Coward came to Waterloo to pursue music studies at Laurier and was in her second year when the pandemic hit. Burn-out and the challenges of lockdown meant that she chose to leave the program halfway through.
“It had been the longest time since I played for the sake of playing, or just for the love of it,” Coward said. “[S]chool and I just didn’t really work well together.”
Coward turned her attention to practice and performance but also invested in building the local music community. As we walked along the boardwalk surrounding the pond before heading up another slippery trail, Coward talked about the importance of bringing people together to experience shows, and the emotions that can accompany music.
“I just wanted there to be more music, more things for people to go to, because…they’re pretty necessary,” Coward said. “COVID hit, and everything just became so scattered and dispersed. There wasn’t really that core…to tie people together.”
The community in the region felt welcoming to Coward, which is why she wanted to invest in building local shows. She described people showing up for the love of the scene, and relationships growing from those connections.
“I feel like…we have a very good community based here, especially in terms of music,” she said.
Community and music connect through photography, another artistic outlet that Coward pursues. She brought her camera when she went to music venues, and began shooting the shows that she was attending, learning through trial and error.
“I didn’t know what I was doing at all. I was winging it!” Coward said. “It was just something I hold really close to heart. It’s nice to have that documentation…to say that it happened, and it was important to a lot of people.”
Coward shoots music shows on a film camera, preferring that medium to digital. Film facilitates other connections; people will approach her at shows to talk about her technique and process. Coward told me about finding a local store to develop film.
“[It’s] run by the sweetest older couple who I would trust with my life,” she said.
We left the trail area and returned to the covered shelter by the natural playground with a view of the art murals to finish our conversation. For Coward, coming to Huron Natural Area meant a return to a site of fond memories. Two years ago, she spent part of her birthday on a hike here at a time of year when the landscape was green and lush.
“I remember being so taken aback by it…I could have walked for hours,” she said.
For Coward, green spaces are where she can focus on herself and be solitary while appreciating nature. Being outside allows her to connect to the sensory experience and helps her when dealing with difficult situations.
“It’s very calming,” she said. “It puts you back into your body.”
We finish our interview by discussing movies. Coward enjoys films that show a quiet reflection of daily life, as well as off-beat cult comedy classics, a further example of the variety of art that she surrounds herself with.
With a handful of new movie recommendations each, we ended our discussion and parted ways, and Willa Coward returned to her life and work in the community of local artists
#AWalkInThePark #AmyNeufeld #artisticOutlet #boardwalk #Caledon #Column #COVID #CraigBecker #HuronNaturalArea #localMusic #Love #musicStudies #performance #photography #relationships #scene #waterloo #willaCoward
-
#Ynet's coverage of the settler's funeral deliberately excluded all sections of the eulogy that referenced Ben-Nathan's role in war crimes and his murder of Bilal Salah. By selectively editing out these admissions, Ynet presented an incomplete and sanitized version of events, continuing a pattern of mainstream Israeli media concealing evidence of violence against Palestinians.
What they did quote from the brothers' eulogies are these pastoral scenes:
[...] "You were a good and caring brother, joyful, caring for each and every brother. You helped us when we needed. You were connected to the Land of Israel, God willing we'll merit to plant an orchard or grove in your place to elevate your soul."
His other brother:
[...] "Thank you for praying for me two weeks ago when I was detained. You never stopped praying for me. Thank you for all your help in the grove, you'd come back from the army and invest in the grove. You didn't miss a day without the "Tikkun olam" prayer. You fixed everything in this world. I prayed for you a few days ago at Joshua bin Nun's tomb, Master of the Universe protect him. We will continue to live with faith, with confidence."
Archive: https://archive.ph/7QSEQ
See https://kolektiva.social/@oatmeal/113379647019950367 for background
@palestine @israel
#IsraeliMediaComplicity #Genocide #GazaGenocide
#Ynet #Haaretz #Walla #Mako #Maariv -
#Ynet's coverage of the settler's funeral deliberately excluded all sections of the eulogy that referenced Ben-Nathan's role in war crimes and his murder of Bilal Salah. By selectively editing out these admissions, Ynet presented an incomplete and sanitized version of events, continuing a pattern of mainstream Israeli media concealing evidence of violence against Palestinians.
What they did quote from the brothers' eulogies are these pastoral scenes:
[...] "You were a good and caring brother, joyful, caring for each and every brother. You helped us when we needed. You were connected to the Land of Israel, God willing we'll merit to plant an orchard or grove in your place to elevate your soul."
His other brother:
[...] "Thank you for praying for me two weeks ago when I was detained. You never stopped praying for me. Thank you for all your help in the grove, you'd come back from the army and invest in the grove. You didn't miss a day without the "Tikkun olam" prayer. You fixed everything in this world. I prayed for you a few days ago at Joshua bin Nun's tomb, Master of the Universe protect him. We will continue to live with faith, with confidence."
Archive: https://archive.ph/7QSEQ
See https://kolektiva.social/@oatmeal/113379647019950367 for background
@palestine @israel
#IsraeliMediaComplicity #Genocide #GazaGenocide
#Ynet #Haaretz #Walla #Mako #Maariv -
#Ynet's coverage of the settler's funeral deliberately excluded all sections of the eulogy that referenced Ben-Nathan's role in war crimes and his murder of Bilal Salah. By selectively editing out these admissions, Ynet presented an incomplete and sanitized version of events, continuing a pattern of mainstream Israeli media concealing evidence of violence against Palestinians.
What they did quote from the brothers' eulogies are these pastoral scenes:
[...] "You were a good and caring brother, joyful, caring for each and every brother. You helped us when we needed. You were connected to the Land of Israel, God willing we'll merit to plant an orchard or grove in your place to elevate your soul."
His other brother:
[...] "Thank you for praying for me two weeks ago when I was detained. You never stopped praying for me. Thank you for all your help in the grove, you'd come back from the army and invest in the grove. You didn't miss a day without the "Tikkun olam" prayer. You fixed everything in this world. I prayed for you a few days ago at Joshua bin Nun's tomb, Master of the Universe protect him. We will continue to live with faith, with confidence."
Archive: https://archive.ph/7QSEQ
See https://kolektiva.social/@oatmeal/113379647019950367 for background
@palestine @israel
#IsraeliMediaComplicity #Genocide #GazaGenocide
#Ynet #Haaretz #Walla #Mako #Maariv -
#Ynet's coverage of the settler's funeral deliberately excluded all sections of the eulogy that referenced Ben-Nathan's role in war crimes and his murder of Bilal Salah. By selectively editing out these admissions, Ynet presented an incomplete and sanitized version of events, continuing a pattern of mainstream Israeli media concealing evidence of violence against Palestinians.
What they did quote from the brothers' eulogies are these pastoral scenes:
[...] "You were a good and caring brother, joyful, caring for each and every brother. You helped us when we needed. You were connected to the Land of Israel, God willing we'll merit to plant an orchard or grove in your place to elevate your soul."
His other brother:
[...] "Thank you for praying for me two weeks ago when I was detained. You never stopped praying for me. Thank you for all your help in the grove, you'd come back from the army and invest in the grove. You didn't miss a day without the "Tikkun olam" prayer. You fixed everything in this world. I prayed for you a few days ago at Joshua bin Nun's tomb, Master of the Universe protect him. We will continue to live with faith, with confidence."
Archive: https://archive.ph/7QSEQ
See https://kolektiva.social/@oatmeal/113379647019950367 for background
@palestine @israel
#IsraeliMediaComplicity #Genocide #GazaGenocide
#Ynet #Haaretz #Walla #Mako #Maariv