Extent to Which an Organization Meets the Objectives of Different Stakeholders free essay sample

A person, group, organization, or system who affects or can be affected by an organizations actions. A project stakeholder is defined as a person, group or organization with an interest in a project. That could mean a sponsor (an executive, customer, supplier, agency, etc. that is sponsoring / funding the project), upper management, a project manager, and others. Whoever has a stake in the project? In order to perform good project management, you need to both manage and meet stakeholder expectations. The result of the project should match their expectations for what will be delivered at the end of the project. Why would an organization look at project management software to help them with that? Certainly project management software cannot in and of itself meet stakeholder objectives, but it is a tool that is in the Project Managers arsenal to facilitate meeting objectives. Here are some ways that organizations use it for this purpose: -Providing a mechanism for stakeholders to check on the status of the project (such as task and schedule completion). We will write a custom essay sample on Extent to Which an Organization Meets the Objectives of Different Stakeholders or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page -Providing a collaborative platform to interact and view interactions, such as via a blog. Sending proactive reports, such as cost, schedule, and issue data. In addition, project management software can help the Project Manager and other managers ensure that a) the project team understands the stakeholder expectations (perhaps by having a project description or attaching a key project document), and b) the project team is currently on the right path to meeting those objectives. How you utilize project management software depends on your particular needs, objectives, and culture, but meeting stakeholder objectives is one way to demonstrate the value of a good tool. In order to meet its objectives, the organization needs to know the people and/or the groups affected by, or affecting, its work – the stakeholders. Knowing who your stakeholders are will help you to: †¢Understand the effects of your activities, whether they were anticipated or unexpected, positive or negative. †¢Identify, and then respond to, their concerns and the issues they raise. There are all kinds of ways of doing this – a list, a chart, putting people and organizations on a geographic map, or making a ‘mind map’ (a technique for arranging ideas and their interconnections visually)

Netflixs Software Business Services

Netflixs Software Business Services Background Netflix is an online company with corporate headquarters in Los Gatos, California. Netflix was founded by Hastings who is also the CEO of the company. Netflix’s key business is online rental services in the software industry. Netflix’s software business services span various software products and services.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Netflix’s Software Business Services specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Among these are DVD movies and several other software products. Despite disappointing results on its performance at the beginning, the innovative entrepreneur continued to tailor the company while identifying and exploiting new opportunities that presented themselves. That was when the company designed and developed a website that saw it host millions of subscribers making it rake in huge profits. That was in 2006. Netflix was founded at a time when the video industry was largel y populated by small retail outlets which were characterized by long product delivery time. The market was dominated by the then giant Blockbuster Inc. Blockbuster had no real marketing strategy and customer royalty was based on impulsive buying. It enjoyed booming sales with almost 100 percent success when Netflix joined the market. Upon its entry into the market in 1997, Netflix realized that the market that was dominated by the brick and motor marketing methods. The launch of this company was at the time of the beginning of internet retailing. Online selling was gaining an upper hand to brick and motor methods. This compelled Netflix’s to launch its own website in 1998 that specialized in the use of cross platform technologies in service delivery. At this time, different pricing models were tested to increase sales volume. Netflix was also adept at countering new entrants and developments in the market. One of this was the development of a video provision services on line. Porter’s Generic Strategy According to Porter (1974), successful business organizations incorporate one or more of the generic strategy options to propel it to success. Among these strategies are cost leadership, focus, and group differentiation. A critical analysis and evaluation of the cases study reveals that Netflix had to various extents incorporated these strategies in its business pursuits with each generic strategy contributing to the success or failure of the company in its pursuits. Netflix emphasized on the focus strategy with the other strategies playing a minor role in the firms’ pursuits.Advertising Looking for term paper on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The differentiation strategy is where a company concentrates its efforts in developing a single product then invests in identifying and incorporating unique attributes that meet customer needs (Porter, 1974). Porter (1975) asserts that by adding value to a product and creating uniqueness in product to attract customers, customers are likely to purchase the product at a higher price. That was the case with Netflix. Netflix original move into the market targeted the renting of videos in the movie industry. That strategy could be achieved by the use of recently developed and upcoming internet marketing technology which other companies had not incorporated in their business pursuits. The case study reveals that Netflix’s newly launched website integrated a search engine that enabled each customer to search and access products of one’s choice. Netflix’s management showed such talent and ingenuity in marketing their products by employing already available and established supply chain infrastructure and technology. One of the infrastructure tools included the US’s postal services. The firm incurred slight expenses in delivering the DVD’s to the customers as they wer e light in weight. In creating value and uniqueness to its products using the group differentiation strategy, Netflix endeavored to characterize its products with value, user friendliness and convenience, and unique selections. That was evident when Hastings coined a term for their customers that Amazon used to refer to its customers, eBay. According to Porter (1975), a company that invests in this approach should be led by a well skilled and dedicated team. That was the case with Netflix. Netflix’s management was led by Hastings, an entrepreneur at heart. In addition to that, Porter affirms that a company organized around pursuing excellence and aiming at gaining a greater advantage in the market should have a good reputation should revolve around high product quality and innovation. The case with Netflix is outstanding here. Netflix did not only focus on DVD sales, they had other serious considerations in product innovation. Among these were a focus on video-on-demand and a lternatives to VOD. Porter (1974) argues that a company may not necessarily integrate all the generic characteristics depending on the nature of its business. An analysis of the case study indicates that Netflix did not pay much attention to cost leadership. Some of the pricing models did not work for Netflix.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Netflix’s Software Business Services specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More One such model involved a situation where the firm spent several thousands of dollars in adverts only to gain a paltry income from such an endeavor. Netflix at times charged high rental fees for their online videos which at times drove its customers away. However, technology seems to have paced Netflix at an upper hand compared to other companies involved I the same business pursuits. However to a large extent, Netflix incorporated the generic aspect of focus strategy. The focus strategy is where a firm concentrates on one firm and later on attempts to manipulate product prices to achieve an advantage over competitors (Porter, 1975). Netflix did not succeed with this strategy to a desirable extent but seems to have lost some customers due to that. Porter’s Five Forces Netflix entered a market that Porter (1974) affirms is driven by five forces. These include the bargaining power of customers, threat of new entrants, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitute products, and rivalry among competing firms. At Netflix, the bargaining buyer of customers was realized when despite intensive marketing activities, the firm earned paltry sums far below their target. Instead of earning the company more customers, thus increasing the revenue, the company was facing a loss. Customers had driven sense into the company’s executives that they could determine a company’s profitability and the model they use in pricing their products. This pricing element was evident when some customers felt dissatisfied by the pricing system compelling Netflix to rethink and introduce a new pricing mechanism. Netflix could counter new entrants by its relentless pursuits to adopt new technologies and integrate them to the service sit was offering. That was the case when it entered the field of video-on-demand. Despite the huge investments it had made, Netflix did not realize quick returns as there were no technologies in the form of hardware platforms to support such services. Netflix is noted to have lost a chunk of revenue in advertising these service customers were not willing to pay for. The case study however reveals that later innovations saw Netflix succeed in this field. One other case was the entry of VOD services and the fierce completion Netflix had to fight off before they could get a foothold in this widely dominated market by Netflix. Netflix swung into action by exploiting new technology platforms that were not characterized by her competitors in gaining a firm foothold. Another force experience in this industry was the bargaining power of buyers. As discussed above, Netflix had to succumb to buyer’s buying behavior as in some instances; new innovations could not be priced as per Netflix’s dreams. That was the case with investments and intense marketing campaigns conducted by Netflix for the newly launched services, VOD.Advertising Looking for term paper on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Porter (1975) asserts that companies can endeavor to enter a market by offering substitute products that may serve the needs of current products offered in the market. The case with Netflix is a striking one. The case study reveals that substitute products were too below bar in competing with those offered by Netflix and the company was now enjoying an undisrupted share of the market. Netflix carefully blended these generic forces to its advantage. Rivalry among competing firms saw Netflix to be a runaway case. Arguments demonstrate how competitors went to the extent of accusing Netflix of infringing upon copy right laws in offering these videos online. This line of attack was shaken off by Netflix’s executives who argued that Netflix was offering these services just like any retail outlet could buy and sell a product, except Netflix was using the new internet technology that these other firms had not put to full use. Value Chain Netflix’s management was keen at exploi ting information technology in incorporating value chain activities in its service. A striking example was when the company’s turnaround time for product deliveries was drastically enhanced by the use of appropriate technology. Each customer who opted to stay or leave the company could be requested to leave an answered questionnaire about their decisions. These could be used to identify the weaknesses inherent in the system and determine new methods of fulfilling customer needs and wants. One such revelation was identified with the company’s ever changing rental fees. Other value chain addition activities spanned the infrastructure the company was using and its implementation of new technologies to enhance value for its customers. Netflix’s system product acquisition was also automated, with automated searches using an integrated search engine. Implementation of Information Technology in Netflix To stay afloat in the already large market and maintain the custome r base, Netflix will have to implement an IT infrastructure that could offer reliable support for its business transactions (Smith, Short, 2001). One of these could be a data mining application. The data mining application could be integrated in the organizations’ information system to assists in decision making. Netflix is a highly customer focused organization. Data mining could help enhance communication, help the company compare its prices with other companies evaluate customer satisfaction, evaluate supplier relationships, enhance staff skills, and provide an overview of company progress and performance. On the other hand decision support system could be incorporated into the company to help improve decision making from the company’s data warehouse, provide real time sales compressions, and model decision making context (Shermis, Stemmer, Berger, Anderson, 1991). The outputs from this system could significantly depend on the inputs from the company’s data warehouse and the decisions made could reflect the actual potion of the company. In addition to that, a customer relationships management should be incorporated as it helps the management to sustain its old and new customers, meet customer needs, and establish a good working relationship with other companies and customers. According to Silverman (1993), a supply chain management system if well incorporated into this company could help create competitive advantage for the firm by enabling it to optimize all factors relevant to customer satisfaction and company benefits. This system could help the company identify key factors central to its success and enable management optimize all aspects of controls in its marketing strategies and supply and acquisition logistics (Smith, Short, 2001). Recommendations Based on the above discussion, Netflix should continuously adapt to changing technological dynamism and new market opportunities in reaching various markets. Netflix’s managem ent should hire experts on cross culture management to ensure a cross culture component is incorporated in its pursuits. This could be the case since newer opportunities lie outside Netflix’s current market that is characterized by a fairly uniform culture. In addition to that, the firm should incorporate user friendly software products that are cross platform and compatible with other software products to enhance usability. To maintain a large market share, the company should always incorporate faire business practices in its pursuits. In addition to that, Netflix should endeavor to develop software that can bar piracies on its products in addition to patenting its products. The company should invest in software technologies that bar any could be illegal downloading of files or unauthorized access or copying of its products. That could bar illegal usage of its video products since it denies the company legitimate profits that could accrue from those sales. The company should continuously evaluate the role played by information technology in propelling it to its position, the ever changing trends in the industry I terms of provision of services and other related services. It should continuously revise its plans to make them current and relevant to the identified changes and endeavor to incorporate new technologies in its pursuits. References Porter,M.E.(1973).Consumer Behavior, Retailer Power, and Manufacturer Strategy in  Consumer Goods Industries. Harvard, Cambridge MA. Porte, M. E. (1974). Consumer Behavior, Retailer Power and Market Performance in Consumer Goods Industries. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 56(4), 419†436. Shermis, M. D., Stemmer, P. M., Berger, C. F., Anderson, G. E. (1991). Using microcomputers in social science research. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Silverman, D. (1993). Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analyzing talk, text, and  interaction. London: Sage Publications. Smith, C., Short P. M. (2001). Integr ating technology to improve the efficiency of qualitative data analysis- A note on methods. Qualitative Sociology, 24, 401-407.

Risk Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Risk Management - Essay Example This will directly led to the third principle of transparency and inclusion, which means that stakeholders have knowledge of the risks which includes them in the knowledge of the potentials. The fourth principle is that risk assessments are used for the decision making process, which allows for informed decisions. Finally, the principle of using the best possible information also adds value to the assessments, making risk have meaning and purpose when analyzed against the benefits within a decision making process. The following paper will discuss these five principles and their influence on risk management assessments. The Five Most Important Principles of Risk Management 1. Introduction There are a great number of issues that arise when considering managing risk within an organization. The five most important principles of risk management are to address uncertainty explicitly, be tailored to the needs of the organization, promote transparency and inclusion, be a part of the decision making process, and be based on the best available information (Wood 2012, p. 32). Without these five guiding principles, risk management would be difficult and without the value that makes it an essential part of the processes of the organization. ... .if you know neither the enemy or yourself, you will succumb in every battle† (Wood 2012, p. 119). Risk management is the art of creating knowledge of the organization and knowledge of the competing forces in order to win the battle of competition. Risk management defines the organization for its weaknesses and vulnerabilities while also defining the external forces that could cause issues through those weaknesses and vulnerabilities. 2. Addressing Uncertainty Explicitly It is the uncertainty of the future that defines the need for risk management. A good analysis can be done in a short time or could be longitudinal in its process. A good analysis will also have created no specific perspective from which conclusions have been drawn – there is no point of view. Risk is surgically incised, the offending aspect of business is taken out, dissected for its value, and then placed into a treatment plan through which the effect that it might have is mitigated through solutions t hat have been designed towards creating effective decisions (Yoe 2011, p. 95). In order to create an effective identification of the risks that will present themselves, the risk manager must be precise. General risk identification does not provide enough information for the manager to work towards mitigating that risk. Risks must be aggressively and explicitly identified so that they can be addressed through meaningful decision making and action. The identification of risk means that it must be explicit in order to classify the risk so that it may be prioritized. Without knowing exactly how the risk is manifested, the use of that information is not valuable (Whitman 2010, p. 167). A risk manager must be precise

Instructional Coherency and School Improvement Research Paper

Instructional Coherency and School Improvement - Research Paper Example This research will begin with the statement that a compelling schooling system does not depend only on educators who are technically proficient, appropriate school curriculum, and the provision of other associated school facilities. Many kinds of research into the subject of school reforms and improvement have focused on the significance of organizational characteristics, governmental policies, leadership values, and student- teacher learning processes, all of which are considered in the modern times, as important for achieving a high-quality education. A supportive organizational environment, strong leadership, combined with technical reforms within teaching methods and school curriculum, is most likely to be of optimal benefit for the students. In the present efforts to elevate the standards of the high schools in U.S., there have been various forms of reforms, ranging from an increase in course exigency to guaranteeing competency standards of the educators. Some of the schools, on the other hand, have removed the passing grade standard of Ds and focused on simpler courses and vocational tracks to facilitate learning. The various State education departments, in turn, have raised the number of credits necessary for the core content subjects, created a standard for the content, while introducing standardized test patterns. Besides these various reforms brought in to elevate the levels of education in the US, there has been another aspect which has been gaining prominence in the recent times: instructional program coherence.

HRM Case Study on You Never know Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

HRM Case Study on You Never know - Essay Example Many deserving people are fighting to get a basic job which will at least pay their mortgage and on the other hand, people who cannot even read properly, let alone develop strategies for a company, get great jobs. Why is this? It all boils down to the resume. If someone has carefully crafted their resume by making even their simplest and easiest tasks show up as if they have climbed Mount Everest, it is obvious that it will impress the company. On the other hand, there are also those who are so gullible that they will not show up their most important experiences clearly so that they become overshadowed in the resume and don’t earn them as much credit as they deserve. The fault can also be ascribed to companies for not being thorough in their selection. More often than not they may drop a very worthy candidate’s resume in the bin just because the font was not right or his English Language might be a little weak. I personally know a case from â€Å"Reckitt & Benkiser† who rejected a girl candidate for their Management Trainee program because her father was a retired employee of â€Å"Unilever†. They might have had this assumption that she will pass on secrets to a rival company. Everyone does not make their own resume. As a business student I know that there might be a handful students who â€Å"really† know how to do this job well and everyone will come up to them to get their resume made. Either this, or there may be people who hire professional help to get their resumes made. This practice happens in abundance because companies look for, and hire, only those candidates who have a snappy line in their resume which will catch the eyes of the company. Writing a goal has never been tougher. Simply writing â€Å"to get a good job in a multinational company to make a career† is never enough. You have to write â€Å"explore my horizons in the prestigious working environment this company offers and make my time in this

Extracranial-Intracranial Bypass Surgery: Impact of Caseload

Extracranial-Intracranial Bypass Surgery: Impact of Caseload Impact of Hospital Caseload and Elective admission on Outcomes Following Extracranial-Intracranial Bypass Surgery Abstract Background Limited information exists evaluating the impact of hospital caseload and elective admission on outcomes following patients undergoing extracranial-intracranial (ECIC) bypass surgery. Using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) for the years 2001 through 2014, we evaluated the impact of hospital caseload and elective admission on outcomes following bypass. Methods In an observational cohort study, weighted estimates were used to investigate the association of hospital caseload and elective admission on short-term outcomes following bypass surgery using multivariable regression techniques. Results Overall 10,679 patients (mean age: 43.39Â ±19.63 years; 59% female) underwent bypass across 495 non-federal US hospitals. In multivariable models, we noted patients undergoing bypass at high volume centers were associated with decreased probability of mortality(OR:0.39;95% CI:0.22-0.70;p

Shrinking America: One Surgery at a Time :: essays research papers

Kellie received bariatric surgery a year and a half ago, at age 26, and lost over half her weight—160 pounds (St. Vincent 1). Over one million morbidly obese people in the United States have already received gastric bypass surgery. Since obesity has reached such epidemic proportions, everyone in America is looking for a cure. Gastric bypass surgery has rapidly become a solution for severely obese persons. Being obese causes emotional and physical distress and suffering, which increases a person’s desire to become thin. Several thousands of people are taking control of their lives and health by having bariatric surgery. Gastric bypass surgery has been performed with minor variations since 1968 (How it Works 3). The procedure has grown rapidly over the past few years and numerous hospitals have added the surgery. Success rate/recovery, society’s influence, and health factors all play a significant role as causes for a person to decide if this life-altering, someti mes dangerous, surgery is right for them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Roux-en-Y gastric bypass is the most popular of three surgeries for the morbidly obese. In this procedure, surgical staples are used to create a small pouch in the stomach connected to the bowel by a piece of the small intestine, bypassing the majority of the Babbitt 2 stomach. This form of surgery accounts for almost 90% of the procedures performed in the United States (USA Today 2). Generally gastric bypass remains strictly for patients who are morbidly obese by 100 pounds or more over his or her healthy weight. When people have this surgery, they will not only lose a significant amount of weight, but also see obesity-related diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and sleep apnea greatly diminish or even vanish (Hochstrasser 98). Most patients will lose 50-70% of their excess body weight; some patients will lose even more (Hochstrasser 53). The operation limits the amount of food a person takes in, decreases the amount of calories consumed, and makes it so eating less will still be satisfying. By exercising and eating healthy foods, the weight-loss can be considerably enhanced. Though the surgery rarely gets people to their ideal body weight, most patients get within 30-40 pounds (Woodward 67). Weight loss begins immediately after the operation . The majority of people will continue to lose weight for approximately twelve months. The amount of weight a patient will lose every month will fluctuate depending upon the height and weight prior to surgery (Woodward 57).

Part One Saturday

I Every parking space in Church Row was taken by nine o'clock in the morning. Darkly clothed mourners moved, singly, in pairs and in groups, up and down the street, converging, like a stream of iron filings drawn to a magnet, on St Michael and All Saints. The path leading to the church doors became crowded, then overflowed; those who were displaced fanned out among the graves, seeking safe spots to stand between the headstones, fearful of trampling on the dead, yet unwilling to move too far from the church entrance. It was clear to everyone that there would not be enough pews for all the people who had come to say goodbye to Barry Fairbrother. His co-workers from the bank, who were grouped around the most extravagant of the Sweetlove tombs, wished that the august representative from head office would move on and take his inane small-talk and his clumsy jokes with him. Lauren, Holly and Jennifer from the rowing team had separated from their parents to huddle together in the shade of a mossy-fingered yew. Parish councillors, a motley bunch, talked solemnly in the middle of the path: a clutch of balding heads and thick-lensed glasses; a smattering of black straw hats and cultured pearls. Men from the squash and golf clubs hailed each other in subdued fashion; old friends from university recognized each other from afar and edged together; and in between milled what seemed to be most of Pagford, in their smartest and most sombre-hued clothes. The air droned with quiet conversations; faces flickered, watching and waiting. Tessa Wall's best coat, which was of grey wool, was cut so tightly around the armholes that she could not raise her arms above chest height. Standing beside her son on one side of the church path, she was exchanging sad little smiles and waves with acquaintances, while continuing to argue with Fats through lips she was trying not to move too obviously. ‘For God's sake, Stu. He was your father's best friend. Just this once, show some consideration.' ‘No one told me it was going to go on this bloody long. You told me it'd be over by half-past eleven.' ‘Don't swear. I said we'd leave St Michael's at about half-past eleven – ‘ ‘ – so I thought it'd be over, didn't I? So I arranged to meet Arf.' ‘But you've got to come to the burial, your father's a pall-bearer! Ring Arf and tell him it'll have to be tomorrow instead.' ‘He can't do tomorrow. Anyway, I haven't got my mobile on me. Cubby told me not to bring it to church.' ‘Don't call your father Cubby! You can ring Arf on mine,' said Tessa, burrowing in her pocket. ‘I don't know his number by heart,' lied Fats coldly. She and Colin had eaten dinner without Fats the previous evening, because he had cycled up to Andrew's place, where they were working on their English project together. That, at any rate, was the story Fats had given his mother, and Tessa had pretended to believe it. It suited her too well to have Fats out of the way, incapable of upsetting Colin. At least he was wearing the new suit that Tessa had bought for him in Yarvil. She had lost her temper at him in the third shop, because he had looked like a scarecrow in everything he had tried on, gawky and graceless, and she had thought angrily that he was doing it on purpose; that he could have inflated the suit with a sense of fitness if he chose. ‘Shh!' said Tessa pre-emptively. Fats was not speaking, but Colin was approaching them, leading the Jawandas; he seemed, in his overwrought state, to be confusing the role of pall-bearer with that of usher; hovering by the gates, welcoming people. Parminder looked grim and gaunt in her sari, with her children trailing behind her; Vikram, in his dark suit, looked like a film star. A few yards from the church doors, Samantha Mollison was waiting beside her husband, looking up at the bright off-white sky and musing on all the wasted sunshine beating down on top of the high ceiling of cloud. She was refusing to be dislodged from the hard-surfaced path, no matter how many old ladies had to cool their ankles in the grass; her patent-leather high heels might sink into the soft earth, and become dirty and clogged. When acquaintances hailed them, Miles and Samantha responded pleasantly, but they were not speaking to each other. They had had a row the previous evening. A few people had asked after Lexie and Libby, who usually came home at weekends, but both girls were staying over at friends' houses. Samantha knew that Miles regretted their absence; he loved playing paterfamilias in public. Perhaps, she thought, with a most pleasurable leap of fury, he would ask her and the girls to pose with him for a picture on his election leaflets. She would enjoy telling him what she thought of that idea. She could tell that he was surprised by the turnout. No doubt he was regretting that he did not have a starring role in the forthcoming service; it would have been an ideal opportunity to begin a surreptitious campaign for Barry's seat on the council with this big audience of captive voters. Samantha made a mental note to drop a sarcastic allusion to the missed opportunity when a suitable occasion arose. ‘Gavin!' called Miles, at the sight of a familiar, fair and narrow head. ‘Oh, hi, Miles. Hi, Sam.' Gavin's new black tie shone against his white shirt. There were violet bags under his light eyes. Samantha leaned in on tiptoes, so that he could not decently avoid kissing her on the cheek and inhaling her musky perfume. ‘Big turnout, isn't it?' Gavin said, gazing around. ‘Gavin's a pall-bearer,' Miles told his wife, in precisely the way that he would have announced that a small and unpromising child had been awarded a book token for effort. In truth, he had been a little surprised when Gavin had told him he had been accorded this honour. Miles had vaguely imagined that he and Samantha would be privileged guests, surrounded by a certain aura of mystery and importance, having been at the deathbed. It might have been a nice gesture if Mary, or somebody close to Mary, had asked him, Miles, to read a lesson, or say a few words to acknowledge the important part he had played in Barry's final moments. Samantha was deliberately unsurprised that Gavin had been singled out. ‘You and Barry were quite close, weren't you, Gav?' Gavin nodded. He felt jittery and a little sick. He had had a very bad night's sleep, waking in the early hours from horrible dreams in which, first, he had dropped the coffin, so that Barry's body spilt out onto the church floor; and, secondly, he had overslept, missed the funeral, and arrived at St Michael and All Saints to find Mary alone in the graveyard, white-faced and furious, screaming at him that he had ruined the whole thing. ‘I'm not sure where I ought to be,' he said, looking around. ‘I've never done this before.' ‘Nothing to it, mate,' said Miles. ‘There's only one requirement, really. Don't drop anything, hehehe.' Miles' girlish laugh contrasted oddly with his deep speaking voice. Neither Gavin nor Samantha smiled. Colin Wall loomed out of the mass of bodies. Big and awkward-looking, with his high, knobbly forehead, he always made Samantha think of Frankenstein's monster. ‘Gavin,' he said. ‘There you are. I think we should probably stand out on the pavement, they'll be here in a few minutes.' ‘Right-ho,' said Gavin, relieved to be ordered around. ‘Colin,' said Miles, with a nod. ‘Yes, hello,' said Colin, flustered, before turning away and forcing his way back through the mass of mourners. Then came another small flurry of movement, and Samantha heard Howard's loud voice: ‘Excuse me †¦ so sorry †¦ trying to join our family †¦' The crowd parted to avoid his belly, and Howard was revealed, immense in a velvet-faced overcoat. Shirley and Maureen bobbed in his wake, Shirley neat and composed in navy blue, Maureen scrawny as a carrion bird, in a hat with a small black veil. ‘Hello, hello,' said Howard, kissing Samantha firmly on both cheeks. ‘And how's Sammy?' Her answer was swallowed up in a widespread, awkward shuffling, as everybody began retreating backwards off the path: there was a certain discreet jockeying for position; nobody wanted to relinquish their claim to a place near the church entrance. With this cleaving in two of the crowd, familiar individuals were revealed like separate pips along the break. Samantha spotted the Jawandas: coffee-brown faces among all the whey; Vikram, absurdly handsome in his dark suit; Parminder dressed in a sari (why did she do it? Didn't she know she was playing right into the likes of Howard and Shirley's hands?) and beside her, dumpy little Tessa Wall in a grey coat, which was straining at the buttons. Mary Fairbrother and the children were walking slowly up the path to the church. Mary was terribly pale, and appeared pounds thinner. Could she have lost so much weight in six days? She was holding one of the twins' hands, with her other arm around the shoulders of her younger son, and the eldest, Fergus, marching behind. She walked with her eyes fixed straight ahead, her soft mouth pursed tight. Other family members followed Mary and the children; the procession moved over the threshold and was swallowed up in the dingy interior of the church. Everyone else moved towards the doors at once, which resulted in an undignified jam. The Mollisons found themselves shunted together with the Jawandas. ‘After you, Mr Jawanda, sir, after you †¦' boomed Howard, holding out an arm to let the surgeon walk in first. But Howard made sure to use his bulk to prevent anybody else taking precedence over him, and followed Vikram immediately through the entrance, leaving their families to follow on. A royal-blue carpet ran the length of the aisle of St Michael and All Saints. Golden stars glimmered on the vaulted ceiling; brass plaques reflected the glow of the hanging lamps. The stained-glass windows were elaborate and gorgeously hued. Halfway down the nave, on the epistle side, St Michael himself stared down from the largest window, clad in silver armour. Sky-blue wings curved out of his shoulders; in one hand he held aloft a sword, in the other, a pair of golden scales. A sandalled foot rested on the back of a writhing bat-winged Satan, who was dark grey in colour and attempting to raise himself. The saint's expression was serene. Howard stopped level with St Michael and indicated that his party should file into the pew on the left; Vikram turned right into the opposite one. While the remaining Mollisons, and Maureen, filed past him into the pew, Howard remained planted on the royal-blue carpet, and addressed Parminder as she passed him. ‘Dreadful, this. Barry. Awful shock.' ‘Yes,' she said, loathing him. ‘I always think those frocks look comfy; are they?' he added, nodding at her sari. She did not answer, but took her place beside Jaswant. Howard sat down too, making of himself a prodigious plug at the end of the pew that would seal it off to newcomers. Shirley's eyes were fixed respectfully on her knees, and her hands were clasped, apparently in prayer, but she was really mulling over Howard and Parminder's little exchange about the sari. Shirley belonged to a section of Pagford that quietly lamented the fact that the Old Vicarage, which had been built long ago to house a High Church vicar with mutton-chop whiskers and a starched-aproned staff, was now home to a family of Hindus (Shirley had never quite grasped what religion the Jawandas were). She thought that if she and Howard went to the temple, or the mosque, or wherever it was the Jawandas worshipped, they would doubtless be required to cover their heads and remove their shoes and who knew what else, otherwise there would be outcry. Yet it was acceptable for Parminder to flaunt her sari in church. It was not as though Parminder did not have normal clothes, for she wore them to work every day. The double standard of it all was what rankled; not a thought for the disrespect it s howed to their religion, and, by extension, to Barry Fairbrother himself, of whom she was supposed to have been so fond. Shirley unclasped her hands, raised her head, and gave her attention over to the outfits of people who were passing, and of the size and number of Barry's floral tributes. Some of these had been heaped up against the communion rail. Shirley spotted the offering from the council, for which she and Howard had organized the collection. It was a large, round traditional wreath of white and blue flowers, which were the colours of Pagford's arms. Their flowers and all the other wreaths were overshadowed by the life-sized oar, made of bronze chrysanthemums, which the girls' rowing team had given. Sukhvinder turned in her pew to look for Lauren, whose florist mother had made the oar; she wanted to mime that she had seen it and liked it, but the crowd was dense and she could not spot Lauren anywhere. Sukhvinder was mournfully proud that they had done it, especially when she saw that people were pointing it out to each other as they settled themselves in their seats. Five of the eight girls on the team had stumped up money for the oar. Lauren had told Sukhvinder how she had tracked down Krystal Weedon at lunchtime, and exposed herself to the piss-taking of Krystal's friends, who were sitting smoking on a low wall by the newsagent's. Lauren had asked Krystal if she wanted to chip in. ‘Yeah, I will, all righ',' Krystal had said; but she had not, so her name was not on the card. Nor, as far as Sukhvinder could see, had Krystal come to the funeral. Sukhvinder's insides were like lead, but the ache of her left forearm coupled with the sharp twinges of pain when she moved it was a counter-irritant, and at least Fats Wall, glowering in his black suit, was nowhere near her. He had not made eye contact with her when their two families had met, briefly, in the churchyard; he was restrained by the presence of their parents, as he was sometimes restrained by the presence of Andrew Price. Late the previous evening, her anonymous cyber-torturer had sent her a black and white picture of a naked Victorian child, covered in soft dark hair. She had seen it and deleted it while dressing for the funeral. When had she last been happy? She knew that in a different life, long before anyone had grunted at her, she had sat in this church, and been quite content for years; she had sung hymns with gusto at Christmas, Easter and Harvest Festival. She had always liked St Michael, with his pretty, feminine, Pre-Raphaelite face, his curly golden hair †¦ but this morning, for the first time, she saw him differently, with his foot resting almost casually on that writhing dark devil; she found his untroubled expression sinister and arrogant. The pews were packed. Muffled clunks, echoing footsteps and quiet rustlings animated the dusty air as the unlucky ones continued to file in at the back of the church and took up standing room along the left-hand wall. Some hopeful souls tiptoed down the aisle in case of an overlooked place in the crammed pews. Howard remained immovable and firm, until Shirley tapped his shoulder and whispered, ‘Aubrey and Julia!' At which Howard turned massively, and waved the service sheet to attract the Fawleys' attention. They came briskly down the carpeted aisle: Aubrey, tall, thin and balding in his dark suit, Julia with her light-red hair pulled back into a chignon. They smiled their thanks as Howard moved along, shunting the others up, making sure that the Fawleys had plenty of room. Samantha was jammed so tightly between Miles and Maureen that she could feel Maureen's sharp hip joint pressing into her flesh on one side and the keys in Miles' pocket on the other. Furious, she attempted to secure herself a centimetre or so more room, but neither Miles nor Maureen had anywhere else to go, so she stared straight ahead, and turned her thoughts vengefully to Vikram, who had lost none of his appeal in the month or so since she had last seen him. He was so conspicuously, irrefutably good-looking, it was silly; it made you want to laugh. With his long legs and his broad shoulders, and the flatness of his belly where his shirt tucked into his trousers, and those dark eyes with the thick black lashes, he looked like a god compared to other Pagford men, who were so slack and pallid and porky. As Miles leaned forward to exchange whispered pleasantries with Julia Fawley, his keys ground painfully into Samantha's upper thigh, and she imagined Vikram ripping open the navy wrap dress she was wearing, and in her fantasy she had omitted to put on the matching camisole that concealed her deep canyon of cleavage †¦ The organ stops creaked and silence fell, except for a soft persistent rustle. Heads turned: the coffin was coming up the aisle. The pall-bearers were almost comically mismatched: Barry's brothers were both five foot six, and Colin Wall, at the rear, six foot two, so that the back end of the coffin was considerably higher than the front. The coffin itself was not made of polished mahogany, but of wickerwork. It's a bloody picnic basket! thought Howard, outraged. Looks of surprise flitted across many faces as the willow box passed them, but some had known all about the coffin in advance. Mary had told Tessa (who had told Parminder) how the choice of material had been made by Fergus, Barry's eldest son, who wanted willow because it was a sustainable, quick-growing material and therefore environmentally friendly. Fergus was a passionate enthusiast for all things green and ecologically sound. Parminder liked the willow coffin better, much better, than the stout wooden box in which most English disposed of their dead. Her grandmother had always had a superstitious fear of the soul being trapped inside something heavy and solid, deploring the way that British undertakers nailed down the lids. The pall-bearers lowered the coffin onto the brocade-draped bier and retreated: Barry's son, brothers and brother-in-law edged into the front pews, and Colin walked jerkily back to join his family. For two quaking seconds Gavin hesitated. Parminder could tell that he was unsure of where to go, his only option to walk back down the aisle under the eyes of three hundred people. But Mary must have made a sign to him, because he ducked, blushing furiously, into the front pew beside Barry's mother. Parminder had only ever spoken to Gavin when she had tested and treated him for chlamydia. He had never met her gaze again. ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die †¦' The vicar did not sound as if he were thinking about the sense of the words issuing from his mouth, but only about his own delivery, which was sing-song and rhythmic. Parminder was familiar with his style; she had attended carol services for years with all the other St Thomas's parents. Long acquaintance had not reconciled her to the white-faced warrior saint staring down at her, nor all the dark wood, the hard pews, the alien altar with its jewelled golden cross, nor the dirgey hymns, which she found chilly and unsettling. So she withdrew her attention from the self-conscious drone of the vicar and thought again of her father. She had seen him out of the kitchen window, flat on his face, while her radio continued to blare from on top of the rabbit hutch. He had been lying there for two hours while she, her mother and her sisters had been browsing in Topshop. She could still feel her father's shoulder beneath his hot shirt as she had shaken it. ‘Dadiii. Dadiiiii.' They had scattered Darshan's ashes in the sad little River Rea in Birmingham. Parminder could remember the dull clay look of its surface, on an overcast day in June, and the stream of tiny white and grey flakes floating away from her. The organ clunked and wheezed into life, and she got to her feet with everybody else. She caught a glimpse of the backs of Niamh and Siobhan's red-gold heads; they were exactly the age she had been when Darshan had been taken from them. Parminder experienced a rush of tenderness, and an awful ache, and a confused desire to hold them and to tell them that she knew, she knew, she understood †¦ Morning has broken, like the first morning †¦ Gavin could hear a shrill treble from along the row: Barry's younger son's voice had not yet broken. He knew that Declan had chosen the hymn. That was another of the ghastly details of the service that Mary had chosen to share with him. He was finding the funeral an even worse ordeal than he had expected. He thought it might have been better with a wooden coffin; he had had an awful, visceral awareness of Barry's body inside that light wickerwork case; the physical weight of him was shocking. All those complacently staring people, as he walked up the aisle; did they not understand what he was actually carrying? Then had come the ghastly moment when he had realized that nobody had saved him a place, and that he would have to walk all the way back again while everybody stared, and hide among the standees at the back †¦ but instead he had been forced to sit in the first pew, horribly exposed. It was like being in the front seat of a rollercoaster, bearing the brunt of every awful twist and lurch. Sitting there, mere feet from Siobhan's sunflower, its head as big as a saucepan lid, in the middle of a big burst of yellow freesias and daylilies, he actually wished that Kay had come with him; he could not believe it, but there it was. He would have been consoled by the presence of somebody who was on his side; somebody simply to keep him a seat. He had not considered what a sad bastard he might look, turning up alone. The hymn ended. Barry's older brother walked to the front to speak. Gavin did not know how he could bear to do it, with Barry's corpse lying right in front of him beneath the sunflower (grown from seed, over months); nor how Mary could sit so quietly, with her head bowed, apparently looking at the hands clasped in her lap. Gavin tried, actively, to provide his own interior interference, so as to dilute the impact of the eulogy. He's going to tell the story about Barry meeting Mary, once he's got past this kid stuff †¦ happy childhood, high jinks, yeah, yeah †¦ Come on, move it along †¦ They would have to put Barry back in the car, and drive all the way to Yarvil to bury him in the cemetery there, because the tiny graveyard of St Michael and All Saints had been declared full twenty years previously. Gavin imagined lowering the wickerwork coffin into the grave under the eyes of this crowd. Carrying it in and out of the church would be nothing compared to that †¦ One of the twins was crying. Out of the corner of his eye, Gavin saw Mary reach out a hand to hold her daughter's. Let's get on with it, for fuck's sake. Please. ‘I think it's fair to say that Barry always knew his own mind,' Barry's brother was saying hoarsely. He had got a few laughs with tales of Barry's scrapes in childhood. The strain in his voice was palpable. ‘He was twenty-four when we went off on my stag weekend to Liverpool. First night there, we leave the campsite and go off to the pub, and there behind the bar is the landlord's student daughter, a beautiful blonde, helping out on a Saturday night. Barry spent the whole night propping up the bar, chatting her up, getting her into trouble with her dad and pretending he didn't know who the rowdy lot in the corner were.' A weak laugh. Mary's head was drooping; both hands were clutching those of the child on either side. ‘He told me that night, back in the tent, that he was going to marry her. I thought, Hang on, I'm the one who's supposed to be drunk.' Another little titter. ‘Baz made us go back to the same pub the next night. When we got home, the first thing he did was buy her a postcard and send it to her, telling her he'd be back next weekend. They were married a year to the day after they met, and I think everyone who knew them would agree that Barry knew a good thing when he saw it. They went on to have four beautiful children, Fergus, Niamh, Siobhan and Declan †¦' Gavin breathed carefully in and out, in and out, trying not to listen, and wondering what on earth his own brother would find to say about him under the same circumstances. He had not had Barry's luck; his romantic life did not make a pretty story. He had never walked into a pub and found the perfect wife standing there, blonde, smiling and ready to serve him a pint. No, he had had Lisa, who had never seemed to think him up to scratch; seven years of escalating warfare had culminated in a dose of the clap; and then, with barely a break, there had been Kay, clinging to him like an aggressive and threatening barnacle †¦ But, all the same, he would ring her later, because he didn't think he would be able to stand going back to his empty cottage after this. He would be honest, and tell her how horrible and stressful the funeral had been, and that he wished she had come with him. That would surely deflect any lingering umbrage about their row. He did not want to be alone tonight. Two pews back, Colin Wall was sobbing, with small but audible gasps, into a large, wet handkerchief. Tessa's hand rested on his thigh, exerting gentle pressure. She was thinking about Barry; about how she had relied upon him to help her with Colin; of the consolation of shared laughter; of Barry's boundless generosity of spirit. She could see him clearly, short and ruddy, jiving with Parminder at their last party; imitating Howard Mollison's strictures on the Fields; advising Colin tactfully, as only he could have done, to accept Fats' behaviour as adolescent, rather than sociopathic. Tessa was scared of what the loss of Barry Fairbrother would mean to the man beside her; scared of how they would manage to accommodate this huge ragged absence; scared that Colin had made a vow to the dead that he could not keep, and that he did not realize how little Mary, to whom he kept wanting to talk, liked him. And through all Tessa's anxiety and sorrow was threaded the usual worry, like an itchy little worm: Fats, and how she was going to avert an explosion, how she would make him come with them to the burial, or how she might hide from Colin that he had not come – which might, after all, be easier. ‘We are going to finish today's service with a song chosen by Barry's daughters, Niamh and Siobhan, which meant a lot to them and their father,' said the vicar. He managed, by his tone, to disassociate himself personally from what was about to happen. The beat of the drum rang so loudly through hidden speakers that the congregation jumped. A loud American voice was saying ‘uh huh, uh huh' and Jay-Z rapped: Good girl gone bad – Take three – Action. No clouds in my storms †¦ Let it rain, I hydroplane into fame Comin' down with the Dow Jones †¦ Some people thought that it was a mistake: Howard and Shirley threw outraged glances at each other, but nobody pressed stop, or ran up the aisle apologizing. Then a powerful, sexy female voice started to sing: You had my heart And we'll never be worlds apart Maybe in magazines But you'll still be my star †¦ The pall-bearers were carrying the wicker coffin back down the aisle, and Mary and the children were following. †¦ Now that it's raining more than ever Know that we'll still have each other You can stand under my umbuh-rella You can stand under my umbuh-rella The congregation filed slowly out of the church, trying not to walk in time to the beat of the song. II Andrew Price took the handlebars of his father's racing bicycle and walked it carefully out of the garage, making sure that he did not scrape the car. Down the stone steps and through the metal gate he carried it; then, in the lane, he put his foot on one pedal, scooted a few yards and swung his other leg over the saddle. He soared left onto the vertiginously sloping hillside road and sped, without touching his brakes, down towards Pagford. The hedgerows and sky blurred; he imagined himself in a velodrome as the wind whipped his clean hair and his stinging face, which he had just scrubbed clean. Level with the Fairbrothers' wedge-shaped garden he applied the brakes, because some months previously he had taken this sharp turn too fast and fallen off, and had had to return home immediately with his jeans ripped open and grazes all down one side of his face †¦ He freewheeled, with only one hand on the bars, into Church Row, and enjoyed a second, though lesser, downhill burst of speed, slightly checked when he saw that they were loading a coffin onto a hearse outside the church, and that a dark-clothed crowd was spilling out between the heavy wooden doors. Andrew pedalled furiously around the corner and out of sight. He did not want to see Fats emerging from church with a distraught Cubby, wearing the cheap suit and tie that he had described with comical disgust during yesterday's English lesson. It would have been like interrupting his friend having a crap. As Andrew cycled slowly around the Square, he slicked his hair back off his face with one hand, wondering what the cold air had done to his purple-red acne and whether the anti-bacterial face wash had done anything to soothe the angry look of it. And he told himself the cover story: he had come from Fats' house (which he might have done, there was no reason why not), which meant that Hope Street was as obvious a route down to the river as cutting through the first side street. Therefore there was no need for Gaia Bawden (if she happened to be looking out of the window of her house, and happened to see him, and happened to recognize him) to think that he had come this way because of her. Andrew did not anticipate having to explain to her his reason for cycling up her street, but he still held the fake story in his mind, because he believed it gave him an air of cool detachment. He simply wanted to know which was her house. Twice already, at weekends, he had cycled along the short terraced street, every nerve in his body tingling, but he had been unable, as yet, to discover which house harboured the Grail. All he knew, from his furtive glimpses through the dirty school-bus windows, was that she lived on the right hand even-numbered side. As he turned the corner, he tried to compose his features, acting the part of a man cycling slowly towards the river by the most direct route, lost in his own serious thoughts, but ready to acknowledge a classmate, should they show themselves †¦ She was there. On the pavement. Andrew's legs continued to pump, though he could not feel the pedals, and he was suddenly aware how thin the tyres were on which he balanced. She was rummaging in her leather handbag, her copper-brown hair hanging around her face. Number ten on the door ajar behind her, and a black T-shirt falling short of her waist; a band of bare skin, and a heavy belt and tight jeans †¦ when he was almost past her, she closed the door and turned; her hair fell back from her beautiful face, and she said, quite clearly, in her London voice, ‘Oh, hi.' ‘Hi,' he said. His legs kept pedalling. Six feet away, twelve feet away; why hadn't he stopped? Shock kept him moving, he dared not look back; he was at the end of her street already; for fuck's sake don't fall off; he turned the corner, too stunned to gauge whether he was more relieved or disappointed that he had left her behind. Holy shit. He cycled on towards the wooded area at the base of Pargetter Hill, where the river glinted intermittently through the trees, but he could see nothing except Gaia burned onto his retina like neon. The narrow road turned into an earthy footpath, and the gentle breeze off the water caressed his face, which he did not think had turned red, because it had all happened so quickly. ‘Fucking hell!' he said aloud to the fresh air and the deserted path. He raked excitedly through this magnificent, unexpected treasure trove: her perfect body, revealed in tight denim and stretchy cotton; number ten behind her, on a chipped, shabby blue door; ‘oh, hi', easily and naturally – so his features were definitely logged somewhere in the mind that lived behind the astonishing face. The bike jolted on the newly pebbly and rough ground. Elated, Andrew dismounted only when he began to overbalance. He wheeled the bicycle on through the trees, emerging onto the narrow riverbank, where he slung the bicycle down on the ground among the wood anemones that had opened like tiny white stars since his last visit. His father had said, when he first started to borrow the bike: ‘You chain it up if you're going in a shop. I'm warning you, if that gets nicked †¦' But the chain was not long enough to go around any of the trees and, in any case, the further he rode from his father the less Andrew feared him. Still thinking about the inches of flat, bare midriff and Gaia's exquisite face, Andrew strode to the place where the bank met the eroded side of the hill, which hung like an earthy, rocky cliff in a sheer face above the fast-flowing green water. The narrowest lip of slippery, crumbling bank ran along the bottom of the hillside. The only way of navigating it, if your feet had grown to be twice the length they had been when they had first made the trip, was to edge along sideways, pressed to the sheer face, holding tight to roots and bits of protruding rock. The mulchy green smell of the river and of wet soil was deeply familiar to Andrew, as was the sensation of this narrow ledge of earth and grass under his feet, and the cracks and rocks he sought with his hands on the hillside. He and Fats had found the secret place when they were eleven years old. They had known that what they were doing was forbidden and dangerous; they had been warned about the river. Terrified, but determined not to tell each other so, they had sidled along this tricky ledge, grabbing at anything that protruded from the rocky wall and, at the very narrowest point, clutching fistfuls of each other's T-shirts. Years of practice enabled Andrew, though his mind was barely on the job, to move crab-wise along the solid wall of earth and rock with the water gushing three feet beneath his trainers; then with a deft duck and swing, he was inside the fissure in the hillside that they had found so long ago. Back then, it had seemed like a divine reward for their daring. He could no longer stand up in it; but, slightly larger than a two-man tent, it was big enough for two teenage boys to lie, side by side, with the river rushing past and the trees dappling their view of the sky, framed by the triangular entrance. The first time they had been here, they had poked and dug at the back wall with sticks, but they had not found a secret passageway leading to the abbey above; so they gloried instead in the fact that they alone had discovered the hiding place, and swore that it would be their secret in perpetuity. Andrew had a vague memory of a solemn oath, spit and swearwords. They had called it the Cave when they had first discovered it, but it was now, and had been for some time past, the Cubby Hole. The little recess smelt earthy, though the sloping ceiling was made of rock. A dark green tidemark showed that it had flooded in the past, not quite to the roof. The floor was covered in their cigarette butts and cardboard roaches. Andrew sat down, with his legs dangling over the sludge-green water, and pulled his cigarettes and lighter out of his jacket, bought with the last of his birthday money, now that his allowance had been stopped. He lit up, inhaled deeply, and relived the glorious encounter with Gaia Bawden in as much detail as he could ring out of it: narrow waist and curving hips; creamy skin between leather and T-shirt; full, wide mouth; ‘oh, hi'. It was the first time he had seen her out of school uniform. Where was she going, alone with her leather handbag? What was there in Pagford for her to do on a Saturday morning? Was she perhaps catching the bus into Yarvil? What did she get up to when she was out of his sight; what feminine mysteries absorbed her? And he asked himself for the umpteenth time whether it was conceivable that flesh and bone wrought like that could contain a banal personality. It was only Gaia who had ever made him wonder this: the idea of body and soul as separate entities had never once occurred to him until he had clapped eyes on her. Even while trying to imagine what her breasts would look and feel like, judged by the visual evidence he had managed to gather through a slightly translucent school shirt, and what he knew was a white bra, he could not believe that the allure she held for him was exclusively physical. She had a way of moving that moved him as much as music, which was what moved him most of all. Surely the spirit animating that peerless body must be unusual too? Why would nature make a vessel like that, if not to contain something still more valuable? Andrew knew what naked women looked like, because there were no parental controls on the computer in Fats' conversion bedroom. Together they had explored as much online porn as they could access for free: shaven vulvas; pink labia pulled wide to show darkly gaping slits; spread buttocks revealing the puckered buttons of anuses; thickly lipsticked mouths, dripping semen. Andrew's excitement was underpinned, always, by the panicky awareness that you could only hear Mrs Wall approaching the room when she reached the creaking halfway stair. Sometimes they found weirdness that made them roar with laughter, even when Andrew was unsure whether he was more excited or repulsed (whips and saddles, harnesses, ropes, hoses; and once, at which even Fats had not managed to laugh, close-ups of metal-bolted contraptions, and needles protruding from soft flesh, and women's faces frozen, screaming). Together he and Fats had become connoisseurs of silicone-enhanced breasts, enormous, taut and round. ‘Plastic,' one of them would point out, matter of factly, as they sat in front of the monitor with the door wedged shut against Fats' parents. The on-screen blonde's arms were raised as she sat astride some hairy man, her big brown-nippled breasts hanging off her narrow rib cage like bowling balls, thin, shiny purple lines under each of them showing where the silicone had been inserted. You could almost tell how they would feel, looking at them: firm, as if there were a football underneath the skin. Andrew could imagine nothing more erotic than a natural breast; soft and spongy and perhaps a little springy, and the nipples (he hoped) contrastingly hard. And all of these images blurred in his mind, late at night, with the possibilities offered by real girls, human girls, and the little you managed to feel through clothes if you managed to move in close enough. Niamh was the less pretty of the Fairbrother twins, but she had been the more willing, in the stuffy drama hall, during the Christmas disco. Half hidden by the musty stage curtain in a dark corner, they had pressed against each other, and Andrew had put his tongue into her mouth. His hands had inched as far as her bra strap and no further, because she kept pulling away. He had been driven, chiefly, by the knowledge that somewhere outside in the darkness, Fats was going further. And now his brain teemed and throbbed with Gaia. She was both the sexiest girl he had ever seen and the source of another, entirely inexplicable yearning. Certain chord changes, certain beats, made the very core of him shiver, and so did something about Gaia Bawden. He lit a new cigarette from the end of the first and threw the butt into the water below. Then he heard a familiar scuffling, and leaned forward to see Fats, still wearing his funeral suit, spread-eagled on the hill wall, moving from hand-hold to hand-hold as he edged along the narrow lip of bank, towards the opening where Andrew sat. ‘Fats.' ‘Arf.' Andrew pulled in his legs to give Fats room to climb into the Cubby Hole. ‘Fucking hell,' said Fats, when he had clambered inside. He was spider-like in his awkwardness, with his long limbs, his skinniness emphasized by the black suit. Andrew handed him a cigarette. Fats always lit up as though he were in a high wind, one hand cupped around the flame to shield it, scowling slightly. He inhaled, blew a smoke ring out of the Cubby Hole and loosened the dark grey tie around his neck. He appeared older and not, after all, so very foolish in the suit, which bore traces of earth on the knees and cuffs from the journey to the cave. ‘You'd think they were bum chums,' Fats said, after he had taken another powerful drag on his cigarette. ‘Cubby upset, was he?' ‘Upset? He's having fucking hysterics. He's given himself hiccups. He's worse than the fucking widow.' Andrew laughed. Fats blew another smoke ring and pulled at one of his overlarge ears. ‘I bowed out early. They haven't even buried him yet.' They smoked in silence for a minute, both looking out at the sludgy river. As he smoked, Andrew contemplated the words ‘bowed out early', and the amount of autonomy Fats seemed to have, compared to himself. Simon and his fury stood between Andrew and too much freedom: in Hilltop House, you sometimes copped for punishment simply because you were present. Andrew's imagination had once been caught by a strange little module in their philosophy and religion class, in which primitive gods had been discussed in all their arbitrary wrath and violence, and the attempts of early civilizations to placate them. He had thought then of the nature of justice as he had come to know it: of his father as a pagan god, and of his mother as the high priestess of the cult, who attempted to interpret and intercede, usually failing, yet still insisting, in the face of all the evidence, that there was an underlying magnanimity and reasonableness to her deity. Fats rested his head against the stone side of the Cubby Hole and blew smoke rings at the ceiling. He was thinking about what he wanted to tell Andrew. He had been mentally rehearsing the way he would start, all through the funeral service, while his father gulped and sobbed into his handkerchief. Fats was so excited by the prospect of telling, that he was having difficulty containing himself; but he was determined not to blurt it out. The telling of it was, to Fats, of almost equal importance to the doing of it. He did not want Andrew to think that he had hurried here to say it. ‘You know how Fairbrother was on the Parish Council?' said Andrew. ‘Yeah,' said Fats, glad that Andrew had initiated a space-filler conversation. ‘Si-Pie's saying he's going to stand for his seat.' ‘Si-Pie is?' Fats frowned at Andrew. ‘What the fuck's got into him?' ‘He reckons Fairbrother was getting backhanders from some contractor.' Andrew had heard Simon discussing it with Ruth in the kitchen that morning. It had explained everything. ‘He wants a bit of the action.' ‘That wasn't Barry Fairbrother,' said Fats, laughing as he flicked ash onto the cave floor. ‘And that wasn't the Parish Council. That was What's-his-name Frierly, up in Yarvil. He was on the school board at Winterdown. Cubby had a fucking fit. Local press calling him for a comment and all that. Frierly got done for it. Doesn't Si-Pie read the Yarvil and District Gazette?' Andrew stared at Fats. ‘Fucking typical.' He ground out his cigarette on the earthy floor, embarrassed by his father's idiocy. Simon had got the wrong end of the stick yet again. He spurned the local community, sneered at their concerns, was proud of his isolation in his poxy little house on the hill; then he got a bit of misinformation and decided to expose his family to humiliation on the basis of it. ‘Crooked as fuck, Si-Pie, isn't he?' said Fats. They called him Si-Pie because that was Ruth's nickname for her husband. Fats had heard her use it once, when he had been over for his tea, and had never called Simon anything else since. ‘Yeah, he is,' said Andrew, wondering whether he would be able to dissuade his father from standing by telling him he had the wrong man and the wrong council. ‘Bit of a coincidence,' said Fats, ‘because Cubby's standing as well.' Fats exhaled through his nostrils, staring at the crevice wall over Andrew's head. ‘So will voters go for the cunt,' he said, ‘or the twat?' Andrew laughed. There was little he enjoyed more than hearing his father called a cunt by Fats. ‘Now have a shifty at this,' said Fats, jamming his cigarette between his lips and patting his hips, even though he knew that the envelope was in the inside breast pocket. ‘Here you go,' he said, pulling it out and opening it to show Andrew the contents: brown peppercorn-sized pods in a powdery mix of shrivelled stalks and leaves. ‘Sensimilla, that is.' ‘What is it?' ‘Tips and shoots of your basic unfertilized marijuana plant,' said Fats, ‘specially prepared for your smoking pleasure.' ‘What's the difference between that and the normal stuff?' asked Andrew, with whom Fats had split several lumps of waxy black cannabis resin in the Cubby Hole. ‘Just a different smoke, isn't it?' said Fats, stubbing out his own cigarette. He took a packet of Rizlas from his pocket, drew out three of the fragile papers and gummed them together. ‘Did you get it off Kirby?' asked Andrew, poking at and sniffing the contents of the envelope. Everyone knew Skye Kirby was the go-to man for drugs. He was a year above them, in the lower sixth. His grandfather was an old hippy, who had been up in court several times for growing his own. ‘Yeah. Mind, there's a bloke called Obbo,' said Fats, slitting cigarettes and emptying the tobacco onto the papers, ‘in the Fields, who'll get you anything. Fucking smack, if you want it.' ‘You don't want smack, though,' said Andrew, watching Fats' face. ‘Nah,' said Fats, taking the envelope back, and sprinkling the sensimilla onto the tobacco. He rolled the joint together, licking the end of the papers to seal it, poking the roach in more neatly, twisting the end into a point. ‘Nice,' he said happily. He had planned to tell Andrew his news after introducing the sensimilla as a kind of warm-up act. He held out his hand for Andrew's lighter, inserted the cardboarded end between his own lips and lit up, taking a deep, contemplative drag, blowing out the smoke in a long blue jet, then repeating the process. ‘Mmm,' he said, holding the smoke in his lungs, and imitating Cubby, whom Tessa had given a wine course one Christmas. ‘Herby. A strong aftertaste. Overtones of †¦ fuck †¦' He experienced a massive headrush, even though he was sitting, and exhaled, laughing. ‘†¦ try that.' Andrew leaned across and took the joint, giggling in anticipation, and at the beatific smile on Fats' face, which was quite at odds with his usual constipated scowl. Andrew inhaled and felt the power of the drug radiate out from his lungs, unwinding and loosening him. Another drag, and he thought that it was like having your mind shaken out like a duvet, so that it resettled without creases, so that everything became smooth and simple and easy and good. ‘Nice,' he echoed Fats, smiling at the sound of his own voice. He passed the joint back into Fat's waiting fingers and savoured this sense of well-being. ‘So, you wanna hear something interesting?' said Fats, grinning uncontrollably. ‘Go on.' ‘I fucked her last night.' Andrew nearly said ‘who?', before his befuddled brain remembered: Krystal Weedon, of course; Krystal Weedon, who else? ‘Where?' he asked, stupidly. It was not what he wanted to know. Fats stretched out on his back in his funeral suit, his feet towards the river. Wordlessly, Andrew stretched out beside him, in the opposite direction. They had slept like this, ‘top and tail', when they had stayed overnight at each other's houses as children. Andrew gazed up at the rocky ceiling, where the blue smoke hung, slowly furling, and waited to hear everything. ‘I told Cubby and Tess I was at yours, so you know,' said Fats. He passed the joint into Andrew's reaching fingers, then linked his long hands on his chest, and listened to himself telling. ‘Then I got the bus to the Fields. Met her outside Oddbins.' ‘By Tesco's?' asked Andrew. He did not know why he kept asking dumb questions. ‘Yeah,' said Fats. ‘We went to the rec. There's trees in the corner behind the public bogs. Nice and private. It was getting dark.' Fats shifted position and Andrew handed back the joint. ‘Getting in's harder than I thought it would be,' said Fats, and Andrew was mesmerized, half inclined to laugh, afraid of missing every unvarnished detail Fats could give him. ‘She was wetter when I was fingering her.' A giggle rose like trapped gas in Andrew's chest, but was stifled there. ‘Lot of pushing to get in properly. It's tighter than I thought.' Andrew saw a jet of smoke rise from the place where Fats' head must be. ‘I came in about ten seconds. It feels fucking great once you're in.' Andrew fought back laughter, in case there was more. ‘I wore a johnny. It'd be better without.' He pushed the joint back into Andrew's hand. Andrew pulled on it, thinking. Harder to get in than you thought; over in ten seconds. It didn't sound much; yet what wouldn't he give? He imagined Gaia Bawden flat on her back for him and, without meaning to, let out a small groan, which Fats did not seem to hear. Lost in a fug of erotic images, pulling on the joint, Andrew lay with his erection on the patch of earth his body was warming and listened to the soft rush of the water a few feet from his head. ‘What matters, Arf?' asked Fats, after a long, dreamy pause. His head swimming pleasantly, Andrew answered, ‘Sex.' ‘Yeah,' said Fats, delighted. ‘Fucking. That's what matters. Propogun †¦ propogating the species. Throw away the johnnies. Multiply.' ‘Yeah,' said Andrew, laughing. ‘And death,' said Fats. He had been taken aback by the reality of that coffin, and how little material lay between all the watching vultures and an actual corpse. He was not sorry that he had left before it disappeared into the ground. ‘Gotta be, hasn't it? Death.' ‘Yeah,' said Andrew, thinking of war and car crashes, and dying in blazes of speed and glory. ‘Yeah,' said Fats. ‘Fucking and dying. That's it, innit? Fucking and dying. That's life.' ‘Trying to get a fuck and trying not to die.' ‘Or trying to die,' said Fats. ‘Some people. Risking it.' ‘Yeah. Risking it.' There was more silence, and their hiding place was cool and hazy. ‘And music,' said Andrew quietly, watching the blue smoke hanging beneath the dark rock. ‘Yeah,' said Fats, in the distance. ‘And music.' The river rushed on past the Cubby Hole.

buy custom Health Issues Faced by Australian Women essay

buy custom Health Issues Faced by Australian Women essay Background and Introduction The research paper is going to delve into the health issues that women face from all around the world, specifically Australia. Violence against women still remains one of the serious and pervasive issues that affect individuals, communities, and also the social fabrics of the societies that people live in. A look at the Australian population reveals that one in every three women aged above 15 years experience a form of physical assault, while over half of all women in Australia have had at least one physical or sexual assault in their life. The intimate violence that occurs in marriages is the main contributor to death, illness and disability causes reported among the Victorian women aged 15 to 44 years. It is estimated that most of this violence occurs in homes among the married couples with the males being aggressive towards their partners, hence causing serious injuries to the women (Vic Health 2009, p.16). There are also other types of violence that women receive outside marriage, such as violence by the family member, a family friend, a colleague at work, an acquaintance, or even a stranger. This type of mens violence towards women occurs across all the society, both in the private and the public sector. This type of violence is widespread, systematic, and it is also culturally entrenched; hence, it is being recognized as the worlds most pervasive human rights violation. Violence against women simply means any type of act of gender-based violence that may result in, or likely to cause, a physical, sexual or the psychological harm or some suffering to the woman, including acts of threats, coercion or the arbitrary deprivation of the liberty, may it be in public or the private life (Open Element 1995, p. 32). Violence against women has some significant and often devastating consequences to the victims, which may include homicides, suicides, poverty; social, mental, and physical health problems. In the research conducted in 2009, the economic cost of mens violence against women and also their children was estimated to be around $13.6 billion in Australia alone, a figure that was quite alarming. The causes of violence against women are quite complex, and it is agreed by many people that this violence causes some type of gender inequality. It is stated that violence against women is a form of crucial social mechanism in which women are forced into subordinate positions as compared to the men (Marcus 2007, p. 27). Impacts of Gender Violence The violence that women receive has impacts on their physical and the mental well-being. It brings about immense suffering, destroys families, damages the communitys image, and also reduces the opportunity for the victim to live a fulfilling and meaningful life. This fear alone may alter the womans behaviour, affect her feelings of personal safety negatively, hence limiting her abilities in participating fully in social activities, as compared to men. When it comes to the intimate partner type of violence, it leads to some physical health effects that may eventually contribute to death, disabilities, and also illnesses among the Victorian women aged below 45 years. The long-term effects of the physical type of violence include pain and fatigue, allergies and respiratory disorder problems, breast cancer, eyeight problems, and even hearing difficulties. In addition to this, the women who are victims of the intimate partner violence also have the chances of contracting sexually transmit ted infections and also, to some extent, experience miscarriages, as compared to those women who do not experience such types of violence (The National Council 2007, p. 12). Violence also increases the chances of victims having poor mental health and wellbeing. The women who have experienced gender violence suffer from poor mental health effects, such as depression and anxiety. Some studies done around the Melbourne area indicate that such women are diagnosed with depression. Violence against women may also result in suicide, psychiatric disorders, phobias, and also post-traumatic stress disorders. The studies conducted in 2005 on the Victorian women found that: i) Approximately one in every three victims of sexual assault experienced some changes in their eating/sleeping habits, home security, and leisure activities. This was a result of the fears or the injuries caused by violence against them. ii) Approximately one in every five women victims of gender violence have changed their work or study routines because of the injuries inflicted on them by the incident (Mouzos 2004, p.11). The Current Situation and Mechanism to Reduce Violence against Women The women who face gender violence from their spouses end up being victimized with the children too and often move out in search of refuge. They become homeless, which means the loss of the family home, independence, networks, social support, and resources for schooling of the children. The research conducted by FACHSIA between 2005 and 2006, among the people living in Melbourne state (Victoria city), found that women account for 42 per cent of the total population in search of accommodation, while a 60 per cent of these women had run out of their violent spouses at their original family homes. The same research firm had earlier done research on the total number of women seeking accommodation in the period between 2003 and 2004, whereby it reported 33 per cent of the women population to have run away from their male spouses. This figure is almost double, hence showing the aggravating situation with gender-based violence against women. In light of this, some measures have to be put in place to reduce such cases (Vic Health 2004, p. 13). Because of the alarming rise in cases of gender violence, the Victorian Law Reform Commission conducted some family violence project in 2008. The results came up with a strict recommendation to protect the victims. According to the results, in case where a partner is violent, he should be the one to leave the family, but not the victim. The Commonwealth Office that deals with the womens issues has also identified two types of assistance to the women who are victims of domestic violence. Such assistance is: i) Provision of the safe, secure and affordable housing to the women victims of gender violence, and ii) Provision of the individualized and open-ended assistance, which includes the outreach services that shield the women and their children from the violent world for as long as they are in need for it (Community Indicators 2004, p. 23). The Possible Options for the FFuture Outcome Justice and the legal system are one of the main causes for the increased gender violence against women. It is reported that the Melbourne state legal system discourages women from seeking legal interventions. The legal system here requires that women should produce evidence and be cross-examined before they can be helped. This issue exacerbates many womens feelings of abuse. Another factor that aggravates the issue is that the perpetrators of sexual assaults that married women may report are not always convicted. However, only around three per cent of the sexual cases reported are determined through cross-examination, especially in the young girls (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2005, p. 28). The judicial system and the government also do not provide people with the protection they require. The evidence for this is seen in the report conducted on the Melbourne state administration. The Safety Survey indicated that 20 per cent of the women that were going to report the violence cases had already received some restraining orders earlier, and were still being victimized since no effective action was taken. The study also raised some concerns on the time needed for such cases to reach courts, save for the disrespectful and damaging treatment that these women end up receiving in courts. This demoralizes many women from seeking justice since they fear being victimized further. The study also goes ahead to state that when the government puts more emphasis on protecting women, especially through reforming the justice system and ensuring harsh penalties to perpetrators, the figures of reported violence cases will undoubtedly reduce to nearly 2 per cent in ten years to come (Depart ment of Health and Aging 2009, p. 19). Recommendations Serious reforms have to be implemented by the Australian government in their judicial systems. This will ensure justice is fully delivered to the victims and, as a result, the violent partner will be punished for his actions. Some fear will also be inflicted on the perpetrators since they might shy away from the harsh penalties awaiting them in courts. The research done on Melbourne city (Victoria State) also found out that there were no free, legal aids present for women, which in turn made women shy away from courts due to the high fees of the legal system. It, therefore, is recommended that the Australian government should at least introduce some legal aids in the system to help the poor women get justice. Finally, new policies, legislations, and strategies ought to be put in place to ensure there is sustainable housing for women and children. The evidence for this is seen in a small research conducted in the Victorian families that showed that staying in their respective homes undoubtedly helped the women in planning and making more considered choices concerning their futures. Thus, the main issue in providing more policies is to ensure that women maintain their homes for as long as possible. Another recommendation that the government needs to review is the violence law act. This act should explicitly include the exclusion order that serves as a possible intervention against the gender-based cases that occur in families. After all these measures are put in place and become the law, it is estimated that there will be less than 1 per cent of the gender-based reported cases in the near future. Buy custom Health Issues Faced by Australian Women essay

Gastar Conjugation in Spanish, Translation, and Examples

Gastar Conjugation in Spanish, Translation, and Examples The Spanish verb gastar is a regular -ar verb that means to spend. The conjugation pattern for gastar is similar to that of other regular -ar verbs like bajar, tratar and llamar. This article includes gastar conjugations in the present, past, conditional, and future indicative mood, the present and past subjunctive mood, the imperative mood, and other verb forms. Using the Verb Gastar The most frequent use of the verb gastar is to spend money. For example, El chico gastà ³ mucho dinero en el regalo para su novia (The boy spent a lot of money on the gift for his girlfriend). Gastar can also be used to talk about time, but in that case, it means to waste time. For example, No debes gastar tiempo jugando videojuegos (You should not waste time playing video games). In order to talk about spending time, in Spanish we use the verb pasar tiempo, as in Me gusta pasar tiempo con mi familia (I like to spend time with my family). The verb gastar can also mean to use or to use up. For example, you can say Se gastà ³ la tinta de la impresora (The printers ink got used up), or Ese carro gasta mucha gasolina (That car uses a lot of gas). In addition, gastar can mean to wear out, as in Gastaste la suela de tus zapatos de tanto correr (You wore out the soles of your shoes from running so much). Gastar Present Indicative Yo gasto I spend Yo gasto muchos lpices en la escuela. Tà º gastas You spend Tà º gastas dinero en cosas innecesarias. Usted/à ©l/ella gasta You/he/she spends Ella gasta mucha electricidad en su casa. Nosotros gastamos We spend Nosotros gastamos mucha gasolina en el viaje. Vosotros gastis Youspend Vosotros gastis tiempo viendo fotos en el trabajo. Ustedes/ellos/ellas gastan You/they spend Ellos gastan mucha agua regando el jardà ­n. Gastar Preterite Indicative There are two past tenses in Spanish. The preterite tense is used to describe actions completed in the past. Yo gastà © I spent Yo gastà © muchos lpices en la escuela. Tà º gastaste You spent Tà º gastaste dinero en cosas innecesarias. Usted/à ©l/ella gastà ³ You/he/she spent Ella gastà ³ mucha electricidad en su casa. Nosotros gastamos We spent Nosotros gastamos mucha gasolina en el viaje. Vosotros gastasteis Youspent Vosotros gastasteis tiempo viendo fotos en el trabajo. Ustedes/ellos/ellas gastaron You/they spent Ellos gastaron mucha agua regando el jardà ­n. Gastar Imperfect Indicative The other past tense in Spanish is the imperfect, which is used to talk about ongoing or repeated actions in the past. The imperfect can be translated to English as was spending or used to spend. Yo gastaba I used to spend Yo gastaba muchos lpices en la escuela. Tà º gastabas You used to spend Tà º gastabas dinero en cosas innecesarias. Usted/à ©l/ella gastaba You/he/she used to spend Ella gastaba mucha electricidad en su casa. Nosotros gastbamos We used to spend Nosotros gastbamos mucha gasolina en el viaje. Vosotros gastabais Youused to spend Vosotros gastabais tiempoviendo fotosen el trabajo. Ustedes/ellos/ellas gastaban You/they used to spend Ellos gastaban mucha agua regando el jardà ­n. Gastar Future Indicative Yo gastarà © I will spend Yo gastarà © muchos lpices en la escuela. Tà º gastars You will spend Tà º gastars dinero en cosas innecesarias. Usted/à ©l/ella gastar You/he/she will spend Ella gastar mucha electricidad en su casa. Nosotros gastaremos We will spend Nosotros gastaremos mucha gasolina en el viaje. Vosotros gastarà ©is Youwill spend Vosotros gastarà ©is tiempo viendo fotosen el trabajo. Ustedes/ellos/ellas gastarn You/they will spend Ellos gastarn mucha agua regando el jardà ­n. Gastar Periphrastic  Future Indicative   The periphrastic future is formed with three components: the present indicative conjugation of the verb ir (to go), the preposition a, and the infinitive gastar. Yo voy a gastar I am going to spend Yo voya gastar muchos lpices en la escuela. Tà º vasa gastar You aregoing to spend Tà º vasa gastar dinero en cosas innecesarias. Usted/à ©l/ella vaa gastar You/he/she isgoing to spend Ella vaa gastar mucha electricidad en su casa. Nosotros vamosa gastar We aregoing to spend Nosotros vamosa gastar mucha gasolina en el viaje. Vosotros vaisa gastar Youaregoing to spend Vosotros vaisa gastar tiempo viendo fotosen el trabajo. Ustedes/ellos/ellas vana gastar You/they aregoing to spend Ellos vana gastar mucha agua regando el jardà ­n. Gastar Present Progressive/Gerund Form To form the present progressive you need the gerund or present participle (the English -ing form). Present Progressive ofGastar est gastando Is spending Ella est gastando mucha electricidad en su casa. Gastar Past Participle To form perfect tenses like the present perfect, you need the past participle of the verb. Present Perfect of Gastar ha gastado Has spent Ella ha gastado mucha electricidad en su casa. Gastar Conditional Indicative To talk about possibilities, you can use the conditional tense. Yo gastarà ­a I would spend Yo gastarà ­a muchos lpices en la escuela si me gustara escribir. Tà º gastarà ­as You would spend Tà º gastarà ­as dinero en cosas innecesarias si fueras millonario. Usted/à ©l/ella gastarà ­a You/he/she would spend Ella gastarà ­a mucha electricidad en su casa, pero siempre apaga las luces. Nosotros gastarà ­amos We would spend Nosotros gastarà ­amos mucha gasolina en el viaje si fuà ©ramos en carro. Vosotros gastarà ­ais Youwould spend Vosotros gastarà ­ais tiempo viendo fotosen el trabajo, pero el jefe no os lo permite. Ustedes/ellos/ellas gastarà ­an You/they would spend Ellos gastarà ­an mucha agua regando el jardà ­n, pero por suerte ha llovido bastante. Gastar Present Subjunctive The present subjunctive is used in sentences with two clauses, when the speaker is expressing a desire, doubt, denial, emotion, negation, possibility, or other subjective situations. Que yo gaste That I spend La maestra espera que yo gaste muchos lpices en la escuela. Que tà º gastes That you spend Tu madre no quiere que tà º gastes dinero en cosas innecesarias. Que usted/à ©l/ella gaste That you/he/she spend Carlos no cree que ella gaste mucha electricidad en su casa. Que nosotros gastemos That we spend Andrea no quiere que nosotros gastemos mucha gasolina en el viaje. Que vosotros gastà ©is That you spend El jefe no permite que vosotros gastà ©is tiempo en el trabajo. Que ustedes/ellos/ellas gasten That you/they spend El jardinero recomienda que ellos gasten mucha agua regando el jardà ­n. Gastar Imperfect Subjunctive The imperfect subjunctive can be conjugated in two different ways: Option 1 Que yo gastara That I spent La maestra esperaba que yo gastara muchos lpices en la escuela. Que tà º gastaras That you spent Tu madre no querà ­a que tà º gastaras dinero en cosas innecesarias. Que usted/à ©l/ella gastara That you/he/she spent Carlosno creà ­a que ella gastara mucha electricidad en su casa. Que nosotros gastramos That we spent Andrea no querà ­a que nosotros gastramos mucha gasolina en el viaje. Que vosotros gastarais That you spent El jefe no permità ­a que vosotros gastarais tiempo viendo fotosen el trabajo. Que ustedes/ellos/ellas gastaran That you/they spent El jardinero recomendaba que ellos gastaran mucha agua regando el jardà ­n. Option 2 Que yo gastase That I spent La maestra esperaba que yo gastase muchos lpices en la escuela. Que tà º gastases That you spent Tu madre no querà ­a que tà º gastases dinero en cosas innecesarias. Que usted/à ©l/ella gastase That you/he/she spent Carlos no creà ­a que ella gastase mucha electricidad en su casa. Que nosotros gastsemos That we spent Andrea no querà ­a que nosotros gastsemos mucha gasolina en el viaje. Que vosotros gastaseis That you spent El jefe no permità ­a que vosotros gastaseis tiempo viendo fotosen el trabajo. Que ustedes/ellos/ellas gastasen That you/they spent El jardinero recomendaba que ellos gastasen mucha agua regando el jardà ­n. Gastar Imperative The imperative mood is used to give commands.There are slightly different versions for positive and negative commands. Positive Commands Tà º gasta Spend!  ¡Gasta dinero en cosas innecesarias! Usted gaste Spend!  ¡Gaste mucha electricidad en su casa! Nosotros gastemos Let's spend!  ¡Gastemos mucha gasolina en el viaje! Vosotros gastad Spend!  ¡Gastad tiempo viendo fotosen el trabajo! Ustedes gasten Spend!  ¡Gasten mucha agua regando el jardà ­n! Negative Commands Tà º no gastes Don't spend!  ¡No gastes dinero en cosas innecesarias! Usted no gaste Don't spend!  ¡No gaste mucha electricidad en su casa! Nosotros no gastemos Let's not spend!  ¡No gastemos mucha gasolina en el viaje! Vosotros no gastà ©is Don't spend!  ¡No gastà ©is tiempo viendo fotosen el trabajo! Ustedes no gasten Don't spend!  ¡No gasten mucha agua regando el jardà ­n!

The Role of Social Media in Branding in the UK Dissertation

The Role of Social Media in Branding in the UK - Dissertation Example This research seeks to investigate social media and critically outline its characteristics in an attempt to define its role in branding. This research will specifically be confined within the United Kingdom. An investigation on social media either within the academic sources or over the Internet would reveal numerous and diverse definitions. Since its invention back in the 1980s, the Internet has rapidly evolved with the equally robust advances in information and communication technologies that enabled it to achieve the speed, coverage and accessibility crucial in the introduction and real-time delivery of rich media content, sophisticated web applications and systems. This development has allowed the Internet to become a major component of the strategies and platforms by which business enterprises operate. The social networking website is one of such breakthroughs. Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Blogspot/Blogger and Twitter are some of the most popular forms of this Internet applica tion/system. By the year 2000, the usage of this web system exploded to billions of users combined. Facebook alone, through the analytics tool provided by Google Ad Planner, has more than 600 million users worldwide and 25 million of these are British. (Google 2011) The statistics is further reinforced by the fact that the website has 770 billion page views and 23-hour average visitor use. (Google 2011) If one has to consider the users of other social networking websites that are popular across the World Wide Web, the staggering figure could reach up to 1 billion. Facebook is, in fact predicted to achieve its one-billionth user by next year. (Business Wire 2007) In the British experience the figures are as impressive. For example, the percentage of social media users jumped from 22 percent four years ago to 44 percent in 2009 and approximately 35 percent of these users logging on to their favorite social networking site(s) at least once every week. (Shayon, 2010) The significance of these developments and figures for advertising and branding is tremendous. As a communications technology, social media has the power to influence individuals and groups. The humungous number of social media users highlights the degree of its import. Research Objectives This research seeks to investigate social media and critically outline its characteristics in an attempt to define its role in branding. This research will specifically be confined within the United Kingdom. To this end, the following goals would be pursued: Define and explain social media; Explain how social media can enhance branding; Identify emerging branding techniques within the social media sphere; Identify and explain existing cases of successful branding undertaken through or with the help of social media in the UK experience; Pitfalls and limitations of the social media in the branding context; Outline potentials and future development of the technology in the context of its role in brand building in the U K. What is Social Networking? An investigation on social media either within the academic sources or over the Internet would reveal numerous and diverse definitions. For this study’s purposes, the term social media would follow Paul Clark’s general assumption which explains social media as the ultimate democracy of expression, one that is â€Å"typified by e-mails, blogs, podcasts, video- and photo-sharing, voice-over IP, message forums and boards, and wikis† constituting some form of organic conversation that involved the production and access of contents by individuals using computers and the web. (Clark, 2010) Social networking websites such as Facebook can be an amalgamation of these social media elements and web applications. For example, they may offer their users photo and video-sharing services, blog/micro blogging functionalities, messaging/chat applications, boards and mail systems. The point is that the web is in constant flux and applications and fun ctionalities are often being developed and integrated in order to provide richer and more complete