Hippies in the 60s and the Media

Hippies in the 60s and the Media The Myth of the Sixties It has been said that of all the artificial concepts of the twentieth century, the sixties have the greatest hold on the imagination. The decade has come to take on mythical proportions, a time in the history of the world where â€Å"everything changed,† and whether for good or for naught depends on which side of the fence you stand on. The hippies, artists and bohemians, then and now, regard it as a magical time, while the â€Å"squares,† conservatives, members of the mainstream and the like view it as a nightmare. And whether one was too young or too old to participate, or, in fact, was not even born, holds no relevance; the legend of the sixties will never die. However, the truth is that the decade and its participants were nothing more than the embodiment of three powerful myths: the myth of the hippies as â€Å"dirty scum,† as orchestrated by the media and the politicians; the myth of the hippies as world-changing revolutionaries, as created by the hippies t hemselves; and the perpetuation and extension of this last myth by marketers and advertisers for profit. This paper will examine the sixties with these three myths in mind. Before we can fully decipher the first myth (the role the media played in the creation of the hippy counterculture), it is necessary to look at the movement’s precedents. The late 50s and early 60s saw the arrival of three â€Å"subcultures,† the Beats, the Teds and the Mods, all of which received more media attention than they deserved; that is, practically every aspect of these groups (the number of members, the extent of their activities, the duration of the movements, etc.), was exaggerated (Green, 41). For example, the early sixties were presumably host to countless â€Å"turf wars† between two of these subcultures (the Rockers and the Mods). The first of these took place in Clacton in 1964, and although the actual turnout was low, the rival groups were quickly labeled as â€Å"gangs† by the media (Green, 46). The day after the event, nearly every national newspaper ran frenzied, front-page stories on the incident, urging Home Secretary Henry Brooke to take action (ibid). A year later, similar scenes repeated themselves in Brighton, Weston-super-Mare and Great Yarmouth, and media reports were filled with â€Å"broken deckchairs, fleeing grannies, stern-faced policemen, outraged councilors, etc.,† which were largely embellished or outright fabricated (Green, 47). The reality was in fact a pale imitation of the myth. It evolved later that there were no â€Å"gangs† as such, there was little evidence of premeditated hostility (most people had come just to watch), and for all the reports of â€Å"blood and violence† there was actually very little (Cohen, 1973). But the seeds had been sown, the damage had been done, and by the time the Rocker and Mod subcultures died down, there was the need for another â€Å"public nuisance† to take their place, another â€Å"group defined as a threat to societal values and interests, its nature presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media, the moral barricades manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people, diagnoses and solutions pronounced by accredited experts† (ibid). Enter the hippy. The term hippy, on the surface, constitutes a vast array of bohemian and student subcultures, ranging from artistic-intellectuals to dropouts and dope smokers (Brake, 92). There are those who see them as romantic, childlike and pagan; others who see them as juvenile, hedonistic and offensive. The British hippie underground grew out of the â€Å"beatnik literary-artistic scene,† the peace movement and the corresponding American faction, spurred on by such pseudo-political groups as The Yippies, the Diggers and the Merry Pranksters, as well as various individuals including Ken Kesey (author of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test), LSD guru Timothy Leary, and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who appeared at the Albert Hall International Poetry Incarnation in 1965 (Brake, 102). However, while there were certainly symbolic precedents as mentioned above, and without a doubt small segments of the population were â€Å"tuned in† to a new way of thinking and acting, the fact was that an actual, pervasive, unifying movement didn’t really exist: â€Å"We’ve all gone along with the illusion that Ginsberg and Dylan and Baez and the Beatles and the Stones were all part of the same thing. Well, they are part of one thing, in the sense that we’re all human beings and we are all part of the word and each other. So is Lyndon Johnson, so it the mafia head of Chicago, so are the Hell’s Angels. We’ve tended to make the distinction between Us and Them. Now if we’ve got to recognise anything, there’s not much difference between the Angles beating that kid over the head with a pool cue, and the Chicago cops beating you over the head because you’ve got long hair† (Gleason, 219). It could be argued that if there were any changes taking place, they weren’t so much cultural as economic and social, which pegged young people against their parents, and led to vastly different worldviews and lifestyle choices (Brake, 93). While the hippies were loosely grouped around the concept of social and political change (which, in America, largely meant protestation of the Vietnam War), in Britain, there was never any corresponding social impetus. If anything, their behaviour was nothing more than a purposeful attempt to exhibit distinctly oppositional beliefs than those condoned by society, favouring â€Å"immediacy, spontaneity and hedonism† (Weider and Zimmerman, 1977). And it is these tendencies that the media jumped on. British newspapers reported hippies as being â€Å"dirty, idle, promiscuous and drug-users† (Brake, 96). A typical report showed a nude, bearded, long-haired man with the caption: â€Å"The hippy cult is degrading, decadent and plain daft† (ibid). A story about the London Street Commune who decided to squat in an abandoned Georgian mansion in 144 Piccadilly described their home as: â€Å"lit only by the dim light of their drugged cigarettes,† complete with â€Å"drug taking†¦couples making love while others look on†¦a heavy mob armed with iron bars, filth and stench, foul language†¦these are not rumours but facts, sordid facts which will shock ordinary decent living people† (News of the World, 1969). A similar report appeared in The Daily Mail on 2 August, 1969: â€Å"It makes me ashamed to be British. They [the hippies] live around in filthy clothes, mauling in each other in the streets. No wonder our country has gone to the dogs.† The hippies acted as convenient scapegoats, and the Tories eagerly jumped on the bandwagon in portraying them as moral degenerates who needed to be squelched so as to save the world from its baser instincts (Green, 448). The truth is that most of these hippies were not degenerates and criminals but students and ex-students, who were able to engage in a lifestyle filled with LSD, rock music and â€Å"free love† because of student grants and welfare payments (Brake, 95). Not only did the media paint an inaccurate picture of them, but the hippies believed their own hype and bought into their own myth. For while they railed against materialism, their lifestyle was only supported because of the benefits they received from living in a welfare system; while they were â€Å"anti-technology,† they had access to hi-tech stereo systems and complex light shows; in short, they â€Å"felt freedom was an individual element yet were controlled by a powerful state† (Brake, 97). The movement was short-lived because a â€Å"full-time leisure expressive subculture can only develop in an economy with sufficient surplus and employment† (Brake, 99). When the economy plummeted, so did the membership of the subculture; the hippies faded away in the wake of unemployment and economic crisis (ibid). However, even describing the hippies as an actual â€Å"movement† is questionable. One problem is that in looking at subcultures, it needs to be taken into account that they are actually a minority, who, because of their dramatic style, are given vast media coverage (Green, 158). Many hippies were latchers-on at best. Those who joined may have been rebellious, they may have adopted specific styles and values, but their rebellion did not embody genuine opposition (Green, 159). For many involved, it was not about social or political change at all; it was merely about fashion. As Angela Carter wrote in her Notes for a theory of sixties style: â€Å"The nature of our apparel is very complex. Clothes are so many things at once. Our social shells, the system of signals with which we broadcast our intentions, are often the projections of our fantasy selves†¦clothes are our weapons, our challenges, our visual insults† (Carter, 1967). Murdock and McCron, in a vast-raging counter-cultural study, found that most of the people they surveyed were not actually involved in local subcultures, but had adopted the styles because of the teenage entertainment industry (Murdock and McCron, 1976). The respondents â€Å"were expression and extension of the dominant meaning system, rather than deviation from or in opposition to it† (ibid). The truth is that most people are not seduced by subcultures, and only dress or act in similar stylistic ways when they have become acceptable by the mainstream. Much of the hippie culture was deliberately manufactured for marketing consumption, and much of the art and music of the sixties was commercialized and transformed into a commodity for the larger society (Brake, 99). Some of the decade’s premier acts the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, etc. – and rock ‘n roll in general, which had once been so threatening, had become as safe as the blue-chip companies that spo nsored and sold it (Green, 446). While the decade spawned a number of unconventional institutions, such as the underground press, it also launched substantial fortunes for such figures as Richard Branson and Tony Elliot (Green, 445). Smart, â€Å"alternative† capitalists took advantage of the period, and â€Å"transmogrified† the decade’s slogans into designer labels (Rowbotham, xiv). Furthermore: â€Å"The ‘underground culture,’ considered so radical and pervasive at the time, shifted just as radically. The progressive and loud rock of the 60s turned into the heavy metal of the 80s, with mysticism giving way to pulp science fiction, sexual freedom to braggadocio, liberation to repression. The nudity of the underground was packaged and mass-marketed by Rupert Murdoch. In the 1960s the young dropped out; in the 1980s they are dropped out. Drugs were considered a tool to heighten reality, and became an escape from the present† (Fountain, 215). The transformation of the hippie movement from extreme to mainstream, particularly in terms of merchandising, illustrated how well people had mastered the game, and were able to manipulate it according to their own agenda: hip consumerism had become mass consumerism (Frank, 1997). Current reactions to the sixties are mixed. While some regard it as a â€Å"golden age,† all â€Å"dope, revolution and fucking in the streets,† others, particularly the younger generation of today, see it as â€Å"a period smacking of weakness, of airy-fairy wishy-washiness, of an ascendancy of the cranks† (Green, 449). Everyone’s youth is of course a golden age, and part of the reason for the enduring myth of the sixties is that there are so many baby boomers today. Normal Mailer has noted how often the â€Å"reverberations that follow are out of all proportion to the presumed smallness of the original event† (ibid). Perhaps no better description could apply to the sixties. The decade is cloaked in myth, and there are no signs of this changing anytime soon. Today there is a thriving 1960s nostalgia industry, which is all about the clothes and the music, and has nothing do with politics or cultural change. This â€Å"sanitized† version of the era, safe for mass consumption, is just as much a myth as the sixties being a virtual â€Å"hell on earth.† However, whichever one you choose to subscribe to, one thing is probably certain: it didn’t actually happen that way. Bibliography Brake, Mike. The sociology of youth culture and youth subcultures. Sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll? London: Routledge Kegan Paul Ltd, 1980. Carter, A. â€Å"Notes for a theory of sixties style.† New Society. 14 December, 1967. Cohen, Stanley. Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Albans: Palladin, 1973. Fountain, Nigel. Underground, the London Alternative Press, 1966-74. London: Routledge, 1988. Frank, Thomas. The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counter Culture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Gleason, R. â€Å"Rock for sale,† in Eisen, J. (ed.) The Age of Rock 2. Sights and Sounds of the American Cultural Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1970. Green, Jonathan. All dressed up: The sixties and the counterculture. London: Random House, 1998. Murdock, G. and McCron, R. â€Å"Consciousness of class and consciousness of generation† in S. Hall and T. Jefferson (eds.) Resistance Through Rituals: Youth subcultures in post-war Britain. Hutchinson: London, 1976. News of the World. â€Å"Hippies, drugs and the sordid truth.† 21 September, 1969. Rowbotham, Sheila. Promise of a dream: Remembering the sixties. London: Penguin Books, 2000. Weider, L. and Zimmerman, S. Understanding Social Problems. New York: Praeger Press, 1977.

Critically Analyse How Your Contribution to Your Ipe Team Impacted on the Functioning and Ultimate Output of This Team

This essay will demonstrate to the reader how my personal contribution to the inter professional education (IPE) team impacted towards the purpose and output of team working throughout this module. The essay will aim to draw upon several theories in order to support the research gathered on different ways of effective team working methods. In addition to this, team working roles will be discussed and will include the contribution I made as an individual. Furthermore, the essay will draw upon how this experience will affect how the student approach’s team working within the healthcare setting. The IPE team consisted of five individuals, all from different professional disciplines: two radiographers, a paramedic, a physiotherapist and myself a paediatric nurse. A productive team is essential for the success of any task and for this to take place the team needs to develop over several stages prior to the productive stage (Wong, 2007). The model constructed by Tuckman and Jenson (1977) involves four stages; forming, storming, norming and performing. Looking at the four stages, not all teams go through all the above stages and not all teams go through the stages in the same way. However, a successful team is one who can adapt through the different stages as and when required (Borrill, 2002). Our team fluctuated many times through these different stages, however, this can be seen as a characteristic of a successful team (Avery, 2004). Looking at the theoretical behaviours of the team throughout the different stages, the team had reached the performing stage, meaning the team were producing outstanding results. This involved the members of the team working together to undertake the task at hand. During week two of the module, the team met and each team member introduced themselves. Moreover, the group took time to inform each other about their roles within their different healthcare professions. At this stage, all members of the group were rather quiet and from the onset there was no leader that I could identify. This was because we were in the ‘forming’ stage of group development (Tuckman & Jenson, 1977). As the team had never met prior to this stage, the forming stage was possibly the most important. Our first task to be carried out as a team was to create and present a presentation on the topic of new ways of working. As a team we identified our own individual strengths and weaknesses and also took this time to get to know one another better. We discussed the role of appointing a team leader, however at this stage no one wanted to take up this responsibility. By not assigning a leader at this point, can be seen as a disadvantage as this meant there was no specific person delegating the work between the members of the team (Fisher, 2000). Therefore, we agreed to work together and decided to distribute the work evenly between us. By doing this, it can be said that we were a consolidating team as each of us knew what work had to be done for the following meeting (Woodcock, 1979). Each member kept to their designated tasks and completed it well however exact roles within the group were not noticeable. As time was a huge factor, I felt the team pulled together very well, producing and delivering a successful presentation. Having delivered the formative presentation, at the end of week two, each team was given the remit for the summative presentation. As a group we came to the decision that we would meet before members went out to practice placements. In the first meeting where the summative presentation was discussed, as a group we decided the initial research for the topic should be split equally between us. As we recovered an excellent result whilst doing the formative presentation, we felt this method worked for us. We then agreed that the next meeting should consist of sharing the different information each group member had obtained. This would then enable us to decide what our presentation would be based on and hence what information should be provided in the presentation to acknowledge the audience about our service. The ‘storming’ and ‘norming’ stages of Tuckman and Jenson’s (1977) model took place in the following meetings. At this point I felt there were more evident roles within the team although it was clear each team member had their own individual strengths. According to Belbin’s (2001) team roles, I felt within the team we had a co-ordinator, implementer, plant, team worker and a specialist. As a team we were able to share ideas and work together to help each other out. The roles within the team changed overtime nd it could be seen some members of the group undertook more than one role. The group shared their ideas with each other in order to come up with a reasonable service to provide for the public. However, the team faced obstacles as the initial service did not meet the aims and objectives set out. To overcome this, we conversed as a team and did not let this fall back put our spirits down. Thinking of a service to involve all of our different professional disciplines was hard for the team as it had to focus upon paediatrics, as my course is directed at paediatric nursing. Some members of the team found it hard to grasp the concept of the service being aimed at paediatrics only, as their individual professions include treating adults as well as children. At this stage I found myself taking on a slight leadership role as my profession involves taking care of children and ensuring their needs are met. According to Belbin’s (2001) team roles, I felt my role in the team was a co-ordinator as well as a plant. At the end of meetings I found myself delegating small tasks to each individual so that research gathered could then be brought together in order to begin to build a foundation for our presentation. Another member of the group also took this role and we found working together produced efficient and faster results. As time progressed, members of the team began to notice a couple of the group members were struggling with research and were not pulling their weight as much as the rest of the team. During our meetings, it could be seen that these members of the group, took on a specialist role within the group (Belbin, 2001). Even though they provided some knowledge and skills to the group, this was seen to be on a rare basis and contribution to the task was minimal (Belbin, 2001). Personally I was disappointed as time was a factor and certain areas of research were not being carried out. A team leader can be defined as one who can persuade people to agree with their way of working through a non coercive manner (Marquis & Huston, 2009). On the other hand, any one can be a leader, and each can have their own different behavioural style (Cartwright, 1951). Looking at this, any of the team members could have spoken to the remaining group members regarding their lack of input towards the presentation. Analysing the situation, shows that I took more of a Laissez-faire type of leadership style as I never confronted the group members who did not contribute as much as others (Cartwright, 1951). As the deadline approached, the team members carried out the remainder of the research in order to finalise the presentation. My role had now become a completer/ finisher as well as still aiming to co-ordinate the team and be a team worker. This meant along with helping others, I also had the task of ensuring all the work was completed to a high standard. With the help from other team members, I was able to ensure all outcomes had been achieved, ready to deliver the final presentation. Fortunately we moved into the performing stage fairly quickly which aided making up for time lost during the extended storming phase. The team worked very well together and rarely needed my input as a co-ordinator. Members were working harmoniously in order to complete the task and therefore, my main role at this stage was to facilitate the process and complete my aspect of the task. As stated above, taking the role as completer, I made sure everything was done to the best of the team’s ability. Mini deadlines were set to keep the team working at a comfortable pace, ensuring all team members could discuss their progress with one another. The other two members of the team as well as my self, who shared the role as co-ordinators, set a deadline before the presentation was to be delivered in order to give us enough time to correct any problems. This gave the group enough time to rehearse the presentation and ensure that the work produced was to the best of our ability. The latest vision for the improvement of healthcare states a greater level of communication between healthcare professionals is vital (UK Department of Health, 2008). Going through the process of working with other healthcare professionals was a simulation of what working inter-professionally in the real world would be like. The conflicts that were come across, especially those that arose from members having different healthcare backgrounds and therefore making time an issue, gave a true picture of how difficult this new vision will be to achieve. However, it also taught us how these problems can be overcome and how having an understanding and appreciation of other healthcare professional’s responsibilities is crucial for integrated patient care. Simple things, for example, re-iterating common goals made the team’s performance more focussed. On the whole, the process and concept of inter-professional learning to achieve a successful outcome was a very valuable task in preparing us to work as a team in the healthcare environment and is now crucial to achieve the best possible patient care available.

Part Two Chapter VI

VI ‘The fuck have you done to your face? Come off the bike again?' asked Fats. ‘No,' said Andrew. ‘Si-Pie hit me. I was trying to tell the stupid cunt he'd got it wrong about Fairbrother.' He and his father had been in the woodshed, filling the baskets that sat on either side of the wood-burner in the sitting room. Simon had hit Andrew around the head with a log, knocking him into the pile of wood, grazing his acne-covered cheek. D'you think you know more about what goes on than I do, you spotty little shit? If I hear you've breathed a word of what goes on in this house – I haven't – I'll fucking skin you alive, d'you hear me? How do you know Fairbrother wasn't on the fiddle too, eh? And the other fucker was the only one dumb enough to get caught? And then, whether out of pride or defiance, or because his fantasies of easy money had taken too strong a hold on his imagination to become dislodged by facts, Simon had sent in his application forms. Humiliation, for which the whole family would surely pay, was a certainty. Sabotage. Andrew brooded on the word. He wanted to bring his father crashing down from the heights to which his dreams of easy money had raised him, and he wanted to do it, if at all possible (for he preferred glory without death), in such a way that Simon would never know whose manoeuvrings had brought his ambitions to rubble. He confided in nobody, not even Fats. He told Fats nearly everything, but the few omissions were the vast topics, the ones that occupied nearly all his interior space. It was one thing to sit in Fats' room with hard-ons and look up ‘girl-on-girl action' on the internet: quite another to confess how obsessively he pondered ways of engaging Gaia Bawden in conversation. Likewise, it was easy to sit in the Cubby Hole and call his father a cunt, but never would he have told how Simon's rages turned his hands cold and his stomach queasy. But then came the hour that changed everything. It started with nothing more than a yearning for nicotine and beauty. The rain had passed off at last, and the pale spring sun shone brightly on the fish-scale dirt on the school-bus windows as it jerked and lurched through the narrow streets of Pagford. Andrew was sitting near the back, unable to see Gaia, who was hemmed in at the front by Sukhvinder and the fatherless Fairbrother girls, newly returned to school. He had barely seen Gaia all day and faced a barren evening with only stale Facebook pictures to console him. As the bus approached Hope Street, it struck Andrew that neither of his parents was at home to notice his absence. Three cigarettes that Fats had given him resided in his inside pocket; and Gaia was getting up, holding tightly to the bar on the back of the seat, readying herself to descend, still talking to Sukhvinder Jawanda. Why not? Why not? So he got up too, swung his bag over his shoulder, and when the bus stopped walked briskly up the aisle after the two girls as they got out. ‘See you at home,' he threw out to a startled Paul as he passed. He reached the sunny pavement and the bus rumbled away. Lighting up, he watched Gaia and Sukhvinder over the top of his cupped hands. They were not heading towards Gaia's house in Hope Street, but ambling up towards the Square. Smoking and scowling slightly in unconscious imitation of the most unself-conscious person he knew – Fats – Andrew followed them, his eyes feasting on Gaia's copper-brown hair as it bounced on her shoulder blades, the swing of her skirt as her hips swayed beneath it. The two girls slowed down as they approached the Square, advancing towards Mollison and Lowe, which had the most impressive fa;ade of them all: blue and gold lettering across the front and four hanging baskets. Andrew hung back. The girls paused to examine a small white sign pasted to the window of the new cafe, then disappeared into the delicatessen. Andrew walked once around the Square, past the Black Canon and the George Hotel, and stopped at the sign. It was a hand-lettered advertisement for weekend staff. Hyperconscious of his acne, which was particularly virulent at the moment, he knocked out the end of his cigarette, put the long stub back into his pocket and followed Gaia and Sukhvinder inside. The girls were standing beside a little table piled high with boxed oatcakes and crackers, watching the enormous man in the deerstalker behind the counter talking to an elderly customer. Gaia looked around when the bell over the door tinkled. ‘Hi,' Andrew said, his mouth dry. ‘Hi,' she replied. Blinded by his own daring, Andrew walked nearer, and the school bag over his shoulder bumped into the revolving stand of guides to Pagford and Traditional West Country Cooking. He seized the stand and steadied it, then hastily lowered his bag. ‘You after a job?' Gaia asked him quietly, in her miraculous London accent. ‘Yeah,' he said. ‘You?' She nodded. ‘Flag it up on the suggestion page, Eddie,' Howard was booming at the customer. ‘Post it on the website, and I'll get it on the agenda for you. Pagford Parish Council – all one word – dot co, dot UK, slash, Suggestion Page. Or follow the link. Pagford †¦' He reiterated slowly, as the man pulled out paper and a pen with a quivering hand ‘†¦ Parish †¦' Howard's eyes flicked over the three teenagers waiting quietly beside the savoury biscuits. They were wearing the half-hearted uniform of Winterdown, which permitted so much laxity and variation that it was barely a uniform at all (unlike that of St Anne's, which comprised a neat tartan skirt and a blazer). For all that, the white girl was stunning; a precision-cut diamond set off by the plain Jawanda daughter, whose name Howard did not know, and a mouse-haired boy with violently erupted skin. The customer creaked out of the shop, the bell tinkled. ‘Can I help you?' Howard asked, his eyes on Gaia. ‘Yeah,' she said, moving forwards. ‘Um. About the jobs.' She pointed at the small sign in the window. ‘Ah, yes,' said Howard, beaming. His new weekend waiter had let him down a few days previously; thrown over the cafe for Yarvil and a supermarket job. ‘Yes, yes. Fancy waitressing, do you? We're offering minimum wage – nine to half-past five, Saturdays – twelve to half-past five, Sundays. Opening two weeks from today; training provided. How old are you, my love?' She was perfect, perfect, exactly what he had been imagining: fresh-faced and curvy; he could just imagine her in a figure-hugging black dress with a lace-edged white apron. He would teach her to use the till, and show her around the stockroom; there would be a bit of banter, and perhaps a little bonus on days when the takings were up. Howard sidled out from behind the counter and, ignoring Sukhvinder and Andrew, took Gaia by the upper arm, and led her through the arch in the dividing wall. There were no tables and chairs there yet, but the counter had been installed and so had a tiled black and cream mural on the wall behind it, which showed the Square in Yesteryear. Crinolined women and men in top hats swarmed everywhere; a brougham carriage had drawn up outside a clearly marked Mollison and Lowe, and beside it was the little cafe, The Copper Kettle. The artist had improvised an ornamental pump instead of the war memorial. Andrew and Sukhvinder were left behind, awkward and vaguely antagonistic to each other. ‘Yes? Can I help you?' A stooping woman with a jet-black bouffant had emerged from out of a back room. Andrew and Sukhvinder muttered that they were waiting, and then Howard and Gaia reappeared in the archway. When he saw Maureen, Howard dropped Gaia's arm, which he had been holding absent-mindedly while he explained to her what a waitress's duties would be. ‘I might have found us some more help for the Kettle, Mo,' he said. ‘Oh, yes?' said Maureen, switching her hungry gaze to Gaia. ‘Have you got experience?' But Howard boomed over her, telling Gaia all about the delicatessen and how he liked to think it was a bit of a Pagford institution, a bit of a landmark. ‘Thirty-five years, it's been,' said Howard, with a majestic disdain of his own mural. ‘The young lady's new to town, Mo,' he added. ‘And you two are after jobs as well, are you?' Maureen asked Sukhvinder and Andrew. Sukhvinder shook her head; Andrew made an equivocal movement with his shoulders; but Gaia said, with her eyes on the girl, ‘Go on. You said you might.' Howard considered Sukhvinder, who would most certainly not appear to advantage in a tight black dress and frilly apron; but his fertile and flexible mind was firing in all directions. A compliment to her father – something of a hold over her mother – an unasked favour granted; there were matters beyond the purely aesthetic that ought, perhaps, to be considered here. ‘Well, if we get the business we're expecting, we could probably do with two,' he said, scratching his chins with his eyes on Sukhvinder, who had blushed unattractively. ‘I don't †¦' she said, but Gaia urged her. ‘Go on. Together.' Sukhvinder was flushed, and her eyes were watering. ‘I †¦' ‘Go on,' whispered Gaia. ‘I †¦ all right.' ‘We'll give you a trial, then, Miss Jawanda,' said Howard. Doused in fear, Sukhvinder could hardly breathe. What would her mother say? ‘And I suppose you're wanting to be potboy, are you?' Howard boomed at Andrew. Potboy? ‘It's heavy lifting we need, my friend,' said Howard, while Andrew blinked at him nonplussed: he had only read the large type at the top of the sign. ‘Pallets into the stockroom, crates of milk up from the cellar and rubbish bagged up at the back. Proper manual labour. Do you think you can handle that?' ‘Yeah,' said Andrew. Would he be there when Gaia was there? That was all that mattered. ‘We'll need you early. Eight o'clock, probably. We'll say eight till three, and see how it goes. Trial period of two weeks.' ‘Yeah, fine,' said Andrew. ‘What's your name?' When Howard heard it, he raised his eyebrows. ‘Is your father Simon? Simon Price?' ‘Yeah.' Andrew was unnerved. Nobody knew who his father was, usually. Howard told the two girls to come back on Sunday afternoon, when the till was to be delivered, and he would be at liberty to instruct them; then, though he showed an inclination to keep Gaia in conversation, a customer entered, and the teenagers took their chance to slip outside. Andrew could think of nothing to say once they found themselves on the other side of the tinkling glass door; but before he could marshal his thoughts, Gaia threw him a careless ‘bye', and walked away with Sukhvinder. Andrew lit up the second of Fats' three fags (this was no time for a half-smoked stub), which gave him an excuse to remain stationary while he watched her walk away into the lengthening shadows. ‘Why do they call him â€Å"Peanut†, that boy?' Gaia asked Sukhvinder, once they were out of earshot of Andrew. ‘He's allergic,' said Sukhvinder. She was horrified at the prospect of telling Parminder what she had done. Her voice sounded like somebody else's. ‘He nearly died at St Thomas's; somebody gave him one hidden in a marshmallow.' ‘Oh,' said Gaia. ‘I thought it might be because he had a tiny dick.' She laughed, and so did Sukhvinder, forcing herself, as though jokes about penises were all she heard, day in, day out. Andrew saw them both glance back at him as they laughed, and knew that they were talking about him. The giggling might be a hopeful sign; he knew that much about girls, anyway. Grinning at nothing but the cooling air, he walked off, school bag over his shoulder, cigarette in his hand, across the Square towards Church Row, and thence to forty minutes of steep climbing up out of town to Hilltop House. The hedgerows were ghostly pale with white blossom in the dusk, blackthorn blooming on either side of him, celandine fringing the lane with tiny, glossy heart-shaped leaves. The smell of the flowers, the deep pleasure of the cigarette and the promise of weekends with Gaia; everything blended together into a glorious symphony of elation and beauty as Andrew puffed up the hill. The next time Simon said ‘got a job, Pizza Face?' he would be able to say ‘yes'. He was going to be Gaia Bawden's weekend workmate. And, to cap it all, he knew at last exactly how he might plunge an anonymous dagger straight between his father's shoulder blades.

How to Make Negative Sentences in French

Making sentences negative in French is a bit more complicated than in English. This summary of the different kinds of negation and negation-related grammatical structures should help clear up some of the confusion. The title of each negation category links to a detailed lesson with examples of usage and a quiz. (Don't) just say nonNo, not a chance, I don't think so, and more. nonpas question ! Negative adverbsNegate or restrict the action of the verb they modify. ne... pasne... jamais Negative adjectivesNegate or cast doubt on a quality of the noun they modify. ne... nulne... aucun Negative pronounsNegate or cast doubt on the existence of the noun they replace. ne... rienne... personne Negative conjunctionThere's only one: ne... ni... ni... Negative questionsThere's a special French word to respond yes when someone else says no.lt;br - Non.- Si ! Negating infinitives2-part negative structures stay together in front of infinitives. Ne pas toucher.Ne jamais fermer. N'importe... expressionsDesignate an unspecified person, thing, or characteristic. n'importe quin'importe quel... PasNegate a non-verbal structure. pas beaucouppas souvent Double negativesTwo negatives don't make a positive in French. Ce n'est pas rien.Je n'ai jamais vu personne. Formal negationThere are three negative structures particular to formal French. ne... pointavant qu'il ne... Informal negationNe is often dropped in spoken French. Je sais pas.Bouge pas !