Free condoms have helped teenage pregnancies in the capital reach a record low, NHS London has said.
The was a total of 960 pregnancies among under 18s in London in the first quarter of 2011, according to latest Office for National Statistics figures.
This is the first time the figure has fallen below 1,000 since records began, NHS London said.
"In the last year more than 50,000 condoms have been handed out across the capital," NHS London said.
The number of pregnancies among under-18s fell from 1,158 in the same period in 2010.
The pregnancy rate per 1,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 17 fell by 16% in the first quarter of 2011, compared with the same period the previous year.
This brought the capital in line with the national average of 32.8 pregnancies per 1,000 girls for the first time, NHS London said.
NHS London director of public health Dr Simon Tanner said: "We have worked with primary care trusts in London to develop better sexual health provision for teenagers, to improve access to contraception and education for young people about safe sex.
"We have improved access to sexual health services at further education colleges, working with young people to understand what they need and how we can provide the best service for teenagers."
Havering, in east London, was the borough that achieved the greatest decline in teenage pregnancies - a fall of 46.9% over a one year period.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
London 2012 Olympics: Britain's greatest badminton player Nathan Robertson retires after missing selection for the Games - Daily Telegraph
But he had no qualms in admitting that Adcock and Bankier had simply been the best mixed doubles pair over the last 12 months.
“For neutral fans, it has been entertaining to see how the rivalry played out,” he said. “We had expectations going into qualifying but we didn’t just miss out in the end, we missed out by a long way.
“They fully deserved their place and I have already offered my support to the players and coaches in the build-up to the Games.”
Adrian Christy, Badminton England’s chief executive, said: “It is a sad day for the sport as he is arguably our greatest ever player, a one-off, super-talented individual.
“He is an infectious character and a brilliant role model. Our pool of talented players now need to aspire to his heights.”
Keeping in line with Christy’s view that former players should be rewarded for their services, Robertson is now likely to take up an ambassadorial role within the sport.
Robertson competed at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 before winning silver with long-time partner Gail Emms at the Athens Games in 2004.
Two years later, the pair won Commonwealth gold in Melbourne and then the world title in Madrid. He forged a partnership with Wallwork following Emms’ retirement at the last Olympics in Beijing.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
Farmers plough into pre-nups to save land - Financial Times
June 4, 2012 9:32 pm
Source: www.ft.com
London 2012: Lizzie Simmonds turns insomnia into a positive force - The Guardian
Each night before she races Lizzie Simmonds lies awake, struggling to sleep. At the age of 21 she is used to it. Simmonds has been suffering from insomnia since she started swimming. "My problem isn't waking up in the night," she says with a sigh. "It is not being able to go to sleep." She has tried to find a fix, has seen the sports psychologists and sleep experts, has tried popping sleeping pills. Nothing seems to work. The best cure Simmonds has found is just to take herself off to the bathroom so she can turn on a light without waking her roommate, Fran Halsall, and read a book.
"I should try and fill my time with some positive distractions," she says. "Instead of thinking: 'Right, back to Pride and Prejudice' of an evening."
For all the frustration it causes her, Simmonds has learned to put a twist on her affliction. It might even, she reckons, give her an edge over her rivals in the Olympics this summer. It didn't, after all, stop her winning the 200m backstroke title at the European Championships in 2010. "It can be a positive in that I'm not going to be worrying about it if I can't sleep the night before my race, because I'm used to not sleeping. I'm used to coping.
"A lot of people won't sleep before their race because of the nerves and the excitement and they get up in the morning and are like 'Oh my god, I haven't had any sleep'. With me that's not an issue. It was the same as three nights ago so it doesn't make any difference."
Simmonds has what you might call a monkey-mind. She just can't stop it running and leaping and turning twists around all the things she has seen and heard and thought about. "I end up thinking about all sorts of things. People tell me to write a list, to write down all my worries but unless you are a bad sleeper and you can't sleep you don't really understand. Writing it down is not going to solve anything."
The sleep expert that Simmonds saw told her to get up at the same time every day, to settle into a routine. Fat use that was; swimmers aren't afforded such luxuries as regular hours. Simmonds loves to nap between training sessions, and she likes to sleep in on Sundays, the one day of the week when she doesn't have to get up at 6.30am.
The erratic hours that she has to keep were what caused her to develop the problem in the first place. "It was probably exacerbated by my younger swimming years, when I used to get up and train at 4am in the morning four times a week.
"My school was brilliant about not being that fussed about me going in for every single lesson. So if I had a PE lesson in the morning I could skip it. So I'd be up at 4am one morning, then 11am the next. Having two or three hours' sleep one night and then 11 or 12 the next." By the time she left school to study at Loughborough she "had got used to it not affecting my school work or my life if I had had only two hours sleep. It has just progressed from there".
Simmonds always had a lot of talent, just as she always had sleep problems. She reached the senior national finals when she was 13, and won her first national title at 15. She has struggled a little, she says, because she has had to divide her attention between the 100m and 200m backstroke. It turned her into "the perfect 150m swimmer". But she won't have to worry about that at the Olympics, because she did not make the team for the 100m. Just as she has with her insomnia, Simmonds has picked out the positives from the situation.
"To be able to completely focus on the 200m and blank out the 100m is a better balance rather than trying to juggle them both in training," Simmonds says. "Trying to do the sprint and the power work but also the endurance and aerobic work is a difficult thing to do. It gives me more of a direct focus." Goodness knows, she could use a little more of that.
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
Surviving Divorce: Three Essential Steps to Start Your Path - Patch
Going through divorce and surviving divorce are a true challenge.
When we live through divorce, we begin to experience a multitude of emotions.
But surviving divorce is an action… It is a proactive step to deal with these turbulent emotions, the legal challenges and our day-to-day lives that are in deep transition.
Surviving means putting the pieces together that will start to shape our progress into the future. Surviving is the start of reflection.
Divorce is a confusing and a difficult time. You may be asking yourself, "Where do I begin?" Surviving divorce involves a Movement of Choice. A choice to take small steps to move into your future and not to dwell on the past, the decision to live your best life!
The decision can seem insurmountable, even daunting. Here are 3 Steps that will help guide you:
1. Begin to Get to Know YOU: Often when we are in a relationship we lose ourselves to the other. In order to begin to get to know YOU, start by trying new things, experiencing what you may have put on hold. Begin relearning what makes you happy. Then you begin to understand what you like and dislike. Give yourself the freedom to explore new things that will begin to bring you joy in your life.
2. Look Inward: Take the time to look inward and begin to understand yourself. Divorce is a huge change and is scary. Devote time to better understand what is important to you. Often we are so busy living life we forget to think about what does give us pleasure. Review and begin to discard any unwanted habits and embrace your new life.
3. It’s Okay to Grieve, But Then It's Time to Let Go: Allow yourself to grieve the loss and demise of your relationship. Look at treasured photos and listen to "your" songs; give yourself the right to grieve the loss. Give yourself a set grieving period and resolve to move forward. Commit to letting go of the negative thoughts and begin to look toward your future, a brighter day.
While going through these steps remember your progress is personal. This chapter in your life is difficult, and surviving divorce takes time and a willingness to move forward. You can do it! My Divorce Path and My Friends Connect, Inc. are right here with you helping you to find your new future.
Cece Shatz,
My Divorce Path, http://www.mydivorcepath.com
Radio Host of Going Solo – Life After Divorce, http://rhinoonair.com
My Friends Connect, Inc.
http://www.meetup.com/tampadivorcesupportsocial
http://www.meetup.com/Friends-Connect-Tampa-Bay-Area
http://www.meetup.com/SingleParents4DatingTampaBay
http://www.meetup.com/Relationship-Seeking-Middle-Aged-Singles-Tampa
Source: pinellasbeaches.patch.com
London loses in sale of app firm - lfpress.com
Toronto will reap the rewards of a promising hi-tech business developed in London.
And the sale of the company called Carbyn is a warning that the city needs to build a stronger tech community or it will lose more companies, a startup expert says.
Carbyn is working on cloud-based software for apps carried on mobile devices.
Owner Jaafer Haidar sold Carbyn to Synacor of Buffalo for $1.1 million. Synacor is shifting the core function of the business to a Carbyn office in Toronto. Carbyn’s London office that employs eight people will remain open.
Carbyn has had difficulty finding employees in London.
“We have not seen a lot of quality resumes here in London,” Haidar said. “It pains me to say it, but we may not be able to do it here.”
But Haidar said he plans to stay in London and invest the proceeds from the sale in new software he’s developing.
For technology observers, the loss of Carbyn is a blow, but the most important thing is that Haidar, forging a reputation as one of London’s most innovative software executives, is staying.
“It’s a concern, but with Jaafer the thrill is in the chase and in building. The most important thing is we still have a person like Jaafer here,” said John Pollock, director of BizInc, the technology incubator at Western University.
Jaafer also sold digital scrapbooking software to the craft company Michael’s for $1.5 million in 2010.
norman.debono@sunmedia.ca
Source: www.lfpress.com
Kris Humphries 'won't date until divorce finalised' - Belfast Telegraph
Monday, 4 June 2012
Kris Humphries has reportedly told friends that he will not date again until he is officially single.
The basketball player is currently going through a divorce from Kim Kardashian following their ill-fated 72-day marriage last year.
And although the reality star has already moved on with Kanye West, Kris is apparently going to wait.
Recent pictures showing Kris on a beach in Miami with a Kim look-a-like led to speculation he found love again.
"Kris won't even consider dating anyone until his divorce to Kim is finalised," a source told RadarOnline. "Kris is very much aware that Kim is dating Kanye West, and he could truly care less."
"He wishes her nothing but the best, and if she can be happy with Kanye, great. He just isn't ready to date yet and doesn't want to get in a serious relationship right now. Kris isn't living like a monk and goes out with his buddies to clubs."
The former couple's depositions will happen at the end of June and Kris is pushing for it to be videotaped which Kim is dead against.
"Kim is just livid that she has to be deposed," the insider added. "She has tried to get out of it, but there is now way she can."
© Cover Media
Source: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk
London exhibit in DC opened tonight, timed to Queen's Diamond Jubilee, Olympics - Examiner
The whole world is watching London during Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee, and soon the Olympics, so it's a perfect time to see "Open City: London, 1500-1700", which opened tonight at Washington's Folger Shakespeare Library.
The free exhibit foreshadows the current fab four-day Diamond Jubilee in many ways, including centuries-old depictions and descriptions of St. Paul's Cathedral, where Queen Elizabeth will conclude her Diamond Jubilee celebrations on June 5.
Some comparisons can be made with the 1547 coronation of 9-year-old King Edward VI, who rode under a "golden canopy, dressed in silver and white velvet, amply garnished with rubies, diamonds, and pearls" to St. Paul's -- where "an acrobat slid down a rope anchored to the steeple...and performed tumbling exercises..."
An itemized bill from Great Britain's Office of the Revels shows charges for 46 tailors, some working "daies" and "nyghtes", to make elaborate garments for that royal event 465 years ago.
"We could have done this exhibition at any time, but we knew people would be paying particular attention to London this summer, and we wanted to show them 'our' London," said exhibition curator Kathleen Lynch, executive director of the Folger Institute.
"Their" London during the 200 year period between 1500 and 1700 experienced "explosive growth from a small, medieval city of 50,000 people, all within the city walls, to almost 500,000 people, one-quarter outside the walls," Lynch said in a walk-through today. She curated the show with Elizabeth (Betsy) Walsh, the Folger's head of reader services.
The exhibit traces the dramatic political, religious, and economic changes that reshaped London, from the dissolution of the monasteries, to plagues, civil wars, economic upheavals, to the rebuilding of the city after the Great Fire of 1666. The changes are tracked through three main gathering places—churches, theaters, and markets.
The earliest item is a 1493 edition of the "Nuremberg Chronicle", a world history, showing a woodcut of a "generic city", which the tome used to depict not only London, but at least three other cities.
"London wasn't worth its own woodcut," Lynch said with a smile, and then guided me to the exhibit's final map, showing "amazing growth in area, wealth, and power by 1690 when London is on the verge of creating a new empire."
The exhibit's story really begins when King Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church in the 1530s and began the dissolution of the monasteries, most of which were headquartered in London. "Henry claims all wealth and property and doles it out to his cronies," Lynch commented, "while the City of London takes over charitable aspects like hospitals and orphanages."
Blackfriars, a Dominican monastery on the western side of the walled city, was turned into an "upscale residential community", with a renowned theater, and even the headquarters and warehouse for the Office of Revels, in charge of floats and other pomp for royal processions.
A mid-16th century Revels list of “moneye payd for stuf” cleared from a Blackfriars religious site, notes carting away “the great altar stone..." When Queen Mary, a Catholic, came to the throne, parishioners forced the Revels office to make restitution for the desecration.
Far more positive happenings in Blackfriars included performances of Shakespeare's "Othello", although written for the (less expensive and less intimate) Globe Theatre which opened in 1599, and Ben Jonson's "The Alchemist", among other major plays of the time.
One of the exhibit's most exciting items is Shakespeare's copy of the deed for a townhouse he purchased in Blackfriars. "We know that Shakespeare would have touched this; it's his copy, signed by the seller." Lynch said. The copy signed by Shakespeare, who was "known as a shrewd investor", is in London's Guild Hall Library.
Back then, both the seller's and the buyer's copy were made on one long piece of paper, and after the signing, the document would have been cut in two in wavy indentations. For verification of authenticity in any future transactions, the two copies would have to mesh exactly.
That explains the wavy indentures on the top of Shakespeare's deed, and on top of a much smaller contract near it, for a 9-year apprenticeship. Thus, the origin of "indentured", as in servitude. Would-be apprentices were "streaming into London, immigrants mainly from all parts of England," Lynch said, a main reason for the city's population explosion.
An exquisite engraving shows the coats of arms of all 60 chief trade and craft companies in London in 1596. At least half the men in London belonged to these companies through the 17th century.
Other highlights among the exhibition's some 100 items -- maps, diaries, books, letters, drawings, almost all from the Folger collection:
- A panoramic view of 1647 London by Wenceslaus Hollar, showing a flotilla along the Thames much like the June 3 Diamond Jubilee flotilla. Two decades after the etching was made, many of the buildings were destroyed by the 1666 Great Fire. The Hollar work has never before been exhibited.
- "Tittle-Tattle; Or, the several Branches of Gossipping", woodcut, circa1560–1600, depicts working women in the marketplace as mere "scolding sluts" in a derogatory poem and images.
- "Bills of Mortality" and other writings about the ravaging plague in 1965 and the Great Fire in 1966, which destroyed the greater part of London with the city walls. During 1665, there were 97,306 burials -- 68,596 due to the plague, "London's Dreadful Visitation".
- John Locke's "A Letter Concerning Toleration", 1689. Locke wrote, "Why are assemblies less sufferable in a church than in a theatre or market?" The Folger notes, however, that "Locke was not ahead of his time: he excluded Catholics and atheists from toleration."
One of the final items is the favorite of both curators Lynch and Walsh. A 1690 list of orphans and poor children -- educated for the British Navy at a math school built at the former Greyfriars monastery -- and their destinations, including New England, Virginia, and far beyond.
For more info: "Open City: London, 1500-1700". Free. On view from June 5 through September 30. Series of free talks on Mondays at 7 P.M., followed by a reception and viewing of the exhibition. Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 East Capitol Street, SE, Washington, DC, 202- 544-4600.
Source: www.examiner.com
London Symphony to pretend to play for Olympics ceremony - Los Angeles Times
Reports from Britain state that the orchestra will mimic playing to prerecorded music due to concerns about the weather and the shape of the performing venue -- a large, oval-shaped arena whose scale would apparently make a live-music performance tricky.
The ceremony, which is set to take place at the new Olympic Stadium, is being overseen by Oscar-winner Danny Boyle, who serves as artistic director for the massive event.
The London Symphony has reportedly recorded the music that is scheduled to be played during the July 27 ceremony. The Daily Mail reports that Boyle wanted the orchestra to perform live, but that he was overruled by the organizing committee for the Games.
When viewers around the world tune in for the ceremony, they can expect to see the conductor and musicians from the renowned orchestra going through the motions while a soundtrack plays.
This wouldn't be the first time that the mimicking of live music was used at an Olympics ceremony. In 2008, a mini-controversy developed during the Beijing Games when it was revealed that a 9-year-old singer lip-synced to the voice of another young girl whom officials had deemed less telegenic.
Similarly, at President Obama's inauguration, the musical performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriella Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill played, unamplified, to a recording. The decision to use a recording was made over fears that the cold weather that day could damage the instruments.
RELATED:
Olafur Eliasson work rejected by London Olympics
Esa-Pekka Salonen to carry Olympic torch for London Games
Britain's Globe caught in conflict over Israeli theater company
Source: www.latimes.com
Duke of Edinburgh taken to London hospital with a bladder infection - Stv.tv
A star-studded concert in tribute to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee has been overshadowed by news that the Duke of Edinburgh has been taken to hospital with a bladder infection.
Prince Philip, 90, was taken to the King Edward VII Hospital in London from Windsor Castle as a precautionary measure and will remain in hospital under observation for a few days, a palace spokeswoman said.
The news was released just hours before the Diamond Jubilee concert was due to begin in front of Buckingham palace.
The spokesman said the Queen would still attend the concert.
The statement on the Duke's health said: "HRH The Duke of Edinburgh was taken to King Edward VII Hospital in London this afternoon, from Windsor Castle, as a precautionary measure after developing a bladder infection, which is being assessed and treated.
"Prince Philip will remain in hospital under observation for a few days.
"He is, understandably, disappointed about missing this evening's Diamond Jubilee Concert and tomorrow's engagements."
Take That singer Robbie Williams opened the concert in front of Buckingham Palace by declaring to thousands of fans: "Let me entertain you."
Sir Paul McCartney, who closed the show with three songs, wished the Duke well, saying: "I think, you know, we all send our best wishes for a speedy recovery. I hear he's not too bad."
On Sunday, Prince Philip joined his family on the Royal Barge during the Diamond Jubilee pageant, standing for much of the day, and he did not look to be in discomfort.
The Queen was missing from the royal box at the beginning of the three-hour show but was expected to take her seat at around 9pm before lighting a ceremonial beacon at 10.30pm.
People who read this story also read
- Man who died after becoming trapped inside capsized boat is named
- Man charged with murder after 'stabbing' outside of pub
- Anarchists replace Union Flag at Bank of Scotland HQ in Edinburgh
- Six people in intensive care after outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease
- Four people in intensive care after outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease
Source: news.stv.tv
No comments:
Post a Comment