Saturday 2 October 2010
urban fugitives
I have just returned from a trip to Crete. A Greek island in the Mediterranean sea. Hot weather, sunshine and sweet smells of natures finest.
We travelled around quite a bit, and stumbled upon a small settlement called Milia. Well actually, we were put onto it by an elderly Danish man, who has been coming to Crete for many years. We decided to go to Milia and have a look around and have a meal there.
The road to Milia, is steep and very precarious, the mountains fall down to nothing just inches away from the side of the road, the views are truly unbelievable. We wound our way up the old dusty road for quite a few kilometres and finally we arrived. I was very much on edge, and edge being the operative word, as we were so close to it..... Don't be put off by what I write, the journey is well worth it.
When we arrived, I was so impressed by the place. It felt like a million miles from civilization. So very much "me". !! The houses are built from local stone. on the foundations of an ancient village. Using also Chestnut wood, the style is just perfect for the surroundings. The whole village is self sufficient and has won awards for "eco tourism". It is a perfect place to wind down, chill out and appreciate the simpler things in life. They made the best traditional meal, I have tasted in years. Washed down with local wine and local "Raki". I will definitely want to return at some point and spend a couple of weeks there.
I love the fact that it was so peaceful and quiet, they farmed their own produce, made their own cheese, and grew their own herbs and spices. The whole area is set in fantastic woodland, with amazing mountain views and perfect houses, just suited to be right there.
If you want a different kind of getaway, a slice of natures finest, then for me, this is the place to go to. I added a link so you too can see the layout and surroundings and read about the fantastic settlement of Malia.
Visit and enjoy. I certainly did. :)
http://www.milia.gr/english.html
We travelled around quite a bit, and stumbled upon a small settlement called Milia. Well actually, we were put onto it by an elderly Danish man, who has been coming to Crete for many years. We decided to go to Milia and have a look around and have a meal there.
The road to Milia, is steep and very precarious, the mountains fall down to nothing just inches away from the side of the road, the views are truly unbelievable. We wound our way up the old dusty road for quite a few kilometres and finally we arrived. I was very much on edge, and edge being the operative word, as we were so close to it..... Don't be put off by what I write, the journey is well worth it.
When we arrived, I was so impressed by the place. It felt like a million miles from civilization. So very much "me". !! The houses are built from local stone. on the foundations of an ancient village. Using also Chestnut wood, the style is just perfect for the surroundings. The whole village is self sufficient and has won awards for "eco tourism". It is a perfect place to wind down, chill out and appreciate the simpler things in life. They made the best traditional meal, I have tasted in years. Washed down with local wine and local "Raki". I will definitely want to return at some point and spend a couple of weeks there.
I love the fact that it was so peaceful and quiet, they farmed their own produce, made their own cheese, and grew their own herbs and spices. The whole area is set in fantastic woodland, with amazing mountain views and perfect houses, just suited to be right there.
If you want a different kind of getaway, a slice of natures finest, then for me, this is the place to go to. I added a link so you too can see the layout and surroundings and read about the fantastic settlement of Malia.
Visit and enjoy. I certainly did. :)
http://www.milia.gr/english.html
Saturday 18 September 2010
a dream or reality?
I went to the cinema tonight, saw a fantastic film. It was about stealing secrets in dreams. Far fetched as it may seem, it was in fact a very enjoyable film and it got me thinking later about it. Imagine now if everything we know is all but a dream..... our whole life and existence is purely our sub conscience, our dream. Our whole life could be a dream. We wake up one day to find we are still in the womb of our mother, or maybe we wake up as a seven year old again, and carry on where we left off. Imagine on the eve of our tenth birthday, we go to bed, fall asleep and dont wake up until we have had 70 years worth of "life dreams".
Very far out, but still at the same time, very feasible. If you have an open mind and active imagination that is. What could the world be like?? All technology could be lost, computers just don't exist, cars are still small and have only 3 gears. No hi tech gadgets, windows is not available and has never been thought of, apart from in my mind. ;my dream . The best seller books, the blockbuster films.. Titanic, Avatar, they didn't exist. No High definition tv, no DAB radio.
What if??
What if you suddenly wake up tomorrow and you are 10 yrs old . Your birthday. All that you had experienced as school, college, work, your wedding, your children or even your grandchildren, the holidays you thought and believed you had taken, just had not happened. The wars and famines, they never took place, the floods and volcanic eruptions, just more dreams. Think about it, let your mind soak into it, what a strange place the world would be if it was like that.. very interesting thought, well in my mind.
Watch the film, if you like a bit of fiction and Leonardo Di Caprio. its called "Inception" ..Let me know on here what you think of it please.
Very far out, but still at the same time, very feasible. If you have an open mind and active imagination that is. What could the world be like?? All technology could be lost, computers just don't exist, cars are still small and have only 3 gears. No hi tech gadgets, windows is not available and has never been thought of, apart from in my mind. ;my dream . The best seller books, the blockbuster films.. Titanic, Avatar, they didn't exist. No High definition tv, no DAB radio.
What if??
What if you suddenly wake up tomorrow and you are 10 yrs old . Your birthday. All that you had experienced as school, college, work, your wedding, your children or even your grandchildren, the holidays you thought and believed you had taken, just had not happened. The wars and famines, they never took place, the floods and volcanic eruptions, just more dreams. Think about it, let your mind soak into it, what a strange place the world would be if it was like that.. very interesting thought, well in my mind.
Watch the film, if you like a bit of fiction and Leonardo Di Caprio. its called "Inception" ..Let me know on here what you think of it please.
Wednesday 15 September 2010
Music madness, guitar heaven
I have always loved music, ever since I can remember. In fact one of the earliest memories I have, is me and my siblings, doing a little show for our parents. The shake your bum dance. We sang and danced, sticking out our behinds. Funny it must have been, I remember my Dad laughing his head off. We loved doing that show, we felt so proud of ourselves.
As I got older I began an obsession with remixing. We didn't have the gadgets and hi tech stuff of today. We only had a cassette recorder. We would have 2 of them and make crazy mixes, dubbing and dubbing over the dubs. Chaka Khan, breakdance soundtrack, Herbie Hancock. Fabulous. Years went by and still I had this thing for music, but now it was me that was writing the lyrics. I remember talking to a girl who was a singer and who had a bit of a hit in England. I brought her a stack of my Lyrics and she offered me £200 for a few songs.... Immediately I said "yes", but she gave me a really good telling off. Told me the songs are worth a lot more than £200. Royalties, publishing rights, licence agreements. I hadn't got a clue, but a few years later I was so much more well informed. I read the book, "this business of music". A true bible for anyone interested in the music biz. Very very good indeed.
I never did manage to sell any songs, but I had a dream of being a very successful song writer. I met a couple of guys into the Stockholm music scene. Cool dudes, with their own studio. I was bitten, I loved all that atmosphere
all that, "buzz and excitement". The keyboards, the guitars, the microphones, all the mixing equipment, the smell of it all, it was brilliant. I would regularly, grab a guitar and start singing into a microphone.I couldn't play the guitar back then, I was just "posing" with it.
The two guys wanted some lyrics to a piece of music and wanted to know if I would help them. I did, I did, and I wanted their help with making music for my lyrics. They never came through for me. I wrote various lyrics for them, but they didn't help me with my songs.
In the end, I borrowed a friends Yamaha guitar and started to teach myself, strumming along. to the songs I had written. It opened up a whole new world for me.....again !!
I found it so very easy to write a song. In fact, when I was 18 or 19 I would write a song whilst still in bed, before I got up. My typewriter on the floor, hammering away at it.
Melodies also came very easily. The chords came together and before I knew it I was making my own music. I wrote hundreds of songs, some I am proud of, some, less proud, but in some way or other, I found I was happy for what I had made.
I even started sending off my songs, by this stage I had a Shure sm 58 microphone and a Behringer mixer and a beautiful sounding Takamine guitar.As well as a Yamaha keyboard and a Boss Dr drum machine, which I thought was brilliant and very clever.
I began singing.....again. To be perfectly honest I never considered myself a singer, but others thought I wasn't too bad. I sang and sang, practised different techniques and found my voice. I was not a success with my songs though. EMI turned me down, as well as numerous others, but they did give me encouragement to send more to them.
Over the years, things happened with my life and they stalled my music dreams, family came along, so then there was no time, except for the party karaoke or occasional guitar jam . I still play my guitar, though just not as often as I would like to. I suppose deep down, my dream of making it BIG as a songwriter is still there, just laying dormant waiting to be awoken again, can someone wake it for me? or do I need to set my alarm clock myself?
As I got older I began an obsession with remixing. We didn't have the gadgets and hi tech stuff of today. We only had a cassette recorder. We would have 2 of them and make crazy mixes, dubbing and dubbing over the dubs. Chaka Khan, breakdance soundtrack, Herbie Hancock. Fabulous. Years went by and still I had this thing for music, but now it was me that was writing the lyrics. I remember talking to a girl who was a singer and who had a bit of a hit in England. I brought her a stack of my Lyrics and she offered me £200 for a few songs.... Immediately I said "yes", but she gave me a really good telling off. Told me the songs are worth a lot more than £200. Royalties, publishing rights, licence agreements. I hadn't got a clue, but a few years later I was so much more well informed. I read the book, "this business of music". A true bible for anyone interested in the music biz. Very very good indeed.
I never did manage to sell any songs, but I had a dream of being a very successful song writer. I met a couple of guys into the Stockholm music scene. Cool dudes, with their own studio. I was bitten, I loved all that atmosphere
all that, "buzz and excitement". The keyboards, the guitars, the microphones, all the mixing equipment, the smell of it all, it was brilliant. I would regularly, grab a guitar and start singing into a microphone.I couldn't play the guitar back then, I was just "posing" with it.
The two guys wanted some lyrics to a piece of music and wanted to know if I would help them. I did, I did, and I wanted their help with making music for my lyrics. They never came through for me. I wrote various lyrics for them, but they didn't help me with my songs.
In the end, I borrowed a friends Yamaha guitar and started to teach myself, strumming along. to the songs I had written. It opened up a whole new world for me.....again !!
I found it so very easy to write a song. In fact, when I was 18 or 19 I would write a song whilst still in bed, before I got up. My typewriter on the floor, hammering away at it.
Melodies also came very easily. The chords came together and before I knew it I was making my own music. I wrote hundreds of songs, some I am proud of, some, less proud, but in some way or other, I found I was happy for what I had made.
I even started sending off my songs, by this stage I had a Shure sm 58 microphone and a Behringer mixer and a beautiful sounding Takamine guitar.As well as a Yamaha keyboard and a Boss Dr drum machine, which I thought was brilliant and very clever.
I began singing.....again. To be perfectly honest I never considered myself a singer, but others thought I wasn't too bad. I sang and sang, practised different techniques and found my voice. I was not a success with my songs though. EMI turned me down, as well as numerous others, but they did give me encouragement to send more to them.
Over the years, things happened with my life and they stalled my music dreams, family came along, so then there was no time, except for the party karaoke or occasional guitar jam . I still play my guitar, though just not as often as I would like to. I suppose deep down, my dream of making it BIG as a songwriter is still there, just laying dormant waiting to be awoken again, can someone wake it for me? or do I need to set my alarm clock myself?
Sunday 12 September 2010
the rivers of Babylon
All this rain we had been having lately, has made me remember an event that happened around 1992 . I was together with my cousin on our back packing "world tour, to fortune and fame", we arrived in Germany and met up with some old friends whom we met on a previous holiday in Tunisia.
I remember Germany as being quite clean, but not easy to hitch hike. We were stopped on several occasions by the German police, to be told we cannot walk "there", and we were forced to hack our way through a jungle it seemed. As soon as they turned their patrol car out of our sight, we were back walking the road again, laughing and giving the cops the long middle finger. What rebels we were!!
We hitched and got deeper into Germany, we admired their cars, which we thought were very much "customised", well to cut a long story a bit shorter, we ended up grabbing a ride off 3 guys. Two from the country known back then as, "Yugoslavia" and their friend from the country known back then as "Czechoslovakia".
They picked us up from a motorway, in Austria, their car was an old beat up Lada. We squeezed ourselves into the car, back packs and ourselves taking up all the room that was left. It was very cosy and we all sat really tight together, well we had no choice.
Our driver drove up the motorway towards Vienna, I had bad knees at the time and I begged him to let me drive the car for a bit, just so I could "stretch" my legs. Sure enough he agreed. I don't think I had been driving for more than 15 minutes, when we noticed lots and lots of smoke, billowing out from underneath the bonnet. I stopped the car and we all got out to see, The bonnet was opened and the engine was on fire. It was quickly put out with cola.
We carried on up the long road to Vienna, this time I was once again a passenger. We reached Vienna and our driver began stopping to ask people something.
The people responded by shaking their heads and pointing in the direction we came from.
We were back on the road, foot to the floor heading now towards Graz. We we reached Graz, we had our driver once again all excited, ask many different people some question..... I was very curious as to what was going on... Which I found out was, they were looking for a market, of all things.
We drove it seemed all day back and forth before we found it.
A crap and junk market. They loved it. Like kids in a sweetshop.
They bought deodorant by the box, car stereo and speakers, pens with the LCD time display, watches; if I remember correctly 58 of them.....it was all junk to me and my cousin, just crap.
We packed all the things into an already packed car and off we drove. We arrived at a motorway service station, where they fed us like we were "royalty". Big burgers, Ice cream etc etc. That was to get us happy. Then they asked us if we would, put the things into our backpacks and take them over the border. At first my cousin said, no... I said it would be ok. I really was a bit naiive back then. I had crossed over the countrys border on numerous occaisions, never had my bag checked yet, besides, all what we had in our bags , to me was just rubbish.. No diamonds, no drugs, no money...
We agreed eventually and they helped us with packing. We drove until we were close enough to the border to walk. We said good bye to the guys, who said they would wait for us over the border, and they would pick us up and take us to Greece.
We stopped at the border and were asked if we had anything to declare.. "No", we said. One of the customs men, took my backpack and tipped it upside down, spilling all the contents onto the table... well, 58 watches and 12 cans of deodorant etc, and we were promptly "arrested".
We got told off. We were asked who told us to take the things over for them, even given a chance to find them, so they could be "busted". We never found them. We were told to report to the police station in Yugoslavia on Monday, it was Friday now, we had our passports confiscated and had no cash at all.
They released us telling us we needed to go to court on Monday. It was a long weekend. We pitched our tent high up besides a big river, it was wet and rainy. We tried to build a fire, but everything was too wet. Hungry and cold and getting quite wet. We ate raw potatoes from a nearby field, corn on the cob also raw, but with a bit of sugar that we had., all in all our tent was quite homely and we made the best of things...
Come Monday morning, we had our "court case", we needed to pay a huge amount of money for a "translator" even though the judge spoke English perfectly. We received big fine each and were told to sign a piece of paper, saying we will not complain about this incident with our government officials... not really wanting to we signed, collected our passports and headed out for the Greek border. We gave the border guards the middle finger. Greece here we come. We enjoyed Greece, the sunshine the tzaziki....great times
I remember Germany as being quite clean, but not easy to hitch hike. We were stopped on several occasions by the German police, to be told we cannot walk "there", and we were forced to hack our way through a jungle it seemed. As soon as they turned their patrol car out of our sight, we were back walking the road again, laughing and giving the cops the long middle finger. What rebels we were!!
We hitched and got deeper into Germany, we admired their cars, which we thought were very much "customised", well to cut a long story a bit shorter, we ended up grabbing a ride off 3 guys. Two from the country known back then as, "Yugoslavia" and their friend from the country known back then as "Czechoslovakia".
They picked us up from a motorway, in Austria, their car was an old beat up Lada. We squeezed ourselves into the car, back packs and ourselves taking up all the room that was left. It was very cosy and we all sat really tight together, well we had no choice.
Our driver drove up the motorway towards Vienna, I had bad knees at the time and I begged him to let me drive the car for a bit, just so I could "stretch" my legs. Sure enough he agreed. I don't think I had been driving for more than 15 minutes, when we noticed lots and lots of smoke, billowing out from underneath the bonnet. I stopped the car and we all got out to see, The bonnet was opened and the engine was on fire. It was quickly put out with cola.
We carried on up the long road to Vienna, this time I was once again a passenger. We reached Vienna and our driver began stopping to ask people something.
The people responded by shaking their heads and pointing in the direction we came from.
We were back on the road, foot to the floor heading now towards Graz. We we reached Graz, we had our driver once again all excited, ask many different people some question..... I was very curious as to what was going on... Which I found out was, they were looking for a market, of all things.
We drove it seemed all day back and forth before we found it.
A crap and junk market. They loved it. Like kids in a sweetshop.
They bought deodorant by the box, car stereo and speakers, pens with the LCD time display, watches; if I remember correctly 58 of them.....it was all junk to me and my cousin, just crap.
We packed all the things into an already packed car and off we drove. We arrived at a motorway service station, where they fed us like we were "royalty". Big burgers, Ice cream etc etc. That was to get us happy. Then they asked us if we would, put the things into our backpacks and take them over the border. At first my cousin said, no... I said it would be ok. I really was a bit naiive back then. I had crossed over the countrys border on numerous occaisions, never had my bag checked yet, besides, all what we had in our bags , to me was just rubbish.. No diamonds, no drugs, no money...
We agreed eventually and they helped us with packing. We drove until we were close enough to the border to walk. We said good bye to the guys, who said they would wait for us over the border, and they would pick us up and take us to Greece.
We stopped at the border and were asked if we had anything to declare.. "No", we said. One of the customs men, took my backpack and tipped it upside down, spilling all the contents onto the table... well, 58 watches and 12 cans of deodorant etc, and we were promptly "arrested".
We got told off. We were asked who told us to take the things over for them, even given a chance to find them, so they could be "busted". We never found them. We were told to report to the police station in Yugoslavia on Monday, it was Friday now, we had our passports confiscated and had no cash at all.
They released us telling us we needed to go to court on Monday. It was a long weekend. We pitched our tent high up besides a big river, it was wet and rainy. We tried to build a fire, but everything was too wet. Hungry and cold and getting quite wet. We ate raw potatoes from a nearby field, corn on the cob also raw, but with a bit of sugar that we had., all in all our tent was quite homely and we made the best of things...
Come Monday morning, we had our "court case", we needed to pay a huge amount of money for a "translator" even though the judge spoke English perfectly. We received big fine each and were told to sign a piece of paper, saying we will not complain about this incident with our government officials... not really wanting to we signed, collected our passports and headed out for the Greek border. We gave the border guards the middle finger. Greece here we come. We enjoyed Greece, the sunshine the tzaziki....great times
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Backpacking tales
I left the land of my birth when I was just 19 yrs old. It was a giant step, but something I had been longing to do, deep within me for many years. I remember when I finally decided to "go for it". It was after a little talk session with a rather cute 18 year old girl, whom I had the hots for. She was about to embark on a small European tour, followed with a trip to the middle east and then India. " Do you want to come with me?" she asked.... she didn't need to ask again. !!
The following day was Saturday, we went into town to buy some stuff, sleeping bag for me, tent for us, gas stove and gas etc etc, the regular camping gear. We also went and bought ourselves train tickets and boat tickets..... first stop Amsterdam.
My travel companion had some old friends who lived in the north of Holland, she had arranged to meet them for a few days and I was to stay in Amsterdam all alone... Oh my, what was I to do?? I didn't know anything about travelling or backpacking or anything related to travels at all....
I found myself in the red light district of Amsterdam, a young virile man, 19 years old.
After wandering around for quite some time, I found a guest house, kind of a hotel for the backpacking population of Holland. In no time I had dropped my backpack on my alloted bed, and was out wandering the mean, but clean dirty streets of Amsterdam. In the Red light district. Well, blow me over, I could not believe my eyes. There I was a young and very impressionable 19 yr old, wandering around with the Red light districts windows, on my left, on my right, and straight ahead. !! For me I was in pussy heaven. The girls were absolute stunners. So so beautiful, blonde and brunettes, redheads and well every colour of hair out there.
I never went in, to the girls. I just walked and walked and walked, obviously just admiring the sights.
After a few hours of window shopping, I decided to go back to my hotel, for a nice cold beer. I got served I think Heinekan, which I proceeded to drink whilst eyeing the crowd. There was a pool table in the rear of the locale, I went over and met a guy who was playing. After finding out the rules of the table, and this chaps own rules, I decided to play against him. I remember him taking out some Rizzla papers and he started building a joint on the pool table, whilst it was my shot..... We finished the game and played some more, taking alternate tokes of the weed of wonder, after a while, I wanted to just sit and drink my beer, watch some MTV and listen to the music...... oh how wrong was I. The song playing was.... sowing the seeds of love, tears for fears I do believe, well, for those who have had a smoke of the ancient wonder, time seems to stand still. I think to me that song went on for a good 2 hours. I tried getting up to go to bed so many times, but was utterly unable to.
After many hours, I think, I managed to get a grip of myself and go to bed. Which I found, just where I had left it, 3 floors up through the door on the right. I slept so good that night, and the next morning awoke , revitalized and full of energy. I went out to the window girls again, just to see how good they actually did look, they were still so beautiful for me then as the night before..... but I never did go in.
Tuesday 7 September 2010
Death becomes me
Harsh title I know, but there is a reason. I seem to have an ability that attracts death and near death experiences. To say I have nine lives would be very much an understatement.
I was out at a restaurant in Sweden, way back in 1995, I had finished work and was having a nice pizza and a refreshing cold beer. I chatted away, and listened intently with my companion, we ate our pizzas, drank our beer and I went to collect my jacket from the Wardrobe. The guy in the wardrobe department, was a bit of a friend of mine, he was a foreigner from Gibraltar. I chatted for a moment with him whilst he took my ticket and went to find my jacket. I remember falling backwards, then....boom.
I awoke in the hospital some time later. Completely disorientated , not really knowing anything. I later found out that I had fallen over backwards and whacked the back of my head on the hard wooden floor.
I had stopped breathing............. Dead.... Gone....... Finito.......kicked the bucket....
All of the above!
Luckily for me, there were a table of guests who were students of medicine at the local university. They came over promptly and checked for a pulse... none.
I then had someone giving me "the kiss of life ", which at first never worked. Then heart massage was used. One of those students there, must have really been having the time of their life. Totally in their element.
"Whay hey woo... a dead guy on the floor, in our restaurant, on our night out" "Cooool"
They were a group, a finely tuned machine, each helping and encouraging, talking through, confirming and re-confirming. I got the kiss again, the kiss of life. This time it worked and I coughed and spluttered and found once again my breath. I don't remember any of this at all. All this I found out later from my friends at the restaurant.
I had a flash of craziness after that. I started to do lots of things, I wanted to learn all sorts of things, I hardly slept, I was a sponge for information and for getting things done. No time like the present, no time like the present.. I was going mad. I think my subconscious mind had said to me.... you never know when your time is up boy. I really was up and at it all the time. It made me think, live for now, tomorrow never comes, which in itself is so very true. tomorrow never comes, its always just ahead of us, but never here.
Live your life to the fullest, appreciate every single day and remember to say thank you for it.
I do.
more tomorrow...........if it finally comes.
I was out at a restaurant in Sweden, way back in 1995, I had finished work and was having a nice pizza and a refreshing cold beer. I chatted away, and listened intently with my companion, we ate our pizzas, drank our beer and I went to collect my jacket from the Wardrobe. The guy in the wardrobe department, was a bit of a friend of mine, he was a foreigner from Gibraltar. I chatted for a moment with him whilst he took my ticket and went to find my jacket. I remember falling backwards, then....boom.
I awoke in the hospital some time later. Completely disorientated , not really knowing anything. I later found out that I had fallen over backwards and whacked the back of my head on the hard wooden floor.
I had stopped breathing............. Dead.... Gone....... Finito.......kicked the bucket....
All of the above!
Luckily for me, there were a table of guests who were students of medicine at the local university. They came over promptly and checked for a pulse... none.
I then had someone giving me "the kiss of life ", which at first never worked. Then heart massage was used. One of those students there, must have really been having the time of their life. Totally in their element.
"Whay hey woo... a dead guy on the floor, in our restaurant, on our night out" "Cooool"
They were a group, a finely tuned machine, each helping and encouraging, talking through, confirming and re-confirming. I got the kiss again, the kiss of life. This time it worked and I coughed and spluttered and found once again my breath. I don't remember any of this at all. All this I found out later from my friends at the restaurant.
I had a flash of craziness after that. I started to do lots of things, I wanted to learn all sorts of things, I hardly slept, I was a sponge for information and for getting things done. No time like the present, no time like the present.. I was going mad. I think my subconscious mind had said to me.... you never know when your time is up boy. I really was up and at it all the time. It made me think, live for now, tomorrow never comes, which in itself is so very true. tomorrow never comes, its always just ahead of us, but never here.
Live your life to the fullest, appreciate every single day and remember to say thank you for it.
I do.
more tomorrow...........if it finally comes.
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