THE FLU ARRIVES TO VISIT THE GRANDMA'S HOME

Arriving to the Medical Centre

The Grandma is knocked out. She's suffering the consequences of the flu and she's totally destroyed. Yesterday, she started feeling the first symtomps and she went to her local medical center.

While she was waiting for her turn, she had enough force to study a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 23).

After visiting the doctor, The Grandma is following her instructions: stay at bed, take warm drinks and take some medicines. It's a matter of time, more or less seven days, to stay fine again and ready to continue with her normal life.

More information: Present Continuous-Future Use

Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by an influenza virus. Symptoms can be mild to severe. The most common symptoms include: high fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pains, headache, coughing, sneezing, and feeling tired. These symptoms typically begin two days after exposure to the virus and most last less than a week. The cough, however, may last for more than two weeks.

In children, there may be diarrhea and vomiting, but these are not common in adults. Diarrhea and vomiting occur more commonly in gastroenteritis, which is an unrelated disease and sometimes inaccurately referred to as stomach flu or the 24-hour flu. Complications of influenza may include viral pneumonia, secondary bacterial pneumonia, sinus infections, and worsening of previous health problems such as asthma or heart failure.

Analyzing flu symptoms

Three of the four types of influenza viruses affect people, Type A, Type B, and Type C.  Type D has not been known to infect people, but is believed to have the potential to do so. Usually, the virus is spread through the air from coughs or sneezes. This is believed to occur mostly over relatively short distances. It can also be spread by touching surfaces contaminated by the virus and then touching the mouth or eyes.

A person may be infectious to others both before and during the time they are showing symptoms. The infection may be confirmed by testing the throat, sputum, or nose for the virus. A number of rapid tests are available; however, people may still have the infection even if the results are negative.  A type of polymerase chain reaction that detects the virus's RNA is more accurate.

More information: History

Frequent hand washing reduces the risk of viral spread. Wearing a surgical mask is also useful. Yearly vaccinations against influenza are recommended by the World Health Organization for those at high risk. The vaccine is usually effective against three or four types of influenza. It is usually well-tolerated. A vaccine made for one year may not be useful in the following year, since the virus evolves rapidly. Antiviral drugs such as the neuraminidase inhibitor oseltamivir, among others, have been used to treat influenza. The benefit of antiviral drugs in those who are otherwise healthy do not appear to be greater than their risks. No benefit has been found in those with other health problems.

Following the doctor's advice

Influenza spreads around the world in yearly outbreaks, resulting in about three to five million cases of severe illness and about 250,000 to 500,000 deaths. About 20% of unvaccinated children and 10% of unvaccinated adults are infected each year. In the northern and southern parts of the world, outbreaks occur mainly in the winter, while around the Equator, outbreaks may occur at any time of the year. Death occurs mostly in the young, the old, and those with other health problems. Larger outbreaks known as pandemics are less frequent.

In the 20th century, three influenza pandemics occurred: Spanish influenza in 1918, ~50 million deaths, Asian influenza in 1957, two million deaths, and Hong Kong influenza in 1968, one million deaths. The World Health Organization declared an outbreak of a new type of influenza A/H1N1 to be a pandemic in June 2009. Influenza may also affect other animals, including pigs, horses, and birds. Approximately 33% of people with influenza are asymptomatic.

Symptoms of influenza can start quite suddenly one to two days after infection. Usually the first symptoms are chills and body aches, but fever is also common early in the infection, with body temperatures ranging from 38 to 39 °C, approximately 100 to 103 °F. Many people are so ill that they are confined to bed for several days, with aches and pains throughout their bodies, which are worse in their backs and legs.

More information: Johnson & Johnson

The main symptoms of influenza are:

-Fever and chills

-Cough

-Nasal congestion

-Runny nose

-Sneezing

-Sore throat

-Hoarseness

-Earache

-Muscle pains

-Fatigue

-Headache

-Irritated, watering eyes

-Reddened eyes, skin (especially face), mouth, throat and nose

-Petechial rash

In children, gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain, may be severe in children with influenza B.

It can be difficult to distinguish between the common cold and influenza in the early stages of these infections. Influenza is a mixture of symptoms of common cold and pneumonia, body ache, headache, and fatigue. Diarrhea is not usually a symptom of influenza in adults, although it has been seen in some human cases of the H5N1 bird flu and can be a symptom in children.

Surviving the flu at home

When an infected person sneezes or coughs more than half a million virus particles can be spread to those close by. In otherwise healthy adults, influenza virus shedding, the time during which a person might be infectious to another person, increases sharply one-half to one day after infection, peaks on day 2 and persists for an average total duration of 5 days, but can persist as long as 9 days. In those who develop symptoms from experimental infection, only 67% of healthy experimentally infected individuals, symptoms and viral shedding show a similar pattern, but with viral shedding preceding illness by one day.

Children are much more infectious than adults and shed virus from just before they develop symptoms until two weeks after infection. In immunocompromised people, viral shedding can continue for longer than two weeks.

More information: CDC

These are the main ways that influenza spreads:

-By direct transmission, when an infected person sneezes mucus directly into the eyes, nose or mouth of another person;

-The airborne route, when someone inhales the aerosols produced by an infected person coughing, sneezing or spitting;

-Through hand-to-eye, hand-to-nose, or hand-to-mouth transmission, either from contaminated surfaces or from direct personal contact such as a hand-shake.

Reasonably effective ways to reduce the transmission of influenza include good personal health and hygiene habits such as: not touching your eyes, nose or mouth; frequent hand washing, with soap and water, or with alcohol-based hand rubs; covering coughs and sneezes; avoiding close contact with sick people; and staying home yourself if you are sick. Avoiding spitting is also recommended. Although face masks might help prevent transmission when caring for the sick, there is mixed evidence on beneficial effects in the community.

Smoking raises the risk of contracting influenza, as well as producing more severe disease symptoms.

More information: CDC

The worst pandemic in modern history was the Spanish flu of 1918, 

which killed tens of millions of people. 

Today, with how interconnected the world is, it would spread faster.

Bill Gates

IGUALADA. TEXTILE INDUSTRY, HOCKEY & BALLOONS

Tonyi Tamaki visits the REC, Igualada

Yesterday, The Grandma was totally crazy with Black Friday. This morning, she has been studying a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 22). This afternoon, she has been waiting for the arrival of her orders and she has been thinking in another international event that has a closer relation with fashion and sales: the REC in Igualada. The Grandma had the opportunity to visit Igualada during the last REC with the great company of Claire Fontaine and Tonyi Tamaki.

Rec.0 Experimental Stores is a new concept in retail. It involves the temporary transformation of an old industrial district, Rec, in Igualada. Twice a year, and for four days only, the former factories and tanneries are transformed into pop up fashion stores where leading brands sell their stock and samples at one-off prices.

Igualada is also famous thanks to its textile museums, its beautiful buildings, its great team of hockey and its European Balloon Festival.

More information: Will or Going to?

Igualada is a municipality of the province of Barcelona in Catalonia. It is located on the left bank of the Anoia river, and at the western end of the Igualada-Martorell-Barcelona railway. Igualada is the capital and central market of the Anoia comarca, a rich agricultural and wine-producing district.

The city consists of an old town, originated in the 11th century, with narrow and irregular streets, including the remains of a fortress and ramparts, plus a new surrounding town with regular and spacious streets and many fine houses. The city is 65 kilometres west from Barcelona and 20 kilometres west from the famous mountain and monastery of Montserrat.

Claire Fontaine visits the REC, Igualada

The Igualada Leather Museum, Museu de la Pell d'Igualada in Catalan, was created in 1954 and was the third in Europe. The collections are displayed in two nearby buildings in Igualada: the Cal Boyer building, a former cotton textile factory from the late 19th century, and the Cal Granotes building, an 18th-century tannery.

Cal Granotes displays two floors of a typical tannery: the ground floor, where the leather preparation and tanning was done, and the upper floor, where the leather was dried hanging from bars.

In the early 18th century, the tanning workers from Igualada decided to leave the enclosure of the medieval walls and established new industries along a water pipe or irrigation ditch named El Rec, already mentioned in 12th century documents and previously used by mills. The ditch has a length of 3049 meters and collects the Anoia river water from a lock.

More information: REC0

The Leather Museum, at the Cal Boyer building, headquarter of the museum, constitutes the cornerstone of the museum approach. Due to its characteristics and structure it is a unique and pioneering museum, one of the top three in Europe of its kind.

There are three exhibition areas: leather in history, a world of leather, and industrialization. The first one, leather in history, presents aspects of the production, use and cultural significance of leather in the Mediterranean civilization, from the distant past to recent times, including prehistory, the tanning of hides, leather in ancient Greece and ancient Rome worlds, parchments, bookbinding, shell cordovan use, guadamecil painted or gilded embossed leather, an ancient leather crafting technique, and two traditional professions such as shoemakers and horse tack makers.

Having dinner in the REC, Igualada

The second area, A world of leather presents issues related to the leather: sport, war, travel, nomads, leather sounds and music, images, and tactile temptations. In the corresponding videos, it presents five interactive modules illustrating some of the properties of the leather: touch, sound, durability, impermeability and the drill.

The third area, Industrialization, presents recent technical developments in the manufacturing of leather. It is the natural continuation of a historic route that starts at the old tannery of Cal Granotes, and therefore the end of the route through the museum.

It comprises three stages: tanning in Igualada in 1890, which is the successor of the Cal Granotes craft tanning method, the first generation of machines, and finally the industrial phase of leather, with the definitive introduction of mechanization in tanning. It displays the processes of production, with the replacement of old processes of fertilization in holes by modern barrels, and the passage of a rudimentary system of work, supported by individual ability and manual effort, to advanced machining using electricity.

More information: Museu de la Pell d'Igualada (Catalan Version)

The Cal Granotes tannery exhibition is a pioneer in its genre. It is located 100 meters away from Cal Boyer and was open to the public in December 1990 in the middle of El Rec, a very old neighborhood spread along a ditch that provided, and still provides, the required water to dozens of tanneries.

The Cal Granotes 18th century tannery building was restored, and now displays the same tanning processes which were used in the past. The building preserves its original layout to show three totally manual and traditional systems of ox and cow leather tanning for making shoe soles: leather sewing, old Moroccan system and modern Moroccan system.

Cal Granotes displays two floors of a typical tannery: the ground floor, where the leather preparation and tanning was done, and the upper floor, where the leather was dried hanging from bars. Most of the production was intended to elaborate shoe soles. It could also be used for clothing: leather horse harness for animals and horse-drawn carriages; backs and seats of chairs, and some time later for manufacturing belts for steam driven factories.

Visiting Igualada, Anoia

In the early 18th century, the tanning workers from Igualada decided to leave the enclosure of the medieval walls and established new industries along a water pipe or irrigation ditch named El Rec, already mentioned in 12th century documents and previously used by mills. The ditch has a length of 3049 meters and collects the Anoia river water from a lock.

 
The Igualada Muleteer's Museum-Antoni Ros Collection, in Catalan language Museu del Traginer-Col·lecció Antoni Ros, is another museum located in Igualada. It displays the evolution of transport using mules, horses and other animals, and the different relationships between several trades that paved the way for the profession of muleteer, including the carter, cooper, saddler, tanner, wicker weaver, farrier, veterinarian, stablehand, woodcutter and wood hauler, harness maker and blacksmith. It is distributed into three main thematic areas: professions, saddles and bridles, and carriages.

The museum displays 39 carriages and carts and a total of 2.175 items, most of them part of the collection created by Antoni Ros i Vilarrubias (1942–1994). The museum is located near the old city center, at an old farmhouse from the 18th century, which was purchased in the 1970s by the Ros family, a family closely linked to the Antic Gremi de Traginers d'Igualada muleteer association.

More information: Museu del Traginer/Muleteer's Museum

It is distributed into three main thematic areas: Oficis/Occupations, Selles i Guarniments/Saddles and Bridles, and Carros i Carruatges/Carts and Carriages. The Traginer d'Igualada foundation was created in 1994 in Igualada with the objective of creating the Muleteer's Museum.

The Ros family, owner of the collection created by Antoni Ros i Vilarrubias, was in charge of the foundation, and contacted a team of professionals that prepared the Museum project. The museum was permanently open on September 24, 2005, and became part of the museum network managed by the Diputació de Barcelona.

The Basilica of Santa Maria is the most important historical building of Igualada. The first settlement of Igualada is dated around year 1000, in the location were the current church lies today, which was at that time a crossing of 2 routes which were linking Barcelona with Aragon, and north of Catalonia with its south.

The Grandma visits the Asil del Sant Crist, Igualada

Santa Maria church origin is from the 11th century, but the current building is mainly from the 17th century. During the Spanish Civil War it was converted into a market, and was restored after the war, under the guidance of the architect Cèsar Martinell. In 1949 Santa Maria obtained the title of Minor Basilica granted by the pope Pius XII.

The Asil del Sant Crist is one of the most special buildings in Igualada and serves as a nursing home of elder people. Construction started in year 1931 thanks to a donation from Magdalena, Dolors and Concepció Castells and finished in 1941 after the Spanish Civil War. It was designed by Joan Rubió i Bellver, pupil of Antoni Gaudí, in late modernisme style, mixed with influences from the traditional Catalan architecture.

The local industries, mainly developed since 1880, include the manufacture of cotton, linen, wool, ribbons, cloth, chocolate, soap, brandies, leather, cards and nails.

Igualada has a long tradition of tanning and textile industries. The competition from low cost countries which produce inexpensive textile products and the stricter environmental laws applied on tanneries have had a serious impact in the local economy. Despite that, there are several well-known textile companies that keep their headquarters in Igualada, including Buff, Sita Murt and Punto Blanco.

More information: Anoia Turisme

Igualada Hoquei Club is a roller hockey club. The Pavelló Poliesportiu Les Comes, with a capacity of 3,000 seats, currently serves as its pavilion.

Igualada Hockey Club

The club was founded in 1950. It played in the top nacional category from 1955 to 1964, 1969 to 1973, and from 1984 to nowadays.

The team enjoyed its golden era through the 1990s, winning six European Leagues, five European Supercups, five Spanish championships and four national cups between 1989 and 1999.

CN Igualada's women's rink hockey team, which would become Igualada HC's women's section in 2008, also won seven Spanish championships between 1993 and 2000. 

This women's club would split from Igualada HC in 2013 for creating a new Igualada Femení CHP.

More information: Igualada HC (Catalan Version)

Igualada is also home to Ultramagic, a manufacturer of hot air balloons, based at the Igualada-Òdena airfield. It is the second largest in the world. The company produces from 80 to 120 balloons per year, with 80% of them exported to Europe, North America, South America, Africa and Japan.

The company can produce massive balloons, such as the N-500 that accommodates up to 27 persons in the basket. Ultramagic has also produced many balloons with special shapes, as well as cold air inflatables.

Enjoying the European Balloon Festival

Ultramagic is one of the organizers of the European Balloon Festival, the largest hot air balloon festival in South Europe, held in Igualada since 1997 in the month of July, that includes competitions, exhibitions and a night glow. The festival gathers around 60 balloonists from Europe, and other countries such as Israel, India, Japan, Brazil and Argentina. The European Balloon Festival is one of the largest hot air balloon festivals in Europe. It takes place every year during the first fortnight of July in Igualada.

The festival lasts four days, Thursday to Sunday, and attracts thousands of spectators. It includes a hot air balloon competition and recreational exhibitions such as a night glow and fireworks.

The flights take place early in the morning and late in the afternoon, when weather conditions are the optimal ones. It also offers visitors the opportunity to fly on a balloon, by booking a flight in advance.

The festival is organized by the Igualada City Council, with technical support from the company Ultramagic, and Kon-Tiki Balloon Flights, a company specialized in balloon flights.

More information: European Balloon Festival

Every time that I wanted to give up, if I saw an interesting textile, 

print what ever, suddenly I would see a collection.

Anna Sui

BLACK FRIDAY: THE PANIC OF 1869 IN THE GOLD MARKET

Black Friday

The Grandma loves sales and discounts and yesterday was a great day for her and her businesses. She wanted to write her daily report but she was so occupied shopping on line that she forgot to write it.

Before Black Friday started, The Grandma had already studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 21).

Because of The Grandma was totally crazy buying as many offers as she found, she hadn't got enough time to take some photos of this special day.

More information: Will (Promises, Decisions, Refusing)

Black Friday is an informal name for the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, which is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.

Black Friday has been regarded as the beginning of America's Christmas shopping season since 1952, although the term Black Friday didn't become widely used until more recent decades.

Many stores offer highly promoted sales on Black Friday and open very early, such as at midnight, or may even start their sales at some time on Thanksgiving.

Black Friday is not an official holiday, but California and some other states observe The Day After Thanksgiving as a holiday for state government employees, sometimes in lieu of another federal holiday, such as Columbus Day. Many non-retail employees and schools have both Thanksgiving and the following Friday off, which, along with the following regular weekend, makes it a four-day weekend, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers.

Black Friday

Black Friday has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States since 2005, although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate, have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time.

Similar stories resurface year upon year at this time, portraying hysteria and shortage of stock, creating a state of positive feedback. In 2014, spending volume on Black Friday fell for the first time since the 2008 recession. $50.9 billion was spent during the 4-day Black Friday weekend, down 11% from the previous year. However, the U.S. economy was not in a recession. Christmas creep has been cited as a factor in the diminishing importance of Black Friday, as many retailers now spread out their promotions over the entire months of November and December rather than concentrate them on a single shopping day or weekend.

The earliest evidence of the phrase Black Friday applied to the day after Thanksgiving in a shopping context suggests that the term originated in Philadelphia, where it was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic that would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. This usage dates to at least 1961. More than twenty years later, as the phrase became more widespread, a popular explanation became that this day represented the point in the year when retailers begin to turn a profit, thus going from being in the red to being in the black.

More information: The Balance

There have been reports of violence occurring between shoppers on Black Friday. Since 2006, there have been 10 reported deaths and 111 injuries throughout the United States. It is common for prospective shoppers to camp out over the Thanksgiving holiday in an effort to secure a place in front of the line and thus a better chance at getting desired items. This poses a significant safety risk, such as the use of propane and generators in the most elaborate cases, and in general, the blocking of emergency access and fire lanes, causing at least one city to ban the practice.

Since the start of the 21st century, there have been attempts by retailers with origins in the United States to introduce a retail Black Friday to other countries around the world. In several countries, local retailers have attempted to promote the day to remain competitive with US-based online retailers.

Black Friday

For centuries, the adjective black has been applied to days upon which calamities occurred. Many events have been described as Black Friday, although the most significant such event in American History was the Panic of 1869, which occurred when financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk took advantage of their connections with the Grant Administration in an attempt to corner the gold market. When President Grant learned of this manipulation, he ordered the Treasury to release a large supply of gold, which halted the run and caused prices to drop by eighteen percent. Fortunes were made and lost in a single day, and the president's own brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, was ruined.

The earliest known use of Black Friday to refer to the day after Thanksgiving occurs in the journal, Factory Management and Maintenance, for November 1951, and again in 1952. Here it referred to the practice of workers calling in sick on the day after Thanksgiving, in order to have a four-day weekend. 

However, this use does not appear to have caught on. Around the same time, the terms Black Friday and Black Saturday came to be used by the police in Philadelphia and Rochester to describe the crowds and traffic congestion accompanying the start of the Christmas shopping season. In 1961, the city and merchants of Philadelphia attempted to improve conditions, and a public relations expert recommended rebranding the days, Big Friday and Big Saturday; but these terms were quickly forgotten.

More information: Money Crashers

Use of the phrase spread slowly, first appearing in The New York Times on November 29, 1975, in which it still refers specifically to the busiest shopping and traffic day of the year in Philadelphia. Although it soon became more widespread, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 1985 that retailers in Cincinnati and Los Angeles were still unaware of the term.

As the phrase gained national attention in the early 1980s, merchants objecting to the use of a derisive term to refer to one of the most important shopping days of the year suggested an alternative derivation: that retailers traditionally operated at a financial loss for most of the year, January through November, and made their profit during the holiday season, beginning on the day after Thanksgiving. When this was recorded in the financial records, once-common accounting practices would use red ink to show negative amounts and black ink to show positive amounts. Black Friday, under this theory, is the beginning of the period when retailers would no longer be in the red, instead taking in the year's profits. The earliest known published reference to this explanation occurs in The Philadelphia Inquirer for November 28, 1981.

More information: History

 You may have heard of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

There's another day you might want to know about: Giving Tuesday. 

The idea is pretty straightforward. 

On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, shoppers take a break from their gift-buying and donate what they can to charity.

Bill Gates

'PASTORALIS PRAEEMINENTIAE' AGAINST THE TEMPLARS

Old memories of St Michael's Mount, Cornwall

Today it's a cold and rainy day and The Grandma has decided to go to the library to spend some hours reading something interesting. She has chosen the biography of Pope Clement V because she's very interested in his participation against the order of the Knights Templar.

The Grandma and her friends are fans of the Knights Templar history and they have visited lots of places where this Order lived some centuries ago.

Before going to the library, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 20).

 More information: Will (Predictions)

Pope Clement V (1264-1314), born Raymond Bertrand de Got and also occasionally spelled de Guoth and de Goth, was Pope from 5 June 1305 to his death in 1314. He is remembered for suppressing the order of the Knights Templar and allowing the execution of many of its members, and as the Pope who moved the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, ushering in the period known as the Avignon Papacy.

Born in Villandraut, Aquitaine, as the son of Bérard, Lord of Villandraut, Bertrand became canon and sacristan of the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux, then vicar-general to his brother Bérard de Got, the Archbishop of Lyon, who in 1294 was created Cardinal-Bishop of Albano. He was then made Bishop of St-Bertrand-de-Comminges, the cathedral church of which he was responsible for greatly enlarging and embellishing, and chaplain to Pope Boniface VIII, who made him Archbishop of Bordeaux in 1297.

First castle of the Knights Templar, Soure, Coimbra

In 1305, the new Pope Clement V, based in Avignon, France, sent letters to both the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the Hospitaller Grand Master Fulk de Villaret to discuss the possibility of merging the two orders.

Neither was amenable to the idea, but Pope Clement persisted, and in 1306 he invited both Grand Masters to France to discuss the matter. De Molay arrived first in early 1307, but de Villaret was delayed for several months. While waiting, De Molay and Clement discussed criminal charges that had been made two years earlier by an ousted Templar and were being discussed by King Philip IV of France and his ministers. It was generally agreed that the charges were false, but Clement sent the king a written request for assistance in the investigation.

According to some historians, King Philip, who was already deeply in debt to the Templars from his war with the English, decided to seize upon the rumours for his own purposes. He began pressuring the church to take action against the order, as a way of freeing himself from his debts.

More information: National Geographic

Early in 1306, Clement V explained away those features of the Papal bull Clericis Laicos that might seem to apply to the king of France and essentially withdrew Unam Sanctam, the bull of Boniface VIII that asserted papal supremacy over secular rulers and threatened Philip's political plans, a radical change in papal policy.

On Friday, 13 October 1307, hundreds of the Knights Templar were arrested in France, an action apparently motivated financially and undertaken by the efficient royal bureaucracy to increase the prestige of the crown. Philip IV was the force behind this move, but it has also embellished the historical reputation of Clement V. From the very day of Clement V's coronation, the king charged the Templars with usury, credit inflation, fraud, heresy, sodomy, immorality, and abuses, and the scruples of the Pope were heightened by a growing sense that the burgeoning French State might not wait for the Church, but would proceed independently.

Chastel Pelerin, Haifa, Israel

Pastoralis praeeminentiae was a papal bull issued by Pope Clement V on 22 November 1307 to all Christian monarchs. It ordered the arrest of all Knights Templar and to seize their properties on behalf of the church.  

Clement was forced to support the campaign against the Templars by Philip IV of France, who owed them a great deal of money and had initiated the first arrests against the Templars on 13 October 1307.

Despite the papal request, not all the monarchs complied immediately, most notably, Edward II of England who at first refused to believe the allegations, but later carried out the order.

Following the arrests, a period of trials was sanctioned against the Templars, enforced by torture and pain-induced confessions.

Pope Clement called for papal hearings to determine the Templars' guilt or innocence, and once freed of the Inquisitors' torture, many Templars recanted their confessions. Some had sufficient legal experience to defend themselves in the trials, but in 1310, having appointed the archbishop of Sens, Philippe de Marigny, to lead the investigation, Philip blocked this attempt, using the previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris.

More information: History

With Philip threatening military action unless the pope complied with his wishes, Pope Clement finally agreed to disband the order, citing the public scandal that had been generated by the confessions. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, he issued a series of papal bulls, including Vox in excelso, which officially dissolved the order, and Ad providam, which turned over most Templar assets to the Hospitallers.

As for the leaders of the order, the elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who had confessed under torture, retracted his confession. Geoffroi de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, also retracted his confession and insisted on his innocence. Both men were declared guilty of being relapsed heretics, and they were sentenced to burn alive at the stake in Paris on 18 March 1314. 

Comanda de Barbens, Pla de l'Urgell, Lleida

De Molay reportedly remained defiant to the end, asking to be tied in such a way that he could face the Notre Dame Cathedral and hold his hands together in prayer.

According to legend, he called out from the flames that both Pope Clement and King Philip would soon meet him before God. His actual words were recorded on the parchment as follows : Dieu sait qui a tort et a péché. Il va bientot arriver malheur à ceux qui nous ont condamnés à mort, God knows who is wrong and has sinned. Soon a calamity will occur to those who have condemned us to death". Pope Clement died only a month later, and King Philip died in a hunting accident before the end of the year.

The remaining Templars around Europe were either arrested and tried under the Papal investigation, with virtually none convicted, absorbed into other Catholic military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller, or pensioned off and allowed to live out their days peacefully. By papal decree, the property of the Templars was transferred to the Knights Hospitaller except in the Kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. 

More information: Time

Portugal was the first country in Europe where they had settled, occurring only two or three years after their foundation in Jerusalem and even having presence during Portugal's conception.

With the protection of the Portuguese king, Denis I, who refused to pursue and persecute the former knights as had occurred in all other sovereign states under the influence of the Catholic Church, in effect , causing the dissolution of the Templars by the rival order.

Templar organizations simply changed their name, from Knights Templar to the renown Order of Christ and also a parallel Supreme Order of Christ of the Holy See in which both are considered the successors.

In pursuance of the king's wishes, Clement V in 1311 summoned the Council of Vienne, which refused to convict the Templars of heresy. The Pope abolished the order anyway, as the Templars seemed to be in bad repute and had outlived their usefulness as papal bankers and protectors of pilgrims in the East. Their French estates were granted to the Knights Hospitallers, but Philip IV held them until his death and expropriated the Templars' bank outright.

More information: Quora

You have to understand what caused genocide to happen. 

Or it will happen again. 

Tim Walz

BJÖRK GUÐMUNDSDÓTTIR: ICELANDIC PAGAN POETRY

Björk Guðmundsdóttir

What have in common Tonyi Tamaki, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma?

Lots of things. One of them is their passion for Björk the amazing Icelandic singer-songwriter. They admire her music and they declare themselves as big fans and followers.

Today, they have met to homage Björk on her birthday and to share their admiration about her and her music.

Before the meeting, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Checkpoint 3 & Grammar 19).

More information: Be Going To-Plans & Predictions

Björk Guðmundsdóttir, born 21 November 1965, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, actress, record producer, and DJ. Over her four-decade career, she has developed an eclectic musical style that draws on a range of influences and genres spanning electronic, pop, experimental, classical, trip hop, IDM, and avant-garde music, while collaborating with a range of artists and exploring a variety of multimedia projects.

Born and raised in Reykjavík, she began her music career at age 11 and first gained international recognition as the lead singer of the alternative rock band the Sugarcubes, whose 1987 single Birthday was a hit on US and UK indie stations and a favorite among music critics.

Homogenic by Björk & Tonyi Tamaki

After the band's breakup, Björk embarked on a solo career in 1993 with the pop albums Debut and Post (1995). Initially being branded as a pixie by press, she boldly changed her artistic direction with the 1997 album Homogenic, adopting a much darker sound and image. Her follow up albums, Vespertine (2001) and Medúlla (2004), were much more toned down in nature, described by Björk herself as more introverted.

Several of Björk's albums have reached the top 20 on the Billboard 200 chart, the most recent being Vulnicura (2015). Björk has had 31 singles reach the top 40 on pop charts around the world, with 22 top 40 hits in the UK, including the top 10 hits It's Oh So Quiet, Army of Me, and Hyperballad. She is reported to have sold between 20 and 40 million records worldwide as of 2015. She has won the 2010 Polar Music Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in recognition of her deeply personal music and lyrics, her precise arrangements and her unique voice. 

More information: Björk Official Website

Björk was included in Time's 2015 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. She was ranked both sixtieth and eighty-first in Rolling Stone's 100 greatest singers and songwriters lists respectively. Björk also won five BRIT Awards, and has been nominated for 14 Grammy Awards.

Outside her music career, she starred in the 2000 Lars von Trier film Dancer in the Dark. She won the Best Actress Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for an Academy Award for her soundtrack contribution, I've Seen It All. Her 2011 album Biophillia was marketed as an interactive app album with its own education program.

Vulnicura by Björk & Claire Fontaine

Björk has also been an advocate for environmental causes in her home country Iceland. A full-scale retrospective exhibition dedicated to Björk was held at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 2015.

Over her three-decade solo career, Björk has developed an eclectic and avant-garde musical style that incorporates aspects of electronic, dance, alternative dance, trip hop, xperimental, glitch, jazz, alternative rock, instrumental, and contemporary classical music. er music has since been subject to critical analysis and scrutiny, as she consistently defies categorization in a musical genre.

Although she often calls herself a pop artist, she is considered a restlessly experimental creative force. Her album Debut, which incorporated electronic, house, jazz, and trip hop, has been credited as one of the first albums to introduce electronic music into mainstream pop. Her work has been described as frequently exploring the relationship between nature and technology.

More information: Björk-Instagram

Broadly summarizing her wide-ranging integration of art and popular music, was suggested that there is no better descriptor for what Björk does than artpop. She is considered an important figure of the genre, having been variously referred to as the high priestess of art-pop, art-pop queen, and art-pop boss. She has also been referred to as a shimmering shining beacon in progressive pop over the last 25 years while in 2005, the NME called her output a consistently progressive pop agenda.

Björk's work is idiosyncratically collaborative, having worked with various producers, photographers, fashion designers and music video directors. This, however, has sometimes led to the lack of acknowledgment of auteurship in her music, something Björk attributes to being a woman.

Vespertine by Björk & The Grandma

During her career beginnings, Björk performed in bands from various musical genres: punk rock in Spit and Snot, jazz fusion in Exodus, post-punk in Tappi Tíkarrass and gothic rock in Kukl.

When working with Tappi Tíkarrass, she was heavily influenced by British new wave bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Wire, The Passions, The Slits, Joy Division, and Killing Joke.

The studio album Gling-Gló (1990) was recorded with Tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar and featured jazz and popular standards sung very much in the classic Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan mould. The Sugarcubes' style has been described as avant-pop and alternative rock.

Björk's influences have been described as diverse as those she inspires. For his biography of her, Björk told Mark Pytlik: If I were to say who influenced me most, I would say people like Stockhausen, Kraftwerk, Brian Eno and Mark Bell. Some confessional singer-songwriters Björk commends include Abida Parveen, Chaka Khan, Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush, the latter being a definitive influence in her career.

Björk has a soprano vocal range spanning from E3 to D6, which has been described as both elastic and somersaulting in quality as well as having been praised for her scatting ability, unique vocal stylings and delivery.

More information: The Björk Community 

Björk's years in Kukl aligned her with the anarchist Crass Collective. While she has since been hesitant to be seen as an overtly political figure, and has said so on her website, she is strongly supportive of numerous liberation movements across the globe, including support for independence for Kosovo.

She dedicated her song Declare Independence to Greenland and the Faroe Islands, which caused a minor controversy in the Faroes. When Björk twice dedicated Declare Independence to the people of Kosovo during a concert in Japan, a planned performance of hers was cancelled at Serbia's Exit Festival, reportedly due to safety concerns. In 2008, Björk created international controversy after she dedicated Declare Independence to the Tibet freedom movement during a Shanghai concert, chanting Tibet! Tibet! during the song.

In 2014, Björk made a Facebook post dedicating the song to the people of Scotland as they neared the referendum on their independence that year. 

In October 2017, she posted a tweet dedicating the song to Catalonia on account of the Catalan independence referendum.

More information: Guide to Iceland

 For a person as obsessed with music as I am, 

I always hear a song in the back of my head, all the time, 

and that usually is my own tune. I've done that all my life. 

Björk