Musi History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Musi History - Essay Example It is evident that Ravel is not seen here as a minimalist. Rather, he scores points for being able to work within a theme. Ravel's beginning brings one to a cheery internal place. The middle of the piece becomes somewhat frustrated and slightly complicated with a few swirls of menacing notes, but they largely subside within a few bars of music. Ravel's minuet then comes to a peaceful close. Ideally, this piece is suited for lounge music at a wedding hall, because it has the elegance and grace that one might expect in fine dining music. Ravel's "Minuet" begins in the tone of "piano," a light tone. The notes in Ravel's arrangement generally stand alone, for the most part. It seems like it would be a relatively moderately difficult piece to play on the piano, though not impossible. Ravel's piece changes its loudness briefly to "mezzo forte" (medium loudness) but retreats to "pianissimo," which is very soft. As "Minuet" ends, he is on the softer side of the scale. In Claude Debussy's "Hommage Haydn," he winds all over the place, but it is with definite purpose-ultimately having a beginning, a middle, and an end. He starts out slow, being very intentional as to the path on which he is going to bring his listener. There is a light, airy feel to the music, as though one were sitting at the kitchen table at breakfast on a bright, sunny morning. All at once Debussy takes the listener by storm on a crescendo of sounds with several changes in scale in the background, until there is a groundswell of competing audio, which includes a darker tone to the music. This is the climax. Ultimately, however, this darker tone is resolved within the last half-minute or so of the piece, and the listener is once again allowed back into the realm of the sunny kitchen dreamscape. "Hommage Haydn" is a piece that begins in doux et expressif, "sweet and expressive," and in the tone of "piano," which is a light tone. In the piano piece, there are quite a few notes which must be held down to carry over to the next note, which indicate, at least at the beginning, a slowness to the piece. Very soon, however, quicker notes appear, and one can tell that the piece eventually moves faster. Ultimately it slows down again by the end. There are differences and similarities between these two pieces that tell volumes about Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy, their musical styles, and perhaps their philosophies as composers. Ravel's "Minuet" is a charming piece that could be used as chamber music or in some other entertainment venue, because, to be frank, of its blandness. Although it is an exceptional piece of music, it does not stray much from being background music that one might hear played by a pianist at the dinner party of a well-to-do socialite. "Minuet" begins cheerfully, as does "Hommage." That is about where the songs' similarities end. Debussy's "Hommage" goes on to have a frightful crescendo come from out of nowhere in the middle of the piece, which strays from the sensible, plodding and timed nature of "Minuet." These piano pieces speak a great deal to both Ravel's and Debussy's sense of style as

Discussion #6 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Discussion #6 - Essay Example The group provides permanent affordable housing, financial assistance, employment services, housing search services, benefits advocacy, as well as proactive landlord outreach with the aim of assisting families overcome credit and income barriers to economic stability and housing stability. Angel Tree is a non-profit organization that seeks to assist children whose parents have been imprisoned by helping them meet their spiritual, emotional, and physical needs. The organization’s programs seek to support the prisoners’ families as well as the inmates to ensure they reconcile with the community, family, and God after their prison terms to minimize repeat offenders. Generation Five is an organization that focuses on creating awareness of occurrence and consequences of child sexual abuse through transformative justice and education on how to identify, prevent, and respond responsibly to incidents of child sexual abuse. The organization aims at eliminating conditions that promote child sexual abuse such as gender inequality, racism, class exploitation as well as violence and instead promote justice, liberation as well as sustainability. Bay Area Recovery is an organization that provides rehabilitation programs for drug and alcohol addicts with the aim of enhancing the individual’s health, as well as the family and community relationships. The organization offers services such as detoxification, individual therapy, as well as group therapy to promote an efficient and comprehensive treatment program for the addicts. Sesame Workshop is an organization that focuses on helping children to develop the strength to heal and have hope after the death of a parent. The group provides friendship, hope and understanding to children going through the grieving process. Banana Splits Resource Centre is an organization that supports children who experience parental divorce or separation. The

Discuss The Role of Curleys Wife In The Novel Of Mice And Men Essay Example for Free

Discuss The Role of Curleys Wife In The Novel Of Mice And Men Essay In this novel, Curleys Wifes main function or purpose is her representation of one type of female in that time of American history. She seems to be the sort of person who is well calculated in her actions. She likes to make herself attractive by using make-up, when she wears shoes with red Ostrich Feathers she doesnt need to wear them on a dust ranch, but she does. She dreams of being a movie or Talkie star, she tells Lennie this, in a rare show of confidence. She is not a stereotype but I think that her character is quite predictable. In the video adaptation she seems to be friendly because of her appearance and the way in which she says words. When she doesnt want to be noticed, her physical presence is less noticed. She is described as brittle this could mean that she is fragile. The word fragile is usually associated with small and easily broken things. The word brittle could also be describing her physical state of mind. She could seem strong but really could collapse or break down when even slightly touched, or in her case, if she is rejected or insulted. But when she talks she has a dominant charisma, which demands attention. For example, whenever she walks into a room, the men always stop talking to listen to what she has to say. This could be from fear of punishment if they do not agree with her or offend her. It could also be because of the reputation as Jailbait which she has, or how she has the eye. Because of these two abilities, she can sneak around, trying to overhear anything incriminating which she could use to blackmail someone. An example of this is when she sneaks into the stable when Lennie, Candy and Crooks are there, and she listens to them. Throughout the whole novel she does not have name of her own, which she is called by. She is only referred to as Curleys Wife. This could suggest that she is the property of Curley. Or it could also back up the fact that she is like a ghost, because a ghost has no real identity. She could act mean, or deviously because she wants to make herself noticed more. She tells Lennie I get awful lonely. This suggests that she wants someone to talk to her, or whom she can talk to. She is only described by people, with sentences like She got the eye and a Tart. After reading the part of the novel when she is in the barn with Lennie, the reader is emoted to sympathise with Curleys Wife. This could make the reader feel sorry for her, but then there would be a conflict of emotions when you realise that She has wrecked Candys dreams as well as passed a death sentence on Lennie. All of this could overshadow the fact that Curleys Wife has just died. But when you her confession to Lennie, you find that this is her only recourse in her search for attention. She tries to make herself look attractive to get more attention, but she is called a Tart. The fact that she is like a bad luck omen could enforce her image as Jail-bait. She is like a jinx for anyone who she tries to become close to. She says that she could get crooks hung and she caused Curley and slim to fight. She also indirectly caused Lennies death. Not intentionally, but she does. This could be a way of making the reader sympathise with her case, because Candy is angry at her for dying, and he doesnt stop to think that she is dead. Curleys Wife is the only woman who is mentioned on the ranch, so the men could think of her as pretty or appealing because they do not come into contact with any other women. This could encourage or strengthen her attitude. She thought that she could be a movie star and could still think that. This could be another factor that encourages her self-superiority complex. But she knows that. Because, she has no name she could be owned by Curley, this could explain her actions. It could be her way of expressing her anger. She is angry because, when she signed her marriage certificate, She didnt lose her individuality, but something worse, her identity.

Museum of Art Essay Example for Free

Museum of Art Essay After visiting the Raleigh Museum of Art, I discovered two paintings that conjured up opposite feelings that I will compare and contrast. The painting I liked most was titled, Jungle Camp, 2000 an Acrylic on canvas 72 x 60 in. (182. 9 x 152. 4 cm), from one of North Carolina’s most respected artists, Maud Gatewood. Her paintings record the varied experiences of a wandering life. Writing on the back of the canvas, the artist notes the origins of this picture: Trapped in the Amazon with a bad leg. Confined to a hut, she made the most of the opportunity. The second painting titled, Venice without water, by North Carolina’s artist Donald Sultan was the painting I truly disliked because of the feelings it provoked. Sultan’s painting from 1990 was an acrylic painting and measured 96 x96 inches in dimension. Sultan used Butyl rubber, acrylic paint, and plaster on vinyl composite tiles, which were mounted on four Masonite panels. Both painting represent landscapes captured by the artists’ eyes or through a photograph. These paintings gave me two strong, but opposite, feelings: joy and sadness. I will describe the differences and contrast these two works of art. The two pieces of art works have several differences in style. First, the shape in the painting, jungle camp, is rectangular; while the second painting is square. The choice and use of color in the two paintings are completely opposite. Since color is most important to me, I chose the jungle camp painting due to the variety of bright colors that pop from canvas. The painting from Mrs. Gatewood is colorful, which gave me a feeling of joy and warmth. However, Sultan decided to use contrast instead of colors in his painting. Thus, Sultan’s painting is filled with different tones of grey, black, or white. Gatewood’s painting represents a jungle’s view from a patio or balcony. I can see tall palm trees all stuck to each other in her painting, which gives the impression of abundance and fertility. She chooses many different variations of green. For example, she utilizes certain hues of light green to create an effect of sun reflection. There are two types of curtains on the patio, hanging on a fine line. The first is really colorful, a mix of tropical color, and the second is like a white veil, which you can see trough it. The mix of materials and colors for the curtains, added to the jungle, procures me a sense of evasion, vacation, and relaxation. I was drawn to the atmosphere of serenity and tropic jumbled together, which is the reason that this painting evoked my interest. However, Sultan’s painting is the exact opposite of abundance and excursion. The whole artwork is quite dark and sad. It’s a representation of the well-known Rialto’s bridge, which is an infrastructure between to planes. The first plane is an illustration of wood’s pillars, which surround the Venetian canals; they are use by the gondoliers to park their â€Å"original dinghy†. The second plane is the bridge; it looks pretty scary and dark with no one crossing it. The final plane, which is the background, consists of some Venetian’s buildings. These buildings form a line that converges towards the bridge; which helps my eyes focus on the main subject the bridge. Sultan’s painting does not reflect the Venice that I saw five years ago. When I think about my trip to Venice, I have an enriched memory filled with bright colors from the Carnival. I remember vivid colors on all the masks, costumes, life, and crawl of people. Sultan’s artwork doesn’t have any of my souvenirs. Instead, the painting is more like a sinister version of the beautiful city, Venice. Although I do not like this particular outlook of Venice, I realized after studying his painting that the artist is expressing his environmental point of view of the city, which I completely agree with. As an admirer of this city, I feel concerned by the environmental issue depicted in the painting. The notion that the excess of tourism could be destructive to a fragile city like Venice is a valid concern. The artist conveys his dismay over â€Å"the deteriorating environment with the unused mooring posts, the dry canal bed of mud-like tar, and the melancholy mood of the painting†. I think that colors or tonalities are the essence of the painting, like the rhythm and tunes are for music. In my view colors are strongly subjective, they can have different psychologist effects and symbolist’s significations, they can differ from a culture to another; associating Black with mourning is normal, in our occidental countries, while in Asia it’s the actual opposite, White. In my case the colors are the main cause, on what I think is pretty or not.

Paul Laurence Dunbar and Edwin Arlington Robinson :: April Showers Douglass Luke Havergal

Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" â€Å"April Showers† â€Å"Douglass† by Paul Laurence Dunbar â€Å"Luke Havergal† by Edwin Arlington Robinson 1.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Irony is a useful device for giving stories many unexpected twists and turns. In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," irony is used very effectively in her story. Situational irony is used to show the reader what is assumed to happen sometimes doesn't. Dramatic irony is used to hint to the reader something is happening to the characters in the story that they do not know about. Irony is used throughout Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" through the use of situational irony and the use of dramatic irony.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Situational irony is used in "The Story of an Hour" through Mrs. Mallard's reaction to her husband's death and the description of the settings around her at this time. Upon hearing the news of her husband's death, Mrs. Mallard "wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment". It appeared to everyone that as a result of her husband's death, Mrs. Mallard was incredibly sad. She insisted upon being alone and retreated to her room. The sort of reaction she had seems like one typical to someone who had just lost a loved one.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Dramatic irony is used through Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s return. His death had brought her such great sorrow but upon his return she died. Her death then created sorrier bringing in the irony of the beginning of the story where it was said that Mrs. Mallard’s heart was bad and she was tried not to be stressed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  2. The six major elements of plot are all displayed in â€Å"April Showers.† The first element of plot is the exposition. The exposition of this story is stated in the third paragraph of the story. The paragraph talks of her knowing that it would be difficult to obtain access to a paper with so many great authors writing to it. This sets the mood by indicating she has worked hard on this work and is nearing the end of a difficult experience with writing it and trying to have it published.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The conflict begins when she sends off her work and knows that it will be hard to get it published. The rising action follows as she finds her work is going to be published. The people of the town are amazed and as her for poems she had written as well as inquiring how she came about her great skills of writing.

Personal Narrative - Marching Band Competition :: Personal Narrative Essays

Personal Narrative- Marching Band Competition This season was only the second year that I had been in marching band, even though we did do parades in middle school. The year before, I was selected to be drum major of the upcoming marching season. I was excited to meet the challenge of getting back to the state championships. It was also nerve-racking because I felt if we didn't make it to state, it would be my fault. To be truthful, later on I experienced both sentiments from some of the most influential, heart-warming, absolutely awesome friends that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. This would be the year that our band would adopt its slogan, its mission statement: Band #1. Two weeks before school even started, the Hotchkiss High School Marching Band began its march to the state-qualifying competition in Delta. We worked four hours a day for five days, getting our fundamentals going and getting a feel for our new show. Once school did start, we started practice at 7:00 a.m. and went for two hours every day, working on music and marching. Our band was once again small (eighteen people!), but our sound was great. It was actually easier trying to teach a smaller group because of the difficulty of the moves we were attempting. Of course, I didn't help matters much by my trials of congeniality with the podium. I figured if I didn't fly off with flapping of my arms, then surely I would walk right off the stand. The season shuffled along with surprising ease. By this time we had learned all of the show and were weeding it out to make it perfect. While fulfilling the amount of work needed to create a spectacular performance, we had a little fun in Fort Collins at the CSU Band Day. Along with the CSU Marching Band, our band learned their marching songs and sets and performed a show for a crowd of over 15,000 people! This fun could only last so long, however, and so the Hotchkiss High School Marching Band prepared for Grand Junction band day. We traversed the sixty miles down to the city in which we would compete. The day became toasty as it was still the start of October. Despite the heat, the parade amazingly stayed together and field show brought a tear to our director's eye. She promptly let us know, though, that it would take more next time-we knew it would, too.

Essay --

Various religions and cultures throughout history venerated lightning as a symbol of power, yet the physics of this phenomenon remained an enigma until recent centuries. The hunt to understand began with Benjamin Franklin’s determination of lightning as a form of electricity in 1752, when he proved his hypothesis by flying a kite during a thunderstorm. Yes, Benjamin was right in proving that lightening was electricity, but the question is how is that electricity turned into lightning or how is it generated? There are three parts that play a big role in the creation of lightning; the first big one being the water cycle, the second one is the buildup of static electricity that occurs in a cloud and last is how the lightening is discharged. The formation of clouds play an extremely important part in the creation of lightning, but first one needs to understand how clouds are formed before understanding how lightning works. The water cycle has two main stages that are essential to the creation of clouds; the first one is condensation and the second one is evaporation. Firstly, evaporation occurs when water heats up and turns to vapor. The source of the heat is usually the sun. Water turns to vapor because when water heats up its molecules start moving rapidly. Due to the heat, water vapor will rise from the ground and as the vapor gets higher in the atmosphere it starts to cool down and condenses; the higher up in the atmosphere the cooler the temperature. The vapor condenses because it undergoes a process called condensation which is when water goes from a gas or vapor back into a liquid. The vapor turns into droplets of water high in the atmosphere and form clouds. The more condensed water the heavier and bigger the c loud will ... ... one would have to understand the components of atoms, the water cycle and how opposite electrical charges attract. Evaporation and condensation are what form the cloud and the constantly evaporation and condensation within the cloud that causes electrons to fall on the bottom of the cloud creating separation of charges. Once they cloud builds enough charges it starts to effect earth’s surface by pushing the entire negative charge back and leaving the surface with a positive charge. The strong electrical field forms a bridge from the cloud to the surface of earth by ionizing the air called step leaders. Once the upward streamers that are on earth’s surface connect with a step leader, a current is released and a flash of lightning is discharged. Following the flash of lightning a loud roar of sound that’s caused by air spreading rapidly due to heat is called thunder.

Books Vs. Movies Essay

Why are audiences so upset with the way the movie turned out after reading the book? † Ask any reader who has seen the movie version of a favorite book, and the answer will usually be, the book was better.† (Corliss, 2005, p. 1)They are frequently disappointed because the movie versions are not sticking to their all-time favorite book. Growing up with books like Harry Potter, as readers or having someone reading to us our minds wonder off to this mystical land, picturing how our heroes and villains would look and act. As they take in the words, the reader can almost smell the trees and here the wind blow through the castles. Reading a book compared to watching the movie brings up controversy; with books readers use their minds while watching a movie people sit back and enjoy. It all starts with the book and how the reader’s mind starts to imagine what it will look like; the smell, taste, and feel. Then they bring the movie with the director’s view on the story. Let’s start with how people view the story that they are reading. The reader will take the story from the book and make it their own personal story, internalize from their own perspective and imagination. Each reader will see and interact with the story in their way. With Harry Potter readers, some say they feel closer to the main characters because it easier to see what’s going on in their minds. The directors have read the same books too and have challenges to overcome. Bringing Harry Potter to life on the big Screen, and appease all the children that have read the books. His job is to make the movie exciting; some books have some narrative that can just drag on. Sometimes what you read may not work in the movies. Some directors like to change things up so the viewers will be surprised and not be bored because they know everything that was going to happen. Now, back to how the audience sees the main character in a different light concerning reading, then on the big screen. The book builds this character that they grow to like; readers may see themselves as the leading actor. Some readers will picture their favorite actor playing the part. Characters are what keeps the readers coming back every time or make it impossible to put the book down because they want to find out what happens next. As a reader, you feel closer to what’s happening; you feel all the emotion that the characters are going through. Concerning the big screen, the character usually gets a brief back ground. The director determines the character for you; he will pick the actor for the spot. Sometimes they will pick a different gender to play the part. The director has to take a book like Harry Potter and cut some of the characters out so that the main character gets more time. They also cut out scenes. Let’s take for example, the Dursley’s family that was to keep Harry safe when not in school. After the third film they cut them out most of the other films. In book 4 they were to meet the Weasleys and that was cut out for the movie. (Bibbiani (2011)), â€Å"The audience spent way too much time with the Dursley family over the course of the franchise to deny them their only redeeming moment.† The director will put his own insights and how he pictures the characters to be and what scenes he wants. The story line people see in our mind from reading may change on the big screen. With reading, they get the whole story from beginning to the end, the readers will know everything about their character; including where they live and what time period they’re from. It all goes back to how they imagine it will be like. In every story it starts out slow so it can build you up to the main event. It may take up to 100 pages to explain a character. After reading the book, must readers feel that they lived another life, unless it’s a series, the reader will feel completed. However, with the movie there are time constraints to think about and they need to achieve the right rating for the movie. In the books the writers has more freedom with the story line, when it comes to the movie they need to make sure it targets the right audience. The Harry Potter movies always have been geared toward children and teens, so they cut things out to achieve that goal. The Goblet of Fire was a 734- page book that would be a 10 hour movie. The screen writer Steve Kloves said †it took him two years to figure out how to make the movie and deciding what parts to cut out† (Corliss, 2005, pp. 3-3). They took the first hundred pages and put it into a thrilling 20 minutes. They need to make the movie exciting by cutting out some of the narrative and zipping through some of it. There are some movie critics that love the movies because they cut out the boring narration of the books. Readers interact with the book and use their minds to imagine the story while movie-audiences are more passively enjoying the movie. We see how and why things change from reading books and how the movie may have a different concept. When reading books, a person is creating their own movie in a sense. You know how the character speaks, what they look like. Where the director is showing how he perceived the story and characters. Can we as readers see books and movies as different entities? Not all movie versions might be considered worse than the books. Books require your imagination to run wild with in the story. Movies are an in-depth perspective toward the story. In some people opinion they need to change some of the details from the book to make the movie more enjoyable. Think about how dull that movie may be if you put everything from the book into the movie. Next time you are out watching a movie and you have already read the book try to remember that it is not going to be how you imagined it, it’s someone else’s story and how they perceived it. â€Å"If we were more naà ¯ve, new to the plot and characters, things might be different, but since we’ve read the books, and read them emphatically, possibly more than once we can’t know that for sure. We can only compare to what we know, and already love† (Mario & Mario, 2012, pp. 3-2). References: Bibbiani, W. (2011). Crave Online. Retrieved from http://www.craveonline.com/film/articles/171155-the-top-ten-things-the-harry-potter-movies-left-out Corliss, R. (2005, Nov.). Books Vs. Movies. Time, (),. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1134742,00.html Mario, A., & Mario, R. (2012, may). The Trouble with Making Books We Love into Movies. The Atlantic Wire, (), 5. Retrieved from http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2012/03/trouble-making-books-we-love-movies/50220/

Why would you carry a dead body on your back?

Would you like it if someone killed you just so they could wear your skin? Would you like to be somebody else's jacket or shoe or handbag? No. So why not say no to cruelty that targets animals just because they cannot say â€Å"no†? Animals shouldn't have to die just because people want their fur. Have you ever seen a pup that's skinned alive? Probably not, but I've seen it. Since then I can't sleep well. Nowadays, when I look at my two year old son, I think the same thing: How would I feel if any creature that was vastly superior to human being was doing the same thing to him. This is my nightmare. Is it possible to understand how a human being kills an animal that can look into the eyes of its killer in full of pain? Read this â€Å"The Secrets of Haiti’s Living Dead† I believe many of you may wish to wear fur because it looks posh and elegant. Especially, when you are young you may not be paying attention to the things happening around you. Therefore; I would like you to imagine that someone has just killed you so they could wear your skin to look nice and feel warm. Now can you try to explain how the feeling was: What is pleasant to get killed because someone wants to wear your skin? Of course, there is no such a word describes this horror. I am sure you all who read this article think that â€Å"This horrible slaughter has to stop.† Having made this clear, let's consider and analyze the following scenario: A conceited young woman who is following the latest fashion wants to buy a new jacket made from animal skin, and human skin is in fashion for this year. A process has to be made, before the jacket reaches her wardrobe. A mighty corporation who specializes on human skin takes you into captivity. They place you in a twenty squared meters cell along with a hundred others. You don't get too much treatment. In fact you don't get any. You are being fed up just enough to survive and you are learning how to swim in a lake full of yours and others wastes. Hardly surviving, comes the day where some of the workers drag you out of the cell in order to skin you alive. Despite your loud cries, you are left skinless and thrown away to suffer a slow painful death. Consider for a moment all your feelings that would be resulted from the above scenario. Now pay attention because every single year 56 million animals killed for their fur worldwide. Let us look now at the other facts; * China is one of the world's largest suppliers. * Europe by itself is responsible for 70% of the fur breed. * In a year, more than 2 million cats and hundreds of thousands of dogs and seals are killed for their fur in the world. * The British government has banned fur farming in England and Wales in November 2000. * However, animals continue to be killed in many parts of the world. * The main reason of this is trade. * It takes as many as 40 animals just to make 1 fur coat, including coyotes, bobcats, lynxes, opossums, nutria, beavers, muskrats, otters, foxes, minks, bunnies, seals and raccoons. * Animals are often gassed, anally or genitally electrocuted, or poisoned, or their necks are broken. These methods are not always effective: some animals wake up while the skin is being torn off their bodies. * On fur farms, inquisitive and normally free-roaming animals such as foxes, minks and chinchillas spend their entire lives confined to tiny, filthy wire cages. There is a connection between who and what you are and what you make of yourself as a creature and the way in which you treat other living creatures, saying no to cruelty to animals and fur trade is to get closer to humanization again. Furthermore, many celebrities are against fur, such as; Michelle Obama, Charlize Theron, Twiggy Lawson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pamela Anderson, Pink †¦ and so on. Some of them had very nice messages in their interview, for instance, Pink said â€Å"I've always felt that animals are the purest spirits in the world. They don't fake or hide their feelings and they are the most loyal creatures on the Earth. And somehow we humans think we are smarter- what a joke.† Animals are not ours to wear, walk on or carry our possessions in. Before animal skins reach store shelves, animals live a life of misery, pain, boredom and fear, and many are skinned alive. They suffer so much pain just so people can ‘try' to look all pretty and classy. I don't think its classy wearing fur and skin when you know what these poor animals have to go through for you to wear skin or fur! What are your feelings on this and why do you believe the way you do? Skinning animals can be characterized only as cruel and brutal. Well, we are not living in pre-historic age -when we needed- to have to kill animals to get dressed. Hence, people will not suffer from cold, as we have so many materials to wear for any kind of temperature. There is no reason to wear fur, except one which is â€Å"vanity†. These people who have a false sense of what fashion is want to be different from other people. However, it is only their ignorance that makes them stand out from others. We humans may be smarter than any other creatures in the world; however, I also think that we could be the most dangerous human beings on the earth who can kill animals for people to look stylish. How can someone do this to poor and helpless creatures? It is unbelievable. If you cannot stand seeing the violence with your own eyes, do not wear fur as clothes. There is an organization which is called â€Å"PETA† and their aim is to stop animal cruelty. They need your support. Please, right now rush your online donation generously and push everyone to do the same thing genuinely. Together, let's save more animals from slaughtered. It's time that fur in fashion went the way of the crop-top and the hair scrunchie: extinct. Do not forget, wearing fur means that you are the mutual of that savageness. We would like to see showcases get bloodless, what about you?

Part One Saturday

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

The Low Budget Airline Jetstar Asia Airways Tourism Essay Essays

The Low Budget Airline Jetstar Asia Airways Tourism Essay Essays The Low Budget Airline Jetstar Asia Airways Tourism Essay Paper The Low Budget Airline Jetstar Asia Airways Tourism Essay Paper Jetstar Asia Airways is a low-priced budget air hose operating in the Southeast Asiatic part. It is founded by its female parent company Australia s Qantas Airways in 2003. Unlike Jetstar in Australia, Jetstar Asia is bulk Singapore in which a Singapore investing company, Temasek Holdings Limited holds 19 per cent of portions, two Singaporean business communities possess 32 per centum, and the staying 49 per cent of portions belongs to Qantas Group. The company is known as an air hose to offer low menus, all twenty-four hours and every twenty-four hours to South East Asia clients. It has received several valuable awards, such as Best Brand Experience for Low Cost Carrier ( 2006 ) , Best Low Cost Airline, Southeast Asia and Asia ( 2006, 2008 ) , Top 10 Airlines by Passenger Carriage ( 2006, 2007 ) , Best Asiatic Low-Cost Carrier ( 2006, 2007 ) . The first Jetstar Asia Airways flight took off for Hong Kong on December 13, 2004. Jetstar Asia and Valuair Airways Limited were merged on July 22, 2005 ( Jetstar, neodymium ) . With a fleet of seven A320 aircrafts, Jetstar Asia now offers up to 126 hebdomadal flights from Singapore to 17 finishs in 10 Asiatic states. It is be aftering to increase capacity by more three A320 aircrafts by early following twelvemonth and add finishs in India and China. This selling survey aims to supply the Jetstar Asia Airways current selling environment. It will analyze SWOT every bit good as PESTEL to do clearly internal and external selling environment. The study besides discuss about the current market program of Jetstar Asia Airways. From the audit procedure, recommendations will come out for bettering Jetstar Asia Airways selling public presentation in bing competitory air power environment. II. Background Today, planetary air power industry has been divided into three major classs ( Lelieur, 2003 ) . The first class consists of big web bearers, such as United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta in the United States ; Air France, British Airway, Lufthansa in Europe. The 2nd 1 is the in-between size bearers such as KLM and SAS in Europe. The concluding class is the low cost bearers, such as Jet Blue, Westjet in North America ; Virgin Blue and Australian Airlines in Australia ; Ryanair, EasyJet, and Air Berlin in Europe ; Air Asia, Oasis Hong Kong Airline, Jetsatr Asia Airway, and Tiger Airway in Asia Pacific. Harmonizing to Weiss ( 2008, p.84 ) , Low-cost bearers, besides known as a no frills or price reduction air hoses, offers low menus in exchange for extinguishing many traditional riders services. These air hoses have a lower cost constructions than rivals. They frequently operate a individual rider category and fleet, cut downing preparation and service costs . In recent old ages, the low-priced bearers ( LLCs ) phenomenon has become more popular in air power industry. The low cost air hose concern has experienced surprising growing in term of riders carried and aircraft ordered. LLCs are likely to maintain their monetary value down exhaustively on-line engagement every bit good as supplying the minimal degree of onboard services. They can be seen as a new large success in the universe air hose industry. Harmonizing to OAG s Quarterly Airline Traffic Statistics ( 2007 ) , low cost international flights have increased 20 % twelvemonth by twelvemonth. Asia Pacific witnessed a dramatic growing in low cost sector, with an addition from 3,900 flights and 600,000 seats in 2001 to 61,000 flights and 9.2 million seats in 2007 ( Abacus, 2008 ) . The Asia Pacific low cost market now has accounted for 12 % of all flights and all seats. Many Asiatic states such as Singapore, Malaysia, India has opened up LCCs to attractive a big figure of riders. As an avowal about Jetstar Airways chance, Geoff Dixon, CEO of Qantas Airways Ltd said: We re really confident about the timing of the launch of this air hose. I do nt cognize where other air hoses will stop up but I can guarantee you Jetstar Asia will be about in four old ages clip and will be profitable, so Temasek and our other investors can be confident. ( 2004 ) . Jetstar Asia has announced its gross increases 20 % for the twelvemonth ended 31 March 2008 ( Jetstar, neodymium ) . These proves that low menus has become attract more travelers. The outlook of Jetstar Asia Airways about the universe s largest possible air power market is coming true. 2.2 PEST analysis Plague analysis is a common tool for analyzing an administration s macro-environment to place those factors that might increase the possible for crisis. ( Elliott, Swartz and Herbane, 2002 ) . These include political, economic, societal and technological factors and the analysis examines the impact of each of them on the concern. 2.2.1 Political factors On the August 09, 1965, Singapore left Malaysia Federation and became crowned head, democratic and independent state. In 1967, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand established the Association of Southeast Asiatic Nations ( Asnic, neodymium ) . From 1970 Singapore is considered as a political stableness state. It has become the comfortable state with a widespread web of trading links. So far, Singapore political stableness has leaded to a high rate of economic growing. As one of Asia most stable economic sciences, many Singapore companies have developed good. Singapore economic has been developing services industries such as wealth direction and touristry, air power industry. Singaporean air hose industry plays a cardinal function in Singaporean economic system. It now includes mainstream Singapore Airlines and two low cost air hoses Tiger Airways and Jetstar Asia Airways. However, September 11th terrorist onslaught event in United States caused important fal ling in going. Besides, the political instability in South East Asia part, such as Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia influenced negatively on air power industry in Asia countries. 2.2.2 Economic factors The economic environment consists of factors that affect consumer buying power and disbursement forms . ( Kotler and Armstrong, 2009, p103 ) . These undermentioned analyses will demo how economic factors have an consequence on air power industry. In recent old ages, planetary economic crisis has pushed the trade-service dependent states into worst recession. The universe travel market has besides been affected in this crisis. Harmonizing to International Air Transport Association, due to economic recession, the planetary rider traffic will diminish by 3 % in 2009 and non turning above 4 % until 2011 ( IATA, 2008 ) . Another major factor effects strongly on air hose market, particularly budget air hoses, that is the addition in fuel monetary value. From 2004, the oil monetary value rush was a consequence of three chief factors: increased demand, a little planetary surplus of production capableness, and the fright of supply break. The fuel cost addition caused of 36 % rise of air hose operating costs in 2008. The deathly combination of falling demand and high oil monetary values made a dip of air power industry s profitableness, about losingss of US $ 10.4 billion in 2008. At the same twelvemonth, Asia Pacific air hose industry incurred losingss US $ 300 million ( IATA, 2009 ) . 2.2.3 Social factors Tendencies in societal factors are important constituent of the PEST analysis for air hose industry. Firstly, some factors such as advanced medical commissariats and low ratio at birth have allowed people to populate longer. The mean age of the population has been increasing steadily. Therefore, the merchandises that air hoses offer refering to older and handicapped riders who need aid at airdromes. Besides, traditional household construction has been altering in today modern society. The addition of divorce rate every bit good as figure of one-parent household has become modern-day tendency that travel industry has to make to suit. They can be promotional and merchandise planning policies, which offer to those who are singles or one-parent household. Furthermore, the alterations in the occupation market have impacts for air hose selling policies. Due to work force per unit areas, executives frequently have to do a day-return trip alternatively of two yearss. This has become more of import for short-haul markets. 2.2.4 Technology factors As an advanced engineering, Internet now plays an of import function in air hoses industry. All air hoses have web sites that allow clients to book air ticket online. In doing reserve, clients can besides choose their place. Use of cyberspace in air power industry brings benefits for both air hoses and riders based on cost economy. The application of Simplifying the Business ( StB ) undertaking in about air hoses brings non merely convenience to consumers but besides lower costs to air hoses industry. The undertaking includes electronic-ticketing, Common-Use Self-Service booths, and bar-coded embarkation base on ballss ( BCBP ) . BCBP can be accessed through web sites, booth, and a check-in desk. It will extinguish magnetic-stripe embarkation base on ballss in close hereafter. With PEST analysis as above, selling environment of Jetstar Asia Airways has merely evaluated to see how the company operates in the today altering environment. III. External analysis 1. Micro-environment ( app 1,200 words ) Description of the market Rivals analysis Market size, location, growing and chances Government engagement in the market place 2. Macro-environment 2.1 SWOT analysis A SWOT analysis is an in-depth scrutiny of cardinal factors that are internal ( strengths and failings ) and external ( chances and menaces ) to a concern ( Pinson, 2008, p.33 ) . Strengths are internal capablenesss that may assist a company make its objects. Failings are internal restrictions that may interfere with a company s ability to accomplish its objects. Opportunities are external factors that the company may be able to work to its advantages. Menaces are current external factors that may dispute the company s public presentation. ( Kotler and Armstrong, 2009, p.78 ) . SWOT analysis helps a concern to concentrate on those countries that present the greatest chances and those competences in which it is strongest. That concern look into ways to decrease its failings, develop schemes to get the better of menaces. The undermentioned analysis focuses on Jetstar Asia s SWOT. SWOT ANALYSIS OF JETSTAR ASIA AIRWAYS Internal Strengths Failings Flexible ticket monetary value construction Growth in market portion One type of aircraft Performance Narrow flight finishs. Limited fleet. External Opportunities Menaces Strengthen competitory capableness. Addition in short-haul traveling. Growth in Singapore touristry Addition of fuel monetary value Unpredictable catastrophe factors Swine grippe spread Customers belief. 2.1.1 Strengths Flexible ticket monetary value construction: Jetstar Asia Airways has applied flexible ticket monetary value construction that allows clients can take any sort of ticket, depending on clients demand. Customers can buy which ticket with or without baggage. By this application, Jetstar Asia Airways desires to run into clients diversified demands. Growth in market portion: The Company is traveling to establish its first service into China on December 16, 2009 ( BusinessWeek, 2009 ) . After that, it will offer new finish in India. Furthermore, with 3 extra A320 aircrafts, it will spread out its current capacity by 46 per cent by establishing twice daily services on the Singapore-Phuket path. One type of aircraft: Thankss to working one type of aircraft Airbus A320- Jetstar Asia Airways can salvage cost of fuel ingestion, cost of keeping other aircrafts and cut down cost of staff preparation, taking to take down operation cost. As a consequence, Jetstar Asia Airways can do up competitory advantage to entice more clients by offering low ticket monetary value. Performance: One of the most of import factors impacting clients pick in air hose industry is on-time public presentation. Understand this ; Jetstar has used the computerised Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System ( ACARS ) to guarantee the truth of going clip and arrival clip. In 2008 and 2009, Jetstar s on-time public presentation ever achieved from 92 % to 98 % ( Jetstar, neodymium ) . 2.1.2 Failings Narrow flight finishs: So far, Jetstar Asia Airways has merely exploited its aeronautic paths to 17 finishs across 10 states in Asia Pacific ( Jetstar, neodymium ) . Meanwhile, Tiger Airways has runing with 27 finishs, and Asia Airways has 50 finishs. This can be seen failings of Jetstar Asia in air power competition to achieve clients. Limited fleet: Due to the limited fleet of seven A320 aircrafts, Jetstar Asia Airways has some troubles in spread outing its market portion to new finishs. 2.1.3 Opportunities Jetstar Asia Airways has focused on non merely single riders but besides concern travelers. It has set up several sorts of privilege services for concern travelers to increase figure of riders twelvemonth by twelvemonth. From merely 50 houses in 2004, now Jetstar has 400 corporations going with it ( Baoying, 2009 ) . More and more concerns, even transnational companies, are likely to take low cost air hoses to salvage their concern cost that create possible low cost market for Jetstar Asia Airways and other air hoses. Besides, tendency of short-haul traveling is increasing in figure of Asiatic tourers ; alternatively of long-haul vacations because it enables Asiatic people travel more on a regular basis in twelvemonth. Concentrating on these topics, Jetstar Asia will catch more chances to spread out its market portion. In add-on to this, in Singapore, two incorporate resorts the Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa will be opened in 2010. At that clip, figure of traveler visi ts Singapore will increase dramatically. There will be about 15 million visitants coming to Singapore ( integratedresort, neodymium ) . Such general tendencies as mentioned above will convey chance for Singapore air hose industry, including budget air hoses and mainstream air hoses. 2.1.4 Menaces The addition in fuel monetary value over the past few old ages has bad affected on sustainable growing of Jetstar Asia Airways and air power industry. This can be seen an inexplicit menaces to profitableness of air hoses. Furthermore, the spread swine grippe in many parts has affected significantly on air hose going due to the dramatic lessening of travelers. Unpredictable accidents that come from bad conditions or proficient jobs are besides menaces to air hoses. Passengers may waver in taking between budget air hoses and mainstream air hoses because of the safety in budget air hoses. This menace may veto impact on gross revenues of Jetstar Asia. Recommendation Presents, Asian air hoses industry is acquiring more ferociously competitory between budget air hoses and traditional full services air hoses. Furthermore, competition among the outgrowth of Asiatic budget air hoses, such as Air Asia, Tiger Airways and Jetstar Asia has besides become intensely. In order to better the company s selling public presentation, we suggest some recommendations based on SWOT analysis above and consequences collected from an interview with people who are refering about air hoses market. First, we suggest Jetstar Asia should plan a client driven selling scheme to place its mark market. Its market cleavage includes clients those who normally travel on short draw trips and can non afford mean international tickets. Then the company should construct profitable client relationships based on topics: travelers for leisure, business communities and pupils. Understanding who its clients are, the company will construct client relationship to fulfill their demands. In add-on to this, the consequences from questioning reflect the company s convenience and services are non excessively high, merely over 50 % of respondents think that it is just. In order to capture value from clients and ain client trueness, in its selling schemes, the company needs to construct the right relationship with right clients and make client delectation. The company should beef up clients belief that lower monetary value does non intend bad services. Besides, Jetstar Asia should develop effectual advertisement scheme to consolidate their trade name name through mass media. Furthermore, limited fleet and flight finishs caused limitation in enlargement market place every bit good as pulling mark clients. Therefore, we recommend the company to use competitory schemes. The company should transport out non merely protect its current market portions but besides increase it farther. Books Weiss, J.W. ( 2008 ) Business Ethical motives: A Stakeholder and Issues Management Approach, Cengage Learning, New York. Lelieur, I. ( 2003 ) Law and policy of significant ownership and effectual control of air hoses Prospects for alteration, Ashgate Publishing, Hampshire. Pinson, L.J. ( 2008 ) Anatomy of a concern program: the bit-by-bit usher to constructing a concern and procuring your company hereafter, Out of your mindaˆÂ ¦and into the market place, California. Kotler, P and Amstrong, G ( 2009 ) Principles of Marketing, Pearson, New Jersey. A Elliott, D. , Swartz, E. and Herbane, B ( 2002 ) Business continuity direction: a crisis direction attack, Routledge, London Web sites Abacus ( 2008 ) The Year of the Resourceful A ; Enterprising Rat, accessed September 06, 2009, hypertext transfer protocol: //www.abacus.com.sg BusinessWeek ( 2009 ) Jetstar Airways Pty Ltd, accessed September 06, 2009, hypertext transfer protocol: //investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp? privcapId=10917341 A ; goback=.cps_1247149767187_1 Baoying, Ng. 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We would be grateful if you could help our group by finishing our questionnaires, which will supply utile information to us. Personal information 1. Sexual activity: a-? Male a-? Female 2. Age scope: a-?18-25 a-? 26-30 a-? 31-40 a-? 41-50 a-? 51-60 3. Occupation: _______________ A. Questionnaires 1. Which air hose with do you normally wing? a-? Mainstream air hoses a-? Budget airlines a-? Never 2. Which budget air hose with do you normally wing? a-? Jetstar Asia a-? Tiger Airways a-? Air Asia a-? Others ____________ 3. What concerns you most when you think of taking the budget air hose? a-? Money a-? Service a-? Convenience a-? Others ____________ 4. Which beginning lead you know Jetstar Asia? a-? Newspapers a-? Internet a-? Friends a-? Others ____________ 5. What is the intent of your trip? a-? Leisure a-? Business a-? Study a-? Others 6. How would you rate Jetstar Asia in footings of service? a-? Poor a-? Fair a-? Good a-? Excellent 7. How would you rate Jetstar Asia in footings of convenience? a-? Poor a-? Fair a-? Good a-? Excellent 8. What do you believe about Jetstar Asia s ticket monetary value comparing to other budget air hoses? a-? High a-? Reasonable a-? Low Thank you really much for taking the clip to reply these inquiries. B. Answers from appraising Question 1: For this inquiry, the consequences show that riders of budget air hoses are lower than that of mainstream air hoses, 27 % compared to 69 % . It means that budget air power s market portion is little. 4 % of the respondents have neer been on plane. Question 2: Reacting this inquiry, outcomes indicate out that Jetstar Asia rank at 3rd place behind Tiger Airways and Air Asia, with 23 % whereas Tiger Airways and Air Asia are 31 % and 42 % severally. 4 % of the replies flew with other air hoses. It should be recommended that Jetstar Asia need more effectual selling scheme to heighten the competitory capacity. Question 3: The consequence illustrate that the most clients concern when they choose budget air hoses is salvaging money, with 69 % of the respondents. Service standards and convenient standards rank the 2nd and the 3rd pick, with 16 % and 13 % severally. 2 % of the replies chose budget air hoses chiefly because attach toing with friends. Question 4: 41 % of the replies show that they knew Jetstar Asia through Internet. Newspapers, Friends and Others are ordered by 27 % , 25 % and 7 % severally. Question 5: For intent of concern, 31 % of the respondents take this consequence. 44 % of the replies show that their trip for leisure. For analyzing intent is 19 % , other intent is 6 % , such as wellness attention, sing old friends. Therefore, Jetstar Asia should concentrate on mark clients who are travelers in order to hike up its gross revenues. Besides it should pay attending to possible client section, including business communities and pupils. Question 6: In term of services, 53 % of respondents explained that they considered Jetstar Asia s services are sensible and acceptable. In contrast, 8 % of interviewees admitted poverty of service. Good standards and first-class standards are appraised by 25 % and 14 % severally. Question 7: Similarly, 51 % of interviewees illustrated that they evaluated convenience is just. 23 % of the replies think that convenience offered by Jetstar Asia is good whilst 15 % of them considered it as first-class. Staying 11 % of respondents are non pleased with Jetstar Asia convenience as they think it is hapless. Question 8: What do you believe about ticket monetary value of Jetstar Asia comparing to other budget air hoses? 64 % of them think that ticket monetary value offered by Jetstar Asia is sensible. 29 % of them believe that is low. Merely 7 % of the replies claim its monetary value is high.