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Rachel Bond

Sat 5th May 2012 15:56

oh i love this bt. electrickk...At night I reach over and unplug every cord
I turn you all off
cause none of you are turning me on...id ike to know how to do this. im sick of tuning into to flat lined frequencies. its draining and dull.

floating and cut.

Just like being in water weightless
The water takes you and you are blameless

The first time I had my cords cut
I floated up
So quickly
I was unrooted
Laughing


i read your poem listening to 'help yourself' death in vegas. good combo...intsrumental just like the water full of electric strings :)

Comment is about Remember to Float (blog)

Original item by BT

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Julian (Admin)

Sat 5th May 2012 15:17

At the risk of losing any chances I had of a knighthood (i.e. none!): I don't understand this lot cosying up to royalty like this. It's vomit-inducing. Patten, Armitage, what are you doing? What? Oh, you get PAID for it? Well that's all right then, after all they've all got their fingers in the pie, so what's the problem? That is!

Comment is about Sixty poems to mark Queen's 60 years (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

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Lynn Dye

Sat 5th May 2012 15:03

I have just tweaked out "doth" and "eternally", but decided to keep "blissful".

Comment is about Devotion (blog)

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Julian (Admin)

Sat 5th May 2012 14:57

If I say I like this, I mean it works, touches me. I don't like the sentiments it evokes in me, the helplessness it seems to seep from; or is it disappointment?
It speaks to me, Michael. And the audio does it more justice than the page can, in my humblish opinion.

Comment is about Porcelain (blog)

Original item by Noetic-fret!

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chris yates

Sat 5th May 2012 12:12

night terrors for sure very real, swallowed hole by terror !! still get them arghhh

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chris yates

Sat 5th May 2012 12:04

well done Laura, what a brilliant poem and you were brill on the night (-: xxx

Comment is about That poetry podium feeling: Greenheart prize-winner Laura on a grand night out (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

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Joshua Van-Cook

Sat 5th May 2012 10:29

Thank you, I must admit I am bad for starting something, getting distracted, and then changing tense.

I have altered it with your suggestions in mind. Please let me know what you think of the alterations.

- Josh

Comment is about Through the window (blog)

Original item by Joshua Van-Cook

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Tommy Carroll

Fri 4th May 2012 23:54

Laura Laura Laura, x

Comment is about Laura Taylor (poet profile)

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nick armbrister

Fri 4th May 2012 23:27

thanx winston, its from the late 90s.

Comment is about MAN-MADE MECHANIZATIONS (blog)

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Graham Sherwood

Fri 4th May 2012 23:17

Winston, thank you for your kind words on Grisaille.
I suppose the title came from a melange of sepia, a euphemism for nostalgia, and the manner of painting in a vague and unclear fashion.

Regards, Graham

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 21:36

This doesn't really work for me. The first verse is in the present tense and the second is in the past so the link between the two is ruptured.
Not quite sure why the cat is described as anxious as the adjective does not seem relevant to the general mood of the poem.
'sat' should actually be 'sitting'(sorry I am a saddo - wrong grammar throws me) which would be 2 syllables so you could try another single syllabled word like - left, perched, ( or you could say sod the grammar)or omit the word 'coloured'
'an immaculate..... is rather vague, try 'the immaculate....
Back to the cat. If at the end of your poem (after work surface) you put something like -

The cat stretched and abandoned her perch.
I heard the sound of the television in the living room.
At that I went back.

you get an ending that is linked back to the beginning so that the whole thing feels completed.

I like your lines 'And up into the blossoms

Of the trees that were here before this house.'

These are only my opinions and reflect the way I feel and interpret words. They may not correspond with your ideas and feelings at all.XX



Comment is about Through the window (blog)

Original item by Joshua Van-Cook

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 20:55

oho that last line is the killer! A powerful poem worthy os a stage delivery. I can hear the last line as a wistful yet sinister sotto voce. XX

Comment is about I am..... (blog)

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 20:52

I've gone all gooey!!

Comment is about For Isla (blog)

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 20:51

third verse is brilliant. Come to think of it so is the rest! Ha Ha loved it.

Comment is about Stock Market (blog)

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 20:49

The Mc Donald massacre was a travesty. I love Jim Mclean's song 'The Massacre of Glencoe'
As My young granddaughter has red hair I really enjoyed the sentiments in this. XX

Comment is about My Little Red Haired Laddie (blog)

Original item by Cate

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 20:39

Rhyming is fine at the end of a line
Or if you can fiddle it into the middle -
As you can see here, it will gladden the ear
Of many a reader. For you know they need a
Strong rhythm, and rhyme, at the end of each line.

lets hear it for us rhyming poets! XX

Comment is about A Pretty Shitty Little Ditty... OR.. It Was Good Enough For Shakespeare.... (blog)

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 20:26

After I'd stopped drooling at the photo I had a good giggle at your poem. Just the job for poking fun at Narcissus and his mates. This is definitely a performance poem with attitude. XX

Comment is about The Body Builders Lament (blog)

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 20:18

I see a recurring theme in your work of things not being as they seem to be or as we would wish them to be. I quite like these dark undercurrents.XX

Comment is about Old Photographs (blog)

Original item by Cate

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 19:59

Archivable in its clarity of description of reminiscences through the eyes of a child A time long gone but not forgotten. Wonderful images 'clop off up the road', snuggling up in bed with a sibling, the pavement games,'The body rock hard as the pick axe' I could go on but the others have already said it all. XX

Comment is about Our Gramps (blog)

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 19:47

bet this left a few breathless!!

Comment is about A Cheeky Little Number (blog)

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 19:44

vague echoes of Dylan Thomas 'do not go gentle'
but in the first person. I love the seniment and the way it is expressed. XX

Comment is about Sunflowers (blog)

Original item by Cate

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 19:40

powerfully ominous. Indeed for whom the bell tolls there is no escape. XX

Comment is about For Whom The Wheel Turns (blog)

Original item by Cate

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M.C. Newberry

Fri 4th May 2012 19:26

The translation into English is one of the
challenges that face foreign poetry. Does it
"travel"? Is the plight of humanity and its
attitudes towards life really the same wherever
you may go in this world? I'm not sure and
for every Neruda there must be many whose
work seems disconnected with our own lives.
Even across the Channel (that close!), the mindset can appear from another world on occasion. And then in Italy there is the taste
for extravagant visual and verbal effect
that is at odds with our pared-down, often
reflective style.
But UK poetry has to benefit from any effort to
embrace its fellows and if you don't try,
you'll never know.

Comment is about And it was at that age that poetry arrived in search of me (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 19:26

how wonderful to soak up the atmosphere and then put it on paper - and the juxtaposition of the luxury and the poverty against a background of total love is extremely effective. XX

Comment is about Taj At Sunset (blog)

Original item by Cate

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M.C. Newberry

Fri 4th May 2012 19:11

I'm not surprised by the dearth of verse in an age that lacks the skills or the innate humanity of a Betjeman. The overall theme?
A sort of scribbled nostalgia from childhood memories and youthful diaries, occasionally
interrupted by resentment or mind-boggling hyperbole.

Comment is about Sixty poems to mark Queen's 60 years (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 19:03

Ah Yes Absolutely the joy of music performance after the hour(s) of practice. You have said it all so well - and of course Eric Morcambe's
marvelous line about all the right notes is my fallback position. XX

Comment is about Let`s Hear It For Music (blog)

Original item by Cate

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 18:55

what a fantastic mother's prayer.She loves but knows love is not always enough and suffers because of it. XX

Comment is about If I Could (blog)

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 18:53

This pulses forward from verse to verse until the final lines, which with their single syllables repeated slow the pace and emphasise the sadness of the daily grind to which he must submit, willing or not.It really catches the moods and felings (some hidden) of all the members of the family where the circadian rhythm is tortured. So good. XX

Comment is about The Night Worker (blog)

Original item by Cate

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 18:43

clever title.
Cargos is one of my favorite poems because its rhythm is almost hypnotic to me. You have faithfully echoed this and the content is brill. XX

Comment is about Not John`s Cargo (blog)

Original item by Cate

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M.C. Newberry

Fri 4th May 2012 18:38

Hello Chris - the courtesy of your reply to my"profile" says as much about you as your blogs ever will. Certainly, let us by all means disagree on things political but I suggest there is surely room for "common ground" as no politician is to be totally trusted and no politicaldecision ever necessarily admirable/altruistic. My only misgiving in the general sense is the tendency to demonise "the right" and confer saintliness on the other lot...as if the latter were busy plucking their harps for us whilst the former were busy consorting with the devil. Going back a bit for a source of reference...comparing the grotesque WW2 public rantings of "Lord Haw-Haw" with the insidious activities of the Cambridge spies and their betrayal of country and people tends to add another perspective to being chummy with the devil and his works.
Keep up the good work.
All good wishes.
MC

Comment is about Chris Co (poet profile)

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 18:36

what did she put in the coffee?
Great stuff! So well set out. XX

Comment is about Tosspot! (blog)

Original item by Cate

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 18:33

you have a great way with words for even when you reverse a natural word order, because of the balanced rhythm of the piece, the flow and meaning are impaired not a whit.
A delightful take on the insouciance of the Gods and man's wilfulness.XX

Comment is about Pandora`s Box (blog)

Original item by Cate

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 18:12

Bite the bullet. Face up to our worst apprehensions. This piece is so emotive (and I've been there and it was just like this)Are you writing from personal experience?
Not sure whether 'I enjoyed it' is quite the right expession - it certainly touched a raw point in me.XX

Comment is about Biting The Bullet (blog)

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 18:07

The way the rhythm flows freely and joyously is like the childhood you describe - ah I remember it well. I just never wrote about it.lovely.XX

Comment is about Under The Stairs (blog)

Original item by Cate

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 17:58

brings back so many good memories of Lancashire for, having emigrated to Yorkshire with litte hope of return, now I hanker after my old accent
I've just discovered your work Cate and am enchanted. You have a style after my own heart and the dialect is a jewel in the crown. ( I have to resort to Albert and the Lion or the Oldham Tinkers for a quick fix these days,

Comment is about Uncle Ned (blog)

Original item by Cate

<Deleted User> (10123)

Fri 4th May 2012 17:51

Hi SS,
as a long distance lorry driver (that came out as 'long distance river' not a bad idea to start from!!!) I'm not always near the old WWW but I'm 'ere now,
I see you take your written stuff seriously, beware! there are those with millions of qualifications that are a tad pendantic about spurious grammatical ... (what!) this is poetry not a classroom for conjugation of Latin verbs!
Haiku's tin is tight for syllabic affitionados but if you wish to dip your toes ... then be my guest but beware there lurks a chap called TT who is a master of , well! several variations of (proper) poetry and if he spots your stuff he may well be the voice to ask!! The only real voice is, of course, your own. Despite my rabblings - go for it - and it will do what it says on the tin!
Ta muchly, Nick.
ps sorry it's a bit wordy - even moreso now!

Comment is about Shirley Smothers (poet profile)

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Yvonne Brunton

Fri 4th May 2012 17:49

yee-haa love it - and the last line makes it for me. I always love a little twist in the tail/tale? XX

Comment is about Naughty Digits! (blog)

Original item by Cate

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Cate Greenlees

Fri 4th May 2012 17:10

Made me smile this one.... although there`s not much gazumping going on in our area at the moment! And yes, our once green belt is gradually being eroded by back handers and council relatives. A breeding porogramme for the wealthy or well connected.
Cate xx

Comment is about House Hunting (blog)

Original item by Yvonne Brunton

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Julian (Admin)

Fri 4th May 2012 16:57

Thanks for the reminder of that song. last heard about 40 years ago.
I learned much of my politics from listening to Ewan MacColl's steam whistle ballads as a child. Dismayed to discover later that he was an unreconstructed Stalinist until he passed away, and that this was his stage name; his real moniker being Jimmy Miller, a Salford lad. Who/what can we trust?
And then, listening to Peggy got me to listen to her rendition of The First time ever I saw your face. I cannot listen to that without dissolving.
Bloody woman! Bloody MCcoll! I knew two people who knew him well, both journalists. fascinating stuff.

Comment is about Laura Taylor (poet profile)

Original item by Laura Taylor

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Laura Taylor

Fri 4th May 2012 16:39

Oh Ray, this is lovely. Fostering is such an important job. Those last 3 lines are killer. Grit/eye.

Comment is about Looking After You (blog)

<Deleted User> (6195)

Fri 4th May 2012 16:37

We're trying to do something different, I think. Mine is built up over the 7 parts, and follows (roughly) the form of a Requiem Mass. Yours is a stand alone piece.
I take the point of others commentators about yours, that the palette of words is rich, yet the piece as a whole seems to sidestep a lyrical construction. In my poem I was striving to draw metphor from the lake as part of a narrative, whereas you appear to be trying to translate the experience of viewing it into words. Mine was written several years ago, shortly after the events that sparked it, and was six months in the making. For me to begin re-writing it now would be too artificial a reconstruction I think. Perhaps that's not the case for you? I appreciated your comments, btw! MS

Comment is about Thirlmere in May (blog)

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Laura Taylor

Fri 4th May 2012 14:51

Cheers for your equally world-weary comments on Wilfully Blind ;D Appreciate it Chris, as I know it isn't one of my best but like I said, I just had to get something out about him. I was lying on my sickbed last week watching him drool his way through his statement and it was all I could do not to kick the telly in. Obscene.

Anyhoo, yep, we're all systems go for the next Spoke - looking forward to it. Just finished me setlist today as it goes :)

Can only agree with your really short comment on your poem (heh) - sometimes, you can actually hear the HEADLINES themselves coming out of people's mouths and you know exactly where they've got their 'info' from. I find the attitudes of the majority of my fellow working class heartbreaking and deeply disturbing. Can't agree with you on the 'genuine' right wing though mate. They stand for everything I am against. Zero tolerance.

Anyhoo - it's proper refreshing to hear you rant on about all this - balm to the soul :)



Comment is about Chris Co (poet profile)

Original item by Chris Co

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Ray Miller

Fri 4th May 2012 14:33

Thanks, Greg, Isobel. Funny you should pick up on "to when I'm". It was added late, to make the poem more explicit. Really, I prefer just

I'm looking after you - stationed....

Yeah, it's about fostering, moving children on.

Comment is about Looking After You (blog)

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Chris Co

Fri 4th May 2012 11:21

Hi Ray,

Our Day Out...as capitalised... was a play wriiten in the late 1970s by Willy Russell about deprived kids growing up in deprived Liverpool. The play was recorded for television in the 1980s. This was the time I was growing up in the same city on one of its poorer housing estates.

The play starts out as a coach trip, but the plot darkens when it becomes obvious that the kids from the back streets of Liverpool, have little to no hope in terms of a future. The picture is painted that they are no-hopers; that a day trip is as good as anything is going to get for them...they'll soon be back on the estates.

In one scene at a zoo there is a bear in a bear pit.

The scene starts off when one of the kids asks a teacher if the bear could kill you. The teacher replies saying “Well why do you think it kept in a pit?” Another kid joins the conversation by saying “ I think it is cruel don’t you?” The teacher replies to him saying that it is not if it is treated well. “No. Not if its treated well. And don’t forget it was born in captivity so it won’t know any other sort of life”


A kid replies "It must know other ways of living, sir. Y’know, free, like the way people have stopped it livin’. It only kills people cos it’s trapped an’ people are looking at it. If it was free it wouldn’t bother people at all.”

The kids like the bear are trapped. The kids can't escape a poor background in Liverpool and likely can't escape a poor future as a result.n The bear will be in the pit for all his life, like the kids In Liverpool, and will be treated the same way, and will be living the same way for the rest of their life. The bear doesn’t learn anything good other than, try and scare humans off, when they are being cruel, the kids don't learn much different.

It also includes the idea that the bear if placed in better surroundings would still be just as dangerous, still a bear. The analogy is clear; you can take the boy out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the boy. In other words there is no point in giving these kids (kids like these) a chance or a better home...they'll just be what they are anyway. (how more wrong could an idea be?)

I saw the kids that grew up before me on the estates, I saw that half of them had zero education. I was very fortunate to have very well educated parents in the home. But I saw a disproportionate number of kids from the estates were in remedial classes...like the play. I saw how the estates promoted the idea that school and homework was for losers and that it didn't matter anyway as there was no hope academically. I also saw that a lot of bad lads turned out...not surprising!

Fighting was a daily routine on the estates, but you could and would get battered if all the kids thought you were a 'suck'...which means someone pushing to do well at school. The pressure was to conform and that conformity was, play out late, play footy, jump across bin sheds. Play hideO on the roof of the old people's home, break into houses or the local school, and most importantly mess about in school.

I got to escape this background when Michael Heseltine came to Liverpool as Tory minister and they found the conditions...to not be fit to live in. The estates were knocked down and we moved... as I said into real housing. Oddly for the first couple of years I didn't know what to do without having bin sheds to jump across (I know that might sound quite mad) and green space and back gardens were confusing lol. Back on point...

You might not be able to take bears out of bear pits, but you can take children out of deprived conditions and things can as a result...improve greatly.

Our day out for me was in getting OUT and not suffering a future like those before me on that estate or like kids in that play.

P.S

I can see what your saying about the line changes, but I like the sprung rhythm that currently exists. That said, I have added two commas and a semicolon. Hopefully this makes for superior sonic units, whilst retaining meaning and rhythm. Thoughts appreciated...I always do consider tweeks.

Comment is about Our day out (blog)

Original item by Chris Co

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Roy Chetham

Fri 4th May 2012 10:35

Thanks all for your constructive comments.
There is nothing in them I would reject or dispute so during some inspired hour I will do some more work on this one.

Comment is about Thirlmere in May (blog)

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Julian (Admin)

Fri 4th May 2012 09:51

This has the makings of a superb poem with its lovely, colourful descriptions. And yet, the lack of rhythmic consistency detracts from its enjoyment, for me anyhow. And yet just a little editing could bring such rhythm as the voluptuous description demands.
The word 'merge' perhaps needs an 's' as it seems to need to be in agreement with 'bark', singular. That said, it is one of only two lines containing verbs, which upsets the lovely flow. Might you consider turning the verbs into adjectives: Sable and puce, grey-marbled, for example?

Comment is about Thirlmere in May (blog)

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Julian (Admin)

Fri 4th May 2012 09:34

I really like this, Tommy. It's poetic and hints at a story arc within few words.

I would agree you might think about dropping 'mainly'. Adverbs are often superfluous in poetry as good as this. How about also replacing 'became' with 'now', and swopping 'your smile' for 'a smile'?

Or does that turn it from your poem into mine? If so, apols.

This is the sort of poetry I like, essential, spare, interesting.

Comment is about A Lady's dismissal (blog)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

Travis Brow

Fri 4th May 2012 06:51

Hello Glyn. No connections, just a few short pieces.

Comment is about Get Shorty (blog)

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winston plowes

Fri 4th May 2012 01:27

a breath of fresh air Nick, thankyou

Comment is about MAN-MADE MECHANIZATIONS (blog)

Original item by NICK ARMBRISTER

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winston plowes

Fri 4th May 2012 01:16

All Happening in Kernow it seems. Have a great time :-)

Comment is about Head for St Ives for poetry in the square (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

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