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Cinnamon patrol

Mr and Mrs Lili Wedding

 

Rue Privée


Rue Privée
Originally uploaded by djcult
Quietly. In the undergrowth of our summer château near Lamalou-les-Bains.

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Baked Belgian booty - the mattentaart

I was first introduced to this tasty pastry by some Belgian friends of ours.

A speciality of the East Flanders city of Geraardsbergen, the mattentaart (matten = "curd", taart = "tart") is a cheesecakey-like cake encased in puff pastry. The secret ingredient is the buttermilk used to prepare the fine dry curd for the cheesecake part. The puff pasty is light and crunchy, and the cake has a very light crumb, and a delicious tangy sourness.

Eagle-eyed Laura found this at a stall in Ghent and we enjoyed several of them.

The tart is so special, it has been granted the sought-after European Regional Product status, designating it as qualifying for the Product Designation of Origin - the first Flemish food product to receive the designation. This means it can only be called mattentaart if it was actually made in Geraardsbergen (or the city's neighbouring village of Lierde) and made using the traditional, ancient recipe - which dates back to 1510 - while also using milk from the region.

Smakelijk eten!

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Letters from Lamalou

After spending one day & one night tootling around La Cité (the medieval-walled-town-part) of Carcassonne , we rented our car for the drive to the chateau. The Opel Corsa with no hub caps was not the black Peugot 207 I was hoping for. Also, unfortunately, it's the same car we did our driving lessons and tests in, which bought back bad memories. Also, unfortunately is was diesel - actually it drove quite well and I was impressed - but it sounded like a pretty shit tractor. To ease into driving on the other side of the road, I thought I'd terrify Laura by driving perilously close to the right-hand side - especially when near parked cars, ditches, or - my personal favourite - sheer drop-offs. To make it more scenic, we GPSed a route that took us via Castres, up through the mountains and national park, and (by accident) the super-charming really-old-looking, no-cars-because-the-streets-are-too-narrow, stuck-up-in-hills-with bridges, funny-old-outdoor-squat-urinals-and-all Olargues.

The chateau was cool. It's more-or-less a 3 storey square building enclosing a courtyard with several attached barns and outhouses. And a pool (of course). The owners were competitive body builders and have build a very impressive 2-storey gym complete with protein supplements and all. As there is no gym in the area, it has turned into a good sideline for them. But because it's an historic property they aren't allowed to advertise, or put up any signs. The best they can do is put a sign some distance down the road saying "gym in 500 metres" but, and this is truly French, the sign can't give any indication of which direction it's in. The property extends quite a way in one aspect and includes an abandoned orangerie. If you walked through the orangerie, or along the no-longer-used railway line across the road, you come to the spa town of Lamalou-les-Bains.

To us, a "spa" is a place that girls go to sit around in bath robes while being up-sold ludicrously expensive beauty products. But the French spa towns are more like water-based outpatient clinics. After a few days in Lamalou you start to notice the preponderance of wheelchairs, crutches & bandages - in fact, in any given group of people, at least one person is likely to be looking fairly worse for the wear. So, in the nicest way, I think of Lamalou not of les Bains, but of les cripples - kind of like a leper colony with really nice boulangeries. Speaking of pastry, our initial efforts in the regard were a bit frustrated - if you're like us, if you're on holiday, by the time you sleep in, have breakfast & perform your ablutions lazily, it's around 1pm. That is indeed a shame, because in Lamalou (and I suspect most other small town in that area, if not the entire country) all the shops shut at 1pm to reopen at 4pm. Eventually we got it right, but on day #1 we were restricted to Lidl rations only.

Being, aside from the Ikea furniture, more or less an authentic country house, we had no aircon. During the day the temperature maxed out around 40°. The shutters were shuttered, and on the days when we didn't foolishly adventure up hills or down gorges (we did both of these at my insistence and Laura's forbearance), we siesta'ed in our room, feverish, languid, and happy. On the first night I left the shutters open, and it was pleasantly cool. On night #2 I did the same but we inadvertently outsmarted a bat's echolocation: Laura woke in a start claiming rustling noises and I poo-pooed it as a dream - but there was no mistaking the wriggly fist-sized parcel in our net curtain. I have to admit, and I'm not proud of this, that years of apartment living has rendered me a little soft when it comes to non-domestic animals. But the burden of protecting my wife sits heavily on my shoulders and I'm not one to back down (except when facing that one type of bear where you're supposed to back down). I found the best course of action was just to close the windows on top the curtains - thereby ensuring the bat remained outside - and allowing him the opportunity to free himself, should he wish to do so. In the morning I checked tentatively, and confirmed he had made his escape.

In fact, this is was not the only act of heroism on my part. On another day I found a lizard in the same net curtains. (I feel I need to give a bit of context here: we have been constantly & shamelessly harassed by small lizards in the past. In Fiji a lizard had taken to living behind the toilet cistern - at night he'd (they're always "he's") creep out, and you'd get up to use the loo and flick the lights on, and he'd race back in - and we, neither of us, dithered on that throne. Then in Goa, a different lizard (I assume) had taken to living behind the giant carved wooded headboard above our bed. Again the same thing - he'd creep out when it was dark or quiet - then any light or motion would see him to racing back in. It began to affect our ability to enjoy the headboard and we were forced to bring it to the attention of the staff. A group of them came in, first to remove the headboard, and then to deal with the lizard: after being exposed, he ran out of the room at a million miles with 3 or 4 men chasing him, and ultimately he succumbed to one of their shoes). With that in mind, I tried to loose the lizard from the curtain through vigorous shaking. When that failed, I tried to "bash" him off using Laura's magazine. It was successful, but along with the lizard, the magazine also exited in the window and ended up in the boules sandpit (from whence I was forced to retrieve it, a little shame-faced).

Then, on our last night, I got up to the use the loo... We had been talking to the owners about the local fauna - which had included scorpions - and I noticed a scorpion-shaped thing on the floor. It was small, and I prodded it with something and it didn't move, so I assumed it was the discarded exoskeleton of a scorpion. None the less I put an empty can over it, then spent the next 45 minutes wondering where the freshly decked-out scorpion could be (the sheets?) before falling asleep. In the morning I removed the can and lo! it was indeed a scorpion, and not just a shell. And this time it took off. I quickly replaced the can, and we put a bottle of shower gel on top of the can to weigh it down. Then we packed up, paid the bill, and left for La Grande Motte, warning the owners on the way out.

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Languedoc rocks




We're back from our summer holiday. Wow - it was amazing! It was great to really take our time to get to know an area of France - much more satisfying than the usual long weekend.

The fist image shows a map of the main places we went to (we didn't really go to Aix so much as drive through it on the way to airport, but anyway).

We spent most of our time in renovated chateau near the spa town of Lamalou-les-Bains. The second image shows the chateau with Lamalou in the back ground. You can see the vineyards all around. Our apartment in the chateau was really lovely - a great place to siesta during the hot part of the day.

More to come including photos & never-heard-before stories of animal wrangling and heroism.

Meanwhile I have 2 more days left at work, so I'd better find a new contract soon, or else, I'll be... well... relaxing at home and biking in the park. And we can't have that.

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we heart kerry

I don't think anything in photography compares to seeing brand new medium-format slides on a light table. Especially when it's velvia and the colours are popping. And especially when you've used beautiful sharp optics and you can see amazing tiny detail under the loupe.

So it was yesterday when I picked up the two rolls I shot on our holiday with the Morrises. We saw Dublin (from the inside mostly), Cork, Kinsale, Kenmare, the two rings, Portmagee, Caherciveen, Gap of Dunloe, Killarney, Kilkenny and for the kids - Hell Pizza. Quite a ride - and we're still recovering.

I'm really pleased with the first two shots here: The first is of a stone fort in Caherciveen and the second is the Gap of Dunloe (which is a beautiful place). This is a different kind of photography. It's the wait-for-the-light-to-be nice, or just hope-it-is-because-im-impatient kind. There's not much composing or fusing. And it helps I only have the one lens on the Contax and it's a prime, so there's no zooming or lens changing.

a long night
scanning finally completed
i make breakfast


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Soba kisses & udon dreams


We miss you Tokyo! 私たち日本の愛!

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Vancouver in the nature


Sorry for the blog spam. I'm catching up when I should be finishing my packing. I've had a really successful time scanning this evening - thanks to my new adapter, and some clean slides, the scans are sharp and everything is a pleasure.

Please see this set of photos of Vancouver; in the snow and in the park. You should use the slideshow so the pictures as a big as possible.

Okay, packing now. 6.50am flight tomorrow :-(.

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Joy


The joy of a slide well scanned!

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Ryanair really farcical - this time I mean it - I was wrong about the other times

Anyone familiar with Ryanair knows they are infamous for their "extra" charges and alternative revenue streams - as far as I can tell they are the most budget of any budget airline anywhere on the planet. But, their argument goes, this is all in aid of keeping their air fares low low low.

Generally I don't have a problem with them. What they do makes sense: they want to operate as cost-effectively as possible & there are lots of things in the modern aviation industry that are unnecessary, time-consuming and $$$. Ryanair would rather you took carry-on only: makes sense - checked in luggage necessitates a whole raft of expensive equipment and procedures and slows down plane turnaround time. Ryanair would rather you checked in online: makes sense, saves the need for check-in desks, staff, printers...

But with Ryanair it's a very slippery slope, no a greasy slope. Last week they had the idea (actually really) to charge people for using the toilets - and then to fine them if they soiled the plane. No firm plans have been made and I strongly suspect it's just a shock tactic to make their real plans seem more reasonable, but still!

Also, they're planning to abolish check-in desks entirely and to have web check-in only. Seems okay so far. If you have to check-in in person, they'll charge you €20 - okay so that penalising the elderly and others without access to computers, but so be it (if you're elderly I really hope you have the option of not flying Ryanair).

Then today I read this article. To summarise, Ryanair now plan to charge you €5 to check-in online, by which I mean, they plan to charge you for logging into their website, completing the check-in process yourself and printing out your own boarding slip. In their defense a spokesperson said:
"We are providing them with the facility to check in online. Websites don't
build themselves you know."

Oh ho ho. I love this. This is great. Imagine it for any other business in any other industry anywhere: so that'll be €3.50 for your latte plus a 50c fee for you to add your sugar and stir it yourself, sure that "condiment area" didn't build itself you know ... so that's €50 for your gas and €2 for filling the car up yourself, sure these petrol pump gadgets with the hoses and such like don't grow on trees! Farcical, absurd, ridiculous.

And yes I'll still fly them because they are still the cheapest. And I guess that's the problem.

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Adventures in scanning


Through a glass darkley
Originally uploaded by djcult
As I think I mentioned, I bought a medium format camera on holiday and since we've been back I have a scanner too.

Scanning, I've discovered, is a major pain in the backside and if there is one reason to have a digital camera, it's to avoid scanning.

Anyhoo, after buying a special new film holder for the scanner to hold the film flat (film flatness, not easy) and spending a good 2 hours tonight adjusting little screws in increments of 0.2mm (no kidding), I can now can get sharp images!

The next major problem is color correction. I don't have my own printer (and can't really be bothered with one) but my lab (not being a pro lab) doesn't have a colour profile for their printer - so I've got nothing to calibrate against. That's probably as well, because if I did I'd need to get a colorimeter to calibrate my screen. That's just more stuff - eventually Laura will kill me, or I'll have no desk left, or both. So I did some test prints today, and I'm going to go for the "hold it up to the screen and compare" kind of colour correction.

So here are some of the scans I've done: 2 x Vancouver and 1 x Grandmas. You might have seen them on my regular albums already, but that was before they were sharp.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/djcultdjcult/3255129323/ (sharpish)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/djcultdjcult/3317718996/ (actually sharp)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/djcultdjcult/3314961026/ (still not sharp, needs redoing).

Schlaf schön!

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Worldwide 08 - some photos




I've been home all week with illness. Kind of an extension on the already long holiday, but it just prolongs the anti-climax of going back to work, so it feels kind of odd - a kind of purgatory. At least it's been nice sitting in the apartment, watching Discovery and the snow falling outside - so much snow!

On holiday I bought a 2nd hand (well, of course) Contax 645 which is a medium format film camera. I also bought a scanner so I could scan the negs myself. So, as well as other photos, I've uploaded some of the scans. It's a bit disappointing because although the negs are pin sharp, the scans aren't and that's mostly because the negative strip won't stay flat in the film holder. Kind of annoying. But as a first try I'm moderately happy.

Look out for a joint food diary style posting with photos. It might be a couple of weeks due the post-holiday chores backlog.

Slideshow here.

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Edinburgh

We were there last weekend. Up at 4.00am ish for a 6.30am flight. We were at our hotel by 8am and amazing they had a room ready for us (it wasn't a good room and we had to move but anyways. Also the greeting: 'I'd like to welcome yous to [hotel name here] was not befitting of the establishment.)

It's a nice place, historical like. The castle reminds me of the Acropolis - like the LP says: the massive piece of rock, on which the castle sits, looks like it has been flown in and placed there for dramatic effect. But wow!

The eatings were good and well priced and the weather was mild. The Euro being at yet-another-all-time-high against the pound, we thought it was a good time to buy a Nintendo DS (ostensibly to help with all the long flights coming up - the other night I played space invaders against a random opponnent on the internet - amazing!).

The only complaint I'd make is that there is no river: there is a large valley with bridges spanning it to connect the old city and new city. But the valley is barren and features a train station. I understand that in ye olde times, the valley was flooded with a lake / loch (man made or natural?) into which all the foul effluences and pustulances of the city were poured. Slideshow here.

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Air travel digest

For those interested in things aviation the interim report from the UK's AAIB makes interesting reading. If you recall, this concerns the British Airways Boeing 777, which crash landed at Heathrow on Jan 27, after the engines failed to respond to increased demand for thrust an the very end of it's final approach.

Why wait for the "Seconds for Disaster" special when you can read all the details right now? Included are are some interesting graphs: various temperature readings over the course of the flight from Beijing and multiple data series (pitch, roll, speed, etc) plotting the aircraft's final approach. There is a detailed discussion of the 777's fuel system which serves as a primer for the explanation of the many ways they have been trying to simulate ice build-up in said fuel system. The conclusion: ice almost certainly built up, blocked something, and meant the engines didn't have enough fuel for the thrust demanded; they know the likely places it happened; but they can't figure out why the conditions were so unique as to cause a problem on this 777 flight and not the 3.9 million others. You might have seen the article about opertional changes for Air NZ's 777 fleet due to this report: the suggestions are to change altitude here and there if flying through a cold air mass for a long period of time, and rev the engines a bit (I'm not kidding) well before the final approach to break / melt any ice that might have built up.

--

And here's an incredible article I found this morning. Can you believe it? They actually caught someone at Dublin airport!!! The stars must have all lined up for this one because, let me describe for you my average experience of airport authorities on arrival at Dublin airport:
  • First off is the immigration control. Like the Dutch in this article, I have a EU passport so I get a special line. The best case is that we hold our passports open at the photo page and they do a cursory check as we file past the window. But the last time I went through the immigration lads were too busy talking to each other to bother with that - they just waved me through without looking, that is to say, even glancing, at my passport.

  • Then there is the baggage collection. Not much to mention here. There are no officials, and no dogs. Just baggage (if you're lucky).

  • Then there's the bio security area. Well - "area" - is perhaps too strong a term. There are x-ray machines. They are turned off, and there's never anyone by them.

So I figure these poor Dutch became ill during there flight, disembarked the plane and collapsed in the gate lounge. This was not enough to arouse suspicion as I forgot to mention that the departure gate area of Dublin airport is like a very very long bar with people wandering around with pint glasses from one place to the next. So, rightly, anyone would have assumed these two were just sleeping off their drinks. After a couple of days the next shift of cleaners came on, one of whom was a highly-trained ER physician from Minsk. Noticing immediately that these two had ingested drugs and had fallen sick from it, and with the help of a baggage trolley, he carts them directly to the airport's Police HQ. There's no one there. But after lunch they do show up, and make their dramatic discovery...

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ハロー世界

Turns out that it's not much more expensive to fly-around-the-world then it is to fly just to Auckland.

So we are.

Leaving on Christmas Eve, we're flying to Tokyo to see Mark, Reiko & Emilie, then to Auckland, then Sydney, then Vancouver (for Laura's work), then back here.

We'll be in Auckland from Dec 30 until Jan 18, so please don't take all your holidays in Jan or we might not see you.

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Biarritz

I'm sure those of you enduring winter will enjoy seeing the comely resort town of Biarritz. It's in the very SW of France, nearly at the Spanish border - that them there's Basque Country.

We had perfect weather and jolly good time: getting (me) / avoiding being (Laura) sunburnt, bobbing about in the gentle surf, eating, drinking cider and taking afternoon naps.

If you feel even the tiniest bit jealous - well don't be - because this is first time I have been truly hot in over a year, and the first time I've swum in the sea since Goa on our honeymoon. And we only had 3 days of it. And although it's warm in Dublin at this moment, the "mini-heatwave" (hur hur) is due to end any minute to be replaced by, well, rain and wind of course. (Slideshow here).

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Co Kerry & The Puffins


So we left early Saturday and drove to Killarney via Limerick (aka "Stab City"). We had lunch there, then drove the 1st half of the Ring of Kerry to Portmagee (photos still to come), finding Ballycarbery Castle on the way.

We spent two nights in Portmagee - mostly coz Vincent (who I used to work with)'s sister owns the pub and hotel there - and a great setup it was too with award winning pub food and not a bad pint.

On Sunday we took one of the ferries (converted fishing boats seating 12 max) for the 1 hour journey to Skelling Micheal. You can read the Wikipedia entry for yourself, but it is a 6th century monastic site and now a UNESCO World Heritage site - definitely a must see if you're in Kerry and if you go in May through July you'll see the delightful Atlantic puffin - very cute, especially on take off and landing (flaps down).

Monday saw us drive the 2nd half of the Ring on some really really uncomfortable roads before hoofing it back to Limerick where we dropped Emily off for her trip to Galway. By 9pm we were home having stopped at M&S in Naas for some ready meals.

As Gordon Ramsay would say on the F-Word, "Kerry & The Puffins. Done."

(slideshow here)

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B&W Paris Photos


Shot on our trip over Easter and our trip that's just been on Neopan 400. I plan to rent a darkroom at the Gallery of Photography and try making some 8 x 10 prints.

Or slideshow here.

Photos from our trip to Co. Kerry & Skelligs coming soon. Warning: may contain puffins.

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Brussels and beyond

I've been managing okay given my very limited language skills. It helps that most people in Brussels spoke English, although it is disheartening to ask for something in French, only to get the reply in English :-(

I did score an unexpected hit at the supermarket last night: I needed change for the U-bahn so I bought a chocolate bar. Instead of taking it from me, the check-out girl started processing the next person's order. It was then I remembered the German word "nur" meaning only. "Nur!" I said, gesticulating to my chocolate bar. "Nur das?" she asked, surprised. "Ya" I said triumphantly. It was a triumph. And this morning I met the manager of my ... hotel? hostel? boarding house? She started rattling off something in German. "Ich spreche kein Deutsch" I said. "Ich spreche kein English" she said. I wasn't listening so I repeated my sentence again, as did she - but this time the communication stuck. She asked me if I wanted breakfast (in German, and I understood!) and I politely declined (in German, and she understood!). Then she asked if I slept well and if everything was okay (I didn't understand a word she said but I picked up the context'. "Sehr gut" I said excitedly, and then "shalf shoen" while making the sleeping sign with my hands and face. Although this translates as "Very good. Sleep well!" she was very excited. Then I think she said "Schalfen sie shoen" when I'm pretty sure means "you slept well" with the polite "you".

I guess my lowest point came today when I was enjoying my puddingbretzel and coffee and in my own world. The man next to me was really thrilled with his pastry and made a comment to me to that effect, then I think he referred to something in the news. In my worst German I replied "Es tut mir laid. Ich spreche klein German [instead of ''kein Deustch"]. I corrected myself, but it was too late. He looked away and we both pretended nothing had ever happened.

Brusells is a fantastically cool place once you get over the schizoid vibe: it is officially bilingual (making street signs and map reading at least 100% more difficult) but everyone seems to prefer French to Dutch, which suits me. My backside room was right on the main sqare (Grand Place / Grootmarkt) and it's a seriously beautiful and buzzing place (for Aucklanders think Vulcan Lane x 100). I successfully filled 18 vials of blood which are been sent to 4 different labs for a myriad of tests - analysis and results pending.

Three trains, and no border control, took me to Cologne which is very good, but not amazing. The cathedral, which is the largest in Germany, is truly spectacular; more from the outside than the inside and the public transport, is, as you might expect, very good indeed.

Tomorrow I'm fast training back to Brussels, then the Eurostar to London in the evening. This will give me time to check out the Art Nouveau museum and have at least a pint of the unique and very unusual lambic beer.

Until next time, tschüs.

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London Revisited

We just spent an enjoyable weekend in London - one of those lovely tardus weekends where it felt much bigger that it was.

Saturday saw us up at 0300 (ugh), flying to Stanstead, taking the airport train to Liverpool St station (45 mins), tubing to our hotel to drop our bags off, then straight back on the tube to Tottenham Court Rd (a good spot for electronics) where I picked up a Lumiquest Softbox (for better portraits) and a pair of headphones that don't make me look like an alien. Then to Liberty to look at wool. Then by tube to Angel to check out Islington (nice!) and another wool store. And then, wearily, we caught the overground to Hackney Central and walked for some time to the Broadway Market. Hackney was cool and the market was cool. It was lovely to see "alternative types" - it reminded us of Grey Lynn.

We bought samosa chaat and some latke and fish balls and ate them in the park. To our good fortune, there was a mini-heat wave. It was around 20° and it was supremely lovely. We tubed back our hotel, checked in, and zoned out.

On Sunday we met Laura's Friend Geraldine in Fulham and enjoyed brunch (Dublin doesn't do brunch), then some shopping, then a viewing of her apartment. Then it was multiple tubings and trainings to get us back to Stanstead for out flight at 1930.

Compared to my last (and first) trip, I slightly fell for London this time around. I'm sure the great weather had something to do with it, but so did the markets and brunch. Basically the cosmopolitanism ("so sophisticated as to be at home in all parts of the world or conversant with many spheres of interest"). Dublin is, sometimes delightfully, rustic by comparison. Don't get me wrong, I like Dublin, it's just different. Until the early 90s, Ireland had net migration. It's still finding it's feet in this regard. But it really does try hard, and often triumphs. And being able to visit London whenever one feels like it is pretty nifty.

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Glasgow





So a couple of weekends ago we (+Molly) randomly (cheap flights) travelled to Glasgow. After a rough takeoff, flight, and landing, Glasgow greeted us with an impromptu hail storm as we waited for the train... It was the "worst storm in a 100 years" weekend.

While it was freezing, the weather did hold enough for us to see the city & it was much better than I expected. A grand museum, a grand university, a grand park, lots of great Indian food + Trainspotting was filmed here. Could you want more than that?

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