Latest news with #Hitchin
The Guardian
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I can no longer listen to the punk bands I loved as a teenager': Rob Newman's honest playlist
The first single I bought (White Man) in Hammersmith Palais by the Clash, from a record shop in the Hitchin arcade. The song I inexplicably know every lyric to I enjoyed rote-learning at school, so I learn lyrics off by heart. I particularly like Ella Fitzgerald's version of But Not for Me by George and Ira Gershwin: 'I never want to hear from any cheerful Pollyannas / Who tell you fate supplies a mate / It's all bananas.' The best song to play at a party Prisencolinensinainciusol by Adriano Celentano is an absolute banger and gloriously daft. Celentano sings in mock English. The video features some excellent dancing. The song I can no longer listen to I used to love them for their politics and integrity, but I can no longer listen to the punk bands I loved as a teenager: X-Ray Spex, Sham 69, Stiff Little Fingers, Chelsea, Angelic Upstarts and Crisis. The song I secretly like, but tell everyone I hate When I talk about my love of dance music, I quickly qualify it by mentioning someone credible like Bootsy Collins or Marlena Shaw. But what I really love is the cheesy disco, like Feel So Real by Steve Arrington. The song I stream the most Travelling by train from one gig to the next, I'll listen on my headphones to Lone Star State of Mind by Nanci Griffith, Outkast's Morris Brown, Clock Factory by Sabres of Paradise and Stone by Prince Alla to help the miles disappear. The song I do at karaoke I'm not one for karaoke, but I love singing around the flat. When my son Billy was four, he would reply matter-of-factly to the Blue Nile's Tinseltown in the Rain. 'Do I love you?' 'Yes.' 'Will we always be happy-go-lucky?' 'Yes.' The song that makes me cry Judee Sill's version of 500 Miles: 'Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name / Lord I can't go back home this a-way.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion The song that gets me up in the morning Listening to music is the last thing I want to do before the children wake up. That golden silence from 5-7am is when I get to read or write. Once they're up, the playlist includes Archie, Marry Me by Alvvays, which is joyful and sunny. The song I want played at my funeral Gallipoli (Solo Piano Version) by Astrid Williamson. The song that changed my life After I moved to London in my early 20s, I complained to my girlfriend at the time that I was spending all my evenings on my own, even though we were going out. I quoted I Know It's Over by the Smiths: 'And if you're so funny, then why are you on your own tonight?' She chucked me right there and then. So I guess that song changed my life – or at least cleared things up. Rob Newman: Where the Wild Things Were tours to 1 February; tour starts Norwich. His new novel, Intelligence, is out in early 2026.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I can no longer listen to the punk bands I loved as a teenager': Rob Newman's honest playlist
The first single I bought (White Man) in Hammersmith Palais by the Clash, from a record shop in the Hitchin arcade. The song I inexplicably know every lyric to I enjoyed rote-learning at school, so I learn lyrics off by heart. I particularly like Ella Fitzgerald's version of But Not for Me by George and Ira Gershwin: 'I never want to hear from any cheerful Pollyannas / Who tell you fate supplies a mate / It's all bananas.' The best song to play at a party Prisencolinensinainciusol by Adriano Celentano is an absolute banger and gloriously daft. Celentano sings in mock English. The video features some excellent dancing. The song I can no longer listen to I used to love them for their politics and integrity, but I can no longer listen to the punk bands I loved as a teenager: X-Ray Spex, Sham 69, Stiff Little Fingers, Chelsea, Angelic Upstarts and Crisis. The song I secretly like, but tell everyone I hate When I talk about my love of dance music, I quickly qualify it by mentioning someone credible like Bootsy Collins or Marlena Shaw. But what I really love is the cheesy disco, like Feel So Real by Steve Arrington. The song I stream the most Travelling by train from one gig to the next, I'll listen on my headphones to Lone Star State of Mind by Nanci Griffith, Outkast's Morris Brown, Clock Factory by Sabres of Paradise and Stone by Prince Alla to help the miles disappear. The song I do at karaoke I'm not one for karaoke, but I love singing around the flat. When my son Billy was four, he would reply matter-of-factly to the Blue Nile's Tinseltown in the Rain. 'Do I love you?' 'Yes.' 'Will we always be happy-go-lucky?' 'Yes.' The song that makes me cry Judee Sill's version of 500 Miles: 'Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name / Lord I can't go back home this a-way.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion The song that gets me up in the morning Listening to music is the last thing I want to do before the children wake up. That golden silence from 5-7am is when I get to read or write. Once they're up, the playlist includes Archie, Marry Me by Alvvays, which is joyful and sunny. The song I want played at my funeral Gallipoli (Solo Piano Version) by Astrid Williamson. The song that changed my life After I moved to London in my early 20s, I complained to my girlfriend at the time that I was spending all my evenings on my own, even though we were going out. I quoted I Know It's Over by the Smiths: 'And if you're so funny, then why are you on your own tonight?' She chucked me right there and then. So I guess that song changed my life – or at least cleared things up. Rob Newman: Where the Wild Things Were tours to 1 February; tour starts Norwich. His new novel, Intelligence, is out in early 2026.
BBC News
08-08-2025
- BBC News
Former Hertfordshire police officer sentenced for sexual assault
A former police constable has been sentenced and put on the sex offender's register after admitting assault and sexual Rann, 47, from Hitchin, resigned from Hertfordshire Police after being suspended during an internal offences, which relate to one victim, took place in December a hearing at Luton Magistrates' Court on Wednesday, Rann was sentenced to a 12-month high-level community order and given a restraining order against the victim. He was ordered to do 200 hours of unpaid work and is also required to spend 15 days in was told to pay £500 in compensation and £85 in first appeared at Luton Magistrates' Court on 3 July where he pleaded guilty to two counts of assault by beating and one count of sexual had been suspended from duty pending the conclusion of an internal investigation and subsequently resigned from his Police said a conduct hearing would be held in due Chief Constable Andy Mariner said: "Rann's conduct fell well below the standards we expect in Hertfordshire."Officers and staff who fall below our policing standards and, in this case, commit criminal offences, damage the public's confidence in what we do, which in turn makes our job of catching criminals and protecting victims harder." Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Daily Mail
15-07-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
New trial promises that millions with dangerous food allergy no longer have to fear eating out
Since childhood, Charlotte Campbell has felt unwell after eating peanuts, but it was only after a scary incident at a wedding aged 21 that she was diagnosed with a peanut allergy. 'After eating a fried risotto ball at the reception I started getting a very itchy mouth, blocked sinuses and hives – then, within 30 minutes, it developed into nausea and vomiting,' recalls Charlotte, a marketing manager who lives with her husband Will, 33, a teacher, in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. 'I'd never experienced anything like it,' she says. 'As a child, I occasionally ate peanut butter or the odd thing containing peanuts, which made me feel sick and gave me a slightly itchy mouth. But I never suspected an allergy.' Thankfully her sister, who had a diagnosed nut allergy, was also at the wedding and gave Charlotte antihistamines, which worked quickly. A few weeks later Charlotte was referred for skin-prick tests, where a tiny amount of an allergen is placed on the skin, to look for any reaction. Charlotte was tested for all common food allergies. When her arm became red and the skin raised in response to peanut, only improving after a couple of days, the diagnosis was confirmed. Around 6 per cent of the UK adult population – around 2.4 million people – have a confirmed food allergy. In general, they are just told to avoid eating what they're allergic to; there is no treatment. 'It made me anxious around food, especially when eating at other people's houses and at restaurants,' says Charlotte, now 32. 'I had a couple of incidents when I ate things I thought were safe, such as a flapjack, and I quickly developed symptoms which eased off with antihistamines.' Yet Charlotte can now safely eat a small amount of peanuts thanks to a groundbreaking clinical trial, using an approach known as oral immunotherapy. This is where patients are gradually given tiny but increasing amounts of the food they're allergic to, in a safe environment with medics on hand, in a bid to train their bodies not to react. While an oral immunotherapy treatment has been approved for children, there isn't an equivalent available for adults because of a concern that their immune systems are less adaptable than children's. They also tend to have more severe reactions (it's not clear why). But now, for the first time, this method has been shown to be effective in adults. In a study, led by King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, participants received a tiny dose of peanut in hospital and were monitored for a reaction, before being sent home and instructed to take that same peanut dose daily for two weeks. The process was then repeated, increasing the dose in small increments, over around four months. The study found that 67 per cent of the 21 participants were able to consume at least 1.4g peanut protein – the equivalent of five peanuts – after a minimum of four months without reacting, reported the journal Allergy in April. 'If you can repeatedly expose the allergic patient to the things they're allergic to, you can desensitise them and eventually make them less reactive,' explains Professor Stephen Till, a consultant allergist at Guy's and St Thomas' and chief investigator of the trial, which was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research. 'The challenge is giving someone something they're allergic to without causing a reaction, which is why we do this in a controlled medical environment.' When someone consumes a substance to which they're allergic, their immune system produces immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies. These attach to the allergen, and activate immune cells to attack it, triggering the release of histamine. Histamine causes symptoms such as itching, swelling, redness, difficulty breathing, sickness, diarrhoea and low blood pressure. But oral immunotherapy is thought to make the body produce a different antibody, immunoglobulin G (IgG). 'We think IgG soaks up the allergen and stops it binding to IgE,' explains Professor Till. After the treatment is over and desensitisation is established, patients are advised to stick to having their safe number of peanuts each day to maintain the benefits. 'We've shown that desensitisation works, and that patients will remain desensitised if they carry on eating peanuts every day – but we need more studies to know if they would continue to be desensitised if they stopped,' says Professor Till. 'Before this, all adults with an allergy could do was be very careful to avoid peanuts. 'Now there's hope that there could be a treatment to control the way that the immune system responds. Participants don't need to worry if there is cross-contamination in their food from peanuts in a restaurant, for example.' However, oral immunotherapy is time-intensive, which makes NHS provision and funding difficult. For this reason, 'it's important that we work out how to deliver immunotherapy predominantly at home or outside hospitals', says Professor Till. Another new tool is with treatments known as biologics, such as omalizumab, which stop IgE antibodies binding to immune cells. These could be used alongside oral immunotherapy and help people to tolerate higher doses of their allergen more quickly, explains Professor Till. Other experts believe biologic drugs could be a standalone food-allergy treatment. In a US study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year, children under 18 with peanut allergy were given injections of omalizumab or a placebo every two to four weeks for 16 weeks. At the end of the trial 67 per cent of participants who'd received omalizumab could tolerate 600mg of peanut protein, compared with 7 per cent in the placebo group. 'While this is an important study, if you're mopping up the IgE, you'd expect 100 per cent efficacy,' says Mohamed Shamji, a professor in immunology and allergy at Imperial College London. 'We're trying to find out why it doesn't work for everyone.' Even so, he believes the drugs should be considered for food allergies; currently they're not approved for this on the NHS (partly because they are expensive), though they are in the US. Another promising development is using virus-like particles (VLPs) to essentially create a peanut allergy vaccine. VLPs are designed to look like a virus, so activate the immune response, but do not cause illness. Researchers at Imperial College London attached a VLP to peanut allergen protein Ara h2, to help the immune system recognise and respond to the peanut allergen in a controlled way. An early-stage clinical trial, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in January this year, found the vaccine caused no adverse reactions. Further trials are planned. 'The aim of the vaccine is to reset the immune response, so it becomes more of a healthy, non-allergic one,' explains Professor Shamji, a senior author of the study. There is a great need for new treatments, says Clare Mills, a professor of food and molecular immunology at the University of Surrey: 'If someone is allergic to peanut, then just a few milligrams of it, equivalent to a speck of dust, can provoke a potentially fatal reaction.' Meanwhile, the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, the UK's food allergy charity, is funding an oral immunotherapy trial using everyday, shop-bought foods as a treatment for young people aged three to 23 with peanut and cow's milk allergies, across nine NHS centres in England and Scotland. As Tanya Ednan-Laperouse, the charity's founder, explains: 'We know that some individuals on the trial have had a very positive response. We hope our findings [due next year] will show oral immunotherapy using everyday foods is not only effective but cost-effective, and will lead to it being adopted as a treatment for food allergies on the NHS.' A year after the 2019 trial Charlotte took part in, she was able to eat up to four peanuts a day. But after a bad reaction last summer has dropped down to three, though hopes to go back to four soon. 'It's made me a lot less fearful of foods, especially when eating out,' says Charlotte. 'Everything feels much easier now.'
BBC News
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Hitchin composer writes music for home town
A musician who composed for the coronation of King Charles III has written a piece about memories of growing up in his Farrington, who was born and bred in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, wrote five movements about five different parts of the was commissioned to write Talk of the Town for the The Hitchin Chamber Orchestra's 10th anniversary concert on Saturday said it was "very tuneful and very upbeat, quite jazzy and hopefully quite fun for them to play". Talk of the Town was performed at St Mary's Church by the local amateur string orchestra and conducted by Daniel said he knew some of the players in the orchestra which included local piece is 18 minutes long in total and each of the five movements drew inspiration from the Saturday market, the church, Windmill Hill, his home and the town square."I chose locations that were also familiar to other people," he said."I just thought about my upbringing and the wonderful times I have had in them and still do." The Saturday market movement is about his memories of going there with his mum and experiencing the "hustle and bustle".He wrote about St Mary's Church because he was a choirboy and had learnt to play the organ memories of Windmill Hill are about sledging down it which was "both wonderful and also very dangerous because it is very steep and when it snows it can get very quick"."So that one is a fast movement with lots of hustle and bustle," he explainedFarewell Old Home is a melancholic movement and is about "the idea of separation when you are leaving somewhere".He continued: "I had to think about what particular locations I wanted to write about because there are so many places that are special." Speaking about the coronation, Farrington said: "I had to write a piece that was a celebration of the Commonwealth so it had to incorporate lots of different tunes from around the world and it wasn't about location - it was about people and diversity."I had to do a lot of research into different folk melodies from different countries and I had a certain amount of free rein to do what I wanted and it was a lot of fun."He said: "It was a really lovely day." Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
