Testing Your Perl Installation

Testing Your Perl Installation In order to test our fresh installation of Perl, well need a simple Perl program. The first thing most new programmers learn is how to make the script say Hello World. Lets look at a simple Perl script that does just that. #!/usr/bin/perl print Hello World.\n; The first line is there to tell the computer where the Perl interpreter is located. Perl is an interpreted language, which means that rather than compiling our programs, we use the Perl interpreter to run them. This first line is usually #!/usr/bin/perl or #!/usr/local/bin/perl, but depends on how Perl was installed on your system. The second line tells the Perl interpreter to print the words Hello World. followed by a newline (a carriage return). If our Perl installation is working correctly, then when we run the program, we should see the following output: Hello World. Testing your Perl installation is different depending on the type of system you are using, but well take a look at the two most common situations: Testing Perl on Windows  (ActivePerl)Testing Perl on *nix Systems The first thing youll want to do is make sure youve followed the  ActivePerl Installation tutorial  and installed ActivePerl and the Perl Package Manager on your machine. Next, create a folder on your C: drive to store your scripts in for the sake of the tutorial, well call this folder  perlscripts. Copy the Hello World program into C:\perlscripts\ and make sure the filename is  hello.pl. Getting a Windows Command Prompt Now we need to get to a Windows command prompt. Do this by clicking on the  Start  menu and selecting the item  Run.... This will pop up the run screen that contains the  Open:  line. From here, just type  cmd  into the  Open:  field and press the  Enter  key. This will open (yet another) window which is our Windows command prompt. You should see something like this: Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600] (C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp. C:\Documents and Settings\perlguide\Desktop We need to change to the directory (cd) that contains our Perl scripts by typing in the following command: cd c:\perlscripts That should make our prompt reflect the change in the path like so: C:\perlscripts Now that were in the same directory as the script, we can run it simply by typing its name at the command prompt: hello.pl If Perl is installed and running correctly, it should output the phrase Hello World., and then return you to the Windows command prompt. An alternate method of testing your Perl installation is by running the interpreter itself with the  -v  flag: perl -v If the Perl interpreter is working correctly, this should output quite a bit of information, including the current version of Perl you are running. Testing Your Installation If you are using a school or work Unix / Linux server, chances are Perl is already installed and running when in doubt, just ask your system administrator or technical staff. There are a few ways we can test our installation, but first, you will need to complete two preliminary steps.​ First, you must copy your Hello World program to your home directory. This is usually accomplished via FTP.   Once your script has been copied to your server, you will need to get to a  shell prompt  on the machine, usually via SSH. When you have reached the command prompt, you can change into your  home  directory by typing the following command: cd ~ Once there, testing your Perl installation is very similar to testing on a windows system with one extra step. In order to  execute  the program, you must first tell the operating system that the file is OK to execute. This is done by setting the permissions on the script so that anyone can execute it. You can do this by using the  chmod  command: chmod 755 hello.pl Once youve set the permissions, you can then execute the script by simply typing its name. hello.pl If that doesnt work, you might not have your home directory in your current path. As long as you are in the same directory as the script, you can tell the operating system to run the program (in the current directory) like so: ./hello.pl If Perl is installed and running correctly, it should output the phrase Hello World., and then return you to the Windows command prompt. An alternate method of testing your Perl installation is by running the interpreter itself with the  -v  flag: perl -v If the Perl interpreter is working correctly, this should output quite a bit of information, including the current version of Perl you are running.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature Essays

The Norton Anthology of English Literature Essays The Norton Anthology of English Literature Essay The Norton Anthology of English Literature Essay Alexandra Briscoe stated on bbc. co. uk in the Elizabeth’s Spy Network on WWW, that Queen Elizabeth lived under constant threat from Catholics since she was a staunch protestant. Initially William Cecil (later known as Lord Burghley) overlooked the secret intelligence services and protection of the queen. Later Francis Walsingham, one of the most loyal ministers worked as the spymaster and supervised the secret network of spies protecting the queen’s life. Francis Walsingham an intelligent, serious, disciplined, quick-witted, ruthless and qualified lawyer with strong protestant beliefs was appointed as Secretary of State in 1568. â€Å"He was strict and almost a Puritan in his religious beliefs and passionate in protecting the country from Catholic threat. † Spies were posted in various countries to pass on the information about politics and attitudes of Catholic nations towards England. The intelligence reports enabled Walsingham to trace the links of various Catholics in other countries to that in England and annul the plots and conspiracies. Most of the spies recruited were undergraduates from Oxford and Cambridge, they had to undertake long journeys and sometimes even risk their lives to collect strategic information to safeguard the nation and the queen. Intelligence work involved deciphering the information received as code from various sources. The text was written in invisible ink such as lemon juice or milk, which could be read by heating the paper over the candle. Simple messages would be written alongside to the original text to mislead. Another form of passing information was by shuffling the letters or substituting with numbers, symbols and zodiac signs. Once the key was worked out it would transform into some meaningful secret messages. In order to succeed Walsingham had to establish a spy school to train the new recruits. For security reasons Queen Mary of Scotland was moved frequently and closely guarded, which she never knew. It took about 20 years for Walsingham to track down the fact that she was corresponding with a group of catholics led by Anthony Babington. Walsingham provided the minutest details of correspondence that Mary was having with Babington to Queen Elizabeth and finally when Babington wanted Mary to participate in the plot. She was caught red-handed and all others in the plot too were tracked down to be executed publicly in a brutal manner. After trials in the court Mary was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. Mary was executed on February 08, 1587 in the Great Hall at Fotheringhay, due to nervousness the executioner missed aim and took three blows to severe her head with his axe, horrified onlookers stated that her lips continued to move in silent prayer for fifteen minutes. The queen distrusted the puritan leanings of Walsingham but appreciated his actions and had not provided proper funding for his activities. Walsingham died three years later in 1590. Alexandra Briscoe stated on bbc. co. uk in the Poverty in Elizabethan England on WWW, that the main reasons for poverty during Elizabethan era was due to a dramatic rise in population from three million to four million, rise in fertility, fall in death rate and inflation due to debasing of coins by Henry VIII, which was rectified in 1560 by Elizabeth’s government. Queen Elizabeth’s government also introduced various acts to tackle the problem of poverty; in 1563 the first of the many acts categorized the poor into ‘deserving poor’ and ‘undeserving poor. ’ A series of acts were introduced in the parliament in the following years 1563, 1572, 1576, 1597 and 1601. Some acts were very harsh, but were modified according to the prevailing conditions. The poor laws introduced played a crucial role and indicated a â€Å"progression from private charity to welfare state. † The laws guaranteed minimum subsistence to the destitute. The acts of 1597 and 1601 remained well into the nineteenth century which remains as a tribute to the Elizabethan era. In the concluding remarks I would like to state that Virgin Queen Elizabeth I asserted her power in the then male dominated society by executing total control over the people with the help of well managed ministers and advisers. Most important among them was Francis Walsingham, who provided the best security with well knit intelligence network available in those days. As is evident she was a very good orator and could win over the people just by talking out. The various laws introduced in her era were infact the guiding principles for the future generations. Thus Queen Elizabeth I stood apart from the rest of the women in that era. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. The Sixteenth Century Topics (2006). Page retrieved on October 01, 2006 from www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/ElizabethI.html.

Micro12isa Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Micro12isa - Essay Example This shows the boom period in which the minimum wage is increased because of which restaurants owners have to pay more to their waiters as well as it increases the cost of meals and would result in increase in unemployment. The demand and supply curve in the above graph show the impact of the taxes imposed by government on price and quantity demanded. In the above graph the Pe and Qe are the equilibrium price and quantity demanded respectively. Suppose the government imposed tax on any good and the amount of this tax is shared by both producers and the consumers as well. Supply curve shifts from S to S1 because of this tax as the producer desires to sell the good at higher prices in order to decrease the tax’s effect on him and this result in the increase in the price of the good from â€Å"Pe† to â€Å"Pt† as well as decrease in the quantity demanded â€Å"Qe† to â€Å"Qt.† Therefore from the graph we can conclude that if government imposes on any good it would result in decrease in the producer’s revenue, raises prices for consumers, and decreases the quantity of the good available in the market. Now let suppose the government put a tax on this product and also the demand curve is perfectly elastic then the supply curve shifts leftward that is the producer will decrease the supply of product because of which the producer’s surplus decreases and he will have to pay the tax. This we can in the graph given below. Apparently the producers seem to have little costs due to the drug being illegal so the trading does not include any taxation. However the usual cost includes cost of production, transportation, legal actions that may be taken at any step by law enforcing agencies in case of being caught. In case the contrabands are made legal, governments will impose taxation and duties on their trading due to their harmful effects. Such duties will decline the producer surplus and the part of their

SWOT Analysis Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

SWOT Analysis - Case Study Example Prior to the implementation of this strategy, the company had been in financial trouble. The admission of this issue had lead to a decrease in the employee's happiness, and then eventually, this lead to a labor relations issue. Acme, because of its business type, had to employ a wide variety of different workers because of its use of highly skilled technology. Therefore, it had geologists, geophysicists, engineers, (referred to as "the brains")as well as semiskilled labor (referred to as "the brawn") working together to create a functional business. In 1994, these two different levels of employees clashed in a very serious way that also became distressingly public. Engineers at the plant in Wichita locked out union workers and left them outside in the hot Kansas summer. The press got a hold of the story and the media went awry with the issue, and most employees felt that the press went far overboard with its push of the story. However, the bad publicity caused a change of the chief e xecutive, and Bill Daniels was brought in. Daniels displayed talent previously and had experience with teamwork and change. He wound up being a very good selection for the company. Daniels was good with the media, for one, so he was able to deflect some of the bad publicity. Second, he was able to restore the hurting company within his first year by getting rid of unnecessary parts of the business to save money. He was able to change management's tactics and created a shared-services department which focused on total quality management, and Jimenez became in charge of this group. Daniels had wanted Jimenez to improve the moral at the company's five extraction sites, as morale was low all around. Wichita was the only site where things had come to such a head, but the two individuals still felt that all sites needed to be considered in this re-organization project. Jimenez was ready to go; she had an M.B.A. and had also worked with a consulting firm prior to coming to Acme. She had worked at Acme for ten years, and had much experience with the company. She was provided with a team to assist her and she focused on a morale strategy. First, they team focused on Wichita, which had been the company's severe problem area. The plant had other issues other than the "brains" and the "brawn" infighting in the company; the plant was also performing below average, and the former CEO had considered getting rid of the plant altogether. All the change programs the old management had tried had failed, but Jimenez felt that these program's failures were fairly predictable since they had posed unrealistic expectations in the first place. With this in mind, Jimenez was able to fix the labor relations problem. Things were not as smoothly as they could have been, but the plan still worked and things were successful overall. Daniels had bragged about this early suc cess to the stakeholders and ensured that this success could be performed at the other plants. When moving the strategy to Lubbock, Jimenez could have been overconfident. She sent one of her people out there with two other staff in order to implement the strategy. Several problems began to occur after that. In Lubbock, issues that hadn't occurred in Wichita began to occur. The employees seemed reluctant to participate in any of the problem-solving and team-building concepts the company had put

Public and Private Schools Essay Example for Free

Public and Private Schools Essay There are many advantages and disadvantages to both public and private schools. As a parent, both options must be explored and the choice must be based on what is right for each particular child.   Public schools often have a larger variety of subjects available, especially when it comes to electives. However, what is learned is somewhat decided by the state because public schools need to do well on standardized testing. Private schools, on the other hand, whether parochial or private have much more freedom of choice in curriculum and can choose to make their own assessments. Because of the individualized instruction, private schools tend to do generally better on standardized testing, that is, if they choose to use it. Private schools, many times, have more demanding curricula and have a higher rate of students who go on to attend college. Public schools are larger and also have larger class sizes. Public schools also have larger student-teacher ratios. According to a web site called Public School Review, â€Å"Private schools average 13 students per teacher, compared with an average of 16 students per teacher in public schools† (publicschoolreview). However, public schools have certified teachers. Private schools typically have teachers who are not state-certified and who may not have expertise in their subject matter.   The biggest difference between public and private schools probably is that public schools are required to educate all students. They cannot deny any student admission. On the other hand, private schools have complete control about who they accept and can kick students out much more easily.   Public schools are funded by tax revenue whereas private schools are funded privately. That means private schools cost money to attend called tuition. Taxpayers pay for public schools so the payment is included in what people pay. However in private schools, the payment is upfront for students to attend. Overall, there is no one right answer for which kind of school a student attends—public or private. The decision must be made for each individual student as there are advantages and disadvantages of both. Works Cited Public School Review. Public Versus Private Schools. Retrieved Nov. 15, 2007 at Web

The Vietnam War: A Fight for Human Liberty and Freedom Essay -- Vietna

No war that the United States has ever fought has drawn so much heart-rending criticism than the Vietnam War. This war divided the United States as no war since the Civil War ever has. Citizens that favored the participation in Vietnam still argue their point of view with those that opposed the United States involvement in Vietnam. The Vietnam conflict started as civil war in the country of Vietnam, one that lies very far away from the United States in Indochina. Why did Americans sacrifice so many lives and so much money for a country so far away? Why did millions of Americans violently protest involvement in Vietnam? It has been twenty-six years since the last American soldier left Vietnam, and the United States has still not come to peace with the Vietnam experience. Despite the 58,156 American causalities, the 1.5 million dead in North Vietnam, the 924,000 Vietcong killed in the South, the South Vietnamese losses of 183,000 and the 120 billion dollars spent by the US in Vietnam, the United States was justified in its reasons for entering the Vietnam conflict (Edwards 10). Time has not altered the facts of why the United States chose to fight for freedom halfway across the world. Vietnam is a long narrow country in the China Sea that is in the shape of an â€Å"S.† Its total size is that of New Mexico, but it is much more populous with 47 million residents (Fincher 7). Vietnam is a land of thousands of small villages with many rice fields. Three out of every four Vietnamese live on the coast and all the major cities also lie there (Lawson 1). Vietnam has a monsoon climate, which consists of a hot wet season followed by a cooler dryer time. The average summer temperature in the South Vietnam ... ...nd freedom, which is still a just cause today. Works Cited Chomsky, Noam. Rethinking Camelot. Boston: South End Press, 1993. Dinh, Viet. â€Å"How We Won in Vietnam.† Policy Review. Dec. 2000-Jan. 2001. P.104-115. Dunnigan, James and Nofi, Albert. Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War. New York: St. Maetin’s Press. 1999. Edwards, Richard. The Vietnam War. Vero Beach, Florida: Rouke Enterprises, 1986. Fincher, E.B. The Vietnam War. New York: Fraklin Watts, 1980. Herring, George. â€Å"Vietnam, American Foreign Policy, and the History.† Virginia Quarterly Review. Winter 90. p. 1-11. Kaiser, David. American Tragedy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belkwap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000. Lawson, Don. The United States in the Vietnam War. New York: Thomas. Y. Crowell, 1981. Nickelson, Harry. Vietnam. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1981.

The Rise of Punk in 70’s Britain.

hDuring 1970s Britain, life was a picture of austerity and hardship for many members of the public. The country was facing the worst economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s and large numbers of the electorate were quickly beginning to grow tired of the failing policies being touted by both Labour and Conservative minority governments. The experience of Britain for many in the 1970s was one of drawn out decline and decay, the consensus politics of the 1960's was falling apart and Harold Macmillan’s notion of ‘You’ve never had it so good’ couldn’t have been further from the truth.It could be argued that the aforementioned factors played a role of importance when assessing the largely spontaneous emergence of the punk movement into British society. Economic recession, not only in Britain but in other major world nations, was ever increasing, mainly due to the 1973 oil crisis which eventually cost Heath his post as prime minister and p aved the way towards ‘The Rise of Thatcherism’.The crisis was due to the Arab members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), announcing, as a result of the ongoing Yom Kippur War, that they would no longer ship oil to nations that had supported Israel in its conflict with Syria and Egypt. These nations included the United States of America and their allies in the shape of Britain and Japan.British industry suffered a great deal due to the lack of oil being imported into the country, Britain began to face major competition from other major economies, such as Japan and the USA, in certain sectors such as manufacturing, which had previously been a large and consistent area of income. With the flight of capital in the face of increasing working class militancy, it soon became clear that Governments in the industrialised economies could no longer sustain a commitment to full employment.As factories within these newly competitive industries were forc ed to close due to falling sales, it consequently had the effect of rising unemployment. By the mid 1970s unemployment had reached well over a million people and did not show signs of ceasing at any point soon after. The electorate began to resent the emergence of mass unemployment as it had not played any real part within British politics since the years shortly following the end of World War I, a period of British history which the British public would not look back on with any great affection and certainly would not want to revisit.Considerable amounts of workers who had been recently made redundant began supporting trade unions on a more regular and meaningful basis. The unemployed became aggrieved with the failing British economy and felt adamant that they deserved better support and welfare than they were currently receiving due to the government’s current inadequacies. Now that the trade unions had a much greater support, albeit in unfortunate circumstances, they began to put increasing pressure on Heath’s conservative government to pass legislative measures to aid the unemployed in their hour of need.Workers from almost all of the countries key industries such as mining, ship building and car manufacture went on strike to demonstrate their frustrations and vent their anger towards the incompetence of the Tory’ administration. The refusal by either party to make compromises on their respective arguments only furthered the problems and deepened the mire which Britain was steadily descending into.Due to the prolonged strikes by the mining community which started on the 10th February 1974 and lasted until 7th March of the same year, Britain found herself being exceedingly stretched to the point of what resources they had left circa the aforesaid strike action. Electrical power was deemed to be being consumed at too much of a prompt pace and under the rule of Edward Heath, the Conservatives decided on the introduction of the ‘Thre e Day Week’. The Three Day Week was a policy in which commercial users of electricity would be limited to a quota of three specified consecutive days use in a week long period.General members of the public also had to deal with the consequences of the striking populations’ actions. Ministers solemnly urged the populace to share baths and brush their teeth in the dark. Television, which by now was one of the nation's favourite pastimes, was brought to an untimely end at 10. 30pm each evening. Heath had promised â€Å"tomorrow would be better than today†, but he couldn't even keep the lights on. An image synonymous with the mid to late 1970s was that of piles of rotting rubbish collecting on pavements throughout the country.Waste centres were closed and emergency refuse sites were opened in town streets after binmen joined in months of strikes. This only became a further irritant to the British electorate who were becoming increasingly restless waiting for the gov ernment to develop new strategies in order to tackle the ongoing disrepute between themselves and Britain’s workforce. The social and economic problems of Britain, however, could not be solved simply by government legislation. Unrest was caused by much more than Heath’s perceived shortcomings as a Prime Minister. The problems of society ran far deeper than that.A process of fallout from the 1960's had occurred; a sizeable part of the generation born at the end of the late 50's and early 60's were coming into maturity and most were without the guarantee of a job, economic stability and a sense of community. The younger generations within Britain began to feel alienated from their peers and it could also be argued that some may have wished alienation upon themselves to escape from what was fast becoming a dire excuse for a society. The youth of the time were on the lookout for an escape from their lives of conservatism, conformity and control.This accumulated feeling of resentment towards the authoritarian government manifested itself in the form of the Punk movement. From late 1976, kids started to appear on Britain’s streets in attire which shocked the everyday British citizen. Ripped t-shirts with hastily drawn band logos, safety pins, bin liners and spiked hair defined a new image. Since the 1960s any diversity became a wagon to jump on; any music, fashion or ideologies that were incorporated within the ‘free love’ scene were no longer something that the uninspired youth of the ‘70s aspired to be part of.Mods, Rockers and Hippies were all fast becoming sub-cultures that were deemed to be cliched by the nation’s youth. The ‘60s scene had been entirely commercialised by the establishment and had been turned into areas of profit by large record companies. These record labels however also were not putting any interest or faith into anything new in the music industry, they wanted to stick with what had brought them so much profit and it seemed nothing would be able to shift their ‘if its not broken, don’t fix it’ mentality.The establishment of the 1960’s-70’s did not want their youth creating counter-cultures, thus the average youth felt the need to rebel and so the DIY culture exploded. Although punk never reached the forefront in the 60’s, the rebellious ethos of the movement was beginning to show, mainly in American acts and specifically within the New York rock scene. Teenagers influenced by the R;B styled groups of the decades earlier years began to form their own garage bands across the United States. Various trends and events would occur at the inception of the 1970’s that would be helpful in advancing the music ndustry and working towards the growth of punk rock, namely the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison which seemed to have brought the popular music lovers into a state of uncertainty and would now mean music journalists wou ld have to find new acts to write about. In Great Britain, bands and artists such as David Bowie had started to refine their sounds in hope of reviving their careers. The result of this was the so called ‘glam’ movement, which saw artists like T-Rex and Roxy Music beginning to blend pop song structures with harder edged guitar based material.Back in the New York Scene, a trashy streetwise orientated version of glam was starting to surface. A band eager to take to the throne of this was the New York Dolls. The Dolls, and later, The Ramones would serve as somewhat of a prototype, from which later came the Sex Pistols and many other of London’s punk bands such as The Clash, The Jam and Siouxsie and The Banshees. By the mid ‘70s many music lovers had become tiresome towards the industry’s ‘run of the mill’ rock that the public were being force-fed. Members of the public began to see rock and roll acts as nothing more than that acts – artificial, manufactured and uninspiring.The world of rock had become a tightly controlled, moneymaking machine in which record sales and success held precedence over any passion or true emotion. Essentially people yearned for a rock and roll that was innovative and fun again. On December 1st 1976 an infamous event occurred that made sure that anyone who was not aware of the emergence of punk was now fully conscious of its presence. The Sex Pistols appeared on the ‘Today’ show as a last minute replacement. The band was interviewed by Bill Grundy who naively on his part, proceeded to provoke the band to â€Å"say something outrageous†.For Mick Jones in particular, he took this as an open invitation and obliged with a barrage of expletives, which not surprisingly, shocked the early evening audience. The following day the front page of various national newspapers contained pictures of the band on the show and a summary of their antics. The older generation of Britai n, needless to say, were in outrage. This however was exactly the kind of reaction the band had dreamed of. It gained them column inches and further made the public aware of their existence. Whilst in the public spotlight the band released arguably their most famous single, ‘God Save The Queen.The song came at a time when opposition to royalty was still seen as treasonous and frowned upon by the majority of British people. The record was quickly refused airtime by the BBC whose station, Radio 1, dominated the broadcasting of music at the time. Only DJs such as John Peel dared to play punk in succession to other popular music hits of the era. Nevertheless, during the week of Queen Elizabeth II’s silver jubilee, the single ‘officially’ reached number two in the UK charts although many large record stores knew that ‘God Save The Queen’ was outselling Rod Stewart’s â€Å"I Don’t Want To Talk About It† by four to one.Unbelievabl y, the charts had been rigged so the music industry would not be red-faced by such a spectacle. However this did not deter the band from putting out further material. ‘Pretty Vacant’ and ‘Holidays In The Sun’ were released to promote the Sex Pistols’ first and only full length album, ‘Never Mind The Bollocks – Here’s The Sex Pistols’, which was released in November and subsequently went straight to the top of the album charts despite many stores refusing to stock it.After another tour, this time held in secret to avoid bans, The Pistols’ final gig took place at Ivanhoe’s in Huddersfield on Christmas Day 1977 before they took off for the ill-fated U. S. tour in January 1978. They had originally been scheduled to start the tour in December 1977, beginning with a performance on Saturday Night Live, but due to the bands run-ins with the law, were unable to get their passports in time, so Stiff Records’ band , Elvis Costello and the Attractions, went on in their place. The eight show tour of the U. S. was a badly planned and dispiriting experience for all concerned.Sid Vicious, the band’s bassist, was beaten by the bodyguards who were hired to protect him, Johnny Rotten was ill and the bands’ performances were destroyed by awful sound and hostile audiences. On the final date of January 14th at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, Rotten quit, famously asking â€Å"Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? † before walking off. Punk bands continued to play the usual haunts around London, but never again did anyone come close to causing the outrage or having the success which the Sex Pistols had experienced.I went about organising a question and answer session with my father Martin, who was in his teens during the emergence of punk and also followed the movement with great interest. Through summarising the feedback I gained from the aforementioned intervie w I was given a great personal viewpoint on the society of the mid 1970s as well as his own personal experiences of the same period. ‘Through the 1970s the news was all about strikes, economic downturns and lost opportunities.As a teenager I can recall the 3 day week when places of work closed to save energy, my dad would be at home on reduced pay (he worked for the GPO – now BT) and the newspapers would print schedules showing when your area would have power cuts, which were a regular part of life. I remember my dad taking my sister and me for a drive in the car to Falkirk to get out of the house and keep warm rather than sit in the house with no power. TV stations shut down after the news at 10. 30 in the hope that people would just go to bed and save electricity.A mate of mine bought packets of candles from the market in Glasgow and made a decent addition to his pocket money by selling them round the neighbourhood where he lived. Also the entitlement to dole money fo r school leavers had been stopped which meant that you couldn’t sign on and get money straight away, you had to wait for a number of weeks before you’d get a â€Å"Giro†. Unemployment was making the headlines in the papers and for the first time in years people were leaving school believing that they wouldn’t get a job, or at least wouldn’t get one that was worth having as the factories and shipyards which traditionally paid well were closing.I started to become aware, mainly through the pages of the NME, a number of bands from London who were playing music inspired by early Iggy Pop and The Stooges as well as The Ramones. The latter had made front page headlines in The Glasgow Evening Times, which had got itself in a state of moral outrage over the song â€Å"Sniffin’ Glue† arguing that the number of kids dying from glue sniffing could be increased due to the song. Bearing in mind how few copies it sold, it was nonsense.John Peel onc e said of the punk era â€Å"You don’t know you’re bored, until you stop being bored. † I was 17 in 1976 and probably the only band I was currently into was Dr Feelgood. They were a band playing Chuck Berry influenced songs, wearing bad suits! The prevailing music of the time was bland, inconsequential, middle of the road rubbish by Rod Stewart, The Eagles and Queen. I still remember vividly the moment I first actually heard the Sex Pistols in November 1976.My friend Davie had borrowed a copy of ‘Anarchy in the UK’ from his friend in school and we played it in my bedroom. I can remember us both laughing out loud at how different it was and how blown away we were by it. We must have played it 10 times in a row. Looking back, I think we felt like we were part of a â€Å"privileged few† who had heard the song as it was subsequently banned by all radio stations at the time, this is hard to imagine now. The 3rd single released by the Pistols, â₠¬Å"Pretty Vacant†, could only be played on Radio 1 after 10pm.If anything, it only reinforced the Pistols credentials as the band you most wanted to be associated with. We started to see and hear of people dressed as â€Å"punks† around the city, though what constituted the punk look was very difficult to describe. It could be anything from old school jumpers ripped and worn inside out, t-shirts torn or cut and held together with safety pins with band names scrawled on in biro or marker pen or even t-shirts made from bin liners.For girls the look was heavily based on Jordan (Pamela Hook) and Siouxsie Sioux; short skirts, fishnets, and heavy eye make-up. . Glasgow District Council decided to withdraw licences of any venue which had booked punk acts, effectively banning punk in the city. Occasionally you’d hear of a secret gig being played somewhere in Glasgow and you had to meet up to be told where it was. By the Summer of 1977 I’d left school and got a job in an independent record shop and remember the clamour when the first Pistols album came out.People were waiting around in the shop for it to be delivered. Every box that arrived, we’d be asked if that was the album. First one out of the box went onto the sound system at maximum volume and we couldn’t keep up with people shoving to the front of the queue. Eventually the council lifted the ban and loads of bands came to Glasgow, many playing small gigs and doing signing sessions in the shop where I worked, including The Clash who were considered to be the most overtly â€Å"political† band of the era. ’