Romantic comedy in which a man whose girlfriend has recently left him finds new love with the help of an injured duck. Doug (Rhys Darby) is devastated when his girlfriend, Susan (Faye Smith), announces that she has had enough of him and is dumping him. When he stumbles upon an injured duck, his black mood is such that he only just decides to help it. However, caring for the duck brings out another side of Doug - one even he may not have been aware of - and he gradually begins to develop a new perspective on life. Even better, through the duck Doug meets Holly (Sally Hawkins), a vet, and the pair hit it off. But, with the return of Susan to the scene, will their fledgling relationship take off?

It's Christmas Eve and Ebenezer Scrooge is miserable and unhappy - will he ever get into the Christmas spirit? Set in North Wales, Dickens's Festive classic tale explores a living, breathing Victorian community. This adaptation by Alan Harris is a funny immersive family show lled with music and mystery that whisks away the audience to a dream world where anything can happen and ghosts are just around the corner...

Energy security, rising energy prices (oil, gas, electricity), 'peak oil', environmental pollution, nuclear energy, climate change and sustainable living are hot topics across the globe. Meanwhile, abundant and perpetual wind resources offer opportunities, via recent technological developments, to provide part of the solution to address these key issues. The rapid growth of large-scale wind farm installations has now led to the generation of clean electricity for tens of millions of homes around the world. However, despite the potential to reduce the losses and costs associated with transmission and to use local wind acceleration techniques to improve energy yields, the potential for urban wind energy has yet to be realised. Although there is increasing public interest, the uptake of urban wind energy in suitable areas has been slow. This is in part due to a lack of understanding of key issues such as: available wind resources; technology integration; planning processes (include assessment of environmental impacts and public safety due to close proximity to people and property); energy consumption in buildings versus energy production from turbines; economics (including grants, subsidies, maintenance); and the effect of complex urban windscapes on performance. Urban Wind Energy attempts to illuminate these areas, addressing common concerns highlighting pitfalls, offering real world examples and providing a framework to assess viability in energy, environmental and economic terms. It is a comprehensive guide to urban wind energy for architects, engineers, planners, developers, investors, policy-makers, manufacturers and students as well as community organisations and home-owners interested in generating their own clean electricity.

First published in 1976. It can be argued that both moral and religious education are undervalued in schools. The author, Alan Harris, believes that too many people think of them as indoctrinatory subjects with moral educators' telling people what they ought to do and religious educators telling them what they ought to believe. By a combination of practical examples of both good and bad teaching from the classroom and clear, analytical examination of what is meant by moral and religious education, the author shows that the object of both subjects should be to help pupils form their own judgements.

Jim's writing messages. In pepperoni. On top of pizzas. His life is going nowhere. But after watching the film I Hired A Contract Killer, Jim's found a solution - he'll just put out a hit on himself. What could possibly go wrong? Alan Harris's play For The Grace Of You Go I is a darkly funny, quick-witted, fast-moving new comedy. It premiered at Theatr Clwyd, Mold, in June 2021, directed by James Grieve.

First published in 1976. It can be argued that both moral and religious education are undervalued in schools. The author, Alan Harris, believes that too many people think of them as indoctrinatory subjects with moral educators' telling people what they ought to do and religious educators telling them what they ought to believe. By a combination of practical examples of both good and bad teaching from the classroom and clear, analytical examination of what is meant by moral and religious education, the author shows that the object of both subjects should be to help pupils form their own judgements.

The ultimate illustrated field guide to the birds of Argentina and the islands of the South-west Atlantic Argentina is one of South America's premier birding destinations, encompassing a range of habitats-from rainforests and pampas grasslands to the wetlands of the Ibera and the wilderness of Tierra del Fuego. Surprisingly, despite the strong interest in Argentina's rich avian population, the country has until now lacked a credible, modern field guide to its birds. Authoritative and up-to-date, Birds of Argentina and the South-west Atlantic provides detailed species accounts, a plethora of distribution maps, and close to 200 stunning color plates illustrating every species and many distinct plumages and subspecies. This essential book will satisfy researchers, birders, and conservationists alike. The only up-to-date English-language guide to the birds of Argentina and the islands of the South-west Atlantic More than 2,300 images illustrate 1,075 species, including all residents, migrants, and vagrants Close to 200 color plates depict every species and many distinct plumages and subspecies, including 28 endemics and 17 near-endemics Key identification features and plentiful distribution maps

Based on phylogenetic research, this complete study of the genus Sylvia describes two new species and establishes identification criteria for all members of the family. A lengthy introduction explains the background to the research and outlines the main features of the genus. The 25 species are then treated in detail, including the African parisomas, which are here included in the Sylva group. The species accounts include sections on every aspect of identification, with colour illustrations showing age, sex and racial differences, distribution maps, sonograms, moult and wing diagrams and tables."

This book covers difficult identification issues by looking at tricky species pairs or groups of birds, and comparing and contrasting their respective features. Designed as a field companion, it supplements the standard field guides and provides much additional information. As well as detailed texts, the books include extensive illustrations of all relevant ages and plummages of the species concerned.

An offbeat love story about Mr Tutti Frutti, a stuffed owl and the struggle to fit in. This is a boy-meets-girl story. Son of a Polish taxidermist meets daughter of a failing ice-cream salesman at a medical-research facility in Merthyr Tydfil. First date in Tesco and things are going well. But it's difficult to fall in love when your parents need saving from themselves, their weird hobbies and the threat of a prison sentence. Alan Harris's play Love, Lies and Taxidermy was first produced by Paines Plough, Sherman Cymru and Theatr Clwyd in Paines Plough's pop-up theatre, Roundabout, at the 2016 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, before touring.

Soaring majestically on its broad, raised wings, the Common Buzzard is a familiar sight for many people in Eurasia. Recently, this highly adaptable raptor has demonstrated an uncommon ability to reach high densities in western Europe, returning to old haunts to impress, inspire and connect people with nature. This new Poyser monograph brings together a wealth of research on the species' origins, feeding and breeding behaviour, along with information on movement and survival from the authors' own studies. It concludes by examining the conservation conundrums that such a successful predator raises in the modern world.

Take advantage of Sinatra, the Ruby-based web application library and domain-specific language used by Heroku, GitHub, Apple, Engine Yard, and other prominent organizations. With this concise book, you will quickly gain working knowledge of Sinatra and its minimalist approach to building both standalone and modular web applications.

Sinatra serves as a lightweight wrapper around Rack middleware, with syntax that maps closely to functions exposed by HTTP verbs, which makes it ideal for web services and APIs. If you have experience building applications with Ruby, you'll quickly learn language fundamentals and see under-the-hood techniques, with the help of several practical examples. Then you'll get hands-on experience with Sinatra by building your own blog engine.Learn Sinatra's core concepts, and get started by building a simple applicationCreate views, manage sessions, and work with Sinatra route definitionsBecome familiar with the language's internals, and take a closer look at RackUse different subclass methods for building flexible and robust architecturesPut Sinatra to work: build a blog that takes advantage of service hooks provided by the GitHub API

To be a successful ASP.NET 4 developer, you need to know how to apply the vast array of new functionality available in the latest release of the .NET 4 Framework and Visual Studio 2010.

This book will immerse you in a variety of advanced topics, including architecting different application data tiers, memory caching paradigms, data mining, and search engine optimization. Working through step-by-step exercises using P/LINQ, DLR, MEF, MVC, IronPython, Axum, and Ajax, you will learn a variety of approaches to building each of the key application tiers common to all web solutions.

Using a proven technique of illustrating advanced concepts with functional solutions, all topics in the book are modeled on a fully operational content management system (CMS), built from the ground up. This ensures that you'll be introduced to real-world examples that demonstrate the full functionality of the .NET 4 Framework for ASP.NET, and that you'll be able to apply your new skills to any web development situation. What you'll learn How to use the new functionality of Visual Studio 2010 of interest to ASP.NET developer What is new within the .NET4 framework and how it impacts ASP.NET development All about different application tiers using P/LINQ, the Entity Framework, DLR, MEF, MVC, and AJAX When to use advanced caching techniques Memcached and Velocity How to optimize the content that the user sees to reduce server loads and response times How to develop highly scalable & concurrent approaches to data mining using IronPython and the Axium languages Who this book is for

Intermediate and advanced developers alike will find comprehensive information about how Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET 4 framework impact ASP.NET development. Centered around a full CMS implementation, readers will find a vast array of tailored discussions, exercises, and solutions that will enable them to quickly upgrade their skills from previous versions of the .NET framework. Table of Contents Visual Studio 2010 and NET CMS Architecture and Development Parallelization Managed Extensibility Framework and the Dynamic Language Runtime jQuery and Ajax in the Presentation Tier Distributed Caching via Memcached Scripting via IronPython Performance Tuning, Configuration, and Debugging Search Engine Optimization and Accessibility

IronPython represents a unique direction for developers interested in working with dynamic languages within the .NET Framework. Whether you're looking to develop applications from scratch or add functionality and maintainability to an existing application, IronPython opens many doors while providing a highspeed, highperformance language that integrates tightly with other .NET languages.Learn to create applications using the benefits of a dynamically typed language. Discover how to leverage the power of IronPython to improve existing applications. Explore interacting with other .NET languages by invoking the common language runtime. Table of Contents Introduction to IronPython IronPython Syntax Advanced IronPython IronPython Studio Mixing and Mingling with the CLR Advanced Development Data Manipulation Caught in a Web IronPython Recipes