Back to Life: A Dark Comedy with a Soul

Miri Matteson sits staring at the bored expression of her parole officer Janice as she starts reading from a form: “if you are feeling depressed or have a crippling feeling of deep hopelessness …” Janice then pauses for a moment to flip the page, continuing, “…it’s normal.” Miri, with her bare face, gives a wan smile and then nods. Back to Life starts with 30-something Miri returning to her hometown after serving 18 years in prison. But this series, like many others, never shows parades of flashbacks, as it focuses on Miri getting a second chance in starting her life from scratch over again-if she will ultimately achieve to do so bearing the societal interferences. 

Back to Life is an ace comedy-drama that weaves relatable jokes on naturally woven, delicate relationships, family, and jobs into a plot that is multilayered ad well-written. It premiered on BBC One on 15 April, 2019. The series will be launched in the US on 10 November 2019, on Showtime.

Back to Life Cast: Who is in it?

Back to life consists of a cast of intriguing and offbeat characters, all living with secrets and vulnerabilities of their own. Daisy Haggard, who has also co-written the series, stars as the protagonist, Miri Matteson, an ex-convict who returns to her childhood home, the place of the crime. She attempts to forge her adult life anew with an optimistic approach despite receiving hostility from her community and continually getting reminded of her past through her surroundings. Geraldine James, known for enacting Mrs. Hudson in the Sherlock Holmes movies, plays the role of Caroline Matteson, Miri’s sexually frustrated mother. She appears to be brittle and uptight, who cares about the perception of the community more so than the well-being of her own daughter. Her anger and frustration often lead to her acting out in many self-destructive ways. Richard Durden, known from the TV show, Silent Witness, plays Miri’s reserved father, Oscar Matteson. He, like most constricted British men of his generation, finds Miri’s arrival as unsettling. He seems more concerned about recycling and saving the environment than saving his own marriage. 

Jo Martin, known from The Long Song, appears as Janice, Miri’s over-sharing parole officer with no verbal filter. A distressed bureaucrat, she stamps over all of Miri’s pleadings even when she reaches out for help. Christine Bottomley plays the role of ex-best friend Mandy, who was close to the victim. Her close relationship can help explain the reason why she never contacted or visited Miri in prison. She is one of the people who seek out to re-establish her connection with Miri upon her coming back home, but Miri feels undeniably hesitant to give it another chance. Jamie Michie, known from his character Steelshanks in Game of Thrones, plays Dom, Miri’s first love. Adeel Akhtar plays her next-door neighbor Billy, with whom she forms a friendship. Liam Williams appears in the role of the chip shop owner, Nathan. 

Back to Life Plot: What is it about?

Written by Daisy Haggard and Laura Solon, Back to Life tells the story of a woman’s struggle to reintegrate back into her community in Hythe, Kent, following an 18-year stint in prison being charged with the murder of her best friend. It follows the story from there on as to how she rebuilds her life after committing a crime so severe that she had to serve a sentence for nearly two decades, depleting most of her teen and adulthood. 

The first episode starts with Miri trying to mend the fences within her home, looking for a job and reconnecting with her childhood love, Dom. The gravity of her crime gets revealed quite early to the viewers, evidenced by the hostility with which the people of her hometown greet her, the abusive graffiti painted on the wall of her parent’s garden, and her job applications getting rejected with insults and offensive language (“You can clean offices in hell, you sick bitch”) being hurled at her. 

There is also a mystery surrounding the event of that fateful night that gets further complicated by the appearance of a strange Scandinavian man. He informs of apparently opening the case and starting with a reinvestigation. The viewers get convinced of a further truth that is getting masked with the playing out of her mother’s affair with a man in Hythe. In the midst of all this, Miri befriends her next-door neighbor Billy (Adeel Akhtar), who is taking care of his mentally ill aunt. The approaching presence of Mandy (Christine Bottomley), her ex best-friend, makes her uneasy and claustrophobic as it reminds her of the night the murder was committed. 

And then there are the magnificent visits from Miri’s self-interested probation officer Janice (Jo Martin), who does pay heed to any of the concerns and distresses of her client, but instead pays more attention to the refreshments provided (“Your biscuit game is strong!”). Season 1 ends with Miri agreeing to meet the mysterious Scandinavian man to further know about the truth behind her crime. Determined to move on, she decides to take the matters in her own hands and confronts everyone at a community meeting. The meeting gets disrupted due to her confrontation with many secrets and lies coming to light, ending the series in a cliffhanger.

Back to Life Season 2: When will it premiere?

Back to Life Season 1 consisted of six episodes that were released as a boxset on BBC iPlayer on 15 April 2019. It aired on BBC One from 15th to 20th April 2019. Each of the episodes had a running time of 23 to 25 minutes. When asked with the possibility of Season 2, Haggard responded that she would love to do a second season as they “know where to go with the story,” but nothing has been confirmed as of yet. 

Back to Life Season 1 trailer

While the production team informs the viewers of the show being renewed for a second season, you can watch the season 1 on BBC iPlayer’s official website page. Here is the trailer:

Paul Dano joins as The Riddler and there will be blood

The Batman faces another new villain.

Just a few days ago, the news of Zoe Kravitz joining the cast as Catwoman was confirmed, and now another villain joins in the mix. It is learned that Paul Dano has been confirmed to play The Riddler in director Matt Reeves' upcoming The Batman Movie.

The Little Miss Sunshine and There Will Be Blood actor will be facing against Robert Pattinson playing Batman, in this very noirish take on the DC story. Dano was cast after Jonah Hill failed to agree on a deal with Warner Bros. Hill was in talks to be either playing The Penguin or The Riddler, and it was still in negotiations as to which role he was going to portray. There is still no clear reasons found behind Hill passing up the role, leading to the production house going on a different approach to replace him.

Dano's acting debut started from 2000 release The Newcomers. He has played significant roles in films such as There Will Be Blood, Looper and 12 Years a Slave. In The Batman, he will star as Edward Nashton/Nygma, aka The Riddler. This will be the very first major comic book role for Dano, who has typically worked with prestigious art-house material films. He is characteristically different from Jim Carrey, who played the role against Tommy Lee Jones's Batman in Joel Schumacher's 1995 adaptation Batman Forever. It will be fascinating to see him translating this role on the screen, which is purportedly going to be a serious and dark tale following from the Christopher Nolan glory days.

The Riddler made his debut in the Detective Comics #140 in October 1948 issue and has been a staple perpetrator in the Rogue Villains Gallery of Batman ever since. The film will depict the tale of Edward Nashton before he took on the villainous persona as the Riddler.

"What's exciting about Batman is how it relates to now and also how personal it can be," Reeves said this earlier this year. The character is envisioned to be a far cry from the bright green catsuit-wearing portrayal of Carrey. Anticipations are that Reeves will be taking a more grounded and factual approach with the character and the film, more so like Nolan's films that were opposed diametrically from the brightly-colored, splashy camp of Joel Schumacher's creation.

The cast also comprises of Jefferey Wright as Commissioner Gordon. Gary Oldman enacted the role in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy.

Warner Bros. has announced to release The Batman in theatres on June 25, 2021.

The Importance of Vo2 Max and What Does Yours Really Mean

It is a common physiological reaction for the human body to breathe harder, after running fast for a certain distance. The more you run, the harder and heavier your breathing gets. You can experience physical strain draining your body down after sustaining a reckless running speed for quite an amount of time. The sports scientists have conceived a special term for this consecutive series of physiological reactions: namely Vo2 Max.

What is Vo2 Max?

Vo2 Max can be defined as the maximum rate in which an athlete’s body can consume volumes of oxygen while performing specific activities. It’s measurement unit is milliliters per kilogram of body weight per minute (ml/kg/min).

Measurement of Vo2 Max while running:

For runners, this mechanism is determined using a procedure called incremental exercise test. In this, the athlete is asked to breathe into a tube, for collecting and then measuring the gases exhaled while he/she runs on treadmill. The belt speed of the treadmill keeps increasing gradually till the point the athlete reaches the level of exhaustion. The maximum rate of the oxygen consumption determined in the test is then recorded to be current Vo2 max of the athlete.

What are the benefits of having high Vo2 Max?

Having a high Vo2 Max is considered important as it is closely connected to the distance running of an athlete. Various research studies have concluded that Vo2 Max contributes to about 70 per cent of the fluctuations in performances among the individual runners. Henceforth, your ability to run a distance of 5k faster than me is affected by the fact that your Vo2 Max is in evidently higher than mine. It is directly higher by the amount that entails to that difference of one minute in time.

Factors affecting Vo2 Max

There are mainly two factors that can decrease or increase Vo2 Max. Those are:

1. A strong support system for the oxygen flow
2. Speed

A strong transport or support system for oxygen flow comprises of blood packed with hemoglobin, a healthy heart, high muscular capillary density, muscle cells with high level of mitochondrial density and a high volume of blood inflow.

The other one is speed or rather the full capacity of compressing a high amount of muscle fibers harmoniously. This is vital because the more the muscle tissues are worked upon, the more oxygen is demanded by those muscles at any given moment.

Both of these factors are largely affected not only by the genetic makeup but also by training. The training that is regarded to quite effectively increase the Vo2 Max is that of an intensity level, meaning it gets you breathing as harder and heavier as it can get. There are various interval workout formats through which you can increase your Vo2 Max levels. Those specifically are:

1. 60/60 and 30/30 Intervals
2. Hills Intervals
3. Lactate Intervals

30/30 and 60/60 Intervals

A good way to introduce VO2max training into your program is with 30/30 and 60/60 intervals. Created by French exercise physiologist Veronique Billat, these workouts are effective fitness builders that are well tolerated by runners at a modest fitness level.

Start with 30/30 intervals. After warming up with at least 10 minutes of easy jogging, run 30 seconds hard, at the fastest pace you could hold for about six minutes in a race. Then slow to an easy jog for 30 seconds. Continue alternating fast and slow 30-second segments until you have completed at least 12 and as many as 20 of each.

Increase the number of 30/30 intervals you complete each time you do this workout, and then switch to 60/60 intervals. Start with at least six of these and build up to as many as 10.

Hill Intervals

Shorter hill intervals of 20 to 90 seconds are great for developing power, strength and speed. Slightly longer intervals of two to three minutes are great for VO2max development. To do a hill intervals workout, warm up with at least 10 minutes of easy jogging. Then run hard uphill for two to three minutes (choose your duration before you start), jog back down to your starting point and repeat.

If your fitness level is modest, start with a set of 4 x 2:00 or 3 x 3:00. Very fit runners can do as much as 10 x 2:00 or 7 x 3:00. Pace yourself so that you neither slow down through the workout due to early fatigue nor finish the workout feeling you could do more.

Lactate Intervals

Lactate intervals are the toughest kind of VO2max training. Make sure you build up a fairly high level of fitness with 30/30, 60/60 and hill intervals before you move on to lactate intervals.

It is best to do this type of workout on the track. Warm up with at least 10 minutes of easy jogging and then run hard for 800 (two laps on a full-size running track) to 1200 meters (three laps on a full-size running track) around the track. Now reduce your pace to an easy jog for 400 meters.

Run shorter intervals (800m) in your first lactate intervals workout of a given training cycle and then move upward. Do a total of about 5000m of fast running in these workouts (6-7 x 800m, 5 x 1000m, 4 x 1200m). Again, try to run the fastest pace that you can sustain through the last interval without slowing down.

It cannot be denied: VO2max training is hard. That's why most runners do very little of it. But you're not like most runners, are you? Take advantage of your superior mental toughness and make a commitment to VO2max training. You will find the rewards to be well worth a little heavy breathing.

Vo2 Max in Non Athletes and Athletes

Vo2 Max differs invariably between non athletes and even between the elite ones playing the same sport. Let’s take a look at the table below that lists the normative data of Vo2 Max among the various age groups:

Heredity and Genetics can account for about 25-50% of the deviations show here. The highest level of Vo2 Max in men and women ever recorded is 94 ml/kg/min and 77 ml/kg/min. Both of them were famous skiers (16).  

Cashless Economy for Millennials: What does it look like?

Up until this campaign of going cashless, India was an extremely cash-centric economy. Cash accounted for most of the transactions, vendors were not equipped with card readers or means of accepting cash electronically, more than ninety percent of the workers in the economy are paid in cash, more than half of the population did not even own bank accounts. Even Uber accepted cash in India, the only economy in the whole world, where this particular option was enabled. The “Cash on Delivery” option was regarded as the preferred choice of more than seventy percent of online shoppers.

Through the turn of events, the government turned off these mediums that ran this cash economy with the hope that more and more people of India would become familiar with using the trackable and taxable digital payment mediums, like e-wallets and credit cards. This demonetization scheme was something that was planned in secret, in the backroom of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home. Whether the fact that India is ready or not for this step is something that will invite a sumptuous amount of opinions.

If we take a survey, among the millennials on how the cashless scheme will reflect upon an economy like India, we will come across some positive feedback. Back in time in 2012, Visa released a survey report. It was entitled “Connecting with the Millennials”. In the report, it was found that the majority of these people believed in the future of a cashless economy. Every eight among the ten voiced their wishes of a someday in the future when they will be able to pay all of their bills online. 70% stated doing this process through mobile phones.

The reservations regarding this big cashless move in India is gradually fading from the demography of the millennials. Opening of new bank accounts has been going on at a heightened rate, the option of cash on delivery has been crashing down at the e-commerce sites, and sectors focused on the digital financing such as the online grocery business has entered into a booming phase. The era of the cashless economy has put the various digitally-focused sectors in the limelight, and the millennials are getting the best use out of them to make their complex and competitive lives easier. Some of the most commonly used digital mediums are Mobile Banking, internet banking, Freecharge, Google Wallet, PayPal, etc. To use these, all you need is a smartphone with internet connectivity, and with just a click of a button, you will be able to transact money for various uses. Vodafone M-Pesa and Airtel Money are some other digital transactions means that act as a mobile wallet. One does not need any internet connectivity or smartphone, to use them. Through these channels, anyone can sell or purchase anything and can do that using any phone they have. One does not essentially need a smartphone to use these channels. All one needs is to top up their wallets, like one does their phone recharges and they are all set to go.

“Even the vegetable vendors on the streets have opened up Paytm accounts and they have a machine outside their shop where someone can scan the bar code and make the payment,” a college student explained.

A 27-year-old working professional in the IT sector, when posed with the question of the prospects of the cashless scheme in an economy like India, replied, “A lot more retail outlets are accepting e-wallets, including my laundry provider and my dabbawala. This is revolutionary, and survival of the fittest.”

When everyone in the country has been abuzz with the Modi’s demonetization announcement, the millennials have found ways to cope with the situation using the various e-payment providers. Usage channels such as Paytm increased, that the CEO of this company reported a surge of three times among the new users. Since the announcement of the demonetization program, a spike has been noticed both in the merchant registrations and app downloads. This spike has been noticeable among all of the cities, towns, big or small, not only within the big merchants but also among the small merchants like shopkeepers, street vendors, vegetable vendors, taxi and rickshaw drivers, and largely across the college students, working professionals in the public and private sectors, etc.

The recent move of the government cannot make the economy a perfectly cashless one, as this needs to be supported by well built, detailed & improved infrastructure, especially the internet banking services. The biggest advantage that the masses of a cashless economy can bank upon is to not get anxious about carrying the wallet or safeguarding huge amounts of cash or getting change for small purchases. All they need to do is click a button or swipe and they are good to go.