I’m still alive and kickin’! I am getting married next month (my gown has frou-frou tulle skirt, naturally). After the wedding I hope to be returning to the rhythm of normal life, and back to ballet class.
In the meantime, here’s a fascinating profile of the Freed of London makers. If you aren’t familiar with pointe shoes, they are rather expensive items ($30-$100 a pop), and professional dancers can go through a pair or two a day (I remember reading somewhere that the NYC ballet spends a half million on shoes every year). Freeds are all handmade in London, and there are less than 50 makers. Each maker has an specialized mark that goes on each shoe (my favorite mark is the Maltese Cross!), and each maker his his own unique style. Very interesting stuff.
wandering apricot 
This is all wrong. The U.K. doesn’t report murders as they happen, but when they solve them. So there are tons of dead people not accounted for. Also, a violent assault death isn’t considered a murder there, but in the U.S. it is. Add to that a self defense killing is also not a murder in the U.K., then we get some more. If you take the real numbers then the U.K. murder rate is 8.5 per 100,000 or about 177% of the US murder rate. Don’t base U.K.’s murder rate off the Home Office, go from the real numbers in the deaths register. Click http://link.mx/hool081945