News Round Up 47
News Round Up
by Patrick O'Connor
STRUGGLING to get a good night's kip?
Then, according to a survey reported in the Daily Express, you should make blue the dominant colour in your bedroom.
News Round Up 46
News Round Up
by Patrick O'Connor
ISN'T it amazing that something that would once be regarded as coming from the imagination of a sci-fi writer can become reality.
The Sun tells us that a BAE Jetstream executive aircraft has travelled 300 miles from Warton in Lancashire to Inverness in Scotland – without a pilot!
The Shard - Travel Article
Original Photo by B J Mullan - 
CC-BY-SA 3.0
The Shard at London Bridge is basically a high-rise building in Southwark, London. It has also been referred to as the Shard of Glass, Shard London Bridge or the London Bridge Tower and it is officially the tallest building in Western Europe. Certainly the most prominent building on the London skyline, the good news is that you can visit the Shard and take the lift to what must be the ultimate spot to get a great view over the capital; it's tall enough to give you a view that takes in the entire city. The bad news is, it isn't free, in fact it is more expensive than the London Eye.
Getting rid of it - Culture Article
In our garden we have several ways to get rid of our garden and general waste. There are two large bins: one is for rubbish which we can’t get rid of ourselves; small bits of cooked food, although we don’t waste much, and the rest is mostly plastic: All that extra packaging which is considered necessary by manufacturers, but which we used to manage without. You know the kind, it takes special tools just to open a packet of biscuits these days. We bought some new tree loppers, and had to use the old loppers to open the packet that the new loppers came in. It was almost as if someone was playing a cruel trick.
There is another bin for green waste. We use that rarely as most things will compost eventually, even what are thought of as toxic weeds; thistles and dandelions, if I can catch them before they seed in they go. It was full this week as we had a tree hit by such strong winds that three branches came off and needed getting rid of.
News Round Up 45
News Round Up
by Patrick O'Connor
A troupe of dancing drummers performing outside a London theatre were stunned when they got a dressing down from – the Queen.
However, reports the Daily Telegraph, it was actually top actress Dame Helen Mirren who was dressed in full stage gear for her role as the monarch in The Audience at the Gielgud Theatre.
Accents - Language Article
When you're learning English, is a British accent or an American accent preferable?
If you are learning English as a second language (ESL) the question of English accents, and whether you should try to take on a British accent or an American accent, becomes an issue. But is it that easy? More often than not the accents English language learners are exposed to is spoken with an American accent from the United States or with a British accent from England, but English isn't split into two accents. British accents vary from city to city, and American accents vary from state to state, so there really is no superior or preferential 'English' accent. And don't forget there are other accents, Canadian accents, Australian accents, Scottish accents, Irish accents, South African accents, and New Zealand accents, all of them have unique sounds and regional accents, and so they need to be considered when learning English.