Table of contents for No 454 in Speak Up

THIS MONTH Celebrated each year on 20 June, World Refugee Day was established in 2001 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Signed by 149 states, the convention was the first to legally define a refugee as: “Someone who is unable1 or unwilling2 to return to their country of origin owing to3 a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.” Today, a refugee can also be someone who is displaced4 because of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis. SEMANTICS OF LEAVING There are an estimated 281 million migrants in the world, of which one hundred million are refugees. ‘Migrants’ is an umbrella term5 referring to people who…

DIALOGUES I’m thinking of doing one of those English immersion stays1. Oh, really? Whereabouts? I’m not sure. Maybe Oxford or Dublin But why? You hardly need it; your English is really good. Yes, but I could be more fluent in conversation. Are you still thinking of working abroad? I am and I need to speak like a native if I want to stand a chance. Well, I’ve heard those immersion stays really work, but they’re pretty costly! But it’s worth it, if I get the job I want. Plus2, I get a holiday out of it! In that case, go for it! OK, I will! I’ll call the agency now to check out the options. NOW LET’S REVIEW THE VOCABULARY! Whereabouts? is another way of asking ‘Where?’. Hardly means ‘almost…

PLACES The sandstone rock formation The Wave in the Coyote Buttes North area of the Utah Arizona border. Other spectacular rock formations in the area include The Second Wave, The Alcove, Top Rock Arch, Melody Arch and the Grotto, Sand Cove, and Fatali’s Boneyard. The Wave in Arizona is one of the world’s oldest geological formations and one of the most photographed landscapes in the United States. Located in the heart of the Colorado Plateau1 near the Arizona-Utah border2, a maximum of just sixty-four people a day are allowed3 to explore this fragile natural marvel4, and only by entering a lottery months in advance. COLOUR AND SHAPE Situated on the slopes of the Coyote Buttes, this sandstone rock5 formation dates back6 to the Jurassic Period, some 150 to 200 million…

PLACES THE PERFECT HEIST One would think that in the age of the internet and surveillance, the days of the massive bank heist were numbered1. Yet as LA-based writer and design blogger Geoff Manaugh reveals in his book A Burglar’s Guide to the City, the very technology designed to protect the urban space can be a godsend2 for criminals. In New York, petty crime3 has declined by nearly 87 per cent as law enforcement uses big data to apprehend4 minor offenders5. However, websites such as Google Earth and Facebook provide means for thieves to check buildings for vulnerabilities or track the movement of staff or residents. In fact, says Manaugh, in our interconnected times you can potentially steal an entire smart city by breaking into6 one safety deposit box. Speak…

The idiom ‘to miss the boat’ dates back to 18th century Britain, when the only way to leave the country was by sea. The saying was used literally and referred to arriving too late to take a scheduled voyage. Over the centuries, the expression has expanded its meaning. Today, one can miss the boat metaphorically, meaning that one fails to take advantage of any good opportunity, whether by an error of judgment, procrastination, or ignorance. Interestingly, the fear of missing the boat or ‘missing out’ (FOMO as it is now known) has long been exploited in commercial enterprises. It refers to the acute state of anxiety one feels about letting an apparent opportunity slip away, leading at times to hasty, even reckless, decisions. It is important to remember that ‘missing…

ARTÍCULOS POR NIVELES Todos nuestros artículos se presentan con un código de color para indicar el nivel de dificultad del inglés empleado de acuerdo con la Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. A2 PRE-INTERMEDIATE B1 LOWER INTERMEDIATE B2 UPPER INTERMEDIATE C1 ADVANCED C2 PROFICIENCY GLOSARIO Encontrarás el vocabulario más relevante de cada artículo indicado con un número en el color correspondiente a su nivel de dificultad y su traducción en el glosario adjunto. A towering1 figure in British history, Queen Victoria was actually a diminutive figure, just one metre fifty GLOSSARY 1 towering: imponente 2 to rule: gobernar 3 to number: ascender, sumar EXPLAINS Los textos subrayados en amarillo indican que la frase requiere de una explicación más extensa, como referencias históricas o culturales, frases hechas, proverbios o argot.…

MUSIC The most frequently played track in radio history, Every Breath You Take is a twisted1 love song by English rock band The Police. The best-selling single of 1983, it spent eight weeks at the top of the US charts2, and featured3 on the band’s final album “Synchronicity”. It was written by Sting4 (whose real name is Gordon Sumner) during a messy5 divorce from his first wife, Frances Tomelty. The musician was on a break in Jamaica and staying at GoldenEye, the villa once owned by James Bond creator Ian Fleming. As he told The Independent “I woke up in the middle of the night with that line6 in my head, and sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour”. Guitarist Andy Summers added the…

PLACES AN OASIS OF CALM Legend has it1 that in the 6th century, two centuries after the Roman occupiers had left the country to defend their homeland, Pope2 Gregory the Great was walking in the now-peaceful marketplace in Rome. There he saw some fair-skinned3, blueeyed children that had been enslaved4. He asked where they were from, and was told that they were “Angles”. He responded with a pun5: “Well! They look like angels!” he said. The Pope then learned that Christianity had not spread6 through pagan Britain. So he made it his goal to bring Roman Catholicism to the country. ENTER ST. AUGUSTINE The Pope sent a monk called Augustine to England. Augustine landed7 in the southeast, in Kent: the nearest place to the rest of the continent. Luckily, the…

PLACES Despite1 our woke times, we still have a Eurocentric view of historical happenings2. When we think about North American history, for example, we think of 16th-century English and French colonists arriving on the northeast coast, and Spanish colonists in the south. Of course, American history began long before that, and it unfolded3 across the entire continent. The southwestern state of Arizona became part of the US in 1912. It is, however, one of the longest continually-inhabited4 places in North America, with a history stretching back5 thousands of years. A NATIVE PAST Native American civilizations have lived in Arizona for over ten thousand years. According to historical records, they had their first contact with Europeans in 1539, via a Spanish expedition led by French missionary Marcos de Niza. By then,…

PEOPLE CAMILLA WAS CERTAINLY NOT ON ANY LIST OF ELIGIBLE SPOUSES as Charles searched excruciatingly publicly for a bride. Presumably tired of waiting, she went off and married Andrew Parker-Bowles. Many kings have had mistresses1 — not a few bequeathed2 illegitimate children, too — but very few have married and so made them queen. King Charles III’s wife, Camilla, is therefore3 treading4 new and potentially sensitive ground as his Queen, as she is well aware5. But social attitudes have changed considerably in the twenty-five years or so since she emerged from behind the shadow of Diana, Princess of Wales, as what the latter described as “the third person” in her marriage during her 1995 Panorama interview. Had royal attitudes evolved earlier fifty years ago, when Charles first courted6 her,…

PEOPLE Activist Angela Davis, Professor Emerita of the University of California-Los Angeles, has dedicated her life to the struggle1 for human rights. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama, a segregated black neighbourhood, and from her earliest years witnessed2 racist violence both from the Ku Klux Klan and the police. In the 1960s she joined3 the revolutionary Black Panther Party and was later implicated in a fatal shooting4. After appearing on the FBI’s top ten most wanted list, she went on the run5. Eventually6 found guilty of conspiracy, she spent a year in prison before being acquitted7 in 1972 after an international campaign for her release8. Over the decades, Angela Davis has been tireless9 in using her writing, teaching and leadership to stand up for the rights of black people, but…

CULTURE All school children in the UK have to do PE or ‘physical education’ until they are sixteen. The sports you can play at school vary as each school offers different activities. The most popular school sport is football, which is played by girls and boys. Pupils1 play other traditional team games too, including rugby, field hockey2, netball and rounders, or do individual physical activities like athletics or gymnastics. Today, some schools offer more modern sports and physical activities such as dance, fitness training, dodgeball3 or Ultimate Frisbee. TRADITIONAL OR NEW Here are some traditional and new team sports played at school that you might4 not know: Netball: this competitive sport is played between two teams. There are seven players on each team and you score5 goals by throwing the…

TOP BRITS A towering1 figure in British history, Queen Victoria was actually a diminutive figure, just one metre fifty in height. By the end of her sixty-three year reign, she ruled2 not only the world’s most important economic power at that time, but also an enormous empire that covered 25 per cent of the globe and numbered3 four hundred million subjects4. A NEW CONFIDENT AGE Victoria, her husband Albert, Prince Consort, and their nine children came to represent a new, confident age. She created an innovative role for the royal family, reconnecting it with the public through civic duties5. The idol of her people, she restored6 dignity and popularity to a tarnished7 crown through honesty and a sense of duty. She set the standard8 for Britain’s modern monarchy. UNHAPPY CHILDHOOD…

BOOKS Harry Hole, Oslo’s greatest detective, is back. The fictional anti-hero created by Norwegian author Jo Nesbø appears once again in Killing Moon (Eclipse in Spanish), the 13th instalment1 of the best-selling series of crime novels. The first Harry Hole book was published in 1997 and, since then, over fifty-five million copies have been sold worldwide, translated into fifty languages. Harry Hole is a complex character: a rule breaker2 with a strong sense of justice, who exasperates his superiors and inspires loyalty from his team. Throughout3 the series, he struggles4 with alcoholism, authority and his complicated relationship with single mother Rakel. KILLING MOON Killing Moon picks up5 Harry’s story in Los Angeles. He is not in a good place. Everyone he has ever loved has left him and he has…

CULTURE English is now understood by almost a quarter of the world’s population, so it’s hard to believe that there was a point six hundred years ago where it almost died out altogether1. In 1066, William of Normandy invaded from northern France, took the English throne and there were then French-speaking kings on the English throne for almost three hundred years. LATIN AND FRENCH During this period, Latin and French became the languages of power, of government and of literature in England. English was spoken only by the peasants2, and hardly3 written down at all. Then, in the second half of the 14th century, when it was almost too late, English began to revive. There were many factors and individuals involved in this revival, but one writer in particular was…

PLACES BEYOND THE SPAGHETTI WESTERN Tucson is the largest city in Arizona, a southwestern US state with dramatic1 desert landscapes that are the location for countless2 Westerns. The hugely popular film genre has contributed to what historians call the ‘imagined West’, an American nostalgia for a premodern lost world, where life was supposedly primitive but also somehow authentic. In fact, as Jaynie Adams, History Engagement3 Coordinator for the Arizona Historical Society explains, the truth about Arizona’s past is a lot more interesting than its fictional history. Born in Tucson, Adams still lives in her home city, where she conducts critical research on race, place and belonging4 in the American Southwest. To find out more, Speak Up contacted Adams. We began by asking her about her evolved approach to history. Jaynie…

PLACES In the mid-19th century1, a criminal gang2 led by George Leonidas Leslie went on a crime spree3, robbing around 80 per cent of all of the banks in the US. They included the Manhattan Savings Institution, from which $3 million were stolen in 1878. Leslie was, in fact, a trained architect4 who applied his professional status and skills to his clandestine criminal career. He would ask for floor plan5 blueprints6 from bank owners, pretending to be using them for work, and experiment on small replicas of frequently-used safes7 and vaults8 at home. He was never caught, but was eventually murdered by a member of his gang. INGENIOUS ROBBERIES Leslie is one of the colourful criminals who inspired Geoff Manaugh, a Los Angeles-based design blogger and a big fan of…

ENTERTAINMENT Candy Montgomery was a mother from Texas who appeared to be living the American Dream. Then, on Friday 13th June in 1980 she violently murdered her best friend from church, Betty Gore, delivering1 forty-one blows2 with an axe3. This is the true story behind the new HBO true crime miniseries Love & Death, starring Elizabeth Olsen as Candy and Jesse Plemons as Allan Gore, Betty’s husband. LOVE & BOREDOM A stay-at-home4 mother of two from the suburbs5, Candy had an apparently stable marriage and a happy life. However, out of boredom6, she was driven7 to seek a love affair, and she chose Allan, her best friend’s husband, as her partner. They agreed to keep it exclusively sexual, meeting in cheap motels and never letting romantic feelings get in the…

FICTION A SHORT STORY When I was a student, I had a summer job as a home help for the elderly1. It was nothing medical; I just provided a bit of cheerful2 conversation to keep them company. They loved to talk and I learned a lot of local history. Sometimes I made notes. It was my dream to write a novel one day, and I thought that all these anecdotes might provide useful material. I heard the best stories from Mrs. B. The widow of a magistrate, she had done a lot of charitable work. In fact, she was considered a local celebrity and I was quite nervous the first time I walked up the drive3 of her large old house. Her son, Hector, opened the door. Tall and balding4,…