Table of contents for No 478 in Speak Up

One of three self-governing island territories within the British Isles, the Isle of Man is an island of just 221 square miles (572 sq. km) located in the Irish Sea off the northwest coast1 of England. It is home to a sporting competition that really is one of a kind2: the World Tin3 Bath Championships. The event takes place each year in Castletown on the south coast of the island. Castletown was the island’s historic capital until 1869, when a town further up4 the eastern coast called Douglas became the capital. Castletown is named after the medieval Castle Rushen, which has Viking origins. The town has been hosting the World Tin Bath Championships since 1971, when the first event was organised by the Castletown Real Ale5 Drinkers Society. UNSEAWORTHY More…

SPEAK UP IN CLASS On 22 June, Britain celebrates Windrush Day. It marks the anniversary of the arrival of the HMT1 Empire Windrush in 1948. The ship docked2 at Tilbury in Essex on the River Thames, after thirty days at sea, bringing hundreds of people from the Caribbean after the war. It was not the first: the SS3 Ormonde arrived in Liverpool from Jamaica the year before. It certainly was not the last. However, these passengers were symbolic of what became known as the Windrush Generation, the Commonwealth citizens who came to live in Britain between 1948 and 1971. IN SEARCH OF A NEW LIFE At the time, the Caribbean countries were suffering from chronic unemployment, a situation made worse by the effects of a deadly hurricane in 1944. Many residents had…

If you have heard of the London borough1 of Greenwich in south-east London it is probably in the context of its association with the Prime Meridian2, the imaginary line of 0° longitude that runs through the borough, and that separates the Eastern from the Western Hemispheres. The Greenwich Meridian is the basis for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Until 1972, GMT served as the world’s time standard, and it is still used in the UK and in some parts of the world today. NAVIGATION Greenwich is a green and more peaceful contrast to the hubbub3 of central London. It is famous for the Cutty Sark, the 19th-century clipper ship that is grounded4 here as a symbol of the borough’s maritime history. It is this connection to the shipping industry5 that gave…

I was prepared to wait, to soak up1 the magical morning light as our small motorboat traveled up the Rio São Lourenço in the Pantanal, Brazil’s vast wetlands. A tangle2 of lianas, acuri palms and strangler figs3 pressed close along the riverbank. I stared into the forest, scanning for movement, for shadows, for a jaguar. But it was too soon. Patience in the wild is a lesson I have learned over a lifetime of travel. On an African safari, for example, it can take days to spot4 a cheetah5 or a leopard. But in Brazil, we had been out on the river for barely half an hour when the cry went up from Gabriel, the captain: “Jaguar!” And there he was, a magnificent male sunning6 himself in the reeds7. I…

The celebrated Canadian-American novelist Saul Bellow (1915-2005) wrote about the experiences of Jewish immigrants in America, and the ideals and challenges of the modern age. Published in 1964, Herzog immediately topped1 the bestseller lists. The novel recounts five days in the life of protagonist Moses E. Herzog, a cultural history professor in the grip of2 an existential crisis. LETTERS At forty-seven, Herzog believes he has failed as a writer, as an academic and as a father. In a manic state, he travels from New York to the beachside tourist destination Martha’s Vineyard to visit friends, on to Chicago and finally out to a country house in the Berkshires, Massachusetts. Here, he tries to come to terms with3 his feelings in a series of letters. “He had fallen under a spell…

▶ The idiom ‘The last straw’ is a shortened version of the saying ‘It is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back’. It suggests that an accumulation of minor irritants or incidents builds up to a point when one more minor thing provokes a serious response or setback. The idea of an overloaded animal suddenly collapsing is an evocative one, particularly when it is a camel. In fact, the earliest known version of the saying in England, from between 1654 and 1684, actually refers to a horse and a feather. The camel and straw appeared in 1799, when the British Empire was expanding through Africa and India where camels are more common than England. Its first reported use was by The Scots Magazine in the context of taxation; claiming…

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-INTERMEDIATEB1 LOWER INTERMEDIATEB2 UPPER INTERMEDIATEC1 ADVANCEDC2 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: imponente2 to rule: gobernar3 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. Encontrarás la explicación al final del artículo.…

Monopoly is one of the world’s most iconic board games1. Its origins go back to 1903, when an American game designer called Lizzie Magie invented an educational game called The Landlord’s2 Game. Her intention was to illustrate Georgism, based on the economic principles of Henry George. Georgists are anti-monopolists. They believe that people should have equal access to the benefits of land, which is a natural resource. The Landlord’s Game presented two distinct rule sets: one advocated for wealth distribution and another promoted monopolisation. VARIATIONS Between 1906 and the 1930s, many variants of The Landlord’s Game appeared in the US. As big American cities reached for the skies3, the games incorporated elements such as property trading and development. In 1932, Charles Darrow adapted the game, developing his own version, known…

Famed for its muddy1 fields and revellers2 wearing wellies3, Glastonbury Festival in Somerset is a rite of passage4 for many who live for live music. The first edition of the festival was held on 19 September 1970 and attended by 1,500 people, who paid just £1 to enter the festival grounds. Since then, Glastonbury has become the biggest outdoor music and performing arts festival in the world. It has a capacity of 210,000 people, who pay anything from £370 (€448) per person to attend. KING ARTHUR The music festival takes place on the site of a working farm called Worthy Farm. It is programmed every year for four years, with the fifth year a ‘fallow year5’ to allow the land to recover. It is located near Pilton, in an area…

SPEAK UP IN CLASS For thousands of years, dogs have lived side-by-side with humans. In many homes today, they are considered a member of the family. Some dogs dress well and dine on1 expensive organic dog food! We still refer to dogs with the old-fashioned expression ‘man’s best friend’ (although many women love them too) because of the positive characteristics we associate with them: loyalty, protectiveness and affection. However, long before dogs became our loyal companions, their ancestors roamed2 the wilderness in packs3, hunting prey4. Genetic evidence suggests that dogs descended from the grey wolf and that domestication occurred in at least two stages in different parts of the world, beginning in Asia over thirty thousand years ago. EVOLUTION So, how did the wolf evolve into the friendly dog? Experts…

SPEAK UP IN CLASS According to the World Happiness Report, the cheeriest1 country in the world is one nature-loving Nordic nation: Finland. On paper, it’s not hard to see why. It’s one of the world’s least corrupt countries, built on a democracy and quick to give women the vote. Education, from daycare2 to university, is free. Crime is low, the water is clean, the air fresh and there are more saunas than cars. But is it noticeably3 a nice place to be? And can the Finns teach me (and the rest of the UK, which ranks 20th in the Happiness Report) anything about wellbeing in the land of forests and freedom? I start in Helsinki. With a population of just 630,000, this is a pocket-sized, but delightful capital city, buzzing4 with…

It wasn’t that Chris wanted his father to die; but everyone died sometime, and his father was old – and he was sick, too. He had terminal cancer. And based on how he looked today, he didn’t have long left. Chris and his father had met for lunch at a restaurant in Manhattan. In the past, his father would have had a steak1 and a glass of wine, but today he wasn’t even eating the salad he’d ordered. “You don’t look good, Dad,” said Chris, measuredly. “Oh, just the cancer, son… but the doctor says I still have some time left. Time to make things right2.” “Make things right? What do you mean?” His father paused for a moment. “Is the company doing well?” he asked, ignoring Chris’s question. “Very…

SPEAK UP IN CLASS Like most countries, Aotearoa/New Zealand celebrates New Year’s Eve1 on 31 December, following the Gregorian calendar. In fact, due to2 its time zone, the country is one of the first places in the world to welcome the new year. Māori culture has many iwi or tribes, each with its own linguistic and cultural tradition. All celebrate Matariki, Māori New Year, which occurs in June or July in the middle of the Southern Hemisphere’s winter, when temperatures can fall to below 0°C. Each tribe marks Matariki in its own way. In Māori cosmology, a profound spiritual connection exists between the people and the land. Matariki is the Māori name for the mother of a cluster3 of stars known as the Pleiades. Depending on the tribe, each of…

The English Renaissance humanist and statesman1 Thomas More is a controversial figure. Considered one of Britain’s most principled2 statesmen, he is also maligned3 for his brutal treatment of Protestant heretics. A devout Catholic, he refused, as a matter of conscience, to accept King Henry VIII as head of the Church in England, rather than the Pope. He paid for his principles with his life. HUMBLE BEGINNINGS More was born in London on 7 February 1478. The son of a well-connected lawyer, his closest ancestors were a brewer4, a baker5 and a candlestick6 maker. After an elite school and university education, he became a lawyer and entered local government in London, hoping to relieve7 the city’s poverty. In 1505, he married Jane Colt, the daughter of a gentleman-farmer8. The couple had…

Born on 14 November 1948, King Charles III will celebrate his official birthday on 14 June with the King’s Birthday Parade1 . This tradition, also known as Trooping the Colour, dates back to2 the reign of King Charles II, monarch of Great Britain and Ireland from 1660 to 1685. The original idea was to help soldiers familiarise themselves with the regimental flags3 of their regiments. This was because flags were used as means for soldiers to see other members of their troop and assemble4 easily on the battlefield. In 1748, Trooping the Colour was performed to celebrate King George II’s birthday. He chose to schedule the event in the month of June despite his birthday being in November. When George III, the grandson of King George II, became King in…

London’s Victoria and Albert Museum offers unprecedented access to its collections with the opening of V&A East Storehouse1. This new site is part of East Bank, London’s sports and cultural quarter in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford. The new museum provides visitors with an opportunity to explore one of the world’s most significant museum collections in a new way. NEW DESIGN Designed by world-renowned architects Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, the V&A East Storehouse has four levels and covers 16,000sqm, an area larger than thirty basketball courts2. It serves as both a working museum store and a visitor attraction, purpose-built3 to house4 250,000 objects, 350,000 library books, and nearly a thousand archives from the Victoria and Albert Museum’s vast collections. IN FASHION The collection covers five thousand years of…

Hello, I’d like to place an order for some printer ribbons1, please. Good afternoon. Do you have an account with us? Yes, we do. The company name is DropShop Limited. Ah, yes, I’ve found you on the system. Which ones would you like to purchase? The same as usual: the CMYK multipack for the 5350 model. Do you have those in stock? We certainly do2! How many do you need? The minimum order quantity is twenty units. I need around forty. Is there a discount for large orders? Indeed there is! You get 10 per cent off on orders over fifty. I guess I’ll take fifty then! Please charge it to our account. Done! Is there anything else you need? No, that’s all for now. How soon will we get them?…