Table of contents for No 479 in Speak Up

Flying can be a stressful experience. Passengers have to navigate1 airports, wait in queues and then sit in uncomfortable, narrow2 seats on a full plane, often for many hours. What’s more, every year hundreds of people add to the stress by behaving3 badly. This can be more than just flying nerves. Some people board the plane drunk, have loud or violent arguments4, or even physically fight with staff or other passengers. There have even been cases when the plane has been forced to make an unscheduled5 stop and the passenger(s) removed, at considerable cost. Here are just a few of the many bizarre incidents reported in recent years. SONG ON REPEAT We all know that feeling when we can’t stop replaying a song in our heads. However, sometimes it becomes…

British artist Jenny Saville paints bodies too big, too flabby1, too flawed2, too scarred3 or simply out of sync4 with real-world perceptions of what beauty is. While her subjects are usually women, men and other identities are implicated as Saville challenges gender and genre norms. This summer a major retrospective of her work is held at the National Portrait Gallery in London. YOUNG BRITISH ARTIST Born in 1970 in Cambridge, England, Saville attended the Glasgow School of Art from 1988 to 1992, spending a term5 at the University of Cincinnati in the US. Her studies focused her interest on corporeal imperfections, with all of its societal implications and taboos. Saville rose to fame6 as a member of the Young British Artists (YBAs), the loose7 group of painters and sculptors who…

Chris Ware is an influential American cartoonist1 known for his innovative approach to comics and graphic novels. Born in 1967 in Omaha, Nebraska and a long-time resident of Chicago, Illinois, he has received numerous awards and his work has been exhibited in major art institutions. Ware’s style is unique and his stories introspective and emotional. Among the themes of his comic books are social isolation, racism, consumerism and the bitter-sweet2 intricacies3 of everyday existence. THE NEW YORKER Ware is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied painting and printmaking4. His early work appeared in The Daily Texan, after which he began experimenting with comic forms. Since 1994, Ware has contributed to his own comic book series Acme Novelty Library and produced award-winning graphic novels, including Jimmy…

I hate hospitals with their stink1 of disinfectant and sick people. I’d try to sleep, but they make these plastic chairs so uncomfortable. The nurse told me to wait here, but I’ll go home soon. I can’t do anything for Ilga. I’m starving. I’ve had nothing to eat since that packet of crisps2 in the pub. Lucky I’d taken Jayden to his mum’s. She complained, of course, as she always does. “It’s your weekend, Ian! You’ll never change.” Well it was a piece of luck3, actually, because he’s best off4 there. Though I can’t call him. My phone was destroyed. I can see the sandwiches in the vending machine from here. I gave it a shove5 earlier, and this old guy sitting nearby gave me a dirty look6. I told…

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: 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…

You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” It’s been fifty years since audiences first heard this famous line in the film Jaws1, one of the most iconic quotes in the history of cinema. Released2 in 1975, Jaws went on to become a cultural phenomenon, and the line would become a popular American catchphrase3, used when someone is faced with a situation that is much more challenging4 or complex than they initially anticipated. MALFUNCTIONING SHARKS Directed by Steven Spielberg, Jaws is based on a novel by Peter Benchley and stars5 Martin Brody as a police chief, Richard Dreyfuss as a marine biologist, and Robert Shaw as a professional shark hunter. Together, the three men hunt a man-eating great white shark that has been attacking people at a beach community on the fictional…

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost’s ascension to the papacy marks an extraordinary moment for American leadership on the world stage at a time when President Donald Trump has transformed the country’s reputation abroad and fuelled distrust1 among longtime allies But while two Americans now sit in positions of enormous global influence, Pope Leo XIV may offer the world a different view of US values from Trump’s America First approach, which he has executed through stiff tariffs, imperialist musings and vast cuts to foreign aid. When he was introduced to the world, the new pope — who speaks five languages and is a naturalized2 citizen of Peru — emphasized his pluralistic background, making a point of3 speaking in Italian (representing his new constituency4) and Spanish (his old one.) He spoke no English…

One person can change the world. Dr. Jane Goodall is living proof of that, and she now dedicates her life to conveying1 this message. A world-renowned ethologist and conservationist, Dr. Goodall has forever changed our understanding of animals through her revolutionary studies of chimpanzees. This summer, sixty-five years after she began her studies in Tanzania, Africa, an immersive project called Dr. Jane’s Dream is opening there in her honour. TANZANIA Born in London in 1934, Dr. Goodall loved animals from a young age. At twenty-six, she arrived at the Gombe forest reserve in Tanzania to begin her work for Kenyan anthropologist Louis Leakey. There, she spent the next thirty years studying chimpanzees in their natural environment. She observed them making and using tools2, hunting and eating meat, and engaging in…

Waiting for Godot is a play1 by Irish author Samuel Beckett, written in the late 1940s2 and first performed in 1953. The work is a tragicomedy in the absurdist genre. It explores the human condition, the search for meaning in life, the cyclical nature of time, and the futility of existence. WAITING Performed in two acts, Beckett’s first professionally-produced play is about two apparently homeless men, Vladimir and Estragon, who wait by a tree in a deserted location for a mysterious man named Godot. But who or what is Godot, and why are the men waiting for him? “VLADIMIR: Let’s wait and see what he says.ESTRAGON: Who?VLADIMIR: Godot.ESTRAGON: Good idea. […] What exactly did we ask him for?[…]VLADIMIR: Oh. . . nothing very definite.ESTRAGON: A kind of prayer.VLADIMIR: Precisely.ESTRAGON: A…

Hi Joe. We always meet in the kitchen! Yes, we do! Can I make you a cup of tea? That’d be lovely. So, I hear you’ll be leaving us soon. That’s right. I’m finally retiring1 at the end of this month. Wow, it’s the end of an era. How long have you worked here? Thirty years, if you can imagine that. No, I can’t! But you can’t be sixty-seven already? No, I’m not, but I’m eligible for early retirement. Will you still get your full pension? No, I’ll get three quarters, but it’s enough to get by, when I add my savings. What about social security benefits? Oh, for those I do have to wait till I’m sixty-seven. Oh, what a shame. And what will you do with all that…

It resembles1 tennis and ping-pong, but pickleball is its own unique sport. Since it was invented in the US in 1965, it has been becoming more popular, and has exploded in popularity in the last five years. THE RULES OF THE GAME Pickleball can be played with two or four players, in a singles or doubles format. Each player uses a paddle2 to hit a perforated plastic ball over a 34-inch-high net [86,36cm]. Only the serving player, or team of two players, can get a point, when the receiving player or team doesn’t return the ball or commits an infraction. Typically, a game is played to eleven points and a player or team needs to win by at least3 two points. AMATEUR TO PRO Three men invented the game of…

The brilliant 18th-century poet and engraver1 William Blake was ignored during his lifetime and even considered insane2 by many of his contemporaries. The creator of a unique artistic world, based on visions he saw throughout his life, marked a unique challenge to Britain’s social, political and religious orders. Blake is now considered one of the greatest contributors to the country’s art and literature. Born in London on 28 November 1757, the son of a hosier3, Blake was mainly educated at home by his mother. He later claimed that as a child he saw God at his window and angels on trees in the local park. His parents were supportive of his childhood imagination. They sent him to drawing school at ten, and then apprenticed him to an engraver for seven…

Could the English Language Die? Given that, by some estimates, a staggering1 1,500 languages could vanish2 by the end of this century — close to a quarter of the world’s total —, some may find it obscene to even ask this question. English is certainly not on the endangered list. As the one truly global language, it is more often labelled3 an exterminator, a great lumbering4 titanosaur that unwittingly5 crushes hapless6 smaller languages underfoot7 — or undertongue. The fact is, though, that no language has yet proved eternal. Subjects of the Roman or Egyptian empires might once have assumed that their languages would last for ever, like their hegemony, but they were wrong. Latin and Egyptian were eventually transformed into languages that would have been unintelligible to Augustus or Ramses…

English band The Who’s 1966 single The Kids Are Alright was not a big hit at the time but has become a symbol of the energy associated with being young. Taken from their debut album My Generation (whose title track1 similarly applauds youth,) it is, superficially, a dated2 tale3 of a singer trusting4 his friends to hang out5 with his girlfriend to give her something to do while he is away! Some interpretations, however, see it as a riposte6 to conservative concerns7 about youth culture and an insistence that so called8 ‘kids’ have their own valid perspectives and values. The lyrics, a reflection on moving on9 from youth, are almost all in the present simple, indicating how important the ‘now’ is for this age group, with just two repeated verses and…