Psychics and cold reading techniques

Here is an interesting article in which you can learn to "cold read". This is a technique used by some psychics to get information about their subjects. Click on the picture to read the full article.

New (Academic) Year, New Sites: MusicEnglish

Welcome back!

Let's start the new academic year with songs.

Here is a site where you can find videos for a selection of songs with English subtitles which make it easy for you to sing along.

  MusicEnglish 

 You can also find Norah Jones singing "Don't Know Why" live (Thanks to Richard Gresswell) and download the lyrics by clicking here.

And here's a studio version with subtitles.

 

The "Fun Theory" attacks again

The Fun Theory: fun can change behaviour for the better. This trend has given birth to excellent advertising campaigns like the one with the musical stairs.

Here is another example which combines technology with fun. It comes from Sweden and it intends to make people pay for their broadcasting fee, a tax citizens must pay also in the United Kingdom in order to be entitled to watch TV at home (click here for details).

Here are the two campaigns. Which one do you find more effective?

SWEDISH CAMPAIGN

(click on the picture to go to the site)

BRITISH CAMPAIGN

International Biodiversity Day

To read about the meaning of this celebration, click on the picture.

And here is a beautiful story to make us think:

Interview with woman suing telephone company after cell bill exposed her infidelity

Yesterday, the Canadian newspaper National Post published an interview with Gabriela Nagy, the woman who is suing her phone company, Rogers Wireless Inc., claiming that a breach of her contract had led to her husband discovering she had had a love affair. Click on the picture to read the interview.

Logorama: A Story with Brand Names and Logos.

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

Games: The Times Spelling Bee

The Times Spelling Bee is part of the TIMESONLINE and a good way to practise your spelling and listening skills. It is addressed to native children, so you will need to know quite a good range of vocabulary. It's worth trying and you can also learn new words.

Remember the menu on the right where you can choose different types of games.



Spelling is not consistent in English and that creates serious problems to both native and foreign learners of the language. That is why you may have seen some reference to spelling championships in some movie or series from an English speaking country. Something totally strange to Spanish speakers, for example.

Shakespeare's Birthday: What A Piece Of Work Is Man!

Today, 18th April, is Shakespeare's Birthday, and it is celebrated at The Globe, the reconstruction of the theatre built for his company, although this one is not in the exact location of the original. Click on the picture on the right to read about its history.

References to Shakespeare and his works my appear anywhere and at any moment in the English speaking culture. An example:

In the the musical "Hair", at the moment in London, also a film, one of the songs is "What A Piece Of Work Is Man" and the lyrics come from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Act II, Scene II). It is a beauftiful although not very uplifiting passage (Hamlet is a tragedy and this quotation summarises Hamlet's melancholic mood at a certain point).

The song is also beautiful and it is sung at a critical moment in the musical.

The lyrics

What a piece of work is man!

How noble in reason!
How infinite in faculties!

In form and moving how express and admirable!

In action how like an angel!
In apprehension how like a god!

The beauty of the world!

The paragon of animals!

...

I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth,

This goodly frame, the
Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory,

This most excellent canopy, the air, you,

This brave o'erhanging firmament,

This majestical roof fretted with golden fire,

Why, it appears no other thing to me

Than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
...

What a piece of work is man!

How noble in reason!

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Act II, Scene II)

HAMLET

I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.


If you want to read Shakespeare's works, this is an excellent site:

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Chatroulette

Jeffrey Hill has an interesting post about Chatroulette. You can find it by clicking on the picture. He explains what it is and inserts some links to articles commenting on the advantages and the risks of this new "social game".

This now is a video made using Chatroulette, which I find quite funny. In it, somebody is singing invented songs for the people who appear on screen. And he does it in front of an audience.

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Click on the picture to watch the video (or on the link below)

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http://www.wimp.com/livechatroulette/

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Note: You might like to consider your background and/or clothes next time you play "chatroulette" (if you do, of course).

Oxford & Cambridge: The Exchange Boat Race.

Tomorrow, 3rd April, the annual boat race between the Oxford and Cambridge squads will take place on the River Thames.

Where to watch it? Click on the picture >>>>

To read about the origins of this famous race:

http://www.theboatrace.org/article/introduction

.

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4th March: Grammar Day (USA)

To celebrate Grammar Day (4th March), The New York Times published some tips on how to be aware about some uses of grammar while reading the newspaper. Some of the tips could be useful in order to find authentic materials for an EFL lesson (i.e. the use of the passive voice to emphasize topic). Click on the picture to read the article or click on the title of the post to find out more ways to "celebrate" Grammar.

Let's play: Word Machine

Wait for the advert to finish (if your speaker is on, you will hear some kind of mysterious music). Click on the flag of the language in which you want to play, English or French, and get ready.

Write words beginning with the big letter given on the left. Then write words beginning with that letter and containing the ones given. How far can you go?

Two pieces of news about animals and one word: lifespan.

Today, among many other stories, The Times published two pieces of news about animals, one about genetic manipulation and how it might help developments on ageing research. The other is about sexual abstinence and how it makes some birds more attractive.

In both of them, the word "lifespan" is used. Read the articles to see how and to find which of them was done by a Spanish University. Can you guess?

The Urban Dictionary: defo.

This is an interesting dictionary where you can find terms used by people everyday which are not easily found in more formal dictionaries. It works like Wikipedia and I find the definitions very helpful.

Try with these words: defo, oi or uber. I have heard them and seen them written very often, in the last case in articles and reviews in magazines.

I will add a link for easy access under the Vocabulary and Grammar entry in the column on the right.

In The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy,

a "mega-selling cult classic", as defined on the back of the 2009 McMillan edition of the 1.979 humorous novel by Douglas Adams, Bethselamin is mentioned as a "fabulously beautiful planet" affected by one of our modern diseases: tourism.



Adams describes the situation as follows: "Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete whilst on the planet is surgically removed from your bodyweight when you leave: so every time you go to the lavatory there it is vitally important to get a receipt".



Today, The Independent publishes a piece of news about monuments in danger in the UK and, although tourism may also play an important role, it is not always the main cause. Click on the image to read the article.

At the end of the article you can find that the organization who "watches" over monuments in danger gives a list of their World Monuments Watch for 2010. Among them, the historical landscape of Seville is included, but this time it is not tourism the main cause of danger. Can you guess what it is? Click on the following link to find out:

What's your opinion about it?

Off The Hook

The University of Westminster and television

Can you imagine a Spanish TV series filmed at the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Sevilla. I am sure we would not be short of stories to tell...


Well, here in the UK, there is a new BBC TV comedy filmed at the University of Westminster. It is about a group of first year students (freshers) and it can be watched on-line.

Click on the picture to go to the BBC iPlayer and watch the first episode (they are available for a limited period of time and you have a download button too!!). There are more episodes if this is your "cup of tea":

Regent Street cinema project

The University of Westminter and cinema

If you did not know, I'm working this year at the University of Westminster. I have been very lucky and the Polylang, the modern languages programme in which I am collaborating, is based in the original building at Regent Street.

What I did not know is that this was also the site of the first public film screening in the UK with an audience paying to see a film.

Now the University wants to recover the original cinema under what they call the "Regent Street cinema project" with the intention of (in their words) "transforming the birthplace of British cinema back into a multimedia facility and teaching space for our students and the wider community and putting Westminster back in the Heart of London."

Here is a video about this building and its implications for the cinema industry in the UK, which has been released with the campaign:

Here you also have a link to a slide presentation of the project:

http://www.regentstreetcinema.co.uk/

MOVING HOUSES AND SCAM

The first thing I obviously had to do before moving to London was to find a place to live. I started looking for a place on the web, as I was still living in Spain, and a word began to appear more a more frequently, and this word is "scam":

SCAM: a fraudulent business scheme

And it was not just a word. I had already discovered the reputation London has for being one of the most expensive cities in the planet but still wanted to find that "bargain" and contacted "flat owners" through different sites. Of course I also contacted people who were genuine landlords but had the opportunity to come across some examples of real SCAMMING.

The funniest SCAMMER was someone who claimed to be a reverend moving away on a mission and for whom money was not important. The important thing for him, he said, was to find someone who took good care of his house while he was away, a house which looked pretty much like a five star hotel room. Others were not that obvious, but I began to identify some of the tricks and to my disappointment, I discovered that it was very difficult to find a bargain in London, especially if you are not there to check by yourself.

Of course, this is not something to laugh about, and some SCAMMERS have managed to deceive people by making them believe they are the real owners and taking a minimum of a 3-month-rent deposit (which can be a considerable sum), and then the real owner had turned up to everybody's surprise (but the SCAMMER, who would have disappeared).

Here are some comments from "Gumtree", a site which works like "Cambalache" or "Segundamano" here in Britain and which provides a lot of warning and even a forum to denounce SCAMMERS, as it is something that escapes their control:



Beware of SCAMMERS. It is already happening in Spain too.

So, what did I do in the end? I followed my tutor's advice and decided to go to a State Agent, but this is another story...