AKINATOR: Who is it game? (elementary)

Time for a game.

This is the classic yes/no question game to guess the identity of a famous person? But this time you play against the computer.

The surprising thing is that you think about the person and "Akinator" asks the questions and guesses. Why don't you have a go? You might be able to beat Akinator.

Click on the picture and then on Play. Introduce a name (or nickname), your age and gender. Think of a real famous character and click on Play again. Tip: Try with easy characters first and then make it a bit more difficult for Akinator. You'll be surprised!

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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/

Books and films: Life Of Pi by Yann Martel

Life Of Pi, by Yann Martel (2001)

A few years ago I recommended this book to 4th year students at the EOI of Lebrija, and then knew that M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense) had been chosen by 20th Century Fox, who bought the rights, to direct the film version. It seems he dropped the project to direct The Lady in the Water, which did not turn out so well after all... Then Alfonso Cuarón replaced him but also dropped it to direct The Children of Men. After him it was Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, Amelie) who was chosen but he also dropped "after initial exploration". Finally, it seems Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) will hopefully direct the film, which will be released in 2010/11.


I still recommend its reading before watching the movie, as it is highly inspiring and suggestive and I guess the film will have to cut on lots of interesting parts to fit into an acceptably long motion picture. And also suggest you approach it with an open mind and not having read any summaries about it (thus my lack of links to the book reviews). You will have to trust me here.

So, do it and then let's see if the film is up to the original novel. I bet Ang Lee is the perfect choice to transmit the beautiful feelings of the novel but I prefer finding my own viewpoint and then contrasting it, don't you? Of course, you can always try the easy way and just wait and watch the film, but you will probably lose a lot of the nicely surprising moments of the novel.

A curiosity: the Canadian author of the book, Yann Martel, was born in Spain.


Check out this SlideShare Presentation where different people create illustrations for the novel (ideally after reading it ;-))

Life Of Pi Art

View more presentations from Matt Christensen.