WELCOME
to your page: Jakub Gosia Alex Iwona Jean Noel Ewa
Jan 29th
Link to the advice page I was using in class
www.caeexamtips.com/writing/
Homework; Write a paragraph about each of the following two things I love about my country and two things i don't like about my country
State the main idea in first sentence and expand on the idea by explaining what you mean and giving examples
Finally Use of english of english One in textbook
February 4th
Homework: Do Uof E part two and three P16 + p23
look at tips in www.caeexamtips.com/reading/#readingparts1and2
Listening tips page used in class
www.caeexamtips.com/listening/#listening1
NEXT week listening part four and writing
read the advice on the link for Part one
www.caeexamtips.com/blog/2016/2/19/improving-a-cae-essay
www.caeexamtips.com/writing/
also read these tips
Hints [PLANNING]
- Use the task input to help you plan but try to avoid copying phrases from the input in Part 1. Use your own words. [INTRODUCTION and CONCLUSION]
- Effective introductory and concluding paragraphs. In the introduction, state the topic clearly, give a brief outline of the issue, saying why it is important or why people have different opinions about it.
- DO NOT express your opinion at the beginning of your essay (develop you essay in such a way that it guides the reader to the conclusion you draw).
- DO give your opinion in the final paragraph. [SECOND and THIRD PARAGRAPHS]
- Structure your argument. Each new paragraph has one main idea, stated in a topic sentence.
- Include relevant details to support the main idea: these might include examples, rhetorical questions (do no overdo it), controversial or surprising statements... If you include a drawback, give a possible solution, too. [GENERAL]
- DO use a relatively formal register and an objective tone. Do not be too emotional.
- Remember to use linking adverbials to organise your ideas and to make it easy for the reader to follow your argument.
- In the exam, allow yourself time to check your grammar, spelling and punctuation thoroughly.
and then try an essay yourself if possible ?
- see Tues Feb 12th
Reading
Off the top of my head = from what's in my brain
how many people need more cutlery ?
off the top of my head I thinks it's twenty
I can't tell you off the top of my head ... I 'll have to check
Writing Part One
Write a second sentence to expand on this topic sentence:
Not only is the banana a great source of vitamins, it is possibly the most perfectly and elegantly packaged fruit that's widely available. [How do ya mean?] m
Homework
Do task on P49 NO 2
Also do Part one task about Private cars see above - except Jakub
Optional linguahouse reading on Survival
DID P 16 + P 23
GOSHA: THIS IS ESPECIALLY FOR YOU: PUT THE CAPTIONS ON !
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkFFEpj86-I
JAKUB - apologies - the site crashed here are
Further part one writing exercises:
March 5th
Topic Sentences:
A history museum can bring tourists and help local businesses to grow.
A single painting or artefact has been known to attract many tourists to a museum with little else. The tourists in turn need to eat, sometimes to stay over night and buy souvenirs. Some people might assert that mass tourism can destroy the environment of a town or city, but if the numbers are controlled and well managed this should not be a problem
BETTER
A history museum would not only cater for the cultural needs of the community but also help to develop the area commercially.
Governments should support mental health issues by creating walk in counselling clinics when the people in the crisis situation would immediate help.
BETTER
Governments should support organisations dealing with health and mental health in particular because it an issue that very prevalent in western societies.
healthy supported by governmental funds are worth it because help individual people and keep the sociality safe
Governments should support health programmes because they're beneficial to everyone and as a result this keeps people safe from viruses and diseases.
There is no doubt that human rights organisations should be generously supported by Governments not only because these organisations can provide help to vulnerable people but also to minority groups who are discriminated against
it can deal with social issues such as racism and even sexism.
Jakub Only - Part one
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March 19th 2019
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CAE: AUTUMN:
NOvember 23rd
Link for reading
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/
Nov 9th
here are some links to help with collocations - as requested and other word formations !
http://www.flo-joe.com/cae/students/wordbank/colloc.htm
CAE autumn: 2015
October 19th:
Essay:
Technological Progress: Mass communication: Email/Text
Social networks/Instant Communication/Media
Living Faster: Flying to destinations
Working from home/ being in contact with people 24/7
How does it reduce time: less time for one to one relationships: with your life partner/ romantic relationships/ in the evening/ in your leisure time/
GUARDIAN READING MATERIAL
http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/news-lessons/monthly-topical-news-lessons/pdf-content/naples-chefs-take-sides-in-the-ultra-pizza-wars-advanced/552196.article
Russia: Putin must show clemency to Pussy Riot
The Russian president will appear a tyrant if he persists in the persecution of free speech
Editorial
- The Observer, Sunday 19 August 2012
- Jump to comments (…)
To understand the nature of what really occurred when three young women were sentenced to two years in a penal colony for "hooliganism" after performing an anti-Putin song in Moscow's Christ the Saviour cathedral, one need only examine the verdict. For the very language of authoritarian regimes, twisted to political ends, is often one of the best clues.
If it were not for the fact that what took place in Moscow on Friday shames Russia internationally, condemning three artists to a labour camp for a 40-second performance, the shouted-out sentencing statement would be darkly comic.
Judge Marina Syrova declared in monotone how Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Ekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina, two of them mothers, conspired to wear clothing that was an offence against church rules, "colluded" to produce a guitar and amplifier and "demonstratively and cynically" defied "the Orthodox world… devaluing centuries of revered and protected dogmas". In all this, the world learned from the judge, the women's "religious hatred" was motivated "by way of them being feminists who consider men and women to be equal".
Perhaps most ridiculous of all was the cod psychology deployed to damn the women, asserting that the defendants "suffered from mixed personality disorder displayed by their active position in life".
While it is entirely possible that some members of the Orthodox church were offended by Pussy Riot's Punk Prayer, and indeed it does seem to be the case that approval for their actions has been low in wider Russian society, the principle of free speech is not about offence or public approval.
It is defined by the notion, as Evelyn Beatrice Hall framed it in her biography of Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
The reality is that, under 13 years of Vladimir Putin, free speech has gradually been eroded.
While some criticism of officialdom is permitted, Putin and his circle have cracked down on attacks aimed at him directly or over allegations of corruption and criminality among those close to him.
Others who have dared to offer criticism, as Padraig Reidy of Index on Censorship pointed out in the immediate aftermath of the verdict, have found themselves similarly pursued, among them the former business magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, currently serving a long jail sentence for tax fraud.
Journalists, too, have been threatened, dismissed from their jobs and sometimes killed. Next up to be given the treatment is Alexei Navalny, a blogger and opposition figure, who faces charges of embezzlement.
Despite this policy of persecuting critics, the pursuit of the three members of Pussy Riot, who absurdly spent five months in custody even before the trial, is more than usually worrying, not least because of the strong evidence that shows how Putin, judiciary and church have formed an alliance to ensure the women's conviction.
Indeed, after the performance in the cathedral, it was Putin himself who poured petrol on the flames by calling for action against their blasphemy.
If all of this is has the potential to damage Putin in the long run, it is because his autocratic state has been taunted into a gross overreaction that has made the president in particular look fearful and foolish. This is a man, lest we forget, who has made much of his macho credentials, being photographed bare-chested on horseback with a rifle, riding a motorbike flying a Russian flag at a biker festival and darting a tiger.
Indeed, the first evidence that Putin and the church might already be wavering emerged yesterday as two top clerics in the Orthodox church appeared on TV to say the church had forgiven the group. One of the clerics, Tikhon Shevkunov, is widely believed to be Putin's spiritual counsellor.
The persecution of Pussy Riot, however clumsy and ridiculous, is sinister because it represents simply the latest assault by Putin and his cronies on a Russian state he has all but stolen through a series of transparent moves.
Not least among those was the cynical presidential job swap he arranged with his prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, to keep the seat warm for him until he could run again in elections marked, say the opposition, by widespread fraud.
And as Oleg Kashin, a journalist on Kommersant argued in yesterday'sGuardian, the Pussy Riot prosecution has not been an aberration but part of a very calculated policy of setting the "simple people", who Putin believes support him, against the "creative class" who he believes have supplied most of the protesters who took to the streets in December demanding free and fair elections.
It has been part and parcel of a longer-term campaign by Putin and those close to him to undermine democracy at all levels and expand control by the government over ever-larger parts of Russian life.
Inevitably, perhaps, given the anger provoked in the west by Russia's contribution to the worsening bloodshed in Syria through its support of the Assad dictatorship, governments have seized on the Pussy Riot verdict as yet another example of Russia's trajectory under Putin towards a harsh and uncompromising place where dissenting views increasingly are punished.
If Putin has miscalculated in this case it is because, unlike in his pursuit of Khodorkovsky, an ambiguous figure, the issues around Pussy Riot are so clear cut. Even before the verdict, he was challenged about the case, in meetings with other leaders, including David Cameron, during the London Olympics. That pressure is only likely to grow, becoming a source of irritation for a man who likes to see himself as "handshakeable" when he meets fellow leaders.
Which means that Putin has a simple option – to show clemency and issue a pardon – which is what natural justice demands. Inaction would confirm, as Malcolm Rifkind, former British foreign secretary, told this paper yesterday, that Russia is in danger of becoming a "neanderthal" state.
This is an interesting article with responses on a recent TV programme - where Russel Brand a contreversial star and former drug abuser argued that addiction is an illness and should be treated as one.....
Don't be nice to addicts.
Be fairYou don't have to feel compassion for junkies. Just accept that punishment is not at all helpful
Victoria Coren
1Twitching, restless, my rheumy eyes scanning the room for drugs, I watched Russell Brand having some smack.
2This isn't an anecdote about my rebellious youth. I didn't have a rebellious youth. I'm talking about last Thursday.
3I must say, I didn't think the heroin looked very nice. Not really my cup of tea, the horse. The skag. The junk. The china white, the Mexican mud, the dust, the shit, the schmeck, the chick, the ol' Black Tar.
4Sorry. I'll stop browsing through this urban dictionary. Fascinating, though; it's a sign of how much people love their Harry Jones that it has so many pet names. Reading the list is like scanning the classified ads on Valentine's Day. ("To my darling Joy Flakes, I want your Reindeer Dust, from your adoring Poppy.")
5No, Aunt Hazel's never rung my bell. But Russell Brand certainly looked keen. He was also watching Russell Brand having some smack. It was a film inside a film: sober, grown-up (relatively) Russell was, as part of his documentary From Addiction to Recovery on BBC Three, watching a video of his young, glassy-eyed self enjoying his favourite foil-wrapped treat.
6To the non-user, it just looks like something that would hurt to ingest, leaving you wan, bony and bruised. As treats go, it's no lemon syllabub.
7Nevertheless, I understood why Russell Brand was half grateful to be free from addiction, half yearning for a big old veinful of the stuff. (Or lungful. Or bumful. I don't really know how he used to put it in.)
8I laughed when the handsome international film star, visiting a grim flat where two pale and pock-marked crones were injecting themselves into an early grave, said he found the idea of staying there "more attractive than you'd think".
9I laughed because, as I sat watching the programme in my clean flat with my clean hair and my clean skin, I was deeply wishing I could fug up the air, stain my teeth and shorten my life by setting fire to a tube of paper and sucking it so hard that my chest hurt. That wouldn't be the down side of my addiction, by the way. That's the whole side. (Time since last cigarette: six weeks, two days.)
10I didn't smoke. I'm not smoking. I am very happy about that. I can already see there's nothing good about cigarettes at all. I still want one. And that's because I'm mentally ill.
11Russell Brand wants to persuade the world that addiction is an illness. He's right. It is. Any continued dispute is such a waste of time that it makes being on hold to Orange feel like solving the world debt crisis.
12Russell Brand is cool and cockney. I'm neither. He wears an unwashed vest to appear before a parliamentary select committee. I dress smartly in the bath. His dreams came true when he had sex with Kate Moss. My dreams came true when I had dinner with Christopher Biggins. He holidays at the Taj Mahal. I like Devon.
13But we're both addicts. We'll both struggle forever between logic and desire, no saner than the guy who wants to run naked through Leicester town centre shouting "wibble". We both think replacement drugs (methadone for him, nicotine patches for me) are as helpful as advising that guy to run through the suburbs in his pants. We both know that it's all or nothing.
14On Newsnight, Russell Brand and Peter Hitchens had a pointless row about compassion. They were like Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf (one lustrous-haired and touchingly naive; the other snarling, clawing and evidently harbouring eager thoughts of the severed finger he'd popped in his pocket to eat later).
15But compassion is irrelevant to the categorising of addiction. Accepting it's an illness doesn't mean you have to care.
16They say heroin feels good to begin with. Smoking doesn't. But, if you're a natural addict, you press on. Once you're hooked, it still doesn't feel good, but (and here's where we fall in with our junkie cousins) it now makes you feel normal. QED: if you have to take something to feel normal, it doesn't matter if it's a fag or a needle or a Nurofen, you're not well.
17Unlike Nurofen, the addict's substance is both treating and creating the agony. So every smoker/junkie, however desperate to keep going, wishes he had never started. If you saw someone repeatedly smashing his arm against a wall, 40 times a day, unable to stop, would you say he was a self-indulgent hedonist? Or would you just know he was ill?
18Fear not, Peter Hitchens; that doesn't make you Pollyanna. You can still hate and blame the patient. No need to feel compassion, but we all benefit from clarity. So: accept that addiction is an illness, then simply admit it's an illness you don't care about.
19Accept that prison can't possibly be a deterrent for people who are already giving themselves the death penalty; you're still free to argue that junkies should be in prison, eg because they've committed theft or just look a bit horrible.
20Accept that public money would be better spent on abstinence clinics and rehab centres, rather than methadone; you're still free to say no public money should be spent. It's OK to care more about other ill people.
21Accept that disapproving lectures to your loved one, or about strangers, cannot possibly be helpful – and then it's fine to say you will lecture anyway because they're so bloody annoying. Or frightening. That's OK.
22Just let's be clear, please, on what the problem is, before bickering about whether to care. Let's acknowledge the best way to handle it, before deciding whether or not to bother.
23An addict's best chance of health is to be clear-thinking, honest and logical. If that's true for addicts, why not for those who talk about addicts, too?
www.victoriacoren.com
- Response to MartinRDB, 19 August 2012 12:27AM
The man maybe a sleezebag, and has questionable taste in humour, but I did watch his programme on drug use and found it to be an honest account of himself and what happens when you are an addictive personality. I know becuase I have battled with alcohol for years, due to having clinical depression.
If nothing else, his argument should be given an honest hearing , and provoke rational debate about how we treat addiction in this country. Prescribing methadone makes the sate legal drug dealers, it does not treat the problem just controls the symptoms. 10% of the population should not use any for of drug, that was Brands message, and should abstain, which is a tough message and not one I expected of him.
I feel the same about anti depressants, took them once and had 2 years of hell. i came to the conclusion that such drugs are about making me behave acceptably for the rest of society, a mindless zombie, who will hopefully commit suicide and become a statistic instead of a being a problem. Oh by the way statistically 25% of the human population will suffer from some form of mental illness, but hey, in the good old days people like me, would have been locked up and forgotten about....seems that what we are doing about serious drug addicted people...time for a change....
- Russell Brand is hardly the person to make anyone feel sympathetic about this issue. It's the nature of broadcasting these days that they think they have to find a "celeb" to front up documentaries such as this. Whoever had the idea to engage Brand for the show should be sacked.
On the substantive issue I know magistrates would like to make treatment placements part of the sentence for addicts, but there are very, very few placements available, so they have to send people to jail - repeatedly. That solution ends up being more expensive and increases rather than reduces crime. Its not 'liberal' to prefer treatment rather than prison - its financial common sense.
The man maybe a sleezebag, and has questionable taste in humour, but I did watch his programme on drug use and found it to be an honest account of himself and what happens when you are an addictive personality. I know becuase I have battled with alcohol for years, due to having clinical depression.
If nothing else, his argument should be given an honest hearing , and provoke rational debate about how we treat addiction in this country. Prescribing methadone makes the sate legal drug dealers, it does not treat the problem just controls the symptoms. 10% of the population should not use any for of drug, that was Brands message, and should abstain, which is a tough message and not one I expected of him.
I feel the same about anti depressants, took them once and had 2 years of hell. i came to the conclusion that such drugs are about making me behave acceptably for the rest of society, a mindless zombie, who will hopefully commit suicide and become a statistic instead of a being a problem. Oh by the way statistically 25% of the human population will suffer from some form of mental illness, but hey, in the good old days people like me, would have been locked up and forgotten about....seems that what we are doing about serious drug addicted people...time for a change....
On the substantive issue I know magistrates would like to make treatment placements part of the sentence for addicts, but there are very, very few placements available, so they have to send people to jail - repeatedly. That solution ends up being more expensive and increases rather than reduces crime. Its not 'liberal' to prefer treatment rather than prison - its financial common sense.
DENISE'S LINK TO GOOD IELTS SITE
http://www.aippg.com/ielts/strategies%20for%20reading.htm
English idioms useful for use of english part one and two
http://www.idiomsite.com/
This is an article about the new citizenship ceremony that the Minister for Justice has just introduced. It used to be mixed in with criminial cases.
Day of optimism and celebration for new citizens jolts hearts of native cynics
MIRIAM LORD
“A RARE day you will remember and you will cherish.” Taoiseach Enda Kenny was addressing people who were about to become citizens of Ireland, but his words resonated beyond his target audience.
For them, yesterday was a day of hope and optimism and celebration. It was the happiest of events; the end of a long and difficult process when they would finally swear their fidelity to the Irish nation and their loyalty to the State.
They had prepared for this moment. But it delivered a major jolt to the heart of the native cynic.
In these times of unrelenting gloom and pessimism, those 25 minutes in a drab hall in Dublin stirred emotions that surprised us.
And when the colour party presented arms and the army band struck up the national anthem, you could see the Government officials and the army men and the journalists blinking back tears.
The declaration had been sworn, aloud and proud. Now, the new citizens stood as one and faced their flag. One man placed his hand across his heart. It was a solemn, powerful few minutes.
This was the fourth of eight citizenship ceremonies that took place yesterday in Cathal Brugha Barracks, and seven more are scheduled for today. In all, more than 2,000 people will join the ranks of Irish passport holders.
Before last June, people who applied successfully for citizenship had to make their declaration before the District Court. They would turn up on the appointed date and swear loyalty from the witness box, waiting their turn in the queue. If there was time, a judge might congratulate them and call for a round of applause.
More often than not, there wasn’t.
When he came into office Minister for Justice Alan Shatter set up a system of citizenship ceremonies to properly recognise the significance of the event.
Retired judge Bryan McMahon, who presided magnificently over yesterday’s events, congratulated Mr Shatter “for endowing this ceremony with a sense of pomp and a sense of occasion”.
He told the gathering to “bring with you your stories, your music, your dancers – the dances of your own native land. Enrich our lives with what you have to offer.”
He hoped that, in the future, one of their children or grandchildren would be leading out a team on All-Ireland final day.
The Taoiseach posed for photographs with his citizens. The new voters fell quickly into the Irish trait of thrusting babies into a Taoiseach’s arms, as he remarked on the “moving, meaningful and very touching” ceremony.
There was a huge sense of happiness and achievement among the participants. Many were planning a party to celebrate.
They wore their tricolour lapel pins with pride.
As we left, heading back to Leinster House and the latest row, another batch of applicants was coming through the gates.
And we thought of Eamon Dunphy on the Late Late Show the other week, drawing applause from some of the audience when he called Ireland “a kip” and “a dump”. He was wrong. Yesterday, together, we felt proud to call ourselves Irish.
An Irishman's Diary FRANK McNALLY
PHIL HOGAN’S determination “to finally draw a line under the electronic voting project” will be welcomed by all right-thinking citizens. I trust, however, that – in drawing it – he will not miss the chance to use one of the “stupid oul’ pencils” that Bertie Ahern so hated.
And that aside, if the Minister’s plan to flog the 7,500 voting machines to Irish pubs abroad doesn’t work, I would urge him to consider my previously-stated idea of making them the centrepiece of a new National Museum of Great Irish Failures.
Lined up like the Terracotta warriors (perhaps protecting an effigy of the emperor Bertie from the evils of graphite), they would help commemorate all the things that never quite took off on this island, or that flourished briefly before dying of shame and other complications.
Here’s my suggested list for the opening exhibition, which would of course be titled: A History of Ireland in 100 Rejects.
1. Snakes.
2. The Great Irish Elk.
3. Norsemen.
4. The fashion among Dublin residents for wearing hats with horns.
5. English rule.
6. The Statutes of Kilkenny.
7. Woods’s halfpence.
8. Organised soup-taking.
9. Use of unaspirated haitches.
10. (In certain Midland counties) Voluntary pronunciation of the letter T.
11. Bible-reading south of Newry.
12. The popularity of naming male children after St Fechin.
13. Bag-pipes.
14. Kilt-wearing (except when playing bag-pipes).
15. The Royal Canal.
16. The West Clare Railway.
17. Expecting help from our gallant allies in Europe.
18. The lumper potato.
19. The remedy of duelling as an alternative to the law courts.
20. Ulster saying Yes.
21. The Celtic Twilight.
22. The Hugh Lane museum (1913 version).
23. Romantic Ireland/ O’Leary/etc.
24. Arthur Griffith’s dual monarchy.
25. RMS Titanic.
26. The Boundary Commission.
27. The Blueshirts.
28. The home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living.
29. Of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit.
30. A land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads.
31. Whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. Etc.
32. The Shannon drainage scheme.
33. The first-past-the-post voting system.
34. Finnegans Wake.
35. An Tóstal tourism festival.
36. The Tomb of the Unknown Gurrier.
37. Life on the Blaskets.
38. Pipe smoking among women.
39. Croquet.
40. The Kilkenny football team.
41. The hurling teams of Kerry and every county north of a line between Galway and Dublin, except Antrim (and maybe Down).
42. The Meath Gaeltacht.
43. Gold-mining on Croagh Patrick.
44. The DeLorean car company.
45. Cadbury’s Smash.
46. Leave it to Mrs O’Brien.
47. Murphy’s Microquiz-M.
48. Upwardly Mobile.
49. The Lyrics Board.
50. Ian Paisley’s Third Force.
51. Marching to and from church by the traditional route.
52. VAT on children’s shoes.
53. The Calor Housewife of the Year competition.
54. Stefan Klincewicz’s sure-fire plan to win the lottery.
55. Century Radio.
56. Erik de Bruin’s revolutionary new swim-training programme.
57. Guinness Light.
58. Guinness extra cold.
59. Guinness with a dash of blackcurrant.
60. The prospect of climate change ever giving rise to an Irish wine industry.
61. The Eircom share flotation.
62. Ennis, information age town.
63. The Millennium Clock.
64. Millennium trees.
65. The Y2K bug.
66. Social hugging.
67. Air-kissing.
68. Offering each other the sign of peace at times of threatened global pandemics.
69. Elaborate goal celebrations in Gaelic football.
70. The concept of men wearing puffy-sleeve shirts while Irish dancing.
71. The concept of Irish dancers raising their arms during performance at feiseanna.
72. The holy hour in pubs.
73. The holy hour in churches.
74. Calling Navan “An Uaimh”.
75. Daingean Uí Chúis.
76. Colour-coded orbital road signs.
77. The Westlink toll plaza.
78. Operation Freeflow.
79. Parisian-style book kiosks on Dublin’s Grattan Bridge.
80. The Joint Irish-Scottish bid for Euro 2008.
81. The Pirate Queen musical.
82. The Floozie in the Jacuzzi.
83. Cable-cars on the Liffey.
84. The Dublin Dons FC.
85. Compromise Rules.
86. E-voting.
87. The Bertie Bowl.
88. The Galway Tent.
89. The C***ic T**er.
90. Ireland’s Call.
91. Instant tea powder.
92. Prawn sandwiches.
93. Use of the term “nasal congestion” to describe the effects of a hangover.
94. Two-mile-Vegas.
95. Democracy Now.
96. Libertas.
97. Anglo-Irish Bank.
98. Light regulation.
99. The Clontarf Sea Wall.
100. (Barring a deal on debt cancellation) The next EU referendum
Twitter now an integral part of TV viewing COLM TOBIN
Don't pretend you don't tune in to catch those hidden Satanic messages on the 'Winning Streak' audience banners
FIVE YEARS AGO, I truly believed the internet was about to kill television. Many TV producers, channel controllers, tech journalists and people with “digital consultant” in their job title agreed. In an age of DVRs, YouTube and Netflix, how could a station like RTÉ survive? But, as is often the case, the new technologies bedded in and the predicted sea changes turned out to be a little less dramatic. Sure, you can now consume TV in different ways – from catch-up services to box sets – but there are still channels with schedules and time slots and Eamonn Holmes. Families still gather around every Saturday night to see performing children be humiliated by adults. And don’t pretend you don’t tune in to catch those hidden Satanic messages on the Winning Streak audience banners. What, you didn’t know?
What has changed is the way in which we consume television, alongside other media. I started tweeting on May 17th, 2008. It was a simpler, happier time for simple, happy things such as running your economy and most of us were blissfully unaware of such concepts as unsecured bondholder, fiscal compact and David Drumm.
At first, I thought it was a silly distraction. Now, 29,491 tweets later (and counting), it has become as much a part of my daily life as coffee or the IMF. I’ve made real-life friends. I even scored an All-Ireland final ticket.
Of all social media, Twitter has probably influenced my TV viewing experience the most. An instant online community can spring up around a TV show. The use of hashtags such as #latelate, #masterchef or #xfactor can transform what may otherwise be a mundane and passive television experience into a fully interactive event.
Commentary can range from sharp television criticism – “slim pickings in the RTÉ canteen today #latelate” – to serious political commentary – “the only thing Michael Noonan should be cutting in this budget is that tie of his. Atrocious. #budget2012”. And, in case we needed reminding, it can even bring down a presidential candidate.
Programmes that incorporate this online activity best tend to be the ones that are reactive to it but don’t overstate their social media credentials. So, for instance, my online community of choice would be the one that has formed around A Scare At Bedtime With Vincent Browne on TV3. It has become the late-night hub for a raggle-taggle band of misanthropic hacks, frustrated politicos and celebrity economists that I like to call the Contrariat.
Using the hashtag #vinb you can discuss all the burning political questions of the day: Will this crippling austerity work? Where were these experts five years ago? Is it true that Vincent sleeps in a coffin under the desk? And Vincent will read out his favourite comments from, as he calls it, “the Twitter machine”. It’s uncomplicated, organic and unbelievably depressing.
On Twitter, we see the emergence of a new interactive space that runs concurrent to the TV schedule, sometimes becoming the main source of entertainment itself. These new technologies aren’t likely to replace TV any time soon – it is still where we go for a shared national experience – but they could prove to be its saviour. And, speaking completely objectively, as someone who makes his living from television, this is surely a good thing for Irish society as a whole.
Colm Tobin is a prolific tweeter who also finds time to make TV programmes
This is an excellent article on keeping the Euro: important phrases in blue: the paragraph in RED is in my view the core of all of our political problems
Whatever price we pay to keep the euro is worth it STEPHEN COLLINS
INSIDE POLITICS: AS EUROPEAN leaders belatedly inch towards a deal to save the euro, the Irish Government and people are soon likely to be faced with a fundamental choice: what price are we willing to pay to stay in the euro zone. Logically, the decision should be a no-brainer.
While the budgetary discipline required to stay with the euro will certainly be tough, it will give the country a reasonable long-term prospect of retaining the prosperity that has characterised the past two decades.
The alternative will be to opt out of the euro zone and risk all on an uncertain future that could so easily descend into economic and political chaos. Yet the siren voices who have been so incessant in making the case for burning bondholders and avoiding hard budget choices are likely to become even louder in arguing the anti-treaty case.
These arguments will have an appeal for a big part of the electorate, desperate for some magic solution to the country’s woes. Voices from the far right and left are already painting an enticing picture of how an Irish currency decoupled from the euro and linked to sterling would bring us to a better world.
Far from being the road to prosperity, however, it is more likely we would quickly drift back to real poverty, on the scale of the 1950s, if we reverted to being a satellite state of the UK with monetary policy set by the Bank of England. How we would go about paying our massive euro debts with a devalued Irish currency is just one of the problems such a scenario would create.
Over the next few months, if all goes well, there will be agreement at EU level to a series of binding budgetary disciplines. This will probably require treaty change and, even though that may result in a bitter referendum, it is very much in Ireland’s interest that it happens. In the long run, such a development will ensure the Irish people will be saved from a repeat of the economic indiscipline and political incompetence that characterised the Bertie Ahern years.
Irish politicians and the media are already focusing on the threat to Ireland’s 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate as if it is the only important issue for debate. While President Nicolas Sarkozy has certainly targeted low corporate tax rates, Germany has taken a very different view, while the UK and the countries on the eastern side of the EU will all block the French threat from their own perspectives.
Whatever treaty changes emerge, harmonisation of tax rates is unlikely to be one of them. What Irish negotiators need to focus on is not just what we want to block but what kind of treaty changes we favour. EU institutions’ loss of power to the governments of the big powers is a trend that we should work to have reversed.
The Irish Government will face a massive task in selling whatever package emerges to a battered electorate. The Coalition has not helped its own case by incessantly blaming the troika for the austerity required to get the structural deficit under control. These measures would have been essential even without outside political pressure. Otherwise the bond markets would have quickly reduced us to the status of another Argentina.
A great deal of nonsense has been spread about economic sovereignty since Ireland was forced into the bailout a year ago. How much economic sovereignty did this State have between 1922 and 1979, when we were linked to sterling? The Bank of England did not consult governments in Dublin on monetary policy. Once the Irish government started going to international bond markets to pay for budget deficits in the 1970s, our sovereignty was eroded from another direction, as a dependency on borrowing exposed the country to the vagaries of the bond markets.
The fact our EU partners and the International Monetary Fund stepped in with the bailout a year ago has given us the chance to sort out our public finances over a number of years. If we had insisted on economic sovereignty, cuts of close to €20 billion in one go would have been on the menu. The political, social and economic chaos that would have ensued from such a shock would have tested our democracy to its limits.
That is the background against which the adjustment of €3.8 billion that will be unveiled next Monday and Tuesday should be judged. Hopefully Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin will be able to make a convincing case for whatever adjustments finally emerge.
The uncertainty generated by the leaks and kite-flying of Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton and Minister for Health James Reilly have only made their jobs harder.
While any cuts in public spending are always unpalatable and will throw up hard cases, it is worth remembering a few facts.
During its period in office between 1997 and 2010, the Fianna Fáil government increased the standard old age pension by 120 per cent, unemployment benefit by almost 130 per cent, child benefit by an astonishing 330 per cent, while the public service pay and pensions bill rose by almost 400 per cent, from €5.6 billion to more than €20 billion. The cost of living increased by 40 per cent in the same period.
The big rise in spending was based on unsustainable taxes from the property boom and it ultimately brought the country to its knees. The banking crisis has added another chunk to the debt, but it can be dealt with more easily over an extended period once the public finances are brought into balance.
Spending cuts and tax increases are the only way the economy can be put on a sustainable basis. The Coalition needs to get off to a convincing start next week so it can bring the rest of the programme along the road to sustainable public finances by 2016. It would also indicate an ability to live with whatever disciplines are agreed at EU level.
http://olpt.s3.amazonaws.com/online-practice-fce/index.html
Here is a piece about Quatar: the words in blue are commonly used phrases or idioms: Look them up and be aware of them. From the Guardian Link here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/fashion-blog/2011/oct/24/qatar-buying-fashion
Qatar's bid for global prominence hits the fashion world It used to be one of the poorest states in the Gulf region, but now Qatar's immense wealth is being spent on cultural imports. And fashion, art and architecture are all on the shopping list
- Sheikha Mozah Nint Nasser, pictured here with Queen Sofia of Spain, heads up the Qatar Luxury Group, which is expanding into lifestyle brands. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.(see below) In the case of the tiny, oil-rich Gulf country of Qatar, some are acquiring greatness at breakneck speed.
Last year Qatar was named as the 2022 World Cup host and its sovereign wealth fund, Qatar Holdings, bought Harrods. This year, Qatar said it wants to host the 2017 World Athletic Championships. It has become the biggest buyer of contemporary art in the world. A few weeks ago, a Qatari sheikh was unveiled as the principal backer of a £3m racing event at Royal Ascot. The state's ambitions tower over London's skyline in the form of the Shard, in which Qatari investors have a majority stake. Astonishing to think this former pearl-fishing centre used to be one of the poorest states in the region.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn't end there. The country's lifestyle vehicle, the Qatar Luxury Group is expanding into fashion, hospitality and development. Think of it as an Arab LVMH. On steroids. QLG will host Qatar Fashion Week in 2012, when it will launch a new fashion brand that has been designed by Stéphane Rolland. These developments make perfect sense when you consider that, as reported in a recent article by Reuters, women in the Gulf region are the world's biggest buyers of high fashion.
QLG is the brainchild of Sheikha Mozah, who has caused something of a stirwith her style. During a state visit to the UK last year, Sheikha Mozah's propensity for wearing haute couture- including these heels-made-of-ice Chanel boots- attracted plaudits from fashion commentators and the designer Julien MacDonald compared her look to that of Jackie O.
QLG declined to be interviewed about its activities, saying it was "working on the development of our fashion brand which is to be launched in 2012" and that to "speak of a brand six months before launch sounds premature". It has been more open about its acquisition of the French leather goods company, Le Tanneur, though. Its CEO, Gregory Couillard, said the company "was targeted as part of QLG's strategy to create timeless luxury goods made to the highest quality standards" and that the group is "committed to the luxury fashion sector in the larger sense", with leatherwork, shoemaking, jewellery and couture workshops especially set up in Doha.
Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani has a long-term vision for Qatar's future Photograph: Karim Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images So what are we to make of the spending spree? The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, has a long-term plan, called Qatar Vision 2030, for how he wants the state to be seen and recognised internationally. "It's all about legacy," says Graham Hales, CEO of Interbrand London. "It seems to be sincere." Hales says that while the trail of acquisition is "hard to penetrate" it is also "brave and audacious".
But signs that Qatar was a juggernaut of ambition, chutzpah and wealth surfaced in 2008, when it coaxed "starchitect" IM Pei out of retirement to design the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha.
"The Qataris can learn lessons from Dubai, but to the naked eye it seems similar," says Hales. "They get involved in landmarks. If they can get involved in something first they will, and the type of brands they're buying are iconic." Hales doesn't know where all the purchasing and construction will lead but says the next decade will be "very exciting". "We're in the middle of a paragraph rather than the end of it," he adds.
In 2008, arts writer Georgina Adam told the Guardian that Gulf states were beginning to see culture as a missing part of the puzzle. "They have the ritzy airports, big towers and financial institutions, but they want to get culture and they're very competitive. Qatar wants to distinguish itself from Dubai, which is seen as brash." John Martin, director of Art Dubai, said: "Doha and Dubai represent a new type of city and culture, they don't have the cultural baggage. Nobody has written any rules and anything can happen."
- note 1; parody of quote from Shakespeare
- Sheikha Mozah Nint Nasser, pictured here with Queen Sofia of Spain, heads up the Qatar Luxury Group, which is expanding into lifestyle brands. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.(see below) In the case of the tiny, oil-rich Gulf country of Qatar, some are acquiring greatness at breakneck speed.
Last year Qatar was named as the 2022 World Cup host and its sovereign wealth fund, Qatar Holdings, bought Harrods. This year, Qatar said it wants to host the 2017 World Athletic Championships. It has become the biggest buyer of contemporary art in the world. A few weeks ago, a Qatari sheikh was unveiled as the principal backer of a £3m racing event at Royal Ascot. The state's ambitions tower over London's skyline in the form of the Shard, in which Qatari investors have a majority stake. Astonishing to think this former pearl-fishing centre used to be one of the poorest states in the region.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn't end there. The country's lifestyle vehicle, the Qatar Luxury Group is expanding into fashion, hospitality and development. Think of it as an Arab LVMH. On steroids. QLG will host Qatar Fashion Week in 2012, when it will launch a new fashion brand that has been designed by Stéphane Rolland. These developments make perfect sense when you consider that, as reported in a recent article by Reuters, women in the Gulf region are the world's biggest buyers of high fashion.
QLG is the brainchild of Sheikha Mozah, who has caused something of a stirwith her style. During a state visit to the UK last year, Sheikha Mozah's propensity for wearing haute couture- including these heels-made-of-ice Chanel boots- attracted plaudits from fashion commentators and the designer Julien MacDonald compared her look to that of Jackie O.
QLG declined to be interviewed about its activities, saying it was "working on the development of our fashion brand which is to be launched in 2012" and that to "speak of a brand six months before launch sounds premature". It has been more open about its acquisition of the French leather goods company, Le Tanneur, though. Its CEO, Gregory Couillard, said the company "was targeted as part of QLG's strategy to create timeless luxury goods made to the highest quality standards" and that the group is "committed to the luxury fashion sector in the larger sense", with leatherwork, shoemaking, jewellery and couture workshops especially set up in Doha.
Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani has a long-term vision for Qatar's future Photograph: Karim Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images So what are we to make of the spending spree? The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, has a long-term plan, called Qatar Vision 2030, for how he wants the state to be seen and recognised internationally. "It's all about legacy," says Graham Hales, CEO of Interbrand London. "It seems to be sincere." Hales says that while the trail of acquisition is "hard to penetrate" it is also "brave and audacious".
But signs that Qatar was a juggernaut of ambition, chutzpah and wealth surfaced in 2008, when it coaxed "starchitect" IM Pei out of retirement to design the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha.
"The Qataris can learn lessons from Dubai, but to the naked eye it seems similar," says Hales. "They get involved in landmarks. If they can get involved in something first they will, and the type of brands they're buying are iconic." Hales doesn't know where all the purchasing and construction will lead but says the next decade will be "very exciting". "We're in the middle of a paragraph rather than the end of it," he adds.
In 2008, arts writer Georgina Adam told the Guardian that Gulf states were beginning to see culture as a missing part of the puzzle. "They have the ritzy airports, big towers and financial institutions, but they want to get culture and they're very competitive. Qatar wants to distinguish itself from Dubai, which is seen as brash." John Martin, director of Art Dubai, said: "Doha and Dubai represent a new type of city and culture, they don't have the cultural baggage. Nobody has written any rules and anything can happen." - note 1; parody of quote from Shakespeare
A good example of 'will' used for future prediction from the Irish Times
WELCOME TO this grubby, overpopulated, squabbling planet, citizen No 7,000,000,000. Some day this month, we’re not sure when, or where, you will be born, tipping Goover the seven billion mark. Up from a paltry billion in 1804, a mere two billion in 1927, and five billion in 1987.
Apologies for naming you by number – it has become all too common – but we don’t know your name yet. Chances are, however, you will be born in booming Africa or Asia, and, if a boy in the former, you may be Mohammed, a girl in China, Fang. Both continents will be adding one billion each to the world’s numbers in the next 40 years, doubling Africa’s population, and increasing Asia’s by about a quarter to five billion.
Chances are that you will be born in a city, now the home to more than half the world’s people, and into a slum, the fate of a third of those born in the developing world’s cities. And that, like every second child, you will be born into poverty – at least four out of five of humankind lives on less than $10 a day, a fifth, on less than $1.25. And if, as likely, you are born among the world’s poorest 60 per cent, your fate will be to share in only a fifth of global consumption.
Chances are, too, that life will short-change you. If you’re lucky you might stretch it out to the world average expectancy of 67 years, but a mere 40 if you are born in Swaziland. If you’re Irish, however, you’ll get to enjoy two Swazi lifespans.
Chances are you won’t be born in what the Economist defines as a “democracy or a flawed democracy” where some 49 per cent of the world’s population live .
Why would you want to join us? But the picture is not all bad – the grim equation proposed by mathematician Robert Malthus between population growth and inevitable starvation has not been vindicated. The world population may have quadrupled in the 20th century, but the calories available per person went up, not down. In 60 years we have trebled the total harvest of the three biggest crops: wheat, rice and corn.
The numbers in absolute poverty have declined by a third in the past 15 years and the population explosion is fading. Fertility rates are falling, the product of enrichment, urbanisation, women’s emancipation and education. There is room for us all, and an ability to feed us all, but we have yet to master how we organise to share our wealth to put a meal on every plate.
We are a work in progress.Welcome to our world.
© 2011 The Irish Times
Right wing Daily Mail Writer admits that he may be wrong....
It has taken me more than 30 years as a journalist to ask myself this question, but this week I find that I must: is the Left right after all? You see, one of the great arguments of the Left is that what the Right calls “the free market” is actually a set-up.
The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything.
In the 1970s and 1980s, it was easy to refute this line of reasoning because it was obvious, particularly in Britain, that it was the trade unions that were holding people back. Bad jobs were protected and good ones could not be created. “Industrial action” did not mean producing goods and services that people wanted to buy, it meant going on strike. The most visible form of worker oppression was picketing. The most important thing about Arthur Scargill’s disastrous miners’ strike was that he always refused to hold a ballot on it.
A key symptom of popular disillusionment with the Left was the moment, in the late 1970s, when the circulation of Rupert Murdoch’s Thatcher-supporting Sun overtook that of the ever-Labour Daily Mirror. Working people wanted to throw off the chains that Karl Marx had claimed were shackling them – and join the bourgeoisie which he hated. Their analysis of their situation was essentially correct. The increasing prosperity and freedom of the ensuing 20 years proved them right.
But as we have surveyed the Murdoch scandal of the past fortnight, few could deny that it has revealed how an international company has bullied and bought its way to control of party leaderships, police forces and regulatory processes. David Cameron, escaping skilfully from the tight corner into which he had got himself, admitted as much. Mr Murdoch himself, like a tired old Godfather, told the House of Commons media committee on Tuesday that he was so often courted by prime ministers that he wished they would leave him alone.
It has taken me more than 30 years as a journalist to ask myself this question, but this week I find that I must: is the Left right after all? You see, one of the great arguments of the Left is that what the Right calls “the free market” is actually a set-up.
The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything.
In the 1970s and 1980s, it was easy to refute this line of reasoning because it was obvious, particularly in Britain, that it was the trade unions that were holding people back. Bad jobs were protected and good ones could not be created. “Industrial action” did not mean producing goods and services that people wanted to buy, it meant going on strike. The most visible form of worker oppression was picketing. The most important thing about Arthur Scargill’s disastrous miners’ strike was that he always refused to hold a ballot on it.
A key symptom of popular disillusionment with the Left was the moment, in the late 1970s, when the circulation of Rupert Murdoch’s Thatcher-supporting Sun overtook that of the ever-Labour Daily Mirror. Working people wanted to throw off the chains that Karl Marx had claimed were shackling them – and join the bourgeoisie which he hated. Their analysis of their situation was essentially correct. The increasing prosperity and freedom of the ensuing 20 years proved them right.
But as we have surveyed the Murdoch scandal of the past fortnight, few could deny that it has revealed how an international company has bullied and bought its way to control of party leaderships, police forces and regulatory processes. David Cameron, escaping skilfully from the tight corner into which he had got himself, admitted as much. Mr Murdoch himself, like a tired old Godfather, told the House of Commons media committee on Tuesday that he was so often courted by prime ministers that he wished they would leave him alone.