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| Novak Djokovic |
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| Frank Lampard |
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| Frank Lampard |
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| Ben Foden |
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| Jenson Button |
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| Xabi Alonso |
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| Someone ^^' |
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| Russel Tovey |
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Latests
Saturday, February 26, 2011
...
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| Fifteen-year-old Kent Manning and his sister Libby, 18, with their father, after they were told there was no hope of finding their mother alive / AP |
Friday, February 18, 2011
Hellraiser
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| 09 Feb 2009 - Chinese New Year. The Mandarin Hotel caught fire two months before completion after some unauthorised fireworks were carried on by the next-door Central Chinese TV headquarters (huge weird shaped cubic building on the picture). Some fireworks landed on the roof of the hotel and the fire enfulfed the whole building in less than 15 minutes. As the fire spread, the authority tried to apply censorship but it didn't stop foreigners and locals from recording footages and taking pictures. The whole affair became a running joke as "The CCTV caused the major event of the year and failed to cover it!" |
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Parler franglais?
GoAnimate.com: alevel argumets_Caro team by Carogida
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
That's pretty much what my youngest pupils sound like when they speak French. So cute! ^^
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
That's pretty much what my youngest pupils sound like when they speak French. So cute! ^^
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Acid Survivors Foundation
We woke up screaming and shouting. Sonali was screaming too. We were all in excruciating pain and all severely burnt.
Hearing our screams, our neighbours came to the house but nobody knew how to help. We now know we should have bathed in water to wash the acid off our skin but at the time we thought water would increase the pain.
At one point Sonali stopped making any sound and we feared she was dead. I could see that her face was totally burnt. Fortunately the rest of her body was completely wrapped up as it was winter - so her body was protected.
We were taken to a hospital nearby, from where we were transferred straight away to Khulna hospital. We were only there a day. We were in such a critical state doctors feared they would not be able to save us so they took us to Dhaka, where we spent nine months in hospital. The Acid Survivors Foundation paid for all the costs.
I am scarred across the right side of my face. I have no right ear at all and my right eye has been destroyed too. I have lost both sight and hearing on the right side, and recently my ear has started bleeding. My husband was burned on both his shoulders and legs.
The attack was devastating, and today we lead a totally different life to the one we had before the attack. It is difficult for us to be in sunlight because our bodies itch and then we scratch and bleed. Our scars make people around us uncomfortable.
It was all about land. My husband stands to inherit the land on which we live when his father dies. But my husband's uncle believes the land should be his. Relations between my husband and his uncle were poor before the attack, but we had no idea this man was prepared to sneak up on us and try to murder his nephew.
My husband knows that the acid was intended for him alone and it's hard for him to accept that Sonali and I were caught up in this. Sometimes I catch him looking at Sonali, and I know it causes him unbelievable pain that we were victims too.
We are really scared for Sonali's future. In Bangladesh beauty is important, especially when it comes to marriage. Since Sonali is not pretty we will need to pay a large dowry to marry her off, and we have little money.
© Simon Rawles
Support the ASF: http://www.acidsurvivors.org/
Monday, February 07, 2011
No matter how pink they want it to look like, blue still draws to dark..
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: David Cameron's message is that Muslims are not wanted
Muslims and migrants are being used to distract people from the planned chaos implemented by this unpopular coalition. It is politicking of the worst kind
The Indenpendent – Monday, 7 Feb 20011
Not many dawns have passed since the sparky Tory chairwoman Sayeeda Warsi spoke up about the "dinner table" libelling of all Muslims, now routine, normalised, unremarkable, intimate, uncontested. I see and hear it, too – prejudices passed around with the balsamic vinegar or ketchup. Some Muslims deserve castigation and worse for the terrible things they do. I frequently denounce them in my columns. But sweeping, indiscriminate execration of any collective is abhorrent and must be confronted. Warsi did that, knowing her words would infuriate right-wing Tories who can't stand the brown little upstart.
Now, how will she react to her leader, who has amplified the small talk of bigotry and boomed it through a megaphone, perhaps to slap her down? I found Cameron's speech in Munich indefensible even though I completely agree with some observations and policy ideas. We discussed these two years back when we met in his office for over an hour. Self-exclusion, special pleading, women's rights, community oppression, anti-democratic attitudes, terrorism, the spread of Wahhabi Islam are serious problems and growing. Laissez-faire multicultural policies do not serve our times. State institutions should fund shared spaces, crossover ideas, openness and modernity. Many of us Muslims would be with David Cameron if his speech hadn't shown him to be selective, hypocritical, calculating, woefully indifferent to Muslim victims of relentless racism and chauvinism. He was speaking the words of white extremists but in posh. There was so much that was objectionable – where he spoke, what he said, the timing, the purposes loitering behind the fine façade of his personality.
By speaking out in Munich he allied himself with the ghastly Angela Merkel who delivered a similarly provocative sermon last autumn. Racism is rife in both countries; in both nations, millions of their own natives rigidly hold on to their languages and cultures. Think of those Germans who go abroad on holiday and stay in walled-off camps where only German is spoken. Countless Britons are similarly against integration with the people of unfamiliar countries they visit or migrate to. I would rather have my tongue chopped off than lose my mellifluous home languages. To learn and love English shouldn't mean the destruction of world languages, most of which we are lucky enough to have on our isles.
Remember the PM was at an international security council when he let rip – an outrage. Diversity is one of our greatest assets, an antidote to militancy not its cause. A new study by the Runnymede Trust in Birmingham shows young citizens are more bonded and at ease with difference than their elders in that multifarious city. As the speech progressed, you realised that Cameron's problem isn't cultural difference. It's the people whom marauding Christian Crusaders called "curs", wretched Mohammedans. Cameron isn't troubled by Hassidic enclaves, Orthodox Jewish dress codes, or their religiously sanctioned gender inequality and stubborn self-removal from mainstream societies. I have been rebuffed by a veiled Muslim woman and a Hassidic Jewish one when I tried to talk to their children. And the other day a young white mum told her daughter to come away from me, the "Paki". Moreover, those who only want to live with their own in white heartlands are thought to be no threat to integration – they are only doing what comes naturally. Little official concern is expressed about crimes committed by various non-Muslim ethnic groups against each other, against Muslims or white Britons. Even more disgracefully, Tories ignore racists who terrorise people of colour. How unfair is that?
Our PM, in effect, identified himself with the abominable English Defence League when he spoke up a day before the league marched through Luton shouting abuse. Are these the laudable British values we must embrace? Hot-headed Muslims will be even more convinced they are not wanted in the land of their birth.
The next charge: hypocrisy. This Government is enthusiastically funding schools for separatists – from snooty white middle-classes, to pedantic, purist Hindus, nutty, evangelical Christians, and introverted, uncompromising Muslims. How does that foster integration? Michael Gove has just been accused by Bradford City Council of encouraging segregation by funding a new free school started up by Ayub Ismail, who wants to ensure his pupils are not "absorbed into the dominant culture". Saudis are allowed by our Government to brainwash Muslims who are then despised. The Tory party's right and left buttocks move in different directions. Not clever nor consistent with the PM's Big Message of the week.
So why is he doing it? When politicians are in trouble they pick on "outsiders", put them into stocks so the people can turn on them and relieve their feelings of frustration. Andrew Lansley, now in charge of health, said shamelessly in 1995 that they were using the anti-immigration card because it played well with voters. Recently he blamed migrants for a rise in TB in Britain, a link that used healthcare concerns to whip up xenophobic panic. Cameron himself designed the disgraceful anti-refugee campaign for Michael Howard in 2005.
The German Marshall Fund has just published a comparative survey of attitudes to migrants in Western countries. Britons, noted The Economist, are shown up as a "mean-minded lot" – negative, hostile, paranoid. I don't believe that is the full picture. Britain is also uniquely receptive – which is why so many of us would not live elsewhere. But it is going through a seriously bad mood and Cameron is exploiting that.
I accept our citizens are unnerved by those British Muslims who make endless demands, are full of wrath and murderous plans, or choose ghettoisation. However, the widespread national unhappiness is created by policies pushed through by this Government. Muslims and migrants are being used to distract people from the planned chaos implemented by this unpopular coalition. It is politicking of the worst kind. Which is why it must be opposed vehemently. As the daughter of a survivor said to me at the Holocaust Memorial Day in January: "We Jews must look to our failings and crimes. But when outsiders try to use that for their devilish reasons, we know where we must stand." Me too.
Muslims and migrants are being used to distract people from the planned chaos implemented by this unpopular coalition. It is politicking of the worst kind
The Indenpendent – Monday, 7 Feb 20011
Not many dawns have passed since the sparky Tory chairwoman Sayeeda Warsi spoke up about the "dinner table" libelling of all Muslims, now routine, normalised, unremarkable, intimate, uncontested. I see and hear it, too – prejudices passed around with the balsamic vinegar or ketchup. Some Muslims deserve castigation and worse for the terrible things they do. I frequently denounce them in my columns. But sweeping, indiscriminate execration of any collective is abhorrent and must be confronted. Warsi did that, knowing her words would infuriate right-wing Tories who can't stand the brown little upstart.
Now, how will she react to her leader, who has amplified the small talk of bigotry and boomed it through a megaphone, perhaps to slap her down? I found Cameron's speech in Munich indefensible even though I completely agree with some observations and policy ideas. We discussed these two years back when we met in his office for over an hour. Self-exclusion, special pleading, women's rights, community oppression, anti-democratic attitudes, terrorism, the spread of Wahhabi Islam are serious problems and growing. Laissez-faire multicultural policies do not serve our times. State institutions should fund shared spaces, crossover ideas, openness and modernity. Many of us Muslims would be with David Cameron if his speech hadn't shown him to be selective, hypocritical, calculating, woefully indifferent to Muslim victims of relentless racism and chauvinism. He was speaking the words of white extremists but in posh. There was so much that was objectionable – where he spoke, what he said, the timing, the purposes loitering behind the fine façade of his personality.
By speaking out in Munich he allied himself with the ghastly Angela Merkel who delivered a similarly provocative sermon last autumn. Racism is rife in both countries; in both nations, millions of their own natives rigidly hold on to their languages and cultures. Think of those Germans who go abroad on holiday and stay in walled-off camps where only German is spoken. Countless Britons are similarly against integration with the people of unfamiliar countries they visit or migrate to. I would rather have my tongue chopped off than lose my mellifluous home languages. To learn and love English shouldn't mean the destruction of world languages, most of which we are lucky enough to have on our isles.
Remember the PM was at an international security council when he let rip – an outrage. Diversity is one of our greatest assets, an antidote to militancy not its cause. A new study by the Runnymede Trust in Birmingham shows young citizens are more bonded and at ease with difference than their elders in that multifarious city. As the speech progressed, you realised that Cameron's problem isn't cultural difference. It's the people whom marauding Christian Crusaders called "curs", wretched Mohammedans. Cameron isn't troubled by Hassidic enclaves, Orthodox Jewish dress codes, or their religiously sanctioned gender inequality and stubborn self-removal from mainstream societies. I have been rebuffed by a veiled Muslim woman and a Hassidic Jewish one when I tried to talk to their children. And the other day a young white mum told her daughter to come away from me, the "Paki". Moreover, those who only want to live with their own in white heartlands are thought to be no threat to integration – they are only doing what comes naturally. Little official concern is expressed about crimes committed by various non-Muslim ethnic groups against each other, against Muslims or white Britons. Even more disgracefully, Tories ignore racists who terrorise people of colour. How unfair is that?
Our PM, in effect, identified himself with the abominable English Defence League when he spoke up a day before the league marched through Luton shouting abuse. Are these the laudable British values we must embrace? Hot-headed Muslims will be even more convinced they are not wanted in the land of their birth.
The next charge: hypocrisy. This Government is enthusiastically funding schools for separatists – from snooty white middle-classes, to pedantic, purist Hindus, nutty, evangelical Christians, and introverted, uncompromising Muslims. How does that foster integration? Michael Gove has just been accused by Bradford City Council of encouraging segregation by funding a new free school started up by Ayub Ismail, who wants to ensure his pupils are not "absorbed into the dominant culture". Saudis are allowed by our Government to brainwash Muslims who are then despised. The Tory party's right and left buttocks move in different directions. Not clever nor consistent with the PM's Big Message of the week.
So why is he doing it? When politicians are in trouble they pick on "outsiders", put them into stocks so the people can turn on them and relieve their feelings of frustration. Andrew Lansley, now in charge of health, said shamelessly in 1995 that they were using the anti-immigration card because it played well with voters. Recently he blamed migrants for a rise in TB in Britain, a link that used healthcare concerns to whip up xenophobic panic. Cameron himself designed the disgraceful anti-refugee campaign for Michael Howard in 2005.
The German Marshall Fund has just published a comparative survey of attitudes to migrants in Western countries. Britons, noted The Economist, are shown up as a "mean-minded lot" – negative, hostile, paranoid. I don't believe that is the full picture. Britain is also uniquely receptive – which is why so many of us would not live elsewhere. But it is going through a seriously bad mood and Cameron is exploiting that.
I accept our citizens are unnerved by those British Muslims who make endless demands, are full of wrath and murderous plans, or choose ghettoisation. However, the widespread national unhappiness is created by policies pushed through by this Government. Muslims and migrants are being used to distract people from the planned chaos implemented by this unpopular coalition. It is politicking of the worst kind. Which is why it must be opposed vehemently. As the daughter of a survivor said to me at the Holocaust Memorial Day in January: "We Jews must look to our failings and crimes. But when outsiders try to use that for their devilish reasons, we know where we must stand." Me too.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Pictures from the World
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| A woman walks at a mass grave site at Titanyen, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. |
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Change of direction
I should be writting my assignments due on Tuesday about Learners Autonomy in a Modern Foreign Language class and how I would articulate my teaching in terms of What, How and Where but blêêêrrk!
So little change of mood for the blog, you might have noticed I have been posting more of things outside of my usual ranting and adonises. I've indeed decided I'm going to try to please myself a bit more. I realise I always say I don't really care if people read or not but my vanity always stops me when I want to post something I like because it might be "boring" and end up posting some bloke in his undies.
There will still be blokes in their undies but who doesn't like blokes in their undies but I will also talk about things I like to talk about as more and more people told me I was interesting when I do so. Like History.
And also I miss History. I studied it for years but because I'm in England, I don't have all my lovely books with me, and training as a Language teacher I wouldn't even have the time to read any of them.
So I'm doing my blog and stop doing what I think might be this or that.
Let's start with Lord Gaga ^^
So little change of mood for the blog, you might have noticed I have been posting more of things outside of my usual ranting and adonises. I've indeed decided I'm going to try to please myself a bit more. I realise I always say I don't really care if people read or not but my vanity always stops me when I want to post something I like because it might be "boring" and end up posting some bloke in his undies.
There will still be blokes in their undies but who doesn't like blokes in their undies but I will also talk about things I like to talk about as more and more people told me I was interesting when I do so. Like History.
And also I miss History. I studied it for years but because I'm in England, I don't have all my lovely books with me, and training as a Language teacher I wouldn't even have the time to read any of them.
So I'm doing my blog and stop doing what I think might be this or that.
Let's start with Lord Gaga ^^
Globalisation is nothing new
Thanks to this very organised alliance formed by groups of cities, today still strongly attached to their independance (Bremen, Hamburg and all Flemish and Dutch cities) - Scandinavia and Russia were able to sell wood, furs, copper, gold, iron, silver, oil from whale and mercenaries to the Mediterranean world who was missing them in exhange for its wine, honey, olive oil, cereals and all the exotic goods Venitians and other powerful cities of Italy were bringing from the Middle East, Central Asia and Far East: silk, gems, dye, plants, spices...The British Isles were selling their very good quality wool from their sheeps to the Flemish cities in exchange of the best drapes, sheets, linen and clothes in Europe. The Muslim world of North Africa and Middle East would also provide ivory and other luxury goods to Europe because, like today, religion never stopped trade.
Globalisation is nothing new.
Russia was formed because Vikings were travelling allong the rivers between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea to trade with the Byzantine Empire. As the trade increased, so did the attacks on the shipments. So they build forts along the rivers where merchants could halt and find a shelter. People from Scandinavia then the lands around moved next these forts to provide the merchants with food and homes. They stayed there and started to cultivate. Forts became hamlets, then villages, then towns, then cities and the "Rus", as the Vikings called the people who were travelling East for trade, made these lands theirs...The rest is history.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Friday, January 07, 2011
The pig's in heat.
Spot the major fail from John Terry's jacket. I can't begin to imagine the amount of sweat he produced on that day for it to soak up his shirt then his vest then go through his jacket. I mean, for crying out loud, those jackets are nowhere near thin! Nor is John Terry for that matter...
Maybe that's a sign that when you have a tendency to cheat on a weekly basis with everything that moves from Essex slags to your best friend's wife via strippers and groupies, you should not get married or you'll get nervous and will appear looking like a pig in heat in OK Mag.
I'm actually quite surprised the King of Love Rats' PR team didn't spot that and let the pictures appear in the paper. I don't what they did with the colour or the make-up but Michael's tan is horrendously bronze next to the more natural one he bears on the paps' pictures of that very day.
Thanks for his smile, though ^^
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
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