Choose Life

A classic- My blackberry is not working

Creating the network

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b017cb0m

Stephen Fry traces the evolution of the mobile phone, from hefty executive bricks that required a separate briefcase to carry the battery to the smart little devices complete with personal assistant we have today.

There are more mobile phones in the world than there are people on the planet: Stephen Fry talks to the backroom boys who made it all possible and hears how the technology succeeded, in ways that the geeks had not necessarily intended.

In the first episode, Stephen Fry meets the men who first dreamt of creating a cellular network. Back in the sixties, two Bell Labs engineers in the US thought perhaps a maximum of 50,000 people might use a cellular phone network. Now, there are billions of phones in the world, all of them dependent on the networks based on their design. It was an enormous technical challenge that took decades to complete; but the main problems were political. Motorola, for example, argued that phone calls were a frivolous waste of radio spectrum compared to more worthy causes like television.

Talking about the future

talking about the future

Put the verbs in brackets into the gaps and form negative sentences in the going to-future.

1) They________the lunch basket. (not/to pack) 2) I __________ somebody the way. (not/to ask) 3) Rita _________Jim's book. (not/to borrow) 4) We _________a T-shirt. (not/to design) 5) I ________ on the red button. (not/to click) 6) The girls __________at the boys. (not/to laugh) 7) Tim_______Sandra's hair. (not/to pull) 8) Andy and Fred _________to a song. (not/to mime) 9) You _____________ dinner. (not/to prepare) 10) He ___________ the hamster in the garden. (not/to keep)

5-Plans and intentions 'going to' | Johnny Grammar | Learn English | Briti...

Plans and intentions 'going to'

For personal plans we use 'going to' + infinitive.

I'm going to be a football player.
I'm going to be rich and famous.

To make the question form we change the order of the verb 'be' and the suject.

What team are you going to play for?

To make the negative form we put 'not' between 'be' and 'going to'.

I'm not going to study. I'm only going to play football.

Now write 5 sentences using "going to"

Newcastle United

Around and about Newcastle

1. What is the city’s full name?

Newcastle is known as Newcastle-upon-Tyne (partly to distinguish it from Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town near Stoke). The Tyne is the river which flows through the centre of Newcastle.

2. Where is Newcastle-upon-Tyne?

It is situated in north-east England, just 18 km from the city of Sunderland (home to the North-East’s other Premier League team). Newcastle, Sunderland and the surrounding towns such as Gateshead comprise the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, named after the region’s two main rivers.

3. Where do Newcastle United play?

The team’s ground, St James’ Park, is right in the centre of the city, and has its own station on the Metro, Newcastle’s underground railway. It’s England’s third largest club stadium, and its city centre location means that everyone in town can hear the cheers whenever Newcastle score a goal!

4. What is a ‘Geordie’?

‘Geordie’ has two meanings: a Geordie (countable) has been defined as a person born ‘within spitting distance of the Tyne’. Geordie (uncountable) is the name of the dialect spoken in Newcastle, where for example, ‘house’ is pronounced ‘hoose’. There are also a few Geordie words, such as ‘canny’, which means nice or good. Some Geordies, such as pop star Sting, soften their accent when they move away from the region.

5. What are the classic images of Newcastle?

The bridges over the River Tyne are among the most iconic views of any English cities. And visitors are often amazed at the elegant neoclassical architecture of Newcastle city centre.

6. What else is Newcastle famous for?

Newcastle is renowned for its nightlife. In fact, the ‘Rough Guide to Britain’ recently described Newcastle’s legendary nightlife as Britain’s number one tourist attraction!

7. That must make Newcastle a very noisy place!?

Well, according to a study by University College London, Newcastle is the noisiest place in the UK, with noise levels that can impair residents’ hearing. However, the research was criticised because noise levels were measured in random places in different cities. In Newcastle, they measured noise levels by a motorway!

8. What festivals take place in the city?

With a sizeable Chinese population, Chinese New year is celebrated in style in Newcastle’s Chinatown, the area around Stowell Street in the city centre. And the annual Newcastle Mela is a festival of Asian arts and music which takes place each July.

Dancing into history- Exercise

Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from a BBC news report.
Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly.

leap / in the limelight / at the height of / defected/ to wow

1.

North Korea has denied sending spies into South Korea to murder the most senior official ever _____________ from the Communist country.

2.

It's certainly the case that the way most brides and grooms choose to preserve their brief moment _____________ has been evolving, away from the stuffy and predictable.

3.

"It gets people on board to have a look and they're ___________ by it. It's showing people that these boats are affordable, that they're not just for billionaires."

4.

Many see Australia moving away from its old allegiances, towards a future firmly within the Asian region. But can it make the emotional and cultural _______ to replace Europe and America at the centre of its consciousness with Asia?

5.

The Pistols, having recently sworn on tea-time telly, were ____________ their notoriety, many of the tour dates were cancelled, and protesters gathered to sing carols and pray for the misguided souls inside the town's Castle Cinema.

Halloween Special -- Fear

Idioms connected with fear:
1. Shaking like a leaf
2. Scared stiff
3. It sends shivers up and down my spine


Have you ever been so scared you were shaking like a leaf? Or perhaps you saw something which sent shivers up and down your spine.

Send me a sentence or two using these idioms .

Billy Elliot - Children of the Revolution (T-rex)

Bend it like Beckham

Synopsis

West London, the present day. Jesminda is an 18-year-old Asian girl with a talent for football. She is spotted by Julie, who plays for a local girls' team, and soon Jess joins the team. Subsequently, she must deal with her family's resistance to her passion as it doesn't conform to the career path her parents expect of her – to study law at university. Complicating matters further, Jess develops a relationship with Julie's boyfriend, Joe, who is the team coach.

Background

Bend It Like Beckham follows the success of East is East and preceded Channel 4's adaptation of Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Both of these projects explore what it means to be Asian in contemporary Britain, and as in these films, comedy informs the drama significantly. Gurinder Chadha, the director, has also directed Bhaji on the Beach (1993) and What's Cooking (2000), both films with ensemble female casts.

Commentary

Bend it Like Beckham reflects a British film and TV tradition of realism. For the scenes and sequences at Jess's home, the lighting has a flat, distant quality and the décor suggests a staid and traditional sense of Britishness. The camera tends to be locked off (stationary), denying the home any sense of energy. This contrasts with the use of a mobile camera during the football scenes, when the film has a richer (saturated) colour palette; sequences are cut quickly and are often supported by pop songs. This energy and intensity of action away from Jess's home makes visual the enriching experience that playing football is for her. Furthermore, this combination of image and music allows the film to speak directly to an audience the same age as the protagonists. For example, in the sequence where Jess and Julie go into central London to buy football boots there is no dialogue and no synchronous sound. Instead it is a montage of images cut to a song about ambition and moving forward. The sequence has the quality of a music video. Like other teen dramas, the film explores the relationship between parents and children, such as in the scene where Jess is at home with her parents after her mother has seen her in the park playing football. This domestic scene references key issues about what it is to be 'a proper woman' as defined by traditional Indian culture.

The film was part of an upsurge in the prominence of Asian culture in Britain in the late 1990s. It expresses the intersection of Asian and British culture across its narrative and the bonds and unities of the cultures most clearly and successfully through the use of inter-cutting between football training and preparations for an Indian wedding. Its closing image reinforces this sense of celebrating the fusion of cultures and traditions. Music also binds the disparate cultures together. We hear Indian music over football training montages and we hear British music (Texas's 'Inner Child') over the opening images of the wedding. There is an Indian cover version of a 1980s classic pop ballad, 'The Power of Love' by Jennifer Rush.

Answer these questions:

• Why do you think it is popular?
• How do you think this might link with the diversity of national, regional, religious and ethnic identities represented on screen?
• How does the film reflect changing attitudes to gender and ethnic identity in contemporary Britain?
• What are the problems Jess faces as a British Asian 18-year-old girl?
• How does Jess deal with explicit racism in the film?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of Julie's family background?
• Why is Jess's father's approach to tackling racial discrimination different from Jess's?
  
• How can football be used to both unite and divide people from different national, regional, religious and ethnic groups?