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.