Embarrassing Moments

I was staying recently in a rather smart hotel in Melbourne. As I went to bed I was aware of music coming from the room next door. I knocked quite gently on the wall to indicate that it was unacceptably loud.

I must nonetheless have dropped off to sleep. At 2 am I was wide awake and the music from the next door seemed even louder. I walked out into the corridor to get the room number. I then telephoned the next-door room. A sleepy Australian voice replied and I told him in no uncertain terms that his music was disgracefully loud. Another ten minutes and the noise was no better. I rang again, even more angry this time. Still no improvement.

I telephoned the hotel security. The noise seemed to get even worse. I banged more angrily upon the wall.

Eventually the hotel security men arrived. “Come in,” I said. “Just listen to the level of this music. It really is impossible to sleep.” The two extremely polite hotel officials entered my room, walked to the side of the bed and turned a knob. There was silence. All the time it had been my own radio with its loudspeaker by the wall which had been the cause of the trouble.

In the morning I slunk quietly out of the hotel, hoping not to meet a bleary-eyed Australian complaining of a night’s sleep ruined by calls of some demented Englishman.

Christopher Chataway

  One of the first dinner parties I went to when I left school was given at Arlington House by the fabulously rich Lady Michelham.

About thirty people sat down at a huge table covered in orchids and set with gold plates. I had never even seen gold plates before, let alone eaten off them!

The first course was a slice of cantaloup melon and I picked up a gold spoon, but at the first touch the melon leapt off the plate and disappeared under the table.

I sat crimson with embarrassment while it was retrieved by a disdainful footman with powdered hair, and another piece placed in front of me!

Barbara Cartland

  I was shopping in Walton Street. I went into a very glamorous shop and started looking through the clothes. The assistant called, “Can I help you?” I replied, “May I please look?” to which she shouted, “Madam, we are a dry cleaners, you know!”

Una Stubbs

  My next-door neighbour’s cat was held firmly in the jaws of my bulldog. I couldn’t open his jaws and rang the vet. He couldn’t come, so I drove like mad to his surgery, and got a speeding ticket that earned me an endorsement  plus a fine of £80.

The vet gave the dog an injection and he went to sleep, his jaws relaxed and we freed the cat who was dead. I then went back to my next door neighbour and apologized for the bulldog’s behaviour. My neighbour laughed and said the cat had died of a heart attack and he had buried it in his back garden. The bulldog had dug it up.

Frank Carson

  On one occasion, when preaching at a service for several hundred young people and their parents, I felt it was a good opportunity to draw their attention to a new window which had been placed in the church the previous week.   My great mistake was to try and involve the children in the sermon! I asked the question: “What is different about church today compared with last Sunday?”

Complete silence.

I tried again.

“Now children, stand up on mummy’s knees and take a good look round church, and when you see what is different compared to last Sunday please put up your hands.”

Suddenly a little hand in the back row shot into the air and a voice called out for all to hear.

“Please sir, there aren’t as many out as there were last Sunday!”

The Archbishop of Armagh

 Just after Eurovision I did my first European tour (each night a different city and country). We arrived in Venice (I thought) and I decided to kill time before the show by going to see the gondolas. I went to the hotel receptionist and asked him to direct me to them. He looked very puzzled and asked me to repeat the question.  When I did repeat it he looked even more puzzled. I was extremely tired and felt it was rather silly to hire a receptionist who couldn’t speak English.

In desperation I said, “Just direct me to the nearest canal.” After thinking for a moment he said he thought there was one canal up in the mountains.

It dawned on me that something was very wrong. “Where am I?” I asked.

Well, I was in Vienna!

Dana

  I was signing books in London once, and after a two-hour session I went upstairs for a drink with the manager. There was a huge bunch of flowers in cellophane on the table.

“Oh, how lovely,” I screamed. “Thank you very much.”

“They’re for my wife,” said the manager hastily, and snatched them away.

Jilly Cooper

  Once  when reading the news on ITN in around 1956-57, I had to refer to the Liverpool Chamber of Shipping. Unfortunately I put two “t”s where the two “p”s should have been. Luckily, hardly anyone noticed.

Ludovic Kennedy

  Several years ago I was waiting in the queue to be checked by Customs at Calais. Standing behind me was a small group –of four or five- of nuns. I took a small step forward and down fell my knickers with a swoosh. In a split second those nuns had formed an encircling screen around me and, protected by their long black skirts, I was able to step out of my knickers and shove them in my handbag. Because of those nuns it was not nearly so embarrassing a moment as it might have been.

Marjorie Proops

From The NSPCC Book of Famous Faux Pas, edited by Fiona Snelso

Changing Education Paradigms

Animales en las gradas

JOHN CARLIN
“Racismo= el máximo odio con el mínimo de razón.” Abraham Joshua Heschel, teólogo judío. 

Llama la atención que el aparente insulto esta semana de Leo Messi a Aitor Karanka, el segundo entrenador del Real Madrid, haya generado mucho más ruido y polémica en España que las denuncias de Dani Alves contra el racismo en el fútbol español. Que Messi le hubiera dicho a Karanka que es el “muñeco de Mourinho” ofende a algunos, da risa a otros. Una anécdota más para nutrir la rivalidad infantil entre los aficionados de los dos equipos más privilegiados de la Liga.

Lo del racismo en los estadios debería ser motivo de preocupación general y de debate en todas las esferas de la sociedad, independientemente de la afiliación tribal o incluso de si a uno le interesa el fútbol o no. Pero no lo es. Ni da señales de que lo sea. Como dijo Alves, resignado, tras el partido entre el Barcelona y el Madrid, en el que aficionados del Bernabéu imitaban los gruñidos de un mono cada vez que tocaba la pelota, “es una guerra perdida”.

La inevitable reacción de muchos madridistas fue interpretar sus palabras como otra escalada en la guerra verbal entre los dos clubes. Pero —oh, sorpresa— resulta que no se tomaron la molestia de escuchar bien lo que dijo. “No es algo puntual, que pase allí”, apuntó Alves, refiriéndose al Bernabéu, “pasa en todos los campos”. Y agregó: “El Bernabéu no es de los campos en que más agredido me siento. Hay peores. En España en general sucede. Ya lo viví con el Sevilla… Desde que llegué a España [hace diez años] siempre ha sido así”.

Mucho peor que las chorradas que se han dicho sobre las sobrias observaciones de Alves en las redes sociales fue la respuesta atribuida a una de las figuras emblemáticas del Real Madrid, Manolo Sanchis. Quizá se le citó mal, quizá hubo un error de comunicación. Ojalá. Porque lo que se publicó fue que Sanchis dijo en la Cadena Cope que Alves era “un jugadorazo, pero fuera del campo no tiene demasiadas luces, no me gustan sus declaraciones”. O sea, una leyenda del Real Madrid da luz verde al racismo. Esperemos, repetimos, que se le haya citado mal, o fuera de contexto, o algo.

En España se tolera el racismo, incluso parece que se defiende. En Inglaterra, no

Lo que es cierto, por otro lado, es que las palabras de Alves tendrían aún más peso si denunciase los mismos gritos racistas cuando se oyen en su propio estadio, el Camp Nou. Marcelo, su compatriota brasileño y lateral del Madrid, ha sufrido idénticos insultos de la afición barcelonista y, que se sepa, Alves no ha dicho nada al respecto. Tampoco hubiera estado de más que Michael Essien, el jugador ghanés del Madrid, se hubiera sumado esta semana a las protestas de Alves. Y mejor aún, que todos los jugadores de ambos equipos, independentiemente de sus razas, hicieran causa común con él. Y los presidentes de todos los clubes también. Pero no. Silencio total.

Alves propuso como única solución imponer “castigos severos para terminar con este cáncer del futbol”, agregando que las autoridades deberían “dar ejemplo y mirar a Inglaterra”. Allí, dijo, “las medidas son duras”. Lo son. Hay cero tolerancia en el fútbol inglés con el racismo, dentro y fuera del campo. Si se aplicaran los mismos criterios en los estadios españoles que en los ingleses las cárceles españolas estarían llenas y los estadios aún más vacíos. En Inglaterra al aficionado que se detecta en televisión haciendo gestos o ruidos de mono hacia un jugador negro es buscado por la policía, detenido y llevado ante un tribunal. En la temporada 2001/2012 se dieron 23 casos; en la temporada anterior, 43.

Una ley solo sirve si cuenta con apoyo masivo social. En Inglaterra esta sí la tiene. Al punto de que el mayor freno al comportamiento racista en los estadios no es la amenaza de intervención policial sino el oprobio de las personas que están sentadas al lado de uno. En España se tolera; incluso parece que se defiende. En Inglaterra significa ser visto como un animal.

No hay comparación entre el racismo en los estadios ingleses y en los estadios españoles, pero aún así un comité del Parlamento británico publicó un informe sobre el tema el año pasado que dijo que todavía quedaban “problemas significativos”, aunque señaló que se habían visto “enormes” mejoras desde los años 70 y 80. En España, donde cerdos volarán antes de que el Gobierno investigue el racismo en el fútbol, se sigue en la edad de piedra.

Do you dare to dream?_video

B2 Composition 5: A Film Review

True Romance, released in 1993, is a romantic thriller written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. It tells the story of a young couple who fall in love but have to leave Detroit quickly when they find themselves in possession of a large quantity of drugs. They are pursued by violent gangsters all the way to Hollywood. After a spectacular shoot-out between the gangsters and cops, the young couple escape to Mexico and live happily ever after.

Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are perfect in the main roles. In the all-star supporting cast, Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Dennis Hopper and Samuel L Jackson all give memorable performances.

Tarantino's script is stylish and witty and the excellent soundtrack includes songs by Elvis Presley. The action is fast-paced, but sometimes very violent, and will not appeal to all tastes. Still, a must-see film, and not just for Tarantino fans!  
(150 words)

Another format option is this: write an email to a friend about a recent film you've seen and that you recommend seeing. Use vocabulary from pages 130-31 in Straightforward. Write the required 150-160 words, double-spaced. Here is a composition model:

Tomás Pérez García
English 306
Composition 5
21st January 2013

Hi John,
You already know what a film buff I am, so let me tell you about The Hours, a stunning film I’ve seen recently, starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Ed Harris. The film, which is based on a novel, is about British writer Virginia Woolf’s literary career and her influence on successive generations of readers. I found the story a bit confusing at first. The Australian actress is absolutely fantastic in the part of Virginia Woolf; she puts on quite a beautiful British accent. The window scene between Streep and Harris —when he jumps off the window ledge— is quite touching. (I remember first seeing this American actor in the unforgettable The Truman Show, did you see that one? What a brilliant script that was! The sets in that film were superb, too.) This one is a must-see film!It is definitely worth seeing.
Email me back and tell me if you have seen any good films that I shouldn’t miss.
Cheers,
Tom
(160 words)

Chomsky on Media Manipulation

Top 10 Media Manipulation Strategies
By Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky, the distinguished American philosopher, political activist and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has compiled a list of the ten most powerful and efficacious strategies used by “masters of the world” to establish a manipulation of the population through the media.

The strategies are so well-elaborated that even the countries with the best educational systems, succumb to the power and terror of those mafias. Many things are reported in the news but few are explained.

1. The strategy of distraction

The primary element of social control is the strategy of distraction which is to divert public attention from important issues and changes determined by the political and economic elites, by the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information.

Distraction strategy is also essential to prevent the public interest in the essential knowledge in the area of the science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics.

“Maintaining public attention diverted away from the real social problems, captivated by matters of no real importance. Keep the public busy, busy, busy, no time to think, back to farm and other animals” (quote from text Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars).

2. Create problems, then offer solutions

This method is also called “problem -reaction- solution.”

It creates a problem, a “situation” referred to cause some reaction in the audience, so this is the principal of the steps that you want to accept.

For example: let it unfold and intensify urban violence, or arrange for bloody attacks in order that the public is the applicant’s security laws and policies to the detriment of freedom.

Or create an economic crisis to accept as a necessary evil retreat of social rights and the dismantling of public services.

3. The gradual strategy

Acceptance to an unacceptable degree, just apply it gradually, dropper, for consecutive years.

That is how they radically new socioeconomic conditions (neoliberalism) were imposed during the 1980s and 1990s:

• the minimal state
• privatization
• precariousness
• flexibility
• massive unemployment
• wages
• do not guarantee a decent income,

...so many changes that have brought about a revolution if they had been applied once.

4. The strategy of deferring

Another way to accept an unpopular decision is to present it as “painful and necessary”, gaining public acceptance, at the time for future application.

It is easier to accept that a future sacrifice of immediate slaughter.

• First, because the effort is not used immediately
• Then, because the public, masses, is always the tendency to expect naively that “everything will be better tomorrow” and that the sacrifice required may be avoided

This gives the public more time to get used to the idea of change and accept it with resignation when the time comes.

5. Go to the public as a little child

Most of the advertising to the general public uses speech, argument, people and particularly children’s intonation, often close to the weakness, as if the viewer were a little child or a mentally deficient.

The harder one tries to deceive the viewer look, the more it tends to adopt a tone infantilizing. Why?

“If one goes to a person as if she had the age of 12 years or less, then, because of suggestion, she tends with a certain probability that a response or reaction also devoid of a critical sense as a person 12 years or younger.” (see Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars)

6. Use the emotional side more than the reflection

Making use of the emotional aspect is a classic technique for causing a short circuit on rational analysis, and finally to the critical sense of the individual.

Furthermore, the use of emotional register to open the door to the unconscious for implantation or grafting ideas , desires, fears and anxieties , compulsions, or induce behaviors …

7. Keep the public in ignorance and mediocrity

Making the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used to control and enslavement.

“The quality of education given to the lower social classes must be the poor and mediocre as possible so that the gap of ignorance it plans among the lower classes and upper classes is and remains impossible to attain for the lower classes.” (See Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars).

8. To encourage the public to be complacent with mediocrity

Promote the public to believe that the fact is fashionable to be stupid, vulgar and uneducated…

9. Self-blame Strengthen

To let individual blame for their misfortune, because of the failure of their intelligence, their abilities, or their efforts.

So, instead of rebelling against the economic system, the individual auto-devaluate and guilt himself, which creates a depression, one of whose effects is to inhibit its action.

And, without action, there is no revolution!

10. Getting to know the individuals better than they know themselves

Over the past 50 years, advances of accelerated science has generated a growing gap between public knowledge and those owned and operated by dominant elites.

Thanks to biology, neurobiology and applied psychology, the “system” has enjoyed a sophisticated understanding of human beings, both physically and psychologically.

The system has gotten better acquainted with the common man more than he knows himself.

This means that, in most cases, the system exerts greater control and great power over individuals, greater than that of individuals about themselves.

B2 Students on Freedom Fighters

Class Presentations on Freedom Fighters

Tell your classmates about a courageous person in the history of your country that fought for civil rights. What did this person do? Don't mention his/her name until your classmates guess it at the end of your presentation, and then write his/her name on the board. OR Tell your partners about an important breakthrough in human rights in the history of your country. What was achieved and how? Speak for 2 minutes. You may look at your notes but try not to read them. (See text on Rosa Parks for vocabulary and expressions on page 41, and use passive tenses when necessary.)

Here are some of your classmates' presentations. If you can you guess who they talked about, post your comment below.

_________________________(1888-1972) She was born in 1888 and died in 1972. She was a Spanish politician who was the first person to fight for the right of women to vote in Spain, when only men were allowed to vote in parliamentary elections. She was a courageous woman, because she defended universal suffrage, in spite of being criticized by many people, including women like Victoria Kent, who was another member of the Spanish Parliament during the Second Republic. Finally, the Spanish Government granted women the right to vote in 1931 and since that moment all Spanish people have had equal rights regardless of their gender. Can you guess her name?

A courageous person in the history of my country is ____________________. Born in 1910, he was a young diplomat from Zaragoza who was assigned to Hungary during the Second World War. He was shocked by the horror of the Holocaust and he saved the life of more than 5,200 jews. Four hundred more than those saved by Oskar Schindler. However, the latter is more well-know than our Spanish hero. He forged jews’ passports and he had to bribe people and rent some flats with his own money to hide jews. He even built an annex at the Spanish embassy in Budapest, so they were untouchable for the Nazis. He didn’t have the approval of Franco’s regime to do this. He died in 1980.Also known as the Spanish Schindler, he is an example of true bravery in Spain. Can you guess who he was?

There have been a lot of freedom fighters in Spain, a few more famous and appreciated than others. But the fighters I’m going to write about are not famous, because there isn’t a visible face, I want to talk about the Spanish people today.

We are immersed in the worst economic, financial and social crisis in many years, and many social groups find themselves in a very difficult situation. That’s why there are more and more freedom fighters in this country, in order to stop abuses from the establishment, banks, speculators... all those that are supposed to resolve this situation, but not at all costs.

These freedom fighters do not agree with stifling taxes, privatizations, collective dismissals, evictions, cuts here and there... they are people who try to play their part with food and clothes donations, people who sit in front of a house to avoid an eviction, people who let homeless families live in their empty houses, or go to a demonstration to keep pushing for our rights and welfare... They –we- are the true freedom fighters today, and will never leave the struggle.

Classroom Language

Speak to your English teacher… in English!

What’s the meaning of _____?

Is this sentence right/correct?

Is it correct to say...?/Can I say...?

How do you say “_____” in English?

How do you spell the word _____?

Can you write it on the board, please?

What’s the difference between kill and assassinate?

I didn’t understand. Could you explain that again, please?

Shall I continue?

Sorry, I didn’t do my homework/the exercise.

Sorry, I didn’t come to class last Monday (because I was ill).

Have you got a spare photocopy (of the worksheet)?

Do you have any photocopies left?/... any spare photocopies?

Can you play the CD again, please?

Can we listen to it again, please?

Did you correct my last composition? Can I have it back?

What’s the homework for next week/Thursday?

Can I find this document online?

Is that document on WebCT?

Sorry I’m late.

When do classes finish (in December/in May)?

See you!

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Constitutional Court rules in favour of same-sex marriage

By Ingrid Bazinet (AFP)

MADRID — Spain's constitutional court Tuesday upheld a 2005 gay marriage law, throwing out a long-standing appeal by the now-ruling Popular Party.

The court ruling dealt a resounding legal defeat to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's right-leaning party, which lodged its objection just three months after the law was passed in July 2005. The party, then in opposition, had contested the use of the word "marriage" to describe a union between a same-sex couple.

Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz Gallardón conceded that the court's published ruling had established a doctrine that was "binding" and his party would therefore make no changes to the legislation. The legal victory reinforces then prime minister Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's tradition-shattering reform, one of a string of legal changes he introduced to put Spain on the forefront of progressive social change.

In its ruling, the top court simply said it "rejected the appeal" by more than 50 members of the Popular Party who had argued the law was not constitutional. A full copy of the decision and arguments, backed by eight of the 12 judges but with three against and one abstaining, is to be released in the days ahead, it said.

Hours ahead of the decision, Rajoy said his party had objected in particular to the use of the word "marriage". "We appealed not because the union of two people of the same sex would have legal effects, that did not matter to us," he told Cope radio. "The only thing we appealed was the name, that is to say the word 'marriage' was the reason for the appeal."

The Spanish court decision comes just as neighbouring France's Socialist government is about to propose gay marriage legislation, which has been hotly opposed by the Church and some conservatives. Spain's gay marriage law, which also lets homosexual couples adopt children, has allowed as many as 22,000 gay couples to wed, according to a national federation of gays, lesbians, transsexuals and bisexuals. When the legislation was passed seven years ago, Spain became only the third member of the European Union after Belgium and the Netherlands to allow same-sex weddings.