This cartoon by Peter Brookes from The Times links the snowy weather in Britain with the climate change talks in Copenhagen.
We see a number of cars stuck in the snow on a country road. The drivers are using a call and response chant popular with demonstrators: "What do we want? — [Change/Freedom/Jobs, etc.] — When do we want it? — Now!" The irony is that while all the talk in Copenhagen is of global warming, much of northern Europe is blanketed in snow.
Tiger Woods suffered a fresh setback on Friday night when Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer, one of his major sponsors, said it would no longer feature him in its US advertising campaigns. Full story >>
COMMENT
All those clever slogans are coming back to haunt Tiger!
This cartoon by Christian Adams from The Daily Telegraph links the traffic chaos caused by snowy weather in Europe with the chaotic events at the climate change summit in Copenhagen.
The main countries (China, UK, Africa, India and the US) are represented by cars. Each one has skidded to a halt in the thick snow and they have ended up pointing in different directions—an appropriate metaphor for the big countries' failure to negotiate a binding agreement on global warming. Read more >>
Failure looms for world leaders in Copenhagen as temperature and emission targets appear doomed, according to The Guardian. Full story >>
VOCABULARY
If you do something in order to save face, you do it in order to avoid appearing weak and losing people's respect or admiration. • Some officials believe negotiating about human rights behind the scenes works better than bullying in public, since it permits nasty regimes to save face.
Call it what you will, "the noughties", "the two-thousands" or something else, the first decade of the 21st century (2000-2009) is now over. Looking back on the past ten years through news photographs, it becomes clear that it was a dramatic, often brutal decade. Natural disasters, terrorist attacks and wars were by far the most dominant theme. Ten years ago, Bill Clinton was ending his final term in office, very few had ever heard of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein still ruled Iraq - all that and much more has changed in the intervening time. See all photos >>
In 1970, Punch humourist A.P. Herbert reenacted one of his fictional legal cases (more details from Snopes). He scrawled a cheque on the side of a Golden Guernsey cow, and took her to the bank to be cashed in. News that cheques are likely to be abolished in the UK by 2018 prompted BBC News Magazine to organize a caption competition for this famous picture of the event. My favourite caption: "I'm sorry Sir. This is a PIGGY Bank."
COMMENTS
In the UK, the major supermarkets, most high street stores and petrol stations already refuse to accept cheques. In fact, it costs about £1 to process a cheque. Here in France, payment by cheque is still commonplace. You don't want to be stuck in the queue behind someone paying by cheque though—the cashier has to check the person's ID, write the ID card number on the back of the cheque, put the cheque through the machine, and get the person to sign it—all of which slows things down even more.
READ MORE
• The top 10 facts about the paper payment method (Daily Mirror)
• Q&A: Cheques facing retirement (BBC News)
SPELLING
The US spelling is check.
This cartoon by Peter Brookes from The Times combines the Nativity with the threatened Christmas strike by British Airways cabin crew. We see a donkey, a cow, and a sheep standing in the stable where the baby Jesus is lying in a manger. The donkey says: "Virgin delivers!", and the cow replies: "Well, you can't rely on BA, can you?"
COMMENTARY
"Virgin delivers!" is a play on words. Of course, the mother of Jesus was the Virgin Mary. (Strictly speaking, she didn't actually deliver him—that's usually the job of the doctor or midwife. Normally, you'd say that she gave birth to Jesus. However, let's allow Peter Brookes some cartoonist's licence.) But Virgin can also be taken as meaning Virgin Airlines , BA's arch rival. If you say that someone delivers, you mean that they do a good job, or they do what they say they will do. This explains the cow's reply. There could also be a play on the word BA, which is also the noise made by a sheep. But that might be just a coincidence.
FOOTNOTE
Good news for BA passengers. The planned strike has been declared illegal in a High Court ruling and will no longer go ahead. Read more >>.
The Independent says that China is under pressure to abandon demands that could derail a Copenhagen deal. Full story >>
VOCABULARY
A ransom is the money that has to be paid to someone so that they will set free a person they have kidnapped. If you say that someone is holding you to ransom, you mean that they are using their power to try to force you to do something which you do not want to do. • Greedy online sellers are holding desperate parents to ransom by demanding six times the normal price for this year’s must-have Christmas toy – the Go Go Hamster.
Here is the CNN Student News for Friday 18 December. Click on the links to see a transcript.
"It's not a setback. It's a test." Tell that to Tiger! Accenture have unceremoniously dumped him. Oh, the irony ...
READ MORE
• Accenture Really Wants Nothing to Do with Tiger Woods (AgencySpy)
