A couple of pensioners are trying to keep warm in their living room. The man is studying a pile of bills. The woman, who is reading a paper with the headline "True Cost of Olympics £24 billion", tells him: "Look on the bright side—we've got tickets for the ladies' synchronised swimming." The joke is that synchronised swimming has the reputation for being one of the most boring Olympic events, so it's not much consolation.
As usual with Mac cartoons, there are some lovely details: the shivering dog trying to warm itself in front of a candle, the hot water bottle under the woman's feet, and the half-eaten biscuit on the table.
IDIOM If you look on the bright side, you to try to see something good in a bad situation. • Look on the bright side—the accident insurance might pay for a new car.
TRANSCRIPT REPORTER: Facebook wants to be friends with Wall Street. The world's leading social network is preparing to file an initial public offering as early as Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal. The IPO would value Facebook at between $75 billion and $100 billion, the report, citing unidentified sources, stated. The report also noted Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are expected to play lead roles in what may be one of the biggest and most anticipated IPOs in U.S. history. However, investors should be careful not to get caught up in the hype, warns Jim O'Shaughnessy of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. JIM O'SHAUGHNESSY, CHAIRMAN/CEO, O'SHAUGHNESSY ASSET MANAGEMENT: "Many IPOs come out being very, very overvalued because they get so hyped up and investors are so taken in by the story that they're willing to pay any amount just to be able to get into the stock. That generally translates to being very overvalued. So we generally tell investors that they should wait, probably a good full year before they look at buying a stock that was recently IPO'd." REPORTER: Facebook declined to comment. Conway Gittens, Reuters.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the Archbishop of York says that marriage must remain a union between a man and a woman, and David Cameron will be acting like a “dictator” if he allows homosexual couples to wed. Full story >>
VOCABULARY In Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches, an archbishop is a bishop of the highest rank, who is in charge of all the bishops and priests in a particular country of region. • Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday appointed Joseph Coutts as archbishop of Karachi.
As part of the Europa project, newspapers from six European countries (Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, and Italy) were asked to stereotype each other, and then asked cultural commentators in each country to assess how accurate they are. You can read the resulting articles on The Guardian website. Here's an extract from the one about the British:
The stereotype is itself a stereotype. The European image of the Brit – either pukingly drunk football fan or snooty City gent, both living off past imperial glories, sullenly resenting being in Europe rather than ruling the world – is itself a cliche. Just as Brits know that every good Frenchman wears a striped shirt and beret, and that ruddy-faced Germans subsist on a diet of beer and sausage, so we know precisely what all those Europeans think of us. Read all >>
Google's revised privacy policy is raising new concerns about consumers rights to their information on the internet and other connected products. Bobbi Rebell reports.
TRANSCRIPT REPORTER: A new warning for consumers: Google at your own risk. Earlier this week, in an online post, the company unveiled its new privacy policy, linking all its online offerings- including its widely used search engine, Gmail, Google +, and YouTube. It also ties into the Android mobile operating system. And with the exception of a few tweaks, consumers cannot opt out. When the full policy goes into effect on March 1st, user information for most Google products will be treated as a single group of data. The company can then use that information across all its products to sell targeted ads. Wired New York Bureau Chief John Abell has a warning for consumers. JOHN ABELL: "Never put information in someone else's hands that you don't want to be shared. Don't put something on a company website which you would be afraid if it were stolen." REPORTER: The move is controversial- because it could raise red flags for anti-trust regulators. Both Facebook and Twitter have settled different FTC charges related to privacy- though each case is different. Google also points out that there are benefits to consumers. For example a person can search for a restaurant using Google's search engine. Google will then use Google plus social network to incorporate comments and photos from friends. Abell believes Google has enough at stake- that it will be careful not to upset its users. JOHN ABELL: "Google needs to have your trust with all the things that they already know about you so if they were to screw up and do things with your data that you did not like it would be a terrible blow to their entire business model which is based on that trust." REPORTER: And to be clear: the data Google is collecting is not new- it's just being grouped together- a seemingly simple nuance with implications still unknown. Bobbi Rebell, Reuters.
Mr Cameron accused the EU (European Union) of "doing things to make life even harder" in the face of the economic challenge. He attacked the "unnecessary" regulations on business that "can destroy jobs" and said the proposed financial transactions tax could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. He said: "Even to be considering this at a time when we are struggling to get our economies growing is quite simply madness." Full story >>
THE CARTOON Andy Davey's cartoon shows David Cameron as Saint George, the patron saint of England, fighting a dragon made up of red tape and labelled EU. Cameron is wielding a sword and shield but has lost his helmet.
EXPLANATORY NOTES 1. Legend has it that Saint George slayed a dragon to save a princess. (Listen to story here.) 2. The red cross on Cameron's shield and tunic is the St George's Cross, which is also the flag of England. 3. The term red tape is used to refer to official rules and procedures when they seem unnecessary and cause delay. The dragon is a metaphor for EU red tape. (See this article from The Phrase Finder for the origin of the expression red tape.)
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is portrayed as a doctor attending to the skeleton of Britannia (the female personification of Great Britain). Dr Osborne remarks, "... but the good news is ... she's not getting any deader!" The implication being that the UK economy is in such a bad way that it can't get any worse.
VOCABULARY The title of the cartoon 'flatlining' is a medical term. A hospital patient is said to be flatlining when they register as having no brain waves or heartbeat on an electronic monitor. However, the term can also be applied to an economy which is showing no signs of growth: Interest rates are to stick at 0.5% for another month as the Bank of England tries to revive the flatlining economy with another £75 billion of quantitive easing. So the cartoonist is using a play on words.
In a series of experiments, the New Caledonian crow has demonstrated an unexpected understanding of how tools work to make their lives easier. The tests by scientists in the UK and New Zealand, revealed that the bird was intelligent enough to select and use the best available tool to raise the water level in a test tube. Jim Drury reports.
TRANSCRIPT REPORTER: Aesop's fable 'The Crow and the Pitcher' brought to life almost 3,000 years after it was written in ancient Greece. The fable teaches that thoughtfulness is superior to brute strength, a lesson apparently not lost on the New Caledonian species. Research from Auckland and Cambridge universities shows that New Caledonian crows demonstrate a cognitive awareness of how to use tools to feed. Dr Alex Taylor, who's done similar experiments with the rooks that reside on campus at Cambridge, says the crows are much smarter than previously thought. DR ALEX TAYLOR, DEPARTMENT OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, : "What our study shows is that they can learn to use stones as tools and more importantly they can understand something about how their tools actually work, so the crows were actually able to understand that a big stone is better to drop in than a small stone. It's a more efficient thing to do because it raises the water level more. They were able to discriminate immediately between floating and sinking objects. So they would pick up pieces of polystyrene and it would float and they would throw them away, and then they would pick up a rubber block that looked exactly the same but was nice and heavy and they dropped that into the tube." REPORTER: Five crows were tested in their New Caledonia habitat and then released back into the wild. The authors say the birds showed rational responses beyond simple associative learning. DR. ALEX TAYLOR: "The kind of tweak in our study really was to try and explore, get some simple controls that would explore whether or not the crows were using simple learning, so that's something we hope to do at some point with these rooks as well." REPORTER: Tool use has been observed in several species since the chimpanzee demonstrated that mankind is not alone in using implements. But only a handful of bird species have previously shown this level of understanding. Taylor and his team believe their findings give them something to crow about. Jim Drury, Reuters.
The Daily Mail reports on a study which suggests UK deaths from heart attacks have halved in less than a decade. Full story >>
VOCABULARY When you halve something or when it halves, it is reduced to half its previous size or amount. • The number of female directors working in Hollywood has halved since 1998, a new study has shown.
Of course, the horse and the dog have not really been nominated for Oscars, though there has been some debate over whether animal actors should be considered.
French stock markets are down, its sovereign credit rating has been cut. Rhonda Schaffler takes a look at how wine could be the most lucrative way to get exposure to the country.
The Independent carries a report on increasing levels of dishonesty across Britain. Full story >>
VOCABULARY If you say that a person or their behaviour is dishonest, you mean that they are not truthful or honest and that you cannot trust them. Dishonesty is dishonest behaviour. • As well as 28 dishonesty charges relating to the credit cards, Ms Francis was also charged with stealing a Shih Tzu puppy on Christmas Eve.
BACKGROUND Labour joined forces with Church of England bishops and Lib Dem rebels last night to try to wreck flagship plans for an annual limit on welfare handouts. Ministers reacted with fury as Church leaders suggested that capping benefits at a maximum of £26,000 a year was somehow un-Christian. The bishops helped inflict a dramatic defeat in the House of Lords, with one even invoking the Bible as he argued against the Government’s plans. Read more >>
THE CARTOON The cartoon by Mac from The Daily Mail shows a bishop in a pub being plied with drinks by what we can assume to be grateful benefits claimants. The bishop says, "Another drink? That's very generous. Where do you chaps get all the money?" The implied answer is "from government benefits".
VOCABULARY 1. Benefit is money that is given to people who are poor, ill, or unemployed. 2. Chap is an informal British English word for a man.
TRANSCRIPT REPORTER: The Senate of France passed a landmark law on Monday -- making it illegal to deny that the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago was genocide. The move raises the prospect of a diplomatic rift between France and Turkey, a major NATO ally. Around 200 Franco-Turks protested outside the senate as the vote took place. The Turkish ambassador to France, Tahsin Burcuoglu, said the law will never be accepted in Turkey, and diplomatic ties will be severely affected. TURKISH AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE, TAHSIN BURCUOGLU: "There will be a very big reaction, you will see. It will probably mean a total rupture, and when I say a total rupture, I include things like I can leave definitively." REPORTER: In Istanbul -- Turks are saying the law is against freedom of thought. ISTANBUL RESIDENT TAMER BALABAN: "It is not a good thing that such issues are being voted in parliaments. I believe that parliamentarians shouldn't make judgements on history. They should leave the debate to historians. But this is a political move and I find it against freedom of thought." REPORTER: In Armenia-- the new law was celebrated. ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER, EDWARD NALBANDIAN: "This day will be written in gold not only in the history of friendship between the Armenian and French peoples, but also in the annals of the history of the protection of human rights worldwide." REPORTER: Armenia says up to 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed during the first World War, in what is now eastern Turkey. For Armenians, the message of such a law should not be lost on Turkey. ARMENIAN REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION'S KIRO MANOYAN: "The most important thing that is happening, by such laws and resolutions in foreign countries, is to help the people of Turkey to get to know their own history and eventually, hopefully recognise the Armenian genocide." REPORTER: The law was passed with 127 votes for, and 86 against. It will be sent to President Nicholas Sarkozy for approval. Michaela Cabrera, Reuters.
