"I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o'er dale and hill. When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of.......er........"
BACKGROUND
Country residents in the UK have been told that they must accept the building of "many thousands" of wind turbines as part of a new green energy strategy. Full story >>
COMMENTARY
This cartoon by Mac from The Daily Mail shows a man on a hillside surrounded by wind turbines. He's reciting a famous poem by William Wordsworth: "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". In the poem, the poet sees "a host of golden daffodils". However, the flowers have now disappeared and in their place is a forest of wind turbines. Actually, the wind turbines look a bit like those toy windmills that children love, which in turn look like daffodils.
IrishSlang.info was created by Barry Flood, a student of Interactive Multimedia Design at the University of Ulster. You can see an interview with him below.
COMMENTS
The site is well designed and there are some amusing video clips. It's a pity not all of the words and expressions have examples of usage as well as definitions. There's a spelling mistake in the logo too—it should be "horse's mouth" (if you hear something "straight from the horse's mouth", you hear it from someone who definitely knows it is true).
The Government is announcing plans to transform Britain into a low carbon country. It wants to change the way we live, work and travel, by getting us to switch from coal-fired power to wind and solar energy. Sky's Catherine Jacob reports.
ARTICLES
• Number of wind turbines to quadruple under Renewable Energy Strategy (Times)
• March wind farm officially opened (BBC)
• Wind farms will be a monument to an age when our leaders collectively went off their heads (MailOnline)
LESSON IDEA
There are a lot of arguments for and against wind farms. Organise a debate with the motion: "This house supports more wind farms." See this CBBC Newsround lesson plan for more ideas.
CARTOON
Bastille Day, the French national holiday, commemorates the storming of the Bastille, which took place on 14 July 1789 and marked the beginning of the French Revolution. The Bastille was a prison and a symbol of the absolute and arbitrary power of Louis the 16th's Ancient Regime. By capturing this symbol, the people signaled that the king's power was no longer absolute: power should be based on the Nation and be limited by a separation of powers. [Source: About.com]
Stubbed your toe? Hit your finger with a hammer? Burned your hand on a hot dish? Go ahead and swear—it might make you feel better, The Daily Telegraph reports:
Scientists have discovered that uttering swear words can help to lessen the feeling of physical pain.
The study by researchers at Keele University found that volunteers were able to withstand pain for longer when they swore compared to when they used words which were not offensive.
Dr Richard Stephens, who conducted the study at the university's school of psychology, believes it may explain why swearing is still common place in languages around the world.
He suggests that swearing could have evolved as a way of raising aggression levels and reducing the feeling of pain to allow our ancestors to flee or fight back when attacked by predators.
He said: "We think it could be part of the flight or fight response. In the volunteers who swore, we also found they had an elevated heart rate, so it could be increasing their aggression levels.
"Increased aggression has been shown to reduce people's sensitivity to pain, so it could be swearing is helping this process." Full story >>
