Dance

Last Wednesday I was at Abbie's school. She wanted me to go to see her perfomance. They danced three different songs. I didn't like the songs particularly but they were full of beans and did a good job. They were a very symple and dynamic coreographies. They were quite coordinated though. It was a nice assembly and the headmaster was talking to the children and teachers. It was the first time I saw her. The radio was about to stop in the middle of a song, and they carried on dancing like professional dancers.

Wat Tyler

He was the leader of the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Tyler's Rebellion was not only the most extreme and widespread insurrection in English history but also the best-documented popular rebellion ever to have occurred during medieval times. The names of some of its leaders, John Ball, Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, are still familiar in popular culture even though next to nothing is known about them.

Oast Houses

An oast, oast house or hop kiln is a building designed for kilning (drying) hops as part of the brewing process. They can be found in most hop-growing (and former hop-growing) areas and are often good examples of vernacular architecture. Many redundant oasts have been converted into houses.
They consist of two or three storeys on which the hops were spread out to be dried by hot air from a wood or charcoal-fired kiln at the bottom. The drying floors were thin and perforated to permit the heat to pass through and it escaped through a cowl in the roof which turned with the wind. The freshly picked hops from the fields were raked in to dry and then raked out to cool before being bagged up and sent to the brewery. The Kentish dialect word Kell was sometimes used for kilns ("The oast has three kells.") and sometimes to mean the oast itself ("Take this lunchbox to your father, he's working in the kell.").

Oasts are generally associated with Kent, but are also found in Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire.The purpose of an oast is to dry hops. This is achieved by the use of a flow of heated air through the kiln, rather than a firing process.

I like...

I like to read the newspapers and find stupid news on them. It means nothing has happened in the world. I like to see how journalists have nothing to write about and then, they have to use different mechanisims to fill an entire newspaper, lots and lots of pages to talk about non-important stuff. Nothing serious at least.

My first Cornish Pasty

Despite the fact that I was unsure of the cut of beef I was eating, I enjoyed this meal so much. I bought it in High Street, and I was very tempted to get it again yesterday but I'll wait. Next thing I want to try is toad in the hole. I know it's high-fat food and unhealthy but I won't be able to try it in Madrid (maybe yes).
However, my sweet chilly chicken sandwich is the best thing in my lunch, a lovely discover. YUMMM

Barbecue days

This weekend has been a quiet one. I've spent it with Graham's and Gregorie's. The weather has been incredibly nice. I sometimes wonder if I'm really living in this country. How many times have I heard about the poorly climate conditions? Just assumptions. It's spring, it's hot, it's sunny, it's a kinda paradise. It could be much better if I hadn't this terrible attacks of allergy, but everything can always be improved. Anyway (I love this flipping word), we have had a nice barbecues in the garden. It was funny to see all the animals set free, running around in all directions and trying to catch each other. Scrappy after Twinkle, Twinkle after Rossie, Tomasina inside the hutch of the bunnies sleeping... Oh my! It was something crazy! Funnily, on Sunday we had the barbecue about 3 pm and it was the dinner for the family! So I decided to make a Spanish omeletter for myself at night. Now it's time to solve some issues.

St. George's Day (23rd April)

St. George is the patron saint of England. His emblem, a red cross on a white background, is the flag of England, and part of the British flag. St George's emblem was adopted by Richard The Lion Heart and brought to England in the 12th century. The king's soldiers wore it on their tunics to avoid confusion in battle.

St George was a brave Roman soldier who protested against the Romans' torture of Christians and died for his beliefs.

St George's Day was a major feast and national holiday in England on a par with Christmas from the early 15th century. However, this tradition had waned by the end of the 18th century after the union of England and Scotland. In recent years the popularity of St George's Day appears to be increasing gradually.

A traditional custom at this time was to wear a red rose in one's lapel, though with changes in fashion this is no longer common. Another custom is to fly or adorn the St George's Cross flag in some way: pubs in particular can be seen on 23 April festooned with garlands of St George's crosses. However, the modern association of the St George's Cross with sports such as football, cricket and rugby, along with far-right political parties such as the BNP means that this tradition is rare outside this context.

There is a growing reaction to the recent indifference to St George's Day. Organizations such as English Heritage, and the Royal Society of Saint George (a non-political English national society founded in 1894) have been encouraging celebrations. Other organisations like the St George Unofficial Bank Holiday are encouraging people to be more proactive by taking the day off work (an unofficial bank holiday). They seem to be having some effect. On the other hand, there have also been calls to replace St George as patron saint of England, on the grounds that he was an obscure figure who had no direct connection with the country. However there is no obvious consensus as to whom to replace him with, though names suggested include Edmund the Martyr, Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, or Saint Alban.

One of the best-known stories about Saint George is his fight with a dragon. But it is highly unlikely that he ever fought a dragon, and even more unlikely that he ever actually visited England. Despite this, St George is known throughout the world as the dragon-slaying patron saint of England.

Interesting fact: Shakespeare was born on 23 April 1564 and he died on the same day in 1616.

(Shop window in High Street in Gillingham)

I was expecting...How should I put it? I was expecting...just something this day. It was the saint patron's day in here and there was no sign of it. Apart from their loved-postcards and a few flags everywhere. I had the idea they didn't have to work and it was a bank holiday. I realised of my big mistake. It's a shame they don't celebrate this day. After these two hard weeks working (that's after Easter) I was also expecting maybe I could be off this day as well. Curiously, they'll be off the 1st May because It's a bank holiday. That's right, but what happen with St. George? Is the society changing? or has the society changed yet? I'm afraid the question should be the second one. But I have to wonder now if this change is positive and how it will affect us in the future.

Scottish

Lang may yer lum reek! A salutation wishing long life and prosperity. Literally, long may your chimney smoke.
Whit's fur ye'll no go by ye! - What's meant to happen will happen.
Speak o' the Devil! - Usually said when you have been talking about someone - they usually appear.
Failing means yer playin! - When you fail at something at least you're trying.
Mony a mickle maks a muckle! - Saving a small amount soon builds up to a large amount.

When you have just said something to someone that they don't quite believe, they are very likely to reply by saying - Aye, Right!! Perhaps one of the most used Scottish sayings is "Auld Lang Syne" the famous song by Robert Burns sang throughout the world at New Year. The translation can be taken as "old long since" or "old long ago".

Do we gaze at the stars because we are human? or are we human because we gaze at the stars?

Since ancestral times, human being have felt attracted by the sky without any apparent reason. The gradual knowledge of how the world's elements work has been a decisive factor in the development of our technology. There was a time withouth precise watches neither street lighting, and people had to know the time looking at the sun and lit their steps with the brightness of the stars at night. The number of myths, legends and stories around this midget glow-worms is countless, in the same way we have a lot of unanswered questions.

The connotations associated to the stars is a distinctive feature that humans possess. The key word is contemplate. Naturally, we can assume that the rest of species don't look at the sky in the same way. What was the sequence of events that led us to change the fact of looking up and see them unavoidably from gazing at them deliberately?
It has been a slow process to become aware of the nature of our planet, the theories have been changing constantly and the mistakes have been corrected by new discoveries. In these time we have only seen the tip of the iceberg so that we have a lot of researching work ahead. Nevertheless, there is one thing that has remained unchangeable: our fascination for the starry firmament and our wish of achieving the skies.

As we would have expected, humans haven't developed a pair of wing to fly through, but we have improved notoriously our aircrafts in the last decades, in such a way that is one of the safest means of transport at present. So we have accomplished succesfully this ambition.
Our astonishment about these spots of light has been showed since early historical periods in most artisctic branches, such as painting, photography, literature, although their influence on other disciplines is undeniable too. We can find a colossal number of metaphors in poetry, for example. We can dare to affirm that it has been the topic and the muse of inspiration of many artists.

Finally, we have to mention, the influence over religions and consequently over the course of our history, being the role of astrologists of extreme importance of society. The importance of the elements in Egyptian life is obvious and it configured their lifestyle in a decisive way. Nowadays, the religions have changed and people seem to be losing this fascination somehow. Fortunately, there are some people who still enjoy of this divine or not work.

G.S.G.

Iceland volcanic ash: Unprecedented closure airspace

The last Thursday we could read this on BBC: All flights in and out of the UK and several other European countries have been suspended as ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland moves south. Experts have warned that the tiny particles of rock, glass and sand contained in the ash cloud from the still-erupting volcano could be sufficient to jam aircraft engines. The European air safety body, Eurocontrol, said the cloud of ash had reached 55,000ft and was expected to move through northern UK and Scotland.

Today the situation has improved slightly and some flights are taking off in a restricted internal area, according to the news: Some domestic flights are taking off in the UK, as airports begin to reopen after five days without flights because of the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland. Schedules are constantly changing and passengers have been advised not to travel to airports until they have checked with their airline or tour operator. The hope had been that the intensity of volcanic eruptions was reducing, but the emergence of a new ash cloud has meant plans to reopen British airspace have been revised.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said airports were "taking advantage of the window of opportunity" as the impact of the volcano ash cloud temporarily lessened, but stressed that passenger safety would remain "paramount".

Let's stir up the past, it seems like if there were a sort of inconvenient with planes this year across the UK (Which affects me directly). December and January were the months of the snow and a lot of flights were disrupted causing a chaos in the airports. Afterwards we had the strikes of BA on March, and now we have a volcanic eruption! What'll be next thing? An evil dragon belching out fire while it's snowing heavily in summer? C'mon!

London Memorial Service for Polish president in Trafalgar Square

David Miliband was speaking in Trafalgar Square at a vigil for the president, his wife and a large number of officials who died in a plane crash. President Kaczynski, his wife Maria and 94 others died eight days ago when their plane crashed in fog as they flew to Russia. Across Britain yesterday, people saw the immense links between Britain and Poland. (BBC News)