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In a scary and painfully frank interview BBC interviewer Maxine Croxall, is visibly shaken when market trader Alessio Rastani predicts that the "market is toast." Apparently there is nothing Euro governments can do. But was the trader for real, or was it all just a hoax?
COMMENT
Get me outta here!
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This cartoon by Bob from The Daily Telegraph is inspired by the The Raft of the Medusa (French: Le Radeau de la Méduse), an oil painting of 1818–1819 by the French Romantic painter Théodore Géricault (1791–1824), which depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse, which ran aground off the coast of today's Mauritania on July 5, 1816. At least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation, dehydration, cannibalism and madness. (Source: Wikipedia)
Bob's version relates to yesterday's vote by Germany's parliament in favour of supporting a more powerful fund to bail out troubled Eurozone economies. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is shown holding out a lifebelt to the shipwrecked sailors on the raft who include Greek PM George Papandreou, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi and Spanish PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. But is it too little, too late?
ALSO SEE
• Germany Approves Expanded Bailout Fund, Enough? (Newsy video)
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The German parliamentary vote to back a European rescue fund has lifted the markets, says the Financial Times. Full story >>
VOCABULARY
If you back a person or a course of action, you support them, for examply by voting for them or giving them money. • Two plans to build a total of 1325 new homes in Aberdeen have been backed by councillors.
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This cartoon by Paul Thomas from The Daily Express relates to news that children could be forced to attend compulsory lessons in “European citizenship” under 'draconian' plans drawn up by Euro-MPs in Brussels. One Tory MP compared the proposal to 'the sort of indoctrination of children that was carried out by the Third Reich'. Read more >>
The cartoon shows what we can assume to be a British couple passing a news hoarding about the EU's plan to introduce Europe lessons. The man tells the woman, "I've learned my Europe lesson: don't join the euro".
COMMENTARY
In view of the current eurozone crisis, many British people are glad (and relieved) that Britain never joined the euro. But The Express wants to go even further. It is crusading to end Britain’s membership of the European Union and has organized a petition to demand a referendum on the subject.
ALSO SEE
• Nick Clegg Admits Joining Euro Would Have Been A 'Huge Error' (Huffington Post)
• George Osborne: Thank God We Didn't Join The Euro (Express)
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The Guardian's front page lead says a quarter of English universities failed to meet their targets to admit more disadvantaged students. Full story >>
VOCABULARY
If someone fails you, they do not do what you had expected or trusted them to do. You can also fail someone in a test or exam, but the first meaning is clearly the one intended. • Jamaica has failed its children very badly in terms of care, priorities and planning.
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Almost seven hundred years of Catalan bullfighting history ended on Sunday night with the last bullfight in Barcelona. Lawmakers voted for a ban last year - the first in mainland Spain - after 180,000 people signed a petition. This cartoon by Matt from The Daily Telegraph imagines the new Catalan bullfight, in which the bullfighter arm-wrestles with the bull.
ALSO SEE
• The last Ole! Bullfighting comes to an end in Catalonia (The Telegraph)
• Last bullfight in Barcelona sells out as Spain marks end of 600 years of history (The Guardian)
• Bullfighting in Barcelona ends with Catalonia ban (BBC News)
• The last bullfight in Barcelona - in pictures (The Guardian)
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The Financial Times says the big four auditing firms are under pressure to accept new European regulations. Full story >>
VOCABULARY
An onslaught on someone or something is a vary violent, forceful attack against them. • The dengue epidemic that has wreaked havoc in Punjab has claimed six more lives in Lahore and there seems no let-up in the onslaught.
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I used this video from training organization Speak First in class this morning with my final year marketing students. It's not perfect (the coach overdoes the positive feedback, and the presenter is not totally convincing), but I've not found anything better for illustrating basic presentation skills with a 'before and after' situation. And the topic was relevant (see transcript below). You can find more videos by Speak First here.
TRANSCRIPT
TRAINER: OK Laura, so what I’d like you to do now is do a short presentation, just a little sound bite, maybe 30, 40 seconds. I think you’re going to do it about something related to marketing, is that right?
LAURA: I work in search engine marketing. I make sure that the website for the company goes really high up in things like Google because it’s really important, eh, for the company to be seen by lots of people because then people will buy stuff. It’s really important and so I do things like making sure there are lots of keywords on the page, and making sure there’s no duplication between pages, and there are lots of things that you can do and it’s really important, um, and yep, that’s it.
TRAINER: OK Laura, thanks very much for that. That was fantastic. So what I’m going to do is give you a bit of feedback now and then I’m going to ask you in a moment just to do it again with some improvements. First thing to say is that I think the content was fantastic. If you saw that written down, it would sound tremendous. You said all the right things, but I think there’s maybe some ways in the delivery we could get that across a little bit more. You just look a little bit kind of uncomfortable, as if you don’t really care about what you’re talking about. So I think perhaps as you look at the camera just be a bit more excited about it and just imagine that you’re not just trying to get some information across but you’re trying to get, fire people’s imaginations when you do it. So, just look into the audience and just project it a little bit more. Let the hands come up. So I think this is as much a mindset thing as a body thing. Once you start to do that, I think you’ll find it so much more engaging. So don’t change the content, but it’s the delivery that needs to be improved. Do you want to have a go at that?
LAURA: Imagine life without search engines. A few years ago, they wouldn’t even have existed, and we didn’t know what they were, but now there an essential tool for all consumers to find what they’re looking for. That’s why it’s really, really vital for all companies to invest in search engine marketing and search engine optimization. There are a few key tips for how you can make sure that your website is really high up in the search engines and that you’re therefore found by anybody that wants to buy your product. For example, you need to make sure that the relevant keywords are really high on the page. This means that the search engines can find the relevant pages for the person that’s looking. You also need to make sure that your content is fresh, and that it’s renewed regularly, and that it isn’t duplicated between several pages. Those are just a few tips to get you started.
TRAINER: Laura, that was great. You really projected your personality there. One of the things we’ve talked about is that the audience would tend to feel what you feel, so you’re kind of in charge of their emotional state and you projected positive energy and that’s what—as you look at the audience, you can see how they were responding to you. And a lot of other things happened—your hands came out, you had a smile on your face. And even the content change, which it often does when you’re doing that. You were so much more positive, you were selling the benefits. So it’s just that one small change about how you feel about what it is you’re talking about that makes a very big difference to the impact that you can have and the influence you will have over your audience, and I thought that was absolutely fantastic.
LESSON IDEA
Give your students a few minutes to prepare a one-minute presentation on a given subject. (I got mine to prepare in pairs, and tossed a coin to see which one would actually give the presentation.) Get the class to play the role of the coach, giving positive feedback and points for improvement.
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This cartoon by Clay Bennett from the Chattanooga Times Free Press leaves us in no doubt as to the cartoonist's political views. The cartoon shows three newspaper stories about 'prevailing trends' in the U.S. The first tells us that the rich are getting richer, and is illustrated by a pie chart showing the breakdown of 'Total Wealth'. The second, accompanied by a bar chart representing the 'US Poverty Rate', informs us that the poor are getting poorer. The third story, 'Dumb Getting Dumber', has a graph labelled 'Support for Rick Perry'—which is increasing.
COMMENTARY
Rick Perry, the current governor of Texas, is one of the leading contenders for the Republican nomination in next year's presidential election. Clay Bennett seems sceptical about the chances of the wealth gap between rich and poor diminishing if Perry becomes president: in 2009, the wealthiest 1 percent of Texans paid 3 percent of their income in state and local taxes, while the poorest fifth of Texans paid about 12 percent of their income. (Source: Wikipedia)
VOCABULARY
Dumb is another word for 'stupid'. The cartoonist is probably referencing the 1994 film 'Dumb and Dumber' starring Jim Carrey.
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The Wall Street Journal says that critical differences between European leaders threatens to thwart attempts at easing eurozone debt woes. Full story >>
VOCABULARY
A split in an organization is a disagreement between its members. • Health union Unison has dismissed talk of a split in the coalition set up to fight public sector pension cuts.
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This cartoon by Clay Bennett from the Chattanooga Times Free Press illustrates the current state of peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians following a bid by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to have the United Nations recognize a state of Palestine.
The negotiating table (or should that be 'non-negotiating table'?) resembles the 'impossible reality' images created by Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. See here for examples of his work.
ALSO SEE
• Israel ponders response to Palestinian U.N. statehood bid (L.A. Times)
• Abbas puts damper on bid to renew talks (Washington Post)
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German and French officials have come up with a three-pronged deal which aims to end the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis before it spirals completely out of control. Full story >>
VOCABULARY
A trillion is a million million (or 1,000,000,000,000). The plural form is trillion after a number, or after a word or expression referring to a number such as 'several' or 'a few'. • The grand plan could give the bail-out fund access to several trillion euros of firepower.
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This cartoon by Blower from The Telegraph combines two news stories: the experiment in Switzerland in which particles were found to have travelled faster than the speed of light and the global stock market crash.
A group of scientists (one of whom resembles Barack Obama) are looking at a giant computer screen, where a graph labelled 'Stock Market' has plummeted through the floor.
ALSO SEE
• The world prays for an economic miracle (The Independent)
• The really, really fast show that has blown physics apart (The Independent)
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The head of the International Monetary Fund has warned of a looming "collapse in global demand", says The Independent. Full story >>
VOCABULARY
If you say that a good event is a miracle, you mean that it is very surprising and unexpected. • It's a miracle that no-one was killed.
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This cartoon by Steve Bell from The Guardian relates to the execution by lethal injection of death row inmate Troy Davis in Georgia. The execution went ahead despite serious doubts about Davis's guilt, after the US supreme court refused a last-minute appeal.
The cartoon shows a statue of Lady Justice strapped to the execution table being given the lethal injection by a 'doctor' with a Georgia state flag on his back. Her scales and sword lie on the floor. Through a window in the wall we can just make out the heads of two 'witnesses'.
The symbolism is clear: the execution of Davis is a crime against justice.
ALSO SEE
• Troy Davis (The Guardian)
• Drama at Georgia Prison (New York Times)
• The 23 words that sentenced Troy Davis to death (Mail Online)
• Troy Davis executed (Newsy Video)
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