Did you know it's Saint George's Day?

Shamefully, for many English people the answer to this question will be 'no'. We get very excited about Saint Patrick's Day, and then completely forget that we have our own national day! For me, it's easy to remember the date as it's also my grandma's birthday.

Saint George is the patron saint of England. According to legend, a dragon lived in a lake near a town. People were scared of the dragon and every day they would feed it two sheep. If there weren't enough sheep, a child (chosen at random) would be fed to the dragon instead! One day, the king's daughter was chosen. The king didn't want to lose his daughter; he tried offering money to the townspeople. They didn't want the money and insisted his daughter must be fed to the dragon. The princess waited for the dragon by the lake. Saint George rode by on his horse; he offered to save the princess. He used a cross to injure the dragon before leading it back to the town. He said that he would kill the dragon if the people adopted the Christian faith. The people agreed, and George slayed the dragon.

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Earth hour UK

Earth Hour is an annual event which asks people to switch off all lights and use no electricity for an hour. The aim is to get people thinking about the planet they live on and the energy they use.

What is Earth Hour?

Earth Hour is an annual global campaign that encourages people and businesses around the world to switch off electricity at the same time for one hour. Earth Hour started in Australia in 2007 when 2.2 million people in the city of Sydney turned off all non-essential lights for an hour. Since then it has grown to a massive global event. In 2013, millions of people in 7,000 cities and towns around the world switched off their lights for 60 minutes at the end of March. Every year landmarks and well-known buildings around the world such as the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, the Petronas towers in Malaysia, the UK Parliament, Buckingham Palace and the Empire State Building take part and ‘go dark’ for Earth Hour. The campaign even went into space when astronauts reduced power on the International Space Station in 2011.

Who organises Earth Hour?

Earth Hour is organised by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). It was started by Andy Ridley, originally from Britain, who is executive director of Earth Hour Global, WWF. He came up with the idea of Earth Hour because he wanted to raise awareness of environmental issues by asking people to do something positive to help the planet. Switching off the lights for an hour can make a small difference to the amount of energy we use but Earth Hour is also a symbolic event to make people think about the problems of climate change.

Why March?

The end of March is around the time of the spring and autumn equinoxes in the northern and southern hemispheres respectively, so sunset times in both hemispheres are at similar times. This means that a global ‘lights out’ event has most visual impact at this time of year.

UK events

In 2013 in the UK, the pop group McFly gave a live acoustic performance (using no electricity!) dressed in panda costumes (the WWF’s logo is a panda) for Earth Hour. Celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay and Raymond Blanc created special recipes for families to prepare and eat by candlelight. Actors and TV personalities including Kevin McCloud and Miranda Richardson recorded Rudyard Kipling's famous Just So Stories for families to listen to by candlelight.

As well as famous London landmarks such as Big Ben, the London Eye and Buckingham Palace switching off their lights, there are many other events around Britain. On the WWF’s interactive map you can see which people, businesses, schools, organisations and landmarks are taking part this year and what they are doing http://earthhour.wwf.org.uk/#uk-map

April Fool's Day

I want to tell you... I just gave birth to 5 babies last weekend. Isn't that exciting? Oh, you don't believe me? Okay then, I stole some money from a bank on Saturday night. Now do you believe me? (Actually, I hope you don't.) April 1st, or April Fools Day, is the day when we play jokes on people. Do you have it in your country?

 Vocabulary

a fool- someone who doesn't understand what is happening 

to tease- laugh at, make fun of someone, joke about something 

to play a joke (on someone)- to do something funny that another person doesn't know about or suspect at first 

container- something that holds something else, like a box, a bottle, or a jar 

to play a trick (on someone)- same as play a joke 

in the spirit of fun- with an atmosphere of fun, just for fun, lighthearted

April Fool's Day started in the sixteenth century in Europe. Before that time, New Year's Day was celebrated on April 1st. Then a new calendar was introduced called the Gregorian calendar. January 1st became the first day of the year, but many people did not know about it. So those who continued to celebrate New Year's Day on April 1st were teased. They were called fools.

Nowadays we play jokes on people on April 1 st. For example, someone might put salt in the sugar container so another person could "accidentally" put it in their coffee. Or someone might change the time on another person's alarm clock so that person would unknowingly wake up earlier or later than planeed. Or maybe a person would tell a lie to make someone else shocked.

After we play the trick, we say "April Fool". Then the poor person realizes he was fooled. It is generally done in the spirit of fun and doesn't cause any real harm to anyone. Do you have any great jokes to play on anyone today? Try it out. Just don't forget to say "April Fool" when the other person begins looking a little confused.


Check your understanding

Choose True or False. Check your answers by clicking the arrow below.

1. April Fool's Day started in 1908.

    True               False

2. A long time ago, New Year's Eve was celebrated on April 1st.

    True               False

3. Some people didn't realize that New Year's Day had changed.

    True               False

4. People who celebrated New Year's Day on January 1st were teased.

    True               False

5. People like to play jokes on January 1st.

    True               False

6. Sometimes on April Fool's Day people lie to shock someone.

    True               False

7. After you play a joke on someone, you should say "April Fools!"

    True               False

Answers

1. F   2. T   3. T   4. F   5. F   6. T   7. T

Climate change: Facing the future

In recent years, climate change has been a much talked about issue, with many debates over its possible impact on the world, and some even going so far as to question its very existence. However, with the undeniable increase in greenhouse emissions on Earth, there can be no doubt that the earth is becoming warmer, and scientific studies have proven that if we carry on living the way we do, then global temperatures will rise even more.

So what exactly does this mean for the future of our planet? In chilly places like the UK, we may think to ourselves: ‘Finally, warmer weather!’ But global warming will in fact cause extreme weather conditions, meaning that our winters would be even colder than they are now. More than that, warmer temperatures will lead to the melting of ice in the north and south poles, which in turn will lead to rising sea levels across the globe. This is particularly troubling for low coastal regions such as Florida in the USA which would be among the first to be flooded, along with many islands around the world, including the United Kingdom. In 1000 years or so, all these places and more will be submerged underwater.

So where will be able to live? Unless we can find a way to evolve into mermaids and mermen, which doesn’t look promising, the only solution is to move elsewhere. There will be little choice left once a large proportion of the land is lost to the sea, and other remaining places will be so hot that they will be absolutely impossible to survive in. Countries that we consider to be hot these days will be even more so if temperatures increase by 5, 10, even 15 degrees; countries like Australia and India, among others. It is possible, then, that the once frozen poles of the Arctic and Antarctica will be suitable enough to live in, having melted its ice and warmed up.

It’s a scary thought to imagine such devastation on Earth, and to think of our descendents struggling to survive in a virtually uninhabitable world. Perhaps if people start to realise how their actions now can have such a profound impact on future generations, they will change their attitude and start to think more about caring for the environment, in order to save it. If not, we’ll be living in a world underwater and will need to think of a way to turn ourselves into mermaids!

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