Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist working for a Swedish magazine that gets involved in a hard investigation.
A girl is missing and his family is trying to find out why. She disappears on an island where almost everybody is member of her own family. Was the girl murdered? Was she kidnapped? Did she escape from someone or something?
Mikael Blomkvist, collaborating with Lisbeth Salander, a young, qualified private investigator moves to the isolated island and begins to make the residents uncomfortable.
This is not only the chronicle of the Vanger family´s conflicts, the other ingredients are sexual perversion, financial speculation and crime.
The characters are very well-drawn and the descriptions of the places are very convincing and it is easy to imagine what they look like. It´s a gripping novel and full of intrigue.
I´ve really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to everybody wanting to have a good time reading. I would absolutely describe it as a page-turner.
The Men who didn’t Love Women / The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Hope for Haiti
It’s not as if we needied persuading to help the cause of Haiti but the album is worth it on its own, it’s actually a must-have:
Alicia Keys, Coldplay, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Shakira, John Legend, Mary J. Blige, Taylor Swift, Christina Aguilera, Sting, Beyoncé, Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock, Keith Urban, Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Hudson, Emeline Michel, Jay-Z, Bono, the Edge, Rihanna, Dave Matthews, Neil Young and Wyclef Jean along with a bonus track from Jay-Z, Bono, the Edge and Rihanna …
- You can buy the whole album for €6.99 or individual songs for €0.99 and all the proceedings go to Haiti
Well done, Charlie!!
Like everyone else I’m following on the news the tragedy in Haiti, marveling at the almost daily miracles of people being rescued alive after so many days under the rubble, feeling horrified when I hear that doctors are having to amputate limbs just because they don’t have enough antibiotics to combat infections. That many people are miraculously surviving the quake just to die in hospital from lack of medical supplies. That however much we give is not enough, such is the magnitude of the catastrophe … but you can also feel the waves of unprecedented solidarity coming from every corner of this globalized world. The news of the tragedy reached 7-year-old Charlie Simpson from Fullham, he saw the suffering of the kids in Haiti, and felt he had to do something about it. Helped by his parents, he decided to cycle 5 miles to raise funds for Unicef’s earthquake appeal. He was aiming to raise ₤500 … he has already raised over ₤72,000!
Diana, Princess of Wales
Photo by Rick
Diana Frances Spencer was born into British aristocracy at Park House, Sandringham in Norfolk, England on 1st July 1961. I think that I first knew about her when I was only a child and I´m pretty sure that almost everybody has heard of Lady Di for her charity work, public scandals or for the media pressure around her fashionable image. But the truth is that she was the first British citizen to marry an heir to the British throne in almost 300 years. Their sons, Princess William and Harry are second and third in line to the throne of the United Kingdom.
When Diana was 16, she met Prince Charles for the first time when he was dating her eldest sister, Lady Sarah. She made some impression on him, but she was too young for him to date. When Diana left school, she moved to London, and worked as a housekeeper and nanny. She lived in a house with three roommates. In 1980, Diana and Charles met again when she was visiting her sister, whose husband was working for the Queen. They began to date, and six months later he proposed. At that time Prince Charles was under pressure to marry. The requirements were that he couldn’t marry a Roman Catholic, the bride should have a royal or aristocratic background, be a virgin, as well as Protestant. They finally married on 29 July, 1981 in a ceremony watched on television by an audience of 750 million.
They soon began to have big problems like Charles’ long standing affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, Diana´s suicide attempts and bulimia. So they divorced on 28 August 1996 with the consent of the Queen. She continued living at Kensington Palace, and was permitted to retain the title “Princess of Wales” but not that of “Her Royal Highness.”
Among the charities she worked with, were homeless, youth, drug addicts and elderly organizations. In addition, she developed an interest in serious illnesses including AIDS and leprosy. In the last year of her life, she was the most visible supporter of the International Campaign to Ban Land mines, which made her win the Nobel Peace Price in 1997 after her death.
On 31 August 1997, Diana died in a car crash in the Pont de lÁlma road tunnel in Paris with Dodi Al-Fayed and the security manager of the Hotel Ritz , Henri Paul, while they were driving fast to elude the paparazzi. Their car crashed into the thirteenth pillar of the tunnel. None of the four occupants was wearing a seat belt.
BONO (U2)
Photo by David Shankbone
Paul David Hewson is the main vocalist of the rock band U2. He is most commonly known by his nickname Bono. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1960 where he and his brother were raised by their parents. He attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met the future members of U2: David Evans (The Edge), his brother Dick and Adam Clayton. They replied to an advertisement on a bulletin board at the school posted by Larry Mullen Jr. to form a rock band. At the beginning the band changed names several times, when Dick Evans left the group they called themselves U2As for his personal life, Bono is married to Alison Hewson a friend from school. Their relationship began in 1975 and they have four children.
Bono writes the lyrics for almost all U2 songs, which are often rich in political, social and religious themes. Because of some songs IRA threatened to kidnap him and also attacked their vehicle.
Bono is known too by his humanitarian work with those most in need taking part in many charity concerts with numerous artists and he has met with very important politicians. He has won numerous awards with U2, one of them the 2003 Golden Globe award for the best original song, “the hands that built America”, for the film “Gangs of New York”. In 2007 he was granted an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, and he was chosen Person of the Year by Time magazine. Bono has even been nominated for the Nobel Prize of Peace.
Margaret Thatcher
I’ve decided to write about Margaret Thatcher because from my point of view she has been an important woman for British Political History. She was born in Grantham, United Kingdom in 1925. She managed to win three consecutive elections and was the first European woman to serve as Prime Minister.
Her name is Margaret Hilda Roberts and after studying chemical science at Oxford University, she worked for four years as a chemical researcher. She joined the conservative party of which her husband was a member and in 1959 she won a seat in the House of Commons. Two years later she was appointed Secretary of State for Social Affairs, and then Minister of Education and Science. She was considered the strongest leader of the right wing of the Conservative party and developed a rigorous programme to solve the crisis of the British economy by reducing state intervention.
Therefore, her main postulates were strict: Liberalism and Monetarism. She studied the renegotiation for participation of the United Kingdom in the EEC and the abolition of Union power. During her office the Government succeeded in reducing inflation and improved the exchange rate of the sterling pound. However, industrial production decreased with the consequent increase in unemployment, which tripled since her rise to power.
In 1982 Thatcher intervened in the Falklands conflict. Her attitude was well regarded by the British public opinion and in the same year she obtained her second electoral victory.
In 1984 she faced serious social conflicts, especially with the miners’ strike which she suppressed with hardness. In October of that year, during a her party’s Congress at Brighton hotel, a bomb, planted by a group of Republican Irish extremists, exploded. As the head of Government she continued her neoliberal policy, privatization of state enterprises, education and the media of social aid, the fight against unemployment and the limitation of strikes.
Her refusal to the social and political Union of the United Kingdom with Europe and the imposition of the regressive tax, the poll tax, caused widespread controversy in her own party. Therefore she had no alternative and resigned being succeeded by John Major.
Finally in 1993 she published her memoirs, which were a great success. Her firmness to direct the Affairs of State, her strict dominance over her Cabinet Ministers and its strong monetarist policy earned her the nickname of ”the Iron Lady”
Thomas Edward Lawrence.
Thomas Edward Lawrence was a British military officer renowned for his role during the Arab Revolution from 1916 to 1918.
I’ve chosen this person because I liked the film Lawrence of Arabia based on his life.
Lawrence was worn at Gorphwysfa, Wales in 1888. His father Thomas Chapman had abandoned his wife for his daughters’ governess Sarah Junner. The couple had had five illegitimate sons and Thomas was second.
In 1907, Lawrence was educated in Oxford, during 1907 and 1908 he toured France by bicycle and even he travelled 1000 miles on foot in Syria. Later, Lawrence graduated with First Class Honours. When he finished his degree Lawrence began working as archaeologist in the Middle East.
During the Arab revolt, Lawrence fought with Arab troops under the command, of Emir Faisal against the armed forces of the Ottoman Empire and finally Lawrence wan the battle.
In 1918, Lawrence was involved in the capture of Damascus and was promoted to lieutenant-colonel but two years later the French forces, under the command of General Mariano Gaybet, entered Damascus breaking Lawrence’s expectations of an independent Arabia.
In 1922 he enlisted the Royal Air Force as an aircraft-man and he stayed in R.A.F for about 12 years.
In 1935, at the age of 46, a few weeks after leaving the in the R.A.F., Lawrence was injured in a motorbike accident, he died six days later. Due to this accident, one of the doctors attending him, was very affected, for this reason he began a long study about head injuries. His research led to the use of crash helmets by motorcyclists.
Marie Stopes
Marie Carmichael Stopes was born in Scotland in 1880. She studied Botany and Geology at the University of London. Then, in 1902, she graduated with a first class B.SC. After that, She went to Munich where she studied Palaeobotany.
Then she got a D.SC degree, becoming the youngest person in Britain to do so. On top of that she became a lecturer in Palaeobotany and the first female academic at Manchester University. While she was in Manchester, she studied Coal and the Seed Ferns and proved the theory of Eduard Suess about the existence of Gondwanaland or Pangaea.
Some years later, she met Robert Falcon Scott (Scott the Antarctic), and they talked about the possibility of her joining his next expedition. Although she failed to do so, he promised her to bring back samples of fossils to prove the theory of the existence of Gondwanaland.
In 1921, Stopes opened the UK’s first family planning clinic which was called “Mother’s clinic”. It tried to break down taboos about sex and also to increase knowledge, and pleasure and to improve reproductive health. At first, it was established in North London but, in 1925, it moved to Central London. The National Birth Control Council started in 1930.
A Few years later, Stopes participated in the International Congress for Population Science in Berlin, where she was accused of being anti-Semitic by other pioneers of the Birth Control Council such as Havelock Ellis. Finally, years later she died of breast cancer in Dorking .
Today’s class
As I told you last Tuesday we won’t have a lesson today because I’m off to Zamora to give a talk there. But you can do this lesson instead, a lesson entirely devoted to the most famous spy in the world: James Bond. Do the listening activities in Bloggin’ Time which is a blog by my friend Maribel and her 2nd year Advanced students at Oviedo EOI.
Here you can watch again what Roger Moore, an old school James Bond has to say about Daniel Craig and his interpretation of the famous spy:
Writing and speaking tasks for this term
This term you have to do the following tasks:
- Chose one of the people in the list of the 100 Greatest Britons you already knew and admire because of their work and achievements and write a brief article, not longer than 200 words, explaining how you first knew of this person and his/her work and why you like what they do or did.
- Chose someone else in the list, do some research on the internet and prepare a 5 minute oral presentation or choose one of the following neighbourhoods or landmarks in London and prepare a 5 minute talk
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