Merry Christmas!!

Some of the latest fad

In order to get ready for the parties we are going to attend, get some interesting updates.
If you don't enjoy parties, just enjoy this fresh article from The Guardian and comment the structures or vocabulary that you find worth sharing.

A Christmas classic.

Enjoy it!

And if you want to know more about this go to this article from the Daily Mail online.

Thanksgiving Day

This is an important day in the US, you have to find out why. To get some help you can check previous posts in this blog.  (On the post of 2012 you have a real life experience)

For several reasons, I would like you to watch this video with a mixture of two songs from the tv show GLEE. Pay attention since there are several slang words, some words of French origine, the explanation of the title of the song and some references to the main character of this evening's dinner. I am looking forward to reading your comments.

because it's just 4 weeks to Xmas ....

Sainsbury’s OFFICIAL Christmas Advert 2015 – Mog’s Christmas Calamity

 

I hope you enjoy it and if you are curious, as Mog is, chek the making of or some ideas to use with your own pupils.

Take a little time to meet The Beautiful South

Why are The Beautiful South a “C1 band”?

Mainly because Heaton’s lyrics are ironic, sarcastic, with great vocabulary and structures you should pay attention to. He cannot write about first loves, he says, because he is too old to remember, so he writes wittily about what’s around him and that makes his songs a fantastic way of understanding the British. 

The Beautiful South were an English pop/rock group formed in 1988 by some former members of the Hull group the Housemartins. After the band's first album (recorded as a quintet), they were joined by a succession of female vocalists, all of whom performed lead and backing vocals alongside Heaton and Hemingway – Briana Corrigan for albums two and three after appearing as a guest vocalist on one, followed byJacqui Abbott for the fourth through seventh albums, and finally Alison Wheeler for the final three Beautiful South albums.

The band's first album Welcome to the Beautiful South was released in 1989 and promptly produced a Number 2 UK singles chart hit, "Song For Whoever". With the follow-up single "You Keep It All In" reaching number 8 and "I'll Sail This Ship Alone" reaching number 31, the band were soon set to equal or surpass the success of The Housemartins, while the songwriting built on and expanded the trenchant social critiques which the previous band had been known for (topics included nationalism, domestic violence, football hooliganism and the self-serving industry of love songs ).

In 1990, The Beautiful South released their second album, Choke. Two singles - "My Book" and "Let Love Speak Up Itself" - charted outside the Top 40, but the album also provided the band's only Number 1 hit, a Hemingway/Corrigan duet called "A Little Time". The video - featuring the aftermath of a domestic fight - won the 1991 BRIT Award for Best Video.

Both Choke and 0898 Beautiful South illustrated the growing fullness of the band's sound. Both featured Corrigan as lead vocalist on several tracks. Her contribution helped to characterise the bittersweet kitchen sink dramas played out in the band's often barbed songs and allowed Heaton and Rotheray to explore and express female perspectives in their songwriting. However, the latter approach had mixed success, demonstrated later in 1992 when Corrigan chose to leave the band to pursue a solo career. Although her decision was partly prompted by a desire to record and promote her own, she had also had ethical disagreements over some of Heaton's lyrics, most notably "Mini-correct", "Worthless Lie".

In 1994, St Helens supermarket shelf-stacker Jacqui Abbott was brought on board to fill in as the new third lead vocalist for the band. Heaton had heard her sing at an after-show party in St Helens and remembered her vocal talents. Abbott's first album with the band was Miaow in 1994. Hits included "Good as Gold (Stupid as Mud)" and a cover of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'”.

November 1994 saw the release of Carry on up the Charts, a "best of" compilation consisting of the singles to date plus new track "One Last Love Song". Released at a time when the group's album sales had been waning, the album was a huge commercial success. It secured the Christmas number one spot on the charts and became the second best selling album of the year.

The 1996 album Blue Is the Colour sold over a million copies and featured hit singles "Rotterdam" and "Don't Marry Her". The album demonstrated the band's gradual shift towards a country music sound, and was well received by the public and on BBC and commercial radio.

The album Quench (1998) was released with similar commercial success, again reaching number one in the UK album charts. "Perfect 10", the first single to be released from the album, also provided the band with uncharacteristic singles chart success. 

Although 2000's Painting It Red (2000) made number two in the UK charts, the album suffered promotion and touring difficulties, and a substantial number of the CDs were faulty. Jacqui Abbott left the band in the same year, discouraged by the pressures of touring and needing to concentrate on looking after her son, who had just been diagnosed with autisSolid Bronze) in 2001, and took time time off to refresh themselves.

m. After completing their tour obligations, the band marked time with a second greatest-hits album (

The Beautiful South regrouped in 2003, with new recruit Alison Wheeler taking on the role of female singer. This lineup recorded Gaze in 2003, following it with 2004's Golddiggas, Headnodders and Pholk Songs, an album of unusually arranged cover tunes including "Livin' Thing", "You're The One That I Want", "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" and "I'm Stone in Love With You". One track from the album, "This Old Skin", was presented as a cover of a song by an obscure band called "The Heppelbaums"; it was later revealed to be an original Heaton/Rotheray composition.

The final Beautiful South album Superbi was released on 15 May 2006. Paul Heaton's hand is recognisable in quirky song titles such as "The Rose of My Cologne", "The Cat Loves The Mouse" and "Never Lost A Chicken to a Fox".

After a band meeting on 30 January 2007, they decided to Split. They released a statement on 31 January 2007, in which they joked that their reasons for splitting were "musical similarities" – an ironic reference to "musical differences" which are often cited as the reason for a band's split. "The band would like to thank everyone for their 19 wonderful years in music," the statement also said. They broke up having sold around 15 million records worldwide.

(from Wikipedia)

Accents

This video presents different accents in the UK in an amusing way. Thanks to Luke and Anglophenia.

Remembrance Sunday

What is the red thing the girl is wearing?
It is not by chance that she is wearing either it or that kind of coat. If you have seen the news today you will have noticed the same thing on the speakers lapels.

So, the challenge today is to find out what it is and what it means.
Leave your comments, I'll be waiting.

Phrasal Verbs and Friends.

Remember Remember the 5th of November.

Although Halloween is well known everywhere -another consequence of globalization-, there is another date the British like to commemorate. Something happened on the fith of November.




What?
When?
Who?
Why?
How?




Use your own good English to answer the questions above. You can read something about it here.

Collocations

Image from dailyvocab.com

We have been recently studying Collocations. Can you leave your favourite ones in the comment box?
Here you have some exercises to practise.

Words that are hard to spell.

We all have some problems to spell certain words, either because we hardly ever use them or because they are too similar to others we know well. Let me ask you to share those difficult words for you in the comment box.

On quoting Shakespeare

We have studied how Shakespeare contributed to the English Language with a great deal of words and expressions that are still in use today. Pay attention to this video and then leave the expressions you know or those you like best in the comment box.

Treasure

I have listened to this song and thought of you. I like the beat and you could use a fresh example of this difficult sound. Sing along ....

A day without cars, could you imagine that?

A day without cars

Carnival in August

For different reasons the last weekend in August is time for Carnival in London. If you want to see what was going on go to this link.

Out of the blue

If you checked the dictionary for the meaning of this expression, you would find this:

out of the blue:

unexpectedly; without warning  "The decision came out of the blue." (From the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary

  

That same dictionary defines an  IDIOM as:  "[countable] a group of words whose meaning is different from the meanings of the individual words"

The task I would like you to do is to leave  the idioms you know on the comment box.

Shakespeare said it first.

April is almost gone. It is in this month we celebrate the Book day on the date this genious died back in 1616.

I have come across this and I wanted to share it with you. By Dictionary.com

International Day of Happiness

Today it is the International Day of Happiness, watch these videos and take part by writing in the comment box the song that makes you happy, it could be more than one.

Here you have the link for the official page.

Have a Happy Day of Happiness!!!!

Making things simple

We are studying a new structure, but we can consider ourselves lucky since Clean Bandit have made a song to make it simpler.

And if you are curious you can check something else.

An old song with a different approach

This is a typical exercise to fill in gaps but the words given are with the phonetic transcription.
Do you want to take up this challenge? Click here for the music.

Carnival

This morning, in class, we have learnt about Notting Hill Carnival. I would like you to find out a bit more about  this Festival in the Anglosaxon world. Leave your results in the comment box.

Get away with it

With this post we are going to try to get the meaning of the phrasal verb "get away with something".
It is your turn to work, since it is you who are going to look it up and leave your conclusions on the comment box. Good luck!!!

Blue Monday

It seems somebody took the pain of thinking of the worst Monday of all the possible Mondays in the 52 weeks the year has. I don't feel blue at all today (hence the image), but ..... since it is on the news, it won't harm you to read about it. Here you have the article of the Daily Mail

I expect you leave your opinions on the comment box.

let's dream!

As a way to wish you the best for this brand new year, I want to share the article that appeared in The New York Times, in the Travel section.The New York Times, in the Travel section.

I would like you to vote your favourite place and tell us your reasons why.