The last laugh.

Three Irishmen. 

One evening three middle-aged Irishmen go drinking in a country pub. They have a lot to drink and, as is often the case, they become sentimental and start discussing the meaning of life and death.
They become so sentimental in fact, that, when the pub closes and they start walking home, they decide to stop off in the local churchyard in order to look at the tombstones.
One fellow finds a tombstone and calls over to his friends: "Look at this guy", he exclaims, "he lived to the age of 86, isn't that grand? Wouldn't you both love to live to 86? God bless him!"
"What was his name?" ask his friends.
"Let's see....er, Patrick O'Reilly"
"That's nothing", shouts another member of the trio, "this guy lived till he was 97. Wouldn't you both love to live to 97? God bless him!
"And what was his name?" ask the other two.
"Let's me see...er Seanus O'Connor", their friend replies.
Then the third member of the group starts jumping up and down in his excitement: "But that's nothing" he shouts, "this guy lived till he was 146. Can you imagine it, 146?
"Oh, come on!" answer the other two, "that's impossible! Nobody lives to 146!"
"Well, this guy did," answers their friend, defiantly.
"What was his name?" ask the others.
"Let me have a look now. Here it is: er... "Miles to Dublin".

(Source: SPEAK UP, 246)

The punch line is the last few words of a joke that make it funny.

When headaches strike.

Headaches: types and ways to prevent and treat them.


Traditional alternatives:

• to take medicine such as painkillers or some combination of drugs prescribed by doctors to prevent pain or to control it once developed.
• to avoid some strong smells.
• to avoid some foods and additives.
• to take aerobic exercise such  as walking, swimming and ridding a bicycle.
• to perform mild exercices.
• to plan exercise, eat and sleep at the same time every day.

Not traditional alternatives: 

• acupuncture.
• biofeedback: massages, herbs and vitamins.
• to put heat or ice on your head.
• to be given injections of some drugs.
• to breathe oxygen.

Verba dicendi:

• to provide information
• to offer suggestions
• to advice
• there is not evidence that 
• to suggest
• that belief has been disputed because
• to conclude
• to show

New words:

• to strike (que ataca)
• to throb (que causa un dolor punzante)
• trigger: desencadenante
• birth control pills
• estrogen replacement drugs.

Classics and Oscar Wilde

While I was reading the only novel of Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, I got surprised by his many references to classical civilization. 
So, why this tendency to use metaphorical comparisons based on mythological characters or to refer the name of persons of ancient Greece and Rome?

"I really can't see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and tour coal-black hair, and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus , and you _well, of course you have an intellectual expression, and all that."

"What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinoüs was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me."

"Yes,  he continued, I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Faun".

"He could be made a Titan or a toy. What a pity it was that such beauty was destined to fade".

"The praise of folly, as he went on, soared into a philosophy, and Philosophy herself became young, and catching the mad music of Pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her wine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bachante over the hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober."

"I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as Adonis withs huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear".

"Where was the great crocus-coloured robe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been worked by brown girls for the pleasure of Athena? Where the huge velarium that Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, that Titan sail of purple on which was represented the starry shy and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by white gilt-reined steeds?



I read Wilde's biography and found the answer.

From 1871 to 1874 he read Classics with a scholarship at Trinity College, in Dublin, where hi was an outstanding student and won the University's highest academic award in Greek.

Then, during the next four years he studied Greats (ancient Rome, ancient Greece, Latin, ancient Greek and Philosophy)  at Magdalen College, in Oxford, graduating with excellent marks, as well.

Among his poems I discovered the following one:

Endymion, G.F. Watts, 1872.

ENDYMION

The apple trees are hung with gold,
and birds are loud in Arcady,
the sleep lie bleating in the fold,
the wild goat runs across the wold,
but yesterday his love he told,
I know he will come back to me.
O rising moon! O Lady moon!
Be you my lover's sentinel,
you cannot choose but know him well,
for he is shod with purple shoon,
you cannot choose but know my love,
for he a shepherd's crook doth bear,
and hi is soft as any dove,
and brown and curly is his hair.

The turtle now has ceased to call
upon her crimson-footed groom,
the grey wolf prowls about the stall,
the lily's singing seneschal
sleeps in the lily-bell, and all
the violet hills are lost in gloom.
O risen moon! O holy moon!
Stand on the top of Helice,
and if my own true love you see,
Ah! if you see the purple shoon,
the hazel crook, the lad's brown's hair,
the goat-skin wrapped about his arm,
tell him that I am waiting where
the rushlight glimmers in the Farm.

The falling dew is cold and chill,
and no bird sings in Arcady,
the little fauns have left the hill,
even the tired daffodil
has closed its gilded doors, and still
my lover comes not back to me.
False moon! False moon! O waning moon!
Where is my own true lover gone,
where are the lips vermilion,
the shepherd's crook, the purple shoon?
Why spread that silver pavilion,
why wear that veil of drifting mist?
Ah! thou hast young Endymion,
thou hast the lips that should be kissed.

What is happening in the Arctic?

Thanks to a fierce campaign of Green Peace, including this video, SHELL and toy maker LEGO have broken a business contract they had signed some years ago. 

The wildlife in the Arctic is been threaten by the economic interests of large international companies and powerful governments.

 

The filter bubble.

What do we find on the Internet?
To my surprise, it seems that the information we get is not but what companies want us to obtain. The filter bubble tailors what we get according to the data and footprint we leave on the net.

Did you know it?


 

Introduction.

This is my notebook to learn English so I am not teaching you I am just learning.