Written by Laura Barton for



426720025717500Linlithgow Academy S3(g) NewspaperArticle -647700114681000HomeworkArticle Questions1) Finish the sentence of the example below that you think best describes the purpose of the article:A. To persuade the reader that…B. To entertain & amuse the reader.C. To criticise…D. To inform the reader about… (1)2) Quote 3 words or phrases that helped you work out what the purpose was. Then, explain how they helped you. (6)3) What is the target audience of the article? You must write one answer down for each of the following: AGE GENDER NATIONALITY INTERESTS . What about the article made you think it was for this audience? (4)4) In your own words, summarise the main points the writer makes in the article. Give 3 bullet points. (3)5) Use a dictionary to write down the meanings of the words in bold. (1)(15 marks)Pop has lost its tribal fever, and I can’t helpmissing itLiam Gallagher endorsing the new Blur single reflects a wider shift in how we relate to musicAll that summer and on into autumn, a kind of fever seemed to grip the nation, asif we were living under a perpetual midday sun, making mad dogs and Englishmen of us all.The battle of Britpop began simply enough with a single release: Blur’s Country House thrust up against Oasis’s Roll With It on the very same mid-August day in 1995. They were very different songs – the former a semi-cautionary tale about a record executive who retires to the country, peppered with references to Balzac, Prozac and Animal Farm and carried on a jovial gait, the latter a more lyrically opaque account of lost feelings and lingering ambition drawled over sludgingguitars.There was surely room for both in the musical landscape of the time, and yet the manner in which those two bands squared up to one another suggested otherwise; it carried with it a kind of wildness, the sort of posturing and bravado you might find on football terraces or at provincial nightclubs. It became about more than just the rush for the No 1 spot – it was about identity and belonging and long-held grudges. It became about the north and the south and the long-held animosity between the two.The events of this week, then, still seem startling to me: on Monday Liam Gallaghertweeted his opinion that Blur’s new single, Lonesome Street, was “song of the year”. It was the kind of statement that would have seemed preposterous in 1995, but that, 20 years on, reflects not only the mellowing effect of time on ageing rock stars, but also perhaps a shift in the tribal way we approach music.Britpop itself was stirred out of something anti-American, an apparent reaction against the grunge acts that had dominated the charts in the early 90s, a move back towards the familiar Britishness of the Smiths or the Kinks or the Who. That this movement should then subdivide further should not have been surprising. Blur, like many of the bands of that era, represented London and the scene that swirled around Camden Town – from a distance they seemed to be androgynous pretty boys who sang with London accents. Oasis, on the other hand, were surly, dry-witted Mancunians, burlier and hairier than their southern rivals. In the north, people clung to them.The year that the battle of Britpop raged, I was working in a record store in the north-west of England, and I recall seeing at close quarters the sheer ferocity of it all: the furious northern allegiance to Oasis, and how the customers queued out of the door to buy Morning Glory CDs and posters and T-shirts, how at the local indie disco people walked off the dancefloor in disgust when the DJ played a Blur song. People dressed like the Gallaghers, walked like the Gallaghers, talked like them. For months, they struck up conversations at the record store counter, on buses, in pubs, about why Oasis were better than Blur. It wasn’t, you quickly sensed, just about two bands, it was something deeper than that – something guttural.History states that if Blur won the battle – selling 274,000 copies of Country House to Roll With It’s 216,000 – then Oasis won the war, their album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory outselling Blur’s The Great Escape that autumn.But it seems peculiar now – odd that any band rivalry could ever have tipped the nation into such a breast-beating frenzy. Part of this is that the old tribes don’t seem to exist quite as fixedly as they once did. Mainstream and alternative cultures have washed together in a quite unexpected way, so that all of these once unthinkables now seem no great shakes: Tory MPs going to Glastonbury; Sufjan Stevens soundtracking Radio 4’s Food and Farming Awards; everyone shopping at Topshop. We have become a smudge of music festivals, vinyl, street food and bicycles; we go to gigs with our parents, swap music tips with strangers online, where once we had John Peel and the Evening Session, now we have 6 Music, and iTunes and music blogs to lead us into a great wide musical land beyond the Top 40 and the singles chart in Woolworths.And it’s a wonderful thing, this variety, this opportunity, this appetite and equality. But I can’t help but wonder where all the tribes go, where the desire to belong will settle. And sometimes I catch a glimmer of it, still, turned uglier now and sour of face – in the petitions to stop Kanye performing at Glastonbury, say, or before him Jay-Z. And in those moments I think back to the summer of 1995, and the queues out the door of a northern record store, and I wonder if perhaps the midday sun shone a little warmer, a little kinder, then.Written by Laura Barton for The GuardianCan you be a pacifist and still enjoy militarygaming?Those who decry violent video games don’t understand that simulating an activity can act as a replacement, not just an encouragement.Studying the horror of the world wars turned me into an avowed pacifist by age fifteen. Two years later, I walked into an army PR van for a chat with the recruitment sergeant. I felt confused when I went in but when I left, a bundle of helpful propaganda under my arm, I was also scared.How could I have become a pacifist thinking about signing up to the armed forces?It took years before I understood myself, but smarter people had already worked it out.Michael Herr, Tim O’Brien and other biographers of America’s failure in Vietnam had the answer. To say that war is hell is an obvious truth, but the harder, darker and more subversive idea is that it can be persuasively glamorous too. A clarion call to the base instincts beneath our precious veneer of civilisation. It satisfied desires that lurk hungrily in us all, however much we might wish otherwise.Some soldiers and civilians recall wartime as the best years of their lives, the carnage and loss forging bonds of solidarity as strong as those of family. It is a thing of extremes that brings out the best and the worst in people.Rick Rescorla, an Englishman who served in the US army before becoming a securityconsultant on Wall Street, was in the Twin Towers on September 11. After leading hischarges to safety he went back in, again to save more people and was killed when the South Tower collapsed. Shortly before he’d called his tearful wife and told her: “stop crying ... I’ve never been happier.”When warfare is so dramatic, so pivotal in much of history, it seems less inconsistent that some might find it both irresistible and appalling. My pacifism is a luxury, bought with the blood of warriors.As Richard Grenier, paraphrasing Orwell, had it: “people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” War is sometimes necessary, and without it there would be no pacifism. That’s a far greater contradiction than being a militarist who favours peace.At age 17, I understood little of this. All I knew was that a drive toward pacifism and afascination with the military were tearing me apart. I called on a friend who was playing the latest video game he’d acquired: Overrun, a tactical simulation of modern warfare. Over a surreal afternoon, we discussed the consequences of real violence while playing at it on the computer.As is so often the case, play proved a fantastic medium to explore the activity it wasmimicking. Theories of learning through play suggest that children use it to explore adult activities prescribed to them due to their youth. Why shouldn’t adults use it as a way to get inside activities they find fascinating in theory but repugnant in practice?That was the start of a long love affair with military games both on screen and on thetabletop, from frantic shooters like Medal of Honour to sedate simulations such as Unity of Command.In playing these re-creations of horrors past and yet to come, my desire for militarism is satiated. It’s a safety valve, a way I can harmlessly examine the dichotomy between the lure of war and the fruits of peace. Those who decry the depiction of violence in these games don’t see that simulating an activity can act as a replacement as well as an encouragement.To accept this does not equate with across-the-board comfort at all titles. There’s a world of difference between the flawed, sinister protagonist of Spec Ops: The Line and the gung-ho, invulnerable super-soldiers of Call of Duty.Time and perspective also matter. The hard realism of the excellent Band of Brothers:Earned in Blood works because the second world war is history now – something we’ve discussed, deliberated and put in its proper context. By contrast, the release of Battlefield: Hardline directly after the tragedies in Ferguson just feels crass and exploitative.Yet even the people who choose those sorts of games over more contemplative fare may be doing so for good reason. In the humdrum safety of our cosseted, comfortable western lives we yearn for stimulation and excitement. Some find it in extreme sports, others in travel and adventure. I, and many others, find it in military games.Study after study has found no suggestion that playing violent games makes people violent. But no one has stopped to wonder whether playing them might help divest gamers of their more warlike urges. Perhaps it’s time to update the wisdom of the ancients and say that if we want peace, we must prepare for wargames.Written by Matt Thower for The Guardian 29th April 2015We love Harrison Ford even when he’s causing real life havoc. Here’s why.Most people might be in a bit of a flap on hairsbreadth avoidance of death. Not Harrison Ford. Never Harrison Ford. “Was that airliner meant to be underneath me?” the actor asked air traffic control in California on Tuesday night, after landing his single-seater plane on the wrong runway. A runway already playing host to a Boeing 737 containing 116 passengers and an awful lot of petrol.The recording has not been made public, but you can bet Ford’s delivery was as pitchperfect as his script. Try imagining him gibbering that line in fear – impossible. Now try a laconic retake, emphasis on “meant”, ironic buck-passing intended. Much better. Much more realistic.Of all stars in the firmament, Ford is the most consistently on-brand. Nothing he does endangers our view of him as a grouchy yet lovable maverick. Not the flops. Not the fact he and wife Calista Flockhart go on barge holidays on the Llangollen canal. Not even that silver earring – acquired when he was 55 and still going strong 20 years on – can dint hisHollywood mystique.Others manage a similar trick. Yet what elevates Ford above his peers is precisely his habit of nearly pegging it. This is far from Ford’s first plane crash. There have been multiple, much closer shaves: a second world war trainer scattered over a golf course, a wrecked helicopter, an emergency landing in Nebraska.Even on terra firma, planes seem to have it in for him: in 2014, his leg was crushed by a hydraulic door on the set of the Millennium Falcon spaceship while shooting Star Wars: TheForce Awakens. The prosecutor in the subsequent court case was at pains to point out it could have killed him.It might as well have been his publicist. Ford’s invincibility gives him edge. We are accustomed to seeing stars die on screen while safe in the knowledge they’re fine in real life; Ford’s real life simply maps fiction with unusual accuracy. His only rival here is, perhaps, Dick Van Dyke, still going strong at 91 despite a serious car fire in his late 80s and, three years earlier, nodding off on his surfboard and drifting out to sea.Yet both men’s mishaps are persona appropriate. Tragedy pesters Ford when he’s solo in the skies: a romantic figure, trapped in a perpetual cliffhanger. Van Dyke beats the reaper in ways as wacky as you’d expect from a man best known for wooing a magical nanny. He was pulled from his burning Jaguar by off-duty nurses; his surfboard was pushed back to shore by a pod of porpoises. You couldn’t swap these stories. Van Dyke would be as much a fish out of water looping the loop 4,000ft up as Ford would being escorted to safety by whales. These two know their schtick, and stick to it. And so they do exactly what we want them to: break the fourth wall, even allow us to kid ourselves it doesn’t really exist.This week a study by Durham University revealed that a fifth of readers have experienced characters in novels hopping off the page to accompany them in everyday life. One poor respondent described “feeling enveloped” by Mrs Dalloway, “hearing her voice and imagining her response to particular situations, such as walking into a Starbucks”. As if queueing for a coffee wasn’t bad enough without stream-of-consciousness insights from a depressed socialite.No such study would be required for filmgoers. Movies sell themselves on our embrace of the blur. Audiences trot to the cinema eager to catch up with role models, sexual fantasies, touchstones. And this, of course, is why celebrity deaths prove such catnip: we have appropriated these people into our lives. Their careers are like mixtapes for our own histories.When they die, we’re sad for them and their families, but we’re mostly sad for ourselves: our own pasts, our own projections. If the day comes when Ford’s mid-air accidents become rather less funny, people will be grieving less for an independent being than for a man some wanted to be, some to sleep with, some to be fathered by – some all three.If we’re a fan, the death of someone famous allows us to feel we have personal investment in the news. If we’re a fan who has gone to the lengths of actually meeting them, even fleetingly, this feeling is amplified. If we have actual photographic proof of such an encounter, our mourning is permitted to be as intense as it might for a real-life friend onFacebook.In 2015, promoting the Star Wars movie that almost cost him his life, Ford said he’d never taken a selfie, that they were “ridiculous” and social media “a disaster”. “Do I think our youth can make a difference in the world?” he asked. “No, not really. They have no desire to seek the truth. Self-obsession is devouring our need to find answers.”Let’s hope he does take care up there.Written by Catherine Shoard for The GuardianRyan Gosling in La La Land is every bad date you ever hadChances are, after yesterday’s events in DC, you’re feeling a little bruised. Traumatised, even. So, you are likely seeking some escapism and, given that literal escape by moving to Mars is, for now, not a possibility, it is also likely that everyone and your mum will suggest you go and see La La Land, written and directed by 31-year-old Damien Chazelle. And sure, it is a gorgeous movie, as far from Trump as The Wizard Of Oz is from getting a root canal. But, actually, I didn’t love it, which is strange, because two of my favourite genres are movies about movies, and films in which the female lead is blatantly better at singing and dancing than the man, and La La Land cheerfully ticks both those boxes.There are many reasons this movie failed to make me feel as if I was dancing on the ceiling of the Griffith Observatory, but the main one was this: Ryan Gosling’s character is every bad date I have ever had. Gosling plays Sebastian, a jazz snob, the kind whose response to a woman saying she “hates jazz” is to tell her she’s wrong and take her to a jazz club on every date thereafter. He is also, as a sidenote, often an actual jerk, one who thinks it is acceptable to barge aggressively into a woman because he feels unappreciated by Da Man, and then not apologise to her until months later, and only because she orders him to do so.But the movie paints all this as part of Sebastian’s old-fashioned passion, and if he’s rude sometimes, well, that’s because he is – as he proudly says – “a romantic”, too busy defending freestyle jazz against music that doesn’t sound like noises you’d hear in an animal rescue home to worry about manners. I realised this movie and I were not about to embark on a romance when Sebastian’s smart-ass behaviour gets him fired from his pianoplaying job, meaning he then has to play keyboard in an 80s tribute band, knocking out songs like Take On Me – and the movie depicts this as his “humiliation”.Take On Me! One of the greatest songs ever written! I’d love to hear more about your artistic soul, Sebastian, but I’m too busy dancing to music that people with ears actually like.Academic studies have been written about how romantic heroes in movies are often terrible people: stalkers, obsessives, narcissists, immature assholes. Sebastian is pretty much identical to Andrew, the jazz student in 2014’s Whiplash, who sneers at anyone – girlfriend included – who doesn’t share his musical taste. In this film, he’s coated in the romanticised twilight of a musical. As it happens, Whiplash was also written and directed by Damien Chazelle, and I found it hard to focus on La La Land because I was distracted by an increasingly pressing question: did I once date Damien Chazelle?Every woman has dated the jazz snob. Even Sex And The City did an episode about Carrie dating a jazz snob, who managed to be more annoying than the twentysomething manCarrie slept with in another episode. And all thirtysomething women know there are few things worse than dating a twentysomething man (#yesalltwentysomethingmen).The jazz snob doesn’t have to be into jazz; he just has to believe that his preferred music is the only acceptable music, and that any woman lucky enough to be in his sphere must show their worthiness by appreciating it, too. I have dated men who insisted I love reggae, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Arab Strap, Mogwai and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (that one didn’t last long).Jazz snobs don’t even need to be into music: those guys who insist on ordering your drink because only they understand what makes a good cocktail? How you absolutely must swap your Starbucks for the fresh roasted beans they will hand-grind every morning? How you must respect their childish obsession with (insert name of sport team) while they make fun of your interest in fashion/romantic comedies/80s music? Jazz snobs, one and all.I use the male gender advisedly, because I have yet to meet a woman who insists on imposing her taste on everyone around her. Meanwhile, I have largely dated men like that, who think the world needs to shape itself around them, and who confuse their interests with their sense of self, who are incapable of accepting that different people have different tastes.This is what happens when male entitlement meets boyish insecurity, otherwise known as A Really Bad Date.Sadly, La La Land was more like a terrible memory rush. I should have gone to Manchester By The Sea, the other big Oscar-bait movie, about a dead brother and a tragic relationship. Comparatively, that sounds a hoot.by Hadley Freeman for The GuardianForget smartphones - the Nokia 3310 is still the mobile of the futureIt was like a trip to Q’s lab for this particular journalistic James Bond. Back in 2000, it was day one at Channel 4 News and I was sent to the dark and windowless garage across the road to sign a chit and be issued with the latest hi-tech kit: silver, slim but reassuringly solid, with a weight to enable it be used, if necessary, to bludgeon a Spectre assassin; Bluetooth option. What the hell was Bluetooth anyway, Q? And a charger. Ah, that battery life. More on that later. Like Bond I never bothered reading a manual. The Nokia 3310 could be worked out on the go by instinct alone. The so-called “candy bar” shape fitted so reassuringly into a pocket. Unlike James Bond’s Beretta it’s never jammed on me or frozen mid-sentence like an iPhone.It had the future, not obsolescence built into its functions. Even a move to the 6310i was really no change at all. Surely no one needed more than a handful of numbers and I knew them off by heart: the news desk, my beloved, and my mum, of course. The Nokia made me realise the power of phone memory by offering to remember them – 250 of them. Who could possibly need 250 numbers? I would scroll through the games, amazed at the options I would never have the time to explore.Then there was the super-smooth texting. Those keys, based on a traditional push-button phone. Who wanted a microscopic qwerty keyboard when on a Nokia I could text so fast and so easily one-handed that I considered it the Roger Moore option – leaving the other one free for racier activity, perhaps? I began to seriously consider entering one of the international texting championships that were starting. I felt like I’d be a texting Clint Eastwood in a quick-draw showdown. When I worked out its predictive texting I felt like I was living life at the intensity of a hummingbird flapping its wings. This phone can read my thoughts. We act as one. Like Jack Schaefer’s cowboy hero Shane, I had become “a good [wo]man with a good tool”.The Nokia battery could last a week easily. I could dig mine out after months and it would still be alive and kicking Sure, emails were always an option on the Nokia, but who wants emails on the go? They’re essentially still a letter that must be pulled out of an envelope. The beauty of the Nokia was the purity of the text message. If it’s important, text me. A discipline that I hold on to to this day.Then there was the charge. At long-running court days and police investigation scenes, reporters would exchange stories in wonder about the number of hours it would sit on two bars. If not in constant use the Nokia could last a week easily. I knew I could dig mine out after months and it would still be alive and kicking.After eight years the silver started to wear off the handset. But I began to notice the identically worn phones at high-powered conferences when I asked CEOs of blue-chip companies or government ministers to switch off gadgets before we went on stage. Don’t believe the lie that the more senior they are, the less likely they are to carry a phone. The Nokia was the device of choice to make the calls that matter to the people they trusted or loved.But change was in the air.After refusing every handset upgrade at work for 10 years, I was foolishly seduced by the siren call of the BlackBerry. All the new senior editors were waving them around. Maybe I was missing out? In the garage the technician looked amazed as I offered up my phone in exchange. “No one wants that,” he said. “You can keep it.” I swapped in my own SIM card and made it my personal phone.It’s now been a year or so since I bought a smartphone. Damn those kitten memes. But the Nokia lives on. In my bedside drawer. Along with emergency cash and a torch. Ready for when times get tough. Makers of dystopian apocalypse movies should note that whomever will survive of us will be wielding a pre-2000 Nokia phone – and it will still have two bars of power.Written by Samira Ahmed for The GuardianWhy does our Instagram generation think its snaps are so special?We all love taking photographs. I take them everywhere, on a camera, on a mobile device, snap, snap, snap. We give cameras to our kids too. Even more snapping. But how much do we value those pictures? As memory markers, they are addictive. As fun, they are ... great fun. But it all gets daft when amateur snappers think they are artists.This is beautifully illustrated by a dispute between two non-professional photographers that surfaced in the Daily Telegraph. It started when camera enthusiast Sarah Scurr won a competition and got her picture of an iceberg in the Northern Patagonian Ice Field published. When fellow photographer Marisol Ortiz Elfeldt saw the icy image she recognised - it seemed - her own work and accused Scurr of plagiarism.It turned out they were both on the same cruise, taking pictures at the same moment of the same iceberg. And their pictures looked identical except in colour tones (Elfeldt claimed Scurr had taken her image and Photo shopped it.)Of course they looked identical - because we are not expressive artists when we take pictures. If Cezanne and Monet both stood and painted that iceberg, the results would be totally individual. Even if two amateur water colourists painted it, their work would contrast - just as the work of every pupil in a school class would be different if they were on that cruise sketching that iceberg, Photography can easily degenerate into a pseudo-art, with millions of people all taking pictures of the same things and all thinking we are special. This amateur delusion of photographic art is everywhere today - from Instagram to the streets and hills, here there is always someone taking their holiday snaps too damn seriously.This strange plagiarism row exposes the illusion on which today's mass camera cult rests. Both these amateur photographers were convinced their creativity was special. The truth is that words like creativity, individuality, talent and originality don't readily apply when you have a planet of people all taking photos.And yet, this story points to the true nature of originality in photography. The moral is, if you want to take really great pictures, don't go on a cruise. Go to a war zone – or your parents' flat.Photography matters when it finds original subject matter. It is a record of the world, so the real art of the camera lies in discovering something new and personal or revelatory. When Richard Billingham turned the camera on his family he showed his own world, bravely, movingly. When Robert Capa took his camera to the heart of war he found unforgettable truths. Brassai discovered an entire nocturnal world of magic, desire and sleaze in his book Paris by Night. Garry Winogrand had an incredible eye for the strange and compelling and his photographs bristle with reality. Larry Burrows in Vietnam created images that seem composed by some great tragic artist yet are utterly, dreadfully real.These great photographers prove that it is only by seeking the extraordinary which can be found in the ordinary - that photography becomes art. Great photographs reveal great, and terrible, realities. In a world of pretentious and complacent amateur snapping, we are drowning those moments of truth in an ocean of the banal.Written by Jonathan Jones for The GuardianAre children given too many toys?I stood in the playroom holding an empty suitcase. We were emigrating and could only pack a few toys to keep us going until the rest arrived by ship months later. In went the Story Cubes - ingenious picture dice that inspire stories, drawings or full-scale theatrical productions. Both kids are "crafty", so in go pom-poms, pipe cleaners and paper punches. Next, a kingdom of animal figurines marches two-by-two into the case. I subject the rest to an eligibility test before I transport them half way round the world from Switzerland to Singapore - has either child shown the slightest interest in the toy in the past month? An ancient game of Pass the Pigs passes muster. A bucket of unisex Duplo and then, after a tantrum, a second bucket of pink Duplo. At the last minute, I spot a "snakes and ladders" game that my son enjoys (provided he gets to take all the turns). So why do we have so many toys?It seems we are keen to generate our children's wants - the Toy Retailers Association reports that the British alone spend ?3bn each year on toys. At London's V&A Museum of Childhood, Catherine Howell oversees a collection that includes a 400-year old rocking horse and Buzz Light year. She agrees that children typically have far more toys than any previous generation. But while spin-off merchandising has been a huge hit ever since Star Wars figures appeared in the 1970s, Howell says traditional toys like dolls and building blocks have retained a consistent popularity. "A child always comes back to a set of bricks because it allows them to use their imagination."Certainly, my own three-year-old is a marketer's dream, desperate to adventure with the Octonauts (an animated series). And yet, when his much-anticipated Gup-B arrived last Christmas, his underwater enthusiasm had ebbed by Boxing Day. According to James, toys that pre-determine play - and this is especially true of merchandising - offer limited possibilities for fun. So while Buzz Light year can only ever be a space ranger, a doll might become a hungry baby, a tea party guest - or a space ranger - depending on the child's desires. These prescriptive toys could even be damaging, says James. "Young children discover their identity through fantasy play. If their toys offer a limited repertoire, this process is eroded."It is the "play value" that is most important, says Liat Hughes Joshi, author of ‘Raising Children: the Primary Years’. "There are enormous benefits to toys - they bring joy, creativity and learning.” She sees three factors that make a brilliant toy: "Social value - a dolls' house allows children to play together, versatility - Lego bricks can be made into anything, and durability - such as a wooden train track that the child will use for years."But James says it's even better for children to "colonise objects". A quick glance into the bedroom shows me that my two have recently colonised my baking trays (drums), towels and pegs (den) and a large plastic storage box (my son's ark, decorated with a portrait of God). It also explains their fascination with sticks, the Swiss Army knife of the imaginary world. The sheer creative potential offered by found objects is a force that toymakers do try to harness. That old favourite, Meccano, recently won an award that recognises the traditional value of toys.Thierry Bourret, the founder of the Slow Toy Awards, says there are many ways that well-designed products surpass "colonised objects", but one in particular is crucial. "How do you know an object is safe? Every toy we recognise has been safety tested and develops life skills. Other 2013 Slow Toy winners included a stylish Danish-designed dolls pram, a set of ecological building blocks called TWIG, and a classic trike.But how many toys is too many?Those who advocate fewer toys say it is not just the nature but also the sheer number that threaten to overwhelm our children. And for parents who think that sibling rivals will bicker less if they have a wide choice of novelties - more toys could actually make them more selfish. Joshua Becker, a father of two who writes about how to simplify both home and lifestyle, says: "People co-operate better and share when resources are limited, and the same is true for children.” This minimalism extends to the whole Becker family, with the kids given a confined space to store their toys, forcing them to adopt a "one in, one out" policy. He sees his kids "filling their time with creativity" – taking their scooters to the park, practising baseball and football, inviting friends over to play with dolls, and devising art projects. In addition, he says, they develop longer attention spans, take better care of their possessions and grow more resourceful.Crucially, Becker hopes these habits will last a lifetime. "The children realise they don't have to conform and be consumed by consumerism.” In his book ‘Affluenza’, James outlines how the populations of the UK and the US suffer a high degree of emotional distress related to the kind of materialism that Becker rejects. Meanwhile, residents of continental Europe are only half as likely to be plunged into misery by their frustrated desire for more stuff.Is it a coincidence that the educational cultures of mainland Europe promote real-life learning experiences? The forest playgroup - or Waldspielgruppe - is a rite of passage in Switzerland, where I lived for seven years. Starting at age three, my kids toddled off to nail their lumberjack skills with normal-sized hammers and saws. They built fires, cooked food and collected soggy pine cones. There was not a toy in sight. Just contented children - and a wealth of pine cone-themed ornaments. Now that Swiss cold-snaps have been replaced by Singaporean monsoons, I'm grateful I didn't leave all the toys behind. Maybe the kids don't need them - but their busy parents do. The move forced us (willingly) to minimalise, and with all those empty packing boxes waiting to be colonised, we're not short of ways to play more with less.Written by Joanne Furniss for BBC NewsForty years after black footballers entered the game, racism is still a huge problemHaving charted the experiences of black players for my book, it’s clear to me that though British football likes to think it’s moved on, the picture isn’t nearly so rosy.The claim that the former England manager Graham Taylor was asked by senior Football Association officials to limit the number of black players in the national football team is just one of several stories related by players I interviewed for my book Pitch Black.The book charts the development of black footballers from the time they first came to prominence in the 1970s to the present day. Some 20 black players told me of their experiences, insights and perspectives on their careers, and on the overt and covert racist discrimination they suffered (and continue to suffer).Three things have been lost in the media coverage so far. First, that as England manager Taylor never gave in to pressure from FA officials. While he will, like all England managers, be subject to the usual armchair criticism of his squad selections, racism cannot reasonably be seen as a factor in his decision-making. Taylor has a fine record of supporting black players for both club and country. He was also among those who spoke out against racism before it was popular to do so. In breaking colour bars in the game, Taylor is inarguably a hero, not a villain.Second, his comments were made to Richie Moran, a former professional footballer, during a function at Watford’s ground during the 1999-2000 season. They were reported several years ago, though Taylor was not named. Naturally, in researching the book, this was one of the things I wanted to pursue with Moran. He recalled having the conversation with Taylor in the presence of his then girlfriend and was shocked by what he was told – it’s “something I wasn’t likely to forget”.And third, though Taylor disputes the story now, it’s clear Moran has nothing to gain from it. Moran has been consistent in his recollection, in the face of a legal threat from the FA, and has been categorical as to why he refuses to buckle: “Because I’m telling the truth.” The book examines how black players tried to cope with fans, managers, team-mates and opponents. It includes tales of dressing room punch-ups and terrace hostility, but also of mothers so distraught at the treatment meted out to their sons that they could no longer attend their games.After retiring from playing, black footballers often struggle to maintain meaningful roles in the game. Almost every former player I interviewed expressed frustration that their experience and expertise were overlooked. They wanted to put something back into the game they loved but were consistently denied the opportunity to do so John Barnes’s case is a good example. Twice Footballer of the Year, former PFA Player of the Year and with over 70 England caps, he was appointed Celtic manager in 1999. He won 11 of his first 12 games in charge. However, the better-resourced city rivals, Rangers, won 12 of 12. Despite keeping Celtic within touching distance of their Old Firm rivals – he even won SPL Manager of the Month for February – he was sacked the following month after a shock exit from the Scottish Cup. In spite of all his experience, it would be an incredible nine years before he got another managerial appointment, at Tranmere Rovers. Former England striker Les Ferdinand remarked how, in a recent conversation, a football club chairman told him he had never considered employing a black manager. Mostly, however, the denial of opportunities has been subtle, shrouded in appointments made within informal networks, involving wordof- mouth recommendations. This is as much an issue today as it was 25 years ago.In any discussion on racism in football, the game likes to tell itself it has moved on. We smugly look at football in eastern and southern Europe and say we’re not like those backward, unenlightened folk. Scratch below the surface, however, and the picture isn’t as rosy as it’s often painted.There has been a black presence in British football since the beginning of the professional era, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that black players entered the game in significant numbers.At that time there were few black referees, few black coaches, few (if any) black people in the boardroom, few black administrators, few black faces on the terraces, and black players were habitually subject to vitriolic racist abuse.Four decades on, there are still few black referees, few black coaches, few black people in the boardroom, few black administrators and few black faces on the terraces. While the increasingly financially-driven nature of the professional game has seen a corresponding merit-based rise in the number of black players – and banana throwing and racist chants are unacceptable at English grounds – the lack of black faces in senior administrative positions reveals that in 40 years we simply haven’t made as much progress as we like to think.Written by Emy Onuora for The GuardianNational borders exist to pen poor people into reservations of povertyWhy, in this era of advanced globalisation, do we believe in free trade and the free movement of goods, but not in the free movement of labour?He is not one of my regulars. From Cameroon, he says. And hungry, poor bloke. I can tell he’s had to swallow a lot of pride to beg for food at my door. I apologise to him, say that because we’ve just made a delivery to the food bank, the church is out of supplies. And personally, I haven’t done a shop in days. I rummage around in my cupboards and come up with an avocado and some spaghetti hoops, which really isn’t good enough. Is there any work out there, I ask him. It’s hard to find without the right papers, he says. Bloody Home Office, I say. He smiles.We are so hypocritical about borders. We cheer when the Berlin Wall comes down. We condemn the Israelis for their separation barrier and Donald Trump for his ludicrous Mexican fence. But are we really so different? We also police our borders with guns and razor wire as if we had some God-given right to this particular stretch of land. Through the random lottery of life, I have a UK passport. I didn’t work for it or do anything whatsoever to deserve it. In economic terms, I just happened to be born lucky. My new friend from Cameroon, not so much.Within our own borders we complain at any suggestion of a postcode lottery. When the north of England has a different standard of healthcare to the south, we consider it a scandal.But when the global north has a radically different standard of healthcare to the global south, we think that’s just the way it is. In fact, it’s far worse than that – we somehow think it our duty to fence off our advantage, to protect it against those who would share in our good fortune. And these people we disparage as illegal immigrants, as if they are thieves or terrorists – though they are just doing globally what Norman Tebbit famously advised millions of unemployed in the 1980s to do: to get on their bike and look for work.In this era of advanced globalisation, we believe in free trade, in the free movement of goods, but not in the free movement of labour. We think it outrageous that the Chinese block Google, believing it to be everyone’s right to roam free digitally. We celebrate organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières for their compassionate universalism. But for all this talk of freedom from restriction, we still pen poor people into reservations of poverty. It’s like our own little version of The Hunger Games. And it is so normal to us, we don’t even recognise it as a moral issue.The free movement of people is what political scientist JW Moses called “the last frontier of globalisation”, implying that it too will fall. Because, in the grand scheme of things, of course, no force on earth can insulate us against billions of people without enough to eat.Many will tragically drown in our Mediterranean moat, others will be stopped for a while at our fences, but nothing will not stop more people from trying to come. And eventually they will succeed. Artificial national boundaries, just lines on a map, are no match against the massed forces of human need. This week I met in London a guy I last saw in Calais trying to get into the back of a truck. It took him months of trying to get past our borders.But in the end he made it. And good for him.Before the Aliens Act of 1905, the UK had no border controls to speak of. They were first erected to stop Jews coming from eastern Europe. “England for the English,” was the slogan. The Manchester Evening Chronicle explained what this meant: “That the dirty, destitute, diseased, verminous and criminal foreigner who dumps himself on our soil and rates simultaneously, shall be forbidden to land.”Border controls have always been racist in character. And it’s much the same today. They are about locking in our wealth and keeping mosques out of the Cotswolds. At present, globalisation is a luxury of the rich, for those of us who can swan about the globe with the flick of a boarding pass. The so-called “migrant crisis” is globalisation for the poor. They are blowing their trumpets around our walls. And our walls will fall.Written by Giles Fraser for The GuardianNorth Korea suffers worst drought in decadesNorth Korea has said it is suffering its worst drought in 37 years and called on its citizens to "battle" against the crop damage caused by it. It comes after the UN said that up to 10 million North Koreans were "in urgent need of food assistance". North Koreans had been surviving on just 300g (10.5 oz) of food a day so far this year,?the UN report said.In the 1990s, a devastating famine is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of North Koreans. There is no indication as yet that this drought will be as severe, but it follows a slew of warnings about poor harvests and crop damage across the country."As yet it's not really clear how bad things are as, with everything related to North Korea, the data is hardly transparent," Oliver Hotham from NK News told the BBC. But, he points out, that if official data is accurate, their research suggests North Korea would need to import as much as 1.5 million tonnes of food to make up for the shortfall in production.How bad is the drought in North Korea?North Korea's state media outlet KCNA said 54.4mm (21 in) of rain fell throughout the country in the first five months of the year. It said this was the lowest level recorded since 1982.The country's leading newspaper Rodong Sinmun added that "water is needed now more than ever", saying the country was in a "fierce battle" to prevent drought damage. "Workers in the agriculture sector must... storm to thoroughly protect farm fields from drought damage," it said.Last month, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) and its Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a joint report that North Korea's crop output in 2018 hit the lowest level since 2008.It estimated that 10 million people - 40% of the country's population - are in urgent need of food. The report added that "the situation could further deteriorate during the lean season from May to September" if action wasn't taken. Sanctions against North Korea have been boosted since 2006, in an effort to choke off funding for Pyongyang's nuclear programme. These have greatly reduced the country's exports - and it's unclear how much foreign currency North Korea currently has to buy food imports. Although this is a narrative favoured in state media, it is unclear how much of an impact sanctions have actually had. "[North Korea] want to make it sound like sanctions equals starvation so the U.S. should really be benevolent and give them up,"?Benjamin Silberstein, co-editor of North Korean Economy Watch and an associate scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute told Reuters.Sanctions do not ban humanitarian aid and even prevent North Korea from exporting food that could be used to feed its population. But only a handful of approved groups can deliver aid to North Korea and reports say those groups working inside the country are?facing an increasingly difficult environment because of the complex web of sanctions. In 2017, NGO Save the Children left North Korea because it said sanctions had made it too difficult to operate.In 2017, North Korea suffered from a serious drought, which decimated its production of staple crops such as rice, maize, potatoes and soybean. It is not known exactly what impact this had, but reports then said many faced malnutrition and death. "North Korea is highly vulnerable to these kinds natural disasters, due to the backwardness of a lot of its farming technology and the pre-existing public health and food issues in the country," Mr Hotham said. In the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are said to have died following a serious famine. That famine forced North Korea to seek help from international bodies for the first time. Relations between the US and North Korea have taken a turn for the worse, following a breakdown in talks between both countries.A second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump ended without agreement in February, with the US insisting North Korea give up its nuclear programme and Pyongyang demanding sanctions relief. Last week, the US seized a North Korea cargo ship for the first time, saying that it breached sanctions - North Korea has demanded its return. North Korea has in the past weeks also resumed weapons testing, widely seen as an attempt to increase pressure on the US.BBC NewsPurpose and Audience16859252501900019615151397000Purpose is … 1619250831850195262529273500Audience is …center0Glossary020000GlossaryWordDefinitionExampleSimileThis is an expression which compares one thing to another using the word ‘Like’ or ‘as’. Her hair was as black as night.MetaphorMakes a comparison between two things by saying that something is another thing. She had a heart of stone.AlliterationWhen the writer chooses words that start with the same sound to make a phrase stand out.She sells sea shells on the sea shore. RepetitionThis is when a word or phrase is used more that once to make it stand out to the reader. Gas, gas, quick boys.Question MarksIt might be a simple question or a rhetorical question, where the writer already has an answer in their mind. They might affect the tone. Is it right to test things on animals just to create more beauty products for us?Semi-colonThey do the same job as commas. They separate items in a list or join two related sentences together. The group of people is 12 rows deep; 15 minutes later there are lots more.ColonThis is an introducing mark. It tells us there will be a list, a quotation or an explanation. The skills they need: to drive,confidence, tracking safety. ................
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