Tag Archives: UK

Good News Stories

A good friend sent me the link (see below) with some of the good news stories that so often seem to get lost in the everyday maelstrom. And the illustrations (by Italian artist Mauro Gatti) are brilliant.

Take a look at the link, in the meantime here are a few of my favourite positive stories from around the world.

In India trees are being planted…

And, responding to the global crisis in bee populations, Finnish scientists have developed a vaccine….

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…while Holland and the UK are creating places for bees to be busy in….

Problems of waste are being tackled in Thailand, Mexico, South Korea, Italy….

And medical advances in Sweden and other countries can help improve our health…

And around the world, for example in Malawi, Finland, the US and South Korea, things are happening to make life fairer and more rewarding…

Whichever country you live in, may 2020 bring you good news, health and happiness.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

from Travelling Frogs

And here’s the link for the more good news…

https://www.boredpanda.com/positive-news-2019-illustrations-mauro-gatti/

Pigs, and other animals, might fly…

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I heard recently that John Steinbeck was told by his professor that he would be an author ‘when pigs flew’. And that when his novels were printed, Steinbeck inscribed them with ‘ad astra per alas porci’ (‘to the stars on the wings of a pig’) – brilliant!

It’s such a great image, isn’t it? Apparently ‘flying pigs’ have been used to express the idea that something is impossible since the 1600s*. Of course pigs don’t fly everywhere. In Finland you should look out for flying cows, as in the wonderful phrase ‘kun lehmät lentävät’. And in Greece you might see a donkey up in the air. If you don’t believe me, here’s the evidence ….

fullsizeoutput_1259 *Come to think of it, at that time any suggestion that human beings might one day fly to the ends of the earth would probably also be met with the sarcastic response ‘yeah, when pigs fly… But that’s another story.

Want to escape the crowds?

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Perhaps, like the Travelling Frogs, you are native of a densely populated country. In our case England, which vies with the Netherlands for the title of most densely populated country in Europe. Both have around 415 people per square kilometre*, small in comparison with Singapore (7804 per square kilometre) or Hong Kong (6732) but even so…

So maybe when you travel you like to escape the crowds, in which case maybe the best way is to visit Greenland. The world’s biggest island, not only does it have stunning flora and fauna, an ancient culture, glaciers and hot springs, the midnight sun in the summer and hot springs all year round, but it also boasts the lowest population density in the world. In fact, rounded to the nearest whole number, the number of people per square kilometre amounts to zero. Yes, zero!

*The Dutch are taller, though

It’s National Christmas Jumper Day!

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Welcome to the UK’s National Christmas Jumper Day! For those (many) parts of the world where the term is a mystery – Christmas Jumpers are sweaters that suddenly appear in Britain as the nights start to draw in and thoughts turn to Christmas festivities. Christmas Jumpers pop up everywhere – in schools, in City offices, in shops. Typically knitted in Christmassy colours, reds and greens, and adorned with Christmassy symbols such as reindeer, Santa, jingle bells and the like, there are many variations. Here are some examples (with thanks to our models):

I thought that Christmas jumpers were a uniquely British phenomenon. Until that is, that I saw the news that the World’s Largest Christmas Jumper was recently knitted in Albi, in the South of France. It measures 8 metres by 5, and weighs more than 800 kilos, so I think you’ll agree that it merits its XXL label. 300 members of local knitting clubs took 3850 hours to hand knit it. It has been exhibited in the town, and submitted for inclusion in the Guinness Book of Records. What a shame it’s unlikely to be worn to any Christmas parties. The plan is to take it apart in a few months time, and sell the small squares for charity. (I wonder if someone will pay extra to get Rudolf’s nose?)

Rhyme and Reason

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Today is National Poetry Day in the United Kingdom – a celebration of the power of verse to bring people together. Thousands of events have been planned, in schools, bookshops, libraries, on trains and buses and in hospitals.

Why poetry? Well, poet Dan Celotti sums it up; poetry “offers no answers, no advice, no cures, just understanding and love and timing. Read poetry because the world is more than the facts of the world”.

And if you’re looking for an illustration of what he means, read Imtiaz Dharker’s extraordinary poem:

Front Door

Wherever I have lived, walking out of the front door every morning
means crossing over
to a foreign country.

One language inside the house, another out.
The food and clothes
and customs change.

The fingers on my hand turn into forks.

I call it adaptation
when my tongue switches
from one grammar to another, but the truth is I’m addicted now, high on the rush
of daily displacement,
speeding to a different time zone, heading into altered weather, landing as another person.

Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’re on the same trip too.

Reproduced on the website https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk, with kind permission of the author and Bloodaxe Books.