People know the dog as man’s best friend. This might be because they are so lovable and energetic. A dog can carry out tasks that a human cannot do. Examples: The Dalmatian helps fire-fighters The German Sheppard helps the Police The Golden Retriever helps the blind. The types of dogs and quick facts: The Border collie. The Border collie is a very easy dog to train. It works on a lot of farms. Its average age is 13-16 years. The Jack Russell. The Jack Russell is a very adventurous dog. He hunts small animals into burrows, for example, rabbits. The Jack Russell’s average age is 13-17 years. The German Sheppard. The German Sheppard can be a very cross dog if not trained properly. He’s usually a guard dog. The German Sheppard’s average age is 9-13 years. The Labrador Retriever The Labrador was named after the Canadian island of Labrador. He retrieves tennis balls and small things. The Labrador is a great swimmer. He has a soft mouth which enables him to hold some delicate objects without breaking them in his mouth, like an egg. The Labrador’s average age is 10-12 years. Teaching your Dog Teaching your dog can be hard and easy, depending on the breed of dog. The collie is a very intelligent dog which makes him very easy to teach. I have a YouTube channel named MyPetsHD: {http://www.youtube.com/user/MyPetsHD/videos}....

In the beginning there was the AR, the Ancien Regime. This was a system that gave disproportionate power to the king and his nobles. They were the PC: the privileged classes. AR = PC Not everyone was happy: the Third Estate – TE – wanted a bigger slice of the cake. The Middle Classes – MC – belonged to the TE; they were educated and ambitious: EA MC = EA Because of a bad recession, the king called the Estates-General (EG) to raise taxes. Nobody liked this, especially the TE and the MC. They took the Tennis Court Oath (TCO); this meant they were going to fight for change. EG v. TCO The TE/MC set up their own, alternative parliament, the National Assemby (NA) which wanted a constitutional monarchy. (CM) Now there were two parliaments: the EG and the NA. The king outlawed the EG. The NA was the only game in town. NA wants a CM The National Assembly wanted guns to protect their parliament. The guns were in the Bastille. They stormed it. SOB = Storming of the Bastille Louis freaked out and tried to escape but he was caught. The NA became the National Convention (NC) and it wanted something new: a republic (R) NC wants an R The king is killed by guillotine. The NC goes all paranoid, with good reason: it institutes the Reign of Terror (ROT) which was run by the Committee of Public Safety (CPS). All suspected and actual enemies of the Revolution are either arrested or executed. Robespierre (Rob) did that, mostly.  The Directory (Dir) had Robespierre killed. ROT   Rob.   Dir. The Revolution calmed down a bit, and even inspired other countries, like Ireland. AR, PC, MC = EA,  EG v. TCO,  NA wants a CM, ...

In normal poetry, you’d expect predictability: love poems would be “soppy”, “full of flowers and chocolates and stuff”, rhyming; also, poetry is more often than not confusing, boring, dull. However, Heaney’s work makes you think. He uses unusual comparisons: in “The Skunk” he likens his wife to a skunk: Your head-down, tail-up hunt in a bottom drawer In “The Pitchfork,” a banal, everyday object is described as if it were some kind of futuristic spaceship: He would see the shaft of a pitchfork sailing past Evenly, imperturbably through space He is a master of description; take this line from “The Underground”: To end up in a draughty lamplit station In “A Constable Calls”, we get this about a gun: I sat staring at the polished holster With its buttoned flap, the braid cord Looped into the revolver butt. There is a strong sense of place in other poems like “The Tollund Man”: Out there in Jutland In the old man-killing parishes I will feel lost, Unhappy and at home. Work is a major theme in Heaney’s poetry. Work is an art, a skill, something that allows us to express ourselves, find ourselves, cherish our identities through passionate exploration of what we have inside of us: Inside, the hammered anvil’s short-pitched ring, The unpredictable fantail of sparks Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water. Work attains mythical, religious proportions: Horned as a unicorn, at one end square, Set there immovable: an altar His subject matter can be extraordinary. He can write interestingly about the most ordinary of things. In “Sunlight”, he describes a “sunlit absence” and imagines that a water pump is an oven: The helmeted pump in the yard heated its iron There is a sense of warmth in the poem. The...

There are people who are adamant 9/11 was done by the United States government; there are those who claim the Boston Marathon bombing was done by the United States government. You name it, there are people who doubt it happened the way most people believe. Take the 9/11 attacks: we have people, including the (in)famous “documentary” maker Michael Moore, who believes the US government and the Bushes knew of the terrorists before they ever happened. Fahrenheit 9/11 shows Moore’s ideas, which, if we are honest, seem only half-baked and more biased than Nazi propaganda. Really, though, the latest conspiracies about the Boston Marathon are pretty sad. We have some people who claim the Chechens were framed by the FBI. This seems pretty nonsensical considering they hijacked a car, shot dead a policeman outside the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Techonology. In the ensuing gunfight they injured more people. Yes, it’s unfortunate one was killed but at least he can do no more harm to society. The younger brother was caught in a boat. Let’s face it, if these guys were innocent they would have protested their innocence rather than shooting policemen and committing grand theft auto. So, what I say to these conspiracy theorists is this: do something better with your time; don’t tell us no planes crashed into the World Trade Centre; don’t tell us the Pentagon was blown up from inside; don’t tell us George Bush is a devil who came to wreak havoc on the world. People have had their lives ruined by these tragedies and more. Don’t make up these farcical fairytales to cover-up for the...

F1 is the short word version for Formula 1. I remember the first time I was introduced to it. I was watching a documentary on the best ever F1 driver (in my opinion): Ayrton Senna. After watching it I was smitten and ever since then I have followed F1. Some people think it is the most boring sport in the world next to golf and cricket (now they’re boring) but I don’t think so; it’s just magic! I would prefer a F1 race  to a golf or cricket game any time. OK,  to be fair, some of the races can be boring but the build-up and the start are quite interesting. Some will say, “That’s boring too!” Well here’s what you get to see: the F1 car being tuned; the tires being warmed; the crew checking that the radio system in the car is working; the steering wheel being tested; and my favorite part – that amazing roar as the engine sound test is done to see if all is working and making sure the engine is warm enough to race. I know this can be quite mean to say but I absolutely love it when the F1 drivers crash (only when they walk out of the crash). The best crash was Mark Webber’s of Red Bull. He and Adrian Sutil of Lotus were going around the final corner in The Monaco Grand Prix. Webber went around the bend first and as he was pulling back in on his racing line Adrian Sutil came behind him; Webber just saw him but it was too late. Webber clipped Sutil’s wing and Webber’s F1 car went flying over Sutil’s. Webber’s back wheel which was still moving at 210 km/h missed Sutil’s head by just 10 cm....