REMAMBRANCE DAY

Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day or Armistice Day) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries since the end of World War I to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. This feast takes place on the second Sunday of November or the Sunday nearest the 11th November. This is to commemorate the First World War which ended at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month 1918 (11 o'clock on the 11th November 1918). At that moment it was signed the Armistice by representatives of Germany. This memorial day is also known as Poppy Day or Armistice Day. In 11th November 1918 King George V made 2 minutes of silence at 11 o'clock to commemorate  those who had died for their country. King George V decided to dedicate this day as a memorial day in 1919. On the morning of 11th November 1919 the king signed the Official Armistice with the President of French Republic, in Buckingham Palace. The red remembrance poppy is the emblem of Remembrance Day.

United Kingdom

Memorials in the Field of Remembrance outside London's Westminster Abbey for Remembrance Day.

In the United Kingdom, ceremonies are held at local war memorials, usually organised by local branches of the Royal British Legion, an association for ex-servicemen. Typically, poppy wreaths are laid by representatives of the Crown, the armed forces, and local civic leaders, as well as by local organisations including ex-servicemen organisations, cadet forces, the Scouts, Guides, Boys' Brigade, St John Ambulance and the Salvation Army.^] The beginning and end of the two minutes' silence is often marked in large towns and cities by the firing of ceremonial cannon.

The Cenotaph at Whitehall, London on Remembrance Day

The main national commemoration is held at Whitehall, in Central London, for dignitaries, the public, and ceremonial detachments from the armed forces and civilian uniformed services such as the Merchant Navy and Her Majesty's Coastguard. Members of the British Royal Family walk through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office towards the Cenotaph, assembling to the right of the monument to wait for Big Ben to strike 11:00 am, and for the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery at Horse Guards Parade, to fire the cannon marking the commencement of the two minutes of silence. There are: the Prime Minister; the leaders of the major political parties from all parts of the United Kingdom; Commonwealth High Commissioners to London; the Chief of the General Staff; the Chief of the Air Staff; representatives of the merchant navy and Fishing Fleets and the merchant air service. Other members of the Royal Family usually watch the service from the balcony of the Foreign Office. The service is generally conducted by the Bishop of London. Before the marching commences, the members of the Royal Family and public sing the national anthem.

ROYAL FAMILY

British Royal Family

The British Royal Family is the family group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom.  The Royal Family usually include the monarch, the consort of the monarch, the widows and widowers of previous monarchs, the children of the monarch, the male-line grandchildren of the monarch and previous monarchs, and the wives or widows of a monarch's and previous monarch's sons and male-line grandsons.

After 1917, when King George V changed the name of the royal house from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, members of the Royal Family belong, either by birth or marriage, to the House of Windsor. Senior titled members of the royal family do not usually use a surname, although since 1960 Mountbatten-Windsor (incorporating Prince Philip's adopted surname of Mountbatten) has been prescribed as a surname for Queen Elizabeth II's direct descendants who do not have royal styles and titles, and has also sometimes been used when required for those who do have such titles. Members and relatives of the British Royal Family historically represented the monarch in various places throughout the British Empire, sometimes for extended periods as viceroys, or for specific ceremonies or events. Today, they often perform ceremonial and social duties throughout the United Kingdom and abroad on behalf of the United Kingdom. Aside from the monarch, their only constitutional role in the affairs of government is to serve, if eligible and when appointed by letters patent, as a Counsellor of State, two or more of whom exercise the authority of the Crown (within stipulated limits).


British Royal Family.

Family tree of members

King George V

Queen Mary

King George VI

Queen Elizabeth

Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester

Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester

Prince George, Duke of Kent

Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent

The Duke of Edinburgh

Queen Elizabeth II

The Duke of Gloucester

The Duchess of Gloucester

The Duke of Kent

The Duchess of Kent

Princess Alexandra, The Hon Lady Ogilvy

Prince Michael of Kent

Princess Michael of Kent

Diana, Princess of Wales[N 1] (div. 1996)

The Prince of Wales

The Duchess of Cornwall

The Princess Royal

The Duke of York

Sarah, Duchess of York (div. 1996)

The Earl of Wessex

The Countess of Wessex

The Duke of Cambridge

The Duchess of Cambridge

Prince Harry of Wales

Princess Beatrice of York

Princess Eugenie of York

The Lady Louise Windsor

Viscount Severn

Prince George of Cambridge

Prince William and Kate Middleton' marriage.

Prince George of Cambridge (George Alexander Louis, born 22 July 2013) is the only child of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. The only grandchild of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales, he is third in line to succeed his great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, after his grandfather and father. Royal baby.
George is baptised by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace on 23 October 2013, with Oliver Baker, Emilia Jardine-Paterson, Hugh Grosvenor, Earl Grosvenor, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, Julia Samuel, William van Cutsem (son of the late Hugh van Cutsem) and Zara Tindall serving as godparents. The ceremony used a font that was made for Queen Victoria's first child and water from the River Jordan.

HALLOWEEN

Halloween, also known as All Hallows' Eve, is a celebration observed in a lot of countries on October 31. It's the eve of the Christian feast of All Hallows (or All Saints), the day dedicated to remembering the dead, the saints and the martyrs. All Hallows' Eve is a feast influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, and festivals of the dead with  pagan roots, particularly the Gaelic Samhain.
Typical festive Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (also known as "guising"), costume parties, pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories, and watching horror films.
The history of Halloween is not entirely a clear one.Many hundreds of years ago, a people called the Celts lived in Europe and on the British Isles. The Celts believed that the souls of the dead visited Earth on the last day of October. They had a festival in honor of these souls of the dead, and they called it Samhain. In time, the Roman Empire conquered the Celts and took over some of their beliefs. This included Samhain. The Romans combined it with their own festivals. And since the Roman Empire spread across a great part of the known world, the idea that the souls of the dead visited Earth on the last day of October spread far and wide. Many ideas from the Roman days still survive in the United States and in other Western countries. Halloween is one of them. But how did we get the name Halloween? In the 8th Century, the Catholic Church declared November 1 to be All Saints' Day. November 1 was picked to be the day to honor all saints who didn't already have a day named in their honor. And the mass that the Catholic Church celebrated on November 1 was called Allhallowmas. This meant "mass of all the hallowed [saintly people.]" It was commonly called "All Hallows' Day." And somewhere the night before the "All Hallows' Day" became known as Allhallowe'en, which was short for "evening before All Hallows' Day." It was then shortened to what we now call it, Halloween. One last question: Why do people dress up as ghosts, goblins, vampires, and other scary creatures? The people who started all this Halloween business many years ago believed that if they appeared scary, they would scare away the spirits of the dead who were roaming the earth on All Hallows' Eve. These people also carried food to the edge of town and left it there, hoping the spirits would eat that food and not come raid the village

ENGLISH IDIOMS

Idioms exist in every language. An idiom is a word or phrase that is not taken literally, because it has a figurative meaning. Some English idioms are:


It's raining cats and dogs. It means it's raining really hard.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the blush. A certain thing is better than two impossible.
A paper tiger. It means that a person pretends to be brave and powerful, but in reality she isn't that.

A chip on your shoulder - means you think you know a lot.

High as a kite - means you are drunk or on drugs.

Sick as a dog - means you are very ill.

In dance, "break a leg" means good luck.

"Out of the blue” means something happens that was unexpected.  

The blues” can refer to both a style of music and feeling sad.

Rub someone the wrong way - meaning to annoy or bother.
•    Jump the gun - would mean to be doing something early.
•    Pay the piper - means you need to face the consequences of your actions.

An alley cat - means that a person go in places to obtain food.

the jewel in the crown

If something is the jewel in the crown, it's part of a group or set of similar things, and it's the best of them all.

a bad hair day

If you're having a bad hair day, everything seems to be going wrong for you. ighten your belt, you try to spend less money.

wear your heart on your sleeve If you wear your heart on your sleeve, you show your emotions openly and you don't try to hide your feelings.

work your socks off | work your tail off If you work your socks off, or work your tail off, you work very hard.

Achilles' heel

An Achilles' heel is a weakness that could result in failure.

 

 

 

"THE KISS" of Gustav Klimt
"The kiss" is a portrait created by Gustav Klimt. In this portrait there are a couple of lovers, they are embrassed and the boy is kissing the girl's cheek. They are in a flowery meadow. The portrait is very coloured, the predominant colour is the yellow. In fact, the lovers are dressed with this colour, that united their bodies in a warm hug. But there also the colours green, white, red and brown. There are also many coloured flowers. The lovers are very pale, but the girl has got very red lips, that stand out in the portrait.

Narrative poem

A narrative poem is a long story in vers that contains many narrative elements. In fact there are desciptions of the characters, there is the use of a narrator and there is the setting in time and place. It's written in Middle English. It's often in the first person. In Middle Ages there were many genres of narrative poem: the "examples", that have a moral teaching from real events or fantastic situations; the romance, that is about love and war; and the fabliau, that is comic and it's about sex. The goal of the narrative poem is to teach values and to give a moral. It tells about the changing of the society from a religious view to a lay outlook. The greatest example of a narrative poem in medieval literature is "Canterbury's Tales", written by Geoffrey Chaucer.It's a long poem in vers, framed by a General Prologue. It's set in Canterbury, Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago of Compostela. It tells about all the society except the aristocrats.

Ballads

A ballad is a poetical composition in vers that is performed as a song. It's a short narrative song. The word "ballad" derives from the Latin and means "dancing". Balllads originallly were transmited orally and they were accompanied by music. Scops entertained people with ballads in the halls of kings. Only then ballads were written in Old English by anonymous writers. The characters of ballads are kings, heros, and warriors. The ballad tells a dramatic story as a series of rapid flashes. It focuses on a single crucial episode and it tells dramatic events. In ballads there are many refrains, repetitions and poetical devices like alliterations, kennings, assonances and consonances. There are formulaic phrases and stock-images. Popular ballads are a mixture of dialogue and narration. They are impersonal, so the ballad's narrators don't speak in the first person. Ballads have many themes: love; war between English and Scottish people; border ballads; ballads of outlaws, like Robin Hood; family tragedies; and ballads of magic, about fairies, ghosts and witches. Ballads have many stanzas, and each stanza is made up of  four lines: two questions and two answers.