domingo, 15 de marzo de 2009

About Birds

The last class when themes were choseen I thought that they were very bored. But as soon as I began to think what to write I realized that I lived many funny and nice stories whith birds. That is because I have four cats and a garden with trees, so it is a dangerous combination. After every storm we have one or two chicks that we have to protect against ours cats. We have an old cage where we put them until they can flight, sometimes the story has a happy ending, sometimes not. Once I remember that the chick was very small, so I thought that it couldn´t survive because of the food but in the morning I listened a sound very near my window and I couldn´t belive !!!!It was the bird´s mother and she was feeding the chick throught the cage !!!! Of course this bird cuold flight after two weeks.
Finally I want to tell you about an speciall bird of my country. It calls "Hornero". It also lives in other countries of America, like Brasil, Bolivia and Peru but since 1928 it is our national bird. It is small, its colours are the colours of the ground, brown, grey, a palid red, It is very friendly, as many birds it doesn´t like living in the cities but it likes living near humans in the rural areas even in the suburbs.
I said that is speciall and it isn´t because of its appareance but for its habits. Actually this bird doesn´t make an ordinary nest, its nests are like a clay oven. Both parents make this nest during the rainy season and it can weight five kilos. The parents also take care of the eggs together when one of them go out to look for food the other stay in the nest. The couple sing together too, and the most beatifull and romantic curiosiy and ending they remain together all their lives.

miércoles, 4 de marzo de 2009

Something else about English Sense of Humour

Hello, I was reading the article of Tim Dowling, it´s very funny, it is a good example of the English humour, I was thinking about the humour I found this article in the web which I comment above, but if you want to read you can find it at :
http://www.zyworld.com/albionmagazineonline/features2.htm
The article is one in the series of many articles that discuss about various aspects of the English character. It said that the English sense of humour, as we could learn, is something that everybody agree with and is recognized all over the world. The English humour is characterized rather than by the word play than by the formal jokes they do. But this word play can be taken to ridiculous extremes where language itself is deconstructed into meaningless noises that are still somehow funny, so that the properties of words themselves are used for comic effect. (!!!!!!!) Then the article tells about the others aspects present in English humour, like nonsense, the surreal ( the strange or bizarre), the whimsical, the irony and the black humour, and it gives many examples of series and films.
I think that the better part is when the author asked himself about the social functions of humour ?
The idea is to show the funny side of everything you can talk about and of course the social interaction that an exchanged joke can produce. In that order it said that a similar sense of humour is one of the most important thing that an Englishman can have in common with someone else and as they have intolerance for hostility in relationships, humour can help to talk about serious things in a relaxed way. “Laughing at a shared problem gives a sense of companionship in difficulty that is very reassuring , this helps to explain the industrial quantities of humorous material produced during World War II”
In fact, the article said, many English people are very sensitive and vulnerable against criticism, so if you joke with yourself problems, if you take them with humour the opinion of the others seem to be less rude. Finally, explaining the function of humour the author said “Many of us suspect that there is no overarching meaning to life, and, instead of being frightened by this, we often turn it to our advantage by finding it funny (in direct contrast to continental Europeans, who seem to find it angst-producing.) This may help to explain why existentialism as a school of thought has never had quite the same cultural impact in England that it has had in France”
In the end the article tells about the historical origin of this sense of humour and gives this two fundamental reasons: a) there has been no civil war in England for centuries,
b) England’s incremental progress towards a liberal democracy that makes England people knows that their rights are secure, which reduces worry and allows them to see the humour in life.