Dexway English Magazine: C1 – Edition 4

Where do we go on holiday?

HOME AND AWAY

As a Geographer and being interested in the movement of people, this is a very good question. Where do British people go on holiday? Traditionally British people have an annual holiday during the summer break, this is because the children are off school and parents save their holiday days to have a family holiday. In 2005, 66.4 million (sixty-six million four hundred thousand) people went on holiday away from the Britain. Where did they go? What are the top choices for British people going abroad?

First I should explain the term package holiday. As the name suggests a package holiday is just that, the tourist buys the whole package flights, hotels, food and drinks in one go rather then paying apart. Some of the largest tour operators in the Britain supply the whole package and in this way they corner the package tour market.

All the tourist has to do is go to the airport and then enjoy a pre-paid week lying in the sun; they don’t even need to leave the hotel because package hotels have everything the tourist wants. British people normally go to Europe for their summer holidays, 80 percent of British people spend their two weeks holiday in Europe and of the European countries the top destination is Spain, Spain has held the top slot since 1994 with an estimated 13.8 million (thirteen million eight hundred thousand) visits in 2005, the second most popular is France 11.1 million (eleven million one hundred thousand) in 2005 and our third top destination is the USA 4.2 million (four million two hundred thousand) visits.

Why do the British people like Spain so much? In many ways, Spain is a home from home. In some of the more popular resort towns you are never far away from a British pub serving British food, it is like being at home but the sun shines more and the beaches are nicer and of course the Spanish people are so welcoming to tourists.

But what about the Americans, where do they go on holiday? This is another very interesting question and shows a major likeness between British and American culture. The results suggest that the Americans prefer familiar places such as American territories and Britain. The results also show that American are more adventurous then their British counterparts.

Here is the top 10, top holiday destinations.

1: Mexico

2: Canada

3: United Kingdom

4: France

5: Italy

6: Germany

7: Jamaica

8: Bahamas

9: Japan

10: China.

A some exotic and far flung places here showing that The American like to try different cultural experiences.

Zombies

HISTORY

At some point in history the world will end and experts predict an event so damaging that it will spin the human race into near extinction and this could be a zombie apocalypse if we listen to Hollywood! In this article I would like to talk about the rise of the zombie movie and give you a history lesson.

It is difficult to locate exactly when the word “zombie” began to be used; evidence suggests that the idea of a zombie has been adapted from both Haitian and African culture. Zombies are a fantastic topic for both film and literature and have remained a sub-genre within the general category of horror for many years.

The earliest mention of zombies was in the book Frankenstein written by Mary Shelly in 1818 and when the book “The Magic Island” was published in 1929 by W.B Seabrook, experts agreed that, at this point the word “Zombie” was introduced into American speech and consciousness. The sub-genre has grown stronger with each use and the zombies within have become smarter and more dangerous and better dressed.

Currently this sub-genre is very popular; other sub-genres include psychological horror, science fiction horror and slasher movies. But gone are the days where films like “Friday the 13th”, “Blair Witch Project” or “Aliens” has matched the total profit of zombie movies. Yet interestingly enough not one zombie movie makes it into the top ten box office list, those are reserved for Disney films such as “finding Nemo” and fantasy such as Harry Potter and Hobbit. Suggesting that maybe still, zombies are too much to stomach!

The British Public Health System

Britain is a welfare state, there is equality of opportunity, so employers must try to be impartial when they are looking for new employees; the distribution of wealth is governed by a tax system that aims to offer help to those that do not have the resources to have an acceptable quality of life; and there is a national health service and government funded pensions.
The National Health Service or NHS began in 1948 (nineteen forty eight) to bring together all medical professionals in one place. The NHS was so popular that they quickly ran out of money and by 1950 (Nineteen fifty) the NHS was costing the UK government £358 million (three hundred fifty-eight million pounds a year). The NHS is largely funded by taxation and are ¨free at point of use” which means many health procedures and treatments are free to citizens of the UK and free emergency care within the UK to people regardless of their nationality.

In 1958 (nineteen fifty eight) the first vaccination program against Polio and diphtheria began, there were 8,000 (eight thousand) cases of polio and 70,000 (seventy thousand) of diphtheria each year, and thanks to the program, these numbers steadily dropped. In fact the NHS has been at the forefront of many world first´s. In 1978 the world´s first test tube baby was born using the procedure IVF, the NHS has always tried to give the best to patients. In 2006 Patient choice was introduced which allowed patients to choose which hospital they want to go to, this is less important in large cities, but it is important in the many rural communities of Great Britain that people can choose to be close to their loved ones.

Are bio-fuels a crime against humanity?

We are very aware of the dangers of climate change and global warming, we also know that the major culprit is the use of fossils fuels and this has lead to a sudden boom in bio-fuel production. Bio-fuels use plants such as wheat, seeds, sugar cane and palm oil to produce clean sustainable fuel. But at what cost? Who has noticed the price of food beginning to climb and this is one of the major worries, if traditional food plants are being used to make bio-fuel, which for the producer pays considerable better then producing them for the food market, the price of basic food will rise.

We can have cleaner cars and cleaner sources of energy but will have to pay more for our food. Currently only five percent of the current rise in food prices is because of increased production of bio-fuels. But governments aim to have 20 percent of bio-fuel into the energy mix within the next 10 years prompting fears of food riots across the world.

Is this the price we have to pay to save our world? What other forms of energy can we put into the energy mix? Traditionally our energy mix has been based around the fossil fuels of coal, gas and petrol all of these are elements that will one day, run out.

For some countries that have fuel insecurity they have decided to include other greener forms of energy into the national mix, these might include wind energy, tidal energy, solar energy and geo-thermal production some countries have begun aggressive prospecting to locate other sources of fossil fuel or are developing different ways to remove fossil fuels more economically.