English Without End

As ABBA said, 'money, money, money, always sunny in a rich man's world'. Why is money so important? Can't we just live with bare necessities? Well, money doesn't buy happiness (but does it help you to be happy?) In this post, you are going to do some revision exercises about cleft sentences ( Exercise 1 , Exercise 2 and Exercise 3 ) and learn more things about Nauru (Nauru's natural phosphate reserves once made millionaires of the entire population. Now they're among the world's poorest countries). Some recommendations about films dealing with this issue will be provided. Nauru: lonely planet Nauru Official Tourism Website Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton . It was originally published in 1667 in ten books. The poem concerns the Christian story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Now, when thinking about this...

The future of the Earth is in our hands, literally. Our planet seems to depend on the way we choose to carry our groceries home, which leads us to one of the most controversial topics nowadays: the plastic debate. Well, I've prepared a listening exercise for you to do. I took a news item from NPR about the plastic bag ban in San Francisco. Listen to the story and complete the following sentences. When you finish, check the answers at the end of this post and listen once more, now reading the transcript at the same time. 1. A year ago politician Ross Mirkarimi couldn’t imagine __________ he was going to cause. 2. Roplast Industries in Oroville is one of the manufacturers of plastic bags who got a __________ after the plastic ban was passed. 3. A new bag containing more plastic will hold five or six times as much as the standard disposable bag with the advantage of being _________. 4. The best thing about the ChicoBag folds up into a tiny ________ sack. 5. The bag ban was abandon...

March, 17th 2010 post on the economic crisis: The Last Laugh November, 20th 2009 post on consumer society: Buy Nothing Day Multiple choice listening exercise on Adsense: Making Money Online + vocabulary exercises. Article on the new consumerism by the BBC. Article on the history of consumerism : industry, consumerism and social change. Radio programme on consumerism (click on the links at the left-hand side of the page). Video on how to get rid of debt faster (Martín's blog). Top Ten songs about money (with videos). Selling unwanted Christmas gifts on eBay: top tips