An interesting article in the Observer about post-apocalyptic films.

Word clouds

Wordle is a great tool which you can use to make word clouds. These give a visual representation of the amount of times words are used in a passage...

Below is a Wordle created from the famous balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. The common words such as thee and thou are taken out:

Book Review- Creature of the Night

Creature of the Night by Kate Thompson

I didn't know what to expect with this novel: supernatural, real-life or an amalgamation of the two. Having read it, I suppose the third option is the closest. The book tells the story of 14 year old Bobby, a 14 year old tearaway from Dublin who moves with his mum and young brother to a tiny village in the Irish countryside. He hates it and wants to go back to the streets of Dublin where he spends his time drinking, smoking, stealing and joyriding. The house they move into was left unexpectedly unoccupied when Lars, the previous tenant, did a runner.
The country turns out to be very different from the city, especially when the new arrivals are told to leave a bowl of milk out for the fairies. Booby becomes torn between the pull of his old ways and the lure of something new, all the while dealing with his brothers new obsession with a "little old woman" who visits him in the middle of the night. Part supernatural thriller and part contemporary coming-of-age story, this will stay with you long after you've read it. There are no easy answers and the main characters are painted in a realistic, and at times, unsympathetic light which actually endeared them to me more than if they had been perfect.

A blisteringly good read that manages to marry two genres so successfully you never see the join.

Read a review from the Independent Newspaper or the Guardian


Extract from LoveReading4Kids

I told my ma I wouldn’t stay there. I told her when she first came up with the idea and I told her again when she tried to bribe me with the new Xbox. I said it to her all the way down on the bus. Every time she opened her mouth to talk to me I said it: ‘I’m not staying down there. You can’t make me.’ So after a while she stopped trying to talk to me and she just talked to Dennis, showing him cows and sheep and tractors out the window of the bus. He liked the
tractors but he didn’t know what to make of the cows and sheep. He stared at them like they were something out of another world.
Which they were.
Our new landlord met us at the bus station in Ennis. His name was PJ Dooley. When he seen how much stuff we had with us he made a joke and said he
should have brought the trailer. I said, ‘Ha ha,’ and my ma gave me a savage look.
‘It’s mostly theirs,’ I said to him. ‘I’m not staying.’
PJ Dooley looked at me and then at my ma, and Dennis said, ‘Can we go in the car?’ and everyone started piling in the suitcases and plastic bags and backpacks. There wasn’t much room left by the time me and Dennis tried to squash into the back.
‘Take him on your knee,’ my ma said, but I didn’t want him on my knee and I shoved him over on top of a big bag of duvets and pillows. He laughed and wriggled himself comfortable and said: ‘We going in the car!’ My ma didn’t have a car. She said there was no need for one where we lived because we could go everywhere on the bus, so Dennis had hardly ever been in a car
before. I was in cars all the time, though. Most weekends and some week nights as well, me and the lads would get hold of one. Sometimes we robbed two and raced them against each other out on the ring road or around the estates. That was class. It was what I lived for, the cars, and the Saturdays in the town centre, and what we bought with the money we got.

Shakespeare coming to Sheffield

The Botanical Gardens will play host to Sheffield's first Shakespeare festival!

A Midsummer Night's dream will be performed on August 17 & 18th and Much Ado about Nothing on the 19th of August. Tickets are pricey at £18, but this looks like an amazing experience!

Both plays are fantastic, and I imagine that the setting is perfect for the wooded frolics of Midsummer Night's Dream!

Watch an easy peasy version here at Cbeebies!

Carol Anne Duffy is the new Poet Laureate

Carol Anne Duffy has just been appointed the first female Poet Laureate after Andrew Motion's term came to an end. She will be in the post for 10 years and as well as being the first woman to have this honour she is also the first openly gay holder of the position in the 341 year history of the post.

Carole Anne Duffy's poetry is incredibly popular and she is frequently studied by pupils at GCSE and A Level.

Recently she was in the news when a poem she wrote, Education for Leisure was removed from the AQA anthologies amid fears that it excused or glamourised violence, specifically stabbing.

One of Duffy's main ideas is to give a voice to women who have been overlooked or ignored in history. Her collection of poems, The World's Wife, presents events from the viewpoints of Anne Hathaway, Mrs Darwin, The Kray Sisters and the Devil's Wife.

She has a way of writing in a deceptively simple style which hides the fact that her ideas and images operate on many levels. One of my favourite poems, Valentine offers an onion up as the best symbolic love token. Duffy's skill lies in taking something as mundane and ordinary as an onion and turning it into something meaningful and beautiful.

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

A new twist on Jane Austen

Do you like classic English literature?

Do you like tales of the walking dead? Then you'll LOVE Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Strange as it seems, this IS a real book. Author Seth Grahame-Smith has taken Jane Austen's original tale of manners and Marriage and simply inserted scenes of zombie carnage. Can it work? It remains to be seen,but this could be the start of a whole new genre.
A Tale of Two Vampires?
Much Ado about Werewolves?

Anew twist on Aus

Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?

Some interesting background on the actions if the servants in Act1 Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet.

Sampson : I will bite my thumb at them; which is a disgrace to them, if they do bear it.

Abram : Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

Sampson : I do bite my thumb, sir.

Abram: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

Sampson (aside to Gregory): Is the law on our side if I say ay?

Gregory (aside to Sampson): No.

Sampson: I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I do bite my thumb, sir.

An interesting article on Body Language and Swearing [warning: contains some offensive language]tells us that biting your thumb was a rude and offensive gesture in Elizabethan times, similar to sticking two fingers up at someone now. It was closely linked to "giving the fig", which is where our expression of "not giving a fig" for something comes from.

This link here will tell you about NON VERBAL communication in other countries. It is written from a US perspective. Here is what they say about England:


1. To signal a waiter for the bill, make a motion with both hands of signing your name on a paper. Privacy is very important; do not stare. Tipping at bars is rare.
2. Loud behavior is considered rude. The victory sign with your palm facing in is considered vulgar.
3. Never cut in line.

This link discusses common gestures in the USA and says how they differ in meaning across the globe. For example:

1. Beckon with index finger. This means “Come here” in the U.S. To motion with the index finger to call someone is insulting, or even obscene, in many cultures. Expect a reaction when you beckon to a student from the Middle or Far East; Portugal, Spain, Latin America, Japan, Indonesia and Hong Kong. It is more acceptable to beckon with the palm down, with fingers or whole hand waving.

2. Point at something in the room using index finger. It is impolite to point with the index finger in the Middle and Far East. Use an open hand or your thumb (in Indonesia)

3. Make a "V" sign. This means "Victory" in most of Europe when you make this sign with your palm facing away from you. If you face your palm in, the same gesture means "Shove it."