Frozen

Ice Skating at Somerset House

Nice sunny day today ; went ice skating at Somerset House.
Quite a few people were simply 'shuffling ' around and not really 'ice skating'.

 

Paul Klee at the Modern Tate

 

 Tony and me saw the Paul Klee exhibition plus the Mira Schendel exhibition whose works of art reminded me of visits to the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid.

Lunch at Malaysian cafe/restaurant in Chinatown

Today we went to a Malaysian cafe/restaurant where we all basically had Nasi Lemak with either prawns,beef or chicken with the basic dish costing £5.50 and extra items £1.00.

Here's a video of a Malaysian place in Chinatown but not the one we went to ,perhaps another time.

The Time of the Doctor!

Doctor Who 'Time of the Doctor ' Radio Times review
Telegraph review
Digital Spy Review
The Independent Review
huffingtonpost review
Orla Brady's Secret

Storms cause havoc and travel chaos in Britain

Many people's Christmas travel plans have been disrupted by the storms with many passengers stranded at train stations or the airport; at Gatwick Airport those hoping to escape the severe weather are likely to spend Christmas Day at the airport!

Kids Theatre Theatre Week

This week at the local cinema there has been a week of Kids Theatre productions , a piece of theatre followed by a film. Yesterday there was a Belgian company with a musical play about a witch and later on the International School from Carthage seemed to have a series of ' auditions' ;the presenter was very confident; in fact all the kids, aged from nine years old and upwards were all confident, the film ' The Day of the Blackbird' followed.
Today the theatre production came from Ukraine featuring two Ukrainian girls presenting a story and a dog crossing a bridge followed by the film 'Epic' a story about good against the forces of evil.
The action sequences and special effects reminded me of the film ' Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' whilst some of the effects reminded me a little of Doctor Who for instance the regeneration effect.

 

 

 

The Beatles Radio Player

Click here for the Beatles Player

Xmas Party

Last night went to David and Maureen's Christmas party which proved to be revealing in some of the relationships that are going on!

Yesterday Peter O'Toole passed away.
Click here for some pictures from his career.

Coffee at CafeToque

This evening I had coffee and cheesecake at Café Toque and later on went to the opening of a new Sony shop.

By the way have you been to the Saf Saf Café? Watch this video for a little flavour of it.

 

and this is the news in .....2050!

and here is today's news .....in 2050

Doctor Who: 50 years of time travel in the TARDIS

Click here to see an infographic re 50 years of time travel in the TARDIS

 

The Moon and the Earth dance!

Juno's flypast capture the moon and Earth 'dance' !

'Giant of History ' Nelson Mandela Honoured!

' Giant of History ' Nelson Mandela ,who passed away last week,was honoured in a memorial.

'Spoof TV Show ' Filming in La Marsa

This morning I bumped into a TV crew interviewing the local residents of La Marsa on their use of modern technology for communicating with each other:
One man,in his mid-forties ,when asked how he communicated with his girlfriend he said he hadn't got one and he said he didn't use any of the social media to communicate so no Facebook,Skype or the latest craze of Instagram. Earlier on the TV screw had more success with a young couple; so is modern social devices mainly just the young Tunisians who are up to date with the modern world?
The interviewer was wearing a camera on his head as went from one unsuspecting 'interviewee' to the next one! Nadia Besrou ,the wardrobe and make-up artist, said the filming was going to be for a new Tunisian TV show to be broadcasted sometime next year.

 

 

 

Que La Fete Commence !

'Que La Fete Commence' is the latest exhibition at the Mille Feuilles bookshop in La Marsa.
Catch it while you can: December until January 2014.

Here's a selection of some of the paintings by Othman Taleb:

Water Lily

Vie en Eau Trouble

The Splash of the Young

Water Ivress



Elle




La Perte

 

'Fifth' Beatle

'Fifth' Beatle in graphic novel

 

Teaching English Radio

Hello welcome to this month's Teaching English Radio programme!

This month's topic is ‘Managing Different Levels ’.

Teachers agree that multi-level classes can present a real challenge. Some students learn English in other places and so are far more proficient than some of the others. Many teachers use this to their advantage and pair stronger students with weaker ones.This can increase the confidence of the stronger ones, who have a sense of responsibility, and help ‘pull the weaker ones up’.Teachers helping each other and pooling resources can provide creative solutions to challenges in multi-level classes.

Today's guests in the studio were:Mrs Raoudha Belhaj Primary Teacher Trainer,Tunis,Mrs Sabiha Inoubli, Inspector,Bizerte,Mrs Mélek Jlejla, Secondary school teacher and Jean Wilson,Vocational Training specialist.

 
 

Click http://www.radiotunisienne.tn/rtci/sounds/anglais/anglais06122013.mp3
to listen to the programme.

We'll be having a break in January so the next programme of series 3will be  in February 2014!

Argentinian Film Festival 2013

Tonight I saw the film 'Les Acacias' the first film of the Argentinian  film festival.

https://soundcloud.com/patstradjinski/argentian-film-festival-2013

 

How those special effects in 'Day of the Doctor' were made!

Day of the Doctor!

BBC News review of 'Day of the Doctor'
Day of the Doctor reviews

Fans' opinions

Doctor Who 50th celebrations at Excel

Doctor Who at Excel

Ten things to expect at Doctor Who 50th celebrations at Excel

Video intro to Doctor Who at Excel

some photos from the Excel event

Matt Smith gives his support to new Doctor Who Peter Capaldi

Back in England for a Week

Well not too cold in England.
Tunis Air was delayed by two hours as usual with no announcement/explanation/apology or compensatory drink given.Typical! Also long passport queues more queues thna usual and much longer waiting period. In addition there were the farcial queues for the scanner security; people were queue jumping as they were getting panicky about missing their plane. In any case most planes were delayed.Meanwhile in the passport queue I'd met two women who told me about their 5-day adventure in Antartica. Later on I also met Emmanuel,an IT sort-of consultant, who works for a small IT company 'Joseph ...burger something '.

I bumped into Kristin whose plane to Italy was also delayed; she vowed never to fly with Air Tunis again.

At Heathrow there was no Piccadilly line connection into London but instead a bus service to Hammersmith tube station.Finally got to Tony's flat at 8pm.

Watched 'The Science of Doctor Who' on Tony's laptop.

Well,this is all for now.

Premier Skills Female Referee Course in Tunis

Premier Skills Female Referee Course in Tunis!
This afternoon I did a Premier Skills English session for over 40 female Tunisian female referees. The girls were very enthusiastic! One of the Premier Skills coaches, Sarah, also helped with some parts of the session.

'You're in the wrong job! '

At Nigel's update meeting on Friday re his recent travels he mentioned my role on the Teaching English Radio programme and said ' I had a 'good radio voice'  and that I should be an actor .
'You're in the wrong job!' he also added.

Van Gogh

How did Van Gogh find colour?

 

Paul McCartney on the Graham Norton Show

Partial Solar Eclipe in Tunisia

partial solar eclipse in Tunisia

Teaching English Radio is back!

Series 3 of Teaching English Radio has kicked off!

Today's topic was 'Getting the most from the course book ' and among today's guests were Hada,Primary School Teacher Trainer,Latifa,Primary school teacher,Maaouia,Secondary Teacher Inspector,Lamia ,University teacher and Teacher Inspector,Patric Fawcett,Teacher Trainer and ELT/ICT Coordinator at British Council Tunis.

Course books can provide an English teaching syllabus and give structure to a lesson as well as having
useful recyling and revision activities.

Not all the materials in a coursebook are relevant to the students so the teacher can adapt ideas from a book to use with their own materials.Teachers need not be independent on the coursebook and can try many different ways to present language and engage their students during the lesson.

At the beginning of the discussion the key points were:
that the course book can be used as a reference/record of the language items that have been taught,
and that it can be used as a source of inspiration for instance an interesting picture or topic in the course book to engage the students's interest.Maamouia said that the course books in Tunisia need to be updated and there are ongoing plans to resolve this issue.Lamia mentioned that she uses a lot of her own material for her university classes and that students' involvement is important.

The topic of fun and enjoyable activities are an important element of learning a language;Maamouia stated
' You cannot teach English with out fun!'.

The needs of the learner also need to be considered when using the coursebook and selecting the most relevant sections.

Re the question of what makes a good coursebook: Patric mentioned that his students at the British Coucil had told him that the most important sections were grammar and vocabalary whilst Maaouia and Hada said that ' a course book should be appealing to the learners and it also needs to be updated '.

Later on Patric emphasised the importance of the students having plenty of time to practice the language and mentioned that his young learners had done a poster on the topic of theme parks with a follow up activity of a poster presentation to their classmates; thus ensuring practice of speaking as well as their writing.

click http://www.radiotunisienne.tn/rtci/sounds/anglais/ang01112013.mp3
to listen to the programme.

By the way don't miss the next programme of series 3 on the 6th December!

Happy Halloween!

Suicide Bomber in Sousse !

Suicide Bomber in Sousse blows himself up!

Paul McCartney's ' New' album

The Light at the End Doctor Who 50th special

'The Light at the End 'Doctor Who audio special

listen to ‘Doctor Who: The Light at the End - trailer’ on Audioboo

Big Finish 'The Light at the End ' Doctor Who Podcast

' The Day of the Doctor ' trailer

Lou Reed has died

One of the greats of US music, Lou Reed has died at the age of 71.
He was best known for the 'banana' sleeved album  and the hits 'A Perfect Day' and 'Walk on the Wild Side' from the David Bowie produced Transformer album.

Lou Reed In his own words
David Bowie leads the tributes

Windmills of my Mind Noel Harrison passes away

The singer Noel Harrison, of the Michael Le Grand hit 'Windmills of my Mind' passed away after giving his last performance at a local pub; his wife said it had been drive back and he was exhausted.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24621444

Expolugha Tunis

EXPOLUGHA TUNIS 2013!
My presentation on the British Council Learn English web site was successful with at least  90 people attending;the audience partipation was also very good.There was even a round of applause at the end and some people came up to me asking for more information about the  web site.
Quiet a few people were also interested in being able to do ESP courses ,for instance a medical English course, an engineering English course ; the most popular request was information on the IELTS exam.
My presentation was also screened 'live' on the big screen in the main auditorium which helped to get people to attend my  session.

Olfa at the British Council stand at EXPOLUGHA

Patric at the British Council stand before his giving his presentation

Patric

Paul McCartney plays free gig in Covent Garden

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24580633

Doctor Who episodes recovered!

Doctor Who missing episodes were recently found in a recording studio in Nigeria! Episodes of
'Web of Fear' and 'Enemy of the World' which hadn't been seen for 45 years had finally been found!

A Call for Teachers! Teaching English Radio ' World Teachers' Day

Lost Beatles Fan Recording found 50 years later!

A recording,originally sent to the Beatles in 1963  by two  Beatles fans,schoolgirls :Barbara and Lyn, finally got a reply from Paul McCartney 50 years later ! Better late than never!
click here for the full story

Tomorrow's cities the Venus Project

 the Venus Project

The Beatles at the BBC volume 2

Doctor Who BBC 2 Special

Keane in Concert at Kenwood House

The summer concerts at Kenwood House continued with Keane.
Despite the downpour yesterday evening the overcast skies cleared for a warm English summer's day
for a rousing performance by one of Britain's best loved bands!

Tom Chaplin later mentioned during the concert ' summer was still here!' well just about ,
no repeat of the heatwave a few weeks ago. At least Keane were hot stuff on stage playing mostly songs from their recent album 'Stangeland' and earlier hits from ther previous albums.

Drink at the Shard

Saw some theatre at the Scoop auditorum by City hall near the Tower Bridge.

Before the 8pm performance I went for a walk towards the Shard the newest high rise building dominating London's skyline.

Went up to the 32nd floor of the Shard for a drink. What a spectacular view!

Sunday at the Proms

Free proms at the Royal Albert Hall.

The new Doctor Who is ....

Peter Capaldi; just as the bookies had predicted. During the past week somehow the public had guessed the new identity of the Doctor and put a huge amount of bets on Capaldi becoming the new Doctor!

BBC News 
more BBC News

 Capaldi's intro:

                                                                         

The first regeneration!

Picnic at Kenwood House

One-Day Heatwave in Britain plus the ' David Bowie Is ' exhibition

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year in England and apparently the hottest in a decade!
Kids at Somerset House took advantage of the water installation in the square to cool off!
Today the weather is much cooler and in the mid 20s rather than 32 degrees plus.


Today went to the David Bowie exhibition at the V and A museum. Absolutely fantastic!



review of the David Bowie exhibition

David Bowie at the V and A

review plus slideshow of images from the exhibition

review with embedded videos of Bowie

Same gun that killed Belaid also killed Brahim

Same gun kills

Opposition Politician Assassinated in Arianna

Opposition politician assassinated outside his home in Ariana

Film Night at the Alambra cinema in La Marsa

Went to the 'night at the cinema ' event at the Alambra cinema in La Marsa.
First of all the event didn't start at the planned time of 10pm but eventually began at nearly 10.40.
At the beginning,there were 5 short films, fairly entertaining and easy to understand with subtitles in French and one of them in English.After these films there was some music, actually a concert composed of a rap singer,a couple of folk-pop groups and then a 25 minutes break before, supposedly the main feature films but in fact a couple more short films. However,as it was approaching nearly 4am I didn't stay until the end and in any case I'd already seen the last film 'Baba Noel ' at the European film festival.

click A night at the cinema in La Marsa for more details of the films shown.

Star Wars City about to disappear!

Star Wars City about to disappear! The dunes in the Tunisian desert are almost on the verge of burying
the Star Wars City location that was featured in the Anakin Skywalker Star Wars episodes!

click here for the article

Happy Birthday Mandela!

click here for Nelson Mandela's 95 th birthday

Simple Minds

History in the Making! Andy Murray Wimbledon Champion!

He did it! After 77 years since Fred Perry,last won the last British Men's Title ,Andy Murray won the Wimbledon Title in straight sets against the World Number One Novak Djokovic!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/23101783

The animator of the film Grease dies

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23142289

The Rolling Stones at Glastonbury

Lunch at La Salle a Manger

Yesterday nice lunch at the ' La Salle a Manger ' restaurant with my TKT students.

The Rolling Stones at Glastonbury June 29th

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23116750

Moon Over La Marsa

Super Moon pictures

Party Time!

Party time at Sarah's  plus Ayem's band and the magic show by Anne-Marie!

 

.....don't forget to fall in love!

don't forget to fall in love!  is a new exhibition the 'Mille Feuilles ' in La Marsa; a collection of works of arts by local Tunisian artists.