What do you think he could use? The list is long.

1. First he wrote a little list with a ballpoint pen or biro (invented by József Bíró in 1931).

2. He put it on the refrigerator (invented by Leó Szilárd in 1929) door.

3. Then he went to the window and through binoculars (József Petzvál 1840), he peeked at the neighbouring house.

4. He wanted to smoke a cigarette, so he took out a box of matches (János Irinyi 1836) and used a match to light the cigarette.

5. He noticed a CD and the holographic sticker on it (Dénes Gábor 1947).

6. He didn’t want to get sick, so he took some vitamin C (Albert Szent-Györgyi 1931).

7. He made a phone call knowing that the telephone exchange is also a Hungarian invention (Tivadar Puskás 1878).

8. He took a photo of the neighbour lady with his automatic camera (József Mihályi 1938).

9. Then he put in his contact lenses (István Győrffy 1959).

10. He played on his computer (János Neumann 1944) with the help of 3D glasses (Dániel Rátai 2010).

11. Then he played with a Rubik-cube (Ernő Rubik 1976).

12. He put a traditional record on the record player to listen to and watched his colour TV (both are the inventions of Károly Péter Goldmark in 1948).

13. He printed out an excel-table (Károly Simonyi 1974) to plan his day.

14. He went for a ride in a stolen T-model Ford (József Galamb 1908) first and then in a diesel engine BMW (Ferenc Anisits 1983).

15. His next choice of car was a Chevrolet with an automatic transmission shift (László József Bíró 1932) and then a Volkswagen Beetle (partly designed by Béla Barényi 1925).

16. Then he changed for a bike and turned on the dynamo (Ányos Jedlik 1861) to use the lights on the bicycle.

17. The police caught him at last and he was transported by a helicopter (Oszkár Asbóth 1928).

18. On board the helicopter he checked his list and he was sorry that he couldn’t meet a Pulitzer Prize (József Pulitzer 1917) winning journalist that day.

19. Another thing missing from his day was some light transmitting concrete (Áron Losonczi 2001).

20. But he took a chance and as a last achievement he started solmization, a method of the world-famous music teaching technique, the Kodály method (Zoltán Kodály, 1929).

Let’s work with the text. Can you match the inventions with their Hungarian meaning?

Key:

1. g.

2. a.

3. j.

4. c.

5. b.

6. i.

7. d.

8. e.

9. h.

10. f.

11. n.

12. k.

13. l.

14. m.

According to Atlas Obscura, the tiny apartment was perched 1000 feet in the air, providing Eiffel with a bird’s-eye view of 1890s-era Paris. He furnished the lofty abode with wallpaper, cabinets, furniture, oil paintings, and a grand piano. There was also a small adjacent room with laboratory equipment, which allowed Eiffel to conduct meteorological observations, The Independent writes.

While many elite members of the public clamored to rent the space, Eiffel shunned their exorbitant offers. Instead, he used it to greet illustrious guests like Thomas Edison (who gave him a phonograph machine as a gift), or as a quiet space for solitary reflection.

Author Jill Jonnes provides a great visual image of what an evening was like in Eiffel’s private apartment in her 2010 book Eiffel’s Tower: The Thrilling Story Behind Paris’s Beloved Monument and the Extraordinary World’s Fair That Introduced It. She describes one evening that Edison and other luminaries spent in Eiffel’s aerie:

“The guests settled in on the dark velvet settees trimmed in fringe. The walls, a warm yellow, were already covered with framed artistic mementos: photographs, drawings, paintings. “Eiffel has a piano there,” said Edison. “Gounoud, the composer of ‘Faust,’ played and sang, and he did it splendidly, too, despite his more than eighty years.” High above Paris, Gounoud’s music wafted forth as the guests smoked cigars, drank brandy, talked, and even sang, a magical late-summer interlude. Working quietly in the background was American artist A.A. Anderson, best known for his oil portraits, but invited by Eiffel to try to capture Edison’s likeness as best he could in a sculpted bust that would commemorate this occasion of genius honoring genius.”

The apartment was closed to the public for years, but in May 2015, Condé Nast Traveler announced that it would open to visitors. You can’t stay overnight, but you can peer into the space – which contains its original furnishings, along with life-size mannequins of Eiffel and Edison—and admire the private hideaway of the famous French civil engineer and architect.

source: mentalfloss

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So why doesn’t Thursday get all the love it deserves? It probably because it’s just that…Thursday. There are rarely interesting happenings that take place on Thursdays, so it tends to fall to the wayside and almost go unnoticed among the other exciting days of the week.

What do you say? Think we should show it some more love?

Here are some interesting facts about Thursdays:

In countries that use the Sunday-first convention, Thursday is defined as the fifth day of the week.

The name is derived from Old English Þūnresdæg and Middle English Thuresday meaning “Thor’s Day.”

The astrological and astronomical sign of the planet Jupiter is sometimes used to represent Thursday.

In the Christian tradition, Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday is the Thursday before Easter — the day on which the Last Supper occurred. Also known as Sheer Thursday in the United Kingdom, it is traditionally a day of cleaning and giving out Maundy money there.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Thursdays are dedicated to the Apostles and Saint Nicholas.

In Buddhist Thailand Thursday is considered the “Teacher’s Day”, and it is believed that one should begin one’s education on this auspicious day. Thai students still pay homages to their teachers in specific ceremony always held on a selected Thursday. And graduation day in Thai universities, which can vary depending on each university, almost always will be held on a Thursday.

In the Thai solar calendar, the colour associated with Thursday is orange.

In the USSR of the 1970s and 1980s Thursday was the “Fish Day”, when the nation’s foodservice establishments were supposed to serve fish (rather than meat) dishes.

In some high schools in the United States during the 1950s and the 1960s, it was believed that if someone wore green on Thursdays, it meant that he or she was gay.

source: tipsywriter.com

Why is it called Wednesday?

The name Wednesday derives from two mighty but distinct gods. The Old English word for Wednesday indicates that the day was named for the Germanic god Woden. In Romance languages, the name is derived from the Roman god Mercury. (For example, Wednesday is mercredi in French and miercuri in Romanian.)

Time expressions with Wednesday

Wednesday may be the middle of the week, but if you’ve come this far you can certainly make it to the weekend.

So enjoy your Wednesday and it’ll be the weekend before you know it!

Some quotes about Wednesday to help you survive:

“Wednesday’s child is full of woe… “ (Mother Goose)

“People think that you have to do something huge, like go to Africa and build a school, but you can make a small change in a day. If you change Wednesday, then you change Thursday. Pretty soon it’s a week, then a month, then a year. It’s bite-size, as opposed to feeling like you have to turn your life inside out to make changes.” (Hoda Kotb)

“I do admire Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen, but I’m a philistine. I like the good life too much; I’m not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.” (Anthony Hopkins)

“I don’t know what your childhood was like, but we didn’t have much money. We’d go to a movie on a Saturday night, then on Wednesday night my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal, to go in and get my own book.” (Robert Redford)

“When I was younger, I wasn’t concentrating on good days. I was managing a career and trying to have a good year. It would always ‘lead’ to something, which never leads to anything except death, where everything leads to. And then as I got older, and then I had my kids and everything, I began to appreciate a great Wednesday.” (Albert Brooks)

Wednesday facts:

Football fans must have heard about Sheffield Wednesday, the third oldest English football club. It was originally a cricket club, which was named after the day of the week when they played their matches.

Students in France traditionally have no school on Wednesdays, a vestige from the 19th century when students were expected to study catechism once a week.

Wednesday is sometimes informally referred to as “hump day” in North America, a reference to the fact that Wednesday is the middle day—or “hump“—of a typical work week.

1. IT USED TO BE FREE.

While Pemberton’s soft drink would eventually prove to be a hit at soda fountains, he was more of an idea man than a marketing expert: Coca-Cola languished for years until a businessman named Asa Griggs Candler took over the business following Pemberton’s death in 1888. To raise awareness, Candler had sales representatives hand out coupons good for a free serving. Once people tried it, they kept coming back for more—and forking over five cents a glass thereafter.

2. THE FAMOUS BOTTLE WAS ORIGINALLY SHAPED LIKE A COCOA BEAN.

While Candler was undeniably a better businessman than Pemberton, he made one significant misstep. At the turn of the century, Coca-Cola was usually sold at pharmacies and drug stores as a fountain drink. When bottlers approached Candler to see if he’d be interested in allowing them to distribute it in glass containers, Candler thought so little of the idea he allowed them to package the drink for a fee of just one dollar.

His inadvertent generosity proved profitable for bottlers across the country, including rival sodas: So many knock-off brands appeared that consumers had trouble telling them apart from the real thing. To alleviate the problem, Coke advised bottling partners to try and come up with a design that could be recognized by feel as someone dipped their hands into an icebox. A bottling plant in Indiana designed a chunky glass container shaped like a cocoa bean in 1916. They didn’t know Coca-Cola contained no actual cocoa. (It used coca, which contained trace amounts of cocaine until the company removed it circa 1900.) Still, the bottle became iconic, and Candler went out on a high note: After leaving the company that same year, he became mayor of Atlanta.

3. IT HIT THE SPOT FOR INFANTS.

Though some of the more serious health effects of sodas are well-documented today,  Coke enthusiasts of the late 1800s were not exactly concerned with the effects of sugar water on babies. Fussing infants were sometimes given drops of the drink in the hopes it might calm them down.

4. NEW COKE ACTUALLY HUNG AROUND FOR A LONG TIME.

While the tragic story of New Coke’s 1985 debut has been well-documented, not many realize that Coke clung to the idea of an alternative formula for a very, very long time. After consumers berated the company into bringing back their original flavor just months after New Coke’s debut—test marketing subjects who endorsed it were never told it was going to replace the original—the company tried to rebrand it as Coke II and continued offering it to bottlers until 2002. It may have been in the hope that persistence would pay off: The revised formula allegedly contained fewer ingredients and was cheaper to produce than Coke Classic. If consumers had rallied, the company might have saved over $50 million a year. 

5. THE CANS WERE INVENTED FOR SOLDIERS.

The only thing more pervasive than Coke’s distinctive bottles are its aluminum pull-top cans, which were born out of necessity: the company came up with them so they could be shipped to armed forces overseas. While practical, the materials needed were rationed during World War II and the company couldn’t produce them for troops until the conflict ended. Convenient and easily distributed, Coca-Cola began offering them to civilian customers in 1960.

6. THEY ONCE MADE CLEAR COKE FOR A RUSSIAN GENERAL.

Coke’s global expansion was expedited during World War II, when bottling plants were erected specifically to handle the demands of supplying men overseas. The distribution also caught the attention of foreign consumers: General Dwight Eisenhower introduced Coke to Georgy Zhukov, a Russian general who had resisted Nazi forces. Zhukov loved it, but feared Stalinist-era Russia would frown upon his enjoying a distinctly American and capitalist product. He requested Coke produce the drink for him in a plain bottle and make it colorless to resemble vodka: Coke complied. Russians didn’t get the Classic version until 1985.

7. THEY TRIED TO REPLACE COFFEE.

When Coca-Cola realized a good portion of their customers—by one estimate, 12 percent—consumed their sugary, caffeinated drink in the morning instead of coffee, they decided to launch an aggressive marketing campaign promoting themselves as a morning pick-me-up. “Coke in the Morning” was launched in several test cities in 1988, with the idea being that it would be easier to guzzle a cold can of soda than a hot cup of water. (The company was careful, however, not to imply soda could replace orange juice. They owned Minute Maid.)

8. THEY ONCE FILLED CANS WITH DISGUSTING WATER ON PURPOSE.

In 1990, Coke mounted an expensive promotional campaign dubbed “MagiCans.” When consumers purchased soda, they had a chance at acquiring a special spring-loaded can distributed at random that would spit out a rolled-up bill valued from $1 to $500. To make sure buyers couldn’t tell the weight of a “real” Coke from that of a prize container, the company filled it with a solution consisting of water, chlorine, and ammonium sulfate. While it tasted and smelled foul to discourage drinking, some consumers gulped it down anyway—and then threatened to sue. (Rival Pepsi ran a similar contest, but didn’t bother with the misdirection: It just gave consumers a number to call to claim a prize.)

9. PEPSI DID THEM A HUGE FAVOR.

In 2006, two Coca-Cola employees were caught trying to sell rival Pepsi trade secrets, including information on a beverage still in development, in exchange for an escalating series of payoffs from $5000 to $75,000. The employees handed over confidential papers and even a liquid sample to someone they thought was a Pepsi executive: It was an FBI agent. Pepsi had alerted both Coke and the FBI of the offer. A Pepsi spokesman told CNN that competition “must be fair and legal.” The two carbonated corporate spies received prison terms of five and eight years, respectively.

10. THEY HELPED MAKE MAX HEADROOM A STAR.

The bizarre, pseudo-animated Max Headroom character was created as a virtual television star in the UK by record company Chrysalis in 1985. Sensing his appeal for young consumers, Coca-Cola licensed Headroom that same year and made him the center of their ad campaign with a series of commercials directed by Ridley Scott. According to Coke, the spots helped Headroom gain a 76 percent recognition rating among teenagers.

11. THE SECRET FORMULA IS REALLY NO BIG SECRET.

Much has been made of how fiercely Coca-Cola has guarded its formula over the decades. Dubbed “7X,” it’s said to be housed in a corporate vault and accessible only to top executives. In 2011, NPR’s This American Life announced that they had come across the recipe via the papers of an Atlanta historian named Charles Salter, who had seen it in a pile of documents belonging to Coke inventor John Pemberton. In addition to fluid extract of coca, the drink purportedly includes lemon oil, cinnamon oil, nutmeg oil, and caramel. Responding to the ensuing media flurry, Coke insisted it was, if anything, an old version of the solution—but they never acknowledged whether they had checked NPR’s list of ingredients against their own.

12. WANT THE BEST COKE? TRY MCDONALD’S.

The two consumer-product giants have been joined at the hip since 1955, when McDonald’s owner Ray Kroc contacted the company about providing fountain drinks for his burgeoning chain of fast-food shops. Coke has since partnered with the Golden Arches on menu development (like smoothies) and even allows them to use its corporate facilities when expanding globally. The best perk of all, however, might be with the drink itself. According to The New York Times, Coke ships its syrup to McDonald’s locations in stainless steel containers, not the conventional plastic bags other suppliers use. The result is said to be the most delicious, freshest Coke available.

source: mentalfloss

Some schools have been eager to remind pupils that there is a lot more to a person than their grades with an inspirational letter that has been moving parents to tears. The letters have been sent by numerous schools in the country to Year 6 pupils ahead of the latest round of examinations.

The positive message is very similar and in some cases identical but each school has said they agree with the sentiment exactly.

Pupils are reminded that they are ‘special and unique’ and that examiners don’t know them like their teachers or parents do.

Silverdale Primary Academy first sent letters like this two years ago. The Independent claimed in an article two years ago that the idea originated in the United States and has since been adapted.

But Liz Miles, the head teacher of Silverdale, said it is not something that schools have discussed.

She said: ‘It is something that is very reflective of how our school feels about the children.

‘We love our children and we want to do the best they can.’

She added: ‘We have a huge culture of positivity at Silverdale and we really believe that positivity is infectious.

One parent wrote on Facebook that she was saving the letter so she ‘could tell her daughter when she has tests next year’.

The letter:

Dear Year 6 Pupils,

Next week you will sit your SATs tests for maths, reading, spelling, grammar and punctuation. We know how hard you have worked, but there is something very important you must know.

The SATs test does not assess all of what makes each of you special and unique. The people who create these tests and score them do not know each of you the way that we do and certainly not in the way your families do.

They do not know that some of you speak two languages or that you love to sing or draw. They have not seen your natural talent for dancing or playing a musical instrument. They do not know that your friends can count on you to be there for them, that your laughter can brighten the darkest day or that your face turns red when you feel shy. They do not know that you participate in sports, wonder about the future, or sometimes help your little brother or sister after school. They do not know that you are kind, trustworthy and thoughtful and that every day you try to be your very best.

The levels you will get from this test will tell you something, but they will not tell you everything. There are many ways of being smart. You are smart! So while you are preparing for the test andin the midst of it all, remember that there is no way to ‘test’ all of the amazing and awesome things that make you, YOU!

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” Aristotle

Sleep, Rest, Believe and Sparkle!

Good Luck.’

Do you wish you received this letter at school?

Yes, it’s exactly what each pupil should hear.

source: metro.co.uk

Can you match the words and their synonyms?

Key:

1. f.

2. a.

3. e.

4. i.

5. j.

6. b.

7. d.

8. c.

9.  h.

10. g.

Children’s book illustrator and author Bob Shea met her at an elementary school reading event and was moved to action by her loss.

Shea used Twitter to call his followers to rally behind the young girl.

Fans hearing Heidi’s story of bravery started sending their love in every form: books, book shelves, pencils, letters of encouragement – even furniture. The outpouring of support came not only from Shea’s fans, but from librarians and children’s authors all over the world.

Heidi received enough books in the mail to fill a library of her own.

“It was a simple thing,” Bob Shea told MLive. “She’s a sweet little girl. She loves books and needs books. I said, ‘I can help.’”

Since her story made national news, Heidi and her family have expressed appreciation for receiving the mailed gifts and storing them at her grandmother’s house in Michigan while they take time to get back on their feet once again.

source: goodnewsnetwork.com

Can you match the words and their synonyms?

Key: 

1. c.

2. h.

3. a.

4. j.

5. b.

6. i.

7. d.

8. e.

9. g.

10. f.

1. ANGELINA JOLIE

After Angelina Jolie planted a kiss on her brother and made the world wrinkle their noses, she went onstage and collected a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Lisa in Girl, Interrupted. She later presented the trophy to her mother, Marcheline Bertrand. The statuette may have been boxed up and put into storage with the rest of Marcheline’s belongings when she died in 2007, but it hasn’t yet surfaced. “I didn’t actually lose it,” said Jolie, “but nobody knows where it is at the moment.”

2. WHOOPI GOLDBERG

In 2002, Whoopi Goldberg sent her Ghost Best Supporting Actress Oscar back to the Academy to have it cleaned and detailed, because apparently you can do that. The Academy then sent the Oscar on to R.S. Owens Co. of Chicago, the company that manufactures the trophies. When it arrived in the Windy City, however, the package was empty. It appeared that someone had opened the UPS package, removed the Oscar, then neatly sealed it all back up and sent it on its way. It was later found in a trash can at an airport in Ontario, California. The Oscar was returned to the Academy, who returned it to Whoopi without cleaning it. “Oscar will never leave my house again,” she said.

3. OLYMPIA DUKAKIS

When Olympia Dukakis’ Moonstruck Oscar was stolen from her home in 1989, she called the Academy to see if it could be replaced. “For $78,” they said, and she agreed that it seemed like a fair price. It was the only thing taken from the house.

4. MARLON BRANDO

“I don’t know what happened to the Oscar they gave me for On the Waterfront,” Marlon Brando wrote in his autobiography. “Somewhere in the passage of time it disappeared.” He also doesn’t know what happened to the Oscar that he had Sacheen Littlefeather accept for him in 1973. “The Motion Picture Academy may have sent it to me, but if it did, I don’t know where it is now.”

5. JEFF BRIDGES

Jeff Bridges had just won his Oscar in 2010 for his portrayal of alcoholic country singer Bad Blake in Crazy Heart, but it was already missing by the next year’s ceremony, where he was up for another one. He lost to Colin Firth for The King’s Speech. “It’s been in a few places since last year but I haven’t seen it for a while now,” he admitted. “I’m hoping it will turn up, especially now that I haven’t won a spare! But Colin deserves it. I just hope he looks after it better.” Which brings us to…

6. COLIN FIRTH

Perhaps Jeff Bridges secretly cursed the British actor as he said those words, because Firth nearly left his new trophy on a toilet tank the very night he received it. After a night of cocktails at the Oscar after-parties in 2011, Firth allegedly had to be chased down by a bathroom attendant, who had found the eight-pound statuette in the bathroom stall. Notice we said allegedly: Shortly after those reports surfaced, Firth’s rep issued a statement saying the “story is completely untrue. Though it did give us a good laugh.”

7. MATT DAMON

When newbie writers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck took home Oscars for writing Good Will Hunting in 1998, it was one of those amazing Academy Award moments. Now, though, Matt Damon isn’t sure where his award went. “I know it ended up at my apartment in New York, but unfortunately, we had a flood when one of the sprinklers went off when my wife and I were out of town and that was the last I saw of it,” said Damon.

8. MARGARET O’BRIEN

In 1945, seven-year-old Margaret O’Brien was presented with a Juvenile Academy Award for being the outstanding child actress of the year. About 10 years later, the O’Briens’ maid took the award home to polish, as she had done before, but never came back to work. The missing Oscar was forgotten about when O’Brien’s mother died shortly thereafter, and when Margaret finally remembered to call the maid, the number had been disconnected. She ended up receiving a replacement from the Academy.

There’s a happy ending to this story, though. In 1995, a couple of guys were picking their way through a flea market when they happened across the Oscar. They put it up for auction, which is when word got back to the Academy that the missing trophy had resurfaced. The guys who found the Oscar pulled it from auction and presented it, in person, to Margaret O’Brien. “I’ll never give it to anyone to polish again,” she said.

9. BING CROSBY

For years, Bing Crosby’s Oscar for 1944’s Going My Way had been on display at his alma mater, Gonzaga University. In 1972, students walked into the school’s library to find that the 13-inch statue had been replaced with a three-inch Mickey Mouse figurine instead. A week later, the award was found, unharmed, in the university chapel. “I wanted to make people laugh,” the anonymous thief later told the school newspaper.

10. HATTIE MCDANIEL

Hattie McDaniel, famous for her Supporting Actress win as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, donated her Best Actress Oscar to Howard University. It was displayed in the fine arts complex for a time, but went missing sometime in the 1960s. No one seems to know exactly when or how, but there are rumors that the Oscar was unceremoniously dumped into the Potomac by students angered by racial stereotypes such as the one she portrayed in the film.

source: mentalfloss

Can you match the Oscar winners and the facts or quotations?

Key:

1. e

2. i.

3. a.

4. j.

5. g.

6. b.

7. h.

8. c.

9. d.

10. f.