What's on?

Electric Underground

7.30pm－1.00am   Free at the Cyclops Theatre

    Do you know who's playing in your area? We're bringing you an evening of live rock and pop music from the best local bands. Are you interested in becoming a musician and getting a recording contract(合同)? If so, come early to the talk at 7.30pm by Jules Skye, a successful record producer. He's going to talk about how you can find the right person to produce you music.

Gee Whizz

8.30pm-10.30pm   Comedy at Kaleidoscope

    Come and see Gee Whizz perform. He's the funniest stand-up comedian on the comedy scene. This joyful show will please everyone, from the youngest to the oldest. Gee Whizz really knows how to make you laugh! Our bar is open from 7.00pm for drinks and snacks(快餐).

Simon's Workshop

5.00pm-7.30pm    Wednesdays at Victoria Stage

    This is a good chance for anyone who wants to learn how to do comedy. The workshop looks at every kind of comedy, and practices many different ways of making people laugh. Simon is a comedian and actor who has 10 years' experience of teaching comedy. His workshops are exciting and fun. An evening with Simon will give you the confidence to be funny.

Charlotte Stone

8.00pm-11.00pm     Pizza World

    Fine food with beautiful jazz music; this is a great evening out. Charlotte Stone will perform songs from her new best-selling CD, with James Pickering on the piano. The menu is Italian, with excellent meat and fresh fish, pizzas and pasta (面食). Book early to get a table. Our bar is open all day, and serves cocktails, coffee, beer, and white wine.

    Honeybees can do three kinds of jobs.

    It is one of the most unusual insects in the world. Bees are special because they divide up their honeybee work. Each bee has a certain job to do.

    The busiest bee is the worker. Workers build the nest, called a hive. Inside the hive, workers make a honeycomb from wax(蜂蜡). They store honey there for food. Workers are always cleaning and fixing the hive. They even stand at the opening and fan their wings to cool the hive. Worker bees will attack anything—even people—to keep their hive safe, if need.

    Another kind of bee is the drone(雄蜂). Drones are male bees, and their job is to fly with the queen bee and mate with her. After the queen mates, the worker bees drive the drones away. The drones then starve to death.

    The third kind of bee is the queen. Each hive needs only one queen, and her job is laying eggs. She can lay as many as 2, 000 eggs a day.

    The British are known for their sense of humor. However, it is often difficult for foreigners to understand their jokes. The main point to remember is that the British often use understatement.

     Understatement means saying less than you think or feel. For example, if someone gets very wet in a shower of rain, he might say, “It's a little damp (潮湿的) outside.” Or, if someone is very impolite and shouts at another person, someone else might say, “She isn't exactly friendly.” Understatement is often used in unpleasant situation or to make another person look silly. Understatement plays an important part in British humor.

    Another key to understanding British humor is that the British like to make fun of themselves as well as others. They often laugh about the silly and unpleasant things that happen to our everyday life when someone accidently falls over in the street. They also like to make jokes about people from different classes of society. They like to make jokes about their accents, the way they dress and the way they behave. What's more, the British love to watch comedies (喜剧) about people who do not know how to behave in society. The comedies series Mr. Bean is a good example of this kind of humor.

    Mr. Bean is the character created by British actor Rowan Atkinson in 1990. Mr. Bean doesn't talk often, and instead he uses his body movement and facial expressions to make people laugh. Perhaps what makes Mr. Bean so funny is that he does things that adults in the real world cannot do. Mr. Bean is popular in many countries around the world because you do not have to speak English to understand the humor. Because of this, many people have become familiar with the British sense of humor.

    She will face the challenges of riding a bike to school or not being able to climb the monkey bars during playtime. But little Ella Peggie, who was born without her left arm, will get an extraordinary opportunity to share a life-changing bond with her new beloved pet, three-legged puppy.

    When her mother, Brooke Hodgson, saw the one-year-old puppy named Snowy, she knew instantly it would be the perfect companion for her one-year-old daughter. “My heart skipped a beat when I saw Snowy online, ”Ms. Hodgson said. It took just three days for the puppy, who recently had surgery to remove a 1eg, to find a new home after she was sent to the animal shelter last week.

    “I knew she was going to be perfect for Ella—they share the same age so they both have a long life of friendship ahead of them. I just know that Snowy is going to increase her confidence when she is growing up. It's going to be great for Ella when she realizes she's different or when she's having a bad day, she will see the resemblance and know that she's not alone. ”

    Ms. Hodgson has been touched by the relationship between the pair since the lively puppy became the latest addition to the family. And she believes the caring puppy will be by Ella's side through the highs and lows of her life. Ms. Hodgson said, “Every morning Snowy looks for Ella first before she runs to anyone else. It's quite a unique link. I'm just thankful that I was able to give her this dog. I just can't wait for them to get even closer. Not many people are able to do this for their children so we're very lucky to have Snowy. I can't even explain how I feel fight now. ”The young mother said Snowy, who was welcomed into the family just a week ago, has been playing a very special part to Ella's life as well as her three-year-old brother Blake and her father, Stewart Peggie.

    A fresh and gentle wind on your face, soft sand under your feet and blue waters as far as the eye can see. Is there any other Olympic sport that is played in such pleasant conditions as beach volleyball?

    "I've gone to a lot of beautiful places, and met a lot of beautiful people. That wouldn't have happened if I had been playing another sport," said Randy Stoklos, America's most famous beach volleyball player.

    The sport began as a four-a-side game on beaches in Southern California in the 1920s.The first recorded two-man game took place there in 1930, and the first tournament was held in Los Angeles 18 years later. The winners were awarded a case of Pepsi. In the 1950s, women started playing and the sport soon spread to Europe and South America. Yet at that time, beach volleyball was more an entertainment show than a sport, with beauty contests included. The Association of Volleyball Professionals was founded in 1983 and beach volleyball developed into a fast, athletic sport. Its world-wide popularity won beach volleyball a place at the 1996 Olympics in Atalanta, where 24 male teams and 16 female teams took part. At present, the US and Brazil are the best in the world at beach volleyball.

    The game came to China in the early 1990s and there have been national tournaments since 1994. It became an official event at the Eighth National Games in 1997.China's You Wenhui and Wang Lu finished ninth in the women's beach volleyball world championships in Brazil.

    Some people say summer is the time when teachers should get more pay. But not everyone is grateful to teachers for keeping kids occupied (无空闲的) between August and June: Washington state representative Liz Pike has written a Facebook post, titled "A life in the day of a WA state representative," and responded to teachers' complaints of rising costs of living. The post has received criticism for being anti-teacher. After reading her post, I feel that Liz Pike should rethink her criticism of public school teaching and avoid comparing it to the private school.

    Many of us teachers would certainly like teaching to be more like the private school. We see nothing wrong with fair pay for fair performance. In fact, performance is the name of the game. With standardized testing popular throughout K-12 education, teachers are some of the most analyzed and performance-measured employees in the United States. Liz Pike is very angry that teachers want raises even while test scores are dropping. Well, how are we supposed to have discipline (纪律) in the classroom when our hands are tied and we can hardly do anything with naughty students or fail students who are not prepared to move on to the next grade?

    Teachers would love to be able to turn education around and improve student performance. But we can't, and we should not suffer for it. Unlike private school businesses, public schools cannot turn away "customers". A private school business serves customers who walk through the door of their own free will, while public schools have to educate students who only attend because courts say they must.

    She says those who are "uninspired" by a lack of a cost of living increase should give up teaching. Is this the message that she thinks should be sent to the students whose academic performance she claims (声称) to care so much about? That "if you love it you'll shut up and not stand up for yourself"? I think teachers should stand up for themselves and I also think supporting teachers can make teachers teach children how to stand up for themselves.