Planning a visit to the UK? Here we help with ways to cut your costs.

    AVOID BIG EVENTS  Big sporting events, concerts and exhibitions can increase the cost of accommodation and make it harder to find a room. A standard double room at the Thistle Brighton on the final Friday of the Brighton Comedy Festival (19 Oct.) cost £169.15 at Booking.com. A week later, the same room cost £118.15.

    If you can be flexible and want to know dates to avoid—or you're looking for a big event to pass your time—check out sites such as Whatsonwhen.com, which allow you to search for events in the UK by city, date and category.

    STAYAWAY FROM THE STATION If traveling to your destination by train, you may want to find a good base close to the station, but you could end up paying more for the sake of convenience at the start of your holiday.

    Don't be too choosy about the part of town you stay in. Booking two months in advance, the cheapest room at Travelodge's Central Euston hotel in London for Saturday 22 September was £95.95. A room just a tube journey away at its Covent Garden hotel was £75.75. And at Farringdon, a double room cost just £62.95.

    LOOK AFTER YOURSELF Really central hotels in cities such as London, Edinburgh and Cardiff can cost a fortune, especially at weekends and during big events. As an alternative consider checking into a self-catering flat with its own kitchen. Often these flats are hidden away on the top floors of city centre buildings. A great example is the historic O'Neill Flat on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, available for £420 for five days in late September, with room for four adults.

    GET ON A BIKE London's ‘Boris bikes' have attracted the most attention, but other cities also have similar programmes that let you rent a bicycle and explore at your own pace, saving you on public transport or car parking costs.

    Among the smaller cities with their own programmes are Newcastle (casual members pay around £1.50 for two hours) and Cardiff (free for up to 30 minutes, or £5 per day).  (358 words)

    Cruising（乘船游览）with children has never been more

    Cruising,with free parking,has never been more popular with families with children.It is an ideal family holiday —once you are on board the kids will have so much to do you may not see them at all!

    With fantastic children's clubs and a play area for under 2 years old,to circus skills school on top deck,Rock School,where teens can play guitar,and Noddy and Mr.Bump from the Mr.Men Show are regular visitors.With superliners created with enjoyment and comfort in mind why not take the stress out of your next family holiday.

    Sail from UK in 2011 with free parking

    Sailing from Southampton has never been better value with free parking on selected sailings,saving you up to an extra ￡200 off your holiday.Why not sail from Southampton in 2011 to a great range of.classic and impressive destinations.

    The sales continues more benefits added

    The P&O Cruises sale has been extended!Book before 28th February and you can save up to ￡2,500 and receive up to ￡960 free on board spend PLUS,you can now receive free car parking on selected sailings.Do as much or as little as you desire,with P&O—you make all the choices!

    Get more from your holidays—free hotel stays

    Looking for something a bit different?Why not try a cruise with a pre- or post-cruise stay. Spend a day or two in fantastic cities.Tour the St Peters Basilica in Rome,wander around Sagrada Família in Barcelona or wander the beach front of Miami.Best of all,this won't cost you a penny!

    At the beginning of the century there was a big farm called Hollywood Ranch. It was near Los Angeles in California. A few years later Hollywood was one of the famous places of the world. From 1910s to the 1950s Hollywood was the film center of the world. Every family knew the names of its film stars Charlie Chaplin, Grete Garbo, Bergman and hundreds more.

    The reason why people went to Hollywood to make films was the sun. At first people made films in New York on the east coast of the United States. But then they heard about Los Angeles where there are 350 days of sun every year. As they made all the films by sunlight, the west coast was a much better place to work.

    Also near Hollywood you can find mountains and sea and desert. They did not have to travel far to make any kind of film.

    When TV became popular in the 1960s, Hollywood started making films for television. Then in 1970s they discovered people still went to cinema to see big expensive films. After twenty years they are still making films in Hollywood and people watch them all over the world.

    Birds' feathers are some of the most strikingly variable animal characteristics that can be observed by the eyes. The patterns that we see in birds' feathers are made up of combinations of scales, bars, and spots.

    We already know why birds have colored feathers. Generally, the color of feathers may protect a bird from being noticed by the enemy in the environment, or it can make a bird more appealing to potential mates by helping them to stand out. These aspects are well known. A greater mystery has been how the patterns are created.

    Dr. Ismael Galván and his team studied the color of feathers to see what types of colors were present in birds' complex feather patterns. The study shows they mainly consist of two types of colors: melanin（黑色素）, which produce a range of black, grey, brown, and orange color, and carotenoids（类胡萝卜色素）, which are used to create brighter colors.

    Birds cannot produce carotenoids on their own. For feathers with bright colors, birds must consume food items that contain these paints, and the carotenoids circulate through the blood and to the feather. Melanin, on the other hand, is produced by special cells in the birds' bodies.

    The team found that about 32% if the species studied have complex color patterns, with the vast majority of these complex patterns produced by melanin rather than carotenoids. If the birds were artists, they would use carotenoids as a broad brush to produce color patches, with melanin as a detail paint brush to produce more complex designs.

    But a few birds are exceptions to this rule: Three bird families do have complex patterns without melanin.

    It is difficult for parents of nearly every family to teach their children to be responsible for housework, but with one of the following suggestions, you really can get your children to help at home.

    If you give your children the impression that they can never do anything quite right, then they will regard themselves as unfit or unable persons. Unless children believe they can succeed, they will never become totally independent.

    My daughter Carla's fifth-grade teacher made every child in her class feel special. When students received less than a prefect test score, she would point out what they had mastered and declared firmly they could learn what they had missed.

     You can use the same technique when you evaluate (评价) your child's work at home.

    Don't always scold and give lots of praise instead. Talk about what he has done right, not about what he hasn't done. If your child completes a difficult task, promise him a Sunday trip or a ball game with Dad.

    Learning is a process of trying and failing and trying and succeeding. If you teach your children not to fear a mistake of failure, they will learn faster and achieve success at last.

    Cassandra Feeley finds it hard to manage on her husband's income. So this year she did something more than a hobby. She planted vegetables in her yard. For her first garden, Ms. Feeley has put in 15 tomato plants, and five rows of a variety of vegetables. The family's old farm house has become a chicken house, its residents arriving next month. Last year, Ms. Rita Gartin kept a small garden. This year she has made it much larger because, she said, "The cost of everything is going up and I was looking to lose a few pounds too; so it's a win-win situation all around."

    They are among the growing number of Americans who, driven by higher living costs and a falling economy, have taken up vegetable gardening for the first time. Others have increased the size of their existing gardens. Seed companies and garden shops say that not since the 1970s has there been such an increase in interest in growing food at home. Now many gardens across the country have been sold out for several months. In Austin, Tex, some of the gardens have a three-year waiting list.

    George C Ball Jr. owner of a company, said sales of vegetable seeds and plants are up by 40%, over last year, double the average growth of last five years. Mr. Ball argues that some of the reasons have been building for the last few years. The big one is striking rise in the cost on food like bread and milk, together with the increases in the price of fruit and vegetables. Food prices have increase of higher oil price. People are driving less, taking fewer vacations, so there is more time to garden.