Often a nickname is a shortened form of a person's name, and it can also be a descriptive name for a place or a thing. Many American cities have nicknames. These can help build up an identity, spread pride among citizens and build their unity. Nicknames can also be funny.

    Los Angeles, California is the second largest city in population, after New York City. Los Angeles has several nicknames. One is simply the city's initials, L.A. It is also called the City of Angels because Los Angeles means "the angels" in Spanish.

    Los Angeles often has warm, sunny weather. So another nickname is City of Flowers and Sunshine. New York is called The Big Apple. So Los Angeles is sometimes called The Big Orange because of the fruit that grows in that city's warm climate.

    The American movie and television industries are based in Los Angeles. So it is not surprising that it is called The Entertainment Capital of the World. Many films are made in the area of Los Angeles called Hollywood. Millions of people visit the area. No trip to Los Angeles is perfect without seeing the word "Hollywood" spelled out in huge letters on a hillside.

    Many movie stars live in Los Angeles. The city is sometimes called Tinseltown. This nickname comes from the shiny, bright and often unreal nature of Hollywood and the movie industry.

    Another nickname for Los Angeles is La-La Land, using the first letters of Los and Angeles. This means a place that is fun and not serious, and maybe even out of touch with reality.

    A good place for watching unusual-looking people is Venice, an area on the west side of Los Angeles. A system of waterways designed after the Italian city of Venice has been built there. Many people love Los Angeles for its warm sunny weather, beautiful mountains and beaches, and movie stars. That includes Randy Newman, who sings about his hometown.

    On the whole, Los Angeles is growing attractive just for its rich nicknames.

    Did you know that, in 2016, over 18 million people attended classical concerts in Germany? That's more people than those who went to main league football matches! Earlier this year, Germany continued its celebration of classical music with the opening of a new concert hall in the heart of Hamburg. Germans are incredibly proud of it  and it's the first thing I show to my friends when they come to visit.

    Known as the ‘Elphi' by the locals, the Elbphilharmonie is a beautiful tower of glittering glass sitting atop an old warehouse by the banks of the river Elbe. The plaza(露天广场)is open to the public and from the middle of he city's tallest building, you can gaze across the harbour, miles of rooftops and passing ships below.

    The main concert hall seats over 2000 people and is one of the most advanced music venues in the world. Two smaller concert halls are used for jazz, world and contemporary music. In addition, if you're unbelievably rich, you can buy one of the 45 luxurious apartments lying within the building.

    Construction began in 2007 with a budget of € 241 million and a two-year period. Fast forward ten years, the building eventually opened with a final price tag of over 800 million!

    I consider myself very lucky that the Elbphilharmonie opened during my time living in Hamburg, but unfortunately I haven't yet been able to attend a concert. Everything is sold out for six months! For now, I'm content to visit the plaza to enjoy the impressive views over the  docks and see the innovative architecture up close. Hopefully one day soon. I'll be lucky enough to grab a last-minute concert ticket!

    Argentina in the late nineteenth century was an exciting place. Around 1870, it was experiencing an economic(经济的)boom, and the capital, Buenos Aires, attracted many people. Farmers, as well as a flood of foreigners from Spain and Italy, came to Buenos Aires seeking jobs. These jobs didn′t pay well, and the people felt lonely and disappointed with their new life in the city. As the unhappy newcomers mixed together in the poor parts of the city, the dance known an the tango(探戈舞)came into being.

    At the beginning the tango was a dance of the lower classes. It was danced in the bars and streets. At that time there many fewer women than men, so if a man didn′t want to be left out, his only choice was to dance with another man so that he could attract the attention of the few available women. Gradually, the dance spread into the upper classes of Argentinean society and became more respectable.

    In Europe at this time, strong interest in dance from around the world was beginning.

    The interest in international dance was especially evident in Paris. Every kind of dance from ballet(芭蕾舞)to belly dancing could be found on the stages of the Paris theaters of the Paris theaters. After tango dances from Argentina arrive in Europe, they began to draw the interest of the public an they performed their exiting dance in cafes, Though not everyone approved of the new dance, saying it was a little too shocking, the dance did find enough supporters to make it popular.

    The popularity（流行）Of the tango continued to grow in many other parts of the world. Soldiers who returned to the United States from World War I brought the tango to North America, It reached Japan in 1926, and in 2003 the Argentinean embassy in Seoul hired a local tango dancer to act an a kind of dance ambassador, and promote tango dancing throughout South Korea.

Australian Comedy—COSI(5th Round)

Date: April 12-16—7:30 pm

    Venue: Beijing Poly Theatre

    Price: 800-1,500 yuan

    Cosi is a 1996 Australian comedy film directed by Mark Joffe. In the film, Lewis Riley wants to get a job as a director at a mental (精神病的)hospital. He gets the job and finds himself directing a production of the Mozart opera Cosi fan tutte, an opera in Italian. And it is going to be performed by actors and actresses that he must select from among the patients, who only speak English.

    Twelfth Night

    By TNT Theatre Britain

Date: April 13-15—7:30 pm

    Venue: 9 Theatre Beijing

    Price: 60-380 yuan

    Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601-1602. The play focuses on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a ship accident at sea. Viola(who pretends to be a boy) falls in love with Orsino. But Orsino in turn is in love with Olivia when meeting Viola falls in love with her, thinking she is a man.

Jazz Weekend—Thomas Enhco Piano Recital

Date: May 6—7:30 pm

    Venue: Beijing Concert Hall

    Price: 80-599 yuan

    Thomas Enhco was born in Paris, 1988. He starts playing the violin and piano at an early age, and studies classical music and jazz. At 12, Thomas works with a French jazz violinist Didier Lockwood. He is spotted by Peter Erskine, who offers to help with Thomas Enhco's first CD. In 2004-2005, Thomas creates and records his first album, Esquisse, which is released in 2006. He receives the Young Talent Prize at the Montauban Jazz Festival in 2006.

    There is an English saying that “Laughter is the best medicine.” Until recently, few people took the saying seriously. Now, however, doctors have begun to look into laughter and the effects it has on the human body. They have found that laughter can really improve people's health.

    Tests were carried out to study the effects of laughter on the body. People watched funny films while doctors checked their hearts, blood pressure, breathing and muscles. It was found that laughter has similar effects to physical exercise. It increases blood pressure, makes the heart beat quicker and makes people breathe deeper; it also works on several groups of muscles in the face, the stomach, and even the feet. If laughter exercises the body, it must be beneficial(有益的).

Other tests have shown that laughter appears to be able to reduce the effects of pain on the body. In one experiment doctors produced pain in groups of students who listened to different radio programs. The group that tolerated（忍耐）the pain for the longest time was the group which listened to a funny program. The reason why laughter can reduce pain seems to be that it helps to produce a kind of chemical in the brain which diminishes both stress and pain.

    As a result of these discoveries, some doctors in the United States now hold laughter clinics(诊所), in which they help to improve their patients' condition by encouraging them to laugh. They have found that even if their patients do not really feel like laughing, making them smile is enough to produce beneficial effects similar to those caused by laughter.

    As a young adult, Noah Webster was a teacher. At that time, the colonies were fighting for independence from Britain. Yet the books that American children used in school all came from Britain. The books were all about British people and British places. Webster wanted books that would mean more to American children. So he wrote three books that used American examples—a grammar book, a spelling book, and a reader. These books were very popular, and millions of them were sold.

    Webster was interested in changing the spellings of words. He wanted words to be spelled the way they were pronounced. For example, he thought the word "head" should be spelled "hed", and the word "laugh" should be spelled "laf". People liked Webster's suggestions.

    However, few words were actually changed. One group of words that were changed were words in which an unpronounced "u" followed an "o". That is why Americans write "color" and "labor", and the British write "colour" and "labour".

    With the money he made from his books, Webster was able to write. It was the first American English dictionary, published in 1828.Webster's dictionary had over 70，000 words and gave the meaning and origin of each. To this day, Webster's work is the example that most dictionaries of American English follow.