The writings of Shakespeare are today little read by young people in Britain. His young readership is limited to those who choose to study literature at university.

    Shakespeare's work, together with most other classics, is seen as remote, and written in a 400­year­old version of English that is about as inviting as toothache.

    Still, in Britain schools, it is compulsory to study the bard(诗人), and when something is made compulsory, usually the result is boredom, resentment(憎恨) or both.

    This was my experience of the classics at school. But when I reached my late teenage years, I had a change of heart. Like every other young person since the dawn of time, the world confused me. I wanted answers, so I turned to books to find them.

    I went on to take a PhD in literature and have taught it in Britain and China. I have never regretted it. There is something in literature that people want, even if they don't read books. You see this in the popularity of TV and movie adaptations of great works, the recent film version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice being a case in point. These popular adaptations may help increase people's interest in the classics.

    Reading a simplified Romeo and Juliet may perhaps lead to a reading of Shakespeare's actual play. If that is the case, then I welcome the trend. But do not make the mistake of thinking that it is the same thing. Shakespeare is a poet. His greatness is in his language. Reading someone else's rewriting of his work is like peeling a banana, throwing away the fruit, and eating the skin. Take on the original. It really is worth the effort.

    Welcome to Holker Hall & Gardens

    Visitor Information

    How to Get to Holker

    By Car: Follow brown signs on A590 from J36, M6. Approximate travel times: Windermere-20 minutes, Kendal-25 minutes, Lancaster-45 minutes, Manchester-1 hour 30 minutes.

By Rail: The nearest station is Cark-in-Cartmel with trains to Carnforth, Lancaster and Preston for connections to major cities & airports.

    Opening Times

    Sunday-Friday (closed on Saturday)11:00 am-4:00pm, 30th March-2nd November.

    Admission Charges

    Hall & Gardens Gardens

    Adults: £12.00 £8.00

    Groups: £9.00 £5.50

    Special Events

    Producers' Market 13th April

    Join us to taste a variety of fresh local food and drinks. Meet the producers and get some excellent recipe ideas.

    Holker Garden Festival 30th May

    The event celebrates its 22nd anniversary with a great show of the very best of gardening, making it one of the most popular events in gardening.

    National Garden Day 28th August

    Holker once again opens its gardens in aid of the disadvantaged. For just a small donation you can take a tour with our garden guide.

    Winter Market 8th November

    This is an event for all the family. Wander among a variety of shops selling gifts while enjoying a live music show and nice street entertainment.

    A few days ago my wife sent me out to buy something. When I came home, I handed her a paper bag and said, "Here are the apples you wanted." She looked in the bag, and then she looked at me. "I told you," she said slowly, "to buy some eggs."

    I felt worried about my absent-mindedness (心不在焉，健忘) , so I went to see a doctor. He was a very kind man. "I have seen many people like you. It's nothing to worry about," he said. "If you know you are absent-minded, you are all right. But if you do not know you're absent-minded, you may be really in trouble."

    "Many famous people were absent-minded," the doctor told me. "Thomas Edison was standing in line one day to pay his taxes. When he arrived at the window, he found that he had forgotten his own name. He had to ask the man who was behind him to tell him who he was."

    I felt much better and got up to leave. "Thank you, doctor," I said. "How much do I have to pay you?"

    "Ten dollars for the check-up," the doctor said.

    "But doctor, I did not have a check-up!"

    For a moment the doctor looked puzzled. Then he said, "Oh, yes, it was the patient before you who had a check-up. How absent-minded I am!"

    The European Union(EU) is an organization of European countries. The countries are independent and are governed in different ways. In the United Kingdom, for example, the head of state is a king or queen. In France, on the other hand, the head of state is a president. But each of them sends representatives(代表)to European Parliament, which has some control over what happens in each of the member countries.

    The idea of the EU began in the 1950s. The first members were France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Italy. Little by little, the number increased during second half of the twentieth century. By the year 2000, there were 15 member countries. The new countries were Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

    In 2004, the EU increased to 25 members. The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia, plus the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta all became members. The expanded EU has a population of more than half a billion people, twice as big as the population of the US.

    "When someone is rude to you, it can put you in a bad mood. It may even lead you to be rude to someone else, creating a chain of rudeness. In fact, this troubling chain may even be caused by simply seeing someone be rude to another person. You don't even have to be the target of the had behavior," stated a researcher.

    The researchers worked with 81 persons, with occupations ranging from security to business to medicine, who were asked to complete online surveys over a 10-day period. Participants recorded their moods when they woke up; and in the evening, they described their experiences over the course of that day.

    Each morning the participants also viewed a short video, describing workplace interaction of some kind. Half of the mornings, the video included some kind of rudeness while the other half had some kind of warm interaction in the workplace. Rudeness was conveyed through various means, including a lack of eye contact or unpleasant language.

    Participants who watched the rudeness videos reported seeing or experiencing rudeness during the day, and they were also more likely to escape from fellow employees to avoid being the victims of rudeness themselves. They reported their overall work suffered that day as a result.

    Not all participants were affected by the rudeness videos, however. A few weeks before the study began, the participants completed an evaluation that measured their self-confidence and emotional stability among other things. The participants who scored higher on this evaluation were significantly less likely to be influenced by the rudeness.

    Consequently, one of the researchers recommended that companies hire managers who can limit exposure to rudeness, provide plenty of positive reinforcement (强化) and build a civil workplace environment. This, in turn, could help employees build their confidence levels and help them better handle workplace rudeness.

One of the tallest wooden buildings in Europe, a 98m timber mixture skyscraper, is to rise in Berlin.

The 29-storey WoHo Tower, to be designed by a firm of Norwegian architects, is intended to be a "light-house project" for low-carbon construction, towering over Potsdamer Platz and the Landwehr Canal.

Its core, including lifts and a staircase, is to be built around a steel-reinforced concrete structure but the rest of the building, including flats, offices, cafes and a kindergarten, will be fashioned down wooden beams and panels.

"As Norwegians, we are used to working a lot with timber," Nicolai Riise, CEO of the Mad Architects' Practice said.

"The thing about timber is that it demonstrates sustainability from top to bottom. The carbon footprint is close to zero and it's a fantastic material to build with. If you look at this in a broader way, it's one of the ways we are going to be able to beat the climate crisis."

Wooden skyscrapers, once regarded as an unprofitable pipe dream, have become a realistic prospect with the coming of cross-laminated building techniques and more flexible planning laws. Because these structures' parts are fit with care, they can be far lighter than their concrete equivalents and are thought to be relatively resistant to fire. A cubic meter of wood can also take an estimated ton of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Larger wooden structures are planned elsewhere. London is examining blueprints for the 300-meter Oakwood Tower. A project in Tokyo could rise to 350m.