NEWS

A HOLIDAY FOR THE FILTHY RICH

The much-anticipated XXII Carat holiday villa complex in Dubai is set to be finished later in the year. There are 22 seven-bedroom villas on the market, each with landscaped gardens and a 24-hour concierge. 30% of the luxury properties - costing between £8.5million and £19million - have already been snapped up.

This is one of the reasons why I wanted to study something related with hotels, but is also the reason why I realize that just few people can afford it and while they waste their money in sleep over the most comfortable MATALÀS in the world or in having a bath wrapped in gold, hundreds of millions of people are trying to find any shelter to rest the night.
Hotels show really good the difference that has come up between rich and poor people and it increase every day a little bit more. 1% of population has the 99% of the world wealth while 99% of them has the other 1% and it must be one of the change proposal along the history. However, I consider it is something that will never happen taking in consideration that money corrupts people and it makes them greedier.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-4433058/Holiday-villas-Dubai-come-complete-1m-bathtubs.html

NEWS

EXHAUSTED LONDON MARATHON RUNNER

Just 200 yards before the finish line runner David Wyeth's legs turned to jelly but Matthew Rees, of the Swansea Harriers, stopped running and turned around. He grabbed him and supported him across the line as race organizers stepped in. 

Viewers on social media have heaped praise on Rees, calling him a hero. 

What I can say about this news is that sometimes sport can contribute to make people more solidarity and even though it’s difficult to renounce competition and ease the loss of the first position, people learn to grow up developing some other aspects and values that makes them more winners than those who gets the first place. 

I think that one activity that helps boosting solidarity and respect and lots of other values is sport. We are used to hear that group sports are better than single ones, but today we have an example that shows it doesn’t matter which kind of sport you practice is just what you learn from it what  you can apply in real life.

Link:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4437374/Exhausted-London-Marathon-runner-collapses-carried.html

NO MEN BEYOND THIS POINT

“In a world where women have become asexual and are no longer giving birth to males, a quiet, unassuming housekeeper named Andrew Myers finds himself at the centre of a battle to keep men from going extinct.”

I must say that while we were watching the film we all feel a little bit estrange about it because we were, and we aren’t nowadays, used to imagine a world without men. But, however, it has been interesting to see how the world would change in this situation.

When you watch this film you realize that men are most of the time the main causes of many problems we have at present. Their nature is usually more aggressive than women’s character and it brings them to start wars, arguments, gender-based violence, and threats, among others. And it doesn’t end up here; women are usually more organized than men and they really know how to share a flat, to show solidarity with the rest, be helpful when they are called for help, respect themselves and the life space of everyone, etc.

After all of it we could say that maybe a world without men would be a great idea and it will eradicate numerous troubles we have today. But if I had to choice which world I would prefer I wouldn’t have the hesitation to choice the world with men; nevertheless I would like to signify that men should value much more what women do for them and they should take in consideration all the great ideas that women can have and how useful they can result, letting them to hold a position plenty of responsibilities, like president.

And according to the film, the best way to make them realize about all of this stuff is to reach the borderline and it would be then, when they are going to react. As is often said, you don’t realize about what you have until you lose it. 

ABOUT LONDON

1- Locate our hostel  "Safestay Elephant and Castle" in google. Check out the facilities and regulations of the hotel. What you can do and what you mustn't do. 

FACILITIES
- Central city location
- Bar and restaurant
- Key card security system
- Full CCTV coverage
- 24-hour reception
- Free Wi-Fi in public areas
- Laundry room
- Social areas including TV and chill-out rooms
- Private garden at Kensington Holland Park and Elephant & Castle
- Private terrace at York
- Great social spaces at Edinburgh

REGULATIONS

- At Check-in, groups are required to leave a security deposit of £250 (£500 for Stag and Hen Parties) to cover any damages caused during the stay at the hostel. The deposit will be returned on departure subject to no damages being reported or detected. The deposit is payable via cash, debit or credit card.

- The comfort of all of our guests is of paramount importance. Any guests who in the opinion of our staff compromise the comfort, safety, or security of other guests, staff or local residents will be requested to leave the hostel premises and will not be issued a refund.

- On arrival, at least one leader will be required to sign a statement of intention to uphold the rules set in place for groups upon arrival. The group leaders must ensure that all members of their group behave in an acceptable manor.

- The group leader will be responsible for any wilful damage that is caused to the rooms, furnishings or hostel, for any theft of hostel property by any member of the group or in the case of guest complaints due to the behaviour of the group. Damages will be deducted from the security deposit paid and remaining costs will be required to be paid, or a payment agreement reached prior to departure.

- Should damage come to light after the group has departed, we reserve the right to make a charge to the group's credit / debit card, or send an invoice for the amount to the registered address. We will however make every effort to rectify any damage internally prior to contracting specialists to make the repairs, and therefore will make every effort to keep any costs that the guest would incur to a minimum.

- Smoking is strictly forbidden anywhere on Safestay premises. Any group member found smoking within the building will be charged a fee of £250.00 in order to cover the extensive cost of restoring the room to a smoke-free condition. Further failure to comply will result in the group being asked to leave the premises immediately and will not be offered a refund. If you wish to smoke please ask reception staff about designated smoking areas on arrival.

2- In google maps:

What can you visit near our hotel? (30 minutes on foot)

How far is the hostel from the center Piccadilly Circus?

How can you get to the center by bus and by tube?  UNDERGROUND

SAFESTAY ELEPHANT AND CASTLE

BIG BEN

LONDON EYE

GERALDINE MARY HARMSWORTH PARK

Piccadilly Circus is about 52 minutes on food and 17 minutes on underground if we take it in Bakerloo.

2. How can you get to the restaurants for dinner? and from the restaurants to the hostel?

On the 4th of April: LEICESTER ARMS (844 Glasshouse Street, Picadilly)

On the 6th of April:  ZETLAND 82 Bute Street, kensington)

To go to the first restaurant, we should take the underground from Bakerloo until Piccadilly Circus Station. And the same to go back to the hostel: take the underground from Piccadilly Circus Station to Bakerloo.

The second one, we should take the underground from South Kensington Station until Westminster Station and then take the underground from Westminster Station Bridge Street (Stop H) until Larcom Street (Stop A). So this is the way from Zetland to our hostel. 

3. Look for 3 must-see landmarks in London you definitely would like to visit.

Write 50 words about each landmark and how to get there from our hostel by bus or tube.

LONDON EYE → The London Eye is a giant Ferris wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames in London. Also known as the Millennium Wheel, it has also been called by its owners the British Airways London Eye, the Merlin Entertainments London Eye, the EDF Energy London Eye and, as of mid-January 2015, the Coca-Cola London Eye. 

BIG BEN → Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London and is usually extended to refer to both the clock and the clock tower as well. The tower is officially known as Elizabeth Tower, renamed to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 2012; previously, it was known simply as the Clock Tower.

LONDON TOWER

1066 : William the Conqueror establishes the Tower to keep hostile Londoners at bay.

1080s: Work on the White Tower is under way.

1101: Ranulf Flambard, the first known prisoner at the Tower, makes a daring escape.

1155: Thomas Becket, keeper of the works at the Tower, carries out repairs.

1220s: Henry III starts a major expansion of the royal palace.

1251 : A polar bear joins the Tower menagerie.

1263: Henry III surrenders the Tower to Simon de Montfort.

1275-79: Edward I builds St Thomas’s Tower and the watergate now known as Traitors' Gate.

1360 : John II ‘the Good’ of France lives in great splendour as a prisoner.

1381: Simon of Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, is dragged out of the Tower and murdered on Tower Hill during the Peasants’ Revolt. 

1389: Geoffrey Chaucer, clerk of works, oversees completion of Tower Wharf. Chaucer is better known for having written The Canterbury Tales.

1483: The Princes in the Tower disappear, presumed murdered.

1485: Henry VII founds the body ofYeoman Warders or 'Beefeaters'.

1536: Queen Anne Boleyn is beheaded on Tower Green by a swordsman brought especially from France.

1554: Lady Jane Grey, the ‘nine days queen’, is executed. Princess Elizabeth, later Elizabeth I, is imprisoned in the Tower.

1605: Guy Fawkes is tortured at the Tower following the failed Gunpowder Plot to assassinate James I and blow up Parliament.

1671: Colonel Blood attempts to steal the Crown Jewels.

1780: The last hanging takes place on Tower Hill.

1826: Duke of Wellington becomes Constable of the Tower and appoints Yeoman Warders based on their exemplary military service.

1835: Tower Menagerie closes. The animals are transferred to the new London Zoo.

1841: Crown Jewels are saved from fire.

1850: Koh-i-noor diamond is presented to Queen Victoria.

1952: East end London gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray are held at the Tower.

2012: The Crown Jewels exhibition opens.

CAN LOVE LAST FOREVER?

Love is something difficult to define and even up to poets have tried to do that like something very personal. Nevertheless, over the past few years, there are researchers who are trying to give an explanation to this feeling. 

One of them is the psychologist Robert Sternberg who talks about the “triangular love Theory”: intimacy (emotional closeness), passion (sexual attraction) and commitment (be together). 

On the basis of this theory, we can define an enduring love as that which comply with and respect these three rules. But, can we keep this foundations forever? 

Thanks to all the investigations that have been taken over recent years, we know that the biggest source of all what happens to us when we fall in love is dopamine, a neurotransmitter that increase and produce pleasant symptoms. But it doesn’t act alone, because noradrenaline steps in also, and it makes us focus our attention in one object (love object in this case). We have to add a decline in serotonin which is the responsible to generate obsessive thoughts related with our love. 

This could sound as a real love and we could say outright that love will last forever if people could maintain their feelings on the top, but it has been demonstrated that chemical love ends in 2 or 3 years after the first crush. 

In light of the anthropologist Helen Fisher, two patters were repeated: women had children every four years, exactly the average of expiration time of marriage. Coincidence? The anthropologist wraps up that in couples it tends to repeat a cycle: a first stage of crush which the priority is sexual contact; the other one called love or affection, where the objective is to have a child; and the last one which ends up with the splitting.  

Notwithstanding, it is just a theory but not a science. Passion can increase or decrease depending on the chemical fluctuations, but along the time other elements can raise like solidarity or fellowship, which will contribute to feed the passion. 

If we are able to keep passion in equal measures as affection and solidarity, everything improves. 

On the other hand we can compare two different opinions between teenagers and elderly people. What we are going to obtain is a large percentage of teenagers that deny the possibility of “love for ever” and, in contrast, the majority of elderly people would believe in eternal love. 

The reasons why we obtain these answers are: nowadays technology and social networks are all around and we are much more open to the society considering all the chances that lie ahead; today, and thanks to all those who fight for it, we have the freedom to choose with who we want to stay and we have the right of divorce in comparison with the madness that was meant to split up with your couple. 

In conclusion, we can say that we must take into consideration the three rules of the “triangular love Theory” if we want to love someone forever and we should keep the fire burning if we want prolong the chemical love that appears when we crush with someone.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

TED’S àhttps://www.ted.com/talks/alec_soth_stacey_baker_this_is_what_enduring_love_looks_like  [09.03.2017]

https://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_tells_us_why_we_love_cheat [09.03.2017]

https://www.ted.com/talks/jenna_mccarthy_what_you_don_t_know_about_marriage [09.03.2017]

ARTICLES à

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hold-me-tight/201006/can-love-last-lifetime [09.03.2017]

https://www.babble.com/relationships/ways-to-tell-if-your-love-will-last-forever/  [09.03.2017]

NEWS

THE MOST DANGEROUS JOB IN THE WORLD

The landscape of Syria has changed this few years: cities have been destroyed, loss of homes, businesses and human lifes, etc. 

In Aleppo, there have been volunteers, more known as “White Helmets”, who delve into the ruins of Syria’s cities and retrieve survivors from the danger. Because of it, this job has been considered the most dangerous job in the world. Firstly, because they have to run towards a pile of rubble; and secondly, because they there are “double taps”, which are the secondary bombs sent down with the explicit purpose of attacking the first responders. Unfortunately, there were 470,000 deads among White Helmets in 2015.

They used to be tailors and electricians, bakers and civilians, leading pretty ordinary lives in Syria. In 2012, the year of White Helmets creation, there were 25 and nowadays they have increased until 3000. 

As if this were not enough, White Helmet have been accused from the Syrian government and Russia who says they have become politicized and help extremist group. They have answered that they would help anyone trapped in those buildings, regardless of what side they were fighting on.

What’s easily guess is that they are making a difference savining tens of thousands of lives. 

On Friday 10th of March I was at Maria Baguer’s home and we had a friend’s dinner. We were Maria Baguer, Marta Juncà, Cèlia Víudez, Ona Dorca and I and we decided to watch something on Tv. Maria had Netflix and we went through it to see with what we could spend the night watching at when coincidentally we found a documentary called “White Helmets” and we knew it was been nominated to the Peace Nobel Prize last year and, this year, it has won an Oscar. Finally we decided to play it. 

It was really dramatic because there were authentic images and you could see how people die in the middle of bombings, the White Helmets putting their lives in risk, leaving their lives for this solidary and humanity job, etc. But and the same time it was really touching. While I was watching it I feel like they should appear and be remembered along our society history, because what this group of volunteers are doing every day is something unique and courageous. 

Again, we are not conscious how fortunate we are having stable and regular jobs and lives. We should all do the effort for time to time to get into someone else shoes and start to appreciate what we have and value what we can do for the others. 

There’s no clearer example than White Helmets and what they are doing to help others. They are not stand idle complaining about what is happening in their country and crying for those who are dying, they are acting and helping as much lives as they can in order to cry for fewer people. 

So yes, they are making a difference, they've potentially saved tens of thousands of lives. It would be very easy for them not to do it, and yet they do it. I think that's real bravery, and that’s why I think they must be mentioned and remembered for what they are doing and what they are losing and we should all do our best to help them and, consequently, to end wars, being Syria or any country.

TRAILER

FULLFILM

Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/19/health/my-hero-hala-gorani-white-helmets-syria/index.html

NEWS

BEST PEDIGREE CHUMS!

Joel Sayer is boy who suffered from autism: he couldn’t go outside, he was trapped in a silent existence and he was unable to speak to people. 

Now, aged 13, with the overwhelming help of Caddie, a six-year-old Labrador from the company Dogs for Good charity, the world has opened up to him and his family. He is really happy now, and thanks to his guardian angel –as he says- , he has turned from muddled into calm and safe.

When they met, it was the first time Joel went outside and smiled. From that moment, his parents knew that the suggestion of Joel’s pediatrician to adopt an autistic assistance dog will make a meaningful turnaround in their lifes. 

This new attracted my attention a lot because I’m a real big lover of animals and I love to see how they can help people to overcome their difficulties and troubles. 

Since I was a baby, I have been living surrounded by animals and it is incredible how it affects in your personal life. They can give you almost as much as a person can and above all, they will never try to hurt you but to protect you and make sure you feel happy and comfortable.

They are those who always listen to you, who always play with you, those who accept any activity you propose, who stay with you make you feel coupled and they are also the best pranks partners, among others.

This is why I consider that having a pet can help you a lot in human beings aspect and can provide you lots of values you can’t appreciate without them. 

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4304738/Dog-Crufts-award-changing-autistic-boy-s-life.html