English in Madrid

Celebrated annually on 26 January, Australia Day marks the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships and the raising of the Flag of Great Britain at Sydney Cove. It isn't without its controversy: The evolution of Australia Day controversy https://t.co/TtZAskrN0R — Graham Mad Teacher (@madteacher72) 26 de enero de 2019 Australia Quiz: 1. Which is the Australian flag? Do you know what the other ones are? A:  B:    C: D:       2. I wonder if you know what the capital of Australia is. A: Sydney B: Canberra C: Melbourne D: Brisbane 3. Can you tell me what the current population of Australia is estimated to be? A: 15,385,400 B: 25,234,600 C: 30,925,200 D: 35,678,900 4. Which of the following isn't an Australian state? A: Queensland B: New South Wales C: Newfoundland D: Victoria 5. Which of the following isn't true? A: The Australian Alps get more snow than the Swiss Alps. B: 5...

Source:  JavyGo on Unsplash One held , 11 injured as protesting taxi drivers clash with police in Madrid Demonstrators blocked access to major tourism fair Fitur and vowed not to give up on demands for more stringent regulations for ride-sharing services like Uber and Cabify Police made one arrest on Wednesday as Madrid taxi drivers escalated their street protests against what they view as unfair competition from online ride-sharing services such as Uber and Cabify. At least 11 people have sustained injuries as demonstrators clashed with riot police on the M-40 beltway . Protesters wearing yellow vests reminiscent of recent anti-government marches in Paris burnt tyres and containers and blocked access roads near Ifema, a convention center that is hosting Spain’s leading tourism fair, Fitur. King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, who officially inaugurated the event this morning, were forced to use a side door to bypass the roadblocks, which brought traffic t...

Source:  Markus Winkler on Unsplash Ronaldo accepts €18.8m deal over tax evasion Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo has cut a deal with a court in Madrid over tax evasion charges , accepting an €18.8m (£16.6m) fine . A huge media presence met the player outside the court, after a judge refused his request to appear by video or to enter the building by car to avoid the spotlight . The deal, agreed in advance, includes a 23-month jail sentence . But in Spain, convicts do not usually do time for sentences under two years. The non-violent nature of Ronaldo's offence means he is unlikely to spend any time at all in jail, serving it on probation instead. The court appearance lasted mere minutes as Ronaldo accepted the deal offered by prosecutors. The current Juventus player, who played for the club in Italy the night before, arrived smiling and giving a thumbs-up , apparently unfazed by the media presence. His lawyers had argued that given his fame, avoidin...

Source: Wikipedia UK employment total hits record high   The number of people in work in the UK has reached a record high of 32.54 million, latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show. Unemployment was flat , with a small increase of 8,000 between September and November for a total of 1.37 million. Average earnings excluding bonuses increased by 3.3% in the year to November, as wage rises continued to outpace inflation. The number of job vacancies rose by 10,000 to a record high of 853,000. ONS head of labour market David Freeman said: "The number of people working grew again, with the share of the population in work now the highest on record. " Meanwhile , the share of the workforce looking for work and unable to find it remains at its lowest for over 40 years, helped by a record number of job vacancies . " Wage growth continues to outpace inflation, which fell back slightly in the latest month."  The unemployment...

Gillette faces backlash and boycott over '#MeToo advert' A Gillette advert which references bullying, the #MeToo movement and toxic masculinity has split opinion online. The razor company's short film, called Believe, plays on their famous slogan "The best a man can get", replacing it with "The best men can be". The company says it wants men to hold each other " accountable " . Some have praised the message of the advert, which aims to update the company's 30-year-old tagline , but others say Gillette is "dead" to them. The ad has been watched more than 2 million times on YouTube in 48 hours. Source: You Tube (Dose of Good Ads)  Key words: Gillette ad 2019 It currently has 23,000 likes and 214,000 dislikes, at time of writing - and that's increasing all the time. In it, the company asks "Is this the best a man can get?" before showing images of bullying, sexual harassment , sexist behaviou...

Source:  Bram Naus on Unsplash Most CVs contain spelling errors, study reveals, with misplaced apostrophes the most common mistake The majority of CVs contain basic spelling and grammar errors, a large scale study has revealed, with the most common blunder being unnecessary apostrophes added to “GCSEs.” A review of 20,000 CVs submitted online found that nine in ten of them had misspelled words, with only 1,134 fault free. A glaring five or more errors were discovered in 12,666 of those looked at. Yet ironically, the worst offender cropped up time and time again . The adding of an apostrophe where people listed their GCSE results was written into 691 CVs, the analysis by recruitment search engine Adzuna.co.uk revealed, as people kept referr ing to their "GCSE's". This fatal grammatical mistake, which indicates someone or something’s possession of another, also affected KPIs - Key Performance Indicators - 403 times, when used to describe their previou...

Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages. Spamming is economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, and it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. Because the barrier to entry is so low, spammers are numerous, and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the deluge . Spamming is widely reviled , and has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions. The people that create electronic spam are called spammers. E-mail spam E-mail spam, also known as unsolicited bulk email (UBE) or unsolicited commercial email (UCE), is the practice of sending unwanted e-mail messages, frequently with commercial content, in large quantities to an indiscrimina...

Source: Wikipedia Hundreds of Spanish teenagers in Spain wear blackface for Three Kings parade  Annual procession accused of depict ing racist caricatures of black people  Thousands of teenagers dressed up as royal pages and put on blackface as part of a Three Kings parade in Spain. The procession, which dates back to the 19th century and commemorates the arrival of the magi Balthazar, Melchior and Gaspar at Jesu s' birthplace, took place in the Spanish town of Alcoy, in Alicante province. As part of the parade people paint their faces black with large red lips before marching through the streets and handing out sweets and presents to local children. Parades held in cities and villages elsewhere in Spain on 5 January feature three men dressed up as kings. Balthazar is historically depicted as be ing black. Images and footage from the Alcoy event, thought to be the country's longest-running , reignited a debate on social media. “They say its ra...