English in Madrid

Source:  Jay Wennington en Unsplash How to crowdfund a restaurant empire   When award-winning chef Gary Usher was * turned down for a loan to open a second restaurant, he * set up a crowdfunding campaign. Now he 's about to launch his fourth restaurant.  All restaurants have a coming-of-age moment, the point at which they survive and thrive , or go down fighting . For Gary Usher’s Sticky Walnut, in a two-up two-down house in Hoole, just outside Chester, that moment came in 2013, about 18 months after they had opened. Usher, like any ambitious young chef * starting out on his own aged 30, had * ploughed every penny he had into Sticky Walnut. He had gone back to Chester to open the restaurant – not far from where he had started out working in pubs – after successful stints in London at Michelin-starred Chez Bruce, and running Gordon Ramsay and Angela Hartnett’s kitchen at the York & Albany. He couldn’t afford to fail .  Sticky Walnut had started well. H...

Source:  Elisa on Unsplash I have been doing this blog for over ten years now. There are times when I felt like giving up but for some reason or other I never did. I've been looking at the first 50 posts; from Sept 8th 2007 to Apr 9th 2008 (see all the posts using the Archive in the top left of the blog ). These are the posts that never received a comment : Have you seen the film Catch Me If You Can ? The Flatmates was a fun way to improve your English. Halloween doesn't have its origins in the United States. We'll soon be hearing Last Christmas in the shops again. A politician claimed the Spanish left  €1 Tips for a coffee. Advice on how to keep your New Year Resolutions . There are controversial lines in God Save the Queen . Pancake Day is a fun tradition in the UK. The (lack of) Rain in Spain was a problem ten years ago too. There was Rioting (again) in Madrid by football hooligans. A bit of a gamble made a man wealthy. We had Roun...

Source:  Chewy on Unsplash Pets in the doghouse as ownership falls When it comes to the cost of owning a pet, many people in the UK are finding that there's just not enough money in the kitty . Modern economic pressures mean that fewer households now own a pet. Just 56% now have one, down from 63% five years ago, say retail analysts Mintel. Because many people cannot afford to buy their own home, more are renting from landlords who don't allow animals. People are also having a family later in life, and children are big pet fans. " Shrinking household sizes and the trend of consumers starting their families later in life are all having a negative effect on pet ownership," said Emma Clifford, associate director of food and drink at Mintel. " Additionally , the shift towards privately rented accommodation continues to put downward pressure on pet ownership."  Ownership of pet fish, including goldfish and tropical fish, has take...

Source:  Dorian Hurst on Unsplash French language watchdogs say 'non' to gender-neutral style  The Académie Française, France’s ultimate authority on the language, sparks national row after describing inclusive writing as an ‘aberration’  The Académie Française, France’s ultimate authority on the French language, is under fierce attack for describing gender-neutral text as an “aberration” that puts the language in “mortal danger”. The “Immortals”, as the 40 academy members – only five of whom are women – are known, have sparked a national row after declaring that “inclusive writing” has no place in the country’s grammar books, or anywhere else for that matter . In a statement full of hyperbole, the academy condemned the increasing use of new spellings aimed at making written French less masculine, arguing that it could not see the “desired objective” of the changes. French grammatical rules give the masculine form of a noun precedence over the female. W...

Source:  Natalie Runnerstrom on Unsplash World's most expensive dram of Scotch was a fake   A dram of vintage Scotch bought by a Chinese millionaire in a Swiss hotel bar for £7,600 was a fake, laboratory tests have concluded. Analysts from Scotland were called in by the Waldhaus Am See hotel in St Moritz after experts questioned the authenticity of the 2cl shot . It had been poured from an unopened bottle labelled as an 1878 Macallan single malt. It is believed to be the largest sum ever paid for a poured dram of Scotch. But analysis found that it was almost certainly not distilled before 1970. The hotel said it had accepted the findings and reimbursed the customer in full . Zhang Wei, 36, from Beijing - one of China's highest-earning online writers - had paid just under 10,000 Swiss francs (£7,600, $10,050) for the single shot while visiting the hotel's Devil's Place whisky bar in July. But suspicions about the spirit's provenance surfaced so...

Source:  Kayla Velasquez en Unsplash ' Fake news ' named Collins Dictionary's official Word of the Year for 2017  Orwellian coinage popularised by US President Donald Trump and his team during the presidential election campaign defines its moment, according to leading lexicographers  The term “fake news” has been named Collins' Word of the Year 2017. Usage of the term - which has often been used by US President Donald Trump - has risen by 365% since 2016. Defined as “false, often sensational, information disseminated under the guise of news reporting”, “fake news” will now be added to the next print edition of Collins Dictionary. Lexicographers, the people who compile dictionaries, found other politically relevant words had been significant over the last 12 months, including “antifa”, an abbreviation of “anti-fascist”, and “ echo chamber ”, which refers to those who share their opinions in environments, especially social media, where the only people who ...

Source: Wikipedia   Passenger's letter from doomed Titanic sells for record £126,000  Penning the letter a day before the disaster, the passenger writes: " If all goes well , we will arrive in New York (on) Wednesday". One of the last-known letters written on board the Titanic has sold at auction  for a record-breaking £126,000. The handwritten note was penned on 13 April 1912 - a day before the ship hit an iceberg and sank in a tragedy that killed more than 1,500 people. It was written on embossed Titanic stationery by first-class passenger Alexander Oskar Holverson, who was intending to post it to his mother in New York. The salesman had boarded the Titanic in Southampton with his wife Mary, who survived the disaster. She never remarried - and according to Encyclopaedia Titanica, she was buried with her husband in New York after dying of kidney failure in 1918 at the age of 41. In the letter, he says the couple "had good weather whi...

Source: Jocelyn Morales en Unsplash Discover the 90/10 Principle  It will change your life ( at least the way you react to situations). What is this principle? 10% of life is made up of what happens to you. 90% of life is decided by how you react. What does this mean? We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us. We cannot stop the car from break ing down . The plane will be late arriving, which messes up   our whole schedule. A driver may cut us off in traffic. We have no control over this 10%. The other 90% is different. You determine the other 90%. How? By your reaction. You cannot control a red light. but you can control your reaction. Don’t let people fo ol you; you can control how you react. Let’s use an example. You are eating breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over  a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just happened. What happens next will be determined by how you react...

Source:  Estúdio Bloom on Unsplash Avocados: Spanish company launches low-fat variety From Instagram posts to morning smoothies , you cannot seem to escape the avocado in 2017. But the fruit could soon become even more popular after a Spanish company announced it is launching reduced-fat avocados for the first time. Isla Bonita claims their Avocado Light has up to 30% less fat than ordinary fruits. They also say it ripens faster, and oxidises - or goes that weird shade of brown - slower. The avocados are grown under special soil and climate conditions to provide the same nutritional benefits with less fat, according to the company's website. Avocados are a foodie hit for their rich and creamy texture caused by their high fat content - an average fruit has between 20-30g of fat. Most of this is monosaturated fat, which has been linked to the reduction of cholesterol and lowered risk of cancer and heart disease . But your morning avocado on toast could...

Source: Héctor J. Rivas on Unsplash UK's oldest postcard firm set to close When was the last time you sent a postcard? If the pronouncement of UK publisher J Salmon is anything to go by it 's likely   to have been a long time ago. The family-owned firm, which has been publish ing postcards and calendars since 1880, will close this December. The reason? It says instead of pen n ing a card , people are putting photos up on Facebook or Instagram or using WhatsApp to show friends and family at home just how much fun they're having. Brothers Charles and Harry Salmon, the fifth generation of the family to run   the firm , said the popularity of social media had had a huge   impact on the business. People are also tending to take shorter holidays, meaning they are likely to have arrived home long before their postcards, the brothers - joint managing directors of the firm - said. As a result the business was no longer viable, they said. " In...