Learning by songs...IMAGINE

Definitely we can the best in order to live in peace, deserving each other! I live my live and love everyone. I dedicate this song for those beloved friends, readers, teachers and friends of English tips blog. Many thanks for Teacher Irina from Lativia, she is the owner of the exercise.

Source: 

http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=3621 

All credits for Teacher Irina. 

Imagine there's no heaven
Thissee thisIt's easy if you try
No hell below thusasus
AboutAboveA bit us only sky
Imagine allhallwhole the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't heartheardhard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in placepalacepeace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
BetButBat I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll joinjoyenjoy us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greedgreatgreet or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
TearingShrinkingSharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll enjoyjoinjoy us
And the world will live as one

 

 

heaven

something heavy

to put something somewhere

= sky

below

a light shadow of blue

somewhere underneath

past simple of blow

hard

= difficult

an organ in a human's body

past simple of hear

dreamer

a person who thinks about unreal things

a person who plays the drums

a person who works too much

join

= to enjoy something

to unite

to run slowly

possessions

things that you have

a state when you have passed your exams successfully

a great number of people

wonder

to be surprised

to want to know

to travel

greed

to say "Hello"

to grow somebody or something

to want all to yourself

Sharing

to give other people what you have

something transparent

a neck of an animal

MOUNTAIN MADNESS

Source of the picture: http://www.ecotoursvictoria.com





Source: www.speakup.com.br

Language level: A2 Pre intermediate

Speaker:John Peterson

Standard: British

MOUNTAIN MADNESS

I always asked myself why people go to the mountains. For me, mountains are just big boring rocks, but many people love going up them, so there must be a reason.

So when my friend Marco invited me to a weekend in the mountains, I went. The day went like this: Marco woke me up very early. I looked at my watch and saw that it was FIVE o’clock in the morning!

“It’s five o’clock!” I shouted, “I have never woken up at five o’clock in the morning in my life!”

“Come on!” he said, “we have to go.”

THAT HAT!

I looked at Marco and saw, with total horror, that he was wearing a green “Alpino” hat with a feather in it.

I put my big bag on my back and when we opened the door I could immediately feel a terrible, cold wind on my face.

It was also raining heavily. “Aren’t you happy?” Marco smiled, “it’s raining, just like in England!”

Now I knew that I was with a complete psychopath. “OK,’ I said, “I need my umbrella, just wait a moment.” Marco was shocked: “Umbrella? You can’t take an umbrella up in the mountain! Listen, put this on.”

Now this is very difficult to believe, but Marco was offering me another green “Alpino” hat, with a feather in it!

“You don’t serious think I’m going to put that on my head, do you?” I said. “Somebody might see me!”

“There’s nobody outside at five in the morning, “he said. “Of course, there isn’t!” I said “nobody else is so stupid!”

TORTURE

When we are outside we started walking. It was horrible. My shoes were useless and my feet were cold and wet after five minutes.

“Can we stop and rest?” I asked. Marco started shouting: “We’ve only been walking for 10 minutes! We have another five hours to walk!”

Five hours? This was very bad news, of course, but I really wanted to see why people endured this nightmare, so I was patient and I walked.

Up and up we went and all I could see was rock. I continued to ask myself why, oh why people did this! … I was wet, cold and tire.

After two hours I said: “Please, Marco, can we go back?” “We’re almost there,” he said, “I want to show something. Do you want to know why we’re here? Well, soon you will see.”

After another three hours of incredible fatigue, we stopped. We were there, we had arrived at the place where I could finally see the reason for being there.

Marco was looking down with a big smile on his face. Slowly I looked down too and I saw the magic reason for this torture.

“Mushrooms”” I shouted. There were three mushrooms on the ground, that’s all there was: “We risked our lives in the rain, the cold and the wind for five hours, for mushrooms!”

EMERGY

Marco took one of the three mushrooms and ate it. I ate one, too. “NO!” Marco shouted, “that one was poisonous!.” He immediately started calling someone on his mobile phone.

Oh, my God, was I going to die? I looked down the mountain and thought: “Well, at least I won’t have to walk another five hours down the mountain in the rain!”

The helicopter arrived about 30 minutes later and took me to hospital. They pumped my stomach and I was fine, but guess what time the nurse woke me for my injections? That’s right: five o’clock in the morning! 

Imagine, food for tought

By John Lennon

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_yumV4nbKs&feature=player_embedded#at=114

Please spread this message out around the world, there is so much people starving, there is no peace around the world, there is war, promoting for those stupid world leaders, there is no freedom...But there is a hope, someone struggling for human rights, activists spread around the world, there are people interested to help people to live in a safe place, and there is a GOD (Allah) who protects everyone. Thank you for everything, for your sharing, visiting reading and commenting. I dedicate this song for you, my friends, in particular Gato Vadio http://minhagalerasabeviverfeliz.blogspot.com/ Sofia http://rzorpaesofia.blogspot.com and Toinho a friend of mine from Apodi http://toinhoffilho.blogspot.com 

Cinthia Lennon

Source: www.speakup.com.br

Standard: British accent

Speaker: Rachel Roberts and Mark Worden





Source of this picture: berikakhurtsidze.blogspot.com

 A special reading this month is from Cinthia Lennon’s book John. Which recounts her difficult marriage to the great lady Beatle. This is the book’s introduction written by the son Julian Lennon.

Foreword by Julian Lennon

Growing up as John Lennon’s on has been a rocky path. All my life I’ve had people coming up to me saying ‘I loved your Dad’. I always have every mixed feelings when I hear this. I know that Dad was an idol to millions who grew up loving his music and his ideals. But to me he wasn’t a musician or a peace icon, he was the father I loved and who let me down in so many ways. After the age of five, when my parents separated, I saw him only a handful of times, and when I did he was often remote and intimidating, I grew up longing for more contact with him but felt rejected and unimportant in his life.

Dad was a great talent, a remarkable man who stood for peace and love in the world. But at the same time he found it very hard to show any peace and love to his first family – my mother and me. In many accounts of Dad’s life Mum and I are dismissed, or at best treated as insignificant bit players in his life, which sadly is something that continues to this day. Yet Mum was his first real love and she was with him for half his adult life, from art college, to the genesis of the Beatles, to their overwhelming worldwide success. That’s why I’m so happy that she’s decided to write her side of the story. For far too long now, Mum has put up with being relegated to a puff of smoke in Dad’s life and that simply is not the truth. Now it’s time to set the record straight. There’s so much that has never been said, so many tales that have never been told. If there is to be a balanced picture of Dad’s life, then Mum’s side of the story is long overdue.

I’m immensely proud of her. She’s always been there for me; she was the one who kept it all together, taught me what matters in life and stayed strong when our world was crumbling. While Dad was fast becoming one of the wealthiest men in this field, Mum and I had very little and she was going out to work to support us. Mum has always acted with dignity and I have to thank her for who I am. I love her honestly and her courage and I know it’s taken a great deal of both for her to write her story. That’s why I offer her my full support and recommend this book to anyone who wants to know the truth, the real truth about Dad’s life.

Chapter 16

And now an excerpt from the book, in which Cynthia describes her painful divorce from John:

Money was perhaps the toughest issue. My lawyers had told me that on no account should I make contact with John as that would be collusion. I was put in touch with a top lawyer, a QC, who told me I could take John to the cleaners and fight for half his fortune. But I was finding it hard to cope with to the cold legal process. I wanted to talk to John, to tell him how much Julian missed him, to sort things out amicable. So I phoned him. ‘What do you want?’ He snapped. ‘John, I can’t bear all the animosity. It’s as though we never loved each other. They want me to take half your money, but I’d rather we talked and sorted it out between us, without any of the legal jargon.’ ‘There’s nothing to talk about. My final offer is seventy five thousand pounds. That’s like winning the pools, so what are you moaning about? You’re not worth anymore.’ On that definition note, he hung up. I told my lawyer that I didn’t want to go for half John’s fortune: I just wanted a fair and reasonable settlement. I couldn’t bear the thought of a long-drawn out battle, or exposing our marriage to public scrutiny. I just longed to have the whole thing settled. I was asked to draw up an estimate of my weekly expenditure. It came to seventy-six pounds for clothes, food, entertainment and holidays for Julian and me – just under four thousand pounds a year. My assets included a thousand pounds in the bank, my clothes and Mercedes car. I had no jewellery of any more than sentimental value. John’s assets were submitted at £750.000, although he was undoubtedly worth far more. He raised his offer to £100.000. This was broken down into £ 25.000 pounds for a house£75.000 to support me and Julian until he was twenty-one. Allowing for inflation, it would not be enough to cover even the modest annual expenses I had listed. A further £100.000 was put into a trust fund for Julian. I would be allowed to draw on the interest from this to pay school fees, but with drawls would be approved by John and Yoko, who were the co-trustees with me of the fund. It was also agreed that should John have more children the fund would be shared equally with them. While I realised that I was lucky compared to most women divorcing at that time, it still hurt to be dismissed so lightly. John was being meaner that I’d ever known him, which baffled me: typically he was generous to those around him. Why not now, to his wife and son?

Whatever his reasons, I had no energy for a fight. In so many ways he was no longer the kind-hearted, passionate and witty and I had fallen in love with. Worn down by the miserable business of negotiating through lawyers, and still smarting from John’s withering remark about winning the pools, I accepted his offer.

Our decree nisi was granted on 8 November 1968. I was summoned to the divorce court and went alone, driven there by loyal Les Anthony who, although he was now working solely for John, was still a good friend to me. Walking into court beside my lawyer was terrifying. The place was packed with the press and I had to swear in front of them under oath that my marriage had broken down irretrievably, that my husband had publicly admitted adultery and that Yoko was pregnant by him.

Throughout this awful, surreal experience I felt humiliated and painfully aware that I was alone. Afterwards I fled home and collapsed, sick with apprehension about the future. I had no idea how I would cope and still found it hard to believe that, after ten years together, I had been severed from John’s life with a few brief words from a judge in a public court. I should have hated John for what he had put me through. I was certainly angry with him and bitterly hurt. But I couldn’t hate him. Despite everything, I loved him still.