Is it a Boy or a Girl? Another Reason to Party



Photograph: Natalee Lopez for the Observer

 Throwing ‘cake’ parties for revealing unborn babies’ sex is a new trend, which has recently swept over from the US to the UK. How is it done?  Cake sponge, wrapped in decorative icing, coloured blue for a boy or pink for a girl, is being cut by the parents at the occasion of a nice party.
Unlike the UK, the parents in the US sometimes even don’t know themselves the gender of their unborn before cutting the cake. Tens of thousands of these parties are broadcast on You Tube. Nowadays, 60% of the parents want to know the sex of their unborn child.

I just watched a few of the videos of the special ‘cake’ parties on You Tube.  There are lovely shapes of cakes with pastel colours cut in front of friends and family. Obviously, it is a very exciting moment as the gender of their new relative is to be revealed.  The time I was pregnant it was usual to keep the boy/girl knowledge as a surprise until the very moment of the delivering of the baby. If I had been pregnant in these days I surely would have done a party like this with a colourful delicious shaped cake.

British mothers join US craze for party cakes that reveal baby's sex / The Guardian 28 April 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/apr/28/british-mothers-party-cakes-babys-sex

Olympics: What Happens in the Sky?

During the Olympic Games there will be 4,000 extra flights passing through London. The National Air Traffic Services (NAT) is responsible for the overall organization of the busy air traffic in a controlled airspace, which, for this occasion, will be largely extended. The controlled zone  will be a lot larger than normally in order to guarantee safety in the traffic of commercial flights and light aircraft, balloons and helicopters. The enlargement is also important for reasons of risk assessment and threats. Therefore, NAT will work closely together with RAF. Other issues, which could affect the Olympics are queues at the border control, congestion of arriving airplanes or a special NBC Aircraft covering the games for television.

I am not really interested in sports, so normally I skip news about events like the Olympics. However,  I do like to read about the activities wich are involved in organizing such a huge event. I imagine it to be an exciting job to take care of all those aircrafts flying in to the capital, directing them smoothly to their parking places at the airport and accommodating the passengers to go and enjoy the Olympic Games. 

The article states that there will be 700 extra airliners and 3,000 executive jets. This is amazing, imagine 3,000 executive jets! I wonder who are the thousands of persons who will be flying with this jets.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17804783 London 2012: Air traffic chief speaks off challenge / BBC News 22 April 2012

Amontillado Revived on Menu Card

Twenty black-and-white pictures of the Beatles, never been seen before by the public, are put up for sale at an auction in Cheshire on 19 May. These pictures were made by Mr Allchorne, a former manager of a film studio, during the taking of the first  film of the Beatles  ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ in 1964. Mr Allchorne has kept the photos for himself unaware of its historical value. His daughter has now decided to sell the photos together with two menu cards which were made for a flight of the Beatles from London to New York.  These items have an estimate of £ 10.000.

I read the article because of a kind of nostalgic feeling. I never was really able to remember the words of a song by heart, but the lyrics of the Beatles were different, they were slowly and clearly spoken.  ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ was one of the few songs I felt I could sing decently along with. Besides this, this article mentions that one of the menus of the Beatles in 1965 has offered them a clear turtle soup amontillado. Is this the ‘amontillado’ we just met at the start of this year’s literature course?  What a surprise to meet him again on the menu card of the Beatles!

Beatles unseen photos to be sold / BBC News 22 April 2012 www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17804459

Hoodies are nice and warm

Mr Grayling, employment minister, called upon companies to employ more often ‘people from a poor background’, earlier by PM David Cameron referred to as hoodies, instead of moving jobs to low-wage countries. He opposes the people who rage against the government’s work experience scheme, possibly including unpaid work experience. According to Mr Grayling, young people should not expect that jobs come on a plate, and therefore they cannot afford to pick and choose but the youngsters have to work their way up from the bottom. He also stated that employers who give ‘hoodies’ an opportunity to work at their company might be surprised to find some genuine gems for their company.

I do agree with Mr Grayling, as a society Britain has to put time and money in place for young people who have fewer chances than others because of poverty.  Apart from that, it is equally important that employers overcome prejudice feelings towards young people from different backgrounds. I think it is legitimate to ask employers to offer jobs, experience and guidance to the unemployed in Britain instead of appointing people from abroad. As a consequence, the young unemployed are to be expected to work hard and persevere. Hoodies are warm, nice and flexible.

Give a 'hoodie' a job - Employment Minister Grayling / BBC News 18 April 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17753347

Horror nights at the hospital?

The Times approached 170 hospitals to discover whether it is true that many patients are send home at night. They received figures of 100 of the hospitals they contacted. The paper reported that each year 3.5%, which is 239,233 patients, of the 100 hospital discharges took place between 23.00 and 6.00. However, the rates between the different hospitals can vary substantially. There are some NHS trusts which even discharged 8% of their patients overnight. Although, the trusts are not sure whether the records are all reliable. Dr Mark Porter, of the British Medical Association, sees the figures as a result of the 'enormous pressure' that the health service endures.

Just imagine myself to be nicely asleep after a tough surgery and suddenly at 2 am my dear neighbour, 80 years old, is getting dressed, combing her hair and saying goodbye.

Photo: Канопус Киля 2008

Is it a reassuring thought that among those nightly discharges, the deaths are also included? So, maybe there are just a lot of people dying during the night at British hospitals. Of course it is alarming if poor old people are pushed out of their warm beds into the cold night, but may be we should look at the figures differently, and are British people dying massively at night in British hospitals? It would be nice if hospitals get the records straight!





Retrieved from the BBC news website bbc.co.uk/news/health-17685969 article "Overnight discharges from NHS Hospitals to be examined' dated 12 April 2012