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TOP BRITS The American inventor Alexander Graham Bell, famous for his pioneering work on the development of the telephone, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847. Inventing was in Bell’s blood: as a child, he invented a machine to clean wheat1 and a type of speaking robot. LIFE-SAVING MOVE In 1870, Bell’s family emigrated to Canada after the deaths of his two brothers from tuberculosis. His parents hoped the move2 would save their last child. A year later, Bell moved to Boston, US, to work as a teacher of the deaf3. On a visit to see his mother, herself almost deaf, he conceived of the idea of electronic speech4 and started working on the development of an “electrical speech machine”, as he called the first telephone. TRANSMITTING SPEECH Bell was…

To understand the present, look back sixty years to the 1960s. This traumatic decade of high-profile1 killings fomented widespread2 anxiety and mistrust3. It also marked a boom in conspiracy theories, today’s political weapons of mass manipulation! Aside from the JFK assassination, some of the most high-profile and mysterious deaths of the 1960s were: MALCOLM X Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1931, Malcolm X was an African-American Muslim minister4 and a prominent figure in the civil rights movement; the ‘X’ signified his original, lost tribal name, the surname Little having been imposed on his ancestors by their slave master. A spokesperson5 for the Black nationalist group Nation of Islam, he received death threats on leaving the organisation. He was shot twenty-one times at a public event in New York…

In the 1930s a campaign was conducted by the German Student Union in Nazi Germany to ceremonially burn books. The books targeted were those viewed as being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to Nazism. This common practice of authoritarian regimes seems extreme today. But, in fact, challenging1, censoring or banning2 books is very common in democracies, too. HUCKLEBERRY FINN The US has been challenging, censoring or outright3 banning books for centuries. This can be for political, moral or religious reasons. Mark Twain’s book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been challenged numerous times, most recently because it is said to be “racially insensitive”. Such controversies are often widely publicised. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE However, the vast majority of challenges these days target books, old and new, written by or expressing the…

As the world around us increases in technological complexity, our understanding of it diminishes. As we have more accessibility to information, we are lost in a sea of data, too overwhelmed1 to act. This state of paradox gave rise to the book New Dark Age in which artist and writer James Bridle surveys the history of art, technology and information systems from a fascinating perspective. Trained2 in computing, Bridle still believes that technology is full of possibilities; it’s just, he says, that most of us have either lost control over it or never had it in the first place. From financial systems to shopping algorithms, artificial intelligence to state secrecy, we no longer understand how our world is governed or presented to us. So how do we access this…

ARTICOLI PER LIVELLI Tutti i nostri articoli hanno un codice di colore che indica il livello di difficoltà dell’inglese in base al Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. A2 PRE-INTERMEDIATE B1 LOWER INTERMEDIATE B2 UPPER INTERMEDIATE C1 ADVANCED C2 PROFICIENCY GLOSSARIO In ogni articolo troverai le parole più rilevanti affiancate da un numero del colore corrispondente al livello di difficoltà, oltre alla traduzione nel glossario correlato. G in and tonic is arguably1 Britain’s favourite drink GLOSSARY 1 arguably:probabilmente2 to skyrocket:andare alle stelle EXPLAINS Le frasi evidenziate in giallo sono quelle che hanno bisogno di approfondimenti, come nel caso di riferimenti storici o culturali, frasi fatte, proverbi o espressioni di slang. Troverai la spiegazione alla fine dell’articolo. SPEAK UP IN CLASS Ogni mese su Speak Up troverai anche degli esercizi…

The electric guitar was the natural evolution of the acoustic guitar. However, while the first attempts at creating an electrified string instrument1 date back to the 19th century, it wasn’t until the 1930s that an electric guitar was developed. In the early 20th century, acoustic guitars were very popular in American rural music, especially thanks to African-American blues musicians. But they had an important limitation: volume. In an ensemble2 of brass3, woodwind4 and other string instruments, the acoustic guitar was barely5 noticeable6. As jazz and swing music exploded and young people crowded7 the dance floors, guitarists needed to amplify their sound somehow8. A microphone just wasn’t enough to make a guitar stand out in a big band. A SOUND INVESTMENT The electric guitar was patented in 1937 by George Beauchamp,…

CULTURE Some museums contain artworks that were looted1 by the Nazis during World War Two. Others have amassed collections of objects stolen by colonial powers. Yet others saw their own collections plundered2 as the spoils of war3. The Mauritshuis in The Hague has it all. Founded in the 17th century by a Dutch prince who governed a colony in what is now Brazil, the museum once held many so-called “ethnographic” objects in its “cabinet of curiosities.” During the Napoleonic era, the French army stole its entire painting collection. And the Mauritshuis still holds two dozen works identified as Nazi-looted art, for which rightful4 owners have not been found. “The whole history of the museum is very closely related to war booty5 and looted art,” said the Mauritshuis’s director, Martine Gosselink,…

Hi! I’m looking for a book called The Hate U1 Give. There was a film based on it. Are you a member? Do I have to be? No, you can read books here, but membership2 is free and you can borrow up to3 ten books at a time4. How long can I keep them for? You can keep them for a month. If you want them any longer5, you can renew them online or by phone. What happens if I haven’t returned them by the due date? Well, you should bring them back on time6 and there’s a drop-off box that’s open 24/7. But there is a fine of £1 a day per overdue book. That’s reasonable. What about the book I asked for? I know some people consider it…

We’re almost at the point of no return,” said one of the representatives at the Galactic Federation meeting. Commander Eaton, the only human in the room inside Area 51 — an Air Force military installation in the Nevada desert — thought of this speaker as ‘the Reptile’. Naturally, the three alien representatives in the federation had complicated official names. But to Commander Eaton, they had always been the Reptile, the Green and the Humanoid. He couldn’t help the repulsion he experienced whenever1 he looked at the Reptile, who had a human form but reptilian characteristics. He was grateful2, as always, that it was the Green who was telepathic, and not the Reptile, who would certainly have been offended by his internal reaction to him. “I believe Commander Eaton and his…

CULTURE HOW DO YOU SAY... Devo portare questa croce.This is my cross to bear. Scots welcome the winter with a celebration of their patron saint on 30 November. St. Andrew’s Day is a voluntary bank holiday and cèilidhs take place the length and breadth of1 the country. Cèilidhs are social gatherings2 that feature traditional food, drink, music and dancing. PEANUTS TO PRESIDENT Not a lot is known about the saint himself. Ironically, he never set foot3 in Scotland. He and his brother Simon Peter were fishermen from Galilee and the first of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. In 60AD, he was martyred for his beliefs: he was crucified by the Romans in Patras, Greece. It is said that he thought himself unworthy4 of dying in the same way as…

BOOKS Four hundred years ago, in November 1623, a volume of plays appeared on a bookstall1 in the market in St. Paul’s churchyard2. Two years in preparation, the book was entitled Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. Shakespeare had died seven years earlier, and two of his actor colleagues, Henry Condell and John Heminges, were determined that his art should not die with him. BARD’S FIRST COLLECTION The printing of the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays was a slow, intricate3 process, using the writer’s own manuscripts (none of which survives today), theatre prompt4 copies and old, small quarto5 editions. Only half of the thirty-six plays in the book’s nine hundred pages had been published before, so Condell and Heminges’ act saved for posterity such literary classics as Macbeth,…

MUSIC Oasis dominated the 1990s music scene, growing from a local Manchester indie band to a chart-topping1 powerhouse2 that defined the Britpop era. Their concerts at Knebworth, England, in 1995 were the culmination of a rocketing3 — and rocky4 — rise5 to fame. By then, everyone knew brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, the band’s songwriter and frontman6 respectively. Around half a million fans attended the two concerts held over one weekend in August. The band eventually broke up acrimoniously7 in 2009. GLOBAL SUCCESS Over the years, Oasis have sold seventy-eight million albums worldwide, with 1995’s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. On the 20th anniversary of Knebworth, Noel Gallagher asked Simon Halfon, a British graphic designer, movie producer and friend, to do…

On 22 November 1963, US president John F. Kennedy was mortally wounded1 as he rode in a motorcade2 in Dallas, Texas. At the time, the forty-six-year-old Democrat was campaigning to win a second term as president in the 1964 election. Sixty years on, and another US election looms3. Today, candidates receive protection from US security forces — but perhaps it is the voters who need looking out for4. LONE GUNMAN After the assassination, Kennedy’s accused killer was quickly arrested, though he never reached trial: Lee Harvey Oswald, a former US marine with a history of psychiatric illness who had defected5 for a time to the Soviet Union, was shot dead within days6 by Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner with mafia connections. In 1964, US president Lyndon B. Johnson set up…

CINEMAThe Guardian Throughout his career, Stanley Kubrick never cared much about ingratiating himself1 to the audience, so it’s an achievement that A Clockwork Orange, his controversial adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel, is the most repellent film of his career. That’s not to say it isn’t an audacious and frequently brilliant film, but watching it can feel like getting into a 136-minute argument2 — with Kubrick, with yourself, and with a society that wrestles3 imperfectly (and often unjustly and tragically) with issues of law-and-order and individual rights. There’s something here to infuriate people on both ends of the political spectrum, and even if you accept it as a satire that has no ideological allegiances4, that can be infuriating, too. And this is to say nothing of its extreme unpleasantness. Yet…

The novel The Boy in the Striped1 Pyjamas was a global phenomenon. Written for a young adult (YA) audience, in the years since its release in 2006 the book has become a reference for awareness2 of the horror of the Holocaust. Now, award-winning Irish author John Boyne has published a sequel called All the Broken Places. This book is aimed at3 an adult audience. In his first book, the subject is delicately handled in a way that is understandable for children. This sensitivity characterises Boyne’s work, whose novels cover some of society’s most difficult issues4. His most recent young adult novel, My Brother’s Name is Jessica, deals with transgender identity. To find out more, Speak Up contacted Boyne. We began by asking him why he chooses such controversial subjects. John…