Table of contents for N. 462 in Speak Up Italia

SPEAKER MOLLY MALCOLM Stretching1 2.7 miles along the southern shore2 of Coney Island, a peninsular neighborhood in the New York City borough3 of Brooklyn, the Riegelmann Boardwalk4 (also known as the Coney Island Boardwalk) is a famous seafront promenade5. It opened in 1923 and was named after Edward J. Riegelmann, the Brooklyn borough president who was among the promoters of the project. The boardwalk runs between West 37th Street to the west and Brighton 15th Street to the east. It ends in Brighton Beach, a neighbourhood nicknamed6 Little Odessa after Odesa, the Ukrainian port city that came to symbolise mass immigration of mainly Ashkenazi Jews from the Soviet Union in the first half of the 20th century. The wooden planks7 of the boardwalk are always full of people, walking, exercising,…

SPEAKERS MOLLY MALCOLM & DANIEL FRANCIS Hello! We always meet by the water cooler1! I know! How are you keeping? Are you enjoying the four-day week trial2? Yes, it’s great, isn’t it? I feel kind of guilty3, though4. Why? It’s not like it’ll affect the company’s profits5. But how can that be true? We’re working less for the same money! Because we’re more productive! We use our worktime better. Yes, I do try to use every minute to get stuff done. Exactly. But it’s so great I have more time with my kids. And I don’t have to waste6 Saturdays food shopping. I guess we’ll all be less stressed. As they say, a happy workforce7 is a productive workforce. That’s right. Fewer people skiving off, too, now we have more…

BO-OKS American novelist and filmmaker Bret Easton Ellis shot to fame1 in 1985 after the success of his first book Less Than Zero. He became truly notorious2 in 1991, however, with the novel American Psycho. That book, later made into a film starring Christian Bale, was initially slammed3 for being overly4 violent and misogynistic, but has since been reappraised5 by critics. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL? After a thirteen-year hiatus, Easton Ellis is back with The Shards6, an auto-fictional novel that was originally serialised on his paid-for7 podcast, but was subsequently published in book form. In it, the fifty-nineyear-old revisits his 1980s high school days using his memories as a backdrop8 to explore his typical themes of sex and violence. A cast of affluent teenagers, caught up9 in a world of drugs and casual…

FICTION SPEAKER MOLLY MALCOLM It was the place where souls go between lives. Old Soul, who had lived over two hundred lives on Earth, had invited New Soul, who had lived only five lives on Earth, to accompany him as he chose his next life. Of course, ‘he’ wasn’t really a ‘he’, since souls are genderless1, and can choose to be male, female or non-binary in their next lifetime2. “What gender do you think I should identify with in my next life?” asked Old Soul, using the terminology that had become popular on Earth, as the human species had evolved their understanding of gender identity. “Well, I haven’t lived many lives,” said New Soul, “but I’ve lived enough to know that Earth is a man’s world. So, if I were…

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…

CULTURE INTERVIEW SPEAKER MOLLY MALCOLM The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art is a 66-acre museum complex in Sarasota, Florida. Established1 in 1927, the art museum was built by famed circus impresario John Ringling (1866-1936) as a legacy to the citizens of Florida. In addition to antiquities and classical paintings, sculptures and artefacts from around the world, the museum also boasts2 an extensive collection of materials related to the history and evolution of American circus. To find out more, Speak Up contacted Jennifer Lemmer Posey, the Tibbals Curator of Circus at the Ringling Museum. As she explains, the Ringling Circus was significant in that it brought together different circuses over its 150 years of life. In 1871, P. T. Barnum and his partner James Bailey had come up with3…

SPEAKER SARAH DAVISON Throughout history, the world of work has been in constant evolution. Each new change has impacted the way we do our work, our personal lives and our mental health. With the development of artificial intelligence (AI) we are facing yet another revolution in our working lives. But are we ready for it? The Industrial Revolution transformed Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, but several innovations were developed1 as early as the 1700s; for example, the machinery in textile mills2. This led to unrest3 among the workers, who, having moved from rural areas to be close to the mills, now feared losing their jobs to machines. Philosophers also worried that the working person’s life had been reduced to a monotonous grind4. EIGHT-HOUR DAYS Luckily, there were some well-meaning5…

SPEAKER SARAH DAVISON If you are in a cycle of exhaustion1 and worry2, you are not alone. In the post-Covid world work is even more precarious. There are more ‘gig economy’ jobs and short-term contracts, more self-employed people with erratic incomes, and for those in stable employment, longer hours and more pressure. Work is badly distributed: people have too much, too little, or both in the same month. BULLSHIT JOBS For many of us, work is considered important and even thought to give our lives meaning. Go to a café, and people have brought their laptops. Smartphones are sold on the premise that one can work anywhere at anytime. But what is ‘work’ exactly, when it can feel pointless3, or even socially or environmentally damaging? In his 2018 book Bullshit4…

SPEAKER SARAH DAVIDSON School dinners (that means ‘lunch’) are a hot topic1 in the UK these days and there are lots of different opinions about what young people eat at lunchtime. Some people think that school meals2 are unhealthy, some people say that they are much better than in the past and others say that midday3 meals should be free for all schoolchildren. WHAT IS A SCHOOL DINNER? More than a third of British school pupils have school dinner. Others take a packed lunch4 to school, prepared at home, or have lunch at home, or even eat at nearby5 take-away restaurants. A typical school dinner costs about two pounds a day for a secondary pupil in the UK. There is usually a main course6, a dessert and a drink. Parents…

LANGUAGE SPEAKER SARAH DAVISON We all know British people love to talk about the weather and in particular, they enjoy complaining1 about the rain. That’s not surprising since, on average2, they endure3 199 days of rain every year — that’s four days a week! What is surprising is that after the long hot summer of 2022, a lot of Brits wanted their rain back! One reason for this is that a prolonged period of drought can quickly lead to a hosepipe ban4, which means people lucky enough to have a garden cannot water5 it. We like to think of England as a “green and pleasant land”, as the poet William Blake put it, and if there’s one thing most Britons can’t stand, it’s a dry, brown landscape. Our intimate relationship…

PLACES INTERVIEW SPEAKER SARAH DAVISON The Jane Austen Festival takes place in Bath from Friday 8th to Sunday 17th September this year. Thousands of people will unite in their love of all things1 Austen for ten days, turning back time2 in the halls3 and on the streets of the Regency city. We spoke to festival director Georgia Delve from the Jane Austen Centre. She explained what visitors can expect. Georgia Delve (British accent): Within the festival, there are walks, talks, workshops… The workshops are anything from dancing, to how to make a bonnet4, to embroidery5, we've had. We also have our big balls, so we have two balls this year, one of which is going to be in the Assembly Rooms in Bath. So, we have over 300 people, we…

A five-day, forty-hour working week was the best model when most people worked outside the home on business premises during established hours. Technological innovation has changed all that. Can we take control of those changes and make them work for us in a positive way, for example, by working less for the money we earn? The UK’s 4-Day Week Campaign thinks the answer is a definite yes! As the campaign’s homepage claims: “The UK works longer hours than most of Europe. It is not making us more productive. It is making us stressed, over-worked and burnt out. It is time for a four-day week.” Joe Ryle is the director of the 4-Day Week Campaign. Speak Up asked him why so many people feel it would be impossible for them to…

SPEAKER MOLLY MALCOLM In September 2001 the Black Eyed Peas1 were in California working on preliminary recordings for “Elephunk”, their third album, when the 9/11 attacks on New York’s World Trade Center happened. This greatly affected their songwriting, as they attempted2 to crossover3 from being an alternative hip hop group to reaching a wider audience as a more marketable4 pop-rap act5. In an interview founding member will.i.am said the emotions in Where Is The Love? are from that time, when he created a loop6 over and he and his two bandmates wrote lyrics, each performing his own verse. The chorus is by Justin Timberlake, although his record company refused to allow him to be credited7. The song is a reflection on social injustice in the world, and is almost entirely…