Friday 25 February 2011

Valentine’s Day is the traditional day in which people usually celebrate love and affection. It is an annual celebration held on February 14. In UK, sending card on that day has been a custom that has been going on at least 150 years. But valentine’s card is really different to cards for another occasion because for valentine’s cards, couples will give them each other and you can also send/receive anonymous card to anyone you secretly loves. It is also popular in UK on Valentine’s Day to send text messages but, it is not really the good way to declare your love to somebody. Except of cards, the commons gifts to give on Valentine’s Day are flowers and chocolate.But there are some interesting valentine's gifts that could be offered such as pampering session at a health club for a women and  a chance to test drive a ferrari for a men.Nowadays,Valentines's day celebration depend on couple; but many peoples to celebrate this day,they went to a restaurant,eat whith candle in a romantic way.Other peoples prefer to participates in valentine's day dance parties or balls usually organised by clubs or hotels.Cinema is also an option to celebrated the Valentine's day
St David's day is the tradional day of the Welsh ccelebrated in Wales on 1 March, in honour of St David (Dewi Sant), the patron saint of Wales.
Saint David (Dewi Sant:welsh name) was living in the sixth century,son of Non(daughter of a local chieftain and niece of King Arthur) and of Sant(son of Ceredig pronce of Ceredignon).The reason why the first of March celebrated as St David's day is because he is reputed to have died on the first of march 589 and the same day,the monastary is said to have been "filled with angels as Christ received his soul".There are two Welsh symbols which are traditionally associated with St David's day :the Leek(Saint David's personal symbol) and the Daffodil(a generic Welsh symbol which is in season during March).
Every year parades are held in Wales to commemorate St. David. The largest of these is held in Cardiff. Celebrations included concerts, a parade and a food festival.Many Welsh people wear one or both of the national emblems of Wales to celebrate St. David or they could also wear the Welsh traditional costumes and this costume consists of a long woollen skirt, white blouse, woollen shawl and a Welsh hat:for girls.

Referenses: http://www.welsh-costume.co.uk/,http://sucs.org/~rhys/stdavid.html,
http://www.stvalentinesday.org/valentines-day-celebration.html

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Women MPs

In the UK , there are two Houses of Parliament which are the House of Commons and the House of Lords.But,because he decides national policy, The House of Commons has more power than The house of Lords.There are 659 constituencies in the United Kingdom divided by 529 in England,72 in Scotland, 40 in Wales and 18 in Northen Ireland.All of them are not the same geographical size be cause it depends on their cities.After a general election, the government forms by The Political party with most MP and in this occasion, pepoles are supposed to vote for a person to be the MP for their consticuency and the person who has the most votes wins,even if they have only one vote more than the next person : that is called the "first past the post" system.
In th House of Commons,there are mens and womens mps which are candidate but we will put an interest to Women MPs.
According to this link,there is a list of  Women MPs by date of election :http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/m04b.pdf. At the moment,there are 143 women MPs.In 1919,Countess Constance Moukievicz was the first woman elected to the House of Commons,as she did not take her seat in protest against Britain's policy Ireland.The first woman who was elected and take the seat as a woman MPs was Viscountess Nancy from 15 November 1919 to 1945,and she was represented the Conservative Party..

Advantages and Disadvantages of the E.U

The European Union is a set up with many goals,among to reducts war probablilty,reduces monetary instability, eliminates exchange rates and favors trade,... The six founders are Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands,and now there are now 27 EU members with a total population of 479.1 million people.
For thoses members there are some disadvantages and advantages of belonging to the EU.
For the disadvantages, we can talk about:-The reduction of sovereinety .
                                                                   -Loss of independence in many areas
                                                                   -After some year will not have traditional thinks for every country.
However,belonging to the EU does not have only bad side,there are some advantages of that also
For the advantages:we can talk about :- High reduction of war probablilty
                                                              - A European currency that reduces monetary instability, eliminates exchange rates and favors trade
                                                              -Europeans can move around freely within the European Union without asking for a visa,then when somebody travel around the Eu he could just have to show his ID card instead of his passport                                                            
                                                              -Elimination of transaction costs.According to http://library.thinkquest.org/19110/english/advantag/advantag.html , "For instance, Uk firms currently spend about £1.5 billion a year buying and selling foreign currencies to do business in the EU.
With the EMU this is eliminated, so increasing profitability of EU firms.
"

References: http://www.economicshelp.org/europe/disadvantages-eu.html, http://www.bized.co.uk/learn/economics/international/eu/notes/euindex.htm