Blog post 2 – The British Government and Sports in London

Hey again! Its me Are and in this post i will be sharing some of my new knowledge about the British government and the worlds most beautiful game, Football. I will be focusing on English football and its great impact on both me and the world!

So we can start off with a little update on how its going here in London with the Thompsons. Well haha, its going great. Paddington is a pleasant place to learn/ socialize, me and Dardan have both made many friends and have become best friends with Alex. Things are great at home and there is lots to do in our free time.  The Chelsea area is very central and one can learn so much about British culture just by walking around here. In Chelsea you can find the typical classy suit and tie Englishmen. Students walk by in their uniforms and there are more fish and chips restaurants then i thought, there are also many historical landmarks here in London, Britain having such a long and rich history one can really learn a lot by just walking around.

Now one thing i would really like to share and talk about is the British government. Its old, Its a little bit complicated and there are many different systems within the government, it has some similarities with the American government but its still very different. Now to start of with the basics, it is a Parliamentary Democracy meaning that the country is lead by a parliament elected by the people. Unlike the American government it has no written constitutions, the governments system is based on traditions, old laws and documents, the oldest being the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta was written in 1215 and has been the foundation for many countries laws about giving power to the people. The Magna Carta limits the power of the Monarchs and stats that the highest powers within a country can also be held accountable for their wrong doings. The Americans for example took this with them and their highest form of power can be taken to court by the Supreme Court. This was written in the bill of rights within the American constitution. Today the Magna Carta limits the power of the monarchs and everyone in the government. The Cabinet is build up of 20 ministers chosen by the Prim Minister. Then there’s the house of commons, which approve of laws. Then there’s the house of lords, they can tell the house of commons that they must review a laws because they do not agree, but they can in no way approve of a law. Traditions really come in when talking about the House of Lords, Englishmen can actually inherit a spot in the house of lords.

·         The Monarchs: King and Queen

·         The Prim Minister: leader of the government

·          The Cabinet: 20 chosen minsters

·         House of Commons: dis/approve of laws made by the Cabinet

·         House of Lords: can stop a law and tell the House of Commons to review it, but cannot approve of laws. Can inherit their position.

·         Supreme Court: can call in people within the government and Monarchy to stand trail.

This i learnt a few days ago at Paddington.

Football culture

School is great and I’m learning so much about the UK, but now i want to talk about a very special Saturday night out at Mr. Thompsons Pub watching one of the greatest victories for Chelsea this year. Being of course the three to one win over Manchester United. Chelsea’s forward Samuel Eto’o scored a nice hat rick (when one player scores three goals), the first time a Chelsea player scores a hat rick against Manu since 1954. I am a huge fan of English football myself but wow! These fans where enthusiastic . Football has many names, the one i like the most is the English disease, this sport has spread across the world and ingrained itself into many countries national identity.  Football culture itself is a big discussion.  Football has both a great infamous side to it but has as well a darker side.

The Greatness of football and its culture:

·         It unites people from all over the world.

·         There are football campaigns against discrimination and racism

·         There is even a food culture within football. The Germans eat  sausages and drink beer while watching games, the Brazilians eat pepperoni sandwiches and the English often eat meat pies while watching games.

·         Big competitions like the UEFA Champions league or the FIFA world cup really make a lot of tension and bring fans close together.

·         For some the sport even becomes a religion where they either worship the game or a player, a great example of this is Diego Maradona and his extremely loyal fans at Napoli, an Italian team.  

·         In England for example, where the sport is so big, there are even all football newspapers and magazines.

Some of footballs darker sides:

·         Football has often been the cause of many fights and deaths between fans.

·         Hooliganism, where fans become so loyal that they will fight with other fans on the stand point of protecting their teams name.

·         Deaths: footballs biggest problems are with fans. Fans trough football history have killed and beat up not only other fans but also players who have had a bad game.

Now a quicky intro on the  Barclays Premier League, the top division in English football. It started in 1992. There are 20 teams playing for the title.  Every year the three teams whom played the worst and get the least amount of points will be relegated to a lower division while the three whom played the best in the lower division will be promoted and play in the top division. Every team plays against each other twice, ones at their home field and ones away at the opponents field. The point system is three points for a win, one point to each team for a draw and zero points if a team loses. 

House of Lords Chamber

UK Prim Minister David Cameron

 
The Barclays Premier League logo


Chelsea fans cheering for their team

sources:
http://jonathanwynn.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/football-culture-in-the-uk/
ndla.no
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_football_culture
https://www.gov.uk/
alll read on xx.xx.xxxx

Me and my life in England

Me and my life in England

Blog post: 2

Author: Dardan Badivuku

Hello blog! Its Dardan again and I’m bringing you another great blog about me and my life in England. These last days I have been relaxing with both my school friends and my new family that actually brings out something of what I am going to talk about. My school friends! Well, were they are from.

My school-friends at Paddington Academy, aka the best school ever!! Are first of all amazing, they treat me great and I can feel like my self when I’m with them. As all of my blog readers know is that I attend Paddington Academy at great, big London. Well, back to the case! My friends, or mostly of my school-friends are from many several countries and the School just brings out many several cultural backgrounds , witch also is one of the reason we chose to attend Paddington, we (me and my boy Are)  thought that we could fit in, because we are just like the others, with different backgrounds and a lot of different cultural traits, for an example my self, I am from Norway (obviously..) and I have many cultural moves that I my self brought from Norway, while my friend Jack who is from Canada have other cultural features than my self, so even thought we all, or again mostly of us are from different countries, we fit together into a whole new society with a lot of differences and similarities with the British traits. So I would say that my school has an huge influence on some of the multiculturalism that rules some parts of England through the later years.

So as I said England have throughout the later years had an huge influence by the multiculturalism, witch now have settled for generations and will keep on settling, so we could today say that the UK has become a melting pot of different cultures, especially after the colonies became independent. In London schools, there are now children with over 160 different mother tongues. Including my own school as I have mentioned a couple of times so far. Actually the minority ethnic population is 4.6 million people, 7.9% of the total population. About half of the non-white population was born in the UK. Despite democratic ideals and anti-racist laws, the country has not yet solved the problems of a multicultural society, but so far today people can easily immigrate to the UK. The emigration to the UK have only gotten bigger throughout the years, today the country with most emigrants to the UK is the Indians, Pakistan and Asians, mostly from China, but even thought so many countries are affecting UK, it still has it own, great traditionalism that could symbolize the country in a way.

England or actually the whole UK have many traditions that stands them from other countries around the world.  We have many underthems that can go under the category traditionalism, but I chose to talk about the class consciousness. We could first off all start off by splitting England in what we call “the Great Divide” this separates the north side with the south site, actually these to sides have so many differences they could have been to different countries.  So as I said the English often talk about the Great Divide between the North and the South. There are many differences in culture and attitudes. Whereas northerners are seen as being more open, talkative and sociable, southerners are considered more withdrawn, treating strangers politely and correctly, and I will know look further inn to it.

The North of England or also called the industrial North. The north is called this because of their hard times with many different industrials, for an example with coal factory, mine factories and also the textile mills. They were then often overworked and underpaid and lived in crowded conditions in the smoky, industrial cities. Liverpool was once a port employing tens of thousands of men, loading and unloading ships trading with Britain's colonies and North America. Later on, or since the 1970’s the North of England has experienced a heavy economic recession. The majority of the coalmines closed, and Britain no longer had automatic access to cheap raw materials, as it had long since lost all its colonies. This have again led to that the unemployment that ruled the north before have slowly disappeared.  This shows and tells some of the way you could spot if a guy is from the north, we now know that the northern are from the industrial classes and needs to work , but since we have learned about the northern side, we also need to see the southern side and see if there are any similarities or differences.

The south aka the place I live!!! Is the greatest place ever (just kidding). The South of England is renowned for farming, modern technology and economics. Many of the new industries, such as high technology and service industries, have developed here. It is also the area most visited by foreign tourists, mainly because of London. The capital city. This means that the Southern people of England dress much more “fashionable” (don’t know the word to explain it) and that they are the people of England that are more into them self, unlike the northern who are more talkative and open to strangers. The southern have the newest technology and economics, even thought the northern part have reached the southern sites through the years, but even though the great divide divides the northern and southern part , we could still divide the whole people living in England into 7 different classes.  Before there where 3 different classes, but throughout the years they have grown up four more classes, seven in total. These seven different classes will be describes in a table below, and you could also take a test to see what class you are, so lets look at the different classes. These different classes basically symbolizes what class you are in the English society.

1. THE ELITE

Percentage of population: Six
Average age: 57

Most privileged group with savings of more than £140,000 and top university education. Their income is £89,000 and their home is worth an average of £325,000. They enjoy the theatre, art galleries, museums and jazz.

2. ESTABLISHED MIDDLE CLASS

Percentage of population: 25
Average age: 46

Second wealthiest and largest group, with household income of £47,000 a year, a house worth £177,000 and savings of £26,000. A quarter of the population fall within its ranks and it might be seen as the comfortably-off bulwark of British society.

3. TECHNICAL MIDDLE CLASS

Percentage of population: Six
Average age: 52

Prosperous but with little interest in social or cultural events. It makes up only six per cent of the population but is prosperous – earning around £38,000, with excellent household savings of £66,000 and houses worth an average of £163,000.

4. NEW AFFLUENT WORKERS

Percentage of population: 15
Average age: 44

Young group on moderate incomes, owning homes worth £129,000 with small savings. They prefer playing and watching sport, computer games and social networking to traditional pastimes. Few have been to university but most work in private sector.

5. TRADITIONAL WORKING CLASS

Percentage of population: 14
Average           age: 66

Oldest group, with house values of £127,000 but with incomes of only £13,000. There are few graduates and traditional working class jobs like lorry drivers, cleaners and electricians are over-represented as are menial white-collar jobs like secretaries.

6 .EMERGENT SERVICE WORKERS

Percentage of population: 19
Average age: 34

New, young urban group with modest household income of £21,000, likely to rent and only having modest savings. They work usually in the service sector, for example, bar work, chefs, customer service occupations and call centre workers.

7. THE PRECARIAT

Percentage of population: 15
Average age: 50

The poorest class, with a household income of only £8,000, negligible savings, and likely to rent. Most deprived on all measures including social and cultural. They represent 15 per cent of the population and tend to be located in old industrial areas.

 

Here are all the different classes that today are included in the English society, these have seperated the English classes that earlier ruled in England.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A picture of what multiculturalism had led to in the UK.

 

 

 

 

 

Two men from the great divide, can you guess who is from witch side?

 

 

 

A picture of me doing the "classes of UK" test and getting the Elite class, try it yourself!

 

Sources:

http://ndla.no/en/node/5713?fag=42&meny=2055

http://ndla.no/en/node/5583?fag=42&meny=2055

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/389166/Britain-and-its-seven-new-social-classes-so-where-do-you-fit-in 

(All sources were read 25.03.2014)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

English Literature

First Post - Dardan

Who is the baddest of them all? Its ya boy The Bad aka Dardan. Today was my first day at Paddington academy the most awesome state school ever.  I was greeted amazingly by all of my new classmates and they led me right into their “group.”  I told my new high school mates that I had a new blog, and hopefully me and my boyz will get some new readers. Anyways as I said, it was my first day at Paddington Academy and I wanted to show something I’ve learned in my English lesson. My middle-aged teacher came slowly into the classroom holding a bunch of papers and immediately divided them into many different stacks that obviously contained literary text about several themes, and our only task was to pick one of them and kind of analyze it, so it was natural that I took the texts about British culture and society since it is my first time in England and I wanted to learn more about both the culture and society. So it was actually perfect that we got this task, also both of the authors were British themself so that was a huge bonus for me, and when I started reading the literary text I were totally shocked by the content of the text and I immediately wanted to show you the text and reflect on the one I chose, so no further o do, here it is!

The text that I chose is a novel and it is called for your best, son! And the famous author Elizabeth George wrote it.  She is a famous author all around the world and she as well as given out many books received many rewards for here books. To quickly sum up the text or the novel as it is . The novel takes up a scene or an conflict between the newspaper editor Denis Luxford and his wife Fiona. Denis wants to send his young son Leo to the public school himself went to where he will be living in a boarder school 80 miles away from home, while Fiona on the other hand thinks that Leo will be better off staying at home and continuing at his present school with his old friends. Luxford then takes his son Leo out for lunch to try at convinces him about going away to the school Baverstock.

So this quickly sums up the novel, and as soon as I was done reading it, I started thinking about some similarities and differences between this novel and the British society and culture. This text also reached out to me because i can relate to it, but i wanted to try moving abroad for a year and thats why i came to London.

So the novel brings up many things that I could bind with my area of living here In London, first off all everyone have to wear an school uniform, whatever you are participating a state school or a private school, this is like natural in the text and between the area I live around, but for me who comes from Norway where we don’t have these school uniforms, it is kind of unnatural to not even bring it up since it is so natural for them.  One of the main things that I also see, is that when I walk past an private school, I see like the students attending on these schools looking down at the rest of us from state school, I feel that is horrible and I think they basically do it because it means that they have more money to pay for school, they have more class and so on. This could also be one of the reasons of why Leo in the book didn’t want to move, even though it is not explained that much.  So even though I from the description are totally unlike Leo, we still think the same when it comes to the society and where we are going to live, and that we have to leave old friends behind.

I also notice that children all over England gets send away to border schools, kind of being forced by their parents. The main story of the novel is that Leo the son doesn’t want to leave for border school, but get forced by his dad because he thinks it is for his best. This happens a lot in England. Even though the kids don’t want to leave, they have to because of their parent’s decision and that is the biggest similarities in the novel and all around the British society.

So to sum up shortly the novel it is a great novel that could bind the British culture and society with the text, even though the text is only a few pages long. So this was all for this time, hope you like the novel (for those of you who read it) and enjoy, see you!

 

 

Picture of English school uniforms

 Here is a photo of the different classes before the new seven classes


Sources:
- English book (the text for your best son!)

 

 

Fist Post About Life in London

 

Intro

Hey fellow blogg readerzzz!!! Welcome to the TTB blog a.k.a. Tea Time With Bond! This blog consists of two authors, Dardan and of course me, Are! We are a group of Norwegians and we will be spending a year abroad in the great UK, more specifically London, England. I, myself am a Norwegian Canadian and I live in Oslo, Norway. Iv visited the England once before (loved it) and I’m ready to learn more with my year abroad at Paddington Academy located in central west London.  Joining me is of course is Notsobad Dardan from Norway/Albania who also lives in Oslo, Norway.  Together we will write about all we learn of the English culture and society. But first let me tell about where we are going to live and Paddington academy.

A new Home and a new Family

We have been setup to live the Thompson family whom live at Sloane Avenue, city area Chelsea (also home to the worlds greatest team, Chelsea FC). This area of town is very central and we love how all the big things to see in London are just 20 minutes away. The Thompson seem like a great family and we have lived with them for about 3 weeks. They have the characteristics of  true Englishmen. Let me introduce you to them :D. Father- David Thomson is a hard working man and owns a pub in Chelsea London close to Stamford Bridge! (Coolest Thing ever). The mother, Marie Thompson is a hair Stylist who often works on British fashion shows.  Their son Alexander Thompson a.k.a. Alex attends the same school as us and is the same age as us. He introduced us to his friends at Paddington and really made us feel welcome. We take the subway from Sloane Avenue to a stop not so far from Hyde Park. The second day of school we actually walked home, it was a great walk. We passed the American embassy while walking troughed Hyde Park. Walking also showed us how close we are to the center of the city, it seems Buckingham palace is only a few blocks away.

Paddington Academy

Now, a little more about our school Paddington academy. In 2011 it was ranked the 5 best school in England and ranked the 2 best school in progress. Alex told us that the school is relatively new, it opened in 2007 after replacing North Wesminster Community School. This Wesminster School was apparently failing immensely in its curriculum and only about 25 % of students there where getting grades above a C, or in Norway a 4. Paddington specializes in Media and Performing Arts and Business and Enterprises. Alex told us that since its opening it has gotten grades above C from 25% to 94%. This is why it has gotten a lot of recognizing in the last 2-3 years. Now another thing to know about Paddington and most schools in the UK is the difference between public and state schools. I wasn’t aware there was a difference before Alex and his parents explained it to us at dinner one day. Public schools are actually independent schools or as i know it, private schools. While state schools are run by the government and open to all. Public schools are not open to all and families must pay large fees to send their kids to these schools. Now the name public makes me think its open to all but this is not true so me and Dardan asked why they would make such a fuss of the names. I was surprised how much the Thompsons knew about this but maybe most Englishmen do know this. They told us that independent schools where fist established in England in the 1400 hundreds for lower class children to be able to attend a school. At this time these schools would be called Public schools, i guess the Britt’s never changed the names.  Later in the 1800-1900 hundreds it became desirable for upper class people to send their children to these schools and today about 10 percent of English pupils attend these independent schools. Alex, Dardan and I attend a state school. Paddington Academy is open for all and one does not have to pay any fees to attend the school. About 90 percent of English pupils attend state schools. It’s called a state school because the state controls the school and creates its curriculum. What is also very different from Norwegian schools is the strictness and politeness required to be respected in an English school.  We must call the teachers by their last name and must call them Mr or Mrs. There is no eating in class and people are very polite, all this is very new for me and Dardan. In Norway we call our teachers by their first names and sometimes eat in class or at least bring a water bottle. Living in London and attending Paddington is already in its early stages turning out to be a great experience.      

Paddington Academy

The Thompsons apartment Building

sources:

http://www.paddington-academy.org.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddington_Academy

http://www.mylondonhome.com/?gclid=CLTsgJ7ooL0CFYELcwodEkkAgw

www.ndla.no  

read on (xx.xx.xxxx)