Fire on College Green

Fire on College Green, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

A cigarette carelessly discarded outside a bar led to a blaze which consumed the top two floors of the Greenhouse pub on College Green, Bristol. The resulting fire which started at approximately 3.30pm, required five crews to put it out.

Nobody was injured in the fire, however, the building suffered extensive damage.

Actually, I got there just after the fire crews arrived and before the police and the media. So, in a sense this is a first. Click here to see what the BBC said.

Mayday 2008

Mayday 2008, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Amidst worries that the Greek economy is entering a period of recession and spiralling prices of basic goods, many Greeks took to the streets to mark Mayday. According to the government figures the official inflation rate has reached 4.4%, way above the EU average. However, the Kathimerini newspaper reported that average household costs rose by 10% making life even more difficult for the 13% of Greek households living below the poverty line.

In Athens and other Greek cities the trade union congress, GSEE, along with other opposition parties and political groups organised rallies attended by tens of thousands. Many representatives attacked the government's inability to curtail prices which are widely believed to be the result of monopolistic practices in many areas of the economy. In addition recent pension reforms drew the ire of many speakers.

The little blog that could

Picture by Teacher Dude

I just got name checked by CNN over a story I wrote about yesterday (see here). Well, If you dig down deep enough and click on From The Blogs you'll find a link to this blog. Still, it's a start. All right, Mr DeMille I'm ready for my close up.

Making the news

Taken outside the central court in Thessaloniki this afternoon. Demonstrators were protesting the arrest of a fellow students following disturbances at the university after a party on Saturday night. According to the Kathemerini newspaper (click here for the story in Greek), supporters of the second year chemical engineering student claim that he was arrested two hours after a the disturbances finished and was nowhere near the place where the incidents took place.


When the guilty verdictwas announced the atmosphere turned darker and people hurled insults at the assembled riot police. It was kind of hairy being there in the crowd with a camera as many of the protester have little love for the media. Still, nobody bothered me or gave me a hard time.

On the other hand I had to leave quickly when someone warned me that Thessaloniki's finest had started taking an unhealthy interest in my photographic efforts.

Today's news

All the news that's fit to print. Taken today in Ano Poli

Using BBC news podcasts in the classroom

Today I decided to use a BBC World Service podcast in my Proficiency lesson. I used my Pocket PC linked up to a set of computer speakers that I borrowed from the secretary's PC.

Lesson Plan

1 Ask students what are the latest international stories in the news. Students discuss this in pairs or groups and then report back to the teacher.

2 Write up four or five words from the first story in the podcast on the board.

E.g. elections, Bush, USA, 15

And ask students to guess what the story is about.

3 Play the section (it is a real help if your mp3 player has a screen on which you can see where in the podcast you are). Ask students to write down as many details as possible. It is very important that you make them understand that no one can take down all the details and that they are going to work together as a group.

4 Students swap notes.

5 Play the section again.

6 Ask the class to tell you what they understood.

7 Repeat steps 2 to 6 for the remainder of the stories, either one by one or all the stories in one go.

8 For homework ask them to follow one of the stories either in the news or on the web.

BTW I just noticed today that Sky TV channel here in Greece has the same BBC news stories that I used in the lesson dubbed into Greek. The next time I do a lesson like this I'm going to ask my students to watch Sky in order to see how much they've understood in the lesson.