Asian Georgia is separated from Russia by the Caucasus Mountains. It has a coast on the Black Sea, shares a border with Turkey to the west, and has boundaries with Azerbaijan and Armenia to the east and south. All these proximities have affected Georgia in one way or the other (usually the other) throughout her history. (more…)
Government, politics, wars and spying are subjects in which evasion and deceit are common and vulgar; hypocrisy is paramount and prudery prominent. The survival of politicians in politics in a democracy or for that matter in a despotism, depends on getting control over your compatriots, and retaining it by convincing them of your admirable fitness for rule. (more…)
Present:
I work = I work hard all day
Past:
I worked = I worked hard all last year.
Future:
I will work = I will work hard after I have finished my exams.
Present Continuous or Present Progressive: (made with the verb TO BE)
I am working = I am working at the moment on a nuclear project.
Present Perfect: (made by using the vern TO HAVE; this tense indicates a mixture of the past and the present)
I have worked = I have worked hard all my life.
Past Perfect: (a sense of something that is now in the past, but no longer exists)
I had worked = I had worked hard all my life until I retired.
Future Perfect: (a sense of something that lies in the future, but that also has roots in the past and present, always used with the main verb in the past participle – worked)
I will have worked = I will have worked hard all my life even when I am too old to work . . . because I love work!
Present Perfect Continuous (use of the verbs To HAVE and TO BE plus the main verb. A sense of the present, past and future in a continuous manner):
I have been working = I have been working for a considerable time on this project.
Past Perfect Continuous (something that was continuous, but which had to stop)
I had been working for months on the project, but last year I was forced to retire from it!
Future Perfect Continuous (the same as the Future Perfect, but with a continuous sense):
I will have been working on this project for twenty years by this time next year.
(a sense of someone looking back over the last 19 years, while still working, and looking forward to another year’s work, after which the 20 years will be completed)
SPECIAL NOTE: The Conditional tense is made by adding the word would:-
I would work all the time if I had a job.
I would be working if only I could find a job
I would have been working hard all day if I had not been so lazy!
I would have worked very well as a public relations officer.
ETC.
Another special note:- The –ing suffix indicates the Present Participle of the verb: working. The –ed suffix indicates the Past Participle of the verb: worked.
Transitive: Transitive verbs are those which require to be followed by a direct object: example:- These verbs are bloody difficult. You could not say ‘these verbs are’
The direct object is ‘bloody difficult’.
This broadcasting company has radio and TV channels and business channels run by experts. Beyond doubt this communications group helped Spanish people make up their minds about the nearly eight years of Zapatero’s disastrous administration, which was democratically ended a year ago next Sunday. It is now Thursday. On November 20th, 2011 the General Election results silenced the PSOE and awarded the PP an absolute majority which they seem loath to use. This is all fine and historical but what about Intereconomía?
The station is a part of the daily newspaper La Gaceta, a journal still not mentioned by state-owned television among their ‘distinguished’ list, which includes the Marxist/Socialist organ of the PSOE El País; the heavily right-wing mouthpiece of its chief editor Ramírez – El Mundo; the official spokesmen of the centre-right ABC: a few regional newspapers blindly not including El Día (Canary Islands), and that odd mixture of cultures and opinions La Vanguardia. (more…)
This is one of the planet’s biggest and most unknown continents. It surrounds the South Pole, and lies almost entirely to the south of latitude 66º 33’ S. This is called ‘The Antarctic Circle’.
Travellers who have dared to enter this formidable area of the Earth have noted that the sun neither rises at midwinter nor sets at midsummer. At the South Pole itself the temperature is on average -50º C; this is because an excessively thick icecap covers the continent, forming a huge plateau. Strong winds invariably blow from the centre of the icecap, and it usually too cold to snow. The little snow that does fall takes hundreds of years to change into ice. The ice moves so grindingly slowly that parts of the icecap are millions of years old. (more…)
Gibraltar: contentious since 1704
The spiky old issue of Gibraltar is digging Spanish and British statesmen in the most tender part of their well-fed anatomies – what to do with Gibraltar? Ever since the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 (very nearly three hundred years ago), the two puissant old ladies have been scratching at each other’s eyes because of Gibraltar. (more…)
Young William of Orange, future William III of England / journal.carlottamanaigo.com
When James II made his Catholicism too ostentatious for seventeenth century Protestant politicians to stomach, a successful conspiracy was made to remove him from the throne he had inherited from his brother Charles II. Among the conspirators was John Duke of Marlborough, who had been raised to the dizzy heights he attained from being a country squire. Most of the raising had been done by James II. Do not put your faith in country squires who rise to become Dukes and have colossal palaces (Blenheim) built for them by ‘a grateful nation’. The conspirators then invited a Dutchman to come to Britain and become William III, which he did, albeit with some reluctance. He was a firm Protestant descending from Mary Queen of Scots, a Stewart, and was married to another Mary, Mary of England. This was considered a good enough claim by the conspirators, and so the Dutchman became King of England,Scotland and Ireland. Silly weak James went without much pushing into exile, where he stayed. (more…)
Normandy was once the home of Celtic tribes in north-western France. It was the kingdom of Clovis, founder of the Frankish empire (466 – 511). It came under Meringovian rule and was invaded and occupied by the Vikings (q.v.) in the 9th century. Rollo was the Viking leader who accepted Normandy as a fief from the King of France, which was gentlemanly of him as the French King was quite powerless to do anything else but accept the norsemen’s occupation. (more…)
Of course we have all heard of New England, though its composition may confuse us at times, but did we know that there was a New France?
America first: New England is a region in the north-east, comprising the six states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. If such a thing exists still in America, it is the classiest region in the United States, but not necessarily the richest. If you descend from a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, your permanent residence is likely to be in New England. (more…)
This preamble to the United Nations has vanished without trace. It was one of the oddest disasters waiting to happen the world has ever seen. It appeared after the Treaty of Versailles (1918 – 25) had sealed the fate of this planet. Indeed its creation was the last and most important of President Woodrow Wilson of the United States’ famous ‘Fourteen Points’. Wilson insisted that it should appear in each one of the peace treaties, covering the Covenent or Constitution of the League. But then the United States itself refused to join. (more…)