What is a bookworm? And who is J. K. Rowling?

What is a bookworm? And who is J. K. Rowling?

First of all a bookworm is a person who reads a lot of books and enjoys doing it. We could say that before they used to be in libraries, but now due to Internet and specially mobile phones you can find them everywhere. Another typical characteristic of them is that they are usually very intelligent and they have a very good memory. I’m not a bookworm or as we say in Spanish “un ratón de biblioteca”, despite the fact that I enjoy reading, especially at night when I’m tired.

Joanne Rowling or J. K. Rowling (as everybody knows her) is a writer who is considered to be in the top 10 of literacy heroes for having helped to boost literacy or promote a love of reading. She is well known for having written one of the best book series in history, Harry Potter. Like thousands of children I’ve read the eight books of this book series (now she has written more books related with this fantastic book series). 

When did she think about the idea of Harry Potter? It was in 1990 when she was travelling by train, from Manchester to London when she first thought about a school for wizards, it’s for this reason that she thought in her story that there must be and special platform for magicians, Platform 9 and ¾. In her first book, it was also influenced by her mother's death and this is the reason why she explains in such a detailed manner Harry Potter's mum's death.

But how did she become famous? In fact, her first story was written in napkins, because she was really poor and she had to take care of her children. She presented her work to different publishers, but they didn't accept her story because of her poverty (without reading it), it was a daughter of one of these chief publishers who recognized the talent of the writer, and she became really rich only with this first book. (I’ll recommend you to go to Edimburgh and go to the Elephant House coffee shop, where she came every day to write all her ideas for her books).

In conclusion, I would like to thank J.K.Rowling for having given us the opportunity to read her books. Now, this writer is 50 years old and I hope she'll keep on writing as she has done it all these years.

NO SMOKING: Drive me home, Daddy!

NO SMOKING: Drive me home, Daddy!

According to the British Lung Foundation, more than 430,000 children are exposed to second-hand smoke in cars each week. There are 10 million adult smokers in the UK, and one of their many consequences is that they are affecting their own kids when they smoke in their cars. As a result of this, the English and the Welsh government are to implement a new law which will ban smoking in cars carrying children with a penalty fine of £50. But, is it enough? Are they conscious of the problem of smoking in cars?

On the one hand, there are still too many people who smoke in their cars that are still unaware aabout how this affects themselves and the other second-hand smokers. These are some of their many consequences: second-hand smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals, some of which are known to cause cancer; smoke can stay in the air for up to two and a half hours even with a window open; smoking in a car creates a higher concentration of toxins than in a bar - some research has put it at 11 times higher; research indicates 300,000 children in the UK visit a GP each year because of the effects of second-hand smoke, with 9,500 going to hospital…

On the other hand smoking in cars is allowed, provided that they don't throw away the cigarettes on roads or highways. Without talking about how much it can affect the other passengers if someone is smoking in the car, in Spain it is one of the main reasons of having a car accident, because it is a very common distraction. I think that if they are in a jam, and they are very anxious, they could have the possibility of smoking if this "relaxes" them.

In my opinion, I would never understand why people continue smoking, especially young people, because I’ve had at least 4 or 5 lessons about the effects of smoking at school and I can't see its relaxing effects, especially when I see the trembling hands of smokers I don’t find it very relaxing. Others will say that it is cool, but I don't find it 'cool' when someone dies of cancer. But well, each one decides how he will like to die and to live.

EuroBasket 2015: 

Comme dans un cauchemar!

One week ago in all over the world, people were only talking about one thing related with sports, and that was the European Basketball Championship. In this tournament the team that started like the favourite to win this tournament was France, because they were playing at home and moreover because they had some of the best players in the NBA, like Nicolas Batum and Tony Parker.


The other important rivals were Serbia, which had a great team with players like Nemanja Bjelica and Miloš Teodosić, who plays in Europe and in the NBA. Lithuania, which had  a very young team with high expectations of doing big things in the tournament with players like Jonas Mačiulis and Mindaugas Kuzminskas, who played in our league, in the ACB. And, of course, we couldn't forget the Spanish national team, but they weren't apparently in their best conditions, because hey played without Juan Carlos Navarro, Calderón, Ricky Rubio and Marc Gasol due to different reasons.

It hasn’t been an easy tournament because all the teams played really well, but Spain won at least. They lost two matches in the first phase of the tournament against Serbia and Italy, in spite of that, they got over and they won against Poland and Greece. However, the big challenge was France, but Spain was able to win in the end in a tremendous match, in which Pau Gasol scored 40 POINTS which led Spain to an epic win. In the final they won easily against Lithuania, which didn't have their best day.

In conclusion, it was an exciting tournament with a tremendous Pau Gasol that gave us the pleasure of enjoying basketball once again and of watching how well he plays. In spite of the reaction of some French press saying that Pau Gasol was doped and more things that I didn’t expect from such an honest country. Nevermind, it was a memorable tournament for Spain. Now, we are on the road to Río de Janeiro!!

Europe's migrant crisis and Donald Trump’s American Idiocy.

Europe's migrant crisis and Donald Trump’s American Idiocy.

These days we are having very bad news in Europe related with migration. In the latest weeks there have been hundreds of immigrants that have died in European beaches or in illegal refrigerated trucks that had the intention of crossing the Hungarian border. But, why is this happening?

One of the main reasons for this massive migration is the Syrian War, which is causing a lot of damage to the Syrian population. So to escape, they are crossing all Europe to get to countries, like Germany (which is really far from their homes) searching for help and trying to find a job. On their way they are losing a lot of members of their families, so in addition to the big effort they are doing, they are also having psychological problems. 

Europe, on the contrary, is trying to host as many refugees as it can, and a lot of countries are helping to find solutions for this issue: Russia, France, England, Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy… are accepting more refugees that they usually accept. Even celebrities and football teams are going to donate some charity help to these refugees.

However, in the USA, Donald Trump, an American politician of the Republican Party, has said really bad things about the issue of immigration and about all the things he has in mind about what he is going to do in the USA if he becomes president of the USA, which has shocked the rest of the world a lot. One of the measures that he is going to do is to pack up and expel 11 million people and untold numbers of American citizens of the USA for not being American or not being born in the USA. Another measure is that he wants to force Mexican people to build and pay for a 2,000-mile border wall, between the USA and Mexico to stop immigration...

By the way, all help is good to help Syrian refugees from their war and to try to stop their war and we also have to do as much as possible so that this American politician doesn't become president of his country. This year I have met a Syrian guy and he said that things are really bad, so I hope that this will finish soon.

LA VUELTA HAS COME TO LAS ALPUJARRAS!!!

LA VUELTA HAS COME TO LAS ALPUJARRAS!!!

The Seventh stage in La Vuelta has been very special for me because it went into the Alpujarras, where I have a little house and where I spend almost all my holidays. It wasn’t a very hard stage. Even so, cyclists couldn't cycle too fast as it was very steep up hill. Nevertheless, the stage turned out to be long and hot. They began in Jódar (Jaén) and they finished in Capileira (La Alpujarra) with a distance of 191 km.

The winner was Lindenman, member of the Team Lotto NL-Jumbo, who was in the breakaway and who was on his first real mountain test. Moreover, it was also a bad day for Chris Froome, who lost 30 seconds gap to his main rivals. It was not too much, but that showed that it wasn’t as easy as people thought. For the moment our best Spanish cyclist, Alejandro Valverde, is ranked at less than 40 seconds with regard to the leader, so I wish him all the best for the rest of the race.

I hope that next time they come to this area, I will have the opportunity to watch it, because I’ve never been in one. It was a pity that this time I was in France when La Vuelta began, but I think that next year I will be in Spain.

LA VUELTA 2015

Historical moment for America and Cuba!!!

Historical moment for America and Cuba!!!

Nowadays there are a lot of problems between certain countries, like between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine… However, there are other countries that are starting a new stage, like between Cuba and the USA. The question is when and why they ended up this relation.

As the influence of the Spanish Empire was over, its possessions in the Americas finished in the 1820s, as a result of the Spanish American wars of independence, only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained as part of Spain and in 1898 in the Spanish–American War, Cuba became independent. However, under the Treaty of Paris Cuba became a U.S. protectorate and the problem was that the USA began to dominate the island, until Cuba’s independence in 1902.

There was a Cuban Revolution in 1959 and bilateral relations deteriorated substantially. The USA began chasing people from the Communist regime, they banned corporations owned by Cuba, and it stayed like that for a long time, because on the other hand the Cuban government refused to be a democratic country and that the USA could interfere in Cuba’s economy.

Nonetheless, all this has finished, because Cuba and the USA began a process of normalizing relations in December 2014 and just a few days ago the flag of the USA was raised again in Cuba and the flag of Cuba in the USA. I hope that this relation will continue growing up, and Cuban an American people also begin a new relation.

"Paris sera toujours Paris"

"Paris sera toujours Paris"

Like Zaz's song says, “Paris sera toujours Paris”, I was in Paris two years ago and I found it quite interesting, there are many places to visit: the Eiffel Tower, the river Seine, the Louvre Museum, the Palace of Versailles, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Arch of Triumph… I couldn’t visit the entire city, so for the next time I would like to visit especially the Louvre Museum and Montmartre and I also would like to stay longer there.

Talking about the Tour de France 2015, we have to congratulate Chris Froome for his second Tour de France, and also to our Spanish cyclists: Valverde, Purito ( who won two stages of the Tour de France), Ruben Plaza (who won a stage) and also Contador, who hadn’t got his opportunity because of the tiredness of the Giro, but who fought hard with Froome, Quintana, Valverde, Nibali and Purito.

However, Paris has as well its problems one of them is its population, the best time to go is in July or August because the Parisians aren’t there (they could say that they aren’t as friendly as Spanish people). Another problem is their food, because it’s a well known fact that in France there is good food, but if you want to eat in Paris and anyone recommends a good place to eat, you have to pay too much for a common food like in most Europe capitals.

In conclusion, Paris is a fabulous city to visit, but you have to be careful of what you buy or eat and when you go, if you don't want to have a bad experience there. In fact, not many tourists know more than Paris in France and this is really sad, because Paris is not like the other parts of France.

Greece’s Future, and the Euro’s

Greece’s Future, and the Euro’s

These days every TV network is talking the same topic, the future of Greece. Everyone is following in the news how things are developing. Greece is now in a very delicate moment. But, how are they going to pay all their debts? Moreover, will they be able to pay them at least? 

On the one hand, now in Greece there is a far-left wing party in the Greek Parliament, who promised to reduce the debts that Greece had and who also promised other benefits to poor people, like a reduction in the electricity bills. Furthermore, Alexis Tsipras, the Prime Minister convoked a Referendum to vote  if they accepted what they have to pay to Europe or to force Europe to hand over more money with less austerity attached (what he was for). 

On the other hand, European countries want all the money that they have lent to Greece back. They think that Greece hasn’t done enough reforms to give them more money. For instance, there are only five swimming pools that pay taxes to the government, their VAT is very low… This means that Greece will have to pay at the end, because when they asked for money Europe gave it to them.

Finally they have accepted the conditions imposed by the EU, and they are going to do the necessary reforms to have the third rescue. Despite the fact that they are going to have an increase in their VAT, the limit of the cash money…, now I reckon that they have more possibilities than before to emerge from the crisis.