Will Art put Margate Back on the Map?

Blog 3

12 April 2011 Last updated at 16:02 GMT

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-13054326

Summary
Summary
Margate was a popular seaside in Britain. Now it is a desolated village with wonderful  beaches. The grandeur from the old days has gone. Great fires destroyed several attractions. Margate is called a ghost town, because of the many boarded shops.
The opening of the ‘Turner Contemporary art Gallery’ might be a turning point for Margate. One hopes that this Gallery will have the same effect for the town as The Guggenheim Museum has for Bilbao. The Turner Contemporary itself, designed by the famous architect David Chipperfield, and the collection inside will have a positive influence on the whole region. The collection is not permanent, but will always have at least one work of Turner.

Opinion
I think the opening of the Gallery will make people aware of the positive effect of art. The architectural design as well as the visual arts can make a huge difference for many people. It is difficult to express the value of art in terms of money, but I believe that if we could measure arts on a scale of well being it wouldn’t do bad at all.
The building itself is magnificent and has a wonderful luxurious appearance, but no doubt there will be others around who will turn away in revulsion when they see this building. However no one will pass the building without an emotion and may be this is one of the strongest arguments that art should be part of everyday life. Art makes it impossible to neglect ones feelings and the feelings of a society.

BBC News Reader Collapsed in Front of the Finish

Blog 2

17 April 2011 Last updated at 16:12 GMT
London marathon: Thousands join record-breaking elite
Thousands of runners were raising money for charity

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13107523

Blog 2

Summary

The London marathon was joined by thousands, among those runners was the BBC newsreader Sophie Raworth. She ran to raise money for a cancer charity and was determined to finish. This attempt almost failed when she collapsed 2,5 miles before the finish. However after she had received care from the paramedics she continued her race and crossed the finish. With this marathon she raised £12,000. Apart from Raworth there were several other known runners taking part like the Olympic rowing champion James Cracknell, former Manchester United footballer Dwight Yorke, and models Agyness Deyn, Nell McAndrew and Elen Rivas. The Olympic rowing champion James Cracknel was raising money for brain injury charity Headway.

Opinion

Running is one of the cheapest sports to exercise; all you need is a pair of good running shoes. People who start running often set themselves a goal; sometimes this goal is the London Marathon. You have to be very well trained to run this race, but even then there is always s the risk of collapsing.

It makes me wonder if all this fund raising for a good cause yields as much as we think. Of course the spotlights are on, the name of the organization is in the news and an amount of coins will be handed over to the fund. It remains an open question how much damage is done by showing the collapse of Raworth. Doesn’t is set a bad example, if you read the article it is almost as if she is hero. Are people who molest their body’s heroes? Is it necessary to show a whole nation the breakdown of someone?

However the London marathon is a great happening, but from the point view of health education it might be better to make an agreement about what one wants to show the entire country.

Will the Queen decide to make a Princess of Kate?

Blog 1
16 April 2011 Last updated at 09:33 GMT
Royal wedding: What do we call her?
By Nicholas Witchell Royal correspondent

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13099871

Summary
After the wedding to Prince William ’Kate Middleton becomes Her Royal Highness, Princess William of Wales and Princess Catherine. Some say: ‘with the wedding coming it is time to unfurl the banners and polish the escutcheons of the royals dukedoms’. This means Kate will become the Duchess of whatever. Only the Queen can give Kate the title of Princess of the United Kingdom. When in 1947 he Philip Mountbatten was married he kept his name only later he became Prince Philip because the Queen ‘accorded him the style and title of a Prince of the United Kingdom.
 

Opinion
This name business is a hot issue in the UK. The same discussion took place in the eighties when Lady Diana Spencer got married to Prince Charles. It makes me wonder what Kate would prefer. One can imagine she prefers to be called Princess over Duchess. ‘Ordinary girls becomes Princess’ sounds like a fairy tail, but when you read ‘Ordinary girl becomes Duchess, one is easily inclined to think: ‘poor girl’.  There is nothing glamourous to it if you are called ‘Duchess of whatever’. Whereas you are called ‘Princes Kate’ of ‘Princess Catherine’ one will have associations with a youthful and sparkling life.