England - A Short Description

Britain, consisting of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, is the largest island in the world, encompassed by the ocean, the German and French seas. The largest and southern part of it is England, so named from the Angli, who quitting the little territory yet called Angel in the kingdom of Denmark, took possession here. It is governed by its own King, who owns no superior but God. It is divided into thirty-nine counties, to which thirteen in Wales were added by Henry VIII., the first who distributed that principality into counties; over each of these, in times of danger, a lord lieutenant, nominated by the King, presides with an unlimited power. Every year some gentleman, an inhabitant of the place, is appointed sheriff; his office is to collect the public moneys, to raise fines, or to make seizures, and account for it to the Treasury; to attend upon the judges, and put their sentence in execution; to empanel the jury, who sit upon facts, and return their verdict to the judges (who in England are only such of the law, and not of the fact); to convey the condemned to execution, and to dertermine in lesser causes, for the greater are tried by the judges, formerly called travelling judges of assize; these go their circuits through the counties twice every year to hear causes, and pronounce sentence upon prisoners.

source: www.visionofbritain.org.uk

The Beginning

This is where you enter and exit the park. Located here is the stroller/wheelchair rental, two shops, and a place to eat. The place to eat is called the Market. It sells drinks, salads, sandwiches, snacks, and fresh bakery items.

One of the shops is The Big Shop, which, as it name suggests, is the biggest shop in the park. Here you can buy many different Lego sets, from pirates to Bionicles to Clikits, the Legos geared toward girls. Also here, as in many places all over the park, you can get Bionicle shields, swords, and other accessories to dress up as a Bionicle.

The other store is the Marketplace. This is where you can pick up purchases that you have sent here from other stores in the park. My brother bought a large Lego set early in the day in another part of the park, and we were glad we could have it taken to the package pick-up instead of carrying it all day. Here you can buy Legoland souvenirs such as T-shirts, photo frames, and postcards. The coolest thing I saw here was candy in boxes shaped like Legos that could be stacked together. The boxes actually interlock just like Legos. I liked that you could put the lid on the bottom of the container, and it would stay connected so you would not lose it. They also have Pick-a-Mix candy, film, and sundries here.

Also located in the area are four penny-smasher machines. My brother and I collect smashed pennies, so we located all the ones throughout the park. Three are located outside The Big Shop. One machine has Bionicle-themed designs. The other machines contain various designs, mostly containing a Lego guy known as Buddy. The other machine located in this area is near the restrooms. It was my favorite machine in the park. It contains designs of different things featured in Miniland. The four designs are the Golden Gate Bridge, Mount Rushmore, U.S. Capitol Building, and the Statue of Liberty.

Dino Island

Dino Island is a very small area. The only things here are the Coastersaurus, Dig Those Dinos, and Raptor Splash (it was closed for the winter season). At Dig Those Dinos, kids can uncover dino bones that are continuously recovered throughout the day so other kids can rediscover them. The Coastersaurus, as the name says, is a roller coaster with a dinosaur theme.

There is one penny-smasher machine in Dino Island; it is located outside Dig Those Dinos. It contains designs of dinosaurs and the Coastersaurus logo.

Explore Village

Explore Village was another area we did not spend much time in. It was mostly a place for younger kids. Also, it had a water-play area that we avoided because it was cold and cloudy. We did enjoy stepping on the spots to make the water instruments play.

The one ride we went on in Explore Village was the Fairy Tale Brook. You rode in a little leaf-shaped boat on a river. Along the route were scenes from various fairy tales. The scenes were all made out of Legos, of course. Some of the scenes were Prince Charming on a horse, talking on his cell phone, Jack climbing up a beanstalk, and Hansel and Gretel arriving at the Witch's house

Fun Town

Fun Town is filled with attractions and rides, but most are geared toward young kids. We skipped most of the rides here. The only ride we went on was the Sky Cruiser. It was car that only moved when you pedaled it. The faster you pedaled, the faster it went, but it did not go that fast. My brother sat in the middle, while my dad and I pedaled the car. If you stop pedaling, the car stops, but I am sure they have it set up so it will eventually go so the cars do not hit each other.

One of the attractions located in Fun Town is the Adventurers' Club. You go on an adventure looking for various colored keys in each room. One room is the jungle, one was an Egyptian tomb, and another was the Artic. We were not very successful at finding the keys, but it was still fun.

We also went on the Lego Factory Tour. It was cool to walk through and see how Legos are made. At the end of the tour, we got two free Lego pieces. One said "I love Legoland California" and the other said "Kids' New Years Eve, Legoland California." Also, at the end was the Lego Club House store. Here you could buy Lego pieces by weight. You pick and choose the ones you want and put them in a bag and pay by how much it ends up weighing. Also in the Club House, you can sit and build with Legos.

There is a penny-smasher machine in Fun Town. The machine contains designs featuring Buddy, a Lego mascot, on rides located in this area.

Knight's Kingdom

Knight's Kingdom will take you back to medieval times. Located here is Granny's Apple Fries. I recommend stopping here to try the apple fries, which are flash-fried apple strips rolled in cinnamon sugar and served with whipped vanilla crème. We enjoyed them as an afternoon snack.

There are two rides in this area. One is a rather tame coaster called The Dragon. Do not miss the graveyard that is part of the line queue. Some of the gravestones are rather funny. The other ride is for kids under 12. It is called the Royal Joust. They ride a horse around a track as if participating in a jousting tournament. My brother rode it and said it was too bumpy.

At one end of Knight's Kingdom are the Witching Well and Enchanted Walk. Next to the well stands a witch who talks. I think she is making a potion, and steam is coming out of the well. The Enchanted Walk is a short little walk through the woods. The walk starts by crossing a wooden bridge that starts to creak when you step on it. On the walk, you can see bears, deer, and ducks made out of Legos. There are even Lego fish jumping out of the water.

Near the shop called the King's Market there is a penny-smasher machine. This machine contains medieval-themed designs.

Miniland U.S.A.

This was by far my favorite area of Legoland. It was amazing to see all the Lego models. There are models of the following cities/areas of the U.S.: New England Harbour, Washington D.C., New Orleans, Southern California, Florida, New York City, and San Francisco. We saw all the areas except for New York City, because it is currently being updated. What I enjoyed most about the models is that each one had something that moved and sounds, making the city come to life. In all areas, the cars moved along the roads.

In the New England Harbour, the boats moved about the harbour, and there was a train that went around the area. There was also a ship-building area where you could hear the sound of wood being cut. There was also a dry dock where Lego guys were repairing a boat. There was even a ferry that was taking trucks back and forth across the water.

In New Orleans, there was a paddleboat. In one area of the city, there were a lot of Lego people lined up to watch a parade. If you waited long enough, you could see the Mardi Gras parade go by. There was also a jazz funeral procession. The funniest thing to me were the freight barges that were loaded up with black Legos. I guess it was to look like coal, but I thought of it as Legos being delivered to build more buildings.

My favorite area was Washington D.C., being that it is also one of my favorite U.S. cities. It had everything from the memorials to the government building to the presidential motorcade. In the motorcade, you can see the current president and first lady built in Legos. I liked the rowers practicing behind Georgetown University. Near the Jefferson Memorial, you could hear a dog barking and what sounded like a woman being dragged along by it. In front of the capitol, there was a band marching and playing.

Also in Miniland was the Block of Fame and The Art of Lego. The Block of Fame had busts of famous people made out of Legos. It included George Washington, Winston Churchill, Elvis Presley, Beethoven, and Albert Einstein. The Art of Lego was an exhibit that contained famous works of arts made out of Lego. Some of the works recreated are The Thinker by Rodin and the Mona Lisa.

The only ride here, which is well worth going on, is the Coast Cruise. On the cruise, you will see models of the Sydney Opera House, Eiffel Tower, Mount Rushmore, and the Statue of Liberty. During the ride, your boat driver/guide will give you facts about the models such as how many Legos it took to make it. At the end of the ride, the resident octopus band will perform for you.

Imagination Zone

Imagination Zone was the area we went on the most rides. One of the rides is called the Aquazone Wave Racers. I did not go on it because I did not want to get wet, but my brother and Dad went on it. It ended up being my brother's favorite ride. I am not sure why they are called racers because you do not really get to control anything, and you sure are not racing others. I am sure it would be a fun ride on a hot summer day, but it was a cloudy winter day.

Another ride here is the Bionicle Blaster. It is like the Tea Cups at Disneyland. You can spin the cup around fast if you want. Actually, I could not get it to spin much, but my dad was strong enough to spin it some. I thought the ride was a lot of fun. Outside the ride were giant Bionicle sculptures, which were a great photo opp.

The last ride in this area is Lego Technic Test Track. It is the largest roller coaster in the park. You go up a hill, and at the top is the brake test. Supposedly, it fails, and off you go on a wild ride.

We stopped for lunch at the Upper Deck Sports Café. It is a table-service restaurant that serves sandwiches, burgers, and fish. The room was decorated with posters of famous players such as David Beckham and Michael Jordan. In the back, there is a place for kids to play with sports Legos.

On the weekends, there is a tent sale in the Grand Pavillion. Here you can find good deals on some Lego sets. I am guessing this is where they sell stuff that has not been selling or is overstocked.

England by Marianne Moore

The following poem is by Marianne Moore and is a very nice description of england.

England

with its baby rivers and little towns, each with its abbey or its cathedral;
with voices - one voice perhaps, echoing through the transept - the
criterion of suitability and convenience; and Italy
with its equal shores - contriving an epicureanism
from which the grossness  has been extracted,

and Greece with its goat and its gourds,
the nest of modified illusions: and France,
the "chrysalis of the nocturnal butterfly,"
in whose products, mystery of construction
diverts one from what was originally one's object -
substance at the core: and the East with its snails, its emotional

shorthand and jade cockroaches, its rock crystal and its imperturbability,
all of museum quality: and America where there
is the little old ramshackle victoria in the south,
where cigars are smoked on the street in the north;
where there are no proofreaders, no silk-worms, no digressions;
the wild man's land; grass-less, linksless, languageless country in which letters are written
not in Spanish, not in Greek, not in Latin, not in shorthand,
but in plain American which cats and dogs can read!
The letter a in psalm and calm when
pronounced with the sound of a in candle, is very noticeable, but

why should continents of misapprehension
have to be accounted for by the fact?
Does it follow that because there are poisonous toadstools
which resemble mushrooms, both are dangerous?
Of mettlesomeness which may be mistaken for appetite,
of heat which may appear to be haste,
no conclusionns may be drawn.

To have misapprehended the matter is to have confessed that one has not loooked far enough.
The sublimated wisdom of China, Egyptian discernment,
the cataclysmic torrent of emotion
compressed in the verbs of the Hebrew language,
the books of the man who is able to say,
"I envy nobody but him, and him only,
who catches more fish than
I do" - the flower and fruit of all that noted superiority
if not stumbled upon in America,
must one imagine that it is not there?
It has never been confined to one locality.

For more poems about England visit the website of the coolest englishman on the planet.

Myths and legends and stories have been told through the millennia. Many were magically re-worked into what we call religion ! . Religion based on Faith to prevent negative behaviour patterns or experiences through believing in a Higher over seer as written in the past by ? ! . We all feel that there is something on a higher level than this. We should all find our own paths but only when we have had time to live a bit, and choose our own 'story' ! ..Kids maybe absorb morals from TV more than the post dramatics of the church, There is an increasing negative trend in young people because they are not inspired by anything other than what is on offer and appealing.Church is boaring to most of them. Story telling is good Tho .But no religious discipline should be imposed before a persons full maturity deems it useful to do so , even if aware of the source stories. Stories NOT Conditioning, Churches are good for Weddings Funerals social gatherings , charity work and basically humanitarian reasons, We would be worse off without it. People now wish to express these times a different way ..Thety may need funding from elsewhere for the roofs !! Re-structure required.

Tea

The chance went. After 90 minutes of consistent pressure during the morning, England eased up as Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis, having battled through, took control. By tea, with South Africa 151 for two, the pair had added an unbroken 141 for the third wicket, each well entrenched on a pitch that had calmed down with the softening ball and starting to play with ominous fluidity.

Kallis, continuing the prime form that brought him his 32nd Test hundred at Centurion, had batted with massive solidity from the outset, rarely troubled, and was on 74 while Smith, despite being hampered by the blow on the left knuckle sustained from James Anderson before lunch (something that may well require an x-ray), was on 65. Both had hit seven boundaries, Smith, in four hours, having faced 169 balls and Kallis 128. If each looks set for a century, then the prospect of a full day's play was diminishing with the anticipated approach of a tropical storm, with a prognosis of significant similar interruptions during the course of the match.

Having succeeded in keeping the lid on things for the best part of the morning, England became insipid during the afternoon. The plans, presumably concocted during the lunch interval (although occasionally Andrew Strauss is prone to bouts of intuition at the expense of the obvious) seemed unnecessary given the manner in which the seamers had caused trouble by their straightforward approach.

Most bemusing was the way in which Graham Onions, the best of the England seamers despite his lack of a wicket, and certainly the one who caused the most problems for Smith because of the tight line he bowls from close to the stumps, was ignored until the afternoon was 24 overs old. Neither batsman would have been unaware of the easier passage afforded them when, for example, Jonathan Trott was introduced to attack first. By the time Onions returned, the ball was beyond its halfway stage.

Lunch

Whatever the outcome of the toss and the decision made thereafter, the first session of a Kingsmead Test is always, on the one hand, about survival with the bat in anticipation of better things to come and, on the other, capitalising with the new ball before it becomes spongy and unresponsive and the pitch eases.

This morning was searingly hot with a humidity to cut with a butter knife as the moisture from the Christmas Day downpour was sucked from the ground. Graeme Smith, looking at blue skies, broke with South African convention on winning the toss and decided to bat first, taking it firmly on the chin - or rather in his case the knuckle of his left hand, broken earlier in the year, as James Anderson made one leap wickedly.

By lunch, he had seen the loss of Ashwell Prince and Hashim Amla for a brace apiece, but had survived himself, playing and missing with great facility, to make 29 of South Africa's 67 for two. At the other end, though, Jacques Kallis was looking massively solid, taking successive boundaries from Stuart Broad, the first of the day after 80 minutes, and going in for the interval unbeaten on 28. England's chance to seize the initiative may have gone.

Had England bowled at Centurion with the discipline shown here (and had Graham Onions opened the bowling there) they would surely have got greater reward. For the first 90 minutes today, runs came only at a trickle as Anderson, his default delivery apparently now slanted across the left hander, put Smith under pressure and found one that bounced more than anticipated to Prince, who edged to third slip. Amla looked tentative, unsure of how to get forward, and Andrew Strauss failed initially to crowd him with the addition of a short leg, especially to Onions who bowls such a tight line.

Strauss's first bowling change brought instant reward, however, for after Amla had survived a leg-before appeal, which England thought about referring but, correctly as it transpired, opted not to (the ball, from Onions, was sliding down the legside) Broad's fourth delivery, full and straight, hit Amla indisputably in front of middle. No referral was needed for this one and none sought.

After 20 overs, Strauss turned to Graeme Swann, who immediately leaked runs, with both batsmen determined not to allow him to dominate as he had at Centurion. The offspinner did turn one sharply away from Smith (spinners often gain purchase early in a game before the surface has dried out fully) but Matt Prior's stumping appeal showed that the South Africa captain had kept his back foot firmly rooted behind the line.

Free smoking quit kits launched

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One lesson to teach the young

The young are the future, but they must still be reminded of the lessons of the past, says Clive James in his last weekly column for some time.

New year strikes for rail workers

Railway signalling workers in south Wales and the Marches are expected to walk out again in January over new rosters.

Englishness Where does it come from? - Initial Thoughts

We are looking at the concept of Englishness. It is fair to say that England is a unique nation with something of a national identity crisis. Many English people, when asked, are unsure whether to describe themselves as ‘British’ or English’. It seems as though the English are teetering on the brink of having no national identity.

The country of England co-exists with Wales and Scotland on the island of Britain, with England being the largest country of the three. Together with the people of Northern Ireland, Wales, England and Scotland form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, i.e. the UK. The homeland of the British people is Britain. However, not all of the citizens of Britain live in mainland Britain. Northern Ireland is a territory of the UK and its people are British. Geographically the country occupies a small part of Ireland. Physically speaking the majority of Ireland is the territory of the Irish Republic, i.e. Eire. Thus England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland together form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, more commonly known as the UK. Note that technically speaking Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom but not part of Great Britain..

Historically the English are an ethnic group who are native to the land of England, who speak the English language. It was during the early medieval period that the specific identity of the English as a people is thought to have arisen. The genetic roots of the English are believed to be a mix of various settlers and invaders came in waves who over a period of a thousand years. These visitors include Romans, tribes from Northern Europe and Scandinavia such as the Angles (from where we derive the word English), Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, and the Normans. Many of these people settled alongside the people of the land, i.e. the Britons. Flowing into this genetic pool were migrants from Wales, Scotland and Ireland. In later centuries peoples came from the African and Indian nations of the Commonwealth and other European nations. These peoples and these events created what was to become known as England and all ultimately contribute to that mix of values known as Englishness. However it is not just our mixed roots that give this identity crisis however but that is the subject of another article.

Happy is England

I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods
with high romances blent:
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment
For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.

By John Keats
One of many famous Englishmen poets.

Englishness - What is It?

Englishness as a concept is difficult to describe. It's a bit like jelly (jello) - that harder you squeeze it, the more it squirms through your fingers. You probably know Englishness when you see it though ...

In Richard II Shakespeare described England like this :

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars

This other Eden, demi-paradise

This fortress built by Nature for herself”

However this is the place, not the people.

Englishness of is not often described directly, but in more indirect ways. An example of Englishness is the concept of the gentleman. Ideals such as ‘fair play’, coolness, kindness, love of pets and animals, artistic creativity and gentleness. These all illustrate Englishness.

However for each of the aforementioned there is another side of the coin which actually shows us that the concept of englishness is in fact a paradox. For example compare the idea of insularity and kindness with the historical reality of the British empire, the world's largest empire which covered a third of the Earth’s surface and included twenty five percent of her people. While English people are indeed kind, especially to the disadvantaged they have, as a race the a huge propensity for violence - note the number of armed conflicts the country has been involved in.

Englishness is an idea that is in plain sight and yet remains a complex paradox.