Sport _ Snooker

Snooker is an extensively popular sport which owns the second largest television audience in UK. It is generally adopted that snooker originated in the latter half of the 19th century. Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain, a British Army officer, devises the sport in India during 1874 or 1875. And then Joe Davies moved the game from a pastime activity into a more professional field. A major leap occurred in 1969, snooker has become a mainstream sport as a result of the development of color televisions.

Although the rule of snooker is complicated, there is still have a lot of audience in UK. It was interesting phenomenon that many famous snooker players are British, such as Stephen Hendry, John Higgins, Mark Williams, Ronnie O'Sullivan. People call them “four emperors of snooker”. They also have a lot of fans in China, such as me.
The participation of some new sponsors has led to the popularity of the sport in the Far East and China in recent years, with emerging more established players such as Marco Fu and Ding Junhui. They are ranking at 8th and 13th of worldwide separately during 2009 to 2010.

In recent years, more and more snooker players go to China to participate snooker tournaments, such as China Open, Shanghai Masters. These two tournaments currently take place at the Beijing University Students Gymnasium and the Shanghai Grand Stage separately. An increasing number of young audiences like the sport and try to join it. For example, I once spent a whole month’s time to learn snooker; however, snooker is really not the good sport for girls, because the snooker table is too big to hit the ball for girls. Therefore, I have changed snooker to “British Pool”. The size of pool table is perfect for girls.

The Monarchy

The British Royal Family is the one of the oldest family in the world. And the family has a lot of famous Kings and Queens, such as Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles I, and King Edward VIII and so on. These outstanding Kings and Queens hand abundant legends and interesting history stories to posterity.

Nowadays in Britain, The Queen has two important roles: Head of States, and “Head of the Nation”, the Queen’s role is less formal. However, no less important for the social and cultural functions it fulfils. Furthermore, members of the Royal Family also support the Queen in her public duties especially when she cannot be present the in person, as well as carry out significant work of the public and charitable service.

In the same time, the Royal Family also plays an important role in supporting and encouraging the public and charity sectors. Equally important, the Royal Family also plays an important role in recognising and supporting the work of the Armed Services. For example, members of the Royal Family carry out regular visits to Afghanistan, formerly, in Iraq. Finally, the Royal Family as a whole plays a role in strengthening national unity. According to the data from Royal official website, there are almost 2000 official engagements are carried out by the Royal Family throughout the UK and worldwide.

The legendary life of Queen Elizabeth inspires interest to find out more for me. The respected Queen is going to carry out her 100th birthdays and 60th wedding anniversaries at Buckingham Palace. The Sovereign has sent congratulatory message to people celebrating their birthdays and anniversaries since 1917.

So whether we can receive a congratulatory message from the Queen?

The food between Britain and China

Fish and chips are the traditional food in Britain. This kind of food can quickly fulfill people's appetite, but the taste of these foods are not good for people. However, the traditional British afternoon tea provides the diversity and delicious snacks for people. For example, superior black tea accompanied by silver teaset,scone,cake, and fruit tower. Therefore, a lot of people like afternoon tea, especially for many chinese younger people.

On the other side, ther are a lot of different cuisine between Chinese food. They are all beautiful looking and taste better. But in my opinion, as the excessive boiling lead to losing of nutrient sometimes. So as to fulfill the healthy requirement in the modern society, an increasing number of younger people choose the light food in their life.

UK governement

Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Hilary Benn, responsibility for all Departmental issues, and represents the UK Agriculture and Fisheries Council


Secretary of State for Transport
Lord Adonis, whose responsibility is government's transport commitments


Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
David Miliband, whose job is focus on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, such as, relations with foreign countries, UK’s oversea territories


Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Yvette Cooper, whose jobs is focus on reduce the rate of unemployment, guarantee people can get their pension


Secretary of State for Defence
Bob Ainsworth, he is in charge of the defence policy, and he is Chairman of the Defence Council and of its three Boards, (the Admiralty Board, the Army Board and the Air Force Board).


Home Secretary for the Home Office
Alan Johnson, whose job is focus on immigration control and citizenship of UK

Secretary of State for Health
Andy Burnham, a Cabinet minister, is the leader of Health Department. He is responsible for NHS , social care delivery , system reforms, Finance.


Chancellor of the Exchequer
Alistair Darling, he is responsible for all economic and financial matters


What are the Prime Minister's responsibilities? As head of the UK government, appoints all members of the government; responsible for the policy and decisions of government; Oversees the operation of the civil service and Government agencies

Visiting Wales Assembly

There is a splendid visit to Assembly Wales for PMP students last Thursday. The building of Assembly Wales has a nice name "Senedd". It is a sustainable construct, build of a lot of traditional Welsh material, such as Welsh slate and oak and others.

However, the environmental design is more attractive than the appearance for the visitors. There are advanced technology of the building; for example, the earth heat exchange system and rainwater harvesting system. The ground heat pump system efficiently reduce the energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission, for protecting our eco-environment. In the same time, rainwater collective system is also used in the building. Rainwater is gathered from the main roofs and stored in two big tanks. People use rainwater for flushing toilet. So the building can be called a "eco-building".

These environmental protective instrunments can be suggested to the Chinese government, especially for the north cities in China.

My first Halloween in U.K

Halloween is an annual traditional holiday on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhaim and Christian Holy day of all Saints. The elements of Halloween are as following, jack-o-lanterns, ghost tours, bonfires, scary stories, horror films. All of them are look like so funny.

Last Saturday, Yuki and me decided to enjoyed our first Halloween holiday in U.K. We had completed OLD essay early, bought jack-o-lanterns and make up adornments. Even we spent one day to discussed how can we tell a scary story to another for their screaming.

But the facts get the opposite of what our wants, our classmates forgot to book the tickets of Halloween party. Finally, we stayed at room for the first Halloween.

Hehe, I will never forget my first Halloween in U.K.

European Union _ controversy

As we know, like most group or organization of the world, UN is not the perfect or best. There are many controversies in the organization. For example, policy reformation, funds improvement and over-complicated law and rules. But we can also find that EU try to put them best. Although it is a hard work , EU still simplified and slimmed down the law and rules.


But on the other side, EU bring the advantages are more than shortcoming for U.K. An economic analysts estimate that almost 600,000 new service jobs could provid from EU. And approximately 70% of UK employment is in services.

Clearly, more and more people enjoy the benefits of EU for their life and work.