April 2014

Waterloo Road

Are you a fan of Waterloo Road?      The actor who played Barry ‘Relished the opportunity to show a softer side to his character, Barry Barry’.      See: Barry hit rockbottom.

The actor who played Nikki says: Nikki’s daughter plot is exiting.      In real life she is a singer.      For the story of her career in brief, with pictures and songs, click Heather Peace .

Have you seen what people are saying?       Here is The gossip .

Are you a Belieber?

That is what fans of Justin Bieber call themselves.      See  Wikipedia  on Justin Bieber.      Have you seen him singing  All that matters ?

He was arrested in January on suspicion of drag racing a Lamborghini  in a residential part of Miami.      See  Mirror  for specifics, and  E online  for a picture and comment.

Ukraine

What is all the fuss about in Ukraine?      Putin, the Russian president, is not happy with the position of Russia now.      It used to be the head of a large group of countries called the Soviet Union, but this collapsed in 1991.     It is weaker economically and politically and Putin has been trying to get some of its old strength back.

Crimea, in Eastern Ukraine, used to be part of Russia until the president of the Soviet Union gave it to Ukraine in 1954.    58 – 60% of the people in Crimea are reported to be ethnicly Russian and do not want to become part of Europe, like many Ukrainians do.     Russia has a military fleet of ships there, on the Black Sea coast, and does not want to lose that base.

Europe and the United States are very concerned but, on the whole, they do not want to do anything too dangerous.

For a brief introduction to recent events see  Why is Ukraine in turmoil?
To see why Putin is unhappy, via video and text, click on  Fall of the Soviet Union .
To see why Crimea is so important to Putin see  Russia’s naval stronghold .

Eurostar

Do you know much about Eurostar?      It is a high speed train that takes passengers from London to Paris and from London to Brussels, in Belgium.     It goes along a line called High Speed 1 from central London to the Chanel Tunnel.

When the Chanel Tunnel first opened Eurostar had to use the old line to Waterloo station.      It was much slower and more congested than the dedicated high speed line linking Paris to the tunnel.

A Eurostar train set a new British speed record of 208.0 mph on the first section of High Speed 1 shortly before it opened on 30 July 2003.

The second and final phase was opened in 2007.      It allows trains to travel at speeds of 186 mph.  The combined effect of both phases was to cut Eurostar journey times by 40 minutes.       It is now possible to travel from London to Paris by train in 2 hours 15 minutes.

It now carries more passengers to Paris and Brussels than all airlines put together.      It does this with about 90% less carbon dioxide emissions than the airlines.

For more detail see Eurostar and Eco-Express.      See also: Pictures.      The train in the picture is the type introduced in 2015.