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PENS
AT THE READY – AWARD FOR BUDDING YOUNG WRITERS
YOUNG people across the country are encouraged to have their
pens at the ready as environmental charity Earthwatch and BBC
Wildlife Magazine announce the launch of the prestigious Young
Environmental Journalist of the Year Award 2006. The award
will see one young writer from the UK scoop the opportunity to
undertake a life changing experience on an Earthwatch research
expedition and have their work featured in BBC Wildlife Magazine.
Anyone between the ages of 16 and 25 is eligible to apply regardless
of their academic background.
Participants will be asked to interview somebody who they consider
to be an environmental hero and write a 500 word profile of the
person, assessing what they have achieved and what motivates them,
while also demonstrating their own personal knowledgeable and
passion for the environment. The writer should be objective and
accurate in their research; and creative enough to capture and hold
the interest of the reader. The winning article will be published in
BBC Wildlife Magazine.
As part of the prize, the award winner will spend up to 2 weeks on
an international Earthwatch research expedition, working alongside
leading scientists in a remote and exciting location. The winner
will have three expeditions to choose from and they could find
themselves tracking elephants in Sri Lanka's national parks,
monitoring dolphins in the Mediterranean or identifying tropical
orchids in the foothills of the Himalayas.
“This is an incredible award. Not only was it amazing to see my work in
print in such a well known magazine, but I also had a life changing
experience working with Earthwatch in Botswana on a crocodile
conservation project. Winning this award gave me the courage to be
ambitious, both with my writing and with my commitment to the
environment.” said Lucie Evans,
winner in 2005.
Nigel Winser, Chief Executive of Earthwatch (Europe) further added:-
“This award is designed to inspire the next generation of
environmental writers at a time when the world really needs
excellent journalism to raise awareness of important environmental
issues and to demonstrate how relevant they are to everyone’s
lives,”
This award is kindly funded by the Max Nicholson Fund, named after
the late conservationist, ornithologist, writer and civil servant,
Max Nicholson who in his lifetime helped found Earthwatch Institute
(Europe) and WWF, and inspired nature reserves and ecological
research around the world.
Among the judges will be Richard Donkin of the Financial Times, Zac
Goldsmith, editor of the Ecologist, as well as James Fair,
environment editor of BBC Wildlife Magazine.
The deadline for submissions is May 30, 2006. For more information
about the award and conditions of entry, pick up a copy of BBC
Wildlife Magazine, call Earthwatch on 01865 318 820, or visit
earthwatch.org.
Arena Residents Help
Special Care Babies
THE purchase of a life saving incubator is one step closer
thanks to a donation made by residents of Arena Housing
Association’s Hollingsworth Court sheltered housing scheme in St
Helens.
Whiston Hospital’s children’s ward is running an appeal headed by
Chris Knights, director of service development, at the Trust to
raise £10,000 to buy an incubator, in which very sick babies would
be placed during transfer to another hospital for treatment. The
older residents at Hollingsworth Court raised £160 towards the total
by organising a raffle amongst friends and family.
Chris is in training to run the London Marathon in April, he is
hoping to raise the money through the support of sponsorship when he
completes the marathon as well as donations to the appeal.
Jeanie Hignett, Arena’s healthy living activity co-ordinator, worked
with residents to organise the raffle, she said:- “When the
residents heard about the appeal, they wanted to help and this is
what they came up with. One of the partially sighted-residents also
made a blanket for the special care baby unit.”
Chris add:- “I am absolutely thrilled at the very generous
donation that the residents of Hollingsworth Court have made to this
valuable appeal with the money they have raised from their raffle.
The money will help enormously towards the target of £10,000 giving
us the ability to purchase the transfer incubator that will benefit
very unwell babies when they need to be transferred to specialised
units at other hospitals. I am extremely grateful to everybody who
has helped raise the money.”
The Arena Housing Group currently manages over 13,000 houses and
flats in the North West, predominantly in Chester, Knowsley, Sefton,
St Helens, Warrington, Wigan and Wirral, as well as its head office
city of Liverpool. The Arena Group also operates specialist
divisions, including Supported Care, which provides services to
Supported Housing residents including Foyers and homeless hostels,
and Extra Care, which provides homes and services for older
residents, as well as specific services for non-Arena residents in
the wider community. The Group also operates two retirement villages
in Warrington and St Helens, with a third currently being built in
Sheffield.
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SPAGHETTI TREES VOTED THE GREATEST APRIL FOOL OF ALL TIME
68% OF BRITS to play a prank this year / top 5 domestic April
Fools revealed. The BBC’s legendary Spaghetti Harvest hoax has
been voted the greatest April Fool of all time in a poll for the
comedy channel UKTV G2. The spoof which fooled thousands of gullible
Brits in 1957 was awarded pole position for being the funniest and
most innovative April fool amongst a shortlist of 50 classic hoaxes.
The comedy channel polled 3000 TV viewers to find the definitive top
20 April Fools of all time to celebrate the launch of ‘Spoof
Night’, an evening of programming dedicated to April Fools on
the 1 April. The Spaghetti Harvest was closely followed by Burger
King’s ingenious Left Handed Whopper and the M3 Zebra Crossing prank
of 2003. Tesco’s Whistling Carrots, Guinness Mean Time and the
relocation of the Eiffel Tower also made the top 10!
The sheer quality of April fools stunts over the last 100 years led
to a series of fondly remembered stunts narrowly missing the top 10,
including the supposed landing of the space shuttle Discovery in San
Diego, the invention of Smellovision (TV you can smell) and the
discovery of the Asterix Village in 1993.
The poll also revealed the most popular and enduring domestic April
fools that Brits love to play on each other come the morning of
April 1. A staggering 68% of Brits responded that they are likely to
play a prank on someone close to them this year and exchanging the
sugar for salt topped the list of likely activities! Sticking a ‘kick
me’ sign on someone’s back, gluing money to the floor, putting
cling film over the loo seat and making prank telephone calls
completed the list of the UK’s domestic top 5 fools!
April Fools obsessive and UKTV G2 presenter Jon Holmes who presents
a rundown of the top 20 as part of Spoof Night on UKTV G2 on
Saturday 1 April at 8pm comments:- “The Spaghetti Trees hoax
was simply brilliant and the fact that it was first seen on Panorama
fooled millions into thinking that this was serious news. However,
it’s not just the Brits that get caught out year after year. In 1998
thousands of gullible Americans were left red faced after asking for
left-handed burgers and in 1992 the country was told that Richard
Nixon would be running for the Presidency again with the slogan “I
didn’t do anything wrong and I won’t do it again. April Fools has been going since 1564
when France’s Charles IX brought in the new Gregorian calendar,
changing New Year from April 1 to January 1. Those people who
continued with the old date were called ‘April fools.”
The Top 10 Apirl
1st Jokes
1) The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest – In 1957 Panorama fooled millions of
Brits into believing that spaghetti grows on trees! The show
announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual
elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were
enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop.
2) The Left Handed Whopper – In 1998 Burger King published a full
page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of the
Left Handed Whopper for the 32 million left-handed Americans.
Outlets throughout the USA received millions of requests for the new
burger.
3) M3 Zebra Crossing – In 2003 early morning commuters travelling on
the M3 in Hampshire encountered a full pedestrian zebra crossing
painted across the motorway. The perpetrator of the prank remains
unknown.
4) Whistling Carrots – In 2002 Tesco published an advertisement
announcing the successful development of a genetically modified
whistling carrot with tapered air holes in their side. The
extraordinary carrots would start to whistle once fully cooked!
5) Internet Spring Cleaning - In 1997 an email message spread
throughout the world announcing that the internet would be shut down
for cleaning for 24 hours from April 1. The cleaning was said to be
necessary to clear out the "electronic flotsam and jetsam"
that had accumulated in the network. The message noted that "5
very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots
situated around the world” would take care of the cleaning and
thousands of users were fooled and disconnected their computers from
the internet to avoid interfering with the process.
6) Thomas Edison Invents Food Machine - After Thomas Edison invented
the phonograph in 1877, Americans firmly believed that there were no
limits to his genius. Therefore, when the New York Graphic announced
in 1878 that Edison had invented a machine that could transform soil
directly into cereal and water directly into wine, thereby ending
the problem of world hunger, it found no shortage of willing
believers. Newspapers throughout America copied the article,
heaping lavish praise on Edison for his brilliant invention
7) Guinness Mean Time – In 1998 Guinness announced that it would be
the official beer sponsor of the Greenwich Observatory’s millennium
celebration. According to this agreement, Greenwich Mean Time would
be renamed Guinness Mean Time until the end of 1999.
8) Big Ben Goes Digital - In 1980 the BBC reported that Big Ben, in
order to keep up with the times, was going to be given a digital
readout. It received a huge response from listeners protesting the
change. The BBC Japanese service also announced that the clock hands
would be sold to the first 4 listeners to contact them, and one
Japanese seaman in the mid-Atlantic immediately radioed in a bid.
9) The Euro Anthem – In 1999 the Today programme announced that the
British National Anthem was to be replaced by a Euro anthem sung in
German fooling thousands of listeners who jammed the BBC
switchboards in protest.
10) Eiffel Tower Moves – The Parisien stunned French citizens in
1986, when it was reported that an agreement had been signed to dismantle
the Eiffel Tower and reconstruct it at Euro Disney!
Brits Top 5 Domestic April Fools
1) Exchanging the sugar for salt
2) Putting a “Kick Me” sign on someone’s back
3) Gluing a pound coin to the floor
4) Putting cling film over the loo seat
5) Prank telephone calls |
