The celebrity love triangle which shocked a nation

He was a war hero and an admiral, she the great beauty of her age. The problem was they were both married to others. Now a new exhibition at Greenwich's Royal Maritime Museum remembers the story and the scandal of Emma Hamilton and Lord Nelson.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.



1. What was Emma Hamilton’s father’s job?
2. Who was George Romney?
3. Why was Emma Hamilton painted?
4. Where did the affair between Emma and Lord Nelson begin?
5. Who lived in Merton Place, in South West London, according to rumours?
6. When did Emma find Merton Place?
7. What was Emma’s financial situation when she died?


Lord Nelson, held in the highest esteem, whose passions ran deep for a blacksmith's daughter, Emma Hamilton. Her stunning looks set her apart. Then this man, George Romney, the most fashionable painter of the day, came across the young beauty and at his studios here, in Cavendish Square, she became his muse.
And the 18th century was a remarkable time for an explosion in print culture…
Mass produced, cheap black-and-white prints of George Romney's paintings then made Emma a pin-up. It was like Hello magazine for the first time.
She is naturally beautiful, which is the reason she was painted, one of the reasons she was painted in the first place. And those images are carried through to sort of the broader public.
So printing technology and prints of Emma Hamilton made her a celebrity.
Yes.
Fame made her desirable and led to marriage with this man, Sir William Hamilton, the British envoy to Naples. It was here that Norfolk's favourite son, the hero of the day, Lord Nelson, stopped for supplies and an enduring love affair began. It was like a Hollywood romance, but it also fuelled another familiar feature of modern-day life: scandal.
Sir William watches as lovers carry on!
Nelson and Lady Hamilton in love tryst!
Gossip was rife, not only was Nelson married, the lovers conducted their affair openly, in front of Sir Williams. There were rumours the three of them lived together here at Merton Place, in South West London, which Nelson and Emma had bought for their future. Now it’s an old council estate but then it was Paradise Merton, a place in the country away from all the chatter.
In 1800, Emma Nelson and Sir William come back to live in England and Nelson instructs Emma to find him and her a country pad where they can live out their future days together. And so in 1801, she finds Merton Place, and it's the love nest that they hoped for, which they call Paradise Merton.
But it didn’t last for long. After losing his eye, and then an arm, Nelson's luck ran out. Shot dead, Kiss me Hardy, and the rest, of course, is history. For Emma, the high life ended too, crippled by debt, dying in poverty but her legacy will always be one half of one of the world's greatest love affairs.
Jim Wheeble, BBC London News.

KEY:
1 blacksmith
2 a painter / the most fashionable painter of the day
3 because she was very beautiful
4 In Naples / Italy
5 Lord Nelson, Emma and her husband
6 in 1801
7 she was poor

The Museum of Broken Relationships

CBS visits the Museum of Broken Relationships in Los Angeles, where mementos of jilted lovers, shattered romances and broken marriages are on display.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.



1. How many objects are there in the museum?
2. What happened to the reporter at college?
3. What is there in the pickle jar?
4. How did L.A. attorney John Quinn get the idea for the museum?
5. How much is the entrance ticket?
6. How does Alexis Hyde, the museum's director, find beauty in a breakup?


In Hollywood, heartbreak has always been easy to find. And now, it has an address: It’s the museum of broken relationships. Think of it as emotion under glass: a hundred or so ordinary objects that mean absolutely nothing to you and me, and everything to the people who gave them up.
There’s the blue silk blouse a woman wore the day her husband left her ... the wedding cake toppers someone kept after their marriage fizzled ... a dried-out prom corsage from a long-lost love ... the butterfly wings a guy made for his fiancé’s Halloween costume before she cheated on him and fluttered away.
Okay, I don't know about you, but when I was spectacularly dumped by my college boyfriend, the last thing I wanted to do was to save a little something to remember that moment by. But a lot of people do. Like this woman who was divorced but couldn't bear to throw away her silk floral wedding dress, so she kept it and crammed it in a pickle jar.
The man behind all this is L.A. attorney John Quinn, who discovered the original museum in Zagreb, Croatia, a little over a year ago, a place with its own collection of relationship rubble.
We all came out of it thinking, that was extraordinary, very thought-provoking, very moving in a way. And I thought more people should see this.
And now they can, at eighteen dollars a head. Love notes, big, small and very small. The cheerleader outfit one woman bought because her ex was a Nebraska fan ... and the silicone implants another had removed after she dumped the guy who talked her into getting them. It can all be a little sad, but the people we met seemed to be taking it remarkably well.
It's amazing, I love it. It's wonderfully cathartic to see people shedding the memories of their breakup and moving on and letting go and allowing other people to share in what happened.
Have you had a broken heart?
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.
Alexis Hyde is the museum's director.
So, bottom line, can you find beauty in a breakup?
I think so. Hopefully, you know, you can look back and think fondly and know that even if it didn't work out, it contributed to who you are today. And we're all failing together and we're all trying to get back up together. And that, I think, is very beautiful.
We were just reading one that might be one of his ex-girlfriends!
This is a little embarrassing, because I've seen three things so far that describe my last three relationships to a tee.
That's a pretty common reaction: the museum already has enough material to change the displays every few months. But, like love itself, there's always room for more.
So this is very weird for us, 'cause we hope we don't end up in here, so…
But we easily could.
Really?

Key:
1 a hundred 
2 she was dumped by her boyfriend
3 a wedding dress 
4 he visited the original museum in Zagreb, Croatia
5 $18 per person
6 it contributed to who you are today

Extensive listening: A better way to talk about love

In love, we fall. We're struck, we're crushed, we swoon. We burn with passion. Love makes us crazy and makes us sick. Our hearts ache, and then they break. Talking about love in this way fundamentally shapes how we experience it, says writer Mandy Len Catron.

In this talk for anyone who's ever felt crazy in love, Mnayd Len Catron highlights a different metaphor for love that may help us find more joy — and less suffering — in it.

Originally from Appalachian Virginia, Mandy Len Catron is a writer living and working in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Catron writes about love and love stories at The Love Story Project and teaches English and creative writing at the University of British Columbia. Her article "To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This" was one of the most popular articles published by the New York Times in 2015.

You can read the full transcript here.

Wartime sweethearts reunited after 70 years

Norwood Thomas and Joyce Morris reunite after they met in London during World War II.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.



Watch from the beginning to 42" and say what the following figures refer to:
70
93
10,500
88
21
17

Watch the rest of the video and answer these questions:
Where did Norwood and Joyce meet?
What quality in Joyce made Norwood 'melt'?
What's the marital status now?
How did they find out about one another recently?

Oh, we are. Well, you're still vertical. Hello!
Oh, give me a squeeze.
Just in time for Valentine's Day, these war-time sweethearts have been reunited for the first
time in 70 years. 93-year-old American, Norwood Thomas, flew 10,500 miles, from Virginia to Adelaide in southern Australia to see 88-year-old Joyce Morris.
Of course, there was a great difference in appearance but there's a big difference in my appearance too so it was a wonderful experience.
Norwood was just 21-years-old when he bumped into then 17-year-old Joyce on the banks of the River Thames.
This friend and I were walking across a bridge at Richmond across the Thames river and we looked down below and saw these two young ladies that were talking to a man about renting a row boat. So, we decided we'd go down and say hello. So, we suggested that we rent two boats and one of the ladies would row my friend, the other would row me.
Love quickly blossomed.
She had a smile that would melt you and, of course, I was melted.
When the war ended, Norwood Thomas returned to America, asking Joyce to come with him. But it wasn't meant to be and they both married other people and had children.
Well, we had a wonderful fortnight.
Now they're a widower and a divorcee, and when one of Joyce's children spotted Norwood's name in an article, the two got in touch via Skype. And these long-distance lovers pulled at the public's heartstrings, with them and Air New Zealand helping to fund Norwood's flight to Australia. Proof that love can last the distance.

Extensive listening: The mathematics of love

Mathematics and sex are deeply intertwined. From using mathematics to reveal patterns in our sex lives, to using sex to prime our brain for certain types of problems, to understanding them both in terms of the evolutionary roots of our brain, Dr Clio Cresswell shares her insight into it all.

Dr Clio Cresswell is a Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at The University of Sydney researching the evolution of mathematical thought and the role of mathematics in society. Communicating mathematics is her field and passion. Dr Clio Cresswell has appeared on panel shows commenting, debating and interviewing; authored book reviews and opinion pieces; joined breakfast radio teams and current affair programs; always there highlighting the mathematical element to our lives. She is author of Mathematics and Sex.

You can activate the CC subtitles on the player to read a full transcript of the talk.

Extensive listening: Rethinking infidelity

Rethinking infidelity ... a talk for anyone who has ever loved is a TED talk by relationship therapist Esther Perel and presented at official TED conference held in Vancouver in March 2015.

For most people, infidelity is the ultimate betrayal. But does it have to be? Ms Perel examines why people cheat, and unpacks why affairs are so traumatic: because they threaten our emotional security. In infidelity, she sees something unexpected — an expression of longing and loss.

Rethinking infidelity ... a talk for anyone who has ever loved is a must-watch for anyone who has ever cheated or been cheated on, or who simply wants a new framework for understanding relationships.

You can read a full transcript for the talk here.

Love from tragedy

Colin Goddard, a survivor of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, met his fiance, Gabriella Hoehn-Saric, while they were both working at The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Self-study activity:
Watch the story and answer the questions below.



1 When did Gabriella first hear about Colin?
2 What did Colin have?
3 What does Colin say about his aunt?
4 What do both families share?
5 What has Gabriella's role been in her relationship with Colin?

Well, I was an intern at the Brady campaign after I graduated from college.
I’d heard about him because (1) they all talked about he was leaving for the surgery and I was so nervous to meet him because I knew what had happened, and I didn’t know what to expect.
That’s right. And you started when I had to take a week off work because I should take a bullet out of my side.
(2) Oh yeah the cane, you had a cane.
My name is Colin Goddard. I was one of the few survivors from the Virginia Tech shooting two years ago. As a result of my experience, I learnt a great deal about myself, my community and my country, and I learnt a lot about a situation in society that links many of us.
I started working at the Brady campaign because my family had been involved for twenty years. (3) My aunt was killed when I was really young and it was a cause that was passionate to them, so it became a passion of mine when I was in college and I thought, you know, I’m finished college, I’m gonna do Teach for America in a year, what can I do in between, so I started to work there.
It was a strange connection that we had, that (4) our families had both been through such tragedies, and it was something we were both passionate about so I think that definitely was a strong basis for our relationship.
Yeah. I mean, we just, you know, as we started to know each other and to understand we had very similar histories in our family, you know, had dealt with difficult times like that. I think that immediately kind of made us have a connection, you know, that I… we didn’t really have with anybody else there, and that was just as living for 32 was finishing production and editing, starting editing and then back to get rolled out and start to public kind of tour across the country, and so one of Gaby’s, you know, jobs and roles was to help organise a bunch of screenings around the country and it was at the screening events where, you know, Gaby would help set up everything to make sure all the stuff was there, to make sure, you know, the right number of people were there and make sure, you know, all the ducks a row…
And to calm you down before you spoke…
Yeah, yeah, all that, all those little things, right and having so many of those, you know, bad experiences, you know…
Yeah we travelled a lot.
… in a short time frame, you know, I had a lot of time to hang out and get to know one another, and yeah, it was certainly, I think, when we really started to fall for one another, spending so much time with the film.
Yeah. (5) I think a lot of the time my role has been getting his mind off of what he’s doing, I mean, it’s a really heavy topic and he’s about to go talk the worst day of his life to a bunch of strangers and, you know, now he is less nervous, but it was the beginning and he would pace up and down the hallway and I would just be like, you know, you’re doing an amazing thing, they’re really happy to hear you speak, this is really important. What did you do for dinner tonight? Where do you wanna go? What’s your favourite team? Like trying to get his mind off things so he wasn’t completely freaking out of the gravity.
When there are… the horrible events when another man shooting happens on television, you know everyone wants to, you know, comment, and wants to talk about this in the media and, you know, you’re, you’re in the studios all day, you know, talking about something so horrible, I guess, she pulls me, she pulls me back to earth…
Yeah! He goes on the news and then he has to come help me clean up.
Yeah.
…tears through all this sadness. We are the Hokies. We will prevail, we will…
I met the man I’m going to marry. It happened out of so many terrible things. If those things had never happened, we might not have met. I think that, you know, sometimes weighs heavily on me but then I think it makes us really appreciate what we do have and how we did find each other, what a great relationship we have out of all it, in spite of everything.
That’s good.

Reading test: Pont des Arts love locks removed after Parisians lose affection for eyesore

In this week's reading test we are going to practise the 'insert a sentence' type of task. To do so, we are going to use The Guardian article Pont des Arts love locks removed after Parisians lose affection for eyesore, in which seven sentences have been removed. Read the text and choose the best sentence A-I for each gap. One sentence does not correspond to any of the gaps. 0 is an example.


As far as Paris and padlocks are concerned, (0) … . The French capital has had a definitive falling out with the estimated 1m “love-locks” that it says are threatening some of the city’s most historic monuments.

On Monday, workers armed with bolt cutters closed off the celebrated Pont des Arts over the Seine, (1) … , and began breaking hearts around the world.

Parisian officials have had a turbulent relationship with the trend since it hit Paris in 2008. When the first dewy-eyed couples began declaring their undying love by writing their initials or names on a padlock, attaching it to a monument and throwing the keys into the River Seine, (2) …. .

Since then, however, the locks have grown like metal barnacles over bridge railings, palisades, and parapets. Some have even been spotted on the Eiffel Tower.

Lisa Anselmo and Lisa Taylor Huff, two Americans who live in Paris, had started a campaign (3) … . Their petition currently has more than 10,400 signatures. Anselmo told journalists she was thrilled by the decision to remove the padlocks. “I hope this is the beginning of the end for this destructive trend,” she said.

Local officials had tried to persuade visiting lovers (4) … , but were forced to admit the campaign was a failure.

Paris city hall has denied being a killjoy. “This phenomenon (5) … : a lasting degradation of the heritage of Paris and a risk to the safety of visitors: Parisians and tourists,” it said in a statement.

Bruno Julliard, a deputy mayor, said he hoped to kiss goodbye to such an “ugly” trend.
 “We will cut away almost a million locks weighing 45 tonnes,” Julliard said of the Pont des Arts. He warned that similar measures would be taken on the nearby Pont de l’Archevêché, behind Notre-Dame cathedral, (6) … .

The Pont des Arts will be closed all this week while the locks are removed. To prevent their return (7) … , which will also make graffiti easier to remove, after the summer.

“We still hope that Paris will remain the capital of love and romance,” Julliard added.

A - another stop on the path of true lock-love
B - gives rise to two problems
C - it seemed relatively harmless
D - it’s the end of the affair 0 Example
E - that weighed down the bridge over the Seine in the centre of Paris
F - the authorities plan to install padlock-proof glass panels
G - to persuade the city authorities to clamp down on the locks
H - to take selfies and post a digital declaration of love online
I - where a railing collapsed last year under the weight of so many locks

Photo: The Guardian and Alamy

Key: 
1I 2C 3G 4H 5B 6A 7F

Nicole Kidman on a difficult situation in her life

Watch this short video of Nicole Kidman on the Ellen DeGeneres show and answer the questions below about it.



1. Why did Keith, Nicole's husband, travel to Paris at weekends?
2. What do they write to each other when they're apart?
3.  How long have Keith and Nicole been together?
4. What hard situation has Nicole gone through recently?
5. How does Nicole feel about people expressing their condolences?

When I see you and Keith, first of all, I adore Keith. I think he is the greatest, sweetest guy, and the… I think Keith was performing here when you were shooting that movie, and he was doing Idol, he was touring, and he was flying to Europe (1) to see you for a weekend and flying back.
Yeah.
… and I was like, that is amazing. And a lot of a people have a two-week rule...
No.
But for him to fly that… and he writes you love letters every single day?
I write him things too.
All right, well…
Every single day, do you write him things?
No, he doesn't write them every single day. (2) When we're apart, we do that, yeah.
Every single day?
Yeah.
That's really sweet.
Yeah.
That's really adorable.
I have to say… I love saying this, because he should be, you know, just adored, and he has been so good to me, you know, for (3) nine years, but for the last sort of month, which has been a really tough time for me to have, when you have your partner who just literally carries you through a tough time, oh. And he's been amazing to me. (4) I recently lost my father, and to have my husband be just step up, you know, in that way, it makes me cry. He's amazing, so...
It's good for… yeah.
Yeah, there's nothing better than having your pal to hold you up through times like that.
Yeah, and literally, at times… and I don't know, I mean, we all go through terrible things at different times in our lives, but to be literally carried by your partner, physically at times, 'cause I was so devastated… it's just like I would do anything for that man, so...
Well, you would go through anything for each other. I am so sorry for your loss, and I understand that you are so touched when people come up to you and actually say that to you. A lot of people don't want to be approached, but you really… it means something to you.
Yeah. I think, I mean, I've realized we don't talk about it enough in terms of our society, I think, you know, because at some point in our lives, we're gonna go through… everybody loses their parents, and it's awful. I'm sorry to bring everybody down. But I'm, at the same time, trying to navigate through something right now, and (5) I'm amazed when people reach out, because it's an awkward thing at times. But to have people go, I'm so sorry for your loss, the power of that, and even a note or anything, which I've gotten so much love from people.
Just the sharing. I think that is important, because it's love.
So important in this world.
Whenever it's coming from a place of love, it's support, and...
And there's something about when you realize someone else has gone through a similar thing or is going through a similar thing, it really connects you.
And you're not bringing us down, by the way. We are sending you love.
Thank you.
We're sending you a whole bunch of love.

Embracing the unknown

Breezy Jackson and Paul Koubek find love in adventure and adventure in love.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions about it. The activity is suitable for intermediate 2 students.



1 What commitment have Breezy and Paul made?
2 What do Breezy and Paul do?
3 What's the rate of women who live in Antarctica compared to men?
4 What three adjectives does Breezy use to describe Paul?
5 What adjectives does Paul use to describe Breezy?
6 What do acrobatic yoga and being committed in a relationship share?

To check your answers you can read the transcript below.

We don’t know where we’ll be in five years or ten years or twenty years and we’ve embraced the unknown, we’re committed to the unknown that we are gonna be faithful to each other (1).
Faithful into that.
Yeah, we’re going to be faithful to each other, no matter what happens, and that’s a huge adventure.
It’s an unknown for sure.
Yeah. That’s so exciting though.
Yeah, right.
We’re live in Yosemite. We rock climb and ride bicycles and hang out in beautiful meadows. Paul is a rock guide and I am a research scientist (2). We met in the Antarctica.
For sure any new place to find your future wife in a place that is about 25% female (3).
Yeah, Paul scored.
Yeah, it’s true.
He got lucky. So Paul is a total romantic, and he takes me on these amazingly well-planned romantic dates. Our early day was rock-climbing in Smithsonian Rocks.
Learning to scuba dive in Bali and we’ve gone sport climbing in Thailand and…
I mean, we have encouraged so many people here in Yosemite on their honeymoon going rock-climbing, in Yosemite on their honeymoon and that’s our everyday…
Yes, good, good, good, good, good. Hang in there.
I love that Paul is so dynamic and adventurous (4). You know, the analogy of climbing to marriage is that your partner is going to be the person who sees the worst in you and holds that space for you.
Nice, go for the jug, way at the top, I got you.
They are also the person who’s there to catch you.
Even when, even when you’re having your total meltdown.
Breezy is intelligent, beautiful, an amazing yoga teacher…
Flexible.
Flexible. Yeah, for sure. Adventurous (5).
You know the great thing about flexible people? They can’t be bent out of shape.
Yeah, exactly.
One of the things that I value… a lot about Paul is that he doesn’t only rock climb. He’s interested in a lot of different activities. We also do a lot of like acrobatic yoga.
Communication is essential like you will experience failures repeatedly, and deal with frustration as well in acro yoga is in our relationship. It’s interactive, it’s intimate, it’s physical. All of yoga is physical, but it’s a physicality shared with another person. We both really respect and admire each other…
Yeah.
And that’s one of our strengths. It should be a basic in a relationship.
And that balance (6). We balance each other really well.
Nice. Strong belly.

An Imperfect Beginning

Vince Taylor and Rebekah Gordon moved slowly and deliberately from friendship to romance.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below about it.

The activity is suitable for intermediate 2 students.



1 What does Rebekah mean by 'baggage'?
2 In what ecological disaster did Rebekah and Vince meet?
3 What was Rebekah first impression of Vince?
4 What unexpected thing did Vince do?
5 How does Vince describe the divorce process?
6 What does 'the third person in the relationship' refer to?

People have baggage, people have past relationships, people have children, people have all these things that make them complicated (1), but at the same time those things that are complicated are what makes people real and I think it’s, you know, what has made our love and our relationship real is that it isn’t some picture perfect little story book.
We actually met during the heart of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (2) back in 2010.
I’m a coast guard officer.
And I was providing legislated affairs support to the coast guard. We basically spent two very long days preparing his cleaning officer to testify at this hearing. I remember thinking , god you know this guy is really, is very handsome, you know but I saw his wedding band and so it was kind of, oh, well, I guess we’ll just focus on the work and that will be that (3) . We kind of kept the correspondence over email and also instant messaging and, you know, and er really kind of enjoyed each other’s friendship.
What he did which was completely unexpected was that he brought me a birthday present (4). A sign that he had made, out of wood, of the Giant’s logo.
I was trying to do something that was just for me a very simple way of expressing a feeling that I didn’t have the ability to say at the time.
I think that was the night when we acknowledged that we had feelings for one another.
I just said you know, very honestly, you know, I’m crazy about you and that’s very, very hard for me to reconcile, you know, being married, you know, and she began to cry. I want to console her but I know there is this, you know, invisible boundary that, you know, that I’m not going to cross.
You know, love is one those things where it doesn’t always happen the way that you think that it’s supposed to happen. It was tough trying to figure out what the right way forward was.
Going through the divorce process was incredibly difficult (5). There would be days where I don’t even know if I could have got out of bed if it weren’t for Rebecca.
It was something that was too important and too meaningful to give up on uhh… or to not see through.
Hold on one second. You’re okay? You need help?
You need help? Okay.
Does he need help?
Yeah… Sorry.
Sorry.
At times you describe this as having, you know, like a, like a third person in the relationship.
And you know, that third person is, you know, Vince’s kids and his marriage (6) and through, you know, dealing with the pieces of that are still with us, and will be with us. You know, there’s a lot of, about, you know, just not giving up, you know, this is worth fighting for, you know your kids are worth fighting for, you know, being able to move forward as a family unit it’s worth fighting for.

Adapting together

Watch this New York Times video about Eve Hampton and Robert Pratt, who met while coaching wheelchair basketball at a summer camp.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.

1 Both Eve and Robert are engineers.
2 Robert liked Eve for her extrovert personality.
3 Eve got disabled at 13.
4 Robert had his leg amputated in Iraq.
5 They both like being outdoors.
6 When they were in Glacier National Park, Robert grabbed a little mouse in his arms.
7 Eve doesn't mind people helping her.
8 Robert didn't really suffer when he got disabled.
9 Eve has gained confidence thanks to Robert.



I tend to plan things and tend to have the vision where I want to go do something and he… I don’t want to say you make my dreams come true but you do, everything I tell you I want to do you find a…
We find a way to do it.
We’re software engineers, that’s kind of what we do, we try to solve problems. We were camp counselors at San Diego, that’s a sports foundation camp.
He was coaching little kids in wheel chairs and anybody who is coaching little kids in wheel chairs is really cute.
You have this great bubbly personality I just love. There was something about you, I couldn’t, couldn’t forget.
When you have a trauma in your life, life for me becoming a paraplegic at 13, well I think I’m well adjusted now, that13-year-old is still part of who I am. Bob had a physical trauma too.
2006 while I was serving in Iraq as part of 1st Batallion Marines I was injured and got part of my right leg blown off. While recovering I was participating in some of the sports programmes. You know, I kind of learnt from doing that to see people beyond their wheel chairs, to see the person itself.
We’ve been really outdoorsy I think since much before we met, since little kids [Yeah.] and I think we recognize that in each other [Yeah.]
The past fall it’s been 75 days and nights camping in national parks. Yosemite…
Glacier.
Glacier, Yellow Stone, we went to the Badlands, Rushmore…
Oh, a little creek. You don’t really have your health guaranteed forever, you can’t just wait until retirement to go and do things like that. We’re able enough to do that now, so we did. When we were in Glacier National Park, there was this point in the trail that we came to and there was stairs leading up to this bridge, so I was like, okay, we’ll turn around, you know, sometime you can’t go any further in the trail and Bob says let me just see what’s ahead and he walks across the bridge and there was a moose standing there, so of course he comes back and he grabs me and takes me over the bridge…
Oh, they have wheel-chair height windows, or kid-height.
Either…or.
I don’t accept help from just anyone. In fact, like I actively resist people helping me most of the time but I think when you find a partner, then it’s okay to have them help you because that’s kind of what you do.
It’s locked.
Are you sure?
Yes, there’s a dead bolt.
Oh, sad.
You get frustrated when you’re disabled, you really do, you can’t run anymore, you can’t jump, I felt like self-conscious sometimes over shorts because everyone was staring at my right leg, and she helped me get over that.
I think he doesn’t always see me as an adult woman paraplegic, just sees me as this woman he loves [Yeah.], and so I see myself more as that, too. I think I’ve always been self-confident but to have someone who unconditionally loves you and to know that no matter what your physicality is, that they will love you. You don’t find that every day, really.
It’s true. Oh, Eve, I love you.
Are you trying to make this thing shake?

Key:
1T 2T 3T 4F 5T 6F 7F 8F 9T

Modern Love: Star-Struck

Watch this New York Times video which tells us about the difficulties that an entertainment reporter, infatuated with Hollywood's most famous starlets, has to find real love.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.

The activity is suitable for intermediate 2 students.



1 The reporter was 20 years old when he started working.
2 The reporter has dated some of the actresses he has interviewed.
3 Movie stars use similar strategies to those of politicians to gain people's favour.
4 The reporter sometimes forgets the faces of the actresses he interviews.
5 When the reporter met his wife, he had the feeling she wanted something from him.

Movie stars are incredibly charming people, that’s how they become movie stars. For 20 years I was a writer for Entertainer Weekly. The starlets I’ve interviewed are Nicole Kidman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, oh my god!, that’s Julia Roberts, three feet away from me.

The experience of sitting there and talking to these people and laughing with these people and dining with these people, you know, for all intents and purposes it is a date, there is really no other difference other than you don’t have a chance of a good night kiss.

As professional charmers there are some techniques that movie stars have that aren’t unlike politicians’ in a way: repeating your name, touching your shoulder or touching your hand, they’re trying to play you a little bit, but it’s still fun, that’s the thing, it’s still fun having Meg Ryan smile at you and Angelina Jolie let you fondle her elbow. You can’t help it, you know, you’re a human being, I think anybody would enjoy fondling Angelina Jodie’s elbow, it’s a nice elbow.

One of the most challenging parts of being a celebrity interviewer is that, you know, you spend all this time with these really celebrated amazing women. You sit down with somebody, you have a dinner with them for two hours and then a week later you can run into them at a party or something and they have no idea who you are, and then you get back to your real life and you go out on a real date and, you know, I’ve had real dates with wonderful women, but they’re not Julia Roberts.

I know with my wife I got the same sort of buzz of this person is really incredibly charming and smart and funny, but there wasn’t this ‘she wants something from me’. This is the difference between reality and fantasy, really. She was my ultimate cure from celebriphilia.

Key:
1F 2F 3T 3F 5F

Vows: Gabby and Anthony

This is the love story of Gabrielle Rubinstein and Anthony Cheong, which The New York Times published some time ago as part of the Vows series.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video clip and answer the questions below.

The activity is suitable for intermediate students.



1 What did Gabby do in 2003?
2 What did Gabby and Anthony and some other people use to do every Saturday?
3 When did Anthony kiss Gaby for the first time?
4 Why did they take their relationship slowly to begin with?
5 How long did they take to get engaged?
6 What happened in a Montreal hotel?

To check your answers you can read the transcript below.


I’m Gabby. This is the story about how Anthony and I met. I opened up Joe with my brother in 2003 and by 2006 I knew several thousand people and I thought it would be fun to start setting people up on dates. It usually doesn’t work out, but I had one couple that got married, then they got divorced, but I think it still counts.
I moved to New York in 2006 from Sydney, and I was in the hunt for some good coffee like all the Australians do, so I came in one day and ordered my latte, and then next to the counter I saw this sign that said, ‘come and join this running team on Saturday morning’ so in 2007 I started running with the team Joe, and that’s where I met Gabrielle. Now, the next two years, you know, I would show up every Saturday morning and we would be for our run and we became best friends.
So I really wanted to set him up with myself, it’s true. So we jokingly go on these pretend dates where I was kind of hoping they would turn in more than pretence, but then at the end of the night, you know, I got a pat on the back, you know, and then I went home thinking, oh I guess he likes me as a friend.
My last effort was to plan a New Year’s Eve party for all our Joe friends. My plan was to see if he wanted to kiss me at midnight.
Then I started thinking, ‘ah, she’s a…, you know, she’s a really nice woman and I like spending time with her and… then I sort of like as we got to New Year’s Eve I thought, ‘why not?’
Later that night it was time for the kiss and… so I said ‘so, what do you think? Should we have our New Year’s kiss now?’ And so he leans in and he kisses me on the cheek.
Just like this.
And I probably looked at him like that, and then I said ‘So this is your big chance, really, that’s all, that’s all I get? I mean, really, we can forget about it tomorrow, but let’s go for it.’ So then he leaned in for another kiss and the kiss turned into another kiss and before you know it, there was quite a kiss.
I think both of us were afraid of, you know, jeopardizing our friendship, we really valued that so much more than having a short-term relationship or a fling, and so… We… I actually took our relationship slow for a few months.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we got engaged about six months after we started dating, it was really slow, it was very slow.
Wow.
We went to Montreal for a romantic weekend, and we were on the plane he started getting very sick with a cold. He was also acting a little bit nervous I thought because he was sick…
Because I am carrying this ring in my pocket for the entire time.
So he kept jokingly asking me, ‘will you marry me? Do you want to spend your life with me?’, and I said ‘yes, of course I do, but stop asking me unless you have a ring’, so we get back to the hotel, we walk in the front door, he pulls me in and says again ‘will you marry me? I love you, do you want to spend your life with me?’ I say ‘of course, you have the ring or not’, and so he pulls out the box and I just froze.
And then I go down on one knee. I could hardly speak, so I was whispering into her ear, ‘will you marry me?’
Just couldn’t wait any longer.
Just couldn’t wait.

Modern love: Falling in love at 71

Nora Johnson, long divorced, wasn't looking for love when she met George, a widowed 83-year-old. It just happened.

Watch her story in this New York Times video.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and complete the blanks in the transcript with the missing words.

The activity is suitable for intermediate students.


Modern Love: Falling in Love at 71 from NYT Video on Vimeo.

When I met George I was not looking for anybody, and the (1) ... that I was in love was ridiculous at the age of 71, I really shouldn’t be doing this.
Getting ready to go out when I was younger was much more complicated than it had to be, ‘oh, my God these stockings have a (2) ... , girdles and garter belts’.  Much (3) ... around with make-up, which really was unnecessary when you’re 21, I mean people are so pretty at 21 they don’t need make-up.
When I’m getting ready for a date at 71 I kind of do it in five minutes. Finding things in common with somebody… I remember that was (4) ... , I would go out with a young man, and we both liked Chinese food that made me feel we were (5) ... .
Dating is different at 71 because you do have less time and we went to bed a lot faster than I would have gone (6) ... there wasn’t much time for that either.
George loved women and I was always glad I hadn’t met him thirty, forty years ago because I wouldn’t have been able to stand it. But by the time I met him he couldn’t run very far. There is a (7) ... , somebody wasn’t going to last very long, because he was older it was going to be George. I didn’t feel like I was (8) ... die if George left me. At 21 I really felt if the (9) ... turned around and left me I would just die. When it was George I knew I would survive. I have a little more (10) ... than I had before.

You can also read the related New York Times article Age is no obstacle to Love or Adventure.


Key:
1) realization 2) runner 3) fooling 4) thrilling 5) soulmates 6) ‘cause 7) sadness 8) gonna 9) guy 10) sensibility

Master of ceremonies

This is James Mitchell, who works as a marriage officiant at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau, where he has performed over 27,000 ceremonies in three years.

Self-study activity:
This is more of a talking activity rather than a listening activity for Intermediate 2 students.

Watch the video and answer the questions below.

How many different couples do you remember?
Who are they with?
What are they wearing?
Where are the ceremonies held?

To what extent do you feel the video shows a picture of the early 21st century?
What do the words below tell us about today’s world?
    climate change – globalisation – Google – credit crunch – Web 2.0 – carbon footprint – youth culture
What other trends, ideas, changes or factors define our times?



The video is part of The New York Times video series Vows, where couples explain the way they met and how their relationship developed.

We have posted two more Vows videos, Marguerite and Sean's love story and How we met, Erica and Matthew, both of which include listening activities for intermediate students.

You can also watch the post Wedding Season, and compare the more traditional wedding ceremonies with the Manhattan Marriage Bureau video we have posted today.

We have all types of people who come into the Marriage Bureau. They are from all aspects of life. They are from all over the world.
Welcome guys!
How are you doing today?
We are gathered here tonight to witness the exchanging of marriage vows between Claudio and Geneva…
I might be doing my 100th ceremony but for the couple in front of me is their first ceremony and so what I want to do is I want to make it as special as I possibly can. So when I close the chapel doors the people that are in front of me are the most important people that are at the office at that time.
Do you Roy solemnly declare to take Nicole to be your lawfully wedded wife?
Do you promise to love, honour, cherish and keep him for as long as you both shall live. As a symbol of your promise, please place a ring on the young lady’s finger.
In as much as you both have consented to be united in the vows of marriage and have exchanged your wedding vows in front of us here tonight and by the power invested to me by the laws of the great state of New York I now pronounce you married. And you may seal your vows…
This should be one of the happiest days of a person’s life and I may be able to be a part of that and just feeling of that energy, the energy in the room, the love in the room, is enough to help me get through each one of the ceremonies.

The science of love

How does love work? Why does love work? We seem to know very little about this emotional state which seems to have wondered philosophers, scientists, writers and the ordinary man in the street since the world is world.

Canadian-born singer, actor and biology student Mitchell Moffit has compiled a fast-paced two-minute video where he analyses this feeling and tries to explain it from a scientific point of view.

Self-study activity:
The difficulty of the video is quite high, which means that even strong intermediate students will find it difficult. So I would recommend watching it a couple of times at least to get familiar with Moffit's accent, the topic and ideas, and the communicative value of the images.

Then you can go over the transcript below and complete the blanks with the missing words.

Remember that you can quickly look up the meaning of unknown vocabulary items by double-clicking on the word you don't understand.



From philosophers and historians, to poets and scientists alike, love has (1) ... our imagination and curiosity for centuries. Many have experienced the rush of falling in love for the first time, or the deep feelings of love for your children, family and friends. But what is love from a biological perspective? No doubt it’s intertwined with the evolutionary survival of our (2) ... . After all you come from an unbroken line of organisms reproducing from the very first microbe that split in two, to your ancestors who have all successfully mated since the dawn of time.
Sadly, if you fail to have children this perfect streak comes to a halt. But while we’re driven to reproduce, we’re also driven to make sure our (3) ... survive.
Though we often associate love with the heart, the true magic can be seen inside the brain.
It may not be entirely surprising to find out that the brain of somebody in love looks awfully similar to one on cocaine. Cocaine acts on the pleasure centers in the brain by lowering the (4) ... at which they fire. This means that you feel really good a lot easier. We see the same thing in the brains of those in love, but it’s not just the cocaine or the love that makes you feel good it’s the fact that anything you experience will now more easily (5) ...   ...  pleasure centers and make you feel good.
Because of this you not only fall in love with the person, but begin to build a romanticized view of the world around you. Interestingly nearby pain and aversion centers begin to fire less, so you become less (6) ... by things. Simply put we love being in love.
So what chemicals are at work to make all of this happen? Both during orgasm or by simply looking at photos of a loved one, there is a surge of dopamine and norepinephrine from the ventral tegmental area. This not only (7) ... sexual arousal in your racing heart, but gives you the motivation, craving and desire to be with a person more and more. You see, romantic love is not simply an emotion, it’s a drive from the motor of the mind. And this motor brings about intense energy focused attention and (8) ... . The pleasure centers are part of the brains reward system. The mesolimbic dopamine system. If you stimulate this region while learning, learning becomes much easier because it’s pleasurable and perceived as a reward. We also see a surge in the neuromodulator oxytocin from the nucleus accumbens. Sometimes called the 'commitment neuromodulator' because in mammals it helps to (9) ... bonding or attachment. When prairie voles are injected with either oxytocin or vasopressin they will instantly find a (10) ... to pair a bond with.
Finally, studies have shown that people in love have low levels of serotonin, which is similar to people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. This is likely cause of our obsession and infatuation during early love. Amazingly, these areas associated with intense romantic love can remain active for decades, and while there are many other physiological and psychological components that add to the mix, the truth is, science still knows very little about exactly why or how love works. And yet somehow, we all seem to know it when we feel it. Got a burning question you want answered? Ask it in the comments, or on facebook and twitter. And subscribe for more weekly science videos.

And this is the video Mitchell Moffit submitted for the Best job in the World competition a few years ago now. He seems good fun.



Key:
1 captured 2 species 3 offspring 4 threshold 5 set off 6 bothered 7 triggers 8 elation 9 reinforce10 mate

How we met: Erica and Mathew

The New York Times has a nice selection of videos, Vows, where a number of couples comment on the way they met. On 11 April we posted the story of Marguerite and Sean. Today it is Erica and Mathew who tell us how they met.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below. The activity is suitable for Intermedio 2 students.



1 What newspaper helped Erica and Mathew meet?
2 How does Howaboutwe.com work?
3 What made so many people want to check the site on 4th July?
4 How long did it take them to set up their first date after exchanging some phone calls and emails?
5 Who arrived first at the meeting point?
6 What happened at the very end of their first date?
7 What did Erica quickly notice about Mathew?
8 When did Mathew propose to Erica?
9 What time was the meal? What was the problem?
10 How did Mathew propose?

You can check your answers by reading the transcript below.


Hi I’m Matt.
And I’m Erica.
And this is how we met.
Erica and I met because of The New York Times actually.
I read an article in The New York Times about recent trends in dating and the source for the article was this new dating website called Howaboutwe.com.  The interesting thing about How about we was that you actually propose the ideas of things you want to do so, how about we go to the movies, how about we check out this wine bar.
I had a free counting site to Howaboutwe.com when it first started. There was not so many people, not so many profiles and certainly nothing that called my interest. And then on 4th July I got contacted by the site saying they crashed because of the traffic from The New York Times article that they were just being flooded with people wanting to check out the site.
So I decided I should go back on, took a look at a few profiles and Erica really caught my eye and I think the reason why is that we had picked the same date.
I suggested walking the High Line.
I contacted Erica through the site. We exchanged a couple of emails back and forth and then we had a couple of phone calls and about a week or two later we set up for our first date.
Matt suggested we that meet at a near by bar, in a bar called Honey. We I got there Matt was actually there having a beer and I got a glass of wine. We talked for a bit and it turned out great, so we decided to go on High Line as planned.
We went for a walk on the High Line, had a wonderful time, towards the very end it actually started raining, had to run for duck for cover, which was kind of fun.
And then at the end of walking the High Line we got down to this standard Biergarten, and we got there it wasn´t really our scene, so we left and I suggested the Diner right nearby.
One thing I noticed fairly quickly about Matt was that he kept coming up with all these great ideas and great suggestions, so as we were talking in the Diner he said there was this great bar that he loved down the street called The Other Room. We had some drinks, and talked and time just flew.
Which was great but it was time to head home he dropped me off and I heard from him a few days later so it began.
So about a year and a half later I decided to propose to Erica and I thought it would be really fun to do it on the High Line. I made reservations for The Standard Grill.
We went to the restaurant for our seven o’clock reservation and we were quickly told by the hostess that we were mistaken and there was no seven o’clock reservation. So I suggested, well, let’s go for a walk on the High Line.
And I said Wow! What a great idea! So we went on the High Line, walked around a little bit, went back to a place where we had spent a lot of time on our first date.
And Matt went down on one knee…
And I proposed. And she said yes.
All along I never suspected anything, so, and we met our parents, had a saludatory dinner, and then joined some friends down at the bar The Other Room where we had gone on our first date. And that’s our beginning.
And that’s how we met.

Marguerite and Sean's love story

The New York Times has a nice selection of videos, Vows, where a number of couples comment on the way they met.

This is the video of Marguerite and Sean. When Sean  invited himself over to try Marguerite's Singaporean chili crab, he got more than he expected as Marguerite's cat was sick.

Self-study activity:
No real task today. Try to understand as much as possible of everything that is said on the video: where they met; the problem with the cat; Marguerite's feelings and how Sean's reacted. It's a beautiful story, I think.

You can check with the transcript below.

The activity is suitable for (strong) intermediate students.




We met at a bar in Jersey city.
She told me that she put together recipes for single people, that she had a website for it. So I asked her what’s your favourite recipe. She told me it was Singapurean chili crab.
And he said really? Well then you have to cook that for me one day. I thought oh my gosh!
I think I said when can I  come over …to try that?
He wanted to come over. That’s right.
Our first official date... we decided to head back to Jersey city and have something to eat, but we got to my house it was clear that my cat was sick, most of  the hospitals closing were for the night so we couldn’t take her, so we stayed up all night petting the cat, just you know, talking to her, and the next morning we woke up she is just lying there.
Yeah, I checked and I said yeah I think she’s gone.
I remember I was here with someone I didn’t know him very well, and he’s holding me. I was really devastated because she passed but I was also kind of embarrassed because here’s a guy that I just met and I also felt really comforted because he was just such a rock. It’s kind of funny. You don’t think when you first meet somebody that you are going to know how to handle that or the worst things that could possibly happen to you. And by the first day I knew this is a guy who will be there for me no matter what happened, any of the bad things that happen in life he would be there.
Later that night he called to check on me to see how I was handling it and said well, I’d really like to see you again. And he said how about that Singapurean chili crab and I said Ok, I think I owe you this one, yes.

The Last -short film

A simple question, "How many have you loved?" 

Is your answer, "one and only"? 

Or is it "several", all of whom have shaped your life?

This is the rather simple background to this Philip Wang short film, released in 2012, and whose comments on his own film you can read on the Wong Fu Productions blog.

Watch this slow-paced, rather philosophical short film and find out what WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE and WHY refer to.

You can read the transcript here.