Some Summer Ideas
2014
Year 6 (2013-14) becoming Y7 (2014-15)
1
Remember from last year how helpful it was to work through some
summer exercises. This is new version for this year but along the
same lines.
First, read through the booklet. Please do what follows each piece whether
that is typing in definitions, looking at hyperlinks, finding visual images etc.
With each article, you should look up the highlighted words and define them
and, when instructed, in the tables. In some cases, you are also again asked
to find suitable visual images to help fix and explore the meaning in your
mind. Do talk to your family and discuss the reading with them. There is plenty
to chew on. Make sure that you try to complete the definition and image
tables. You must complete this document as an electronic Word document
and give it to me at the beginning of term. Please remember to SAVE as
you go along. When you e-mail it, please make sure you label it as follows:
SURNAME
Rooney
Form
7J
This makes it easier for us to save and look at. These booklets are then
printed off at school and we use them in enrichment lessons and mock
interviews.
2
First, read through the review of the Lego Movie. You will be asked to discuss
this and the other passages/poems on your return in your English Enrichment
Comprehension classes with me. Make sure that you have looked up the
words you do not know! There is no excuse for saying you cannot do this!
Ask your friends; prod your family and ask the dog. But, do not leave this
blank or scrawled in biro/pencil and say in September, with tears in your eyes:
‘It is just like last year in Year Five, I cannot believe it: Once again, we didn’t
have a dictionary or Wi-Fi at any point in the summer and my dad’s office
blew up and mum dropped her Mac in the sea when we were in Nice!’ & then I
sprained my typing wrist water-skiing. Honestly, Paul; Why are you laughing?’
Just do it! You will actually enjoy learning these new things! All the stuff is
worth reading
‘They can, because they think they can!’ Virgil
3
Review of Lego Movie by By Robbie Collin, Chief Film Critic The Telegraph
Andy Warhol would have been knocked sideways by The Lego Movie. The new animation from Warner Bros. takes art and
commerce and clicks them together as naturally and satisfyingly as a pair of plastic bricks on their way to becoming a castle or
spaceship. Never before have I felt less like a film was selling me a product, and then left the cinema more desperate to fill my
house with the product it wasn’t selling.
That’s largely because The Lego Movie is swooningly in love with the Lego brick itself: its look, its feel, its clutchable there-ness.
The film is computer-generated, but it looks like an old-fashioned stop-motion production. Individual bricks and figures come
scratched, scuffed and smeared with fingerprints. The Lego world looks lived-in. No, even better: played-with.
And playfulness is the prevailing sprit. At ground level, The Lego Movie is an uproariously funny family adventure – a Star WarsMatrix hybrid with jokes, that bound along with a kind of crazed, caffeinated energy. Dig down a little, though, and you realise that
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the film’s two-man writing and directing team, are telling a classic quest story precisely because
those stories are so Lego-ish at heart.
Two sides in the Lego world are vying for supremacy. One is led by Lord Business (Will Ferrell), the ruler of Bricksburg, a bustling
city where the cars and buildings are all assembled, and lives are lived, in line with the instructions. The other is made up of the
Master Builders; visionaries and outlaws who see new, exciting ways to connect the blocks Lord Business would rather remain in
place.
The security of order versus the thrill of working outside it: that’s the struggle at the heart of any number of classic adventure films,
but it’s also a choice made by every seven-year-old who’s ever unwrapped a brand new Lego set. Do you follow the instructions,
and end up with the model on the box? Or do you set the manual aside, click the pieces together at random, and see what chance
produces?
This decision also faces Emmet (Chris Pratt), a Bricksburg builder whose life, when we first encounter it, is one never-ending
routine. Wake up, exercise, work, eat, relax, sleep, repeat. He does this every day, in order, and fits in because of it. His favourite
song is everyone’s favourite song: a pop track called ‘Everything Is Awesome’ that’s catchier than Velcro.
4
But unbeknownst to him, Emmet is also The Chosen: a saviour foretold in a prophesy by a Morgan Freeman-like sage – who is,
brilliantly, voiced by Morgan Freeman. The hooded freedom-fighter Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) finds him and whisks him out of the
city and into new, unexplored parts of the Lego universe, where they plot Lord Business’s downfall, with help from Wyldstyle’s
celebrity boyfriend, Lego Batman (Will
Each dimension is home to a particular range of Lego kits, and the long-standing favourites like pirates, Wild West and space are
where most of the action takes place. Less-successful Lego sub-brands, meanwhile, such as the unloved Fabuland and Galidor
ranges, are hastily covered in a self-deprecating montage.
There are so many blink-and-miss-them moments to appreciate: in another wonderful detail, a 1980s-vintage spaceman character,
voiced by Charlie Day, has a helmet that has snapped in exactly the place where all the 1980s Lego spacemen figures’ helmets
used to snap.
Parents who themselves grew up with Lego in their toy-boxes will almost certainly feel the prickle of nostalgia, and a sweet, witty
passage late in the film acknowledges that for fathers, in particular, a son or daughter’s plastic bricks can spirit them back to a
childhood long-past.
Lord and Miller, both former sitcom writers, have arrived here via two unexpected hits: the 3D animation Cloudy With a Chance of
Meatballs and their comic reboot of the teen police drama 21 Jump Street. Those films didn’t have to be particularly inventive or
thoughtful or witty to turn a profit, but they were. The Lego Movie is too, but it reaches even further. For a shot of pure forwardleaping, backward-dreaming animated pleasure, pick brick.
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5
Now think about these words/phrases too!
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




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
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knocked sideways
satisfyingly
swooningly in love
clutchable
Vying
Supremacy.
Bustling
Visionaries
Outlaws
Security
the manual
Awesome’
Unbeknownst
Foretold
Prophesy
Sage
Whisks
Dimension
self-deprecating
montage.
vintage
prickle
nostalgia,
inventive
6
Tricky Word
Tricky Phrase
Can you define it?
Maybe think
synonym too!
of
Can you make another
sentence with the word,
a thus showing that you
REALLY
know the
meaning?
knocked sideways
satisfyingly
swooningly in love
clutchable
Vying
verb
Word forms: vies, vying, vied
1.(intransitive; followed by with or
for) to contend for superiority or
victory (with) or strive in competition
(for)
2.(transitive) (archaic) to offer,
exchange, or display in rivalry
Paul K was vying in
vain with Paul C in
the marathon.
Supremacy.
Bustling
verb
gerund
bustling
or
present
participle:
move in an energetic and busy
manner.
"people clutching clipboards bustled
about"
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synonyms:
rush, dash, scurry, scuttle,
scamper, scramble, flutter, fuss; More
hurry, hasten, make haste, race, run, sprint,
tear, shoot, charge, chase, career;
"people clutching clipboards bustled
about"
•(of a place) be full of activity.
"the streets bustled with people"
Visionaries
Outlaws
Security
the manual
Awesome’
Unbeknownst
happening or existing without the
knowledge of someone specified —
usually used with to : Unbeknownst
to us, rumors were flying!
Foretold
Prophesy
8
Sage
Whisks
Dimension
self-deprecating
montage.
vintage
prickle
Prickle noun: prickle; plural noun: prickles
1. a short pointed outgrowth on the bark or
epidermis of a plant; a small thorn."the prickles
of the gorse bushes"
.
a small spine or pointed outgrowth on the skin
of certain animals.
a tingling sensation on a person's skin, typically
caused by strong emotion." Bob felt a prickle of
excitement"
synonyms:
tingle,
tingling
sensation, tingling,
prickling
sensation,
chill,
thrill,
itching,
creeping
sensation,
gooseflesh, goose
pimples, pins and
needles;
verb: prickle; 3rd person present: prickles;
past tense: prickled; past participle: prickled;
gerund or present participle: prickling
9
1. (of a part of the body) experience a tingling
sensation, especially as a result of strong
emotion."the sound made her skin prickle with
horror"
synonyms:
tingle, itch, have a creeping
sensation,
have
goose
pimples, have gooseflesh,
have goosebumps, have
pins and needles
nostalgia,
inventive
10
Tricky Word
Tricky Phrase
Can you Google image/picture/cartoon which helps
show the meaning of some key words?
knocked sideways
satisfyingly
swooningly in love
clutchable
Vying
Supremacy.
Bustling
Visionaries
Outlaws
11
Security
the manual
Awesome’
Unbeknownst
Foretold
Prophesy
Sage
12
Whisks
Dimension
self-deprecating
montage.
vintage
prickle
Nostalgia,
inventive
13
Now look at these interestingly contrasting
reviews/evaluations of the World Cup & Test Match.
Barnaby Ronay
The Guardian
Thank you Brazil, and goodbye. It’s been … emotional. After 32 days, 64 matches,
171 goals, 182 yellow cards, 48,706 passes, 2,124 tackles, $4bn in revenue for Fifa,
plus of course an unceasing spume of digital opinion, a tsunami of public weeping
and a mountain of deep-fried cheese pasties, the 2014 World Cup has now left the
building.
Quite a bit has happened along the way. A European nation has become world
champion on Latin American soil for the first time. Germany joined Italy as Brazil’s
nearest all-time World Cup challengers. Miroslav Klose has dethroned Ronaldo as
the most doggedly devastating goalscorer in World Cup history. And the World Cup’s
hosts and holders have never been so soundly thrashed as Brazil and Spain were
here, and this at a World Cup that still managed to produce the most classically oldschool semi-final line up yet, a VVIP gathering of the oligarchical powers.
At the end of which, after a tournament that was eight years and $11bn in the
making, those four weeks in summer can now begin the familiar process of
separating out in the memory into a concatenation of enduringly vivid moments.
This was a World Cup of bold, rich flavours, a heavily sauced affair that was at times
almost a little too pungent for its own good. Never have so many tears been shed by
so many athletes in such stunning high definition close-up. Never has so much
incident, outrage and media-fanned obiter dicta successfully intruded from the
fringes. Above all it has been a deeply sensory, even rather sensual World Cup. Just
as the global TV audience swooned over the action and the tournament’s heavily
marketed poster boys – J-Rod, Leo, C-Ron, Louis van G – so travelling around
Brazil’s cities and stadiums was a brilliantly engaging experience.
This was the first tournament South American fans have travelled to in such
numbers on their own continent. In the days leading up to the final, the streets of Rio
were duly thronged with sozzled and boisterous Argentinians, the same supporters
15
who had removed their shirts and staged celebratory fraternal fist fights in the stands
in São Paulo after the victory against Switzerland.
Even England’s own shortlived travelling support could be seen dancing through the
wee hours next to the opera house in Manaus, all driven along by the basic latenight, outdoorsy warmth of Brazil itself, ideal host for a genuinely engaging World
Cup in one of the sport’s grand old footballing heartlands. It might be best to savour
this while we can. Russia is up next, followed by the irresolvable wrong turn that is
Qatar 2022. The World Cup is going outside now. It may be gone for some time.
For the hackneyed footballing romantic it is even tempting to detect some basic
infectious Brazilian quality – the air, the light, the memory of the poor old long-dead
jogo finito – in the excitement of the early stages. Either way the first week of Brazil
2014 came slathering out of the traps in a furious real-time montage of goals and
attacking play. Group stages just aren’t supposed to look like this, but here the
players pressed and counter-attacked to the limits of their physical capacities from
the start. Holland’s 5-1 destruction of Spain will remain one of the great World Cup
results. Germany thrashed a spooked and depleted Portugal in Salvador. France
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and Switzerland produced a breezy 5-2 romp, and overall by the end of the
tournament’s first weekend the opening 14 matches had produced 44 goals.
It couldn’t last. It didn’t. The first 14 matches of the next phase brought just 31 goals,
boosted by the isolated absurdity of Brazil’s annihilation in Belo Horizonte, as the
best teams began to grind back down through the gears. By the end of the
tournament the vogue for swift counter-attack had already begun to congeal into a
wised-up retreat into deep-lying mutual counter-defence.
During Argentina’s semi-final with Holland, perhaps the most cautious match of the
tournament, Alejandro Sabella’s team at times played a kind of 8-0-0-2, with Lionel
Messi and Gonzalo Higuaín stationed miles from their retreating defence, lingering in
the distance like fielders at long-on and long-off. And yet it would be wrong to say
possession football went out of fashion at Brazil 2014: quite the opposite in fact, as
the two teams who made the most passes contested the final. Similarly tiki-taka
didn’t die – passing and keeping the ball will never go out of fashion – but instead
failed to turn up in the first place as the reigning champions played not just like a
tired team, but like a listless, even rather bored one.
17
Instead the dominant style at this World Cup was a kind of jogo collectivo, the
familiar high-speed hustle and closing down of space that defines elite European
club football. Helped by an excellent ball in the Brazuca – no wobbly moments, no
flailing frango-howlers here – and refereeing that let the game flow to a fault at times,
the general standard was high.
Although there are always exceptions. England had arguably their worst ever World
Cup, a tournament that lasted five competitive days and ended with Roy Hodgson’s
quietly hopeful squad bottom of Group D having outscored only Cameroon, Iran and
Honduras at Brazil 2014. There is a theory England were unlucky, that playing their
first match in the great steaming saucepan that was the Arena Amazônia mortally
wounded them ahead of Uruguay four days later. This is wishful thinking.
England were just not good enough, exposed by playing two teams at the group
stage of the same calibre that more often eliminates them in the knockout rounds.
The players were short on small details – a lack of concentration in defence and
precision in attack – but to blame the details is to avoid the great sweeping backstory
of structural underachievement.
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As Philip Larkin wrote in As Bad As A Mile …
“Watching the shied core
Striking the basket, skidding across the floor
Shows less and less of luck, and more and more
Of failure spreading back up the arm.”
Or in other words, the lads came up short – and will do the same again if nothing
changes.
It was fairly clear what marked out the best teams at this World Cup. The more
successful nations were those with coherent, productive domestic leagues, where
the national association has a benevolent handle on how players are produced what
the style and structure is going to be. Costa Rica, Holland, Germany, Belgium and
Argentina benefited from players produced by a coherent domestic system, rather
than the chaotic short-termism of England or, as it turns out, Brazil.
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Indeed the only time the Premier League seemed tangibly present at this World Cup
was when Luis Suárez bit Giorgio Chiellini in Natal, the familiar engines of drama
and sentiment revved up and the English joined in the party, like teenagers at the
disco leaping up at the end of the night when the DJ finally relents and puts some
heavy metal on.
And what about the hosts anyway? In the end Brazil 2014 was both a PR disaster
and a triumph, a shared sporting nightmare and a shared success; a triumph of
stadium building fatally undermined by the spectacle of inadequate roads, housing
and basic infrastructure that surrounded many of these high-spec space capsules.
Inside Brazil’s wet-paint mega-stadia the experience was slick enough, the staging
spectacular, the relentless toadying, schmaltzified handshakes for peace, white
doves of Blatter and all the rest of it familiarly inane. For this success no credit
whatsoever must go to the spendthrift politicians and discredited organisers of Brazil
2014, but to the workers responsible for somehow sweating the whole thing into
place and to the army of local volunteers who brightened and eased and smoothed
what delays and hitches – the vanishing staircase, the neurotic fear of adequate
signage – did show through.
20
As for the host team there is a separate treatise to be written on that extraordinary
semi-final meltdown, when Brazil’s players didn’t so much lay the ghost of Barbosa
from 1950 as become entirely possessed by his vengeful spirit – We Are All
Barbosa! – stumbling about the pitch like boggle-eyed zombies. And a sense this
World Cup witnessed the long-anticipated death of “Brazil” itself, the packing away
for good of that historic warm-spirited football of the imagination, long since
concreted in beneath the layers of professionalism and physicality.
Brazil has been criticised for the homogeneity of the crowds inside its stadiums,
something that was always going to be the case from the moment it became clear
only 400,000 of 3.3m tickets would be made available to ordinary Brazilians at
affordable prices. Otherwise the crowds were just what you get at large scale
sporting beanos everywhere: a collection of rich people.
Talking of which, even Fifa managed to emerge from this World Cup relatively
unscathed, albeit from a position of already being pretty heavily scathed in the first
place. In an interesting twist this was, in a sense, the tournament at which footballing
chicanery came home, the culture of opaque wheeler-dealering having been
21
entrenched at Fifa in the first place by the discredited Brazilians João Havelange and
Ricardo Teixeira.
Football’s governing body remains a source of head-scratching bewilderment
whatever the successes of this gripping World Cup; a tournament that beneath its
many layers of drama and obfuscation confirmed that for all the noisy excitements of
club football there is a purity about the international game that remains its distinct
and distinguishing feature.
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22
You will ‘sort of know’ what the highlighted words mean. You will ‘kind of’, ‘like’
understand, especially in the context of the passage; and, if you watched the World
Cup. But, be honest and where you really aren’t sure, look up the words. Maybe
make up your own table and Google some images, cartoons or drawings which
convey the meanings effectively. See the two superb cartoons below!
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Enriching
vocabulary/
useful phrase
Crisp definition
Can you provide a
sentence showing that
you really know what this
word/phrase means?
Revenue
Spume
tsunami
Dethroned
Man. United were really dethroned
this season.
Doggedly
devastating
Soundly
classically oligarchical
a concatenation
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enduringly vivid
My memories of the Recitation
night are enduringly vivid because
of the way everyone clapped us.
heavily sauced
Pungent
The smell of my locker on the last
day of term was pretty pungent
obiter dicta
Intruded
sensory,
sensual
Swooned
engaging
Continent
thronged
sozzled
Boisterous
I was given a Sanction Sheet for
being too boisterous in the lunch
queue!
25
fraternal fist fights
Savour
Irresolvable
hackneyed
romantic
infectious
Andrew’s humour is infectious
slathering
As we went to lunch Dave was
slathering like a dog
montage
Olly asked us to make up a
montage for our art show.
physical capacities
Paul’s physical capacities were not
quite as impressive as his mental
capacities.
spooked
Depleted
26
Annihilation
grind back
vogue for
There seems to be a vogue for
Huggies at my sister’s school.
congeal
Cautious
Lingering
Contested
listless,
Reading these articles makes me
listless, whatever the Head claims
about them!
dominant style
jogo collective
Flailing
27
frango-howlers
Exceptions
wishful thinking
Paul K is guilty of wishful thinking if
he says Leeds will get promoted.
next season
exposed
calibre
Eliminates
precision
Coherent
domestic leagues,
Benevolent
handle
Chaotic
The airport at Heathrow is simply
chaotic.
short-termism of
28
tangibly present
engines of drama
sentiment
revved up
Gerry was revved up to do his
holiday work.
relents
fatally undermined
inadequate
infrastructure
Slick
relentless toadying,
schmaltzified
handshakes
Inane
Hitches
neurotic fear
29
Treatise
possessed
vengeful spirit
zombies.
by
The teacher said we were acted
like Zombies and needed to liven
up the lesson.
long-anticipated
concreted in
Homogeneity
beanos
unscathed,
Scathed
Chicanery
Entrenched
discredited
head
30
scratching
bewilderment
Gripping
obfuscation
I was unfairly accused of
obfuscation when I tried to explain
how I had managed to get to the
front of the queue!
31
Discuss this article with someone you know. See if, together, you can fix the precise meaning of the highlighted
words. Do you agree with the author? (I once taught him RS at Dulwich College. He was a really good
sportsman and excellent at English!) If you don’t like football, maybe think about why millions, if not billions of
people spend so much time on it. What would they do with the time if they weren’t watching or playing it? Is it a
kind of fail-safe mechanism to channel human animal energies and impulses which are violent: or, is it genuinely
the beautiful game?
?
32
Now Consider Simon Barnes. He is a brilliant journalist. He is an expert on birds as well sport and literature!
Simon Barnes The Times
The World Cup is but a pale imitation of its former self
Another World Cup, like a wounded snake, has dragged its slow length to a conclusion. Now it is time for assessment. And
compared with — to take as a random example, the London Olympic Games of 2012 — it has been kind of OK. Nowhere and
never was there any notion that these were the greatest days of our sporting lives. Barnes’s Law states that there is a strict
hierarchy of the ways in which we enjoy sport, one that starts with partisanship at the bottom, has drama second and excellence at
the very top. This World Cup was a disaster in terms of England partisanship and, for the most part, it was desperately short of
excellence. It had to fall back on drama, and on this level alone it has been a qualified success.
Perhaps it is time for a Campaign for Real World Cups, for a return to those days when that heady period came along after a 47month wait and brought one revelation of tactical or individual brilliance after another, day after day in which you could not believe
that the planet could hold so much sporting splendour.
One day you would be marvelling at Gheorghe Hagi, “the Maradona of the Carpathians”, the next at Carlos Valderrama, “the
peroxide Gullit”, two of the worst nicknames in sporting history. You’d watch the unrestrained, half-coached, half-improvised
brilliance of the emerging African teams and swear that within ten years one would lift the World Cup.
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You would be celebrating a South American goalkeeper with the nickname “El Loco” and rejoicing in the best one or two players in
the world, players you saw once in a quadrennium. And, meanwhile, the England team were packed with stars, two or three of
them would be potential world-beaters and when they fell agonisingly short they had at least given us all one hell of a ride. But now
we are familiar with all the top players in all the top sides. We can watch them every week if we have the taste and the time for it.
The one exception? England, who these days must line up with B-team players, bench-warmers and second choices; people who
are not cock of the walk at their own clubs so are unlikely to boss the show at international level. Not that international level is
higher than top club level these days, au contraire. It used to be said that international football was better because there were no
weaknesses in any position; these days that’s true for the top clubs, not the top nations. Need a left back? Buy a couple, one from
Brazil, one from Ivory Coast.
So when the World Cup comes around again, we have a competition second best to the annual Champions League in quality. For
most players, international football is a chore, useful for the exposure, necessary for the CV, but hardly the high point of a career no
matter what platitudes your commercial people told you to spout.
The World Cup has become a month-long amateur night, an impromptu “make it up as you go along” lash-up, knowingly second
best. When things go wrong, you don’t have to wait four years to put it right; you can do so in the next few weeks, as David
Beckham did in 1998. The stakes, personal and corporate, have been drastically lowered.
This World Cup cannot contend with the London Olympics for partisanship or excellence, and apart from the Brazil semi-final it
struggled to match it for drama. The World Cup is no longer a rival to the Games; it has fallen far behind. It offers just a single sport,
a single sex and 170 fewer nations. It no longer even brings us the best of its own sport. The World Cup is becoming yesterday’s
big thing, a competition that flickers into life for as long as there is partisanship to keep you interested — and for England that
reached an all-time low before the first ball was kicked. It carries on because every four years we think we will have a Real World
Cup once again. But we never do.
Snot cricket, to quote my learned colleague
The glory and wonder of James Anderson and his famous world-record last-wicket partnership with Joe Root has been the luckiest
possible thing for Test cricket. The story has been so compelling that it has made us — almost — overlook the fact that cricket is
increasingly played on pitches powered not by the desire for sporting excellence but the love of money.
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People pay good money to watch sport, and they do so in the hope of revelling in (see main piece) such things as excellence,
drama and partisanship. Cut off the possibility of excellence and you destroy sport. Once again Trent Bridge has provided a wicket
of (to borrow an Athertonism used for a pitch elsewhere) rolled snot.
On the fourth day, only four wickets fell. In each first innings the No 11 made more than 50 — could you have damned a pitch more
completely? Simon Wilde, in The Sunday Times, quoted Steve Birks, the Trent Bridge groundsman, saying last year: “As long as
we get plenty of runs and it goes into the fourth day, me and the chief executive will be very happy.”
This wicket, it seems, was prepared in the same spirit. The spirit of the banker, the spirit of meanness, the spirit of cupidity, the
spirit of contempt for those who pay the money, the spirit of business, the spirit of the person who knows the price of everything and
the value of nothing. I’d say it was time the ICC clamped down on such pitches, but can you imagine how far you would get if you
tried to explain to their top men that sporting excellence is more important than money?
35
To fully understand why Simon Barnes is angry, you really need to be certain these words and phrases are clear in your minds.
Write out the definitions
a pale imitation of its former self
assessment.
Random
Notion
Hierarchy
partisanship
qualified success.
heady
revelation
“the peroxide Gullit”,
half-improvised
quadrennium.
36
agonisingly
cock of the walk
au contraire.
chore,
platitudes
to spout.
impromptu “
corporate,
contend with
flickers into life
partisanship
compelling
revelling
damned
37
spirit of the banker
spirit of meanness,
spirit of contempt
the price of everything and the
value of nothing.
Find out who said this even if it drives you crazy.
clamped down
38
Find a Really Good Picture , Cartoon or Image for these
words/phrases.
a pale imitation of its former self
Random
Hierarchy
revelation
agonisingly
39
to spout.
corporate,
revelling
damned
spirit of meanness,
40
spirit of contempt
41
And we cannot forget Wimbledon
Wimbledon Final
The Guardian Kevin Mitchell The Guardian
Desperation and pressure, those evil twins, gnawed away at Novak Djokovic’s
spirit to lift the emotional Serb to his second Wimbledon triumph on a warm
Sunday afternoon, a strangely mellow setting for such an elemental fight with
the people’s champion, Roger Federer.
Those who cried with and for the loser, the most popular man in the history of
the game, might spare a thought, too, for the winner because, had he lost a
sometimes excruciating struggle, the psychological damage could have been
significant.
Although he was a slight favourite (how often can a man with 17 majors start
as an underdog at Wimbledon?), although he had five years on his opponent,
although the sentiment was with Federer, reaching for an 18th slam title after
a two-year drought, it was Djokovic who was carrying the greater burden.
If Federer had won, it would have been hailed as the crowning achievement of
a glorious career. Losing hardly dented his aura or his legacy, especially as
he went down fighting.
But for Djokovic, a sixth defeat in seven slam finals, to complete four in a row,
was unthinkable. He simply could not allow it – even though no one was
pulling for him. To lose – even to the man he later described as “a magnificent
champion” – could have induced serious despond. Indeed he had said
beforehand his inability to close out these big occasions was “wholly
psychological”.
He was drained as few could remember after Andy Murray beat him in three
sets in last year’s final. This was about personal redemption. So Djokovic
deliberately put that pressure on himself, to give himself a frightening edge,
and that potent mix of emotions most assuredly played with his mind at key
moments in this match, which he won 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 5-7, 6-4, holding off a
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heart-pumping comeback in the fourth set by Federer, when most reckoned
his 32-year-old legs would be turning to jelly.
For all that victory rescued Djokovic from a slide towards self-doubt, he will
celebrate a greater occasion on Thursday, when he marries Jelena Ristic at a
secret location on an island off Montenegro.Very few players are among the
210 guests. While tennis obsesses Djokovic, it does not rule his life. Jelena is
also expecting their first child in October. If those two events cannot put the
champion’s tennis in perspective, nothing can – and there is every chance
that, as with the man he beat on Sunday, the still smiling father of two sets of
twins, domestic calm will bring order to his tennis as well.
“I would like to dedicate it to my future wife and our future baby,” Djokovic said
on court. “I’m going to become a father soon and I’m still preparing for that.
It’s a great joy in life.” But Sunday was a work day. Jelena was at home and
he had for immediate company a man trying, metaphorically, to rip his head
off.
It was an imperfect contest, certainly, but brilliant for all that, dipping and
soaring through three times as many winners as unforced errors. Djokovic
made Federer run 4,096 metres, and he put in a mere 3,773 metres. At the
end they might each have weighed half a stone less than when they started.
Neither player was entirely comfortable in a ragged, nervy start, even though
they had swapped many thousands of shots in their previous 34 encounters.
While there can have been little they did not know about each other’s tennis,
neither man could be certain, from shot to shot, what was coming next.
Nor, of course, could anyone else. The closeness of a final – the first here
over five sets since Federer beat Andy Roddick in 2009 – ensured a sense of
theatre from the first fault off Djokovic’s racket at 2.10pm to the final, weary
Federer backhand that billowed the net three hours and 56 minutes later. It
was an odd contest to read. Djokovic lost the first set in a tie-break, blowing
chance after chance as Federer struggled to take points off his opponent’s
serve. And it was the Federer serve that was to prove a revelation.
He has always been superb with ball in hand but here he raised his level yet
again, adding 29 aces to the 69 he had gathered in the previous six matches.
If he had managed a couple more, we might have been celebrating a Swiss
victory. Djokovic, whose own serve Boris Becker has been working on since
becoming his coach this year, did not click with anything like that potency but
he made Federer suffer with the sheer strength and precision of his ground
strokes, particularly his backhand down the line that often left his opponent
embarrassingly rooted to the spot.
By the time Djokovic had established what against anyone else would have
been a decent lead, two sets to one and 5-2, with his hands almost on the
trophy, a certain sadness fell on the occasion. Would this be a wickedly onesided ending? Not quite, it turned out.
Federer, drawing on every ounce of his pedigree, saved match point, broke
and earned himself another shot at the prize. He prevailed again. After one
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break of service in three sets, five had arrived in the fourth and the
congregation had not a clue who would go on to win.
Djokovic had taken two heavy tumbles and a couple of less serious falls, but
his legs then went on him in the fifth – literally, as he required courtside
massage to his calves. The finish promised to be ugly.
Djokovic held for 2-1 in the fifth but was limping. All of a sudden, as the ATP
physio went to work on his right calf, the vivacity was with the older man.
Federer was not just turning back the clock, he was Father Time, in charge of
the rhythm of the exchanges now, looking younger by the second, reborn in
his own golden image.
With seven Wimbledons to his name, Federer knew what he needed to do on
the tricky, wearing grass at the end of tournament fortnight, but the tension
got to him as well. Federer saved three break points at 3-4; but at 4-5 his
serve finally let him down. Djokovic stretched his chest, steadied his arm and
reckoned he could do this job. Just when it seemed the fifth set would go the
full distance, Federer had finally cracked.
“I respect your career and everything you’ve done,” Djokovic told him
immediately afterwards, “and thank you for letting me win today. After
dropping the fourth set it wasn’t easy to regroup and find the energy to win the
fifth. I don’t know how I did it.” He is probably right. And that is the wonder of it
all.
****************************************************************************************
Wimbledon Final
Kevin Mitchell
Word
The Guardian
Fill in a Definition
Desperation
gnawed away
strangely mellow
elemental
excruciating
psychological damage
the sentiment
hailed
44
dented his aura
legacy,
induced serious despond.
drained
personal redemption.
potent mix
assuredly
heart-pumping
self-doubt,
obsesses
in perspective,
domestic calm
dedicate it to
metaphorically,
imperfect
soaring
ragged,
a sense of theatre
billowed,
blowing revelation.
raised his level
Click
potency
precision
45
embarrassingly rooted
his pedigree,
prevailed
the congregation
the vivacity
tension
regroup
Word
Fill
the
antonym.
opposite
word/phrase
Desperation
strangely mellow
excruciating
psychological damage
dented his aura
induced serious despond.
personal redemption.
self-doubt,
obsesses
in perspective,
metaphorically,
imperfect
ragged,
46
raised his level
click
potency
precision
prevailed
the vivacity
tension
47
Please read the following poems and be ready to discuss them
next term in our enrichment lessons.
There's a breathless hush in the Close tonight –
Ten to make and the match to win –
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of the ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote –
'Play up ! play up ! and play the game !'
The sand of the Desert is sodden red –
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; –
The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel's dead,
And the regiment's blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed its banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:
'Play up ! play up ! and play the game !'
This is the world that year by year,
While in her place the school is set,
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind –
'Play up ! play up ! and play the game !'
Sir Henry Newbolt
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The Soldier Rupert Brooke.
IF I should die, think only this of me;
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
5
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less 10
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Please check these readings and song version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKEQO0gZUcQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiBkje_VQxg
Did you really look up the words you did not know in the poems: if not,
do so now!
49
My mother, who hates thunderstorms,
Holds up each summer day and shakes
It out suspiciously, lest swarms
Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there;
But when the August weather breaks
And rains begin, and brittle frost
Sharpens the bird-abandoned air,
Her worried summer look is lost.
And I her son, though summer-born
And summer-loving, none the less
Am easier when the leaves are gone;
Too often summer days appear
Emblems of perfect happiness
I can't confront: I must await
A time less bold, less rich, less clear:
An autumn more appropriate.
Philip Larkin
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Dear Mr Lee
Dear Mr Lee (Mr Smart says
it’s rude to call you Laurie, but that’s
how I think of you, having lived with you
really all year), Dear Mr Lee
(Laurie) I just want you to know
I used to hate English, and Mr Smart
is roughly my least favourite person,
And as for Shakespeare (we’re doing him too)
I think he’s a national disaster, with all those jokes
that Mr Smart has to explain why they’re jokes,
and even then no one thinks they’re funny,
And T. Hughes and P. Larkin and that lot
in our anthology, not exactly a laugh a minute,
pretty gloomy really, so that’s why
I wanted to say Dear Laurie (sorry) your book’s
the one that made up for the others, if you
could see my copy you’d know it’s lived
with me, stained with coke and kitkat
and when I had a cold, and I often
take you to bed with me to cheer me up
so Dear Laurie, I wanted to say sorry,
I didn’t want to write a character-sketch
of your mother under headings, it seemed
wrong somehow when you’d made her so lovely,
and I didn’t much like those questions
about social welfare and the rural community
and the seasons as perceived by an adolescent
I didn’t think you’d want your book
read that way, but bits of it I know by heart,
and I wish I had your uncles and your half sisters
and lived in Slad, though Mr Smart says your view
of the class struggle is naïve and the examiners
won’t be impressed by me knowing so much by heart,
they’ll be looking for terse and cogent answers
to their questions, but I’m not much good at tense and cogent,
I’d just like to be like you, not mind about being poor,
see everything bright and strange, the way you do,
and I’ve got the next one out of the Public Library,
about Spain, and I asked mum about leaving
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to play the fiddle, but Mr Smart says Spain isn’t
like that anymore, it’s all time share villas
and Torremolinos, and how old were you
when you became a poet? (Mr Smart says for anyone
with my punctuation to consider poetry as a career
is enough to make the angels weep).
Ps Dear Laurie, please don’t feel guilty for
me failing the exam, it wasn’t your fault,
it was mine, – and Shakespeare’s,
and maybe Mr Smart’s, I still love Cider,
it hasn’t made any difference.
UA Fanthorpe
52
The Jaguar
The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.
The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut
Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.
Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion
Lie still as the sun. The boa-constrictor’s coil
Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty, or
Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw.
It might be painted on a nursery wall.
But who runs like the rest past these arrives
At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized,
As a child at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enraged
Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes
On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom—
The eye satisfied to be blind in fire,
By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear—
He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him
More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.
Ted Hughes
53
THE TYGER
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Check this link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXsiW7A--dY
William Blake
54
Some Logic & Reasoning Puzzles To Play With!
You do NOT have to provide answers on these sheets, but do attempt
them for fun. See if your family can answer them! We will try some on
your return! Joe B and I will run through them with you.
There are three switches downstairs. Each corresponds to one of the three
light bulbs in the attic. You can turn the switches on and off and leave them in
any position.
How would you identify which switch corresponds to which light bulb, if you
are only allowed one trip upstairs?
55
MATHS PUZZLE:
Assume 9 is twice 5; how will you write 6 times 5 in the same system of
notation?
FOUR DIGIT NUMBER:
What is the four-digit number in which the first digit is one-third the second,
the third is the sum of the first and second, and the last is three times the
second?
TEN MATCHES:
Remove six matches to make ten.
CIRCLES:
Using six contiguous straight lines, connect all of the sixteen circles shown
below.
56
TWIN BROTHERS:
Suppose there are twin brothers; one who always tells the truth and one who
always lies. What single yes/no question could you ask to either brother to
figure out which one is which?
NINE NUMBERS:
Place the numbers 1 through 9 in the circles below, such that each side
of the triangle adds up to 17.
THE PILOT'S SON:
A man and his son were traveling on a scheduled flight across the
Atlantic. The man asked the flight attendant if his son could have a look
inside the cockpit. The boy was allowed to do this and the pilot gladly
explained about the plane and its controls. After the boy left, the pilot turned
to the co-pilot and said to him, "That was my son." How could that be?
THREE BOXES:
There are three boxes, one contains only apples, one contains only oranges,
and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly
labeled such that no label identifies the actual contents of the box it
labels. Opening just one box, and without looking in the box, you take out one
piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the
boxes correctly? Which box did you open and how can you be sure to label all boxes correctly?
57
BOY or GIRL:
A boy and a girl are sitting on the porch. "I'm a boy," says the child with black
hair. "I'm a girl," says the child with red hair. If at least one of them is lying,
who is which?
THREE SPIES:
Three spies, suspected as double agents, speak as follows when questioned:
Albert: "Bertie is a mole."
Bertie: "Cedric is a mole."
Cedric: "Bertie is lying."
Assuming that moles lie, other agents tell the truth, and there is just one mole
among the three, determine: 1.) Who is the mole?
2.) If, on the other hand there are two moles present, who are they?
RIVER CROSSING:
A man needs to cross a river in a canoe. With him, he has a bag of grain, a
chicken, and a fox. He can only carry one of the three at a time. If he leaves
the grain and the chicken, the chicken will eat the grain. If he takes the grain,
the fox will eat the chicken. How does he successfully cross the river with
his load?
12 MARBLES:
Given twelve marbles that are identical in size, shape, and color, determine
which single marble is heavier in weight than the others. You are supplied
with a balance and must conclude your determination in three weighings.
HOW OLD?:
If you add the age of a man to the age of his wife, the result is 91. He is
now twice as old as she was when he was as old as she is now.
How old is the man and his wife?
CUT THE CAKE:
How is it possible to cut a traditional circular cake into 8 equal size
pieces, with only 3 cuts?
BURNING ROPES:
A rope burns non-uniformly for exactly one hour. How do you measure 45
minutes, given two such ropes?
58
WHO DONE IT?:
Paul and Dana were working on the computer along with their friends Karl and
Joe. Suddenly, I heard a crash and then lots of shouts. I rushed in to find out
what was going on, finding the computer monitor on the ground, surrounded
with broken glass! Karl and Dana spoke almost at the same time: Dana
saying, "It wasn't me!"
Karl saying, "It was Joe!"
Paul yelled, "No, it was
Karl!"
With a pretty straight face Joe said, "Karl’s a liar." Only one of them
was telling the truth, so who knocked over the monitor?
The Double Jeopardy Doors
You are trapped in a room with two doors. One leads to certain death and the
other leads to freedom. You don't know which is which. There are two robots
guarding the doors. They will let you choose one door but upon doing so you
must go through it.
You can, however, ask one robot one question. The problem is one robot
always tells the truth, the other always lies and you don't know which is which.
What is the question you ask?
The Frog
A frog is at the bottom of a 30 metre well. Each day he summons enough
energy for one 3 metre leap up the well. Exhausted, he then hangs there for
the rest of the day. At night, while he is asleep, he slips 2 meters backwards.
How many days does it take him to escape from the well?
Note: Assume after the first leap that his hind legs are exactly three meters up
the well. His hind legs must clear the well for him to escape.
Surviving a Fall?
How could a baby fall out of a twenty-storey building onto the ground and
live?
Finding the Culprit?
Acting on an anonymous phone call, the police raid a house to arrest a
suspected murderer. They don't know what he looks like but they know his
name is John and that he is inside the house. The police bust in on a
carpenter, a lorry driver, a mechanic and a fireman all playing poker. Without
hesitation or communication of any kind, they immediately arrest the fireman.
How do they know they've got their man?
59
A Family Reunion?
At a family reunion were the following people: one grandfather, one
grandmother, two fathers, two mothers, four children, three grandchildren, one
brother, two sisters, two sons, two daughters, one father-in-law, one motherin-law, and one daughter-in-law. But not as many people attended as it
sounds. How many were there, and who were they?
The Riddler?

What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?

What goes around the world but stays in a corner?

Three people go fishing -- two fathers and two sons. How is this
possible?
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