In one of our Wednesday discussions on Skype we were talking about the pros and cons of having a royal family, and a few of the participants weren't sure what the duties and powers of the British royal family are, so I've cobbled together this explanation, which may inform, or confuse you.  The monarchy of the United Kingdom (commonly referred to as the British monarchy) is the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories.

A constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution. This form of government differs from absolute monarchy in that an absolute monarch serves as the sole source of political power in the state and is not legally bound by any constitution.  Yes, this means that England does not have a written constitution, in fact it's a bit of a political hot potato.

According to Visit Britain, the Monarchy brings in £500 million a year from foreign tourists.  Our "culture and heritage’’ in the widest sense - extending from theaters and galleries, to pubs, Premiership Football, castles and stately homes - generated £4.6 billion in total spending by overseas tourists in 2009, and supported 100,000 jobs, the report said.  But within that total one-in-eight of those sites – ranging from the Tower of London to The Palace of  Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh and Ruthin Castle in Wales – are associated with Britain's monarchy. The report reveals that foreign tourists who visited them generated £500 million of spending, directly and indirectly.

Are you a freelance teacher? Do you remember how you started being a freelancer? For me it began in the days before PCs and Internet. (And that doesn't make me an old fogey, by the way)

Linguists are full of theories about how people learn – the use of short term and long term memory, how the brain encodes ideas, the use of menomics and lots more complicated gumph. You don’t need to know all that to learn a language. What you do need is to hear it and to try it out, and this isn’t too hard – ask any two year old.

If you were to look out of the window today you’d see the sun shining brightly. It might even seem warm. But just take another look, and listen carefully too. Trees are bending and just about everything that isn’t tied down is bowling down the street. Today is Thursday – the day we all leave our rubbish out for the bin men. Unfortunately the wind has been howling since about 2 am. – and most people put their rubbish out last night.

It's that time of year again, spring is around the corner and the bright sunny days are showing up all the mucky windows and dusty corners.  Maybe it's time to think about hiring a commercial cleaning service.

Obviously maintaining a clean and professional looking office environment is an important aspect on any office manager's mind. Although finding a proper cleaning staff can be difficult, especially when you aren't familiar with hiring in that field. So to avoid this, many office managers hire a commercial cleaning service to come clean their office space. By simply calling the cleaning business you can quickly book a maid and set up a schedule for them to come and clean your office.