Theatres and Entertainment

St David’s Hall is the award winning National Concert Hall of Wales standing at the very heart of Cardiff’s entertainment centre. With an impressive 2,000-seat concert hall, St David’s Hall is home to the annual Welsh Proms Cardiff. It presents live entertainment, including pop, rock, folk, jazz, musicals, dance, world music, films and classical music.

Every weekend this is “Wales” premier comedy club where having a great time is the order for both audiences and comedy stars alike. It is hard to name a comedy star who hasn’t been on the stage here. If you are looking for the best comedies on tour and brilliant live music, you should start here.

Sherman Cymru’s theatre in the Cathays area of Cardiff reopened in February 2012. This special building is a place in which theatre is made and where children, artists, writers and anyone else have the opportunity (机会) to do creative things. Sherman Cymru is excited to present a packed programme of the very best theatre, dance, family shows and music from Wales and the rest of the world.

The New Theatre has been the home of quality drama, musicals, dance and children’s shows for more than 100 years. Presenting the best of the West End along with the pick of the UK’s touring shows, the New Theatre is Cardiff’s oldest surviving traditional theatre. Be sure to pay a visit as part of your stay in the city.

Goffin’s cockatoos, a kind of small parrot native to Australasia, have been shown to have similar shape-recognition abilities to a human two-year-old. Though not known to use tools in the wild, the birds have proved skilful at tool use while kept in the cage. In a recent experiment, cockatoos were presented with a box with a nut inside it. The clear front of the box had a “keyhole” in a geometric shape, and the birds were given five differently shaped “keys” to choose from. Inserting the correct “key” would let out the nut.

In humans, babies can put a round shape in a round hole from around one year of age, but it will be another year before they are able to do the same with less symmetrical (对称的) shapes. This ability to recognize that a shape will need to be turned in a specific direction before it will fit is called an “allocentric frame of reference”. In the experiment, Goffin’s cockatoos were able to select the right tool for the job, in most cases, by visual recognition alone. Where trial-and-error was used, the cockatoos did better than monkeys in similar tests. This indicates that Goffin’s cockatoos do indeed possess an allocentric frame of reference when moving objects in space, similar to two-year-old babies.

The next step, according to the researchers, is to try and work out whether the cockatoos rely entirely on visual clues (线索), or also use a sense of touch in making their shape selections.

As Ginni Bazlinton reached Antarctica, she found herself greeted by a group of little Gentoo penguins (企鹅) longing to say hello. These gentle, lovely gatekeepers welcomed her and kick-started what was to be a trip Ginni would never forget.

Ever since her childhood, Ginni, now 71, has had a deep love for travel. Throughout her career (职业) as a professional dancer, she toured in the UK, but always longed to explore further. When she retired from dancing and her sons eventually flew the nest, she decided it was time to take the plunge.

After taking a degree at Chichester University in Related Arts, Ginni began to travel the world, eventually getting work teaching English in Japan and Chile. And it was in Chile she discovered she could get last-minute cheap deals on ships going to Antarctica from the islands off Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the South American mainland. “I just decided I wanted to go,” she says. “I had no idea about what I’d find there and I wasn’t nervous, I just wanted to do it. And I wanted to do it alone as I always prefer it that way.”

In March 2008, Ginni boarded a ship with 48 passengers she’d never met before, to begin the journey towards Antarctica. “From seeing the wildlife to witnessing sunrises, the whole experience was amazing. Antarctica left an impression on me that no other place has,” Ginni says. “I remember the first time I saw a humpback whale; it just rose out of the water like some prehistoric creature and I thought it was smiling at us. You could still hear the operatic sounds it was making underwater.”

The realization that this is a precious land, to be respected by humans, was one of the biggest things that hit home to Ginni.

Sometime in the early 1960s, a significant thing happened in Sydney, Australia. The city discovered its harbor. Then, one after another, Sydney discovered lots of things that were just sort of there — broad parks, superb beaches, and a culturally diverse population. But it is the harbor that makes the city.

Andrew Reynolds, a cheerful fellow in his early 30s, pilots Sydney ferryboats for a living. I spent the whole morning shuttling back and forth across the harbor. After our third run Andrew shut down the engine, and we went our separate ways — he for a lunch break, I to explore the city.

“I’ll miss these old boats,” he said as we parted.

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re replacing them with catamarans. Catamarans are faster, but they’re not so elegant, and they’re not fun to pilot. But that’s progress, I guess.”

Everywhere in Sydney these days, change and progress are the watchwords (口号), and traditions are increasingly rare. Shirley Fitzgerald, the city’s official historian, told me that in its rush to modernity in the 1970s, Sydney swept aside much of its past, including many of its finest buildings. “Sydney is confused about itself,” she said. “We can’t seem to make up our minds whether we want a modern city or a traditional one. It’s a conflict that we aren’t getting any better at resolving (解决).”

On the other hand, being young and old at the same time has its attractions. I considered this when I met a thoughtful young businessman named Anthony. “Many people say that we lack culture in this country,” he told me. “What people forget is that the Italians, when they came to Australia, brought 2000 years of their culture, the Greeks some 3000 years, and the Chinese more still. We’ve got a foundation built on ancient cultures but with a drive and dynamism of a young country. It’s a pretty hard combination to beat.”

He is right, but I can’t help wishing they would keep those old ferries.

Important Things to Know When Dining Out

Cultural dining etiquette (礼节) might surprise you with some of its important rules.
36．. Knowing some tips will help ensure that you have an enjoyable meal with friends or family — no matter where you are in the world.

The way you handle chopsticks is important to avoid annoying your companions. When you put them down between bites, always put them down together so they are parallel with the edge of the table in front of you.
37．.

In India and the Middle East, it’s considered very rude to eat with your left hand. People in France expect you to eat with a utensil in each hand.
38．, instead preferring to use their hands. In Chile, you may never touch any food with your fingers. People in Thailand generally use their forks only to push food onto their spoons.

39．. In Portugal, this would be a serious mistake, because it shows the chef that you don’t like their seasoning skills. Similarly, in Italy, never ask for extra cheese to add to your food.

Some of these cultural dining etiquette rules may seem random and strange, but they are important in various countries.
40．, the more comfortable you’ll begin to feel with its foreign cultural practices.

You can tell a lot about a man by how he treats his dogs.

For many years, I enjoyed living with my dogs, Tilly and Chance. Their _______ was nearly enough to keep my loneliness at bay. Nearly. Last year, I started dating, but with _______. When I first dated Steve, I _______ he had a dog, Molly, and a cat, Flora. While I was _______ that he was an animal lover, I _______ that three dogs were perhaps too many, and my dogs might attack _______, the cat.

The next week we _______ our dogs together. It was a hot day. When we paused to catch our _______, Steve got down on one knee. Was he proposing (求婚)? I liked him too, but so _______? He poured water from a bottle into his hand and offered it to my dogs. ____________, I began to fall for him.

We ____________ to date, though neither of us brought up the future. And then in late November, Tilly had an operation on her ____________. I took the dogs out four times a day, and I worried that Tilly ____________ climbing the stairs could reopen the wound. Then Steve ____________ his house. All worked ____________. The three dogs formed a pack that, with coaching, ____________ Flora’s space; Steve and I formed a good team ____________ for Tilly. We made good housemates.

A year later, much to my ____________, this man produced a little box with a ring and proposed to me. He did not kneel (跪) down, nor did I ____________ him to. That’s only for giving ____________ to the dogs that brought us together.

A visually-challenged man from Beijing recently hiked (徒步) 40 days to Xi’an, as a first step
61． (journey) the Belt and Road route (路线) by foot.

On the 1,100 kilometer journey, the man Cao Shengkang,
62． lost his eyesight at the age of eight in a car accident, crossed 40 cities and counties in three province. Inspired by the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation
63． (hold) in Beijing, Cao decided to cover the route by hiking as a tribute (致敬) to the ancient Silk Road.
64． friend of his, Wu Fan, volunteered to be his companion during the trip.

Cao and Wu also collected garbage along the road, in order to promote environmental
65． (protect). Cao believes this will make the hiking trip even more
66． (meaning). The two of them collected more than 1,000 plastic bottles along the 40-day journey.

In the last five years. Cao
67． (walk) through 34 countries in six continents, and in 2016, he reached the top of Kilimanjaro, Africa’s
68． (high) mountain.

Now, Cao has started the second part of his dream to walk along the Belt and Road route. He flew 4, 700 kilometers
69． Xi’an to Kashgar on Sept. 20,
70． (plan) to hike back to Xi’an in five months.

My father often took me to his hospital when I was off my school. He showed me how his medical instruments was used. I felt so closely to him. However, after I went to high school, somehow I become distant from him. I was unwilling talk with him and often disobeyed his rule of not stay out with my friends too late. The disagreement was too sharp that neither he nor I knew what to settle it. One day, he talked with me or hoped to mend our relations. With the efforts made by all sides, we began to understand each other better.