FOUR BEST BOOKSHOPS IN LONDON

Looking for something to read while in London? If so, you’re in luck: the British capital happens to have an incredible collection of bookshops.

Daunt Books

Are you going on a trip and want to read a novel or nonfiction book set in the place you’re headed? This bookshop arranges books by country, so it’s easy to find anything by place. (83 Marylebone High Street. Monday-Saturday: 09:00-19:30; Sunday: 11:00-18:00.)

Foyles Books

Dig, if you will, the picture: four miles of shelves holding up to 200,000 books. This legendary (传奇的) bookshop is impossible to leave empty-handed. It was once listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest bookshop on the planet. (107 Charing Cross Road. Monday-Saturday: 9:00-21:00; Sunday: 11:30-18:00.) Hatchards

In the year 1797, this London bookshop—the oldest in the city today—first flicked on its lights. It stocks an excellent selection of fiction, nonfiction, history and other genres. (187 Piccadilly Street. Monday-Saturday: 09:30-20:00; Sunday: 12:00-18:30.)

London Review Bookshop

There’s an excellent selection of history, philosophy, politics, new fiction and many other genres here. Plus, there’s a nice cafe in which you can crack open that tome (巨著) for the first time and start reading. (14 Bury Place. Monday-Saturday 10:00-18:30; Sunday 12:00-18:00.)

I’m going to be completely honest. I have no idea how I ended up with this opportunity, I have no idea what I’m doing, but I am very happy to be here.

Last summer a friend tagged me in a Facebook post from BBC Earth and encouraged me to apply to the BBC Presenter Search 2018. The assignment was easy and hard, make a video shorter than 60 seconds where you talk about something in science you think is cool. Simple concept, but for me it was challenging as I want to talk about bryophytes(苔藓植物) forever (which is slightly longer than 60 seconds).

So I decided to make an attempt. I was going to make a 60 second video about sphagnum(水苔), commonly known as peat moss and uncommonly known as an unsung climate hero. Sphagnum is the plant genus that holds the most carbon in the world, it slowly builds up its carbon storage over hundreds of thousands of years and if undisturbed, they never let go of the carbon they gathered.

Making a short video on this was hard because I wanted to include everything. And it became even harder as I had no one to hold the camera. I tied my camera to the scrawniest little tree, swinging in the wind as a bird tried to chase me away from the mud. This chaos ended up as the video “Why sphagnum is awesome” on my channel. I submitted the video, but didn’t dare to write in the description section of the video that it was a submission, because I never imagined that I could win!

But I did.

I waited two months before I could tell people that I had won the search, and when the news came out, I received the most attention I’ve had in my entire life.

No matter your background, whether you want to pass the time or pass an exam, I really hope you enjoy the video!

Traveling by subway can sometimes be quite an adventure, especially during rush hour. There are the times when you have to avoid cups of coffee that could spill (溅) on you. The smells of some passengers’ food are very strong, too. According to the Beijing subway passenger regulations, which went into effect on May 15th, passengers except babies and the sick are no longer allowed to eat or drink on the subway. Violators (违反者) who do not stop after being asked to will be asked to get off. The violation will also be recorded in the violators’ credit record.

Some support the rule. The reason is that the smell of food and drink can annoy other passengers. “The smell of food fills the carriage, causing people discomfort, especially in the hot summer, Besides, eating on the subway produces rubbish. And on subway trains, people often spill their drinks,” said Zheng Yiou, 17, a student from Hefei.

However, others question this rule. “Some citizens live so far from their work places that they have limited time to have breakfast before they go to work. Eating while they travel saves them time and decreases the chance that they will be late for work,” He Songlin, a 17-year-old student from Chengdu said, “And some people, like those with low- blood sugar levels, get sick if they can’t eat when they must.”

Other Chinese cities like Nanjing and Chengdu have similar regulations. Some foreign cities also ban eating and drinking on the subway. For example, eating and drinking have long been banned on the subway in Washington DC. Singapore fines people who eat or drink on the subway up to 500 Singapore dollars, which is RMB 2,417 yuan.

Chen Yanyan, a professor from Beijing University of Technology, believed we should consider the need of some people to eat or drink on the subway. “Commuters (上班族) and travelers are sometimes too busy to eat. Maybe we could learn from Tokyo, where there are many subway stations equipped with services, allowing passengers to eat and drink,” she said.

Once March 29 was impressed firmly in the minds of British people, as this was the date when the UK was supposed to leave the European Union (EU).

The UK public voted to leave the EU almost three years ago. Since then, the UK Parliament has voted many times to determine the terms of the UK’s exit from the EU. But British lawmakers haven’t reached an agreement on any particular path. So the UK and EU member states agreed to push the Brexit (脱欧) deadline to April 12, hoping this would allow UK lawmakers to get a Brexit deal through the UK Parliament.

On March 29, British lawmakers rejected UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal once again. According to USA Today, the failure to reach an agreement was largely because hard-line (强硬的) lawmakers from Conservative Party didn’t feel the deal done with the EU adequately separates the UK from the EU. Meanwhile, many Labor Party lawmakers were in favor of closer ties with the EU. As result, the UK has to announce a new plan before April 12, or leave the EU without a deal, and the latter one will bring the UK and the EU countries many influences. For example, the UK would have to face the fact that the price of imported goods for British people could go up as a result. Meanwhile, there could be long delays at borders between the UK and the EU countries if passport checks are strengthened.

In the event of a no-deal Brexit, the German government would give British citizens living in Germany an initial period of three months during which their rights to live and work there would not change. However, they would have to apply for the permits of living in Germany during that period. The French Parliament has passed a law to give the government the power to introduce new measures to deal with a no-deal Brexit. The law covers, among other things, the rights of UK national a living and working in France.

More efforts to prevent a disorderly Brexit are still needed, but time is limited!