【推荐1】Queen Elizabeth II has led Great Britain through many tough times throughout her 68-year sovereignty (在位). But never, during her reign (统治), has an issue disrupted the British public as much as the current pandemic of coronavirus.

By April 6, the UK had had 47,806 confirmed cases. Among them, crucially, is British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has recently been hospitalized. With the country entering its peak infection period, the Queen made only her fifth televised address to the nation, aside from her annual Christmas broadcast, on April 5. The four other times she has made such an address have been to mark the Gulf War, the death of Princess Diana of Wales, the death of her mother and her Diamond Jubilee (登基六十周年纪念).

According to Jonny Dymond, the BBC’s royal correspondent (通讯记者), “The Palace could have played it safe, stressed unity and given thanks. But this [speech] was … designed to reassure (重拾信心) and inspire.”

In her pre-recorded statement, the Queen focused on the dedication (奉献) of her subjects. “We have seen heart-warming stories of people coming together to help others, be it through delivering food parcels and medicines, checking on neighbors, or converting (转变) businesses to help the relief effort.”

As well as thanking front line workers, she pushed a message of comfort and motivation. “Together, we are tackling this disease, and I want to reassure you that if we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome it.”

“We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again.”

Following the speech, people throughout the country voiced their admiration for her moving words.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan praised the Queen’s focus on front line health-care workers, and councilor (议员) Oliver Cooper wrote, “Nobody could have rallied (振作) the country, the Commonwealth, and the world the way the Queen did.”

Some internet users even shared how they cried after the speech, while others wrote the words of the national anthem (国歌), God Save the Queen.

Indeed, the wisdom of Britain’s 93-year-old monarch (君主) offered hope to the millions of Britons under lockdown.

【推荐2】Using an ice pack on a sports injury is a common practice to reduce pain and swelling (肿胀) to the injured soft tissues.     1     Here are principles you must master to avoid these mistakes.

Leaving ice on an injury for too long can cause more harm than good because ice can reduce the blood flow to the injured area and slow the healing (治愈) process. The ideal time to ice an injury is immediately after the injury, and then only for about 10 minutes at a time.     2     Ice should not be needed after the first 24 hours unless your doctor recommends it to reduce active swelling.

Reducing swelling is an important part of the healing process, and this requires lifting the injury above the heart to increase blood circulation (流通) while icing the injured area.     3    

While exposure to cold can ease pain and swelling, ice may cause frostbite and damage to the delicate tissues of the skin if done incorrectly.     4     For instance, you can put a cloth towel between your skin and a cold pack.

    5     Therefore, even if you follow the recommendations for safe icing of an injury, you must also rest the injured joint immediately after the injury occurs. It is recommended not to bear weight on an injured joint for the first 24 hours.Continuing the play sports with an injury may prolong the healing process, so check with your doctor regarding when to return to sports.

【推荐2】I love travelling, but it hasn’t always been my passion. In my first year of university, I started to travel during the holiday. During the Christmas holiday I went to Paris, and during the spring vacation, I visited Athens and various cities in Italy. I was very excited because this was the first time I had travelled abroad with just my friends. This desire to travel started off simply as a way to have something to look forward to after exams, but I soon discovered how important it is to travel.

On my travels I have had the opportunity to not only experience new and exciting cultures through the art, history, language and food, but also communicate with people who have different views on life. Travelling is a learning experience for both yourself and the people you meet. Some people I met during my travels had never heard of Gambia and it was very delightful to share my African roots with them. When you travel you will meet people who have different cultural backgrounds and as a result, sometimes your own ideas and opinions might be challenged. Ifs important to learn to see things from other people’s perspectives (观点) and to challenge your own.

This is how I realized that travelling is the realization of home. When you I ravel you are exposed to a different setting, a different language and a different way of living. All these factors, mixed with a new and exciting adventure，make you realize your own home. Not just the physical location of home, but also your way of life and your outlook.

Travelling is truly an enriching experience and I am always excited about the discoveries that wait for me in my next adventure!

【推荐3】If you are dreaming of visiting one of those picture­perfect European towns filled with old­world attractiveness and scenic beauty, here is a look at the most beautiful small towns in Europe.

Manarola

Manarola, Italy, is filled with rainbow-colored homes along the Mediterranean coast. This attractive fishing town is famous for its unbelievable wine, and the paintings. There are no cars here, no traffic lights, or traffic noise. You can drive to Manarola, but you will have to park just outside the town and then take a shuttle bus or walk in on foot.

Garmisch­-Partenkirchen

Garmischh-Partenkirchen, Germany, is an attractive mountain town, once two separate towns, one Roman and the other Teutonic. The 1936 Winter Olympics forced them to become one, though the two sides still have different characters. The town dates back to the 15th century AD, filled with narrow streets lined with historic three or four­story buildings painted with religious scenes.

Marsaxlokk

The energetic trading port of Marsaxlokk, Malta, was built in 900 BC. Today, this picture­like town is the main supplier of fish to the island nation that sits in the Mediterranean Sea. It has no modern buildings to ruin its attractiveness. With such quiet surroundings, including the traditional fishing boats, it is a particularly charming place to visit.

Portmagee

In a country filled with beautiful towns, Portmagee, is a standout, sitting on the southwest coast of Ireland. This seaside fishing town has a row of brightly colored buildings along with a rich and colorful history. At The Bridge Bar, you will find live music many nights of the week along with nice food and a fine glass of beer.

【推荐1】“I had no intention to adopt a cat that day. I just liked being around animals.” Miranda says. But when she saw Nala in her metal cage, “We made eye contact and I couldn't resist（抗拒）her big blue eyes.” At that point, “Nala was so small. I asked the shelter if I could hold her. Once had Nala in my arms, Nala looked up at me and licked（舔）my face.” And that was when she knew she had to take this kitty home.

Still, Miranda never imagined Nala would become an Insta-star. “I started Nala’s Instagram account in 2012 as a way to share photos with my close friends and family in Thailand,” she explained. The possibility of Nala gaining attention beyond that small group of people hadn’t occurred to her until it happened.

Miranda says, “Each time Nala’s photo was featured on Instagram’s popular page, her account would gain 1,000 new followers.” From there, Nala’s popularity snowballed. Large nationwide brands messaged Miranda about hiring Nala to do ads. “This took us by surprise because we couldn’t believe that a big brand wanted to pay them to take photos with their products next to Nala.”

Nala started life out in a shelter, just waiting to be loved like many other animals that were abandoned. Today that dream has surely come true. Nala has over 4 million followers on Instagram, which earned her the title “Guinness World Records Most Popular Cat on Instagram.”

In addition to managing her Insta fame, Nala is being asked to test various cat food brands.   More importantly, “Nala is our chance to share the love to help create a better life for other animals, so they can grow well and bring joy to the world like Nala has.”

【推荐2】When French musical Mozart-L’opera Rock toured nine Chinese cities in the last two years, it drew a big crowd of fans, including Chen Yike, a 28-year-old resident of Hangzhou.

“It was the first French musical that I had ever seen,” Chen said. She was so captivated by the show that she saw the production two more times.

Chen is one of many young Chinese who are increasingly fueling the country’s performing arts market. More and more young people are investing time and money in live performances, such as concerts and plays.

According to a report released by the Lighthouse Research Institute and ticketing firm Damai on March 25, young Chinese accounted for a record 55 percent of consumers of performing arts ticket sales in 2019 and 72 percent of concert attendees were people born after 1990.

Xiaomi, a 25-year-old girl from Chongqing became a loyal fan of singer Hua Chenyu after she saw his concert at the National Stadium in Beijing in 2018. Last year, she and three of her friends even traveled to Hainan province to see one of his concerts.

“It has now become a way of life for young people to spend money on performances by their idols,” Zhang Yiwu, a professor at Peking University, told China Daily.

Apart from young audiences, Chinese young performers are also doing increasingly well in the domestic (国内的) market and show a great potential for indigenous (本土的) culture to build a stronghold (大本营).

For example, the 19-year-old Chinese singer-actor Jackson Yee (易烊千玺) featured as a coach on the reality show Street Dance of China (《这！就是街舞》). With more than 80 million followers on his Sina Weibo platform, Yee’s participation helped attract audiences to an otherwise less known art.

On the iQiYi’s The Big Band, many young bands got the opportunity to show their music, and some have become quite popular. As a result, music that would have remained underground is now in the spotlight. “Many young bands on the The Big Band inspire me to learn more about their stories and indie (独立制作的) music,” Yang Zixu, a fan of The Big Band, wrote on the Chinese Q&A platform Zhihu.

Thanks to the joint effort of young audiences and performers, there’s “a driving force for Chinese cultural and creative industries” and it also “indicates China has entered a higher stage of development with better economic and social foundations,” according to China Daily.

【推荐3】A shark that walks in water instead of swimming might sound like a creature straight out of science fiction. However, that is precisely how the fish -- found in the waters of Northern Australia moves across the seafloor .The unique ocean animals were discovered by a team of scientists led by Dr. Christine Dudgeon from Australia's University of Queensland during a 12 year global conservation study.

The newly-found sharks have evolved (进化) to survive in low oxygen environments, enabling them to hunt during low tides. The researchers believe their ability to use their fins (鳍) to walk affords the sharks a remarkable edge over the smaller animals they try to bunt. “While they are super hunters in their shallow habitat, the tiny sharks present no threat to people," says Dudgeon.“At less than a meter long on average, they're incredibly cute little animals that do not look like sharks at all," she adds.

A DNA analysis of skin samples from the live fish suggests that walking sharks broke away from their original population and became a distinct species about nine million years ago. Though that may appear to be a long time ago, it is relatively recent given that sharks have been around for more than 400 million years. In fact, Dudgeon and her team believe walking sharks are the youngest kind of sharks on Earth!

The researchers say that the sharks' small numbers and small habitat make them extremely vulnerable (易受伤害) to natural disasters and overfishing. They are currently on the Nature Red List, which lists species at risk. Dudgeon and her team believe sensible conservation management plans are urgently needed to protect the walking sharks and other endangered animals from further threats.

【推荐1】Barditch High School decided to have an All-School Reunion. Over 450 people came to the event. There were tours of the old school building and a picnic at Confederate Park. Several former teachers were on hands to tell stories about the old days. Ms. Mabel Yates, the English teacher for fifty years, was wheeled to the park.

Some eyes rolled and there were a few low groans (嘟囔声) when Ms.Yates was about to speak. Many started looking at their watches and coming up with excuses to be anywhere instead of preparing to listen to a lecture from an old woman who had few kind words for her students and made them work harder than all the other teachers combined.

Then Ms. Yates started to speak: “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be here. I haven’t seen many of you since your graduation, but I have followed your careers and enjoyed your victories as well as crying for your tragedies. I have a large collection of newspaper photographs of my students. Although I haven’t appeared in person, I have attended your college graduations, weddings and even the birth of your children, in my imagination.”

Ms. Yates paused and started crying a bit. Then she continued: “It was my belief that if I pushed you as hard as I could, some of you would succeed to please me and others would succeed to annoy me. Regardless of our motives, I can see that you have all been successful in your chosen path.”

“There is no greater comfort for an educator than to see the end result of his or her years of work. You have all been a great source of pleasure and pride for me and I want you to know I love you all from the bottom of my heart.”

There was a silence over the crowd for a few seconds and then someone started clapping. The clapping turned into cheering, then into a deafening roar (呼喊). Lawyers, truck drivers, bankers and models were rubbing their eyes or crying openly with no shame all because of the words from a long forgotten English teacher from their hometown.

【推荐2】Dyson has just unveiled its second beauty gadget and it’s certainly going to make waves in more ways than one. The Airwrap(卷发棒) is the much anticipated follow-up to the Supersonic hairdryer which proved a huge hit despite the ￡299 cost. This new gadget promises to be a whole new way to create waves and smooth blow-dries, but the price alone is enough to make your hair curl, coming in at an even heftier ￡399. So what, exactly, is your money buying you? Can there really be THAT different a way to curl your hair?

Well, this being Dyson, the answer is yes. It’s radically different from your typical curling irons that involve you physically winding your hair around a scorching-hot barrel.The new Airwrap technology uses jets of air to attract your hair onto the curling barrel, automatically wrapping it and shaping it. All you have to do is place a section of hair close to the styler, and it’ll wind itself around the styler by a (literally) invisible force.

If you’re a beauty geek, you might like to know that force has a name— the Coanda Effect. This occurs when a high speed jet of air flows across a surface and the difference in pressure makes the air flow (and any hair that gets caught up in its wake) attach itself to that surface. Dyson says the Coanda effect enables you to shape your hair at far lower temperatures than regular styling, which translates into less damage. Like the Supersonic dryer, the Air wrap employs “intelligent heat control”, measuring the temperature up to 40 times a second to ensure the heat never reaches the point where your hair is frazzled to the point of no return.

The Airwrap comes with different attachments, depending on the style you want to achieve.You can either go for a wavy look with the curling barrel or use the Coanda effect to guide your hair onto the brush attachment, replicating a salon style blow dry without the arm ache.

“Once my hair was wrapped in place and had been sufficiently whooshed for a few seconds, I hit the cool button to set the style, then slid the styler out of my hair. I felt shocked, proud, ecstatic, disbelieving. It was kind of like childbirth without the mess.” Then again, many people were initially sceptical about the idea of coughing up nearly ￡300 for a hairdryer, yet the Supersonic has blown away all the doubters. Who’s to say the Airwrap won’t be our new best curl friend?

The Dyson Airwrap is available at Dyson online and in Dyson stores.

【推荐3】National Space Center, Leicester

An interactive museum of super-size space experiences: from a giant planet Earth you can touch to the UK’s biggest domed planetarium (穹顶天文台) and a 42-meter rocket tower. You can’t miss the latter as you drive into Leicester—the structure looks like it’s wrapped in giant inflatable pillows. Inside, it houses Blue Streak and Thor Able rockets. Take in the full scale of them by riding a glass-sided lift up to the viewing platform. Elsewhere, there are six galleries with plenty of buttons to press and screens to touch. It’s all under cover so it’s a good place to visit on a rainy day!

What about lunch?

The Boosters Cafe serves reasonably priced hot and cold snacks and drinks (hot dog from ￡4.95, plus jacket potatoes, soups, sandwiches and salads)at the foot of the center’s two rockets The cafe offers vegetarian and vegan options too.

Getting there

There is a regular bus service (No.54 with a stop two minutes’ walk from the center, as well as a park and ride service from Birstall. East Midlands Trains and Cross-Country Trains operate services to Leicester station, from which the center is a 25-minute bus ride. If driving, it’s just off the A6, north of the city center. Parking is ￡3 for the day.

Value for money

It’s not cheap- adult: ￡15, 5 to 16-year-olds: ￡12, but once you’ve paid you can revisit as many times as you want in a year, and admission is free for kids under five.

Opening hours

10 am—4 pm Monday to Friday, 10 am—5 pm weekends and school holidays.