3 . What are pillows really stuffed with? Not physically, but symbolically? The question occurred to me with the photos in the news and social media from the 50 cities around the world that staged public celebrations for International Pillow Fight Day. Armed with nothing more than bring-our-own sacrificial cushions, strangers struck heavily each other in playful feather from Amsterdam to Atlanta, Warsaw to Washington DC. But why? Is there anything more to this delightful celebration?

As a cultural sign, the pillow is deceptively soft. Since at least the 16th Century, the humble pillow has been given unexpected meanings. The Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu tells a famous story about a wise man who meets a depressed young scholar at an inn and offers him a magic pillow filled with the most vivid dreams of a seemingly more fulfilling life. When the young man awakens to discover that his happy 50-year dream has in fact come and gone in the short space of an afternoon’s nap, our impression of the pillow’s power shifts from wonder to terror.

Subsequent writers have likewise seized upon the pillow. When the 19th-Century English novelist Charlotte Bronte poetically observed “a ruffled (不平的) mind makes a restless pillow”, she didn’t just change the expected order of the adjectives and nouns, but instead she made unclear the boundaries between mind and matter — the thing resting and the thing rested upon.

It’s a trick perhaps Bronte learned from the Renaissance philosopher Montaigne, who once insisted that “ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head”. On Montaigne’s thinking, intelligence and happiness confront each other forever in a pillow fight that only one can win.

With the words of Tang. Bronte, and Montaigne, we can perhaps more easily measure the attraction of the global pillow fight. Like a ritual of release, the annual international pillow fight amounts to a kind of cleansing, a brushing off of daily worries: an emptying of the world’s collective mind. Rather than a launch-pad for weightless rest, the pillow is a symbol of heavy thought: an anchor that drags the world’s soul down — one that must be lightened.

6 . In February 1970, a group of activists gathered in Vancouver, Canada to discuss a planned nuclear test on the Alaskan island of Amchitka. They eventually agreed to sail to the test site and _________ against the explosion in person. At the end of the meeting, the chairman raised two fingers to the room and shouted “Peace!”. After a brief pause, one young attendee _________ with a monumental line: “Let’s make that a green peace”. The group were so _________ the phrase that they named their first boat the Green Peace.

Over the last 50 years, the _________ movement has become so closely associated with the colour green that it’s almost impossible to see a green poster, label or recycling bag without thinking about our planet’s future. But though that connection is the product of a very recent crisis, its _________ go back some way. We have _________ green with nature and its processes for thousands of years. Indeed, the very word “green” comes from the ancient Proto-Indo-European word ghre, meaning “grow”.

The human species, which emerged in the green forests and grasslands of Africa about 300, 000 years ago, has a special _________ link with green. Our eyes might even have _________ specifically to see the green in plants. Unlike most animals, who are red-green colour blind, we humans developed a third cone cell, an additional photoreceptor enabling our _________ to spot ripe red and yellow fruits against a backdrop of green leaf, and to distinguish different green leaves from each other. In daylight conditions, human eyes are more ____________ to green than any other colour.

With the rise of farming, we started to use green as a(n) ____________ for nature and its processes. Archaeologists have recently found an extraordinary store of green jewels in the Levant, ____________ some 10, 000 years. The researchers believe that these objects, many of which had come from hundreds of miles away at great cost, were chosen because they ____________ young leaves and might have been used by early farmers to pray for rainfall or fertilise crops.

The ancient Egyptians, who were farming the banks of the Nile from about 8000 B.C., ____________ use green as identification for their crops. Egyptian painters often represented their god of ____________, Osiris — who was responsible for flooding the Nile’s banks, filling the soil with nutrients and pushing the first green shoots up through the fields — as a bright green being.

How the Victorians Invented the “ Staycation ”

Holidays feel like an important refreshment after such a tough year. While international travel is possible, it’s not exactly easy, so many are choosing to stay closer to home, taking a “staycation ”. This year holidaymakers are discovering the     1     of the UK’s coast and the beauty of its landscapes.

Domestic tourism as we know it began in the 19th century when the idea of the holiday was just becoming     2     . Expanding railways and changing work practices meant people had more leisure time for travelling. International travel was becoming easier but wasn’t     3     to all, so the Victorians chose to spend this newfound “ free ” time in the UK.

This gave way to the     4     of hot new holiday destinations, mostly on the UK’s coast. Great British seaside towns, from Bournemouth to Brighton, appealed to people with     5     of fun, sea and clean air — many of the things that continue to attract people today.

The great summer holiday as we know it was designed by the Victorians. The 19th century saw the industrial     6     and the rise of industrial capitalism, where factories were booming and work structures were more clearly and severely defined and presented. This led to the emergence of administrative     7     , like clerks, and an emerging middle class.

There was more     8     working time, including shift work in factories and time off on Sundays. As a result, working-class people had leisure time to use, and by the 1890s some skilled workers had half days on Saturdays, leading to the birth of the “ weekend ” — though this was not     9     until much later in the 20th century.

In 1871 the Bank Holidays Act was passed. This appointed certain days as holidays on which banks closed, though, over the years, more businesses began observing these days off work. Before 1830, banks closed only on the 40 saints’ days of the year, though by 1834 this was just four days, including Christmas day. From 1871, any day could be     10     a bank holiday, not just saints’ days.