Hello everyone I hope you are all well and enjoyed the half term break. Since I last wrote I have been busy exploring more of New Zealand so let me fill you in on what we have been up to whilst visiting the South Island. Mount CookWe spent a n

Greeting from Malaysia.We have been here for around a week now and have enjoyed every minute kind of of it. After the hustle and bustle of Bangkok then the tranquility of Koh Tao driving south into Malaysia and to Penang seemed a good idea. Pena

So are you tired of me yet I know I just posted yesterday but have to show you what I saw today. Plus there is only one english channel CCTV and really it's only news. So with that on to the blogToday I did go to the Yungang Caves as I menti

The first of October is Chinese National Day and I figured it would be the right time to check out Tian An'Men. Approximately half of China's population had an identical thought and as the pictures show it was crowded. I bought a little Chinese flag becaus

Sunday 3rd October Kakadoo.Well the much anticipated Kakadoo was a major disappointment after Litchfield and Katherine National Parks. Granted it is the dry season so the waterfalls wetlands and rivers are not at their best but in our opinion it

Friday 1st October KatherineLong drive today from Litchfield to Katherine via Pine Creek. Encountered loads of road trains Dave's heard that in some parts of the country they get up to quarter of a mile long. You would think by now we'd had enoug

The journey from Koh Samui to Khao Sok was pretty much a nightmare we were woke up arround 730 by someone who couldn't speak english pointing to a piece of paper that said 800 bus. We had booked on the 12 o'clock bus and had arranged to pick our washi

Tuesday 28th September cont...Later that same day fuelled with a bit of dutch courage and convinced that we'd been imbued with some local knowledge through the consumption of a Kangaroo Crocodile and Barramundi mixed grill we decided to enter a lo

Hi evryone and thanks for all the comments and messages it really makes me feel good to get them. If you are new to the blog thingy the difference between making a comment and a message is that when I accept the comments they public on the blog so a

Left Varna for Sofia on Thursday and it's the first time I have nearly missed a plane I was literally the last person on the plane. If it had not been for someone coming to the Hotel and waking me up I would have missed it altogether. 2 uneventfull nights

Went to the Acropolis today. It is pretty amazing but way too many people taking pictures.Then went on a 2 hour bus ride to the Temple of Poseidin. Watched a beautiful sunset over the sea. And then back on the bus for 2 more hours back to Athens.

To be honest I didn39t think I would still be here in Buenos Aires one month into my trip. Last night Sally and I planned some of our travel which made it all a reality and pretty exciting. We went out after as well and we get on very well. It looks

Hej igen..Vi er gjort opmaerksomme paa at man ikke kan se de nye blogs uden linket der bliver sendt ud til jer paa mail saa derfor beder vi jer der ikke har tilmeldt sig maillisten om at goere det saa i kan faa det hele med. Vi tror det er pga. d

We got paid today OO man was I happy to go to the bank and get my first real paycheck. Tomorrowtoday we are going to Hong Kong for 5 days so I will keep you updated on how that goes. Becca and I went to trivia tonight with her friend Tom and some o

After hearing horror stories about driving down the coast in a big rig we decided to head through central Oregon south to California. We camped at Cascade Meadows RPI because Bend Thousand Trails has no sewers and our new motorcoach is a primadona with a

As soon as we arrived in Chiang Mai I fell in love with the place. Bangkok was cool and crazy and as it was the place I first arrived at I will always have fond memories of it but Chiang Mai is gorgeous and has a really chilled vibe. You still get hassle

Hi Allhere are some pictures of Oman. It took me a while to find a fast enough internet connection to upload them. I will write a bit more when I have a bit more time. Everything is good so far and I'm enjoying the sushine. Sometimes it's a little too

April 15th and just like clock work it looks like it is going to rain and not a minute to soon thought I was living in a giant sauna for the past month here in Cambodia. The Khmer new Year is going on and it signifies the beginning of the rainy season so

i left nesebar for Ruse bulgaria and it was a grand trip. i chatted up my seat mate a young coed who tried to help me navigate the streets of ruse. sadly she was a little off but the cute factor may have made me forget that i was toting my 12kg knapsack

Today we left Cyprus for our Mediterranean trip with global learning semesters. Athens is really cool We went around PlakaI think and shopped. Then we tried to go to the Temple of Poseiden Didn't make it though as we missed the last bus. Hoping to go

The weekend was very full as I had my allday program beginning at 11 a.m. and finishing around 9 p.m. In that course of time we practiced breathing techniques sang an old Rogers and Hart song to be prepared for next class engaged in all sorts of mo

Alrighty finally left Beijing and am now about 350 kms west in a city called Datong. Just arrived late last night so have only had really one full day here tomorrow I'm going to see some really cool sites. Let me catch you up since my last post. Wa

Here is a short video taken by my Canadian good friend Mark Takefman. We were on our month long trip from Delhi to Leh back through Spiti Valley. This was just one of a number of challenges we faced on the socalled roads. Mind you there were wonderful

Croatia was special for many things the scenery the history the fact it was warm enough to wear shorts but most importantly because my mom came to join my adventureI met Mom at the Zagreb airport where we rented a car yippee back behind the wheel

It has been 6 weeks since we all started at Dulwich College and the time has just completely and utterly flown away. I can't believe it has been almost 2 months since we moved into our lovely new apartment in Jinqiao and our new life on 'the dark side' if

For the National Holiday we get a whole week off. On day one Helen and I had planned an excursion into Benxi to just explore it. We made it to lunch a pedicure and a nap. The pedicure however was rather interesting. It was more like we walked into a f

Big ShoesAfter eating lunch at Relish today Maria Scott and I took a taxi to the big shoe store. I found an address in the back of Chengdoo magazine. Since my flip flops broke I haven't had anything to wear with my black clothing so I needed some b

Hallo zusammenIch und Stephanie von Canada ich habe Sie in Arequipa getroffen haben uns entschlossen einen Jungeltrip zu machen. Da der Nationalpark Manu so teuer war habe ich nach anderen Alternativen ausschau gehalten und den Nationalpark Tambop

Hi AllSo I'm on holiday for a week for the national day celebrations. We went out for a ride on our bikes on Friday and Saturday and here are the photosEnjoyJah Bless

The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers bill is the most tedious outrage ever, right down to the dreary acronym. But oh, the horrors it will bring …

David Cameron cares about your safety. It's all he ever thinks about. It's his passion. He's passionate about it. Every time David Cameron thinks about how safe he'd like to keep you, passion overcomes him and he has to have a lie down. With his eyes shut. A bit like he's having a nap and doesn't care about your safety at all.

Right now he's so committed to keeping you safe, he's rushing something called the Drip bill through the House of Commons. Drip stands for Data Retention and Investigatory Powers and critics are calling it yet another erosion of civil liberties and … see, I've lost you because it's just so bloody boring. Maybe it's just me, but whenever I hear about some fresh internet privacy outrage my brain enters screensaver mode and displays that looped news footage of mumblin' Edward Snowden and I automatically nod off only to be awoken shortly afterwards by the sound of my forehead colliding sharply with the table.

The all-new iPhones and Apple Watch can be easily avoided but there’s no escaping iOS 8

The past few weeks haven’t been great for Apple. First they were implicated in the stolen celebrity nude photo disaster, which reminded everybody how easily clouds leak. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the iPhone is generally marketed as a diabolical timewasting device with the potential to wreak a grotesque and devastating invasion of your personal privacy. They tend to focus more on all the cool colours it comes in.

Then they launched the horrible-looking Apple Watch, which does everything an iPhone can do, but more expensively and pointlessly, and on a slightly different part of your body. Only an unhealthily devoted Apple fanatic could bear to wear a Apple Watch, and even that poor notional idiot would have to keep putting their iPhone down in order to operate the damn thing. It’ll scarcely be used for telling the time, just as the iPhone is scarcely used for making calls. It’s not a watch. It’s a gaudy wristband aimed at raising awareness of Chinese factory conditions. Or a handy visual tag that helps con artists instantly identify gullible rich idiots in a crowd.

It’s a stealth adventure with nowhere to hide and hundreds of respawning enemies waiting to attack you the moment you stand out in any way

I haven’t always been the kind of man who plays videogames. I used to be the kind of boy who played videogames. We’re inseparable, games and I. If you cut me, I’d bleed pixels. Or blood. Probably blood, come to think of it.

Games get a bad press compared with, say, opera – even though they’re obviously better, because no opera has ever compelled an audience member to collect a giant mushroom and jump across some clouds. Nobody writes articles in which opera-lovers are mocked as adult babies who never grew out of make-believe and sing-song; obsessive misfits who flock to weird “opening nights” wearing elaborate “tuxedo” cosplay outfits.

If the fashion industry truly cared about the future of our planet, it would issue a solitary line of unisex, one-size-fits-all smocks, then shut down for good

So then. Alongside “eating a sandwich” and “holding up a copy of a newspaper”, we now have to add “wearing a T-shirt” to the growing list of Ordinary Things Ed Miliband Somehow Just Can’t Do. The other week he was pictured in Elle magazine wearing the Fawcett Society’s “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like” T-shirt. Last Sunday the Mail claimed those T-shirts are stitched together in a Mauritian sweatshop by women earning 62p an hour.

A T-shirt. He can’t even wear a T-shirt without somehow condemning both himself and any surrounding witnesses to ridicule. What’s going to trip him up next? A doorknob? Next week he operates a doorknob so badly he fractures his wrist, and as the medics wheel him to the operating theatre, they accidentally knock an ageing war veteran off a waiting room chair, leaving him groaning in pain on the floor, at which point Miliband insists they stop his gurney so he can lean over and help the guy up, but he forgets about his fractured wrist, so as the 96-year-old decorated-war-hero-and-humbling-inspiration-to-us-all gingerly grabs his hand, Miliband abruptly screeches a barrage of agonised obscenities directly into his face, causing him to hit the floor again, fatally this time, in front of the world’s media, oh and also Miliband does a frightened little wee at the end, and they film that too.

The prime minister has refused to go head-to-head with Ed Miliband – and the multi-party debate we are getting will be a 90-minute cry for help on behalf of the democratic system

Last week, Germany chose its entry for this year’s Eurovision: Heart of Stone, performed by Andreas Kümmert, former winner of the German version of The Voice (which is known as The Voice of Germany in its native country, rather than Die Stimme von Deutschland. Presumably the producers didn’t want to put viewers off by making it sound too German).

After wailing his guts out and winning the public vote, Kümmert abruptly announced, on live TV, that he didn’t actually want to “do” Eurovision after all, and awarded his “prize” to the runner-up instead. A chorus of boos broke out. German boos. Buhen.

For somebody who did less for Britain than, say, Olly Murs, we’re making a dreadful fuss of our late monarch

Who’s your favourite dead king? For me it’s a toss-up between King Henry VIII (likes: Greensleeves, beheadings) and Nat King Cole (likes: chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose). Those are definitely my top two.

Below them, there’s King Kong, King George III, Good King Wenceslas, and about 500 other assorted types of king before you get to Richard III. Never warmed to him. Don’t know why. I’ve just never really been into Richard III. Maybe it’s his Savile-esque haircut, or the fact that his name is widely used as rhyming slang for fecal matter, or just the way he’s routinely depicted as a murderous, scheming cross between Mr Punch and Quasimodo; a panto villain with nephews’ blood on his hands.

What sort of person can’t decide who to vote for, but can rate how much they like whatever they’re hearing out of five, and wants to sit there tapping a button accordingly?

As the general election scuttles closer, the campaign grows more confusing by the moment, so it’s good that last week’s seven-way leaders’ debate brought some much-needed mayhem to the situation. Not so long ago we were bemoaning the lack of choice in a two-party system. Now we’ve got option paralysis.

It had its moments. Nigel Farage complained about foreigners with HIV who enter Britain and immediately start wolfing down expensive medicine: greedy as well as sick. You’d think Farage might welcome immigrants with grave illnesses on the basis that they’re less likely to hang around as long, but apparently not. Say what you like about him – say it, write it down, daub it in 3ft-high cherry-red letters up the side of a prominent overpass on his regular commute if you must – but it’s undeniably refreshing to see a politician determined to speak his mind, indifferent to the absurd constraints of spin or basic human empathy. Never mind HIV sufferers – how much is Britain spending on refugees with cancer? Maybe he could put that statistic on a sandwich board and patrol the country in it, perhaps while ringing a bell and loudly commanding passersby to picture a nation under his command.

Viele Bluetooth-Kopfhörer liefern gute Klangqualität, sagt Peter Knaak von der Stiftung Warentest. Worauf Sie beim Kauf achten sollten.

Das Streamingportal Joyn versucht sich an einem Datingformat: "M.O.M - Milf oder Missy" lässt zwei Männer aus Frauen verschiedenen Alters wählen – und versumpft in faden Klischees. 

An American woman goes to the police in Las Vegas. She claims she has been raped by an athlete: global football star Cristiano Ronaldo. What really happened has never been resolved because lawyers settled the case with a payment of $375,000 by the Real Madrid star. By SPIEGEL Staff

Canadian accident investigator Larry Vance claims to have solved the mystery of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. In an interview, he explains why he believes the plane's captain deliberately ditched the aircraft.

Christine Simon-Noll is active helping refugees in Hamburg's HafenCity neighborhood. She says it is getting much tougher to find volunteers. In an interview, she outlines what needs to happen in order to ensure successful integration.

Claas Relotius wrote many seemingly excellent feature stories for DER SPIEGEL, but unfortunately most of them apparently contain fabricated passages. We are sorry about what has happened and we are investigating with the requisite humility.

I grew up in Germany making my own granola bars and relying on my bicycle for transportation. Now that I am in Denver, though, I drink coffee out of a Styrofoam cup and eat my meals off of plastic plates. In America, there's no way around it.

The London-based company Sidefloor was part of the tax-evasion structure for which Lionel Messi and his father Jorge were convicted. Now it has been revealed that FC Barcelona spent years paying agent fees to this letterbox company, payments apparently destined for Jorge Messi.

Guest Post: High precision time measurements depend on using multiple clocks to ensure redundancy and stability.

Guest Post: SRv6 enables you to code directly into each packet header where the traffic should be sent and how it should be treated.

The head of Angela Merkel’s Chancellery has warned that people’s behavior this weekend will be pivotal in determining whether strict shelter-in-place curfews are imposed in Germany to control the spread of the coronavirus.

Helge Braun, 47, Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff, speaks with DER SPIEGEL about the rapidly rising number of coronavirus infections and about whether more stringent measures will have to be implemented.

The German chancellor is staying home after being exposed to a doctor who tested positive for the coronavirus. A first test came back negative, but Merkel will keep governing remotely for the time being. What does Germany's line of succession look like, and who would jump in if Merkel gets sick?

The gravest threat posed by the coronavirus is that high-risk groups like the elderly and other high-risk groups will get infected by it. The pressure on staffs at nursing homes is growing. Some patient advocates are calling for emergency contingency plans. Are the facilities safe enough for the people living in them?