In a rare speech, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (93) delivers a special message to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth during the coronavirus pandemic; and echoes the words of Vera Lynn’s wartime song, ‘We will meet again.’ Although this broadcast was addressed to the Commonwealth and UK, its message of hope may be welcomed by all citizens of Planet Earth.

I’m speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time, a time of disruption in the life of our country, a disruption that has brought grief to some, financial difficulties to many, and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all. I want to thank everyone on the NHS frontline, as well as care workers and those carrying out essential roles who selflessly continue their day-to-day duties outside...

See the full transcript with Wordchecker definitions, and the Vera Lynn wartime song that the Queen echoes with the line "We will meet again."

Please leave YOUR OWN message of hope too :)

Below is a quotation about Food Standards in the USA from businessinsider.com:

"In the US, producers adhere to a "Defect Levels Handbook," which sets out the maximum number of foreign bodies like maggots, insect fragments and mould that can be in food products before they are put on the market.

"For example, US producers are allowed to include up to 30 insect fragments in a 100-gram jar of peanut butter; as well as 11 rodent hairs in a 25-gram container of paprika; or 3 milligrams of mammalian excreta (typically rat or mouse excrement) per each pound of ginger."

Do you believe it?

Trump tells May to abandon 'unwarranted' food standards for Brexit trade deal

Have we gone from tragedy to drama to satire to farce?

Or have we come full circle?

Downfall (Hitler)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC182sxBW5c

The Darkest Hour (Churchill)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgXzLMQuQ6Y

The Death of Stalin (Stalin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPpXFnHoC-0

41 Times Alec Baldwin Absolutely Nailed Trump (Trump)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVWaQatf4kQ

Do we even know the difference?

You probably know that Facebook lets advertisers target you by a variety of criteria. Do you know how you can see which Facebook advertisers are targeting you?

This information is available to you within Facebook.

Here is how you can access it.

(Image: The Facebook Eye courtesy How-To Geek)

Actually, if you are ever on any international TV. Here’s my advice. Keep your mouth shut. Until they ask you a direct question. Don’t answer hello. Don’t answer goodbye. Just answer any direct question.

Why do I say this? Because of...

TIME LAG

International TV like CNN is not simultaneous. There’s a time lag and if you open your mouth to answer hello or goodbye it invariably comes at the wrong time. Net result: you just look...

STUPID

Please keep your mouth shut. Nod and look wise.

Have you ever been on international TV?

https://www.facebook.com/pg/bangpakongriver/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1040471336126808&__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARCicb2QIaqLVq9Ft7ZeI2iKte10O76z2juOjDe_ow2exWh0uc7bDDOomKnaXEhTOefsU01etMT73QkQJ6kYZKqWEK1_X_4wG6pNM9583cfthTwpizvA0A3ISfwxUJN5pOP0BnUBVe1Qt-HfAeiSxBQcTDHLjCWkArq9EKBHIBmlYa638wvbhA&__tn__=-UC-R

Profile photos can be inoffensive avatars, real photos, illustrations etc.

Only the following situations may lead to account termination:

1. fake photo of celebrity (film star, Donald Trump, top model etc)
2. offensive image
3. no profile photo uploaded at all

Provided you do not fall under #1, #2 or #3 there's nothing to worry about.

Sadly, GRACE has had to give up as a volunteer Photo Moderator. For personal reasons and her heavy workload, Grace cannot give the time to moderating photos that she feels members need. That's a shame because she helped many members with advice on their photo titles and descriptions. If it's me moderating, I just delete pics without titles as they break the rules! Luckily I don't moderate photos very often and your kind and generous photo mods take time to help members when they can. Grace has been an excellent photo moderator for several years now and I'd like to thank her on everyone's behalf and wish her the very best in her "real" life offline. You'll be glad to know that ONEE will continue helping out with photos, and for the time being NADIYAH has kindly agreed to come back to modding photos when she has time. So please thank all the Photo Mods past, present and future!

In fact, please thank ALL MODS. They volunteer to moderate, to help members and to keep MyEC running smoothly. Don't forget, our Mods are human! They have feelings and problems and issues just like you. Sometimes they receive unpardonable abuse from members who should remember that they are using a free service and cannot treat mods like their personal employees or slaves. Abusive behaviour towards mods is unforgivable and a good reason for termination of membership! I know that most members understand that and approve. If the cap fits, wear it ;)

Actually, Onee has just made a great post about Grace and Nadiyah (she beat me to it!). I recommend that you read it!

MyEnglishClub has never supported logging in with Facebook as there as serious security risks involved:

THE SECURITY RISKS OF LOGGING IN WITH FACEBOOK

How we need to remake the internet

You can switch on the English subtitles in this TED video.

Horns of black rhinos (5,000 left in the wild) and pelts of Bengal tigers (2,500 left in the wild) were among the “scores” of products that an AP reporter was able to find advertised on public and private Facebook groups, in addition to elephant ivory... Read on at Quartz

Here’s a superstory about supercorruption in superclean Europe. Supersound makes for superlistening practice. Great English-language voiceover.

Please leave your comments at:
https://www.englishclub.com/jo/listening/superlistening-the-buwog-affair

To all MyEnglishClub members:

Congratulations! You have helped make MyEnglishClub one of the most successful social networks running on the Ning platform. (2,000,000+ networks have been built on Ning to date.)

As you may know, MyEnglishClub.com runs on the Ning platform (unlike EnglishClub.com, TEFL.net and EasyEnglish.com which run on our own servers). That means that MyEnglishClub.com runs on Ning servers, using Ning software and design.

As a result, we have limited control over the features we can add to MyEnglishClub, though in my opinion Ning do a great job and are one of the best social media platforms to use, perhaps even the best.

We recently received an email from Ning, which I paraphrase below:

--

We couldn't help noticing that MyEnglishClub.com is one of the most successful networks on the Ning platform.

If you have time and are willing of course, could you please share some tips or secrets about network running that could help newcomers to build successful networks as well and handle them afterwards?

Our priority is to add new features to the platform. Is there anything we can improve for you on our end?

Best regards
Ning Team

--

Although I shall be responding to this email in due course, I asked Ning's permission to share it with MyEnglishClub members, and to ask MyEnglishClub members to comment, specifically with your ideas on:

1. what makes MyEnglishClub successful
2. what new features you would like to see added

Please share your comments below and I will pass them on to Ning.

As you know, you can adjust your emails from MyEC in your Settings. You can adjust everything from receiving an email for almost everything that happens on MyEC, to receiving only certain emails to receiving NO emails.

Some Members are reporting that they are not receiving emails even when they request them in Settings.

Could you please comment below on whether or not you are receiving emails as requested. Thank you!

I should like to thank Expector Smith for kindly agreeing to become Group Administrator for the Official MyEC Welcoming Committee.

This group, started by Tara, has been very helpful in encouraging members to welcome new members and "show them the ropes".

Expector and other existing group members have many good ideas on this subject. If you would like to participate, please feel free to join the group. I know that Expector - and other members - will welcome you to the Welcoming Committee :)

The Greeks surprised the European polibureaucracy in Brussels by letting the people speak—an outrageous dose of democracy from a country said to have been its birthplace! And the (now ex-) Finance Minister of Greece was largely to be thanked for it, much to the annoyance of the European elites who are trying to bail out the banksters. This article shows Varoufakis in an unusual and amusing light:

http://rt.com/news/272008-varoufakis-coolest-finance-minister

@randomuser65398

Frankie Boyle is a comedian, but this piece is deadly serious. He says in blunt terms what people like Noam Chomsky have been trying to say for decades:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/30/west-racist-wars-bombs-radicalisation-frankie-boyle

British MP George Galloway eloquently describes the hypocrisy of the UK and US regimes:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35970.htm

"The 'mess' left by George Bush and Tony Blair in Iraq is a sectarian war, the bombs of 7/7 and now a man waving a bloody meat cleaver in Woolwich."

An article by the ever-thoughtful John Pilger