Phrasal Verbs - get

to get round to doing something = finding the time to do something

• I must get round to filling in that form. I should have done it ages ago.


• I still haven't got round to calling her; I've been that rushed of my feet.


• I'll get round to fixing the tap soon. I promise.

to get away with something = to escape punishment when you are guilty

• He's always getting away with things. He arrived late every day last week and his supervisor didn't say a word.


• I know that if I did that, I wouldn't get away with it.


• He stood trial for the offence but the jury found him not guilty. I reckon he got away with it.
  

Have you ever got away with something? Or know anyone, famous or otherwise, who has?

Is there anything that you know you must do at some point or other, but have been putting off? When will you get round to it and why haven't you got round to doing it earlier?

Madrid Fashion Week

Madrid Fashion Week is coming to an end but it doesn't seem to have made the international headlines. The only time that it was in the news was a couple of years ago, when the decision was made to ban ultra-skinny models from taking part.

Skinniest models are banned from catwalk

The organisers of Madrid Fashion Week have announced that they are banning skinny women to develop a more healthy image for the event this month. If any very skinny models do *turn up, they will be classed as unhealthy and in need of medical help.

The move has been heralded as good news for younger and lesser-known models, who often force themselves to become thin in the battle to secure a place among the top flight. But pear-shaped females should not celebrate too heartily, for the leading names of world fashion are showing no sign of following in the Spaniards’ footsteps. The Pasarela Cibeles trade fair in Madrid is a minnow compared with the big fish of Milan, Paris, New York and London fashion weeks.

Madrid city council, which sponsors the fashion week, has ordered that every model on show must have a body mass index (BMI) of at least 18. Models who are 5ft 9in (1.75m) tall must weigh a minimum of 8st 11oz (56 kg).

Esther Cañadas, Spain’s best-known model, does not qualify under the new rules as she is said to have a BMI of only 14. Almost a third of the women lined up appear to have been barred. The council promised that a nutritional expert would be on hand to check every model taking part in the shows, and that any woman found to have a BMI of below 16 would receive medical treatment.

The ban comes amid a row in Spain about the trend for extreme thinness on the catwalks and in high street shop windows. Cuca Solana, the organiser of the Pasarela Cibeles, was hauled before the country’s parliamentary commission for youth in April to defend the event against criticism that it pressures young women into losing weight.

According to the World Health Organisation, a woman is underweight if her BMI is less than 18.5, but Jesús del Pozo, vice-president of the Spanish Association of Fashion Designers, said that up to 40 per cent of the models who took part in last year’s event would have fallen foul of the new rules.

The organisers of London Fashion Week, which begins on September 18, said that they would not be introducing a similar rule. According to the leading agency Models 1, the models with the biggest pulling power are likely to be those with the smallest waistlines. “We have changed a lot in that there have been many more requests for bigger models, but on the catwalk long dresses do look lovely on tall, thin girls,” the agency said. “Girls who model at 15 or 16 tend to be thin girls, whose mums are thin, it’s part of their genetics, and obviously they look great in clothes.”

However, Lisa Armstrong, the Times fashion editor, asked: “Why do casting agents persist in using 15 and 16-year-olds to sell clothes to women in their thirties and upwards?” She added that the Madrid rules might have positive consequences for young British unknowns: “Madrid is a small fashion week and so this move will make very little difference to the bigger names, but younger and more inexperienced British models are sometimes sent to the smaller shows, effectively to practise.”

Sarah Doukas, Kate Moss’s agent, said that her agency, Storm, did not employ unhealthily thin women. “It’s useless to talk about body mass indexes. Who knows what that means apart from your doctor? It depends on different body types. Some people have different muscle density. I believe that girls should just eat healthily, exercise and just be normal. We just wouldn’t use someone who was really underweight or too thin.”

Source: The Times

*Phrasal verbs with turn

1. He's always turning up late for work.
2. She turned down his marriage proposal because she thought it too soon to make such an important commitment.
3. Don't worry - things will turn out alright.
4. You can always turn to her if you need any help.
5. The suspect in the murder case turned himself in last night.
6. Hundreds of people turned out to see the stars arrive for the premiere in spite of the rain.
7. They turned away anyone who wasn't dressed in the appropriate attire.
8. He was given six months to turn the fortunes of the company around.

Can you guess the meanings of the above phrasal verbs? Then check in your dicitionaries and write some examples of your own.

Pregnant minister

Foto: Bernat Armangue / AP

Spain's Pregnant Defense Minister


When Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's new cabinet members took their oath of office before King Juan Carlos on Monday, one of them, the recently-appointed Defense Minister, stood out from the rest. Literally. Carme Chacón, 37, is not only the first woman to head Spain's armed forces. She is also seven months pregnant.

By now, no one should be surprised by Zapatero's commitment to gender equality. In his first term, he passed a sweeping law against domestic violence, legalized gay marriage, eased divorce laws, and required political parties to practice gender parity. He also appointed equal numbers of men and women to cabinet positions, and named María Teresa Fernández de la Vega as his deputy prime minister.

This time around, the prime minister, who was re-elected on March 9, appointed more women than men to his cabinet. He also created a new Equality Ministry, charged with ensuring fairness in the workplace and continuing the fight against domestic violence. "For the Socialists, gender equality has become a sign of identity," says Maribel Montaño, secretary for equality during the previous administration.

But for all the preparation, the sight of Chacón inspecting troops on her first day in office, with her rounded belly covered in a stylish maternity blouse, came as a jolt. After walking firmly past a line of erect soldiers in their dress uniforms, the minister gave a brief, adulatory speech, then led the troops in a rousing cheer of "Viva España!"

For Spanish feminists, the small shock of that moment is exactly the point. "It's an important image precisely because it conveys normality," says Marisa Sotelo, president of the Madrid' based Women's Foundation. "It serves a pedagogic function: it shows that women can be and are everywhere."

And that's not the only lesson. By appointing Chacón (who lacks military training), Zapatero may also be making a kinder, gentler statement about the armed forces. The Prime Minister has been under pressure from NATO to add to the roughly 750 Spanish troops now deployed in Afghanistan, though at the recent NATO summit in Bucharest he maintained that current levels were sufficient. Among the largely pacificist Spanish population, support for military participation in combat is weak (over 50% of Spaniards support withdrawing their troops from Afghanistan altogether). But humanitarian and peace-keeping missions are another story: a 2005 poll by the Madrid-based Center for Sociological Research puts public support for those military efforts at more than 90%. The figure of a pregnant woman — "a woman in full womanhood," as Montaño puts it — only drives home that distinction. "It shows that the army doesn't just have to fulfill this masculine role of force," she says. "It can be more feminine, more humanitarian."

Although one conservative military organization, comprised largely of retired soldiers, lambasted Zapatero's choice as a display of "contempt," the armed forces' hierarchy itself has been characteristically circumspect. "We will receive her with the same respect as her predecessors," one high-ranking officer anonymously told El País newspaper, "and perhaps a little more delicacy."

Delicacy indeed, For now, the most pressing question is what Chacón will do when she gives birth in June. Thanks to Zapatero's efforts, Spanish women are entitled to 16 weeks paid maternity leave. But can a defense minister — especially a female one — afford to take four months off? Although the Socialist government recently increased paternity leaves to 15 days, it may soon find itself under internal pressure to extend those breaks for fathers as well.

Source: Time magazine

Vocabulary Focus

* if something stands out it is noticeable; easily seen.

• She stands out from others in the class. Her English is much better.
• He is so good looking that he always stands out in a crowd.
• The bright colours really make the heading stand out.

Other phrasal verbs with stand:

if you stand up for someone you defend them

• My colleagues never stand up for me even when they know that the boss is being unfair with me.
• You should stand up for your girlfriend. Don't let them talk like that about her!

if you stand in for someone you replace them in their job/task

• Ms. Campbell will be standing in for Anne while she is on maternity leave.
• The Prime Minister is unable to deliver the speech due to illness so his deputy will stand in for him.

Guy Fawkes Night

In 1605, thirteen young men planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Among them was Guy Fawkes, Britain's most notorious traitor.

After Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, English Catholics who had been persecuted under her rule had hoped that her successor, James I, would be more tolerant of their religion. James I had, after all, had a Catholic mother. Unfortunately, James did not turn out to be more tolerant than Elizabeth and a number of young men, 13 to be exact, decided that violent action was the answer.

A small group took shape, under the leadership of Robert Catesby. Catesby felt that violent action was warranted. Indeed, the thing to do was to blow up the Houses of Parliament. In doing so, they would kill the King, maybe even the Prince of Wales, and the Members of Parliament who were making life difficult for the Catholics. Today these conspirators would be known as extremists, or terrorists.

To carry out their plan, the conspirators got hold of 36 barrels of gunpowder - and stored them in a cellar, just under the House of Lords.

But as the group worked on the plot, it became clear that innocent people would be hurt or killed in the attack, including some people who even fought for more rights for Catholics. Some of the plotters started having second thoughts. One of the group members even sent an anonymous letter warning his friend, Lord Monteagle, to stay away from the Parliament on November 5th. Was the letter real?

The warning letter reached the King, and the King's forces made plans to stop the conspirators.
Guy Fawkes, who was in the cellar of the parliament with the 36 barrels of gunpowder when the authorities stormed it in the early hours of November 5th, was caught, tortured and executed.

It's unclear if the conspirators would ever have been able to pull off their plan to blow up the Parliament even if they had not been betrayed. Some have suggested that the gunpowder itself was so old as to be useless. Since Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators got caught before trying to ignite the powder, we'll never know for certain.

Even for the period which was notoriously unstable, the Gunpowder Plot struck a very profound chord for the people of England. In fact, even today, the reigning monarch only enters the Parliament once a year, on what is called "the State Opening of Parliament". Prior to the Opening, and according to custom, the Yeomen of the Guard search the cellars of the Palace of Westminster. Nowadays, the Queen and Parliament still observe this tradition.







On the very night that the Gunpowder Plot was foiled, on November 5th, 1605, bonfires were set alight to celebrate the safety of the King. Since then, November 5th has become known as Bonfire Night. The event is commemorated every year with fireworks and burning effigies of Guy Fawkes on a bonfire.









Some of the English have been known to wonder, in a tongue in cheek kind of way, whether they are celebrating Fawkes' execution or honoring his attempt to do away with the government.

Guy and the Plot Today

Beyond Bonfire Night, Guy and the Gunpowder Plot have left a legacy.

Today, we use the word "guy" to mean "person" or "man", as in "that guy across the street". Although the Oxford English Dictionary won't vouch for this theory, many linguists and historians think that our use of the term in that way is from our friend Guy Fawkes. It's difficult to trace the exact path of the word over the centuries, but it probably started by referring to the effigy of Fawkes that was thrown on top of the bonfire every November 5th as "a guy". Still today, as they walk down the street trying to collect money for fireworks, kids will ask for "a penny for the guy." From there, it's not a huge leap to talk about "a guy" as a living person. The use of the word would have grown from there.

Source: bonfire.org

Did you notice how many Phrasal Verbs were above? Get using them!!

• blow up
• turn out
• carry out
• work on
• pull off