The Boston Bombings

On Monday 15th of April, an event occured in Boston which shook the world. The Boston Bombings. During the Boston Marathon, two bombs went off at the finish line, 13 seconds apart. With 3 dead and many more severly injured, This terrible occurence emmediately captured the worlds attention and emmediately questions arose: Why? Who? How?

Police started looking through CCTV footage, and asked the thousands gathered at the finish line to come foward with any evidence that they might have on their phones. Later that week (on thursday evening), there was reports of a 7/11 store being held up and robbed in the outskirts of the city. A watchman from a nearby campus university came to investigate and was subsequently killed. After hearing reports of this, the police put 2 and 2 together and decided that these had to be the two main suspects. A breif look at the CCTV records at the store and at the marathon showed that the two men who robbed the 7/11 store were also present at the finish line of the marathon.

While the police were making these connections, the two suspects, now identified by the police as Tamerlan Tsarnaev (26) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (19), had hi-jacked a passing Mercedes and were attempting to make an escape out of the city. The police caught up with them and a high speed car chase ensued, resulting in a shoot out and the Tsarnaev brothers launching explosives at the police. In this highly dangerous gun fight, the older brother – Tamerlan – was killed. Somehow how Dzokhar Tsarvaev managed to get away. Although the police managed to narrow down his possible location to a place called Watertown, on the suburbs of Boston, a massive man hunt begun.

Boston city went into lockdown. Subways stopped running, businesses closed and people were advised not to leave their homes. A BBC reporter described Watertown as “A ghost town, eerily creepy”. Throughout all of Friday, the police went door to door, searching houses in hunt of the missing fugitive. The police had described Dzhokhar as “highly dangerous and possibly armed”. There was an interview with the suspect’s uncle in which he made a plea to his nephew to “turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness”, a plea that was surely not heard. Meanwhile, Dzhokhar’s father had protested his children’s innocence by saying: “They’ve never used a gun, they’ve never even SEEN guns except on T.V!”. Unfortunately, this statement was clearly false.

The man hunt went on all day. They searched houses, they searched parks, they searched libraries they searched everything. It seemed impossible that Dzokhar could avoid capture for long. Evening came and still there was no sighn of the younger brother. Where could he be? Police were giving up hope. Maybe he had managed to escape the city and was currently on a flight to London or Australia? But they didn’t give up hope. They kept on searching but told Watertown that it should be safe to leave their houses.

A man left his house and went into his garden, stretching his cooped up legs. He wondered around, observing how the flowers were coming into season and generally enjoyng the freedom to leave his house. But then he noticed something strange. There was a strange mark on the boat that belonged to him and his wife. Anxious he peered under the tarpuling and saw something that made his blood run cold: Blood. All at once he knew that Dzhokar, who had long evaded capture was hiding in the end of his garden. He rushed into his house and called the police. They quickly arrived on the scene and, after a few gun shots had been fired, managed to subdue and capture the younger of the two brothers. Dhokhar was rushed to hospital as he was still suffering from gun wounds inflicted by the police on Thursday evening. As I write, he is recovering in the hospital until he is recovered enough to be questioned.

But who are these two bombers? Where do they come from? And most importantly, why did they commit the terrible crime that they commited?

Dzokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were the sons of Chechen refugees from the troubled parts of the southern (then) U.S.S.R. It was reported that they moved to the U.S.A, along with their father in 2002 and set up a life there, away from the horrors that were being faught in the home country. In around 2008, their father returned to Russia as he was ill and wanted to see his family. The two lived in Massachusetts in a town called: Cambridge. Dzokhar had recieved a scholarship for university to pursue further education. According to his father, he had ambitions to become a brain surgeon. In the meantime, Tamerlan was a keen boxer and fought at an amateur level. He described himself as a very religious non drinker and non smoker.

But still the question remains, why did Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev create these explosions when (it seemed) they were fitting in fine in society, had friends and seemed perfectly happy? The authorites have come up with a few possible motives which will be put to Dzokhar when he is being questioned:
A) Tamerlan was feeling upset about his girlfriends (whom is now pregnant) dumping him so he took his anger out on society;
B) Tamerlan went to his hometown for six months within the last eighteen months. Is it possible that he was contacted by some terriost group persuading him to commit this crime?
C) In fact the brothers hated America and wanted to take venegance on a society which had possibly mal treated them and discriminated against them.
D) Some completely different motive which will hopefully come out withing the following weeks.

By Matteo Fernandes

The North London Derby!!!!!!

This passionate encounter was anticipated to be a match full of flair and eye-catching football. Previous battles between these two sides have brought us some of the most memorable premier league matches ever.

The fans were prepared, the Emirates was prepared and most importantly the players were prepared! The game kicked off and Tottenham started of the better team quickly scoring the first goal through Gareth Bale.however totthenham didnt give up and immidetiatly scored another goal through Aaron Lennon.
Arsenalcame out in the second half with purpose and threw everything at totthenham,Although totthenham were starting to do all of the defending they still managed to ; Arsenal immediately hit back when Per Mertascaer scored the goal for Arsenal with a good header from the penalty spot sending the ball straight into the bottom right hand corner and from there Arsenal didn’t look back.

Final score: 2-1

Gifts from the Heart

Valentine’s Day is approaching and romance is in the air. Having trouble finding an original gift? Well we can help. Everyone likes a homemade gift it, makes it more personal and shows that you really care; you don’t even have to be particularly creative to do it.

A great gift that is not only simple but also very effective is making a scrapbook of your memories together. You can put all sorts of things in this, from photographs to the tickets of movies or concerts you’ve been to together.

One gift that will test how well you know your valentine is a mix tape. You can put all his/her favourite songs on here and personalise the case.

You can’t go wrong with a card, though be sure to make it yourself and its always nice to partner this gift with flowers or a box of chocolates.

Its always nice to have a gift that lasts, so flowers just don’t cut it. Though an origami rose is a romantic gesture that you can keep for years. Interested? Check out the link below.

http://origami.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-easy-origami-rose-for-mothers-day-368936/

Connie Hatt

Best goal of the week

Sharp’s goal of the week has been plucked from a very tough field, with Steven Gerrard, Juan Mata and Frank Lampard all competing for the top spot.
Let’s start with Frank Lampard’s impresive dipping goal against Newcastle United, which left the goal keeper with no possible chance of saving the shot. The goal continued his fine goalscoring form.

Steven Gerrard’s goal was even more impressive because of the way he took the ball down and smashed it passed the keeper Joe Hart from 25 yards out. He celebrated it passionately as he knew it was both a crucial goal for his team Livrpool but also a stunning finish.

However, even Gerrard’s goal couldn’t match Juan Mata’s fantastic shot against Newcastle. Mata’s goal was a blinder: he curled the ball from the edge of the 16yard box into the top left hand corner for a spectacular finish.

The FA fifth round draw

The 5th round draw of this year’s FA cup produced 8 games which could bring us drama, upsets and a weekend of pure entertainment,with the following games:

Hudderfield or lecister vs Wigan Athletic - A huge chance for wigan to get into the quater finals.

Milton Keyes Dons vs Barnsley -The two lower league teams will battle it out for a place in the quarter finals.

Oldahm Atheletic vs Everton- Oldaham who have already knocked out liverpool are handed another challenge.

Luton Town vs Millwall - Luton town are the only non-league team remaining in the FA cup and will be hoping that they can continue their jorney with a another famous win.

Arsenal vs Blackburn Rovers - Arsenal will defanatly be the favourties to win this game and reach the quarter finals.

Man City vs Leeds United - leeds hoping to beat the premier league champions to qualify for th fa cup quarter finals.

Man United vs Reading -  Two premier league teams contesting for a place in the fa cup semi finals

Middlesbouragh vs Brentford or Chelsea -  The winners of chelsea vs brentford will have a tough trip up north to middlesbourgh.

Those Left Behind

By Connie Hatt

I burst into the kitchen, my shoes and the hem of my gingham skirt caked in mud. I heard a faint sniff as my mother turned her tear stained face toward me. “Molly where have you been? You had me worried sick. Now clean those shoes immediately, they’re filthy. And stop using so much shoe polish that tin cost me a whole ration card.”

I stood meekly beside the muddy floor, my mouth firmly glued shut. Nervous that if I uttered a word to contradict her she would collapse into tears. I silently retreated in to the hall and up to my room to ponder what had caused a strong woman like my mother to cry so easily.

A few hours later she called me to the kitchen where I saw her silently stirring a cup of stewed tea with a tired expression on her face. She seemed so fragile as though the slightest unkind word would break her. I ran to comfort her, she gently pushed me away and handed me a letter. I recognized my father’s handwriting. I read it through, intently absorbing each word; I could imagine the slight upward crease of my father’s mouth each time he smiled and the glint in his eye when he laughed. “What is it? This is just like every other let…?” I didn’t finish for at that moment I saw in my mother’s hand a crumpled telegram. Every child knew what that meant.

Deathly Illusions

By Tom Willingham

As I was walking home from work, happy at a good day’s salary in my pocket, I noticed a bed and other household furniture from the village craftsman floating down the river beside me as I turned back up the hillside along the old dusty track. “How strange,” I said to myself, for there was nothing upstream except for the hillside houses.

As I reached the town almost everyone was bustling about and calling out to one another. Suddenly one of the villagers saw me as they ran past and said “I’m so sorry.” At this I really started wondering what was going on. As I walked further up the hillside towards my house I noticed more debris in the reservoir. I continued walking up the path and it got more crowded until I turned the corner to see lots of people crowded round the front of my house. I was walking towards my front door when someone shouted at me to stop! “Shut up, it’s my house” I retorted as I walked through the front door into… nothing! As I fell I realized all too late that all but the front wall of my house had plummeted down into the reservoir and been destroyed, just as I too was about to be.

Bioshock

Bioshock is a fast paced first person shooter (fps) set underwater during the 1960’s. The game takes you through the underwater city Rapture, after a freak plane accident portraying horror yet excitement combined with curiosity to give the player an awesome experience including stunning graphics and 3D effects. Bioshock tells the story of the dream of the Russian inventor Andrew Ryan who builds a city underwater with organisms called plasmids. However strength and brain tonics take effect resulting in people using them too much and becoming addicted, crazy and becoming known as splicer’s.

Some of the enemies include Splicers (However this depends on what type of splicer such as Houdini or Spider Splicers) or even Big Daddies. Splicers are people who have become brutally crazy and kill anyone they see. Although Big Daddies are relatively rare they are very dangerous and will attack if you attack them or their little sisters which take the ADAM out of bodies. (ADAM is what is used to power plasmids which are weapons that you shoot out of your hand such as ice or fire) If you kill the big daddies that means you can save or harvest the little sisters. Saving means less ADAM but a prize after three saves, or harvesting which is killing the little sister so you get more ADAM to use on tonic and plasmid upgrades.

There are many weapons, and plasmids that can be used as weapons. Plasmids are a type of organic weapon that when used gives you the power of elements like lightning bolts, fire, ice and many more. Weapons are essential to survive in the crazy, freaked out world of Rapture where it is kill, or be killed. Some of the weapons include the wrench, pistol, chem launcher and more. It’s a fun game for those who like surprises or like horror and I would recommend it to anyone who likes horror and supernatural forces.

By Teodor Pelteshki

Nexus 7

A picture of the Nexus 7.

In June this year Google partnered with the Taiwanese company Asus to make their own 7 inch Nexus tablet. The Google Nexus 7 features a quad core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor with a 12 core graphics card. The tablet, as mentioned in Google’s developers’ conference, contains 16 cores in total, which compiled with its 1 GB of ram makes it one of the fastest 7 inch tablets in the current market. The Nexus 7 runs 4.1 jelly beans out of the box and is currently being upgraded to the latest jelly bean operating system (4.2).

Design
The Nexus 7 features a 7 inch LCD screen with a 16:9 ratio and a HD resolution of 1280 × 800 which adds up to 216 ppi. Meanwhile, the glass is highly reflective, meaning it will be harder to see in bright conditions; however, its relatively wide viewing angles make it ideal for watching films with other people.

The Nexus 7’s small form makes it more compact and easier to transport than a larger 10 inch tablet. To compound this it is also quite thin, at 10.9 mm and reasonably light too, weighing only 336g. The front of the device is one piece of corning gorilla glass, which houses the screen and the 1.3 megapixel front camera. This is surrounded at the edges by a silver metal frame, which separates the glass and the textured black cover. The cover is made of plastic, which has a rubbery feel and a quality finish that increases the grip of the device.

In terms of ports the Nexus 7 contains one micro USB port for charging as well as a 3.5 mm head phone jack on the bottom. Along the left side there is a 4 pin dock connecter which is used for connecting to docking accessories that are compatible with the tablet, including the official one which can be bought from the play store. Meanwhile the left side houses the volume rocker and the power button. Google and Asus were clearly trying to keep the number of buttons and ports to a minimum.

Two main problems with the Nexus 7 are that it firstly does not contain a HDMI port to stream to a TV; although Miracast support is included among the new features found in the new 4.2 jelly bean update, it can only connect the tablet to a Miracast supported TV. Secondly the exclusion of a micro SD card slot means that you can’t expand the memory of the device, so memory upgrades are tricky. Owners with large music collections may find this restrictive.

Software

The Nexus 7 comes with android 4.1 OS out of the box and is in the process of upgrading to 4.2, which includes multiple user support for tablets, lockscreen widgets, miracast support (mentioned above) as well as many other changes. One feature, Photo Sphere, includes the ability to take full scale 360° panoramic photos. However, this feature is not compatible with the Nexus 7.

Another advantage is that because this is a Nexus device you get the unaltered form of vanilla android without any alterations or additional skins such as HTC Sense or Samsung TouchWiz. In addition, software updates come to nexus devices first.

Connectivity and Internet

The default browser on this tablet is Google Chrome, which since android 4.1 has replaced the old android browser. The good thing is that Google Chrome packs many more features such as desktop sync using only your Google account. The only downside is that Google Chrome does not read Flash content. However, Flash can be side-downloaded for other Flash supported browsers such as Mozilla Firefox.

The Nexus 7 standard model comes with only Wi-Fi (in 16GB and 32GB versions) but a 32GB Wi-Fi + 3G HSPA+ version is available as well for only £40 more than the 32GB Wi-Fi. Google has not yet released a 4G LTE model and probably won’t release one.

The Nexus 7 features NFC compatibility as well as Bluetooth 4.0. NFC stands for near field communication and it allows people to simply tap their NFC enabled devices together to share web pages, photos and videos in seconds. It can also be used to make payments with your device using Google wallet, which gathers your credit cards and allows you to pay by simply tapping the device to an NFC scanner in shops.

Camera

The Nexus 7 doesn’t feature a back camera, which isn’t actually a great loss because you would look quite foolish wielding a large tablet just to take a picture. However, the Nexus 7 does feature a 1.3 megapixel front camera for video chats on VoIPs such as Skype

Price
The Nexus 7 is actually very cheap compared to other tablets with similar high end specs. It may be one of the only 7 inch tablet with a quad core processor but despite this it still costs only £159 for the 16GB version. The 32GB version will cost £199 and the 3G (HSPA+) cellular 32GB version costs £239. Thus the Nexus 7 is probably the best affordable tablet to buy.

Overall

To conclude, the Nexus 7 is a great device that definitely surpasses other 7 inch tablets including the Kindle Fire and it may possibly be better than the iPad Mini. With high end specs and a staggering low price, the Nexus 7 proves to be great value for money as well.
Huzayfah Mangera and Sakib Ali

My life is a lift- By Matteo Fernandes

Recently, in class we were learning how to  use extended metaphors in poems. For anyone who doesn’t know, an extended metaphor is when you use a metaphor but use it throughout (in this case) a poem and not just for one line. Here is Matteo’s poem about how a lift represents the life’s journey and that you can come across many problems that can sometimes make you angry and can be difficult. But you will nearly always overcome them, just like when a lift goes down it always comes back up again.

My life is a lift,

Going to all levels,

Some good, some bad,

But then, occasionally,

One person presses all my buttons for a joke.

And I get angry.

Sometimes, there are too many passengers,

Pulling me down, I strain against the weight.

But then they get off and I am free.

Occasionally the repair man comes,

And I go whizzing wonderfully, wandering from my set path.

I am free.

At rare times, the vandals come,

They graffiti me,

They pee in me,

They swear in me,

And leave me feeling terrible inside,

All mixed up and confused.

But of course, I am a lift,

So I come up again,

Right to the top floor,

But it never lasts long,

As I am a lift,

And I go up, down, up down,

Up,

Down,

UP…

*****

Grace Revill