Why You Should Celebrate Your Birthday Every Day

by Zoe Dukoff-Gordon(source: visualinsights.blogspot.com)Our mothers and fathers probably made a big fuss over our first birthday. They would have made a cake, invited all the family down, bought lots of presents, decorated the house with colour-coded balloons and streamers. And when we become old enough to have our own ideas, we’d ask our parents for a themed party based on our favourite character from a book or film- maybe ‘Toy Story,’ ‘Peppa...

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Amazing Technology You Never Thought Could Exist, But Now Does…

by Hugh Summers 360º 3-D Holographic Displays: We may have seen these in Star Wars, yet did George Lucas or we, the viewers, ever believe this to be achievable? In fact, it has been achieved, yet perhaps not in the form which we quite imagined.“The ZCamTM is a video camera that can capture depth information (which is used to build the 3D model) along with video and is produced by 3DV Systems. The technology is based on the Time of Flight principle. In this technique, 3D depth data is generated by sending pulses of infra-red light into...

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How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolution

As January ends, Jack Rockett explores way to keep your New Year's Resolution beyond the the first month of the year. At the beginning of the year, it’s always the same. Everyone talks about their New Year’s resolution and how they broke it on the 2nd of January and that is because we want to change suddenly. If you want to succeed, make your resolution easy. Just because it is January 1st you suddenly want to do all these things. Some of our most impossible favourites are: ·        ...

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'Every time an elder dies, a library burns with him.'

by Joanna Godfree A legal opinion on the rules for buying and selling goods(source: ismailimail.com via nytimes.com)  'Every time an elder dies, a library burns with him.' (West African saying) Of course to a librarian the burning of a library is the extreme opposite of all that we stand for, that is, the preservation and free dissemination of information and ideas of every sort. So it is with horror that we hear that, as well as the...

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Review: Django Unchained

by Will HineChristoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx(source: The Guardian)As Quentin Tarantino burst into the box office in the early 1990s he redefined cinema for the next decade. Using a non-linear storyline with heavy dialogue, Tarantino has created a host of satirical and iconic stories and characters in film history. Over time, Tarantino's reputation has grown; this has allowed him to develop edgier and more adventurous films and Django Unchained is no...

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CSI PGS!

by Sampad SenguptaThis week, PGS unveiled a new club to add to its splendid range of co-curricular activities: the Experimental Biology Club. In a rare and privileged move, The Portsmouth Grammar School has formed collaboration with The University of Portsmouth to perform novel research, which will contribute towards worldwide biological understanding; in particular, the club will investigate the developing field of ‘Forensic Entomology’. ‘Forensic...

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Having a Parent in the Armed Forces

by Will SparkesGiven that there are so many military families in and around Portsmouth, and the number of children who go to the school with connections to the military, I’ll bet that everyone reading this will have a relation or friend with a link to the Armed Forces. However I don’t reckon a majority will know perhaps what one of us goes through in order to have the label of military child. I’ll give you the rough guide to what it entails, good...

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Why Blogging (Successfully) Is Harder Than It Looks

by Dodo CharlesSo, I recently started a blog with my friends on fashion design, which I thought would be easy, but is in fact as difficult as trying to thread a minute needle. Setting up the blog alone was difficult enough. There was a whole array of decisions to be made, and for a not particularly decisive person, it was a challenge that I did not readily accept.First problem- deciding what our main aims of the blog were. We knew that we wanted to specialise in vintage and indie clothing, but beyond that we were quite unsure. We also wanted to...

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The Original 'Les Misérables'

by Laura Burden“Red – the blood of angry men! Black – the dark of ages past! Red – a world about to dawn!”…since seeing the film of the musical of Les Misérables, reviewed in dazzling terms on this site by Ollie Velasco, who described it as “incroyable”, I am quietly confident that I am not the only denizen of PGS who has carried the songs in her head whilst navigating the school site. At first touch, the novel seems impossibly chunky and those who...

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What is the Enduring Appeal of 'Pride and Prejudice'?

by Katie HusselbyLizzie Bennet and Mr Darcy (BBC version, 1995)(source: The Guardian)Today is the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice, which has led me to question how this novel has managed to maintain such a lasting popularity, where so many other romantic tales have failed to stand the test of time. If one were to look at the plot alone, it would seem to reveal nothing unique or previously unimagined...

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Blue Monday

by Bea WilkinsonBlue Nude by Pablo Picasso(source: overarts.com)Last Monday, 21st January was apparently the most depressing day of the year. In 2005, Dr.Cliff Arnall calculated that the Monday after the first full week of January is the most depressing day of the year. Dr. Arnall figured out that late January is extremely depressing for a number of reasons, including cold, unpredictable and gloomy weather conditions, post-Christmas...

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Holocaust Memorial Day: 'The Banality of Evil'

 Adolf Eichmann on trial(source: holocaustresearchproject.org) Fifty years ago, in 1963, Hannah Arendt published 'Eichmann in Jerusalem'*, her landmark account of the trial and execution of the man responsible for organising the mass transportation of millions of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps. Arendt, herself a Jewish refugee from Germany before the War, subtitled her book 'A Report on the...

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'Diary of a Madman': Year 12 Art Installation

by Alison DyerEvery year the Year 12 A Level group undertake a site specific installation project as part of their coursework. This year their work has been inspired by Nikolai Gogol's farcical short story 'Diary of a Madman', which records the gradual descent of the protagonist, Poprishchin, into insanity. The exhibition will be on display in the Art department during the Year 11 Sixth Form Subject Forum on Monday, 28th January, 6.30 - 8.00pm. All...

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A Storm in a Teacup

by Patrick McGuigganSugar lumps – they drive the Irish crazy.My recent move to England, after living in Northern Ireland for so long, has been a reasonably smooth transition.  However, there is one cultural difference that doesn’t sit well with me – sugar lumps. I can’t remember ever sitting in a cafe in Belfast and being presented with lumps of sugar.I apologise if you are a fan, but a lump is simply not a quantifiable amount of sugar. When...

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Short Story: Place

by Charlotte KnightonPlaceThey walk down the road, young and yet completely sure of themselves; this, after all, is a route they have walked for the best part of they’re lives. Yet today there is an air of excitement, tinged with just a little sadness, about them. They both know that this will be the last time they walk together down this road. One of them is leaving. She wants to be sad and she knows that will come later and it will be worse than it has been before, in those brief times she has allowed her self to think about her new school, but...

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Frédéric Chopin: A Short Guide

by Aladdin BenaliIn this article I will attempt to explain why Chopin was such an influential composer and pianist, guide you through my Top Ten of his works, their influences and, despite this article being on classical music, do this all without any hint of pretentiousness.Autograph partiture by Chopin of his Polonaise Op. 53 in A flat major for piano, 1842(image source: Wikipedia). Frédéric Françios Chopin (for the purposes of removing pretentiousness...

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