UK'S FESTIVALS

 GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY PERFORMING ARTS

Glastonbury festival or just Glaston is a festival of scenic arts, specially music, dance, theater, comedy, circus, performances and many other things. It has been being celebrated every year in Pilton, Somerset since 1970 when the organiser Michael Eavis created the festival. This year it was canceled due to the pandemic and the next year it is going to be celebrated in from June 23 to 27.

INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF EDINBURGH

It has been being celebrated during the last 3 weeks of august every year since 1947. In this festival, many artists from all places of the world come to present their works of all kinds, music, dance, plastic arts, and singers can be easily found there, a festival for any likes.

"FRINGE"

Edinburgh's International Festival of films is a festival where people from all parts of the planet can show their films, this festival is a sub-festival of the International Festival of Edinburgh. There you can see short and long films, documentaries, animation films and musical videos; there are not only presentations, but also awards ceremonies.

PRINCIPAL CITIES OF THE UNITED KINGDOM

 LONDON

London is the capital of the UK; it is located on the shore of the Thames river. It was founded 2000 years ago by the Romans; the original name was "Londium".

EDINBURGH

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland and it has been since 1437. It is located on the Scotland's seaside, near the fjord of the Forth river. Edinburgh is not only the capital of Scotland but also the headquarters of the Scottish government.

LIVERPOOL

In 1207 it was a small village located in the northwest of England, near the Mersey river. Today it is a big city in the shire of Mersey, and it have been since 1880, when the original village became big enough to be known as a city.

GLASGOW

Glasgow is the biggest city of Scotland and the second most populated city in the UK. It is located on the shore of the Clyde river and today it has a population of about 600 thousand people.

CAMBRIDGE

Cambridge is a small city, it has only 110 thoushand people, but it is important because it was the home of many of the most famous scientists, people like Newton or Darwin lived there for a period of time. If it weren't interesting enough, the Victorian epoch's architecture is amazing, a good example could be the King's college Capella. Of course, the most important thing there is the university of Cambridge, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the world, it has more than 20 thousands of students from every part of the planet.

SPORTS

 In the UK people love sports, but there are some that are specially loved by the Brits, here is some of them, with a little information about each one:

• Football: obviously, the most popular sport in the UK football, also known as soccer in the USA. It has many different origins, from American indigenous to china, there were a lot of ancient sports which can be classified as football predecessors. However, the modern football game was created in England, when the first Football association in the history was founded, in 1863.

• Golf: the first official golf match was played in 1502, after this Scottish game was allowed to play because in 1457 the king Jacob the II banned the golf in England to increase the amount of people who was playing archery.

• Badminton: The origin of this game is actually in India in the XVIII century, the sport didn't arrived in the UK until 1860, when the British army brought it after being in India. The official rules were created in 1887 by the Bath Badminton Club and in 1895, the British Badminton Association began being the manager of the sports in the world.

• Cricket: this sport arrived in England at the end of the medieval age. The oldest mention of this sport is from the XVI century and the most ancient match was played in 1646. Nowadays the sport isn't very popular outside the UK.

POLITICAL SYMBOLS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM

 The United Kingdom is a parliamentary monarchy, which means that there is a king or queen who is the head of the state, but a great part of the power belongs to the parliament and the government, this forms a kind of democracy, with the prime minister as the head of it. The tree branches of the power which are commonly found in democratic governments, are in this system too, the legislative power is formed by the parliament, the executive power by the government and the judicial power is formed by the same organisms as in another countries.

If we are talking about political symbols, the most important one is the royal family of the UK, here are some information about them.

• Most of the Brits agree with the existence of the royal family, according to a poll, 7 of each 10 Brits like the concept of a royal family (in my opinion the royal shouldn't exist).
• The Queen and his husband have 8 mansions, they move to another depending on the situation and because there are a lot of people outside the mansions always. The 8 palaces are:
• Buckingham palace
• Windsor castle
• Palace of Holyrood house
• Hillsborough castle
• Sandringham house
• Castillo de Balmoral
• Craigowan lodge
• Delnadamph lodge

• There are many stupid rules in the UK related to the royal family, here is some of the most stupid ones:
• Every white swan in the UK belongs to the queen and it either hunting or eating swans are illegal activities, except for the royal family.
• Every stranded whale belongs to the queen.
• The queen's husband is only the king if he was a prince, but if he has another title, he won't be able to have the title of king never.

• The official members of the royal family can be only:
• The king or queen
• Husband or wife of the monarch
• Widowed consorts
• Monarch's children and their consorts
• Monarch's grandchildren
• Monarch's great-grandchildren, only count the ones that are children of the oldest son of the prince of Wales.

• Today, the monarch is Queen Elizabeth II and her husband is the prince Philip, duke of Edinburgh
• The head of the parliament is the Prime Minister, since 2019 the charge has been occupied by Boris Johnson.
  
  
  
  
  

• And finally, the British Royal Family isn't British! The queen has German ascendancy and her husband has Greek and Dutch ascendancy.

BRITISH FOLKLORE

 The British culture consists in hundreds of stories from many cultures such as Celtics, Christians, and a lot of pagan religions. The story are about every kind of topic, from spells and witches to knights and thieves; there are hundreds or maybe thousands of tales and ancient magic creatures that are interesting, and here is some of the most famous and important ones:

• Robin hood: We all know about the thief who robbed the rich to give the loot to the poor, but the story is pretty different from what we know, it is much more bloody and dark, in the oldest registry of the character, which is a ballad from the XV century and whose name is "Robin hood and the Monk", Little John murdered a monk and a boy, then he rescued Robin Hood from the King's dungeon. There are many versions of the story and it is deformed in every traduction or rewriting process.
  
  
  
• King Arthur: there is an ague about the existence of Arthur, some people think that he existed several years ago, they think that he may was a person who stopped the Saxon's invasion, but there is the possibility that he is only a character of a cavalry tale. The only thing that we know is that his story inspired a lot of books and movies, and the story of the king Arthur and the blessed sword named Excalibur is one of the most famous tales ever made.

  

  
  
• There are some characters who are in many tales and they are more general and don't a main tale or story:
• Dragons: giant reptiles which spit fire or poisonous liquids.
• Dwarfs: humanoid creatures which are short and have many different skills depending on the tale, sometimes they are expert miners and in other situations forge masters.
• Elves: Humanoid creatures which have supernatural magical powers and are incredibly beauty
• Trolls: huge monsters that love eating humans, they are humanoid and sometimes have a lot of money
• Leprechauns: Little humanoid beings which love gold and are make shoes, leprechauns like joking and are lonely.

BRITISH CULTURAL CUSTOMES

-The tea hour: every day at 5pm, Brits drink tea. We know that the tradition was already set in 1750, and the tea arrived at the UK in 1610 through the Dutch traders. Nowadays 60 billion teacups are drunk every year.

-Punctuality: for Brits is particularly important to arrive on time or before the agreed hour of the arrangement, in the UK if you arrive late, they consider it a complete disrespectful act.

-Pubs: pubs are the symbol of social activities in the UK, people usually go there to meet friends and in general, is quite common to go to a pub for informal meetings.

-Shaking the hand: In the UK you shouldn't greet people neither with a kiss nor a hug, you should always greet shaking the hand, Brits often got uncomfortable or even hurt if you are so informal.

-Politeness: Brits are very polite and you should be too if you don't want to hurt them, is pretty important to say "please", "thanks" and those kinds of words always, people may call you rude or disrespectful if you aren't polite.

BRITISH MUSIC AND FOLKLORE

BRITISH MUSIC

The United Kingdom have always been considered as a mine of musical innovation; the British music influence is in almost every modern genre all around the world. Its oldest music genres are the sacral music, which is music that is made to be played in religious ceremonies, and the folk music, the music which is typical and traditional of the culture which were or are there.

THE INVASION OF BRITISH MUSIC

• Britpop: like alternative rock, but it is softer, simple, and dainty; it has influences from the 60's and 70's music, but it arose during the 90´s.
  
  
  
• British heavy metal: this genre grew up during the end of the 70's and the beginning of the 80´s; it was pretty close to the standard heavy metal, but it was more amateur and has influences from rock and punk rock.

  

  
  
• Jazz: actually, jazz was created in the USA, but it became very popular in the United Kingdom during the XX century.

  

  
  
• Pop: many people think that pop music and popular music are the same, but they aren't, pop music was forged during the 50's with the combination of traditional pop, urban music and Latin music, Popular music is the music genres that are popular at the moment.

  

  
  
• Rock: in the 40´s and 50´s there was a popular music genre called "Rock and Roll", when the musicians decided to include aspects from other genres such as Blues, Folk, Jazz and classic music, the "Rock" was created, and it became the base for hundreds of other genres around the world. Band like "the Beatles", "the rolling stones" or "queen" were rock bands.

  

  
  
• American culture fusion: In the 60's, the American and British culture got mixed and many music genres was created due to this mixture.
• Blues Rock
• Heavy metal
• Progressive rock
• Hardrock
• Punk rock
• Electric folk
• Folk punk
• Acid Jazz
• Triphop
• Shoegaze
• Drum and Bass
• Grime
• Dubstep

TOURIST PLACES

 LONDON

London is the capital of the UK and there are plenty of places to visit:

• Tower of London
• Tower bridge
• Buckingham palace
• Big Ben
• Parliament buildings
• Victoria and Albert's museum
  
• Natural history museum
• Trafalgar square
• Nelson's column
• London eye

EDINBURGH

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, there are a lot of well-preserved historical buildings and other kinds of tourist places: 

• The Edinburgh castle
• The royal palace
• The Scottish national war memorial
• The stone of destiny (also known as Stone of Scone)
• Palace of Holyrood house
• Princess street

STONEHENGE

Stonehenge is a stone structure which is more than 4500 years old, it is 16 Km away from Salisbury, a city which has one of the oldest cathedrals in the planet, the Salisbury Cathedral.

YORK CITY

York is a medieval city which has one of the most beautiful and oldest cathedrals in the world, the "York Minster" can be tracked until the III century, in the city you can admire windows which survived 700 years, and both the Shambles and the National Railway Museum.

UNIVERSITY TOWNS OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE

These are two of the most ancient and best universities in the world, there you can admire the medieval architecture and historical places, learn about anything that you like, or you can go to the sport competitions and events if you go in the correct season.