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The perfect pancakes on Shrove Tuesday

On Shrove Tuesday, people are tucking into a pancake feast, as part of a tradition that has lasted for centuries.

Traditionally, Christians would eat pancakes on the last day before Lent begins, to use up foods like eggs and milk, before starting 40 days of fasting for lent.

Now, Pancake Day is celebrated by people all over the world, and some people even hold pancake-flipping competitions.

If you want to join in, you could try this basic pancake recipe, adapted from celeb chef Delia Smith, to make enough mixture for 12-14 pancakes. Yum!

But don't forget to ask your mum and dad to help!

For the pancake mixture:

• 110g/4oz plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 200ml/7fl oz milk mixed with 75ml/3fl oz water
• 50g/2oz butter

To serve:

• caster sugar
• lemon juice
• lemon wedges
• (NR TIP: you can try anything you like - be imaginative! You could try fruit and maple syrup, chocolate spread, ice cream, melted chocolate... yum)

Instructions

Sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl.

Make a well in the centre of the flour and break the eggs into it.

Begin whisking the eggs.

Gradually add small quantities of the milk and water mixture, still whisking.

Whisk until all the liquid has been added and the batter has the consistency of thin cream.

Melt the butter in a pan.

Spoon 2 tbsp of it into the batter and whisk it in. Use the rest of the butter to grease the frying pan before you make each pancake.

Get the pan really hot, then turn the heat down to medium - be really careful doing this bit. You might want to get your mum and dad to help at this point!

Ladle 2 tbsp of the batter into the hot pan all in one go.

Tip it around from side to side to get the base evenly coated with batter.

After about half a minute, and when the bottom is golden in colour, flip the pancake over.

The other side will only need a few seconds to cook.

Slide the pancake out of the pan onto a plate.

To serve, sprinkle each pancake with freshly squeezed lemon juice and caster sugar.

Enjoy!

What is Bonfire Night? The history of November 5

Why do they have Bonfire Night and fireworks displays every November 5 in the UK? 

What is Bonfire Night?

On November 5 people across the UK celebrate Bonfire Night.

There are small fireworks parties in back gardens along with big organised displays in public parks.

The reason they do it is because it's the anniversary of an attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament led by a man called Guy Fawkes.

It's called the Gunpowder Plot, and bonfires are lit to burn the "Guy" - a kind of dummy that represents Fawkes.

Image captionGuy Fawkes (second from right) and the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot

What was the Gunpowder Plot?

Guy (Guido) Fawkes led the Gunpowder plot in 1605. It was a plan to blow up King James I and his government. 

Fawkes and his group put 36 barrels of gunpowder in cellars under the Houses of Parliament in London, ready to set off a massive explosion.

One member of the group sent a letter to his friend who worked in Parliament, warning him to stay away on November 5.

Image captionThe plot was to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London

The King's supporters got hold of the letter and the plot was rumbled!

Guards broke into the cellars where the gunpowder plotters were waiting. They were arrested, tortured and executed.

The Gunpowder Plot was about religion. England was a Protestant country, and the plotters were Catholic.

The group wanted to return England to the Catholic faith. They thought they could do this by killing King James I and his ministers.

  Bonfires are lit all over the UK every November 5

From CBBC Newsround

Pugs dress-up in costume for Halloween

Check out this special Halloween costume parade with a difference, it's just for pug-dogs.

Cute aren't they?

The parade was held in Ukraine, where about a hundred pugs showed off their finest costumes.

The devilish-doggies dressed up as spiders, angels, dragons and Halloween themed film characters.

It's simply pug-tastic! (CBBC Newsround)

Hiroshima - A Survivor's Story

On the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima, on the 6th August in 1945.

What happened in Hiroshima?

On 6 August 1945, at 8.15am Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber plane, called 'Enola Gay', dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

The devastation was beyond anything seen before. The city was immediately flattened.

80,000 people were killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 were injured.

A huge mushroom cloud of smoke fills the sky over Hiroshima, Japan, one hour after it was bombed in August 1945

Even then, Japan didn't surrender.

Three days later, another nuclear bomb was dropped by the Americans on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

Shortly afterwards, on 15 August 1945, Japan finally admitted defeat.

World War Two was over.

There were celebrations in Europe after Germany surrendered.

But on the other side of the world in the Pacific Ocean, Japan was still fighting against America, Britain and their allies.

The Americans, however, had a secret plan to end the war - by using the most powerful weapon ever created

What damage did the bombs cause?

This building, now called the A Bomb Dome, survived the atomic blast and today it's a memorial in Hiroshima, Japan

When the bomb exploded in Hiroshima, the city has struck by a flash of blinding light then a giant cloud shaped like a mushroom.

The blast flattened buildings within a 2.5 km radius of the bomb.

There were 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima before the bomb was dropped but only 28,000 remained after the explosion.

Thousands and thousands of people were killed. Many were badly injured.

But the suffering didn't end there because it wasn't just a normal bomb.

The nuclear radiation released when it exploded caused people to suffer horrible illnesses.

Thousands more people died from their injuries and radiation sickness in the weeks, months and years that followed.

Why did the US drop the bomb?

The Hiroshima bomb was nicknamed 'Little Boy'. Here it is before being loaded into the Enola Gay's bomb bay

Japan had been at war for many years.

It had invaded the countries near to it such as China and the Japanese had attacked America.

Everywhere the Japanese soldiers went, they were known for their cruelty.

They treated prisoners of war very badly, including American and British soldiers who had surrendered. (CBBC Newsround)

READ MORE HERE

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Thank you and MERRY XTMAS!

A hologram of Father Christmas is entertaining crowds outside a house in Derby.

He can be seen moving around, looking out of the window and waving as he prepares for his busiest time of the year.

A jolly Mrs Claus can be seen waving from an upstairs window.

The holographic video footage was set up by the person who lives at the house, electrician Carl Holdsworth.

From CBBC newsround

Happy Hallowee'n!

Halloween or Hallowe'en  a contraction of "All Hallows' Evening"), also known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve, is a yearly celebration observed in a number of countrieson 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It initiates the triduum of Allhallowtide,the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed believers. Within Allhallowtide, the traditional focus of All Hallows' Eve revolves around the theme of using "humor and ridicule to confront the power of death."

According to many scholars, All Hallows' Eve is a Christianized feast initially influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, with possible pagan roots, particularly the Gaelic Samhain. Other scholars maintain that it originated independently of Samhain and has solely Christian roots.

Typical festive Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related "guising"), attending costume parties,decorating, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted house attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories and watching horror films. In many parts of the world, the Christian religious observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, remain popular, although in other locations, these solemn customs are less pronounced in favor of a more commercialized and secularized celebration. Because many Western Christian denominations encourage, although most no longer require, abstinence from meat on All Hallows' Eve, the tradition of eating certain vegetarian foods for this vigil day developed, including the consumption of apples, colcannon, cider, potato pancakes, and soul cakes.

in Wikipedia

Boring town celebrates pairing with Dull village

The American town of Boring in Oregon is paired with the village of Dull in Perthshire, Scotland.

To celebrate, the mayor of Oregon has officially declared 9 August as Boring and Dull Day.

The town is named after its founder, William H Boring, who began farming in the area in the 1870s.

Last Saturday's party included ice cream, Scottish bagpipes and traditional American folk singing.

From CBBC newsround

In an attempt to live up to its motto of being “the most exciting place to live,” Boring — southeast of Portland with a population of 12,851 — is celebrating the day with an ice cream social, a performance by a local barbershop quartet, a flag salute featuring the Oregon National Guard, and even a bagpiper and drummer to honor the residents of Dull, which had a population of 84 in October 2012. A sign in Dull commemorates the “twinning” of the two towns, “Welcome to Dull, Paired with Boring, Oregon, USA: Drive Safely.”

The Boring Community Planning Organization has also been selling commemorative “Boring & Dull” t-shirts and mugs, raffling off a trip to Dull, Scotland, and trying to get residents revved with promotional videos like the one above, in which one Boring resident says, “Come visit us! You’d like it. We’re not boring.”

The whole idea for this type of “sister city” partnership came about after a Scottish cyclist rode through Boring on a biking trip. Word of the rural town’s existence got back to Dull, prompting talks between legislators in the two similarly named areas.

After the holiday, the two towns can keep in touch via the Dull & Boring Facebook page, where Boring residents ask their kilt-wearing brethren questions about life in Dull like “Can I drive on the wrong side of the road?!?!” It also boasts photos of particularly bored-looking “coos” or “Highland cattle” and even a news article about the residents of the Australian region Bland who want to join forces with the two towns to make a “Boring threesome.”

From TIME http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/08/09/happy-boring-and-dull-day/

Enjoy your Shrove Tuesday!

Shrove Tuesday (also known as Shrovetide Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday and Pancake Day) is the day preceding Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Shrove Tuesday, a moveable feast, is determined by Easter.

The expression "Shrove Tuesday" comes from the word shrive, meaning "confess".Shrove Tuesday is observed by many Christians, including Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and Roman Catholics, who "make a special point of self-examination, of considering what wrongs they need to repent, and what amendments of life or areas of spiritual growth they especially need to ask God's help in dealing with." Being the last day before the penitential season of Lent, related popular practices, such as indulging in food that one sacrifices for the upcoming forty days, are associated with Shrove Tuesday celebrations, before commencing the fasting and religious obligations associated with Lent. The term Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday, referring to the practice of the last night of eating richer, fatty foods before the ritual fasting of the Lenten season, which begins on Ash Wednesday.

in Wikipedia

This video will show you how to make delicious easy cheap pancakes.
Watch it now and make your pancakes right away!

Holocaust Memorial Day: Two survivors tell their story

The victims of the Holocaust in World War Two are being remembered on Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday.

Six million Jews, and other people, were killed in prisons called concentration camps during the war between 1939 and 1945.

They were sent there because German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler thought certain groups of people were inferior.

But thousands of children managed to escape and were sent to the UK, including Ingrid and Henry.

They have been speaking to school pupils in South Lanarkshire about their experiences.

From CBBC newsround

Happy New Year 2014!

2014!

Printing Christmas presents for disadvantaged children

One of the big trends of 2013 has been 3D printing. While it is still too early to tell how much of a difference the technology will make, it is already having an effect on Christmas for some children.

BBC Click's Spencer Kelly talks to Camila Batmanghelidjh, the founder of the charity Kids Company, about Christmas for some of the disadvantaged children in the UK who will receive toys made with a 3D printer.

The charity will open its doors to 4,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults on Christmas day.

Well done, guys!

From BBC News- Tschnology

I wish all my visitors and followers a Very Merry Christmas and a New Year full of joy, health, success and fulfilled wishes!