Buckingham Palace

   

   Entry to Buckingham Palace is via Ambassador's Court on Buckingham Palace Road. The Grand Hall is on the original site of the old entrance hall, dominated by the Grand staircase aptly named, because of its winding proportions and floral gilt-bronze balustrade.

As you walk through the Guard Room note the Gobelin tapestries lining the walls. The vibrantly coloured silk walls in the Green Drawing Room provide the perfect compliment to the beautifully coved and guilded ceiling. This is the site of Queen Charlotte's salon. In the splendid scarlet and gold Throne Room you can see the chairs used at the coronation of Her Majesty The Queen in 1953. The magnificent Ballroom extending to 122 feet in length was opened in Queen Victoria's reign in 1856 to celebrate the end of the Crimean war.

  In the picture gallery designed by Nash are wonderful art treasures by Rubens, Rembrandt, Canaletto, Vermeer, and many others. This is a selection from the Royal Collection held in trust by the Queen for her successors and the nation and is regarded as Britain's National Heritage. In the State Dining Room the red silk damask on the walls makes a fitting background to the state portraits of Kings and Queens from George III to George IV. The regency dining chairs were purchased by the Prince Regent in 1813 for his home at Carlton House.

   As you pass through the Blue Drawing Room, another of Nash's stunning rooms, note the thirty fake onyx columns and the Sevres porcelain table which was made for Napoleon. From the semicircular bow window of the domed Music Room you will have a good view of the garden and grounds. The Archbishop of Canterbury has christened four royal babies in this room. Perhaps most magnificent of all is the White Drawing Room, furnished with French antiques and English cut glass chandeliers suspended from the beautiful ceiling, the delicate colours of the furnishings standing out against the gold walls. The Minister's stairs at the end of the hall links the principal floor of state rooms to the Marble Hall, which is the heart of the old Buckingham House. Clad in Italian marble it contains some fine sculpture, including three groups by Antonio Canova.

   The History of Buckingham Palace began in 1702 when the Duke of Buckingham had it built as his London home. The Duke's son sold the house in 1761 to George III, it was renamed “Queen's House” in 1774 as Queen Charlotte resided there. When it passed to George IV in 1820, Nash was commissioned to make alterations to the palace. The main block was retained but a new suite of rooms was added facing west into the garden, doubling the size of the building. The French Neo Classical style was the influence for the design. The re-modelled state rooms remain unchanged from Nash's original design.

Queen Victoria was the first monarch to take up residence in Buckingham Palace in 1837. Once again extensive changes took place, one of these was to have the huge arched gateway removed to Tyburn, where it remains, known as Marble Arch.

   Today Buckingham Palace is used not only as the home of The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh, but also for the administrative work for the monarchy. It is here in the state apartments that Her Majesty receives and entertains guests invited to the Palace.

During the summer, the Changing of the Guard takes place at the front of the Palace.

Credit card

 
   Credit card device used to obtain consumer credit at the time of purchasing an article or service. Credit cards may be issued by a business, such as a department store or an oil company, to make it easier for consumers to buy their products. Alternatively credit cards may be issued by third parties, such as a bank or a financial services company, and used by consumers to purchase goods and services from other companies. There are two types of cards—credit cards and charge cards. Credit cards such as Visa and MasterCard allow the consumer to pay a monthly minimum on their purchases with an interest charge on the unpaid balance. Charge cards, such as American Express, require the consumer to pay for all purchases at the end of the billing period. Consumers may also use bank cards to obtain short-term personal loans (including "cash advances" through automated teller machines). Credit card issuers receive revenue from fees paid by stores that accept their cards and by consumers that use the cards, and from interest charged consumers on unpaid balances.

   Diners Club became the first credit card company in 1950, when it issued a card allowing members to charge meals at 27 New York City restaurants. In 1958, Bank of America issued the BankAmericard (now Visa), the first bank credit card. In 1965, only 5 million cards were in circulation; by 1996, U.S. consumers had nearly 1.4 billion cards, which they used to charge $991 billion in goods annually.

The growth of credit cards has had an enormous impact on the economy—changing buying habits by making it much easier for consumers to finance purchases and by lowering savings rates (because consumers do not need to save money for larger purchases). Oil companies, car makers, and retailers have also used the cards to market their goods and services, using credit as a way of encouraging consumers to buy. Concern has been voiced over widespread distribution of bank credit cards to consumers who may not be able to pay their bills; costly losses and theft of cards; inaccurate (and damaging) credit records; high interest rates on unpaid balances; and excessive encouragement of consumer debt that has cut savings in the United States.

   Technology advances have facilitated the use of credit cards. Merchants are now connected to banks by modem , so purchases are approved rapidly; on-line shopping on the Internet is possible with credit card payment. Credit card companies are also experimenting with smart cards that would act like a small computer, storing account and other information necessary for its use. An alternative to credit cards is the debit card , which is used to deduct the price of goods and service directly from customers' bank balances.

Atomic bomb

 
   Atomic bomb or A-bomb, weapon deriving its explosive force from the release of atomic energy through the fission (splitting) of heavy nuclei (see nuclear energy ). The first atomic bomb was produced at the Los Alamos, N.Mex., laboratory and successfully tested on July 16, 1945. This was the culmination of a large U.S. army program that was part of the Manhattan Project, led by Dr. Robert Oppenheimer. It began in 1940, two years after the German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman discovered nuclear fission. On Aug. 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima with an estimated equivalent explosive force of 12,500 tons of TNT, followed three days later by a second, more powerful, bomb on Nagasaki . Both bombs caused widespread death, injury, and destruction, and there is still considerable debate about the need to have used them.

   Atomic bombs were subsequently developed by the USSR (1949; now Russia), Great Britain (1952), France (1960), and China (1964). A number of other nations, particularly India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea now have atomic bombs or the capability to produce them readily; South Africa formerly possessed a small arsenal. The three smaller Soviet successor states that inherited nuclear arsenals (Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus) relinquished all nuclear warheads, which have been removed to Russia.

   Atomic bombs have been designed by students, but their actual construction is a complex industrial process. Practical fissionable nuclei for atomic bombs are the isotopes uranium-235 and plutonium-239, which are capable of undergoing chain reaction . If the mass of the fissionable material exceeds the critical mass (a few pounds), the chain reaction multiplies rapidly into an uncontrollable release of energy. An atomic bomb is detonated by bringing together very rapidly (e.g., by means of a chemical explosive) two subcritical masses of fissionable material, the combined mass exceeding the critical mass. An atomic bomb explosion produces, in addition to the shock wave accompanying any explosion, intense neutron and gamma radiation, both of which are very damaging to living tissue. The neighborhood of the explosion becomes contaminated with radioactive fission products. Some radioactive products are borne into the upper atmosphere as dust or gas and may subsequently be deposited partially decayed as radioactive fallout far from the site of the explosion.

How to choose the right shoes?

     Большинство людей, выбирая обувь, в первую очередь обращают внимание на ее дизайн. Расцветка, фасон, материал, из которого изготовлена обувь, зачастую заставляет нас забыть о том, что обувь должна быть удобной. Неудобная, некачественная обувь – это распространенная причина заболеваний суставов, тромбофлебита, быстрой утомляемости, травм кожных покровов ног (мозолей, опрелостей и т.п.) и плохого настроения.

Можно ли сочетать в обуви одновременно требования модных тенденций, качество и комфорт? Конечно, если Вы отдаете предпочтение моделям известных марок, таких, как обувь Ecco, Tamaris, Caprice, Josef Seibel, Nike, Adidas, Reebok, то это оказывается легко осуществимым. Однако многие потребители, желая сэкономить, предпочитают покупать обувь в рыночных павильонах, где преобладают некачественные подделки и дешевая китайская продукция.

Как выбрать обувь?

Дешевые модели обуви, изготовленные в Китае или Турции, как правило, быстро разнашиваются. Купив такую обувь, Вы можете через несколько дней обнаружить, что ее размер увеличился и уже не подходит Вам. Чтобы избежать напрасной траты денег, захватите на примерку силуэт свой стопы, который заблаговременно вырежьте дома из картона. После примерке засуньте силуэт в ботинок или туфлю и посмотрите, совпадает ли он с размером подошвы. В идеале, заготовка должна максимально соответствовать подошве будущего приобретения. Подошва при разнашивании не изменяется в размере и данная проверка снизит неудобства, если обувь растянется в носке или в подъеме. Хорошо, если Вы выбираете обувь со шнурками, липучками или застежками, позволяющими регулировать ее размер. Благодаря данным приспособлениям, разношенная обувь вновь станет в пору.

Обязательно примеряйте обе туфли, босоножки, сапога, из-за индивидуальных анатомических особенностей одна обувь из пары может сидеть на ноге идеально, а вторая оказаться маленькой или большой. Иногда незначительная, но ощутимая разница в размерах, появляется по вине производителя, среди дешевой китайской обуви – это не редкость.

Отдавайте предпочтение обуви, имеющей гладкие и ровные швы, особенно если Вы покупаете высокие сапоги или полуботинки. Выпуклые швы на внутренней стороны обуви, задевая друг об друга, могут причинять серьезные неудобства при движении. Обувь, которую планируется носить в сырую погоду, не должна иметь стыковочных швов (соединение материала край к краю с помощью толстой тесемки), они в процессе носки перестают быть герметичными и начинают пропускать влагу. Откажитесь от обуви со швами на подошве, которые встречаются на китайских моделях. Отдавайте предпочтение классическому пошиву, хорошо, если материал не только прошит, но и дополнительно проклеен.

Проверьте качество стельки, она должна быть крепко приклеена и при этом оставаться мягкой. Надавите на стельку, под ней не должны чувствоваться неровности и пустоты. Понюхайте обувь внутри. Если она стояла на витрине, но продолжает издавать резкий синтетический запах, лучше отказаться от такой покупки.

При примерке обуви нога должна почувствовать себя полностью комфортно, не стоит покупать обновку меньшего размера, в надежде, что она растянется. Примерку обуви лучше всего устраивать во второй половине дня. Ближе к вечеру нога человека отекает и обувь, которая была в пору утром, к ужину может оказаться тесной.

Покупая обувь, помните, что на ней нельзя экономить. Дешевая обувь, скорее всего не прослужит Вам долго и вскоре потребует замены, более дорогая и качественная обувь при правильном уходе может прослужить несколько сезонов.

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