Articles written by Marie-Luise Stromer

What is Helium

About me - Marie-Luise Stromer

I'm Malu, short for Marie-Luise. I'm German and I live in Germany.

I studied English and Russian at uni in Heidelberg and have taught English for nearly 40 years at a secondary grammar school. I taught Russian there, too, for about 20 years, but, strangely,

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Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Borat: 1 of 32
KRUDE KASAKHIt may come to you as a shock but I'd never heard of Cohen before and I don't know anyone who has. From information on the net I've learnt that Sacha Baron Cohen was born into a Welsh-Jewish-Iranian family in 1971, that he read history in Cambridge and wrote his dissertation on the Jewish involvement in the Americ... More..
Arts & Humanities > International Writers & Literature Book reviews: The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini: 1 of 18
The Kite Runner is the debut novel of an Afghan, Khaled Hosseini, whose family received political asylum in the USA in 1980. The first chapter begins with the sentence, "I became what I am today at the age of twelve . . ." creating suspense. The choice of words in the following paragraph makes it clear that something neg... More..
Arts & Humanities > William Shakespeare Play reviews: Macbeth, by William Shakespeare: 1 of 17
Macbeth has been a must-read for innumerable students world-wide. Many will be surprised what a thrilling piece of literature this is. In the first scene set on 'a desolate place' three witches meet, the words 'thunder, lightning, rain' are mentioned creating a gloomy atmosphere. We hear about a battle 'lost and won'. T... More..
Travel > Italy A visitor's guide to Florence, Italy: 1 of 15
ONE DAY IN FLORENCEAre you really crazy about the art from the 13th to the 17th century? Must you see Gothic altar pieces, world famous Renaissance pictures, Flemish, French and German masters of the Baroque? If so, you *must* go to the Uffizi, of course. But certainly you don't want to wait half a day to get in, you've got b... More..
Politics, News & Issues > Trash & Recycling Choosing paper or plastic grocery bags: 1 of 15
TOUTING TOTES Try to imagine shopping before plastic bags were invented. Difficult, eh? Now try to imagine shopping before paper bags were invented. Impossible, you say? And why should you, weren't paper bags around for ever? Oh, no, they weren't, they were invented only in 1906 and in 2006 the paper bag celebrated its 100th... More..
Personal Finance > Spending & Saving (Other) When you need to save money any way you can - a little goes a long way: 2 of 26
The first items should be superfluous and ridiculous pieces of advice, from what I gather from the media, sadly, they are neither. 1. When you go shopping, think beforehand how much money you can spend. When you've spend it, switch over to window shopping or return home. Don't take a credit card or cheques with you, pay... More..
Travel > Germany Travel destinations: Berlin, Germany: 1 of 13
Berlin has not one centre but several, this has nothing to do with the former partition, it has always been like that, the different boroughs have quite independent sub-centres, too, a tourist should know this in order not to be disappointed. It's advisable to move through the city from West to East, starting at Bahnhof (t... More..
Travel > Europe Travel experiences: A trip to London: 2 of 24
DAY ONE My students and I bought travelcards (I won't give you the price here as it varies, of course) for one week at the tube (subway) station in Heathrow airport, a one hour ride took us to Paddington from where we reached our low budget hotel situated in a tranquil street two minutes away from the station. Later we t... More..
Health & Fitness > Diet Programs Book reviews: Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, by Elizabeth Gilbert: 2 of 16
Elizabeth (Liz) Gilbert has it all: at the age of 30 she's already published three books, is an acknowledged journalist, popular with her friends, married for eight years to her long-term boyfriend, co-owner of a nice house in the suburbs of New York. The next item on the list is a baby. Yet, one night she finds herself cry... More..
Arts & Humanities > British Literature Literary analysis: Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad: 3 of 23
This novella has one of the highest ratio of meaning per page, the text is only 106 pages long, yet you can get interpretations which are many times longer than the original! Let's look closely at the text without referring to loads of background information and see if we can find out what it is about.Like many novellas (a pi... More..