An internet invention?

While I was catching up with friends and family on Facebook, I came across a post on a friend (and fellow Cambridge ESOL presenter)'s page:

"The Marquis de Gouvernet replied saying that he should accord only a small number of leaves, not to those who said they were sick, because the abuse was too great, but to those who could prove that they had important business to attend to."

This had me confused for a minute - what on earth was Phil talking about?

Then I read on:

It's international book week. The rules: Grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence as your status. Don't mention the title. Copy the rules as part of your status.

Here is 5th sentence from page 52 of the nearest book to me (the one on the top of the pile of books I have just read):

"It was a wonderful surprise, particularly after the shock and worry of Gary's accident."

It occurred to me that this activity could be done in class.  Students could be asked to find this sentence  (page 52, 5th sentence) in different books in English and then they could discuss which sentence they think comes from which book (looking at the cover), what the book is about.

The sentence from Phil's book shows that the book is about an older period than my book probably.   

I did a search to see when International Book Week is and found that there isn't actually an official international book week!  There is a World Book Day on April 23rd (but this takes place at the beginning of March for the UK and Ireland apparently!)

I also checked to see where this meme had originated (as well as checking out what the word 'meme' itself means! = an idea or pattern that spreads via email, blogs, Facebook...).

Oh, and while I was searching the web to find photos and information for this post, I came across another interesting challenge:

my mission to read a book from every country

As the planet celebrates World Book Day, I'm midway through a plan to read a book from every single one of the 196 UN-recognised countries. Have I gone too far?

You can read more about this challenge here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/23/world-book-day-read-country

And as usual, this led me to another interesting webpage:

  http://www.pbase.com/abott/196_photos

Many of the photos on this page could be useful for class - you could show students the photos and ask them where each one was taken.  If you showed me the UK photo, I would never have said it was taken there!!!