totally tockington edition 85 team b
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Totally TockingtonTRANSCRIPT
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Edition 85 October 2nd 2015 Team B Founded by Ben Owen in 2011
Original Drawings by Ellie Parker (Sub-Editor)
The Bermuda Triangle
by Jonathan Baguley
You may have heard of the Bermuda Triangle. It is
a triangular shaped area in the Atlantic Ocean and
at the tips of the triangle are Florida, Bermuda and
Puerto Rico. The area of the triangle is roughly
500,000 km2. The reason this area is so famous is
because planes and ships go missing without a
trace and no-one knows why.
Here are two good examples. In December 1948
a Douglas DC3 airliner was flying from Puerto Rico
to Miami. They were 50 miles off Miami and
reported that they were getting ready for landing.
Miami sent a transmission but the plane never
replied. It didnt arrive and there was no SOS. In
1945 five Navy Bombers flew out from Florida for
training over the sea. Their compasses started
malfunctioning and they got lost. Eventually they
ran out of fuel and had to ditch into the sea. A
rescue plane with a crew of 13 people went out but
never returned either.
There are legends of monsters that hide in the
oceans and eat up passing ships and planes.
Some people also think that you get problems with
compass readings because it is one of the few
places on earth where true north and magnetic
north line up. But nobody really knows.
Editorial
Hello and welcome to another brilliant issue of
Totally Tockington. The paper written BY students
FOR students! In this paper the theme is
underground or under the sea and what a paper it
is! We have some amazing articles this week,
including: Lily Edwards on the Channel Tunnel,
Toby Gaultons top 10 biggest fish ever, Carmens
article on mermaids, Jonathans on The Bermuda
Triangle and much more!
Enjoy!
Tabitha Huby
Editor Team B
Mermaids
by Carmen Rey-Jones
As the theme is under the sea/under the ground, I
thought it would be a good idea to tell you about
Mermaids. So are Mermaids real?
No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been
found, so it is very unlikely that they are.
What do people think mermaids are?
People think that mermaids are half human and
half fish and when they step on land they turn in
to full human.
Many films have been made on mermaids. My
personal favourite is The Little Mermaid which
many of you have probably heard of.
If you want to find out more about mermaids ask
Anya- she knows pretty much anything you want
to know about mermaids.
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The Channel Tunnel
by Lily Edwards
In this paper we are reporting on underwater and underground. So in this article I am going to tell you
some facts about something which is underwater AND underground!
The Channel Tunnel is a tunnel which goes from Folkestone in Kent (which is in our country) to
Coquelles which is near Calais in Northern France. It is 31.4 miles and goes right underneath the
English Channel (under the sea basically). At the deepest part of the tunnel , it is 250 feet under water.
It is pretty amazing to think that people actually made that!
The digging for the tunnel started in 1988 and they used special boring machines (not boring as in
boring boring as in tunnelling!!!) at the French end of the tunnel and also at the English end. The plan
was to meet in the middle and this happened on 1st December 1990. An English man called Graham
Fagg and a Frenchman called Phillipe Cozette were the two workers who bored through on that day to
meet up. I think it is amazing that it didnt take very long to tunnel all that way.It cost 4.65 billion
pounds to make the tunnel which is A LOT of money.
Now you can drive your car onto a special train called a Eurotunnel Shuttle and then it goes across to
France so you can then drive off the train and straight onto your holiday! I did this when I was 2 but I
slept all the way so I dont remember it at all. The tunnel also has the very high speed Eurostar trains
going through it which get people to France very quickly.
It is very safe to travel to France in this train and tunnel, but at the moment there are lots of people
called refugees who are trying to get to our country because they want to get away from war in their
country and have a happy life here. It is very sad because some of them arent allowed to come to our
country without passports and proper checks so they have started to try and walk through the tunnel to
get across the English Channel and come to England. This must be very dangerous for them and I feel
worried that they might get hurt.
But on the whole the Channel Tunnel is a brilliant invention and I would love to know if you have been
on it. I would love to go again one day and this time I WILL stay awake.
I used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel to help with this article.
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Swimming the Channel
by Henry Packham
The first person to swim the Channel was Captain Matthew Webb, who swam from England to France on the 24th to
25th August 1875. It took him 21 hours and 45 minutes.
The oldest person to swim the channel was Cyril Balldock at the age of 70 years and the youngest was Thomas Gregory
who was 11 years old.
The Channel is 23.69 miles across between Shakespeare Beach near Dover and Cap-Gris Nez in France. Because the
tides push you from side to side you swim a curvy route and would normally end up swimming 30-40 miles.
You are only allowed to use the same equipment as Captain Webb, a swimsuit and a rubber cap.
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To prepare for the swim you will need to do a lot of swimming in very cold water. The water is really cold, about 50
degrees. Most swimming pools are about 80 degrees. You will need to swim 25 miles per week as training.
You will also need to eat like a pig. You will need to eat lots of fatty and high-energy foods, which would normally be
bad for you, but you need to gain at least 11kg of fat. This will help to insulate your body. You will need about 1 kilo of
lard smeared over you to help you keep warm.
It normally takes about 10 to 12 hours to swim across the Channel. Although you will need a boat and a team to look
after you while you swim you are not allowed to touch anyone else or the boat. You will need to be regularly fed lots of
hot drinks and food on the end of a long pole while you are swimming.
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The Lost City of Atlantis
by Tabitha Huby
Picture the scene; you live on an island
called Atlantis in the middle of the Atlantic
Ocean. You have everything you would ever
want because of goods on the island. You
have power and wealth, life couldnt be
better. But all of a sudden everything
changes; the people on your island start to
become greedy and selfish which makes the
gods angry. Then Zeus, King of the gods
decides to punish the Atlanteans by sinking
the island and in one big wave Atlantis is
gone forever. That is what happened to
Atlantis.
The reason we know about Atlantis is
because a Greek mathematician called Plato
wrote about it in a book in about 360 BC.
Before then people had thought that Atlantis
was all a story, until 1881 when people
started to believe that Atlantis might actually
be some kind of lost place. But some people
think that Plato made Atlantis up because
there is no record of it anywhere else.
What do you think?
Shipwrecks by Harry Huby
Titanic: The Titanic was a passenger ship built by
the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast with
Thomas Andrews as her naval architect. It had
2223 passengers on board and only 1517 survived.
The ship was sailing from Southampton in the UK
to New York in the USA, it was her first ever
voyage. Everyone thought she would never sink so
they only had 20 life boats available. This was
nowhere near enough to fit all the passengers in.
Women and children were encouraged to board
the lifeboats first. In the end, the Titanic sinking
took the lives of 1,347 men and 103 women. Most
of the crew also died during the sinking of the
Titanic.
Deepest: In 1996 the Blue Water Recoveries from
the UK discovered the shipwreck of the Rio
Grande, a German war ship which was sunk by
American war ships in 1944. The depth was 5762
meters.
Largest: In 1979 the Dead Weight Crude Oil
carrier weighing 321,186 tonnes, broke in two in
the Straits of Hormuz, in the Persian Gulf.
Oldest: A single mast sailing ship was discovered
in 1912, it sunk near the south of Turkey in the 14th
Century BC
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TOP TEN BIGGEST FISH EVER.
by Toby Gaulton
Fishing is one of the hardest sports ever known to
man. Im going to tell you the top ten biggest fish ever
hooked.
1.BLACK MARLIN
The black Marlin is truly the biggest fish ever. It is the
fastest as well. It has a top speed of 130 kilometres
per hour. The biggest one ever caught was 707.61
KG.
2.BLUEFIN TUNA
The blue fin tuna is a hard fighter so you are lucky if
you can catch one. The biggest one ever was 678.58
KG.
3.ATLANTIC BLUE MARLIN
Atlantic Blue Marlin are the second biggest Marlin.
They can grow up to 14 feet long and the heaviest
one ever was 636 KG.
4.PACIFIC BLUE MARLIN
To take fourth is the Pacific Blue Marlin. The biggest
one was 624.14 KG.
5.SWORDFISH
The Swordfish is a highly rated fish. They leap high in
the air to try and shake the hook off. The biggest one
was 536.15 KG.
6.YELLOWFIN TUNA
The Yellow Fin is the most popular fish in the top ten.
The biggest one was 193.68 KG.
7.TARPON
The Tarpon is the oldest fish on the list. The biggest
one was 129.98 KG.
8.SAILFISH
Sailfish are very big. The biggest one was 100.24 KG.
9.WAHOO
The wahoo is like a torpedo. It is very fast. The
biggest one was 83.46 KG.
10.DORADO
The Dorado is also known as the Mahi-Mahi. They are
good fighters. The biggest one was 39.46 KG.
A beautiful drawing of a lighthouse by Harry Bloomfield
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The London
Underground by Otis Walker
The London Underground is just over 150 years old. It is also known as The Tube. It is a network
of tunnels that carry trains under London.
Here are some interesting facts that I found out about the tube:
The journey of the first Tube train took place on 9 January 1863.
Queen Elizabeth II was the first reigning monarch to take the Tube, when she took the
first ride on the Victoria line from Green Park.
The Tube became a proper name for the first time in the early 1900s, after the Central
London Railway (now the Central Line) was nicknamed the Twopenny Tube.
Police reports of German bomb raids on London in 1917 estimated that 300,000 people
were taking shelter in Tube stations.
Each year, every Tube train travels 114,500miles/184,269km.
The average speed of a train is 33km/20.5 miles per hour.
There are 426 escalators. Waterloo has the most: 23.
The total number of staff on the Underground is approximately 19,000.
The total length of the Tube network is 402km/249 miles.
Currently 1,107 million passengers are carried every year.
(Source: All these facts are taken from Underground: How the Tube Shaped London by David
Bownes, Oliver Green and Sam Mullins (London Underground by Design by Mark Ovenden and
Underground Overground: A Passengers History of the Tube.)
I have been to London many times and used the Tube to get around. I think it is exciting when you
are in the tunnel and you can hear the clacking noise of the track. When I travel in rush hour, it is
horrible because there are lots of people pushing and squashing and its uncomfortable.
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Quiz Time
Which one of us has never been found in the English Channel?
Answer:____________________________________________
Your Name: _________________________________________
Return your answers to Ms Case or Tabitha or Ellie and win some
sweets!