Voice of America broadcasts in simplified English, called Special English. You can also listen to programs stored on the website or download them. Only 1,500 words are used, and you can download a file containing all the words.
I tried listening to a news broadcast but couldn’t stand it because every word was carefully separated from the next. That’s what a lot of Germans do when they learn English – they carry it over from German instead of running the words together. There would be little hope for them after listening to this.
I got this from Maddog, and it’s just a pretext for another Maddog link, totally off topic for me: the use of a ceramic fly on the urinal at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, to improve aim (with photo). Apparently this goes back to a bee in 19th-century England (the Latin word for bee, apis, being a pun). This link in turn I got from Transmogriflaw, who presumably has as little cause as I have to be interested in Dutch urinals.
Here’s a similar sort of idea: Klo-Kicker
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2565606380
I see there’s a Spiegel article online, but you have to pay to read it, apparently about urinals in the Netherlands that come out of the ground in the rush hour and retreat later.
No direct cause indeed, but yet utterly fascinating!
It’s a great photograph.