Mariano Franco

Cirque du Soleil: Fire Within is an Emmy award winning Canadian reality television series first broadcast in 2002.

A blind woman and her eight-year-old grandson walk over a carpet of dead leaves in a park. She recounts him the terrible story of the morning she woke up completely blind, years before he was born. The boy is frightened and sadden by the realization that his grandmother has never seen his face. She can nevertheless see him with her heart.

First recorded in the Isle of Wight in 1848, conkers was commonly played in the UK until it was banned from most schools in the early 2000s. Players alternate after three goes at exploding the opponent’s horse chestnut with their own. Points are assigned not to the handler but to the individual conker, as if it were a talented champion, like a racehorse; high scorers are often taken home and cared for. From the player, unerring aim rather than force is expected – we feel the frustration every time the target swings mockingly away. The fun part is when both strings get entangled, and the first player to shout “snag!” wins an extra turn.