Today's Picture: Ship at Viaduct Harbour, Auckland

When you’re neutral in an argument, you stay in the middle, not giving an opinion and not saying or doing anything to support either side. And in general, when something is neutral, it has no special features, colours etc, so no one pays any attention to it.

The chairperson should always remain neutral during discussions of policy.

Switzerland has always tried hard to defend its neutrality in international relations.

For more examples and links to exercises see: http://www.academicenglishgenerator.com/in_the_middle.htm

Interesting news article of the day: Sliding into work at Google HQ
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7292600.stm

Vocabulary from the news article:
perks / come up with an idea /

Comprehension Questions:

Here are ten sentences about Google's new engineering office in Zurich, Switzerland. Only five of them are true. Read them before you watch the programme and guess which ones are true. Then watch the video and check your answers. I'll read out the correct answers in the podcast!

The basic design principle was to allow for individual creativity.

One of the relaxation areas is the library.

The library also has a kitchen which prepares breakfast, lunch and dinner for employees.

No one at Google is allowed to be more than 100 metres away from food.

All of the hard work is outsourced to programmers in other countries.

Meal times are closely controlled so that everyone has a particular 'window of opportunity' within which to have lunch.

Each of the floors in the building is connected by a slide.

One of the main design features of the building is its consistency of environment.

You're allowed to slide down a pole from one floor to another carrying coffee.

One area in the building has an aquarium and massage chairs.