A Child Prodigy

A new-born-baby-a new life, a new hope...perhaps a future Prime Minister, perhaps a scientific genius: no wonder even the poorest families lavish care and love on their youngest offspring.

When James and Harriet Mill's first baby was born in 1806, they had a pretty good idea that he was no ordinary child. At the age of three John Stuart Mill learned the Greek alphabet and long lists of Greek words with their English equivalents.

At the age of eight he read as many books in Greek as a modern classics student would read in his first year at university - not to mention all the important history books in English that existed then. At sixteen he tackled advanced mathematical problems and learned to speak fluent French.

John Stuart Mill became the most important economic and philosophical thinker in Britain in the 19th Century. He was a humanist and above all devoted to improving the conditions of the working classes.

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The Golden Age

In 1593 Christopher Marlowe was killed in a fight in a pub. He was 29 years old and had been acting as a spy for Queen Elizabeth I. But he had already written some of the finest verse drama in the English Language - plays like Edward II and Dr. Faustus.

Shakespeare was also 29. His greatest play were yet to be written. Ben Jonson the great comic dramatist was 21. He wrote The Alchemist and Volpone, and Shakespeare acted in some of his early plays.

London was the capital of a rich and powerfull nation, and the men of letters were also men of action.

John Donne fought in a naval battle against the King of Spain in 1596. He wrote vigorous love poetry:

'Dear love for nothing less than thee

Would I have broke this happy dream.'

'For God's sake hold your tongue and let me love'

In later life he became Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, and sometimes lay on his tomb in a shroud, meditating upon death. His religious poetry has the same vigour:

'Death, be not proud, though some have called thee,

Might and dreadful, for, thou art not so.'

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No Man Is An Island

'No man is an island' said John Donne, the 17th Century poet. Everything we do has repercussions beyond our wildest imaginings.

An old lady picks a rose and, in so doing, disturb a bee. The bee files through the window of a passing car and stings the driver. A clear case of cause and effect.

Of course if the driver had had a second cup of coffee after lunch, he would not have been passing at that moment... and is a tourist had not asked him the way at the traffic lights, he would not have opened his window... and so on, and so on.

Experts investigating a plane crash recently found that the absence of a rubber washer, worth about 10p had been the cause of disaster. No one will ever know if the true cause was not somebody's second cup of coffee.

Generations of English children have learned this cautionary rhyme:

'For want of a nail, a shoe was lost,

For want of a shoe, a horse was lost,

For want of a horse, a rider was lost,

For want of a rider, a battle was lost,

For want of a battle, a kingdom was lost,

- and all for want of a horseshoe nail.'

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The Origin Of Money

'Money doesn't grow on trees', as the saying goes. It is made in the Royal Mint, which is in Wales.

But where does the word money come from? The answer is that it comes from the same place as the word mint. Both words are derived from the Latin word moneta.

The story is more interesting than that, however.

One night in the 4th Century B.C., a band of Gauls (Frenchmen) made a silent attack on the city of Rome. The soldiers on the wall were all asleep, and the Gauls were within a few metres of success when they disturbed some sacred geese on the hilside.

The geese hissed and honked and the guards awoke just in time to repel the attack. The city was saved and the Romans gave thanks to the goddess Juno for using her geese to warn them. They called her Juno Moneta (moneta meant 'who warns'), and they built a new temple for her on the hilside.

The temple was later used for storing treasure and eventually for making money. Soon both the place and the stuff they made there came to be named after the warning geese.

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Robin Hood

Robin Hood stole from the rich to feed the poor. He lived in Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham in the centre of England, and his merry band of followers included Little John (a giant of a man), Friar Tuck (a jolly monk), and the beautiful Maid Marian.

Their exploits were related in countless mediaeval ballads. They represented the ideals of the common man in the face of oppressive authority.

Before the Norman conquest at the end of the 11th century, the vast tract of woodland that stretched to the north of the city of Nottingham, was used for hunting by the people of the region, or 'shire' . (In fact the name Sherwood is derived from this Old English word for 'region' - It was the Shire Wood.)

The Norman Kings passed strict laws giving sole use of the forest to their feudal barrons. The common people resented this oppression.

Robin Hood's sworn enemy was the Sheriff of Nottingham, one of the king's men. His title, too, is derived from the Old English word shire; as head man of the region, he was the Shire-reeve.

The shires of England became know as counties under the Normans (the French word is comte). But the word shire still exists in county names like Hampshire, Yorkshire and of course Nottinghamshire.

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Friends For Britain

It is no secret that the British Council wants to win friends for Britain. It spends hundreds of millions of pounds doing it. It is also no secret that when a finance minister authorizes spending on that scale, it is not just for the sake of a smile in the street.

A friend is someone who understands your point of view - a great asset in world diplomacy. And, as every shopkeeper knows, friends are often good customers too.

The British Council has offices all over the world - and they like to get visitors. They will lend you books in English; they will arrange for you to see videos (educational films, documentaries, and also feature films); and they will give you any information or advice that you may need about Britain.

If you want to study Britain, they are the first people to get in touch with. Write to them, telephone them or, even better, drop in at the office. They will explain the system and put you in touch with the right people.

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The Massacre Of Glencoe

One cold winter's day an old man struggled through the snow in a desolate Scottish valley to sign a piece of paper.

He didn't arrivve in time.

The consequence was the most treacherous massacre in British History.

In 1691 William III was to be crowned King of England. His first task was to gain the loyalty of the clans in the north-west of Scotland. Many of them were supporters of the exiled King James and they hoped for a French invasion to reinstate him.

William distributed thousands of pounds in bribes to the clans. He also insisted on an oath of allegiance. The chiefs had to sign it by New Year's Day.

Everybody signed except Macdonald of Glencoe. He had left it to the last minute as an act of defiance. But the walley was blocked by snow and he didn't make it in time.

One hundred soldiers of the loyal clan Campbell, were immediately sent to Glencoe. The unsuspecting Macdonalds received them with traditional hospitality. The Campbells stayed for more than a week. They ate, they drank and they shared in their life.

Then it the middle of the night the soldiers carried out the King's cruel orders. They butchered their hosts.

The memory of this treacherous betrayal of hospitality has never died in Scotland.

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The British Press

The Times is read by the people who run the country.

The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country.

The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who used to run the country.

The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country.

The Daily Express is read by the people who think that the Conservative Party ought to run the country.

The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think that the Labour Party ought to run the country.

The Guardian is read by the people who think that they ought to run the country.

The Sun read by the people who don't care who runs the country as long as she has got a good figure!

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Trespassers Will Not Be Prosecuted

You cannot fool children with long words. By the time they are big enough to climb over a wall, they have learned that the sign that the sign that says "Trespassers will be Prosecuted" is an empty threat.

Tresspass is not a crime in England, and you can only prosecute someone if they cause damage to your property - whoever you are.

In 1982 a young Londoner called Michael Fagan decided to pay an uninvited call on a woman he admired greatly, Queen Elizabeth. In the middle of the night he hopped over the wall of Buckingham Place, shinned up a drainpipe and slipped through an open window.

He helped himself to a glass of wine in the kitchen and then made his way to the royal bedroom, where he chatted to the surprised and sleppy Queen for a quarter of an hour.

The place detectives eventually led him away. But he was prosecuted for only one offence - stealing a glass of wine.

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The Master Of Suspense

The name Hitchcook means 'suspense' and 'horhor'. He was the master. At a time when people used to go to the cinema to see their favourite film stars, they went to see Hitchcook films because of the director.

Alfred Hitchcook was born in England in 1899. He was educated by Jesuits, then went into the film business in 1920. His first job was to do the lettering and design the backgrounds for silent film titles.

His first important film was made in Britain, in 1927 a tale of murder and suspense. Because of a shortage of extras, he also appeared in it himself.

In every film after that, a brief glimpse of Hitchcook's plump figure was always one of the sly jokes.

He went to Hollywood in 1939 and for the next 35 years made the films on which his reputation rests.

Intellectual critics have written many things about his 'Art'. But Hitchcook himself was very unpretentious. He saw himself simply as a skiled entertainer. He certainly was.

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Conversation Openers

Have you ever noticed that when someone introduces a topic of conversation, they frequently begin with an expression like 'Have you ever noticed..?'

It is not really a question - it is more a way of 'teeing up' what you want to say - like a golfer placing his ball on the little plastic tee in order to make a good shot.

Another useful conversation opener is the phrase : 'It's amazing, isn't it..' If one took these expressions literally, one would be constantly amazed or amused, because another favourite way of breaing the silence is to announce the homour or curiousness of the subject: 'It's funny, I don't think anybody has said anything yet.'

Gossips like to make sure everbody knows who they are talking about : 'You know Mrs Perkins , the butcher's wife,...well I saw her at the chemist's this moring...' and so it goes on.

One good ploy is to pretend that you have just remembered something - a good way of breaking the silence, but also a useful way of interrupting : 'Oh, there's something I was going to tell you...'.

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Sonnet XVII

Sonnet XVII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day ?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines.

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grows'st;

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

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William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and he died in 1616. Not much more is known about his life.

But this has not stopped countless millions of people, in languages that Shakespeare himself newer knew, from thinkng of him as an intimate friend.

His poetry is universal. It transcends both the language in which he wrote, and the time in which he lived. He wrote 34 plays, and they contain some of the finest and most reflective poetry in the world.

In 1609 a London bookseller publiched a collection of 154 sonnets by Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote no preface or introduction. But the sonnets tell the story of this devoted and affectionate friendship for a young nobleman.

They read like a series of letters. In the early poems Shakespeare urges him to marry and to perpetuate his mortal beauty by having a son. The young man is apparently not convinced; so the poet resolves to immortalize his beauty in verse.

The identity of the young nobleman is one of the greatest mysteries of English literature.

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Arriving in London

When you arrive at London Airport, you are faced with a choice of transport into the centre of town. There is a train, there is a bus, there are taxis (not cheap, unless you are with friends) and there is the usual selection of car-hire firms.

If you arrive during the morning rush-hour it is best to avoid the roads.

But first there are two formalities to deal with Immigration and Customs.

If you are from an ECC country, there is a special immigration desk. There are no forms to fill in, but you will be given a card with the date of entry stamped on it. It is valid for 6 months.

If you are from other country, the immigration officer will want the Landing Card that they gave you on the plane. Visitors to the UK are normally given a visa for 6 months; but they are not allowed to work unless they already have a work permit.

All passengers have to go through Customs. If you have nothing to declare (or if you enjoy the risks of smuggling) take the green door. Otherwise, follow the red signs.

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Opera

Compared with Italy or Germany, Britain is not a very operatic country. But this is changing.

Covent Garden is a superb opera house, on a par with the finest in the world. And there is now more opera in the provinces.

It was a vicious circle: the standard works are in Italian, German and French, and people stayed away because they did not understand the words. In addition, British composers have tended not to write operas for lack of a public.

But now performances at the English National Opera, in London, are always in English translation. The people who run it are gradually breaking the vicious circle by generating a new public. There is also a Welsh National Opera, a Scottish Opera, and a new company in Leeds. They all tour the provinces.

Meanwhile, it is more and more difficult to get tickets for Covent Garden. British and foreign opera-lovers snap them up in order to hear internationally famous singers, in the standard repertoire and in modern works by composers such as Tippet and Britten.

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The Beatles

Suddenly in 1963 schoolboys started brushing their hair forward and letting it grow over their collars.The four names John, Paul, George and Ringo were on eveyone's lips. And biology teachers throught England bought extra supplies of red fibre pens to correct the spelling of the word 'beetle' in their pupils' exercise books.

The Beatles took the world by storm. Every record they ade went to number one in the charts, and wherever the group went they were besieged by thousands of adulating fans. The press called it 'Beatlemania'.

But the road to success was no motorway. Like a boxer who fights hundreds of inglorious fights in obscure gyms before hitting the championship circuit, the Beatles spent three years in sleazy clubs, in Liverpool and in Hamburg, often playing eight hours a night, before the world focussed its spotlight on them.

The apprenticeship produced master craftsmen. Lennon and MacCartney wrote songs which will live for ever. And children who were born long after the group broke up in 1970 still have trouble spelling 'beetle'.

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Equal Opportunities

Why do dustmen earn less than doctors ?

Most doctors would give several good reasons; and not many dustmen would put the question so radically.

But it cannot be denied that doctors have a satisfying job, they work in congenial surroundings and they enjoy considerable social status. Some would argue that this was enough, and that dustmen, who enjoy none of these advantages, should be compensated with a higher salary. But no doubt there are other factors.

Why do women earn less than men ?

Feminists of oth sexes wish that did not. And there is legislation in England to ensure that women and men who do the same job should be equally paid - and that men and women who do equivalent work should also take home the same pay.

But equivalent is a difficult word to define objectively. There are jobs, like nursing and secretarial work, which are traditionally done by women. How do you compare qualities such as efficiency and a sympathetic approach to people, with a typical male quality like physical strength ?

While the legislators have not answered that question,dustmen still earn less than doctors, but they get a lot more than nurses.

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Jaguar

The firm which built the E type and the XK 120 has only been known as Jaguar Cars Ltd. since 1945.

The company started life in 1922 in Blackpool, a seaside town in the north-west of England. Their name was Swallow and they made sidecars.

The sidecar business was successful and the two men who ran it, William Lyons and William Walmesly, began making elegant bodies for Austin and Morris cars.

Everbody liked the Austin and Morris Swallows. Business prospered, and in 1927 they made their first complete car-the SS1 Coupe.

The first SS Jaguars were built in 1935. After the Second World War the name, Jaguar, became synonymous with excellent fast cars.

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Isaac Newton

It was a warm afternoon in late summer. Sitting in the orchard, Isaac Newton watched an apple fall to the ground. He was in a contemplative mood.

"Why should that apple always descend perpendiculary to the ground?", he thought... "Why not sideways or upwards ?"

Like other geniuses, Newton had the power to see beyond a simple phenomenon like the fall of an apple, and to explore its widest implications. He went on to establish laws of gravity, which he used to explain the Universe.

Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Say, 1642. His father was a farmer. He studied mathematics at Cambridge University. But in 1655 England was ravaged by the Great Plague and the University was closed for fear of infection.

Newton spent those eighteen months at home in his village. It was there, between the ages of 22 and 24, that he made the three discoveries which were to influence science and human thought from that day to this: the discovery of the differential Calculus, the nature of white light (why we see a rainbow in a drop of water) and the laws of gravity.

Newton lived to a great age and was a revered mathematican, but he was humble about his achievements. Shortly before his death he wrote: 'to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.'

White light passing through a triangular prism. Newton investigating light.

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A Game Of Chance

The most popular pastime in Britain is a kind of gambling. There are no horses involved ... no greyhounds or boxers; no specialized knowledge is required; it is purely and simply a matter of chance.

The name of the game is bingo and it is played by 6 million people in 1,600 clubs throughout the country.

This is not the world of roulette tables and top-hatted Casino doormen. The bingo halls are generally converted cinemas in working class high streets.

85 per cent of the players are women and their average age is about 52. Family fortunes are not lost. Most of the women spend no more than five pounds a week, but the prizes can run into several thousand pounds.

The real attraction of the game is probably the companionship it provides. For lonely housewives and elderly people the bingo club is a lively, warm place to go in winter.

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Magistrates Courts

Most citizens never appear before a judge. If they have a brush with the law, they are more likely to find themselves in a magistrates' court.

The atmosphere there is far less formal and intimidating than a law court. There are no wigs, no gowns, no jurry, and often no lawyers.

The magistrates are not usually professionals. They are called Justices of the Peace (JP) and are appointed on the advice of a local committee,and they generally sit in their courts once a week. In big towns, however, the magistrates' courts operate every day, and the magistrate is a professional lawyer.

About two-thirds of the convictions in a magistrates' court are for traffic offences. Next come revenue offences (mainly failure to take out licences for dogs and cars), then drunkeness, and assault.

Magistrates sit in in twos or threes, with a professional clerk to advise them on points of law. In modern times this has reduced the risk of eccentric decisions.

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Innocent Until Proved Guilty

Law Courts

Film makers love the law courts. They are perfect dramatic setting. The scenery is impressive, the costumes are stylish, and there is suspense.

The performers are the two barriseters (Counsel for the defence and Counsel for the prosecution), the prisoner, the judge and the twelve members of the jury.

The Counsel for the prosecution sets out what he intends to prove. Then he calls his witnesses and they give their evidence.

The barrister defending the prisoner then cross-examines the witnesses. His intention is to establish his client's innocence. Finally, the counsel for the prosecution re-examines the witnesses in order to prove his case.

The whole procudure is repeated in with the defence witnesses.

If the prisoner has pleaded 'not guilty' he is assumed to beinnpcent until he contrary is proved. The jury has to decide on one thing only - the moment of suspense in courtroom films - whether the prisoner is guilty or not.

It is left to the judge to decide on the punishment.

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Birthday Cake

A Birthday cake is more than just something good to eat.

At a flamboyant young Englishman'a birthday a giant cake was wheeled into the room on a trolley. Then, as all his friends began to sing 'Happy birtday to you...' the top of the cake burst open and a beautiful girl rose from the icing holding a foaming bottle of champagne.

A Chicago gangster in the twenties did not have such benevolent friends. When the trolley was wheeled in, a man with a machine gun burst out of the cake.

But birtday cakes are not usually so extravagant. Traditionally they are iced and have candles on them - one for every year. However, there comes a time when there is either no room for the candles, or people just prefer not to count them.

'A diplomat', a fomous poet once said. 'is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.'

When it is someone's birthday, children give him the 'bumps'. He is thrown in the air and bumped on the ground, once for every year - and once for 'luck'. And his friends sing their own words to the traditional birtday song:

'Happy Birthday to you,

Squashed tomatoes and stew,

I saw a fat monkey

And I thought it was you!'

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Kew Gardens

Not many people go to Kew for the right reason. You can tell the ones who do. They look serious and enquiring, and keep writing things down in notebooks.

Most people go to Kew simply because it is an extraordinarily beautiful place, not because they are serious botanists.

The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew are a 25 minute tube ride from the centre of London. They cover 300 acres and contain the largest collection of living plants in the world, more than 45,000 species.

Groups of friends picnic on the deep green lawns at the foot of exotic trees and sumptuous rhododendron bushes, watching ducks and swans on the placeful lake.

There are stunningly beautiful glasshouses. There is an eighteenth century orangery. And there is a Chinese pagoda, built in 1761, which is 50 metres high.

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The King's Right Arm

In 1606 William the Conqueror put an arrow in King Harold's eye, and became the King of England.

The first thing he wanted to do was to take stock of his new acquisition. But when he started asking questions, nobody knew the answers. England in the 11th century was a pretty disorganized palace.

It was too much for William's sense of order. With Gallic efficiency and logic he set about recording the details of every town, village, building and inhabitant of the country. The information was to be kept until the end of the world! He called it the Domesday Book, and it still exists.

When William died in 1100, his grandson, Henry I continued the task of organizing the orderless English. He reformed the law, and he also addressed himself to the problem of measurements.

Everything was measured in yards, feet and inches. An inch was always a twelfth of a foot. And a yard was always three feet. But some people had big feet and some had small feet.

King Henry's right arm was exactly three times as long as his foot. So King Henry's right arm became the standard measurement for a yard.

For the Romans, a mile was a thousand paces-the Romans were also logical and efficent. The English mile is exactly 1,760 times the length of King Henry's right arm.

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Lions On The Lawn

It's an expensive business being rich in England -as the Duke of Bedford and The Marquess of Bath will tel you.

The Duke of Bedford has got one of the most impressive private art collections in the world. Apart from paintings by Rembrandt, Canaletto, Van Dyck and Gainsborough he has superb pieces of antique furniture, silver, and an amazing dinner service which the King of France gave to one of his ancestors.

He keeps it all in a magnificent house called Woburn Abbey, 70 km north of London.

The Marquess of Bath keeps his treasures in a 400 year old place in the west of England - Longleat House.

They have both had to face the same problem: a fine work of art is worth nothing, unless you are prepared to sell it - in other words, you can't have your cake and eat it!

In order to pay for the upkeep of thir family homes (and to keep the taxman happy) they have both opened them to the public - and they have both done it in style. There are restaurants and minaature railways, pubs, gift shops, and amusement arcades.

The idea of Space Invaders amongst the antiques has caused many an eyebrow to be raised. But aristocratic eyes positively popped when the Duke and the Marquess turned their respective gardens into Safari Parks.

Now zebras, giraffes and tigers stroll in the heart of the English countryside. Dolphins leap, the children ride on camels. Visitors are warned not to get out of their car in case they get eaten by lions.

The lions on the lawn are also usefull for keeing burglars away from the Van Dycks and the Rembrandts.

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The Emerald Isle

Ireland is the 'Emerald Isle'. The deep green of the rolling Irish countryside has to be seen to be believed.

And green is te colour of the national emblem - the humble shamrock, which Irishmen, from Dublin to Chicago, wear proudly in their buttonholes on St Patrick's day (March 17th).

St Patrick was actually a Scotsman. His father was a wealthy British magistrate under the Romans in the 4th century.

As a boy, Patrick was captured by Irish raiders and carried over the sea. They sold him as a slave to a Northern Irish chieftain.

Patrick looked after his master's cattle on the mountains and in the wood. Six cold, wet winters of slavery concentrated his mind on religious matters. He dreamed of escape and of preaching Christianity to the heathens.

He made his way to France, where he became the pupil of St Martin of Tours - the soldier saint who gave half his jewelled cloak to a beggar. Then, at the age of thirty, he returned to Ireland as a missionary.

Many legends grew up around St Patrick. One is that he drove all the smakes from Ireland. Another is that he explained the Trinity by comparing it to the three leaves of the shamrock.

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A Rip-Off

In some restaurants (not the best) the waiter gives you your bill but he does not take your money. You pay at the cash desk on your way out.

This way the management can be sure that nobody slips out while the waiter's back is turned - without paying.

But these restaurants have had to find ways of preventing a new trick.

A penniless student goes in and orders a meal. He spares no expense asking for soup, a starter, a main course, dessert, cheese - whatever takes his fancy.

As he nears the end of his meal, another student comes in and sits at this table. He orders a coffee and reads a book. The two students are apparently complete strangers. When the bills come they exchange them surreptitiously. The first student leaves the restaurant and pays for the coffee as he passes the cash desk.

A few minutes later, this second student picks up the bill for the meal and exclaims that he has only had a coffee. Of course he only pays for the coffee that he had.

He then joins his friend round the corner, and together they look for another restaurant.

That way they both get a meal.

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The Welsh

In the year 1415 a welsh soldier took a Londoner by the collar and forced him to eat a raw leek.

The Londoner had been mocking his Welch accent and insulting his national emblem, the leek.

The Welsh today are as proud of their language and their national emblem as they were four hundred years ago when Shakespeare put this scene into his patriotic drama, King Henry V.

But it cannot be denied that the Welsh language and the Welsh accent (when they speak English) are both more beutiful than their national emblem. In fact, nowadays, they usually wear a daffodil, not a leek, on the day of their patron saint, St. David.

St David is called St. Dewi in Welsh. His day is March 1st, but little is known about him except that he probably died in the year 601 AD. According to a mediaeval history book, he was born in 458 AD - which means he was 143 years old when he died!

Apart from a long life he also had a very loud voice. Another mediaeval history book claims that he was made Archbishop of Wales because he was the only bishop who could make himself heard at the back of a large congregation.

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Politeness Is A Thing of The Past

Our grandparents are shocked. Young people these days have no manners. The old courtesies have gone. Nobody shows any respect these days.

With all due respect, our grandparents are wrong. People are no less polite than they used to be; they just express themselves differently.

Certainly most of the elaborate formulas of politeness have disappeared both in speech and in writing. People have become more relaxed. But the courtesy is still there, when it is needed.

If anything, abondoning the rigid conventions has made life more difficult. People show deference and politeness in more subtle ways. And it is important to be sensetive to them. It may be done by using the conditionals, would or could, or by starting a request with the words 'I wonder if...'

For no obvious, logical reason, politeness is often conveyed by the past tense.

Why do people begin a speech by saying : 'I just wanted to say...' - when they obviously still want to say it ?

And presumably the waiter doesn't really think that his customer has changed his mind when he asks : 'Was the steak for you?'

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Public Schools

There are five major banks in Britain. All five chairmen were educated at Winchester College or Eton College.

The same two schools prduced the editor of The Times, the head of the Home Civil Service, the head of the Foreign Service and the two top men at the BBC - not to mention seven members of the cabinet.

This was the score in the early eighties.

There are about 200 public schools in Britain, and Winchester and Eton are the oldest and most famous.

The name is misleading - they are in fact private, fee - paying schools. Children take an entrance exam to get in and they start at the age of 13. The schools take them as far as university entrance.

Public schools account for about 6% of the school population and are the subject of great debate amongst education reformers.

In the meantime parents spend the equivalent of two thirds of the avarage Englishman's pay packet on the fees for one child.

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Schools in Britain

At the age of five an english child lets go of his mother's apron strings and goes out into the wide world. For the next six years his world is the primary school.

At the ripe old age of eleven, he moves on to secondary school where he continues to learn the traditional subjects: English, maths, music, a foreign language, history, geography. But he will also begin to study science, another language and subjects like cookery, woodwork (both boys and girls) and more music.

Education is compulsory until the age of sixteen.

State secondary schools are known as Comprehansive schools. But it is impossible to generalize about them. They vary considerably from area to area.

A hundred different local authorities administer them and the headmasters and headmistresses have far more influence than their counterparts in other European countries.

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The Electronic Window

The British are avid watchers of television. Many people sit in front of the electronic window for as long as five hours every evening.

Then, when the programmes come to an end, half the population switches off and goes to bed. The electricity companies have to make special arguments to cope with the sudden increase in demand as they all switch on their bedroom lights together.

There are several channels. And there is a choice between news programmes, films, variety programmes, dramatizations of classic novels, pop-music, wild life documentaries, and quiz shows.

But what the British like best is a 'soap-opera' - a never - ending serial about the life of ordinary things. No murders...no car chases...no bitter court-room battles; just everyday people faced with the hopes and problems of everyday life.

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Coronation Street

Coronation Street is somewhere in the north of England - probably in Manchester. The modest inhabitants are known to every person in England who is blind or under the age of one year old.

There is a pub on the corner called The Rover's Return and a jeans factory close by.

Elsie Tanner works in the jeans factory. She had has lot of husbands and has a heart of gold. Everyone likes her except Hilda Ogden - she disapproves of her men friends.

Hilda Ogden is about sixty. She wears a cheap blue raincoat and her hair in curlers. She is the local gossip. She is married to Stan.

Stan Ogden has always kept away from work as if it might bite him. He has a 'bad back'. He likes to bet on the horses and to drink a pint of beer down at the Rover's Return. Their lodger, Eddie Yates, is a dustman.

Annie Walker runs the Rover's Return. She thinks she is in a class above her customers. If anything goes wrong she clasps her hand to her temples saying: 'I feel a migraine comming on'.

Len Fairclough is reliable, friendly and straightforward. He owns a builder's yard. His wife Rita used to be a singer. Now she works in her newsagent's shop with her assistant Mavis, who is plain, neuroic and lives with a budgerigar.

The activities of these characters are the subject of conversations in buses speculation in pubs and articles in the press. And it is only a television serial.

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Marriage British Style

True lovers don't need a good carriage to take them to the church-or even a Rolls Royce. This old Cockney song is nown and sung all over England:

"Daisy, Daisy.

Give me your answer,do.

I'm half crazy.

All for the love of you.

It won't be a stylish marriage

- I can't afford a carriage.

But you'll look sweet

Upon the seat

Of a bicycle made for two. "

But a wedding is a special occasion and most families spend a lot of money to clebrate it. They hire big cars to carry the bride and groom, and they invite all their friends and relations to a reception afterwards.

The bridgeroom arrives first at the church with his best man. He is usually the groom's best friend. He acts as a steadying influence on the nervous groom - makes sure that he does not lose the ring and checks the soles of his new shoes to see that he is not displaying a price tag as he kneels in front of the congregation.

The bride arrives late with her father and her bridesmaids.

At the reception afterwards champagne is drunk, a monumental cake is eaten, and uncles make nostalgic and sentimental speeches. The bridegroom thanks everyone for coming. And the best man makes a funny speech.

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Sunday Afternoon

Don't bother to consult a work of sociology, if you want to know what the English do in their spare time. Just go for a walk on one of the London commons on a Sunday afternoon.

There are joggers and strollers, picnickers and sunbathers and there might be groups of young men practising Japanese martial arts under an oak tree.

Away from the trees, children and grown men tug at the sky, sending all manner of elaborate kites soaring high against the wind. Others carry sophisticated radios, which kontrol scale-models of Royal Air Force planes that they have built lovingly on their kitchen tables.

On a small pond an old man re-enacts the Battle of the River Plate, with perfect miniature replicas of the naval warships. They look odd among the sails of the modal-yacht club.

Another pond is reserved for anglers. Their patience is as long as their fishing lines.

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Some Famous Names in British Jazz

Chris Barber: Trombone, New Orleans revivalist, on the road again with his wife Ottilie Patterson.

Graham Collier: Bass player, composer and arranger. An influential figure with other musicians.

Johny Dankworth: Saxophone, Composer, arranger and band leader. He works with his wife, singer Cleo Laine.

Dave Holland: Bass. He has played less in Britain since Miles Davies walked into Ronnie Scoot's club and offered him a job.

Humphrey Lyttleton: Trumpet. An urbane father figure and guiding light of British jazz.

John McLoughin: Guitar. World renowned jazz man. He has played with Miles Savies, Carlos Santana and others.

George Melly: Singer. He is a writer, a collector of Surrealist paintings, and an eccentric. He signs like Bessie Smith!

Dick Morrissey: Saxaphones. Leader of a very popular jazz-rock band with Jim Mullen (guitar)

Tony Oxley: Avant-garde percussionist. He is one of the best drummers in the world. He made a famous record with John Mc Loughin and John surman.

Ronnie Scoot: Tenor Sax. He is the leader of his own Quintet and the owner of a famous jazz club in London.

Alan Skidmore: Saxaphones. World famous son of Jimmy Skidmore, who used to play with Humphrey Lyttleton.

Kathy Stobart: Saxaphone. She is a regular player on the British scene.

John Surman: Virtuoso player, who can do things with a baritone sax that no-one else can do.

Barbara Thompson: Tenor sax and flute. She leads a Be-bop and Modern jazz group called Paraphernaila.

Stan Tracy: He was the house pianist at Ronnie Scott's Club. He now has his own and with his son on drums.

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The Band On The Wall

The fish porters in Manchester used to go to big, old 19th century pub - the George and Dragon. The atmosphere was warm (though maybe a little rough), the beer was good and there was music.

In order to get more people in - or maybe to put the musicans out of throwing range of the customers, the landlord stuck a platform on the wall. Everybody called the pub the 'Band on the Wall'.

Now the fish market has gone. In its place is a placeful crafts market. And the 'Band on the Wall' has become one of the most interesting venues in the North of England for jazz, Rock, Blues and Reggae.

Some music pubs tend to speialize. In London the most famous for jazz is the Bull's Head at Barnes (Seven nights a week and Sunday lunchtimes - past visitors include Zoot Sims and Ben Webster). But jazz fans also go to clubs. The hot spots are Ronnie Scott's in Soho (past visitors include everyone you've ever heard of), the 100 Club in Oxford Street, the Canteen in Covent Garden, and the Pizza Express.

But if your taste is less specialized, you can be sure that, whereever you are, you are not far from a pub with a warm atmosphere, good beer and music.

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English Pub Signs

In days of old, when knights were bold, and most people in England were illiterate, men still liked to have a drink with their friends in an inn or an ale-house.

So the inns put up pictorial signs to announce their existence. The tradition has never died out. The 73,000 pubs in Britain still have signs - and names which relate to the old pictures.

Inn names and signs evoke ancient customs, local families, national heroes, stirring events... A history of Britain could be written from them.

The Chequers: 'The Chequers' (chessboard) was used as a sign for an inn where foreign sailors could change money before bereaux de change were invited.

Elephant and Castle: This sign commemorates Edward I's queen the Infanta de Castillia. After a few beers mediaeval Englishmen found it eassier to say 'Elephant and Castle'!

Cross Keys: The Cross Keys were the badge of St. Peter and of the archbishops. This pub ay have been a meeting place for Crusaders.

The Plough: In towns, pubs called "The Plough" seem like an anomaly but they are a reminder of how cities have expanded over agricultural areas.

The Royal Oak: King Charles II escaped after the Battle of Worcester (1651) by hiding in an oak tree.

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A Penny For The Guy

On the fifth of November onfires are lit all over Britain. The tradition began in 1605.

A band of discontented English Catholics hatched a plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament while king James I was present. One of the conspirators betrayed the plot and the buildings were searched from top to bottom.

In the cellars of the House of Lords the King's men found a man called Guy Fawkes. He had the difficult task of explaining how he came to be surrounded by thirty-six barrels of gunpowder.

Guy Fawkes showed great courage under interrogation and torture. But eventually the names of his fellow conspirators were extracted from him.

He was executed in 1606. Guy Fawkes Day has been commemorated ever since. Children burn an effigy of the unfortunate conspirator on their bonfires.

For several weeks before November 5th they display their 'guy' on the pavement and collect money for fireworks. They ask passers-by for 'a penny for the guy' - but these days they hope to get more than a penny.

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Literary Landscapes

Scholars see litarature as a history of styles and strucrure, influences and themes.

But for most English people, the history of their literature is something much vaguer. It is an impressionistic collage of places and personalities.

It begins with Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a band of mediaeval pilgrims entartaining one another with stories as they travel on horseback from London to Canterbury.

... then Shakespeare in the Globe Theatre by the Thames, where he performed his plays for the boisterous tradesmen and the cultured gentry of Elizabethan London...

... the 18th Century poets reding their latest works to each other in the coffee houses of Covent Garden. And the great Dr. Johnson, who lived in Fleet Street.

The mind's eye sees Wordsworth striding accross the hills of the Lake District, and Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles on the horizon of the Dorset countryside.

But the strongest image of all is a solitary, windswept house on the desolate Yorkshire moors - the scene of Emily Bronte's haunting story of violence and passionate love, Wuthering Heights.

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The Great Fire of London

100,000 people were made homeless. St. Paul cathedral was gutted. Over 32,000 houses were destroyed. Four-fifths of the old walled City of London was wiped out in four days and four nights.

More than three hundred years later, the date is burned into the memories of all English people.

The Great fire of London began in a road called Pudding Lane, near London Bridge. The date was September 2, 1666. Miraculously, very few lives were lost. But scraps of burning material were blown as far as a hundred kilometres to Oxford in the west. The wind changed during the night of the 4th-5th and halted the destruction.

From that date on, the mediaevel character of London was Lost for ever. Architects became very conscious of the danger of fire. No more high, timber frame buildings were built. An Act of parliament specified that everything should now be of brick or stone. And the height of buildings was fixed according to the width of the street-four storeys in the main streets, ad only two storeys in narrow lanes.

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In Case of Fire

A gentleman came down from his hotel bedroom and asked the night porter for a glass of water.

He took it upstairs and reappeared moments later asking for another. The night porter was only too willing to oblige.

When the gentleman came down for the fifteenth time, the porter (a man of no mean intelligence) began to wonder what was going on.

'Hey, you must be very thirsty tonight,' he said by way of conversation. 'I'm not drinking it, actually,' said the gentleman. 'There's a fire in my bedroom.'

Would you know what to do if a fire broke out in your home ?

Close all doors and keep them shut, especially the door of the room where the fire is. The door will hold back the fire for as long as 20 minutes - long enough to get everyone out of the house.

Then call the fire-brigade.

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Fortnum and Mason

Knocking over a mountain of tinned peas with a supermarket trolley is one of the embrassing hazards of modern shopping.

But not Fortnum and Mason.

There are no trolleys in this Piccadilly grocer's shop. The floors are croved with thick red carpet and the assistans wear pin-stripe trousers and tail-coats. The display by the door is a pyramid, built with jars of Beluga caviar, selling at a hundred pounds a time.

Fortnums have been in business since 1707. And for nearly as long they have been grocers to the Royal Family.

The original Mr. Fortnum was a footman at the royal place - he was the one with the connections. The first Mr. Mason had a small shop up the road. They were an ideal combination. To this day their shop in London is famous for the quality of its food and the excellence of its service.

Pop stars rub shoulders with Dukes and diplomats. It's fine place for spotting famous faces, and a clam place to wander, after the bustle of Piccadilly. If you don't fancy the caviar, have a cake or two. There's a tea-room up some carpeted stairs at the back.

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Beanz Meanz Heinz

A few years ago the famous canned food company, Heinz (it rhymes with lines) covered the advertisement hoardings of Britain with the slogan Beanz Means Heinz.

It was a vivid illustration of how the letters 's' in beans and means is pronounced; but much more than that, a reminder of the quantity of beans that the British put on their forks every day.

The bean in question is the common 'peabean' or 'Navy-bean' (phaseolus vulgaris) and it is grown in Michigan USA. It is shipped over to England, baked and canned in a sweet tomato sauce.

The British buy two and a half million cans of beaked beans every day.

Millions of schoolchildren come home to meals of frozen fish fingers and beans, sausages and beans, ham and beans, scrambled egg and beans, beans on toast, or simply beans.

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Albert Able of Alberta

Hundreds of boring and repetitive jobs have been taken over by computers. They don't suffer from eye strain and they don't need holidays or sick leave. What's more they do exactly what you tell them to usually.

During the fifties Time Magazine had a computer to deal with their subscription renewals.

The computer was programmed to address and frank the renewal notices. It had on file the names and addresses of all the subscribers, and how much postage was required in each case.

Another machine was linked to the computer. It sorted all these letters into bundles by area.

No human was needed in this operation and the 300,000 letters (addresses, franked and sorted) were stacked in neat piles ready to be bundled into mail bags and taken to the post office.

Nobody realized anything was wrong until Mr. Albert Able of Alberta in Canada woke up one morning to find five postmen, each carrying three bulging mail bags, standing in front of his door. The computer had got stuck on the first record and sent every letter to him.

He completed one of the renewal forms, but asked for only one copy per week of Time magazine.

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Wedding Presents

If you are invited to a wedding in England, you send a present to happy couple. If you are not invited you don't - the custom is fairly logical.

Of course, if you think you should have been invited but weren't, you can always embarrass everybody by sending a handsome present anyway.

Close friends and family often give money. And as a rule, other guests give the bride and bridegroom something which will be usefull in their new home. (It is usually sent before the wedding day.)

The drawback to this is that a young couple can find themselves with half a dozen teapots, three sets of wine glasses, four bread boards and crystal fruit bowl - but no knives and forks.

A lot of engaged couples make a list of the things that they need. They don't send it out with the invitations. But if you want to avoid being the unwary giver of the twenty - fifth flower vase, it's a nice idea to ask for it.

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Gretna Green

If a sixteen-year old English girl's parents refused to let her marry, she used to have two options- either to obey them, or to run away to Gretna Green.

In Gretna Green she might be married by the blacksmith. Her beloved would place the ring on the anvil, and the blacksmith could pronounce them man and wife.

It is a village in the south -east of Scotland - just ten minutes walk from the English border.

Under Scottish law a person can be married without his parents' consent at the age of sixteen. Under English law he has to wait until he is eighten.

But nowadays there is no blackmith at Gretna Green and the marriages take place in the Registry Office. Young people are generally not in such a passionate hurry to get married either. Modern seciety allows them much more freedom.

But occasionally a bright-eyed young couple can still be seen clutching each other's hands as the train from the south pulls over the border.

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The Savoy

Statesmen go to Claridge's, businessmen stay at the Hilton. But actors and artists take rooms at The Savoy.

The savoy of London is the most famous hotel in the world. Winston Churchill used to eat there every week when he was in London. Johann Strauss once played waltzes in the restaurant. And the Prince of Wales-later King Edward VII dined there regulary on frogs legs his favourite dish.

The great Escoffier invented Peach Melba for the opera singer, Nellie Melba, while she was at the Savoy. And for the French actress, Sarah Bernhardt, he created Poularde Belle Helene.

The hotel was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte, the impresario behind Gilbert and Sullivan.

He had already built a theatre for their hugely successful comic operas.

When D'Oly Carte found that American hotels were so much better than anything in London, he decided to build the best hotel in the world. In 1889 he opened The Savoy.

It overlooks the Thames between the Houses of Parliament and Waterloo Bridge. And it still has its own theatre.

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A Lot Of Soap!

The little bar of soap in your hotel bathroom is all part of the service. But it's big business for somebody.

Look at it this way. The buyer for an English chain of hotels calculates that the avarage guest stays for 1.6 nights. (That doesn't mean that he pack his bags at three o'clock in the morning on the the second night. It just means that guests sometimes stay one night, and they sometimes stay two.)

Every guest gets a new bar of soap.

The hotel probably works at about seventy per cent of capacity. In other words, in a hotel with a hundred bedrooms, seventy of the rooms are occupied all the time.

In one year a hundred-bedroom hotel needs nearly sixteen thousand bars of soap.

The luxurious Savoy Hotel in London has two hundred bedrooms. Down the road, the Regent Palace has 1032 rooms. The owners of the Regent Palace (Trust House Forte) have two hundred hotels in the United Kingdom - not to mention the eight hundred that they own in the rest of the world.

That's an awful lot of soap.

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