War And Peace

War

The most famous English general was probably the Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), who fought Napoleon's French army at Waterloo. He was a master tactician.

His potrait is on the English £5 note.

In the twentieth century the most illustrious soldier is Field Marshall Montgomery (1887-1976). His greatest campaign was in North Africa in 1942-44, where his adversary was the German General, Rommel.

Apparently Montgomery had great admiration for Rommel and carried his photograph with him in his caravan.

Generals are like chess players. They deploy their forces like chessmen on a board. But unlike cheess players, their success or failure is directly linked to the quality of their men.

The men of the modern British army are not conscripts but professional soldiers. And the regiments are highly specialised.

Each country no longer has its own regiment, but it is a curious fact that some 10% of the male Scottish population is in the armed forces.

Peace

The peace Movement includes organizations all over the world which are dedicated to the cause of peace. They want to stamp out war and get rid of all weapons.

Fine sentiments. Nobody disagress with the ideal.

But how can a country fight for its rights with no weapons? How can a people struggle against its oppressors with no military strength?

One man who did, was Gandhi, the Indian statesman.

His strength was hid humanity. His weapons were economic. And his achievement was to liberate 350 million people from British colonial rule.

By using tactics of passive resistance and boycot of British goods; by developing village industries and using hunger strikes, Gandhi achieved freedom and complete independece for India in 1947.

The strength of his campaign and his spiritual example caused the British government to question the whole morality of imperialism.

Mahatma Gandhi (1868-1948) The liberator of 350 million people-by peaceful means.

Peace at Home, Peace in the World - Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

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Bonnie Scotland

If it weren't for the Irish , Scotland would probably be called "Pictland".

The 'Scots' were originally an Irish race. They crossed the water in the 5th century and settled in the country of the Picts.

The Picts and the Scots fought each other regularly. But by the 9th century the Scots had absorbed the whole country.

The Scots language was Gaelic and it is still spoken in the Western Isles (the Hebrides).

Today the language of Scotland is English. In fact the Scots say that the purest and most beautiful form of English is to be heard on the banks of Loch Ness, in the country of Iverness.

The accent is very different from that of southern England. The Scots 'roll' the letter 'r', for example.

You can also identify a Scotsman by his vocabulary:

The Scots don't have children, They have 'bairns'. And although they are certainly good-looking, a Scot would say 'bonnie'.

A pretty little child in England would be 'a bonnie wee bairn' north of the border.

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An Unmistakable Rhythm

Jamaica turned Rock and Roll on its head and conquered on the world.

It started in the sixties with the Blue Bat and singers like Prince Buster.

But then they changed the beat. Blue Beat became Rock Steady. And Rock Steady evolved into a style with an unmistakable rhythm - the opposite of Rock and Roll. The pulse of the new music was on the first and third beats of the bar. They called it Reggae.

The West Indians like good music. But Europeans and Americans need to have stars.

'Island', an English record company made stars of Boby Marley and Jimmy Cliff and exported them and Reggae music to the World.

In the seventies and eighties the Jamaican influence spread. An English group took the name of and old Price Buster song and called itself. 'Madness' 'Madness', 'The Police' ,'UB40' all these English groups owed their international hits to the beat of Reggae.

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4.000 Kilometres of Islands

If you meet any of the five hundred thousand West Indian in Britain do not compliment them on their English. It's their mother tongue.

If you want to pay compliments, try cricket. West Indians are the finest cricketers in the world.

Most English people think of the West Indies as Trinidad, Barbados and Jamaica.

But these islands are just part of an archipelago four thousand kilometres long, which stretches from Florida to Venezuela. The French call in the Antilles.

There are literally thousand of islands, the biggest being Cuba.

The English speaking islands were taken by the British during the days of Imperial expansion.

The rest were taken by French, The Spanish and the Dutch.

Then in a shameful period of British history, the islands were populated by slaves brought from Africa to work on the sugar plantations.

Slavery wasn't abolished until 1838 by which time the original African languages had died out.

Which is why English is the mother tongue.

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Watch Out! There' A Thief About!

No jackdaw can get at the Queen of England's jewels. they spend most of their time locked behind heavy plate glass in a heavily protected room in one of the oldest fortresses in the country-the Tower of London.

So unless the Queen gets mugged on her way to the Opening of Parliament (one of the rare occassions when she wears them), the Crown Jewels are fairly safe.

Thousands of people queue every day to take a look at this magnificent priceless collection. There are diamonds the size of walnuts, rubies as big as fat strawberries and pounds and pounds of gold.

Wearing the Coronation crown must have been like carrying a pile of encyclopaedias on her head.

Actually no one is allowed to stand in front of the showcases. The queue has to keep moving-presumably to stop anyone throwing a brick through the glass.

Thieves are drawn to the Crown Jewels like wasps to a pot of jam. But it's not the crown or the sceptre that they want, it's the visitors' handbags and wallets.

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Cricket For Beginners

A cricket team consists of eleven players. The lenght of the game varies but the majority are one day long.

The aim is to source more 'runs' than the other team. The toss of a coin decides which side will try to score first, which team will 'bat'. Each member of the team has a turn, called an 'innings'. The other team tries to stop them scoring and to get them 'out'. The teams then change places. International matches go on for five days.

This is what the 'fielders' try to do. If they can catch the ball before it touches the ground the batsman is 'out.'

This is what the 'batsman' tries to do. He secores points, or 'runs' , by running from one end of the pitch to the other. The further he hits the ball with the bat the more times he can run from end to end.

This is what the 'bowler' tries to do. If he succeeds the batsman is 'out'.

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The Last Straw

Thomas Hardy, in books like from the Madding Crowd, glorified life in rural England. This was at the end of nineteenth century.

But even then he was pessimistic about the industrialization of agriculture: A harsh scene in Tess of the D'Urbevilles shows Tess forced to work at the pace of a steam-driven threshing machine.

Nowadays farming in Britain is highly mechanized. Combine harvesters have replaced teams of farmworkers. Milking machines mean that one person can handle the cows alone.

Efficency has been gained, but at the expense of co-operation and convivality.

Many farmers remember with nostalgia the days when everybody used to help each other with their harvest.

The last straw was the disapperance of the milk churn. Farmers used to congregate at a central point every morning with their churns. They used to exchange news and advice while they waited for the milk lorry.

But now a tanker calls at every farm. And the farmers rarely meet their neighbours.

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Farming in Britain

Broadly speaking the British Isles are hilly on the left and flat on the right. The weather is wetter on the left and sunnier on the right.

For any geography teachers who may be reading this the west is on the left and the east is on the right.

The fact is that the wet, Atlantic winds have lost a lot of their rain by the time they get to the east of England.

Crops grow best in the eastern counties and animals do well on the rich grasslands of the west.

Although farming provides jobs for only two or three per cent of the population, it is one of the most important industries in Britain.

It is highly mechanized and very efficient. The land today produces fifty per cent more food than it did twenty years ago.

Cows produce more milk. Hens produce more eggs. And farmers can get three tons of grain from one sackful.

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A Scottish Solution

The Scots have a reputation for prudence and frugality. They are not the sort of people who make a habit of losing their wallets. But is does happen.

The following announcement appeared in the Glasgow Herald recently:

"Lost in Sauchiehall Street, a black leather wallet containing family photograps, identity documents and five hundred pounds in notes.

The finder is asked to keep the photos and documents, but to return the money to which I am attached for sentimental reasons."

One evening in a restaurant in Edinburgh a man stood up and exclaimed:

"I've just lost my wallet. There's a hundred pounds in it. I'll give five pounds to the person who finds it and returns it to me."

From the other side of the restaurant a man in a kilt called out:

"I'll give six!"

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Lost Property

Twenty four thousand people left their umbrellas on the London buses and Underground last year. That's a lot of wet people!

Eleven thousand pairs of gloves were found, twenty-six thousand handbags and purses, fourteen thousand books, and one box of glass eyes.

Actually some people lose things on purpose-and not just bills and tax demands. A guard on the Underground once saw a woman leave a packet on the seat. He called out to her and pointed it out.

'Don't worry' the woman replied 'It's my husmand's sandwiches.' He works in the lost Property Office...'

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A Second Chance

If you go to sleep with the radio on, you are likely to be woken in the early hours of the morning by a Professor of Mathematics, or a lecture on history. The quite hum after closedown is broken by the Open University.

Since 1971, 25.000 people a year have equipped themselves with books and blank cassettes, and enrolled at this University of the air.

Open University students don't need any qualifications in order to start their studies. And they don't go to a campus either.

(Although they do have regular meetings with a tutor.)

Tuition takes place on radio and television, and by correspondence -which means that students have the benefit of some of the best teachers in the country.

The graduates include former taxi drivers, shop-assistants, telephonists, secrataries, housebound mothers and old age pensioners.

Some of them had failed all their exams at school -but found themselves capable of brillant work once they had started a course. All they needed was a second chance.

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A Superstitious Man

'I'm a very superstitious man. I was born on the 5th May at five o'clock in the morning.

On my fifty-fifth birthday I bought a lottery ticket. The number of the ticket was five hundred and fifty-five thousand, five hundred and fifty-five. I won five thousand pounds.

So I came to Ascot and I put all the money on the fifth horse in the fifth race...'

'That's wonderful! How much did you win?'

'Nothing. My horse came in fifth..'

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Royal Ascot

Four consecutive days of top class racing make Royal Ascot the most important meeting in the British racing calendar.

But it isn't just the quality of the horses that makes 'Ascot' an institution. It is the hats that the spectators wear.

Royal Ascot is one of the major events of the London social season. The emphasis is on style and pageantry.

Each day the proceedings begin with the Royal Procession. The Queen and her courtiers enter the course in fine horse-drawn carriages through the Golden Gates. They move grandly down the Straight Mile to the Royal Enclosure.

Here Britain's top socialites are waiting. Men must wear morning coats and top hats. By tradition ladies compete with each other to wear the most astonishing hat.

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Say Cheese

Cheese will always bring a smile to an Englishmen's lips-even the most bad-tempered... even people who can't stand the stuff.Photographers would be lost without it.

You don't have eat it. It's just that when you say the word, the lips automatically spread out towards the ears and give that expression of joy and contentment which is so important to the family photograph album.

Mind you, there is plenty to smile about on a good English cheeseboard.

There are hundreds of cheeses in the British Isles. Their names add up to a list some of the most beautiful parts of the country.

But in fact they are all varitions on nine basic sorts of cheese.

The most popular is Cheddar, which takes its bame from the stunningly beautiful Cheddar Gorge in the West of England.

But the King of cheese is Stilton. As one writer said:

'Stilton - the noble word comes as easily to the Englishman's tongue as the word Shakespeare; and a touch of pride accompanies both.'

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It All Started On The River

One sunny summer afternoon a man went out on the river at Oxford with his boss's daughter. The result was one of the most enchanting stories the world has known.

The man was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson mathematics lecturer at Oxford, better known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll. The girl was the ten-year-old daughter of the head of Dodgson's college. Her name was Alice. And the story that he told her was Alice in Wonderland.

Dodgson was a shy man and he stammered. But he had an eccentric sense of humour, and was at ease with children.

He was also an accomplished photographer. He took pictures of eminent nineteenth-century men, and he is famous for his portraits of little girls.

Some of the characters in Alice in Wonderland were actually caricatures. Carroll gave them the mannerisms of professors and Oxford personalities that he and Alice Liddell both knew.

But when the story was published as a book in 1865 it delighted everybody with its comic invention and dream-like fantasy. In 1871 another 'Alice' story was published - Through the Looking Glass.

Queen Victoria was so taken with the stories that she asked for a copy of everything else that Lewis Carroll had written.

She was surprised when a pile of mathematical treatises was delivered to the palace the next day.

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Twenty-Six Miles From Europe

1066, the Battle of Hastings is the one date that every English schoolchild knows.

In that year William the Conqueror crossed the Channel, put an arrow in King Harold's eye, and made England part of the Norman empire.

Europe had come to Britain.

But in spite of this, for most of her history, Britian has not behaved like part of Europe.

In the days of the British Empire, her attention was directed away from the Continent. Her neighbours were only competitors in the race to colonize the globe.

When her power declined, Britian preferred to trade with her former colonies -the Commonwealth. And she refused the invitation to join the new European Community in 1957.

It was left to another Harold-Harold Wilson, to make the return trip across the channel. In 1973 he signed the treaty which took Britian into Europe. Nine hundred and seven years after the Battle of Hastings!

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The Edinburgh Festival

The Eighteenth century wit and man of letters, Dr Johnson, thought that the best thing in Scotland was the road to England.

Each year a million and a half visitors to the Edinburgh Festival show that they don't agree.

For three weeks in the summer the city plays host to one of the biggest and most varied cultural events in the world.

Visitors can choose between classical drama, experimental plays, opera, recitals, concerts, jazz sessions, one-man shows, film shows, exhibitions, readings, displays and performences of every kind. There is even a military tattoo.

If Dr Jonhson was alive today he would forget the road to England, at least for these three weeks.

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Hamburger and Chips

	Who's next ?
		I'll have a hamburger and chips and a chocolate milk-shake, please.
	Hamburger, chips and chocolate milk-shake. To eat here.. or to take away ?
		To eat here.
	That's two pounds fifty, please.
		We'll go and find a table, Ben.	Nick
	Right.
		Hamburger, chips and chocolate milk-shake- here you are, sir.
	Thanks.
		Next, please...
	Move up, Tara.
		This food is disgusting. Whose idea was it to come here ?	Nick
Tara	Yours.
		It was a bad idea. The steak is like leather ...and the chips are cold.	Nick
Zoot	The best thing here is the ketchup.

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Wimbledon - The Home of Tennis

Wimbledon is quiet suburb of London. But it is known world-wide for one thing-tennis. The Championships take place every year at the end of June.

The first Championships was in 1877. The prize was a cup worth 25. The rackets were the shape of snow shoes.

1884 - The First Women's Championships. The winner was Maud Watson, the daughter of a clergyman. But the first woman superstar was Suzanne Lenglen of France (Wibledon champion six times between 1918 and 1925). Lenglen moved like a ballerina.

For ninety-one years the Wibledon Championship was open only to amateurs. In 1968 it became the first international championship to abolish the difference between amateur and professional players. The Championship became 'open'.

Other championships ofter more prize money than Wimbledon. But the aim of every professional tennis player is to become Wimbledon Champion.

The extraordinary Björn Borg achieved this aim five times in succession between 1976 and 1980.

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Who's A Doctor

When Dr David Owen was Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, people abroad thought that, for a change, there was a genuine intellectual in the British government.

A doctorate is the highest university degree.

But Dr Owen is actually a Doctor of Medicine-a fact which is clear to all British people, because only medical doctors put the title 'Doctor' in front of their name.

In the United States it is different. That illustrious Secretary of State, Dr Henry Kissinger really is a Doctor of Philosophy! He got his Ph D at Harvard in 1954.

However, everyone refers to the author of the first English dictionary as Dr Johnson.

Johnson (1709-1784) was a Doctor of Letters, not Medicine. And he never used the title himself. But this didn't stop him saying:

'Life is a pill which no ne of us can bear to swallow without gilding.'

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There Must Be Some Mistake

	Are you in charge here ?
		Yes, I am. What can I do for you ?
	We're the 'Arrows of Desire'.
		Who are the 'Arrows of Desire' ?
	We're the group that you booked for tonight.
		I didn't book a group. I booked a folk-singer called Nick Yates.
	Well, I'm a rock singer called Nick Yates. How about that ?
		There must be some mistake. I was expecting a folk-singer.
	What kind of place is this ?
		It's a folk-club.
	Nobody mentioned that to us.
		There's obviously been a breakdown in communication.
	What we need to clarity is this Are we in the right place at the wrong time ? Or in the wrong place at the right time ?
		More to the point Do you want the group to play, Mr Snow ?
	Why not ? Bring your equipment in.

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Those Poor Fish

	Tim, I've got a bone to pick with you.
		What's the matter, Mrs Bennett ?
	Your cat wants to eat my goldfish.
		Oh, dear, I'm sorry.
	He keeps coming into my garden and sitting by the pond. And he stares at the goldfish. I'm very worried.
		I don't think he could catch them, even if he tried.
	Those poor fish.. must be terrified.
		I'm sure they're safe, as long as they stay in the water.
	How would you like it if a great big cat kept staring at you ?
		Maybe my cat is just fascinated by fish.
	Of course he is. Cats love fish that's what they eat ! This is no laughing matter, Tim.
		I'm sorry, Mrs Bennett. I'll have a word with him.

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