LONDON: THE СIТY OF LONDON.
London is traditionally divided into the West End (situated to the west of the City - hence the nаmе) and the East End (running eastwards from the City).
The West End is famous for shopping and entertainment. It includes Mayfair - the upper-middle-class area; Bloomsbury with its literary and cultural traditions.
Piccadilly Circus is situated at the heart of London`s West End. It is really wonderful to come here at night. Piccadilly looks much prettier at night, quite fantastic, the luminous advertisements shooting high into the sky. There is an old saying that if you stand in Piccadilly Circus long enough, you'll see the whole world pass before you, if you stand there for 10 minutes you'll soon understand what it is that makes London famous throughout the world. At night, theatre-land awakens, heralded by many thousands of bright lights.
The best-known parks of West and North West London are Hyde Park, Green Park, and Regent's Park. Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Green Park and St. James's Park are linked together. Hyde Park is the largest park in London, and it is visited by many thousands of Londoners every day. There is boating and swimming on the lake. And an interesting sight here is Speakers` Corner, situated on the edge of Hyde Park. There one can hear the most outlandish ideas and doctrines being preached without anyone ever doing anything to stop it, unless someone starts attacking the royal family, in which case a policeman would step in and tell them they were going too far.
Hyde Park like Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square in front of the Houses of Parliament is often the scene of political demonstrations for peace, for the rights of the working people of the country.
The East End, where working-class London is centered, includes a11 the main dock areas and is heavily industrialized.
London plays a very important role in the industrial development of Great Britain. It is the country's main centre of printing (it has half of all the workers in England and Wales engaged in the printing and bookbinding trades) and of manufacture of clothing, food and many other products. Factories are scattered throughout the older inner city districts, where they are often surrounded by streets of small houses.
Since mid-century there have been considerable changes in industrial location: a number of factories have been encouraged to move out of London, particularly during the last fifteen years.
There are also industrial estates of factories built thirty or forty years ago about 10 miles (about 16 kilometers) from the centre of the city (factory development has often followed new road construction, for example to the west of London, where the factories have good transport facilities).
There is most work for Londoners in offices and shops, though the government has encouraged offices (as well as factories) to move out of London. It has set an example itself by moving government departments such as Tax Offices into the regions. Londoners themselves are looking for better housing, better job opportunities and fresher air to breathe, away from the city.
G.D. Tomakhin, Иностранные языки в школе № I, I988.
Пояснение к тексту
West End - Уэст-Энд /Западная фешенебельная часть Лондона/
East End - Ист-Энд /Промышленный рабочий район Лондона/
Bloomsbury- Блумзбери /район в центральной части Лондона/
Mayfair - Мэйфэр /фешенебельный район Уэст-Энда/
Green Park - Грин Парк /тянется вдоль улицы Пиккадилли/
Regent's Park - Риджентс Парк /бывшее место королевской охоты/
St.James`s Park - Сент-Джеймский парк /в центре Лондона/
Kensington Gardens - Кенсингтон-Гарденз /большой парк в Лондоне/
Piccadilly Circus - Пиккадалли Серкус, площадь Пиккадилли.
Speakers' Corner - Уголок ораторов /место в Гайд-Парке/.
Слова и выражения для активного усвоения
to divide- делить, разделять
entertainment – развлечение
to link – связывать
hunting – охота
outlandish - странный
to preach- проповедовать
to print – печатать
to be engaged - быть занятым
to scatter – разбрасывать
to surround - окружать
considerable - значительный, важный
to follow - следовать
to encourage - поощрять, способствовать
to nova out - выезжать
to look for - искать
opportunity - удобный случай, возможность
Questions to the text.
1. What is the West End of London?
2. What are the best known parks of West find?
3. Wholives in the East End?
4. Does London play a very important role in the industrial development of Great Britain?
Text 8.
CAMBRIDGE
Cambridge is situated at a distance of 70 miles from London; the greater part of the town lies on the left bank of the river Cam crossed by several bridges.
Cambridge is one of the loveliest towns of England; it is not a modern industrial city and looks much like a country town.
It is very green presenting to a visitor a series of beautiful groupings of architecture, trees, gardens, lawns and bridges. The main building material is stone having a pinkish color which adds life and warmth to the picture at all seasons of the year. The dominating factor in Cambridge is its world-known University, a centre of education and learning, closely connected with the life and thought of Great Britain. Newton, Byron, Rutherford and many other scientists and writers were educated at Cambridge. In Cambridge everything centers on the University and its colleges, the eldest of which was founded in 1284. They are more than 30 in number. There is a close connection between the University and colleges, though they are quite separate in theory and practice.
A college is a place where you live, no matter what profession you are trained for: so that students studying literature and those trained for physics may belong to one and the same college.
However, the fact is that you are to be a member of a college in order to be member of the University.
Everycollege is headed by a dean. Discipline is looked after by Proctors and numerous minor officials called bulldogs.
If you are undisciplined you are fined or you mау be "gated" that isnot allowed to go out of the college gate.
In some cases you are expelled for a given period of time. A college is a group of buildings forming a square with a green lawn in the centre. An old tradition does not allow the students to walk on the grass; this is the privilege of professors and head-students only.
There is another tradition which the students are to follow; after sunset they are not allowed to go out without wearing a black cap and black cloak.
The University existed before the colleges. It has the power
to grant degrees, it defines courses of study, and organizes most
of the formal teaching.
The various subjects of study are controlled by a series of faculties and the teaching is provided by professors, readers and lecturers.
You study at the University for 4years, 3 terms a year. The long vacation lasts 3 months. You are trained by a tutor; each tutor has 10-12 students reading under his guidance. There are mаnу libraries at Cambridge; some of them have rare collections of books. In one of them among the earliest books by Shakespeare and other great writers one may see an early description of Russia by an Englishman on diplomatic service there (1591) and a Russian reading book of the seventeenth century.
"Методические указания и контрольные задания по английскому языку для студентов-заочников исторического факультета", 1970 г.
Пояснения к тексту
1. bulldog - педель
2. dean- декан
3. eldest - старший
4. tutor - руководитель
Слова и выражения для активного запоминания
to be present - присутствовать
to present - представлять
to find - находить
to found - основывать
to follow - следовать
education - образование
no matter - независимо от
term - семестр
closely - тесно, близко
member - член
in order to для того, чтобы
though - хотя
the same - один и тот же
to allow – разрешать
Questions to the text.
1. Where Is Cambridge situated?
2. Is Cambridge a modern Industrial city?
3. What is the dominating factor in Cambridge?
4. What scientists and writers were educated at Cambridge?
5. When was the first college founded?
6. What old traditions of Cambridge University do you know?
TEXT 9
ENGLISH TRADITIONS
If you arrive in Great Britain, you'll hear the word "tradition" everywhere. Englishmen have sentimental love for things and traditions because they are old, They never throw away old things.
For example, in many houses of Great Britain they have fire places. English people don't want to have changes. Therefore the Yeomen-Warders are dressed in traditional medieval clothes and the traditional dress of the Horse Guards regiment has existed since the twelfth century. This dress costs a lot of money and seems very funny nowadays, but Englishmen stand for it because it's their traditional dress.
If you enter the Houses of Parliament you'11 see the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
In the House of Lords there are two rows of benches for lords and a sack of wool for the Lord Chancellor to sit on. This is so because in the old times wool made England rich and powerful. In the Ноusе of Commons, which is not big and quite simple, you'll see two rows of benches for the two parties: the government on one side and the opposition - on the other. In front of the benches there is the strip of a carpet and when a member speaking in the House puts his foot beyond that strip, there is a shout "Order". This dates from the time when the members had swords on them and during the discussion might want to start fighting. The word "order" reminded them that no fighting was allowed in the House.
Another old custom remains from the time when there were a lot of robbers in London. In those days the shouting' "Who goes home?" was often heard in the Houses of Parliament and the members went in groups along the dark narrow streets of the old city. In modern London with its well-lit streets the shouting "Who goes home?" sounds very strange but it is still heard.
These are some of the traditions of which Great Britain has so many.
A.L. Diment, "Brush Up Your Talk", "Просвещение", М., 1983.
Пояснения к тексту
stand for it - придерживаются его
Yеomen-Warders - йомены /мелкопоместные дворяне/
House of Lords - палата Лордов
House of Commons - палата Общин
a sack of wool - мешок с шерстью
Lord Chancellor — лорд канцлер
Слова и выражения для активного запоминания
to arrive (in) - прибывать
to throw away - выбрасывать
a lot (of) - много
funny - смешной
remind - напоминать
robber- грабитель
to shout- кричать
narrow - узкий
Questions to the text.
1. What can you hear everywhere if you arrive in Great Britain?
2. What do English people prefer: central heating or fireplaces?
3. What does the English parliament consist of?
4. Why was the shouting "Who goes home?" often heard in the Houses of Parliament?
TEXT 10
MADAME TUSSAUD'S
History and Origins.
Madame Tussaud was born Marie Grosholts in 1761 in Strasbourg, France. Her father died before her birth, and her widowed mother went with young Marie to Berne in Switzerland to work аs housekeeper to Philippe Curtius, a German-born doctor and talented modeler in wax.
When Dr. Curtius moved to Paris he took Marie and her mother with him, and in 177O he opened an exhibition of. life-size wax figures which was an immediate success. From an early age Mario had been his pupil and by 1778 she was competent enough to model Voltaire whose figure hаs survived to this day. Two years later she was appointed art tutor to the sister of Louis XVI and she lived for the next nine years at the Palace of Versailles.
At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 she returned to Dr. Curtius in the centre of Paris, and it was during this period that Marie was commanded by the regime the grim task of taking death masks from the decapitated heads of the victims of the guillotine. The terror ended in 1794 the same year that Dr. Curtius died leaving Marie as his sole heir to run the exhibition. A year later she married Francis Tussaud, a civil engineer, and by 1800 she had given birth to a daughter who died and to two sons, Joseph and Francis.
Although the Revolution had ended France was still in a state of turmoil and visitors began to dwindle, Marie, now Madame Tussaud, became concerned for the success of her business and in 1802 she decided to move to England, leaving her husband and France forever.
During the next thirty three years she visited every major town and city in Britain presenting her exhibition in town balls, assembly rooms and theatres, modeling new figures and supervising the lighting and displays. For a middle-aged woman who spoke little English, Madame Tussaud's stamina must have been boundless.
By 1835 at the age of seventy four, she tired of travelling and decided to settle the exhibition permanently in London. Her last work was a self-portrait made eight years before her death in 1850 and the wax likeness of this tiny but indomitable woman still presides over the exhibition. She left the collection to her two sons and in 1884 the exhibition moved to its present site in Marylebone Road, next door to the new underground railway. But disaster struck in 1925 when a major fire destroyed all but outer walls and the basement mould store. Within three years however Madame Tussaund's opened again with many new figures as well as fresh casts from the salvaged moulds, and since then the exhibition has grown in reputation and popularity to become at present Britain's most visited tourist attraction.
Пояснение к тексту
Madame Tussaud`s - Музей мадам Тюссо /Лондонский музей восковых фигур/
Marie Grosholts-
Philippe Curtius-
Voltaire – Вольтер
Francis Tuseaud - Франц Тюссо
Marylebone Road - Марилебон Роуд /улица/
Слова и выражения для активного усвоения
to die — умирать
Housekeepеr – экономка
to move – переезжать
to survive – выжить
to appoint – назначить
grim - страшный, мрачный
to decapitate – обезглавливать
victim – жертва
heir - наследник
sole - единственный
to marry - жениться, выходить замуж
turmoil - смятение, беспорядок
to dwindle - уменьшаться
to supervise- надзирать, заведовать
to destroy - разрушать
Question to the text
1. Where was Marie Grosholtz born?
2. What was Philippe Curtius?
3. What did Marie Grosholtz do when she returned to Dr.Curtius?
4. Whom did she leave her collection to?