Progress
Gold B
Eva Hedencrona
Karin Smed-Gerdin
Peter Watcyn-Jones
Studentlitteratur
Skola och vuxenutbildning
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ISBN 978-91-44-03561-1
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Preface to the Second Edition
Progress Gold B is an all-in-one package for the B-course in English, comprising book, CD-ROM and Vocabulary Trainer.
The book consists of a text section, an exercise section, a resource
section and sections covering communication, vocabulary and use
of English. The text section contains examples taken from literature,
newspaper articles and ‘general’ prose from the English-speak­ing world;
the aim being to give information about society in general and of what
is meant by ‘cross-cultural communication’.
The chapter Authors of the English-Speaking World gives brief biographies of
classic British and American authors, contemporary authors from var­
ious English-speaking countries plus a brief history of English literature.
Extracts from the works of some of the ­authors mentioned here are
found in the book.
Before starting work, make sure you know where to find the various
sections in the book and how the CD-ROM and Vocabulary Trainer
work. On the next page there is a Quick Guide to Progress Gold B which we
recommend you to look at. There are also suggestions on how to work
with Progress Gold B.
We hope that Progress Gold B will enable you to work on your English in
the way that suits you best. We also hope that Progress Gold B will help
you to understand how culture influences communication and gain a
greater knowledge and understanding of the various English-speaking
countries.
We hope Progress Gold B will give you a good foundation for further
study and the necessary competence in English in a world where
an increasing number of people speak the language.
The authors
3
Quick Guide to Progress Gold B
‘All-in-one’ text and exercise book
Reading
Nine thematic chapters, with selections of writing from
different countries.
Resource Section
Help when speaking and writing English.
Exercises
A variety of exercises on each text and listening passage.
Group Challenge
Group and pair work for ‘light relief’.
Vocabulary Expanders
To build and broaden your general English vocabulary.
Use of English
Covering sentence construction, word-building and error analysis.
Wordlists
One for each text, at the back of the book.
CD-ROM
Recordings
All the texts, read by natives of different English-speaking countries.
Listening comprehension
One or two passages for each chapter. Exercises in the book.
Wordmatch and Spelling
Practise recognising and spelling the key vocabulary. Each item is
recorded separately to help you with pronunciation.
Vocabulary Expanders
Further practice to reinforce the Vocabulary Expander items in the book.
Grammar
Use this when you need specific help or for step-by-step grammar revision.
Links
Access to useful websites when working online.
4
Vocabulary Trainer
Planners
For planning and logging your work as you go.
Folding wordlists
A neat way to work through the key vocabulary in each
chapter – from English to Swedish and vice-versa.
Vocabulary Check
A variety of exercises to check your learning, with keys for
self-checking.
Getting started
Working on texts and listening passages
•Listen to a text or listening passage on the CD-ROM,
starting, stopping and repeating as you need.
•As you go, click on words for instant translations.
•Practise the vocabulary in Wordmatch and Spelling.
•Read the text in the book (wordlist is at the back of the book).
•Do the exercise(s) in the book and refer to the wordlist.
•Practise the vocabulary in Trainer.
•As you complete a text or exercise, tick it off on the Planner
page in Trainer.
Do some grammar work
•Work on Use of English in each chapter.
Build and broaden your general vocabulary
•Vocabulary Expanders give practice in the book and on the
CD-ROM.
Writing essays, CVs, giving oral presentations etc
•Resource Section gives advice on all this and more.
Enjoy light-hearted group work
•Group Challenge offers a mix of written and spoken group
exercises, for relaxation and fun.
5
Contents
Texts
Exercises • Introduction
–
151
1
Communicate
A Word Speak
The Ambassador’s Dandruff I Remember …
9
10
11
14
16
155
156
156
161
164
2
Empower
Symptoms of Love
Lover
Deadly Thoughts
How to Do a Book Report Come On! Complexity
J.R.R. Tolkien – Architect of Middle Earth
The Shadow of the Past
Listening The Card
3
Hot
Like Every Other American Family?
Showdown The Execution
The Green Mile Listening Sorry Day Listening Talking Cockney
18
19
19
20
22
24
25
27
29
30
32
37
38
160
169
170
170
171
176
178
179
179
174
184
188
188
189
191
186
4 Still Going Strong
Shakespeare and the Globe
Romeo and Juliet – On the Balcony
42
43
46
197
198
200
Extracts from Literary Classics
Emma
Oliver Twist
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
I Hear America Singing
A Room of One’s Own
49
51
54
57
58
206
206
206
207
207
Listening
The Story of Romeo and Juliet
• Authors of the English-Speaking World
6
59
201
5
Fighting Spirits
Mahatma Gandhi
I Have Lived a Thousand Years
Ellen MacArthur 65
66
69
71
217
218
220
222
Listening
The Handkerchief An Interview with Stephen Hawking
221
225
6
Life Is …
A Turning Point
Leisure
The Way to Happiness
Love is an irresistible …
The future’s so bright I’ve gotta wear shades
My Mother’s Blue Bowl
75
76
78
79
81
81
82
229
230
234
234
235
235
237
Listening The Luncheon
238
7
Voices from the 1960s
The Good Old Days
Lennon According to McCartney
My People
Respectfully, Jackie
Coming Home from Vietnam
85
86
88
90
91
94
242
243
244
247
251
253
Listening I Have a Dream
250
8
How It Works
To Infinity and Beyond A Brief History of Inventions
The Democratic Driver
The Pig
Read My Lips
Just Do It!
Do It Again?!
97
98
100
102
104
105
106
108
257
258
259
264
265
265
266
267
Listening Who Lives, Who Dies?
262
9
Traveller
Barriers to Cross
Istanbul – Neither Here Nor There
Computers in Paradise
Meet Canada
Explore South Africa
111
112
115
118
122
125
271
272
273
275
279
280
Listening From Alice to Ocean
278
resource Section
Group Challenge
Vocabulary expanders
use of english
Wordlists
127
285
293
313
327
7
5 Fighting Spirits
Mahatma Gandhi
I Have Lived a Thousand Years
Ellen MacArthur
Listening
The Handkerchief
An Interview with Stephen Hawking
Fighting Spir its
65
Mahatma Gandhi
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
66
The English magistrate kept staring at Gandhi’s turban and finally
asked him to take it off. Gandhi demurred – Indian men wore
turbans as a symbol of their manli­ness and thought it disrespectful to remove them in public – and quit the court. Out­side, Dada
Abdulla Sheth explained that in South Africa turbans were often
treated like hats and removed in public, precisely in order not to
be disrespectful. Gandhi said that he could not treat his turban
like a hat, and that therefore he should perhaps get a hat. Dada
Abdulla Sheth then told him that Indians in South Africa who
wore hats and Western dress were usually Christian converts,
worked in European restaurants as wait­ers, and were regarded by
other Indians as outcastes. He went on to explain, however, that
the forms of race preju­dice in South Africa were quite haphazard
and capricious, and that another English magis­trate might not
have regarded Gandhi’s wearing his turban as disrespectful.
Gandhi decided he would take his chances with his turban.
Gandhi left the port city by night train for Pretoria, some
three hundred and fifty miles away. He was travelling first class.
Before the train had gone very far, a European passenger ordered
him out of the compartment, telling him he must travel in the
van reserved for colored people, in the rear of the train. Gandhi
appealed to a train official, informing the man that he had a firstclass ticket, which had been bought for him from a European
ticket clerk, and he refused to move. But the train official called a
constable while the train was in the station at Maritzburg, and the
constable forcibly removed Gandhi.
Gandhi spent the night alone, huddled up in a cold, dark waiting room in the stat­ion, too humiliated and confused to ask the
stationmaster for his luggage, which contained his overcoat, and
wondering ­whet­her he should proceed to Pretoria at all or return
home to Rajkot; whether he should fight for his rights or let
himself be insulted. He later came to regard his night in the
Maritzburg station as one of the turning points of his life.
In the morning, he telegraphed Dada Abdulla Sheth and the
railway authorities in Durban, and, thanks to their intervent­ion,
Fighting Spir its
5
10
15
he was allowed to continue his journey in a first-class compartment. The train from Maritzburg took him as far as Charlestown,
where he was obliged to change to a stagecoach. Its conductor,
a Boer, would not let Gandhi sit inside with him and his other
passengers, who all happened to be Europeans that day, but said
he must sit next to the coachman, on the coach box. Gandhi protested but did as he was bidden. When the stagecoach stopped at a
town called Pardekoph, the conductor ordered Gandhi to sit on
the footboard, so that he himself could sit on the coach box for a
­while and have a smoke. “The insult was more than I could bear,”
Gandhi writes. “In fear and trembling I said to him, ‘…You would
have me sit at your feet. I will not do so…’ The man came down
upon me and began heavily to box my ears.” The conduct­or
heaped curses on Gandhi and tried to push him onto the footboard. But Gandhi held fast to his seat, and the other passengers
finally took pity on him and made the conductor leave him
Fighting Spir its
67
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10
15
20
25
alone. After several other humiliating encounters, during which
Gandhi sometimes invoked and ­obtained the help of the authorities, he reached Pretoria.
Within a few days of arriving in Pretoria, Gandhi, perhaps
because of his humiliat­ing journey, set up a series of regular
meetings of all Indian residents, mostly petty traders, at the home
of an Indian acquaint­ance of his to discuss their experiences of
racial discrimination. He also started study­ing the so-called “disability laws” dir­ected against Indians in the Transvaal. Indians were
prohibited from owning property except in designated locat­ion,
and even there they could not have freeholds. They were not
allowed to vote, and they were required to pay an ­annual head
tax of three pounds. They were prohibited from being on the
streets after 9 p.m. unless they were on business for Europeans,
in which case they had to carry a pass stating the nature of the
business. Individual government officials, all of whom were
Europeans, exer­cised considerable personal discretion in enforcing the disability laws.
After Gandhi had been in Pretoria for about three months, he
wrote to the Natal Advertiser, a newspaper published in Durban,
“It seems, on the whole, that their [Indians’] simplicity, their total
abstinence from intoxicants, their peaceful and above all their
businesslike and frugal habits, which should serve as a recommendation, are really at the bottom of all this contempt and
hatred of the poor Indian traders. And they are British subjects. ­
Is this Christian-like, is this fair play, is this justice, is this civilization?”
F rom M ahatma G an dhi
a n d His A postles
by V ed M ehta
Exercises p. 218 and Vocabulary Trainer Chapter 5
68
Fighting Spir its
I Have Lived a
Thousand Years
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
When I was thirteen, German soldiers bearing Nazi flags marched
into Budapest, the capital of Hungary, and my life changed for­
ever. Within days, my family – my mother, my father, my
­brother, my aunt and myself – were taken away from our home.
We were delivered to another town where, along with thousands
of other Jews, we were crowded into the synagogue compound
designated a “ghetto”, or a transit camp, to await “deportation”.
From there, a three-day ride in a dark, cramped cattle car with
little air and no water was the prelude to our descent into the
nightmare of Auschwitz, a concentration camp where close to
four million people were mass-murdered and a few thousand
were kept alive to perform slave labour. My father was no longer
with us. A few days before our incarceration in the train he was
taken away abruptly, without a last goodbye, to a different forced
labour camp.
Upon our arrival on the Auschwitz platform, my seventeenyear-old brother was shoved brutally into a line of men. Then a
frenetic march of panicky women and crying children began.
Driven by barking, ferocious bloodhounds and an ongoing hail of
blows, the march ended at the gate of the camp. Here a man
named Dr Josef Mengele decided whether people would live or
die. With stick in hand, Dr Mengele selected Aunt Serena for the
gas chamber together with the infirm, the elderly and mothers
with their children.
Because I was tall for my age and my blonde plaits made me
look Aryan, Dr Mengele, the “Angel of Death”, pulled me and
Mummy out of the line leading to the gas chamber. Instead of
death in the crematorium, Mummy and I were condemned to
life in the inferno.
Through a series of miraculous twists of fate, Mummy and I
survived until the end of the war, a year later. On 30 April 1945,
American soldiers liberated us from a train in which thirty thous­
and dying inmates from a number of camps were being shipped
to an unknown destination.
By another one of those incredible twists of fate, my brother,
Fighting Spir its
69
5
10
Bubi, was put on the same train, and the three of us savoured the
bitter taste of freedom together. Together we confronted the reality of life after liberation – the full realization of our tragic losses.
Then we began the journey home.
Little did I know then what agonies and adventures awaited
me, and that our journey to reach a safe haven would take six
harrowing years.
My story is one of triumphs in the face of overwhelming odds,
of extraordinary events in extraordinary times. And yet, I believe
it is essentially the story of a teenager. It reflects the struggles,
fears and aspirations shared by many teenagers at any given time.
That teenager could have been you.
by Livia Bitto n - J ackson
Exercises p. 220 and Vocabulary Trainer Chapter 5
xercises p.
70
Fighting Spir its
Ellen MacArthur
Fearless, determined and heroic, Ellen MacArthur holds the
world record* for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the
globe. During her voyage she battled hurricanes and extremes
of fatigue and loneliness. However, asked what the worst part
was, she replied, ‘Getting off the boat at the finishing line.’
Ellen’s favourite expression is ‘à fond’, French for ‘go for it’.
This is what her many French admirers call out to her during
races.
5
10
15
20
25
30
The year 2001 was a year of triumph. In February, Ellen became
the fastest female and youngest sailor to compete in the solo nonstop Vendée Globe race. She came second. Her reports from the
race were shown on national television and she became a household name. In December she became sailing world champion
when she won the Fico-Lacoste World Championship. In the
same month, she was runner-up in the BBC’s Sports Personality
of the Year award – second only to football hero David Beckham –
and named the Sunday Times Woman of the Year. On 12 December,
she received the MBE from the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
In 2002, Ellen announced her attempt to break the Jules Verne
round-the-world record. Ellen began the voyage on 30 January
2003 on the 110-foot catamaran Kingfisher, with a crew of 14. Her
record-breaking attempt failed on 23 February when the boat lost
its mast 2,000 miles from the Australian coast. In April, her sponsors announced that a new boat would be built for Ellen with the
sole objective of breaking solo speed sailing records.
In the summer of 2000, Ellen had become involved with the
French charity À chacun son cap (Everyone has a goal), accompanying a group of children suffering from cancer on a sailing trip.
She described the time she spent with them as one of the best
day’s sailing she had ever had. She was determined to set up a
similar organization in England and in 2003 launched the Ellen
MacArthur Trust, which aims to support and empower children
with cancer or leukaemia by introducing them to the joys of sailing on the sea. In Ellen’s words, ‘I have seen first-hand the joy and
inspiration that time out on the water can give kids suffering
from cancer and leukaemia – for the short time that they are at
sea, they experience another life. It’s a transformation for many of
them. I love this work.’
*Her record has since been broken.
Fighting Spir its
71
5
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Ellen began her next attempt at the round-the-world record
on 28 November 2004 in the new 75-foot trimaran B&Q/Castorama.
She set out from a point between Ushant and the Lizard in the
Atlantic. During the voyage, she had to handle sails the weight of
a car, stay up all night in storms, hang one-handed off a 90-foot
high mast in churning seas, and negotiate hurricanes, icebergs
and whales. Her strength, courage and competence were extra­
ordinary. Apart from the physical fatigue, she also had to cope
with great loneliness, ‘times when you’d start spiralling downwards without really understanding why. You’re tired, and a lot
of little things pull you into that spiral, and before you know it,
you’re at rock bottom and there’s no one to pull you out.’ On 7
February 2005, Ellen broke the world record for the fastest solo
circumnavigation of the globe, setting a new record time of 71
days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds.
72
Fighting Spir its
Day Twenty-Nine 26/12/04
13 hours 47 minutes ahead – 1,360 miles east of the Kerguelen Islands
5
10
Well, I’m a bit stuck for words this morning. In fact it’s about 3 p.m. local
time – that just about sums up my day, really. I have no idea how much
sleep I’ve had, though I know it’s not enough by far … sleep is the rarest
commodity out here, sleep and the time to eat. How many times have I
said to myself: “Shall I eat or sleep?” Basic but fundamental decisions.
Yesterday was a day from hell, with horrendous conditions and a few “full
on” moments when your heart is in your mouth – well it’s either that or
your stomach, it all feels the same. We physically got picked up by a freak
wave yesterday, which made poor Mobi seem smaller than a duck in a
swimming pool, that was probably the scariest moment of the trip so far –
just not knowing where, or how we would land … It’s hardest when you
have a few seconds to think about it. Normally when the waves hit you it’s
bang, and the damage is done; when you’re thrown, it’s a much more prolonged fear, like waiting for the trigger to be pulled – or not, as the case
Fighting Spir its
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10
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20
25
30
35
might be. We had two “hits” yesterday: the first was being thrown, the second was a solid wave landing on the boat as hard as if an elephant had
been dropped on us from heaven. I thank my lucky stars that I was down
below at the time, and that the damage was limited – but just to see the
elastic parted like butter and the rope bags ripped off was humbling … a
statement of how irrelevant we are out here , and how we have to “earn”
our permit to pass … It’s not a place for bravado or complacency. This is
real, very real, black and white real and when you close your eyes that reality
does not slip away. The odds are only magnified in your head, reminding
you that there’s no way out but to stay cool. There are no second chances …
After the storm yesterday I managed about 30 minutes in my bunk as the
wind began to moderate, then it was all hands on deck … Briefly we saw the
beautiful full moon, and the wind, which had been up at over 45, began to
decrease … My sail changes had to start at a time when I scarcely had the
energy to feed myself … Over a period of about 8 hours I did 12 sail changes, from triple-reefed main and stay sail to full main genoa … by the time
the wind died to 10 knots at sunrise this morning I was hurrying up and
down the decks that were swaying around in a massively confused and violently undulating sea … each time struggling not to fall over or be hit by a
breaking wave through the nets … by the time I had to pull out that final
reef I was close to breaking … a cold, tired and emotionally drained wreck.
Sitting, checking for hours and hours with every muscle in your body tense
– just waiting for the next thing to go wrong takes its toll – even the anticipation of a really arse-kicker storm makes you quite weak at the knees … My
mouth was dry, I felt quite out of sorts … fear and grim anticipation act in
funny ways … Now I’m here at the chart table and for some reason I felt like
getting this down as an e-mail. I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I
know that this will feel better tomorrow – these thoughts will have drifted
and faded by the next full moon and the sunset … Incidentally, it seems a
while since we’ve seen the sun, another day of sailing through dense, white,
drizzly, stormy clouds over a grey powerful sea. The generator’s on, so my
feet are finally warming – and the kettle’s full, ready for lunch … Got that
third reef to put in first, though; we’re surfing at 26 knots and the wind just
reached 35. We’ve sailed back into the front that left us behind … there really
is no rest for us out here … no rest at all … I think we’ll celebrate our
Christmas at New Year … well we can always hope. Christmas this year was
sadly just another day, albeit a bad one, at the office. At least Mobi and I are
in one piece.
F rom Women Who C ha n ged the World
b y R osali n d H orton an d Sally Simmons
a n d R ace A gain st T ime by E llen M acArthur
Exercises p. 222 and Vocabulary Trainer Chapter 5
74
Fighting Spir its
8 How It Works
To Infinity and Beyond
A Brief History of Inventions
The Democratic Driver
The Pig
Read MyLips
Just Do It!
Do It Again?!
Listening
Who Lives, Who Dies?
How It Works
97
To Infinity and Beyond
5
10
15
20
Unlike in the early days of space travel, a time when the only route to space was
by being a military test pilot, most space agencies today have opened up the
astronaut selection process to civilians. The most basic requirement is a science
or engineering background – generally a four-year college degree – and experience. Candidates must also pass a physical exam, which will verify general good
health, and meet a few other specific criteria. Finding your glasses in zero gravity
(“zero-g”) isn’t easy, so uncorrected vision better than 20/100 is a requirement.
Blood pressure cannot be too high, since an astronaut must be able to withstand
the pressures of a launch and the effects of zero-g. A height requirement insures
that you’re not too tall to fit into the spacecraft or too short to reach the controls. A psychological exam is also required. Those who are unable to remain
cooped up in a small space that is strapped on top of tons of high explosives
need not apply. Astronauts must also like to work as part of a team and be able
to get along with co-workers. After one hundred days in space onboard a small
space station, every little habit your colleagues have may just become too annoying to deal with. Cosmonauts who have had extended stays on the Mir Space
Station typically need about a year before they develop the desire to talk to one
another again. It’s not that they’re mad at each other, it’s because they have
already been exposed to each and every story the other person has to tell his or
her captive audience. […]
98
How It Works
F rom Moo ndust
b y An drew S mith
Exercises p. 258 and Vocabulary Trainer Chapter 8
Once selected for training, astronaut candidates attend a year-long “astronaut candidate school” at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston,
Texas, in order to qualify for spaceflight. All astronauts attend courses in aircraft
and spacecraft safety and take a full range of science and technical courses as
well. Survival training is a necessary part of this experience, as an emergency
water landing is a very real possibility. The basic training is rounded out with
knowledge of the Shuttle’s systems, orbiter habit­ability, housekeeping and maintenance, waste management, and extravehicular activity. To prepare for EVAs, all
astronauts must become SCUBA qualified.
All astronaut candidates learn to function in weightlessness with the help of
the “vomit comet” trainer aircraft, so named because of a side effect it produces
on many first time travelers, i.e., motion sickness. Additional weightless training
can be simulated in the “neutral buoyancy” water tank at JSC. Pilot astronauts
train in T-38 jet aircraft and a modified Grumman Gulfstream II. Although the
astronaut corps considers candidates to be true astronauts, they don’t become
“official” astronauts until completion of the basic course. Advanced training follows the year-long basic course. Then, once they are selected for a mission,
astronauts enter an additional period of mission-specific training for seven to
twelve months before launch.
How It Works
99
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A Brief History of
Inventions
Dates BC
4241 BC The first year in which events can be
precisely dated. This is made possible
by the introduction of the Egyptian
calendar.
c. 3000 BC The Babylonians invent the ­abacus, the
first adding machine.
287 BC The birth of Archimedes, who invents
many valuable mechanical devices
using screws and levers.
1783 The Montgolfier brothers successfully
fly a hot air balloon.
1801 The Nautilus, an early submarine,
completes its maiden voyage.
1819 Augustus Siebe designs a pressurized
diving suit enabling people to dive to
greater depths.
1821 Charles Babbage starts work on his difference engine, designed to draw up
complicated mathematical tables automatically, considered by many to be
the forerunner of the computer.
Dates AD
999 The first mechanical clock is invented
by a monk.
1280 The first pair of glasses is made in Italy.
1450s Johannes Gutenberg’s printing presses
revolutionize the product­ion of books.
This, in turn, speeds up the spread of
information about new inventions.
1452 The birth of Leonardo da Vinci, an artist who invents numerous machines.
1592 Galileo builds a telescope which magnifies things 30 times.
1614 John Napier, a Scottish mathematician,
invents his logarithm tables.
1668 Isaac Newton builds a reflecting telescope.
1698 The first steam engine, built by
Thomas Savery, is used for pumping
water out of flooded mines.
1733 The flying shuttle, invented by an
English weaver, doubles the amount of
cloth a person can produce in one day.
1778 Household sanitation is greatly
improved by the introduction of
Joseph Bramah’s new toilets.
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How It Works
1826 Joseph Niepce, a French physicist, takes
the world’s first photograph.
1829 George Stephenson wins a competition
to design and build the best steam
locomotive. He produces a locomotive
called The Rocket.
1837 Isambard Kingdom Brunel launches
the first transatlantic steamship.
1843 Samuel Morse designs his famous dotdash code for use when sending telegraphic messages.
1846 An American dentist uses ether to
numb pain during a jaw operat­ion.
1848 The first escalator is opened in New
York as a tourist attraction.
1849 The safety pin is invented.
1860 The Belgian Étienne Lenoir builds the
first internal combustion engine.
1863 The first underground railway line
opens in London.
1868 A newspaper editor, Christopher
Sholes, builds the first practical typewriter.
1876 Alexander Bell sends the first telephone
message.
1938 An American, Chester Carlson, invents
the first photocopying machine.
1877 Thomas Edison produces the musical
phonograph.
1939 The first helicopter is built by a Russian
engineer named Igor Sikorsky.
1878 Joseph Swan invents the electric light
bulb.
1942 In Chicago, USA, controlled nuclear
energy is successfully produced.
1879 Ernst von Siemens demonstrates the first
train to run on electrified tracks.
1946 ENIAC, America’s first electronic computer, is publicly demonstrated.
1948 Three American scientists named John
Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William
Shockley miniaturize electronic circuitry by inventing a device called the
transistor and win a Nobel Prize for
their work.
1881 Émile Berliner patents a gramophone
using flat discs.
1888 George Eastman produces the Kodak no. 1
camera and develops customers’ films.
1890 The Daimler Motor Company starts to
manufacture four-wheel, fuel-driven cars.
1895 In Paris, the Lumière brothers put on a
show with ten moving films.
1898 Valdemar Poulson designs the forerunner
of the modern tape recorder.
1901 King Camp Gillette patents the disposable
safety razor blade.
1902 Italian Guglielmo Marconi transmits a
radio message across the English Channel.
1903 The American Wright brothers make the
first powered aircraft flight.
1903 Henry Ford introduces mass production
techniques with his new car factory.
1908 Named after its inventor, the Geiger counter is used for detecting and measuring
radiation.
1923 Two Swedish engineers design the first
refrigerator.
1925 Traffic lights are installed in London.
1926 John Logie Baird successfully transmits
the first television image of a human face.
1928 The American invention “Sellotape”
becomes an everyday item.
1935 The German company AEG introduces
magnetic plastic tape for recording sound.
1938 A Hungarian inventor Lazlo Biro
introduces the first ballpoint pen which is
called a biro.
1957 The Russian Sputnik I is the first
­artificial object to orbit the Earth.
1960 Theodore Maiman builds the world’s
first laser.
1962 Telstar is launched, the first satellite to
relay live TV as well as telephone calls.
1977 America launches the Space Shuttle,
the world’s first reusable spacecraft.
1982 Philips and Sony introduce compact
discs.
1987 Digital audio cassettes are introduced.
1990 The first transmission of high
­definition television.
1994 In December the Playstation is
launched in Japan by Sony. (One
­million units were sold by May 1995.)
1996 First DVD-ROM players introduced in
Japan and the USA.
1997 Dolly the sheep (the first successful
animal cloning).
2002 The first portable media player
(mp3-player) is launched by the
Archos company, providing the user
with a personal ’jukebox’. Video is
soon added.
Exercises p. 259 and Vocabulary Trainer Chapter 8
How It Works
101
The Democratic
Driver
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Each weekday, 9.3 million people move about the capital in cars
or taxis, but there are just 3.3 million ‘bus users’. For sure, this is a
big majority but it’s bigger still when you remember that if you
take a bus to work, you sure as hell have to use it to get home
again. That means the 3.3 million ‘bus users’ becomes 1.7 million.
Then there are those who commute on the bus and use it at
lunchtime.
Even London Regional Transport admit that only about 1 million people use a bus each day. This means that there are nine
people in cars for every one on a bus. On that basis, it should be
nine times harder for a bus to get around on our roads than it is
for a car.
However, this is not so. There are 45 miles of bus lanes in
London which, at certain times, cannot legally be used by cars. A
majority, therefore, is squeezed into the resultant traffic jams and
has to watch a minority whizz by in acrylic coats and plastic
shoes.
How It Works
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To hammer the point home, buses are now to be seen carrying advertisements on their rumps telling car drivers that the bus
lanes are London’s arteries. ‘If you drive your car in one, you’re a
clot’ proclaims the tag line.
So, I pay £100 a year for the privilege of sitting in a jam, caused
by a bus lane which is being used by people who pay a few pence.
That is certainly not democratic.
Even when the buses aren’t working, you aren’t allowed to
use these lanes, and the police, displaying their usual common
sense, emerge in force to hammer this point home.
And who the hell do bus drivers think they are? As soon as
the last pensioner is aboard, they pull out into the traffic stream,
oblivious to the fact that I might be alongside at the time.
Only the other day, the avoiding action I was forced to take
nearly resulted in that silly stolen baby being taken off the front
pages. And in the ensuing discussion, the driver had the audacity
to use the f word while explaining there was a poster on the back
of his bus telling me to give way whenever he wants to set off.
Why should I? I am young, with a living to earn and a mortgage
to pay. His passengers are old or unemployed and cannot therefore be in much of a hurry.
To prove that buses do nothing but clog things up, you
should look at what happened when they all went on strike last
year. Many left-wing radio stations predicted chaos would result
as everyone took their cars instead of the bus. This is rubbish
because people who use the buses don’t actually own cars.
In fact, I have never seen the traffic in London flow so well,
which is hardly surprising when you consider that huge, red
oblongs, each of which is bigger than my flat, weren’t stopping
every few yards. A great deal of effort is used to dissuade people
from stopping their cars, even momentarily, at the side of the
road; yet it is fine for vehicles three times larger than even the
biggest Mercedes to stop, whenever and wherever they damn
well want.
As a result of that day, I am of the opinion that the biggest
cause of traffic congestion in the capital is the public transport
system.
One of these days, someone is going to have to get tough;
someone is going to have to explain that buses must go, that they
are the principal cause of traffic jams and that they have no place
in a democracy.
Unless this happens soon, I will move to Moscow where
special lanes are reserved for rich and important people such as
myself, and not the proletariat scum in their trams.
How It Works
From Clarkso n on Cars
by Jeremy Clarkson
Exercises p. 264 and Vocabulary
Trainer Chapter 8
103
The Pig
In England once there lived a big
And wonderfully clever pig.
To everybody it was plain
That Piggy had a massive brain.
He worked out sums inside his head,
There was no book he hadn’t read,
He knew what made an airplane fly,
He knew how engines worked and
why.
He knew all this, but in the end
One question drove him round the
bend:
He simply couldn’t puzzle out
What LIFE was really all about.
What was the reason for his birth?
Why was he placed upon this earth?
His giant brain went round and
round.
Alas, no answer could be found,
Till suddenly one wondrous night,
All in a flash, he saw the light.
He jumped up like a ballet dancer
And yelled, “By gum, I’ve got the
answer!”
“They want my bacon slice by slice
“To sell at a tremendous price!
“They want my tender juicy chops
“To put in all the butchers’ shops!
“They want my pork to make a roast
“And that’s the part’ll cost the most!
“They want my sausages in strings!
“They even want my chitterlings!
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“The butcher’s shop! The carving
knife!
“That is the reason for my life!”
Such thoughts as these are not
designed
To give a pig great peace of mind.
Next morning, in comes Farmer
Bland,
A pail of pigswill in his hand,
And Piggy with a mighty roar,
Bashes the farmer to the floor . . .
Now comes the rather grizzly bit
So let’s not make too much of it,
Except that you must understand
That Piggy did eat Farmer Bland,
He ate him up from head to toe,
Chewing the pieces nice and slow.
It took an hour to reach the feet,
Because there was so much to eat,
And when he’d finished, Pig, of
course,
Felt absolutely no remorse.
Slowly he scratched his brainy head
And with a little smile, he said,
“I had a fairly powerful hunch
“That he might have me for his
lunch.
“And so, because I feared the worst,
“I thought I’d better eat him first.”
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F rom Dirt y Beasts by Roald D ahl
Exercises p. 265 and Vocabulary Trainer Chapter 8
104
How It Works
Read My
Lips
Even women who don’t wear makeup wear lipstick. It’s
the one cosmetic we can’t live without – and can’t seem
to get enough of. Just ask the 92 percent of women who
wear it regularly and buy an average of four tubes a year.
It has the highest usage of any cosmetic product;
according to a report cited in Glamour magazine, the
average woman consumes four to nine pounds of it in
her lifetime. Nothing can keep a girl from her lipstick,
which may explain why it’s one of the most commonly
shoplifted items. The image of a woman gazing into a
mirror or a compact or her reflection in a window,
applying color to her lips, is one that transcends time
and culture.
Part of lipstick’s allure is its availability – it’s an inexpensive luxury that anyone can indulge in, a quick glam
fix rivaled in “I-gotta-have-it-ness” only by the little
black dress (but has the advantage because it’s cheaper).
Even during the Depression, when food and other daily
necessities were scarce, women still found money for
the single cosmetic that would boost their morale. “The
small cosmetic represented adventure, glamour, and
high living at a low price,” wrote Maggie Angeloglou in
A History of Makeup. “The woman who made a new lipstick shade an excuse to linger in a luxurious atmosphere, to talk over and then make her choice, and to
daydream all the way home, was a comforted woman.”
For a small price – as little as $1 a tube for a drugstore
brand – lipstick offers a big reward. And for those willing to spend a little more – up to $25 for a high-end
department store number – they can have the added
satisfaction of owning the Rolls Royce of lipsticks. (Most
women may not be able to afford a Chanel suit, but
they can certainly have a taste of the good life with one
of Coco’s shades.)
For all its simplicity, lipstick carries a huge responsibility: It makes a first impression and leaves a lasting
mark. It’s a quiet surprise that speaks volumes about the
wearer – announcing a mood, extending an invitation,
sealing a deal. More than mascara or foundation or eye
shadow, lipstick is loaded with meaning and steeped in
symbolism.
from R ead M y L ips b y M eg Cohe n
R agas & K are n K ozlowski
Exercises p. 265 and Vocabulary Trainer Chapter 8
How It Works
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Just Do It!
Sometimes when you work in advertising you’ll get a product that’s really garbage and you have to make it
seem fantastic, something that is
essential to the continued quality of
life. Like once, I had to do an ad for
hair conditioner. The strategy was:
Adds softness you can feel, body you can see.
But the thing is, this was a lousy
product. It made your hair sticky
and in focus groups, women hated it.
Also, it reeked. It made your hair
smell like a combination of bubble gum and Lysol. But somehow,
I had to make people feel that it was the best hair conditioner
ever created. I had to give it an image that was both beautiful and
sexy. Approachable and yet aspirational.
Advertising makes everything seem better than it actually is.
And that’s why it’s such a perfect career for me. It’s an industry
based on giving people false expectations. Few people know how
to do that as well as I do, because I’ve been applying those basic
advertising principles to my life for years.
When I was thirteen, my crazy mother gave me away to her
lunatic psychiatrist, who adopted me. I then lived a life of squalor,
pedophiles, no school and free pills. When I finally escaped, I presented myself to advertising agencies as a self-educated, slightly
eccentric youth, filled with passion, bursting with ideas. I left out
the fact that I didn’t know how to spell or that I had been giving
blowjobs since I was thirteen.
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Not many people get into advertising when they’re nineteen,
with no education beyond elementary school and no connections.
Not just anybody can walk in off the street and become a copywriter and get to sit around the glossy black table saying things
like, “Maybe we can get Molly Ringwald to do the voice-over,” and
“It’ll be really hip and MTV-ish.” But when I was nineteen, that’s
exactly what I wanted. And exactly what I got, which made me feel
that I could control the world with my mind.
I could not believe that I had landed a job as a junior copywriter on the National Potato Board account at the age of nineteen.
For seventeen thousand dollars a year, which was an astonishing
fortune compared to the nine thousand I had made two years
before as a waiter at a Ground Round.
That’s the great thing about advertising. Ad people don’t care
where you came from, who your parents were. It doesn’t matter.
You could have a crawl space under your kitchen floor filled with
little girls’ bones and as long as you can dream up a better Chuck
Wagon commercial, you’re in.
And now I’m twenty-four years old, and I try not to think
about my past. It seems important to think only of my job and my
future. Especially since advertising dictates that you’re only as good
as your last ad. This theme of forward momentum runs through
many ad campaigns.
A body in motion tends to stay in motion. (Reebok, Chiat/Day.)
Just do it. (Nike, Weiden and Kennedy.)
Damn it, something isn’t right. (Me, to my bathroom mirror at fourthirty in the morning, when I’m really, really plastered.)
from Dr y – A M emoir
b y Auguste n B urroughs
Exercises p. 266 and Vocabulary Trainer Chapter 8
How It Works
107
Do It Again?!
Well, this wasn’t right. This wasn’t right at all.
Keith leaned back from me, smiling warmly – as though I were a
beloved son returned at last from the war. His arms were outstretched and his hands fastened to the sides of my shoulders.
He gave me a friendly little shake.
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‘Er . . . Keith . . .’ I said, cautiously. ‘Have you found Jesus?’
Keith laughed like someone in a musical, and gave me yet
another friendly little shake. ‘You’ve no idea, have you?’ he said.
‘About what?’
‘You’re a star, mate – that’s what.’
I looked over at Jenny. She smiled at me too; though, unlike
Keith, it wasn’t scary when she did it. ‘What’s he on about?’ I
asked her.
‘You’ve become a bit of a celeb on the Net, apparently,’ Jenny
replied.
I instantly had a vision of dozens of photographs of me naked
having been plastered all over some seedy Website. Before I could
stop it, the idea tragically gave me a tiny thrill. Except, as far as I
knew, there weren’t any photographs of me naked in existence.
And, really, it’s the kind of thing I think I would know about, if
there were.
‘What?’ I said.
Keith took over. ‘It seems that someone who was listening last
night started talking about you on one of those Internet chat
things. People began to visit our Webpage to listen to the archive
of the show. Word spread, it was picked up by sites that do listings
of interesting links, and it got mentioned in some . . . um, what
did Danny say they were called, Jenny?’
How It Works
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‘Blogs.’
‘That’s it. They’re like online diaries or something – nerds
talking to themselves in public. Anyway, the upshot is that
you’ve become a little bit of a phenomenon. Our site’s had a crazy
amount of visits – from all over the world. More people have
accessed the online archive of last night’s show in the past day
than would have listened to you here in an entire week.’
I nodded, thoughtfully. ‘Right.’
Well, that was good. I mean, even considering that my weekly
listening figures rarely peaked higher than the bottom reaches of
‘miserable’, it was still good to have topped them, online, in a
single day. I was popular. And, because I was popular, Keith was
happy with me. I’d been wretched all day and, to be quite honest,
I was settled in now. It wasn’t easy to let go – I’d got it nailed.
There was a good deal of inertia urging me to remain comprehensibly fed up, but I was finding it hard to devise a way of
characterising this new information in a fashion that didn’t make
it look like Good News.
‘Three minutes,’ said Jenny.
‘God!’ Keith cheerfully started to bundle me through the control room, in the direction of the door to the studio. ‘Quick, Rob
– get in there and let them have it. We expect masses of people to
be listening to the show streaming via the Webpage tonight.’
‘OK. Um – great.’ I was a bit flustered by all this – quite excited, obviously, but a little wrong-footed too. ‘Is everything ready?
Where’s the playlist?’
‘The playlist?’ said Keith, as though I’d made a bizarre and
funny request.
‘Yeah – is it already in there?’
‘No.’ Keith smiled indulgently and looked at me like I was a
little slow. ‘No, of course not. There isn’t a playlist. There isn’t
even a running order, really. You just go in there and do exactly
what you did last night – what you did for the final half of the
show.’
‘But . . . I didn’t do a show for the final half of the show, Keith.
I stopped doing the show and just . . . you know . . . talked about
the problems I was having.’
‘Yes – that’s it. Do that again.’
I looked across to Jenny. She was staring down at the control
desk, hard. I looked back to Keith.
‘Do it again? Never mind the fact that last night you wanted to
have me physically injured for doing it at all – even if we ignore
that – how could I possibly do it again? It was a cathartic thing.
How It Works
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I did it to get everything out of my system and start afresh. How
can I do that again?’
Keith could have replied that I could easily do it again, as it
had strikingly failed to work the first time. Luckily, though, he
didn’t know that it hadn’t worked – and I wasn’t about to offer
him that piece of information right now, as whether it had
worked or not wasn’t the point. Not that I was precisely sure
what the point was. But I was sure what it wasn’t. And that
wasn’t it.
‘Just . . .’ Keith waved his arms about, illustratively. ‘Do.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You have to.’
‘What do you mean, I have to? I present a jazz show. Line some
songs up and I’ll do the show: the same as I’ve always done.’
Keith wasn’t smiling any longer. ‘No, you won’t. Do you imagine people will be listening in tonight to admire Wallace Roney’s
trumpet technique? Do you think a single one of them gives any
kind of a fuck about Mulgrew Miller? This buzz we’ve got going
started because they heard you losing it on air not because of
some bloody jazz instrumentals and a bit of tedious chatter.’
‘But–’
‘In the Internet chat rooms, they were having bets about
whether you’d break down entirely before the show ended. One
guy was certain you’d start speaking in tongues at any moment.’
‘But I don’t–’
‘We’ve got thousands and thousands of listeners out there just
waiting for you to start spilling your emotional guts again. What
do you think will happen if we give them a nice bit of piano playing instead?’ As he said the listeners were ‘out there’, Keith
pointed towards the door. I looked over at it, and couldn’t help
imagining suffocating numbers of people all crammed together
on the other side – jostling for the keyhole, packed into the corridor, bulging in the stairwell, jamming the reception area, carpeting the car park, and flooding over the street outside the station.
‘But I can’t, Keith.’
‘One minute,’ said Jenny.
Keith gripped me by the shoulders again, but this time there
were no smiles and no friendly little shakes. ‘You can and you will,
you selfish shit-stick.’
F rom Love a nd Other Near D eath Experien ces
by M ill M illin gto n
Exercises p. 267 and Vocabulary Trainer Chapter 8
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How It Works