The United Kingdom is a monarchy. The Queen is the official head of state. In practice the country is ruled by an elected parliament. The British Parliament has two chambers: the House of Lords and the House of Commons. There are three main political parties: the Labour, the Conservative and the Liberal. In 2001 a general election was held. The Labour party achieved a majority in the House of Commons, and the leader of the party Tony Blair was appointed Prime Minister by the Queen.
The United Kingdom is a highly developed industrial country. It is known as one of the world's largest producers and exporters of machinery, electronics, textile, aircraft and navigation equipment.
Oxford
No one knows Oxford's age. The city was first mentioned in 912. The city is famous for the university. Oxford University is over 800 years old. Today it consists of 35 independent colleges and 5 halls. It also has central libraries and laboratories.
There are some museums and art galleries in Oxford, too. For example, the Ashmolean Museum which is the oldest museum in Britain. It has a good collection of antiques, European paintings, sculptures and silver. In the Christ Picture Gallery you can see works of Italian painters from the 14-th to the 18-th century.
The Museum of the History of Science is the home to many scientific instruments of the 16-th century, collections of ancient chemical machines, watches and clocks and medical instruments.
Oxford is a very beautiful town with narrow streets, small shops and markets. Every year it attracts tourists from all over the world. They visit the famous university and get to know about students' life in Oxford. I would love to go there one day to feel the atmosphere of this old educational centre of England.
Stratford-upon-Avon (Стратфорд на Эйвон)
The town is called Stratford-upon-Avon because it stands on the river Avon. This town is very much popular with tourists. This is because William Shakespeare, the greatest English dramatist and writer, was born and brought up there. Stratford is small, but it has a lot of places of interest. Among them is the house where Shakespeare was born. Nowadays this is a museum which has a big exhibition illustrating Shakespeare's life and work.
New Place is the house where William Shakespeare spent his last years and died. Ann Hathaway's Cottage attracts tourists too, because this is the house of Shakespeare's wife. The Holy Trinity Church is the place where the Shakespeares are buried.
The Butterfly Farm is a wonderful place with ponds, streams and waterfalls. Different exotic flowers grow up there. The Insect City has a large collection of spiders and other insects that are kept in glass cages.
The Teddy Bear Museum houses a great collection of bears from all over the world.
British Holidays and Traditions
(Праздники и традиции Великобритании)
Great Britain is an old country and it has a lot of holidays and interesting traditions. Holidays in the country are historic and public. Most public holidays are called bank holidays because banks, companies and most shops do not work on these days. Such holidays include New Year's Day, Easter Monday and others.
At Easter, the British give each other chocolate eggs, which they eat on Easter Sunday.
Christmas is on the 25-th of December. Families spend this day together. For many people this is the most important holiday of the year. Family members wrap up their presents and put them under the Christmas tree. Children hang colourful socks at the end of their beds for presents. They believe that Father Frost puts presents inside the socks.
New Year's Day is not as important in Britain as it is in Russia. People usually make promises to themselves such as to give up smoking, to change their lifestyle and others.
St. Valentine's Day is celebrated on the 14-th of February. This is the traditional day for those who are in love. Young people give flowers and greeting cards to their Valentines and celebrate this day together.
Halloween is a holiday loved by all children. It takes place on the 31-th of October. There are a lot of parties and people dress up in costumes of witches and ghosts and make lanterns of pumpkins with a candle inside. People also play different games and have fun. Children usually go from one house to another with empty baskets or bags, knock on doors and say: Trick or treat. People should give them something, or they will play a trick on them.
Among historic holidays, Guy Fawkes Night can be mentioned. In the 15-th century, a group of people with Guy Fawkes as their leader decided to blow up the Houses of Parliament. They did not manage to do this and Guy Fawkes was caught and hanged. Since then the British celebrate this day burning a doll made of straw and dressed in old clothes on a bonfire. Children dress in old clothes and beg in the street saying: A penny for the Guy.
There are a lot of customs in Great Britain. One of the most famous is gardening. Most of the English keep small gardens full of flowers behind their houses or around them. In spring, there are a lot of flower-shows and vegetable-shows with prizes for the best exhibitions.
In Northern Ireland there is a holiday called St. Patrick's Day. It is celebrated on the 17-th of March. On this day people wear green clothes and drink Irish beer. There are carnivals and barbeques all over the country.
Education in Britain (Образование в Великобритании)
Schools in Britain are of two types: free state schools and public schools, which are for money. There are four kinds of state schools: county schools, voluntary schools, special schools and self-governing schools.
About 93 per cent of pupils in Great Britain get free education while the others go to public schools. Compulsory education begins at the age of five in Britain and at the age of four in Northern Ireland, when children go to infant schools. At the age of seven many children go to junior schools. Some pupils attend comprehensive schools or grammar schools, to which they are sent after exams at the age of eleven.
About 7 per cent of schoolchildren attend independent schools. Independent schools range from small kindergartens to large day and hoarding schools. I Preparatory schools prepare children for going to senior school. Some independent schools are religious.
The National Curriculum consists of major subject, which are compulsory for 5 to 16-year-olds. In England the major subjects of the Curriculum are English, mathematics and science, and the basic subjects are technology (design, technology and information technology), history, geography, music, art, physical education and, for secondary school pupils, a foreign language.
About 67 per cent of pupils continue to study after the age of 16. Education after 16 is divided into further and higher education. After the state exams pupils can slay at school or study in a further education college. Most post-school education is provided at universities, polytechnics, colleges of further or higher education, adult education centres or specialized colleges.
There are about 90 universities in Britain, of which one, Buckingham, is private, and one, the Open University (OU) is open to students of any age. Most of them are employed people who study in their free time. They get education through radio and television, in classes at local centres and at summer schools.
The biggest universities are Cambridge, Oxford and London University. British universities are rather small; the approximate number of students is about 7-8 thousand people, London and Oxford universities are international: people front all over the world come to study there. A number of well known scientists and writers, such as Newton, Darvin, Byron studied in Cambridge.
British Sports (Спорт в Великобритании)
Sport plays a very important role for the British. Many of them spend their leisure time playing outdoor and indoor games, cycling, mountain climbing, boxing, etc. The national sports of Great Britain are: football, golf, lawn tennis, table tennis, racing and darts.
There are two kinds of football in Britain. They are soccer and rugby. Soccer is the traditional football, which is played in many other countries in the world. Rugby appeared in 1895 at Rugby School. It differs from soccer. For example, rugby players may carry the oval ball during the match. It is played in teams of 15 men.
Golf, which is one of the most popular kinds of sport in Britain, originated in Scotland. Golf is mostly played by well-off people, which is different from cricket. This game is played in schools, universities and colleges. Nobody knows exactly how old this game is, but some form of cricket was played in England in the 13 century.
Wimbledon Championship in lawn tennis is world famous. It takes place in the town of Wimbledon in summer. People come to the stadium to watch the game and many of them watch it on television.
The British are fond of racing and its different kinds. Horse racing, dog racing, boat racing and motor racing are among the most popular kinds of sport in Britain. The most famous boat race takes place in England and it is between Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
There are also very exotic kinds of sport for the rich, such as fox-hunting or just hunting. But many people are against them now because these kinds of sport mean killing animals. This sport was very popular with English Kings.
All people in Great Britain are fond of sports and go in for sport regularly.
American Holidays and Traditions
(Праздники и традиции Америки)
I would like to tell you about holidays and traditions in the United States of America. The so-called legal holidays include Christmas, New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Day, President's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and others.
Christmas is a religious holiday celebrated on the 25-th of December. On this day Americans celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and sing Christmas carols. Another important tradition is sending Christmas cards. People start sending cards to their relatives and friends early in December, Going home for Christmas, is another good tradition. Christmas is considered to be a family celebration and every person must come back home on this day. This means that at Christmas, American houses are full of aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives who might not see each other for a year. Americans put up a Christmas tree and decorate it with toys and sweets. There are religious ceremonies at churches on Christmas Day and families usually attend them. The Christmas table is very big. You can see turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, pies and other food. In the morning children hurry to the Christmas tree to look for presents. They hang big colourful socks for Santa Claus to put presents inside. Everybody starts unwrapping presents and thanking each other.
New Year's Day is celebrated on the 1-st of January but Americans begin celebrating it on the 31-st of December, There is a big celebration in Times Square in New York City on this day. New Year's Day is not as widely celebrated as Christmas. On January 1 Americans visit friends, relatives and neighbours. There are parties and а lot of food. People watch television together and write New Year's resolutions.
Martin Luther King Day it celebrated on the third Monday in January. Martin Luther King was a black man who won full civil rights for black Americans. On this day schools, offices and federal agencies are closed.
Memorial Day is on the last Monday of May. On this day Americans honour the memories of their dead relatives. This day is also the beginning of summer.
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The United Kingdom is a highly developed industrial country. It is known as one of the world's largest producers and exporters of machinery, electronics, textile, aircraft and navigation equipment.
Oxford
No one knows Oxford's age. The city was first mentioned in 912. The city is famous for the university. Oxford University is over 800 years old. Today it consists of 35 independent colleges and 5 halls. It also has central libraries and laboratories.
There are some museums and art galleries in Oxford, too. For example, the Ashmolean Museum which is the oldest museum in Britain. It has a good collection of antiques, European paintings, sculptures and silver. In the Christ Picture Gallery you can see works of Italian painters from the 14-th to the 18-th century.
The Museum of the History of Science is the home to many scientific instruments of the 16-th century, collections of ancient chemical machines, watches and clocks and medical instruments.
Oxford is a very beautiful town with narrow streets, small shops and markets. Every year it attracts tourists from all over the world. They visit the famous university and get to know about students' life in Oxford. I would love to go there one day to feel the atmosphere of this old educational centre of England.
Stratford-upon-Avon (Стратфорд на Эйвон)
The town is called Stratford-upon-Avon because it stands on the river Avon. This town is very much popular with tourists. This is because William Shakespeare, the greatest English dramatist and writer, was born and brought up there. Stratford is small, but it has a lot of places of interest. Among them is the house where Shakespeare was born. Nowadays this is a museum which has a big exhibition illustrating Shakespeare's life and work.
New Place is the house where William Shakespeare spent his last years and died. Ann Hathaway's Cottage attracts tourists too, because this is the house of Shakespeare's wife. The Holy Trinity Church is the place where the Shakespeares are buried.
The Butterfly Farm is a wonderful place with ponds, streams and waterfalls. Different exotic flowers grow up there. The Insect City has a large collection of spiders and other insects that are kept in glass cages.
The Teddy Bear Museum houses a great collection of bears from all over the world.
British Holidays and Traditions
(Праздники и традиции Великобритании)
Great Britain is an old country and it has a lot of holidays and interesting traditions. Holidays in the country are historic and public. Most public holidays are called bank holidays because banks, companies and most shops do not work on these days. Such holidays include New Year's Day, Easter Monday and others.
At Easter, the British give each other chocolate eggs, which they eat on Easter Sunday.
Christmas is on the 25-th of December. Families spend this day together. For many people this is the most important holiday of the year. Family members wrap up their presents and put them under the Christmas tree. Children hang colourful socks at the end of their beds for presents. They believe that Father Frost puts presents inside the socks.
New Year's Day is not as important in Britain as it is in Russia. People usually make promises to themselves such as to give up smoking, to change their lifestyle and others.
St. Valentine's Day is celebrated on the 14-th of February. This is the traditional day for those who are in love. Young people give flowers and greeting cards to their Valentines and celebrate this day together.
Halloween is a holiday loved by all children. It takes place on the 31-th of October. There are a lot of parties and people dress up in costumes of witches and ghosts and make lanterns of pumpkins with a candle inside. People also play different games and have fun. Children usually go from one house to another with empty baskets or bags, knock on doors and say: Trick or treat. People should give them something, or they will play a trick on them.
Among historic holidays, Guy Fawkes Night can be mentioned. In the 15-th century, a group of people with Guy Fawkes as their leader decided to blow up the Houses of Parliament. They did not manage to do this and Guy Fawkes was caught and hanged. Since then the British celebrate this day burning a doll made of straw and dressed in old clothes on a bonfire. Children dress in old clothes and beg in the street saying: A penny for the Guy.
There are a lot of customs in Great Britain. One of the most famous is gardening. Most of the English keep small gardens full of flowers behind their houses or around them. In spring, there are a lot of flower-shows and vegetable-shows with prizes for the best exhibitions.
In Northern Ireland there is a holiday called St. Patrick's Day. It is celebrated on the 17-th of March. On this day people wear green clothes and drink Irish beer. There are carnivals and barbeques all over the country.
Education in Britain (Образование в Великобритании)
Schools in Britain are of two types: free state schools and public schools, which are for money. There are four kinds of state schools: county schools, voluntary schools, special schools and self-governing schools.
About 93 per cent of pupils in Great Britain get free education while the others go to public schools. Compulsory education begins at the age of five in Britain and at the age of four in Northern Ireland, when children go to infant schools. At the age of seven many children go to junior schools. Some pupils attend comprehensive schools or grammar schools, to which they are sent after exams at the age of eleven.
About 7 per cent of schoolchildren attend independent schools. Independent schools range from small kindergartens to large day and hoarding schools. I Preparatory schools prepare children for going to senior school. Some independent schools are religious.
The National Curriculum consists of major subject, which are compulsory for 5 to 16-year-olds. In England the major subjects of the Curriculum are English, mathematics and science, and the basic subjects are technology (design, technology and information technology), history, geography, music, art, physical education and, for secondary school pupils, a foreign language.
About 67 per cent of pupils continue to study after the age of 16. Education after 16 is divided into further and higher education. After the state exams pupils can slay at school or study in a further education college. Most post-school education is provided at universities, polytechnics, colleges of further or higher education, adult education centres or specialized colleges.
There are about 90 universities in Britain, of which one, Buckingham, is private, and one, the Open University (OU) is open to students of any age. Most of them are employed people who study in their free time. They get education through radio and television, in classes at local centres and at summer schools.
The biggest universities are Cambridge, Oxford and London University. British universities are rather small; the approximate number of students is about 7-8 thousand people, London and Oxford universities are international: people front all over the world come to study there. A number of well known scientists and writers, such as Newton, Darvin, Byron studied in Cambridge.
British Sports (Спорт в Великобритании)
Sport plays a very important role for the British. Many of them spend their leisure time playing outdoor and indoor games, cycling, mountain climbing, boxing, etc. The national sports of Great Britain are: football, golf, lawn tennis, table tennis, racing and darts.
There are two kinds of football in Britain. They are soccer and rugby. Soccer is the traditional football, which is played in many other countries in the world. Rugby appeared in 1895 at Rugby School. It differs from soccer. For example, rugby players may carry the oval ball during the match. It is played in teams of 15 men.
Golf, which is one of the most popular kinds of sport in Britain, originated in Scotland. Golf is mostly played by well-off people, which is different from cricket. This game is played in schools, universities and colleges. Nobody knows exactly how old this game is, but some form of cricket was played in England in the 13 century.
Wimbledon Championship in lawn tennis is world famous. It takes place in the town of Wimbledon in summer. People come to the stadium to watch the game and many of them watch it on television.
The British are fond of racing and its different kinds. Horse racing, dog racing, boat racing and motor racing are among the most popular kinds of sport in Britain. The most famous boat race takes place in England and it is between Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
There are also very exotic kinds of sport for the rich, such as fox-hunting or just hunting. But many people are against them now because these kinds of sport mean killing animals. This sport was very popular with English Kings.
All people in Great Britain are fond of sports and go in for sport regularly.
American Holidays and Traditions
(Праздники и традиции Америки)
I would like to tell you about holidays and traditions in the United States of America. The so-called legal holidays include Christmas, New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Day, President's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and others.
Christmas is a religious holiday celebrated on the 25-th of December. On this day Americans celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and sing Christmas carols. Another important tradition is sending Christmas cards. People start sending cards to their relatives and friends early in December, Going home for Christmas, is another good tradition. Christmas is considered to be a family celebration and every person must come back home on this day. This means that at Christmas, American houses are full of aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives who might not see each other for a year. Americans put up a Christmas tree and decorate it with toys and sweets. There are religious ceremonies at churches on Christmas Day and families usually attend them. The Christmas table is very big. You can see turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, pies and other food. In the morning children hurry to the Christmas tree to look for presents. They hang big colourful socks for Santa Claus to put presents inside. Everybody starts unwrapping presents and thanking each other.
New Year's Day is celebrated on the 1-st of January but Americans begin celebrating it on the 31-st of December, There is a big celebration in Times Square in New York City on this day. New Year's Day is not as widely celebrated as Christmas. On January 1 Americans visit friends, relatives and neighbours. There are parties and а lot of food. People watch television together and write New Year's resolutions.
Martin Luther King Day it celebrated on the third Monday in January. Martin Luther King was a black man who won full civil rights for black Americans. On this day schools, offices and federal agencies are closed.
Memorial Day is on the last Monday of May. On this day Americans honour the memories of their dead relatives. This day is also the beginning of summer.
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