Aesop's fables

By The Brisish Council.

The ant and the dove

An ant went to the bank of a river to quench its thirst, and being carried away by the rush of the stream, was on the point of drowning. A dove sitting on a tree overhanging the water plucked a leaf and let it fall into the stream close to her. The ant climbed onto it and floated in safety to the bank. Shortly afterwards a birdcatcher came and stood under the tree, and laid his lime-twigs for the dove, which sat in the branches. The ant, perceiving his design, stung him in the foot. In pain the birdcatcher threw down the twigs, and the noise made the dove take wing.
And the moral of the story is: 0ne good turn deserves another.

The cat and the mice

A certain house was overrun with mice. A cat, discovering this, made her way into it and began to catch and eat them one by one. Fearing for their lives, the mice kept themselves close in their holes. The cat was no longer able to get at them and perceived that she must tempt them forth by some device. For this purpose she jumped upon a peg, and suspending herself from it, pretended to be dead. One of the mice, peeping stealthily out, saw her and said, "Ah, my good madam, even though you should turn into a meal-bag, we will not come near you."
And the moral of the story is: he who is once deceived is doubly cautious.

The Crab and the Fox

A crab, forsaking the seashore, chose a neighboring green meadow as its feeding ground. A fox came across him, and being very hungry ate him up. Just as he was on the point of being eaten, the crab said, "I well deserve my fate, for what business had I on the land, when by my nature and habits I am only adapted for the sea?'
And the moral of the story is: contentment with our lot is an element of happiness.

Spaghetti Junction

By Peter Carter

If you are a regular listener to these podcasts, you will know that I live in Birmingham. In Birmingham, we have the most famous landmark in the whole of Britain. What is a landmark? It means a place, or a building, or a natural feature like a river or a mountain, that everyone knows about. And what is Birmingham’s famous landmark? An ancient castle, perhaps, or a cathedral, or a statue on the top of a hill? No. None of these. Our famous landmark is called Spaghetti Junction. It is not, as you might think, an Italian restaurant. It is an interchange, or junction, on the M6 motorway about 5km north of the centre of Birmingham. If you look at the picture on the website, or on your iPod screen, you will see why people call it Spaghetti Junction. It looks like a plate of spaghetti.

Now, please don’t send me e-mails to say that you have a motorway junction called Spaghetti Junction in your country too. I don’t care about your Spaghetti Junction. Birmingham’s Spaghetti Junction was the first Spaghetti Junction, and it is still the largest motorway junction in Europe. Work on Spaghetti Junction started 40 years ago, in 1968, and was finished four years later. About 150,000 vehicles, and 5 million tons of freight, pass through Spaghetti Junction every day.

Everyone in Britain knows about Spaghetti Junction and where it is, even people who have never visited Birmingham itself. It is so well-known because it is unavoidable. If you travel by road in Britain, sooner or later you will pass Spaghetti Junction. You will remember it because it is the place where the traffic gets really bad, where the journey gets really boring and where the children start fighting in the back of the car. And if by accident you take the wrong road at Spaghetti Junction, you will find yourself in London instead of Manchester. Some people who took the wrong road at Spaghetti Junction five years ago are still trying to find their way home. So be careful.

Here are some other interesting things about Spaghetti Junction. It is not just a motorway junction. Underneath the motorway there are two railway lines, three canals, a river and several footpaths. There is a Birmingham joke that two of the roads at Spaghetti Junction are dead-ends. [A dead-end road means a road that goes nowhere]. And another Birmingham joke that there is a beach underneath the concrete arches of the motorway. A beach? It is in fact just a bank of dirt and gravel, with a view over a smelly river and an old factory. You are welcome to come to Birmingham for a beach holiday if you like, but you may find that Spain would be better.

More seriously, it was necessary to demolish a few hundred houses and other buildings to build the motorway and Spaghetti Junction. The motorway created a barrier which cuts off the northern suburbs of the city from the city centre. The vehicles on the motorway create noise and pollution over a wide area. Birmingham today – more than any other British city – is a city of roads and cars, of heavy lorries and multi-storey car-parks and poor public transport. So perhaps it is appropriate that Birmingham’s most famous landmark is a motorway junction.

Download MP3 (4:56min, 2MB)

A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf

Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure--a ghostly couple.

"Here we left it," she said. And he added, "Oh, but here tool" "It's upstairs," she murmured. "And in the garden," he whispered. "Quietly," they said, "or we shall wake them."

But it wasn't that you woke us. Oh, no. "They're looking for it; they're drawing the curtain," one might say, and so read on a page or two. "Now they've found it,' one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. "What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?" My hands were empty. "Perhaps its upstairs then?" The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass.

But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The windowpanes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling--what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. "Safe, safe, safe" the pulse of the house beat softly. "The treasure buried; the room . . ." the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?

A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare, coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always burned behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us, coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beneath the Downs. "Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of the house beat gladly. 'The Treasure yours."

The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.

"Here we slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses without number." "Waking in the morning--" "Silver between the trees--" "Upstairs--" 'In the garden--" "When summer came--" 'In winter snowtime--" "The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.

Nearer they come, cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides silver down the glass. Our eyes darken, we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern. "Look," he breathes. "Sound asleep. Love upon their lips."

Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy.

"Safe, safe, safe," the heart of the house beats proudly. "Long years--" he sighs. "Again you found me." "Here," she murmurs, "sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure--" Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. "Safe! safe! safe!" the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry "Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart."


Don't forget that you can use VOZ ME to listen to the story.

Amazing, Stonehenge!

We English have not lived in England for long. Our ancestors, the Saxons, came to England from northern Germany in the fifth century. They spoke a language which we call Anglo-Saxon or Old English. Over the centuries, Anglo-Saxon changed to become modern English.

Before the Saxon invasions, people called the Celts lived here. The modern Welsh language is descended from the languages of these Celtic people. But the Celts had not lived in Britain for long, either. There were people here before the Celts came. These people had no written language, so they left us no manuscripts or inscriptions to tell us about them. However, they left us plenty of archaeological evidence – burial places, pottery, tools and so on. And they left us a remarkable and mysterious monument called Stonehenge.

If you drive by car south-west out of London, along a road with the romantic name A303, you will reach Stonehenge after about an hour and a half. You will see a circle of great stones, with other stones placed carefully on top of them. There are other, smaller stones – called “bluestones”. Around Stonehenge, there are other ancient places – burial places, for instance, and ancient paths.

The archaeologists tell us that Stonehenge was not all built at one time. The oldest parts of Stonehenge are about 5,000 years old. The “bluestones” came about 1000 years later, and the great circle of stones a few hundred years after that. The great stones probably came from a place about 40km away. They each weigh about 25 tonnes. Experts say that perhaps 500 men pulled each stone, while 100 more placed logs on the ground for the stone to roll over. The “bluestones” are even more remarkable – they are much smaller, about 4 tonnes each, but they come from Preseli in south Wales, a distance of nearly 400 km. How did they get to Stonehenge? Maybe people carried them on small boats, over the sea and along rivers.

The big question is “Why?” Why did these people, four or five thousand years ago, build Stonehenge, and what did they use it for? Here are some of the theories:

- Perhaps Stonehenge was a religious temple. Perhaps priests sacrificed animals or even human beings here.

- Maybe Stonehenge was a centre of political power, a place built by a great and powerful king.

- Possibly, it was a place to celebrate the dead, a place to send them on their way to the next world.

- Or it could have been a place where sick or injured people came to be cured, like Lourdes in France is today.

- Or Stonehenge might have been a place to watch the movement of the sun, moon and stars, and to forecast important events like eclipses.

- Or, conceivably, it was all of these things, or it had different purposes at different times.

Today, Stonehenge is an important tourist site, and a place for people who like to believe in magic. At the summer solstice (that is June 21st, the longest day of the year) people go to Stonehenge to watch the sun rise. This year, about 30,000 people were there. And, because this is England, it rained.

Download MP3 (5:14min, 2MB)

Vintage postcards

I want to give you a glimpse of the many and interesting things you can learn through postcards. My favourite ones are vintage postcards, specifically, those about children and art. They are always in fashion. It's an entertaining way of having some knowledge of past times: history, clothes, holidays, and so on. But above all, they are an invaluable way of approaching historic reference to society and usages.
Did you know that postcard collecting is currently the third largest collectable hobby in the world?

The popularity of post cards can be attributed to their broad subject appeal. Almost any subject imaginable has been, at some time, portrayed on a postcard. The broad subject range comes as a result of the social usage cards were designed for. Postcards continue today to be the most popular form of souvenir for travellers as well as economical means of communication both personal and business related.

The first postal card was suggested by Dr. Emanuel Herrmann, in 1869, and was accepted by the Hungarian government in the same year. The first regularly printed card appeared in 1870, a historical card, produced in connection with the Franco-German War. The first advertising card appeared in 1872 in Great Britain. The first German card appeared in 1874. Cards showing the Eiffel Tower in 1889 & 1890 gave impetus to the postcard heyday a decade later. A Heligoland card of 1889 is considered the first multi-coloured card ever printed.

One of the dearest postcards are those from the British Victorian Times because they are really elaborated and tender.

I will show you some of them with text, so that you can practice your English by reading them or just for the pleasure of looking at them.
I hope you like it.

Languages die too

Last week a woman called Marie Smith Jones died. She was 89 years old and she lived in Alaska in North America. Marie was the last person alive to speak a language called Eyak. Eyak is, or was, one of the native North American languages. Linguists have carefully recorded Eyak grammar and vocabulary and pronunciation. But no-one speaks Eyak any more. It is a dead language.

We do not have an official language in Britain, but most people of course speak English or a dialect of English. There are several other native or indigenous languages in Britain. They are descended from the languages spoken by the Celtic people who lived in Britain before the English arrived in the 4th and 5th centuries. The most important is Welsh, which is spoken by about more than half a million people in Wales, or about 20% of the population. Welsh and English now have equal official status in Wales. If you visit Wales, you will see that all road signs are in English and Welsh. Welsh is flourishing.

Two other Celtic languages, Scots Gaelic in Scotland and Irish Gaelic in Northern Ireland are spoken by only a few percent of the population. Another Celtic language in South-West England – called Cornish – died out completely in the 19th century, just like Eyak has died out. It was re-introduced about 100 years ago and today Cornish is spoken by a few thousand people.

It is interesting that we use some of the same words for languages as we use for plants and animals. Here are some examples:

• We talk about native or indigenous plants or animals – that means the plants and animals which live naturally in a place, and have been there a long time. Similarly, we talk about native or indigenous languages, like English in England, or Irish Gaelic in Ireland.
• We can say that modern horses are descended from wild horses. Similarly, we can say that modern Welsh is descended from an old Celtic language.
• We can say, for instance, that wolves have died out in Britain. Similarly, we can say that the Eyak language has died out.
• We can say that an animal like the rhinocerous is endangered; and we can also say that a language is endangered, if the number of people speaking it is very small.
• Of course some species of animals are flourishing – probably their numbers are growing and they are not likely to die out. Similarly, we can say that today the Welsh language is flourishing.
• And some species of animals or birds die out, but are then re-introduced into the wild. We have several examples of this in England, particularly a bird called the red kite. Similarly, we can say that the Cornish language has been re-introduced.

I have also read in the paper that some experts think that three quarters of the world’s languages will die out in the next 100 years. Do you think that this will happen? Perhaps languages and animals die out for similar reasons – reasons such as over-exploitation of natural resources, modern travel and tourism, and population movement. How many people will speak English one hundred years from now? English is widely spoken as a second language today, partly because of British colonial history, and partly because of American economic power. However, 100 years from now, British colonial history will be a long way in the past, and American economic power may be much less. What languages will your grandchildren and great-grandchildren learn? Chinese perhaps?

Talking, talking...

Valeriy, who lives in Russia, has sent me an e-mail. He asks whether I can make a podcast about these words – “say”, “tell”, “speak” and “talk”.

Well, that is easy, I thought. So I sat down to write a podcast about when we use “say” and when we use “tell” and so on. And after an hour, I realised that I could not do it. English is too complicated. There are far too many words in English and there are so many different ways of using them. So I thought, I will not try to explain everything. I shall just explain a few things – the most important things. I will write a few rules, and if my listeners learn these rules, they will be right most of the time. Please remember that “say”, “tell” and “speak” are irregular verbs. They go like this – I say, I said, I have said; I tell, I told, I have told; and I speak, I spoke, I have spoken. “Talk” is regular – I talk, I talked, I have talked. Everybody clear? Then let’s begin!

I want you to imagine that you are reading a comic book, about Batman perhaps. In many of the pictures there is a bubble coming from the mouth of one of the characters. It contains the words which the character is saying. We often call this a “speech bubble”.

Here is my RULE NUMBER 1. If you can imagine a speech bubble, with words in it, then you can always use the word “say”; like this :-

• Kevin says, “I am going to the football match on Saturday”.
• Batman says, “I have only five minutes to save the entire planet.”
• Joanna says that she will go to the supermarket tomorrow.
• Kevin says to Joanne, “Is it OK if I go to the football match on Saturday?”

When we want to explain who we say something to, we always use the word “to” – I said to him that I would be late. We NEVER say “I said him that I would be late”.

And here is RULE NUMBER 2. If there is no speech bubble with words in it, then you can use “talk” or “speak”.

• I will speak to my boss tomorrow about whether I can take a day off work.
• Kevin talks to George about the football match.
• Today, our teacher is going to talk about irregular verbs in English.

So you see, “speak” and “talk” can tell us who is speaking or talking; who the speaker is talking to; and what sort of thing the speaker is talking about. But they do not tell us about the exact words which the speaker uses. There is no speech bubble with words in it. Very often, “speak” and “talk” mean exactly the same, and we can use them interchangeably (that is, we can replace one of them with the other). I think that we use “talk” more often than we use “speak”.

And how about the last word which Valerij wants me to explain – the word “tell”? Here comes RULE NUMBER 3. “Tell” means “give information”. And we can use “tell” when there is a speech bubble, and also when there is no speech bubble, provided that we mean “give information”. Nearly always, when we use “tell”, we also say who the speaker is talking to. Like this:-

• Joanne tells her boss, “I have nearly finished the report that you asked for”.
• Kevin tells Joanne that he wants to go to the football match on Saturday.
• David told me about his holiday.
• He told me that he went to Spain, and that he had a great time there.
• John told me how to find his house.
• You asked me a question; now I will tell you the answer.
• I looked at my watch and told him the time.
• At the end of the school day, the teacher told the children a story.

I hope this helps you, Valeriy. Please keep sending me your comments and questions, either by e-mail or by leaving a comment on the web site. I shall do my best to reply to all of them. There is a vocabulary note attached to the podcast today, and also a quiz, so you can test how well you understand the difference between “talk”, “speak”, “say” and “tell”.

Download MP3 (6:33min, 3MB)

Immigration into Britain

A few years ago, there was an advertisement on a billboard close to where I live. It advertised a company called Western Union. You probably know about Western Union. Western Union sends money from one country to another. If you want to send money to your brother in South Africa, for example, you can go to a Western Union office in England and pay in some money. Then your brother can go to a Western Union office in South Africa, and collect the money which you have sent.

The unusual thing about this advertisement however was the language in which it was written. It was in Polish. It was aimed at Polish people who work in Britain, and who want to send money back to their families in Poland.

And last year, the local paper in Reading, a town close to London, printed one of its editions in Polish, for the benefit of the many Polish people who now live and work in Reading. You can see a photo of the paper on the website and on your iPod screens.

Since Poland joined the European Union in 2004, a lot of Polish people have come to this country. We sometimes joke in Britain about how all plumbers nowdays seem to be from Poland. And people have come from other East European countries as well. For example, I do not think that there are any buses still running in Lithuania, because there are so many Lithuanian bus drivers here in Birmingham.

Of course, immigration into Britain is not new. Over the last 50 years, a lot of immigrants have arrived here from for example Pakistan, India and the West Indies. But large scale immigration from Eastern Europe is new – it has been made possible by the European Union rules which say that people must be able to move freely throughout the Union and live and work in any EU member country.

You will find that many people in England do not have a positive view of immigration or of immigrants. They say that they take the jobs of British workers; and that they are a burden on our health, welfare and education systems. Some people say that immigrants are responsible for a lot of crime.

But a government report, published this week, takes a very different view. It says that in 2006, 12.5% of the workforce in this country were immigrants. Immigrants have, on average, higher skills than people in similar jobs who were born in Britain. They earn more as well, and so pay more in taxes. Many employers say that immigrant workers are more reliable, and are willing to work longer hours. Some sectors of the economy like agriculture and hotels and restaurants depend heavily on immigrant labour. The report concludes that, altogether, immigration into Britain contributes £6 billion a year to the British economy.

Of course, there are problems too. In Britain, house prices and rents are very high, and in some places immigration has pushed prices and rents even higher. Some immigrants have to live in poor housing, and are exploited by unscrupulous landlords. Other immigrants are employed by labour agencies or “gangmasters”, and some of these have a bad record for exploiting their workers. And there can be problems too when schools have to cope with a lot of pupils who do not speak English (though my experience is that children learn English very fast – it is adults who find new languages a problem).

The overall picture painted by the report is that immigration has greatly benefited Britain and the British economy. I guess that some of you who listen to my podcasts have come to Britain as immigrants, or you have worked in Britain and have now returned to your own countries. What do you think? Please post a comment on the podcast website saying what you like about living in Britain, and what you do not like.

Download MP3 (5:10min, 2MB)

I have a dream...

Have you a dream? I mean, is there something that you would really like to do in your life – such as travelling round the world, or writing a best-selling novel, or climbing Mount Everest, or learning a new language. Good. It is important that we have dreams like these.

But what would you do to achieve your dream. Would you, for example, walk out of your job so that you could do the thing you really want to do? Hmm. That might be difficult. How would you get the money you need to live on? And suppose you had a well-paid and very important job. Would you give that job up to pursue your dream?

This morning’s newspapers tell us about someone who has done just that. His name is Paul Drayson. He is 47 years old. He started his career as a businessman, and he was very successful . He made a fortune as boss of a company which makes equipment for giving people medical injections without sticking a needle into them. Then he became interested in politics. He gave a lot of money to the Labour Party. The government made him a member of the House of Lords, which is the upper chamber of the British parliament. (This means that he is now Lord Drayson, and not plain, ordinary Mr Drayson.) Then Lord Drayson became a minister in the government, at the Ministry of Defence. He was responsible for buying equipment for the British armed forces. Both the government’s supporters and his opponents said that he was good at his job. He obviously had a bright political career ahead of him.

But Lord Drayson had a dream. It was a dream about driving motorcars very fast. He bought a 6-litre Aston Martin racing car. He drove it around race tracks. He competed in races; then he started to win some of the races, and this year he came third in the British GT championship. (The GT championships are for cars which are nearly the same as cars which you can drive on normal roads). People who know him say that, as a racing driver, Paul Drayson is both brave and intelligent. He is particularly interested in racing cars which run on bio-fuels, that is fuel which is made from plants like maize instead of from crude oil.

Personally, I think that motor racing is about as stupid a sport as golf; but I know that lots of people do not agree with me. I enjoyed reading the letter of resignation which Lord Drayson sent to the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. In the letter, he says that he has an opportunity to compete in motor races in the United States next year. This would be an important step towards his dream of winning the Le Mans 24 hour race in France. But he cannot do this and be a government minister at the same time. So he is resigning his job.

Wouldn’t you like to write a letter like this to your boss?

“Dear Boss, I have been offered an opportunity to go surfing in southern California next year, so I am resigning from my job as junior clerk in your office.”

“Dear Boss, Although I have been very happy making burgers here at McDonalds, I am resigning in order to pursue my dream of being the first person to walk backwards round the world.”

Download MP3 (4:34min, 2MB)

Living Upside-down

Do you like Mafalda's witty humour?

Mafalda is always asking very clever questions about the world and then, she shares her thoughts with her best friend, Felipe.

(IN SPANISH)

If you like it, there will be more coming soon.

The Prince and the Pauper

Background

The plot is fictional, but you'll learn a lot about London life in the 16th century. The Prince Edward Tudor is a real character. His father, Henry VIII (the one with the six wives), died when Edward was only 9 years old, and so the child Edward became King Edward VI. Edward died at the age of 15, so he is not as famous today as his father or his sisters, Queen Mary of Scots (Bloody Mary) and Queen Elizabeth I.

Author

Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born in Florida (Missouri) on 30 November 1835. When his father died in 1847, the 12-year old boy had to leave school and started an apprenticeship as typesetter. Aged 17, he went to New York and to Philadelphia where he wrote his first travelogues.

On 21 April 1910 Mark Twain died in Redding (Connecticut).

Excerpts: Chapters I - III

1. The birth of the Prince and the Pauper
2. Tom's early life
3. Tom's meeting with the Prince

Exercises

→ Exercise on Reading Comprehension

Download

→ complete book in PDF format (704,14 KiB)

The tale of Tom Kitten

This is THE TALE OF TOM KITTEN. You can read it and listen to it at the same time.

Open the PDF FILE.