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Table: Modern history of Great Britain
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| World War I begins. | |
| World War I ends. | |
| First regular London-Paris air service instituted. | |
| John Logie Baird demonstrates television system. | |
| The British Broadcasting Corporation chartered. | |
| Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin. | |
| First regular television broadcast from Alexandra Place. | |
| Independence for India and Pakistan. Nationalization of coal mines and railways. | |
| Foundation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. | |
| Britain explodes atomic bomb in Australia. | |
| Irish Republican Army begins terrorist campaign. | |
| Independence for Cyprus and Nigeria. “The Beatles” form. | |
| Oil discovered off Scottish coast. | |
| North Sea oil makes Britain self-sufficient in certain petroleum products. | |
| Trident ballistic missile system ordered from the US |
A. Which events in the modern history of Great Britain had an impact on world science and technology? Choose five the most important and briefly describe them.
B. What inventions in the UK made life more convenient and safer? What inventions have become dangerous for the mankind?
3. Use the information below to speak about the following:
1) Land; 2) Climate; 3) Population; 4) Ethnic groups; 5) Economy.
| LAND Area 241,752 sq km Highest Point Ben Nevis 1,343 m above sea level Lowest Point Holme Fen 3 m below sea level |
| CLIMATE Average Temperatures London January 4°C July 18°C Edinburgh January 3°C July 15°C Average Annual Precipitation London 590 mm Edinburgh 680 mm | Put the adjectives to do with temperature in the right order: __________ (100°C) __________ __________ It’s……..___________ __________ __________ (0°C) freezing, boiling, cold, warm, chilly, hot |
| Complete the chart with one of the following word: snowing, windy, misty, wind, fog, stormy, snow, storm, blowing, snowy, cloud, foggy, shower, raining, sunny, rain, cloudy. Verb Adjective Noun ☼ The sun’s shining. It’s …. sunshine It’s …. It’s rainy. ……..... It’s …. It’s …. ……….. ♂ The wind is … It’s …. ……..... ------ It’s showery. ………. ------ It’s …. ………. ------ It’s …. ………. ------ It’s …. ………. ------ It’s …. mist |
| POPULATION Population 58,395,000 Population Density 242 persons/sq km Urban/Rural Population 92% urban 8% rural Largest Cities London 6,933,000 Birmingham 1,017,000 Leeds 724,500 Glasgow 681,000 |
| Ethnic Groups 94,5% English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish 5,5% other Languages Official Language English Other Languages Welsh, Scots-Gaelic, other minority languages Religions 54% Anglicanism 13% Roman Catholicism 33% other including other Protestant denominations, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Sikhism. |
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| ECONOMY Gross Domestic Product US $ 1,023,900,000,000 Chief Economic Products Agriculture Wheat, barley, potatoes, sugar beets, oilseed, rape, livestock, animal products Fishing Mackerel, herring, cod, plaice Mining Coal, limestone, petroleum, and natural gas. Manufacturing Machinery and transport equipment, food products, chemical products, minerals and metal products Employment statistics 58% Trade and Services 23% Manufacturing and Industry 16% Business and Finance 2% Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing 1% Military and Defence Major Exports Industrial and electrical machinery, automatic data processing equipment, road vehicles, petroleum Major Imports Automatic data processing equipment, paper and paperboard, textiles, food Major Trading Partners Germany, the United States, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Japan |
4. Use the following phrases and word combinations to retell the text:
5.As I understood from the text …
6.According to the text …
7.As it is said in the text …
8.The author points out (mentions, explains, describes, etc.) (that) …
V. Supplementary Reading.
Pre-reading task
Work in pairs.
1) Do you know any typical meals from the following countries?
France
India
Switzerland
Turkey
Spain
America
Italy
Mexico
Greece
Japan
Belarus
England
What do you think influences a country’s food? What influences the food in your country?
2) Read these quotations about English food. Do all the people have the same opinion about English food?
“It takes some skill to spoil a breakfast –
even the English can’t do it!”
J К Galbraith, economist
“On the Continent people have good
Food; in England people have good
table manners.”
George Mikes, writer and humorist
“If the English can survive their food,
theycan survive anything!”
George Bernard Shaw, writer
“Even today, well-brought up English
Girls are taught to boil all vegetables
For at least a month and a half, just
In case one of the dinner guests
comes without his teeth!”
Calvin Trillin, American writer
“English cooking? You just put things
Into boiling water and then take them
out again after a long while!”
An anonymous French chef
Reading
- Read the text quickly.
- Match а paragraph 1-5 with a summary below.
a) Historical and climatic influences on British cocking
b) There’s everything except an English restaurant.
c) The legacy of World War II
d) Where there is hope for the future
e) British love affair with international cooking
IN SEARCH OF GOOD ENGLISH FOOD
by Verona Paul and Jason Winner
1. How come it is so difficult to Find English food in England? In Greece you eat Greek food, in France French food, in Italy Italian food, but in England, in any High Street in the land, it is easier to find Indian and Chinese restaurants than English ones. In London you can eat Thai, Portuguese, Turkish, Lebanese, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Swiss, Swedish, Spanish, and Italian – but where are the English restaurants?
2. It is not only in restaurants that foreign dishes are replacing traditional British food. In every supermarket, sales of pasta, pizza and poppadoms are booming. Why has this happened? What is wrong with the cooks of Britain that they prefer cooking pasta to potatoes? Why do the British choose to eat lasagna instead of shepherd’s pie? Why do they now like cooking in wine and olive oil? But perhaps it is a good thing. After all, we are in the 21st century and we can get ingredients from all over the world in just a few hours. Anyway, wasn’t English food always disgusting and tasteless? Wasn’t it always boiled to death and swimming in fat? The answer to these questions is a resounding “No”, but to understand this, we have to go back to before World War II.
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3. The British have in fact always imported food from abroad. From the time of the Roman invasion foreign trade was a major influence on British cooking. English kitchens, like the English language, absorbed ingredients from all over the world – chickens, rabbits, apples, and tea. All of these and more were successfully incorporated into British dishes. Another important influence on British cooking was of course the weather. The good old British rain gives us rich soil and green grass, and means that we are able to produce some of the finest varieties of meat, fruit and vegetables, which don’t need fancy sauces or complicated recipes to disguise their taste.
4. However, World War II changed everything. Wartime women had to forget 600 years of British cooking, learn to do without foreign imports, and ration their use of home-grown food.
5. The Ministry of Food published cheap, boring recipes. The joke of the war was a dish called Woolton Pie (named after the Minister of Food!). This consisted of a mixture of boiled vegetables covered in white sauce with mashed potato on the top. Britain never managed to recover from the wartime attitude to food. We were left with a loss of confidence in our cooking skills and after years Ministry recipes we began to believe that British food was boring, and we searched the world for sophisticated, new dishes which gave hope of a better future. The British people became tourists at their own dining tables and in the restaurants of their land! This is a tragedy! Surely food is as much a part of our culture as our landscape, our language, and our literature. Nowadays, cooking British food is like speaking a dead language. It is almost as bizarre as having conversation in Anglo-Saxon English!
6. However, there is still one small ray of hope. British pubs are often the best places to eat well and cheaply in Britain, and they also increasingly try to serve tasty British food. Can we recommend to you our two favourite places to eat in Britain? The Shepherd’s Inn in Melmerby, Cumbria, and the Dolphin Inn in Kingston, Devon. Their steak and mushroom pie, Lancashire hotpot, and bread and butter pudding are three of the gastronomic wonders of the world!
Comprehension check
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