Many people have forgotten what the world was like before TV. But today it has become an integral part of our lives. No medium can compare with TV as a means of information, entertainment & education. TV now plays such an important role in so many people's lives that it is essential for us to try to decide whether it is bad or good.
On the first place TV is not only a convenient source of entertainment, but also a comparatively cheap one. For a family of 4, for example, it is more convenient as well as cheaper to sit comfortably at home than to go out. They don't have to pay for expensive tickets. All they have to do is to turn on TV and they can see films, political discussions and the latest exciting football matches. Some people say that this is fist where the danger lies. The TV viewers need do nothing: they make no choices, they're completely passive & don't even use their legs.
TV, people often say, informs about current events and the latest developments in science and politics. A lot of good films, music programs have appeared recently on TV. Yet here again there is a danger. We get to like watching TV so much that it begins to dominate our lives. A friend of mine told me that when his TV set broke he & his family suddenly found that they had much more time to do things.
The most important thing which is really criticizing is poor quality of the programs and its harmful effect on children. For example the film "Natural Born Killers" teaches children to kill and there was one accident in France when a group of teenagers kill their parents.
There are many arguments for and against TV. I think we must understand that TV in itself is neither good nor bad. TV is as good or as bad as we make it.
Walt Disney and his heroes
Walt Disney was born in Chicago, his father being Irish Canadian, his mother of German-American origin. He revealed a talent for drawing and an interest in photography early on and after service with the American Red Cross in the First World War. In 1923 he left with his brother Roy for Hollywood and for some years struggled against poverty while producing a series of cartoon films. In 1927 he had some success with the series called "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit", but it was not until September 1928, when "Steamboat Willie" appeared, the first "Mickey Mouse" with sound, that he achieved lasting success. Mickey Mouse became a household word together with such companions as Minnie, Pluto, and perhaps the favourite of them all Donald Duck.
"The Three Little Pigs" and " Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", with their still familiar songs by Frank Cherchill, immediately spring to mind. After the Second World War Disney turned his attention to real-life nature studies and non-cartoon films with living actors. After a rather unsuccessful feature cartoon "The Sleeping Beauty", he made a triumphant come-back with the very successful "Mary Poppins". In 1955 he branched out into a different enterprise "Disney-land", a huge amusement park in southern California.
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Disneyland is situated 27 miles south of Los Angeles, at Ana-heim. Of all the show-places none is as famous as Disneyland. This superb kingdom of fantasy linked to technology was created by Walt Disney. The park is divided into six themes and there is so much to see and do in each that no one would attempt to see all of them in one visit. For extended visits, there are hotels nearby. Walt Disney died in California at the age of 65. His works have given so much pleasure for many years to many people, young and old, in many countries.
My Hobby
A "hobby" is a special interest or activity that you do in your time off. Some people have animals as hobbies. They keep rabbits, or go fishing. They train dogs to do tricks, or keep pigeons to race and carry messages. Some are crazy about plants. They try to grow cacti or rare tropical flowers in their kitchens and sitting rooms.
Others are mad about their car or their motorbike. They spend their Saturdays and Sundays washing them, painting them, or buying new bits and pieces to make them go even faster.
Children and teenagers are great collectors. They collect stamps, or postcards or matchboxes, or pictures of a favourite footballer or pop star.
Many people make things as a hobby. Some teach themselves at home, but a lot of people go to evening classes at their local college. Just look under letter B in a list of London or New York evening classes and you'll find: Ballet, Batik, Bengali, Body building, Breadmaking and Byzantium.
But not everyone goes to evening classes to learn about his special interest. No one helped these people to do what they did.
A "hobby" is usually something that a person does alone. But American (and British) families sometimes like to do things together, too.
American families often have quite a lot of money to spend on their recreation. They can all enjoy their holiday home or their boot somewhere in the country away from home.
Americans love to get out of town into the wild. and many go for holidays or long weekends into the thirty-live fabulous national parks. These magnificent areas of countryside include tropical forests, high mountains, dry deserts, long sandy coasts. grassy prairies and wooded mountains full of wild animals. The idea of these parks, which cover 1% of the whole area of the USA. is to make "a great breathing place for the national lungs", and to keep different parts of the land as they were before men arrived. There are camping places in the national parks as well as museums, boat trips and evening campfire meetings.
Americans really enjoy new "gadgets", especially new ways of travelling. In the winter, the woods are full of "snowmobiles" (cars with skis in the front). In the summer they ride their "dune buggins" across the sands or take to the sky in hang gliders.
But Americans do not only spend their free time having fun. They are very interested in culture too. Millions take part-time courses in writing. painting and music, and at weekends the museums, art galleries and concert halls are full.
Scotland
Scotland lies to the north of England. People who live in Scotland arc Scots.
The capital of Scotland is Edinburgh, but Scotland has no separate Parliament, for the Scottish MPs (Members of Parliament) sit with the English ones in Westminster in London. Edinburgh is not the largest city in Scotland. Glasgow, which lias a population of over one million, is twice as large as Edinburgh. Even so, Edinburgh remains the centre of the life of Scotland. Here are the administrative centres of the Navy, the Army, and tlie Air Force, the chief banks and offices; and the famous university.
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Edinburgh, unlike Glasgow, has no large factories. Publishing is its well-known industry. It has been famous for its printers since the early years of the sixteenth century, when the first Scottish printing-press was set up within its walls. The publishing of books is today a very important industry. Much printing is done for London publishing houses, and there are many paper-mills near Edinburgh. Edinburgh is a beautiful city. The first thing you see in Edinburgh is the Rock - the very large hill in the middle of the city, on which stands Edinburgh Castle.. The Castle looks like a castle from a fairy-tale, and parts of it are more than a thousand years old. From the top of the Castle there is a beautiful view of the hill and the sea.
Besides the Castle there are many other interesting buildings, such as Holyrood Palace which is the old royal residence, the Art Gallery, the University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh is famous for many things: its festivals (plays and music), its college of medicine, its museums and libraries, and for its writers Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and others.
Yuri Gagarin
It was on the 12th of April, 1961, when the first flight by man into cosmic space took place. Yuri Gagarin, the first cosmonaut in the world, was a 27-year old Air Force pilot at that time.
The spaceship flew at the speed of 300 miles a minute. That's six times faster than man ever travelled before. His flight lasted 108 minutes, but a circuit round the Earth took 89 minutes.
It was a brilliant achievement on the part of our scientists and technologists, and on the part of Yuri Gagarin who risked his life to achieve a victory for his country and mankind. This is what Yuri Gagarin said at his press conference: "On my flight the 'day' side of the Earth was clearly seen: the continents, islands, seas, and big rivers. Flying over the land I could clearly see the big squares of fields, and it was possible to distinguish which was meadow and which was forest. I could not see as well as from an airplane, but very, very well though.
I saw for the first time with my own eyes the Earth's spherical shape.
I must say that the view of the horizon is very beautiful. You can see the noticeable change from the light surface of the Earth to try completely black sky in which you can see the stars. This transition, from light blue to dark, is very gradual and lovely. I did not see the Moon. In space the sun shines ten times more brightly than on the Earth. The stars can be seen very well.
I felt excellent as I entered space. When weightlessness developed, everything was easier to do. My legs and arms weighed nothing. Objects swam in the cabin. During this state of weightlessness, I ate and drank, and everything was the same as on the Earth. My handwriting did not change, though my hand was weightless. But I had to hold my notebook or it would have floated away. The passage back from weightlessness to the force of gravity happened smoothly. Arms and legs feel the same as during weightlessness, but now they have weight.
I ceased to be suspended over the chair, then I sat in it.
When I returned to the Earth I was full of joy."
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1. .. Easy English. . .-.: - ,2010.
2. .., .. . .-.:,2007.
3. http://www. real-english.ru
