London

London is one of the largest cities in the world. More then 10mln people live in London and its suburbs. London is a city of striking contrasts. Here one can come across the past and the present, the old and the modern, live side by side in mutual tolerance and respect.

In London, one can see architecture of different centuries and styles. It is inseparably connected with the history of the city. The Romans, the Saxons and the Danes settled here in turn, after them came the Normans, and brought the French civilisation. London survived the Plague and the Great Fire, which followed in 1666. During the Fire all wooden houses were smashed to the ground and a New London, London of stone with bigger houses and wider streets was built. During the World War II, many buildings of great historic value lay in ruins and today the face of London is changed.

Traditionally London is divided into several parts: the City, Westminster, the West End and the East End.

The city first started in the place, which is known as the City. It is the Heart of London, it’s commercial and business centre. It occupies a territory of a square mile. During a day, it is full of people, nearly half a million people work there.

The West End is the richest part of the city with its beautiful avenues, parks and gardens, grandhotels, theatres and fashionable shops. It is a symbol of wealth and luxury.

While the City is the money of London and the West End is the good of London, the East End is the hands of London, that built the banks of the City and beautiful mansions and hotels of the West End. It is a district, inhabited by the workers. There are many factories and the Port of London there.

 Idioms.

Idioms involve collocation of a special kind. Consider, for instance, kick the bucket, fly off the handle, spill the beans, red herring. For here we not only have the collocation of kick and the bucket, but also the fact that the meaning of the resultant combination is opaque - it is not related to the meaning of the individual words, but is sometimes (though not always) nearer to the meaning of a single word (thus kick the bucket equals die).

Even where an idiom is semantically like a single word it does not function like one. Thus we will not have a past tense * kick-the-bucketed. Instead, it functions to some degree as a normal sequence of grammatical words, so that the past tense form is kicked the bucket. But there are a great number of grammatical restrictions. A large number of idioms contain a verb and a noun, but although the verb may be placed in the past tense, the number of the noun can never be changed. We have spilled the beans, but not * spill the bean and equally there is no *fly off the handles, *kick the buckets, *put on good faces, *blow one's tops, etc. Similarly, with red herring the noun may be plural, but the adjective cannot be comparative (the -er form). Thus we find red herrings but not *redder herring.

HISTORY OF BASKETBALL

Introduction

Basketball is an extremely popular all around the world. The object is to put a ball through a hoop, or basket, and thus score more points than the opposing team. Teams comprise of ten players, with a maximum of five on court at any one time. Substitutions are unlimited during the course of the game. Although basketball can be played outdoors, it was invented to serve as an exciting indoor exercise for the winter months in a northern climate. It quickly became a spectator sport, however, and now attracts large audiences to gymnasiums and arenas, especially in the United States, South America, and Europe.

The sport is played on the amateur level by schools, colleges, other groups, and, since 1936 by national teams in the Olympic Games. It also is played by professional athletes, notably in the United States and Europe.

The foremost American championships contended for are those of the National Basketball Association (NBA) for professionals, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for colleges. Britain has National Associations for each country and the English Basketball Association (EBBA) runs amateur national competitions, the National Basketball League (NBL) is run by Basketball League Ltd for professionals. International competion is organised by the Federation of International Basketball (FIBA).

Love means different things to different people

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that "it takes all sorts to make a world”, which means that all people are unique in their own way. What is more, we ,as individuals, tend to have our own opinions about everything…Fashion, lifestyles, scientific concepts are constantly changing due to people’s desire to express their opinions. The same goes for universal things like truth, friendship, hate, loyalty and, of course, love.

The subject of love is one that has inspired poets, writers, those lucky in love and those who have been passed over by Cupid…Love has been defined as wise, silly, profound, bitter, funny…It seems as if each and one of us has a different understanding of love, or at least the attitude to love varies greatly from person to person.. It may be a surprising revelation to some of us, because love has traditionally been considered to be something that unites people( at least that’s what I’ve been taught).And yet, there’s no use denying the fact that love has as many definitions as there are human beings on this planet. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that love no longer unites people. It just means that love has different dimensions, different sides that reflect our understanding of life.

Fast Food of  America

Have you ever enjoyed a hamburger, sitting on a lawn? May be you're against all these hot dogs and cheeseburgers, because it's a junk food. Anyway, it is always interesting to find out something about the origin and history of such trifles, which make our life more comfortable. They really make life more pleasant, especially outdoors, don't they?

Pop-Corn

It’s impossible to imagine American take-away food or snacks without popcorn. Clear as a day, it is made from corn. But what about the first part of the word "pop”. Actually, when you put a kernel of corn on a fire, the water inside makes the corn explode. This makes a "pop” noise. That is why we call it popcorn. It’s an interesting thing to know that not all corn pops. A seed of corn must contain 14% water in it. Other kinds of corn have less waters and do not pop. The American Indians, who popped corn a long time ago, knew that special sort. They introduced corn to the first settlers. In 1620 when Pilgrims had a Thanksgiving dinner they invited the Indians, who brought popcorn with them. Since that time Americans continued to pop corn at home. But in 1945 a new machine was invented that changed the history of the product.  The electric machine enabled to pop corn outside the home. And soon movies started selling popcorn to make more money. The famous American habit of eating popcorn at the movies is well-known. Many people like to put salt or melted butter in their popcorn, some preper to have it without. Either way Americans love their popcorn.

Global Warming or Global Cooling the Threat for the Future?

Has the climate of the United States changed significantly during the century that is about to end? In what ways and by how much? Have national trends emerged that agree--or perhaps disagree--with what is expected from projections of global greenhouse warming? These are questions addressed in a report entitled "Trends in U.S. Climate during the Twentieth Century," by Thomas R. Karl, Richard W. Knight, David R. Easterling, Robert G. Quayle who serve on the scientific staff of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), in Asheville, North Carolina. Thomas "The challenge to the climatologist is to separate any meaningful signals from ever-present noise, and to discern, if possible, whether there is indeed at work the sometimes slow and subtle hand of significant change. The second task, which is even harder, is to identify, unequivocally, the cause," according to the scientists was the focus of their study.

"Before such questions can be answered, we need to remind ourselves that 'climate', as it is defined for a specific region and time, includes more than the simple average of weather conditions. Either random events or long-term persistent change, or more often combinations of them, can bring about significant swings in a variety of climate indicators from one time period to the next. Examples include a year dominated by severe drought and the next excessively wet; a series of bitterly cold winters followed by winters more mild; one scorching summer preceded by a summer pleasantly warm; years with numerous severe storms followed by years with few severe storms. The temptation at each time and place is often to attribute any of these temporal and sometimes local variations to a wider and more pervasive change in climate..."

Europe is our common home

Plan.

1.   Introduction.

2.   Passport.

a)   Aria.

b)   Recourses.

c)   Population.

d)   The largest countries.

e)   The longest rivers, the largest lakes, the highest mountains.

f)    Languages.

3)            The origin of the word Europe.

4)            Geographical position.

5)            Boundaries.

6)            Climate.

7)            Countries and languages.

8)            Religions.

9)            History of Europe.

Culture is one of the most important components, which form every nation. It is one occurrence that distinguishes and unites all the people who live in the world. But it is impossible to imagine the culture without music, a very big part of our life.

         Every nation has one’s own music and I think that inside music are concluded all peculiarities of the nation, it is contain the key for understand the soul of people.

         When I was associated with foreigners (they were Americans) I noted that they liked our folk music, they frequently listened it and each of them had without fail an audiocassette with Russian folk music. They told me about the most popular in United States Russian singers and composers. Our pop music is not famous outside Russia. But many people from other countries love our folk and classical music.

         On the contrary we know nothing about American folk and classical music and I would like to discuss about it.

         By my opinion a serious study of American music is arrestingly important at this time. Music has become on of American leading industries American performing standards are probably now higher than anywhere else in the world, and Americans are making rapid strides in music education. How large a part in all this activity is American music to play? How good is it? How does it differ from Russian music?

English painting.

Our life seems to be impossible without art. It really occupies an important part in our daily life. Art offers us not only pleasure and amusement but it is also a vehicle of culture and education. Art penetrates into all spheres and sides of our life and makes it brighter, richer and more intellectual. People like and know different types of art. Some of them are fond of painting. Others have a special liking for music or they have a passion for literature. But all of us cant help admiring the canvases of such great painters as Thomas Gainsborough, Rembrand etc.

So, art units different people, influences the development of personality, makes our innerworld richer, feels our soul with different feelings. It makes us stronger, inforces us in difficult situations.

Time is flying art is forever.

Painting in England began to develop later than in over European countries. That's why some of the greatest foreign masters were attracted to England by the titles of nobility conferred upon them. Holbein, Antonio Mor, Rubens, Van Dyck were almost English painters during longer or shorter periods of their lives.