Reading Exercise

Text 1: The England National Football Team

The England national football team represents England (not the whole United Kingdom)

in international football competitions such as the World Cup and the European

Championships. It is controlled by The Football Association, the governing body for

football in England.

Partly thanks to historical accident, and continuing national sentiment among them,

each of the four Home Nations of the United Kingdom possesses its own separate

football association, domestic league and national team. Because the IOC does not

accept regional representative teams, England, like the other three, do not compete in

Olympic football.

England are by far the most successful of the Home Nations, having won the 1966

World Cup and the British Home Championship outright thirty-four times, as many as

the other three nations have won outright altogether.

For the first 80 years of its existence, the England team played its home matches at

different venues all around the country; for the first few years it used cricket grounds,

before later moving on to football clubs' stadiums. England played their first match at

Wembley Stadium in 1924, the year after it was completed, against Scotland, but for the

next 27 years would only use Wembley as a venue for Scotland matches; other

opposition were still entertained at club grounds around the country.

In May 1951, Argentina became the first team other than Scotland to be entertained at

Wembley, and by 1960 nearly all of England's home matches were being played there.

Between 1966 and 1995, England did not play a single home match anywhere else.

England's last match at Wembley before its demolition and reconstruction was against

Germany on October 7, 2000, a game which England lost 1-0. Since then the team has

played at 14 different venues around the country, with Old Trafford having been the

most often used. The FA have ruled that when the new Wembley is completed in mid-

2006, England's travels will end, and the team will play all of their home matches there

until at least 2036. The main reason for this is financial. The FA did not own the old

Wembley stadium, but it does own the new one, and has taken on debts of hundreds of

millions of pounds to pay for it. Thus it needs to maximise the revenue from England

matches, and does not wish to share it with the owners of other grounds.

Text 2: The House of the Lord

The House of Lords is a component of the Parliament of the United Kingdom,

which also includes the Sovereign and the House of Commons. The House of

Lords is an unelected body, consisting of 26 senior clerics of the Church of

England (the "Lords Spiritual"), as well as 669 members of the Peerage (the

"Lords Temporal"). Lords Spiritual serve as long as they continue to occupy

their ecclesiastical positions, but Lords Temporal serve for life. Members of

the House of Lords are known as "Lords of Parliament".

The House of Lords originated in the 14th century and has been in almost

continuous existence since. It was abolished in 1649 by the revolutionary

government that came to power during the English Civil War, but was restored

in 1660.

The House of Lords (the "Upper House") was once more powerful than the

elected House of Commons (the "Lower House"). Since the 19th century,

however, the powers of the House of Lords have been steadily declining; now,

the Upper House is far weaker than its parliamentary counterpart.

Under the Parliament Act 1911, most legislation passed by the House of

Commons can be delayed, but cannot be rejected, by the House of Lords.

Reforms were enacted under the House of Lords Act 1999, which removed the

automatic hereditary right of many peers to sit in the Upper House. Additional

reforms are contemplated by the current Labour Government, but have not

been passed into law.

In addition to performing legislative functions, the House of Lords also holds

judicial powers: it constitutes the highest court of appeal for most cases in

the United Kingdom. The judicial functions of the House of Lords are not

performed by the whole Chamber, but rather by a group of members with

legal experience, who are known as "Law Lords". The House of Lords is not the

only court of last resort in the United Kingdom; in some cases, that role is

fulfilled by the Privy Council.

The full, formal style of the House of Lords is: The Right Honourable The

Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and

Northern Ireland in Parliament Assembled. The House of Lords, like the House

of Commons, meets in the Palace of Westminster.

Text 3: University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the

English-speaking world (after Oxford).

It is situated in the town of Cambridge, England. According to

legend, the university was founded in 1209 by scholars escaping

from Oxford after a fight with locals there.

Cambridge has produced more Nobel prize winners than any other university in the

world, having 80 associated with it, about 70 of whom were students there.

It regularly heads league tables ranking British universities, and a recent league table by

the Times Higher Education Supplement rated it sixth in the world overall and first for

science.

The universities of Oxford and Cambridge, often referred to together as Oxbridge,

compete to be seen as the strongest overall university in the UK. Historically, they have

produced a significant proportion of Britain's prominent scientists, writers and

politicians.

Text 4: Manchester

Manchester is a city in North West England.

Manchester has recently come to be regarded by some

as England's second city (after London).

Immediately after Manchester hosted the

Commonwealth Games in 2002, a nationwide opinion

poll commissioned by Marketing Manchester and

conducted by pollsters MORI found that out of just

over 1000 people 34% of respondents thought that

England's second city was Manchester; 29% thought it

was Birmingham.

In 2002 the central district had a population of 422,302. This district is the heart of a

large conurbation called the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester, which has a

population of 2,513,468. People from Manchester are called Mancunians.

In the same way as "London" is used to refer to the entire metropolitan area of Greater

London, the term "Manchester" is often used to refer to the Greater Manchester

conurbation, rather than the City of Manchester which is a metropolitan borough. The

constituent parts of Greater Manchester vary in how separately they identify themselves

from Manchester. Salford, for instance, is a city in its own right with a distinct identity

despite directly adjoining the urban centre of Manchester.

TEXT 5. ROBINSON CRUSOE

I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that

country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good

estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence

he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family

in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the usual

corruption of words in England, we are now called - nay we call ourselves and write our

name - Crusoe; and so my companions always called me.

I had two elder brothers, one of whom was lieutenant-colonel to an English regiment of

foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by the famous Colonel Lockhart, and was killed

at the battle near Dunkirk against the Spaniards. What became of my second brother I

never knew, any more than my father or mother knew what became of me.

Being the third son of the family and not bred to any trade, my head began to be filled

very early with rambling thoughts. My father, who was very ancient, had given me a

competent share of learning, as far as house-education and a country free school

generally go, and designed me for the law; but I would be satisfied with nothing but

going to sea; and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the

commands of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother

and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that propensity of nature,

tending directly to the life of misery which was to befall me.

My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel against what he

foresaw was my design. He called me one morning into his chamber, where he was

confined by the gout, and expostulated very warmly with me upon this subject. He

asked me what reasons, more than a mere wandering inclination, I had for leaving

father's house and my native country, where I might be well introduced, and had a

prospect of raising my fortune by application and industry, with a life of ease and

pleasure. He told me it was men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring,

superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise,

and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road; that

these things were all either too far above me or too far below me; that mine was the

middle state, or what might be called the upper station of low life, which he had found,

by long experience, was the best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness,

not exposed to the miseries and hardships, the labour and sufferings of the mechanic

part of mankind, and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the

upper part of mankind. He told me I might judge of the happiness of this state by this

one thing - viz. that this was the state of life which all other people envied; that kings

have frequently lamented the miserable consequence of being born to great things, and

wished they had been placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and

the great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this, as the standard of felicity, when

he prayed to have neither poverty nor riches.