The Royal Arms

The first authentic English Royal Arms were born the Plantagenet kings in the twelfth century. The Queen’s Arms (of which a simplified form is illustrated in this pamphlet) are in heraldic terms: quarterly, first and fourth gules, three lions passant guardant in pale, or (England); second, or, a lion rampant within a double tressure flory counterflory gules (Scotland); and third, azure, a harp or, stringed argent (Ireland); the whole encircled with the Garter.

Crown. A circle of gold issuing therefrom four crosses patee and four fleurs-de-lis arranged alternately; from the crosses patee arise two golden arches ornamented with pearls, crossing at the top under a mound, surmounted by a cross patee, also gold, the whole enriched with precious stones. There is crimson velvet, turned up ermine.

Crest. Up the Royal helmet the crown proper, thereon statant guardant, a line royally crowned also proper.

Supporters. On the dexter, a lion rampant guardant, or crowned as the crest; and on the sinister, unicorn argent-armed, crined, and unguled, or gorged with a coronet composed of crosses patee and fleurs-de-lis, chain affixed thereto passing between the forelegs reflex over the back of the last.

Motto. Dieu et mon Droit.

The Royal Standard and the Union Flag.

The Royal Standard or Royal Flag is the personal flag of the Sovereign and may be flown only when the Sovereign is actually present.

The British Union Flag, commonly known as Union Jack, is the country’s national flag. It is composed of English cross of St. George (red cross on a white field), the Scottish cross of St Andrew (a diagonal white cross on a blue field) and the Irish cross of St Patrick (a diagonal red cross on a white field).

The Regalia.

St Edward Crown, used only at a coronation, may indeed date back to Edward the Confessor, for the account of Charles II’s goldsmith show that he must have used one of the medieval crowns, perhaps the Confessor’s, adding to it the arches, monde, and cross.

The head of the Sceptre with the Cross, which was made for Charles II, now contains the Star of Africa, at 530 carats the largest cut diamond in the world.

Text 6. Climate. Vegetation and wildlife

The climate in the UK is generally mild and temperate due to the influence of the Gulf Stream. The southwestern wind carry the warmth and moisture into Britain. The climate in Britain is usually described as cool, temperate and humid.

The weather is so changeable that the English often say that they have no climate but only weather. Therefore it is natural for them to use the comparison ‘as changeable as the weather’ of a person who often changes his mood or opinion about something. The weather is the favourite topic of conversation in the UK. As the weather changes with the wind, and Britain is visited by winds from different parts of the world, the most characteristic feature of Britain’s weather is its variability.

The English also say that they have three variants of weather: when it rains in the morning, when it rains in the afternoon or when it rains all day long. Sometimes it rains so heavily that they say ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’.

Rainfall is more or less even throughout the year. In the mountains there is heavier rainfall than in the plains of the south and east. The driest period is from March to June and the wettest months are from October to January. The average range of temperature (from winter to summer) is from 5 to 23 degrees above zero. During a normal summer the temperature sometimes rises above 30 degrees in the south. Winter temperatures below 10 degrees are rare. It seldom snows heavily in winter, frost is rare. January and February are usually the coldest months, July and August are the warmest. Still the wind may bring winter cold in spring or summer days. Sometimes it brings whirlwinds or hurricanes. Droughts are rare.

So, we may say that the British climate has three main features: it is mild, humid and changeable. That means that it is never too hot or too cold. Winters are extremely mild. Snow may come but it melts quickly. In winter the cold is a humid cold, not dry.

This humid and mild climate is good for plants. Trees and flowers begin to blossom early in spring. Some of them have become symbols in the UK. Probably you know that the poppy is the symbol of peace, the red rose is the national emblem of England, the thistle is the national emblem of Scotland and the Edinburg International Festival. The daffodils and the leek are the emblems of Wales, the shamrock (a kind of clover) is the emblem of Ireland.

The UK was originally a land of vast forests, mainly oak and beech in the Lowlands and pine and birch in the Highlands, with great stretches of marshland and smaller areas of moors. In the course of time, much forest land was cleared and almost all the Lowlands outside the industrial areas were put under cultivation. Today only about 6 per cent of the total land area remains wooded.

Extensive forests remain in eastern and northern Scotland and in southeastern and western England, while Scotland has much pine and birch. The Highlands with thin soil are largely moorland with heather and grasses. In the cultivated areas that make up most of Britain there are many wild flowers, flowering plants and grasses.

The fauna or animal life of the UK is much like that of northwestern Europe, to which it was once joined. Many larger mammals such as bear and wolf have been hunted to extinction, others are now protected by law. About 50 land mammals are still found in the UK. There are many foxes. Otters are common along rivers and streams, and seals live along parts of the coast. Hedgehogs, hares, rabbits, rats and mice are numerous. Deer live in some of the forests in the Highlands of Scotland and in England. There are several small lizards, two or three kinds of snakes, and several kinds of frogs and toads.

You may think that there are crocodiles in the British Isles if you read that ‘... a traditional jazz band led the three-mile crocodile in a musical protest to 10 Downing Street’. But it is not a real crocodile. It is what the English usually say about schoolchildren walking in procession, two by two.

Some 230 kinds of birds live in the UK, another 200 are regular visitors, and many are songbirds. The most numerous are blackbird, sparrow and starling. Robin Redbreast is the national bird of the UK. The number of ducks, geese and other water fowl has diminished during recent years. Partridges, pheasants and other large and rare birds are protected by law. Gulls and other sea birds nest near the coast.

There are many threats to wildlife and ecological balance around the coast. The biggest threat to the coastline is pollution. Even much-loved Blackpool is not officially safe. More than 3,500 million tons of industrial waste is pumped into the North Sea every year. ‘We cannot continue to use our seas as a dustbin and expect our coastline to survive’, says Greenpeace. Many other ecological problems may be caused by privatization of the coast. The past decade of Tory rule has seen a decline in the quality of rivers. Many of them are ‘biologically dead’, i.e. unable to support fish and wildlife.

Reference

poppy – мак (считается символом мира в Великобритании)

red rose – алая роза (эмблема династии Ланкастеров, эмблема Англии)

daffodil – желтый нарцисс (вторая эмблема Уэльса)

leek – лук-порей (национальная эмблема Уэльса)

shamrock – трилистник (эмблема Ирландии)

clover – клевер

beech – бук

moor – вересковая пустошь, заросли вереска

healther – вереск (вечнозеленый кустарник с напоминающими колокольчик цветками; распространен в Шотландии)

Robin Redbreast – красногрудая малиновка (национальная птица Британии)

Blackpool – Блэкпул (фешенебельный приморский курорт Великобритании, где часто проводятся конференции политических партий и профсоюзов)

Greenpeace – Гринпис (входящая в блок левых партий великобритании партия “зеленых” – активных сторонников защиты окружающей среды).

Text 7 The Arts in Britain.

The arts in Britain are flourishing, and present a varied and lively picture. London has become an international forum of the arts, with major exhibitions of painting and sculpture and theatre, opera and ballet companies and orchestras drawing large audience. Throughout Britain there are festivals and centres of artistic activity- among them the Edinburgh International Festival, the music festivals at Aldeburgh, Windsor and Cheltenham and opera at Glyndebourne.

The spread of musical interest in Britain owes much to the British Broadcasting Corporation with its daily music programme and its partial financing of the Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

There are over 900 museums and art galleries in Britain and art exhibitions are shown all over the country through Arts Council, which distributes government grants for music, drama, painting and sculpture. Local authorities play an important part in encouraging the arts, supporting galleries, orchestras and art centres- an example is the ambitious Midlands Art Centre for young people in Birmingham.

British artists, writers, musicians and architects exert a powerful influence abroad. Notable figures include sculptors Henry Moor and Anthony Caro, painters Francis Bacon and Graham Sutherland and , among younger artists, Richard Smith, winner of major international prize in 1967, Richard Hamilton, who painted the first “pop” picture, and Bridget Riley, internationally known artist whose work has also inspired fashion.

British music owes much to the composer Benjamin Britten, whose influence has produced a new school of British opera. In architecture the work of Sir Basil Spence (Coventry Cathedral, Sussex University) and the collective work of modern British architects in housing and town planning are outstanding.

Literature presents great diversity. Poetry has received fresh stimulus from regional movements including the Liverpool poets, who write for public performance. Among novelists of worlwide reputation are Graham Greene, Angus Wilson, William Golding, Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark.

flourish — преуспевать, процветать

Edinburgh International Festival — Международный Эдинбургский фе­стиваль (ежегодный музыкальный и театральный фестиваль в г. Эдин­бурге в августе — сентябре. Про­водится с 1947 г.)

Aldeburgh — Олдборо (город в графстве Суффолк; место прове­дения ежегодных музыкальных фестивалей. Первый состоялся по инициативе композитора Бенджа­мина Бриттена в 1948 г.)

Windsor — Виндзор (место заго­родной резиденции английских ко­ролей)

Cheltenham — Челтнем (город в графстве Глотершир, где прово­дится ежегодный фестиваль совре­менной английской музыки)

Glyndebourne — Глайндборн (име­ние близ г. Льюиса в графстве Суссекс, где проводится ежегодный оперный фестиваль)

Arts Council — Совет по искусствам

distribute — распределять, разда­вать

encourage — поддерживать, по­ощрять

exert — оказывать давление, вли­ять

diversity — многообразие, разнооб­разие

SECTION RECAP

1. What kinds of artistic activity do we mean when speaking about the arts in Britain?

2. What music festivals take place in Bri­tain? What role does the BBC play in the development of musical interests in Britain?

3. What does the Arts Council do to encoura­ge the arts in Britain? Can you give any examples?

4. What names of contemporary British novelists, composers and other people of arts do you know?

TALKING POINTS

• You came across some names of British sculptors, painters, artists in the text. Do you know any names of Britain’s fa­mous writers, poets, musicians, actors and singers?

• Can you give any names of the promi­nent people of arts in Ukraine? What are they? What pieces of literature, arts and music by Ukrainian people of arts do you like?

• There are 900 museums and art galleries in Britain. Do you know the number of museums in your republic (region, dis­trict, town)? What role can museums and art galleries play in the upbringing of children? Do you often go to museums? What kind of museums do you prefer?

Part II London - the capital city of England and the UK.

Text 8. SOME FACTS ABOUT LONDON .

London is the capital city of England and of the United Kingdom, with a population of about 6-7 million. It is the largest city in Britain and one of the largest in the world. Historical and geographical circumstances have made London one of the world’s most important commercial and cultural centres, while its range of historical connections and its buildings attract millions of tourists from overseas each year.

London is a focus of civilization and political wisdom — exercised with unique democratic effect in the historical record of the House of Commons — truly exemplary in the western world. It is the capital where a respect for all ideas has been transformed into a genuine rite unanimously obeyed and respected, and where coexistence is a social imperative born of civic customs of rank and vigorous ancestors.

The gradual growth of the city helps to explain the fact that London does not have just one centre, it has a number of centres, each with a distinct character: the financial and business centre called the City (spelt with the capital C), the shopping and entertainment centre in West End, the government centre in Westminster.

London is the city of great variety, ranging from the narrow medieval street-patterns of the City to the spacious neo-classical squares of Belgravia. Two enduring architectural influences have been Sir Christopher Wren (rebuilder of St. Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire of 1666), the spires of whose 29 surviving City churches still contribute an imaginative element to the City skyline, and John Nash, who under the patronage of the Prince Regent, later George IV, at the beginning of the 19th century laid out a large part of London (including Regent’s Park, Regent Street and the Mall) in one of the grandest examples of town planning.

The most famous older buildings in London include Bucking­ham Palace (the Sovereign’s residence in London), the Houses of Parliament (an outstanding example of nineteenth-century Gothic Revival architecture), St. Paul’s Cathedral (the second largest church in Europe), Westminster Abbey (where Sovereigns are crowned), and the Tower of London.

The length and breadth of Greater London extends over an area of 700 square miles. The whole of London is full of buildings of incalculable artistic areas — the City, Piccadilly, Hyde Park Corner to the banks of the Thames — providing an unforgettable and impressive image.

(From Reference Services)

genuine — подлинный, истинный

rite — обряд, церемония, ритуал

obey — выполнять (приказание)

imperative — филос. императив ( нравственное веление, изначально присущее разуму, веч­ное и неизменное, лежащее в основе морали)

vigorous — энергичный

ancestor [‘ nsist ] — предок, пра­родитель

entertainment — развлечение, увеселение, эстрадный концерт

Belgravia — Белгрейвия (фешенебельный район Лондона недалеко от Гайд-Парка)

Regent’s Park — Риджентс-Парк (большой парк в северо-западной части Лондона; бывшее место королевской охоты)

incalculable — несчетный