1. An otherwise dispassionate race — во всем другом совершенно бесстрастной нации

2. 4/6 -4s., 6d.— 4 шиллинга 6 пенсов

DRIVING CARS

It is about the same to drive a car in England as any­where else. To change a punctured tyre in the wind and rain gives about the same pleasure outside London as out­side Rio de Janeiro; it is not more fun to try to start up a cold motor with the handle in Moscow than in Manchester; the roughly 50-50 proportion ¹ between driving an average car and pushing it is the same in Sydney and Edinburgh.

There are, however, a few characteristics which distin­guish the English motorists from the continental, and some points which the English motorists have to remember.

(1) fn English towns there is a thirty miles an hour speed-limit ⁸ and the police keep a watchful eye on law breakers. The fight against reckless driving is directed extremely skilfully and carefully according to the very best English detective traditions. It is practically impos­sible to find out whether you are being followed by a po­lice car or not. There are, however, a few indications which may help people.

(a) The police always use a 13 h.p., blue Wolseley

car; ⁸

(b) three uniformed policemen sit in it; and

(c) on their cars you can read the word POLICE written in large letters in front and rear, lit up during the hours of darkness.

- (2) I think England is the only country in the world where you can have to leave your lights on even if you park in a brilliantly lit-up street. The advantage being that * your battery gets exhausted, you cannot start up again and consequently the number of road accidents are greatly reduced. Safety firsll

(3) There is a huge ideological warfare going on behind the scenes of the motorist field.

Whenever you stop your car in the City, the West End or many other places, two or three policemen rush at you and tell you that you must not park there. Where may you park? They shrug their shoulders. There are a couple of spots in the South Coast and in a village called Nin-chinhampton. Three cars may park there for half an hour every other Sunday morning 6 between 7 and 8 a.m. The police are perfectly right. After all, cars have been

built to run, and run fast, so they should not stop. This healthy philosophy of the police has been seriously

challenged by a certain group of motorists who maintain

that cars have been built to park and not move. These

_E

eople drive out to Hampstead Heath or Richmond on eautiful, sunny days, pull up all their windows and go to sleep. They do not get a spot of air, they are miserably un­comfortable, they have nightmares, and the whole proce­dure is called "spending a lovely afternoon in the open."

Notes

1. 50-50 proportion — поровну, пополам

2. a thirty miles an hour speed-limit — ограничение скорости до 30 м/ч

3. а 13 h.p., blue Wolseley car — голубая машина марки «Вулз-Ли» с мотором мощностью в 13 лошадиных сил

4. the advantage being that — так как в результате

б. every other Sunday morning — no утрам через воскресенье

IF YOU GO TO ENGLAND

One of these days you may find it possible to visit England. If you come there on board the ship, it will get you into harbour at Dover, or Harwich or any other port. Or you may come there by airliner that is also to fly you to London.

The guide who will show you around the city will tel! you at least a few things about the history of England and London in particular. He or she will tell you about the two great misfortunes that befell England in the 17th century, the Plague (1665) which killed nearly 100,000 peo­ple, that is about 1/5 of the population and the Great Fire (1666) just a year later when 3,000 houses and nearly all churches were destroyed in the flames. The fire was very important for modern London, it cleared away the old houses. And a new London, a London of stone, wider streets and better houses was built.

You will certainly be told about terrible air-raids and bombing—bombing—bombing during the Second World War when not just one or two houses but whole districts were destroyed and how after the raids people used to come out of their shelters and put little flags on the heaps of ruins: "Bombed but not Beaten!"

You will be shown lots of historical monuments, places of interest, wonderful parks, museums which you will admire. You may be taken to Cambridge or Oxford as well. You will see the Beautiful, the Wonderful, the Most Interesting in London and its suburbs.

But if you are inquisitive enough you won't be satisfied until you see the people's London. If you take the Hamp­stead bus from Victoria Station, it will take you forty min­utes to get to the end of the bus line. This trip on the deck would show you that London is dirty and ugly, as well as beautiful, dull and monotonous as well as wonderful and quite ordinary and uninteresting as well as Most Inter­esting.

You will see happy children with their well-dressed mothers walking in Kensington Gardens and you will watch pieces of empty grounds with dust bins and rubbish heaps and little children playing among them.

You will be able to see the elegant crowd coming out of the Haymarket and watch an artist who paints in coloured chalks right on the pavement. Beside the picture there is a hat and the words "Ladies and Gentlemen! A penny is enough. Thank you kindly."

Begging is forbidden in London, you know. But one can sell matches or any small things, or draw pictures on the pavement.

In the picture galleries and museums you meet well-mannered and well-dressed people. Very many young people among them, students, perhaps. "The ordinary people"—as they call them here, will not be many there. You will be able to pick them out at once—their clothes, their manners are different.

In London you will see for yourself:

• Wide streets, open parks—and dirtiest districts

• Palaces and slums

• Beauty and ugliness

• Rich and poor, most elegant and most shabby

• Old traditions and ceremonies and modern strikes of workers, unemployed, war veterans and intellectuals.

Then you will say: "Indeed, London is the city of con­trasts."