The richest man in the world

His Majesty, Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, the twenty-ninth Sultan of Brunei, is the richest man in the world. He is descended from one of the oldest ruling dynasties on earth - a royal line that goes directly back over 600 years to 1363.

His money

When one of his daughters was eleven years old, he gave her a birthday party. It was in the ballroom, of Claridges Hotel in Mayfair, London, and it cost £100,000, but for the Sultan this is not a great amount of money.

The Sultan's total Wealth is more than $25 billion. He owns hotels all round the world: the Dorchester in London, the Beverley Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, and the Hyatt Hotel in Singapore. He has a fleet of private planes, including an airbus. One of his London houses has the biggest garden in the city, except for Buckingham Palace.

Some years ago, in Brunei, he built the biggest palace in the world. It has 1,788 rooms, 5 swimming pools, 257 toilets, 44 staircases, and 18 lifts. The dining-room can seat 4,000 people. There are 564 chandeliers with 51,490 light bulbs. A servant is employed fulltime to change bulbs - about 200 a day. The total cost of the palace was $400 million. In 1996, he had a special party there for his fiftieth birthday. It lasted three days and the guests included Michael Jackson, the American musician, the Infanta Elena from Spain, and Prince Charles from Britain.

His country

Brunei is one of the smallest but richest countries in the world. Its wealth comes from oil and gas. Many people in the west think that Brunei is in the Middle East but it isn't. It's in East Asia, on the north coast of the island of Borneo. It sells the oil and gas to Japan, and earns $2 billion a year - that is $229,000 every hour- from it. And the beauty is that there are so few people to share all this money. The population of Brunei is only 230,000. The Sultan and his three brothers are part of the government.

His lifestyle

Despite all his money and power, the Sultan is a very shy man. He often goes to international meetings but says very little. In 1965, when he was nineteen, he married his cousin, Princess Saleha, who was sweet, pretty, and only sixteen. Time passed and she became more and more reserved. In 1980, the Sultan met an air hostess called Mariam Bell. She is much more outgoing than many Bruneian girls and the Sultan fell in love with her. So, in 1981, he married her, too, and now two wives and ten children - four princes and six princesses - all live happily together in the palace. And the Sultan himself ? With all his wealth, is he a happy man ? Nobody asks him that.

Завдання до тексту:

1. Дайте відповіді:

What did you find out about the Sultan of Brunei?

What does he own?

Describe his palace.

What did you find out about Brunei?

2. Знайдіть у тексті дієслова ‘to be’, ‘to have’ та закінчення ‘s’ і прокоментуйте їх вживання.

No parking

Jack Jones left his office at 6 p. m. He had had a very busy day. When he got to the station there were thousands of people waiting, so the train was very crowded.

Glad of the fresh air, he walked from the railway station near his home, and in a few minutes reached the street where he had lived for many years. What he saw as he came round the corner made him very angry indeed.

Can’t you read? He said angrily to the man who had just got out of a car right in front of the gate of Mr. Jones’ house, and he pointed to the “No Parking” notice that he had got a local builder to put in the front garden.

“No,” said the man in an unpleasant manner. “1 was never taught.” Mr. Jones became angrier than he had ever been before. When he entered his house Mrs. Jones tried to calm him, but it was useless.

He changed into his working clothes, which he always wore when he was working in the garden, and went out to do some work.

He looked carefully at the well-made and neatly painted board that faced the street. It so clearly indicated that there was to be no parking outside his house. He remembered telling the painter to make it clear, so that it could be read quite easily by people as they drove by in their cars.

To make matters worse, the houses farther down the street had no cars parked outside them. This was because, a few weeks earlier, the police had fixed up a notice with the words “Police Notice-No Parking” in clear white letters on a bright blue background. Suddenly an idea started to form in his mind, and he began to see the possibilities of a scheme for clearing away these wretched cars that had been obstructing the front of his house, all day long, for many months now.

He didn’t tell his wife about it so that when he brought home a large flat parcel a few days later, she was very surprised. He changed into his working clothes, took the parcel with him, and went out into the garden.

A little while later he took his wife out to see what he had been doing. To her surprise she found that he had taken down the little black and white “No Parking” notice, and in its place was a new board painted bright blue with white lettering on it which said “Polite Notice-No Parking”. Jack Jones was never troubled with cars parking outside the gate of his house again. It is a funny thing, but true, that people usually read what they expect to see. Hardly anyone noticed that it was a “polite notice” and not a “police notice”.