11. Speak about the competitive nature of sports and the feelings of rivalry involved. (Where Have All the Fans Gone? The Sporting Spirit).

To begin with, I would like to say that nowadays professional sports seems less to do with enjoyment and more to do with making money. Besides, international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred; it does not create good will between the nations.

Actually nearly all sports are competitive. You play to win and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. As soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger units will disgraced if you lose the most savage combative instincts are aroused.

At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare, and the worst of this is that spectators who work themselves into a furies seriously believe that winning at sports shows that a country is better, that sports is a feet of national virtue.

The act I want to point out here is that people want to see one side on top and the other side humiliated. Even when the spectators do not intervene physically, they try to rattle opposing players with boos and insults. Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all the rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence.

Moreover, the point I want to stress here is that television and media play an important role in it. There is much football on TV and they show only exciting parts, goals, fouls, and violence. They only show young people when they are doing something wrong. They ought not to give so much publicity to troublemakers who want to show so-called individuality and start violence when there is a TV camera nearby.

As a result, people have stopped going to the matches and prefer staying at home watching on TV. They get a better view and they like the action replays. They confess that they are afraid to go to the matches with children, because there are many gangs of teenagers who are not interested in football, but just they come to look for trouble. Besides, there is too much foul language.

In conclusion, I want to say that I see the solution to the problem in educating children since childhood. There ought to be more discipline at home and in schools.

12. What do you know about pubs as a typically English institution? (tape)

The pub (or public house) is a traditional English institution without which it is impossible to imagine Britain. Many pubs are hundreds of years old. All pubs have their own names not just addresses. The signs outside pubs always have a picture to go with the name. If you come to Britain, you will se how many pubs you can find; popular pub names are The Fox and Grapes, the Eagle, the King’s Head, the Green Man.

Pubs are good places where you can drink or eat very casually. The main business in pubs is selling drinks to people (there is always plenty to choose from but the most popular is beer). Beside beer, most pubs sell all kinds of alcohol from whisky to wine. Many of them also offer light meals like sandwiches or a pie or sausages and chips or a salad.

Some people go to a pub just to meet their friends and talk over a drink. Men and young people go to pubs more frequently than women do, so there is still a certain amount of masculinity about a pub. Yet the pub seems to have stayed and probably will stay the centre of a community, centre of different neighborhoods – they have strong neighborhood content.

You can always play games there like darts or billiards. Many pubs have a darts team, which plays matches against teams from other pubs. Darts matches are now so popular that they are shown on TV.

Wine bars are a new event in Britain. In 1970, there were very few wine bars, but nowadays they are very fashionable. It is known that the British are traditionally regarded as the nation of beer-drinking, but now everything is changing.