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Here is a list of words. Some of them relate to “the real world” and some of them to “a fantasy world”, like Second Life. Can you tell the difference? Put the words into two columns, headed “real world” and “fantasy world”.

real, imaginary, invented, fact, friends, children, avatars, fairies, physical, reality, fantasy, made-up, wizards, trolls, true, make-believe, actual, colleagues, everyday, normal, virtual, dream, fiction, friends, neighbours, concrete, pretend, untrue

  

Here is a list of words and phrases. Some of them mean, or are associated with, “up-to-date”. Some of them mean, or are associated with, “out-of-date”. Can you arrange the words in two columns – “up-to-date” words, and “out-of-date” words?

latest….expired….modern….fashionable….no longer valid…..behind….out of touch with….new….today….most recent….yesterday….old-fashioned….trendy….up-to-the-minute….old….six months ago….updated….dated….outmoded….obsolete

  

Here are the missing numbers from the podcast “How much does the Queen cost?” You can download a pdf version of the exercise and the answers by clicking the link at the foot of the page.

(a) the second (normally we write Queen Elizabeth II)
(b) 1952
(c) the sixth (King George VI)
(d) 82
(e) 56
(f) 40th
(g) 1066
(h) 440
(i) 60
(j) 2006
(k) 260
(l) 126
(m) 100th
(n) 1952
(o) 100,000 (note that in English we use a comma to separate thousands in big numbers)
(p) 280,000
(q) 60th
(r) 2007
(s) £40,000,000 (generally, in written English we would normally write £40 million)
(t) £2 million
(u) 6.1% (in English we use a full-stop, not a comma, when we write decimals)
(v) 2006
(w) 3.1%
(x) 7
(y) £40 million
(z) 61 million
(aa) £40 million
(bb) 66 pence
(cc) 66 pence
(dd) £6.2 million
(ee) 19
(ff) £18,916
(gg) £32 million
(hh) £16 million
(ii) 50
(jj) 60
(kk) £2.4 million
(ll) 020 7930 4832

  

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Today, we revise some vocabulary about the weather, particularly about the wind, and we remember the big storm that hit England exactly 20 years ago.

When you feel the air moving, or you see the leaves on the trees moving, we say in English that “the wind blows” or “the wind is blowing”. And if the air is moving a lot, we say that the wind is blowing hard, or the wind is blowing strongly.

If the wind is quite gentle, we can call it a “breeze”. But if the wind blows very strongly, we call it a “gale” And a “storm” is even stronger than a gale; and a “hurricane” is even stronger than a storm!

There is a scale of wind speeds called the Beaufort scale. A very light wind is force 1 or 2; and a very violent wind is force 9 or 10; and so on. Weather forecasts in English often use the Beaufort scale to say how hard the wind will blow, particularly weather forecasts for ships at sea.

Twenty years ago yesterday, 15 October 1987, people in Britain switched on their TV sets to watch the evening news and weather forecast. The weather forecaster was Michael Fish. Mr Fish is retired now, but for many years he was Britain’s favourite TV weather forecaster. He was famous for his brightly coloured ties and jackets. While he was telling us about the weather that evening, he said that a woman had telephoned the BBC to ask whether it was true that a hurricane was going to strike England that night. Well, said Michael Fish, he could assure us that no hurricane was on its way.

And – yes, you guessed right – that night the wind over southern England increased. Soon it became a gale, then a storm and finally a hurricane. It was in fact the most violent storm to hit England since 1703. It caused a huge amount of damage. All over the south of England, trees blew down, cars were overturned and walls collapsed. Eighteen people were killed by the storm that night, and over 15 million trees were uprooted. People woke up in the morning to find that the roof had blown off their house, or that their car was crushed underneath a tree, or even that a tree had fallen into their kitchen. Roads were blocked, schools were closed and there was no electricity. Many people were unable to get to work for several days.

Of course, people quickly repaired the damage. Even in the woods and the gardens, where so many trees were destroyed, new trees have grown. But poor Michael Fish has never been allowed to forget what he said on the weather forecast. It was not his fault, of course. The computer at the Meteorological Office (which is Britain’s national weather forecasting service) forecast a big storm, but thought that it would pass further south, over France. Today the Met Office has much better computers and better information from satellites. It is confident that it would not make the same mistake again. I hope they are right. Our climate is changing. Extreme weather events, like floods or violent storms, are likely to become more common in future. We will be able to cope only if we get good information about the weather.

  

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In many towns in England, the main shopping street is called “High Street”. We often use the expression “high street” to mean the main shopping street of any town or suburb, no matter what its real name is. Or we talk about “the high street” to mean shopping facilities generally, particularly shops that people use every day like food shops. So, when a newspaper writes about “high street prices”, for example, they just mean the prices of everyday things that people might buy in high street shops.

And we often complain that high street shops are the same boring shops everywhere in England. Many high street shops are branches of big national chains. For example, there is Next, and Marks and Spencer, which sell clothes; and WH Smith, which sells stationery, books and magazines; and Boots, the chemists; and Woolworths, where you can buy almost anything, provided that it is cheap and made of plastic. You can find these shops in most high streets in England. In most high streets, too, you will find one or more charity shops.

Charity shops are shops which are run by charities to help them raise money. People bring things that they no longer want, and the charity shop sells them to other people. What sort of things? Clothes, shoes, hats, bags, children’s toys, books, CDs, crockery, kitchen things, mugs commemorating the wedding of Charles and Diana – all sorts of things, in other words.

The first charity shop was set up in 1947. Since then, charity shops have become very successful in England. There are over 7000 of them altogether. They raise well over £100 million each year for the charities that own them. They are cheap to run. Often they occupy shop premises that no-one else wants, and where the rent is low. Most of their staff are volunteers. The shops do not have to pay tax on their profits. The charity OXFAM, which helps people in developing countries, has the best-known charity shops in England, but there are many others, including shops run by small local charities.

I enjoy visiting charity shops. They are all different, unlike the big high street shops. There is always a chance that I will find something really interesting or unusual. Here are some of the things I have learned about charity shops:

• they have a special smell, of old clothes.
• women are much more likely than men to give used clothes to a charity shop, and more likely to buy clothes there.
• people who bought CDs of really bad bands ten years ago eventually give the CDs to a charity shop.
• if you go to a charity shop in an area where well-off people live, you can often find expensive designer clothes at bargain prices.
• it always takes three charity shop volunteers to operate the till.

Finally, here is another way in which charity shops are really useful to busy families in modern Britain. Your children arrive home. They tell you proudly that they are in a play at school. And they need costumes – before tomorrow. No problem. Give them £5 and send them to the nearest charity shop. They will come back with some amazing rubbish. They will take it to school next day to wear in the school play. Everyone will say they look wonderful. And when they come home again – why, you can take it all back to the charity shop, of course.

  

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