Учебно-методическое пособие для факультативных занятий по английскому языку. Таганрог: Изд-во тти, 2013. 200 с
(a) Trafalgar Square with the pigeons, (b)
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| (a) Trafalgar Square with the pigeons, (b) in St Mark's Square, Venice,
with the pigeons and (c) in front of the Arc de Triomphe, in Paris, without pigeons. The idea is simply to collect documentary proof that they have been there. The German travels to check up on his guide- books: when he sees that the Ponte di Rial to is really at its proper venue, that the Leaning Tower is in its appointed place in Pisa and is leaning at the promised -angle — he ticks these things off in his guide- book and returns home with the gratifying feeling that he has not been swindled. But why do the English travel? First, because their neighbour does and they have caught the bug 1 from him. Secondly, they used to be taught that travel broadens the mind 133 and although they have by now discovered the sad truth that whatever travel may do to the mind, Swiss or German food certainly broadens other parts of the body, the old notion still lingers on. 2 But lastly — and perhaps mainly — they travel to avoid foreigners. Here, in our cosmopolitan England, one is always exposed to the danger of meeting all sorts of peculiar aliens. Not so on one's journeys in Europe, if one manages things intelligently. I know many English peop le who travel in groups, stay in hotels where even the staff is English, eat roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sundays and Welsh rarebit 3 and steak-and-kidney pudding on weekdays, all over Europe. The main aim of the Englishman abroad is to meet people , I mean, of course, nice English people from next door or from the next street. Normally one avoids one's neighbour ('It is best to keep yourself to yourself, 'We leave others alone and want to be left alone', etc., etc.). If you meet your next door neighb our in the High Street or at your front door you pretend not to see him or, at best, nod coolly, but if you meet him in Capri or Granada, you embrace him fondly and stand him a drink 4 or two, and you may even discover that he is quite a nice chap after all and both of you might just as well have stayed at home in Chip ping Norton. All this, however, refers to travelling for the general pub - lic. If you want to avoid giving the unfortunate impression that you belong to the lower-middle class, you must learn the elementary snobbery o f travelling: 1) Avoid any place frequented by others. Declare: all the hotels are full, one cannot get in anywhere. (No one will ever remark: hotels are full of people who actually managed to get in.) 2) Carry this a stage further and try to avoid all places interesting enough to attract other people — or, as others prefer to put it — you must get off the beaten track. In practice this means that in Italy you avoid Venice and Flor ence but visit a few filthy and poverty -stricken fishing villages no one has ever heard of, and if your misfortune does take you to Florence, you avoid the Uffizi Gallery and refuse to look at Michelangelo's David. You visit, instead, a dirty little pub on the outskirts where Tuscan food is supposed to be divi ne and where you can listen to a drunken and deaf accordion player. |