One of the most successful singers of the twentieth century, Ella Fitzgerald has made several different styles of her own. She was born in Virginia but was brought up in an orphanage in Yonkers, New York. Chick Webb spotted her in an amateur competition when she was sixteen. He engaged her to sing with his band and when he died in 1939, she took over.

    Unlike Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald taught herself the sentimental music so popular in the 1930's — songs like “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”— and her recordings became best-sellers. During the 1940's she developed her own “scat singing” — a breathless, nonsense—syllable style—for songs like “Flying Home” and “Lady Be Good.”

    Ella Fitzgerald was the perfect musical partner for her friend, the trumpeter Louis Armstrong, matching him in warmth and artistry. “I just like music, period,” she said. “To me, it's a story. There's only one thing better than singing…. It's more singing.”

    Each morning Grandpa was up early sitting at the kitchen table, reading his book. His grandson wanted to be just like him and tried to copy him in every way he could.

One day the grandson asked, "Grandpa, I try to read the book just like you, but I don't understand it, and I forget what I understand as soon as I close the book. What good does reading the book do?"

The grandpa quietly turned from putting coal in the stove and replied, "Take this coal basket down to the river and bring me back a basket of water."

The boy did as he was told, but all the water leaked out before he got back to the house. The grandpa laughed and said, "You'll have to move a little faster next time," and sent him back to the river with the basket to try again. This time the boy ran faster, but again the basket was empty before he returned. Out of breath, he told his grandpa that it was impossible to carry water in a basket, so he went to get a bucket instead. The grandpa said, "I don't want a bucket of water; I want a basket of water. You're just not trying hard enough." The boy again dipped the basket into the river and ran hard, but when he reached his grandpa the basket was empty again. Out of breath, he said, "Grandpa, it's useless!"

"So, you think it is useless?" the grandpa said, "Look at the basket."

    The boy looked at the basket and for the first time he realized that the basket was different. It had been transformed from a dirty old coal basket and was now clean.

"Grandson, that's what happens when you read the book. You might not understand or remember everything, but when you read it, you'll be changed, inside and out."

    While residents of wealthy nations tend to have greater life satisfaction, new research shows that those living in poorer nations report having greater meaning in life.

    These findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological science, suggest that meaning in life may be higher in poorer nations as a result of greater religiosity (笃信宗教). As countries become richer, religion becomes less central to people's lives and they lose a sense of meaning in life.

    “Thus far, the wealth of nations has been almost always associated with longevity, health, happiness or life satisfaction,” explains psychological scientist Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia. “Given that meaning in life is an important aspect of overall well-being, we wanted to look more carefully at differential patterns, correlates (相关物), and predictors for meaning in life.”

    Oishi and colleague Ed Diener of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign investigated life satisfaction, meaning, and well-being by examining data from the 2007 Gallup World Poll, a large-scale survey of over 140,000 participants from 132 countries. In addition to answering a basic life satisfaction question, participants were asked: “Do you feel your life has an important purpose or meaning?” and “Is religion an important part of your daily life?”

    The data revealed some unexpected trends: “Among Americans, those who are high in life satisfaction are also high in meaning in life,” says Oishi. “But when we looked at the societal level of analysis, we found a completely different pattern of the association between meaning in life and life satisfaction.”

    When looking across many countries, Oishi and Diener found that people in wealthier nations were more educated, had fewer children, and expressed more individualistic attitudes compared to those in poorer countries — all factors that were associated with higher life satisfaction but a significantly lower sense of meaning in life.”

    The data suggest that religiosity may play an important role: Residents of wealthier nations, where religiosity is lower, reported less meaning in life and had higher suicide rates than poorer countries.

    According to the researchers, religion may provide meaning to life to the extent that it helps people to overcome personal difficulty and cope with the struggles of working to survive in poor economic conditions:

    “Religion gives a system that connects daily experiences with the coherent whole (连贯的整体) and a general structure to one's life … and plays a critical role in constructing meaning out of extreme hardship,” the researchers write.

    Oishi and Diener hope to reproduce these findings using more comprehensive measures of meaning and religiosity, and are interested in following countries over time to track whether economic prosperity gives rise to less religiosity and less meaning in life.

    On the way to my company, I was driving behind a small truck. I was a few minutes late and watching the two men ahead of me talking in that slow truck made me angry.

    The light turned green, but the truck was still moving very slowly. I became impatient, so I turned right to go past it. Suddenly, a new blue Chevy Silverado was rushing by. I tried to stop, but my car hit the side of the Chevy.

    "Pow!" I heard a big noise and then I realized that an accident happened. For a moment, just a moment... I asked if I was OK, and honestly, I was waiting for people to come over and help me. Those thoughts didn't last long, as the answer came into my mind that the air bag had saved me. Luckily, I was still alive.

    Slowly I opened the door. The warm, bright morning sunlight hit my face and I felt better. I saw the Chevy Silverado and I ran over to check if the driver in it was injured. "Are you OK？"I shouted loudly through the window. His head was down, eyes closed, and he didn't answer me.

    At that moment, I thought I was looking at a dead man. Full of fear, I shouted again, and knocked at the window heavily once more. His eyes started to open, and he slowly shook his head, "Yes."

    Once again, I said to myself, "How lucky I am!"

    Pinewood Studios is located (位于) about twenty miles west of central London and named after the pinetrees in the grounds. Pinewood has been at the heart of both British and international film production. The house, Heatherden Hall, was bought by Charles Boot in 1934, and he and J. Arthur Rank became partners in the project to build the studios. Pinewood proved pioneering in its use of the "unit system" that allowed more than one film to be made at a time, and this enabled Pinewood to achieve the highest output of all the studios in the world. The first film to be completed at Pinewood was Talk of the Devil (1936, Reed) while the immediate postwar period saw six major productions including the praised Oliver Twist (1948, Lean) and The Red Shoes (1948, Powell and Press-burger).

    The 1950s saw countless productions including the Doctor series and medical comedy, which were the fathers to the Carry On films: the series started with Doctor in the House (1954, Thomas) and led to a further six films. Other notable films of the 1950s age include The Prince and the Showgirl (1957 Olivier) starring Marilyn Monroe, Carve Her Name with Pride (1958, Gilbert), North West Frontier (1959 Thompson) and The Thirty-Nine Steps (1959, Thomas). The Thirty-Nine Steps was a reworking of John Buchan's novel originally filmed by Hitchcock in 1935. Because of its new ideas and skills, American production companies crowded to Pinewood and a major reinvestment (再投资) was required. During the 1960s, four new stages were built to accommodate every aspect of film and television production. This period also saw the start of the association between Pinewood and the James Bond series, which started in 1962 with Dr No (Young). The studios have continued to produce imaginative and technically challenging material such as Superman (1978, Donner), Superman Ⅱ (1980, Lester), Superman Ⅲ (1983, Lester), Superman Ⅳ: The Quest for Peace (1987, Furie),and Batman (1989,Burton).