Manners nowadays in big cities like London are particularly non-existent. It's nothing for a big, strong schoolboy to push an elderly woman aside in the dash for the last remaining seat on a bus, much less stand up and offer his seat to her, as he ought to. In fact, it is saddening to note that if a man does offer his seat to an older woman, it is nearly always one from the older generation.

    This question of giving up seats in public transport is much argued by young men, who say that, since women have claimed equality, they no longer deserve to be treated with courtesy and that those who go out to work should take their turn in the rat race like anyone else. Women have never claimed to be physically as strong as men. Even if it's not agreed, however, that young men should stand up for older women, the fact remains that courtesy should be shown to the old, the sick and the burdened. Are we really so lost to all ideals of unselfishness that we can sit there indifferently reading the paper or a book, saying to ourselves "First come, first served", while a gray-haired woman, a mother with a young child or a cripple stands? Yet this is too often seen.

    Older people, tired and easy annoyed from a day's work, aren't angels, either-far from it. Many an argument or an insulting quarrel breaks out as they feel tired of pushes in the queue and shove(猛推) each other to get on buses.

    If cities are to remain pleasant places to live in at all, however, it seems necessary, not only that communication in transport should be improved, but also that communication between human beings should be kept smooth and polite. Shop assistant won't bother to assist, taxi drivers shout at each other as they dash dangerously round comers, bus conductors pull the bell before their desperate passengers have had time to get on or off the bus, and so on. It seems to us that it's up to the young and strong to do their small part to stop such deterioration(恶化).

    Australia is the smallest continent in the world. It is a little smaller than China. It is on the Southern Hemisphere of the earth. Australia is big, but its population is small. The population of Australia is nearly as large as that of Shanghai.

    Enough laws have been made to fight against pollution. The cities in Australia have little air or water pollution. The sky is blue and the water is clean. You can clearly see fish in the rivers. Plants grow very well.

    Last month we visited Perth, the biggest city in Western Australia, and went to a wild flower exhibition. There we saw large numbers of wild flowers on show, most of which we had never seen before. We had a wonderful time. Perth is famous for its beautiful wild flowers. Every year in spring Perth has a wild flower exhibition. After visiting Perth, we spent a day in the countryside. We sat down and had a rest near a path at the foot of a hill. It was quiet and we enjoyed ourselves very much. When we heard bells ringing at the top of the hills, we looked up, but what we saw made us pick up all our things and run back to our car as quickly as we could. There were about three hundred sheep coming towards us along the path.

    Australia is famous for its sheep and kangaroos. After a short drive from any town, you will find yourself among the white sheep. Sheep, sheep, everywhere you can see sheep.

    How often do you let other people like a bad driver, a rude waiter, or an angry boss, change your mood?

    Sixteen years ago I learned a lesson. I got in a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central Station. We were driving in the right lane when all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver used his brakes, the tires made a loud noise, and at the very last moment our car stopped just 3cm from the back of the other car.

    I couldn't believe it. But then I couldn't believe what happened next. The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident, turned his head around and he started shouting at us. I couldn't believe it!

    My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. So, I said, “Why did you just do that? This guy could have killed us!” And this is when my taxi driver told me what I now call, “The Law of the Garbage Truck”. He said, “Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of anger and disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they look for a place to dump it. And if you let them, they'll dump it on you.”

    So I started thinking how often I let Garbage Trucks run right over me and how often I take their garbage and spread it to other people.

    I began to see Garbage Trucks. I see the load people are carrying. I see them coming to dump it. And like my taxi driver, I don't take it personally. I just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on.

    It may not come as a surprise but the world as a whole is getting richer. Some people have more disposable income to spend on luxuries such as holidays, cars, TVs and smartphones. Recent data has shown that the number of people living in extreme poverty has halved in recent decades. So should we celebrate the fact that more of us now have a better standard of living?

    Maybe not. While the gap between rich and poor in some countries is narrowing, there is still a lot of inequality in other places-some people have a lot of money and opportunities and others don't. A recent report by Oxfam and Credit Suisse revealed how divided many of us are when it comes to wealth. A lot of the money in the world is in the hands of very few people. In fact, 48% of global wealth is owned by the richest 1% of the population.

    But some countries are attempting to reduce this inequality and make the poor less poor. According to David Bryer from Oxfam, Brazil has been taking “some really sensible measures-measures around having more progressive tax, around investing in a higher minimum wage and investing in central public services.” Having a higher minimum wage(提高最低工资标准), can help people eat better and seek a better education. And more people with more money buy more things-and factories can produce more. In turn, a factory which produces more will need more workers. So, more jobs are created.

    Other wealthy individuals are doing their bit to help reduce inequality. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, earned a lot of money from his company but when he retired, he and his wife Melinda, created a foundation to help the poor. He thinks that rich people should, of course, pay their taxes but he also advises that they should all “look at taking their wealth and being philanthropic, both in their own country and to help the global poorest.”

    Bill Gates feels that giving money to help poor people is “fulfilling”. But if other super-rich people don't want to experience this fulfilment then, according to Oxfam, very soon the wealthiest 1% will soon own more money than the rest of the world's population. Do you think that is fair?

    Last week, my granddaughter started kindergarten, and I wished her every success. But part of me didn't. I actually wanted her to fail in some ways because I believe that failure can be good for our learning process. Success is proving that you can do something that you already know you can do, or doing something correctly the first time, which can often be a problematic victory. First-time success is usually a luck. First-time failure, however, is supposed to be the natural order of things. Failure is how we learn.

    In Africa they describe a good cook as “she who has broken many pots”. If you've spent enough time in the kitchen to have broken a lot of pots, probably you know a fair amount about cooking. I once had dinner with a group of cooks, and they spent time comparing knife wounds and bum scars. They knew how much their failures gave them.

    I earn my living by writing a daily newspaper column. Each week I know that one column I write is going to be the worst column. I try my best every day. I have learned to love that column. A successful column usually means that I am discussing my familiar topic, writing in a style I am used to or saying the same things as anyone else but in a better way.

    My younger daughter is a trapeze artist（荡秋千演员）. She spent three years practicing a show, and she did it successfully for years. There was no reason for her to change it but she did anyway. She said she was no longer learning anything new and she was bored. She risked failure and great public embarrassment in order to feed her soul.

    My granddaughter is a perfectionist. She will feel her failures, and I will want to comfort her. But I will also, I hope, remind her of what she learned, and how she can do better next time.

    Karen Bystedt was born in Israel, but lived in London and California as a child. In 1982, as a photography (摄影) student at New York University, she was photographing male models for a book when she came across an ad featuring Andy Warhol, a very famous artist. She thought it would be really great to put him in her book.

    So she called Andy Warhol at his studio in Union Square and asked if she could photograph him.

Two weeks later, Bystedt took a rented Hasselblad camera and lights to Warhol's famed "Factory" on 14th street. She ended up taking 36 pictures, and published two in her book, Not Just Another Pretty Face, published in 1983. Warhol came to its launch (发行) party—and that was the last time she saw him.

    A few years later, she packed the portraits in a box and moved to Los Angeles. But after she'd gotten settled, she couldn't find them. She couldn't remember whether she had given the photos away or just left them in some forgotten storage unit. Either way, she thought they were lost forever.

    In 2011, Bystedt became determined to find the missing films(底片). She spent two weeks going through two old garages, where she had put a bunch of belongings decades before. In a cardboard box, she found ten of the original films, covered in dust. She and a friend spent four months digitizing and cleaning the images up, pixel(像素) by pixel.

    Bystedt was not content to merely publish the unseen photos. She invited contemporary artists to paint over and around her Warhol pictures, breathing new life into her old work. So she began reaching out to artists, seeing if they would be interested in putting their own stamp on the pictures.

    The responses was overwhelming. Bystedt's new exhibit, "The Lost Warhols," opened on May 1, 2018 at 178 Sixth Avenue in Soho, New York, included 66 different interpretations of her portraits from 34 artists.