It was once common to regard Britain as a society with class distinction. Each class had unique characteristics.

    In recent years, many writers have begun to speak the “decline of class”and “classless society”in Britain. And in modern day consumer society everyone is considered to be middle class.

    But pronouncing the death of class is too early. A recent wide-ranging society of public opinion found 90 percent of people still placing themselves in particular class; 73 percent agreed that class was still a vital part of British society; and 52 percent thought there were still sharp class differences. Thus, class may not be culturally and politically obvious, yet it remains an important part of British society. Britain seems to have a love of stratification.

    One unchanging aspect of a British person's class position is accent. The words a person speaks tell her or his class. A study of British accents during 1970s found that a voice sounding like a BBC newsreader was viewed as the most attractive voice, Most people said this accent sounded “educated” and “soft”. The accents placed at the bottom in this study, on the other hand, were regional（地区的）city accents. These accents were seen as “common” and “ugly”. However, a similar study of British accents in the US turned these results upside down and placed some regional accents as the most attractive and BBC English as the least. This suggests that British attitudes towards accent have deep roots and are based on class prejudice.

    In recent years, however, young upper middle-class people in London, have begun to adopt some regional accents, in order to hide their class origins. This is an indication of class becoming unnoticed. However, the 1995 pop song “Common People” puts forward the view that though a middle-class person may “want to live like common people” they can never appreciate the reality of a working-class life.

    Hi, everybody! Welcome to our newly-opened Richards Cinema Bookstore!

    Now let me introduce to you some of the new film books in our store.

    Are you Chinese film fans? OK, here comes the latest 25 New Takes about Chinese films. It is a collection of 25 fresh readings of different Chinese films from the 1930s to the present. In recent years, Chinese films are very popular in the States, such as Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon, Hero, and Flowers of Shanghai.

    Do you like French films? Well, here is The French Cinema Book. It covers French films from the 1890s to the beginning of the 21st century. It is written for all lovers of French cinema: students and teachers, specialists and fans, and so on.

    Maybe you are Indian film fans and star-chasers. Then here is Encyclopedia (百科全书) of Indian Cinema. The book is a complete introduction to all the best Indian films. It also offers a full list of names of the famous and successful film stars in the past ten years. You know, the Indian film industry is the largest in the world after our Hollywood.

    If you like British films, we have The British Cinema Book. It is a good review of British cinema. This book contains a good many nice pictures.

    In our bookstore, you can also find books about Mexican, Japanese, Australian, German and Italian films.

    Well, please help yourselves to some coffee or tea, and have a good time here!

    When I was about 12, I had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my shortcomings(缺点). Week by week her list grew: I was very thin, I wasn't a good student, I talked too much, I was too proud, and so on. I tried to hear all this as long as I could. At last, I became very angry. I ran to my father with tears in my eyes.

    He listened to me quietly, and then he asked, “Are the things she says true or not? Janet, didn't you ever wonder what you're really like? Well, you now have that girl's opinion. Go and make a list of everything she said and mark the points that are true. Pay no attention to the other things she said.”

    I did as he told me. To my great surprise, I discovered that about half the things were true. Some of them I couldn't change (like being very thin), but a good number I could—and suddenly I wanted to change. For the first time I got a fairly clear picture of myself.

    I brought the list back to Daddy. He refused to take it. “That's just for you,” he said. “You know better than anyone else the truth about yourself. But you have to learn to listen, not just close your ears in anger and feel hurt. When something said about you is true, you'll find it will be of help to you. Our world is full of people who think they know your duty. Don't shut your ears. Listen to them all, but hear the truth and do what you know is the right thing to do.”

    Daddy's advice has returned to me at many important moments. In my life, I've never had a better piece of advice.

    Children's lives have changed greatly over the last 50 years. But do they have a happier childhood than you or I did?

    It's difficult to look back on one's own childhood without some element of nostalgia (怀旧的). I have four brothers and sisters, and my memories are all about being with them. Playing board games on the living room floor, or spending days in the street with the other neighborhood children, racing up and down on our bikes, or exploring the nearby woods. My parents scarcely appear in these memories, except as providers either of meals or of severe blame after some particularly risky adventure.

    These days, in the UK at least, the nature of childhood has changed dramatically. Firstly, families are smaller, and there are far more only children. It is common for both parents to work outside the home and there is the feeling that there just isn't time to bring up a large family, or that no one could possibly afford to have more than one child. As a result, today's boys and girls spend much of their time alone. Another major change is that youngsters today tend to spend a huge amount of their free time at home, inside. More than anything this is due to the fact that parents worry far more than they used to about real or imagined dangers, so they wouldn't dream of letting their children play outside by themselves.

    Finally, the kind of toys children have and the way they play is totally different. Computer and video games have replaced the board games and more interesting activities of my childhood. The irony (令人啼笑皆非的事情) is that so many ways of playing games are called “interactive”. The fact that you can play electronic games on your own further increases the sense of loneliness felt by many young people today.

    Do these changes mean that children today have a less relaxing childhood than I had? I personally believe that they do, but perhaps every generation feels exactly the same.

    Sports shoes that work out whether their owner has done enough exercise to warrant(保证；授权) time in front of the television have been invented in the UK.

    The shoes — named Square Eyes — contain an electronic pressure sensor and a tiny computer chip to record how many steps the wearer has taken in a day. A wireless transmitter(传话器) passes the information to a receiver connected to a television, and this decides how much evening viewing time the wearer deserves, based on the day's efforts.

    The design was inspired by a desire to fight against the rapidly ballooning waistlines among British teenagers, says Gillian Swan, who developed Square Eyes as a final year design project at Brunel University to London, UK. “We looked at current issues and childhood overweight really stood out,” she says. “And I wanted to deal with that with my design.”

    Once a child has used up their daily allowance gained through exercise, the television automatically switches off. And further time in front of the TV can only be earned through more steps.

    Swan calculated how exercise should translate to television time using the recommended daily amounts of both. Health experts suggest that a child take 12,000 steps each day and watch no more than two hours of television. So, every 100 steps recorded by the Square Eyes shoes equals exactly one minute of TV time.

    Existing pedometers(计步器) normally clip(夹在) onto a belt or slip into a pocket and keep count of steps by measuring sudden movement. Swan says these can be easily tricked into recording steps through shaking. But her shoe has been built to be harder for lazy teenagers to cheat. “It is possible, but it would be a lot of effort,” she says. “That was one of my main design considerations.”

    Let's pay a visit to some of the most amazing and unusual places in the world, from icy hotels to temples on the side of cliffs（悬崖）.

    Hotel de Glace－Canada

    If you don't mind the cold, this igloo（冰屋）style hotel is certainly for you. Nearly everything, including the bedding, is made of ice! This hotel is so well insulated（隔热）that whatever the temperature outside is, the temperature inside never changes more than a few degrees. It's around 23 degrees to be exact. Since it is made of ice, the hotel does have some dress requirements that can be found on their website. Arctic sleeping bags are provided for every guest, including children. For more information, visit the website: http://www.icehotelcanada.com.

    The Tigers Nest Monastery－Bhutan

    Built directly onto a cliff side, this ancient temple has claimed（声明）its spot since 1692. Rich in history, Tigers Nest is constructed around eight attractive caves on the mountainside. Most of the caves are easy to reach through the natural rock stairways. However, some are more difficult, and can only be reached by shaky rope bridges. Visit the website http://www.bhutantouroperators.net/taktsang-monastery.php for more information.

    Dinosaur Provincial Park－Canada

    Known to be one of the greatest fossil（标本）locations in the world, Dinosaur Provincial Park has nearly 500 specimens（标本）in all shapes and sizes. The park itself has a vast collection of fossils and a unique natural ecosystem. For more information, please visit http://tpr.alberta.ca/parks/dinosaur/index.aspx.

    Leshan Giant Buddha－Sichuan China

    The world's largest Buddha sits on the edge of two great rivers. Construction is believed to have started around the year 713, and at the time of this construction it was the tallest carved statue in the world. All 233 feet of the statue was carved from the surrounding cliffs and preserved （保存）in amazing condition. Even the 2008 earthquake was not enough to shake it. Its website

http://yeschinatour.com/china-guides/china-attractions leshan-giant-buddha-leshan will provide you with more information.