A Guide to Accents (NEW!

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Language is never fixed. It changes over time as people try to express themselves in different ways to different people. And English, although broadly the same language, is spoken in lots of different ways by lots of different people. Normally this is because people live far apart. However, even in Britain, a relatively small place, there are huge variations in the way people speak English. And that is not to forget the large numbers of people who speak other languages as their first language people who have migrated to Britain from abroad, as well as the significant 25% of Welsh speakers who still speak Welsh in their local communities. Written English is much more fixed, and changes much less quickly, than spoken English. People across Britain speak English using not only different accents, but different expressions. For example, people of different ages and from different parts of Britain may greet you with as many different words as; dear, love, darling, chuck, mate, guv, son, sir, madam, miss, fella, and many, many more. As people migrate into Britain, and as people move around Britain more freely, accents change more quickly. However, most British people can guess where another British person is from because of their accent. One of the most obvious differences in accents in Britain is shown by the pronunciation of the word bath. Broadly speaking people in the north pronounce the a as if they were saying at, and people in the south pronounce it as if they were saying are. The same distinction is true of lots of words which have a similar sound like laugh, ask and dance. There are other vowels that are pronounced differently in the north and south including the vowel sounds in cup, rose, and bird. These differences are harder to explain than the bath example. However, although different accents may sound difficult at first, they shouldnt be too hard to understand once you get used to them! . The same cant be said for different areas which use completely different words. For example, the Cockney speech, which describes a small area of east London, is nearly impossible to understand for anyone else. This is not because of the accent, but because they often use rhymes to describe things instead of the words themselves. This originally started in the 19th Century as an attempt to make sure that the police could not understand what they were saying if they were doing something criminal, though it is not the same now! Ill leave you with a few fun examples of Cockney: Adam and Eve (meaning: believe) - E.g. I dont Adam and Eve it, means I dont believe it.

Bacon and Eggs (meaning: legs) - E.g. Move your bacon and eggs, means move your legs. Pork pies (meaning: lies) E.g. Hes telling pork pies, means hes telling lies.

Glossary
migrate (v.) - to travel to another place or country to live chuck (n.) - (Northern, informal) a friendly way of addressing a person guv (n.) - (informal) 'guv' is used to address a man fella (n.) - (informal) 'fella' is used to address a man distinction (n.) - difference cockney (n.) - a type of informal English used in East London

Creative Industries

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Hello and welcome to Trend UK, your shortcut to popular culture from the British Council. In the next few minutes were going to be seeing what its like to live and work as a young professional in the UK. Creative industries play a key role in the UKs economic growth. Its a sector which covers activities such as architecture, publishing, film, fashion, music, radio and TV; and software. And it accounts for almost ten percent of the UK economy. Creative industries often attract young people who feel naturally draw to them, in the hope that they can make their mark, their fortune or both, whilst expressing themselves in their chosen field. Thats the dream but what are the realities? Our reporter Mark brought together a group of young creative professionals from the film industry to find out. Assemble a group of young people who work in the UKs burgeoning creative sector and you wont be short of opinions. By and large, theyre all under 30, all extremely enthusiastic and theyve all got something to shout about. Im a film and video editor.

I work in television as a lighting camera woman. Im a freelance cameraman and editor. S o whats it like working in a creative industry here in the UK? It can be fantastic. You know everything has highs and lows I think. But the highs can be particularly high. Ive worked on a variety of projects, Ive worked for about two years as an editor so far solast year I worked on Nanny McPhee which was Emma Thompsons latest offering and I was an assistant on Seed of Chucky which is part of the famous Childs Play Franchise. Which is a good experience that was a relatively large Hollywood Film. I do an awful lot of sport, which is shooting live cycling and things like that. I also shoot the odd commercial and Ive done some documentary work for television. Breaking into the industry is very difficult. And certainly for the first two years that I was trying to break in I had to spend a lot of time working as a carpenter. Or doing whatever I could, painting and decorating, to get by, whilst you are pursuing contacts really. But then when you get more and more established, you get more and more contacts and at the same time you get better and better. The work you do is much better. You know, it gets much easier. And do you have to work long hours? Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen hour days, its not unusual. There are limits set within the law, but of course everyone does usually do whatevers required to get the material in the can. What about the social side of things? Do you go out much? Do you have time to go out much? In terms of meeting people its a very mixed bag. I often work on my own, so Im effectively Im directing myself doing camera work and then Ill go edit, and then Ill direct myself editing and you know Im completely on my own for days at a time working on a project. On other projects which are much more collaborative, you meet an awful lot of people, and obviously youve got a lot in common and with some of them Ive developed really very good relationships that you know, now I think you could call friendships. So yeah, socially it can be great. You have a great social life with the people that you work with but organising social life outside of that, if youre working seventy two hour weeks, can be pretty rough. The flip-side of the coin is that if youre not working at all, youve got all the time in the world. But remember that people who work in other industries dont really understand your stop-start lifestyle. So it can take extra effort to meet up with people. And where do you hope to be in about, say, ten years? Really fast broadband is going to change the way we work. In terms of transferring big amounts of data around and stuff, its going to get easier and easier. So I do think that in 10 years time Im certain, you know, youll want some face time as they say for meetings and all that sort of stuff. And physically, for filming some things youll have to be there. But very

often, it wont matter where on earth you are in the world so I am actually planning on buying a place in Portugal or Spain and continue my post-production stuff overseas. Would you recommend it as a career, or do you have any advice for people who are thinking of taking it up? I would definitely encourage people to come to Britain to work in the creative industries; they are some of the best in the world in terms of content, ideas, execution. The creatives and the technicians in this country are fantastic. My one tip would be: make sure that youve got that endurance, that capacity, that capacity to endure because youre going to be faced with long hours, some difficult people and occasions where youre paid very little if anything at all. So make sure that youre determined and focused on working in these industries. You cant be a tourist so to speak. Britain is a fantastic place to work in the creative industries because there is a very huge buzz, very high training and people are really passionate about what they do. But its also extremely competitive and the number of places for people to work in is a lot smaller than the number of people trying to get work. So you have to be very tenacious, you have to really really want to do it. It is I glamorous, its long hard hours and you have to be pretty thick skinned. So give it a try and if you care about it, do it. But if not, you can make a lot more money a lot more easily doing something else. Yes I would recommend it as a career, its enormously enjoyable, much more creative than most peoples jobs are, much more varied than most peoples jobs are. Financially, I hate to say it but Im now doing really quite well. In terms of the advice Id give to someone, dont give up because therell be endless barriers in your way where peopleyou know you get all these false horizons where you think youre about to get a big break and then, you know, it just turns into nothing and then never never make any mistakesthats the most important thing of all because you only get one change. If its your first job with someone and you stuff it up well thats it the phones not going to ring again. So thats it be careful dont make any mistakes! Well as a young professional in a creative industry myself, I can wholeheartedly recommend it. And you do get to meet the nicest people. Our young creative professional reporter Mark there. And thats it for this time. Please remember that the opinions expressed in Trend UK are those of the individuals concerned, and not necessarily the views of the British Council. Dont forget, you can find out what the British Council is doing in the field of creative industries by checking our website www.britishcouncil.org, thats www.britishcouncil [all one word] .org. Just follow the links under Arts. And while youre on the website you can also update your English by checking out the words and phrases in the Trend UK online glossary. And tell us what you think by sending us a comment or voting in the online poll. But for now, from me and all the Trend UK Team, bye bye

Dining Out or Eating In? Restaurant Culture in Britain (NEW!)

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Dining out, or eating out, are phrases people use in Britain when they eat in a restaurant or a pub. Eating out is more popular in Britain today than it has ever been. In 2006, for the first time ever, British people spent more on eating out in restaurants and pubs than on cooking for themselves. It seems that many British people are becoming increasingly interested in how good their food tastes, and also how healthy it is. However, eating out can also be expensive. Restaurants are normally more expensive than pubs, though many pubs serve very good, simple food. As we Brits do not dine out every night of the week, eating in a restaurant is often seen as a special occasion. When going on a first date and wanting to impress him or her, or if celebrating (an) anniversary or a birthday, then many people like to go to a restaurant to eat, people often eat in a restaurant before going to the cinema or the theatre. As in all cultures, there are many rules of etiquette surrounding food and eating, and nowhere is this more pronounced than when eating in a smart restaurant! People are almost always expected to eat with a knife and fork and these should be held in the correct hand and used in the correct way! It is also impolite to have your elbows on the dining table when you are eating. There are many such unspoken rules they are normally only important when eating in a very posh restaurant, and vary slightly from restaurant to restaurant and place to place. A recent nationwide survey of 2,231 people showed that there was a divide in manners between the north and south of Britain the worst manners were in Scotland and the north-east, and the best in Wales and the south-east! However, this survey was almost certainly conducted by someone in the southeast, so it may not be entirely impartial! Naturally, restaurants vary greatly in quality, and price. However, almost all British cities have a vast range of food and culinary styles to choose from as well as traditional British food, and all from the very cheap to the very expensive French, Italian, Indian, Greek, Thai, Japanese and many, many more. In fact, when asked what their favourite food is, more British people say an Indian curry than any other dish! As well as dining in a restaurant, when people are too tired to cook after work they often get a take-away. This means that they order from a take-away (or take-out) restaurant by phone, and then go to collect it and take it home to eat. Many take-out restaurants also deliver to your house (if you are especially tired, or lazy!). Whilst you can normally find a take-out restaurant for almost any cuisine, the most popular are pizza (Italian), Indian and Chinese and all you have to do is open the door, pay and eat!

Ethical Shopping

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Hello and welcome to Trend UK, your shortcut to popular culture from the British Council. In the next few minutes were going to be asking whether youre after value for money when youre shopping for fashion; or fashion thats made with values. Were all after a bargain on the high street. But how often do you stop to consider how some stores seem to stock lowcost/high fashion items quicker and more cheaply than others? Fulfilling our needs for fast fashion means increased production and competition in clothing made in countries with lowwage economies. Our reporter Mark has been to the high street to find out more. Here in a typical British high street there are plenty of bargains to be had. Handbags at 3.99, T-shirts for a fiver and shoes for under a tenner - all roughly equivalent to the price of an everyday meal. But how many of the people shopping in this high street have stopped to think about how its possible to sell clothes so cheaply? Is it because some companies are turning a blind-eye to the exploitation in the countries where these items are made? Ruth Rothelson is an expert on ethical shopping from the Ethical Consumer Research Association, who amongst other things produced the magazine Ethical Consumer. Ruth, just tell us what the Ethical Consumer Research Association is. OK, well the Ethical Consumer Research Association exists to provide information for shoppers, letting them know what the companies are doing behind the brands that they see on the shelves. So what makes an ethical shopper? Very broadly speaking, people who are concerned about ethical issues want to know that the product theyre buying hasnt been made at the expense of the people who are producing it, whether its in this country or abroad. They might also be concerned with other kinds of issues: whether the company is involved in armaments, or whether theyre donating money to certain political parties. And that as a shopper, you might not want to give your money to that party so therefore you might not want to buy a product from a company who is supporting a political party that you dont agree with. And is there any kind of rule of thumb? Is something thats more expensive, for example, likely to be more ethical? Unfortunately it isnt always the case that the more expensive something is, the more ethical it is. We can buy very cheap products and its very likely that when products are cheap,

something has suffered in order to get it to us. Whether its the person making it or the animals or the environment. Quality however, is often a good indicator whether something, especially with clothes, has been made well. And unfortunately a lot of ethical products will cost more because they reflect the real cost of bringing that thing into the shops. So something that has been made in a factory where the workers have been paid a proper wage will cost you more to buy, simply because the people making it are getting paid enough to live on. Do you have to be well off then to be an ethical shopper? It really depends. You dont have to be rich to be an ethical shopper. One way of thinking about ethical shopping is thinking about buying less. Sometimes we buy an awful lot more than we need. We buy more items of clothing than we need. So being an ethical shopper really means thinking a bit before you go and spend your money in the shops. Some things may cost a little bit more in the short-run, but be worth it in the long-run. If you are paying for quality, something will last you longer and then save you money. And sometimes you can buy things second hand. Theres a lot of charity shops on the high street to buy, good clothes. Sometimes you can look a lot better than someone whos just bought off the high street because you can have quite a unique look, and the quality that you find in most second hand shops is really very good these days. So its about thinking before you shop. Thanks Ruth. Now among the shoppers here Ive got Lauren and Bella. Starting with you Bella, would you consider shopping ethically? Definitely for food. And clothing, well, when I buy clothes I wouldnt want to think of them being made in a sweat shop. Lauren you do shop ethically. But youve got a slightly different take on it havent you. Yeah I suppose I shop ethically but my original thing for that was that I like to wear clothes that are different from everyone else. So I would start shopping for vintage clothes. So ethically, obviously theyre second hand soalso I buy a lot of clothes from market stalls, from fashion students maybe. So theyre all made here, so they would be made ethically as well. Thanks Lauren, thanks Bella. Well its an interesting debate, and Ill certainly be doing my clothes shopping with a little bit more care in future. Our reporter Mark, out among the dedicated and ethical followers of fashion there. And thats it for this time. Please remember that the opinions expressed in Trend UK are those of the individuals concerned, and not necessarily the views of the British Council. Dont forget, you can find out what the British Council is doing on contemporary UK by using your local British Council Information Centre or by checking our website www.britishcouncil.org, thats www.britishcouncil [all one word] .org. Just follow the links under Contact Us. And while youre on the website you can also update your English by checking out the words and phrases in the Trend UK online glossary. And tell us what you think by sending us a comment or voting in the online poll. But for now, from me and all the Trend UK Team, bye by

Manners

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Hello and welcome to Trend UK, your shortcut to popular culture from the British Council. In the next few minutes were going to be talking about modern manners. Its an argument that, on the face of it, has been going on between the generations, for hundreds of generations. Older people can often be heard saying the youth of today lack the basics in good behaviour and with newspapers and the media focusing on the anti-social activities of a minority of young people, its easy for them to be branded with a negative stereotype. So are British manners really getting worse? Our reporter Mark went to find out. Well Ive come to a typical UK high-street on a weekday to talk to the young Mums and Dads, business people, elderly people and students that are out doing their shopping. So we should get an interesting mix of views. Lets go see what people think. Excuse me Sir, would you say that manners are getting better or worse in the UK? I actually think theyre getting worse. I think that the standards are declining generally. I think they are getting worse but not terribly so. Generally in busses and trains I think that peoples manners have improved in many ways. There are cultural differences, and you might meet someone from a different culture and your set of manners will quite be different to theirs. Well, is it all a question of individual taste or is there some common ground? With me here is Simon Fanshaw, author of a book called The Done Thing, all about modern British manners. Simon, What are the basic dos and donts? I think one of the things thats confusing for people is when they come here is there appears to be hundreds and hundreds of rules, hundreds of things you should and shouldnt do. And the truth of it is that most of them are about class. And lots of them are trip-wires actually for people who dont know them. So what I tried to do in my book was take it back to the first principle and say look there are anthropological reasons why we have certain kinds of manners. So Ill give you a very good example, in Britain there are sort of two ways of holding a knife very broadly. And broadly speaking the middle-classes hold it with the index finger on the top, gripped in the hand. And working-class people hold it like a pen. Tiny a class depiction and people mercilessly exploit it if they want to. The truth of it is, the one way not to hold a knife at the table, is clasped in your fist, raised as if to kill your guest. And what does that tell us about eating? Well what that tells us about eating is two things, which is never confuse your guests with either the food or the enemy. Dont eat them and dont kill them. Thats about how you should hold your knife, because actually manners are really about the reduction of violence. Theres a lot in there about reducing violence. So thats just an illustration of what one tries to do so actually when you look at real table manners theyre

about people feeling comfortable with each other, sharing food around a table. Very important human thing. And are things actually getting worse? Very broadly speaking, we all rub along together pretty well actually, we dont do so badly. The trouble with bad manners is that when you experience it it completely occupies your field of vision. So you feel completely knocked back and rather hurt by somebody. Should foreigners, say, comply with British manners when in Britain or just be themselves? Well I think one issue we should be very gentile with is because were not terribly good at understanding that there are lots of different customs from round the world, so you know, be gentile. But I think the thing what I would say to anybody going to any other culture, any other country in the world: Number one be curious, ask yourself. The other thing is dont think theres a right and a wrong way to do things in terms of little funny details. Always remember that fundamentals matter more than anything else. Please and Thank You is a gift and a grace in any language so treat people in the fundamental purpose of manners which is to make life easier. If I can give you a definition of manners, is it the reduction of actual or potential violence between strangers. So always seek to defuse conflict, always seek to reach out and offer yourself to other people, always seek to open the door and let them through. Always do those kind of things because actually youll find people love it and theyll respond to you. Simon Fanshaw, it would be very bad manners of me not to say, thank you for coming to talk to us. Our reporter Mark, minding his ps and qs there. And thats it for this time. Please remember that the opinions expressed in Trend UK are those of the individuals concerned, and not necessarily the views of the British Council. Dont forget, you keep up with contemporary UK by using our local British Council Information Centre. Or by checking our website www.britishcouncil.org, thats www.britishcouncil [all one word] .org. Just follow the links under Contact Us. And while youre on the website you can also update your English by checking out the words and phrases in the Trend UK online glossary. And tell us what you think by sending us a comment or voting in the online poll. But for now, from me and all the Trend UK Team, bye bye.

Tricky Words
A stereotype is a popularly held belief about a type of person or a group of people which does not take into account individual differences. A trip-wire here means a mistake that you can easily make without knowing. Anthropological means concerned with the study of humankind. Mercilessly means without pity. If you comply, you act in accordance with someone's rules, commands or wishes.

New Words

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Hello and welcome to Trend UK, your shortcut to popular culture from the British Council. In the next few minutes were going to be talking about new words and phrases. New words enter the English language all the time, in fact English has always been in a state of evolution and in recent years more and more words and phrases have entered the language, partly due to the increased willingness of lexicographers to include them in the dictionaries. But where do all these words come from? Our reporter Mark has been finding out. If you want to know what words like screenager and splod mean the man to ask is John Simpson, chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. John whats your favourite new word at the moment? Really I don't have favourite words, but lets say that one of my favourite new words is screenager, which is a young person or a teenager who spends a lot of time in front of the computer. Any other favourites John? Some of those rather unpleasant words like splod, somebody who is mostly inept, a splody person, but as I said I dont really have favourite words because all words as far as Im concerned are objects of scientific study. And where do these new words and phrases come from? Well, words come out of the culture the represent and they describe so if youve got a new development in medicine for example, bird flu, then youll get the new word coming out of that. If theres a military conflict that may well bring all sorts of new words to the fore. Going back in time the First and Second World Wars were times of great creativity of language because people from different countries met each other and exchanged their words and words developed from there. So really words come from, they come from the playground, they come from politics, they come from any area of life because every area of life is changing from day to day.

How do you keep up with the huge weight of new words you have to evaluate? Well, its not just me, weve got something like 60 editors working on the Oxford dictionary and we also have readers and word spotters throughout the world who are sending us information in. In the old days they used to write them out on index cards when they came across some in books, but nowadays they tend to type them onto their computers and send them into the central computer here. Its an enormous issue, but one which we just about manage to keep under control. We dont include words just because weve seen one example of them we have to wait for evidence of general currency to build up in our computer files before we start putting the word in the dictionary. So a lot of the time its collecting data, letting it build up and then reviewing it and then seeing what youve got and so thats how we manage the work. And why is it John that English has more words than any other language? It certainly has more words than other European languages and probably of any other language in the world. English is put together from so many different bits. Originally it was a Germanic language and then after the Norman Conquest there was an enormous influx of French words. It comes from a country, the United Kingdom, which has been quite an expansive, trading, colonial power in the past and thats brought all sorts of other new words into the language because words come in through contact often and so yes, its a very receptive language and this contrasts really with many of the other European languages who because they are smaller than English are concerned that they may well suffer what they call loss of domain, in other words, there may be areas where their language may not be used, in university teaching for example, or in business or whatever, in preference for English say and they tend to be much more concerned about maintaining and defending their language. English is really so large that it doesnt really bother about that. It also doesnt have a central academy that imposes a policy on the language we dont really have any language policies here, we really allow the language to be self-regulating. John Simpson of the Oxford English dictionary thank you!

Silly Place Names in Britain (NEW!)

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History is visible almost everywhere in Britain; from the world-famous Stonehenge, the origins of which remain unknown; to old castles, some just ruins thousands of years old, some still standing; to more recent historic buildings, like Buckingham Palace which was built in 1703. Often, the history of a place is shown in its name. Place names may change over time, and many use old English now long out of common use. Frequently, though, they have stayed

remarkably intact, and they give an accurate idea of an area's history, from the mundane to the monumental. Sussex, a region in the south of England, literally means the land of the South Saxons. It is remarkable that this name has survived to the present day, over a thousand years as well as an invasion by the Normans invaded in 1066! Clapham, a fashionable area in the south of London, has its name from two old words, neither which are in use any more clop meant short hill, and ham originally meant small village. Today, Clapham is a manic and busy part of London, a far cry from the clopham of its past! As historically interesting as it may be, British place names are not so serious. At least you wouldnt think so when you see some of them. There are hundreds of names of British villages and towns whose meanings have become lost in time many of them seem comical today, or are just plain silly. Christmas Pie is a small village about 30 minutes south of London by car. In Britain a Christmas Pie is a favourite traditional pudding eaten by people on Christmas Day. Its a daft name for a village! Pratts Bottom is also near London, in a county called Kent. In English a Pratt is a fool or an idiot so the villages name literally means Idiots bottom! People in the south of England often joke that the north is cold and miserable. It is funny that two village names seem to confirm this impression Pity Me and No Place, both in County Durham are in the northern part of England! I hope youve enjoyed learning about a few British place names. As I mentioned before, Britain has hundreds of other silly and wonderful names for villages and towns if you want to find out more, just find a British map and take a look!

Glossary
intact (adj.) - not damaged mundane (adj.) - ordinary and not exciting monumental (adj.) - used for emphasizing something good or important manic (adj.) - very excited (be) a far cry from (something) (phrase) - (informal) to be very different from something daft (adj.) - silly

Student Money

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Hello and welcome to Trend UK, your shortcut to popular culture from the British Council. In the next few minutes were going to be talking about mates and money. Moving away from home to go to university can be a stressful time. First, there are all the social pressures that can be encountered. And then theres the strain on your pocket, what with living expenses, books and going out with your friends. And on top of all that, youve got to study as well. So, is there a way to be careful with your money and have a good and productive time? Our reporter Mark went to meet the students at a large UK university to find out. Looking around the Student Union at this university, everyone seems to be having a good time but the reality is that students are often on a tight budget and going out with your friends for a meal or a drink is often something that has to be thought about quite carefully. Ive assembled a group of typical students here who are going to tell us what its like to have so many social opportunities and yet be on a budget. And hopefully they can give us the tips for having the best and cheapest of times. How do you find the cost of living here? Very expensive. Everything including clothing accommodation, travelling, everything is expensive here. In terms of: housingtransport especially. So what do you think you spend most on? Transport I think. Yeah, food if you eat at home, its very cheap. The train. In a week was spending more than one hundred pounds. And how do you afford clothing? I mean trendy isnt cheap. Im from China, and actually in my place theres also nice clothes there, so I normally bring my clothes here! He he-he. So you dont shop here? You shop at home. Yeah all that from home. Except jackets, I love jackets so I make sure if theres any sale going around, especially Boxing Day I go and loot the shopping centre and buy all the stuff and get cheap prices.

And whats the social side like? I love it because has so many cultures, I was so shocked actually it took me quite some time. Because its Chinese, Japanese, African people. I like that, to me its very interesting. I like to go for movies with my friends once a month like that, and also for dinner. Im a very social person, I love socialising with people and meeting new people and I love partying. Thankfully I dont drink and I dont smoke so only expenses like, you know, maybe entry fee to the disco clubs and something like that. And do you have any money saving tips for other people who might want to come and work or study here in the UK? You just have to watch anything you buy, just dont impulse buy things. If you rent a house, with your friends then it will be cheaper. I teach a lot, I teach piano and the violin, so that covers a little bit of what I want to spend on clothes and stuff and extras yeah. I bought DVD player can watch all the movies at home ha-ha! So I can entertain myself at home. Cheaper ha-ha. Dont drink too much ha-ha. Well, plenty of good advice here from the students. Thanks to all of you for coming along. Our reporter Mark with the students there. And thats it for this time. Please remember that the opinions expressed in Trend UK are those of the individuals concerned, and not necessarily the views of the British Council. Dont forget, you can find out about studying in the UK by checking our website www.britishcouncil.org, thats www.britishcouncil [all one word] .org. Just follow the links under Learning. And while youre on the website you can also update your English by checking out the words and phrases in the Trend UK online glossary. And tell us what you think by sending us a comment or voting in the online poll. But for now, from me and all the Trend UK Team, bye bye.

Sports Volunteering

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Hello and welcome to Trend UK, your shortcut to popular culture from the British Council. In the next few minutes were going to be talking about sports in visible workforce. In the UK something like twenty two million adults take part in formal volunteering every year. And of those, six million get involved in sport on a regular basis. These volunteers help to run more than one hundred thousand sports related clubs and organisations, and they dont get paid a single penny for doing it. In fact interest is on the rise - not surprising given that 2005 was the year of the volunteer and the year that London successfully bid to host the 2012 Olympics. So how and why do people get involved? Our reporter Mark went to meet the sporting volunteers. Im at a conference being run by the Step into Sport Initiative. With me is Peter Knight from the Youth Sport Trust which helps organise these sessions. Peter, tell us about Step into Sport. Its the key between the school (the education environment) and the sports clubs; providing that link around leadership and volunteering. And whats the range of volunteering? When people would say volunteering initially theyd think of coaches. And thats one end of the spectrum. But weyou know, it goes right across the board. It goes right down to the people that cut the oranges up maybe for a match or make the tea. So its a very very diverse range of opportunities and a lot of people bring a lot of different skills to it. And why do people get involved? Its sort of personal preference should we say. What theyre going to get from it are they putting something back into their community? Is it for their personal development? You know, the young people here today will be looking for their personal development. Itll be about raising their self-esteem, raising their confidence. I think when you look round youll see that there are young people here who arent your archetypal young people top-end performers as far as sport is concerned. That really for me is the reason its a diversification of people who are going to be engaged in sport and physical activity. Thanks Peter. Well lets go and find out what some of the attraction is for some of the volunteers here. It is fun. And you do get to see your sport develop I suppose. It is the grass-roots and you get to help them improve their performance and you see where your sport will go in the future. Its important that we get across to the youth of today that volunteers are needed within sports and we hopefully pass on our skills to them to volunteer in future sporting events. Teambuilding is important to peoples future, and sport gives a fantastic opportunity for that. Obviously you get the individual events, but team events is life skills and kids need to learn that from a young age to progress for the future. Well one thing these young people have in common is that they all seem to enjoying devoting their time and energy to sport.

Away from the conference now, Ive come to meet Olympic rower Gwinn Batten. Now Gwinn, you won a silver medal for Britain in the Sydney Olympics in 2000; Would you say that volunteers helped you achieve that? Really your talking about just the very best doctors that we have in Britain, just the very best physios as far as elite sport are concerned. But how did they learn those skills along the way? Say for example the team doctor she would have spend many many training camps on many many weekends as a volunteer working closely with our elite teams. The support staff that are around our top teams have normal jobs and then they just come together for set events, whether those be the Commonwealth Games or the Olympic Games. What motivates volunteers? The skills that you develop in sport is a very hot-house environment especially in competitive sport. Youre putting yourself under/in quite a pressurised situation. And its very interesting to see how you react and how you learn to develop those people skills, those life skills, which when you go back into the workplace, when its a much less hot-house environment, in most peoples cases, you can actually say, well actually, I was quite good at this. Or you know your strengths, you know your weaknesses you have developed in that sport environment. And when you go back, you know, you just have so much more confidence in dealing with people and sort of working together and operating round those life skill areas. So would you recommend it? Sport is through our entire culture here in Britain. You need to find out what skills you have as a person. You know, whether or not youre somebody who is very organised or whether or not, youre someone whos very good at inspiring or looking after people. And then you need to also find which sport suits your make-up as such. And different sports have different personalities. And so choosing the sport you want to be involved in and then choosing the skills that you have, and then going to your local rowing club (if its rowing that you choose), or your local sports club, or even your school if theres a sports section in the school and offering your services. Most sports clubs whether theyre schools, universities or club-level will be crying out volunteers. Gwinn Batten, thank you. Our sporting reporter Mark there. And thats it for this time. Please remember that the opinions expressed in Trend UK are those of the individuals concerned, and not necessarily the views of the British Council. Dont forget, you can find out what the British Council is up to on sport by checking our website www.britishcouncil.org, thats www.britishcouncil [all one word] .org. Just follow the links under Education. And while youre on the website you can also update your English by checking out the words and phrases in the Trend UK online glossary. And tell us what you think by sending us a comment or voting in the online poll. But for now, from me and all the Trend UK Team, Bye Bye

What meal shall we have now? (NEW!)

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In the UK we have many different names for mealtimes, including Breakfast, Brunch, Elevenses, Lunch, Tea, Dinner and Supper! What people eat and when can vary greatly in some parts of the UK, people may eat their meals at different times, and in some parts of the UK, dinner means lunch, and supper means dinner! Although this may seem very confusing (and it is, even for British people!), many of the names are very old-fashioned, and not often used. Elevenses and Tea are examples of two old-fashioned snacks that are rarely eaten today. Elevenses is eaten at 11:00 am, consisting of cake or biscuits with a cup of tea or coffee. Two traditional characters from English childrens books, Winnie the Pooh and Paddington Bear, used to always take Elevenses! Tea is a very similar meal, and a British tradition, which involves snacking on cakes, with a cup of tea, and is normally eaten between 4:30 and 5:30 pm. However because people tend to have busy lifestyles in contemporary Britain, we only eat three main meals each day called breakfast, lunch and dinner. Nowadays, people usually eat breakfast between 7:00 am and 9:00 am. Breakfast is considered a very important meal, and is essential to having a good start to the day. In fact, once a year there is a weekly campaign called Think Breakfast to encourage people to eat better breakfast! The word Breakfast comes from an old-fashioned phrase breaking the fast (a fast means not eating for a long period of time). So breakfast literally means eating again for the first time after sleeping through the night. A traditional English breakfast includes sausages, bacon, fried eggs, mushrooms, baked beans, fried tomatoes, and toast with butter. However, these days most people dont eat a traditional breakfast every day, or even at all. This is because it is very unhealthy, and many people dont have time to cook. These days, most people eat a bowl of cereal (made from grains like corn, wheat and oats) with milk, or have a slice of toast with butter. In fact, in the UK the average person eats about 6 kilos of cereal every year this is much more than most European countries. In the winter many people eat a hot cereal called porridge, which is made from oats. This is especially popular in Scotland. Lunch is normally eaten between 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm. Because school-children and people at work are very busy, this is normally a quick meal. In fact, many parents give their children a packed lunch in a plastic lunch-box. This usually consists of a sandwich (two slices of bread with a filling inside, normally cheese or meat with some lettuce) and a packet of crisps, a piece of fruit and a drink.

However, on Sunday people usually have a longer and larger lunch called Sunday lunch. It is a time that people like to spend with their family, and usually consists of a roast meat (like chicken, beef, lamb or pork), served with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, vegetables and gravy (a thin sauce which is eaten with the meat). Dinner is eaten in the evening. Children usually eat this earlier, at about 6:30 pm, though many adults eat later, between 7:00 and 8:00 or later. This is usually the main meal of the day, and a time for people to relax and enjoy a cooked meal with friends or family after a hard day at work. Going out for dinner to a restaurant is a very popular place to have a date, and some people see eating good food as a very romantic thing to do

The History of the Sandwich (NEW!)

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At lunch time, and sometimes at other times in the day, people in the UK often eat a sandwich. This consists of two pieces of bread and a filling. The bread is usually buttered, or spread with mayonnaise, and the filling is usually meat or cheese, often served with lettuce. However, there are literally hundreds of different types of sandwiches, and each variation has its own flavour. Some of the most popular and famous sandwiches in the UK are: BLT (Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato, usually served with mayonnaise), Ploughmans (originating from a tradition amongst farm-workers, and containing Cheddar cheese, pickle and salad), Tuna, and Egg sandwiches. Sandwiches of all varieties are extremely popular, and quick and easy to eat. In fact, British people eat 2.8 billion each year not bad for a population of only 60 million people! Today everyone eats sandwiches, but it was not always like that. Amazingly, the humble sandwich that we know today started life as a snack for Englands super-rich! The sandwich has a very interesting, and humorous, history! In 1762 the first written record of the word sandwich appeared in the diary of the English author Edward Gibbons, who remembered seeing the wealthiest elite in the country eating a bit of cold meat between pieces of bread. Gibbons did not think this was very appropriate behaviour for such men! The snack was named after the Fourth Earl of Sandwich (an Earl was a wealthy aristocrat, who generally owned a lot of land and had political power). Sandwich was a frequent gambler, and was so addicted to gambling that he would often refuse to stop even to eat meals! To avoid having to stop gambling, the Earl of Sandwich asked the cooks at his

gambling club to prepare him a meal consisting of beef between two slices of bread, so that he always had one hand free to play cards and gamble, and his hands wouldnt become dirty from the meat. When other men saw what he was eating, they began to order the same as Sandwich!, and so the sandwich was born beginning as a snack for some of the wealthiest men in England! It quickly became popular and widespread as a quick and easy food to eat.

Glossary
filling (n.) - the layer of food (e.g. cream, fruit) inside a sandwich or cake mayonnaise (n.) - a thick creamy white sauce made from egg yolks, oil and vinegar, usually eaten with salads and cold food cheddar (n.) - a type of hard yellow to off-white British cheese pickle (n.) - (British) a thick sauce made from vegetables or fruit which have been preserved in vinegar or salty water elite (n.) - a small group of people who are the richest, the best educated or the most powerful and influential in a society earl (n.) - a man with a very high social rank in the UK, bearing the title between a marquis and a viscount addicted (adj.) - enjoy doing a particular activity so much that one is willing to spend as much time as possible on doing it widespread (adj.) - happening or existing in many places, or among many people

The 'Bland, Standard UK Diet': Myth or Reality? (NEW!)

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The 'Bland, Standard UK Diet': Myth or Reality? A Look at Five Favourite Traditional British Dishes We eat the most ready meals in Europe. They are unhealthy and rarely taste as good as the alternative of cooking food fresh. People often complain that they are too busy to cook from

scratch. However, more and more people are choosing to eat healthy, fresh food, inspired by celebrity chefs who are showing us that cooking doesnt have to be difficult, or even timeconsuming. Yet Britain still has a bad reputation for cooking. The author of A Fondness for Food even wrote about the bland, standard UK diet. In fact, an American girl recently asked me what food came from Britain apart from fish and chips (a traditional favourite but very unhealthy fast-food). The answer was easy. Today the UK is one of the most exciting places for creative and talented chefs, we have some of the most renowned restaurants and some of the most famous international chefs run them With many different cultures and nationalities from all over the world meeting in the UK, some of the most exciting new flavours and ideas in cooking now come from London, not Paris (the traditional hot spot of European cuisine). As well as blending different foods and flavours from all over the world, Britain has its own brand of traditional cooking that is anything but bland. I hope to persuade you of this, by looking at my five favourite traditional dishes from across the British Isles. Bangers and mash with Lincolnshire sausages: Bangers and mash is a name for a dish consisting of mashed potatoes and sausages, normally served with a gravy (a thin, warm sauce) and onions. All regions in Britain have a speciality sausage with different flavours. My favourite are Lincolnshire sausages (Lincolnshire's a region on the east coast of England). These sausages are made out of pork with sage, a delicious herb. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding: This is a traditional meal eaten for Sunday lunch across Britain. The beef is roasted in an oven until cooked and then sliced into thin slices. Yorkshire pudding is originally from Yorkshire, an area in the north of England, and is a savoury cake made with eggs and flour. Haggis: Haggis is the name for a traditional Scottish dish that even many people in England dont like! It's made in many different ways, but originally is minced lamb (young sheep) with onion, oatmeal and salt. This is boiled inside the animals stomach for three hours. It's very efficient as it uses all parts of the animal. Lancashire hotpot: This is another British dish that uses lamb, named after the Lancashire region in the middle of the UK. It's cooked for a long time in a large pot with lamb, seasoning, and lots of vegetables, including carrots, potatoes, onions and leeks. Because it is cooked for a long time the meat is usually very soft, or succulent. Welsh cakes: These are traditional from Wales, made with flour, butter, eggs and sugar, with raisins. They are normally small, not much bigger than a biscuit. We often drink a cup of tea whilst eating them, normally in the afternoon at tea-time!