The culture of great Britain. Cultural realia

EVERYDAY LIFE. Leisure activities in Britain are affected by class, because some activities are simply not practiced by some groups. Theatre, opera and ballet, for example, are pleasures of the educated middle class.

Speaking about private leisure, the British are most of all fond of gardening. Many British homes have small gardens. About 44% of population spend their time gardening, The climate is ideal. Most people do not need to grow vegetables, but home-grown fruit and vegetables taste much better than those in shops. The British also grow flowers and have a passion for lawns of grass which stay green, throughout the year.

The other popular home-based activity is "D-I-Y" or "Do-It-Yourself " that is improvement of one's home by decorating, making furniture, fitting in shelves, cupboards, doing plumbing or electricity work/Shops supply materials and tools. Many women join the D-I-Y doing needlework, sewing curtains and cushion-covers as well as clothes. About half the women in the country spend their time sewing and knitting. "Reading" means such different things to different people that it is difficult to decide how important books are in the life of British citizens. In Britain there are a lot of good bookshops and public libraries. Books are available but expensive. But if you go into people's homes you will see far fewer books than in a Russian home. In Britain the attractions of television and videos have reduced the enthusiasm for reading which means for many people now glancing at a newspaper.

On TV dramas and documentaries, cultural and scientific programes, practical and educational programs and coverage of the world's news are excellent by world standards. And of course there is light entertainment — games, family comedy, celebrity shows, soap operas.

Another kind of entertainment is rock music. All children in Britain hear pop music every day on the radio, on records, tapes, at school, in shops; in public places.

The club is a typically British institution. It is the sense of a club one feels at the sessions of Parliament when one seems to address not the Speaker, not a nation, but a room. One more feature is the influence of an older, more confident generation. That’s why the parliament is often called "the best club in town". There exist school clubs, town clubs, country clubs. There are sport clubs of all sorts, including yacht clubs and driving clubs and even the pony club with 77,000 members. There are numerous Shakespeare and Dickens clubs. There are more than 820 official music clubs. Among the most famous clubs in London the Other Club occupies a special place. It was founded in 1911 by Winston Churchill. Members of the Club gather for dinner once a month when Parliament is in session and their traditional meeting place is in the Pirate Room of the Savoy Hotel. These meetings are strictly private-and uninhabited. This Club is rich in traditions, many of them are connected with Winston Churchill. A large black cat was seated near him at dinner with a napkin tied around his neck. The name of the cat was Kaspar. It was designed and made from a piece of plane tree and was placed near to W.C., if there were only 13 at table. The Club got its name because its aim was to hear the other man's point of view.

The pub always played an important role in-British social life. Originally a stopping place for travellers; it was called an inn or tavern and was one of the few places where a traveller could get food, warmth, shelter and of course drink. Even in those far-off days the inn was often the centre of community life in an area where the news was exchanged.

Every pub has several rooms, originally this was a division of classes and still is to some extent today. The richer travellers didn't want to eat and drink with the lower classes and therefore special rooms were prepared for them.

There are generally no waiters, and the customers fetch their own drinks, but in most rooms there is a bar with a barmaid or a barman. The English drink beer because they like it and because it's cheap.

Sport

Spot and games have always been popular in England. When the Englishmen are neither playing nor watching games, they like to talk about them. Almost all young Englishmen go in for some kind of sport. Every-college has athletic and football clubs. England is the birthplace of many modern-kinds of sport. That is why many games have English names: football, tennis, boxing, badminton. In England many tradi­tional sport competitions take place at the same time every year: boat races, horse races, car rallies, football and cricket games, Rowing is the most popular of all kinds of sport at the oldest English Universities.

Traditions

Englishmen are very proud of their traditions and carefully keep them up. There are many traditions associated with some historical facts, parliamentary, court and state ceremonies, uni­versity life. They deal with customs, manners of behavior, hab­its of the people. Very often speaking of English traditions we think first of some curious theatrical ceremonies of the court or Parliament procedures.

Remember the English ritual of tea-drinking — tea, hot and, on all occasions and from morning till night. Tea in the morning to wake you up properly, tea for breakfast to brace you p for the day's work, tea for lunch to keep out the cold, tea — several cups — in the afternoon to cheer you up, tea at night to send you to sleep. Tea, tea, tea! To steady your nerves, to com­fort you, to help in business and even in romance.

Another thing — the English like the Nature, the fields, the woods, the animals, the birds and the fresh air. They go for a walk in all weather. And they are fond of picnicking. A picnic under a rain is a national feature of the English. "Better to be wet than bitten by flies or mosquitoes", they often say. Rain, snow, hail — no matter, they must be out of doors a few hours a day and take the dogs out too.