Listen to Text 2. Answer the following questions.

1. What is Lean Cuisine?

2. How many calories are there in each dish?

3. Why are the Lean Cuisine dishes convenient?

4. What ingredients are used for Lean Cuisine?

5. What makes Lean Cuisine unique?

 UNIT 3. SHOPPING  

  INTRODUCTORY TEXT

· One of the things you are bound to see in Britain is a corner shop. A corner shop is a small shop on, or near, a street corner. Most of them sell food and newspapers. They are open until late in the evening, as well as on Sundays.

Since the 1960s the traditional localcorner shop has been slowly disappearing although it used to sell everything a housewife needed and it itself was a focus of community life. The corner shop is now used only in ‘emergencies’ if people have ‘forgotten’ to buy something. 

· Department stores are found in all big cities. They are big shops where they sell almost everything you want and which offer a wide choice of things. The most famous British department store is Harrods.

· In the 1970s shops became bigger and the owners opened more branches in different towns, each branch selling the same goods and offering cheaper prices than the local corner shop. Customers liked the chains as they were self-service and offered a wider choice of goods. The street where you can find branches of big chain-stores is called the High street. This is a main street in most towns in Britain. One of the best-known chain-stores is Marks and Spencer (M & S). The company has over 700 stores worldwide. Millions of people shop every week at M & S for clothes or food of high quality at moderate prices.

In most High streets there is a charity shop. All the profits from the things sold go to charity. The best-known chain of charity shops selling second-hand clothes and books is Oxfam.

· Since the 1980s a great many superstores have been developing and offering an even wider range of goods at even cheaper prices. On the edge of towns giant shopping complexes have been growing around them. In a shopping complex you usually find a supermarket, a branch of most of the chain-stores, some smaller shops, a few cafes and sometimes a multi-screen cinema. 

· One of the liveliest shopping cities in the world is London. Many of the most famous London shops are in Knightsbridge, Bond Street or Regent Street, where prices can be not so high, but Oxford Street, which is packed with a huge number of shops offering quality goods, is also worth visiting.

In Central London most shops open somewhere between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. and close between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays, late-night shopping on Thursdays until 8 p.m., half-day closing on Wednesdays (some towns). Shops in Britain do not close at lunchtime since, unlike some countries with a hotter or a colder climate, Britain does not have a tradition of a long lunchtime or siesta in the middle of the day.

· There are also a lot of street markets which are both fun and cheap. Most of them sell fruit and vegetables, clothes, things for the house, records and jewellry. Some of them specialize in antiques, flowers, pets or second-hand books.

· One of a group of shops started in Britain and selling a wide range of women’s and men’s cosmetics at low prices is Body Shop. The Body Shop is known for only selling products which have not been tested on animals and for working to save the environment.  

· Don’t try to bargain when you do the shopping. The British do not expect or welcome bargaining. Sometimes they consider it losing face. If it is a question of some expensive art work or a large quantity of antique furniture or silver, you might try to work out a sensible over-all price with your shop-assistant. The British people seldom bargain, they just buy what they want at what they think a reasonable price, and take such a practice for granted.

· The British say they are the world’s worst shoppers. They never know what they want when they go shopping, especially when they go shopping for clothes. They always ask for advice and they believe the shop assistant who says, ‘It suits you perfectly, madam. Purple is just the right colour for you.’

· For many Americans, shopping is a ‘profession’. Americans spend hours walking round different shops and comparing prices to see if the item they want is cheaper somewhere else.

· Americans say ‘If you want to enjoy shopping, go to the Fifth Avenue in New York !’ It boasts an elegant array of clothing and jewelry stores. Shopping there is a constant source of entertaining, a shopper’s paradise with glittering window displays and an endless display of diverse goods. Some customers get bills of $ 50, 000 or more!  

Most shops in New York are normally open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday to Saturday. Many department stores, though, are open all Sunday and until 9 p.m. at least two nights a week. The best time is weekday morning. The most densely crowded times are lunch hours (noon to 2.30 p.m.), Saturday morning, sales and holidays.

· In America you’d be surprised at what you can find at a drugstore – besides medicines it sells perfumes, watches, film for cameras, candles, magazines and paper-backs among other things.

· On weekends Americans like to go to a shopping mall - a number of stores put together under one roof so the shopper wouldn’t have to go out.

· As elsewhere in the world both small shops and big stores in Britain and the USA arrange sales – selling of goods at bargain prices.