1.36. Reggae

Read the text and find out where this type of music comes from.

Reggae is a form of mu­sic from the West Indian island Jamaica. Because of the large number of Jamaica immigrants and their descendants in Brit­ish cities, reggae has be­come a major force in British pop music. Reggae has a strong rhythm, and often has lyrics in Jamai­can patois( местное наречие). This is a lan­guage with its own rhythm, grammar and vo­cabulary, very different from both British and American English, and is probably very difficult for anyone learning English to understand.

Many reggae singers are "Rastafarians". Rasta-farianism is a kind of "re­ligion" based on the hope of a return to the "Lost World", Africa (especially Ethiopia in East Africa). Rastafarians have their own style of dressing, with "dread-locks" (long, plaited hair) and hats, scarves and other clothes in red, green and gold— the colours of the Ethio­pian flag.

Reggae spread to Brit­ain in the late 1960s. The first reggae group to be­come popular with white European audiences were Bob Marley and the Wailers. Peter Tosh, who used to play with the Wallers, has made records with the Rolling Stones. In the 1970s many white British groups made reggae-in­fluenced records.

In the late 1970s, reggae was popular with punk audiences. The Clash and other punk groups played reggae songs, and Elvis Costello and the Police both use reggae rhythms.

In 1979 several mixed black/white groups be­came popular, playing a mixture of "ska" (an ear­lier form of reggae) and punk. Groups like the Specials, the Beat and UB40 play very good dance music, which has taken over from the disco music of the last two years as the most popular form of pop music in Brit­ain.

Exercise

Correct the wrong statements:

1. Reggae is a form of mu­sic from the East India.

2. Jamai­can patois is very easy for anyone learning English to understand.

3. Rastafarians have their own style of dressing, with "dread-locks" (long, plaited hair) and hats, scarves and other clothes in red, green and blue — the colours of the Ethio­pian flag.

4. Reggae spread to Brit­ain in the late 1970s.

5. In the late 1970s, reggae was popular with jazz audiences.

1.37. The british museum

Read the text and find out why the museum’s library became the richest collection of learned books in the world.

The name of the British Museum is known and revered throughout the world. From the start it was library and museum in one, a repository of books, art treasures and natural history specimens, covering every period, country and branch of learning. It was not founded until the eighteenth century when the naturalist and onetime President of the Royal Society, Sir Hans Sloane, bequeathed to the nation his private collection of 40,000 books, 3,500 manuscripts, 200,000 natural history specimens and a host of coins, medals, painting and antiquities. This, together with three other collections, formed the nucleous of the British Museum when it was founded in 1753. As a result of large bequests and a succession of purchases it became the richest collection of learned books in the world. The museum's present home was built between 1823 and 1856 in the Greek style, with an immense colonnated front a hundred and thirteen meters long. A later addition was its epoch-making reading room with a dome thirty-five meters high.

People all over the world come to Bloomsbury to visit the museum. It possesses more than six and a half million books, ten thousand incunabula, a hundred thousand maps and about a million musical scores. Among its many treasures are "Beowolf", written toward the end of the tenth century, and the fourth century "Codex Sinaiticus". The British Museum is a national treasure house and an international museum.

THE ROUND READING ROOM

The Round Reading Room was built in what was a large open quadrangle at the centre of the British Museum. Sir Anthony Panizzi, Keeper of Printed Books, suggested building the Room as a way of helping to alleviate the Museum's space problems. There are some 30,000 reference books on the open access in the Reading Room, a tiny fraction of the British Library's collections, which number over 13 million volumes. Typical readers are university professors and lecturers, students reading for higher degrees, full-time scholars not attached to any academic institution, journalists and authors, and those who are engaged in research in their spare time. Well-known literary and historical figures who have worked here include: Thomas Hardy, Arnold Bennett, Samuel Butler, George Bernard Shaw, W. B. Yeats, Jerome K. Jerome and others.

Exercise

Make up sentences, matching their parts:

1. It was not founded

2. As a result of large bequests and a succession of purchases

3. The museum's present home

4. People all over the world

5. Sir Anthony Panizzi, Keeper of Printed Books,

a) it became the richest collection of learned books in the world.

b) come to Bloomsbury to visit the museum.

c) until the eighteenth century

d) suggested building the Room as a way of helping to alleviate space problems.

e) was built between 1823 and 1856 in the Greek style.