How we really spend our time

Time, it seems, is what we’re all short of these days. One reason perhaps, why there are thousands of studies every year into how we spend our time and how we could spend it better. Some of the results are startling. Did you know for example…?

· Although people all over the world are working longer and longer hours, we also have more leisure time than ever before.

· After sleeping and working, watching TV is by far the most popular leisure activity the world over. The British watch more TV than any other nation in Europe, but they also read more. The vast majority, eighty-five percent, regularly read newspapers, and fifty-four percent regularly read books.

· Although up to two thirds of modern European women work full-time, they still do the main share of the housework, too. Husbands help in the house more than they did in the past, but in the UK for example, men do an average of just six hours a week compared to their wives, who do over eighteen hours. No wonder that the vast majority of working women in the UK are stressed and exhausted!

· According to the latest research by supermarkets, the average British family spends just eleven minutes preparing the main evening meal, and prefers “ready meals” and takeaways to home-cooked food. Almost half of all families in the UK eat together only once a month or less.

· More than half of young people in the UK have a full-time job by the age of nineteen, but the majority of young Spanish and Italian people do not start full-time work until they are twenty-four.

· The average American fourteen-year-old spends only half an hour a day doing homework, and less than a fifth of young people participate on sports, clubs, music or other traditional hobbies. Instead, sixty-five percent say they spend their time chatting on their mobiles and hanging out with their friends in shopping malls.

· In the UK, pensioners are almost twice as active as teenagers, according to recent research. People over sixty-five spend nearly two hours a day doing physical activities such as walking, cycling, gardening or sport, while teenagers spend only seventy-five minutes. However, surprisingly, people who use the Internet regularly do more sport than people who never use it.

· The Swedes and Finns are the sportiest nationalities in Europe. Seventy-three percent do some kind of sport at least once or twice a week.

· People may spend more time at work these days, but are they always working? The latest research reveals that each day the average British employee spends fifty-five minutes chatting, sixteen minutes flirting, fourteen minutes surfing the Net and nine minutes sending e-mail to friends!

24. Sports

The British are great lovers of sports, especially competitive sports. Many sport games originated from England and later were adopted in many countries of the world. The most popular organized sport is soccer, followed by Rugby Union, but other sports are also enjoyed, among them sailing, darts, snooker (billiards). Many people play golf. The English are avid walkers. Scotland is famous for its fishing.

Soccer. The most popular team game in Britain is association football, or soccer. The British invented it and it has spread to every corner of the world. Soccer is a national winter game in Britain. It is played from late August until the beginning of May.

Soccer in the present form dates from 1863, when eleven clubs got together in a London pub to form the Football Association (the F.A.). In the next twenty years many of England’s greatest clubs were born. There is no British team. England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland compete separately in European and World Cup matches.

Cricket. In summer the English national game is cricket. It is played from May to the end of September. It is popular only in Britain and in Commonwealth countries, particularly in Australia and New Zealand.

The game is very slow. A cricket match may be an one-day match, or a two- and three-day match (when it lasts two or three days). Cricket is played between two sides of eleven players each. Cricket is also played by women and girls. The bat is the emblem of the game.

Rugby. Rugby football, or “rugger”, is a very popular sport activity in the British Isles. Rugby got its name from the English public school, Rugby, where about a century ago, a boy picked up a soccer ball and ran with it. Rugby is played between two teams of fifteen players with an edd-shaped ball.

Tennis. Modern lawn tennis was also first played in England and has become very popular all over the world. The centre of lawn tennis is Wimbledon, South London. The first world lawn tennis championship in Wimbledon was held in 1877. The Wimbledon Tennis Tournament is the most important championship for many tennis players.

Table tennis was first invented in England in about 1880. At first the game had several strange names like Gossima, Whiff Whaff and Ping Pong. Although the game was invented in England, British players don’t have much chance in international championships.

25. Food and drink in Britain

The English breakfast. In a real English breakfast you have fried eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato and mushrooms. Then There’s toast and marmalade.

Pancakes. British people eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday (вторник на масляной недели) in February or March. For pancakes you need flour, eggs and milk. Then you it them with sugar and lemon. In some parts of Britain there are pancake races on Shrove Tuesday. People race with a frying pan in one hand. They have to “toss” the pancake, throw it in the air and catch it again in the frying pan.

Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. This is a traditional Sunday lunch from Yorkshire in the north of England. It’s now popular all over Britain. This pudding is not sweet. It’s a simple mixture of eggs, flour and milk, but it’s delicious. Two common vegetables with roast beef and Yorkshire pudding are Brussels sprouts and carrots. And of course, there’s always gravy. That’s a thick, brown sauce. You make gravy with the juice from the meat.

Tea. Tea is Britain’s favourite drink. It’s also a meal in the afternoon. You can eat tea at home or in a hotel. You can drink Indian or China tea. There are cucumber sandwiches and scones (Scones are plain cakes. You eat them with jam and cream). There are chocolate cakes and cream cakes too.

Grammar:Present Perfect, Present Perfect Continuous, Modal verbs (can, could, must, have to,may, should), telling the time