听播客学英语 125 新年

 　　It is 2008. Happy New Year, everyone. What did you do during the Christmas and New Year holiday? How did you celebrate New Year?

　　Traditionally in England, Christmas was our big winter celebration. Scotland¹ was different. In Scotland, New Year was the more important celebration. On New Year’s Eve, on 31 December, Scotsmen wore kilts, and had parties where they danced traditional Scottish dances and welcomed the New Year with bagpipes². And we English? What did we do? Well, we either watched television programmes about Scottish people having a great party on New Year’s Eve; or we went to bed early.

　　But it isn’t like that today. The Scots still party on New Year’s Eve, but so do we in England. The Scots still have a huge street party in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, with bands and singers and fireworks. But so do we in many cities in England. In London, for example, 700,000 people watched a great fireworks display on the river Thames. Of course, not everyone went to a New Year’s Eve party. But many of those who stayed at home watched other people having a party on television. Millions of people watched the London fireworks on television, for example. It is as if we all want to be part of a big national New Year’s Eve party.

　　Here are some other things which are typical of England at New Year. People visit friends and relatives. They go for walks in the country, or in the parks in towns. Some brave folk go for a swim in the sea or a river on New Year’s Day. People read books, or go to football matches, or write thank-you letters for the gifts they received at Christmas. Travelling at during the holiday is a particular adventure. There are traffic jams on the roads, and long queues at the airports, and our railway system is in chaos⁴, because Christmas and New Year is the time when major engineering⁵ works³ take place. And we go shopping.

　　Traditionally, all the big stores had sales in January. They cut the prices of many of the things they sold, especially things like winter clothes or goods which they had not managed to sell for Christmas. There were lots of special offers, and people used to queue all night outside some of the stores, in order to get to the bargains first when the store opened. So what is different today? Only that the sales now begin immediately after Christmas. Indeed some stores begin their sales before Christmas Day. And now we can hunt for bargains on the internet as well as in the shops. The newspapers have reported that we British spent ?84m buying things on the internet on Christmas Day.

　　But now it is January. The weather is dark and wet. The long Christmas and new Year holiday is over. It is time to go back to work. Time to lose some weight. Time to give up smoking. Time to pay our credit⁶ card bills. Happy New Year.

1 Scotland   

n.苏格兰

参考例句：

• He has been hiking round Scotland for a month.他围着苏格兰徒步旅行了一个月。
• Scotland is to the north of England.苏格兰在英格兰之北。

2 bagpipes   

n.风笛；风笛( bagpipe的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Yes, and I'm also learning to play the bagpipes. 是的，我也想学习吹风笛。 来自超越目标英语 第3册
• Mr. Vinegar took the bagpipes and the piper led the cow away. 于是醋溜先生拿过了风笛，风笛手牵走了奶牛。 来自互联网

3 works   

n.作品，著作；工厂，活动部件，机件

参考例句：

• We expect writers to produce more and better works.我们期望作家们写出更多更好的作品。
• The novel is regarded as one of the classic works.这篇小说被公认为是最优秀的作品之一。

4 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

5 engineering   

n.工程，工程学，管理，操纵

参考例句：

• The science of engineering began as soon as man learned to use tools. 人类一学会使用工具,工程科学就开始了。
• It was the first great engineering works in the world. 这是世界上第一家大型的工程工厂。

6 credit   

n.信用，荣誉，贷款，学分；v.归功于，赞颂，信任

参考例句：

• I credit him with a certain amount of sense.我认为他有一定的见识。
• He got the credit,and we did the dirty work.他得荣誉，我们做不讨好的工作。