Exercise 66. Copy a BBC Video Forecast which includes as many words and word combinations from your active Vocabulary as possible

UNIT 3
London – the capital of Great Britain

Part A
Reading and Comprehension

Text
London: the capital of Great Britain.

London (the largest city in western Europe) dominates Britain. It is home to the headquarters of all government departments, the country's parliament, its major legal institutions, and the monarch. It is the country's business and banking centre and the centre of its transport network. It contains the headquarters of the national television networks and all the national newspapers. It is about seven times larger than any other city in the country. About a fifth of the total population of the UK lives in the wider London area.

The name 'London' comes from the Romans. People lived here before the Romans came, but we do not know very much about them. The Romans came to England in the year 43. Their ships came up the River Thames from the sea, and they built houses and other buildings next to the River. They built a bridge over the river, and they called the town Londinium.

It was a rich town, and about 50,000 people lived in it. But soon after the year 400, the Romans left Londinium and went back to Rome, and for three hundred years London was a quiet place. Then people began to live in the town again, and it was soon rich and important. People called Angles, Saxons, and Jutes came to Britain from Germany, Holland, and Denmark. Then, in the ninth and tenth centuries, Danish ships came up the River Thames and destroyed many of Londinium's buildings.

In 1066, England had a new king - William the Conqueror from France. William came to live in London and built a castle there (today we know it as the Tower of London). London was now the biggest and most important city in England, and it got bigger and bigger.

The plague often came to London, but 1665 was the worst year of all. It was called the Year of the Great Plague. Then a year later, in 1666, there was a big fire - the Great Fire of London. It began in a house in Pudding Lane, near London Bridge. The Great Fire of London went through street after street after street, and it did not stop for four days.

More than a quarter of a million people lost their homes in the fire. It destroyed St Paul's Cathedral and eighty-eight other churches. But it also destroyed most of the worst old building.

The original walled city of London was quite small. (It is known colloquially today as 'the square mile'.) It did not contain Parliament or the royal court, since this would have interfered with the autonomy of the merchants and traders who lived and worked there. It was in Westminster, another 'city' outside London's walls, that these national institutions met. Today, both 'cities' are just two areas of central London. The square mile (also known simply as 'the City') is home to the country's main financial organizations. During the daytime, more than a quarter of a million people work there, but fewer than 10,000 people actually live there.

Two other well-known areas of London are the West End and the East End. The former is known for its many theatres, cinemas and expensive shops. The latter is known as the poorer residential area of central London. It is the traditional home of the Cockney and for centuries it has been home to successive waves of immigrant groups.

There are many other parts of central London, some of them quite distinctive in character, and central London itself makes up only a very small part of Greater London. In common with many other European cities, the population in the central area decreased in the second half of the twentieth century. The majority of’ Londoners live in its suburbs, millions of them travelling into the centre each day to work. These suburbs cover a vast area of land stretching in all directions. The most recent trend has been an expansion of London to the east, down towards the Thames Estuary.

Like many large cities, London is in some ways untypical of the rest of the country in that it is so cosmopolitan. Although all of Britain's cities have some degree of cultural and racial variety, the variety is by far the greatest in London. More than 300 languages are spoken there; its restaurants offer cuisine from more than 70 different countries. In fact, nearly a third of the people in London were born outside Britain.

The variety does not stop there. London has most of both the richest and the poorest areas in Britain. Despite this, you have less chance of being the victim of a crime there than you have in many other British cities. In late 2007, it was voted the most popular city in the world in an on-line poll of international tourists. It is also the most frequent choice for Chinese companies expanding into Europe. This popularity is probably the result of its combination of apparently infinite cultural variety and a long history which has left intact many visible signs of its richness and drama.

/after Britain for Learners of English/