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I have a friend who is afraid of spiders. This isn’t very unusual; a lot of people are afraid of spiders. I don’t really like spiders much myself. I don’t mind them if you see them outside, in the garden, as long as they’re not too big. But if one comes in the house, especially if it’s one of those really big spiders with furry legs and little red eyes, then I go “yeeucch” and I try to get rid of it. Usually I’ll use a brush to get rid of the spider, but if I feel brave then I’ll put a glass over the top of it, slide a piece of paper under the glass and then take it outside.

This is quite normal, I think. But my friend isn’t afraid of spiders in any normal way. She isn’t just afraid of spiders, she is totally, completely and utterly terrified of them. When my friend sees a spider she doesn’t just go “uurgghh!” or run away, or ask someone else to get rid of the horrible creepy crawly. No:  she screams as loud as she possibly can. She screams so loud that her neighbours worry about her, and think about calling the police. When she sees a spider, she shivers all over, and sometimes she freezes completely – she can’t move at all because she is so terrified. Sometimes she even faints.

But my friend had a surprise for me when we met for coffee last week.
“Guess what?” she asked me.
“What?” I said.
“I’ve got a new pet!”
“Great,” I said.  “What is it?  A dog?  A cat?”
“No”
“A budgie?”
“No”
“A rabbit?”
“No”
“What then?”
“I’ve got a pet spider.”
“I don’t believe you!”
“It’s true! I decided that it was time I did something about my phobia so I went to visit a doctor, a special doctor. A psychiatrist. This psychiatrist specialised in phobias – helping people who had irrational fears to get better, and live normally. He told me I suffered from ‘arachnophobia’.”

“It’s an irrational fear of spiders,” he said. “About one in fifty people suffer from a severe form of arachnophobia. It’s not very uncommon.”
“Thanks” said my friend. “But that doesn’t help me much...”  
“There are lots of different ways we can try to cure your phobia,” said the psychiatrist. “First, there is traditional analysis.”
“What does that mean?” asked my friend.
“This means lots of talking. We try to find out exactly why you have such a terrible fear of spiders. Perhaps it’s linked to something that happened to you when you were a child.”
“Oh dear,” said my friend. “That sounds quite worrying.”
“It can take a long time,” said the psychiatrist. “Years, sometimes, and you can never be certain that it will be successful.”
“Are there any other methods?”
“Yes – some psychiatrists use hypnosis along with traditional analysis.”  My friend didn’t like the idea of being hypnotised. “I’m worried about what things will come out of my subconscious mind!” she said.
“Are there any other methods?” asked my friend,
“Well”, said the psychiatrist, “There is what we call the ‘behavioural’ approach.”
“What’s the behavioural approach?” asked my friend.
“Well,” said the psychiatrist, “It’s like this...”

The psychiatrist got out a small spider from his desk. It wasn’t a real spider.  It was made of plastic. Even though it was only a plastic spider, my friend screamed when she saw it.

“Don’t worry,” said the psychiatrist. “It’s not a real spider.”
“I know,” said my friend. “But I’m afraid of it just the same.”
“Hmmmm,” said the psychiatrist. “A serious case...”  He put the rubber spider on the desk. When my friend stopped screaming, the psychiatrist told her to touch it. When she stopped screaming again – the idea of touching the plastic spider was enough to make her scream – she touched it. At first she touched it for just one second.  She shivered all over, but at least she managed to touch it.

“Ok,” said the psychiatrist. “That’s all for today. Thanks. You can go home now.”
“That’s it?” asked my friend.
“Yes.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes, for today. This is the behavioural approach. Come back tomorrow.”

My friend went back the next day, and this time the plastic spider was already on the doctor’s desk. This time she touched it and held it for five minutes. Then the doctor told her to go home and come back the next day. The next day she went back and the plastic spider was on her chair. She had to move the spider so she could sit down. The next day she held the spider in her hand while she sat in her chair. The next day, the doctor gave her the plastic spider and told her to take it home with her.

“Where do spiders appear in your house?” asked the psychiatrist.
“In the bath, usually,” said my friend.
“Put the spider in the bath,” he told her.  

My friend was terrified of the spider in the bath, but she managed not to scream when she saw it there.  
“It’s only a plastic spider,” she told herself.

The next day the psychiatrist told her to put the spider in her living room. My friend put it on top of the television. At first she thought the spider was watching her, and she felt afraid. Then she told herself that it was only a plastic spider.

The next day the psychiatrist told her to put the spider in her bed.  
“No way!” she said. “Absolutely not!”
“Why not?” asked the psychiatrist.
“It’s a spider!” replied my friend.
“No it’s not,” said the psychiatrist, “It’s a plastic spider. It’s not a real one.” My friend realised that her doctor was right. She put the plastic spider in her bed, and she slept there all night with it in her bed. She only felt a little bit afraid.

The next day, she went back to the psychiatrist. This time, she had a shock, a big shock. Sitting in the middle of the doctor’s desk there was a spider. And this time it was a real spider.

My friend was about to scream and run away, but she didn’t. She sat on the other side of the room, as far away as possible form the spider, for about five minutes, then she got up and left the room.  
“See you tomorrow!” shouted the psychiatrist to her as she left.

The next day she went back and this time the psychiatrist let the spider run around on his desk. Again, my friend stayed about five minutes, then left. The next day she stayed for ten minutes, and the day after that, fifteen. Eventually, the psychiatrist held the spider, the real spider with long furry legs and little eyes, in his hand. He asked my friend to come and touch it. At first she refused, but the doctor insisted.  Eventually she touched the spider, just for a second. The next day she touched it for a few seconds, then for a few minutes, and after that she held the spider in her own hand.

Then she took the spider home, and let it run around in her house. She didn’t feel afraid. Well, ok, she did feel afraid, but only a tiny bit.
“So now I’ve got a pet spider!” she told me again.
“Well done!” I said.
“There’s only one problem,” she said, and as she spoke I noticed that she was shivering all over. Then she screamed and climbed up on the chair. She was pointing to something on the floor.
“Over there!” she screamed. “Look!  It’s a beetle...!!”

Glossary

shivers (v.) – shakes because you are cold or afraid

budgie (n.) – a small parrot

phobia (n.) – strong fear

psychiatrist (n.) – doctor treating mental or behavioural disorders

hypnosis (n.) – a mental state like sleep

subconscious (adj.) – existing unknown in mind

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Anna Winter pulled on her Gucci sunglasses and sprayed herself with the extra-strength mosquito repellent she had bought in the airport. That was the biggest problem about her work, she thought. Mosquitoes and things like that. Bad hotels, and bad food. How could she be a front-line, award-winning, adventurous journalist if she had to stay in bad hotels and eat bad food? 

Anna Winter thought her job was very difficult, and she told everybody about this.

As she landed in Lagos airport, she worried about the hotel where she was staying, and how she would be able to eat for the week she was staying in Nigeria. Perhaps that would make a good article, she thought. Lots of local colour.

Joseph Adoga collected a printed copy of the article he was working and put it in his bag as he left the small office of the Star. The Star was a local paper in Lagos. It came out every evening and had a mixture of stories – politics, current affairs, local news, human interest stories and sport. It was only a small newspaper, but Joseph enjoyed his job. He liked finding things out, and informing people about what was going on in the city, in Nigeria as a whole, in Africa generally, and in all the world. When he heard that the famous international journalist Anna Winter was coming to Lagos to do a story he was interested, and was even more pleased when her agency got in touch with Joseph. “You should be able to help her” the agency said, and Joseph hoped he could help her.

Instead of driving out to the usual part of the city where he lived, tonight Joseph drove into one of the rich areas of the city. He stopped outside one of the big hotels and went in to meet Anna Winter.

Anna Winter was disappointed by the hotel. It was one of a big international chain, so she expected more. The air-conditioning in her room wasn’t working properly, and there were mosquitoes inside. She hoped that the local journalist she was going to meet would be able to help her.

“Let’s go to somewhere really characteristic to eat” said Anna to Joseph when they met in the hotel foyer. “I want a really typical little place…the kind of place where I’m sure you go to eat…somewhere full of local colour…”

Joseph thought hard about a place where they could go and eat.  Eventually he thought of somewhere and took Anna in his car to a restaurant he knew where they served traditional Nigerian food. Joseph really liked the place, but Anna wasn’t happy. 

“Hmmmm…it’s very clean” she said. “Very clean and very quiet…”
“What did you expect?” asked Joseph.
“Well, erm, something more African” said Anna.
“How do you mean?” asked Joseph.
“More noise, more colour…lots and lots of people…”
“Well” said Joseph. “Lagos is quite a noisy and a colourful city, and there are a lot of people who live here…but we like to eat good food in good surroundings…like anyone else!”
Anna looked disappointed. “But I’m not getting a real feel of Africa here” she said.
“Anna” Joseph tried to explain.  “Africa is a continent. There are 54 countries in Africa, and 900 million people. Nobody even really knows how many languages are spoken in Africa…hundreds!”

Joseph wanted to explain to Anna that it was impossible to talk about “Africa” as if it was just one place, but Anna wasn’t listening. Joseph changed the subject of the conversation.

“So, what are you going to write abut Nigeria?” he asked her.
“I’m not sure yet” said Anna. “I want to look around and get a feel for the place first. Something about guns and crime, perhaps, and I need some pictures of starving people…starving people with guns if possible…”

Joseph thought for a minute.  “Well, like any big city, there is crime in Lagos…sure. But I’m not sure how interesting that is.  You won’t find many starving people here though.” He pointed to the plates of food on their table. “Here we eat pretty well!”

“Tell me what things you write about in your paper.” said Anna.
“All sorts of things” said Joseph.  “It’s only a small paper, so I have to write lots of the stories. Sometimes there are crime stories, yes.  I can show you those if you like….”
“That could be interesting…I think I can use my influence to change things...”
“I’ve got a good idea” said Joseph. “Why don’t you write an article about everyday life here in Lagos…you know, so many articles about Africa are just about famine or war or corruption…but that’s not the reality of many of our lives.” 

Anna look confused. Joseph continued.
“Why don’t you write about some ordinary scenes, a restaurant like this, happy children at school…”
“People don’t want to hear that” said Anna. “It doesn’t sell. I need big sunsets over the Serengeti, and I need to contrast with the darkness of Africa…I’ve already got my title, yes, ‘Darkness at noon’ I ‘m going to call the article…”

Joseph sighed and wondered why people always talked about “darkness” in Africa. Joseph had been to London in December – now that was darkness! It was dark at three o’clock in the afternoon. Nigeria was the brightest, lightest place he’d ever visited. Anna ignored him and continued.

“And I need to contrast that with the nobility of the people…”
“I see,” said Joseph, “but be clear… there are some noble people here, but there are also some very bad ones. We are not noble just because we are African. Why not write about some of our Nigerian writers and intellectuals…there are many – Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri, Wole Soyinka…they have some fascinating things to say…”

Joseph could see that Anna wasn’t interested.  Anna thought she was the only intellectual and writer who mattered.

A few days later Anna was on the plane back to London. “I have to file some copy…what can I write…?” She took out her laptop and began to type…

“As soon as I got off the plane I was in love with Africa. Like a noble man, disappearing into the huge sunset, Africa is impossible to know, but it will always haunt you…”  Yes, this is good thought Anna to herself…”Jospeh Adoga is one such man, a face of Africa, a noble journalist, fighting for the cause of free speech in the Dark Continent…and without our help, he is in trouble…”

At the same time as Anna was typing, Joseph was sitting down to read the latest edition of The Star. He began to read his own article in it. “European journalists are strange people…” it began.

Glossary

repellent (n.) – resistant to something

local colour (n.) – the special or unusual features of a place

foyer (n.) – lobby

famine (n.) – severe shortage of food

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Alberto took one look at his new neighbours and knew that his life was going to get more difficult.   He watched them arrive in their big, noisy car and watched them get out.  There they were, two of them, as big and as noisy as their car, and smelly and stupid as well.

“Terrible!” he thought.  “How am I going to put up with them?”  He went to tell Mimi.  Mimi was the friend he lived with.
“Have you seen the new neighbours?” he asked her.
“No” she said.  “Who are they?”
“Two of them.  The ones we don’t like.  Big and noisy and stupid and smelly.  Just like they always are.”
“Oh, no” said Mimi.  “How awful!  Still, I suppose we can just ignore them.”
“I suppose you’re right” agreed Alberto.  “We’ll just have to ignore them.”

For a few days, then, Alberto and Mimi tried to ignore their new neighbours. When the neighbours went out for a walk, Alberto and Mimi didn’t say hello to them.  When the neighbours were in their garden, Alberto and Mimi went inside.  This was ok for a few days, but, perhaps inevitably, things didn’t stay this way…

One day Alberto woke up from his sleep to find one of the neighbours in his garden.  “Mimi!” he shouted.  “Have you seen this!?  He’s in our garden!!!!  Look!”
“How terrible” said Mimi. “Let’s call our staff and make sure they get rid of him immediately!”

Mimi went off to call their staff.  Two minutes later Alberto and Mimi’s head of staff was out in the garden trying to get rid of the unwelcome neighbour.

“Go on!” he shouted.  “Get out of here!  Go home!”  The neighbour didn’t say anything, but gave Alberto and Mimi’s head of staff a dirty look, then he went back into his garden.  Alberto and Mimi felt better, and then asked their head of staff to prepare their lunch for them.

However, it wasn’t enough.  Over the next few days Alberto and Mimi often found one or other or both of their new neighbours walking around their own garden.  It was terrible.  To show how they felt, Alberto and Mimi went into their neighbours’ garden, at night, when the neighbours were inside, and broke all the flowers. 

The next morning one of the neighbours came to talk to Alberto.

“Hey!” he said.  “Hey you!”  Alberto ignored him, but he continued talking.  “You came into our garden last night and broke all the flowers!”  Alberto didn’t say anything, but gave his neighbour a dirty look.  “Now I’m in trouble!”  continued his neighbour.  “They think I did it!”  “Who are ‘they’?” asked Alberto.
“My owners, of course…” replied the neighbour.
“Owners !!???” said Alberto. “You have ‘owners’?”
“Course we do” said his neighbour.  “Don’t you?”
“Oh no” replied Alberto.  “We have staff.”

Alberto went to tell Mimi that the neighbours didn’t have staff, but they had owners.  
“That’s not a surprise” said Mimi.  “That explains everything.  That’s why they’re so noisy and smelly and stupid.  We need to make their ‘owners’ become ‘staff’…”

The next day, Alberto and Mimi were actually very friendly with their new neighbours.  They tried to explain how to make their owners become staff. 

“Listen” said Alberto to them.  “It’s very easy.  First, understand that the house is your house, not theirs…”
“And second” said Mimi, “Make sure that you are always clean.”
“Make sure they give you food whenever you want!”
“Sit on the newspaper while they are reading it!”
“Sleep as much as possible – on their beds!”
“And finally, try not to bark, but to miaow instead.”

But it was no good.  The neighbours just didn’t understand.  After a week, they gave up.

“It’s no good” said Mimi.  “They’ll never understand – dogs have owners, cats have staff.”

Glossary

put up with (phrasal v.) – continue to accept someone who behaves unpleasantly

inevitably (adv.) – in a way that is impossible to avoid

Read

This is the day. Today’s the day.
Andy knew it the moment he woke up that morning. This was the day he had to make a decision. The sun came in slowly through the red curtains in his bedroom and made him wake up earlier than he wanted to. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because today was the day. Andy stayed in his bed for some time, thinking about what he should do.
It didn’t matter – he had lots of time – he had woken up very early this morning. He lay in his bed thinking about the day that was to come. He lay there thinking about what he should do. The sun shining in through his red curtains became stronger and stronger and eventually he got up, stretched, yawned and went into the bathroom to get washed.

When he was in the bathroom washing his face he looked at himself in the mirror. “What shall I do today?” he asked his reflection in the mirror. “Should I stay at home, like every Saturday, or should I go?” His reflection didn’t reply to him. He looked at his face, his hair, his eyes. He thought about how much he looked like his father. He was now 32 years old. This was the same age that his father was when Andy was born. 32 years old. Was today the right time to make the journey? When Andy’s father was 32 years old he had already made that journey hundreds of times. For Andy, it was going to be the first time.

Andy went back into his bedroom and carefully took his clothes out of his wardrobe. He had made the decision. Yes – his lucky shirt. And then, his favourite trousers. He hoped his trousers were going to be lucky trousers too. Then he went into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea and some toast for breakfast. As he was eating he thought about other people in other parts of the world who went on journeys like the journey he was going to do today.

He was still thinking about it when he went out of his house and walked down the road to the train station. Such an ordinary beginning for such a special day! he thought. This day, he thought, was more than any ordinary journey. Today was a pilgrimage. Today – for Andy – was a day like going to Rome, or sick people to Lourdes, or the people walking to Santiago de Compostela, or even Mecca.

Perhaps this was a wicked thought, but that’s how he felt. He thought about his father and he felt how extremely important this day was to him.

The train arrived and he saw a lot of other people getting on the train who were also making the same pilgrimage as he was. Even though he didn’t know them, they smiled at each other and nodded their heads at each other in a greeting. They recognised each other even though they didn’t know each other. The train started to move out through the town where he grew up – he saw the school where he went when he was little, the park where he played football with his father, and eventually the cemetery where his father was now buried.

His father had made this pilgrimage many times, but Andy had never gone with him. Andy hadn’t had a good relationship with his father when he was alive, but since he had died a year ago Andy found himself thinking more and more about his father. Now he was going to make the same pilgrimage that his father made so many times because he wanted to understand and remember his father. His father had made this pilgrimage, and his father’s father before that. And now he was doing it. It was a tradition which he felt happy – no, more than happy – he felt proud to be a part of.

Andy smiled again at the other people on the train. One man smiled back at him. “I haven’t seen you here before”, he said, “Is this your first time?”

“Yes, yes it is” replied Andy.

“I’ve been coming here for years” said the man. The train arrived at the station and they all got off. Now there were hundreds – no, more than hundreds – there were thousands of people there. They were all dressed in the same colours. They were all walking in the same direction.

“Makes you feel proud, doesn’t it?” said the man to Andy. He was right – Andy did feel proud. They walked together out of the station and onto the main road. The place of pilgrimage was there in front of them, only a few hundred metres away now. The thousands of other people became tens of thousands of people, everybody walking in the same direction, everybody together, lots of people singing old songs. Andy remembered his father singing some of those songs. He was happy now that he had come. He knew he had made the right decision.

As the tens of thousands of people walked slowly together along the road, Andy finally understood why his father and his grandfather had made this journey so often. It wasn’t the object of the journey that was important – it was the journey itself that was important. It was important to do the same things with lots of other people sometimes, to feel a sense of a shared faith, and shared ideals. Andy turned round and smiled at the man beside him. The man smiled back at Andy. Even though these two men didn’t know each other, they could see that they had something in common. They were walking in Andy’s father’s footsteps.

They walked in and up the concrete stairs. The noise of the tens of thousands of people was so loud that it was deafening. Andy started to laugh. He had made the right choice this morning. He was happy that he had come. He could almost feel his father standing there beside him. The teams ran out onto the pitch. There was a huge cheer.

The match was about to begin

Glossary

stretch (v): to straighten your body or your arms or legs so that they are as long as possible, in order to exercise the joints after you have been in the same place or position for a long time.

yawn (v): to open the mouth wide and take a lot of air into the lungs and slowly send it out, usually when tired or bored.

pilgrimage (n): a journey to a place which is considered special, and which you visit to show your respect.

wicked (adj): morally wrong and bad.

cemetery (n): an area of ground in which dead bodies are buried.

deafen (n): if a very loud noise deafens you, it makes you deaf, or makes you temporarily unable to hear the other sounds near you.

pitch (n): an area marked for playing particular sports, especially football

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I live in a town where lots of people live, a town which is a suburb of a city where millions of people live. It’s very crowded. Where I live there is one apartment block after another. I look out of my window and if I look to the left I can see another apartment block. If I look to the right I can see the railway and the local train station, and after that there are more apartment blocks. If I look straight ahead of me I can see another apartment block. But if I look straight down, I can see something different.

If I look straight down I can see a garden. It’s not a big garden – it’s about fifteen metres long and fifteen metres wide. It’s almost square-shaped. The space is as big as a small apartment block. The garden is there like a hole in the middle of lots of other apartment blocks. It is a space left by an apartment block which was bombed in the Second World War and – unlike all the other blocks around it – never rebuilt.

An old woman lives in this garden. Well, to be accurate, she doesn’t exactly live in the garden. She has a very small two-storey house in the corner of the garden. There only seem to be two rooms in her house, one room downstairs and one room upstairs, but I don’t really know because I’ve never been in it. But that’s what it looks like from the outside. The woman who lives is the garden looks very old, but nobody is really sure how old she is.

In her garden, she mostly grows oranges and lemons, and in the winter when the oranges are in season, the dark green trees in the garden are covered in hundreds and hundreds of tiny orange dots. It’s really beautiful. You can lean over the balcony and call the old woman, and if you lower down a basket on a piece of rope, she’ll fill up the basket for you with oranges. The oranges have quite a bitter taste, to tell the truth, they’re not sweet at all, and they’re full of pips, but I always think that the old woman is very kind to give away all her oranges anyhow.

The old woman isn’t the only one who lives in the garden, though. About ten stray cats live there too. I say “about ten”, because there always seem to be different cats there. Sometimes you can look down and there are only three or four cats lying out in the sun or in the shade of one of the orange trees. Other times, though, especially if you throw a leftover bit of fish over the balcony for the cats to have, lots of them come running, sometimes as many as twelve, sometimes too many to count.

A lot of people want to come and live where I live now. The nearby city with millions of people who live in it is too crowded, and the prices of flats in the city are very high. A lot of people want to move out of the city to the small town where I live, because it’s a bit cheaper and a bit quieter.

Some people who live in my apartment block are saying that the old woman has been looking very unhappy recently. My neighbours are worried because they say that the old woman is very old and that she isn’t well and that if she dies, someone will come and build another apartment block on the space where her small, green garden is. The people who live in our apartment block – me included – love the small garden. It’s beautiful to wake up in the morning and go out onto the balcony and look at the orange and lemon trees, and the small vine where she grows grapes to make wine in the autumn, and the stray cats asleep in the sun.

One day we saw a group of men in the garden. They were all wearing suits and carrying maps and charts. They looked like engineers and builders. Everyone in my apartment block was worried. “The old woman’s going to sell her garden”, they said. “Those men are engineers and builders and they’re going to build another apartment block where the garden is.” Some of us went to speak to the old woman.

“No” said the old woman, “I’m not going to sell my garden. I love my garden. Yes, those men were engineers and builders, but they don’t want to build another apartment block here.”
“Well what do they want to do then?” we asked.
“They want to build a road across the garden.”
“A road!?”
“Yes – because it’s near the train station. Because a lot of people are coming to live here now, they think they need to build a new road from the station to the motorway to make it easier for more people to travel into the city.”

We all went home and were very worried. But what could we do? Some of us wrote letters to the local council and the local newspapers. But the council said that it was necessary to have a new road so more people would come to our small town and bring more business with them. They said that there was too much traffic on the one small road that existed at the moment. The local newspaper agreed with the local council. The building work on the road was to start almost immediately. It seemed like there was nothing that we could do. Now, instead of living next to a beautiful, quiet green garden we would be living next to a big, noisy road.

The night before the builders and bulldozers and diggers were supposed to come it was very hot, and I stayed awake late into the night, sitting out on my balcony looking out over the garden for the last time. Even though it was dark, I could see something strange happening in the garden. I was sure I could see all the stray cats who lived there, as many as twelve or thirteen of them, and they were all digging a big hole. Sometimes cats dig holes, that’s normal, but I’d never seen anything like this. All the cats seemed to be working together, digging an enormous hole on one side of the garden. Because it was very late and very dark, I couldn’t see properly though, and thought that perhaps I was just imagining things. I went to bed thinking that perhaps I was already dreaming.

The next morning I woke up feeling unhappy because I could hear the noise of the builders and the bulldozers already. Big, loud noises of heavy machinery. “This is it”, I thought, “this is the end of the lovely garden.” But I was surprised when the noises stopped and everything went quiet.

I got out of bed, pulled on my clothes and went out onto my balcony to have a look what was happening. Why had the builders and bulldozers stopped?

When I got out onto the balcony I could see a big group of builders, one big bulldozer and an important-looking man in a suit who must have been the boss. They were all scratching their heads and looking very puzzled. The old woman was standing with them. She was looking very pleased. The stray cats were all lying asleep under the trees around the edges of the enormous hole that they had, indeed, dug.
Everyone was looking into the hole.

At the bottom of the hole was an enormous mosaic. “It’s Roman” I heard somebody say. “It’s must be ancient” said one of the other builders. The boss was looking very upset. “We can’t possibly build here” said another one of the builders. “He’s right” said another one, “This must be a historical site.” The boss walked away and threw his hat on the ground.

They never built the road. Now on sunny mornings I sit out on my balcony I sit out and look at the beautiful green garden with its Roman mosaic. The mosaic shows a picture of a huge banquet, with lots of people sitting at big tables eating, and lots of cats eating fish and sleeping under the shady tables.

Glossary

suburb (n): a residential area on the edge of a city

in season (adj): the time when a fruit or vegetable is ready and best for eating

stray (adj): homeless, lost, wandering

bulldozer (n): a heavy vehicle with a large blade in front, used for pushing earth and stones along and for flattening areas of ground at the same time

enormous (adj): very big

mosaic (n): a pattern or picture made using many small pieces of coloured stone or glass

banquet (n): a large formal meal for many people, often followed by speeches in honour of someone

Read

ESP or Extra Sensory Perception is a catch-all expression for the alleged ability of certain people to receive transmitted thoughts from others, to transmit their own thoughts, to see what will happen in the future or to be able to move objects from one place to another without physically touching them. These special people are called psychics or sensitives. Some believe that we all have this ability to some degree but that most of us choose not to develop it.

Some people are happy to believe in ESP while others are firm disbelievers. Parapsychologists who are dedicated to scientifically studying the claims that are made, lend a certain seriousness to the subject. They have identified four distinct types of ESP:

Clairvoyance describes the act of being able to obtain knowledge of a person or event without the use of the normal senses.

Telepathy is the process by which a person is able to read another person’s thoughts without the use of any of the normal senses.

Psychokinesis is the ability to influence a physical object just by thinking about it.

Precognition is the term applied when somebody is able to foresee future events.

Many people are sceptical about ESP. Alongside the existence of documented evidence there are plenty of claims that have turned out to be fraudulent. For most people it is difficult to accept such claims without having had first hand experience. The lack of scientific evidence is another factor to take into account. On the other hand, most of us have, at some time, experienced a seemingly inexplicable occurrence; hearing the telephone ring and knowing who will be on the other end of the line or cases of coincidence that seem to be too extreme to be accidental.

Over the years there have been numerous ESP experiments conducted by serious scientists in serious institutions. Joseph Banks Rhine, a botanist at Duke University published a famous book in 1934 called “Extra-Sensory perception” in which he claimed to have overwhelming evidence of ESP. However, other scientists have been unable to duplicate his results since, which has resulted in the book losing much of its original credibility and fame.

The Ganzfield experiments are considered to have been the most carefully scrutinised ESP experiments. Alleged psychics had their eyes covered and ears blocked while a “sender” attempted to transmit messages. Later the psychics would compare the messages received to the original messages sent out. There was a great deal of excitement and interest at the time but the research failed to produce convincing results.

One of the strongest criticisms against ESP is that in order for it to exist, the fundamental laws of physics would necessarily have to be broken.

Human beings are attracted to the whole spectrum of supernatural phenomena. ESP will always continue to fascinate. This becomes clear when we see how much of the media is dedicated to the topic; magazines, journals, web sites, television and radio programmes. Some of the most successful films in recent years have fuelled interest among the younger generations who are starting to ask the same questions and to look for explanations for the same phenomena as their parents and grandparents before them. Who knows? One day we might just find these answers because one thing is certain: “The truth is out there!

Glossary

catch-all (adj.) – used to describe a broad range of things

sceptical (adj.) – doubting

fraudulent (adj.) – false

inexplicable (adj.) – impossible to explain

botanist (n.) – scientist who studies plants

scrutinised (v.) – being examined

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When I was at school, our teacher told the class “You are what you eat.” My friends and I would laugh and call each other ‘hamburger’ and ‘biscuits’. Our teacher was trying to show us the importance of eating the right food to stay healthy.

This was a few decades ago when there were big campaigns to make British people healthier. We decided to throw out our chip pan which we had used until then to make chips every day for dinner. We replaced our chips with boiled potatoes. We also started using semi-skimmed milk instead of whole milk in our cups of tea and bowls of cornflakes. At first I felt like I was eating my cornflakes in water and my potatoes had no taste at all. But after a while I started to prefer healthier food because I felt stronger and I didn’t get sick so often.

Japanese people are reputed to be the healthiest in the world because of the food they eat. The healthiest Japanese people eat rice and fish and vegetables every day. They drink green tea or water when they’re thirsty, and snack on dried fish, fruit or gingko nuts. The traditional Japanese diet is famous for helping you to live a longer and healthier life.

So we have proof that you become what you eat. Can you tell what your friends eat just by looking at them? When you know the effects of different types of food, you can use your knowledge well and eat what you want to become.

Food has an impact on our physical and emotional health. Have you ever heard any of the following advice?

Lettuce or milk can make you sleepy.

To stop feeling sleepy you should eat peanuts or dried fish.

To keep your teeth clean you should eat apples often.

Garlic helps you not to catch a cold.

Everyone has their own advice to give, which they have read about or have been told by older relatives. Some of these pieces of advice seem to contradict each other.

Eating chocolate makes you fat and gives you spots.

Chocolate contains the essential minerals iron and magnesium.

What we need to figure out is what type of chocolate to eat to get the benefits and how much of it to eat. We can do this by reading the list of ingredients on the chocolate bar wrapper. Exactly how much real chocolate is in there? And how much of that do we need to eat to get the benefits of the minerals it contains?

Future restaurants might be named after the physical or emotional state they hope to create. Their menus will list the benefits of each dish and drink. Some restaurants have already started this concept, and list the nutritional content of their dishes on the menus.

Let’s take the restaurant ‘Winners’ as an example. Their menu would list dishes specifically designed to help you win sports competitions. There would be Night-before Vegetable lasagne, a pasta dish with extra layers of spinach pasta for slow-burning energy, rich tomato sauce full of vitamin C and soft, easy-to-digest vegetables. All this would be topped with a little fresh cheese – just enough to help you get a good night’s sleep, but not enough to give you nightmares!

Or you could choose the Go-faster salad, which is a large bowl of mixed raw vegetables in a light salad dressing, giving you energy without making you gain weight. The vegetables are carefully chosen to include plenty of natural vitamins and minerals.

What kind of dishes do you think would be on the menu at the ‘Clever Café’ (which sells food that’s good for your brain)?

So what’s going to happen to hamburgers and biscuits? Will the concept of eating food because it’s tasty go out of fashion? Of course not! Junk food is also changing. If ice-cream is not good for children, can’t we give them fat-free, sugar-free tofu ice-cream? Unhealthy food is going out of fashion, so brands are changing. We are told not to drink cola because of the sugar and caffeine content so cola companies are making sugar-free and caffeine-free drinks. We are told dried fruit is a healthier snack than biscuits so some biscuit companies are making biscuits with added vitamins. Snacks might soon be changing their names to “Skinglow” and “Chocomineral”! So in the future you might be able to eat your way to your idea of perfection!

Glossary

semi-skimmed milk (n.) – milk with some fat removed

reputed (adj.) – widely believed

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Computer games have been criticised for quite some time over a whole range of issues. Some people say they are overly violent and encourage violent behaviour particularly in children. Others say that they make children hyperactive, unsociable and are bad for their eyes. Some have even attributed falling standards of literacy and a lack of interest in reading on them. Now, however, it seems that computer games have also become a feminist issue.

Game manufacturers have, for some time, been looking to increase the number of female game players. The vast majority of computer games still sell to a mainly male market. Perhaps this is because the violent nature of many of the games appeals more to males or perhaps because many of the main characters in the games are male. Manufacturers' attempts to produce more female characters and so increase their share of the female gaming market have met with serious criticism from many women's groups.

Whilst heroines such as Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider game are seen as providing positive role models of strong women, many believe that the character's unrealistic Barbie like proportions are subconsciously setting unattainable standards in the minds of young women. Perhaps a stronger criticism is that although many games now include female characters, their role is often secondary and they support the main, male, action characters within the games. Of course the nature of many of the games remains violent and destructive and this in itself could well continue to put off female gamers.

There are now, however, a number of web sites springing up on the World Wide Web to help women deal with this issue. Sites such as Game Girlz, Women Gamers and Game Gal offer game reviews, articles, discussion forums and even employment opportunities for women interested in becoming part of the rapidly expanding games industry. The games are reviewed by women from a very female perspective. Some rate the games from one to ten across a range of criteria which include the appearance of the female characters, the degree of intelligence attributed to them in the game and even the marketing attitude adopted by the company. The sites are obviously looking for games that move away from the very male dominated and violent nature of the majority of computer games. Many of them review games that are more constructive and developmental. Although the common fantasy themes of knights, witches and goblins still exist within these games, the aims are often very different. Instead of destroying opposing armies the aim of the game can be to make peace with them.

With this increased degree of awareness and involvement from women in the games industry many positive changes could be made that could encourage more women and young girls to become enthusiastic about technology and what it has to offer them. Perhaps we may even find more male gamers moving away from the traditional violent and destructive games towards the more positive values promoted by these more feminine role models, after all Tomb Raider is still one of the most popular computer games on the market, but perhaps that's too much to ask.
 

Glossary

heroines (v.) – admired women

unattainable (adj.) – impossible to achieve

put off (phrasal v.) – to discourage someone from doing something

goblins (n.) – small creatures in stories that are harmful to humans

enthusiastic (adj.) – showing passionate interest

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Is geography important? Here’s a question for you to answer.

What have the following countries got in common: Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Iceland and Madagascar?

Quite easy if you can picture them on the globe - they are all islands. Australia is so big that it’s almost a continent by itself so you don’t think of it as an island, but of course all of these nations are surrounded by sea.

Now how about this question...

What have these five nations got in common? Hungary, Botswana, Kazakhstan, Paraguay and Liechtenstein. A bit more difficult to answer, but of course you’ve already read the title of this article. Yes, they are all landlocked. In other words, in contrast to the first five countries whose coastline forms their border, the second five have no coastline at all. If you are a Hungarian or a Paraguayan, you have to pass through somebody else’s country if you want to go to the beach.

Liechtenstein is even more of a geographical phenomenon; it is ‘doubly landlocked’ because the countries that surround it - Austria and Switzerland are also landlocked. Lucky old Liechtensteiners. There is only one other country in the world in a similar position, Uzbekistan, which is surrounded by five other landlocked countries. Go and have a look at the map if you want to know which…

So how do countries become landlocked? If you are Swiss or Nepalese, you have probably never thought things could be any other way. Switzerland’s mountains, like the Himalayas, have formed a natural boundary for thousands of years. But there are borders and there are borders. Where one country ends and another begins is not something that is fixed for all time.

Take Poland or the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example. They were landlocked at one time in their history but managed to get the map changed so that a thin piece of land gave them access to the sea. The Polish state created by the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War included a corridor of land to link it to the Baltic, because the rest of the coastline belonged to Germany. In Africa, Cabinda is still isolated from the rest of Angola because the King of Belgium, the colonial power in Congo, insisted on a similar corridor at the Berlin Conference in 1885, the meeting which started the division of the continent into nation states.

Then there are countries like Ethiopia and Bolivia which did have a bit of coast but don’t any more. Does it matter? The Ethiopians are not happy that the creation of Eritrea means they now have to use another country’s port, when before they had a long coastline on the Red Sea.

Bolivia’s President is trying to get their neighbour Chile to give them some land so they can get to the Pacific like they did in the nineteenth century. The two countries haven’t spoken to each other for 30 years.

But why does coastline matter so much? Throughout history people have preferred to live near the sea, and not just for the fish. Sea means trade, which means wealth. Think of the great empires of the past based around the Mediterranean or successful cities like Singapore, New York or Hong Kong today. Russia has fought several wars over the centuries so that its ships could have access to the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Pacific.

Not having coastline is not so critical if you can get to somebody else’s seaport via a river. In Europe the landlocked Austrians can reach the ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp or Marseilles by inland waterway, and of course they can use the River Danube to go east. The Czechs can go down the River Elbe to Hamburg, the Slovaks to Polish ports. Adam Smith said that European industrialization only started in the 18th century because of the existence of navigable rivers.

In central Asia or Africa, however, having a river that takes you from the interior to the sea is very rare. And this seems to make all the difference. There are 42 landlocked countries in the world. The United Nations classifies 30 of them (71%) as developing; and all except one of these are in Africa or Asia. None of these thirty are major exporters of manufactured goods. Why? Some economists estimate that these countries pay between 30% and 50% more in transport costs than coastal nations. In Asia, it is not only transit routes but oil and gas pipelines that are affected if their neighbours decide to charge a high price to let them pass through their territory to get to the sea.

So what can these countries do to escape the disadvantage of being landlocked? You can’t move mountains or make rivers, but perhaps other means of transport can be improved. The United Nations has its own High Representative to look at ways of improving cooperation from those countries that stand between the landlocked and the sea, most recently at an international meeting in Almaty, Kazakhstan in August 2003. The European Union gives money to help develop road and rail routes from the African interior to ports on the East and West coasts.

And what about redrawing the map? Some African intellectuals suggest a second Berlin conference to make Central African borders fairer. If Western Europe can take away their borders, why not in other parts of the world?

Geography, it seems, can make a big difference.

Glossary

landlocked (adj.) – surrounded by land

doubly (adv.) – twice as much

navigable (adj.) – wide, deep, safe enough for boat to go through

make a big difference (expression) – to improve a situation greatly

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The concept of peace is a very important one in cultures all over the world. Think about how we greet people. In some languages, the phrases for greetings contain the word for peace. In some cultures we greet people by shaking hands or with another gesture to show that we are not carrying weapons - that we come in peace. And there are certain symbols which people in very different cultures recognise as representing peace. Let's look at the origins of a few of them.

The dove

The dove has been a symbol of peace and innocence for thousands of years in many different cultures. In ancient Greek mythology it was a symbol of love and the renewal of life. In ancient Japan a dove carrying a sword symbolised the end of war.

There was a tradition in Europe that if a dove flew around a house where someone was dying then their soul would be at peace. And there are legends which say that the devil can turn himself into any bird except for a dove. In Christian art, the dove was used to symbolise the Holy Ghost and was often painted above Christ's head.

But it was Pablo Picasso who made the dove a modern symbol of peace when he used it on a poster for the World Peace Congress in 1949.

The rainbow

The rainbow is another ancient and universal symbol, often representing the connection between human beings and their gods. In Greek mythology it was associated with Iris, the goddess who brought messages from the gods on Mount Olympus. In Scandinavian mythology the rainbow was a bridge between the gods and the earth. In the Bible a rainbow showed Noah that the Biblical flood was finally over, and that God had forgiven his people. In the Chinese tradition, the rainbow is a common symbol for marriage because the colours represent the union of yin and yang. Nowadays the rainbow is used by many popular movements for peace and the environment, representing the possibility of a better world in the future and promising sunshine after the rain.

Mistletoe

This plant was sacred in many cultures, generally representing peace and love. Most people know of the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe at Christmas time, which probably comes from Scandinavian mythology. The goddess Freya's son was killed by an arrow made of mistletoe, so, in honour of him, she declared that it would always be a symbol of peace. It was often hung in doorways as a sign of friendship.

The ancient Druids believed that hanging mistletoe in your doorway protected you from evil spirits. Tribes would stop fighting for a period of time if they found a tree with mistletoe. But you will never see mistletoe in a Christian church - it is banned because of its associations with pagan religion and superstition.

The olive branch

The olive tree has always been a valuable source of food and oil. In Greek mythology, the goddess Athene gave the olive tree to the people of Athens, who showed their gratitude by naming the city after her. But no one knows for sure when or why it began to symbolise peace. There is probably a connection with ancient Greece. Wars between states were suspended during the Olympic Games, and the winners were given crowns of olive branches. The symbolism may come from the fact that the olive tree takes a long time to produce fruit, so olives could only be cultivated successfully in long periods of peace. Whatever the history, the olive branch is a part of many modern flags symbolising peace and unity. One well-known example is the United Nations symbol.

The ankh

The ankh is an ancient symbol which was adopted by the hippie movement in the 1960s to represent peace and love. It was found in many Asian cultures, but is generally associated with ancient Egypt. It represented life and immortality. Egyptians were buried with an ankh, so that they could continue to live in the 'afterworld'. The symbol was also found along the sides of the Nile, which gave life to the people. They believed that the ankh could control the flow of the river and make sure that there was always enough water.

Glossary

mythology (n.) – a group of myths

sacred (adj.) - considered to be holy

pagan (adj.) – belonging to a religion which worships many gods

superstition (n.) – irrational belief

ankh (n.) – Egyptian cross with loop at top

immortality (n.) – never dying