Blue Air

Thank you for flying with Blue Air today. We’ll be taking off at 4.45. We apologize
for the delay which is due to some small mechanical problems with one of the
engines, which has now been fixed. There’s no need to worry!
Flight time today is 3 hours and 50 minutes and we’ll be flying over France, Italy
and Greece. Our estimated time of arrival is 9.35pm local time. Lunch will be
served on board and the menu today is chicken pasta in a creamy sauce or fish
surprise.
Our flight attendants are here to make your flight as comfortable as possible. Our
featured movie today is Snakes on a Plane, so please sit back, relax and enjoy
our in-flight entertainment.
1. What’s the name of the airline company?
Blue Air
2. What time does the plane take off?
4.45
3. How long is the flight?
3 hours and 50 minutes
4. What countries does the plane fly over?
France, Italy and Greece
5. Which of the following is NOT on the lunch menu?
 steak
fish
chicken
6. What is the name of the featured movie?
Snakes on a Plane

The Changing Face of Photography

Photography has changed a lot over the last few years. I can remember growing up with
film cameras. I used to buy rolls of film which had 24 or 36 exposures on them. That
means you really had to think before taking a photo. Every snap cost you money.
These days, digital cameras save still and moving images on memory cards or on the
device's internal hard drive. This means you can take as many shots as you want at
no additional cost.
Another thing that has changed over time is the way we share our photos. I still have, in
my cupboard somewhere, albums full of family photos and holiday snaps, and hundreds
more in shoeboxes. 20 years ago we had to physically show photos to people or send
them in an envelope by snail mail. These days however, we can put them up on the
Internet for anyone to access. And because of smart phones we can share our favourite
moments with friends and family on the other side of the world with just a click or two.
The Most Valuable Thing You Own
If I asked you what is the most valuable thing you own, what would you say? Your
car, perhaps? Or your house? Maybe the money in your bank account?
Imagine there is a bank which automatically puts 86,400 euros into your account
each morning. Imagine that, if you don’t spend this amount, you lose it. Any
money that remains at the end of the day from that 86,400 euros automatically
disappears.
What would you do? Would you draw out (that means remove from your bank
account) every pound, of course you would!
Well, everyone has a bank like this. It’s called the bank of time. Every morning, it
credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it disappears, lost, you’ll never get
back those 86,400 seconds of that day. If you don’t invest this time in something
good, something worthwhile, it’s gone.
Each day time opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the records of
the day and erases everything. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is
yours.
There is no going back. There is no borrowing against the "tomorrow". There is
limited time that disappears at the end of every day. Time management is decided
by us alone and nobody else. It is never the case of us not having enough time
to do things, but the case of whether we want to do things.
How are you going to spend your 86,400 seconds tomorrow?
1. How many seconds are there in a day?

86,400

2. Which phrasal verb means ‘to remove money from a bank’; to slide out,
to punch out, to draw out or to flip out?

To draw out

3. What happens at the end of each day?

The time for that day disappears

4. Who decides how to manage our time?

We decide

5. What message do you think the man is trying to communicate?

Make the best use of your time each day

What's so special about New York?

Have you ever been to New York? I've been lucky enough to visit New York twice,
and I also worked there for six months as a waiter in a café when I was in my
twenties. I love New York. It has a special atmosphere, a sort of energy and
intensity that I've never seen in any other city. The first time you visit you'll see
familiar places and things that have appeared on the TV and in American films.
Apart from the famous landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, the Empire
State building, Brooklyn Bridge etc, there are iconic familiarities like the yellow
taxis, street signs like 5th Avenue, Broadway and Times Square and of course
hot dog stands. But for me, the most interesting thing is the mixture of cultures.
Walk around Manhattan for a while and you'll see Italians, Chinese, Latin
Americans, Irish, Koreans; just about every nationality and religion imaginable.
I love it!
Windsurfing
It looked so easy from the beach. ‘How hard could it be?’, I thought to myself, as
I watched 10-year olds skim across the sea at breakneck speed.
It was a sunny, breezy day on the Spanish beach and my mates and I were
checking to see if we had enough money to rent a windsurfer after last night’s
pub crawl.
Those of us with heavy hangovers were lying zombie-like on the sand with towels
over our faces, but Roger, Paul and I were keen to try windsurfing before we flew
back to London the following day.
We had enough money for two windsurfers, so we decided to share and in
minutes we were having a beginner’s lesson from a handsome tanned Spaniard.
He made it looked so easy, so I jumped on first and immediately fell off. Over the
next twenty minutes, I fell off 16 more times and I was convinced that my
windsurfer was broken. Paul jumped on and immediately flew off into the horizon
like a professional. He even walked around the board successfully and began to
sail back to us. ‘He’s brother’s got a board’, informed Roger. ‘That’s why he’s so
good.’
1. In which country were the speaker and his friends?
Spain
2. Why were some of his friends not feeling well?
They had drunk too much alcohol the night before
3. When were they due to fly back home?
The next day
4. What excuse did the speaker give for falling off the windsurfer?
He said it was broken
5. Why was Paul so good at windsurfing?
His brother has a windsurfer
I can't remember if I joined the basketball team because my best friend did or to meet
girls. Maybe both. Looking back, I can't ever remember us winning a game. For a start
we were all pretty short. Our opposition usually towered over us. We tried to make up for
our height disadvantage by jumping higher. It didn't work.
We practised for hours on long shots and penalties to give us an edge, but we still
couldn't win. Our worse game was against another local school quite near to where I
lived at the time. Not only did we lose by about 70 points to 8, but a guy who lived in my
street was in the team that beat us and I had the added embarrassment of seeing him
regularly while walking the dog. To add insult to injury, a guy came into our changing
rooms at half time and beat up Mark, our star player and my best friend. If we'd had the
guts we would have fought back, all of us (after all, there was only one of him and 7 of
us) but we were young and scared.
Despite our defeats we loved the game and had a lot of fun. We wore our team shirts
with pride and occasionally, only occasionally, we'd be winning and the crowd would be
cheering. Our coach would be smiling from ear to ear and all the girls would be looking
at us. Occasionally

The years I spent working in an insurance office weren't the best years of my life but it
wasn't all doom and gloom my 1st job working in coron surance was in a large office
block about 13 minutes by bus from my home in a London suburb the offices were
impressive by a 1980 standards and I got the job because my sister who had already
been working there for a couple of years was good friends with the personnel manager
the interview was a breeze tone took so nervous Craig she laughed you've already got
the job fantastic I had to buy a suit of course and some shirts and tires the car insurance
department was an open plan office filled with a round 13 employees on a different floor
there was a typing Paul of 20 typists who typed out letters dictated to them by dictaphone
the directors directed us from glass walled fishbowl like offices they all had very large
desks to remind us of their superiority

My friends and I used to travel quite a long way at weekends to go to a disco or even
just a pub we take turns driving the driver of course couldn't drink alcohol and had to
make do with coax or soft drinks all night drugs were never part of our weekend
entertainment but beer and girls definitely were 99 times out of a 100 I would go out with
my mates get drunk and come home again but occasion early very occasionly I would
need someone on one special night by met Emma I was attracted to her immediately
and I spent ages watching her from across the dance floor when the slow dances started
to play I plucked up the courage to ask her to dance I was clumsy and nervous she was
quiet and shy we held each other a moved around in circles in time with the music we
hardly spoke I bought her a drink and we talked for a while she gave me her phone
number and I promise to phone her the following week I was ecstatic happiness doesn't
begin to describe the feeling I had traveling home in the car with my mates I was falling
for a girl I hardly knew and it felt wonderful I didn't know it at the time but we were to go
out together for 2 years and have some wonderful times together