What to Do If You Have an Accident

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Dear Aunt Harriet,

I need some help! My mother is driving me mad! In winter she says, “You shouldn’t go out in the snow” or “You should wear warm clothes”, and in summer she says, “You shouldn’t lie in the sun all day” and “You should wear cool clothes so you don’t get hot.” And all the year round she says, “You shouldn’t waste water.” She never stops! She thinks I’m stupid. Of course, I complain to my father about it, but he doesn’t listen. “You should listen to your mother”, he says, “She knows what she’s talking about.” So what should I do? Do you think I should run away from home?

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Our reporter, Michael Binner, went to visit the new vegetarian restaurant in Hanover Street. Here is what he has to say …

When I was invited to the Pepper Pot by the owner, Delia Jones, I didn’t really want to go. I don’t like vegetarian food very much. But, as it’s my job to tell the readers about places where they can eat in town, I was told to go! And I’m glad I did because it was really good. The Pepper Pot was opened last week and it is a very attractive restaurant. The walls are decorated with dried flowers, and the food is delicious. There are lots of different dishes on the menu, so my wife and I asked the waiter to bring us something good. It was brilliant! We were brought big mushrooms filled with garlic sauce and pieces of crusty bread with a blue cheese dip. Then we had vegetable lasagna. When the meal was finished, my wife and I were given the most wonderful meringue and chocolate sauce desserts. And we weren’t given an expensive bill to pay – our meal with coffee was only &22.

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I’m writing to express my anxiety about the situation with TV. You can hardly find anything worth seeing nowadays. What is shown on TV – stupid games and shows, violent films, awful news, sex and drugs? My grandson is sitting days and nights watching all this junk. Something must be done with it immediately. Who is going to control the situation?

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Talk To The Animals

Many people think that animals don’t talk. But is it really true? Dr Rose Braun comes from Germany and she works with animals every day. She thinks animals speak a language that is their own.

Dr Braun is visiting Britain this month, and she has this to say: “It is a mistake to think that animals can’t speak just because we don’t understand them. Most animals, for example, move their bodies to talk to each other. Some animals can even learn to talk to us. At the moment I’m teaching chimpanzees. They are very clever and they are doing very well. One of them – Gabby – is learning English, and she knows about 20 words already!”

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A Family of Nurses

Being a nurse runs in my family. My grandmother, who is now 92 years old, and my mother were both nurses and I’ve been a nurse for two years. The hospital where I work is the same one that my grandmother worked at 50 years ago. It has changed a lot since then. The rooms where we do operations now used to be the kitchens in the 1950s, and the beds, which patients sleep in are of course new. The food which wasn’t very good when my grandmother was working, hasn’t changed very much; most patients complain about it every day. The doctors and nurses who treat the patients work very hard and most of them enjoy their jobs. The patients who are usually nice and friendly, make the staff feel good about their jobs. My grandmother thinks this job, which she did for 40 years, is the best job you can do, and I agree.

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Happy Hospital

Louise Franklin feels that she is one of the luckiest people in London. A lot of people complain that they have to go to work to earn money, but Louise looks forward to work every day. Louise is a DJ on hospital radio at St Catherine’s Children’s Hospital in the city, where she has lived most of her life. “I love my job because I can help the children to feel better,” she says. “I know I can’t make their problems go away, but playing music and telling jokes makes the children feel happier and stronger. It helps them to get better quickly.” Kenny Gardner, who is a patient at St Catherine’s at the moment, agrees , Louise Franklin is really funny and the music she plays is great. I was really sad when I first came, but I’m fine now. You always feel better when you enjoy yourself, don’t you?

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Sue’s brother, David, is in his first term at university. Read his account of being a student.

At the moment it’s a bit hard because I’m not used to living away from home. I have to do everything for myself, like cooking, washing and ironing. Mum used to do all that! Studying here is very different from school. We have to choose which lectures to go to and plan our own timetable. At school they used to tell you what to do and when to do it, but here you have more freedom. I’m not used to that so I often leave my essays to the last minute. Then I have to work right through the night, which is something I’ve never done before.”

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Thirty-seven-year-old Richard Dickson had a nasty shock when he got home yesterday. To his horror, his house was on fire and flames were coming out of the windows. He grabbed his garden hose but wasn’t able to put out the fire before it began to spread through the whole house. Mr Dickson remembered his cat in the kitchen. He ran inside to rescue it but the fire was still burning. On his way out, he couldn’t breathe because of the smoke and he collapsed in the doorway. Fortunately firefighters arrived and covered him in wet towels. Last night Mr Dickson was said to be comfortable in hospital.

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Dear Sir,

We are now about to enter the twenty-first century but many young people today still have the same eating habits they had 20 years ago. They still eat too much fat and sugar because they eat too many crisp, snacks and sweets.

I know that some schools try to give students healthy meals at time but there are still plenty of schools which serve mostly hamburgers and chips!

Children certainly do not have enough healthy food in their diet. I cannot understand why this is so, when I always see plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables in the shops.

There is. Of course, another issue – the food that we throw away. Every day school kitchens in Britain throw away enough food to feed an Ethiopian village for a year! Isn’t it time we did something about this?

Yours faithfully,

C. Hickley

Oxford

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The Channel Town will provide a new fast link between Britain and France. Running under the Channel, it will consist of two passenger tunnels and one service tunnel. The tunnels will be 50 km (31 miles) long, 7.6 m (24ft) in diameter and 34.32 km (130 ft) under the sea bed. Cars and lorries will travel on special trains leaving every three minutes. The crossing under the Channel will take thirty minutes and the total journey time from London to Paris will take Tree and a quarter hours, compared with the present six and a half hours.

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What to Do If You Have an Accident

- Always stop if you have an accident, even if the accident is very minor.

- Make sure you exchange details with the other driver, e.g. name, address, telephone number, the car registration number and insurance details.

- Remember to note the time, date and place of the accident.

- Never say the accident was your fault. Only give information which is necessary.

- Try to get the names and addresses of any witnesses who saw the accident.

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I used to fly when I was younger and didn’t used to be afraid. But in the last few years a lot of plane crashes have been reported in the news. I have done a lot to encourage my children to fly but I’ve been getting more and more frightened about flying. In fact, I’ve missed many opportunities to see the world because of this. My children think I’m crazy! Am I?

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Trish

Trish and I share a flat and we get on quite well but she’s beginning to annoy me. I had some friends for dinner and washed up but didn’t put the things away. In the morning she was quite angry. She said it annoyed her to see things lying around. Now she’s started to organize the food cupboard. Can you believe it? Every shelf is labeled and we have to put the right things on the right shelf!

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I had just completed my first year as a teacher in a London secondary school. I was very pleased with myself because I thought I had discovered the perfect place for the end-of-year class picnic – on an island in the middle of the River Thames. We were able to walk across to the island on stepping stones. My students were delighted with the place and we had a long, lazy afternoon. When we eventually decided to leave for home, imagine how amazed we were and frightened when we saw water all around us. It was high tide. I had forgotten that the Thames is a tidal river, like the sea! Six hours later we were able to walk off the island. You can imagine how worried and angry the parents were, and how ashamed I felt of the whole accident. To celebrate the end of term next year, we’re having a disco in the school hall!

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School Days

School days are the happiest of your life, aren’t they? I loved school because I had lots of friends and I like learning. But there was one boy at my school who was really unhappy because he didn’t enjoy lessons and he didn’t have any friends. But things can change, can’t they? I felt sorry for him, so I made friends with him. He started to enjoy school after that, and he did well in his exams because we both studied together. He was also very good at basketball, so he played for the school team. When he was 15, he was the most popular boy in the school and everybody wanted to be friends with him. He was a very lucky boy, wasn’t he?

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Q Leo, 21, from Rotterdam in Holland, writes:

I’ve recently met a Vietnamese girl in my class. We have been out together quite a lot and we like each other very much. I feel she is the right girl for me. The trouble is, she lives with her parents and she doesn’t want to take me home because she thinks that her parents will disapprove of me. She knows that they would like her to marry someone from her own country. Can you help?

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Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1289