Leisure and sports in Great Britain.

Great Britain is a country governed by routine. It has fewer public holidays than any other country in Europe. Among official holiday we can mention New Year, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labour day, Christmas and Boxing Day.

Every average employee gets four weeks paid holidays a year. There are some ways of spending it. In the 18^th century there existed the fashion for seaside holidays. Soon it became normal for families to spend a week or two in a seaside resort town. The towns have hotels and boarding houses to stay in offering bed and breakfast or full board. Stereotypically daytime entertainment in sunny weather centers around the beach. For the evenings there are amusement arcades, bingo halls, dance halls, discos, theatres and so on.

Another popular holiday destination is the holiday camp. Both the types of holiday have become less popular in the end of the 20^th century.

Caravan holidays and package holidays become popular. Nowadays the British have more opportunity to go abroad. There are also many other extraordinary types of holiday: hiking in the country, potholing, a murder weekend and a variety of so-called working holidays – fruit packing and archaeological digging.

Weekends are usually spent in British pubs. The British pub is unique. It is the only indoor place where the average person can comfortably meet others and get into prolonged conversation with them. There are some other notable aspects about pubs. At first, that is the idea of tradition (the name with old-fashioned associations). But even old good pubs have to follow up-to-date fashion to survive. So we know that they served nothing but beer and spirits. These days you can get wine, coffee and some hot food with no waiter service.

As for food it has a strange unpleasant taste, their coffee is horrible, not because they prefer it in that way but because they don’t want to go to a café for a delicious cup of coffee – people just want to eat up quickly and aren’t interested much in quality. Besides they haven’t enough time to taste the food.

Though the quality of food doesn’t play an important role in people’s lives in Britain, sport does. Millions of British people take part in some kind of sport at least once a week. Many millions more are regular spectators and follow one or more sports. The most popular sports are football, rugby, tennis, boxing, hockey, basketball and others.

The importance of participation in sport has legal recognition in Britain. Every local authority has a duty to provide and maintain playing fields and other facilities including fitness clubs for obese people and those trying to keep themselves fit and healthy.

Spectator sport is also a matter of official public control. The most famous annual sporting occasions must be available to all TV channels.

Even if they aren’t taking part or watching, the British like to be involved in sport. They can do this by placing bets on future results. Gambling is widespread throughout all social classes. There are also bookmakers or turf accountants whose business is to take bets.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1852