Reviews/ film review

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Audio of TREE MEN IN A BOAT by J.K.Jerome

Text 1. Three men in a boat by Jerome K. Jerome.

Go through the link and listen to the episode to be ready with test reading of the extract pages 9-11.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/three-men-in-a-boat-to-say-nothing-of-the-dog-by/id740743008

Listen to the audio

From 3.04 to 7.34

Art for heart's sake / text 5 + audio

https://e-repa.ru/files/lessons-with-laughter/93-hobbyist/art-for-hearts-sake.html

Text 5. "Art for heart's sake" by Rube Goldberg

"Here, take your pineapple juice," gently persuaded Koppel, the male nurse.

"Nope!" grunted Collis P.Ellsworth.

"But it's good for you, sir."

"Nope!"

"It's doctor's orders."

"Nope!"

Koppel heard the front door bell and was glad to leave the room. He found Doctor Caswell in the hall downstairs. "I can't do a thing with him," he told the doctor. "He won't take his pineapple juice. He doesn't want me to read to him. He hates the radio. He doesn't like anything!"

Doctor Caswell received the information with his usual professional calm. He had done some constructive thinking since his last visit. This was no ordinary case. The old gentleman was in pretty good shape for a man of seventy-six. But he had to be kept from buying things. He had suffered his last heart attack after his disastrous purchase of that jerkwater railroad out in Iowa. All his purchases of recent years had to be liquidated at a great sacrifice both to his health and his pocketbook.

The doctor drew up a chair and sat down close to the old man. "I've got a proposition for you," he said quietly.

Old Ellsworth looked suspiciously over his spectacles.

"How'd you like to take up art?" The doctor had his stethoscope ready in case the abruptness of the suggestion proved too much for the patient's heart.

But the old gentleman's answer was a vigorous "Rot!"

"I don't mean seriously," said the doctor, relieved that disaster had been averted. "Just fool around with chalk and crayons. It'll be fun."

"Bosh!"

"All right." The doctor stood up. "I just suggested it, that's all."

"But, Caswell, how do I start playing with the chalk - that is, if I'm foolish enough to start?"

"I've thought of that, too. I can get a student from one of the art schools to come here once a week and show you."

Doctor Caswell went to his friend, Judson Livingston, head of the Atlantic Art Institute, and explained the situation. Livingston had just the young man - Frank Swain, eighteen years old and a promising student. He needed the money. Ran an elevator at night to pay tuition. How much would he get? Five dollars a visit. Fine.

Next afternoon young Swain was shown into the big living room. Collis P. Ellsworth looked at him appraisingly.

"Sir, I'm not an artist yet," answered the young man.

"Umph?"

Swain arranged some paper and crayons on the table. "Let's try and draw that vase over there on the mantelpiece," he suggested. "Try it, Mister Ellsworth, please."

"Umph!" The old man took a piece of crayon in a shaky hand and made a scrawl. He made another scrawl and connected the two with a couple of crude lines. "There it is, young man," he snapped with a grunt of satisfaction. "Such foolishness. Poppycock!"

Frank Swain was patient. He needed the five dollars. "If you want to draw you will have to look at what you're drawing, sir."

Old Ellsworth squinted and looked. "By gum, it's kinda pretty, I never noticed it before."

When the art student came the following week there was a drawing on the table that had a slight resemblance to the vase.

The wrinkles deepened at the corners of the old gentleman's eyes as he asked elfishly, "Well, what do you think of it?"

"Not bad, sir," answered Swain. "But it's a bit lopsided."

"By gum," Old Ellsworth chuckled. "I see. The halves don't match." He added a few lines with a palsied hand and colored the open spaces blue like a child playing with a picture book. Then he looked towards the door. "Listen, young man," he whispered, "I want to ask you something before old pineapple juice comes back."

"Yes, sir," responded Swain respectively.

"I was thinking could you spare the time to come twice a week or perhaps three times?"

"Sure, Mister Ellsworth."

"Good. Let's make it Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Four o'clock."

As the weeks went by Swain's visits grew more frequent. He brought the old man a box of water-colors and some tubes of oils.

When Doctor Caswell called Ellsworth would talk about the graceful lines of the andirons. He would dwell on the rich variety of color in a bowl of fruit. He proudly displayed the variegated smears of paint on his heavy silk dressing gown. He would not allow his valet to send it to the cleaner's. He wanted to show the doctor how hard he'd been working.

The treatment was working perfectly. No more trips downtown to become involved in purchases of enterprises of doubtful solvency.

The doctor thought it safe to allow Ellsworth to visit the Metropolitan, the Museum of Modern Art 13 and other exhibits with Swain. An entirely new world opened up its charming mysteries. The old man displayed an insatiable curiosity about the galleries and the painters who exhibited in them. How were the galleries run? Who selected the canvases for the exhibitions? An idea was forming in his brain.

When the late spring sun began to cloak the fields and gardens with color, Ellsworth executed a god-awful smudge which he called "Trees Dressed in White". Then he made a startling announcement. He was going to exhibit it in the Summer show at the Lathrop Gallery!

For the Summer show at the Lathrop Gallery was the biggest art exhibit of the year in quality, if not in size. The lifetime dream of every mature artist in the United States was a Lathrop prize. Upon this distinguished group Ellsworth was going to foist his "Trees Dressed in White", which resembled a gob of salad dressing thrown violently up against the side of a house!

"If the papers get hold of this, Mister Ellsworth will become a laughing-stock. We've got to stop him," groaned Koppel.

"No," admonished the doctor. "We can't interfere with him now and take a chance of spoiling all the good work that we've accomplished."

To the utter astonishment of all three and especially Swain "Trees Dressed in White" was accepted for the Lathrop show.

Fortunately, the painting was hung in an inconspicuous place where it could not excite any noticeable comment. Young Swain sneaked into the Gallery one afternoon and blushed to the top of his ears when he saw "Trees Dressed in White", a loud, raucous splash on the wall. As two giggling students stopped

before the strange anomaly Swain fled in terror. He could not bear to hear what they had to say.

During the course of the exhibition the old man kept on taking his lessons, seldom mentioning his entry in the exhibit. He was unusually cheerful.

Two days before the close of the exhibition a special messenger brought a long official-looking envelope to Mister Ellsworth while Swain, Koppel and the doctor were in the room. "Read it to me," requested the old man. "My eyes are tired from painting."

"It gives the Lathrop Gallery pleasure to announce that the First Landscape Prize of $1,000 has been awarded to Collis P.Ellsworth - for his painting, "Trees Dressed in White"."

Swain and Koppel uttered a series of inarticulate gurgles. Doctor Caswell, exercising his professional self-control with a supreme effort, said: "Congratulations, Mister Ellsworth. Fine, fine ... See, see ... Of course, I didn't expect such great news. But, but - well, now, you'll have to admit that art is much more satisfying than business."

"Art's nothing," snapped the old man. "I bought the Lathrop Gallery last month."

EXPLANATORY NOTES

1. jerkwater (Am. colloq.): small, unimportant.

2. railroad (Am.): railway. The lexical differences between the British and American English are not great in number but they are considerable enough to make the mixture of the two variants sound strange and unnatural. A student of English should bear in mind that different words are used for the same objects, such as can, candy, truck, mailbox, subway instead of tin, sweets, lorry, pillar-box (or letter-box), underground.

3. Iowa [ ˈaɪ�™w�™ ]: a north central state of the USA. The noun is derived from the name of an Indian tribe. Quite a number of states, towns, rivers and the like in America are named by Indian words, e. g. Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Michigan.

4. rot (sl.): foolish remarks or ideas.

5. bosh (sl.): empty talk, nonsense.

6. umph: an interjection expressing uncertainty or suspicion.

7. poppycock: foolish nonsense.

8. by gum (dial.): by God.

9. kinda: the spelling fixes contraction of the preposition of and its assimilation with the preceding noun which is a characteristic trait of American pronunciation.

10. elfish: (becoming rare) (of people or behaviour) having the quality or habit of playing tricks on people like an elf; mischievous.

11. colored: the American spelling is somewhat simpler than its British counterpart. The suffix -our is spelled -or.

12. the Metropolitan Museum of Art: the leading museum in America, was founded in 1870. Its collections cover a period of 5,000 years, representing the cultures of the Ancient world and Near and Far East as well as the arts of Europe and America. Among the collections are the paintings, which include oils, pastels, water-colours, miniatures and drawings. There are over 5,000 exhibits, among which are the works of Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Flemish, German, French , English and American artists.

13. the Museum of Modem Art: a repository of art peculiar to the twentieth century, was opened in 1929. It has several departments among which are the department of architecture and design, the department of painting and sculpture, the department of photography.

14. gob (si.); a mass of smth. sticky.

15. admonish: to scold or warn gently.

London schools face cuts to staff and budgets as pupil numbers fall

 London schools face cuts to staff and budgets as pupil numbers fall

Demand for year 7 pupi

ls is expected to fall by 7.6% over the next four years, with similar numbers expected in primary schools 

Sally Weale

Mon 2 Feb 2026 18.36 GMT

Schools in London could lose £45m in funding over the next four years as pupil numbers continue to fall, a report has warned, with secondary schools facing staff and curriculum cuts as budgets dwindle.

Until now, primary schools in the capital have been worst hit by falling birthrates, leading to about 90 school closures or mergers in the past five years. But the crisis is now spreading to secondary schools, which are expected to see steep declines in pupil numbers.

A report by London Councils warns that inner London schools face the sharpest drop. Demand for year 7 places is expected to fall by 7.6% over the next four years, while reception places are forecast to decline by 6.4%.

Schools are funded on a per pupil basis, so falling numbers mean less funding. The problem is particularly acute in the capital, but is affecting schools across the country, raising fears education standards could be put at risk.

Councillor Ian Edwards, London Councils’ executive member for children and young people, said: “Maintaining high education standards is the absolute priority for London’s boroughs, but falling pupil numbers are putting real pressure on school budgets.

“Boroughs are doing all they can locally to manage this whilst ensuring London’s education estate is protected, so school sites can continue to meet future need – particularly given the capital’s acute housing pressures and ambitious targets for housing growth.

“Without action to reflect London’s circumstances, schools risk having to narrow the curriculum and reduce vital support for pupils.”

The report estimates that the forecast decline in demand for school places equates to £15m in funding cuts for primary school budgets and £30m for secondary schools in the capital.

There are concerns that children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) could be affected if support staff are cut. Schools may also be forced to reduce GCSE options, enrichment activities and school trips to save money.

“Although pupil numbers are decreasing, the need for additional support continues to rise,” the report said. “Schools are seeing increased demand for mental health and wellbeing support, higher levels of school avoidance and persistent absence, and growing numbers of children with Send.

“At the same time, schools experiencing falling rolls face diminishing budgets to meet these rising needs. Attainment gaps relating to ethnicity, Send and socioeconomic disadvantage also persist, placing further strain on schools’ ability to deliver equitable outcomes.”

London Councils’ analysis of school place projections for all 32 London boroughs for the next four years indicates a 2.5% reduction in demand for reception and a 3.8% decline for year 7. A small number of boroughs could buck the trend and are predicting growth.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the school leaders’ union, NAHT, said: “What we need now is an approach to school funding that protects and supports those schools experiencing falling rolls and recognises that trends can change over time.

“Rather than cutting funding, we urge the government to protect it to allow schools to maintain existing staffing levels. This would also help schools to offer smaller classes, deliver more targeted help for pupils who need it, and reduce unsustainable levels of workload for staff.”

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “At a time of rising pupil need and record class sizes in both primary and secondary schools, government should embrace the opportunity to cut class sizes and improve education quality.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said the government was backing schools with record investment but it recognised the pressures caused by demographic changes that schools across the country are facing.

“Where areas are seeing a reduction in pupil numbers, we are investing £37m so schools can repurpose their spare space to deliver over 5,000 new childcare places as part of our school-based nurseries rollout, giving more children the best start in life,” the spokesperson said.

Part I

1.         Read the article, write out words in bold, be ready to explain the meaning and give examples of your own with these words.

2.        Divide the text of the article into logical parts and write down the sentence that best expresses the very thought of each logical part. Make up a question to each logical part.

3.        Think of the rubric the information comes from and the author’s intention to inform the reader. Mind the key words.

4.        Study the plan of rendering and provide a rendering of the article.

5.        Learn by heart the new vocabulary.