1999

As well as public holidays and religious feastdays thatfall on afixed date or in a particular period, certainanniversaries are regularly celebrated. This year, for example, marks the 150th anniversary of the death of Polish-born composer Fryderyk Chopin and is being celebrated as Chopin Year with special concerts and exhibitions. Recently, the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War wasobserved with speeches, military parades, patrioticassemblies andwreath-laying ceremonies. Let us now look at some of the holidays celebrated during autumn in different countries.

British people are generally stereotyped as tea drinkers. Fair enough, statistics show that they do drink enormous quantities of tea the average Brit drinks 3.5 cups a day, compared to, for example, the average American who consumes less than half a cup.

But British people are not the world' s biggest tea drinkers they come second. Only the Irish drink more. They hold the world record with an average intake of four cups a day. Funny that they should be renowned for drinking whiskey and Guinness too. Do they ever eat anything?

Finding employment is becoming increasingly difficult in Europe. Employers are very demanding and look for staff with good qualifications and sound experience. The European Union is aware of the problem and offers training and education programmes to improve your skills, make your CV more attractive and better equip you for the labour market. In 1997 the Treaty of Amsterdam gave the Union the responsibility to" promote the development of the highest-possible level of knowledge" for the peoples of the Union" through a wide access to education and its continuous updating" .

Here is the second part of our" Great Britain Quiz" . Five lucky winners who send us the correct answers to this and Part 1 (printed in the last issue) will receive Longman dictionaries.

I. Write in the missing dates.

Fundacja Kopernikańska w Polsce, the publisher of THE WORLD OF ENGLISH and the official sponsor of the XXIII English Language Olympiad, congratulates the 20 Laureats who advanced to the final stage from 26,442 starting participants.

Agnieszka Wendorff, the 1st prize winner of the XXIII English Language Olympiad, being congratulated by dr Henryk Krzyżanowski, the author of the tests.

Phenomenal women were the core of Camp GLOW 1999, held in Ochotnica Górna, Poland, at the beginning of July 1999. Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is an English language and leadership training program for young women that was brought to Poland for the first time in 1997, and has since been held for three consecutive years. It was developed by Peace Corps Volunteers as a part of the Women in Development Committee (WID), and has been organized in several Eastern European Countries in cooperation with hostcountry individuals and organizations.

Since 1921 Ireland has been divided into two political units: Northern Ireland and Ireland. Ireland is an independent state in the European Union. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.

Symbols

"Time to die," says Roy Batty in the final scenes of the film Blade Runner. This seems to be the motto of all artists who envisage the future. As the third millennium begins we take a look at some scifi images of the world to come.

Thirty kilometres north of Cardiff in Wales lies the town of Merthyr Tydfil. Though Wales has many much more attractive places to visit, its Welsh name is known to most British people. Merthyr is a place steeped in the history of the Industrial Revolution, a town that earned Britain its nineteenthcentury nickname of" the Workshop of the World".

Starting a revolution: a model of Trevithick's locomotive