Вопрос № 348792 - Английский язык

Sir Isaac Newton was often so deeply interested in difficult problems that he became quite absent-minded. One day a gentleman came to see him, but was told that Sir Isaac was busy in his study and that nobody was allowed to disturb him.

As it was dinner-time, the visitor sat down in the dining-room to wait for the scientist. The servant came in and placed on the table a boiled chicken under a cover. An hour passed, but Newton did not appear. The gentleman, feeling hungry, ate the chicken, and covering up the skeleton, asked the servant to prepare another one for his master.

Before the second chicken was ready, however, the scientist entered the room, apologizing for his delay. Then he added: «As I feel rather tired and hungry, I hope you will excuse me a little longer, while I take my dinner, and I will be at your service.» With these words he lifted the cover, and without emotion turned round to the gentleman and said: «See what strange people we scientists are. I quite forgot that I had dined already.»

At this moment the servant brought in the other chicken. The visitor explained how matters stood. After a hearty laugh, the hungry scientist sat down to dine.

Every day in one of the streets of Vienna you could see a blind man playing the violin. His dog sat near him with a cap in its mouth. People, who were passing them, dropped coins into the cap.

One day, when the weather was very cold, the man was playing for a long time, but nobody wanted to give him anything. The poor man thought that he would have to go to bed without supper. He was so tired and so weak that he stopped playing.

At the moment a young man came up to him and said: “Give me your violin. I shall help you”. And with these words he began to play. He played so well that people began to gather and soon there was a big crowd. Everybody was eager to listen to the fine music and to thank the young man for the pleasure.

Soon the cap was full of money. “I don’t know how to thank you”, said the blind man”. “Who are you?” “I am Paganini”, was the answer.

Alexander Petrov received the Oscar for the best animated short film, which is an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”. “This is my favourite story of Hemingway’s. I think it’s one of the best works of the 20th century,” said the 43-year-old Petrov in his speech.

Petrov began developing the idea of the film in 1994 and the following year proposed it to Montreal Productions Pascal Blais, who accepted the idea. Then the venture was given an official go-ahead - at a budget of almost $ 3,4 million.

Working in Montreal together with his son and cameraman Sergey Rechetnikov, Petrov hand-painted almost 29000 individual frames - literary using his fingertips, to create each scene.

Now, despite his international fame, Petrov is not seeking further work abroad. Instead, he is developing an animation studio and school in his hometown of Yaroslavl to encourage the emergence of a new generation of talents.

Readers of the mid-twentieth century often turned to “the bible of the generation” - the book “The Catcher in the Rye” by D.Salinger. But there are books written later, in the 1980-s and in the early 21st century which are comparable to that one. Such is Sue Townsend’s cycle of books starting from “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13” written with mild humour and irony and profound psychological insight into the inner world of a teenager.

Sue Townsend was born in Leicester in 1946. She attended Glen Hills school in the early 50s and then went to South Wigston Secondary Modem for Girls. But she left school when she was 15 and changed jobs several times (so she worked as a shop assistant, garage attendant and in a factory)!

Her writing career started when she was 35 - she won the Thames Playwrights Award. Her most famous and best known book is “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole” (1985) - a diary kept by a 13 year old boy - sort of intellectual. The book was so successful that it was followed by a number of sequels.

She got married when she was 18 and had three children. But her husband left her so she brought them up alone. Sue Townsend later got married again. In 1999 doctors found out she had diabetes and she slowly began losing her sight. Today she is almost blind.

Grace Kelly was born on the east coast of the USA in 1929.

When she was 21, she went to Hollywood and began acting in films. She appeared in the film “High Noon”, and won an Academy Award (“Oscar”) for her acting in “A Country Girl”.

In 1956 she married Prince Rainier of Monaco.

She then retired from her career in America and devoted herself to her royal duties. She breast-fed her own babies, and publicly encouraged other mothers do the same. She died in 1982 after a car accident.

Queen Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn.

When she was 3 months old she went to live at Ratfield, far from the King and the Queen. Her mother was executed by her father when the little girl was 2 and a half years old.

The young princess learnt Italian, French, Latin and Greek from royal tutors. She followed her half-brother Edward and her half-sister Mary to the throne.

She never married and ruled for 45 years as a strong and independent queen. She was much loved by the people of England, and her reign was one of power and glory for her country.