英语视听说原文

Unit 3 Discovering your niche holiday

Listening to the world

Sharing

Scripts

P = Pasha; M1 = Man 1, etc.; W1 = Woman 1, etc.

Part 1

P: Hi. I enjoy doing a lot of different things in my free time. Most of them are to do with music:

I

DJ both in London and internationally, and I try to go to concerts and festivals whenever I can.

How about you? How do you spend your free time?

Part 2

M1: My free time, when I have any, is playing golf. I ... I discovered golf eight years ago and

I’m ... I’m addicted: Whenever I can, I’ll get out on a golf course.

W1: Photography; I like to watch films; um ... really into music.

W2: In my free time I’m an amateur opera singer and I also run an amateur opera company.

M2: I spend my free time shopping, cooking, uh, going to exhibitions, traveling, going to the

theater.

W3: I exercise a lot: I spend a lot of time walking, running and boxing.

M3: I play football, I play table tennis, I go bowling. Um, I also do a radio show at my university.

W4: Well, during my free time I read, I, um, watch the news online, um, and watch TV series

and

go out with my friends.

W5: Er, I spend most of my free time with my friends and, just getting together and watching

films, listening to music. I like to read a lot and I like to draw and make clothes.

Part 3

P: How would you spend your free time differently if you had more time or money or

opportunity?

M1: I’d travel more. I’d take my children to see more things around the world. They’ve traveled

a

little bit, I’ve traveled quite a lot, but I’d like t

o take them to see some of the things that the

world has to offer.

W5: If I had more free time, I think I’d be able to develop my own creativity.

M3: Finding, maybe, a bit more about my, er, my heritage. I ... I’m quite interested in that, and

speaking to my parents about how they grew up and their parents and things like that.

W2: I would spend more time practicing music.

W3: If I had more time, I would travel more.

W4: If I had more free time, I’d see more of my friends and people that I don’t get to see

enough.

And I’d probably relax and go to the park a lot.

Part 4

P: What are the benefits to society of giving people more downtime or more holidays?

W1: I think if you had more time off you’d be able to do, you’d be able to explore your mind

a lot

more and you ... people (would) become more educated, more intelligent and more aware of

what’s going on in the world.

W5: If we all had more free time, I think we’d all be able to let ourselves be more creative, as

opposed to just work, work, work all the time.

W4: I think that today when people don’t work from nine to five so much anymore, I think

that

more free time would do everyone a lot of good, um, as long as you have something to do

with it, and you have, kind of, hobbies or friends to see.

W3: They would be less stressed, I believe, because I, I think that people are very, very stressed

nowadays.

M2: I think society benefits from giving people more free time because it enables them to

lead

less stressed lives, reduces the pressures on them, and also increases interests, and I think

that

a society that has a broad range of interests, a broad range of things they like doing, is

generally beneficial.

Listening

Scripts

K = Katie Derham; A = Alison Rice; C = Charlie Connolly

K: The buzzword de jour is “niche travel”. Rather than the usual beach flopout, we’re turning

instead to a growing band of small tour operators offering Thai cooking weeks, trips to Sri

Lanka for tea lovers, the ultimate trekking or trekkie experience or poignant visits to obscure

battlefield

s. Well, I’m joined here in the studio by Alison Rice, who’s been a travel writer for

many years and Charlie Connolly, author and broadcaster, who among other things has

traveled the globe in search of the legacy of Elvis Presley. Welcome to you both.

Alison, let’s

start by turning to you first. This definition of niche travel these days, what does it mean to

you?

A: I think some people would say we’re just talking about activity holidays where, instead of

just

lying on a beach you follow a particular interest or hobby with like- minded people. Walking

holidays, gardening, cookery, painting, yoga, bird-watching

–

you remember when

bird-

watching was just for geeks? There’s (There’re) masses of bir, bird

-watching holidays.

Battlefields, music, theater festivals

–

these are all pegs around which we can build a holiday.

C: I do believe in going to a place for a reason and rather than just cos there’s a nice view or

something. I’m a big believer in people. I think people make a place and the atmosphere of

a

place.

K: What would your favorite niche holidays (be) if you’ve come across recently?

A: Oh, for me, it’s definitely singing. If you google “singing holidays”, you’ll find 416,000

entries. Whole choirs go on holiday now, or if you want to just join a choir, you can join a

holiday where you learn a piece, rehearse it through the holiday, sailing down the Nile, there

is

one in Malta next year where you’ll be singing the Messiah ... and then the holiday ends where

you put on a concert for the locals.

C: There is

a, a tour you can do of Chernobyl. Um, it’s, it’s a one day tour from Kiev and you

get

to view reactor number four from a hundred meters away, and you get to visit the dead town

of

Pripyat, which is, there are schoolbooks still in the school and posters up on the wall, and

calendars. And they do say it’s a hundred percent safe if you’re tested for radiation levels

when

you, when you go and when you come back.

K: Well, The Traveler’s Tree message board has been littered with postings on this subject.

We’ve

heard about fair-trade holidays in Cuba and southern India, Inca treks. One from a contributor

called Portly, who thoroughly enjoyed the historical cruise on the Black Sea. But thank you

also to Dilly Gaffe who said, “Never mind niche. Give me a five

-star

luxury hotel any time!”

Viewing

Scripts

P = Presenter; HC = Helen Child; AT = Andy Thomas; W = Woman; RO = Rebecca Over;

KE = Kyle Emert; DF = Dave Farris; NB = Nick Bryant; NBr = Nick Brans;

LR = Lucia Rushton; AW = Alan Woods; KS = Katie Siddals

P: At number 38 it’s husky sledding. I’ve come to Saariselk? in Finland for a test drive.

Absolutely beautiful here, the snow is just like ... it’s got little bits of crystal all over it and

you can really take it in because the dogs are doing all the hard work.

HC: Just the sound of the snow and the dogs panting with all the silence around, I think that

would be fantastic.

AT: Totally silent apart from the sound of the sleds and the dogs’ paws. Incredible.

W: Are you ready?

P: As I’ll ever be. This is much

, much more exhilarating than just sitting in the sled. Actually,

having the dogs work for you and feeling like you’re in or out of control is definitely where

it’s at Meet Rebecca Over, an estate buyer from Surrey, who like hundreds of you crazy

people, wanted nothing more than to be strapped to the outside of a plane and take part in

your very own wing- walking display. The craze started when World War One pilots would

strap their poor girlfriends to the outside of their planes to entertain the crowds at air shows.

We sent Rebecca off to Rendcomb in Gloucestershire.

RO: I’m feeling excited, a little bit nervous, can’t wait, raring to go.

P: So buckled and braced, our daredevil is ready to go.

RO: The wind is really, really strong, and it’s really hard to do

the waving. It’s been wonderful,

an

amazing day.

P: Still in America now and time to go west on the legendary Route 66: 2,400 miles, eight

states,

three time zones, one incredible journey.

KE: Once upon a time it was the kind of the thing to do.

P: The famous route from Chicago to Los Angeles was used by thousands of Americans

attempting to flee the hard times of the Great Depression, and for many it’s remembered as

the road to opportunity.

DF: I’d love to experience what they did –

traveling over two and a half thousand miles, and

experience that wonderful feeling of getting somewhere which is better.

P: Next up something you’ve let get as high as 17 on this list. You’re crazy; it’s bungee jumping.

NB: The feeling you get when you jump off, fall off, dive off, or whatever, is just awesome.

NBr: Just to fly like that and just sort of end up being stretched and bounced back up, great

fun.

P: Throughout history they’ve intrigued mankind with tales of their mystical powers and super

intelligence; their legendary curiosity and playfulness have enchanted us for generations.

Thousands and thousands of you have bombarded us with emails and calls to say the number

one thing to do before you die is to go swimming with dolphins.

LR: They’re absolutely amazing animals.

They’re so gentle; they’re so, um, sensitive.

AW: Once you swim with them, you don’t want to ... you don’t want to leave them.

KS: A one-off, magical experience.

P: And it was incredible. It’s ... it’s amazing because, um, they’re so responsive and they h

ave

um, they feel fantastic, don’t you? You feel wonderful; you feel so lovely. And they, they’re

so huge and so powerful and yet so playful and, I’m really, really lucky to be here with them.

Speaking for communication

Role-play

Scripts

W = Woman; M = Man

W: Oh, you must have seen it.

M: No, I, I’ve never even heard of it. How’s (How does) it work?

W: Well, it sounds really stupid, but I’ll try to describe it. The way it works is that there are two

teams, with two celebs on each team.

M: Two what?

W: Celebs. Celebrities.

M: Oh, right.

W: So anyway, there’s a studio with a swimming pool and, at the end, about 20 meters from

the

pool, there’s a wall, actually a giant wall covered by another “wall”, or maybe a sort of curtain.

M: Er, I don’t get it. A wall cov

ered by a wall?

W: Yeah, but it’s really like a single wall.

M: OK.

W: And the two people from the first team stand at the edge of the pool facing the wall. Then

what

happens is that the host says, “Bring on the wall!”

M: He does what?

W: He says, “Bring on the wall!” Like that, very dramatically. Then the wall starts moving quite

fast towards the two people.

M: ... who are in front of the pool.

W: Yeah and after a few seconds, the curtain lifts off the wall, and there’s a funny

-shaped

hole,

and they have to get through it.

M: They have to get through where?

W: Get through the hole.