For example they very much love to read the newspapers

More daily newspapers are sold per person in the UK than in almost any other country: there are twelve national daily newspapers and evelen national Sunday ones. While the more serious newspapers, also called quality papers (for example, the "Daily Telegraph", the "Guardian", "The Times", the "Independent", the "Financial Times", the "Sunday Times", the "Observer", etc), have a lot of home and international news, some of the more popular "tabloids" (so called because of their size, for example, the "Sun", the "Daily Mirror", the "Daily Mail", the "Daily Express", the "Daily Star", etc) concentrate on the more spectacular and scandalous aspects of life in Britain. Although newspaper sales have fallen slightly over the past few years, newspapers have an important effect on public opinion. Most British newspapers are owned by big business and although they are not directly linked to political parties, there are strong connections. The majority of newspapers -- even those which carry serious news -- are conservative in outlook.

Competition for circulation is intense and newspapers have tried several methords to increase the number of people who read them, including the use of colour, competitions and national bingo games.

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Broadcasting in the United Kingdom is controlled by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA). BBC Radio broadcasts five national services to the United Kingdom plus regional services in Wales (ineluding programmes in Welsh), Scotland and Northern Ireland. These are:

Radio 1: pop and rock music;

Radio 2: light music, drama, documentaries and sport;

Radio 3: classical music, drama, documentaries and cricket;

Radio 4: news, documentaries, drama

and entertainment and educational programmes for schools and adults;

Radio 5: sport, educational programmes and children's programmes.

There are also thirty-two BBC Local Radio stations and a number of independent local stations. There is advertising on the independent commercial channels. -The External Service of the BBC broadcasts over 700 hours of programmes a week in 37 languages, including the English-language World Service and BBC English by Radio and Television. It is estimated that over 120 million people listen to the service.

Watching television is one of the great British pastimes! By the middle of the 1980s there were four channels on British TV: BBC1 and BBC2 plus the two independent channels, ITV and Channel 4.

The first television broadcasts began in 1936.

TV and radio are also two of the main teaching channels used by the Open University. This "university of the air" allows many thousands of students to study at home for degrees they never would have obtained in the main educational system.

The 1990s may well see many changes in British TV and Radio.

One of the biggest changes in the way people in Britain have spent their leisure time in recent years has been the increase in the amount of time spent watching television. As you might expect, television viewing is less popular in summer than in winter and more popular with old people than with any other age group. On average, women watch more than men.

British TV has an international reputation for producing programmes of a high quality such as documentaries, nature programmes, comedies and drama series and according to the government there should be a combination of "competition, quality and choice" in any plans for the future of TV.

Now we shall speak a little about the capital of England, of its history, what was the sight of the city several centuries ago and who built it. It's political, economic and commercial centre. London is one of the largest cities in the world and the largest city in Europe.' Its population is about 8 million.

London is one of the oldest and most interesting cities in the world.

London was founded by the Romans in 43 AD. It was called Londinium. The history of London is different from the history of other great cities if the world. London was a wilderness when the Romans came here. Had they stayed they would have made it a great city. But they were called home to defend their own capital, and London was burnt again and again by the rough men from over the seas. The Saxons and Danes were an uneducated people, who thought of little more than war and the chase, not of building noble cities. The Normans, who conquered England, in the eleventh century, were a more educated people, and we find traces of their buildings in London and many parts of England. But their kings were warlike men who never thought of making a beautiful London. When the tome came for giving London wealth and power, the people were too busy with trade and travel to think much of making a stately city.

It is impossible to point out all English historical buildings to be the work of this or that architect or builder. The Westminster Abbey, for instance, was begun on the site of older churches built by Edward the Confessor, who died in 1066. During the reign of several kings the building of Westminster Abbey was continued. Sir Christopher Wren (1632 - 1723) built one of the most beautiful additions. Nearly all English kings and queens were crowned in the Abbey since the time of the Conquest, while there are buried in it thirteen kings of England and many queens.

Here is an extract from Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper":

“The hours drag along tediously enough. All stir ceased for some time, for every gallery has long ago been packed. We have to view the whole of the great north transept -- empty, and waiting for England's privileged ones. Within a seat of the throne is enclosed a rough flat rock -- the stone of Scone -- which many generations of Scottish kings sat on to be crowned, and so it in time became holy enough to answer a like purpose for English monarchs. Stillness reign, the torches blink dully, the time drags heavily.

At seven o'clock the first break in the drowsy monotony occurs; for on the stroke of this hour the first peeress enters the sept, clothed like Solomon for splendour, and is conducted to her appointed place by an official clad of in satins and velvets, whilst a duplicate of him gathers up the lady's long train, follows after, and, when the lady is seated, arranges the train across her lap for her. The scene is animated enough now. There is stir and life, and shifting colour everywhere. After a time quite reigns again; for the peeresses are all come, and are all in their places.

At last, the deep booming of artillery told that the King and his grand procession had arrived at last; so the waiting multitude rejoiced. Now the dressed and mitred great heads of the church, and their attendants, filed in upon the platform and took their appointed places; these were followed by Lord Protector and other great officials, and these again by a steel-clad detachment of the Guard.

There was a waiting pause; then, at a signal, a triumphant peal of music burst forth, and the little king, clothed in a long robe of cloth of gold, appeared at a door, and stepped upon the platform. The Archbishop of Canterbury lifted up the crown of England from its cushion and held it out over the king's head".

Another old historical building in London is the Tower, the oldest fortress-prison in this city and in the whole Europe. London was always the first important place to be seized when enemies invaded the land, and the site of Tower was seen by all soldiers to be the best for defence. They say that Julius Caesar has built a fortress at this place. London was often burnt and pillaged -- it was once so ruined by the Danes that the whole city was desolate, with no one living in it, for thirty years. But when people returned and the wars died down, they always gathered about the Tower as a place of defence and strength. Alfred the Great was the founder of modern London, and he is said to have built another great fortress where the Romans had first built the tower.

But it was William the Conqueror who began the Tower which is so famous today. And who do you think he got to built the Tower for him? It was a monk. His name was Gundulf, and he was bom in Normandy in 1024, and was forty-six when William called him to England to begin this great work.

He founded the Tower. He made a strong fortress for his king who rewarded him by letting him build Rochester Cathedral and become the first bishop of Rochester.

He built first a great watch-tower, or barbican. That old tower is now the Hall Tower, or as it is commonly called, the Jewel Tower. In it the King keeps his crown and all the state jewels.

Another tower which Gimdulf built was the White Tower.

Afterwards the English kings taxed the people without mercy to continue the work of building the Tower. It was a strange and savage age when the Tower was rising to strength and size. An old writer says that the mortar in which the stones were set was mixed with the blood of beasts. Blood enough of human beings flowed in the Tower to make the blood of beasts unnecessary. Most of the terrible deeds of which we read in the history of England were done in the grim Tower.

When we speak about London of late middle ages we must, of course, remember Mark Twain's charming book "The Prince and the Pauper". The story of changing the Prince and the Pauper in only the author's imagination, but to write the story he had to read many historical books and chronicles. And here is his description of London of the period when Edward VI had to change Henry VIII, and it is indeed very truthful.

"London was fifteen hundred years old, and was a great town -- for that day. The streets were very narrow, and crooked, and dirty, especially in the part which was not far from London Bridge. The houses were of wood, with the second story projecting over the first, and the third sticking its elbows out beyond the second. They were skeletons of strong criss-cross beams, with solid material between, coated with plaster. The windows were small, glazed with little diamond-shaped panes, and they opened outward, on hinges, like doors".

And now we shall remember the description of the London Bridge which was a town itself within London.

The Bridge was a sort of town to itself; it had its inn, its beer-houses, its bakeries, its haberdasheries, its food markets, its manufacturing industries, and even its church. Children were bom on the Bridge, were roared there, grew to old age and finally died without ever having set a foot upon any part of the world but London Bridge alone.

Men born and reared upon the Bridge found life unendurably dull and inane elsewhere.

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