[Катарина]

Завтра в 14-00, ммм?))

---

[Катарина]

Клуб, есть кто живой? Как насчет продолжить храбрые попытки грызть учебник и уютно заседать в старбаксе? Предлагаю 16-ое (воскресенье) для начала этого дела, кто за?

---

Mind Your Language

[Oly-RRR]

Совершенно случайно обнаружила британский сериал про иностранцев, изучающих английский. Так вот как, оказывается, они нас видят.
Смотрим на ютьюбе!

---

[Катарина]

Закрытая запись, не предназначенная для публичного просмотра

---

Cabin Pressure

[Oly-RRR]

Не могу не поделиться потрясным материалом для listening - аудио-сериалом Cabin Pressure от BBC. Очень смешной (хотя и немного грустный) и очень английский сериал о жизни частной авиакомпании. Не говоря уже о том, что одного из героев озвучивает Benedict Cumberbatch.


Скачиваем по ссылке - http://artofdeduction.tumblr.com/post/16372948093/due-to-the-recent-unfortunate-circumstances

@темы: audio

---

[Катарина]

Товарищи! Я завтра и до середины февраля не смогу присутствовать — некие обстоятельства, о которых я обстоятельно расскажу позже.< Так что объявляю зимние каникулы!Х))

---

Apostroph

[Катарина]

Читаю книжку Collins Improve Your Punctuation, неожиданно увлекательно! Буду делиться самыми интересными моментами.

Louise and Spencer's parents is understood to mean that Louise and Spencer share the same parents, while Louise's and Spancer's parents means they have different parents.

Список самых часто употребляемых сокращений с апострофами. Что самое интересное, с датами рождения don't и прочих.

@темы: punctuation

---

[Катарина]

Про завтра - завтра у меня нарисовались некоторые дела, поэтому предлагаю дружно перенестись на следующее воскресенье, заодно дома повторить все, что мы схалтурили за это времяХ)) (закончили мы на тексте про рекламу и детей, что-то даже к нему делали, но я не помню ЧТО, Боже, какая у меня памятьО_О)

Поэтому давайте наберемся сил и в следующее воскресенье возьмемся за ум.))))

---

[Катарина]

В воскресенье в 15-00, ммм?))

---

Кино!

[Катарина]

Не могу найти в сети тот кинотеатр, в который мы ходили на Рапунцель. о_О Если посмотреть на афишу, то нам подходит Формула-кино Атриум в 16-50. (У меня урок кончается в 14-00, и с 15-00 до 16-00 я по-любому буду сидеть в Старбаксе, т.к. мне там надо будет заказ отдатьХ))).

afisha.yandex.ru/msk/events/427975/?date=2011-1...

Если есть предложения, вносите!))

---

The Unrest-Cure

[Катарина]

Вот, насладитесь. Я огромный фанат Кловиса, прям огромный.))

[H H Munro] Saki's short story: The Unrest-Cure

0n the rack in the railway carriage immediately opposite Clovis
was a solidly wrought travelling-bag, with a carefully written
label, on which was inscribed, "J. P. Huddle, The Warren,
Tilfield, near Slowborough." Immediately below the rack sit the
human embodiment of the label, a solid, sedate individual,
sedately dressed, sedately conversational. Even without his
conversation (which was addressed to a friend seated by his side,
and touched chiefly on such topics as the backwardness of Roman
hyacinths and the prevalence of measles at the Rectory), one could
have gauged fairly accurately the temperament and mental outlook
of the travelling bag's owner. But he seemed unwilling to leave
anything to the imagination of a casual observer, and his talk
grew presently personal and introspective.

"I don't know how it is," he told his friend, "I'm not much over
forty, but I seem to have settled down into a deep groove of
elderly middle-age. My sister shows the same tendency. We like
everything to be exactly in its accustomed place; we like things
to happen exactly at their appointed times; we like everything to
be usual, orderly, punctual, methodical, to a hair's breadth, to a
minute. It distresses and upsets us if it is not so. For
instance, to take a very trifling matter, a thrush has built its
nest year after year in the catkin-tree on the lawn; this year,
for no obvious reason, it is building in the ivy on the garden
wall. We have said very little about it, but I think we both feel
that the change is unnecessary, and just a little irritating."

"Perhaps," said the friend, "it is a different thrush."

"We have suspected that," said J. P. Huddle, "and I think it gives
us even more cause for annoyance. We don't feel that we want a
change of thrush at our time of life; and yet, as I have said, we
have scarcely reached an age when these things should make
themselves seriously felt."

"What you want," said the friend, "is an Unrest-cure."

"An Unrest-cure? I've never heard of such a thing."

"You've heard of Rest-cures for people who've broken down under
stress of too much worry and strenuous living; well, you're
suffering from overmuch repose and placidity, and you need the
opposite kind of treatment."

"But where would one go for such a thing?"

"Well, you might stand as an Orange candidate for Kilkenny, or do
a course of district visiting in one of the Apache quarters of
Paris, or give lectures in Berlin to prove that most of Wagner's
music was written by Gambetta; and there's always the interior of
Morocco to travel in. But, to be really effective, the Unrest-
cure ought to be tried in the home. How you would do it I haven't
the faintest idea."

It was at this point in the conversation that Clovis became
galvanized into alert attention. After all, his two days' visit
to an elderly relative at Slowborough did not promise much
excitement. Before the train had stopped he had decorated his
sinister shirt-cuff with the inscription, "J. P. Huddle, The
Warren, Tilfield, near Slowborough."

. . . . . . . . .

Two mornings later Mr. Huddle broke in on his sister's privacy as
she sat reading Country Life in the morning room. It was her day
and hour and place for reading Country Life, and the intrusion was
absolutely irregular; but he bore in his hand a telegram, and in
that household telegrams were recognized as happening by the hand
of God. This particular telegram partook of the nature of a
thunderbolt. "Bishop examining confirmation class in
neighbourhood unable stay rectory on account measles invokes your
hospitality sending secretary arrange."

"I scarcely know the Bishop; I've only spoken to him once,"
exclaimed J. P. Huddle, with the exculpating air of one who
realizes too late the indiscretion of speaking to strange Bishops.
Miss Huddle was the first to rally; she disliked thunderbolts as
fervently as her brother did, but the womanly instinct in her told
her that thunderbolts must be fed.

"We can curry the cold duck," she said. It was not the appointed
day for curry, but the little orange envelope involved a certain
departure from rule and custom. Her brother said nothing, but his
eyes thanked her for being brave.

"A young gentleman to see you," announced the parlour-maid.

"The secretary!" murmured the Huddles in unison; they instantly
stiffened into a demeanour which proclaimed that, though they held
all strangers to be guilty, they were willing to hear anything
they might have to say in their defence. The young gentleman, who
came into the room with a certain elegant haughtiness, was not at
all Huddle's idea of a bishop's secretary; he had not supposed
that the episcopal establishment could have afforded such an
expensively upholstered article when there were so many other
claims on its resources. The face was fleetingly familiar; if he
had bestowed more attention on the fellow-traveller sitting
opposite him in the railway carriage two days before he might have
recognized Clovis in his present visitor.

"You are the Bishop's secretary?" asked Huddle, becoming
consciously deferential.

"His confidential secretary," answered Clovis. You may call me
Stanislaus; my other name doesn't matter. The Bishop and Colonel
Alberti may be here to lunch. I shall be here in any case."

It sounded rather like the programme of a Royal visit.

"The Bishop is examining a confirmation class in the
neighbourhood, isn't he?" asked Miss Huddle.

"Ostensibly," was the dark reply, followed by a request for a
large-scale map of the locality.

Clovis was still immersed in a seemingly profound study of the map
when another telegram arrived. It was addressed to "Prince
Stanislaus, care of Huddle, The Warren, etc." Clovis glanced at
the contents and announced: "The Bishop and Alberti won't be here
till late in the afternoon." Then he returned to his scrutiny of
the map.

The luncheon was not a very festive function. The princely
secretary ate and drank with fair appetite, but severely
discouraged conversation. At the finish of the meal he broke
suddenly into a radiant smile, thanked his hostess for a charming
repast, and kissed her hand with deferential rapture.

Miss Huddle was unable to decide in her mind whether the action
savoured of Louis Quatorzian courtliness or the reprehensible
Roman attitude towards the Sabine women. It was not her day for
having a headache, but she felt that the circumstances excused
her, and retired to her room to have as much headache as was
possible before the Bishop's arrival. Clovis, having asked the
way to the nearest telegraph office, disappeared presently down
the carriage drive. Mr. Huddle met him in the hall some two hours
later, and asked when the Bishop would arrive.

"He is in the library with Alberti," was the reply.

"But why wasn't I told? I never knew he had come!" exclaimed
Huddle.

"No one knows he is here," said Clovis; "the quieter we can keep
matters the better. And on no account disturb him in the library.
Those are his orders."

"But what is all this mystery about? And who is Alberti? And
isn't the Bishop going to have tea?"

"The Bishop is out for blood, not tea."

"Blood!" gasped Huddle, who did not find that the thunderbolt
improved on acquaintance.

"To-night is going to be a great night in the history of
Christendom," said Clovis. "We are going to massacre every Jew in
the neighbourhood."

"To massacre the Jews!" said Huddle indignantly. "Do you mean to
tell me there's a general rising against them?"

"No, it's the Bishop's own idea. He's in there arranging all the
details now."

"But--the Bishop is such a tolerant, humane man."

"That is precisely what will heighten the effect of his action.
The sensation will be enormous."

That at least Huddle could believe.

"He will be hanged!" he exclaimed with conviction.

"A motor is waiting to carry him to the coast, where a steam yacht
is in readiness."

"But there aren't thirty Jews in the whole neighbourhood,"
protested Huddle, whose brain, under the repeated shocks of the
day, was operating with the uncertainty of a telegraph wire during
earthquake disturbances.

"We have twenty-six on our list," said Clovis, referring to a
bundle of notes. "We shall be able to deal with them all the more
thoroughly."

"Do you mean to tell me that you are meditating violence against a
man like Sir Leon Birberry," stammered Huddle; "he's one of the
most respected men in the country."

"He's down on our list," said Clovis carelessly; "after all, we've
got men we can trust to do our job, so we shan't have to rely on
local assistance. And we've got some Boy-scouts helping us as
auxiliaries."

"Boy-scouts!"

"Yes; when they understood there was real killing to be done they
were even keener than the men."

"This thing will be a blot on the Twentieth Century!"

"And your house will be the blotting-pad. Have you realized that
half the papers of Europe and the United States will publish
pictures of it? By the way, I've sent some photographs of you and
your sister, that I found in the library, to the MATIN and DIE
WOCHE; I hope you don't mind. Also a sketch of the staircase;
most of the killing will probably be done on the staircase."
The emotions that were surging in J. P. Huddle's brain were almost
too intense to be disclosed in speech, but he managed to gasp out:

"There aren't any Jews in this house."

"Not at present," said Clovis.

"I shall go to the police," shouted Huddle with sudden energy.

"In the shrubbery," said Clovis, "are posted ten men who have
orders to fire on anyone who leaves the house without my signal of
permission. Another armed picquet is in ambush near the front
gate. The Boy-scouts watch the back premises."

At this moment the cheerful hoot of a motor-horn was heard from
the drive. Huddle rushed to the hall door with the feeling of a
man half awakened from a nightmare, and beheld Sir Leon Birberry,
who had driven himself over in his car. "I got your telegram," he
said what's up?"

Telegram? It seemed to be a day of telegrams.

"Come here at once. Urgent. James Huddle," was the purport of
the message displayed before Huddle's bewildered eyes.

"I see it all!" he exclaimed suddenly in a voice shaken with
agitation, and with a look of agony in the direction of the
shrubbery he hauled the astonished Birberry into the house. Tea
had just been laid in the hall, but the now thoroughly panic-
stricken Huddle dragged his protesting guest upstairs, and in a
few minutes' time the entire household had been summoned to that
region of momentary safety. Clovis alone graced the tea-table
with his presence; the fanatics in the library were evidently too
immersed in their monstrous machinations to dally with the solace
of teacup and hot toast. Once the youth rose, in answer to the
summons of the front-door bell, and admitted Mr. Paul Isaacs,
shoemaker and parish councillor, who had also received a pressing
invitation to The Warren. With an atrocious assumption of
courtesy, which a Borgia could hardly have outdone, the secretary
escorted this new captive of his net to the head of the stairway,
where his involuntary host awaited him.

And then ensued a long ghastly vigil of watching and waiting.
Once or twice Clovis left the house to stroll across to the
shrubbery, returning always to the library, for the purpose
evidently of making a brief report. Once he took in the letters
from the evening postman, and brought them to the top of the
stairs with punctilious politeness. After his next absence he
came half-way up the stairs to make an announcement.

"The Boy-scouts mistook my signal, and have killed the postman.
I've had very little practice in this sort of thing, you see.
Another time I shall do better."

The housemaid, who was engaged to be married to the evening
postman, gave way to clamorous grief.

"Remember that your mistress has a headache," said J. P. Huddle.
(Miss Huddle's headache was worse.)

Clovis hastened downstairs, and after a short visit to the library
returned with another message:

"The Bishop is sorry to hear that Miss Huddle has a headache. He
is issuing orders that as far as possible no firearms shall be
used near the house; any killing that is necessary on the premises
will be done with cold steel. The Bishop does not see why a man
should not be a gentleman as well as a Christian."

That was the last they saw of Clovis; it was nearly seven o'clock,
and his elderly relative liked him to dress for dinner. But,
though he had left them for ever, the lurking suggestion of his
presence haunted the lower regions of the house during the long
hours of the wakeful night, and every creak of the stairway, every
rustle of wind through the shrubbery, was fraught with horrible
meaning. At about seven next morning the gardener's boy and the
early postman finally convinced the watchers that the Twentieth
Century was still unblotted.

"I don't suppose," mused Clovis, as an early train bore him
townwards, "that they will be in the least grateful for the
Unrest-cure."

_________
-THE END-

Аудио: www.4shared.com/audio/ARTkf4bY/Unrest_Cure_01_0...

@темы: audio, audiobooks, short stories, Books: Fiction

---

[Катарина]

В воскресенье в 15-00 в Старбаксе на Новокузнецкой?

---

[Катарина]

В воскресенье в 14-30 в Старбаксе на Новокузнецкой?

---

[Катарина]

Предлагаю перенести встречу на следующую неделю, ибо мне надо съездить к тете, к тому же метро новокузнецкая опять работать не будет. А наш Старбакс - навеки на Новокузнецкой (на Китай-Городе неуютно ТТ).

ОК?

---

Each other VS one another

[Катарина]

"Each other" and "one another" are alternate ways of saying the same thing. 'Each other' is more common when only two people are involved; 'one another' is more common when more people are involved. However, either can be used in either case without any loss of meaning.

Вывод: разницы никакой, раз сами авторы учебника использовали one another для обозначения двух людей.

@темы: вопросы на обсуждение

---

Ricky Gervais Show: Harry the House Fly

[Oly-RRR]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKtxxUourzs

А мы завтра встречаемся?

@темы: видео, подкасты

---

[Катарина]

Воскресенье в 14-00, всем удобно?

---

The Open Window

[Катарина]

Первый рассказ. Насладитесь, потом выложу второй.

The Open Window, a short story by Saki [H H Munro]

"MY aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."

Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.

"I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice."

Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice division.

"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.

"Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here."

He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.

"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.

"Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.

"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child; "that would be since your sister's time."

"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.

"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.

"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"

"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human.

"Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window - "

She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.

"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.

"She has been very interesting," said Framton.

"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you men-folk, isn't it?"

She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably wide-spread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he continued.

"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention - but not to what Framton was saying.

"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"

Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the gravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid an imminent collision.

"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window; "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"

"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."

"I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone their nerve."

Romance at short notice was her speciality.

-THE END-


Аудио: www.4shared.com/audio/lIuFLrJl/Open_Window_01_0...

@темы: audio, short stories, Books: Fiction

---

[Катарина]

Итак, первое заседание состоялось и состоялось очень успешно! Мне очень понравилась тактика делать задания и выписывать слова, не слишком фокусируясь на болтаниях, ибо наболтать на экзамене я по-любому смогу лучше, чем выудить из головы слова и идиомы, которых туда вообще не загружалось.))

Еще мы не успели попробовать написать Диктант Позора, но на будущих встречах наверстаем. Не говоря уже о том, что от Оли я жду картинок по Порталу, а от Тамары - хэндмейда, чтобы повосхищаться и восторженно попищать!

---

!!!!!!!!

[Катарина]

Давайте возродим английский клуб?? Понятно, что Амбри не может к нам присоединиться по географическим причинам, а остальные как на это смотрят? На меня из шкафа укоряюще смотрит наш учебник, и мне все-таки очень надо сдать этот несчастный экзамен.ТТ


Поэтому конкретное предложение: собираться по воскресениям с 15-00 на прежнем месте и грызть учебник дальше. КТО ЗА????