Distant Dear Cousins - Australia

Flying into Australia, I realised with a sigh that I had forgotten again who their Prime Minister is. I am forever doing this with the Australian PM – committing the name to memory, forgetting it (more or less instantly), then feeling terribly guilty. My thinking is that there ought to be one person outside Australia who knows.But then Australia is such a difficult place to keep track of. On my first visit some years ago, I passed the time on the long flight from London reading a history of Australian politics in the twentieth century, wherein I encountered the startling fact that in 1967 the Prime Minister, Harold Holt, was strolling along a beach in Victoria when he plunged into the surf and vanished. No trace of the poor man was ever seen again. This seems doubly astonishing to me – first that Australia could just lose a Prime Minister and second that news of this had never reached me.The fact is, of course, that we pay shamefully scant attention to our dear cousins Down Under – though not entirely without reason, I suppose. Australia is, after all, mostly empty and a long way away. Its population, about 19 million, is small by world standards – China grows by a larger amount each year – and its place in the world economy is consequently peripheral. From time to time it sends us useful things – opals, merino wool, the boomerang – but nothing we can’t actually do without. Above all, Australia doesn’t act badly. It is stable and peaceful and good. It doesn’t have revolutions or throw its weight around in a threatening manner.But even allowing for all this, our neglect of Australian affairs is curious. Just before this trip I went into my local library in New Hampshire and looked up Australia in the New York Times Index to see how much it had engaged attention in my own country in recent years. I began with the 1997 volume for no other reason than that it was open on the table. In that year across the full range of possible interests – politics, sport, travel, the Olympics in Sydney, food and wine, the arts, obituaries and so on – the New York Times ran 20 articles that were predominantly on or about Australian affairs. In the same period, for the purposes of comparison, it found space for 120 articles on Peru, 150 or so on Albania and a similar number on Cambodia, 300 on each of the Koreas and well over 500 on Israel. Among the general subjects that outnumbered it were balloons and ballooning, the Church of Scientology and dogs. Put in its crudest terms, Australia was slightly more important to Americans in 1997 than bananas but not nearly as important as ice cream. And so because we know so little about it, perhaps a few facts would now be in order; Australia is the world’s sixth largest country. It is the only island that is also a continent and the only continent that is also a country. It was the first continent conquered from the sea and the last. It is the home of the largest living thing on earth, the Great Barrier Reef, and of the most famous and striking monolith, Ayers Rock (or Uluru, to use its now official, more respectful Aboriginal name). It has more things that will kill you than anywhere else. Of the world’s ten most poisonous snakes, all are Australian. And it is old. For 60 million years, Australia has been all but silent geologically, which has allowed it to preserve many of the oldest things ever found on earth – the most ancient rocks and fossils, the earliest animal tracks and riverbeds, the first faint signs of life itself.

.

1. What particularly surprised the writer about what happened to Harold Holt?A. That an Australian Prime Minister could not swim.B. That the writer had not heard of this incident before.C. That the Prime Minister was very poor. D. That Hold had no police officers with him on the beach.

2. What is the main reason, according to the writer, that the West pays little attention to Australia?A. It is not a great economic power.B. Its population is very small.C. It is a long way from Europe and America.D. It behaves well politically and socially.

3. The writer chose the 1997 New York Times Index becauseA. it was the most recent one available.B. the New Hampshire library didn’t have any others.C. it was there by chance.D. he was particularly interested in that year.

4. Which aspect of Australia does the writer find particularly interesting?A. Its unusualnessB. Its age.C. Its dangers.D. Its geology.

5. Which of the facts mentioned in the last paragraph particularly struck you?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6. The writer of the text is American. Do you think an average person from your own country knows much about, or pays much attention to Australia? Explain your opinion.____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Airport Delays

Although I enjoy air travel I always find it quite(1)_________________________ waiting at the airport for my flight. If I travelled by plane rather more I suppose I ‘d get used to it but I fly so (2) __________________ that that is not the case. My sister, however, often voices her (3)______________________ with me – she loves airports and doesn’t mind it even when there are (4) ____________________ long delays. She says that the chance to observe people more than compensates for the (5) ________________________ of her flight being delayed.

As for me, I more or less have to be (6)_______________________________ restrained from going home at once if I’m told that the (7) _____________ time of my flight is likely to be later than expected. My sister, in contrast, is quite (8)______________ by such news and happily settles down to sit and think. I just wish I was as (9)________________________ as she is, but I still find the whole airport experience far from (10)_____________________.

1. STRESS___________

2. FREQUENT________

3. AGREE____________

4. EXCESS_____________

5. CONVENIENT______

6. FORCE_____________

7. DEPART____________

8. DETER____________

9. PHILOSOPHY_________

10. PLEASURE__________