Michael Jackson: the King of Pop

Michael Jackson was born on the 29^th of August in 1958. He was the eighth of the 10 children. He had 3 sisters and 6 brothers.

He was four years old when he began singing. He gave his first public performance at the age of five. When he was six everybody called him a singing and dancing genius. His show-business career began in 1970 when he and his brothers formed a group called The Jackson Five.

When he was a child his favourite books were Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving and The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway. His favourite cartoon character was Pinocchio.

He played a scarecrow in the Wiz, a 1978 remake of the movie the Wizard of Oz.

Michael Jackson was fond of animals. During his life he had pet rats, pet frogs, pet spiders (as a kid he used to put spiders in his sister’s bed), pet rabbits and pet dogs. He once had a boa constrictor called Muscles and a pet python called Crusher. He had two llamas called Louis and Lola. But his most famous pet was Bubbles the chimp. Michael saved Bubbles from a research clinic in Texas. Bubbles slept in Jackson’s bedroom and even used his private toilet.

One of Jackson’s earliest hits, and his personal favourite was Ben. It was devoted to his pet rat. Jackson was just 14 years old when he recorded the song, becoming the youngest ever singer at the time to top the US charts.

Michael was very ticklish.

His album Thriller became the best-selling album of all time, with 65 million copies sold worldwide. All in all, Michael Jackson has sold more than 300 million records.

Michael Jackson won 13 Grammy awards. In 1984 he won eight Grammys – the highest number ever won by one person in a single year.

In 1987, Jackson bought a large piece of land near Santa Barbara. He named it Neverland, after the fantasy island in J. M. Barrie’s novel Peter Pan. He built there a zoo, a cinema and an amusement park – with a roller coaster, a railway, a Ferris wheel and many other interesting things.

His favourite superhero was Morph from X-Men.

Jackson was a vegetarian. He was especially fond of Mexican vegetarian food.

In 1992 he founded the Heal the World Foundation which helped poor children all over the world.

He wore a black armband to remind people of hungry and sick children in poor countries.

In 1993 Jackson’s doctor said he had a rare skin disease called vitiligo, which causes the skin to lose colour.

Jackson has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one for himself and one as part of the Jackson Five).

At the time of his death (June 25, 2009) Michael Jackson was rehearsing for his greatest comeback, with 50 shows in London.

TEXT 11. Read and translate the text. Be ready to discuss.

Family Relationships

How could you describe the word «family»? First of all «family» means a close unit of parents and their children living together. But we shouldn't forget that it is a most complex system of relationships. Family relationships are rarely as easy as we would like, and very often we have to work hard at keeping them peaceful.

When do people usually start a family? This question doesn't have a definite answer. In the 18th, 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century people used to get married at the age of 18 or even 16. If a girl about 23 or more wasn't married, she was said to be an old maid or a spinster. That might have turned out a real tragedy for her family which usually brought up more than three children, because in some cases a successful marriage was the only chance to provide a good life for the daughter and to help her family. Despite the fact that the girl was so young, she was already able to keep the house, take care of her husband and raise children.

But life's changing as well as people's lifestyle. Nowadays we have got much more freedom in questions concerning family. It is natural to get married at the age of 20 up to 30; however, some people prefer to make a career first and only after that start a family when they are already in their forties. Moreover, there are many cases when people prefer to live together without being married. There are some reasons for this phenomenon. Firstly, it is difficult to juggle a family life with studies. But without good education it is practically impossible to find a suitable well-paid steady job. It's a must to get a higher education, but by this moment you are already 22—24 years old. After that you seek for a well-paid job to live independently, which takes about 3—5 years. Now you see why people in the 21st century do not hurry to get married.

Nowadays there are very few people who have never divorced. Today Russia one the highest divorce rates in the world. What are the reasons?

• Occurrence of adultery once or throughout the marriage. The unfaithful attitude towards a spouse destroys the relationship and leads to a final separation.

• Communication breakdown. After some time of living together spouses find out that they are absolutely incompatible. Constant clashes, brawls and squabbles cause serious problems. This snowball can't be settled by kisses or hugs.

• Physical, psychological or emotional abuses. When a person taunts, humiliates, hits the children or his spouse, it can't but end with a divorce.

• Financial problems. They say, love alone can't guarantee well-being, whereas money can solve many of your problems. So when a couple lacks it, their relations become more and more complicated, their priorities change and the relationships end.

• Boredom. A lot of couples get bored of each other after 7 or more years of marriage. Boredom may become the reason of constant quarrels and adultery which inevitably leads to a divorce.

However, it goes without saying, in most cases married couples succeed in solving all the problems and keep living in peace and happiness.

TEXT 12. Read and translate the text. Make up 10 questions on its contents.

British Family Life

The English are a nation of stay-at-home. «There is no place like home», they say. And when the man is not working he is at home in the company of his wife and children and busies himself with the affairs of the home. «The Englishman's home is his castle», is a saying known all over the world. And it is true.

A «typical» British family used to consist of mother, father and two children, but in recent years there have been many changes in family life. Some of these have been caused by new laws and others are the result of changes in society. For example, since the law made it easier to get a divorce, the number of divorces has increased. In fact one marriage in every three now ends in divorce. This means that there are a lot of one-parent families. Society is now more tolerant than it used to be of unmarried people, unmarried couples and single parents.

Another change has been caused by the fact that people are living longer nowadays, and many old people live alone following the death of their partners. As a result of these changes in the pattern of people's lives, there are many households which consist of only one person or one person and children.

You might think that marriage and the family are not so popular as they once were. However, the majority of divorced people marry again, and they sometimes take responsibility for a second family.

Members of a family - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - keep in touch, but they see less of each other than they used to. This is because people often move away from their home town to work, and so the family becomes scattered. Christmas is the traditional season for reunions. Although the family group is smaller nowadays than it used to be, relatives often travel many miles in order to spend the holiday together.

In general, each generation is keen to become independent of parents in establishing its own family unit, and this fact can lead to social as well as geographical differences within the larger family group.

Relationships within the family are different now. Parents treat their children more as equals than they used to, and children have more freedom to make their own decisions. The father is more involved with bringing up children, often because the mother goes out to work. Increased leisure facilities and more money mean that there are greater opportunities outside the home. Although the family holiday is still an important part of family life (usually taken in August, and often abroad) many children have holidays away from their parents, often with a school party or other organized group.

Who looks after the older generation? There are about 10 million old-age pensioners in Britain, of whom about 750,000 cannot live entirely independently. The government gives financial help in the form of a pension but in the future it will be more and more difficult for the nation economy to support the increasing number of elderly. At the present time, more than half of all old people are looked after at home. Many others live in Old Peoples' Homes, which may be private or state owned.