Getting ESL Online ...
for July 27, 2004
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Car park -- Parking Lot

Car Journey -- Road Trip

Zebra Crossing / Pelican Crossing -- Cross Walk

Lollipop Man / Lady -- Crossing Guard

Motorway -- Freeway

Lorry -- Truck

Articulated Lorry -- Tractor Trailer / Trailer Truck

Petrol -- Gas / Gasoline

Pavement -- Sidewalk

Skip -- Dumpster

Diversion -- Detour

Fire Engine -- Fire Truck

Semi-Detached House -- Duplex

Flat -- Apartment

Terrace -- Town House

Chemist -- Drug Store / Druggist

Bungalow -- House (one story)

1) Britain has always been a place where persons enjoy a drink or two (or more) at the local pub, and where football hooligans and so-called lager louts represent the public face of overconsumption.

2) But lately the countrys' growing inability to hold its liquor has taken on the scope of a national crisis.

3) Ever Prime Minister Tony Blair is worried.

4) "There is a clear and growing problem in our town and city centers up and down the country on Friday and Saturday nights," said Mr. Blair, which son, then 16, was found vomiting and incoherent on a London street four years ago after an evening of drinking.

5) "As a society we have to make sure that this form of which we often call binge drinking doesn't become the new British disease."

6) By some measures he already has.

7) Cheapening and more readily available alcohol, changing drinking patterns, a steep increase in drinking among young women and a decline in old standards of civility have turned what was once a manageable part of life into a problem that costs society, according to government estimates, $35 billion a year.

8) The government, saying it wanted to make problem spots in city centers safe for the sober on weekends, recently presented an ambitious plan to tackle the violence and mayhem that follow when too much people drink too many too quickly in too small an area. (2 errors)

9) Among their proposals are granting wider powers to the authorities to control hooliganism, imposing greater penalties for drunken behavior, and forcing pubs and clubs to help pay for extra police officers.

10) But the most widely debated change is allowing some pubs to stay open past the current closing time of 11:20 p.m., starting in the autumn of next year.

11) The change, allow the pubs to set their own closing times, with approval, is meant to dissuade rushed binge drinking at "last orders."

12) Some have their doubt and worry that more time at the pub will, well, simply allow people to drink still more.

13) "It's hard to see when it could help," said Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology and public health at University College London.

14) "The evidence suggests that the longer the opening hours and the easier it is to have access to alcohol, the highest the consumption."

15) Professor Marmot presided over a recent report from the Academy of Medical Sciences who urged the government to work to reduce alcohol consumption in general.

Party animals party hearty in Birmingham on a Saturday night

16) Britain has historically been a hardly-drinking place, but the current trends are alarming.

17) In contrast to many countries in Western Europe, when drinking has declined, in Britain, where the minimum legal drinking age is 18, people are starting younger and drinking more.

18) Although some researchers say the figures are actually higher, government statistics show that Britons on average drunk the equivalent of 8.6 liters of pure alcohol each in 2001, nearly double the rate of 1951.

19) That translates into more than 86 bottles of wine, or 350 pints of beer. Young women in average now consume about 12.6 drinks a week, an increase of 66 percent since 1992.

20) While people in a number of countries still drink much overall, Britons (and the Irish, as well) are likelier to go on drinking binges, consuming five, six, seven or more drinks in a single session.

21) "Binge drinking is now such routine that young people find it difficult to explain why they do it," a recent Home Office report said.

22) The related costs are ballooned.

23) While crime overall has declined, alcohol-relating crime is increasing: in 1999, half of the 2.4 million violent crimes reported were linked to alcohol misuse.

24) On weekends, 70 percent of emergency-room patients are involved in drunk-related incidents.

25) Deaths from chronic liver's disease in England, a crucial indicator of alcohol-related harm, have shot up more than fivefold since 1950.

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