A broken vase

One young man was going to marry a beautiful girl. One day the girl said to him that the next day she would celebrate her birthday and invited him to her birthday party. The young man was eager to make her a present, so he went to a gift shop. There he saw many beautiful things. Of all the things he particulary liked the vases. But they were very expensive, and as he had very little money, he had to leave the shop without buying anything. Walking tothe door he suddenly heard a noise: one of the vases fell on the floor and broke to pieces. A brilliant idea came to his mind. He came up to the counter and asked the salesman to wrap up the broken vase he wanted to buy. The salesman got a little surprised but did what the young man had asked him to do.

The young man took the parcel and went straight to the girl's place. By the time he entered the room the guests had already gathered. Everybody was enjoying the party. Some of the people were dancing, others were talk­ing, joking and laughing. Saying «Many happy returns of the day», the young man told the girl that he had bought a small present for her. With these words he be­gan to unwrap the parcel. Suddenly he got pale and said. «I am afraid, I have broken it. There were so many peo­ple in the bus...» But when he unwrapped the parcel, he saw that the salesman had wrapped up each piece of the vase separately.

English houses

The climate of a country is one of the factors that in­fluence the style of its architecture. It can be best illus­trated by British residential buildings. The weather in England is often cloudy and there are few sunny days in the winter season, therefore, as a rule, the windows in an English house are of a large size to catch as much light and sunshine as possible. In the houses built in the past century the windows, besides being large, opened up­wards, which is very convenient on windy days.

Since there is much rain in England, typical British houses have high, steep roofs where rain water and melt­ing snow can easily flow down.

Most of the houses have a fireplace which forms the most characteristic feature of an English home and is seldom seen in other European countries.

The plan of an English house also differs from that of the houses where we live. English architects plan some apartments vertically instead of planning them horizon­tally, so that an English family having a separate apart­ment lives on two or sometimes three floors with rooms connected with a narrow staircase. They find it the most convenient style of apartment.There are usually three rooms in each apartment besides a kitchen and a bath­room: a living room, a bedroom and a dining room.

From the history of london

In the year 55 before our era a Roman legion headed by Julius Cesar crossed the English Channel that divides the British Isles from the continent of Europe. Having landed in Britain the Romans founded a military station on the northern bank of the river Thames. Being skilled in the art of building they started fortifying¹ their set­tlements with thick massive walls and laying roads across the country leading to the sea coast. After staying in Britain for two centuries the Romans returned to the continent having left behind excellent roads and strong fortifications. One of Roman settlements was called Londinium Augusta. Four centuries later, according to some historians, the capital of Britain was founded in its locality, part of the Roman wall still lying deep under the ground beneath modern London.

No other ancient monuments of Roman times have remained in the city. The earliest historical monument of English architecture is the so called Tower of London which has retained its name up to the present day. Being erected on the ruins of a Roman fortress, it consists of parts belonging to different periods of English history, its central and most ancient part being the huge square tower four storeys high. It was called the White Tower, deriving its name from the white stone it was built of. The White Tower was surrounded with a double row of walls with smaller towers forming the inner and outer court with the scaffold in the back of it.