3.3.  Close your books and listen to the recording. What are Tony’s two jobs? Can you remember anything about how he spends his day?

3.3.1. Read the transcript of Tony's interview, and then see if you can put the pictures in the right order.

interviewer: How do you organise your work?

TONY: Well, I’m married, so to be alone in the mornings, the first thing is to get rid of my wife, who fortunately has a job, so she gets up in the morning, makes a cup of tea, rouses me, I come downstairs, wander round the kitchen, have my cup of tea, iron her clothes for her that she's put out for me on the first floor landing on top of the ironing board, so I do her ironing – by that stage she's in the bath, so I'm – by that stage it's half past eight, quarter to nine, I 'm only half an hour from being on my own – come down and make sure she's got all her lunch in a bag, by that stage I've finished my tea, I've finished the ironing, she's out of the bath, I'm in the bath, she goes upstairs and gets dressed; by the time – if this is all synchronised properly – by the time I get out of the bath and go upstairs she's fully dressed; and then by the time I'm dressed and come downstairs she's just about to hop on her bicycle and go off to work, which makes it about nine o'clock or nine fifteen.

And then I'm on my own. And I fluffle around for half an hour, putting off sitting down, make myself another cup of tea; but I'm usually working by ten o'clock. Then I work till twelve o'clock, half past twelve, then reward myself with some lunch, have a cup of tea, waste another ten minutes, start working about one o'clock again, and work till two o'clock, half past two.

Thereafter I become a househusband, and get the house organised for the evening when my wife comes home, at anywhere between six and seven o'clock, and the house has got to be tidy or I get into trouble. And doing it all myself involves doing most of the housework, most of the ironing, all the washing, a good part of the cooking ...

3.3.2. Tony is a writer and a «househusband». He works alone all day. Would you like his kind of life?

3.4. Choose one of the texts and study it. Then close your book, and tell another student what the text says, in your own words. Tell your partner to write down what he/she has understood. Then open the book, look at the text with your partner, and explain anything he/she can't understand. Give him/her some words to learn. Finish by preparing a small test to check how much your partner remembers.

Parkinson's Law

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. General recognition of this fact is shown in the proverbial phrase «It is the busiest man who has time to spare». Thus, an elderly lady of leisure can spend the entire day in writing and dispatching a postcard to her niece at Bognor Regis. An hour will be spent in finding the postcard, another in hunting for spectacles, half an hour in a search for the address, an hour and a quarter in composition, and twenty minutes in deciding whether or not to take an umbrella when going to the pillar box in the next street. The total effort that would occupy a busy man for three minutes may in this fashion leave another person prostrate after a day of doubt, anxiety and toil.

(from Parkinson's Law by C. Northcote Parkinson)