Pancake Day

Pancake Day* is the popular name for the Shrove Tuesday*, the day before the first day of Lent*. In the Middle Ages* on that day people were merrymaking and feasting, a relic of which is eating of pancakes. The ingredients of pancakes are all forbidden by church during Lent that is why they have to be tasted the day before. Whatever religious significance the day may have possessed in the olden days, it certainly has none now.

The most common form of celebrating this day in the old times was the all-town ball game or tug-of-war, in which everyone was tearing here and there, trying to get the ball or rope into their part of the city. Today the only custom observed throughout Britain is pancake eating, though here and there other customs still seem to survive. Among the latter, Pancake races custom is the best-known.

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*Shrove Tuesday - вторник на Масленой неделе (последний день перед Великим постом у католиков и англиканцев)

*Lent - Великий пост

*Middle Ages - Средние века, Средневековье

Mother’s Day

For the English people the best-known name for the fourth in Lent Sunday is Mothering Sunday* or Mother’s Day. For three centuries this day has been a day of family reunion when adult children come back to their parents with boxes of presents. Gifts are made to mothers by children of all ages. Flowers and cakes are still traditional gifts. Violets and primroses are most popular flowers. Sometimes the whole family goes to church and then there is a special dinner at which roast lamb and rice pudding are served.

Words, words, words…

Match the words with their definitions:

1. Easter	a. a flat cake fried in a pan or on a griddle
2. Easter egg	b. a festival celebrating resurrection of Jesus
3. Easter rabbit	c. can be hard-boiled and coloured or chocolate
4. chocolate	d. fourth Sunday of Lent, a day set apart in honour of mothers
5. pancake	e. an animal bringing Easter treats to children
6. Mother’s Day	f. cocoa paste of which are made Easter eggs and bunnies

DID YOU GET IT?

Say whether the following statements are true or false. Correct the false statements:

1. Religious holidays are mainly events reminding of the life of Jesus.

2. Holy Week is a week before Christmas.

3. Easter is a festival when Christians remember the birth of Jesus.

4. Egg is the most popular emblem of Easter.

5. Easter bunny is supposed to hatch out Easter eggs.

6. Pancake Day is the first day of Lent.

7. One can say that Shrove Tuesday has almost lost its religious sense.

8. There is a custom of eating puddings on Pancake Day.

9. Mother’s Day is celebrated on the fourth Tuesday in Lent.

10. On Mother’s Day children bring presents to their Mums.

Text 5 April Fools' Day

The first of April is known as April Fool's Day or All Fool's Day. It is the day of practical jokes and any person can become a victim of traditional tricks of the undone shoelace or a crooked tie or a false invitation to a party. No one really knows when this custom began but it has been kept for hundreds of years.

The First of April, some do say

Is set apart for All Fools Day;

But why the people call it so,

Not I, nor they themselves do know.

April Fool jokes usually involve persuading someone to do something silly, like looking for hen's teeth, striped paint, a long weight, a left-handed screwdriver or some other non-existent thing. However, you can only play April Fools on people before midday – at midday the fun must stop or the trickster is told:

'April Fool's Day is past and gone,

Your 're the fool and I am none.'

On this day of national good humour, the television service joins in the fun. One of the great April Fool jokes took place on April 1st, 1957. The BBC TV programme ‘Panorama’ did a documentary on 'spaghetti farmers' growing 'spaghetti trees.' The hoax Panorama programme featured a family from Switzerland carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest. It showed women carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry. The joke was an enormous success. Hundreds of people believed there was such thing as spaghetti trees. Soon after the broadcast ended, the BBC began to receive hundreds of calls from puzzled viewers.