VII. Read and retell the story:

Britain has had love affairs with many great ships. From Henry VIH's ill-fated Mary Rose to the inspirational Ark Royal, our history seems inextricably linked with the names of magnificent vessels. To summon up the elegance of transatlantic travel earlier this century, you need only think of the Cunard liners Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary.

Now another ship is about to join this legendary list: P&O's Canberra, which last Wednesday embarked on her final cruise around the Mediterranean. If this were the last voyage of a simple pleasure ship, it would rate little more than passing comment. But Canberra has played a major role in our history,

She carried Britons to Australia in the final wave of mass emigration. She braved Argentinean bombers when she carried soldiers into the battle for the Falklands. She led the flotilla of vessels celebrating the 50th Anniversary of D-Day,

Canberra also starred in the 1971 James Bond film “Diamonds Are Forever”, P&O has decreed that after Canberra completes her final voyage on September 30, she will never again sail as a cruise ship.

It seems likely she will be broken up - but better to end her days in honour than to live on as a shabby tourist attraction as the Queen Mary does in Long Beach, California.

VIII. Find information in the text about:

a) influence of the warming of climate on the island

b) landscape

c) history of Maldives

d) holidaymaking

e) feeding sharks

Kunfunadhoo, The atolls lie scattered over 500 miles of ocean, like a string of shattered pearls, just above and below the Equator at the foot of India.

It is an amazing sight. Most have no vegetation and indeed no beaches. They are just reef, perfect pools of green and blue in azure seas. They are, in fact, the tips of extinct volcanoes, literally mountains under the ocean.

There are no ships because the Maldives are off the shipping lanes. There are no jets. Lonely planet.

[ 1 ] In 2,000 years not much has happened here. The Portuguese arrived in the 16th Century and the British a bit later. They have been Buddhist and are now Islamic. They have the lowest murder rate in the world and the highest divorce rate. Being Muslim, Maldivian men can divorce their wives simply by saying: 'I divorce you.'

Eight years ago there was a small coup but not many noticed. It was all the fault of the RAF.

They brought prosperity to the southern atolls by building an airbase, before pulling out in the Sixties. By then, a strong UDI movement had developed. Guns were bought, an attack on the President's Ruritanian palace launched in the dead of night.

The radio station was stormed but the rebels didn't know how to work the equipment so no one got to hear. People mistook gunfire for fireworks. It was over in a day.

Very Baling Comedy, Nobody hanged or anything unpleasant.

[ 2 ] Before 1972, not a tourist had come here, Today there is a Club Med and 70 islands have hotels. More holidaymakers arrive every year now than there are islanders.

To accommodate them all, 14 more islands have just been put up for auction. At least half of the tourists come to dive. They say it is the best diving in the world and that if you don't dive it is like going to Rome and not seeing the Coliseum.

You can, if you wish and why anyone would want to I don't know, feed sharks from your hand. At 10 metres, the ocean is as clear as at one metre, the reefs are underwater gardens, the fish as thick as rush-hour traffic at Waterloo.

[ 3 ] Personally, I don't go with all that It's perfectly safe, there's never been a shark attack, you'll love it.

If God had meant us to have two air cylinders strapped to our backs, he'd have planned it that way. I'm with the Israelis who, when told by one guide that in 20 years there has never been an attack, said: 'Yes, but what happened 21 years ago? But snorkeling ... that's different, that's safe and fun.

All right, I know I'm cowardly custard. So what if I am? I promise you it's quite thrilling enough to get to the edge of the reef and the friendliness of the rainbow coloured fish in a few feet of water and suddenly be over a vertical underwater wall that will fall 200 fathoms in a sheer drop.

The dramatic change in depth brings an immediate chill. The water, a pale blue satin, becomes a dark blue ink. Look down into the gloom and you will catch a flash of silver as a big fish ... my God, is it a shark? ... Turns somewhere below you on its lonely cycle.

I didn't actually see a shark, well only baby ones. I didn't see a manta ray. They're the rays that are the size of V Bombers. It didn't matter. We felt like Hans and Lotte Haas (older readers will know who I'm talking about) and the great fun about the Maldives is that everyone at dinner has a wonderful fishy story to tell about what they saw that day.

[ 4 ] If you can bear to tear yourself away from the ocean, the land is almost as beautiful. Take away the shower, bed, air-conditioning, chilled Soave, baked baby kingfish marinated in tandoori spices ... I mean, imagine nobody is here, no luxury, no hotels ... and this is just how Roy Plomley imagined all his cast-aways would be marooned.

[ 5 ] Yet this paradise idyll hides a face of nature at its most cunning. At one hotel, the Banyan Tree on Vabbin-faru, I gradually became conscious of young Maldivians, toiling as we lazed, moving sand from one side of the tiny island to the other. If they didn't the island would literally change shape and our beachfront villa would be under water in a few years. Because of global warming, the sea will have risen by perhaps 15 inches within 40 years, and some islands are only a few feet high.

There is an irony that the Indian Ocean waters of the Maldives are their main tourist attraction, but may also threaten their very survival.