It’s wrong to portray fathers as domestic incompetents – but women still

lose out where it matters

Gaby Hinsliff

For fathers so permanently in the public eye, they are no great shakes as role models. One hides behind a newspaper, benignly ignoring his squealing offspring. Another falls negligently asleep, while his daughter wanders off into the snow and gets into trouble. And the last is so incompetent that when his exhausted wife takes to bed, leaving him in charge, he burns their offspring’s lunch to a cinder.

It’s no story to tell the children. Except, of course, these are some children’s stories, the characters of which aimed at preschoolers, share a certain domestic cluelessness.

The builders, firemen and alien-fighters who crowd my son’s fictional world are full of professional swashbuckling and savviness with a hammer. But male characters at home are rendered curiously incompetent, incapable of cooking tea without setting fire to the kitchen and calling Fireman Sam. It’s too close to the bone to paint mummies as unreliable, yet fine to portray dads as fumbling figures of mirth – and not just in fiction.

This freedom to mock men, at least in the domestic sphere, is interesting because its flipside – the belittling of women in the professional sphere – is, while still as perennial as bindweed, at least being forced somewhat underground. And nor is it open season solely on men’s domestic goofiness. When “Woman’s Hour” appealed earlier this week on Twitter for examples of dealbreakers that put women off men, they triggered an avalanche. Back hair! Poor grammar! Only reading autobiographies! If the newly created Radio 5 Men’s Hour invited listeners publicly to list women’s sexual shortcomings, would it feel as comfortable?

The Guardian, August 26, 2010

Text C. Country diary: Highlands

Ray Collier

It is not difficult to see or find out about red squirrels partly because they have “invaded” gardens in search of peanuts, and partly because of the activities of the Highland Red Squirrel Group. In gardens many people have provided peanuts in special feeders which have a clear front and a hinged lid. The squirrels have quickly learned how to raise the lid with one paw to get at the free food. This food source was at one time accounting for 80 % of the sightings received for the Highlands in the mapping programme, the aim of which was to find out the current distribution and make plans for the future.

Feeding in gardens has become a significant part of the conservation programmes in the UK. This year, visitors to the osprey centre at Loch Garten in the Cairngorms have been able to see red squirrels, including their young, at feeders on trees just outside the osprey hide. The Highland Red Squirrel Group is planning to take this a stage further and introduce a series of “hot spots”.

Meanwhile the reintroduction of red squirrels on the Dundonnell Estate near Ullapool in North Wester Ross seems to have been successful. In 2008, 32 squirrels were trapped and relocated to woodland on the 33,000 acre estate.

The Guardian, August 26, 2010

Text D. US politics: The party’s not over

The prospect of policy paralysis after the November elections is looming –

and the primary results have not abated that fear

In an ordinary year, this week’s midterm party primary elections in a group of American states stretching from Florida to Alaska might only be of interest to US political anoraks. Yet the politics of 2010 are hardly ordinary. With the US economic recovery again slowing, the prospect of policy paralysis in Washington after the November elections, with a weakened President Obama, is now looming larger, with consequences for issues from the fiscal stimulus to Middle East peace. This week’s primary results have therefore been widely watched and have done little to abate the fear.

At first sight this may seem an odd conclusion to draw, especially in light of Senator John McCain’s victory in Arizona’s Republican primary on Tuesday. Not very long ago, Mr McCain had himself looked vulnerable to a conservative challenge backed by Tea Party activists. This week, having tacked hard to the right and spent much more money to secure his position than usual, he won his party’s renewed backing with plenty to spare. With Arizona’s Republican governor also seeing off her own challenger, and with established Democratic candidates coming through in Florida and Vermont, reports of a general grassroots political uprising against the establishment in this autumn’s midterms might seem exaggerated.

In other states, though, some of this week’s contests confirm that 2010 is no easy year for incumbents, especially on the right. When all the votes are finally counted in Alaska, which is not in any sense a typical state, a Tea Party-backed challenger may have ousted the sitting and very well established Republican senator. If successful, that would continue a pattern of established Republican candidate defeats in several states this season. Democratic incumbents, by contrast, seem to have shown better survival skills.

The Guardiaт, August 26, 2010

Task 4. Watch Video 1 (Folder Unit 1). The clip features the British papers front page headlines. Fill in the grid below. Do the tasks in the following order.

1. Watch the clip in full.

2. Start watching the clip again. While watching, freeze the frame. Fill in Column No 1 in the grid below with the newspaper headlines you see in the clip.

3. Watch the video for the third time. Try to understand the lead that follows each newspaper headline. The lead is either visible on the screen (in print) or is being read out by the news presenter. Write in the lead into Column No 2 of the grid (the lead will help you get a better idea of the headline).

4. Translate the headline into Russian, put it into Column No 3.

1. The newspaper headline	2. The news presenter’s commentary	3. The headline in Russian
Example: 1. Cameron Sparks Fury with Attack on Multiculturalism	His discourse has caused anger in some quarters	Выступление премьер-министра Д. Камерона по поводу мультикультурализма вы­звало негативную реак­цию в Великобритании
2.
3.
N…