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Part B
Unfair Exchange
The exchange rate between South Africa's currency, the rand, and many Western currencies is quite unfair. One rand will buy fewer than ten US cents. As a South African, when I'm in London my great fear is being left holding a restaurant bill. I find myself sitting bolt upright in bed just thinking about it.
I recently visited England, where I was brought up. I stayed with my sister and her husband, and one evening they suggested we eat out.
I knew that the cost of dining at the sort of restaurant they wanted to go to would, converted into rands, be something approximating the national debt of the Dominican Republic.
Obviously I would have to offer to pay. My brother-in-law would then, hopefully, make a counter-offer. Then the tricky part. One cannot capitulate too quickly and appear mean. On the other hand, one must not be too insistent.
Under normal circumstances, when it's my turn to pay for a serious dinner, I cannot for the life of me remain indifferent. I cannot keep my eyes away from that little piece of paper sticking out from the leather cover. Even though I try to concentrate on the conversation, my mind is on what I could have done with all the money I am about to pay for the dinner.
Halfway through the main course my brother-in-law suggested a second bottle of French claret. Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!
When, inevitably, the bill arrived, it was placed between us. We both ignored it. I was hoping my brother-in-law would snatch it. This would be a tactical advantage for me. My own upbringing precludes me from snatching just as it precludes me from turning my fork over to pick up peas.
The bill began to obsess me. It would be at least 200 pounds. In South Africa, this would allow me to dine out for a week.
I realized that if the bill were nearer to my brother-in-law, he would feel some obligation to pick it up. Perhaps by placing my elbows on the table, I could secretly nudge it closer to him. Maybe I should say, "I'll handle this, if you don't mind," and then say assertively, "Waiter! I trust you accept Central African waginkas? The present exchange rate is nine million to the pound."
My brother-in-law then made an unexpected move. He left the table.
I had no choice but to reach forward and, as casually as I could, unfold the bill. It was for 226 pounds.
My shoes fell off just like they do when a person is hit by a bus.
My sister said, "Don't worry about the bill. The owner is a business partner of ours -- we eat here free."
If I'd known that, I would have ordered lobster.
Questions:
1. Where did the story take place?
2. Is the speaker a native of South Africa?
3. With whom did he dine out that evening?
4. What bothers him whenever he is in London? Why?
5. Why could he have ordered lobster that evening?
Chicken Delight
The main character of this story is known simply as the Chicken. How it came to our small backyard remains a mystery. Eating the creature was out of the question. So my wife and I decided to raise it.
Of course we knew nothing about raising chickens. For starters, we didn't know whether our chicken was male or female. Moreover, what do chickens eat?
A colleague put me in touch with a farmer, who told me that chickens eat just about anything.
The chicken took to its new surroundings easily. Its main social task was to integrate into the local cat society -- a group of about five strays we feed. One morning I looked out the window and saw four cats lined up at their food bowls, and, right in the middle, eating cat food with gusto, was the chicken. Occasionally it would push a cat aside to get a better position.
Although it was nice to know the chicken could eat anything, cat food didn't seem right. So I called my mother, who sent us a 12-kilo bag of scratch grains. The chicken seemed to appreciate the feed.
Our care paid off. One morning, Nancy spied an egg on the patio. At the base of the pine tree, where the chicken slept, was a nest containing four more eggs. Soon we could count on five or six eggs a week.
After I wrote about the chicken in 'The New York Times', my mailbag was bursting with letters offering advice on the proper care and feeding of chickens. Disturbed that she did not have a name, fans wrote with all kinds of suggestions, Vivian, Henrietta, Henny Penny, to name but a few.
The media also jumped in. A national radio network quizzed me about the chicken for one of its weekend programs. "My producer wants to know, could you hold the telephone up to the chicken so we can hear it?" the interviewer asked. Unfortunately, I don't have a 30-meter cord on my telephone. The Associated Press sent a photographer to capture the chicken's many moods.
Then one morning I looked out my kitchen window, and my heart stopped. No chicken -- not in my pine tree or the tree next door. Nor was she pecking and scratching in any of the nearby yards. There were no signs of violence, only a single black feather near the back door.
She was definitely missing. But why?
Spring was in the air. Could she be looking for love? Or perhaps she was reacting badly to the burdens of celebrity. Or maybe she was simply looking for a place to lay her eggs in peace. Anyway, she left at the height of her popularity, well on her way to becoming the most photographed, most talked about chicken of our time.
And I am left cherishing the memories.
Statements:
1. One day someone gave a chicken to the speaker as a present.
2. Though the speaker is a city dweller, he knows how to raise chickens.
3. The speaker and his wife can be called animal lovers, because they adopted the chicken and five stray cats.
4. The speaker didn't live with his mother, and had to call his mother for the chicken feed.
5. The chicken turned out to be a female one and laid several eggs.
6. The chicken caught the public's attention because a photographer happened to take pictures of it.
7. The speaker sent an article about his adopted chicken to 'The New York Times'. After his article appeared in the newspaper, letters from readers flooded in.
Part D
Ordinary People, Ordinary LivesMost of us have photographs of our grandparents, but how many of us know what their lives were like, the sort of people they were in their youth? And what will our grandchildren know about us? We often intend to write things down, but never get round to it. We may leave videos rather than photographs, but the images will remain two-dimensional.
Hannah Renier has come up with an answer: she writes other people's autobiographies, producing a hardback book of at least 20,000 words for each autobiography -- with illustrations if required -- a chronicle not of the famous, but of the ordinary.
The idea came to her when she talked to members of her family and realized how much of the past that was part of her own life was disappearing.
"When I started I didn't take it nearly so seriously as I do now, having met people who genuinely will talk and have led interesting lives," she says. "They would say they are doing it for their children or for posterity, but they are getting quite a lot out of it themselves. They enjoy doing it."
"I had the confidence to be honest," said a 62-year-old man who made and lost one fortune before making another. "I was surprised at what came out. There were things that hurt, like my divorce, and the pain was still there."
"I did it for my family," he continued, "so that perhaps they could learn something, but I have not yet let my children -- who are in their thirties -- read it. They were hurt by things in my life and there are a lot of details which I don't feel I want them to know at the moment. If they insist, I'll let them. But I think I'd rather they read it after I was dead."
Recorder rather than inquisitor, Renier keeps her distance. "The books are not for public consumption and I'm not there as a very nosy person. People have got carried away and told me something, then said, 'I'm not sure if that ought to go in.' I put it in anyway -- they can remove things when they see the draft. But generally people want to be honest, mistakes and all."
Each book involves up to 30 hours of taped interviews which Renier uses as the basis to write the life story, rearranging the chronology and interpreting. The results are obviously not of the dirt-at-any-cost school of life story, but are fascinating to the private audience at which each book is aimed. Renier organizes her material logically and writes well; the final content is as good as its subject. The book that emerges does not look like a cheap product -- and carries a price tag of nearly ￡3,000, with extra copies at ￡25 each. She receives about 10 inquiries a week, but the cost clearly deters many people.
Statements:
1. According to the speaker, many people have a real interest in writing about their own lives.
2. Hannah Renier makes a living by writing autobiographies for both famous and ordinary people.
3. Those who have Hannah Renier write their autobiographies have all lived very interesting lives.
4. From the examples given, it can be inferred that when people have their biographies done, they tend to be honest about their past errors and failures.
5. When it comes to putting them down on paper, some people try to hide certain details of their lives from their family.
6. Renier takes an objective attitude when she writes people's life stories.
7. The order of events in Renier's works very often differs from the way they were presented to her.
8. Even though Renier charges a high price for her books, she has to turn down a number of people from time to time as there are too many requests to cope with.
