P1：

Today I'm going to be talking to you about 911?and the fact that it's been years since 911. So I'll be talking a little bit about that day and looking at the consequences of the attack over the last 10 years. I’ll now begin.

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Ladies and gentlemen, it’s 10 years since 911, since the Twin Towers were attacked, and the World Trade Center in New York collapsed. I think it's not an exaggeration to say that this is a day that changed the world. It's a day that nobody will forget. Everybody remembers what they were doing that day. What they were doing when they heard the news.

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There is now of course in the place of the Twin Towers ground zero. This is a memorial site. And at the 10 year anniversary, there was a very big memorial service at Ground Zero. Millions of people came to commemorate the dead,?to commemorate the almost 3000 people who died and whose names are inscribed on the memorial at Ground Zero.

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Some of the dead were firefighters. It's thanks to the firefighters that as many people survived as they did. In fact, they managed to evacuate Around 30,000 people. These firefighters were really the heroes of the day.

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But these heroes are now paying a high price. Many are suffering from cancer. They have an increased risk of getting skin cancer, prostate cancer or thyroid cancer. But as well as the increased risk of cancer,?they're also seeing problems with respiratory disorders. So they're finding it very hard to breathe. And besides physical illnesses, there are also mental illnesses which?of?course appeared. Depression, in some cases, panic attacks in others.

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So in conclusion, it's good to remember the dead. It's good that we have these memorial services at Ground Zero every year. To commemorate their passing. But let's not forget those who are still alive. Let's not forget the heroes of the day and their long term suffering as a result of their heroism today. 911 is a day that changed the world and the lives of so many forever. It has had such far reaching effects. Who knows what we'll see when we come to the 20th anniversary of 911. Thank you.?

P2：

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Kevin Campbell, formerly of DG interpretation of the European Commission. I'm going to talk to you today about pets and the effect of pets on your health.

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Now I am British. And as you probably know, most British people love animals, and most have pets as well, usually a dog or a cat, but there’s also now a fashion?for Pythons. Many people are buying pythons as pets. Well whatever the pet might be, we all know that it's comforting when you come home for example, your dog is waiting for you. And it's good for you to take the dog for a walk. People generally are happy to have the pets. But in fact,?it goes a little further than that, because there have been some studies carried out that show that owning a pet actually has a very positive effect on your health.

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People who own pets tend to suffer less than others from headaches, migraines, back pain, or depression.?They feel generally healthier, and they feel fitter for owning that pet.

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Of course, especially it’s a dog, because as I remember when I was younger we had?a wonderful dog, who I loved very much.?But he had to be taken for two very long walks every day. Now you take a dog for a long walk twice a day, maybe for?half an hour, and you are probably going to be fairly fit.

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So by and large, owning a pet is going to be good for you. Some people will say yes, but it is quite expensive in fact. Yes, it is. It costs quite a lot to feed our very large dog. And that's true, but that is perhaps the downside.?

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The other thing is and this is certainly my own case. I travel an awful lot and?I live in a?flat. So it would be terribly unfair?of me?to buy a dog because I would never be around enough. And I have to rely on lots of friends to take the poor dog for a walk and to feed it.

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I could assure you however that one of these days when I do calm down and stop traveling so much. That will be one of my first thoughts. I think that I can see myself with a very pleasant cocker spaniel as a companion. And I should take the cocker spaniel for long walks.?Pets certainly are a good therapy and a great pleasure to have. Thank you

?P3：?

I'm going to tell you about my favorite drink?-- this is champagne. Everybody who knows me knows that I like champagne. It can be a birthday celebration or Christmas celebration, perhaps a wedding, or just any odd day,?champagne is always the right thing to drink.

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And so I was very happy to receive from a friend of mine, an article just before Christmas, about the beneficial effects of drinking champagne. Just before Christmas, of course it was perfectly timed.

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It seems that scientists have found during their research, the fact that a few glasses of champagne every day is good for you, good for your heart, good for your blood circulation. And it doesn't have to be champagne, it can even be other varieties of sparkling wine, such as Cava Prosecco, or sect.?The effects are the same.?what good news,?I said to myself.

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And who carried out this research?was a team in the United Kingdom--?The University of Reading and another team in France joint research. The results were published in the British Journal of Nutrition, where we learned that those two to three glasses a day would have a very beneficial effect on the blood vessels, would help reduce heart disease and altogether was a good thing.

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Now we knew about red wine, red wine, everybody knows has very beneficial effects in small doses of course, because it contains polyphenols. Polyphenols also are contained in Champagne, because it is a variety of black grape or a few varieties of black grape that you use to produce champagne.

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Therefore the effects are beneficial. And if you keep to moderate drinking, you are likely to be doing your heart a great deal of good.?May I therefore recommend that anytime is the right time for champagne and that we should all raise our glasses to the production and consumption of this most excellent wonderful drink,?my favourite tipple.?Thank you.

?P4：

Hello, my name is Helen Campbell. I'm going to talk to you today about climate change and some strange phenomena. And I'm going to start now.

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We hear an awful lot about global warming and climate change, great dangers, and we see sad photographs of polar bears floating on chunks of ice. But when we're in the middle of winter, it does seem hard to believe that there is something like warming going on at all. Still, if we look at North America, and the recent winters there, they have been very, very harsh. The winter of 2013 to 14 was a good example. The eastern half of North America was plunged in ice for months unend. In fact, 90% of the Great Lakes froze over there. The average temperature in North America was one degree below the 20th century average.

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And yet, in Europe, we had rather mild winters. Virtually no snow at all, and no freezing temperatures. But that actually is bad. You need to have some freezing days as well. Otherwise, all the microbes and viruses will of course breed and multiply. And in summer, we had all sorts of plagues,?infestations of insects, flies and even?lady birds and aphids all destroying our plants.

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Now it's true to say that harsh winters and snow and ice cause all sorts of disruption. Dreadful nuisance, hard to travel, you can't drive. You have to turn up your heating, and that's expensive. And so we should remember that when it's cold, there is a very good reason for it.

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Question Now, is there really a warming of our planet? Well, now everything I read tells me that the answer is actually yes,?there is.?And why? Because of a new phenomenon. This is called?Arctic amplification.?Arctic amplification means the far north is warming up faster than the rest of the globe. The white snow cover reflecting sunlight is replaced by dark ocean and that absorbs heat. So the trend will be towards warming, even though we can expect some cold winters to come. After that, the experts may well turn out to be quite correct. We have global warming. Thank you?

P5：

Hello. This year I will be celebrating a very special anniversary. In fact, 20 years ago, on the seventh of October 1992 to be precise, I finally managed to stop smoking. I say finally, because I have tried several times previously to quit smoking, but I was always unable to do so.

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I had started smoking cigarettes as a young boy, thinking I was very cool. I was just a young teenager at the time. And very quickly, I became addicted to the habit. Over the years of course, I became increasingly increasingly aware of the dangers of smoking, the dangers to my health.

But as I say, I find it very hard to give up the habit, basically, because tobacco and all products that it contains is extremely addictive. And as I say my had become an addict.

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In the end, it was only when my wife and I decided that we were going to try and have children, start a family that I was finally able to make the breakthrough and quit the habit. I didn't want my children growing up in a smoke filled atmosphere because of course by then, I had learned something about the dangers of passive smoking in particular. So as I say, finally, on the seventh of October 1992?a historic date?for me, I smoked my last cigarette, or at least what I hope will be my last cigarette.

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Now because I know how addictive smoking is, and how difficult it is to stop smoking once you've started I was particularly how can I put it? Let's say disturbed reasonably by an article that I read in the newspaper, which basically described what the big tobacco companies are up to what they're up to in order to get young people in particular hooked on cigarettes. They are actually increasing the amount of addictive substances in cigarettes in order to get young people hooked and keep them hooked. And this seems to be to be totally unacceptable?at a time when governments around the world are trying to wake?people off this terrible habit. Thank you.

P6：

I'm going to talk about football, but not specifically football, dietary advice given to those people who are following the current world cup. And we're talking here of July 2010.

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Football lovers of course will have been gearing up to this mammoth festival of football for weeks and probably months. Much celebration, much excitement. And some people of course will be glued to the television all the time watching the matches. I personally am not a football fan, and I'm trying very hard indeed to avoid all the football matches with some difficulty. However, since there is so much publicity attached to football, it has also been fun to read some of the articles surrounding the Old World Cup.

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For example, the foods Standards Agency of the UK has issued a guide--?some advice to help you whilst you're watching the match, whether it be in South Africa, or whether it be in your own home, or whether it be perhaps with friends watching a football match all together. It gives four pages of advice and it costs rather a lot of money 135,000 pounds to put this volume together.

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It tells you for example, that you should avoid eating high calorie foods such as peanuts and crisps. You should also be careful of the amount that you need to during a football match because as you will be very excited and perhaps jumping up and down. You should try to eat food that is not to indigestible. Pizza, it is recommended in his book is not to be taken. Instead, you should opt for something like a vegetarian curry,?or perhaps a nice Greek salad. This will be lower in calories and much better for you.

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Now football as everybody knows is for better or for worse also associated with a good deal of drinking,?drinking of alcohol?I mean, particularly beer. Now our food agency warns us that drinking too much beer is bad for us and that perhaps it would be advisable to drink mineral water?with a slice of lemon instead. Now the picture of a group of football fans going to a park or going to a party watching a match,?watching my team win or indeed lose,?and then celebrating or commiserating over a glass of water with lemon doesn't somehow sound to me very convincing.

It would of course simply be a joke to issue guidelines on what to eat and drink during the World Cup. But it isn't.?it's a perfectly serious brochure booklet that has now been issued. It gives a few more guidelines such as to be careful not to drink too much if you're going to a party and it help your guests when they come to visit you for football party by issuing them too?with instructions on how best to get to your house and how best to go. When you think that a lot of taxpayers money has gone into this guide, it perhaps might make you a little angry.?But after all it is football time, and most people are only too happy?and I dare say they will not take a great deal?of notice of the guidelines.?Thank you.

P7：

My topic today is divorce vouchers.

January is the most popular month for filing for divorce in the United Kingdom. This is apparently because spending two weeks together over the Christmas break is often the last straw for unhappy couples. one of Britain's biggest divorce law firms gets a 60% increase in inquiries in the first week of January every year. But some lucky couples would have had a headstart.?They're the ones who received divorce vouchers for Christmas.

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The divorce vouchers are being sold by a British law firm that specializes in family law. The company is emphasizing that the divorce vouchers aren't quite as bad as they sound. They claim that the divorce vouchers should be seen more as vouchers for receiving legal advice. The aim of the vouchers isn't to force people to get a divorce. Instead, they're designed to give people a chance to discuss the legal consequences of separating from their husband or wife.

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Whichever way you view them,?the divorce vouchers are in demand. They are being bought as birthday or Christmas presents or simply to send a clear message to a relative or friend. Most of the vouchers are bought by women for female friends. Groups of women often all chip in some money to buy a voucher. They do this because they want to send a clear message to a friend that their relationship is completely dysfunctional and that it's time they ended it. Some of the vouchers are bought by the agents or managers of celebrities who are fed up with hearing about their client's marital problems. And a few vouchers have been bought by the Mistresses of married men to send a very unsubtle?signal that it was time they left their wife.

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But the company is fairly sure that no one has bought a voucher as a joke. That's because of the cost. The company offers two vouchers:?a half hour of legal advice will cost 125 pounds and a full hour will cost 250 pounds. Either way, these vouchers would be a very expensive lofe. So if you're looking for the perfect gift for an unhappily married friend, a divorce voucher might be just a thing. Thank you.

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P8：

And?I'm going to talk about Facebook, and some aspects of its rising fame and fortune. Well, it isn't Facebook so much that has risen in fame and fortune as the CEO, the young gentleman who founded it all six years ago, Mark Zuckerberg.

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He set up the site in order to allow for exchanges among his friends and Ivy League associates. And it has become absolutely enormous it's become the website for social interaction. People don't talk anymore. They write to each other on Facebook. They send their updates, their updates on profiles, or what they're going to do on holiday. They exchange photographs. And even to things like marital arguments and gossip sessions, Facebook is the way in which they communicate. And apparently that form of communication is now what everybody wants. Perhaps not everybody. It is mainly the category of below 30 years in age,?75% of these subscribers to Facebook are younger than 30. And as I said, this is an enormously popular website, so much so that it?now number half a million subscribers.

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It does mark a huge cultural shift, there's no doubt. It's a different way to relate to your friends, and indeed, a wider circle of friends. It also means that people are much more open, perhaps less reserved. I read recently about a couple who were exchanging very lengthy comments and turning into a big argument where upon other friends had to intervene between these two to put the argument to an end, finally bring it to a happy close. It seems to me strange that people would argue in public, but that's what's happening.

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You can of course broadcast to everybody your likes and your dislikes, what books you may have enjoyed reading, what films you saw recently. And that you might think would be that but it isn't just your closed circle of friends that will be reading about your likes and dislikes. Because that's not the way Facebook works. If you want a degree of privacy, so I read is quite hard to come by. Because?the default settings?on Facebook allow this information to be circulated quite far and wide. And still you might say that you liked a particular book. And then lo and behold, the next day you will find amazon.com sending you lists of other books by the same author. In other words, you don't have any privacy. The information has already gone much further than your group of friends.

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This is what I personally find very worrying indeed. I don't know if things will change. I know that Mark Zuckerberg had to apologize because of this privacy issue. But apparently, very few people are bothered by it. So perhaps that is just the way of the future. People won't speak anymore. They'll just talk through Facebook. Thank you

P9：

I'm going to talk about Facebook.

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I'm sure that you're all very familiar with Facebook, a lot more familiar than I am,?no doubt. But I've read an awful lot about it, as I suppose like most people.?Facebook is a big success, a huge website success. And it now numbers half a million people amongst subscribers. Half a million is an awful lot of people and therefore it is something of an enormous success. In fact, if it were a country, it would be the third largest country by population numbers, but it's not as I said, it's a highly successful website.

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Now, all this has happened,?this huge overriding success in the space pf only six years. Facebook was set up by a young undergraduate in his early 20s, one Mark Zuckerberg is now of course the CEO of Facebook. He simply began the plan in his dormitory room, and he thought it would be a good way to set up a website to keep the Ivy League students in touch with each other, keeping tabs on each other, exchanging some information and news and it's gone from that as I said, in six years only, to a real web superpower. A superpower that can number that many people has an awful lot of influence to.

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Well, it's all part of the development of so many different aspects of the web, thinking back we began with Microsoft that made computers easy for all. Then we had Google to help us search and then YouTube to entertain us. But Facebook, well Facebook has a huge advantage over perhaps all the others because of the emotional investment of its users. The people who subscribe?are laughing together, exchanging their opinions, exchanging holiday photographs, genuinely talking to each other, but talking to each other through Facebook, as opposed to directly.?

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It means to that this is really a question of living your private life in a public arena. Now whether or not that is a good or a bad thing that is for you to judge but it certainly shows an enormous change now compared with say 10 or 20 years ago, because we didn't live our private lives in the public arena then as people are doing now. Thank you.?

P10：

Ladies and Gentleman, I'm going to be talking to you about Father Christmas, and the question of whether he exists.?Now of course, all children would answer yes to that question. They all believe in Father Christmas.?However, many adults will probably say no, he's definitely not there. The main reason they give is that it's not possible for one person to deliver presents to all the children in just one night.

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Now there's a Polish professor, who despite being an adult, does still believe in Father Christmas, and he has set out to prove it to us. The main argument he gives for the existence of Father Christmas?is, that you see imitation of father Christmases everywhere.?And all these imitation father Christmases dress in the same way and look the same. They have the same long white beard.

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When he says, first of all, that you can only imitate something that actually exists.If something does not exist, then you have nothing to imitate. Secondly, our professor argues that it's a fact that all father Christmases look the same.?And that means that there was obviously one original version that they all want to look like.?Furthermore, according to out polish professor, Father Christmas does deliver presents to all the children in just one night.

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First of all, he argues that Father Christmas only delivers presents to good children.That means that he has a more limited number to go and visit.?Secondly, it's a well known fact that all good children find presents from Father Christmas, waiting for them on the right day.Therefore, according to our professor, the only possible conclusion is that Father Christmas does exist on the basis of the fact.

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And he goes on to say that rumors to the contrary, that is to say that Father Christmas does not exist, have probably been spread by nasty people who were bad children, and therefore hadn't been visited by Father Christmas. Thank you.

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