English Song of the Day

Queen is a British rock band formed in London in 1970, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, piano), Brian May (guitar, vocals), John Deacon (bass guitar), and Roger Taylor (drums, vocals). Queen's earliest works were influenced by progressive rock, hard rock and heavy metal, but the band gradually ventured into more conventional and radio-friendly works, incorporating further diverse styles into their music.

Here is one track from their album A kind of Magic and it was originally conceived by Roger Taylor.

E N J O Y !

Men and Women

Women want more freedom. They want better jobs, more pay, less time at home with their children. Do British women have the same rights as British men?
In the world of work, things have not change much in the last ten years. Forty per cent of jobs are done by women, but only twenty-five per cent are done by married women. And the jobs that women do are the worst paid and the least interesting.

In public life, Britain has had a woman Prime Minister, but only 25 out of 650 Members of Parliament are women. The are many few women in the top business jobs, or in the most important jobs in the civil service.

Margaret Thatcher
The First Woman Primer Minister of England

On the other hand, some things have been changing. Men seem to be more interested in their homes and their children these days. Probably ninety-five per cent of British fathers now watch their babies being born. Twenty years ago, most fathers would not push a baby's pram around the streets or change a baby's clothes. They thought it was "silly" or "unmanly".

                              

But what about house work? Does the modern British man work in the kitchen, or go round with the vacuum cleaner, or hang up the washing to dry? Not very often, is te answer.

Women still do nearly all the work at home, even when they have a full-time job. Men don't really need to worry about "women's lib" after all. Not yet, anyway..

Young people

In work and out of work
Life used to be fun for "teenagers". But for many young people, life is harder now. Jobs are difficult to find. There's not so much money around. Things are more expensive, and it's hard to find a place to live.
Teachers say that students work harder than they used to. They know that good exam results may get them better jobs.
   
Everyday hundreds of young people arrive in London from other parts of Britain, looking for jobs. Some find work, and stay. Others don't find it, and go home again, or join the many unemployed in London.

  

The United Kingdom

   
A nation is born from its land, its history, its art and its institution. These things work together to make us what we are. But above all a nation is made up of people, and although there are things they all share, all of those people are different.

But, how important are these differences? Is there still a "British nation"? And in what ways is Britain changing?


In the old days, it was easy to talk about the British society. But these days is harder to describe the British. The old differences are still there, but people are divided in manynew ways as well.
One difference is the change in age groups. more people are living longer than seventy or eighty years, so the number of old people is growing. At the same time, fewer babies are being born ( the average British family has two children).

Traditions of work are changing too. About three million people have no job. Poor people these days are not only people with badly paid jobs, but people without a job at all.

There are now about four millions "black" and "brown" Britons, who have come (or whose parents have come) to Britain since the 1950s. MOst came from the West Indies, East Africa, India and Pakistan, and live in big cities like London, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool.
 

But somehow, the traditional British way of life still goes on. 

The things that differentiate them makes them interesting.

The things they agree about make them British.