THE CAR - a short story

"It's a really good bargain," said the man in the showroom ; and as far as Shafi could tell, he was telling the
truth.
"It's yours for just £5,000!" he continued. "You won't find a better buy anywhere else in the North; and what's
more, we'll give you a year's insurance with it. Free!"
Shafi eyed the vehicle longingly; it was bright red, and just over a year old - and inside it had that smell of
polish that comes with a new car. There was just the matter of the price - it was more than he had planned to
spend on his first car, and more than he actually had available.
"Five thousand?" he asked, hoping rather hopelessly that he had somehow misheard.
"Five grand! That's it. But you can 'ave it for three in cash now, and the rest in three months. You can get
a loanfrom the bank!"
Ever since he'd taken his first job at the burger bar at the age of 17, he'd been saving up for a nice car; of
course, he could have made do with a cheap wreck years ago - but that was not what he wanted. Shafi wanted a
good car, a nice car, one that would make him feel as if he had achieved something better in life than serving in a
restaurant.
He handed over the crisp fifty pound notes. Even if the insurance was only third-party, he reckoned it was a
good buy at the price.
Settling in to the driving seat, he adjusted it for position, and turned the key. Within minutes, he had passed
the outskirts of Leeds, and was headed for Gemma's house in Frampton. After all, she'd been badgering him to get
a car, ever since he'd first mentioned the idea to her a month or so earlier
He knew that she'd be impressed.
"So you bought it at last!" she exclaimed. "Great!" Now we can go places!"
"Yes. And it goes like a dream!"
"Let's take it over to Sawby tonight," she suggested. "Jess is on the door, he'll let us in free."
"Good idea."
Sawby was only sixteen miles away, but the quickest way to get there was to take the motorway ; and besides
Shafi was keen to see how fast he could get the new car up to.
"Hey, take it easy," said Gemma, as the speedometer edged up towards the 100 m.p.h. mark. "You don't want
to get done for speeding on the very first day!"
Shafi slowed down; the exit for Sawby was coming up fast.
As luck would have it, there was a space just opposite the club as Shafi proudly arrived in the shining new car.
A group of young men watched from the pavement opposite as he carefully parked by the kerbside.
Jess wasn't on the door after all, and they had to pay to get in; but the atmosphere in the club was hot and
exciting as usual. It was a popular place, and with some of the best D.J's in the region, it attracted people from all
round, even from Manchester.
"So you've got your car at last, eh Shafi, boy!" said a voice in the semi-darkness.
Shafi looked round. He recognised the speaker at once, and was not pleased. It was Rooksby, Gemma's former
boyfriend. The three of them had worked together a year ago in a restaurant, until Rooksby was sacked for
insulting a group of foreign tourists.
"Hello," said Shafi.
"Smart job, ain't it!" said Rooksby.
"Yes," he answered. "Very nice thankyou...."
"A bit too smart for someone like you, ain't it?"
"Oh give over!" said Gemma.
Rooksby gave a sarcastic laugh, and moved away.
It was almost 3 a.m. as they emerged from the club.
"Hey!" exclaimed Shafi, looking across the street. "Where's the car? We left it there, didn't we?."
"Yes, I think so," said Gemma.
"Oh no, don't say someone's gone an' nicked it already," Shafi groaned. The tears were already beginning to
well up in his eyes.
 "What did you do with the keys?" asked Gemma.
"They're here," he answered, rummaging in his pocket. "Or at least I think they are."
Then he frowned. "They've gone.... They can't have.... I must have put them down somewhere.... No! this is
ridiculous."
He was looking increasingly desperate.
At that moment, a red car roared past them, and disappeared up the road.
"But that's the car," Shafi exclaimed. "It's my car! Come back!"
"No good yelling after 'em," said a voice from behind, "Looks like you've lost it, doesn't it, Shafi boy!"
They turned and saw Rooksby again, a wry smile on his twisted lips.
"That's brilliant!" said Gemma. "You bring me out here, then the car gets nicked. How'm I goin' to get home?"
"I'll call a taxi," said Shafi.
"I'll run you home if you like," said Rooksby. "I've just got room for one!"
"You?" said Gemma. "Well I suppose it's better 'n nothing."
*******
Two weeks later, the police called Shafi's employer, asking for the owner of a red car.
Shafi eagerly took the phone; "You've found it?" he asked excitedly.
"Yes Sir," said the voice on the other end of the phone. "It's in the pound in Birmingham.... but I'm afraid you
can't have it back now."
"What? Why not?"
"Well Sir, you see it's a write-off."
Shafi felt a lump rising in his throat. "You mean...."
"Fatal accident, Sir. The driver was killed, and the passenger's in intensive care. She's just told us you were
the owner of the car."
"What? Who was it then?"
"She won't give us her name. She just says she wants to see you. She says she's sorry. Perhaps you can help
us with our enquiries."

bargain: good value for money - insurance: guarantee against the risk of accident - longingly: with desire -
available: at his disposal, ready - mishear: hear incorrectly - loan: money lent - make do with: have -
wreck: something in bad condition - achieve something: be successful - reckon: think - outskirts: suburbs,
periphery - - kerbside: edge of the pavement - job: machine - groan: lament - wry: cynical -
eagerly: enthusiastically - pound: guarded car park - intensive care: part of a hospital where badly injured or sick
people are treated.

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Short story: the Car

Comprehension exercise:

Select the closest equivalent of the following words and expressions used in the story:

 eyed: a) looked at, b) saw, c) noticed

 achieved: a) finished, b) begun c) done
 badgering: a) forbidding b) helping c) persuading
 take it easy: a) Go on! b) don't be difficult! c) calm down!
 give over: a) Say that again. b) Stop it! c) Let me have it!
 yelling: a) running. b) looking c) shouting
 nicked: a) stolen b) lost c) damaged
 a write-off: a) An advertisement b) A ruin c) A form to fill in.
Fill in the missing words exercise:
Fill in the missing words in this short extract from the story:

_____ _____ he'_____ taken his first job _____ the burger bar _____ the age of 17, he_____ _____ saving _____
_____ a nice car; of course, he _____ _____ made do with a cheap wreck years _____ - but _____ was not _____
he wanted. Shafi wanted a good car, a nice car, _____ that would make him feel _____ _____ he had achieved
__________ better in life _____ serving in a restaurant.

Complete the dialogue exercise:

When Shafi wenf fo "help the police with their enquiries"; he was asked a lot of questions. Here are the answers:
What were the questions ?

Police inspector: How ............................ .......................

Shafi: Well, for just over two weeks.
Police: Did ............................................ ................
Shafi: Yes, she was a good friend.... or at least, I thought she was.
Police: When ......................................... .................
Shafi: Well when I left her outside the club at Sawby.
Police: And what.................................... ....................
Shafi: I don't remember really. I think I said "goodbye".
Police: Did ............................................ ................
Shafi: Well of course not.
Police: And did ........................................................
Shafi: Well, I did have some suspicions, but I knew she didn't do it..... well not personally.
Police: Do you .................................... .....................
Shafi: Well, yes, it's Rooksby
Police: ls ................................................. ............
Shafi. Yes.
 Music: the story of the Blues
by Robert Springer

What is - or what are - the Blues? The Blues is a feeling, most African Americans will tell
you. If your girl or boyfriend leaves you, for instance, it's quite likely you'll feel sad or dejected for days. In
other words, you'll feel blue; you'll have the blues.
What few African Americans will tell you is that the origin of the expression isn't black and American, but
English, although today it's usually associated with Black Americans. In 16th century England, people
who were depressed were said to be persecuted by the "blue devils". Later, in 1807, American author
Washington Irving already talked about "having a fit of the blues".
But the blues today is generally understood as being a type of music which expresses the feeling of
depression which was once common to Blacks, due to oppression, segregation and problems with the
other sex. This may be the reason why Blacks used to say "White men can't have the blues", at least not
the same kind of blues
. The origins of the blues are difficult to retrace because, quite naturally, an oral genre like the blues
leaves few written traces. It seems to have developed about 100 years ago, though the name "blues" was
not yet used at the time. It grew out of black field songs, negro spirituals and the white folk ballads
imported by British settlers and somewhat modified on American soil.
The first blues recordings appeared around 1920. They were made by black women singers who were
actually singing a somewhat adulterated form of the music which, strangely enough, was later called "the
classic blues". Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith were the most authentic and popular performers of the
genre in the 1920's.
The original country or rural blues did not come to be recorded until around 1925, when the record
companies realised they could make quite a profit by asking black farmers, who were at best semi-
professional musicians, to record a few songs for them in return for a little whisky and about $5 per song.
The lady singers, being professional entertainers, of course requested more.
Thanks to this fortunate circumstance, we are now reasonably certain that the country blues originated
from the Mississippi Delta (an area in the state of Mississippi which must not be confused with the Delta
of the Mississippi river in Louisiana). Blacks here once made up over 90% of the population, and were
heavily exploited and oppressed. Typically in this original form of blues, a black sharecropper would sing
about his hardships, while accompanying himself on the guitar. The rural blues also developed in the
cotton-growing region of East Texas, and through much of the South Eastern part of the USA.
In the 1920s and 1930s, many Blacks migrated to the North and Midwest. They found work in the
factories in Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, and other cities; but ghettoes formed quite soon, when,
by sheerweight of numbers, they began to overwhelm the whites who left city areas they had once had
to themselves. Blacks brought their ethnic culture and their music with them. Blues singers migrated too,
especially since, in a lot of cases, they were workers themselves, and like everyone else they were trying
tomake a better living.
A certain nostalgia for the south developed; but at the same time, the transplanted Blacks were
becoming more sophisticated, prefering to listen to music played by musicians more sophisticated than
the rural blues performers. Thus small blues combos, with piano, guitar, harmonica and other
instruments, began to replace the solo performers. From the 40's onwards, they converted to electric in-
struments, and began to play a new form of blues, louder, more aggressive, which came to be called
"urban blues". In the 50's, Muddy Watersand Howlin' Wolf were among the major exponents of this type
of music, and later served as models imitated by many sixties groups such as the Rolling Stones and
the Animals.
After a period of hibernation in the 50's, the growing popularity of blues with young white audiences
gave a lot of black blues-singers the opportunity to play again on a larger scale, for more money than
before.
Still, it is quite clear that today the blues, as an independent genre, is no longer considered as very
fashionable. Yet with its easy-to-learn three-chord structure, it is a convenient springboard for musical
improvisation. It has had a wide influence on modern popular music of many varieties, and on musicians
who wish to return to the roots of modern popular music before jumping off in another, perhaps new,
direction.

WORDS

Click here to open vocabulary guide

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The Blues Story

Language study, based on the first seven paragraphs of the text:

1. There are words and expressions we use to indicate that what we are expressing is approximate,
true to a certain degree, or apparently or generally true. How many words or expressions of this type can
you pick out? How does the meaning of each sentence change, if they are eliminated?

2. Explain the use of the following expressions. Is it possible to eliminate them and keep the same
meaning?

§ 1; In other words. § 2; said to be § 4; quite naturally. § 5; actually. § 6; at best. § 7; heavily,

Typically.

Write short coherent sentences, based on information in the article, to link the following words in the order
given:
1. oppression / segregation / the blues
2. traces / genre / origins
3. "classic blues" / adulterated / Bessie Smith
4. blues / sharecroppers / Mississippi delta / hardships
5. cities / Midwest / ghettoes / combos
6. 1960's / popular / white / money

Woody Guthrie
The dustbowl baladeer
In the USA today, as climate change brings more extreme conditions of drought, heat and rain,
many Americans are dreading a return to the terrible Dustbowl years of the 1930s, which caused the
migration and ruin of thousands of small farmers. The Dustbowl was a tragic period in American
history, an epoch which has best been remembered for future generations by one novelist and one
singer. The novelist was John Steinbeck, the singer was Woody Guthrie, the "Dustbowl baladeer"

Woody Guthrie in 1943

Woody Guthrie first saw the light of day in the wild dusty oil-boom town of Okemah, Oklahoma, in
the year 1912. He was a skinnny curly haired boy who was always quick to smile; but from an early
age, the smile hid a background of tragedy and a deep social conscience. And until he died, Woody
was to continue making up songs that were full of a love for people, a hatred of injustice, and a
happiness in living.
Tragedy first struck when Woody was still a young child. His father was a land-trader, and soon
made enough money in oil-mad Okemah to build a nice six-room home for the family; yet shortly after
the Guthries moved in, the house burned down. By then, the Depression was already beginning to
bite, and Pa Guthrie couldn't afford another one. For the next few years, the Guthries moved from
house to house as their fortunes got worse; and as if the falling family fortunes weren't enough,
human tragedy struck too. Woody's favourite sister, Clara, died after being horribly burned by the
explosion of an oil stove.
"Later on," wrote Woody in a brief autobiography, "worried from this and other things, my mother's
nerve gave way like an overloaded bridge." Not long after, Woody's mother was sent to a mental
asylum, where she later died. A saddened and a broken man, Woody's dad did his best to keep
happiness alive in the broken family: he would sing to his children, but, remembered Woody, "I could
tell by the sounds of his voice that he was not singing to make his own self feel good, but to try and
make us kids feel better."
Then the family home burned down for the second time.

An "Okie" family fleeing west on Route 66 to escape the Dustbowl

A growing youth by then, Woody set off to seekhis fortune far from the sad memories of his
childhood. Hitch-hiking across America with a guitar on his back and paintbrushes in his pocket,
he made for California, joining the crowds of Okiesseeking a better life in the West. He mixed with
the migrant farm workers, and learned their trade, singing about it in some of his finest "Dustbowl
Ballads"; but Woody was not really a farm laborer.
 He was an artist and a musician, and he earned a livelihood painting signs, and — most importantly
— singing and talking on radio stations. Very soon, he got a reputation as an outspoken defender of
the poor and the exploited, and a well-armed enemy of those who exploited them. "I saw the
hundreds of thousands of stranded, broke, hungry, idle, miserable people that lined the highways.... I
heard these people sing in their jungle camps, and I sang songs I made up for them," he wrote.
Soon, Woody was renowned as a militant labor unionist, a champion of the public cause against
private greed. In 1941, he was taken on by the Bonneville Power Administration, a state-run
organisation, to help them win public approval for two vast dam projects on the Columbia River. The
BPA project was hotly contested by the owners of private power companies, who did not want to lose
their monopoly over the electricity supply in the region. Woody's collection of "Columbia River
Songs" is a major contribution to the social history of the American West in the 1930s and early 40s,
fixing in song and poetry the trials of a generation of rural Americans. In part thanks to Woody, the
dams were built.
In the 1950s, Woody was one of the many artists and writers to fall victim to the MacCarthyist witch-
hunts for supposed "Communists". Publishers gave up publishing his collections, and his most
famous songs, such as "This Land is My Land", were presented as "anonymous".
Still, MacCarthyism was not able to stop Woody, and he went on singing and writing until, in the late
fifties, he became confined to bed in a hospital, an incurable victim of a slowly spreading paralysis.
For the last ten years of his life, he lay in bed, a dying hero, forgotten by many but regularly visited by a small
band of faithful, many of whom were later to make sure that after his death, Woody would not be forgotten.
Many of the great folk-singers of the sixties and seventies were among his admirers. There was, for instance,
a young girl called Joan Baez, and a skinny curly-haired youth, rather like the young Woody himself, whose
name was Robert Zimmerman. Later on, explaining his own success, Zimmerman never hesitated to
express his debt to, and admiration of, Woody Guthrie. Zimmerman was the follower, Guthrie the master.
Zimmerman went on to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 2016, so of course, you now realise that
Zimmerman wrote and sang, and still sings, under another name .... a certain Bob Dylan. What better way to
recall the importance of the Dustbowl Balladeer.

WORDS
balladeer: singer of ballads - skinny : thin - hatred: opposite of love - land-trader: man who buys and sells
land - the Depression : the economic bad times - mental asylum - hospital for people with mental illness -
seek : search for - Okies - people from Oklahoma - livelihood: living - outspoken:active - to line: to be
beside - labor unionist: member of a workers' union - greed: desire for possessions - approval: acceptance -
dam: barrage - the electricity supply: the right to provide electricity - trials : difficulties - publisher: man who
publishes books, etc. - faithful : loyal supporters- his debt to : what he owed to -

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STUDENTS' WORKSHEET - printable
Woody Guthrie - the Dustbowl baladeer
Prepositional verbs: .
There are eight idiomatic prepositional verbs in the text, highlighted in yellow. The eight verbs are
repeated below in column A, eight meanings are given in column B. Match the prepositional verbs
with their meanings.
Column A Column B

give up depart

give way employ

go on invent

make for invent

make up fail, stop working

make up (2) stop

set off continue

take up go in the direction of

Endings
Replace the missing word endings in this short extract from the article
Hitch-hik___ across America with a guitar on his back and paintbrushes in his pocket, he
made for California, join___ the crowds of Okies seek___ a better life in the West. He
mix___ with the migr___ farm work___ , and learned their trade, sing___ about it in
some of his finest "Dustbowl Ballads"; but Woody was not real___ a farm labor___ .
He was an art___ t and a music___ , and he earn___ a livelihood paint___ signs, and —
most importantly — sing___ and talk___ on radio stations. Very soon, he got a
reputation as an outspok___ defend___ of the poor and the exploit___ , and a well-
arm___ enemy of those who exploit___ them. "I saw the hundreds of thousands of
strand___ , broke, hungry, idle, miserable people that lined the highways.... I heard these
people sing in their jungle camps, and I sang songs I made up for them," he wrote.
Soon, Woody was renown___ as a milit___ labor union___ , a champion of the public
cause against private greed.

MEDICAL CROSSWORD - 2
Everyone needs to know some medical English; not just medical students and health workers, but
everyone. Anyone can find themselves in hospital one day !
Here is a thematic medical English crossword for students of English as a foreign language, or English as
a second language. Most of the answers to the crossword have something to do with the world of
medicine and hospitals.

CLUES ACROSS

1. I’m feeling as ill .... can be!

3. Place where people undergo long medical treatment.
8. Something which makes you go to sleep.
10. What they do to people with very contagious diseases.
12. The people who help doctors with some medical work.
14. The lady in charge of these ladies in 3 across.
16. If you are this, you don’t need to see a doctor.
17. Small piece of paper with information.
18. Long lasting, or very severe (referring to an illness).
20. Take temperature with it.

CLUES DOWN
2. Visible marks after a wound has healed.
4. It is usually performed by a surgeon.
6. Where a surgeon cuts people up!
7. Ill.
9. Oily substance put on the skin.
11. You may need a doctor’s prescription to get it.