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Yesterday I observed a beautiful young lady. While her little daughter begged unsuccessfully for a bun, she was carefully choosing a shampoo, hair conditioner and bath perfume. Then she picked up a couple of cinema magazines and went to the check-out.

I looked down into her trolley and shuddered: three gallons of milk, 3 loaves of bread, four chickens, a mountain of baby-food jars, cakes and pies.

I especially like to observe male shoppers. I don’t mean househusbands dutifiilly checking items off a list. I prefer a gourmet who knows the real taste of things: imported cheeses, exotic spices, a whole leg of lamb, early asparagus.

I felt hostility flowing from the woman standing behind me in the supermarket check-out queue. Had I cut in front of her? She was glaring into my basket. I quickly surveyed my selections to see what could be generating such hostility. Let’s see: two bottles of champagne, a lovely avocado, a pound of shrimp, and a quart of purified water.

II. Fancy what one can see in a shopping basket of:

1)a good housewife;

2)a divorced man;

3)a woman on a diet;

4)a hearty eater;

5)someone expecting guests.

III. Think of other games you can play in your head to make the time pass when you are waiting in a queue.

Exercise 23

I. Read and translate the following dialogues. Reproduce them.

Dialogue 1

At the Grocery store

Grocer: Hello, Ann, how are you doing today? Ann: Fine, thanks. How are you?

Grocer: I am okay, thank you. What can I get for you, Ann?

Ann: I ‘d like half a pound of butter, a pound jar of strawberry jam, a large bottle of vinegar and a tin of sardines.

Grocer: Will that be all?

Ann: No, I’d also like a small-sized packet of mushroom soup and a piece of smoked bacon. Grocer Will this do? It’s all we have at the moment, I’m

some ham instead. How much is it? Grocer: Eighty pence a pound.

Ann: Good. Half a pound, please. That’ll be all. How much does it come

to?

Grocer: Five pounds thirty seven pence, please. Ann: Right. Here is six pounds.

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Grocer: And here is your change. Ann: Thanks.

Grocer: Good-bye, Ann. Thank you. Come tomorrow, we’ll have a new

stock.

Mrs.Gilbert: Here you are.

Shop assistant: Your change, madam. Thank you. Have a nice day.

Dialogue 3

At the Greengrocer’s

Mrs. Daisy: Oh, that’s a shame. Will you have some later?

Greengrocer: Oh, yes, they will be delivered in the afternoon. I’ll save

Greengrocer: Peaches are quite cheap this time of the year. Thirty pence a pound.

Mrs.Daisy: That’s a real bargain. I’ll take three pounds. Greengrocer: Okay. Now, what else?

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Mrs. Daisy: Well, that’s all for today. How much do I owe you? Greengrocer: That’s four pounds seventy five pence. Here’s your change

from your five pound note — twenty five pence. Mrs. Daisy: Thank you. Good-bye.

Greengrocer: Good-bye, Mrs. Daisy. Thanks a lot.

II. Pick out from the three dialogues sentences, which denote the shop assistants’

a)greeting their customers,

b)offering goods,

c)telling the price of goods.

III. Pick out from the three dialogues sentences, which denote the customer’s

a)greeting shop assistants,

b)telling what they need,

c)asking about the price.

IV. Make up your own dialogues and enact them in class.

Exercise 24

Translate into English.

1.Покупать продукты в супермаркете очень удобно: все покупки можно сделать одновременно.

2.Супермаркеты оборудуют таким образом, чтобы покупатели проходили мимо большого количества полок и видели широкий ассортимент продуктов.

3.В супермаркетах Великобритании цены на товары проставлены очень отчётливо и, как правило, в конце стоит число 99.

4.Рядом с нашим домом есть все магазины: мясной, молочный, овощной, рыбный, а также бакалея и булочная.

5.Я никогда не составляю список продуктов, когда собираюсь идти в магазин, но всегда планирую, в какие магазины я зайду.

6.Когда мы с подругой приходим в супермаркет, я беру корзину, а она - тележку. У нас разный стиль: я покупаю только то, что мне нужно; а она - всё, что красиво упаковано.

7.Натуральные продукты питания предпочтительнее консервированных и замороженных, хотя могут стоить дороже.

8.У кассира не было сдачи с крупной купюры, и пришлось ждать, пока расплатится следующий покупатель.

9.Лучше не покупать продукты по сниженной цене: они могут быть просрочены.

10.Мой сосед - старый холостяк. Он всегда покупает одно и то же: буханку хлеба, десяток яиц, пару килограммов картофеля и пару банок мясных консервов.

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11.Когда есть деньги, я покупаю что-нибудь повкуснее - хороший кусок мяса, салями, банку шпрот, кусочек ветчины, коробку шоколадных конфет, банку болгарских огурчиков. Потом устраиваю пир.

12.Больше всего я не люблю стоять в очереди, поэтому стараюсь пройти через экспресс-кассу.

13.Уже стоя у кассы, она вдруг вспомнила, что забыла купить молока, и пошла назад к прилавку с молочными продуктами.

14.Кассир сидела за кассовым аппаратом и наблюдала за тем, как покупатель выкладывал продукты на ленту конвейера.

15.Очередь двигалась очень медленно, потому что у всех были груды покупок.

Exercise 25

In five minutes write what you buy often and seldom. Compare what you have written with the lists of other students. Discuss the results and try to classify your classmates by putting them in certain categories of shoppers. You can give the names to these categories yourselves.

► Patterns: 1) I often buy bread, ... I seldom buy caviar, ... 2) In my opinion, Kate is a careless shopper, because ...

Exercise 26

Work in groups. Each group should make up a list of products which people usually buy at the age of ten. fifteen, thirty, fifty, seventy. Compare your lists and discuss them agreeing, adding details or criticizing.

► Use:

I completely agree that.. I’m not sure that...

There is no doubt that... I really doubt that...

I also have the idea that I utterly disagree that Who would argue that... I don’t think that...

Exercise 27

Discuss the following points in class.

1.What is preferable for you — to buy food in a big supermarket or in small shops? Why?

2.Where are the best shops for food in your city or town?

3.Speak about foodstuffs sold in your shops. Say whether they are shipped in or grown locally; say which are expensive and inexpensive; say what foodstuffs which you might have seen in the shops abroad are not sold in this country.

4.Do they sell foodstuffs under the counter nowadays? What kind of goods can those be?

5.Do you pay attention to the brand name when you buy food? If not, how do you make your choice?

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6.What is your personal style of shopping for food? Do you buy at once or do you take your time to look around for lower prices?

7.How often do you buy very expensive foodstuffs? What kind of products are those? When does it happen?

Exercise 28

Match the English idioms in the left column with their Russian equivalents

Exercise 29

Highlight the meanings of the English proverbs and make up situations to illustrate them.

1.Forbidden fruit is sweet.

2.Tastes differ.

3.Honey is sweet but the bee stings.

4.Take it or leave it.

Exercise 30

Translate the following quotations into Russian and comment upon them.

‘The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.’

Samuel Butler

‘Creditors have better memories than debtors.’ Benjamin Franklin

‘Necessity never made a good bargain.’ Benjamin Franklin

‘England is a nation of shopkeepers.’ Napoleon I

‘If a continental greengrocer asks 14 schillings (or crowns, or franks..., or whatever you like) for a bunch of radishes, and his customer offers 2, and finally

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they strike a bargain agreeing on 6 schillings, francs, roubles, etc., this is just the low continental habit of bargaining.’

George Mikes

Exercise 31

Role Play "Organising a Party".

Setting: 1) A university refectory, where the students distribute duties to make purchases.

2) A supermarket.

Situation: You decide to celebrate some holiday or just organise a party at someone’s home. Everyone will have to bring something for the table and later you’ll cook together. Enact buying things in a shop. Elaborate the situation yourselves. Fancy that you’ve left money at home or there are no goods you need on sale or you forget something at the last instant.

Characters:

Card I — Molly, the girl, who is going to organise it all. She decides who should buy things and says what you will need them for.

Card II — Sally, the assistant who serves you in the shop you choose. Card III—IV — Bob and Rob, boys who will buy heavy things in the

shop.

CardV-X - Nelly, Kelly, Dolly, Polly, Lilly, Tilly, tree pairs of students who walk around the supermarket and discuss what they have to buy.

Card XI — Penny, the cashier at the till.

EXTRA TASKS

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1. Read and translate the text

Sweet Sixteen

Sixteen soft pink blankets fold inwards over sixteen soft warm smiling babies. Sixteen dark-haired young mothers meet their sixteen babies’ soft smiling mouths in a kiss.

Naomi looks round to see the cluster of other mothers, like herself, mesmerized by Granada TV Rental’s windows1. The cluster breaks, and its various components span out across the cool marble floor.

Lucy strains to stand up in her pushchair. Naomi eases her out of the canvas straps and settles her on the red seat of the silver trolley. She pauses momentarily, to decide which is to be the first aisle of the journey; should she start with soft drinks, vegetables, frozen foods, tins - she decides on fruit juice.

As they wheel past the rack of special-offer Mars bars, Naomi gently deflects Lucy’s outstretched hand, her thumb briefly stroking the soft palm of Lucy’s hand. I could do the shopping with my eyes shut, thinks Naomi, once a week for how many weeks, everything always in the same place. She turns the trolley to the right, to the fridge where the pineapple juice cartons - she stops. The open maw of the fridge gapes. It is empty. Ah well. Perhaps they have run out of cartons of fruit juice.

She decides to do dairy products next; cream, butter, some yoghurt - but instead, on the racks where the dairy products used to be, she finds pizzas, steak and kidney pies in transparent wrappings, and further on packets of frozen raspberries. Something is wrong. She begins to collect, feeling uneasy that it isn’t in the order of her choice, worried that if she leaves things now to go on to another aisle, they will have disappeared when she gets back.

She wheels on, to where she expects to find the vegetable racks: the net bags of apples, avocados. But instead there are long spaghetti packets, rice, curled pasta. Again she collects, panic beginning to rise. She mustn’t show it to Lucy, who is happy being wheeled at such sightseeing speed.

Naomi makes confidently for the cold meat counter; it is dark, piled up with towers of soft toilet paper; the plastic box where scraps of meat were sold cheaply, the ends of cuts, is upside down, empty. For the first time she notices the other women. They walk fast, their heads slightly bent, cradling high piled baskets, anxiety on their faces, grabbing cereals, bread, soap powders, cleansers, hurrying past pensioners, running, running.

Lucy now has a fist in her. mouth, enjoying the game.

Naomi speeds up to join the pace, taking what she can wherever she can, until she arrives at the back of the floor space, at the point where the soft drinks used to be. Naomi gasps. The once smooth space is now a raw gash, copper cables twisting like thick muscle fiber, clinging to the broken brick and plaster gaps in the walls.

1 * Granada TV Rental — the name of a supermarket.

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Naomi hears a voice saying. Nothing is where it was. Lucy giggles and she realizes that she has spoken out loud. She looks round. No one seems to have heard her. They are all too busy. Naomi looks down at the trolley. It is full of everything she has meant to buy, but none of it is in the right order. Naomi wheels the trolley slowly towards the cash tills. Lucy, sensitive to the change in pace, stops giggling; she is now pale and still. Naomi joins a queue at a cash till, watching the other women. Naomi stands behind a woman who fumbles for her cheque book. Naomi watches paper bags, plastic carriers, boxes and baskets flash between the tills and the plate glass window.

Naomi’s turn comes. She lifts a bottle of lemon and lime out of the trolley. The outside is sticky. Naomi moves her index and second fingers to a dry part of the bottle, her hand slips, the bottle falls, its soft edge knocks against the rim of the conveyor belt and bursts.

Thick, bright green liquid squirts luminously back into the trolley, over tins of tuna fish. Lucy claps her hands in delight, and reaching into the trolley, she lifts a packet of white flour and drops it with a dull thud on the floor. A white cloud powders the feet of the women. Lucy giggles. Naomi feels a cloud of answering laughter rise in her, tries to keep it down, looks up and catches the eye of the woman queuing behind her. The woman smiles, ruffles Lucy’s hair and then lifts a bag of tomatoes from her own baskets and hurls it overarm against the special offer of tea bags. Red seed drips down against the green boxes.

The women look at one another. Suddenly bits of flattened, squared ham fly free of their jellied, cellophane packets, duck pate bursts out of its blue pottery bowls, salt and vinegar crisps crackle underfoot, sliding through white cottage cheese.

The lights of the cash tills spark white, the women sitting at the money machines aren’t sure which way to turn, one picks up a cucumber and slides it along the floor, into a welcoming pool of raspberry yoghurt.

Outside the plate glass window red and blue lights flash as pale men in dark blue peer through the window at all Christmas and birthday and anniversary celebrations in one.

Ten feet away, sixteen dark-haired mothers smile at their babies for the sixteenth time and enfold them in sixteen warm, pink blankets.

(Story by Michelene Wandor. Abridged)

I.Answer the questions.

1.Where does Naomi see sixteen mothers first?

2.Who is Lucy?

3.How old can Lucy be?

4.What aisle does Naomi choose to be the first one?

5.Does the sight in front of her eyes meet her expectations?

6.What does she decide to do next?

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7. What does Naomi see on the racks where the dairy products used to

be?

8.What does Naomi find on the vegetable racks?

9.What kind of box does she find empty?

10.Does Naomi notice the other women?

11.Does Naomi manage to collect everything she has meant to buy?

12.What does Naomi see at a cash till?

13.What happens when Naomi lifts a bottle of lemon and lime?

14.Why does Lucy drop a packet of white flour?

15.How does the woman behind her react?

16.What do the other women start doing?

17.How do the women sitting at the cash tills react?

18.What do the phrases "red and blue lights flash" and "pale men in dark blue" mean?

19.Why is the story called Sweet Sixteen?

II. Discussion points.

1.Do you find the end quite unexpected?

2.Was it an abnormal reaction on the part of the customers?

3.What caused this sort of reaction, in your opinion?

2. Mixed up vocabulary

dtamnerpet srteo - (n) a shop where you can buy a wide range of products gsocrreei - (n) everyday shopping such as food, cleaning items, cat food, etc. chgainng romo - (n) a place to try on clothes before buying them

bganira - (n/adj/v) an item selling at a very good price

reundf - (n/v) if you take an item back to a shop, you should get one of these gfti vcehuro - (n) similar to money but you can only spend it in one store mnnanqiue - (n) a lifesize model of a person used for displaying clothes

I. Idioms and collocations

I haven’t got any money but we can go uptown and do some _________

shopping.

We’re going to Milan for the weekend and we’re going to shop until we

________ .

I had buyer’s ________ after spending $300 on a pair of Italian shoes.

Don’t let the dog go in Grandma’s living room, he’s like a _________ in a china shop.

Buy now, pay later! Get interest free ________ on all purchases made in September.

credit window drop remorse bull

II. Discuss these questions in pairs.

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Do you have a favourite shop?

What do you enjoy shopping for?

Do you shop online?

Have you ever suffered from buyer’s remorse?

Do you prefer to shop alone or with friends?

What’s the best place for shopping in your town or city?

How often do you buy clothes?

Where do you buy your groceries?

Have you ever worked in a shop?

What’s the worst thing about shopping?

LISTENING COMPREHENSION 1. Are we afraid of food? (6 min English)

Discuss in pairs: Are food allergies on the increase and if so, why? Do some people believe they have an allergy when they don’t?

Neil and Alice discuss how the food industry has responded to this growing fear of food and teach some related vocabulary.

What is “This week’s question”?

______________________________________________? Is it…

a)______________?

b)______________?

c)______________?

You can hear the right answer at the end of the programme.

Match the definitions to the Vocabulary items?