At first, I want to say the following. All of you know everything about England. Almost all of you have been studying the English language for many years. That's why you are here. That's why some of you have come here to show their skills in it and some of you have come to test and examine us.

Of course all of you know the history of this country, know its traditions and its holidays. All of you know its marvelous historic monuments, its heroes and famous people, the names of its great buildings. A cup of tea at five o'clock, Mother the Queen, bad weather with its fog, the Tower of London, red buses and the River Thames: of course you know that.

But, let me ask you one question: where did you get your knowledge? In books at school, at the university, where else? The way you did, I did, too. But I tried to hear different stories and tales about England. Because all, what we have heard at school, was just a sorted mass of proper information, which was far from the reality. And that's why almost all of us have stereotype perception of this country.

That's why I'm standing here today and trying to do my best to tell you about and to show you modern England, without its stiffness and phlegmatic calmness.

Today England is a beautiful modern country, which can suit you in different cases from shopping to business. But if you are really going to visit it, you should know, that English customs officers don't like Russian tourists and treat them very suspiciously. They can provoke you in different ways to leave their country, they can be very rude and annoyed with you. So, in short, they do not like us.

So, when you pass the customs control, you will need a taxi. Some people think, that it is better to catch only black taxies, because they are municipal. But there is a wide net of private taxies, and they are not so expensive as municipal. That is so because their drivers are foreigners, who even don't know the names of streets. When they are driving, they put the map of the city on their knees and look at it to find out the name of the necessary street instead of looking at the road. Such an extreme driving. You should remember too that English cab can deliver you to any part of the country.

The classical hotels of England are small and uncomfortable. That's why it is better to stay at European hotels. There are two distinctive features of England hotels. The first is the mixer in the bathroom. They never mix warm and cold water. Instead of that they have two water taps with cold and hot water in them. And the second distinctive feature is the tea set in the apartments.

When you walk along the streets of London, for example, you can see an English pank with his flashy hair. And also you can see an English homeless man who is talking on the mobile telephone and drinking a cheap vine.

English people are very polite. If you ask someone about the road, for example, to Hyde Park, he will answer you in a very polite and correct form and will get right instructions how to find it.

I suppose that English people are very phlegmatic and calm before. But I was wrong. Englishmen are one of the most expressive people in the world. Let's take their football fans and car drivers. They are just mad. If you visit one of different pubs or little restaurants you will see, that they are very noisy and always cry at each other when have a rest, drink beer and vine. There are a lot of different foreign restaurants in London, because Englishmen prefer to eat foreign food. I want to notice you, that in different English pubs there is no food, even snack, only beer and something stronger. Generally, English people like to drink very much. The Scots even suppose them like to be a drinking nation.

There are a lot of slums like New York's Harlem in London. There are deserted quarters with little shops and full garbage tanks. There are even no passers-by there. They are not favorable districts, there you can be robbed and raped.

There are two cheap ways of travelling in London. The most comfortable of them is electric train. If you buy the travel ticket, you will save some money. It is very interesting to look at Englishmen when they are get into it. The first passenger sits on the seat, and puts his head on a window and falls asleep. The second passenger sits near him, puts his head on the shoulder of the first passenger and falls asleep too. And so sometimes there are four or five such passengers on one seat.

Another feature of all Englishmen is their dressing style. There is only one social class in England which wears suits. They are clerks. All other people wear all what they want. If it is hot outside there are mainly shorts, T-shirts and sport shoes. Even old people follow that dressing style. But clerks do one interesting thing. They take their suits and dress them in electric trains before they arrive at their stations to go the office.

And another way of travelling in London is its Underground. It is the oldest Underground in the world. It is not very clean. Everything is too old in it. Its coaches have very uncomfortable form. That's why it is not very pleasant to travel in it. There are a lot of crimes in it.

One my acquaintance told me, that when you are in England you should forget all English proverbs and famous sayings, because Englishmen always laugh a lot, when hear them from foreigners.

So, today England is a country with different opinions and points of view. There are a lot of different parties. There are a lot of demonstrations in it. It is not a phlegmatic country. You should forget about that stamp. In that case, if you visit it once, you will not be shocked so much. Look only on its pop, rock and movie stars, like Norman Cook, Elton John, George Michaels, Guy Ritchie, Galacher brothers, Sting and many others. They are the direct proof of the ending of old English stiffness.