[00:13.84]Listen and practise saying the expressions.
[00:20.01]1.Sorry,my mind’s gone completely blank.
[00:25.44]2.Wait,it’ll come to me in a minute.
[00:33.18]3.Wait,it’s on the tip of my tongue.
[00:41.64]4.Sorry,I can’t remember off the top of my head.
[00:49.08]Pronunciation
[01:00.13]Practise saying the questions .
[01:04.24]a.Who’s in it? b.What’s it about? c.Where’s it on? d.What’s it like?
[01:24.09]e.Who’s it by? f.When was it made? g.Where’s it from? h.What kind of film is it?
[01:45.04]2 While you read
[01:57.11]TV ROBOCOP NOT VIOLENT ENOUGH FOR VIEWERS
[02:02.57]The news that Mary Whitehouse has died at the age of ninety-one
[02:10.51]has brought the same kind of opposing reactions
[02:14.95]that she provoked when she was alive.
[02:18.79]For over thirty years she was the head of the National Viewers’and Listeners’Association,
[02:26.36]which she set up in the late sixties.
[02:30.13]She formed the organisation along with two other mothers in their mid-forties
[02:36.68]to ’protect children from the filth and violence
[02:42.25]that is flooding our TV screens and ruining our children’s lives.’
[02:48.49]When if first startd,the NVLA
[02:53.35]attracted hundreds of people to the meetings it held round the country,
[02:58.52]and the group forced the government and TV companies
[03:03.38]to create a nine o’clock watershed,
[03:07.32]before which programmes should not contain swearing,
[03:12.50]excessive violence or sexual behaviour.
[03:17.17]It also corrdinated letter writing and phone campaigns
[03:23.34]to complain about certain films and programmes.
[03:27.99]A spokesman from the NCLA said,
[03:32.53]’It’s very sad that she has died,
[03:36.97]but she made a great contribution to his country.
[03:41.44]If hadn’t been for Mary Whitehouse,
[03:45.49]the quality of TV in this country would be much worse
[03:50.92]and the effect on our children would’ve been terrifying.’
[03:55.57]One TV producer said in reply,’I would say that’s rubbish really.
[04:02.83]Mrs Whitehouse was just an ultra conservative who didn’t understand art.
[04:08.79]She caused a lot of problems for producers of serious drama and,
[04:14.35]as a result,she might’ve persuaded some writers
[04:19.71]and TV executives not to show one or two things,
[04:24.57]but basically life moved on ahead of her.
[04:28.93]In the end,we’re adults and we live in a democracy
[04:34.21]and we should be able to watch what we like.’
[04:38.05]Raradoxically,a recent incident perhaps proves both sides of argument.
[04:45.81]Following the showing of Robocop,
[04:50.27]the sci-fi movie best remembered for its comic-book violence,
[04:56.20]hundreds of people rang up to complain about it.
[05:01.17]However,what offended the audience was the polite language
[05:07.02]and the fact that it was not violent enough!
[05:11.17]Angry viewers called their local television stations
[05:16.84]saying that the TV version had been censored so much
[05:21.88]that the film had been ruined.
[05:25.43]All the f-words had been over-dubbed and the viilence was so reduced
[05:31.49]that at times it was apparently hard to follow the plot.
[05:36.04]One man who complained said,
[05:40.40]’This is a classic example of over-the-top censorship we constantly get on British TV
[05:48.13]because of people like Mary Whitehouse.
[05:52.71]When are you going to realise these people are dinosaurs
[05:58.16]and let us choose what we want to watch?
[06:02.32]The strong public reaction
[06:07.07]has actually led TV executives to consider putting back
[06:12.11]some of the bad language and violence when it is shown again.
[06:16.97]The film,shown last Saturday night at 10.05 pm,
[06:22.75]attracted more complaints than any other film this year.
[06:28.00]One executive commented that
[06:32.25]’one can’t help but notice we’ve maybe taken too much out of a film like Robocop.
[06:39.62]Maybe we’ve gone a bit too far this time.’
[06:43.75]Mrs Whitehouse must’ve been turning in her grave.
[06:48.82]However,a spokesperson for the NVLA said,
[06:54.38]’People who make these kinds of complaints
[06:59.06]are only concerned about their own interests
[07:03.60]rather than the good fo society as a whole.
[07:07.96]Anybody who can’t give up a little bit of film
[07:12.54]in order to reduce the current climate of violence
[07:17.29]should not be taken seriously
