The B.B.C. (the British Broadcasting Corporation) sends the Queen's speech to every Commonwealth countrv. In her speech the Queen talks about the past year. Traditionallv in speeches, kings or queens say “we” not “I” Queen Elizabeth II doesn't do this. She says “My husband and I” or just 'I''.
The Queen doesn't make her speech onChristrnas Day. She films it a few weeks before. Then she spends Christmas with her familY at Windsor. Does she watch the speech on TV? Nobody knows.
Songs, sayings and superstitions
There are thousands of traditional songs and sayings in English. Many of them tell stones about British historv. For example, here's one about the Great Plague.
Ring-a-ring-a roses
A pocket full of posies
A-tishoo, a-tishoo
We all fall down.
The Great Plague was an illness and it killed millions of people in Europe in the seventeenth century. One of the signs of the illness was j circle of red marks. Thev looked like roses, and that explains the first line of the song. In the second line, "posies" are small bunches of flowers. People carried flowers because of the smell of the Plague. "A-tishoo" is the sound of a sneeze. That was another sign of the Plague. Then, after a few days, people "fell down" or died.
How many of these traditional songs do you know?
Happy Birthday To You - You sing this song at birthday parties. People all over the world sing it.
Auld Lang Syne - This is a song from Scotland. Most people only sing it once a year, on New Year's Eve. "Auld LangSyne" means "a long time ago". The song says, "we must never forget old friends".
God Save The Queen - This is Britain's national song or "anthem."
SUPERSTITIONS
Do vou believe in good luck and bad luck? Most people in the world have some superstitions. These are a few British superstitions with long traditions.
Good Luck
-Black cats are lucky
-Clover is a small plant. Usually it has three leaves, but a few have four. A clover with four leaves brings good luck.
-A horseshoe over the door of a new home brings good luck. But the horseshoe must be the right way up. l~he luck runs out of a horseshoe if it's upside down.
-On the first day of the month it's lucky to say 'White rabbits".
-It's good luck to see two magpies (large black and white birds).
-Catch falling leaves in autumn and you'll have good luck. Everv leaf means a lucky month in the next year.
Bad Luck
-Never open an umbrella in the house. That's very bad luck. Never break a mirror - that means seven years' bad luck. It's bad luck to see just one magpie.
-Don't walk under a ladder.
-Don't walk past soinchodyon the stairs.
-The number thirteen i~ very unlucky (and Friday the 13th is a "cry unlucky date).
SAYINGS
Here are ten British “proverbs” or sayings.
1.Nothing ventured nothing gained.
You have to try or you won't get anything.
2.One man's meal is another man's poison.
People often don't like the same things.
3. The other man's grass is a/way's greener.
You always think that other people's lives are better than yours.
4. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Don't question good luck.
5.Every cloud has a silver lining.
There's always some thing good in bad times.
6. It's no use crying over spilt milk. Don't be too sad after a small acciden~.
7. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. From one problem to another.
8. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Stupid people do things that other people never do.
9. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.
You can give a person a chance, but you can't make him or her take it.
10. A stitch in time saves nine.
Act early and you can save a lot of trouble.
Food and drink
In a real English breakfast you have fried eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato and mushrooms. Then there's toast and marmalade. There's an interesting story about the word "marmalade". It may come from the French "Marie est malade", or "Mary is ill." That's because a seventeenth-century Queen of Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots, liked it. She always asked for French orange jam when she was ill.
British people eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday in February or March. For pancakes you need flour, eggs and milk. Then you eat them with sugar and lemon. In some parts of Britain there are pancake races on Shrove Tuesday. People race with a frying pan in one hand. They have to "toss" the pancake, throw it in the air and catch it again in the frying pan.
ROAST BEEF AND YORKSHIRE PUDDING
This is the traditional Sunday lunch from Yorkshire in the north of England. It is now popular all over Britain. Yorkshire pudding is not sweet. It's a simple mixture of eggs, flour and milk, but it's delicious.
Two common vegetables with roast beef and Yorkshire pudding are Brussels sprouts and carrots. And of course there's always gravy. That's a thick, brown sauce. You make gravy with the juice from the meat.
HAGGIS
Haggis is a tradinonal food from Scotland. You make it with meat, onions, flour, salt and pepper. Then you boil it in the skin from a sheep's stomach - yes, a sheep's stomach.
In Scotland, people eat haggis on Burns Night. Robert Burns (Scots people call him "Rabbie" Burns), was a Scottish poet in the eighteenth century. Every year Scots people all over the world remember him and read his poems.
TEA
Tea is Britain's favourite drink. It's also a meal in the afternoon. You can eat tea at home or in a hotel. Tea at the Ritz hotel in London is very good. You can drink Indian or China tea. There are cucumber sandwiches and scones. (Scones are plain cakes. You eat them with jam and cream.) There are chocolate cakes and cream cakes too.
CHRISTMAS PUDDING
Some people make this pudding months before Christmis.
A lot of families have thcir own Christmas pudding recipe~.
Some, for example, use a lot of brandy. Others put in a lot of
fruit or add a silver coin for good luck.
Real Christmas puddings always have a piece of holly on the top. Holly bushes and trees have red berries at Chris~mas-ume, and so people use holly to decorate their houses for Christmas. The holly on the pudding is part of the decoration. Also, you can pour brandy over the pudding and light it with a match.
HOT CROSS BUNS
The first Christians in Rome made hot cross buns two thousand years ago. But now they're an Easter tradition in Britain. Here's a storv about hot cross buns. In 1800 a widow lived in a house in East London. Her only son was a sailor and went to sea. Everv vear she made hot cross buns and kept one for him. He never came back, but she kept a bun for him every year. Then, after many,years, she died. Now, her house is a pub. It's called 'The Widow's Son". For a long time people remembered the widow. Every Easter they put a hot cross bun in a special basket in the pub. Now the tradition is different. The owner of the pub sells the special hot cross bun. Then he gives the money to the British Sailors' Societv.
Pubs are an important part of British life. People talk, eat, drink, meet their friends and relax there. They are open at lunchtime and again in the evening. But they close at 11.00 (10.30 on Sundays). This surprises a lot of tourists. But vou can always go to Scotland - the pubs close later there!
The word "pub" is short for "public house". There are thousands in Britain, and they nearly all sell pub lunches. Oneof these is a Ploughman's Lunch a very simple meal. It's ust bread and cheese.
Pubs also sell beer. (British beer is always warm.) The traditional kind is called “real ale”. That’sa very strong beer from an old recipe.
An important custom in pubs is 'buying a. round". In a group, one person buys all the others a drink. This is a "round". Then one by one all the other people but rounds, too.
If they are with friends, British people sometimes lift their glasses before they drink and sav "Cheers This means "Good luck".
In the pubs in south-west Lngland there~s another traditional drink - scrumpy. You make scrumpy with apples, but it's not a simple fruit juice. It's very very strong.
Pub names often have a long tradition. Some come from the thirteenth or fourteenth century.
Every pub has a name and every pub has a sign above its door. The sign shows a picture of the pub's name.
EMBLEMS
Each country also has a national "emblem" or sign. The English emblem is a red rose. The Welsh emblem is a vegetable or flower - a leek or a daffodil. The Scottish emblem is a wild plant - a thistle. And the Irish emblem is another wild plant- a shamrock.
It's traditional in Britain to wear your country's emblem on its saint's day. The leek doesn't go in a buttonhole, so the Welsh often wear a daffodil. These are Britain's patron saints and their days.
England - St George - April 23rd. Ireland - Si Patrick - March 17th. Scotland - St Andrew - November 30th. Wales - St David - March 1st.
The Scots, Welsh and English don't really celebrate their national saint's days. But St Patrick's Day is important for Irish people all over the world. In New York, for example, the Irish people always have a big St Patrick's Day parade.
Costumes and clothes
Many British costumes and uniforms have a long history. One is the uniform of the Beefeaters at the Tower of London. This came first from France. Another is the uniform of the Horse Guards at Horse Guards' Parade, not far from Buckingham Palace. Thousands of visitors take photographs of the Horse Guards, but the Guards never move or smile. In fact some visitors think the Guards aren't real. And that brings us to...Britannia. She wears traditional clothes, too. But she’s not a real person. She is symbol of Britain.
Lots of ordinary clothes have a long tradition. The famous bowler hat, for example. A man called Beaulieu made the first one in 1850.
The very cold winters in the Crimea in the war of 1853-56 gave us the names of the cardigan and the balaclava. Lord Cardigan led the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava (1854). A "cardigan" is now a warm woollen short coat with buttons, and a "balaclava" is a woollen hat.
Another British soldier, Wellington, gave his name to a pair of boots. They have a shorter name today - "Wellies".raced on the river Thames and the Oxford boat won. That started a tradition. Now, every Spring, the University Boat Race goes from Putney to Mortlake on the Thames. That's 6.7 kilometres. The Cambridge rowers wear light blue shirts and the Oxford roWers wear dark blue. There are eight men in each boat. There's also a "cox". The cox controls the boat. Traditionally coxes are men,but Susan Brown became the first woman cox in 1981. She was the cox for Oxford and they won.
ROYALASCOT
Ascot is a small, quiet town in the south of England. But in June for one week it becomes the centre of the horse-racing world. It's called Royal Ascot because the Queen always goes to Ascot. She has a lot of racehorses and likes to watch racing. But Ascot week isn't just for horseracing. It's for fashion, too. One woman, Mrs Gertrude Shilling, always wears very big hats. You can see the racecourse in the picture below.
WIMBLEDON
The world's most famous tennis tournament is Wimbledon. It started at a small club in south London in the nineteenth century. Now a lot of the nineteenth-century traditions have changed. For example, the women players don't have to wear long skirts. And the men players don't have towear long trousers.
But other traditions haven't changed at Wimbledon. The courts are still grass, and visitors still eat strawberries arid cream. The language of tennis hasn't changed either. Did you know that "love" (zero) comes from "l'oeuf" (the egg) in French?
THE LONDON TO BRIGHTON VINTAGE CAR RALLY
"Vintage" cars have to be. more than fifty years old and in very good condition. Lotsof people keep or collect vintage cars. And on the first Sunday in November there's a race or "Tally" for them. It starts in London and it finishes in Brighton, a town on the south coast of England. That's a distance of seventy kilometres.
Before 1896 a man with a red flag had to walk in front of cars. In 1896 that changed. A group of happy drivers broke their flags and drove to Brighton. There they had a party. Now the rally is a sporting tradition.
A lot of the people in the rally wear "vintage" clothes, too. In a 1910 car, for example, the driver and passengers wear 1910 hats and coats.
BOXING DAY HUNTS
Traditionally Boxing Day is a day for foxhunting. The huntsmen and huntswomen ride horses. They use dogs, too. The dogs (fox hounds) follow the smell of the fox. Then the huntsmen and huntswomen follow the hounds.
Before a Boxing Day hunt, the huntsmen and huntswomen drink hot wine. But the tradition of the December 26th hunt is changing. Now, some people want to stop Boxing Day hunts (and other hunts, too). They don't like foxhunting. For them it's not a sport - it's cruel.
THE HIGHLAND GAMES
This sporting tradition is Scottish. In the Highlands (the mountains of Scotland) families, or "clans", started the Games hundreds of years ago.
Some of the sports at the Games are international: the high jump and the long jump, for example. But other sports happen only at the Highland Games. One is tossing the caber "Tossing" means throwing, and a "caber" is a long, heavy piece of wood. In tossing the caber you lift the caber (it can be five or six metres tall). Then you throw it in front of you.
At the Highland Games a lot of men wear kilts. These are traditional Scottish skirts for men. But they're not all the same. Each clan has a different "tartan". That's the name for the pattern on the kilt. So at the Highland Games there are traditional sports and traditional clothes. And there's traditional music, too, from Scotland's national instrument -the bagpipes. The bagpipes are very loud. They say Scots soldiers played them before a battle. The noise frightened the soldiers on the other side.
THE GLORIOUS TWELFTH
The grouse is a small bird. It lives in the north of England and in Scotland. It tastes very good. But people can't shoot grouse all the time. They can only shoot them for a few months of the year. And the first day ofthe grouse "season" is August 12th. On that day, "the glorious twelfth", hunters send their grouse to London restaurants. There, people wait for the first grouse of the year. But there's good news for the grouse, too - the season ends on December 10th each year!
The Arts
THE PROMS
Do you like classical music? Every summer in London thereare two months of special concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. These are the "Proms". Sir Henry Wood started the Proms(short for "promenade" concerts) in the nineteenth century
Now they're a tradition in British musical life.
A lot of young people go to the Proms. They buy cheap tickets and stand up for the concerts. They are the "promenaders". There are seats too, but the tickets for those cost more.
The music at the Proms comes from some of the best singers and orchestras in the world. And on the last night there's a big party at the Royal Albert Hall. People bring balloons and paper hats. The orchestra plays popular classical music and at the end everyone sings "Rule Britannia".
THEATRE TRADITIONS
Actors have lots of traditions and superstitions. For example, you don't say "good luck" to an actor. You say "break a leg It's strange but true. "Good luck" is bad luck. Also, actors never say the name of Shakespeare's famous play "Macbeth". They always call it "The Scottish Play". In theatres the name Macbeth brings bad luck.