Be Good and if You Can’t Be Good Be Careful
I happened to be spending New Year's Eve in a plane going from Paris to New York. It was an unusual experience for us.
At midnight the captain switched on the loudspeaker and wished the passengers a very happy New Year, fabulous fortune, amazing good luck, incredible good health and what not!
He must have forgotten to switch off the loudspeaker, for we could all hear the private conversation he had with the other pilot. It went on something like this:
- I say, Jim, enough work for tonight. I'm going to switch on automatic pilot and make some coffee.
- That's the spirit - answered the other voice -I feel like having a drink and I could do with a kiss, too.
- Strangely enough, I'm in a kissing mood too. Just think, Bill, after we've made some coffee and had a drink, Betty can sit on my lap and I can press my lips to hers...
Betty was the stewardess, now busy carrying drinks for passengers. When she heard the conversation, as we all did, she blushed prettily, put away the tray and rushed to the captain's cabin, probably to switch off the loudspeaker. Unfortunately, she stumbled over the carpet, fell down and got terribly bruised.
Among the passengers there was an English doctor and a perfect gentleman too. He helped the girl up, felt her pulse and said:
- There was no need for you to get so excited, you needn't hurry, you know! He's not going to kiss you just yet. He's got to make the coffee first. Take your time!
Crossword Puzzle
Across clues
1. one of the separate areas in which a railway carriage is divided 2. a square piece of cloth or paper used for protecting your clothes and for cleaning your hands and lips during a meal 3. the station at the end of a railway line 4. a limited range and amount of food that you eat when you want to get thinner. 5. someone who commands a ship 6. a situation in which someone is injured or something is damaged without any intention 7. a small round window on the side of a ship or a train 8. a boat that carries people or goods across a river or a narrow part of a sea 9. a piece of heavy metal that is lowered to the bottom of the sea to prevent a ship moving 10. a place for someone to sleep in a train 11. a very large box in which clothes are packed for travel 12. type of aircraft with large metal blades on top which turn around very quickly to make it fly 13. the fact of something being easy to see
Down clues
14. a long light boat that is pointed at both ends 15. a document that proves who that person is 16. a journey 17. a thick round rubber band that fits around the wheel of a car 18. a sound that indicates the departure of the train 19. a list of the times at which buses, trains, planes arrive and leave 20. the people working on a ship 21. an electric vehicle for carrying the passengers which moves on metal tracks 22. a large sleeping boat 23. the moment a train leaves 24. someone whose job is to carry travellers’ bags at railway stations, airports the process of flying 25. a person trained to operate the controls of an aircraft
Proverbs About Travelling
Every country has its customs.
Good riddance.
If you run after two hares, you will catch neither.
Let bygones be bygones.
The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.
The more haste, the less speed.
To send (carry) owls to Athens.
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
Where there’s a will, there is a way.
Travel makes a wise man better but a fool worse.
Poems About Travelling
Train a-travelin’
There's an iron train a-travelin' that's been a-rollin'
through the years,
With a firebox of hatred and a furnace full of fears.
If you ever heard its sound or seen its blood-red broken frame,
Then you heard my voice a-singin’ and you know my name.
Did you ever stop to wonder 'bout the hatred that it holds?
Did you ever see its passengers, its crazy mixed-up souls?
Did you ever start a-thinkin' that you gotta stop that train?
Then you heard my voice a-singin’ and you know my name.
Do you ever get tired of the preachin' sounds of fear
When they're hammered at your head and pounded in
your ear?
Have you ever asked about it and not been answered plain?
Then you heard my voice a-singin' and you know my name.
I'm a-wonderin' if the leaders of the nations understand
This murder-minded world that they're leavin' in my hands.
Have you ever laid awake at night and wondered 'bout
the same?
Then you've heard my voice a-singin' and you know my name.
Have you ever had it on your lips or said it in your head
That the person standin' next to you just might be misled?
Does the raving of the maniacs make your insides go insane?
Then you've heard my voice a-singin' and you know my name.
Do the kill-crazy bandits and the haters get you down?
Does the preachin’ and the politics spin your head around?
Does the burning of the buses give your heart a pain?
Then you've heard my voice a-singin' and you know
my name.
Bob Dylan
***
Look to left and look to right,
Note what traffic is in sight.
Note, too, which light can be seen:
The Red, the Amber, or the Green.
Children, keep from dangerous play
And THINK before you cross to-day.
Nursery rhyme
***
Safety First
Always look to left
And right,
Use the crossings,
watch the light!
Guide your bike
with both your hands,
Don't hold on to cars
and vans.
Games in the park
can be a treat,
But never play
in a busy street.
Anonymous
Boating
Gently the river bore us
Beneath the morning sky,
Singing, singing, singing
Its reedy, quiet tune
As we went floating by;
And all the afternoon
In our small boat we lay
Rocking, rocking, rocking
Under the willow grey.
When into bed that evening
I climbed, it seemed a boat
Was softly rocking, rocking,
Rocking me to sleep,
And I was still afloat.
I heard the grey leaves weep
And whisper round my bed,
The river singing, singing,
Singing through my head.
James Reeves
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughtered silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things.
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and
swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, nor even eagle flew.
John Gilespie
V. CREATIVE TASKS