TEXT 10

SOME PEOPLE LOVE IT - SOME PEOPLE DON′T

 

Barbara Daly, make-up artist 

I took up exercise partly because my husband is dead keen, which made me feel I ought to do something, and partly because my doctor said aerobic exercise would alleviate the asthma I’ve suffered all my life. I now do three or four hours of aerobics each week and I swim at the RAC club two or three evenings a week, too.

I certainly feel better. I thought I was fit before, but this is quite a different experience.

Exercise is also a great stress reliever. I can go to a class at 8.30pm feeling exhausted, and come out feeling marvelous. It’s very important that the gyms I use are open late – and luckily I don’t have to go too far out of my way to reach them.

I think the answer is to do a moderate amount over a long period of time. Over-exercising isn’t sensible, and it certainly isn’t compatible with the life of a busy woman. 

 

Alice Thomas Ellis, novelist 

I hate exercise. I have done since school. Very few of my women friends take any exercise. My husband is a triple Blue, but it’s different for men. It’s natural for them to rush around.

The closest I ever come to taking any exercise is walking down to the local shops to buy some more fags: I smoke about 40 a day. I don’t worry about putting on weight, because I eat very little.

I’m terribly healthy and I’m fitter tan almost anybody I know. Reptiles live forever because they do everything so slowly. And I’m sure that’s what I’m like. Anyway, everybody brought up during the war is healthy. We didn’t have any of the rubbish that people eat today. 

 

Jeffrey Archer, novelist 

I used to take athletics very seriously. I ran for Britain in the Sixties, and I still take a lot of exercise, not because I’m scared of having a heart attack or running to fat, but because I enjoy it. People tend to concentrate on things they are good at or enjoy, and I’ve been keen on sport since my father introduced me to cricket as a child.

I play squash four times a week, including one session with my coach. I find jogging very boring, and pounding along pavements gives me sore shins, so on Saturdays I referee rugby matches, which gives me an hour and a half’s running. In the summer I play cricket with the local third XI.

I find all exercise very relaxing, and being physically fit helps in almost every area of your life. You eat better, sleep better, and work better. I would have thought most people have worked that out by now. 

 

Notes on the text

1. The RAC is the Royal Automobile Club.

2. A Blue is a sporting honor, gained by representing either Oxford or Cambridge against the rival university. A “triple Blue” is therefore someone who has represented his or her university in three different sports – a rare distinction. Oxford’s colors are dark blue, Cambridge’s light blue. 

 

A. Grammar Revision 

Note the use of the present tense, in all three texts, to describe everyday actions.

 

B. Pair Work 

Working in pairs, ask each other questions about the attitudes to fitness of the three personalities featured. Ask students about their attitudes to personal fitness. Do they think it important? How do they try and keep fit? Exercise? Sport? Jogging? What can make you unfit? Lack of exercise? Over-eating? Smoking? Drinking alcohol?

 

C. Role – play 

This time, still working in pairs, play the part of one of the personalities yourself and ask each other questions.

 

D. Dialogue 

Working in pairs, and making use of the question structured and vocabulary you have practiced in this unit, find out about each other’s attitude to exercise, sport and physical fitness.

 

E. Writing Activity 

Write a short piece about your own attitude to exercise, sport and physical fitness. (Don’t write your name on it). Make use, where you can, of some of the vocabulary and expressions in the texts, and remember that to talk about regular activities you will need the present simple tense.