英文杂志-Magazine：Ice-cream and banking

Ice-cream and bankingBy John KutiRussian ice-cream is great. Any shop or street seller can offer a choice of different ones for less than ten roubles, that’s about 20p in British money, which I think is a fair price. They have natural fruit flavours and they are made with thick creamy milk. I always feel good when I buy an ice-cream, and this article explains where that good feeling comes from. It’s not only because I like ice-cream.

In my childhood world of 1970s Britain, ice-cream was cheap. It was cheap because it was made in huge factories from a kind of margarine. There was very little milk in it at all, and I don’t think there was any cream. By the way, the inventor of this industrial process was a young chemist called Margaret Thatcher¹. (More about her later.)

Ice-cream was cheap, but my family was poor. My parents were poor and strict. They gave me pocket money, but I think this money was designed to be part of my moral education. It wasn’t for buying things with - it was for saving. So, when it began, my pocket money was 5p. Of course prices were different then – it was a period of high inflation². But my pocket money was never quite enough to buy an ice cream. I had to learn to wait until next week for ice-cream.

My parents would probably agree with the advice that Charles Dickens’ father gave him… "Annual income, twenty pounds; annual expenditure³, nineteen pounds; result, happiness. Annual income, twenty pounds; annual expenditure, twenty-one pounds; result, misery⁴." (In fact his father didn’t follow this advice but that’s another story.) Later, he put these words into the mouth of Mr. Micawber in his book David Copperfield.

Most people in Britain believe that it’s a good idea to save money and try to avoid being in debt. This is an important part of the culture, or at least it was in the past. One of the main motivations for the co-operative movement was to help poor people stop using credit from shop-keepers. Working class people put their money into “friendly societies” which helped when a member was ill, or one of their family died. They also set up building societies. Building societies at first only existed for the time it took to build houses for the members. They were an example of the philosophy of “self-help”. People would join together and save their money until they had enough to build a row of houses, or an estate. Often the streets were named after famous radicals⁵ of the period – liberal campaigners for democracy and against alcohol.

In the 1970s, Margaret Thatcher became a popular politician by saying that borrowing money was bad for governments too. It was an idea that lots of people liked exactly because their parents had told them that debt was immoral⁶ and that you should never spend more than you earn.

The world has changed plenty since then. Margaret Thatcher is now one of the most unpopular British politicians of all time. Some building societies still exist, but many of the biggest have become banks – that is to say they don’t have members. They are run in the same way as other big businesses and they just have customers. People in Britain seem to be quite relaxed about using the banks’ services – credit cards, overdrafts⁷, loans of different kinds. In August 2004 the amount of debt in British families reached one trillion pounds. That’s £1,000,000,000,000 or £17,000 for every man, woman and child.

This is not all bad of course. A lot of people work in banks. London is the world centre for a lot of different sorts of financial activity. If we compare it with Frankfurt – where the European Central bank is, then the same number of people work in financial services in London as the whole population of Frankfurt. As for me, well, I have a credit card. But I only use it in emergencies: for example when I run out of money and feel like an ice-cream.

 

1 thatcher   

n.茅屋匠

参考例句：

• Tom Sawyer was in the skiff that bore Judge Thatcher. 汤姆 - 索亚和撒切尔法官同乘一条小艇。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• Mrs. Thatcher was almost crazed; and Aunt Polly, also. 撒切尔夫人几乎神经失常，还有波莉姨妈也是。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险

2 inflation   

n.胀大，夸张，通货膨胀

参考例句：

• Gold prices are often seen as an indicator of inflation.黃金价格常常被看作是通货膨胀的指标。
• The inflation of the airbed took several minutes.给空气床垫充气花了几分钟时间。

3 expenditure   

n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗

参考例句：

• The entry of all expenditure is necessary.有必要把一切开支入账。
• The monthly expenditure of our family is four hundred dollars altogether.我们一家的开销每月共计四百元。

4 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

5 radicals   

n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数

参考例句：

• Some militant leaders want to merge with white radicals. 一些好斗的领导人要和白人中的激进派联合。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The worry is that the radicals will grow more intransigent. 现在人们担忧激进分子会变得更加不妥协。 来自辞典例句

6 immoral   

adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的

参考例句：

• She was questioned about his immoral conduct toward her.她被询问过有关他对她的不道德行为的情况。
• It is my belief that nuclear weapons are immoral.我相信使核武器是不邪恶的。

7 overdrafts   

透支，透支额( overdraft的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Can the Direct Deposit Advance Service be used to prevent overdrafts? 直接存款预支服务可用来防止透支？
• Debt represents bank loans and overdrafts less cash and deposits with banks. 债项指银行贷款及透支减现金及银行存款。