金融時(shí)報(bào):好壞美丑盡在倫敦

好壞美丑盡在倫敦

本文作者為英國(guó)《金融時(shí)報(bào)》專欄作家 菲利普·斯蒂芬斯。

測(cè)試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識(shí)：

lurid ['l(j)??r?d] adj.可怕的，聳人聽聞的

verdict ['v??d?kt] n.結(jié)論，裁定

opulence ['?pj?l(?)ns] n.富裕

eccentric [?k'sentr?k] n./adj.古怪的人

wryly ['raili] adv.挖苦地，表情冷漠的

majestic[m?'d?est?k] adj.莊嚴(yán)的，宏偉的

London serves up the good, the bad and the ugly (972 words)

London is readying itself to play host to the world. Those who look beyond the sporting spectacle and the commercial circus of the 2012 Olympics will encounter a city holding up a mirror to globalisation. The riches, energy, diversity, grime, poverty and occasional riots – London offers them in abundance.

The games promise a more intense expression of what Britain’s capital does all the time: it earns its keep by providing, at a price, the arena for others to display their talents and to spend their money.

It would have been nice had Andy Murray won Wimbledon. But it does not really matter that a Brit has not taken the men’s singles title at the All England Club since Fred Perry in 1936. Wimbledon is still the best – as expensively lush an occasion as the grass on centre court. Where else does the glamorous wife of a future king look on from “The Royal Box”?

It’s not just Wimbledon. Beyond summer balls in leafy squares, the London season reaches out to opera at Glyndebourne, racing at Ascot and the regatta at Henley. Yes, the weather can be unpredictable, but there is shopping and nightlife aplenty for well-heeled Arabs fleeing the searing heat of the Middle East.

London is not just for fun. After Wimbledon, attention has turned to a different court. The High Court is witnessing an expensive legal battle between Oleg Deripaska and Michael Cherney. The two made fortunes in the wild west privatisation scramble after the fall of the Soviet Union. We have heard lurid tales of organised crime and extortion. Mr Cherney says Mr Deripaska owes him hundreds of millions of dollars.

Last year saw a battle royal between the Russian oligarchs Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich. The verdict is due any day. The law has become an export business. An estimated 60 per cent-plus of the case load of the High Court’s commercial division now comes from Russia and eastern Europe. London’s lawyers have never been busier – or richer.

There is a paradox here. One of the city’s principal attractions is as a place where incomers can leave their chequered pasts behind. Expensive public relations advisers and even more costly libel lawyers smooth the path to establishment respectability. Yet London is also a place where the buccaneers of globalisation are assured of a level playing field. Judges are rarely, if ever, nobbled; so whatever they might have done in an earlier life, litigants know that in London, the rule of law prevails.

The City, home to the global financial elite, lost much of its lustre to the crash. The latest scandal, about corrupt manipulation of interest rates at Barclays, has rekindled uncomfortable memories of the years of “light-touch regulation”.

Bob Diamond, the US-born former chief executive, may now be heading home. Yet the glistening towers of Canary Wharf – just a stone’s throw from the Olympic park – are still packed with wheelers, dealers and financial whizz kids from every corner of the globe. City bonuses and soaring property prices long ago put London’s smart residential enclaves beyond the reach of mere Londoners.

Austerity has seen Britain gripped by fits of moral outrage directed at politicians and journalists as well as bankers. Yet for incomers, London operates a policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”. Coutts, which styles itself as banker to the Queen, was recently caught failing to operate money laundering rules. This was a small infringement. The city is awash with the riches of unpleasant regimes and dubious foreign enterprises.

Private opulence sits alongside public decay. After decades of under-investment, the infrastructure is creaking badly. Travellers on the 19th century underground rail system are nowadays treated to an astonishing pre-recorded warning from Boris Johnson. The trains, London’s mayor admits, may be unable to bear the Olympic strain.

The eccentric Mr Johnson, who yearns to replace his fellow Conservative David Cameron in Downing Street, might have started work on a much-needed Thames crossing in the east of the capital. Instead he has strung up a cable car to carry Olympic visitors across the river. Taxi drivers call it the mayor’s “fairground ride”.

As anyone who has suffered the horrors of Heathrow knows, London lacks a decent airport hub. The government cannot even manage the immigration queue. Waits of two hours for routine passport checks are common. And the main highway from Heathrow to the centre of the city is closed for roadworks.

Mr Cameron promises to “roll out the red carpet” for wealthy French citizens fleeing the punitive tax rates of François Hollande’s administration. The prime minister, however, has also promised a crackdown on the overall number of immigrants arriving in Britain. Poorer workers and students are to be kept out. Mr Cameron, his own officials wryly observe, has declared the capital open to the world for business, but closed to (all-but-rich) foreigners.

There is much to love about London – especially for those of us lucky enough to have been born here. To the energy, the din of multiculturalism (about a third of residents were born abroad), the parks, the glorious legacy of a sometimes inglorious history, the galleries and the rest, I could add the view from my office across the sweep of the Thames to the majestic dome of St Paul’s Cathedral.

The reflection in the mirror, though, is also a reminder of how unequally the bounty of globalisation has been shared. The expensively vulgar apartment blocks perched beside the Thames are cleaned and serviced by workers marooned by the grim poverty of the minimum wage.

City states such as London – closely connected to each other and increasingly disconnected from their national hinterlands – are often held up as the future. But globalisation depends on a political architecture provided by consenting nation states. The same is true of great cities.

請(qǐng)根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測(cè)題目：

1.Which of the following is correct on London according to the passage?

A. The trains in London may be able to bear the Olympic strain.

B. London'airport can burden the mass of Olympic passage flow.

C. The government cannot conduct the immigration queue.

D. None of them is correct.

答案(1)

2.Why did the author say"The City,home to the global financial elite,lost much of its lustre to the crash."?

A. The Barclays scandal

B. The royal scandal

C. The strike scandal

D. The oil scandal

答案(2)

3.What can we learn from Mr Cameron'declaration in paragraph fourteen?

A. The official may punish all of the immigrants arriving in Britain.

B. Poorer workers and students are to be kept out.

C. The government may encourage all of the businessmen to come to London.

D. All of above is right.

答案(3)

4.In this passage,what is the fortune for the author?

A. He is enough lucky to born in London.

B. He can be the live audience of Olympic.

C. His apartment perches beside the Thames.

D. His office is located in the outside of the London.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：C.The government cannot conduct the immigration queue.

解釋：選項(xiàng)A，正文中"The trains, London’s mayor admits, may be unable to bear the Olympic strain."故A錯(cuò)誤。選項(xiàng)B，"London lacks a decent airport hub."故選項(xiàng)B錯(cuò)誤。選項(xiàng)C，"The government cannot even manage the immigration queue."故正確答案選C。

(2) 答案：A.The Barclays scandal

解釋：正確答案選A。正文第八段有提及。

(3) 答案：D.All of above is right.

解釋：正確答案在倒數(shù)第四段。選項(xiàng)A,B,C皆是對(duì)卡梅倫所說(shuō)“歡迎世界上的商人來(lái)倫敦，而對(duì)各種其他原因來(lái)倫敦的予以抵制。”的各種理解，都正確。故正確答案選擇D。

(4) 答案：A.He is enough lucky to born in London.

解釋：選項(xiàng)A是正確的，文中倒數(shù)第三段有提到。選項(xiàng)B顯然錯(cuò)誤，作者本身就是倫敦人。選項(xiàng)C文中沒(méi)有提及。選項(xiàng)D，作者從辦公室可以橫掃泰晤士河到圣保羅大教堂的穹頂，故D是錯(cuò)誤的。