2017年catti高级口译阅读练习（5）
【蜗居时代的温情 Four generations under one roof】
The ground floor is home to a family of four – Richard Evans, 43, his partner, Emma Jones, 38, and their two daughters. It’s a stylish open-plan living space with a bathroom squeezed under the stairs. Richard’s mother, Annie Elliott Evans, 68, lives upstairs, with a glorious, sugar-pink kitchen that soars high into the eaves and a large, elegant bedroom – "My escape." Her mother, Elsie Tipper, 92, has a bedroom and bathroom of her own on the first floor, crammed with great-grandmotherly knick-knacks, and with a stairlift to transport her up.
In many countries, this kind of close familial living is common place. But in the UK, where the number of single households continues to rise – and older people are increasingly shipped off to care homes – it’s unusual. How did it come about?
"It was Richard’s idea," says Annie, who had lived in the large family home nearby for 30 years, bringing up her four children. "He feels he should look after me. I was used to being in a large, lively household and didn’t really want that to change. And he wanted a nice family home in this area but couldn’t afford it. So we teamed up."
Richard, Emma and Annie bought the house, in north London, 10 years ago. "It was a bargain," Annie says. "It had lots of small, poky rooms." Richard knocked through the kitchen on the ground floor, extending it sideways and into the garden. The resulting space has an Aga, flagstone flooring, wallpapers from Cole & Son, vintage furniture upholstered in Missoni Home fabrics, a giant fish tank, quirky vintage ephemera and arty photographs. Richard and Emma have a moody, glamorous bedroom; Isabella, nine, and Boadecia (Bo), eight, share a girly room with bunk beds. "It’s immaculate downstairs," Annie says. "All the girls’ drawings and paintings end up in my kitchen."
Isabella arrived soon after they moved in. And six years ago Annie moved Elsie from her sheltered accommodation in Norfolk when she fell ill. "We thought that was it," Annie says. "Now she’s so well looked after, she’ll probably get a telegram from the Queen."
Annie spends a lot of time with her granddaughters, picking them up from school most days. The arrange ment works well for Emma, who travels a lot for her work as a fashion buyer. "As I’ve grown older and had children, I’ve realised how important the security and support of family is," she says. "It might seem a strange setup to some, but it’s a very happy home. My daughters are growing up knowing how to share, and learning values that other children their age haven’t learned."
"The setup saves all of us money," Richard says. "And it’s a good way to live: Mum is a very hands-on grand mother, so we don’t have to worry about a nanny. But you need your own kitchen and bathroom. And it helps if you’re quite laid-back – I let a lot of things go by." As sole man of the house, he is "taken for granted", he says. "If there are any prob lems, it’s me who sorts them out."
They all come and go between floors, but respect one another’s privacy. "We have separate domains," Emma says. "I might grab some milk from Annie’s fridge if we run out, but I’d never go through her stuff or take visitors up there."
What happens when she and Richard have a party? "We take Great-grandma’s hearing aid out."
For Isabella and Bo, the best thing about their home – apart from Elsie’s stairlift, which their friends love to play on – is being surrounded by family. "Grandma is always at home for us," says Bo, "and makes my favourite biscuits. Great-grandma taught me to knit and sew."
"There is always someone to talk to and to help with homework," Isabella says. "When I was little, I didn’t think I’d live with so many differently aged people – not many of my friends do. But I would like my own room one day. Oh, and when you get told off, you can get told off by everyone, which is annoying."
Will the family always live like this? "We will probably need more space in the next few years," Emma says. "But when the crunch comes, we may not want to do it. Maybe we’ll all just move to a bigger house."
词句笔记：
open-plan:房屋或办公室开敞式平面布置的
eaves：屋檐
upholstered：经过布置的
vintage：古老的，过时的，复古的
stairlift：座椅电梯，动画片《飞屋环游记》中开头那个小老头坐着上下楼梯的椅子就是这个
【英国加班族的苦衷 Chained to the desk: millions put in hours of unpaid overtime】
We’ve had extreme fishing, extreme skiing and even extreme ironing. Now, however, the TUC has found that almost a million workers are spending hours every week on an activity that may give them no pleasure and certainly no reward — extreme overtime.
More than five million professionals and managers in both the public and private sectors are working an average of seven hours a week without extra pay — and a million of them are working 48 hours a week or more, which the TUC classes as extreme.
According to the TUC’s analysis of official statistics, almost half of all lawyers report working unpaid overtime, with 18 per cent of them working more than ten hours a week of unpaid overtime. The average number of unpaid hours a week worked by legal professionals is 16.
Of those managers in finance and industry — including corporate managers, managers in service industries and business managers — who are working long unpaid hours, the average number of unpaid hours worked each week is 20.
Last year more than five million people clocked up an average of seven hours and twelve minutes of unpaid overtime a week — worth £27.4 billion, or £5,402 each.
The growth of “extreme” unpaid overtime comes as the number of underemployed people also increases. Official figures show that 2.8 million people say they want more hours in their existing job or full-time work instead of their present part-time job.
The TUC said that nearly half a million managers would be willing to work fewer hours, even if it meant a pay cut, and that there was a mismatch between the hours that people want to work and the hours that they are getting.
Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC, questioned the need for such long hours: “There has been a surprise increase in people doing ‘extreme’ unpaid overtime, with nearly 900,000 workers giving away 18 hours of free work a week last year,” he said. “There is no direct link between excess overtime and underemployment, but those people who are struggling to find enough or, indeed, any hours to work must be wondering why some workers are doing so much for free.”
The success of girls at school and university in recent years appears to be filtering through to the workplace, where single women are the biggest group of people working unpaid overtime. More than a quarter of single women work extra hours, with 5.3 per cent working 18.5 unpaid hours a week on average. More than a fifth of single men and more than a fifth of married or cohabiting people with no children also work unpaid overtime.
The flexibility of Britain’s labour force is credited for a lower than expected recent rise in unemployment. Some employers have spoken of a “spirit of collaboration” that has seen staff make sacrifices to save jobs.
The legal profession, particularly in City law firms, has long had a reputation for excessively long working hours, with staff routinely working through the night in order to complete deals. Despite job cuts and a dearth of deals during the recession and job cuts across the profession, a culture of presenteeism is still prevalent.
On RollOnFriday, the legal profession’s networking site, a recent contributor wrote: “You are taught that it’s not normal to leave the office before 7pm. So you are having lawyers in the midst of a recession sitting at their desks twiddling their idle thumbs until 7pm just to show their faces.”
A 2008 survey by Legal Business magazine said that a long-hours, high-stress culture meant that alcohol abuse was “endemic” in law firms and that the use of hard drugs was increasing, particularly in big City law firms.
Ms Bright, 56, is one of four partners at Bright & Sons, which was founded by her grandfather 125 years ago. The firm employs 45 people at its offices in Maldon and Witham, where Ms Bright specialises in wills and probate. She rarely leaves the office early and almost never stops for lunch. “We tend to be very busy,” she says. “We have a lot of clients and we like to look after them well.”
词句笔记：
TUC:英国劳工联合会议
clock up：达到，记录
mismatch:失调
There was a mismatch between the hours that people want to work and the hours that they are getting.
人们的实际工作时间和理想工作时间不协调。
underemployment：不充分就业
twiddle：玩弄，旋转
probate：遗嘱认证
