Social Class

Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements to people in society. In the UK, classes are including three levels, the upper class, the middle class and the working class or lower class. There are many things that differentiate them from each other. The upper class generally came from very high rich people. The middle class include people business peoples, or professionals. The lower class include people who work hard to survive. According to the video that has been watched in class from Channel4 (2011), they were many differences between an urban upper class girl and a northern working class girls. These differences were based on the accent, exterior the look and the motions.

According to Cambridge Dictionaries online (2011), posh is adjective, it’s defined as informal (of places and things) expensive and of high quality and UK informal (of people and their voices) from a high social class, too posh to push informal humorous.

Ref:

Channel4 (2011) Shop girl to It girl. Available at: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/faking-it/4oD#2922253 (Accessed: 25/ 06/ 2011).

Cambridge Dictionaries online (2011) posh. Available at: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/posh?q=posh (Accessed: 25/ 06/ 2011).

National Health Services (NHS)

NHS (National Health Services) is a health organization which is a service providing health care to all residents of the United Kingdom. NHS was started by Aneurin Bevan in 5th July 1948. NHS provides many services that help them in their health life, such as emergency and urgent care, hospital service, dental services and other important services for all the people who are living in the UK either they are citizen or they are only residence. In term of cost, the NHS provides care free of charge to most UK residents.  They can received care and treatment for everything from minor ailments such as colds or even serious diseases such as diabetes and cancer. To have these benefits, all the residents should be registered with General practitioners (GP). A general practitioner (GP) is the first places people have to contact for their health problem and then they direct the patient to other NHS services. The GP gives to people: Advice on health problems, Vaccinations, Examinations and treatment, Prescriptions for medicines and Referrals to other health services and social services.

                                                                      

Ref:

Monetos (2011): "Advantages of the NHS". Available at: http://www.monetos.co.uk/insurance/health-insurance/nhs/advantages/. (Accessed: 26 June 2011)

NHS (2009): "NHS HISTORY". Available at: http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/nhshistory/Pages/NHShistory1948.aspx
(Accessed: 26 June 2011).

NHS (2010) NHS General Practitioners. Available at:
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/doctors/Pages/NHSGPs.aspx (Accessed: 26 June 2011)

Crime and Punishment

Crime means behaviour or action of people to commit something against the law. The people who are committed crime usually punished by the government or head of organization. The first stage of punishment is locked up the person in prison until they gave the judgment. The common crimes are joy-riding, vandalism and graffiti these crimes called juvenile which usually had done by young people. The juvenile crime is very hard to control for any government. There are some common ways to deal with juvenile like the community service, rehabilitation or a week in prison. Political activists are the example for the general public so they should not break the law under any circumstances.  The second common crime is driving under the influence of alcohol, the UK government deal with this crime very strictly because the drunk driver cause a danger to himself and the rest of the people.

Ref:

Crime and society, Available at: http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/Crime%20and%20Society.pdf Accessed: (25/6/2011).

The social security

The social security system gives benefits for British people. It is giving by the Department of Work and Pensions agencies across the country. It is very expensive programme almost 28% of public spending and is financed from general taxation and contributions by employers and workers over 16 to the National Insurance Fund. The benefits gives to people who have no income or whose income below certain levels and who need assistance also there are other benefits conditional on disability or family needs such as non-contributory disability and attendance allowances. The contributory system gives relatively low state retirement pensions for employed men at 65 years and women at 60 years, incapacity benefits or sick pay for people who become incapable of work or who absent because of illness, maternity pay for working women through their pregnancy, also Jobseekers Allowance for who unemployed. In 2010, the retirement age has been changed to 65 years for both men and women.

ref:

social services (2011) Social Security, p. 192, p.193 

Sport

There are many different kinds of sports played in Britain such as tennis, football, cricket and rugby. Each of kinds of sports has its own fans and popularity.

Cricket is not the national sport of Britain. The big numbers of fans come from middle classes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Only in England and small parts of Wales, it is played at top level. In addition, the majority of population do not understand its rules. However, the cricket is much more than just a sport, it symbolizes a way of life – a slaw and peaceful rural way of life. Cricket related with the afternoon summer, the small of new grass and the sound of leather ball connecting with willow which is the wood from cricket bate are made. However, one game of cricket             takes a long time which many people do not have it.  The crickets’ events in Britain are Lord’s and the Oral in London, Trent Bridge in Nottingham, Edgbaston in Birmingham, Old Trafford in Manchester and Headingly in Leeds.

The football is very popular everywhere in the UK except South Wales. It is the most popular sport in the country’s state school and one of the popular participatory sports for adults. Football is the national sport in the UK. The British football has traditionally drawn from the working class. Firstly, the intelligentsia ignored it. Then, it started to attract wider interest in the last two decade of the twentieth century. The football famous venues are Wembley in London and Hampden Park in Glasgow. There are many football teams across Britain such as Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool.

There are two versions of rugby: rugby union and rugby league. They are very similar to each other – that mean if someone good at one of them, can quickly learn to become good at the other. The real different between them is the rugby union is older than the rugby league. The rugby played from the working class in the north of England. Rugby league is a working class sport in Britain while rugby union is sport for middle classes. Except in South Wales, rugby union is a sport for all classes and more popular than football. The phrase ‘national day’ in Wales means only one thing that the national rugby team are playing. The famous rugby venues are Twickenham in London, Millennium Stadium in Wales, Murrayfield in Edinburgh and Lansdowne Road in Dublin.

There are other sports also played in Britain. Additional to the sports already mentioned, hockey is quite popular and both basketball for men and netball for women are popular also. The British people have a preference for the team games while the individual sports such as athletics, cycling, gymnastics and swimming have comparatively small followings. There are two main exceptions for this. One is boxing where some people cam gambling. But while boxing is declining im popularity, the second exception, motor sports is become popular.

ref:

O'Discdl, T. (2004) 'Sport and Competition' , Oxford 1995.

Media - TV

Nowadays, the TV is the most popular entertainments. There is at least a TV in every single house over the world. In Britain, the BBC ‘British Broadcasting Corporation’ is considered the mother of information services. It has many TV channels and radio in English and other languages. It is broadcasting over the world not just in the UK. Before the Second World War, the government was controlling the broadcasting of the BBC but after that, the BBC becomes identified with the principles of democracy and free speech. The BBC were not depends on advertising or on the government for its income. It gets this from the licence fee which everybody who uses a television set has to pay.

In Saudi Arabia, there are many Saudi channels broadcasting over the country some of the broadcasting from outside the country such as MBC in Dubai and Orbit in Bahrain. However, the National Saudi Channel controlled from the government. It is not allowed to criticism of the royal family and questioning of the religions tents.

ref:

BBC (2011) Saudi Arabia Country Profile. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/country_profiles/791936.stm (Accessed: 12 June 2011).

Driscoll, O. (1995) ‘The Media’, Britain – the Country and Its People: an Introduction for Learning of English, p.152

Media - Newspaper

In the UK, the newspaper is very important nearly 80% of people buy a copy every day. There are two different types of newspaper: the quality paper known as the broadsheets such as the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian, and the popular paper which known as the tabloids such as the Daily Mirror and the Sun. The reasons of their names is because they in different shapes. The broadsheets are twice bigger than the tabloids. The broadsheets, cater for the better educated readers while the tabloids, sell to a much larger readership. The broadsheets write about politics and other serious news. However, the tabloids devote to human interest stories which often mean sex and scandal.

ref:

Driscoll, O. (1995) ‘The Media’, Britain – the Country and Its People: an Introduction for Learning of English, p.152.