If you look from a helicopter at any English town, you will see that the residential areas consist of rows of small boxes, each with its own little patch of green. 1____ The principle, however, will be clear: the English all want to live in their own private houses with their own gardens.

What you cannot see from your helicopter, you will learn as soon as you try to visit an English home. 2____ Some humorists claim this is the result of ‘a conspiracy to mislead foreigners’, pointing out that our streets are never straight, every time a street bends, it is given a different name, there are at least 60 confusing synonyms for ‘street’.

The house numbers are at least as well camouflaged as the street names. 3____ One taxi driver explained: ‘ An Englishman’s home is his castle, right? We can’t actually have massive walls around it, but we can make it difficult to get to.’

The Englishman’s home is much more than just his castle; it is also his identity and his prime obsession. 4____ The mania for home improvements is widespread. Research shows that only 2% of English males and 12% of females have never done any Do-It-Yourself.

Working on home improvements is an opportunity to exercise our creative talents. 5____ Although it may sometimes be an economic necessity, we see the arrangement, furnishing and decorating of our homes as an expression of our unique personal taste.



A.You may have its address and a map, but you will have great difficulty in finding the house you are looking for.

B.Or at least that’s how we like to think of it.

C.This is an unwritten rule of home ownership and the moving-in ritual.

D.They are either hidden, or even not there at all.

E.In better-off areas, these boxes will be further apart, and the green patches attached to them will be larger.

F.This is why a house is not something you just passively ‘have’, it is something you constantly ‘work on’.
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