children inside it, covering them with all the clothes she could find. During the night, it got terribly cold. The woman kept as near as she could to the children and even tried to get into the case herself, but it was too small. Early ,next morning she heard planes passing overhead and wondered how she could send a signal. Then she had an idea. She stamped out the letters SOS in the snow. Fortunately, a pilot saw the signal and sent a message by radio to the nearest town. It was not long before a helicopter arrived on the scene to rescue the survivors of the plane crash.Lesson76 April Fools Day 愚人节To end our special news bulletin, said the voice of the television announcer, we are taking you to the macaroni fields of Calabria. Macaroni has been grown in this area for over six hundred years. Two of the leading growers, Giuseppe Moldova and Ricardo Brabante, tell me that they have been expecting a splendid crop this year and harvesting has begun earlier than usual. Here you can see two workers who, between them, have just finished cutting three cart-loads of golden brownmacaroni stalks. The whole village has been working day and night gathering and threshing this years crop before the September rains. On the right, you can see Mrs Brabante herself. She has been helping her husband for thirty years now. Mrs Brabante is talking to the manager of the local factory where the crop is processed. This last scene shows you what will happen at the end of the harvest : the famous Calabrian macaroni-eating competition ! Signor Fratelli, the present champion, has won it every year since 1961. And that ends our special bulletin for today, Thursday, April 1st. We are now returning you to the studio.Lesson77 A successful operation 一例成功的手术The mummy of an Egyptian woman who died in 800 B.C. has just had an operation. The mummy is that of Shepenmut who was once a singer in the Temple of Thebes. As there were strange marks on the X-ray plates taken of the mummy, doctors have been trying to find out whether the woman died of a rare disease. The only way to do this was to operate. The operation, which lasted for over four hours, proved to be very difficult because of the hard resin which covered the skin. The doctors removed a section of the mummy and sent it to a laboratory. They also found something which the X-ray of the god Duamutef. This god which has the head of a cow was normally placedinside a mummy. The doctors have not yet decided how the woman died. They feared that the mummy would fall to pieces when they cut it open, but fortunately this has not happened. The mummy successfully survived the operation. Lesson78 The last one? 最后一枝吗？After reading an article entitled Cigarette Smoking and Your Health I lit a cigarette to calm my nerves. I smoked with concentration and pleasure as I was sure that this would be my last cigarette. For a whole week I did not smoke at all and during this time, my wife suffered terribly. I had all the usual symptoms of someone giving up smoking: a bad temper and an enormous appetite. My friends kept on offering me cigarettes and cigars. They made no effort to hide their amusement whenever I produced a packet of sweets from my pocket. After seven days of this I went to a party. Everybody around me was smoking and I felt extremely uncomfortable. When my old friend Brian urged me to accept a cigarette, it was more than I could bear. I took one guiltily, lit it and smoked with satisfaction. My wife was delighted that things had returned to normal once more. Anyway, as Brian pointed out, it is the easiest thing in the world to give up smoking. He himself has done it lots of times! Lesson79 By air 乘飞机I used to travel by air a great deal when I was a boy. My parents, used to live in South America and I used to fly there from Europe in the holidays. An airhostess would take charge of me and I never had an unpleasant experience. I am used to travelling by air and only on one occasion have I ever felt frightened. After taking off, we were flying low over the city and slowly gaining height, when the plane suddenly turned round and flew back to the airport. While we were waiting to land, an air-hostess told us to keep calm and to get off the plane quietly as soon as it had touched down. Everybody on board was worried and we were curious to find out what had happened. Later we learnt that there was a very important person on board. The police had been told that a bomb had been planted on the plane. After we had landed, the plane was searched thoroughly. Fortunately, nothing was found and five hours later we were able to take off again.Lesson80 The Crystal Palace 水晶宫Perhaps the most extraordinary building of the nineteenth century was the Crystal Palace, which was built in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Crystal Palace was different from all other buildings in the world, for it was made of iron and glass. It was one of the biggest buildings of all time and