91.Three Men in a Basket

A pilot noticed a balloon which seemed to be making for a Royal Air Force Station nearby. He informed the station at once, but no one there was able to explain the mystery. The officer in the control tower was very angry when he heard the news, because balloons can be a great danger to aircraft. He said that someone might be spying on the station and the pilot was o

86.Out of Control

As the man tried to swing the speed-boat round, the steering-wheel came away in his hands.He waved desperately to his companion, who had been water-skiing for the last fifteen miutes. Both men had hardly had time to realize what was happening when they were thrown violently into the sea. The speed-boat had struck a buoy, bu

81. Escape

When he had killed the guard, the prisoner of war quickly dragged him into the bushes. Working rapidly in the darkness, he soon changed into the dead man's clothes. Now, dressed in a blue uniform and with a rifle over his shoulder, the prisoner marched boldly up and down in front of the camp. He could hear shouting in the camp itself. Lights were blazing and men were running her and there: they had just discovered that a prisoner had escaped. At that moment, a large black car with four officers inside it, stopped at

76.April Fool's Day

‘ To end our special news bulletin,' said the voice of the television announcer, ‘we're going over 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 Riccardo Brabante, tell me that they have been expecting a splendid crop this year and harvest

71.A Famous Clock

When you visit London, one of the first things you will see is Big Ben, the famous clock which can be heard all over the world on the B.B.C. If the Houses of Parliament had not been burned down in 1834, the great clock would never have been erected. Big Ben takes its name from Sir Benjamin Hall who was responsible for the making of the clock when the new Houses of Parliament were being built. It is

66.Sweet as honey!

 In 1963 a Lancaster bomber crashed on Wallis Island, a remote place in the South Pacific, a long way west of Samoa.The plane wasn't too badly damaged, but over the years, the crash was forgotten, and the wreck remained undisturbed. Then in 1989, twenty-six years after the crash, the plane was accidentally rediscovered in an aerial survey of the island. By this time, a Lancaster bomber

61.Trouble with the Hubble

The Hubble telescope was launched into space by NASA on April 20,1990 at a cost of over a billion dollars. Right from the start there was trouble with the Hubble.The pictures it sent us were very disappointing because its main mirror was faulty!

56.Faster than Sound!

Once a year a race is held for old cars. A lot of cars entered for this race last year and there was a great deal of excitement just before it began. One of the most handsome cars was a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. The most unusual car was a Benz which had only three wheels. Built in 1885, it was the oldest car taking part. After a great many loud explosions, the race began. Many of the cars brok

51.Reward for Virtue

My friend, Hugh, has always been fat, but things got so bad recently that he decided to go on a diet. He began his diet a week ago. First of all, he wrote out a long list of all the foods which were forbidden. The list included most of the things Hugh loves: butter, potatoes, rice, beer, milk, chocolate, and sweets.

46.Expensive and Uncomfortable

When a plane from London arrived at Sydney airport, workers began to unload a number of wooden boxes which contained clothing. No one could account for the fact that one of the boxes was extremely heavy. It suddenly occurred to one of the workers to open up the box. He was ast