ANYONE FOR A RIDE?
Ian Grey grew up in Glasgow but came to Oxford to continue his studies. Like many students, he needs a part-time job to (26) _______ him through the year. He used to work in a fast food restaurant, but a year ago he took up a new part-time job. Ian now works as a bicycle rickshaw taxi-driver. Although he loves showing people round Oxford, it is hard work, especially (27) _______ it rains. In term time, the number of hours he can do (28) _______ on his timetable.
However, on the long summer holidays he does as much work as he can. (29) _______ of his passengers even give him a little extra money in tips. Being a rickshaw driver is also a great way of keeping fit. Of course, it can be dangerous. Ian hasn't had an accident yet, (30) _______ he has to be careful. He likes to go climbing and his friends are amazed at how fit he has become.
(Adapted from Gold B1+ Pre‑First by Jon Naunton and Lynda Edwards)

It's the job that even the most enthusiastic traveller hates: packing. But just how essential are the things that we take with us? That was the question that Rolf Potts aimed to answer on the 'no-baggage challenge'. However, the task wasn't simply a question of - going off for a week to soak up the sun on a beach. Rolf had to travel 50,000 km by plane and get around eleven countries in 42 days with just the things he could carry in his pockets. Would he be able to do it?
Rolf was certainly well qualified enough to try. He was an experienced traveller who wrote a blog that had become a big favourite with people who wanted advice about budget travel. Now he planned to update it with regular reports about travelling extremely light.
His first 'no-baggage challenge' entry listed the items that he took with him: a toothbrush and toothpaste, a small bottle of soap, a mobile phone and charger, deodorant, sunglasses, a passport, cash and a credit card. His second entry explained that he had got into the habit of showering twice a day and washing his clothes before going to bed. By the third entry, he was really enjoying luggage-free travel.
When Potts got back, he did recognise that a few extra items would have been useful, and when he is travelling in the future, he will take a small bag with him. But, he says, he will never pack any 'just in case' items again, because the imagined situations that they are packed for never, ever happen.
(Adapted from Solutions 3rd Edition by Tim Falla and Paul A Davies)

On my way to Poland the other week, I was going through security at Heathrow behind an elderly man who walked with an aluminium crutch. He went through the metal detector leaning on his wife, having left the crutch next to the conveyor belt. The detector beeped, so the man was given his crutch and forced to go back through to remove his shoes, a procedure that obviously caused him some annoyance and discomfort. Now in socks, he was ordered to pass through the metal detector again. But he wasn’t allowed to take his crutch with him and his wife wasn’t allowed to go back through the detector. Eventually, the security guard himself reached a hand through the detector to help him, and the man, grimacing, limped through, while his crutch passed through the baggage scanner.
This book about absurd rules considers such ‘security’ restrictions as well as more general ‘health and safety’ rules. While ‘security’ promises to protect us from external threat, ‘safety’ protects us from accident or ourselves. Actually, the phrase ‘health and safety’ has become so familiar that we don’t quite notice that the two concepts are not necessarily mutually reinforcing. What is healthy might be unsafe (going jogging along a river populated by irritable hippos) and what is safe might be unhealthy (staying indoors binge-watching Netflix series 24 hours a day).
Although many stories of absurd official regulations turn out to be simply rules imposed by unimaginative bosses or supervisors, some do seem to be true. In Kent recently, schoolteachers had to fill out a 30-page questionnaire before taking pupils to the beach – the safety-assessment form for workers on an oil rig is only one page! In general, whenever officials cite ‘terrorism laws’ to stop you taking photographs in public places, or a call centre worker cites ‘data protection’ as a reason not to tell you something, the authors recommend being polite, but firm. ‘Really? Which rule are you thinking of? And how does it apply here?’
‘The core philosophy of the book,’ the authors say, ‘is to ask for evidence.’ It turns out that there is no evidence that, say, using your mobile phone at a petrol station is dangerous. Nor has there ever been any evidence that using your mobile phone, or any other electronic equipment, will interfere with the systems on commercial aircraft. So that rule is, finally, being relaxed.

If we were really interested in ‘evidence-based safety’, the authors argue, we would ban large trucks from city centres (they kill a lot of cyclists), as well as raising the driving age from 17 to 21. But some options, unfortunately, are simply political impossibilities. ‘In America, this is why people can’t buy unpasteurized cheese, but can buy a gun. In Britain, it is why people worry about dangerous dogs, but do little to reduce or calm the traffic around schools and playgrounds.’
(Adapted from New English File Advanced by Christina Latham-Koenig, Clive Oxeden and Jerry Lambert)