Szóbeli tételek 6. - Hobbies

6. SZABADIDŐ, SZÓRAKOZÁS, KULTÚRA

In fact, I don’t spend a lot of time on hobbies. At weekends I usually like only relaxing and pursue some hobbies that are collecting music and listening to the latest songs that I am interested in. Besides, I’m fond of watching and listening concerts on DVD. In these respects I take after my father a bit, because he has been a big collector since I knew him. I used to draw and used to pursue modelling when I was a child, but I gave it up because lack of the time. On these days in my spare time I like going on trips to the nature with my family or sometimes reading English topics on the Internet. I don’t keep any pets as I live in a freehold flat and in my opinion their place is not there. Other people keep dogs, cats, hamsters, guinea-pigs, parrots or have big tanks with goldfish or terrapins in them. Although, both cooking and baking cakes are not my line, I seldom make my favourite meals such as a French salad, a Hungarian lecsó or a pizza.

If you are a stay-at-home type, you can pursue a lot of hobbies that are typically home occupations. Some of them are only for women – I have never seen a man knitting, crocheting or sewing e.g. neither have I seen a woman hammering – others are for men, for instance do-it-yourself. Most of these hobbies, however, are unisex, that is, they suit both sexes. They are: collecting stamps, napkins, coins or even buttons; making soft toys, gifts; drawing, painting or writing poetry, modelling, mounting and developing photos, playing card games, chess or other party games or keeping pets. As far as I know keeping pets has always been an English hobby. If they can’t afford to keep a pet, they go bird-watching and this brings them a lot of enjoyment. Gardening is another common British hobby as well as taking photos, printing and enlarging them. The most popular outdoor games are football, golf and cricket.
Hobbies indoor: painting, drawing, collecting, reading, playing card games, board games, chess, keeping pets, do-it yourself, sewing, knitting, cooking, learning languages, listening to records, doing embroidery, crossword puzzles
Hobbies outdoor: fishing, angling, gardening, pot-holing, mountain climbing, hiking, doing sports, hunting
If you live in a big town you are a lucky chap from the point of view of entertainment possibilities. You have a rich choice of museums, exhibitions where you can see paintings, graphics, water-colours and sculptures. If you want to dine out or listen to folk or gypsy music there are several restaurants, pubs, night clubs which you can choose from.
Theatre
I’m not much of a theatre goer. In fact neither my time nor my money allows me to go to the theatre regularly. And, to tell you the truth, I am not really interested in it. I prefer watching TV or video films at home, or perhaps going to the cinema. If you stay at home, you don’t have to dress up, and this is a great advantage. Anyway, the play I saw last was a great one. I wasn’t disappointed, because it was a splendid adaptation of two famous lady’s life called Marlene Dietrich and Edit Piaf. The plot of the play was really gripping and rich in surprising returns. It held the attention of the audience from the beginning to the end.
I can buy a theatre tickets at the booking-office. I like to sit in the boxes because they are quite near the stage and they are by far the most comfortable. I normally sit in the stalls, which are the seats on the ground floor. Over the boxes is the dress circle then follow the balconies and finally the gallery. As you enter the theatre there is usually a big foyer, where people can meet before the performance. The two main parts of a theatre are the stage and the auditorium. The hall is usually separated from the stage by the orchestra pit. A curtain, when lowered, covers the stage and during the performance footlights illuminate the stage. In a big theatre there are several cloakrooms where you can leave your hats and coats. Then you show your ticket to the usherette, who will offer you a programme and lead you down the aisle to your row and seat. While the beginning of the play, you can leaf the programme booklet from which you learn about the cast, the director, about the approximate plot of the play and perhaps the programme of the theatre for that season. Right before the performance the orchestra begins tuning up. Then the lights go out, the curtain rises and the play begins. A play usually consists of at least two acts, but sometimes there are three acts with two intervals in between them. During the interval you can go to the refreshment room where you can discuss the play over a nice drink. After then the bell rings for the next act. In the end of the play the curtain fall and the lights go up. The audiences usually applaud the company. Curtain call follows curtain call and the whole cast is given a standing ovation.
Concert
I quite like pop music although I wouldn’t call myself a fan. I gladly like listening to any music. At the beginning of this year we went to a 2-day concert was given by some well-known Scandinavian bands, in the Netherlands. Lots of guitar artists appeared there who celebrated the 48th guitar festival at Tilburg. There were some very young, ambitious bands who were very talented musicians with a fine technique. For example there was a little nine-year-old drummer. Everybody was very surprised at his ability. Anyway, the instrumental music lovers were really delighted including me, too. Their CD covers, labels were signed by the famous guitarists after the show.
Cinema
    The usual cinema show consists of a feature film begun by a newsreel, lots of commercials and of course short films like trailers from the future films. The main film is usually cinemascope and dubbed. However, an undubbed film is very good for language learning. And if you master the given language you can even enjoy the films without looking at the subtitles. Low attendance at cinemas is due to several factors. On one hand the price of cinema tickets has been raised and it is not a cheap evening any more to go out to see a film; mostly if you would like to have a popcorn or a refreshment. On the other hand the cinema owners seem to forget that most families have video or DVD players at home and you can borrow all films from the videotheque.  There are some different films like these: western, adventure film, thriller, horror film, science-fiction fantasy, detective film, comedy, screen adaptation of a successful novel entitled e.g. Harry Potter.
TV, radio
I usually switch on the TV in the evenings and read on the teletext channel the TV programmes for the day. There is usually quite a rich choice of programmes. To tell you the truth I like watching TV because it brings the world into your home and keeps you informed about what is happening around you. I especially enjoy Hungarian soap-operas and some programmes that show you famous people over the world. I never miss the half-past-seven o’clock news either. I also love witty and humorous cartoons like “Tom and Jerry” or “the Roadrunner”.
Only one or maybe two Hungarian state channels used to be received at home, because there was no one who could have made a business from the broadcasting. Today, I don’t know exactly how many channels I can get on TV, but there are quite a lot. There are two well-known and popular commercial channels called Rtl-Klub and TV2. There is no great difference between them. They are financed by its advertisements so the programmes are interrupted for commercials, which I dislike. Besides we can also receive lots of different Hungarian channels such as my mum’s favourite TV Paprika or my dad’s much liked political channels,  the old ones MTV1-2 and TV Danube, our local television programme, the satellite channels about sports and documentaries and of course some German or English ones. To be frank, there is only one thing that these programmes are good for and this is the language learning.
I’m interested in historical films, adventure films and series. I also enjoy witty and exciting detective stories, particularly one of them titled Columbo. I like Peter Falk the star of Columbo because he can always find the murderer, although he always forgets everything that he needs. He is so funny with his old fashioned balloon coat or his broken down car and he always comes back to ask the suspect one more question even if the suspect thinks that he won’t any more. I can’t help watching the next part if it is on in a reasonable time on TV. I quite often watch video or cinema films and I’m a regular customer at the video hire shop. I enjoy perhaps crimes the most because they are usually very well done and give you a lot of excitement. I have never been disappointed by horror films, they are macabre or spine-chilling and I think somewhere at the back of their minds everybody longs for adventure and thrills or even fear. And these films are able to fill in this gap in our lives. Anyway, in my opinion it isn’t worth sitting in front of the telly, because your health could be damaged because of sitting there for so long and even you may become a couch potato.
    We begin the day by switching on the radio in my colleague’s car to listen to the time-signal, which is of great help when we are in hurry, the news broadcast and the weather forecast. We are listening to some kind of radio stations it depends on the persons in the office. Radio “Petőfi” used to have mainly a lot of light music programmes: pop, jazz, folk, rock or gypsy but it totally changed today. Perhaps radio ‘Kossuth’ has the most varied and serious programmes. It transmits running commentaries, radio plays, political and economic programmes, lectures, press reviews and even bedside stories for children. At my workplace all of us love musical broadcasts such as “Radio 1”, Radio “Danubius” or Radio “Sláger”.



Newspapers, libraries
For each week all radio and television programmes are published in the Radio and TV Times. This weekly has quite a big circulation, bigger than most dailies. Daily papers are almost the same in appearance and lay-out. They all have a political section containing world and domestic news. The main news is usually placed on the first page right under the heading. Current events or topicalities may also be reported and commented on by the editor on the front page, usually with big headlines. The arts review and the science pages are usually in the middle of the paper followed by the fashion, gossip and travel columns while sports news is generally on one of the last pages. Apart from news, newspapers also contain many other features like advertisements, announcements of births, marriages and deaths, crossword puzzles, horoscopes, letter from readers, obituaries of famous people who have died, weather forecasts and classified advertisements, which may be personal or advertise jobs, houses or cars for sale. Just like many other countries, Hungary, too, has local and national papers. They are either serious or sensational. At present most of them are tabloids. There are also several periodicals coming out weekly, monthly and quarterly. Journals dealing with specialised subjects such as medicine, science, trade or education are usually published monthly or quarterly. The well-known Hungarian daily papers perhaps are “the Napló” and “the Népszabadság”. The popular tabloids are the Blikk or The Story Magazine and there is a journal with financial affair called HVG. Some serious British papers are The Times, The Guardian, The Sun or the Daily Mirror. I always skim through the whole paper first and choose the articles that at first sight seem to be interesting. The headlines are printed in block letters so they easily catch the eye. After scanning the paper I always start reading the sport pages first. Then I read the jobs or the political reviews and the internal affairs.
I can borrow books from a library. In fact, nowadays I don’t need to have a lot of books, therefore I quite rarely use the local lending library of which I am not a member at the moment, but my father is. Anyway, I used to be a member there when I was a student. At that time I was used to reading as we had to read all compulsory readings. To join a library you have to fill in a lending card. If you want to borrow a book, you write the author’s name, the title and ISBN number on the book card and the librarian puts down on your card the date when the book is due for return. Books are issued for three weeks, but can be renewed for another three. Only a limited number of books can be borrowed at a time. For overdue books fines are charged.
There are a lot of books in a library that normally cannot be borrowed. They are mainly encyclopaedias, dictionaries and lexicons. You are allowed to work with them in the reading room, where you will also find newspapers and periodicals published in Hungary from the 1930s. I often go to the bookshops just to look around. But sometimes I can’t resist temptation and buy some languages books, maps or a magazine for my mother. Last time I bought two expensive dictionaries, but it was worth buying them, because I can use them in the future, too.