Moreover, TV is damaging for health. It has bad effect on the eyes, particularly of children. The physicians proved that if children do not watch TV their eyesight improves. But if children do not watch TV they find themselves without anything to talk about at school, where comedians and singing stars are major topics during breaks between classes. The same is true about some adults. Sometimes TV programmes become the topics of common interest of the people and without, them they have nothing to talk about.
Nowadays some people watch television programmes from about six in the morning to the early hours of the next day. It means that contemporary people for various reasons depend upon television. They watch everything from news and sports reports to dramas, educational and entertainment programmes. Today some people become TV addicts and feel unhappy if they fail to find another way of passing leisure time. Free time is regulated by television. TV occupies our free time. Instead of going to the theatre or reading books people watch TV. People rush home, gulp food to be in time to watch their favourite programmes. Very often programmes are bad, as TV cannot keep pace with demand. People have stopped reading books and depend on TV pictures. Spoken words become more important that the written ones. TV cuts people from the real world. The virtual world becomes more important. TV is absolutely irrelevant to real living. No surprise that television is often called "chewing gum for men's brains." People become lazy, instead of doing sports they watch TV. Television takes free time of the people. Instead of joining a choir or playing football or reading books people watch various programmes. Dinnertime is often pressed by television if it is not in the kitchen. If people are deprived for various reasons of watching their favourite programmes they feel inconvenience. The best thing is to watch only selective TV programmes and not to be governed by them. Only few people today can live without television. It should be said that television continues to play an important part in the human life despite increasing influence of the Internet, video games and other high-technology sources of information.
Censorship
Let us suppose that you are in the position of a parent. Would you allow your children to read any book they wanted to without first checking its contents? Would you take your children to see any film without first finding out whether it is suitable for them? If your answer to these questions is “yes”, then you are either extremely permissive or just plain irresponsible. If your answer is “no”, then you are exercising your right as a parent to protect your children from what you consider to be undesirable influences. In other words, by acting as a censor yourself, you are admitting that there is strong case for censorship.
Now, of course, you will say that it is one thing to exercise censorship where children are concerned and quite another to do the same for adults. Children need protection and it is the parents’ responsibility to provide it. But what about adults? Aren’t they old enough to decide what is good for them? The answer is that many adults are, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that all adults are like yourself. Censorship is for the good of society as a whole. Highly civilized people might find it possible to live amicable together without laws of any kind: they would just rely on good sense to solve their problems. But imagine what chaos there would be if we lived in a society without laws! Like the law, censorship contributes to the common good.
Some people think that it is disgraceful that a censor should interfere with works of art. Who is this person, they say, to ban this great book or cut that great film? No one can set himself up as a superior being. But we must remember two things. Firstly, where the genuine works of art are concerned, modern censors are extremely liberal in their views – often far more liberal than a large section of the public. Artistic merit is something that censors clearly recognize. And secondly, we must bear in mind that the great proportion of books, plays and films which come before the censor are very far from being “works of art”.
When discussing censorship, therefore, we should not confine our attention to great masterpieces, but should consider the vast numbers of publications and films which make up the bulk of entertaining industry. When censorship laws are relaxed, unscrupulous people are given a license to produce virtually anything in the name “art”. One of the great things that censorship does is t prevent certain people from making fat profits by corrupting the minds of others. To argue in favour of absolute freedom is to argue in favour of anarchy.
Football
The full official name of 'soccer' (as it is called in the USA and sometimes in Britain) is 'association football'. This distinguishes it from other kinds such as rugby football (almost always called simply 'rugby'), Gaelic football, Australian football and American football. However, most people in Britain call it simply 'football'. This is indicative of its dominant role. Everywhere in the country except south Wales, it is easily the most popular spectator sport, the most-played sport in the country's state schools and one of the most popular participatory sports for adults. In terms of numbers, football, not cricket, is the national sport, just as it is everywhere else in Europe.
British football has traditionally drawn its main following from the working class. In general, the intelligentsia ignored it. But in the last two decades of the twentieth century, it has started to attract wider interest. The appearance of fanzines is an indication of this. Fanzines are magazines written in an informal but often highly intelligent and witty style, published by the fans of some of the clubs. One or two books of literary merit have been written which focus not only on players, teams and tactics but also on the wider social aspects of the game. Light-hearted football programmes have appeared on television which similarly give attention to 'off-the-field' matters. There has also been much academic interest. At the 1990 World Cup there was a joke among English fans that it was impossible to find a hotel room because they had all been taken by sociologists!
Many team sports in Britain, but especially football, tend to be men-only, 'tribal' affairs. In the USA, the whole family goes to watch the baseball. Similarly, the whole family goes along to cheer the Irish national football team. But in Britain, only a handful of children or women go to football matches. Perhaps this is why active support for local teams has had a tendency to become violent. During the 1970s and 1980s football hooliganism was a major problem in England. In the 1990s, however, it seemed to be on the decline. English fans visiting Europe are now no worse in their behaviour than the fans of many other countries.
Attendances at British club matches have been falling for several decades. Many stadiums are very old, uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous. Accidents at professional football matches have led to the decision to turn all the country's football grounds into 'all-seater' stadiums. Fans can no longer stand, jump, shout and sway on the cheap 'terraces' behind the goals (there have been emotional farewells at many grounds to this traditional 'way of life'). It is assumed that being seated makes fans more well-behaved.
History of Basketball
Basketball is an extremely popular all around the world. The object is to put a ball through a hoop, or basket, and thus score more points than the opposing team. Teams comprise of ten players, with a maximum of five on court at any one time. Substitutions are unlimited during the course of the game. Although basketball can be played outdoors, it was invented to serve as an exciting indoor exercise for the winter months in a northern climate. It quickly became a spectator sport, however, and now attracts large audiences to gymnasiums and arenas, especially in the United States, South America, and Europe.