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1、French tourists seen as worlds worst: surveyFrench tourists are the worst in the world, coming across as bad at foreign languages, tight-fisted and arrogant, according to a survey of 4,500 hotel owners across the world.They finish in last place in the survey carried out for internet travel agency Ex
2、pedia by polling company TNS Infratest, which said French holidaymakers dont speak local languages and are seen as impolite.Its mainly the fact that they speak little or no English when theyre abroad, and they dont speak much of the local language, Expedia Marketing Director Timothee de Roux told ra
3、dio station France Info.The French dont go abroad very much. Were lucky enough to have a country which is magnificent in terms of its landscape and culture, he said, adding that 90 per cent of French people did their traveling at home. So when theyre on holiday they can be a bit stressed, theyre not
4、 used to things, and this can lead them to be demanding in a way which could be seen as a certain arrogance.French tourists are also accused of generally spending less than other nationalities when abroad.De Roux said the French, not accustomed to leaving large tips at home where a service charge is
5、 automatically levied（征收，征税） on restaurant bills, can seem tight-fisted compared with other nationalities.The Japanese ranked top of the Best Tourist survey, with the British and the Germans judged the best of the Europeans.But French tourists received some consolation for their poor performance, fi
6、nishing third after the Italians and British for dress sense while on holiday.法国游客小气、傲慢，全球最差，日本游客最有素质？ And the best tourists in the world are.The best tourists in the world are the Japanese, followed by Americans and the Swiss, a survey based on views from hoteliers（酒店经营者；酒店老板） across Europe said We
7、dnesday.Japanese tourists stood out for being polite and tidy, securing 35 percent more votes than the Americans who came second. Swiss tourists were commended for being quiet and considerate, unlike the Britons who were judged to be the fifth worst tourists because of rude behavior, noise and a mis
8、erly attitude to tipping. But despite their faults, hoteliers do look favorably upon British spending habits voting them the third biggest holiday spenders after Americans and Russians. Based on responses from 15,000 European hoteliers, the survey carried out on behalf of travel Web site Expedia sho
9、wed that the worst tourist nation was France, followed by India, China and Russia. Britain was second in the worst-dressed tourist table which was headed by the Americans, and fifth in the least-generous table which was headed by the Germans.Londons Big Ben clocks up 150 yearsLondons Big Ben celebra
10、tes the 150th anniversary of its first chiming on Saturday.The Great Bell, housed in Saint Stephens Tower which adjoins the House of Commons, first struck the hour on July 11, 1859, and has been interrupted only occasionally for maintenance and bad weather ever since.To mark the anniversary, the mes
11、sage Happy Birthday Big Ben, 150 years, 1859 - 2009 will be projected （投影） on the tower.These days, the name Big Ben is frequently used to describe the tower, one of the capitals most photographed sites, but the nickname was first given to the bell alone.The origin of the name is thought to come fro
12、m Sir Benjamin Hall, the First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings, whose name is inscribed （雕刻，铭记） on the bell.Mike McCann, Keeper of the Great Clock, said: After 150 years, Big Ben still holds a special place in the hearts of Londoners and the world as a magnificent example of engineering a
13、nd building genius.The 96-metre (315-foot) high tower which houses the clock was built as part of the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament by architects Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin following a major fire in 1843.MP3成青少年听觉杀手EU warns youth: turn your MP3 players down! Millions of youngsters acr
14、oss Europe could suffer permanent hearing loss after five years if they listen to MP3 players at too high a volume for more than five hours a week, EU scientists warned Monday.The scientists study, requested by the European Commission, attacked the concept of leisure noise, saying children and teena
15、gers should be protected from increasingly high sound levels - with loud mobile phones also coming in for criticism.There has been increasing concern about exposure from the new generation of personal music players which can reproduce sounds at very high volumes without loss of quality, the Commissi
16、on, the EUs executive arm, said in a statement.Risk for hearing damage depends on sound level and exposure time, it said. More and more young people were exposed to the significant threat that leisure noise posed to hearing, it said.Commission experts estimate that between 50 and 100 million people listen to portable music players on a daily basis.If they listened for only five h
