A commuter buys his newspaper at the station every morning: then he gets on to the train and reads it until he arrives in London. He does't talk to the other commuters - these trains are as quiet as libraries!

It's interesting to see a commuters' train when it arrives in London. When the train stops, all the doors open, and hundreds of men in suits get out and begin to walk quickly across the station. They all carry umbrellas and have newspapers under their arms. None of them look at each other; they all look in front of them.

Work begins in most offices at nine o'clock or half-past nine and finishes at five o'clock. When the Englishman arrives at his office, he says "Good morning" to everybody, takes off his hat and coat, washes his teacup, ask his secretary if she enjoyed the film on television last night, and opens all the windows. He starts work at about ten o'clock.

At eleven o'clock, a women comes to the office with a large pot of tea, and the work stops. This is called the tea break, and no Englishman can work without it. There's another tea break at three o'clock in the afternoon.

The lunch break is from twelve o'clock to one o'clock or from one o'clock to two o'clock. People who work in London don't usually have lunch in restaurant: they go to a 'sandwich bar', a small shop that sells sandwiches. They sit there for an hour with one sandwich and a cup of tea and watch the people in the street. Or they often go to a pub; most pubs sell sandwiches and hot lunches. Some people like the beer in the pubs better than the food...and work very badly when they go back to the office!

An Englishman usually arrives home from work at six o'clock. When he's put on his slippers, he sits down in an armchair, and reads the evening paper. After he's had dinner, he watches television with his wife. He doesn't often go out to the cinema or theatre: "I've had a hard day at the office," he says.

An Englishman's home is very important to him; people say, "An Englishman's home is his castle." That's why he's happiest at the week-end when he's at home all day. He repairs everything in the house that's broken, he puts up new shelves, he paints walls. This is called 'Do-it-yourself': the Englishman likes to think that he doesn't need builders or painters to do these things for him.

On Sundays he clean his car. He parks the car in front of the house, so that, while he's cleaning it, he can talk to all the neighbours, who are cleaning their cars. On Sunday afternoons, he works in his garden. He can always find some grass that he needs to cut or some flowers that he needs to water.

When he goes to work on Monday morning, he's very tired!