XXIV. a) Translate into Russian. b) Give synonyms to the following

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d) Retell the text:
George got hold of the paper, and read us the weather fore

cast “rain, cold, wet to fine, occasional local thunderstorms, east
wind with general depression over the ‘Midland Counties’.” I do
think that, of all the silly, irritating tomfoolishness by which we
are plagued, this “weather forecast” fraud is about the most ag

gravating. It “forecasts” precisely what happened yesterday or
the day before, and precisely the opposite of what is going to
happen today.
I remember a holiday of mine being completely ruined one
late autumn by our paying attention to the weather report of the
local newspaper. “Heavy showers, with thunderstorms, may be
expected today,” it would say, and so we would give up our pic

nic, and stop indoors all day, waiting for the rain. And people
would pass the house, going off in wagonettes and coaches as
jolly and merry as could be, the sun shining out, and not a cloud
to be seen.
“Ah,” we said, as we stood looking out at them through the
window, “won’t they come home soaked!”
And we chuckled to think how wet they were going to get.
By twelve o’clock, with the sun pouring into the room, the heat
became quite oppressive, and we wondered when those heavy
showers and occasional thunderstorms were going to begin. At
one o’clock the landlady would come in to ask if we weren’t go

ing out, as it seemed such a lovely day.
“No, no,” we replied, with a knowing chuckle, “not we. We
don’t mean to get wet — no, no.” But not a drop ever fell, and it
finished a grand day, and a lovely night after it.
The next morning we would read that it was going to be a
“warm fine to set
fair day, much heat,” and we would dress our

selves in flimsy things, and go out, and, half
an
hour after we
had started, it would commence to rain hard, and a bitterly cold
wind would spring up, and both would keep on steadily for the
whole day, and we could come home with cools and rheumatism
all over us, and go to bed.
The weather is a thing that is beyond me altogether. I never
can understand it.
(Abridged from “Three Men in a Boat”
by Jerome K. Jerome)

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