2009年8月27日 星期四

Network Rail/Eurotunne

英國國營鐵路公司(Network Rail)今天宣布,因應快速增加的乘客,計劃以340億英鎊(約1兆8234億台幣)興建倫敦到蘇格蘭的高速鐵路,如完成,可望創造550億英鎊的收益。 一旦計劃獲政府同意推動,這將是英國第二條高速鐵路。 目前英國境內唯一的高鐵,是歐洲之 ...

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法→英火車出包 卡海底隧道6小時

〔編譯張沛元/綜合報導〕英國媒體二十七日報導,日前一列從法國開往英國的火車在途中突然故障,卡在穿越英吉利海峽的海底隧道深處動彈不得,車上約五百名旅客困在黑暗、高溫酷熱與驚恐中達六小時之久。儘管當局事後致歉也願意退費,但旅客對相關單位的應變仍深表不滿。

列車在隧道中故障後,車廂照明與冷氣也隨之停擺,使得車內溫度飆升至攝氏三十度;電力中斷還導致車門無法開啟。隨著受困時間愈來愈久,旅客開始感到恐慌甚 至哭泣,其中一名有糖尿病的女性昏倒,有些人氣喘發作,還有不少孩童暈了過去。旅客熱得將緊閉的車廂門撬開通風,瓶裝水已經喝光光,廁所也無法使用。

結束法國旅程準備回家的英國人戴維斯,與同行的妻子及表姊,正好碰上這起火車卡在海底隧道的意外。戴維斯抱怨負責經營海底隧道的「英法海底隧道公 司」(Eurotunnel)處置欠佳,受困六小時居然只廣播一次說火車發生問題,以致所有人都走來走去,互問到底發生了什麼事。

隨著時間一分一秒過去,受困旅客愈來愈火大,並質問警衛到底發生了什麼事,但警衛也不知情,「通訊系統根本無法運作」。戴維斯說,儘管警衛曾發水給大家喝,但水很快就喝完了;而最令人受不了的是,沒有人告訴受困旅客到底發生了什麼事。

這列火車是在當地時間二十五日晚間七時五十分由法國出發,原訂二十六日凌晨二時三十分抵達英國。就在列車開到位於海平面下約一百零四公尺的隧道最深處之際,這輛雙層列車逐漸慢了下來,最後完全停止。

為營救受困乘客,英法兩端的海底隧道列車暫時停駛,同時派遣一列救援列車前往現場,將這列故障車拉出來,醫護人員也查看受困旅客的健康情況。

英法海底隧道公司發言人奇非表示,該公司會退還受困旅客的車資,即一張九十八英鎊(約台幣五千二百元)的回程車票,並提供免費旅遊招待券。

2009年8月25日 星期二

蘇格蘭特赦毋須倫敦批准

2009-08-25
【明報專訊】邁格拉希獲釋後,美國聯邦調查局局長馬勒(Robert Mueller)致信蘇格蘭司法大臣麥卡斯基爾,指有關決定是對司法的嘲弄。蘇格蘭官員則反駁指,英國與美國司法制度不同。蘇格蘭首席大臣薩孟德表示﹕「有時候,讓美國人認識到這裏的司法系統與他們不同很難,但我們必須依據蘇格蘭司法原則來辦事。」英國的4個組成部分——英格蘭、蘇格蘭、威爾士與北愛爾蘭,各自擁有自治權。根據1998年通過的《蘇格蘭法案》,蘇格蘭自治權範圍包括教育、健康、農業和司法,但在國防、外交和主要財政政策等事務上則聽從聯邦政府的統一調度。蘇格蘭規定,若犯人「身體狀况極差,只剩不足3個月命」,即可以人道立場將其釋放,但須經麥卡斯基爾簽署確認。相比之下,英格蘭和威爾士釋放垂危病人的條件較嚴苛,犯人「須為嚴重殘疾」,而且放人決定須獲英國司法大臣施仲宏(Jack Straw)批准。施仲宏在月初便特赦了傳奇「火車大盜」比格斯(Ronnie Biggs)。英國廣播公司/蘇格蘭政府網站/法新社

David Cameron

LEADERS: Britain's Conservatives

Step forward, Dave the brave

What David Cameron needs to do between now and the general election to prove he is ready to governAug 20th 2009

BRITAIN: An interview with David Cameron

The man who would be prime minister

The Conservative leader sets out his thinking to The EconomistAug 20th 2009



An interview with David Cameron

The man who would be prime minister

Aug 20th 2009
From The Economist print edition

The Conservative leader sets out his thinking to The Economist


PA

OF THE DIARY commitments David Cameron had scheduled either side of his interview with The Economist on August 18th, the first, an appearance alongside a feted intellectual at London’s Royal Society for the Arts, would enthuse Gordon Brown. The second, a campaign tour, would appeal to Tony Blair. Though he is neither as showily cerebral as the current prime minister nor as scintillating a retail politician as the previous one, Mr Cameron is adept in both settings.

Such roundedness may contribute to the leader of the opposition’s lack of definition (“Who is David Cameron?”, The Economist once asked on its cover). But it also helps to explain why the 42-year-old is the favourite to become prime minister after the general election likely to be held next spring, only nine years since he entered Parliament, and four-and-a-half since he was elected leader of a then reviled Conservative Party. The rapid journey has nevertheless allowed time for disruptive events. Mr Cameron set out to rebrand the Tories as kinder and greener. It worked. The recession and a fiscal deficit he describes as “intimidating” have forced him to re-rebrand them as a party of economic competence and austerity.

Here, his record has been mixed. Mr Cameron insists he was right to oppose the government’s fiscal stimulus last year, an initially lonely position that has won adherents since. His critics still invoke his response to the financial crisis in 2007, when he opposed the nationalisation of Northern Rock, a stricken mortgage lender, before eventually bowing to the inevitable. The government did the same, Mr Cameron points out, as if to deny that he allowed right-wing ideology to trump pragmatism. The Tories were also slow to ditch their boom-time pledge to share revenue between tax cuts and public spending. “We should have abandoned Labour’s spending plans sooner,” he says ruefully.

The main critique of Mr Cameron these days looks to the future. If fiscal retrenchment under the Tories takes the form of spending cuts rather than tax rises (though he does not rule out the latter), where will the axe fall? He has committed to few specific cuts. Indeed, he has declared some areas immune from austerity measures, namely health care, a fraught issue for him of late. On August 13th Daniel Hannan, a high-profile Tory MEP, disparaged Britain’s beloved NHS on American television, provoking much ire back home and a slapdown from his leader (see article). Other Tories resent Mr Cameron’s commitment to spend more on the NHS but his view “is the one that counts”.

If a fiscal squeeze is on its way the Tories will want to win a mandate for it. “Getting the deficit under control will make or break my government,” he admits. Accordingly, more fine print will emerge before the election. But by accepting the principle that spending must fall, Mr Cameron says he has already been braver than the government. “I can’t think of an opposition party going into an election promising spending cuts since 1929.”

Mr Cameron is frustrated at credit not being given where it is due. He and his Treasury spokesman, George Osborne, made a point of resisting right-wing pressure to promise an overall cut in taxation. No one could know the state of public finances in future, they argued during this struggle. Then came the fiscal crisis and, with it, barely acknowledged vindication.

Pressed to say what he has learned from Barack Obama’s early travails as American President, Mr Cameron is diplomatically reticent. But he confesses to being wary of having “too many aims and goals”. Whatever political capital he can spare from cutting spending will be largely used to introduce market-based reforms to Britain’s schools. The plans fit the Tories’ theme of “giving power away”, which encompasses everything from strengthening local government to avant-garde ideas for granting individuals control over the money the state spends on them. Such boldness is missing in other areas, grumble some Tory thinkers.

It is on foreign affairs, however, that Mr Cameron has been most inscrutable. His hostility to further integration of the European Union is clear enough, though he remains vague on what he would do if the Lisbon treaty, which his party loathes, is ratified before the election. Europe may be the least of his worries, though. If troublespots such as Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan worsen while growth and employment recover at home, international security may begin to rival the economy as the issue of the day at some point during a first-term Tory government. Mr Cameron, against most expectations, may end up becoming a foreign-policy prime minister.

He lists the world leaders he has assiduously cultivated. He mentions his chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, who brings international contacts from his years as a diplomatic aide. But his efforts to “build a knowledge base” do not signal a direction. His reluctance to “carve out a philosophy” of foreign policy seems wise, as these rarely survive first contact with reality. Instincts and past decisions are a better guide to future action. Mr Cameron’s gut feelings on Britain’s role in the world may herald a change of direction. Unlike Mr Brown, who seems unmoved by the non-economic aspects of foreign policy, he wants an active Britain on the world stage. (His answer to whether it should punch above its weight is an immediate “yes”). But unlike Mr Blair, he does not insist that the role takes a missionary liberal form.

The right temperament

As for his record, he was sceptical about the Iraq surge and admonished Israel during its war with Lebanon, which cheered his party’s doves. They see in William Hague their kind of foreign-affairs spokesman. But Mr Cameron also visited Georgia last year to denounce its invasion by Russia and did not criticise Israel’s incursion into Gaza this year—to the delight of Tory neo-conservatives. They may be encouraged that many of his deviations from Blairite orthodoxy (including a speech critical of America on the fifth anniversary of 9/11) took place in his early, rebranding phase as leader. These may have been driven more by the need to soften the Tories’ image than by his own sentiments.

The lesson of the Brown premiership, undermined as it often has been by its own obsessive political calculation, may be that temperament is more important to leadership than intellect. If so, Mr Cameron is well-placed. He is whip-smart, to be sure, but the equanimity with which he approaches politics seems the bigger asset during a crisis era. His collegiality (“I like being the chairman of a team”) also signals an end to the imperial premierships of recent decades.

Mr Cameron—who has an “implementation unit” devoted to working out how his policies will be put into practice, and a stable if not stellar shadow cabinet—claims to be readier for power than any recent incoming prime minister. But if he is unusually well-prepared, he will also be unusually burdened with challenges.

2009年8月21日 星期五

thelondonpaper

媒體大亨梅鐸的《倫敦晚報》(thelondonpaper http://www.thelondonpaper.com/ )不堪虧損,將退出倫敦免費晚報市場。新聞公司上一會計年度虧損20億英鎊 (近台幣1083億),董事長梅鐸最近表示,旗下報紙的網站將開始收費。

以通勤族為發行對象的《倫敦晚報》於2006年9月4日創刊,每天發行約50萬份,員工60人左右。該報稅前年虧損達1290 萬英鎊,主因是廣告收入大減。

梅鐸之子、新聞公司歐洲及亞洲地區總裁詹姆士.梅鐸表示,「短短時間內,《倫敦晚報》在創意版面設計及新的發行方式上進步很大,但業務表現低於預期,我們身為企業,必須專注核心事業,所以要做出困難的決定。」

新聞公司目前在英國經營的媒體包括《泰晤士報》、《太陽報》,和周日發行的《世界新聞報》、《星期泰晤士報》。

《倫敦晚報》收攤後,倫敦晚報市場免費報將只剩下發行量40萬份的《London Lite》,它的發行公司聯合報社(Associated Newspapers)也發行專供通勤族閱讀的晨間免費捷運報Metro。

2009年8月20日 星期四

Putpockets

putpocket, pickpocket


pickpocket
n.

One who steals from pockets.



倫敦「樂施手」 塞錢到皮包 【8/19 22:59】

〔本報訊〕以往民眾出國旅遊時,總是得注意自己的錢包,避免被竊,但近日在英國倫敦卻出現了多名「樂施手」(Putpockets),他們會趁旅客不注意 時,偷偷將5鎊(約新台幣272元)到20鎊(約新台幣1089元)不等的紙鈔,塞進神經大條的旅客皮包內,讓發現錢的民眾大呼驚喜。

根據《路透》報導,這項計畫是由英國一家寬頻廠商贊助,目前只在倫敦試驗,如果成效佳的話,9月開始就會推行到全英國。廠商發言人表示,公司之所以推動「樂施手」計畫,就是希望想用不尋常的方式,為飽受經濟壓力的人們增添生活樂趣。

廠 商請來20名前任扒手,除了幫助他們重新做人外,還將錢交給他們,讓他們在特拉法加廣場(Trafalgar Square)、科芬園(Covent Garden)和其他繁忙的觀光景點,將紙鈔塞入旅客口袋或是敞開的手提袋內。據悉,該計畫至少將散財10萬英鎊(約新台幣544萬元)。

putpocket
1. A person who puts his/her belongings into someone's pocket, purse, or any other place on their body.

2009年8月19日 星期三

倫敦舉行台灣救災義演8月18日

BBC中文網
倫敦舉行台灣救災義演
BBC中文網
BBC中文網記者子川圖片報道:8月18日倫敦唐人街台灣救災義演活動。 英國各界華人華僑以及本地民眾紛紛踴躍捐款。 來自台灣的“宋江陣”剛剛在愛丁堡藝朮節演出16場。表演還沒正式開始,就已經吸引了很多民眾和游客。 “宋江爺”是台灣南部類似于媽祖的神﹔“宋江陣”是高雄內門 ...

2009年8月16日 星期日

Graff Diamonds 懸賞獎金緝凶

精打細算!倫敦珠寶保險公司 5千萬獎金緝凶 【8/15 19:50】

  〔本報訊〕英國倫敦「格拉夫鑽石公司」(Graff Diamonds)旗艦店,本月6日發生世紀大搶案,損失將近22億元新台幣。珠寶保險公司為了幫助警方,盡早逮到這對黑白雙煞,尋回遺失的43件頂級珠 寶,提供100萬英鎊(約新台幣5444.6萬元)的懸賞獎金緝凶。

根據《英國廣播電台》報導,警方依監視錄影帶,鎖定一黑一白的兩名嫌犯,監視畫面顯示,兩人年約30多歲,都操倫敦口音,很有可能就是當地人,並有多名同夥駕車協助逃亡。承保被搶珠寶保險的保險公司今天表示,將提供100萬英鎊鼓勵民眾提供線索,協助緝凶。

如果懸賞獎金真能幫助搶匪落網的話,雖然5000多萬元的懸賞獎金將拱手送人,但是保險公司至少還能省下21億元的保險金,怎麼算都划算!

2009年8月11日 星期二

英國人:不吃飯不度假也要上網 / 4,000名“冒牌学生”下落不明

英國人:不吃飯不度假也要上網

iPhone
通訊科技成了英國人生活的必要組成
調查顯示,金融危機下英國人寧願不上飯店不度假,要把錢花在手機、互聯網和電視上。

這項由英國負責監管通訊業以及廣播媒體的Ofcom進行的調查發現,英國人把手機、互聯網和電視視為僅次於食物的生活必需品。

調查者問消費者在金融危機下會選擇在哪方面節約開支,結果超過40%的人表示願意減少外出就餐以及度假的次數。

與此相比,只有19%的人說會減少在手機方面的花費,16%的人說願意放棄有線和衛星電視頻道,10%的人願意放棄寬帶上網。

調查人員指出,這除了顯示英國人對現代通訊的依賴之外,也與英國通訊服務的價格日漸降低有關。

調查還發現,英國有1900萬人使用社交網站Facebook,這佔英國所有互聯網用戶的二分之一。

調查稱,截止2009年3月,英國全國68%的家庭實現寬帶上網,同比提高了10個百分點。


4,000名“冒牌学生”下落不明
申请学生签证
英国加强了海外学生申请签证的程序
英国政府现在正在追查大约4,000名外国“学生”的行踪,这些“学生”都是一些“冒牌学院”招收的学生。

但是在野党派议员警告说,实际人数可能远远不止“这么丁点”。

英国政府之前依照新近颁布的法律,撤销了这些“问题学院”招收外国学生的资格。

不必上课

被撤销资格的机构,以往收取相当数额的费用,然后对缴费学生发出在学证明,以便协助取得入境英国读书的学生签证。

但是这些所谓的学生,绝大部分都无需到学校上课。

英国入出境管理局提供给在野党议员的资料显示,被撤销资格的机构招收的学生总数是3,940人。

在野党指责英国政府未能有效地处理这些已入境“学生”的问题,而且对“问题学院”取缔不力。

移民事务官员则说,政府将遣送任何没有“真正意愿”在英国念书的外国学生。

2009年8月8日 星期六

The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester

The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
by Simon Winchester
260pp, Oxford, £12.99

In 1858 the members of the Philological Society decided that work
should begin on a "New Dictionary of the English Language". Seventy
years and more than £300,000 later, A New English Dictionary on
Historical Principles - what we now know as the OED - was first
published in its entirety. Simon Winchester, whose popular book The
Surgeon of Crowthorne told the odd story of the murderer who, from his
cell in Broadmoor, contributed thousands of illustrative quotations to
the dictionary, now offers a brief account of the whole enterprise.

He first sprints through the development of language in Britain and
sketches the development of monolingual lexicography, from Robert
Cawdrey's 1604 dictionary which advertised itself as being "for the
benefit of Ladies, Gentlewomen, or any other unskilfull persons", to
Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster.
Then we come to the story of the OED itself and its early editors:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's grandson Herbert, brilliant but sickly,
whose dying words were, according to legend, "I must begin Sanskrit
tomorrow"; and Frederick Furnivall, who recruited pretty young women
from Hammersmith cafés to induct them into his sculling club.

Work on the dictionary was at best sporadic; finally, in 1879,
red-bearded Scotsman James Murray was appointed editor and became the
hero of the story. We see him erect his first Scriptorium - a
corrugated-iron shed in his garden - to house his assistants, and to
shelve the hundreds of thousands of quotation slips sent in by
volunteers. He battles against interfering superiors and moves to
Oxford, where the local post office erects a shiny new red pillar box
right outside his house to handle the volume of correspondence.
Winchester explains well the enormous labours involved in compiling
even four pages, and his notion of the OED as a triumph of Victorian
engineering is apposite.

According to the lovably irascible Murray, the poet Browning used
words "without regard to their proper meaning". Worryingly, so does
Winchester. He tells us that the Shakespearean word "vastidity" means
"big". (As the OED itself confirms, it means the quality of being very
big, or "vastness".) He declaims grandiloquently that the OED "...
quite literally, would be classically democratic". (It was, of course,
not "literally" democratic, since the editor had absolute power in
writing the final definitions.)

Winchester is besotted with ungrammatical constructions - which defect
seems allied to his peculiar strivings for genteel archaism, as when
he calls a year a "twelvemonth", or refers to a short rest as a
"period of quietude". He is also in love with hyperbole (he refers to
a group of dining academics as "a stellar gathering of intellect,
rarely either assembled or able to be assembled since"). Most gruesome
of all are Winchester's attempts at pseudo-novelistic colour. People
at a ball in 1928 apparently "whirled like stately dervishes". This is
popular history that, though it is published by the august Oxford
University Press itself, feels no need even to pay lip-service to
"historical principles".

· Steven Poole's Trigger Happy is published by Fourth Estate.


Taiwan, 2005


OED的故事
人類史上最浩大的編纂工程

‧作者:賽門‧溫契斯特Simon Winchester
‧譯者::林秀梅
‧定價:320元/頁數:280頁/

【基本資料 |序曲|書摘 1|書摘 2 】


OED的故事
人類史上最浩大的編纂工程


【基本資料|序曲 |書摘 1 |書摘 2 】



入圍2004年「大英圖書獎」歷史類書籍

溫契斯特有一流作家必備的華麗筆觸,我一口氣讀完《OED的故事:人類史上最浩大的編纂工程》,欲罷不能。──哈洛‧卜倫(HaroldBloom),耶魯大學英國文學教授

一九二八年,耗時七十一年的《牛津英語大辭典》(簡稱OED的出版,奠定英語不可撼動的世界地位,這部辭典在當時堪稱人類有史以來最龐大的知識庫。不僅彙集成千上萬有名、無名男女的智慧結晶,還增添了許多奇聞軼事。

十九世紀中葉,英國有錢有閒的維多利亞知識份子組成的「語文學會」,有感於合乎時代需求的英語辭典付之闕如,興起為英語編纂一部最完備辭典的念頭。幾經更迭,這部命運多舛的辭典差點胎死腹中,幸虧每遇危機,總有人伸出援手,扶它一把。直到沒沒無名的蘇格蘭布商之子自告奮勇扛下編纂實務,帶領「繕寫房」的編輯成員與世界各角落英語、非英語國家的閱讀義工與學者,胼手胝足、一磚一瓦堆砌出這空前的遠大志業。

幕後的點點滴滴,有險惡,有勾心鬥角,有執著,有編輯與出版社的鬥智,也有來自各行各業不改初衷的無私奉獻。還在查辭典的諸君,不說你們可能不知道:早期編輯之一就是詩人柯立芝那患肺癆的孫子;aardvark(食蟻獸)差點進不了牛津英語殿堂,因為不像英文字;《柳林中的風聲》主角水鼠竟是以這本辭典歷任編輯之一為藍本;《魔戒》作者托爾金為walrus(海象)一詞下定義時吃盡苦頭;還有bondmaid(女奴)成了OED第一版的遺珠之憾,只因一紙詞條遺落在書堆之後。

作者溫契斯特調閱牛津大學出版社檔案,嚴謹地把這些幕後編輯的趣聞與英語詞彙的編纂過程一一呈現。不論現在還有多少人每天查字典、為什麼查,這本巨型辭典編輯之繁複,創造了跨越兩個世紀、長達七十一年的傳奇。而這部傳奇,將隨著語言的生命,像漣漪般一圈一圈向外擴展,也將隨著人類編纂辭典的本能,一代一代流傳下去。


▼ 作者簡介

賽門‧溫契斯特Simon Winchester

作家、探險家。牛津大學地質系畢業後,擔任《衛報》(
Guardian)及《星期泰晤士報》(Sunday
Times)的海外特派員,待過貝爾發斯特、新德里、紐約、倫敦及香港。為《紐約時報》、《史密森月刊》(Smithsonian)、《觀察者》(Spectator)、《國家地理雜誌》、BBC等媒體撰稿。一九九八年全球暢銷書《瘋子‧教授‧大字典》(The
Surgeon of Crowthorne),描述英格蘭精神療養院的殺人犯──美國軍醫麥諾,為OED查索引句,與主編莫雷結下一段不解之緣,共同為這本龐大的辭典寫下一段少為人知的傳奇,這段插曲在《OED的故事》中也有所著墨。其他著作有《一九○六年加州大地震》(A
Crack in the Edge of the World)、《克拉卡托亞火山爆發記》(Krakatoa)、《改變世界的地圖》(The
Map That Changed the World),以及《世界中央的河流》(The River at the Center of the
World)、《大英帝國邊境》(Outposts)等多本遊記。目前正在進行有關中國的長篇寫作計畫。


▼ 譯者簡介

林秀梅

台灣大學外文系碩士。譯有《新動物園》、《雄性暴力》、《可笑的結局》(合譯)、《法國土司》。


▼ 目錄

序曲 Prologue

1 測量規模1. Taking the Measure of it All
2 分類與架構 2. The Construction of the Pigeonholes
3 指揮大局 3. The General Officer Commanding
4 蜂擁而回的詞彙大軍4. Battling the Undertow
5 穿越文字密林 5. Pushing through the Untrodden Forest
6 緩如牛步 6. So Heavily Goes the Chariot
7 隱士、殺人犯與形形色色的辭典義工 7. The Hermit and the Murderer - and Hereward
Thimble by Price
8 光榮告別8. From Take to Turndown - and then, Triumphal Valediction
尾聲/恆常復始 Epilogue: And Always Beginning Again
書目與延伸閱讀Bibliography and Further Reading
Index
Picture Acknowledgements
謝詞


******




萬物之要義―《牛津英語詞典》編纂記(簡體書)
I S B N:710005754X
I S B N 13:9787100057547
作 者:[英]溫徹斯特
精平裝/頁數: 平裝本 / 283頁
出版社:商務印書館國際有限公司
出版日: 2009/03/01
牛津系列英語學習詞典被譽為“全世界擁有最多讀者的英文詞典”。本書以倒敘的方式,從《牛津英語詞典》首版問世的1928年來切入整個編纂事件的描述。描 述了《牛津英語詞典》的編纂者們為界定大千世界物質與精神萬物的要義為付出的艱辛努力,讓我們領略了英語語言濫觴於西元前500年到繁盛於當今21世紀的 時代變遷中蘊積的無窮人文魅力。可以說是真正意義上的《牛津英語詞典》編纂史,是立足於這一宏大歷史事件而進行的全面深刻的揭示,不僅使人增長知識,而且 還給人以無限啟迪。是值得廣大英語愛好者和研究者一讀的有關英語語言史,特別是辭彙史方面的有價值的參考書。

2009年8月4日 星期二

Trinity College, Cambridge

已培養32名諾貝爾獎得主的英國劍橋大學三一學院,不僅學術地位崇高,財務實力也十分驚人,外傳計劃以約台幣11億台幣買下倫敦重要地標O2 Arena。

 Wikipedia article "Trinity College, Cambridge".


 已經培育出32名諾貝爾獎得主的英國劍橋大學三一學院 (Trinity College),不僅學術地位崇高,財務實力也十分驚人。根據媒體報導,三一學院計劃以2,000萬英鎊(約新台幣11億元)買下倫敦重要地標O2 Arena。

  報導指出,知名藝人瑪丹娜(Madonna)、王子(Prince)、碧昂絲 (Beyonce)等人都曾經在位於倫敦東區的O2 Arena舉辦演唱會,最近過世的流行樂天王麥可傑克森原本也計劃7月在那裡開唱。

  O2 Arena除了可以舉辦大型演唱會,內部還有電影院、餐廳和夜總會,是倫敦知名的休閒娛樂場所。

  報導表示,擁有O2 Arena長達999年合約權的房地產商Quintain,最近公開尋找買主,7月29日確定,目前僅與一個買主洽談,經確認就是劍橋三一學院。

  三一學院是劍橋大學31個學院中,財力最豐厚的學院之一,2005年的資產達6億2,100萬英鎊,與英國職業足球曼聯隊(Manchester United)相當。

  三一學院於1546年由亨利八世國王創辦,截至目前,已經培育出包括物理學家牛頓(Isaac Newton)、詩人拜倫(Lord Byron)等人,英國王儲查爾斯王子也曾在那裡就讀;三一學院擁有許多房地產,並且有自己專屬的科學園區,每年有數百萬英鎊的收入。