附教学文本：
My Cousin and DIY
My cousin Andrew is crazy about DIY. He loves to repair things and decorate his house. But when he finishes, the house always looks terrible!
He once tried to put in a brighter light in his bedroom, but he made a mistake. Then his whole house had a power cut. Another time, he wanted to put up a picture on his bedroom wall, but he hit a pipe and filled the room with water.
Last month, he thought the living room in his house was boring, so he painted it blue. His mum said, “Stop it.” But he kept on painting. Now the living room has not only blue walls but also a blue ceiling and floor. Even his cat is blue now!
When I wanted a shelf above my bed, he said, “No problem!” He then spent five hours putting up the shelf on the wall. Then I put my books on the shelf. Whoops! They couldn't stay there because one end of the shelf was much higher than the other!
I bought some books about DIY for him and I also advised him to take a course in DIY. But this just made him angry — he says he already knows everything about it. So instead, I am reading all the books myself and attending lessons every Saturday. Now, I know much more about DIY than my cousin!
British Find Satisfaction in Fixing Their Homes (原文)
Last week, I visited my friend Pete in his new home, where he lives with his wife and daughter. Pete used to spend his holidays traveling the world — visiting the pyramids in Egypt or scuba diving (水肺潜水) in the Caribbean (加勒比海). Nowadays, he prefers to spend his holidays and weekends making his house look more beautiful. Like hundreds of thousands of other British people, he's found the joy of DIY (do it yourself) home repairs. This means that if there's anything that needs fixing around the house, he will try to do the job himself.
Pete showed me his new kitchen, which he put together himself, and his newly-painted walls. I asked him where he got the idea to do these things. He told me that his favourite source of ideas is a DIY program on TV.
This got me thinking about how popular DIY programs are in the UK. Each major channel (频道) has at least one home or garden makeover show. There are even entire channels that are devoted to the subject.
I suppose it's not really surprising that DIY programs are so popular. There are two common sayings in Britain — “an Englishman's home is his castle” and “there's no place like home” — which show how important our houses are to us. With the economic changes of the last ten years or so, many people can't afford to buy bigger houses. So they are looking at how they can make their house better without spending a lot of money. DIY, obviously, is the perfect choice.