N50 : Fiftieth lesson S00-TITLE : Art versus Sport (From our Arts Correspondent) S01 : When my column on the art-versus-sport debate got out into the blogosphere last week, I was accused of jumping on the culture bandwagon. S02 : Well, guess what, guys? I'm going to climb right back up there with this week's rant. S03 : Get this: the Department for Culture and Sport is building fifteen - that's right, fifteen - new football stadia over the next decade, S04 : while funding for the "Passers-By" street theatre projects, amateur arts groups and even the new Shakespeare theatre has dried up. S05 : So what? you might ask. The Beautiful Game earns billions for the nation in ticket sales, rights sales, and sundry other sales. S06 : And you've got a point. There's no getting away from it: soccer is a serious money-spinner. S07 : But, hey, the Bard earns us big bucks, too. Megabucks, in fact. S08 : The turnover of the Shakespeare industry is a cool twenty billion a year. Not to be sneezed at, eh? S09 : What I'm getting at is that this blessed plot of earth needs bandstands just as much as it needs grandstands - if not more so. S10 : I'm not going to get into a debate about whether art is more necessary than sport. Heaven forbid. S11 : The argument I'm trying to get across is that, through short-sightedness and sheer bloody-mindedness S12 : our beloved Arts Secretary is getting us into a situation where we may have to choose between one or the other. S13 : When the going gets tough, she repeats the mantra about "getting value for the taxpayer's money". S14 : Obviously, we can get by without another orchestra, another dance troupe or even another rock band S15 : (anyway, most of today's top bands are billion-dollar multinational companies). S16 : But that's neither here nor there: a healthy society needs to strike a balance between the two cultures. S17 : It's not as if half the country likes soccer, the other half likes the Proms and never the twain shall meet. S18 : The big problem, truth be told, is getting the money to the right place at the right time. S19 : As the old saying goes: "art for art's sake but money for heavens' sake!" T00-TRANSLATE : Exercise: Translate T01 : The students all shouted: "Blessed be our beloved and learned professor!". T02 : I want you to make up your mind right now. T03 : God forbid that anything should happen to them while I'm away. T04 : Get this: he gets by on just three hundred quid a month. - So what? T05 : The funding has dried up but, truth be told, I really don't care!