News Exercise #67

If you have watched Downton Abbey on NHK on Sunday evenings, you will be familiar with a butler. He (always a man) is the personal assistant of a very, very rich man, and he does everything that is needed. It is quite rare nowadays, but some super-rich people still require a butler, who is expected to have a wide variety or skills and many important contacts.

Questions:
1) Why is the group of people visiting these shops?
2) The possible salary of £100,000, sometimes written as £100K, was explained in different words, What did the reporter say? (The sentence starts at 0:34)
3) At 1:00 what does the reporter say they are doing in the house, and where will this knowledge be useful?
4) Mark, a ‘super-butler’ explains why the job is hard. What does he say?
5) What is mark’s main skill?
6) Where do butlers get the highest salary?

Below is an example from a comedy TV series titled Jeeves and Wooster, starring Stephen Fry as the butler and Hugh Laurie (Dr House) as his employer. The clips show that ‘the butler always knows best’.

Answers:
1) These are the shops (noun) where London’s richest residents like to shop (verb).
2) It is a six-figure salary.
3) They refine skills which may be put to use in some of London’t most exclusive homes.
4) “There’s no beginning, and there’s no end.  There’s no hours,  it’s a lifestyle, it’s 24-7.”
5) “I can just make things happen. Whatever you want, you can have it; I can make it happen. it doesn’t really matter the time of day, what day it is or the country I’m in.”
6) Saudi Arabia and China.