SOURCE TEXT (ST): Nice Work by David Lodge

Sunday lunch, or dinner as Vic called it in deference to his father, hardly varied through the
year, also in deference to Mr. Wilcox: a joint of beef or lamb, with roast potatoes and sprouts or
peas, followed by apple crumble or lemon meringue pie. Once Marjorie had experimented with
coq au vin from a recipe in a magazine, and Mr. Wilcox had sighed unhappily as his plate was
put before him and said afterwards that it was very nice but he had never been much of a one for
foreign food and there was nothing like the good old English roast. Marjorie had taken the hint.
After lunch they sat in the lounge and Mr. Wilcox diverted himself and, he fondly supposed, the
rest of the family, by reading aloud extracts from the AA Guide to Hotels and Restaurants, and
inviting them to guess the 1958 rate for a week’s half board at the best hotel in the Isle of Wight
or the price of bed and breakfast at a class A boarding house in Rhyl. ‘I don’t even know what
seven-and-six means, Grandpa, said Sandra irritably, while Gary had to be restrained from
giving his grandfather a patronizing lecture on inflation.
Sandra said she was sick of family holidays and why didn’t they buy their own apartment in
Spain or Majorca, then they could all go separately and stay with their friends, a proposal
enthusiastically ‘backed’ up by Raymond, who came in from the kitchen, where he had been
eating his warmed-up lunch because as usual he had come in from the pub too late to sit down at
the table. He also asked Vic if he would lend him and his mates two hundred and fifty pounds to
have a ‘demo tape’ of their band made, a request Vic had the satisfaction of turning down flat.
Caught in the crossfire between a parent who regarded all non-essential expenditure as a form of
moral turpitude and a wife and children who would spend his annual salary five times over if
given the chance, Vic gave up the attempt to read the Sunday papers and relieved his feelings by
going outside and shovelling away the slush on the front drive. Nothing depressed him more
than the thought of summer holidays: a fortnight of compulsory idleness, mooning about in the
rain in some dreary English seaside resort, or looking for a bit of shade on a sweltering
Mediterranean beach. Weekends were bad enough. By this point on a Sunday afternoon he was
itching to get back to the factory.

Cultural Adaptation
1. “Rummidge” (Great Britain): Rummidge

2. Sunday lunch, or dinner: El almuerzo dominical, o cena

3. a joint of beef or lamb: un buen asado de buey o de cordero

4. with roast potatoes and sprouts or peas: con patatas, coles de Bruselas o guisantes

5. apple crumble: tarta de manzana

6. lemon meringue pie: merengue de limón

7. coq au vin (French): coq au vin

8. AA Guide to Hotels and Restaurants (1958) : AA Guide to Hotels and Restaurants

9. Isle of Wight: Isla de Wright

10. Rhyl: Rhyil

11. seven-and-six: siete chelines con seis