英首相布朗獲評最煩人演講者
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is Britain's most boring speaker, ahead of footballer David Beckham and actress Kate Winslet, according to a poll published Wednesday.
Brown's cerebral style placed him ahead of Beckham, whose London cockney accent played badly in the poll, and Winslet, widely criticised in stiff upper lip Britain for her emotional acceptance speech at this year's Golden Globes.
Brown once used the phrase "post neo-classical endogenous growth theory" in a speech and one of his frequently-told jokes recalls a meeting between the late US president Ronald Reagan and former Swedish premier Olof Palme.
An aide told Reagan: "No Mr. President, he's an anti-communist", to which Reagan responded: "I don't care what kind of communist he is".
The survey, of 1,000 adults by the firm SpinVox, judged British actor Stephen Fry the best speaker.
It came as another survey found that just nine percent of Britons backed Brown's government's multi-billion pound bailout for banks, with around 90 percent saying priority should be given to protecting jobs.
That survey, also of 1,000 adults, was carried out for People's Charter for Change, founded by trade unions and left-wing lawmakers from Brown's ruling Labour Party.
本週三公佈的一項民調顯示，英國首相戈登•布朗被評爲英國最煩人的演講者，足球明星大衛•貝克漢姆和女星凱特•溫斯萊特位居其後。
布朗因其文縐縐的風格位居榜首，貝克漢姆的倫敦東區口音難討大衆歡心，而溫斯萊特在今年金球獎頒獎典禮上情緒化的獲獎感言則讓一向以冷靜沉着而著稱的英國人頗爲反感。
布朗曾在一次演講中提及“後新古典內生增長理論”這一短語，他經常說的一個笑話是關於美國已故總統羅納德•里根與瑞典前首相奧洛夫•帕爾梅的一次會面。
一名助手對里根說：“不，總統先生，他是反共產主義者。”里根回答說：“我不管他是哪種共產主義者。”
這項由SpinVox調查機構開展的調查共有1千名成年人蔘加。英國男演員史蒂文•弗萊獲評最精彩演講者。
同時公佈的另一項調查發現，僅有9%的英國民衆支持布朗政府數十億英鎊的銀行救助計劃，約90%的人稱現在的首要任務應該是保護就業。
這項同樣有1千人蔘加的調查受People's Charter for Change的委託開展。該機構由工會和英國執政黨工黨中的左翼立法者成立。
Vocabulary:
cerebral:appealing to or requiring the use of the intellect; intellectual rather than emotional（理智的）
stiff upper lip:堅定沉着
