Answer the following questions. Look at the photograph and read the text about Ivan Steward to find out what kind of place

Look at the photograph and read the text about Ivan Steward to find out what kind of place

He lives in, and what kind of person he is.

A ROOM OF MY OWN

IVAN STEWARD is A WINDOW CLEANER. Not only is window cleaning his bread and butter, it is

also his inspiration, because some of his ideas on interior decoration came to him by looking

through his customers' windows. He once saw a seaman's chest looking splendid in someone's

room and he set his heart on finding a similar chest. He finally came across one in Bermondsey

market. 'They told me it was an old chest that had been washed up on the shore - I wanted to believe

that, so it's true as far as I'm concerned.' Now it's in the sitting room of his top-floor flat with its

panoramic view of London. If the room has a faintly Continental air, that's because while cleaning windows in Holland he noticed that Dutch people tended to have wooden floors rather than fitted carpets. 'They have all these different coloured woods, so I decided every time I came back I was going to bring back some wood.' Ivan, now 41, is just under two metres tall, long-limbed - ideal window cleaner's physique - and soft-voiced, with a gentle manner but a considerable degree of drive and enthusiasm. As well as being a window cleaner, he is also an actor. Before he was either, he was a fireman. Ivan bought the Persian rug in a carpet sale out of the money he was paid for playing Ambrose in the TV series 'Robin of Sherwood'. His role of Simkins in the film version of 'Porridge' paid for the sofa and the Victorian farmhouse chair. His mother, who died some years ago, gave him the cheese plant, and most of the other plants he bought in Columbia Road flower market. The television set stands on a cut-down Victorian table that he bought in Bermondsey market. He is devoted to dogs, and his girlfriend gave him the carved wooden dog on the television set. He also has a retriever called Sidney. The African figure on his coffee table is one of three he bought in Dar es Salaam when he went to stay with a fellow drama student who lived in Africa. He came across the pair of boat paintings at a Sunday jumble sale in Essex. Ivan keeps all his tips in the gin bottle and is hoping to buy his flat from the council.

Answer the following questions.

a) Where does Ivan get ideas for decorating his flat?

b) What jobs does he do, and what other job has he done?

c) What is he saving money for?

d) Do you think Ivan is an interesting person? Give your reasons.

e) What do you think bread and butter in the second sentence means?

3 Where did Ivan get the following things from, and where are they in the room?

a) the seaman's chest

b) the Persian rug

c) the sofa

d) the Victorian chair

e) the plants

f) the television table

g) the wooden dog

h) the African figure

i) the pictures

j) the tips

Example:

Object: the seaman's chest

Where did he get it? Bermondsey market

Where is it in the room? opposite the sofa, against the wall.