酷兔英语


For hordes of British tween-age girls, a former lunaticasylum deep in suburban north London has become an unlikely place of pilgrimage.


伦敦北部郊区的深处原来有一家精神病院,如今它不可思议地成为了一大群英国女孩的追星圣地。



The asylum, rebranded Princess Park Manor and reborn as an opulent apartment complex, is home to a number of young British celebrities, including boy band One Direction.


这家精神病院已经摇身变为了一栋豪华公寓楼,并被重新命名为王妃公园庄园(Princess Park Manor)。如今,这里住着一大群年轻的英国名人,其中就包括男子乐队One Direction。



As a result, Caroline Comer, sales and marketing director for the manor, finds herself regularly passing groups of excitable girls lurking at the manor's gates.


正是因为这个,该庄园的市场营销总监卡洛琳•康默(Caroline Comer)时不时就会发现一群群兴奋的女孩偷偷摸摸地躲在庄园的大门处。



'They email asking if I could just collect them just a single strand of Harry's hair,' she said, referring to Harry Styles, the shaggy-haired 18-year-old heartthrob of the band.


康默说,"她们给我发电子邮件,问我能否就替她们收集一缕哈里的头发。"她提到的哈里正是One Direction的成员之一──头发蓬松卷曲的18岁万人迷哈里•斯泰尔斯(Harry Styles)。



Princess Park Manor also is home to other teen idols: members of the pop groups the Wanted and Girls Aloud; soccer stars Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Wojciech Szczęsny of the London Premier League team Arsenal; and Kara Tointon, an actress and 2010 winner of 'Strictly Come Dancing,' the British version of 'Dancing With the Stars.'


王妃公园庄园还住着其他一些青少年偶像,例如流行乐组合the Wanted和Girls Aloud的成员、效力于伦敦英超球队阿森纳(Arsenal)的足球明星阿莱克斯•奥克斯雷德-张伯伦(Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain)与沃伊切赫•什琴斯尼(Wojciech Szczesny)以及获得《舞动奇迹》(Strictly Come Dancing) 2010年度冠军的女星卡拉•托恩顿(Kara Tointon),《舞动奇迹》是英国一档类似于《与星共舞》(Dancing With the Stars)的选秀节目。



It is a scenario that Queen Victoria could scarcely have dreamed of when she asked that a humane, modern asylum be built in Friern Barnet, a neighborhood on the outskirts of London, to house mental patients. Completed in 1851, the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, as it was originally known, features an extravagant Italianate facade topped with a campanile tower. The asylum was vast, with space for 3,500 patients, a farm, a chapel and even a theater.


维多利亚女王(Queen Victoria)当年下令在伦敦郊区的Friern Barnet社区建造一座人性化的现代精神病院来收容精神病患者时,恐怕也没有想到会出现今天这样一幕吧。那座精神病院于1851年完工,最初被人称为Colney Hatch精神病院。它拥有一个华丽繁复的意大利风格外立面,上头耸立着一座钟楼。这个精神病院占地广阔,可以容纳3,500名病人,还配备一个农场、一个小教堂,甚至还有一家剧院。



Despite Victoria's philanthropic intentions, the asylum reportedly housed many patients who should never have been incarcerated. An article in the British Journal of Psychiatry described it as a 'dustbin' for people with learning disabilities, drug and alcohol addiction, vagrants, the elderly and pregnant single women, as well as the truly insane.


尽管维多利亚女王是出于善心下令建造了这座精神病院,但是据说它还是禁闭了许多原本不应该被关在里面的人。一篇发表于《英国精神病学杂志》(British Journal of Psychiatry)的文章把它称为一个"垃圾桶",有学习障碍的人、吸毒者、酗酒者、流浪汉、年迈的老人、怀孕的单身女子以及确实患有精神疾病的人都被扔了进去。



The asylum closed in 1993, and two years later the building