By Russell Padmore

媒体英语会带大家一起学习BBC撰稿人在报道世界大事时常用到的单词和短语。

Background: 近日一家金融服务公司说该国的互联网速度太慢远比不上信鸽的速度。这家公司举办了一个别开生面地比赛以证明其观点。

In this digital age the one thing that drives people crazy is the internet running slow.

After constant moans from their colleagues about the snail's pace of sending data between offices, the IT experts at the South African financial services firm Unlimited wondered if it would be quicker using a pigeon.

That's when they enlisted the help of Winston, the racing pigeon.

They tied a computer memory card to Winston's leg and launched him on an 80-km journey between offices in Durban and Pietermaritzburg. Unlimited's head of IT, Kevin Rolfe, says at the same time a button was pressed to send the same data online:

"When the chip was attached to Winton's leg and taken outside for release the entire office was standing there cheering and egging Winston and his colleagues on.

The release of it was quite spectacular, you had these birds flying off and at the same time as that was happening the transfer was in hand and heading up the line via the traditionalADSL."

It usually takes Unlimited six hours to send four gigabytes of data online from Durban to Pietermaritzburg.

The racing pigeon did it in about an hour.

The company that operates South Africa's network of internet lines, Telkom, has told the BBC that the race was unfair because Unlimited was using standard broadband lines and not its high speed network.

Unlimited will continue to transfer data over the internet, but Winston and his flying colleagues are still likely to be used at least once a week.

• background [´bækgraund]   n.背景；经历；幕后   (初中英语单词)
• running [´rʌniŋ]   a.奔跑的；流动的   (初中英语单词)
• constant [´kɔnstənt]   a.坚定的；坚贞的   (初中英语单词)
• financial [fi´nænʃəl]   a.金融的，财政的   (初中英语单词)
• pigeon [pidʒin]   n.鸽子   (初中英语单词)
• computer [kəm´pju:tə]   n.计算机；电子计算器   (初中英语单词)
• button [´bʌtn]   n.钮扣 vt.扣上(扣子)   (初中英语单词)
• release [ri´li:s]   vt&n.释放；放松；赦免   (初中英语单词)
• standing [´stændiŋ]   n.持续 a.直立的   (初中英语单词)
• transfer [træns´fə:]   v.&n.迁移；调动；转让   (初中英语单词)
• unlimited [ʌn´limitid]   a.无限的；过渡的   (英语四级单词)
• spectacular [spek´tækjulə]   a.壮观的；惊人的   (英语四级单词)
• happening [´hæpəniŋ]   n.事件，偶然发生的事   (英语四级单词)
• traditional [trə´diʃənəl]   a.传统的，习惯的   (英语四级单词)
• network [´netwə:k]   n.网状物 vt.联播   (英语四级单词)
• unfair [ʌn´feə]   a.不公平的；不正直的   (英语四级单词)