[al:新概念英语（三）] [ar:MP3 同步字幕版（英音）] [ti:Do It Yourself] [by:更多学习内容，请到chazidian.com搜索“新概念”] [00:01.47]Lesson 46 [00:03.46]Do it yourself [00:11.19]Did the writer repair his lawn mower in the end? Why/Why not? [00:18.82]So great is our passion for doing things for ourselves, [00:22.33]that we are becoming increasingly less dependent on specialized labour. [00:27.45]No one can plead ignorance of a subject any longer, for there are countless do-it-yourself publications. [00:34.90]Armed with the right tools and materials, [00:37.51]newlyweds gaily embark on the task of decorating their own homes. [00:42.90]Men, particularly, spend hours of their leisure time installing their own fireplaces, [00:49.52]laying out their own gardens; building garages and making furniture. [00:56.29]Some really keen enthusiasts go so far as to build their own computers. [01:01.89]Shops cater for the do-it-yourself craze not only by running special advisory services for novices, [01:09.07]but by offering consumers bits and pieces which they can assemble at home. [01:14.81]Such things provide an excellent outlet for pent up creative energy, [01:20.07]but unfortunately not all of us are born handymen. [01:25.44]Some wives tend to believe that their husbands are infinitely resourceful and can fix anything. [01:33.01]Even men who can hardly drive a nail in straight are supposed to be born electricians, carpenters, plumbers and mechanics. [01:43.36]When lights fuse, furniture gets rickety, pipes get clogged, [01:49.01]or vacuum cleaners fail to operate, [01:51.85]some women assume that their husbands will somehow put things right. [01:57.22]The worst thing about the do-it-yourself game [02:00.18]is that sometimes even men live under the delusion that they can do anything, even when they have repeatedly been proved wrong. [02:10.18]It is a question of pride as much as anything else. [02:15.00]Last spring my wife suggested that I call in a man to look at our lawn mower. [02:21.68]It had broken down the previous summer, and though I promised to repair it, I had never got round to it. [02:29.39]I would not hear of the suggestion and said that I would fix it myself. [02:34.97]One Saturday afternoon, I hauled the machine into the garden and had a close look at it. [02:41.38]As far as I could see, it needed only a minor adjustment: [02:46.35]a turn of a screw here, a little tightening up there, a drop of oil and it would be as good as new. [02:55.43]Inevitably the repair job was not quite so simple. [03:00.22]The mower firmly refused to mow, so I decided to dismantle it. [03:06.63]The garden was soon littered with chunks of metal which had once made up a lawn mower. [03:12.99]But I was extremely pleased with myself. I had traced the cause of the trouble. [03:19.46]One of the links in the chain that drives the wheels had snapped. [03:24.25]After buying a new chain I was faced with the insurmountable task of putting the confusing jigsaw puzzle together again. [03:33.03]I was not surprised to find that the machine still refused to work after I had reassembled it, [03:39.33]for the simple reason that I was left with several curiously shaped bits of metal which did not seem to fit anywhere. [03:47.50]I gave up in despair. The weeks passed and the grass grew. [03:53.03]When my wife nagged me to do something about it, [03:55.91]I told her that either I would have to buy a new mower or let the grass grow. [04:01.74]Needless to say our house is now surrounded by a jungle. [04:05.59]Buried somewhere in deep grass there is a rusting lawn mower which I have promised to repair one day.