中國網站品牌欄目（頻道）
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Face masks of Britain's Prince William and his fiancee Kate Middleton are loaded into boxes for shipping at a production plant in Southam, central England Friday April 22, 2011.(Agencies) |
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Costume masks of Britain's royal family are flying off the shelves nationwide ahead of Prince William's April 29 wedding to Kate Middleton. And with Britons taking no pains to, well, mask their excitement about the wedding, the bride-to-be's face has been popping up in the most unlikely places. On the street. At the gym. In the office. And the stores? They're struggling to keep the masks in stock. "They're flying out the door," said Tony Warner, assistant manager of London's Escapade party store. "They're beating (masks of) Simon Cowell, they're beating everyone else." More than 120,000 royal masks have shipped already and Mask-arade, the company behind the phenomenon, is taking orders for 20,000 more each day, according to Ray Duffy, one of its founders. "We thought they were going to be popular, but we underestimated just how popular," confessed Duffy. "It's gone absolutely wild." Wills and Kate are the best-sellers of course, but the other royals on offer — Prince Harry, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla — are not far behind. The success has stunned Duffy and his fellow mask men, forcing the Southam, England-based company to double in size and triple the number of contractors to meet the surge in demand. "We're at absolute maximum capacity to get the orders shipped," Duffy said, adding that employees are logging 12-hour days and six-day work weeks. The company has already stopped taking large orders so it can guarantee delivery before the wedding. And it's not just enthusiastic locals. Mask-arade is shipping British royal faces all over the world — to the United States, Australia, Scotland, even Vietnam. The founders launched the business in 2008 to make personalized masks for parties, but when requests came in for celebrity faces, they were happy to oblige. The company offers about 100 masks total. (Read by Renee Haines. Renee Haines is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies)
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英國威廉王子和準王妃凱特?米德爾頓將于本月29日舉行婚禮，有關英國王室的服飾面具近日在全英熱銷。戴上面具，英國民眾就可以盡情表達自己對婚禮的興奮之情，因此準王妃的面具突然出現在一些最出人意料的場所。 在大街上、在健身房、在辦公室……隨處可見戴著王室面具的人們。還有商場呢？商場正盡力確保面具供應。 倫敦“惡作劇”派對用品店副經理托尼?沃納說：“王室成員面具‘飛一樣’地賣出去，銷量“超過西蒙?考威爾的面具，以及其他任何名人面具”。 英國王室面具目前已售出12萬個。面具制造商“面具游行”創始人之一雷?達菲表示，每天接到的面具訂單都會增加兩萬個。 達菲說：“我們料到這些面具會受歡迎，但沒想到這么受歡迎。絕對賣瘋了。” 威廉和凱特的面具無疑銷路最好，但哈里王子、女王伊麗莎白二世、菲利普親王、查爾斯王子以及妻子卡米拉等其他王室成員的面具銷量也不錯。 面具生意好到讓達菲和雇員都非常吃驚，也促使這家位于英國紹瑟姆的公司規模翻番，并將承包商數量增至3倍，以應對需求的激增。 達菲說：“為完成訂單，我們已經絕對滿負荷運轉。”他表示目前工人一周工作6天，每天工作12小時。這家公司已暫不接受大額訂單，以確保在婚禮前交貨。 并非只有英國人為王室婚禮瘋狂。該公司的面具還銷往美國、澳大利亞、蘇格蘭 、甚至越南。 公司創始人在2008年創業，為派對制作個性化面具，但有明星面具生意時，公司也非常樂意承接。該公司共生產大約100種面具。 相關閱讀 （中國日報網英語點津 Julie 編輯： 馮明惠） |
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Vocabulary: take pains: try very hard to do something（盡力，費苦心） ship: 上市，把……推向市場 |
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