Hundreds stage pillow fight in central London

Tom Nizio had come equipped for a fight – with starry pyjama trousers on his legs and a pillow in his rucksack.
"I love this kind of fun," said Mr Nizio, 29, from Acton, west London, surveying the gathering crowd in Trafalgar Square yesterday. "I heard about it on Facebook, and just thought, I've got to have some of this."
Organised – sort of – in cities around the world, International Pillow Fight Day is the brainchild of Kevin Bracken and Lori Kufner, who, while students at Toronto University in Canada, founded the art group Newmindspace in 2005.
Participants had come to Trafalgar Square in their hundreds, in fluffy slippers, dressing gowns, skintight jumpsuits, elephant outfits and other liberal interpretations of the pyjama dress code.
The klaxon sounded. Trafalgar Square filled with about 200 participants swinging pillows and innumerable flying feathers.
All this, in front of smiling Police officers – despite an apparent lack of any official permission.
And money from the £5 "whack n' keep" souvenir pillows was going to raise funds for aid to the tsunami-struck areas of Japan.
Similar scenes were being re-enacted yesterday in about 130 locations, from Adelaide, Australia, to Zurich, Switzerland - via Chisinau, Moldova; Caracas, Venezuela; and Seoul, South Korea.

Vocabulary
Match each of the words to the correct sentence.
pillow pyjamas slippers dressing gown quilt
blanket sheets outfit sleeping bag
1 This covers your bed and keeps you warm in winter. It has feathers inside.
2 These are usually made of cotton and most people use two of them and sleep between them.
3 You put your head on this when you lie in bed.
4 This is normally made of wool and is thinner than a quilt. Some people put it between their top sheet and the quilt.
5 If you are going camping, you might put one of these inside your rucksack and take it with you.
6 Lots of people wear these on their feet when they are at home.
7 A set of clothes that you wear on a particular occasion, for example, a wedding.
8 These are trousers and a shirt and you wear them in bed.
9 You wear this over your pyjamas when you are at home. It’s like a coat.

In your own words
In Part 2 of the PAU test, you have to express information from the text in your own ways. To practise for this, complete these sentences about the text:

1 Tom Nizio was wearing pyjama trousers with ………………. on them and inside his …………………………… was ……………………….…………. .
2 Tom Nizio ………………………. to go to Trafalgar Square after finding out about the ……………………….. on Facebook.
3 Kavin Bracken and Lorl Kufner had the ………….. for this event while …………………….. studying at Toronto University, Canada.
4 Newmindspace has existed ……………………….. .
5 Some people taking part in the event were dressed up as ………………………. whereas others ……………………… nightwear.
………………………………………………………… .
6 Around ………………………. hit each other with pillows.
7 Pillows were being sold for …………………… and profits from the sales will be used to …………………………… victims of the Japanese tsunami.
8 As well as London, other Pillow Fights had been organised in approximately …………………………………………… cities.

Key

Vocabulary
1 quilt
2 sheets
3 pillow
4 blanket
5 sleeping bag
6 slippers
7 outfit
8 pyjamas
9 dressing gown
In your own words
1 stars, rucksack/backpack, a pillow
2 decided, event/Pillow Fight
3 idea, they were
4 since 2005
5 elephants, were wearing/had put on
6 two hundred people
7 £5 , help
8 130