Talking to my dad again about Brexit, this time including our thoughts on Boris Johnson as the new Prime Minister and the possibility of the UK leaving the EU without a deal on 31 October.
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Introduction Transcript
Hello folks, here is another new episode of the podcast. This is a free episode for everyone.
Premium subscribers may be waiting for the latest series of premium episodes and so let me say that premium episodes are coming very soon. I am on holiday but I have been working on a premium series in spare moments and it’s nearly ready to be recorded and published and that will happen soon, so rest assured that your premium content is coming… www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium
But now, here is a new episode of the free podcast for you and I’m keeping it in the family again this time as we have another Rick Thompson Report, recorded just yesterday evening.
Most of you will know that The Rick Thompson Report is a series in which I talk to my Dad about politics, usually Brexit.
Every time another milestone in the Brexit story happens in British politics, like when we get another new prime minister or something like that, listeners get in touch with me requesting a new episode with my dad to somehow explain it all! Well, recently Boris Johnson became the UK’s new Prime Minister (you know him – crazy hair, crazy ideas) and he immediately assembled a new cabinet of ministers in line with his position on Brexit, which is basically – let’s try again to get some kind of deal with the EU but if that’s not possible let’s just go without a deal and everything will be great because… I don’t know… sausages or something! British sausages and Winston Churchill!
So naturally I’ve had requests for an episode with my dad to talk about this and about what might happen between now and October 31st when the UK officially leaves the EU (unless that date gets pushed back again for some reason, or the whole thing just gets called off and we can all just carry on like normal and pretend it never happened – have a cup of tea and wait for it all to just blow over – fat chance of that!)
Yesterday evening I sat down with my dad in order to attempt to discuss what’s been going on, and that’s what you’re going to listen to now.
I don’t need to say much more really, except that this conversation will probably be quite complicated and possibly difficult to follow – but don’t blame us, blame David Cameron.
I hope you can keep up with it, and that you manage to spot the various bits of meaty, chunky vocabulary that come up in the conversation.
The main thing that you, as a learner of English I expect, should do while listening to this, in my opinion, is simply try to follow what we’re saying and let your brain’s natural language learning potential take care of the rest. That’s right. Your study aim for this is simply to listen to it. That is it. This is your regular dose of English input through listening.
So, what do we think of Boris Johnson? What about his new cabinet? What might happen next in this crazy Brexit saga? Could The Queen even get involved somehow?
Listen on to hear us talk about these things, and more.
I’ll speak to you again at the end, but now, let’s begin.
Ian Hislop vs Priti Patel on capital punishment (Question Time)
David Cameron resigns, and then sings a happy little tune to himself
Danny Dyer vs David Cameron (again) “He should be held account(able) for it!”
Ending Transcript
So that was my dad and another conversation about Brexit. Apologies if we went over the same ground as in previous episodes on the subject, but there it is – that’s the situation!
Let us know what you think, even if you totally disagree with us of course.
I’m sure many of you will be interested to know more about Boris Johnson and our opinions of him. I would very much like to do a more in-depth episode or two about him, and in fact I’ve been planning that, so watch out for something in the future. I wonder how long he will be our PM.
Expect some more episodes soon, including premium ones which I have been working on in spare moments during my holidays, while my daughter has been napping or at the end of the evening when everyone else has gone to bed. I am working on it and they will arrive soon I promise! The series I’m working on is currently titled “Bad Science” and it covers things like medical science, the misuse of data and also whether vitamin pills are actually good for you. The main thing is that there are tons of very useful, quite high-level vocabulary items that I’m teaching you and it’s the sort of language that you need in order to sound intelligent and articulate in English. I’ll let you discover it when it arrives – which will happen as soon as it’s all been written and recorded!
Now I have to go to bed in order to catch up on some much-needed sleep and to get my energy back in order to survive another day chasing my daughter around a park, or around a farm or something! My daughter is quite obsessed with farmyard animals, which she points at very enthusiastically while saying hello to them in a mix of French and English. It’s adorable, but I need all the energy I can get!
So, I’m going to bed now. Hopefully I will actually be able to sleep. The last couple of nights I’ve had our daughter next to me in bed after she’s woken up in the middle of the night. She has a habit of kind of turning sideways in her sleep and sort of resting her legs on my face. It’s actually wonderful, funny and adorable, but also knackering. But enough about all that now, I will speak to you again on the podcast soon. But for now… Bye!!