I've been teaching English for over 20 years in London, Japan and France. I also do an award-winning podcast for learners of English called "Luke's English Podcast". In my free time I'm a stand-up comedian who regularly performs shows in English in Paris and sometimes London.
Part 3 of the Brighton Trilogy. In this episode I ask Paul, Alex and Moz some very stupid questions, with some revealing results. Listen to the previous two episodes to find out more about The Brighton Fringe and my comedy counterparts.
Right-click here to download this episode.
Hi everyone, how are you? (I’m fine thanks Luke.) Oh, you’re fine? Glad to hear that. I’m fine too thanks. In fact, I’m in a pretty good mood today. (Why Luke?) Well this weekend I won an award at a business English conference. (Wow, that’s cool. What’s the award?) It’s an award for ‘best presentation for a first time speaker’. I won it with a colleague of mine called Andy Johnson. (Is he related to Luke Johnson?) No, he isn’t! It’s just a coincidence! Actually, you already know Andy because he was in an episode of Luke’s English Podcast once. It was called Luke and Andy’s Crime Stories, remember that? Anyway, I’ll tell you more about that award later.
Let me tell you about this episode of the podcast that you’re about to listen to. This one is the second of 3 episodes I recorded at The Brighton Fringe Festival last month. It might be quite difficult to follow this episode because you will hear a conversation between 4 people and it’s quite fast. Do keep listening though because it is very good practice for you to follow natural and authentic conversation like this.
So, in this episode I talk to Alex, Paul, Moz (and Luke Johnson) again about various subjects including:
-The art of flyering
-How Alex would describe Paul to an alien
-Luke’s lion-like hair (it’s like a lion’s mane)
-Paul’s approach to comedy (shouting, funny faces, not many punchlines)
-Luke’s approach to comedy (surprisingly similar to Paul’s)
-Alex’s approach to comedy (it’s cerebral)
-Why Moz is like a pink dolphin in the Amazon (you’ll have to listen to find out why!)
-Moz’s weird relationship with the truth
-Moz’s comedy (it revolves around bodily functions, and gibberish)
-Paul, Alex and Moz’s relationship with the English language
-Why the English don’t speak foreign languages
-Are the English fundamentally lazy people?
-Learning French at school using a book called Tricolore, which was set in La Rochelle in France
-Experiences of going to another country and living in another culture
-Beeping out swear words (In the end I decided not to ‘beep out’ the swear word here)
-Paul’s cultural experiences in the USA
-Differences between London and the countryside
Alex’s blog: www.alexlove.co.uk
Thanks for listening and remember that your donations help to make this podcast possible.
Luke
Part 1 of a trilogy of podcasts from the Brighton Fringe Festival. Join me and my friends in Brighton as we discuss various topics.
Right-click here to download this episode.
Hello Listeners! This is the first of three podcast episodes recorded with comedians Alex Love, Paul Langton and Moz at the Brighton Fringe Festival last month. In this episode I introduce Alex, Paul and Moz and we discuss a number of topics including: British accents, experiences in foreign countries, comedy shows and a mysterious character called Luke Johnson. Listen to the episode to find out more, and please feel free to leave comments and questions below.
Every evening Alex, Paul and I performed a comedy show called Snigger Happy in a hot room above a friendly pub called The Temple. We had a great time performing the shows and enjoying ourselves in Brighton, which is a lovely town near the sea on the south coast of England. Also with us was another comedian called Moz, who was performing a solo show called Balloon. We performed 4 shows, with each of us doing 15-20 minutes of stand-up. I also managed to record three episodes with Alex, Paul and Moz. This is the first of those episodes.
Click here to visit Alex Love’s blog: www.alexlove.co.uk It’s all about his experiences performing comedy in venues all over London and the UK in general. Alex is a really good writer, and has written as a journalist for The Guardian newspaper.
Opinions, facts and gossip about The Royal Family, as The Queen celebrates her Diamond Jubilee this weekend.
Right-click here to download the episode.
Listen to Luke have a conversation with English Robot 4000 about The Royal Family. We talk about everything you need to know about the Royals, including the shocking rumour about Prince Harry (listen to find out more).
Thanks for listening, and remember your donations make this podcast possible.
Luke
Hi, I’ve got loads of things to tell you. So, in this episode you will hear about:
– Competition results and winners (woo) -See below for the winner and 2 runners up.
– New website information www.teacherluke.wordpress.com (check it out)
– News about me moving to Paris for a while (ooh la la)
– News about the Queen’s Jubilee and other things happening in London (it’s an exciting time)
– A new comedian/musician who I recently discovered (see the video below)
[DOWNLOAD] COMPETITION RESULTS!!! Here are the winners of the competition.
1. Camila from Brazil
2. Kirill from Belarus / Kiyomi from Japan
WELL DONE CAMILA and congratulations to Kirill and Kiyomi too! Please send me your addresses and I will send you prizes. Top prize is the Macmillan Phrasal Verbs Dictionary. Runners-up prizes are an Oxford Phrasal Verbs dictionary and an Oxford Idioms dictionary. Congratulations to the winners, but also thank you to everyone who took part in the competition.
That’s it for this episode. Thanks for donations. They make this podcast possible.
Here’s a video of Reggie Watts (Live at PopTech 2010)
It may be difficult to understand Reggie Watts. The main point of his comedy is that Reggie copies different speech patterns and switches between them very quickly. One moment he sounds like a posh English professor, then he sounds like a rapper from New York, then he sounds like an English cockney, and then he does an incredible song by creating loops on an effects unit and singing/rapping over the top.
This post was written in May 2012, and the audio was recorded later, in 2014.
I’m sick with a sore throat and a temperature today so I can’t record a podcast, but I wanted to communicate with you my listeners, followers, fans, subscribers, students, friends, whatever you want to call yourselves. So in this message I’d just like to say a few things, and I’m going to do that now:
Voting in the competition is now closed. Thanks so much for your votes. I’m now planning to announce the winner. I think the best way to do that is to announce it in a podcast episode. As I said, I’m ill at this moment, so I can’t do that now but I will asap. Actually, you can find out the winner by just counting the votes from the comments sections on the 3 competition entry episodes. Votes added in the comments box on the side of this website have not been counted. Sorry :( but those were the rules.
I am REALLY PLEASED with the competition, because I think the competition entries from listeners were AWESOME and LOVELY, and because lots of people voted and got involved. It’s touching to hear responses from people in other countries.
Hello to Priyank from India – I said I would say hello to you in a podcast, and I will do it with my voice rather than in text like this. You can look forward to it mate! Also hi to Hacer from Turkey and my classroom in London recently. I’ll say “hi” to you too and we’ll see if I can pronounce your name correctly (fingers crossed).
I hate sitting at home feeling sick because I feel there are so many things to do, but I should rest today because you’ve got to look after your health. That’s what my Mum says anyway.
I am stupidly busy these days, which is why I haven’t uploaded for a few days. In an ideal world I would regularly upload lots of podcasts and other things for you to enjoy and learn from, and as a result I would become even happier and proud and the world would be a slightly better place. Please listen to episodes again and again, you will find that to be more and more useful for you. You’ll notice things you didn’t notice before. Repeat listening will help you pick up more vocabulary. You might find something funny the 2nd time that you thought was just normal the 1st time. Of course, you might find it annoying and less funny but there’s not much I can do about that, is there?
Sorry, I haven’t asked how you are. How are you? Are you well? That’s good, I’m glad to hear it. Look after yourself won’t you. Take care and keep in touch. Keep listening to the podcast. Are you on Facebook? Why don’t you ‘like’ my Facebook page? Just go to FB and search for Luke’s English Podcast. I post videos and other stuff there sometimes. If you ‘like’ the page, you’ll see those things in your timeline, and that’ll be cool. I’m on Twitter too (@englishpodcast) and I add a few comments and links there from time to time too.
I think I might get a new mobile phone, like maybe a Samsung or something but I’m not sure I can afford it. Also, I’m quite sceptical about buying these gadgets. i heard somewhere that Samsung also make really nasty weapons which get used in wars. It kind of made me think twice about getting one of their products, but that Galaxy S2 looks really good… Decisions decisions… Perhaps I’ll stick with the Blackberry for a while.
The weather in London is really crap at the moment. It’s just grey and wet. It’s a bit depressing to be honest but I’m sure it’ll improve soon and we’ll have some great days of sunshine. I admit, I talk about the weather a bit too much, but if you lived here in the UK you’d know why.
The Olympics are due to start here in London in the summer, and the Queen is celebrating her 60 year jubilee. This means that the whole city seems to be preparing for some massively patriotic celebration of being British. On one hand that’s great and really exciting to be part of, but on the other hand it could make London busy and crowded and sometimes it feels like the whole thing will just cost a huge amount of money. Isn’t there a massive financial crisis going on? Shouldn’t we be saving money?
Banksy has done a new piece of graffiti on a wall in North East London. It’s been in the news. It looks like a comment on the patriotic celebration and pageantry of the Jubilee and Olympics. While we celebrate and spend loads of money, kids in sweatshops on the other side of the world are making the bunting and flags we use to celebrate. It makes you think twice about everything. You can see a picture of it http://londonist.com/2012/05/new-banksy-with-bunting-in-wood-green-high-road.php
I recently saw a great bit of stand up by the London based stand-up comedian Mickey Flanagan. Have a look at this video. It’s hilarious. I wonder if you understand everything, or find it funny. I would explain it all here but it would take ages and ages. Try watching the video anyway, it should give you a good laugh if you give it a chance. You can see the video below this text…
That’s it for now. Again, I’m really GLAD that the competition went well. I will announce the winner in a podcast as soon as I can. Please be patient! Remember I do this podcast on my own while also juggling a full-time job, a stand-up comedy ‘career’, 2 bands, a lot of laundry and washing, my health and well-being and last but definitely not least the attention of my lovely girlfriend. It means I don’t always have time to do podcast episodes quickly. I’m not the BBC, not yet anyway ;)
PEACE, LOVE, ICE-CREAM, GREEN TEA, GOOD MUSIC & LAUGHTER !
Luke x
In this episode you’ll learn everything you need to know about going to the pub, including:
– what does a pub look like?
– types of pub
– are you welcome?
– opening times
– how to order
– where to stand
– how to get served
– the order of being served
– buying drinks for others
– tipping
– what to say to the barman
– making conversation with locals
– types of drink
– useful phrases
– what you will find in the pub
– places to sit
– things to do
– smoking
– food
– trouble
– locals
– banter
– football
– pub lunch
– after work drinks
– night out
– beer garden
– What NOT to do
– binge drinking
– getting drunk
– words for ‘drunk’
– the pub in British culture – films, tv shows
If you find the podcast useful, why not donate some money to help me pay for website costs, etc. It’s very simple to do and you can use your PayPal account for other things like online shopping. It’s completely safe and trustworthy.
The pub in English films and TV shows, and other videos:
*Comedy is difficult to understand sometimes, especially in another language. If you don’t find any of this funny, never mind!*
This is a scene from classic comedy show Only Fools and Horses. People describe this scene as “the bit when Del Boy falls through the bar”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63rcdLeXiU8&w=400&h=301]
This is a useful guide to the different kinds of pub you can find in London. Here’s a quick summary: Tourist Pubs – they’re bad because they’re really big, fake, the beer is flat, the food is stodgy. Old Man Pubs (often found in Soho or Mayfair, but anywhere in London really) are great because they’re quite small, authentic, have interesting interior design, friendly people (usually), cheaper, more relaxing, a good place to buy good ale, a good place for banter or intelligent conversation with locals. Hipster Hangouts (typical trendy pubs in East London) are where you find fashionable cutting-edge cool young people. Family Pubs can be found in quieter parts of London, e.g. the suburbs or areas near the river for example near Hammersmith Bridge, which is my neighbourhood. The Dove in Hammersmith that’s my local, and a great pub!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMrBcc5kdSE&w=560&h=315]
This is a home-made video. The commentator sounds like a cockney. See what happens when an American goes to a pub in the UK. He makes a few mistakes, the muppet. (‘Muppet’ is a cockney slang word meaning ‘idiot’ – it’s an affectionate insult)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XHyze2trng&w=420&h=315]
This is Al Murray The Pub Landlord. He is a comedy character based on the cliche of British pub landlords. He’s patriotic, small minded and ridiculous. He’s a horrible, stupid guy and that is the joke (yes, it’s weird British humour). One thing I should say – this character is a criticism of this kind of stupid character but also a kind of celebration too. It’s complicated.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyGgL_omNbI&w=420&h=315]
This clip is from a disgusting, rude and hilarious (in my opinion) BBC comedy called “Bottom”. The show is about two characters called Richie and Eddie. They are both sad lonely perverts who live in London. They are desperate to pick up some girls and ‘have it off’ with them, but they have absolutely no charm whatsoever. They have no luck with women. This is because they are stupid, sex-obsessed, completely unsophisticated and downright rude. In this episode they have bought some ‘sex spray’. This is a chemical which they believe will make them irresistibly attractive towards women. They go to the pub to try and pick up some ‘birds’. In fact, the spray doesn’t work at all. It only attracts dogs, which chase them through the street outside the pub. All their pathetic attempts to seduce the women fail miserably. Richie and Eddie are played by actors Rik Mayall and Ade Edmonson, who are two of the UK’s favourite TV comedy actors. Enjoy the clip, but watch out if you’re easily offended by very crass humour. It’s a rude show, but I love it.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uVWlbh30HM&w=400&h=301]
A nostalgic and slightly sad documentary film about the decline of the pub in Britain.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ASxxiuCAcA&w=400&h=301]
Barack Obama drinks a pint of Guinness in a pub in Ireland (the best place to drink good Guinness). You might here them saying Slainte (pronounced Slanche), which what they say in Ireland before having a drink (like ‘cheers’ in the UK). Enjoy – and doesn’t it make you want a pint of Guinness?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5206QjFWmAk&w=400&h=233]
Contents
Here is a moment by moment tracklist for this episode:
1. The kinds of food we eat
2. Japanese sushi
3. Tsukiji Market
4. Green tea
5. Korean food
6. Chinese food at markets
7. Weird things I’ve eaten
8. First time I tried sushi
9. Sushi in London
10. The Japan Centre
11. American food
12. South American food
13. French bread
14. German food
15. Russian food
16. Chicken Kiev
17. Indian food
18. Birmingham’s Balti
19. Curry
20. African food
21. Other episodes about food
22. Buying a new kitchen
23. Homebase rant
24. Share price gamble
25. Finding another topic
26. My Dad bought me a watch
27. Obey
28. Banksy
29. Advertising
30. Half way point
31. Conclusions?
32. Memory loss
33. False ending
34. Directions game idea
35. Other things in the pipeline
36. Music show
37. YouTube video
38. False ending 2
39. Subliminal English learning through sleep
40. Winding down the episode, but keeping going
41. Brighton Comedy festival
42. Snigger Happy with Paul Langton and Alex Love – 21-24 May, Temple Bar, Brighton 7pm
43. Just bear with me – THERE’S A BEAR WITH YOU?!
44. Surprise jingle
45. Technical difficulties
46. Keeping it real
47. Podcasts with Paul and Alex
48. The 40 minute mark
49. Call it a day
50. False ending 3
51. Naming the episode
52. Green tea
53. Put down the guns
54. Peace among men
55. The cup of tea episode?
56. In memory of hot bottles of green tea on the Tokaido Line
57. Nova
58. The McDonald’s School of English
59. Learning how to teach
60. 10 minutes
61. Listening to students
62. How to use Luke’s English Podcast to improve your English
63. Lexical chunks
64. Prepositions
65. 2 ways of learning English using this podcast
66. Write down word for word what I say
67. Underline certain things
68. Visual learners
69. Learning words by reading + effect on pronunciation
70. Learn English by hearing it
71. The rotary sushi bar of English
72. Talking to yourself
73. The danger of becoming a bit mental
74. Listening when you’re young
75. Improving your pronunciation
76. The competition
77. Voting closes 16 May
78. False ending 4
79. Finding a name
80. Stream of consciousness
81. Thanks
82. Hitting my stride after 30 minutes
83. Aiming for dead-on one hour
84. Someone has posted a comment on your YouTube video
85. Dethroned318
86. The final stages of the episode
87. 59:10
88. 35 seconds left to keep on rolling
89. Jingle
90. A perfect ending
91. End with a final conclusive ending point at the end where we reach the 60 minute mark which I think will come up now, thanks for listening to this episode of the podcast bye bye bye bye bye
We continue our discussion of various ‘vs battles’ in this episode, in order to present some descriptive language. Listen, and add your comments below!
Right-click here to download the episode. VS Battles in this episode:
Analogue vs Digital (Vinyl vs Digital)
Clock Time vs Experiential Time (What a weird discussion!)
McDonald’s vs Burger King
Red Sauce vs Brown Sauce
Book vs Kindle
Prince William vs Prince Harry
Gibson vs Fender
Tea vs Coffee
Cats vs Dogs
Indiana Jones vs Lara Croft
Football vs Rugby
Individualism vs Collectivism (not discussed)
Jason Bourne vs James Bond
Cowboys vs Aliens
Bear vs Shark
Pirates vs Ninjas
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR7227_ndqQ&w=400&h=301]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJTF8wA5u6c&w=400&h=233]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU61xJJ-fTs&w=400&h=233]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRVCv-lXVrw&w=400&h=233]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt2Luu08f70&w=400&h=233]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVtCR5UQgsk&w=400&h=233]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dugipeVZtE&w=400&h=301]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA5ThymLbKQ&w=400&h=301]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlZyQylOKv4&w=400&h=233]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiTnVX_IRt0&w=400&h=233]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdmupNxobP0&w=400&h=233]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfs2FRgp-ow&w=400&h=301]
Listen to Luke and Oli as they discuss, compare and describe a variety of different topics, ideas, themes and people. The idea behind this episode is to compare and contrast different pairs of things, not only to decide which is the best, but also to explore them in great depth.
Right-click here to download this episode.
The idea behind this episode is to compare and contrast different pairs of things, not only to decide which is the best, but also to explore them in great depth.
Here is a list of the things we compare in this episode. Feel free to contribute a transcript if you wish. Part 2 of this episode will be uploaded soon. Add your comments below ;)
‘Vs Battles’ in this episode:
Star Wars vs Lord of the Rings
Early Birds vs Night Owls
Simile vs Metaphor
Sean Connery vs Roger Moore
Apple vs Microsoft
Al Pacino vs Robert DeNiro
John Lennon vs Paul McCartney
Innovation vs Imitation
Coke vs Pepsi
The Beatles vs The Rolling Stones
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Right-click here to download this episode.
