Category Archives: Comedy

667. Four Way Call (with Alex, Moz & Paul)

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A lockdown Zoom call with my friends Alex, Paul and Moz which should be a fun but challenging listening exercise. Intro & ending transcripts available.

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Transcript (Intro & Ending)

Hello dear listeners and welcome back to the podcast. This episode features a 4-way conversation between three of my friends and me, recorded on Zoom recently (other video conferencing platforms are available), and it’s basically us asking each other questions in a sort of 4-way interview scenario. I think it should be a fun conversation to listen to but I also think it will probably be a challenge for your listening skills. That is what I expect but I will let you find out for yourself.

Upcoming YouTube Live Stream

Before we get started on that, I just want to remind you about the YouTube live stream I’m doing on Wednesday 10 June at 3PM CET.

Did you hear the announcement episode I published at the weekend? Well, if you did, then you’ll know all about this.

I’m doing another YouTube Live Stream on Wednesday 10 June at 3PM Paris time, and you are invited to join me. I’m going to be messing around, answering questions from listeners in the chat, maybe singing a couple of songs with the guitar, and generally just hanging out with my audience on YouTube.

If you can’t make it, the video (and audio) will be published later so you will still be able to watch it or hear it. I’m doing it at 3PM on a Wednesday because my daughter will be in the nursery (or creche as they call it in France – the daycare centre) and so I’m free to get up to some online antics, and at the weekend it’s family time – so, midweek and in the afternoon (my time) is just the right time for me to do it.

Anyway, join me on Wednesday 10 June at 3PM for a YouTube Live “Ask Me Anything / Hang Out with Luke”. To find the specific location on YouTube, check the show notes for this episode and you’ll find a YouTube link or just subscribe to my YouTube channel – that’s Luke’s English Podcast and click the bell icon to receive a notification when I go live.

OK, so that’s that…

This is number 667, and here is my introduction…

This intro is quite long but I’ve done that on purpose to help you understand what I think will be a difficult episode, but if you really prefer, you can skip forward to approximately 22mins but of course if you skip forward you won’t know what you’ve missed and you’ll live the rest of your life thinking “I wonder what Luke said in that introduction to episode 667? What did I miss? And when you’re old and grey and near the end of your life and you’re asked by a grandchild one day, “Do you have any regrets?” you might manage to say “If I have one regret, it’s that I skipped that introduction to episode 667, that’s …that is my only regret in life. I skipped the introduction and I didn’t fully understand that conversation with his friends. I didn’t have sufficient context. A lot of jokes went over my head. Oh, it was confusing and I just gave up on learning English. And that’s when it all went wrong for me. I’m sorry children. It still haunts me to this day. What did he say? What did I miss…? I suppose I’ll never know.” So, if you want that to be you, just skip ahead to 22mins now.

Ok so you’re still with me. You didn’t skip ahead. Excellent choice. You’ll be fine now, for the rest of your life. Everything in your life is just going to slot into place now, just right. It’s going to be perfect from now on. You’ll have no regrets and it’s all going to be roses. Just remember though, when you are sipping cocktails on your own private yacht somewhere in the future. Just remember to thank me, OK.

Introduction

One of the only good things about the coronavirus pandemic lockdown confinement social distancing isolation situation is that it has encouraged people to get in contact with each other more than they normally would. Maybe this is because we’re unable to get together physically (if you know what I mean), so we’re making up for it by calling each other more, or we’re just aware that it’s important to stay connected during this weird time, in order to make ourselves feel a bit better.

I don’t know if it’s the same for you but I’ve been in touch with friends and family more than usual during this time, including my mates Paul Langton, Alex Love and Moz. We’ve had a few Zoom calls together recently just to have fun chatting and also to generally keep our spirits up. Paul, Alex and Moz have all been on the podcast before so I thought it might be fun during one of our Zoom calls for us to reunite on the podcast again, for the first time in years. And that’s what you’re going to hear today. This episode was recorded during the lockdown with me in Paris and the others in their homes in England.

This was recorded 2 or 3 weeks ago when the lockdown was fully in place both in France and the UK.

The four of us first recorded podcasts together at the Brighton Fringe Festival in episodes 104, 105 and 106, then there was the Slightly Drunk Episode (ep 109) and On a Boat (ep226), recorded on Moz’s narrow boat. I wonder if you’ve heard those episodes? Let me know if you remember Paul, Alex, Moz and me sitting on the beach in Brighton and the creation of Luke Johnson, my evil clone. Do you remember us sharing beers inside Moz’s boat one summer evening and talking nonsense in my flat and other weird moments from deep in the episode archive?

Super-duper long term listeners will remember those episodes, but for those that don’t know here is a quick summary of some background context to help you understand this episode a lot more.

Forgive me for rambling on in this introduction (as usual). I know this is long but this kind of context is essential to help language learners understand a conversation between four friends, and listening to a group of friends chatting can be really hard in another language.

So this is all necessary context to help you piece together what you’re going to hear in this episode which will help you enjoy it more and learn more from listening to it.

Background Context

We all first met each other doing comedy in London in 2009 when we did the Amused Moose stand up comedy course run by Logan Murray, which I have mentioned before. That was a series of comedy workshops designed to help us develop basic skills for doing stand up comedy.

After doing that course, we did various comedy gigs together in London and also shows at the Brighton Fringe Festival from 2010 to 2012. That’s a comedy festival in Brighton, a bit like the Edinburgh Fringe but smaller, and in Brighton. Paul, Alex and I were in a show together called Snigger Happy, and Moz did his own shows, in the same venue as us.

Here’s some intel on each person in this conversation.

Paul Langton
Paul was born and brought up in central London and has a London accent. As a stand up comedian in London, Paul used to regularly MC one of London’s best open mic comedy shows, called “Comedy Virgins” at the Cavendish Arms in Stockwell, South London, and he was also the host of one of the first live-streamed comedy/music shows that I know of, which was called Teaserama (and that was at least 10 years ago), but more recently Paul decided to stop doing stand up comedy. He made a fairly big career move and became a police officer for London’s Metropolitan Police Service, which is what he now does on a full time basis, working on London’s streets, fighting crime, a bit like Robocop, if Robocop was actually an Irish man called Rob O’Cop who liked drinking lots of Guinness during his time off.

Paul was on the podcast on his own in episode 349 talking about Marvel and DC superheroes, as he is something of an expert in that kind of thing – basically, he’s a tall police geek with a London accent and a penchant for Guinness.

Alex Love
Alex grew up near Stroud, which is in Gloucestershire, which is in The Cotswolds, which is in the south west midlands, in England. As well as working as a freelance journalist writing articles for newspapers, Alex continues to do stand-up comedy (although not during the lockdown of course). Recently he has been doing a successful show called “How to Win a Pub Quiz” which he has performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to sold out rooms in recent years. Unfortunately Edinburgh is cancelled this year, leaving Alex with a huge August sized gap in his summer. I say Edinburgh is cancelled. I mean the festival, not the city. The city still exists as far as I’m aware. Alex has also brought his pub quiz show to various other places including a recent trip to Australia and New Zealand. He managed to get back home to Stroud in England just before New Zealand closed its borders because of the coronavirus outbreak. This sounded like quite a dramatic escape, which I imagine was pretty much as exciting as that moment in The Empire Strikes Back when Han Solo manages to escape from the belly of a huge space worm just before it closes its mouth. Remember that scene? I’m sure taking off in a plane from New Zealand in the nick of time, was exactly like that.

Alex has been on the podcast a few times before, talking about his Edinburgh show, doing a pub quiz with me, and talking about Queen the rock band.

Moz 
Moz used to work for the BBC as a producer of comedy TV shows, and he worked on various shows including one memorable flop called Horne and Corden, a sketch show with James Corden who you might know these days as the presenter of The Late Late Show with James Corden on TV in America. A few years ago Moz changed career a bit and became a writer, podcaster and tour guide, setting up Murder Mile Walks and the Murder Mile True Crime Podcast, both of which are about real murders which occurred in various parts of London. On his tours he takes people round various parts of the city and tells them true stories of grisly murders that happened there in the past. You might remember his previous appearances on this podcast telling the gruesome stories of some of those killings. Moz does loads of research into these crimes using court and police records, in order to describe what really happened in proper detail. This level of research is one of the things that makes Moz’s work unique. The other things are of course Moz’s animal magnetism and his captivating storytelling abilities.

You can hear these stories by listening to the Murder Mile True Crime Podcast (link in the show notes) or by going on one of Moz’s walking tours of London (link also in the show notes). More recently Moz started doing storytelling shows on stage in front of live audiences (rather than dead audiences) that’s until COVID-19 came along of course, putting a stop to those live shows, but his podcast continues. Moz also used to do stand-up comedy with Alex, Paul and me, but his performances were a bit different. In stand up it is normal to be yourself on stage. But Moz always performed in character. He also used a lot of pre-recorded audio. He would record an audio track beforehand and then while the audio played through speakers he would stand on stage in costume and mime his performance without speaking, except maybe for a few noises here and there. One of the characters he used to do was called Sloppy Party Bottom, who was a sort of surreal clown (in the proper French clowning tradition) but that description doesn’t really do it justice at all. It was very funny and very weird. These days Moz lives on a narrow boat on London’s canal network, and yes, he does have a toilet and a shower on his boat, which I assume he uses. I hope he uses them anyway.

Luke
I think you know who I am, but I should remind you that I also do stand-up comedy, although not as regularly as I should and not at all since COVID-19 came along of course. I performed at the Brighton Fringe Festival 3 years running with Alex and Paul in a show that we called Snigger Happy. In 2010 our show was reviewed by Steve Bennet, who is probably the UK’s most well-known comedy reviewer, certainly among comedians. I had a good gig and got quite a good review. Bennet said I had a promising future. Ooh, exciting. 2 years later Bennet unexpectedly reviewed our show again, but I had a truly awful gig that day and died on my arse in front of him and the rest of the audience. Naturally, his 2nd review was not positive at all, quite the opposite. This still stings to this day, when I think about. I promised Steve Bennet that I would have a bright future as a stand up comedian, and I then two years later when the future arrived I spectacularly failed to deliver on that promise. I think I have told the story of what happened during that awful performance before, so I won’t explain it now. Perhaps I’ll tell the story again some time. Suffice to say, it was bad, and I will never really live it down, meaning, it is an embarrassing comedy failure that may haunt me for years to come, especially if Alex, Paul and Moz keep reminding me of it, which they often do, because it amuses them.

I wanted to interview Alex, Paul and Moz all at the same time so what we’re going to do in this episode is take turns to be interviewed by each other. We’re all going to be cross examined by each other one by one. It’s a bit hard to explain this idea, but you’ll see.

Basically you’ll hear us talking about a variety of topics like our lives, our comedy stuff, how our careers have been affected by coronavirus, regrets we have about our pasts, little anecdotes, criticisms we’ve faced over the years and of course the occasional bit of toilet humour.

What’s the purpose for learning English, you might ask? Well, just the usual thing, which is that it’s vital to regularly listen to authentic conversations in English. It’s this kind of immersion, exposure and input which can make a crucial difference to your learning of English. Obviously the episode is long but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you don’t have to listen to this in one go. Pause, take a break, come back and your podcast app will remember where you stopped.

One issue – audio quality

This episode was recorded online via Zoom and despite my best efforts I couldn’t get any of the others to use proper USB microphones. I even sent one by international post to Alex, but unfortunately his laptop is basically kaput so he had to use his phone. Not everyone is a teched up podcaster with a plethora of microphones at his disposal you know. So if you struggle to understand this conversation, then you can blame them for not having state of the art microphones, or blame me for choosing to do this whole project in the first place, or blame your old English teachers at school who didn’t give you enough listening practice, or blame yourself, or just don’t blame anyone. Probably the last one would be best.

Anyway, the main difficulty that I expect you will have with this is the sound quality. It’s going to sound like it was recorded online during a 4-way Zoom call, and that’s because it was recorded online during a 4-way Zoom call, and because there are 4 of us and you might not know Alex, Paul and Moz that well, and because nobody is speaking super slowly to help you understand them, this could definitely be a challenging episode. So, brace yourself. But then again, for all I know, this will be fine for you.

Some of you will be fine with that, but others will find it tricky. But, rarely in the real world do we get the luxury of perfect sound conditions, especially when doing video conferencing which is becoming more and more commonplace during these times.

OK, I don’t want to waffle on any longer. Instead I will say now that it’s time to join me as I chat with my friends. I hope you enjoy it.

Your tasks are:

  • a) to be able to identify who is talking (basically, can you differentiate between Paul, Moz and Alex’s voices and
  • b) can you actually understand what we’re all talking about?
  • c) Can you use your imagination a little bit and imagine that the whole coronavirus thing isn’t actually happening and that we’re all in fact all sitting around a table sharing a beer or soft drink in the pub and you’re there with us and everything is fine in the world.

OK, that is all. Now let’s get started, and here we go!

Questions

Round 1

  • What is your name?
  • What do you do? 
  • How has that been affected by the coronavirus?

Round 2

Questions for Paul

  • Luke: When questioning a suspect in the police station, have you ever thrown a chair against a wall or slapped a cigarette out of someone’s mouth?
  • Alex: What is your biggest regret from your time doing comedy?
  • Moz: Why do you love Rick Mayall?

Questions for Alex

  • Luke: In the episode we recorded together about the rock band Queen, one listener said “I don’t understand any words in this conversation. This guy speaks like alien.” How do you respond to this claim?
  • Moz: What advice would you give to 8-year old Alex Love?
  • Paul: As the only one of us who regularly still gigs, what advice would you give to your younger self just before you got on stage many moons ago?

Questions for Luke

  • Paul: What do you most miss about London?
  • Moz: What part of your body annoys you the most and why?
  • Alex: You were once predicted a bright future in comedy? What happened?

Questions for Moz

  • Luke: You live on a narrowboat on the canal network. What’s the most annoying behaviour that you’ve observed and experienced from others on the canal network?
  • Alex: In your time at the BBC, what’s the worst TV show you worked on and why?
  • Paul: Have you ever been tempted to get back on stage as one of your old characters?

Round 3

Questions for Paul

  • Alex: How close have you been to pooing your pants on duty as a police officer?
  • Moz: If you had to go shopping at the supermarket right now, what would you buy?
  • Luke: What’s the best way to talk to a police officer, to avoid being arrested? (inspired by this Adam & Joe video – below)

Questions for Moz

  • Alex: You did a lot of pre-taped audio tracks with your comedy. Why did you never do stand up as yourself?
  • Paul: You do your murder mile walks in London. What is the funniest crack-head story you have from your tours?
  • Luke: What’s the wettest you’ve ever been?

Questions for Luke

  • Alex: When you were young, what job did you want to do when you grew up?
  • Paul: What is the most surreal review or comment you’ve received in the 10 years you’ve been doing this podcast?

Questions for Alex

  • Moz: Why would you make a great or a shit astronaut?
  • Luke: What is the worst or best gig you’ve ever had?
  • Paul: What’s the worst heckle you’ve received on stage?

At the end: Some stories of awful gigs, including stories of weird audience members – a woman with a glass eye, a deaf man, a poor man who had a seizure during a show, another poor man who was a burns victim, a scouser who just didn’t like me and more…

Ending

OK everyone, that’s it. I would just like to thank Paul, Moz and Alex for being on the podcast today. I hope you enjoyed joining us on our Zoom call. I know the audio quality might have made it a bit tricky for you to follow all of it. Let me know. I expect someone will comment that my friends sound like alien or something. But they don’t to me.

Remember, check out Moz’s podcast. It’s called The Murder Mile True Crime Podcast and it’s available on all good podcast apps.

Alex doesn’t have a podcast but he is still writing a blog, which you can find at alexlove.co.uk

If you want to find Paul, just commit a crime in the London area and he will probably find you and then you might end up having a one on one sit down interview with him in a police station. There’s an interesting approach to finding ways to talk to native speakers – just get arrested! The police will ask you lots of questions, and you’ll have lots of people to talk to in prison too! Yey!

By the way, I did have a lovely birthday, thank you for asking. I’m recording this bit about a week after doing the call, so yes I had a nice birthday and thank you for those of you who sent me birthday wishes. That was very nice of you. Those of you who didn’t, I will still accept your birthday messages quite gladly, and I am still open to gifts, flowers, chocolate, gold bullion and cash donations in most currencies but especially pounds sterling. If you don’t know my age, I wonder how old you think I am, perhaps just based on the sound of my voice.

If you’re wondering about my gifts, I got some new trainers from my wife and also I got a multi-track recorder for making music. If I actually have any time, I plan to record some music so I got a digital muti-track which will allow me to record guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals. Now, all I need is some actual musical talent and I might be able to create something half-decent. We will see.

I was also treated to a birthday cake of pancakes in bed – that’s a cake made of pancakes, with honey – a pancake cake, with candles and decorations and the candles set the decorations on fire and so they were fully ablaze by the time the cake got to me, so essentially my wife brought me a fire hazard directly to my bed first thing in the morning, which was actually very funny and not as dangerous as it sounds. Anyway I had a nice birthday, if you’re interested.

How about you? Are you ok? I sincerely wonder how this episode was for you. I really enjoyed getting together with Paul, Moz and Alex again on the podcast, and I hope you did too, but I expect it was difficult to follow. Let me know in the comment section.

You know, difficult to follow isn’t necessarily a bad thing. That’s the sort of episode that challenges you a bit and pushes your English skills a bit further, in theory anyway.

Well, in any case, it’s time to draw this all to a close. Thanks for listening and speak to you soon, but for now — good bye!

Links

The Murder Mile True Crime Podcast 

Murder Mile Walks

Alex Love’s Blog

656. British Comedy: Karl Pilkington’s Monkey News / The Ricky Gervais Show

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Listen to a funny story told in a Manchester accent, and learn various bits of English in the process including vocabulary and pronunciation. Improve your understanding of regional British accents. Story transcript & vocabulary notes available.


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Episode aims

To understand a funny story in English to the same level as a native English speaker
To become more familiar with a Manchester accent (mancunian) and to practise listening to colloquial speech in English
To learn vocabulary relating to working on a building site, and more

Listen to the story – Monkey News / Builder

What are the main events in the story?
What’s going on?
What does the builder do?
What does he see?

A quick summary of the story

A man gets a new job on a building site. He’s just told to get to work and to not ask any questions. He sees another guy working at the top of the building who seems to work really well. He’s efficient, he doesn’t take breaks, he seems to take risks and be a hard worker. He asks the other builders and they say not to worry about it. Never mind. Don’t ask questions. He notices this guy at the top doesn’t have lunch, except for a bucket of nuts which is sent up to him. Peanuts. He gets v suspicious and asks the boss what’s going on. The boss just tells him to get back to work and not ask questions. Ultimately the guy clocks what’s going on and works out that it’s a chimpanzee working on the building and he complains, but the boss gives him the sack. So it turns out that a chimp was working on a building site and he was actually a more valuable worker than this experienced builder. Well, fancy that.

Vocabulary

Go through it quickly, just giving quick definitions and pronunciation pointers.

A bloke
A builder (person)
A building (noun)
To build / building (verb / -ing form of verb)
To get going on it = start doing something
To get on with it = hurry up, continue doing something
Bricks
Cement
Girders
The spire = the pointed top part of a building
The foundations
A fella
To take someone on
The work rate
Scared of heights (scared of the heights which are up there)
Riveting (verb)
Riveting (adjective) “This is really riveting stuff, Luke”
Nuts (that you eat)
Nuts and bolts
To hook something (on)
To check someone out
To stare
A tyre
To be wise to what’s going on
To clock something
It’s not on
Don’t get involved
Don’t interfere
You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
A good grafter
To graft (verb)
Graft (noun)
To let someone go
To be made redundant
To be laid off
A chip off the old block

Monkey News – Transcript

Ricky: Ooh, chimpanzee that! Monkey news, you fff…

Karl: There was this bloke who was a builder, right?

Steve: Oh yeah

K: And, er, you know what builders are like. They sort of move about, don’t they, from, from sort of building to building just building.

R: Well yeah. Once they’ve built it, the building’s done and they move on to build some more.

K: So he goes to his next job and that, right?

S: Who does, the builder?

K: The builder

S: Yep.

K: He goes to, like, the boss of this building who’s building it.

S: OK, yeah. And he says what unto him?

K: Do you need anything building?

S: OK, yeah

K: So anyway, so he says, err, he says “Yeah yeah there’s plenty of work and that going about”. He says “We’re working on this one here”. He said, err, “Get going on it, like. There’s your bricks and your cement and stuff. Get on with it.”

R: Any plans? Nah, JUST BUILD.

S: Just start building.

R: GO UP

K: They’re getting on with it and stuff. It’s all going well. But he notices that there’s someone working high up, on the top bit.

S: Sure

K: Because you know how, like, there’s girders and stuff on these big buildings.

R: And he’s still building the bottom bit, which is weird.

K: And he’s still… Yeah well that’s, that’s the way they do it there apparently, just to sort of speed it up. Work from top to middle, from top to bottom.

S: Sure. And that’s where? That’s in imaginary land.

R: We put the spire on and then we’d better do the foundations, and then put some stuff in the middle to keep it up there.

K: So anyway, he’s saying to, like, the other workers, he’s going “What’s… Who’s that up there? …

S: Who’s that up there?

K: … He’s working on his own.

R: What? Little fella was he?

S: Little hairy fella up there.

R: The little hairy fella up there with the hard hat.

K: The other fellas are going “Look, you know, don’t ask questions, you know. The boss decides who he takes on. We’re happy to be getting paid here.”

R: [Laughing] DON’T ASK QUESTIONS?? Well I’ll see him when he comes down.

K: So he said, “Well he’s pretty impressive, you know. The work rate he’s doing, the way he’s getting from one girder to the other “

S: Haha, he’s swinging is he?

K: “He doesn’t seem to be scared of the heights of anything.” He said “no, we just let him get on with it, you know. We work well as a team.” Lunch time comes. They’re all sat there. Sat on a little wall having their sandwiches. He’s just thinking that he’ll come down in a bit. [But] He’s just carrying on.

S: Is he? He’s just still going.

K: He’s still going and that, right? So, the fella says to the boss man, he says “Isn’t that fella up there going to come down and join us for lunch?” He said, “Err, like I said mate, don’t worry about him, right?” So he said “Oh, anyway, you’ve reminded me that he’s up there. He’s doing a lot of riveting and stuff up there. He probably needs some more nuts, to err…

S: Right, sure, and what kind of nuts is that? Is that nuts the food, or…?

K: So he said “What? Nuts?” He says “Yeah, just… There’s a bag full of them there, just just put them on the hook. Send them up and he can get on with his job.” So, anyway, he picks these nuts up.

S: Nuts, yep.

K: Just hooks them on and thinks “They’re not that heavy, considering, you know, they’re normally pretty heavy aren’t they like nuts and bolts and stuff.”

S: A big bag of nuts, yeah.

K: Anyway, he has a little glance in.

S: Ah no, what’s in there?

K: Nuts

S: What, you mean nuts you can eat?

K: Nuts that you can eat.

S: Ah

K: So they send the bag up and he’s thinking “What’s all that about?” He checks him out. Starts to stare. Worked it out. He can see that… It’s a little chimp running about. So he goes, “I’m not happy with this.”

R: Why isn’t he? Is the boss sitting in a tyre?

K: He said “All them lot out there might not be wise to what’s going on here, but I’ve clocked it, and you’re sending nuts up to it. It’s a monkey, it’s not on.” So he goes, “Look, you know, we’re all just trying to earn a living here.” He said, err “Don’t get involved in it. I’m happy to pay you, but I’m paying him. Don’t interfere.”

R: He’s paying him?

K: He’s saying “Look, I’m just not happy with this. It’s not allowed.” So the boss was saying…

R: We pay peanuts, we get monkeys.

K: He said “To be honest mate, you know, err, he’s a great worker. He’s known for doing what he does. He’s a good grafter. If one of you is going to go, right, I’m afraid I’ll have to let you go because he’s been here longer and that.”

S: Blimey. He was made redundant.

R: None of that happened.

K: He was laid off.

R: None of that happened.

K: He’s laid off and that. And that’s where that saying, about, err, you know how there’s a lot of tower blocks and that in America, it’s not like, err… ‘a chimp off the old block’, is where…

R: [Laughs hysterically]

K: So that’s monkey news.

Can I still listen to the Ricky Gervais Podcast?

Yes, you can.

Some episodes are still available on
The Ricky Gervais Podcast (find it on iTunes and wherever you get your podcasts, and just scroll back through the archive to find some “best of” stuff)
The Ricky Gervais Show website https://www.therickygervaisshow.com/podcasts
YouTube (Search or Monkey News and you’ll find full compilations of them)

Another Monkey News – Chimp Goes Into Space

Links & More

A full page listing all instances of Monkey News, with summaries, and time codes for where they appear in episodes of the Ricky Gervais Podcast.

http://pilkipedia.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Monkey_News

A compilation of almost all the Monkey News segments from the RGP. Over 3 hours of Monkey News!

654. Computer-based IELTS / Stories about The First Time… (with Jessica Beck from IELTS Energy Podcast)

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A chat with Jessica Beck from the IELTS Energy Podcast about the new computer-based IELTS test, plus some funny stories about doing things for the first time, motivation in language learning, dealing with the stress of public speaking and seeing “The Fonz” on a ski slope. Get a $50 discount on Jessica’s new IELTS online course by going to www.teacherluke.co.uk/3keys

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Transcripts for the introduction & ending

Hello listeners, how are you? I hope you’re alright. How are you all coping? I hope you’re all doing ok out there in podcastland.

Here is a new podcast episode to listen to and this time I am joined by IELTS teacher Jessica Beck who you might know from the IELTS Energy Podcast and All Ears English.

Jessica has been on LEP a couple of times before as you may remember. She is a specialist in IELTS preparation, having taught IELTS courses for many years now both in classrooms and online.

Just in case you don’t know, IELTS stands for the International English Language Testing System. It’s a proficiency test which reveals a person’s English level, and it’s fiendishly difficult, requiring a lot of preparation in order to make sure that you get a result that reflects your English at its best. I recently talked about the speaking part of the test with Keith O’Hare in episode 640.

Jessica recently invited me onto an episode of her podcast – the IELTS Energy Podcast, and we talked about differences between American and British English (because the IELTS test features both versions so it’s interesting to compare them and look at some common vocabulary differences).

That is #850 of The IELTS Energy Podcast, called “What’s a Zebra Crossing? Luke Will Tell You!” There’s a link on the page for this episode if you’d like to hear it.

https://www.allearsenglish.com/ielts/ielts-energy-850-whats-a-zebra-crossing-teacher-luke-will-tell-you/

And now Jessica Beck is back on my podcast again in this episode.

Here’s a little overview of what’s coming up, in order to help you follow the whole thing.

First you will hear some chat about the weather where we live. I’m in Paris and she’s in Portland up in the North West of the USA near Seattle. This smalltalk should give you a chance to get used to the speed of the conversation, before we move on to talk about the computer-based IELTS test.

Planning to take IELTS? You’ll need to prepare properly.

Some of you will be planning to take the IELTS test in the future and you might be wondering about the best way to prepare, especially if you’re studying at home. If that is you, then you could check out the 3 Keys IELTS course which Jessica and the other girls at All Ears English have created. It’s a really solid and complete package which includes pretty much everything you need to get success in this course, including video lessons, test practice and 90 minutes of one-to-one counselling with one of the girls over skype.

I suggest you check out the Personal Coach course for the computer based test. And listeners to my podcast can get a 50$ discount on that, which is nice.

Check out www.teacherluke.co.uk/3keys for all the information. You’ll hear some more details about that later.

www.teacherluke.co.uk/3keys

So there’s some chat about the weather and then some chat about taking the computer based version of the test, but it’s not all about IELTS. I think we just talk about IELTS for the first 10 minutes in fact and then you will hear us sharing a couple of personal stories about doing things for the first time, one involving the importance of not giving up even when it hurts, and the other story is about how to deal with the stress of public speaking. We reflect on the lessons learned from those experiences and their relevance to the challenge of learning a language.

Also, listening to this you will be able to notice differences between Jessica’s American English and my British English, not necessarily in terms of vocabulary used but more just in terms of our intonation patterns or the tone of our speaking in general. It will probably seem really obvious at the beginning, especially if you are very used to hearing me speak.

Listening back to this conversation myself and during I somehow felt extra British (a bit awkward, perhaps a bit posh and quite wordy) and that Jessica was being extra American (super enthusiastic, energetic, positive). Actually, we end up making fun of each other’s speaking style at one point as we do impressions of each other presenting our podcasts. It’s a bit of a laugh and you should enjoy it.

Anyway, I will now stop rambling now so you can listen to this conversation with Jessica about IELTS and about what we learned from the challenge of doing some things for the first time and I’ll talk to you again briefly at the end of the episode.

Not sure who “Fonzie” is? Have a look… (he’s the guy in the leather jacket on the motorbike)

Ending

Thanks again to Jessica for coming on the podcast again and sharing that story. I can’t believe she saw The Fonz on a ski slope. That doesn’t happen every day, does it?

I’m genuinely curious to see if any of you actually know who The Fonz is. He is mentioned in the film Pulp Fiction, if you remember. The scene in the diner with Samuel L Jackson, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer and John Travolta. There’s a kind of Mexican stand-off (of course there is, it’s a Quentin Tarantino film!) and if you don’t know what a Mexican stand-off is, it’s when loads of people point guns at each other in a film (and maybe in real life I don’t know).

Anyway, Samuel L Jackson manages to make Amanda Plummer’s character calm down by saying “We’re going to be like 3 little Fonzies here, alright? And what’s Fonzie like?” and she’s like “What? Wh…” “WHAT’S FONZIE LIKE???” “He’s cool.” “That’s right he’s cool. So we’re going to be like three little Fonzies here ok” etc. It’s a memorable moment, if you remember it that is.

Anyway, if you are considering preparing for IELTS and you have, say, 30 or 60 days available ahead of you, then you might consider the 3 Keys IELTS Personal Coach course for the computer test, and if you’re interested go to teacherluke.co.uk/3keys to get a $50 discount.

www.teacherluke.co.uk/3keys

Alrighty then. So how are you holding up?

It’s a tough and weird time, there’s no doubt about it. As I’ve said before, this virus isn’t just a threat to your physical health. Obviously you need to take steps to avoid catching it, but also to avoid spreading it too, but at the same time please do look after your mental health. Keep yourself busy, find a routine in your daily life, do some indoor exercise like Yoga. Read books. Don’t spend the whole day staring at social media or watching 24 hour news. Use this as a chance to get some things done that you’ve been putting off for a while. Keep in touch with friends and family. Just a few ideas. I mean, what do I know? In any case, do take care of yourselves out there and I hope that this podcast can keep you company just a little bit during this weird time.

I’ll speak to you again soon, but for now, Bye!

648. Ian Moore Returns

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Talking again to comedian Ian Moore about favourite films, a trip to New York, British & American audiences, how to iron a shirt, and funny stories about taking the language test to qualify for French citizenship.

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Introduction

Hello everyone and welcome back to this podcast for learners of English and here is your regular dose of English conversation presented here to help you develop your listening skills and pick up grammar and vocabulary along the way.

In this episode of the podcast you can listen to me in conversation with Ian Moore who is back on the podcast after a 3 and a half year absence.

He first appeared in episodes 382 and 383 when we got to know him and talked about mod culture in the UK.

If you haven’t heard those episodes, or if you have heard them and you need me to jog your memory, here is some background info about Ian, just to bring you up to speed.

Ian Moore is a professional stand-up comedian from England. He moved around during his upbringing and is from a combination of places including the north, East Anglia and the London area as you will hear during the conversation.

He has been described by the Guardian newspaper as “one of the country’s top comedians” and he regularly performs in the best stand up comedy venues all around the UK, notably at London’s top stand up comedy club “The Comedy Store” which just off Leicester Square, where he is a frequent host.

He’s a mod – Mod is a British fashion subculture from the 1960s which involves a very particular style featuring certain clothing (like slim Italian suits, green parka coats – and a lot more besides), riding scooters and listening to American R&B music. Ian is definitely the best-dressed guest I have ever had on this podcast and came dressed in a 3-piece 60s Italian suit, gold watch chain, handkerchief in the pocket with a pin and everything.

Ian now lives in rural France on a farm, and has been living there for nearly 15 years, which is at odds with his mod style.

So he has been living a kind of double life – living on the farm in the French countryside, looking after various animals (his wife keeps introducing new animals into the family), making chutney, and commuting to the UK and other cities in Europe to perform stand up comedy.

He has written several books about his double life, which are available from all good book shops including Amazon.

A la Mod: My So-Called Tranquil Family Life in Rural France
C’est Modnifique!: Adventures of an English Grump in Rural France

As well as writing these funny autobiographical stories, Ian has also branched out into writing fiction, and his first novel, called “Playing the Martyr” was published a couple of years ago. It’s a crime thriller about an English man who gets murdered in the Loire valley – I don’t know if this is based on Ian’s life at all. I have no idea if there have been attempts on his life for some reason. But anyway, the book is well-reviewed on Amazon and is available in both Kindle and paperback versions.

Ian is also a language learner – French in this instance. He actively works on his French and passed the language test to gain citizenship in France.

There are plenty of things to talk about – all that is just background context, and if you’d like to know more – listen to episodes 382 and 383 (both of which have transcripts written by the Orion Transcription team available in google documents. Just check the transcripts section of my website).

In those episodes you can hear:
A full explanation of the mod subculture including the clothing, the music and all the rest of it – and mod is very much a part of British youth culture today – especially the clothing, which influences many high-street British clothing brands.
Various stories of Ian’s rural French lifestyle including how his children were once threatened (rather shockingly) by a French hunter armed with a shotgun, some anecdotes about his experiences of performing comedy to audiences in cities all over the UK, accounts of his comedy triumphs and one or two comedy disasters and more ramblings of that nature.

So that’s all background context that you can hear more of in episode 382 and 383 –

This time, I decided to just see where the conversation takes us and the result was an extremely tangential and rambling conversation that takes in such things as

  • Ian’s favourite films
  • Ian’s recent trip to New York where he did comedy and spent time as a tourist
  • The complications of Woody Allen’s current public image
  • Differences between British and American audiences
  • Differences between Burlesque and stripping
  • Ian’s different accents as a child moving from Blackburn to Norfolk to London.
  • Details of Ian’s clothing
  • How to iron a shirt properly
  • Ian’s various health issues and physical complaints and what might be causing them
  • Comedy shows you can see at The Comedy Store in London
  • Ian’s stories about learning French and attempting to pass the language test for French citizenship

Watch out for various little jokes and funny stories along the way and try to keep up as the topic of the conversation veers from one thing to another.

But now, let’s listen to my conversation with Ian Moore and here we go…

Ian Moore Photo: Richard Wood @comictog twitter.com/comictog

Ending

I won’t talk a lot more here at the end because I don’t want the episode to be too long, but I would like to say thanks again to Ian for being on the podcast.

You can find out more about Ian on his website at https://ianmoore.info/

Well done for managing to follow this entire conversation. I wonder how much you understood, how many little jokes and funny moments you picked up on. It might be worth listening again and I wouldn’t be surprised if the transcription team chose to transcribe this episode like they did with episodes 382 and 383. You can find those transcriptions in the google documents by clicking transcripts in the menu on my website.

That’s it for now then, have a fantastic day, morning, lunch, afternoon, late afternoon, early evening, mid evening, late evening and night and I will speak to you again on the podcast soon.

But for now,

Bye!

647. British Comedy: Alan Partridge (Part 6)

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The final part in this little series following Alan Partridge through a day in his life, and breaking it down for language. Alan is not for everyone, but I hope you’ve enjoyed this series and learned some English from it.

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Introduction

Hello and welcome back. This is the 6th and final part of this particular episode run about Alan Partridge. I might come back to continue with part 7 and onwards at a later date.

But here is part 6 and in this one we’re going to conclude the storyline that we started in part 4 of this.

So we’re listening to some clips from this award-winning TV comedy from 1997 I think. It’s over 20 years old now but Alan Partridge is still a popular character and he is still on TV these days with new shows coming this year or early next year apparently.

But I’ve chosen this episode from 1997 because it follows on from the stuff we listened to in previous episodes.

Again, if you haven’t heard the other parts in this series, I suggest you go back and listen to them first. This won’t make a lot of sense to you if you haven’t heard those parts, and I mean parts 1-5. Check them out.

So we’re going to continue and conclude the story from this episode, which is episode 2 from series 1. It’s actually called “Alan Attraction”.

Here’s a recap of what’s happened in Alan Attraction so far.

It’s happens to be Valentine’s Day and Alan has been sending chocolate oranges to women he knows aged 50 and under. The thing is, all the chocolate oranges are shop soiled – probably ones that have been on display in shops and then taken off display and sent back to Rawlinsons for some reason, and so Rawlinsons don’t know what to do with all these damaged Chocolate Oranges, so they’ve somehow done a deal with Alan whereby he plugs Chocolate Oranges from Rawlinsons (Just say “Chocolate Oranges are available from Rawlinsons”) and then they give him 50 of the shopsoiled chocolate oranges.

More importantly for Alan, he is struggling financially. He hasn’t been given a second series by the BBC so now he is being forced to make financial changes. He has sacked all the staff in his company Pear Tree Productions and has to trade down his Rover 800 for a smaller model.

In the last episode we heard him go to Pear Tree Productions and sack them all in the most cowardly and pathetic way, except for Jill – the middle aged divorcee that works for him, and who he fancies. He lied to Jill about sacking everyone and then took Jill on a romantic Valentine’s Day trip to a local Owl sanctuary and then he asked her out to dinner at the travel tavern where they have an extremely romantic all-you-can-eat buffet for 6 pounds. It’s all you can eat from an 8-inch plate and Alan is cheating by smuggling in a 12 inch plate from his room.

So in this episode we’re going to hear

  • What happens on Alan’s date with Jill
  • Will they get on?
  • What’s going to go wrong? (because this is Alan – something always goes wrong)
  • Is Alan going to get involved with Jill?
  • What kind of lover do you think Alan is?
  • And is Alan still going to sack Jill like he promised Lynn he would?

I realised just before recording this that I haven’t described the appearance of the characters in the show.

Alan has a kind of middle-aged, middle English kind of look. He wears sensible shoes, brown slacks, a cardigan and shirt or possibly a blue or green blazer with brass buttons. His hair is a sort of side parting but it goes quite wide at the sides. Somehow it is exactly the sort of hair cut that TV presenters had in the mid-nineties.

Lynn looks like a typical middle-aged conservative English churchgoing woman. She is very modestly dressed in a long skirt (grey or brown) a plain blouse, cardigan, overcoat which is light brown or grey maybe. Her look is extremely sensible and plain. Her hair is, again, generic middle aged woman territory but there is absolutely no glamour to Lynn. She is a Baptist, which is quite a strict form of English protestant Christian. She’s very conservative, extremely meek, modest and also completely devoted to Alan. We don’t know why she is so devoted to him but she is. Alan of course takes her devotion for granted. Everyone should be that devoted to him, probably. He is generally quite mean to Lynn although he is also affectionate in some ways. For example, he plays her a song on his radio show as a dedication but feels the need to then say it’s nothing to do with Valentine’s Day.

Then there’s Jill in this episode who I think is also 50 (like Lynn) but she’s far more glamourous and sexy (read: slutty) than Lynn. Really, Jill is very trashy – low cut top (revealing her cleavage), short skirt, hair pushed up, lots of make up. She has tanned (probably fake tanned) skin, smokes fags, wears high heels and makes loads of dirty and flirtatious comments.

Those are the main characters in this episode I think.

Right, so let’s carry on and we’re going to now listen to Alan and Jill having their romantic dinner at the Travel Tavern (a horrible place for a valentines date).

Here are some things to look out for

17:22
Alan and Jill have dinner at the travel tavern
Jill has changed into a red dress, Alan is wearing his green blazer. Alan and Jill have just finished dinner. Alan buys Jill a rose. He holds onto his larger (12 inch) plate and Jill orders a chocolate moose, then Alan gets up onto the stage, grabs the mic and does something.

  • What does Alan do on the stage? What happens?
  • Jill says “I didn’t know you could sing” – What is Alan’s response about being in the choir when he was a boy?
  • Lynn arrives. What does she have to tell Alan?
  • Why was Alan’s phone switched off?
  • Why is Lynn wearing a “snazzy cardigan”?
  • What does Lynn suggest to Jill?
  • What’s Alan’s response?
  • What does Lynn give to Jill?
  • What does Jill suggest at the end?
  • What happends in the video? Basically!

22:00
Alan’s Room

Alan emerges from the bathroom in a bath robe.
Jill is in the bed in a nightie.

  • What does Alan suggest to Jill about the bathroom?
  • What does Alan think about living in a travel tavern?
  • Alan puts some change on the bedside table. What does Jill say? What’s Alan’s awkward response?

Alan wants to turn off the light, Jill suggests that they just dim it and Alan slowly dims it to complete darkness. “Bit more, bit more, bit more”

The next bit is perfect because it’s just audio.

Alan in bed with Jill
23:10

  • What do you think of Alan’s pillow talk?
  • What does he actually say while they’re having it off?
  • What do you imagine they’re doing?
  • What does Alan say about condoms?
  • Why does Alan want to keep talking?
  • “People forget that traders need access to Dixons!
  • They do say it will help people in wheelchairs”
  • What does Jill do that upsets Alan?
  • Who knocks at the door?

Alan’s Lovebud

Alan is back in the studio for his morning radio show as Jill is driving home in the taxi. Alan does a feature on his show called “Alan’s Love Bud” which is probably about romantic stories. In this one he tells another story but it’s obviously him and Jill.

  • What’s the conclusion of the story?
  • What will Alan be doing in 3 minutes’ time?

646. British Comedy: Alan Partridge (Part 5)

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What did Alan do on Valentine’s Day? Listen to find out, as we break down some more clips of this award-winning comedy and use them to learn English.

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Introduction

Welcome back to this episode about comedy legend Alan Partridge, a character played by Steve Coogan. This is part 5 in a series I started back in 2018. You should listen to the other parts before you listen to this.

What we’re going to do is continue to listen to some clips from an episode of I’m Alan Partridge – you should check out all the AP content out there including the DVDs you can find online.

We’re going to listen to some clips.
I’ll give you some things to watch out for.
We’ll see how much you can understand.
I’ll break it all down and point out funny moments and bits of language.

I hope to be able to cover all of this in this part, so we’ll have to keep things a bit brisk in order to stop the episode going on too long, but there might have to be another episode after this one, depending on how much we get done.

Let’s quickly sum up what happened in the last episode.

I reminded you who Alan Partridge is and what the context is for this episode.
We listened to Alan presenting his radio show and plugging chocolate oranges.
We heard Alan talking to the staff at the travel tavern and generally being awkward and weird.
Then we listened to Alan talking to Lynn about having to fire all the staff at his production company in order to avoid going bankrupt and because he’s not prepared to drive a Mini Metro even if they’ve rebadged it and it’s now the Rover Metro.

So in this episode we’re going to follow Alan as he meets all the members of his production company in order to fire them, even Jill the woman that he fancies and often flirts with.

Alan arrives with Lynn at the offices of Pear Tree Productions

09:15
Alan and the staff at Pear Tree Productions

Watch out for

  • How Alan flirts with Jill
  • How Alan lies by telling the staff the news about the second series
  • How Alan tries to stop people spending too much money
  • How Alan sacks his members of staff
  • How Alan manages to escape from everyone
  • When Jill asks Alan where everyone has gone, what does he say?

Alan and Jill

Watch out for

  • How Alan establishes if Jill likes him, sex wise, and his reaction
  • How they flirt really horribly
  • How Alan asks Jill out on a date

Alan & Jill at the Owl Sanctuary

Watch out for

  • Alan’s comment about astroturf
  • What Alan used to think when he saw Jill in the office
  • How Alan talks about a line of birds of prey they are looking at. He compares it to death row, and then look out for how his rambling comparison goes all weird.

Alan & Jill in the car

  • What did Alan do on Valentines day 8 years ago?
  • How does Alan ask Jill out on a date?

To be concluded in part 6…

645. British Comedy: Alan Partridge (Part 4)

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Listening to some more classic British comedy and dissecting it for language. This time we’re listening to some more clips of Alan Partridge, a comedy character played by Steve Coogan. This is part 4 of a series I started in 2018.

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Introduction

Hello there, dear listener, and welcome back to this podcast for learners of English as a foreign or second language or third, or fourth. In these episodes I try to help you learn English while having a laugh at the same time. We cover a lot of British culture in these episodes including lots of stuff about comedy and there’s lots of English to be learned in the process.

Here’s another episode about Alan Partridge, a comedy character played by Steve Coogan. This is part 4 of a series I started in autumn 2018. 

You should listen to parts 1-3 (episodes 548-550) before hearing this. Seriously, if you haven’t heard the other parts yet – stop right now and go back to hear them. This will not make much sense to you unless you’ve heard parts 1-3 so go back and listen to them instead, before you listen to this. Alright? OK, so only the people who have already heard parts 1-3 (episodes 548-550) are still with me now then… It should be just those who’ve… what about you there?… yes, you I don’t remember you listening to the other parts. Probably best to hear those first, like I said, so… probably stop and go back… in the archive. (episodes 548-550) Ok you’re still listening. No that’s fine, just ignore, yep, just ignore what I said, yeah, because this doesn’t apply to you does it… just carry on then… don’t blame me though if this doesn’t make sense… not my fault, I did say… just one thing though, when you don’t get it, don’t even think about saying “this is British humour”… no this is not “British humour” ok, “this is poor listening skills and bloody mindedness”. OK, fine. Unbelievable.

I’m just kidding, everyone’s welcome! Here is another episode about British comedy legend Alan Partridge and this is part 4.

When I did parts 1-3 in autumn 2018, I wasn’t sure what people would think, but overall the response was really positive, with lots of people saying they’d like to hear more.

Here’s a comment I just got from a LTL called Aritz, which sums it up quite well I think.

Hey Luke! I wanted to write to you about the Alan Partridge episodes. Thank you so much for taking your time to record them! Although I already knew Steve Coogan, you managed to make me understand the character (Alan) and the comedian in more depth. The episodes were educational, funny and somehow brought us a bit of British culture (something that as a London resident I always appreciate). Seriously good (great!!) stuff! Thanks again!

Well then, let’s enter the world of Alan again then.

What we’re going to do here is listen to some clips of Alan Partridge and break it all down for language learning.

Hmmm, which clips should I choose. There’s so much. We’re spoiled for choice.

I’ve decided to deal with clips from “I’m Alan Partridge” Series 1, episode 2 which follows on from the episode when he has that meeting with Tony Hayers and it goes all wrong and he squishes some cheese into his face. 

I’ve chosen this episode because you already know the context of the story and it makes sense to carry on from where we were after hearing that scene. Also, this episode is just brilliant from start to finish (in my opinion of course, other opinions are available)

One thing I would like to say here is that I really want to recommend that you actually buy some Alan Partridge content. It’s really worth it. You should get a DVD or buy a series on iTunes or wherever you can.

I’d strongly recommend getting the DVDs for I’m Alan Partridge series 1 and 2. Also you could check out Mid Morning Matters series 1 and 2 if they’re available. If you’re in the UK you should find most of the AP content on the BBC iPlayer, including the recent series This Time with Alan Partridge (I recommend episode 4).

As well as those, you could get the Alan Partridge books. The first one is called “I, Partridge – We Need to Talk about Alan” and the second one is called “Nomad”. They are both absolutely brilliant and it’s not an exaggeration to say they are literally the best books I’ve ever read. Ok, that is an exaggeration, but it’s really not an exaggeration to say that the audiobook versions really are the best audiobooks I’ve ever heard.

The cool thing about the audiobooks is that they are read out by Alan himself (actually the actor Steve Coogan of course) and this is just amazing. You get hours of Alan reading you both his books and it’s absolutely top drawer comedy writing, and top-drawer voice acting too. Steve Coogan is a genius.

So, you could sign up with Audible and get the two Alan Partridge books.

And it just so happens that my Audible offer is still available!

You download the app on your phone, sign up with Audible and create an account to get the audiobooks, then download them onto your phone.

The offer is: One month of free Audible membership + any audiobook of your choice completely free.

If you like, you can cancel your membership before the end of the month and keep the free book. 

So it’s essentially a free audiobook.

www.Audibletrial.com/teacherluke or click an audible logo on my website.

And also there’s the Alan Partridge film, called Alpha Papa, in which Alan gets involved in an armed hostage situation at a radio station and ends up being the hostage negotiator.

So – plenty of Alan content for you to purchase, some of it free.

OK, I just wanted to promote the various bits of Alan Partridge stuff that you can get before we begin.

Right then, so where were we last time?

Context

Alan Partridge is this TV and radio presenter from Norwich in East Anglia in England who basically only cares about getting on television and enjoying the status of being a national broadcaster. He’s convinced he’s A-Grade talent, when in fact he’s at best a D-grade broadcaster or worse. He’s pretty much an awful person, although there are obviously worse people out there. Really, Alan is just lost, deluded, cowardly and deceitful rather than being out and out cruel or evil, although he treats his personal assistant Lynn pretty badly. But there’s something compelling about Alan, even though we certainly don’t want to be him, we might recognise ourselves in him. Is he uniquely British? In a way, yes. We tend to enjoy watching comedy characters who are quite awful, who think they’re better than they are, who are unaware of themselves. 

We’re usually quite self-conscious people who try our best to avoid being like Alan, so maybe there’s something quite cathartic about watching someone who is so unaware of himself and so unafflicted by modesty and self-consciousness.

Anyway, I shouldn’t try to explain all of that. I did enough in parts 1-3.

Let’s just get down to business.

So, Alan is a parody (he’s not a real person of course, just a character – that should be clear) a parody of a certain type of TV presenter. He used to be a sports reporter, then he got his own chat show, but accidentally killed a man on live TV. Now he has been thrown out by his wife, their marriage has broken up, probably because of him. In fact it’s all covered in the I, Partridge audiobook. Alan is now living in a roadside motel, or “Travel Tavern”. Somehow he avoided criminal proceedings from what happened on his chat show. Then he failed to get a second series of his show and ended up having a meltdown and punching his boss in the face with a piece of cheese while shouting “Smell my cheese you mother!”

So basically, he doesn’t have a second series and his career is on the rocks.

He’s still presenting a radio show on BBC Radio Norwich, but he’s got the pre-breakfast slot, which is something like 4.30-6.30AM. It’s the graveyard shift, basically. He’s drifting into obscurity.

In this episode, Alan attempts to deal with the fact that he doesn’t have a second series. He’s got to face up to certain financial realities, meaning that he can’t move into his new 5 bedroom house, he has to get a much cheaper car and he’s going to have to lay off (or sack, or fire) almost everyone who he employs at his media production company. He employs about 5 people there, including a middle-aged woman called Jill who he fancies.

Mostly in the episode we follow Alan as he deals with these things, badly in most cases. So he has to sack his production staff, get a smaller car and try to maintain his dignity while living in a shitty travel tavern. 

It’s valentine’s day in this episode, so there’s a kind of romantic theme – I say romantic, it’s not romantic at all really, but Alan ends up chatting up Jill from his production company and takes her out on a date. Lynn, his personal assistant seems a bit jealous. The whole thing goes wrong of course.

We’re going to do pretty much the whole episode here.

I’m Alan Partridge S1 E2

There is a laughter track on this, which is a pity, but honestly after a while you start to ignore it.

Alan’s radio show

Opening scenes on BBC Radio Norwich

What to watch out for:

  • Alan’s dedication to his PA Lynn
  • Why there’s no telephone Cluedo today
  • What Alan says about the sound effect (the normal morning cockrel and then the sound of a kiss)
  • How does Alan define Valentine’s Day?
  • How Alan gets the tone of a light pre-breakfast radio show completely wrong by talking about syphilis
  • How Alan ruins Dave Clifton’s joke about valentines cards “It’s valentines day! I came down this morning and I couldn’t open my door. I couldn’t open my door because I’d lost my key” ~terrible joke
  • How Alan manages to plug chocolate oranges from Rawlinsons

That’s not the sound of someone kissing me, or kissing a cock… cockrel I mean. It’s simply a way of saying “it’s valentines day”, a day upon which mr Al Capone ruined a romantic night out for many diners by massacring them. Died of syphillis he did, so there is some justice.

Alan in the reception

  • What’s the problem he has with Ben, who he says good morning to?
  • How does he subtly insult Susan on reception?
  • What’s the situation with Alan and the chocolate oranges?
  • What’s Alan’s fat back?
  • Can Sophie exchange her dark chocolate orange for a milk chocolate one?
  • Someone says “Excuse me, are you Alan Partridge?” – why?
  • What’s Alan’s complaint about the soap? (he acts out a washing routine in the shower)
  • Who sent Sophie a Valentine’s card?

Alan and Lynn talk about finances

  • What’s the good news?
  • And the bad news?
  • What about his Rover 800? Is he willing to drive a Mini Metro to save money?
  • What does he have to do re: Pear Tree Productions?
  • How does Lynn feel about Jill?
  • What’s Alan’s scam at the breakfast buffet?

The story continues in part 5…

636. James & Luke Discuss Star Wars IX (SPOILERS) Final Star Wars Episode Ever?

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James and Luke ramble about Star Wars IX one more time. This episode is full of little jokes, sketches, voices and full spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker.

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Introduction Transcript

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Here is one more episode of film club dedicated to the ridiculous new Star Wars film – The Rise of Skywalker, which my brother James and I recently enjoyed watching at a cinema in Birmingham. 

This is a mammoth holiday season megaramble with James about Star Wars Episode 9 The Rise of Skywalker. 

Of course, if the Star Wars films don’t interest you then this might not be your cup of tea and I totally understand. 

Normal podcasting will be resumed shortly I promise. I have at least 3 other episodes in the pipeline that I recorded with members of my family this Christmas. I’m sticking this Star Wars one online now to be followed by plenty of other normal episodes afterwards and the usual audio and video content for premium subscribers. 

But for those of you who have seen The Rise of Skywalker and would like to listen to a funny conversation with my brother, as we have a beer and go through the plot of the film, with plenty of little jokes, criticisms and details we liked. If you’re up for it, I think you’ll enjoy this one, with a few potential “laugh out loud on the bus” moments.

Of course there will be full spoilers throughout this episode as we talk about all the details of the plot. So, watch out if you haven’t yet seen the film. 

Big Star Wars Questions

So we talk about the film’s plot and make all the comments we have about what happens,  but we also talk about some big Star Wars questions which this film raises, like:

  • Is Luke Skywalker a virgin?
  • Who would actually consent to have sex with Emperor Palpatine, and when did that happen?
  • What happens when a force-sensitive Jedi has an orgasm? Could it be a dangerous moment, and is that why the Jedi follow a strict code of celibacy?
  • Why is everything in the Star Wars universe made of such highly explosive material?
  • Can droids hack into anything? Where’s the cyber security in this universe?
  • Why does a fat pilot die in a space battle at the end of every film?
  • If “the force will be with you, always”, why do they also have to say “may the force be with you”?

Also I should point out that there is some swearing in this episode and some generally rude language at times, so you might want to bear that in mind if you’re listening to this with children or the swearing intolerant.

So, those of you who are still here, I assume you’d like to listen to us rambling on about this final Star Wars episode.

This might be the final star wars episode ever on this podcast, certainly for a while. But I might want to talk about The Mandalorian when it’s available where I live.

Part of me thinks it is a bit excessive to upload even more content about Star Wars but I actually think this conversation is much better than episode 633 which was my immediate reaction to seeing the film. Frustratingly, in that episode I struggled to talk articulately about it because I couldn’t remember the complex details of the plot! I’m afraid you may have listened to me umming and aahing as I went through the plot. 

I also missed a few points and generally struggled to be coherent about this film, partly because the film itself isn’t very coherent. 

But this conversation with James is worth a listen in my opinion. Star Wars can be quite a funny topic, with plenty of opportunities for voices, sketches and jokes. We recorded it in my dad’s office in the evening a few days after Christmas. It’s a long conversation, but I reckon it’s worth a listen. 

I would say, if I was learning a language, say French.

I would say that I would like to listen to a couple of people discussing The Rise of Skywalker in French, while defining little phrases and other points as they went along. That would be right up my street and would definitely be a good way to do some focused listening and language study. If only that podcast existed out there for French learners. Why is nobody doing that? Hey French LEPsters – where’s Le Podcast Francais de Jean-Pierre?

Anyway, hopefully this final star wars episode will be a step up from the last one and a genuinely enjoyable and useful thing for you to listen to. 

Oh, and Happy New Year.

______________

Ending

So there you go! Congratulations for listening all the way to the end of this. If you like this sort of thing – reviewing movies with some fun along the way, you might like my review of Avengers: Endgame which you can find in the LEP App in the app-only episodes category.

Apologies again for James’ sneezing and blowing of his nose but I think we can let him off because he has such bad allergies. I should say thanks again to James for taking part in this episode. I should do and I might. In fact I will. Thanks to James for this episode, to Dad for letting us use his office, for the local Sainsbury’s for providing us with some local beer for the recording.

But that’s almost it for this episode.

Next up on the podcast we have a few more episodes featuring members of my family. I’ll be speaking to James again, then my dad and then my mum. They’re all getting their own episodes. The theme of this little series is going to be “Quintessentially British Things” and I asked everyone to think of a few things that they thought were typically British or that they liked about the UK. So prepare for some chat about things like pop culture, literature, theatre, TV shows, British landscapes, places and history. They’re good episodes and I expect you’ll enjoy them very much.

But for now, it’s just time to say goodbye…

631. 29 Awful Christmas Jokes, Explained

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The annual Christmas episode of LEP is here! Explaining 29 truly awful jokes that you might get in a Christmas cracker this year. Enjoy! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!


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Introduction

Hello folks, welcome to this new episode.

Season’s Greetings

This is the traditional Christmas episode of LEP.

We’ve got a log fire burning in the background, just to create the right atmosphere. We’re feeling festive, we’re feeling Christmassy.

That’s right, it’s Christmas time again. This is the 11th Christmas that I have celebrated on LEP now.

I know that not all of you celebrate Christmas, but I hope you feel part of this anyway, because for me Christmas should be a season of goodwill to everyone, so – you’re all welcome to listen, enjoy and take part in this one.

The title of this episode is “29 Awful Christmas Jokes, Explained”.

Awful Christmas Jokes

This is Christmas so I’m using Christmas cracker jokes. Jokes that you find in Christmas crackers. So, this is an episode about Christmas Cracker Jokes, which are awful.

What are Christmas crackers, Luke?

Why do they have jokes in them? → They just do, ok?

Cracker jokes usually have some kind of Christmas theme, or at least some kind of seasonal theme like something involving snow or other festive images.

Christmas cracker jokes are almost always awful, cringeworthy puns, but I quite like that, personally.

Christmas cracker jokes are much more likely to make you groan than laugh, although if you are in the right mood, some of them might catch you by surprise and could make you LOL during your Christmas holiday or should I call that the Christmas LOLiday. Yep, that’s the level we’re operating at here.

Right, so in a moment I’m going to tell you the jokes, let’s see if you get them all. Afterwards I will explain them as well.

There is a lot of English to learn from this – vocabulary, or certain little features of pronunciation which form the centrepiece of the joke – the double meaning that makes your brain go BZZZ and then either you laugh or you just groan. Remember, if you don’t get the joke you have to say “I don’t get it”.

I got most of these jokes from a list I found on the Telegraph’s website.

Link here https://www.telegraph.co.uk/christmas/0/revealed-50-worst-christmas-cracker-jokes-ever/

This will actually be a good test of your general English comprehension skills, but also your knowledge of Christmas vocabulary. I’ve you’ve heard my previous Christmas episodes, like the A to Z of Christmas, then you’ll probably get these. But you definitely need to be on your toes regarding the Christmas vocabulary specifically. I’ll be going through all of that after I’ve told these jokes.

I’m going to play some generic Christmas background music in order to create a festive atmosphere.

Let’s see how many of these 29 awful jokes you can get.

Here we go.

Generic Christmas background music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PHOvzgahYQ

29 Awful Christmas Jokes

  1. What do you get if you cross Santa with a duck?
    A Christmas quacker
  2. What do you get if you eat Christmas decorations?
    Tinsillitis
  3. Did Rudolph go to school?
    No, he was elf-taught
  4. Who is Santa’s favourite singer?
    Elfis Presley
  5. What did Adam say the day before Christmas?
    It’s Christmas, Eve.
  6. How many letters are in the alphabet at Christmas?
    25 – there’s no-el
  7. Why are Christmas trees so bad at knitting?
    Because they always drop their needles
  8. What did the farmer get for Christmas?
    A cowculator
  9. Why did nobody bid for Rudolph and Blitzen on eBay?
    They were two deer
  10. What did one snowman say to the other snowman?
    “Can you smell carrots?”
  11. Which side of a turkey has the most feathers?
    The outside
  12. What do you sing at a snowman’s birthday party?
    Freeze a jolly good fellow
  13. What happened to Santa when he went speed dating?
    He pulled a cracker
  14. Who’s Rudolph’s favourite singer?
    Beyon-sleigh
  15. Who delivers presents to baby sharks at Christmas?
    Santa Jaws
  16. What athlete is warmest in winter?
    A long jumper
  17. What’s the most popular Christmas wine?
    “I don’t like sprouts!”
  18. Why does your nose get tired in winter?
    It runs all day
  19. What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?
    Frostbite
  20. What kind of music do elves listen to?
    Wrap
  21. What kind of motorcycle does Santa ride?
    A Holly Davidson
  22. What do reindeer put on their Christmas trees?
    Hornaments
  23. What happened to the man who stole an Advent calendar?
    He got 25 days
  24. What does Santa do when his elves misbehave?
    He gives them the sack
  25. What happened when Santa got stuck in a chimney?
    He felt Claus-trophobic
  26. How do snowmen get around?
    By riding an icicle
  27. How did Scrooge win the football match?
    The ghost of Christmas passed
  28. Why is it getting so hard to buy Advent calendars?
    Their days are numbered
  29. How does Darth Vader like his Christmas turkey?
    On the dark side

So, how many did you get? Did you laugh? Did you groan? Did you say “I don’t get it”?

Let me now explain everything for you.

I said before that all these jokes rely on your knowledge of specific Christmas vocabulary, so to help you a little bit I’m going to say all the items of vocab, just as a reminder. Then I’ll go through the jokes one by one and you might get them.

Christmas Vocabulary

Here is all the Christmas vocab in those 29 jokes. Listen to hear me explain all the items.

  • A christmas cracker
  • Christmas decorations
  • Christmas trees (they have needles and usually drop their needles during the holiday period)
  • Tinsel
  • Holly
  • Ornaments
  • An advent calendar
  • Santa (Claus) aka Father Christmas
  • Reindeer
  • Rudolph
  • Blitzen
  • Horns
  • A sleigh
  • The chimney
  • Elf / elves
  • A sack (of presents)
  • Christmas eve
  • Noel
  • To get something for christmas
  • Presents
  • To wrap presents
  • A snowman
  • To freeze
  • Icicles
  • Frost
  • To get frostbite (not a typical Christmas thing, but it might happen if you’re exposed to sub-zero temperatures, which are also no-longer normal at Christmas)
  • A long jumper / sweater
  • A turkey (Do you like dark meat or white meat?)
  • Sprouts
  • Scrooge (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – read out by me in episode 320)

Now let’s go through those jokes again and break them down

Scroll back up to read the jokes again.

That’s it! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year for 2020!

Thank you for listening to Luke’s English Podcast!!

630. The English Guy with a Sitcom on Japanese TV (with BJ Fox)

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A conversation with English comedian BJ Fox, who performs stand-up in Japan and has his own TV show on NHK. Our conversation includes the story of how BJ managed to pitch the show to Japanese producers, how he learnt Japanese to a proficient level, doing stand-up in a different culture and much more.

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Introduction

Hi everyone, welcome back to the podcast. It’s lovely to be talking to you again. I hope the feeling is mutual.

Let me tell you about this episode. So, this one is a conversation with an English stand-up comedian, living in Japan. He goes by the name of BJ Fox and he’s doing really well over there. He’s one of the top comedians on the English language comedy scene in Tokyo (which is a relatively big scene in fact) he also performs stand-up in Japanese, which is really cool because it means that his Japanese must be really good – he makes audiences of Japanese people laugh a lot in his shows. He has also performed stand-up in lots of other countries, especially across Asia but also in the UK and now he has his own sitcom on Japanese TV – on NHK, which is basically the Japanese equivalent of the BBC. So, he’s got his own TV show.

Now this is quite an extraordinary achievement – to get your own sitcom on Japanese telly. BJ writes the show himself and also plays the main character. So, how did he manage this? How did he get his own TV show? I mean, a lot of people move to other countries, manage to learn the language and live quite successfully there, but not everyone ends up with their own TV show. Also, how did he learn Japanese to such a high level? What’s it like doing stand up in Japan? What’s his TV sitcom all about?

BJ has also worked in the video games industry, including time spent at the Pokemon company and at Rockstar Games. I don’t know if you know Rockstar Games. They’re the ones who produce the Grand Theft Auto series and also the Red Dead Redemption series, and in fact BJ was one of the people responsible for bringing Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption to the Japanese market.

I spoke to BJ over Skype recently and asked him about all these things.

Sign up to LEP Premium to get a vocabulary / pronunciation episode based on this conversation – https://www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

Before we listen, I just want to mention that I have published a premium episode covering specific vocabulary from this conversation. I went through the recording, picked out lots of vocabulary and in the premium episode I explain it, demonstrate it and also drill it for pronunciation. Those of you who are premium subscribers will have access to that in the app and on the website. It’s Premium episode 18 (parts 1 & 2) and I think you’ll find that listening to that episode (either before or after you listen to this converstion) will really help you understand everything much better, it’ll help you notice and pick up certain phrases and to practise saying them with all the correct, natural pronunciation, and all of that is a great way to maximise your learning potential with an episode like this. That’s what my premium episodes are all about.

So check out Premium series 18 – which accompanies this episode. It’s already available in the app and on the website. To sign up to LEP Premium just go to www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium and the best way to listen to premium content is by using the Luke’s English Podcast App. If you have any questions, just send me an email through my website or through the app.

Right then, let’s meet BJ Fox and find out about his stand-up, his career, how he learned Japanese and what it’s like having his own sitcom on Japanese TV.

Home Sweet Tokyo – Season 3 – coming soon to NHK World

Videos & Links

A clip from an episode of Home Sweet Tokyo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syPyidGo6hA

Watch episodes of Home Sweet Tokyo on NHK’s website here.

BJ Fox’s Website where you can see more videos and find out his gig dates.

The Comedian’s Comedian Podcast – Stuart Goldsmith interviews some of the best comedians in the world in great depth and finds out exactly how they do their comedy.

Ending

That was BJ Fox then. I’d like to say thanks again to him for coming on the podcast. It was really interesting to talk to him.

I suggest that you have a look on the page for this episode on the website where you will find a clip from Home Sweet Tokyo, links to BJ’s website and also a link to The Comedian’s Comedian Podcast, which is absolutely fascinating for anyone interested in exactly how comedians do what they do – which is, basically, to make people laugh really hard until their faces hurt. It’s like actual magic, it’s amazing.

And don’t forget that I recently published a two-part Premium episode covering language from this conversation. If you haven’t done so already, sign up to LEP Premium in order to listen to that and maximise your English learning from this podcast. The episode covers vocabulary and pronunciation, so you can expand your range of English and sound more like a native speaker. Sign up at www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium .

I’ve also recently uploaded more little premium videos with pronunciation drills. They’re short videos in which I drill some sentences, you can see me saying the sentences, I highlight some features of pronunciation like sentence stress, weak forms and connected speech, you can see my mouth moving as I say them, you can copy me and also the target sentences are written on the screen with some features highlighted like the stress and the weak forms. Premium LEPsters – there’s a heads up. Check out the latest content – it’s there in the premium category in your app, and also online at teacherluke.co.uk/premium . There should be more content coming this month.

A bit of a ramble

Recent episodes

Basically, it’s been great to get some nice feedback from listeners. The 2 episodes with James (Oasis, Do you ever…?) have had great responses. People really enjoyed them. I am lucky to have a brother who I get on with most of the time, and we make each other laugh a lot. I’m glad if that comes across on the podcast and that you can join in the laughter too.

The Emina episode – I’m very happy that lots of you found it inspiring and also that you found lots in common with her. I think it’s always interesting to speak to people who have learned English to a proficient level, and to try to work out how they did it.

The Rick Thompson Report is always popular – people often say that this is how they get informed about Brexit. Even some of my friends who are native speakers of English listen to those episodes. The UK’s general election is due to happen on 12 December (Thursday) and I would like to record something about that after the results are in. My Dad will hopefully be up for it, but I can’t guarantee it. It depends if we find the right time to do it. December is shaping up to be an extremely busy month.

I haven’t finished the 3-part series about “88 Expressions that will confuse everyone” – the series about very British expressions and slang. I do plan to finish that. I promised you 88 expressions and so far I’ve given you 50. So I owe you another 28. Check out my maths!

Also, the episode about terrible jokes went down well, so I do plan to do more of that kind of thing. Basically, we’re going to keep on trucking here at LEPHQ. I say “we” – it’s mainly just me, isn’t it? With a little help from my friends and family of course, who join me as guests sometimes and of course the support I get from you my listeners in the form of donations (thank you thank you thank you if you’ve donated) and also just the fact that you are loyal listeners, that you recommend the podcast to your friends, leave glowing reviews on places like iTunes (LEP is simply sensational, there’s no other word for it). So thank you for the support.

Crazy strikes in France

Emmanuel Macron (the French president) is currently attempting to reform pension laws here. I don’t fully understand it, but because of this, a lot of workers across many sectors are protesting and going on strike at the moment and it looks like the strikes are going to continue throughout December, which could make life extremely difficult here. It already is, in fact. The main problem is transport, but this has some major knock on effects in other areas. Almost all the public transport is closed – The Metro, busses, train lines, trams, and in Paris that makes a huge difference because almost everyone relies on it to an extent. So this means that loads of other things are affected. Lots of people can’t get to work and it causes a lot of general chaos. For us the main problems are the creche and our travel plans at Christmas.

The daycare centre (creche) for our daughter could be closed for the next couple of weeks, so my wife and I will not be able to work like normal. We’ll have to stay at home with the little one. Now, I’m not complaining – it’s always lovely to be able to spend time with her and I can walk to school when I have lessons to teach. Also, I have some sympathy with the people who are on strike but this could seriously affect my podcast output this month because while I’m looking after my daughter I can’t really do anything else, including podcasting.

Update: Our daughter is being looked after for a few days by her grandparents, leaving us free to concentrate on work we need to do before Christmas. But it’s only for a few days – so I have to cram all my content creation into these next few days. So I will be locked in the Pod-Castle, making episodes as quickly as I can!

Luke – tell us what happened yesterday, as an example of the travel chaos gripping the city.

Also it could affect our travel plans to the UK for Christmas, so everything is up in the air at the moment. The main thing for you is that it might be difficult for me to prepare, record and upload all the content I’m planning for the next few weeks, and that includes the annual Christmas episode (which this year is going to be about Christmas jokes), perhaps one other free episode of the podcast which I haven’t worked out yet, maybe a Star Wars episode if I get to see Episode 9 when it is released here on 18 December, also I’m planning another premium audio series and more premium pronunciation videos. That’s quite a lot of content but I will be off on holiday during the Christmas period so I want to publish or prepare quite a lot of content before that, but I might not be able to do anything. We will see what happens and whether we can find childcare for the little one.

Anyway, let’s see how much I can get done in the time I have. It might just be that I have to do some late night or early morning podcasting, or perhaps no podcasting at all. We will see. But I just wanted to let you know, in case you get radio silence from LEP later this month.

But now it is time to wish you all a warm farewell until next time. Check out the LEP App if you don’t already have it, check out LEP Premium, sign up to the mailing list on the website, follow me on Twitter, have a look at the page for this episode for all your BJ Fox info and I will speak to you again soon I hope, but for now it’s just time to say GOODBYE!