Category Archives: Entertainment

595. Andy Johnson Returns (Part 2) Eating / TV Series / Football / Music

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Asking Andy questions from a speaking task in the English File Intermediate course book and chatting about eating habits, TV series, Liverpool & Tottenham in the European Champions’ League and music we’ve been listening to recently including some stories about Steely Dan and The Beatles. Intro & ending transcripts + Videos available below.


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Introduction Transcript

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. How are you? You’re doing alright?

How’s the weather? Not too rainy I hope. Sunny? Bit cloudy? Windy?

OK, that’s the small talk, the chit chat out of the way. But enough of this idle banter, let me introduce the episode.

This is part 2 of a conversation I had with Andy Johnson. You should probably listen to part 1 first, if you haven’t already done so.

In this part I ask Andy some questions from a speaking exercise from English File Intermediate 3rd Edition, a book I’ve been using with some intermediate classes I’ve been teaching at the British Council.

I’ve been helping my students practise their grammar, pronunciation and speaking using this book and I thought it would be interesting to ask Andy some questions that my students have been discussing with the aim of practising “used to” and other ways of talking about habitual behaviour in the past or present.

So, what you’re going to hear is us using “used to” and some other bits of grammar and then rambling on in a natural way, answering these questions designed to help learners of English develop their fluency.

The topics of the questions include stuff about our eating habits, TV series we used to be addicted to (Andy gives a nice summary of The Wire and we talk a bit about how neither of us have ever watched Game of Thrones – shock horror!) and then we go on to talk about music we’ve been listening to on Spotify recently – the latest Vampire Weekend album in Andy’s case and a classic album by Steely Dan in my case. If you’re a fan of Steely Dan, then listen all the way to the end for a bit of Steely Dan chat. I’ve been listening to their stuff on repeat recently and I’ve become slightly obsessed by a couple of their songs.

We also end up talking about football at some point, specifically the dramatic and unbelievable recent events in the European Champions’ League. Barcelona and Ajax fans, I expect you’re currently feeling a bit wounded by what happened last week, but I think it’s fair to say that football fans around the world were stunned at how both Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur managed to win their semi-finals against all odds, beating Barcelona and Ajax respectively. Basically, it looked like Liverpool and Spurs were both definitely going to be knocked out as they were both behind by quite a few goals each, but they both managed to come back in spectacular fashion, winning their games and going through to the final. That description doesn’t quite do it justice. Those of you who saw the games will know that they were somehow two of the most astonishing moments of football in recent memory, certainly for us Europeans.

Right then, so now you’re prepped for the rest of the conversation, let’s get started.

Check the page for this episode on the website and you’ll see a script for this introduction and some more bits and pieces including a load of recommended YouTube videos relating to the music we talk about. Oh and one more thing – bonus points for anyone who manages to notice the sound of a hoover in the background during this conversation. You might hear a hoover (a vacuum cleaner) at one point and you might think “Where’s that coming from? Is that someone hoovering in my house or something? I SAY! WHO’S HOOVERING?” Well, it was our cleaner who comes round once a week and was doing some hoovering outside my room while I was recording this. Hopefully you won’t notice, but just in case – there you go. So, extra bonus points for anyone who notices the sound of my flat being cleaned in the background.

All right then, let’s go!

Ending Transcript

Thanks again to Andy for being a great guest on the podcast as usual, and also a special thanks to my cleaner for doing the hoovering in the background.

Any comments you have – leave them on the page for this episode and Andy might well reply to you. He quite often does that when he’s been on the podcast.

Before we finish, I would like to just clarify something I said near the end of the conversation about drummer Bernard Purdie. It just seems important somehow.

Bernard Purdie & The Beatles

At the end there you heard us talking about a drummer called Bernard Purdie who played drums on some Steely Dan songs back in the 70s. I said that Purdie was a compulsive liar who claimed to have played on some Beatle records. This is actually a bit of a legendary story in the world of music, especially for Beatle fanatics like me.

I’d like to just fact check this or clarify this a bit, because I don’t want to spread misinformation and I would like to be fair to Bernard Purdie. He’s one of my drumming heroes. Long term listeners might remember that he appeared in episode 88 of this podcast, which was called How to play the drums. He wasn’t a guest on the show, unfortunately. I mean, I just played some audio of him talking about one of his drumming techniques. Episode 88 is in the archive of course.

88. How To Play The Drums (Describing Music)

So here’s the story of Bernard Purdie and The Beatles.

The facts as far as I know are that Purdie once said that he’d played drums on 21 Beatle songs (we’re not sure which ones exactly) and that the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein was in the studio when he did it. We think he means he overdubbed drums on some of the songs, but he’s never been 100% clear about it. in fact his story changed quite a lot over the years, which makes it seem like he’s lying.

He also said that there were 4 drummers who played in the Beatles, and Ringo wasn’t one of them.
For any Beatle fans, those are slightly outrageous claims to make.
Which 21 songs is he talking about?
Ringo didn’t play the drums in the Beatles?
What’s he talking about?

Also, this isn’t just some nutter with no credentials. Purdie was a bona fide legend of the drumming world. His drumming was amazing. One of the best funk, soul & RnB drummers ever. His work was outstanding, he was recognised for it and was highly respected as a session musician.
Also, looking at interviews and drum tutorial videos he did, he seems to be a jovial, friendly, big hearted person.

So I was a bit unfair when I said he was a compulsive liar.

He might have misremembered events from his life, or perhaps made a mistake that he just didn’t repair over the years. Perhaps he was just saying something outrageous in order to give himself a bit of publicity as a drummer, which worked because, well people are still talking about it.

The truth of the matter is that he did overdub drums on some recordings featuring John, Paul and George, but they weren’t recorded under the Beatle name, and they were songs the boys recorded while living in Hamburg, Germany in 1961.

Beatle fans will know those songs as the Tony Sheridan recordings, the most famous one being “My Bonnie” which was a minor hit at the time. The Beatles – John, Paul, George and Pete Best played as the backing band to Tony Sheridan who was a singer working in Germany at the time. They recorded 7 songs. This is before the Beatles were famous and before Ringo replaced Pete Best in the group. Before Brian Epstein turned round to him one day and said “I don’t know how to turn round and tell you this Pete, but the boys have turned round and told me they don’t want you to be in the group any more”, or something along those lines. I digress…

Later on, when the Beatles (with Ringo installed on drums) had become a massive sensation, the Tony Sheridan recordings were acquired by a record company in the USA and they wanted to re-release them under the Beatle name, but the drums didn’t sound good enough in their opinion.

They were too quiet in the mix and there was no bass drum sound. So they got a studio drummer to record drum tracks over the top of the 7 Tony Sheridan songs. That studio drummer was Bernard Purdie. So, he did overdub drums on some songs, but not the 21 songs he claimed before, and they weren’t really Beatle songs, they were Tony Sheridan songs, with the Beatles playing in the background.

And, the thing about the Beatles having 4 drummers but Ringo wasn’t one of them… God knows what he meant. Maybe he was alluding to the fact that Ringo wasn’t the drummer on the Sheridan tapes, and also the fact that there are a few other Beatle songs in which Ringo isn’t the drummer. Some of the tracks on the White Album feature Paul as the drummer, and there’s a version of Love Me Do, the Beatles’ first single, which has a session musician called Andy White playing the drums, because producer George Martin wasn’t convinced by Ringo at the time.

So, just a bit of fact checking there, for the record and for the music fans listening.

Purdie wasn’t really a compulsive liar, but he didn’t exactly tell the truth either. But what is certain is that he was a brilliant drummer.

I have to give credit to a YouTube video by FabFourArchivist which I watched and which gave me those facts. If you’re interested in music and these sorts of stories, you might enjoy it. The video is on the page for this episode.

Going back to Steely Dan, that band that we talked about before. I have a few other videos to recommend to you if you’re a fan of theirs or if you’re interested in stories about how songs are made and recorded.

First, I’ll put a video of the song Deacon Blues with lyrics so you can check it out, listen to the song and try to work out what the lyrics all mean.

Then there’s a brilliant video essay by a YouTuber called Nerdwriter1 which is all about how Steely Dan wrote and recorded the song Deacon Blues and what it all means. It’s a very well made video and is fascinating.

And you heard me talking about the Steely Dan Classic Albums documentary which is on YouTube. Here it is for your viewing pleasure, including the scenes with drumming legend Bernard Purdie.

I’d like to thank Andy for coming back on the podcast. He’s always a great guest.

You can find him on LinkedIn, on Twitter @andybjohnson and the London School Online website is https://www.londonschool.com/lso/ And he’s on Spotify of course, just search for Moby.

That’s it for this episode. Let me just give you a gentle reminder that you might want to become a premium subscriber. I’ve got premium episodes in the pipeline for this month that include some explorations into vocabulary that has turned up in episodes of the podcast. That means you’ll get audio English lessons teaching you real, natural vocabulary, with all the usual things like PDF worksheets with tests, pronunciation drills and all that good good stuff. And of course, when you become a premium subscriber you get instant access to the entire back catalogue of premium episodes, which is ever growing. I put a lot of work and time into my premium content, and it’s available at what I consider to be a very competitive price! Just like buying me a nice cup of coffee every month from my local coffee place, maybe with a nice bit of carrot cake too if I fancy it, and why not? www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

Thanks for listening and I will speak to you again on the podcast soon.

I look forward to reading your comments in the comment section.

For now though, it’s just time to say bye bye bye bye bye…

Ajax fans turn from celebration to devastation as they watch their team get knocked out of the Champion’s League.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq5PW3Yo8yg

More Bernard “Pretty” Purdie Videos (because this is what life is all about)

Cory Henry jams with one of Bernard Purdie’s drum tutorial videos

Bernard talks about The Purdie Shuffle – “I’m gonna SPLAIN ya!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1j1_aeK6WA

Bernard Talks about his “Ghost Notes” (previously heard in episode 88)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgiv2tHAgh8

 

 

590. [2/2] Film Club: Avengers Endgame / Marvel Cinematic Universe (with Fred Eyangoh)

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Here’s part 2 of this film club episode, including the rest of my chat with Fred Eyangoh and then a monologue from me. This one contains predictions for Avengers Endgame, the future of Marvel Studios and some other film franchises including Star Wars. No spoilers given! Notes, scripts and videos available.


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Introduction

Here is part 2 of this film club episode about Avengers Endgame, which is hitting the cinemas this week.

You should listen to part 1 of this first, obviously, because that is how numbers work.

I am a fan of these films and so I like talking about them and listening to other people talk about them. I hope that is also true for you. Hopefully if you’re into this stuff, it’ll provide you with some engaging audio content in English to help you get that all-important listening practice into your weekly routine.

In this episode you’re going to hear the rest of my conversation with Fred and then some rambling from me about things like fan theories and predictions for Avengers Endgame. We still haven’t seen Avengers Endgame (I’m seeing it later this afternoon) so this episode contains no spoilers for the film.

In this part of the conversation you’ll hear Fred and me talking about these things:

  • A quick re-cap of Thanos’ plan from Avengers: Infinity War
  • Some predictions for Avengers Endgame and the future of the franchise
  • The conversation then turns to Star Wars, and our responses to Star Wars Episode VIII vs fan responses on YouTube, what we liked about it, what wasn’t so good about it
  • The new trailer for Star Wars Episode IX and our thoughts about the future of the Star Wars franchise

This part of the conversation lasts about 30 minutes, and after that, as I said before, I’m going to keep rambling on my own about some things we missed.

As ever, check the page for this episode on my website teacherluke.co.uk for some scripts, notes and videos.

Right, so let’s jump back into my conversation with Fred, and here we go.

Luke & Fred continue talking for about 30 minutes…

Luke’s ending monologue at the end (‘monologue’ makes it sound serious and important)

Fan theories and various other ramblings about the characters

I take the theories with pinch of salt. Like Fred was saying, I like to go into a film with no expectations but with the intention to enjoy it. But nevertheless I do quite enjoy considering the possibilities and I quite like feeding my curiosity about what might happen next. So, let me go through some of those fan theories now and also share a few other thoughts, before I go off to the cinema later this afternoon with my friend to see Avengers Endgame.

Basically it seems that in Endgame the Avengers and other remaining characters…

The “Thanus” theory (just a stupid joke, but pretty amusing if you like that kind of thing!)

Couldn’t Ant Man crawl into Thanos’ ear or the pores in his skin?

There are tons of jokes, memes and Reddit threads about Ant Man killing Thanos by shrinking down to a tiny size, crawling into Thanos’ ear (or perhaps another orifice – yes, it’s his anus) and then expanding instantly – killing Thanos in the process.

Someone else wearing the infinity gauntlet (Nebula like in the comics? Tony in a special infinity suit, Captain America who will die while doing it, Hulk).

Loki isn’t dead (he stabbed Thanos with his left hand – somehow this is significant)

Potential deaths of characters / The main characters (still alive) one by one

Characters might get killed off in order to give closure to certain character arcs, to add drama and emotional punch to the story and also because some of the actors’ contracts are expiring.

I’m now going to talk about some of the main characters, what might happen with them and whether they will die in the film.

Captain America / Steve Rogers

I hope none of them die, but I can imagine that Captain America will die, just because it fits in with certain themes in his narrative. He’s willing to sacrifice himself for others (when he jumps on the grenade in his first film) and he keeps saving other characters who try to sacrifice themselves by saying “We don’t trade lives”. I think that despite saying this, he might trade his own life somehow, probably to save everyone. But I’d like to think he doesn’t die. Instead I think it would be sweet it there was a way for him to go back in time to be with the love of his life, Peggy Carter.

Iron Man / Tony Stark

Maybe Tony will die, but that would be really tragic because he has always been trying to give up the Iron Man armour in order to be with his sweetheart, Pepper Potts and in Infinity War they talked about the idea of getting married and having children. I have a feeling that Tony will just retire to be with Pepper and they’ll get married at the end of the film.

Also, Tony seems important because Dr Strange asked Thanos to spare his life in return for the time stone, saying it was the only way.

Thor

I don’t think Thor will die because he’s too powerful and they’re talking about making a Thor 4 in a few years. Thor had an amazing arc in IW and a brilliant entrance onto the battlefield. What’s he going to do in this one?

Hulk / Bruce Banner

Hulk probably won’t die either. Instead it’s more likely that he will make peace with his alter ego Bruce Banner and they will combine to create some sort of new Hulk that combines Banner’s intelligence with Hulk’s power. Some people call this Professor Hulk.

Black Widow / Natasha Romanov

Black Widow might die, but I don’t feel like it’s going to happen. Hopefully she will find a way to be with Bruce Banner, because I found that romantic storyline to be touching and I think it would be sweet for Natasha to find some love after basically her emotional life was taken from her while being trained as an agent.

Hawkeye / Ronin / Clint Barton

Hawkeye is back, but he seems to have gone all ’emo’. I mean, he’s dark, he’s perhaps on some kind of revenge mission in Japan fighting against the Yakuza or something. People are saying this is his other incarnation from the comic books, Ronin. He’s using some kind of samurai sword. He also has a new haircut, which sometimes looks cool and sometimes looks terrible. I don’t know what the deal is with that. Maybe he lost his family during the snap and he’s grief-stricken and in a lapse of judgement he got a weird haircut. What’s he doing in Japan? We don’t know. I read one theory which said he was tracking down the remains of Mjolinr, Thor’s hammer which was crushed into pieces by Thor’s evil sister Hela in Thor: Ragnarok.

Anyway, I’m glad that Hawkeye is back because he was one of my favourite characters. A more down to earth and normal person who has a family and no super powers. This makes him pretty human and relatable. He has a few funny lines as well. There are some theories that he’ll pass on his skills to his daughter maybe. So maybe Clint will pass away to be replaced by his daughter.

Ant Man / Scott Lang

I really enjoyed the Ant Man films, but all that stuff about the quantum realm made my head spin a bit. I know it’s all just comic book entertainment and it doesn’t have to make sense, but I don’t really get the quantum realm. I know it’s essentially like another dimension. If you shrink so small you eventually get to another level of reality where the normal laws of physics don’t apply. Anyway, Ant Man was in there, collecting quantum energy (whatever that is!) when Thanos snapped his fingers and so he survived the decimation. Assuming he can find his way out, he now has the suit and the portal van thing (explain?) and we see in the trailer that he then goes to the Avengers base. Perhaps The Avengers can use Ant Man’s technology to travel through time (apparently there are worm holes or time holes in the quantum realm). He might do a Marty McFly and somehow contact the Avengers in the past and then alter the course of history. We know that messing with time travel in films makes things very complex and prone to paradoxes and stuff, but time travel can be a cool way to solve certain problems in films, like in the X-Men Days of Future Past story in which Wolverine is somehow sent back to the 70s where we get a cool new story. So, Ant Man could be one of the most important characters. Maybe he’s going to go back to the events of previous films in order to find some way to attack Thanos.

Captain Marvel

I don’t completely understand Captain Marvel and her powers. Apparently she’s one of the most powerful characters. She can fly, she can kind of glow up with super energy and become indestructible. I’m not sure if she is immune to the powers of the infinity gauntlet. Can she just fly towards Thanos and blast him into smithereens? I don’t know. From what we see in the trailers, it seems to me that Captain Marvel is a little bit too keen to just go and kill Thanos, maybe arrogantly assuming that she is powerful enough to stop him. Maybe her over-confidence will be a weakness and this might end in failure somehow. I don’t think it will be as easy as just flying into space, finding Thanos and Captain Marvel blasting him. This is a 3 hour film. There will be more to it than that and I reckon something is going to keep her powers in check.

Rocket Raccoon

I have no idea what part he will play in this except as the pilot of the spaceship that’s going to fly the Avengers into space to get Thanos. Hopefully we’ll see some funny and touching moments from him. After all, he is the only member of the Guardians of the Galaxy left alive. Now he’s completely alone again, although he’s probably been accepted by the Avengers, so he has another new family of sorts. Still, he’s bound to be sad about the loss of his friends Groot and the other Guardians.

War Machine / James Rhodes

No idea what’s going to happen to him. I have seen nothing about his storyline, but I expect he will still be an important member of the team somehow.

Nebula

She’s one of my favourite characters because she been through so much pain at the hands of Thanos but she’s so determined to keep going. I find it funny and touching that she was hell-bent on getting her revenge on her sister Gamora but she always lost against her and eventually she reveals that she just always wanted a sister. That was sweet. I also feel sorry for her. As Thanos’s adopted daughter (adopted against her will) she has a lot of personal reasons for wanting to stop him. She might even be the one who has more grievances against him than any of the others. Perhaps she’ll be the one to kill him in the end. In the comics she does actually wield the infinity gauntlet at some point. Thanos takes his revenge on her in a pretty cruel way though, by turning her into some kind of zombie. I hope that doesn’t happen. I hope she gets redemption in some way.

Okoye

She’s one of the bodyguards of T’Challa (aka Black Panther) who fought against Thanos’s army on Wakanda. Black Panther was dusted when Thanos snapped his fingers, so I don’t know what Okoye is going to do. Maybe she’ll join the Avengers because she is a powerful fighter, or maybe she’ll stay in Wakanda. Who knows. I like the actress who plays her (she’s also Michonne in The Walking Dead) so I’m always happy to watch her on screen. She’s pretty intense and just enjoyable to watch.

Other characters: Valkyrie, Pepper Potts, Wong. 

I bet I’ve missed someone or something. There are loads of other theories and things to ramble about but I think I will stop here. Please add your comments if you have other things to add or if I’ve missed something.

Also, by the time you listen to this the chances are you might have seen the film and all this speculation and guess-work will be redundant. Still, it’s fun to talk about this stuff. If you have seen the film, please don’t put spoilers in the comment section.

If you want more of this kind of thing…

I talked about superheroes a couple of years ago when Captain America: Civil War was released. I did a couple of film club episodes about Civil War, but also a conversation with another geeky friend of mine which was all about superheroes, their powers and their background stories.

Those episodes are linked on the page for this episode

347. Film Club: Marvel / Captain America Civil War (Part 1)

348. Film Club: Marvel / Captain America Civil War (Part 2)

349. Who’s the best superhero? (with Paul Langton)

Need a reminder of the story so far? Here’s a complete recap.

Feel free to leave your comments below but no spoilers please!

589. [1/2] Film Club: Avengers Endgame / Marvel Cinematic Universe (with Fred Eyangoh)

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Part 1 of a big ramble about Avengers Endgame, Marvel Studios and comic book movies in general with my friend, comedian Fred Eyangoh. No spoilers! Part 2 coming soon…

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Introduction

Hello everybody, welcome to episode 589 of Luke’s English Podcast.

This episode is a big ramble about Avengers Endgame, Marvel Studios and comic book movies in general with my friend Fred Eyangoh. I should point out that this episode contains no spoilers for Avengers Endgame, because neither of us have seen the film yet.

We’re both fans of these films and we become a bit like excited children when talking about this subject and so we end up talking quite quickly, interrupting each other, talking over each other sometimes, just like people normally do when having lively conversations. Some of you will be glad because you like the challenge of the faster conversations on this podcast, but others might find it harder. If you find it difficult to follow, my advice is to stick with it. You will get used to Fred’s voice and the general speed of the conversation after a while.

Fred is very articulate and insightful about these films, particularly the business side of comic book movies in general. Watch out for loads of really useful descriptive language throughout this conversation as we talk about characters, plot points and Marvel Studios’ approach to the business of movie making.

The whole conversation is long, but so is Avengers: Endgame. It seems appropriate somehow. Unlike Avengers Endgame, this episode is in two parts. You’re listening to part 1. Part 2 should be available very soon.

The film is 3 hours and 1 minute long. People are wondering how they are going to get through the film’s marathon running time without taking a toilet break. I think you won’t have the same issue while listening to this double podcast episode because you can just pause, answer the call of nature, and carry on, or perhaps even do your business while listening on headphones. Please just remember to wash your hands when you are finished.

I hope you enjoy our chat and that you are also looking forward to seeing Avengers Endgame in cinemas soon. I’m going to see it tomorrow.

I’ll talk to you more at the end of this episode. But now, let’s jump into my conversation with Fred, and here we go.

Fred & Luke start talking…

Some scripts & other notes

Here’s a new episode of Luke’s Film Club on Luke’s English Podcast. It’s been a while since the last episode of film club. In this series I like to talk about films – sometimes obscure ones that you might not know, and sometimes big blockbusters that lots of people are talking about. This episode is firmly in the second category as we are talking about one of this year’s most highly anticipated film releases,  Avengers: Endgame!

But here is a disclaimer before we start.

This entire episode is devoted to the discussion of this new Avengers Film but also to the subject of Marvel movies in general – I mean, superhero films produced by Marvel Studios. That’s stuff like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Avengers, etc. There might also be some Star Wars chat as well here, maybe at the end of the episode.

I just want to say right at the start – if you’re not a fan of those films, then this episode probably won’t be for you. I realise this might not be for everyone, okay?

But, then again, Avengers Endgame, which is the culmination of a massive 21-film narrative, is coming out in cinemas at the end of this month and it is hotly anticipated. This is an international phenomenon along the lines of other big franchises like Star Wars, Game of Thrones and so on. People are predicting that this film is going to become the highest grossing film on its opening weekend, worldwide, of all time, ever.

So, this is an event movie on an international scale and I am certain that plenty of my listeners will be interested in this and will want to hear us talking about it. That’s why I’m doing this episode.

If I was learning English, I think I would want to listen to people talking about this film! I’m really excited to see it. Perhaps you’re planning to watch it too, maybe in the original English version if that’s possible where you live.

But I just want to, in the most British way possible, apologise in advance for those of you who have no interest in this film franchise at all. Sorry.

Maybe you will choose to listen to this and it will be a sort of introduction to Marvel movies and you’ll decide to check them out and you’ll enjoy them. Or maybe you’ll skip this episode altogether. It’s up to you. Other episodes will be coming along soon, and of course, if you’re looking for other content from me you could always sign up to my premium service to hear episodes focusing specifically on grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.

But anyway, that’s the disclaimer out of the way. So now, let’s get stuck in shall we?

The plan is to talk about Avengers Endgame, but also to cover most of the other Marvel films we’ve had so far, and also talk about the main characters. This could easily become several episodes.

I’m joined today by Fred Eyangoh, making his third appearance on the podcast. Fred is a friend of mine from the Paris comedy scene. He’s from Cameroon but he lives in Paris, and he’s a big fan of films. Fred’s first appearance was in episode 430 and you can go back to that one if you’d like to learn more about Fred, his background and how he learned English.

So now, let’s get started with this episode of Film Club on Luke’s English Podcast…

Avengers: Endgame – Trailer

Plot summary from Wikipedia

Adrift in space with no food or water, Tony Stark sends a message to the love of his life, Pepper Potts as his oxygen supply starts to dwindle. Meanwhile, the remaining Avengers — Thor, Black Widow, Captain America and Bruce Banner — must figure out a way to bring back their vanquished allies for an epic showdown with Thanos — the evil demigod who decimated the planet and the universe in the previous chapter of the series Avengers: Infinity War.

A run-down of the conversation in the episode:

  • Getting excited about Avengers Endgame
  • Reasons why the MCU has been a success
  • Iron Man, the film that launched the MCU over 10 years ago.
  • Avengers: Age of Ultron – Tony Stark’s technological AI defence system goes wrong and tries to kill all humans
  • Boring CGI battles at the end of all superhero films
  • Watching 200 million dollars on screen (Avengers: Infinity War)
  • How much we are anticipating Avengers: Endgame
  • The balancing act of bringing so many different characters together in the same film. Balancing the tone of each character, and the enjoyment of watching these characters interact in different situations.
  • Smaller, weirder characters that balance out the more serious ones, like The Guardians of the Galaxy, particularly Rocket Raccoon who we both think is a great character.
  • Captain America: his origin story and what the character represents.
  • Great casting. The list of great characters in the films: Glenn Close, Robert Redford, Hayley Atwell, Cate Blanchett, Jeff Bridges, Michael Douglas, Kurt Russell, Benicio Del Toro, Tilda Swinton. The list goes on and on…
  • Kevin Feige and his success as producer of all these films. The unifying figure around all these films. The one person who was at the centre of all the operations. He managed to give away enough power to creative people to get these movies out there. He found the right actors, screen writers, directors… He didn’t lose his judgement, unlike someone like George Lucas who, arguably, lost his judgement after making his original trilogy. Arguably.
  • Marvel (so far) have never released a film that completely divided the audience (like The Last Jedi) or got panned by the critics (like the more recent DC films). They haven’t made a film that was weak enough to break the franchise, unlike DC.
  • Man of Steel. We think it’s pretty terrible.Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. We also think it’s terrible. Why?
  • Shazam (the latest DC film). Fred thought it wasn’t good. Luke doesn’t want to see it because of the main character’s haircut.
  • Is Shazam similar to Deadpool?
  • The way Ant-Man works because of the humour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_PmY8prw7M

End of Part 1

Episode ending – script

This is where we are going to pause this conversation and we will carry on in part 2.

I hope you’re keeping up with all of this! As I said at the beginning, I think it might be difficult for some of you to follow, but challenges are good and it’s important to try and listen to these fast conversations. Hopefully you’re into the subject enough to keep listening and that’s the main thing! Practice practice practice!

So, part 2 will be available to you soon and our conversation will carry on there, talking mostly around the subject of Avengers Endgame but also there’s some talk of Star Wars because episode IX is coming out later this year and a new Star Wars trailer arrived recently. If you’re a fan, then these things are quite important actually!

So, there’s about 30 minutes more conversation from Fred and me in part 2, and then also I will talk a bit on my own about some other stuff, like fan theories for Avengers Endgame and just some of my own thoughts about the film.

Feel free to leave your comments. If you have now seen the film, please avoid writing spoilers in the comment section, or at least flag up the fact that your comment contains spoilers by writing the phrase SPOILER WARNING at the top of your comment.

I’m going to see Avengers Endgame tomorrow (because new films are released on Wednesdays here in France) and I might record some kind of reaction to the film or a ‘non-spoiler review’ of some kind.

Then, of course, after all this hype has died down, it will be back to podcasting as usual. There might be a little gap because I’m going away on holiday, but normal podcasting will return, as you would expect.

That’s it for part 1 then. I expect part 2 will be available very soon so you can carry on and get into some of the excitement.

Part 2 available soon…

584. Posh or not posh? (Part 3) with Amber & Paul

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Amber & Paul join me to talk again about poshness, posh accents and posh celebrities. This episode is full of different British accents – posh, RP and regional differences. It’s also full of comedy and I found myself laughing out loud while editing this, especially the interview with the football player that Paul tells us about. I hope you enjoy it.

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Are these celebrities posh or not? What are the features of posh accents, RP and regional accents in the UK?

Kate Beckinsale

Victoria Beckham

Sadiq Khan

Kenneth Branagh

Stephen K Amos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5F0Y7wvv9M

Elton John

Daniel Craig

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling

George Martin

Jacob Rees Mogg (again)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWFtVzlmBa8

Danny Dyer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWAa3_OyS48

Keep adding your videos of British celebrities in the comment section. Are they posh or not posh?

582. Posh or not posh? (Part 2) Guess the Posh British Celebrities

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Can you identify which UK celebrities are posh and which are not? Let’s listen to some British celebrities speaking, check their Wikipedia pages and work out of these people are truly posh or not. You’ll hear samples of lots of spoken English in this episode and we’ll focus on accent and pronunciation.

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Introduction Transcript (Videos below)

This is episode 582 and it’s called “Posh or not posh? (Part 2) Guess the Posh British Celebrities” and in this one we’re going to listen to a lot of famous British people and work out if they are posh or not.

This follows on from the last episode in which I talked about what makes a person posh and what posh people sound like when they speak.

You should listen to episode 581 before listening to this I reckon.

In the last episode you heard me say that a really important thing is to listen to people speaking and to hear lots of examples of posh speech. In this episode you’re going to hear loads of different people speaking. Some of them sound posh and others don’t. So you’re going to hear a mix of different accents. I could probably break it down like this – posh RP, standard RP and regional accents.

We’re going to go through a list of British celebrities. Can you identify if these people are posh?

I’ll name the person. We’ll listen to some audio of them speaking and see if their accent is posh. We’ll look out for some little clues that kind of give it away. Then I’ll have a look at their Wikipedia pages to get some more info and find out if they really are posh.

Remember the 7 types of poshness we talked about before.

  • poshness of birth
  • poshness of wealth
  • poshness of accent
  • poshness of education
  • poshness of excellent taste – the fine arts, fine wine, fine food – anything with ‘fine’ before it
  • poshness of exuberant vulgarity (e.g. over-the-top excessive and showy expressions of bad taste – bling)
  • poshness of assumed superiority

The key things in the Wikipedia biography are: educational background (private schools, boarding schools, single-sex schools, prep schools) and family background (any connections to nobility). Also we’ll pay attention to the way they speak.

So it’s basically – poshness of birth, poshness of education and poshness of accent that we’re looking at here.

Remember that hardly anyone has all the traits of being posh. For example, I expect that most of the people in my list don’t score very highly in the “poshness of assumed superiority” because most of them are humble actors but maybe some of them actually are arrogant enough to assume that they’re better than everyone else. Anyway, the main things we’re looking at are birth (family connections) education (which school) and accent.

Again, it’s not very fair to judge people, and I’m just trying to help learners of English to be able to identify certain things about people from England.

As we go through these video clips which are on YouTube, the focus for me is on just the way the people speak. We might have to skip past some of the language (vocabulary) while doing this. Normally when I use audio like this on the podcast I break it down word by word so you can understand everything. There might not be time for in-depth analysis like that. We’ll focus on the accent, I might explain what’s being said a bit, and then we’ll check the Wikipedia page for that person and move on.

So, are these people posh or not? Let’s go.

Videos & Speech Samples

Jacob Rees-Mogg

Adele

Prince Harry (duh)

Keira Knightley

Wayne Rooney

Jack Whitehall (and his Dad)

Paul McCartney

Idris Elba

Emma Thompson

Brian Sewell

Any other UK celebrities you can think of? Add a video in the comment section.

 

580. Ramble / Listener Comments / Robots / Vampires / Two Taps in the Bathroom

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A rambling episode with responses to listener comments, LEPster meetups, English Robot 3000 & 5000, vampires leaving comments on my website and the continuing mystery of two taps in the bathroom.

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Episode Transcript & Notes

Hello welcome to episode 580 of my podcast. My name is Luke, this is my podcast for learners of English and in this episode I’m going to have a bit of a ramble, respond to a few listener comments, give a bit of general news, and all that kind of thing!

It’s a been a little while since the last proper rambling episode. That was 558 I believe. Here we are now with episode 580. I’m just sitting here in my flat on a Friday afternoon, hoping to get an episode out before the weekend. Looking forward to the weekend? Yeah? Got any plans? Maybe you’re listening to this after the weekend, in which case – how was it? Any good memories? Can’t remember? Can’t even remember the weekend, eh? I suppose that means it was a good one then.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the recent episodes. The conversations with guests – focusing on fellow English teachers from podcastland – Zdenek Lukas, Jennifer from English Across the Pond and then Ben Worthington from IELTS Podcast. Also there was my long chat with James which has proven very popular. Lots of people love that episode, even though James himself seemed convinced nobody would see the value in it, and then of course the episodes dissecting comedy – the Bill Burr plane story and Paul Chowdhry’s hilarious routine. Plenty of people have asked for more of that sort of thing, and there will be more. I’ve always done that on the podcast – listened to extracts of people speaking (often comedy) and then broken them down word by word for you. Check the archive for all the British Comedy episodes.

How are you?

I expect you are in one of a number of situations as you listen to this.

Maybe…

  • Walking down the street, in which case – please watch your step as you go. Don’t get distracted and accidentally fall into a hole.
  • On a bus – in which case, why not give a smile to the other passengers, just to lighten the mood on the bus there. In fact you could get up and announce to everyone – “Hello everyone on the bus I hope you have a really great day today!” and see what kind of reaction you get.
  • On a train – in which case, why not take a little walk down the train to see if they have one of those train cafes where you can get a coffee and maybe a chocolate muffin or something, because when you’re travelling on a train the chocolate doesn’t count. Also, walking down the train is quite fun. You can kind of wobble along, grabbing the tops of the seats to steady you and maybe flirt for a moment somehow with some of the other passengers, right? That’s one of the cool things about being on a train. Sometimes there are other passengers who might give you a little look, like “well, you’re on this train, I’m on this train, clearly God intended us to be together and I suppose there isn’t much more for us to do just make sweet sweet love to each other, when we’ve reached our destinations and agreed upon a suitable place and time of course… but all of that is out of the window when you’re single, on a train, heading for the coffee car and perhaps making eye contact with another sexy passenger… And then absolutely nothing happens, you just carry on your journey. Do you do that? Fall in love with another passenger, without actually having any social contact with them whatsoever. Anyway, if you’re on a train, and you make a connection with another traveller, who let’s say is also listening to something – try asking if they’re listening to LEP. It would certainly give you both the perfect starting point to build the rest of your lives upon! Ha ha, imagine that. Actually, I’m pretty sure that at least one couple out there is together now because of this podcast. Let’s make sure it continues to happen! Let’s make the world a better place people!
  • Driving in your car – in which case, please drive carefully while listening to this podcast. When you’re not listening to this, do what you want.
  • On a plane somewhere – in which case, just remember that you are much more likely to be killed or even just injured on the ground than in the air, because, well, that’s usually where the plane crashes isn’t it. So, anyway, while you’re in the air, you’re safe. :)
  • On one of those electric scooter things – in which case, are you sure you look cool?
  • Doing the housework – in which case, you missed a bit, just there. (annoying)
  • Eating something – in which case, please properly chew your food before swallowing. Some experts say you need to chew about 40 times per mouthful. Yep. Also, please eat with your mouth closed.
  • Using the lavatory or generally freshening yourself up in the bathroom – please wash your hands
  • At work, listening to this when you should be doing something else – in which case, please keep a straight face at all times. If you ever burst out laughing for any reason, try to cover it up by pretending to have a random coughing fit.
  • Just standing in the street wondering what to do – in which case, take your time, there’s no rush, unless there is a rush, but if there isn’t a rush then take your time, don’t hurry. No need to hurry. Just listen to this song for some inspiration (Take it easy by Prince Buster)
  • In bed, ready to fall into a deep deep slumber – feel free to just close your eyes and let yourself drift away into a lovely, restful sleep.

Podcast Stats

Antonio
In the past you used to communicate some statistics about your podcast, like the countries list, and I would like to know the list of the countries in the Premium area. Not the number of people paying it because this is business stuff.
Podcast stats
Top countries for LEP
Top countries for LEPP
Bottom countries too please!

Episode 600 / 10th Birthday of LEP

I have no idea how to celebrate or mark these occasions.
I kind of did a celebration for episode 500, so there’s no need to do anything special really.
I might just carry on podcasting like normal.
But let me know if you think there’s something I should do for episode 600.
The thing is, I’m a bit wary of asking for things from my audience, because these days that quickly becomes extremely difficult to manage, with too many recordings to handle, keep track of, make sure are at the correct volume level and all it takes is for a certain number of people, even a tiny portion of the overall audience, to send me something and it’s far too long. Managing listener messages is all a bit too much for me these days. I don’t have the time in my schedule any more.

I’ll think about it, but it might just be a normal podcast with no major fanfare, but if you have any grand ideas to mark this occasion, which doesn’t involve massive amounts of work or preparation, let me know.

I can’t really believe it’s been 10 years since I started doing this and now the podcast is on Spotify I’m getting new people listening to episode 1 all the time.

Also I’ve been putting the episodes up on YouTube recently – no video, just the audio, but the thing is that you get automatically generated subtitles.

Recently I did a premium episode all about how to improve your English to the level of a native speaker, which is a question I get asked all the time.

Obviously, one of the most important things is to practise, practise, practise.

How?

LEPster MeetUps

One way is to take part in conversation clubs. LEPsters around the world are meeting up fairly regularly to do this. They’re called LEP MeetUps or LEPsters conversation clubs.

LEPsters Clubs
Read out all the info on this page https://teacherluke.co.uk/contact-2/lepster-meetups/
And some comments for new meetups.

Go to CONTACT and then LEP MEETUPS for all the details and to contact people who have left messages.

LEPsters Club in Chile
Message: Hi, Luke! I’m writing to you to report on my LEPsters meetup I had on Saturday 19th in a cafe in Antofagasta, Chile. I have a Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/lepstersantof ), so if you could set it on your website it’d be amazing! But maybe I need some more meetings to reach that honour, haha! I’d like to send you a picture, but there’s no way in this form, and I wouldn’t like to put it on the forum. But if you see the Facebook page you’ll see the pic (I’m the guy doing the ‘peace’ sign). Anyway, the meetup was amazing! There were 6 people (maybe it’s not enough, but for a 1st one I think it’s fine), motivated and eager to share and speak the language. They mentioned to me that there are no spaces to gather and speak English, so they were really happy to have me there creating this opportunity for them to communicate and meet people with the same goal. I started with some ice-breaker questions to get to know each other, then I continued with topic-based questions to engage their interest and speak about fun things. I’m thinking about games for the next meetups, so that we create a bond as a group and maybe make new friends. Well, that’s my long report (but I wasn’t ‘rambling’ haha!) about the meeting I held. Really looking forward to your opinion, even if it’s brief (I know you’re always busy).

Rodrigo (‘Roddie’ as I was nicknamed when I was in England by some students :D)

Eisa Ibrahim
Hi LEPsters, is there anybody here from Sudan???
Dear Luke I have been listening to Luke English podcast for
two years now, it is really brilliant, but unfortunately I have never met anybody
here who listens to the podcast!!
I am Eisa /i:sə/

Peter • 8 hours ago
Anyone from Krakow ? :) Maybe here are also people that want to improve language together ? :)

Murat Atalykov • a month ago
Hello LEPsters!
I’m from Almaty, Kazakhstan. If there is any Lepster in Almaty, please contact me via instagram @systemad

Olga B. • 3 months ago
Hello to all the lepsters of the world!
I wonder if there are any lepsters in Kazan who would like to meet up)
Just in case I created this community https://vk.com/lepmeetupkzn
So, if you are interested, I’d be glad to hear from you

Mario Ara Medina • 3 months ago
Hello, anyone from Costa Rica or an online group?

Virginie Bonneau • 4 months ago
hello Is there anyone interested in organizing a meetup in France, in the north?
or a skype group? I couldn’t manage to find one so far…

Ferdavs Majitov • 6 months ago
is there anyone who is listening to Luke in Uzbekistan
Feel free to contact me . My instagramm @fer4fan

Kim • 6 months ago
Hello Lepsters!
I’m Hee from Korea.
If there is any Lepster in Korea, please contact me via my Instagram @breathtakinglyremarkable
I just want to communicate with you Lepsters. It’s often lonely to listen to LEP and have no one to talk to about it. :(
I wish all of you nothing but the best!!!

Rustle • 8 months ago
Hello Lepsters! Are there any LEPsters in MALTA? ;-)

ypapax • 10 months ago
Hey, LEP ninjas from Tver, Russia, let’s join the facebook group for meetups in Tver https://www.facebook.com/gr…

Roger Remy • a year ago
Are there any LEPsters in Switzerland???

Jan Holub • a year ago
Dreams come true! Hello lepsters! Is there anyone in Belarus willing to organise a meetup?

Julien • a year ago
Hello lepsters! Are there people interested in organizing a lepster meetup in France?
(this got 33 upvotes – French LEPsters why you no write comment?)

Alex Love’s Comedy Show in New Zealand

Attention LEPsters in New Zealand! I think I have some down there.

Alex Love’s “How to win a pub quiz” is coming to New Zealand.

All the details https://www.fringe.co.nz/show/31634

English Robot 3000

I recently got a few comments about English Robot 3000, asking where he is, so I thought I’d get him out of storage and have a bit of a chat, see how he is.

If you’re fairly new to the podcast, you might not know English Robot 3000. Long term listeners will probably remember him.

He has been in storage, switched off, gathering dust since at least 2014 I think. I can’t actually remember the last time I talked to him.

He’s a robot that speaks English. There are a few English Robots in the series. 3000, 4000 and 5000 too.

Vampires in the Comment Section?

2nd time I’ve had a message from a vampire on my website. Obvs spam.

Mark – last week
V**************@gmail.com***.***.***.112
Are you tired of being human, having talented brain turning to a vampire in a good posture in ten minutes, Do you want to have power and influence over others, To be charming and desirable, To have wealth, health, without delaying in a good human posture and becoming an immortal? If yes, these your chance. It’s a world of vampire where life get easier,We have made so many persons vampires and have turned them rich, You will assured long life and prosperity, You shall be made to be very sensitive to mental alertness, Stronger and also very fast, You will not be restricted to walking at night only even at the very middle of broad day light you will be made to walk, This is an opportunity to have the human vampire virus to perform in a good posture. If you are interested contact us on Vampirelords78787@gmail.com

Two taps in the bathroom

Any long-term listeners will know that I’ve always been slightly obsessed with a certain aspect of British life that foreign visitors often tell me about – the fact we have two taps in the bathroom.
Some of you will know what I mean.
In the UK it is common to find on sinks and bathtubs in the bathroom, two taps – one for hot and one for cold, rather than one single mixer tap.

This confounds a lot of foreign students who don’t know how to wash their hands. It’s basically lava from hell coming from one tap, and glacial ice water from the other. WTF Britain?

Well I recently got a pretty good answer to that.
Years ago I wrote a blog article for the London School of English. Just recently the article picked up a comment from a plumber in the UK.
A plumber is someone who works with pipes and water systems in your house.

So anyway, here’s my blog post and the answer
https://www.londonschool.com/blog/two-taps-in-the-bathroom/

That’s it! Thanks for listening :)

Luke

576. Talking about Comedy, Books, Films & Music with James

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My brother James is back on the podcast for a 90min+ mega-ramble about things like: taking sick days from work, snowboarding, doing stand-up for the first time, the new film about Laurel & Hardy, Steve Coogan / Alan Partridge, The Beastie Boys and making mix tapes on cassette tapes in the 1990s. Intro transcript available.


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Introduction Transcript

Hello listeners. In this episode I’m talking again to my brother James, who has appeared on this podcast quite a lot over the years, usually talking about things like books, films, music and other bits of pop culture, and in fact that’s what we’re talking about in this episode too.

The conversation is about 90 minutes long so if this was the 1990s we could have recorded almost the entire thing on a C90 cassette tape and then just posted it to you. Do you remember those days? When we all used cassette tapes for our music and you had to rewind them, and stick labels on them and sometimes the tape would get all chewed up inside your walkman? Ah good times.

Anyway, this is a 90min+ mega-ramble with James that covers quite a lot of different things, but I think that’s what you’ve come to expect from this podcast over the years, isn’t it?

You are mainly listening to this for your English of course, in the knowledge that listening to natural conversations like this is generally a healthy thing for your language learning.

Your English is more likely to benefit from this if you know generally what we’re talking about throughout the episode, even if you don’t get every single word. So, to help you follow the whole thing, let me now give you a quick overview of what you’re going to hear in this conversation.

First James tells us about how he’s been feeling a bit unwell recently after he got something in his eye while skateboarding, and we kick off the episode by explaining a few nice bits of language for talking about that.

Then he describes a recent trip he did to the French Alps where he did some snowboarding.

After that we talk about his experiences of doing stand-up comedy for the first time (he recently started doing it), and we talk about what he’s learned from that particular challenge, including some details about coming up with funny ideas and dealing with the nervous tension that you get from speaking in front of people. We also talk about the recent gig that I did with Paul Taylor at the comedy store in London. James was in the audience at that show.

There are lots of tangents, moments when we’re just making each other laugh and also references to some things that you might not know about. For example there are some references to comedy TV shows, including a tangent about the BBC science fiction comedy show Red Dwarf (actually the second time that show has randomly been mentioned on the podcast recently) and also we mention Alan Partridge, who I did some episodes about in October.

We mention the new film about Laurel & Hardy (the old comedy double act from the black and white film era). That film is called Stan & Ollie and it stars Steve Coogan in one of the roles. James saw the film recently, so he shares some of his thoughts on that and we then make fun of some TV voice overs and advertising that you see on television these days.

Following that we talk about a couple of books James has read recently, including the Alan Partridge book Nomad and then we talk about The Beastie Boys book, which was published at the end of last year.

I’m not sure if you know about The Beastie Boys. Some of you definitely will, but others might not. They were a very famous band in their heyday – three guys from New York called Adam Yauch (or MCA), Adam Horovitz (Ad Rock) and Michael Diamond (Mike D) that made rap, punk and jazzy instrumental music in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Sadly the band stopped making music after Adam Yauch died in 2012. That’s the Beastie Boys.

I’m pretty sure the Beastie Boys were famous in many countries around the world. They released their memoir last year – The Beastie Boys book, which James got as a present for Christmas. I also listened to the audiobook version. It’s a collection of stories about the band written by the two surviving members.

So, we talk about The Beastie Boys, what they meant to us when we were younger (because we are both big fans) and we then talk about the pros and cons of listening to music on cassette tapes in the 1990s.

So there you go, that’s the “road map” for the episode.

This is a long episode, so don’t forget to hit that pause button and come back later if you’ve got stuff to do. If you haven’t got stuff to do, then you can just brew up a nice pot of tea, put your feet up and listen on.

Alright, now you’ve got your brew in your hand and maybe a pack of chocolate digestive biscuits open on the table in front of you, let’s get started properly.

Ending Transcript

So there you are. Thanks again to James for coming back on the podcast.

Leave your comments on the website in response to any of the things that came up in the conversation. Generally, we’d love to know what you’re thinking, unless you’re thinking something really disgusting – in which case, please keep that to yourself.

We talked a bit about books there.

For me I tend to use audiobooks these days. I just can’t seem to find the time to actually do much normal reading, so using audiobooks is a good solution for me.

I use Audible for my audiobooks, and I just wanted to remind you that they sponsor this podcast and in fact they have an offer that you could take advantage of – a free audiobook of your choice. Audible have a free app which you can get on your phone. You buy the audiobooks on Audible’s website or on Amazon and then download them onto your app so you can listen anywhere. It’s a really cool way to consume books while doing other things, and often the books are read out by interesting people, like talented actors and voice-over artists.

About that offer from Audible.

They’re offering you a 30 day free trial that includes a free audiobook of your choice.

If you like you can just sign up for the free trial, get a free audiobook, listen to it and then cancel your subscription and you don’t pay anything. Audible are totally cool with that. Or you could keep the subscription and get more books, including one book each month as part of your package.

You could listen to the Alan Partridge audiobooks which are read out by Steve Coogan himself and are genuinely hilarious, or if you’re a Beastie Boys fan, check out the Beastie Boys audiobook, which is amazing in my opinion. To get the offer and for all the details go to www.teacherluke.co.uk/audiobook

Click here for the Audible special offer

Also, consider signing up for LEP Premium at www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium to get the benefit of my teaching skills as I focus on teaching you vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. New premium episodes come out every month, and I expect to do a premium episode focusing on language that came up in this conversation with James in fact. So you can use my premium episodes to maximise your English learning with my podcast. www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

Click here for LEP Premium

But for now – that’s it. Congrats on making it to the end another super-long episode in 2019.

Do live long and prosper, and please remember to be excellent to each other.

Speak to you again on the podcast soon. But for now, goodbye.

Links, Videos and Other Bits & Pieces

The Classic Breaks Megamix

Here’s the classic breaks megamix I did with my PlayStation and a minidisk recorder back in 2001. My “MCing” will either make you laugh out loud, or just annoy you. I’m not sure! But I am sure that the music mix in the background is 100% pure solid gold.

For more of my music mixes – click here

Stan and Ollie Trailer (James’ review: It was fine.)

Some dude unboxes the Beastie Boys book

575. British Comedy: Paul Chowdhry

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Understand a stand-up comedy routine by Paul Chowdhry, a British comedian of Indian descent. We’ll break down his comedy bit by bit, understand each line and learn some English in the process.


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Episode Introduction

Hello, how are you? (Luke rambles a bit…)

In a recent episode of this podcast, you heard me talking to Amber and Paul about experiences of doing comedy and both Paul and I mentioned a British comedian called Paul Chowdhry. I have mentioned him on the podcast several times before, and I’ve been meaning to do a whole episode about him for a while now. So here we are.

In this one we’re going to listen to the audio of some of Paul Chowdhry’s stand up. Let’s see if you can understand it, and if we can learn some English from it and also some things about English life and culture too.

Who is Paul Chowdhry?

He’s a British comedian, from London. He was born in the UK and is of Indian origin.

In terms of ethnic groups in England, white people of English origin are by far the majority ethnic group, but the next largest group is Indian.

I’ve chosen to talk about Paul Chowdhry in this episode because he’s a really funny comedian, and I talked about him with Amber & Paul on the podcast recently. He’s one of my favourite comedians.

Because Paul is of Indian origin, ethnicity, identity and accents are often topics in his comedy. I think really this is just because he’s always playing with social conventions about what we find acceptable or not acceptable, about the subtle tensions that exist between ethnic groups. Without getting too serious, he makes fun of everyone, including white English guys called Dave, his Indian parents or Indians who are fresh off the boat and living in England, Chinese waiters, African taxi drivers and all sorts. I like him because of the accents and impressions he does, because of how quick and brief in his delivery he is.

He’s just funny and that’s it. Certainly, England’s ethnic diversity is a theme that always comes up in his comedy and perhaps informs the audience’s reactions to him.

So, it might be necessary to give you some info regarding ethnic groups in Britain. Here are some stats, and this is from the UK’s most recent census, the 2011 census. The census is the country’s largest national survey and is very reliable and impartial as a source of information, so these figures are generally accurate.

What do you think? If you could imagine a pie chart with different segments for the different ethnicities in the UK, what would it look like? What do you think are the ethnic groups and their percentages?

Here are the figures, which by the way are controversial, not because of the numbers but because of the way the different groups are classified. For example, the categories “white” and “black” are not really ethnicities, are they? Anyway, here’s some information from the 2011 census.

I think this meant people registered as British citizens, and could include people born in the country or people who moved there and became citizens.

UK Population by Ethnicity

Source: UK Census/Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kingdom

Ethnic group Population (2011) Percentage of total population[17]
White or White British (including White Irish): 55,010,359 87.1
Asian or Asian British: Total 4,373,339 6.9
Asian or Asian British: Indian 1,451,862 2.3
Asian or Asian British: Pakistani 1,174,983 1.9
Asian or Asian British: Bangladeshi 451,529 0.7
Asian or Asian British: Chinese 433,150 0.7
Asian or Asian British: Other Asian 861,815 1.4
Black or Black British: Total 1,904,684 3.0
Mixed or Multiple: Total 1,250,229 2.0
Other Ethnic Group: Total 580,374 0.9
Gypsy/Traveller/Irish Traveller: 63,193 0.1
Total 63,182,178 100

By the way, most of the non-white ethnic groups are concentrated in the cities, particularly London, which is by far the most racially or ethnically diverse place in the UK.

London has had a diverse population for centuries, but most of the Indian and Caribbean families moved there in the immediate postwar period.

People like Paul Chowdhry, who are basically around my age would have grown up in the UK, but with Indian parents.

Anyway, back to Paul Chowdhry.

It’s quite interesting that Paul Chowdhry’s audiences are often quite diverse. He appeals to everyone – white people, Asians, Afro-Caribbeans and so on. In his audience he often picks out the groups of people of different origins and it’s funny the way he makes fun of them one after the other.

No need to go further into all that stuff. It’s just a bit of context. It doesn’t all have to be about ethnicity. Like I said, I mainly wanted to do this episode because I just find him to be really funny.

So, let’s just listen to some of Paul’s material and see if you can understand it and if we can learn some English from it.

This is the audio from a YouTube video of Paul Chowdhry’s appearance on a TV show called Live at the Apollo. This is the BBC’s big stand up comedy show, which is filmed at The Hammersmith Apollo, which is just 10 minutes down the road from where I used to live in London. It’s a huge venue and they have big comedy shows there and they also do music concerts. All the great bands that you love, all the great British rock bands from the last few decades. They’ve all done shows at the Hammersmith Apollo. It’s a very famous venue. The Who, Elton John, Queen, Black Sabbath, David Bowie’s last concert as Ziggy Stardust was there – just all of the great bands. and also all the big comedians that we have.

Anyway, this is the audio from Paul Chowdhry, Live at the Apollo.

This routine is full of slang, rude language, accents and jokes about ethnic identity. That’s what you can expect.

I’m not sure what you’re going to think of think of this, as ever, because this could easily be considered offensive (because he’s making fun of different ethnic groups to an extent), but my instinct tells me this is just funny and so I’m just going to go with it. But certainly a lot of the laughs come from the fact that this kind of thing, the sorts of things he’s saying are borderline unacceptable, but in some way he gets away with it because it’s coming from an Indian guy. Although the things he’s saying might be considered unacceptable or politically incorrect if they came out of the mouth of a white guy. For some reason because it’s coming from an Indian guy that kind of makes it ok. If it was a white guy up there making fun of ethnic minorities, that would be considered extremely old fashioned and in very bad taste, but Paul has got the pass, the card, because he is Indian, so he can do it.

He can even get away with doing impressions of Africans and Chinese people, which I would definitely not get away with in front of an English audience.

Anyway, enough from me. Let’s get into it.

Let’s go.

Paul Chowdhry Live a the Apollo (2012)

An example of bad dubbing in a kung fu movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pFjpfmeOtg

Express yourself – write your thoughts in the comment section below!

572. Worst Stand-up Gig Experiences (with Amber & Paul)

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Amber, Paul and Luke tell some stories of their worst ever stand-up comedy gigs. Expect some anecdotes about embarrassing and humiliating experiences on stage, and “dying on your arse”. Intro & outtro transcripts available + bonus audio in the LEP app. 

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Introduction Transcript

In this episode you’re going to hear a conversation with Amber & Paul – both regular guests on this show as you will know if you are a long-term listener.

I thought I could do this episode with no introduction, just jumping straight into the conversation, but I’ve decided that I do need to say just a few things before we start. I think it will help to put our conversation in context, which should help you understand it all and generally keep up with our fast talking. I know, I can’t help doing these rambling intros, but what are you gonna do? There ain’t nuttin’ you can do.

This conversation is quite fast

When I get together with Amber and Paul, we talk quite quickly and we talk about things that you might not know about, like things that we’ve seen and done together. That might make it hard for you to keep up and understand everything. So, a bit of context from me, now, might help. This is going to make this episode longer, but that’s ok isn’t it?

Amber, Paul and I are all stand-up comedians and in fact that is how we know each other. We all originally met while doing stand-up in English in Paris. Stand-up, you should know by now, is a form of comedy entertainment in which one comedian stands on stage with a microphone and tells jokes and stories to make the audience laugh.

Amber and I do stand-up on a kind of part-time basis while also doing other work but Paul is a full-time comedian, and is actually quite famous these days, particularly in the French-speaking world. He has made some TV programmes for French television and YouTube and also he has a one man stand up comedy show which has been very successful, playing to large theatres of people. Sometimes Paul invites other comedians to open his shows, which means doing 5-10 minutes of stand up in front of Paul’s audience, in order to warm them up before Paul takes the stage. So, you’ll hear us talking about when Amber and I opened for Paul in a big theatre recently.

And then we go on to talk about other stories and experiences of doing stand-up comedy over the years.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen stand-up comedy live in a club or theatre, or if you’ve watched a lot of stand-up on TV. It might not be a big thing in your country. But a great stand-up show is possibly the best kind of comedy entertainment because when it goes well, you laugh so much. You laugh until your face hurts. That’s how good it can be. That rarely happens with films in the cinema. When was the last time you went to the cinema and laughed all the way through, like, every 15 seconds you’re laughing? Well, a good stand up show will be like that.

A bad stand up show on the other hand, can be extremely uncomfortable and embarrassing.

Good and Bad Stand-up Comedy Shows

But what makes a show good, or bad?

The thing is, as a comedian, after performing on stage even just a few times, you realise that it’s not just you, your jokes, your performance that make a show good. There are other factors involved that are terribly important for making sure a show is successful and that the audience have a good time. I mean, you can do pretty much the same thing – the same jokes, the same stories at one show and get lots of laughs, but then do it at another show in front of a different audience in a different room, with different conditions and it can get no laughs.

Certain things are vital, basically to make sure that the show goes as well as possible.

Obviously, you need a good performer with good material. But also, the audience need to be able to see and hear the comedians on stage, there shouldn’t be many other distractions in the room. The audience should be in the dark a little bit so they don’t feel too self-conscious. The audience should be sitting together, fairly close to each other and fairly close to the performers. They should be comfortable but not too comfortable and it helps to bring the comedians on and off the stage quite quickly, in order to keep the energy up. It also makes a difference how you introduce the comedians on the stage and have them exit the stage, in order to manage the expectations and the reactions of the audience and generally to make the audience feel like the performers know what they’re doing and make sure the audience remember the comedians at their funniest moments (e.g. to end on a laugh not a dead moment).

In fact, there are loads of little factors which you should get right in order to run a successful comedy show. It’s show business, basically.

But the thing about stand up is that if the show doesn’t go very well, then for the comedian it’s especially painful, because you’re basically up there completely on your own and you’re completely exposed. It’s not like in music when you can basically hide behind your song or your instrument and you probably have other musicians on stage with you. As a stand up if things don’t go well, you know about it instantly because nobody laughs and it’s like you’re dying up there.

On the other side of the coin, when it goes really well and the audience laugh a lot, it’s an incredible feeling for everyone, particularly the comedian. But any stand-up who has done even just a few gigs will have stories of both good and bad experiences. It’s particularly common for comedians to share with each other their stories of the bad experiences and the times when they “died on their arse” which is how comedians call having a bad gig. A gig, means a show or concert. Stand ups love to tell each other about difficult gigs they’ve experienced. It makes us feel better, and stories of failure are usually pretty funny, right?

I’m saying all this, because basically, in this conversation you are going to hear Amber, Paul and me talking about some good gigs we’ve had recently and then some stories of truly awful experiences of dying on stage, not literally dying because, well, if we had actually died on stage then we wouldn’t have been able to record this, because we would be dead. Maybe we could have come back as ghosts, or something, but ghosts can’t talk normally, because they’re ghosts and they’re made of clouds or whatever. Ghooooosssts teeeend to speeeeeeaaak like thiiiiiiis, that’s how ghosts speak. That’s is no good for podcasting or any form of communication really, except for scaring people out of an old house.

That’s the only time when ghosts speak, isn’t it? When some people enter their old house and they want to scare them away. Leeeeave this plaaaaaace. Etc. or maybe they want to steal their souls and they say “jooooooooin usssss!”

So no, hahahaha just being silly. The point is, you’re going to hear stories of us having bad gigs and as we say, “dying on our arses” but not literally, don’t worry.

I think that’s it for context. I hope you can keep up with this and that you enjoy another conversation with Amber and Paul.

Outtro Transcript

So, that was Amber, Paul and me, recorded in my flat just the other day. I hope you enjoyed listening to some of our stories of doing comedy there.

A couple of comments at the end here.

You’ll notice there wasn’t much from Amber in this episode. Paul and I did most of the talking I think. Perhaps we didn’t really let her get a word in, although I think she was happy, but still – sorry to the ‘Amberfans’ who missed out on some of her input and, yes, her lovely voice. I’ll make sure we get more Amber input next time they’re on the podcast, which should be fairly soon because Paul is now less busy than he was before and is more available for podcasting duties, not that it’s a duty.

There is Bonus Audio in the App

You will find nearly 20 minutes of bonus audio for this episode in the LEP app. Just tap the gift icon to access that. You’ll hear more of our conversation which wasn’t included in this episode because I didn’t want it to be too long. In that bonus audio we talk about more comedy-related topics, including what it’s like to receive negative comments on YouTube and also how Paul has been accused of stealing a joke from Louis CK, which is not true, he didn’t.

Joke theft is actually a very serious business among comedians. It’s one of the big no-nos and if you’re found guilty of joke theft, it can be very bad for your reputation and your career.

The thing is, it can be quite hard to work out if someone has actually stolen someone else’s joke, or whether the two people just came up with the same bit independently, which is possible – depending on the joke.

But Paul has been falsely accused of taking material from Louis CK, but he didn’t – they both just happen to have come up with the same joke.

Basically, this is a joke about how French people measure body temperature by sticking a thermometer up the bum. It seems most other countries just put it in the mouth or maybe under the arm, but the French – up the bum. This is an observation that Paul has been talking about on stage for several years, and Louis CK recently started talking about it too in his stand up (because these days he is with a French woman and has spent time in France). Some of Louis’ stand up shows have been leaked on YouTube, including that bit about thermometers. Also, Paul recently published a clip from his stand up show which included his thermometer joke. So some people have seen the videos and then mistakenly thought that Paul stole the joke from Louis. The fact is, they just both came up with exactly the same observation, independently of each other.

Paul’s been doing that material for several years at least and he has recordings to prove it.

Anyway, if you want to hear about the whole thermometer – bum – Louis CK – joke theft accusation scandal, then check out the bonus audio because we talk about that a bit, and a few other things too. That’s only in the LEP app, which you can get from the app store completely free.

In the app you can also get the full episode archive, plus loads of app-only episodes and content, plus the option to subscribe to LEP Premium content.

Register for LEP Premium to get episodes in which I teach you vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation with PDF worksheets – all available in the app or online.

https://www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium – LEP Premium

Join the mailing list on my website to get a link for the episode pages of new episodes when they are published.

Thank you again to Amber and Paul for being on the podcast.

Thank you to you for listening. I hope you enjoyed our stories of embarrassment and humiliation in this episode.

As ever, leave your comments on the website. Check the page for this episode where you will see some transcriptions and some videos, including footage of Paul dying on his arse at the French Football Awards and the vlog he made about it.

Keep in touch. Send me an email with your thoughts.

I’ve got more episodes about comedy coming up, specifically ones in which we listen to some clips and then understand them in detail.

You can look forward to that.

Have a wonderful day, morning, night, evening and please remember to be excellent to each other.

Speak to you again soon, but for now – goodbye!!!

Videos

Paul dies on his arse at the French Football Awards. It’s in French, but you can still see him ‘bomb’ quite badly – hardly anyone laughs at his comments and some people aren’t even listening to him (time code 48m29s)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkjqerWFPrI&feature=youtu.be&t=48m29s

Paul’s Vlog about the Football Awards, including video footage of the event and his reactions

571. Bill Burr’s Hilarious Plane Story – Enjoy Comedy/Storytelling in English

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Understand a funny anecdote by comedian Bill Burr. In this episode we’re going to do some intensive listening practice using the true story of a bizarre encounter with a man on a plane.  Look out for language for travelling by plane, some American English and A LOT of swearing, particularly the F word.


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Introduction Transcript

In this episode you’re going to do some fairly intensive listening practice, using a funny story.

This is just a story which I find really enjoyable, and I keep going back to listen to it and I just want to share it with you.

Do you have things like that? Like, YouTube videos that you keep going back to again and again because they make you laugh for whatever reason? For me, this is one of those things.

Hopefully you’ll find it as enjoyable as I do

Maybe you won’t, you know, because you just might not get it for whatever reason. It might not be your cup of tea and of course you just might not understand it like I do because of your level of English, but we’ll see about that, and that’s my aim in this episode – to try and help you to understand this like I do, which hopefully will result in you just finding it funny like I do.

I’ve been here so many times before – sharing comedy with learners of English. I’ve done this plenty of times as an English teacher, thinking “This is hilarious, I’m going to use it with my students, it’ll be brilliant!” And then I play it to my students and it’s just tumbleweeds in the classroom…

*Luke goes off on a tangent about tumbleweeds in western movies*

…and nobody gets it and I think “I will never do this again. Just pages from English Grammar in Use next time”, even though the students probably did enjoy it, but they weren’t able to laugh out loud because it was difficult to understand. But in the past, that kind of experience has made me feel quite bad, as an English teacher.

To be honest, these days that doesn’t happen to me as often as it used to. I think I’ve finally learned that comedy will only work in the language classroom if you devote loads of time to helping the students understand it – understand the specific vocabulary used, the context and the pronunciation and delivery (often it’s just that it’s hard to catch specifically what’s been said and if you miss one little bit you won’t get the joke).

(As we know) Comedy is extremely hard to enjoy in a second language

…and this is because it’s all about understanding things instantly and being able to pick up on very subtle changes in tone – not just the words being used, but the nuances of the comedian’s attitude and shared experiences that you’re supposed to know about.

So, as we know, it can be hard to understand comedy, but I’m still committed to helping learners enjoy it, because I enjoy it so much and I just think you’re missing out if you don’t get it.

It’s like one of those 3D posters or something, but obviously, much better than that. (Remember those 3D posters? If you couldn’t see the 3D image, they just looked utterly terrible.)

I’ve learned how to do comedy in the classroom (I mean as listening exercises) these days and I tend to lower my expectations a bit and I don’t get so disheartened if my students aren’t rolling on the floor laughing when I show them something. So, it’s alright.

So, you’re going to hear a story which I find funny. I’m going to try to help you to enjoy it too, but if you don’t. That’s totally fine and it doesn’t matter that much anyway because the main thing is that you’ll be learning English and if you have a bit of a chuckle in the process, that’s just a bonus isn’t it?

What is this Luke? What is this thing you’d like to share with us?

This is the audio from a YouTube video. It’s a true story told by a stand up comedian on his podcast. We’re going to listen to the whole story and I’m going to break it down and explain it bit by bit.

The comedian’s name is Bill Burr. Have you heard of him? He’s definitely one of the top English speaking stand-ups in the world. He is hilarious, in my opinion, and also in the opinion of many many other people.

He does stand-up shows on stage in very large arenas these days. He has Netflix stand-up specials and he also does other things like some writing and some acting. He was in a few episodes of Breaking Bad, for example. He also has a podcast called The Monday Morning Podcast. It’s called that because it’s published every Monday morning. I think there are episodes on Thursdays too, even though it’s still called the Monday Morning Podcast.

We’re going to listen to an extract from an old episode of Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast here. So, a bit of OPP in this episode today – and if you don’t know, OPP stands for other people’s podcasts.

Some intel on Bill Burr

Bill Burr grew up on the East Coast of the USA, in Boston I think, and I think he has some Irish roots. In any case, he’s from Massachusetts, so he has that kind of East coast accent, not fully Boston, or New York but in that area, as you’ll hear.

In terms of his style, this is from his Wikipedia page (two quotes):

Rolling Stone magazine called Burr “the undisputed heavyweight champ of rage-fueled humor”.

Bill often rants about subjects and tells stories with a certain level of anger, or is it just irate energy? I don’t find him that aggressive or angry actually, beyond the fact that he has a pretty loud and intense voice and he swears a LOT, particularly using the F word (or the F bomb as it is known) and various other typical American English swear words which for some reason make me crack up every time.

Burr often portrays himself as “that loud guy in the bar” with “uninformed logic”.

That’s exactly the sort of guy that he is. A slightly dumb and pissed off guy with a loud mouth and the gift of the gab (although I don’t think he’s dumb – you’ve got to be very clever to be able to tell stories in such a funny way). He sometimes has views which I don’t really agree with, but he’s got such a way with words and a kind of flow to his storytelling, particularly when he gets angry, that it really makes me laugh. He is a naturally talented comedian.

In this story Bill is just describing something that happened to him on a plane. There’s no political subtext or any of that kind of thing. It’s just Bill telling a true story about a weird guy he encountered on a plane.

If you don’t know Bill Burr and you’re a fan of stand up comedy, you might want to check him out. You could listen to the Monday Morning Podcast to hear Bill just chatting about his life and telling stories, and you could see some of his comedy specials on Netflix.

Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast

Bill’s plane story

Comedians from the states have to do a lot of travelling and so they all seem to have stories of flying and being on planes. This is also something that most Americans can relate to since the country is so big that flying is a regular occurrence, particularly if you travel from coast to coast. Bill is no exception. He’s a top comic who plays to sold out arenas across the country, so he regularly flies to different cities to do his shows. He also came to the UK and sold out some big shows there not long ago. He’s a big deal now but he still manages to tell these relatable stories.

I should warn you that this episode will contain A LOT of swearing (rude words)

Bill talks to you like you’re his buddy and you’re both sitting down having a drink in a bar or something, and therefore there is a lot of swearing as you would expect in that kind of situation. I’m not suggesting you should talk like this, and swear like this. But I think it’s not a bad idea to be able to understand it and to hear some typical swearing from someone like Bill.

He’s a sort of blue-collar guy, a regular guy from the East coast of the USA and this is how a lot of people like him really speak when they’re with their friends. But, just a warning – this episode is full of the F bomb – and by that I mean the word *fuck* in all its glory, used frequently and I should say very effectively by a true master of the art of swearing – Bill Burr.

So, what about this story? I’ll let you discover it as you listen, but essentially it’s about having an encounter with a really weird guy on a plane.

I don’t know what it is about flying, but it seems to bring out some weird behaviour in people. Sometimes it makes people behave very badly, or weirdly. Perhaps the cramped space in the plane causes this, or the close proximity to other people, the alcohol that people drink, all the security protocols or simply the stress of flying. All of those things can make people act really weirdly on planes. I’m sure most of us have been in situations when there’s a weirdo or a nutter on the plane and you observe some strange behaviour, maybe some arguing or trouble between passengers. If you’re particularly unlucky you might end up sitting next to someone strange, who kind of makes your flight really difficult. It could just be someone who insists on talking to you for the whole flight, or someone who won’t stop moving around, or worse – someone who gets aggressive with you or the cabin crew. This is a story about a situation like that.

So, let’s listen to the story and I’ll explain things that I think are necessary as we go along. I will stop the recording from time to time and explain things, repeat bits if necessary. If you’d like to listen to the whole story uninterrupted, you can find the video of this story on YouTube – it’s called Bill Burr Hilarious Plane Story, and it’s also embedded on the page for this episode.

So this is all American English. Normally it’s British English on this podcast of course, but it’s interesting to explore some American English too and I can perhaps make some comparisons along the way and talk about the differences between how he speaks and how I speak, for example.

I’ll play the story in parts. All you have to do is understand what happened in each part. I’ll pause after a couple of minutes and then sum up the part we listened to. This will probably take the whole episode as the YouTube video I’m using here is about 18 minutes long.

This was recorded by Bill in his home for his podcast. It’s not him on stage. It’s just him and a microphone in his living room or something.

By the way, it might be hard for you to understand what he’s saying at the beginning because you’re not familiar with his voice, but you’ll get used to it, and when we get into the story I think you’ll be fully locked in. I hope so anyway. But again, don’t worry, I will explain things as we go.

Check the page for this episode on the website where you’ll see the YouTube video for this if you want to listen to the whole story again, uninterrupted. Also, you’ll some bits transcribed and also some vocabulary notes.

So let’s go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HefnGHAaD8g&t=55s

Some Notes & Vocab (unfinished at the moment – I might add more later)

Part 1

Play the first part. From 00:20 until 4:10 when Bill tells the guy his name.

Task: Just try to follow exactly what’s happening. Bill meets a guy on the plane. Who is he? What does he want? What’s Bill’s reaction?

  • I go to the airport and I’m taking the red-eye
  • A red-eye (or red-eye flight) refers to a long, single flight across the USA which happens at night but doesn’t give you time for a full night’s sleep.
  • I’m on a good plane, why would I want to get off it and switch and roll the dice, and get on another one.
  • When I’m driving to SF I don’t pull over in, fucking, Burbank and get in another car, “we get it Bill!”
  • I use my miles, bump myself up like a fancy person, you know, maybe I invented the Cheesecake Factory, people are thinking… and then they see how I’m dressed and they go “oh no, he didn’t invent the Cheesecake Factory”.
  • Bill goes to set his back down in front of me and the “nice fella” says “why don’t you set it in the middle, there’s room” and I think “alright this guy’s a solid dude, or whatever”

Part 2

3:52 (skip back a bit) – Bill tells the guy his name – until 7:22 when Bill says “Fuck this guy, I want to see where this is going!”

Part 3

7:22 to 12.25

Summary: The plane stopped for a while as the crew are finding out what is going on. The guy is asked “Are you going to be ok to fly with him?” and he feels like he’s in control and says “Yeah, don’t worry, it’s ok”. Then he’s getting in Bill’s ear going “You know what? I hope you try something, I fuckin hope you try something when we’re up there” and Bill is just laughing at the guy like “Fuck you you jerkoff!”

Part 4

12:25 – 14:11 “Why are you going to Indianapolis Bill???” 😂😂😂

14:11 – End

…that’s it so far. I might add more notes later if I get the chance!

How about you? Are you afraid to fly? 😉