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550. British Comedy: Alan Partridge (Part 3)

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Here’s the final part of this trilogy of British Comedy episodes about Alan Partridge. This time we’re analysing some of the quieter and darker moments in Alan’s life as he rambles about flasks, cars, seat belts, badges and having an air bag go off in your face, and avoids the problems in his life. Expect analysis of both the comedy and the language. Vocabulary lists and transcript available. 


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Transcript

So here we are with part 3 of this British Comedy episode, hot on the heels of part 2. This series is all about this famous British comedy character called Alan Partridge.

If you haven’t heard parts 1 and 2 yet I recommend that you go and listen to those first.

The plan again is to listen to some clips on YouTube and then analyse them for language. Hopefully you’ll get the jokes and will pick up some nice vocabulary on the way.

3 episodes is quite a lot to devote to one thing like this, but I really like Alan Partridge and introducing this comedy to you successfully (so that you enjoy it) is a sort of personal challenge for me and also there’s so much Partridge content that I feel just one episode or maybe just two would only really scratch the surface. To give this a proper chance we need to spend a bit of time on it.

Listener Emails

Hopefully you’re enjoying these episodes. Actually, I don’t really know what most of you think. I’ve had a few messages from people saying they are looking forward to part 3 of this – emails mostly.

For example, here’s part of a message from a listener called Hanna in Germany.

Dear Luke, I just wanted to get in touch to tell you how much i like your podcast. I’ve listened to the newest Partridge episode today and loved it. I think you’ve done a brilliant job in getting across what’s so funny and weirdly likeable about him. I’m really looking forward to a third episode about him. And in fact to all the upcoming episodes. In the meantime I scroll through your fantastic archive and pick out my favourite topics to enjoy in my everyday life.

Thank you Hannah.

But on the website I have had hardly any comments on these episodes, which is making me wonder what you’re all thinking. I have no idea really… So please let me know in the comment section. Are you like Hanna, who thinks I’ve managed to do a good job of getting across to you the ins and outs of Alan Partridge, or does it all seem hard to understand and totally unfunny? Let me know.

I did get an email from a teacher in Japan. I think he’s a native English speaker. I have to share it with you.

Message: Hello Luke,
I teach English in Japan. My students often listen to your podcast. In a recent episode you had a TV show host interviewing a child genius. My students are split on whether this really happened, or whether this was staged. I think it is pretty clear that a real TV show host would not actually physically abuse a child on TV, but my students are not convinced. They think this (smacking children upside the head in public and making them cry) is an example of British humour. (notice I spelt that with a ‘u’). I noted that you said it was ‘a spoof, a parody” at the beginning of the segment, but they are not convinced. Please clarify and explain the meaning of ‘spoof’. Love your show.

This is the sort of thing I’m talking about. There’s always someone who gets the completely wrong end of the stick and misunderstands something quite essential about the comedy, like for example what is the target of the joke and what are the underlying meanings or assumptions.

I actually can’t believe there’s anyone out there who would think that Alan is a real person and that he actually slapped a child, and that’s where the comedy comes from. Slapping a child is an absolutely terrible thing to do and it’s certainly not funny. No, the sketch in part 1 where Alan appears to slap a child, is obviously not real.

It seems I might need to clarify something. I thought it was obvious, but you should remember that Alan is not a real person. He’s a character made up by comedians. The scene in part 1 when he interviews a child genius, the child is not a real child. He’s played by an actress called Doon Mackichan who is changing her voice to sound like a child. And anyway, Alan doesn’t actually slap anyone. It’s just a sound effect for the radio. Nobody got slapped in real life.

And in the sketch, we’re not really laughing at a child being slapped. That’s not the joke. Just slapping a child is clearly not funny. It’s awful. So we’re not laughing at a child being slapped, we’re laughing at the fact that Alan is a fatally flawed character who is so pathetic that he will slap a child in order to come out on top or to save face. It’s ridiculous.

I understand that in Japan social conventions are so different in some cases that it might be hard to notice where the comedy is in slapping a child, but it’s really about the character of Alan and how he reacts to being wrong in a situation.

Anyway, slapping a child isn’t really British humour, but featuring a character who would slap a child is more typical of British comedy. We often feature characters in our sitcoms who will do terrible things in order to get what they want and they often fail. We laugh at these people, not with them. They are the target of the humour. Alan is not a hero who we support, quite the opposite, we observe him doing all sorts of terrible and pathetic things. Another example… Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers springs to mind. He does lots of terrible things to make sure his hotel business doesn’t get closed down. We cringe at the things he does, but also are amused by what happens to this person who is essentially not very nice when he is put under tremendous pressure that he’s probably responsible for in the first place.

Anyway, for most of you I probably didn’t need to give that clarification but for the students at school (however old you are, I’m not sure) let me assure you – Alan Partridge is not real and none of it is real. He is a character played by an actor called Steve Coogan. Alan Partridge is a parody or a spoof.

Parody, Spoof & Satire

A parody is a humorous piece of writing, drama, or music which imitates the style of a well-known person or represents a familiar situation in an exaggerated way.

When someone parodies a particular work, thing, or person, they imitate it in an amusing or exaggerated way.

So a parody is an imitation of something, in order to make fun of it. Alan is a parody of TV presenters.

A Spoof is a show or piece of writing that appears to be serious but is actually a joke. It’s also like a “fake” show. The Day Today is a spoof of the news.

We often use spoof and parody in the same or similar ways.

A satire is a piece of comedy designed to criticise something by making fun of it. Satire is like spoof or parody but doesn’t always involve imitations and often has serious targets like politics.

Animal Farm by George Orwell is a satire of communism. It criticises and makes fun of communism with this fictional story about pigs running a farm.

So Alan Partridge is certainly a spoof or parody of television and radio presenters. Perhaps at it’s best it’s some kind of satire about television and culture in general. In fact he’s become more of a parody of a kind of small-minded English man.

Alan Clips

Let’s listen to some more clips. This is going to be good listening practice and there will be loads of vocab, but also let’s see this as a kind of little adventure where I take you into something new and you have to try and work out what’s going on.

I’ve chosen two more clips, and I’ve chosen these ones because they are slightly quieter moments for Alan, not the big moments with all the catchphrases, but moments when Alan is perhaps at a weak point, which reveal how restless he is and how flawed he is on a basic social level.

We get a bit deeper into his psyche in this episode.

So in these clips I’m asking you not to look out for jokes like in the Edinburgh episode. Alan doesn’t really do jokes although there are very funny lines. So, don’t look for jokes. Instead look for the way this character expresses himself, how he chooses his words, how he can’t really connect with people around him, how he’s isolated, how he’s actually not a very good person.

There’s a bit of tragedy to Alan. It’s just there, under the surface. You have to read between the lines.

8. Alan calls his son and then Curry’s to ask about getting a surround sound speaker system

This is a glimpse into Alan’s family life and his relationship with his son. You could say it is strained. Imagine having Partridge as your father. It would be awful.

It’s a Saturday afternoon and Alan decides to call his son Fernando, who is 22 years old – around the same age I was when I first watched this. Fernando is named after the Abba song of the same name.

Alan calls Fernando to see if he wants to go for a pint. He catches Fernando in bed with his girlfriend and ends up lecturing him about how he’s wasting his time when the weather is so good outside. The key line is “It’s a Saturday afternoon and you’re in bed with a girl, you’re wasting your life!” Alan couldn’t be more wrong of course.

Instead, Alan suggests that Fernando take her out to a local tourist spot, like a local fort or a Victorian folly. These are like the bog-standard local tourist attractions in the UK. You find things like this everywhere and they’re mostly boring. The fort is probably some local old remains of a castle. A Victorian folly is basically a fake medieval building made during the Victorian era to resemble something from the medieval times. In both cases they are very boring and no doubt populated by other such middle-English middle-Educated weekenders with their anoraks and cameras. For Alan this is a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Of course, staying in bed with a girl is a far better way to spend your time.

Alan can’t relate to Fernando and patronises him (talks down to him and lectures him), while also rambling on like a broadcaster.

His rambling goes too far and he ends up talking about how he used to make love to Fernando’s mother Carol in various places, even telling the story of how Fernando was conceived, making it sound like Fernando might have been a mistake, or that perhaps Alan wasn’t happy when Fernando was born.

We never hear Fernando’s voice. It’s just Alan’s half of the conversation, leaving us to work out the other side for ourselves, which is a good comedy technique.

We can see there are serious issues in their relationship. It sounds like Alan was probably a terrible father, making his son feel unloved and unvalued, and just lecturing him rather than relating to him on a normal level. Alan tries to be friends with Fernando, but he’s completely unaware of how much he mistreats Fernando.

Alan then calls Curry’s the electronics store to find out about buying some speakers and typically ends up either arguing with the sales assistant, lecturing him, or letting him into close personal details. Alan also talks about the speaker system in a weird, formal way, perhaps using the technical language you might read in the product manual, and even using some latin words. For some reason he feels this technical and formal register is appropriate when asking about buying some speakers from a hardware shop. You can imagine that there is a generation of people who are old-fashioned enough to do that too. At the end he even attempts to invite the guy from Curry’s to go for a pint with him, because he’s bored. The guy says no.

In the end Alan decides to walk up the motorway to visit the local garage to buy some windscreen washer fluid. It’s funny to see these utterly mundane moments in Alan’s life. He’s a bit lost and is living in isolation and obscurity. Nobody else in the Travel Tavern is there, so he just leaves, shouting slightly desperately in case anyone wants to join him.

What to watch out for

  • How Alan makes his son feel unloved
  • How Alan describes how Fernando was conceived and it sounds like he wasn’t happy when
  • Fernando was born
  • How Alan starts going on about flasks and Fernando just hangs up
  • How Alan talks to the sales assistant at Curry’s and expects him to know latin
  • How he fails to invite the guy for a pint of beer

Language

  • You both sound exhausted, have you been running?
  • We did it everywhere. Behind a large boulder on Helvellyn for my birthday.
  • Actually, that is where you were conceived.
  • We just didn’t take precautions (so Fernando wasn’t planned, maybe an accident)
  • No we were delighted! Well, at first I was mortified but then you were born and we grew to like you.
  • I left a tartan flask up there. One of those very fragile ones with a screw on cup/cap.
  • These days they’re much more resilient. They took the technology from NASA. Modern flasks today are directly linked to the Apollo space mission. Hello?
  • I’d like to make an enquiry about two supplementary auxiliary speakers to go with my MIDI hi-fi system apropos (with reference to) achieving surround sound.
  • What time do you knock off? Do you fancy going for a drink?
  • Breath of fresh air?

9. Extended Car Sequence (no laughter track)

It’s interesting how a laughter track totally changes the tone of what you’re listening to.

Friends with no laughter track makes Ross sound like a psycho.

In this case having no laughter track makes Alan better and it sounds a lot more authentic.

Alan & Lynn in the car

I’ve chosen this because I want to play a clip with no laughter and in which Steve Coogan and Felicity Montagu (Lynn) are clearly improvising a lot of the dialogue. There are no big laughs in there, but instead this is just Alan at a bored moment. It’s also perhaps one of my favourite Alan moments because of the improvisation. The characters are totally believable. It’s like we’re just observing them in a quiet moment during the day. As we listen to their naturalistic dialogue it’s possible to notice that Alan is slowly becoming a bit unhinged – I mean, the doors are starting to fall off. He’s bored. He’s isolated. He’s probably quite sad and perhaps desperate underneath it.

Alan is “at a loose end” and so he’s requested that Lynn come and meet him so he can ask her something that’s been bothering him. It’s a small thing really, but Alan makes Lynn travel quite a long and complicated journey to come out and see him.

They just sit in the car and Alan rambles about nothing in particular. The main thing bothering him is that his car is making a weird beeping noise and he doesn’t know why. But it seems he just needs Lynn to be there so he can lecture her, patronise her, belittle her etc as a way of escaping the dark feelings that are probably gnawing away at him. Lynn is very faithful to Alan, and has strong Baptist religious beliefs, but Alan is very mean to Lynn, making her take a taxi and to walk a long way just so Alan can have someone to talk to.

Alan doesn’t even believe Lynn when she gives her excuse for being late, which shows that she’s clearly had a long journey to get there. He’s very ungrateful towards her.

Lynn knows that Alan might be at a very vulnerable point here – he’s been thrown out by his wife, living in a travel tavern and he punched the BBC director general in the face with a piece of cheese, and it’s not having a good effect on his mental state. So she’s supportive.

Lynn is clearly concerned about Alan and offers to talk to him about his problems.

Instead of talking about his problems, Alan just goes on in great detail about the features of the car, clearly in denial about his situation and his depressed state.

By the way I think Lynn was the one who actually bought the car for Alan. Him criticising parts of it is also a way for him to criticise her. He’s subtly telling her that he’s not happy with the car she bought.

Obviously Alan is unhappy about more than the car, but he never talks about that. The only thing he can do is comment on minor details in the car. The more specific he gets about these trivial details, like the design of the badge on the steering wheel, the more he is essentially trying to escape the reality of his situation, which is that his life and career are a mess.

Alan’s weird broadcasting sensibility comes in as he starts reviewing the car, commenting on the way seat belts work and generally patronising Lynn.

The tension is palpable.

It’s hilarious comedy and is improvised.

But it’s 100% not obvious.

So I would say, don’t imagine this is comedy. Imagine you’re just listening in on someone’s conversation. Let’s imagine we’re spying on them, just overhearing two people chatting aimlessly.

Coogan’s ability to stay in character is incredible.
The absence of laughter track makes it 100x better.

I wonder what you will think but this is one of my favourite Alan moments. It’s so natural and the character’s avoidance of talking about his problems while focusing on meaningless details of the car, is very interesting from a character point of view, and shows there is real depth and pathos to the character.

What to look out for

  • How difficult it was for Lynn to come and meet him, and how Alan suspects this is a lie
  • The reason Alan asked Lynn to come out
  • Lynn’s suggestion about why the car is making a noise (the clock is wrong)
  • Alan’s reaction to Lynn’s suggestion that it’s because the clock is wrong
  • What Alan thinks of the car, particularly his disappointment about the badge on the steering wheel.
  • Listen to how Alan loves the sound of the electric sun roof
  • What Alan says about the seat belts

Language

  • I got caught in a taxi that broke down
  • Do you know what that noise is?
  • It wouldn’t be “engine faulty” would it?
  • It’s been irritating me all morning
  • Is it the handbrake?
  • Don’t touch the handbrake. We’ll roll back.
  • Just make sure it’s in neutral there.
  • If you ever learn to drive Lynn, when you stop the car, just give it a bit of a wiggle. Make sure it’s in neutral.
  • My mum always puts it in first (gear)
  • Some people do that to stop it rolling back when you park on a hill but it’s unorthodox. It’s a stop gap for a faulty handbrake, but I personally frown on it.
  • I’ve locked the doors there. That’s a design fault. Design flaw. Just pop your elbow on there, you’ve locked the doors. Sometimes you don’t want to.
  • I thought you’d like this.
  • It’s wood laminate.
  • Pop your seatbelt on.
  • These are inertia real seatbelts.
  • Suddenly a lorry rears in front of you. Impact! LOCK!
  • I’d rather have a few superficial bruises than a massively lacerated face. Ooh, awful.
  • I’d love to feel an airbag go off in my face.
  • What I like about this material is, just to get a little bit of extra purchase, it’s pricked vinyl.
  • Pricked vinyl will allow a certain amount of drainage of hand sweat.
  • The Rover badge on the old car was a lovely enamel beautiful crested thing on the steering wheel boss, whereas this one is just moulded into the vinyl.
  • All I do is sit here looking at this moulded badge where once there was an enamel one and I can’t pretend that doesn’t hurt.
  • The sun roof is a wonderful feat of engineering. Just listen to all these servo motors.
  • Precision engineering.
  • Whirring away.
  • And of course you’ve got the manual flap.
  • You go through a bad patch and you can smile at the end of it, probably.
  • I didn’t say I was going through a bad patch, I said I was at a loose end.
  • [Lynn suggests that Alan takes the car for a drive, but Alan beeps the horn while she’s talking, interrupting her. She tries to continue, talking about how there’s an arcade – games centre – up the road where there’s a fun camel race]
  • Do you want to know the quickest way to drain a battery?
  • [Alan tries to open the glove compartment and accidentally touches Lynn’s leg – plenty of apologising and it’s awkward. There’s no affection in the relationship, from Alan anyway]
  • Alan says the best way to drain a car battery is to leave the glove compartment open.
  • Lynn says you shouldn’t leave your sweeties in there on long journeys because it might pop open and you wouldn’t notice and the battery would get drained. [Alan has no idea what she’s talking about.]
  • You’ve lost me. Boiled sweets, you sound like a lunatic.
  • It isn’t the inticator is it?
  • Inticator? Indicator.
  • Actually, I am low on windscreen washer fluid.
  • They wouldn’t set off an alarm if you’re low on windscreen washer fluid. It’s far too alarmist.
  • Just a light would come on to say, you know, you’re a bit low. But not a big alarm like that, it’s just a panic measure, you know like someone going “Oh my god you’re low on windscreen washer fluid!” You don’t need to say that. Just say, you need a nudge. The car needs to effectively say, “excuse me, I don’t want to distract you from your driving, but you might like to know the windscreen washer fluid is getting low” and they do that with a little light, which has come on – you can see it there.
  • Well the clock’s not right is it. That’s a possible.
  • I’m sorry Lynn. I’m normally patient but the idea that an alarm would be triggered because the clock isn’t right is cloud cuckoo land. Alice in Wonderland.
  • Could you cool me down with the hand fan.
  • [Lynn holds the hand fan too close and Alan turns and hurts his lip on it]
  • Come on I’ll drop you at a cab rank.

Ending

There is a massive amount more of Partridge and almost all if it is excellent – great performance, great writing, great characters. Perhaps I’ll revisit Alan one day on the podcast.

I wonder how you feel about this. My aim has been just to introduce you to some stuff you didn’t know about before, and teach you some English in the process. If you’ve enjoyed it and want to check out more Alan stuff, great. If you didn’t really get it, well – so be it. At least I tried.

Some Alan recommendations.

TV series: I’m Alan Partridge Series 1 & 2
TV specials: Welcome to the places of my life, Scissored Isle.
Web-series: Mid-Morning Matters with Alan Partridge
Audiobooks: I, Partridge, Nomad
Film: Alpha Papa (not exactly the same as normal Partridge, but still good)

Do let me know everything you think in the comment section. It’s impossible for me to predict how episodes like this will be received by my audience – I really do scratch my head and wonder what the hell people in China, Russia, Japan or closer to home in France or any other place will think about some of the content I share with you. The only way I can know is if you write to me and tell me what you think. I’m certain some of you completely won’t get it, but some of you might get it and for me it’s worth doing these episodes even if only some of you get it.

At the least, if you didn’t get into the comedy, I think we can agree that there’s been a lot of language to be learned in these episodes. Check the page for this episode to see all the notes and transcripts. I should do a premium episode covering it all, just to make sure it really goes into your head properly! For example, what’s the phrase Alan uses to describe how he’s bored and has nothing to do?

He’s at a loose end, right?

That’s the sort of stuff I do in the Premium episodes. To sign up for the price of 1 coffee per month, go to www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

BONUS CONTENT: Talking to Raph about Partridge (Part 1)

More videos

Alan Partridge’s Scissored Isle (one of the most recent TV specials)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8rPBlzCIsc

Alan Partridge: Nomad (Audiobook)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh1DAKuiRAc

 

549. British Comedy: Alan Partridge (Part 2)

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Building on the previous episode, this time we’re looking at how Alan Partridge interacts with people in his every day life and how this results in some classic moments of British TV comedy. All the material is explained with plenty of vocabulary to learn.


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Transcript, Notes & Videos

His chat show series ended in disaster when he accidentally shot a man to death during an interview.

3. Alan interviews Tony Hayers (Knowing Me, Knowing Yule – the Christmas special 1995)

There was a Christmas special of Knowing Me Knowing You, which was made as part of a contractual obligation in his BBC deal.

He featured Tony Hayers on the chat show. He was the chief commissioning editor of the BBC – the man who decides which programmes are on the telly. Inviting him is a terrible decision because Alan is hoping to get a 2nd series of his chat show from Hayers, but Hayers hasn’t made his decision yet and is probably not going to give it to him anyway because Alan’s TV show was a disaster.

Alan interviews Tony and it is very awkward. Alan is mainly concerned about whether he has got a second series of his chat show. He is assuming that he has got it – because of his inflated sense of self-worth, which might be him subconsciously compensating for some deep issues he has. Alan is incredibly unaware of himself, which is somehow a social crime in the UK. I think we’re very self-aware.

The interview comes off the rails as Alan gets caught up in attempting to work out if he’s going to get a second series of the chat show.

What to look out for:

  • The awkwardness of Alan having his boss on his chat show
  • How Tony talks about having to cut jobs at the BBC
  • How Alan’s metaphor about Tony “ringing the changes” doesn’t work
  • How Alan keeps pressing for confirmation of a second series
  • How he assumes he has one although it’s obvious to us that he hasn’t
  • How Alan ultimately ruins it for himself
  • How he attempts to appear politically correct but he’s very awkward about certain issues

Later, Alan sort of has a breakdown live on air and ends up punching his boss in the face accidentally, with a turkey stuck on his hand.

I’m Alan Partridge

A year or two later a new series about Partridge arrived. It was called “I’m Alan Partridge”.

For me, this is when Alan really became a brilliant character. In I’m Alan Partridge we follow Alan in his normal life.

Previously we saw his awkward encounters with guests and a lot of very cringe-worthy moments. It worked as a parody and satire of television chat shows and the general clichés of broadcasting.

Now we see Alan in his everyday life and he has similarly awkward encounters. We see behind the curtain. Alan struggles to be normal. He’s always in “TV chat” mode, and it’s awful. He has no social skills, even though he thinks he’s a great conversationalist. He tries to be charming and normal, it all goes wrong, but he doesn’t realise it. He’s completely unaware of himself. In fact, his life is nosediving. It’s all falling apart around him, but he blindly assumes that he’s destined to be a prime time BBC1 TV presenter.

This is really hard to explain. We just have to hear it and find out.

Alan’s career is on the rocks. He’s now hosting a show on local radio – in Norwich. It’s the pre-breakfast show – a very obscure slot, something like 4:30-6:30AM, local radio. He’s drifted into obscurity. Also, his personal life is in disarray. His wife has left him for her fitness instructor. We gradually learn more and more about this and essentially it’s largely his fault because he’s Alan Partridge!

He’s petty, domineering, arrogant, unromantic, selfish, careless, career oriented. Why is this character so fascinating for the viewer? I’m not sure.

Now he’s living in a travel tavern – a kind of roadside motel, but he’s convinced that things will get better because he’s certain that the BBC will give him a second series of his chat show. He’s even about to buy a 5 bedroom house. He’s utterly deluded about himself. It’s sad. There’s darkness lurking just under the surface. In fact, Alan later does have a nervous breakdown and ends up bingeing on Toblerone chocolate bars and driving to Dundee in Scotland in bare feet (with no shoes on) but that’s later on.

I’m Alan Partridge – Series 1 Episode 1 1997

4. Alan meets Michael the Geordie and talks about his accent
Michael works as a caretaker at the travel tavern. He’s from Newcastle and he used to be in the army.

Alan strikes up a sort of friendship with him, but at first Michael is hard to understand because of his accent.

What to look out for:

  • The way the girl Sophie on reception is subtly insulting Alan while remaining professional
  • Alan’s prejudice against people from the north
  • How Alan is fascinated by Michael’s horrible experiences in the army

5. Alan’s pretend meeting with Tony Hayers

Alan’s Personal Assistant, Lynn helps Alan prepare for his meeting with Tony Hayers. Alan grossly overestimates his chances of a second series, and even the pretend meeting goes wrong, with Alan demanding to have a second series from Lynn, and putting Lynn down at the same time. This is how Alan imagines his negotiating style to be, and even in his fantasised versions, he fails.

What to watch out for:

  • How Alan imagines his meeting with Tony Hayers will go, including the locker room banter he expects to have with Tony about smoking cuban cigars
  • How even the fantasy goes completely wrong

I’m Alan Partridge Series 1 Episode 1 09:25

6. Alan’s real meeting with Tony Hayers
Alan is meeting Tony Hayers at the BBC and expects to be told he’s getting a 2nd series. We all suspect that he won’t get it, even though he’s certain he will and has just bought a 5 bedroom house.

Alan is clearly out of his depth in this BBC restaurant where everyone is an executive in a suit.

Alan attempts to appear sophisticated but gets everything wrong.
It becomes clear that Alan doesn’t have a second series and he loses it.
He then attempts to pitch a number of other shows he has in mind, but they’re all terrible.
You see something kind of click and he ends up punching Tony Hayers with a piece of cheese.

“Smell my cheese you mother!”

What to watch out for

  • How Alan attempts to appear classy with talk of wine and other things, and how he reveals that he has no class
    Alan’s ridiculous ideas for TV shows, very similar to stupid TV shows that exist in the real world

I’m Alan Partridge Series 1 Episode 1 16:36

7. Alan and Lynn in the car

“That was a negative and right now I need two positives.”

“Come on I’ll drop you at a cab rank.”

Alan fantasises about calling Chris Rea, the pop star who lives in the area. In his imagined conversation he invites Chris to a barbecue but the invitation ends in an argument. Again, even his imaginary exchanges go all wrong.

What to watch out for:

  • How Alan somehow imagines his life like a hollywood thriller (that was a negative…)
  • The imagined conversation with Chris Rea that goes wrong
  • “Come on, I’ll drop you at a cab rank”

I’m Alan Partridge Series 1 Episode 1 25:00

Thanks for listening!

Alan Partridge TV shows are available on iTunes and other platforms. Also, check out the Alan Partridge audiobooks on Audible.

There should be a part 3 coming soon. Tell me what you think in the comment section!

548. British Comedy: Alan Partridge (Part 1)

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Continuing the comedy theme by analysing a character that most British people know but learners of English find difficult to understand. Check the page below for transcripts, notes and videos.


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Transcript

Hi folks, today I’m continuing the comedy theme, with an episode about British TV Comedy.

A while ago I did an episode all about British TV Comedy Programmes. It was pretty popular and I promised that I would do more episodes explaining specific comedy shows, so today I’m going to talk to you about a well-known and well-loved character from British Television culture – Alan Partridge.

I’ll tell you everything I think you need to know about him (all the context and background info), then we’ll listen to some clips on YouTube, see if you get the humour and we’ll use them to do some intensive listening to help you learn loads of real, natural English language and culture.

“British Comedy: Alan Partridge” – that’s the title of this episode.

As usual I’m wondering what the hell you will think of this, because it might be hard for you to understand and it might just go straight over your head. I don’t know. Also, I’m wondering if some of you will be a bit turned off by the title of the episode.

Maybe I should have gone with a more “click-bait” title.

Perhaps – “The British Comedy that only Brits can Understand” or “British people love it but learners of English don’t understand it” or “Learn the 10 Secrets of British Comedy that the Language Schools don’t want you to know!” or “Why British People Hate Mr Bean” or something like that.

Instead I’ve gone with a more functional title, and the assumption that you will just trust me whatever the title is.

British Comedy: Alan Partridge

So, this is an episode about an absolute legend of British comedy that most Brits know, but non-Brits often don’t know and learners of English struggle to understand or appreciate.

You may have heard me mention Alan Partridge before. I’ve often said I need to devote a whole episode to this subject, so here we go.

I have a feeling this is going to take more than one episode. It might require a few episodes. And you know what – if that’s what it takes, that’s what I’ll do. I will talk about this for as long as I think is necessary or until someone physically stops me.

You might be thinking, “Who is Alan Partridge?”

He’s a fictional comedy character who has been on British TV for nearly 25 years.
He is played by an actor and comedian named Steve Coogan, who you may have heard on this podcast before doing Michael Caine and Paul McCartney impressions on the TV show The Trip.

The character is a fictional TV & radio presenter.

Originally Partridge was created as a parody of TV and radio presenters – a way of making fun of the cliches you see and hear in TV news, sports reporting, factual and light entertainment programmes – particularly the cliches of how people speak on TV and radio.

Later, Partridge became a fully-rounded character in his own right. In later shows, we follow Alan closely through his life and the character has become more than just a parody of television presenters. He has become a parody of a certain type of British man. Somehow, so many of us can relate to the experiences and characteristics of Alan, even though the character is someone we laugh at and think is a truly awful person.

Here’s a run down of the shows and things that Alan has appeared in.

  • A parody news TV programme called The Day Today.
  • Three BBC Radio 4 comedy series.
  • 3 BBC TV series and one BBC TV special.
  • 2 best-selling books and audiobooks.
  • A web series on YouTube.
  • Two short TV series on Sky.
  • Several full-length TV specials.
  • A full-length feature film which was released in cinemas.
  • Several big live theatre tours.
  • Lots of other TV appearances on interview shows, charity telethons and more.

The character has won a BAFTA award and two British Comedy awards over the years.

This year Alan is coming back to the BBC with a brand new series.

Partridge is widely praised by reviewers and critics as one of Britain’s best comedy TV characters.

Many of the lines spoken by Alan Partridge have become part of the popular consciousness, including phrases like “A-ha!”, “Monkey Tennis” and “Smell my cheese you mother!”

I don’t mind admitting that I’m a huge fan of Alan Partridge as an excellent work of comedy by the performer Steve Coogan and the script writers Armando Iannucci, Peter Baynham the Gibbons brothers, and others.

Many of my friends and members of my family are also huge fans and it’s quite normal for us to communicate in Partridgisms when we spend time together sometimes, quoting lines of dialogue with each other.

In my opinion, if you have any interest in Britishness, British humour, British comedy, British pop culture and British English, you absolutely must know about Alan Partridge.

This is not as simple as you might think. Somehow I find it really hard to explain this comedy to learners of English. It’s very subtle, nuanced and layered. It sort of defies explanation, which is a strength in my opinion.

I think that comedy that is very easy to explain is often a bit basic, and probably quite rubbish.

The fact that Alan Partridge is complex and subtle is a strength for the comedy, but perhaps that’s also a barrier for non-native speakers who just can’t see where the humour is.

They always say that the hardest thing to truly understand in a second language is humour. It requires really good English in this case – the ability to read between the lines, to pick up on very slight verbal and non-verbal clues to understand the comedy – and to do it all instantly.

You need excellent listening skills. You also need to have a lot of context in order to understand what type of character this is, how to interpret what he says, what his attitude is in any given moment, how other people are reacting to him and also to understand how we the audience are supposed to feel about it all. Are we laughing with him? Are we laughing at him? Where is the comedy coming from?

So, perhaps if you’re not really aware of all the cultural and contextual clues and if your English isn’t quite up to it, you will never really get it.

You might think “Nah, this isn’t funny” or “This is british humour” that for some reason only British people understand but which in fact isn’t funny for any normal people.

But the high regard that people have for Alan Partridge, the awards, the recognition from the industry, the longevity of the character – these things all prove that this is genuinely good stuff.

Partridge is also popular in other English speaking countries outside the UK, notably Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. He’s not a household name in America although quite a lot of people know about him there including lots of actors and comedians. For example Ben Stiller is famously a big fan.

Let’s see how it is for you. Let me know in the comment section as we go through some clips, listen, break them down and carry on.

Alan Partridge: Background Information

I have to give you some background information on the character first.

Read from the Wikipedia page a bit – first two paragraphs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Partridge#Character

Character
Alan Partridge is an incompetent (always fails) and tactless (he’s careless and his words often offend people around him) television and radio presenter from Norwich, England.[5][30]

He is socially inept (has no skill), often offending his guests,[31] and has an inflated sense of importance and celebrity (he thinks he’s more important than he is).[9] According to the Telegraph, Partridge is “utterly convinced of his own superiority, and bewildered (confused) by the world’s inability to recognise it – qualities that place him in the line of Great British comedy characters.

His need for public attention drives him to deceit (lying), treachery (betraying people who trust him) and shameless self-promotion,[30] and sometimes violence; in the Knowing Me, Knowing Yule Christmas special, for example, he assaults a BBC boss by punching him with a turkey.[7]

Alan Partridge lives in Norwich, Norfolk. Armando Iannucci (one of the creators) said the writers chose it as Partridge’s hometown as it is “geographically just that little bit annoyingly too far from London, and has this weird kind of isolated feel that seemed right for Alan.”[1]

Partridge holds right-wing views; Coogan described him as a Little Englander, with a “myopic (uninformed), slightly philistine (uncultured) mentality”.[32] He is a reader of the right-wing tabloid newspaper the Daily Mail, and supports Brexit because, according to Coogan, the Daily Mail “told him to”.[33][33] Earlier versions of the character were more bigoted (prejudiced), but the writers found there was more humour in having him attempt to be liberal;[32] Coogan said: “He’s aware of political correctness but he’s playing catch-up.” His underlying right wing views come out sometimes, even though he tries to be modern. [32]

Alan Clips

I’m going to play you a selection of clips now.

I’ll tell you a bit about the scene, including the basics of what happens.
This is important because, believe me, it will be quite hard to follow some of this.

I expect the first time you listen you’ll be like what?
So, I’ll explain some details and give you some things to listen out for.
Then you can listen to the clip and either get what they’re saying, or get some of it, get confused, have a laugh or whatever.

Then I’ll go through it again and break it down for you.

No doubt there will be useful language to be gained from all of this. In fact, I’m certain there is a tonne of language which will emerge from doing this.

Check the page for this episode. You will find it to be a treasure trove of transcripts, notes, vocabulary, youtube links and more.

After listening, and hopefully understanding each scene, we will go onto the next one and the next until we are done and you’ve had your introduction to the world of Alan, and you can then choose to continue and watch the series or read the books, or if you prefer, just never revisit the world of Alan Partridge again.

For App users, check out the bonus content for these Partridge episodes. There will be at least one bonus audio in which I’m talking to my friend Raphael from Liverpool about the complexities of explaining Alan Partridge to learners of English.

OK, let’s get started for goodness sake!

Sportsdesk with Alan Partridge (from The Day Today 1994)

Alan began as a parody of TV sports reporters in a BBC radio comedy called On The Hour, and then on the TV news spoof comedy The Day Today.

Then he became a parody of cliched television presenters in general, with his own chat show, named after an Abba song “Knowing Me, Knowing You, with Alan Partridge”.

Sometimes sports reporters have to keep talking and talking, even when there’s nothing to talk about really, and their commentaries become full of bad cliches and mixed metaphors to describe what’s going on. Sometimes the commentary lapses into personal experiences and bizarre tangents.

There’s also the tone of voice of the sports reporter. Somehow it’s very high. Everything is up in the air. It’s the atmosphere of tension, it’s the atmosphere of high stakes competition, it’s the atmosphere of the Sunday league cup final.

Sometimes they ramble and end up saying quite ridiculous things. This can be quite revealing about the reporter’s personality. Without intending to, they end up saying bizarre things that make you wonder about their personal lives.

This is a bit like the way some TV presenters will behave, on radio or on live TV chat shows, when things go a bit wrong and the presenters say some weird things or struggle in some way.

Clip 1: Alan’s Sporting Highlights

This is not the funniest of clips, but it gives you an idea of where he first came from – just copying the vocal mannerisms of sports reporters.

Alan describes cycling, athletics, boxing.

What to look out for:

  • The descriptions of cyclists that get a bit carried away (especially when describing their bodies)
  • The tone of voice in the helicopter
  • Metaphors that don’t work “cyclists that look somehow like cattle in a mad way, but cattle on bikes”
  • “Oh good he’s fallen!”
  • Too much personal information / Descriptions get carried away describing bare knuckle boxing (I witnessed bare knuckle boxing in a barn. It was a sorry sight to see men goading them on, and I’m ashamed to say I was party to that goading…)

Alan’s chat show

Somehow Alan managed to climb the greasy pole within the BBC and was given his own chat show on the radio and then one on TV which lasted one series.

The show was called Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge – a cheesy title inspired by a song by Abba.

“Knowing Me Knowing You, Ah Haaa” – that became Partridge’s most famous catchphrase.

Clip 2. Alan interviews a child prodigy (Knowing Me, Knowing You – radio series 1992)

This was recorded in front of a studio audience for radio.

Alan attempts to interview a child genius but the child is obviously way more intelligent and educated than him.

Alan attempts to keep the upper hand, but is constantly proven wrong by the child. It’s humiliating for Alan, but Alan doesn’t have the patience to tolerate being wrong and instead resorts to rudely bullying the child. Alan always needs to be on top, even if it means being very cruel to a child.

There is a live audience and it’s a bit weird because they’re laughing while the performance happens. The performers carry on like it’s not comedy, but there’s an audience laughing.

Still, the moments when the audience laugh tell you there has been a joke.

This sketch just shows how Alan’s interviews always go wrong because of his personal hangups – the underlying problems in his personality.

Laugh AT or laugh WITH?

Are we laughing at Alan, or laughing with him?

Sometimes we laugh at Alan because he’s awful, self-important, arrogant and ignorant, and yet we also somehow support him as the child is really annoying too.

So we’re against Alan and laugh at him, but somehow we are behind him and laugh with him too. It’s an interesting shift in perspective as we both relate to him and also want to distance ourselves from him at the same time. This happens with all of Alan’s comedy.

What to look out for:

  • The ways the child makes Alan look stupid, including references to Shakespeare
  • Alan’s attempt to win the situation
  • The switch to “entertainment mode” at the end of the sketch, as if he hasn’t just insulted this child and made him cry

547. Best Jokes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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Studying some jokes told by stand-up comedians at the Edinburgh Fringe comedy festival, and dissecting them for vocabulary. Learn English with some jokes and find out about typical joke structures used by stand-up comedians. Transcripts and jokes available below.


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Introduction Transcript

This episode is going to contain loads of jokes and their explanations. Listening to this might give you a chuckle if you understand the jokes, and at the very least you’ll learn some English in the process.

The Edinburgh Festival is an arts festival that happens every August in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is officially the largest arts festival in the world and it includes all kinds of art, including theatre and dance. However, there is also an alternative festival that runs at the same time and this is perhaps the more famous one these days. This alternative festival is called The Edinburgh Festival Fringe or simply Edinburgh Fringe.

The word “fringe” means “edge” and it’s a way of referring to performances which are alternative, on the edge, different to the mainstream acts.

These days this largely means comedy, particularly stand up comedy – that form of comedy which involves someone standing on the stage armed only with a microphone and their witty jokes and stories.

The fringe gets a lot of media coverage because that’s where the country’s best comedians are often discovered. It’s a huge event for the industry. Also it’s pretty entertaining for us to read the year’s best jokes when they’re published in all the newspapers.

I was going to do an episode about the best jokes from this year’s Edinburgh fringe. Every year a TV channel called Dave chooses their favourite jokes of the fringe, and people vote for the best.
The jokes are then published in the newspapers and shared around on social networks.
Someone asked me to do an episode about it actually. Sorry, I’m afraid I can’t remember who that was! I get messages across lots of different platforms and I can’t keep up.

That was about the best jokes of Edinburgh 2018.

I had a look and some of them are pretty good, but not all of them and I thought instead that I’d find a list of top jokes from all Edinburgh festivals, just as a way to make sure the jokes are basically good enough. Even still, these are just jokes made up by comedians at the festival, sometimes improvised live on stage. They’re not those jokes that just go around and have no author. These are written by possibly desperate 20 or 30 something comedians trying to make their audiences laugh.

I’ve never actually been to the Edinburgh Festival or taken part in the fringe. I did the Brighton Fringe three times, but never Edinburgh. It’s one of the world’s biggest comedy festivals. Every year thousands of comedians from all over the world go there, do their shows and desperately try to get reviewed, get featured in the newspaper articles, try to win awards, try to make a name for themselves.

In my experience, it just costs a lot of money, it’s exhausting and you drink too much. So, no thanks. But still, imagine the main street in Edinburgh at lunchtime in August. The whole street will be lined with aspiring comics flyering for their shows. At those shows the comics will be doing their best to make the audience laugh as much as possible. These jokes are part of their routines.

To be honest, It’s probably not fair to judge these jokes on their own. They belong in these comedians’ routines, performed live. Usually in stand up the comedians don’t just go up and tell some jokes. They go up and tell stories about their lives, share experiences and so on. The jokes are included in the stories and they are weaved in seamlessly. For the joke to properly have a chance, it has to be delivered in context. So much of that is about the person telling the joke – what do they look like? What do they sound like? What kind of stories are they telling? Are they happy, unhappy, desperate, stupid? All this context informs the joke. So, it’s not fair to just pick out the jokes on their own and then scrutinise them out of context.

But, that’s exactly what we’re going to do here and now in this episode.

We’re going to go through a selection of jokes from Edinburgh Fringe over the years. I’ll tell them, and then scrutinise them for meaning and language, leaving the jokes like dead frogs which have been dissected in a science lab at school.

Remember – explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog… it’s  possible to learn something from it, but the frog dies in the process.

Some types of joke / Joke structures

There are certain joke structures or techniques which get used a lot. They’re very commonly used in stand up routines. Let’s identify some.

  • Puns (word jokes) – one word or phrase means two things at the same time.
  • Pull back and reveal – the situation radically changes when we get more information.

  • Observational humour – noticing things about everyday life that we all experience, but haven’t put into words yet.
  • similes – Showing how two things are similar in unexpected and revealing ways. (Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog…)

So, here we go. Lower your expectations now…

First of all, here are some of the jokes from the 2018 fringe, considered the best ones.

“Working at the Jobcentre has to be a tense job – knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day.” Adam Rowe

“I had a job drilling holes for water – it was well boring.” – Leo Kearse

“I took out a loan to pay for an exorcism. If I don’t pay it back, I’m going to get repossessed.” – Olaf Falafel

https://inews.co.uk/culture/100-best-jokes-one-liners-edinburgh-fringe/

“When I was younger I felt like a man trapped inside a woman’s body. Then I was born.” Yianni (2015)

“I was playing chess with my friend and he said, ‘Let’s make this interesting’. So we stopped playing chess.” Matt Kirshen (2011)

“Love is like a fart. If you have to force it it’s probably shit.” Stephen K. Amos (2014)

“Life is like a box of chocolates. It doesn’t last long if you’re fat.” Joe Lycett (2014)

“I was raised as an only child, which really annoyed my sister.” Will Marsh (2012)

“I was thinking of running a marathon, but I think it might be too difficult getting all the roads closed and providing enough water for everyone.” Jordan Brookes (2016)

“My wife told me: ‘Sex is better on holiday.’ That wasn’t a nice postcard to receive.” Joe Bor (2014)

“If you arrive fashionably late in Crocs, you’re just late.” Joel Dommett (2014)

“I was watching the London Marathon and saw one runner dressed as a chicken and another runner dressed as an egg. I thought: ‘This could be interesting.” Paddy Lennox (2009)

“I’m sure wherever my Dad is: he’s looking down on us. He’s not dead, just very condescending.” Jack Whitehall (2009)

“My granny was recently beaten to death by my grandad. Not as in, with a stick – he just died first” Alex Horne (2008)

“I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” Nick Helm (2011)

“I went to Waterstones and asked the woman for a book about turtles, she said ‘hardback?’ and I was like, ‘yeah and little heads” Mark Simmons (2015)

That last joke reminds me of Tim Vine – “Hello, I’d like to buy a watch please” “Analogue?” “No, just the watch thanks”.

Vocabulary

Some vocabulary to notice in this episode:

  • to chuckle / a chuckle
  • a tense job
  • to get fired
  • to get repossessed
  • well boring
  • To take out a loan
  • I felt like a man trapped inside a woman’s body
  • Let’s make this interesting’.
  • If you have to force it, it’s probably shit
  • I was raised as an only child
  • running a marathon
  • fashionably late
  • he’s looking down on us
  • very condescending
  • beaten to death

545. The Hitchhiker by Roald Dahl (Short Story)

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Learn English with this short story by British writer Roald Dahl. Intro transcript and story script available below.


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Introduction Transcript (story script available as a pdf below)

Hello folks, how are you doing?

Summer is over, everyone’s going back to their jobs and their normal lives. Sun tans are fading fast. The days are getting shorter. The leaves are turning. It’s back to reality.

I hope you had a good summer. As I said to you in June or July, my podcast uploading was quite inconsistent over the summer. I didn’t manage to post as many episodes as normal. That’s because I had quite a busy time, going away on hols to different places and also looking after our daughter who was not in day care, because day care was closed during August.

In fact, her day care still hasn’t started again, so I’m being a stay at home Dad this week, looking after her during the day time. This means that it’s a bit difficult to record and upload episodes of the podcast. The baby (and she’s still a baby) tends to demand all your attention, whether it be playing, feeding, cleaning, changing, bathing or all manner of other things, it’s hard to do anything else when I’m the only one looking after her. This week my wife has some important work related deadlines which she has to attend to, so I’m looking after the little one.

What this means is that I still can’t get fully back into my podcast rhythm. That’ll happen probably mid next week when day care starts again properly and I have time to work on episodes of both LEP and LEP Premium.

By the way, LEP Premium is going well. There are now about 14 episodes – including audio and video content, with PDFs. If you want to sign up, go to teacherluke.co.uk/premium The premium episodes are where I really focus on language, helping you to improve your grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.

I have lots of plans for new episodes coming up, but they all require some time and also silence in the background.

I wanted to upload something fairly quickly and simply in this episode, so I’ve decided to read you a short story written by Roald Dahl, who is one of the UK’s favourite authors. This doesn’t take much preparation from me, so it’s pretty easy to do.

Roald Dahl is most famous for his children’s stories – like The BFG, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, George’s Marvellous Medicine, but also he wrote some books of short stories for adults. I grew up reading his children’s books, but then also took an interest in the books of short stories too when I’d grown up a bit. So, I’ve always enjoyed Roald Dahl’s work.

I’d like to recommend his books of short stories for you to read. If you’re looking for something to read in English (and you should always have an English book on the go – it’s vital) then these could be great.

Here are some reasons why Roald Dahl is so great for reading (for your English)

  • The stories are short, so it’s less demanding and less intimidating. You can finish them. Yey!
  • They’re very well written – descriptive language and just good plain English that is easy to read and modern in style
  • They’re great little stories full of curiosities, mystery, strange things, funny things.

You could get any of Roald Dahl’s books of short stories, but a good recommendation from me would be “The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1 & 2” by Roald Dahl. Should be available from all good bookstores, including Amazon.

So, I highly recommend that you check out his work. It could be great for your English. Roald Dahl’s work is also available as audiobooks, which you could check out using Audible. Remember they still sponsor my podcast. If you use my link, you can sign up for a free 30 day trial which includes a free download of any audiobook you like.

www.audibletrial.com/teacherluke check it out. You could get a Roald Dahl book – and many of them are read by great British actors that you might know.

Now, in this episode I’m going to read out one of Dahl’s short stories. This one always sticks in my mind. I read it when I was a teenager. One of the things that always stuck in my mind was the descriptive language – describing the car he drives and the people he meets. Those descriptions really stuck with me. It’s one of the reasons I’m sure his stories are great for learning English.

It’s quite simple. I’m going to read the story to you. You can check out the story by following the link on my website, or if you have a copy of his book you can read it with me. This one is called The Hitch Hiker and it appears in volume 2 of The Complete Short Stories.

A hitch hiker is someone who waits by the side of the road and hopes to get a lift from someone. They don’t have a car or money for a bus or train, so they stick out their thumb and hope someone will stop and take them where they want to go.

I don’t know if you’ve ever hitch hiked. I’ve done it a couple of times. It felt a little risky. These days I wouldn’t do it probably. Feels a bit dangerous.

Anyway, here is the story called The Hitch Hiker. It’s only a few pages long. There’s a link on the page for this episode (below) which will allow you to read the story too.

Things I like about it / What to look out for

  • The various descriptions of the high performance car (very modern for when the story was written)
  • How it looks, the electric windows and sunroof, automatic radio aerial, the sounds of the engine, the responsiveness of the steering and brakes. He doesn’t just drive at 70, he whispers along. He doesn’t just slow down, he touches the brakes.
  • His descriptions of the hitch-hiker – comparing him to a rat
  • The descriptions of the appearance and manner of the police officer
  • The mystery surrounding the hitch hiker
  • The way the hitch hiker’s “job” is described in rather exciting and glamourous ways
  • The little twist at the end of the story

That’s it! Let’s start reading.

Click here to see the pdf of The Hitchhiker by Roald Dahl

540. What’s Up? Post World Cup / News / LEP Meetup London / Super Mario Earworms

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Giving some news, summing up the World Cup, England out, France win, and some chat about music that gets stuck in your head. Get some English stuck in your head with this episode. Transcript available!
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Episode Transcript

Here it is, your regular dose of English listening practice.

The theory, the science, the method:
Listen regularly
Listen longer
Listen long term
Don’t stop! (e.g. when it gets difficult)
In time the results will be obvious to you.
Compound effect.
Time + practice + positivity = genuine progress in English
In a natural way.
All you need is the right resource to listen to.
Something personal.
Something designed for you as a learner of English not native to an English speaking country.
Something made by someone who *might* know what they’re doing!
Someone with the teaching qualifications, but also the experience of just talking to groups of people for the pure fun of it.
Something which has many episodes which you can use to get that English into your head.
Your mission is to get as much English into your head as you can – through your ears in this case, until you get to a point that you’ve heard so much that you start to get a feel for the language.
It’s like the force. You have to trust your feelings and do what you feel is right. The Jedi way – do or do not, there is no “try”.
When you do a grammar or vocabulary exercise you know the answer, by instinct, just because you feel that it’s the right answer. This feels right, that doesn’t. How can you possibly get that instinct without getting exposed to enough of the language in context?
Listen a lot, read a lot, regularly, for longer periods, long term, don’t stop and just enjoy the process.
These are the right conditions in which you can really learn English, and that’s what this podcast is all about.
Yep, this could be the resource for you.
Maybe I’m preaching to the converted, but if there are any new listeners listening to this – jump on board and get involved. Listen to the episodes, get the app, look through the archive list, star the episodes you think look interesting, listen to a bunch of them over the summer. Leave your comments in the comment section and introduce yourself to the friendly and funny people there.
This could be the thing that’s going to help you get the English that you want.
Check out my episode archive – I’ve got episodes about grammar, vocabulary, topics, conversations with guests, funny stuff, serious stuff.
And, I’ve got a premium subscription service where we take things further and really dig deep into the language, examining, uncovering, analysing, explaining, repeating the language which comes up naturally in episodes of this show made by me for you.
All the info you need is on the website of course – the episode archive, notes, transcriptions and the premium service. Teacherluke.co.uk

So, here’s your new dose of English.

What’s going on? What’s up?

LEP MEETUP LONDON
FRI 3 AUG from 2pm
Fitzroy Tavern,
16 Charlotte St,
Fitzrovia, London W1T 2LY
Email teacherzdenek@gmail.com

First thing – I need to tell you about a LEPster meetup happening in London. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to make it myself although I would love to join in if I can. But there is a meetup happening with confirmed guests already.

So, attention LEPsters in London or nearby during the summer of 2018. There’s an LEP meetup happening on Friday 3 August from 2pm in the Fitzroy Tavern, 16 Charlotte St, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2LY. Fitzrovia is a cool place, just north of Soho near Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. I used to go drinking there when I lived in London with my old mates from college. So that’s our old stomping ground.

The meetup is being organised by Zdenek Lukas, the guy behind Zdenek’s English Podcast. Zdenek is a long term fan of LEP, and a well-qualified English teacher from the Czech Republic. Every summer he goes to London and teaches intensive courses in schools there.

Zdenek is a big fan of board games, especially for learning English – which is kind of a special area of interest for some people. There is a movement in English teaching which is all about using board games. It’s a brilliant idea. Board games are interactive, they create communicative situations, they’re fun, they involve communicative objectives and all sorts of cool things which are ideal for learning English. Plus they’re a really great way for people to get together, socialise and practice. These are board games for adults of course, not kids stuff.

So, Zdenek will be in the Fitzroy Tavern from 2, joined by an English teaching friend of his from the UK (I think she’s called Claire) and some other LEPsters who I think are already confirmed. You really should join them. You won’t regret it. You’ll make instant friends and you will have an afternoon in London that you won’t forget – if you do it right, and by “do it right” I mean – be sociable, have a couple of beers, relax, let go, enjoy meeting some like minded people and have some fun and play some board games in English!

Now, Zdenek needs to know how many people are coming so he can book some tables in the pub. So, shoot him an email at teacherzdenek@gmail.com.
Wondering what to write? Just write this – Hi Zdenek, I’d like to come to the LEP meetup on 3 August. Please count me in! My name’s _____. See you there!
If you can’t be there at 2, you could probably join them later. You could ask Zdenek how long he’ll be there.
Got it?
Friday 3 Aug, from 2pm, Fitzroy Tavern, 16 Charlotte St, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2LY. Email teacherzdenek@gmail.com to let him know you’re coming.

The World Cup

So I should probably wrap up the world cup commentary that I started in June. The WC is old news now isn’t it? It’s so last week!

Anyway, let me talk about:
England vs Croatia
France’s campaign (because I live here and it got crazy)

England vs Croatia

Perhaps England underestimated Croatia.
Maybe Croatia wanted it more.
Maybe England weren’t that good in the first place, and got lucky in the tournament.
England were outclassed.
Croatia were impressive. Incredibly determined and hard working.
We expected them to be tired. We expected to be able to beat them. But they’re made of tough stuff.
Croatia’s other games went to extra time and penalties. Denmark and Russia. They must have been knackered! But they soldiered on and ultimately overcame England.
Immediately the excitement and all the renditions of “It’s coming home” stopped and it was back to normal in England, and when I say “normal” I mean the general madness of the time – with the chaos of Brexit, our government imploding on itself, Trump visiting and being greeted by 250,000 people in the street protesting against his entire existence, he visited The Queen and arrived late, making her wait over 10 minutes.
What about France and the World Cup?

France vs Belgium (I somehow forgot to say all of this in the episode!)
1 – 0
Showed France could play a different type of football. Defensive, containing the danger of Belgium’s key players.
I saw a documentary about the French team. It was great.
Amazing team spirit. Pep talks in the dressing room. A positive atmosphere from the team in general. So much better than when the French team all threw their toys out of the pram and actually went on strike against the management team. This young team are really cool and get on well.
The crowds outside our flat went mad with a lot of noise.

France vs Croatia final

Don’t underestimate Croatia. Surely they must be tired by now, but they keep fighting. So much spirit in this team.
Some say France got lucky with an own goal and a debatable penalty.
The own goal was actually a great free kick by Griezmann. It did come off the Croatian defender, but it was right in the danger zone and if it had come off anyone’s head it would have gone in. A great free kick, a little bit lucky.
But Croatia came back, controlling the game in the first half an hour.
Then France won a debatable penalty. Griezmann crossed the ball in and the defender was coming down after jumping and appeared to move his hand to the ball in the penalty area. The ref couldn’t see it properly from that angle, so he went to VAR, and then called it a penalty.
Some people are saying the ref was biased but I can completely see how they gave the penalty, but I can also see why you’d be pissed off because it is really borderline. Is it intentional or not? The hand goes to the ball. It’s really hard to tell but the more you watch it on replay the more you think the ref can’t not give it.
France score.
2 – 1
I think at this point Croatia start to get tired.
It happened, eventually. This Terminator of a team, that wouldn’t stop coming no matter how hard you hit them. The comeback kings themselves, got a bit tired. Pogba started linking up with Mbappe and causing trouble for the Croatian goalkeeper. An amazing pass from Pogba to Mbappe led to an attack where the ball bounced around just outside the box and Pogba “got hold of it” and shot, the ball rebounded off the legs of a line of Croatian players and they didn’t know where the ball had gone and you see them looking around for a moment, but which time Pogba has stepped up and with the inside of his left foot has netted it from about 20 yards out.
3 – 1
At this point France show some class and generally have some great runs. Mbappe scores one of the goals of the tournament from further away than the Pogba goal hitting it hard with a bit of finesse, low into the bottom left corner leaving the keeper miles away. Amazing.
4 – 1
Croatia at this point must be feeling pretty crushed, having given it whatever they could for the last few weeks.
Then for some reason the French goalkeeper, Lloris makes a real sandwich of a backpass and cocks it right up by basically handing it on a plate to Mandžukić who was, as ever, pressing the goalkeeper and putting him under pressure. Mandžukić just knocked it in and then it was
4-2
And maybe there was a flicker of hope at that point for Croatia but it wasn’t to be and this French team really proved themselves, time and time again.
They had the more difficult route in the tournament, compared to England. Coming up against Argentina, Uruguay, Belgium and then Croatia, compared to England’s route of Colombia (where they were basically matched – just one pen between them) and then Sweden (who didn’t seem to put up much of a fight). Only when we met a real team like Croatia or Belgium, we didn’t quite cut the mustard.

But France, were brilliant and deserved to win. The thing is about France is that they can be a bit unpredictable and sometimes loose, they can win a game in 15 minutes, by just putting together 15 minutes of play they can handle most of the pitch, especially in that attacking midfield area. They showed that they had some depth and class and could really turn it on when necessary. And a fun, positive bunch of players who have a good future ahead of them.

England too might have a good future because the team is young.

Some people are saying this world cup represents the end of the Messi/Ronaldo era and the beginning of a new generation with guys like Mbappe.

I reckon this world cup has been one of the best in ages. It looks like Russia did a great job of hosting and this will be very good for Russia’s image I expect, with more people visiting and getting an idea of what it’s really like.

But generally the world cup was ace, with some amazing goals and some surprises with big teams getting knocked out early and some new talent coming through.

Next it’s the Euros in 2020 and apparently they’re being hosted all across Europe with the final in Wembley stadium which is brilliant.

By the way, that song “It’s coming home” was written when England were hosting the Euros in 1996 and so in a sense football was coming home in that we were hosting the tournament and it was 30 years since 1966 when England won the world cup. The song is actually about always being disappointed by England but still having hope that they can play well. It’s actually a really well written song with good chord changes and lyrics.

Earworm

I have a serious ear worm going around my head.
What’s an earworm?
It’s when you have music stuck in your head. Sometimes you just wake up in the morning with a song running vividly around your head. Different songs each time usually. Throughout the world cup it was “It’s coming home” for me.
But this week I’ve had a serious earworm going on and I can’t shift it. Sometimes this is annoying, but I’m actually enjoying it.
I’ve had this all week and I’m not sure where it came from.
It’s the Super Mario Kart soundtrack from the old SNES version of the game. The original and best. Pretty much the entire thing!
In the 80s and 90s Nintendo released a series of absolutely classic games. They were quality from top to bottom. Something about Nintendo in that period just oozed quality. There was also Sega and it’s character Sonic the Hedgehog, and he was popular. A very fast hedgehog, kind of a joke. He was popular – but he couldn’t hold a candle to Mario and all the Mario games.
They breathed quality and class. Zelda too.
Visually, in terms of gameplay and also the sounds and music.
Turning on your gameboy, NES or SNES you’d instantly be greeted by an unmistakable sound – a bleep or a ding, and the Nintendo logo. Something about that dinging sound. It was just right. It was cute, it was quick, it was satisfying somehow, it was even reassuring.
Then, all the Mario games – Super Mario Brothers, and Super Mario Kart, and The Legend of Zelda were blessed with really good music and I’m being serious.
I just googled this and it turns out that was all the work of pretty much one guy, who did the music for a stunning number of classic Nintendo titles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koji_Kondo
I’m probably being influenced heavily by nostalgia here, but I love these tunes and despite the limitations of the technology and software of the time, they were very catchy indeed, and also very melodic and jazzy with touches of bossa nova.

I spent a lot of time playing Super Mario, Mario Kart, Zelda and now a lot of that music is permanently embedded in my brain, and it just comes back at times.

This week it’s been all about Super Mario Kart.

I’ve been teaching 6 hours a day all week, working very intensively, without a moment’s rest on most days, just teaching teaching teaching. The pace and rhythm has been high and I’ve had to be very upbeat for days. Somehow this just completely suits that Mario music.
Let’s hear some.

I actually searched Spotify for the music and found an album by a band called the One Ups. It’s a whole album of Mario Kart music, performed by this band.
Let’s hear some.
This might be a trip down memory lane for some of you.
For others, you might not know these games.
But these are pretty nice tunes anyway. Probably very cheesy and I’m certain it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but let’s just take a sort of trip down memory lane.
Perhaps we can hear some of the originals too.
I actually put this music on when I’m working sometimes.

So I’ve been busy working intensively and looking after my daughter. This is why I haven’t uploaded for a while. Nearly 2 weeks without a normal episode of the podcast.

It’s July and nearly August in Paris and this is when it becomes difficult to record and upload podcasts. I’m not complaining or anything. I’m very happy. But I do want to explain that the uploading of episodes might be a little bit inconsistent over the next couple of months.
There should be premium episodes – I have to provide you with regular premium content because you’re paying for that (well, just the price of a coffee or beer per month).

But anyway, things are hectic. I’m working intensive courses all day every day in July at the BC and then August is holiday season and we’re going away to a few destinations in France.

Usually we go abroad to some far away place but this year we’re staying in France, which I’m very happy about. I want to explore more of this country, which is beautiful by the way. There are plenty of beautiful places here and I want to get to know those places, sample the local food, enjoy the weather, relax by the pool and all that. So, French holidays, mostly in the south. Probably no big adventures this time, but who knows. If there are stories, I will tell them on the podcast.

So that’s it.

3 things

If you’re in London then hang out with Zdenek and other lepsters at the Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte Street near Tottenham Court Road station. Let Zdenek know in advance that you’re coming with an email at teacherzdenek@gmail.com Board games, beer, pub food and good times to be had by all.
Get the LEP app for all the episodes on your phone and a whole bunch of bonus bits and pieces including grammar lessons, stories, vocabulary, jingles, phrasal verbs, videos and more.
If you want to take it to the next level and help me out with a contribution each month in return for a premium subscription you’ll get access to regular language-based episodes focusing on the things you’ve heard in conversations on this podcast. Sign up to LEP premium at www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

This has been Luke’s English Podcast. Have yourselves a great night, regardless of what time of day it is now. I just hope you have a good night – either in the sense that the next night you have is a good one, or the more gothic sense that even during the daytime it’s night time and so you can have a good night at any time if you’re a goth.

But if you’re not a goth then have a good day either today or tomorrow.

For now,

Bye…

539. World Cup 2018 [3] Is It Coming Home?

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Another football episode – but it won’t last forever! In this one I’m in England talking to my Dad and my brother about the world cup including England’s performances, penalties, World Cup songs, diving, VAR and predictions for the semi finals. Enjoy!


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Please leave your comments in the comment section. I might read them out on the podcast next time.

Football Songs

3 Lions (It’s coming home) – Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds

Lyrics https://genius.com/Baddiel-skinner-and-the-lightning-seeds-three-lions-lyrics

World In Motion – New Order

Lyrics https://genius.com/New-order-world-in-motion-lyrics

Vindaloo – Fat Les

Lyrics https://genius.com/Fat-les-vindaloo-lyrics

England’s Irie – Black Grape

Lyrics http://www.metrolyrics.com/englands-irie-lyrics-various-artists.html

Back Home – England team 1970

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag_ujTfx3ak

Lyrics https://genius.com/England-national-football-team-back-home-lyrics

538. World Cup 2018 [2] The Second Round / Listener Comments

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Talking about the second round of the World Cup in Russia, including comments about the teams, the games, the issues, England’s penalties vs Colombia and the way football commentators speak. Listener comments are read out. Notes available.

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Notes & Scripts

Not very much planned here. I’m just going to spill my thoughts into the microphone. Some comments from the comment section.

Sorry if I miss anything! I’m bound to miss a few things because there are lots of details in this World Cup and it’s hard to cover them all. I’m just going to look at the wallchart and see what I can say, while also reading out some comments.

One of the highlights of this competition so far has been listening to English TV presenters and commentators say “Nizhny Novgorod”. The other day one of them said “Nizzy novgarad”. I feel vindicated. It’s not just me.

My World Cup Wall Chart

Comments

Zdenek Lukas • 8 days ago
I have managed to see about 80 percent of the games so far. What a fantastic world cup this has been. Loved the way it panned out for Argentina going through in the end, very impressed by performances of Croatia, Belgium, and Colombia. No idea who will win, but my personal favourites are Belgium, Spain, pretty much any South American team that gets to the knock out stages, and of course Germany. Lineker would say that football is a beautiful game, and at the end Germany always win. And we are probably gonna see one surprising team in the semis. Of course seeing England lift the trophy would be luketastic! Also I am gonna be in England when this would potentially be happening. Fingers crossed. As an Arsenal fan though, I must say I am hoping Kane doesn’t get the golden boot. Just kidding, I wish him all the best and then he could join a new much more decent club in new season as a world cup winner.

Sergio Téllez Pinilla • 8 days ago
Neymar is a clown.

Francisco Espínola • 8 days ago
I´ve always thought of that…but now the truth has been revealed…¡Luka Modric is your secret brother!! hahaha very funny of you to comment on that.

Maxim
Don’t you know we are living in Matrix?Just some malfunction in multivariate imposing reveals the fact that we are all connected to sole upper identity. When we look at Luke and Luka our brain computers gets glitching and …Boom,Bob’s your uncle,we see what we see.

Zielak 146 • 8 days ago
Hi Luke, first of all I am Polish and I am disappointed about Poland team. I expected more after what they achieved on Euro 2016 in France and now we are going home :) In my opinion the best team is Belgium, I think they can reach final but we will see what they show against England :) I also appreciate Croatia who play nice football :)
There aren’t clear favourites. Argentina, Germany, France, Brazil, they don’t play as well as we expected.

I’d like to know what do you think about Maradona’s behaviour at the match against Nigeria? :) I’m looking forward to next episode about World Cup :) Sorry if I made any mistakes :)

Timur Sivakov • 8 days ago
Hi Luke,
I think Belgium has a big chance to win the World Cup.
They have very strong midfield, and also Lukaku is an amazing player. Croatia are good too. I have a question to you: Have you ever wanted to work as a sports commentator? I mean, the way you speak is pretty much like english commentators do.

aulo Henrique Oliveira • 7 days ago
I´m Brazilian and, apart from thinking that the team is playing slightly better than in the last Cup, I´m not sure we´ll make it to the finals. Really like how Belgium and Sweden have been playing.
Just for the record, everybody here dislikes the way Neymar has been acting up in the first matches.
Finally, I´m sorry for Germany getting out so soon but we had our little revenge If you sum up their game scores you get 7×1 ha-ha (sarcastic laughs)

Aslan Oguzbay • 6 days ago
Brazil are going to take the trophy, mark my words!

Yaron
Wow! Germany are out. As “Die Mannschaft” supporter I’m very disappointed… I hope that it will be a wake up call for “Die Mannschaft”, and that they will come back stronger and “hungrier” to win in the next world cup.

Good luck for the teams that still in the tournament…

Maxim 4 days ago
Ok.Messi is packing for home,as well as Ronaldo.Let’s look forward for tomorrow’s matches.I hope Luca Modric will crack Denmark’s defense lines😉.Absolutely spectacular championship heralding that the era of young players has finally come. And Mbappe is definitely one of them.

Pierre 4 days ago
Yep ! Mbape did a great game and he’s only 19 years old.

Nick3 days ago
Spanish players were pressing very hard and our players were struggling to stand that pressure. And the duel at the end was absolutely spectacular!!! So, of course big thanks to the both teams for the game.

Zdenek Lukas 2 days ago
Nick I will be honest with you, I saw the match and I a bit am conflicted. On the one hand, I really don’t like if team defend 90 minutes with 11 men win matches like that, but on the other hand, I am happy for Russia because they are the host and this is always great for the atmosphere of the entire tournament and because you guys fought really hard. Besides Span didn’t deserve this match because they didn’t take enough risks. So overall, a big surprise, but as a neutral I will take it :)

Nick2 days ago
I think it was the only way to win the game. And they did it. It was a smart move, more chess than football :)

Sebastián Juambeltz yesterday
Hi Luke!!
Uruguay passed the exam. What do you say about this? I am from uruguay and i am very proud of this. URUGUAY NO MA!!!.
Do you know that Uruguay is the team that won more international championships? It is alway an understimated team. We won 2 olympic 2 word cup 15 american cup.
Know the history about this great selection team from Uruguay!!
Thank you for all your work here!! It is almost great than uruguayan team.
See you..

Yaron yesterday
Oh Luke…. what a pressure… finally England wins a penalty shootout in the world cup. Happy for you. Good luck in the quarter-final.

Syntropy yesterday
Luke, congratulations on the England football team’s victory!!
They finally broke their penalty shootout curse :D

Zdenek Lukas22 hours ago
Dier scoring that penalty was the most emotional moment of the World Cup for me so far :)

Elena Konyukhova10 hours ago
World Cup in Russia seems to be lucky for England, they are doing really well. They might have more fans here.

Guardian Article

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/03/world-cup-russia-england-fans

535. World Cup 2018 [1]

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Talking about the World Cup 2018 in Russia, including comments about the teams, players, groups, VAR and England’s performances. Notes & transcripts available.


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Transcript & Notes

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World Cup 2018 (1)

The basics
Where is it? Russia
How many teams? 32 teams – 64 games!
Schedule – 15 July Final

Now entering the second round, knockout stage.

It’s been great so far. Lots of goals. Lots of amazing goals too. Some upsets. A few controversies with VAR.

I’ve been watching as many games as I can, sometimes online because French TV doesn’t show all the England games, for example.

tvcatchup.com

The opening ceremony

The usual stuff – vague “peace & love” imagery. Odd costumes and a dance routine. We’ve seen it loads of times before.

Famous Russian singer Robbie Williams opened the ceremony with a medley of his hits.

While I was watching, I kept having to remind myself that this is World Cup 2018, not 1998.

Robbie Williams – a gallant effort to raise the atmosphere in the stadium.

What’s the atmosphere at the start of this world cup? It’s hard to say from my sofa.

England and Russia have had a troubled relationship recently, and generally there’s a sort of cold war feeling going on between Russia and the west, not to mention what’s going on in Syria, and allegations of Russian involvement in the US election and Brexit. This is the climate of the world cup, or was the climate. When people look east to Moscow this is what they see or think about.

That and crazy Russian people doing funny things in online videos, but plenty of other things too – a fascinating history, architecture, culture, the arts, old stories, rich millionaires and the mystery of what we don’t really know about Russia, wrapped up in a weird atmosphere of media manipulation both on TV and online.

All that political stuff.

I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve decided that as far as I’m concerned, that’s some stuff that’s going on between our governments.

On an individual level – if I got the chance to hang around with a bunch of Russians, or people from anywhere for that matter, that we would have a good time watching the football, having a beer, and just making each other laugh! God knows what our governments are doing.

I find all of that stuff quite scary, quite depressing, quite confusing and since the WC is all about peace & love and some guys kicking a ball around, I’d rather just leave that stuff in the background – but we’ll see.

Some people say that you should mention these things because of corruption and the real purpose of the World Cup – as PR for a country, various dodgy investment deals and covering up the negative things, putting on an acceptable face while distracting away from other things.

I’m not saying this is just Russia, I’m saying it’s every world cup, or at least the recent ones. A lot of cosying up and getting in to bed with each other.

Now, I really don’t want to get caught up in a political minefield here. I’m certain there will be Russian people listening to me say those things just then – all things which I’m reporting, not actually saying myself – this is just the way people in general think about this, not my opinion – just reporting. I’m just the messenger, so don’t shoot the messenger. I’m also not saying I even know what’s going on.

In any case, this atmosphere also includes England, and our fans are not known for their good behaviour. In Marseille two years ago there was a big fight, and the Russians got involved. Ugly scenes. English fans are often terrible thugs who love fighting and probably being a bit racist. In fact, a lot of hardcore football fans are racist – you’d expect them to get on with each other.

So, anyway, English fans can be troublesome, but I think Russia has been pretty careful with the security – I just hope that no English fans get arrested for bad behaviour, just because it might stoke up tensions between our countries.

Hopefully there won’t be any violence between football fans.
Hopefully the atmosphere will be peaceful, friendly, celebratory.
Hopefully we will see the passion, the drama and the sort of action that great World Cups are made of.

As I write this, Putin is addressing the audience and pretty much saying the same thing as me – “Football is all about the world coming together in the spirit of love, transcending barriers, language barriers – it’s a force that unites people!” and all that kind of thing.

To me it seems like he’s saying “The world cup is a great symbol of friendly international sporting competition, and this year we are proud to say that through this world cup held in Russia you will join together in the spirit of love, or we will kill you.”

I’m just kidding guys!

Now the FIFA spokesman is saying “Welcome to the FIFA world cup held here in Russia where they are very generous, very generous indeed. You should have seen the welcome package that was part of their original bid to host these games. Whoo! Hopefully the world will profit from this competition as much as FIFA already has!” etc.

Note to self: Do not be cynical. Instead, choose to echo cliched world cup platitudes about football uniting the world.

—

Sorry for missing any details! Please get into the comment section with your thoughts about anything in the WC. I can read them out in the next WC episode. So, please put your thoughts into writing in the comment section and get some discussion going.

What do you think so far? Best teams? Best players? Best goal? Predictions?

The groups
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/world-cup/schedule/group-stage

Favourite teams to win
Argentina
Brazil
Germany
Belgium
Portugal
Spain
England
France
Colombia
Uruguay
Mexico
Croatia

VAR

Designed to make refereeing decisions more accurate, fair and transparent.

Putin has volunteered to personally be in control of the VAR during the championship, which should be interesting.

A team of people studying video replays, a video replay at the side of the pitch.

How has VAR affected games?
Stoppage time, more penalties, some moments when it’s not being used, moments when it’s not right (some offsides) perhaps players will stop cheating

Players cheating
Diving, play acting – holding face, rolling around on the ground, just being brushed by someone’s fingers means you fall to the ground clawing at your face.

Predictions
What the past tells us about who will win
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/44431262

534. Sugar Sammy Interview (Part 2) Language & Comedy

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Part 2 of my chat with Canadian stand-up comedian Sugar Sammy, talking about his 4 languages, TV shows from our childhood, copying Indian accents, language-related controversy in Quebec, Sammy’s crowd-work skills, stories of difficult gigs in the UK, and our thoughts on recent Star Wars films. At the end of the episode you can hear my spoiler-free review of “Solo: A Star Wars Story”. Transcriptions and notes available.

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Sugarsammy.com – for news of Sammy’s live shows 

Introduction Transcript

Hello, welcome back to the podcast. Here is part 2 of my conversation with Canadian multilingual stand up comedy sensation Sugar Sammy.

In our conversation we’re talking mainly about language and comedy, and here’s an overview of the main points that come up in this episode:

  • First of all we talk about the 4 languages that Sammy speaks
    There’s a tangent about American TV shows that we both used to watch when we were children, and which actually helped Sammy to learn English when he was young.
  • Two of those American TV shows we mention include Knight Rider (the one in which David Hasselhoff drives around in a super cool black talking car) and The Dukes of Hazzard (the one about two brothers who live on a farm in Georgia who drive around Georgia in an orange Dodge Charger, being chased by stupid local police officers, doing lots of jumps and stunts in the car).
  • We talk about accents and copying accents: Specifically the question of whether I should do an impression of an Indian accent on stage, or if that would be inappropriate or unacceptable for some reason.
  • We discuss a language controversy that Sammy was involved in in Quebec, Canada – which included him receiving lots of criticism and even a death threat, essentially for performing a popular show in languages other than French – in Quebec (they are very protective of the French language there) It was quite scandal at the time.
  • We talk about what Sammy does on stage, especially his crowd-work, which is that skill of improvising moments of comedy by talking directly to members of the audience. This is something that Sammy is known for because he does it very well.
  • Sammy talks about some tough comedy gigs he has had in the UK over the years and tells us a story of how he once got heckled by an aggressive audience in Northern Ireland. Heckling is when audience members shout things at you while you’re performing. For a comedian it can be pretty difficult when you’re being heckled, but good comics are able to react and respond with funny “heckle put downs”, funny responses that turn an aggressive comment into a funny moment.
  • Then there’s a bit about Star Wars at the end – because like me, Sammy is a big fan.
    We talk briefly about Sammy’s favourite episode of Star Wars, what he thought of The Last Jedi and whether he is interested in seeing the new Han Solo film. When I recorded this interview I hadn’t seen Solo, but since recording it I have, so I will talk about the Han Solo movie briefly at the end of this episode, giving my non-spoiler review.

Don’t forget that Sammy will be touring parts of Asia soon – this year probably. He has gigs coming up in Malaysia and Singapore and will be organising dates in China and Japan. He also intends to visit Russia and South America to do shows at some point. So Sammy might be performing near you soon and you must go and see him. To get news of Sammy’s shows so you don’t miss him – visit sugarsammy.com and join his mailing list.

Now without any further ado, let’s continue listening to my conversation with the super cool multilingual comedian from Canada – Sugar Sammy.

Sugarsammy.com

Knight Rider

The Dukes of Hazzard

Peter Sellers in The Party (an English actor performing as an Indian character – it would be offensive but Seller’s impression is spot on according to Sammy)

Solo: A Star Wars Story (No-Spoiler Review)

Notes & Transcriptions

For those of you who are Star Wars fans – I’m now going to talk about the latest film, which in English is called “SOLO” – released last month.

This is a “star wars story” – not part of the Skywalker narrative.
It’s an origins story.
I was sceptical about the film.
Production for the film seemed troubled, which is usually not a good sign – but it’s not necessarily a guarantee of a bad film.
The original directors were fired by Kathleen Kennedy (head of Lucasfilm) because they took the film in a comedic direction and there was too much improvisation.
Ron Howard was brought in (a more conventional, reliable Hollywood guy) to fix it and bring it back in line.

Also there were doubts about the ability of Alden Ehrenreich to pull off the performance of a character who we loved so much, largely because of Harrison Ford’s star power.

I kept my expectations pretty low. I just thought – I’d like to see what happens, I just want to enter the world of Star Wars again and see what it’s like. I was ready to be disappointed though.

The film has underperformed at the box office. I’m not sure of the exact figures, but it’s taken less than it should have and might be considered as a financial failure, possibly even losing money for the studio in the short to medium term. It’s bound to make money eventually, long term, but the general feel is that it didn’t do as well as the studio hoped. Perhaps we’ve all had enough of Star Wars now. Star Wars fatigue, or maybe the fanbase has gone a bit weird. Star Wars has always been seen as an indestructible franchise. But the Last Jedi divided audiences, with quite a lot of fans absolutely hating it. Maybe Solo has suffered from the so-called Star Wars backlash.

But Solo isn’t really like The Last Jedi. It doesn’t have the same subtext of progressive politics, or themes that seem to subvert the core ideas of Star Wars. It’s pretty conventional and straightforward stuff.

What I liked

  • The performance by Alden Ehrenreich. He was charismatic, swashbuckling but also had a vulnerable side – the key things that Harrison Ford brought to the role originally. Han Solo has swagger and he’s really cool, but there’s something a bit vulnerable and loveable about him. He’s quite goofy and adorable, but also capable of being quite a ruthless fighter when necessary. It’s an interesting character and the actor did a good job of hitting those points. It’s not just a Harrison Ford impression. He seems to have got the spirit of Han Solo.
  • The dirty, gritty world.
  • Visual effects were incredible (although the whole film was very murky – intentional? Bad cinematography? I personally like that. I don’t need everything to be brightly lit like in the prequels. I like Clint Eastwood films that are full of shadow and darkness and you don’t see everything in bright contrast.)
  • The absence of Jedi and light sabres – it made a nice change. This was all about just having a good blaster at your side, knowing who to trust. It was like Rogue One in that sense. You got the idea that people could die – they weren’t immortal cartoon characters with superhuman abilities.
  • The train robbery scene was amazing, particularly the explosion at the end. I’m not sure why the empire needs to transport goods by train, considering they totally have spaceships, but it made for a good scene and made me think of old action movies and westerns that have action scenes on trains. The film was full of this kind of thing – standard movie tropes but in a Star Wars universe and I liked that. It was appealingly old school.
  • It was a slightly smaller story and that was appealing too. Sometimes you don’t want it to be about the huge Star Wars narrative about destiny and the force. Just a small, compact story about low-level gangsters is all you need.
  • Not too many geeky references to other films. There were some, but they were *fairly* subtle…
  • Nice chemistry between Solo and Chewbacca.
  • There are a couple of jokes which were not bad and pretty much in the spirit of the original films. They didn’t go overboard on the humour like in The Last Jedi, which a lot of the fans hated. I think the original directors probably had a lot more humour in it and after seeing the audience response to the humour in TLJ perhaps Kathleen Kennedy decided to replace them for a more serious director. There is a moment when Han Solo speaks Chewbacca’s language which was a bit over the top (if he speaks Wookie, why did he never do it in the other films – seems like a cheap trick, but it didn’t ruin the film for me.
  • Chewy has some badass moments.
  • Qu’ira’s character is interesting as a femme fatale. Emilia Clarke is very easy on the eye and I found her character to be interesting because I never knew where her loyalties were and there was always this sense that she was going to betray Han, and Han was sort of obsessed with her. It’s a bit like your first love – when, as a younger guy, you fall in love with a girl who might be slightly out of your league and you know she’s always going to break your heart.
  • Just really enjoyable. Woody Harrelson was a dependable screen presence as ever.

What I didn’t like

  • The cheesy musical score running through a lot of the scenes, as if we needed to be told how to feel and to make sure we didn’t get bored or anything
    Some cheesy clichés, which I can’t really remember now – but a lot of typical movie tropes and “yeah, right” moments.
  • There are probably some plot holes and things that didn’t make sense, but I can’t remember what they are. Well, there’s a moment when one character dies and I thought “why did that happen, it seemed completely unnecessary”
  • Some of the moments when they tried to link this film with the wider Star Wars universe – like linking it to some plot points in Rogue One – or just trying to include some of the large Star Wars themes – the birth of the rebellion. It seemed forced, and shoehorned – I mean, like they forced certain big themes into the film (no pun intended). It would have been better to make it a completely self-contained film without having to connect it to the broader world of Star Wars, the birth of the rebellion and all that.
  • Classic westerns like Sergio Leone’s dollar trilogy (spaghetti westerns) are just about those characters in an isolated story. It would have been good to do something like that. Let the audience use their imagination to fit it in with the larger universe.
  • Also, it feels a little bit like Star Wars is pushing an ideological position these days, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I suppose it always was – the rebellion, the empire. It was basically about the struggle of local groups of freedom fighters against a vastly more powerful military dictatorship. But that message was usually delivered a bit more subtly in the original films. These days it’s like Star Wars needs to push this message a bit harder for some reason.

I can’t go into it in more detail without spoiling the film.

Anyway, those were my thoughts about Solo: A Star Wars Story. If you’ve seen it, let me know what you thought.

And I just talked about it there because it’s something Sammy and I discussed.

Let me remind you – sugarsammy.com to get news of his upcoming shows – possibly in a city near you soon.

Thanks for listening.

Other news

The World Cup is going on. I really want to talk about that a lot, like I did in 2014 – but I have so many episodes to upload! And I’m working on LEP Premium – basically making some episodes to upload soon and then I’ll launch it properly.

I usually worry when I have too much content to upload. I tend to think – if I upload too much (like loads of World Cup episodes) then people won’t be able to listen to it all and then they might just stop listening completely… they’ll think “Oh I can’t keep up and I don’t really like The World Cup so I’ll just move on to something else” and…

So, expect some WC episodes coming soon during the tournament, but if that’s not your cup of tea (or World Cup of Tea) then I suppose you can just skip them and know that it’s not all going to be about football forever.

Speak to you soon. Bye!

Luke