Category Archives: Family

629. Do you ever … ? (with James) Strange Habits & Funny Observations

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A funny conversation about strange habits that we don’t often talk about, with my brother James. Notes & scripts available below.

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Yes, this is a long episode…

…but remember the best way to listen to these episodes is by using a podcast app on your phone. That way you can listen to a bit, pause the episode and when you choose to listen again your app will remember where you previously stopped. If you’re wondering which podcast app to use, let me recommend the Luke’s English Podcast App, which contains the entire episode archive and loads of bonus stuff. Just search for Luke’s English Podcast App in the app store for Apple devices or Google Play store for Android, and yes it’s completely free. Using a podcast app means that you don’t have to listen to an entire episode in one sitting, which is the best way to listen to longer podcasts like this one.

Introduction (after the jingle)

In this episode, let’s just ask each other a bunch of “do you ever?” questions.

This is going to involve using present simple tense a lot. This is the most basic verb tense we have in English, and we use it to talk about permanent facts and habitual behaviour.

In lessons at school this tense is often taught to students at low levels because it’s a really important foundation for general English, but it tends to be a little bit dull – not the way students deal with the tense, but the way it’s presented in textbooks. Usually, materials based around present simple tense just involve daily routines, what time you normally get up, eat lunch, go to bed etc.

Students at that level lack the vocabulary to be able to talk about habits and routines in a more complex way. When they do have more vocabulary at higher levels, the course books always focus on other tenses – e.g. past tenses for telling stories about the past, future tenses for making predictions about the future, conditional sentences and modal verbs for speculating and so on.

The poor present simple tense is left with this boring reputation of just being a low-level bit of grammar which we only use to talk about what time we get up in the morning and how often we go to the gym.

So, let’s come back to present simple tense and see if we can use it to talk about slightly more unusual and fun things.

As a teacher, the main problem I have noticed when students are using present simple tense is just remembering to add ‘s’ or maybe ‘es’ (which often adds another syllable to the word – like ‘I wish’ and ‘he wishes’ for example). Often it’s just missing 3rd person forms. Like someone saying “He go” when it should be “he goes”. It’s so basic but it’s worth self-correcting if it happens.

Anyway, this episode is called “Do you ever?” and I’ve prepared a big list of unusual behaviour which I think we don’t often talk about, but which I think many of us do, or maybe it’s just me.

Now, I don’t necessarily do all of these things. They’re just based on observations I’ve made. Also, some of the things in this list were written by my brother during a conversation we had ages ago about weird little habits that we have.

Let’s see what happens in terms of the language that comes out. Will we switch to other tenses at any point? What kind of vocabulary will emerge? And do you ever do these slightly unusual things?

***Interruption***

I’m interrupting here because, before we go any further, I think it’s necessary to say a few things about this episode in order to help you understand it all a bit better.

First of all, you should know that this is quite a silly and rambling episode and it shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Most of what you’re going to hear is just for fun really and I hope you enjoy it.

There is quite a lot of rude language in the episode and by that I mean things like the F word (you mean the word “Fuck” – err, yes – OKay, thanks. Just checking. Wait – who are you? Never mind, carry on!) So there is some swearing but for me that’s quite normal in an informal situation but obviously – swearing is still not a good idea in polite company or at work for example. But for two people like James and me chatting informally at home, swearing might happen and, you know – I want this to be authentic, as if you’re sitting with us the whole time. So, that’s why there is swearing.

Also, I think it will probably be difficult for many of you to follow this conversation because we talk about some very specific and quite personal things, sometimes we talk quickly because we’re in a rush to say things before the other one interrupts us, we talk over each other sometimes and the topic of conversation changes a lot as we go through each question quite quickly.

So this is definitely going to be a difficult one, depending on your level of English of course. But sometimes you need a challenge!

Generally, I think I am quite easy to understand when I’m talking on my own, even when I’m speaking quickly. I just have a clear voice. But when I’m talking to friends on the podcast I think it becomes a lot more difficult to understand everything and that might demotivate you. But you need a bit of a challenge from time to time. I hope the bits that you understand will carry you through the bits that you don’t understand.

But I do want to help you understand as much as possible, so I’m now going to read out all the Do You Ever…? Questions that we answer in this episode. I’m going to read them all out now, just to give you a chance to understand them all in advance. This can make a big difference to your comprehension of this conversation.

If you have already had a chance to think about the different things that we talk about, you’ll be in a much better position to understand it all.

So, let me now go through this list of “Do you ever…?” questions and I’d like you to concentrate and just try to understand each one and then prepare to hear what we have to say about them in the rest of the conversation.

You should also consider whether you do these particular little things or not, and if you consider them to be normal, funny or weird.

Right, so listen carefully – these are the questions that James and I are going to discuss in this conversation. Here we go…

Do you ever…?

  • Get song lyrics stuck in your head (like an earworm)

  • Aim at things when you pee

  • Use a special system for getting to sleep

  • Have dreams or nightmares

  • Wave at people on boats

  • Look out of the window in a moving car and imagine that you’re running along next to the car like Mario or Sonic, jumping over obstacles, or that you’re cutting everything with a huge saw or laser as you move past

  • Shave your beard into a funny moustache for a moment when shaving

  • Talk to yourself in a different voice, when nobody else is around

  • Wipe while sitting or wipe while standing

  • Imagine doing an amazing performance in front of your old school during an assembly or something

  • Avoid stepping on the cracks in the pavement, or live by any other superstitions

  • Go to the hairdressers and have a really bad time but say nothing about it

  • Drink loads of tea or coffee at work just so you get more toilet breaks

  • Smoke cigarettes because you’re bored, or decide to smoke a cigarette because you see someone in a movie smoking

  • Imagine what you would do if a zombie apocalypse happened right now

  • Count the number of steps it takes you to get up a flight of stairs or go from the sofa to the toilet

  • Flip something, like a remote control, in the air over and over again until you drop it

  • Do fake bets with yourself or your friends

  • Badly need the loo on the way home

  • Listen to songs and completely misunderstand or mishear the lyrics

    Fugzi – Waiting Room

    The lyrics are, “I am a patient boy. I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait.”

    James thought it was, “I am a pastry boy. I weigh, I weigh, I weigh, I weigh.” 

  • Open toilet doors with your elbows

  • Use the back of your hand or certain fingers for touching your face, as if the back of your hand or your knuckle are ‘totally safe’

  • Think “that would be a good name for a band”

  • Fall asleep in public and then suddenly wake up because your head has suddenly moved, you’ve snored or you’ve made another noise, or your head has moved back and your mouth has hung open, or you’ve drooled out of your mouth

  • Throw a ball of paper at the bin, miss, pick up the ball and try again from the exact same spot as before

  • Eat any parts of yourself – e.g nails, dead skin or bogies

  • Tap your foot to the beat of other people’s music which you can overhear from their headphones, in order to show them that you can hear it (or because the music is actually good)

  • Walk past someone you know in the street and go to say hello, then realise they’ve chosen to blank you (to ignore you)

  • Not move down in public transport even though you could, because you want to save space for yourself and because you generally hate other people

  • Fall in love with a stranger on public transport and yet do absolutely nothing about it other than glance at them and hope they don’t notice

  • Add your own voiceover track to films or TV shows

  • Doodle particular things with a pen while you’re on the phone

  • Hate strangers on public transport for no reason

  • Put toast in the toaster, it comes up not done properly, then you put it back and then it’s burnt

  • Lie on your back and throw a ball or maybe an orange into the air, and fail to catch it

  • Walk for ages with a stone in your shoe – it feels massive, then you take it out and it’s tiny

  • Find everything totally fascinating, just before bedtime – especially if you promised yourself earlier in the day that you’d have an early night

Ending

That was the LEP Jingle Megamix that you heard at the end there. I haven’t played that on the podcast for a while. If you’d like to know where all those little samples in that jingle come from, check out the Jingles & Music category in the LEP App. There’s a full episode there in which I go through all the samples and explain where they all come from. It’s called “Deconstructing the LEP Jingle Megamix”.

Well done for listening to all of that. I wonder how many of you have made this far, and how many people just couldn’t handle it any longer for whatever reason, and how many skeletons there are with headphones on right now – skeletons that were perfectly healthy fresh-faced humans when they started listening to this, who slowly perished as the episode went on.

But not you – no, you made it all the way through and there’s a good chance you laughed with us, and perhaps were struck by a profound sense of shared experience when you realised that you also do some of the things we talked about.

But well done to you, in any case and I hope you also picked up some English along the way – because, after all, that is the main purpose of this whole thing, of course. I expect the lower level listeners or the more serious listeners probably stopped listening because they couldn’t keep up or because they felt that they didn’t have time. I’m not going to get into all the stuff about the pros and cons of long episodes vs shorter episodes and things like that. Anyway, the point is – if you made it this far then “nice one” and I wonder what your favourite moments were from this episode. You could share your thoughts in the comment section of course.

Let me thank James again for being on the podcast. I always enjoy our episodes together and I hope that that comes across in the recording.

Right, time to stop talking. There’s no time to mention that you should sign up to LEP Premium at www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium. No time to that, but you should anyway. There are now over 60 premium items available and more premium episodes are coming, I promise. They just take quite a lot of work and preparation. But there will be more coming before Christmas.

All I’ll say now is thank you again for listening and I will speak to you again on the podcast soon, but for now – goodbye!

What’s the music at the end of the episode, Luke?

The music you can hear at the end is called Wonderland and it was produced by James on his Akai MPC2000. You can check it out (and his other tunes) on his Soundcloud page here soundcloud.com/jt-2000

628. OASIS (with James)

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A conversation with James about the English rock band Oasis, including details about their story, music, lyrics and the sibling rivalry between Noel and Liam Gallagher.

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Introduction

Hello listeners, how are you today? Welcome to this new episode.

As you can see from the title, this episode is all about Oasis – and yes, that is Oasis the band. Do you know them? Many of you will be thinking “Yes, I know them Luke!” or “Of course we know them – and you like to do impressions of them on the podcast. So yeah we definitely know them!” but some of you will be thinking, “huh?” “who?” “Oasis?” “what?”

The name might be pronounced differently in your country. In France they’re called “owA-zees”. In Japan it’s オアシス “O-wa-shisu” (something like that).  In English it’s a 3-syllable word and the stress is on the second syllable. o-WAY-sis.

Anyway, Oasis man. Do you know what I mean?

*Luke plays some musical clips to make sure you know who Oasis are

Do you know what I mean?

Most of you probably do. But in any case, here is a pithy summary.

Oasis are (I’m saying “are” because it’s a group) a rock band from Manchester in England. They became famous in the early to mid 1990s, but they continued as a band until 2009 when they split up, acrimoniously (which means that they had an argument and fell out).

The most famous members of the group are the Gallagher brothers – Noel and Liam. They were born to Irish parents living in Manchester. So they’re English, Mancunian to be more specific, but with Irish roots.

They are famous for their particular brand of rock & roll music which seemed to be heavily influenced by so many classic British bands from the 60s, 70s and 80s, and their general attitude and demeanour – unpretentious, cool and funny, but also arrogant, cocky, rude and sometimes even violent and aggressive.

There’s a lot more to it than just those things and that is why my brother James and I decided the other day to record an episode all about this band.

Yes, this is a long episode, but it should cover most of the significant details (although I’m sure that we’ve missed certain things).

Remember, you don’t have to listen to this episode all in one go. You can pause and the podcast app on your phone will remember where you stopped, and then you can carry on later. So, break it up a bit if you like.

The aim for the episode is to tell you the main things that I think you need to know about Oasis and their music and to try to explain their cultural significance (in the UK at least) and personal significance (to us). Also, I just want to provide you with more content which I hope is interesting to listen to in order to help with your English.

At the end of the episode you will hopefully be more able to understand and talk about this iconic English band.

Just one other thing before we continue… There is quite a lot of swearing in this episode, so it’s not really for children or the swearing intolerant.

Right then, without any further ado, let’s get fockin’ started man.

Videos (some things we mentioned in the conversation)

Supersonic (Official documentary from 2016) (2 mins)

Oasis perform Supersonic on The Word (1994) The first time they appeared on national TV (3 mins)

How Supersonic was written and recorded (from the documentary) (1min30)

Bad behaviour (1min30sec)

Slide Away (with Lyrics) Every line is like the title of a song or album

Liam and Noel argue, then Liam refuses to sing (I can’t really follow what they’re saying but it’s quite interesting to watch anyway!)

Noel talks about his song being sung by the crowd after the Manchester terrorist attack (3mins)

Champagne Supernova (with Lyrics man)

Kevin & Perry (from BBC’s Harry Enfield’s Television Programme) Perry becomes a proper geezer after a trip to Manchester (2min30sec)

And more videos…

Some other interesting and funny Oasis moments.

Noel Gallagher’s DVD commentary for the Live Forever video (5mins)

Noel Gallagher interview with comedy legend Frank Skinner (30 mins)

Liam listens to other people’s music and gives his opinions (2mins20sec)

Noel talks about why Oasis split up (7mins) “I never had enough of Oasis, I had enough of him [Liam]”

626. The Rick Thompson Report: Boris Johnson’s Brexit Deal / General Election / Football

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An update from my dad about Brexit, including details about Boris Johnson’s deal, the shutting down of Parliament, the upcoming general election and more. Includes some chat about Premiership football at the end.

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Introduction

Last time we spoke it was early August. Boris Johnson had recently become the PM and was going to negotiate a new Brexit deal after Theresa May had failed to get Parliament to accept the deal she spent over 2 years to get. Brexit, at the time was due to happen on 31st October.

I just have one question, which is “What’s been going on?”

Some Vocabulary

  • I’m getting a sense of deja vu
  • it’s a fudge / it was fudged
  • “I’d rather be dead in a ditch than ask for another extension” – Boris Johnson
  • Whips / The party whip
  • The electorate
  • To put/throw a spanner in the works
  • To upset the apple cart
  • A disreputable character
  • To stand your candidate down
  • None of this is spelled out but that’s what it means
  • You can jump to your own conclusions
  • Boris Johnson has refused point-blank
  • He’s saying Parliamentary Democracy is now defunct
  • The proroguing of parliament was null and void
  • Is that a political coup?
  • It would have been the biggest constitutional crisis since they cut Charles I’s head off
  • They didn’t get away with it

Ending

So there you have it. That was the Rick Thompson Report, recorded on Wednesday 13 November 2019.

The comment section is open if you’d like to share your thoughts there.

New episodes of LEP Premium are coming. To sign up go to www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

Also download my app to get the entire archive plus loads of bonus extras like the phrasal verb series, various videos and also bonus app only episodes. You can also access the premium subscription through the app.

Thanks for listening and I’ll speak to you again on the podcast soon!

615. Paul Taylor Became a Dad, and you won’t believe what happened next

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Find out about Paul Taylor’s life now that he’s the father of a newborn baby. How’s the baby doing? How are Paul and his wife coping? What happened during the birth? How has Paul managed to create an entirely new 1-hour comedy show, while also moving house and dealing with the madness of parenthood? How does he feel about it all? What exactly is making him angry this time? Listen on to find out.

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LEP Meetup in London (Sat 28 Sept at 6pm – Fitzroy Tavern)

Calling all London LEPsters! Following on from the success of the last meetup, there’s going to be another one in London. The date is Saturday 28th September 2019. The venue is the same as before – the Firtzroy Tavern, 16 Charlotte St, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2LY. The time – 6pm.

The Fitzroy is a classic old London pub. Various famous writers and acclaimed people have spent time there, including George Orwell, the man who wrote 1984 and Animal Farm amongst other great work. Now it’s the location of LEP meetups in London. You can get drinks and food, Zdenek Lukas is organising it again, with his board games, and I think some of the gang from the last meetup are going to return but new people are very welcome too. There will be games, friendly conversation and laughs and a good chance to practice your English and make some new friends with like-minded people.

Saturday 28th September 2019. The Firtzroy Tavern, 16 Charlotte St, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2LY. The time – 6pm.

Introduction Transcript

Hi folks, how are you all doing? And how about you, yes specifically you? How’s that thing that’s been bothering you a bit? Has it cleared up? How did that thing go? You know the thing you had to do? Did it go ok? If you’re driving while listening to this, please keep your eyes on the road at all times. If you’re running while listening (maybe for exercise, or maybe in order to escape something, like a bear) then keep it up! Don’t stop running! If you’re walking somewhere, don’t forget the old combination – right foot, left foot , right foot, left foot etc. If you’re sitting still, then I hope you are nice and comfy. Good. Now that the conditions are right, let’s continue.

So, Paul Taylor is back on the podcast. I’ve been wondering what title to choose for this episode. I was considering “Baby Update with Paul” but I thought that sounded a bit boring and flat. I considered calling it “Down in the Dumps with Paul Taylor” but that won’t make much sense until you’ve heard the next episode. Having the right title on an episode can make all the difference. It’s the thing that entices people to actually click the play button and listen. Most people probably just listen regardless of the title, but nevertheless, the title is vital as the most direct way to market the episode to your listeners. So it is something that I find myself scratching my head over sometimes.

So that’s why, this time, I’ve gone with the most clickbait-y title I could think of. “Paul Taylor Became a Dad – and you won’t believe what happened next” is exactly the sort of title you get on those annoying online articles that you somehow can’t resist clicking on. So there it is. Now you will have to listen in order to decide if the “You won’t believe what happened next” part of the title is justifiable or not. But that’s it – the title is an experiment in clickbait and a kind of ironic joke too. Anyway, to get straight to the point – this episode is about Paul’s experience of becoming a father for the first time.

For this episode I originally had a plan to do an idioms game with Paul, which would involve us talking and trying to naturally add some idioms into our conversation, but I forgot to introduce the game at the start of the episode because we immediately went flying down the rabbit hole of Paul’s baby news. So, no idioms game – that’s going to be in the next one. And this episode is slightly shorter than normal, which makes a nice change. That’s because after half an hour we decided to start doing the game and I’ve decided to make that another episode of the podcast, which will be the next one. So, an idioms game with Paul is coming up in the next episode, which means that this episode is basically a catching up chat with Paul focusing on life as a new Dad.

You might have heard the episode I did nearly 2 years ago about the arrival of my daughter. It’s episode 502.

In that one I talked with my wife about what happened when our baby arrived, what it is like, how the baby is getting on and everything. My wife and I are lucky that we had no major issues, the baby was born healthy and happy and in the weeks and months afterwards we enjoyed the experience of having a third member of the family with us and it felt all loved up and sweet, but it’s not always like that. It depends on the child and the situation you’re in. One thing’s for sure though, having a baby is a bit like a bomb going off in your life. It can cause quite a lot of difficulty, chaos and fatigue in ways that you don’t expect.

So this time it’s the turn of Paul Taylor and his wife and I will let you listen to Paul describing his experiences of looking after their newborn, what happened during the birth, and whether it has been a fairly easy ride so far, or on the contrary – something of an exhausting ordeal.

In any case, I would like to wish them both a hearty congratulations, but let’s now find out how Paul has been getting on with it all.

Your job as ever is just to try and keep up with the chat and see if there are any new words or phrases you can spot. It might be worth revisiting some of my other episodes about having kids, especially ones in which I explain all the relevant vocab (ep162 was all about that). There’s a list of episodes on the page for this episode on the website (below).

Alright then, so without further ado – let’s find out how Paul’s been getting on.

Conversation with Paul begins – How does he feel about being a dad?

Ending Script

That’s the end of this part. I just want to say thanks again to Paul and to wish him and his wife well. To be honest it sounds like they’ve been having a really hard time with the baby crying constantly, which is horrible. When your child cries, it is a truly horrible feeling. It gets you right in your soul and it’s like torture. It can be very tough to be stuck indoors with a crying baby all day every day. It can drive you round the bend. I really hope it gets better soon and the two of them can start to enjoy parenthood properly.

It’s tough having kids, there’s no doubt about it. It can be horrible – but somehow the good things carry you through the bad things. I just hope they get to taste some of the good stuff soon, because there is a lot of joy in having kids. For me it got much better when our daughter started interacting with us more and now it’s very funny and entertaining trying to have conversations with her. I hope Paul can enjoy that too in the near future.

I must say I am very impressed that he’s managed to come up with an entirely new 1-hour comedy show during all of this. That is very difficult, especially when your first show was developed over 3 years and was a big hit. Now he has to do it all again, but he has done it. A new 1 hour show called “So British (ou presque)” and you can see it at a venue called FLOW in Paris from 18 October to 4 January. More details on the website (below).

www.francebillet.com/place-spectacle/manifestation/One-man-woman-show-PAUL-TAYLOR-FLTAY.htm#/calendrier/

Idioms Game (next episode)

You heard there that I mentioned the idioms card game I had intended to play during the conversation. That’s what’s going to happen in the next episode. A game in which you can try to spot various common idioms in our conversation, and we’ll explain and clarify them for you too.

Just a reminder, you can check out previous episodes I’ve done about parenthood if you’re interested in learning more vocabulary about the subject. Check out episode 161 which was a conversation with a heavily pregnant Amber Minogue about what it’s like being 8 months pregnant. The following episode (162) covers a lot of vocabulary relating to pregnancy, childbirth and childcare. Then there’s episode 502 which is wife and me chatting. And if you remember there are also several episodes with Ben and Andy from the London School, in which they both prepare me (and scare me) ahead of the birth of my daughter. (Links at the bottom of the page)

Raising Bilingual Children 

On the subject of having children and learning English, I have received quite a lot of requests about doing a podcast about how to raise children to be bilingual. I guess quite a lot of you out there are having children too and you really want them to grow up to be effective speakers of English. What’s the best way to achieve this? How do you bring up kids to speak another language?

This is actually a really complicated question and there are many different situations in which this might be a concern.

One parent speaks a different language, but the family lives in the home country of the other parent (my situation, same as many of my friends)

The two parents are from one country, but living in a different place now and bringing up a child there.

The two parents are non-natives living in a non-English speaking place, but they want their child to grow up speaking English.

How do you go about helping the child to learn English? Also, how do I talk to my daughter? What is the typical way to talk to children in English? Are there any particular phrases or words that we use.

So this is actually a pretty big project and to properly deal with it I think it’s necessary to perhaps get the benefit of qualified professionals who know about the various kinds of research into second language acquisition for kids and the ins and outs of bilingualism in children.

So, what I plan to do is interview my friends about their experiences of bringing up bilingual kids. I also would like to take advantage of my contacts at the BC and ask some of our staff for their professional opinions regarding bilingualism and how you can help your kids to learn English.

So this is a podcast series that requires some preparation but it’s one that I’m going to start working on soon.

In the meantime – I’m interested in your comments, if any of you out there has experience of raising a child to be bilingual – I want to hear from you. Let me know about techniques, experiences, challenges, methods – anything relating to bringing up kids who speak English. I am particularly interested in success stories of bringing up a child to speak English when English is not your native tongue, or the native tongue of your partner and you’re not living in an English speaking country. For example, Polish parents (who probably speak English a bit) bringing up a Polish child in Poland to speak good English from childhood. That might be you (but in a different country I expect). So, if you have things to say about this – send me a comment or an email. I’d like to gather together some thoughts, anecdotes and tips which I can make part of future episodes. So, have a think and get in touch with me via my website teacherluke.co.uk

Finally – London-based LEPsters, don’t forget about the official LEP meetup happening on Saturday 28th September 2019. The venue is the same as before – the Firtzroy Tavern, 16 Charlotte St, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2LY. The time – 6pm.

Reminders:

  • LEP Premium
  • Website mailing list
  • Download the app
  • Check out italki
  • Consider sending a donation to support the podcast

That’s it for this episode! Thank you for listening. The next one will feature a vocabulary game featuring about 15 different common English idioms for you to spot and learn. That’s coming soon. But for this episode it’s just time to say BYE BYE BYE!

Previous Episodes about Parenthood / Babies / Vocabulary

161. She’s Having a Baby (with Amber Minogue)

162. Having Babies: Vocabulary / A Male Perspective

502. The Birth of My Daughter

491. Becoming a Dad (with Andy & Ben) Part 1

492. Becoming a Dad (with Andy & Ben) Part 2

Paul’s last (pre-baby) appearance on the podcast

597. Growing Up / Getting Older / Becoming a Father (with Paul Taylor)

Let me know your comments about raising bilingual children!

 

608. The Mass Observation (with Mum)

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Listen to my mum talk about a social history project focusing on the lives of everyday people in the UK. Includes discussion of things like protests, plastic, identity, sex education, loneliness, and milk!

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Introduction Transcript

Hello everyone, this is LEP episode 608 and it’s called The Mass Observation (with Mum).

What’s that all about? You might be thinking. This sounds like some kind of Big Brother thing – like maybe the government observing everyone in some kind of dystopian future, and somehow my mum is involved in it.

Well, I’m afraid it’s far less dramatic than that.

In fact, the mass observation in the title is a social history project that has been going on in the UK, probably for 70 years or more. It’s a project that my mum has fairly recently got involved in.

Basically, the mass observation (now administered by the University of Sussex) aims to record everyday life in Britain through a panel of volunteer observers who either keep diaries or reply to open-ended questionnaires (known as directives). My mum is one of those volunteers and since this project is all about collecting information on everyday life in the UK we thought it might be an interesting episode of Luke’s English Podcast.

So that’s what you’re going to get here. A conversation with my mum on a variety of topics which have come up in the quarterly questionnaires from the Mass Observation.

So, you can expect some rambling conversation between the two of us on things like this:

  • protests
  • plastic
  • identity and gender identity
  • sex education in school
  • loneliness and belonging
  • and milk

There’s also some chat at the start about Prince Harry & Meghan Markle, following on from the last time my mum was on the podcast when we talked about the royal wedding.

So now you can enjoy about an hour’s worth of my mum’s nice voice and accent talking about a variety of issues relating to everyday life in the UK.

I hope you enjoy it. I’ll be back to talk a bit more on the other side of the conversation.

In terms of language learning, your task as ever is to just keep on listening. At the very least, that’s all you have to do here. Just listen, follow the conversation, see what you can learn from it and try to notice any features of English or vocabulary along the way. But the main thing, just enjoy this chat between my mum and me.

Ending

I hope you enjoyed that. I’d like to say a big thank you again to my mum for being on the podcast again, and to all members of my family who make a huge contribution every time they’re on.

So what’s up? Nearly the end of the summer holidays. We’re approaching the end of August.

I hope you’ve had a good summer.

Remember in July I mentioned a couple of times the LEP meetup that was happening in London? Well, I went to it and met about 25-30 LEPsters, had some drinks and conversation with them for a few hours, and what a pleasant experience that was!

In fact we recorded some samples of audio during the meetup, with everyone talking for a minute or two. I think I’ll be putting an episode together with that.

Speak to you again on the podcast soon! Bye!

 

606. The English Seaside (with James)

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Explaining and describing the culture of the English seaside experience, with James.

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I’m coming to the LEPster meetup on Sunday 28 July 2019. See you there?

Where? The Fitzroy Tavern near Oxford Street & Tottenham Court Road. Full address is 16 Charlotte Street, London W1T 2LY. Put the postcode into your google maps app (or equivalent) and it should direct you there.
When – 2PM on Sunday 28 July (that’s this coming Sunday)
The host is Zdenek Lukas – you’ll recognise him in the pub because he will be the guy with the board games. If you’re coming please just send Zdenek an email to let him know you’ll be there so he has an idea of how many people to expect. teacherzdenek@gmail.com

Introduction Transcript

Hello listeners, how are you? Here is the second of a pair of episodes that I recorded a couple of weeks ago while I was on holiday with my family in England. That’s the same holiday during which I got the two flat tyres that you heard all about in the last episode.

During the holiday, my wife, our daughter, my parents and my brother all travelled down to the south coast of England, where we spent some time at the beach in places like Lyme Regis, Seaton, West Bay and other parts of the Jurassic Coast as it is called. Yes, the Jurassic Coast. Not Jurassic Park – no because that’s not a real holiday resort is it? it’s just a film you see. No, we spent a week on the Jurassic Coast.

What’s the Jurassic Coast? I hear you ask. Are there dinosaurs there?

Here’s a quick extract from Wikipedia which should explain.

The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about 96 miles, and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in mid-December 2001.

The site spans 185 million years of geological history, coastal erosion having exposed an almost continuous sequence of rock formation covering the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

At different times, this area has been desert, shallow tropical sea and marsh, and the fossilised remains of the various creatures that lived here have been preserved in the rocks.

Basically, there are loads of fossils to be found there, including dinosaurs.

But anyway, I digress there into pre-history. But speaking of ancient creatures, more recently, my family had an English coastal holiday on the Jurassic Coast. Yes, the weather was fantastic. Blue sky, sunshine, not too hot. Just right. While we were there James and I decided that it might be a good idea for us to record a podcast all about the English seaside experience.

What is it really like at the beach in England? What kind of beaches can you find there? What are the typical things that happen at the beach? What sort of things can you see and do there? What is the culture and history of the English seaside?

That is what we attempted to achieve in this episode. I say attempted, because it was actually quite difficult, mainly due to the conditions in which we recorded the conversation.

I recorded this in my parents’ living room, quite late at night after everyone else had gone to bed. We’d eaten a fairly heavy meal (my Mum is a great cook and so we always completely stuff our faces while staying with my parents). Also the holiday had been quite active with lots of sun and fresh air, and of course we had spent a long and tiring day on our unexpected road trip the day before.

As a result the “vibe” of the episode is quite sleepy and generally quite low energy.

In fact, James, who was sitting on the sofa, became steadily more horizontal as the recording went on. At one point he even lies down to continue podcasting in the foetal position with his eyes closed.

I can get quite frustrated and irritable sometimes while recording with James because I’m trying to produce nothing less than top top quality English podcast content for my international audience of listeners and I sometimes fear that his general sleepiness will be interpreted, by you, as a lack of enthusiasm, and I wouldn’t want that on the podcast would I?

So, at certain moments you’ll hear me getting quite angry and actually I very nearly gave up the recording at one point, but James assured me that he wasn’t about to fall asleep and that he would, at the very least, keep his eyes open in an effort to stay conscious while podcasting.

There is some strong language – that means swearing, and just other moments when I start having a go at James a bit, showing my irritation and trying to keep the energy up.

I could have edited those bits out, but I’ve chosen to keep them in because, having listened back to this recording, I actually think they’re quite funny and entertaining. After all, I want my podcast to be authentic and what’s more authentic than the sounds of genuine bickering between two brothers?

In any case, there are only a few moments of mild arguing and swearing, which is quite normal between James and me, but you know, we love each other really and as I said before I now only really want to express my gratitude to James for agreeing to be a guest on the podcast again, when he probably just wanted to go to bed.

So, anyway let’s begin. So come with us now as we enter my parents comfortable living room, late on a warm evening in July as James and I raid our dad’s drinks cabinet, share a glass of scotch whiskey together and attempt to explain the sights, sounds and perhaps smells of the English seaside, in all its glory…

Sandy beaches
Pebble beaches
Upmarket beach towns
Fishing towns
Working class seaside resorts
Sticks of rock
Cockles and mussels
Seagulls
End-of-the-pier entertainment
Fish and chips
And more…

Rude (and often very sexist) old English seaside postcards

A Punch & Judy Show (a modern version, with less violence! Yes, it’s pretty weird.)

Pictures

Lyme Regis Picture GRAHAM HUNT HG12106

Brighton Pier

Blackpool

Waves in the sand, Norfolk

If we missed anything – let us know in the comment section.

Ending Transcript

So there you have it – we managed to talk about the English seaside while maintaining consciousness throughout!

I’d like to thank James again for his participation and for not falling asleep at any point.

Listening back to that, I didn’t sound like I was frustrated at all, right? I thought I’d got more angry and irritated than that, but all-in-all it was a nice one, wasn’t it?

I hope you liked it and that it gave you a flavour of what it’s like to visit the beach in England.

Have a look at the page for this episode on the website. You’ll find some visuals there and also a transcript for the intro and this ending bit.

Just a reminder before we go – there is a LEPster meetup happening in London this coming Sunday (28th July 2019) from 2PM at the Fitzroy Tavern near Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road – the postcode for your google maps app (or equivalent) is W1T 2LY

Full Address: 16 Charlotte St, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2LY

And yes, I can confirm that I will be coming too, probably with James himself and a couple of friends of ours.

If you’re coming, let the meetup host know. That’s Zdenek. You can email him at teacherzdenek@gmail.com just to let him know. If you’re wondering which one he is – he’ll be the guy with the board games.

Hope to see you there. I might only be able to stay for a little bit – perhaps an hour or so, but it would be good to meet you and we can chat in English a bit, perhaps have a drink, maybe play a board game… we will see.

Also, Premium subscribers – I am working on some material for you which will arrive soon. That’s going to contain the usual language teaching to help you improve your vocab, grammar and pronunciation.

If you’re interested in becoming a Premium subscriber go to teacherluke.co.uk/premium and you can sign up there, then use your login details to sign into the LEP app to listen to the premium episodes. You can also check your subscription details by logging into your account from a computer – just go to teacherluke.co.uk/premium, click the three lines in the top left corner and then log in. Also, any technical support issues that you have – email support@libsyn.com and make sure you mention that you are a subscriber to teacherluke’s premium content. Teacherluke is the name you’ll need to use to make sure they know which service it is.

OK then, so, until next time I shall bid ye farewell in the usual way by saying “Goodbye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye!”

605. Unexpected Road Trip (with James)

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James and Luke go on an accidental road trip in the south-west of England and record a rambling podcast, while slowly going a bit mad. Will they make it to their destination before sunset? Listen to find out what happens and to learn some words and culture in the process. Photos below. 

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LEPSTER MEETUP IN LONDON

Where? The Fitzroy Tavern, 16 Charlotte St, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2LY (near Oxford Street/Tottenham Court Road)
When? Sunday 28 July from 2PM (and probably continuing into the afternoon)
Who? English teacher Zdenek Lukas is the host and all LEPsters (and non-LEPsters) are welcome! Also, Luke might be there with his brother and friends.
Email teacherzdenek@gmail.com to let him know you’re coming.
Come to chat, meet people, play board games in English and have fun!

Episode Introduction (after the jingle)

Hello, welcome back to the podcast everyone, I hope you’re all doing well and having a nice summer or winter depending on which hemisphere you are currently residing in.

I am currently in the middle of a very busy teaching schedule – teaching classes all day every day this week and next week, and of course in the evenings I’m looking after my daughter and dealing with all the usual aspects of life in general. So, I have not had a lot of time to work on podcast episodes. That’s why there’s been a delay and that might continue for a few more weeks, we’ll see. But here’s a new episode!

There are actually loads of things I’d like to talk about, including the fact that England are now World Cup winners – yes, we won the World Cup for the first time ever, so it finally came home! I’m not talking about football of course, nope – I’m talking about cricket (yes, that still counts! It’s still a big deal because let me remind you that it is the world’s second most popular spectator sport.) Yes, England are the champions of the world. Those of you who come from cricket-playing countries will know exactly what I’m talking about. Everyone else will probably be confused. And don’t you dare compare it to baseball. Anyway, England won the cricket in dramatic fashion, beating New Zealand in an incredibly close game which went right down to the wire. I’m not going to talk about it in this episode actually, but I did want to mention it because of course I am very proud and I’ve had plenty of requests from listeners in places like India and Pakistan who want me to talk about it. I’ll see if I can cover it in an upcoming episode. If you can’t wait and you want some cricket chat on the podcast, you could always listen to episode 473 in the archive which is a conversation with my dad all about cricket.

But anyway, this episode is all about an unexpected road trip that I went on with my brother recently.

Last week, I was on holiday with my family. We travelled to England and actually I did manage to record two episodes while I was there. This is the first one and it was completely unplanned and recorded on my brother’s phone during various parts of a long and quite frustrating day that we spent near the end of the holiday.

In fact, this episode is a sort of road trip diary, recorded on the road with James.

In this episode you will be able to hear…
Exactly what happened when I got a flat tyre while driving back from the holiday. A tyre is the rubber part of the wheel of a car or bike, in this case car – the black rubber part of the wheel which is full of air. So I got a flat tyre, which is where the tyre (or inner tube inside the tyre) gets punctured and all the air comes out. In fact I got two flat tyres in the same week, which I think is really unlucky. Anyway, the second one caused my brother and me to end up having to go on an unexpected journey through the lanes and roads of Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. On the way we recorded a series of rambling conversations covering the details of our trip and lots of other topics, and that is what you’re going to listen to.

So why don’t you join us on our accidental road trip and listen to us rambling on about…

  • The specific problem with the car, what happened and how it could be repaired
  • Different words and expressions for feeling angry (because I was very angry with the situation, certainly at the beginning, although you can’t really hear it in my voice because I’m so cool, calm and collected)
  • The dangers of drinking strong coffee and the phenomenon of “coffee rage”
  • The film Robocop and the 2014 Robocop Reboot (a very random tangent)
  • How and why cars might pull each other at nightclubs
  • Going insane while waiting to be rescued by roadside assistance
  • Different types of pub, including how to pick the right pub for a drink in England
  • The taste of beer, and different types of beer that you can get
  • A close encounter with a famous TV comedian at a motorway service station somewhere near Bristol
  • Fascinating details of the sandwiches that we bought to help sustain us on our adventure
  • The topic of going vegan or at least just eating less meat, and why eating meat is said to be bad for the environment
  • How to actually spell and pronounce the names of some English cities and counties on our trip, including Gloucester, Gloucestershire, Worcester, Worcestershire, Warwick and Warwickshire.

All that and more, coming up in this very rambling episode, spontaneously recorded on James’ mobile phone.

Listen on to find out all the details and to hear the voices of some other members of my family at the end, and by the way there is some strong language (swearing), the sound quality might not be up to the usual high standard because it was recorded on a mobile phone (but I think it’s ok) and also there is a lot of slightly mad rambly nonsense coming up – but I think you’ve probably come to expect that sort of thing from this podcast haven’t you?
YES WE HAVE LUKE – LET’S START!

OK here we go…

Photos

597. Growing Up / Getting Older / Becoming a Father (with Paul Taylor)

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In this conversation Paul and I get a bit deep & meaningful and talk about where Paul is in his life at this point, including our thoughts about becoming a father, getting older and growing up.

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Introduction

Rambling about my birthday… My daughter is a toddler now. She toddles around.

Thank you so much for the lovely birthday messages that you sent to me.

I’d like to give a shout out to students in my class today who surprised me with presents, delicious cake and champagne – at 10.30 this morning!

We all drank champagne during the class, in the morning. It seems that champagne is the only alcohol that you can drink in the morning and it’s acceptable. You can’t really drink whiskey, wine, beer, vodka (although I’m sure in some places that a breakfast drink) – where I’m from, it’s not acceptable to drink those things in the morning and if you do you’re an alcoholic, but champagne – go for it!

It was pretty interesting for me to teach English after having drunk champagne, which was great.

Anyway, I am another year older, which I am fine with as I said in a recent episode.

But that brings me to this episode, which is a conversation with one of the pod-pals, Paul Taylor, and the conversation is all about growing up, getting older and becoming a father.

As you will know if you heard the previous episode, Paul is about to become a Dad for the first time. His wife is pregnant and the due date is at the end of June. Congrats to the two of them, on behalf of all the LEPsters! It’s a girl. Hopefully she’ll grow up to be friends with my daughter and the other kids from our circle of friends. We don’t know what the name will be yet. We’re all hoping that the rest of the pregnancy goes well, and the birth too.

Having a child can be a bit of a turning point in your life. I don’t know if you have children.

So, in this conversation Paul and I get a bit deep & meaningful and talk about where Paul is in his life at this point, including our thoughts about becoming a father, getting older and growing up.

All I have by way of an introduction at this stage, are some questions for you to consider in order to prepare you a bit for what you’re going to hear.

Questions to consider before you listen to the conversation

  • As you get older, does your perception of other people change?
  • For example, if you see a group of 18 year olds, how do you feel?
  • If you see people who are in their retirement, elderly people, how do you feel?
  • How do you feel about the passage of time and getting older?
  • How does life change as you move from being a teenager into a young adult and then into being middle-aged and retirement age and old age?
  • What do you think of the way society views old people? Are they looked after, represented or respected fully in your society?
  • What about having children? Does it change your life? How? Is it a change for the better? In what ways?
  • What about your lifestyle?
  • Are you good at looking after yourself?
  • Do you keep yourself fit and do enough exercise? If not, why not?
  • Have you managed to find a sport or exercise routine that suits you and that you enjoy?
  • How about your diet and eating habits? Do you manage your diet well? Do you make sure you’re staying healthy and eating the right things?
  • Daily routine
  • Do you manage to get enough stuff done in your average day?
  • What’s your daily routine? Could you improve it in any way? How much discipline do you have in your life?
  • How motivated and disciplined are you about doing things that don’t bring you instant results?
  • Do you think you need to change your lifestyle as you get older? Is that an easy thing to do?
    What influence did your parents have on your life? Do you ever judge the way your parents brought you up?
  • Do you ever compare yourself to your parents? Do you ever feel like you can’t live up to their expectations or the example they set for you?
  • Were either of your parents often not there when you were growing up? Maybe one of them or both of them worked a lot and wasn’t always there. How do you feel about that?
  • At what age do people leave home and become independent, in your country?
  • What kind of time should you spend with your child? Should you always be there, or is it ok to be absent sometimes as long as you are working hard and making money to help support them?
  • If you have kids or are planning to have kids, what kind of example should you show to your children? What aspects of your personality do you want them to inherit from you? Which aspects would you rather they didn’t learn?
  • Do you need to say “yes” more in your life? Or do you need to learn how to say “no” more?
  • As you get older do you feel that you are becoming more open-minded, or less open-minded? Are you still happy to meet and get to know new people and see new places in your life as you get older?
  • And, is Paul ready to be a Dad? Is he looking forward to it? Is he in the right stage of his life for parenthood?

These are the sorts of questions we are talking about in this episode.

So without any further ado, here is my conversation with Paul.

Ending

Congrats again to Paul and his wife Adi. Best of luck for the birth. We’re all looking forward to meeting the new Taylor when she arrives.

You heard us mention a book there.

“Yes Man” by Danny Wallace – a great, interesting and funny book written in modern plain English.

I know my listeners are always interested in finding new books to read. This one was very popular when it came out and I think it is not too difficult to read and should be full of the right kind of English. Everyday English in a plain and modern style.

There is an audiobook version which you might want to listen to. It’s available on Audible.

That’s almost it.

Podcast News / Admin

I have two more free episodes to publish before things go a bit quiet while I work on premium content.

Those next two episodes are also conversations with guests. Earlier this week I spoke to Oliver Gee, the Australian journalist and he told me lots of interesting stories about things like the recent fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral, meeting some famous people while working as a journalist and also his experiences of learning Swedish and French.

And the other conversation hasn’t been recorded yet, but it’s going to be with my Dad. We’re going to talk on Monday next week and the idea is to somehow describe the recent situation in UK politics and some other things like a recent conference that my Dad moderated about climate change, and hopefully we’ll have time to talk a bit more about football, because my Dad follows UK football very closely. That one isn’t recorded yet, but if all goes according to plan I’ll do the recording next week and publish it quickly afterwards, then the Oliver Gee episode should go up.

After that – things will go quiet for a while and there will be no free episodes probably for a couple of weeks, but I will be working hard on new premium content which should arrive steadily during that period.

To sign up to LEP premium go to www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

Don’t forget also that Paul’s live 1hr stand up show is now available on YouTube. Search for Paul Taylor Franglais. The bits which are in French have English subtitles. It’s about 50% English and 50% French. You can check out Paul’s excellent French skills. It’s impressive.

Episode 600 – YouTube Live Stream – I’ve chosen a date and time!!

It’s going to be Friday 7 June at 3pm CET (Paris time)

That’s…

  • 6AM on the west coast of the USA
  • 9AM in New York
  • 8AM in Mexico City
  • 10AM in Rio, Brazil
  • 2PM in London
  • 4pm in Moscow
  • 4pm in Ankara, Turkey
  • 6.30pm in New Delhi
  • 9pm in Shanghai
  • 10pm in Tokyo
  • 11pm in Sydney
  • 1AM on the Saturday morning in Auckland, NZ

If it’s not at the perfect time for you, then I am sorry! There’s not much I can do about that I’m afraid. Whatever time I do it, there will be some people who won’t be able to attend.
Also, this is just when I’m free!

I will be announcing this again on the podcast, but here it is – 3PM Paris time on Friday 7 June.

I’ll also create a YouTube link for the live stream which I’ll share on my website and on social media. That’s how you’ll access the live stream.

OK, cool!

Song Lyrics: Neil Young – I Am a Child

596. SLEEP with Amber & Paul

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All about the subject of SLEEP, with Amber & Paul. Listen to hear us comparing our sleeping habits, talking about insomnia, sleepwalking, talking in your sleep, snoring, falling asleep on public transport, snoring cats, Paul learning Arabic in his sleep and more, including some slightly disgusting stories, which is nice!

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Introduction Transcript

Hello folks, how are you? Amber and Paul are on the podcast again today in this episode and before we jump into our conversation I would like to do a little introduction, which I promise to keep as brief as possible.

Premium Episodes are coming…

I’m uploading quite a lot of free episodes at the moment (including this one) but, I have also been working on several Premium series, which means quite a lot of premium episodes coming soon. So if you’re a premium subscriber and you’re wondering when the next premium episodes are going to arrive – they’re coming soon.

I have a bit of a backlog of free episodes which I have to publish first and I’ll be publishing them over the next couple of weeks. Mainly those free ones are conversations with people that I organised recently when suddenly everyone became available. Sometimes that’s the way it works. Suddenly, lots of people became available around the same time, so I set up interviews with them and this is why I’ve got a bit of a backlog. I would hold onto the conversations and publish them later, but often they are time-sensitive, I mean, we talk about things which are a bit relevant to what’s going on now. So, I think I’ll publish a few free episodes maybe up until episode 599, and then the free episodes will pause for a bit while I record and publish some premium content.

So, June will probably be a month of LEP Premium mainly, meaning lots of premium content but the free podcast will be a bit quiet.

Sign up to LEP Premium at teacherluke.co.uk/premium

Episode 600 Live Stream

Episode 600 is coming up and I’m going to record it while live streaming on YouTube. I still don’t have a date for the YouTube live stream yet, but when I know more I will let you know. It’ll probably be a weekday, maybe a Friday, probably at about 3pm CET, probably at the end of June or the beginning of July. Can’t say more at this time because I don’t know.

SLEEP with Amber & Paul

The plan in this episode was to discuss the topic of sleep with Amber & Paul and we did that as you will hear, but there is about 15 minutes of chat at the beginning before we actually get to the topic!

We talk about a few differences between British and American English including expressions like “I couldn’t care less” and “I can’t be arsed”, and the way Brits and Americans say the word “Duty”.

Then there is some showbiz news from the three of us.

London LEPsters and Amberfans, please pay attention to an announcement from Amber – it’s an opportunity to see her and Sarah on stage in Islington, London on Thursday 23rd May.

LEPsters who use YouTube – listen out for some news from Paul regarding his one man stand up show #Franglais.

Also there is some pretty big personal news from Paul, not about stand up shows or anything – it’s more personal than that – and I think this is the first time he’s announcing this publicly, so this is a bit of a scoop for the podcast. So, watch out for Paul’s personal announcement.

Then we eventually do get to the subject of sleep and the rest of the episode is all about us comparing our sleeping habits, and talking about things like insomnia, sleepwalking, talking in your sleep, snoring, falling asleep on public transport, snoring cats, Paul learning Arabic in his sleep and more, including some slightly disgusting stories, which is nice.

Sleep is a very rich area for English vocabulary. So look out for the variety of ways that we talk about this subject and watch out also for a premium episode devoted to vocabulary on this topic coming in the future at some point.

That’s it then. Let’s get started. Here we go.

Amber & Sarah’s Show in London

Rosemary Branch Theatre, Islington, Thurs 23 May, 7.30. Details below.

Becoming Maman

Paul Taylor’s FULL stand up show #FRANGLAIS – now available on YouTube. Watch it here!

The bits in French have English subtitles 👍

Ending Transcript

Thank you for listening. Keep it up folks, it’s good for your English on a long-term basis, I promise. Obviously it helps if you just enjoy it, and I hope that you enjoyed another chat today with the pod-pals.

A little heads-up about what you can expect from the free episodes which are coming.

The next one should be a conversation with Paul in which we talk about getting older, growing up, having children, what it means to be a good father and things like that. It’s actually a really good conversation I think – it gets quite deep and meaningful. If all goes according to plan, that should be the next episode.

Then, there will be more conversations with other guests coming soon, including Australian journalist Oliver Gee (and hopefully we’re going to talk about loads of things, including the recent fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral, and other stories) and also a chat with my Dad about some recent news, no doubt including the latest Brexit update, the European elections and hopefully some football chat too.

So, as long as my computer doesn’t completely break down or something, that should be the plan for the next few episodes, taking us up to episode 600. And there will be a whole load of premium episodes arriving too.

www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

Get the Luke’s English Podcast App on your phone for all the episodes, access to the premium content, and loads of bonus stuff including app-only episodes, loads of jingles I’ve made in the past, videos and more things of that nature.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks again to Amber & Paul for their contribution.

Bye!

THERE IS BONUS AUDIO FOR THIS EPISODE IN THE LEP APP 😉👍

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

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

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Introduction Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All right then, let’s go!

Ending Transcript

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

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

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

Bernard Purdie & The Beatles

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

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

88. How To Play The Drums

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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