Category Archives: History

288. California Road Trip (Part 1)

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Hello! Welcome back to LEP. This should be episode 288. How are you? I hope you’re doing alright. I’m fine thanks. I got back from my honeymoon in California just a couple of days ago. I’m dealing with jet lag. It’s grey and windy here (can you hear the wind noise in the background?) and my sun tan is fading, but it’s good to be back.

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Thanks for lots of recent comments on the last few episodes of this podcast. Thank you sooooo much for all the lovely things so many of you wrote in response to the wedding episode of the podcast that I did recently. It’s really touching to read your comments. My wife also found them very sweet and nice.

This episode is about my recent honeymoon trip to California and I have so much to tell you about it. But before we start, let me just say a few things in the first few minutes of this episode.

First of all, I’d just like to say don’t forget to join the mailing list so you’ll get an email whenever I post a new episode, or other bits of content such as videos or blog posts. Also, you can subscribe to comments on this website too. When you leave a comment on a page, you can tick a box that says “Subscribe to comments”. Then whenever anyone else leaves a comment, including responses to your comments, you’ll get an email notification. It’s a good way to keep up with what other LEPsters are writing on teacherluke.co.uk

Secondly, I would like to say a big hello to YOU – yes, YOU – the one who is listening to this episode, and to say thank you for tuning in, using whatever means – either on the website, on iTunes, on your phone, your iPad, your android device, in your car, on your mp3 player, on your internet radio or just hearing it by chance because someone else is playing it to you, like your English teacher or something. If you’re with other people while listening to this, why not just turn to them and say a friendly, “Hi, how are you? Are you alright?”, just as a gesture of goodwill. There, that feels nice doesn’t it? If you’re a regular listener to LEP, then hi – welcome back. If you’re a long term listener then “hello old friend”. If you’re new to the podcast, then welcome to LEP. I’d just like to say that I strongly recommend that you keep listening to this podcast on a long-term basis, because let’s face it – learning a language is a long-term process, and I record this podcast with that thought in mind. Just listen regularly over a fairly long period and you will see improvements in your English – and that’s just from listening. There are other ways of speeding up the learning process by using my podcast and website as a resource (listen to episode 174 for more information on this) but at the very least, just enjoying listening to this podcast regularly is definitely a great way of keeping your English fresh. People often underestimate the importance of doing lots and lots of listening. It can make a big difference to many other areas of your English, including speaking, pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. It’s particularly useful if you enjoy what you listen to, and you basically understand most of it, and that you feel that the person you are listening to is speaking to you personally. That’s what I aim to give you in these podcasts. The perfect listening resource to help you improve your English. So, I’d like to say thanks for listening, but I’d also like to say “well done” for listening too, in order to remind you of the benefits that you get from listening to this. Well done, you’re doing the right thing and your English will benefit from it as a result. It’s quite simple really. It’s not rocket science. For more information on this kind of thing, just listen to my other episodes, and have a look at my website which is teacherluke.co.uk. You’ll find loads more information and useful content there.

Introduction
Now, as I mentioned before, this episode is all about my recent trip to California in the USA for my honeymoon! As you probably know, I recently got married and my wife and I decided to go to California, and now I’m back, and my tan is fading, but the memories are still fresh in my mind, and I’d like to share them with you. So, let’s go to the USA in this episode and go on a road trip around California!

Notes & Transcriptions
You will find some notes and some transcriptions on the page for this episode. In fact, if you’re reading them now then you’re reading them now. There they are right in front of your eyes! Just a reminder if you want to find this episode on teacherluke.co.uk – just look in the ALL EPISODES archive for episode 288, or just type in the search bar on the right of the screen the number “288” or the word “California” and you’ll find it easily.

The following words and sentences that you can read on this page are not a full transcription. They’re just notes. Some parts are transcribed, but mostly these are just basic notes, which means that they are not always full sentences. They’re just words and phrases written to help me remember details of the trip.

I wrote these notes on my iPhone during spare moments on holiday, and also when I got back, and I used them to help me record the episode you’re listening to now. I hope you’re listening, and not just reading – remember, this is a podcast and not a blog. It is designed primarily to be listened to.

Here’s what you’re going to get in this episode (or series of episodes)
This is a sort of diary or report of what happened on my honeymoon in California, but it’s not just a description of a honeymoon. It’s more than that, because not only am I going to tell you a few stories about what happened and what we did, but I’ll also explain a bit of cultural and historical information, as well as give you some practical tips, including ways of communicating effectively in various situations.

I’m going to tell you what it’s really like to be in California. It’s a description of the culture, geography, people, history, sights, sounds, smells and more. I’m going to tell you what it’s really like to deal with customer service there, what’s it’s really like to drive in the USA, what it’s like to deal with problems, what some of the linguistic differences are, what the climate is really like, what the food is really like, some of the history and cultural highlights, how to get along with people in the USA, how to develop the right relationship with waiters, hotel staff and other key people. It is a description of my honeymoon, but I also want it to be a lot more than that. I want to take you with me on my holiday, and teach you some things along the way, and it’s all in English of course so not only are you going to join me on a geographical and cultural journey, but also you’re going to plug yourself into a source of natural English spoken from me to you, right here, right now. You can pause it any time you like, you can rewind and listen again, you can slow it down, you can speed it up, you can fall asleep and listen again later, you can transcribe it, you can repeat after me or you can just relax and enjoy listening. So, brew a cup of tea or coffee, get comfortable, get uncomfortable and then get comfortable again, smoke a big cigar, pretend your working on a big excel spreadsheet at work – do whatever you have to do to enjoy the episode. I hope you like it and find it useful.

As usual, I’m not sure how long this episode will be, but I’m pretty sure it will be another mini-series of episodes as I have quite a lot to say about this trip.
You can visit the page for this episode in order to find some of this episode transcribed, some of the notes I wrote in my phone while I was there and other things like links and photographs of the trip.
Now let’s get started with the first part of this story.

Following the tradition, you are going to hear me doing my first recording in a toilet on a plane.

6 August – Recording 1 – In a toilet on a plane again, above the Atlantic Ocean
You’re listening to Luke’s English Podcast
Where am I? I’m in a toilet on a plane again.
This is becoming a tradition – recording podcasts inside toilets on different modes of transport.
We are going to California for our honeymoon.
It’s the land of Hollywood, Baywatch, Coastal Highways, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Yosemite national park, the tallest trees in the world and open top cars etc.
I’m hoping to record short episodes at regular times during the holiday.
I’ll try to teach you something in every location, and I’ll just describe what I’m seeing and what it’s like.
I might even interview a few people that I meet because, you know, they speak English in America too of course – a kind of English.
I’m flying to New York.
What happened?
Flight was overbooked. Flight companies overbook their flights to make sure it’s not a loss of money for them.
We checked in, in person, not online. Why? We were hoping to get upgraded because we’re on our honeymoon.
Everyone told us to mention we’re on our honeymoon, as that would be the key to unlock numerous upgrades, rewards and treasures.
We were hoping to be upgraded to business class or something.
In fact we sort of got downgraded.
Talk about the overbooking process.
Mention the change of route.
It’s not that bad.
All’s well that ends well.
Despite the inconvenience and the delay and the stress we are nevertheless on our way. So all’s well that ends well.
(Let’s hope this ends well and that we do get to our destination ok in one piece)
That’s it – this is Luke Thompson in the toilet signing out.

I originally intended to do recordings while I was there, using my mp3 recorder, including some random interviews with American people, but that didn’t really happen in the end. I mean, it was my honeymoon so the main point was to share a special time with my wife. I wasn’t going around with a microphone the whole time, interviewing people and talking to myself.

However, I did manage to get an interview with one person – and that was perfect and really special, and very appropriate to Luke’s English Podcast, which is primarily for people who are learning English as a foreign language. Who did I manage to speak to? Well, it was the one and only AJ Hoge, who you may well be aware of. He’s the internet’s most famous English teacher. You’ve probably come across him at some point. He has an online teaching programme which he has called Effortless English. He’s made a big success of himself as an independent online English teacher, he’s a native speaker of American English and a resident of California, so he’s the perfect person for me to have spoken to. So, in the end that makes up for the fact that I didn’t speak to any locals on the podcast. I got AJ, so that’s fantastic – it happened in San Francisco so you can expect to hear my conversation with him in that part of the story.

Our California Itinerary
California has so much to offer – climate, different environments, famous sights, shopping, good food, beer, wine, musical history, literary ties, connections to counter culture and it’s the place we’ve seen in so many films and TV shows.

Itinerary: LA – Yosemite – SF – Coastal Highway via Monterey, Carmel, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Malibu – LA.

We only had two weeks, so there was no way that we could do and see everything. In fact, I think you shouldn’t try to do too much on holiday. I’ve said it before: holidays are like pizzas. Don’t put too many toppings on a pizza. Don’t try to do too many things on a holiday. OK, maybe holidays aren’t that similar to pizzas, but you get the idea.

I’m lucky enough to be able to travel
I generally get the chance to travel somewhere on holiday about once a year. This trip was a bit special because it was my honeymoon and we planned to go on a slightly more expensive trip. Anyway, I’m still lucky to have the opportunity to go to different places, quite far away. Not everyone has that luxury. You might not have that luxury. Admittedly, you might have that luxury – I’m sure many of you are very well travelled. But I also know that plenty of the people who listen to this free podcast don’t have the chance to go on many foreign adventures. So, I hope you enjoy the experience of listening to my account and that I give you an idea of what it’s really like to drive around California for a couple of weeks. And if you have had the luxury of going there, then perhaps you can compare your experiences to my experience. Did you experience similar things and have the same thoughts and feelings? What are some of the the thoughts in your head as you listen to my account on this podcast?
As ever, please leave your comments on the page or pages for this episode series. That’s not just for my reading pleasure, but also so you can share thoughts and ideas with your fellow LEPsters.

California Diary Continued – 6 August/7 August
In the taxi we heard “Hotel California” on the radio, and even though it’s a bit of a cliché, it was a perfect soundtrack to the trip. From the taxi we saw silhouettes of palm trees swaying in the breeze, the shapes of the Hollywood hills in the distance, Spanish style villas, lines of headlights of cars on long highways, the warm temperature outside and the spacious streets and empty sidewalks. Wow, we’re in movieland – LA, is it real or just a jet-lagged dream? This is how it felt at the beginning. We felt a million miles from home, and in a strangely familiar environment – one that we’d seen before in a hundred movies. It was like entering a recurring dream.
LA is a big place, but so is the USA as a whole.
We flew over it for hours and hours. It made me think of the people, years ago, who made that journey on foot or horseback. It took them years and years. They travelled in groups, families etc. People died and were born on the journey. Now we see it as an annoying inconvenience that takes 5-6 hours out of our holiday.
LA, Hollywood
Arrived and went for some dinner.
Service – very personalised. “Hi my name’s Derek, I’ll be looking after you this evening. Can I get you something to drink before we start?” Mammoth sized cups of water and ice arrived. I ordered one beer, I got two because of some kind of special offer I wasn’t even aware of. There’s always some kind of deal, discount or offer available. Already we had way more than we needed.

A Note on Customer Service
Generally, in my experience customer service in the USA is good, despite a couple of negative experiences I had there. There’s a bit more ‘back and forth’ than in the UK (I mean, standard things that you say in general interactions with waiters or staff), and it’s a bit like a little game you have to get used to.
For example:
Hi guys, good morning, how are you today?
Fine thanks, and you?
I’m good thanks for asking. If you need anything at all, my name’s Stacey.
What if we don’t need anything, then what’s your name?
I’m sorry?
You said, if we need anything, you name’s Stacey. What if we don’t need anything, is your name still Stacey? It’s… I’m sorry it’s just a joke.
Oh, I see! You’re joking! Hahahaha!
Sorry, I’m English.
No problem! I love your humour, so dry, right?
Yeah.
Well, just enjoy you guys. Let me know if you need anything.
Thanks for your help Stacey.
Have a nice day now.
You too.
I will, thanks for asking!

Staff tend to be friendly, attentive and professional, probably because quite a large part of their wages comes from tips, so they have to make the right impression. Sometimes though, as a foreigner, it seems a little tricky to get through to the staff if you have particular requests, or perhaps because of the cultural/language barrier. I think this applies to the UK too. Because you’re not local, you don’t know the normal ways of doing things, so you need to make a slightly bigger effort to help bridge the cultural gap. You might think – but this is exclusively the job of the waiter, he/she should make all the effort.

Be realistic, the waiter is a person and they’re not always an expert in cross cultural relations either. If you want to achieve something, and get what you want, you just need to make a bit of extra effort yourself. This means greasing the wheels with some niceness, charm, a smile and a willingness to make things work. So, what’s my advice for getting good customer service when you’re in a foreign country? Just that – try to be clear, positive, friendly and remember that the waiter or whoever it is that’s giving you a service is just a person doing a job. It’s easy to let things break down because of slight cultural differences. It’s important to make an effort to help the person to help you. I say that because I’ve seen people in the UK who got offended by what they perceived was bad service, but was in fact just a slight breakdown in communication. Give your communication a chance and be patient, friendly and helpful, and don’t expect the staff member to understand everything you say the first time around.

L.A. Continued… 7 August
Space.
Coffee & breakfast
Car
Weather
Location
Phrases “you got it” “you’re all set” “I’m good”.
Palm Trees, hotel California, film noir, Raymond chandler, Charles Bukowski, a million movies. The whole place is like a movie set.
This is a movie town – everything is fake and it’s all about veneer. As well as being sunny all the time, there is a mysterious and slightly sinister feeling to the place too, which is perfectly captured by the classic detective stories of Raymond Chandler and other writers, and the movie versions of those stories, collectively part of the film noir movement. I’ll talk more about this mysterious atmosphere in a bit, but first…

Recommended Audiobook Download – The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Let’s take a break from the UK’s favourite books for this series, and look at a few recommendations for California-related audiobooks you could download free by going to www.audibletrial.com/teacherluke
Recommendation #1 – The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
This is perhaps THE classic American detective story. It’s set in LA and it is absolutely full of dark and mysterious atmosphere, as well as understated cool humour and sizzling tension. It follows private detective Philip Marlowe as he tries to solve a complex case, while dealing with several dangerous and seductive female characters and some violent murderers. It perfectly captures the atmosphere of a film noir movie set in LA, and it’s really well read by Ray Porter. This is the blueprint for so many other detective stories featuring tough and cool, yet ultimately vulnerable heroes. Imagine films starring Humphrey Bogart for example. It’s glamorous, brutal and extremely well written stuff. www.audibletrial.com/teacherluke The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. It’s got an average rating of 4.3 out of 5.

California Diary – LA, Continued…
Nothing is real here. There’s a strange feeling that you’re living in some kind of dream, and I don’t think that is entirely the result of breathing in the marijuana vapours which are floating around in the street in so many places.

It’s hard to date the buildings. They could be old, or they could just be built in an old style. LA doesn’t have the same depth of history as in Europe. There’s evidence of a colonial past, but also so many buildings are new but designed to look like they come from another period, like Spanish villas for example.

It’s all like a movie set, and if you took away the facades of the buildings, it’s just a desert underneath. So, the buildings are a kind of facade. Everything is a bit fake, like in a movie. It’s hard to know what is real. The people also seem a bit distant. They’re sweet, and hippyish, if a bit shallow in some circles. It feels like everyone is high, in fact they probably are, because smoking marijuana is more and more popular.

There’s no evidence of smoke when you walk around, but I’m sure people are ‘vaping’ all over the place. I can smell it. In the corridors of our hotel, in the street outside bars.

California’s Marijuana Laws – An Interesting Legal Conflict
California has an interesting position on marijuana use, and this reveals an interesting conflict between state and federal law in the USA.
Is pot legal in California?
What about smoking tobacco?
Do people smoke in the street?
What is ‘vaping’?
Where do people buy weed in California?
Did you see it or smell it there?

More in part 2 soon…
Hollywood-Sign

280. The UK’s Top 13 Superstitions

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Hello listeners, this episode is all about superstitions. Every country and culture seems to have particular superstitions. They can be quite a large part of the life or culture of that place. For example, if you’ve been living in a different country for a while, you’ve probably noticed that certain things are part of the common belief system, and that will no doubt involve some superstitions. Even if you don’t really believe in them, it’s quite useful to know about the main superstitions in a country, so that you can avoid doing something wrong (like opening an umbrella indoors in the UK) or you can just follow what is being talked about and understand all the reference points in conversation, and perhaps add your own comments as part of every day conversation – such as using expressions “touch wood” or “fingers crossed” – both of which are very commonly used phrases which are connected to superstitious beliefs. Now, since Luke’s English Podcast tends to focus on all things British or all things UKish – what are the top superstitions in the UK? What are those things that many people in the UK follow as every day superstitions? Well, in this episode I’m going to go through a list of 13 superstitions, unlucky for some, which are commonly held in the UK. We’ll also consider where these superstitions come from and why people still hold on to them. Join me! And in the comments section you can tell me if you share these superstitions in your countries, what the most common superstitions are where you come from, and generally what you think about superstitious beliefs.

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A lot of what you are hearing is written on the page for this episode at teacherluke.co.uk. If you want to do some studying, you most certainly can. You can check the script – compare what you heard with what you can see. Check out new words, add them to a vocabulary bank, repeat certain phrases after me, record yourself reading parts of the transcript and then compare them with me, or record yourself repeating the transcript, or simply record yourself speaking freely and then listen back to it for some perspective. That can be a good way of self studying with Luke’s English Podcast. Or, if you prefer, you can just sit back, brew a cup of tea or whatever, and enjoy listening to another episode of this podcast! If you fancy making a donation to reward me for my hard work and dedication – you can. There are donate buttons on the page for this episode. Also, don’t forget to take advantage of that offer from Audible – go to audibletrial.com/teacherluke to sign up for a 30 day trial membership. They’ll let you download one audiobook for free. If you don’t like Audible you can just cancel the membership, and keep the audiobook for free! I’ve been recommending some popular books, but they have about 180,000 titles to choose from so you can just explore the website to find out – but remember, if you’d like to get that 30 day free trial, do it by visiting audibletrial.com/teacherluke. Alright, let’s carry on talking about superstitions.

What’s a superstition?
It’s the belief in unnatural causality – the idea that one thing causes another thing to happen, even though there is no scientific evidence to explain it, for example the idea that crossing your fingers helps to bring good luck, or the idea that if you talk about the devil he will magically appear. These are ‘leaps of faith’ – beliefs that require you to suspend your need for evidence and just believe something that has no rational explanation, and so many of us make leaps of faith on a daily basis – some more than others, but even the most rational person can be influenced by superstitious beliefs and behaviour.

I don’t believe in superstitions because I like to believe I’m a modern, scientifically minded person. But saying that, I do find that from time to time my behaviour betrays my rational thinking. For example, I don’t like to open umbrellas in the house, walk under ladders, and I often will touch something that’s made of wood and say “touch wood” to avoid tempting fate. I can’t help it! I know that there’s no evidence that superstitions are real, but sometimes I just can’t help acting on some superstitious beliefs. Of course, I’m not the only one.

So, let’s consider the UK’s most common superstitions, and of course I would be delighted if all of the LEPsters in different countries around the world shared their superstitions too. What are the superstitions in your countries? What do you think of the superstitions I’m describing in this episode, and generally – do you believe in any superstitions? Why? Share your thoughts and practise your English too.

Here’s a list of the UK’s most common superstitions, with some explanations too.

Two-Black-billed-magpies-0011. Magpies

What’s a magpie?
Black and white birds
Quite big, long tail
Related to crows (corvid family)
Quite noisy
They steal shiny things.

Magpies have different superstitions based on how many you see, as this 18th century poem explains:

One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret, never to be told

This relates to the number of magpies you see. Most people know at least the first two lines of the rhyme.
I’m not superstitious, but even I find that if I see one magpie, I often will look around and try to find another one to make myself feel better.

2. Mirrors

Watch out when you’re moving house or doing some DIY and you break a mirror – if that happens you’ll get 7 years of bad luck.

What’s weird about mirrors? Why are we superstitious about breaking them?
Mirrors were once believed to be windows into other worlds – often worlds where things were the wrong way around.
People may also have been frightened that a person’s reflection shatters when a mirror is broken.
One theory is that mirrors contained a person’s soul, so if you break the mirror, you break the person’s soul.
People used to believe some pretty stupid stuff!
It just shows, that superstitions come from our general fear and mistrust of things we don’t understand. If it’s amazing and unexplained, then people are likely to make up all kinds of stupid stuff, e.g. those superstitious emails. http://www.pandasecurity.com/mediacenter/social-media/if-you-break-the-chain-you-will-have-bad-luck-for-the-rest-of-your-life/

Some people also believe that mirrors should be covered up during births and funerals, for fear the person’s soul might escape through them to another realm.

There’s also an urban myth that if you look into a mirror and say “bloody mary” three times, you’ll conjure up the ghost of a woman called Bloody Mary. This comes from old folklore – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Mary_(folklore)

3. Umbrellas
Is it a surprise that there’s a superstition related to umbrellas in the UK?
Can you guess what the superstition is?
You might be thinking something like this: “If you don’t bring an umbrella when you go out, it’s unlucky”.
That’s not exactly right.

The myth is that it’s unlucky to open an umbrella indoors. This is probably related to the fact that umbrellas used to be quite awkward, large and difficult to open, and since our houses used to be quite small and cramped, there was a chance that you’d break something, or knock something over with an open umbrella in the house.

So, be aware that if you come into a house or building in the UK and leave your umbrella open, perhaps on the floor to dry off, the Brits might be stressing out quietly.

Again, this is still something that I can’t help feeling slightly uncomfortable about when I see, which is not logical, but it’s hard to completely escape these superstitious feelings.

On the subject of umbrellas – another cultural myth is that Brits always have umbrellas with them. That’s not exactly true.
Equally, I’ve met plenty of foreigners who are surprised that we don’t all carry umbrellas – they are surprised by the frequency with which we get caught in the rain. I think this is due to the unpredictability of British weather. It’s hard to be prepared all the time!

4. Crossed fingers

This is a way to ensure that lucky things will happen. It really means “Let’s hope it happens!” or “Let’s hope for good luck”.
“Fingers crossed!” = good luck!
“I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you today!”

Also, crossing your fingers is considered a way to get away with telling a lie. This isn’t related to the good luck superstition.
For example, if someone says “I won’t tell anyone” but they secretly have their fingers crossed behind their back, it means that they’re lying!

Is it the same in your country?

5. Don’t step on the pavement lines.

When we were kids we used to say “Don’t step on the cracks or the bears will get you”. What bears?!

Why is it necessary to tell kids that there are wild animals waiting around the corner, who hate it when you step on the cracks between paving stones?
Truth be told – I think we never really believed the thing about the bears. It was just part of a game where you had to avoid walking on the cracks.
When we were kids we used to make up those kinds of games all the time. Not for superstitious reasons, but just for fun. That’s what kids do. For my brother and me it was always sharks and lava. We used to put cushions on the floor between the chairs and the sofa, and those cushions were little stepping stones or islands. All the carpet between the cushions was either lava or shark infested waters. If you so much as stepped on the carpet you’d be killed by the lava or eaten by the sharks. Then we’d run around climbing and jumping on the sofa, chairs and cushions. Good times.

Back to the superstition…

Another rhyme is:
‘Don’t step on a line or you’ll fall and break your spine! Don’t step on a crack or you’ll fall and break your back!’

It seems that bad luck is waiting everywhere for you! Just walking down the street in the wrong way can cause you to have a serious injury or even worse to be attacked by dangerous animals.

Reasons:
Cracks in the pavement can be dangerous. You could trip and fall. Could you really break your spine?
In the past, the pavement was probably less even or safe than now. Today you can even sue the council for an accident caused by an uneven pavement.

6. Numbers

What list of superstitions would be complete without something about numbers?
Lucky and unlucky numbers are common in many countries and cultures – and the UK is no exception.

Seven is usually seen as the luckiest number. Here’s some info on that from PsychicLibrary.com http://psychiclibrary.com/beyondBooks/lucky-number-7

By far the unluckiest number is of course 13 – especially the date Friday 13th. This goes back to the Christian belief that the 13th person at the Last Supper with Jesus was Judas, who betrayed him and led him to be crucified, and ‘unlucky Friday’ was the day Jesus died.

13 is such a powerful superstition that many hotels don’t have a 13th floor, football players don’t like to wear the number 13 and some people even take a day off work to avoid going outside on the 13th.

More details about 13 http://mentalfloss.com/article/23266/13-reasons-people-think-number-13-unlucky and here http://www.writing.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.writ.d7/files/sitefiles/publications/2014%20Narula.pdf

Here is some interesting stuff I found from the pages linked above.

There’s a Norse legend that has 12 gods sitting down to a banquet when the 13th (uninvited) god, Loki, shows up. Loki killed one of the other gods, which led to events that eventually resulted in Ragnarok — the death of a bunch of gods, a slew of natural disasters, and the eradication of everything on earth save for two human survivors. There’s a lot more to the story than that, but you get the general idea.

Traditionally, there used to be 13 steps leading up the gallows. There’s also a legend that a hangman’s noose traditionally contained 13 turns, but it’s actually more like eight.

Apollo 13 is the only unsuccessful moon mission (intended to get men on the moon, anyway) thus far. An oxygen tank exploded and the survival of the astronauts on board was pretty touch-and-go for several days, but they did all come home safely in the end (but you already knew that).

There’s an old superstition that says if you have 13 letters in your name, you’re bound to have the devil’s luck. Silly, yes, but slightly more convincing when you consider that Charles Manson, Jack the Ripper, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all contain 13 letters (I know, I know, what about their middle names?).

Kids officially become teenagers at the age of 13, and we all know that’s a scary phase.

There may also be a mathematical theory behind it too.
Throughout history, the number twelve has long been connected to the idea of “completeness.” There were twelve gods on Mount Olympus, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve months in a year, and twelve apostles. Therefore, people viewed 13 as 12+1, or “completeness plus one” (Lachenmeyer 24). This idea of being one away from completeness gave people a sense of uncertainty and unpredictability; thus they associated the number 13 with these feelings (Lachenmeyer 24).

Generally, the whole idea of superstition is fascinating to me. Why do we believe in these things, even when we know they’re not true? Or is there some actual truth in it? For example, if you stay in room 13 in a hotel, are you more likely to experience bad luck? Is this just the placebo effect? I mean, if you feel you’ve been cursed by bad luck, will you be more likely to accept bad things happening to you?

Let’s look at some possibilities.
John Smith stays in room 13. He’s superstitious.
He then believes he’s been cursed.
When he’s driving he’s sure that he’s going to have an accident.
This expectation leads him to somehow make it happen – he subconsciously proves his thinking to be correct.
It sounds like nonsense to me.

Here’s another idea.
John stays in room 13 and is superstitious.
He then drives in his car the next day and has an accident. Someone pulled out of a junction without looking and hit him.
He decides that it happened because of the hotel room he’d stayed in.
But there’s absolutely no evidence to suggest it was the hotel room. It probably would have happened anyway.
However, there’s no way of proving it. We can’t go back in time to do a test.
But John needs an explanation. He doesn’t want to believe that the universe is basically chaotic and random, or at least far more complex than his head can contain.
So, he chooses to believe in the superstition because it makes it easier to live in the world. It’s easier and more comfortable for John to believe in superstition than to know that some things are just completely beyond his control or understanding. It’s not pleasant to know that some things are not within your own control. So the superstition allows him to get some more control. He feels that he can control the chaos slightly. Next time he won’t stay in room 13.
I’m sure this accounts for a lot of our beliefs. We believe things like superstition, conspiracy theories or even god, because it explains unanswered questions and allows us to hide from the fact that the universe is chaotic, unordered and out of our control.

Have a nice day!

Let’s carry on with these superstitions because they’re fun to share!

7. Wishes: birthdays and bones

You’re celebrating your birthday in the UK and your English friends have bought you a cake. That’s not the bad luck – that you have to eat an English cake. No. Actually, our cakes are delicious thank you very much. No, the thing is, there are candles on the cake – of course there are. It’s a birthday cake. Everyone’s singing happy birthday. You have to blow out the candles – but here’s the thing – make sure you blow them all out with one breath because if you don’t – bad luck!

Also, what you really should do is close your eyes and make a wish first, then blow out the candles. If you manage to blow all the candles out with one breath, your wish will be granted. If not, you won’t get your wish. Of course, this has no validity to it at all – it’s just a superstition! But, it’s quite normal for people to say “Make a wish!” before blowing out the candles on a birthday cake.

Why do candles on birthday cakes have magic powers?

It’s not just birthday cakes though, it’s chickens or turkeys too, when they’re cooked for a Sunday roast. There’s a wishbone – it’s at the end of the neck of the bird (where the neck meets the body). It’s forked in shape – with two little bones forking out at angles. The tradition is for two people to hold onto the two bones with their little fingers, close their eyes, make a wish, then pull. The one whose bone doesn’t break (the one who ends up with the bigger piece) will have their wish granted.

8. Weddings

Weddings are already complicated enough because you have to worry about invitations, seating plans, food and wine choices, location, music, vows, transport options, speeches, the dress, the rings, the readings, the RSVPs, children, babysitters, flowers and photographer, but if that wasn’t complicated enough, there are also some superstitions to be aware of.

According to superstition, brides should wear ‘something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue’ as part of their outfit. Something old – could be a piece of old jewellery from a mother or grandmother, something new (obvious), something borrowed (obvious), and something blue (also obvious – it’s the colour). If not – then I suppose the wedding will somehow be cursed.

Then, there are loads of other things including the colour of the dress (one verse goes: ‘Married in white, you have chosen right; married in black, you’ll wish yourself back’), to the day of the wedding
‘Monday for health,
Tuesday for wealth,
Wednesday best of all,
Thursday for losses,
Friday for crosses,
Saturday for no luck at all’
to the things you see on the way to the ceremony (for brides, lambs are lucky but pigs are unlucky; for grooms, policemen and clergymen are lucky).

For more on UK wedding superstitions, click here http://www.corsinet.com/trivia/scary3.html

9. Ladders
Never walk under a ladder in the UK… Apparently it’ll bring bad luck because it used to be associated with walking to the hanging scaffold.

That sounds a bit grim doesn’t it.

The fact is, many Brits will cross the street rather than walk under a ladder, me included.
Perhaps there’s some common sense in this. Someone who is up the ladder might drop something on you.

10. Sneezing

You probably know it’s polite to say ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes in the UK, but did you know the custom might have originated in the sixth century? The theory is that sneezing was seen as the first symptom of the plague, so people would say a blessing to ward off the disease.

Another theory is that people thought sneezing stopped your heart, just for a moment, and saying ‘bless you’ would make sure your heart keeps beating.

11. Keep your shoes off the furniture

And not just because they’re dirty! According to one UK superstition, putting shoes on the table (especially brand new shoes) is bad luck. Some people even avoid putting shoes on chairs or footstools. One explanation is that in coal mining communities, particularly in north England in the 19th century, a miner’s shoes would be placed on the table if he was killed in an accident. The gesture then became a symbol of death.

12. Black cats
Confusingly, black cats can be both lucky and unlucky in the UK, depending on who you ask. Some people say it’s a sign that good things are to come if a black cat crosses your path… while for others, it’s a terrible warning.

How about this: Recently I was walking down the street and a black cat started walking across my path. It stopped and looked at me and got scared and ran away. What does that mean?

13. Rabbits
Rabbits are supposed to be good luck. For some reason keeping a rabbit’s foot will bring you luck. Some people have one in their pocket or attached to their key ring. That’s right – an actual dead rabbit’s foot. Just the foot. You can get fake ones now apparently. Weird isn’t it.

Saying the words ‘white rabbit’ are also supposed to bring good luck, especially at the beginning of the month.

Other things:
– Walking over 2 drains is lucky, but 3 is unlucky.
– Horseshoes
– Egg shells (crack them so the devil can’t make a boat – the devil must be a badass dude if he uses an eggshell as a boat)
– Making eye contact when you say “cheers” – this is growing in popularity, mainly because of the influence of other cultures where this is kind of a big deal.
– “Jinx”, when people say the same thing at the same time by accident, the first one to say “jinx” can avoid the bad luck.
– Lucky underpants
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279. Marcus Keeley / Northern Ireland / Accent (Part 3)

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Welcome back to part 3 of this short series. In parts 1 and 2 we got to know my guest a bit, and talked about Northern Ireland. Now in part 3 we are going to have a good listen to Marcus’s Northern Irish accent, compare the way he and I speak, and also learn a few common phrases and slang from Northern Ireland. Enjoy!

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3. Belfast accent (Check out this page on English in Northern Ireland from the fantastic British Library website)
I want my listeners to at least be aware of the accent(s) in Northern Ireland. Ideally they’ll be able to recognise it, or even copy it (just for fun). I also would like to find out about some of the specific phrases that are used in that part of the English speaking world.
– Is there a variety of accents in Northern Ireland?
– What is Ulster Scots?
– How would you describe your accent?
– Do people judge each other on their accents?
– What do you think of other accents from the UK? What do you assume about a person when you hear their accents? Is it fair to judge people by their accent?
Say some specific things: (These may be stereotypes)
“How now brown cow”
“Sit down”
“How are you?”
“I’m feeling a lot better now thank you”
“This is the first farm in the whole country to produce such excellent cheeses”
“She wanted to pull me into the pool”
“Can’t you see that the lift is completely full, you fool!”
“I can’t get this boot on my foot”
“I love coming to Paris because of the good food”
“I’m from Northern Ireland”
“I took the ferry to Derry and it just cost a penny”

How would you say these things, with specific phrases? (Check out this page with a list of common phrases spoken in Northern Ireland)
– Alright mate?
– I’m going to the shop, do you want anything.
– It’s a really hot day, isn’t it?
– I’m going to bed.
– Oh, go on!
– Look at her face! She’s got a weird looking face.
– Yes. (like, “yes, I’ll have a pint if you’re buying”)
– Come on, now.
– “Get a hold of yourself!”, “Wise up!”
– That film was really great. (or just, That was really great wasn’t it?)
– I agree, totally, good, etc. E.g. “Come on, this isn’t working. Let’s go to the pub” – “Yeah, totally”
– You stupid idiot!
– Could you give me a fag/cigarette?
– The police.
– Have you finished (your tea)?
– Are you mad?
– OK, I’m going home for dinner.
– Good, fine, great, etc. (dead on, cracker, sound)
– Alright, let’s have a little drink.
– Can you lot keep the noise down? I’m trying to sleep in here!
– She looks like your mum.
– What’s “spotty dog” (great) and “wind your neck in?”

Nadine from Girls Aloud “I’m going to give him a bath”

Frostbit Boy (The strongest Northern Irish accent I’ve ever heard!) Basically he’s talking about the difficulty of walking to school in the very cold weather.

Why are there so many accents in Northern Ireland?

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278. Marcus Keeley / Northern Ireland (Part 2)

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In part 1 of this episode we met Marcus Keeley. In part 2 we are going to talk specifically about Northern Ireland, its culture, the atmosphere there and things you can do if you visit as a tourist. There will be a part 3 of this conversation, which will focus on the accents and dialects in Northern Ireland.

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2. Focus on Northern Ireland
My listeners, who are around the world, may not know very much about Northern Ireland. It’s often a bit overlooked – in my experience, a lot of people see the UK as just London, Edinburgh, Oxford & Cambridge, Manchester, Stonehenge and a few other famous spots, perhaps Wales. Northern Ireland is rarely mentioned. The UK is a bit confusing – people aren’t completely sure how Ireland and Northern Ireland fit into it. I expect people are aware that there has been trouble there in the past, with the IRA and the sectarian conflict, but there’s more to it than that. Let’s try and let my listeners know a bit more of what it’s really like to live in Northern Ireland.

– When you meet people from other countries, how much do they know about where you come from? Do you get the same kinds of reactions from people?
– Where is it?
– Capital city?
– What’s it like to live in Belfast? Is it a good place to live?
– What can people do or see if they visit?
– What’s the atmosphere like these days?
– Is there still a sense of trouble?
– Do your generation still hold on to that feeling?
– Do you remember what it used to be like?
– Why was there trouble in the first place?
– How do you see the future in Northern Ireland?
– How do you see The UK?
– What did you think of the election? Where does N. Ireland stand?
– What if The UK left the EU?

Nadine from Girls Aloud “I’m going to give him a bath”

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277. A Chat with Marcus Keeley from Northern Ireland (Part 1)

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This episode is the first part of a conversation I had recently with a friend from Northern Ireland. It’s the first time I’ve had someone from that part of the UK before so it’s a chance to get to know him, his country and the accents you find there. In this one we get to know Marcus and give you a chance to hear his accent. There will be two more parts to this episode. Enjoy!

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Just before we start I would just like to say thank you for taking part in the quick survey that I launched on teacherluke.co.uk recently. I asked you to select the types of episode of the podcast that you prefer to listen to. You can still do it of course, by going to my website and finding the page for the survey in the archive of episodes. Just click ARCHIVE in the menu and then ARCHIVE – ALL EPISODES and you’ll find the survey between episodes 276 and 277. The feedback will help me to know what kind of thing you prefer in episodes of LEP. Of course, ultimately I have the final decision because I’m the boss – I’m Luke after all, and this is Luke’s English Podcast and I have the final say, like sometimes I think it’s worth presenting you with something more challenging here, more entertaining there, more topic focused here, more pronunciation focused there and so on. But anyway, take my survey and let me know what your preferences are – your thoughts will combine with mine and it can help me to provide the right content for you. Click here to take the survey.

Quick Quiz
Now, quick quiz – what are the four countries that make up the UK?
England, Scotland, Wales and… Northern Ireland.
How much do you know about Northern Ireland?
What’s the capital city? (Belfast)
Another big city there? (some call it Derry, others call it Londonderry)
Where exactly is it? (well, the clue is in the name because it’s the northern part of the island of Ireland – but it’s not part of The Republic of Ireland politically, it’s part of the UK) It’s not far from parts of Northern England and South Western Scotland.
What else? The Titanic was built there, Game of Thrones is filmed there, unfortunately it’s also known for ‘the troubles’ – violence, civil unrest and terrorism.

It’s home to about 1.8 million members of the UK, and they have their own culture, their own accents and their own particular dialect, and in a recent survey the ‘Northern Irish accent’ was voted the sexiest accent in the UK!

Today on the podcast I’m joined by Marcus Keeley, who is a stand-up comedian, improviser and poet who comes from Belfast in Northern Ireland. I know Marcus from the stand-up comedy scene in Paris, as he likes to come here from time to time to visit and do comedy shows with our team. He’s a friendy, interesting and funny gentleman and this is the first time I’ve had someone from Northern Ireland on this podcast.

So, this is one of those episodes in which I have a guest on the show and we explore a number of different things within the context of an authentic conversation between two native speakers of English. If you like you can imagine that you’re there with us, involved in our conversation. After all, we are speaking to you, and for the attention of you, and you can get involved by sharing your comments on the page for this episode.

What are you going to get in this episode?
– Generally, this conversation is presented for people who are either learning English or who have a particular interest in all things British, or perhaps both.
– First we’ll get to know Marcus a little bit, giving you a chance to train your ear to his accent and way of speaking
– We’ll talk about Northern Ireland, and really get to know this often overlooked part of the UK – including a bit of culture, history, politics, things you can do as a visitor and whatever else comes up in our chat
– You’re going to listen to the Belfast accent of Marcus, and talk a little bit about the variety of accents that you can hear in Northern Ireland
– You can learn a few common phrases from the dialect of English that you hear in Northern Ireland

As ever, you can read notes for this episode at teacherluke.co.uk, so if you want to do some studying, you can.
Also, you may hear bits of rude language in this episode – so, you have been warned.
We covered a lot of ground in this conversation, which lasted nearly two hours so this will be a two part episode I expect.
Please leave any comments or questions on the page for this episode.
That’s it – I hope you enjoy our conversation, and that you experience something you haven’t experienced before.
It might be tricky to follow everything Marcus says in this episode because you’re not familiar with his accent. I encourage you to keep going and just try to follow the general flow of the conversation! Best of luck. Let’s get started…

1. Get to know Markus a bit
Where are you from exactly?
What brings you to Paris?
What do you do?
How long have you been doing comedy?
How would you describe your act?
Stephen Nolan Podcast
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269. UK General Election 2015 (Part 2)

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Welcome back to Part 2 of this episode which is all about the UK general election which is taking place in a couple of days on Thursday 7 May 2015. In this part we’ll hear statements by 7 leaders from 7 of the main parties in this election, we’ll consider exactly what they said, understand some of the vocabulary and key issues, and then look at the possible outcomes and predictions for the result of the election. Most of what you can hear in this episode is written on teacherluke.co.uk. This is episode 269.

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The Party Leaders & Their Statements (from a live TV debate)
So, I’ve told you about the context. Let’s now listen to what some of these leaders have to say.
On TV there have been a few live debates between the leaders. They’re fascinating.
I’m going to play you the opening statements of 7 party leaders from one of those televised debates.
Listen to the statements, and just try to follow what they say. I’ll give some comments afterwards to clarify. You can see some transcriptions of these statements on the page for this episode.

You’re going to hear from these people in this order:
Green (Natalie Bennet)
Liberal Democrats (Nick Clegg)
UKIP (Nigel Farage)
Labour (Ed Miliband)
Plaid Cymru (Leanne Wood)
SNP (Nicola Sturgeon)
Conservatives (David Cameron)

You’ll probably notice a couple of different accents in there, in particular Nicola Sturgeon (from Western Scotland) and Leanne Wood (from Rhondda in South Wales). Also, Natalie Bennet (from Australia, living in the UK since 1999). The others speak with standard UK RP accents, although I think David Cameron’s accent is slightly more posh (upper class) than the others.

Don’t forget, I will clarify afterwards, briefly, and you can also read a lot of this on teacherluke.co.uk

Details – full notes
GREEN
Let’s put principles and values first
Determined to deliver a fair economy
Make sure the poor and disadvantaged don’t pay for the fraud of the bankers
Return the NHS back to its founding principles
No public money going into private profits
Take action on climate change
Don’t demonise immigrants and people on benefits
To build a decent and humane society, we start with hope
Vote for change

UKIP
The other leaders are all the same on the big issues.
They all support membership of the EU.
They all support open door immigration.
This is why trust in politics has broken down to the extent that it has.
UKIP believes Britain should be a self-governing nation.
Open door immigration has depressed wages for ordinary people, made buying houses difficult, made it tough to get a GP appointment, and (generally) not been good for this country.
Alternative: A trade deal with EU, cooperate with them as friends,
but make our own laws.
Let’s take back control of our borders and put in place an Australian-style points system so we can choose the quality and quantity of who comes to Britain.
This will give ordinary working people an even break.

UKIP would join Conservatives to block a Labour/SNP coalition, in return for a guaranteed referendum on Europe.

LIB DEMs
Nobody is going to win this election outright.
So you’re going to choose who’s going to have to work with who(m) (coalition).
Nothing is perfect, although the country is in better shape now than it was 5 years ago.
I admit, I’ve made mistakes, and learned from them.
With Lib Dems you’ll get the grit and the resilience to finish the job of balancing the books.
I’ll always act responsibly & fairly – I’ll make sure nobody imposes ideological cuts on hospitals and schools.
I’ll always serve the whole, not the part of the country.

The whole – not just the right, the rich, the white, or one particular region. He’s suggesting he’s a better option to SNP.
Essentially, he’s showing that he’d be a necessary balancing force in coalition with the tories.

SNP
It’s a chance to change the westminster system so it serves you better.
The SNP will always stand up for Scotland’s best interests. They will make Scotland’s voice heard.
But it’s not just people in Scotland who feel let down.
Message to non-Scottish voters = friendship.
She wants Scotland to be independent.
SNP want to work with others of like mind across the UK to deliver positive change.
Wants an alternative to austerity, an end the bedroom tax, a halt to the privatisation of the NHS.
Scarce resources should be invested in the future not in nuclear weapons (get rid of the trident missile system in Scotland)
SNP stands for Scotland, but also for progressive politics.

They’re about Scotland, but also they have slightly more left wing ideas to Labour.
SNP are ready to join Labour.
Labour say they won’t join SNP, but this is mainly a defence against an attack by the Tories. Maybe Labour will have a more informal deal with SNP – i.e. confidence and supply (Labour will support aspects of the SNP agenda, and the SNP will pay them back in the form of votes) but Miliband has ruled this out too!
When the lure of government is there, they’ll change their tune.

CONSERVATIVES
5 years ago the country was ‘on the brink’ – unemployment, and one of the biggest budget deficits. (i.e. this was Labour’s fault)
Over the last 5 years they’ve been working on a long-term economic plan (austerity) and it’s working.
2 million more people in employment.
Investing in NHS as well as reducing the deficit.
Cut taxes for 30 million working people.
Now UK has the fastest growing economy of any western country.
Other leaders will claim lots of things, but they’re wrong, like they were wrong before.
The choice in this election is sticking with the plan that’s working, or going back to the debt-taxes-borrowing-spending that got us in this mess in the first place.
Let’s continue with the plan and not go back to square one.

PLAID CYMRU
Speaking to voters in Wales
Representing Welsh communities
Jobs and services have been cut to the bone – this can’t continue
Offers hope for a decent future for young people, for thriving & successful communities.
In a hung parliament, Plaid Cymru can win for Wales.
Wants to represent Wales’ voice in Westminster.

They want a coalition deal with Labour. Labour have ruled it out – because Miliband wants votes for Labour in Wales – he wants a clear choice between Labour and Tories, not an ambiguous coalition compromise.
Wood has been criticised for being a bit lightweight. “Please vote for us, we’re really nice!”

LABOUR
UK succeeds when working people succeed.
For 5 years, wages haven’t kept up with bills. The NHS has been going backwards. Young people have been fearing they’ll have a worse life than their parents.
If I’m PM I’ll:
Raise the minimum wage to £8 per hour. (Currently £6.50 per hour – 8.8E)
Ban zero hours contracts.
Reward hard work again.
Rescue the NHS, hire more doctors and nurses.
Build a future for all of our young people.
Cut the tuition fee from £9,000 to £6,000.
Cut the deficit every year & balance the books.
This is not as good as it gets (Tories) – UK can do so much better.

The full TV debate on YouTube

What’s going to happen?
Let’s listen to a YouTube video from The Telegraph newspaper. It’s a good summary of the possible outcomes. It’s a bit quick though. Yes, you can find a transcript on my website. Just find the page for this episode in the ARCHIVE.
You can see the video, produced by The Telegraph below.

Transcript/Notes for the Video – The Telegraph: What are the possible outcomes?
What’s the significance of 326?
It’s the number of seats the Tories or Labour need to win in the general election for an outright majority, something neither party managed last time around.

What happened last time?
Tories got just over one third of the vote and were forced into a coalition with the Lib Dems.

Scenario 1: What do the Tories need to get an outright majority? Can they do it?
They would need to gain 24 seats. To do this they’d need to be 7 points ahead in polls. An outright win is in easy grasp, they claim.

Scenario 2: What do Labour need to get a majority? Can they do it?
Labour need to gain 70 seats to take power. Only once have they gained this many seats since WW2: Tony Blair’s landslide in 1997.

What could happen to the other smaller parties?
SNP: Buoyed by the honourable defeat of the referendum could more than double its share of the Scottish vote to 43%.
UKIP could add to their tally of 2 to get perhaps as many as half a dozen or more.
The Greens think they could go from one to three. They’re gunning for Bristol West and Norwich South.

What happens if Tories or Lab don’t get enough votes for an outright majority?
In a hung parliament, the incumbent PM gets the first chance of forming a government. If he cannot he will have to resign and then the opposition can attempt to form a coalition.

Scenario 3: Conservatives & Lib Dems – Details?
One potential scenario is more of the same.
Tory backbenchers wouldn’t like it, the public may be wary of it but if the Lib Dems can hold enough seats, renewing the coalition may be the obvious choice for David Cameron to stay in power.

Scenario 4: Lab-Lib – Details?
Alternatively, a grand left-wing coalition could see Labour govern with the Liberal Democrats.
Voters torn between the two parties may be delighted.
Senior Lib Dems are bitter about the attacks they’ve taken from Labour, and insist they won’t allow Nick Clegg to be forced out as part of any deal.

Scenario 5: Rainbow Coalition – details?
Neither party may wish to settle with the Liberal Democrats, or they may be too small. There then begins a scramble to assemble a rainbow coalition. It’s likely to be an arrangement known as confidence and supply.
The government will sit without a majority but will be propped up on key bills and protected in confidence votes in exchange for specific policies.

What would the SNP do?
The SNP have said that they will prop up Labour but not the Tories, in exchange for more powers for Scotland, not renewing Trident and easing austerity.

What about UKIP?
Nigel Farage has said that UKIP would do a ‘deal with the devil’ to get an early referendum on membership of the EU.
And look at the Ulster Unionists; conservative, patriotic. David Cameron may ask them to keep him in power.
UUP (Ulster Unionist Party)

On balance:
If the minor parties are sufficiently large then the nationalists or Lib Dems will be the kingmaker.

So, basically, what’s going to happen?
Let me sum up the possibilities in that audio, and look at the bookkeeper’s odds (what are they?)
1. A Tory majority.
I don’t think they can get enough seats. They’ll probably get more than Labour, but a majority is unlikely in my opinion. It’s too much of a stretch. Still, the bookies give odds of 11/2 for this (that’s 5.5/1 – if you bet £1 you’ll win £5.50)
2. A Labour majority.
They need 70 seats to get to 326. They just don’t have enough support for that, especially since they’re losing so many seats to SNP in Scotland. The odds are 40/1 (very unlikely).
3. Con-Lib coalition.
It’s possible, if the Lib Dems get enough seats. But it wouldn’t be that popular with some Tories because they don’t want to be held back by the influence of Lib Dems, and the public might not be happy with another 5 years of the same thing. Odds are: 7/2 = 3.5/1) That’s quite likely.
4. Lab-Lib coalition.
If the Tories can’t join the Lib Dems (maybe because the Tories don’t get enough seats, or because they can’t make an agreement for some reason) this could be a possibility. However, Labour have attacked Nick Clegg lots of times over the past 5 years, and they’ve said they would only join the Lib Dems if they got rid of Clegg. The Lib Dems refuse to let another party choose their leader. So, the negotiations would be seriously tough. Odds are: 10/1 (possible)
5. A minority government – either Labour or Conservative, running a ‘rainbow coalition’.
What the hell is a rainbow coalition? It sounds lovely!
This is when a minority government runs, and does individual deals with different parties on a law by law basis. So, instead of a formal coalition, the government would get support votes from some MPs from other parties, in return for certain laws.
It would be messy, and fragile, and unsatisfying.
However, the bookies seem to think it’s possible:
Labour Minority 13/8 = 1.625/1 (you bet 10 you get back 16.25 profit)
Conservative Minority 4/1

The only thing we know, is that we don’t know what’s going to happen.
Nevertheless, here’s my prediction.
The results will come in on Friday morning, and nobody will get a majority. Then the negotiations will begin – and they’ll continue for days and nights. We might not know what our government will look like until sometime the following week. They will make a decision though – it won’t be like in Belgium where they had no government for ages. We’ll get a government, but it might be messy and compromised.
The tories will probably get more votes than Labour, but they won’t be able to form a coalition with anyone because the Lib Dems won’t get enough votes, and neither will UKIP. Maybe they’d join with both, because Nick Clegg says he’d be happy to have a referendum on the EU (which is what UKIP want) but could the Lib Dems really face being in government with right-wingers like UKIP?
So, I reckon Cameron will have to resign because he won’t be able to make a satisfactory agreement.
Then, Ed Miliband will have a go at forming a coalition.
None of his options are particularly easy.
A deal with SNP would be a fairly obvious choice because they’ll have enough seats to help him reach 326. But Ed Miliband has said he definitely wouldn’t do it (but I think he’d change his mind if it got him power). Of course, the SNP would make various demands in return for helping Labour. Those demands would be to get rid of the nuclear weapons defence system called Trident which is based in Scotland, to raise taxes, so spend even more on public services and possibly to demand another independence referendum.
Doing a deal with the Lib Dems is not easy either, as we’ve already stated.
A Labour minority government would be weak and could break down if all the other parties aren’t satisfied.
We might end up having another general election.
And then I’ll have to do another podcast!

Possible constitutional chaos and then zombies
– The Tories join with UKIP, we get a referendum and the UK leaves the EU, but Scotland demands to remain in the EU because they all voted YES in the EU referendum. The UK leaves the EU and splits up in the process. End result: Zombies.
– The SNP demand another referendum, and get it this time. The UK splits up. End result: Zombies.
– Parliament has no confidence in whatever government is chosen, and Parliament is closed while they try and fix it. The UK proceeds with stalemate and no government. The result: Zombies.
– The SNP dominate UK politics, and conservative MPs demand an English council for English laws. The whole constitutional framework of the UK breaks down in confusion and admin. Result: zombies.
Just joking of course ;)

So, what do YOU think?
What’s your opinion from outside the UK (or inside)?
Do you see any similarities with your country?
election2.2

268. UK General Election 2015 (Part 1)

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This podcast contains everything you should know about the general election which is happening across the UK this Thursday 7 May 2015. This could be a long episode, but I’m so determined to cover the whole story that I don’t mind how long it takes. I feel it’s worth spending some time to cover this topic in enough detail to make it genuinely interesting and informative. I’m not there in the UK at the moment, so I’m not able to take part in the discussions, or watch all the coverage on the TV, but I care about this a lot and I’ve just got to get this stuff off my chest – which means, I’ve got a lot of things inside that I want to tell you about. This is an important election (like any election) and it’s interesting because we genuinely don’t know what’s going to happen, and the consequences of the different outcomes could be quite drastic. Voting is on May 7, but I’ve already voted – I did it by post (yes, that’s possible in the UK). No, I’m not going to tell you who I voted for – I’ll let you try and work that out if you want.
Small Donate Button[DOWNLOAD] [PART 2]
I was on TV last week talking about this election last week. I wish I had been as prepared then as I am now! It was a live TV debate on France24. They invited me on at the last minute because they needed a guest who was British and was able to talk about the election. I knew a few things about it because I’ve been covering this topic in my classes this year, and last year and so I agreed to go on the show. Also, I think they were interested in having a comedian on the show, and so they ended up with Luke from Luke’s English Podcast in the studio! 2 hours later I was on live television, and yes I did manage to plug Luke’s English Podcast, as well as suggest to President Francois Hollande that he take English lessons with me. So, Francois – if you’re listening, the offer is still open! I did okay in the TV debate, although I was a little unprepared. Now, after having dealt with this subject in class a few times this week already I feel like I am even more prepared, and actually have a good grasp of the situation, good enough to be able to explain it to you, here, in this podcast, clearly and simply.
That is my challenge in this episode – to get across the complex facts and issues relating to this election in an understandable and engaging way. Your challenge is to just try to follow it step by step! The end result should be that you’re more well-informed about this significant moment in British life, and I’m sure you’re going to pick up plenty of language in the process.

You’ll be glad to know that you can read a lot of what I’m saying here on the page for this episode at teacherluke.co.uk. If you want to follow this, read these words, repeat it yourself, check some of vocabulary in a dictionary or whatever studying method you have, you can do it. Not every word is transcribed as I might improvise and go off script from time to time, but the main content is certainly there for you to read. :)

This subject is relevant to you
You might not think this subject is particularly relevant to you, but I’d like to try and persuade you that it is.
The UK remains one of the world’s most important countries. What happens here is in the interests of the whole world.
If you’re in a European country it is particularly relevant, because what happens in this election could dictate the UK’s relationship with the EU, including steps towards our exit from the union.
This election is fascinating because we really don’t know what’s going to happen. Usually, it’s pretty obvious. Not this time.
It could result in big changes to the UK’s constitution, including the our exit from Europe, Scotland’s exit from the UK, a fairly significant social and economic change of direction for the country, and changes to the way our government operates within Parliament. Is this the end of an age in UK politics? Maybe.
So, I think it is relevant to anyone interested in significant events beyond their borders – and I imagine that if you’re a listener to this podcast, you have some curiosity or relationship with the UK, which could make you want to know more about this big moment.

This is the number 1 story in the UK at the moment. There’s a huge buzz about it in the newspapers, on TV, all over the internet. It’s the big story – much bigger than the birth of the second royal baby, which happened on Saturday, and named yesterday (Charlotte Elizabeth Diana). So, in this episode I’ll explain the main details and nuances of this story, specifically for you as a non-native speaker, so you can understand it’s significance.

And as if that wasn’t enough you’ll get plenty of vocabulary, the opportunity to hear the leaders of 7 political parties in the UK. That’s 7 different voices from 7 different key figures in this election, including 1 Scottish accent and 1 Welsh accent. At the end of this episode, you’ll be far more informed about British politics than you were at the beginning, and we all know that knowledge is power. You may be able to impress people with your ability to chat about UK politics. Honestly, I’m often surprised at how little people understand politics, including fellow Brits. I think everyone benefits when we engage in politics. I’m certainly not cynical about this subject, and I definitely do not find it boring. Cynicism about politics is dangerous, because if we don’t care about politics, and ignore the subject – it doesn’t go away, it just gets dominated by people who do care about it – and often that means people with extreme, fringe ideas. So, let’s engage in politics because it’s not only fascinating, but vitally important.

So, are you convinced? I hope so.

The election is on Thursday, just a couple of days away. So, by the time you listen to this, the voting will probably have finished and there will probably be a new government in power. Many of you may be listening to this ages after the event. I still think it’s relevant, even some time after the election, because it’ll give you insight into not only the background story of what happened in May 2015 and the context of what’s going on in the UK at the moment, but it should also help to explain events that are happening in the future.

Context – the last 5 years
Traditionally, the UK has been dominated by two political parties – Conservatives (right) and Labour (left).
Now we’re seeing a much more diverse set of parties who not only represent different positions on the political spectrum, but also different regions in the UK. This is a story of not just right and left, but of England and Scotland, and also Wales & Northern Ireland of course. It could be the end of the two-party system, and the centralisation of Westminster.

Let’s just have a reminder of some basics of politics in the UK
The whole of the UK is divided into constituencies – these are political areas of the country. Each constituency votes for an MP to represent them in The House of Commons, which is in Parliament, which is in Westminster, which is in London, which is in England, which is in Britain, which is in the UK.
Each constituency has a seat in the House of Commons. There are 650 seats for 650 constituencies. So each seat is occupied by an MP who represents his/her constituency, including the Prime Minister, members of the Cabinet (ministers of different ministries, such as the Ministry of Education, etc) members of the opposition etc.
Those MPs represent different parties of course. That includes the main ones – Conservatives (302), Labour (256), Liberal Democrats (56) and also other ones with smaller numbers of seats, particularly parties that represent specific interests of other nations in the UK, such as the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein from N.Ireland, the SNP from Scotland and Plaid Cymru from Wales.

Those MPs vote on laws that affect the whole of the UK. After the laws have been passed, and given Royal Assent by The Queen (she basically stamps them “Yes, fine” next! I don’t think she actually does it herself), they are applied in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. But, thanks to a process of decentralisation of government power called ‘devolution’, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have their own parliaments which have a certain amount of independent power. They can adapt some of the laws from Westminster, and can write some new laws which apply only to those regions. This is particularly true in Scotland. England doesn’t have a devolved parliament like the other countries. We take laws from Westminster, unchanged. This arrangement has been relatively problem free for England, because the number of MPs from the other 3 countries in Westminster has been quite low, so it’s no big deal. But, if the SNP get lots of votes this year, it means the number of SNP MPs could rise by 40-50 seats, and that means that suddenly a lot of English laws are being voted on by Scottish nationalists. That’s making some English MPs freak out a bit. Do you understand that? Don’t worry if it’s a bit complex. It might make more sense later.

Basically, this is going to be a big year from the Scottish National Party and they’ll probably have a much bigger presence in Parliament than ever before, and that’s going to make a big difference to the way that government is run in the UK. The Scots will have much more influence.

What happened in the last election?
To form a majority government, one party needs to get at least 326 seats in Commons. For example, in 1997 Tony Blair’s Labour Party won 418 seats – that’s a big victory. They assembled a majority government that enjoyed a lot of support from the public (at the beginning). Labour won the next election too, but in the end, Blair lost the public’s support, mainly because he chose to get involved in the Iraq war in 2003 against public opinion. People decided that, with George Bush, he’d lied about his intentions for going to war in the middle east. He said it was about weapons of mass destruction, and it became clear that it was more about imperialism and a struggle for oil. Blair stepped down eventually, and was replaced by another Labour MP called Gordon Brown (an imposing Scottish guy who specialised in economics, was a bit more socialist in nature than Blair, had one eye and was unable to fake a smile on live TV) after a damaging power struggle within the party. Basically, Brown and Blair set up New Labour together in the 90s. They had an agreement that Blair would be the leader, and Brown the finance minister, and that after something like 8 years, Blair would step aside and let Brown have a go at leadership. I think Blair didn’t want to give up the leadership (if we can learn one thing from this episode, it’s that power is massively seductive, and when power is within reach people will be willing to change even their most important principles in order to get it). So there was an internal struggle within the party, and Brown won and became PM, but it left the Labour party divided. Blair is now generally disliked. Brown was also pretty unpopular. He didn’t have the charisma or charm of Blair, and he was PM at the time of the economic crash. A lot of people blame him and Labour for that. This is around 2008, 2009. In 2010 it was time for another election.

There was a lot of voter apathy, and there still is. This is the feeling among voters that voting is a waste of time and effort, because all the candidates are basically the same, they all lie, they don’t keep their promises, they’re corrupt and just seek power and don’t really have our interests at heart. That meant that we had a fairly low voter turnout at the election, and also the nation wasn’t particularly passionate about one candidate in particular. The three main candidates were David Cameron of the Conservatives, Gordon Brown of Labour and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats. None of them did particularly well, and neither Conservatives or Labour got the magic 326 seats to form a majority government. So, the negotiations began. What negotiations? The negotiations to form a coalition government. This is when several parties get together and form a joint government. Usually a smaller party will join a bigger one if they can agree on certain policy ideas and an agenda for government. This involves the usual things you would expect from a negotiation – conditions, concessions, trading powers and so on.

The Conservatives
It was the Tories (Conservatives) and Liberal Democrats who made a deal, and formed the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition which has been in government for the last 5 years. They came into power when the UK was suffering a large budget deficit (the country just didn’t have enough money to pay for everything) as a result of the financial crisis. The Conservative solution to this was to introduce sweeping austerity measures – that means spending cuts. This is one of the key policies of The Conservatives, and part of their ideology. Stop spending money on social services. That means cutting welfare payments or cutting benefit given to people in society who need help, or anything that the state pays for. The logic there is that the state can save money by spending less on its people.

At the same time, they wanted to reduce taxes for the rich, and allow businesses to flourish (to be successful), especially the financial sector (the banks, particularly in London). Don’t tax corporations, banks or businesses too much – let them thrive. If businesses are successful, if there is wealth at the top end of society, that will benefit everyone because the money will come trickling down from top to bottom like a magical waterfall, it will lead to job creation, more people will have spending power and everything will be wonderful. This was the Tory plan. Cut public spending, promote the private sector. The Liberal Democrats, in joining the Conservatives, moved to the right (because Conservatives are a bit right-wing, and the Lib Dems were in the centre, to the left of the Tories). So the Lib Dems moved away from the left in order to get into government. Nick Clegg justified this by promising to protect certain key things – like tuition fees for example (that’s the price you have to pay to go to university in the UK). He promised to make sure the tories didn’t raise tuition fees. But he failed his promise and the government did raise tuition fees. In fact, generally, the coalition has been bad for Nick Clegg because he’s had to compromise lots of his principles, and he keeps having to apologise for it.

So, the Conservative-Liberal coalition went ahead with large spending cuts. Lots of people in the UK protested against the cuts, saying it was unfair and that the conservatives only cared about the rich, and didn’t care about ordinary working people, and they had a point. Anyway, ‘austerity’ has been the big word of this government. Spending cuts. For many people, particularly those in working class or poor communities, this was pretty bad news because suddenly they had fewer services, longer hospital waiting times and so on. So, austerity, austerity, austerity. The tories say “we have a long-term plan for the economy – it’s tough, but it’s necessary”.

Maybe they’re right, because according to lots of analysts, the UK’s economy has had more growth than most other countries in Europe. Maybe it’s been working – but it’s unclear if this growth is due to spending cuts, or if it would have happened anyway. Maybe there are macroeconomic factors which are beyond the control of the tories, which mean that the UK’s economy would grow out of recession quickly anyway, and that if they cared more about communities, then people would generally be happier and quality of life better.

Ultimately, it’s a question of values. We’ll come to that later.

This is long isn’t it! But I hope you’re keeping up!!!

So, the most recent government is David Cameron PM, Nick Clegg deputy PM – conservatives and Lib Dems together, with austerity measures their main economic policy.

The Scottish National Party
Then of course last year we had the high profile Scottish independence referendum. As part of a deal agreed by David Cameron some time before, the Scottish were given the choice to be in or out of the UK. I did a podcast about this before, which was very well received by my listeners. There were two camps – the “Yes Scotland” campaign (for independence) and the “Better Together” campaign (against independence). In the end, 55% of people voted “no” for independence. Scotland stayed in the union. Part of the reason people voted “no” was because it was still a pretty good option for them as all the MPs from England (Lab, Lib and Con) all promised to give Scotland more devolved powers as long as they stayed in the union. “We’ll give you more power – but please don’t leave us!” So, the campaign was such a great advert for Scottish political interests in the UK that the SNP have since attracted loads and loads of support in Scotland. All that campaigning for Scottish rights has been wonderfully helpful for Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of SNP. Now, the SNP are probably going to win a landslide victory in Scotland, stealing a lot of seats from Labour. 40-50 extra Scottish MPs are probably going to arrive in Westminster. How’s that going to affect UK politics?

So, tories are in government, pushing spending cuts and being accused of just looking after their rich friends in the banking industry (who appear to have got away with losing/stealing all our money). Lib Dems have been supporting them, but trying to stop them going to far.
SNP have been getting loads of support in Scotland.

What about Labour?
After losing out in the last election they changed their leader. There was a race for leadership, and it ended up being between two brothers. Ed Miliband and David Miliband. In the end, Ed won, but he had to stab his brother in the back to do it (not literally). Basically, he got ruthless and undermined his brother’s campaign, making friends with key Labour supporters, and pushing a more traditional left wing agenda. So, Ed Miliband became the new Labour leader. The thing is, he’s not particularly impressive. His party is more popular than him really. He’s a bit awkward, makes some clumsy mistakes like forgetting important details in speeches, or stumbling over his words sometimes. He also looks a bit odd, like a character from a Wallace and Gromitt cartoon, and he has a nasal sounding voice. Also, he comes from a fairly wealthy background, despite being quite left wing. All those things work against him, but nevertheless he and his party have consistently challenged David Cameron’s government over their position on social and economic issues. He’s emerged as a candidate who actually cares about ordinary people, and who has the guts to take tough decisions and lead the country. So, although he’s not quite as popular as the Labour Party itself, Miliband could be our next PM. It all depends on small details in the voting on Thursday, and whether the tories can make a coalition deal with other parties or not.

Oh, I forgot something important – UKIP and Nigel Farage.
We’ve seen from history that whenever times are tough and there’s a financial crisis, people get scared and insecure, and they look for a scapegoat to blame for all their problems. That scapegoat is often foreign people, immigrants and their damaging effect on a country. UKIP stands for the United Kingdom Independence Party, and they have, in my opinion, some slightly dangerous, reductive and simplistic solutions to the UK’s financial and social problems.
Essentially, for UKIP, all of our problems are caused by our open door policy on immigration. The government doesn’t have enough money – immigration, we’re spending too much on welfare for immigrants. You can’t get an appointment to see a doctor? Immigration. You can’t find a job? Immigration. There’s too much traffic on the road? Immigration. You’ve got a bit of a headache? Immigration. You keep losing socks in the washing machine? Immigration.
Oh and the other problem is the European Union. According to Nigel Farage, the UK needs to leave Europe. If we do that we can choose our own laws, close the open door to immigrants, and save billions of pounds a year.
Farage has quite a high number of very vocal and loyal supporters. Sometimes they’re accused of racism. Sometimes UKIP members and supporters are racist, and then Farage has to make a statement saying “I’m disappointed in this person, they don’t represent the views of UKIP etc”. I’m sure it’s a familiar story to you – I’m sure there are similar parties in your countries that tell us that the source of all our problems is the dirty, criminal, lazy, disease infected influence of ‘other people’ from across our borders. In my opinion it’s small minded, it’s distorted by prejudice, it’s backwards looking (in the mind of Nigel Farage, Britain was at it’s best when fighting against foreign invaders) and it’s dangerous.
Farage wants the UK to have an early referendum on the EU.

There are arguments for leaving the EU – like that it would save us money, and we could be free to choose other trading partners, but I wonder if there’s real truth in them. If we did leave the EU, surely we would lose billions from all the lost business, the companies that would close or pull out of the country, the trade deals we would lose with our biggest market, the bad faith that would develop between the UK and other European nations, etc etc.

But, lots of people seem to agree with him and there’s a chance that if UKIP get enough support in enough places, that they could gain enough seats to be in a position to form a coalition government with the Conservaties, and that is bound to involve one key condition – a referendum on the EU. So, watch this space – Britain’s exit from the EU (or Brexit) is more likely than you might think. Would the conservatives offer an early referendum on EU membership if it guaranteed them power? Yes, I think they would.

There are also other parties, with less influence, but who could be important in any coalition deals. This includes the left-wing Green Party, Plaid Cymru (representing Welsh interests, also quite left wing) and parties from Northern Ireland such as the Ulster Unionists (would support the conservatives).

End of Part 1 – 1hr05min
Click here to for part 2.
election1.1

262. What is Britishness? (Part 2)

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Welcome back to part 2 of this episode in which we are exploring the subject of Britishness. In this one we are looking at how the Brits define and understand their own national identity. [Download]
Image: Gene Bible http://www.genebible.co.uk
Small Donate ButtonHow do British People define “Britishness”?
When you ask the average British person to define “Britishness” I find that they always give certain ‘stock answers’ to this question too. As we know, it’s hard to truly define this concept, so you end up listing various associations, which don’t fully deal with the whole subject in a satisfyingly complete way.

Video
I found a video on YouTube called “What is Britishness?” by Rebecca Devaraj. It’s a short video exploring Britishness for her final-year university project.
It looks like she spent the morning in a local park, asking passers-by the question “What is Britishness?”
Listen to the audio. Can you guess which answer I think is the best?

Some vocab from the video
Having a stiff upper lip and getting on with things
Being accepting and just getting on with it
Bulldog – it has connotations with Churchill, and the advert… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbz-IsEOCKo
Bad weather – torrents (torrents of rain) ***I’ve just realised that they said “tolerance” not torrents! Did you notice that?***
Progress
We get behind our sports teams
You just are British – that’s it really. If you’re British – you enter the mix.

The best comment?
For me it’s the guy (Professor Jeremy Black, author of “A Short History of Britain”) who says this:
“I would have thought that Britishness defines the characteristics of whoever are the citizens of Britain, whatever their origins at any one time. Ordinarily, we would argue that Britishness is linked to notions of liberty and freedom and in fact the very diversity that makes it difficult to define what Britishness means”.

Wikipedia Definition

Britishness is the state or quality of being British,[2][3] or of embodying British characteristics,[3] and is used to refer to that which binds and distinguishes the British people and forms the basis of their unity and identity,[4] or else to explain expressions of British culture—such as habits, behaviours or symbols—that have a common, familiar or iconic quality readily identifiable with the United Kingdom.[5] Dialogue about the legitimacy and authenticity of Britishness is intrinsically tied with power relations and politics;[6] in terms of nationhood and belonging, expressing or recognising one’s Britishness provokes a range of responses and attitudes, such as advocacy, indifference or rejection.[6] Macphee and Poddar state that although the designation of the two differing terms, Britishness and Englishness, is not simple as they are invariably conflated, they are both tied into the identity of the British Empire and nation, since these last two are altering considerably as Englishness and Britishness do too. Thus the slippage between the two words can be seen as a play between these changing dynamics.[7]

That’s interesting.

So, in summary that means it’s:
– Whatever distinguishes British people and culture from other nations, whatever is unique to the UK.
– It includes habits, behaviours, or symbols that are specific or familiar to the UK
– This conversation usually ends up with references to the power structure of the UK – politics and monarchy.
– Expressing Britishness provokes a range of feelings. For example, waving a British flag might cause people (in the UK) to go “Yey!” or “whatever” or “I find that offensive”.
– “Britishness” and “Englishness” are different things, but they are often used to mean the same thing – Britain from an international point of view, especially as an empire.

So, what’s the difference between Britain, and England? (and indeed Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland)
Why would it be offensive to wave a British flag?
Generally in England it’s less offensive, but in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland you might meet people who put their countries before the union of the UK, and in fact feel that the UK was forced on them in some way.
What about waving an English flag?
In England, the UK flag is associated with unity, inclusion, multiculturalism and so on. The English flag on its own is more associated with English nationalism, which in turn is associated with empire building, colonialisation and also football hooligans. Generally, the English flag is displayed when there’s a football match, and the behaviour that goes along with that.

In terms of how Brits define Britishness… This Guardian Article Sums It Up Rather Well
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/guardianwitness-blog/2014/jun/09/scottish-independence-10-things-that-sum-up-britishness

What about the Scots, the Welsh & the Northern Irish?
I’m English, and British, so when I talk about Britishness, I’m also talking about Englishness to a certain extent, but Britain also includes Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland. Do they feel included in all this talk of Britishness?
Not necessarily. Some people in those countries feel strongly about independence and resent being ‘lumped in with England’. They believe their countries have unique identities too, which are not always represented when people talk about Britishness. Some would rather not be part of Britain at all, as we say recently in Scotland with the strong independence movement.
Personally, I think Britishness is quite a flexible term, and it does include Scottishness, Welshness and Northern Irishness, but I can understand they get pissed off that their culture is not always represented in this kind of discussion. Personally, I was born and raised in England, and so many of my British associations are also English. I’d like to get more Scottish, Welsh and Irish people on my podcast.
Also, it’s worth remembering that most people don’t feel all that strongly about it. I reckon most people just want to get on and don’t want too much fuss. I’m proud of that too – usually resentment between countries in the UK does not result in violence these days, although that’s not to say violence has not occurred in the past, particularly regarding terrorist attacks related to the troubles in Northern Ireland, which is a subject that deserves to be covered fully in a podcast in the future.

What I think / What I’m proud of
When my students were brainstorming their British associations, I did too. Here’s my list, of personal British associations (in no particular order).

Tolerance and acceptance (although there seems to be a
Freedom (although this is a growing movement against immigration and about taking back the country from unwelcome foreign visitors – that British identity is being lost due to too many foreigners, and the fact we’re run by the EU. Those are views held by a fairly marginal political party called UKIP, who are having a big effect on voting patterns and the political landscape in the UK)
Fairness -“It’s just not cricket” (but are we really fair?)
Pragmatism – getting things done
Humour
Resolve
Music
Comedy
Literature
The land itself
Cricket, Rugby (football too?)
The diverse accents
The NHS
Diversity & Acceptance of Diversity
Certain inventions
Sherlock Holmes & Dr Watson
Drinking Tea with milk, the proper way
Pretending to be proudly British!
Taking the piss
Pubs
Liverpool, Birmingham, London
A slight sense of guilt about Scotland, Wales, Ireland etc – but knowing that is also nonsense, but it’s there a bit.
Tolkein
Monty Python
Ali G
I could go on…

When I came back from Japan, I saw the UK with fairly fresh and objective eyes. I remember the greenness of the place, the relaxedness, the small mindedness. It was very Tolkienesque.

Some things I’m not proud of, like certain racist or small-minded people, poor public services, corruption and elitism, blind national pride, etc…

All in all, I hope that Brits, and English people too, remember that our countries are diverse places and that is what makes us strong.

Billy Bragg – England, Half English (Live)

Lyrics

My mother was half English and I’m half English too
I’m a great big bundle of culture, tied up in the red white and blue
I’m a fine example of your Essex man
And I’m well familiar with the Hindustan (This is an Indian English-language daily newspaper)
‘Cause my neighbors are half English and I’m half English too

My breakfast was half English and so am I, you know
I had a plate of Marmite soldiers, washed down with a cappuccino
And I have a veggie curry about once a week
The next day I fry it up as bubble and squeak
‘Cause my appetites, half English and I’m half English too

Dance with me to this very English melody
From morris dancing to Morrissey
All that stuff came from across the sea

Britannia, she’s half English, she speaks Latin at home
St. George was born in the Lebanon, how he got here I don’t know
And those three lions on your shirt
They never sprang from England’s dirt
Them lions are half English and I’m half English too

Le-li, umma le-li-ya, le-li Umma le-li-ya
Le-li, umma le-li-ya, bledi g’desh akh! Le-li-ya

Oh, my country, what a beautiful country you are.

The conclusion (of sorts)
Britishness, like any cultural identity, is always changing. These things never stay the same. There is always a sense that the culture is being lost. That’s just the sense of the present order slipping away and being replaced by the new one, at every moment of every minute – things are changing and nothing will stay the same. That brings some sense of fear and panic – the idea that we’re going to lose the good things we have.

People also need a clearly defined culture in order to feel secure, so they know where they are and they can trust the people around them. People tend to prefer the things they know and distrust things they don’t know. It’s quite easy to blame others for that frightening sense that things are changing for the worse.

I think this is why a lot of people have fear and hatred of immigrants and foreigners. They’re scared of the unknown agents of change who look and behave differently. I suppose it’s human nature, but it’s sad and unnecessary when it ends up in violence and suffering. Obviously, we shouldn’t tolerate certain behaviour.

Where am I going with this?

What I mean is – there is no such thing as true “Britishness” unless it is just a snapshot of what is happening right at this moment in Britain. What is going on? What are most people thinking and doing? It’s almost impossible to comprehend the subtlety of what Britishness really is at any moment, because it’s so complex. That’s why the question invites the standard mind-numbing responses, like “It’s The Queen, tea, strawberry jam, Monty Python, a game of cricket, 9 pints of lager and a fight outside the chip shop” – people just list things they associate with the UK because there’s no other way of explaining it. Just a bunch of associations.

Britishness is negotiated
Also, I believe that Britishness is not an absolute concept, it’s something which is negotiated. Everyone has their own version of Britishness, and in fact Britishness changes depending on who is in power, who’s got the money, the influence and the cultural capital. In the end, it doesn’t matter how much you say that Britishness is all about cricket, when hardly anyone plays cricket any more because there’s no money in it.

Britishness is a blanket term which is supposed to incorporate all the diverse elements of multiculturalism.
Britishness means diversity, inclusivity and a celebration of the success and positivity of multiculturalism. So, in that sense, Britishness is something which is supposed to unify us, provide us with a sense of pride and therefore duty and obligation to the country we belong to. We’re less likely to smash the system if we believe in it.

Britishness is a unifying force which just keeps everything together
After the 2005 terror attacks, the government were keen to reinforce national pride, to promote the British brand to its own people, in an effort to fight back against the destructive forces behind the attacks. The idea of a Britishness day was suggested, but it didn’t really go anywhere. What could that be? A day when we argue about what Britishness is? Also, it’s all a bit close to nationalism, and we don’t like that in the UK. Nobody wants to be associated with facism, so often people have a defensive attitude to national pride, usually along the lines of “I think it’s fine to be proud of Britain” or “I AM proud of Britain and there’s nothing wrong with that.” It’s usually that sort of thing.

What about all the bad things done in the name of Britain? Are you proud of them too?
Most people seem quite happy to pick and choose which aspects they are proud of. They usually will ignore the atrocities in our colonial past, proudly declaring their pride in English tea – despite the treatment of India during the colonial era.
I’m wary of being too proud of my country because I know that we’ve done some pretty bad things in the past. Also, I think national pride can be blinding, and ultimately quite destructive. It’s good to be proud of your roots, but there is a more important thing to remember – that there is a bigger picture – and that is that it’s stupid to think that one nationality is intrinsically better than others.

You can be whoever the hell you want to be
It doesn’t matter where you pay your taxes you can just define your own identity as you see fit. Just as long as you don’t go out of your way to hurt others, go ahead and be whatever you like. That’s the main thing. Just try to be a good person. The rest is just fluff.

LEPSTERS – What’s it all about?
Leave your comments, thoughts and opinions in the comments section, and practice your English!

Related Episodes
If you found this episode interesting, check out these ones too:
261. What is Britishness? (Part 1)
128. Luke’s Stand Up Comedy Show – Featuring jokes about British food, weather and our Royal family – Now fully transcribed
131. Rickipedia – Conversation with my Dad, in which we answer various questions from listeners, including some things about British culture.
British Slang (A-C)
British Slang (D-G)
British Slang (H-M)
British Slang (N-Z)
156. British Comedy: Ali G
172. British Comedy: Peter Cook & Dudley Moore
177. What Londoners Say vs What They Mean
192. Culture Shock: Life in London (Part 1)
192. Culture Shock: Life in London (Part 2)
195. British Comedy: Monty Python’s Flying Circus
199. The UK/USA Quiz
202. British Comedy: Monty Python & The Holy Grail
219. Scottish Independence – Key notions of national identity

261. What is Britishness? (Part 1)

24 Replies

In this episode I’m going to explore the notion of “Britishness”, including the stereotypes, the reality and the complexity of defining Britishness, or any other national identity. You’ll find that a lot of what I’m saying is transcribed on the page on teacherluke.co.uk for this episode, although not all of it has been prepared in advance, and there will be moments when I go off script and improvise. So, this episode is a mix of scripted and unscripted bits. This might be a long episode – I have no idea at this stage! If it is really really long, I’ll divide it into several episodes, and you’ll just get even more for your money, which is a lot considering it is a free podcast! [Download]
Image: Gene Bible http://www.genebible.co.uk
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I’m British so…
I must be some kind of 19th century cross between a gentleman and a hooligan, with a newspaper and umbrella under my arm, a cup of milky tea in one hand, and a pint of warm beer in the other, eating a bag of fish and chips while talking in Shakespearean English about the benefits of the rules of cricket and the class system before getting blind drunk at a football match, invading a bunch of developing countries, and then sort of apologising a bit, like Hugh Grant, because basically we’re just a bloody nice bunch of chaps who mean no harm and live in an antique world of Downton Abbey where we all just keep calm and carry on while being awfully polite and well-mannered, except when we’re playing Germany or France at football when we all forget our national anthem before transforming into a gang of brutal thugs who smash up the local town, blame it on illegal immigrants while we continue to eat our bad food under our bad weather using our bad teeth, the whole time making bad jokes in accents that nobody can understand before stopping everything in order to camp outside a hospital to await the birth of some blue blooded bawling British baby, who, if he’s lucky enough to make it to 100 years old, will probably put on a magic golden hat in an old castle to become our unelected and powerless king, like some twisted modern real-life version of Game of Thrones in 3D.

Yes, I’m from Britain. In fact, I’m from London…

Now, what’s all this about?
Well, this episode is all about defining “Britishness”, or attempting to do that.

I asked my students to define “Britishness” and that inspired me to do this episode
Recently in some of my English classes we’ve been studying topics related to the UK, such as the political system, the monarchy, the relationship to Europe and so on. In our first lesson we considered the idea of Britishness, national identity and the citizenship test. As a warm-up exercise I invited my students to try and define “Britishness”. The results were the usual mix of stereotypes and genuine insight. It’s interesting to me, to see the difference between how my students see my country from an outsider’s point of view, and how I see it from the inside.

Britishness is hard to define
It seems that defining “Britishness” is harder than you might expect. In fact, the more you think about it, the more complex it becomes. It’s remarkably hard to put your finger on a universally true definition of Britishness. Instead you end up with the usual stereotypes – either held by foreigners who have their own view of the UK, or by British people themselves who, for one reason or another, define their culture with certain reference points. E.g. it’s fish and chips, or it’s a cup of tea and a game of cricket on the TV. But I want to go a bit deeper than that. So that’s what I want to attempt to cover in this episode – Britishness. What is it? What is it not? I might not be an expert social historian, and I might not have all the answers, but nevertheless, let’s get stuck into this topic and see what we come up with. Essentially, in this episode I’m going to talk about British images in order to give you a broader understanding of the topic, beyond just the usual stereotypes.

To prepare for this question I’ve written myself some notes. I’ll add it to the transcript collaboration page. Also, please feel free to add comments under this episode on teacherluke.co.uk.

So, let’s get started – “What is Britishness?”

The Stereotypes of the UK from Abroad
Here’s what my students all came up with. I asked them to brainstorm things they associate with Britain, including values, people, and any other aspects of culture. You’ll find a lot of that listed below. I’ve also included what I’ve heard from students, and other people I’ve met over the years. I know I’ve talked about some of these things before (and I’ve talked about the fact that I’ve talked about things before, before too, and in fact now I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about talking about talking about things before, before, before too…) Anyway, here’s the list:
Bad food
Fish & chips
Jelly
Tea
The Queen (we worship her, apparently)
Hugh Grant
Bad Weather
Drunkenness
Football hooligans
Politeness
Indirectness
Colonial past
British Empire
Marmalade
Marmite
Margaret Thatcher
The Beatles, The Clash, The Arctic Monkeys, underground music and so on.
British movies (Gritty Brit Flicks?)
Relationship with the US
Literature – Shakespeare, etc
Sherlock Holmes
Confusing differences between the UK, Britain, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Republic of Ireland, The British Isles, etc.
Strange “British” humour
…The list goes on – Please add your associations too in the comments. Are they well-informed ones, or just stereotypes. Don’t worry, I’m not going to judge you harshly. I’m interested in what the commonly-held images of the UK are in your country.

End of Part 1 – Click here for part 2

Song – “Autumn Almanac” by The Kinks
It’s song time again. I’d like to play a tune which I feel sums up a lot about British life, particularly English life. It’s called Autumn Almanac by The Kinks, written in 1967 I think.
It describes various aspects of English life. Imagine a picture book of images: Gardening, the weather, the end of summer and the approaching winter, escaping from the lack of sun by staying indoors and drinking tea, eating buttered currant buns, the atmosphere of a pub on a Friday evening, football on Saturdays, a roast lunch on Sundays etc. It has a kind of nostalgic feeling to it, and a slight sense of sadness along with national pride. Perhaps the sadness is the fact that this is a version of England which is slowly disappearing as the country modernises more and more, but perhaps these values and habits will always remain.

Buy “The Kinks – Something Else” (1967) on iTunes
Lyrics & Chords
A B7 E A B7 E
Am7 D7 G
From the dew soaked hedge creeps a crawly caterpillar
D7 C D G D G D7
When the dawn begins to crack, it’s all part of my autumn almanac
Am7 D7 G
Breeze blows leaves of a musty coloured yellow
D7 C D G D G D7
So I sweep them in my sack, yes, yes, yes, it’s my autumn almanac

Em E A9 B7 E A9 B7 E
Friday evening people get together, hiding from the weather
C#m G#7 C#m7
Tea and toasted buttered currant buns
F#7 Amaj7 Ab7
Can’t compensate for lack of sun because the summer’s all gone
Am7 D7 G D7
La-la-la la-la, la la la-la la la-la-la ohh! my poor rheumatic back
C D G D G D
Yes, yes, yes, its my autumn almanac
Am7 D7 G D7
La-la-la la-la, la la la-la la la-la-la ohh! my autumn almanac
C D G D G D
Yes, yes, yes, its my autumn almanac

G D C G G D C G
I like my football on a Saturday, roast beef on Sunday’s alright
G D C G G D C G
I go to Blackpool for my holidays, sit in the open sunlight
Gm Bb Eb F
This is my street and I’m never gonna leave it

F7 Bb Dm Fm G7
And I’m always gonna stay here if I live to be ninety-nine
G7/F C Cm G E7
Cos all the people I meet seem to come from my street
A7 B7 Em B7
And I can’t get away, because it’s calling me (come on home)
G A7
Hear it calling me (come on home)

Am7 D7 G D7
La-la-la la-la, la la la-la la la-la-la ohh! my autumn almanyac
C D G D G D
Yes, yes, yes, it’s my autumn almanac
Am7 D7 G D7
La-la-la la-la, la la la-la la la-la-la ohh! my autumn almanac
C D7 G D7 C D7 G D7 C D7 G
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
C D7 G
Bop bop bop-m bop-m ba -ohh! (repeat and fade)

What do you associate with Britishness?
How do you define your own country’s national identity?
Please leave your comments below & practice your English ;)

Related Episodes
If you found this episode interesting, check out these ones too:
262. What is Britishness? (Part 2) – How do British people define Britishness?
128. Luke’s Stand Up Comedy Show – Featuring jokes about British food, weather and our Royal family – Now fully transcribed
131. Rickipedia – Conversation with my Dad, in which we answer various questions from listeners, including some things about British culture.
British Slang (A-C)
British Slang (D-G)
British Slang (H-M)
British Slang (N-Z)
156. British Comedy: Ali G
172. British Comedy: Peter Cook & Dudley Moore
177. What Londoners Say vs What They Mean
192. Culture Shock: Life in London (Part 1)
192. Culture Shock: Life in London (Part 2)
195. British Comedy: Monty Python’s Flying Circus
199. The UK/USA Quiz
202. British Comedy: Monty Python & The Holy Grail
219. Scottish Independence – Key notions of national identity

259. Eulogy for Dennis

30 Replies

Welcome to Luke’s English Podcast. This episode is entitled “Eulogy for Dennis” and it’s devoted to the memory of my Grandfather Dennis, who died at the end of December last year. The music you can hear is by Al Bowly, one of Dennis’ favourites. I hope you find this episode interesting to listen to and if you feel moved to do so – you are welcome to share your thoughts by leaving a comment on the page for this episode which you can find at teacherluke.co.uk – “Eulogy for Dennis” [Download]

Introduction
A ‘eulogy’ is a tribute – either written or spoken, usually celebrating and praising someone who has just died. This episode is a eulogy for my grandfather Dennis, who died recently at the age of 94. Much of what I am saying has been written in advance of recording, so I’m reading from a script. I’ve said plenty of times before that I prefer to record without a script because I think it makes my speaking more natural and authentic, however in this case I felt I had to write a script before recording because I wanted to prepare my thoughts and comments carefully. So this episode is scripted – which is good in one way because it means that it’s there if you want to read what I’m saying. I expect I will go ‘off script’ at times, and express my thoughts as they come to me, so there may be some unscripted parts. Either way, you can follow the bits that are written by going to teacherluke.co.uk and finding the page for this episode.

I hope that you don’t find this episode self-indulgent, or overly personal. I invite you to listen and share some memories of my Grandad, who I regrettably never featured on the podcast in person. I hope this episode can be a sort of celebration of his life, as well as a respectful tribute. I’ve been preparing this episode all morning, and ideally it would be more detailed, with input from the rest of my family, perhaps some readings of his favourite poetry or literature and anecdotes from his childhood. In the end, I realised that I just couldn’t spend too much time on it, and so I’ve just decided to start recording. If I don’t record this episode today, I might never do it.

If you want to make a comment in response to this episode showing some sympathy, and you’re wondering what to write, the appropriate things are usually “I’m really sorry for your loss” or “Condolences to your family”. It’s okay though, don’t feel obliged to write anything unless. I’m fine of course, although I do miss him, and so does the rest of my family. He had a pretty good innings.

Comments are always welcome, and if you feel like sharing similar experiences or ideas, go ahead. Teacherluke.co.uk. This is episode 259 “Eulogy for Dennis”.

I’m not entirely sure if my podcast is the appropriate place to give a tribute to Dennis – this is a podcast for learning English, but at the same time my podcast is a way for me to communicate and share thoughts with an audience of intelligent people around the world. If the content of each episode is interesting for you to listen to – great. It’s good for your English if you are interested in what you are listening to, and even though I’m not directly teaching you language in this episode, there’s still a lot to be gained from just engaging with what I’m saying, intellectually or emotionally. I hope you can get a lot of comprehensible language input from Luke’s English Podcast, and hopefully more than that too. For me, I want to be able to tell people about my grandad, because now he’s gone and his actions are consigned to history. I just want more people to know what he did, and that he was a good guy.

Although I want to be respectful, there’s no need to be overly sombre or sad in this episode. My grandad had a great sense of humour and he wasn’t the sort of person to dwell on dark and depressing thoughts. I imagine that he wouldn’t want me to take this episode too seriously, and he’d just want everyone to be happy and glad for what they have. It makes me happy to be able to share memories and knowledge about this member of my family.

So, I’m just going to talk about Dennis, just so you know about him too. He was a really popular man, and I hope his quiet charm comes through in this episode. He was also a modest bloke, so if he was here now, he’d probably find this a little bit embarrassing and unnecessary. But he’s not here, so I can do what I like, and I would like to spend some time talking about him! So, that’s what I’m going to do!

Childhood
I don’t know that much about his childhood really. He lived opposite a church. He grew up in quite a large house, and I think he really enjoyed growing up there, with quite a lot of space to play. I can’t really tell you more about his early life, because I don’t know enough. If he were here, I would ask him all about it. Suddenly, I want to know everything about his life story.

DennisWartime
So, in 1939
-No choice but to fight
-He didn’t tell us about the really dangerous and traumatic stuff he must have done
-His report
-Military Cross

Dennis’ Report
THE MILITARY CROSS
LIEUT.D.HALLAM – THE EAST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT
This officer has commanded a platoon in a rifle company continuously since D-Day, showing throughout outstanding gallantry and powers of leadership, especially on patrol.

On the 23rd October 1944 outside VENRAIJ he was leading a daylight patrol which was ambushed at very close range; with complete disregard for his own safety he controlled the withdrawal of the patrol in the face of heavy fire and remained behind himself within about fifty yards of the enemy keeping up a constant stream of smoke grenades until he was certain that everyone was clear. But for his coolness and initiative a large part of the patrol might have been lost.

Prior to the capture of HELLIGENRODE on the 16th April 1945 he led his patrol deep into the enemy’s positions and by deliberately drawing their fire was able to pin-point posts which materially assisted the planning of the subsequent attack.

Following the capture of GR.MACKENSTEDT on the 16th April and again during the mopping up of Bremen, his dash and aggressive action in the face of continual sniping inspired his platoon of very young soldiers with a determination which quickly gained them their objectives.

On the 18th April outside DELMENHORST his company and its support troops were held up by an 88mm gun and an enemy position on their left flank, but with superb initiative LT. Hallam led his troop round a covered flank and by the speed of his attack overwhelmed a position equal in strength to his own and accounted for the entire garrison and the gun.

At all times this officer has been an outstanding source of inspiration to those around him and has shown powers of leadership above his rank.

Family Life
-Photos of him and my Gran. They were younger than I am now. They looked so sweet together. She was gorgeous – very pretty and elegant. He was handsome, and elegant too in his own way. Clever, with a dry sense of humour, and a decorated war hero (although I think Gran was not so impressed by that – I imagine by the end, they both hated the war and just wanted it to end so they could be together. She never really mentioned his war experiences either.)
-Post traumatic stress? They didn’t really believe in that sort of thing in those days.
-My Gran bought a house during the war, and they settled down there. Again, seeing pictures, I feel like I would like to meet them. I can’t help thinking that we would have got on. Well, we did get on of course, really well, but it would be amazing to meet them when they were the same age as me – on the same level of status etc. This makes me think of Back to the Future – a film which I’m hoping to talk about on the podcast soon.
-He didn’t talk about the war much. I expect he wanted to put it behind him.
-My Mum says he was a bit removed at times, and not always emotionally engaged. Maybe this is related to how he dealt with his wartime experience, or maybe he was just an emotionally reserved person. That’s not to say he wasn’t warm – he was. He was kind, loving, and thoughtful, but perhaps a little bit reserved when it came to expressing those things openly. His warmth came through in different ways – like in his humour, his obvious enjoyment of being with the family, his interest in our news and so on. It’s almost impossible to imagine him in a war zone, fighting as a soldier. He was most at home in his armchair, reading, doing crossword puzzles, watching cricket and laughing at jokes or making jokes. Like many other men and women of his generation, he was pulled out of life and forced to engage in bloody combat. Forced, by the need to go to war against the enemy, to fight back against the Nazis. He was forced by events outside his control, which swept him away from his otherwise peaceful life. Conscripted into the army, I imagine he found himself wondering how it had happened. I’m sure he was well aware of what had happened to so many other men of the previous generation in World War 1 (nearly 900,000 of them died) and so I can’t imagine how it felt to be walking into a similar situation. I suppose he took on the challenge like everyone else. He was only one of thousands of other soldiers who were asked to fight for their country. I think he had a sense of national duty, and duty to the king and so on. That probably helped him, and I don’t think he questioned or challenged the allied command, or the general fight against the nazis. I expect he saw it as a necessary move, albeit one that he wished was not at all necessary.

It does make me angry that those who wage war force people like my Grandad into such horrific situations. Many many men lost their lives, and the others suffered in other ways – physical injury but also mental or emotional trauma which must have affected these young men deeply. I think of the powerful men who, motivated by some twisted and distorted sense of justice decide they have the right to decide who lives and who dies, and with a sweep of the hand, cause untold suffering and consequences around the world for generations. What supreme arrogance and small mindedness is it, that causes some power hungry maniacs to believe they can do that? What kind of egomaniac thinks they can play with the lives of millions of people just to satisfy their own hunger for power? What on earth makes one guy think he’s the one to rule the world? It’s sick and it disgusts me that certain autocratic dictators will stop at nothing to satisfy their bruised egos. Anyway, there’s no need to go into it any more – I think enough has been said about war and the causes of war, and I know it is complicated, and I don’t want to open up some debate because there are many shades of grey, and what looks like the actions of a power hungry psychopath to one person, may look like righteous leadership to another person. It depends on your point of view, and what kind of propaganda you’ve been exposed to, but ultimately, with great power comes great responsibility, and in so many cases, those who seek great power rarely manage to behave responsibly. Spiderman taught me that. I’m sure there are leaders who do a great job, and are both powerful and responsible, compassionate, and caring – and it is really hard to keep the peace sometimes. But when you go out of your way to slaughter millions just because you don’t like the way they look, dress, pray, or otherwise live their lives – get a grip on yourself. If I met Hitler, I’d ask him “Who the hell do you think you are, mate?” He’d probably tell me that he was someone special, but it would be the wrong answer. He was just another schmuck. One of the biggest twats in recent memory, along with a bunch of other people who I’m sure you could name.

Just one point, which may be me just stating the obvious, but it wasn’t the Germans that were the enemy, it was the nazis, or whatever you want to call those people – you know what I mean. There were plenty of Germans who suffered at the hands of the nazis. So it’s not ‘Germans’ – it’s facists. The fascists came from all sorts of countries. It was a battle of ideas, not based on where you were from.

Also, I know that Britain doesn’t exactly have a perfect past either. We were a huge colonial power, and Britain/UK/England has done some messed up stuff in history too, in India, in the middle east. Everyone’s involved in war to an extent. But I do believe it’s possible for mankind to exist without war. I know this sounds a bit cheesy, but there you go.

As John and Yoko said, “Give peace a chance” – just entertain the idea for a moment that perhaps war is not the answer, and that the whole world could decide to just get on. I know it is naive, but why not? Communication, diplomacy, talking to each other, using words, listening, finding compromise and trying to solve problems – that must be the way forward, unless you believe in the end of the world and in fact somehow fantasise about it happening. I don’t believe in the end of the world. I think the world will go on for many more years, as long as it is not hit be a huge asteroid (like when the dinosaurs were around). Did you know, the dinosaurs lived way way longer than us? We look back at them as a failed species, but they were around for about 135 million years. We’ve been around, as the dominant species, for about 200,000 years. So, the dinosaurs were around 675 times longer than us. Just to put that in perspective, that’s the equivalent to about 1 day compared to about 2 years. Imagine your first day in a new job. Just the first day – you’re nervous, you don’t know anyone, you find it hard to get along with the other people who work there, you don’t like them at first, you don’t know how to do your job very well, but it’s just the first day, and you’ve got 2 years ahead of you. So for humans, it’s still our first day on the job, as the dominant species. We’ve achieved nothing compared to the dinosaurs, if staying alive is the objective, that is. For us humans, we should learn to get along or we won’t make it as far as the dinosaurs. We haven’t even started really… I don’t really understand what’s going on in the world. It seems so confusing sometimes. Why are there wars? Why does human kind feel the need to smash itself up from time to time? Isn’t survival on the planet hard enough? Perhaps we are hard-wired to fight against each other for our own survival, but we have only recently invented weapons of mass destruction. Our instinct, developed over years of evolution, has maybe equipped us with a keen sense of survival, which includes the will to fight each other, but now we have massively destructive weapons so isn’t it time to use our brains to control those basic instincts towards violence? I mean, just play a video game or go to the gym if you have that much aggression inside you. Do some sit ups maybe, rather than getting all angry and causing world war 3. Just have an ice-cream and chill out. OK, rant over.

How did I end up talking about that? I was just expressing anger about those powerful individuals who wage war. I know I might sound naive when talking about this subject, like you might think “Yes, but war is a necessary evil and blah blah” – well, I’m just saying it’s a pity. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Oh and by the way, my grandfather was not bitter about the people he was fighting in the war. He never spoke badly about anyone really. I think the most outspoken thing he said was that he didn’t agree with women being priests in the Anglican church – a pretty old fashioned view, but there you go, and that’s nothing to do with the war. Other than that he didn’t have a bad word to say about anyone really. In World War 2, Japan was an enemy of the allies, but Dennis was so pleased to meet my Japanese friends when I invited them to my parents’ house at Christmas a few years ago. He was really friendly with them and we had a really great Christmas. Of course we did! Why would he bear a grudge against people who were clearly nothing to do with a war that happened generations ago? There’s no good reason for him to have done that.

I don’t want to go on about war too much. It’s annoying that his generation will forever be associated with it. It was only a small chapter in his life really. There’s no need to dwell on it. It didn’t make him who he was. He was more than that. He did so many other things, including having a family and raising two children. That’s worth celebrating as much as anything else. Of course I’m going to say it, but I love my uncle and my Mum massively. They’re just great, and that’s it.

Eulogy
This is the Eulogy I read out in church during the funeral service. It was written by Dennis’ children – my Mum and my Uncle.
They felt they wouldn’t be able to read it out without getting emotional. So, they asked me to do it. I was so proud to be asked. I didn’t feel too nervous. I was happy to read it. I didn’t get emotional until right at the end, when I my voice started shaking a bit.

Things we will remember about our Dad (words written by my Mum and my uncle)
His quiet, modest, ironic, witty and amusing presence.
His intelligence, erudition and knowledge.
His love of reading, especially Dickens and Trollope, who he re-read many times.
His ability to write – short stories, poems, articles, wonderful letters and inspirational little magazines which he produced during the war to boost the morale of his platoon.
Going with him to the public library to be introduced to the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson, Conan Doyle and PG Wodehouse.
His diverse musical tastes; encompassing Beethoven, Gilbert and Sullivan and Al Bowlly.
His facility for mimicry and pastiche.
His phenomenal memory – “ask Dad he’ll know” was frequently said by all members of the family.
His love of, and pride in, Yorkshire; its cricket team, its landscapes, towns and villages and all the happy memories it held for him of his childhood with his older brother and cousins; and later his pleasure in taking us on family holidays there, climbing Pen y ghent and Ingleborough, brewing up coffee on a primus stove, sheltering from the rain under bridges. And recently his enjoyment of visits with Shirley to Cononley, getting to know and love the village where his grandparents lived.
His affection for his school, Queen Elizabeth Grammar, in Wakefield where he obviously had a great education and whose headmaster A.J Spilsbury, was a life-long hero.
The cardigans he used to wear, the pockets of which always contained stubs of pencils with which he completed the cryptic crosswords he loved and was always so expert at, even up to the last few months of his life.
His love of France and the wonderful holidays he and mum had; travelling the length and breadth of the country, camping or staying in rather primitive gites. And, after Mum died, the holidays based on French courses he attended in various parts of France.
His amazing facility for languages, most particularly French, Spanish and German, the talent for which he has not passed on to us!
His skill with a watercolour brush.
His public spiritedness – volunteering to work at the Cheshire Home every Monday evening for 23 years.
His hatred of computers, but his amazing facility for texting on his mobile phone!
His characteristic silent laugh in which he closed his eyes and threw his head back, while quietly expelling air through his half open mouth – not a sound escaping!
His resilience and, sometimes infuriating, self sufficiency.
His even temper which he only ever lost on one memorable occasion, with very good reason!
The skill he displayed in cooking after Mum died, taking pride in hosting lunch and dinner parties.
His luck – sustaining only one injury during his very active war – a cut lip which he got while playing football! the good health he enjoyed during most of his long life, up to the last two or three years; and, after mum died, to have the companionship of Shirley with whom he had some very happy years; not least because, thanks to her Sky subscription, he was able to watch cricket all day long! They also went on many holidays and trips, and she looked after him so lovingly during his last months.
The modest bravery he displayed in his youth. When we asked about the MC which he won in the war he would say, airily “oh, they were ten a penny..”
His stoicism in the face of his death saying just a couple of days before he died “what will be will be”.
His quiet religious devotion, no doubt instilled in him from the day of his birth in a house just over the road from Beverley Minster, where his father was a chorister.
He was an exceptional example of a past generation.
As Hamlet says of his father:
I shall not look upon his like again.

As a Grandfather we only got the best of Dennis, and that was a lot. I remember him as just a great person to share a joke with. He was always up for a laugh, and as Mum and Nic mentioned, he was brilliant at doing impressions and characters. He was just a lovely, intelligent, mild-mannered and warm presence and we have nothing but joyful memories of our time with him.

My memories
Here are just some of the things I think about when I remember my grandad.
His tone of voice – it was soft, and comforting, humorous.
His general knowledge, and knowledge of history and literature.
His memory.
His love of cricket.
The glasses of sherry he would drink when he came to our place (served by my Dad).
Drinking whiskey with him at Christmas.
His friendly “Hello Luke” and a good firm hand shake.
His slippers which he used to wear.
His sense of humour – he could copy different voices, and he was always funny when he did this.
His style (and the style of my Granny – she was really elegant).
His French cars.
His love of France – and the language. He spoke fluent French and even wrote a few short stories in French too, which were published somewhere. My girlfriend and I used to sit with him and chat in French sometimes. Well, mainly them because my French is a bit limited, to say the least.
His love of Sherlock Holmes stories. We had this in common, and we would sometimes chat about Holmes & Watson. I played him my mystery story from episodes 29&30 of LEP. He enjoyed them. I’m sure he could have written something better.

I could go on. There’s so much to say and I’m sure I have missed some details, but there you go.

My Gran died in 2002, and my Grandad was always there for her. It must have been really hard to lose her after all those years, but he was a survivor, and he kept going, living alone for a while, before after about 6 or 7 years he got himself a girlfriend, called Shirley.

At the time, I didn’t even have a girlfriend, so I was pretty impressed with him.
Shirley & Dennis lived together in the last years of his life, and she looked after him really well. If it hadn’t been for her, he might have ended up in a care home, and he wouldn’t have wanted that.

Grandad stayed mentally alert all the way up to the end of his life. He was brilliant at crossword puzzles, pub quizzes, TV quiz shows and games. In the end, he died as a result of a heart condition. It wasn’t completely unexpected or a shock, but it’s still unavoidably moving and difficult to deal with when a member of the family dies. My Mum was with him when he passed away, holding his hand.

That’s it. He’s gone now. Where did he go? I don’t know.
Some people have their answers to that question, but I can’t be sure.
But it’s okay. All things must pass, it’s the way things are – better accept it.

Song
Here’s a song by George Harrison.
Artist: George Harrison
Song: All Things Must Pass
Album: All Things Must Pass
Tab from UltimateGuitar.com

Verse:
A D/A E** D
Sunrise doesn’t last all morning

A D/A E** D
A cloudburst doesn’t last all day

E A/E E** A**
It seems my love is up and has left you with no warning

E A/E E** A**
It’s not always gonna be this grey

Chorus:
Em D Dsus4 D
All things must pass
A D/A A D/A E** D
All things must pass away

Sunset doesn’t last all evening
A mind can blow those clouds away
After all this my love is up and must be leaving
It’s not always gonna be this grey

Bridge:
Em D Dsus4 D
All things must pass
Em D Dsus4 D
None of life’s strings can last
A D/A
So I must be on my way
E** A
To face another day

Now the darkness only stays the nighttime
In the morning it will fade away
Daylight is good at arriving at the right time
It’s not always gonna be this grey

Second Chorus:

Em D
All things must pass
A D/A A
All things must pass away

A D/A E** D A D/A E** A** E***