In this conversation Paul and I get a bit deep & meaningful and talk about where Paul is in his life at this point, including our thoughts about becoming a father, getting older and growing up.
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Introduction
Rambling about my birthday… My daughter is a toddler now. She toddles around.
Thank you so much for the lovely birthday messages that you sent to me.
I’d like to give a shout out to students in my class today who surprised me with presents, delicious cake and champagne – at 10.30 this morning!
We all drank champagne during the class, in the morning. It seems that champagne is the only alcohol that you can drink in the morning and it’s acceptable. You can’t really drink whiskey, wine, beer, vodka (although I’m sure in some places that a breakfast drink) – where I’m from, it’s not acceptable to drink those things in the morning and if you do you’re an alcoholic, but champagne – go for it!
It was pretty interesting for me to teach English after having drunk champagne, which was great.
Anyway, I am another year older, which I am fine with as I said in a recent episode.
But that brings me to this episode, which is a conversation with one of the pod-pals, Paul Taylor, and the conversation is all about growing up, getting older and becoming a father.
As you will know if you heard the previous episode, Paul is about to become a Dad for the first time. His wife is pregnant and the due date is at the end of June. Congrats to the two of them, on behalf of all the LEPsters! It’s a girl. Hopefully she’ll grow up to be friends with my daughter and the other kids from our circle of friends. We don’t know what the name will be yet. We’re all hoping that the rest of the pregnancy goes well, and the birth too.
Having a child can be a bit of a turning point in your life. I don’t know if you have children.
So, in this conversation Paul and I get a bit deep & meaningful and talk about where Paul is in his life at this point, including our thoughts about becoming a father, getting older and growing up.
All I have by way of an introduction at this stage, are some questions for you to consider in order to prepare you a bit for what you’re going to hear.
Questions to consider before you listen to the conversation
- As you get older, does your perception of other people change?
- For example, if you see a group of 18 year olds, how do you feel?
- If you see people who are in their retirement, elderly people, how do you feel?
- How do you feel about the passage of time and getting older?
- How does life change as you move from being a teenager into a young adult and then into being middle-aged and retirement age and old age?
- What do you think of the way society views old people? Are they looked after, represented or respected fully in your society?
- What about having children? Does it change your life? How? Is it a change for the better? In what ways?
- What about your lifestyle?
- Are you good at looking after yourself?
- Do you keep yourself fit and do enough exercise? If not, why not?
- Have you managed to find a sport or exercise routine that suits you and that you enjoy?
- How about your diet and eating habits? Do you manage your diet well? Do you make sure you’re staying healthy and eating the right things?
- Daily routine
- Do you manage to get enough stuff done in your average day?
- What’s your daily routine? Could you improve it in any way? How much discipline do you have in your life?
- How motivated and disciplined are you about doing things that don’t bring you instant results?
- Do you think you need to change your lifestyle as you get older? Is that an easy thing to do?
What influence did your parents have on your life? Do you ever judge the way your parents brought you up? - Do you ever compare yourself to your parents? Do you ever feel like you can’t live up to their expectations or the example they set for you?
- Were either of your parents often not there when you were growing up? Maybe one of them or both of them worked a lot and wasn’t always there. How do you feel about that?
- At what age do people leave home and become independent, in your country?
- What kind of time should you spend with your child? Should you always be there, or is it ok to be absent sometimes as long as you are working hard and making money to help support them?
- If you have kids or are planning to have kids, what kind of example should you show to your children? What aspects of your personality do you want them to inherit from you? Which aspects would you rather they didn’t learn?
- Do you need to say “yes” more in your life? Or do you need to learn how to say “no” more?
- As you get older do you feel that you are becoming more open-minded, or less open-minded? Are you still happy to meet and get to know new people and see new places in your life as you get older?
- And, is Paul ready to be a Dad? Is he looking forward to it? Is he in the right stage of his life for parenthood?
These are the sorts of questions we are talking about in this episode.
So without any further ado, here is my conversation with Paul.
Ending
Congrats again to Paul and his wife Adi. Best of luck for the birth. We’re all looking forward to meeting the new Taylor when she arrives.
You heard us mention a book there.
“Yes Man” by Danny Wallace – a great, interesting and funny book written in modern plain English.
I know my listeners are always interested in finding new books to read. This one was very popular when it came out and I think it is not too difficult to read and should be full of the right kind of English. Everyday English in a plain and modern style.
There is an audiobook version which you might want to listen to. It’s available on Audible.
That’s almost it.
Podcast News / Admin
I have two more free episodes to publish before things go a bit quiet while I work on premium content.
Those next two episodes are also conversations with guests. Earlier this week I spoke to Oliver Gee, the Australian journalist and he told me lots of interesting stories about things like the recent fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral, meeting some famous people while working as a journalist and also his experiences of learning Swedish and French.
And the other conversation hasn’t been recorded yet, but it’s going to be with my Dad. We’re going to talk on Monday next week and the idea is to somehow describe the recent situation in UK politics and some other things like a recent conference that my Dad moderated about climate change, and hopefully we’ll have time to talk a bit more about football, because my Dad follows UK football very closely. That one isn’t recorded yet, but if all goes according to plan I’ll do the recording next week and publish it quickly afterwards, then the Oliver Gee episode should go up.
After that – things will go quiet for a while and there will be no free episodes probably for a couple of weeks, but I will be working hard on new premium content which should arrive steadily during that period.
To sign up to LEP premium go to www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium
Don’t forget also that Paul’s live 1hr stand up show is now available on YouTube. Search for Paul Taylor Franglais. The bits which are in French have English subtitles. It’s about 50% English and 50% French. You can check out Paul’s excellent French skills. It’s impressive.
Episode 600 – YouTube Live Stream – I’ve chosen a date and time!!
It’s going to be Friday 7 June at 3pm CET (Paris time)
That’s…
- 6AM on the west coast of the USA
- 9AM in New York
- 8AM in Mexico City
- 10AM in Rio, Brazil
- 2PM in London
- 4pm in Moscow
- 4pm in Ankara, Turkey
- 6.30pm in New Delhi
- 9pm in Shanghai
- 10pm in Tokyo
- 11pm in Sydney
- 1AM on the Saturday morning in Auckland, NZ
If it’s not at the perfect time for you, then I am sorry! There’s not much I can do about that I’m afraid. Whatever time I do it, there will be some people who won’t be able to attend.
Also, this is just when I’m free!
I will be announcing this again on the podcast, but here it is – 3PM Paris time on Friday 7 June.
I’ll also create a YouTube link for the live stream which I’ll share on my website and on social media. That’s how you’ll access the live stream.
OK, cool!
