Category Archives: Movies

321. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens – SPOILER REVIEW

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Welcome back to Luke’s English Podcast. Happy New Year. This is an episode of Luke’s Film Club, and this time I’m joined by my brother James as we talk about the new Star Wars film in full detail including our thoughts, theories, favourite bits and memorable characters. This episode is full of SPOILERS, so be warned if you haven’t already seen the film.

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Welcome back to LEP. Happy New Year! Did you have a good holiday? Did you have a nice Christmas?

Let me tell you about the social English New Year routine, including all the typical questions we ask each other on our first day back at work in the new year. “Hi, Happy New Year” etc… (Listen to the episode for all the details of this bit).

I was back in the UK with my family. We started at my parents’ house, then a few days in London, then in Bristol with my cousin Oli. I managed to record a few conversations with my family members, which will be uploaded in podcast episodes over the next few weeks.

The first one is this episode which is a conversation with my brother James who you already know from previous episodes of the podcast. We decided to do an episode of Luke’s Film Club about the new Star Wars film in order to discuss it in proper depth, including some spoilers. I’ve seen Star Wars a couple of times since it was released a few weeks ago, and so has James. So, in this episode we talk all about the film in full detail including our thoughts, theories, favourite bits and memorable characters. This episode is full of SPOILERS, so be warned if you haven’t already seen the film.

Also, this is an extremely geeky episode as you’ll hear my brother and me talk at some length about Star Wars. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a geek really, because ultimately – what’s wrong with being interested and enthusiastic about specialist subjects? As long as it doesn’t take over your life in an unhealthy way, then I think it’s ok – so I invite you to embrace your geekiness in this episode, along with us.

I understand that you may be sick of Star Wars by now as the media have been going crazy about it for the last month or so. If that’s the case, don’t worry – other new episodes about different things will arrive on teacherluke.co.uk very soon. But for now, I feel I had to cover this topic in more detail just because it’s so close to my heart (because I’m Luke Skywalker) and I know that many of you my listeners are interested in this too, not to mention the fact that this may be the biggest movie event in history so far. So, here it is… Luke’s Film Club: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, with special guest James Thompson.

Before we get properly started, you might be interested to know that the audiobook version of The Force Awakens is now available on Audible.com. It’s the official audiobook novelisation of the film, it’s 10 hours long you get loads of extra detail, scenes and storyline that you don’t see in the film. SO, if you’re a fan of Star Wars, why not download and listen to it? And, remember you can get it free as part of a 30 day trial with Audible – the world’s top provider of audiobooks. To get started, just go to teacherluke.co.uk/audible and sign up to  a 30 day trial, download any audiobook and if you don’t like it just cancel and keep the audiobook. The offer really is out of this world. Alright then, let’s get started with this new episode of the podcast.star-wars-the-force-awakens

309. The Lying Game (Part 2) with Amber & Paul

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Welcome back to the second part of this double episode. In part 1 you heard me playing a speaking game with Paul & Amber. Go back to part 1 for the details of the game, including the rules. Part 1 ended on a cliffhanger, with the scores even at 2-2-2. Even stevens! Listen to this episode to find out more. TEACHERS: At the end there’s a 15 minute section in which I explain exactly how to use this game in your English classes. You can download a simple .pdf worksheet (below) which you can use in your classes (just tell your students about LEP, or send me a little donation). Listen until the end of the episode to get my full instructions on how to use this awesome game to teach your students grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary and speaking skills in a really awesome way.

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The Lying Game Part 2

Amber: I used to be a performer at The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Prince Charles Cinema in Soho.

Tie-break round:
Luke: I used to be afraid of the tooth fairy.
Paul: I almost set fire to my parents’ house as a kid.

Final scores:
Luke – 2 / 0 / 1 / 2 / 1 Total = 6 points

Amber – 1 / 1 / 0 / x / x Total = 2 points

Paul – 0 / 2 / 1 / 0 / 0 Total = 3 points

Here’s an example of a Rocky Horror Picture Show Shadowcast (below)

For Teachers – How to use The Lying Game in class

Small Donate ButtonClick here to download a .pdf worksheet to use in Class – The Lying Game Worksheet for Teachers by Luke Thompson teacherluke.co.uk

Listen to the last 15 minutes of this episode of LEP (The Lying Game Part 2) to hear me give detailed instructions on how to use the game in class, including details of the level, procedure, specific language and skills work you can do with students. I can get about 2 hours of class time out of this game, and it’s useful for teaching grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary.

In fact, here are the last 15 minutes of the episode  if you’d like to listen to them again or download for later. :) [DOWNLOAD]

308. The Lying Game (Part 1) with Amber & Paul

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Hello, welcome back to LEP. This episode is called the lying game, and it’s one of those ones in which I play a speaking game with my friends Amber and Paul. A transcript for the first 15-20 minutes is available here on the page for this episode. In the introduction you’ll hear me welcome new listeners, talk a bit about my speaking speed on the podcast, mention the importance of listening to native speakers of English (even if it’s a bit difficult to understand every word) and explain some of the content of the conversation you’ll hear between Amber, Paul and me. Then, the speaking game begins properly. I really hope you have as much fun listening to this as we did recording it, because we really enjoyed ourselves! In part 2 (coming soon) you’ll hear the conclusion of the game and I’ll explain how I use this activity with my students in my English classes.

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Introduction Transcript Starts Here (+ more information below)
Hello, welcome to LEP. This episode is called the lying game, and it’s one of those ones in which I play a speaking game with my friends Amber and Paul.

Before you listen to that, I’d like to just say a few things here at the beginning of the episode. Firstly, hello to all my regular listeners, the LEPsters as they are sometimes known. How are you all? I hope you’re fine and having a lovely day or night or evening or morning or whatever time of day it is. Thanks for recent comments on my website. It’s always nice to read your messages. Recently I did episodes about The Battle or Britain and Back To The Future, and I’m feeling a lot of love in the comments section – particularly from my Polish listeners because of things I said in episode 303, which is really great. It’s very motivating to read the positive things you have to say in response to my episodes. I do think about my podcast a lot, and I always hope that you’re enjoying it and finding it useful. So, your comments are valuable bits of encouragement. Thanks also to those of you who have never left a comment on my website in your life – you’re my ninja listeners, and I think there are a lot of you out there, choosing to remain silent in the shadows, but listening to everything.

Secondly, just in case you’re new to LEP, let me just quickly introduce myself. My name is Luke Thompson and I’m an English language teacher from England, which is in Britain, which is in the UK, which is in Europe, sort of. I’m originally from London (in the south-east) but I went to university in Liverpool (in the north-west) and I also spent many years growing up in Warwickshire which is near Birmingham, which is in the midlands, which is in England, which is in Britain, which is in Europe, which is on Earth… etc. OK, I’ve been teaching English for nearly 15 years, wow has it been that long? Time flies when you’re having fun, and I do enjoy my job. I’m DELTA qualified, and in my career I have taught English to adults and children from many different countries, at many different levels, at many different times of the day – morning, afternoon, evening and at night sometimes, in any season, in all weather conditions – rain, snow, hail, wind, lightning, and even during a couple of earthquakes. I’ve taught courses in general English, business English, academic English, English for exams, English for doctors, English for pharmacists, English for engineers, English for lawyers, English for HR, English for secretaries of state, English for journalists, English for unemployed people, English for retired people and English for people who haven’t chosen what to do with their lives yet. Basically, if you need English, I’m your man. If I was a superhero for English teaching, you could call me Englishman! Which is appropriate, because I am an English man. Haha, I’m just joking, I’m not a superhero, I’m just an ordinary humble man, well as you can hear from this introduction I may not be that humble, but I am a man – definitely, I checked this morning. I am proud to be an English teacher – a profession which includes many bright and brilliant people all around the world, who have either chosen this vocation, or just ended up doing it because they didn’t know what else to do with their lives. As well as being an English teacher, I’m also a stand-up comedian, and I’m a podcaster. I do a podcast for learners of English called Luke’s English Podcast. You should listen to it. It’s quite popular and I have lots of downloads these days. I’m happy to say that I have a lovely community of people around the world who regularly listen to my podcast episodes in order to improve their English, but also (hopefully) because they just enjoy listening to each episode I produce. Did I mention that the podcast has won a few awards? No. Ok, well, the podcast has won a few awards. Am I sounding a bit arrogant? I hope not. I don’t mean to sound full of myself, I really don’t – it’s just that sometimes I think I should try and sell myself on the podcast, just a little bit, to remind you who I am. I don’t mean to just go on about myself a lot because it’s a bit self-indulgent isn’t it? But I do think it’s important to convince you that listening to this is very good for your English, and that you should keep doing it. It’s not just me who says that, I also have lots of testimonies from listeners of my podcast who have commented on my website, saying some very positive and nice things indeed, like this one which arrived just a couple of days ago, from someone called “Teddy WS” who simply wrote Screen Shot 2015-11-04 at 18.02.11“Thank God I find this page.” He sounds a bit desperate maybe, like he’s been walking through some kind of English teaching desert, and my website is like an oasis for him, where he can drink from this refreshing wellspring of natural English. It’s certainly a positive endorsement.

Thanks Teddy, that’s nice. Now, admittedly, Teddy did make a mistake in his comment – he wrote  “Thank God I find this page” and it should be “Thank God I found this page” but to be fair, he has only just found the page, and he has been walking through a desert for days and days, and he probably hasn’t listened to many of the episodes yet. I expect if Teddy writes on the page again in a few months, after he’s listened to more episodes and refreshed himself, he won’t make a mistake like that. I certainly hope so. Teddy, if you’re listening – don’t feel bad about making that mistake – mistakes are an essential part of the learning experience. Just brush it off, carry on and try not to do it again. By the way Teddy, I’m looking forward to reading another comment from you on my site in the future.

The main philosophy of my podcast is to give learners of English the chance to listen to authentic British English as it is really spoken. Sometimes it’s just me talking, sometimes I have interviews and conversations with friends, family or other interesting people. I try to keep it real – meaning I try not to adapt my language level too much. I don’t want to talk to you in a very simple way because that’s not how people usually speak in the real world. I think I speak clearly on the podcast, but at a fairly normal speed. I believe, ultimately, that’s better for your English.

So, it’s better for your English in the long run, but in the short-term, you might find it difficult to understand every single word I say, or every single word my friends say. So, I often remind you, that if you don’t understand what I’m saying or if you get lost during conversations on the podcast – keep listening! Keep going! Don’t be put off when you lose the thread of the conversation. Persevere, don’t give up. In the long run, it will be better for your English. So don’t stop.

If you want to pay close attention to every single word, and study those words, you can. Many of my episodes have transcripts, or at least some notes which you can read. You can then study the words and phrases I’m using and improve your English that way. Or, you can simply relax and listen to the episodes wherever you are in the world – just find a comfortable place, or even an uncomfortable place – it doesn’t matter that much, but comfortable is better, just put your headphones in, or turn your speakers on, and just listen for fun. It should be enjoyable to listen to English. It doesn’t have to be a boring study exercise. So, I invite you to just relax, kick off your shoes, make a cup of tea, listen to my episodes, and enjoy doing it. :)

This episode is entitled The Lying Game. The title of the episode has absolutely no connection to the things I’ve just said to you in the opening minutes of this introduction.

No, the reason this episode is called The Lying Game, is because in a few moments you’re going to listen to my friends and me playing a speaking game which involves either lying or telling the truth. It’s just a fun guessing game that involves some lying. So that’s why this episode has that title.

So let me tell you what you can expect from this 2-part episode of LEP.

What’s The Lying Game? This is a speaking activity I play with my students in my English language classes. In this episode you’ll hear me playing this game with my friends Amber and Paul, who are native speakers of English.

In a few minutes the episode is going to start (we haven’t started yet, this is still the introduction). I just wanted to say right now, that this was a very fun conversation for Amber, Paul and me. We really enjoyed talking and playing the game. I hope you enjoy it too. The thing is, we got pretty excited during the game and so we speak pretty quickly and sometimes we speak over each other. That might make it difficult for you to understand everything that’s being said. Still, like I said a few moments ago – keep listening anyway, even if you don’t understand everything. OK, I think I’ve made my point about that now!

The recording begins mid conversation. Let me just tell you a few things to help you understand what we’re saying, right from the beginning.

You’ll hear me say to Paul, “Do you really think I change the way I speak?” This is because Paul thought I sometimes change my voice when I’m recording the podcast. Like, I have a podcast voice that comes on when I start recording. We agree that it’s quite normal as a way of catching the attention of the audience from the beginning, or “pulling people in” as Paul says.

Just a couple of other things that will help you understand the beginning of the conversation:

Paul starts whispering subliminal messages into his microphone. This is because just the other day he was on a “film shoot” and he did that to the sound man – he whispered into the microphone and only the sound man could hear him. Just for fun.

I make a (lame) joke about something Amber says about it being a grey day. I thought she said ‘grade A’, referring to the sofa she was sitting on. A grade A sofa would be a top quality sofa. My sofa on the other hand is not that good, so it’s more likely to be a grade B or grade C sofa.

Then we make a few references to things you won’t know about, like my stand up routine, and a joke I made earlier about Philips lightbulbs, you know the technology company called “Philips”. Watch out for that. We found is hilarious. You might be confused by it. Let me know.

Then I realise that we’re having too much fun, and that could be annoying, like my favourite film critic Mark Kermode says that comedy is hard work. If people say they had fun making a comedy you’ll know it’s not funny.

It looks like they had a lot of fun making it which is always a recipe for disaster, when it comes to comedy. Because most really funny comedies are not fun to make – On reviewing Mortdecai 23 Jan 2015 show

So I hope that is not the case for this episode.

So, after that Mark Kermode reference, we settle down a bit, the conversation continues, we talk a bit about lying, and we start playing the game.

OK, I’m now going to stop explaining everything before it’s happened, and just let you listen to the episode. So, here we go!

Intro 2 (This is the second introduction which I say at the beginning of the conversation with Amber & Paul!)
Sometimes I play a fluency speaking game with my students, which involves telling lies. I call it The Lying Game. It’s an imaginative title. It’s just a fun game to practice giving information, and forming questions. I’ve been using it in class for years and it’s always a pretty popular exercise. This time on the podcast I thought I’d play the game with some native speakers. When you listen you can focus on noticing these things: question forms, how people describe events in the past (tenses and pronunciation of ed endings), how people describe present habits (verb forms and adverbs – not just present simple tense) and also the intonation that we use when asking questions in a suspicious, open or challenging way.

With me I have Paul Taylor & Amber Minogue.

How are you?
Do you think you’re good liars? Are you gullible?
Do you ever lie in your life?
Is it wrong to lie? Is it ever ok?
Are you ready to play the game?

Rules

  1. Tell us something – it could be something that happened in the past, a habit, someone you’ve met – anything about you that we don’t already know. Try to make it interesting – partly ridiculous, partly believable.
  2. We will then interrogate you about it, asking you all sorts of questions to investigate your statement. You can expand on it. This is the hilarious bit where we’re not sure if you’re lying or not. Ha ha ha.
  3. Then, when we’ve run out of questions we will say if we think you’re lying or telling the truth, justifying why we think so.
  4. Then, reveal if you were lying or not. It’ll be dramatic and entertaining.
  5. Points: For everyone who guesses wrong, you get two points. Every person who guesses correctly gets 1 point.
  6. Everyone has a go, and at the end we count the scores to see not only who is the best liar, but also who is the most gullible or untrusting person. If you’re gullible, you won’t score much. If you’re too trusting, you won’t score much either. If you’re a bad liar you won’t score much, if you don’t appear trustworthy you won’t score well either. So, the winner of this game will be some kind of psychopath, basically. Or, the winner will be a good liar and good at detecting lies too.

Luke, Paul and Amber’s Statements from the Game

Luke: I once met Dave Grohl (drummer from Nirvana, singer in Foo Fighters) at a buddhist temple in Japan.

Paul: I once spent Valentine’s Day with Elijah Wood and John Hurt.

End of part 1! You can hear Amber’s turn in the next episode, where you will find out what happens and who wins the game in the end! (exciting)

Scores at the end of part 1
At this stage, the scores are like this:

Luke – 2 / 0   Total = 2 points

Amber – 1 / 1   Total = 2 points

Paul – 0 / 2   Total = 2 points

So it’s even stevens!

Listen to part 2 (coming soon) in order to hear Amber’s story, and to see who wins.

The photo of Dave Grohl that I took on my J-Phone:
Dave Grohl

:) Thanks for listening!

The Invention of Lying – Film by Ricky Gervais

Woman with crossed fingers

305. Film Club: Back To The Future (Part 2)

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Welcome back to part 2 of this episode of Luke’s Film Club, about the Back To The Future trilogy. In this episode I’m going to talk about: lessons we can learn from the story, a few fun facts, the 2015 predictions in the film, how the DeLorean works, theories about time travel and some temporal paradoxes in the story. So strap in, let’s go back to the future again.

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3. What are the themes of the film? or the morals of the story?
– Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go back and meet your parents when they were the same age as you? What would they be like? Would you get on with each other?
Writer/Producer Bob Gale had the idea for the film after finding his father’s yearbook in the basement, seeing that he was somewhat of a nerd and wondering if they would have been friends if they’d been at school together.
– The complexities of time travel and questions raised by it, including the dangers of meddling with the past or the future, and how certain events in your life can alter your future.
– The idea that you’re in charge of your own destiny and future.
– “You can’t go losing your judgement every time somebody calls you a name”
– “The future isn’t written. It can be changed. You know that. Anyone can make their future whatever they want it to be.”
– “No-one should know too much about their own destiny”
– “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything”
– History repeats itself – there are numerous examples of history repeating itself, all the way through the whole series. Biff is the bully across 3 time periods. In all three periods he is outsmarted by Marty in various similar ways, and in all three stories he ends up falling into a pile of horse manure. That’s just a couple of examples, but time and time again there are other repetitions.

4. Any info or anecdotes about how the film was made?
The Delorean was chosen as the time-travelling car because the filmmakers felt that its wing doors meant it could conceivably be confused for a UFO.
Claudia Wells only plays Marty’s girlfriend, Jennifer, in the first film and not the sequels because her mother became ill and she chose to spend time with her. Elisabeth Shue took over the role for the second and third movies.
Robert Zemeckis joked in a behind-the-scenes featurette that the hoverboards used on set were real. A large number of parents took him at his word and tried to order them in toy shops.
Robert Zemeckis regretted the decision to have Jennifer get into the car with Marty and Doc Brown at the end of the first film as it meant Jennifer would have to be incorporated into Part II, rather than giving free reign to tell a brand new story.
By time he shot parts II and III, Michael J. Fox was 28 years old, but still playing 17.
Chrispin Golver, the actor who plays Marty’s Dad chose not to appear in the sequels because he disagreed with the messages in the film. Apparently he didn’t agree with the film’s values. He didn’t like that the McFlys were happier people because they were more prosperous financially. And he felt the idea that money = happiness is BS.

5. How about their vision of the future in 2015? How many predictions did they get right?
So, here we are on October 21 2015. How is the world outside similar or different to the version from Back To the Future 2?

Some things were wrong, like mainly the fashion and the flying cars, but they got a lot of things right.
Let’s have a look.
Things they got right:
– 3D movies. But not Jaws 19. Technically we don’t have holographic TVs or cinemas in the mainstream yet though.
– Tablet computers. There’s a guy in Hill Valley with what looks like a tablet computer – a wireless touch screen with no keyboard.
– Drones. When Griff gets arrested we see a USA Today camera drone arrive to film the event. Now drones exist and some media companies use them to collect video footage.
– Big screen TVs mounted on the wall, and video conference calls. My TV in 1985 was like a big heavy wooden box. The ones in the film are much more similar to our TVs of today – flatter, wider, bigger, attached to walls.
– Multiple TV channels. Marty is confused by the TV he sees in his future home. There are hundreds of channels and you can see them all playing in different boxes on the screen, all a the same time, instead of having to flick through them one by one. Now this is a normal way people choose the show they want to watch. You can still flick through, but most digital TVs will allow you to get an overview of all the channels, usually with a little preview screen of what’s on that channel at the time.
– Hands-free video games. In 1985 Marty is an expert at the computer game in his local diner. In 2015 he finds the same game (left in the store as a retro novelty), and a couple of kids trying to play it. They don’t understand that you actually have to use your hands to play the game. Apparently, in 2015 all kids use hands-free games, and they think this one with a controller is boring. *Cameo by a young Elijah Wood here. When I saw this before, the idea of hands-free games was so ridiculous that I found it funny. Now, it’s pretty normal with things like Xbox Kinetic and other motion sensitive games consoles. Not so ridiculous after all.
– Fingerprint recognition. In the film it’s possible to make a payment by touching your finger on a screen. We’re pretty much there – you can do that on your iPhone and we definitely have the technology to do that in shops now too, although it hasn’t become commonplace yet. Finger and thumb prints are also used to open doors, and we do have thumbprint security systems now, but again, they’re not commonplace and haven’t replaced the usual keys that we still have in our pockets.
– Virtual reality headsets. Marty’s children in the future spend quite a lot of time wearing virtual reality headsets. They’re masks you put on which fill your vision with a screen, which can also be like an immersive video game experience. Yep, we’ve got them too. Also, some characters wear glasses that incorporate telephone and video call functions as well as augmented vision – for example Doc Brown wears a pair of glasses that provides him with extra information about things he’s looking at. Little boxes and bits of text fill his vision when he’s looking at things. This is basically Google glass, which hasn’t taken off yet but I’m sure that eventually we’ll get augmented vision in some way – so that we don’t have to keep staring down into our phone screens, and instead we can just walk around and get our internet services right there in our vision – perhaps this could be a projection onto a glass screen in front of our eyes like with Google Glass or some sort of biotechnology in which our brain is connected to the internet. Imagine that! Sounds a lot like The Matrix, which is a bit scary.
– Ordering your food and drinks from computer screens. In the film, people order by talking to digital versions of celebrities on TV monitors. Now many restaurants use table-top tablets to replace waiters. Ok, so you’re not ordering from a digital version of Michael Jackson but almost.
– Voice commands. Lorraine in the film gives commands to her oven by talking to it. Now we can do this with our phones by just saying “Hey Siri” or whatever and then attempting to perform basic commands by using your voice.
– Self-tying laces. Marty wears a pair of Nike trainers that fit themselves to his feet automatically. Apparently, Nike has developed something like this and in fact there are rumours that they’ll release a limited edition Back to the Future range of trainers with this feature.
– Robotic petrol stations. I’m pretty sure these exist in Japan – you go in and park the car and the machine does the rest of the work somehow. They’re not mainstream by any means.

Things they didn’t get right:
– Hoverboards. OK so we kind of have hover boards now, but they’re not like in the films. The real hover boards we have today require a special magnetic surface as well as the board. They’re based on magnets I believe, such as the Hendo hoverboard. (see link) http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/131774-skateboarding-superstar-tony-hawk-takes-on-the-real-life-hendo-hoverboard-see-how-he-gets-on-video IN the films the hover boards will fly on any surface at all, even on water if you have some power to keep pushing you forwards, which is exactly what’s so cool about them. The Hendo hoverboard only works on top of the magnetic surface, which makes it pretty limited. Also, the Lexus Slide hoverboard requires a magnetic skatepark but apparently it operates pretty well. But on the subject of boards that will hover over anything, Astro-physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson believes that they are impossible. Hoverboards impossible – Neil DeGrasse Tyson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/07/neil-degrasse-tyson-hoverboards_n_7522040.html

– Flying cars. Ok we do have some cars that can fly – but they have wings and they need roads for take-off. It’s not the same as this kind of flying car.

– Self-drying clothes. Not done yet I think, but we do have some awesome technology that resists water and keeps your clothing dry, and also some fabrics that dry very quickly. Nothing with in-built fans though, or any clothes that say “Your jacket is now dry”. Pity that. I generally like it when inanimate objects talk to me in weird soulless robot voices. Except perhaps those tills at Tescos that are so patronising, scary and disappointed in you. “Unexpected item in bagging area. I didn’t expect you to put your bananas there yet Mr Thompson. We’re very disappointed in you at Tescos. That’s why, unfortunately, you will be terminated. Have a good day!”

– Using rubbish as fuel. In BTTF2 Doc Brown has invented a device called Mr Fusion which converts raw rubbish into energy to power the flux capacitor. That’s incredible because apparently it generates 1.21 gigawatts of energy. We can recycle a lot of things now, and also convert some rubbish into fuel, like waste cooking oil into bio-diesel fuel, but we’re far from being able to generate significant power by just using a few banana skins and a half drunk can of beer.

– Floating signs. We’re still using traditional signs which are attached to the ground. I can’t imagine us adopting floating signs soon because of the energy needed to keep them in the air, probably with drones. But who knows, maybe they’ll be using drones to fly information around the skies at some point, and that will no doubt include advertising. That’s not a nice thought – advertising is already invasive enough. I don’t really want drones to be sweeping into my vision to try and make me look at an advert.

7. Talk about the time machine / Delorean. How does it work?
Someone asked me how the Delorean actually works, and also how to travel in time. HA! That’s easier said than done, especially since I’m an English teacher, not a quantum physicist! Also, it’s just a movie! It didn’t really happen! I think you know this though, so you’d probably quite like to hear me bang on about time machines and some of the science around how they work.

The DeLorean
The car is really a carrier for the Flux Capacitor, which is the real heart of the invention.
Let’s start with the Flux Capacitor
Info from Futurepedia the Back to the Future Wiki http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/Flux_capacitor
The Flux Capacitor is not fully explained in the film, which is clever because it means the film doesn’t get bogged down in too many technical details (of course here at LEP we love to get bogged down in details) and it leaves a lot to the imagination. Here are a few things about it though. It’s situated inside the car, just near the driver’s seat and looks like a Y shape with glowing and pulsating light running through it. This is the thing that allows the Delorean to travel through time.
Apparently it briefly opens up a wormhole in space-time and then the DeLorean passes through it, achieving time travel.
You input the date you want to go to and the date you’ve come from.
Start the car and get up to 88 and boom – you travel through time. It’s pretty dangerous because you’ll be travelling at 88mph wherever you arrive, and you might crash into something (like Marty crashes into a barn, and also arrives in the middle of a fight between cowboys and Indians).
The Flux Capacitor needs 1.21 gigawatts of power, which is a lot! It’s equivalent to the output of about 2.5 nuclear power stations. In fact, Doc Brown powers the flux capacitor using plutonium, which is of course a very powerful radioactive fuel, which apparently he stole from some Libyan terrorists (little bit of politics there). So, that time machine is actually an extremely dangerous and unstable thing, as it is carrying the power of several nuclear reactors on board.
Later Doc Brown replaces the nuclear reactor with an invention from the future called Mr Fusion, which converts household rubbish into fuel. How that works, we don’t know – it’s from the future! (I sometimes imagine that if they have that kind of technology in the future they’d probably have a time machine, and then the universe and all of history would be populated by people from the future in their time machines… but that’s a paradox or problem that we’ll come to later)

Why 88mph?
Here’s some stuff about this that I found on Reddit.com and it’s pretty good. It explains why the DeLorean has to travel at 88mph exactly.
Why the DeLorean had to travel at 88 MPH to travel through time. (Back to the Future)
submitted 1 year ago by LessThanHero42
The Flux Capacitor allowed time travel by generating a wormhole to the programmed temporal destination, but these wormholes are unstable and only last for a little over a tenth of a second.
If the wormhole stability was measured as lasting only .10717 seconds then to move a car 4.216 meters long (A DeLorean) through the wormhole before it closes you would need to be moving at 39.3395 meters per second or 88 MPH.
If you are moving too fast then the vehicle would reach the wormhole before it fully opens. The front part of the vehicle could be sheered off, spaghettified, be delivered to a different temporal location, and/or eaten by spacetime krakens (or the whole vehicle could simply vaporize from trying to coexist in spacetime with an opening wormhole, who knows). Also you could miss the wormhole completely and be forever known as that guy who crashed a DeLorean into Twin Pines Mall right before being gunned down by Libyan terrorists.
Going too slow would cause the back end of the car (the engine of the DeLorean) to remain in 1985. Possibly large portions of whoever was inside too.
Regardless, arriving in the past/future without the front of the vehicle/pieces of the occupants because you were going too fast or too slow is probably a bad thing.
It’s like walking into automatic doors. If you run full speed at the doors, they won’t open fast enough and you’ll get a number of lacerations and a trip to a hospital. If you walk too slowly, the doors begin to close on you (when you leave the motion sensor range) and you get a concussion when they close on your head.
Now these numbers are general and it is likely that Doc Brown gave himself some leeway on the timing (Human error and imprecise engineering being what they are, it would be hard to determine if the car is moving exactly 88 MPH). Most likely the Flux Capacitor is programmed not to activate until the car reaches the appropriate speed.

Is time travel possible?
Yes it is. In fact, we’ve already done it. Obviously we’re all doing it right now because we’re travelling forwards in time. But in terms of moving through time at different speeds, yes, apparently that is possible and has already been done.

This is a bit complicated for me to understand, but let’s go with it.
*Try to explain how time travel is possible* No problem!
– Moving clocks go slower than stationary ones.
Brian Cox can explain this. (short extract)
So, we can go into the future, by taking a rocket and flying at great speed (just under the speed of light) out to space and back again. It’s just a bit impractical, because we don’t have the technology or power to go that fast.

– Wormholes
Remember the TARDIS from Doctor Who? It’s the blue box that the Doctor uses to travel through time, around the universe. It’s super cool – looks like a blue police telephone box and is much bigger on the inside than on the outside. The cool thing about the TARDIS is that not only does it travel in time, it also travels in space. TARDIS means Time And Relative Dimension in Space. Remember, in previous episodes I’ve mentioned this before – the universe is moving all the time. The earth is spinning on its axis (the days), we are orbiting the sun (years) and even our sun and the rest of the galaxy in which we exist, is orbiting the centre of the universe, and that whole universe is said to be expanding all the time. So, nothing is static, all matter is racing through space pretty fast. This suggests also that there is no such thing as a single static point in the universe. I guess it means that if you travel in time, you’ll end up in a different place. For example, even 5 minutes would result in me being in a different spot completely, probably in the air over a different part of the earth, or maybe embedded under the surface of earth, or even outside the atmosphere completely. This is because the earth is spinning at hundreds of miles an hour not to mention the orbit of the earth around the sun and everything else. So if I travelled forwards or backwards in time, I’d appear in a different location. So you need a time machine that will also put you at the same place as you were before, relative to everything else in the universe. So the time machine would somehow log your relative position in the universe in both time and in space and take you there. That’s how the TARDIS works.

I think Back to the Future doesn’t really deal with this explicitly, so we just imagine that it is able to work like a TARDIS – travelling not just in time, but also to that location. So, if I went back 5 minutes, my TARDIS time machine would locate this chair in front of this laptop in my skypod here at LEP HQ, so I don’t just suffocate to death in space, or get burned up by the sun’s rays or whatever else would happen to me if I found myself floating outside our atmosphere.

OK, so that’s the fact that time and space are linked together and can’t be separated.

Let’s talk about wormholes. Again, I’m no expert but here we go.
This is another idea or theory about time travel, that could allow us to go forwards or backwards in time.
So, let’s say time and space are connected and you can’t separate them. It’s like an axis or a sheet of paper let’s say. You want to go from A to B (draw two points on the paper). To travel from A to B along the surface takes time (I guess like in the rocket across space to travel at a slower rate of time). But if you could fold that paper in half then you’d be able to go from A to B instantly. I don;t get it, I’ll be honest. Folding paper in half is easy, but how do you just fold the universe in half? That’s just ridiculous!

Apparently wormholes can do that. Wormholes can allow you to go from one point in the universe to another, and that includes travelling from one point in time to another. If we could create a wormhole in spacetime, and find a way to control when it opens and closes, we could possibly bend the universe like paper and take a short cut. Again, we don’t have the technology or access to massive energy to do that. It would require a lot more than 1.21 gigawatts to do it.

That’s utterly confusing I know. But basically, The Flux Capacitor creates a temporary worm hole in space, and then the Delorean travels though it before it closes.

So, that’s time travel!

Problems with BTTF / Paradoxes / Temporal Anomolies
Lots of people have noted that travelling in time would bring about lots of possible problems, paradoxes or whatever, like the idea that if you went to the past and prevented your parents from meeting, you would then cease to exist, but then if you hadn’t been born you would never have gone back into time in the first place, and you wouldn’t have prevented your birth, so you would exist… is it possible that you would simultaneously exist and not exist at the time? I imagine that would be painful. It’s giving me a headache just thinking about it.

But that’s just one of the temporal anomalies which is brought up by BTTF. In fact there are a number of problems that people have noticed, that the film doesn’t really deal with, focusing instead on just telling a fun story. (And thank goodness for that)

I’ve chosen not to go into some of those paradoxes here, for several reasons. One of them is that they’re just too complicated to explain! The other thing is that they miss the point. This is just a fun movie which plays with ideas of time travel. In the end it’s about friendship, love, choosing your own destiny and trying to do the right thing. It’s not about solving complex logical problems about time travel. However, if you’re interested in these anomolies, check out the links on my website.

Links
MJ Young’s Website about Temporal Anomolies in Back to the Future http://www.mjyoung.net/time/back1.html
MJ Young’s “Problems in Time in Modern Popular Movies” http://www.mjyoung.net/time/index.htm
Back to the Future 2 plot summary (quite long) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096874/synopsis?ref_=ttpl_pl_syn
back-to-the-future-delorean
3 Ways to Travel in Time

Prof. Brian Cox – Is Time Travel Possible? (BBC Doctor Who documentary)

Interstellar Wormhole scene


304. Film Club: Back To The Future (Part 1)

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Hello listeners, welcome to Luke’s Film Club, this is one of those episodes of Luke’s English podcast in which we focus on a classic moment from the movies. This one is an episode about Back to the Future, which is one of my all time favourite films and I’m not alone because it’s one of the most popular films of the last few decades, all over the world. It’s a really entertaining and fun film, which also contains some sub-texts related to the complexities of time travel as well as a few visions of the future. Also, in the film’s sequel, the main characters Marty McFly and Doc Brown end up travelling into the future – and to what date? October 21, 2015. That’s today (when recording this). So it seems to be the perfect moment to do an episode of Luke’s Film Club, devoted to this modern classic. This is basically international Back to the Future day, and there’s only one! So, this has to be the day on which I record this episode.

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In this episode I’m going to talk about these things:

  1. When I first saw it and what it means to me
  2. The plot of the film (quite a challenge actually)
  3. Themes of the film and lessons we can learn from the story
  4. Some bits of info or things you might not have known about the film
  5. The films predictions of 2015 – how many are correct?
  6. How does the DeLorean time machine work?
  7. Is time travel possible?
  8. What about paradoxes created by the film’s time travelling story?

Ironically, time will definitely be a factor in this episode, because it will be hard to squeeze all of that into an hour. Let’s see what happens. It’s probably going to be another 2 part episode or something. But Back To The Future is a great film isn’t it? Come on, it’s great. It’s really popular all over the world, it’s really fun and interesting. Let’s talk about Back to The Future, however long it takes.

UPDATE: In part 1 of this episode I only talked about points 1 and 2 in the agenda above. The plot of Back To The Future 1-3 is pretty complicated and takes some time to describe! The rest is covered in the next episode.

SPOILER ALERT!
I’m going to mention some parts of the plot in this film. So, if you haven’t seen it before then I will probably give away some of the surprises in the story. I’m assuming that the vast majority of you have seen this film. It’s one of the most popular films of the last few decades, but I’m sure some of you haven’t seen it. Just be aware that I will probably reveal some fairly big plot details in this episode, so you might want to watch the film before listening to this episode.

Saying that though, I think it’s quite hard to truly spoil the film, just because there are many things about it that make it exciting. I’ve seen it (and the sequels) lots of times, and I enjoy it more and more every time, even though I know exactly what’s going to happen next. It’s so well-directed that it’s always exciting. But anyway – watch out, there are spoilers ahead.

I’ve been trying so hard for ages to find a way to properly cover the subject of this film in a podcast. It’s very hard! There’s so much to say! The storyline of the film is pretty complex, and the themes of time-travel, family, future technologies and controlling your destiny are really big things that deserve a lot of attention. So, I’m not sure I can squeeze it into just 1 hour of chat. This may end up being two episodes – but you don’t mind do you? Why would you mind? This could be a 5 minute video on YouTube, like “The 5 best moments from Back to the Future” but I want to go into more depth, and get sidetracked by themes of technology and time travel, so it will just take as long as it needs. In fact it’s a bit ironic that I’m talking about time limitations when this is a film about time travel, and the complexities which surround it. Essentially, I’m going to focus on the subject first, and if that means it’s a long episode, then so be it. In fact, since this is a podcast you have some control over time and you can skip forwards in the episode, backwards in the episode or simply freeze time completely by pressing the pause button, and then start it again later. You’re in control of time, essentially. I’ll just focus on making the content and you can choose how to listen to it. :)

Also, there are other films/books I could have talked about: HG Wells: The Time Machine, The Terminator, Looper, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Interstellar. But, this one is all about BTTF! So let’s go.

1. When did I first see it and why do I like it?
– As a kid, with my Dad.
– I was 8 years old, my brother 10.
– We saw lots of really great films in the Ealing cinema around this time, including Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom, Flight of the Navigator, Back to the Future, The Goonies, E.T. and more…
– I actually managed to understand what was going on, and I found it incredibly fun and exciting.
– Cereal box, with the picture. I remember staring at it.
– Since then I’ve seen it on video and on TV countless times, and every time I watched it I understood more of the subtleties and intricacies of the complex plot, and also just enjoyed the pure fun of the franchise.

2. What’s the plot of the film (this could be complicated and long – and SPOILERS!)
Marty is an average yet pretty cool teenager, struggling slightly to make the transition to adulthood. Essentially he cares about his parents, his girlfriend Jennifer, playing guitar in his band, skateboarding, and his friend Doctor Emmet Brown, an eccentric and ambitious physicist. Marty’s parents are sweet, but his Father in particular is a bit of a loser. He has no leadership skills and he still gets picked on by the school bully, who hangs around the house because he still has a crush on Marty’s Mum, Lorraine. Marty’s Dad still gets bullied by Biff, who is a total jerk. Marty hates Biff with a passion but there’s not much he can do about him. Seeing his Dad all weak, even though Marty’s mum obviously loves him, is quite painful for Marty and you get the impression that family life isn’t very happy for Marty. Perhaps this is why he has trouble concentrating at school, and perhaps it’s also why Marty cares more about playing the guitar in a band, or hanging around with his weird scientist friend Doc Brown than he does doing his studies. Marty also has a really awesome girlfriend called Jennifer, and the two of them are very sweet together. Jennifer knows that Marty is a really cool guy with a lot of potential, and I guess this is why she loves him. We know that Marty feels pretty bad about his family situation.

Marty is friends with the local mad scientist, Doctor Emmet Brown, and associating with Doc Brown is going to propel Marty on an incredible adventure through time.
Doc Brown is the classic eccentric scientist. He has bug eyes, crazy Einstein hair, and lots of inventions and madcap ideas.
Marty also has a weak point – being called chicken. He absolutely can’t stand being called chicken (coward) and this will be important later on.
One day, Marty gets a message from Doc Brown to meet him in the car park near the mall. He has something amazing to show him.
Marty turns up on his skateboard and the Doc reveals his latest invention. Inspired by HG Wells, he has created a time machine. The cool thing about it is that it is housed inside a DeLorean sports car. DeLorean was a car manufacturer that is completely stuck in the 80s. They went out of business before the decade was over, but their car is immortalised in this film. One has to admit, it does have a certain UFO futuristic look that suits its use as a time travelling device. The key component in the device is the flux capacitor, which Doc Brown thought of during a dream. I don’t know how it works, but that’s the main thing.
The way the time machine works is that you programme the precise date you’d like to travel to, and the accelerate the car to 88 mph, at which point you’re transported through time. He demonstrates it with his pet dog, Einstein.
Amazing – it actually works!
Doc arranges for Marty to film him presenting the time machine on home video, but at this point some very angry Iranian terrorists turn up in a VW camper van. Apparently Doc Brown stole some nuclear plutonium from them, which he used to power the flux capacitor and they want it back. They seemingly shoot Doc Brown dead in the car park, which is shocking because we’ve grown to like this character very much in the short time he’s been on-screen, and then they go after Marty, who escapes in the DeLorean time machine. There’s a short chase around the car park, during which a date is accidentally added into the machine – 30 years previous. October 26 1955. During Marty’s escape from the terrorists, the DeLorean gets up to 88mph and Marty is whipped away, back to the past of 1955, where he finds himself driving though an open field – this is the location of the mall car park. The mall hasn’t been built yet! Marty crashes into a barn and the drama is over.
What happens next is that Marty explores Hill Valley in 1955, and gets caught up in the lives of his young parents, which interferes with the space time continuum, threatening to change the future, his normal life, forever. He then has to try and make sure his parents fall in love, like before, ensuring that his existence is secured in the future. As well as that, Marty plans to find a way to save the life of his best friend Doc Brown, who was shot to death by terrorists back in 1985.
Essentially, what happens with the parents is that instead of his Mum meeting and falling in love with his Dad, Marty interrupts that meeting, and weirdly his Mum falls for him instead. This is so weird, and yet a very compelling plot device!
In 1955 Marty has to deal with a few challenges.
Everything is different because it’s the past, and he’s a fish out of water.
His Mum has a big crush on him and he has to try and avoid her.
His Mum and Dad haven’t met as they should have, and so he has to engineer their relationship from nothing, against all odds.
He has to try and avoid the town bully – Biff, who is interested in Marty’s Mum too, and is also out to get him.
As well as this he has a couple of run-ins with Mr Strickland, who amusingly is exactly the same as he is in 1985. He doesn’t appear to have aged at all.

Marty, cleverly, manages to track down the only man who can help him – the younger version of Doc Brown. He convinces him that his story is true, and introduces him to the DeLorean and the flux capacitor. One of the cool things about this is that by introducing the Doc to his own invention, Marty ensures that the flux capacitor gets invented in the first place.

The two hatch a plan to get the parents back together to stop Marty from disappearing from existence, and also work out a way to utilise the power of a lightning strike to get the DeLorean up to 88 so Marty can go back to the future. The cool thing here is that Marty knows exactly when lightning will strike the clock tower in Hill Valley Square, because it is a famous event from local history.

We see Marty attempting to get his parents back together, which fails most of the time. The bully Biff gets involved and there’s a dramatic scene in which the cowardly George decides to stand up to him, winning Mary’s affections and securing Marty’s future.

In the process, Marty manages to invent rock and roll music by playing some Chuck Berry during the school prom.

Marty is also desperate to tell Doc that in 1985 he’ll be killed by Libyan terrorists, but Doc refuses to listen, saying that it’s very dangerous to know anything about your own future. He’s worried that the knowledge will haunt him, or that it will create some kind of time paradox. Nevertheless Marty writes him a note warning him of the shooting. Doc cuts it into pieces, refusing to read it. This is alarming because we know that Doc’s going to get shot in the future. It’s not dealt with any further.

There’s yet more drama as Marty and the Doc attempt to hook up a cable to the clock tower, to make sure they harness the electrical power from the lightning strike. At the last moment, the Doc manages to connect the cables, allowing Marty to get the DeLorean to 88, and he goes back to the future!

Back in 1985, things are a little different, in fact they seem to be a lot better. Since things went a little different;y in 1955, and George stood up to Biff – George is a different man. Much more confident and successful, and Biff is now far more subservient to him. The family is richer, the parents’ marriage is better, and Marty looks in the garage to discover his dream car, waiting for him. Jennifer is also there. She’s the same of course, because she was already perfect, and they kiss. At that moment, Doc Brown suddenly turns up in the DeLorean, saying that both Marty and Jennifer have to come with him on a matter of urgency, as it involves their children in the future! They all get into the DeLorean, ready to take it up to 88 and travel into the future. Marty says “Doc, don’t we need more road to get up to 88?” and the Doc says, “Marty, where we’re going, we don’t need roads” and the car takes off into the air! It’s a flying car! They then race off into the sky and disappear into the future!

Wow, what a rip-roaring and exciting ride. For me, it’s an almost perfect film and always keeps me entertained. I love the complexities of the story, the dramatic set pieces, the eccentric and cartoonish performances by all the actors and the fun the film has by playing around with the differences in culture between 1955 and 1985. There are lots of self referential jokes and small details to notice, including little similarities and consequences between the two time periods.

Back to the Future Part 2
This is when things get complicated!

Doc Brown knows that Marty’s son, who looks just like Marty but is a total loser, is going to get caught up in a robbery and will get arrested and thrown in jail. Doc decides to form a plan in which Marty will pretend to be his son, and will prevent his involvement in the robbery, making everything all right. Essentially, they prevent the crime and during this early scene we see Hill Valley in the future. In one of many similar scenes from the previous film, Marty wanders around the town square and we see how different everything is. Cars look futuristic, droids do basic service jobs, there’s a holographic animated advertisement for a Jaws sequel, people have self drying clothes, shoes with automatic laces, and clothes which automatically adjust their size to fit the person they’re wearing. Also, crucially, kids now ride ‘hover boards’ which are like skateboards except that they hover a few inches about the ground, somehow.

Marty manages to replace his son and say no to “Griff” – played by the same actor who plays “Biff” in the previous film. But in the process, Marty gets into a fight with Griff who is the 2015 town bully, complete with physical implants, an advanced hoverboard and a really bad attitude.

Marty gets away from Griff, and gets back to the Doc. We learn that Marty, while in the futuristic version of Hill Valley has picked up a Sports Almanac (a summary of sports results of the last 60 years), which he plans to use as a way to get rich. When Doc Brown discovers this he gets furious with Marty, demanding that Marty throw away the almanac because it’s far too dangerous to mess with the space time continuum. The results could be catastrophic. What they don’t realise is that the old Biff from episode 1 has overheard their conversation, has realised that Doc Brown has invented a time machine. Biff steals the almanac from the bin, and plans to somehow use the time machine to go back to 1955 to give the almanac to the young Biff, so he can make money from gambling.

Meanwhile, the police have picked up the young Jennifer, who had been turned unconscious by Doc to protect her and left in a doorway. They identify her using her fingerprint (which is the same, despite being young) and decide to take her home. Doc realises this could be disastrous – if young Jennifer meets old Jennifer, it could create a paradox in time which could unravel the very fabric of the space time continuum, destroying the whole universe in the process, which is generally a bad thing. The follow the police back to the McFly household in order to prevent young Jennifer meeting her older self.

We see the older McFly household. They’re a bunch of misfits and losers again! The children are stupid and foolish, and something has gone wrong with Marty. It seems that at some point in his later youth, he was involved in a car accident which injured his hand. As a result he wasn’t able to pursue his dream career – that of a rock guitarist. So, he’s ended up in a dead end job which he hates, and which he gets fired from. What a disaster.

The car accident is pretty important – it happens a bit later, after the events of BTTF1. Marty is driving his cool new pickup truck with Jennifer, when he gets challenged to a race by the local bully (a bit like Biff). Marty declines, and the bully says “What’s the matter McFly, chicken?” We know from countless other occasions that Marty can’t stand being called a coward, and he loses his judgement, taking on the drag race challenge, but he crashes, and injures his hand. He’ll never be a guitarist, and he’ll end up in a job he hates, and the future will be unhappy.

Marty realises that he has to avoid the car crash which seems bound to happen sometime later in 1985.

Doc worries that they are having too much impact on the future and that this is going to create a paradox of some kind… The car crash scenario that jeopardises the future is left open at the moment, and is resolved at the end of episode 3 (I think).

Little do they realise that while they’re at Marty’s future house, old Biff has broken into the DeLorean and travelled back in time to give the sports almanac to his younger self. Biff, exhausted by his efforts struggles to get out of the car, breaking his walking stick in the process. A part of the stick is left in the car, which later will show to Doc Brown & Marty that Biff stole the car.

So, Doc Brown delivers Marty back to the past in 1985, but everything is horribly different! It turns out that because of the book, Biff has become the richest and most powerful man in Hill Valley. In fact, his influence extends all the way into Marty’s family life as Biff is now married to Marty’s mother, and Marty is forced to live under Biff’s roof. Biff is a hugely powerful bad guy now. It turns out also, that he may have had Marty’s father killed. This is terrible. Under Biff’s influence, Hill Valley has become a lawless wasteland with crime everywhere.

Marty goes to get Doc Brown’s help, and he explains what has happened.

When Biff went back in time to give the Almanac to young Biff, he created a completely new version of time, in which Biff is rich and influential, and Hill Valley is a hell hole. What Marty needs to do is prevent that from ever happening, in order to ensure that the normal version of the present is created, not this twisted version.

I could go into more detail about different theories of time at this point but it’s a bit too confusing.

In a simple way, I guess there are two versions.
The first version says there’s just one universe with one time narrative. Big events can significantly change the course of history, and when it does, all the other possible versions of history just get erased from existence, with one version of time remaining. For example, when Biff gives the sports almanac to his younger self this causes a whole new branch of time to happen, in which everything is terrible, and I guess the other version of time just gets erased from existence. Or when Marty goes back and changes the past so that his parents grow up happy and successful, that erases the less happy version of events. There’s a paradox here though, which is that if the other version of history disappeared, then surely our version Marty would disappear too. If Biff changed the past, so that the events of BTTF1 never happened, then our Marty would surely cease to exist and in fact BTTF1 would never have happened. But that’s not the case – in the film we have many different versions of history, and Marty & Doc travel from one of those versions across to other versions. There are in fact 3 versions of 1985. The first one (a bit crap – George is a loser, Lorraine is an alcoholic) the second one (everything’s great) the third one (Biff is in charge and it’s absolutely terrible). Marty from version 1 appears in all versions.

So I suppose BTTF proposes some sort of multi-universe theory, which is the idea that whenever anything happens, different versions of history branch off from that moment, creating another parallel universe. For example, when Biff gets the sports almanac, a new parallel universe is created.

But isn’t it possible by that logic that at any moment there are so many possibilities, that there’s a parallel universe being created in which each possible event happened, with all its consequences after it? And that would mean that an infinite number of parallel universes are being created with every passing of time, basically creating infinite possibilities across infinite parallel versions of reality? Why is it that just a big event like a kiss, or a sports almanac coming into your possession changes time? If it’s a small change does time just carry on? Too complex? Probably. Don’t worry if that’s not clear – that’s the point.

Back to the Future goes for the more simplistic version, stating that basically there’s just one or two planes of existence, and big significant events can cause them to happen, influencing the future. Having access to all the sports results is one of these big events. Again, this is the genius of the film – it manages to skate around these big problematic questions while dipping into the science at certain moments to give enough depth to the story while keeping the energy, entertainment up.

So Marty and the Doc go back to 1955 with their flying DeLorean in order to stop Biff getting the almanac.

We see really cool scenes in which Marty runs around in Hill Valley 1955 at the same time (by coincidence) that he was there in BTTF1, trying to save his parents’ marriage. We see scenes from BTTF1 but from different angles. Marty has to save his other self, without them meeting. It’s really brilliant.

There are lots of situation in which history repeats itself.

So, in the end, Marty manages to prevent Biff getting the Sports Almanac, saving the future again. Marty burns the almanac, and Doc Brown turns up again (we’re still in 1955) to collect Marty and deliver him safely in 1985. It’ll be the good version of 1985 because as we saw, Marty in BTTF1 was successful and managed to save his future, and Doc managed to send him back with the lightning strike.

But, as Doc is about to pick him up, the DeLorean gets struck by lightning from the storm and this causes the time machine to malfunction, sending Doc accidentally to an unknown place and time. Wow! Great Scott! Where did he go? Is Marty stuck in 1955?

Immediately, a postman arrives with a letter for Marty. Apparently the letter has been held at the post office since 1885 with strict instructions for it to be delivered to Marty at this precise moment.

It’s a letter from Doc. He’s stuck in 1885, when Hill Valley was a cowboy town.

Marty realises the only person who can help him save the Doc is the Doc himself – the 1955 Doc who just risked life and limb sending Marty back to the future in a lightning powered DeLorean.

Marty runs to find Doc in the town square, and he even sees himself go back to the future. Doc is standing there, exhausted and delighted. Then, our Marty taps him on the shoulder. Doc turns round and promptly passes out “But, I just sent you back to the future? What are you doing here” – unable to comprehend that Marty is now back again and needs his help.

Back to the Future 3
After Doc has woken up and worked out what’s going on, he decides the only thing he can do is to send Marty back to 1885 in order to save him. But where’s the DeLorean? Both versions just disappeared – one to 1985 and the other to 1885. How come there are two DeLoreans? How is this possible? You can multiply things by travelling in time? Anyway…

The fact is, 1885 Doc has left the DeLorean in an abandoned mine, and has given Marty and 1955 Doc instructions on how to find it. They do that, and send Marty back.

To make a long story very slightly less long, Marty goes back to 1885, finds Doc and they attempt to create a plan for how to get them both back. The problem is, the DeLorean is damaged. It’s run out of fuel and there’s no petrol in 1885! They decide they can get a locomotive train to travel at 88mph, so the train is going to push the DeLorean up to 88 and then the DeLorean will travel back to 1985, and the train will crash.

Things get complicated though, because Doc Brown ends up falling head over heels in love with a woman called Delores. She ends up getting tangled in the time travel attempt, and Doc saves her life but stays in the past, as Marty goes back to 1985.

There, the DeLorean is finally destroyed, ironically as it appears on the train tracks that still exist in the same spot in 1985. It’s destroyed by an oncoming train. Boom. End of DeLorean – this happens after the original trip to 1955, so the DeLorean has been erased (I guess for the moment).

Marty finds Jennifer and they’re reunited. Then, finally, Doc dramatically arrives at the end with Delores. This time he’s created a time machine made from a train, using steam technology to power a flux capacitor. It’s not clear how he does this, but with all the knowledge he’s gained, he managed to do it, creating a sort of steam-punk time machine. He and Delores then travel off together, with their two children named Jules and Verne.

It’s a happy ending. But there’s still one loose end. Marty has to make sure that he doesn’t have that car accident. He needs to prevent that unhappy future in which he injures his hand and his dreams of being a guitarist go up in smoke, and he’s forced into a soul destroying job he hates.

Marty and Jennifer drive away in Marty’s cool truck. They stop at a junction. The bully pulls up beside them and challenges Marty to a drag race. Marty declines, and the bully calls him “chicken” but this time Marty has the strength of character to resist the challenge and in fact the bully is the one who crashes.

Marty and Jennifer’s future is secured, and they all lived happily ever after.

End of Part 1 …
back-to-the-future-time-circuit-board

302. Bad Dentist / Star Wars / Adam Buxton / Headphone Jams / Jarvis Cocker (A rambling episode)

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Hi, this is the second part of a two part episode in which I’m telling you a few things about recent trending news stories, some anecdotes and other things that are in my head at the moment. There’s no specific language focus this time. Instead I’m focusing on general cultural information. Last time I talked about David Cameron and the pig, a story of a bad gig, and who the hell is Ronnie Pickering? In this one I’m going to ramble on about a bad trip to the dentist, some rising excitement about the new Star Wars film, Adam Buxton’s new podcast, some music that has been bouncing around inside my head, some news about a new jingle which is in the pipeline and how I want to hunt Jarvis Cocker for my podcast but I don’t know how to do it! If you don’t really understand those things, then listen on! All will be explained! All you have to do is listen. :)

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In the previous episode:
1. The UK political situation, and trending news relating to it – this is less boring than you might expect because it seems from recent reports that our Prime Minister David Cameron once had sex with a dead pig. Seriously. (Did PM David Cameron really have sex with a pig? What’s all this about Jeremy Corbyn? What’s going on?)
2. “Sorry, we’re English”
3. Tell a story or anecdote about something.
4. Who is Ronnie Pickering?

In this episode:
5. A trip to the dentist in Paris.
6. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens – I can hardly contain my excitement, but I am attempting to avoid the hype.
7. OPP: The Adam Buxton Podcast
8. In my headphones recently: The Juan MacLean “A Simple Design”, The Who: “Who Are You?”, Erland Oye: “Lies become part of who you are”, DJ Krush & Ronny Jordan: “Bad Brothers”, Leyla McCalla: “Heart of Gold”. (Plus, the intro song: “Groove Holmes” by Beastie Boys)
9. Jingle news: Possible new jingle in the pipeline
10. Jarvis Cocker
11. That’s probably it, isn’t it?
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291. California Road Trip (Part 4)  Stars on Hollywood Blvd / Songs & Movies / UK & US English

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Hi everyone, here’s part 4 in this road trip mini-series. How are you? Are you keeping up with all these new episodes? I suppose if you’re listening to this it means you are keeping up, but don’t feel rushed. Take your time, listen to them at your leisure, in your own time and at your own speed. I hope you’re finding this series interesting. In this one I’m planning to cover these things: Hollywood Boulevard and celebrity culture, an analysis of the mysterious lyrics to Hotel California by The Eagles, a visit to the extremely wealthy area of Beverley Hills, some more differences between American and British English vocabulary, the church of Scientology and then Yosemite National Park.

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Let’s see how much of that I can actually get through in this episode. I expect there will be one or two more in this series before we get back to normal podcasting as usual.

L.A. Continued… Hollywood Boulevard
I can’t remember which day this was as I’m losing track of time, but it doesn’t matter. At some point we took a walk along Hollywood Bld – that’s the one with all the stars on the ground and the names of celebrities. If you make it as a celeb, they put a star on the pavement here and you know you’ve made it because hundreds of tourists walk all over you and spill coke and ketchup on you every day. That’s the American Dream isn’t it.

Walking along Hollywood Blvd, and looking at the stars there, I wondered – how do you actually get your name on a star here? (Not that I want to of course) I just wondered – who decides which names are added and how does it happen? Since then I’ve done a bit of research (I read a TIME article based on an interview with a member of the selection committee – you can read it here: http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/07/16/how-to-get-a-star-on-the-hollywood-walk-of-fame/), and so…

How to get your star on Hollywood Boulevard
Essentially anyone can apply, as long as they have $30,000 dollars to spare, but the application will not be accepted unless it meets these criteria:
1. Do some iconic work in entertainment.
This means that you have to have produced something genuinely notable and celebrated in the entertainment world, like made a popular film, done some great acting on TV or in movies or made some music that’s popular enough to have made you famous. The emphasis is on accomplishing some expertise in the entertainment field, which means that reality TV stars are excluded, because it’s not counted as proper work. So that means no Kardashians. But they do accept animals. In fact several animals have their names embedded into the ground there, including Lassie and even fictional animal characters like Kermit the Frog, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Weird. You also need to have been working for at least 5 years. The main point is that this is a tourist attraction for the entertainment industry, so your name needs to be famous enough to attract tourists to come and see it. Apparently it’s working because the street is jam-packed with tourists and it’s almost impossible to actually walk along the street in some places.
2. Promise that you really want a star.
All applications require a signed statement from the applicant saying that they really want one, and that they will come to an unveiling ceremony if the application is a success. Basically, the star selection committee that is in charge of the process wants to make sure the celebrities are fully prepared to come and promote the addition of their star on the pavement. Again, this is to make sure it gets the proper media coverage, and those tourists keep coming with their dollar bills, their mobile phones and their instagram accounts.
3. Pay $30,000.
That’s how much it costs to enter the application process. Usually it’s not a problem for celebrities to pay this because other people pay on their behalf, for example management companies or other sponsors who have an interest in the person become more and more famous. Half of the fee goes to the Hollywood Historic Trust which maintains the whole street. The rest is used to pay for the paving stone with he star embedded in it, and also the security and photographers at the unveiling ceremony. It seems that people’s desire to be recognised as a famous person is what fuels the economy around here.
4. Impress the selection committee.
It’s a bit like a job interview process I suppose. In your application you need to impress the committee and show them what you’ve achieved in your career, proving that you really are a big star.
5. Choose your spot on the Boulevard.
It is possible to choose where your star is placed. The bigger you are as a celebrity, the more control you have over this. Do you want to be placed in front of McDonald’s or in front of the famous Chinese Theatre Cinema where all the premiers happen? Your power to negotiate this depends on your status in Hollywood. Apparently Clint Eastwood, a high ranking member of the Hollywood establishment, was accepted by the committee years ago but never completed his application, but nevertheless they have kept a space free for his star in a prime location – in front of that famous cinema. That’s how much of a star he really is in Hollywood – they’ve kept the best space free for him. Muhammad Ali didn’t want people walking on his name, so the committee agreed to put his star on the wall – the wall of what? You might ask. Ali’s name is on the wall of the Hollywood and Highland Shopping Centre. I wonder if you can buy a George Foreman grill in that shopping centre.

So that’s how you do it, if you’re interested.

What’s it really like there on Hollywood Boulevard?
Essentially, it’s like a bigger version of Oxford Street. It’s full of cheap attractions and huge crowds of tourists, and it’s a bit tacky. You can’t get much decent food there except burgers and pizza. I don’t recommend it really.
As we walk along the street, squeezing between people, we see names of people. Most of them are dead. There are loads that I’ve never ever heard of.
I’m struck by the thought that fame is fleeting. I mean that it doesn’t last. What’s the attraction of fame? To be so well-known that your name is embedded into the ground or onto a monument so people never forget you. Maybe people are attracted by this because they feel like it’s a way to live forever. But true long lasting fame is only gained by a tiny minority and even then it isn’t immortality it’s just a version of yourself that lives on in popular culture. A ghost.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: L.A. is a mysterious place.
I’ve tried to describe this already in this series. It’s just a general feeling that’s hard to put into words.
There’s a lot of light and dark here. Movie stars shine bright, and there’s so much glamour, but there’s also poverty, homelessness and broken dreams. So many young people have come to L.A. and then ended up corrupted by the place, or hurt by their own idealism and naivety. Some of them died young in tragic circumstances. Think of the girl Peg Entwhistle who jumped off the Hollywood sign in 1932, or young movie stars who died or hurt themselves as the result of a dangerous intake of drugs. River Phoenix for example. He was a fresh faced young movie star and musician, who died from an overdose on the doorstep of the Viper Club, which at the time was owned by Johnny Depp. Why so much oblivion?

Also, so much of the writing, films and music – the really good stuff at least, seems to be essentially about some sense of a loss of innocence, the end of the American dream, the darkness under the surface of American values or dealing with vice – particularly in the form of alcohol and drugs, and the dark side of these things. As if California represents the highest attainment of the American Dream, and is also the place that can turn into a grim and empty wilderness of the soul. Think of the detective stories of Chandler, the songs of The Eagles (not as sunny and nice as you expect) and other bands, the writing of Ginsburg, Bukowski, Burroughs, Kerouac, the comics of R Crumb and so on.

I realise that I’m talking about slightly dark themes here, in what you might have expected to be just a description of a romantic honeymoon. Well, we did have some really nice romantic moments together of course, and there was plenty of sunshine and good times, but as well as that we had a really great time getting to know the place and soaking up the atmosphere of the places we visited and one of my aims in these episodes is to get under the skin of California a bit.

Let’s consider some songs that deal with the things I’ve been talking about.

Songs about California
One example is the song Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Californication Lyrics here.

Also, we could go back to “Hotel California” and explore the meaning of the song. In fact, let’s do that.

The Eagles – Hotel California – Song Meaning
Click here for the full lyrics to the song: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eagles/hotelcalifornia.html

There are loads of interpretations of the meaning of this song, including some pretty far out suggestions that it’s about satanism, drug addiction. I think the latter is far more likely than the former but let’s see.

Here is a summary of the song’s meaning – both the narrative of the lyrics and the themes the song explores. In fact, this song seems to sum up pretty well what I’ve been trying to say about LA and the excesses and dark side of the American Dream.

In this part of the podcast I’m going to read from a page on Shmoop.com. Here’s a citation and a link:
Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). Hotel California Meaning. Retrieved August 25, 2015 from http://www.shmoop.com/hotel-california-eagles/meaning.html
So, if you want to follow what I’m saying just click the link above.

LA movies
LA Confidential, The Big Lebowski, Beverly Hills Cop, Pulp Fiction. Any film noir like Chinatown or The Big Sleep.

Beverley Hills – this is a really rich town, which is undeniably beautiful and well kept with palm tree lined streets, lovely properties and very smart shopfronts and boutique stores but some parts of it are filled with unbelievably fake looking people with loads of plastic surgery. There are Kim Kardashian clones everywhere with butt implants that mean they can’t walk properly. The streets are full young guys in rented sportscars which self-consciously zoom between sets traffic lights. It’s quite ridiculous and fairly ugly really.

And yes, I did just mention Kim Kardashian.

I always thought I would never mention that family on this podcast because I don’t really like what they do. I mean, I think it’s a bit empty and I don’t know why they’re so popular but if I’m going to talk about celebrity culture in L.A. then how can I do it without mentioning the Kardashians (reluctantly).

Who’s Kim Kardashian?
She’s the daughter of a rich West Coast socialite, and a powerful lawyer. She’s famous for being famous. She’s like Paris Hilton basically. That’s how she first became known in the media, as a friend of Paris Hilton. What a claim to fame! “So what do you do Kim?” “I hang around with someone who doesn’t do anything”. Wow, that’s like being famous for doing even less than nothing! So she’s famous for being friends with someone who’s famous because she’s famous. That’s actually quite impressive. Well done! Maybe that’s the appeal. She makes it look easy. Then in 2003 I think she decided that in order to get even more famous that she would have to actually do something, so she released a sex tape. That’s basically a home made porno. Classy. In my opinion, that may be the quickest and least respectable way to make a name for yourself in Hollywood, but fair play to her – it worked. She then continued to sell off her private life in a reality show called Keeping Up With The Kardashians in which the viewer is invited to follow her and her sisters through their pampered and vacuous every day life.

An example of what happens in a show?
I just had a look on Wikipedia for some show summaries. Here’s what I found from a random entry in series 3 of the show. “Episode 22. Khloé faces pressure about her weight when she decides to do PETA’s “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” campaign. Kris and Kourtney confront Kim about her shopping addiction. Kim gets laser eye surgery after struggling to see herself in a mirror at a dance rehearsal. (I imagine that was a huge crisis – not being able to see herself) Bruce is anxious to talk to Kendall and Kylie about his colonoscopy.”
What’s a colonoscopy? That’s when a doctor inspects your colon by sticking a big camera up your bum. Ok, so you’ve got the general idea.

My problem with the Kardashians is that I don’t get it. I don’t get the appeal. I must be wrong because Kim is one of the most followed people on Twitter and it seems that everyone seems to love her. So, I must be wrong – so if you’re a Kardashian fan, let me know why. I’d love to know the appeal.

Is her reality show popular because we just like to look at the lives of the rich and famous? Is Kim Kardashian a role model? Apparently, for some people she is a woman who has taken careful control of her image and is now rich and successful as a result, like Beyonce or something. But, it helps when you start out rich in the first place, doesn’t it? And at least Beyonce can sing and dance. What can Kim Kardashian do? Well, she can take good selfies. She can use Instagram well. She can market herself well. I suppose that’s it isn’t it.

She married Kanye West, the rapper, which I imagine only happened because Kanye West is not allowed to marry himself. Yes, he loves himself, or that’s what people say anyway. Maybe Kim Kardashian fell in love with him just because she was so impressed by the size of his ego. Surely nobody’s ego is as big as mine, she thought – but then she met Kanye and couldn’t resist his charm, and by that I mean his media status. Good luck to them, I suppose. Maybe I’m being cynical and they just really love each other. Well, if that’s the case – good luck to them! I hope they stay together and prove me wrong, and everyone lives happily ever after.

What do you think? I’d love to know.

More American English & British English
These words are all related to food in some way.
UK word – USA word
Chips – Fries
Crisps – Chips
Biscuit – Cookie
Jelly – Jell-o
Jam – Jelly
Sweets – Candy
Treacle – Molasses
Candy Floss – Cotton Candy
Aubergine – Eggplant
Courgette – Zucchini

ukulele-soprano-debutant“Californication” Lyrics & Chords
http://www.tabs4ukulele.com/bands/red-hot-chili-peppers/californication.html#null

End of part 4. Part 5 coming soon…
Hotel California

290. California Road Trip (Part 3) Venice Beach / UK vs US English – Cars & Driving

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Hello, welcome back to the podcast. This is part 3 in what could turn out to be quite a long series about my recent trip around California. Normally I tend to focus on British things in this podcast but every now and then I go travelling somewhere and report back on what happened. This time I went to California on my honeymoon. The itinerary for the trip was to fly to LA, then drive to Yosemite National Park, then across to San Francisco, then down the coast back to LA and then home again. In this series I’m telling you about the trip, but also I’m branching out in order to ramble on about the history and culture of California and some of the differences between British and American English, as well as some other subjects.

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At this point in the series I’m still just a few days into the holiday, and there’s plenty more stuff to cover. In this episode I’m hoping to talk about Venice Beach, Baywatch, Segways, the grammar of telling stories and anecdotes in English, some facts about the Hollywood sign, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, British and American English vocabulary related to driving, the dark side of Hollywood and celebrity culture, and an analysis of the lyrics to the song “Hotel California” by The Eagles. That’s a lot of subjects to cover, so I’d better get started right away!

Saturday 8 August
Drove to Venice Beach which is just along from the world famous Baywatch Beach (Santa Monica beach).
Long Boardwalk with lots of shops, cafes and bars.
People performing and busking.
Muscle beach.
Skate park.
Bikes and segways.
The Segway – the most stupid invention of all time?
What we need is some way of propelling us forwards at just a few miles per hour (you mean like walking speed?), but with the ability to go slightly faster (what, like running speed?) facing forwards so we can see where we’re going, with our hands free so we can hold coffee or mobile phones. How on earth can we do it? (How about our legs sir? We could just walk, jog or run.) Don’t be ridiculous!

And the Segway was born – bringing human laziness to new levels. And you thought escalators and moving walkways were bad enough, now the Segway. It’s very hard to look cool or even dignified on one of these things. I imagine there are some people who cruise around on a Segway all day and then go to the gym to run on a treadmill in order to stay fit. Something doesn’t make sense here. OK, so it doesn’t produce harmful emissions, but neither do your legs. Sure, a person can fart – that’s an emission, but you can still fart on a Segway so it’s the same. Maybe it’s for people with mobility issues, but it seems that in order to use a segway you need the full use of your legs in order to stand on it the whole time, and balance properly. Well, I’m sure it must be useful for something – like maybe doing specific jobs, but it seems a bit silly to use one when you can just use your legs to do exactly the same job. It seems like reinventing the wheel to me. (This is a phrase which means doing something unnecessary – like working hard to do something which is already done by something else)

“Introducing a new innovation in green personal transport – legs!”

Went to the beach or sunbathing. Really huge beach covered in pristine bleached sand.
Swam in the sea. Big waves.
Surfers.
There are lifeguards, exactly like in Baywatch but somehow I expected (or hoped) that it would be more like Baywatch there.
Baywatch: A show which I think was ‘single handedly’ responsible for bringing a whole generation of boys into puberty – no pun intended.

But it was pretty normal, compared to the TV show. I mean, the people looked pretty normal. It wasn’t just hundreds of David Hasselhoffs and Pamela Andersons everywhere, except for me and my wife of course.
Shopping in the huge outlet mall. The place looked like Bowser’s castle from Super Mario Bros. Totally fake modern place that was vaguely like a castle and a huge castle courtyard.
Bargains on jeans. 4 items for the price of one pair of jeans back home.
Seemed incredibly luxurious. Big marble toilets with acres of space.
Yamashiro restaurant in the evening for a romantic candlelit dinner with a stunning view of the city. The restaurant was amazing, with Japanese gardens in the middle and lots of sliding doors – like the scenes from Kill Bill.
Amazing views of the city.
Delicious sushi.

STOP! Grammar Time – A Note on the Tenses Used in this Episode
Usually when you’re describing what happened in the past you use past tenses (past simple, past continuous, past perfect) and so on. So far I’ve been using past tenses in this series of episodes when talking about what we did, but as I’m now reading from the notes I made during the trip, I’ve noticed that I wrote it all in present tenses and it feels tempting to slip into the present tense while reading it. Why? This sometimes happens when we tell stories that we want to make engaging, captivating and in-the-moment. Past tenses accurately report past events, but past tenses can be quite remote. They place the action in a finished time period. When people tell long stories, they sometimes slip into present tenses in order to avoid this remoteness, and make the action and events seem more real and captivating.

Also, using present tenses to tell stories and anecdotes is more common in spoken English. In written English it can be frowned upon (some people don’t like it) but the main thing when writing is that you stick to one perspective (either past tenses or present tenses, throughout). For example, a person at a dinner party might begin telling a story about their holiday using past tenses but then might subconsciously switch to present tenses to make the events more immediate, and that’s considered ok. But if a novelist writes a story and some of it is in past tenses, and other bits are in present tenses, it’s usually considered to be sloppy writing unless it is obviously a stylistic choice. What I’m saying is: you might notice some moments where my tenses move from past tenses to present tenses and this is more acceptable in spoken English than in written English. As my podcast is presented to you as primarily a form of natural spoken English, that should account for this.

Past tense version: So we were sitting in the Japanese restaurant and eating sushi, having a lovely romantic evening, when suddenly loads of ninjas dropped down from the ceiling but I wasn’t worried because I’d spent 3 months in the mountains learning the ways of Chinese kung-fu and so I dealt with them all, and went back to the sushi.

Present tense version: So there we are eating our sushi, having a lovely romantic evening when suddenly loads of ninjas drop down from the ceiling but I’m not worried because I’ve spent 3 months in the mountains learning the ways of Chinese kung-fu, so I deal with them all and then go back to the sushi. (The present tense version is more immediate, and more common in spoken English, although it might sound a bit colloquial).

Slipping into present tenses when telling a story is usually a subconscious thing, rather than a planned thing. I think people just end up using present tenses when they’re recounting events as they actually happened. So, let’s see if it happens to me while I continue to tell you this story.

Another point: This habit of slipping into present tenses that I’m talking about… This doesn’t mean that you don’t need to use past tenses. It’s not a loophole which you can use to avoid making sentences with complex past tenses. This is not a way for you to completely avoid having to deal with irregular verbs and past participles and auxiliary verb conjugations and things. No. If you get a grammar test at school about narrative tenses and you use present tenses, you can’t justify it by saying “But sir I was just using present tenses to make the story more immediate!” Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. You still need to master past tenses before you can abandon them in certain cases. You need to know the rules before you can break them. You need to have full control of the language in order to make these subconscious shifts in tone. So, keep studying those past tenses, practising and being mindful of how you’re using them. If you want to listen to a podcast episode about using past tenses (simple, continuous & perfect) to tell stories, check out episode 29 which is called “Mystery Story / Narrative Tenses”. It’s one of the most commonly listened-to episodes of my podcast. It’s got a short story featuring The Doctor from Dr Who, and a full explanation of how to use narrative tenses properly, pronunciation drills and everything. Click here to check it out: www.teacherluke.co.uk/2009/11/12/mystery-story-narrative-tenses/

So, you can study the tenses directly. Alternatively, don’t worry about it too much and just let the words wash over you and focus on the general meaning of what I’m saying to you, and imagine yourself there and just focus on the meaningful content – the more natural and contextualised English you hear the better it is for your acquisition of grammar at an almost subconscious level, creating that sense of instinct for what is correct or incorrect usage.

Anyway, on with the story…

Sunday 9 August
Breakfast and then took a drive up into the hills for a trek. (Am I using present or past tenses? I’ve become self-conscious now, so I’ll probably stick to past tenses, but I’m sure that if I get carried away with the story I’ll end up using present tenses… we’ll see)
The whole time in LA I felt very bizarre deja vu. This was of course because of the films and movies I’d seen, but more specifically because of Grand Theft Auto 5, which is very accurately modelled on LA, down to lots of small details. I felt exactly like I was in GTA5 a lot of the time. It’s an amazing game.
Stopped off at a pharmacy on the way. Vast.
I think you get the idea – everything in the US is big. Big cars, big buildings, big beds, big meals, big people. Although we didn’t see many of these huge, fat Americans that we all hear about. I think that’s because in California people are generally a lot healthier. Still, people in general are larger than in the UK.
Park the car and begin a trek into the hills around the back of the Hollywood sign.
Very dry. In fact the whole state is on high alert for forest fires. There are fires burning in various parts of the state all the time. California has been experiencing a severe drought for years. In LA they redirect water from hundreds of miles away in the Colorado River Basin. The water then gets used by rich people in Beverley Hills to spray in their gardens to keep their lawns green. Again, pretty crazy right? Welcome to Los Angeles.
L.A. is a city with a little mountain range running through the middle of it (Ok they’re hills not mountains) and if you like hiking a bit then it’s worth going up these hills.
We do get amazing views of the city sprawling away on both sides.
Arranged in lines.
Mild hike behind the sign and then down the right hand side.
Views of the sign.
Here are a few quick facts about the Hollywood sign:
– The sign is about 45 feet high and was originally built in 1923 when it was originally put up as an advertisement for a huge real estate company selling top quality real estate in Hollywood. The company was called Hollywoodland. In fact the sign used to say Hollwyoodland, but the ‘land’ part was removed and the sign became an icon of the region of Hollywood, and everything that represents – glamour, movies, fame etc.
– In 1932 a young actress called Peg Entwhistle committed suicide by climbing up the sign and jumping from the letter ‘H’, falling to her death. Apparently she was depressed because she couldn’t make it as an actress in Hollywood. Ironically, her death made her quite famous.
– The sign used to be covered in lightbulbs, which must have looked pretty cool when it was turned on, but the bulbs didn’t last long as they were too expensive.
– The sign was repaired lots of times and almost completely rebuilt in the 40s, but in 1978 it was in such bad condition after the O fell off and tumbled down the hill and also some arsonists set fire to one of the letter Ls. The city decided to repair it and it cost over $250,000 to do that. Who came up with most of the money? Hollywood’s celebrity class. In fact PLayboy owner Hugh Hefner organised a big party at the Playboy Mansion in order to provide the money. Rock star Alice Cooper also provided money to help repair the letter O.
– It was replaced in 1978 and while the work was being done there was no sign there for 3 months.
– The sign is owned and protected by the city of L.A. and there’s quite an advanced security system which monitors the sign 24 hours a day.
In fact you can’t actually get that close to it. There’s a big fence surrounding it, and a big telegraph aerial. You can get around the back, like we did, but you can only really see the letters “HO”. But when you hike around to the front you can see it pretty well, and it looks cool. Again, it’s amazing to actually see something that you’ve seen so many times on television. But it’s not just the power of TV. It is a great location, with some attractive landscape and a really good view of the city below.
We ended up quite far from the car and got lost in the winding streets under the sign. Lots of properties nestled in to the hills. Attractive places and no doubt expensive but not as expensive as other places like Bel Air etx.
No phone reception so kept walking.
Then uber back to the car.

Life in LA is life in a car.

You never drive above about 60mph. I wonder why there are so many powerful sportscars. You never drive over about 50-60 mph. Sums up the place a lot. It’s more about show and image than about practical living – for some people. In fact there are plenty of ordinary people living in LA, who drive ordinary cars, and who do all the ordinary business of life. There also happen to be plenty of rich movie industry people here too, rock stars, and their children. In fact, one of those rock stars is Anthony Keidis from The Red Hot Chili Peppers. He used to live in the Hollywood Hills, and he sang about them too. In fact, I’d now like to recommend another audiobook download for you. So, here’s some more promotion for Audible – that company that provides loads of audiobooks, and they’re giving you the chance to sample their service for 30 days and that includes a free download of any book you like. Here’s another California related book you could get…

Audiobook Download Suggestions
“Scar Tissue” by Anthony Keidis
This is the autobiography of the lead singer of The Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Chili Peppers have an amazing story. They’re from L.A. originally, they’ve been going for about 3 decades, they’ve been through numerous guitarists, ups, downs, deaths and near deaths, epic highs and devastating lows, and yet they’re still going. Anthony himself was a heroin and cocaine addict during much of his career and in this book he tells his own very personal story of growing up in Los Angeles and his experiences of living with his Dad who was basically a drug dealer to the rich and famous. He talks about struggling for years with his experimental band the Chili Peppers – doing intense live performances, sometimes naked on stage, developing their funk-rock sound which ultimately catapulted them onto the world’s stage. You can hear exactly what was like and listen to descriptions of all the complicated things that went along with that stardom. It’s a powerful story, full of sex, drugs and rock and roll but also a genuinely moving and candid account of Anthony’s success, strengths, weaknesses, friendship, personal hardship, the music business, his addiction and his eventual recovery from addiction. The book is an international bestseller and you can download the audiobook version from Audible. Get it free by going to www.audibletrial.com/teacherluke, or click one of the Audible buttons on my website.

American & British English (Part 1) Vocabulary Related to Cars & Driving
*A note on British and American English*
As you are well aware, there are, broadly speaking, two types of English – American English, and good English, I mean British English. (Just joking – I’m not one of those Brits who has a problem with American English) There are other types of English too of course, like English in Australia, South Africa, Ireland, India and so on.

Can Brits and Americans understand each other? Yes, they can – except for some slight misunderstandings sometimes, there’s no problem in understanding each other.

Really the differences are in the accents, vocabulary, spelling, some grammar and the culture or communication style.
There are definitely some differences in vocabulary. Sometimes these cause misunderstandings. E.g. I said “Are you in the queue? ” and the woman just looked at me. Then I worked out the problem and sad “Are you in line?” and bob’s your uncle. The vast majority of the words we use are the same, but there are differences that are worth knowing. These differences may be more obvious when talking about different systems (e.g. our political and legal systems are a bit different so we’ve developed different terms to talk about them) but in general English there is a relatively small group of key words that are different and it’s worth knowing them all. I’m going to go through a lot of those words with you in this series of episodes.

In terms of culture, although we speak the same language, we don’t necessarily think in the same way and this can cause some problems in communication. For example, Brits tend to be more indirect in their use of language as a way of being polite, diplomatic, tactful etc. It can seem to be a more complicated message, but we see it as being more respectful and considerate. We don’t want to seem bossy or aggressive, but the Americans might take it as weak, unclear and even unsincere (not just the Americans) E.g. “I was wondering if you could…” or “I think there might be an issue…” instead of “Could you…?” or “There’s a problem”. I’m not saying all Americans are direct all the time, but in my experience I think there is truth in what I’m saying. If you want more evidence, read this article written by a Brit who’s done a lot of business communication in America http://www.forbes.com/sites/sungardas/2014/08/14/lost-in-translation-overcoming-the-language-barrier-as-a-brit-in-america/ So, there is a bit of a difference in communication style and culture, despite the fact that we speak the same language. The old saying goes “Britain and America are two nations separated by a common language” (which I think was said originally by George Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright and one of the founders of the LSE – not the London School of English, but the London School of Economics).

Accent or dialect can cause problems, particularly stronger regional accents. To be honest I think this is more of a problem for Americans understanding Brits (and other forms of English like Australians, South Africans, Irish etc) I think the average Brit would probably understand most American dialects and accents, but the average American might have trouble with some local British dialects. For example, in the USA they often require subtitles on TV when someone with a strong non-American accent is speaking (e.g. a local Brit from Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle). I’ve seen interviews on US television with actor Colin Farrell that had subtitles to help the Americans to understand what he was saying. He’s Irish and has a fairly strong accent, but it’s not extraordinarily difficult to understand in my opinion but apparently it was necessary to provide subtitles for the American viewers, even though he was speaking English. However, I doubt that a UK audience would need subtitles for an American, even if they have a strong accent from pretty much anywhere in the country. I think this is because in the UK we are exposed to lots of American English from TV and films – even the really colloquial stuff, but British English is comparatively less known in the USA due to lack of exposure.

The Brits and Americans do spell some words differently as I’m sure you’re aware (famous differences are things like colour/color and theatre/theater) and there are some differences in grammatical usage, but that’s less obvious and as a result less problematic.

Anyway, the point is – there are differences between British and American English but the vast majority of the time we can understand each other without any problems at all. If you’re wondering what kind of English you should learn (which you’re probably not wondering to be honest, because if you’re listening to this then you’ve probably decided that you like British English, and you’re right of course – you are wise wise people indeed) But seriously, you can choose to learn British or American English, or a bit of both. In fact, I personally think it’s ok to mix it up a bit as long as people understand what you’re saying.

For your learning of English, I’d say the main things are that you’re able to identify the difference between a British and American accent, and that you know the main differences in vocabulary. For more information about the differences between UK and USA pronunciation, listen to a previous episode I did on this subject – Episode 14 “British and American Pronunciation” https://teacherluke.co.uk/2009/10/19/episode-10-british-and-american-pronunciation/.

The subject of British and American English is really interesting and very relevant so I’d love to come back to it in the future but for now, here are some different British and American words. I’ve chosen ones that are related to driving.

Let’s see how many you know. I’ll define the word first – try to guess it. Did you come up with the British or American version, or both? Let’s see…

British Word – American Word
Petrol – Gas (gasoline)
Petrol/fuel tank – gas tank
Caravan – Trailer
Lorry – Truck
Junction – Intersection
Tyre – Tire
High street – Main street
Windscreen – Windshield
Motorway – Freeway/Highway
Number plate – License plate
Bonnet – Hood
Pavement – Sidewalk
Boot – Trunk

End of part 3. Part 4 coming soon!
California3

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