It’s the festive time of year again. Christmas is just about a week away. Obviously, this is an important time in the UK and in many other places, so here is the annual LEP Christmas episode.
I’ve got a lovely fire going here. It’s all warm and cosy. The conditions are perfect.
It’s a now a bit of a tradition on this podcast to do an episode devoted to the subject of Christmas every year, so that’s what you’re going to get in this episode. It’s going to be a massive Christmas-themed rambling chat with the one and only Amber Minogue!
We’re going to talk about many things, including our plans for this year, the things we usually do at Christmas, our memories of childhood and growing up, spending christmas with kids and whether you should tell children the truth about Father Christmas, how it feels to work on Christmas Day, weird Christmas routines in my family, the rules of stupid games we play at Christmas, dodgy dad-jokes and Christmas crackers and plenty of other tangents and stories.
I wonder what you’re doing at this time of year? How do you usually spend the Christmas period? Is it an important time of year in your country, in your family or for you as an individual?
It would be interesting to compare your version of Christmas wherever you are in the world, with the sort of Christmas that we have. So, while you listen to us rambling on in this episode, think about the similarities or differences between your Christmases and our Christmases, and perhaps leave a comment on the page for this episode so you can share how it is for you.
This is quite a long episode, but do listen all the way until the end because I have some other little announcements and things to say, which I will tell you after this mega chat with Amber is finished.
There’s no need for me to say anything more as an introduction. So, without any further ado, here is my super-festive Christmas MEGA-rambling CHAT with Amber Minogue.
What do you call a cake that sits in a cupboard watching all the other cakes? A mince spy. (a mince pie / spy – ha ha)
What do you get if you cross Santa with a duck? A Christmas Quacker! (a Christmas cracker / quacker – ha ha)
How did Scrooge win the football game? The ghost of Christmas passed! (the ghost of Christmas past / to ‘pass’ a ball in football)
MEGACHAT ENDS
So, that was Amber and me talking about our versions of Christmas.
What do you think?
What are the differences to the ways you spend Christmas? Share your thoughts in the comment section.
Other Chrimbo episodes that you might want to enjoy (just in case this one isn’t enough!)
Christmas – It’s all about Family (with James Thompson) – talking about all sorts of random stuff, not all of it about Christmas.
A Cup of Christmas Tea with Paul Taylor – missing Paul’s voice? Listen to this episode – it was the first time he came on the podcast and we talked about Christmas as well as other things.
I think I will be uploading one more episode before the Christmas holiday arrives, so I might wish you a proper Merry Christmas then, but if I don’t get the chance to do that, then MERRY CHRISTMAS. I hope you manage to get your shopping done, your gifts wrapped and all your food prepared.
ANOTHER LEPSTER GET-TOGETHER
MOSCOW LEP Conversation Club
This Sunday 18 December, 4pm-6pm, Wooden Door anticafe
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Thank you for your messages!
I appreciate your responses to my work and your messages of thanks. It’s always nice to here from you.
Donations
If you’re feeling festive and generous and you’re thinking of expressing your gratitude to me somehow – you could make a donation to LEP.
There will probably be another episode up before Christmas, so I’ll speak to you again in that one.
Amber & Paul are back on the podcast and we do the usual catching-up session and go off on a few tangents about Amber’s play, Paul’s showbiz life, marshmallows, microphones, tea & coffee, accents and more. There are videos for the intro and outro of this episode (below).
This episode sees the return of pod PALs Amber Minogue and Paul Taylor, which means that The Talkative Trio are reunited on the podcast once more.
Time was pretty tight for this conversation because Paul was working to a very strict schedule on the day it was recorded, which was yesterday in my flat.
As you’ll hear, Paul arrives a little bit late because he was having lunch with some TV industry people and then he has to leave before the end of the recording to be interviewed on the radio, because he’s so hot right now in the world of showbiz.
Amber has also been very busy recently doing various things including writing and rehearsing a play, so it’s been hard to get the three of us in a room together all at the same time.
As a result this episode was arranged at the last-minute and the conversation was completely unplanned. All I wanted to do was to catch up with the two of them and ask the usual question: What have you been doing?
You’ll hear that things carry on quite rapidly and there are plenty of the usual tangents – those moments when the topic suddenly goes off in a different direction.
It might be hard to follow, so to help you keep up, here’s a basic summary of the main things that we talk about. You’ll find these notes written on the page for this episode, including some words that you might hear in the conversation but not know. You might want to check these notes to see words that you might have missed, to check their spelling etc.
First of all Amber tells me about the play for children that she’s been working on with our friend James Simpson.
Paul then arrives, you hear the buzzer buzzing and he comes in carrying a bag containing a new iPhone 7, still in its box, which he collected from the shop earlier in the day. It’s a present which all his friends bought for him a few months ago for his 30th birthday, organised by his girlfriend. We all chipped in some money and got him a new phone.
Amber tells us some more things about her play, including how it contains a few slapstick moments, meaning some funny scenes of fairly violent physical comedy involving a first-aid box and some marshmallows. Apparently at one point in the play James hits Amber over the head with the first aid box. By the way, a first-aid box is a box that contains basic medical supplies for administering first-aid, that’s why it’s called a first-aid box. It contains, things like plasters, bandages, antiseptic, tiny scissors, and maybe some other little medical things that you don’t understand etc.
Also in the play they also fight over a marshmallow, which Amber wants to dip into her tea.
This leads us to talk about dipping things into cups of tea, like marshmallows and biscuits, which then causes us to talk about what you put in your tea when you’ve run out of milk, which actually happened to Paul the other day. His solution was to use whipped cream as a substitute.
That leads me to ask the question of whether you really can put cream in tea, and we agree that you can definitely put cream in coffee, especially a particular type of coffee which is served with whipped cream on top, which in France is called café Viennois – which I think translates as a Viennese coffee – or a coffee from Vienna.
That causes me to ask what they call a Viennese coffee in Vienna, speculating that they might just call it a coffee, which leads to a similar question about the French phrase “creme anglais”, which translates literally as “English cream” – but in the UK we just call it “custard”.
I then ask Paul and Amber to explain to you my audience what custard is, and Paul suggests that instead of us explaining it at great length, you could just ‘google’ it.
I remind Amber & Paul that it is necessary to explain some words sometimes, like the word ‘custard’, because this is Luke’s English Podcast and it’s probably a good idea to explain words sometimes.
This prompts Amber to comment on the way that I seem to choose to explain words quite randomly in my episodes – like when I recently spent quite a lot of time explaining the word ‘flea’ in a recent conversation I had with my Dad on the podcast.
We then go back to food and talk about typical English puddings which can be served with custard, including crumble, sticky toffee pudding and the oddly named ‘spotted dick’.
I refer to spotted dick as a dessert, which causes Amber to comment that this is the wrong choice of word and that I should say that it’s a “pudding” not a “dessert”.
This brings up the slightly confusing and long-running debate about the correct choice of words to describe certain things in Britain, especially in relation to the dinner table. This all relates to British rules of etiquette and language in polite society, perhaps relating to French vocabulary we sometimes use in English. We don’t talk about this very clearly and it might be a bit confusing for you, and really the whole subject of the rules of British etiquette and social class deserves an episode of it’s own.
Nevertheless, in order to clear it up a bit, here’s a quote from a book called “Watching the English” by Kate Fox. Kate Fox is a social commentator who writes about social behaviour in England, and “Watching the English” is a good book that explains many things about English life. This is what Kate has to say about the words “pudding” and “dessert” in English. By the way, both these words are used to refer generally to sweet food which is served after the main course. You have the starter, then main course, then the pudding/dessert. Your choice of the word ‘pudding’ or ‘dessert’ seems to depend on your level of class, and apparently according to upper-class culture the word “dessert” is vulgar. Kate Fox: ‘The upper-middle and upper classes insist that the sweet course at the end of the meal is called the ‘pudding’ – never the ‘sweet’, or ‘afters’, or ‘dessert’, all of which are déclassé and unacceptable’ (Fox, 2005, p79). So, according to upper-class etiquette, pudding is the correct term for the sweet course that comes at the end of the meal. Fine. Amber seems to think this is because the word “dessert” is of French origin, but I’m not sure. By the way, in some places (e.g. France and Japan) pudding is a specific kind of dish. For example in Japan ‘pudding’ is a sort of caramel or custard creme dish. In the UK it just means the sweet course at the end of the meal and can include all kinds of things, like cakes, pies, ice-cream, trifle, Eton mess, bread and butter pudding or even jelly. “What’s for pudding?” for example.
I try to explain all of this, but I can’t manage it, instead saying “This is tangent city” when I realise that we keep going off on mad tangents and it’s probably quite confusing for the audience – that’s you.
Our talk of pudding then causes us to start talking about Pudong, an area in Shanghai, and specifically the Pudong River in Shanghai. Paul tells us a bit about that and then there are a couple of references to the slightly rude sounding English words ‘poo’ and ‘dong’ before things settle down a bit and we start talking about Paul’s recent showbiz news, including how he is going to be interviewed on a radio station called “Oui FM” later in the afternoon, so we go from poo to wee in just a few sentences.
At one point Paul nearly uses quite a clever word – ‘concise’ but then doesn’t use it, preferring instead to choose a more simple way of putting things “using the least words possible” (which means to be concise).
We talk about responses to Paul’s recent videos including a few YouTube comments & some criticism he received from a serious person in an email (the criticism was in the email, not the person – you can’t put a person in an email).
Things get quite geeky when I then start talking about cameras and microphones and the challenges of capturing good audio when you’re recording videos.
There’s some talk of different types of microphone, including boom mics, lapel mics, dynamic mics and shotgun mics but then Amber decides it’s all getting a bit too geeky and we move onto something else.
We make plans to hang out again on Thursday on the set of Paul’s TV show while they’re doing some filming, and we decide to record a podcast while we’re there.
Following on from my recent episodes about accents, I ask Paul & Amber what their accents are, and what they think my Dad’s accent is, and Amber declares her love for my Dad.
Then Paul has to go for his radio interview on “Oui FM” and leaves, and Amber & I carry on and talk a bit more about her play before having a massive conversation about Christmas which will probably be uploaded in a forthcoming episode.
So, I hope that helps you understand what you are about to hear from the Tangential Trio. But, now, without any further explaining – here is that conversation as it actually happened!
JINGLE + CONVERSATION
‘OUTRO’
Amber and I started talking about Christmas there and we went on to talk about it for ages – like over an hour of chat about Christmas shopping, games, food, family traditions and everything else relating to the festive time of year. That conversation will continue in the next episode, maybe the episode after.
We talked a little bit about Paul’s English in that conversation.
People sometimes say “Paul’s accent/English is influenced by his French”.
It isn’t. Certainly not his accent anyway.
That’s one of the interesting things about Paul. When he speaks French there is pretty much no trace of an English accent in his speech, and when he speaks English there is no trace of a French accent.
Other announcements
LEP Moscow Get-Together Hey Luke! Well, the very first LEP Moscow GET-TOGETHER has just happened! The first of it’s kind, it seems to be a historical :) event in Russia! Everything went great, it was awesome to chat in ENGLISH with like-minded people!!! Personally I felt as if I had known all of the participants for ages – open, nice and smiley friends! I hope somebody else could feel a similar thing. First, we got to know each other, which was the main achievement! It was interesting to know when and how everyone had found LEP one day, which episodes were our favourite ones, which experiences in English language learning we had (useful Internet resources, grammar books, pronunciation etc.) A couple of pics and a short audio message from us to you are attached. Thanks again and again for that announcement and actually for everything you do!!! We hope to provide more listeners with a chance to meet and speak regularly and one more way to let them know is to “friend” your group on FB with ours https://www.facebook.com/groups/734996946664425/ and VK https://vk.com/clubnu1 . Have a nice Monday, Jedi-Podmaster! Dmitry
Here are those Moscow LEPsters saying hello!
Transcript Collaboration
~ well done everyone!
Thank you especially this month to Antonio for managing everything.
There is an email now for the Orion team. Just write a comment on the page for the transcript collaboration and Antonio will let you know what to do.
Make sure you read the rules. Transcript collaboration page:https://teacherluke.co.uk/episodes-with-transcripts/transcripts/
Zdenek’s English Podcast
Also, on the subject of LEPster podcasts – Zdenek Lukas continues to do his show, called Zdenek’s English Podcast. Recently he’s been doing episodes about his experiences studying for the DELTA (Diploma in English Language Teaching for Adults) which is a seriously challenging postgraduate qualification in English teaching, which involves not only a lot of writing about linguistics and teaching methodologies, but also plenty of assessed teaching sessions too. It’s a difficult course with many challenges and many things to learn. You can listen to Zdenek talking about it on his podcast in some recent episodes.
Get it here https://audioboom.com/channel/zdeneks-english-podcast
Join the mailing list for direct access to the page for every episode, and for any other content I put up, including videos that I might start doing with my new camera soon.
That’s it! Cheers!
VIDEOS
Here’s one of Paul’s “What the F*ck France?” videos. This one’s about how it’s difficult to learn French.
LEP VIDEOS
Here are a couple of bonus videos of me recording the introduction to this episode, and a failed attempt at recording the outro too (I forgot to press ‘record’ on my audio device!)
They’re in black & white because I think it looks cool. The gorilla ↴ is pink, ok!
Thanks for watching. I’m just experimenting with videos at the moment, but if you like them, I might do more.
The Russian Joke appeared in US TV show Parks & Recreation – watch until the end
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxQ_ywY-luE
Music credits
Jazzy xylophone tune & piano tune by BenSound – www.bensound.com
Other music by me, or by my brother James Thompson.
The final results of the LEP Anecdote Competition, some podcast admin and responses to some comments & emails from listeners including a war story, some grammar & punctuation (noun phrases, possessives & apostrophes) and a question about my Dad’s accent.
The voting closed at midnight last night. So, here are the results in reverse order.
10th position: Weija Wang from China (talked about how his female friend embarrassed him by admitting that she had fallen in love with him, but he suspects it might have been a practical joke)
9th position: Shujaat from Pakistan (told us the story of how he narrowly avoided a terrorist attack near his college)
8th position: Elena from Russia (told us the nightmare story of how she went on a wild goose chase to find the daughter of one of her friends, who appeared to go missing one Saturday evening)
7th position: Frankie from Sicily, Italy (talked about how he narrowly escaped death in a walk around a lake that turned into the day trip from hell)
6th position: Vasily from Tashkent (told the sweet story of how he met his wife, accompanied by the lovely sound of the accordion – this story was a cult hit in the comment section, prompting lots of speculation about Vasily’s virtuoso accordion playing skills)
5th position: Jose from Spain (told a creepy story about a suspicious character he used to know)
4th position: Zdenek from Czech Republic (told an amusing anecdote about a lesson learned on the London Underground about how to say “please” to strangers)
3rd position: Marla from Germany (in her lovely voice told us about how she found herself on the set of the brilliant BBC TV series “Sherlock”, and met one of the main cast members)
2nd position: Saaya from Japan (Told us a story involving a pyjama-based family coincidence which proved to her that she’s truly is a chip off the old block)
1st position! DRUM ROLL! … Kristina from Russia! (who told us about her nerve-wracking experience of doing a completely unprepared live simultaneous translation for a famous film director, on stage in front of a large audience of people)
CONGRATULATIONS KRISTINA!
Also, congratulations to everyone who took part. It was really great to listen to your stories.
You can still hear the anecdotes, by visiting the page for episode 387 (all anecdotes).
I hope you join me in congratulating the winner and the runners up.
Adverts at the beginning of episodes
You might have heard some adverts being played at the beginning of episodes. For example, you play an episode on your podcasting app or on the website and before the episode begins you hear about 20-30 seconds of advertising. I’m not talking about the bit where I mention my sponsor for the podcast, but another ad – not featuring my voice. The ads are region specific. For example, here in France I hear adverts for Mini (coincidentally enough, voiced by my mate Tom Morton from episode 344). Some of you won’t be hearing these ads, but many of you will, and you might be wondering what they are. Let me explain. They’re not added by me. They’re added by Audioboom and I’m hoping that they’ll be a temporary thing. Audioboom, my audio host, are now inserting ads into podcast content which is hosted by them. I’m one of many podcasts which are hosted by Audioboom. They don’t just do podcasts. They do audio hosting service for lots of other purposes – e.g. for news websites that want to embed audio clips onto their websites, or journalists who want to publish pieces of audio. They’ve recently started featuring adverts on audio content in order to monetise their service. I’m in discussion with them about this. Personally, I don’t really want the ads. I have my own sponsors – italki & Audible and some others that I’m talking to. They’re working pretty well because I like their services, we have a good relationship and they’re services that reflect the aims of my podcast. I don’t really want other ads in addition to those. Some sponsorship is definitely necessary in order to keep this podcast free, and I want it to stay free. But too much advertising is definitely not a good thing. I want to make sure your listening experience is enjoyable, as much as possible. I personally find it annoying and a bit jarring to hear certain types of advertising at the beginning of episodes.
So, I’m in talks with Audioboom about how we can enter a new agreement in which those ads are not featured on my content. That new arrangement is now pending, meaning that we’re in the middle of sorting it out. I’m waiting for Audioboom to get back to me with some other options. Hopefully we’ll find a solution which is satisfying, or I might move to a new podcast host, which would be pretty inconvenient for me, but in the long run might be better for the podcast.
In the meantime, you might hear some ads inserted at the beginning and the end of my episodes, but I expect it won’t be a long-term thing. They’ll just be there until Audioboom and I have figured out a way to either remove them, or improve them to the point that I’m happy to keep them.
You might think – “you could earn money from them Luke, to help monetise your podcast”. Yes, that’s a good point, but as I said, I already have sponsors which I feel are working for me well enough, and allow me to cover costs like website services and just the time I devote to the preparation, recording and production of the podcast. The main thing for me at this stage is that the listening experience is good for you.
I need to balance all these things: the monetary support I might get from advertising or sponsorship, your experience of listening to my episodes, the workload that I have and the time I have to devote to the project.
So, in brief – if you’ve heard slightly intrusive sounding advertising at the beginning of episodes – I am aware of it, I didn’t insert those adverts myself and I expect it will only be a temporary thing until Audioboom and I have reached some kind of agreement.
A family story from WW1 – A Turkish POW in Russia
This is Deniz’s comment after my episodes about D-Day and in relation to the episode I did about my Grandfather, who died at the beginning of 2015.
In episode 183/184 I went to the D-Day commemoration to remember what happened in Normandy in 1944. My Grandfather was an officer in charge of a group of men on that day. I asked listeners to share any stories they had about family members who got caught up in WW2.
Deniz’s comment
Hey Luke, This was an intense episode, wasn’t it? I can understand what you feel about your grandpa. I listened this episode recently, and came here to check if any commentator mentions anything about World War 1 or 2, which is related with their family. As a reminder: you asked for it in the podcast. As you probably know Turkey kept its neutral status during WW2. So as a Turkish person, my family do not have any WW2 memories (except how hard those state of emergency years were) on the other hand WW1 was a really intense chain of events in Turkish history, since so many Turkish people were killed during the battles and even infants had to fight for the very reason after a while it had became “defending the mainland” for Turks. So here is the memory from the father of my grandfather (my grandfather): The Caucasus Campaign had been a real disaster for the Turks, since fighting with the Russians during winter conditions is always a bad idea and “the sick man of Europe” Ottoman army lacked equipment for such a formidable campaign. In a nutshell, so many Turks died because of the winter conditions and the situation became a piece of cake for the Tsardom of Russia. The father of my grandfather (my great-grandfather) was really lucky to stay alive and became a POW after the Russians surrounded them. As a POW he had to do whatever the Russians decided for him and in the end he was sold to an aristocratic Russian family and became a stableman for them. After a while that Russian family let him marry since they thought there was no turning back for him anymore. So he married a low-class serf woman, and they even had two babies! But then… the Tsardom of Russia also collapsed and the October Revolution stormed through all of Russia. This incident had serious effects on aristocratic families, which is not a surprise. So during all that mess, my great-grandpa managed to escape by boat and came back to Turkey again… Of course he had to leave his Russian wife and those 2 children there, because he had no any other choice. After he came to Turkey, he fought in the Turkish War of Independence and after that finally married a Turkish woman, which led to me, in the long run. So Luke, isn’t it weird? There are some people in Russia, who are my distant relatives in a way, and there is almost no way for us to find each other. I just wanted to share that story here, since I know many Russians listen your podcast and who knows… It’s a small world with weird coincidences. :) Thank you for all the podcasts!
Does that story sound familiar? If it does – get in touch!
Grammar: Nouns adjuncts, noun phrases, possessive ‘S’ and apostrophes – A question about the title of “An 80-Minute Ramble”
Yaron’s question about the title of episode 397 “An 80-minute ramble” Hi Luke, It’s been a while… good to have you back… I haven’t listened to this episode yet (I probably will in the evening) Anyhow…I have a small question: Should it be “An 80 minute Ramble” or “An 80 minutes Ramble”? I find that all the subjects with the “S” at the end of the word in English to be very confusing (You need to add “S”, with ‘ sign before/after the “S”, etc…. ) I would really appreciate ii if you could clarify it. Thanks, Yaron
My reply
Hi Yaron,
It’s ‘an 80 minute ramble’ not ‘an 80 minuteS ramble’.
As you know, plural nouns (unless irregular) do take an ‘S’ – e.g. “I’m going to talk for about 80 minutes” but not in the case of ‘an 80 minute ramble’ because ’80 minute’ here is like an adjective for the word ‘ramble’ and adjectives in English aren’t pluralised.
What kind of ramble? An 80-minute ramble. ’80 minute’ is performing the function of an adjective.
More information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_adjunct
That’s the theory, but it’s a bit abstract isn’t it? It might be easier to learn this when you consider all the common examples of this kind of structure, e.g.
a 5 star hotel
a 10 pound note
a 4 year old girl
a 5 minute walk
a 10 dollar fine
a 10,000 pound reward
a 9 hour flight
a 4 hour drive
10-year cave-aged cheddar cheese
‘S
This is either: ‘is’, ‘has’, possessive
Check this page from Oxford Dictionaries Online for all the details about how to use ‘S
Sebastian Hi Luke, I hope you’re all right. I’ve got a question: Where’s your Dad’s accent from or what kind is it? Is it posh? Thanks.
The ‘short’ answer:
My Dad speaks standard British RP (Received Pronunciation), also known as BBC English. This type of accent is generally associated with middle and upper-middle class people, probably university educated, from England, particularly the South East of England, but possibly from any other part of the UK too.
I think, by the standards of most Brits his accent is slightly posh because there aren’t many regional inflections in his voice, but I don’t think he is properly posh, like someone who went to Eton school for example.
What does ‘posh’ mean? (screenshot from Oxford Dictionaries Online – click it for more details)
You could say there are slight regional variations of RP (e.g. in Scotland, the north of England or Wales) But it’s not a truly posh accent, like the way the royal family speaks, or David Cameron speaks, for example.
I reckon you could break it down like this (and this is making it really simple)
Regional dialects (strong accents, particular words and phrases used – all specific to certain areas)
Regional accents (strong accents specific to certain areas)
Standard RP with slight regional variations (e.g. the way some vowel sounds are produced)
Standard RP from the South East of England
Heightened RP (like David Cameron)
Very heightened RP (like The Queen)
Depending on your social background, you’ll consider some accents to be more posh than others. Generally, if the accent is associated with a higher social class (based on the old model) than yours, you’ll say it’s posh.
Posh can be either positive or negative. It depends on your view of the situation.
I guess by a lot of people’s standards, my Dad sounds quite posh. For me he isn’t that posh. He’s just really neutral and clear. I think a truly ‘posh’ accent has different qualities to it.
To do justice to this subject I’ll need to do full episodes on the way different people speak.
Talking with two American friends about journalism, how the internet works, the US presidential election results, California’s new marijuana laws and puffins.
[DOWNLOAD]
In this one you’ll hear me in conversation with Molly Martinez and Dane Nightingale.
Molly has been on the podcast before – she was in episodes 198 and 199 – have you heard those? They’re fun episodes. In those episodes we talked about her studies as a journalist, we tested each other’s general knowledge of the UK and the USA and I tried to teach her how to do different regional accents in British English. That was episodes 198 and 199, in 2014 – ah, 2014, such fun times, such innocent times… Those episodes are still available for you to hear in the episode archive.
For a few days Molly is back in Paris seeing friends and visiting her old haunts, and this time she is accompanied by Dane Nightingale, who I think you will agree has a rather fantastic surname. (by the way, a nightingale is a bird that sings a beautiful song but only during the night time).
They’re both here for a couple of days and thankfully I managed to grab them both (not physically of course, just figuratively) for about an hour of conversation on this podcast.
Overview of this episode (to help you keep up)
This episode has a light-hearted bit at the beginning, then quite a serious bit in the middle, then another light-hearted bit at the end. The serious bit is when we start talking about the election, and there is a palpable shift in tone in the conversation at that point – so look out for that.
In the first light-hearted bit we establish these things:
They’re an item – they’re going out with each other – they’re going steady (I think this is the expression in NAmE) – they’re boyfriend & girlfriend, but they don’t live together – so they’re not living in sin, as you’ll hear them say.
Molly is a journalist for CBS in SF. She’s mostly on the production side but she does some on-air stuff (like reports to camera) as well as video editing and writing for anchors.
Molly is also a stand-up comedian who tells jokes on stage. She also tells quite a lot of jokes off-stage too. I think it’s fair to say that she’s something of a compulsive joke teller, which is alright in my book.
You’ll hear that Molly makes a joke about how I’m the heir to the BBC fortune, which makes me sound like I’m set to inherit the entire BBC (quite funny). I then explain in huge detail how in fact the BBC is publicly funded (not very funny).
Dane works for a start-up called Fastly, which makes the internet faster.
He tells us how the internet is basically just a series of tubes, and how my audio episodes travel from my servers in Tower Bridge, London to users all over the world, and how the start-up company that he works for, Fastly, aims to make this process faster by allowing data to be stored locally. I’m not sure I understand how it works!
Molly tells us about the 5 things that make something newsworthy: relevance, time, novelty, proximity and cats.
Then the serious bit begins when I ask them about their reaction to the US election. Hopefully you’ll find it interesting to hear about this story directly from the mouths of two US citizens from San Francisco. We try to understand how Trump won and Hillary lost, including the motivations of the voters, the campaigns of both candidates and also how the electoral system had an impact on the result.
Then the podcast becomes slightly less serious again and the conversation turns to the subject of marijuana laws in the USA, how Molly once met Tommy Chong (one half of the stoner comedy duo Cheech & Chong on an airplane – high in the sky, especially him) and then how both Molly and Dane are going to Iceland where it might be very cold, and where people might eat puffins – lovely little birds with colourful beaks.
You should also be aware of the meaning of these two words:
A puffin, puffing.
Puffins – cute birds which are protected by law in the UK but are very common in Iceland and apparently eaten there as a traditional delicacy. Puffing – the gerund form of the verb ‘to puff’ which means to take smoke from a cigarette or perhaps a pipe, or a perhaps joint in the case of California. “To puff a joint, or take a puff from a joint, or toke a joint or take a toke from a joint”.
So – “enjoy your puffin”, can have two meanings – enjoy eating a little Icelandic bird as a delicacy, or enjoy smoking some weed (especially in California where it has recently been made legal).
Right, you are now ready to listen to the conversation, so here we go!
*Conversation starts – light-hearted bit – serious bit – light-hearted bit – conversation ends*
I just want to thank Molly and Dane again for coming on the podcast. They took some time out from their holiday to talk to me, and you, and some of that time was spent going over the election, and things did get a little heated during the serious part of that conversation.
Molly expressed her frustration about the standards that people seem to have about women in positions of power – something which Sarah Donnelly also talked about when she was on the podcast talking about Hillary Clinton recently.
Specifically regarding the public’s perception of female candidates, maybe it is harder for a woman to capture the trust of the nation, because she’s expected to have so many conflicting qualities all at the same time. If she’s too warm she’s considered too emotional, but if she keeps the emotions in she’s judged as cold. That’s, I think, what Molly was talking about when she said it’s a double-standard. The point I was trying to make was that I think voters respond to certain personal charisma regardless of their gender, but thinking about it maybe women are judged differently than men and it’s harder for them to strike the right balance.
Anyway, that’s quite enough politics for this episode. I just wanted to say thanks to Molly and Dane for talking about the election because they’re on holiday and this is probably a story that they’re quite sick of, after a year and a half of election coverage in the media back home, and I expect they’re glad to be away from it all for a few days. So, I hope you’ll join me in expressing your gratitude to them for taking the time to talk about it to us on this podcast. I very much enjoyed having them on the podcast, for their honest reactions and for the light-hearted bits at the beginning and the end.
Notes
~Lots of people have shown interest in hearing a conversation with my Dad about the recent news, including the election results and about recent political developments in the UK. I am planning on talking to him soon, so that episode should arrive before long – as long as I don’t get snowed under with work, or snow, or fall into a wormhole or something like that. I’m a bit wary of doing politics too much, for obvious reasons, but many of my listeners have sent me messages assuring me that they appreciate the commentary, so I won’t abandon the subject, but I will be getting on to other topics on this podcast as well as getting back to basics with some episodes about language.
~The next episode is #400, which is cool isn’t it? Not bad really, considering how long some of my episodes are. That must be about 400 hours of podcasting for you to hear. I’m quite proud to have made it this far. It’s mainly thanks to my listeners, your enthusiasm for this podcast, your support and the support of my sponsors. I’m not sure to what extent I’ll celebrate during episode 400 or anything. I did quite a lot of celebrating in episode 300 in which I had contributions from many of the guests I’ve had on this podcast over the years, as well as a few daft celebrity impressions by me and my brother. We’ll see… perhaps I’ll just switch on the mic and have a ramble, perhaps I’ll have some guests. We’ll see.
~Amber and Paul are both very busy at the moment. Paul continues to have success with his TV series which is called WTF France – an affectionate piss-take of French culture from the English point of view. It seems the French, generally speaking, are being very good-natured about it and are lapping it up. The show is now being broadcast now on Saturday evenings on Canal+, which is one of France’s major TV channels. That’s quite a big deal. Paul is now Saturday evening prime time entertainment! Amber and I are proud of him of course, and also pleased because we helped him to write some of the episodes. You can see them all on the YouTube channel called “What The Fuck France”.
Now, you might not understand the appeal of the videos if you don’t understand the specifics of French culture and it might just look like he’s insulting everyone, but the humour comes from the familiarity with French life, particularly in Paris and really he’s saying the sorts of things that most Parisian people think, but doing it in English. Also, the videos are really nicely produced and directed. They look great.
~The LEP anecdote competition is still open – in episode 396 you heard 10 anecdotes so please do vote in the poll. You can find that page by clicking the blue button on my website. I’ve decided that as a prize I’ll spend some time talking to the winner 1-to-1 on Skype. I hope the winner considers that to be a prize. It may or may not be recorded and published, we will see.
~Don’t forget to join the mailing list
~Follow me on FB and Twitter where I post other bits and pieces from time to time.
~Thank you if you have sent me messages in various forms and apologies if I haven’t replied.
More episodes are coming. I have lots of ideas and things in the pipeline, but there’s no telling sometimes what’s coming next. Often I just record and publish on an episode by episode basis – and the topic and content is often decided by whatever inspiration strikes me at a given moment. It seems quite random, but there’s a method to the madness.
Have a lovely day, night, evening, morning or whatever and speak to you soon. X
In this episode I want to talk about two things: My first impressions of the US Presidential election result, and then some things I said in the last episode of this podcast. I just want to clear up some comments I made last time. I just want to get straight into it. So here we go.
Oh my god, can you believe it? You’d better believe it because it’s true. More on that in a minute.
I just want to record this episode and get it out there to you quickly without spending time on pre-production and all that stuff so it might be a bit rambly and a bit sketchy.
The main reason I’m recording this is that I have a couple of things I want to get off my chest in response to the previous episode of this podcast. Just some things on my mind that I want to communicate to you, and that’s the main reason I’m recording this quickly now on Tuesday 9 November.
But also, of course the big news of the day is the US presidential election – and that’s what’s going on, certainly in my world – probably in your world too – it’s all about the election because the result came in just a few hours ago that Trump has been elected president.
Let me say that again – Donald Trump is the 45th President of the USA.
So, I have got to talk about that a bit at the top of the episode here.
I hope you don’t press stop ❤️
Please do stick around for the whole episode. I do hope you listen to it all because I have some sincere things to say to you. Yes, don’t press stop! Please do listen! Please feel completely welcome at all times while listening to this! I hope you don’t press stop! In the last episode I know that I said some dismissive and glib things like “you can stop listening if you don’t like it” – sorry, I hope you didn’t feel that was dismissive and unfriendly sounding. I was just feeling a bit… ‘hangry’ or frustrated. Of course I always want you to listen and I am extremely happy when people do listen. I’ll talk more about that stuff later. I’ve got some things to say to you my audience – so I hope you do stick around for that.
But first – Donald Trump
Yes, the joke going round is that the UK is no longer the most stupid nation on earth. After Brexit we had the title for about 5 months and now it’s gone back to the USA, back to normal. Back to that good old feeling that we had when they elected George Bush twice in a row. Ah… That is the joke that people are making…
Except this time it seems worse somehow – at least it seems more shocking, I don’t know – what do you think? Are you shocked, glad? A lot of feelings will be flying around today I expect, especially if you care about this subject at all.
That Brexit feeling is back again.
It’s a strange feeling.
A huge event has happened. It’s a historic moment.
What a year it has been.
I’ve tried to capture how it feels.
How did Trump win?
An interesting article from TheWeek.co.uk: http://www.theweek.co.uk/theweekday/story/78497
This is part two of a two-part episode about my favourite podcasts. I thought I’d share them because you might like to listen to them too, even if they’re difficult to understand because they’re not specifically for learners of English. It’s good to challenge yourself sometimes, so why not try listening to these. If I like them, you might like them too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02pc9pj/episodes/downloads
BBC’s flagship radio comedy show. It’s a compilation of comedy shows from the week. The Now Show and Dead Ringers are the best.
Voting is now open in the first round of the LEP Anecdote Competition. You can listen to all the anecdotes on the page for this episode and vote for your favourites using a simple poll. I’ll give you the full details and instructions in this episode. I’m also going to talk about the results of the podcast survey I did recently and a couple of other things, including the top countries for LEP this week.
To listen to the anecdotes like a podcast on your phone just copy the RSS link above and paste it into the search function on your podcasting software, then subscribe.
[socialpoll id=”2391727″]
There are quite a few entries there. I know that’s rather a lot to for you (and me) to listen to. I hope do you listen to them all! You probably can’t listen to them all in one sitting, so I suggest you visit a few times. In any case, regardless of the number of listens and votes each anecdote receives, I will also have a deciding influence on who gets through to the next round. The number of votes is the most important factor, but as a judge of the competition I also will give kudos points to certain entries if I think it’s necessary. In the end, we’ll whittle down the 56 entries to just 10 entries for the next round.
How do you find the page for this episode?
If you’ve subscribed to the mailing list, an email should automatically arrive in your inbox later today. It might already be there. Just click the link and bob’s your uncle. It works best on a computer. The mobile theme of my website doesn’t work very well I’m afraid.
You can vote for as many anecdotes as you like. Repeat votes are allowed but you can’t vote for yourself more than once.
Voting will close in about 3 weeks, on the 21st October.
Then the votes will be counted and the top 10 anecdotes will go through to round 2.
Round 2 will be an episode of the podcast. I’ll play the top 10 anecdotes and then there will be another round of voting.
The winner will either win some LEP merchandise or will be briefly interviewed by me on the podcast. I might ask some more questions about the story, or ask questions any listeners have sent in.
That’s it!
So, check out the page for this episode, have a listen and vote for your favourites.
You are now judges and it’s completely up to you to choose your judging criteria. You could think about the English being used, the structure of the anecdote, whether the person followed all my rules, whether the person followed my advice or if they did it in a more original way, or perhaps most importantly: How much did you enjoy listening to it. That’s probably the best way of judging it.
All the recordings are displayed in a playlist on my site and the voting poll is available there too.
Survey results
Catherine Bear Luke, do the survey results meet your expectations? Or are you surprised at some points? I hope that folks have answered just once (from one device) — so that you could get an accurate picture. But maybe you don’t mind. Thanks, Cat
Results of the survey
They show that listeners prefer these types:
When I talk about a subject at length, e.g. culture, history, topics which I know about
When I teach vocabulary
When I interview someone
When I teach grammar
Everything else gets around the same number of votes.
At the bottom of the list there are these ones: improvised stories (e.g. the Pink Gorilla story – what a pity), responding to messages from listeners, listener competitions!
Well, sorry to disappoint you but 1. I enjoy doing the improvised stories and I’ll keep doing them! 2. We’re in the middle of a listener competition!
I understand why listener competitions are not at the top of the list – you want to hear me or other native speakers speaking English. But I have my own reasons for doing these competitions and I’ll still do them from time to time.
The results are a little bit misleading when you look at them like a bar chart. It appears that some of the bars in the chart are quite short and therefore not very popular. But if you look at the results like a pie chart it’s quite clear that the preferences of the audience are very evenly spread out.
Each slice of the pie is actually quite similar in size. Everyone seems to have different preferences. It’s not like one single episode type is vastly more popular than all the others. It just goes to show that you can’t please all the people all the time and it would be unwise for me to try to do that.
In the end it’s my podcast and I’ll do whatever I want and whatever I think is right based on my judgement and experience. But it’s good to get some feedback and I will aim to produce more of the kinds of episodes that everyone seems to like, while also satisfying my own inspiration.
Like, sometimes I just fancy doing something totally different and unusual, based on what is appealing to me at any given moment. Sometimes it’s English language related and sometimes it’s topic related, and I think that’s what keeps me interested in the project as a whole, that I can do exactly whatever I want, unlike in a classroom situation, and I reckon that is what makes the podcast a bit original or at least unexpected sometimes. Imagine for example if I just stuck to a sort of conservative selection of generic topics with no surprises. It would be boring if it was always the same thing again and again so I will mix it up a bit, and I will continue to experiment with episodes, like improvised stories if I feel like it.
In the end I think it’s about creating something authentic and hopefully enjoyable to listen to, whatever form that takes and whatever subject I’m talking about.
UKRAINE – Здравствуйте (zdrazdoitchyeah!) (sorry, I don’t know it in Ukranian)
GERMANY – Hallo!
UNITED STATES – What’s up guys? How y’all doing? Hi there you guys!
BRAZIL – Olá (oh laa!)
AUSTRALIA – G’day!
SWITZERLAND – Hallo! or Salut!
FRANCE – Salut!
TURKEY – Merhaba (mare haba)
TAIWAN – 你好 (ni how!)
VIETNAM – chào bạn (ciao ban!)
THAILAND – สวัสดี (sa bai dee kup!)
MEXICO – Hola!
Transcript collaboration team
Comedy shows in Paris
Like my FB page to get updates, or check “Comedy Shows” on my website.
Meeting of Japanese LEPsters in Tokyo
Name: Hideki Kanazawa
Message: Hello Luke, how are you?
As I said before, we had the very first meeting today! Five people came and we talked about how your podcast is amazing. We also shared a lot information mainly about English.
It was really fun and amazing. We are going to hold another meeting soon.
We also took photos.
Thank you again for supporting my idea, I really appreciate it. Cheers.
Only 5 people – but it’s quality not quantity! Nice one for getting together, it looks like you had a good time.
I’m hoping to come to Japan in April. This is a place that my wife and I have wanted to visit for ages. I used to live there so I want to revisit and show her everything, and she’s just slightly obsessed with all things Japanese. Perhaps I can arrange a gig or an event of some kind if we manage to save money to come. We’ll see.
As for my other plans for doing events in other places, that idea is on hold at the moment because I’m working on another project which I’ve been putting off for ages – a business English online course. That’s my priority and I’ve got to finish that before starting other things.
In this episode you are going to hear part 2 of my conversation with Ian Moore and I’ve decided to call this one “More Ian Moore” – do you see what I’ve done there? “more Ian Moore” I bet nobody has ever made that joke about his name before, right? Before we listen to Ian Moore, I just want to mention a few things… (notes continue below)
[DOWNLOAD] My voice – I’ve got a sore throat. It’s not too bad but I can’t talk a lot. I did an episode a few years ago about feeling sick and common symptoms. You can listen to it here (below).
Anecdote Competition. I know it’s challenging because you can’t read from a script.
More Ian Moore
Here is some more Ian Moore for you to listen to. You might want to listen to episode 382 before you hear this one. I know it’s a bit difficult to follow these conversations and I’m not explaining everything for you but here is a quick run-down of what you’ll hear us discussing in this episode.
Things we talk about
Making chutney – Chutney: A condiment (a condiment is something you have on the table when you eat food – e.g. salt, pepper, mustard, ketchup) of Indian origin, made of fruits or vegetables with vinegar, spices, and sugar. (Oxford Dictionary)
The challenges of living in the French countryside, including the time when he had a run-in with some hunters armed with shotguns (a run-in is like a disagreement or fight, or collision)
Doing Michael Caine impressions on stage (Michael Caine is a UK actor famous for lots of film roles, including Alfred in the Christopher Nolan Batman films, and some iconic roles from the 1960s in which he wore some very sharp suits, which is why he’s a bit of a style icon for the mod movement, and for young British men in general. Also, he has a particular way of talking)
The significance of Michael Caine in UK culture
Developing his comedy voice
How he started doing stand up comedy
Gigging in different places around the country
Performing comedy in French
The origin of the term “break a leg“, which is something you say to a performer to wish them luck before they go onstage
Ian’s blog “Full English Brexit” http://ianmoore.info/full-english-brexit/
Visit the page for the episode for links to his books, his blog and for some video footage of Ian on stage. (Hello!)
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy this conversation, recorded for your listening pleasure. I know that it might be difficult to follow this because you’re listening to two native speakers talking at natural speed. All I can do there is encourage you not to give up because the more you listen, the more you will understand in the long-term, and you certainly won’t improve your English at all by giving up and not listening. So, whenever you do understand something – give yourself a pat on the back and keep going!
*CONVERSATION STARTS AT ABOUT 18:00*
So there you go. That was Ian Moore. Let me know how it was for you. Did you manage to keep up with it all?
As he said, he does perform internationally sometimes, so check his website to find out if he is doing comedy in your area soon. In fact, you should find out if there is any English language comedy happening in your area, and go to see it. Many cities around the world have English comedy scenes these days. It might be a small scene, with amateur comics still developing their comedy skills, or it could be a more advanced scene with professionals like Ian, who will always make you laugh. In any case, going to see comedy can be a good thing to do for your English and you might end up meeting some people and making friends, all in English. Don’t be shy, give it a try – and remember not to get demotivated if you don’t understand all the jokes, like if a comedian goes on for 3 minutes about “rushing to the venue” and you don’t understand what he’s talking about. Don’t be bothered by the things you don’t understand, just do your best to work them out and keep going.
Ian Moore performs in French (yes, it’s in French)
Today on the podcast I’m talking to Ian Moore, who is a professional stand up comedian, published author and mod from London. Ian is probably the best dressed man ever to appear on this podcast. He is also a professional talker with many things to say.
[DOWNLOAD]
Photo: Richard Wood @comictog https://twitter.com/comictog
Intro before the intro
Hello listeners, this episode of Luke’s English Podcast is sponsored by italki which is a really convenient way to develop your fluency in English by talking to native speakers online – to claim your voucher worth 100ITC just go to http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk or click an italki logo on my website.
This episode features a conversation with English writer and comedian Ian Moore and in this part we talk mainly about mod, which is a British subculture involving clothing and music, but before the interview there is about a 15 minute introduction in which I explain a few things that will help you to fully understand the conversation. This podcast is for learners of English so sometimes it is necessary to give support to my listeners in advance of hearing a natural conversation in order to help them understand it all. My 15 minute intro to this episode is mainly an overview of the history of mod culture, with a few other short explanations. If you want to skip the intro, just move forwards by about 15 minutes and you can jump straight to the conversation. However, the introduction is there to help you to understand the cultural references, some history and other details in our conversation. OK, so that’s my intro before the intro, and now that this intro is nearly finished, I’ll let you listen to the other main intro which is going to come after this intro when this intro is finished, which is now so here is the proper intro, after the jingle, which is going to start as soon as I stop talking which is right about now.
Introduction and Explaining (Skip forwards 15 mins if you don’t want some explanations)
Today on the podcast I’m talking to Ian Moore, who is a professional stand-up comedian, published author and mod from London. Ian is probably the best dressed man ever to appear on this podcast. He is also a professional talker with many things to say.
I first met Ian a few months ago. He was in Paris for a few days and was the headline act at a comedy show where I was also performing. We got talking and our conversation was suitably rambling for me to consider Ian a good guest for this podcast. Also, there are some specific things I wanted to ask Ian, which I thought might be interesting for you my audience to hear.
Mod Culture
First, Ian is a mod. He’s a proper full-time mod. He dresses in all the correct mod clothing and has done for years. That might not mean anything to you and in fact that’s one of the reasons I wanted Ian to talk about it in this episode. Mod culture is quintessentially English. Basically, Mod is a fashion style, a way of life and a whole subculture of its own, and it’s uniquely English I think. Mod is one of the first genuine youth subcultures of the modern era. Nowadays there are many many subcultures (e.g. punk, skinhead, hippy, raver, indie kid, rocker, metal head, skater, etc) to the point that they don’t really mean anything, but back in the late 1950s and early 1960s there weren’t many youth subcultures. Everyone basically dressed the same except between different social classes in society. Certainly young people just dressed and acted like adults. Then in the postwar period young people became more independent and developed their own alternative cultures which were separate from mainstream lifestyles. Young people began to associate themselves with these alternative cultural movements as an expression of their individuality particularly in the form of the clothes they wore and the music they listened to.
Mod culture first became well-known in the UK as a result of a story in the newspapers about rival gangs of ‘mods’ and ‘rockers’ fighting each other on the beach in Brighton in 1964. These were the two main youth subcultures of the time and they hated each other. The rockers wore leather jackets, had their hair quite long and unclean, and rode motorbikes. They listened to rock and roll music. The mods were very sharply dressed in well fitted suits and ties, wore smart leather shoes, had a particular haircut (a bit like the Beatle cut) and rode Italian scooters. They listened to modern jazz, black American rhythm and blues or Jamaican ska. Their rivalry came to a head in the well-documented fighting that happened on the beaches in Brighton. The fight between the mods and the rockers was all over the newspapers and it shocked everyone, causing a kind of moral panic about young people. At that time it was the equivalent of something like the London riots of 2011. Most people couldn’t understand the violence and it was considered a sign of the breakdown of society. It was also the first time that most people became aware of the mod movement.
Since then, Mod has drifted in and out of fashion, going away in the early 70s when it was replaced by things like glam, soul boy and skinhead movements to be revived again at the end of the decade, in the 1980s and again in the 1990s. Being a mod is a way of life and it revolves mostly around the clothing you wear and the music you listen to, but there is a certain philosophy which underpins the movement too and that seems to be based on certain kinds of European existentialist thinking and a kind of open-mindedness to outside influences combined with a great attention to detail in clothing choices. In order to identify a mod, you need to be aware of the right details in the person’s clothing. A certain type of suit, cut in a specific way. Certain brands, types of shoe or coat, and a particular hair cut. The most famous mods are probably people like the musician Paul Weller of The Jam, the groups The Small Faces and The Who (early period), and these days the actor Martin Freeman who likes to wear mod clothing when he’s not acting in a movie or TV show.
While mod culture borrows from many other cultures it is very specifically British and therefore I think it is worth exploring on this podcast.
So, first – Ian is a mod. Secondly, he lives abroad – specifically on a farm in rural France, despite being a very well-dressed city boy from London, and he has lots of stories to tell about this, which form the basis of several books which he has written and which have been published. Both books tell funny true stories of his life as a mod living on a farm in the French countryside, they’re well-reviewed on Amazon and are definitely well-worth a read. They’re amusing, not challenging to read and are full of very entertaining little anecdotes and tales of his double life as a comedian working in London and a farmer in the French countryside. I thought it would be interesting to hear him talk about that on the podcast, and if you’re looking for appropriate books to read in English – I really recommend these ones. There are also audiobook versions read by Ian himself. The first book is called A la Mod, and the second is called C’est Modnifique.
And thirdly, Ian is a professional stand-up comedian – in fact The Guardian newspaper describe him as “One of the country’s top comedians”, which may account for why he’s able to write such funny stories in his books. Ian has been performing in the UK professionally for about 20 years and has travelled all around the country doing big gigs everywhere, including at London’s best venue The Comedy Store in Leicester Square. Ian has also performed in many locations around the world, so naturally I wanted to find out about that too.
So all in all, Ian Moore is a great guest for this podcast and we had a very enjoyable rambling conversation upstairs on my terrace on a very sunny morning this week. This is going to be two episodes, because we talked for over an hour together.
This might be a tricky episode for you to follow because our conversation includes quite a lot of tangents and references to things you might not be familiar with, so let me just give you an overview of the main things you’ll hear.
At the start we talk about the view from my terrace, including the Sacre Coeur basilica, which we can see.
Then we talk about how he met his wife on the steps of the Sacre Coeur when he first moved to France. Then we go on to chat about his first experiences in France and why he fell in love with the country. (He talks about buying a vinyl copy of “Complete Madness” in a supermarket in Nice – Madness are a band which has a large mod and skinhead following).
Then we talk about where Ian comes from, and how he describes his accent. (Basically, he’s got a typical south east / London accent, cockney or ‘mockney’ even though as a child he used to live up north in Blackburn and also in the east in Norfolk. He spent most of his time in London.)
We discuss his level of French, and then move on to talk about being a mod and what that means, including quite a lot of specific descriptions of his clothing and mod style in general, so watch out for some vocabulary to describe clothing in this episode.
But now, without any further ado, let’s join the conversation with Ian Moore and you will first hear us talking about the views of Paris which we can see from my terrace.
*CONVERSATION BEGINS*
We talk mainly about mod culture. The podcast pauses after about 40 minutes.
*CONVERSATION PAUSES*
So, that’s the end of part one of this conversation, in which we mainly covered mod culture. Check out the page for this episode where you’ll find some videos of mod-related things and also some stand-up footage of Ian Moore on stage.
How was that for you? Did you manage to understand what we were saying? I expect it might be a bit tough because we’re talking about things that you might never have heard about before. THat’s one of the main reasons why it’s hard to understand native speakers sometimes. It might be because of the pronunciation – specifically connected speech and the way some sounds are not fully pronounced, it might be the vocabulary being used, but also it’s because of the cultural references being made and the general mindset of the conversation. These are all factors that influence your ability to understand native speakers. Certainly the cultural aspect is very important. If you’re on the same wavelength as the people you’re listening to, or talking to, it makes it far more likely that you’ll understand them. This will help you work out the meaning of words that you don’t know and fill in the words that you didn’t hear. You have to try to tune in to not just the language, but the way of thinking of the people talking and then you’ll understand more and ultimately pick up more of the English yourself. So, listening to conversations like this is vital, even if it’s difficult.
Don’t forget that you also have to activate the English you hear in the podcast by having similar conversations yourselves, perhaps with a language partner on italki. Don’t forget to take advantage of my italki offer by visiting www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk
OK, part 2 of this episode will be available soon and then you can hear Ian talking about his funny experiences of being a mod in the French countryside, dealing with animals of all shapes and sizes, the challenges of living on a farm and the life of a professional stand up comedian. Thanks for listening to this episode, I look forward to reading comments on the website. Have a great day, morning, afternoon, evening or night and I’ll speak to you soon.
In this episode I’m talking to my friends Amber and Paul about cultural differences, particularly in the ways we communicate with each other in different countries.
[DOWNLOAD]
You should know that there is a bit of swearing in this one as well as a few dodgy jokes and references to previous episodes of the podcast, which you should probably listen to before you listen to this one in order to understand a couple of references and in-jokes. The previous episode is number 380. As for the swearing, I see it as just evidence of the fact we are all talking in a totally relaxed, genuine and natural manner, like we normally do in this social situation.
I just want to say that our aim in this conversation was to compare different cultures and not to criticise other cultures. We’re just expressing our own personal experiences from our point of view. Since we all live in France and we’re from England, there are quite a lot of comments about differences between French and English culture. If you’re French I’d love to read your points of view on many of the things we’re talking about and I am sure that you could make loads of similar comments about life in England – like, why the hell do we have separate taps in the bathroom? Or, why do girls go out on a Friday night with hardly any clothes on? Don’t they get freezing cold? And why do Brits drink so much? These are all things that might seem strange to visitors to the UK. So, I’m well aware that all cultures and behaviours can seem strange from the outside and it’s all just a matter of context.
In fact, I have already done several podcast episodes all about culture shock experiences of people moving to the UK (specifically London) from foreign countries. Check out the links to listen to those episodes.
I am sure you have points of view on this that you would like to express, so feel free to leave comments on the page for this episode. Don’t forget to join the mailing list on the website to get easy access to the page for every new episode when it is uploaded.
So without any further ado, here’s a podcast about cultural differences with Amber and Paul.
Discussing Cultural Differences
Luke’s Intro
Although we are all the same, we’re also different.
Ways we’re the same:
We all fall in love, go to the loo, get hungry, get tired, like laughing, listen to LEP.
But we’re all different – individually we are all unique, but we are also different as groups, tribes, nationalities or cultures.
Although it’s bad to generalise, it seems that cultures – like ethnicities or nationalities, tend to have certain shared behaviours and customs that mark them out as different to others. For example, although the English and French share a lot of things in common there are certain things which mark us out as different. Not just the language we speak, but the way we behave and the things we think are important. Like the way we queue.
So anyway, that’s just an example of culture shock I suppose. But it shows that there are cultural differences. Of course there are! Everyone knows it.
If you’ve ever been abroad or had contact with other cultures you’ll know that sometimes it’s incredibly obvious that our cultures are different. Sometimes it’s shockingly obvious, sometimes it’s hilarious, sometimes it’s frustrating, sometimes it’s just weird, but we have to remember that they’re just differences and while they can be confusing, frustrating and also funny, ultimately we need to find ways to look beyond these differences and not let them become a barrier to things like communication, understanding, business, diplomacy and relationships.
In this episode I’d like to have a discussion about cultural differences that we’ve noticed around the world. These could be different types of behaviour, like certain customs and habits, or just different values – like, what people seem to think is important, and how those values reveal themselves in the way things are done.
Amber & Paul
What are your credentials in terms of your cross cultural experiences?
How long have you lived in France?
Have you visited many other places? Which other places have you been to?
Have you had cross cultural experiences?
Have you been in a relationship with someone from another culture?
Have you done business with people from other cultures?
I have a list of different behaviours and values. Just stuff I’ve noticed or heard about. Well go through the list.
We can answer these questions:
Where do they do this?
Do we do this in the UK?
Do we consider this to be weird behaviour or not? Is there a reason for this behaviour?
Do you have any experiences of this? Would you like it if we introduced this into our culture?
The list: (please note that we are not talking about ‘two-taps in the bathroom’)
Kissing or hugging someone when you meet them (Paul did a successful video about this)
Looking people in the eye
Indirectness/diplomacy/politeness (or hypocrisy) vs directness/straightness/clarity (or rudeness) – e.g. certain cultures tend to be indirect when giving negative feedback, other cultures favour direct negative feedback
conflict vs non-conflict
Smiling in public
For discussion in future episodes… PLEASE ADD MORE CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN THE COMMENT SECTION SO WE CAN DISCUSS THEM IN THE FUTURE :)
Eating early vs eating late in the evening
Having milk in tea
Eating scorpions / spiders / toads / frogs
Eating with your hands / chopsticks / a knife and fork / not your left hand
Burping or farting after eating
Girls wearing miniskirts in the middle of winter
Hawking / spitting in the street
Saying “good morning” or “good afternoon” in shops/post offices before you can get anything done
Kissing in public
Begging
Crossing the road – waiting for cars to stop vs just walking into the street vs using pedestrian crossings
Driving on the left
Queuing in an organised and patient way vs Not queuing – “every man for himself” (or something in between)
Public transport – following the rules vs no rules (e.g. queueing, letting people off before getting on, etc)
Falling asleep on public transport
Talking to strangers on public transport
Having a strict attitude towards health and safety (e.g. wearing safety belts in cars) vs Having a relaxed attitude towards health and safety (e.g. not wearing safety belts, overtaking on corners)
Bribing police or other people
Having more than one wife, or having affairs
Saying “yes” in order to save face
Having carpet in the bathroom
Wearing shoes indoors
Sitting down to go to the toilet vs Squatting on the floor when you go to the toilet (or any other toilet related comments)
Putting The UK at the centre of the map
Is there anything else you’ve found to be weird or different?
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