Hello, welcome back to Luke’s English Podcast, this podcast for learners of English hosted by me Luke Thompson. Hi.
The general idea of this podcast is to help you to improve your English by providing you with content to keep you listening regularly, for longer periods of time, to authentic English as it really is spoken. Sometimes I teach you things on the podcast and other times I play conversations for you to follow, like in this episode.
This episode is entitled 36 Questions that Lead to Love
In this one you’re going to hear the tangential trio of Amber, Paul and me talking about this set of 36 questions, which was compiled by a group of psychologists as part of a study into ‘interpersonal closeness’ or intimacy between people.
Amber first found out about it in a podcast published by the New York Times. Here’s what the NYTimes website says about this study, which is where the 36 questions come from.
The study by the psychologist Arthur Aron (and others) explores whether intimacy between two strangers can be accelerated by having them ask each other a specific series of personal questions. The 36 questions in the study are broken up into three sets, with each set intended to be more probing than the previous one.
The idea is that mutual vulnerability helps to create closeness and intimacy. To quote the study’s authors, “One key pattern associated with the development of a close relationship among peers is sustained, escalating, reciprocal and personal self-disclosure.” Allowing oneself to be vulnerable with another person can be exceedingly difficult, so this exercise forces the issue.
The questions are now used to help build intimacy or personal closeness typically between couples that want to fall in love, but also between anyone looking for ways of finding out more about each other and developing a closer or deeper relationship.
Amber’s going to tell you more about it in a moment.
These 36 questions are available for you to use or read online at NYTimes.com https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/modern-love/36-questions/
In this episode you’ll hear Amber, Paul and me asking each other those questions.
Let’s see what happens.
Will the questions bring us closer together?
To what extent will the intimacy level rise?
Will they make us fall in love with each other?
Or will we just learn weird truths about each other that will disturb us, ultimately causing us to drift apart as friends, and then they’ll never appear on this podcast again?
Will these questions help you get to know us more?
What could be revealed by this set of questions designed by psychologists to become more and more intimate as they go?
Is it possible for 3 British friends to take the whole thing seriously enough for the questions to have the intended effect?
Listen on to find out more.
Here we go…
Outtro
OK so if you were counting the questions you’ll see that we skipped some but that’s our choice isn’t it!
I think, on balance, we probably did become slightly closer than before. There were some particularly revealing moments there where Paul was talking about his lack of confidence in social situations, which is a bit of a surprise considering how I often observe him showing no obvious signs of social awkwardness.
Of course, we didn’t take it all completely seriously. For example, you’re supposed to stare into each other’s eyes at the end of the questions, for four minutes, but that wouldn’t have been particularly interesting for you to listen to.
All the questions are available on the NY Times website – here https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/modern-love/36-questions/
So check them out and use them yourselves – either on a date, with friends, or with your language partners or language groups.
They could provide a nice way for you to practise talking about feelings and personal thoughts in English.
And, if you fall in love with someone as a result, that’s a nice bonus isn’t it!?
If you’ve fallen in love with Amber’s voice and you’re wondering when Amber’s podcast is coming out – it’s not ready yet and I will announce it on the podcast as soon as it is online. It takes a long time to get these things ready – getting your head around the technology, writing, recording, working out how to publish, building a website, setting up your podcast feed, getting on the iTunes store and all of that stuff – it takes time and it’s not as easy as you might think, so just hold your horses for a bit, it’s on its way.
Dan and Jen produce quite a lot of extra material to help you learn English from their episodes. Check out this link where you can get a vocabulary list, comprehension questions or just download the full episode guide from their website.
Dan and Jen are really friendly and both have lots of English teaching experience. You might enjoy listening to their podcast too.
What is British Humour? Is it funny? Does it even exist? How does it relate to our communication style and culture? In this episode I go through the main points of my British Council Teacher Talk about British Humour. Amber and I discuss the definition of British humour, the way it works, how it’s different or similar to other humour in other places, and some examples of typical humour in the UK.
Last week I did a Teacher Talk at the British Council in Paris. Teacher Talks are when the BC invites guests to an event involving a talk on a specific topic and then drinks afterwards. All teachers are invited to talk at these events and this time I thought I’d have a go. The topic was completely up to me, so I chose to talk about British humour because it’s always something I’m thinking about and I thought it might also be a way to promote English language comedy in Paris.
The talk was sold out and went well. I was hoping to upload the recording of the talk here but it’s not good enough. It just sounds very echoey and muffled. Next time I will mic myself up properly. So I’m not going to play the recording, which is a big pity because there were some moments of interaction with the audience and some funny things. But it’s just not clear enough on the recording so I’m not publishing it. The room at the BC where we do these talks is a big high ceiling place with mirrors on the back wall and high windows and walls so the sound bounces around a lot.
Anyway, I’ve still got all the ideas in my head so I’m going to put them into this episode, recorded in the normal way. So, I went to Amber’s place and decided I’d discuss all the points in my talk with her, since I think she’s probably got some interesting things to say on the subject. We both have experiences of living in other countries and we both do stand up so we think about humour quite a lot.
So you’re going to hear us attempting to answer questions like: what is British humour, what’s it like?, is it funny? Does it even exist? How does it relate to our communication style? What does it say about us as a culture?
The main aim is just to describe and demystify humour in Britain. You’ll see that I don’t subscribe to the idea that British humour is somehow better than other forms of humour. In fact, in many ways it is very similar to humour in plenty of other places.
But as I describe it here, just think about whether this kind of behaviour is likely to be found in the culture or cultures that you know, and consider the role that humour plays in people’s daily lives where you are from. You might notice differences or similarities.
Let’s now go to Amber’s place and get to the bottom of this.
Main points covered:
British Humour doesn’t exist
OK, it does exist, but we don’t really use any different types of humour than anyone else. We don’t have a monopoly on humour or anything, but we do value it highly.
British Humour isn’t funny
It’s not always designed to make everyone laugh. Instead, humour is used in our interactions to avoid being too serious, keep things light and make you seem like a normal person.
Self-deprecation
This means making fun of yourself. It’s a bit of a crime to take yourself too seriously in the UK, so people make fun of themselves to show that they’re not above everyone else.
Understatement
This is where you make a strong statement sound less strong. E.g. “It’s raining outside is it?” “Yeah, just a bit”
Deadpan delivery
This is where humourous statements are delivered with a straight face, making it hard for some people to notice that a joke has happened.
Sarcasm/Irony
This is where you say one thing but you mean the opposite. It’s used for insults, for disappointments or to make fun of everything in general.
Innuendo
This is when one innocent statement can also mean something quite rude. Innuendo often happens by accident and other people say something to reveal the dirty second meaning.
E.g. “I like the taste of a cox” (apple) … “I bet you do!”
Other things I didn’t cover
Puns
These are just word jokes. They work when one word means two things at the same time, connecting two previously unrelated ideas together in one statement. The brain explodes because one thing means two things at the same time.
They’re best when they are instant responses to something, rather than pre-planned jokes.
Here are some examples of pre-planned ones
How does Bob Marley like his donuts?
Wi’ jam in.
For more, check out my episodes about telling jokes in English.
Vocabulary
We have a wide variety of synonyms, homonyms which make it easy to say one thing that sounds like another, creating endless opportunities for word jokes (puns) and euphemisms.
Pisstaking
This means making fun of each other. We do this all the time.
Perhaps it’s because we’re incapable of expressing genuine emotions and we tend to avoid sincerity because it makes us feel uncomfortable, so we interact with our loved ones by teasing them, poking fun at them, mocking them and so on.
We’re emotionally crippled, basically.
E.g. I’ll always poke fun at my brother when I see him.
Like, oh my god what have you done to your hair?
Nice of you to have made an effort today.
Pisstaking has two functions:
To express affection
To knock someone down to size if they’re getting too big for their boots
You need to be able to take a joke in the UK. You’ve got to be able to both take a joke and dish it out when necessary.
If you can, you’re alright.
Surreal humour
Essentially surreal humour involves making fun of absolutely everything around you. It makes fun of existence itself. It means making absurd statements to highlight the absurdity in life. It’s about subverting boring reality. Maybe this is something to do with our weather (it’s dull, generally) or it’s a form of indirect anarchy or something.
Inappropriate humour
Although we use humour all the time, it’s worth noting that it can get you into trouble if you do it badly.
If you use self-deprecating humour, you have to be sure that everyone else gets it.
Be careful who/what is the target of your humour. It’s very politically incorrect to make jokes about certain groups in society – particularly groups that are lower status than you. So, these kinds of jokes are generally outlawed: ethnic jokes, sexist jokes. It’s very bad taste and old-fashioned and not cool at all.
Comedy
British comedy shows, the difference with American comedy, some recommended shows…
This is another episode for the future.
Thanks for listening to this episode. I look forward to reading your comments!
A conversation with Andy Johnson, talking about the IATEFL teaching conference, millennials, more tales of Andy’s appearance and the possibility of a WWE wrestling match between Andy and me.
Hello hello hello! I’m back from my trip to Japan. It’s great to be back. We had an amazing time! We did all the big Japanese things – we saw the cherry blossom, enjoyed lots of delicious food, explored parts of Kyoto and Tokyo, saw a mix of the busy metropolitan city areas and the more peaceful natural spots too and had an amazing evening entertaining Japanese LEPsters at a comedy show in Tokyo. It was an amazing and intense week, it was really great to be back in the country I called home for several years and I will be recording a couple of episodes about it soon and I will tell you all about the trip including descriptions of what we did, what we saw and how it all felt, so you can look forward to that.
In the meantime here is an episode which I recorded before going away on holiday.
This one is another conversation with my friend and former colleague from the London School of English, Andy Johnson, recorded on Skype while he was attending the IATEFL conference in Glasgow earlier this month.
Before we start that, let me just make a couple of announcements here at the beginning.
Announcements
It’s LEP’s 8th Birthday!
British Podcast Awards – voting actually closes on 28 April. If you haven’t voted, please do it! If you have – thank you. I have a slim chance of winning this one so I need all of you to vote please. http://www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote
My Teacher Talk at the British Council – make your reservation at https://www.britishcouncil.fr/evenements/teacher-talk-quoi-humour-britannique
I’m also performing comedy on Monday in Paris – all the details on my page on Facebook for my comedy stuff – Luke Thompson – Comedy
Moscow LEPsters get together – Friday 21 April – I can’t actually be there, but I will be talking to the group via Skype – responding to some questions. Check Moscow LEPsters Conversation Club on FB for more details.
In episodes 423 and 424 you might remember that I spoke to my former colleagues Andy Johnson and Ben Butler – English teachers from The London School of English. They were in Paris to take part in a teaching conference. We sat in the foyer of their hotel drinking overpriced beer and talked about loads of things including teaching, Andy & Ben’s presentations, millennials, teaching English for specific purposes, our teaching experiences and a few anecdotes about our appearances including a couple of funny stories about how Andy sometimes gets mistaken for Moby, the American musician.
They were fun and popular episodes, sparking quite a lot of discussion in the comment section, including a debate about who is the best teacher between Andy and me and how we should settle that debate by having a high-profile wrestling match… Yes, I know – that sounds rather dramatic doesn’t it.
Well, Andy is back in this episode today, and he’s at another conference – this time the English teaching industry’s biggest event, the IATEFL conference which this year is taking place in Glasgow.
Ben wasn’t available for this one – he was attending a session at the conference, but I spoke to Andy and asked him about this year’s conference and we continued our conversation about millennials from last time. You’ll also hear a couple of stories about what happened in Paris in November after we recorded our previous conversation and a number of other things, including the idea of us going head to head in a no holds barred wrestling match in order to determine who really is the greatest English teacher.
So without any further introduction, here is Andy Johnson in Glasgow.
That was my conversation with Andy. I hope you enjoyed it.
I just want to remind you that you can get 10% off all of the courses at London School Online. Just head over to londonschoolonline.com and use the offer code LUKE10 at checkout.
Also, Andy wanted me to let you know about a free webinar that they are putting on this Friday. If you’re interested in IELTS, check it out.
IELTS Workshop: Your questions answered
Friday, April 21, 2017 3:00:00 PM GMT (London time) – 4:00:00 PM CEST (Paris time)
This is the third in their series of free webinars. This is a webinar about IELTS and will take place on their eLearning platform, London School Online. It is suitable for anyone who is preparing to take the IELTS exam, or for teachers of the exam.
The idea is that you can use this webinar to get answers to your IELTS questions.
It’s being hosted by Daragh Brady, who I used to work with at LSE. Daragh is an excellent teacher who has wide experience in lots of areas, and he’s an IELTS examiner so he really knows all the ins and outs of this tricky but important English exam.
It’s totally free and everyone’s welcome but you do have to register.
Find the link here on the page for this episode or on the LSE Facebook page.
My teacher talk at the British Council in Paris. Thursday 27 April. I’ll be doing a kind of TED Talk about British Humour and Comedy. It’s also free and everyone’s welcome, but you need to register. You’ll find the relevant link on the page for this episode below.
Watch this space for some episodes about the Japan trip with some stories, comments about Japanese culture and descriptions of the comedy show I did in Tokyo.
Cheers! Bye.
Who do you think would win in a battle between Andy and me?
Amber, Paul and I play another round of The Lying Game, in which we each tell a story and the others have to guess if it’s true or a lie. Listen for story telling, questions and general fun, plus some jokes at the end of the episode. Video available.
Jan Struve Last year when my listening skills in english improved I started listening to an english podcast which was spoken at normal speed. Two men and a woman took part in the podcast and they spoke and played a game like this : One of them started telling a story and the others had to guess whether the story had really happened or was only fictional. They called it the Lying game. I remember that I was listening to the podcast when I was driving by car to work. My workplace was about 35 km away from my hometown and I was heading towards the highway. On the way, I got very deep into the conversation of the three guys and their equally fascinating and exciting stories. I was driving and listening and felt happy having improved my english so far and was able to listen to such driven and awesome podcasters that I forgot everything around me. I drove and drove and after half an hour when the podcast finally ended I found myself way north on the wrong highway. I had missed the exit west and had driven more than 60km without noticing anything but the podcast. That was my first experience with the great and awesome Luke´s English Podcast.
Please take care when driving or operating heavy machinery.
It’s time to play the Lying Game again
Let’s call this season 2. It’s ‘even stevens’ again.
Rules
Someone tells us something – often a little story about their life. It can be either true or a lie.
We ask lots of questions like a detective and then decide if we think it’s true or a lie.
If you guess correctly, you get a point. If you guess incorrectly, the story-teller gets a point.
Listeners – just try to follow the conversation and try to guess if we’re lying or telling the truth.
Final Scores
Amber: 0 / 1 / 0
Paul: 1 / 1 / 1
Luke: 1 / 0 / 1
Jokes you heard at the end of the episode
Why are there no aspirins in the jungle? Because the parrots-eat-em-all (paracetamol)
What’s the difference between snow-men and snow-women? Snowballs.
I read an article on Japanese swordfighters. It’s quite long but I can samurais it for you. (summarise it)
How do you count cows? With a cow-culator. (calculator)
Visitors to Cuba always enjoy themselves. You could say they were “Havana” good time. (having a…)
How do astronomers organise a party? They “planet”. (plan it)
I saw a band last night. They came from an island just of the south of Malaysia.
Singapore? Yes, but the drummer was good. (Was the singer poor? – was he a bad singer?)
My wife’s gone to the West Indies.
Jamaica? No, she went of her own accord.
(Jamaica – “Did you make her (go)?”)
My wife’s gone to Indonesia.
Jakarta? No, she went by plane.
(Did you ‘cart’ her?)
A man got hit in the head with a can of coke
But it was alright because it was a ‘soft drink’.
Why did the can crusher quit his job? Because it was soda-pressing (so depressing)
Amber & Paul are back on the podcast in this episode as we respond to some questions and comments from the website and social media. Video available. Some swearing and rude language.
Amber is from London in England, but she’s been living in France for ages and she speaks fluent French.
She has the loveliest voice in the known universe, causing hundreds of thousands of listeners from around the world to melt as soon as she begins talking.
She has a son called Hugo who makes dinosaur noises and poos under tables (well, once).
She sometimes has nightmares about fish.
She loves listening to audiobooks and BBC Radio 4.
She sometimes works as a teacher with kids, but also has a background in theatre. In fact she studied mime for 2 years (actually it’s “physical theatre”)
She is a tour guide in Paris sometimes. In fact she is very well read and knows a lot about the history of this great city.
One of these days she’s going to produce her own podcast about the history of Paris and everyone is waiting for it expectantly. No pressure.
She recently learned the words burlap, gaslighting and Hobson’s choice. Listen to episode 431 for more details.
She’s probably more intelligent than either of us.
Paul Taylor
Paul is from Canterbury in England, which is in Britain, which is in the UK, which is in Europe (sort of).
He’s from England but also spent some time growing up in France where, as a child, he once nearly burned down his house and stabbed himself in the face with a kitchen knife while pretending to be one of the teenage ninja turtles.
He has a funny, infectious laugh which causes my listeners to make fools of themselves on public transport when they can’t help laughing too (which is one of the aims of this podcast)
He has naive eyes (a reference to a comment by a listener called Olga a couple of years ago).
He doesn’t know any words. (kidding of course)
He speaks French with “no accent”.
He also speaks Spanish, and has a bit of a talent for doing accents in English.
He used to work for Apple but quit his job to do comedy. It’s going pretty well.
He does his one man stand up show #Franglais twice a week to sold out audiences and his TV show “WTF France?” is a hit on YouTube and Canal+
He used to do a podcast called “Becoming a Comedian” which was all about the challenges of becoming a comedian, but now he’s become a comedian so the “Becoming a Comedian Podcast” is now redundant!
Comments & Questions from Listeners
Nick (on our recent ‘restaurants’ episode) I was missing Paul’s laugh while listening to this…
Anonymous (on an episode from few months ago) Amber’s voice seduced me
Eri No!!!!! I just found this comment now… Oh, dear… [thinking it’s too late] If I could add some message for both Amber and Paul… ☆To Amber I am looking forward to listening to your podcast with the most lovely voice in the world!!! ☆To Paul I have been checking all video of “What The Fuck France” and can not wait next episodes and other videos on YouTube!!! And please join in LEP sometime when you have time…
Alexandr Shnaider Hi, Luke. I wonder when we should expect the release of Amber’s podcast and how we can find it.
Sylvia I am looking forward to Amber’s podcast. I love her.
Naomi Hello,Luke,Amber and Paul! How are you doing? My questions are 1.You are very funny. Did you use to make jokes in the classroom when you were students? 2. If you could have a special power, what would it be? 3. What food would you bring to a desert island? Sorry for my silly questions. Have a nice recording. I’m looking forward to listening to the Pod Pals! And I can’t wait for Amber’s podcast!
Pavel Rybalko Do you guys have favorite YouTubers?
Paul: JaackMaate (angry rants by a British guy in a shed)
Amber:Diane Love (not really a YouTuber but she does have some lovely hula-hooping videos)
Luke:Nerdwriter1 (Brainy video essays)
Jairo Trujillo García Good luck for the show tonight!!! 👍 Question : What do you admire the most about the people you are sitting with right now ? and why ?
oksipuskya (Comment on the TripAdvisor episode – episode 431) One day about 10 years ago I’d a supper with my future husband and his father in a roadside cafe on the way home. The waiter brought my meal and we three noticed a small insect lying on the plate. In spite of this I ate all the supper. Then my husband’s father said that his son had to marry me. If I hadn’t been frightened to eat it I wouldn’t be struck by family routine. (?)
This image from Chris Benitez for fans of the Russian Joke (don’t know where it was originally posted)
Boy Trent (On YouTube) Are you the same luke english who bid on a PS4 PRO system on ebay at the last minute? Then. Didn’t pay or leave me with any information as to what was going on? Ebay are now going to issue you with a non payment mark on the 19th March. 2017. I should state that many honest people were bidding on this item and strangely – you appeared out of nowhere at the very last minute. After I had blocked bids from the usual eastern european fraudsters et al. I am a person of integrity and honesty and am really sick and tired of people making false bids on items. Destroying the core purpose of ebay and leaving me with an unsold item and without £300 from the honest bidder you dishonestly won over. Yes. I am angry. etcetc…
Sorry mate – you got the wrong guy! I’m not Luke English, my name’s Luke Thompson!
Wesley Hello Luke, Amber, and Paul, Are you doing all right? As the French presidential election is drawing nearer, I was wondering what the three of you think about the candidates. After Brexit and the Italian constitutional referendum result, Marine Le Pen being the next French President could be the final blow for the European Union. In your opinion, does she stand a good chance to win the election? In this so-called ‘post-truth era’, do you consider opinion polls to be reliable enough? All the best, Wesley
Interviewing Paul Taylor about his comedy projects, including “What the F*ck France” on Canal+ / Youtube and his stand-up shows #Franglais and The Paul Taylor Comedy Night. Video available.
Search for Luke’s English Podcast and click on it.
Vote using your email address – they won’t send you spam, they’re just trying to stop multiple votes by the same person.
You will be added to a free prize draw as well – you could win tickets to the award ceremony.
The comp closes at 23:59 on the 14th April 2017.
Paul Taylor on the Podcast
A few days ago Paul came over and we sat on the terrace to do a podcast. I thought I would interview him all about his TV show and find out how it’s all going.
We talked about his writing process for the show “What the F*ck France?”, about how the success of the show has changed his life in some ways, about the reactions he gets from people he meets these days – including people who recognise him in the street or on public transport, about the differences between performing on video and performing in front of a live audience on stage and about his plans for other projects in the future.
I also asked him a few questions sent in by listeners on the website.
Questions for Paul
Do you remember a couple of years ago, you’d come back from the fringe, and we talked about some dodgy reviews?
Now you’re successful with the TV show and the web series.
Has it changed your life?
Do you get noticed?
Do you prefer doing the videos or the stand up?
What’s your favourite episode?
What are the topics you’ve covered?
Website comments
Chris Benitez What are you doing next, and are you going to do WTF for other countries?
Laura Fisher Paul speaks fluent french, ask him to pronounce this tongue twister : ” Un chasseur sachant chasser sans son chien est un bon chasseur ” Amber could try this too.
Cristina Ricciardo I’d like they to tell about their very first performance. Good luck to you all!
Jack Hello Paul hello Amber, how art you guys My question is when and where did you first meet King ? King please film this episode if possible, fanks.
Talking about restaurant culture in the UK, an introduction to one of the UK’s most famous chefs and a chance to learn some authentic English from a popular British TV show featuring Gordon Ramsay. Video available. Includes swearing.
This video is a combination of part 1 and part 2, with vocabulary on-screen and the TV show video clips included 👇
Video – Episode 432
Introduction Transcript
Hello, and welcome back to this podcast for learners of English. Here is a new episode for you to listen to and indeed watch, because I’m videoing this one. You’ll be able to find the video on the page for this episode on my website, or by visiting the YouTube channel for Luke’s English Podcast.
A lot of what I am saying here – particularly in this introduction is written on the page for this episode. So you can read it with me, or check it for certain words you hear me using. The best way to get access to these pages is to subscribe to the mailing list.
In the last episode of this podcast you heard me talking to Amber about restaurants and hotels and some crazy TripAdvisor reviews.
At one point in the episode we talked briefly about Gordon Ramsay – one of the UK’s most famous chefs, and his TV show “Kitchen Nightmares” which was a really popular show in the UK a few years ago, and I thought it could be interesting to do a whole episode about that.
So in this one I’m going to talk a little bit about Gordon Ramsay and then we’re going to listen to some YouTube clips from one of his TV shows and I will help you understand all the language that you’ll hear. No doubt there will be some new vocabulary in the process – probably on the subject of food, cooking, restaurants and kitchens but lots of other natural language that just comes up, including plenty of swearing, because Gordon Ramsay is known for his frequent use of swear words.
Yes, there will be quite a lot of swearing in this episode, and you know my position on this. I’m choosing to show you the language as it is really used and that includes the rude words, but don’t be tempted to start throwing swear words into your everyday English. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that swear words are a short cut to sounding exactly like a native speaker. Often it just gives people a bad impression of you. We’ll go into it more later, because there are quite a lot of unwritten social rules around swearing that you need to be aware of – the main one being, that with swearing it is much much easier to sound rude and inappropriate than it is to sound cool. Think of swearing as a motorbike – you might think it’s cool but unless you really know what you’re doing you’re likely to seriously injure yourself. Similarly, swearing can be cool when it’s done in movies or even by someone like Gordon Ramsay, but if you try and do it in your normal life there’s a good chance you’ll just offend people.
So anyway, we’ll listen to some of the English in these YouTube clips and analyse the things they’re saying so that in the end you can understand it all just like I do, which should help you learn some real English in the process. You’ll also learn a thing or two about restaurant culture in the UK and about Gordon Ramsay who is one of the most well-known people in Britain.
Who is Gordon Ramsay and what’s the TV show?
Gordon James Ramsay, is a British celebrity chef, restaurateur, and television personality.
*Difference between a chef and a cook? Basically, a chef is someone who’s had professional training – at least a culinary degree, but a cook is just someone who cooks food. Both might work in a kitchen, but mainly being a chef is about having the status of culinary qualifications and experience.
Ramsay is one of the most famous chefs in the UK and probably in the world too. He has a reputation for being an excellent restaurateur and chef, and also for his extremely strict and direct style. He’s often very rude, saying exactly what he thinks about the people he’s working with in the strongest most colourful language. Imagine an army captain shouting at a platoon of soldiers during military training, but with really good food.
Ramsay was born in Scotland, but he grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon, which is in fact not far from where I grew up in England). So, he is Scottish but doesn’t speak with a Scottish accent.
Ramsay now has restaurants all over the place – in London, in Paris and in New York. During his career he has trained at the highest level with French chefs in the UK and in Paris. He specialises in Italian, French and British recipes, and his cooking is known for being simple, unpretentious, high quality and delicious.
His restaurants have been awarded 16 Michelin stars in total. The term “Michelin Star” is a hallmark of fine dining quality. Michelin stars are very difficult to win and restaurants around the world proudly promote their Michelin Star status if they have one. His signature restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, has held 3 Michelin stars since 2001, which is a mark of extremely high quality in restaurant dining.
As well as being a top chef, Ramsay is also a TV presenter. He first appeared on TV in the UK in the late 1990s, and by 2004 Ramsay had become one of the best known celebrity chefs in British popular culture, and, along with other chefs like Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, and Delia Smith, he has influenced viewers to become more culinarily adventurous.
As a reality TV personality, Ramsay is known for his fiery temper, strict demeanour, and use of expletives. He often makes blunt and controversial comments, including insults and wisecracks about contestants and their cooking abilities.
Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares used to be on British TV a few years ago – probably around 10-15 years ago now. These days you can find most of the episodes on YouTube.
Local restaurants vs manufacturing companies and processed food
Ramsay is actually very passionate about local restaurants in the UK.
In the UK our eating out culture is vibrant and successful but it is being undermined by a number of factors. One is the industrialisation of food culture. THis means that big businesses are involved in preparing food at an industrial level and then selling it to restaurants as part of a large corporate chain.
These chains might be restaurants which are all owned by one company, or food manufacturers who dominate the wholesale market, driving down their prices and pushing out competition such as local producers who sell fresh products.
In these industrial food manufacturing companies, the food is prepared in high quantities and then sold off to other companies and restaurants as part of a corporate supply chain for food.
There’s a big infrastructure for food purchasing in the UK which is dominated by these big food manufacturers. As a result, many smaller restaurants are forced to buy industrialised and mass-produced food because it is cheaper and more convenient than fresh food which you can buy direct from farms or markets.
If you were a struggling restaurant owner in a town in the UK, what would you do? Buy your food fresh from a local producer and then make sure you sell it in a short-term period, or buy similar products from a mass producer but at a lower price, and it’s food which you can store for longer because it has been processed to stay fresh.
In the end, people choose to eat at home, especially during an economic crisis.
So, economic factors are having a negative effect on the restaurant culture in the UK to an extent. Family owned restaurants should be where you get proper traditional and delicious local food, but these restaurants are being squeezed economically and forced to go along with the industrialised food manufacturing process.
Also, there are many chain restaurants which you find on high streets in the UK. These are not locally run, but are owned by big companies who have a single business model which they apply to all their restaurants. The fact that these places are part of a big corporate chain means that they can drive down their prices, making it very hard for local restaurants to be competitive. As a result, these smaller places suffer, struggle and often close down.
Gordon Ramsay believes that these local restaurants are the backbone of our restaurant culture in the UK, and he strongly believes that they need to be supported so they can compete with the corporate chains, and given training so they can serve the best food possible. Essentially that’s the concept behind Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, but also it’s just entertaining watching him shouting at incompetent chefs. You sort of let him get away with the way he bullies people because you believe that really he’s just trying to help them to learn the discipline you need to run a really good restaurant.
But he does seem really passionate about proper restaurant culture in the UK and I like that about him. Even though he’s making this reality show and he’s making money from doing it, I think he really does care about improving restaurant culture in the UK.
On the other hand, he is very good at TV. He knows how to make entertaining TV, and he’s got a good formula for it. Basically, this means that he takes the harsh discipline and the no-nonsense brutally honest approach that he applies to his kitchen management, and uses it when giving feedback to the restaurants which he visits.
Let’s listen to a few scenes and I’m going to make sure you understand everything that’s going on and everything that’s being said.
Let’s learn English with Gordon Ramsay
The TV Show
Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares used to be on UK TV about 10-15 years ago.
The format is this – Gordon Ramsay visits a failing restaurant somewhere in the UK. So, restaurants that are failing – e.g. losing money, getting terrible reviews etc. He goes into the restaurant and spends a week there, observing the way the owners run the kitchen, how the business works and what’s going on at all levels. Usually he starts by sitting down to eat the chef’s speciality dish, and it’s nearly always disgusting, and Ramsay comments on how it tastes, how it looks, and also the decor of the restaurant and the service from the staff.
Then Ramsay gives his feedback to the owner and the chef, and it’s always a massive reality check, and it usually involves very strong words and lots of swearing. This is what happens when a top-level chef enters the world of a crappy low-level restaurant.
Then over the course of the week, Gordon helps the managers turn the restaurant around. It’s almost always a huge challenge and often the most difficult part is dealing with the psychological aspects – the stubborn chefs, the relationship issues in the kitchen, the fact that these people have personal issues which are causing the business to go horribly wrong.
It is car-crash TV. We see arguments, meltdowns, unhappy customers and so on.
In almost every episode Gordon seems to go hopping mad as he can’t believe the incompetence or shockingly low standards of service shown by the people in the restaurant. He then tries to help them change everything and turn the business around. It all makes really great telly.
And by the end of the episode, with Gordon’s help they have usually turned the restaurant into a successful business again.
There’s a UK version and a US version.
If you search for Kitchen Nightmares on YouTube you will probably find the US version first, but I think the UK version is better!
But really, it is better because the US version is horrible. It’s full of really fast editing and there’s loads of music which is added in order to tell you how you should be feeling about what’s happening. It’s distracting and patronising.
Example of the US version (just listen to all the distracting sound effects and music)
The UK version just has some rock music in the background at the start, but then during the show it’s more simple and you can just focus on what’s happening without constant sweeping sounds and tense music.
Let’s listen to some scenes from one of the episodes.
These scenes actually come from an episode called “Gordon Ramsay’s Great British Nightmares” which was shown on TV between series 5 and 6 of Kitchen Nightmares. It’s basically the same as any other episode of the series.
Gordon Ramsay’s Great British Nightmare – Dovecote Bistro
Summary
Gordon goes to visit a restaurant in Devon called Dovecote Bistro, which is run by a guy called Mick.
Mick is a former truck driver and burger van operator who has opened this bistro with his wife and adopted daughter, Michelle. Ramsay is firstly appalled by the psychedelic wallpaper decorating the restaurant, and then his attention turns to the food and the way it is cooked. While Ramsay is impressed with the simple menu, he is furious to find that Mick has very little cooking ability, using orange squash to make a sauce and using vacuum-sealed pre-cooked lamb shanks in a microwave bag. Not only does he show little responsibility in the kitchen, he is also secretive with his spending and is hugely in debt. Mick is adamant that the problems in the kitchen are not his fault, and his stubbornness causes a rift with his wife and daughter. Ramsay solves the crisis by taking the business matters out of Mick’s hands and kicks him out of the kitchen. His daughter, Michelle, is placed in charge of the kitchen despite having no cooking experience. She rises to the challenge, and while Mick is not convinced over replacing his microwave food, the reopening is a success.
Months later, Ramsay returns to find that the restaurant is making profit. He sent Michelle for further culinary training, and she impresses Ramsay with freshly cooked food.
The restaurant was renamed Martins’ Bistro during production.
Video 1 – Flourescent duck cooked in orange squash
Vocabulary
Let’s see what this ex-trucker can do
Lamb shanks
Fuck me! (surprise / shock)
Your blouse matches the wallpaper
I feel like I’m tripping out!
I’ve never touched the stuff but I feel like I just swallowed an E.
The hideous wallpaper
On paper it looks delicious
Orange squash
A spoonful of gravy
Fuck me do I need sunglasses!
That’s worse than fucking Benylin
They’re actually vacuum packed
They can last for about a year
They’re bought in, they’re vacuum packed
They’ve got a shelf life of about a year
Well, fuck me!
That might be the worst food I’ve ever come across
He might be beyond my help
It doesn’t need refrigerating
How in the fuck could you charge 11 pounds for that?
E numbers, like Tartrazine
Do you feel like having a shit?
Thank fuck I didn’t eat it.
I’m surprised you haven’t killed off half the population of Okehampton
Hello email subscribers and website users! This is not an episode of LEP but keep reading because I have 5 cool things to share with you (below).
In this post you will find 5 episodes of a podcast. It’s not my podcast but I am featured in the episodes.
It’s a 5-part series of interviews between English teacher Zdenek Lukas and me on his podcast, “Zdenek’s English Podcast”, including 2 episodes of language analysis. You’ll hear lots of conversation between us about teaching, learning and behind-the-scenes information about Luke’s English Podcast. Also in the language analysis episodes Zdenek will help you pick up 50 features of English grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation from the interview.
You can listen to and download the episodes below.
Part 1
We discuss our experiences of taking the Cambridge DELTA qualification (it’s seriously challenging!) and then we try to break the commonly-believed stereotype of a native speaker teacher of English being superior to a non-native one.
Part 2
In part 2 we talk about each other’s podcasts and I give some behind the scenes information about some popular episodes of LEP, including some stories about the episodes Sick in Japan, Travelling in Indonesia and California Road Trip. At the end, we also talk about our experiences of teaching English for specific purposes, namely business English and English for engineering.
Part 3
In this part you can hear us talk about what we both like teaching the most in classrooms, some of my favourite teaching techniques, what it was like recording Pink Gorilla Story 1 & 2, and also what episodes I enjoy doing the most on the podcast. Also, you can find out more about the secret of Paul Taylor’s success and what it would take to do a live LEP meet-up with listeners.
Part 4 – Language analysis
Zdenek picks out 25 features of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation for analysis. He applies his knowledge of linguistic features of English to clarify meaning, highlight usefulness, correct some of his own errors and help you to avoid common mistakes.
Part 5 – Language analysis
Zdenek picks out 25 more features of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation for analysis and gives them the teacher treatment.
I’m really impressed by what Zdenek is achieving with his English as a second language.
He’s from Czech Republic and he has learned English as a second language in adulthood. He’s now a teacher of English, just like me and he does his own podcast, just like me.
He has a masters degree in English language teaching. He’s got a CELTA and DELTA (pending) in English teaching to adults. He’s really well qualified.
Also, he’s been doing Zdenek’s English Podcast for years and it’s still going. Admittedly he says the podcast is influenced by my podcast, and I’m ok with that. It’s his way of pushing his English and it seems to be working for him.
You’ll hear in our interview that Zdenek has just passed a significant part of his DELTA qualification with a really good grade. That is not easy to do. You need to be a good teacher to get a good result in your DELTA and you really need to know about grammar and linguistics.
So, don’t underestimate Zdenek. He’s achieved a hell of a lot, just like many of you have also achieved a lot in your language learning. Sometimes it’s worth taking a step back and realising how much you’ve achieved.
I was very happy to be interviewed by him and I really hope you listen to the episodes, and in fact check out his other episodes too. A lot of them contain interviews with other interesting people, many of them English people he knows. Other episodes cover Zdenek’s personal journey with English and also you can hear him interacting with his students too.
The other day I was on Facebook and I came across an article called “21 Really Strange TripAdvisor Reviews”, which was a collection of funny and strange reviews of restaurants and hotels on TripAdvisor, a website where customers can leave reviews and ratings for restaurants and hotels.
I opened the article and I read a couple of the reviews and found them funny, bizarre and in some cases quite horrifying, and generally just amusing.
For example, one of the reviews goes:
Eugh! He scraped off the mayonnaise with his hand!
A: Hello, I’d like a chicken burger please, but with no mayo. Thanks…
B: OK sir, here’s your chicken burger.
A: Oh, sorry, I said no mayo.
B: Oh right. Here… (scrapes off with hand) That’ll be 1.99 please.
There are about 20 other reviews like that on this page I found, and most of them are much stranger and more horrible than that one.
I thought “This could be a fun thing to talk about on the podcast. Restaurant and hotel experiences.”
Now, I’ve worked in hotels and restaurants before, in my time. I’ve had various dead end jobs working in kitchens and bars and restaurants and hotels and stuff, and so has my friend Amber Minogue who you know from this podcast. I did ask Paul to join in as well but he was too busy filming so it’s just Amber and me.
I went over to her place to talk about this and to see what she thought of some of these bizarre TripAdvisor reviews that I’d found, and that’s what you’re going to hear in this episode.
You’ll hear lots of conversation about that subject, which will of course include vocabulary relating to the hospitality industry in our descriptions of working in restaurants and hotels. You’ll hear some bizarre and slightly disgusting anecdotes and various tangents in our conversation as we end up talking about all kinds of other things, as usual.
Some of the scenarios that are in these reviews are quite disgusting, so just bear that in mind. Some of the stuff is a little bit gross.
You should also know that the episode does contain swearing. There’s quite a lot of swearing in this one and that’s for various reasons, partly because we imagine the scenarios, imagine the situations that these people were in these reviews and act them out, and that does just involve some swearing, plus we talk a little bit about the British TV chef Gordon Ramsay and Gordon Ramsay is famous for his bad language. He’s probably one of the world leaders in swearing. He’s probably the best in Britain. He’s one of the best swearers in Britain I would say. So, talking about Gordon Ramsay also involved using some ‘F words’. And also, for some reason, Quentin Tarantino, the Quentin Tarantino movie Reservoir Dogs comes into our conversation as well and that naturally involves lots of swearing as well. So, the episode contains swearing.
I know that you might not expect a teacher to use swear words, but on this podcast (as you know if you’re a long-term listener) I do try to present you with the kind of normal informal English that friends use when they’re talking to each other in private, and people do swear when they’re together with their friends, and that is the kind of English that I’m choosing to present to you on this podcast. Now, it’s usually not appropriate to use swearing in public situations like in classrooms, at work, with host families, in comments on public social media forums etc. I feel like I should say that because sometimes learners of English aren’t completely aware of the rudeness and inappropriacy of swear words in English and how swearing fits into the culture of the English language. Just bear that in mind before you decide that swearing is a sort of short cut to sounding natural in English.
Before we get onto the subject of restaurants and hotels there is a bit of rambling chat about some English phrases that Amber keeps noticing recently. Amber has been doing some research for her own upcoming podcast project about the history of Paris. Apparently she’s been preparing an episode about a famous murder that happened, and in her research she came across the word “burlap sack” – something about a couple of murderers hiding a body in a burlap sack. If you remember, this word “burlap” came up several times in our recent episode about the Victorian detective story. In that one, a kidnapper wore a burlap sack over his head to hide his face. So, burlap is a kind of material which is used to make sacks, like the kind of sack or bag that you would use to carry loads of potatoes.
Burlap is quite an obscure word and you’ll hear us laughing about this because neither Amber nor I were aware of that word until we did the Victorian detective story on the podcast recently (“hessian” is the word we knew) so it’s sort of a coincidence that Amber read the word again in a book recently, and that leads us to talk about how it’s strange that when you learn a new word you suddenly start to notice it everywhere. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced that. You learn a new word that you didn’t even know existed before, and then suddenly you notice it all the time.
Amber then gives a couple of other examples of that happening to her recently, with the phrases “Hobson’s choice” and “gaslighting”. “Hobson’s choice” basically means “take it or leave it” – it’s a choice of one thing, or nothing – so it’s basically an illusion of choice. It’s not really a choice at all because there’s no alternative – either you take this one thing, or you take nothing, and that’s known as Hobson’s choice. To be honest, it’s not a very common phrase so I wouldn’t worry about it too much. The other one was “gaslighting”, which means to psychologically manipulate someone into doing something by making them doubt their own sanity – so you make someone think they’re going insane in order to then take advantage of them. Like, stealing biscuits from your housemate by somehow convincing him that he’s just going mad and that maybe he’s just been eating the biscuits and forgetting about it. We give a couple of examples in the conversation.
The point is, you’ll hear us talk about how Amber recently became aware of these phrases and then started noticing them everywhere, and we have a laugh speculating about how they came into the language in the first place, but then we do start talking specifically about restaurant and hotel experiences after all that!
Right then, that’s enough of an introduction, now let’s get started properly and by the way, you can see a link to all the TripAdvisor reviews we’re talking about on the page for this episode.
From the collection “How to be British” by LGP http://www.lgpcards.com/cards-1.html
Outro
So, that was Amber and me talking about hotels and restaurants.
I’d just like to say a couple of things and ask a couple of questions at the end of the episode here.
What is your best or worst restaurant or hotel experience? Let us know in the comment section.
Thank you to all the members of the Orion Transcript Collaboration team – you’re doing a fantastic job. A google document for this episode should be available soon so you can put your name next to a 3 minute chunk and start transcribing it. We spoke pretty quickly in this one, so – may the force be with you! If you want to join the transcript collaboration then you are welcome to – everyone’s welcome. Just go to my website and click Transcript Collaboration in the main menu, all the information should be there.
We mentioned Gordon Ramsay in this conversation and since then I’ve started preparing an episode about him and his TV show “Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares” – I have used clips from his TV show in my lessons before and it was very successful, entertaining and interesting and Ramsay is quite an interesting and impressive person, not just for his approach to cooking and restaurant management, but because of his creative and compulsive use of swearing. So, expect a Gordon Ramsay episode of this podcast soon (although I haven’t actually recorded it yet).
I’m glad to see that the episodes about Limmy were popular. Do check out more of Limmy’s videos on YouTube. You’ll get used to the Glasgow dialect after a while, and I kind of think – if you can understand these different dialects of English your listening will become a superpower. Imagine being able to understand all the different versions of English, it would be amazing, and it is possible – it’s just a question of exposure and practice.
How’s your English coming along? If you set a new years resolution in January, are you keeping it up? Sometimes we all need a bit of support with our language learning, so I hope to do something motivational about that soon.
OK, time to end the episode or it’ll never end will it?! Nice one for listening to the end, have a biscuit or three, and next time you go to a hotel, make sure you check inside the kettle before you make a cup of tea…
Oooh, what a weird thought. Perhaps it’s best not to leave you with that thought. Instead you can just imagine being in the safety of your own home, where you know the kettle is completely safe and you can gaslight your housemate into buying some cake or biscuits or just cook a delicious Gordon Ramsay recipe and then settle down to watch Reservoir Dogs on the TV and then go to sleep in your own bed and just dream the night away.
Alright, speak to you soon, bye!
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