Category Archives: Story

146. Nightmare Teaching Experiences (Part 2)

The continuation of this two part episode about being an English language teacher, and some of the difficult experiences that involves.

Right-click here to download this episode.

A transcript/notes are available for this episode below.

3. The Whiteboard
-The smelly Victorian women’s hospital
-Great views
-Felt like the place was falling apart
-Old stained carpets, mould on the walls
-It stinks! – he was right
-It was never bright. I worked there for one year, including two sweaty summers and one long cold winter. Sometimes the lights would flicker and just die, leaving us in murky darkness. It’s never a good start when the students in the class can’t really see the teacher, each other or the board.
-Some of the students lived in the building and they hated it. Lots of things seemed to go wrong for me in that place. I remember once telling my students some ghost stories about London, and about that building in particular. I thought it was just a bit of light relief, a nice break from doing IELTS practice tests. The next day I saw one of the girls from that class in the corridor, in tears. Her friends told me that she was so freaked out by my ghost stories that she couldn’t live in the building any more. On Friday I saw her hurrying away from the place with a large suitcase. My fault.
-One day I was teaching and the whiteboard fell off the wall. I was teaching something at the board, writing, and the whole thing just dropped off the wall and the corner hit the floor very loudly and made a dent in the floor.
-It made a very loud noise and the students jumped, except for one sleepy Japanese guy who wouldn’t have jumped if I’d stuck 20,000volts through him, and sometimes I was tempted but the others kind of jumped a lot. I just propped the board on the wall, and carried on. I couldn’t really complain a lot about it, although I was understandably pretty angry and surprised. I couldn’t complain about it though because complaining about it would have been unprofessional, so I just propped it up against the wall and we kept going. The next day, we came back to class and the whiteboard was just gone, leaving an empty space on the wall, where the wall paint was all fresh and still glossy from when it had been applied all those years ago.

I’d planned some white board work, and I had my pens, so I just wrote on the wall where the board had been. I was pretty pissed off that I had no whiteboard so I just thought “what the hell” and wrote directly onto the wall. The students found it pretty funny, and it gave a kind of ridiculous edge to proceedings, which I find often helps somehow. The thing is, the wall was much better as a whiteboard than the old scratched whiteboard had been. The old one wasn’t even a whiteboard any more. It was so dirty and scratched. It was a grey board. So for about 3 days I happily wrote on the wall. The writing rubbed off nicely because it was a glossy surface. In the end the grey board appeared back again and it was business as usual.

It was a pretty cool class in the end, although I had to compensate for the crappy resources. The CD player always skipped, the lights flickered, the tables and chairs rocked. The students had to sit in these chairs which had little mini tables on the side. The tables were tiny though, and so people’s books and notes would fall on the floor ALL THE TIME. These things don’t help, and they can really screw you up if you’re not prepared for it. These are all standard problems which we should always be ready for!

What I learned:
Use mishaps in your classes to your advantage. They can become funny moments. Ultimately, your aim is to continue teaching, and not stand around complaining about facilities while the students do nothing. Stay professional at all times. That doesn’t mean formal and strict, but keeping in mind that you mustn’t waste any of the students’ precious time. The lesson must go on. Also, never assume that the facilities will be right. Be prepared for facilities not to work or not to be available. Learn to teach without relying on too many other things.

4. Teaching in a cupboard
-The school was full
-I had a smallish class
-My manager said, you’ll have to teach in ‘the computer room’
-This was not as cool as you’d expect
-It was basically a broom cupboard
-To exacerbate things, there was a kind of bar/counter going around the room with computers on it. This greatly reduced the space in the room. All our chairs were right against the bar.
-We’d all sit there with our knees banging together. It was definitely INTENSIVE general English. None of us could move.
-The whiteboard was behind me, leaning against the back of the door. I had to write with my arm all twisted up over my shoulder.
-Whenever anyone wanted to come in they’d open the door and the whiteboard would hit me on the back of the head. This happened a lot because as I said, this was the computer room so people were constantly trying to get in to check their emails (this is before smartphones) even though there was a note on the door – in my experience, in language schools people just completely ignore notes. Notes or notices are invisible in language schools. As are the “engaged” signs on toilets. In every language school I’ve worked, people have ignored the red “engaged” sign on a toilet door. Why is it that learners of English have to check that the toilet is occupied by trying to open the door? Like, if the sign is red, why would you try to open the door? You’re just going to walk into someone with their trousers down. If the sign is red, don’t try to open the door!
-Whenever students were late in that class they had to climb over the other students in order to get a seat. It was very awkward and weird.

What I learned:
To be honest, I’m not sure what I learned from this experience!

5. Teaching kids in Japan
-This was pretty early in my career. I was in Japan, teaching mainly adults but the school wanted me to teach kids too. I thought it might be another string to my bow so I agreed to take the training.
-During the training I was very sleepy and couldn’t concentrate. As a result, I learned nothing.
-I’ve already talked about the tight schedule of teaching. I often had just 10 minutes to finish teaching one class, complete notes and get down two floors to begin the kids class.
-The general scene was that there was a small room with a glass door so the parents could observe everything going on in the class. The parents, who were all housewives basically, would bring the kids and then watch the lesson through the window.
-3-6 year olds in one class
-Difficult to get them into the room
-Either crying or going mental
-They’d crawl all over me
-They covered me in crayon once
-Just my presence seemed to drive them into a frenzy
-They were different with the other teacher
-I had to conclude that I just had a mad energy that they could sense, and which drove them crazy
-They’d be tearing posters off the walls, climbing up onto the counter and throwing things everywhere
-I caught one kid just spitting on the wall
-They would open the cupboard and start chucking stuff out of the window.
-All the time at least one of them would be stuck to me
-One kid, a sweet kid called Dan, just could not hear me. He would be off, in his own world and I would call him back, like “DAN” etc. The other kids would join in and we’d all be going “DAN DAN DAN”. He learned that in English his name was DAN. So, I’d say, “what’s your name?” and he’d say “my name is DAN!”. Apparently, the family went on holiday once and a foreigner (probably an American) said to him, “hello there, what’s your name?” and he said “My name is DAN!” – The parents were over the moon!
-I learned to distract them with cards – it became all about card games, and races and repetition. Sometimes I would be quite impressed and in all the madness I’d catch them engaging in small bits of English. For example, “it’s mine” – which they would often pronounce as “itchi mai”, or just the colours or other words.
-One day we were joined by another kid called Ritomo. I genuinely think he had behavioural issues. He was incredible hyper and aggressive. I’d manage to get them sitting in a circle quite peacefully, but Ritomo was like a time bomb. I could see him building up, until he would explode and start reaching across, grabbing at the faces of other kids, kicking the other kids and eventually just running around the room like the Tasmanian devil. Once, he grabbed all the cards I was using and legged it out of the classroom into the stairwell, and just chucked all the cards down the stairwell.
-After contending with all this I would usually be boiling hot and very uncomfortable, sometimes covered in crayon or even worse – child saliva on my shirt. I’d then have to run upstairs and straight into a lesson with some salarymen, and I’d have to sit there sweating and wiping off the saliva from my shirt while teaching these serious guys.
-Ultimately, it was very touching teaching these kids. I didn’t realise how they’d become attached to me. When they understood that I was leaving Japan, there were tears. One kid, a 4 year old called Ryo came to school but he wouldn’t come into class because he was too upset about me leaving. He really wanted to say goodbye to me, but he couldn’t do it. Instead he just hid under a chair, crying. One of the other kids wouldn’t let me go, and grabbed onto my leg. They were adorable, but only when it was time for me to leave!

6. Hubris
-This is probably the class that I remember being the most difficult. There have been others but this one stuck in my mind. I wonder if anyone listening to this was even in that class. For me it was not nice, but I don’t know how it was for them in the end. Sometimes you just don’t know what your students are thinking. I’ve had classes in which I was convinced everything was awful and it turned out they were all happy, and the other way round. I’ve been rudely awakened by some comment that a student doesn’t like her classmates even though she happily interacts with them all day long. You never know sometimes. But in this class I knew pretty quickly that it was going to be difficult. As a teacher you start to learn to read certain signs about a class. Some things let you know that it’s going to be one of those classes. I mentioned things above. A lot of those things happened in this class.

-Basically, it’s a story of ‘hubris’ – which means when you have an arrogantly enlarged sense of self-confidence which causes you to believe you can’t fail, but then you do. It comes from ancient Greek mythology. I did one difficult course and did it well, and because of that I assumed I would be great in the next course, but I was wrong, and it was a total nightmare. Perhaps it was not all due to me, in fact I’m sure it wasn’t as I’m about to explain, but still, I look back on it as a difficult experience which I now wish I’d done differently, but from which I’ve learned a lot.

So, what happened? I hear you ask.
It was two weeks before Christmas in the middle of a cold, dark London winter. I’d just finished teaching a one week class of executive business people. This was a very important class, and I had been stressed before that, but stressed in a good way because I prepared myself fully for the lessons by checking the backgrounds of the students I had, looking at their needs and preferences for learning English, checking their professions carefully and then selecting a 30 hour course which covered all the things they needed. I spent lots of time preparing and photocopying material and generally psyching myself up. I dressed nicely and all that. One guy in particular on the course was a VIP who worked as a top-level director for a German car manufacturer. He was a really important client, this imposing German guy. So, I worked very hard on the course with very little preparation time, we worked in class for 6 hours a day. I listened, helped, recommended, prepared specialist vocabulary, facilitated, set up role plays, dealt with grammar, pronunciation, feedback, I went the extra mile, I bent over backwards and I delivered a very good course in the end. It helped that the participants were hard-working professionals themselves, who were able to concentrate and see the benefit of what we were doing, but I felt pretty pleased with myself, especially after the stress I’d felt at the start of the week. The group gave me very good feedback, and the VIP even told my boss that he thought I was the best teacher he’d ever had. Wow, I felt great. I’m a fantastic teacher, I thought.

At 5.30PM that Friday my boss told me about the course I’d be teaching starting Monday, after the weekend. It was a group of about 10 young professionals, here to study business English before finishing their degrees, or finding a post-graduate job. They were all in their early 20s with little business experience. I thought “no problem, I’m the best teacher in the world, I’ll just do my thing. I’ll be like some business English guru for them. After the tough week I’ve just had, this will be a walk in the park”. It was hubris. Pride before a fall.

A number of factors led to this being one of my most difficult courses. Some of it was my fault, some of it the fault of my students, and some the fault of factors out of my control. So, what were those reasons?

Let me first tell you what went wrong, and then the reasons why it happened, and then what I learned from the experience.

The class was going to be a combination of students from two already existing classes, and a new person. So, some of them came from a business class, others came from a difficult legal English course, and one girl was new in the school that Monday. The business class was the same course as this one, so for them it was a continuation of their normal class. Same room, same programme, but with a new teacher and other new people coming into their room. The law class were exhausted and fed up from doing so much work. They’d been doing loads of writing, role plays and exam practice, finishing with a very tough legal English exam. They were not in the mood to do any work. It was their last week before going home. These two groups were like buddies really, two groups of buddies, and they didn’t really mix. Also, they had no real reason to mix because they knew in two weeks it would all be over and they’d be going home. It’s kind of like everyone had given up making any effort. Then, there was the new girl who entered in the middle of this bad atmosphere. I don’t know if it was her, or the atmosphere of the situation she joined, but she behaved in a really bad way, being rude from the beginning, lots of attitude, not willing to work, challenging things, answering over me, flirting with me, making me feel uncomfortable and kind of spoiling activities in class. I expected the others to kind of take to her quite badly, as she was basically poisoning the class. However, they all seemed to like her and kind of let her get away with it, as if it justified the fact they didn’t have to do any work. At the same time though, I was sure that they would all be pissed off about the fact that we weren’t achieving anything in our classes. It turns out they saw me as the reason for that, not her or their weird behaviour. This new girl was quite a bullying influence in the room, and I suspect that others didn’t like her but were not willing to step in and stop it.

It was also a class full of women, except for one quiet Korean guy, who left after the first week. So, there was a kind of odd tension and the usual working friendship between the students that develops after a few hours had not developed. In fact, I found it very hard to get the first lesson really underway at all. After an hour or so I realised that we had managed to achieve almost nothing, I hadn’t put the students under pressure enough, we hadn’t really done any challenging grammar work or vocabulary development and they hadn’t been really activated with a task and I could definitely sense trouble. People were not getting involved, some seemed to be frustratingly impatient while others wasted time. I asked them to make short presentations about themselves, involving standing up and talking for 5 minutes each. Normally I write down all the mistakes they make and then give them all individual language feedback and ask them other questions after each presentation. This allows the class to get to know each other, put their English on display, give me a chance to work out their language needs, bond them together by putting them through a little challenge, and to immediately give them some very direct help by correcting their errors. The presentations all fell flat, with the speakers just grinding to a halt after a few minutes, while I attempted to encourage others to ask more questions. They didn’t seem interested in each other, and I was not able to write down any meaningful language feedback. All I could write on the board, was a few obvious and easily corrected errors. No impact at all. Instead I just got the sense that each person was making a terribly bad first impression on the others, with no sense of rapport developing at all. It was like my plan didn’t just fall flat, but sent the class in the opposite direction. At one point, a presentation ended up in a conversation between two of the girls about a very sensitive ethnic and political topic, involving a nation of refugees and a conflict over a land border between two countries. It was a very divisive and controversial topic, and a personal one because one of the girls was from that region of the world. I could feel other members of the class bristling over the direction it took. When I intervened to get the girls back on topic, they seemed personally offended that I stopped them talking about it. Everything seemed to be going wrong.

All the usual signs were there. These are the signs that things are not going well.
You give them a short task to do in pairs, the idea being that they communicate in English while also doing a language or skills class. They ignore their partners completely.
You ask the class to do an exercise. One of them doesn’t do the exercise and instead sits there trying to make eye contact with you because they’re not happy about something. Then when you ask if everything is okay, they don’t mention anything, but moodily start the exercise. While doing feedback on the exercise, someone sighs very loudly at an inappropriate moment, perhaps while someone else is talking.
The exercises I gave them just seemed to just die in the air. Usually, a class will feed on something and build it into something bigger. That didn’t happen. I felt like a fool as nothing I said seemed to have any value to them at all! Things I wrote on the board seemed badly written, uninsightful and unhelpful. It was like teaching underwater. The air was thick. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. The distance between me and the students seemed vast. I’d taught plenty of classes in that room before and I liked it because it had a comfy, warm and almost intimate atmosphere. This time it was like a cold hospital ward. Students would often come in late, or just not come back after lunch. I decided I had to put my foot down. When the difficult girl arrived late, I asked her “why are you late?” and she gave me a bad excuse, like “I slept through my alarm clock”, and then instead of acknowledging that she should be in class on time (because arriving late disturbs the class, she doesn’t know what’s going on, we waste time and lose concentration as everything has to be explained) she just kind of challenged me over it and it became an awkward conflict, which she felt like she had to win. I felt like some of these students had been to business school and had learned that you must negotiate everything, don’t make any concessions and analyse anyone in authority for leadership skills. If I didn’t fit their Jack Welch or Jeff Bezos model for leadership then I wasn’t worth anything.

Then I heard from another teacher (the one who had been teaching that class before me – a really charismatic older guy with lots of experience) that some of my students weren’t happy and that they missed his class. They said my class was “terrible” and they weren’t happy. Oh no. Bad news for Luke! I decided I would really put my foot down and straighten the class out. After lunch I had a go at them for being late, and for not taking part properly. I hate doing that in class. Absolutely hate it, because I’m not good at it. Well, I’m better now because I’m older but then I was younger and I was never good at being tough. It’s just not in my character. If I get angry or tough, it shows on my face and I don’t seem strong. I just seem upset and weaker. I don’t get confrontational or strict generally, and so it’s weird to do it. I guess they didn’t buy what I was saying because it didn’t make a difference. In fact, I suspect it caused them to lose confidence in me. Again, the absolute reverse of what I had hoped to achieve actually happened. I wanted to put my foot down, and I just ended up putting my foot in my mouth.

The next day, two of them were late for class and I closed the door, leaving a note which said they couldn’t come in. These were two girls from the law course. Young lawyers. I should have known better than to leave a handwritten note for a couple of lawyers, telling them they couldn’t do something. Of course they took it really badly. During the break a teacher told me that two of my students were really angry with me. Wow, this was a nightmare. This never happens to me! Usually the opposite if anything! So I went to see them and they were upset, saying that they had had to do something in town and had rushed back to be on time only to find my rude note. They considered my actions to be very inappropriate. They were not happy. I had to try and keep my head up and stay confident and consistent, so I maintained that it was important that they come in on time, although I didn’t mean to offend them with my note. I was just trying to impose some rules and structure. My explanation mildly improved things, but the damage had been done.

In the last session of that day, while waiting for other students to arrive after break, two of the girls told me they thought the course was going badly, and that the classes were no good. At first I was kind of glad that someone was on my side and I wasn’t alone. Then I realised that they held me responsible, rather than the other members of the class. It was my fault that the class was going badly! They probably thought that this was how things normally were with me. They didn’t know me so they knew no different. They didn’t realise that I was not such a bad teacher. This made me really angry. I was so pissed off at this point and couldn’t help saying “this never happens in my courses” before I had to kind of bitterly explain that yes I agreed that the class was not good enough – but I couldn’t explain how it was the fault of others. I mentioned it, saying things like “it doesn’t help that certain members of this class are incapable of attending on time or even taking part properly when they are here”. They didn’t really like my tone. Instead I had to kind of admit that I would do better – as if the class was going wrong because of a lack of effort on my part. I was explaining to my boss, my teacher or my parents that I wasn’t trying hard enough. Now, I do accept that I should have done certain things better, and that some of it was my fault as I will explain in a moment, but I knew that it wasn’t all me. The fact is it was my job to ensure that the class was as effective as possible. So, in a way, the actions of these people meant that I had to carry the whole circus of this class on my shoulders. The group shifted its collective responsibility over to me. I finished the day completely shattered, with a mind numbing headache, with a massive heavy load on my shoulders.

Two of the students complained to my boss, saying they thought the class was bad, and that they would write a letter to their agents explaining how awful they thought the school was. Seriously, this was quite unprecedented. Thankfully, my boss had faith in me, knowing that it wasn’t really my fault but was just one of those courses that goes wrong. He suggested that I do some ‘tutorials’ with my class, to talk to them all 1 to 1 and try and resolve any problems. I agreed, and did that the next day. Of course, the students didn’t see the value of it, and considered it a massive waste of their time. One of them said to my face that she thought I was leading the class badly and the tutorials were a waste of time. The difficult girl I described earlier decided to lock horns with me over everything before forcing me to admit that I had failed to be a strong leader. She completely ran over me with her forceful character. It was like dealing with a bully. I found it ridiculous. Of course, this was the height of rudeness. There would be no need for my strong leadership if she behaved like a grown up. I think it was a trust issue. I expect where she was from, male teachers should be much more dominant, alpha male types. I’m not that kind of guy. I’m not an alpha male. I don’t believe it’s necessary to impose yourself and your ego on everyone in order to be a good teacher. That’s all a bit macho and old-fashioned I think. But, I think that’s what she and maybe the others needed and expected. She probably needed me to be a more old-fashioned strict male teacher, and without that she couldn’t help misbehaving. Ultimately, she was responsible for her behaviour, not me. So I still disagree and believe that she was wrong.

The tutorials were not a complete disaster. I learned that some of the students expected certain types of exercise. They didn’t like role plays and case studies. They were bored with them because of the other courses they had attended. A couple of them admitted that they thought it was the fault of the school for putting two classes together. She didn’t understand why we couldn’t run two smaller groups, which would be more effective. We just didn’t have enough teachers for that, and ultimately the school wasn’t going to pay another teacher to come in and take one half of my class. This lifted the pressure from me and onto the school somewhat, but it didn’t really improve things much. Unfortunately, basic economics is something that regularly has an impact on classes. Schools can’t or don’t want to pay for more teachers. The most profitable way would be to have one teacher per 100 students, but obviously that’s not possible. What happens is something of a balance between quality (with fewer students per teacher) and profits (more students per teacher). One sign of a good school is smaller class sizes. The best schools, like The London School of English where I worked for 6 years, manage to keep their class sizes smaller, give more benefits to teachers, develop specialist courses and make an extra effort to create a special atmosphere inside the building.

Back to the tutorials. I learned that they wanted boring, challenging old-fashioned grammar work. What a surprise for a group of young forward thinking professionals. They just wanted boring gap fills and mind numbing grammar explanations, with work on writing and job interviews.

So, I did exactly that. I removed fun from the lessons. No pair work. No group interaction. Just very controlled language practice followed by quick feedback. It was like an old-school exam course. It was like a punishing series of language exercises, all of which had very clear right and wrong answer. It kind of straightened them out. Ironically, one of them complained that it was too difficult, and this is after she’d complained earlier that it was too easy. I found that putting them through boring and difficult work made them bond together more. During breaks they would be relieved and would chat to each other more, as they were all going through the same difficult experience. I’d come back into class after break and I’d find them hanging out and socialising, but when I’d enter the room they’d all shut up and go back to their desks, like ‘the fun is over, he’s back’. My heart sank a little every time this happened, as it always does when you feel like the students just don’t like you for some reason.

The difficult girl continued to be difficult, but I’d already accepted that she was not going to change, and realised she was just a spoiled daughter of a rich businessman and that no-one had ever said “no” to her in her life. She seemed an incredibly sheltered and naive person, who couldn’t really operate in the real world. Then I remembered that she would probably always be rich and successful, as no doubt her father would have some important contacts to help her get a great job in the future. That made me kind of angry too. She had privilege, but no respect for others. I lost respect for her, and felt like I should teach her a lesson in humility. I didn’t really know how to do this, so I generally didn’t give her any rope. I mean, I wasn’t patient with her, didn’t give her much response or attention. After that, she didn’t bother me so much any more. Once she made a rude comment, and I couldn’t help but laugh. This was a great moment because I wasn’t hurt by her comment, I just found it ridiculous. I felt that the others sensed this, and had become tired of her bullshit too. It was like her value or influence in the class had dropped. After that, she stopped attending. She didn’t attend the last day, but came in at the end to leave a note on my desk. The note said “Thank you for being my English teacher. I’m really glad I met you.”

Now that was surprising because she spent 2 weeks acting like she hated me, caused all kinds of difficulty, didn’t attend a lot of classes, and then leaves me that note. I’m still scratching my head trying to work out what was going on.

In the end, I managed to get a grip on the course, but the first week was a write off. It was horrible. Every day I stayed at school late trying to prepare for the next day. Then I would go home with a strong headache, not wanting to eat any dinner. A couple of times I had to walk home to clear my head. It was a dread filled week and I often remember it, and try to avoid similar experiences.

So what were the causes?
Certainly I was just unlucky with the students. Just a mix of bad personalities perhaps? I’m sure they didn’t think so. In fact, I expect everyone involved believed they were not to blame, but were the innocent victim of the situation.
Ultimately, I don’t think anyone really wanted to be in the room together. I ended up being the victim of that because I was the guy telling them they had to be in the class together. I just became their scapegoat.
Time of year was a factor. It was dark and cold. England must have seemed rubbish to them in those conditions. There is a feeling in the middle of winter in England, when you haven’t seen the sun for a couple of months, and you feel tired and depressed. It’s called seasonal affective disorder. Sometimes it hits the students for six, because they’ re not expecting it.
Everyone was just waiting to go home for the Christmas holidays so they weren’t motivated.
The class were all women – this can be difficult. For some reason women like to have some men in the class to give some balance. Either that or just women with a woman teacher, then they can relax as a group of women. Otherwise it becomes really weird. I can’t explain that, but as I’ve said before, if the women aren’t happy then no-one is happy.

Putting together two groups to make one doesn’t always work, and it can make the school look a bit cheap, like it’s saving money on rooms and teachers. Also, the two groups had already bonded, and didn’t really expect to be thrown into one group together.
I expected the course to be easier because of the previous course. This meant that I had a false sense of security. I probably didn’t try hard enough on day 1 or make it difficult enough for the students. I expected things to just work, but I hadn’t thought about it or planned carefully enough. I probably wasn’t as well prepared, or tightly organised as I had been on the previous course.
I didn’t dress very smartly. Looking back on it now, I wore jeans and a pair of slightly scruffy brown shoes. The girls were very chic and well presented. Compared to them, I looked like the student. I should have worn a suit on day 1.
Maybe there was some sexual tension there? I can’t tell really, but sometimes bad behaviour is a kind of flirtation and girls sometimes are very rude to a guy as a kind of come-on. That might explain the letter that was left for me. I don’t know.
Culture shock. I’ve explained before how culture shock can manifest itself in the sense that the culture you’re in is ridiculous or wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if these students were kind of unimpressed by London in the winter time, and couldn’t help feeling some contempt for us. I was just another annoying English person. Certainly at times I had to listen to them going through the usual complaints about the UK. The food is bad, the weather is bad, it’s noisy in London, my accommodation is cold, I don’t know why you have two taps in the bathroom, why do you do everything differently here, why do you have to drive on the left, English women are ugly (this was perhaps the most offensive) and English people are stupid because they go jogging on the pavement in the city, etc etc. That kind of thing. Maybe they were expressing culture shock.

Perhaps there was some culture shock between them too. There was quite a mix of nationalities.

Them coming late prevented me from starting classes properly. Instead I must have looked unprepared and vague.

It’s funny to me how I could go from one week of being the greatest teacher in the world, to hitting rock bottom in just a matter of days, with students saying it was one of the worst courses they’d experienced. I mean, how does that happen?

Now, I’ve just shared ONE bad course I taught, but in my defence I must say that I have an otherwise very good track record in my classes, with students regularly being very happy with me, often giving me top marks in feedback. So, this course must have been a one-off. I try to think that it was just a combination of bad elements that somehow came together at the same time, causing a bad outcome in my class. I may have been responsible for certain things, like not being strict and dynamic enough at the beginning, or showing strong leadership, but some of the students too were definitely responsible for taking part in a very poor manner.

Ultimately, I was just very glad to have finished the class. It was like going through a painful series of challenges. Each day gave me a new headache. My colleagues were worried about me. I couldn’t enjoy myself all week because of worrying what to do with these students. At the end, the students did thank me. One of them in particular came up to me in the pub that Friday night, and privately said thank you very much for you effort during the week. I think ultimately they saw that it wasn’t all my fault, and that I was working very hard. I still have the note that the difficult girl gave to me. Sometimes I see it and it reminds me of the difficult week.

What did I learn?
Never get too happy or pleased with yourself. If you think you’re doing a great job, there is probably something you’re forgetting about, that you’re doing wrong.
Pride comes before a fall.
When things go badly, don’t feel too bad because it’s not all your fault.
Equally, when things go well don’t be too proud of yourself because it’s not always because of you.
Be well presented. Make a good first impression. Impose rules on younger learners early. Treat younger learners more like adults, or they will act like children.
Remember that time is money.
Make lessons challenging at all times.

It’s hard to say what else I learned from this other than the ability to be a bit tougher. It just toughened me up a little more. I just approached lessons in the future with more experience behind me, and students could just sense that I was more experience and then felt safer in my class. Now I’m less nervous before lessons. I feel like I’ve experienced enough difficult moments not to be too shocked. Also, doing stand-up comedy helps with confidence, but really it’s been teaching that has prepared me the most.

Despite these stories, I have definitely had more good experiences than bad. Some of my classes have genuinely been amazing and I’ve met so many interesting and lovely people. If you are one of those lovely people I have met then “hello”. To everyone I have ever met through this job I would like to say “hello” and thank your for contributing to my learning process as a teacher.

To all my fellow teachers out there – I know how you feel! Keep your chin up.
To all the learners of English – keep your chins up too! I know how you feel as well now because of my experiences of learning French.

I hope you have enjoyed listening to this episode.

Remember you can read a full transcript of this on teacherluke.podomatic.com or teacherluke.wordpress.com where you can also find links to iTunes, Facebook and YouTube and you can also make those very special and important donations – as little as one pound if you like, or more, it’s up to you.

Also, you may have noticed some idioms in this episode. I’ve made a list of the idioms I used, and I will be explaining them in the next episode. Also, I use loads of other nice pieces of vocabulary, common expressions, descriptive words and collocations throughout this episode. I suggest that you listen a couple of times, or listen again while reading the transcript and pick out any expressions that you like and that you could use yourselves.

Don’t forget to leave your comments on this episode either here at wordpress.com or at http://teacherluke.podomatic.com.

Thanks again for listening, good luck with your English and take care. BYE BYE BYE!

Luke

140. Ghost Stories – True Tales of Really Creepy Experiences

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Keep cool in the hot summer weather with some chilling stories. *Transcript available below*

Right-click here to download this episode.

This is a long episode so I recommend you download it and listen to it in sections. If you use your iPhone or an mp3 player it should remember the point that you stopped listening, and it will carry on from that point. Or, you can sit down with a cup of tea and listen to it all in one go!

This episode is all about ghosts, strange things, the unexplained, demons and things that go bump in the night. I’m talking about the paranormal, ghosts, phantasms, specters, spirits, poltergeists, unexplained phenomena, and all that kind of weird stuff that you don’t want to hear about when you’re alone in the house at night. I hope you’re not alone right now, because this could be the creepiest episode of Luke’s English Podcast so far. To help you feel okay I suggest you get a teddy bear to hold onto or a pillow to hide behind, close the doors, close the curtains, do not look in the mirror, and keep the light on. You could burn a candle if that makes you feel better, as traditionally it is said that a flame can protect you from evil spirits. Ideally, listen with other people around. People say that undead spirits and demons can be attracted by accounts of paranormal activity. If someone talks about ghosts, it brings the world of ghosts closer to you, and in some cases can attract spirits into your world. So if you notice anything strange going on around you while listening to this, I suggest that you stop listening, turn on the lights, get a drink from the fridge in the kitchen and just put scary thoughts out of your mind. I don’t believe in it myself, but who knows what is really out there in the darkness. I’ll give you some more tips on that later. Basically, in this episode I’m going to tell you some scary and weird stories, which I thought of or which are completely real and really happened to me.

Do you believe in ghosts? Is it really possible that our world could be visited by spirits or other beings that we don’t normally see? The answer you’re thinking of may be “no”. But have you ever experienced something really strange, which you can’t explain and which, when you think about it without ignoring it, it makes you really frightened? To tell you the truth, I have had some strange experiences that I can’t explain and that I don’t like to think about very often.

Personally, I consider myself to be a rational person. I don’t really believe in ghosts. But I believe there are things in the world that we don’t understand yet. I don’t think we should always conclude that unexplained things are the result of supernatural or paranormal causes, but at the same time I know that there are plenty of things about the world that we really don’t understand and can’t even see. Even in science there are many mysteries. Massive puzzles that scientists are trying to work out. Quantam physics, our basic understanding of space and time, the origins or destiny of the universe, parallel worlds, other dimensions, the possibility of ghosts living around us or inhabiting certain spaces in our homes or outside our windows. These are all areas of mystery to us. 500 years ago people were relatively clueless. People thought the world was flat, that headaches were caused by evil spirits and that tobacco was good for you. All completely wrong. Like, totally wrong. These are quite big things to get wrong. Imagine if we are similarly wrong about what we know now. Maybe we’ve only just scratched the surface of knowledge about the world. There could be so much more that we don’t realize. Answers to the questions of what happens to us after we die, is there such a thing as the soul and does it live on separately from us, are there other invisible worlds full of demons or spirits living all around us, that we can’t see. Is it possible for us to disturb these spirits or upset them by doing wrong things without realizing it? As I said, I don’t believe in ghosts or the paranormal because I require evidence for these things. But still, there are things that I just can’t explain. And to be honest, that is frightening sometimes. There are things I’ve experienced that have freaked me out, and continue to bother my memory today. Sometimes these memories make me scared. Maybe it will be creepy but I’m going to share those things with you in this podcast episode.

I’m going to tell you some stories but some real ones, not made up ones. The stories I’m going to tell you are all ones that I’ve experienced personally. They’re not fictional bedtime stories or anything. They’re not fun stories for kids. They’re real accounts of some weird and scary stuff that has happened to me at various times. I don’t often talk about these things with my friends or family these days. They say it makes them feel uncomfortable. A lot of people don’t really like their world to be challenged by strange unexplained things. They’d rather not think a lot about things they don’t really understand, or things which are disturbing. But sometimes I can’t sleep and I think of weird things I’ve experienced and they make me quite scared, but they’re fascinating to me too so I thought I would share these experiences with you. Maybe you can explain them, or maybe you’ve experienced similar things. Some people might say that I shouldn’t talk about these things publicly or share them, because it could scare people, or even attract spirits into the homes of people who are listening to this. I’m not sure about that but I’d like to suggest that you listen carefully to this episode. If you are easily scared then just think twice about listening to this. It might disturb you. Don’t listen just before you go to bed. Turn on the lights if you’re in a dark room, so you can see everything. Close cupboard doors or doors to dark rooms so that you don’t get scared when you imagine that something or someone is waiting in there while you listen to this. If you’re not too scared, try to have a look under the bed or behind the sofa, because sometimes you can be very disturbed by the thought that there is something or someone there, watching you and waiting. Try not to imagine dark shapes or the idea that there is a person with you, because your mind will play tricks on you.

If it is night time and there are windows in your room, just quickly close the curtains and make sure the windows are sealed so you don’t worry about things that our outside getting inside, and so you don’t worry about seeing a face appear in the window, even for a moment. Closing windows or closing curtains will make you feel more comfortable because you won’t be able to see whatever is out there, and if there’s something out there, it won’t be able to see you either. Just be careful, when you close the window, do it quickly and don’t look out of the window into the darkness.

Quickly check empty rooms in your house if you aren’t too scared. It can really freak you out when you get the feeling that you’re not alone in your own home, and that there’s something or someone in another room, and maybe they’ve been there for some time without you knowing. So, if you can, have a quick look around the house. Go upstairs or downstairs and visit empty rooms, just to make your mind feel more comfortable and so you don’t get too scared while you’re listening to my voice. And if you need to go to the toilet or the kitchen you’ll be frozen because you don’t want to go alone so try to remember there’s someone there in the house with you, even if you are alone, there’s someone nearby and you can hear my voice and you’ll be okay. You could stop listening and wait until the day time if you like, but I suggest that you listen to all of this, just so that you can get to the end of it, hear the music at the end of the episode and although it might be frightening to be in silence, you know that you completed the episode and that’s the end of the scary stories and everything will be back to normal again.
One other thing – don’t look in the mirror while you listen to this. In fact, avoid reflections of any kind – seeing your reflection in a window, the glass of your mobile or computer monitor. Mirrors or reflections are said to be like portals to the spirit world. I’m not sure I believe it but it’s better to be on the safe side, certainly when discussing ghosts or demons. Who knows what elements of old folklore are based on knowledge that we have lost? Maybe folklore is all true to an extent. The subject of spirits and the supernatural was very popular in England during the 19th century and lots of strange events were documented during that period. Many well respected people such as Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories were very interested in this subject, and wrote about their experiences. Apparently, people used to gather together in séances (meetings often took place in dark rooms in houses that were said to be haunted or regularly visited by apparitions or other phantoms) in order to contact the dead, or communicate with the spirit world. They used various devices to contact the other side, including oiji boards but also mirrors. What these practitioners would do was to read pages of old texts designed to attract ghosts from the other side, and then at certain moments they would all stare without blinking into a mirror in order to see the spirits appearing. Apparently, the mirror was one of the most common ways that spirits reveal themselves to the living. They might appear just as a shape or shadow, sometimes overlaid on top of someone else’s face (very weird) or they would appear clearly as someone else in the room, usually standing behind the people). There are also lots of urban myths about standing in front of the mirror and saying special words, which bring a demon into the room with you, with your reflection. The story goes that once the demon has arrived in your mirror, he will always be there in any reflection of you, until you find a way to remove him. The only way to remove him is to tell someone else about it, persuading them to say the words while looking in a mirror. The demon is then transferred into their reflection, leaving you free again. Finally, the only solution is for a blind person to say the words in front of the mirror. They take the demon, but can’t see it and so it has no power over him.

I said before that traditionally people believed that spirits can be attracted by talking about them, and that describing or thinking about the other side can make the gap between our world and the world of spirits thinner, allowing them to visit us more freely. That’s why people tend to whisper or speak quietly when talking of these things. You shouldn’t go around shouting the names of demons or spirits, especially at night, and you should not look in the mirror while listening to this, or soon after listening to this. It’s not advisable and I would warn you not to do it. I mean, I don’t necessarily believe it myself and I don’t know what you believe, but sometimes it’s worth paying attention to traditional wisdom even if science disagrees with it. Sometimes science can be proved wrong, as I said before. So, avoid mirrors during this episode.
I hope you’re not getting freaked out or scared by all this talk of scary monsters visiting you. If you are superstitious, then you do what you’ve got to do. Say a short prayer if that helps, or try repeating some words to yourself in order to make yourself feel okay. Apparently, a common thing that people can say to protect themselves from evil spirits is this, and you can try repeating it quietly to yourself if it makes you feel any better.
“I am alone – I know they are not here”
“I am alone – I know they will not come”
“I am alone – I know they have not found me”
Say it three times. Just make sure you get the word ‘not’ in the correct position. Don’t say “I am not alone – I know that they are here” or “I know they will come” or “I know they have found me” – don’t say that three times while looking into a mirror, at any time. OK? Do not do that. I hope that’s clear.
If you’re with someone else, good. I recommend that you just squeeze the person’s hand or just touch them on the shoulder, just as a way to say “you’re here too”! If they react badly to that, like, if they tell you “get off!” or “what you doing?” Just explain calmly that you’re just making physical contact with another person in order to create a protective boundary between you and the spirit world in order to prevent any weird or scary things from happening. I’m sure your friend or loved one will understand. If you are on public transport, you could try touching the person sitting next to you but I am not responsible for the consequences. All I’ll say is that sometimes people on busses and trains can be much more dangerous than ghosts…

Finally, if you do get scared while listening to this or you notice anything strange going on around you, leave a comment explaining what has happened. It could be fascinating to read about it. Also, if you have any other strange things you’ve experienced, and how you explain them, let us know by leaving a comment.

OK let’s get started. I’m going to tell you about some strange things that have happened to me over the years. Let me know what you think? How would you explain some of this stuff?

The Japanese running tap

I spent 3 weeks during the summer, alone in my apartment while waiting for another flatmate to come. During that time some pretty weird things happened in the flat, and I don’t mean earthquakes although I did experience some of them. Not earthquakes, but something that I can’t explain.
The kitchen tap kept turning on by itself. I would go to bed in the tatami room. In the middle of the night I would wake up to noise coming from the kitchen. I went into the kitchen to find the kitchen tap running cold water. Freezing cold – much colder than usual. I’d have to turn it off by turning the tap around in my hand, before going back to bed. This happened 3 times. The third time was the worst because I distinctly remember making sure the tap was turned off before bed. I remember getting myself a glass of water, and then turning off the tap. When I woke up to hear the sound of the tap running, I DID NOT want to get up, but I had to investigate and I had to stop the tap. Perhaps the worst part was walking past an empty room which had large windows at the other side. I couldn’t bear to look into the room because I had a horrible feeling about it. It felt like there was something in the apartment with me. Turning off the tap, it was very cold again. I didn’t want to turn round to go back to my room and I must admit I was very frightened and I left the light on in the kitchen. I’m not normally scared by stuff, but sometimes I can’t stop thinking about that tap. How on earth is that possible? Can a tap turn itself on? Water pressure? Water which is left in the pipe coming out? Perhaps I did it in my sleep – maybe I walked to the sink and turned on the tap, which is pretty scary – why would I get up in the night, do something and then not remember doing it? I told all my students in Japan about it, and a lot of them were not really surprised by it. A lot of people in Japan are quite superstitious. Apparently there are many different types of ghost in Japanese folklore, and belief in ghosts and ghost stories is quite common in Japan. One particular old woman I used to teach on Fridays, was very knowledgeable and told me a lot about it, saying how ghosts or Yuurei are quite common, and even accepted by most people are being real. Apparently, these yuurei are spirits of people who have been prevented from having a peaceful afterlife because of the way they died or the trauma they experienced during their life, which is basically the same explanation given for ghosts in the UK too. It’s weird that ghosts feature in folklore from so many cultures around the world, and they all seem to be explained by this idea of a spirit that can’t rest. Anyway, this woman suggested that my tap thing was caused by, and I’ll never forget the name, a Zashiki-warashi or the ghost of a child. Apparently Zashiki-warashi are often mischievous, meaning they do naughty little things, rather than seriously scary or dangerous things. She said they commonly arrive and do things during the Japanese ‘witching hour’ between 2 and 3 o’clock in the morning, which is when the gap between our world and the spirit world are closest. She said that strange things that happen at night in Japan are sometimes attributed to zashiki-warashi. This didn’t make me feel better though, because the idea that I had some little Japanese child ghost in my apartment between 2 and 3 o’clock at night was not fun. The tap thing stopped after I got a new flatmate called Peter in August. For a couple of weeks though, I had a slightly disturbing time alone in the apartment, trying not to think of the tap. It hasn’t happened to me since, so maybe it was just then. If it does happen again, I will freak out I know it. Ive never told me girlfriend about it, because it would worry her. Any ideas what that was? If you’re from Japan, have you heard of zashiki-warashi, or other types of ghost? Do you think the woman was making it up or not?

*This is where the transcript ends. You can read some notes for the other stories below*

The bouncing ball

Freaky and still disturbs me to this day, even though I didn’t really want to believe it at the time.

Frozen in bed and the weird clock

Very scary at the time, but there is a rational explanation.
Here is a link to the TedEd video about sleep paralysis:

The Lapworth Walk

Nothing particularly weird or supernatural happened directly to me, but it was a time when I was really genuinely scared.

I’m originally from London. I was a city kid until I was 9. Then my parents moved to the countryside. Moved away from all my friends to a new place. I didn’t know the area. The countryside is different. Spooky. Owls at night etc.

Teenager – went out in Birmingham. Had fun with friends. Time to go home. Train on my own. Avoided fights in Birmingham. Everyone left the train. I had 20mins more journey. Then I had to walk through country lanes to where my parents lived. Often it would be able 1AM.
Walking through darkness in the countryside is very scary. I can remember the walk very clearly because I did it so many times.

Town, houses etc.

Turn right at the end, the streetlights stop. You have to walk into the darkness, leaving the houses and lights behind. It doesn’t feel natural.
Hump backed bridge over the canal. Something under the bridge? In fact, there could be something on the other side of the bridge. Don’t let your mind wander. All my friends are at home, in bed. I’m walking in the dark, miles from home, scared.

Baddesley Clinton House

Here is some text from the National Trust website about the haunted old house I had to walk past on the Lapworth Walk

“A lovely old manor house I have visited several times is Baddesley Clinton in Knowle, Solihull. This building dates right back to the early Middle Ages, and it is thought to be haunted by one of its former owners, a man called Nicholas Brome.

The Brome family lived here during the Wars of the Roses and, unfortunately for them, in 1461 they found themselves on the losing side. This led to a serious falling out with the Earl of Warwick, culminating in the murder of the family’s patriarch, John Brome. Shortly afterwards, John’s son, Nicholas took a bloody revenge and stabbed to death the Earl of Warwick’s Steward. Nicholas Brome had an appetite for violence and people crossed him at their peril.
One night he returned home to find his wife in a compromising position with no less a person than the local parish priest. The priest, it seems, was tickling his mistress, “under ye chinne”. This was more than enough to send Nicholas into a terrible rage.

He drew his dagger and slew the amorous priest on the spot. Killing a man of God was a serious offence and could have cost Nicholas his own life, however he had the good fortune to be pardoned by both the King and the Pope. His penance was to build nearby St. Michaels church, where he was eventually buried standing up (another penance for his many sins).
It could be that Nicholas Brome, his soul never properly laid to rest, still wanders the dark rooms and hallways of Baddesley Clinton. (A dark red stain on the wooden floor of the library is said to be the priest’s blood, but I must say I am not entirely convinced!).

In the Tudor period the house was taken over by the Ferrers family who bravely gave sanctuary to catholic priests during the reign of Elizabeth I. The tiny “priest holes”, where they would hide from Elizabeth’s soldiers, can still be seen.

This must have been a particularly frightening time because the punishment for observing the “old religion” was terrible indeed. Priests could be burnt at the stake, while their protectors ran the risk of being “hanged, drawn, and quartered”.

Traumatic experiences do seem to trigger paranormal activity. Members of the Ferrers family and many visitors to Baddesley have reported hearing raised voices and hurried footsteps coming from empty rooms. Could this be the chilling echoes of long dead catholics trying to evade their protestant hunters?”

Let me know of your scary stories. Leave a comment below.

125. The Pink Gorilla Story

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An improvised funny story about an encounter with a massive pink animal. Transcript available below.

Right-click here to download.
Listen to Luke tell you a rather bizarre story about an adventure involving a pink gorilla and a number of other characters. I recommend that you listen to the story several times as a way of enjoying and understanding it more. There is a full transcript to this episode below.

In this episode I decided to improvise a story. To improvise something means to just make it up on the spot, without planning or preparing in advance. It is quite challenging and fun for me to improvise stories like this. I hope you enjoy it and realise that it is great listening practice for you.

Do you Want to skip the introduction?

The story begins after 15mins. There is a long, rambling introduction and then the story begins at 16:20

I use a variety of expressions, accents and verb forms in the episode. As you listen, try to spot some English which might be useful for you.

***There is some SWEARING in the story. I apologise if you find that offensive. You should remember that swearing (using rude words) is VERY RUDE in the WRONG SITUATIONS! Don’t swear in English class, in job interviews, in front of priests, when you are in polite company or if you meet the Queen, etc. Swearing is ok with your close friends, in private or when you’re playing football. Aaaaalright? ;)

I hope you enjoy the story. Speak to you soon. Bye bye bye! (TRANSCRIPT BELOW)

Language Extracts with Vocabulary (thanks to Jack) – TRANSCRIPT BELOW THIS LIST

Maybe it causes a rift in space time continuum.
Have you just woken up?
Get a grip !
I’d like to book a table for two please.
I’d like it to book a table for tomorrow evening.
That’s why now I can’t get my head together !
I’ll go to Burger King, nevermind !
We do burgers here.
You are incapable of dealing with the booking so I’m leaving.
To turn up
Lets say the police overheard you talking about puppies.
Can I make an inquiry as to the nature of this rendezvous?
I think you’ll find that that contravenes section 134 of the puppies act.
I’m going to have to put you under arrest.
Police are going to take them away.
It is kind of random bollocks.
In the light of the fact that I won this competition.
…..Academic director, Publishing director, who is checking out the public blog.
Let’s see some of the pedagogical techniques that he’s using in his podcast.
What new approaches to teaching methodologies are being used.
Maybe this is a new revolutionary method of teaching English as a foreign language.
Just sort of stream of consciousness – English jazz cakes.
One of the objectives….
The ‘Rotary sushi bar of English’….
It doesn’t mean that I can just give up my day job.
I still have to try and find windows of time in my otherwise busy life.
That’s kind of a bit of justification……
Improvised
I’m making it up as I go along.
I’ve been speaking for the last 15 mins.
I’m going to try and throw in some characters into the story.
It’s just completely made up (story)
I hit some hard times.
Can I have a word with you?
We are going to have to let you go.
Give them regular feedback
A general rule of thumb
I was devastated
It’s been a pleasure teaching you.
I’ve been fired.
How? On foot probably.
The Mafia
Gangsters
Screw this guy!
Moving one foot in front of the other.
Subtle movements…..
The corner of the Oxford Street.
London’s famous attractions.
I couldn’t afford to visit.
Walked along the street.
As far as I know, you can’t really eat anything with your eyes.
Mushrooms
Spaghetti
Walk out of the supermarket.
Nothing to see here.
Until eventually I was desperate.
I would sit on the streets.
Can you spare me 10p governor, for a cup of tea ?
May be a chimney sweep?
He had a monocle
He came up to me
He approached me.
You seem desperate and tired.
I think it’s good to be on first name terms with homeless people.
Come with me to my mansion.
Don’t misunderstand Luke.
Maybe we should introduce ourselves and get acquainted.
I wasn’t being rude.
Swear words.
Rude, aggressive communicative styles.
I was just adapting my teaching style for my class.
Moustache, monocle and a hat.
It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.
I’m a collector of rare endangered animal species.
Let’s get in the taxi and let me show you my hairy animals.
Put your seatbelt on please.
Big mansion in north London, strap in !
I’ve been eating bananas….
We went past various sites in London.
As we drove past…..
I overhead all of this
This is a momentous moment in history.
I thought I didn’t have a chance.
We walked in the back of the studio…..
You must make two promises to me. Two promises which you must keep.
I can’t emphasize this point more seriously.
To be honest, I’m already getting curious about the animal at the end of the corridor.
Yes, I’m positive.
Are you certain?
Let’s move on with the story.
Leopard with no spots – I think it was a puma.
Zebra
Duck with a round head with no beak on the end.
What on earth could be behind this curtain !
I started to move the curtain back.
Sleeping upstairs in the loft.
I hadn’t seen one of those for donkey’s years.
Coin operated arcade machine
I put a coin in.
Never mind ! never mind ! Just google it.
The cages were so clean by the time I finished; you could see your own reflection on the floor.
There was this cage at the end of the corridor tempting me just by its presence.
I know you are fascinated.
But I resisted the temptation.
I wanted to move the curtains aside.
I didn’t do nothing.
I tip toed down the stair.
Tip toed through the basement.
I was absolutely stunned !
I couldn’t believe my eyes !
As pink as a lobster.
The fur of the gorilla looked so fine and so soft. I just really felt the urge to reach through the cage and touch its fur.
You have investigated enough.
I slept like a baby.
It doesn’t mean that I cried during the night and pissed myself – No.
Daniel was there whistling.
I’ve got to have another look.
Right there at the bars of the cage.
He held out his hand to me.
Gorilla was smiling at me with his big teeth.
To hell with the consequences !
I reached out my hand and touched the gorilla.
I touched him briefly on the back of the hand.
It was like a fur of the unicorn.
…….he did somersaults.
He started to pull / bend the bars open.
I ran out of the mansion.
I didn’t bother to get my stuff.
I could hear his steps pounding on the ground as he chased after me through the mansion.
I ran like my life depended on it.
I was sure this gorilla was gonna rip my head off !
I ran into the street.
I ran down the street.
May be I lost him
I took a left turn down an alleyway.
He was sprinting down the road after me.
I jumped on the bicycle.
I bombed down the hill.
Flying down the hill on the BMX bicycle.
I jumped onto the bus.
I acted all nonchalant.
He’ll lose me and wouldn’t notice.
He was smashing cars out of his way.
I nearly soiled my trousers.
I jumped out of the bus.
I dived into the underground.
I got up to the gates.
Couldn’t you have looked for your oyster card before you got here?
Managed to get down onto the platform.
Jumped on the train….
If I change at green park onto the Victoria line and I take the Victoria line sort of north bound and then go to Tottenham Hale. And from Tottenham hale I can jump on the overland which would take me to stansted airport.
Walked through the streets….
I kind of walked leisurely…..
On the tracks next to the train.
Train was going along the tracks.
He just mouthed – ” I’m gonna get you!”
Do you mind if I ask you what are you doing?
I’m mug him off !
I’m gonna get that geezer called Luke!
I went to the bank to borrow some money.
Would you like to take a seat?
How can I help you?
I’d like to borrow some money.
Well Luke, I’m sure you realize we can’t simply lend you all the money.
You are a humorous gentleman. You like to have a laugh.
If I wanted to I could make you say and do anything I wanted !
I think you are making it up.
You are gonna speak like a scouser.
All the money in 20 pound notes is a lot
How about a debit card?
He has nearly caught up with me now.
Out in the street again.
Got myself a coffee
I drank that.
Flying towards me on a skateboard.
I escaped down the street towards the airport on a scooter.
Got to the counter.
How did you know that I had all the money! Never mind that Luke! Never mind!
They don’t even let you bring water onto the plane.
Jumped onto the plane.
The plane taxied out on the run way.
I couldn’t be safer!
I’m flying to a new exotic location.
On the wing of airplane…..
The pink gorilla was holding onto the wing of the airplane.
Looking at me; staring at me; smiling with his big teeth.
He’s managed to catch up with me.
I managed to jump onto an iceberg.
Looked over my shoulder….
I jumped off the iceberg and jumped on another iceberg. And I kept jumping from iceberg to iceberg…..
He jumped over onto the iceberg and walked up towards me.
He extended his hand again…..
He just tapped me on the arm.
Tag ! You’re it !
Pink gorilla was just competitive, he just enjoyed playing games.
Why did I touch him in the first place!
I wish I had never done it in the first place.
So I stood up picked my self off the ground, brushed the snow off my trousers and I thought : Right ! I’m gonna get that gorilla !
I saw the pink gorilla getting onto the plane and so I leapt onto the wing. And the plane took off into the sunset.
And you’ve been listening to it ladies and gentleman.
May be there are aspects to the story I didn’t deal with. In which case…….
You have been listening to Luke’s English podcast.

TRANSCRIPT

The Pink Gorilla Story
by Luke Thompson
Transcript sent in by Andrzej from Poland – thank you Andrzej!
You’re listening Luke’s English Podcast. For more information visit teacherluke.podomatic.com. (now teacherluke.co.uk)
Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Luke’s English Podcast. I’m saying ‘Good morning’ because it’s the morning here where I am. While I’m recording this it’s the morning. Maybe it’s not the morning where you are. It could be, well, one of the other times of the day, maybe the afternoon or the evening or just the middle of the night. If it’s not the morning where you are then, you know, maybe, you know, you could just pause this and then wait until it is the morning and then just press play again so that when I say ‘Good morning’ to you at the beginning it makes sense. Okay? So, you could just do that because I don’t know what happens if someone says ‘good morning‘ to you when it’s not the morning. I don’t know what happens does…. Maybe the space time…, maybe it causes a rift in the space time continuum or something a bit like in ‘Back to the Future II’ and just all, everything kind of goes all wrong in space-time. If then that happens or just nothing happens at all. Perhaps someone just says to you ‘Good morning’ it’s not the morning. It’s the afternoon. We’ve just woken up, get a grip or something like that. But I think that’s probably the extend of it. I don’t think it’s more serious than that. Okay Luke, what are you talking about? Let me just say ‘Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night. Thank you very much for listening. I’m going to bed now. It’s been a pleasure, really has. Good night .’ No, no, no. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Of course, right, when you greet someone you can say ‘Good morning’, right? It’s like ‘Hello’. ‘Morning’. ‘Morning’. You can say ‘Good afternoon’. ‘Afternoon’. ‘Good afternoon’. ‘Good afternoon’. ‘How are you’. ‘I’m fine, thanks’. And you can say ‘Good evening’, right? So, ‘Good evening’. Would you say that… Would you say that to a friend? ‘Good evening’. Yes. If you went into a restaurant you might say
– Good evening. I’d like to book a table for two, please.
– Certainly sir. When would you like to book your table?
– Well, I’d like to book it for tomorrow evening, please.
– OK, how many people?
– Just, well, two. I did say two earlier on.
– That’s right, you did, didn’t you.
– Yes, so, can I just book the table please? I don’t have much time.
– Yes, certainly sir. How many people was it for?
– Two! Two! I’ve just said it! Twice now.
– OK. Sorry. You know, I’m very busy. I’ve had a very busy day. My brain isn’t working properly plus earlier on this afternoon someone said ‘Good morning’ to me and it confused me for the rest of the day. That’s why now I can’t get my head together but anyway, yes, you want to book a table. OK. How many people?
– Two people! For Christ’s sake. OK, look, I’ll go to Burger King. It’s all right. Never mind.
– Well, that’s, you know, that’s not necessary. We do burgers here.
– No, no, really, you are incapable of dealing with the booking so, I’m leaving.
– Well, sorry sir. You know, do come back. Come back another time perhaps.
…For example, OK? But you can say ‘Good morning’, ‘Good afternoon’, ‘Good evening’ but if you say ‘Good night’, that’s what you say before you go to bed, isn’t it, so, if you kind of meet someone at night ‘Good night’, then you have to immediately just turn around and go to bed, don’t you? Ha, ha, ha! Yes. So, don’t make that mistake listeners. Don’t, when you greet someone at night, don’t say ‘Good night’ as a way of saying hello. I don’t know why you’re meeting someone at night. What are you doing? What is this kind of secret meeting, secret night-time meeting you’re doing? I don’t know. Are you meeting someone to, maybe, I don’t know, maybe you’re, you know, buying something. You could be buying some illegal DVDs or something like that. You can imagine that sort of turning up
– All right. Yeah, all right. So, you’ve got the… You’ve got the stuff?
– Yeah, yeah, I’ve got the stuff. I’ve got it right here.
– Yeah, the stuff, right? You know, you know what I’m talking about, don’t you.
– Yeah, the stuff, of course, of course I know what you’re talking about… yeah.
– I just wanna make sure. What exactly do you mean by stuff here?
– What do we mean by stuff? We’re talking about… we’re talking about the puppies, right?
– Puppies? No, I’m not… I don’t wanna buy puppies. No, I wanna buy the DVDs.
– Oh right, yeah, of course! Well, of course, yes! I used ‘puppies’ as a code word for DVDs. You know, sometimes I call them ‘puppies’ because it seems a bit safer.
– Really? Are you sure? You’re sure that that’s a safe code word? Because if, let say, the police overheard you talking about dealing puppies I think they might be a bit concerned by that as well and then might follow you. In fact… in fact they have followed you and here they are. Great. Well done. You’re not very good at being secretive, are you?
So, then the police arrive (sirens, brakes)
– Excuse me gentlemen, can I enquire… can I make an enquiry as to the nature of this rendezvous in the middle of the night?
That’s a police officer.
– Yes officer. We were just meeting to… I was just buying some puppies from this guy.
– Buying puppies, oh I see. Well, I think you find that that contravenes section 134 of the Puppies Act which states that it is illegal to purchase or sell puppies after midnight. And so sir, I’m gonna have to put you under arrest. I can’t remember that phrase that I’m supposed to say. I think it goes something like ‘Please, remember that anything you do say can be taken against you in a court of law. You’re under arrest.’ Please, follow me down to the police station and bring the puppies because they’re cute. They might be quite nice to look at in the police station.
OK, right, so, that’s it. I’ve been arrested so, good night ladies and gentlemen. Thanks very much for listening and I’m now gonna go to jail or prison as you might say. Jail or prison. Let’s hope, let’s hope I’ve got a good lawyer and they can get me out of this mess. My dealer, my DVD dealer just ran away. They weren’t interested in him because I was the one who had the puppies. I didn’t even give him the money. He just gave me the puppies so, I guess I’ve got some puppies now but I think the police are gonna take them away. What are you talking about Luke?! I know you are thinking ‘What is happening in this episode? This is kind of random bollocks .’ Well, yeah, it is kind of random bollocks. Maybe that’s what I could call this episode ‘Luke’s Random Bollocks’. Although, I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to name an episode after my bollocks. I just think that’s not a clever move especially, you know, in the light of the fact that recently I’ve won this competition so, I expect… I’m getting more traffic, more people are coming to the site than normal. Probably people who work for Macmillan dictionaries, Cambridge dictionaries maybe Oxford dictionaries they all…, they may be checking me out. You know, these kind of very important people from the world of teaching English as a foreign language. You know, you can imagine some sort of academic director or some publishing director from Cambridge University who, you know, is checking out the Macmillan blog and he says – I see that a some young gentleman named Luke Thompson has won the Macmillan Dictionary Award for Best Blog 2012. Well, I think I shall…, I think I shall investigate this up-and-coming, go-getting podcaster and see what it’s all about. So, let’s have a look at some of the pedagogical techniques that he is using in the podcast. Maybe I can learn what fresh new approaches to teaching methodology are being used here. Hmmm, let’s have a look…OK… teacherluke.podomatic.com… Click. Luke’s Random Bollocks? What’s this?’ Maybe this is a revolutionary new method of teaching English as a foreign language. English through shit. I don’t know. Maybe that’s possible. English through nonsense. It’s… I mean, it could be possible because, I don’t know, it’s new, alright? Actually, I’m sure it’s not new. I’m sure I’m not the first English teacher in the world to just sort of have fun and expect other people to join in and as a result learn a load of stuff that they wouldn’t normally learn from textbooks or from things like the BBC Podcast because they have to be the BBC and they have to do things in a certain way. It has to be correct, has to be sort of slightly unnatural maybe whereas here at Luke’s English Podcast you’re getting the real thing, you’re just getting English as it actually happens, English as it really is spoken, not really edited very much, just sort of stream of consciousness English jazz cakes. I don’t know what that is ‘English jazz cakes’, I just made that up. But that’s… I suppose that’s what you are getting so, I hope that you enjoy my English jazz cakes or my random bollocks.

Hmm… yes, so, there was a point to this podcast and the point, one of the points for this episode, one of my objectives was just to kind of talk randomly like this and see what happens. That’s one of the objectives of the episode but one of the other objectives was to tell you a story, okay, tell you a story.

OK, now, first of all let me get back to the first point talking sort of randomly, talking without preparation. I’ve done episodes like this before without any preparation and for example I did one called ‘The Ice Cream Episode’. I did one called ‘The Cheese Episode’. I did one called, I believe it was called, ‘The Rotary Sushi Bar of English’ and I did ‘The A-Z of Random Nonsense’ so, the advantage of doing episodes like this for me is I don’t have to spend a lot of time in advance preparing lists of vocabulary or preparing scripts or doing research or anything like that. I don’t need to spend time doing that. And that’s good for me because I don’t have a lot of time even though I did win the 2012 award for best blog, and that’s two awards I’ve won now, even though I’ve won two awards in a row it doesn’t mean that I can just give up my day job. It doesn’t mean that I can just move into a huge mansion with a recording studio in it somewhere. I still have to try to find windows of time in my otherwise busy life to record episodes of the podcast. And recently my life has just been really busy. I’ve just had loads of different things going on. I’ve got, obviously, my full-time job, etc., etc. I don’t need to go into its lots of detail because I’ve talked about it before and you’re probably like ‘Yeah, Luke, yeah (yawning). Same old story, yeah, you don’t have much time etc., etc. Just keep talking, please.’ So, okay. So, that’s kind of a bit of justification as to why for me, I like doing these episodes were I don’t prepare and I just talk.

Secondly, it’s kind of fun to have a challenge for me. I like the challenge of having to speak like this without, you know, preparing. For me it’s kind of a challenge. I like the opportunity just to talk and not really know where I’m going to go next. It’s quite fun because I can be creative and I can kind of improvise situations and hopefully create some entertaining stuff for you to listen to.

What else…? Also hopefully it’s kind of engaging to listen to. It should be quite interesting to listen to because, you know, if you…, I must say I’m guilty of this, if you write a script and then read the script it somehow becomes kind of dull and boring. Maybe it’s because English which is written is different to English which is spoken. So, written English, English that’s written in books or magazines or newspapers or blog articles, it has a certain rhythm or certain style to it, which is good for written English, right? But when you actually speak and try to get the attention of people it’s better when it’s just completely improvised because it’s somehow has a bit more drama in it, because you know that the speaker doesn’t really know what he’s gonna say next. So, it’s what’s just happening right now. It’s happening in real time and it makes it more natural sounding. So, that I think is good for you, in fact, for several reasons. One reason it’s good for you is because it sounds more natural so, it’s good practice for you to listen to. It’s just very good practice for you to train your ear to the rhythm and the sound of natural English as it comes out of a person’s mouth. In this case the person is me. And another reason why it is good for you is hopefully it’s just fun. It’s just more fun to listen to and it’s just a laugh, a bit of a laugh. You know what I mean. So, going back, what the other points I was making. My other objective for this episode. My other objective is just to tell you a story and I’m going to start telling the story in a moment. Just as an introduction to the story let me tell you a little bit about it.

OK, so this is a story I’m gonna tell you and I’m… It’s a kind of a challenge for me again. I’m gonna try to tell you a story which… I’ll tell you a story which I hope you will enjoy and basically I haven’t planned this story so I’m making it up as I go along. I hope that you’re gonna find it funny and I think I’m gonna start the story now. Oh yeah. I’m gonna try to make it as long as possible, that’s it. I’m gonna try to make the story as long as I can. Now I’ve been speaking for 15 minutes. Let’s see how long I can make this story. Okay. I’m gonna also try and throw in some characters into the story so you might hear some different accents and different characters but just bear in mind the fact that I’ve got no idea really where the story is going. I’m just making it all up as I go along. So, bear that in mind. If the story doesn’t make a lot of sense then I apologize. It’s because it’s just kind of random bollocks, OK? Hopefully, you’ll enjoy it and hopefully, it will be very good practice for your ears. Okay, so, let’s begin the story, shall we? Yes, let’s begin the story.

Alright. …take a couple of breaths. …to take a deep breath…okay. Are we ready? OK, I’ll start telling the story in just a moment. I hope that you’re sitting comfortably. Maybe you’re standing. Maybe you’re walking. Whatever it is you’re doing, whatever position your body is in I hope it’s comfortable because the story is gonna begin now. Maybe you’re in bed. Maybe you’re lying there and thinking ‘Come on Luke. Tell me some stuff. Make me fall asleep’. Well, that shouldn’t be too difficult because… Yes maybe what I’m gonna say.. well just be so dull and so boring that you’ll be asleep. Maybe you’ve already fallen asleep. That’s quite possible. If you’re driving a car than, you know, I suggest you open your eyes. That’s normally the way it’s done. It’s best generally to open your eyes when you’re in control of a huge metal killing machine. So, please, be careful when you’re driving, okay? If you’re in bed though, you know, you can close your eyes. That’s fine. That is fine unless you want to open them. Maybe you’re scared of the dark. I don’t know. Anyway the story, the story. Here we go. So, I’m going to tell you a story about my life. It’s not true. It’s just made up. OK? Just to be clear. This is completely made up. Right, so…

A few years ago, well, let’s see, a few years ago I was living in London and I hit some hard times. Life got a bit difficult for me. I lost my job because I was just too good at it. My boss said to me – Luke, can I have a word with you, please? – I was in the middle of a lesson at the time. I was teaching. I was saying – So, present perfect tense is a tense which is used when the action is finished possibly but the time period is not finished and also, but, there is an exception to that rule – and my boss just came into the room (knock, knock, knock) – Ehm… excuse me, Luke. Hello everyone, hello class, hello students – The students were like – Hello – because they were Spanish. – Hello Luke, can I have a word with you, please? – And so, I had to say – Sorry class, just, you know, do page 3 of English Grammar in Use. Just do it, OK? Do it! Shut up! Don’t give me any back-chat – Maybe that’s why I lost my job because I used to tell the students to ‘shut up’. Haha! Actually, you know what? I never ever tell my students to ‘shut up’ because as an English language teacher you can’t do that. That’s like one of the worst things you can do. It’s worse to tell the students to ‘shut up’ than it is to tell them to ‘fuck off’, actually. Because ‘shut up’ is just like the rudest thing you can say in a language classroom in my opinion. Anyway. So, I said – OK students. You know what? Just do some work, alright? I’ll be back in a minute. I’ve got to speak to the boss. Obviously he’s got something very important to say to me because I’m kind of big deal around here, OK? So, do some work. See you in a minute –

So, I went out and the boss said to me – Luke, listen, I’m really sorry but we’re gonna have to let you go – I said – What? You’re gonna have to let me go? Yeah, I’m afraid so. We’re gonna have to let you go because, well, quite frankly, you can’t just give students pages from English Grammar in Use and tell them to ‘shut up’ and ‘do it’. You can’t do that! OK? Because… Why not? Why can’t I do that? Well, because… I don’t really know why but I just… I just know, I just know that you can’t do that. I don’t know. My training, years ago told me something about the fact that yeah, ‘you should try to use communicative methods. You should try to engage students in speaking exercises. You should give them regular feedback and just don’t tell them to shut up or fuck off, OK? It’s just a general rule, a rule of thumb for, well, for life. Don’t tell people to shut up or to…, you know.’ So, you know, I’m afraid Luke, we’re gonna have to let you go. So, sorry. Pack your bags. Get out! You’re fired! – So, obviously I was devastated – Oh, my God, I’m fired! I love my job – And then I realised – Wait a minute. I can just do what the hell I want now. Sure, I won’t have money or food but I’ll have my freedom – And so, I went back into class and I said – OK everyone. Well, It’s been a pleasure teaching you. I’ve been Luke Thompson and I still am and I really hope that you learn this language effectively and you go out there and improve the economy, OK? Good luck! I’ve been fired. Don’t, you know, don’t, don’t act too upset about that. Hello!? Are you actually listening?! Hello!? Yeah, I’m going now, OK? I’m going, yeah? Fine. OK, if you don’t care, that’s fine – In fact, there were once the students understood the situation. They were like – What?! You’re going?! Where?! How?! Why?! How?! Well, on foot, probably. Why?! Why?! I’ve been fired. My boss just fired me because I told you to ‘shut up’, remember? Oh, but Luke, you didn’t mean it? It was… Hey, Luke! Hey! – For some reason my students were all from Brooklyn – But Luke, you didn’t mean it? Hey, come on! What’s the matter with you? – All my students were from New York, Brooklyn or the Bronx. They were all Italian Americans which is kinda strange, I know but this is a part of the mafia training programme that they have over there. They have like a special mafia training budget which they can spend on things like, you know, methods of threatening people or money counting techniques and also English lessons. And so, all my students were Latin Italian American gangsters – Hey Luke! What’re you talking about?! Come on! What’s the matter with you?! You’ve been fired? Screw this guy! Who’s this guy, huh?! Come on! – And so, I said – Look guys, I’m really sorry, you know. Good luck with all of the, you know, the assassinations and the robberies and the extortion. Good luck with that, but I’m out of here, OK? See you guys later – And they would like – Hey Luke! Come on! Get out of here! Go out! Go away! – And so, that’s it.

So, I went out into the street, took a breath of fresh air, started coughing because, you know, this was London and the Oxford street, it’s not exactly fresh air, is it. No, it’s not. It’s not really. And so, and that’s it. I had my freedom. So, I just started walking the streets. Just walking around, just walking around, you know, moving one foot in front of the other. Right foot first usually then the left foot and just repeating that motion and sort of… I don’t know quite how we change direction while we’re walking. I think there’s subtle movements of the legs to the left and the right which allows us to turn but I would basically do that a lot of that all over London walking around, looking at the sights, you know. I got to see some of the most amazing sights in London: McDonalds, Starbucks, just the corner of Oxford street, H&M. Just some of London’s most famous attractions. Let’s see what else was there? There was Boot’s the Chemist’s, Marks & Spencer and of course things like Buckingham Palace and Big Ben, the London Eye. All of these things that I just couldn’t afford to actually visit. But I looked at them and I thought ‘This, this Luke, this is London’ and it was because, because I was in London. Yes, now, moving the story on, OK, so, I would, I would move, I would walk around the streets all day and all night just thinking what’s gonna happen to me ‘I’m homeless, I’m hungry’. I would go into supermarkets and just stare at food because I didn’t have any money to buy the food, so, I would stare at all the food on the shelf and just eat, just eat sandwiches with my eyes, you know, I’d just eat them with my eyes. But it wasn’t very satisfying because as you probably know, as you probably have learnt in your life you can’t, you can’t eat sandwiches with your eyes. You can’t really eat anything with your eyes, I think. As far as I know, I think, you can’t eat anything with your eyes but I tried. Oh boy did I try! I tried to eat, you know, mushrooms, spaghetti. Pretty much all the food I tried to eat with my eyes but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t eat any of the food with my eyes, so sometimes I had to steal, I had to steal. You know, I admit it. I was desperate. I was hungry and so, I stole a banana and I would go to the supermarkets and steal bananas. I found the bananas one of the most effective fruit to steal because what you can do is you just take the banana and then as soon as you’ve got the banana in your hand and just pretend that you’re receiving a telephone call. So, you have a banana in your hand and just go (prr, prr) ‘Oh, looks like I’m getting a call here on my yellow mobile phone!’ And then you just sort of bring the banana up to your ear and just start talking ‘Yeah, hello. Yes, yes, yes it’s me. Yes, well, that’s right. How can I help you? This is the banana hot-line. How can I help you? Yes. Yes, I think so. Yes, you should. No. No, you shouldn’t really… No, you shouldn’t really do that with a banana. No. No. No. I know. I know the shape of the banana makes you think that you could do that but seriously you shouldn’t because, well, bananas are a bit too soft, actually, for that despite the shape. That’s too soft so, you shouldn’t do it. No. You shouldn’t put it in there. No. Because it’s too soft. You might not be able to get it out, right? OK. No. No. Put it in your mouth. That’s right. Eat it. Eat it. That’s what you’re supposed to do with the banana. OK? Good’ And then I’d just keep talking like this on the banana phone and walk out of the supermarket with the banana to my ear and all of the staff in the shop would look at me and they would like ‘What’s going on? What’s going on there? Oh, it’s just a man talking on the mobile phone. Nothing to see here’ And I would just walk out of the shop with the banana phone like that and then I would have the banana. But sometimes what I would do I’d forget that it was a banana and I would think that I was making a telephone call. I’d try to call, you know, I’d try to call my parents on the banana and then after half an hour of attempting to make a telephone call on the banana I would realise ‘Oh my God, what am I doing?!’ And then I’d eat the banana. And then I’d be OK. 28:20

So, that’s how I survived. I’d just move from supermarket to supermarket doing the banana phone trick until eventually, you know, I was desperate, you know, I just couldn’t eat bananas anymore. I was sick of them and didn’t matter how many times I tried to call the banana hot-line no one answered because it didn’t exist. It didn’t even exist! It was all in my imagination so, I’d started begging on the streets and I would sit on the street and I would say ‘Excuse me, excuse me sir. Can you spare ten p? I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, you know, I’m a Cockney for some reason now. Can you, can you spare me ten p, governor, for a cup of tea?’ For some reason the Cockney accent helped. People all were like ‘Ah! It’s just a poor young Cockney, maybe a chimney sweep or something and he needs some money because he is, he is hungry. So, excuse me squire, you couldn’t spare a couple of pounds for a dear old Cockney. He’s got nothing, no money to his name’ And they would like give me some money and I’d go down to Marks & Spencer and buy some quality sandwiches. OK, so that’s how I survived.

And one day, one day this strange looking gentleman approached me in the street, strange looking gentleman. He was dressed in, like, a suit. He was dressed in suit with a top hat. He had a monocle. That’s like a, you know, like a pair of glasses but with only one lens and you kind of hold it in your eye. So, he had one of those, he had a monocle and a moustache and a top hat and a suit and he was like a very posh gentleman. And he came up to me and said – Excuse me, young gentlemen. Young beggar – I was young at the time – Beggar, Mr beggar, I don’t know what your name is. I’m gonna call you Mr beggar. I’m using ‘Mr’ as a polite term of respect. Mr Beggar, how can I help you? You seem hungry. You seem desperate and tired. Would you like a job? – And I said to him – Wow! That’s amazing! First of all my name is Luke. – He said – Ah, Luke. Thank you. Thank you. It’s, it’s… You know, I always think that it is good to be on first name terms with homeless people – And so, I said – I’d love a job. What’s, what’s the job? – He said – Come with me to my mansion in North London and I’ll show you everything – And I said – You’re gonna show me everything?! Like everything?! No, no. Don’t misunderstand Luke. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m gonna show you everything related to this job offer. Ah! Right! OK! Great. Well, let’s go. Let’s go to North London.

So, we immediately… I don’t know… His name was… Let’s see… what was his name. I said to him – Excuse me, just before I agree to accompany you to your mansion maybe we should just introduce ourselves and get acquainted. And I’ll start: hello, my name’s Luke and I’m an English language teacher. I recently got fired because of a misunderstanding. My boss thought I was being rude to my students. Ridiculous! And so, he fired me. It was all a big misunderstanding. I wasn’t being rude. I wasn’t. It was… I don’t know how to explain it because it’s just improvisation. But, you know, I wasn’t being rude. Essentially, it’s because I was teaching Italian mafia bosses English and, you know, you’ve got to communicate them, you’ve got to communicate with them in the language that they understand and that’s often with a lot of swear words, sort of rude, aggressive communicative styles so, I was just, you know, adapting my teaching style for my class. But my boss overheard me telling my students to ‘shut up’ and he fired me. He fired me. He fired me from my job and so, I was on the street. So, that’s my position. I also do a podcast called ‘Luke’s English Podcast’ which won the MacMillan award for best blog in 2011 and in 2012(!) so, you know, I’m good, I’m a good person and I’m nice and… yeah. So, that’s me. My name’s Luke. It’s very nice to meet you. And what about you sir? What’s your name sir, with a moustache and a monocle and a hat? Sir! Please, sir! Please, sir. Sir! What’s your name, sir?! Can you tell me what’s your name is, please, sir?! – And he said – Just Luke please, just give me a chance to speak – Sorry, I forgot I have the posh accent – So, my name is Daniel Lazenby-Smythe, Daniel Lazenby-Smythe. That’s right and I’m very, very posh. I’m quite possibly the poshest man in London and it is a pleasure to make you acquaintance, Mr Luke. Actually, it’s Mr Thompson, Luke Thompson. Ah! I do apologize, Mr Thompson, it’s a pleasure to make you acquaintance.

So, wow, Daniel Lazenby-Smythe, what do you do if you don’t mind me asking? What do you do? Well, Luke, I am a collector. I’m a collector of rare endangered animal species. Wow! Wow! That sounds interesting. Rare endangered animal species. What’s that? What are they? What is it? What are you talking about, Daniel?! Help! Well, rare endangered animal species, what I do is I travel the globe with a huge truck and I travel around and I search for endangered animal species. These are animals which are very rare, animals which are in danger, animals which are under threat. And I collect them and I put them in the back of the van and I take them to London and then I keep them in my mansion. So, wait a minute, Daniel. So, basically, you steal rare animals from other countries? Yes, basically yes, Luke. That’s what I do. I just steal animals. But I’m not sure about the ethics of that. Isn’t that a little bit ethically questionable? Well, you know, you probably do have a point, Luke but… never mind that. Let’s just keep moving forward with the story, shall we? Yeah, good idea. OK. Right. So, let’s get in a taxi and let me show you my furry animals. OK. Great!

So, we got into a taxi (car’s noise) That’s… (car’s noise) got in the taxi (car’s noise) and, you know, I started doing this (car’s noise) and Daniel said to me – Luke, why, why are you making that strange noise? (car’s noise) Because, well, isn’t that what you do when you get into a taxi? You know, you sit down, you put your sit belt on, you tell the driver where you want to go ‘The mansion, please. The big mansion in North London’ and the driver goes Right you are, governor. Big mansion in North London. Here we go. Strap in’ and then you go (car’s noise), don’t you? – And Daniel said – No. No, Luke. No. That’s really… That’s not necessary to be honest with you. Not necessary at all – And I said – Well, Daniel, this is my story. I can do what the hell I want. It’s my story. Fine, fine, Luke. Yes, you go ahead. You sit there in a taxi, next to me making a noise like a crazy person and fine. You just do whatever you want to do. If you think that it’s right, go ahead. After all you did win those awards and everything so you must know what you’re doing. I do, Daniel, I do. I know what I’m doing even though I’ve got fired from my job and I’ve been eating bananas and pretended that they’re telephones and things like that, but I know what I’m doing, OK? Trust me, I’m an English teacher .

OK, so (car’s noise) off we went to the mansion and we went past various impressive sights in London, driving along the roads. We drove past Abbey Road Studios because that’s in North London and as we drove past I noticed there were The Beatles, The Beatles were just standing there outside the studio. All four of them! That’s right. Even John Lennon despite the fact he is actually dead, in this story he was there. He was actually there. So the four Beatles were there and… let’s see… Ringo was there. Ringo was saying – OK then Beatles, let’s go into the studio and record a new album – And Paul was like – OK, all right John, Ringo, George (Ooooh!) let’s go into the studio, shall we, and record a new album – And George was sort of saying, let’s see, George – OK, Paul, if you want us to go into the studio we’ll go into the studio. If you don’t want us to go in, we won’t go in – And Paul was – You know, actually, George, I think we should go into the studio because (Ooooh!) it’ll be, it’ll be great, you know, it’ll be like, you know, Sergeant Pepper – And then John said – OK, McCartney, I think you’ve got a good idea. Let’s go into the studio and record us another album – And, so, I overheard all of this as I went past Abbey Road Studios in the taxi and I just watched them walking into the studio and I thought ‘Oh my God, this is a momentous moment, if that’s possible. This is a momentous moment in history. The Beatles have got back together. John Lennon has come back from the dead. They’re going into the studio. They’re going to record a new album. This is amazing’ But I didn’t really have a chance to stop the taxi and go into the studio and listen to the music. I thought I didn’t have a chance. It turns out I did because I said to Daniel – Daniel! Daniel! Wait! Let’s turn around the taxi. I just saw The Beatles going into the studio to record a new album, a new Beatles album. We’ve got to go and listen – And Daniel said – Well, certainly Luke, after all this is your story. You can do whatever the hell you want and I’m sure you will – And so, we turned around the taxi. We went back to the studio and we walked in and… just… sort of walked into the back of the studio and sat down got ready to listen to genius in action and this is what we heard:

Singing, singing a song
Beatles, we’re the Beatles
And we’re geniuses
We haven’t lost our talent at all
Because we’re still The Beatles, genius

And then I thought ‘Is that it? Is that, is that what they’re recording? That is terrible! How on Earth, how on Earth could they expect that to be successful?’ – And so, we just left because it was so rubbish. Obviously, they’d just lost it. They’d lost all their talent somewhere along the line so… Anyway, we got back into the taxi, went to the mansion. So, we got to the mansion and Daniel Lazenby-Smythe said – OK Luke – in a posh voice – OK Luke, what I’m going to do now is I’m going to show you my collection of endangered animals. OK? But you must make two promises to me, two promises which you must keep. Promise number one is that you do not touch any of the animals and promise number two is you definitely don’t touch the animal in the cage at the end of the corridor. OK? Don’t touch the animal in the cage at the end of the corridor. I can’t emphasise this point more seriously. Please, don’t touch any of the animals especially the one in the cage at the end of the corridor – and I thought ‘OK’ – All right Daniel, I agree to your terms. I won’t touch any of the animals especially the animal at the end of the corridor. Now, to be honest, I’m already getting curious about the animal at the end of the corridor and I’m sure that the listeners are getting curious about it too. Listeners, Luke? What are you talking about? Listeners, there’re people listening to this. There’re People, People listening to this?! Are you sure? Yes, I’m positive. I get two to three thousand downloads every day. A lot of people in the world listen to this. Lots of people listen to this? Are you…, are you certain? It seems like absolute meaningless crap. Luke, are you sure? Yep, I’m sure. People love this stuff. OK? So, just, yeah. Anyway, people are listening so, please, let’s move on with the story. Yes, yes, OK. Don’t touch any of the animals especially… Yeah, I’ve got it. …the one at the end of the corridor. Fine!

OK – So, we went downstairs. We went into the mansion. We went downstairs into the basement and that’s where he kept his zoo, his zoo of endangered animals, and he showed me… He showed me all the animals. There was a kind of a three-headed zebra, three-headed zebra. That’s right. There was a leopard which had no spots. A leopard, of course, is a kind of a big cat. So, leopard with no spots. I think it was a puma to be honest. There was also a duck without a beak, a duck without a beak. Poor thing, but it looked strange. Who really did it. Was it like a duck? But just like a round head with no beak on the end. Pretty weird. All sorts of amazing animals and then finally we got to the end of the corridor and there was a cage at the end with black curtains covering the cage so I couldn’t see what was inside. I couldn’t see but I… I kind of approached the curtains and I listened and I could hear heavy breathing (breathing, snoring). Then that I thought ‘Oh my God, what is in there? I can’t wait to see it’ (breathing, snoring, whistling, mutter, singing “Love me do”) ‘What on Earth could be behind this curtain? This is amazing’ so, I started to move the curtain back, started to move the curtain back because I wanted to see what kind of weird animal was inside this cage. What kind of fantastic creature could there be in there? I started to move the curtain and Daniel Lazenby -Smyth noticed me, said – Luke! Stop! Stop! Do not move the curtain! Do not move the curtain! – So, I said – OK, Sorry Daniel, sorry – And he said – Right, with that I think we should go to bed – And I said – Really? We’re gonna go to bed? Yes, let’s go to bed – And I said – Well, I didn’t realise that that was a part of the deal. I didn’t realise that that’s what we’d have to do. No Luke, No, you misunderstand. I’ve… You’ve got your own bedroom. Oh God! Thanks God for that! No Luke, you’ve got your own bedroom. You’ll be sleeping upstairs in the loft. I’ll be sleeping in my bedroom, which is in another wing of the house. Nothing to worry about – So, with that we went to our bedrooms and everything. I went upstairs and there was my room. It was fantastic. It was great. There was like a big comfortable bed and an arcade machine in the corner, an old Street Fighter II arcade machine. I hadn’t seen one of those for donkey’s years. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a Street Fighter II arcade machine so, I went over and there on the side there was a pile of coins which Daniel had thoughtfully left for me and a note, a note written in Daniel’s handwriting. And it said
Luke,
I know that you’re a big fan of computer games and so I’ve left you this coin operated arcade machine of Street Fighter II Championship Edition and here’re some coins so you can play the game.
So, I put the coins in, I put a coin in and started playing, and I, you know, it asked me to choose my fighter. I chose Ken because he’s the best. And so, I started playing (game’s noises). If you don’t know what I’m talking about this is a… this is a computer game, a famous computer game called Street Fighter II. And I played Street Fighter II for ages. (Ha-Do Ken!) is what one of the characters says. Yes. I’m not gonna talk about that because it’s boring for most of you because I expect most of you have never played Street Fighter II. I think some of you have. Some of you probably know Street Fighter II and you love it and you’re going ‘Yes! Awesome! I can’t believe Luke is talking about Street Fighter II Championship Edition! Brilliant!’ But then the rest of you are going ‘What is Luke talking about? I’ve got no idea what Street Fighter II Championship Edition is. What does this thing keep saying (game’s noises) then never mind. OK? Never mind. Google it ‘Street Fighter II Championship Edition Ken’. Just google that then you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Right. So, I went to bed. I slept so well. Oh my God, I slept amazingly and I woke up in the morning all fresh and Daniel Lazenby-Smyth gave me some jobs to do. He got me to clean the cages of these animals. I cleaned them didn’t touch any of them, no, cleaned the cages. I was cleaning all day. He gave me a sandwich for lunch. Oh, I was happy, and a banana. And I cleaned the cages, cleaned the cages again, cleaned again. These cages was so clean by the time I finished that you could see your own reflection on the floor. That’s how clean they were. I cleaned them into like glass they were so clean. I mean these were wooden cages and I cleaned them so much that they became like glass. Yeah. Pretty amazing, isn’t it? And yeah, and there was that cage and the end of the corridor tempting me just by its presence. Just tempting me, asking me ‘Luke, why don’t you come and look inside the cage? I know you’re fascinated.’ But I, you know, I didn’t… I resisted the temptation. It was very difficult. I wanted to look. I wanted to move the curtains aside. I wanted to have a look inside. I wanted to see what this animal was but I could still hear the noises making (breathing, snoring, whistling, singing “Love me do”) It was very weird, very, very weird indeed. But I resisted the temptation I went back upstairs went to bed. That night I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about the animal in the cage downstairs. And you know what I did, listeners? You know what I did? I did nothing. No, I didn’t do nothing. I got up I got out of bed and I tiptoed very quietly, silently. I tiptoed down the stairs and tiptoed through the basement past all of these animals which were all sleeping. There was the zebra, you know, making a sort of zebra noise (zebra’s noise) That’s what zebras do when they’re sleeping but it had three heads so it was like (three genuine zebra’s noises) three heads. The duck with no beak just going (quack) because it couldn’t… can’t really quack properly, the duck, because it didn’t have a beak. It was like sort of going (quack) in its sleep. And the leopard and all that stuff, right? And I got to the end of the corridor and thought ‘Right, I don’t care what Daniel said. I don’t care anymore. I just want to see what is in this cage.’ So, I slowly moved the curtains to one side, slowly moved them to one side and there at the back of the cage was a huge, pink gorilla. Just a huge, pink gorilla sleeping and it had a radio as well listening to The Beatles, actually. So, there was a huge pink gorilla sleeping and I was stunned. I was absolutely stunned. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This massive gorilla. Pink! As pink as something is really pink. As pink as a lobster or as pink as just the colour pink. If you can imagine a page in a book and a child has coloured it pink with a pink pen? It was pink like that. Do you know like the way pink is pink? Well, this gorilla was really pink. OK? And I just thought ‘Oh my God! This is amazing’ and the fur of the gorilla looked so fine and so soft. I just really felt the urge to like reach through the cage and touch its fur. And then I suddenly realised ‘No! Daniel specifically asked me not to touch this animal. So, no, I’m not gonna touch it’ I really wanna touch it. I really wanna know how it feels like but I couldn’t. So, I decided ‘No, Luke. No. You’ve done enough tonight. You’ve investigated enough. It’s time to go to bed’ So, I closed the curtains. I tiptoed back upstairs, tiptoed up the stairs again and then went back to bed and I slept like a baby. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t… I slept like a baby. That means that I slept very well. It doesn’t mean that I kind of cried during my sleep and pissed myself, no. It just means that I had a very good night sleep. I slept like a baby. In the morning I was happy. I was happy. I cleaned the cages effectively, I cleaned them really well that all the animals were happy, that zebra with three heads, the duck without a beak, the leopard with no spots which could also be a puma. And I didn’t look inside the cage because Daniel was there, you know. Daniel was there, whistling (whistling). Because that’s what he does, Daniel. You probably don’t know but during the day he just whistles. He just sits there enjoying his animal collection and whistling (whistling) in a kind of 1950’s sort of way (whistling) Because no one whistles like that anymore, no one except Daniel Lazenby-Smythe because he is old fashioned and that’s just way he is. And so, I didn’t think about the pink gorilla, didn’t think about it at all until the end of the day, the end of the day. Suddenly when my work was done I remembered ‘Luke, what about that pink gorilla, though? What about the pink gorilla?’ And I thought ‘God, I’ve got to have another look’ because it was so amazing. So, after Daniel had gone to bed I went down the corridor and I, more confident this time, more confident because I knew what was inside, opened the curtains and the gorilla was right there in front of me, right there at the bars of the cage and he went – Hello – like that. And I went ‘Oh!’ like that, shocked. And he held out his hand to me. Held out his hand and I knew that he wanted me to touch his hand. Right? I thought ‘This, this doesn’t look so bad. It’s quite friendly’ The gorilla was smiling at me with these big teeth like that holding his hand out and I thought you know what? ‘I’m gonna… I’m gonna do it. I don’t care about Daniel Lazenby-Smythe. I just don’t care anymore, damn it! I’m gonna touch this gorilla. To hell with the consequences’ And so, I reached out my hand and I touched the gorilla. And his… just… I touched him briefly on the back of the hand and his fur was incredibly soft. It was like a fur of a unicorn. It was so soft. But this huge gorilla suddenly, soon as I touched him, suddenly started to go crazy. He started to shake the bars of the cage. He started to go round around, jump up and down. He did somersaults and I thought ‘Oh my God! What have I done? What have I done?’ And immediately the gorilla started to pull the bars open. He started to bend the bars open with this crazy look in his eyes, pull the bars open I thought ‘Oh my God! What have I done?! I’ve got to get out of here! I’ve got to get out of here!’ in an American accent. Suddenly I became like a kind of an American movie and I thought ‘Oh my God! Get out of there!’ So, I ran. I just ran. I ran out of the mansion. I didn’t bother to get any of my stuff. I couldn’t, I couldn’t because behind me the gorilla was running and I could hear his footsteps pounding on the ground as he chased after me through the mansion. So, I was running through the corridors of the mansion ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to run away. This gorilla’s gonna get me’ And I ran and ran. I could hear (footsteps) this gorilla coming towards me. So, I ran like my life depended on it because I w
as sure this gorilla was gonna rip my head off or something like that. So, I just kept running. I ran out into the street and I ran, ran down the street. I turned around ‘Maybe’ I thought ‘Maybe the gorilla… Maybe I lost him because I sort of took left turn there down an alleyway Maybe the gorilla, you know, has lost me…’ and I turned around but ‘…no. The gorilla hadn’t lost me’ In there it was sprinting down the road after me in a kind of gorilla style, you know, using his hands and his feet running after me and I… I just thought ‘Oh my God! What’s going on?!’ and then so, I ran. I ran for it and I found a bicycle on the side of the road. Just a bicycle had been left so I jumped on a bicycle and I accelerated. I bombed down the hill flying down the hill on this BMX bicycle and eventually I got down into the centre of the town an looked around and there was the pink gorilla. But he was on a bicycle too. I don’t know where he found it. He was flying down the road after me and so, I thought ‘Oh my God. I’m gonna neeed to find another form of transport.’ So, I quickly jumped onto a bus. I jumped onto one of those red London busses and I went upstairs and I kind of acted all nonchalant as if nothing was happening ‘So, I’m just… I’m just getting on a bus, nothing to worry about, just an ordinary passenger on this lovely red London bus. I’m just gonna sit here and act like nothing’s wrong, everything’s fine, everything’s absolutely fine. Maybe if I act normal the gorilla will sort of forget who I am and he’ll lose me, he won’t notice, right?’ So, I sat there and I started checking my emails on my phone and I kind of sat there for a while thinking ‘Ah, the gorilla probably doesn’t know where I am. I’m OK. After all I’m on a red London bus. It’s safe. Everything is OK.’ I looked out of the window and looked behind us down the street and immediately I saw the gorilla. And this gorilla was chasing the bus. He was chasing after the bus. He was smashing cars out of his way, just bang! Smashing these cars, taxies, black taxies, vans, trucks, just smashing them all out of his way in his mission to get me. And, you know, I nearly soiled my trousers, I’ll be honest, because I thought that everything was all right, but not. It wasn’t. The gorilla was more determined to get me than ever. He was just chasing after me. So, I just jumped out of the… jumped out of the bus and I thought ‘I’m gonna need to… I’m gonna need to get on another form of transport. So, I, sort of, dived into the Underground and I was in such a rush. I got up to the gates. I got up to the ticket gates but, of course, there was this woman in front of me. She couldn’t find her Oyster card. She was checking her pockets and I was like – Come on! Come on! For God sake, There’s a huge pink gorilla chasing after me! He’s gonna kill me. Can you just get through the gates, please? – And the woman was like – Excuse me, Excuse me, but I’m trying… I’m trying to find my Oyster card. I don’t need you. I don’t need you like telling me what to do, yeah? I don’t care if that pink gorilla chasing after you. I can’t find my Oyster card. Ah, look, sorry, but couldn’t you’ve looked for your Oyster card before you got here? This is the worst place to be. Didn’t you listen to my podcast about using the Underground? You shouldn’t, you know, you shouldn’t do this. You should be prepared when you get to the gates. You should have your Oyster card ready. No, look, Luke, you know, I know you… I know you’ve done a podcast about that but I don’t care right now. I don’t care, do I? I just don’t care, yeah? Yeah, I get the message. I think that you don’t really care. Fine. Never mind –

So, I went to the next gate and I got my Oyster card and I went through, managed to go down to the platform. The train came in. I jumped on the train and the train left and the announcement said – This is a Cockfosters… – No, the announcement said – This is a Piccadilly line train to Cockfosters calling at South Kensington and Piccadilly Circus – And so, I thought ‘Right. Good. I’m on a Piccadilly line going to Cockfosters. What am I gonna do? I guess I can go to… I can probably go to Stansted Airport if I change at Green Park onto a Victoria line and I take a Victoria line northbound and then go to Tottenham Hale. And from Tottenham Hale I can jump on the overland which would take me to Stansted Airport. And then I can just get a plane out of here and that pink gorilla is never gonna find me – So, I am, you know, I did that, took the Underground and I thought ‘This is fine. The gorilla can’t chase me on the Underground. This is fine. No problem’ And for a while I thought everything was all right. I thought ‘I’ve got a plan. Everything’s gonna be fine’ I changed onto the Victoria line. I went through to Tottenham Hale station, got out, walked through the streets ‘Nothing. No pink gorilla’ Everything was fine. Everything was calm ‘Nothing to worry about’ And so, I kind of walked leisurely in a relaxed way. I walked to the station to get the overland train, got the overland train, sat down, relaxed. I thought ‘This is gonna be nice. I’m gonna go on holiday somewhere. This is gonna be great’ I was just relaxing, sitting back in my seat. I looked to my right and there on the tracks next to the train, as the train was going along the tracks, then on the next set of tracks, there was the ****kin’ pink gorilla. There he was and he was on one of those like mechanical train things, you know those things, this is like a platform with a kind of metal handle, metal bar in the middle which you can lift up and down and it’s sort of… it’s a mechanical device which allows you to travel along the train tracks just by moving this bar up and down. So, he was on the one of those things moving it up and down, up and down, flying along next to the train. And I was so shocked. I just looked at him. I just couldn’t stop looking at him and the gorilla turned to me just there on the tracks, you know, flying along the tracks, moving the bar up and down. He turned to me and he just mouthed ‘I’m gonna get you. I’m gonna get you’ he mouthed. Understandably I was shocked and I was afraid. And… Hoooo! Dear, that was frightening so, what happened was I got out of the train near the airport and I realised ‘Oh my God, I don’t have any money’. While I was doing this I didn’t know what the pink gorilla was doing. He was probably putting the train platform mechanical device thing somewhere. Probably, maybe, maybe he had to deal with a member of train staff – Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me Mr Gorilla, Mr Pink Gorilla, do you mind if I ask you what you are doing? That is British Rail property. You’re not supposed to be touching that – And the gorilla probably went – I don’t care, squire. I don’t care what you think because I’m a bloody pink gorilla, yeah? I am on a mission to get that geezer over there called Luke Thompson. I’m gonna get him. Yeah, I’m gonna get him. I’m gonna… I’m gonna mug him right off. You will see, my friend – And so, that guy said – OK, sorry. You’re a bit frightening and a little bit scary and you’re huge pink gorilla. Im’ not gonna… I’m not gonna give you any trouble, in fact. I know, would you like a banana? I don’t eat any bananas, mate. I don’t eat. I’ve only got one mission and I that is to get that geezer over there called Luke Thompson and I’m gonna get him. Now, get out of my way! – So, the gorilla was involved in something which meant I had a little bit a time and I thought ‘Damn! I don’t have any money to pay for a ticket. What am I gonna do?’ And so, I went into the bank in order to borrow some money. I went to the bank to borrow some money, you know. I got an appointment with the bank manager in his office and so the bank manager said to me – OK Mr Thompson, would you like to take a seat? – So I said – Yeah. Great. Thanks. Thanks. Ooooo! Just sit down. Everything’s OK. Just sit down here. Oooo! That’s nice. Nice comfortable seats you have in a bank here, Mr manager. Yes, that’s right. We do have comfortable seats, Luke. Now, how can I help you? Well, I’d like to… I’d like to borrow some money, please. I’d like to take out a loan – And the bank manager said – OK. Fine. How much money would you like to borrow? – And I said – Well, I’d like to… if possible I’d like to borrow, well, as much, as much as you can… In fact, I’d like to borrow all… all the money, just all of it, all the money. Well Luke, I’m sure you realise that we can’t just simply lend you all the money, all the money in the bank. No, no, no, no. I don’t expect you lend me all the money in the bank, no. I just want you to lend me all the money, just all the money in the world. Ha, Luke! I understand you’re humorous gentleman. You like to have a laugh but seriously that’s impossible, that’s ridiculous. We… we could probably lend you about three thousand pounds with the interest rate, well, six per cent. Well, sorry Mr Bank Manager but I think you’ll find… I know that you’re the manager of this big bank which is all very important and all that kind of stuff. Well done. Congratulations. Clap, clap, clap. Good job. Yeah, you’re brilliant, but. I think you’ll find that this story and everything in it including you is basically the creation of my brain, OK? So, you can’t tell me ‘you can’t give me all the money’, OK? Because this is my story so basically, if I wanted to I could make you say and do anything I wanted – And the bank manager was like – Oh, really? Ehm… I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you. I think you’re making this up. Prove it – So, I said – OK. Fine. If you want me to prove it I’m gonna prove it. OK Mr Bank Manager, I’m going to make you speak like Sean Connery now. Ha! Don’t be ridiculous Luke. You can’t make speak me like Sean Connery… what the (hell)… Oh my God! You’ve made me speak like Sean Connery. This is… This is… This is strange. This is unbelievable. In fact, this is amazing. I’ve always wanted to speak like Sean Connery – To be honest he sounded a bit Dutch, really – Never mind, Luke. I don’t care if I sound Dutch. Essentially, this is a Sean Connery voice and you’ve made me speak like his. OK, never mind. Let’s say I don’t think you’ve convinced yet. Let’s say I want you to speak like Roger Moore. OK. Ha, you want me to speak like Roger Moore. That should be too much of a problem. OK, let’s say you’re gonna speak like a… you’re gonna speak like a Scouser. You’re gonna speak like someone from Liverpool now, Mr Bank Manager and then you’re gonna believe that I’m in control of this story and everything that happens in it. All right Luke. All right. So, you wanna… you wanna borrow some money? How much money do you wanna borrow? Oh yeah, you’ve told me that you wanna borrow all the money. Yes, that’s right. I do want to borrow all the money, Mr Bank Manager, who speaks with the Mancunian accent from Manchester. All right, Luke. All right. How’s it going? All right. Do you wanna borrow some money or something, yeah? You do … yeah? All right, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, yeah? I’ll give you a… I’ll give you a card, right? (gobbledygook) This accent’s gone wrong. Yes, that accent’s gone wrong. Let’s just say to speak normally, OK? And then I think you’ll agree that you can give me all the money, right? Because this is the story which I’ve created. Yes, OK Luke, you’ve convinced me. You’ve convinced me that you’re in control of the story. I’m gonna give you all the money. Would you like that in ten pound notes or twenty pound notes. Ah, well, can you give me twenties? C
ertainly, Luke. Have you got a container of some kind because all the money in twenty pound notes that’s a lot, that’s a lot of money? Ah, well, is there any way you could just give me like a credit card and then I don’t have to carry cash? Is that possible? Yes! Certainly, Luke. Yes, we can arrange for you to have a card. How about a debit card? Yes, debit card would be fantastic. Right. In fact, could you hurry up because, to be honest, I’m being chased by huge pink gorilla and I expect that it’s… it’s nearly caught up with me now. He’s probably outside the bank waiting for me so, please, can you hurry up and just get me the card and then I’ll be on my way, OK? Certainly, Luke, certainly. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you and I’m very glad that you’re our customer even though you’re going to take all the money. That’s right, all the money in the world. Yes, well, I’m gonna need it because I think this pink gorilla is a dangerous one and so I’m gonna need money. I’m gonna need some cash to help me get out of this difficult situation. I think you’ll agree – And the bank manager said – OK Luke, look, this… we’ve been in a bank too long in this part of the story so it’s time we moved on, isn’t it? Don’t you think? Yes, it is, bank manager. OK, thanks for your help. Great. Got the card. Great. Thank you. Bye, bye. Bye, bye, bye Mr. OK Luke, it’s really good doing business with you. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye – So, bang! Out onto the street again and I thought you know what? ‘I really love Starbucks. I love Starbucks. I wonder if there’s Starbucks nearby somewhere… Yes! There’s a Starbucks right there, right next to me, of course. So, I went into Starbucks and got myself a coffee, didn’t I? Yeah. Got myself a Skinny Gingerbread Latte Mocha Frappuccino on Ice. And I got that and I drank that and then I thought ‘What am I doing? What am I doing? I can’t remember. That it! I’m escaping from this pink gorilla which is gonna try kill me’ and with that I looked down the street and there was the pink gorilla, finally just flying down the street towards me on a skateboard. And I thought ‘Oh God! Oh my God, he’s on a skateboard! Oh God!’ So, what I did was I got a scooter. I just stole a scooter from a child. Sorry. I didn’t really. It’s just a story. I stole a scooter from a child. Said – Come on, Johnny. Give me a scooter. I don’t care if you’re a child. I don’t care if this is a criminal act. It’s just a story, OK Johnny?- In fact (sound effect), magic! There’s a… there’s a new scooter. So, you can have that one and I’ll take you old one, OK? OK, mister. OK, mister. You can take my scooter. Thanks a lot. Bye, bye, bye. So (sound effect), I escaped down street towards the airport on a scooter with the pink gorilla flying behind me on a skateboard. It was dramatic. We got to the airport. I got there first, flew into the airport on my scooter, got to the counter – Give me a ticket to… somewhere else, please, on an aeroplane. Give me an aeroplane ticket. I want to leave as soon as possible – and the women said – OK, sir. You can have this ticket here. There you go. That’ll be a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. A hundred and fifty thousand pounds! Yes Luke, a hundred and fifty thousand pounds but after all you have got all the money and so, it’s not a problem, really. No, it’s not. How did you know that I had all the money? Never mind that, Luke. Never mind. I think that a… I think that a pink gorilla’s chasing you so you might wanna just, you know, keep moving? Yeah! You’re right. Thanks. Thanks very much- So, I took the ticket and I went through the airport, went through the security control. That was a bit annoying. I had to stand in a queue and I was standing in a queue waiting to go through the X-Ray machine. The pink gorilla was just standing behind me. He was like – This is a bit boring, isn’t it? This security control – and they don’t even let you bring water onto the plane. Oh, they don’t do they. Oh, oh. This is annoying. Anyway, that’s the modern world, bloody terrorists. I got through security and the pink gorilla was like – Oh yeah, I’m supposed to be chasing you, aren’t I? Yes, yes you are. So, I ran away from him and jumped onto a plane and I managed to jump on before the pink gorilla got there. The plane taxied down onto the runway and then (starting plane) flew off and took off and I thought ‘Ah! Finally! Finally, I’m in the air. I’m safe. Ironically, this is the safest place flying in a huge metal aeroplane. I couldn’t be safer and so, there I was in the sky, just sort of relaxing. I ordered a Martini shaken not stirred and drank it and I looked out the window and I thought ‘This is great. I’m flying to a new exotic destination. This is gonna be great. No problem at all. And I looked out the window and there on the wing, on the wing of the aeroplane, you guessed it, there was the engine but next to the engine there was a pink gorilla, the pink gorilla was holding onto the wing of the aeroplane as we were flying just holding on looking at me staring at me smiling with these big teeth and I thought ‘Oh my God! Oh Jesus! He’s managed to catch up with me and he’s even hanging onto the wing. This is terrible’ So, eventually, the aeroplane landed. We landed in the North Pole. That’s right in the North Pole. It was pretty cold at there, pretty cold on the North Pole. We landed and a… immediately I just ran. I just ran straight out the aeroplane. I just ran off into the snow. I just kept running through the snow. Running, running. Running, running, running. It was a bit cold but I was all right because I was running. So, I was running, running, running, kept running and I managed to jump onto an iceberg, jumped onto an iceberg. That’s like a big mountain of ice just floating in the water. I ran. I jumped onto the iceberg. I looked over my shoulder and the pink gorilla was running through the snow as well. He jumped onto the iceberg so I jumped off that iceberg and jumped onto another iceberg and the pink gorilla followed me and I kept jumping from iceberg to iceberg, iceberg to iceberg until eventually I was stuck on a little iceberg. Just stuck floating in the water at the North Pole and the gorilla was there and just walked up towards me. He just… he jumped over onto the iceberg and just walked up towards me and I thought ‘Oh God, this is it?! This is it?! Is this end of my life? Oh! Oh, dear! Not now, please! No, I’m not ready to go. Not yet.’ And the pink gorilla walked up to me and he extended his hand again. His huge pink arm extended towards me and I thought I he was gonna rip my head off but his hand slowly moved towards me and he just tapped me on the arm and he said – Tag, you’re it! – and I went – What? What do you mean? Tag! Tag, you’re it! What? Tag, mate, tag! You’re it! It’s a game, isn’t it? It’s a game. It’s just a… It’s a game – and I said – What about your accent? – Oh, yeah! Yeah! It’s a game! It’s a game, squire! It’s just a game! It’s a children’s game! What? Oh, yeah! Yeah. Yeah. I expect the listeners at this point have got no idea what’s going on but, yeah, you right, yeah. Tag! It’s a game. It’s like a game you play when you’re children in the playground at school. You touch someone. You say ‘Tag’ and then ‘You’re it’ and if you’re ‘it’ you have to chase other people and you touch them and then their ‘it’ and they have to chase you – So, I said – Yeah. Exactly. Tag, your it! – I said – What? Is that it? – He went – Yep. That’s it – and he just with that took around ran in the opposite direction and there I was just floating on this iceberg at the North Pole. I just thought ‘He didn’t wanna kill me. It was just a game of tag. What a disappointment this story is. That was it. That was a huge game of tag. So, the pink gorilla was just competitive. He just enjoyed playing games. Oh, I’m so stupid! Why did I even touch him in the first place? What an idio
t I am. I wish I’d never done it at the first place.’ But then I thought ‘Well, it is a game of tag after all so, I’d better chase him’ So, I sort of stood up picked myself up of the ground brushed the snow of my trousers. I thought ‘Right. I’m gonna get that gorilla and with that I jumped from iceberg to iceberg to iceberg back to the airport and I could see the pink gorilla getting on the plane and so I leapt onto the wing and the plane took off into the sunset and our game of tag continued forever.

And now as I tell you this story I’m just taking a break from the game of tag and I’m just sitting here managing to find time to record an episode of Luke’s English Podcast. And you’ve been listening to it ladies and gentlemen so, thanks very much for listening and I hope that somehow you enjoyed listening to this random story. I’m sure that you’ll find that listening to this has been an experience. It’s certainly been good for your English. It’s very important to listen to things like this in English from time to time.

Now, if you want to you can suggest additions to the story. What do you think happened next in the story of the Pink Gorilla? Maybe there were some aspects to the story which I didn’t deal with, in which case feel free to leave a comment underneath this podcast. You can leave comments on teacherluke.podomatic.com (now teacherluke.co.uk) or you can leave comments on teacherluke.wordpress.com. So, please, leave your comments and suggestions and ideas. If you have any questions, of course, you can leave comments again and you will hopefully get answers to those questions, eventually. So, please, keep visiting the websites and do write your questions and comments there but for now, for this episode of Luke’s English Podcast it’s goodbye, bye, bye, bye…

You’ve been listening to Luke’s English Podcast. For more information visit teacherluke.co.uk

Thank you very much to Andzrej for sending me this transcript. If you liked The Pink Gorilla Story, let me know and I will do more episodes like this in the future. Who knows, I might do The Pink Gorilla Story Part 2…

Is this the Pink Gorilla?

86. Criminal Law (Vocabulary, Story & Conversation)

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Join my cousin Oli and me as we discuss an interesting legal case. This quite well-known case involves some quite dark themes such as murder and suicide.

Right-click here to download this episode.
See below for vocabulary and a transcript of the story of Ronald Opus. You can also see a video of the story from the film Magnolia.

VOCABULARY
These terms all relate to criminal law.

Homicide = The killing of another person
Suicide = The taking of one’s own life
Murder = An intentional act of homicide
Manslaughter = An act of homicide which does not include intention, but for which the defendant is responsible. E.g. A man gets drunk and drives home. He can’t control the car and so he kills a pedestrian.
Attempted murder = The crime of attempting to kill someone, but failing
Involuntary manslaughter = An act of manslaughter in which the person is guilty of killing someone but they didn’t want to and did it completely by accident
Mitigating factors = These are factors which make a crime less serious. E.g. in an act of murder if the murderer is not of sound mind, or if they kill the person because they are forced to.
Aggravating factors = These are factors which make a crime more serious. E.g. if an assailant or attacker uses a weapon, or if a murder involves excessive cruelty or pre-meditation.
Assault = The crime of hurting someone, usually physically.
Aggravated assault = More serious than assault because this involves a weapon or serious physical damage.
Commit = A verb used with all the above-mentioned crimes. E.g. to commit murder, to commit suicide (not technically a crime). It just means ‘do’ but it’s the appropriate term when referring to crimes.

The Story of Ronald Opus
On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. The deceased had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide anyway because of this.

Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, a person who sets out to commit suicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide. But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. The room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the a window striking Opus.

When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her – therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple’s son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son’s financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

There was an exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother’s murder. This led him to jump off the ten- story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window.

The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

Video of the case from the film “Magnolia”

75. Not a Distraction!

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Unlike many things on the internet, Luke’s English Podcast is not a distraction! In this episode I tell you some news, share some comments from listeners, share an amusing audio clip about a driving instructor and eat some chocolate!

Right-click here to download this episode.
Tapescripts available below
Here’s the email from Bettina:

Hello Luke,

Actually I realize every single day that I’m living a veritable dream
thanks to your podcast. Poor me, it took me finally more than two
years to wake up !

As you might know I’ve always listened to each of your shows several
times but, and that makes the difference, I rarely got back to listen
to them again. It’s incredible how much I forgot about the precious

advice of each episode.

I even completely forgot most of it. Yah, I’ve to re-listen
intensively to the previous shows as well.

You’re motivating and such a brilliant English teacher and trust me I
don’t say that to flatter you !

Thanks to the Internet I can download your podcast. But
not only that, I can listen to it all the time contrary to your
students who can listen to each of your course only once.

Since I’m writing some transcripts I remember much better vocabulary,
expressions and so much more. I’m overjoyed and maybe you’ll laugh
but I’m not ashamed. Aren’t we so much used to use the

Internet that we forget how amazing it is to have this opportunity?

Well, I think that you’re right, the most important is, to use what
we’ve learnt but we aren’t English native speakers, right? We have to
revise all of the stuff we’ve learnt frequently and that’s the reason
why

from now on, I’ll listen to each episode again and again instead of
only focusing on the new one. It’s great time to revise the whole
interesting stuff. It’s up to us to make the best of it. Yah, it’s all
in

our hands ! Plus, that will not be boring because each of your shows
is different and quite funny. Learning English with fun is the most
important thing.

I could never make the effort to pay for a private English teacher who
helps me to improve but I found you, the best, the most terrific
English teacher who teaches the language. You even proofread my

transcripts and hold on a minute, it’s all for free ! ! ! Can you
believe that? I’m on cloud nine.

English has become my great passion. I’m in my ‘fake’
English world every day. No, I haven’t a great level yet, but is it
really that important? Hmm, I’m not sure! I’m guess my English will

progress, now I finally understand how to learn more efficiently . So,
it’s time to practice the rich material of your podcasts ! I’ve still
so much to learn and I would definitively reach my goal!

Thanks a million from the bottom of my heart.

Bettina

Here’s the Script for the Driving Instructor by Bob Newhart
As I said, there was a thing in the paper tonight about documentaries and I have had an idea for a long time for what I think is a wonderful documentary, which has everything. For instance, you go to work, you come home at night and you never really think about it. It’s mechanical, it’s routine. But there are a group of men who every day when they go to work never know if that night they will return, because they face death in one hundred different ways. And I am talking about America’s driving instructors. I would like to present the first episode in the new tv series called, “The Driving Instructor”. Now I would like to have you picture if you would, I’m the driving instructor and seated next to me is a woman driver.

How do you do?…
Erm, you’re Mrs. Webb, is that right?…
Oh, I see you’ve had one lesson already, who was the instructor on that Mrs. Webb?…
Mr. Adams…
I’m sorry, here it is. Mr. Adams. Just let me read ahead and kind of familiarize myself with the case…
Erm, how fast were you going when Mr. Adams jumped from the car?…
Sev…, Seventy-five. And, and where was that?…
In your driveway…
How far had Mr. Adams gotten in the lesson?…
Backing out…
I see, you were backing out at seventy-five and that’s, that’s when he jumped….
Did he cover starting the car?…
And the other way of stopping?…
What’s the other way of stopping?…
Throwing it in reverse…
that’s, that would do it, you’re right, that would do it…
Erm, alright you want to start the car?…
Uh, Mrs. Webb you just turned on the lights, you want to start the car…
They all look alike, don’t they?…
No, I don’t know why they design them that way…
Erm, alright let’s pull out into traffic…
Now, what’s the first thing we’re going to do before we pull out into traffic?…
What did Mr. Adams do before he let you pull out into traffic?…
Well, I mean besides praying…
No, what I had in mind was checking the rear view mirror…
You see we always want to check the rear…
DON’T PULL OUT !!!…
Erm, please don’t cry…
I’m sorry… but there was this bus, Mrs. Webb…
Oh, alright, the lane is clear is now, you want to pull out?…
Oh, now that wasn’t bad at all, you might try it a little slower next time….
Alright, let’s get up a bit more speed and gradually ease it into second…
Well, I didn’t want to cover reverse this early but as long as you have shifted into it…
Of course you’re nervous…
I’m nervous!…
I’m not just saying that, I’m really, I’m really very nervous…
Well, just don’t pay any attention to their honking….
You’re doing fine…
You’re not blocking anyone’s lane…
No, as long as you are here on the safety island, you are not blocking anyone’s lane…
Oh, alright you want to start the car?…
Oh, while you are turning the lights off, why don’t you turn off the heater?…
Alright, there we are, let’s get up a bit of speed…
That’s the way…
Now let’s practice some turns. Um, the important thing on turns is not to make them too sharp, just kind of make a gradual…
Now that was fine…
That was a wonderful turn…
It’s hard for me to believe you only had two lessons after you make a turn like…
Are you sure you haven’t had more now?…
I find that very difficult to believe…
One little thing…
This is a one way street…
Well, no, no, actually it was partially my fault, you see, but, uh, you were in the left hand lane and you were signaling left, and I just more or less assumed you were going to turn left.
SAME TO YOU, FELLA!!!…
No, no, I don’t know what he said Mrs. Webb…
Um, alright let’s pull into the alley up there, uh, and practice a little alley driving…
This is uh, this is something a lot of the schools leave out and we think it is pretty…
YOU’RE GOING TOO FAST MRS. WEBB!!!…
You were up around sixty and that’s kind of a sharp turn there…
Alright, just drive down the alley, that’s the way…
Oh, Mrs. Webb, maybe we better stop here…
Well, I don’t think you are going to make it between the truck and the building…
Mrs. Webb?…
Mrs. Webb…
I…
Mrs. Webb, I, I …
I don’t think you are going…
MRS. WEBB?…..
I real…
I…
I really didn’t think you were going to MAKE IT….
That just shows we can be wrong too…
No, no, I’ll get out on your side, that’s alright.
Oh, Mrs. Webb, uh, maybe it might be a good idea if we went over to the driving area. They have a student driver area over a few blocks away and maybe traffic throws you, maybe that’s the problem…
Well, turn here on the street…
Right…
And it’s only about a block up…
Alright, turn right here…
Well, now that was my fault again…
You see, I meant the next street. Not this man’s lawn…
Oh, sir, sir… sir, would you mind turning off the sprinkler?…
For just a…
Newly seeded?…
Is that right?…
That’s always the way, isn’t it? Ha! ha!…
I don’t suppose it is so funny!…
Oh, alright Mrs. Webb, you want to back out and get off the man’s…
Creeping bent, is that right…
Yea, just back out, Mrs. Webb…
Thank you very much, sir for…
Oh, now we’ve hit someone Mrs. Webb…
Oh, remember you’re going to watch the rear view mirror, remember we covered that…
The red light blinded you?…
The flashing red light blinded you?…
The flashing red light on the car you hit blinded you?…
Yes, officer, she was just telling me about it…
Um, alright…
Alright, erm, Mrs. Webb…
I am going to have to go with the officer to the police station…
Erm, they don’t believe it and they’d like, they’d like me to describe it…
And now the other officer is going to get into the car and he is going to drive you back to the driving school and then you are to meet us at the police station.
Erm, my name is Frank Dexter, Mrs Webb…
Why do you ask?…
You want to be sure and get me next time???

Buy Bob Newhart’s CD on Amazon.co.uk

Stay tuned for more useful and entertaining episodes soon ;)

73. Steve Jobs

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Right-click here to download this episode.
Listen to Steve Jobs’ famous speech to graduates of Stanford University, read the transcript, notice some useful features of English, and learn some important lessons about life.

Tributes to Steve Jobs from Reuters News Feed
(Reuters) – President Barack Obama was among the many people who paid tribute to Steve Jobs, calling the Apple co-founder a visionary and great American innovator.

“Steve was among the greatest of American innovators — brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it,” Obama said of Jobs, who died on Wednesday.

“The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.”

The president was joined by political, technology, entertainment and business leaders around the world in paying tribute to Jobs. A selection:

BILL GATES, MICROSOFT CO-FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN

“Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives. The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come. For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor.”

STEPHEN ELOP, NOKIA CEO

“The world lost a true visionary today. Steve’s passion for simplicity and elegance leaves us all a legacy that will endure for generations. Today, my thoughts, and those of everyone at Nokia, are with the friends and family that he leaves behind.”

FRENCH PRESIDENT NICOLAS SARKOZY ON FACEBOOK

“His capacity to revolutionize entire sectors of the economy by the power of imagination and technology is a source of inspiration for millions of engineers and entrepreneurs across the world. His efforts to render new technologies more attractive and simple to use have made a success of businesses that have changed the world of computing, the distribution of cultural content, telecommunications and even animated cinema.”

RUPERT MURDOCH, CEO OF NEWS CORP

“Today, we lost one of the most influential thinkers, creators and entrepreneurs of all time. Steve Jobs was simply the greatest CEO of his generation.”

Full Reuters Article Here: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7950GT20111006?irpc=932

Steve Jobs’ Stanford University Speech
This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We’ve got an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college. This was the start, in my life.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path, and that will make all the difference.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life’s going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and thankfully I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

© Stanford University. All Rights Reserved. Stanford, CA 94305. (650) 723-2300.
Watch a video of the speech here:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc&w=480&h=360]

68. Childhood / Growing Up / School Days – Phrasal Verbs and Expressions

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Plenty of good vocabulary for describing your childhood and school days, plus some stuff about Luke’s early days.

Right-click here to download this episode.

Here you will find lots and lots of really natural and common expressions for describing your childhood, school days and plenty of other things too.

Listen to the podcast a few times to get the most benefit.

Transcript – The Section about My Childhood & Schooldays
This is a transcription of the first part of the episode, in which I describe my childhood. There is also a list of vocabulary below.

[1:40 – Childhood / Growing Up / School Days story]
Let’s get started. So, childhood, my childhood.

Well, I was born in 1977 and in fact my mum gave birth to me on a Sunday in 1977. My parents decided to name me Luke. They decided to call me Luke. Now, I wasn’t named after Luke Skywalker even though I was born in 1977. I wasn’t named after Luke Skywalker from Star Wars. Although I am a big Star Wars fan. I’ve always loved Star Wars, but I wasn’t named after him. I wasn’t named after Cool Hand Luke, the Paul Newman movie either. Instead I was actually named after my great-great-grandfather, who was also called Luke. And my mum in particular really looked up to him, because he was like very successful person in our family. So basically my mum really looked up to him. So they decided to kind of… I think they liked the name Luke anyway, but they also partly wanted to name me after my great-great-grandfather.

So I grew up in West London. That’s where we lived in a place called Ealing in West London. So that’s where I grew up initially. In fact, I grew pretty quickly, my parents used to measure me on the wall. So I’d stand at the wall and they’d use a pencil to mark a line on a wall and then every few months or something they’d measure me again and we can see how much I’d grown. I grew pretty quickly like most kids grow pretty fast. I was brought up by my parents, of course. My parents brought me up, I think, to be quite a good lad.

My parents were quite strict sometimes but not too strict. I don’t think I was spoilt as a child either. I mean there were plenty of things we weren’t allowed. For example we weren’t allowed to watch James Bond movies or The A Team. I wasn’t allowed to have a TV in my bedroom for example. I wasn’t allowed to eat too many sweets, things like that, but they weren’t too strict either.

My parents were comfortable with money, but not really well off or rich or wealthy, but they were just comfortable. So I wasn’t really born with a silver spoon in my mouth or anything like that. I’m just from a normal family. My parents and family used to say that I looked.. I took after my Dad. They said that I really took after my Dad because I looked like him and I was quite sporty and good at music, like him.

So, also I could be a bit naughty and badly behaved at times and my parents would sometimes tell me off and send me to my room but it was never that serious. Actually, I went through quite a kind of naughty phase, I was quite stubborn for a few years. I remember like my mum having trouble kind of like… she took me to the shops when we walked back if was kind of like annoyed or something, I’d just stop walking and say: “I’m not moving”. So, I was quite naughty and a bit stubborn, but I grew out of it. Actually I grew out of that phase.

I have an older brother so I would get a lot of his old clothes. So I’d wear his hand-me-down clothes. And we also used to play with toys that had been handed down by my dad and my uncle. So we had all these old toys that we used to play, that had been handed down by my father.

I kind of went through a sort of lying phase for a little while, when I was a kid. I think, that’s quite normal for children and my parents would sort of suspect that I was lying about something. You know, they would know that I was telling fibs or telling tall tales and they’d make me own up to it. But I got over my lying phase. I grew out of it. I was quite a hyperactive as a kid. I always had too much energy, I was always full of beans. My parents would wonder where I’d get my energy from. It turns out, the orange squash that I used to drink, when I was a kid, was just full of e-numbers, so full of chemicals that made me hyperactive. Sometimes by brother and I would stay up late listening to the radio or playing with our Star Wars figures. Obviously we had to be very quiet, because we weren’t allowed to stay up past a certain time.

I used to look up to my older brother quite a lot. He’s only two years older than me, but that’s quite a lot when you are a kid. So you know, I used to look up to him. He had cool friends, I’d sort of enjoy having out with him and kind of watching him do his art work. He used to do lots of artwork and I kind of sit there watching him doing his art work. So, I kind of looked up to him. To be honest, I was probably quite an annoying little brother and sometimes he would just tell me to get lost and things like that.

Birthdays and Christmas were always really great days. I’d look forward to them so much that I’d be literally counting down the days before my birthday and I wouldn’t be able to sleep the night before. When you’re a kid, teeth, your teeth are quite important, because really your first set of teeth, your baby teeth or your milk teeth, they kind of would fall out sometimes and that was always quite a big event when a tooth came out. And you’d try to keep the tooth and then put it under your pillow for the tooth fairy who’d come in the night and replace it with a coin. This is like one of those things that you believe when you are a child. The only thing is that I was actually scared of the tooth fairy, I was afraid of it, frightened of the tooth fairy and so I would actually put my pillow outside my room, in the hallway with the tooth under it. And then, that way the tooth fairy didn’t have to come into my bedroom, because I was scared of it. It’s kind of pathetic, I know.

I also found out when I was a child that Father Christmas, Santa Claus wasn’t real. When one night I couldn’t sleep because I was too excited and sometime during the night someone entered the room and started filling my stocking with presents. I thought it was Father Christmas, so I pretended to be asleep but secretly watched him. It was my Dad. He wasn’t even dressed as Santa. So obviously, then I realised that Santa didn’t really exist.

I went to a nursery school, which is a kind of preschool. When you’re about sort of 3 or 4 years old. All I remember doing there was just playing games. Then I went to a normal comprehensive state school. In the UK here, in Britain, the names of our schools can be a bit confusing, because basically, first off all, you have comprehensive schools and those are ones which are paid for by the government. So they are like state schools, free schools let’s say, comprehensive school or states schools. Then you got private schools which are… you have to pay to go to one of those schools, you have to pay. And most of them have a kind of entry level exams. You have to be a certain level of student to get into a private school then your parents have to pay, okay. But then you’ve got level schools and those strangely are called public schools. Now, public schools are actually just private schools. They’re very exclusive, private schools. And what we would call a public school would be a comprehensive school. Right? Actually, in England a public school is like a very very… difficult to get into and very expensive, very high-level. These are schools like Eton and Harrow. Prince William went to Eton, I think. Just kind of give an example of what kind of school that is.

So I just went to comprehensive school. And the first school you go to is your primary school. That’s from age about 5 to 11. And then from primary school you move on to Secondary School. Secondary school would be kind of 11 to 15 or 16 years old. And then if you can… You can leave school then and get a job, if you want but if you choose to you can go on to study more and you would do.. you’d probably go to college like a sixth form college. When you’re 15 or 16 you take exams called GCSEs and most people take about 9 subjects. Things like: English language, English literature, history, geography, physics, biology, chemistry, stuff like you know maths, maybe French, drama, music, things like that. And after that you go on to do A levels which is the next level of qualification. You take your A levels when you’re about 18 years old. And most of people take about three A levels or maybe about 6 As levels. And once you get your A level, you can then sort of apply to go to university and you need a certain number of A levels to get into good universities.

In the universities here, you’ve got basically like… probably like 3 types of university here. The most famous ones are obviously Oxford and Cambridge. They’re very well established, very famous universities. And those two universities together are called “Oxbrigde”. So if you went to an Oxbridge university it means you go to a very good university. Then the next level of university and these are also excellent places, these the next level down, would be the red brick universities. And they are called that, because they’re typically the buildings are made using red brick, because they were built, let’s see, around the turn of the century, maybe a bit earlier than then. So that was typical of architecture at that time though. Buildings would be constructed using red bricks. So those are the red brick universities. They are very good.

Then, the third level of university would be the ex-polytechnic universities or former Polytechnic universities. A polytechnic college actually sort of twenty or thirty years ago would have been a college of further education that specialized in technical qualifications. And they actually gained the rights to be called universities some time ago. And then they offered similar courses to the other universities in the country. And those are called ex-polytechnic universities or ex-polys. I went to an ex-polytechnic university called Liverpool John Moores and actually the department in which I studied was very good, had a very good reputation. So all of those universities are.. sort of 3 types of university.

So I went to primary school when I was a kid, of course. I absolutely hated my first day. I didn’t want to go at all. My mum had to drag me in to the building literally and I cried. It was an absolute nightmare. But, you know, I got used to it slowly. And when I was 9 years old my Dad got a promotion in his job and so we moved out of London.

And we moved to an area, basically, in the countryside just in to the middle of nowhere. So we moved from like the city out into the countryside which was quite a big change. I went to countryside school, which was quite weird, because I was a city lad, you know, I was from the city, a city kid. And all the other kids kind of picked on me because I talked differently. I didn’t really get bullied but I did get picked on. Eventually I learned to stand up for myself and the other kids stop picking on me.

Now, I wasn’t really a swot or a teacher’s pet, but I was quite bright, if a little bit cheeky at times. I was quite cheeky to my teachers, but I got away with it, because basically I was nice. A couple of times I got told off by teachers. I got a couple of detentions and I had to write lines as punishment. In those days there was no physical punishment at school. The cane had been banned some years before. So now I usually did my homework although sometimes I didn’t do it and I’d have to give some kind of bad excuse. Like: I lost it or something like that. Some kids were really badly behaved. They’d kind of bunk off school or bully the other kids and some kids got expelled or suspended. My school was a bit rough but you know that’s quite normal really for comprehensive schools.

Obviously I had to wear a uniform in every school that I went to. I had wear a uniform. In my secondary school my uniform was that I had to wear black trousers, black shoes, a white or gray t-shirt, a black blazer which had a badge on it and a school tie which had a particular color. My school tie was black with red diagonal stripes. And my previous school was blue tie with yellow strips across it. So I had to wear a uniform which I think is quite good, it’s quite a good idea to make kids wear uniforms. Because at least it makes all the children kind of the same. You know, you don’t get that sense that some of the kids are very poor. Some of the kids are kind of very rich or well off. Instead if they all wear the same clothes, means they’re kind of on an equal kind of level which I think is a good thing. You also get the idea that when you’re in a uniform it feels like you’re being prepared for work. You know, like later on when you wear a suit when you go to work, it feels like you’re wearing a school uniform. So, I guess it’s kind of quite clever really as a way of training people to be a little bit formal or something, I don’t know.

So, I started growing up into my teenage years. So I became a teenager. I became an adolescent. You know, I had all those psychical changes. I went through puberty and basically I got through school okay, despite the difficulties that you typically go through when you are a kid. In the UK secondary school can be quite tough because of peer pressure from the other kids. You feel very sensitive at that time. And it’s hard, because you’re really learning who you are. There’s lots of hormones racing round inside your body. And you’re changing a lot psychically. It can be very embarrassing at that time of your life. Now, in the UK you have to just kind of to get by without losing the respect of the other kids. You have to be quite popular in order to avoid embarrassment or avoid being picked on and bullied. You have to try and impress girls, avoid the bullies, be popular, be quite good at sport. If you’re not good at sport, you have to be funny. You shouldn’t be too geeky or swotty. You should basically avoid trouble with the teachers, do you work, get good results and keep your parents happy. That’s basically what you’ve got to achieve at school.

It can be hard, I survived by playing football just all the time. I was completely obsessed with football and every moment would be spent playing football or thinking about football. I also learned to play the piano and that was like my own private thing that I do on my own. Just play the piano. That was very nice experience and I kind of learned that I’d had some kind of skill as a musician. I kind of lived in my own world really. I feel like I was just slightly disconnected, just in my own world. I listened to like lots of good music on my walkman all the time. And I had all these tapes that had been given to me by my uncle and my dad. And they listened to lots of really good music. So I was listening to things like Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and things like that and the Clash and the Sex Pistols and these great bands that I’d been introduced to. And I was 13 years old. I was listening on to this music on my walkman all the time. I think like… none of my friends liked that music until later until they left school and then they decided that they liked that music. So personally I feel I was like ahead of my time in that way.

You know, adolescence gave me a lot of spots. I had lots of like spots on my face, and greasy hair. I was quite self-conscious and awkward. You know, I was really too embarrassed to be cool. So I just used to make lots of really bad jokes all the time and nothing really changed there, I imagine. I was quite kind of awkward, quite uncomfortable with girls. I was, you know, fairly popular with them, but I couldn’t really imagine having a girlfriend. Because I just wasn’t really confident enough. I studied quite well at school. I mean I often would lose concentration but I was quite imaginative, so I did all right. I got above average GSCEs and particularly at drama and music. I left school at 16 and I went to college. And that was really quite a different world and I kind of realized that when I left it was brilliant. I just sort of didn’t have to wear a uniform at college. And I was with lots of other kids at the same age as me from different places that had never met me before. And I really felt like I could sort of become myself. And I actually learned to have a personality, I think, for the first time, when I went to college. And then kind of grew up and became an adult and that’s a separate story, that one, separate podcast.
[20:11]

Vocabulary
Here you will see a list of some of the expressions I used. Listen to the episode to get definitions and examples.

1. I was born in 1977
2. My Mum gave birth to me on a Sunday.
3. My parents decided to name me Luke
4. I wasn’t named after Luke Skywalker or Cool Hand Luke
5. I was named after by great-great-grandfather, who my Mum in particular looked up to
6. I grew up in West London
7. I grew pretty quickly. My parents used to measure me
8. I was brought up by my parents
9. My parents brought me up to be a good lad
10. my parents were quite strict but not too strict
11. I don’t think I was spoiled/spoilt as a child
12. There were plenty of things we weren’t allowed to do
13. My parents were comfortable but not really well off, rich or wealthy
14. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth
15. My parents said I took after my Dad because I looked like him and I was good at sport and music, like him
16. I could be a bit naughty and badly behaved at times and my parents would tell me off and send me to my room but it was never that serious
17. Apparently I went through a naughty phase
18. I was quite stubborn but I grew out of it
19. I have an older brother so I would get his old clothes, I’d get his hand-me-down clothes
20. We used to play with toys that had been handed down by my Dad
21. I went through a lying phase, which is quite normal for kids, and my parents would suspect I was lying about something
22. They knew I was telling fibs or telling tall tales and they’d make me own up to it
23. I got over my lying phase. I grew out of it.
24. I was quite a hyperactive kid
25. I was always full of beans
26. Turns out the orange squash used to contain lots of e-numbers, like E102
27. Sometimes by brother and I would stay up late listening to the radio or playing with Star Wars figures
28. I used to look up to my older brother quite a lot
29. I was probably the annoying little brother and sometimes he’d tell me to get lost
30. Birthdays and Christmas were always great days. I’d look forward to them so much that I’d be counting the days before my birthday and then I wouldn’t be able to sleep
31. Teeth were important as a kid too because your first set (milk teeth) would fall out sometimes and that was quite a big event.
32. You’d keep the tooth and put it under your pillow for the tooth fairy who’d come in the night and replace it with a coin
33. I was scared/afraid/frightened of the tooth fairy
34. I’d put my pillow out on the landing
35. I found out that Santa wasn’t real when one night I couldn’t sleep because I was too excited
36. Some time during the night someone entered the room and started filling my stocking with presents. I thought it was Santa so I pretended to be asleep but secretly watched. It was my Dad. He wasn’t even dressed as Santa.
37. I went to nursery school
38. I went to a normal comprehensive state school. Comprehensive schools / private schools / public schools
39. Primary / Secondary (GCSEs) / College (A levels) / University (degree)
40. Oxbridge university (Oxford or Cambridge) / Red brick university / Ex-polytechnic University
41. I hated my first day of primary school but I got used to it
42. When I was 9 my Dad got a promotion
43. We moved to the countryside to the middle of nowhere
44. The other kids picked on me because I had a different accent
45. I didn’t get bullied but I did get picked on
46. I learned to stand up for myself
47. I wasn’t a swot or a teacher’s pet
48. I could be quite cheeky
49. I got told off by teachers
50. I got a couple of detentions and I had to write lines
51. The cane had been banned a few years earlier
52. Some kids were badly behaved and they would bunk off school or bully the other kids
53. My school was a bit rough but that’s normal for comprehensive schools
54. I used to wear a uniform
55. I became a teenager and an adolescent
56. I went through puberty
57. Secondary school can be tough because of peer pressure
58. You feel sensitive and you’re learning about your identity
59. There are a lot of hormones
60. You have to get by without losing the respect of the other kids
61. You have to be quite popular to avoid embarrassment
62. You have to try to impress girls, avoid bullies, be popular, be good at sport – if not be funny, don’t be too geeky or swotty, avoid trouble with teachers, do you work, get good results and try to keep your parents happy
63. I was ahead of my time because of the music I listened to
64. I was uncomfortable with girls. I felt awkward and embarrassed a lot.
65. I studied quite well. I lost concentration but I was imaginative.
66. I got above average GSCE results and went to college.
67. The rest is history!

Here’s a funny sketch from a TV show. Kevin becomes a teenager.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLuEY6jN6gY&w=425&h=349]

47. Travelling in Vietnam

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EnglishRobot3000 interviews me about my holiday in Vietnam.

Right-click here to download this episode.

I recently bought an English speaking robot from Japan. His name is English Robot 3000, and he’s very nice. In this podcast, English Robot 3000 asks me questions about my holiday in Vietnam and I talk about what I did, where I went and how it felt.

The next podcast will contain lots of really useful language for meeting people when you are travelling.

Hope you enjoy the episode, and happy new year!

Photos
Here’s a slide show of my Vietnam holiday snaps

: A whole family (2 parents, 2 kids) on one scooter.

: Ho Chi Min Mausoleum in Hanoi

: One of Hanoi’s busy junctions

: Halong Bay

: Halong Bay

: Hanoi scooters

: Hue Imperial City

: A war-damaged gate in Hue

: A girl making incense

: Monks, in action

: It felt like the edge of the world

: Beautiful countryside seen from the train

: Hoi An

: Pho (delicious!)

: Hoi An

: Nha Trang

: Nha Trang temples

: Nha Trang beach

: Entertaining band on a boat

: Turtley amazing

Here’s a picture of EnglishRobot3000

Get the PDF transcript here 👇

47. Travelling in Vietnam – Transcript Download

45. Luke & Andy’s Crime Stories (with Andy Johnson)

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A conversation with my friend Andy. We share some anecdotes. By coincidence, they’re also about petty crime. Some samples of vocabulary and expressions are listed below. I give definitions in the podcast – so listen to check the meaning.

Right-click here to download this episode.
This is a completely natural and authentic conversation. None of it was planned, so it is completely real and not fake.
This is really good listening practice for you. Listen to two native speakers talking naturally with each other. If you can understand the conversation, then you’re at the same level as a native speaker. You’ll understand the little comments and jokes that we make with each other. I recommend listening to the podcast a few times until you completely understand the conversation, and start remembering bits of vocabulary that we said. Also: Enjoy yourself!

Some vocabulary and expressions from our conversation:

The night Andy Got Arrested:
They know them by heart
For some reason we thought it might be funny to start throwing snowballs at the police station
He didn’t have a helmet, he had one of those little hats and it knocked his hat off
We started laughing hysterically
They put us in the cells for the night – “blimey”
We weren’t charged with anything, we were given, like, a verbal caution
I was very contrite and quiet and very apologetic
My friend Gareth, he got really indignant and really angry
Because he was mouthing off he didn’t get anything
They released us with a slap on the wrist and told us not to do it again
‘Snow crime officer!” – “Snow joke Luke!”

The Time Luke Got Caught by The Police for Skateboarding:
I consider myself to be a law abiding citizen, with a few minor indiscretions under my belt, but generally, you know, quite an honest, law abiding person
When I was twelve, I did have a run in with the police
I wasn’t a naughty child
My brother and I were both very into skateboarding at the time
An indoor shopping precinct
I felt quite awkward most of the time
Anyway right, cut a long story short…
Suddenly a police riot van turned up
This is like, a big van, with like, protection, you know, like a sort of, armoured van pulled up, and the doors swung open and just loads of police all just piled out of this van, and just, sort of, it was like an organised attack
A pincer movement
I decided to make a run for it too, kind of half heartedly
I just, sort of, casually ran towards the stairs, and the next thing I know; big hand on my shoulder, a big hairy policeman’s hand grabbed my shoulder
You’re nicked! Come here!
I looked up at him with these tears in my eyes, and with my lip trembling…
I wasn’t even capable of thinking straight
I was just really deeply traumatised
I went into a sort of state of shock
Next thing I know, policeman’s hand on my shoulder
The policeman looked at me, and felt pity and said “alright sonny, I’ll let you go”
He was a very friendly, kind of, jolly kind of policeman
Did they cuff you? They didn’t cuff us, no.
I think it’s terrible the way you’ve treated these children!
How dare you be so angry and aggressive!
Your Dad went ‘buck wild on their asses’!
My Dad just didn’t hold back
In the end I felt vindicated because my Father protected me, stood up for me against the, frankly brutal West Midlands Police.
Oppressive police reigime
I’ve always thought that you had potential criminal tendencies

Andy’s “I was wrongly accused of theft as a child!” Anecdote:
I’ve got a twin brother. “What, identical twin?” No, non identical. He’s the good looking one.
We were in this shop and we were looking at erasers, rubbers.
Apparently I just reached into my pocket and took the rubber out
We went home and he told my Mum.
Just, sort of, grassed you up to your parents.
I think I bought it. I must have bought it. I don’t think I deliberately stole it.
If I did steal it, it wasn’t intentional.
It was, kind of like, the manslaughter of theft.
Unintentional theft. There may have been mitigating circumstances.
Yeah, like it didn’t happen! That’s the mitigating circumstance.
You legitimately purchased it!
My brother was laughing in the background, smiling away.
We will be conducting a full investigation into the theft of the eraser.
They’re going to bring you in as well. You’re going to be an accessory.
I’ll just grass you up. I’ll do a deal with the Police.
You’re going to be a supergrass!
You’ll frame me.

Luke’s “Law breaking in Canada” photo album:
You might be wanted by interpol.
Maybe the mounties. The mounties always get their man!
They’re going to chase after me and get me. They might even make a sort of light hearted drama about it. Like, ‘a Canadian mountie travels to London in order to track down an infamous criminal’.
A fish out of water – riding around Regent Street on his big horse.
We decided we would take photos of ourselves breaking all of these by-laws.
That probably counted as a crime wave. It probably had the mounties baffled during the summer of ’97.
If I went back to Canada, they wouldn’t let me in. They’d bang me up.
Is that why you’ve been growing your hair, so they won’t recognise you?
Let’s stick the Queen’s speech on, shall we?
Everyone will be sat there with a glass of sherry.
“On a slightly sadder note. On one of my recent perusals of Luke’s English Podcast, it has been drawn to my attention, that there is a criminal on the loose in England! His name is Andy Johnson! And we must lock him up! Immediately!
People are going to leave their houses with bats, and they’ll be like an angry mob knocking on my Father’s door.
There’ll be, like, burning torches, pitch forks.
You can commit as many crimes as you like, and they don’t even bat an eyelid.
They’re very tolerant. They’re very liberal.
I think my crimes pale into (in)significance compared to what you did.
If you can get away with it, I’m going to get away with it.
People used to get hung, drawn and quartered for that in the middle ages.
Maybe he was aiming for the face, which for me is an aggravating circumstance.
Festive snowball attack.

44. Telling Anecdotes

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Improve your speaking by telling interesting and amusing anecdotes. In this episode you’ll learn about anecdotes, listen to a couple of stories told by some BBC radio DJs and learn some new vocabulary. Good extended listening practice. There are vocabulary notes and a grammar practice exercise below. Enjoy!

Right-click here to download this episode.
Anecdotes
What are the characteristics of an anecdote?

• They’re quite funny
• They contain a story
• They include lots of descriptive details – like exactly what happened and what it looked like
• They include descriptions of the thoughts and feelings of the person involved
• Some details are exaggerated to make the story more interesting!
• They involve a comment at the end – e.g. what you’ve learned, what you think of the situation now

You’re going to listen to an anecdote by Adam Buxton, a BBC Radio DJ and comedian from South London.

The Adam & Joe Show is a weekly radio programme on BBC 6 Music every Saturday morning. The show is also available as a podcast from the BBC here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/adamandjoe/

Adam and Joe have known each other since they were children. They both grew up together in London, and became famous for making comedy television programmes and radio shows. Adam Buxton is also an actor who has been in British films such as Hot Fuzz, Stardust and Son of Rambow. Joe Cornish is now a film director and his latest film is called Attack The Block, and it’s a sic-fi horror film about a group of kids in London who fight back against aliens that attack their block of flats. It’s great, and it features young Londoners speaking in their real local dialect.

Listen to Adam’s anecdote and answer these questions:

1. Where was Adam when this happened and why was he there?
2. How does Adam know this happened when he was incredibly young?
3. What was lying on the floor? How did it get there?
4. Why did Adam think it was free?
5. What was Adam doing when his Dad found him?
6. What did Adam’s Dad say when he realised Adam had stolen the gum?
7. How did Adam’s Dad make his point?
8. What exactly happened to the gum?

Vocabulary
Here’s some of the vocabulary from the recording of Adam and Joe. To get explanations of this language, you’ll have to listen to the podcast. I start giving definitions at about 22m40sec.

1. Do you think of me as a bit of a crim?
2. These are crimes you commit on kind of an instinctive basis
3. We don’t condone it. In fact if you enter this text competition we might pass your details on to the coppers.
4. This is one of my formative memories
5. The earliest memory I’ve got stashed away in my brainium
6. This is in the days when my Ma and Pa used to smoke cigs
7. Someone had knocked a packet of Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum off the shelf
8. The floor is no man’s land
9. That’s what Ronnie Biggs said in his defence. “It was on the floor! The gold fell on the floor!”
10. So, anyway, to cut a long story short, I stuffed the Wriggles in my pockles
11. I was fairly brazen about it
12. My Dad found me happily chomping some Wriggles
13. It’s tricky to get rid of the evidence. Just chew it. You can’t swallow it either
14. The police can forensic it
15. I was very freaked out
16. Gum’s not even flammable, is it?
17. It’s like a sort of a hellfire response! It’s like he’s a Baptist minister.
18. The foil just went all charcoaly and the gum just sort of melted

Grammar Exercise
Practise your English by completing Adam’s story. This is a slightly basic version of the story (not exactly the same as the one in the recording). Don’t listen, just try and put the verbs in the correct form:

Well, my introduction to the shady world of crime (come about) __________ when I suppose I (be) _______________ about four or five. We (be) ____________ at the corner shop. This (be) _______________ in the days when my Ma and Pa (smoke) _______________ cigs. We (live) _______________ in Earl’s Court and we (be) _______________ at the corner shop. My Dad (buy) _______________ some cigs. I (know) _______________ I (be) _______________ incredibly young because the only shelf I (see) _______________ (be) _______________ the absolute bottom shelf, and that (be) _______________ where all the sweeties (be) _______________. And someone (knock) _______________ a packet of Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum off the shelf and it (just lie) _______________ on the floor, (call) _______________ my name. And I (be) _______________ the only one down there at that level, and I (look) _______________ at it and I (think) _______________ “Free gum! Free gum!”. I (remember) _______________ very clearly the logic process I (go through) _______________ in order to justify to myself that it (be) _______________ ok, because inside I (know) _______________ that it (steal) _______________. I remember (think) _______________ “it (fall) _______________ off the shelf and they don’t want it any more”.

Anyway, I (shove) _______________ the gum into my pocket, and (get) _______________ home and I (go) _______________ into my room. I didn’t believe I (commit) _______________ a serious crime, but my Dad (find) _______________ me happily (chomp) _______________ some gum, and he said “where did you get this gum? I didn’t buy you any chewing gum. You’re not allowed gum.” And I said “It was on the floor, it was broken!” And he said, “you (just steal) _______________ something! You stole this! You didn’t pay for it! If the police (find) _______________ out, you (go) _______________ to prison.”

I (be) _______________ very freaked out, and (make) _______________ his point even more forcefully, my Dad (burn) _______________ the gum. The foil just (go) _______________ all charcoaly and the gum just kind of (melt) _______________. It (smell) _______________ minty.

Transcript of the Adam & Joe Anecdotes
Here’s the complete script if you need it:

Well, my introduction to the shady world of crime came about when I suppose I must have been about four or five. We were at the corner shop. This is in the days when my Ma and Pa used to smoke cigs. We lived in Earl’s Court and we were at the corner shop. My Dad was buying some cigs. I know I was incredibly young because the only shelf I could see was the absolute bottom shelf, and that’s where all the sweeties were, and someone had knocked a packet of Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum off the shelf and it was just lying on the floor, calling my name. And I was the only one down there at that level, and I was looking at it and I was thinking “Free gum! Free gum!”. I remember very clearly the logic process I went through in order to justify to myself that it was ok, because inside I knew that it would be stealing.

I remember thinking “it’s fallen off the shelf and they don’t want it any more”.
Anyway, I shoved the gum into my pocket, and got home and I went into my room. I didn’t believe I had committed a serious crime, but my Dad found me happily chomping some gum, and he said “where did you get this gum? I didn’t buy you any chewing gum. You’re not allowed gum.” And I said “It was on the floor, it was broken!” And he said, “you’ve just stolen something! You stole this! You didn’t pay for it! If the police found out, you could go to prison.”

Rules of Life
p.s. Here those ‘rules of life’ I talked about at the beginning of the podcast:

1. Don’t be dead
2. Get a job
3. Get money
4. Get food
5. Find friends / a life partner
6. Get married
7. Buy a nice house in a good neighbourhood – get on the property ladder
8. Get a broadband internet connection (so you can download Luke’s English Podcast)
9. Get an HD TV
10. Negotiate a good mobile phone contract
11. Look after your teeth
12. Eat plenty of fibre
13. Eat 5 portions of fruit or vegetables a day
14. Get plenty of sleep – at least 6 hours
15. Get regular sex
16. Reduce your carbon footprint – insulate your home
17. Watch the latest American dramas on TV
18. Consolidate all your monthly loan repayments
19. Learn another language
20. Call your parents
21. Exfoliate
22. Follow your dreams
23. Enjoy yourself.

So, the 23rd rule of life – Just ENJOY YOURSELF!

24. Listen to Luke’s English Podcast every day.

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Luke’s ENGLISH Podcast

Learn British English with Luke Thompson

Category Archives: Story

146. Nightmare Teaching Experiences (Part 2)

140. Ghost Stories – True Tales of Really Creepy Experiences

The Japanese running tap

The bouncing ball

Frozen in bed and the weird clock

The Lapworth Walk

125. The Pink Gorilla Story

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Language Extracts with Vocabulary (thanks to Jack) – TRANSCRIPT BELOW THIS LIST

TRANSCRIPT

86. Criminal Law (Vocabulary, Story & Conversation)

75. Not a Distraction!

73. Steve Jobs

68. Childhood / Growing Up / School Days – Phrasal Verbs and Expressions

47. Travelling in Vietnam

Get the PDF transcript here 👇

45. Luke & Andy’s Crime Stories (with Andy Johnson)

44. Telling Anecdotes

The Japanese running tap

The bouncing ball

Frozen in bed and the weird clock

The Lapworth Walk

Do you Want to skip the introduction?

Language Extracts with Vocabulary (thanks to Jack) – TRANSCRIPT BELOW THIS LIST

TRANSCRIPT

Get the PDF transcript here 👇

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