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574. [2/2] The Rick Thompson Report: Brexit Q&A (January 2019)

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My dad answers some questions from listeners about Brexit. Includes conversation about Theresa May’s deal, the prospect of a ‘no-deal’ Brexit, Parliamentary democracy, the possible reactions to revoking Article 50 and cancelling Brexit altogether, chances of a second referendum, Scottish independence, the sensitive Northern Ireland situation, consequences for EU nationals in the UK and the question of trading on WTO rules.


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Introduction Transcript

Hello listeners around the world, this is part 2 of a double episode of The Rick Thompson Report on Luke’s English Podcast in which I am talking to my dad about Brexit. We recorded this conversation on Thursday 24 January 2019.

As I said, this is part 2. You should listen to part 1 before you listen to this. In part 1 we chatted about the current Brexit situation, talking specifically about what happened with Theresa May’s Brexit deal, why MPs in Parliament rejected it, what’s going on now in Parliament and with Brexit generally, and what might happen next.

We talked about the possibility of a no-deal Brexit (aka “crashing out of the EU”) and what that might look like. We talked about the possibility of Brexit being postponed or even cancelled completely and we talked about the possibility of a 2nd referendum happening.

We also went into some detail about the Northern Ireland backstop – aka the Northern Ireland border problem and various other aspects of this complicated issue.

This brings us to part 2 and In this part we’re going to respond to some questions from my listeners, and there are a few times when we refer to things we said in part 1. So this will all make a bit more sense to you if you listen to part 1 first, that’s episode 573.

So, assuming that you’ve heard part 1 of this conversation, let’s now listen to my dad’s responses to a few questions from my audience. So here is part 2 of this episode of The Rick Thompson Report on Luke’s English Podcast.

Questions from Listeners

Hiro (twitter)
I was expecting you to have another episode about Brexit with your dad. Thank you in advance.
I have three questions.

1: The result of the referendum in 2016 was 52:48. Do you think the ratio has changed recently?

Luke: The ratio has changed because people who were too young to vote in the previous one have now reached the legal age, and some older people who voted leave in 2016 have died.

TheWeek.co.uk 21 Jan
Britain has seen a “Brexit crossover” where the number of younger Remain supporters who have reached voting age combined with older Leave voters who have died since the referendum has wiped out the 1.3 million majority that voted in favour of leaving the EU.

2: Theresa May’s deal was rejected several days ago, but she survived the no-confidence vote. It seems to me that she was left with a heavy burden and no one else wants to be in her position. Do you think there is any possibility that she will get angry and leave?

3: The British parliament is in a very difficult and complicated situation. I guess it’s showing the worst side of democracy.( It reminds me of the final days of ancient Athens. )
What do you think about it, especially in relation to the dictatorships of other countries?

Mits (twitter)
Hi Luke! I always enjoy the episodes with your dad:) Especially on Brexit. Here are my questions.
What would be the ideal situation for UK?
Would you like a second national referendum?
I am very worried about the current situation and the future..

Lysak_Michael (Twitter)
Hello, Luke! In case of Brexit how will England deal with Scotland, which is going to realize its right to independence?
And, of course, the border between NI and Ireland.
Could your dad share his feelings about actions of IRA in 1972, 1974, 1982? Thank you!

Ladislav (Facebook)
I’m so looking forward to this episode. I was wondering whether you was going to record one. I must say that the The Rick Thompson Report episodes are the best alongside ones with Amber and Paul!
Question: how long will it take to decide what the next step (new government, new general election, referendum etc) is going to be?

Ivan (FB)
What surprises me about Brexit is some “split” of the picture that I am receiving.
Never in my life, have I heard anything positive about Brexit from articles/podcasts/media.
And at the very same time whenever I speak privately with a UK citizen I ask them whether they support Brexit and keep getting answers “it’s complicated but yes”.

Luke: Which media are you consuming? Which people are you talking to?

Ju (maybe Julie or Julia) (FB)
I’ve been waiting for a new episode of the Rick Thompson Report! I’m worried about a no-deal and the consequences for EU citizens who want to stay in the UK…
Do you think that there will be a Brexit without a deal or will they postpone it?
BTW, I’ve been listening your podcast for about a year and I just love it! 👏👏👏

Aritz (FB)
Hi Rick! I’m from Spain, working in London.
What’s going to happen with the pound-euro exchange?
Shall I send my savings in pounds to Spain buying euros?
Cheers!

Igor (Twitter)
Could you talk about the Irish border and the backstop?
And also about Jeremy Corbyn, whether he’s the right person or not to lead the Labour Party in this important issue? Thanks, I always listen to LEP.

Zdenek (FB)

If article 50 is revoked or extended to buy more time for Brexit, isn’t there a huge danger of people losing faith in politics and people wanting to take matters into their own hands, riot risks etc?

What are the chances Scotland will leave the UK and instead join the EU if Brexit happens? In their Independence referendum they decided to stay in the UK, but nobody told them they would have to leave Europe.

Can your Dad give his predictions in percentages of the following happening? New referendum (people’s vote), general election, No deal Brexit, Theresa May’s deal, civil war (just a bad joke- I am actually heartbroken about what is happening in the UK)

Do you think Jeremy Corbyn is playing his cards right? It seems to me that he is lately behaving a bit like Boris Johnson, speculating too much and thinking about his own career rather than the future of the UK? Shouldn’t he just get over himself and campaign for remain?

A lot of people are angry at the prospect of Brexit not happening. They say it would be undemocratic. Don’t you think that ignoring the people’s voice would not be right? On the other hand parliamentary democracy means parliament is the body that decides. Why should ordinary folks have such power, especially if they clearly have no clue what they are doing?

Kauan (FB)
Is Brexit still a thing that’s gonna happen? I thought it got canceled or smth or whatever. At least I heard it somewhere.
Luke: 🤷‍♂️

Chriss from Mexico (FB)
Will we (foreigners) need a visa to enter?

Marcio (FB)
Why did the UK government itself create this bad situation that has stopped the entire country?
(originally written: Why the own English government have created this bed situation that stopped all country?)
Luke: Ask David Cameron

Video
Danny Dyer talks about David Cameron. “Where is the geezer!” “He’s in Europe. He’s in Nice with his trotters up!” “Twat!” (cockney accent) – a very strange moment in television as both Pamela Anderson and  Jeremy Corbyn are also present in the studio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWAa3_OyS48

Stavtsev (FB)
Does it mean that Northern Ireland will be able to reunite with Ireland?

Farshid (website)
What advantages does it give to Britain and most importantly what effects it will have on other countries?

Ending

Thank you again to Dad for his contribution.

Thank you also to listeners for sending your questions. I didn’t manage to use all the questions that I received, so apologies to anyone who I missed out.

Now there are loads of other things I’d like to talk about on this subject but there isn’t really time. I might go back into it at some point.

“Trading on WTO rules” and What are tariffs anyway?

But before we go, I would like to revisit this subject of trading on WTO rules, because this is something you will hear from Brexiters when they talk about the prospect of us crashing out of the EU without a deal. They usually say “We can simply trade with the rest of the world using WTO rules.” I think it’s worth looking at what that really means, and how it’s actually a very dangerous step to take.

I mentioned in part 1 a Twitter user who I have been following. In fact I’ve noticed lots of very well-informed users of Twitter who have been tweeting various information, backed up by genuine understandings of all the technical details of things like the World Trade Organisation.

So, this guy on Twitter is called Edwin Hayward, and this is what he wrote about trading on WTO terms. It’s actually very interesting because not only can you learn about the reality of what that means, you can learn a thing or two about international trade and what tariffs are. This is what he wrote recently. You can find links to this on the page for this episode.

Debunking WTO and what “trading on WTO terms” really means… By Edwin Hayward

@uk_domain_names on Twitter

https://twitter.com/uk_domain_names/status/1073221524545363973?lang=en

As EU members, we participate in over 750 international treaties. Many relate to trade, enabling us to trade freely with the EU, the EEA, and 40+ other countries.

Other treaties cover non-trade issues, from air worthiness certificates to drivers licenses, UK and EU citizens’ rights, food safety, environmental protections, workers rights, etc.

On Brexit Day, we leave the EU. That means we lose all the benefits of its treaties. Those treaties are gone in a flash, as if we’d fed them into a shredder. (That’s not the EU being vindictive, it’s just how the Article 50 process works.)

Even IF we have a transition period, the treaties will already be gone, but we will be shielded from the immediate shock by the transition arrangement.

Right now, we share in EU trade deals with 78 countries (22 more pending). These deals cover 60.7% of all our of all our goods imports, and 66.9% of our exports. Overnight, we will lose them all, wave goodbye to the painstaking gains of over forty years of trade negotiations. In the absence of trade deals, we will be reduced to trading on WTO terms. WTO is a complicated system of tariffs and quotas…

Luke’s Note: What are tariffs? Tariffs are import charges, a bit like taxes on imports. A country’s government can set tariffs on goods imported into the country. Who pays the tariff? The company which is sending the products into that country. So, if your country produces tennis balls and you want to sell them in the UK, the UK will probably have set tariffs which you have to pay when you send your tennis balls into the UK. The UK government has set tariffs on those tennis balls in order to protect the tennis ball manufacturers that it has at home. Because, if it’s possible to buy super cheap tennis balls from abroad, then British tennis ball makers will go out of business – they would either not be able to compete with the cheap foreign tennis balls, or they’d have to lower their prices to match the cheap foreign tennis balls – in either case they would go out of business. So the UK government sets tariffs on tennis balls to protect those British tennis ball manufacturers. That’s what tariffs are – they are an import charge which protects local manufacturers from super cheap imports. Back to the article by Edwin Hayward…

In the absence of trade deals, we will be reduced to trading on WTO terms. WTO is a complicated system of tariffs and quotas, plus a baseline set of rules designed to make trade a little less painful and a little smoother than it otherwise would be.

WTO provides a baseline for trade, but it is the absolute minimum that all rational countries seek to improve on. That’s why everyone’s trying to sign trade deals all the time. The whole point of trade deals is to improve on the basic terms offered by WTO.

In trade terms, WTO can be likened to fourth division football: it’s definitely a step up from a kick-around in the park using jerseys as goalposts, but it’s by no means a high standard.
Let’s talk about tariffs. WTO has an immensely complex schedule of tariffs, running into thousands of categories. Different products attract different tariffs. For example, under WTO, cars are subject to tariffs of 10%.

Tariffs are paid by importers, but of course they then turn around and pass those extra costs onto the consumer.

Right now, UK manufacturers can sell cars to the EU tariff free. But under WTO, those cars will be subject to 10% tariffs, effectively making UK-made cars 10% more expensive for EU consumers.

But all the major car manufacturers have manufacturing facilities elsewhere, including other EU countries. So if we’re reduced to trading on WTO terms, they’ll just shift production to the EU and avoid the 10% tariffs.

WTO gives us the right to control the tariffs on our imports, even reduce them to zero if we want to.

But that’s when the WTO most favoured nation rule kicks in. “Most favoured nation” is possibly the most misleading expression ever invented, because what it really means is that we are not allowed to favour one nation over another in our WTO dealings.

So if for example if we are desperate for cabbages, we can set a tariff of 0% on them. That makes them cheaper, which stimulates demand and encourages more producers to send us their cabbages.

But we can’t set a tariff of 0% for just one country. If we decide to drop the tariff on cabbages to 0%, that becomes our new tariff for every country in the world. So we get flooded with cabbages from the cheapest producers on the planet.

That’s great if you love cabbages, but absolutely devastating if you’re a UK cabbage farmer.
You can’t have it both ways. Either you shelter behind tariffs to protect domestic producers, or you reduce them or cut them to zero to encourage cheap imports – and destroy your local industry in the process. The rules of WTO force that tradeoff for every product sector. But that’s only half the picture. We have no control over other countries’ import tariffs, i.e. the tariffs imposed on the things UK-based producers export to them. If we’re trading with them on WTO terms, both the EU non-EU countries will impose whatever tariffs the WTO demands.

Overnight, our exports will be more expensive. That, combined with the fact that we will no longer share common standards with the markets we export to (also covered by the treaties we will have lost) will make products manufactured in the UK significantly less competitive in the global market.

For instance, why would any overseas consumer buy a UK-made car if they can get exactly the same car from the EU or elsewhere at a lower cost? Short answer: they won’t.

But what if the EU were to drop their tariff on cars to 0%? That would help our car producers, because our cars would no longer incur tariffs. However, “most favoured nation” would kick in. The EU would be forced to offer every country in the world 0% tariffs on cars.

The mere notion is absurd. After all, the EU aren’t going to leave their domestic market unprotected just to help the UK. It would be completely irrational to expect them to.

So, in practice, trading on WTO terms will mean that everything we make in the UK will be more expensive for overseas consumers at a stroke. Some industries may be able to reduce their production costs to offset the tariffs; most will collapse.

And we will be faced with the impossible task of choosing product by-product, industry by industry, which producers to protect by maintaining our own tariffs, and which to throw to the wolves by cutting or eliminating our tariffs.

If all of the above sounds grim, that’s because it is. There are no countries in the world that trade exclusively on WTO terms with other nations. None whatsoever.

Even North Korea has a couple of trade facilitation arrangements. We will have none. Nothing at all. No country has ever torn up all its international arrangements before (quite frankly, none have been crazy enough to). So we will be in a very lonely, exclusive club.

So if somebody tells you the UK will be OK trading on WTO terms, they either:
A) Don’t understand what that means or B) Are lying to you For example, Patrick Minford (of Economists for Brexit) is on record as stating that WTO would destroy the UK car industry, but that it would be a price worth paying for the freedom afforded by Brexit.

In other words, Brexiters see manufacturers as collateral damage, to be swept aside in pursuit of Brexit.

Perhaps you’re not so sanguine? Perhaps you would quite like the UK to keep manufacturing things?

In which case, you need to take heed of just how destructive, how damaging, trading on WTO terms would be. Estimates for the likely damage range from 7%-10% of GDP. Even at the low-end, that’s worse than the 2008 financial crash.

But unlike the crash, we’d be deliberately, willingly inflicting the pain on ourselves. Incredible, but true.

And the result would be the return of austerity, not for a few years, but for decades or generations to come.

WTO: just say no!

Brexiter James Delingpole promotes a no-deal Brexit on WTO terms, but then can’t explain how the WTO actually works

 

571. Bill Burr’s Hilarious Plane Story – Enjoy Comedy/Storytelling in English

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Understand a funny anecdote by comedian Bill Burr. In this episode we’re going to do some intensive listening practice using the true story of a bizarre encounter with a man on a plane.  Look out for language for travelling by plane, some American English and A LOT of swearing, particularly the F word.


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Introduction Transcript

In this episode you’re going to do some fairly intensive listening practice, using a funny story.

This is just a story which I find really enjoyable, and I keep going back to listen to it and I just want to share it with you.

Do you have things like that? Like, YouTube videos that you keep going back to again and again because they make you laugh for whatever reason? For me, this is one of those things.

Hopefully you’ll find it as enjoyable as I do

Maybe you won’t, you know, because you just might not get it for whatever reason. It might not be your cup of tea and of course you just might not understand it like I do because of your level of English, but we’ll see about that, and that’s my aim in this episode – to try and help you to understand this like I do, which hopefully will result in you just finding it funny like I do.

I’ve been here so many times before – sharing comedy with learners of English. I’ve done this plenty of times as an English teacher, thinking “This is hilarious, I’m going to use it with my students, it’ll be brilliant!” And then I play it to my students and it’s just tumbleweeds in the classroom…

*Luke goes off on a tangent about tumbleweeds in western movies*

…and nobody gets it and I think “I will never do this again. Just pages from English Grammar in Use next time”, even though the students probably did enjoy it, but they weren’t able to laugh out loud because it was difficult to understand. But in the past, that kind of experience has made me feel quite bad, as an English teacher.

To be honest, these days that doesn’t happen to me as often as it used to. I think I’ve finally learned that comedy will only work in the language classroom if you devote loads of time to helping the students understand it – understand the specific vocabulary used, the context and the pronunciation and delivery (often it’s just that it’s hard to catch specifically what’s been said and if you miss one little bit you won’t get the joke).

(As we know) Comedy is extremely hard to enjoy in a second language

…and this is because it’s all about understanding things instantly and being able to pick up on very subtle changes in tone – not just the words being used, but the nuances of the comedian’s attitude and shared experiences that you’re supposed to know about.

So, as we know, it can be hard to understand comedy, but I’m still committed to helping learners enjoy it, because I enjoy it so much and I just think you’re missing out if you don’t get it.

It’s like one of those 3D posters or something, but obviously, much better than that. (Remember those 3D posters? If you couldn’t see the 3D image, they just looked utterly terrible.)

I’ve learned how to do comedy in the classroom (I mean as listening exercises) these days and I tend to lower my expectations a bit and I don’t get so disheartened if my students aren’t rolling on the floor laughing when I show them something. So, it’s alright.

So, you’re going to hear a story which I find funny. I’m going to try to help you to enjoy it too, but if you don’t. That’s totally fine and it doesn’t matter that much anyway because the main thing is that you’ll be learning English and if you have a bit of a chuckle in the process, that’s just a bonus isn’t it?

What is this Luke? What is this thing you’d like to share with us?

This is the audio from a YouTube video. It’s a true story told by a stand up comedian on his podcast. We’re going to listen to the whole story and I’m going to break it down and explain it bit by bit.

The comedian’s name is Bill Burr. Have you heard of him? He’s definitely one of the top English speaking stand-ups in the world. He is hilarious, in my opinion, and also in the opinion of many many other people.

He does stand-up shows on stage in very large arenas these days. He has Netflix stand-up specials and he also does other things like some writing and some acting. He was in a few episodes of Breaking Bad, for example. He also has a podcast called The Monday Morning Podcast. It’s called that because it’s published every Monday morning. I think there are episodes on Thursdays too, even though it’s still called the Monday Morning Podcast.

We’re going to listen to an extract from an old episode of Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast here. So, a bit of OPP in this episode today – and if you don’t know, OPP stands for other people’s podcasts.

Some intel on Bill Burr

Bill Burr grew up on the East Coast of the USA, in Boston I think, and I think he has some Irish roots. In any case, he’s from Massachusetts, so he has that kind of East coast accent, not fully Boston, or New York but in that area, as you’ll hear.

In terms of his style, this is from his Wikipedia page (two quotes):

Rolling Stone magazine called Burr “the undisputed heavyweight champ of rage-fueled humor”.

Bill often rants about subjects and tells stories with a certain level of anger, or is it just irate energy? I don’t find him that aggressive or angry actually, beyond the fact that he has a pretty loud and intense voice and he swears a LOT, particularly using the F word (or the F bomb as it is known) and various other typical American English swear words which for some reason make me crack up every time.

Burr often portrays himself as “that loud guy in the bar” with “uninformed logic”.

That’s exactly the sort of guy that he is. A slightly dumb and pissed off guy with a loud mouth and the gift of the gab (although I don’t think he’s dumb – you’ve got to be very clever to be able to tell stories in such a funny way). He sometimes has views which I don’t really agree with, but he’s got such a way with words and a kind of flow to his storytelling, particularly when he gets angry, that it really makes me laugh. He is a naturally talented comedian.

In this story Bill is just describing something that happened to him on a plane. There’s no political subtext or any of that kind of thing. It’s just Bill telling a true story about a weird guy he encountered on a plane.

If you don’t know Bill Burr and you’re a fan of stand up comedy, you might want to check him out. You could listen to the Monday Morning Podcast to hear Bill just chatting about his life and telling stories, and you could see some of his comedy specials on Netflix.

Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast

Bill’s plane story

Comedians from the states have to do a lot of travelling and so they all seem to have stories of flying and being on planes. This is also something that most Americans can relate to since the country is so big that flying is a regular occurrence, particularly if you travel from coast to coast. Bill is no exception. He’s a top comic who plays to sold out arenas across the country, so he regularly flies to different cities to do his shows. He also came to the UK and sold out some big shows there not long ago. He’s a big deal now but he still manages to tell these relatable stories.

I should warn you that this episode will contain A LOT of swearing (rude words)

Bill talks to you like you’re his buddy and you’re both sitting down having a drink in a bar or something, and therefore there is a lot of swearing as you would expect in that kind of situation. I’m not suggesting you should talk like this, and swear like this. But I think it’s not a bad idea to be able to understand it and to hear some typical swearing from someone like Bill.

He’s a sort of blue-collar guy, a regular guy from the East coast of the USA and this is how a lot of people like him really speak when they’re with their friends. But, just a warning – this episode is full of the F bomb – and by that I mean the word *fuck* in all its glory, used frequently and I should say very effectively by a true master of the art of swearing – Bill Burr.

So, what about this story? I’ll let you discover it as you listen, but essentially it’s about having an encounter with a really weird guy on a plane.

I don’t know what it is about flying, but it seems to bring out some weird behaviour in people. Sometimes it makes people behave very badly, or weirdly. Perhaps the cramped space in the plane causes this, or the close proximity to other people, the alcohol that people drink, all the security protocols or simply the stress of flying. All of those things can make people act really weirdly on planes. I’m sure most of us have been in situations when there’s a weirdo or a nutter on the plane and you observe some strange behaviour, maybe some arguing or trouble between passengers. If you’re particularly unlucky you might end up sitting next to someone strange, who kind of makes your flight really difficult. It could just be someone who insists on talking to you for the whole flight, or someone who won’t stop moving around, or worse – someone who gets aggressive with you or the cabin crew. This is a story about a situation like that.

So, let’s listen to the story and I’ll explain things that I think are necessary as we go along. I will stop the recording from time to time and explain things, repeat bits if necessary. If you’d like to listen to the whole story uninterrupted, you can find the video of this story on YouTube – it’s called Bill Burr Hilarious Plane Story, and it’s also embedded on the page for this episode.

So this is all American English. Normally it’s British English on this podcast of course, but it’s interesting to explore some American English too and I can perhaps make some comparisons along the way and talk about the differences between how he speaks and how I speak, for example.

I’ll play the story in parts. All you have to do is understand what happened in each part. I’ll pause after a couple of minutes and then sum up the part we listened to. This will probably take the whole episode as the YouTube video I’m using here is about 18 minutes long.

This was recorded by Bill in his home for his podcast. It’s not him on stage. It’s just him and a microphone in his living room or something.

By the way, it might be hard for you to understand what he’s saying at the beginning because you’re not familiar with his voice, but you’ll get used to it, and when we get into the story I think you’ll be fully locked in. I hope so anyway. But again, don’t worry, I will explain things as we go.

Check the page for this episode on the website where you’ll see the YouTube video for this if you want to listen to the whole story again, uninterrupted. Also, you’ll some bits transcribed and also some vocabulary notes.

So let’s go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HefnGHAaD8g&t=55s

Some Notes & Vocab (unfinished at the moment – I might add more later)

Part 1

Play the first part. From 00:20 until 4:10 when Bill tells the guy his name.

Task: Just try to follow exactly what’s happening. Bill meets a guy on the plane. Who is he? What does he want? What’s Bill’s reaction?

  • I go to the airport and I’m taking the red-eye
  • A red-eye (or red-eye flight) refers to a long, single flight across the USA which happens at night but doesn’t give you time for a full night’s sleep.
  • I’m on a good plane, why would I want to get off it and switch and roll the dice, and get on another one.
  • When I’m driving to SF I don’t pull over in, fucking, Burbank and get in another car, “we get it Bill!”
  • I use my miles, bump myself up like a fancy person, you know, maybe I invented the Cheesecake Factory, people are thinking… and then they see how I’m dressed and they go “oh no, he didn’t invent the Cheesecake Factory”.
  • Bill goes to set his back down in front of me and the “nice fella” says “why don’t you set it in the middle, there’s room” and I think “alright this guy’s a solid dude, or whatever”

Part 2

3:52 (skip back a bit) – Bill tells the guy his name – until 7:22 when Bill says “Fuck this guy, I want to see where this is going!”

Part 3

7:22 to 12.25

Summary: The plane stopped for a while as the crew are finding out what is going on. The guy is asked “Are you going to be ok to fly with him?” and he feels like he’s in control and says “Yeah, don’t worry, it’s ok”. Then he’s getting in Bill’s ear going “You know what? I hope you try something, I fuckin hope you try something when we’re up there” and Bill is just laughing at the guy like “Fuck you you jerkoff!”

Part 4

12:25 – 14:11 “Why are you going to Indianapolis Bill???” 😂😂😂

14:11 – End

…that’s it so far. I might add more notes later if I get the chance!

How about you? Are you afraid to fly? 😉

569. Learning & Teaching English with Zdenek Lukas (Part 1)

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Talking to English teacher & podcaster Zdenek Lukas from the Czech Republic about how he learned English to a high level by working on a building site in East London with a team of cockneys who couldn’t pronounce his name properly. Also includes tangents about football commentators, climate change denial, flat earth conspiracy theorists and more. [Part 1 of 2]. Intro & outro transcripts available.

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Introduction Transcript

Hello listeners, how are you today? Fine? Pretty good? Not too bad? Can’t complain? Mustn’t grumble? Could be worse? Doing alright? You’re doing alright. Good. Glad to hear it.

Here is a new episode and it’s a conversation with Zdenek Lukas who is an English teacher from the Czech Republic. You might have heard me mention Zdenek on the podcast before and in fact you might already be familiar with his voice because he has a podcast of his own. You might be one of his listeners in fact.

Zdenek’s podcast is called Zdenek’s English Podcast – yes, that does sound familiar doesn’t it? It’s like the name of my podcast. As Zdenek has said himself many times, he was inspired to start his podcast mainly after becoming a fan of my podcast and I’m ok with that.

He did actually ask me before choosing that name and I said yep, go ahead. This was years ago now, I think around 2013, when he first set up his podcast and got in touch with me about it.

These days Zdenek’s English Podcast exists in its own right. He’s uploaded about 250 episodes which feature monologues from him about his life and his journey with English, and also conversations with his friends, native speakers he meets in his hometown or on trips to London and in gaming communities online and he even records episodes with his students of English from time to time.

I thought it was about time I talked to Zdenek on this podcast and I wanted to ask him about these things:

  • how he learned English to such a high level
  • his story of moving to the UK where he ended up working with cockneys in the East End of London
  • how he became a teacher of English
  • his thoughts on the question of non-native speakers as teachers of English
  • his podcast
  • his love of board games and how they can be used for learning English
  • the board game he has created himself and the online board game communities that he’s part of

So my plan was to interview him about all of those things, but naturally we ended up going off on various tangents, especially at the beginning of this first part, and then we got into all the questions I wanted to ask Zdenek and I found out about his whole story. This is a two part episode.

Part 1 Summary

Here’s a quick run-down of what’s coming up in part 1, just to make sure you can keep up, especially since the conversation goes off in a few directions at the beginning.

We mention what happened at LEPster meetups in London that Zdenek organised last year and the year before. I attended the first one but not the second. He recorded episodes of his podcast on both occasions.

We talk about what it takes to be a genuine LEPster and whether some people might stop listening after a few episodes.

We talk about where Zdenek’s home town is and the general location of the Czech Republic.

A few tangents:

  • Global warming & climate change denial
  • The time I talked to some Flat Earth conspiracy theorists on The Flat Earth Podcast
  • Louis Theroux (UK documentary film maker)

Zdenek tells us about his academic background in linguistics and English teaching including details of the university dissertation he wrote about the language of English football commentators.

And then we get into Zdenek’s whole story of learning English, including what happened when he travelled to England in his early 20s with no plan, just the will to get away and have an interesting experience in another country. The result was that it really pushed his level of English and led him on his current career and life path.

I will let you discover all the details now as you listen to our whole conversation which is presented to you here in two parts.

This is part one of course, so without any further ado, here we go!

Ending

Ok everyone, that is where we are going to stop, but the conversation will continue in part 2 which should be available right away I think, so you can just move on to that one now, can’t you?

So, that is it for part 1 and I will speak to you again in part 2.

Thanks for listening…

Bye!

Links

Zdenek’s English Podcast

Zdenek’s English Podcast Facebook page

Kingdoms of Deceit – Zdenek’s game on Steam

555. Raphael Miller’s Summer School Report

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Raphael Miller is back on the podcast to tell us about his experience of running a summer school for international teenagers in Liverpool.


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The conversation includes lots of stories and descriptions of what happened at the school this summer, including things like teenage sleeping habits, a Chinese celebrity teenager, the proper way to eat a pizza, piano-playing Italian wonder-kids, making tie-dye t-shirts, riding roller-coasters, and blossoming friendships across national borders.

Your English Summer website https://www.yourenglishsummer.co.uk/

Goofy and Pluto – WTF?

Donald Duck?

Alton Towers – Oblivion

Raph’s previous appearance on LEP (April 2018)

522. Learning English at Summer School in the UK (A Rambling Chat with Raphael Miller)

551. Catching Up with Amber & Paul #8 – Stereotypes

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Chatting to the pod-pals Amber & Paul again and this time the conversation turns to the subject of national stereotypes, and why Paul has bleached his hair blond. Notes & transcripts below.

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Intro Transcript

OK Amber & Paul are back on the podcast today and I promise to keep this intro as short as possible.

It’s been a while since the last episode with Amber and Paul so it’s great to have them back. It’s been a little difficult to get the three of us in a room together, because we’ve all been busy, especially Paul who has been doing his stand up and working on a TV show and other projects.

So, anyway, here is “Catching Up with Amber & Paul” #8. The idea behind these catching up episodes is that we just see what my friends Amber & Paul have been doing recently and then see where the conversation takes us.

You can expect the usual mix of us talking quite fast, going off on various tangents and making fun of each other. That’s what usually happens in these episodes, and everyone seems to enjoy that, which is great! It’s the tangential trio, the PODPALs – reunited again for much pod-related fun.

Just to help you a bit, here’s a rundown of what we’re talking about in this episode.

  • In my coworking space, not on the terrace or in the sky pod this time. The co-working space is quite trendy and “hipsterish”, and empty.
  • Paul looks very different. His appearance has changed – what’s going on?
  • Paul’s new TV show about stereotypes, called “Stereotrip” (first revealed on this podcast last year)
  • Some talk of stereotypes, focusing on Italian people, Swiss people, German people, Swedish people and English people. What are the stereotypes of those places and are they true, based on the research that Paul and his team did for the TV show?
  • How is Amber’s show with Sarah Donnelly going? The show is called “Becoming Maman” and is about learning how to become a mother in France.
  • The importance of marketing for things like comedy shows, Vlogs, YouTube videos, podcast episodes and the way that certain episode titles or comedy show titles (names) get more success than other ones, like how “clickbait titles” are often more successful. What makes something go viral?

I just want to say again – when the three of us get together we do get a bit excited and we all have things to say, as a result we end up speaking really quickly, talking over the top of each other and cutting each other off. So, be warned – you are about to hear some quite fast speech. See if you can keep up, I hope you can! Listening several times will actually help a lot, so try doing that.

Just one more thing. You might hear some beeping in the background of this episode. There was an electrician working in the next room at the time.

Right, that’s it for this introduction. Let’s now listen to some superfast English from the PODPALS and here we go!

Ending Transcript

So, we’re going to pause right there and carry on in the next episode.

How’s this going for you? It’s nice to have Amber & Paul back on the podcast again isn’t it.

As usual, I wonder how much of this you understand because we do speak very quickly when we’re together.

I realise it might be difficult to follow, but hopefully that’s not such a big issue because it’s just pretty enjoyable listening to the three of us just rambling on like this. Certainly the impression I get is that people out there in podcastland enjoy listening to us.

You can let me know in the comment section.

Also, share your thoughts on the topics in this episode.

What do you think about stereotypes? What are the stereotypes people have of your country? Do they have any truth in them? Why do people have those stereotypes and where do they come from?

Also, what do you think about the titles of episodes? When you listen to this podcast, do the titles make any difference to your listening choices?

Let us know in the comment section and part 2 will be coming your way soon.

STEREOTRIP CLIPS

545. The Hitchhiker by Roald Dahl (Short Story)

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Learn English with this short story by British writer Roald Dahl. Intro transcript and story script available below.


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Introduction Transcript (story script available as a pdf below)

Hello folks, how are you doing?

Summer is over, everyone’s going back to their jobs and their normal lives. Sun tans are fading fast. The days are getting shorter. The leaves are turning. It’s back to reality.

I hope you had a good summer. As I said to you in June or July, my podcast uploading was quite inconsistent over the summer. I didn’t manage to post as many episodes as normal. That’s because I had quite a busy time, going away on hols to different places and also looking after our daughter who was not in day care, because day care was closed during August.

In fact, her day care still hasn’t started again, so I’m being a stay at home Dad this week, looking after her during the day time. This means that it’s a bit difficult to record and upload episodes of the podcast. The baby (and she’s still a baby) tends to demand all your attention, whether it be playing, feeding, cleaning, changing, bathing or all manner of other things, it’s hard to do anything else when I’m the only one looking after her. This week my wife has some important work related deadlines which she has to attend to, so I’m looking after the little one.

What this means is that I still can’t get fully back into my podcast rhythm. That’ll happen probably mid next week when day care starts again properly and I have time to work on episodes of both LEP and LEP Premium.

By the way, LEP Premium is going well. There are now about 14 episodes – including audio and video content, with PDFs. If you want to sign up, go to teacherluke.co.uk/premium The premium episodes are where I really focus on language, helping you to improve your grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.

I have lots of plans for new episodes coming up, but they all require some time and also silence in the background.

I wanted to upload something fairly quickly and simply in this episode, so I’ve decided to read you a short story written by Roald Dahl, who is one of the UK’s favourite authors. This doesn’t take much preparation from me, so it’s pretty easy to do.

Roald Dahl is most famous for his children’s stories – like The BFG, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, George’s Marvellous Medicine, but also he wrote some books of short stories for adults. I grew up reading his children’s books, but then also took an interest in the books of short stories too when I’d grown up a bit. So, I’ve always enjoyed Roald Dahl’s work.

I’d like to recommend his books of short stories for you to read. If you’re looking for something to read in English (and you should always have an English book on the go – it’s vital) then these could be great.

Here are some reasons why Roald Dahl is so great for reading (for your English)

  • The stories are short, so it’s less demanding and less intimidating. You can finish them. Yey!
  • They’re very well written – descriptive language and just good plain English that is easy to read and modern in style
  • They’re great little stories full of curiosities, mystery, strange things, funny things.

You could get any of Roald Dahl’s books of short stories, but a good recommendation from me would be “The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1 & 2” by Roald Dahl. Should be available from all good bookstores, including Amazon.

So, I highly recommend that you check out his work. It could be great for your English. Roald Dahl’s work is also available as audiobooks, which you could check out using Audible. Remember they still sponsor my podcast. If you use my link, you can sign up for a free 30 day trial which includes a free download of any audiobook you like.

www.audibletrial.com/teacherluke check it out. You could get a Roald Dahl book – and many of them are read by great British actors that you might know.

Now, in this episode I’m going to read out one of Dahl’s short stories. This one always sticks in my mind. I read it when I was a teenager. One of the things that always stuck in my mind was the descriptive language – describing the car he drives and the people he meets. Those descriptions really stuck with me. It’s one of the reasons I’m sure his stories are great for learning English.

It’s quite simple. I’m going to read the story to you. You can check out the story by following the link on my website, or if you have a copy of his book you can read it with me. This one is called The Hitch Hiker and it appears in volume 2 of The Complete Short Stories.

A hitch hiker is someone who waits by the side of the road and hopes to get a lift from someone. They don’t have a car or money for a bus or train, so they stick out their thumb and hope someone will stop and take them where they want to go.

I don’t know if you’ve ever hitch hiked. I’ve done it a couple of times. It felt a little risky. These days I wouldn’t do it probably. Feels a bit dangerous.

Anyway, here is the story called The Hitch Hiker. It’s only a few pages long. There’s a link on the page for this episode (below) which will allow you to read the story too.

Things I like about it / What to look out for

  • The various descriptions of the high performance car (very modern for when the story was written)
  • How it looks, the electric windows and sunroof, automatic radio aerial, the sounds of the engine, the responsiveness of the steering and brakes. He doesn’t just drive at 70, he whispers along. He doesn’t just slow down, he touches the brakes.
  • His descriptions of the hitch-hiker – comparing him to a rat
  • The descriptions of the appearance and manner of the police officer
  • The mystery surrounding the hitch hiker
  • The way the hitch hiker’s “job” is described in rather exciting and glamourous ways
  • The little twist at the end of the story

That’s it! Let’s start reading.

Click here to see the pdf of The Hitchhiker by Roald Dahl

538. World Cup 2018 [2] The Second Round / Listener Comments

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Talking about the second round of the World Cup in Russia, including comments about the teams, the games, the issues, England’s penalties vs Colombia and the way football commentators speak. Listener comments are read out. Notes available.

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Notes & Scripts

Not very much planned here. I’m just going to spill my thoughts into the microphone. Some comments from the comment section.

Sorry if I miss anything! I’m bound to miss a few things because there are lots of details in this World Cup and it’s hard to cover them all. I’m just going to look at the wallchart and see what I can say, while also reading out some comments.

One of the highlights of this competition so far has been listening to English TV presenters and commentators say “Nizhny Novgorod”. The other day one of them said “Nizzy novgarad”. I feel vindicated. It’s not just me.

My World Cup Wall Chart

Comments

Zdenek Lukas • 8 days ago
I have managed to see about 80 percent of the games so far. What a fantastic world cup this has been. Loved the way it panned out for Argentina going through in the end, very impressed by performances of Croatia, Belgium, and Colombia. No idea who will win, but my personal favourites are Belgium, Spain, pretty much any South American team that gets to the knock out stages, and of course Germany. Lineker would say that football is a beautiful game, and at the end Germany always win. And we are probably gonna see one surprising team in the semis. Of course seeing England lift the trophy would be luketastic! Also I am gonna be in England when this would potentially be happening. Fingers crossed. As an Arsenal fan though, I must say I am hoping Kane doesn’t get the golden boot. Just kidding, I wish him all the best and then he could join a new much more decent club in new season as a world cup winner.

Sergio Téllez Pinilla • 8 days ago
Neymar is a clown.

Francisco Espínola • 8 days ago
I´ve always thought of that…but now the truth has been revealed…¡Luka Modric is your secret brother!! hahaha very funny of you to comment on that.

Maxim
Don’t you know we are living in Matrix?Just some malfunction in multivariate imposing reveals the fact that we are all connected to sole upper identity. When we look at Luke and Luka our brain computers gets glitching and …Boom,Bob’s your uncle,we see what we see.

Zielak 146 • 8 days ago
Hi Luke, first of all I am Polish and I am disappointed about Poland team. I expected more after what they achieved on Euro 2016 in France and now we are going home :) In my opinion the best team is Belgium, I think they can reach final but we will see what they show against England :) I also appreciate Croatia who play nice football :)
There aren’t clear favourites. Argentina, Germany, France, Brazil, they don’t play as well as we expected.

I’d like to know what do you think about Maradona’s behaviour at the match against Nigeria? :) I’m looking forward to next episode about World Cup :) Sorry if I made any mistakes :)

Timur Sivakov • 8 days ago
Hi Luke,
I think Belgium has a big chance to win the World Cup.
They have very strong midfield, and also Lukaku is an amazing player. Croatia are good too. I have a question to you: Have you ever wanted to work as a sports commentator? I mean, the way you speak is pretty much like english commentators do.

aulo Henrique Oliveira • 7 days ago
I´m Brazilian and, apart from thinking that the team is playing slightly better than in the last Cup, I´m not sure we´ll make it to the finals. Really like how Belgium and Sweden have been playing.
Just for the record, everybody here dislikes the way Neymar has been acting up in the first matches.
Finally, I´m sorry for Germany getting out so soon but we had our little revenge If you sum up their game scores you get 7×1 ha-ha (sarcastic laughs)

Aslan Oguzbay • 6 days ago
Brazil are going to take the trophy, mark my words!

Yaron
Wow! Germany are out. As “Die Mannschaft” supporter I’m very disappointed… I hope that it will be a wake up call for “Die Mannschaft”, and that they will come back stronger and “hungrier” to win in the next world cup.

Good luck for the teams that still in the tournament…

Maxim 4 days ago
Ok.Messi is packing for home,as well as Ronaldo.Let’s look forward for tomorrow’s matches.I hope Luca Modric will crack Denmark’s defense lines😉.Absolutely spectacular championship heralding that the era of young players has finally come. And Mbappe is definitely one of them.

Pierre 4 days ago
Yep ! Mbape did a great game and he’s only 19 years old.

Nick3 days ago
Spanish players were pressing very hard and our players were struggling to stand that pressure. And the duel at the end was absolutely spectacular!!! So, of course big thanks to the both teams for the game.

Zdenek Lukas 2 days ago
Nick I will be honest with you, I saw the match and I a bit am conflicted. On the one hand, I really don’t like if team defend 90 minutes with 11 men win matches like that, but on the other hand, I am happy for Russia because they are the host and this is always great for the atmosphere of the entire tournament and because you guys fought really hard. Besides Span didn’t deserve this match because they didn’t take enough risks. So overall, a big surprise, but as a neutral I will take it :)

Nick2 days ago
I think it was the only way to win the game. And they did it. It was a smart move, more chess than football :)

Sebastián Juambeltz yesterday
Hi Luke!!
Uruguay passed the exam. What do you say about this? I am from uruguay and i am very proud of this. URUGUAY NO MA!!!.
Do you know that Uruguay is the team that won more international championships? It is alway an understimated team. We won 2 olympic 2 word cup 15 american cup.
Know the history about this great selection team from Uruguay!!
Thank you for all your work here!! It is almost great than uruguayan team.
See you..

Yaron yesterday
Oh Luke…. what a pressure… finally England wins a penalty shootout in the world cup. Happy for you. Good luck in the quarter-final.

Syntropy yesterday
Luke, congratulations on the England football team’s victory!!
They finally broke their penalty shootout curse :D

Zdenek Lukas22 hours ago
Dier scoring that penalty was the most emotional moment of the World Cup for me so far :)

Elena Konyukhova10 hours ago
World Cup in Russia seems to be lucky for England, they are doing really well. They might have more fans here.

Guardian Article

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/03/world-cup-russia-england-fans

534. Sugar Sammy Interview (Part 2) Language & Comedy

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Part 2 of my chat with Canadian stand-up comedian Sugar Sammy, talking about his 4 languages, TV shows from our childhood, copying Indian accents, language-related controversy in Quebec, Sammy’s crowd-work skills, stories of difficult gigs in the UK, and our thoughts on recent Star Wars films. At the end of the episode you can hear my spoiler-free review of “Solo: A Star Wars Story”. Transcriptions and notes available.

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Sugarsammy.com – for news of Sammy’s live shows 

Introduction Transcript

Hello, welcome back to the podcast. Here is part 2 of my conversation with Canadian multilingual stand up comedy sensation Sugar Sammy.

In our conversation we’re talking mainly about language and comedy, and here’s an overview of the main points that come up in this episode:

  • First of all we talk about the 4 languages that Sammy speaks
    There’s a tangent about American TV shows that we both used to watch when we were children, and which actually helped Sammy to learn English when he was young.
  • Two of those American TV shows we mention include Knight Rider (the one in which David Hasselhoff drives around in a super cool black talking car) and The Dukes of Hazzard (the one about two brothers who live on a farm in Georgia who drive around Georgia in an orange Dodge Charger, being chased by stupid local police officers, doing lots of jumps and stunts in the car).
  • We talk about accents and copying accents: Specifically the question of whether I should do an impression of an Indian accent on stage, or if that would be inappropriate or unacceptable for some reason.
  • We discuss a language controversy that Sammy was involved in in Quebec, Canada – which included him receiving lots of criticism and even a death threat, essentially for performing a popular show in languages other than French – in Quebec (they are very protective of the French language there) It was quite scandal at the time.
  • We talk about what Sammy does on stage, especially his crowd-work, which is that skill of improvising moments of comedy by talking directly to members of the audience. This is something that Sammy is known for because he does it very well.
  • Sammy talks about some tough comedy gigs he has had in the UK over the years and tells us a story of how he once got heckled by an aggressive audience in Northern Ireland. Heckling is when audience members shout things at you while you’re performing. For a comedian it can be pretty difficult when you’re being heckled, but good comics are able to react and respond with funny “heckle put downs”, funny responses that turn an aggressive comment into a funny moment.
  • Then there’s a bit about Star Wars at the end – because like me, Sammy is a big fan.
    We talk briefly about Sammy’s favourite episode of Star Wars, what he thought of The Last Jedi and whether he is interested in seeing the new Han Solo film. When I recorded this interview I hadn’t seen Solo, but since recording it I have, so I will talk about the Han Solo movie briefly at the end of this episode, giving my non-spoiler review.

Don’t forget that Sammy will be touring parts of Asia soon – this year probably. He has gigs coming up in Malaysia and Singapore and will be organising dates in China and Japan. He also intends to visit Russia and South America to do shows at some point. So Sammy might be performing near you soon and you must go and see him. To get news of Sammy’s shows so you don’t miss him – visit sugarsammy.com and join his mailing list.

Now without any further ado, let’s continue listening to my conversation with the super cool multilingual comedian from Canada – Sugar Sammy.

Sugarsammy.com

Knight Rider

The Dukes of Hazzard

Peter Sellers in The Party (an English actor performing as an Indian character – it would be offensive but Seller’s impression is spot on according to Sammy)

Solo: A Star Wars Story (No-Spoiler Review)

Notes & Transcriptions

For those of you who are Star Wars fans – I’m now going to talk about the latest film, which in English is called “SOLO” – released last month.

This is a “star wars story” – not part of the Skywalker narrative.
It’s an origins story.
I was sceptical about the film.
Production for the film seemed troubled, which is usually not a good sign – but it’s not necessarily a guarantee of a bad film.
The original directors were fired by Kathleen Kennedy (head of Lucasfilm) because they took the film in a comedic direction and there was too much improvisation.
Ron Howard was brought in (a more conventional, reliable Hollywood guy) to fix it and bring it back in line.

Also there were doubts about the ability of Alden Ehrenreich to pull off the performance of a character who we loved so much, largely because of Harrison Ford’s star power.

I kept my expectations pretty low. I just thought – I’d like to see what happens, I just want to enter the world of Star Wars again and see what it’s like. I was ready to be disappointed though.

The film has underperformed at the box office. I’m not sure of the exact figures, but it’s taken less than it should have and might be considered as a financial failure, possibly even losing money for the studio in the short to medium term. It’s bound to make money eventually, long term, but the general feel is that it didn’t do as well as the studio hoped. Perhaps we’ve all had enough of Star Wars now. Star Wars fatigue, or maybe the fanbase has gone a bit weird. Star Wars has always been seen as an indestructible franchise. But the Last Jedi divided audiences, with quite a lot of fans absolutely hating it. Maybe Solo has suffered from the so-called Star Wars backlash.

But Solo isn’t really like The Last Jedi. It doesn’t have the same subtext of progressive politics, or themes that seem to subvert the core ideas of Star Wars. It’s pretty conventional and straightforward stuff.

What I liked

  • The performance by Alden Ehrenreich. He was charismatic, swashbuckling but also had a vulnerable side – the key things that Harrison Ford brought to the role originally. Han Solo has swagger and he’s really cool, but there’s something a bit vulnerable and loveable about him. He’s quite goofy and adorable, but also capable of being quite a ruthless fighter when necessary. It’s an interesting character and the actor did a good job of hitting those points. It’s not just a Harrison Ford impression. He seems to have got the spirit of Han Solo.
  • The dirty, gritty world.
  • Visual effects were incredible (although the whole film was very murky – intentional? Bad cinematography? I personally like that. I don’t need everything to be brightly lit like in the prequels. I like Clint Eastwood films that are full of shadow and darkness and you don’t see everything in bright contrast.)
  • The absence of Jedi and light sabres – it made a nice change. This was all about just having a good blaster at your side, knowing who to trust. It was like Rogue One in that sense. You got the idea that people could die – they weren’t immortal cartoon characters with superhuman abilities.
  • The train robbery scene was amazing, particularly the explosion at the end. I’m not sure why the empire needs to transport goods by train, considering they totally have spaceships, but it made for a good scene and made me think of old action movies and westerns that have action scenes on trains. The film was full of this kind of thing – standard movie tropes but in a Star Wars universe and I liked that. It was appealingly old school.
  • It was a slightly smaller story and that was appealing too. Sometimes you don’t want it to be about the huge Star Wars narrative about destiny and the force. Just a small, compact story about low-level gangsters is all you need.
  • Not too many geeky references to other films. There were some, but they were *fairly* subtle…
  • Nice chemistry between Solo and Chewbacca.
  • There are a couple of jokes which were not bad and pretty much in the spirit of the original films. They didn’t go overboard on the humour like in The Last Jedi, which a lot of the fans hated. I think the original directors probably had a lot more humour in it and after seeing the audience response to the humour in TLJ perhaps Kathleen Kennedy decided to replace them for a more serious director. There is a moment when Han Solo speaks Chewbacca’s language which was a bit over the top (if he speaks Wookie, why did he never do it in the other films – seems like a cheap trick, but it didn’t ruin the film for me.
  • Chewy has some badass moments.
  • Qu’ira’s character is interesting as a femme fatale. Emilia Clarke is very easy on the eye and I found her character to be interesting because I never knew where her loyalties were and there was always this sense that she was going to betray Han, and Han was sort of obsessed with her. It’s a bit like your first love – when, as a younger guy, you fall in love with a girl who might be slightly out of your league and you know she’s always going to break your heart.
  • Just really enjoyable. Woody Harrelson was a dependable screen presence as ever.

What I didn’t like

  • The cheesy musical score running through a lot of the scenes, as if we needed to be told how to feel and to make sure we didn’t get bored or anything
    Some cheesy clichés, which I can’t really remember now – but a lot of typical movie tropes and “yeah, right” moments.
  • There are probably some plot holes and things that didn’t make sense, but I can’t remember what they are. Well, there’s a moment when one character dies and I thought “why did that happen, it seemed completely unnecessary”
  • Some of the moments when they tried to link this film with the wider Star Wars universe – like linking it to some plot points in Rogue One – or just trying to include some of the large Star Wars themes – the birth of the rebellion. It seemed forced, and shoehorned – I mean, like they forced certain big themes into the film (no pun intended). It would have been better to make it a completely self-contained film without having to connect it to the broader world of Star Wars, the birth of the rebellion and all that.
  • Classic westerns like Sergio Leone’s dollar trilogy (spaghetti westerns) are just about those characters in an isolated story. It would have been good to do something like that. Let the audience use their imagination to fit it in with the larger universe.
  • Also, it feels a little bit like Star Wars is pushing an ideological position these days, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I suppose it always was – the rebellion, the empire. It was basically about the struggle of local groups of freedom fighters against a vastly more powerful military dictatorship. But that message was usually delivered a bit more subtly in the original films. These days it’s like Star Wars needs to push this message a bit harder for some reason.

I can’t go into it in more detail without spoiling the film.

Anyway, those were my thoughts about Solo: A Star Wars Story. If you’ve seen it, let me know what you thought.

And I just talked about it there because it’s something Sammy and I discussed.

Let me remind you – sugarsammy.com to get news of his upcoming shows – possibly in a city near you soon.

Thanks for listening.

Other news

The World Cup is going on. I really want to talk about that a lot, like I did in 2014 – but I have so many episodes to upload! And I’m working on LEP Premium – basically making some episodes to upload soon and then I’ll launch it properly.

I usually worry when I have too much content to upload. I tend to think – if I upload too much (like loads of World Cup episodes) then people won’t be able to listen to it all and then they might just stop listening completely… they’ll think “Oh I can’t keep up and I don’t really like The World Cup so I’ll just move on to something else” and…

So, expect some WC episodes coming soon during the tournament, but if that’s not your cup of tea (or World Cup of Tea) then I suppose you can just skip them and know that it’s not all going to be about football forever.

Speak to you soon. Bye!

Luke

527. Can Paul Taylor Pass The UK Citizenship Test?

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Testing Paul Taylor’s knowledge of British life, history and culture and discussing the “Life in the UK” citizenship test. Practise listening to British English natural speech, learn facts about the UK and have a laugh as Paul gets angry about this test for people who want to become UK citizens. Will Paul actually pass the test? Listen to find out what happens. Transcriptions and notes available.


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This episode’s guest Paul Taylor is a British stand up comedian, living in France. Check out his YouTube channel here and Twitter here. 

Introduction Transcript

In this episode you’re going to listen to my friend Paul Taylor attempting to pass the UK citizenship test.

Every year thousands and thousands of people choose to become British citizens, for various reasons. This year one of those people is Meghan Markle, who is moving to Britain to marry Prince Harry – as everyone knows because it’s all over the news, probably all around the world. In fact the wedding is happening tomorrow! By the time you listen to this they will probably be married. I hope everything goes well for them.

Anyway, there are lots of complicated requirements for becoming “naturalised” as a British citizen, including the fact that you need to prove that your English is at B1 level or above, and you have to pass the Life in the UK Test. This test is supposed to make sure that you have sufficient knowledge of life in the UK in order to integrate into British life. The assumption is that if you can pass this test then you know enough about life in the UK to be considered worthy of being a British citizen.

By the way, quite a lot of people fail this test. I was looking for specific data. I found that in 2016 about 36% of people failed the test. Just over a third.

  • What is the content of this test?
  • Do you think you have enough knowledge of “Life in the UK” to pass it?
  • What kinds of questions do you expect to find in this test?
  • Is the average British person able to pass the test? You would imagine so, right?
  • What can you, my listeners, learn from this in terms of “essential British knowledge” and useful British English vocabulary?
  • And can my mate Paul Taylor, who was born in the UK and has spent much of his life living there, pass this test?

Let’s find out as we take the British Citizenship Test in this episode.

A Long Episode!

This is a long episode, but there is absolutely loads of stuff that you can gain from this in terms of historical and cultural knowledge – both from the past and present, as well as vocabulary and general listening practice and also just the pure enjoyment of listening to Paul becoming increasingly angry about the content of the questions in this test.

Also, there is quite a lot of swearing in this one, and by swearing I mean rude words that you normally shouldn’t use in polite company because they can be very offensive. So, watch out for those rude words – either because you don’t like that sort of thing, or because you love to hear how people swear in British English. In either case – you have been informed – there is rude language in this episode.

So I suggest that you do listen to the entire thing, perhaps in several sections – when you press pause your podcasting app should remember where you stopped listening so you can carry on later. There are notes and scripts for the intro and outro to this episode on the website – so check them out.

Now, without any further ado, let’s get started…

THE “LIFE IN THE UK” CITIZENSHIP TEST

The test is computer based. Applicants coming in from outside the UK need a certain level of English and they need to take this test.

Requirements for British citizenship https://www.gov.uk/becoming-a-british-citizen

⬇Click the link below to take the same test we did⬇

https://lifeintheuktestweb.co.uk/test-1/

Criticisms of the Test

A summary of criticisms and comments on how the test needs to be reformed https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/01/british-citizenship-test-meghan-markle-brexit-reform

The criticisms in a nutshell:

  • While it’s obviously good to know facts about a country’s history – what is the true purpose of a citizenship test? It’s to ensure that people understand the values of that country, and practical knowledge of daily life in order to help them integrate
  • The questions seem arbitrary and inconsistent
  • Fair enough, there are questions about certain key moments in our history and in our political system but a lot of important things are missing (e.g. the number of elected representatives in the devolved parliaments, but not the number of MPs in commons? The height of the London Eye?)
  • They won’t help people integrate, and they won’t help people just get by on a daily basis
  • It also doesn’t educate people about history – there’s no interpretation of why these things are important. If anything it will just piss people off.
  • What might be more helpful would be:
    • Teaching people social rules (e.g. how to order a drink in a pub)
    • Teaching people about common culture so they know what the hell British people are talking about half the time
    • Teaching people the essential basics of how to live – like, bank holidays, how to phone for an ambulance, how most Brits are shocked by things like animal rights or racial or sexist jokes

But it’s all wrapped up in politics and perhaps the people who wrote the test didn’t do it to help migrants – the opposite, maybe.

What would you include in the citizenship test?

The “Real” Citizenship test

This is an alternative test based on suggestions by British people on Twitter

http://realcitizenshiptest.co.uk/

‘Outro’ Transcript

I don’t want to extend this episode a lot more but I do want to say “nice one” for getting to the end of this one. I say that because I know it can be hard to follow about 90 minutes of native level speech in English, and Paul does speak pretty quickly as a few of you mentioned to me after hearing the previous episode with him.

I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again – the more you listen, the better, and sometimes listening to fairly quick speaking can be really good training for you. It’s important to mix it up – sometimes listening to content that you understand without too much trouble, and sometimes listening to more challenging things. There is value in both, and basically the important thing is to keep going and not give up. If you’re listening to this it means you didn’t give up even if you didn’t understand everything. Nice one.

Then again, some of you might be thinking – Luke, it was a pleasure and I wish there was more! Well, in that case – great! I agree. This was a fun one.

There’s more to be said on the UK citizenship test so I might be doing another episode on this soon.

But for now – that’s it! Download the LEP App from the app store. Check out the extra content you can find there.

Have a great day, night, morning, afternoon or evening wherever you are in the world and whatever you’re doing. Speak to you again on the podcast soon, but for now… bye!

Luke

526. Being a Tourist (with Paul Taylor) + video

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Catching up with Paul Taylor and talking about his recent trips to Japan & Barcelona, the pros and cons of being a tourist and some recommendations for people visiting London and Paris as tourists. Video available on the website and in the LEP app. 

Audio Version

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[DOWNLOAD AUDIO]

Video Version

Paul’s Vlog #12

Last chance to vote for LEP in the British Podcast Awards before Thursday 17 May

Introduction

This is a rambling chat that I recorded with friend of the podcast and one of the original POD PALS) Paul Taylor on the rooftop of my flat on a nice sunny day recently. I filmed this one too and the video version is available on the website and in the LEP app. So, if you’d like to watch us in conversation on a nice sunny day, check the Videos category in the app, or the page for this episode on my website.

This conversation covers a few things, including what Paul has been up to recently, his new vlog which you can find on YouTube (search for Paul Taylor on YouTube), his recent holidays in Japan and Barcelona, and then we go on to focus on travel and tourism, including the good and bad points about being a tourist and a few of our recommendations if you’re thinking of travelling to Paris and/or London as a tourist.

Questions

  • What do you think about being a tourist?
  • When you visit a new place, do you always see the typical tourist spots?
  • What are the good and bad points about being visiting another country and wanting to have a special experience there?
  • How can you make sure you have a good tourist experience when you visit a new city or country?

Have a think about those things, and listen to hear what Paul and I have to say on the topic.

Enjoy!

Another episode with Paul will be arriving soon…

Luke