Amber & Paul join me to talk again about poshness, posh accents and posh celebrities. This episode is full of different British accents – posh, RP and regional differences. It’s also full of comedy and I found myself laughing out loud while editing this, especially the interview with the football player that Paul tells us about. I hope you enjoy it.
A rambling episode with responses to listener comments, LEPster meetups, English Robot 3000 & 5000, vampires leaving comments on my website and the continuing mystery of two taps in the bathroom.
Hello welcome to episode 580 of my podcast. My name is Luke, this is my podcast for learners of English and in this episode I’m going to have a bit of a ramble, respond to a few listener comments, give a bit of general news, and all that kind of thing!
It’s a been a little while since the last proper rambling episode. That was 558 I believe. Here we are now with episode 580. I’m just sitting here in my flat on a Friday afternoon, hoping to get an episode out before the weekend. Looking forward to the weekend? Yeah? Got any plans? Maybe you’re listening to this after the weekend, in which case – how was it? Any good memories? Can’t remember? Can’t even remember the weekend, eh? I suppose that means it was a good one then.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the recent episodes. The conversations with guests – focusing on fellow English teachers from podcastland – Zdenek Lukas, Jennifer from English Across the Pond and then Ben Worthington from IELTS Podcast. Also there was my long chat with James which has proven very popular. Lots of people love that episode, even though James himself seemed convinced nobody would see the value in it, and then of course the episodes dissecting comedy – the Bill Burr plane story and Paul Chowdhry’s hilarious routine. Plenty of people have asked for more of that sort of thing, and there will be more. I’ve always done that on the podcast – listened to extracts of people speaking (often comedy) and then broken them down word by word for you. Check the archive for all the British Comedy episodes.
How are you?
I expect you are in one of a number of situations as you listen to this.
Maybe…
Walking down the street, in which case – please watch your step as you go. Don’t get distracted and accidentally fall into a hole.
On a bus – in which case, why not give a smile to the other passengers, just to lighten the mood on the bus there. In fact you could get up and announce to everyone – “Hello everyone on the bus I hope you have a really great day today!” and see what kind of reaction you get.
On a train – in which case, why not take a little walk down the train to see if they have one of those train cafes where you can get a coffee and maybe a chocolate muffin or something, because when you’re travelling on a train the chocolate doesn’t count. Also, walking down the train is quite fun. You can kind of wobble along, grabbing the tops of the seats to steady you and maybe flirt for a moment somehow with some of the other passengers, right? That’s one of the cool things about being on a train. Sometimes there are other passengers who might give you a little look, like “well, you’re on this train, I’m on this train, clearly God intended us to be together and I suppose there isn’t much more for us to do just make sweet sweet love to each other, when we’ve reached our destinations and agreed upon a suitable place and time of course… but all of that is out of the window when you’re single, on a train, heading for the coffee car and perhaps making eye contact with another sexy passenger… And then absolutely nothing happens, you just carry on your journey. Do you do that? Fall in love with another passenger, without actually having any social contact with them whatsoever. Anyway, if you’re on a train, and you make a connection with another traveller, who let’s say is also listening to something – try asking if they’re listening to LEP. It would certainly give you both the perfect starting point to build the rest of your lives upon! Ha ha, imagine that. Actually, I’m pretty sure that at least one couple out there is together now because of this podcast. Let’s make sure it continues to happen! Let’s make the world a better place people!
Driving in your car – in which case, please drive carefully while listening to this podcast. When you’re not listening to this, do what you want.
On a plane somewhere – in which case, just remember that you are much more likely to be killed or even just injured on the ground than in the air, because, well, that’s usually where the plane crashes isn’t it. So, anyway, while you’re in the air, you’re safe. :)
On one of those electric scooter things – in which case, are you sure you look cool?
Doing the housework – in which case, you missed a bit, just there. (annoying)
Eating something – in which case, please properly chew your food before swallowing. Some experts say you need to chew about 40 times per mouthful. Yep. Also, please eat with your mouth closed.
Using the lavatory or generally freshening yourself up in the bathroom – please wash your hands
At work, listening to this when you should be doing something else – in which case, please keep a straight face at all times. If you ever burst out laughing for any reason, try to cover it up by pretending to have a random coughing fit.
Just standing in the street wondering what to do – in which case, take your time, there’s no rush, unless there is a rush, but if there isn’t a rush then take your time, don’t hurry. No need to hurry. Just listen to this song for some inspiration (Take it easy by Prince Buster)
In bed, ready to fall into a deep deep slumber – feel free to just close your eyes and let yourself drift away into a lovely, restful sleep.
Podcast Stats
Antonio
In the past you used to communicate some statistics about your podcast, like the countries list, and I would like to know the list of the countries in the Premium area. Not the number of people paying it because this is business stuff.
Podcast stats
Top countries for LEP
Top countries for LEPP
Bottom countries too please!
Episode 600 / 10th Birthday of LEP
I have no idea how to celebrate or mark these occasions.
I kind of did a celebration for episode 500, so there’s no need to do anything special really.
I might just carry on podcasting like normal.
But let me know if you think there’s something I should do for episode 600.
The thing is, I’m a bit wary of asking for things from my audience, because these days that quickly becomes extremely difficult to manage, with too many recordings to handle, keep track of, make sure are at the correct volume level and all it takes is for a certain number of people, even a tiny portion of the overall audience, to send me something and it’s far too long. Managing listener messages is all a bit too much for me these days. I don’t have the time in my schedule any more.
I’ll think about it, but it might just be a normal podcast with no major fanfare, but if you have any grand ideas to mark this occasion, which doesn’t involve massive amounts of work or preparation, let me know.
I can’t really believe it’s been 10 years since I started doing this and now the podcast is on Spotify I’m getting new people listening to episode 1 all the time.
Also I’ve been putting the episodes up on YouTube recently – no video, just the audio, but the thing is that you get automatically generated subtitles.
Recently I did a premium episode all about how to improve your English to the level of a native speaker, which is a question I get asked all the time.
Obviously, one of the most important things is to practise, practise, practise.
How?
LEPster MeetUps
One way is to take part in conversation clubs. LEPsters around the world are meeting up fairly regularly to do this. They’re called LEP MeetUps or LEPsters conversation clubs.
Go to CONTACT and then LEP MEETUPS for all the details and to contact people who have left messages.
LEPsters Club in Chile Message: Hi, Luke! I’m writing to you to report on my LEPsters meetup I had on Saturday 19th in a cafe in Antofagasta, Chile. I have a Facebook page ( www.facebook.com/lepstersantof ), so if you could set it on your website it’d be amazing! But maybe I need some more meetings to reach that honour, haha! I’d like to send you a picture, but there’s no way in this form, and I wouldn’t like to put it on the forum. But if you see the Facebook page you’ll see the pic (I’m the guy doing the ‘peace’ sign). Anyway, the meetup was amazing! There were 6 people (maybe it’s not enough, but for a 1st one I think it’s fine), motivated and eager to share and speak the language. They mentioned to me that there are no spaces to gather and speak English, so they were really happy to have me there creating this opportunity for them to communicate and meet people with the same goal. I started with some ice-breaker questions to get to know each other, then I continued with topic-based questions to engage their interest and speak about fun things. I’m thinking about games for the next meetups, so that we create a bond as a group and maybe make new friends. Well, that’s my long report (but I wasn’t ‘rambling’ haha!) about the meeting I held. Really looking forward to your opinion, even if it’s brief (I know you’re always busy).
Rodrigo (‘Roddie’ as I was nicknamed when I was in England by some students :D)
Eisa Ibrahim Hi LEPsters, is there anybody here from Sudan??? Dear Luke I have been listening to Luke English podcast for two years now, it is really brilliant, but unfortunately I have never met anybody here who listens to the podcast!! I am Eisa /i:sə/
Peter • 8 hours ago Anyone from Krakow ? :) Maybe here are also people that want to improve language together ? :)
Murat Atalykov • a month ago Hello LEPsters! I’m from Almaty, Kazakhstan. If there is any Lepster in Almaty, please contact me via instagram @systemad
Olga B. • 3 months ago Hello to all the lepsters of the world! I wonder if there are any lepsters in Kazan who would like to meet up) Just in case I created this community vk.com/lepmeetupkzn So, if you are interested, I’d be glad to hear from you
Mario Ara Medina • 3 months ago Hello, anyone from Costa Rica or an online group?
Virginie Bonneau • 4 months ago hello Is there anyone interested in organizing a meetup in France, in the north? or a skype group? I couldn’t manage to find one so far…
Ferdavs Majitov • 6 months ago is there anyone who is listening to Luke in Uzbekistan Feel free to contact me . My instagramm @fer4fan
Kim • 6 months ago Hello Lepsters! I’m Hee from Korea. If there is any Lepster in Korea, please contact me via my Instagram @breathtakinglyremarkable I just want to communicate with you Lepsters. It’s often lonely to listen to LEP and have no one to talk to about it. :( I wish all of you nothing but the best!!!
Rustle • 8 months ago Hello Lepsters! Are there any LEPsters in MALTA? ;-)
ypapax • 10 months ago
Hey, LEP ninjas from Tver, Russia, let’s join the facebook group for meetups in Tver www.facebook.com/gr…
Roger Remy • a year ago Are there any LEPsters in Switzerland???
Jan Holub • a year ago Dreams come true! Hello lepsters! Is there anyone in Belarus willing to organise a meetup?
Julien • a year ago Hello lepsters! Are there people interested in organizing a lepster meetup in France?
(this got 33 upvotes – French LEPsters why you no write comment?)
Alex Love’s Comedy Show in New Zealand
Attention LEPsters in New Zealand! I think I have some down there.
Alex Love’s “How to win a pub quiz” is coming to New Zealand.
I recently got a few comments about English Robot 3000, asking where he is, so I thought I’d get him out of storage and have a bit of a chat, see how he is.
If you’re fairly new to the podcast, you might not know English Robot 3000. Long term listeners will probably remember him.
He has been in storage, switched off, gathering dust since at least 2014 I think. I can’t actually remember the last time I talked to him.
He’s a robot that speaks English. There are a few English Robots in the series. 3000, 4000 and 5000 too.
Vampires in the Comment Section?
2nd time I’ve had a message from a vampire on my website. Obvs spam.
Mark – last week
V**************@gmail.com***.***.***.112 Are you tired of being human, having talented brain turning to a vampire in a good posture in ten minutes, Do you want to have power and influence over others, To be charming and desirable, To have wealth, health, without delaying in a good human posture and becoming an immortal? If yes, these your chance. It’s a world of vampire where life get easier,We have made so many persons vampires and have turned them rich, You will assured long life and prosperity, You shall be made to be very sensitive to mental alertness, Stronger and also very fast, You will not be restricted to walking at night only even at the very middle of broad day light you will be made to walk, This is an opportunity to have the human vampire virus to perform in a good posture. If you are interested contact us on Vampirelords78787@gmail.com
Two taps in the bathroom
Any long-term listeners will know that I’ve always been slightly obsessed with a certain aspect of British life that foreign visitors often tell me about – the fact we have two taps in the bathroom.
Some of you will know what I mean.
In the UK it is common to find on sinks and bathtubs in the bathroom, two taps – one for hot and one for cold, rather than one single mixer tap.
This confounds a lot of foreign students who don’t know how to wash their hands. It’s basically lava from hell coming from one tap, and glacial ice water from the other. WTF Britain?
Well I recently got a pretty good answer to that.
Years ago I wrote a blog article for the London School of English. Just recently the article picked up a comment from a plumber in the UK.
A plumber is someone who works with pipes and water systems in your house.
A conversation with IELTS teacher Ben Worthington about the IELTS test, with advice for getting your best score in speaking, writing, reading and listening. Includes questions from listeners. Part 1 of 2.
This episode is all about the IELTS test. Yes, that dreaded test that many of you will have either experienced or heard people talking about, probably saying things like “I need IELTS 6.5. HOW CAN I GET IELTS 6.5??” Like they’ve been poisoned, and IELTS6.5 is the name of the antidote that’s going to save their life – I need IELTS6.5! How can I get IELTS 6.5?? Tell me, quickly!!!”
It’s known for being a tough test. Not all the stories are horror stories of course. It’s important to be positive. There are plenty of success stories of people who managed to raise their score to the level they require. It is definitely possible to get success in IELTS. People do it all the time. But how?
Well, in this episode I’ll be talking to Ben Worthington from IELTS Podcast about various things relating to this test. This episode is full of good advice and insights into how to prepare for this test and ways to improve your score.
Do you know IELTS? I don’t know if you are familiar with it.
I think most learners of English who are serious about doing things in English will probably end up considering taking an exam like IELTS in order to get some kind of certificate confirming your level, which you can then use to do something like get a job, get a visa or get a place in a university. There’s TOEIC and TOEFL as well, but those are the American exams.
Actually I did get some questions about TOEIC and TOEFL, which Ben and I didn’t have time to respond to in this episode. Speaking personally, I am less familiar with TOEIC and TOEFL because I’ve rarely had to work with those tests. I’m much more familiar with IELTS and other Cambridge exams, and so this is what I’m more qualified to talk about.
IELTS is the standard testing system in the UK and also other English-speaking countries such as Australia and Canada and I think IELTS is probably now established as the world’s #1 English test. I wouldn’t be surprised if you, listening to this, have taken IELTS or are thinking about taking it. Or maybe you’ve looked into other Cambridge exams like FCE or CAE or something.
Basically, it’s very common for people to take this test and prepare for this test. So it’s worth talking about again on the podcast.
IELTS stands for International English Language Testing System. It’s administered both by Cambridge English and the British Council and there are centres in most countries where you can take the IELTS test.
It’s a notoriously difficult test. I think anyone who takes it finds it hard, no matter what level you are, even native English speakers would find it challenging to be honest.
Here’s a quick summary of the IELTS test
IELTS tests your skills in 4 areas – reading, listening, writing and speaking.
It takes about 2h45m to complete the test.
The reading section involves a number of texts (3 texts in the academic version and about 5 or 6 in the general version) with comprehension tasks which test various reading skills.
Similarly the listening section has about 4 listening texts with various task types to test a range of listening skills.
The writing part takes an hour and involves two sections. In part 1 of the academic test you have to write a description of a graph, table, chart or diagram. In part 2 of the writing test you have to write an essay which probably involves explaining different sides of an argument with an introduction and conclusion.
The speaking test is in 3 parts and takes about 15 minutes. The first part involves chatting with the examiner for a few minutes, answering some questions about yourself. In part 2 you have to talk on your own for 2 minutes based on a cue card given to you by the examiner, and part 3 is a discussion with the examiner in which you talk about some more abstract things like social issues.
So this test is pretty long and covers all 4 skills. It requires all your abilities in English – accurate and diverse grammar, a wide range of vocabulary, fluency, clear pronunciation and the ability to complete communicative tasks effectively in English.
The way it works is that the overall score you get is converted into a band number which is an indicator of your level across the 4 skills. There’s no pass or fail mark. It’s just a case of the higher your score, the higher your band or level at the end.
So this test reveals your level in English. Levels go from 1 to 9. 9 being the highest.
So, it’s a tough test.
People all over the world need an IELTS score for various purposes, so it is an extremely common challenge for learners of English to undertake.
Schools in many places offer IELTS preparation courses to help people learn exactly how to improve their IELTS score. Preparation courses are obviously important to help you raise your English core skills across the 4 areas, but they’re also important to help you develop exam skills – which means becoming familiar with the test, familiar with the task types, familiar with the way the test is administered, and familiar with the little tricks and traps that are intentionally put into the test. It’s important not only to improve your level of English to prepare for IELTS but also to get an understanding of what the examiners at Cambridge English are looking for. This is also true for other similar tests.
To be honest, the test is so contrived and the marking criteria so specific that it’s very unwise to take an IELTS test without some preparation in advance because you simply must get familiar with it and develop your own strategies for each section. So I always advise students to do some test preparation, be it self-study or by following some sort of course either online or offline.
Offline options would probably be to find a preparation course in a school near you and the online options include finding and using self-study materials and practice tests, taking one to one lessons with a tutor for feedback (using iTalki for example) or finding other online resources that offer alternative ways to work on your exam skills.
One of those resources is IELTSpodcast.com run by Ben Worthington, my guest today.
As the website name suggests, IELTSpodcast.com is a podcast about IELTS with lots of tips about each section, but it’s also a website with lots of resources – videos, blog posts, practice tasks and also paid courses for specific exam skills and services including things like essay correction and feedback from Ben and the other teachers he works with.
Ben Worthington has been training people in IELTS preparation for some time now and has got lots of advice to share, all of which can really help you improve your IELTS score. A lot of his advice is shared on his website and in his courses, but in this episode he’s going to share some of that with us.
You can sign up to Ben’s full IELTS preparation course, called “Jump to Band 7 or it’s Free”, which is a confident name if ever there was one. If you don’t get to band 7 then it’s free. You can get it at IELTSpodcast.com and Ben has offered to give a 15% discount on the course for listeners to the podcast. So this episode is all about good advice for IELTS and it should be a genuinely useful episode, but if you want more thorough preparation for IELTS you can get a 15% discount on the Jump to Band 7 Or It’s Free course by using the offer code LUKE15 – if you’re interested.
Ben originally is from Yorkshire in the north of England. You might notice some slight differences in his accent compared to mine. I’m from the south and the midlands, basically – but I sound mostly like I’m from London probably. Ben has a slight northern accent because he’s from Yorkshire. His accent is not that strong, but you might notice a few differences.
Now, the IELTS test is big and there is a lot to say about it – more than can be covered in just one or two episodes of this podcast (and I think this will be a two-part episode).
If you follow me on social media you might have noticed that I asked my audience for questions about IELTS and I received quite a lot across the different platforms. I’ve tried to include as many questions as possible, but we didn’t have time to deal with every single one.
So, apologies if your question isn’t mentioned in the episode. You can actually ask questions to Ben on his website if you like.
What if you’re not taking IELTS?
This will be relevant to the large numbers of people in my audience who are taking or have taken this test, but also hopefully to those of you who don’t need to take this test right now. I think it’s a good idea for any learner of English to have a sense of what’s involved in the IELTS test and of course the skills you need for IELTS are skills that anyone needs if they want to be more than just a competent user of the English language.
I have done several episodes about IELTS before. If you haven’t heard those episodes it’s probably a good idea to check them out, especially if you’re preparing for the exam.
Episode 256 is called IELTS Tips and Tricks. In that episode I tried to include as much of my personal advice as possible into just one episode, so that should be useful to you.
Anyway, let’s talk to Ben Worthington from IELTS Podcast. He produces lots of content online for learners of English who are preparing to take this test. He’s been teaching students IELTS for a number of years now.
We’ll start by getting to know Ben a bit (this is the first time I’ve spoken to him actually) and then we’ll get into his advice for preparing and taking the different parts of the test, and I’ll ask him some of those questions sent in by my audience on social media.
Let’s see what we can cover about this big test for learners of English.
Outtro
You’ll have to wait for part 2 of this episode to hear what Ben has to say about preparing correctly for IELTS.
This is the end of part 1. Remember if you’re interested in using Ben’s online course for getting ready for IELTS, which is called Jump To Band 7 Or It’s Free, go to IELTSpodcast.com and use the code LUKE15 at checkout to get a 15% discount.
So, we will leave the episode here and you can pick up the rest of the conversation in the next part.
By the way, there was a short quiet period at the end of February, and that’s because I was uploading a lot of LEP Premium episodes. There are now over 30 full episodes with tons of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, focusing on teaching you the most common phrases and talking points in English and how to say them all clearly and fluently.
There are now premium episodes about language which came up naturally in conversations I’ve recorded for the podcast. Recently I did ones about the episode I did on Paul Chowdhry. In the premium pipeline I have episodes about the conversation with James, my conversation with Jessica from English Across the Pond and also this episode with Ben. I’ve been noting extracts, vocabulary, grammar, phrasal verbs, idioms as we go.
To sign up for LEP premium just go to teacherluke.co.uk/premium and all the details are there. It’s the equivalent of a cup of coffee a month from you to me, that’s less than 10 cents a day. It’s pretty good value I’d say!
Right, in any case I hope you’re doing well. Fun fact, I’ve been using different microphones while recording episodes recently. All the P11 episodes were with different mics and this one that I’m using now isn’t a usual mic I use for intros and outtros.
My question is, outside of IELTS, can you even notice a difference in the sound because I’m using a different microphone? Can you tell the difference between the different mics I use or does it all sound basically the same? Let me know in the comments section.
And the IELTS conversation will continue in the next episode.
My brother James is back on the podcast for a 90min+ mega-ramble about things like: taking sick days from work, snowboarding, doing stand-up for the first time, the new film about Laurel & Hardy, Steve Coogan / Alan Partridge, The Beastie Boys and making mix tapes on cassette tapes in the 1990s. Intro transcript available.
Hello listeners. In this episode I’m talking again to my brother James, who has appeared on this podcast quite a lot over the years, usually talking about things like books, films, music and other bits of pop culture, and in fact that’s what we’re talking about in this episode too.
The conversation is about 90 minutes long so if this was the 1990s we could have recorded almost the entire thing on a C90 cassette tape and then just posted it to you. Do you remember those days? When we all used cassette tapes for our music and you had to rewind them, and stick labels on them and sometimes the tape would get all chewed up inside your walkman? Ah good times.
Anyway, this is a 90min+ mega-ramble with James that covers quite a lot of different things, but I think that’s what you’ve come to expect from this podcast over the years, isn’t it?
You are mainly listening to this for your English of course, in the knowledge that listening to natural conversations like this is generally a healthy thing for your language learning.
Your English is more likely to benefit from this if you know generally what we’re talking about throughout the episode, even if you don’t get every single word. So, to help you follow the whole thing, let me now give you a quick overview of what you’re going to hear in this conversation.
First James tells us about how he’s been feeling a bit unwell recently after he got something in his eye while skateboarding, and we kick off the episode by explaining a few nice bits of language for talking about that.
Then he describes a recent trip he did to the French Alps where he did some snowboarding.
After that we talk about his experiences of doing stand-up comedy for the first time (he recently started doing it), and we talk about what he’s learned from that particular challenge, including some details about coming up with funny ideas and dealing with the nervous tension that you get from speaking in front of people. We also talk about the recent gig that I did with Paul Taylor at the comedy store in London. James was in the audience at that show.
There are lots of tangents, moments when we’re just making each other laugh and also references to some things that you might not know about. For example there are some references to comedy TV shows, including a tangent about the BBC science fiction comedy show Red Dwarf (actually the second time that show has randomly been mentioned on the podcast recently) and also we mention Alan Partridge, who I did some episodes about in October.
We mention the new film about Laurel & Hardy (the old comedy double act from the black and white film era). That film is called Stan & Ollie and it stars Steve Coogan in one of the roles. James saw the film recently, so he shares some of his thoughts on that and we then make fun of some TV voice overs and advertising that you see on television these days.
Following that we talk about a couple of books James has read recently, including the Alan Partridge book Nomad and then we talk about The Beastie Boys book, which was published at the end of last year.
I’m not sure if you know about The Beastie Boys. Some of you definitely will, but others might not. They were a very famous band in their heyday – three guys from New York called Adam Yauch (or MCA), Adam Horovitz (Ad Rock) and Michael Diamond (Mike D) that made rap, punk and jazzy instrumental music in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Sadly the band stopped making music after Adam Yauch died in 2012. That’s the Beastie Boys.
I’m pretty sure the Beastie Boys were famous in many countries around the world. They released their memoir last year – The Beastie Boys book, which James got as a present for Christmas. I also listened to the audiobook version. It’s a collection of stories about the band written by the two surviving members.
So, we talk about The Beastie Boys, what they meant to us when we were younger (because we are both big fans) and we then talk about the pros and cons of listening to music on cassette tapes in the 1990s.
So there you go, that’s the “road map” for the episode.
This is a long episode, so don’t forget to hit that pause button and come back later if you’ve got stuff to do. If you haven’t got stuff to do, then you can just brew up a nice pot of tea, put your feet up and listen on.
Alright, now you’ve got your brew in your hand and maybe a pack of chocolate digestive biscuits open on the table in front of you, let’s get started properly.
Ending Transcript
So there you are. Thanks again to James for coming back on the podcast.
Leave your comments on the website in response to any of the things that came up in the conversation. Generally, we’d love to know what you’re thinking, unless you’re thinking something really disgusting – in which case, please keep that to yourself.
We talked a bit about books there.
For me I tend to use audiobooks these days. I just can’t seem to find the time to actually do much normal reading, so using audiobooks is a good solution for me.
I use Audible for my audiobooks, and I just wanted to remind you that they sponsor this podcast and in fact they have an offer that you could take advantage of – a free audiobook of your choice. Audible have a free app which you can get on your phone. You buy the audiobooks on Audible’s website or on Amazon and then download them onto your app so you can listen anywhere. It’s a really cool way to consume books while doing other things, and often the books are read out by interesting people, like talented actors and voice-over artists.
About that offer from Audible.
They’re offering you a 30 day free trial that includes a free audiobook of your choice.
If you like you can just sign up for the free trial, get a free audiobook, listen to it and then cancel your subscription and you don’t pay anything. Audible are totally cool with that. Or you could keep the subscription and get more books, including one book each month as part of your package.
You could listen to the Alan Partridge audiobooks which are read out by Steve Coogan himself and are genuinely hilarious, or if you’re a Beastie Boys fan, check out the Beastie Boys audiobook, which is amazing in my opinion. To get the offer and for all the details go to www.teacherluke.co.uk/audiobook
Also, consider signing up for LEP Premium at www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium to get the benefit of my teaching skills as I focus on teaching you vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. New premium episodes come out every month, and I expect to do a premium episode focusing on language that came up in this conversation with James in fact. So you can use my premium episodes to maximise your English learning with my podcast. www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium
But for now – that’s it. Congrats on making it to the end another super-long episode in 2019.
Do live long and prosper, and please remember to be excellent to each other.
Speak to you again on the podcast soon. But for now, goodbye.
Links, Videos and Other Bits & Pieces
The Classic Breaks Megamix
Here’s the classic breaks megamix I did with my PlayStation and a minidisk recorder back in 2001. My “MCing” will either make you laugh out loud, or just annoy you. I’m not sure! But I am sure that the music mix in the background is 100% pure solid gold.
Understand a stand-up comedy routine by Paul Chowdhry, a British comedian of Indian descent. We’ll break down his comedy bit by bit, understand each line and learn some English in the process.
In a recent episode of this podcast, you heard me talking to Amber and Paul about experiences of doing comedy and both Paul and I mentioned a British comedian called Paul Chowdhry. I have mentioned him on the podcast several times before, and I’ve been meaning to do a whole episode about him for a while now. So here we are.
In this one we’re going to listen to the audio of some of Paul Chowdhry’s stand up. Let’s see if you can understand it, and if we can learn some English from it and also some things about English life and culture too.
Who is Paul Chowdhry?
He’s a British comedian, from London. He was born in the UK and is of Indian origin.
In terms of ethnic groups in England, white people of English origin are by far the majority ethnic group, but the next largest group is Indian.
I’ve chosen to talk about Paul Chowdhry in this episode because he’s a really funny comedian, and I talked about him with Amber & Paul on the podcast recently. He’s one of my favourite comedians.
Because Paul is of Indian origin, ethnicity, identity and accents are often topics in his comedy. I think really this is just because he’s always playing with social conventions about what we find acceptable or not acceptable, about the subtle tensions that exist between ethnic groups. Without getting too serious, he makes fun of everyone, including white English guys called Dave, his Indian parents or Indians who are fresh off the boat and living in England, Chinese waiters, African taxi drivers and all sorts. I like him because of the accents and impressions he does, because of how quick and brief in his delivery he is.
He’s just funny and that’s it. Certainly, England’s ethnic diversity is a theme that always comes up in his comedy and perhaps informs the audience’s reactions to him.
So, it might be necessary to give you some info regarding ethnic groups in Britain. Here are some stats, and this is from the UK’s most recent census, the 2011 census. The census is the country’s largest national survey and is very reliable and impartial as a source of information, so these figures are generally accurate.
What do you think? If you could imagine a pie chart with different segments for the different ethnicities in the UK, what would it look like? What do you think are the ethnic groups and their percentages?
Here are the figures, which by the way are controversial, not because of the numbers but because of the way the different groups are classified. For example, the categories “white” and “black” are not really ethnicities, are they? Anyway, here’s some information from the 2011 census.
I think this meant people registered as British citizens, and could include people born in the country or people who moved there and became citizens.
UK Population by Ethnicity
Source: UK Census/Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kingdom
By the way, most of the non-white ethnic groups are concentrated in the cities, particularly London, which is by far the most racially or ethnically diverse place in the UK.
London has had a diverse population for centuries, but most of the Indian and Caribbean families moved there in the immediate postwar period.
People like Paul Chowdhry, who are basically around my age would have grown up in the UK, but with Indian parents.
Anyway, back to Paul Chowdhry.
It’s quite interesting that Paul Chowdhry’s audiences are often quite diverse. He appeals to everyone – white people, Asians, Afro-Caribbeans and so on. In his audience he often picks out the groups of people of different origins and it’s funny the way he makes fun of them one after the other.
No need to go further into all that stuff. It’s just a bit of context. It doesn’t all have to be about ethnicity. Like I said, I mainly wanted to do this episode because I just find him to be really funny.
So, let’s just listen to some of Paul’s material and see if you can understand it and if we can learn some English from it.
This is the audio from a YouTube video of Paul Chowdhry’s appearance on a TV show called Live at the Apollo. This is the BBC’s big stand up comedy show, which is filmed at The Hammersmith Apollo, which is just 10 minutes down the road from where I used to live in London. It’s a huge venue and they have big comedy shows there and they also do music concerts. All the great bands that you love, all the great British rock bands from the last few decades. They’ve all done shows at the Hammersmith Apollo. It’s a very famous venue. The Who, Elton John, Queen, Black Sabbath, David Bowie’s last concert as Ziggy Stardust was there – just all of the great bands. and also all the big comedians that we have.
Anyway, this is the audio from Paul Chowdhry, Live at the Apollo.
This routine is full of slang, rude language, accents and jokes about ethnic identity. That’s what you can expect.
I’m not sure what you’re going to think of think of this, as ever, because this could easily be considered offensive (because he’s making fun of different ethnic groups to an extent), but my instinct tells me this is just funny and so I’m just going to go with it. But certainly a lot of the laughs come from the fact that this kind of thing, the sorts of things he’s saying are borderline unacceptable, but in some way he gets away with it because it’s coming from an Indian guy. Although the things he’s saying might be considered unacceptable or politically incorrect if they came out of the mouth of a white guy. For some reason because it’s coming from an Indian guy that kind of makes it ok. If it was a white guy up there making fun of ethnic minorities, that would be considered extremely old fashioned and in very bad taste, but Paul has got the pass, the card, because he is Indian, so he can do it.
He can even get away with doing impressions of Africans and Chinese people, which I would definitely not get away with in front of an English audience.
Anyway, enough from me. Let’s get into it.
Let’s go.
Paul Chowdhry Live a the Apollo (2012)
An example of bad dubbing in a kung fu movie
Express yourself – write your thoughts in the comment section below!
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.
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.
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
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
Part 1 of a double episode of the Rick Thompson Report, talking to my dad about the latest developments in the shambolic Brexit story. This time we’re focusing on what happened in last week’s Parliamentary vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal, what the situation is now, and what might happen in the future. We talk about no-deal Brexit, the possibility of a 2nd referendum, postponing Article 50 and more. Part 2 contains questions from listeners and will be available soon.
In this episode I’m talking to my dad again about Brexit. We’ve been covering this story in episodes of the Rick Thompson Report since before the referendum in June 2016.
These episodes tend to be popular because although Brexit is a complex situation my dad is able to speak clearly on the subject both in terms of his accent and also in terms of how he presents his ideas.
This one is going to be a double episode. You are currently listening to part 1.
In this first part I just wanted to ask my Dad about 3 main things:
What happened last week in the House of Commons?
What’s happening now?
And what is likely to happen next?
We spoke yesterday and it took us over an hour to answer those three questions, because they’re not easy questions to answer due to the complex nature of the current situation.
That’s what you’re going to listen to in this first part.
Then in part 2 of this double episode I ask my dad some questions which I’ve received from some listeners on social media.
So this first part is a general report on the current Brexit situation (or Brexit shambles as perhaps it should be called) and then the next part will be a Brexit Q&A.
The last time I talked to Dad on the podcast about Brexit it was November and at that time Theresa May had just managed to get agreement from the EU for a Brexit deal.
Basically, after the referendum in which 51.9% of people voted to leave the EU and 48.9% voted to remain, (and the turnout was 72.2%), and after David Cameron resigned, and Theresa May became PM and everyone wondered what was going to happen and she said “Brexit means Brexit” and nobody really knew what that meant because it didn’t actually mean anything – “What will happen? Are you going to trigger Article 50? What kind of Brexit will there be?” “Well everyone, Brexit means Brexit” “Oh, oh ok”
Imagine if I, as an English teacher, defined words and concepts like that. “Teacher teacher, what does shambles mean?” “Well, it’s very simple. Shambles means shambles. Let me be absolutely clear when I say that shambles means shambles.” Strong and stable English teaching.
Anyway, after Theresa May clearly said “Brexit means Brexit” and the UK government triggered article 50 to begin the formal process of the UK leaving the EU, (even though there was no leaving plan in place) the clock started ticking and Theresa May and her government attempted to start negotiating with the EU to create an exit plan that both sides could agree on.
So even though none of the actual specifics of “leaving the EU” had been defined except that Brexit meant Brexit and that she had to carry out the will of the people, well – the will of the 51.9% of 72% of the people, which is actually about 35% of the people, Theresa May attempted to negotiate some kind of agreement with the EU – an agreement to define the terms not only of our exit from the union but also for our entry back into a new relationship with our largest trading partner and closest neighbour – a deal that was surely destined to be unsatisfactory for almost everyone, because of all the different views on what Brexit should look like.
Despite all the problems, the resignations of members of her cabinet, the sticking points of the Northern Ireland problem, the single market, the customs union, the UK’s outstanding financial commitments to the EU budget and so on, despite these sticking points, Theresa May somehow managed to get a deal together that the EU accepted.
The EU said “OK, we don’t like it. We’d rather you stayed. But we will accept these terms. Now you need to get your Parliament to give it the thumbs up too.”
That’s where we were last time, before all the MPs in the House of Commons in Parliament were due to vote on Theresa May’s deal, the deal that took two years to sort out but which nobody at home seemed to like.
Parliament voted on the deal last week on Tuesday 15th January.
This brings us to those three main questions for my dad.
What happened last week? What was the result of the vote?
What’s happening now?
What’s going to happen next?
And that’s what we’re going to talk about, so get ready for some fairly complex conversation about politics and the future of the UK as we know it in part 1 of this episode of the Rick Thompson Report on Luke’s English Podcast.
Some notes for this conversation
Last time we spoke we talked about how the UK Parliament was going to vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal that she had agreed with the EU. This deal set out terms in which the UK could leave the EU.
So, what happened?
What was the result of the vote? (15 Jan – Tues last week)
The result of the vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal. “Noes” = votes for ‘no’, “Ayes” = votes for ‘aye’ (yes)
Why was the deal rejected?
Why didn’t Labour vote for Theresa May’s deal? They want soft Brexit, right?
What happened next?
Corbyn called a no confidence vote the next day.
Why did Corbyn call the no confidence vote when it was obvious what the result would be?
Now what’s going on?
Amendments to the parliamentary process – MPs taking back control from the government.
How likely are these things, how could they happen, and what could they look like?
No-deal Brexit (aka Crashing out) [If we don’t get a deal together it can happen. But it would be disastrous and so it might be possible to delay article 50.]
Article 50 postponed (but how?)
EU Parliament elections at the end of May. MEPs take their seats in July.
From The New Statesman: It’s been reported that the EU is willing to allow a short extension, but anything beyond July 2019 would be extremely tricky, as that’s when the new MEPs take their seats following the European Parliament elections in May – putting the UK’s role into question. How could it remain a member state without elected representatives? Some solutions have been mooted to this, but they each have their difficulties and EU members would have to unanimously agree. www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2019/01/can-government-extend-article-50
Another deal led by May/Conservatives
A general election
No Brexit at all
Another referendum
Megathread from Twitter of negative impact of Brexit that is already happening (so, it’s not “project fear”)
Hopefully you haven’t collapsed from exhaustion out there because of all the confusing politics. You’re ok aren’t you? Enjoying this? Yes, of course – it’s the Rick Thompson Report. It’s sort of a privilege to be able to listen to my dad on the podcast. I should say a big thank you to him for his contribution.
This is where I’m going to stop this part, part 1, but the conversation will continue in part 2, and we’re going to answer some questions from listeners which I received this week on social media.
Part 2 should go up pretty soon. It might even be available now. If it’s not up yet, it just means I’m still working on it and it will be published as soon as it’s ready! So check it out.
Thanks for listening. Thanks to my dad for his contribution.
Amber, Paul and Luke tell some stories of their worst ever stand-up comedy gigs. Expect some anecdotes about embarrassing and humiliating experiences on stage, and “dying on your arse”. Intro & outtro transcripts available + bonus audio in the LEP app.
In this episode you’re going to hear a conversation with Amber & Paul – both regular guests on this show as you will know if you are a long-term listener.
I thought I could do this episode with no introduction, just jumping straight into the conversation, but I’ve decided that I do need to say just a few things before we start. I think it will help to put our conversation in context, which should help you understand it all and generally keep up with our fast talking. I know, I can’t help doing these rambling intros, but what are you gonna do? There ain’t nuttin’ you can do.
This conversation is quite fast
When I get together with Amber and Paul, we talk quite quickly and we talk about things that you might not know about, like things that we’ve seen and done together. That might make it hard for you to keep up and understand everything. So, a bit of context from me, now, might help. This is going to make this episode longer, but that’s ok isn’t it?
Amber, Paul and I are all stand-up comedians and in fact that is how we know each other. We all originally met while doing stand-up in English in Paris. Stand-up, you should know by now, is a form of comedy entertainment in which one comedian stands on stage with a microphone and tells jokes and stories to make the audience laugh.
Amber and I do stand-up on a kind of part-time basis while also doing other work but Paul is a full-time comedian, and is actually quite famous these days, particularly in the French-speaking world. He has made some TV programmes for French television and YouTube and also he has a one man stand up comedy show which has been very successful, playing to large theatres of people. Sometimes Paul invites other comedians to open his shows, which means doing 5-10 minutes of stand up in front of Paul’s audience, in order to warm them up before Paul takes the stage. So, you’ll hear us talking about when Amber and I opened for Paul in a big theatre recently.
And then we go on to talk about other stories and experiences of doing stand-up comedy over the years.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen stand-up comedy live in a club or theatre, or if you’ve watched a lot of stand-up on TV. It might not be a big thing in your country. But a great stand-up show is possibly the best kind of comedy entertainment because when it goes well, you laugh so much. You laugh until your face hurts. That’s how good it can be. That rarely happens with films in the cinema. When was the last time you went to the cinema and laughed all the way through, like, every 15 seconds you’re laughing? Well, a good stand up show will be like that.
A bad stand up show on the other hand, can be extremely uncomfortable and embarrassing.
Good and Bad Stand-up Comedy Shows
But what makes a show good, or bad?
The thing is, as a comedian, after performing on stage even just a few times, you realise that it’s not just you, your jokes, your performance that make a show good. There are other factors involved that are terribly important for making sure a show is successful and that the audience have a good time. I mean, you can do pretty much the same thing – the same jokes, the same stories at one show and get lots of laughs, but then do it at another show in front of a different audience in a different room, with different conditions and it can get no laughs.
Certain things are vital, basically to make sure that the show goes as well as possible.
Obviously, you need a good performer with good material. But also, the audience need to be able to see and hear the comedians on stage, there shouldn’t be many other distractions in the room. The audience should be in the dark a little bit so they don’t feel too self-conscious. The audience should be sitting together, fairly close to each other and fairly close to the performers. They should be comfortable but not too comfortable and it helps to bring the comedians on and off the stage quite quickly, in order to keep the energy up. It also makes a difference how you introduce the comedians on the stage and have them exit the stage, in order to manage the expectations and the reactions of the audience and generally to make the audience feel like the performers know what they’re doing and make sure the audience remember the comedians at their funniest moments (e.g. to end on a laugh not a dead moment).
In fact, there are loads of little factors which you should get right in order to run a successful comedy show. It’s show business, basically.
But the thing about stand up is that if the show doesn’t go very well, then for the comedian it’s especially painful, because you’re basically up there completely on your own and you’re completely exposed. It’s not like in music when you can basically hide behind your song or your instrument and you probably have other musicians on stage with you. As a stand up if things don’t go well, you know about it instantly because nobody laughs and it’s like you’re dying up there.
On the other side of the coin, when it goes really well and the audience laugh a lot, it’s an incredible feeling for everyone, particularly the comedian. But any stand-up who has done even just a few gigs will have stories of both good and bad experiences. It’s particularly common for comedians to share with each other their stories of the bad experiences and the times when they “died on their arse” which is how comedians call having a bad gig. A gig, means a show or concert. Stand ups love to tell each other about difficult gigs they’ve experienced. It makes us feel better, and stories of failure are usually pretty funny, right?
I’m saying all this, because basically, in this conversation you are going to hear Amber, Paul and me talking about some good gigs we’ve had recently and then some stories of truly awful experiences of dying on stage, not literally dying because, well, if we had actually died on stage then we wouldn’t have been able to record this, because we would be dead. Maybe we could have come back as ghosts, or something, but ghosts can’t talk normally, because they’re ghosts and they’re made of clouds or whatever. Ghooooosssts teeeend to speeeeeeaaak like thiiiiiiis, that’s how ghosts speak. That’s is no good for podcasting or any form of communication really, except for scaring people out of an old house.
That’s the only time when ghosts speak, isn’t it? When some people enter their old house and they want to scare them away. Leeeeave this plaaaaaace. Etc. or maybe they want to steal their souls and they say “jooooooooin usssss!”
So no, hahahaha just being silly. The point is, you’re going to hear stories of us having bad gigs and as we say, “dying on our arses” but not literally, don’t worry.
I think that’s it for context. I hope you can keep up with this and that you enjoy another conversation with Amber and Paul.
Outtro Transcript
So, that was Amber, Paul and me, recorded in my flat just the other day. I hope you enjoyed listening to some of our stories of doing comedy there.
A couple of comments at the end here.
You’ll notice there wasn’t much from Amber in this episode. Paul and I did most of the talking I think. Perhaps we didn’t really let her get a word in, although I think she was happy, but still – sorry to the ‘Amberfans’ who missed out on some of her input and, yes, her lovely voice. I’ll make sure we get more Amber input next time they’re on the podcast, which should be fairly soon because Paul is now less busy than he was before and is more available for podcasting duties, not that it’s a duty.
There is Bonus Audio in the App
You will find nearly 20 minutes of bonus audio for this episode in the LEP app. Just tap the gift icon to access that. You’ll hear more of our conversation which wasn’t included in this episode because I didn’t want it to be too long. In that bonus audio we talk about more comedy-related topics, including what it’s like to receive negative comments on YouTube and also how Paul has been accused of stealing a joke from Louis CK, which is not true, he didn’t.
Joke theft is actually a very serious business among comedians. It’s one of the big no-nos and if you’re found guilty of joke theft, it can be very bad for your reputation and your career.
The thing is, it can be quite hard to work out if someone has actually stolen someone else’s joke, or whether the two people just came up with the same bit independently, which is possible – depending on the joke.
But Paul has been falsely accused of taking material from Louis CK, but he didn’t – they both just happen to have come up with the same joke.
Basically, this is a joke about how French people measure body temperature by sticking a thermometer up the bum. It seems most other countries just put it in the mouth or maybe under the arm, but the French – up the bum. This is an observation that Paul has been talking about on stage for several years, and Louis CK recently started talking about it too in his stand up (because these days he is with a French woman and has spent time in France). Some of Louis’ stand up shows have been leaked on YouTube, including that bit about thermometers. Also, Paul recently published a clip from his stand up show which included his thermometer joke. So some people have seen the videos and then mistakenly thought that Paul stole the joke from Louis. The fact is, they just both came up with exactly the same observation, independently of each other.
Paul’s been doing that material for several years at least and he has recordings to prove it.
Anyway, if you want to hear about the whole thermometer – bum – Louis CK – joke theft accusation scandal, then check out the bonus audio because we talk about that a bit, and a few other things too. That’s only in the LEP app, which you can get from the app store completely free.
In the app you can also get the full episode archive, plus loads of app-only episodes and content, plus the option to subscribe to LEP Premium content.
Register for LEP Premium to get episodes in which I teach you vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation with PDF worksheets – all available in the app or online.
Join the mailing list on my website to get a link for the episode pages of new episodes when they are published.
Thank you again to Amber and Paul for being on the podcast.
Thank you to you for listening. I hope you enjoyed our stories of embarrassment and humiliation in this episode.
As ever, leave your comments on the website. Check the page for this episode where you will see some transcriptions and some videos, including footage of Paul dying on his arse at the French Football Awards and the vlog he made about it.
Keep in touch. Send me an email with your thoughts.
I’ve got more episodes about comedy coming up, specifically ones in which we listen to some clips and then understand them in detail.
You can look forward to that.
Have a wonderful day, morning, night, evening and please remember to be excellent to each other.
Speak to you again soon, but for now – goodbye!!!
Videos
Paul dies on his arse at the French Football Awards. It’s in French, but you can still see him ‘bomb’ quite badly – hardly anyone laughs at his comments and some people aren’t even listening to him (time code 48m29s)
Paul’s Vlog about the Football Awards, including video footage of the event and his reactions
Part 2 of my chat with Zdenek from the Czech Republic. In this one we talk about becoming an English teacher, taking the infamous DELTA teaching course, Zdenek’s podcast and board game, and some long-lost (and embarrassing) comedy YouTube videos I made in the pre-podcast days.
This is part two of this double episode featuring Zdenek Lukas from the Czech Republic.
Zdenek is an English teacher, a podcaster and a board game enthusiast. In this conversation we’re learning about Zdenek’s story. In part 1, which you’ve all listened to, we heard about how Zdenek learned English to a high level by working as a labourer and electrical fitter on a building site in East London. In this episode we continue the story by talking about these things:
Coming back to the Czech Republic and becoming an English teacher
The challenge of doing the DELTA (the notoriously difficult Cambridge Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults, which is considered in the industry as the highest practical English language teaching qualification out there)
My story of failing one of my teaching observations when I did the DELTA in 2006 (Don’t worry folks, I took the teaching observation again and passed it by the way, my record and my reputation remain intact)
Teaching English when it’s not your first language – the preconceptions, challenges and possible advantages of that
Zdenek’s podcast – his inspiration, his reasons for doing it, what he does in his episodes and how the podcast fits in with his teaching and his life in general.
There is also a slightly embarrassing story from me about some lost comedy videos I made in the years before I started Luke’s English Podcast.
And finally we have Zdenek’s interest in board games, both as a teaching tool in the ELT classroom but also in English speaking gaming communities online using the Steam platform. Zdenek has in fact created his own board game which he hopes to get properly published in physical form in the future.
Enjoy!
Ending
So that was Zdenek from the Czech Republic.
If you would like to play Zdenek’s game online you need to download the Steam platform and then buy TableTop Simulator. Then, in the Workshop area you will find Zdenek’s game which is called Kingdoms of Deceit.
If you’d like more information about this, leave a comment on the page for this episode on my website. I expect Zdenek will be able to help you there.
Playing online games like Kingdoms of Deceit can be a great idea for your English and for your social life in general as Zdenek said. This sort of thing is a great solution to that problem of not being able to get social time in English. So, check it out, it could result in you making some friends online, having fun playing some virtual board games and improving your English in the process.
As I said, get Steam, then TableTop Similator and find Kingdoms of Deceit there. I’m pretty sure that’s how you’ll find it. If you have questions, just leave a comment on the episode page and I expect Zdenek will be able to respond.
Also, check out Zdenek’s English Podcast which you can find on iTunes and most other podcast platforms. He also has a Facebook group which you could join in order to keep in touch with him and his listeners.
You heard me mention those ridiculous videos I made with my brother, before I started LEP, the ones filmed in some woodland at the bottom of my parents’ garden, in which I’m a survivalist who gets everything wrong.
I did, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), delete and lose almost all of those videos, but I have realised that there is one that still exists and is still on YouTube. It’s just a few minutes long and you can see it if you like, by checking the page for this episode. I watched it again and it did crack me up a bit to be honest. Maybe those videos were funnier than I remembered.
In the video you’ll see me pretending to be a survival expert and doing various comical pratfalls (a pratfall is when you fall over, for comical purposes – I did a lot of pratfalls in this video, falling into hedges and actually injuring myself quite badly – I had scratches all over my arms which I had to cover up with long sleeves for a few weeks while teaching. I’m wearing an old safari suit from the 70s that my Dad had in the back of his wardrobe, which looks ridiculous and is too tight. Perhaps the funniest bits are when you can hear my brother trying not to laugh behind the camera. This is the least embarrassing video, which is why I didn’t delete it. Probably the most embarrassing thing about the video is my haircut, to be honest.
Unfortunately the footage of me jumping into a pond, being attacked by imaginary spiders and smearing myself in mud is lost forever. Unfortunately? Actually, it’s probably for the best…
Anyway, check out the video on the page for this episode if you like. It’s called How (not) to Light a Fire.
Alright then, that is it for this episode.
Thanks again to Zdenek for being on the podcast.
All that remains to be done is for me to remind you to check out my premium service at teacherluke.co.uk/premium for regular episodes in which I focus on teaching you vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation.
Join the mailing list on my website to get an email in your inbox whenever I publish content on the website.
Also, follow me on Twitter, which is where I’m most active on social media. My Twitter handle is @EnglishPodcast
Have a great morning, afternoon, evening or night and I will speak to you again in another episode soon!
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.
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.
[DOWNLOAD]
He’s a British comedian, from London. He was born in the UK and is of Indian origin.
Good and Bad Stand-up Comedy Shows