LEP is back after a two-week absence. This episode is about top tips for learning English. Here are some ideas about learning English that have occurred to me in the last couple of weeks of teaching intensive general English classes at school.
Remember to be responsible for your own learning. Nobody can learn for you.
It’s all about establishing habits for improving your English, and keeping up those habits.
TOP TIPS FOR LEARNING ENGLISH
Watch movies and TV in English. This is what people always say, but it can work really well if you do it right. Here are some specific tips. Repeat watch a movie that you love in English. Watch it with subtitles in English. Then watch it again without the subtitles. Put your phone in front of the TV or computer and record the audio, then listen to it when you’re out and about. Quote some of the lines. Recreate parts of the film on your own. Go the extra distance and think outside the box.
Find a book that you know quite well. Read it in English and also listen to the audiobook. You won’t mind repeating it because you love it. You already know the story, so now you can explore it in English. Imagine hearing all those lines in English again and again.
Keep two notebooks. Go down to the stationery shop and buy two nice notebooks. The first one is for scribbling things down quickly and just keeping quick notes. The other one is where you keep an organised record of words and rules. Keep the first one with you when you’re watching, reading or listening to stuff in English, or when you’re in conversation on italki or something. The other one is going to be like your bible for English and you’re going to write it yourself.
Use mnemonic devices to help you remember.
Listen to my podcast! Listen to episodes more than once. You’ll find that specific things I say will stick in your mind. You’ll also find things funnier and funnier, I promise. Some of my episodes are designed mainly to make you laugh. You need rewards for understanding and learning a language, so let the funny moments be a reward in themselves. Enjoy the process of understanding what I’m saying, and getting the subtleties and nuances. Check out the page for each episode. You’ll often find words written there. Often the introduction or the whole episode is transcribed. You can use that to help you learn.
Get a grammar book and do the exercises, then do them again a few months later. English Grammar in Use is still the best one. Even if you’re pretty good at English already, going through those pages systematically will iron out a lot of the fossilised errors you have. Then when you listen to English, read English or speak to people just try to notice some of the grammar you’ve been studying. Also, if you don’t understand some of the grammar – don’t worry about it, just carry on. The worst thing you can do is stop when you feel confused or frustrated. You don’t have to understand 100% of the grammar. Just understanding 70% is ok. Do your best to understand it all, but it gets pretty complex and abstract (not as much as most other languages). The main thing is: when you experience difficulty or resistance – the worst thing you can do is stop. Just keep going anyway! Work with what you have and make progress in little steps.
Just keep yourself switched on at all times! Be mindful. Notice language and take opportunities to learn. Some learners of English are just not diligent enough. Every error is an opportunity to learn. Bit by bit, step by step.
The pizza analogy.
Enjoy the small victories. Every single positive moment in your learning should be celebrated. If you understand something fully – well done you. If you say exactly what you wanted to say – well done you. If you stopped making a fossilised error, well done you.
Enjoy it! You only get one life. (deep and meaningful moment)
More episodes coming soon.
Thank you so much for your comments and messages. I’m sorry I can’t reply to them all.
Have a good day/night/evening/morning, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing!
This is a special episode about Muhammad Ali and the story of one of his most famous fights, “The Rumble in the Jungle”. In the episode you’ll hear me give a biography of Ali and then I go into lots of descriptive detail about the fight, exploring exactly what happened in and out of the ring and why he is now considered not only one of the greatest boxers but one of the most outstanding people of recent times. The episode is almost 100% transcribed. See below for details.
[DOWNLOAD]
It is a cool Wednesday morning here in Paris as I record this episode. Again I’m talking about sport on the podcast today. This time it’s the sport of boxing as I talk about arguably the greatest boxer we’ve ever had, and in fact one of the greatest people of the last 50 years or so – Muhammad Ali. I’ve got a lot to say about the man, so I suspect this could be another long episode of the podcast! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – a lot of my episodes are long these days. Now, most of you seem to be fine with that, which is cool. I’ll say that with these episodes you are getting a tremendous amount of English exposure and that is one of the key ingredients in gaining proper English with a wide range of vocabulary and accurate listening skills, which really helps your English in other areas such as your own speaking. You can learn a lot from episodes like this, even if I’m not explicitly teaching language to you. I recommend that you listen closely, get into the story, pay attention and be curious about what’s going to happen next, while noticing the language I’m using to describe the events of Ali’s life and the specific details of his fights. Pay attention to every word, while getting drawn into the story of one of the most extraordinary people of recent years. Look out for not only language for describing the narrative of Ali’s life story but also the specific descriptions of boxing, which will include some complex language to describe body position, movement and technique. I’ve planned this episode quite carefully and took some time to do it. You’ll see almost every word of this transcribed on my website. I strongly recommend that you go and check it out. You could read along with me, or use the script to help you learn English in lots of ways. Alright, that’s my pep talk about learning English with this episode, let’s now get stuck into this subject.
We lost another great person this year, Muhammad Ali. Since Ali died I’ve had quite a lot of messages from listeners saying to me, “Luke, talk about Muhammad Ali!” OK! I would absolutely love to talk about this subject! I am a big fan of Ali, especially his boxing. It’s one of my favourite topics. I’ve never talked about this on the podcast before, but I do have an interest in boxing and martial arts in general and particularly in several fights involving Ali so I am more than happy to talk about this in a special podcast episode to celebrate the life of The People’s Champion, the one and only Muhammed Ali, who truly was The Greatest.
And yes I do consider boxing as a martial art. I think it is a discipline and even though there are rules to boxing that you don’t have in other martial arts, I think true fighters understand that boxing can still be considered a martial art.
On the subject of fighting – I’m one of those people who doesn’t believe in war, doesn’t believe in violence and generally doesn’t like fighting, but I am interested in boxing. I think it is a discipline and it’s a remarkably complex sport which, at the highest level, involves incredible levels of technique, strategy and skill. It’s also a huge mental challenge as well as a physical one.
I would try doing it and I’ve often thought about doing it, but I just know what would happen. I’d go down to the gym and have a go at the punching bags and get into the techniques and the sparring, but as soon as I got into a genuine fight situation all it would take is one punch on my nose and I’d say “OK, stop – stop! That’s enough!” So instead I’m far more comfortable talking about it, reading about it and studying fights on video than actually getting punched in the face myself.
It’s worth mentioning that boxing is a controversial sport and there are arguments to say it should be banned or controlled. That’s a complex argument and I understand that the point of the game is to try to hit the your competitor but I think that as long as the sport is properly regulated and the boxers themselves know exactly what they’re doing, then I think it’s up to them. If they are happy to do it and to take the risks then fair enough. There’s a lot to be gained for young people taking up the sport. I think it can give people a focus, discipline and also it’s a way of earning money as a professional. Many of the people who take up boxing come from difficult backgrounds and going to boxing rings to fight is better than fighting on the street and getting involved in other kinds of trouble.
I’ve always been aware of Muhammad Ali. I just remember footage of him on TV. He often appeared on British television and my parents talked about this from time to time. Such a big personality is quite hard to avoid. My interest in Ali as a boxer is mainly as a result of two things. The first is a great documentary called “When We Were Kings”. This is a feature film about Ali’s fight with George Foreman in 1974, which I’m going to talk about in a bit. When I worked at the HMV music and video store in Liverpool for a year “When We Were Kings” was on repeat every day for a week or two. You know the way they play movies in the store, on the big screens. I used to work on the specialist music and computer games counter and the screen was around the corner. I couldn’t see it, but the audio track from the movie was played through the speakers above my head, all day long. I heard the audio from that movie about 5 times a day, but couldn’t see the screen. I just listened to people describing the fight and heard Ali talking, over and over, while I was working.
The other reason I’m interested in Ali’s boxing is a book called “The Fight” by Norman Mailer. That particular book is an incredibly intense account of the same fight featured in the movie I just mentioned. The central chapter of the book is a blow by blow account of the whole 8 rounds, but the book also describes the entire story around the fight including the personal and cultural context. Norman Mailer describes his meetings with Ali and his entourage, the atmosphere of the fight and more. It’s so well written. It’s subjective, personal journalism, which for me brings the subject alive so much, and it’s tremendously evocative of the atmosphere and emotion of the fight. I’ve read it lots of times and it never gets boring to me. I recommend both the film and the book. The book can be a bit tricky to read at first because Mailer writes in a fairly complex and very descriptive style, but this really helps during his descriptions of the fight.
These days I like to watch footage of Ali fighting and watch interviews with him. YouTube is an incredible resource because most of the big moments in Ali’s career can be found there, including his biggest fights and interviews.
For this episode, I’m just going to focus mainly on the aspects of this story that I know the best and that’s really Ali’s boxing. I think if you really want to know about all the other details of Ali’s life story and all the facts and figures – names, dates, places etc then you can just check Wikipedia. What I want to do is celebrate this amazing person who we lost this year, by just telling you what I know and mostly that is related to his boxing and particularly his fight against George Foreman in 1974, which is the subject of that film and book that I enjoy so much.
So now I’m going to try and string together all the thoughts and feelings I have about this incredible guy, while also trying to tell you what I hope will be a captivating and amazing true story.
So let’s go!
Muhammad Ali – His Life
Ali was many things: An Olympic gold medal winning sportsman, a boxer, a poet, a comedian, a philanthropist, a conscientious objector to the Vietnam war, a campaigner for civil rights, a holder of controversial views on race relations, a member of the muslim brotherhood of Elijah Muhammed, a sufferer of Parkinson’s disease and one of the most inspirational and charismatic people of the 20th century. Muhammed Ali was one of those special people who don’t come along very often and who will be remembered for a long long time.
Basic life story – Main events up to the 1974 fight with George Foreman.
He was born in Louisville Kentucky in 1942, and named “Cassius Clay”. Apparently he learned to box when he was 12 in order to get revenge on some kids who stole his bike, and apparently he was talented and continued to do it. Clay went on to become a successful amateur boxer and won at the age of 18 won an Olympic gold medal for boxing in 1960 and then went on to become the world heavyweight boxing champion in 1964. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood – a group of black Americans who followed the preachings of Elijah Muhammad. The group he belonged to sought to gain equal rights for black people in the USA. Part of their vision was a segregated USA in which the blacks were given the freedom to set up their own nation. This was quite an extreme position – segregation, but it came out of the sense that blacks had no faith in white America since centuries earlier they had been forced to leave their land and come to the USA as slaves. Their wish was to be allowed to live and prosper with equal status in the country, but alongside white communities, not part of them. In 1964 (I think) he changed his name from Cassius Clay (which he said was a slave name given to his ancestors by slave masters) to Muhammad Ali. Although his views on segregation as a solution to the inequalities in society are now considered radical and extreme, he expressed his ideas so eloquently and with such grace, charm and humour that it was hard not to listen respectfully to what he had to say. In fact, he comes across in his interviews and discussions as a very thoughtful and respectful person, even if I disagree with some of the views that he expressed at the time. Listening to him speak was fascinating and he was clearly very intelligent. Ali was an amazing role model for many black American people who were struggling against prejudice and inequality on a daily basis in the USA and he was very much a symbol of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
In 1967 the USA was at war in Vietnam and like thousands of young men in the States he was drafted into the military, but Ali refused to fight, becoming a conscientious objector on religious grounds. He was arrested on draft evasion charges and this caused him to be suspended from boxing for 3-4 years as a punishment for refusing to fight. He was also stripped of all his heavyweight titles. They were taken away from him. He was also banned from travelling to foreign countries to box, because he refused to go to Vietnam to kill for his country. In hindsight, Ali’s argument is hard to disagree with in my opinion. Here’s what he had to say on the matter.
In the first part of this Ali sounds like he’s slurring his words a bit. I think that’s because the interview was done later, when symptoms of Parkinson’s were beginning to show. The second part of the interview is from a debate he had with students.
The first part of that his point is: Why should I go to another part of the world and murder people who’ve never done anything against me. They never called me nigger, they never enslaved me, raped my people, set dogs on me, lynched me. My struggle is against white oppressors at home who I have to defend myself against, not some Vietnamese in another country.
Here’s another quote: “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.”
Again, his actions – this time as a conscientious objector – made him a counter-culture icon and one of the most prominent voices of opposition to the Vietnam war from the beginning.
Ali appealed the decision to stop him boxing and the ban was eventually lifted in 1971 but by that time he hadn’t boxed professionally for 4 years. That’s 4 years when he was in his prime, lost. Interestingly, because the ban was imposed when he was champion, he had never lost a heavyweight title fight, so even though he didn’t have the belt he was still undefeated as a champion.
I want to talk about his famous fight in 1974 against George Foreman so I’m going to focus mainly on that in a moment.
Ali is considered to be one of the greatest boxers ever and he had an amazing record. He was also an extremely entertaining fighter. He was known mainly for his speed and his movement in the ring. He used to dance – constantly in movement, which made it extremely difficult to fight against him. Although he had some weaknesses – specifically a lack of power in his punches he made up for his faults with his amazing speed. Heavyweights aren’t usually so light on their feet or fast with their hands, but Ali was. He has been compared to Bruce Lee in the way he used movement, dancing with his feet, speed of punches, feints and counter attacks. In fact, Bruce Lee said on a number of occasions that he took a lot of influence from watching Ali boxing. Apparently Bruce Lee used to project video of Ali fighting onto a big screen and then shadow his movements, following Ali’s feet and hands. Here’s a Bruce Lee quote about Ali: “Everybody says I must fight Ali someday,” Bruce said. “I’m studying every move he makes. I’m getting to know how he thinks and moves”. Bruce Lee knew he could never win a fight against Ali “look at my hands”, he said. “That’s a little Chinese hand. he’d kill me”
Ali was not just fast at punching, but also at avoiding being punched. He seemed to be amazing at judging distance and would lean back out of the reach of oncoming punches. Looking at some videos he seemed to be unreachable. No one could touch him.
Video of Ali avoiding punches, dancing and using his reflexes.
Ali is wearing the white shorts.
One of his catch phrases was “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” and it summed up his style. He was light on his feet but he could hurt with his sharp attacks.
About his speed he said:
“I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.” Muhammad Ali
Some of his punches were so fast they couldn’t be seen and they didn’t appear on film. For example the punch that knocked out his rival Sonny Liston in 1964 is a bit of a legend. It’s known as the anchor punch and it happened so quickly as part of a counter attack that Sonny Liston didn’t see it coming, but neither did most of the audience or the viewers of the fight on TV. It looked like Liston had suddenly just hit the deck. The fact is that the punch arrived in about 4 100ths of a second. It was a real ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moment.
As well as his skills as a boxer, Ali was a hugely charismatic, lively and humorous personality and this is another one of the reasons he is so loved.
He used to write funny poems and his conduct in interviews was frequently hilarious. It seemed he was as quick with his responses as he was in the ring. I recommend you watch some of the videos on youTube of his funny moments.
Some funny moments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6igy7hmildM
Ali did win the heavyweight title again in the early 70s but lost it to Joe Frazier. In fact Ali lost a couple of times in that period to his two main rivals Joe Frazier and Ken Norton. By 1974 people were saying that Ali was past his best and people wondered if he might never win another heavyweight title and would retire.
By 1974 a new challenger had arrived on the scene in the form of George Foreman, who was an extremely impressive fighter. Large, very strong and devastatingly effective. Foreman beat both of the fighters who had beaten Ali – Ken Norton and Joe Frazier, and went on to become the heavyweight champion.
Foreman was 25 and in the peak of fitness and had smashed Frazier and Norton in just a few rounds each. Ali was 32 and past his prime.
Nevertheless, Ali chose to have a go at beating Foreman to reclaim the heavyweight title. Boxing promoter Don King knew that it would be a great spectacle to put loudmouth Muhammad Ali the people’s champion against the young dangerous new champion George Foreman and managed to raise the money to pay for a huge high profile title fight between the two men, in which both fighters would be paid $5 million dollars. The only way he could raise the money was to go overseas and in the end it took place in Africa in Zaire, where the dictator president Mobutu put up the money to pay for the fight, knowing it would be good publicity for him and his country. The setting was Zaire, and the fight was called The Rumble in the Jungle.
So this is the story of the Rumble in the Jungle. This is the fight forms the basis of that book I love and that film I listened to so many times while working in the music shop. It’s a great story and it’s a true story, so here we go.
The Rumble in the Jungle
*Tenses – a lot of my descriptions of this fight are in present tenses, even though the fight took place in 1974. Present tenses are sometimes used to bring immediacy to events. It brings them into the present and increases the drama. Past tenses are usually used when you tell a story, but they do create some remoteness, so present tenses are sometimes used to bring the story into the here and now.
Round 1
Ali is the challenger so he arrives first, to great applause. The crowd loves him.
Foreman waits ages to come out. This is probably a tactic to unnerve Ali. It doesn’t seem to work.
Some people in the crowd boo Foreman as he enters the ring.
The fighters psyche each other out.
Foreman uses his physical presence.
Ali is fighting a mental battle with Foreman, using the crowd against him – encouraging them to shout “Ali bomo ye”, shouting and talking all the time at Foreman.
Foreman is silent and has complete faith in himself and his abilities.
They have their gloves put on and then there’s a moment when they stare at each other.
Moments before the bell rings Muhammad Ali has a moment of quiet prayer in his corner.
Foreman is bending over as the bell rings, showing his ass to Ali. Not much dignity or charisma there.
The bell rings.
Ali immediately is on the offensive, leaping towards Foreman.
Ali dances.
Foreman attempts to start cutting off the ring, using his (rear) right hand like a bear’s paw to deal with left jabs. This is part of his technique.
Some boxing principles.
You have a lead hand and a rear hand.
If you’re right handed, your lead is your left hand.
You don’t stand square to your opponent.
You have your left foot forward slightly and the right foot back. The left shoulder forward, and the right shoulder back a bit. The left hand is closer to your opponent, the right hand further away. This means your left hand can jab forward, from the shoulder. The punches can be fast and direct but less powerful. The right hand, the rear hand, is further away and comes across your shoulders. This means it takes longer to reach your opponent, but it carries a lot more force because it carries a lot of your body weight with it. A powerful rear hand punch can carry your whole body weight behind it if you twist your hips and shoulders behind the punch.
So the left hand for jabs, the right hand for longer punches. You rarely lead with the right hand. This is because it takes ages to arrive and the opponent can usually see it coming, and block it, leaving you exposed.
So usually boxers will do combinations of punches, leading with the left. That’s a jab with the left followed immediately by a powerful punch with the right. Punches can be aimed at the head or the body. The can come in a straight line, they can come around the side or from the bottom. Punches from underneath are called uppercuts. You can also punch over the top of someone’s defences too in some cases.
Part of Foreman’s strength was that he had an extended rear hand. He held his rear hand quite far forward in an extended defensive position. He was brilliant at using that extended rear hand (right) to neutralise the opponents leading left hand. He could block the jabs from the left or counter the jabs with the right hand sometimes, and then attack with powerful hooks from both sides.
He combined this with his technique of cutting off the ring. This involves forcing the opponent into the corners or against the ropes by carefully and steadily stepping forwards and to the side. If the opponent attempts to move around, Foreman would sidestep, essentially trapping the opponent and reducing the space in which they can move, and with that extended right hand cutting off the leading jabs of the opponent he could basically trap the opponent in exactly the position he wanted and would then apply his brutally powerful punches to great effect. Often, just a few of these carefully placed punches would be enough to knock the opponent to the floor, or unconscious, like he did with Ken Norton.
Cutting off the ring was exactly the sort of fighting style that could work against Ali.
Ali and Foreman had never faced each other before, so nobody knew how it would go.
Unlike Ali’s fluid, fast and accurate technique. Foreman’s style was not graceful or beautiful. With his extended rear hand and his relentless side stepping and steady movement forwards, Foreman appeared like a bear or like Frankenstein’s monster, slowly but inevitably closing in on his opponent before causing untold damage with those powerful arms and huge fists. Not graceful, but devastatingly effective. This is what had destroyed the only two fighters to beat Ali previously – Ken Norton and Joe Frazier. Foreman appeared not only to beat them with ease, but smash them to pieces. Ali had lost to both these men, but Foreman had taken care of them in just a matter of minutes. He was in his prime both physically and in terms of confidence. According to Foreman, he felt invincible before the fight and was sure he would beat Ali.
This is what Ali was facing and apparently he was scared. Despite all the bravado, he must have been petrified. Watch the video of Foreman beating Norton and Frasier. He’s like an executioner. Everyone was worried that Ali couldn’t win and that he’d get hurt.
Also, Ali was past his prime. He was relatively old and had already fought his best fights. Since his ban, his legs weren’t the same as they used to be. He couldn’t dance like he used to. He was heavier than before, but he was still fast, and there were dimensions to his fighting technique that we hadn’t seen yet.
Everyone wondered what would happen, and how long it would take Foreman to close down Ali. How could Ali escape Foreman? The bell rang for the first round and Ali leapt forward to engage Foreman.
Then he did something that nobody expected.
Something so reckless and brilliant that nobody could believe what they were seeing, and it seemed to work.
He started throwing right hand leads.
A right hand lead is when a fighter leads with their rear hand, which in this case was the right hand.
This is a high risk strategy but if it works it can be very deadly.
Because the right hand has to travel much further, the other fighter has a lot more time to stop it.
However, if a right hand punch connects, it can do a lot more damage, because it carries more body weight.
Remember that Foreman’s technique was to neutralise left hand leads with his extended rear hand – his bear paw. Ali chose to completely avoid this, by leading with heavy right hand punches, taking Foreman completely by surprise.
Ali hit Foreman with 10 or 11 right hand leads. Unbelievable. What a shock! Nobody could believe it.
Some of the right hand leads connect perfectly and you can see Foreman’s head jerk back quickly from the impact. Sweat sprays off his head as the punches land.
The crowd goes wild as Ali manages to land so many right hand punches to George’s face.
Again, Ali is fast and the influence on Bruce Lee is obvious here. His right hand punches are expertly executed. He feints with the left hand and applies the right. He then feints with the right hand, and then strikes with the right. He’s playing a guessing game with Foreman – which hand is going to come next? Foreman keeps being taken by surprise by the right hand of Ali. This just was not what he expected and he keeps falling for it in the first round. At least 10 times, with a few left hands in there too. This didn’t happen with Norton, or Frasier.
This took massive amounts of guts from Ali. It was a very risky move, completely unexpected and unpredictable. Only someone like Ali – who was cocky enough, fast enough and unconventional enough, could have done this. What an extraordinary fighter.
I think Ali’s plan was to knock Foreman down in the first round in a way that nobody could have suspected.
Again and again he hits him with right hand leads.
But Foreman does not go down. The punches hit him and his face puffs up, but he’s just enraged and he continues to advance on Ali and hits him with several punishing blows which must have hurt Ali.
Foreman is incredibly powerful, and the right hand leads must have put him in a huge rage. Some of the punches he delivers to Ali look very heavy. One connecting to the left side of Ali’s head, another to his heart under Ali’s outstretched arm.
But Ali doesn’t seem affected and in fact is visibly talking to Foreman throughout this.
Wrestling – head locks, holding his left glove against Foreman’s neck, talking to him.
Apparently saying things like “Is that the best you can do George? Come on hit me with a real punch!”
The round ends.
Moments in the corner.
Ali whips up the crowd again.
Round 2
Ali’s plan to knock down Foreman in round 1 with unexpected right hand leads hasn’t worked.
Despite landing the punches – about 10 of them. Foreman is still standing and seems ok.
Ali starts to take some punishment here.
This is phase 2 of his strategy.
He stops dancing and goes to the ropes.
To everybody watching it looks like Ali is going to be slaughtered by Foreman.
It’s quite a sad sight, because Ali is not dancing. He’s retreating, letting Foreman come to him and then leaning back against the ropes as Foreman starts laying into him with huge heavy punches to the body and head.
But Ali knows what he’s doing. It’s incredibly brave of him, but it’s calculated.
Most accounts of this fight just say that Ali went to the ropes, blocked most of the punches, let the ropes take the impact and let Foreman ‘punch himself out’, which means to exhaust himself from punching.
This was part of the plan. But Ali’s technique here was more sophisticated than that.
Foreman’s heavy punches – Ali blocks them. He leans back deep into the ropes, ensuring that the ropes take a lot of the force of the punches. The punches hit Ali and the force is transferred into the ropes. Also, Foreman has to lean forwards to hit Ali’s head. Ali is so fast that he avoids or blocks many of the punches. Ali was also a master of absorbing punches.
There were many aspects to Ali’s abilities and he used them all in combination, often highlighting one technique, allowing the other technique to be a surprise. This is part of that.
In a sense, this was a trap for Foreman. It was a risky move by Ali because it involved exposing himself to a lot of punishment, but Ali used one of his techniques – avoiding punches and absorbing impacts with body movement. He was a fluid fighter who relied on speed and quick reactions to limit the effect of punches.
While it looked like Ali was shutting down – not dancing, going to the ropes, essentially letting Foreman attack him, he was using his defensive skills to lure Foreman into a trap.
Foreman had one technique. Use his right hand to prevent left jabs coming around, close off the ring, and then apply massive swinging punches and uppercuts to maximum effect. This is how he’d managed to smash Frazier and Norton.
But Ali got around Foreman’s right hand by punching under it or inside it, and by leading with his right hand, which fighters never do.
Also, when Foreman got too close, Ali would hold his neck, pushing him off balance, preventing him from being able to swing properly. He would place his left hand on the back of his neck and pull his head down. He’d put his weight on Foreman, making Foreman carry some of his weight. Over time this exhausted Foreman.
Also, because Ali kept backing away, Foreman kept moving towards Ali, which gave extra force to Ali’s jabs and counter attacks from his defensive position on the ropes. Foreman was always moving into Ali’s punches, which multiplied their damage.
Also, Ali was using all his charisma, experience and mental strength against Foreman, and was constantly talking to him, teasing him, breaking down his confidence, breaking down his self belief, bit by bit. Apparently he kept telling Foreman “You can’t punch George, you don’t punch you push! Is that the best you’ve got! I’m your master George, you ain’t nothing, you’ve met your match, you’ll see you’ve stepped into the ring with your master, you’re out of your depth George, your punches aren’t hurting me… etc”
This would have seriously affected Foreman’s state of mind, causing him to be distracted and unfocused. It would have chipped away at his confidence, sowing seeds of self-doubt that you just can’t afford to be thinking in that situation.
When you view the fight again from this point of view, you realise that Ali was in control of the fight. He used Foreman’s strengths against him and he dominated Foreman mentally.
You can see in the video the moments when Ali is teasing Foreman and shouting comments at him, and Foreman is momentarily distracted and Ali takes the opportunity to strike lighting fast punches that are carefully aimed. Foreman is almost blind to them as he keeps bearing down on Ali. Also Ali has won the support of the audience, all of whom are willing him to succeed and Foreman to fail. When two fighters are so evenly matched, the mental conditions will give you an edge. In fact I think in sport it’s all in the mind. So much of it is about having the will to succeed and the motivation – like that song Eye of the Tiger!
Foreman’s determination and single mindedness in the ring is becoming a weakness as he keeps walking towards what he thinks is a target backing away or helpless against the ropes. In fact Ali keeps popping off the ropes to apply punches to Foreman’s head. They’re not super powerful blows, but they’re accurate and Foreman is moving towards them.
However, Ali’s strategy took time and Foreman was young. He had a lot of strength and stamina. He was also full of confidence and self-belief, which took a long time for Ali to drain away and Ali had to take a great deal of punishment on the ropes over many rounds, in fact there were times when Ali was just taking punches, absorbing them, doing his best to limit their force and not managing to get many counter punches in on Foreman. It looked like Ali was being destroyed, but it was a long-term plan.
Eventually after a number of rounds of this technique – drawing Foreman in, deflecting and avoiding the punches, wrestling him off balance, constantly talking to him and breaking his nerve with comments, and managing to strike a few jabs and punches while also taking a lot of punches to the body – Foreman got tired. It’s hard to keep punching as hard as you can, while defending yourself.
As an example, just try holding a 4kg weight straight out in front of you for as long as possible. How long can you do it? I would be surprised if you managed more than 5 minutes. If you did it for 10 minutes that is very impressive. A lot of people couldn’t last two minutes. Now think of the last time you had to run for an extended period of time. I know I have a lot of runners who listen to this – but if you don’t run regularly, imagine running at top speed for about 10-15 minutes. That’s actually quite a long time at top speed, as if a bear was chasing you. You’d be knackered probably – you know the feeling, when you’ve just got no wind left in your body, you’re experiencing pain in your legs and in your chest, your lungs just can’t take in enough air quickly enough, completely out of breath. You know the feeling. It’s awful. Now imagine doing both of those things at the same time, while also defending yourself against very powerful punches from perhaps the best fighter in the world. That’s an idea of the challenge faced by both these guys.
So, Foreman got tired. He punched himself out and lost focus. Eventually his guard started to drop a bit and Ali exploited it, even though he was also exhausted. He came off the ropes and applied lots of fast, well placed punches to Foreman’s head. The end of the fight was quite beautiful in an odd way. Ali applied his excellent footwork by coming off the ropes as Foreman’s guard dropped, stepping to the side forcing Foreman to turn to his left, putting him off balance while applying a combination of punches with both hands, his jabs with the left setting up harder punches to the right, and as Ali stepped to Foreman’s right and as Foreman began to turn he lost balance and began to fall, Ali had hit him with a combination of fast punches and then Foreman began to fall while they were turning, slowly yet inevitably falling towards the ground like a huge tree that had been cut down but still hadn’t fallen, but which had no way of staying upright. The whole time Ali had another punch ready, which he held back, ready to strike, but he held it as Foreman turned, and with a strange kind of beauty, Ali just let Foreman fall to the ground without hitting him again. Foreman’s fall seemed to be in slow motion and had an inevitability to it. Ali let it happen and seemed to guide him round, letting him fall as the big man crashed to the ground.
As the old saying goes, “The harder the come, the harder they fall”.
What Ali had done was use his intelligence against Foreman. When you realise what happened in the fight, how Ali won it, you realise what an amazing achievement it was. In the end, Ali was a far more sophisticated and complex person and he outclassed Foreman. As a test of character, Ali passed with flying colours and it’s one of the reasons he is such a legendary figure today.
He demonstrated extreme strength of character, not just physical ability. He dominated Foreman and proved himself to be the greatest.
Here’s what Foreman himself had to say about the fight, and about Ali. This is from CNN, and Foreman begins by talking about how confident he was after so easily beating all his other opponents in previous fights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaVpVk_-hO0
He said that his whole life was devastated, and he’s not exaggerating. Apparently after this fight Foreman had a huge nervous breakdown. Essentially, the loss completely ruined his confidence to the point where he lost all sense of who he was up to that point. He described the experience as like falling into a huge black hole in which he stared death in the face. The previous George Foreman essentially died after that experience – not physically, but mentally or personally. It took him quite a lot of time to come back and piece his life together following the fight. This unstoppable fighter had been seriously shaken by the defeat. Foreman retired from boxing a few years later and over the following 15-20 years or so, he completely turned his life around, and later in the 90s I think he came back as a hugely successful business man. He became a multi millionaire by selling his patented “lean mean fat-free grilling machine” – a grill which cooks meat and drains the fat away. It’s a massive success the lean mean grilling machine. Now he’s a very self assured, charismatic and interesting man and a great public speaker. I think he became a born again Christian actually. He found god – that’s what saved him. That’s what worked for him. In fact, it’s fascinating to hear him describe his experience of having a breakdown after the fight, and then finding god. I think this is an anecdote that he has told many many times in his life.
Here he talks about being filled with hatred, feelings of paranoia, wanting revenge. Essentially his ego could not handle the defeat. He kept making excuses for the defeat, but he couldn’t avoid it and ultimately it caused a breakdown in his personality, which led to a remarkable spiritual experience in which he became a born again christian.
As for Ali, well immediately after the referee counted out Foreman and he was announced the winner, the ring was filled with people who jumped in to congratulate him. Apparently he fainted in the middle of the ring, but was resuscitated. He was the world champion again and had proved that he was truly the greatest, but he had taken serious punishment and apparently for weeks or months even he was suffering from the damage to his body. I imagine he was in extreme pain for a long time and could hardly move. Imagine being punched in the kidneys by George Foreman for 8 rounds. Ouch.
What happened next, was that an even bigger fight was set up, with even bigger stakes. At least £5million dollars to both fighters, in another international location – this time in Manilla, Philippines. This fight was arranged for the next year and was to be between Ali and Joe Frasier, the man who had previously defeated him. Frasier was Ali’s old rival, and the Thriller in Manilla became perhaps even more dramatic, dangerous and incredible than The Rumble in the Jungle. In fact, this fight was perhaps the most dangerous moment that both fighters had ever experienced. Ali described it as the closest thing to death he ever experienced, and it pushed both men right to the very limit of their lives. But that is another story for another time.
As we know, Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the early 1980s and it’s frankly very sad what we all saw happen to him. His speed was gone, his fast talking was gone. What was left of the champ was a man debilitated by his illness. It was incredibly sad to have the man taken away from us, just like it’s sad for the loved ones of anyone affected by Parkinson’s, and I know because I have several people in my family who are affected by the disease. We are still trying to find a cure or find more effective treatments for Parkinson’s and I just want to make an appeal to you at this point and ask you to please consider making a donation to Parkinson’s UK – a UK based charity which funds research and care programs for Parkinson’s sufferers. I’m sure there are also local charities for this too. Parkinson’s affects one in 500 people in the UK. There’s no cure but treatments can make a big difference to the lives of people who are affected by it. So please consider making even a small donation because Parkinson’s is no joke. Visit http://www.parkinsons.org.uk/ or just search for Parkinson’s charities in your area.
Muhammad Ali has raised awareness of Parkinson’s around the world so I thought it would only be appropriate to mention the charities here, which are doing great work.
By the way, we still don’t know if boxing is what caused Ali’s Parkinson’s. It’s easy to make the link, but there still isn’t conclusive evidence to suggest it is true. While boxing definitely causes brain damage to people, it’s not necessarily the cause of the disease.
Anyway, I don’t want to end this on a sad note. Ultimately Muhammad Ali was a truly great man who was bigger than boxing. He was an inspiration to many people and someone who will always be remembered. He was opinionated, articulate, charming, charismatic, skilful, unpredictable and very entertaining.
George Foreman describes Ali (min 1.20)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj3IdV_KELU
YOU MUST SEE ALI IN ACTION – PLEASE WATCH THESE VIDEOS!
This is an absolutely fascinating and brilliantly written analysis of Ali’s fighting techniques
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1_JW3wnrik
Watch the entire “Rumble in the Jungle” fight here, with commentary from David Frost
Ali having an intelligent discussion on US TV in 1968
Some of Ali’s funny moments
Hilarious comedian Richard Pryor talks about George Foreman vs Ken Norton, and Muhammad Ali
Join my wife and *me as we walk around the streets of Paris during the annual World Music Festival. You’ll hear live music, descriptions of the scene, a couple of conversations with people we met, and the sounds of this amazing evening in the city of light. It’s another long episode, but I hope you listen to all of it because I just really want to share the atmosphere and moments of this special event. Check below for photos.
[DOWNLOAD]
This episode was recorded yesterday evening on 21 June, which is the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, the longest day of the year. It’s also World Music Day and here in Paris there is always a big music festival on this date, called “Fête de la Musique”. In Paris the whole city comes alive all night as live bands and musicians perform music on every street corner. The whole city becomes a big festival and it’s one of the best nights of the year here. The streets are filled with people partying, having a good time, drinking, socialising and dancing to the music.
So last night my wife and I went out to walk around the area and get into the spirit of the festival and in fact my wife suggested that I do some recordings so I could show another side of life in Paris, because it’s not all just Euro 2016, floods, strikes and terror alerts. There are loads of amazing things going on. Yesterday we had a brilliant evening and I’m really glad I captured it on the podcast.
So, I invite you to join us as we take a stroll through the streets of Paris on this hot summer evening, taking in the various musical performances, getting into the spirit of the evening and meeting a few people along the way. I met a few people during the evening and recorded short interviews with them. They were mainly Brits (a couple of guys from England, a French guy and a Belgian guy who spoke good English and two guys from Northern Ireland) and I asked them a couple of questions about the big stories of the moment like the football and the EU referendum.
You will also hear plenty of live music which I recorded yesterday. On every street corner there was a different band or a DJ playing. There were some moments when I chose just to record the music and not to speak, so you will hear some little musical interludes sometimes in which I’m not actually saying anything and it’s just live music, so you can soak up the atmosphere of what turned out to be a really brilliant evening in Paris. I hope you enjoy being part of it and that you can use your imagination to picture the scenes. The sounds should be in stereo too, so if you’re listening on headphones it should sound pretty cool.
There are some photos on the page for this episode (below), so check them out!
Now, I will let you listen to my audio diary of la fete de la music in Paris. I really enjoyed recording this episode and I really hope you enjoy it too and that you get into the atmosphere of this evening of music and good vibes!
In this episode I talk about the EUROs including how it feels having the championship here in France, the violence in Marseille that occurred between English fans, Russian fans, local French fans and the French police this weekend, and the England vs Russia game that happened on Saturday. I welcome your comment on this subject so please share your thoughts under the page for this episode. A transcript is available for 95% of this episode.
The EURO Football Championship has started and it’s happening in France! I’m going to do a few episodes about it as the competition progresses, a bit like I did for the World Cup two years ago. I love international football competitions but I’m not a huge expert on the subject of football, so please leave your comments with all your opinions, questions and points of view as we continue through the tournament. I can then read them out in future episodes. I’m sure a lot of you out there know more about this than me, so why don’t you contribute some content for my episodes? Just leave comments on the page for this episode at teacherluke.co.uk – not the main page, let’s keep the football chat on the EURO 2016 pages, which you will find in the Episode Archive or on the sidebar of every page on my site. I will mention a few questions for you later in this episode.
Regarding episodes in this series – essentially I’m going to record something when there are things to say, like before or after a big game (especially if it’s England – because I’m an England fan), when there are some big events to discuss or when there are some LEPster comments to share.
So, let’s talk about the EUROS.
I understand that you might not be a football fan, or that your country is not represented in this tournament (e.g. if you’re in Asia or South America). I hope you’ll keep listening anyway – because it’s not just about 22 guys kicking a ball around a green rectangle. There’s usually some drama and action involved, and the context of international relations being played out on a football field is usually pretty interesting, especially when there are also events off the pitch too, like the violence that’s been going on in Marseille this weekend. There’s more to talk about than just football. But, there’s football too! That means goals, upsets, victories, losses, penalty shootouts, surprises and the disappointment of being an England fan.
There’s a lot going on in France at the moment.
The weather – rain, thunderstorms and floods. Homes have been flooded and people have been stuck in their cars because of flooding and stuff. But it’s not that bad of course – the vast majority of people are unaffected by that, but certainly we’re all feeling a bit fed up with the incessant rain over here!
Also, the strikes – trains have been cancelled, journeys disrupted, and also rubbish collectors are on strike. There were piles of rubbish in the street, which was pretty smelly and disgusting.
Also, there has been a tense atmosphere here since the terrorist attacks that happened in Paris last year and in Belgium this year. There are soldiers on the streets and there’s a sense the people are expecting something bad to happen especially because there will be large crowds of people in public areas and lots of tourists in town because the Euro 2016 Championship and the eyes of the world, certainly the eyes of Europe, are now on France.
So, there has been a distinct lack of buzz about the football in Paris, but I think that now the competition has started people will get into the spirit of it and people will get excited, especially since France won the opening game and the competition is now underway.
I do love international football competitions.
I really hope that France do well this time. I think the country could really do with a lift.
The UK is well represented this year too, with England, Wales and Northern Ireland all qualifying.
Of course, I’m English born and bred, so I am an England fan, which is a slightly mixed blessing.
I’m also behind Wales and Northern Ireland. I would really like to see them do well because they rarely get a lot of success in international tournaments like this. They’re generally regarded as ‘minnows’ (small fish – small teams) but let’s see what they can do. Wales are not looking too bad this year and Northern Ireland haven’t qualified for an international tournament like this in 30 years so this is a good opportunity for them. Also, our neighbours the Republic of Ireland are in the tournament too.
Another ingredient in the mix here is the EU referendum which will arrive in week 2 of the tournament. I think that’s an important part of the wider context because there are British teams in the tournament and it will just add some significance to the events on and off the pitch, and could perhaps heighten the tension of the action.
Violence in Marseille
And talking about heightening the tension, there’s yet another factor in play now and that’s hooliganism. Just this weekend, English fans were involved in violent clashes with local French fans, Russian fans and the local French police on the streets of Marseille.
That’s really shameful. First of all I think that the violence is mostly instigated or carried out by a minority. There’s a small minority of English fans who are basically hooligans – people who are just up for a fight. Most people just want to come and enjoy the football and probably have a good time in France, but these hooligans will get drunk and lairy – they drink loads of beer, take their shirts off, start singing and probably act in a very aggressive and threatening manner, in public areas that are usually nice calm places where people are dining outside restaurants or enjoying a drink in the evening.
The thing is, this is a very tense time in France because of the terror attacks and the police have probably been prepared to react strongly to violence. They probably won’t tolerate a lot of public disturbance, and in fact have responded pretty strongly to what looks like just noisy singing and general public drunkenness that the English football fans are famous for. As a result the French police on Friday evening attempted to move in on the football fans and clear them away from a popular part of the city for tourists. The football fans responded by throwing bottles and then the police went into full crowd control mode and shot tear gas at the crowd, and then started beating up fans. Then on Saturday, England fans and Russian fans clashed a bit outside the stadium.
During the game things seemed to be peaceful in the crowd as the match went on, but at the end of the game some Russian fans launched one or two flares at England fans, and as the game ended Russian fans broke through some security guards and attacked the England fans, who tried to run away. There was also a loud bang in the stadium near the end of the game, you might have heard it. I think that was a firework that was set off inside the stadium by a Russian fan.
How on earth these fans managed to get flares and a firework into the stadium when France is on such a high terror alert, I don’t know. In fact all of this violence is particularly worrying and irresponsible because everyone is on edge because of the threat of another attack. Everyone needs to just chill out and bring down the tension.
On the streets of Marseille after the game some violence continued between these different factions, and apparently the metro in Marseille was closed, taxis and busses stopped running. The city centre sounds it was a bit like a war-zone. It’s ugly and disappointing and makes me feel ashamed.
Certainly the media in England and lots of public figures are condemning the violence and strongly criticising this violent element we have in our fans, and I agree – it’s shameful that a few idiots give us all a bad name. But, there are also lots of reports coming in from eyewitnesses who say that it’s not just English fans acting like hooligans. Apparently there are other elements at work too, including local French fans and the Russians.
According to these reports from people on the street, via Twitter and Periscope and other platforms, the English fans were getting drunk in the street in the main tourist area near the port in Marseille, singing and acting aggressively, when they were attacked in coordinated movements by groups of local French fans, who apparently arrived quickly and started throwing bottles at the England fans, who responded in the same way.
Similar things happened with the Russian fans who it is reported started fights with the English. This is what I’ve read and seen on Twitter and on bits of video taken on the streets. Apparently the streets were covered in broken glass and about 30 people were injured. Two English fans are seriously hurt and may be in critical condition – one was kicked in the head a number of times and another one had a heart attack. The French police fired tear gas into the crowds to keep them back. Any fans that got close to the police were hit with batons. They also used water canons to keep the crowd at bay. The English fans responded by going berserk and throwing bottles, chairs and even tables in response.
Apparently UEFA are investigating the violence in the stadium, which appears to have been started by the Russian. I expect there will be some form of punishment given out to both sets of fans. In fact, I’ve just heard that UEFA have opened up a disciplinary procedure against the Russian Federation because of the conduct of their fans in the stadium. I just hope that all the peaceful fans aren’t affected by this, like if there is a general audience ban or something. I’m not sure what the disciplinary procedure will be exactly.
Now, it’s difficult to have complete faith in the media because you don’t know if they’re being completely impartial. I wonder what the media is saying about this in your country. They might be a bit biased, and that includes media in England and in other countries. For example, some English papers might suggest that the Russians started the fighting, or that the French police completely over-reacted and were unnecessarily brutal with the English fans. Perhaps the Russian media might emphasise the hooliganism of the English. I am interested to know how this story is being treated in your countries, so let us know in the comment section. I’m sure it’s a very complex issue and that all sides have some responsibility.
I think this has been a four-way problem – English fans, Russian fans, local French fans and the police. Let’s hope it doesn’t get more out of hand, and I really hope the hooligans just tone it down and focus on enjoying the football rather than causing so much unnecessary damage, trouble and negativity in the press.
I feel like there’s not that much goodwill towards the English at the moment anyway because of the whole Brexit situation. It just makes us look bad, and again it’s to a minority of people who are putting all this stuff on the agenda and in the media.
Also, I feel for the residents of Marseille. I was there just last week, in the area where the violence occurred. It’s a beautiful spot and I expect this has been very disruptive and quite traumatic for local who are just trying to go about their business.
Even though the specifics of what happened are not clear, I am sickened by the actions of some of our fans who act so badly when they’re abroad. It’s appalling really and it’s been like this for years. I don’t really understand it, but I hate these people. It’s tribalism at its worst. Whenever I come across these types of violent football fans at home, I can’t stand it. They’re the worst people to run into, and I’ve always hated that kind of element. I’m not proud of it.
Anyway, this is supposed to be about football, isn’t it! What a pity to start this competition with violence! I wonder how everything will continue both on and off the pitch.
Overview of the EUROS
24 teams this time – http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/season=2016/teams/
Facts – http://www.worldfootballguide.com/europe/euro-2016-facts/
Favourites – France, Spain, Germany, England, others… Nobody is the obvious choice.
So far, France won the opening game against Romania.
Wales beat Slovakia quite convincingly.
Switzerland beat Albania.
England drew with Russia.
England vs Russia
I thought England played well in the first half but just couldn’t ‘find the net’ (score). There were some good moments of play between our attacking players, but we really should have scored. Russia improved in the second half but England still had a few chances. There was an amazing save by Russian goalkeeper Akinfeev. Then England won a free kick just outside the penalty box. Some people say it wasn’t a foul. There’s no comment about it in any of the English press I’ve checked online. We scored from the free kick – taken by Dier, with some help from an England player in the wall who blocked the view of the goalkeeper by ducking out of the way of the ball at the last moment. Finally we got the goal we’d been looking for and there was a big celebration but then, our mistake was that we ‘sat back’ (relaxed and stopped attacking) after our goal and Russia took advantage and scored a great header in additional time. Gutted. All the English fans then felt a very familiar feeling – disappointment because we didn’t win. In fact we have still never won our opening game in a EURO championship. So, we’re generally disappointed, even though we played quite well. 1-1 is not too bad really, but we had opportunities and we should have scored more!
The main questions people are asking now are about the usefulness of Stirling, who is quick by lacks ‘end product’, why Vardy was left on the bench for the whole game (he’s a goal scorer), why our tallest striker, Kane, was taking corners, and the usual mickey-taking of Wayne Rooney.
Someone on Facebook:
“Stirling is a useless twat.
Why is Vardy on the bench?
Why is Kane taking corners?
Why does Rooney’s head look like a turnip?
These are the big questions.”
Now, I want to know your comments. Here are some questions.
1. Which team is your favourite? Which team do you predict to be the winner?
2. Which players do you think are worth watching?
3. What did you think of the England vs Russia game?
4. What’s your opinion about the violence this weekend in Marseille? I’ve heard there have been some outbreaks of violence between Polish and French fans in Nice too. What’s the media saying about this in your country?
Let us know your thoughts and opinions! And let’s hope that the drama is played out on the pitch, not in the streets!
aka “The Accordion Legs Episode” Listen to Amber, Paul, James Simpson and me as we play a light-hearted speaking game called “Would you rather…?” and hear about having accordions for legs, being stuck in a lift with a pair of wet dogs and living on a desert island with a mermaid (or merman). You’ll also hear the results of the interactive lying game from episode 343. There are notes and some transcriptions below. Share your comments on the page for this episode. How would you answer these ‘would you rather’ questions?
[DOWNLOAD] Groovy background music c/o Jim Thompson & www.bensound.com
Introduction Transcript
Hello and welcome back to the podcast. This one is called “Would you rather…?” and first I’d like to make a couple of disclaimers before you listen to this. What’s a disclaimer? It’s a statement that denies responsibility for something. So, right at the start of this episode I’m putting my hands up and saying – “Look, I’m just telling you there are some possibly stupid or offensive moments in this episode and now that I’ve told you, I’m not responsible for knee-jerk reactions that you might have. You’ve been told! And there it is”. So, by way of a disclaimer, here are a couple of things which I think are important to say to you before I play you this episode, so listen up!
Disclaimer #1
This episode contains quite a lot of silly nonsense – even more silly nonsense than usual. You’ll hear us talk about some ridiculous, childish and slightly disgusting things in this one. But it’s all done in the name of fun, and what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with fun? Are you saying there’s something wrong with fun? No, of course you’re not saying that, you wouldn’t say that would you? No you wouldn’t, because there is nothing wrong with fun. Harmless fun. In fact I would argue that sometimes it’s important to have fun talking complete nonsense with your mates, don’t you think? Don’t you ever talk about silly idiotic rubbish with your friends? I bet you do. It’s one of the best things in the world isn’t it? Talking stupid rubbish with your friends? Well, that’s what we’re doing in this one, and I invite you to join us and have fun with us.
If you’re a long-term listener to this podcast then you’ll know that I sometimes enjoy talking about silly non-sensical things on the podcast. But if you are new to this podcast then you should know that it’s not all just serious stuff about politics and sometimes it’s a bit silly here at podcast HQ. Alright – so that’s disclaimer 1 – you’ve been told.
Disclaimer #2: swearing
There is a lot of swearing in this episode. A lot of the classic rude words feature in this conversation. The f-bomb, the s-word and a few others. So, be warned, there’s tons of swearing in this episode. They’re not bleeped out because I know you actually would rather listen to just natural conversations in English, even when they include some swear words – in fact most of you actually want to hear the swear words. How do I know that? Because I did a poll a couple of months ago on my website. Here are the results.
Swearing Poll – Results
The question: How do you feel about swearing on the podcast?
219 Votes
Bleep the swear words . 0.5% / 1
Don’t bleep swear words. 22.8% / 50
Swearing is OK. I want to know how people really speak. 36.1% / 79
Swearing is OK. Just don’t do it ALL the time. 13.7% / 30
No swear words at all, please. (Not even bleeped ones) 0.5% / 1
You can do what you want, Luke. 26.0% / 57
So, 99% of the people who took that poll seem to be absolutely fine with swearing. There’s just one person who’s not a fan.
So, to that one person – I am sorry in advance. But, you know – here’s my disclaimer. For the rest of you – well, let’s just carry on shall we? You want real British English? Here it is.
Disclaimer #3 – The Russian Joke (sigh)
You will hear us talk about the Russian joke again, which I’m fed up with frankly. Why am I fed up with the Russian joke? Because people keep asking me to explain it, and every time I explain it someone else tells me they don’t understand it and need it to be explained again. So I need to put this to bed now. I want to say just this – the joke has nothing to do with Russian people. It’s just based on the words “Russian” (the nationality) and “rushing” (moving fast to avoid being late) They sound similar. That’s it. No deeper meaning than that. We keep laughing about this because it’s just a recurring thing – I told this joke during a stand up show and nobody in the audience laughed and I explained it – but they still didn’t laugh or understand it. So I had to explain it again. Now, every time this joke is mentioned I have to explain it again and more people don’t understand it. It’s just a running joke and Amber & Paul keep laughing about it because it’s just an embarrassing story of me telling a bad joke on stage and nobody understanding it. It’s a comedy of errors and after this episode I hope it will never be mentioned ever again.
RIGHT! That’s it. No more disclaimers!
Let me now move on to the introduction to this episode.
First you’re going to hear the results of the Interactive Lying Game. Feel the excitement!
Then we play a speaking game called “Would you rather…?” That’s a very simple game which people play with their friends just for fun. Essentially it’s about coming up with quite ridiculous and specific questions with two difficult options – “would you rather do ‘this’ or ‘this’?” – and then you ask your friends and you end up having very in-depth conversations about the answers. I’m sure you have a similar game in your first language.
There’s no winner or loser for this game, which is good news for Paul. The aim of the game is just to have some crazy discussions and enjoy the company of friends, and I invite you to join us while we play it.
I’m now going to read out all the “would you rather” questions that you’re going to hear in this episode. The reason I’m doing that is so that you have a chance to think about them and understand them before the conversation begins. That’s going to help your understanding and enjoyment of this fairly fast-moving conversation. All these questions are written on the page for this episode so you can check them out if you want to check your understanding or spelling of any words.
So, here are the questions. And remember – I’ve already warned you that some of them are pretty silly in tone, but that’s the point of the game really.
“Would you rather…?” Questions In This Episode
Would you rather: – have a proper relationship with far-right French politician Marine LePen (She’s your wife, you sleep together etc)? – or live in France with Marine Le Pen as President (but she’s not your girlfriend)? (Marine Le Pen is a right-wing French politician – she’s a bit like the French Donald Trump – not exactly, but they are both right-wing, they’re both anti-immigration, she’s quite extreme – that kind of thing)
Would you rather be stuck in a lift with… – 2 wet dogs? – 2 fat men who have bad breath? (UK: lift, US: elevator)
Would you rather… – Have accordions for legs? – Or have a huge belly button which is 10 inches long and that sways to the beat of popular music?
Would you rather – wake up completely blind? – or wake up without being able to speak your first language (English in this case)?
Would you rather – be very very fat (clinically obese)? – or have Tourette’s syndrome? (that’s a mental disorder which means that you randomly shout out very rude words in public and you can’t control it)
Would you rather – be stuck on a desert island alone? – or be stuck on a desert island with someone you really don’t like?
Would you rather – eat chocolate-flavoured poo? – or poo-flavoured chocolate?
Would you rather – live one 1,000 year life? – or ten 100 year lives?
Would you rather – be a horrible offensive person in the real world for one day? – or be a horrible offensive troll on the internet for a month?
Would you rather – go way back in time to meet your ancestors? – go way into the future to meet your grandchildren?
Would you rather live on a desert island with a beautiful man or woman who… – is half fish from the belly button up (top half fish, bottom half human)? – or is half fish from the belly button down (bottom half fish, top half human – like a mermaid)?
Let’s play this classic, stupid game, called “Would you rather…?”
The rules are simple. You’re given 2 options, and you have to decide which one you would rather have, or do – and then you have to explain why. That’s it!
This game works best when you explore the options in detail and explain your thinking. Also please feel free to ask for clarification of the questions at any point.
Hello everyone, I hope you’re well. Here is an episode featuring a conversation with my Dad about Brexit – The UK’s referendum on the EU. Finally! I’ve been mentioning this for a while so here it is. You’ve seen it in the news, you’ve read it in the papers – the UK is having a referendum on membership of the European Union and who knows, we might end up leaving. It’s all over the news and the internet in the UK at the moment, everyone’s talking about it – you can’t escape it and it’s going to get more and more intense the closer we get to 23 June, the date of the referendum. I’ve had plenty of messages from listeners asking me to talk about this on the podcast, so here we go.
I’ve been wondering how to approach this topic for ages. It’s actually a very complex issue which I would like to cover properly, taking into account the different arguments in some detail in order to bring some genuine insight to the issue. I think that one of the problems with the subject of the EU and Brexit is that the issues are genuinely difficult to understand, and it takes proper effort and patience to understand them fully. I think it’s fair to say that these days people just don’t feel they have the time or the willingness to look deeply at the issues, and instead just arrive at their opinions based on an emotional reaction. There’s little tolerance for nuance or broad-mindedness it seems. So, I could just skate over the issues and cover this in just one short episode – but you know, I don’t like to do that on this podcast, and in fact podcasting as a medium is generally a great way to have an extended conversation on a topic. You rarely get extended, natural conversations on TV or on the internet about subjects like this. More and more there’s a pressure to make TV broadcasts short and quick, but as a result some of the subtleties are lost. There’s a tendency towards soundbites and short emotion-driven arguments. As a result, some of the more complex arguments are not heard. Certainly with the issue of Brexit in the media – our emotions are being played upon all the time – it’s either ‘fear’ like in the case of David Cameron who suggested that a Brexit could lead to World War 3 or it’s patriotic nationalism on a ridiculous level, like Boris Johnson comparing the EU to Hitler and saying that Britain could be the heroes of Europe. That’s all highly emotional political rhetoric. But let’s have a normal conversation about it shall we?
I think there are several ways to deal with the Brexit subject on this podcast. I could start with the vocabulary and terminology – because there’s a lot of specific language involved in this, when you consider that the whole thing relates to issues like the economy, immigration, sovereignty, legislative procedure, social policy, the environment, security and the workings of the EU institutions. So, I could take a bottom up approach and start with the terminology or the language of Brexit. Or I could go with a top down approach and just talk about the subject. In the end I’ve decided to go with the latter – and that’s to just jump right into the topic here by having a conversation about it. And who better to talk to than my Dad, Rick.
So this is the first thing you’ll hear on the subject – a conversation with my Dad – before I expect to go into Brexit in a bit more detail in some later episodes.
Now, you’ve probably heard my Dad on this podcast before. I thought it could be interesting for you to hear on this podcast a conversation between a well-informed, articulate and intelligent man, and his father. (ha ha)
Just one final point here before we listen to the conversation. The day before I spoke to my Dad for the podcast, I posted a question on social media, saying “My Dad’s going to be on the podcast talking about Brexit – do you have any questions?” I got loads of questions from interested LEPsters. Thank you very much if you wrote one. What I did was to consolidate all your queries and points into a just a few simple questions which I then used as a basis for this discussion. So, I don’t actually read out your questions or mention any names, but thank you for your questions – I think we managed to cover a lot of them in our conversation. Anything we didn’t deal with, I’ll come back to later on.
Alright, so without any further ado, let’s now hear the conversation with my Dad Rick about the UK’s referendum on Europe, and here we go.
*Conversation Begins*
The questions below are a summary of the questions I received from LEPsters on Facebook.
1. WHAT IS BREXIT?
2. WHY HAS THE BREXIT QUESTION COME UP NOW?
3. WHAT ARE THE MAIN ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST BREXIT?
The ‘leave’ campaign
The ‘remain’ campaign
What are the main arguments of the ‘leave’ campaign?
What are the main arguments of the ‘remain’ campaign?
4. WHAT WOULD BE THE CONSEQUENCES? (I don’t think we really answered this – so I’ll come back to it)
5. WHAT DO WE THINK PERSONALLY?
*Conversation Ends*
I said there at the end that it’s all a bit complicated. While recording that interview I was thinking that it was bound to be very difficult to follow. Actually, after listening back to that conversation, I think we managed to deal with it in a fairly clear way, especially my Dad, who is very articulate and well-informed on the subject.
I have a variety of listeners with varying levels of knowledge of this subject, so I’m sure some of you followed that without too many problems whereas others might have been a bit lost at times.
So, I do think it’s worth talking more about Brexit on the podcast and I plan to go through some of the key vocabulary associated with this and also revisit the main arguments in forthcoming episodes. Also, as we move closer to the referendum date I am sure more things will happen in the news and it will be interesting to keep an eye on the opinion polls. So watch out for more Brexit-related commentary in the near future.
As ever I am very keen for you to express your opinions on the website. So please leave your comments. What do you think? What do you think about my Dad’s opinions in this episode, and how would you vote in the referendum?
Should the UK leave the EU or should the UK remain a part of the EU?
The LEP EU POLL
In fact, let’s do an LEP EU Referendum of our own, shall we? I wonder how the LEPsters would vote in this referendum.
I have opened up a Brexit poll on my website (you can see it below) – so please visit and cast your vote. It’s anonymous and you don’t need to add your email address.
[socialpoll id=”2363089″]
Thanks very much for listening and take care! BYE!
Luke
Comments & Questions from LEPsters on Facebook
General questions and points of view
Luciano: What is BRETIX??!!
Elizabeth: Right now the UK has some bargaining power. Instead of leaving they should use that to see if they can’t get the worst transgressions off their back. Right?
Roland: UK has been EU member since 1973. I am wondering why did brexit question come up now? Isn’t it because of the massive migration problem in continental Europe and part of Uk population tend to mix up the two different issues (migration vs. uk-eu renegotiation)?
Mollie: Happy Birthday , Teacher Luke !
Luciana: I’d like to know what is the real motivation behind the pro exit campaigners. Will they have any personal gain? Or is it only an ideological matter?
Alessandro: Hello everybody, hi Luke, I’ve spoken to many Britons so far and all of them are for remaining in Europe. Is there anybody who’s really going to vote leave? In my view many are unable to decide what to do because they have different feelings or there are different things they want. My question is: is the referendum ripping apart British society?
PROs & CONS
What are the main arguments for and against us leaving?
Ricardo: Hi Luke, my name’s Ricardo and I’m from Brazil. for that Reason I don’t understand why Uk still have a Queen and what’s pro and con for UK’s to be membership of EU.
Aritz: Hello Richard! Hope you are fine!
My question: why do you think it’ll be better for the UK to stay or to go out? (depending on your point of view).
I’d like a precise answer, and nothing vague please. I’m from Spain and I live and work in London, so I am deeply interested in this issue.Thank you very much!!!
CONSEQUENCES
Anna : If the UK finally decides to abandon the EU, would it still be a member of Schengen area? Yaron: I would like to know how it going to affect you personally, if UK will leave (as English man who currently live and work in France)… In addition, I would find it interesting if you will discuss whether UK will leave the EU, would it be the start of the end of the EU. ie, would other countries will also leave the EU eventually (maybe not France and Germany… But other nations)
Kenichi : I would you like to summarise how people supporting the Conservative party or the labour one think about the Brexit. And If the Brexit happens, what would happen on daily goods imported from other EU countries such as wine, beer, sausage, etc. The reason why I’m asking is because I suppose the UK has been getting a lot of benefits from the cheaper trade as a member of EU so far, and those benefits would be lost after the Brexit.
Robert: If UK leave UE, it will mean that citizens other EU other country (for example Polish) have to leave UK? What do you think. If UK leave UE it would be end of EU?
PERSONAL OPINION
Anna: Luke, what is your personal attitude towards this issue? How are you going to vote?
Jairo: I am going to borrow a question from BBC News and ask your dad :
What do you think the EU referendum says about Britain ? ,
tell us in ” six ” words 😊.
Adam: However, I think I know how you are going to vote, but am curious to hear your father’s point of view, cheers
Piedad: What will happen with EU citizens already living in UK?
Gabor: and the same question from a different point of view, what will happen with the UK citizens living abroad in the EU?
Jean: what will be the real consequences if UK choice to exits from UE… Try, please, to explain us this complicated topic with some examples. Thanks 😉
Abdelhmide: Hi Luke , my question is ; if the UK leave the EU will you would need visas to go to EU ??Thanks
Other comments from listeners
Burak: Dont exit from EU ..
Adam : I believe that if Brexit actually happens, the EU will then browbeat the UK to accept some new treaties like those of Switzerland or Norway so that the UK wouldn’t be totally free of the EU anyway. Moreover, this argument is actually being skated around by the Brexit campaigners. Not that I am particularly fond of the EU myself, but still don’t think there is an alternative to it than just being part of the block and fight for a shift.
Nataliya : Boris Johnson VS David Cameron on this matter
Francesco : I’m gonna answer you with a Pink Floyd quote: “Together we stand divided we fall”.
Konstantinos : Hello Luke. Thanks for asking.. I don’t think that the Euro-zone has any future in case that the citizens of the United Kingdom, would like / take the decision to continue their destiny as a country, outside from the Europe. The question there is, what are the advantages or disadvantages from this kind of catalytic decision? ..and what’s will be going on with a large group of people who live and work in the UK? Of course, and as we all understand, there’s a domino under the possibility of the negative answer, but from the other side, the British have the opportunity with that referendum to think finally, what are their interests for them and for their country.. My point of view..(?) I think the result surprise us positively.. The sure is that would be a historical moment for the England, which the humanity will remember forever.. and by the way If I have a title earlier in advance for this mini article that would be “The Funeral of the Europe”..
Francesco: It’s more of an opinion than a question, but here it is: i think it would be really bad for us all if you left the EU and the UK would lose a great deal!
This is the final episode in this superhero series and simply put, I’m going to talk about the latest X-Men movie. Now, you might not be into the superhero stuff and I totally understand, but let me give you a heads up about this episode. Basically, I didn’t like the film and so I’m more interested in making fun of it than talking about it seriously. So, that might make it more fun to listen to than the other superhero ones I’ve done lately. You can just kick back and enjoy me taking the mickey out of this film.
[DOWNLOAD]
Honestly, I really enjoyed recording this. It was more fun than watching the film itself. Sometimes talking about a film is far more enjoyable than actually watching it, especially if the film is a cheesy mess full of cliches, incoherent plot-lines and stereotypical bad guys. So, even if you haven’t seen the film I invite you to listen to this episode, have a bit of a laugh and then move on to the next episode. There are no major plot spoilers in this review. So don’t worry if you haven’t seen it – but my general opinion of the film might have an influence on your enjoyment of it – or maybe not. Perhaps you’ll completely disagree with me.
It’s called X-Men: Apocalypse. It’s actually the 3rd film in the rebooted X-Men franchise and about the 6th film in the X-Men series as a whole, if you don’t include the two Wolverine films and the Deadpool movie. I went to see it the other day, and immediately after coming home I recorded this review.
You know the X-Men, right? … (some improvised stuff about the x-men here)
So, on to the review.
So, imagine me walking home after watching the film, getting into my flat, picking up my microphone and immediately starting to record these comments before I’d even taken off my jacket.
That’s the context, so let’s go, and I’ll speak to you again after my film review.
*Review begins*
So, that’s what I thought of the film. I thought it was a stinker! But I did kind of enjoy watching it. Mainly so I could then make fun of it afterwards.
I was a bit critical of the film. I wonder what you think of it if you’ve seen it. I should also say that it’s far far easier to criticise a film than to make one. Ultimately, it’s really really difficult to make a feature film. I think that most of the films that get made aren’t very good. We only see the ones that get published and given worldwide releases. So, it’s all well and good me talking about how bad it was, but I should give some credit to the filmmakers for actually making the effort in the first place. The audience reaction here though – it paled in comparison to the Captain America movie.
Again, let me know your thoughts in the comment section. I always look forward to reading your comments there.
Some comments from Facebook
Question: Who’s the best superhero?
Francesco: Definitely you Luke! ☺
Hamza: My parents – because they deserve all the respect and the best they give me everything they could, I’ll never forget thier sacrifice <3
Aritz: Hard decision… Batman or Spiderman?? mmmm I’ll go for the latter as we could have now a different debate: should Batman be considered a superhero?
Hien: I always admire soldiers who never betray their country even though they were tortured terribly in war.
Carmen: Deadpool, for sure. He can’t be killed, he’s got a cheeky sense of humour AND he’s aware of his own existence in the books/films he’s in and breaks the 4th wall all the time.
Luciano: Conan, The Barbarian!
Hoang Minh: Dear Luke, please make a podcast about this subject :))
Ricardo: Superman for sure!!
Jean: Super Luke! For sure!
Francesco: Deadpool because he’s a badass.
Тима Салихов: I think is Superman :) Because he is Superman :)
Virginia: Wonderwoman. She’s a Woman!
Gloria: ” El Chapulín Colorado” ( mexican Superhéro ) although he is a coward he manages to overcome his fears . By Chespirito. ❤️
Ricardo: My favorite superhero is Spider-Man because he fights to win his money like me. He is not rich like Batman although Batman kicks ass.
Lê Vũ QC: Iron man because of RDJ’s fantastic potrayal.
Ethan Lee Ok. So the answer is captain america and here’s why: (Roy Wood Jr. Stand-Up 06/12/14)
Anton: Sherlock Holmes without any doubt.
That’s the end of this episode, and also the end of this series on superhero films. The plan now is to turn to more real-world issues because there the UK is due to have its referendum on the EU in less than a month, and there’s plenty to talk about.
OK film fans, that’s it then. Speak to you soon. Bye!
BOOM! POW! BANG! SMASH! Well then! Yesterday I posted an episode called “Can I have a quick word?” and basically in that little episode I expressed my concerns that I was posting too much content and that people would stop listening because they couldn’t keep up. Sometimes I worry too much and since I do this alone I do let these concerns bounce around in my head too much. Clearly I underestimated the devotion and motivation of the LEPsters (just a brief lapse of judgement I assure you) because I immediately got loads of positive and encouraging responses for listeners. My phone has been going crazy with notifications of comments on my website because people have been writing to reassure me that everything’s fine. The general message from people is essentially “No Luke, don’t worry – you can’t post too much stuff, we love it! There’s no need to be worried about posting. Just post all the episodes you have – we’ll either gobble them up like hungry dolphins or we’ll save them for later like squirrels. Yes, we will stock them up like Squirrels hoarding nuts before winter. Except in this case the squirrels are learners of English and the nuts are episodes of my podcast.”
Well, alllllrighty then, that makes me feel much better about myself and thank you for the vote of confidence. Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised – you’re my people, right? My podcast people!
Another thing that I noticed from the comments is that a lot of people are keen to listen to me talking about Brexit. I do have Brexit episodes coming soon, but first let’s finish this little series about movies – and we continue with that theme in this episode and the next one too.
Just before we start here, let me just remind you of my podcast sponsor and that’s italki – I’ve had some positive reports from listeners who are using it and finding it to be a professional and effective service with some friendly and efficient teachers – remember that you can get a discount with italki when you visit through my website. Click an italki logo on my page to get started and the path to fluency in English will open up before your eyes, like a… like a path I suppose. http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk
Paul Langton – Ex-Nerd, Former Fanboy,
The whole time I was recording the last episode of this podcast about the new Marvel film, I was thinking – “I should talk to someone who really knows about this subject. I should speak to a geek. I need a nerd. I know, I’ll talk to my mate Paul Langton.” That’s Paul Langton – not Paul Taylor. You might remember Paul from previous episodes such as The Brighton Comedy Festival episodes, Friday Night Banter (aka The Drunk Episode) and On a Boat (aka The Drunk episode 2). These days Paul is a proper grown-up man and everything. He’s married and runs marathons and things like that, but before that he used to be a big time Marvel fanboy and comic book collector.
Basically, he was a nerd up until he met his girlfriend (now wife), because I imagine that she’s not into that sort of thing (she’s a normal grown-up, then) So, he’s an ex-nerd (that’s an ex-nerd not an X-Man – no, he’s not an x-man – he is still a man – he hasn’t had a sex change, he’s not an ‘ex-man’ (hilarious joke).
He’s an ex-nerd, a reformed geek, a former fanboy, but he still knows pretty much everything a person could or indeed should know about Marvel superheroes. So, what better person for me to talk about this subject with? Except Stan Lee maybe. But I couldn’t get Stan Lee – so Paul Langton will suffice.
Obviously, if you’re a Marvel movie fan – you’re probably going to like this. But also, if you are a learner of English who likes a challenge – this is definitely for you too…
…because this is a pretty fast conversation I reckon. My teacher-sense (it’s like spider-sense) is tingling. That’s a kind of 6th sense I have as an English teacher. It tingles when I think something might be difficult for learners of English. My spider sense is tingling a bit with this episode.
The conversation contains a lot of references to comic book culture and Paul speaks quite fast. Two things there which could be barriers to you bathing freely in a lovely warm bath of pure English pleasure during this episode (did you know that’s what I aim to give you in every episode? The sensation of bathing freely in a lovely warm pool of pure English pleasure? Well, it is). So, it might be a bit geeky and fast.
Another challenging aspect of this is that the sound quality is not perfect. It’s no worse than the average dodgy Skype call, but there are a few times where the signal drops out and Paul’s voice isn’t perfectly clear. You could watch out for the language I use to deal with bad connections during a phone call.
What about the way Paul speaks?
Paul is known for being a bit of a motormouth. That means that he talks a lot and he talks quickly. Perhaps it’s his Irish background, because the Irish are known for being big talkers.
Paul’s Mum was Irish I think, but Paul himself was born and raised in central London, so he’s a genuine Londoner with a London accent. He’s not a cockney because cockneys have to be born in the East End of London. Paul was brought up in central London, so he’s not a cockney but he does sound a bit similar to one.
So, you’re going to hear Paul speaking pretty quickly, in a London accent, over a dodgy Skype connection, talking about a specific subject. All these things might make this conversation difficult for you to follow, and that’s why my spider-sense – sorry, teacher-sense is tingling a bit.
By the way, I don’t mean to patronise you of course, I’m sure lots of you won’t have problems understanding this. I just reckon it might be a bit tricky for some of you. So…
Here is a suggested approach for how to listen to this episode.
1. When you understand something in this conversation, you should feel really good and happy with your English. With every single thing that you understand and every phrase that you identify – you should give yourself a good slap on the back, and with every slap on your back (even if you don’t do it) you should feel an ever-increasing sense of warm satisfaction and achievement. Well done you – you understood it and you’re very good at this. No seriously, as you understand more and more, you’ll find that you feel more and more confident and happy with your English and that’s very healthy.
2. But if there are parts that you don’t understand – don’t let it stop you.
This is important to remember because we know that if you only listen to things you understand perfectly, and you give up when things gets difficult – frankly – you won’t make progress.
Challenging yourself with more complex things will help you make more progress. You have to push yourself, even if you feel resistance. I know a lot of you know this because you sometimes tell me things like this “Luke, I understand you perfectly but not other people I hear.” Well, you need practice! You are familiar with my voice and I do speak clearly (but not slowly in my opinion). So, you need to do plenty of practice of listening to other people and you can do that with episodes like this.
So, understand what Paul is saying and when the episode is over you can feel good about yourself. Feel good about the things you understand, and don’t be bothered by the bits you miss as you listen to the whole thing.
So, with those comments in mind, let’s now dive into this conversation with my friend Paul Langton the official LEP comic book consultant and Marvel expert.
Oh, and here’s a quick task for you
Can you guess which character Paul thinks is the strongest? Who’s the strongest character in the Marvel universe according to Paul? Who’s the best superhero? To find out, you’ll have to listen until the end.
Another thing to look out for is the specific language Paul uses to efficiently describe these characters. There’s lots of descriptive vocabulary in this episode for you to pick up.
I will talk to you again briefly on the other side of this chat.
But now, let’s listen to this conversation with Paul Langton…
*Conversation begins*
Some questions I asked Paul during the interview
Hello Paul, how was your day? What do you do? How do we know each other? Have you been on this podcast before? You created my superhero alter-ego: Luke Johnson. (He hasn’t appeared on the podcast for quite a while, but perhaps he’ll be re-awakened by your presence)
Let’s not get bogged down in too much comic-book lore, but I’d like you to give your comments and knowledge as we explore super heroes in more detail, and ultimately fight them against each other in order to see who is the most powerful.
First of all… What are your credentials as my nerd consultant / comic book expert? Have you seen Captain America: Civil War? What about the other films in the MCU? Quick thoughts? What do you think of the MCU, as a comic book fan?
Tell me about the main characters in the Marvel universe. Tell me about their origins, their true identities, their motivations, their abilities/powers, their weaknesses. Let’s start with The Avengers – the characters which have been revealed in the MCU so far. By the way – we can’t cover everyone, so some have just been missed out. Sorry fans!
Definition of a superhero: These are enhanced people. They’re mostly human, some are gods, some are aliens, some are robots or in some cases computer programs.
They’re enhanced by one or more of these things: super abilities, tech, special training.
For example, Captain America has super abilities from the special serum he was exposed to when he became a super-soldier, he is armed with tech – a shield made from vibranium, and he has received special training as a soldier – he’s learned to fight using a combination of fighting styles.
They have origin stories which affect their motivations. They sometimes have to hide their identities from the public. Despite being enhanced superheroes, most of them have weaknesses of some kind which mean they are not completely flawless.
So, let’s talk about the characters with these things in mind: their origins their true identities their motivations their abilities/powers their weaknesses
(some of these might be considered side-characters rather than genuine superheroes) Captain America (Steve Rogers) The Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes) Falcon (Sam Wilson) Iron Man (Tony Stark) War Machine (James Rhodes) Thor Loki Nick Fury Black Widow (Natasha Romanov) Hawkeye (Clint Barton) Hulk (David Banner) The Guardians of the Galaxy Thanos Ant Man (Scott Lang) Black Panther Spiderman Ultron Vision Scarlet Witch Quicksilver
Marvel characters in other films: Wolverine other X-Men
Who’s the best?
Listen to hear what Paul thinks.
*Conversation ends*
Hello again – So, you listened to the whole thing – NICE ONE!
One thing I’d like to say right now is that conversation was very rich with vocabulary. I think Paul did a very good job of being extremely succinct in his descriptions of each superhero and he did it with some very nicely chosen bits of vocabulary. It would be worth listening to that again and it would be good if I did a vocabulary review episode based on that. In fact I’d like to do vocabulary or language reviews of many of these episodes and it’s something I’m considering doing, perhaps as part of a paid area of my website where I could offer you specially designed learning materials based on episodes of the podcast. I could call it the learning zone and it would be available to super-hero LEPsters and dedicated language learners who would be happy to pay a few pounds lots of extra content. Just an idea at this stage…
I hope you got to know all those superheroes even better after listening to this conversation, because not only have you just improved your English a bit, you’ve also improved your knowledge of popular culture. I think the more you know about these Marvel films, the more you can enjoy them.
If you haven’t seen the latest Captain America film – go out and see it. It’s a lot of fun.
So, in the end you heard that Paul thinks _________________ is the strongest superhero. But what do you think? Do you agree? Who’s the best superhero in your opinion?
Who do you think would win in a fight between these characters?
The Hulk vs Superman
Iron Man vs Batman
Captain America vs Spiderman
or any other combination of characters. You decide.
___________?_____________ vs ___________?_____________
It could be fun to talk about those situations on the podcast, but there’s no time left in this episode. So, you can carry on the discussion in the comment section. Just find the page for this episode on teacherluke.co.uk and do some writing – who’s the best superhero and why?
Now, there’s one more superhero episode in this mini comic-book series. Yes, the season is going to continue because there is now another film in the cinemas and that’s the latest X-Men film, “X-Men: Apocalypse”. I saw it a few days ago and as soon as I got home I recorded an improvised review of it. You’ll have to wait for the next episode to find out what I think, but I’ll give you a clue – I thought it was pants.
That’s the end of this episode. Speak to you soon. Bye!
Luke
Background music from Jukedeck – create your own at jukedeck.com
Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you’re doing alright today. Do you remember that in the last episode I had just come back from seeing the latest Marvel movie – Captain America: Civil War, and that I said I would talk to you about it? Remember that? Well here it is. You are now listening to a new episode of Luke’s Film Club, and this time I’m talking about the Marvel movies with a particular focus on the latest Captain America film. By the way, I’m going to talk about a lot of Marvel movies in this episode and I will do my best to avoid spoilers. I am only going to mention information which is basically common knowledge. I don’t think listening to this will really spoil your enjoyment of any of the films in the marvel universe. So, you shouldn’t worry about spoilers.
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Why am I talking about Marvel films and superheroes?
We like movie-related episodes, don’t we? I certainly like to record them and it seems that you like to listen to them. Enough said – but I’ll continue. I call these episodes “Luke’s Film Club” and in the past I’ve covered films like Taken, Kingsman, Star Wars, Back to the Future and others. Also, people like movies don’t they? People like movies. I like movies, you like movies, we like movies – everyone likes movies. Therefore, talking about movies seems to be a natural thing to do. And to bring this back to learning English, perhaps you will end up talking about movies in your English conversations, so you should know how to talk about this subject. It’s probably helpful to listen to me talking about films then isn’t it? We all know that listening is connected to your awareness of how speech is produced, which is connected to pronunciation, which is connected to your own production of speech. So – improving your listening will have a knock-on effect on your speaking. Also, if you’re wondering what to talk about with people you meet, or your language partner or teacher on italki for example – this could be a good idea.
In fact, you could start your conversations with typical questions about movies.
“Have you seen the latest Marvel movie?” or “Do you like superhero movies?”
“What have you been up to?” – “Well, I saw the new Captain America film” – “Oh really, how was it?” etc.
Those might be some good starting points for conversations about super heroes.
So, have you seen the new Captain America film? In fact, have you seen any Marvel films or recent superhero movies?
I’d be surprised if you hadn’t, because they’re really popular these days and there are so many of them that they’re kind of unavoidable. But if you haven’t seen Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America or The Avengers then that’s ok. Perhaps this episode can be a sort of introduction to a film series that you’re not familiar with. And if you have seen some Marvel films and you just can’t stand them – well, perhaps listening to my take on this subject might help to change your mind. And, if you have seen most of these superhero films and you pretty much liked them, then great! In any case, I hope you just enjoy listening to me going on about some popular culture in this episode (or episodes).
There are plenty of good reasons to talk about Marvel films, but I was prompted to do this episode by a request from a listener called Mayumi. Hello Mayumi, yes I am mentioning you again. It seems Mayumi is a bit of a film nut like me – you might remember her Star Wars themed photo in the photo competition recently. Here’s her comment from my website just the other day.
Mayumi’s comment
“Hi Luke, I hope you’re well. Recently, I’ve been missing your movie episodes like the one you did about “Taken”. The new Marvel one just came out and have you already seen that? If so, how was it?? If my memory serves, you haven’t talked much about Marvel things yet, have you? I’d love to listen to your thoughts if you like them! I personally enjoy watching Marvel films often because I don’t have to be too emotional or worried and it’s fun to watch great VFX. Cheers, bye!”
So – talk about Marvel movies, superhero stuff and Captain America? OK!
I’m not a megageek, I’m just a bit of a geek. I enjoy Marvel films but I’m not a complete fanboy. (Define: nerd, geek, fanboy) I am a fan of comic book films but I don’t profess to be an expert on all the history of every comic book character. I’m not that emotionally invested in superheroes and their stories in the same way that some of these fanboys are. I mean, I’m not going to get angry if the movies don’t follow the plot of the comics perfectly. I don’t mind about that. I just want to watch some entertaining films.
So, I’m not a fanboy but I am a fan. Also, I do have friends who are fanboys – like my mate Paul Langton who knows loads about comic book characters, including all their original backstories, the origins of their superpowers, who would be the champion if they all had a big fight and everything like that. In fact I spoke to Paul about superheroes on the podcast just yesterday, and you’ll be able to hear that conversation on the podcast soon.
So I’m no expert but I’ve seen most of the films and I’ve read some of the comics.
Loved comics as a kid, but my parents frowned on them. I couldn’t really justify spending all my pocket money on comics, and anyway I had nowhere to buy them because I grew up in the middle of nowhere.
I had a few comics, which I bought when on holiday in the USA.
The Marvel characters were the best.
I was always a bit of a Spiderman fan.
I thought Iron Man looked wickedly cool but I never read any of his comics.
I also used to have an Incredible Hulk t-shirt, which pretty much made me a fan by default. I used to chase my brother and his friend around the house wearing the hulk t-shirt and they’d run away from me like I was the hulk. Good times.
Marvel TV shows and cartoons – Any time a comic book related TV show came on the TV it was always brilliant. The Incredible Hulk TV show was a classic – that one featured classic moments when Bruce Banner turned into the Hulk and you see his clothes tearing and his skin turning green – and the hulk was played by a body builder called Lou Ferrino and the hulk scenes were mostly shot in slow motion to make him seem heavier. It was funny that all his clothes ripped off except his pants. They somehow stretched. The Incredible Hulk TV show was also incredibly sad – because at the end of every episode he had to leave town. He was very lonely, and there was that lonely music. I think that communicated loneliness pretty effectively, even as a kid.
There was a live-action spiderman show too, which was awesome because, well, it was spiderman – and he was full of wisecracks and the usual fun Spiderman stuff. Also there were animated TV series, particularly the X-Men series and another Spiderman series. There were probably other Marvel-related TV shows and some movies as well that I saw as a kid.
By today’s standards they would look terribly crap, but in those days they were just amazing.
Marvel Movies vs DC Movies
DC has the two most famous characters, but Marvel seem to be winning the movie wars. Other than Batman, Superman and perhaps Wonder Woman – the other DC characters are not that great – but I’m sure there are people listening to this who would disagree with me. We will be seeing more from DC in the future, with films like Suicide Squad this year, Aquaman, Wonder Woman and more.
Yes – just when you thought we couldn’t have any more superhero films, the next few years are going to see even more of them, so get ready. Marvel are in full swing and DC have only just got started. I wonder if we’ll all be fed up with superheroes within a couple of years. “Superhero fatigue” – it’s a genuine concept that movie critics and industry people use to refer to the idea that we might all just get fed up with superhero films and then stop watching them. The phrase was used over the last couple of years, after a couple of superhero movies didn’t do as well as expected. For example, last year there was a Fantastic Four movie, produced by Fox – and it was a huge flop. Also, the Avengers sequel “The Age of Ultron” didn’t take as much money as people predicted. Personally I think superhero fatigue is a myth. There is clearly still a big interest in superhero films, especially if they are done right. Fantastic Four was a failure because of casting decisions and because it was, by all accounts, a really bad film. And anyway – perhaps those particular characters are not that interesting. They certainly weren’t presented as very interesting. That film is an exception. Avengers: Age of Ultron might have taken less money than the previous one, but perhaps the bar has been set very high! Anyway, regardless of last year, this year has been a hit for superhero movies and Captain America Civil War has apparently been smashing box office records for Marvel yet again.
In my opinion – Hollywood has been producing superhero movies for quite a long time now, but it’s only recently that they’ve been any good. I feel like Marvel studios have cracked the code for superhero movies now – and finally the fun, action and character development that we enjoyed in the comic books is now translating onto the big screen. Not that we haven’t had good superhero movies before (Some Batman movies have been good – I’ll come on to that in a moment) it’s just that in my opinion they’re now getting better and better.
Superhero movies in the past – A kind of history of superhero films
Superman movies from the 80s, with Christopher Reeve (and Gene Hackman).
Batman movie from the 60s, then the 90s films – Tim Burton & Michael Keaton – two good films, then the franchise went steadily downhill as the films were directed by Joel Schumacher – culminating in the god-awful “Batman & Robin” in 1997.
Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr Freeze? “Everybody freeze!” and “Ice to see you!” etc. Terrible.
Also in 1990 there was a great superhero film called Darkman which stars Liam Neeson. It’s directed by Sam Raimi, who later did the Spiderman films. It’s brilliant and I suggest you find it. Liam Neeson, Darkman. Apparently it’s on Netflix – find it, hunt it down, and watch it.
There was another couple of Fantastic Four movies in the early 2000s. Unremarkable and original, except that Chris Evans played the human torch, and now he’s Captain America. He’s probably the only actor to have played two different Marvel characters.
Ang Lee directed a Hulk movie (most people dislike it), Sam Raimi directed a trilogy of Spiderman films (most people like them). More on those films later.
Also, there have been loads of X-Men films which have done relatively well in the box office.
One thing to note here is that Marvel studios don’t own the rights to all their characters in movies. In fact, before Marvel became a film studio, they were still a comic book publisher and in the 90s and 2000s they were seriously running out of money, so they sold the movie rights for a few characters to different film studios. Spiderman was sold to Sony, X-Men was sold to Fox. The result was that these studios made superhero films in their own way.
I expect Marvel watched those films and thought – we could do better than this. Later they managed to set up Marvel studios and start producing their own movies, with characters they still had the movie rights for – The Avengers, basically. That caught everyone by surprise, because… they were good films. More on that in a bit.
Now, back to the pre-MCU movies
Christopher Nolan revived the Batman franchise in the 2000s with Batman Begins and then The Dark Knight, also The Dark Knight Rises. They were ‘game changers’ for the superhero genre. They were very serious, had adult-themes, dealt with complex morality and gave the genre a sense of weight and quality, rather than being just colourful kids films.
There was a new Superman film called “Superman Returns”, which was basically another origins story.
The main success seems to have been Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.
DC have brought back Superman, letting Christopher Nolan produce the film “Man of Steel” a couple of years ago, and more recently the film “Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice”. Although they have their fans, those new Superman films are considered to be flops I think. Man of Steel divided opinion, and Batman vs Superman seems generally to be considered as a flop.
DC are going to make other films based on their other characters, and eventually create a Justice League film which is a sort of showcase of all the main DC characters in one movie together.
It seems like a very similar strategy to the one Marvel are using, except that most of the films they’ve done so far have been crap except for a couple of Batman movies. That’s debatable of course – some thought that Man of Steel was alright. I thought it was half good. I liked the character development – like the scenes with Kevin Costner. But the action scenes took me out of the movie. I felt emotionally unengaged with a lot of it, I thought the Louis Lane character was underused and again it felt far too serious than it should be. I haven’t seen Batman vs Superman, but it seems that critical reaction to that film is also mixed.
What do you think? Have you seen the new Superman films? Superman vs Batman? Give me your quick movie review to any of the films I’m talking about here.
So, DC are still struggling to get a grip on the movie universe in the same way as Marvel, although I expect both of those Superman films have taken a lot of money, even if they’re not that good – because people want to see Batman fight Superman, right? Perhaps DC’s next film release, Suicide Squad will be really popular with fans. We’ll see. Let’s say that DC are still finding their feet at this moment.
Marvel on the other hand are doing really well today. They’re now into Phase 3 of their movie series (yes, we’ve already had phase 1 and 2) and so far they’ve managed to not only avoid any genuine flops, but they have also made a few really successful films and they seem to be getting better. Captain America Civil War is a big hit with audiences, critics and the box office.
So what’s the story of the Marvel cinematic universe?
Around 10-15 years ago Marvel decided to make movies themselves. Previously they were comic book publishers who licensed their characters to other studios, with fairly mixed results – some good films, some bad – on the whole it’s been inconsistent. E.g. Sony have made a bunch of Spiderman films. First there were the ones with Tobey Maguire, directed by Sam Raimi. They rebooted the franchise, starting from the beginning – telling the origin story of Spiderman and then having him grow up and deal with all the usual problems that Spiderman faces as a young superhero in the big city. Then Sony decided to re-reboot the franchise with Andrew Garflield in the role of Spiderman. I guess that was simply because audiences love Spiderman, and the studio felt like it could make a bunch of new money by essentially telling the same story all over again. It feels like Spiderman has been rebooted so many times that every Spiderman film is basically telling us the same story every time, but audiences love Spiderman so much that we don’t really mind. In fact, Spiderman has now been rebooted AGAIN in this latest Captain America film. I think Marvel managed to negotiate with Sony in order to get Spiderman in the Avengers universe. Well done Marvel, because the addition of Spiderman is a very popular move and it’s bound to please audiences and accountants at Marvel headquarters. And yes, we’re going to have a new solo Spiderman film at some point soon which is some sort of collaboration between Marvel and Sony, and that looks pretty promising because I think they have finally got Spiderman right in this latest film.
How are you doing everyone? Are you confused yet with all these different superheroes and their movie franchises? I hope you’re not suffering from superhero fatigue.
Phrasal Verbs & Idioms / More NY Stories / Politics / Leicester City / Google Adverts
Welcome back to another podcast episode. It’s nice to be back in your headphones or speakers. In the last episode of this podcast I talked to you about some recent bits and pieces such as the ELTon award nomination, my recent trip to New York and some other stuff. I also gave you a language task to keep you on your toes. I’m going to continue along the same lines in this episode and I have a list of things here to talk about and we’re going to continue with the language spotting exercise.
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It’s a Friday afternoon, I’ve just seen the latest Marvel movie, the weather is mad, and I’m going to talk to you about various things again but first I’ve got to respond to a couple of comments that have arrived here on my website in just the last hour.
Phrasal Verbs & Idioms Listed Below
But first…
Some comments from listeners
Abensour • 4 minutes ago Hello Luke, Your podcast is fantastic. Nevertheless, could you please speak a bit faster. I guess you must lower the pace when you record your podcasts and it would be very interesting to hear you with your natural english speaking pace.
Jeremie • 1 minute ago By the way, I am a french listener as well! :)
Wesley Hello Luke and LEP listeners, It’s with absolute delight that I receive the news that LEP has been nominated for the 2016 ELTons and I genuinely believe other long-term listeners share the same feeling. The British Council and Cambridge English couldn’t have a better candidate for the Digital Innovation category. One thing that troubled me though was when Luke said it was unlikely that he could win. Luke, I don’t know if you’re being far too English or just trying to be modest but, as I see it, you shouldn’t take this defeatist attitude and underestimate yourself. As you said, LEP is a project you have been working on for over seven years and it keeps getting better as time goes on. Because you’re kind-hearted and keep LEP free, people all over the world listen to you. Your episodes have millions of downloads and are a complete success and, even though you’re up against five other great nominees, I cannot conceive why LEP might not be in the running for the award. LEP is innovative because it allows learners to listen to genuine English – rambling included – outside a classroom environment. Everyone who has reached a proficient level knows how important being in touch with the language is in order to learn it well. LEP is great because it enables us to hear natural English for pleasure and entertainment or while doing housework, cooking and commuting to college. I am not aware of any other equivalent English teaching resource that suits our busy lives just as well as LEP. I believe any sensible judge on the panel will allow for all those reasons when they vote. I wish you luck and I’ll keep my fingers crossed. All the best, Wesley
Language Task – Spot the Phrasal Verbs & Idioms
So, that language task from the previous episode was to listen out for a few phrasal verbs and idioms that I’d taken randomly from a dictionary and which I tried to insert into my speech, seamlessly. You had to identify the ones I had added. The purpose of that is to encourage you to notice lexical items – to notice vocabulary. It’s a good habit for a learner of English. On one hand just follow what I’m saying and connect with that, but also try to notice features of the language you’re listening to. That’s what I’m encouraging you to do.
I chose 5 phrasal verbs and 5 idioms and I managed to slip in just one of those phrasal verbs and two of the idioms.
Remember what they were?
There was “to come up against” something.
Also, “to be on the edge of your seat”
and “to get your knickers in a twist”
There were also plenty of other bits of vocabulary which just cropped up in the episode, including these ones:
– to listen out for something
– to watch out and look out for something (not too complicated)
– to keep your eyes peeled
– to prick up your ears
So, as we move forwards now, watch out for the 4 remaining phrasal verbs and 3 remaining idioms. I’m not telling you what they are in advance. It’s up to you to identify them. You’ll probably hear a few phrasal verbs and idioms, but which are the ones that I took from the dictionary? When we get to the end of this episode I’ll tell you the phrases, and clarify them for you, because I’m nice.
Keep reading – the phrasal verbs and idioms are listed below.
Topics in Today’s Ramble
In this one I’m going to carry on just talking about various subjects, including a couple of other anecdotes about New York, some comments about politics in the USA and in the UK at the moment, some more rambling about movies, and various other bits and pieces that will crop up as we go along.
I’ve got no idea how long this is going to take of course! I could talk the hind legs off a donkey this afternoon, but as ever I’ll just divide the whole thing into several more episodes if necessary. Ultimately – it’s all spoken English from me to you, so here we go…
Some more anecdotes about the time spent in NYC
– The hasidic jews jamming in the music store
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p9-WuQoGdY
– Jack Whitehall at the Comedy Cellar
– Billy Cobham at the Blue Note
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SgFDrWeJGo
Politics
The American presidential elections – Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton
London Mayor – Sadiq Khan is the new mayor
The EU referendum / Brexit
The Panama papers
These are very important political issues that really deserve to be covered in proper depth, and I plan to do that.
I’m particularly keen to talk about Brexit in one more special Brexit themed episodes.
Leicester City won the Premiership.
Small club, 5000-1 odds of winning. The title has been dominated by the big names. Leicester is in the East Midlands and it’s less famous than a lot of the other big cities in England but this is going to help. All in all it’s just fantastic to see a smaller club win this title. They were absolutely fantastic.
Google Adverts I bought some new trainers online and now the internet is madly trying to get me to buy them again. WTF?
Movies
I’ve just seen the new Marvel movie and also there’s a new Star Wars film coming this Christmas, but that’s going to come in another episode soon…
The Phrasal Verbs & Idioms – Definitions and Examples
Thank you to a LEPster called Valeriya for writing these vocabulary notes in the comment section for the benefit of all listeners.
Valeriya: I wrote some notes. Hope they will be useful for the LEPstors.
to ease off/up – to gradually stop or become less
e.g. At last the rain began to ease off.
e.g. I am leaving soon, but I am just waiting for the traffic to ease off a bit.
to ease off/up – to start to work less or do things with less energy
e.g. As he got older, he started to ease up a little.
to ease off/up – to start to treat someone less severely
e.g. I wish his supervisor would ease up on him a bit.
to fork out (on something) – spend a lot of money on something, probably spend a lot of money in one go in order to buy something; to spend a bunch of money on something in one purchase
e.g. If you advertise nice guitars to me for a long enough period of time, eventually I will fork out on a new guitar.
to splash out (on something) – spend a lot of money on something; to spend a lot of money on something which you want but do not need
e.g. He splashed out on the best champagne for the party.
to go down with something – you catch an illness, you get sick; you become sick; to start to suffer from an infectious disease
e.g. Half of Martha’s class has gone down with flu.
to come down with something – to get an illness; заболеть чем-либо
I came down with the flu at Christmas.
e.g. You need to eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, so you’ve got lots of vitamins, because if you don’t, you might come down with a cold.
to bring the house down – if someone or something brings the house down during a play or show, they make the people watching it laugh or clap very loudly; you make everyone laugh as part of a performance; to put on a really great performance and to be a huge hit; to make a group of people or an audience react in a very enthusiastic way, especially by laughing
e.g. I saw Jack Whitehall at the Comedy Cellar, and he absolutely brought the house down.
to go on the offensive – you begin to take strong action against people who have been attacking you
e.g. The West African forces went on the offensive in response to attacks on them.
to go on the offensive – to begin to attack or criticize someone who you think is attacking you
Under pressure from his critics, the minister decided to go on the offensive.
Luke was going on the offensive about Google’s Advertising.
to go on the defensive – in an attitude or position of defense, as in being ready to reject criticism; you start defending yourself or something
e.g. He’s so sensitive. Whenever you give him any feedback he immediately goes on the defensive.
to take/bring somebody down a peg or two – to do something to show someone that they are not as good as they thought they were; to lower someone’s high opinion of themselves
e.g. He’s one of these super-confident types who really needs to be brought down a peg or two.
to dabble in something – to try an activity but not seriously, just as an experiment to see if you like it. To do something for a short time, or not regularly, in order to see if you like it. To do something sometimes, but not in a fully serious way, only in a casual way.
e.g. He dabbled in left-wing politics at university.
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