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Episode: 914. A Midwinter Ramble ❄️ Luke’s English Podcast

Author: Luke Thompson
Duration: 02:18:40

Episode Shownotes

An end-of-year rambling episode with some seasonal good wishes 🎄, comments on recent episodes 🎧, an update about upcoming content 📲, anecdotes about seeing Paul McCartney live in concert 🎸, playing music at the British Ambassador's residence 🇬🇧 and visiting the British Library in London 📚, lots of library jokes

(explained) 😂 and a vocabulary review at the end 🙇‍♂️. PDF available. Send your answers to my questions here [email protected] (1. How has LEP helped your English? 2. Do you have any tips for improving your English with LEP?)📄 Get the PDF here 👉 https://teacherluke.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/914.-A-Midwinter-Ramble-❅-Lukes-English-Podcast.pdf🔗 Episode page on my website 👉 https://teacherluke.co.uk/2024/12/24/914-a-midwinter-ramble-lukes-english-podcast/💻 Sign into your Acast+ account (LEP Premium) 👉 https://www.teacherluke.co.uk/account⭐️ LEP Premium info 👉 https://www.teacherluke.co.uk/premiuminfo Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ and add the premium episodes to a podcast app on your phone. https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Full Transcript

00:00:04 Speaker_00
You're listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information visit teachaluke.co.uk

00:00:16 Speaker_01
Hello listeners and welcome to this end of year rambling episode on Luke's English Podcast. Seasons greetings, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

00:00:26 Speaker_01
I recorded most of this episode that you're going to hear now a few days ago and I'm just coming back to it now a few days later to add this introduction and a few other little bits. In this episode, you can hear me rambling about these things.

00:00:42 Speaker_01
So some good wishes from me to you for the seasonal holiday period at Christmas time, some news and updates about the podcast, including some comments about recent episodes, some responses from listeners to recent episodes, and what you can expect

00:01:00 Speaker_01
from this podcast over the next few weeks. I'm going to tell you a couple of anecdotes about seeing Paul McCartney live in concert recently, visiting London, and also playing a concert myself at the British Ambassadors Residence in Paris.

00:01:16 Speaker_01
in a big fancy room. There's going to be a section of this episode later with about 14 jokes and their explanations, so some joke dissection later in the episode, and also at the end there will be a vocabulary review.

00:01:33 Speaker_01
with various bits of vocabulary from the episode summarized and explained briefly, and there'll also be a vocabulary quiz which you can get on the PDF. So check the description for this episode for a PDF with jokes that I'm

00:01:51 Speaker_01
with the jokes that I'll be reading out, some of those listener comments and a vocabulary list for your reference and also a vocabulary quiz so you can sort of check that you've learned and understood a lot of the words that I'll be explaining later.

00:02:07 Speaker_01
So all of that rambling is going to start in just a moment but first I would like to make a request to you right at the start of the episode here.

00:02:16 Speaker_01
I'd like to make a request for your help with an upcoming episode, episode number 916, which will be the first episode of 2025. I would like some help from you with this one. So in January,

00:02:31 Speaker_01
I always like to do an episode with advice about learning English and how my podcast can help.

00:02:38 Speaker_01
This is important, I think, to establish the aims of the podcast in the new year and to give listeners, including new listeners, plenty of good advice for learning English in 2025 to start the year in a good, positive way.

00:02:54 Speaker_01
And so that will be the theme of episode 916, the first episode of 2025. That's going to be the theme. But I want your help this time. I want your input for this one. So this is my request from me to you. Please write to me.

00:03:11 Speaker_01
Send me your comments, messages, emails, OK? And I've got two questions for you. You can reply to both of them or just one of them. It's up to you. So, my first question is this, how has your English improved with this podcast?

00:03:28 Speaker_01
In what ways has your English got better by listening to this podcast? OK? So, any descriptions, any comments are welcome. So you could write anything really, but here are a few ideas plus anything else that occurs to you.

00:03:45 Speaker_01
So you could talk about maybe how your vocabulary has expanded generally or specific words and phrases which stick in your mind. So how has your vocab improved? How about your listening skills? How have they improved?

00:04:00 Speaker_01
And if you could even tell me your IELTS scores, that would be great because people do email me. I mention IELTS scores because people do mention that when they write to me sometimes.

00:04:13 Speaker_01
Quite regularly I get emails from people saying, I've been listening to your podcast for, you know, all this time and I recently took an IELTS test and look at my listening score.

00:04:24 Speaker_01
And it might even be the case that they took an IELTS test at one point, and then listened to my podcast a lot, and then took IELTS again, and their listening score definitely improved.

00:04:35 Speaker_01
So if you could even mention something like that, that would really be great. You could talk about maybe if you feel more confident when listening or speaking in English, how your approach to learning English has been helped.

00:04:50 Speaker_01
Have you got any ideas from me or from any of my guests which work for you?

00:04:56 Speaker_01
You could maybe mention how English phrases or English grammar seem to come to your mind more easily when you're speaking or writing, which is again something that people have mentioned in the past.

00:05:07 Speaker_01
Maybe talk about how your awareness of English pronunciation has improved as a result of listening to this regularly, or how your accent or pronunciation in English have been affected.

00:05:18 Speaker_01
So do you feel like your spoken English has been affected by listening to this a lot? And generally, have you learned anything else? Not just about English, but have you learned anything else about the world, even beyond English from the podcast?

00:05:32 Speaker_01
Or, you know, how has this podcast benefited you in any other ways? Now, I'm assuming that it has helped. Obviously, I'm assuming that it has helped in at least some way. Maybe it's just kept you entertained, or maybe

00:05:49 Speaker_01
has helped you fall asleep at night, I don't know, but you can write any comments about how it's basically benefited you. And the second question is, can you give any recommendations for how to improve your English with this podcast?

00:06:04 Speaker_01
So I'm looking for any tips, any advice, any recommendations, even little tips Can you think of any specific things that you have done or that you do which you feel have a positive impact on your English, especially in relation to the podcast?

00:06:19 Speaker_01
I mean, it doesn't have to be connected to the podcast, I suppose. You could talk about any of your other habits which you think are useful, but especially if it's

00:06:28 Speaker_01
You know, since the episode is going to be about how the podcast can help you with your English, any specific tips that relate directly to listening to this podcast or indeed any other podcast would be useful.

00:06:42 Speaker_01
Now, you don't need to give a full, a fully detailed learning method or some fully realized system of learning. You don't need to go that far. You can if you want.

00:06:54 Speaker_01
But just any little habits, any specific ways of thinking, any mindset tips, or any other things that you can do which help your English, and you can think about vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, speaking, listening, reading, writing, any of those areas, any little things that you've done that you feel have had a benefit, you know, a good impact on your English.

00:07:19 Speaker_01
So I'm looking forward

00:07:21 Speaker_01
to sharing your ideas with my listeners and I'm looking for yes useful information to share with everybody and so this could be your chance to contribute to the podcast and share your knowledge and it could also be a way for you to show your appreciation

00:07:36 Speaker_01
for this podcast, which I hope that you've been enjoying and finding useful for however long you've been listening to it, either as a long-term listener or a relatively new listener.

00:07:47 Speaker_01
So, yes, please do share your experiences of learning English with this podcast so that others can perhaps pick up some ideas or inspiration from you.

00:07:56 Speaker_01
Now, you could write to me anonymously if you prefer, or you can give your name so that I can read it out. And you can, how do you get in touch with me? Well, you can comment on YouTube.

00:08:09 Speaker_01
If you're watching this on YouTube, you could just simply leave a comment under this episode.

00:08:13 Speaker_01
You could leave a comment on my website, teacherluke.co.uk, ideally under the episode, on the episode page for this episode, rather than just on the front page of my website. But You could leave a comment on my website.

00:08:29 Speaker_01
You can comment on this episode on Spotify. Or you could just send me an email at luketeacher at hotmail.com. Luke, L-U-K-E, because that's my name. It's not luck. It's not Luke's. as well. That's not my name.

00:08:45 Speaker_01
Some people write to me and they say, Dear Luke's, literally, Dear L-U-K-E apostrophe S, because they look at the title of my podcast and it's Luke's English podcast. That's not my name. Hello, my name's podcast, Luke's podcast. Nice to meet you.

00:09:02 Speaker_01
No, it's possessive, isn't it? L-U-K-E apostrophe S, that's a possessive. Anyway, so Luke, L-U-K-E, teacher at hotmail.com.

00:09:12 Speaker_01
I don't really use Facebook or X or Instagram at the moment, so it's probably best not to use those social media platforms to get in touch with me. So basically YouTube, website, Spotify or email.

00:09:25 Speaker_01
If you're thinking of writing to me, don't feel pressure to write something perfect, OK? Just any tips or advice or comments are welcome, any small bits of info.

00:09:35 Speaker_01
Don't worry about errors as well, I will correct your messages before I read them out, so if you're concerned about that, don't worry, I'll sort of correct any little errors.

00:09:45 Speaker_01
Plus, any funny anecdotes, I'm always looking for little funny comments, funny stories, funny anecdotes about your experiences of listening to this podcast, any of those things are welcome too. So, thank you for your comments.

00:09:57 Speaker_01
By the way, this year, thank you so much for your comments. I've had so many comments this year. I don't know how many. I can't count the number of comments I've had this year, but it's been a lot, and that's wonderful.

00:10:10 Speaker_01
So if you have commented, emailed, messaged me in any way, thank you very much. Engaging with the podcast by writing comments is one of the ways that you help to keep the podcast alive, in fact. and visible on various platforms.

00:10:26 Speaker_01
Reviews on Apple podcasts also really help to promote the show on the Apple platform, which is really important for a podcast. So if you were thinking about, I don't know, offering me a Christmas present this year,

00:10:40 Speaker_01
Simply a good positive review, if you think I deserve it of course, on Apple Podcasts or any other platform would really help.

00:10:49 Speaker_01
Anyway, so right, that was my request from me to you for your comments about how you feel your English has improved with my show, and any tips, advice, or even anecdotes about learning English that you can share, okay?

00:11:03 Speaker_01
I'll remind you of this again later in the episode, but please bear it in mind as we move through the rest of the episode. Anyway, now that I've given my request, let me go back to the recording that I did on Monday of this week.

00:11:18 Speaker_01
So I'm going to now stop my rambling here so that I can go back and start rambling again. OK, all right, here we go. And we're recording. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Luke's English Podcast. How are you doing out there in podcast land today?

00:11:37 Speaker_01
I hope you're doing fine. Now, I think that I am publishing this episode on Christmas Eve. I say, I think I'm publishing this episode on Christmas Eve. It makes me sound like I don't know what I'm doing. Like, when am I publishing this? I don't even know.

00:11:52 Speaker_01
The plan is to publish this on Christmas Eve. So if all has gone according to plan, then this episode will have been made available to you on Christmas Eve.

00:12:04 Speaker_01
And you might be listening to this during the Christmas season, in which case, I'd like to and love to wish you a very Merry Christmas. So let me do that.

00:12:19 Speaker_01
Merry Christmas, everybody, and also Happy New Year, season's greetings, and I hope that you're having a genuinely lovely time this Christmas.

00:12:28 Speaker_01
Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, even if you don't even recognise it as a thing to be celebrated, even if that's the case, then I just hope that you're having a lovely, lovely time.

00:12:41 Speaker_01
Even if you're listening to this in a different time completely, which some people do,

00:12:45 Speaker_01
Some people no doubt will be coming to this episode at a completely different time of year because you're catching up on the back catalogue of episodes and this is the next one.

00:12:58 Speaker_01
I think it's episode 914, and it's like, I don't know, June or something. Right, I'll listen to the next episode then. 914, the next one I haven't heard. And oh, it's a Christmas episode, but never mind. Yeah, everyone's welcome.

00:13:13 Speaker_01
It doesn't matter where you are, doesn't matter what you believe, what you think, what you look like.

00:13:18 Speaker_01
It doesn't matter what colour your hair is or even what time of year it is, you are welcome to join in the seasonal fun here on Luke's English Podcast at Christmas time, recorded and published around Christmas time.

00:13:34 Speaker_01
And so yeah, it's December and a lot of podcasts, the sort of wisdom in the world of podcasting is that December is a very quiet time actually for podcasts.

00:13:50 Speaker_01
And a lot of podcasters actually decide to kind of give their podcast a break during the Christmas holiday season in particular. The reasons are probably obvious, right, that

00:14:02 Speaker_01
A lot of people who normally would be listening to your show at this time of year are busy doing other things. Getting ready for Christmas, celebrating with their family, or generally just away from their normal routines.

00:14:14 Speaker_01
And as a result, they don't listen to podcasts as much as they normally would. So, for people like me, podcasters, we look at our numbers, our listening statistics, and we notice that there is a distinct dip in December. A distinct dip in December.

00:14:32 Speaker_01
A distinct December dip, in fact. And it's known as the December dip in podcasting circles.

00:14:41 Speaker_01
And so you can understand why a lot of podcasters choose not to publish stuff at this time of year, because they kind of think, well, people are busy doing other things. They don't really have time for podcasts. So we'll just take a break.

00:14:54 Speaker_01
And that's, you know, to give the audience a break. And also because they kind of think, well, this isn't the prime time.

00:15:00 Speaker_01
For my listeners obviously they're focusing on other things and also a lot of podcasters decide right well I'll have a break then as well at this time because I need a break too I've got all that stuff to think about I've got other things to deal with like family stuff planning holidays buying gifts and cooking turkeys and you know all the stuff that people normally do so it seems to be this sort of normal thing to take a bit of a break at Christmas, but I

00:15:27 Speaker_01
And that's probably what I should be doing as well, to be honest. I should probably give you a break and give myself a break. Everyone should have a break. But no, that's not what I'm doing. Nope. For some reason, I just can't stop doing this.

00:15:43 Speaker_01
I'm compelled to make episodes all the time. And even when, for example, I probably should be doing Christmas shopping, and getting myself organized and ready for Christmas.

00:15:52 Speaker_01
Here I am sitting here talking to you because I feel like I have to do an episode, at least an episode every week. You know, I was thinking about this. I was thinking I should probably take a week off, but

00:16:06 Speaker_01
Actually, I want to do it if it's the right time to do a rambling episode And so I'll do a rambling episode for Christmas. It's a tradition.

00:16:14 Speaker_01
I always do some sort of Christmas ramble And so it's hard to shake these traditions also I feel that there are sort of just I feel like it's important to do on this podcast to do fairly regular rambling episodes just to kind of

00:16:30 Speaker_01
to touch base with you, right? To coin a phrase. Just to touch base with you. That's one of those sort of idioms that people use at work a lot in business meetings. Just wanted to call a meeting just to touch base with you.

00:16:43 Speaker_01
But it's still quite an important idea, I think. I use these episodes like this to touch base with my audience. And that means just kind of, what does that mean, to touch base? I suppose it means to Just check in with people.

00:16:59 Speaker_01
I mean, just talk about certain important foundational things. What does that mean? Touching base. The base is like the foundation upon which you build everything. This is your base, right?

00:17:16 Speaker_01
A bit like when you make a cake, you have a cake base, and if it's a cheesecake or something, you add the other ingredients and layers of the cake on top of the base.

00:17:27 Speaker_01
Similarly, if you're building something, you have a base, and then you build stuff on top of it. So touching base is kind of like talking about the fundamental, basic level stuff.

00:17:38 Speaker_01
And in terms of business situations, if your boss says, you know, can we just have five minutes, just want to touch base with you, that means they want to talk about the basic things that you are doing, maybe talk about like how your current project is going, and just establish that everything on a basic level is going okay.

00:17:59 Speaker_01
So I want to touch base with you in these rambling episodes just to kind of How do I put this?

00:18:07 Speaker_01
First of all, it allows me to perhaps look back on recent episodes and kind of take stock of where I am, where we are in the episode, in our episode list, in the kind of flow of episodes.

00:18:24 Speaker_01
To take stock means take account of or count the number of things you have, see where you are, see what you've got right now. So one of the things is I want to have a little look back at some of the recent episodes.

00:18:35 Speaker_01
I don't need to spend a lot of time doing that. But also I want to perhaps talk about what is going to come over the next few weeks.

00:18:43 Speaker_01
And always at this time of year, whenever there's a holiday time, I always kind of say, oh, I might not be able to do episodes for a while because I'm going to be busy with holiday stuff. So anyway, anyway, touching base.

00:18:59 Speaker_01
In fact, well, let me do that now. Let me just talk about what's going on right now in podcast land in Lapland. So this, I think, is episode 914.

00:19:08 Speaker_01
And before this, we had a short story episode which was called The Snowman, a kind of mysterious story about a creepy snowman. Have you heard that? That was the previous episode. Now, actually, when I'm recording this, it's Monday, the 16th of December.

00:19:27 Speaker_01
when I'm recording this, and the snowman episode is due to be published tomorrow. So I've got no idea what people think of that. Normally the story episodes go down quite well. Normally they're quite well received. People seem to like them.

00:19:43 Speaker_01
But who knows? Maybe everyone's going to absolutely hate the snowman. He's like, I hated that snowman! Stupid snowman! Standing outside a cabin, why didn't he go off and do something else? You know, I hate snowmen. Why is it always men?

00:19:58 Speaker_01
Why don't we have snowwomen? They're so sexist. I have no idea what kind of scandal, outrage or offence is going to be created by that episode. Just like everyone is going to be, oh God, the snowman, why wasn't it a snowwoman?

00:20:13 Speaker_01
And maybe the podcast has been cancelled. Maybe Luke's English podcast has been cancelled by everybody because they're just like, we've had enough of this patriarchal nonsense. I don't know. Maybe the Lepsters are all fighting with each other.

00:20:25 Speaker_01
It's like, don't be ridiculous. You're being, you're overreacting. Everyone's too woke. No, we're not. It's just like, you need to wake up. Maybe everyone's arguing with each other. I've got no idea.

00:20:35 Speaker_01
Or, or what's much more likely, what's much more likely than those dramatic scenarios is that I publish the episode tomorrow, the 17th of December. And because it's Christmas time, not many people listen to it.

00:20:51 Speaker_01
Not many people comment and just, it just kind of passes people by. And it's just not really, doesn't really get much attention. That's a lot more likely. Hello, this is Luke from the future again, just dropping in here to add something.

00:21:06 Speaker_01
I'm just interrupting at this point, just to add something about the snowman. And I'll be interrupting myself during this episode like this a few times, actually. So I just wanted to add this.

00:21:17 Speaker_01
So it's now Friday, which is a few days after I recorded this episode, which was Monday.

00:21:25 Speaker_01
and the snowman episode was published a few days ago as well that was Tuesday so I recorded this most of this episode on the Monday published the snowman on Tuesday took him for a drink on Wednesday we were making love by Thursday no wait a minute no no no that's Craig David isn't it that's Seven Days by Craig David I met a girl on Monday took her for a drink on Tuesday

00:21:47 Speaker_01
Anyway, sorry. So I recorded this on Monday, published the Snowman on Tuesday, right, and now I'm recording this interruption bit on Friday, OK?

00:21:57 Speaker_01
So I can report that thankfully the episode, the Snowman episode, seems to be going down well with everyone. There's a phrase I keep using, if something goes down well, it means that it's kind of well received by an audience.

00:22:12 Speaker_01
So for example, the episode went down really well, means that people really liked the episode. Your presentation went down really well with the committee, means that the committee really liked your presentation. That joke didn't go down very well.

00:22:26 Speaker_01
Try not to make jokes like that in the future. Meaning people, you know, you told a joke in a meeting or something and people were like, what? The joke wasn't very well received, it didn't go down very well.

00:22:37 Speaker_01
Anyway, so I'm happy to report that the Snowman episode appears to be going down very well with everyone, and so far there has been no massive outrage or shock or anything in particular. I mean, there wouldn't have been anyway, right?

00:22:51 Speaker_01
In terms of the episode's performance, after just three days, the episode seems to be getting typical download numbers in the audio version, which is normal. Normally, audio episodes get a similar number of you know, downloads, listens.

00:23:07 Speaker_01
Okay, and on YouTube, the episode is currently ranked number one for views in comparison to my recent episodes. So that means that the episode is currently outperforming my last 10 episodes in terms of how many people have watched it.

00:23:23 Speaker_01
So it's the top episode of the last 10 episodes on YouTube, which is nice. So that's good. So yes, I will be doing more short story episodes regularly on the podcast in the future. I know they are popular and I enjoy doing them.

00:23:39 Speaker_01
It's great to sink your teeth into a good story on the podcast. I enjoy reading them out and doing a little bit of acting sometimes. And they're also a rich source of English language teaching. So it's always nice to get stuck into some

00:23:56 Speaker_01
vocab, explanations and bits of language teaching as well and the stories provide a really good context in which to explore bits of language.

00:24:06 Speaker_01
Comments, there have been various comments from listeners in response to the snowman speculating on what happened. Who was the mysterious snowman? So, various responses, including some funny ones.

00:24:20 Speaker_01
Let me share some of the ideas that have been suggested by listeners. So, in terms of speculation about the mystery of the snowman, one person suggested that perhaps this snowman was being built by a family member or friend of the writer.

00:24:38 Speaker_01
who chose to scare the writer, to terrify this writer in order to help him overcome his writer's block.

00:24:45 Speaker_01
So it was some sort of plan by a family member like, you know, Dave is going to stay in the cabin in the forest because he's got this writer's block. He's going to go there to try and get away from it all and maybe get over his writer's block.

00:24:59 Speaker_01
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go and sleep in a tent in the forest Yeah, sub-zero temperatures, but it's alright. This is how much I care about Dave. I'm willing to freeze to death at night just for this.

00:25:16 Speaker_01
And in the night, what I'm going to do is I'm going to build a scary snowman in the middle of the night and throw snowballs at his window. This is how much I care about Dave, and it's going to shock him out of his writer's block. So that's the idea.

00:25:33 Speaker_01
And it apparently worked because he ended up writing this story to huge international acclaim, of course. So that's one theory. Some people believe the snowman was alive, like my daughter did.

00:25:47 Speaker_01
Some people thought the snowman was alive or haunted or I don't know what. So some people thought the snowman was like a living snowman and maybe he was just lonely, you know, he just wanted to play. He just was looking for someone to play with.

00:26:02 Speaker_01
He wanted to just play with the writer and apparently standing outside the cabin in a very creepy way was the best approach for doing this. Poor snowman.

00:26:12 Speaker_01
Maybe he didn't realise how frightening that was, standing, staring at the window, in the dead of night, and chucking snowballs at the window. He's like, I just want to play! Maybe that's what it was. I suppose...

00:26:28 Speaker_01
Throwing snowballs could be the only way for a snowman to communicate with someone, right? I mean, I expect they don't have email or SMS, do they, snowmen? Snowpeople? The people of the snow.

00:26:43 Speaker_01
They haven't developed, you know, sophisticated means of communication. They still communicate by snowball. So the snowball is the only way to get in touch. Ice-MS. Ice-MS, if you like. SMS. Ice-MS. Yeah, ice is kind of like snowball text messaging. Ice-MS.

00:27:05 Speaker_01
OK, that's a really bad joke. But it certainly brings new meaning to the expression sliding into your DMs, doesn't it? Sliding, because it's made of snow. But anyway, I guess snowmen have no internet connection, or in fact, no winter-net connection.

00:27:24 Speaker_01
No winter-net connection. Yeah. There were some jokes. Did you notice terrible jokes? Yes. Ice-MS, not SMS. sliding into your DMs.

00:27:37 Speaker_01
It's an expression that people use meaning to like go from a public interaction on social media to a private one in your direct messages sliding into your DMs. It's kind of a slightly Sleazy thing to do just slide it.

00:27:53 Speaker_01
You just thought I'd slide into your DMS and start maybe flirting with you anyway But I guess no man haven't and they have no internet connection. No wind winter net wind. No internet. No internet.

00:28:06 Speaker_01
No winter Okay, I'll move on so a couple of people suggested that perhaps this scary snowman was being built by the owner of the Airbnb where the writer was staying. Whoever owned that cabin, maybe they used it as an Airbnb, right?

00:28:23 Speaker_01
Renting it out to guests. So maybe this snowman was built by the owner of the Airbnb because maybe they double booked the cabin.

00:28:33 Speaker_01
And this was just their way of getting him to leave early so they could let the new guests in and then just make double the amount of money that they would normally make. Interesting technique for an Airbnb host, I think.

00:28:48 Speaker_01
Some people mentioned that maybe the writer just imagined it all, and that maybe exhaustion and stress were causing him to experience paranoid delusions, which is the kind of thing that can happen if you are burning the candle at both ends, if you're burnt out.

00:29:08 Speaker_01
And if you're burning the candle at both ends, which is, by the way, an idiom, which means that you're working very hard, but maybe you're partying very hard as well, and you're not getting any rest in the middle.

00:29:19 Speaker_01
So, you know, basically work and play a lot, but not rest enough. That's burning the candle at both ends. Imagine a candle, and you burn both ends of the candle, then obviously that candle is going to melt very quickly and disappear.

00:29:33 Speaker_01
So that's burning the candle at both ends. If you're burning the candle at both ends and you're getting exhausted, you could end up in an exhausted, burnt-out state where you start to get paranoid delusions or something. So that's maybe what happened.

00:29:49 Speaker_01
He's escaped to this cabin in order to try and nurse himself back to health, but he's so burnt out that he's suffering from awful delusions that there's a creepy snowman outside his window. Hmm.

00:30:04 Speaker_01
Another person said that the story reminded them of another story called The Snowman. This one by an author called Raymond Briggs. I don't know if you know that story, The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. That is a story for children and it's a lovely one.

00:30:22 Speaker_01
We had it at home when I was a child. We had the book and there's also a film version of it with an interesting introduction by David Bowie. Anyway, so there's a kid's story called The Snowman. It's a very beautiful graphic novel, comic book.

00:30:40 Speaker_01
We've got that story for my kids as well, my daughter loves it. Do you know that story, The Snowman, by Raymond Briggs? Basically, to give you a summary of the story, there's a boy, he wakes up one morning and he looks out the window and it's snowing.

00:30:54 Speaker_01
There's snow everywhere. So he's delighted, he rushes outside, he puts his all his winter coat on and his scarf and gloves and stuff. He rushes outside. He seems to be an only child, meaning he doesn't have any brothers or sisters.

00:31:08 Speaker_01
But he rushes out and he builds himself this wonderful snowman and he kind of uses some rocks for his eyes and mouth and stuff and puts a hat on it and a scarf and there's this wonderful snowman. He's so happy with it.

00:31:22 Speaker_01
And that night he's kind of going to bed and He looks out the window one last time, and the snowman is still standing there, facing away from the house. This particular snowman was facing away from the house.

00:31:37 Speaker_01
And then, in the middle of the night, the boy wakes up, because, you know, he's excited. It's Christmas time, and it's been snowing, and he's excited about it all.

00:31:47 Speaker_01
He wakes up in the middle of the night and sort of looks out of the window at the snowman, and the snowman is still there facing away. And then, amazingly, the snowman suddenly turns round and looks at him. So the snowman comes alive.

00:32:03 Speaker_01
So the boy is on his own in the house, his parents are asleep, the snowman outside comes alive. and it wanders over and he invites the snowman inside and they play together. It's very sweet.

00:32:15 Speaker_01
They play together and the boy sort of introduces the snowman to all the things that humans have in their lives.

00:32:24 Speaker_01
So he shows them the kitchen and all the food in the fridge and all the stuff like the hot water in the tap which the snowman has to be careful of because he doesn't want to melt. There's the freezer. big freezer full of frozen food.

00:32:36 Speaker_01
And I think the snowman lies down in the freezer and has a nice little relaxing moment lying down in the freezer. And they play games in his bedroom and they try not to wake up the parents and stuff. And so the boy shows him his world.

00:32:49 Speaker_01
And then the snowman says, right, and now it's my turn. I'm going to show you my world. And he takes him outside and they start running down the garden covered in snow. And suddenly they take off and start flying.

00:33:04 Speaker_01
And it's a very magical, beautiful moment. They're flying over the over all the gardens and houses and flying off and they fly all the way.

00:33:14 Speaker_01
out of the country, over the sea, over the North Sea, all the way up to the North Pole, and there they land, and they join this party where there are all these other snow people, all dancing, and there's Father Christmas there and everything, and the boy meets Father Christmas, he has a wonderful time, and then they realise that the sun is about to come up, so the snowman quickly flies the boy all the way home, and just as the sun is rising,

00:33:44 Speaker_01
the boy gets inside the snowman goes back to his position standing in front of the house and the boy goes to bed and goes to sleep and then when he wakes up the sun is up, the sun is shining and he's obviously excited to see his snowman again

00:34:06 Speaker_01
and he rushes out he gets his boots on and stuff he rushes outside and spoiler alert the the snowman has melted and all that's left is like this melted pile of snow and a few like the hat and scarf and a few lumps of coal and stuff it's kind of sad but

00:34:26 Speaker_01
sort of beautiful as well. So this listener suggested that maybe the snowman in my snowman story was the same snowman

00:34:41 Speaker_01
as from the Raymond Briggs story, so it's that same snowman, he's come back to reunite with his old friend who has now grown up, but the writer doesn't remember.

00:34:51 Speaker_01
Now that's kind of unlikely because if you, even when you're like 10 years old or something, if you built a snowman once as a child and then the snowman came alive and you brought it into your house and stuff and then

00:35:10 Speaker_01
It flew through the air and carried you all the way to the North Pole, where you met loads of other snow people and Father Christmas. And then when you came back, the snowman had melted. Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe it was just a dream.

00:35:24 Speaker_01
But you would remember that, right? You would remember. If that was you, and in the middle of the night, you look out the window, oh, a snowman. I wonder what that's doing there. You wouldn't think,

00:35:35 Speaker_01
my snowman friend he came back that that surely would be what would happen but anyway perhaps the snowman has mistaken this guy for someone else maybe the maybe the snowman is still looking for his friend and he keeps trying to find his friend and this writer wasn't the boy all grown up

00:35:54 Speaker_01
But anyway, I thought that was quite a sweet idea that maybe the Raymond Briggs snowman is still out there looking for his old friend. Maybe that's what it is. He's just like throwing snowballs. Like, is it you? Could it be you?

00:36:06 Speaker_01
I'm trying to find my old friend. That's quite a sweet idea. Anyway, so I just wanted to interrupt here, just to let you know some comments and stuff about the Snowman episode, which seems to be popular.

00:36:22 Speaker_01
I'll be back again to interrupt the episode a little bit later, but now let the rambling continue. Anyway, there's The Snowman, which hopefully you've had a chance to listen to. And what else have we had recently?

00:36:37 Speaker_01
There's no real need for me to look back, I suppose. There's not much point looking back, is there? We had the Bits and Bobs 3, Funny English Signs Parts 1 and 2, which went down really well.

00:36:56 Speaker_01
Didn't really get picked up by the YouTube algorithm, but never mind that. I think the episodes were well-received because of all the comments I got. People had nice responses to them, saying that they made them laugh.

00:37:08 Speaker_01
There's the scary episode about the threat of AI to human civilization, which is just mind-boggling. Bits and Bobs Part 2, the rambling episode about catching a cold and travelling with children, which was a sample from Luke's English Podcast Premium.

00:37:25 Speaker_01
The PDF for that, by the way, Some people asked, where's the PDF? That was only available for premium people. Then there was the Telltale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe, and other stuff. So that's where we are. That's what I've published recently.

00:37:47 Speaker_01
But what's going to happen over the next couple of weeks? So you've got this episode, which is just great, isn't it? I mean, it's already going really well, this one. I think it's just excellent. What else?

00:38:04 Speaker_01
On Wednesday, so that's the day after tomorrow, I'm going to speak to Stephen Devincenzi, and we're going to do a world quiz.

00:38:13 Speaker_01
and I've got no idea what questions he's going to ask me, and I'm looking forward to it, even though those world quizzes are always tinged with a certain sense of doubt as well.

00:38:25 Speaker_01
Not doubt over whether I'll get the questions right or wrong, but doubt over just that slight sense of

00:38:35 Speaker_01
concern that here I am talking about world news events and then there's that pressure to kind of take up certain causes to be the mouthpiece for those people, those people suffering at the hands of injustice in various kinds and there's so much of that going on in the world.

00:38:56 Speaker_01
It just feels weird that, can I talk about the world?

00:39:00 Speaker_01
Can I talk about sort of, can I answer quiz questions about what's happened in the world this year on my podcast without feeling guilty for not talking about the really serious human rights abuses that are going on?

00:39:19 Speaker_01
Anyway, but hopefully it'll be a fun quiz. It'll be a fun world quiz. I don't know what the questions will be.

00:39:26 Speaker_01
Anyway, I'm going to talk to Stephen the day after tomorrow and then hastily put together the episode and put that up before the end of the year. So that'll be kind of a bonus midweek thing. It'll probably arrive on Friday, I suppose.

00:39:46 Speaker_01
Between Christmas and the New Year, you'll get that World Quiz episode. And then also I'm hoping It's going to be a busy week.

00:39:55 Speaker_01
I'm hoping to record another Sherlock Holmes story, which I'll be able to upload and publish in the new year, just after New Year's Day. But it depends if I have time.

00:40:10 Speaker_01
And if I do that, then that will have to be recorded on like Friday and edited and stuff and then scheduled to be published in January. But I don't know if there'll be time because

00:40:22 Speaker_01
The school holidays begin very soon, so the kids will, you know, my daughter will be out of school, my son will be out of daycare, and then, you know, I won't be able to do any podcasting work.

00:40:35 Speaker_01
So it depends how much stuff I manage to get done this week, and if I get all the stuff done that I hope to get done, as well as my Christmas shopping, then you will have a couple of other episodes before we continue in January with the

00:40:52 Speaker_01
with the sort of episode I normally do, which is a kind of welcome back to the podcast. It's 2025. Let's do a new year episode. So, you know, despite the fact that normally podcasts

00:41:07 Speaker_01
Reduce their content in December and that seems to be the wise Shrewd thing to do in terms of podcasting strategy actually this month You'll get tons of episodes.

00:41:21 Speaker_01
You're gonna get even more than normal, especially if you're a premium subscriber Hello premium subscribers. Hi Hello just before I say hello to the premium subscribers specifically I just want to interrupt this episode again for a second time.

00:41:39 Speaker_01
So this is me from the future, from Friday. So I was just talking there about what you can expect over the next few weeks on Luke's English Podcast, and I have to say that things have changed a little bit.

00:41:50 Speaker_01
And as you heard me say, I was hoping to record that Sherlock Holmes episode, which would be published somewhere around New Year's Eve. By the way, I've said Christmas Eve, that's the 24th of December. Christmas Day, that's the 25th.

00:42:04 Speaker_01
New Year's Eve, 31st of January. New Year's Day, 1st of Jan... 31st of Jan... New Year's Eve, 31st of December. And New Year's Day, the 1st of January. So, you heard me say that I was hoping to upload a Sherlock Holmes story on New Year's Eve, I think.

00:42:22 Speaker_01
But I'm afraid things have changed and I ran out of time this week. and I wasn't able to record the Sherlock Holmes story, unfortunately. Very sorry. But I will be doing it and you will get it in January. So let me just kind of clarify.

00:42:36 Speaker_01
So the news quiz, the world news quiz with Stephen from Send 7 podcast will be the last episode of the year and it'll arrive later this week.

00:42:48 Speaker_01
And then the first episode of 2025 will be my traditional welcome back to the podcast, here are some tips for learning with Luke's English Podcast in 2025, with your comments included, if indeed anyone sends them to me, which of course you will.

00:43:04 Speaker_01
So that will be the next one as well, the first one of the year. for all those people who choose to turn over a new leaf in 2025 and make New Year's resolutions and turn to podcasts for learners of English.

00:43:18 Speaker_01
And then the next episode after that should be another Sherlock Holmes story, so it's going to be put back into January. So 914, that's this episode, 915, is the World News Quiz 2024, which I actually recorded with Stephen.

00:43:34 Speaker_01
It's quite epic, it's about two hours long, but it covers lots of interesting subjects, and you can see if you will be able to beat me in the quiz. Episode 915 will be Learning English with Luke's English Podcast in 2025.

00:43:52 Speaker_01
That's the first episode of the year. And then one after that, 917, will be the Sherlock Holmes story, if all goes according to plan. I also have an episode recorded with my daughter. We sat down and recorded about 45 minutes worth of stuff together.

00:44:10 Speaker_01
So there's an episode with her coming up, which I think is a really nice one. It will be nice to have her back on the podcast again after how long? At least a year. You can see how

00:44:23 Speaker_01
She's changed, you know in that time and how her English has become even more sophisticated.

00:44:28 Speaker_01
She's six years old by the way and Other episodes with a few other guests There's at least one walk and talk episode more stories more jokes more funny English errors and plenty more Okay, so I just wanted to add that update.

00:44:42 Speaker_01
Alright, so let's get back to the episode. Here we go. Yeah Hello Premium Subscribers, how are you doing? I'm talking to the Premium Subscribers now. Hello there. Now most of you, if you're Premium Subscribers, hello everyone.

00:44:55 Speaker_01
By the way, everyone else, you can still listen to this bit. You're still welcome to listen to me, even though I'm talking to the Premium Subscribers who are all over here. Everyone else, you can still listen to this, okay? That's fine.

00:45:08 Speaker_01
Just have a drink of tea or coffee or something. I'll talk to everyone again in just a second. But anyway, premium subscribers, right? Hello, all of you.

00:45:17 Speaker_01
By the way, some of you, some of you premium subscribers, you're subscribed to the premium show and everything like that. That's fantastic. Thanks for supporting the podcast. But I think some of you, you're not listening to the episodes.

00:45:31 Speaker_01
And I think that maybe the reason for that is because you don't know how to do it. You don't know how to listen. Am I right?

00:45:40 Speaker_01
Am I right in thinking that some of you have paid for, you're paying for premium stuff, but you don't know how to listen to the episodes? And you're like, ah. It's very simple. Just sign into your account.

00:45:51 Speaker_01
When you signed up, you created an account at acast.com. You received an email. You should have got an email. welcoming you into the process.

00:46:01 Speaker_01
But if you read the email quickly, or you missed it, or it went into your spam or something like that, you need to go into your ACAST account. So just to sign in, it's teacherluke.co.uk slash account.

00:46:20 Speaker_01
That'll take you to the place to sign into your ACAST account. And if you want, you can create a new password if you can't remember what your password was.

00:46:28 Speaker_01
And then when you're in, then you can... The best thing to do is to click listen in podcast app. We've heard him say this before. He said this lots of times before. Why don't they understand? I don't know. I don't know why they... I don't know.

00:46:44 Speaker_01
There's something missing. People miss that email or something that people just don't realise. But they've heard it so many times. Why don't... I don't know, I don't know why they're not... Anyway, sorry. So, you got it? Teacherluke.co.uk slash account.

00:47:00 Speaker_01
Sign into your Acast account, if you're a premium subscriber, right? And then click listen in podcast app, and follow the steps to add the subscription to an app, a podcast app on your phone, right? Because this is how 99% of people

00:47:16 Speaker_01
listen to podcasts, they do it using an app on their phone, and that's why the whole Acast Plus system is designed to be used on a phone.

00:47:24 Speaker_01
You can use it on your computer, you could add LEP Premium to YouTube Music, and even if you don't have YouTube Premium or anything, you can still use YouTube Music to listen to LEP Premium. Right, if you need more information

00:47:41 Speaker_01
If you need more information, what, go to teachaluke.co.uk slash premium info? Yes, teachaluke.co, you know this already. Yes, because you say it about a million times every year.

00:47:53 Speaker_01
Okay, teachaluke.co.uk slash premium info, that's where you get all the info, you see? And teachaluke.co.uk slash account, that's where you can sign into your Acast Plus account.

00:48:07 Speaker_01
where you can manage your subscription to Luke's English Podcast Premium, including add the episodes to a podcast app on your phone.

00:48:13 Speaker_01
Okay, now if you've done that, and you're just a happy premium subscriber, then I just wanted to let you know, just wanted to give you a heads up, that you've got a new premium series available now, P65, parts one to four, it is available now, and you'll find it between episode 912 and 913 in your premium podcast list.

00:48:40 Speaker_01
Okay, there is p65 parts 1 to 4. It's called from the bookshelf.

00:48:46 Speaker_01
And I did what I did before I did it again, randomly chose some books from my from my bookshelf, read out a few pages from them, and then use them as a base as the basis for some rambling and for some teaching.

00:48:58 Speaker_01
And then parts two and three are a vocab review, detailed vocab review where I go through more examples in the usual way. And there's all the different memory exercises and vocab quizzes that you can use on the PDFs for those parts.

00:49:12 Speaker_01
And then part four is pronunciation. I put all the vocab 25 vocab items which I picked out of part 1 and then reviewed in parts 2 and 3.

00:49:22 Speaker_01
All those vocab items are dealt with in a story in part 4 and I read out the story to you and then let you repeat the story line by line after me to practice actually saying the vocabulary in context and then you get another couple of bonus stories at the end of the episode as well.

00:49:38 Speaker_01
Okay, so that's p65. Parts 1 to 4, available for premium subscribers now. You will find it in your list. If you've added LEP Premium to a podcast app on your phone, you'll find the episodes in the list between 912 and 913. OK.

00:49:54 Speaker_01
Has he stopped talking about LEP Premium now? Yes, that's it. I've now stopped talking about LEP Premium. But you're still talking about it. No, no, no, that's it now. That's it. OK, so yes, listeners and Premium subscribers, sorry.

00:50:14 Speaker_01
You're gonna get more episodes this month than you normally would, even though I probably shouldn't be doing that because there'll be some people who just miss those episodes completely because it's December and they're busy unwrapping presents, or wrapping presents, or cooking turkey, or eating turkey, or doing all of those other things like that.

00:50:33 Speaker_01
Okay. Actually, personally, me, personally, as a podcast listener, I actually really like it when my favourite podcasters release Christmas episodes, when they release new content at Christmas.

00:50:46 Speaker_01
I actually really love that, because that's one of my favourite things, is listening to my favourite podcast episodes, or listening to my favourite podcasts at Christmas time, when there's a spare moment, when

00:51:01 Speaker_01
busyness when crazy stuff with the family calms down and you get a spare moment for example if I'm in the kitchen at the end of the day after we've had dinner and I'm doing some washing up if I'm washing up pots and pans

00:51:16 Speaker_01
In the kitchen, everyone else is in the living room. Kids are asleep. Everyone else is in the living room, kind of like half asleep, watching some movie or something, or reading their books that they've been given or something like that.

00:51:27 Speaker_01
It's quite nice if I'm doing some washing up to put the headphones on and listen to the Christmas episode of my favorite podcast. Um, or maybe like that night in bed when you're cozily wrapped up in bed.

00:51:41 Speaker_01
Uh, it's quite nice to listen to a bit of, uh, a podcast episode, uh, by my favorite podcaster at Christmas time. So if that's you and that's what you're doing here, if you're joining me,

00:51:54 Speaker_01
during a quiet moment during the Christmas break, and it's quite nice to be listening to this at Christmas time, then great. I'm glad that I uploaded this, and I'm glad that I didn't take a break during December, and that we can still do this.

00:52:17 Speaker_01
It's not very Christmassy in my podcasting room. And remember, there's a video version for this episode on YouTube. But audio listeners, I mean, you know, you're not missing that much.

00:52:29 Speaker_01
It's just me, you know, there isn't more English in the video version. It's the same amount of English. But anyway, if you're looking at the video version, you can see I haven't made a lot of effort To make this room festive.

00:52:44 Speaker_01
It's exactly like last year. I Didn't really do much to make the room festive then either. There's just literally one candle I've lit one candle which is on the shelf behind me one red candle on its own up there That's it.

00:52:59 Speaker_01
And it's it's so gray and dark at the moment in mid-december. It's so great in It's like 4pm on a Monday afternoon in mid-December, so dark and so grey that I can't actually have any of the lights on in this room.

00:53:17 Speaker_01
If I put a light on behind me or something, it completely ruins the camera settings or something, because the camera can't deal with the fact that the room is brighter

00:53:29 Speaker_01
Anyway, it's complicated to explain, but I have to have the lights low so that any light that I get from the window in front of me doesn't get overwhelmed by other lights in this room. Mm-hmm.

00:53:44 Speaker_01
So that's why it seems to be very dark and not very festive in this room It's just like this is the the only way I can do this without the video ending up looking really bad But anyway, Merry Christmas Merry Christmas everybody.

00:53:58 Speaker_01
So what did I want to talk to you about? So I've got all that stuff. I've talked about upcoming episodes Stuff that you're gonna have the December dip What else? Oh, I saw, I went to see Paul McCartney in concert a couple of weeks ago.

00:54:16 Speaker_01
Finally, I got to see Paul on stage doing his thing. And my wife and I went to the La Défense Arena, which is like a big sort of arena in the Paris area. And yeah, we went to see the Paul McCartney show and it was fantastic.

00:54:36 Speaker_01
It was great, I have to say, it was really great. You know, just seeing Paul up there on stage, you know, doing his thing. And he's, it's incredible. He is 81, 82, 83 years old now.

00:54:50 Speaker_01
And it's amazing that someone of that advanced age still has the energy to put on a good show, a professional show for over two hours. And he's on tour. So he's doing, he's traveling around the world.

00:55:09 Speaker_01
He's in obviously in Europe at the moment doing these shows and that's exhausting I mean for me to just be out on a Wednesday evening just sitting watching him I'm tired the next day you know I just have to take a train for like 25 minutes to get to the venue

00:55:29 Speaker_01
And then I sit down and just watch him for a couple of hours, and then take another train home. And the next day I'm like, oh, a bit tired. I was out last night. And he's 82 or 83, and he's actually out on the stage just actually doing the show.

00:55:46 Speaker_01
And he seems to be fine. He kind of, he breezes through the show. You know, he's very cool and very relaxed on stage. And I was watching him in front of however many people it was. How many people were there in that stadium?

00:56:06 Speaker_01
I can't remember, tens of thousands of people, right? It's a big place, a big room, massive audience. You know, big stadium show. And he's up on the stage, and I was thinking, it's just like a casual Wednesday evening for him.

00:56:22 Speaker_01
And it did have that feeling. I felt like it was amazing. Although there were, how many people? I don't know. Something like that. Maybe more. I have no idea. Loads.

00:56:35 Speaker_01
Even though it was like a football stadium full of people, it felt like we were all just sort of joining him in his living room, having a nice Wednesday evening with Paul in his living room.

00:56:50 Speaker_01
But oh, you turn around, there's like 10, 20,000 other people there. But this is the kind of atmosphere that he's able to generate. He's warm. He's, he's relaxed. He's friendly. He's very likable. He's extremely likable as a presence.

00:57:06 Speaker_01
And then, of course, there are the songs. Every single song is outstanding. You know, the guy's been playing music professionally for something like 60 years. He'd be writing music. He's written some of the most iconic, well-known songs ever.

00:57:24 Speaker_01
And he's got an extensive library of songs to draw from. He could have done double. He could have probably done four hours of music.

00:57:34 Speaker_01
He had he has that many well-known popular songs But it was just hit after hit after hit stuff from the Beatles years There were stuff there was stuff from the solo years stuff from his time with wings The guys had an incredible career.

00:57:52 Speaker_01
He kind of got to the top of

00:57:55 Speaker_01
the topper most of the popper most twice, once with the Beatles and then started again and did it again with another band with a whole other generation of fans, people who only liked him for his songs with wings and weren't even really aware of the Beatles stuff until later.

00:58:13 Speaker_01
So absolutely amazing. I mean, you know, you know that he's kind of maybe to an extent he's going through the motions

00:58:23 Speaker_01
which means that you know that he does it the same every single night and he's been doing it the same every single night for a few years where he sort of tells the same stories he gives you the same anecdotes the same little jokes at different stages and it's kind of like he's kind of going through the motions just doing the things that he always does and perhaps he's slightly on autopilot just a little bit

00:58:51 Speaker_01
But you know, I'm willing to forgive him for that, because as a professional performer, you can't necessarily do something completely spontaneous and new every single night.

00:59:02 Speaker_01
You work hard to produce your show, to arrange it, to put it together, and then you do it, and you do it every night, and it's good every single time, and the audience love it. And when you're 82, 83 years old,

00:59:15 Speaker_01
You can't necessarily do something brand new, fresh and exciting and different every single time, right?

00:59:22 Speaker_01
At his age, you've got to conserve your energy and you've got to kind of manage your time and you've got to be really organized in order to maintain your stamina. But it's impressive.

00:59:35 Speaker_01
It's really impressive that he has the energy and the lucidity, the clarity of mind, and also the ability to continue playing his instrument. He's up there singing. Admittedly, his voice is not as strong as it used to be, but he still hits the notes.

00:59:54 Speaker_01
I think they're clever in the way that they manage the sound. And they sort of his voice is supported by the backing vocals from the other members of the band.

01:00:06 Speaker_01
And I think it's the drummer who is singing some of the same melody lines as Paul and sort of supporting Paul's voice.

01:00:14 Speaker_01
From behind so they I think they probably mix some of the drummers vocals Into Paul's vocals to sort of give him a bit of a lift and to support him, which is very cleverly done You know, they manage the sound mix really really well So Paul's voice lacks the power that it used to have which is understandable at that age But he's able to hit the notes.

01:00:38 Speaker_01
He's not out of key or anything and And so, you know, that's impressive. But also the way he plays the bass while he's singing, he's still playing all of those bass lines. And you can take it from me that a lot of those bass lines are pretty complex.

01:00:56 Speaker_01
things to do, like this one track in particular, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.

01:01:02 Speaker_01
And to be honest, I think it's only in the show in order to show off how good he is at playing the bass and singing at the same time, because the bass line is great and complicated, and he sings the song and plays the bass at the same time.

01:01:17 Speaker_01
And I've got a feeling that half the reason, at least half the reason that song is in the show is because he wants everyone, you know, he wants everyone to see

01:01:24 Speaker_01
how good he is like look at this you know i can still do this i can play isn't this it's a really neat bass line isn't it you know and look at me i'm 80 83 years old and he you can tell from his body language he's playing the song and he's quite pleased with himself with the bass line because he keeps kind of looking down at the guitar maybe fair enough maybe he needs to look at it

01:01:46 Speaker_01
look at the guitar to keep an eye on where his fingers are but also I get the impression he's looking down at the guitar at the bass while he's playing this bass line as if to say wow this is a really great bass line isn't it?

01:02:02 Speaker_01
But again, I forgive him for those little things that he does, because it's Paul, you know. And so yeah, that was a great experience. And I mean, what I could ramble some more about that, but I think that's probably enough.

01:02:18 Speaker_01
In terms of music, I am music and comedy, right? So you know that I do stand up, but I haven't done stand up really since the summer.

01:02:28 Speaker_01
Some of you who've been listening for a few months now, you'll remember that in the summer I was talking about doing a stand-up show with my friend Charles here in Paris, and I was sort of advertising it on the show, promoting it, and saying that I'd be doing a live podcast recording afterwards.

01:02:44 Speaker_01
I did the live podcast recording that was published earlier this year. Which episode was that? LEP Live it was called? LEP Live, where is that? Episode 894, LEP Live in Paris, live podcast recording.

01:03:00 Speaker_01
That's the podcast I did in the room after the stand-up show. And that episode just, I mean, on YouTube, just was like the least popular episode on YouTube in terms of numbers. Like, it seemed that people just didn't notice that one.

01:03:18 Speaker_01
or they're like, oh, Luke doing a live podcast in Paris now, not interested. Out of all of the episodes I've published in the last couple of months, that was one of the least interesting, it seems, for my audience, which surprised me.

01:03:31 Speaker_01
I thought that people would be more interested in listening to me doing a live podcast in front of an audience. But again, this is one of those things where my perception, perhaps, is influenced by my expectations.

01:03:44 Speaker_01
that for me, that was a big deal, doing something in front of an audience, recording a show in front of an audience, admittedly, a fairly small audience, and admittedly, I wasn't very prepared, because I wanted to keep it spontaneous.

01:03:56 Speaker_01
But for me, I was thinking, this is great, and after I'd recorded, I thought, that went really well, can't wait to publish this, can't wait to see what people think. Published it, and just, you know, not a huge response, really.

01:04:10 Speaker_01
Certainly not as much as I would get for Even just the average rambling episode, or an Amber and Paul episode, or a story episode in particular.

01:04:20 Speaker_01
So, a bit disappointing that people didn't respond to a live podcast recording more enthusiastically than they did. But, I mean, what do I know?

01:04:32 Speaker_01
Again, it's probably just my my it's probably that difference between the expectation and and what actually happened And that it's actually fine, you know, probably nothing to worry about or be bothered by but anyway Stand-up, so I haven't done stand-up since since the summer in fact since that gig I haven't really done it because there were the summer holidays and I just kind of lost the habit and haven't been up on stage But also that's because I've been focusing on playing music and I'm in a band at the moment

01:05:02 Speaker_01
and we play at the British Embassy. So it's with some guys who work at the British Embassy, and it's kind of a social committee project at the Embassy that we do a live band, and that we do shows in the Embassy, in the bar.

01:05:15 Speaker_01
But also this year for Christmas, we're doing the British Ambassadors Christmas Party, which is a party, a big party at the British Ambassadors residence in Paris.

01:05:31 Speaker_01
So, mmm, you know, Ferrero Rocher, you're really spoiling us at the Ambassador's party.

01:05:37 Speaker_01
At the Ambassador's reception, the guests, you know that advert, I've talked about it lots of times before, have you ever seen that advert for those chocolates, Ferrero Rocher? with Mr. Ambassador with these Ferrero Rocher, you're really spoiling us.

01:05:53 Speaker_01
So we're going to be at the Ambassador's party, playing our songs in front of over 100 people.

01:06:02 Speaker_01
So we've been practicing, practicing, and we're doing a list of songs that hopefully people will enjoy, including stuff like, we're doing Get Lucky, Daft Punk, Pharrell Williams, Nile Rodgers, you know, get lucky.

01:06:18 Speaker_01
And we've been practicing that and stuff. And we're doing that on Wednesday at the party. And so that's Wednesday, the 18th of December. And guess who is going to be a guest at the embassy on Tuesday, the 17th tomorrow?

01:06:32 Speaker_01
Who is going to be visiting the British embassy and the ambassador's residence tomorrow? And we're playing Get Lucky at the party the next night. Who is it? Who's going to be visiting? Are you thinking, is it going to be King Charles?

01:06:49 Speaker_01
No, he visited recently, but it's not him. Is it Prince William? No, he was there recently. Is it Donald Trump? No, he was there last week, but it's not Donald Trump. And you're thinking, is it Mick Jagger, Luke?

01:07:01 Speaker_01
No, Mick Jagger was there for the party during the Olympics opening ceremony. It's not Mick Jagger. And you're thinking, who is it? Well, it's Pharrell Williams. Pharrell Williams is going to be at the embassy tomorrow.

01:07:13 Speaker_01
And literally the next day, we are going to be playing his song, Get Lucky, at the party. And we're just thinking, oh, God, it would be awesome if he was there at the party. And he would jump up on stage and sing along with us.

01:07:29 Speaker_01
But no, he's not going to be there on the 18th. He's going to be on the 17th. So we missed him by one day. So you could say we got unlucky, in fact. We got unlucky with that one.

01:07:41 Speaker_01
If he'd just come the day after, then maybe we would have been able to play Get Lucky with Pharrell Williams himself. That would have been good, wouldn't it? Imagine that. We came up with a name for the band. We've called ourselves The Diplomats.

01:07:56 Speaker_01
which is pretty good, I think. We're quite happy with that. It's kind of pretty solid as a name for a band, The Diplomats, especially since it's at the embassy and the other guys in the band work at the embassy in a sort of diplomatic capacity.

01:08:19 Speaker_01
We were thinking of maybe calling ourselves the Ambassadors, but the Diplomats is what we've gone for.

01:08:23 Speaker_01
Also, one other possible idea for a band name, we could have called ourselves the Ferrero Rockers, you know, after that Ferrero Rocher advert that takes place in some Ambassador's residence. But no, the Diplomats.

01:08:40 Speaker_01
It's great to be playing the drums again regularly and I'm playing a lot and we're really getting into it and that's great. So no comedy, but plenty of music. What else? Oh yeah, other upcoming content on the podcast, Walk and Talk.

01:08:56 Speaker_01
God, it's dark in this room. It is so dark. I'm actually going to have to put a light on. I've got one of these Again, audio listeners, you don't need to worry about these details. But I've got one of these kind of like, you know, these these lights.

01:09:12 Speaker_01
It's not a ring light, but it's a similar thing. It's a light you can put on behind the camera and it kind of helps to light up your videos. And this particular one I've got has got a setting on it which gives a nice warm light.

01:09:24 Speaker_01
And the setting is called Candle, which means that it does kind of flicker slightly, you know, like the way the light from a candle flickers. So it's on candle setting, which means that the light might kind of flicker slightly.

01:09:42 Speaker_01
That's just because there you go, it's flickering now. That's just because the I found that the that's the best color lights that I can get from this. I mean, it does other colors as well as a kind of a bright white, but that's a little bit too bright.

01:09:57 Speaker_01
And then there's all these other colors like green and stuff, but that's obviously Terrible. So the candle effect is what I'm going for. All right. Hello, it's time for me to interrupt the episode again. How are you doing, everyone?

01:10:11 Speaker_01
How's the episode going for you? Is it all right? Yeah? I hope so. I'm making it much longer with these interruptions. Plus, there's going to be a vocab review at the end, of course, which I shall have to try and do really quickly.

01:10:26 Speaker_01
But anyway, stick around for that so you can

01:10:28 Speaker_01
see which bits of vocab, which words and phrases I'll actually be summarising for you, because surely you've noticed little things that I've been saying during the episode, little phrases and expressions and words and idioms and things, but I'll explain a lot of those things at the end.

01:10:47 Speaker_01
Anyway, I wanted to interrupt here because, as you know, it's now Friday and I actually I'm going through this again recorded the episode on Monday.

01:10:58 Speaker_01
It's now Friday and on Wednesday That's when we did the concert at the ambassadors party and I just wanted to kind of describe how that was Yeah, unfortunately Pharrell Williams wasn't there.

01:11:11 Speaker_01
So Although we did get lucky in the sense that we played the song We didn't get lucky because Farrell wasn't there. So we did get lucky and we didn't get lucky both at the same time, if that's possible, which it is.

01:11:29 Speaker_01
Anyway, I just wanted to describe what it was like. So the ambassador's party, yes, it took place at the ambassador's residence. So this is the British ambassador to France who lives at this very fancy building.

01:11:44 Speaker_01
in a very posh part of Paris next door to the embassy and it's this wonderful old building full of history a very historic location the building itself was built in 1720 and is typically grand and beautiful with high ceilings

01:12:04 Speaker_01
all sorts of valuable paintings, some works of modern art in there as well, crystal chandeliers, a long beautiful garden, several ballrooms, a throne, there's a throne there, presumably in case the king visits and he needs to sit down, they actually have a throne there, and more, right?

01:12:26 Speaker_01
So this is where the queen stayed when she visited Paris and now the king, It's where the heads of state from countries around the world are welcomed.

01:12:37 Speaker_01
The building used to be the home of Napoleon Bonaparte's sister and was later the home of the Duke of Wellington when the building was sold to the British government in the 19th century.

01:12:51 Speaker_01
All sorts of people from history have visited the place, but surely the pinnacle of all of this, the most significant moment in the building's history, was when my band played our concert there on Wednesday evening. And actually, it was good.

01:13:06 Speaker_01
It went well. Yes, we went down well, you could say. And we did, you know, a range of cover versions. That means songs written by someone else, written by other people. So we did Get Lucky. We did, oh, loads of things.

01:13:22 Speaker_01
Let me just very quickly mention the songs that we played. It's kind of a fairly eclectic mix of stuff. The ones that worked the best, the ones that generally work the best,

01:13:36 Speaker_01
in a situation like that at a party where you've got all these people including basically all the staff at the embassy and all the staff who work at the ambassador's residence plus their wives, girlfriends and friends and stuff.

01:13:51 Speaker_01
So we had quite a lot of people there. And the ones that work are the ones that everyone knows and also the ones that people can dance to. So Get Lucky by Daft Punk, Kavinsky Nightcall, Psycho Killer by Talking Heads, which we

01:14:09 Speaker_01
We also did Lady by Mojo, if you remember that one.

01:14:12 Speaker_01
Learn to Fly, The Foo Fighters, Help, The Beatles, There She Goes by The Lars, Rebel Rebel by David Bowie, Song 2 by Blur, Come Together, Beatles, The Joker by Steve Miller Band, Every Breath You Take by The Police, Slade, Merry Christmas Everyone.

01:14:31 Speaker_01
500 Miles by The Proclaimers, Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash, Dakota by Stereophonics, and Friday I'm in Love by The Cure. So that was an overview of the songs we did and it went great, it was really good.

01:14:46 Speaker_01
So the scene, yeah, I mean when you enter the building, I talked before about Ferrero Rocher, right, which are these little chocolates, and I've talked about this on the podcast before, You know, I don't know if you know the reference.

01:14:59 Speaker_01
Some of you do because you've got the commercial, the TV commercial on the TV, and you're at the right age where you remember seeing those commercials.

01:15:07 Speaker_01
But they used to advertise Ferrero Rocher in this funny, cheesy advert where it was a scene at an ambassador's reception in some fancy ambassador's residence somewhere in the world.

01:15:20 Speaker_01
And at the ambassador's reception, the guests are always treated to the finest you know, finest things. And there are butlers holding silver trays piled up with Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

01:15:36 Speaker_01
And you see people taking them and, you know, there's a glamorous woman who comes up to the ambassador and says, Monsieur Ambassador, with these Ferrero Rocher, you really are spoiling us.

01:15:46 Speaker_01
And there's a kind of a posh guy who eats one and he goes, you know, magnifique or something like that.

01:15:55 Speaker_01
So I was joking about that but actually on Wednesday when you arrived in the building and you were greeted they actually had silver platters with Ferrero Rocher on them which was obviously a joke but that was a really great touch I thought that was really nice and of course I was able to say huh with these Ferrero Rocher you you're really spoiling us.

01:16:19 Speaker_01
and yeah just really cool to take part in that and people were dancing and that was great and the music sounded good and the ambassador herself

01:16:31 Speaker_01
The ambassador herself was actually the one who kind of really got the party going by dancing with her husband on the dance floor. She was really into it. She is great. She's a really good host. So that was a really good, fun experience.

01:16:48 Speaker_01
So I just wanted to share that with you. You're welcome. Now, let's get back to the episode recorded on Monday. Here we go. So yeah, I was going to talk about walk and talk episodes.

01:17:00 Speaker_01
So every now and then someone says to me, can you do another walk and talk episode, Luke? And I'm assuming that you know what walk and talk episodes are. I did a couple of them this year.

01:17:12 Speaker_01
Yeah, I've got a couple of Walk and Talk episodes in the pipeline. The first one is Walk and Talk London, and that's when I was in London, actually again in the summer, in July, and I walked around London.

01:17:24 Speaker_01
I did a kind of super fast walking tour of London on a Saturday afternoon, which was incredibly busy with tourists.

01:17:35 Speaker_01
And I walked along the South Bank near the London Eye, walked over Westminster Bridge, past Big Ben, down Whitehall, past Downing Street, through Trafalgar Square, up through Piccadilly Circus, into, I think, into Covent Garden.

01:17:56 Speaker_01
And then I took an underground train to Marleybone Station. And so that's about an hour's worth. I just haven't edited it all together.

01:18:08 Speaker_01
It takes quite a long time to edit those together because there's quite a lot of footage and audio that need to be combined and then I've got to edit it all together. So that's something that I'm working on.

01:18:22 Speaker_01
But you will get a Walk and Talk episode in London coming fairly soon. And then, of course, if you remember, there's the Medieval Museum episode, which I've been working on since... well, I haven't been working on it, that's the thing.

01:18:37 Speaker_01
I recorded it when? In May, I think it was. I went to a medieval museum with Amber and Paul, and Paul's brother, who is a professional footballer, by the way, He used to play for Bournemouth Football Club. I'm not sure who he's with these days.

01:18:55 Speaker_01
And we walked around the museum and Amber told us lots of really interesting things about the different medieval artifacts that can be found there.

01:19:03 Speaker_01
And I videoed it and there were four microphones all picking up, you know, recording the four of us independently. And it is an absolute nightmare to edit. And I spent quite a long time editing just the first 10 minutes of it.

01:19:19 Speaker_01
and then just kind of left it alone. And I haven't had the courage to go back and continue editing it. So that's something I need to go back to and finish putting together.

01:19:32 Speaker_01
I don't know how I'm going to deal with it because two of the microphones cut out after about sixty minutes. So there's about half an hour at the end of the episode where only two of the microphones are working.

01:19:44 Speaker_01
I don't know how I'm going to manage it, but again, I've got my work cut out for me there. I've got to put those episodes together and sort that out. But yeah, medieval museum walk and talk with Amber and Paul, and Paul's brother Kyle.

01:19:59 Speaker_01
Also, coming relatively soon, as soon as I get my act together and sort that out. I wrote some notes down here for things I was going to talk about in this episode. But yeah, Walk and Talk in London should be good.

01:20:13 Speaker_01
The only problem with that is that, so I put the camera on my t-shirt, I kind of attached it to myself, and it wasn't perfectly straight. So it's like an action cam, like a GoPro. It's an Insta360 action camera.

01:20:31 Speaker_01
And the problem with it was that it wasn't perfectly straight. It's slightly wonky, slightly lopsided. So the horizon isn't perfectly straight.

01:20:41 Speaker_01
It's kind of at a bit of an angle, which is another reason why I haven't been working on it, because I looked at the raw footage and I was like, oh, God, that's going to be annoying. I need to try and fix that.

01:20:52 Speaker_01
So I suppose what I'll have to do is turn the footage to make it straight. But then I'll need to zoom in a little bit to cut out the edges, the dodgy diagonal edges of the frame. So I don't know how it's going to turn out.

01:21:10 Speaker_01
But anyway, I've got my work cut out. But it was great to be able to walk around in London and do a walk and talk episode in London. I just love visiting London, as I've always done. Obviously, I used to live there.

01:21:22 Speaker_01
But it's so great to go back sometimes. Two weekends ago I was in London at a reunion at the old school I used to work in, playing with the old band that I used to play drums for there. We had a reunion Christmas party, that was nice.

01:21:42 Speaker_01
But I also got to spend a couple of days in London, mostly one day on my own, on foot in London with just a backpack, and it was just wonderful. I just had a great time, even though it was quite

01:22:00 Speaker_01
even though there was a storm, there was like high wind and rain, I just loved being on foot, walking around the streets of London. I just find it so energizing. And in the morning I had a delicious fry-up. That's a full English breakfast.

01:22:17 Speaker_01
I had bacon and sausage and toast and beans and egg and a big cup of tea. And it was just like, oh, this is what I've been missing. And it just fuelled me up for a great day of walking around different parts of London.

01:22:31 Speaker_01
Some of my favourite areas of the city, the kind of areas north of Oxford Street, so that's like Fitzrovia and Bloomsbury, those kinds of areas, I love that part of town.

01:22:44 Speaker_01
And I spent some time at the British Library, which is just next to St Pancras station near Kings Cross station on the Euston Road.

01:22:52 Speaker_01
The British Library is a really great place to go because first of all, it's completely free to go in and obviously it's a library, which is wonderful, but it's, I think it's one of the biggest collections of books in the world and they have loads of really old books and the way they've organized it is fantastic.

01:23:11 Speaker_01
They've got this central sort of section, which is full of these old leather-bound books, all in a kind of huge case behind glass. And then around that, you've got the, you know, the areas where you can walk and sit and stuff.

01:23:30 Speaker_01
And there's an area on the first floor with lots of desks and seating spaces. And it's for students to go and work. And there are lots of study spaces in the library. And there's free Wi-Fi there and stuff.

01:23:45 Speaker_01
And so whenever I'm in London on my own and I need a place to just sit and do some work, which is normally what I do, I'll bring my laptop with me when I do a trip to London.

01:23:56 Speaker_01
And, you know, normally I'll go to London to see my brother, spend time with him, or I go to London on my way up to see my parents, often with my kids, but sometimes not. You know, sometimes with my wife and kids, sometimes just me.

01:24:10 Speaker_01
And when I'm on my own and I want to find a place to work, the British Library is a great place to go because of this wonderful modern building.

01:24:19 Speaker_01
full of atmosphere, because you're in the presence of all these thousands of old books, and lots of students there studying. And I find myself a little spot to sit down, and I sit and work for ages. And the library is just a really great place.

01:24:35 Speaker_01
I recommend it. I recommend going there. They've got a good bookshop, they've got all sorts of interesting things to enjoy, and also just a good place to sit and do some work, if you're looking for a place to do some work.

01:24:49 Speaker_01
And I thought, right, I'll tell you what, I think I'll end this episode by just sharing a few library-based jokes. Will I end here? Some library jokes. Actually, I've got some comments as well.

01:25:02 Speaker_01
That reminds me, I've got some comments from listeners on some recent episodes, especially the Funny English Signs episodes. So I'll tell you what, I'll end with those comments, but before that, library jokes.

01:25:19 Speaker_01
And so, I was inspired to do this just because I enjoyed being at the British Library so much, and also the rest of my trip in London when I had lunch in the pub and enjoyed some beer from the bar. with my lunch, and just, oh, it's just amazing.

01:25:40 Speaker_01
Anyway, library jokes, alright, library jokes, inspired by my trip to the British Library. Here we go, I've got about 14 library jokes. And as well, there was that library joke from Kate Billington a few years ago, if you remember that one.

01:25:57 Speaker_01
And she presented it as a joke that works in any language. Do you remember the joke? She actually translated it into Chinese successfully as well. It was quite impressive. But the joke, Kate Billington's library joke was this.

01:26:14 Speaker_01
A man goes into a library and he goes up to the counter and he says, hello, I'd like fish and chips, please. And the librarian says, sorry, no, this is a library. And the man goes, oh, sorry, I'll have the fish and chips, please. Right.

01:26:30 Speaker_01
No need to explain that, is there? But that's a good joke that works in any language. And I don't think it requires any explanation, which is good. Some more library jokes. Let me fly through some of these quite quickly.

01:26:42 Speaker_01
By the way, you'll find these listed on the page for this episode on my website. Library jokes. Okay, some of these are really stupid and terrible, but there are some good bits of English that you can learn from them. Okay, so the first one is this.

01:26:56 Speaker_01
A man walks into a library and says, do you have any books on Pavlov's dog and Schrodinger's cat? And the librarian says, it rings a bell, but I'm not sure if it's here or not. Do you have any books on Pavlov's dog and Schrodinger's cat?

01:27:15 Speaker_01
Pavlov's dog, I explained this fairly recently on the podcast, Pavlov's dog was an experiment which, by a psychologist or a doctor called Pavlov, who with his experiment proved something about conditioning.

01:27:34 Speaker_01
And the experiment was basically this, that he fed a dog food, and every time he fed the dog food, he rang a bell. And then eventually... And so every time he fed the dog food, he would ring a bell, and the dog would salivate.

01:27:49 Speaker_01
Saliva would come out of its mouth because it was being given food every single time. And eventually, he stopped giving the dog food, but he would still ring the bell. And when he rung the bell, the dog would salivate.

01:27:59 Speaker_01
And it proved something about the way that Dogs, and also humans, can be conditioned, can be trained to have certain responses based on certain stimuli. It's a famous scientific test, or scientific experiment. Pavlov's dog. And he rang a bell, you see.

01:28:19 Speaker_01
Schrodinger's Cat is, oh God, how do I explain Schrodinger's Cat? Again, I've tried to explain this on the podcast before as well.

01:28:26 Speaker_01
Schrodinger's Cat is something that, some theoretical mental exercise which is supposed to prove something about, I don't know, alright, hold on, let me try and, okay.

01:28:43 Speaker_01
A few moments later... Okay, I've asked ChatGPT, can you explain Schrodinger's cat briefly? And it's taking its time thinking about that one. very slowly responding. Yeah, a thought experiment. That's what I was looking for.

01:28:58 Speaker_01
That's the expression I was looking for.

01:29:00 Speaker_01
Schrodinger's cat is a thought experiment proposed by physicist Erwin Schrodinger to illustrate the strange nature of quantum mechanics, particularly the concept of super... God, chat GPT is being very slow with this one.

01:29:19 Speaker_01
Which makes me feel a little bit better, because I was struggling to explain Schrodinger's cat too, but apparently ChatGPT is finding it hard work as well. It's like such a slow response. Normally, ChatGPT is like, bang, yes, I'll do it. I'll do it.

01:29:33 Speaker_01
I've done it before you've even finished asking the question. It's like, ChatGPT, could you be done it already? Not this time. It's taking its time.

01:29:43 Speaker_01
Schrodinger's cat is a thought experiment proposed by physicist Erwin Schrodinger to illustrate the strange nature of quantum mechanics, particularly the concept of superposition. Okay, ready? The experiment.

01:29:58 Speaker_01
Imagine a cat placed in a sealed box with a radioactive atom that has a 50% chance of decaying in a given time.

01:30:08 Speaker_01
two, a Geiger counter to detect the decay of the radioactive atom, and three, a vial of poison, like a little glass container of poison, that will be released if the Geiger counter detects the decay. The key idea is this.

01:30:29 Speaker_01
If the box is closed, then we cannot know whether the radioactive atom has decayed or not. This means the cat is in a superposition. Come on, ChatGPT, it's just literally one word every few seconds. Apparently this is difficult for ChatGPT to do.

01:30:56 Speaker_01
Either that, or maybe everyone else on the internet is asking ChatGPT to do other things. Like, ChatGPT, can you write my midterm essay, please? Or, ChatGPT, can you tell me a stupid joke? Or, ChatGPT, can you write all of my Christmas cards for me?

01:31:15 Speaker_01
And ChatGPT's like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm trying to explain Schrodinger's cat over here. Just hold on a minute.

01:31:21 Speaker_01
Okay, so the key idea is, if, so, right, imagine a cat is placed in a box with a radioactive atom with a 50% chance of decaying in a certain time. And you're like, sorry, what? Yeah, just go with it, all right?

01:31:35 Speaker_01
Also, a Geiger counter to detect the decay of the atom. And thirdly, a vial of poison that will be released if the Geiger counter detects the decay. And you're thinking, why did Schrodinger spend so much time fantasizing about

01:31:49 Speaker_01
Killing a cat in a box, I don't know, but anyway. The key idea is this. If the box is closed, we cannot know whether the radioactive atom has decayed or not. This means the cat is in a superposition.

01:32:04 Speaker_01
It's not in a superposition, it's in a really bad position. Isn't it? There's nothing super about that. It's like the cat's like, this is not a superposition. I'm stuck in a box with a radioactive atom and a vial of poison.

01:32:19 Speaker_01
Please get me out of this box and give me some milk or something or a fish. Anyway, so this means the cat is in a superposition. It is both alive and dead at the same time from a quantum perspective.

01:32:33 Speaker_01
When the box is opened, observing the system forces it into one of the two possible states. The cat is either definitely alive or definitely dead. Now if this is going over your head, don't worry, it kind of goes over my head as well.

01:32:48 Speaker_01
Basically, a cat's in a box. Is it dead or not? We don't know. It's got a 50% chance of being dead, 50% chance of being alive. The only way you can find out is by opening the box.

01:33:00 Speaker_01
From a quantum perspective, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. The purpose of this? What's the purpose of this?

01:33:07 Speaker_01
Well, according to Chad GPT, Schrodinger's cat is not about actual cats, but highlights how strange quantum mechanics is when applied to everyday objects.

01:33:18 Speaker_01
It was meant to question the idea that something could exist in multiple states, like alive and dead, until observed. Fine. So, a famous scientific experiment, in this case a thought experiment. Don't worry, he didn't actually put the cat in a box.

01:33:33 Speaker_01
As far as we know, I mean, that's what he said to us, everyone. Edwin Schrodinger was like, right, imagine I put a cat in a box with a radioactive atom. Just imagine, like, did you actually do it? No, no, no, no, no. What? Of course I didn't.

01:33:49 Speaker_01
Just imagine that I did. Right. Famous experiment. God, all this is a complicated explanation for a fairly bad joke. A man walks into a library and he says, do you have any books on Pavlov's dog and Schrodinger's cat?

01:34:06 Speaker_01
And the librarian says, well, it rings a bell, but I'm not sure if it's here or not. OK. Right, the others are slightly less complex. Second joke, why are libraries the tallest buildings in the world?

01:34:24 Speaker_01
Why are libraries the tallest buildings in the world? Because they have so many stories. Right, now this is a joke on the fact that story is a homophone, because one meaning of story, that's S-T-O-R-Y, right, or plural, S-T-O-R-I-E-S, stories.

01:34:43 Speaker_01
One meaning of stories, as you know, is like stories that you tell, you know, like narratives, like learn English with a short story, like The Snowman or whatever, Sherlock Holmes. These are stories. But also, stories spell S-T-O-R-E-Y-S.

01:34:59 Speaker_01
This means levels of a building, floors of a building. It's a synonym for floors on a building. So this building has five floors. You could also say this building has five stories. So why are libraries the tallest buildings in the world?

01:35:13 Speaker_01
They're not actually the tallest buildings in the world, but anyway. Why are libraries the tallest buildings in the world? Because they have so many stories. Okay, moving on. Number three, why did Dracula go to the library?

01:35:26 Speaker_01
Because he wanted to sink his teeth into a good book. Yeah, okay. So, why did Dracula go to the library? Because he wanted to sink his teeth into a good book. Now, Dracula doesn't bite books. He bites people.

01:35:40 Speaker_01
But anyway, you can learn an expression to sink your teeth into something. To sink your teeth. Like when you bite into something, you sink your teeth into it. So, Like, happy Christmas. Oh, you bought me a book. Fantastic.

01:35:57 Speaker_01
Yeah, I thought, you know, I bought you a book that you could sink your teeth into. It means to really get into the book, to kind of really consume the book enthusiastically, to sink your teeth into something.

01:36:09 Speaker_01
I could give you an episode of the podcast for you to sink your teeth into. you sink your teeth into a good book. Why did Dracula go to the library? He wanted to sink his teeth into a good book. Fourth, why can't you go to the world's biggest library?

01:36:25 Speaker_01
Why can't you go to the world's biggest library? Because it's always overbooked. There I suppose in one sense that means there are so many books in there that you can't actually go in Because there are too many books.

01:36:41 Speaker_01
It's overbooked, but also obviously overbooked means that there are no no tickets left. Yeah Five why did the librarian fall down or why did the librarian fall over because he was in the non-friction section? He was in the non-friction section, so

01:37:01 Speaker_01
Normally it would be the non-fiction section, because you've got fiction books, books which are made up, they're not true stories. And then you've got the non-fiction section, which is where you find, you know, all of the factual content.

01:37:16 Speaker_01
But this librarian fell over because he was in the non-friction section. meaning it was slippery. Friction is when something rubs against something.

01:37:27 Speaker_01
For example, I suppose if you're walking along a floor and there's a lot of friction between your shoes and the floor, then you won't slip, right? Because And there's friction.

01:37:43 Speaker_01
But if you're in the non-friction section, which is not a real section in a library, but that's the non-fiction section. If you're in the non-friction section, presumably it would be quite slippery and you might fall over or fall down.

01:37:56 Speaker_01
This is why the librarian fell over because he was in the non-friction section. God explaining the jokes really doesn't, does it help? It helps you understand them. What's that phrase? Yes, explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog.

01:38:12 Speaker_01
You learn something from it, but the frog dies in the process. All these jokes are like dead frogs in a laboratory somewhere, but anyway, we're learning English. Why did the ghost keep coming back to the library?

01:38:24 Speaker_01
Why did the ghost keep coming back to the library? Because he went through his books too quickly. I quite like that. To go through a book, obviously, is to go from the first page all the way through to the last page, meaning to read it.

01:38:37 Speaker_01
But a ghost would go through a book in the sense that ghosts pass through things because they don't have any bodies. You know, there's another joke. Why didn't the ghost go to the party? Because he had no body to go with.

01:38:54 Speaker_01
Anyway, why did the ghost keep coming back to the library? Because he went through his books too quickly. Eight, what did the librarian tell the person who checked out a hundred books? To check out a book is when you borrow a book, right?

01:39:09 Speaker_01
But they stamp it, put a stamp in it saying you have to return it by this date, so you check out the book. Why did the librarian tell the per- sorry. What did the librarian tell the person who checked out a hundred books?

01:39:24 Speaker_01
Well, she said, don't overdo it. Don't overdo it. Oh God, that's not good. Uh, don't overdo it, right? This is what you say to someone who's doing too much. Don't overdo it. Don't over, don't take out too many books. Don't read too much. Don't overdo it.

01:39:43 Speaker_01
Take it easy, but don't overdo it. Overdue. If a book is overdue, it means that it should have been returned previously, but you've still got it. Maybe like two, three days ago was the deadline for when the book had to be returned.

01:39:59 Speaker_01
That was the due date, and you've still got the book. You haven't put the book back in the library. You haven't checked it back into the library. It's overdue. Don't overdue it. Don't overdo it. Number nine, where does the library keep books about Bigfoot?

01:40:15 Speaker_01
Bigfoot, you know, Sasquatch, the abominable snowman. You know, Bigfoot, that kind of big, hairy guy who lives out in the forest, according to some Americans. Which probably means that it doesn't exist, right?

01:40:32 Speaker_01
Why is it always UFOs and Bigfoot and stuff? Why is that only Americans in the middle of the United States? Have you ever seen, like, a map with red dots for UFO sightings in the world?

01:40:51 Speaker_01
All the red dots are in the United States, and there's a line, there's literally a line above the United States and in Canada, just like, virtually nothing. Below, in Mexico, virtually nothing. But just, America is just red dots everywhere.

01:41:06 Speaker_01
United States of America, I mean. Anyway. Where does the library keep books about Bigfoot? In the large print section. Large print, large footprint, print, footprint in the large print, print of a book. The letters.

01:41:27 Speaker_01
OK, number 10, where does the library keep horror stories? Where does the library keep horror stories? Right behind you. Number 11, librarians love a good joke. They always get the reference.

01:41:46 Speaker_01
The reference, the reference of the book is the number of the book. That's the reference of the book. But to get a reference in a joke means to understand what the joke is about. Did you get it? You didn't get the reference. No, okay.

01:41:56 Speaker_01
Let's see if you get the reference for this one. Number 12, dystopian books are so 1984. Okay, dystopian books. They're so 1984. So dystopian fiction is fiction set in the future, but in a kind of dark, pessimistic version of the future.

01:42:19 Speaker_01
Often a future world which is kind of run by an autocratic government or, you know, like those science fiction stories like The Terminator. That's a dystopian future where the human race is

01:42:34 Speaker_01
being hunted by robots or the Matrix where the humans are enslaved by artificial intelligence.

01:42:44 Speaker_01
1984 is the classic dystopian future story about a society, about a kind of total, totally autocratic society where everyone lives under total domination by the government. So it's the definitive dystopian book. And then saying, oh, that's so 1984.

01:43:09 Speaker_01
It's the sort of thing you would say to mean that was trendy in 1984. You know, it's a bit like saying, oh, you know, podcasts, they're so 2016. Podcasts are so 2016, meaning podcasts were trendy in 2016 and they're not really trendy anymore. Right.

01:43:33 Speaker_01
Dystopian books are so 1984. Uh-huh. Okay. Number 13, that book about anti-gravity is impossible to put down. That book about anti-gravity is impossible to put down.

01:43:47 Speaker_01
If a book is impossible to put down, it means it's so interesting you can't stop reading it. Anti-gravity, I suppose, is some concept in physics which means that... If you try and put the book down, it'll float in the air because there's no gravity.

01:44:03 Speaker_01
So a book about anti-gravity is impossible to put down. See, it means two things at the same time. It's too interesting, you can't stop reading it. But literally, you can't put it down because of anti-gravity? Yeah. 14. A man goes into a library and asks for a book on cliffhangers.

01:44:16 Speaker_01
By the way, a cliffhanger is a story that ends with a moment of suspense and you desperately want to know what happens next. It's normally in TV series where

01:44:32 Speaker_01
like the episode ends with a moment where the character is hanging from a cliff, hanging off a ledge, and you think, oh my god, are they going to fall off the cliff and die? Or are they going to survive?

01:44:46 Speaker_01
You know, it's like in some old, old episode of Batman or something, when it used to be a TV show in the 1960s. At the end of the episode, you'd see Batman and Robin hanging off a cliff, You know, will Batman and Robin, you know, fall from the cliff?

01:45:02 Speaker_01
Or will they be rescued? Find out in next week's episode of Batman. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Batman. That's a cliffhanger ending. That's cliffhangers, right? A man goes into a library and asks for a book on cliffhangers, and the librarian says...

01:45:18 Speaker_01
Find out next week on Luke's English Podcast. The joke goes, a man goes into a library and asks for a book on cliffhangers and the librarian says, and then nothing, because you have to wait and see. Hello again.

01:45:33 Speaker_01
I'm just interrupting the episode for a fourth time because I've realised there was a joke that I forgot. There was another librarian joke which I forgot to mention. And I, you know, I have to, I have to tell you this joke as well.

01:45:46 Speaker_01
So this final joke is this. Why can't librarians finish mystery books? Why can't librarians finish mystery books? It's because they keep reading between the lines. Okay, so I probably need to explain that one. Let me dissect the frog here.

01:46:06 Speaker_01
So to read between the lines is actually a nice idiom, a nice expression which is related to communication, not just related to reading, but basically in understanding what people are saying or what people are writing.

01:46:21 Speaker_01
And if you read between the lines, it means that you look for or you discover a meaning that is not explicitly stated in the words, but that is implied, right?

01:46:35 Speaker_01
OK, so for example, when you understand something that wasn't directly said or directly written, but you can understand another meaning that exists behind or between their words.

01:46:49 Speaker_01
I'll give you an example in a moment, but reading between the lines in a literal sense, we're talking about lines of text in a book, okay, and in a literal sense reading between the lines means looking at the spaces between the lines and seeing or imagining another meaning which is hidden there.

01:47:10 Speaker_01
Okay? So it's about interpreting what people are saying and understanding what they really mean, even if they're not specifically saying it. That's reading between the lines.

01:47:21 Speaker_01
In an idiomatic or metaphorical sense, this means just understanding what someone really means, even if they don't directly say it. Or understanding what is really going on, even if it wasn't specifically stated.

01:47:34 Speaker_01
So why can't librarians finish mystery books because they keep reading between the lines? So reading between the lines, meaning literally reading between the lines, means that you'd end up reading double, right? It would be twice as long.

01:47:52 Speaker_01
It would take a very long time to read the book because not only are you reading the lines, but you're also reading between the lines, literally. This is quite a good joke because mystery books do require you to read between the lines, right?

01:48:09 Speaker_01
To kind of work out what's going on behind the scenes in order to solve the mystery, right? And I suppose that librarians are good readers, so they would be able to read between the lines.

01:48:21 Speaker_01
They would be able to kind of interpret what is being written and see the implied meanings. So there you go. That's my explanation of the joke. I completely obliterated it, no doubt. I sucked all of the humour from it.

01:48:38 Speaker_01
But hopefully now you you understand the expression right to read between the lines just to demonstrate that expression Here's an example from Oxford dictionaries Okay, it would be this reading between the lines.

01:48:51 Speaker_01
I think Claire needs money so I spoke to Claire the other day and you know, she's fine, but You know, reading between the lines, I think she needs money.

01:49:01 Speaker_01
She kept talking about how everything's really expensive and didn't say it specifically, but I'm kind of reading between the lines. I think that I think she needs some money. Maybe we need to help her.

01:49:12 Speaker_01
Let me illustrate that further with a couple of dialogues. So the first dialogue, this is Clare talking to her friend Ben. So by the way, Clare is just the name of the person given in that example in the Oxford Dictionary.

01:49:27 Speaker_01
Reading between the lines, I think Clare needs money. So let's explore this situation. Who is Clare? She's just a friend of ours, let's say. Clare is talking to her friend Ben. See if you can read between the lines to see what's going on.

01:49:42 Speaker_01
So Claire says, Hey, Ben, how are you? And Ben says, Oh, I'm good, thanks. How about you? Oh, you know, just busy trying to juggle everything. Work's been a bit slow lately. And, you know, the bills just keep piling up, don't they?

01:49:59 Speaker_01
Yeah, that yeah, that sounds pretty stressful. Yeah, it's not ideal, it's not ideal. I've been trying to cut back, you know, but everything's just so expensive these days. Even groceries feel like a luxury sometimes. Yeah, totally.

01:50:12 Speaker_01
Yeah, things are tight for a lot of people right now. Anyway, I don't want to complain. It's just one of those months, I guess.

01:50:23 Speaker_01
So, I mean, she doesn't say it specifically, but kind of reading between the lines, you can see that Claire maybe needs a bit of help. Then later, Ben speaks to their mutual friend Alice. So this is Ben talking to Alice about Claire. So Alice says,

01:50:40 Speaker_01
Have you spoken to Claire recently?" And Ben says, yeah, she called me last night. What did she say? Oh, just she's been really busy and she mentioned how expensive everything is these days. Hmm. Anything else? No, not really.

01:50:56 Speaker_01
But reading between the lines, I think Claire needs money. She might need our help. What do you reckon? Yeah, she didn't say it outright, but the way she kept bringing up her bills and how her hours of work have been cut, it just seems pretty obvious.

01:51:10 Speaker_01
Maybe we can have a bit of a whip round. To have a whip round is where you go round your friends and everyone puts a bit of money in, you know. OK, so that was the idiom to read between the lines. And that last library joke.

01:51:26 Speaker_01
OK, that's the end of this interruption. I'll let you get back to Monday's rambling. And here we go. Okay, God, that was worth it, wasn't it? What a great idea. But anyway, I said that there would be some comments from listeners.

01:51:42 Speaker_01
So let me kind of end the episode with these. So a couple of comments that I thought were worth sharing in response to the funny English signs episodes, episode 910 and 911.

01:51:54 Speaker_01
So the first one, remember the sign that says it was from a hotel in Acapulco, I think? The manager has personally passed all the water served here. right?

01:52:06 Speaker_01
What they mean is the manager has personally checked all the water served here but it sounds like the manager has personally just urinated all the water and as you're drinking it if you if you read the sign you would spit all the water out. What?

01:52:24 Speaker_01
And Lamar

01:52:29 Speaker_01
commented this and said ha ha ha about the pass the water sign before you explained it i thought that the manager had personally passed it to the customers as in serving glasses of water to them personally so yeah that would be that'd be good so the manager has personally passed all the water served here you go we can have some water here you are

01:52:50 Speaker_01
every single customer the manager is there here you are let me just individually pass that to you personally here you go everybody there's your water there you are all the water has been personally passed by the manager which is another interpretation of what that sign could have meant and Ludwig

01:53:14 Speaker_01
in response to Funny English Signs Part 2, said this, because of stricter rules. The German word for exit, so they needed to build a new emergency exit in this building that was used by English people, English soldiers.

01:53:43 Speaker_01
So the German word for exit is Ausgang and the German word for emergency is Not. Really? The German word for emergency is Not. N-O-T. Apparently, according to Ludwig. So the word not ausgang was on the sign, meaning not huh?

01:54:08 Speaker_01
Because the German word for exit is ausgang and the German word for emergency is not. So it meant emergency exit, but it said not ausgang. on the sign.

01:54:19 Speaker_01
Our English friends were very surprised that we'd built a second exit at great expense, and then had a sign above it that said, not exit. That would be confusing, wouldn't it? That would be confusing.

01:54:31 Speaker_01
So we just, yeah, we've installed a new exit on the door. It cost a lot of monies. The exit's ready now. Here you go. off. Not exit. Wait a minute, what? That would be confusing, to write not exit on the door of an exit. That would definitely confuse you.

01:54:51 Speaker_01
What about this one from Funny English Signs Part 2? Do you remember this? If this is your first visit to the USSR, you're welcome to it. Because we don't want it.

01:55:02 Speaker_01
Meaning, if this is your first visit to the USSR, you're welcome, or welcome to the USSR, if this is your first visit. And Manuela wrote this and said, how about if it's my second visit to the USSR, am I still welcome? That's a good point.

01:55:20 Speaker_01
If this is your first visit to the USSR, you're welcome. If it's your second visit to the USSR, get stuffed. What are you doing here? Why did you come back? Are you mad? Or maybe it's just like, if this is your first visit to the USSR, you're welcome.

01:55:39 Speaker_01
If it's your second visit to the USSR, how did you get back? How did you get out of the country and then get back in again? And why did you come back? No one knows. Another one, Pasquale, Pascal, Pasquale, Pascal.

01:55:58 Speaker_01
in response to Funny English Signs Part 2. Pascal said, looking forward to listening to the third episode about weird signs. I do have some more Funny English Signs, Funny English Errors episodes coming, by the way, and they'll be coming next year.

01:56:15 Speaker_01
By the way, there's another laundrette sign in Firenze, Italy, which is called Florence in English, right? Florence, you know, the city in Italy.

01:56:26 Speaker_01
And the sign in the laundrette, you know, the place where you can wash your clothes, it says this, you can leave your clothes here and enjoy Florence. And Florence is also a female name. So like, you can leave your clothes here and enjoy Florence.

01:56:40 Speaker_01
Does Florence work here then? Who's Florence? Again, poor Florence. Poor Florence in this situation. If there is a girl called Florence who works there, just leave me alone! So, poor Florence. Unless, of course, she is fine with it.

01:56:53 Speaker_01
In which case, I suppose it's an extra service at this slightly questionable laundrette. OK, we took an odd turn into the world of jokes and library jokes, oddly enough, in a Christmas episode. But why not?

01:57:10 Speaker_01
Maybe, maybe you're at a library this Christmas. I don't know. Would that be a nice thing? It's not normally, is it, what you would do at Christmas. You don't normally go to a library.

01:57:20 Speaker_01
Normally you would be sort of almost obliged to spend time with your family and being merry and jolly and all that stuff, even though a lot of the time you don't really want to be. you're forced to be happy.

01:57:35 Speaker_01
You will be happy and merry and jolly this Christmas, because all the music says that you have to be. But maybe you're the sort of person who would much rather be in a library, In which case, I hope you enjoyed those library jokes.

01:57:52 Speaker_01
But for everyone else, I do wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year when it arrives. As I said, there'll be a couple of other episodes coming between now and the New Year. The World Quiz 1 Yeah, we'll be arriving in a couple of days.

01:58:10 Speaker_01
And then if I can get my act together, then you'll get a Sherlock Holmes story, probably on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.

01:58:18 Speaker_01
And then there might be a pause while I recover, and then we'll be back in action with normal Luke's English Podcast episodes again in 2025 after that. Okay, thank you so much for listening to Luke's English Podcast this year, everybody.

01:58:36 Speaker_01
Thank you very much for being a stakeholder in Luke's English Podcast. And I hope it's been really useful. I hope you've enjoyed spending time with me this year. And yeah, I hope that you've learned a lot of English along the way.

01:58:49 Speaker_01
Keep listening, keep it up. It's all part of the process. and leave a comment. I'd like to get your comments. Just, you know, wish me a happy Christmas. Tell me how the podcast has been for you this year. What are you doing this year at Christmas time?

01:59:05 Speaker_01
Are you in a library? Have you been anywhere near a library? If you've listened all the way up to the end of this episode, mention something about a library. If you can, something about a library in your comment. OK, so that's a challenge for you.

01:59:21 Speaker_01
Can you mention a library somehow? Otherwise, you could just wish me a happy Christmas. That would be nice. And a Merry New Year. We never say Merry New Year. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. OK, seasons greetings and all the very best to you and yours.

01:59:40 Speaker_01
And I will speak to you again in the next episode. But for now, it's just time to say Goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye OK, that is not the end of the episode.

01:59:50 Speaker_01
Even though I have said bye, bye, bye, bye, bye in the usual way, that's not the end of the episode because I wanted to just interrupt for one final time.

01:59:59 Speaker_01
In a moment, I'm going to recap a lot of the vocab that came up in the episode, just quickly recap it just to help you notice it, you know.

02:00:09 Speaker_01
Before I do that, I just want to remind you to send me your answers to the questions I asked at the beginning of the episode. in order to help me prepare my first episode of 2025, which will be about how to learn English with Luke's English Podcast.

02:00:27 Speaker_01
So, those two questions. How has your English improved with this podcast? Can you give me any ways in which the podcast has helped you with your English. If you could do that, that would be great.

02:00:39 Speaker_01
Second question, can you give any recommendations for how to improve your English with this podcast? So any little things that you've done, any specific things you do, maybe you just listen, right?

02:00:52 Speaker_01
Maybe you just listen, but maybe when you're listening, you're noticing things. Maybe you could comment here about the methods that I use, maybe the approach that I use for doing this.

02:01:03 Speaker_01
maybe simply your method is just to listen carefully and just to be engaged with what I'm saying.

02:01:10 Speaker_01
So any comments on those things would be great so that I can share them in that New Year episode so that new listeners can really kind of get some good solid advice and can hear some success stories maybe even you know even in a small way that

02:01:27 Speaker_01
It's all good, it all helps. OK, so as I said before, you can just comment on this episode or send me an email at luketeacher at hotmail dot com. Right, so let me go through a vocabulary list.

02:01:41 Speaker_01
Let me recap some bits of vocab that came up in the episode. I'll do this quickly. You can see these things listed on the PDF for this episode.

02:01:49 Speaker_01
And also you'll see on the PDF some sort of vocabulary quiz that you can use to just check your learning as well. So this episode of the podcast offers plenty of interesting vocabulary phrases that you can notice and pick up. Here are some of them.

02:02:02 Speaker_01
So the first one was to touch base with someone, right? This means to check in with someone and just talk about the basic things that you're doing in your work at that moment. It's often used in a professional setting.

02:02:17 Speaker_01
I said, to touch base means to just check in with people to talk about certain important foundational things. For example, you might just say, I just wanted to touch base and see how the project is going.

02:02:29 Speaker_01
And with these rambling episodes, it gives me a chance to just touch base with you and see where we are with the podcast at this moment in time and just check in with you, see how your English is going and give you an idea of what we've been doing and what we will be doing in the next few episodes.

02:02:47 Speaker_01
The second expression is to take stock of something, to take stock. Now this expression means to assess a situation and see what you have. It's often used when evaluating resources or progress.

02:03:01 Speaker_01
So taking stock is kind of like counting the things you have or seeing what you have. In terms of resources,

02:03:09 Speaker_01
This could be used by a company, for example if you, I mean I've given the example for this expression before, which is that I used to work in a music shop and every year we had to do a big stock check where we had to take stock of all of our stock.

02:03:24 Speaker_01
So the stock in this case was all of the DVDs and CDs and other products that we sold in the shop and we had to literally count them all. so that the accounting department got solid figures for exactly how much stock we had in the shop.

02:03:39 Speaker_01
A really important part of running a business, you've got to know what you have in your warehouse. You need to know what you have so you can calculate the value of all of your assets. So you would take stock of what you have.

02:03:57 Speaker_01
In terms of a podcast, I suppose, if I take stock of where we are, it just means, like I said before, just understanding, you know, where we are in this particular moment, what we've been doing recently, what we're going to be doing, just assessing and accounting for, seeing what we have and where we are.

02:04:16 Speaker_01
That's to take stock of something. What's going on? Where are we? What's happening? Let me just take stock for a moment.

02:04:24 Speaker_01
The quote from earlier on, I said, to take stock means to take account or count the number of things you have to see where you are, to see what you've got right now. For example, and here's an example, another example.

02:04:39 Speaker_01
After the storm, they took stock of the damage. So there's been a big storm, and then you go outside and have a look at what's been damaged. Maybe the roof of your house has been damaged.

02:04:49 Speaker_01
You need to take stock of the damage, meaning have a look at what it is. Maybe count how much damage there is. At the end of the year, I like to take stock of where this podcast is at this point in time. Third expression, to go down well with someone.

02:05:05 Speaker_01
I've mentioned this a few times. This describes something that is well received or enjoyed by an audience. You can also say, it didn't go down well, or it went down badly, which is the opposite. The quote, normally the story episodes go down well.

02:05:21 Speaker_01
They're quite well received by people. People seem to like them. For example, the new policy went down well with employees. Or the songs went down really well at the party.

02:05:37 Speaker_01
OK, by the way, you can, as I said before, you can check these things in the PDF. I think if you're watching the video version, this stuff is not on the screen, but you can just check the PDF and all this stuff is written there.

02:05:49 Speaker_01
Fourth expression is to go through the motions. So I was talking about Paul McCartney performing on stage and I was saying that maybe to an extent he is just going through the motions, meaning

02:05:59 Speaker_01
just kind of like doing the same thing that he always does and perhaps not putting as much passion or spontaneity into it, he's just kind of repeating the same things he always does.

02:06:11 Speaker_01
Which would be a criticism to say that, that he's just going through the motions, meaning just kind of doing the routine things. So going through the motions means to do something routinely, perhaps lacking enthusiasm and lacking spontaneity.

02:06:27 Speaker_01
So I said, he's kind of going through the motions, just doing the things he always does. For example, I got the impression he was just going through the motions.

02:06:36 Speaker_01
Another example would be, after the death of his wife, he just went through the motions of living.

02:06:42 Speaker_01
This is quite a sad example, but imagine a man who's lost his wife and for a year or two, he just goes through the motions, meaning just sort of repeats his normal routines, but there's no real joy or enthusiasm or much spark or spontaneity going on because he's suffering from grief.

02:07:00 Speaker_01
You know, for a couple of years, I was just going through the motions. Or on stage, he was just going through the motions. I didn't really feel like he was really fully engaged in what he was doing.

02:07:12 Speaker_01
I think, to an extent, Paul probably does go through the motions a little bit on stage, but I forgive him for it because he's in his 80s and you can't do something brand new and spontaneous and super enthusiastic and passionate every single time.

02:07:24 Speaker_01
You've got to pace yourself in those situations. He was a bit spontaneous at times. There was a point where he said, he was like, how are you doing tonight? And the audience was like, yeah, like that. You having a good time? Yeah.

02:07:41 Speaker_01
And I didn't mention actually earlier that the arena where we saw him, the La Défense Arena, is a big place. It's, you know, a well-designed place, but it wasn't designed for music concerts. It was designed for sporting events.

02:07:58 Speaker_01
And there was like Olympic swimming and stuff there in the summer. But it's not designed for sporting events and I've seen bands there before I saw the Rolling Stones there a few years ago as well It was exactly the same story.

02:08:09 Speaker_01
The sound quality is Terrible in the arena and which was the worst thing about the concert. It was really disappointing that the sound was bad It's a big big

02:08:20 Speaker_01
place with a high ceiling and the sound bounces back and there's a lot of reverb and a real lack of clarity in the sound because it hasn't been acoustically treated in any way.

02:08:32 Speaker_01
There are other venues in the city which are better and probably smaller and they have some level of acoustic treatment so that the sound doesn't bounce around too much but the sound was not good. Why am I saying that? Can't remember.

02:08:49 Speaker_01
I'm sure I had a purpose for saying that. Oh, that's it. So he was saying how you doing tonight? It was like yay. You having a good time?

02:08:56 Speaker_01
Yay, and he said and then he then he said and isn't this a fantastic arena and then silence No one cheered for that because nobody likes that venue. It doesn't sound good. It's not a great venue So people don't really care about it. There's no

02:09:14 Speaker_01
no particular affection for that place. So, isn't this a great venue? Nothing. And he just went, all right, okay, cool, cool, all right, cool, and just carried on. It was quite good, he rolled with it pretty well.

02:09:28 Speaker_01
Number five, another expression, to give someone a heads up. I just want to give you a heads up about what's coming on Luke's English Podcast. So to give someone a heads up is to give someone advance notice or warning about something.

02:09:42 Speaker_01
For example, I just wanted to let you know just wanted to give you a heads up That you've got a new premium series available now, so if you give someone a heads up It's like it something that makes them put their head up like huh? What is that?

02:09:58 Speaker_01
you know, just so that they are aware of something. Just to give you a heads up, you've got a new premium series which is available now. I don't know if you noticed it, but just a heads up, it's there, it's waiting for you right now.

02:10:10 Speaker_01
Another example, I just wanted to give you a heads up that the meeting has been moved to tomorrow. So it's to kind of like just do something to give someone, to make someone notice or to maybe warn someone about something. Could be good, could be bad.

02:10:25 Speaker_01
Number six, To sink your teeth into something. To sink your teeth into something. This describes engaging with something enthusiastically and with gusto.

02:10:35 Speaker_01
For example, to sink your teeth in a new episode of the podcast or sink your teeth into a good book. Because, you know, Dracula went to the library because he wanted to sink his teeth into a good book.

02:10:50 Speaker_01
Or another example, I can't wait to sink my teeth into that new Stephen King novel. Often used with books, could be for other things. Number seven is to go through a book, means to read a book from start to finish, right? To go all the way through it.

02:11:04 Speaker_01
But a ghost would also go through a book, meaning pass through it. To go through a book obviously is to go from the first page all the way through to the last page, meaning to read it. For example, I went through the book in one sitting.

02:11:15 Speaker_01
I loved that book. I went through it in one sitting. Number eight is to check out a book. So in libraries, you check in a book and check out a book. When you borrow it, you check it out.

02:11:27 Speaker_01
which doesn't mean just have a look at it but literally take it to the librarian and they stamp it and then you you can take it away you check out the book check the book out and then when you return it they stamp it again with that sound

02:11:46 Speaker_01
They stamp the... No, it's normally just a small rubber stamp. They stamp the book, you check it back in. Right, so check out and check in a book. Number nine was overdue. The book is overdue, meaning when the book has not been returned by the due date.

02:12:04 Speaker_01
It's considered to be overdue. The due date is when something is supposed to happen. Right. Payment is due on the first of the month. The payment is supposed to happen on the first of the month. The baby is due at the beginning of July. The baby is due.

02:12:20 Speaker_01
supposed to be born at the beginning of July. The book was due to be returned to the library at this time but you know it's late so it's overdue. Number 10 is large print. Print refers to the the text in the book. Books printed with larger fonts.

02:12:38 Speaker_01
Large print to aid readability are called large print books. You could have the large print section Okay, where does the library book, where does the library keep books about Bigfoot in the large print section? Yeah.

02:12:54 Speaker_01
Number 11, it's impossible to put down. If a book is impossible to put down, it means you can't stop reading it. Okay, this book about anti-gravity is impossible to put down. Number 12, A Cliffhanger.

02:13:06 Speaker_01
This is a story that ends with a suspenseful moment, leaving the audience eager to know what happens next. And you'll find out next week on Luke's English Podcast. Dun-dun-dun, there's a cliffhanger, a cliffhanger ending. Number 13, to ring a bell.

02:13:23 Speaker_01
It rings a bell. You know, do you know Jane Simpson? The name rings a bell, I'm not sure. So if something rings a bell, it means it sounds familiar.

02:13:34 Speaker_01
It sounds like you know it, but you can't quite place it, can't quite put your finger on it, but it certainly seems familiar. For example, well, the name rings a bell, but I can't remember where I met her.

02:13:47 Speaker_01
In this episode, I used this phrase in a joke about Pavlov's dog, which famously involved ringing a bell. When Pavlov rung the bell, the dog expected food and started salivating. That famous experiment, Pavlov's dog.

02:14:08 Speaker_01
Have you heard about Pavlov's dog experiment? Not sure, but it rings a bell. Yeah, okay. Then there was also Schrodinger's cat as well.

02:14:18 Speaker_01
Schrodinger's cat is the famous thought experiment in quantum mechanics involving a hypothetical cat in a box with a device that has a 50% chance of killing it.

02:14:26 Speaker_01
The idea is that until the box is opened and observed, the cat is considered both alive and dead simultaneously. It's not about actual cats, but illustrates the concept of superposition in quantum mechanics. And you're going, yeah, I know.

02:14:41 Speaker_01
For example, do you have any books on Pavlov's dog and Schrödinger's cat? Well, we've got one. I think it rings a bell, but I'm not sure if it's here or not.

02:14:51 Speaker_01
It's ironic, though, isn't it, that the cat in the box, this cat in a box situation is supposed to illustrate something about superpositions in quantum mechanics, right? That's ironic, because that cat is definitely not in a superposition.

02:15:08 Speaker_01
Let me just say that joke again. It's in a terrible position, isn't it? It's not a super position at all. Stuck in a box with a radioactive atom and a vial of poison. Good thing this is just a thought experiment, isn't it? And it didn't actually happen.

02:15:25 Speaker_01
Although, again, you've got to wonder why Mr Schrodinger spent so much time fantasizing about putting cats in very dangerous boxes. Bit weird. But that's quantum mechanics for you, isn't it? I suppose it's all a bit weird. Anyway, number 15 is stories.

02:15:43 Speaker_01
S-T-O-R-E-Y-S. This is the British English spelling of stories in a building. So in American English, they use the same spelling as stories in a book. S-T-O-R-I-E-S. But in British English, S-T-O-R-E-Y-S. Okay? Sorry, everybody.

02:16:03 Speaker_01
You know, that's just the way we do it in Britain. We spell things the proper way, and then we apologise for it. Sorry, everyone. So, a five-storey building has five floors. Why are libraries the tallest buildings in the world?

02:16:17 Speaker_01
Because they have so many stories. Yes, OK. To read between the lines, there's that expression again. The idiom means to understand the implied or unstated meaning of something, while requiring careful interpretation of subtle clues and context.

02:16:33 Speaker_01
For example, she didn't say it directly, but I could read between the lines and I knew that she was unhappy. All right. All right. Reading between the lines, I think Claire needs our help.

02:16:46 Speaker_01
Hopefully, listeners, you have not needed to read between the lines in this episode that everything has been clearly stated for you, including that request for your comments and messages for the upcoming New Year episode that I'm going to do in January.

02:17:02 Speaker_01
OK, but that's the end of this episode properly now. That's it. We're done now. And I hope you enjoyed it. And I just want to miss you. Miss you. Miss you. I just want to rush it. I'll start that again.

02:17:16 Speaker_01
I just want to wish you a Merry Christmas like Jose Feliciano. I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas. You know that song? Feliz Navidad. Feliz Navidad. I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas.

02:17:30 Speaker_01
He spends a lot of time in that song saying I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas. I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas. I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart. Just wish us a Merry Christmas already. I know you want to, just do it.

02:17:47 Speaker_01
If you want to do it, Jose, just do it. When no one's stopping you. So, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart. So, Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart. I hope you enjoy the episode.

02:18:00 Speaker_01
Thank you for listening to Luke's English Podcast in 2024. I hope you enjoy the World News Quiz, which will be coming in a few days, and I'll speak to you then. All right? But for now, it's just time for me to say, finally, goodbye. Bye.

02:18:21 Speaker_00
Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information visit teachaluke.co.uk

02:18:40 Speaker_01
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02:18:46 Speaker_01
You'll get regular premium episodes with stories, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation teaching from me, and the usual moments of humour and fun.

02:18:55 Speaker_01
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