914. A Midwinter Ramble ❄️ Luke’s English Podcast | Luke's ENGLISH Podcast - Learn British English with Luke Thompson

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For more information, visit teachaluke .co .uk.

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

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.

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 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 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 with various bits of vocabulary from the episode summarized and explained briefly and there 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, 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.

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.

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, I always like to do an episode with advice about learning English and how my podcast can help.

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.

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, send me your comments, messages, emails, okay?

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?

In what ways has your English got better by listening to this podcast?

Okay, 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.

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?

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 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 and it might even be the case that they took an IELTS test at one point and then listen to my podcast a lot and then took IELTS again and their listening

score definitely improved.

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.

Have you got any ideas from me or from any of my guests which work for you?

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

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.

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 if you learn anything else about the world even beyond English from the podcast or 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 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?

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?

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, 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.

Now, you don't need to give a fully detailed learning method or some fully realised system of learning.

You don't need to go that far.

You can if you want, 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.

So I'm looking forward 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 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.

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.

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 if you're watching this on YouTube.

You could just simply leave a comment under this episode.

You could leave a comment on my website teacher Luke dot co dot 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.

You can comment on this episode on Spotify or you could just send me an email at Luke teacher at Hotmail dot com Luke L UK E.

Because that's my name.

It's not luck. It's not Luke's as well.

That's not my name.

Some people write to me and they say dear Luke's literally dear.

L UK 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.

No, it's possessive.

Isn't it? L UK E apostrophe.

Yes, that's a possessive.

Anyway, so Luke L UK E teacher at Hotmail dot com.

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 websites Spotify or email if you're going to if you're thinking of writing to me don't feel pressure to write something perfect.

Okay, just any tips or advice or comments are welcome.

Any small bits of info, 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 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 to so thank you for your comments.

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.

So that's wonderful.

So if you have commented emailed message 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 reviews as well reviews on Apple Podcasts also really helped to promote the show on the Apple platform, which is really important for a podcast.

So if you were thinking about like, I don't know offering me a Christmas present this year simply a good positive review, if you think I deserve it, of course on Apple Podcasts or any other platform would really help 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, 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.

So I'm going to now stop my rambling here so that I can go back and start rambling again.

Okay. 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?

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. 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.

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. Merry Christmas, everybody.

And also Happy New Year, season's greetings.

And I hope that you're having a genuinely lovely time this Christmas, even if you don't celebrate Christmas, even if you don't even recognize 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.

Even if you're listening to this in a different time completely, which some people do, 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.

I think it's episode 914 and it's like, I don't know, June or something and you're like, alright, I'll listen to the next episode then 914, the one I haven't, the next one I haven't heard.

And oh, it's a Christmas episode, but never mind.

Yeah, everyone's welcome.

It doesn't matter where you are.

It doesn't matter what you believe, what you think, what you look like, 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.

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 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 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.

And as a result, they don't listen to podcasts, you know, 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, a distinct December dip, in fact.

And it's known as the December dip in podcasting circles.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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 actually I want to do it is the right time to do a rambling episode.

And so I'll do a rambling episode for Christmas.

It's a tradition. 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 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, 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.

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?

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.

Similarly, you know, 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 and in terms of business situations, if your boss says, can 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 the how your current project is going and just establish that everything on a basic level is going okay.

So I want to touch base with you in these rambling episodes just to kind of what how do I put this first of all, it allows me to perhaps a look back on recent episodes and kind of take stock of where I am where we are in the in the episode in our episode list in the kind of flow of episodes 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.

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 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.

In fact, well, let me do that now.

Let me just talk about what's going on right now in podcast land in Lepland.

So this I think is episode 914 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 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 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?

He knows I hate snowmen.

What you know why is it always why is it always men?

Why don't we have snow women?

They're so sexist. I had no idea what kind of scandal outrage or offense 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 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.

It's like don't be ridiculous.

You'll be 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 how 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.

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.

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 so it's now it's now Friday which is a few days after I recorded this episode which was Monday 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.

Now, wait a minute.

I know 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.

Anyway, sorry. So I recorded this on Monday published the snowman on Tuesday, right?

And now I'm recording this interruption bit on Friday.

Okay, 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.

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.

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 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 any way right in terms of the episodes 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.

Okay, and 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.

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.

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 vocab explanations and bits of language teaching as well.

And the stories provide a really good context in which to explore bits of language.

Comments that 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.

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 who chose to scare the writer to terrify this writer in order to help him overcome his writer's block.

So it was some sort of plan by a family member like, you know, Dave is going to stay in the cabin in the 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.

So I'm going to do is I'm going to go and sleep in a tent in the forest.

Yes, sub zero temperatures, but it's all right.

This is how much I care about Dave.

I'm willing to freeze to death at night just for this and in the night what I'm going to do is I'm going to 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 it's going to shock him out of his writer's block.

So that's that's the idea 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 some people thought the snowman was like 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.

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.

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.

You know, that's maybe that's what it was.

I suppose 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 snow people the people of the people of the snow.

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.

ISMS is MS if you like SMS is MS.

Yeah, I it's kind of like snowball text messaging is MS.

Okay, that's a really bad joke.

But it certainly brings new meaning to the expression sliding into your dms, doesn't it?

Hmm sliding in it because it's made of snow.

But anyway, I guess snowmen have no internet connection or in fact, no winter net connection.

No winter net connection.

Yeah, there were some jokes.

Did you notice terrible jokes?

Yes, is MS not SMS sliding into your dms.

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 in here.

I just thought I'd slide into your dms and start maybe flirting with you anyway.

But I guess snowmen have no and they have no internet connection.

No winter net, no internet, no internet, 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 renting it out to guests.

So maybe this snowman was built by the owner of the Airbnb because maybe they double booked the cabin 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 some people mentioned that maybe the writer just imagined it all and that maybe exhaustion and stress were causing him 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 and if you're burning the candle at both ends, which is a 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.

So 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.

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 even, you start to get paranoid delusions or something.

So that's maybe what happened to his escape 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.

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.

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 kids story called The Snowman.

It's a very beautiful sort of graphic novel comic book.

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.

There's snow everywhere.

So he's delighted. He rushes outside.

He puts 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, 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.

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.

And then in the middle of the night, the boy wakes up because he's excited.

It's Christmas time and it's been snowing and he's excited about it all.

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.

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

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.

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 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 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 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 in the boy meets father Christmas.

He has a wonderful time and then then they realize that the son is about to come up.

So the snowman quickly flies the boy all the way home and just as the sun is rising the boy gets inside the snowman goes back to his position standing in front of the house and the boy goes to bed and you know goes to sleep and then when he wakes up the sun is the sun is up at the sun is shining and he's

obviously excited to see his snowman again and he rushes out.

He gets his boots on and stuff and he rushes outside and spoiler alert.

The snowman is 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 sort of beautiful as well.

So this this listeners suggested that maybe maybe the snowman in my snowman story was the same snowman 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 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 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.

You know if maybe it was just a dream maybe it was just a dream, but you would remember that right you would remember like you would if that was you and in the middle of the night you look out the window.

Ah snowman must wonder what that's doing there.

You wouldn't think 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 and 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.

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 it's is it you is it could it be you?

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.

I'll be back again.

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 well, what else have we had recently?

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 bits and Bob's three funny English signs parts one and two which went down really well.

Didn't really get picked up by the YouTube algorithm, but nevermind that I think the episodes were well received because of all the comments.

I got people got some people had nice responses to them saying that they made them laugh.

There's the scary episode about the threat of AI to human civilization, which is just mind -boggling bits and Bob's part to the rambling episode about catching a cold and traveling with children, which was a sample from Luke's English podcast premium the PDF for that by the way, some people asked where's the PDF

what that was only available for premium people.

You know, then there was the telltale heart Edgar Allen Poe and you know other stuff.

So that's where we are.

That's what I've had.

I've published recently, but what's going to happen over the next couple of weeks.

So you got this episode which is just great.

Isn't it? I mean this is it's already going really well.

This one. I think it's just excellent.

What else on Wednesday.

So that's the day after tomorrow.

I'm going to speak to Steven Devin chenzi and we're going to do a world quiz 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.

Not doubt over whether I'll get the questions right or wrong but doubt over just that slight sense of 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 the for the 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.

It just feels weird that am I can I talk about the world?

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.

That's 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.

Anyway, I'm going to talk to Steven the day after tomorrow and then hastily put together the episode and put that up before the end of the year.

So that will be kind of a bonus midweek thing.

It'll probably arrive on Friday I suppose 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.

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 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 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.

So it depends how much stuff I managed to get this week 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 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 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.

You're going to 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 just want to interrupt this episode again for a second time.

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.

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 New Year's Eve 31st of January New Year's Day first of 31st of January 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 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.

So the news quiz the world news quiz with Stephen from send7 podcast will be the last episode of the year and it'll arrive later this week.

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.

So that will be the next one as well that 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.

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.

It's quite epic. It's about two hours long, but it's you know, it covers lots of, you know, 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.

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.

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 and at least a year you can see how she's changed you know in that time and how her English has become even more sophisticated.

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.

All right, so let's get back to the episode.

Here we go. Ryan Reynolds here from it mobile with the price of just about everything going up during inflation.

We thought we bring our prices down.

So to help us we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing.

Mid -mobile unlimited premium wireless and ready to get 30 30 minute 30 minute get 20 20 20 minute get 20 20 minute get 15 15 15 15 just 15 bucks a month.

So give it a try at mid -mobile .com slash switch $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month new customers on first three month plan only taxes and fees extra speeds lower above 40 gigabytes detail.

Hello premium subscribers.

How you doing? I'm talking to the premium subscribers now.

Hello there. Now most of you if your premium subscribers.

Hello everyone, by the way, the everyone else you can still listen to this bit.

You can 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 could still listen to this.

Okay, that's fine. Just have a 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 by the way, some of you some of you premium subscribers you're 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.

And I think that 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? Am I right in thinking that you 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, it's very simple.

Just sign into your account.

When you signed up you you created an account at a cast dot -com.

You received an email.

You should have got an email welcoming you welcoming you into the process.

But if you if you kind of read the email quickly or you missed it or it went into your spam or something like that.

You need to go into your a cast account.

Okay, so just to sign in it's teacher Luke dot co dot UK slash account teacher Luke dot co dot UK slash account that will take you to the place to sign into your a cast account.

And if you want you can you know create a new password if you can't remember what your password was 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 it must it there's something missing that people miss that email or something that people just don't realize 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 teacher Luke dot co dot UK slash account sign into your a cast 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 listen to podcasts.

They do it using an app on their phone and that's why the whole a cast plus system is designed to be used on a phone.

You can use it on your computer.

You could add any P premium to YouTube music and even if you don't have YouTube premium or anything you can still use YouTube music to listen to any P premium.

Right if you need more information if you need more information what go to teacher Luke dot co dot UK slash premium info.

Yes teacher Luke dot co you have you know this already.

Yes, because you say it about a million times every year.

Okay teacher Luke dot co dot UK slash premium info.

That's where you get all the info you see and teacher Luke dot co dot UK slash account.

That's where you can sign into your your a cast plus account where you can manage your subscription to Luke's English podcast premium including add the episodes to a podcast app on your phone.

Whoo. Okay. Now if you've done that and you're a just a happy premium subscriber then just 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 P 65 parts one to four.

It is available now and you'll find it between episode 912 and 913 in your podcast premium podcast list.

Okay. There is P 65 parts one to four.

It's called from the bookshelf 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 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 and then part four pronunciation.

I put all the vocab 25 vocab items which I picked out of part one and then reviewed in parts two and three all those vocab items are dealt with in a story in part four 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.

Okay, so that's P 65 parts one to four 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 it if find the episodes in the list between 912 and 913.

Okay. As he has he stopped talking about any P premium now.

Yes, that's it. I've now stopped talking about any P premium.

But you're still talking about it.

No, no, no, that's it now.

That's it. Okay. So yes listeners and.

Premium subscribers, sorry.

You're going to get more episodes this this month than you normally would even though I probably shouldn't be doing that because there'll be some people who just missed 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.

Okay, actually personally me personally as a podcast listener, I actually really like it when my favorite podcasters release Christmas episodes when they release new content at Christmas.

I actually really love that.

Because that's one of my favorite things is listening to my favorite podcast episodes or listening to my favorite podcasts at Christmas time when there's a spare moment when 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 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.

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 or maybe like that night in bed when you're cozily wrapped up in bed.

It's quite nice to listen to a bit of a podcast episode 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 during a quiet moment during the Christmas break and it's quite a nice to be listening to this at Christmas time then great.

And 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.

It's not very Christmasy 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.

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.

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 and it's so gray and dark at the moment in mid -December.

It's so gray and it's like 4pm on a Monday afternoon in mid -December.

So dark and so gray that I can't actually have any of the lights on in this room.

If I put a light on behind me or something it completely ruins the the camera settings or something because the camera can't deal with the fact that the room is brighter.

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.

So that's why it seems to be very dark and not very festive in this room.

It's just like this is the only way I can do this without the video ending up looking really bad.

But anyway, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas everybody.

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 going to have the December dip.

What else? I saw I went to see Paul McCartney in concert a couple of weeks ago.

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.

It was great. I have to say it was really great.

You know, just see Paul up there on stage, you know, doing his thing and he's it's incredible.

He is 80, what? 82, 83 years old now and it's amazing that someone of that advanced stage 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 that.

He's traveling around the world.

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.

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, you know, and he's 82 or 83 and he's actually out on the stage just actually doing the show 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?

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 and it did have that feeling.

I felt like it was amazing.

Although there were how many people I don't know 10 ,000 something like that maybe more.

I have no idea loads 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, but oh you turn around there's just 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 relaxed.

He's friendly. He's very likable.

He's extremely likable as a presence 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 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.

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 guy has had an incredible career.

He kind of got to the top the top of 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.

So absolutely amazing.

I mean, you know, you know that he's kind of maybe to an extent he's going through the motions, 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.

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.

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, you can't necessarily do something brand new fresh and exciting and different every single time right 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 organised in order to maintain your stamina, but it's impressive.

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.

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 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 from behind.

So they I think they probably mix some of the drummer's 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 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.

He's not out of key or anything.

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 things to do like this one track in particular being for the benefit of Mr.

And to be honest, I think it's only in the 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.

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 to you know, he wants everyone to see 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 83 years old and he 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.

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?

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, I could ramble some more about that but I think that's probably enough 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.

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.

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.

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.

Well, they're like, Luke, doing a live podcast in Paris now not interested.

It didn't, 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.

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 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.

But for me, I was thinking this is great and after I'd recorded I thought that went really well.

I 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 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 of particular.

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?

Again, it's probably just my it's probably that difference between expectation and and what actually happened and then 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 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 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.

But also this year for Christmas, we're doing the ambassadors the British ambassadors Christmas Party, which is a party a big party at the British ambassadors residence in Paris.

So, hmm, you know, Ferrero Rocher where you're really spoiling us at the ambassadors party at the ambassadors reception the guests, you know that advert I've talked about it lots of times before have you ever seen that advert for that those chocolates Ferrero Rocher with Mr Ambassador with these Ferrero

Rocher you're really spoiling us and I'm delicious.

So we're going to be at the ambassadors party playing our songs in front of over a hundred people.

So we've been practicing practicing and we're doing a list of like songs that hopefully people will enjoy including stuff like we're doing get lucky Daft Punk Pharrell Williams Knoll Rogers, you know get lucky 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 who is going to be visiting the British Embassy and the ambassadors residence tomorrow?

And we're doing we're playing get lucky at the party the next night.

Who is it? Who's going to be visiting?

You're thinking is it going to be King Charles?

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 think it is it Mick Jagger Luke?

No Mick Jagger was there for the party during the Olympics opening ceremony.

It's not Mick Jagger.

Who is it? Well, it's it's Pharrell Williams Pharrell Williams is going to be at the Embassy tomorrow.

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 if it would be awesome if he could if he was there at the party and he would jump up on stage and sing along with us, 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 we could say we got unlucky.

In fact, we got unlucky with that one.

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 when you imagine that we came up with a name for the band.

We've called ourselves the diplomats.

Which is pretty good.

I think it's we're quite happy with that.

You know, it's kind of pretty solid as a name for a band.

The diplomats, especially since, you know, it's at the Embassy and the guys, the other guys in the band work at the Embassy in a sort of diplomatic capacity.

We were thinking of maybe calling ourselves the ambassadors but the diplomats is what we've gone for.

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 an in some ambassadors residence, but no the diplomats.

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.

God, it's dark in this room.

It is so dark. I'm going to actually 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.

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 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.

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.

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?

How's the 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.

But anyway, stick around for that so you can see which bits of vocab, which words and phrases I'll actually be summarizing for you because you 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 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.

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.

So although we did get lucky in the sense that we played the song, we didn't get lucky because Pharrell 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 anyway, I just wanted to describe what it was like.

So the ambassadors party.

Yes, it took place at the ambassadors residence.

So this is the British ambassador to France who lives at this very fancy building 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, 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, 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.

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.

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.

It went well. Yes, we went down well.

You could say and we did, you know of 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.

Then we just very quickly mentioned 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 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 at the who work at the ambassadors residence plus, you know, their wives girlfriends and friends

and stuff. 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 we also did Lady by Mojo if you remember that one, 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, 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.

So the scene. Yeah, I mean when you enter the building when I talked before about Ferrero Rocher, 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.

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, but they used to advertise Ferrero Rocher in this funny cheesy advert where it was a scene at an ambassadors reception in some fancy ambassadors residence

somewhere in the world and the ambassadors reception the guests are always treated to the finest, you know, finest things and there are there are butlers holding silver trays piled up with Ferrero Rocher chocolates and you see people taking them and you know, there's a glamorous woman who comes up to

the ambassador and says, Monsieur ambassador these with these Ferrero Rocher.

He really are spoiling us.

And there's not kind of a posh guy who eats one and he goes, you know, Magnifique or something like that.

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 is 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.

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, 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.

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.

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.

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.

I did a kind of super fast walking tour of London on a Saturday afternoon, which was incredibly busy with tourists 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, and then I took an underground train to Marleybone Station.

And so that's about an hour's worth and I just haven't edited it all together.

It takes quite a long time to edit those together because it'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, 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. 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 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 and I videoed it and there were four microphones, all picking up, 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 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.

I don't know how I'm going to deal with it because two of the microphones cut out after about 60 minutes.

So there's about half an hour at the end of the episode where only two of the microphones are working.

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, 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.

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 the it's like an action cam like a GoPro.

It's an Insta360 action camera 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.

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, it's that's going to be annoying.

I need to try and fix that.

So I suppose what I'll have to do is should 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, 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 but it's so great to go back sometimes and I've 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. But I also got to spend a couple of days in London, especially 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 even though there was a storm.

There was like high wind and rain.

I just love 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.

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 fueled me up for a great day of walking around different parts of London.

Some of my favorite 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 and I spent some time at the British Library which is just next to St.

Pancras Station near King's Cross Station on the Euston Road.

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. 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 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.

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 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 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 full of atmosphere because you're in the presence of all these, you know, 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 it's just a really great place.

I recommend it. I recommend going there.

There's they've got a good bookshop.

They've got, you know, 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 and I thought right, I'll tell you what, I think I'll end this episode.

By just sharing a few library based jokes when I will I end here some library jokes.

Actually, I've got some comments as well.

That reminds me I've got some 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.

And so this 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 in London when I had lunch in the pub and, you know, enjoyed some some some beer from the bar with my lunch and just are just amazing.

Anyway, library jokes or 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 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 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. 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.

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 there are some good bits of English that you can learn from them.

Okay, so first one is this 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 Pavlov's dog?

I've 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 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 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 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.

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.

Schrodinger's cat is something that some theoretical mental exercise which is supposed to prove something about I don't know or hold on.

Let me try and okay a few moments later.

Okay. I've asked chat GPT can you explain Schrodinger's cat briefly and it's it's taking its time thinking about that one very slowly responding.

Yeah. A thought experiment.

That's what I was looking for.

That's the expression I was looking for.

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 which makes me feel a little bit better because I was struggling to explain Schrodinger's cat too,

but apparently chat GPT is finding it hard work as well.

It's like such a slow response.

Normally chat GPT is like bang.

Yes, I'll do it. I'll do it.

I've done it before you've even are finished asking the question.

It's like chat GPT could you be done it already?

Not this time. It's taking its time.

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 imagine a cat placed in a sealed box with a radioactive atom that has a 50 % chance of decaying in a given time to 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.

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 chat GPT is just literally one word every few seconds.

Apparently this is difficult for chat GPT to do either that or maybe everyone else on the Internet is asking chat GPT to do other things like chat GPT.

Can you write my can you write my midterm essay please or chat GPT?

Can you can you tell me stupid joke or chat GPT?

Can you can you write all of my Christmas cards for me?

And chat GPT is like wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

I'm trying to explain Schrodinger's cat over here.

Just keep hold on a minute.

Okay, so the key idea is 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. 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 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.

It's not in a superposition.

It's in a really bad position.

It's near there's nothing super about that.

It's like the cats like this is not a superposition.

I'm stuck in a box with a radioactive atom and a vial of poison.

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.

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.

Basically, the cats in a box.

Is it dead or not? We don't know.

It's got 50 % chance of being dead, 50 % chance of being alive.

The only way you can find out is by opening the box.

So the cat is 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?

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.

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 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 they'd like.

Did you actually do it?

No, no, no, no, no.

What? Of course I didn't.

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?

And the librarian says, well, it rings a bell, but I'm not sure if it's here or not.

Okay. Right. The others are slightly less complex.

Second joke, why are libraries the tallest buildings in the world?

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.

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.

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?

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 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. 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.

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.

You could, 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.

Okay, fourth, why can't you go to the world's biggest library?

Why can't you go to the world's biggest library because it's always overbooked?

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.

It's overbooked, but also obviously overbooked means that there are no tickets left.

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 normally it would be the non -fiction section because you got fiction books, books which are made up then not true stories and then you got the non -fiction section, which is where you find, you know, all of the factual content.

But this librarian fell over because he was in the non -friction section, meaning it was slippery.

Friction is when something rubs against something.

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 there's friction, but if you're in the non -friction section, which is not a real section in the 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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

Anyway, why did the ghost keep coming back to the library because he went through his books too quickly?

He ate 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?

Be they stamp it, but 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 person who checked out a hundred books?

Well, she said don't overdo it.

Don't overdo it. Oh, God.

That's not good. 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. Take it easy.

But don't overdo it.

Overdo. If a book is overdue, it means that it should have been returned previously, but you still got it.

Maybe like two three days ago was the deadline for when the book had to be returned.

That was the due date and you 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 overdo it.

Don't overdo it. Yeah, number nine.

Where does the library keep books about Bigfoot?

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 it doesn't exist, right?

Why is it always UFOs and Bigfoot and stuff?

Why is that only Americans in like the middle of America, the United States?

Have you ever seen like a map with red dots for UFO sightings in the world?

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's just red dots everywhere.

United States of America, I mean.

Anyway, where does the library keep books about Bigfoot?

In the large print section.

Large print, large footprint, footprint in the large print, print of the book, the letters.

Okay, 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.

The reference, the reference to 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. 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, 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 being hunted by robots or The Matrix where the humans are enslaved by artificial intelligence.

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.

It's the sort of thing you would say to mean that was trendy in 1984.

You know, it's a bit like saying, 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. Dystopian books are so 1984.

Number 13, that book about anti -gravity is impossible to put down.

That book about anti -gravity is impossible to put down.

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.

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 it's because of anti -gravity.

And number 14, a man goes into a library and asks for a book on cliffhangers.

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 like the episode ends with a moment where the character is hanging from a cliff, hanging over, 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?

You know, it's like an in some old old episode of Batman or something when it used to be a TV show in the 1960s, the end of the episode you'd see Batman and Robin hanging off the hanging off a cliff.

You know, will Batman and Robin, you know, fall from the cliff or will they be rescued?

Find out in next week's episode of Batman.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, 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.

Find out next week on Luke's English podcast.

No, no, no, no, the joke goes.

Man goes into a library and ask for a book on cliffhangers and the librarian says and then nothing because you have to wait and see.

Hello again, I'm just interrupting the episode for a fourth time because I realized 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.

So this final joke is this.

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.

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 to an in understanding what people are saying or what people are writing.

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?

Okay. 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.

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.

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 in a 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.

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 you'd end up reading double, right?

You don't it would be twice as long.

It would take it a very it would take a very long time to read the book because you're not only are you reading the lines, but you're also reading between the lines literally.

You know, this is quite a good joke because, you know, mystery books do require you to read between the lines, right?

So 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.

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 humor from it.

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.

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.

She kept talking about how everything's really expensive and didn't say it specifically but kind of reading between the lines.

I think that I think she needs some money.

We maybe we need to help her.

Let me illustrate that further with a couple of dialogues.

So the first dialogue.

This is Claire talking to her friend Ben.

So by the way, Claire is just the name of the person given in that example in in the Oxford dictionary reading between the lines.

I think Claire needs money.

So let's explore that this this situation who is Claire.

She's just a friend of ours.

Let's say Claire is talking to her friend Ben.

See if you can read between the lines to see what see what's going on.

So Claire says, hey Ben, how are you and Ben says, I'm good.

Thanks. How about you?

Oh, you know, just busy trying to juggle everything works been a bit slow lately.

And you know, the bills just keep piling up.

Don't they? 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. Yeah.

The 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.

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, 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.

Anything else? No, not really, but reading between the lines.

I think Claire needs money.

She might need her help.

But you reckon, yeah, she didn't say it outright, but the way she kept bringing up her bills and how her hours of work of being cut, it just seems pretty obvious.

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.

Okay, so that was the idiom to read between the lines and that last library joke.

Okay, 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.

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.

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, 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? And Lamar 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.

Here you go. We could have some water.

Here you are. 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.

Just another interpretation of what that sign could have meant and Ludwig in response to funny English signs part 2 said this.

Hi, I'm Ludwig from Germany.

I also have a funny memory of a sign.

I was working as an architect at the time and we had to build a second emergency exit in an event hall that was used by English soldiers 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.

So the German word for exit is Ausgang and the German word for emergency is not.

Really? The German word for emergency is not not.

Apparently according to Ludwig.

So the word not Ausgang was on the sign meaning not 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 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.

So we just yeah, we've installed a new exit on the door.

It costs a lot of monies.

The exits ready now.

Here you go. Not exit.

Wait a minute. So that would be confusing to write not exit on the door of an exit.

That would definitely confuse you.

What about this one from funny English signs part two?

Do you remember this?

If this is your first visit to the USSR, you're welcome to it because we don't want it.

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.

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.

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.

Pas -gal. Pasquale. Pas -gal.

In response to funny English signs part two.

Pas -gal 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 in there'll be coming next year.

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 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 like 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 like just leave me alone.

So poor Florence unless of course she is fine with it in which case I suppose it's an extra service at this slightly questionable laundrette.

Okay, that was we took an odd turn into the world of jokes and library jokes oddly enough in a Christmas episode, but why not?

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.

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 of you're forced to be happy.

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 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 one.

Yeah, it will be arriving in a couple of days 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 and then there might be a pause while I recover and then we'll be back in action with normal looks English podcast episodes again in 2025

after that. Okay, thank you so much for listening to looks English podcast this year everybody.

Thank you very much for being a stakeholder in looks 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.

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?

Are you in a library?

Have you been anywhere near a library?

If right, 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.

Okay, so that's a challenge for you.

Can you mention a library somehow?

Otherwise, you could what 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.

Okay, season's greetings and all the very best to you and yours and I will speak to you again in the next episode.

But for now, it's just time to say goodbye.

Bye. Bye. Okay, that is not the end of the episode.

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 one final time 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, 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.

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.

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?

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.

Maybe simply your method is just to listen carefully and just to be engaged with what I'm saying.

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, it's all good.

It all helps. Okay, so as I said before, you can just comment on this episode or send me an email at luketecher at hotmail .com.

Right, so let me go through a vocabulary list.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

The second expression is to take stock of something to take stock.

Now, if this this expression means to assess a situation and see what you have often used is often used when evaluating resources or progress.

So taking stock is kind of like counting the things you have or seeing what you have in terms of resources.

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.

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.

A really important part of running a business.

You've got to know what you have in your stock in your warehouse.

You need to know what you have so you can calculate the value of all your assets.

So you would take stock of what you have 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.

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.

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 after the storm.

They took stock of the damage.

So you kind of 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.

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 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, 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.

Okay, 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.

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 just kind of like doing the same thing that he always does and perhaps not putting as much much passion or spontaneity into it.

He's just kind of repeating the same things.

He always does which is 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.

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.

Another example would be after the death of his wife.

He just went through the motions of living.

This is this is kind of a 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.

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.

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 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 like that.

You having a good time.

Yeah, and I didn't mention actually earlier that the arena where we saw him the La Defence Arena is a big place is you know, well -designed place, but it wasn't designed for music concerts.

It was designed for sporting events 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.

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

There are other venues in the city which are better and probably smaller and they are 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?

I can't remember. I'm sure I had a purpose for saying that.

Oh, that's it. So he was saying how are you doing tonight?

It was like, yeah, you're having a good time.

Yeah, 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 particular affection for that place.

So isn't this and isn't this a great venue nothing and he just went all right.

Okay, cool. Cool. All right, cool and just carried on.

It's quite good. He rolled with it pretty well number five another expression to give someone a heads up.

I just want to give you a heads up about what's coming on looks English podcast.

So to give someone a heads up is to give someone advance notice or warning about something.

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?

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.

Another example. I just wanted to give you a heads up that the meeting has been moved to tomorrow.

So it's just kind of like just just do something to give someone to make someone notice or to maybe warn someone about something.

Could be good. Could be bad.

Number six to sink your teeth into something to sink your teeth into something this describes engaging with something enthusiastically and with gusto, 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 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.

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.

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 which doesn't mean just have a look at it but literally take it to the librarian and they stamp it and then 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.

They stamp the now it's normally as 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.

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 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 ten is large print.

Print refers to the text in the book.

Books printed with larger fonts 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, number eleven, it's impossible to put down.

If a book is impossible to put down it means you can't stop reading it.

Okay, this this book about anti -gravity is impossible to put down.

Number 12 a cliffhanger.

This is a story that ends with a suspenseful moment leaving the audience eager to know what happens next.

And you will find out next week on Luke's English podcast.

Dun -dun -dun. There was a cliffhanger a cliffhanger ending.

Number 13 to ring a bell to ring 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.

It sounds like you know it but you can't quite place it.

Can't quite put your finger on it.

But you you certainly seems familiar.

For example. Well, the name rings a bell but I can't remember where I met her.

In this episode, I used this phrase in a joke about Pavlov's dog which famously involved ringing a bell right when Pavlov rung the bell the dog expected food and started salivating that famous experiment Pavlov's dog.

Do you 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.

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.

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.

For example, do you have any books on Pavlov's dog and Schrodinger's cat?

Well, we've got one.

I think it rings a bell but I'm not sure if it's here or not.

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 super position.

Let me just say that joke again.

It's in a terrible position, isn't it?

It's not a superposition 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.

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.

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.

You know, that's just the way we do it in Britain.

We spell things the proper way and then we apologize for it.

Sorry, everyone. So a five -story building has five floors.

Why are libraries the tallest buildings in the world because they have so many stories?

Yes. Okay. To read between the lines.

There's that expression again.

Idiom means to understand the implied or unstated meaning of something while requiring careful interpretation of subtle clues and context.

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.

You know, reading between the lines.

I think Claire needs our help.

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.

Okay. 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.

I just want to Russia.

I'll start that again.

I just want to wish you a Merry Christmas like Jose Feliciano.

I want to wish you a Merry Christmas.

You know, that song.

Feliz Navidad. Feliz Navidad.

I want to wish you a Merry Christmas.

He spends a lot of time in that song saying, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas.

I want to wish you a Merry Christmas.

I want to 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.

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.

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, alright?

But for now, it's just time for me to say, finally, goodbye, bye, bye, bye.

Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast.

For more information, visit teacherluke .co .uk.

If you enjoyed this episode of Luke's English Podcast, consider signing up for Luke's English Podcast Premium.

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

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[End-of-Year Reflections: Traditions, Trivia, and Future Plans]-[914. A Midwinter Ramble ❄️ Luke’s English Podcast]

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End-of-Year Reflections: Traditions, Trivia, and Future Plans

Community Engagement and the 2025 Vision

Recent Highlights and Future Content

Life Beyond the Microphone

Linguistic Dissection: Jokes and Idioms

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[End-of-Year Reflections: Traditions, Trivia, and Future Plans]-[914. A Midwinter Ramble ❄️ Luke’s English Podcast]

📋 Summary

End-of-Year Reflections: Traditions, Trivia, and Future Plans

Community Engagement and the 2025 Vision

Recent Highlights and Future Content

Life Beyond the Microphone

Linguistic Dissection: Jokes and Idioms

Deep Learning with ListenLeap

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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