885. Still Raining, Still Rambling (News, Comments, Questions, Guitars & Music) | Luke's ENGLISH Podcast - Learn British English with Luke Thompson

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You're listening to Luke's English podcast.

For more information, visit teacherluke.co.uk.

Hello listeners, welcome back to Luke's English podcast.

Very nice to be talking to you, very happy to be actually doing this episode finally.

Before I press record and started this,

I just spent ages fapping around.

Just not really getting anything done.

Just doing a lot of fapping.

Do you know what fapping around means?

It means kind of messing about not really doing anything.

Just doing lots of things but achieving nothing.

Sort of wasting time, it feels like,

or at least just doing a lot of things that...

I don't know, little annoying things that you don't even really need to do.

Does that happen to you?

Before you have to do something,

do you spend ages fapping around?

For example, before you have to leave the house,

let's say you're going out of your house

to do something in particular,

like you're going on a little trip to the shops or something like that,

or popping out somewhere.

How much time do you spend fapping around?

Just kind of like, okay, I'll wear this jacket.

No, actually, I won't wear that jacket.

I think now I'm going to...

I'll change the jacket and I'll need an umbrella.

Hold on, let me just stand here for ages,

checking the weather on my phone.

And then before you know it,

you've ended up on social media

and you're looking through Instagram or Facebook or something.

How did I even happen?

I'm just standing here in the hallway with a jacket over my arm

and I'm just being distracted by...

I'm just fapping around.

I've got to just actually leave the house.

It was a bit like that for me at the beginning of this episode.

Just lots of fapping around.

I'm just trying to choose which...

the right position for my chair.

And then going actually, no, I'm not going to sit on this chair.

I'll sit on the wooden stool instead.

I'll swap them around.

So I'll swap them around and then I thought, no, this is ridiculous.

I can't just have this empty office chair

in the background of this episode.

That's just going to look really weird.

So I'll just... I'll move it outside into the hallway.

That's what I'll do.

I'll just move it outside.

And then I tried that,

it's just far too cumbersome and I was crashing into the doorway

and then I realised it would block the hallway.

So now, okay, bring the chair back in.

Let's just get that sorted and then make sure the camera...

camera's in the right position.

Just make sure that the desk is all tidy

and I don't have stuff.

I'm not going to knock into things with my hand.

For example, if I just...

for some reason do this.

If I just move my hand while talking.

I mean, who knows?

Who knows what I'll be talking about?

I might need to move my hand in a sort of sweeping motion

during the episode for some reason.

And I wouldn't want to crash into anything.

So I better just make sure that the table is clear

and then just so much faffing around.

But I'm glad that finally I'm actually doing this.

Yes, here we go.

How are you doing listeners?

I hope you're doing okay.

I'm recording this on a very gloomy and rainy Wednesday afternoon

at the end of May 2024.

And the weather should not be like this.

It should be much nicer than this.

Right?

I mean, this is supposed to be my favourite month of the year

because the weather is normally really nice.

Sunny, but not too hot, you know?

With the flowers in bloom and the birds singing and stuff.

But it's just grey and miserable here today.

I took a picture from my window.

But you know, you can check that there'll be a PDF for this episode

which you can download from the episode page.

Just check the link in the description wherever you're listening to this.

And you're able to see the picture that I posted.

But I mean, you don't even really need to, you don't really,

it's just a picture of grey skies.

You can't really see the rain.

But there's just a general sort of disgusting downpour of rain happening.

And it's been like this all day.

So, anyway, I suppose the conditions are just right for doing an episode

of this podcast for staying here and doing this.

This is a rambling episode.

I think you know the score, think you know what that involves.

Let's start looking at the PDF now then shall we?

And as I said, you'll find a PDF for this on the page for this episode on my website.

You don't need to, you don't need to check it.

Right? You don't have to.

But if you want to, you can.

And you can see a lot of the notes and scripts and stuff that I've prepared

already for this.

This episode was supposed to be a kind of no preparation needed episode,

a rambling episode.

Because I mean, I'm, I'm, as you heard in the last two episodes ago,

May is a very busy month.

I'm trying to get as much podcasting work done as I can.

But it can be a little bit difficult in this month because there are lots of public holidays and stuff.

And so my time is quite tight this month.

And so I've been working on lots of new episodes.

But none of them were quite ready to be published when an episode needs to be published.

And so I'm doing a rambling episode because the idea is that they don't require too much preparation.

I can just kind of like do one fairly quickly and fairly efficiently.

But I say that. But then I just spent the entire morning, as I said before,

fapping around, preparing a bit more.

Just like, I think I'll add a bit more to the, to my notes and I'll add a bit more and I'll add a bit more.

And then eventually, okay, I'll just, I'll just make this a PDF and then people can download it.

Right. So let's start looking at that PDF, which I prepared earlier, shall we?

As I said, you don't have to.

You can just enjoy listening. All right, then.

So if you want to look at the PDF with me, you can.

I'm going to start reading from it in five, four, three, two, one.

Here we go. Episode 885. I don't know what the name of the episode will be at this point.

I'm going with the working title, the very clever working title, Episode 885.

Wow, the level of creativity and imagination at work here is, you know, I'm firing on all cylinders, everyone.

Okay, hello. So while I work on some other episodes, which I have in the pipeline, here is another rambling episode for you.

The plan for this episode is, I'm going to give you your regular dose of English listening practice.

I'll give you some podcast news and updates.

I'm going to give you some stand-up comedy dates, which means dates when I'm performing stand-up comedy in Paris.

Because people do ask me that sometimes. They say, hey, I'm coming to Paris. When can I see you performing stand-up?

Are you performing stand-up soon? Or maybe even I live in Paris? Can I come and see you perform?

Well, I'm actually going to give you a couple of dates of good shows that you could come to.

I'll give some comments relating to recent episodes and answer some questions from listeners.

And this will include things like this, whether I give one-to-one lessons, transcripts on Spotify, what LEP Premium actually includes,

the vocabulary workshop I did on Zoom a few weeks ago, I'm going to talk about that. How can you see the recording of it?

Some thoughts about accents and pronunciation from the Barbara Cera interview a few episodes ago.

Why some episodes perform better than others on YouTube?

The crucial difference between a viaduct and an aquaduct, that's a vocabulary question, something I needed to clarify after talking about that on the podcast recently.

Obviously, vitally important that you know the difference between a viaduct and an aquaduct.

I suppose there are some situations in which that would be very important, right? Maybe if you're in a canoe and you need to...

You need to cross a canyon and you're in a canoe and there's a bridge up ahead and you ask a person,

it's like, can I cross that bridge and you can, well, yeah, that's what that bridge over there is, a viaduct.

Does that mean there is water or there isn't water? Well, I'm going to explain in a little bit.

I'll talk a little bit about learning music and teaching it to my kids.

And I'm planning to give you a little tour of the guitars in my room and this is after a listener asked me about that.

I'll also talk about my intentions for upcoming episodes of this podcast and a look ahead at the summer on Luke's English podcast.

And finally, there should be a song on the guitar, perhaps with some comments and explanations about the lyrics.

And that'll be at the end of the episode just so that you don't, you know, just so I don't impose it on you too much, you know.

If you want to hear me sing a song, you can listen it, you know, keep listening until the end.

If that's not your cup of tea, you could stop before the singing and just happily go about your day without feeling that you've really missed too much.

So that sort of thing, that's the kind of stuff that I will be talking about in this episode.

How long will this take? Well, how long is a piece of string?

You might think, what's that Luke, what are you talking about?

That's just a phrase that people say in English when they kind of, when they're trying to measure and what's the meaning of how long is a piece of string?

It's kind of one of those annoying things that like your parents would say if you ask them a question that doesn't really have an answer.

Like how long will this episode be Luke? Well, how long is a piece of string?

And you know, that just, it just means we don't really know, we don't really know how long, how long a piece of string is.

Surely you just measure it, but anyway, it's just a turn of phrase.

How long is a piece of string? Hold on a minute, let me just, let me have a look at this.

Now I've mentioned it, I feel like I need to at least talk about it a little bit.

This is from lexical lab, which is a great website run by a really good English teacher called Hugh Dele.

So I've just ended up on lexicallab.com.

And Hugh Dele often covers things like this, sort of phrases and expressions.

So how long is a piece of string? Obviously a piece of string can be as long or as short as you want it to be.

It depends. And the rhetorical response, how long is a piece of string, is designed to make this clear to the person who asked the initial question.

So it can be as long or as short as you want it to be.

Okay. Anyway, so how long will this episode take?

How long is a piece of string? It could be long, it could be short.

It's kind of up to you really, if you feel like you need half an hour's worth, listen to half an hour, then stop.

And then come back later and listen to a bit more. It's up to you.

So podcast news and updates. So first of all, good news. I have no plans to stop doing this anytime soon.

Alright, so don't worry. If you've written a comment under one of my episodes recently saying, please don't give up.

Please keep doing this. Please never stop this. Don't worry. There's no suggestion that I'm going to stop everything's fine.

I'm going to carry on as normal as I have been for the last 15 years.

Okay, so it's all good in the hood, as they say.

Premium listeners, hello. P60, parts 1 and 2 were released at the end of last week.

Check them out. Okay. So if you're a premium lepster, check out P60, parts 1 and 2.

They should just be there in your episode list in your podcast app of choice.

What are they? They are vocabulary reviews, vocabulary review episodes for the Walk and Talk Paris episode I did a few weeks ago.

And like in most premium episodes, what I've done is gone through that entire Walk and Talk episode

and picked out certain bits of English bits of vocabulary, phrases, fraisel verbs, expressions, verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and things.

You know, useful bits of English vocabulary and put them in the list and then I've kind of gone into quite a lot of detail explaining, clarifying, demonstrating, giving examples of all that language to help you understand it, remember it and use it again later.

Okay. So the full premium experience with language from the Walk and Talk Paris episode in premium episodes, 60 parts 1 and 2. Check them out now.

Now, if you are not a premium subscriber, then you could always sign up. I understand that some people can't because of payments, restrictions and things.

But if you're still thinking about it, here's an idea of what you get when you sign up for LEP premium.

So what happens is you get an updated podcast feed, which includes all the premium episodes and also the automatic adverts on normal episodes get removed.

Okay. So the way it works is you go to teacherlook.co.uk slash premium on your phone, right? Teach you look.co.uk slash premium. Choose the $4 option, which gives you all the premium episodes plus ad free content.

And then you follow the steps, right? You sign up with Acast and you enter your payment details and stuff.

You can cancel any time you want. It's really just a in-out kind of thing. There are no strings attached. You can cancel whenever you want.

And then when you've signed into your Acast account after you've set up your premium account, you should just be able to see a button that says, listen in podcast app.

Just tap that and you'll get a number of options in your phone for different podcast apps.

Choose the one that you've already got on your phone. For example, for me, as I've said before, pocket casts is the app I choose.

So I would choose pocket casts and that will then open up Lux English Podcast Premium. The your premium episode feed will open up in the podcast app you've chosen, in my case, pocket casts.

Subscribe to that and there you go. There's your new subscription to Lux English Podcast Plus or Lux English Podcast Premium. You get all the free episodes with no automatic ads.

But it also in the list you'll see all of the premium episodes too. All right. So there are over 200 episodes now, 200 premium episodes.

In 99% of them I teach vocab grammar or pronunciation or all three. There are also quite a lot of story episodes with vocab explanations, grammar practice and pronunciation practice.

There are a couple of rambling episodes. There's a 30 minute recording of a stand up comedy show I did at the Comedy Store in London, which you can access. That's P26.

You get PDFs for nearly every single premium episode plus video versions for almost all of the ones I've done in the past few years.

In the show notes for each premium episode in your app, all those premium episodes are marked with a P, P1, P2, P6D now.

You'll find links for PDFs and video versions. You get new premium episodes every month plus the entire back catalog of all the premium episodes ever.

Okay. That's what you get if you are a premium subscriber. Another question that sometimes my listeners ask me is this, Luke, I would love to see you perform stand up comedy on stage.

Do you have any shows coming up? Yes, I do. I have several shows including one special show where I'm performing a longer set. I'll be performing for 30 minutes at one of these shows.

If you can come, then come. Here are some of my stand up comedy dates coming up soon.

I have two upcoming shows to tell you about at the moment that both happening in Paris and if you want to see me do stand up comedy, these would be good shows to come to if you can.

Here are the two shows. The first one is called Paul Taylor and Friends. This is a show hosted by Paul Taylor.

It's an English show. I think he's going to be joined by, I think he's invited three or four other guests. I'm one of those guests.

I'll be doing about 15 minutes of stand up. Also on the show you'll see Paul Taylor and other comedians performing in English.

Paul is the host. He comes up. He does 10 minutes or something. Probably 10 minutes of crowd work. This is at the Apollo Theatre in Republiq.

A room that holds, I think it's about 400 people and it's normally sold out. If you want to come to this one, then act fast and book your tickets now. I'll give you the link in a moment.

Paul opens the show. Normally he does about 10 minutes. He'll introduce the first act who will do about 15 minutes. Paul comes back on. He introduces the next person.

Another 15 minutes and so on. Four people. Each doing 10 or 15 minutes. I'll be one of those people. I'll be doing 15 minutes at the show. I think it's 15.

Paul always gathers a really good audience. It's always a good show. The quality of performers is high. These are professional comedians.

It's 100% in English. The day is Tuesday, 25 June at 8pm at the Apollo Theatre in Republiq.

Did you like my pronunciation? Excuse me. In Republiq. Probably still not very good, but it doesn't matter.

You could just check the Apollo Theatre website or go to PaulTaylorComedy.com and then tickets, I think. Otherwise just follow the link that you'll see on the PDF.

The other show I'm doing is called Same Difference. That's happening on the 19th of July. Same difference. We've decided to call it Same Difference. We're looking for a name for the show. We ended up with Same Difference.

This is a special two-man show. This is a special two-man show and I'm doing a full 30-minute set.

I'm doing this with my friend Charles, who is going to be a guest on this podcast in the next few weeks. I'm going to do 30 minutes. He'll do 30 minutes.

We called it Same Difference because basically Charles and I were quite similar. We're not the same. I speak British English. I speak English with a British accent.

He speaks English with an American accent. We're both actually born in the UK. Although Charles is technically French and other things. But anyway, Charles is very funny. He tells some really good stories about having children and living in China and stuff like that.

I'll be doing my stuff. Come and see me do a longer performance. Stay and have a drink afterwards. You could say hi.

I might do a live podcast recording after the show in the room on the stage. This is not confirmed yet. I'm hoping to do that but it depends on the arrangement with the venue.

I should be able to do a live podcast recording. But again, it's not confirmed. But that could be cool. Standup show. Come for the standup show. Have a little drink. Back into the room to do a live podcast recording.

We'll see if that happens but that's what I would like to do. Friday, 19th of July at 8.30pm. The place is called O Sole de la Boute. This is a kind of restaurant bar place with a room downstairs.

It's in Monmart, which is a very picturesque part of Paris up on the hill next to the Basilique de Sacre Cur. Right? A very picturesque spot. Right next to the steps and everything is really nice.

The address is 30 rue Muller in the 18th-Hern des Monts of Paris. So this room is a smaller room than the Apollo. Maybe 60 people or something.

We're hoping to fill the room. We don't have the marketing clout that Paul Taylor does with his production company and the Apollo Theatre and all that stuff.

But I think that we should be able to fill this room. Hoping to anyway. But it depends on you. I hope that some of my lepsdars will come and support the show.

Charles and I are organizing this one ourselves. We're taking over the French Fried Comedy Night. That's what normally happens in that room on Fridays.

But we've taken it over. It's going to be the Lucan Charles show basically. Normally they have about five or six comics on the show, but for this one it's just us.

Free entry. So it's free to get in. We encourage you to buy a drink on the way in. But this is the one I recommend. This is one I hope you come to.

So if you're in Paris, come to the show. Have laughs. Have a drink. Say hi to me if you like. Let me and my friend Charles entertain you for an hour.

And I'll remind you about this show again on the podcast over the next few weeks. If you want to reserve a spot, if you want to reserve a seat, here is a link on Event Bright.

You'll find the link on the PDF. Otherwise search for the French Fried Comedy Night Fridays. French Fried Comedy Night Fridays 19th of July. The show is not actually listed yet as I record this, but it should be listed on Event Bright.

It should be listed there soon and you should be able to book yourself a seat. Okay. Another question is this, Luke, can you record your stand-up shows for those of us who can't come?

Because of course something like 99.9% of you. Right. Can't actually come because you live in different places.

So you might be asking, Luke, can you just record your stand-up shows? Well, I'm afraid not. I'm afraid not. Sorry to give the negative response there, but the thing is I don't really want to publish all my stand-up comedy material online just yet.

The reason is that I want to protect my material. I've talked about this before, but comedians for comedians, their stand-up material is quite important. We work on it. We kind of hone it and we use it in front of live audiences.

But as soon as it gets published online, the chances, it's kind of gone then in a way. You know, it's out. It's out there.

And if everyone sees it online, then it won't be a surprise when they see me live. And doing stand-up is the element of surprise is quite important. I mean, I say that. But anyone who's seen me do stand-up comedy a few times has probably noticed that I've been doing a lot of the same material for quite a long time.

I've been working on new stuff, but in any case, I've got this vague idea that one day I'd like to do a good recording of myself doing like a one-hour show or something like that, and then actually properly release that for my audience.

There's that 30-minute show I did, which is available in the premium subscription, but that was like in 2018. I think I've changed. I think I've improved a little bit since then. But anyway, as I said, I'm hoping one day to record it properly and publish it.

I'm not ready to do it yet. Yes. So it's about 30 minutes of stand-up. That's the 2018 thing, which is in the premium subscription. P26. That's a show I did at the Comedy Store in London. There's a video version of that too.

I think I've improved since then, but sign up to LEP Premium if you want to see it. But otherwise, in terms of other shows, videoing shows I'm doing these days and publishing them, I've decided not to do that.

You'll just have to try and come and see me live or wait for the possible moment the one day, again a decent recording of myself doing a full show, and I put it up on YouTube or something.

Here are some other questions from listeners that people often ask. This one is one of the most frequent questions I get. It's this.

Luke, do you offer one-to-one lessons? Do you offer private lessons online, for example? And the answer to that one is I'm afraid not, again.

I'm afraid the answer is negative this time. No, I don't. Basically, these days I spend my time doing this. I spend my time preparing, recording, editing, and publishing episodes of my podcast and my premium episodes as well.

And that's how I spend most of my time, and that's how I want to spend most of my time, frankly, these days.

I also teach twice a week to group classes at the British Council, but I don't do private one-to-one lessons online or that sort of thing.

That's just a decision I've made in terms of how I spend my time. I spent many, many years teaching one-to-ones and teaching group classes, and that I spent a lot of time doing that.

But these days, this is really what I like to do. I like to make the content for my podcast, and so that means I don't really... I've decided I don't really have time to do one-to-one lessons. I'm afraid. Very sorry about that, if that's what you were hoping to get that from me.

Another question is this, Luke, can you add subtitles to episodes on Spotify? I understand that some podcasts on Spotify now have subtitles, and that this also is coming to Apple Podcasts as well.

But they're kind of taking time to roll it out for all the podcasts. I think that if you host your show with Spotify, it's probably that is an option.

But anyway, I don't host my show with Spotify. The show is available on Spotify, but it's hosted on Acast. That might be one of the reasons why there are no subtitles for my episodes on Spotify.

Now, I keep trying... I keep trying to add them. I log into my Spotify for podcasters account, where I've got various settings and statistics and things. I log in there.

But where it says transcript, it says unavailable at this time, or something similar. So I keep trying, but it says the option isn't available at the moment. So I keep waiting.

I think it's available, as I said, for podcasts subscribed or hosted on Spotify, and they're working on it for podcasts hosted elsewhere, I think.

Now, you can get subtitles on YouTube, right? YouTube episodes have always got automatic subtitles. They are 95% accurate.

The accuracy is better when I'm speaking on my own. So on YouTube, you can just click the little button which should be down in the bottom right hand corner of your screen to access the automatic subtitles.

They're normally not bad when it's me on my own. They struggle when there's a guest, or when the recording conditions are not as good as they are when it's just me on my own in my room.

So also, there is a transcript option on YouTube. You can open the transcript, just check down. You need to click, I think, more information to reveal the show notes. Under the show notes, I think it says read transcript.

This is YouTube. You can do that, and you can read along to the transcript, which is basically just the automatic subtitles, but presented slightly differently. You can read along, and you can click on a certain part in order to hear it again as well.

So always check the episode page on my website. This is another thing you could do, because you might find notes and transcripts there.

For example, for this episode, I've prepared a lot of this in advance, and I've prepared a PDF for you, which I'm basically reading from, and editing as I record this.

So if you just click the link for the episode page, which you'll find in the show notes, wherever you're listening to this, it'll take you to the episode page for this episode on my website. Oh my god, this sounds so complicated.

So if you take it to the, click on the episode page and the show notes for the episode, and that'll take you to the episode page on my website, where you'll find the PDF for all the things that, oh god, it's just sometimes is so bloody exhausting, trying to explain all these things.

Just click the link in the description. There you go. And you'll find my notes and scripts that I prepared for this in advance.

So there's some comments on recent episodes. Let's have a look back at some recent episodes. We're going to look back at the last five or six episodes, I think.

So episode 877 was called How to Learn Vocabulary, a conversation with Claire Whitmill. And this was basically a preview of that Zoom workshop that I did at the end of April, which was all about ways to learn vocabulary correctly or properly.

Okay, so some of you were there at the workshop. So I did the workshop. It was really nice. Some of you listening to this, some of my leapses were there. Quite a lot of people were in the Zoom meeting.

Numbers were limited, I understand, but some of you got in. So it was really nice to have you with me. It was very nice to see those of you who were there.

And quite a lot of people made a point of saying some very lovely things about the podcast, which is always extremely encouraging for me. So thank you for that. I appreciate that when people do sort of say encouraging things about the show.

Yeah, I need that sort of encouragement. So thank you for that. Now those of you who didn't or couldn't attend, I'm going to publish it on the podcast soon. This is the plan.

Claire has given me the recording of the like a video recording of the workshop and I'm planning to publish it at some point. Now I was wondering whether I should publish the recording of the workshop.

Right. So should I publish the recording, the original recording of the workshop or I was wondering if I'll just make a whole new episode using the slides I created.

Essentially just kind of like recording it again. Now I'll have to do that for the audio version in any case, because the audio from the workshop wouldn't really work as an audio episodes.

There were too many sort of visual elements to the whole workshop. So I'll have to re record the audio anyway and turn it into a sort of audio friendly episode.

So maybe I'll just maybe I will re record the video as well at the same time. I don't know. So either you'll get in any case, you will get that at some point.

Either the original workshop recording or some sort of re recorded version that I'll do. But that's going to come into your podcast subscription soon.

Episode number 878 was called learning. No, it wasn't. It was called from learning to teaching and beyond with Elena Muto No No.

And Elena was my guest. She is an inspiration and a great help for a lot of teachers trying to make it on their own.

Teachers who are trying to do the things that to an extent I'm not really doing, like trying to find one to one clients trying to build online courses and stuff like that.

So Elena is a great help and inspiration for a lot of teachers who are sort of trying to make their way through this industry.

And she's also very inspiring for fellow learners of English because as you heard in the conversation English isn't her first language.

And plenty of listeners expressed this sentiment. This sentiment that she was inspiring.

Lots of listeners expressed this sentiment in comments. Here's a selection of the top comments.

The most upvoted ones on YouTube. So this was from Roman and Roman wrote this.

He said, I'm from Ukraine and I found the whole monologue of Elena. Amazing, amazingly, it should be amazingly touching and inspiring.

I almost cry sometimes. I suppose that would be I almost cried sometimes.

She made incredible progress and the way she tells about it, that would be the way she talks about it, is so relevant.

Thank you both for this podcast. Elena actually replied to Roman's comments. She said, thank you for tuning in Roman.

I'm glad it's inspiring you. Let's move on to episode number 879, which was called Think Fast Talks Mart, communication techniques for spontaneous speaking with Matt Abrahams.

So this was a wonderful conversation which was absolutely full of great advice from Matt.

Matt was a great guest. I was very lucky to have him on the show. I really enjoyed talking to Matt.

And he just made a great contribution. He was just full of really good advice, like everything he said.

Straight to the point, really useful, really helpful and a very pleasant person to meet.

Here are some top comments. Alice in Wonderland 631 said this, this is one of the most useful channels for learning English.

That's nice to know. At Chris, G-U-A, Chris G-A wrote this,

when one of the best communicators I've ever met tells us that he blushes when he speaks. It makes me feel like we're all the same and a little more confident in myself and my way of conveying information in the language I'm learning.

Thank you for getting down to our level. This is really motivating. So if you remember in that episode, for some reason I started blushing during the conversation, which is when your face goes red.

I talked enough about it. I don't need to go into the details of about it again.

It was a little bit embarrassing. It's more just annoying, as I said.

Anyway, I've got lots of comments from people talking about the blushing and talking about how they appreciated the fact that I talked about it because they have the same experience.

So I was happy to talk about blushing. It's annoying, but it's something that happens to everyone. It's nice to know that loads of other people have the same experience and generally people find it quite endearing.

So that's nice.

Episode 880 was called Is Paris Ready for the Olympic Games 2024 Article Plus Vocabulary. Here's some top comments. Chantal Pat 2514 wrote this,

as French living in the south of France, or as a French person, I discovered recently your podcasts, or I recently discovered your podcasts.

And I find them amazing, especially, or especially, especially the short stories, but all are so interesting, clearly explained many thanks for this enormous work for us.

Well, you're welcome, of course. It's very nice to get comments from French listeners, of course, because I live in France, so,

thank you, for that. I can't pronounce Boku. It's the, ooo, ooo, sound. Anyway, Shibab Ahmad 9861 wrote this,

thank you Luke for your efforts, and explaining bit by bit and word by word. So yeah, if you listen to the end of that episode, the Olympics 1,

then you heard a lot of vocabulary explanations. I went through a big list of vocab from the article that I'd read from, and explained and clarified lots of vocab, a bit of a taste of LEP Premium.

Now, it would be a good idea, I think, to recap a lot of that in a premium episode. So maybe I'll do that. I might take all that vocab and do a premium episode for you, because that's a really good, I think, important part of the process.

It's recycling, recycling language that you've encountered, coming back to it, reminding yourself of it, and, you know, getting some more detailed explanations and further examples of that language.

So I might do that, but at least I recommend that you go back. So I recommend going back through the word list to refresh your memory. You can find it on the episode page for, for episode 880 in the archive.

So just go to my episode archive, which is where you can find the full list of all the website pages for all my episodes, which is where you can find any notes, transcripts or other details,

and other things like video playlists that I might share with you. So teachelook.co.uk slash episodes, and then find episode 880, and there you'll find the big vocab list with extracts from the article that I read about the Olympics in Paris.

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Episode number 881 was called the first non-native speaker to read the UK TV news with Barbara Sarah.

So this was my conversation with Italian-born journalist, broadcast journalist Barbara Sarah, who is a newsreader and she's read the news on a variety of well-known news channels, including Sky News these days, also on the BBC, Al Jazeera, and a few other networks. She worked for CNN for a while as well.

So Barbara, yeah, it was a great guest. It was great to talk to Barbara. She was very down to earth, very professional, very honest.

She tried her best to be as insightful and clear about her experiences relating to using English in her work and especially about considerations around accents.

Right, now let's talk about accents for a little bit and I want to try to make certain conclusions, more clear conclusions from what Barbara said in that episode.

So here's a response to Barbara Sarah's episode. This was from the website page.

It sounds that wrong, but anyway, this listener commented like this. This was after Barbara and I had discussed the subjects of accents and sort of some of the intricacies and issues, slightly, what's the word for it?

The slightly contradictory seeming advice on the subject of whether you should try to get a British accent, the value of having a British accent, the challenge of having a British accent, and all of those things, right?

The comment is this finally does learning a specific accent matter or not? So perhaps I didn't make this clear enough. So to add context to right listeners, Barbara, if you remember, is an Italian-born journalist who describes herself as a non-native speaker who has English as her dominant language.

Right, the language she uses the most these days. She learned English from the age of about nine when she moved to Denmark and went to an international school and these days English is the language she uses the most and probably feels most comfortable in.

She speaks Italian as well. So she probably feels most comfortable in English these days, but people can still tell that she's not British.

Even though she's lived there probably since she was a student really, so you know, a few years now.

So Barbara told several stories in which she talked about how her foreign sounding, even slightly foreign sounding accent, caused some problems for her when working as a TV newsreader.

She said that she was actually taken off air, meaning like the manager, the director, the producer of the news program actually took her off the program because people complained that her accent was foreign sounding, which sounds a bit kind of racist, doesn't it really?

People phoning into the BBC, people writing into complain, I don't want my news presented by a foreigner.

Barbara was actually quite understanding about it. She talked about the news is a different thing. Apparently if you're listening to the news, you want it to be read in your own accent.

Anyway, she talked about this and she talked about how a British RP accent still carries a lot of clout in the world of broadcast journalism.

So this, she didn't just mean in terms of when you're talking to British audiences, you probably should sound like a British person.

She meant that in the world of journalism, you know, where you've got channels like CNN or Al Jazeera or France 24, where journalists are speaking English in the international arena.

And you've got that kind of standard American accent, which is probably the most common English accent out in the world globally. Right? So American English is probably more prevalent.

But I think Barbara was talking about this that even though British English or a certain received pronunciation standard BBC English accent, although that's not the most common one, it still carries with it a certain level of, I don't know what the word is,

a certain level of clout, a certain kind of a certain, it has a certain kind of, it carries some baggage with it. People seem to respect it.

They think it sounds trustworthy and it has a certain high status.

The point is that she thinks in her experience a certain British accent does have a certain status. Right? It stands as a kind of model for clear, respectable and impressive sounding speech.

But she also said that learners of English shouldn't worry too much about sounding British or shouldn't try too hard to get the RP accent, because it's actually nearly impossible to gain a British accent with no trace or imprint from your first language.

And you should just be yourself and own it, meaning accept the fact that you're going to have a bit of an accent in English.

But there is absolutely, and then she said this, there is absolutely no room for compromise when it comes to clarity, and this is the most important thing.

So I can understand the person who commented on the episode saying, well, in the end though, what should we do? Should we be trying to get a certain accent or not?

Does accent even matter then in the light of what was said by Barbara?

Now, I can understand that there was a bit of a mixed message in there, possibly, should you strive to learn a particular accent or not?

Now, first of all, I think it's important to make a distinction between a clear accent and a British accent.

And by British accent, in this instance, we're talking about a standard British BBC accent, modern RP, more or less like the way I speak, okay?

Although my accent every now and then drifts into the Midlands, sometimes it might drift into a slightly more colloquial London accent sometimes, but most of the time I speak, sort of that, modern RP, okay?

So a distinction between clear, a clear accent or speaking clearly and speaking with this accent, with this British accent.

So this British accent means speaking in a way that shows that you're British, so you use all the sounds, inflections, stress, intonation, etc.

That are completely typical for this way of speaking, right? That's what that means. It's a kind of accent which locates you in a certain region.

But speaking with clarity might mean that your accent can be placed somewhere. Often this just means outside of the UK or foreign, but we're not sure exactly.

Is this clear? So speaking with clarity, now you might mean that your accent sounds a bit foreign, right?

Meaning that you sound like you're from outside the UK, you're foreign, we're not sure exactly where you're from. You're from this particular place, but we can understand you perfectly.

For example, you know, okay, I think you're French, but we can understand you perfectly. So that's clarity. It's not necessarily, it doesn't matter if it reveals a location.

The point is that everyone can understand exactly what you say. Do you understand? Do you see what I mean?

Just because people can know where you're from doesn't mean that they therefore find you difficult to understand. I think this is a really important distinction to make.

I expect a lot of people expect that a British accent is by definition the correct accent, right? But really first and foremost, an accent should be considered correct if it is clear, if people understand you perfectly when you speak.

Now, there might be the Venn diagram where you've got a British RP accent and then you've got clear English and those things do overlap quite a lot because two people do tend to say that this kind of British accent is what they understand.

But not necessarily, you can speak with an accent that's not British and still be completely understandable.

Okay.

And being understandable or being clear is the priority, actually, although it does depend on the context.

So I'm going to just add a side note here now while we're on the subject, I'm going to add a side note about listening skills here.

Now, I'm afraid that you still have to develop your listening skills to be able to understand people who don't speak clearly.

And the definition of what is clear can change depending on the situation. Oh dear, this is getting a bit complicated.

So I wanted to emphasise the fact that so you've got speaking skills, which is all about trying to develop clarity in your speech.

But then there's listening skills and that means actually being open to all the different varieties and trying to basically not expecting everyone to be clear.

So it's kind of a dichotomy, a sort of double-sided thing. On one side, you've got to try to aim for clarity as much as possible.

But then in your listening, you can't necessarily just reject people who don't speak clearly in your opinion.

You can't just put all the blame on them, my point is. Right?

So, okay, so I mean learners of English who are familiar with BBC English or standard American pronunciation might hear someone from Glasgow and conclude that their English is impossible to understand.

But clearly this isn't true because people in Glasgow understand each other just fine. And so do plenty of other people of course.

My point here is, yes, you should strive for clear speech as much as you can, but also strive for good listening skills and don't just expect everyone to speak to you in a certain way and just dismiss them if they don't.

English is a very diverse language and you should be willing and prepared to understand all the varieties.

Being a great speaker means being clear. Being a great listener means being able to understand all the different kinds of speech and these are two different skills.

And I've just noticed learners encountering an accent that they're not familiar with and essentially saying it's their fault.

But I don't think that's really fair. I think that you know, it's just I'm afraid that your listening skills have to incorporate a familiarity with the different varieties of English.

And if you don't understand someone because they're speaking with a slightly colloquial style, then that means you still got some work to do.

It's good to maybe focus on a certain type of English that you find really clear, but also you do have to venture out of your comfort zone and be open minded in order to try to become familiar with sort of colloquial London accents or people from different parts of the country, different parts of the world.

Okay, all right. There you go. That's my at the end of my little lecture there. Anyway, what about this question from Mah-Mah-Buh-Oh, how do I say your name? I'm so sorry. I can't say it. Mah-Buh-Oh, no. Mah-Buh-Beh.

I've probably got that completely wrong like I do with all the names. Anyway, what about this question then? Does learning a specific accent matter or not? And here's the reply that I actually wrote on the website under that comment. I wrote this. I said, I think it depends on the context in which you will be using English.

According to what Barbara said, if you're reading the national news to a UK audience, then yes, it does matter. You should sound like a British person. Otherwise, in most other cases, when you're speaking English, in an international context or when it's fine to sound a bit foreign, then it's okay to have a bit of an accent.

What's vital in all situations is clarity. It's possible to have a foreign accent and still be very clear. Clarity is the main thing and the ability to make connections with the people you're talking to.

So when we talk about clarity, what does that actually mean? A good example of this is when Barbara talked about TH sounds.

And was it L sounds? Certain sounds she identified as being the ones that caused her English to sound a bit flabby, meaning not precise enough.

Right? And she focused on those things, which allowed her to be more clear. Right? Now, you could still tell that she's not British, but she cleared up the things that made it incomprehensible.

It's the same thing, really, with grammatical accuracy as well. Right? And this is reflected in Cambridge Exam,

crisis, exam criteria, assessment criteria. So you'll get marked down more harshly in a written exam for Cambridge if your grammatical mistakes lead to a lack of clarity in your writing.

But if you make little grammatical slips, which don't actually affect the meaning, then that's clearly far less serious, isn't it? Right? It might not give such a good impression, but the most important thing is that people understand exactly what you're trying to say.

Okay. Clarity is the main thing and the ability to make connections with the people you're talking to.

Hello, this is Luke from the future, and I'm just interrupting here because I wanted to add something.

So I'm just recording this bit a couple of days after I recorded most of this episode. So it's two days later, still raining, by the way. Anyway, so I'm interrupting here just because since I recorded this episode, Marboube, and I think that's how it's pronounced,

she replied to my reply and asked a good question, which I'm sure a lot of people listening have thought about. So let's just continue the conversation a little bit here.

So even though this will extend the length of this episode even further, I just wanted to add a few more comments and perhaps kind of draw a line under this issue.

Let me read out Marboube's comment and I'll add my thoughts as I go. I think this is important. I think that this question is something that all learners of English have to consider at some point.

Basically, the question of accent and identity, which accent, how should you improve your accent? What should your target be? Is it possible to sound exactly like a native speaker? Should you try to sound like a native speaker?

If you shouldn't, which is kind of what I've suggested already, I think, which is that maybe that's not your priority, but clarity is your priority.

If you want to achieve clarity, how do you do that? What does that actually sound like and things like that? So it's kind of a never-ending conversation because it's so nuanced and a bit complicated to kind of weave our path through this issue.

But let's try to continue a little bit and I'll add a few other comments. So let me read out Marboube's comment and I'll add my thoughts as I go. So this is what she wrote nine hours ago.

So thank you very, very much for your clear response, but there's something I've been struggling with. I'm not sure if it was episode 762, meditation and learning English, where you had a conversation with Anthony Ratuno,

talking about your ability to speak French like a native speaker and that the fear of being judged might stop you from speaking as well as you're able to.

Actually, I'm not sure I get the point because I'm not sure if you've told that if you said that in terms of accent or not and if I didn't, sorry for that.

Alright, so let me just clarify that bit. So she's referring to something I must have said in that episode with Anthony about meditation and the point of the meditation episode,

one of the points there was that essentially meditation can help you to kind of clear your mind of anxieties, stresses, distractions and other things that can actually affect your ability to learn English and by kind of clearing your mind of those things.

And perhaps getting more comfortable with yourself, then you set yourself up to be able to learn English more effectively because these sorts of worries, concerns, fears can block you and stop you from being as good as you can.

That's really the point I was trying to make there. I must have given an example of my attitude towards my French, which is often quite negative and is something I need to work on.

You know, and obviously practicing and working on my French is the obvious way to do that. But other things I could do is just to perhaps be mindful of my attitude and meditation can just help to put you in the right sort of mental space to clear away a lot of those negative feelings.

So that's kind of the point I was making there, which is not exactly it's not specifically related to the accent issue, but it's kind of I guess related somehow. But anyway, let's continue the comment. And this is where it gets specifically gets to the point.

My Booba said, I mean, according to what you've said, is there anything wrong with a learner who wants to omit the effects of his or her first language and try to speak with an accent he or she prefers to.

Right, this is a really good question. Is there anything basically is there anything wrong with a learner of English who wants to remove all trace of their first language when in their pronunciation of English?

Is there anything wrong with that? And of course, there isn't. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that. If that's really what you want to do, then by all means feel free to try to do that.

I wouldn't want to suggest that no one should try to remove every trace of their first language, you know, I think that of course, if that's what you want to set as your aim, then please go for it, reach for the stars.

Okay, and go for it. You can do you can do anything you want, of course. But going back to the conclusions from the conversation with Barbara in from her experience and she's, you know, very experienced in this.

And also in my experience as well to an extent and I've noticed this and I also have heard this point being made by other people. It is extremely difficult to get to the point where there is no trace of a quote on quotes foreign accent in your English that even if you get to a really, really excellent level.

Right, like for example, Barbara, where she's communicating sort of better than a lot of native speakers do. She's using sort of really refined communication skills in order to do live news reading to present news programs to do interviews journalism, broadcast journalism is extremely, it's extremely difficult form of communication.

Right, and so and Barbara's operating at that extremely high level, but she still has, there's still traces of some sort of accent there. So the point is it's very difficult to remove all those traces.

For example, when Barbara speaks to people, they say, oh, you know, it's really nice to meet you, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. By the way, where is your accent from? So they can tell that she's not from the UK.

So the point is, of course, you can try to do anything you want and I encourage you to be ambitious and to reach for the stars and all that stuff.

There's nothing wrong with trying to remove all traces of an accent from your English. Absolutely fine. The point is it's it's rare that people get to that stage. It's rare to get there.

But you know, doesn't mean you shouldn't stop trying to do it. And in fact, the act of trying to do it can push your English to a really good level.

You know, another point is like, why would you want to do that? I mean, it's up to you, of course. You know, you're free to do whatever you want.

But why would you want to remove all trace of your of why would you want to remove all trace of a foreign sound in your accent? Right?

Now, maybe you've got a very maybe it's for a very particular purpose. For example, you're reading the news on the BBC in London.

And you know, the people watching the news want to hear it read in their accent. There's maybe that reason. Another reason could be you're an actor preparing for a certain role.

For example, you're going to portray a British person in a film or TV show. And so you want to be able to sound like that character would sound. And this would be true of any native speaker as well, who has a different accent.

For example, American actors have to do this all the time. Right? Well, though, it's a little bit different with actors because they have a script and all they have to do is learn those specific lines in a different accent.

They don't have to actually become a different person and live their life with that accent. They just learn certain lines and they work with accent coaches to learn those specific lines.

But anyway, there's that. Another reason might be that you're a spy. And you want, I mean, I'm not suggesting that. Of course, this is more of a sort of funny response.

That you're a spy and you would want to be completely, what's the word, undetectable, you know? You just want to blend in completely and have no one realize that you're from somewhere else or that you're someone that you're not, you know?

Or a fourth reason is just that you just really want to and that's just what you want to do. So of course, yeah, nothing wrong with doing that at all. It's just difficult. That's all.

But still, it's fine to try. Of course, you know, I wouldn't want to limit, you know, your ambitions.

And the comment continues, would the individual be judged by native speakers? This is another good point, right? So if you're trying to sound like a British person, or, you know, an American person or whatever, and you're mixing with native speakers from that place, and they notice you trying to sound like a British person, would the individual be judged by native speakers?

I don't think so. In fact, I think probably native speakers would find it quite endearing, meaning that they would find it nice. They'd find it lovely. You know, when someone makes an obvious effort to learn your language, it's very flattering. And people generally love it, right?

In fact, I think people really respect it. Now, the only issue here is that slightly sensitive personal identity issue relating to authenticity, right?

So, obviously, it's important to push yourself and try your best, and people will appreciate your effort in speaking their language as well as possible. But at the same time, there's this undefinable sense that people know when someone is not really being themselves.

So it's a very difficult line that you have to walk, isn't it, between trying to sound like a native, or at least trying to improve your English, but also still maintaining some level of authenticity, and not being fake or something like that.

I think it's unlikely to be a big problem, but there's that slight sense that if you're... I mean, I've met some people who have tried to sound like a cockney or something. They've decided I'm going to sound like a kind of...

But they've got a slightly mistaken idea of what an authentic English accent is, and they are doing that, and it ends up sounding a bit like a caricatured impression of it, which was a bit odd, and you kind of feel like just be yourself.

So I think on the whole, people... Native speakers will not judge you negatively for trying to sound like them. I think people will just see it as an obvious effort to learn their language, and people will like that.

So, ma-ma-bub-bess comment continues, does it sound ridiculous to native speakers? No, it doesn't, not normally. Why would... so the comment continues then, why would we try something like the shadowing technique?

The point there is that if, sounding like a native speaker, isn't really necessary, and instead clarity is what you should be looking for, right?

Why then should we bother at all? Why should we bother to make these efforts to, let's say, copy or replicate the way that native speakers talk?

Why should we do listen and repeat exercises? Why should we do shadowing? Right? Shadowing, that just means sort of repeating what someone says while they say it.

So, I think that it's still... shadowing is still a really good idea, trying to copy or replicate native speaker English, or at least English that's really clear, is still a really good idea.

Because it might be, if you're looking for clarity, you'd need to find an example of English, which you think is really clear, okay?

A really clear example of a form of English that you are aspiring to. Now, even if this means you will never be able to sound exactly like a native speaker, there are still lots of important features of speech that you need to copy and replicate.

You see, so that means things like getting the word stress of words right, because if you're getting the word stress wrong, then people can misunderstand what you're saying, because you're stressing the wrong syllable of the word.

Sentence, stress, learning the rhythm of different sentences, learning, you know, how different parts of a sentence, different syllables in a sentence, get emphasised.

This is also a really important feature of clarity, and a good way of practising that is to listen to someone speaking in a clear way, listen to the way that they emphasise different parts of a sentence, listen to the way they pause, listen to the way they go up and the way they go down.

Right? And those are all important things to bear in mind, because those are important things that lead to clarity, okay?

You see what I mean? So it's still important to shadow, you just need to find the right model, a model that you think is clear, a good example of clear English, and yeah, you can try to replicate it.

That's all in order to achieve this thing called clarity, right? It's not necessarily because you need to make people believe that you are a British person.

That's not really necessary. That's an identity issue that's kind of up to you, but you know, Barbara seems to think that that's perhaps not necessary unless you've got a very specific reason for doing it like you're doing a certain job or you're a spy or you're an actor or whatever the reason is.

Okay, I hope that makes sense.

So let me just try and finish this off and then we'll continue. So yeah, you need a model, right? Don't you need a model of a kind of English that you can work towards?

And so what is that model? And probably it's going to be some sort of standard version of English, probably like a standard British English, let's say, one that is reasonably universal.

Now every single accent has baggage, every single accent brings with it its own identity issues. For example, if you if you try to speak with received pronunciation, for example, receive pronunciation does suggest a certain identity, you know, it suggests as sort of probably someone from the southeast of England, you know, it's probably sort of quite London centric.

It sounds like someone who's sounds quite middle class or upper class upper class is a bit different, you know, upper class accents are quite specific as well, but you know what I mean.

So every accent has got some kind of baggage to it. Every accent is associated with certain things, but probably received pronunciation or a modern received pronunciation is probably going to be a bit different.

Probably going to be the most neutral one, to be honest, and that's not to say that other regional accents have less value than RP, and in fact RP or modern received pronunciation is not the most common form, but it's probably still considered to be a sort of neutral form.

It's not completely neutral, but it's probably the one that is going to be the clearest for everyone, right? And also not only that, it's a practical issue too, that all the materials like the dictionaries and a lot of the pronunciation guides and a lot of materials for pronunciation are based on this accent, this modern received pronunciation.

So if you look in the dictionary for learners of English, the phonemic transcriptions will be in this accent. And so it's just easier to go for a to sort of use that as your basis for clarity, your model of clarity.

Okay, and so yeah, shadowing, doing all the techniques for working on your pronunciation are all great idea in order to aim for clarity. And whether you try to completely remove every trace of your first language from your accent is up to you, but it might not really be necessary.

And it's extremely difficult to do to have zero trace. And I think it's perfectly fine to have little traces of your accent in your English, of your origins in your English, as long as everything you're doing is clear to everyone.

Okay, I hope that's clear. It's quite a difficult thing to explain and sort of maneuvering your way through these issues is a bit complex, but hopefully I managed to do a reasonable job of it there. But everyone feel free to leave your comments in the comments section relating to this issue.

Okay, let's now go back to the past and continue this apparently epically long episode. Here we go.

Okay, right, let's move on to something a little bit less heavy and that is episode eight hundred and eighty two, which was called forty seven funny in inverted commas or speech marks country jokes explained.

Right, now I really enjoyed this and it was extremely happy with the overwhelmingly positive response the episode got because basically it was just a nice relief to just have a bit of stupid fun with some quite terrible jokes.

Right, it was great to add a bit of levity and just to have some fun with some pretty awful and cringe worthy jokes. Although some of them were actually really funny, I think.

Now I'll do some more joke explaining at some point I've been collecting more jokes so there'll be more joke explaining on the podcast.

I've been doing that for years and years, of course, I don't know how many episodes I've done in which I explained jokes, but there are loads and you should explore the episode archive teacher Luke.co.uk

and then I'll show you a couple of other funny slash episodes. Natalia de Paola, 6121 wrote this, she said, you explaining each one of them is even funnier.

Good, I'm really glad that you said that because obviously I am very motivated to do episodes about jokes because I just love jokes.

But then it's, sometimes it sounds like a good idea on paper. I'll tell some jokes and I'll explain the vocab. It'll be funny and we'll learn English from it.

Sounds like a good idea on paper, but in practice telling jokes to learners of English and then explaining the jokes can actually, can get pretty laborious and is often the opposite of funny.

But I've had quite a lot of practice at it because I've been trying to do it for years and I've sort of learned, I don't know, I just sort of learned how to do it really, I suppose.

But I'm really glad that the act of explaining the jokes is even funnier. Good, that's great, that's a good sign.

My personal favourites from the episode, my here are my jokes that, here are my favourite jokes, these are the jokes that were my favourites. Let's just go through them again and see if you can remember these.

There's just seven jokes, I'll just fly through them. I'm not going to explain the jokes now, you'll have to go back to episode, what was it, eight, eight, two to get all the explanations.

But these are my favourites and just to help you remember them. See if you can remember these jokes later, that could be a good little challenge for your English.

Try and remember the jokes and say them again and when you tell jokes you do have to kind of get them exactly right. You've got to get the timing right, you've got to remember the wording, try not to fumble or fluff the line, the punch line.

Okay, so what's the best thing about Switzerland? I don't know, but the flag is a big plus.

Next one is Amsterdam is a lot like the Tour de France, just a lot of people on drugs riding bikes. It could go the other way around.

I was actually thinking of taking this joke because I don't think anyone's authored this. It's not like this is from someone's Netflix special. This is just one of those jokes that's out there.

But I think it could be remixed and it could be turned the other way because obviously I live in France, I talk about French things.

So I think when the Tour de France happens, I could probably, I could use this joke. I think that's acceptable.

But you could do it the other way around. You could say the Tour de France is happening. Tour de France is a lot like Amsterdam, isn't it?

Really just a lot of people on drugs riding bikes. It's just like Amsterdam.

I don't know, maybe the only way to find out if that would be good is to try it on stage. It might need to be finessed.

It might need to be incorporated into a story of some kind. I don't know.

Anyway, number three, which country's capital is growing the fastest? Ireland's because every day it's doubling.

Another one of my favourites. Why do backpipe players walk while they play to get away from the noise?

Why is it hard to make friends in Antarctica because you can't break the ice?

I've heard that Argentina is starting to get a little colder. In fact, it's bordering on Chile.

Did you hear McDonald's will stop serving fries in Switzerland? Yeah, because the Swiss don't take sides.

By the way, there was that one about Greece, which I didn't understand. But I get it now.

I think I got it at the time as well, but I was more, what's the word for it?

More just slightly gobsmacked at what a terrible joke it is.

So by the way, I get the one about Greece, but I just don't, I just think it's a terrible joke.

So that joke again. What are Greek houses made of? The answer Greeks and concrete.

Now, as a few people pointed out in the comment section, Greeks is supposed to be like bricks,

but the words don't rhyme. I mean, they don't. Greeks and bricks don't rhyme.

E in Greeks, E in bricks. They've got to rhyme and they do have to sound similar.

I mean, you don't say Greeks, do you? No one says Greeks. It's Greeks. No one says Greeks. Do they? It's Greeks.

Are there any accents when Greeks sounds like Greeks? Maybe in an American accent, but a certain type of American accent, but I don't think so.

So Greeks is supposed to be like bricks, but the words don't rhyme. And anyway, why would you make houses out of people?

It doesn't make any sense. Like for me, the best jokes make sense on both levels.

This is the whole point of a joke that it means two things at the same time, but the best ones are when those two meanings actually make sense, some kind of sense.

For example, which country's capital is growing the fastest island because every day it's Dublin.

Now, it's not perfect, but both meanings do make sense. Dublin is expanding by 100% every day, which is why it's growing the fastest.

Okay, every day it's Dublin. It's Dublin. You know, it's expanding by 100% every day. Now, okay, this is not true. Dublin is not expanding that quickly, but it's kind of feasible.

The second thing is Dublin is the capital of Ireland every day. Every day it's Dublin, right?

So both sentences do mean something. It's not perfect. It's a bit of a stretch to like, I suppose that's meaningful, I suppose.

I think actually the Argentina chili joke is better. Argentina is bordering on chili, right?

Have you heard Argentina is getting colder? In fact, it's bordering on chili.

So the two meanings, one meaning is that Argentina shares a border with chili. The second meaning is that Argentina is getting colder and is nearly chili. It's almost chili.

Now, this is not actually true. I don't think Argentina is getting colder. I think probably like everywhere it's getting warmer, right?

But it still makes sense, right? It's getting chilly. It's nearly chili. It's bordering on chili. So it's bordering on chili clearly means two things at the same time. Both those meanings make some sense.

I'm now trying to actually try to think of a joke that works well on both levels.

One of my favorite jokes I think is good because it works pretty well on both levels.

Why did the scarecrow win the prize? Because he was outstanding in his field. A scarecrow is one of those things that farmers put in their fields to stop the birds from landing and eating all of the crops, right?

It's sort of like a person made from couple of sticks, a hat, some straw, some old clothes. It stands out in the field. And the birds think it's a person and they don't land there. It's a scarecrow.

Why did the scarecrow win the prize? Because he was outstanding in his field. Okay, so meaning number one, he won the prize because he was better than everyone else. He was outstanding, right? He was outstanding in his field.

He was better than everyone else in his particular job. In this case, being a scarecrow. He was the best scarecrow. He was outstanding in his field.

Meaning number two, he won the prize because he was doing his job. He was standing where, where was he standing? He was standing out in his field.

He was out. What was he doing? Standing in his field. He was outstanding in his field.

So why did the scarecrow win the prize? Because he was outstanding in his field. He was greater in his job and because he was outstanding in his field.

The two things mean the same. Sorry, the two things mean something. So the two meanings kind of both make sense at the same time. That's a good joke.

But there's a picture of a scarecrow winning a prize. But what a Greek house is made of. Greeks and concrete. God, it's terrible.

Also, we've got the repetition of the word Greeks. The repetition of Greek. You shouldn't really be repeating the same word in the setup and the punchline. It's a disaster. Anyway. Well, let's move on.

Next episode was episode 883, which was called a last minute rambling episode.

So in this one, I recorded the whole episode, then checked the recording and discovered that my camera wasn't capturing anything. It was a nightmare.

Thankfully, the microphone worked. But I didn't have time or the heart to be honest to record it. So I blessed the podcasting gods that the audio got recorded and just published that.

The audio podcast wasn't affected, but the video version had a completely black screen like the spinal tap album cover, making your reference now to spinal tap that comedy film.

I did an episode with my brother about it a couple of years ago, which quite a lot of people didn't listen to certainly on YouTube anyway.

But if you did listen to that, then maybe you'll know what I'm talking about. Spinal tap are a band, right? And it's a sort of a parody of a rock band. It's not a real rock band. It's not a real documentary. It's a comedy show.

And in this documentary about this ridiculous rock band, they get a new album and the album cover because they couldn't decide what to put on the cover because their first idea was to sexist.

They ended up with a completely black cover, just black, a bit like the video from episode 883 a couple of weeks ago, just a black screen.

And there's a famous scene from the film where they discuss the album cover. Let's actually look at that. Let's look at that.

This is a clip from this is spinal tap. Is this going to get flagged up on YouTube? It might do. And this is the moment where they receive the album cover. Just listen to some of the comments.

So what's happening here is that Ian, their manager, is handing out the new, the brand new copies of the album to the members of the band. And they're all looking at the album. And some of them don't like it. And some of them, like Ian, the manager definitely likes it. He's trying to be positive. I think he looks fantastic.

And just listen to some of the comments that they make about this all black album cover.

What do you think? Is this the cast question? No, this is it.

Yes, this is Smelva Glove by Spinal Tap. That's the jacket cover that's going out across the country.

It's the cover by the store. It's going to say anything here. It doesn't even smell. It's not going to say anything on the show. It's going to be like this all black.

It's a simple, beautiful classic. It does look like black, whatever. You can see yourself in both sides. I wish there would be so bad.

There's a black mirror in our back. It looks like death. It looks like mourning. Every movie in every cinema is about death. Death sells.

I think he's right. It's not just about this. It's so black. It's like how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None.

I think you rationalize this whole thing into something that you did on purpose.

I think we're stuck with a very stupid and a very dismal looking album. This is depressing.

You wear around your arm. You don't put this on your fucking turn, David. It's a choice.

I frankly think that this is the turning point. I think this is where on our way now. It's time to kick us.

Let's listen to some of those comments again. For example, when I'm with my brother, we're always quoting little lines from this film with each other.

Why, man? Is this the test pressing?

It's the test pressing. Often when an album is made, there's a test pressing. It's not the final version, just a test version.

And it might have a plain cover. Is this the test pressing? No, this is it. This is smell the glove by Spinal Tap.

This is smell the glove by Spinal Tap. The album is called smell the glove. It's stupid title.

That's the jacket cover that's going out across the country. It's not going to say anything here.

It doesn't even say anything. It's not going to say anything. So there's not going to be any writing on it. Just completely plain black cover.

It's going to be that simple, beautiful, classic. It does look like black leather.

It does look like black leather, okay? There's a rock band they like that. So someone's trying to be positive about it.

I think Derek Small says it looks like a black mirror, which I think is where the Netflix show Black Mirror got the name from, by the way.

Charlie Brooker, it was the creator of the show. The principal writer of the show. I think is a big fan of Spinal Tap like all the people of our generation.

So there you go. It looks like a black mirror. Says Derek. You can see yourself in both sides. It looks like a mirror.

I wish that it was so bad. It looks like black mirror. It looks like morning.

It looks like death says David, but then Ian is trying to convince him that this is actually a good thing. That death sells.

Because every movie and every cinema is about death. This is Ian attempting to sell the idea.

Every movie and every cinema is about death. Death sells. I think he's right. It's not about this. It's so black.

It's like how much more black could this be? The answer is none. None is good or black.

That's a classic quote from the film. How much more black could this be? The answer is none. None more black.

That was kind of like what I was going for you see with this completely black screen.

I just thought this is this how much more black in this being? The answer is none. None more black. It's like a black mirror.

But I'm not sure everyone agreed. Some people did. Rosalyn Lou Painting said it's great to read.

It's great to really listen to you and not get distracted by the visuals.

Visuals with an S. Well that's nice to say that. But I have to say everybody that this episode on YouTube underperformed.

Meaning that it didn't get the numbers, the views are definitely lower than a lot of other videos that have published recently.

It didn't get picked up by the algorithm and therefore not so many people watched it probably because of reasons like this.

So first of all fewer people than normal clicked on the thumbnail of the episode.

The thumbnail is the little image that goes along with the episode. So when you see all those videos on YouTube,

those little images above the titles, those are the thumbnails. And thumbnails are vitally important because

this is the first impression that people get and a thumbnail can attract your attention.

It can compel you to click it. There's good thumbnails, bad thumbnails, you know, in terms of engagement.

So few of people that normal clicked on the thumbnail because it was a bit weird.

A black outline of me, it looked like a vague black ghost or something.

Maybe I could have done something better but I don't want to use clickbait. Right? There are probably...

If that was my main job, if it was just making YouTube thumbnails, then there's an art to that and there's an art to creating the thumbnails that will just sort of like get into someone's mind.

There's a psychology of it that will cause people to click on it. And a lot of that is about sort of maybe even selling something compelling, like showing...

Giving the impression that something is much more exciting or interesting than it actually is.

For example, if it's just... For example, let's say it's a clip of Ringo from the Beatles talking about some of the songs in the Beatles.

And he gives a slightly negative opinion about a couple of the songs.

And the thumbnail is a shot of Ringo and they've picked a shot of him looking really angry.

And then it's across the thumbnail in a certain bright text. It says, Ringo hated these Beatles songs. And there he's like, kind of looking angry.

And he thinks, what the... It sort of... It seems to get your attention and it sort of peaks your interest.

And there's a certain emotional...

A compelling emotional reaction to seeing that, like someone angry, someone's having an argument, someone's expressing a strong emotion.

Click, I'll click it. You know, there's psychology behind it all. So I don't want to use clickbait, you know, generally I just don't like it.

So I always want to show in the thumbnail roughly what you're going to get in the episode.

For example, it's normally just a picture of me in front of the microphone with maybe a bit of text on the screen or some text that gives you a good idea of what's going to be in the episode.

Right? This time it was a video. The episode was a video without a video. And so I just had a black outline of myself.

Anyway, the thumbnail probably affected the click-through rate. That's one of the factors which affects the success of a video.

That's the first reason. It probably didn't do very well.

The second reason is that people probably didn't watch it for very long. Right? They didn't watch it for very long. Or didn't click like on the video because there was no video, just a blank screen, just a black screen.

I expect quite a lot of people jumped ship. They're just like left and stopped watching, which affected the watch time.

That's another factor which affects performance and also the algorithm.

So these two factors meant that the video didn't get promoted in things like suggested videos, etc.

As a result, the episode got fewer views because it was being suggested to fewer people.

The audio podcast did well as the audio episodes usually do because of the nature of the platform, the audio platforms, you know, those audio podcast apps.

If you're subscribed to the audio podcast, you receive each new episode in your app and you probably listen to it with less of a judgment or expectation. You just listen to the next episode as it comes along.

And you're more likely to continue listening and to finish the episode.

YouTube, on the other hand, is always suggesting new videos for you.

And they often have very intriguing or compelling thumbnails, which are just there on the side of the screen.

And so the likelihood is that you'll click away more easily. Don't do it. Don't do it.

I just showed them to you and you're like, ah, click, I will click them. No, don't do it.

But the people who stays and listen to the episode on YouTube and in audio land, I suppose, although I get less feedback on audio episodes, those people seem to like it and a few people understood that with this show,

it's the listening part, which is the most important part. And listening without video is actually great for a lot of reasons, which are gave in the episode.

So consider downloading pocketcasts on your phone and then subscribing to Luke's English podcast on there.

Then you can listen to all the episodes while you're doing other things and you don't have to stare at the screen the entire time and be distracted like things like my face.

And whether there's hair on it or not, because that's really not that important is just distracting.

Of course, if you prefer watching on YouTube, that's great as well.

I just wanted you to consider the other option, which is the audio podcast, and just to consider advantages of both different platforms.

Okay, here's a correction from episode 883 in the episode I talked about doing the bridge in France, which is when there's a public holiday on a Tuesday or Thursday, and people take the Monday or Friday off to make an extra long weekend.

Then I mentioned times when there's a super extra long weekend when two public holidays arrive right next to each other in the middle of the week.

For example, the public holiday arrives on a Thursday. Everyone takes the Friday off. They do the bridge. They end up with a big weekend, long four day weekend.

But then there's this time, these moments, when there's a super extra long weekend, when two public holidays arrives right next to each other in the middle of the week.

For example, on Wednesday and Thursday, which is what happened earlier this month, Wednesday was a public holiday. Thursday was a public holiday as well.

Everyone took the Friday off. We ended up with a five-day weekend, which is what happened a few weeks ago.

In fact, my son's crash, that's the daycare centre for kids, took the Monday off as well for a training day, and so it was a six-day weekend. And in France, people are calling this a viaduct, like really long big bridge.

So I said that a viaduct was a big Roman bridge, which carried water, but of course that is an aqueduct, isn't it? And I hate to get anything wrong on this podcast, which is why I wanted to correct myself.

So I just wanted to clarify what a viaduct an aqueduct actually are.

So an aqueduct, you could tell with the name aqua, it's a big Roman bridge, which carried water over a valley or a riverbed.

A viaduct is a similar structure to an aqueduct, but it is or was in Roman times, I think still is because a lot of them still exist.

Designed to carry a road or railway, although I don't think railways existed in the Roman era. They didn't get that far, they didn't create railways.

These days yes, you can have railways over a viaduct, but I don't think the Romans were doing it. Anyway, got it? So, there you go. Now, this just in.

This is just sort of a random tangent here. So my friend just sent me this meme on WhatsApp and I just felt compelled to share it. I have to share it.

So the meme is this, it's a picture of Prince William. And it says Prince William has been named UK's third sexiest man of 2024.

And then Ben Waxler on Twitter, x.com has written, is sexy, one of those words that means something different in British, like lift or chips.

And then another comment is rich. Rich, Ben, it means rich. So let me just explain this. So apparently some news headline, I don't know if this is even true, but Prince William has been named UK's third sexiest man of the year.

So what's the name of Prince William named UK's third sexiest man of 24? Is this really true? What?

Prince William named third sexiest man according to bizarre list. What list is this that's named him as the third sexiest man? Third. I mean, we've got, I mean, he's not bad.

Like Prince William is not bad. He's not quite as good looking as he used to be. There was maybe about five minutes in the 90s when Prince William was a bit of a heart throb.

These days, I mean, he's just generic royal English man, isn't he now? I mean, Fair enough, he's lost his hair, which is not the end of the world. A lot of guys maintain their sex appeal with a bald head.

That's fine. That's not necessarily a factor. But I don't know. He's got that kind of, I don't know how to describe it. He's got that sort of horsey, horsey kind of Windsor royal family sort of, you know, that sort of, you know, I'm just a bit too posh.

I don't know. It's, that's how I think Prince William featured on the UK's sexiest men alive 2024 list alongside the likes of Tom Holland, Idris Elba and Ramesh Ranganathan.

He's third sexiest. Who is the sexiest? According to a couple of thousands of the sites female users, William is the third sexiest in the UK, just ahead of England, manager, Gareth Southgate, though trailing to Spider-Man Heartthrob's Tom Holland.

And surprisingly, the poll winner, former top gear host Jeremy Clarkson, get out of town. Who are these women voting on this? I don't believe this is true. This has got to be nonsense. Who are these women? Who are claiming that Jeremy Clarkson is sexier than Idris Elba or Tom Holland?

And that Prince William is the third in the list. Anyway, anyway, what do you think listeners? I mean, do you think there's any, any truth in this? I mean, do you think that William is the third sexiest man in the UK?

And if you're wondering who Jeremy Clarkson is, I mean, you'll probably know him. He was from top gear and the grand tour. He's a sort of just an awful boomer, basically.

I'm going to quite like his TV shows, but I mean, really, the sexiest man. Jeremy Clarkson. Oh, God. How could he be the sexiest man in Britain? Sexiest British man. I don't know. Maybe he's got a certain kind of, I mean, if you're attracted to grumpy farmers, if you're attracted to rich, right-wing farmers, then maybe he's your cup of tea. I don't know.

I don't know him compared to Idris Elba or anyone who's Aaron Taylor Johnson, who might be the next James Bond. I mean, really, really, really everyone. What's the world coming to? I don't know.

Anyway, the meme, Prince William's been named UK's third sexiest man of 2024. Ben Wexler, I guess on x.com said, is sexy, one of those words that means something different in British, like lift or chips.

So presumably, Ben Wexler is from the United States. He's an American. And it's for funny comment.

Okay, does sexy mean what we think it means? Maybe in British English, sexy means something different, like the way that chips and lift means something different in British English.

And then someone else's comment, it means rich, Ben. Sexy means rich. They mean he's the third richest man of 2024.

Anyway, that made me laugh, so I wanted to share it with you. Moving on to the most recent episode that I did.

Episode 184, did you listen to it listeners? What did you think of that? Did it make any sense to you? I don't know. For some of you, that would have all just seemed like Greek, which is a Shakespeare quote.

Check how sophisticated I am. If you say it's all Greek to me, it just means it's all sort of stuff I don't really understand. Anyway, British music, madness with James, was Episode 884.

Now, this episode was a bit of a labor of love for me because I spent so much time working on it, inserting the clips, editing the conversation.

There were quite a few little interruptions and things during the conversation. So it took some time for me to edit it all together to insert the clips, to find the clips, to, you know, it took a long time and generally putting the whole thing together. It took ages.

But I really enjoyed getting back into the music of madness and also learning more about this band that James and I have been fans of since we were kids.

And it's always nice to chat with James on the show. But again, the video version on YouTube underperformed. In fact, it was even less, it did even worse than the previous one, which didn't even have a video.

I mean, also the conversation with James didn't have a video either, but anyway, the video version on YouTube underperformed probably for the same reasons as the previous one.

And because the title and thumbnail didn't quite catch people's attention as much as other episodes, like the Country Jokes one, the short story ones, they have catchy titles, catchy thumbnails and an obvious sense of appeal for the average learner of English.

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed doing it and, you know, for the reasons I just gave. Here's a response to the madness episode from a listener with a couple of questions.

So Anna Samek, 5179, wrote this.

Hi Luke, I really enjoyed this episode with your brother James. Your enthusiasm for music is really infectious.

I've never heard of the band madness before, but I was certainly familiar with the songs our house and one step beyond, although before this podcast, I wouldn't be able to identify the band.

But now thanks to you and your brother, I know more. So I would actually say I had never heard of the band madness because, I guess now that you know you have, right?

So I'd never heard of the band madness. I was certainly familiar with the songs, although before this podcast, I wouldn't have been able to. You see?

I wouldn't be able to identify the songs now, but before the podcast, I wouldn't have been able to identify the band.

Right? But now thanks to you and your brother, I know more. I hope you will continue talking about music in future podcasts.

So Anna's written in the future podcasts, but it's actually in future podcasts.

We would say in the future, but if it's future podcasts in future episodes, we drop the the.

So I hope you'll continue talking about music in future episodes in future podcasts.

Okay, or in the future, full stop. She continued, I would be really interested in finding out how you learned to play musical instruments.

And what you think about teaching music to young children and adults, are you planning?

It's planning. She's written, are you planning of giving? It should be, are you planning to give?

Because it's planned to do. Are you planning to give, for example, piano lessons to your kids? Are you familiar with American YouTuber Rick Biotto?

His son developed perfect pitch at a very young age.

All right, so there's a lot of stuff for me to respond to.

So the first of all, what are the benefits of learning musical instruments? I want to talk about that.

How I learned to play different instruments.

The question, whether I'm planning to teach music to my kids. And if I'm familiar with Rick Biotto and his son, called Dylan, who has perfect pitch.

I also received a comment at some point recently from someone asking me to give a quick tour of the instruments in my room, all these guitars.

And to talk, talk about them a little bit. Now I talked about my guitars a little bit in a recent episode, but I'm happy to do it again.

Very happy to do it again. Let me do that in a few minutes. First of all, let me just answer those questions.

First of all, the benefits of learning musical instruments, obviously, it's obvious. First of all, you get to be able to play music, which is just a joy and a pleasure.

Secondly, it can be really good if you can play instruments because it sort of allows you to socialize. You meet people.

You get into bands and it kind of gives you a thing to do with other people, which is a really cool way of meeting other people, having really great experiences.

Playing music with others is just a great social thing and it can be a great way to meet people and just have a great time.

And it's just lovely to be able to play music. So it's definitely something that's worth doing.

It takes a lot of practice, a lot of time. It's a bit like learning a language, you know. It really helps if you just love it.

If you just feel that you want to pick up a guitar, for example, and play it, it's difficult. It's really difficult at the beginning.

Like especially playing the guitar, your hands do not want to make the different shapes.

You end up as you try to make the different chords, as you try to press down the strings in the right shapes.

You know, your other fingers accidentally touch the other strings and it all sounds terrible.

Hold on a minute. Let me get my guitar.

Just try and demonstrate what I'm talking about.

That's how it should. That'll do, wouldn't it?

Hold on, folks. I'm going to have to just get my computer here as well to make sure I can capture this.

Okay.

So what I was trying to say is that, for example, learning the different chord shapes, you have to put your fingers over the frets.

You have to press the strings down against the fret board so that essentially the strings become a different length.

And because when the strings are a different length, they create a different tone, right?

So that's the bottom E string, but then when you press it against the third fret, the string becomes shorter.

And as a result, the sound wave is different and you end up with a G note and then a bit further up.

Again, an A, you know, the basic principles of the guitar.

And then you learn when a guitar is tuned in a certain way, like this.

Just standard tuning. You learn that certain shapes, putting your fingers on certain strings, or certain frets, create different chords.

Right.

But that takes a long time to learn, just learning the shapes so that your fingers automatically just go in the right places.

And it's so frustrating at the beginning.

First of all, it's very painful. Bending your wrist over, bending your fingers over so that they rest in the right places.

Then being able to do it with enough strength so that your fingers actually press down on the strings.

So that the a decent sounding chord comes out is very hard work.

It hurts your thumb, it hurts your wrist, and it hurts the ends of your fingers.

Right. I mean, if, when I play the guitar, I get these sort of,

these marks on my fingers where the strings have pressed against them.

So that takes a long, long, long time, lots and lots of practice.

Going back to the question, what was the question again?

Anyway, the benefits of learning musical instruments, I think they're probably obvious.

How did I learn to play different instruments?

I started actually when I was about 11 years old and I decided I wanted to learn to play the piano.

So I'm just going to try and give you the quick version here because obviously we've been going now for an hour and 40 minutes.

So I don't want to make this like too long, although as we've discovered before,

podcast episodes can be, can't be long and it's fine.

So when I was about 11, our next door neighbour in the house next to us, he played the piano.

He was probably about three or four years older than me and he was like a cool guy.

I thought he was a cool guy and he was really good on the piano and he learned with a piano teacher to play certain things.

He was able to play the entertainer, Scott Joplin, on the piano and he also learned music from the film Ghostbusters.

There's a certain scene in the original film where the Ghostbusters have a job and they have to quickly get ready and go out to catch a ghost.

And there's like this kind of honky-tonk kind of blues rock and roll piano playing throughout it.

And he learned to play that and he could play it really, really well.

And I would just watch him do it with my jaw on the floor, you know, like that.

It was so cool and I just really wanted to do it too.

And another thing is we got a little Casio keyboard and I learned to play some of the keyboard lines from some of my favourite songs.

Like for example, there was this new order song with the England football team and I learnt to play all the keyboard parts on it on my own.

And I thought, wow, I can kind of do this. This is cool.

And so I said to my mum, I'd like to have piano lessons please. She was delighted, of course, and set me up to have lessons with the same teacher that my neighbour had lessons with.

But the teacher taught me classical piano. He taught me, he was like, right, I'm going to do this properly.

You're going to learn properly, you're going to learn to read music, you're going to learn theory, you're going to take the classical grades.

And in the UK we have eight grades. When you get to grade eight, it means that you're really good musician.

I don't know what stage you can sort of play in a professional orchestra or something.

So for about five years I learned piano theory and I practiced the piano for half an hour or an hour every single day.

And at the beginning I was like really disciplined and I practiced a lot and I got quite good really for my...

I made pretty good progress in the first three years especially. And I got a distinction in my first grade one piano, I got a distinction.

I got a distinction for grade two and I was like a little bit of a prodigy almost on the piano doing really well.

Everyone's saying lots of really good positive things about me.

As time went on my focus slipped somewhat and I got distracted by other things maybe because schoolwork started to become more of a challenge.

But also other things started to get involved and for one reason or another I found it harder to focus on it and so I wasn't quite as good as I used to be.

But I was still pretty good. So for grade three, grade four and grade five I got merits. I got a merit, a merit and a merit.

So distinction is the best, merit is the next best and then pass is the third best thing you can get. A bit like ABC.

So I got distinction distinction merit, merit merit. By the time I got to the...

Basically at that point I was 16 years old and it just wasn't really interesting for me anymore and I was much more interested in other kinds of music.

The classical music didn't really mean anything to me, I couldn't really get into it.

It's a pity because now I understand it a lot more and I feel like I appreciate it a lot more.

But back then it just wasn't really my thing and I was much more interested in sort of like all these other types of music like hip hop and even jazz music and funk and you know like techno and stuff like that.

And so I decided I didn't want to do it anymore.

But and it was a bit of a sad moment I had to call the teacher who was a really good teacher who really believed in me. I had to call him and sort of say, look you know I'm going to take a break from playing the piano and maybe I can start again after the summer and he just sort of said to me, okay Luke, okay well all right.

You know maybe speak to you again soon but I could just tell in the way that he was talking to me that he knew that I was giving up and I felt relieved afterwards I felt like, I don't have to do that anymore.

Now around about the same time as when I was still doing piano lessons and stuff but I wasn't so interested in it anymore.

Other forms of music became really interesting to me and I was into all that stuff like Jimmy Hendrix and the Beatles and madness and stuff.

And I remember one day my dad had a guitar and he used to play the guitar and I would sometimes pick it up and try to do things but I couldn't really work out how to do it because the guitar and the piano are really really different.

But I used to sort of like mess around a little bit but I had no idea.

But then one day at school this kid in my year came in with this bass guitar it was like a fender P-Base copy, it wasn't a fender, it was some cheap copy of a fender and he brought it in and at that time I was the music prefect.

So a prefect is someone who has a sort of special responsibility for something in the school and I was responsible for the music room.

So I was about 14, 15 years old, 14, 15, 16, that kind of time.

And basically as the music prefect I got to wear a badge first of all which said I was a prefect and secondly I was allowed to use the music room at break times and at lunch times and I was responsible for tidying it up, cleaning it up.

But I got to use the music room and so I used to hang out in the music room and some of my friends would hang out there too.

And one day this kid brought in this bass and I was like let's have a go on that.

My friend wanted to buy it but he could not play it to save his life and he got really frustrated but I picked up the bass and I was able to do a few things like I was able to do this.

Right which is come as you are right Nirvana.

I'll stick with this guitar. I was going to play the bass for a moment but I'll show you that in a minute.

And so I was the one who actually bought the guitar so this kid was selling the guitar for like £10, £15 or something ridiculous. So my friend bought it but he couldn't play it so I bought it from him.

And so then I had this bass and I would sit at home.

Right doing that but I didn't have anything to plug it into so I would sit playing an unplugged bass.

Right and I'll be doing that and I'll be doing that.

That's it.

Things like that and I learnt to play the bass. Now all kind of a basic.

I learnt to play basic bass lines just copying songs that I heard you know like things like that.

And then but also because I was playing the piano my mum and dad wanted to encourage my brother to play something and we had this garage that was separate from the house.

Sort of like this room in the garden and they bought a drum kit because my dad used to play the drums when he was younger.

So they bought a drum kit and they thought maybe my dad could play he could teach my brother to play he could teach me to play.

So they bought this drum kit with a soft the idea that maybe my brother would play learn to play and he did James learnt to play the drums.

He ended up in like these bands at school and at college.

It was really great and we had this room where we could rehearse.

And I started playing the drums as well and I realised that that was really the cool thing and that was the thing I really like to do.

And so I would go instead of playing the piano I'd be going in there and sitting on the drums and just playing and trying to like copy the way that Ringo played on certain records and I'd try and copy all of my drum heroes.

And then I got really into the drums and whenever I listened to music, if I listened to Jimmy Hendrix I would be listening to Jimmy Hendrix's drummer.

You know Mitch Mitchell and just be fascinated by what Mitch Mitchell was doing.

When I listened to the police I listened to Stuart Copeland. I wasn't really interested in what the others were doing.

I was just listening to Stuart Copeland and so I got really obsessed with the drums but I also played a bit of bass as well.

But really the drums was the thing I got into.

And then you know I just got into bands because it was the cool thing to do with friends I met at college when I went to college and I ended up in bands.

Because that was sort of like cool you know and sort of thing that girls would be impressed by or at least I thought that girls would be impressed by that.

I don't know if they really were.

But that's kind of how I learnt to play bass and drums just by copying records.

I didn't really learn any theory.

I don't really have a lot of technique if you see me playing the bass.

I'm sure that my fingering is wrong.

Because like on the piano when you play the piano they're that fingering is really important.

Making sure that you know you're playing the notes with the right fingers so that you can easily move your hand up and down the keyboard.

It's the same thing with the guitar and the bass. You've got to be using certain fingering.

But my fingering is probably quite kind of sketchy and I just saw over the place really.

I just play by feel and by trying to copy things.

And every now and then these days I just pick up the bass and play and just do my best and just try and have fun with it.

So that's kind of how I learnt to do those things.

The guitar came later and that really all I wanted to do was just learn to do all the chords.

And I bought myself an acoustic guitar when I was in my 20s a cheap Yamaha acoustic guitar.

And I would just try and play and I didn't really know a lot of stuff.

Like I know most of the chords now I can play most of the major minor chords.

Some of the other more complex ones I can do as well.

And I can do some of those movements where you kind of...

You know those sorts of little transitions between chords I can do some of those things.

I can't really play lead guitar. That's all that.

You know the get shredding guitar solos. I can't do any of that stuff.

I can play a bit of funk guitar.

Because I'm basically a drummer. So it's like a drummer.

I've just played the drums on the guitar. Just playing the sort of same chords over and over again.

So there you go. That's how I learnt to play different instruments.

Kind of self-taught really. And you can tell.

For the guitar I'm not sophisticated. I can just play basic chords to just maybe a company a few songs.

I can't do the lead stuff. I probably play things wrong.

And I can't do that finger picking which is really the best thing to do on the guitar.

That's where you...

I can't do it. I'm cheating there.

Finger picking is where you essentially your right hand which is strumming the strings sort of does several things at the same time.

So your thumb is playing bass lines.

And while your thumb is doing that your fingers are kind of going...

I can't really do it at all.

So I'm very limited on the guitar really.

Am I playing... Am I planning to teach music to the kids? Yes definitely.

And in fact my daughter already goes... She learnt...

She went to violin classes at school for a year but that didn't work out in any way.

I mean, who wants to play the violin in any way? I mean, okay.

She could play in an orchestra and play all the classical music but really I think the best instruments are the guitars, keyboards and drums I would say.

Because I'm naturally interested in pop music, rock music, jazz, all those sorts of things rather than classical music.

So I want her to be able to learn an instrument that she will be able to play in a band with other people.

Because that's I think the most fun and the most accessible thing as well.

So at my daughter's school there is a music...

They have a sort of music room and they have pretty good music lessons. They do classical music though.

But that's alright. I think it's important to have a basis in classical music and to understand music theory.

I think that's really good, really important.

And definitely can be very, very helpful because you can apply that to playing other instruments and just apply that to play music later in your life.

Like for example, I'm really glad that I did those five or six years of piano lessons because I think it did instill something in me.

I don't really remember a lot of the theory now. When I sit down at a piano and try to read music, I can't really do it anymore.

So I've lost a lot of that stuff that I learned.

But I think it instilled a certain kind of comfort, confidence and love for playing music, which hopefully I will always have.

I wish I could be better as always, but you know, it's alright. The main thing is that you have fun.

So anyway, with my kids...

So yes, my daughter's got music classes at school which we enroll her in and she's going to start doing piano lessons in September at the school.

I hope that she enjoys it. I hope it's not too boring and too serious.

And I hope that she actually gets into it. We're going to set up...

I've got a piano here, an electric piano. We're going to set that up in our flat and or a smaller one in her room.

Let her put their headphones on and play and practice because she'll have homework.

Hopefully it'll, you know, hopefully she will get it. She will be into it.

But I don't want to be imposing it on her or my son when he's old enough.

I don't want to feel like it's in imposition because so many of us are forced to play instruments and we hate it.

And that's not very healthy for playing music later.

Instead, I want to encourage a love of playing music and a love of instruments.

And I've got a guitar and a ukulele at home in the apartment which are always there and I pick them up and play them quite a lot.

And hopefully that will just sort of...

Hopefully that will inspire my kids to pick them up like my son, for example, who's still basically a baby.

He can't walk yet but he spends a lot of time staring up at the guitar on the wall and it's fascinated by it.

I take it down from the wall and play it in front of him and he really loves to...

He just... his eyes light up and so hopefully that means that he's...

I mean, stealing a sort of fascination and love for the guitar in him that maybe one day will come back and he'll choose to pick up a guitar

and will be motivated enough to get through those difficult first couple of years maybe even towards a point where he's actually very fluent and comfortable on the guitar.

That would be fantastic.

There's a ukulele in my daughter's bedroom, another one, a kind of a slightly cheaper one which just leave next to her bed on the floor.

And every now and then she does pick it up.

The other day she picked it up brought it into our bedroom. My wife and I were still in bed Saturday morning.

She came in with the ukulele and improvised this song in front of us.

I was like showing her how to hold it. She was lying it down on the bed and strumming it like that in front of her and I said,

no, no, you got to hold it like this. Put your left arm under it and round it and strum it like that.

And she did. She wasn't really playing any chords, although I showed her the most simple ukulele chord that there is, which is the C chord, which is just one finger on one fret.

Right. You got C and C seventh, which is literally you can play them with one finger.

And others, there are other chords which are really easy on the ukulele.

And she did this song. She improvised it. She sings a lot. She's always singing.

And she's, she's pretty good. You know, she comes up with some pretty catchy little lyrics and things that she improvised is.

All she needs to do I think is just have the ukulele.

And I think we'll be taking a step in the right direction. So, you know, I'm just kind of like leaving a ukulele around, hoping that she will just pick it up and start playing it of her own accord, which will then feed into a sense that music is her thing.

And then she will hopefully sort of carry on doing it.

Am I familiar with Rick Bearto? Yes, I am definitely familiar with Rick Bearto. He's a very successful YouTuber.

And he's the guy, I don't know how old he is now. He's a baby boomer kind of guy who has an incredible level of knowledge, not just about music and music theory, but about the music industry.

I think he was a music producer. He's an extremely accomplished guitarist, a multi instrumentalist. He's a fascinating person to watch on YouTube. He does these really interesting videos where he, for example, breaks down the music behind certain popular songs.

He's got his opinions. He's got his opinions about modern music and he thinks that a lot of it's not very good.

He does these fascinating interviews with great musicians, like he did an interview with Sting, and an interview with Sting's guitarist, what's his name? Dominic Miller.

He also interviewed Stuart Copeland and Andy Summers from the police and a number of other great artists.

So yeah, I'm really familiar with Rick Bearto. He's great. I think he's really good.

And yeah, his son called Dylan is kind of famous on his channel because he has perfect pitch. Perfect pitch is basically where you are able to identify notes in a scale just by hearing them without seeing them, without seeing them written in notation and without seeing them being played.

You can close your eyes, play a note on the piano and say what note it is. And Dylan is amazing at this. And there are videos of Rick Bearto with his son, Dylan.

His Dylan has got his back to the piano. Rick is playing these quite sophisticated jazz chords. And Dylan is naming the chord and singing each note in the chord independently. It's stunning.

Some people on the internet have suggested that they're cheating and that Dylan knows what the chord is going to be. But I mean, when he watched the video, it doesn't seem to be cheating.

It seems to be that he's genuinely not only naming the chords, but singing each individual note separately. It sounds like he's got perfect pitch. And I believe it. I think probably Rick Bearto is so musically talented.

And he's so fluent and clear in his, in the way that he just he talks about music theory. He's probably been playing the piano to Dylan, breaking down chords, explaining the musical theory to Dylan in clear ways that Dylan's natural musical ability has been realized and has, you know, has developed really, really well as a result.

So I can't really teach my kids musical theory in the same way that Rick Bearto can because I'm not an expert in music. I can teach my daughter the chords on the ukulele and the guitar.

You know, I can teach her basic things about melody and harmony and rhythm. And when she's old enough, I'm definitely going to take her to a local music studio where they have a drum kit, they have amplifiers. And I'll sit her behind the drum kit and I'll show her. Look, here's how you play the drums.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight with your right hand on this thing, which is called a hi hat, t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t

One and five with your foot.

And, guard, doomed, guard, right? And there you go. That's like the basis of everything.

And I'll get her to do it. And hopefully she'll enjoy going, doomed, guard, doomed, guard, if she can learn to do that, because playing the drums is like really about learning to do different things with different parts of your body.

It's like tapping your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time. Can you do it? Can you tap your head while you rub your tummy?

You know, it's kind of like that. So you end up being able to do different beats on different arms and feet.

And if she gets comfortable, then while she's doing it, I'll gladly...

You know...

You know, I'll play along with her and hopefully inspire her to kind of get into playing music. I hope. That's the idea.

I've just realised I've got to go now. I've got to go and pick up my son from daycare.

I haven't finished this episode though, because what I wanted to do was give you a little tour of my room and show you the different guitars and even play them for you.

I don't know if there's going to be time for that. But there's more. There's more I wanted to do in this episode, including play a song at some point.

So what I'm going to do is I'll stop here and I'll just simply continue tomorrow afternoon. I'm teaching in the morning.

And then I'm going to have lunch and then when I come back here, I think I'll carry on. Okay? So...

Alright, thanks for listening up until this point. I think if you've got to this point, the chances are you're going to listen to the whole thing, right?

Yeah, nice one. Okay, I'm going to do that magic thing where I click my fingers.

And when I've clicked my fingers, we'll have jumped forward nearly 24 hours to tomorrow afternoon.

And I'll finish this episode then with slightly different clothes. Okay? Let's do that. Right now, here we go.

There you go. 21 hours, about 21 hours have passed. And we're back again. So...

We just flew through time, but at least I did. And here we go. And it's still pissing down with rain outside.

So conditions have not really changed except for the fact that 21 hours have passed.

And we're now into the future in some form, even though it's all the same to you. Right?

So let's carry on, shall we? Let's see if we can... Let's see if we can get this done. Let's get this done. Let's do this.

Okay, so intentions and plans for upcoming episodes. I thought that I would just kind of give you an idea of what's going to come up on the podcast over the next couple of months.

So, as I continue to read from the PDF here, I get quite a lot of requests for the most popular types of episode.

Stories, articles, explaining things like jokes, song lyrics, and the walk-and-talk episodes as well.

I think those are, at the moment, as far as I can tell, the most popular type of episode.

Although, I think probably there's people out there who've got their own preferences.

Some people prefer episodes with my friends and family. Other people prefer rambling episodes.

There's like different preferences out there. But I do get quite a lot of requests in comments sections for those episodes I just mentioned.

And I want to do these things, but they do take time. Finding the right materials, finding ways to present the topics,

choosing language to highlight and explain, and preparing that a bit, and overall preparing the visuals for the video version.

So, notes, text for the screen, et cetera. It all takes time.

And I'm always working on lots of different episodes at the same time.

Rambling episodes usually take less preparation, like I said at the beginning of the episode.

So, when time is tight, I can do them, buying myself more time to prepare other episodes.

That was the idea behind this one, although ended up taking more time, of course, just like everything does.

What's wrong with my relationship with time?

Why do I always think things are going to take less time than they actually do?

I suppose it's kind of wishful thinking.

It's also the fact that I just want to talk about everything all at the same time.

Anyway, continuing the text here.

Stories. So, I'm working on several story episodes at the moment, including some that I'm writing myself.

And that requires a bit of extra work, as you can imagine.

I'm trying to make the stories as good as possible.

Being a good writer is tricky. It's hard to compete with the likes of role,

dial, Catherine, brush, et cetera.

I'm also looking for interesting true stories and anecdotes written on sites like Cora,

Reddit, et cetera, right? So, I'm always on the lookout for stories.

So, I'm searching for and preparing short stories all the time.

I've also been playing around with AI to see if it can create stories, which I think are good

enough. Most of the time, the stories written by ChatGPT, for example, are not quite right.

They just lack a certain special something. AI stories often don't include the details,

which make stories come alive. And this means things like bits of dialogue or moments of humor

or other human elements. But they can provide a starting point, which I can work on.

So, I'm working with some AI stories to try to develop them into the kind of thing I can use

on the podcast. Articles, right? Episodes made using articles. Now, it's the same as above,

really. Basically, I'll read out more articles and explain language I find in them, as well as

discussing the topics. It also takes time to prepare this kind of thing. There are lots of articles

online, which I can adapt. So, you know, there'll be more article episodes. Another thing,

explaining things and explaining song lyrics. I haven't done that very much, but I've had a few requests,

I think maybe since I talked about music recently, I've had people sort of suggest this,

because it's made them think that maybe that's something else I could do. So,

I have a couple of episodes like this in the pipeline. Stories based around songs where I talk

about the lyrics. And also, the stories behind the way the songs were written. And these two episodes,

these couple of episodes, they both involve actually singing the songs to you, which might result

in copyright strikes and loss of revenue on YouTube. So, that might not be the wisest thing for me

to do, but we'll see. I wanted to also mention that for me, even now, I still feel like every episode

is an experiment. Do you see what I mean? I feel like that. That every episode I do, it still feels

like, feels like I'm experimenting with things. Almost trying things out, experimenting to see

what works and what doesn't work. And I always want to keep things fresh and new, or at least I

feel like I do. I don't want it to become too formulaic, although it probably is. Also, walk and talk

episodes. I'm waiting for the good weather to return if that ever does happen. And then I'll go

for a walk with my camera and microphone by the river this time. And I'll talk about a specific

topic. I think my next topic in the list is health and keeping fit. That's probably going to be the

next thing I talk about. But I might change my mind. But at the moment, the next thing in the

list of walk and talk topics is health and keeping fit. And I've got some questions and some

phrasal verbs and stuff. I can talk about the topic, include the phrasal verbs in my questions

and in my answers, and visit another nice part of town. And then maybe do a premium episode where I

deal with the explaining and demonstrating the language that came up in my answers, those

phrasal verbs and things. Also, conversations with guests, friends, family, other people.

It's important for you to hear conversations, I think, especially with people you are less

familiar with. Often, I think it's the conversations that are harder to follow. This is what I have

noticed in responses to my episodes that people say that often when I have guests, people sort of

comment that they can't understand the guests. But this is just because I think probably just

because you're less familiar with their voices in a particular way that they speak. But also,

it might just be because they are not often, they're not English teachers and they don't have

experience of talking to non-native speakers, which doesn't just mean speaking slowly, but just kind

of being aware of the people who are listening to you. And just perhaps understanding which things

need to be explained, like which little references and things need to be explained. And

making sure that you're not using too much idiomatic language, which can alienate people who

aren't familiar with them. Anyway, conversations with guests. It's important for you to hear

conversations, I think. And as my PDF continues, if you understand me all the time, this is fine,

and it's good to get comprehensible input. But if you only ever listen to me, then you could get a

slightly false sense of your own ability and you'll be able to understand other people. And

there's a chance you will end up, you'll be unable to understand other people, I mean. Right,

you'll get a slightly false sense of your own listening ability and you'll be unable to understand

other people. And there's a chance you will end up with that attitude of thinking,

these people don't speak properly. I will only put up with properly spoken English,

which would be a pity because not only does that sound a bit snobbish, it also would betray the

fact that your listening skills aren't quite up to scratch. So my point there is that you can't

just listen to me all the time. You have to be exposed to other people speaking so that you don't

get a false sense of your own listening ability. Do you see what I mean? Whereas also, it is

important to listen to someone whose voice is clear that you understand a lot because this is the

basis of comprehensible input. But it's always a double-sided thing, I think, learning a language

that it's always about balance that on one hand, yes, listen to something that's easy for you to

understand, something that's clear. But also on the other hand, you've got to get familiar with

slightly less clear speech as well. You know, kind of balance those things out. So anyway, more

conversations will come. And also, conversation episodes for me are a chance to socialise with other

people. And I enjoy collaborating and having conversations with people. I find that it's a

be enjoyable. If I just did this all on my own all the time, I'd get a bit lonely, wouldn't I?

Yeah, sad music. You can imagine some sad music now. Of me being lonely all on my own. So I like,

I like doing episodes with other people. And I hope that you like them as well. So another type of

episode, that's the Rick Thompson report. Remember that? The Rick Thompson report haven't done one for

quite a long time. Maybe the last time I did an episode like that was when I talked to my mum,

my dad and my mum, because normally the Rick Thompson report is just with my dad. But last time I

think it was the Rick and Jill Thompson report where I talked to both my parents about the

coronation of King Charles III. We talked about that. But the Rick Thompson report

was a regular series that I did mostly around the time of Brexit, but also after Brexit and stuff.

And I talked to my dad about politics in the UK, basically. My dad, as you may know, is a former

broadcast journalist, similar to what Barbara Sarah used to do. Although he wasn't really a presenter,

he was more a producer or editor of the news. He used to work for the BBC for 30 years. And

so anyway, in episodes of the Rick Thompson report, I just talked to my dad and asked him what's

going on in British politics. And he kind of talks about it in his characteristic way, very popular

episodes. So the Rick Thompson report, we haven't done one for a while, but as it says here on my

PDF that I wrote before, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, not for long. I mean, he won't be the Prime

Minister for long. And what's the date when you're listening to this? Well, probably by some,

by the second week of July, he probably won't be the Prime Minister anymore. But

and that's just a prediction. Well, we don't know, but I expect most people seem to think that

the conservatives will be out after the next election. But anyway, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

recently announced a general election in the UK, which is due to take place. Is it the 4th of July?

He announced a general election in the UK, seemingly taking most of the governing conservative

party by surprise, making it clear that the party is surely doomed. But what's going on in UK

politics in this big election year? I feel a Rick Thompson report coming on. It's been a while,

hasn't it? Why? Well, my dad is retired. And so I don't want to hassle him to do, like journalism

for free, of course. Also, he's been fairly busy writing a third book. And I'll interview him about

that when it's ready. But I think I think it'll be time to do at least one Rick Thompson report

about the general election, maybe one before and one after the election. We can talk about that.

Maybe my mum can be involved in it as well. Anyway, back to conversation episodes. I have about

five of them in the pipeline, and I'm spreading them out a bit. Right? I'm publishing them one by one,

but with solo episodes in between. So it will be something like a conversation episode, solo

episode, conversation episode, solo, conversation, solo, and so on. Right? But you can expect a

couple of work-related episodes coming up. Those are conversation ones, including one about job

interviews and one about networking in English. Also, there'll be one with a friend of mine who is a

journalist who lived in China for three years. That's Charles, who I'm doing the comedy show with

on the 19th of July at 830 in a place called Osolet de la Bout in Montmartre in Paris.

So there'll be an episode with him and also one with Alistair from English Learning

For Curious Mines in which we do a sort of true crime episode. Okay? So all that will be coming up

over the next few weeks, along with some solo episodes, which are still coming together,

which I'm still working on. Summer will be busy. It's going to be a busy summer as normal. Will

LEP be affected? So August off and a busy June and July. As usual, at this time of year, I always say

this at this time of year, I reckon that there might be no episodes for a while in the summer as I'm

unable to record anything in some periods, certainly in August, but also during parts of July. So

normally at this time I start to panic and think I'm not going to be able to publish anything and

everyone's going to, you know, everyone will just stop listening to Luke's English podcast

and they'll forget all about me because I won't be publishing episodes. This is what us

podcasters are concerned about that we have to keep pumping out the output. We have to keep

publishing episodes because if there's a period with nothing, then everyone just forgets about us

and moves on. This is what we wake up. This is what we have nightmares about and wake up in the middle

of the night sort of sweating. Oh god, no, no episodes, you know, this is the sort of thing that happens.

But anyway, no, I won't be able to record in August because we'll be away and also during parts

of July. So I'm teaching a couple of intensive English courses at the British Council in June

and July, which means teaching all day and then rushing home to look after the kids and no time

for podcasting, just collapsing and recovering in the evenings when the kids are in bed. So

during the intensive courses, no podcasting will be possible probably. It also might be brutally hot

at that time. In August, we're going away on holiday for about three weeks and so I'll be away

from my computer and all my stuff. I won't be able to do anything, okay. Won't be able to do

any recording. I might be able to do some, I might be able to bring like a portable microphone

with me and stuff, but you know, I'll be on holiday. So like last year, I'm going to try to record

as many episodes as possible in the next few weeks in order to have a backlog, which I can publish

during July and August to cover my absence, but I might not manage it. Time is tight. So there might

be no episodes in August, but please don't forget about Luke's English podcast. It'll return in September

when I have more time at my disposal. I will try to make sure there's premium content all the way

through the summer. So that's two episodes a month at a minimum. So it's going to be a busy time

the next few weeks. I'm going to be making a lot of episodes in order to cover for the absence,

but I think if there is an absence, it's all right. I think you'll be, I think you won't forget

about me. Will you? And I think you'll probably, they say absence makes the heart grow fonder.

So in fact, the fact that I'm not here all the time will make you miss me. I have plenty of other

ideas for episodes. It's all just a matter of time management. Episode 900 is coming up, and then

I've got my sights set on Episode 1000, another nice milestone. I don't know what I'll do for

Episode 900. It feels like I should celebrate the milestone, like, you know, like I normally do.

I don't know what I'll do. I might do a YouTube live or something like that. I might do a live

episode, although they can be tricky because what happens is, we'll just get millions of comments

in the comments section from people, and it's all a little bit difficult to deal with. It becomes a

bit overwhelming. But you know, it could be a fun thing to do anyway, you know, I might try and see.

So another question. Luke, can you give us, can you tell us a bit about the guitars in your room?

Right? Can you tell us a little bit about the guitars in your room? I can't remember who asked

me this recently, but every now and then, you know, people see the guitars and stuff I've got on

the walls, and they ask me to talk about them. And of course, I'm, I'd be very happy to do that.

I'd love to talk about the guitars and things. So, I'm going to now give you a little tour of the

instruments in this room. I'll try to give you just one or two brief bits of information about each

one, maybe brief stories about how I got the guitars or something else related to them,

and I'll see if I can play them all for you a bit. Certainly the bass guitars that that I've got

here, because I do have something set up so I can plug in my electric guitars, my electric bass

guitars. I can plug them in and you'll be able to hear me playing them a little bit. So,

I'm going to tell you about my instruments. So, let's start with the, let's start with the Eucalylei,

which I had out earlier on. This, I mean, obviously people listening in audio land, you can't see

these things. So, I'm just going to have to just describe them. The first thing I've got here is

a Eucalylei. A little, is it a, I can't remember what type of this type of Eucalylei it is. Is it

a soprano? Is it a concert Eucalylei? I can't remember. It's quite small, but it's not the small

list model, because Eucalylei's come in different sizes, right? So, this one is just the size up

from the smallest. It's the second smallest size. And they do get smaller than this. And

Eucalylei's are unbelievably cute instruments. They're just lovely, happy-go-lucky little instruments

that if played well, you know, if you just know the right chords, they can be a really lovely little

accompaniment to some singing, you know? So, this one that I've got, I bought it a few years ago

from a shop up the road from where I live. And what's it made of? I can't remember what this is made of

now. I'm afraid I can't remember, but it's made by a company called Arya. Obviously, it's made of

wood. I just can't remember what kind of wood this is, but it's a lovely kind of reddish brown colored

wood. And this one, Eucalylei's, because they're smaller, they're cheaper, right? Arya is a Japanese

company, but this one I think was made in China. I think these these Arya Eucalylei's are made in

China, which is another reason why it was so affordable. It was like less than a hundred euros.

But it's it's actually a really good one. And I checked them out online. And the reason why

this one is actually pretty good is that it's got a solid top. Right, this is going to get a little

bit geeky as I talk about sort of guitars and the the ways that they're made and stuff like that.

But who knows? Maybe you'll learn something if you don't know about this stuff already. Maybe you'll

learn a thing or two. So when it comes to guitars and Eucalyleis, often one of the

when it comes to guitars and Eucalyleis, the way that they're constructed is obviously really

important. And the top is a really really important part of a guitar or Eucalyle. The top is the

the sort of the wood that the main part of the the body is made from. That's the the main surface

right that you can see. So there's there's that's one piece of that's a piece of wood. Then you

got the wood that goes around the sides and then you got the piece of wood on the back. Then there's

the the neck and the the headstock and often on Eucalylei, it's the same piece of wood, right?

Just the neck and the headstock are all made of one piece of wood. And you got the fret board as

well, which is another section of wood that's put there. That's where you that's what you press

your fingers up against. And then there are the frets which are the little metal strips which go

up the the fret board or finger board. You got the tuning heads and so there you go. Now the thing is

about the what makes a guitar or Eucalylei quite good often is if that main top the piece of wood

on the top of the guitar if it's made of one solid piece of wood. Because often they'll be they'll

be made of like bits of wood that have been stuck together with glue. But if it's a solid top,

that means it's one single piece of wood. And that's better because it will probably

project the sound a little bit better. If it's made of if it's made of a composite top like a

lots of bits of wood stuck together, for some reason the sound doesn't sort of reverberate quite

as nicely as when it's made from a single solid top. So that's why I bought this because it had a

solid top even though it's like they say made instruments made in China are normally a little bit

cheaper and often the the the construction is not quite as good. These ones are actually really good

because they've got that solid top and it's got a lovely colour and another thing about this I'm

going to play it in a moment. Another thing about this is the strings that I chose and I went for

actually bought some fairly expensive strings. I can't remember exactly what they're made of

but they're really good quality thick white strings and the strings make a huge difference.

That's a really important thing about a ukulele. You can probably get a fairly cheap ukulele

that you buy on the internet or something. You can get them pretty cheap but a way a good way to

really improve the sound of a ukulele is to a really good way to improve the sound of a ukulele is to

sorry I'm just filling with my camera. A good way to improve the sound of a ukulele is to change

the strings and to put some nice good quality strings on that can make a big difference.

What was that? No, I played a bum note. Okay let's play something on it. Is it in tune?

Come a little bit closer, hear what I have to say.

Just like children sleeping we can dream this night away.

Okay that was just a little taste of harvest moon by Neil Young.

Okay so that's my ukulele. I don't play it as much as I should do but there you go.

Voila. Oh, don't fall over. What's next? This guitar, you've seen this guitar already today but

I'm going to show it to you again. This guitar here is the newest one that I've got and I bought

this about a year ago. Is it in tune? I think so. This is a tailor, not Paul Taylor but a

a tailor which is a decent brand of guitar. This is a Taylor GS Mini made of Mahogany and I definitely

recommend Taylor guitars. My god they're really good. They've got a lovely tone, lovely clear tone

to them and this is a slightly shorter neck because this room is so small that you know I don't want

a guitar that's going to be banging into things and want something smaller so that's why I bought

this. To be honest I have to say it's a little bit too small because I like to use a capo on my guitar

where is my capo? Where the neck of the neck is it? A capo is a thing I've talked about this before.

I must have bored you to death with the things that I've repeated on this podcast over the years.

Where on earth is my capo? Okay, there it is. All that fapping around earlier. I couldn't

tidy up my desk fully. A capo is a clip that goes on to the neck of the guitar and essentially

just allows you to kind of change the key that you're playing in. Right? That's useful if,

for example, like me, if you don't have the full range and you need to change the key of the song

you're playing but you don't want to change the chord shapes that you're playing with your fingers,

you just put the capo on and it might fit your voice a bit better. But it does mean that as you

get further up, as you put the capo further up the neck, the frets become much, much smaller.

So the point where I can't really play it so well, it's difficult to fit my fingers onto the frets

as you get higher up. If I was playing with a normal sized guitar with a longer neck, the frets

would be bigger. It would be easier for me to do that. So I feel like maybe I should get a different,

I might need to sell this one and get actually a full-size guitar because it does end up getting

a bit tricky for me to play. That's my acoustic guitar with metal strings. Then I've got also a

Spanish style guitar or classical style guitar which is a Cordoba C5 which I bought around the

time of lockdown. The Spanish style guitars or classical ones, they've got a wider neck,

there's more space between the strings which if you're playing classical musical something,

that's really useful because all that space allows you to really pick out each string more easily.

But it is a little bit harder that you've got to stretch your fingers over a greater distance.

You know, and also the strings are made of different material, they're made of nylon, certainly the

the higher level ones. So it makes a different kind of sound. I said before I'm not a great guitarist,

I'm not really a great guitarist by any means. So I know you want to hear me play like John Sebastian

Bach. I can't really do it. All I can do is strum some chords. I'll play a song like

later on on one of those guitars. Right now also I've got bass guitars. Oh dear, I've got a couple

of electric guitars too, six strings which I'll just quickly tell you about. So this one which you

might have seen in the background if you ever look at the video versions of these episodes,

I've got a Squire Tep Fender Telecaster and Squire is a company that makes Fender guitars but

they make them much cheaper. So this was the first ever electric guitar I bought and it doesn't work

properly. There's a problem with the electrics which means that if you plug this in you just get

lots of buzzing sounds and it's you need to take the thing apart and resolder and fix it and fix

the volume controls and stuff. So it doesn't actually work properly. Plus it goes out of tune,

it's basically a bit knackered this guitar. I bought it second hand from a guitar shop in Birmingham.

I don't know how old it is but it's got all sorts of bits of, it's got like chips where

this guitar has been dropped or mistreated and the paint's been chipped off which is quite a nice

look. I like the fact that it's chipped. It looks good. Whoever used to own this I think was in a

punk band because they've scratched with like a compass or something they scratched the name of a

couple of, the names of a couple of punk bands on the back of the guitar so sham 69 is written on

here. UK subs is written on the back which I quite like because I quite like those bands.

And so there is Fender style guitar made by Squire, made in career this one and I never play it

because as I said it doesn't really work but what am I going to do? I don't want to throw it away.

I actually like it. I like the way it looks and so I want to have it around. You might think

Luke why do you have so many guitars when you're not like a great guitarist? Yeah I'm not really

a great guitarist so how can I justify owning these guitars? Well like I think probably my uncle

says it best when he said to me I said to him look I really want to get this guitar but I just

feel like maybe I don't deserve it or I'm not quite good enough to own these guitars and he said

to me look guitars are meant to be owned that's the point of them that they're supposed to be owned

they're meant to be owned they're not meant to be looked at in in shop windows. If you want to get one

just get one right you're supposed to own them and if you don't want it you can just sell it

which I thought was like yeah that's great that's a really positive way of looking at it.

I love these guitars and I don't want to just stand there staring at them in the windows of shops

kind of wishing I could own it myself wondering what it would sound like. I mean I'm a fully

grown adult I can just buy them if I want them and these what they weren't too expensive so this

I'm now holding another electric guitar which I think looks absolutely beautiful this is like

that scene in spinal tap isn't it where he's like listen to the sustain on that you can listen to

that you can't actually hear it but if it were playing you'd you know this just you can go out

for a bite and you still be here in that one. Do you play or I mean do you actually play all these

or I play them and I cherish them this is the top of the heat right here there's no question about

it look at the look the flame on that one yeah I mean it's just it's quite unbelievable this what this

one is just that it's perfect 1959 you know it just you can not listen how much is just listen

for a minute the sustain listen to it I'm not hearing anything you would though if it were playing

because it really it's famous for its sustain I mean you can just hold it well I mean so you can go

go and have a bite no you still be here in that one yeah this is special too it's a look see

it's still got the old tagger on it so you never even played it see you just bought it don't touch it

I don't actually I was just pointing at it I don't even know it can't be played never I mean

I can I look at no no you see nothing that one so this is a Fender Stratocaster and this is a real

Fender this isn't made by Squire this one is so Fender make their guitars in several places you

can get the there's Fender guitars made in Mexico and then Fender guitars made in the US they also

make them in in Japan as well I think and the Mexican made ones are the cheaper end of the genuine

Fenders so this is a Mexican made Fender Stratocaster it's part of the player series which are the

ones made in Mexico so it's like an affordable guitar which is just above the kind of cheapest

level of Fender guitars that you can buy and it just looks absolutely beautiful it's got this

lovely natural finish which means you can see the grain of the wood with a lovely deep kind of

varnish on it lovely sort of kind of I don't know how to describe this kind of color it's a sort of

a deep deep orangey red golden varnish it's just beautiful with a tortoise shell scratch plate

and so I'd I'd play that to you you know I can just to little

play sort of funk music on it really and a few little

little sort of melodies and stuff and every now and then I'd play it and I cherish it you know

now I want to talk about bass guitars because as I said earlier I'm more of a bass guitarist than

anything else I hope you don't find this all too boring so this so the other bass guitars I've got

I've got like four actually that I've got two Fender basses a jazz bass over there and a P bass

I'll tell you what the difference is between those in a moment I've also got a Hoffner club bass

which is similar to the one that Paul McCartney has but a slightly different model and then I've

got at the back of the room a ukulele bass which is actually a ukulele that has big fat

polyurethane strings on it so it's it has it makes deep sounds like a like a bass guitar so just

in case you don't know a bass guitar is different to a normal guitar because first of all it's got four

strings on it those strings are much thicker the neck is much much longer okay and as a result you end

up with much much deeper sounds okay so the bass is responsible for all the deep notes the deep

tones that you can hear in songs so I've got I've got something set up here so I can actually plug

these in and play them for you and so with bass guitars the dip one of the differences is that

you don't play solos on them you can but most of the time you don't instead the bass forms part

of the rhythm section meaning the kind of the rhythmic foundation of most songs and you don't

play chords on bass normally instead you play single notes so let's see if I can just set this up here

okay can we hear that

all right so it's sort of like deeper notes now this is a Fender Precision Bass which is one of the

earliest forms of bass guitar that was ever made the difference between the Precision Bass and the Jazz

Bass is mainly that the Precision Bass has got this single pickup the pickup is the part that actually

converts the vibration of the metal strings into an electrical signal so they have magnets in there

I don't know exactly how it works but they there are magnets which somehow pick up the vibrations

of the strings and that gets converted into the sound which can then be amplified and recorded

and stuff the pickups are really important and the position of the pickups is important on a P-Base

you've got this single pickup it's actually two units two capsules but they're combined together

to form one pickup and it's placed in this single position sort of in the middle of the body of the

guitar and down here at the bottom you've got two controls one controls the volume of the bass

you just loud or quiet and the other control is for the tone the overall tone going from deep

like a deep bass tone to a more trebley sound you can go to treble on one end and deep bass on

the other end right so I tend to just keep it

I tend to keep it a bit low with a bit of treble added

now you can be normally play a bass with your fingers

right with your index finger and your middle finger you can also play with a pick and there's

nothing wrong with playing a bass with a pick that means a plectrum little plastic thing that you

hold between your fingers right there's nothing wrong with playing a guitar with a pick there

there are no rules also you can slap right

that's slapping that's where you hammer the strings with your thumb and pop with your finger

right and also you can do this

you can kind of pluck and strum with your thumb as well which is quite nice another thing that I

like to do is a thing called palm muting which is where you hold the palm of your right hand

against the strings and it really just kind of dedens the sound

which is a lovely sound and let me just try and play along to something I'm going to play along

to a video what I like to do is go onto youtube and find drumming videos and just kind of jam

along to them so the one I've got here is called that 70s sound by a guy called Jake Reed who is a

drummer on youtube and this is just like a little video clip that I like to jam along to sometimes

it's just got a nice sound to it so I'll try and do some bass guitar over this it's about 50 seconds

okay the next one I've got is a fender jazz bass and I bought this one pretty recently it was

kind of a treat for myself because anyone any bass player's out there you'll know that

like there are lots there are a few different bass guitar models that are the most common ones

that people have I think probably the two big ones are the fender precision bass which is the one

I just showed you and the fender jazz bass and the thing is about being a bass guitarist is that

it's often really hard to choose which one do you have the p bass or do you have the jazz bass

if you buy a p bass then you always kind of feel like you want to have a jazz bass as well

and if you have a jazz bass there's always part of you that goes oh I'd love a p bass too and a while ago

I think it's after I got a million subscribers on YouTube I decided I would treat myself to

a jazz bass because I just basically always wanted one as even though I didn't really need it

I've always wanted one of these so I got one I got it second hand this is a Japanese import

there's a shop in France that sells imported Japanese guitars and so I got this one used

I don't mind that it's used it's from the 1990s and so now I have a fender jazz bass the difference

between this and the p bass so the p bass is the model that was like I think the first p basses

were made in the 1950s and the jazz bass came a little bit later in the 1960s and it was really

designed for musicians who wanted to play jazz but with an in but but on an electrical guitar

an electric instrument because before this all the jazz guys had to play those upright double bass

which which is just acoustic right you can put microphones next to it and stuff but it's harder to

get a proper loud sound you know if you want to play a larger concert in front of a bigger audience

you're going to need something that's plugged in if you want to record yourself in the studio it's

useful to be able to plug yourself in so they so the fender the company that makes these guitars

designed this a Leo Fender I think was the guy who actually designed these guitars and the

difference is well the length is you know the length of the neck is more or less the same the

body is slightly different it's got a slightly more contoured body which is you know designed to

fit snugly against you comfortably that's one of the beautiful things about these guitars is the

design the way that the body has been designed there's a functional as a functionality to the design

in the sense that they the body of the guitar this is true for these bass guitars and these other

guitars I've been showing you especially the electric ones made by Fender that they they're contoured

so that they fit neatly against your body they're comfortable and easy to play for example this one

it's scooped out so that it sits against your body the neck is slightly like it's slightly less wide

at the top than the P bass the idea is that for bass players doing jazz they they do a lot of

chord they do a lot of scales and things and so the idea is that it's easier to basically play jazz

scales on one of these because there's less space between the strings so that's one feature the

fact that it's a bit slimmer so it's a little bit easier in a way to get your fingers around the

fretboard but the main thing really is the is the pickups again so whereas the P bass has got one

single pickup made of two units in the middle the on the jazz bass the pickups are separated so you

have two pickups there's one in the middle and there's more or less the same position as on the P

bass and then the other pickup is moved closer to the bottom end of the guitar so the this is called

the bridge okay the the where the strings are attached at the bottom end of the guitar is called the

bridge and the bridge pickup is the one that's closer and so what and so in terms of the controls

you actually get volume control for each pickup so there's a volume control for the what they call

the neck pickup the one right in the middle closer to the neck of the guitar and there's a volume

control for the bridge pickup which allows you to get a lot more control over the sounds that you get

so if I just play only the um

this is just the uh neck pickup it's got a deeper rounder sound

right it's kind of similar sounds to the P bass now if I just play only the bridge pickup now

you can hear it's got a different sound

oh oops play the wrong note

it's got a sort of a punchier tone to it I quite like having both of the pickup volumes up

on full so you're getting both of those sounds combined let's have that 70 sound again from the drums

oh

well that's that string is out of tune do you hear that anyway stop drumming okay all right there you

go so that's that that's a jazz bass this is I know this is fascinating for you um but hopefully

you know you might be learning something about instruments and then I think this is going to be

the second to last thing I'm going to show you this finally is my Hoffner oops Hoffner club bass

which is similar to the Paul McCartney bass now the reason I got this one is because I wanted a

sort of more vintage style instrument like a kind of 61 and it's got that old school vintage style

and then and then last but not least I have this which was a gift from my cousin this is a ukulele bass

music

hmm it's a cute thing to play

there you go that might be out of tune so there you go that's a little tour of the

instruments I've got in this room I hope that was interesting for you was that insightful and

interesting I certainly hope so I'm going back to the PDF here um one listener asked me recently

Luke why don't you learn finger picking on the guitar um and basically I can't it's too difficult

I've tried it and it's really hard work I didn't I did I talk about that earlier I feel like I did

talk about it early but I can't remember because that was yesterday that's that thing where you get

all the different fingers to play a different part I've tried it can't do it maybe I'll practice I

should I need to practice everything comes with practice right it's really about the the work the

time you put in pays off eventually so if I wanted to wanted to learn that finger picking stuff

such a question of practice but you know I spend all my time making podcast episodes so I don't

always have time now I thought that I would end the episode by doing a song so listeners if you

still with me then I guess it's probably all right that you're happy to listen to me just banging

on about the stuff I've been banging on about and playing music and stuff but if you know me singing

is not your cup of tea then look away now or stop listening now because I'm going to try and do

a song at the end here I think I might need to help I'm going to need another microphone here I think

I'm miking up the guitar as well a little bit although maybe it's probably better and maybe it

would be better if I didn't let you hear my guitar playing in too much detail I'm so modest okay

so I'm going to try and sing this and it's called Homewood Bound by Simon and Garfunkel I think it

was written primarily by Paul Simon and I'm just going to play the song you can listen to the lyrics

after I've played it I'll go through the lyrics again and just kind of like talk about what they

mean but you can listen to the lyrics and try to work out what it's about I mean they're not too

complex you know it's I think they're fairly easy to follow and understand of course I need to add

the magic reverb got that is a lot that's a lot of reverb isn't it that's maybe too much what happened

it got so the reverb got so extreme one two okay bit of reverb just to help

makes a huge difference makes my voice so much better than it actually is

I'm sitting at the railway station got a ticket for my destination

on a tour of one night stands my suitcase and guitar in hand and every stop is neatly planned

for a poet and a one man band home would bound I wish I was home would bound home when my

thoughts escaping home when my music's playing home when my love lies waiting silently for me

every day is an endless stream of cigarettes and magazines

and each town looks the same to me the movies and the factories and every strangers face I see

reminds me that I long to be home would bound I wish I was home would bound home when my thoughts

escaping home when my music's playing home when my love lies waiting silently for me

to not all sing my songs again I'll play the game and pretend

hmm but all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity like emptiness in harmony I'd need

someone to comfort me home would bound I wish I was home would bound home when my thoughts

escaping home when my music's playing home when my love lies waiting silently for me silently for me

there you go

right so what's all that about then turn off that weird reverb okay so home would bound Simon

Garth and Garfunkel I'm sitting in the railway station got a ticket for my destination so I think

the song was written by Paul Simon literally when he was waiting for a train I don't remember where

is it when he was at Lyme Street station in Liverpool it might be so I'm sitting in the railway

station got a ticket for my destination on a tour of one night stands my suitcase and guitar

in hand on a tour of one night stands so this would just be he's describing the fact that he's

on a on a tour right touring round touring round playing shows one night stands are it's got a

double meaning one meaning of one night stand is when you just do one single concert and then

move on to the next place but also a one night stand is when you like sleep with someone just for

one night and then you leave and you never see them again so I suppose it's if is it a double

meaning is it the fact that he's he's basically going off doing concerts maybe meeting people maybe

like having romantic encounters that don't go anywhere and then just moving on to the next town so

it's like a the story of a touring musician who never stays in the same place for more than one night

okay I got a ticket for my destination on a tour of one night stands my suitcase and guitar in

hand so there he is at the station with his suitcase and his guitar and every stop is neatly planned

for a poet and a one man band so I guess that you know he's describing being on tour I suppose these

sorts of tours are neatly planned everything is planned out carefully in advance he's probably got

a road manager who's telling him where he needs to be when he needs to be there and that's probably

after a long time that can get very boring and he can get very frustrating and you can get a bit

depressed in that situation where everything's planned out you never really get to stop and just

sort of relax and enjoy yourself and maybe go out and see the place that you're in instead it's

just one sort of train station followed by one airport then you're on stage then a hotel room

you know so he's feeling lonely the chorus goes homeward bound meaning I wish I was going

in the direction of home I wish I was going home homeward bound I wish I was homeward bound I wish

I was basically heading for home home where my thoughts escaping where his thought or his thoughts

are escaping where his mind is free home where my music's playing so he's there with his record

collection home where my love lies waiting silently for me so he's got a a lover girlfriend wife

or something who is at home lying waiting silently for me so she's I guess in bed or on the sofa

waiting for him to return so he's longing for the love of his his significant other let's say

every day is an endless stream of cigarettes and magazines an endless stream of just like one

thing after another it just never never stops it must be kind of awful being on tour where you never

get any peaceful moments and you're just the only peaceful moments you get are like sitting in some

waiting room in a train station with your guitar the rest of the time it's just like magazines and

cigarettes and people and fans and your manager and tickets and things like that and each town looks

the same to me the movies and the factories so you never really get to see the real life in the town

you just see the factories on the outskirts of town the movie posters the posters for the same movies

which are playing in every single town and every stranger's face I see reminds me that I long to

be homeward bound I long to be homeward bound meaning I really want to he's like he's really really

wants this he really hopes for this he's desperate for it so all he ever sees is strangers faces

so he feels lonely among all these people he just really wants to be homeward bound

and then we get the chorus again and then verse three tonight I'll sing my songs again so he's

imagining himself on stage singing I'll play the game and pretend so he's going to kind of put on a

facade right he's going to perform which means that he's going to probably put a sort of

metaphysical sort of mask on and pretend to be the genial entertainer who really feels the

songs that he's singing for the audience he's going to put on a performance for them he's going to

pretend that he really feels what he's singing but he says but all my words come back to me in

shades of mediocrity which means that as he's singing he hears himself singing the songs he hears

his lyrics he hears everything he says and it to him just feels so mediocre like it's just rubbish

it's not good enough I can kind of relate to that because certainly as a comedian when you do your

material night after night the material sort of changes as you do it your relationship with the

material changes and at the beginning it can be very exciting when you've got new material it's

very fresh and sort of meaningful to you but then as you do it lots and lots and lots of times and

it becomes almost a bit mechanical you hear yourself saying it and you start to want you lose the

memory of what was sort of meaningful or funny about it and you start to convince yourself that

it's mediocre mediocre just means not very good like just average right so he's saying that

as he's performing on stage not really fully believing what he's doing the songs he's singing

and the words he's saying he hears himself saying and singing them and they just sound kind of

not very good you know he's sort of lost his sense of belief in his own work because he's so

jaded by the experience of being on tour he's so burnt out and it's not fresh and meaningful to

him anymore whereas the crowd probably just wrapped you know really into it and really swept up by it

and really feeling the emotion and passion of the songs for him he's just kind of going through

the motions so even in the face of a large crowd an audience of people who've paid to come and

see him and who adore him he still feels kind of lonely even in that situation lonely and

and he feels like his work isn't really good enough like emptiness in harmony I need someone to

comfort me like emptiness in harmony so that's interesting basically and he needs someone to comfort

him in a very profound way in the same way that harmony needs a certain emptiness within it

harmony is when different musical notes are played at the same time and they work well together

you need the space between those notes to allow the notes to actually mean anything so in the

in the same way he's using this as a sort of a simile for to express how he he really needs some

love and tenderness and some care right all right yeah and that's it home where my music is playing

where my love lies waiting silently for me what a beautiful pretty song and I think that's where

we're going to end this episode thank you for listening all the way through to this rambling

episode that went on and on and on if you did make it all the way to this point then well done to

you and I've just noticed here on my desk I've got a half-eaten piece of cake I'm going to half-eaten

piece of cake now sometimes what I do at the end of episodes is I will give you like a kind of

little clue or key word or a little sort of password or something to show that you've listened

all the way through to the end in the past it's been other things like I mentioned a story about

a duck you know cleaning out a a cooker that had been used to cook some ducks like in this Chinese

restaurant and I said if you listened all the way through to the this point leave a comment about

leave a comment about a duck in the comments section a lot of people were writing comments

with the word duck in there in inventive quite inventive ways in some cases and I've done

other passwords and stuff in the past but today try it if you've reached this point in the episode

leave a comment that includes a reference to the word cake why is this half-eaten piece of cake here

well it's because yesterday right yesterday what happened was I went for lunch and I brought

lunch back here with me and I bought some cake to have as my dessert and I ate half of it and I

planned to eat the other half after I'd finished recording the podcast because I thought this I

would get this done yesterday afternoon and I thought I'll leave that half and I'll enjoy eating it

when I finished recording but of course it took much longer than I expected and I was I didn't

have time to eat the cake and I couldn't bring it with me because I didn't have anything to put it in

I didn't have anything to put it in and so this cake has just been sitting there for 24 hours now

about no 23 hours now this cake has just been sitting there and I I would eat it but it's kind of

gone a little bit stale I'm not sure I should eat it I didn't keep it in the fridge I didn't keep

it covered in a box so this is a sad little sad story of this half-eaten piece of cake that's been

left on my desk overnight abandoned because I had to I had to record the podcast and then rush off

to go and pick up my son so this poor piece of cake never got eaten maybe the cake's glad

man it's like yeah I didn't get eaten you're hey fantastic I survived the one piece of cake

that survived but leave a comment if you got to this point in the episode and mention the word

cake in your comment you could for example say well look this I reached the end it was a piece of

cake or listening to this episode all the way to the end was a piece of cake for me Luke because

that is of course an idiom right a common idiom that we use in English if you say that something is a

piece of cake it means it's really easy so listening through to the end of this episode was a piece

of cake or maybe you could say it wasn't a piece of cake looks a list to this but like like that

piece of cake that's been left half-eaten on your desk I've just been waiting for someone to

finish me off maybe that's what you've been doing I don't know but anyway mention cake in your

comment you could say that listening to the episode or getting to the end of the episode was a

piece of cake or maybe it wasn't I don't know maybe you've just been hanging on by your fingernails

this whole time thank you so much in any case for listening and I hope that you've enjoyed the

episode I hope you've enjoyed hanging out with me during this time okay all right stop raining

and there's a bit of blue sky out there a band of blue sky in the distance which is a promising

sign maybe the sun's going to come out thank you so much for listening thank you so much for

watching if you did indeed watch the episode and I'll speak to you next time all right but for now

it's just time to say goodbye bye bye bye bye bye

thanks for listening to Luke's English podcast for more information visit teacherluk.co.uk

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[A Rambling Journey: Podcast Updates, Comedy, and the Nuances of Language Learning]-[885. Still Raining, Still Rambling (News, Comments, Questions, Guitars & Music)]

📋 Summary

Introduction: The Art of 'Fapping Around'

Podcast News and LEP Premium

Stand-up Comedy and Performance

The Accent and Clarity Debate

Music, Instruments, and Life Reflections

Conclusion: A 'Piece of Cake'

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript