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You're listening to Luke's English Podcast.
Hello listeners, how are you?
I hope you're doing well.
This episode is called Reflecting on a Wonderful Spring Day in Paris.
And, as the title of the episode suggests, I'm going to be reflecting on a day I had the other day, describing the day things I did, how they caused me to remember some moments from my past, including a few teaching experiences I had nearer the beginning of my career and what I learned from them.
And I'm also going to tell you a few stories later in the episode, including a short story I read in a book and also some other things I experienced during the day.
Just one of those days which you don't realise is going to be lovely until you are experiencing it and it kind of takes you by surprise and you think oh, I'm having a lovely day.
Is this going to be the whole day or just a moment during this day?
OK, that was all one sentence, I think.
I think it was.
Now, I don't know how long this will be.
I have a feeling that it will be very long.
I've decided to keep it as just one single episode, though, even if it is like three hours long.
As I said, I don't know.
Maybe it'll be three hours.
Maybe it'll be just an hour and 15 minutes.
I've got no idea. but it could be a long episode.
You get 100 bonus points and a special gold medal if you listen all the way to the end of this, even if you don't do it in one go and you choose to break it up into shorter sessions of listening, right.
But if you get to the end, 100 points and a gold medal.
If you don't listen to the entire thing, that's OK.
All right.
I don't mind.
But stick with me for as long as you like.
It's completely up to you.
Also, I have an appointment at the barber's.
That's a place you go to get your haircut and in this case to get my beard trimmed as well.
I do have an appointment at the barber's at 330 pm, my time, which actually is about 25 minutes from now.
So why have I decided to do this?
Why have I decided to start recording this episode, knowing that it would be long and knowing that it would be interrupted by the barber's appointment that I've got in less than half an hour's time?
To be honest, I thought I was going to start recording this much earlier.
Time flew away from me and I thought, doesn't matter.
I'll just record it.
I'll just start recording anyway.
I have to get started.
If I wait until after, there won't be enough time.
So I've got to get started now, even if I get interrupted.
But thanks to the magic of podcasting, I can just, you know cut, go and get my haircut and then carry on when I get back.
Right.
I can cut the recording, then get my hair cut and then cut back into the episode.
So, yes, I've got an appointment at the barber's at 3.30 p.m.
And some of you are thinking, I'm glad to hear that, Luke.
Frankly, you could do with a haircut.
Well yes, I have an appointment to get my hair cut, and that includes the hair on my face, because I'm going to get my beard trimmed too.
But if I'm not finished by then, then I will continue recording this when I get back.
And you'll be able to enjoy experiencing both versions of me in this episode if you're watching the video version.
You'll be able to experience the hairy version and the slightly less hairy version.
And you'll be able to judge my haircut.
You'll be free to judge my appearance. which is a human thing, isn't it?
That's what we do as humans.
We look at people and we judge them.
Hopefully you won't judge me too harshly.
I am only a man, after all.
You know, just a human.
Anyway, listeners, audio listeners in audio land, obviously you won't be able to judge my haircut.
You can just imagine the difference.
I don't know if... I don't know if... What am I saying?
I don't know if you'll be able to tell if having...
Having a haircut will affect the sound that you can hear.
I'm going to get my beard trimmed.
What's that going to do?
Is that going to affect the sound?
I doubt it.
Anyway, let's carry on.
Also, I expect this episode has been published in July or perhaps August.
What month is it now when you're listening to this?
Is it July or August?
Probably July.
I'm publishing this in July or August, but I'm recording this in May.
It's May now, the month of May.
And I have a queue of pre-recorded episodes, which I have to publish.
And then this episode will be published for you.
And by the time this episode has been published, I think that my wife will have given birth to our second child.
She's pregnant at the moment.
We're getting close to the drop zone.
We're getting close to the due date or the period when the child might think, I think I'm ready now.
And we'll decide to, can I come out now?
I'm coming out.
You know, that might come soon.
We're getting close to that.
The child is due at the beginning of July.
So as long as everything has gone well, touch wood.
Touch wood.
As long as everything's gone well.
While you are listening to this, I will probably be at home with my family looking after our newborn son, little baby boy.
Fingers crossed.
OK, fingers crossed that everything goes well.
OK, of course.
Now, just in case you weren't aware.
Is this necessary, this bit?
I'm not sure.
Anyway, just in case you weren't aware, I'm Luke hello and I'm an English teacher from England, which is in Britain, which is in the UK.
I currently live in Paris, in France.
I think you might have heard of it.
You've heard of France.
You've heard of Paris.
You know the world.
Are you from Earth?
I teach English as a foreign language to classes of adults.
I do stand-up comedy in English in the evenings sometimes.
And I do this podcast, which is here to help you improve your English.
My aim is to make it easy and enjoyable for you to get more listening practice into your everyday life.
I try to present you with English as it's really spoken by a human.
In this case, that human is me.
Hello.
And you're thinking, why does he keep saying that he's a human?
Is that because maybe he's not a human?
No, I'm a human.
Again, I've done it again.
Why do I have to insist that I'm a human?
I don't know.
Anyway, so welcome to my podcast.
Just put on your headphones or switch on your speakers.
Press play.
Listen to my words.
Let me take you somewhere.
You can get a bit lost, but find yourself again and ultimately live in English with me for a while.
So I had quite a good day the other day.
I know you're very happy for me.
I had quite a good day the other day.
I taught an English class in the morning.
Then I had lunch in a restaurant in the centre of Paris.
And then I sat in a small park in front of an interesting fountain and read a book for a while.
The book really caught my imagination.
It's one of those books which you continue to think about even when you're not reading it.
I've got the book right here in my hands just to prove that I'm not making it up.
After reading the book in front of that fountain for a while...
I had to go to a big underground station, a big underground metro station in another part of the city, to pick up my daughter's travel card, which was being held in lost property.
That's the lost property department, the place where, if you lose something and someone finds it and is good enough to hand it in, it will be kept in the lost property department.
What do they call it?
In France, what's it called?
Perdue?
Oh, damn, something Perdue.
Oh, God.
Can't remember.
Anyway, the lost property department.
There's French speakers now pulling their hair out, screaming the word that I can't remember.
Quelque chose Perdue.
What is it?
Oh, damn.
I've got to check.
I've got to check because otherwise everyone's going to be so annoyed.
All the French speakers will be so annoyed that I can't remember.
It's something... Oh, God, what is it?
Lost property. which literally means lost objects or lost property.
So anyway, so I had to go and pick up my daughter's travel card from the lost property department in the information office in the metro station, because she must have accidentally dropped it on the.
She must have dropped it the day before.
So I did that.
And then and then I went home.
Now, it doesn't sound all that exciting, does it?
Well, sometimes even what seems to be the most ordinary day from the outside can, on the inside, be full of feelings, thoughts and both satisfying and slightly disturbing moments.
And the whole day inspired me to do this episode.
Now, maybe I'm addicted to doing this podcast now or to sharing my thoughts with people, and I can't simply experience things, even everyday things, without wanting to then talk about them to an audience.
Maybe there's something wrong with me.
I don't know.
I suppose I could just keep all of this, these words.
I could keep this all to myself, or I could just tell my wife or something, or write it in a diary that no one will speak your own language.
Can you?
I could tell my wife, I could just tell no one these words, or I could write them all in a diary that nobody will read.
But instead, I've chosen to share it all with you.
Aren't you lucky?
So this is a rambling episode, then.
Except that it's a rambling episode that has mostly been written down in advance.
And that sort of breaks the rules of the rambling episodes that I usually do, or at least one of the rules, which is speak spontaneously with no script.
That's one of the rules of the rambling episodes that I have to just speak to you without writing it all down in advance.
And I've broken that rule instantly.
But when I wrote all of this, I was rambling, but with my fingers.
You see, a finger ramble, you could call it.
A ramble with my fingers, meaning that I typed it all out pretty much in one go.
I let my mind wander and just tried to put it all into words without stopping.
OK, and I wrote most of this the next day, the day after that day I mentioned before.
So I wrote most of this the next day, when I wasn't in my office and couldn't record anything because I wasn't in my office.
So I wrote it all down instead and it all came out in one go.
And it's rambling in the sense that I let myself move from one thing to another, which is the spirit of the rambling episodes.
Just let the words come out.
I try to make it all coherent if I possibly can, but it's the sort of stream of consciousness thing.
I let myself move from one thing to another, and it might seem a bit disorganised.
It's like a stream of consciousness, which is the spirit of rambling episodes.
I try to let my thoughts tumble out and hope that you can follow my words as an exercise in listening practice for you and self-expression for me.
Okay?
So this is a finger ramble, an episode that I wrote down, rather than an episode in which I'm just speaking spontaneously.
You can find the text for all this on the page for this episode on my website.
That is the advantage of doing a finger ramble, isn't it?
That okay, it's not spontaneous speech.
Except this little bit is spontaneous speech, but mostly it's not spontaneous speech okay.
But, ah, you can find a lot of these words written down, so you can go and check them if you want.
So there will be some parts where I don't read from the script.
From the script.
And when that happens, I will add a note in the script by writing something like this.
It'll be something like this.
Luke rambles off script for a while or something similar.
OK, but if you check the page for this episode on my website, you'll find a link in the description.
You will find most of my words written there.
So you can go back and read this in your own time.
Read it out loud.
Read it with me while you listen, or just scan it for words and phrases that you have heard while listening to this episode.
You can do all those things, or you can just ignore it and never look at it ever.
It's up to you.
So let me recap my incredibly exciting day again that I had the other day.
So this was last week sometime.
I think it was a Thursday.
Thursday last week.
Thursday, one of my favourite days of the week.
Nearly the weekend, but still a work day.
I like Thursdays.
Thursdays have always been kind of orangey-red colour in my mind for some reason.
Is it just me, or do you also associate days of the week with certain colours?
I do.
Like, Monday's a light blue colour.
Wednesday's white.
Tuesday's light blue.
Wednesday's dark blue, navy blue.
Thursday's an orangey-red colour.
Friday's black.
Saturday is royal blue.
And Sunday is yellow, like the colour of the sun.
No green in there for some reason.
But anyway, for me, Thursdays have always been a kind of orangey-red colour for some reason.
Thor's Day.
That's actually where Thursday comes from.
Thursday, Thor, the god of the, the Norse god of thunder.
That's where our word Thursday comes from.
It's Thor's day.
Happy birthday, Thor.
Every Thursday he has a birthday.
Now, I've always liked Thursdays.
I don't really know why.
But I like the colour.
I like the fact that it's, you know, it's the good half of the week, right?
You've gone over the hump of Wednesday.
Monday, oh, hard, isn't it?
Oh, no, Monday, I've got to go to work.
Oh, really?
The weekend's already finished.
Oh, God.
Tuesday, it's kind of like, you know, you've got a lot of work to do.
Most things get done on a Tuesday, I think.
Wednesday, it's getting better.
You can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
And by the afternoon of Wednesday you're like oh, we're only a couple of days and a half away from the weekend.
And then Thursday, like, yeah, I'm just cruising, basically.
I don't like Thursdays.
I don't like, I like, I mean, I like Thursdays, and I don't really know why.
Although I did just explain why, didn't I, in some detail, so maybe I do know why.
Anyway, so my Thursday recently, I taught...
A three hour English class to a group of adults at the British Council in the morning not online, but in a physical room.
You know, remember, remember physical rooms where other people are present?
Of course.
Then after that, I took an e-bike to another part of the city.
I mean, I rode it.
I didn't just take an e-bike to another part of the city.
I didn't just carry it.
No, I mean I rode an e-bike to another part of the city where I picked up a package.
It was in fact my daughter's new British passport.
Her new UK passport.
UK specifically because it's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Not just Britain.
Don't forget Northern Ireland.
Anyway, I picked up a package which was my daughter's new passport from a delivery company. where it was being held.
Then I had lunch in a Korean restaurant.
And Korean listeners are going, oh, what did you eat, Luke?
What was it?
I'll tell you in a bit.
Then I sat on a bench in a lovely little square next to a fountain, as I mentioned before, to let my food go down, just to help me, you know, to digest.
And I read a book for a while and Then I went to collect my daughter's travel card, which she dropped on the metro the day before.
I had to go to a huge labyrinthine metro station, and then I went home.
Okay, again, a normal day.
Work in the morning.
Didn't get any work done in the afternoon.
It was just one of those days where I was like, I'm not going to get work done today.
I've got little odd jobs to do.
I'm going to take it slowly.
But again, a normal day, but it was lovely actually.
Having been on holiday for the two couple of weeks before, I felt quite fresh in my head and the weather was fresh and the world seemed fresh around me as well.
Other people seemed to be in a good mood and I just had a lovely time.
It was one of those days when little things seem to go your way.
Someone smiles at you.
The air meets your nostrils in a friendly way.
And you feel lucky.
There were lots of thoughts and sensations swirling around me.
And I managed to catch a few of them and bottle them in the form of this writing, which I did very hastily the next day.
I've got to get all that stuff, all those thoughts and things, write them all down.
Capture it.
Now I want to share it all with you.
I hope I can keep your attention here.
Yeah.
And if you're phobic to introductions on this podcast, then again I'll do what I've done before and say don't worry, the introduction's long gone.
We're way past the introduction now.
We're now cruising into the valley of episodes.
Does that make sense?
Podcast Valley.
We're now in Podcast Valley.
We've left the city.
Right.
The introduction part, we have to get out of the city.
We've done that.
I've explained the journey to you.
We're now cruising through a beautiful valley in the foothills of the mountains, where we're going to take our adventure.
OK.
All right.
So I invite you to come on a little journey with me now.
Just follow my words and try to picture the things I'm describing.
As I said, you can check the script for most of this if you like.
It's on the website page for this episode.
You'll find the link in the description.
I hope you enjoy this.
I'm now going to get started, even though am I going to get started now?
Tell you what, it's time for me to edit because I'm going to pop out and go and get a haircut.
OK.
All right.
Well, lots of things happening in this episode.
I hope that you I hope it's all kind of coherent for you.
But I'm going to go and get a haircut now.
All right.
Now, just a bit of context before I come back with a fresh haircut.
I don't know if this is going to be a good haircut.
I mean, you know, what am I worried about?
It's no big deal, you know.
Luckily, I'm a man who shouldn't... I'm just a man with an ordinary haircut, really, so there's nothing to worry about.
It's not like... You know, like my wife, for example... who's a girl.
For girls it seems to be a lot more complicated getting their hair cut because they spend so much time sometimes depending on the person, of course.
But often I find girls will spend a lot more time in their hairdresser.
It can be stressful.
You need to find the hairdresser that knows how you like your hair done.
And it takes a appearances can be important.
So I shouldn't really worry.
But this is the first time I'm going to this particular hairdresser.
And you've heard me.
If you're a long-term listener to this podcast, you may have heard me talk about getting a haircut and how it makes me feel getting a haircut in French.
But also the fact that I've... always had in France the same hairdresser.
In fact, it's the same hairdresser that my wife goes to or she used to go to.
And she's known him for years, like since she was a teenager and stuff.
So she's been going to see this guy for years.
And then me too.
And he's great.
And he kind of like, you know, knows how I get my hair cut and he can do it in 30 minutes.
And he's friendly and nice.
And I'm always happy with what he does.
But unfortunately, his business went bankrupt, which is very sad.
We discovered the news the other day.
As I said, my wife has known this guy for a couple of decades.
Is it a couple of decades?
Yeah, probably.
And so the business has gone bankrupt, which is very sad.
Yeah, it's sad because suddenly we can't go to see him anymore.
And it's sad for him.
We know his business has gone under.
I hope he's going to be all right.
But also, it's inconvenient for us because we've got to now find somewhere else to get a haircut.
So I'm going to have to go and get my hair cut by a person who maybe doesn't know how I like it, doesn't know my hair.
So if I come back a complete skinhead, if I come back as a skinhead, if they've just shaved all my hair off oh, I don't know what.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, we'll find out.
If I'm bald when I return, then you'll know that it was bad.
And then I went home and just shaved it all off or something.
Hopefully that won't happen.
But we'll see.
But, of course, being a human being, because you're a human too.
If you're watching this, you will no doubt judge me and have your comments.
You can leave your comments to yourself as far as I'm concerned, because it's really not important to me what you have to say about my hair.
OK, so, you know, just bear that in mind.
So, all right, I'm going to go now.
All right.
And now, with the magic of editing, I'm going to click my fingers in a second and then I'll return with probably a terrible haircut.
Because what happens normally is that I'll go and get my haircut.
It looks, they cut it, they do it and stuff.
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, fine.
Yeah, good.
And then I leave and look in a mirror.
I'm like, oh, no, it doesn't look right.
Oh God, I'm going to have to go home, wash my hair, kind of redo it myself, until I'm personally satisfied with the way it looks.
But that's not that's not what's going to happen here.
So I'm going out of my comfort zone.
I'm going to go and get my haircut and I won't be happy with the way it looks.
I'm sure I'm almost never happy when I leave the salon until I've got managed to go home and sort of do something to it myself.
So I'll return with what could be, I don't know, there will be hair on my head.
That's the most important thing, isn't it?
But even if you don't have hair on your head, that's fine too, isn't it?
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Good.
I'm glad we established that.
Right.
I'm now going to click my fingers and when I unclick them, we will continue.
Here we go.
And there you go.
I'm back.
There it is.
The hair has been cut.
The beard has been trimmed.
It's done.
The job has been done.
Let's carry on.
The barber was nice and friendly and professional.
He did the job that I asked him to do.
The transaction was completed.
That's done.
Let's now move on.
Okay, that's enough about my hair.
Obviously, audio listeners, you can't see the hair, which is good, because you're not being distracted by the visuals, are you?
You have the benefit of only being able to focus on the words because ultimately, that's why you're here, isn't it?
That's what you're listening to this for, isn't it?
You came here for the English.
You didn't come for the hair, right?
Okay, good.
So now my hair has been cut. shorter.
Maybe I should be cutting this episode shorter.
I don't know.
But no, I don't care.
But OK.
Right.
Let's continue.
OK.
So I was talking about my Thursday that I had.
Right.
Very important that I tell you about this Thursday, apparently.
So I'd finished work, right, and I was free.
I'd finished my teaching and I was free.
The lesson that I had taught earlier in the day, earlier that morning, the lesson was good.
It went well.
I didn't feel a bit exhausted, which can often happen after teaching intensely for three hours or more.
It was a good lesson about losing and saving face.
Okay.
Now, basically these days at the British Council, the way it works is that every lesson I teach is a different lesson.
But that means that I have a different group of students each time.
They sign up, they get a number of credits and then they get a calendar with all the available lessons they can have at their level and they can choose the lessons they want to attend based on the time.
You know, they can choose by time or by teacher or by lesson theme.
You know they can check out each lesson and sort of see what it's like, and then they can book in for it.
Okay, so I have a different thing each time.
Every lesson I do.
It's not a continuation of what I did in the last class, but it's an individual, discrete lesson of its own.
And so I kind of look at my calendar, look at my schedule, see what lessons I've got coming up.
I find the materials for that particular lesson.
I download them, I print them, I get them ready and all the rest of it.
And I prepare myself to teach that particular class, that particular lesson.
And the one that I had for this day was about losing and saving face.
Right.
To lose face, to save face.
OK, now that's really all about.
That was a lesson about reputation, about talking about the importance of being diplomatic in your communication and about the sort of the social aspects of communication, of losing and saving face.
If someone loses face, it means their reputation is damaged.
They become embarrassed or they are ashamed in public and their social status drops as a result.
Now, losing face can happen in groups.
You know, it can happen to you in your social group.
For example, I don't know if, as a teacher, if I, if I'm teaching a lesson and God forbid something terrible happens, like for example well, I can tell you an example of once when I was teaching, I was, I was squatting down.
I think I was writing very close to the bottom of the whiteboard and I had to kind of squat down to do it and I lost my balance in front of the whole class.
I lost my balance and I tipped over and fell on my bum.
In fact, I went all the way over onto my back.
Now, thankfully, I was able to make a joke out of it.
I can't remember how.
I think I kind of lay on the floor and was like, oh, no, they got me.
I don't know what it was.
But somehow I managed to sort of make it humorous.
But there's no denying it was an embarrassing moment.
But I just got up and carried on and showed that it didn't bother me very much.
But that's the sort of thing that can definitely cause you to lose face.
As a teacher, the students will be like, they feel embarrassed.
Everyone feels awkward.
And maybe your status in that classroom.
Previously you were kind of a high status position.
That status gets knocked down a bit.
That's an example of losing face.
It can also happen to public figures, like for example a politician.
If a politician does something wrong and the members of the party basically fire them, they basically want that person to go to leave their job and step down from the position.
OK, obviously that can cause the person that politician to lose face.
Suddenly everyone loses respect for them.
But also it can cause the whole party to lose face as well, can't it?
If there's been an embarrassing scandal and the person has been sort of rejected by their party, that can cause the whole party to lose face.
So what the political party might do is, in order to save face, like to prevent that person from being from.
And to prevent that person's reputation from being damaged and to protect the reputation of the party.
So, to save face for everyone, that politician will release a statement saying I have chosen to resign.
Whereas in fact, in reality, it wasn't their choice.
It was the choice of the leaders of the party who basically told them to go.
So, that's an example of losing face and saving face.
So, you know, we were talking about that.
That was the general theme.
There were language points involved in it as well, like vocabulary and pronunciation stuff too, but that was the general theme of the lesson losing and saving face.
And it was nice to be back in the classroom after two weeks off.
The lesson was about losing and saving face.
I've just said, let me explain that a little bit.
I've kind of done that, but...
It says in my notes here Luke talks off script for a while about these things losing face, saving face.
One other thing is that my students were making the same mistake.
They were saying to lose your face.
But it's not to lose someone's face, to lose his face, to lose her face.
It's just to lose face.
To lose your face, that would be like, your face came off.
Where's my face?
That would be to lose your face.
Which would be horrible.
I mean, if you lost your face, then that would certainly damage your reputation, wouldn't it?
And as a result, you would lose face.
But no, it's lose face, save face, not lose your face.
There's no possessive pronoun in there.
Related vocabulary would be about embarrassment, feeling embarrassed to embarrass someone, an embarrassing situation, feeling ashamed, making people feel ashamed, reputation damaging your reputation, status and social status in a social group.
And then diplomacy and politeness and just the ways in which we manage communication to prevent other people from feeling embarrassed, ashamed or embarrassed and to save face.
OK, so that's what the lesson was about.
Now, before the lesson started, I was feeling slightly rusty.
That means rusty is like when you're not really ready.
You haven't done it for a while and so you don't feel very ready.
It's a good.
It's a good word to describe that feeling of when you haven't practiced your English very much and suddenly you have to use English and the words don't come out.
It doesn't flow very freely.
You're feeling rusty.
Okay, you know, I'm feeling a bit rusty.
I need to practice.
Rusty actually is, it's got two meanings.
I've just given you the sort of idiomatic meaning of the word.
The other meaning of the word is when metal, especially iron, gets exposed to water and a kind of a residue appears on it like a chemical residue.
It's orangey brown colour.
There's that orangey, like the colour of a Thursday in my brain.
Rusty refers to.
Yeah, that sort of residue that appears on metal after it's been exposed to the water.
If you leave your bicycle outside in the rain for a couple of weeks...
When you go back to retrieve your bicycle from the garden or the street or something, you'll see that it's gone rusty, like the chain of the bicycle is all rusty.
It's got this kind of like dry orangey-brown residue on it and you need to put oil on it and clean it, otherwise the bike won't work very well.
So the bike chain is rusty.
Similarly, your English can be rusty, or you can feel rusty if you haven't done something for a while, and it kind of doesn't happen very sort of easily.
So before the lesson started, I was feeling slightly rusty because I'd had two weeks off or more.
And that period just before the beginning of the lesson is often a bit stressful because you never know.
You never quite know how the lesson will go.
Teachers will understand how that feels.
You know you've got the.
As the lesson approaches, as the beginning of the lesson approaches, that time that you have no control over.
For me, it's 930 a.m.
I have no control over that time.
It's like, you know, you've got to be ready.
The lesson begins at 9.30.
And so there's a feeling of stress and nervousness.
You never quite know how the lesson will go.
What kind of students will I have?
Will they be responsive?
How can I avoid one of those frustrating lessons when things just don't go right and everyone seems to be millions of miles away from you?
I haven't had a lesson like that in a while.
It's been quite a long time really that I've had a bad lesson.
Thankfully, the students I have in my classes are all good and responsive and lovely in general.
And I have just good experiences actually teaching in France.
I've noticed that my groups of French students are lovely.
I do enjoy teaching English to French students.
We have other nationalities as well in my class.
And they've been lovely too, so I'm very lucky.
But nevertheless, you do have those feelings.
How can I avoid one of those frustrating and stressful lessons?
I'm going to sort of talk a little bit about my teaching career a bit now.
I've been doing this.
I've been teaching English to adults long enough now.
It's been, I think, over 22 years that maybe I shouldn't get stressed before lessons anymore, but I can't help it.
Or maybe I've learned from experience.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
So there's always that sense that you need to be preparing.
A certain level of stress is there when your preparation time is short.
And, of course, in this life, when time is in such short supply, there is never quite enough time to prepare.
But as I said, I've been doing this for some time now.
If you fail to prepare, then prepare to fail.
This is true in teaching, but also in everything, isn't it?
Preparation is key, but also you can never prepare for everything.
There are always certain things that are beyond your control, and you should always be willing to expect the unexpected, meaning be ready, willing and able to respond to things as they happen in the moment.
With experience, you learn how to improvise while teaching, or should I say extemporise.
What's the difference between improvise and extemporise?
God, I hadn't prepared to talk about the difference.
Improvise is when you just make it up as you go along completely.
You make it up from nothing.
But extemporise is when you go away or deviate from your plan.
Right.
So you've got your plan here.
So you do have a plan in place.
And if you extemporise, you go away from it.
You know, you kind of spontaneously go away from the plan, but then you kind of go back to the plan.
So there's a central plan that you're following and you extemporise, meaning you sort of move away from that plan in a spontaneous way, but then come back to it.
This is extemporising, which is kind of what you do as a teacher.
It's not just randomly making it up.
You are... responding to things in the moment and then going back to your plan.
It's a bit like doing stand-up comedy as well.
You might have a set list, a list of things that you are planning to do and material that you've worked out in advance and that you're prepared to do.
But then when you're on stage, you have to be prepared to...
Do moments of improvisation or to extemporise from your set list.
That's often a good way to do it.
It means that you've got something to fall back on, but you've got to be prepared to respond to things in the moment.
Prepare, but be prepared to throw the plan out of the window. not literally.
In fact, maybe don't throw it out the window, but be prepared to leave the plan on the table and come back to it.
Don't throw it out the window.
That's actually a very bad idea and unnecessary as well.
And it's littering.
So don't throw the plan out of the window.
That's a bad idea.
Keep it on the table and then you can just forget about it for a while if something happens in the moment, and then you can go back to it.
Anyway, so it's a mix of preparation and kind of going with the flow, going with the flow.
So preparing for an English lesson involves many things.
Of course, the lesson plan, knowing the language point, the students and their needs and the activities you're going to do in class, of course, but also other things getting the material printed and ready to be presented.
Unfortunately it's still paper based in our school, but I always try to do it double sided to save paper, and also the paper we use is recycled paper.
It's kind of nice brown recycled paper.
But nevertheless, yes, it is paper still.
But anyway, you've got to get the material ready and printed, ready to be presented.
So that means printing it out, working out how many students I've got putting it into the photocopier.
Programming the photocopier double-sided, stapled in the top left-hand corner.
Colour settings on auto black and white.
Get all those settings right.
Oh no, there's not enough paper in the photocopier.
Got to change the paper.
Where's the spare paper?
There's none here.
I've got to go into another room.
Go and get the paper.
Bring it here.
Open it up.
Feed it into the machine.
Close the thing.
Start again.
Paper jam.
Oh no, the paper's jammed in the photocopier.
Now I have to become some sort of engineer or surgeon.
Sure, I could call the tech support.
But they are not in a hurry like I am.
They don't understand, necessarily, that I need this done like five minutes ago.
So I'm going to have to go in myself.
I'm going to have to do a solo mission here.
So as a teacher, you've got to be a sort of...
You've got to be like Iron Man or Rocket Raccoon or something from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Meaning you've got to be a technical wizard.
You've got to be the photocopier whisperer.
You've got to whisper to the photocopier.
Open the right parts of it.
You've got to touch the right spots and you know, gently close and open doors and feed paper and pull out, pull bits of broken paper out of it like some kind of brain surgeon.
Not that brain surgeons have to pull paper out of things, but who knows?
I don't know what people do with their heads.
People who stuffing paper in their ears.
People are crazy.
Maybe there are brain surgeons making billions of pounds just by Oh, another one, eh?
Another one with bits of paper in his brain.
We've got to pull that out carefully.
But anyway, you do have to become a surgeon.
Then you print it all out and blah, blah, blah.
You've got to get it all ready, you see.
Then there's setting up the technology, getting the IWB, that's the interactive whiteboard, ready.
You've got to get your whiteboard set up.
I've got to get my British Council laptop, which is in my locker.
I've got to go to the teacher's room, unlock it, get it out.
OK, you know, I've got to carry that here.
I've got to carry all the cables, get that plugged in.
Oh, no, the battery's flat.
I've got to charge it up again.
OK, wait for the thing to boot up.
OK, enter my password here.
Enter my password again.
Oh no, my password has expired because I've been away for two weeks.
I've got to set up a new password.
All of this has got to be done in a fairly short window of time.
You've got to get all these things done.
Sign in to everything I need to sign in to.
Make sure everything is open.
All the documents I need are open in the right software.
I've got to use Microsoft Edge because it's the best one for using with an interactive whiteboard.
Get it all open in Microsoft Edge.
I open the PDF.
Oh, it opens in Adobe Acrobat.
No, I want it to open in Microsoft Edge.
So you've got to do this and then set Microsoft Edge as the default program.
Every single time I open up my computer, I've got to set up Microsoft Edge as the default program.
I know some of you are going, but Luke, you can do it like this.
Just go into your system preferences.
I know.
But that's the way it is.
Then I've got to calibrate the whiteboard.
The whiteboard needs to be calibrated.
If it's not calibrated.
When I use the electric pen on the board, I put the pen here, but the stuff that I'm drawing is like 10 centimetres away.
That's ridiculous.
So I have to calibrate the whiteboard, which means I've got to do this kind of...
Tom Cruise in that movie.
What's it called?
Minority Report, where he's pressing different things and it's all very futuristic.
I've got to get that ready.
And then I've got to set up the space that the students will sit in the classroom.
That's really important.
I had 11 students on this particular Thursday, so I spent time arranging the tables and chairs.
And this is when things get physical.
I had to shift some fairly heavy tables around, stack some extra chairs, drag things here and push things there so that the students had a fair amount of space, that they would be able to see the board, that they were encouraged to sit in the right places.
Now, there is a...
There's a rule at the British Council, which is that you've got to leave the room in the same state that you found it.
But that doesn't always work.
Some people don't follow the rule.
And plus, sometimes the way that they've left it isn't the way you need it to be.
So you never, you know, in any case, you always have to move tables and stack chairs and get make sure that all the students will be encouraged to sit in the right places.
Not too close to the screen.
You want you know, you want them all in the right places.
Right.
So that I would be able to move around and visit their tables, stand at the board without bumping into things and things like that.
You know, got to get the space ready.
This is really important.
The physical space can define how the students interact.
OK, it can define how the students interact.
If, if the space isn't right, if they're sitting in the wrong positions, that can kind of ruin the social cohesion of the room.
And if you manipulate the room, they're much more likely to have social interactions that are good and successful and healthy.
Because, for example, if one student is talking to another student here, they have to kind of turn around and it's uncomfortable.
It hurts their neck after a while, you know.
And what naturally happens is they naturally want to go into the more comfortable position, which is a position that's not very suitable for a conversation.
And then communication breaks down.
It's pretty easy for communication to break down.
You've got to try to, you know, add a little bit of lubrication here and there to make sure that communication happens.
So really, you're setting up the parameters for social interaction and for how the students will feel during your lesson.
Sometimes it's not even obvious.
It might just be moving the tables a little bit.
You know, it's not all about sitting positions, but this is one part of the puzzle.
OK, one of the details you've got to get right.
For example, I always like to position myself so that I can see the faces of every single person in the room and they can see mine.
This means finding a position where all the faces are visible.
You need to find a... you know, a line of sight for every single student, wherever I am in the room.
Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I don't think I am actually.
I like to be in a spot.
If I'm here, I just move to the left slightly so that this person isn't behind someone's head.
I've got an eye, a line of sight for everyone.
Okay.
This is probably subconscious for the students, I think.
But it means that they always know I am there.
OK, always know that I'm listening, always know I'm available and always know they're not being ignored.
It also allows me to sort of maintain my surveillance as well.
Because sometimes you get some students who if you're not looking they will kind of drift off and stop focusing or something like that.
If they know they're being watched, that helps to maintain their concentration.
OK, this is all positive.
It helps people.
It helps to keep people engaged and happy.
Just little things like this.
For example, if I have my back to any of the students for a long time, if I have my back turned to them, this somehow causes them even slightly to feel abandoned ignored, not heard.
And they might start to drift off and think about something else.
They might consider checking their phone or start speaking French to another student, or something like that.
Maybe I'm overanalyzing this, but no, I'm not, actually.
I'm speaking from experience.
At a rough estimate, I think I've done at least 20,000 hours of in-class teaching.
It could be a lot more, in fact.
Yes, I am bragging about that.
Look at me.
I've done over 20,000 hours of teaching.
Look how experienced I am.
Maybe I'm bragging about that, if that is a reason to brag.
Is it?
I don't know.
Is that something to brag about and to feel proud of?
The fact that I've been doing the same thing again and again for such a long time?
Isn't that a theory of madness, like doing the same thing over and, over and over again and expecting different results each time?
It's like one of the definitions of madness, isn't it?
Well, if that's the definition of madness, then I must be insane.
Either that or I just enjoy being an English teacher.
I don't know.
Yes, maybe I'm bragging.
Look how experienced I am.
But I do feel quite proud to have done a lot of something, to have stuck at it for a long time.
You know, is that a reason to be proud?
I don't know, really.
But whatever.
The point is that when you've done something again and again, and again, and again and again, you start to learn how to do it at an intuitive level and you refine it in lots of different ways.
One example of that is understanding how your standing position as a teacher can make a big difference to how your students feel.
Okay, and i just find this interesting and i need to tell, i need to talk to you about it, don't you think that's interesting, all these little details?
Now, one point I should make is it's not all about the teacher, of course.
It's mainly about the students in English lesson.
But the fact is, the teacher sets the tone.
And so yes, of course, it is important that, as a teacher, you make a conscious effort to control everything you do, including the way you stand.
It's like a performance.
OK, it's like a performance.
Now, I remember saying that once.
I remember calling teaching a performance.
I remember that once when I was first training to be a teacher ages ago.
2001, when I was doing my very first teacher training course and I was doing my very first course.
I was having my very, very first experiences of teaching and speaking to a room full of students.
I remember this very clearly.
I was in a feedback session with my teacher trainer.
This is after having done some teaching practice.
We had these feedback sessions where there'd be a couple of other trainee teachers and the teacher trainer and we would all give each other feedback.
OK, so I was in a feedback session with my teacher trainer and some other novice would-be teachers like me.
And we were talking after they'd observed one of my teaching practice sessions, one of my first attempts at teaching English to adults.
And I was not good at the start, of course.
I didn't know what I was doing and felt incredibly self-conscious and had no confidence.
My nervous body was in charge and inside my head I was very frustrated and ashamed.
Do you know that feeling, listeners?
Do you know the feeling of when you're in front of people?
Maybe you have to do a presentation, or maybe you are teaching or something else, and you feel like a prisoner of your own awkwardness?
Right.
You feel like a prisoner of your own awkwardness, where inside your brain you're screaming.
You know I need to, I need.
I wish I could just relax and be myself.
But your body's like, no, no, we will.
You can't relax.
And your brain's like, no, we will not think properly.
That's kind of what happens to you.
So my nervous body was in charge of me and inside my head I was very frustrated and ashamed.
It was just, this is so embarrassing.
Talking of losing face.
So I wanted to say in this feedback session that I wanted to say that I needed to express myself better while teaching my lesson plan right.
That's what I was trying to say in this feedback session to the teacher trainer.
I was saying I need to be able to express myself better in my voice, my choice of words, my movements.
And I was struggling to explain in this session how I needed to do it.
And I said to my trainer, look, my performance wasn't good.
I said that my performance wasn't good.
And I meant it I meant it in the sense of a sporting performance.
Right?
Do you understand?
I meant it sort of as a sporting performance rather than as a theatrical performance.
So I was talking about my performance, meaning you know you did well, you did badly.
That kind of performance like the way a footballer would perform well meaning play well.
I meant it like that, not as a theatrical performance, like to be or not to be.
What do you think, everyone?
Great, right?
You know, not like that kind of performance.
So I was trying to, and I said my performance wasn't good.
And the trainer was very harsh with me.
She told me very strongly, it is not a performance.
Teaching is not a performance.
You know, she really made a point of like hammering that message home to me.
Clearly she thought it was very important to make me realise that we are not performers performing to our students.
She really emphasised this point to me and was very serious about I felt quite bad and even more frustrated than I did before.
It was not a nice session.
She didn't really understand what I was trying to say and decided that she definitely had to kill any possibility that I would be one of those annoying teachers who doesn't listen to my students.
Let's say I need to rewrite this that I would be one of those annoying teachers who doesn't listen to their students.
Right there, meaning one teacher.
We don't know if it's a man or a woman.
That's why we're saying there.
It's a non-gendered pronoun.
It's been, you know, people have been using that for years.
It's not a new thing.
It's not all kind of anyway.
So she had to kill any possibility that I would be one of those annoying students right that doesn't listen to their.
Can I get this sentence right one day?
So she definitely had to kill any possibility that I would be one of those annoying teachers who doesn't listen to their students and who just uses the attention of the class of students to put on a show to satisfy the ego the kind of David Brent of English teaching.
She really needed to make sure that that was not going to happen with me.
Everyone.
I know I'm getting sidetracked here, but what I'm trying to say is that the teacher should not just use a classroom to show off.
But teaching can definitely be considered a performance in the sense that you have to be in control of yourself and understand how your movements and your communication can influence the class profoundly.
I suppose, in a way, all of life is a performance, when you think that your actions and words make a difference and therefore you need to learn to control them like an actor.
Ooh, how profound.
How profound of you, Luke.
Yeah, we are.
Yeah, it's true though, isn't it?
All the world's a stage and we are all actors upon it, to paraphrase Shakespeare.
Is that Hamlet?
I don't know.
But yes, maybe all the world is a stage.
Every single situation we find ourselves in is a kind of performance.
Like when I went to the hairdressers just before.
By the way, I need to go home and wash it and do something else to it, because it's you know when you've been, your hair's got a bit long and it's kind of changed shape.
Like when my hair goes long, I have to sort of sweep it over to the side kind of thing, or sweep it back.
So it's the hair sort of like goes, OK, we're sweeping back into the side, back into the side.
Everyone says your hair.
And then you go to the hairdresser and they cut it short.
But as far as your hair is concerned, it's still going, okay, back and to the side.
Okay, everyone, where is everyone?
What happened?
They all got cut in half.
OK, well, still back into the side, back into the side.
The hair is still following the previous programming, even though it's now being cut.
So that's kind of what's going with my hair, I think, is that it still thinks it's longer than it is.
And so I need to wash it and then it'll be like, OK, oh, I see.
We're shorter now.
We can do something else.
Yeah.
Anyway, so.
All the world is a stage and every situation you're in essentially you are kind of playing the part of a person in that situation.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, you're following the sort of expectations or standards, conventions of that particular situation.
Like so in the hairdresser.
You're playing the part of the customer, even though inside you might be thinking you might be.
There's that feeling that you want to kind of I don't know.
It's hard to explain.
I couldn't have gone into that.
So I had to make an adjustment from doing the podcast to being suddenly in a chair in a barbershop.
And it's obviously a totally intuitive change.
But nevertheless, it just shows that you are playing a different role in different situations.
So I couldn't go and sit in that chair and be to be in the same mode that I'm in when I'm doing a podcast, or I would have sat there going.
Oh you know, I would have just waffled onto the guy.
And that's not necessarily appropriate for that situation.
What he really wants is someone to just kind of sit there and tilt their head in different directions and not talk too much.
You know, maybe they'll make small talk with you, right?
But really, they just want you to be a good customer.
Right.
So, you know, you see what I mean?
And similarly, as a teacher, you've got to adopt a different mode as well.
So maybe that's also part of the stress that you experience in those minutes before the lesson begins.
You're kind of metamorphosizing or preparing yourself to be slightly different.
And when the lesson is finished, you can kind of go back to sort of some neutral position again.
Anyway, so.
Going back to me sweating and hastily moving chairs and tables in my empty classroom just minutes before my lesson was due to start that Thursday.
Recently I might have been swearing under my breath a bit like fucking move the fucking tables.
I might have been doing that a little bit, because that's what you do when you're a little bit stressed, isn't it?
You don't have much time and you have to move loads of tables around.
I should mention as well my managers at this point.
I've got a few managers at work, but the ones that were probably there on that morning Emily and Richard, who are usually in the teacher's room downstairs.
They are friendly and helpful.
By the way, just in case you were wondering, why does teacher Luke have to move tables on his own?
Doesn't he have someone else to do that for him?
Doesn't the British Council provide for that?
Well, I do have managers.
They're very friendly and helpful.
I could have gone to ask them for help.
But honestly, it was fine.
I could do it myself.
And it was actually easier if I did it myself.
Okay.
Just in case you were listening and thinking.
But surely Luke, there is someone at the school whose job it is to move those tables?
A high-status person such as you, the teacher, surely shouldn't have to lower themselves to that kind of menial task.
No, it's totally fine.
It's fine.
But, oh, this is ramble central, isn't it, here?
We're talking about.
I'm basically sharing some of my reflections about English teaching with that lesson in mind, just just thinking about the things I had to go through in the minutes before the lesson started.
I was feeling a bit stressed beforehand.
When the lesson started, it was great.
It was really good.
But nevertheless, what about that stress, exploring that feeling, preparing the space?
Preparing the space is important for creating the right conditions.
You know, this is also true in stand-up comedy.
You've got to get the room in the right way.
You've got to get the chairs in the right position.
Basically with stand-up comedy, the best is when the audience are quite close together, quite close to the stage, a little bit uncomfortable and kind of in the dark.
OK, you think uncomfortable.
Why?
You want them to be uncomfortable so that they are awake.
And somehow being uncomfortable does somehow create the conditions for laughter.
They also need to be prepared mentally, subconsciously as they come into the room.
They're here for a comedy show.
It's not a theatre show.
It's not like the cinema where they sit back in comfort and anonymity in a stand up show.
They they are a part of the show, whether they realise it or not.
They are part of the show because their laughter is vital.
And so they need to know that the comedian can see them a little bit.
And, you know, they need to know that they're part of this show.
Anyway, shoe.
They need to know that they're part of a shoe.
Show, I meant.
Anyway, preparing the space is important.
I also need to be able to access each student.
So this is talking about arranging the tables.
I need to make sure there are sort of spaces between the tables so I can stand close to them to listen or talk to them.
So I arrange tables with some space between them.
I make islands so the students can sit in small groups around them.
I also like a horseshoe arrangement sometimes.
That's where the tables are in a kind of U shape arrangement.
Sometimes I can't access all the students, depending on where they're sitting.
And by access the students I mean move closer, squat next to the table, bend over to listen and help if needed.
Sometimes it's not possible to access everyone because the room is too small.
This is rare at the British Council, to be honest.
The rooms are generally a good size.
Teaching in a real classroom rather than online really appeals to me though, still because the physical space adds a whole other element to the way I can communicate.
I use my body and my face a lot.
And I really enjoy this.
It allows me to use some acting skills and also some stand-up comedy skills.
I hope that if any of my students who I actually teach in class I hope if any of them are listening to this they're thinking wow, he's really talking.
He's talking like he really knows what he's doing.
But maybe the students are like, really?
Because it's not obvious.
I don't know.
This is how it is for me.
So yeah, it allows me to use some acting skills, like if I need to act things out, and some stand up comedy skills as well.
And that doesn't mean just like telling jokes, stand up comedy skills.
That involves other things like, for example, changing your voice or acting something out, acting out a scenario pretending to be two people talking to each other.
You know, giving examples of language or situations by kind of acting them out and acting out responses to what someone says.
Like, for example, pronunciation.
You know like, for example, the other day, one of my students we were talking about how to how to invite someone to a party.
OK, and we were just looking at the social English that we use.
And it was basically this.
Oh, I'm going to a party on Saturday.
I was wondering if you'd like to come.
And one of the students said, what would it be?
It would be my pleasure.
Now, there's nothing wrong with saying it would be my pleasure, but the fact is it's a little bit old fashioned.
And so the way that I tried to explain this was to kind of go it would be my sincerest pleasure, your majesty.
You know this kind of thing which just an efficient way of showing them it would be my distinct pleasure sounds a bit formal and a bit old fashioned.
Sometimes instead of saying that sounds informal and old fashioned.
Sometimes it's actually just more efficient and more effective to say the line that they've just said back to you, but with a bit of acting involved to demonstrate it.
And then it's sort of like, oh, I see.
Yeah, I see what you mean.
Sometimes it's the more efficient way of communicating.
Anyway, space.
You need space for all these things.
And they need space as well.
So by using my body, I mean moving this way or that way to engage attention.
Sometimes you step forwards.
Sometimes you step forwards to engage their attention, to make a point.
You step backwards in order to say, now it's your turn.
You know, I use my body to help me highlight something, to show that I want someone to speak.
You know, with my eyebrows and my hand, an open-handed gesture and an open face, to show that I'm asking a question, to show that I'm not sure about my answer, to show that something is ambiguous.
Shades of meaning or maybe added context, which helps to give a more complex message more efficiently.
Body language also helps me give encouragement or make the students correct themselves.
So with encouragement, nodding and smiling and showing, yeah, that's absolutely right.
Or to encourage correction by going hmm, doing a sort of skeptical or unsatisfied face like that, which encourages the students to correct themselves or to think about what they've just said without me having to actually open my mouth and interrupt them.
Teacher talking time, student talking time.
These are important principles.
Normally we say that student talking time should be high because ultimately the space is there for them to do lots of speaking right.
And it shouldn't be the speaking time in the room should not be dominated by the teacher.
So you need to try to find ways to reduce teacher talking time.
And that can be using little mimes and gestures, right taking elements from the silent approach to teaching language, which is a whole method of teaching.
Communication isn't just the words and grammar.
It's the way you use your voice, pausing, emphasis, intonation, and your body, facial expressions, gestures, positions, movements.
So the room is so important in terms of my having space to move, the students having space to move and also making sure the students are in the right positions so they can easily talk to each other, and other things that will encourage and allow a good group dynamic rather than being an obstacle to that.
Luckily, at the British Council, as I've said, most of the rooms are good.
I've had some horrendous rooms before, which really compromised my ability to teach effectively.
Also earlier in my career, I didn't know how to arrange the room properly and I'm sure my lessons suffered.
I'm slightly scarred by some lessons which must have been pretty bad in some ways, like the ones at the very beginning, but also, you know, later in my career as well.
You know, I think, for a while in the early days I held on somehow just with just enthusiasm and energy.
You know, when I didn't have that much experience to help me, it was just enthusiasm and energy which helped me survive where my teaching skills were lacking.
I still do this sometimes, to be honest.
I still do just sort of maybe get by with enthusiasm and by being nice and by listening a lot.
You know, I still do this, to be honest.
And I don't mean to suggest that all my lessons go really well these days.
I still have a lot to learn, of course.
But I remember once being observed by a teacher trainer another one Not at the very start of my career, but about 15 years ago, when I was doing my Delta qualification and had already been teaching for five years.
So the previous example, the trainer who said it's not a performance that was during my CELTA, the Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults.
This particular anecdote comes from when I was training, when I was taking my DELTA qualification Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults.
Actually a higher diploma.
I'll have you know which is the much more advanced teaching qualification.
It's like the one that you take when you've basically decided right, I think I'm going to do this as a serious career now.
This is it.
This is my career.
Okay, time to do the DELTA.
This is, you know, big school.
So I was doing my Delta qualification.
I'd been teaching for about five years.
I was generally quite confident as a teacher, but then when you're observed by someone, when you're observed by a teacher, trainer or an external assessor from Cambridge or something, then you can kind of you know, you start to sweat a little bit.
So I was observed by one of our course leaders who visited my school, sat at the back of the room, watched and took notes.
He was an older man with decades of experience, something of an expert in this whole thing and he was both assessing me and trying to help me become a better teacher.
I was stressed and struggling, frankly, especially with him watching me.
To paint the picture, the school was on Oxford Street in London.
The room was on the second floor, probably.
You could hear the sounds of traffic in the street outside, music from shops, people shouting outside, the bells from the Hare Krishna temple next door.
Just to paint the picture.
Inside the room, I had about 15 students, plus the observer, and I was feeling a lot of pressure.
I had some experience, but I hadn't mastered the subtle arts of teaching.
I was like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars Episode 5.
Maybe yeah maybe, perhaps after he's been defeated by Darth Vader, or maybe while being defeated by Darth Vader.
Okay, that's an analogy that doesn't really work.
Anyway, I was slightly inexperienced.
I wasn't so sure of myself.
I often struggled with the language.
I struggled with the language.
What language?
I struggled with the language.
I don't know why I wrote that.
I think I meant I struggled with the teaching.
But maybe I struggled with the grammar.
I also struggled with the students.
Sometimes. often just getting by on sheer charm and enthusiasm.
Also, it was sometimes hard to maintain the full respect of the students, I think.
Maybe it's just in my head, but often I would just feel awkward and embarrassed.
Maybe the students didn't know, because I was ultimately delivering what they had paid for, but just not comfortable.
Maybe I'm being harsh on myself there because actually, thinking about it now and being fair on myself, I do remember being a popular teacher.
I wonder if I've got any students listening to this who I used to teach.
If you used to be my student at any time, especially before I moved to France, right?
If you used to be my student back in the old days in London and you listen to this podcast, let me know, okay.
Let me know.
Write to me and tell me what it was like to be in my class.
Are you still out there?
Those people, I don't know what's happened to them.
All those people I taught years ago.
Maybe they just went on, they improved their English and now they've just mastered English and they're just out there in the world just doing things, achieving things, speaking English really well.
And they're like, don't need to listen to Luke's English podcast.
I've got it already.
Yeah.
I wonder.
Anyway, let me know if you were my student once upon a time.
Maybe you were and you just don't remember.
It's like, I remember having a very sort of bland teacher.
It could have been you, just another white guy.
Another white English guy.
Yeah, it could have been you.
Yeah.
Anyway, I do remember being a popular teacher, but I think that's probably normal.
I mean, most teachers are popular with their students, as long as you're not a complete bore or a nasty piece of work.
You know, if you're not boring and you're not nasty, the students will probably really like you, as long as you're doing your best.
Anyway, I remember doing the lesson which I'd spent hours and hours planning meticulously, which is ridiculous for just a one hour lesson, but that's the task you have to do when you're doing the Delta.
Teaching my plan very awkwardly, my body and mind still being dominated by stress.
And after the observed lesson had finished, I went back to the classroom after a break.
So we did the observed lesson, with my observer there noting down, watching with a very serious face.
Then the session finished, we had a break and then we came back, right?
So I went back to the classroom after a break and the students seemed a little bit peeved, like they just seemed a bit irritated or something.
They're just not very happy.
They weren't entirely responsive to me.
So you know, normally when you get a good atmosphere in the class, you can just like say one thing and kind of get the ball rolling, you know, and the ball keeps rolling.
And it's like, this is good.
This is good.
We've got a good rhythm going here.
We've got good momentum.
Now let's take that momentum into the lesson, into the lesson you know.
Let's open the course book, or let's get to the board, or let's give you a task or something.
And this is good, good atmosphere.
But sometimes you like kick the ball over to the students and it just rolls to their feet and they just look at it and just you know, nothing happens.
So, yeah, my students after the break, they just seemed a bit bit.
I don't know.
They just weren't that happy.
They were probably quite stressed, too.
And my uptight demeanor in the previous session had just made them feel a bit embarrassed or something.
And they were probably just like, oh, God, this is awkward.
Why do we have to have Luke being observed in our lesson?
Why do we have to have a trainee teacher?
Why can't we have a proper teacher, basically?
They probably felt uncomfortable seeing me all red in the face.
I remember the course.
I remember that group of students.
I remember the beginning of the course.
We started well.
Like, you know...
Did the right things at the start.
Everyone was good.
This is all great.
But because I started doing my Delta, the stress came into factor.
The cracks appeared.
And I probably lost face a few times in certain ways.
Plus, I was younger then.
And they probably, you know, just people naturally will... will look up to you a bit more.
They'll perceive you in a different way if you're older.
And that creates that positive cycle of like respect followed by confidence, followed by greater respect.
And it's like, you know, a more virtuous cycle.
Anyway, conversation at the start of the next session turned to the observed lesson we'd just lived through.
Before the break.
So we started talking about the previous session and the fact that the session had been observed, And we talked about the experienced teacher trainer who'd been sitting at the back of the class Watching me seriously and writing things down while I tried to teach.
We talked about him.
One of the students had chatted to him during the break and had immediately noticed his depth of experience, and This teacher trainer must have been in his 60s.
So grey haired man with a beard.
Is this why you've grown a beard, Luke?
I don't know.
So one of the students had sort of started chatting to this guy and had noticed his depth of experience.
And of course, he assumed that this guy was a real teacher, unlike the virtual amateur who was actually running their class.
That's me.
The student then told me in front of all the other students, that he wished that this older guy was their teacher and not me.
Yeah, it was something like this.
He said, oh, I spoke to John.
He's so experienced, isn't he?
Oh, I want him to be my teacher.
Or it was, I wish he was my teacher.
Or even, I want him to be my teacher, not you.
Okay, now maybe this student was being a dick.
Or maybe the student was just trying to make a joke and he didn't realise that.
Oh, he accidentally let a genie out of the bottle.
He opened Pandora's box by saying that.
He sort of somehow vocalised what everyone else had been thinking, which was like...
You know, I wish Luke, I wish we got Luke like 10 years later.
I wish you got the 10, the 15 or 20 years of experience version of Luke instead of this this, this version who's stressed and red in the face and a bit too young maybe.
So maybe the student was being a dick.
I don't know.
Maybe he said it in a jokey way.
But the humour in his voice was barely enough to mask the fact that he really meant what he said.
He meant it all right.
He thought I was some kind of or.
He suddenly thought, he suddenly realised or suddenly decided that I was some kind of apprentice who didn't know what he was doing, in comparison to the Jedi Master who was observing me.
Maybe he was right, but did he need to say it?
Did he need to say that?
I don't know.
Maybe his intentions were good.
Maybe he was just trying to make us laugh or something.
But it kind of came out and his comment came out and dropped on the floor.
And I felt pretty bad.
Now, the student probably liked me, but perhaps only as someone to go for a drink within the pub, you know like.
OK, I like you Luke, and you're an English teacher.
But could you be like the going to the pub English teacher rather than the you know the one that we have for three hours in the morning?
I don't know.
I think he genuinely would have preferred the other guy as his teacher.
And he suddenly became aware of my limitations.
And apparently he needed me to know this and all the other students, too.
So I lost face in quite a big way.
And, you know, when one person loses face in a group, sometimes the whole group loses face.
So it's like everyone went down a peg or two.
I'm making it sound more dramatic than it was.
I think it probably was a bad moment and we moved on and then we carried on, right?
In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that bad, was it?
It wasn't.
It was just a teacher feeling awkward in a mid-priced English language school in London one morning in 2006.
It's not exactly going to make the history books... or the news.
The headlines tonight, Luke Thompson felt awkward in an English class.
You know.
Jeremy Paxman has this story.
I don't know who it would be these days.
Clive Mowbray reports from the London School of English.
Clive Mowbray reports from London, Oxford Street.
I'm standing on Oxford Street.
The school behind me is where the awkward lesson occurred.
I'm talking to one of the students, you know.
Well, what happened was, Luke was teaching and it was OK at first, but then he had an observed lesson.
And we had this other teacher in the class who was observing him and writing, and writing everything down.
And we realised, wait a minute.
Oh, he's got he's the real teacher.
And then one of the students said it.
And Luke was embarrassed.
Back to the studio.
You know, I don't think that's going to happen.
But it's not going to make the history books.
But I died inside a little bit and I haven't forgotten it.
We've all got those sorts of experiences, haven't we?
The sorts of things where you'll be in bed one night Sunday night, you've got an important work day, the next day you're feeling a bit stressed, you can't sleep and then suddenly you wake up.
Oh God, that lesson in 2006!
I don't think it was all that bad, honestly, but sometimes it's all about perception.
If the students perceive you to be a good teacher, then they'll interpret your actions as those of a good teacher.
But if the perception slips and they see you as struggling and if their sympathy runs out, then you lose face as a teacher and your status drops and the students can lose faith in you.
Or at least this is what can happen in your mind.
This is like your worst nightmare.
It rarely happens.
Not really.
It really happens.
No, it rarely.
It seldom happens.
It rarely happens.
Really.
This is more like the in the mind of the English teacher.
This is like the anxiety dream of an English teacher, where certain things happen and suddenly everyone loses respect for you.
I've had so many anxiety dreams as an English teacher.
Just waking, like, I mean, having dreams at night, waking up and remembering the dream and go, oh, that was horrible.
Often my anxiety dreams as a teacher would be things like this.
I'm teaching the class, but no one's listening to me.
I can't like, hello, I can't get their attention.
They're not listening to me. and stuff's happening, and I can't get their attention.
That's one anxiety dream.
The other anxiety dream is where I'm called away from the classroom.
So I'm teaching a class, and something happens, and I have to leave the room.
And then one thing leads to another thing, and I'm getting further and further away from the classroom.
And now I'm in the street and I'm getting further and further away and I've got to get back to my class.
The class is unattended.
That's the other anxiety dream as a teacher.
So maybe all this is just an anxiety dream, a waking anxiety dream of memory that I'm having here, but I don't know.
Losing the faith, not face losing the faith of the students.
When the students lose faith in you, it's very rare actually.
But it can be hard to get that back.
It can happen by degrees.
Just little things, lots of little things, they all add up to a bigger picture.
And you learn to control or master those little things with the bigger picture in mind.
This is kind of like the step-by-step process that you get better at being a teacher.
You realise that?
Ah, I've got to you know when I do the photocopying, attach the pieces of paper together with a staple.
And that way you don't lose face by oh sorry, where's the?
No, it's this side, you know, fiddling with lots of pieces of paper that drop on the floor and stuff no, staple them together.
Not a paper clip no, they've got to be stapled.
So that means you've got to have a stapler, as suddenly the stapler becomes very important to attach all those pieces of paper together like this, He says, showing some pieces of paper stapled together listeners.
So I do remember these dodgy moments in my teaching career.
And these are some of the things which play on your mind when you're quickly getting a lesson ready on a Monday or Thursday morning.
By the way, just in case you had any doubt, I passed my Delta.
OK, I did well.
I got the Delta and I learned a lot during that course.
It was a very important experience in my career and therefore in my whole life.
We have to learn from those difficult moments and they make us a bit stronger.
Ultimately, this is why it's important to step outside your comfort zone.
I think it's also true for learners of English or any language you've got to.
You know, sometimes when you're, when you're uh, doing speaking in another language, you it's really horrible and awkward and you feel like such an idiot, you know, and you're just like, oh god, i'm making a fool of myself, this is not who i am now.
I'm not this person, but now i'm.
It's like i'm starting again or something.
You know i like developed all i've, I became a fairly competent and confident person in my first language, but speaking a second language is just oh, I feel so ashamed.
But keep going.
Keep going because you learn from those experiences.
Don't run away from that.
Don't run away from that.
If you run away from that feeling of like feeling uncomfortable when you're speaking another language, then you will never learn really.
And you get used to it.
So you feel awkward.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It really doesn't matter.
Who cares?
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter that much.
You feel awkward.
You feel bad.
You feel stupid.
Keep going.
Persevere.
That's right.
Brush it off and just carry on.
You will learn step by step, little thing by little thing.
So back in those days, again, in the earlier days of my teaching career, I was quite sensitive.
These days, I'm a bit more armour plated.
Right?
Maybe it's scar tissue.
I don't know.
I say that I'm more armor plated, but I'm sure that what's going to happen now is it because I've said all of this?
Like, oh, I'm much more confident and, you know, everything's fine now.
The next lesson I teach is probably going to be a total disaster and I'll end up like no, that was bad.
Everything, it's all right.
If you've been a student of mine hopefully, hopefully.
What you're thinking now is like Luke.
What are you talking about?
I was a student with you for a while and it was great.
We had really good lessons and we had so much fun.
Good, good, good.
Me too.
I had so much fun too.
Most of my experiences as a teacher have been wonderful.
I wish I could capture them all.
There have been so many fantastic, funny moments in classes.
Why don't I remember those things like they happened to me yesterday?
Why is it just like the awkward things?
Why are those the things we remember?
I don't know.
Human nature.
I don't know what's up with that.
Anyway.
Going back to last Thursday, or whenever it was, Thursday before last, I can't remember.
The particular lesson at the British Council that I taught on Thursday last week 15 years later was good.
It was good.
I had a really good lesson.
I loved it.
I thought, oh, I do like being a teacher.
I was able to rush around and get everything ready.
First make sure I knew the lesson materials, the language aims and the exercises properly, you know, to have specific ideas of activities I could do and then rely on my ability to extemporise during the lesson, and we all had a lot of fun.
Everyone laughed a lot while also practising and learning specific things.
There was laughter, yes, which I do think is important.
Laughter is...
Laughter really breaks the ice.
You know, it cuts through those feelings of awkwardness and makes everyone feel a bit better.
I have to say that my skills as a stand-up comedian are very useful.
I would recommend to anyone to try and do some stand-up or at least try to do some sort of comedies performance or something like that.
It will teach you some things about yourself and it will help you claw forward in terms of your confidence.
I know that teaching should not be a performance, I remember.
But as I said before, right, the teacher should not be the centre of attention.
This is about the learners and about their learning.
But the fact is, in a group scenario, there are times when you have to stand up and talk to them all.
Maybe to get the lesson started, to do feedback on exercises, to answer questions, to do board work and so on.
So there are moments when the students expect you to be a sort of leader or a focal point, right?
That is one of the roles of being a teacher.
And in those moments, being able to make the students laugh really helps.
Humour can be the glue that holds it all together, or perhaps it's a kind of magic sauce which you put all over everything, which keeps everything sweet.
It makes people feel good to laugh.
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Basically, it's all about creating the right atmosphere in the classroom.
It's about facilitating the language learning process.
It does require energy, effort and experience, though.
Sometimes I feel exhausted after teaching and I fall asleep on my desk in the art at my desk.
I fall asleep at my desk, not on my desk, but just at my desk. in the afternoon.
I sit back in my chair and just have a little sleep because I'll be working, and I'm just my head starts nodding if I've been teaching in the morning, you know.
And I do fall asleep at my desk in the afternoon when I should be working on podcast stuff, because teaching is exhilarating but exhausting.
Anyway, on this particular Thursday afternoon I was feeling energised after my class, even though I had just done three hours of intense English teaching.
As I said, having had two weeks of holiday certainly helped.
My family and I had spent seven days at the seaside breathing lovely salty air and getting sunshine.
After finishing the class and doing my admin like doing the bits of admin stuff After the class I took a bicycle through some of the streets of Paris.
Again, I didn't actually take the bicycle on my shoulder.
I rode the bicycle.
You could say.
The bicycle took me through the streets of Paris in order to pick up my daughter's passport from an office in the second arrondissement, second district of the city.
My daughter is now five.
And so we needed to renew her UK passport.
She has a French one and a British one.
To be honest, we could just use the French one each time, but we like to have both.
So there it is.
We'd applied for a new one, a new British passport, new UK passport and had the application accepted.
And now the brand new passport was waiting at a DHL delivery office for me to collect, which I did.
It was a slightly rainy but warm day with patches of blue sky.
The temperature was just right.
No rain actually fell on me while I was out and about that day.
Maybe a few spots here and there, but somehow the rain only chose to come down while I was indoors.
So the weather was what we describe in England as sunshine and showers.
But I managed to get all the sunshine and avoided the showers.
I was able to cruise comfortably through the streets on a rented e-bike, pick up the passport with no problems.
It was in a kind of electronic automated locker. right, which was pretty cool.
You know, like those Amazon lockers.
You go to the locker, you've been given a code.
It feels like a sort of secret transaction.
You've got the code.
You go to this metal locker.
You add the code in, press the button.
I had to sign on the screen and then a door magically opened.
It was a pity that the door didn't go.
That would have been better if it had been sort of an air sealed container.
Yeah.
But instead, the door kind of goes pang and opens for you.
And then inside, someone has left secret documents for you, which you slide into an inside pocket.
You close the metal door and then you slip out, putting your sunglasses on and walk down the street, hoping that no one is following you is kind of how it feels.
So, pang, I got the thing, opened up the packet.
It opens up the top of the envelope and inside there's another envelope and you open that one and there inside is the passport.
So I was able to get the bike, go to the DHL place, pick up the passport, have a look at it and pick a place to eat lunch.
There's something very satisfying about being the first to see a brand new passport, especially when it's your own child's.
You see the photo, you get to see how cute she is, even in a dodgy passport photo where she isn't allowed to smile.
You get to enjoy the fresh pages of the passport, imagining which places we might visit in the future.
So I got that privilege.
Then I had lunch in a Korean restaurant just off Rue Saint Anne.
Parisians, do you know it?
You must do.
Not the restaurant necessarily, but certainly Rue Saint Anne.
Rue Saint Anne is a famous street in the second arrondissement.
It's the street with all the Japanese and Korean restaurants on it.
It's a favourite area of mine.
There are supermarkets which sell proper Japanese green tea, including the favourite of my wife and me.
Genmai Cha, Genmai tea.
It's a mix of green tea and roasted grains of rice.
If you're listening to this and you like Genmai Cha too, high five!
It's delicious, it's comforting and it's healthy.
Genmai Cha, available in a supermarket near you.
If you work for a tea company and you'd like to sponsor this podcast, just send me an email, okay?
So, yeah.
So yeah, Genmai Chai, you can get it in the supermarkets, the sort of Japanese or Korean supermarkets in that part of the city.
I could have picked up a fresh supply at the nearby supermarket, but we already had loads at home so I didn't need to.
The Korean lunch was delicious, comforting and healthy.
And Korean listeners, you think, you know, Luke, what did you choose?
Well, I chose chicken bibimbap and it was served in the right way.
It was a Korean restaurant run by Korean people.
And it was served in the right way, in a hot stone bowl.
Served in a bowl.
The bowl was hot, really hot.
Right?
It was served in a hot stone bowl with the ingredients sizzling inside.
You can hear the ingredients sizzling against the edge of the bowl.
What a delicious and balanced meal.
Tasty spicy with chicken rice and a range of different vegetables, kimchi and other pickled bits and pieces that I don't actually know what they were, but they were good.
Then, and by the way, I drank a cup of Korean tea.
I don't know exactly what it was made from, but it was good and it seemed healthy.
And a carafe of water, a jug of water.
I know this is all important information for you.
Then to let my food go down, I walked just a few steps around the corner to the nearby Square Louvois.
That's what it's called, Square Louvois, named after a woman who fought in World War II as part of the resistance movement against the Nazis who were occupying the city at the time.
You know your history, don't you?
You know what happened.
That's right.
So when the Nazis were occupying Paris, there was a resistance movement.
Some plucky Parisians fought against the Nazis.
There they were, the Nazis storming up and down the boulevards of Paris, marching around the place, lording it over everyone sitting in the cafes.
The waitresses had to smile at them.
Meanwhile, there were resistance fighters in the city, finding ways secretly to fight against them.
And there was a woman... Oh, I need to find out her name now, don't I?
Because it would be somehow disrespectful to talk about her without...
Ces allées sont nommées en mémoire de couple de résistantes.
André Jacob and Evelyne Garnier.
Okay, so the square isn't named after her.
But her and André Jacob were two resistance fighters who are.
The square is dedicated to them, I guess.
All right.
So let me get back to my document here.
Where is it?
So the square is dedicated to those two girls.
Girls.
Two women.
Andre, but it's A-N-D-R-E-E.
So that's the feminine version.
So it's the two women resistance fighters.
Interesting.
Just that's interesting that you find yourself in a spot and, you know, you spend some time there.
And then as you get up to leave, you notice a sign.
You spend a good...
45 minutes there.
Nice 45 minutes.
And you look up at the sign.
Interesting.
Oh, this square is dedicated to the memory of two women who fought against the Nazis in Paris in 1940.
Wow.
You know, it's just interesting to be part of history.
So I didn't realise this, you know, all the stories connected to the place.
I didn't realise this when I first went in and sat down in this nice square.
But after spending 40 minutes having a wonderful time just reading a book, I stood up and noticed the sign behind me which told me about the woman whose name had been given to this lovely spot.
It's not actually correct that her name was given to it, but anyway, the square is dedicated to her.
So...
Time, check.
This is taking time longer than I expected.
The haircut took longer than I expected.
Time is a cruel mistress.
It slips away from you when you need it the most.
I'm going to have to stop.
I'm going to have to stop in 10 minutes.
Maybe I can continue this tomorrow morning, right?
Because I can't just leave it here.
All right, let's do 10 more minutes and then I'll continue this tomorrow morning, I think.
It's going to be an epically long episode, but that's fine.
So, this square, square, what did I call it?
Louvois.
It's a small green square with grass and trees just next to the National Library of France.
And in the middle there is a gorgeous and rather large fountain that made from cast iron, as a tribute to the four great French rivers the Seine, the Garonne, the Loire and the Saronne.
I think I'm pronouncing them basically okay.
So it's interesting.
There's a fountain in the middle made of cast iron.
I think it's a 19th century fountain.
And it's a dedication to the four great rivers of France.
How wonderful is that?
The rivers are all represented by four scantily clad women.
Women with, you know, not many clothes on, not much on.
They're topless, but with loincloths covering their lower regions.
It's a rather beautiful sight.
And there's water pouring down.
There are cherubs and fish with water jetting out of their mouths.
So I sat in front of this fountain.
I was sitting in front of the La Saron statue.
I don't know if you know it.
She stands there.
She holds a pot with water flowing out of it.
The water is like thoughts pouring out in the form of words, I thought.
Or maybe I didn't.
Maybe I just made that up now.
It's very pretty and a great place to sit for a while.
I had never visited it before this particular moment.
It was a nice discovery.
You know, if you live in a city, sometimes you discover these little spots.
It's like very urban cars, taxis, scooters.
Oh, sorry.
Excuse me.
People rushing around, busy people, you know, buses coming past you like that.
And then you take a couple of corners.
And then you see some trees in this square between some buildings.
And there's a metal fence going around it.
And you kind of peek between the trees and you can see an empty bench.
And you think, there, I'm going to sit there.
You go in and suddenly you're in this oasis.
And there's this beautiful fountain you've never seen before.
And you have a look at it and you go, my God, that's rather wonderful.
And you sit there for a while.
It was like that.
It was wet on the floor.
And there were puddles, but it wasn't actually raining.
I found an empty bench and I sat myself there.
Now, by the way, this happened in May, which I think must be my favourite month.
Not just because it's the month when I was born and the month when my wife has her birthday as well, but also it's just surely in the part of the world where I live, the weather is just the best in May, I think.
Not too hot.
Not too cold.
It's got freshness in the air.
The birds are singing.
The blossom is out.
The flowers are blooming.
It's the best month.
And in France, there are lots of public holidays in May.
So that means people get time off.
Whether you like it or not, you have to have some holiday time.
So yes, as I said before, the temperature was just right and the air was fresh, even in the middle of the city.
Spring was in full bloom.
There was blossom on the trees above me.
There was birdsong in the air.
Sparrows fluttered around, little birds.
There were pigeons wandering around too, which I could just shoo away.
Shoo, that's S-H-O-O.
Shoo shoo, shoo.
Make them go away.
I could shoo them away without too much trouble by wagging the end of my foot at them as I sat there if they wandered a bit too close, because they're a bit grotty.
You see pigeons in the city, you know so.
They get a bit close.
You just waggle your foot and off they go.
No stress.
In my pocket, I had a book.
I also had my daughter's new passport, my phone and my headphones.
I could have switched on a podcast or just scrolled through social media looking at the screen, but I've been trying to avoid too much time on my phone lately.
I don't think it's very healthy.
Sometimes you have to stop and appreciate what is around you.
I've also been trying to read more.
I find it much better for my general mental health.
I can read a bit, stop and appreciate the moment and continue.
I find social media on your phone is probably engineered to hold your attention in a way that is probably not very good for our eyes, our brains, our feelings.
And so I opted for the book in my jacket pocket.
The book is called Selected Short Stories by H.G.
Wells, the British writer of science fiction stories from the late 19th century.
He wrote The War of the Worlds.
The copy that I had with me was one I'd picked up in England in a Sainsbury's supermarket.
I hadn't bought it.
Don't worry, I didn't steal it either.
Actually, at this particular Sainsbury's supermarket near my parents' house in England, they have a bookshelf where people can share books.
You can leave old books there or pick ones up that other people have left there.
And a few weeks before, before I sat in this park, I'd been doing some shopping in England near my parents' house, and I'd spotted this book as I was leaving.
The orange spine with the penguin logo caught my eye, and I wondered what the title was.
I like these penguin... books published by Penguin.
Usually in these situations, when I'm in charity shops, for example, I keep an eye out for Sherlock Holmes books because I love Sherlock Holmes.
I keep an eye out for Sherlock Holmes books.
You know, if I find these sorts of bookshelves or if I'm in secondhand bookshops or something I'll keep an eye out for those for Sherlock Holmes stories, which I have a soft spot for.
But this one was H.G.
Wells and I immediately picked it up, shifting the heavy bag of shopping to my other shoulder so I can have a look at it.
I love The War of the Worlds, also by Wells.
Not because I love war or anything.
Of course not.
War is hell.
But The War of the Worlds has always fascinated me.
I read some extracts from it in a podcast episode.
In fact, in a few podcast episodes a couple of years ago.
They're episodes 734 and 736, if you're interested.
It's about an alien invasion, War of the Worlds.
And as far as I know, it's the first alien invasion story ever written.
One of the things I like about it is that the aliens choose Southeast England as the focus of their invasion.
Normally, we expect aliens to invade, like, the United States, right?
I mean usually it's like Nevada, the desert, or maybe New York or one of the major cities, or you know, it would be London or something like that.
Paris, you know, they blow up the Eiffel Tower or something.
But in this case no, they chose southeast England, sort of like the home counties not far from where I grew up as a kid for some of my childhood.
Anyway, I love that story.
I love the vivid descriptions, the brilliant level of imagination HG Wells had and the sense of adventure and action.
The book that I found in the supermarket was called Selected Short Stories, and it was an old copy.
I checked the publication date.
The stories were all written about 100 to 150 years ago in the sort of late 19th century or turn of the century period.
But this particular copy was from 1969.
It had been printed and published in 1969.
So the book was older than me and the stories much older.
The pages of the book were all yellow and aged and the cover even began to crack and disintegrate slightly in my hands as I opened it.
Now the cover has gone completely.
But otherwise, the book is in good condition and is definitely fine for reading.
In the supermarket, I was curious about it.
The short stories included The Time Machine, perhaps H.G.
Wells' most celebrated story, which I hadn't read.
There were also about 20 other stories for me to enjoy.
I took it.
I must go back to that supermarket next time and leave a different book there, in order to please the god of lending libraries.
So this is the book I had in my pocket.
It was perfect for the occasion.
I'd already read a few of the stories before I got to that park, that square, and found them brilliant.
I notice with short stories like these, written at this time, you know, in the sort of 19th century, that I'm always a bit confused at the start.
I don't really know what's going on.
But with some perseverance, the story sort of opens up and pulls me in.
I expect it's the same for everyone.
These stories are short works of science fiction, but science fiction from the late 19th century like 1894 1895 1896, etc.
These are some of the very first science fiction stories.
So if you're turned off by the term science fiction, you're like, oh, science fiction, no thanks.
If you don't like that term, maybe it would just be better for me to call them like tales of imagination or something like that.
People often say about H.G.
Wells that he had great imagination and also very good vision.
He was able to look at what was happening in science and society and then imagine how things might be in the future or how changes in technology or scientific breakthroughs might impact society.
Or at least he could take a scientific idea and then add a bit of imagination to it and create an adventure story which is both fantastical and realistic at the same time.
Many of his stories are weirdly prescient, meaning that they somehow predicted what actually was happening.
They had sort of a sense of, yeah... prescience.
They had a sense of vision, of foresight to them.
He managed to predict a lot of things that have actually happened.
Now, I don't know if it would be your cup of tea or not, but for me this book of short stories is amazing.
I feel like it's the late 19th century equivalent of Black Mirror, the Netflix TV show.
Each episode or each story in this case, tells a scary amusing, ironic or satirical tale, which can be slightly disturbing exciting, wonderful and full of surprises, a bit like that TV show Black Mirror, but from 100 or 150 years ago.
The story I started there in front of that fountain just yesterday as I type.
When I typed this was called Apionis Island.
Hmm.
Now that's where we're going to end.
That's where I'm going to end this recording because I've got to rush off.
I've got to go home.
I've run out of time.
That's where I'm going to end this, but I guess I'm going to carry on again tomorrow morning.
Okay.
How are you doing listeners?
Are you doing all right?
Are you following this?
Are you enjoying this?
Are you with me?
Are you listening to my words?
Have I got your attention?
Would you like me to continue?
Shall I continue tomorrow?
I'm imagining that you're saying yes.
I'm going to be optimistic about this and I'm going to assume that you're saying yes.
Now, if you if you don't, if you're one of those people who's like, no, no, thanks, man.
I've had enough now.
Then let's and what you need is closure because those people who say your episodes are too long.
I always kind of think well, you could just stop listening when you feel you have had enough, you know.
But the reason those people are unsatisfied is because they need closure, right?
If that's you, here's your closure.
This is the end of this little section.
So you can...
You can go off and go about your day if you want.
Otherwise, if you're enjoying this and you're liking it and you're enjoying feeding on the English that I'm presenting to you here, then stick with me.
We've got a little bit more to go.
I'm going to talk to you about the story that I read.
I'm going to try to recap the story.
So get ready for a little adventure story.
And then I'm going to tell you about what happened when I tried to pick up my daughter's travel card from a very complicated underground metro station under the streets of Paris, and how confusing it was.
I wrote a little story about it, kind of.
So I'll share that with you, too.
But that's all going to happen later, for me tomorrow morning, but for you it's only going to be a couple of seconds from now.
Okay.
All right.
Thanks for listening this far.
I'm going to snap my fingers again.
When I unsnap them, we'll continue and I'll be wearing a different t-shirt.
Okay.
Here we go.
And we're back.
It's the next day now.
It's now the beginning of the afternoon.
I would have started this again in the morning, but I've spent the last couple of hours wrestling with the washing machine.
I won't go into it, but basically the washing machine is playing up again.
The washing machine.
I mean, it's normally the washing machine in our flat is a workhorse.
It's brilliant.
It just works flat out tirelessly without any complaint.
But then at some point it kind of goes, I can't do it anymore.
Something happens.
It gets blocked.
If you're a long-term listener to this podcast, then you'll know about my troubles with the washing machine in our flat and the ins and outs of that particular saga.
I'm not going to go into it now.
You could go back to previous episodes.
I did one about DIY from the beginning of last year.
You could listen to that if you want to hear all about the story of the dishwasher and Anyway.
So where were we?
Where were we?
What were we doing?
That's right.
It was time for me to... What had I just done?
I was going to talk to you about this story called Apionis Island.
Okay, that's it.
I was talking about this book, Selected Short Stories by H.G.
Wells, written in the late 19th century, published in 1969, the year of the moon landing and other historic events.
But yeah, the story dates back to the end of the 19th century, which the world was a different place, of course.
Now, the specific story I read in the square was Apionis Island.
The writing style is a bit old fashioned, of course, and it's clearly from a different era.
As I said before, the first few pages of stories from this era can be tricky, I find.
But I read the whole thing on that bench, in that square, with the sound of the city around me, the water from the mountain, from the fountain, the water from the fountain flowing in front of me.
And a few people milling about talking and smoking pigeons bobbing about on the floor in front of me.
I read the whole story sitting there.
It's not a long story.
It took me about 30 or 40 minutes to read.
I'm not an especially fast reader.
And sometimes I find that my mind wanders while I'm reading and I kind of lose the plot and I have to go back a few pages and read again to make sure I'm getting it.
But I love this kind of writing.
So, just to give you an idea of the style of writing, other writers from around the period the same period are Arthur Conan Doyle, the Sherlock from the, you know, the one who wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories.
And I guess that you may have heard the episode I did a few episodes ago in which I read a Sherlock Holmes story.
So that does give you a sense of like what kind of what the writing style is like.
And So there's Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, who wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray, and lots of other things.
Joseph Conrad, who wrote The Heart of Darkness.
Bram Stoker, who wrote Dracula.
Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein.
Those are the contemporaries of H.G.
Wells.
So it gives you a sense of the style of writing if you're familiar with that work.
So I was saying that I love this work.
It describes a world which I don't know personally, the world from about 130 years ago, during the late modern era, near the end of the old colonial days.
OK, now it says in my notes here Luke talks without a script about the story which he read called Apionis Island.
OK, so this is going to be a bit tricky.
Apionis is a type of bird, right?
The Apionis is a type of elephant bird.
Have you ever heard of the elephant birds?
They don't exist anymore.
They're extinct.
If something is extinct, it means it doesn't exist anymore, like the dinosaurs.
As we know, many of them went extinct millions of years ago, maybe because of an asteroid hitting the Earth, which probably made it impossible for them to survive.
But some of them did survive.
They evolved.
I guess you know the story.
Scientists understand now that probably one of the species that dinosaurs evolved into was birds right.
That birds are related to dinosaurs.
Obviously, we've got reptiles, crocodiles and things like that, too.
But you can definitely see how dinosaurs evolved into birds.
And certain birds are a bit closer to dinosaurs than others.
Does that make sense?
Well, certain birds, you can see the connection fairly clearly.
For example, a chicken, flightless birds like chickens, they're not dissimilar to certain dinosaurs.
So the Apionis is a type of bird that is now extinct. and it was called an elephant bird.
Huge thing, flightless.
They went extinct about a thousand years ago.
Now, they're not dinosaurs, but they're certainly in that direction.
Elephant birds, or specifically Apiornis, were massive, absolutely massive.
The height of an elephant, right?
If you can imagine a bird, maybe even a chicken or something similar, or maybe an ostrich or an emu, something like that, but the size of an elephant, right.
Extraordinary.
Imagine seeing one.
Imagine if they still existed.
If they still existed, you would not want to go near one.
I imagine, right.
Because what's going to happen?
It's probably going to want to eat you, I would imagine, right?
Or it would certainly be dangerous to you, unless they're friendly, I don't know.
But extraordinary to think about.
Now...
I think that these birds, their remains, have been discovered in certain places, particularly in Madagascar, which we know is just off the coast of Africa.
Madagascar is an extraordinary place and so many different species live there and also lived there.
I understand that scientists discovered bones, skeletons and also eggs fossilised or preserved eggs of these birds.
There are stories.
I think that the local people, the native people from that area, have stories about these birds.
So there's probably like oral knowledge that's been passed down from generation to generation from humans that were alive when those birds were actually around.
The local people probably have stories about them.
In terms of non-local people like Europeans, European visitors scientists, explorers or colonists or something I don't think any of them ever saw one of these birds.
It's possible, but I don't think so, according to records, as far as I know.
But of course, we know about them because of the remains that were discovered.
Now, I don't know a lot about this and I've just done a little bit of reading and obviously I'm just getting the information I picked up from this story.
But I think that many of the remains of these incredible birds were discovered in sort of oil marshes, right.
Do you know what oil marshes are?
I'm not an expert on it, but marshes are sort of in the ground where the earth is soft and wet, and it may be places where there's been water there and things have decomposed over many, many thousands of years so that the ground is soft and if something goes into that ground it will sink into it.
And the earth or water or whatever that slime is that's in these marshes is so rich that it's kind of turned into an oil or something like that.
And so the skeletons of animals, including dinosaurs or other extinct creatures that found their way into these marshes and maybe died and sank down into them, those skeletons are remain.
They've been preserved in there.
So many different skeletons and many different remains of extinct creatures have been pulled out of these marshes in lots of places.
But they have them in Madagascar, I think, and in islands near Madagascar you can find these things.
And scientists have been there and explored these places and discovered these remains and pulled them out.
Now, 130 years ago, this was the kind of I don't know.
This was a boom time for explorers, adventurers, scientists and researchers discovering new things.
So many different new things were discovered.
And from a British point of view.
Obviously, there's the whole ethical question of the colonialists and that whole story.
The idea that Westerners would come to these comparatively less civilised places and they would discover things and then essentially take them.
The local people were either not really able to negotiate they didn't have the power because they were being dominated by these colonialists they didn't have the power or they didn't realise what was going on.
I talked on the podcast with my parents about the Crown Jewels.
These gold and these diamonds and other jewels and things that were probably just taken from places like Africa or India and stuff like that by the colonists British colonists at the time.
They just took these things and brought them back and offered them to the king or the queen.
And just they were taken.
And that's a whole ethical question which I would like to do an episode about this very interesting subject.
But anyway.
So imagine you've got adventurers, you've got scientists, you've got collectors and explorers from somewhere like England.
OK, who have studied science, or at least maybe they are sort of the types of brave adventurous, opportunistic people who would go out to these far flung places, places where that were, from the European point of view, not civilised at all.
And they'd go out there and they would probably enlist the help of local people, native people.
Maybe they would essentially be using them as slaves or at least people, as workers to help them.
And they would go to these unexplored places, or places that have been unexplored by European people.
And there they would discover things, extraordinary things that no one had ever seen before.
And there would have been a sort of an industry around this to an extent.
There would have been companies that collected these things, like remains of animals or other interesting scientific specimens.
They would collect them and maybe sell them to the British Museum or other similar places.
The British Museum is a fantastic place to visit.
There are lots of incredible things in there including, and there's also, the Natural History Museum very close in another part of London, in West London.
You've got the Natural History Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, the Science Museum, four fantastic museums which are really worth visiting.
So explorers would have gone out.
These individuals, these brave individuals, would have gone out, found these items which would have been very valuable to them.
Maybe they were being employed by a company or something and they would get these things.
They'd be used then for research purposes to learn about extinct creatures, and then they would be maybe put in the British Museum or other similar places, like they have similar museums in Paris.
OK, so the story then.
OK, do I need to tell you more about the Apionis?
Maybe I do a little bit.
So, yeah, I said they could be found in Madagascar.
And I think relatives of the Apionis existed in New Zealand as well, interestingly because that's quite far away from Madagascar.
They are closely related to the Kiwi.
Right.
Apionis is closely related to the kiwi, which is a flightless bird which still exists now in New Zealand.
But the Apionis was much, much bigger.
So it's like a huge kiwi, basically.
Not the fruit, but the bird.
Now, what's the point here?
Why am I telling you this story?
The point is only this.
I did not know what to expect when reading this story.
I started reading it and suddenly I found myself completely captivated by it.
It took me a while to work out what was going on.
And then suddenly there's action.
This would make a fantastic film.
I enjoyed it so much I needed to share it.
I told my wife that evening, but she just looked at me a bit strangely.
I think because she had other thoughts in her mind.
And then there was her husband standing in the living room talking about massive extinct birds.
And I don't think I had her full attention.
Maybe the baby was kicking and she was distracted.
She was thinking about probably more important things.
And there was I kind of like, oh, you've got to hear about this story.
And she was like, what?
So I'm not sure she was fully interested.
Maybe it's just because this is absolutely not her cup of tea, to be honest.
Yeah, maybe I will have a bit more success with you now, or maybe you'll be like my wife and you'll hear these things science fiction, extinct birds dinosaurs, a desert island and your mind will wander to other things.
And now you're thinking, shut up, Luke, just start the story.
Okay, I will.
So how can I draw you into this story?
Let me just try and retell it to you.
OK remember, if you want those 100 points and a gold medal at the end of this, you need to keep listening.
Just a thought.
OK, blah, blah, blah.
Right.
AP on its island, HG Wells.
OK, it's time to stop reading from my notes because that's making me ramble even more.
Let's get into the story.
So the story starts with the narrator sitting in some Sitting somewhere.
I think it's in Madagascar, probably sitting in some little restaurant-y type place or something.
And there's a man there, another man there, and he's described as the man with the scar on his face.
So there's a man with a scar on his face and they get talking because the narrator has some orchids, these sort of rare flowers.
And the man with the scar on his face strikes up a conversation saying, oh, you know, these orchids.
And it turns out the narrator is in this place to research and find rare plants.
They get talking and then the man with the scar on his face tells his story.
OK, the narrator recognises him.
He says, oh, you were that man.
You were that man who was stranded on a desert island for four years, weren't you?
So he recognises him.
He's heard about him.
So the man with the scar on his face then begins to tell his story.
So the story is this.
He was on an island off Madagascar and he was there to search for bones and eggs.
Bones and eggs of this extinct bird, the Apionis, because there were oil marshes or mud marshes on this island, this remote island, an island off an island.
He was there to look for remains, right?
He was a collector.
And so the picture, the scene is like this extraordinary sort of extraordinary place full of strange species of animals.
Okay, very remote in a place where the sea is phosphorescent.
Is that the right word?
It sounds like an alien land, basically.
You know, in some parts of the world, the sea actually glows.
It glows in the dark at night.
Did you know that?
It's because of bacteria in the water.
It's a place like that, a place where there are maybe volcanoes and palm trees and the sea is shimmering in a different colour.
He's out there in this remote place looking for these remains.
And he's travelled to the island, this little island where no one lives, this uninhabited island.
He's travelled there in a basic canoe, a simple boat.
And he's got these two native guys with him. who he's brought with him to help him.
They arrive on the island, they go and find the mud flats or the marshes and they start digging into the marshes, probing down with big long sticks, with hooks and other tools and things.
And he describes it as being very horrible work.
The mud is sticky and it sticks to your skin and it's disgusting and it's sweaty and it's pungent and horrible.
But they're digging and digging, looking for these remains, these very valuable remains.
It's very hard work.
And I think the two native guys with him are not happy.
They're not happy that they've essentially been sort of forced to do this work by this European guy.
But they're doing it, you know, they're doing it anyway.
And they pull up a couple of bones and amazingly, they pull up a number of perfectly preserved eggs.
Now, these eggs are apionis eggs and they're massive.
They're probably, I don't know, the size of a basketball, maybe a bit more.
Big eggs, huge, and they're in perfect condition.
And the narrator, the man with the scar on his face, is delighted and amazed to see them, because there are no perfectly flawless apionis eggs in any of the museums.
He says I think they have some in the British Museum, but they've all cracked and they've been put together again.
So a perfectly preserved one is an incredible find.
So they take the eggs out and he tells his assistants to be incredibly careful with them.
This person, he's a very sort of matter of fact, direct, blunt kind of person.
He doesn't seem to be too concerned about the way he's speaking to these people who are helping him.
So he orders them around.
He's sort of brave.
He's full of energy.
He orders them around and they carry the eggs.
But one of the assistants drops one of the eggs.
He says that he's been bitten by a caterpillar.
No, he says he's been bitten by a centipede.
Centipedes are these long insects with many legs and they might have claws that can bite.
And, you know, there may be some centipedes in some parts of the world that are poisonous.
Ow!
The guy drops one of the eggs and says he's been bitten by a centipede.
The egg drops on the floor and cracks and opens and the contents of the egg spill out.
And the explorer, the collector, the man is first of all absolutely furious that this guy has dropped the egg.
He's furious with him and he scolds him very harshly.
He tells him off very angrily and he beats him around the head as well.
Now, bear in mind that this is a story written 130 years ago.
Times were different in those days.
Obviously, that's not acceptable behaviour at all.
But he beats him around the head.
He's so angry with him. because he's dropped one of these eggs, it cracks open.
And he's amazed to see that it is perfectly preserved, even on the inside.
The egg hasn't sort of rotted away or something.
Somehow it's been perfectly preserved down there in that oily marsh.
And so he wonders if all the other eggs are also the same.
So very carefully, they bring them back and load them onto the boat.
And the man is there...
While his assistants are loading the other eggs and getting ready to go, the man is there appreciating the surroundings, looking at the beautiful sunset over the sea.
What he doesn't realise is that behind him, his two assistants are planning to abandon him and leave him on the island.
They're fed up with him.
They hate him.
They're fed up with him.
They're going to abandon him on the island.
And they're hastily putting the stuff into the canoe and leaving, paddling away.
He doesn't notice until he turns around.
He sees them paddling off away from the island.
He starts screaming and shouting, running down towards the beach.
And he happens to have a revolver in his pocket.
Now, bear in mind that these guys are leaving him on the island.
They know full well there's no drinking water.
There's no way that this guy's going to survive on this.
Basically, this bit of rock with some marshland and some trees and a beach.
There's no way that he can survive.
So they're basically leaving him to die on this island.
He's furious.
And so he takes the revolver out.
They're about 100 metres away at this point.
And he's furious and he shoots.
He misses. right?
And one of the guys taunts him.
You know like he taunts him, like he teases him from the boat as they paddle away.
Now bear in mind that one of them's been bitten by this centipede and he doesn't seem to be quite so full of energy.
But the other one's like ah, like that.
And they're paddling away.
He shoots again.
And this time The guy in the boat who was teasing him suddenly ducks his head, so he nearly got him.
The third time he shoots him in the head, the guy falls off the boat into the water, dead.
The other guy doesn't appear to be moving.
He dives into the water.
This is his only chance to escape.
He dives into the water, swims out to the canoe.
It takes him a long time.
By this time, the sun has gone down.
It's getting dark.
There's this phosphorescent glow in the water, in the waves.
He's struggling.
He can't see the canoe.
It's black against the black of the water.
He can't really see it.
He's swimming for his life.
Eventually, after probably an hour or two, he gets to the canoe and he pulls himself into it.
And exhausted, he collapses into the canoe right, not knowing what the other guy is doing at the other end.
Maybe the other guy is scared, you know.
By the time the sun comes up, He can see what's going on.
There's light.
He can see.
He looks at the other end of the canoe and the other guy, the assistant, the native who'd been bitten by the caterpillar, is dead.
His body is swollen and purple coloured.
Oh, it's grim, isn't it?
It's quite a gruesome story.
Is it like a horror story, a fantasy, a science fiction, because it's based on scientific things?
But anyway, the guy has died from the bite that he received.
Maybe it was a centipede, a poisonous centipede.
Maybe it was a spider or a snake.
We don't know, but the guy has died from his bite and his body is described as being swollen and purple.
And so the explorer tips the body over into the water.
And there he is then, out.
The canoe has drifted out into the open sea.
And he's stuck on this canoe.
All he's got, I think, two of the eggs and a couple of other bits and pieces, maybe a couple of bits of food, maybe a small flask of water, a newspaper and that's it.
And he's stranded in this canoe for 10 days.
Okay.
Under the beating hot sun, he has to hide under the newspaper.
He sees every now and then he does see a ship in the distance, like a sail ship.
He sees sail ships going past.
He tries to wave to them.
They don't see him. um he even one night a boat comes very close maybe a couple of hundred meters away from him he screams and shouts but there's music playing on the boat they don't know he's there so he's stranded desperate on this boat and he is he's he's going to starve to death or he's going to die from the exposure to the sun and the the elements he doesn't he he um he's going to starve to death uh he'll die in desperation On one of these days, maybe, I don't know how many days in, in desperation, he looks at one of the eggs.
And he starts to pick away the shell of one of these eggs.
He picks away a lot of the shell.
Now, bear in mind, this man is dying of starvation at this point.
And I understand that when you're in that situation...
You are desperate, absolutely desperate, and you will try anything.
It's either you try and eat what you can or you die.
And you know.
So he starts picking away the shell off this of one of these eggs, and he discovers that inside it's OK.
It's been perfectly preserved and he tries to eat some of it and it's actually not bad.
He survives for days and days and days on this egg.
The other egg, he doesn't open.
He leaves it.
Eventually, the canoe washes up on an atoll.
An atoll is basically a piece of rock that's... that comes out of the water.
It's not exactly an island.
It's smaller than that.
It's just an outcropping of rock from the sea.
On this atoll, there's a small beach.
There are some palm trees.
And in the middle, there's a lagoon, which is like a lake or a pool in the middle with fish in it.
That's it.
That's all there is.
The canoe washes up on this thing.
The guy desperately pulls himself out of the canoe onto the atoll with the egg, the other egg.
He places the egg on the sand, up in a high position on the sand, and then instantly bang a thunderstorm.
A terrific thunderstorm happens.
A terrible thunderstorm breaks over his head and he's forced to hide under the canoe all night.
He's soaking wet.
The egg, fortunately, doesn't get washed away.
But his canoe breaks up into pieces finally.
And so he's left stranded on this desert island, just him and this egg, this massive egg from an extinct bird.
Maybe its mother died hundreds of years before, but the egg remains.
And you know, he sort of spends the next few days working out ways that he can catch fish from the lagoon.
He survives.
The weather is warm.
And on, I think, the fourth day, the egg hatches.
The egg actually hatches.
I mean, it's kind of extraordinary.
And I don't know if that's possible.
But I was willing to go with it.
I was just like, yes, yes, this is... Yes, the egg is hatching.
This is wonderful.
So when an egg hatches, it means that...
The baby bird or whatever, like reptiles lay eggs as well, don't they?
And they hatch.
But the baby breaks out of the egg.
So the egg hatches.
He's shocked because he's lying there sleeping with his head on it.
And he's suddenly woken up by the sound of it tapping.
He sits back and suddenly a little beak starts breaking through the top of the egg.
And there it is, this little bird.
Now he's delighted to see it because he's basically alone now, completely alone in the universe as far as he's concerned, completely on his own, and suddenly this bird comes out, so he's delighted to see it and he says wow, you're welcome, aren't you?
So he's very happy to see it.
And I love the way he responds to this.
He's like He's kind of a strong-minded person, so he's sort of delighted to see he's got a companion.
And the bird hatches.
And in its baby form, it's the size of a chicken or a turkey or something.
And...
He bonds with it.
The bird and him bond.
They make a connection.
And he spends two years in the company of this bird as it grows every day.
It grows and grows and grows until it's full size.
I think he says it's like 15 feet high.
It's massive.
But he, essentially, he is its surrogate parent.
And so for two years, he has a really good relationship companionship with the bird.
They live together.
He fishes in the lagoon.
He gives fish to the bird.
They live together.
And he grows to kind of become very attached to it.
And he sort of loves it like a brother.
Right?
Because he is all that he has.
This bird is all that he has.
He grows to love it like a brother.
Until one day...
The bird's behaviour changes.
After two years, it changes.
One day, he notices something different in its eye as it looks at him.
It sort of cocks its head as it looks at him.
It seems to change.
And this is exacerbated by the fact that on that particular day he can't get enough fish out of the lagoon.
He can't catch enough fish for them both.
So he feeds himself, but he can't provide enough fish for the bird.
And at this point, the bird attacks him.
Suddenly, he's being attacked on this desert island on the other side of the world.
He's being attacked by an extinct bird, a bird that should have died out hundreds of years before.
An anachronism.
And it's attacking him.
And the ridiculousness of the situation is not lost on him.
But anyway, it attacks him.
It pecks his head.
He says it's like an anvil or an axe coming down on his head.
It pecks his body.
He runs screaming with his hand over his head, protecting himself.
The only place he can go where the bird can't get him is in the middle of the lagoon.
He swims out into the middle of the lagoon and stays there up to his neck in the water, because the bird can't swim and it can't get him there.
The bird struts around, pecking at the air.
It's something's gone wrong with this bird.
Or maybe it's just developed into its adult form.
Maybe it's gone through its form of adolescence or something and it's changed and now it wants to be the alpha or something like that.
Or it sees the man as a threat or some old ancient instinct has triggered in the bird and...
It wants to kill and probably eat the man.
So he has to stay in the middle of the lagoon up to his neck in water.
The other place he can go is if he scrambles out of the lagoon and quickly climbs up to the top of a palm tree and stays up there.
And it's hell suddenly for him.
You know, it was hell before, but this is even worse.
So he has to climb up the palm tree.
He has to sleep in the palm tree, which is a nightmare because you can't sleep in a tree.
He's going absolutely mad.
He can't feed.
He's dying of starvation again.
If he loses focus and maybe lets his leg come down a bit, the bird comes over and pecks his leg.
He's got big bruises all over his body.
And this goes on for days and days and days and days.
And eventually, the man's mad.
You know, he's just going insane.
And he's furious.
He hates the bird suddenly.
He describes how the ungratefulness of this bird.
How ungrateful.
That for two years he nursed it.
He...
He brought it up like a parent would bring up a child.
He fed it.
He looked after it.
They were companions like brothers.
He loves this bird.
He loves it.
But he hates what it's become.
And in the end he realises that he's going to have to do something because this bird's going to kill him.
So...
Okay, the bird is bigger and stronger than him, but being a human, he is the more intelligent one.
And you know the irony of the fact that this is the human, the paragon of animals and all that stuff suddenly being brought down to size by this animal that shouldn't even be alive by all rights.
And he works out a way to deal with it.
It's quite sad.
It's quite shocking, I have to say.
But he creates a weapon.
He gets some vines and attaches some coral or rocks to the end of it.
And he creates one of those weapons that you can spin round with two rocks on each end of the vine.
And the vine, he throws it and it wraps itself around the bird's legs and the bird falls down.
And the guy takes this opportunity.
He's crazy at this point.
And he does have a knife.
He's got a knife.
He leaps over to the bird and slashes its throat.
And he's devastated.
He doesn't want to do this.
This bird is his brother.
He loves it like family.
It's like a child to him or something.
But he has to do it.
And he kills the bird.
It's very sad.
And he throws the bones into the lagoon.
He throws the corpse into the lagoon.
And then for two other years, he's left on his own, essentially losing his mind.
The scar on the face it's revealed is the bird.
The first thing the bird did when it attacked him.
It pecked his face and left a big scar, big cut on his face.
So he stayed on the island for two more years until he was rescued.
And that's it.
That's the story.
The bones were later recovered from the lagoon and then taken probably, you know, used by researchers, scientists at the British Museum or something.
Now the point is that the narrator, who's been sitting listening to this story we're essentially the narrator.
The story is told from our point of view although, except when the man with the scar is describing the events, it's obviously told from his point of view.
But the point is that you kind of think, is that true?
Is that really true?
Or did he make it all up?
Is this man just full of shit?
Or did this really happen?
And there's no way of knowing.
We really don't know.
Obviously objectively, it might not be possible for eggs to have been laid hundreds of years before.
Maybe the eggs fell into the marsh somewhere.
If the nest was near the marsh during a storm, the eggs could have fallen into the marsh and sunk.
And if they got perfectly preserved, like frozen.
You know similar, the way that freezing something can preserve it.
Is that possible?
I'm sure it's not possible for an egg to be preserved for hundreds of years and then be recovered and then to actually hatch.
I'm sure that's not possible.
But still, what an amazing tale.
And the reader is left to decide whether this character is telling the truth somehow.
Or if it's all made up and there's no way of knowing.
There's no way that anyone can verify the story.
So there you go.
That's the story that kind of just really gripped me and caught my imagination.
And I had to share it with you.
There you go.
Let me go back to my notes here.
So, as I've written here, I can't do this justice.
It's written so well.
The original version is written really, really well with all the descriptive language.
I would like to adapt the text and make it into another episode of this podcast.
It could be a learn English with a short story episode, but I'd need to adapt the text a little bit and that will take some time.
Maybe I'll do that.
The original text might just be too difficult for most of my audience, but I'll work on it.
Anyway, There you go.
I hope you enjoyed that.
Now I was going to say also at one point while reading.
At one point, while reading, I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
So I was sitting there on this bench in this lovely spot, totally captured by this story.
And I did see something out of the corner of my eye.
I saw movement on the floor just in front of me.
I thought it might have been a raindrop landing on the floor and that that would be the end of my lovely moment of peace in front of the fountain.
I had a little look at the ground and noticed it was a little green caterpillar which had dropped from the tree above me and it wriggled across the floor, arching its back amusingly as it made steady progress towards my bench.
I thought that at any moment, a sparrow, one of those little brown birds, I thought at any moment a sparrow would flick down and grab it to feed it to its young, probably in a nest somewhere.
But the caterpillar wasn't interrupted.
I decided to just watch it calmly as it crawled along the floor and under my bench.
I don't know where it was going or how it knew it should go that way, but off it went, on its little adventure.
And I wonder if it managed to eventually metamorphosize into a moth or a butterfly, or if it did get taken by a bird, one of the small ones which live around us all the time in this period of history that we currently inhabit.
Okay, now, what happened next?
So the next thing I had to do, as I mentioned earlier, was after I'd digested my food and enjoyed that story and been transported to some other place and time, and after I'd observed the things around me, which was very nice to do.
It's nice to just put your phone away and just take a moment to appreciate what's around you.
I don't know how to describe it really, but I think that taking time like that and sort of trying to slow things down and not be distracted by my phone, I think it really did me a lot of good.
Something I need to try to maintain, that kind of habit.
But anyway, after I'd done that, I decided it was time to go to that metro station to pick up my daughter's travel card.
So I had to go to Châtelet Station to pick up my daughter's travel card.
OK, now, anyone from Paris will be familiar with Châtelet Station.
It's a huge metro station.
It's massive, right in the centre of the city.
And it's a bit of a nightmare.
I'm going to describe it to you.
So I decided to walk to Châtelet.
That's a lovely way to get around Paris, by the way, walking if you have time.
And, if you don't mind, having to deal with sometimes crowded pavements and the dangers of crossing the road.
So I decided to walk.
And what happened?
Well, it's not it's again, it's not all that eventful.
Like most of this day that I'm describing, this is more about how it feels to be doing these things and going to these places.
So now, as it says in my notes, I'm going to talk off script, briefly describing my trip to Châtelet metro station.
So, yeah, Châtelet, it's right in the centre of the city.
And it's a huge sort of, what's the word for it?
It's in fact, I think it's like three stations, in fact, all combined.
If you look at the map, you can see that there's.
If you look at a transport map of Paris, you can see all the different metro lines moving around the city.
The metro is fantastic.
It can take you everywhere pretty quickly.
But under the ground in Paris, it can be, you know, in the metro in the metro is wonderful.
I use it every day, but it can be dark under there and it can be a bit grotty, meaning a little bit dirty in some places, probably because of the, because of the earth.
The earth that you have to dig into to make underground stations, underground tunnels in Paris.
The earth is, I don't know, the mud is quite rich.
There's sulphur in it or something like that.
I don't know, but sometimes it's a bit smelly.
And the water, I think, from the earth, or the water from the river, sometimes leaks down the walls a little bit.
And so you sometimes get like dirty walls and it can be a bit grotty and a bit funky down there.
And also sometimes you get sort of like homeless people who take shelter in the metro.
And that also brings a whole other sort of atmosphere and other smells.
And sometimes you wonder just, you know, is this water on the floor or is this another liquid?
What is this?
And So it can be kind of a slightly seedy place.
But anyway, Châtelet, there it is in the centre of the city.
And it seems that all the metro lines all combine, all meet at Châtelet, or at least a lot of them do.
It's an incredibly complex hub of different metro lines.
And also overland train lines also meet there.
There are these overland train lines, RER or RER in French.
RER A, B, C, D, E, I think, and more.
Although I think it's only A, B and D that meet in Châtelet and a lot of the different numbered metro lines.
Line 1, Line 7, Line... what else?
Line 4, Line 14 and various other lines.
Line 11...
They all meet there.
So underground, when you go down, it's really, really complicated.
There are many different passageways, many different tunnels, many different long walkways that take you from one part to the other, and lots of pillars and tunnels.
It's very confusing.
Lots of gates.
There are many people moving to and fro and it can be very crowded, very confusing.
Sometimes you get dodgy people down there.
If you stand for a while without paying attention, you might find that suddenly there's a couple of people just standing near you and you think what are these pickpockets?
And there are announcements, you know, that say please beware of pickpockets which may be operating in the area.
You know, that sort of thing.
They announced that in French and English and German and Japanese and Spanish.
So it's kind of a weird place, you know, with weird, some weird people who might not be trustworthy, and you can get lost there and like where am I?
So I went through Châtelet and I got lost and I spent ages travelling from one place to another place trying to find the lost property department.
Right.
As I said before.
And there are lots of different information offices in that whole area. station network.
And I went from one to another to another to another.
Eventually I found the right one.
A guy actually had to take me and lead me to it.
And eventually I was there and I had to queue up, and then I got queue, jumped of course by a guy who jumped in front of me and he looked a little bit unhinged, this person who jumped in front of me.
And it looked like he just needed something to be done very quickly, but of course it took ages.
I didn't want to say, excuse me, there's a cue here.
He was much bigger than me.
He wasn't as big as an elephant bird, but he was... bigger than me.
And he had a mad look in his eyes.
So I thought, I was like, it's all right.
I've got time.
I was like, there you go.
And that's right.
You can move in front of me.
I thought this is going to take a second.
No, it took about 10 minutes.
So you know, I had to do that Parisian thing where people go like this and they kind of sigh through their you know, blow out through their mouth like that, which is a typically Parisian thing.
And if you spend any length of time in Paris, you start doing it too like that, because The city can make you do that, especially if you have a specific thing to do at a specific place in Châtelet, of all locations.
So eventually I got the card.
Eventually I got what I needed.
I found the right office.
I got to the queue.
They processed it.
They had to do lots of paperwork.
I had to sign for it.
And it was just a little card in a little case with a cheetah on it, a cat, you know.
And I got it and I went home.
And on the way home, I found the experience to be so intense that I had to write about it.
So on my on my way home, I got my phone out sitting on the metro and I just quickly wrote out some notes to describe my ordeal.
Now I thought that I could turn these notes into a stand-up comedy routine or something, because it felt so ridiculous at the time, this ridiculous wild goose chase which we say in English.
It's a phrase, a wild goose chase.
It's like a, a sort of a mission where you have to go from one thing to another thing and you feel like you're never going to get the thing that you're looking for.
So I had to go on this wild goose chase.
It felt so ridiculous that I was laughing to myself and I just thought I'm going to have to write this down.
I need to express how ridiculous this felt.
So I wrote down these notes and I thought I could turn this into a stand up comedy routine that I could do on stage to make people laugh.
But I'm not sure they're quite right for that, really.
I don't know.
Maybe I'll try that out one day.
But I'll read them to you now.
I was trying to express the experience of having to navigate my way through Châtelet Station, which is very crowded, confusing and stressful.
I think I was influenced by the HG Wells which I'd been reading, and it made me write in a in a consciously literary and slightly old-fashioned style.
I kind of felt like, what if HG Wells had visited Châtelet Station?
How would he have described it in one of his stories?
As if I was describing a visit to some kind of hidden underground kingdom in a faraway land.
I enjoyed writing this.
I hope you enjoy listening to me read it to you.
Here we go.
All right.
My daughter's Navigo had been found and was being held at lost property in this place called Châtelet.
Châtelet.
What is that?
Do you know?
When I first came to Paris, I heard about this place.
I heard stories.
Châtelet, I thought.
What is it?
A tiny castle?
I was wrong.
But then I noticed the way the local people would talk about it.
They would blow air from their mouths. and make noises that sounded like this.
And I thought, hmm, that seems negative.
Little did I know.
I should have taken heed of their words for tis a hellhole.
If you take heed of someone's words, it means you listen and pay attention to what they're saying.
And I said, for it is a hellhole, because it is a hellhole.
Somehow, someone had dropped my daughter's Navigo and it had ended up at Châtelet station.
All things end up at Châtelet eventually.
It is the end of all things.
Another mission, then.
One last job, I thought.
Chatelet Station.
A confusing labyrinth.
First of all, there are actually two stations.
Or is it three?
There's Chatelet, there's Les Halles, and then there's Chatelet-Les Halles.
Three stations.
What is this chimera?
Who designed it?
It seems to be a metro station which is trying to escape from itself, moving in different directions all at the same time.
I arrived at Les Halles.
This was my port of entry.
The entrance seems simple.
The area around, above ground, is quite open these days, green spaces, a cathedral.
But inside, under the ground, deep underground, there is another world.
It is a subterranean citadel full of evil spells and sinister magic.
The place is inscribed with confusing symbols and numbers, all pointing in different directions.
There are numbers which appear quite randomly.
1, 4, 7, 14.
What is the solution to this maths puzzle?
There are also letters A, B, C. No, there is no trace of C.
Disturbingly, the sequence moves from B to D. Where is C?
What happened to C?
What is this dead alphabet?
What is this place?
There are people down there in Châtelet who may not have seen the light of day for decades.
People, it seems, live in these artificially lit caverns.
They live there and work there.
Businesses operate down there, some prosper, while others fail and are replaced overnight.
Whole lives are lived in those sweaty chambers and trains, smelly metal worms which clatter through rat-infested tunnels.
Tis a strange place.
Confusing it is, full of trickery.
Yes, there are signs, but not all can read them.
Only the learned can navigate its clotted arteries.
You may observe maps which appear to provide some assistance, giving indications of your final destination, exit 16 or line 7, or information desks, of which there are many, but no indication is given of the location of Auger perdu, lost property.
I conclude that lost property is everywhere in Châtelet.
We are all lost here.
You walk down twisting, turning corridors.
People blunder past you.
Fellow passengers, also lost, move this way and that way.
There is no order for the unprepared who visit Châtelet.
You continue through the rambling chambers and passageways, hoping for some sign that you are on the correct path.
Overhead messages suggest that your destination is just around the corner.
But when you turn that corner, oh no, a cavernous tunnel stretching as far as the eye can see.
Yes, there are moving walkways, but some are treacherous and refuse to move.
I walked along a moving walkway that was not moving, if that is possible and I passed a woman standing completely still like a statue.
As I passed her, I turned to look at her face.
She looked ahead impassively.
How long has she been standing there, unaware that the walkway was no longer moving?
Is she still there now?
There are signs on the walls that appear to direct you to your destination, but they lie.
You are searching for line 7 and you scan the walls for clues.
Next to the mouth of a smaller corridor, there is a sign.
Line 7, it says, inviting you in.
But as you walk down and down the stairs to arrive at the platform, you quickly discover that no, this is not line 7.
This is line 4 or possibly line 14.
Some do not realise this treachery and board the wrong train and are never seen again.
That sign you retrace your steps, moving in the wrong direction, against the crowd as countless travellers push past you.
You're going the wrong way, turn back, they seem to say with their faces, but you press on.
Finally, you get back to the spot where you took your wrong turn, only to realise ah, it is this whole corridor that will lead to line seven.
Not this little passageway, the whole corridor.
Line seven, this corridor.
Then why is the sign here next to this left turn?
Nobody knows.
Evil magic and darkness in Shatley.
OK, maybe that made no sense to you.
I don't know.
But anyway, that is the end.
That's more or less the end.
Except it wasn't the end of my day, of course, because I did a spot of food shopping went back to the flat, started cooking.
My daughter and my wife came home after school and work.
We ate dinner.
We talked about lots of things, including my daughter's made up games and some questions about the upcoming arrival of her baby brother.
Anyone with little kids knows.
These moments are all a bit of a whirlwind.
We got her ready for bed.
My wife and I collapsed on the sofa.
She's more than seven months pregnant now.
We slept.
The day was over as quickly as it had begun.
That's it, listeners.
Thank you for listening.
We have arrived at the terminus for this episode, finally.
It's been a long journey.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you made it to the end, 100 points and a gold medal for you.
There you go.
Here's your 100 points in a bag.
And here's your gold medal.
Well done.
It's not a real gold medal, I'm afraid.
I'm sorry about that.
But I hope you can see.
I mentioned before that there would be a genuine reward.
So I gave you an imaginary 100 points and an imaginary gold medal.
But the real reward... is this.
I hope you can see that the reward for getting to the end here is also that you just heard about 8000 words there in English.
About 8,000 words, probably more.
In fact, it's bound to be more because of all the bits where I spoke off script.
So it's possibly 10,000 words.
By listening to this episode from start to finish, you just heard about 10,000 words in English.
All those words went in.
Your brain heard every single one of them.
This is important.
Some of those words will stick with you.
Some of the combinations will stick there.
You will find that those words and phrases might be more readily available for you when you next speak English.
The words will just flow a bit better than if you hadn't heard this at all.
8,000 or 10,000 words from me to you.
Thanks for listening, everyone.
And I will speak to you next time.
But for now, it's just time to say... Let me just rewind.
Before I say goodbye, leave your comments in the comments section.
Let me know that you're not a skeleton.
Let me know that you are not the preserved skeleton of an extinct prehistoric bird.
OK, let me know that you're still alive, stranded on a desert island, the desert island of Luke's English podcast.
But you've been rescued now.
Someone has come.
Sailors have arrived with a boat with fresh fruit, drinking water provisions to last you for days and days for the journey back to civilization.
You made it.
You survived.
You did it.
You got to the end.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments section.
Thank you so much for listening.
But for now, it's time to say goodbye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Hi folks, you're listening to Luke's English Podcast.
That's right, this is Luke.
I'm just sitting here right now playing the piano.
You know, I play the piano maybe three, four times a day.
Sometimes, if I have the time, if I'm not teaching English or doing a podcast, I come up here to start playing the piano.
Kind of makes me feel good.
I'm sure it makes everyone else in the neighborhood feel good.
I know my neighbors particularly enjoy the piano playing at all hours of the day.
Sometimes they bang on the ceiling there, just out of pure enjoyment, I think.
They sure love it when I play the piano.
So I just thought I'd play this short piece for you right now.
Just to give you another side of my personality, ladies and gentlemen.
And I'll be doing another podcast for you real soon.
So until then, have a very, very nice week.
I'll catch you soon.
Thanks a lot.
Good night.
Good night.
Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast Ladies and gentlemen.
This is a journey into the English language.
A journey into the DNA of the English language.
Really?
The DNA of the English language.
Now that's a really quite a strong claim.
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Who are you?
You talking to me?
You talking to me?
You know who I'm talking to.
I'm a school teacher.
I teach English composition.
Oh, really?
Yes!
Oh, really?
Yes!
That's an idiot.
You don't know what that is?
And I don't know what this is.
This is Luke's English Podcast.
Can't touch this.
This is a masterpiece of the English language.
Alrighty then.
Just think of the accolades it's received over the years.
Wait a minute.
Who are you?
I'm Luke Skywalker.
I'm here to rescue you.
And I am a Jedi.
Like my father before me.
Oh, this is going to be good.
Really?
Yes.
I want to get into it, man.
Ladies and gentlemen.
This is Luke's English Podcast.
And this is Britain at its best.
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Check out Zinn.com slash find to find Zinn at a store near you.
Warning, this product contains nicotine.
Nicotine is an addictive chemical.
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