Dogs must be carried on the escalator.

A special steam train at Farringdon station, to celebrate 150 years of the London Underground.
Photo by diamond geezer/flickr.
Here in Britain, we have been celebrating a birthday. Not the birthday of a person, however,
but the birthday of a railway. One hundred and fifty years ago, in January 1863, the first
underground railway in the world carried its first passengers. It ran for 6 kilometres from
Paddington in London to a place close to the City, which is the name we call Londons main
business district.
The new railway was controversial and unpopular with many people. The men building the
railway dug up the streets and knocked down houses and other buildings. They dug a deep
trench and put the railway track at the bottom. Then they covered over the new railway and
remade the surface of the street. Not surprisingly, the construction work caused chaos in
London for many months.
Steam engines pulled the first underground trains. Although the tunnels had vents in the roof
to let the smoke escape, they were still full of soot and steam. The railway company bravely
said that the atmosphere was invigorating and particularly good for people with asthma. I
think that it must have been very unpleasant. Nonetheless, from the very first day the railway
was popular with people who needed to travel to their work in London. About 26,000 people
used the railway every day in its first six months of operation.
More underground railway lines opened in the following years. The railway companies found
new ways to build and operate them. Instead of digging huge trenches in the streets, they
bored holes deep under the city. People called these deep underground lines tubes because
the tunnels had a circular shape like tubes. Nowadays, we say the Tube to mean all of the
London underground system. It was of course impossible to use steam engines on the deep
Tube lines; they had electric trains instead. By the beginning of the 20th century, electricity
had replaced steam on all the underground lines.
To celebrate the 150th birthday of the London Underground, one of the old steam engines
came out of its retirement home in a museum to pull a special Underground train. The Post
Office issued some new stamps to mark the anniversary. And Prince Charles, who is old but not
quite as old as the London Underground, joined the celebrations by taking a trip on an
Underground train earlier this week. This was apparently the first time in 27 years that he had
travelled on the Tube. Our royal family live very different lives from ordinary people!
To finish this podcast, here is some Underground vocabulary for you to learn.
When you go into an Underground station, you will see signs that say things like Bakerloo Line
southbound. Southbound means traveling south and northbound means traveling
north, and I am sure you can work out what eastbound and westbound mean.
After you have followed the signs and found the right platform, and the train has arrived, you
will often hear an announcement telling passengers to mind the gap. To mind something
means to be careful the announcement means be careful. There is a gap between the edge
of the platform and the doors of the train. Take care not to fall down.
When you arrive at your destination, you will probably step onto an escalator to carry you up
to the surface. You will see signs saying please stand on the right. This is very important! It
means if you want to stand and let the escalator do the work, you must stand on the right
hand side of the escalator. Then people who are in a hurry can walk or run up the left hand
side of the escalator. You may think that this makes no sense these crazy British people
drive on the left hand side of the road, but they want people to stand on the right hand side of
the escalator? However, Londoners who are late for work get annoyed by tourists who stand
on the left-hand side of escalators. So, dont be a tourist, stand on the right like us natives!


Dogs must be carried on the escalator!
Finally, you will probably see a sign which says Dogs must be carried on the escalator. This
will finally convince you that the British are mad. Do you really have to take a dog with you on
the Underground so that you can carry it on the escalator? If you dont have a dog, do you
have to walk up the stairs instead? I will leave you to work out what the sign really means!
Mid-life Crisis


Will your mid-life crisis look like this?.
Do you know what I mean when I say that someone is middle-aged? If you are middle-
aged you are probably 40 years old or older. You have stopped being interested in pop music.
You dont go to night clubs any more. You have sold the motor-bike which you drove all
around Europe a few years ago. You no longer share a flat with six of your student friends.
Instead, you are married, with children. You have bought a house in the suburbs. You lie awake
at night worrying about the mortgage. You own a boring but practical car a Ford Focus
perhaps. The car is full of the childrens things. They have left sticky sweets on the seats and
empty crisp packets on the floor. You now play golf instead of going to football matches. Worst
of all, your hair is going grey, and you have started to put on weight. (To put on weight is a
polite way of saying that you are getting fat!) Welcome to middle age!
Now, please dont confuse middle age with the expression the Middle Ages. The Middle
Ages means the period of European history from roughly the 11th century to the 15th
century. In those times most people died before they were 40, so they never became middle-
aged. Or perhaps they became middle-aged earlier than people do today.


or like this?
Some people, particularly men, reach middle age and become unhappy and dissatisfied with
their lives. The years seem to go by more and more quickly. Life has become boring. Yes, you
have a well-paid job, but it does not feel like an exciting or worthwhile job. You have too many
responsibilities. You want to be young and free again.
If you feel like that when you are middle-aged, we say that you are suffering from a mid-life
crisis.
So, our imaginary man with a mid-life crisis sells his Ford Focus and buys a sports car. He uses
hair-dye to hide his grey hairs. He starts to wear the sort of clothes that teenagers wear, and
he goes to clubs and dances Gangnam Style (If you dont know what Gangnam Style is, you
really are middle-aged!) He leaves his wife and children and moves in with his secretary. After
a few weeks, his secretary is fed up with him. She chucks him out, and he moves back with his
wife and children.
Or perhaps our mid-life crisis man deals with his mid-life crisis in a more constructive way. He
finds a new job which pays less but which is more useful to society and which gives him more
free time. He loses weight by jogging and going to the gym. He decides that grey hair is a good
thing, because it make him look mature and interesting. He says to himself that middle age is
all in the mind. If you have a young mind, you are still a young man.
Recently, scientists have discovered that it is not just people who suffer from a mid-life crisis.
Apes such as chimpanzees and orang-utans are among our closest biological relatives, and they
too tend to feel depressed and dissatisfied in their middle years. The scientists sent a
questionnaire to people who look after chimpanzees and orang-utans in zoos. The
questionnaires asked about how happy the apes seemed at different stages of their lives.
Altogether, the scientists collected information on about 500 apes. They found that, very like
humans, apes are happiest when they are young and when they are old, and less happy in
their middle years.
So now you know that, if you see a chimpanzee driving a sports car, or dancing Gangnam Style,
he is probably just having a mid-life crisis.
The King under the Car Park


King Richard III of England. Are the remains found under a car park in Leicester his?
In the city of Leicester, in central England, a group of archaeologists has been busy. They have
been digging up a car park. Last week they announced that they had found a human skeleton.
Of course, archaeologists often dig up human remains. Human bones can tell us interesting
things about the past what people ate, how tall they were, what diseases they suffered from,
and how they died. The car park skeleton, however, is much more interesting. It is the skeleton
of a man. He suffered from a deformed spine. He had a severe head injury, and part of an
arrow was found in his back. The bones may be those of King Richard III of England.
Richard was born in 1452 and became king in 1483, after the death of his older brother
Edward IV. The 15th century was a very troubled time in English history. There was almost
constant civil war between powerful families who wanted to control the country. A few
months after Edwards death, his two sons aged 12 and 9 disappeared. Many people are
convinced that Richard ordered their deaths so that neither of them could ever challenge his
position as king.
Richard was king for only two years. In 1485, Henry Tudor led a rebellion against him. Richards
army was defeated at the battle of Bosworth, and Richard himself was killed. (He was in fact
the last English king to die in a battle. After him, English kings got other people to do the
fighting and the dying for them!) His body was displayed in public for several days. Then it was
taken and buried at Greyfriars Church in Leicester, which is quite close to the site of the battle.
The victorious Henry Tudor became King Henry VII, and he and his children and grandchildren
ruled England for the next 120 years.
Grefriars Church disappeared in about 1540, when the king seized all the monasteries in
England and expelled the monks. Over the years, people forgot where Greyfriars Church had
been. For a time there was a garden on the site; and later buildings; and then a car park in the
busy centre of Leicester. No-one knew what had happened to the body of Richard III. Indeed,
until recently, many historians believed that it had been dug up and thrown into a river at
about the time that the monks left Greyfriars Church.
The archaeologists dug a number of trenches across the car park. They found the remains of
the walls and the floor of Greyfriars Church. Then inside the church, they found the skeleton.
They were very interested that the skeleton had a deformed spine, because we know that
Richard had one shoulder higher than the other. They have carefully taken the skeleton from
the ground, and have taken some samples of DNA from it. The next step is to compare this
DNA with DNA from people who are descended from Richard IIIs sister. (Richard himself had
no children). These tests will take three months. So maybe early next year we will find out for
certain whether we have found the body of a King of England under a car park.
There has been a lot of interest in this news because, even today, Richard III is a controversial
figure. The traditional view is that he was an evil monster, who murdered his own young
nephews. Shakespeare wrote a famous play about Richard III, which portrayed Richard in this
way. Other people however say that Richard was a good king. He made it easier for ordinary
people to get justice in the courts. He ordered that the laws of England (which had been
written in French) should be translated into English so that everyone could understand them.
There is even a society, the Richard III Society, which tries to convince people that Richard III
was a good man. They of course have been particularly excited by the news of the skeleton in
the car park.
For myself, I will now think about car parks in a completely different way. No longer will I just
see tarmac with cars on top. I will wonder what secrets lie underneath the tarmac, and what
new things about the past we can learn from them.
School dinners

This is one of the school meals which Martha Payne photographed for her blog. She had carrot
soup, pasta with meat and vegetables and more carrot, and yoghurt.
Today we visit Scotland, to find out what a Scottish schoolgirl thinks of her school meals. And
because the European Cup Football matches have reached an interesting stage, and poor old
England have been knocked out by Italy, this might be a good time to learn a new football
expression.
Martha Payne is 9 years old. She lives in a small community in Scotland called Lochgilphead.
Like many British schoolchildren, Martha has a meal at school in the middle of the day. In
English, we often call these meals school dinners. Everyone remembers the school dinners at
their school perhaps they loved their school dinners, or they hated them, or they remember
funny things about them. At my school, way back in the 1950s, we sometimes got bilberry tart
and custard for dessert. I remember that the bilberries made our tongues blue. We used to go
around sticking our blue tongues out at each other.
Martha is interested in the food at her school. She is interested in how good it tastes, and how
healthy it is, and whether it contains any hairs! A few months ago, she started to write a blog
about her school dinners. She took her camera into school, to photograph her school dinner,
and then she posted the picture in her blog and told us what she thought about the food. Most
days, she thought the food was OK, and on some days she thought it was really good.
Children in other schools, and in other countries, started to read Marthas blog. Some of them
left comments to say what they thought about Marthas school dinners. And some sent
Martha pictures of their own school dinners, and Martha published these on her blog. Then
Martha started to use her blog to raise money for a charity called Marys Meals, which
provides school meals for children in poor communities in developing countries.
And at this point, the bureaucrats who run the education system in the part of Scotland where
Martha lives became aware of her blog. And they did not like it. They did not want publicity
about the food in their schools. Perhaps they were afraid that people would start to criticise
their school dinners and say that they were unhealthy. They decided that Marthas blog had to
stop.
Marthas headteacher told Martha the bad news, and Martha was sad and wrote a final blog
post to say goodbye to her many readers.
At this point, we will make a little diversion to talk about football. In football, you try to kick
the ball into the other teams goal. It is a big mistake to kick the ball into your own goal. Of
course, sometimes, by accident, footballers do put the ball into their own goal. When this
happens, we call it an own goal. We can use this expression outside football as well. Imagine
that you do something, and it goes spectacularly wrong. It has completely the opposite effect
of what you intended. You hoped that it would make things better, but actually it makes things
a lot worse. We call that an own goal.
Well, the bureaucrats who decided that Martha had to stop her blog did not want people
talking about the school dinners in their schools. But you can imagine what actually happened.
The newspapers, the radio and the television all carried stories about Marthas blog. People
wrote about it in Facebook, and sent tweets about it in Twitter. This was not at all what the
bureaucrats wanted. Banning Marthas blog was an own goal. A day later, after everyone
had told them what idiots they were, they decided that after all, and now they had thought
about it a bit more Martha could continue writing her blog about her school dinners, and
taking pictures of them. You can find Marthas blog at http://neverseconds.blogspot.co.uk. You
could tell her about the meals in your school if you like, and contribute to Marys Meals to help
provide meals for school children in poor communities throughout the world.
I like stories with a happy ending. Dont you?
Dull and Boring

Dull, twinned with Boring
Do you know the English word dull? Dull is the opposite of bright. Often it means
uninteresting. We can talk about dull weather, which means cloudy weather, probably some
rain and certainly no sunshine. We can talk about a dull book or a dull lesson. And we can say
that someone is dull a dull person is probably not very intelligent, and has nothing
interesting or lively or amusing to say. We have a saying in English that All work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy. Do you know someone who works all the time and never relaxes and
never goes out to enjoy themselves?
And I am sure that you all know the word boring. It means unexciting and uninteresting. It is
a favourite word of English teenagers. If their parents suggest something to them, like Shall
we all go to the cinema tonight?, the teenager will probably reply boring, because when
you are 15 years old, any activity involving your parents is boring.
There is a village in Scotland called Dull. It is very small, with only a single row of houses. There
is a church, but it has not been used for several years. There is a school too, but it is closed. In
the past, Dull was quite interesting. It was an early Christian settlement, and there was an
abbey where the church now stands. But nothing interesting seems to have happened in Dull
for several hundred years, and today Dull seems to be a very dull place indeed.
Elizabeth Leighton lives in Dull. However, she is obviously not a dull person, because recently
she went for a cycling holiday in America. And while she was there she discovered a town
called Boring. Boring is in Oregon, in the north-west of the United States. The north west of the
United States is a bit like Scotland lots of rain, and snow in the winter. Boring has about
12,000 inhabitants, which means that it is quite a bit bigger than Dull. But is it any more
interesting? It has a timber mill, and a place where they train guide dogs for blind people. But
the railway line closed years ago, and I guess that many of the inhabitants of Boring commute
to work every day to the city of Portland, which is not far away.
Elizabeth Leighton had the great idea that Dull and Boring should become twin communities.
There could be a sign outside Dull saying Dull, twinned with Boring and a sign outside Boring
saying Boring, twinned with Dull. And people passing by would smile and think that, even if
Boring is boring, and Dull is dull, people in the two communities at least have a sense of
humour. The local authorities in Dull and Boring are now considering Elizabeths idea.
Now I dont want to spoil a good story for you, but I have to point out that Dull is not called
Dull because it is a dull place. The name Dull comes from the Scottish Gaelic language, and
probably means meadow. And Boring is named after an old soldier from the American Civil
War who was called William H Boring. After the war, he settled in Oregon, and lived there until
he died in 1932. Because William Boring lived nearby, and was one of the leading citizens of
the place, it was natural for the railway company, and later the US Post Office, to call the
settlement Boring in his honour.
Titanic

A poster advertising Titanic.
The 14th of April 2012 was the centenary the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the
passenger ship Titanic in the north Atlantic. This podcast is about Titanic. I hope it will help you
to learn some new words and expressions about ships and the sea, and that you will learn
about unsinkable words. (Dont know what unsinkable words are? Then listen carefully to
the rest of the podcast!)
Titanic has appeared in one of these podcasts before. Just over a year ago, we visited Belfast in
Northern Ireland and the shipyard where Titanic was built. When she was launched, Titanic
was the biggest ship in the world, and one of the most comfortable and luxurious. One
hundred years ago last week, she set sail from Southampton on the south coast of England on
her maiden voyage to New York.
On board, there were over 1300 passengers. About 300 of these were First Class passengers,
who enjoyed facilities such as restaurants, cafes, a library, a gym, a swimming pool and a
telegraph office which could send radio messages back to families and business colleagues on
shore. The First Class passengers included some of the wealthiest and most influential people
in the world. Most of the passengers, however, travelled Second or Third Class, in much more
humble conditions. Then there were 885 crew members, including 300 men to look after
Titanics huge steam engines and feed them with coal. There were also large numbers of
cooks, waiters, cleaners and other people to look after the passengers. There was a cat too,
with her kittens.
Titanic called first at Cherbourg in France and then at Cobh in Ireland before setting out across
the Atlantic. Then, shortly before midnight on 14 April 1912, when she was 600km south of
Newfoundland in Canada, she struck an iceberg. Slowly the ship filled with water. The crew
launched the ships lifeboats, but there were not sufficient places in them for everyone. Over
1500 of the passengers and crew died in the freezing waters of the Atlantic; only 710 were
saved.
The sinking of Titanic shocked and horrified people in both Britain and America. They were
shocked that there were not enough lifeboats. They were shocked that so many people had
died, and that the families of many of them were left in poverty. Nowhere was the shock
greater than in Southampton, where many of the crew had lived. It is said that every street in
the city had at least one family who had lost someone in the disaster. Above all, people in
Europe and the United States 100 years ago believed in technology and progress. They thought
that modern technology and engineering could do almost anything. They were shocked to
learn that nature could so easily destroy the biggest and most advanced ship in the world.
The story of Titanic still fascinates people today. The wreck of Titanic was rediscovered on the
bed of the Atlantic in 1985, and many items such as crockery and bits of luggage were brought
to the surface and exhibited for people to see. There have been countless books and films
about Titanics first and last voyage, and theories about what really happened and who was to
blame for the sinking. In Britain in the last few weeks, we have had several special television
and radio programmes to mark the centenary of the disaster, and the film Titanic starring
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet a film which you either love or hate has been re-
released in 3D, so that the iceberg looks even more scary. Some people have even dressed up
in Edwardian dress and gone on a special cruise to the place where Titanic went down. On
board the cruise ship, they have enjoyed some of the food that was on the menu in Titanics
restaurant. I am sure that they had a great time, but I do not think I would have enjoyed the
trip.
Now for some grammar! Look at the verb to sink. It is one of a group of English irregular
verbs where the vowel changes twice in different tenses Titanic sinks (present tense), Titanic
sank (simple past tense) and Titanic has sunk (the imperfect or has tense). Other verbs with
the same pattern are sing (I sing, I sang, I have sung) and ring (the bells ring, the bells rang, the
bells have rung). If you can think of any more, put a comment on the website to tell us.
And finally, many people 100 years ago said that Titanic was unsinkable. Unsinkable means
cannot sink, or cannot be sunk. How wrong they were! There are lots of words in English
with the same pattern as unsinkable, that is un + something + able. For example, if you
say that something is unforgettable, you mean that you will never be able to forget it. If
something or someone is unlovable, it means that you cannot love it. You can call words like
this unsinkable words if that helps you to remember what they mean. There is a quiz on the
website about some of them. Have fun!
England's Newest Tourist Attraction

A traffic jam on the M25 motorway.
Are you planning a visit to England? Are you thinking to yourself, What shall we do in
England? Are there any really special places that we must go to when we are there? You are?
Good, then this podcast is for you.
When you are in England, you could visit the Tower of London. But everyone visits the Tower
of London. Or you could spend a day in Stratford-on-Avon, where Shakespeare was born. But
everyone goes to Stratford. No, Englands newest tourist attraction is the M25 Motorway,
which is the motorway that runs in a circle around London. It is 188 kilometers long; it is
Britains busiest motorway, and one of the busiest roads in Europe. A bus company in Brighton
now offers coach trips round the M25, and business is brisk. It seems that lots of people like
nothing more than sitting in a coach on a motorway. So let us pay 15 for our ticket, and board
the coach which will take us on this amazing adventure.
We head north from Brighton to the motorway, and then drive down the slip road. There are
of course two possible ways that we can travel around the M25. We can turn left and travel
clockwise, or we can turn right and travel anticlockwise. Today the driver decides to take us
anticlockwise. As well as the driver, there is a guide on the coach who tells us about the
interesting things we can see things like junctions and road signs. The motorway today is
busy, but not yet congested. We are a little bit disappointed by this. We hoped that we would
find a traffic jam, because the M25 is famous for its traffic jams. Indeed, some people call the
M25 the largest car park in Britain. Never mind, there is still a long way to go, and maybe we
will find a traffic jam later.
Now the coach is taking us around the south-east edge of London. Soon we will come to the
River Thames. Because we are travelling anticlockwise, we go under the river in a tunnel.
Traffic going the other way crosses the river on a bridge. We have to pay a toll to use the river
crossing. In the rush hour, there can be long delays at the toll booths, but today we only have
to wait about 10 minutes.
On the other side of the river, something very exciting happens. There are some roadworks,
where men are repairing the surface of the motorway. Along the side of the motorway there is
a long line of red and white traffic cones. People on the coach use their cameras or their
mobile phones to take pictures of the cones. On roads in Britain, we have many more cones
than cars; and the manufacture of traffic cones is an important national industry. The traffic
comes to a standstill, and we wait. There is a sign that tells us that we must not go faster than
40 miles per hour, but it is pointless because we cannot move at all. We look at the traffic
going the other way. It is moving freely while we are stuck in a traffic jam. Slowly we move
forward, and reach the place where the road is being repaired. There is a big machine for
resurfacing the road, and several lorries, but strangely no-one seems to be doing any work.
Our guide explains that this is normal.
Now we have passed the roadworks and come to a service station. The coach pulls in, and we
all get out to go to the toilets and to queue for cold coffee and rubber sandwiches in the cafe.
After our break, we travel down the busy western section of the motorway. Here the traffic is
nose-to-tail, and there are special speed limits and speed cameras which photograph your car
if you drive too fast. We pass Heathrow Airport and the passengers take out their cameras
again, to photograph a plane that is flying low over the motorway as it comes in to land.
And then, the highlight of our tour! Signs over the motorway tell us that there has been an
incident. An incident means, simply, something which has happened. Generally, we use it
to mean something unusual or unpleasant. Incident is the sort of word which the police use
when they dont want to tell us anything. So, what sort of incident could it be? An accident
involving three lorries and twenty cars perhaps? Or a gunfight with a gang of armed criminals?
Or a cow, which has escaped from its field and run onto the motorway? But when we reach
the incident, there is nothing to see but a broken-down lorry and a police car.
Then we turn off the motorway, and soon we are back in Brighton. The passengers say thank
you to our driver and our guide, and get off the coach to be greeted by their families and
friends who are waiting for them. Our adventure by coach around the M25 has taken us only
four hours, but we will carry the happy memories with us for the rest of our lives. If you have
an equally wonderful tourist experience in your country, why not leave a comment on the
website to tell us about it.
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Going to the Dogs

Elizabeth, the Lhasa Apso dog which won the Best in Show award at Crufts 2012. Photograph
copyright onEdition, used here with permission.
We have an expression in English going to the dogs. If something is going to the dogs, it
means that everything seems to be getting worse and worse. There is a special sort of English
person perhaps you have met one who will tell you that England is going to the dogs. He
means that he doesnt like the sort of clothes that young people wear, that he doesnt like
computers, that he doesnt understand what an iPhone app does, that there are too many
foreigners, that the Australians have just beaten England at cricket and that beer doesnt taste
like proper beer any more. It wasnt like this when he was young. The country is going to the
dogs!
We are going to the dogs today. We are going to visit Crufts, which is the largest dog show in
the world. Every year, about 28,000 dogs and their owners come to a big exhibition centre
near Birmingham for a four day celebration of dogs and everything connected with dogs. They
(the dogs, that is) compete in lots of tests and competitions, to see which is the best dog in
each breed, and which is the best dog in the whole show. The best dog in the show wins a
prize of 100, which does not sound much to people like you and me, but perhaps it is a lot of
money if you are a dog. Also at Crufts there are races for dogs, obedience competitions for
dogs and something called heelwork to music, which essentially means people dancing with
their dogs.
Dogs that go to Crufts are special dogs. They are all pedigree dogs, which means that each dog
comes from a pure breed and that there is a proper record of its ancestors. Some are working
dogs, which have been bred for hunting or for working on farms. Others are just pretty dogs.
There are big dogs and little dogs, noisy dogs and quiet dogs, dogs from Britain and dogs from
other countries too.
Why is this dog show called Crufts? It is named after a Mr Cruft, who worked for a company
that made dog biscuits. In 1886, he organised a dog show in London. Six hundred dogs took
part. Since then, the dog show which he started has grown and grown. In 1991, it became so
big that it had to move out of London to a huge exhibition centre in the middle of England.
A few years ago there was a lot of controversy about Crufts. Some people claimed that many
of the dogs at Crufts were deformed and unhealthy. They said that dog breeders wanted dogs
with exaggerated characteristics very narrow heads, for examples, or short noses or long
back legs. As a result many pedigree dogs were unable to breathe properly, or to stand
properly or see properly. Many had severe heart, brain or lung illnesses. There was an outcry
when a TV programme about pedigree dog breeding was shown on TV in 2008. The BBC
decided that it would no longer send its cameras to make programmes about Crufts.
The organisation for dog breeders in Britain is called the Kennel Club. (A kennel is a little hut
or building where dogs are kept). In the past few years, the Kennel Club has tried to improve
the health of pedigree dogs. They have changed many of the rules and standards. Today, vets
examine dogs at Crufts to make sure that they are healthy animals, and disqualify them if they
are not. Some of the old school dog breeders dont like this (they probably say that the country
is going to the dogs!), but the public is opposed to cruelty to animals, and most people agree
that the new rules are right.
Now lets meet our special guest on Listen to English. Her name is Elizabeth, and she has won
the coveted Best in Show award at Crufts, beating all the other 28,000 dogs which took part.
This means that she is, for 2012 at least, the Best Dog in the World! What sort of dog is she?
Elizabeth is a Lhasa Apso. Lhasa Apso dogs come from Tibet. They are used as guard dogs in
monasteries, to warn the monks if strangers appear. There is a photo of Elizabeth on the
website. You will see that when she is not guarding monasteries she spends a lot of time at the
hairdressers. We sometimes say that dogs look like their owners. So what do you think that
Elizabeths owner look like? Does she have hair all over her eyes as well? Or perhaps she wears
a wig?
I have often told you that we English are mad. Now you know that it is true. Woof woof.
Lord Lucan cannot cope

Lord Lucan. Have you seen this man? He cannot cope with life abroad.
Today I am going to tell you about Lord Lucan. But first we need to talk about the verb to
cope.
Helen has three children. They are all less than five years old, which means that none of them
is yet at school. Her husband often has to travel for his job, so he cannot help to look after the
children. Helens mother lives in the next road, and Helen often has to go to visit her, and cook
food for her, and clean her house. So, as you can see, Helen has some big difficulties in her life.
She is under a lot of pressure. But Helen never lets her three children and her elderly mother
get her down. She is always cheerful and smiling.
Often her friends ask her How do you cope? How do you cope with three small children, a
husband who is away, and an elderly mother? To cope means to deal successfully with
some big difficulties and pressures. We use the word with with cope Helen copes with
three small children and an elderly mother.
Here are some more examples. One of Kevins colleagues at work, Jack, is ill. So Kevin has to
cope with 20 or 30 telephone calls every day which Jack would normally deal with. I cant
cope, Kevin says. The telephone is always ringing and I dont understand what they are
talking about. I have no time to do my own work. His boss however understands his problem.
You are coping fine, he says. It is only for a short time until Jack is back at work. I will ask
someone else to do some of your work to help you to cope.
Another example. Rosie has just gone to university. It is all very strange and new to her. She
finds the work difficult, and she does not like some of her fellow students. She misses her
parents and her home. She has a lot to cope with. Some students find that they cannot cope
with life at university, and they leave and return home. What will Rosie do? Will she be able to
cope or not?
So, now we have to meet Lord Lucan and find what he has to do with the verb to cope.
Lord Lucan is (or was) an English aristocrat. There is a picture of him on the website. He has a
moustache, and slicked-back hair, and looks like the villain in an old Hollywood movie. He was
a rich man who won and lost large amounts of money at horse races and in card games.
In November 1974, Lord Lucans name, and the photo of him as a movie villain, was all over
the front pages of the newspapers. His nanny that is, the woman whom he employed to look
after his children had been found murdered. The police suspected that Lord Lucan himself
was the murderer. Indeed, they thought that Lucan had meant to kill his wife, Lady Lucan, but
killed the wrong woman by mistake. It is possible that Lord Lucan could have explained
everything perfectly; however he was nowhere to be found. He had disappeared completely.
No-one knew for certain what had happened to him. Some people said that he had killed
himself, but his body was never found. Others said that he had fled abroad, and was living
under a false identity in Europe or in Africa.
Ever since then, at times when there was not a lot of other news to report, the newspapers
have carried stories about people who said that they had seen Lord Lucan, typically in a hotel
or bar somewhere. Generally, Lord Lucan turned out to be a plumber from Arizona, or a
computer programmer from Dsseldorf. Recently, the story has been in the papers again. A
woman who used to be a secretary for one of Lucans friends said that she had booked air
tickets for Lucans children to visit Africa, so that Lord Lucan could see them. And someone
else, a retired criminal, says that he met Lord Lucan in New Zealand.
Bur Lady Lucan says that all these stories are rubbish. She is convinced that her husband killed
himself by jumping off a boat into the sea. According to her, it is ridiculous to think that he is
living in hiding abroad. He knows no foreign languages and he only likes English food. He
could not cope with living abroad! she says.
So, there you are. Lord Lucan is (or was) a true Englishman. He could not cope with a language
that was not English. He could not cope with food that was not roast beef or fish and chips. He
could not cope with life abroad! Poor man.
Singing in the rain

This young lady is singing in the rain, and dancing in the rain, and splashing in the puddles in
the rain. Photo by James White/flickr.
If you are as old as I am, you probably remember a Hollywood film called Singing in the Rain.
That was Gene Kelly singing a song from that film. In the film he was indeed singing in the
rain, and dancing in the rain as well, and fooling around with an umbrella in the rain. Of
course, you probably noticed that he says singin in the rain instead of singing in the rain.
That is the way that many Americans, and quite a lot of English people too, pronounce words
that end in -ing.
And this podcast is about words which end in -ing. Your English teacher may have a special
name, like gerund, for these words. But I am just going to call them -ing words. You can
make an -ing word by adding the letters ING to the end of any English verb any verb at all,
no exceptions. OK, sometimes you have to change the spelling a bit, because as you know we
English love to make spelling difficult. But the sound is the same ing (or in if you are
Gene Kelly). Go on make a few -ing words now, while I am talking yes, talking, thats an
-ing word, so are running, jumping, standing, sleeping, reading, eating..and so on.
So now we have some -ing words, what can we do with them? The exciting answer to this
question is that we can do almost anything with an -ing word. We can use it as an adjective,
for example. If we see a child who is asleep, we can call her a sleeping child. If we see a baby
who is crying, we can call it a crying baby. If we see a car that is going too fast, we can call it
a speeding car. And if you want to swim, you go to a swimming pool.
We can also use our -ing word as a noun. We can say, for example, I like reading, or I
think that spelling is very difficult. Reading is a noun; it is the name of the thing that I do
when I read a book or a newspaper. But -ing words are not ordinary nouns. They never
forget that they were once verbs. What do I mean by that? Well, think about these sentences.
I like reading and I read books. We can combine these sentences like this I like reading
books. So, can you see that reading is a bit like a verb? Just like the verb read, you can put
the word books after it, to say what you like reading. We can also say I like reading books
slowly; we can add the word slowly to explain how we read.
The third way we can use our -ing words is to make continuous verbs. Continuous verbs are
very special to English. I do not know of another language which has them, but please put a
comment on the website if you think that I am wrong. We use continuous verbs when we want
to explain that something is happening right now! If I say I swim, what does that mean? It
means I can swim, perhaps I go to the swimming pool every day. But if I say I am swimming it
means that I swim now, as I am talking to you. Think about a child in a swimming pool, learning
to swim. He shouts to his mother, who is standing at the side of the pool, Look Mum. Im
swimming. I havent got my feet on the bottom. I am really swimming! And when Gene Kelly
sings that he is singing in the rain, he does not mean that he sometimes sings when it rains, he
means that he is singing now, and that the rain is falling now and he is getting wet now, but he
doesnt care, because he is in love or something. We use continuous verbs a lot in English,
especially in spoken English. It is a good idea to practice using continuous verbs, and learning
when we use them, and when we dont!
There is a quiz on the Listen to English website where you can have fun with -ing words.
Read through the podcast and find all the -ing words that I have used. See how many
different ways you can find of using -ing words. Keep listening to these podcasts, and keep
learning English.
Scott of the Antarctic

A famous photograph of Scott, writing in his journal, at the expedition base camp.
Do you know what centenary means? It means the 100-year anniversary of something. This
week is the centenary of the arrival at the South Pole of the first British explorers , led by
Captain Robert Scott.
The English word Arctic means the area of the world around the North Pole. The Arctic is not
land, but sea frozen sea. However, the South Pole is in the centre of an icy continent,
Antarctica, and 100 years ago Antarctica was still largely unknown. There had been expeditions
to explore some of the coastal areas, and some of these expeditions had ventured inland. But
the centre of the continent, and the South Pole itself, was unexplored. No-one had ever been
there.
Robert Scott was born in 1868. He joined the Royal Navy at the age of 13. Over the years, he
rose in rank, and became an expert in naval torpedoes. In 1899, he heard that the Royal
Geographical Society in London planned to send an expedition to Antarctica. Although he had
no previous experience of Antarctica, he was enthusiastic about the challenges of the
expedition, and he volunteered to lead it.
The expedition left for Antarctica in July 1901, and spent two years in the frozen continent. It
did some very useful scientific work, and a group led by Scott travelled far into the interior of
Antarctica, to a point only 750 kilometres from the South Pole itself. But the extreme cold
forced the party to turn back, and they returned to their base a month later ill and exhausted.
The expedition had come to Antarctica with very little experience of cold climates. The
explorers had to learn how best to travel over the ice and snow. They had brought dogs with
them to pull their sledges, but they did not understand how to use the dogs effectively. Scott
concluded that, although dog sledges could be useful, the only way that men could reach the
South Pole was on foot, pulling sledges containing food and tents behind them.
The British government then decided that Scotts expedition in Antarctica was costing them
too much money, so two ships were sent out in 1903 to bring the explorers back to Britain.
Scott returned home a popular hero. He was promoted to the rank of captain, and was invited
to visit the King. He quickly decided to make a second expedition to Antarctica, and that this
time he would reach the Pole. It took a long time, however, to find the money for the
expedition, and a suitable ship, and to recruit the right people to go with him.
Scotts second Antarctic expedition set out in 1910. Things did not go well. On the way to
Antarctica, Scott received news that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was also on his
way to the South Pole. Scotts ship, the Terra Nova, became stuck in the ice for 3 weeks before
it could reach land. He had brought ponies and motorised sledges with him to transport men
and supplies, and a few dogs. One of the motorised sledges fell into the sea, as did several of
the ponies. The ponies proved to be not very useful. Some of them died, and others had to be
shot. Scott was now convinced that he was right the only way to travel to the South Pole was
to walk.
In November 1911, the journey south began. Over two months later, on 17 January 1912, Scott
and four others at last reached the South Pole. They found a tent, and a Norwegian flag.
Amundsen had beaten them. He had reached the Pole 5 weeks earlier. Scotts party were
heartbroken as they turned to go back to their base, 1300 kilometres away. The weather got
worse and worse, and their supplies of food ran low. Cold and hunger sapped their strength.
Two members of the party died on the journey. The remaining three men set up camp only 18
km from a depot where the expedition had left food and other supplies for them. They got no
further, and all three died of cold on about 29 March.
Why did Amundsen win the race to the Pole? The main reason was that he had previously led
an expedition to find a sea route through the North-West Passage, the frozen sea to the north
of Canada. He had learned from the Inuit people of northern Canada that clothes made of
animal skins were the only way to keep warm in very cold climates. He also learned how to use
dogs to pull sledges, and the whole of his journey to the South Pole was accomplished with
dogs. Scott had been wrong to think that the only way was to walk.
Nonetheless, Robert Scott remained a very popular national hero in Britain for many decades.
Nowadays, experts are more critical of Scotts failings, and about some of the decisions he
took. But his courage, and the courage of his fellow explorers, is beyond doubt. We love brave,
fearless heroes in England, particularly heroes who fail. Our national football team, and our
tennis players, are just like Scott brave, the best in the world, except that they dont win.
The New Pandas

One of the new pandas at Edinburgh Zoo, enjoying a snack of bamboo shoots.
This is a new Listen to English podcast, the first for a very long time. No, I am not dead, as
some of you seem to think. Nor am I ill, nor have I run away to the Caribbean with a beautiful
film star. I have simply been busy. (However, if you know any beautiful film stars who would
like to run away with me, perhaps you could let me know).
This podcast is about pandas. I am sure you know what a panda looks like, even if you have
never seen one. There is a picture on the website. You will see that a panda is a type of bear,
with a white coat and big black patches round its eyes, that make it look like a teenage girl
with too much eye make-up. Perhaps you think that pandas are sweet and cuddly. However,
people who know about them say that they are in fact smelly and do not like being cuddled at
all.
Pandas live in mountain areas of China, and their main food is bamboo shoots. Unfortunately,
there has been a lot of pressure on their habitat in recent years, and the number of pandas
living in the wild has fallen to about 3,000. In addition there are about 250 pandas in captivity,
mainly in zoos in China. For many years, pandas were used by the government of China for
diplomatic advantage. If the government of China liked you, they might give you a panda to
live in one of your zoos. And if they really liked you, they might give you two pandas.
In 1958, London Zoo acquired a panda called Chi Chi. Chi Chi was about a year old at the time,
and in his short life he had lived in China, and in zoos in Moscow, East Berlin and Frankfurt. An
American Zoo wanted him, but the American government decided that Chi Chi was a
communist, so they refused to let him enter the country. So Chi Chi came to London, and for
the next 14 years he was the star attraction at London Zoo. Naturally, the Zoo wanted to find
him a lady panda, hoping that the two pandas would breed. They borrowed a female panda
called An An from a zoo in Moscow. However, Chi Chi and An An never really hit it off, and
there were no panda cubs. The trouble is that a female panda is fertile for only about two days
in a year. So if Mrs Panda has a headache on the important two days, or Mr Panda is asleep, or
out playing football with his friends, there will be no baby pandas. Chi Chi died in 1972, and we
were all very sad. If you go to the Natural History Museum in London, you can still see Chi Chi,
stuffed, in one of the exhibition rooms. He looks as if he wished he had stayed in China.
But now we have new pandas. The government of Scotland has been very nice indeed to the
government of China, and two lovely pandas a male and a female arrived in Edinburgh Zoo
late last year. They live in a newly-built panda house, which cost about as much as a house for
humans. For the moment, the two pandas are still settling in. They are living separately, but
the zoo hopes to put them together in a few months time and, who knows, this time next year
there may be a baby panda. Lots of people seem happy to pay and stand in a queue in the cold
of winter to see the new pandas. This is good, because keeping pandas is expensive. The new
pandas are not a free gift from China. Instead, Edinburgh Zoo is paying the Chinese
government 645,000 a year in rent. In addition, the two pandas cost 70,000 a year to feed.
They eat for 14 hours a day, and can consume 18,000 kilos of bamboo in a year. There is not a
lot of bamboo in Scotland, so the Zoo needs to import bamboo from an organic farm in the
Netherlands.
Is it worth the expense and trouble of bringing pandas to Scotland? Some scientists say that
keeping pandas in zoos does not really help to protect pandas in the wild. They say that pandas
are difficult to breed in captivity, and that the real problem is the loss of the pandas natural
habitat in China. But others say that keeping pandas in zoos helps us to understand more
about these beautiful and fascinating animals. And the people queuing at Edinburgh Zoo to see
the pandas have no doubt at all that it is worth it.
The Scariest Day of the Year.

Some very scary Halloween pumpkins. Photo by Pedro J Ferreira/flickr
Today is 31 October, and it is the scariest day of the year. Do you know the verb to scare? If
you scare someone, you frighten them, you make them afraid. So, scary means frightening
and today is a special, scary sort of day, as I shall explain.
Today is Halloween. Halloween means the evening of (that is, the day before) All Hallows
Day, and All Hallows Day is an old Christian festival which takes place on 1 November, when
special prayers are said for people who have recently died. But Halloween is not a Christian
festival. Its origin lies in pre-Christian Ireland. It was a festival to mark the end of the summer
and the start of the cold days of winter. It was a time when the world of the spirits and the
fairies and the ghosts touched our world, and special magical things might happen. And
magical things are frightening. So Halloween is a special scary day!
Kevin and Joanne have invited all their friends to a Halloween party. They have put orange and
black decorations in their sitting room. They have bought some pumpkins and scraped the
flesh and the seeds out of them. They have cut scary faces on the pumpkins and put candles
inside. The pumpkins now look like the picture which you can see on the website, or on your
iPod screens. I am sure that you think that they are very frightening!
Of course, their friends will come to the party in fancy dress. That means that they will all dress
like evil witches, or like ghosts, or like spiders or other scary things. They will paint their faces,
or wear masks, to make themselves look even more scary. To add to the scary atmosphere,
Kevin has borrowed a DVD of an old film called Dracula. The film was made in 1931, and is
about Count Dracula, who is a scary man who drinks human blood at breakfast time instead of
coffee. Some of the guests at the party will come dressed as Count Dracula, with long teeth so
that they can bite the necks of other guests and drink their blood. Joanne has made a special
drink, made out of red wine and blackcurrant juice, so that the guests at the party can look as
if they are drinking human blood even if they arent!
Everyone will have great fun at the party. They will laugh at each others fancy dress. They will
turn the lights out and pretend to be ghosts. They will watch the Dracula film and pretend to
be scared. The men will do what they always do at parties they will drink beer and talk about
football. And the women will do what they always do at parties they will sit in the kitchen
and discuss each others husbands and boy-friends. (I find that bit really scary!) They will even
find time to play some games, like ducking for apples. This is a traditional game at this time of
year. You get a large tub of water and float some apples on the top. Each guest has to kneel in
front of the tub of water, with a blindfold so that they cannot see, and with their hands behind
their backs, and try to get one of the apples out of the water with their teeth. Everyone will get
very wet, and their special scary makeup will run.
Unfortunately, Kevin and Joanne have not invited me to their party. I shall have to stay at
home and try to be scared by myself. During the evening, the doorbell will ring. I will open the
door and see a group of rather small witches and ghosts standing outside. I will of course be
very scared, until I see that they are actually some of the children who live nearby. They are
trick-or-treating (or guising as people say in Scotland). They go from house to house asking
for treats such as sweets or biscuits. If you dont give them any, they will do evil magic to
hurt you. And if you do give them some sweets or biscuits, the witches and ghosts will shout
Thanks, mister and run off to ring the doorbell next door.
Now you know all about the crazy festival called Halloween. I hope you have a really scary time
tonight.
Greyfriars Bobby

Tourists from all over the world come to be photographed beside the statue of Greyfriars
Bobby, outside Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh.
In the podcast today, we will talk about fact and fiction. A fact is something which is
true; something which I, or someone else, can prove to be true. For instance, it is a fact that
the earth is round.
And fiction is the opposite of fact. It means something which is invented, something which is
made up something which comes from the imagination. In a bookshop, you will find a section
called fiction. This is where you can buy novels, books of short stories and so on. Another
section of the bookshop will be called non-fiction. This is where you can buy biographies,
and books about cooking or gardening, books to help you play golf better, and books about
learning English.
Now lets go to Edinbugh, the capital city of Scotland. Edinburgh is an old and beautiful city, full
of fascinating places to visit. One of these is a church called Greyfriars Kirk. Kirk is a Scottish
word for church. The church is built on land which was once a Franciscan monastery. The
Franciscan monks wore grey clothing, hence the name Greyfriars. Greyfriars Kirk played an
important part in the history of Scotland in the 17th century, and was a centre for Protestant
opposition to the king. However, the reason that thousands of people visit Greyfriars Kirk
every year has nothing to do with 17th century history. No, the visitors come to see a little
statue of a dog, called Greyfriars Bobby.
Bobby belonged to a man called John Gray (or auld Jock as he was commonly known.) Auld
Jock was a night watchman, and Bobby went with him everywhere. Then, in 1858 Auld Jock
died of tuberculosis. He was buried in the churchyard of Greyfriars Kirk. For the next 14 years,
Bobby sat beside his masters grave waiting for him to return, until at last in 1872 Bobby
himself died. Soon after that, a wealthy lady paid for a statue to commemorate the dog, and
tourists have come to visit the place ever since. There have been books and a film about
Greyfriars Bobby, and in Edinburgh you can buy all sorts of Greyfriars Bobby souvenirs. Bobby
is indeed one of the most famous dogs in the world.
What do you think about this story? Perhaps you find the story of Greyfriars Bobby very
moving. Perhaps there are tears running down your cheeks as you think of the poor little dog
waiting for his master who never returned. Or perhaps you are thinking, What a stupid dog!
Why didnt he go away and chase cats or chew bones or do other things that make a dog
happy?
Or perhaps you are wondering, Is the story of Greyfriars Bobby true? Is it fact or fiction?
Unfortunately for the tourist industry of Edinburgh, there are reasons to think that it may be
fiction. Jan Bondeson of Cardiff University has recently published a book about Greyfriars
Bobby. Jan thinks that Bobby was a stray dog and that the man who looked after the graveyard
invented the story about Bobby sitting beside his masters grave. People in 19th century
Britain were often rather sentimental, and a stories like Greyfriars Bobby appealed to them.
The man who looked after the churchyard used to tell the story to visitors, and the visitors
would put their hands in their pockets and pull out a few coins to give to him. The owner of a
nearby restaurant and other local businessmen helped to spread the story, in order to
encourage more visitors to come. When the original Bobby died (probably in 1867), they
even found another dog to take his place. In other words, Mr Bondeson thinks that the story of
Greyfriars Bobby was a publicity stunt by the Edinburgh tourist industry.
So, fact or fiction? I cannot possibly say what I think. Scottish history is full of romantic stories.
Wealthy American tourists who imagine that they have Scottish ancestors believe these stories
all of them. The Scottish tourist industry depends on them. It is one of the unwritten laws of
our country that English people like me are not allowed to say that a Scottish story, no matter
how implausible, is not true. So, if you want to believe that Greyfriars Bobby sat for 14 years
beside his masters grave, you can believe it. I am not going to stop you.

Swimming in the River Thames



The River Thames at Lechlade. The swans are waiting to attack David Walliams as he swims
past.
Listen to English has had a long summer break, but now I am back with a few more podcasts to
help you improve your English listening skills.
I want to remind you of two words along and across. I have a friend who lives in a house
on the other side of the road where I live. If I want to visit her, I walk across the road from
my side of the road to her side of the road. On my road, there is a postbox. It is about 300
metres from my house. If I want to post a letter, I walk along the road to the postbox I walk
from one end of the road, where I live, to the other end, where the postbox is.
So, across means from one side to the other; along means from one end to the other. Note
that across and along are prepositions you need to put a noun after them. You need to
say across the road, or along the railway line or across the field, not just along or
across.
Now lets meet David Walliams. He is a comedian on TV. He appears in a show called Little
Britain, which is one of those TV shows which you either love or you hate. It has a very English
sense of humour. In the show, David Walliams and his co-star Matt Lucas often dress up in
womens clothes and say Were ladies! You dont find that very funny, do you? Like I said,
the humour is very English.
David Walliams has recently been swimming in the River Thames, and we have been watching
him do it on television. If you have visited London, you will have seen the Thames. It is not a
big river, like the Rhine or the Nile, because Britain is an island, which means that our rivers
are short and small. What is remarkable about swimming in the Thames? It isnt far from one
side to the other. You could probably swim across the Thames in a few minutes.
But wait, I did not say that David Walliams swam across the river Thames. No, he swam along
the river Thames. He started in the little town of Lechlade, near the source of the river, and
swam from there to Westminster Bridge in London. The total distance was 140 miles, or 225
kilometers. It was a sponsored swim to raise money for a charity which helps poor and
disadvantaged people in many parts of the world.
His swim involved some interesting adventures. The water was cold. On the second day, he
became ill with diarrhoea and almost had to give up. He was attacked by a swan, who clearly
did not like this strange creature invading his home. An enthusiastic dog decided to join David
in his swim, and David had to rescue it. Near London, the Thames becomes a tidal river in
other words, water flows up the river from the sea twice a day and then flows back again. At
some times of the day there are strong currents which make swimming dangerous. But
perhaps the worst thing to happen was a heavy rain storm. When there is heavy rain in
London, the sewers are unable to handle all the water, and the water company has to pump
raw sewage straight into the river. And David found that he was swimming in well, you can
imagine what he was swimming in.
However, 8 days later, David arrived in London to a heros welcome. He had raised over 1
million for his charity. This is not his first long-distance swim he has already swum the
Channel (the sea between England and France). But, of course he swam across the Channel,
not along it. David says that he has done enough swimming for the moment. I think he
deserves a rest.

I Go Without my Breakfast

This is Evan. He has a croissant and a cup of coffee for breakfast.
Todays podcast is about breakfast. Probably most people think of breakfast as the meal you
eat at the beginning of the day, when you first wake up. However, it is more complicated than
that.
First, lets look at what the word breakfast really means. As you probably know, the word
fast has several, completely different meanings in English. One of the meanings of fast is a
period when you do not have any food to eat. So, for example, Muslims fast during the month
of Ramadan they do not eat anything between sunrise and sunset. A breakfast is, literally,
a meal which you eat at the end of a period of fasting. When you eat breakfast, you break or
end your fast.
When I get up in the morning, I have not had anything to eat since about 7 oclock the night
before. Now that is not a very long fast perhaps 12 hours, but not more. However, the meal
which we eat first thing in the morning breaks our overnight fast, so we call it breakfast.
What do you eat for breakfast? I have a bowl of muesli with milk, two pieces of toast with
marmalade, and two cups of coffee. Some people go for a run first thing in the morning, and
then have a breakfast of fruit and orange juice. They are slim and fit and healthy and they
make me feel guilty so I do not like them. Other people have no breakfast at all they do not
eat until the middle of the day. Nutritionists tell us that it is not a good idea to go without
breakfast, because your concentration is poor if you have not had anything to eat. Other
people eat huge breakfasts, with fried eggs and bacon, sausages, mushrooms and fried bread.
In hotels and restaurants, a big cooked breakfast is called an English breakfast. Actually, very
few English people eat a cooked breakfast every day. We do not have time. We are in a hurry
to catch the bus or the train and get to work.
I am very interested in breakfast today, because I have not had any! The doctor has the silly
idea that I may have too much cholesterol in my blood. So, later today, I have to go to have a
blood test. The nurse will stick an enormous needle into my arm, and take out several litres of
blood, and send the blood away to a laboratory to be tested. The laboratory will of course
send back a report to say that my blood cholesterol is absolutely wonderful, and that they
have never seen such magnificent blood before. But and this is the terrible bit the blood
test is what the doctor calls a fasting blood test. That means that I must not eat anything for
at least 12 hours before the test. So, no breakfast. Now, it would be sensible to have a fasting
blood test early in the morning, so that I do not have to wait a long time to have something to
eat. However, the nurse who takes the blood tests only works in the afternoon, so I cannot eat
anything until about 3 oclock. You have no idea how terrible this is. It is the middle of the
morning, and I am hungry, really hungry. I cannot stop thinking about breakfast. Surely a very
little bowl of muesli and one slice of toast with no marmalade would be OK. Surely a very small
breakfast would not ruin the blood test. However, the nurse who does the blood tests is big
and fierce, and so I stay hungry.
And now the telephone rings. It is the receptionist at the doctors surgery. She is very sorry,
but the fierce nurse who does the blood tests is unwell and cannot come to work today. Please
can she re-arrange the blood test for another day. How do I feel? What is my reaction to this
news? First, of course, I am relieved. I can eat my breakfast! I do not have to fast until the
middle of the afternoon. But I am also annoyed. Why? Because I will have to go without my
breakfast on another day in a few weeks time.
Finally, I have an English expression for you to learn. I have talked about people who go
without their breakfast, or do without their breakfast. If you do without something, or
go without something, you decide that you do not need it perhaps because you do not
have time, or you do not have enough money. Here are some more things you might do
without.
If you do not have enough money, you might have to do without new clothes or shoes.
If you are very busy at work, you might go without your normal lunch break.
If you feel tired and unwell, you might decide to do without your normal trip to the cinema,
and go to bed early instead.
And if the blood test tells me that I have too much cholesterol in my blood, I might have to do
without butter, and cheese, and chocolate, or all sorts of other nice things to eat. I might even
have to go for a run first thing in the morning, and eat fruit and drink orange juice for
breakfast. It is too awful to think about!
Good manners, bad manners

This young lady has good manners. She will have no problems with her future mother-in-law.
We have a saying in English Manners maketh man. Maketh is an old form of makes or
make. So the expression means that, if you want to be a real man, you have to have good
manners.
Manners means the way that you behave to other people, particularly in public. If you have
good manners you are polite and courteous. You remember to say please and thank you.
You make people feel welcome and at ease. And if you have bad manners you are rude and
discourteous. You say unpleasant things to people. You make them feel unwelcome and upset.
If someone has good manners, we can say that they are well mannered; and if they have bad
manners, we can say that they are bad mannered or ill mannered.
Now lets meet Heidi Withers. She is 28 years old and works as a personal assistant in a
company in London. She is engaged to be married to her boy-friend, Freddie Bourne. Freddie
runs a business that sells bicycles and parts for bicycles on the internet. Recently, Heidi and
Freddie went to visit Freddies father and step-mother, who live in Devon in the south-west of
England. Most people are nervous about their first meeting with their future father-in-law and
mother-in-law. Most people would be polite and well mannered. They would try to create a
good impression. Maybe Heidi tried to do these things. However, it did not work. Freddies
step mother, Carolyn Bourne, thought that Heidi was rude and bad mannered.
After the end of the visit, Carolyn thought that it was important to tell Heidi about her bad
manners. She said to herself, If I dont tell her, she will never know. So she sent Heidi an e-
mail. ?It is high time someone explained to you about good manners, she started, because
it is obvious that you dont have any.
She went on to talk about some of the terrible things that Heidi did:
Heidi stayed in bed too long.
Heidi complained about the food.
At meals, Heidi started eating before other people.
Heidi made jokes about Freddies family.
Heidi did not send Carolyn a card to thank her for her hospitality.
Carolyn also had things to say about Heidis plans for her wedding. Heidi and Freddie plan to
get married in a castle. Carolyn does not think that this is a good idea. ? She wrote, No one
gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash, celebrity style behaviour. Carolyn thinks
that, because Heidis parents do not have a lot of money, it would be better for Heidi and
Freddie to have a smaller, less expensive wedding.
What would you do if your future mother-in-law sent you an e-mail like this? Perhaps you
would burst into tears. Perhaps you would send a reply to say how sorry you were about your
behaviour and how very much you wanted to have a good relationship with your husbands
family. Heidi did not do this. Instead, she sent copies of the e-mail to her friends. And her
friends sent the e-mail to their friends. And a few days later, the story was on lots of websites
and in the newspapers, and we were all talking about it. Heidis father told the newspapers
that Carolyn was haughty and arrogant. (Actually, he said some rather ruder things than that,
but it would not be polite to repeat them on a respectable website like Listen to English).
Freddies mother, and Heidis friends, and all sorts of other people, told the newspapers what
they thought. Only Freddie, Heidis boyfriend, was sensible enough to keep quiet.
What do you think? Who has the worse manners Heidi or Carolyn? And will Carolyn be
invited to the wedding, and will there be a fight if she goes? It is all very exciting!
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Spotting Tigers

nutmeg66/flickr spotted these spotted ladybirds. She calls the photo Spot the difference! (ie
Look and try to see the difference!)
In todays podcast, we are going to talk about spots and spotting!
If you look up the word spot in a dictionary, you will see that it has two meanings two
completely different meanings. First, a spot can be a mark, normally a small mark, roughly
circular in shape. Look at the picture at the top of the webpage or on your iPod screen. It is a
picture of some insects which in English we call ladybirds. There are three ladybirds, and they
all have spots on them. But they are different colours, and they each have a different number
of spots, which makes the photo so unusual and interesting.
Here are some more spots. A leopard has spots, and a handkerchief can have spots. In
detective thrillers on the television, a spot of blood is sometimes the clue which helps the
detective to catch the killer. And we can use spot to mean a place a beauty spot is a
beautiful place, perhaps with trees and a stream and a view towards the mountains; and
thousands of people then come to visit the beauty spot and ruin it!
But spot can be a verb as well. To spot something means to see something, normally to see
something which is difficult to see, something which most people would not see. For example,
the person who took the photograph of the ladybirds spotted the ladybirds most people
would not have seen the twig with three different sorts of ladybird, but she did. If you like
playing with words, you could say that she spotted the spotted ladybirds. (A play on words is
called a pun in English, and because there are so many words in English that sound the same
or nearly the same, puns are an important part of English humour. It is one of the reasons why
foreigners find us so puzzling!)
When I was about 12 many years ago I used to take a notebook and a pencil and stand on
the platform of a railway station in the middle of Manchester to watch the trains. I carefully
wrote down the number of every railway engine that came past, with information about when
I had seen it, and which engine shed it came from. I was a train spotter. By the time I was 14, I
stopped being a train spotter. I had spotted girls, and they were much more interesting than
trains. You can still see train spotters on the platforms of stations today. They are generally
men in anoraks and trainers who still live at home with their mothers.
If you dont want to be a train spotter, you can be a bird spotter instead. You can go out into
the country with a pair of binoculars, and a packet of sandwiches for lunch, to try to spot some
really interesting or unusual birds. Or you can be an insect spotter. The woman who took the
photo of the ladybirds is an insect spotter there are some wonderful photographs of insects
in her flickr photo stream. Or you can be a plane spotter, and take photographs of planes
taking off and landing at airports. If you plane spot near military airfields, however, the police
will start to be very interested in you, so be careful!
Here are some more things you can spot. You are standing in a crowded street. You are waiting
for your friend. You look anxiously at all the people who are hurrying past to see if you can see
him. Then you spot your friend in a crowd of people on the other side of the road. Or maybe
you are in an exam. One of the exam questions is really hard. You sit and chew the end of your
pencil. Then suddenly you spot the answer, and happily you write it down. Most of your
friends fail to spot the answer, but you get full marks in the exam.
I spotted this story in the newspaper recently. A man in Hampshire in the south of England
spotted a tiger. It was lying down in the grass so that you could hardly see it. No, it was not a
spotted tiger tigers have stripes, not spots. It is quite unusual to see a tiger in Hampshire
because, well, there are no tigers in England. So the man did what English people always do
when something strange or alarming happens he phoned the police. And the police thought
Well, we had better look into this. It might be a tiger which has escaped from a zoo. And
tigers are dangerous, and we the Hampshire police force need to protect the public from
dangerous things like tigers.
So the police sent a helicopter to look for the tiger. They also made preparations to close a
nearby motorway and to evacuate people from their homes. Then a message came from the
helicopter pilot. He had spotted the tiger. It was sitting still in some long grass, just like the
man had said. The helicopter pilot decided to get closer to the tiger to see what it was doing.
And as he did so, the down draught from the helicopter made the tiger fall over. This was
really strange, because a real tiger would not do that. It would get up and walk away. It was
not a tiger at all, of course. It was a toy tiger a life-sized stuffed toy tiger. The police have
asked the owner to come to the police station to claim it. I wonder if anyone has done so.
Domesday

A page from the Domesday Book
In March, I recorded a podcast about the census in this country that is, the counting of
everyone who lives here. Todays podcast is also about a census the very first census to take
place England.
In the year 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings,
and became King of England. It was one of the most important events in English history. It
completely changed the way of government in England, and it had a big effect on the English
language.
After a number of years as king, William became dissatisfied. He felt that he did not know
enough about his new kingdom. Like all kings and governments, he was hungry for
information. He did not know exactly how much land his nobles owned indeed, he did not
really know how much land he himself owned. More important, he could not work out how
much tax his subjects should pay, or how many men could be made to become soldiers in time
of war.
In 1085, he decided to find the answers to these questions. He sent trusted officials to every
part of the country, to ask who owned which land, and how much they owned; how many
ploughs they had to cultivate the land, and how many animals such as cows and sheep there
were; how many serfs (unfree men) they had, and how many slaves; and how many corn mills
and fisheries there were.
Compare this list of questions with the questions in the 2011 census, which I talked about in
my earlier podcast. They are in many ways very similar questions. In 1086, King William
wanted to know how many sheep I had. In 2011, the government wants to know how many
bedrooms I have in my house and whether it has central heating.
King Williams census was completed the following year. It covered most, but not all of
England. A scribe then carefully copied the details of the census for each place in England onto
parchment made out of sheep skin, and made them into a book (well, two books actually). For
hundreds of years, the books were important legal documents. If there was a dispute about
land ownership, for example, or about how much tax should be paid, the court would look at
what the census said. It was impossible to argue with the book. For that reason, it became
known as the Domesday Book. Domesday means the Judgement Day, when in traditional
Christian thinking we shall all be judged on the lives we have led, and there will be no arguing
with the court on Judgement Day!
The Domesday Book is one of the most remarkable documents in Europe. Nowhere else has
such a detailed early record of land ownership. The Domesday Book is in the National Archives
in Kew, near London, but it is now too fragile to display. However, all of the information in it is
available online, and you can buy copies of any of the pages which you are particularly
interested in. (However, unless you know Latin you will be unable to understand it!)
Let us now jump forward about 900 years, to the mid-1980s. The BBC was at that time very
interested in the development of computing and in what we nowadays call multi-media
technology. (Multi-media technology means, roughly, using computers to store and
manipulate pictures, videos, text, music etc). The BBC, for example, made and sold their own
computer, and for many families in Britain, the very first computer they had in their homes
was a BBC computer.
The BBC decided to launch a new Domesday project. It asked schools and community groups
all over Britain to write short articles and take photographs about everyday life in Britain,
particularly about things which would be interesting to people 1,000 years from now. It
divided the whole country into blocks, 3km by 4km, and it linked the articles and photographs
to these blocks, so that it would be possible to find information about every place in Britain.
Over a million people took part, in one way or another. Altogether, they sent the BBC more
than 140,000 pages of text and 23, 000 photographs.
And then the BBC made a great mistake. King William had a scribe to write his Domesday book
onto parchment with a pen and ink, and we can still read what he wrote hundreds of years
later. The BBC put the information about the new Domesday project onto things called laser
discs. Have you ever heard of laser discs? No, I havent either. Within a few years, technology
had moved on, and no-one had a computer which could read laser discs.
Happily, however, the BBC has recently completed the task of transferring everything in its
Domesday survey onto a website. You can find little articles and photographs about almost
everywhere in Britain in the mid-1980s. And now the BBC have invited us to send in new
photographs and articles for the website so that we can see what has changed in the last 25
years.
The Grauniad

The Guardian newspaper today.
In todays podcast, we are going to talk about a birthday, and learn the English words for some
of the things which you may find in a newspaper.
First, the birthday. 190 years ago, on 5 May 1821, people in Manchester were able to buy the
first edition of a new newspaper, the Manchester Guardian. It was a weekly newspaper,
though it became a daily a few years later. It had 4 pages, and it cost 7 old pence (see the
podcast on Old Money, New Money which explains what old pence were.) Seven pence was
very expensive, but the high price was because there was a tax on newspapers. In fact, the
government took 4 pence in tax for every copy sold.
Coincidentally, 5 May 1821 was also the day when the French Emperor Napoleon died, in exile
on the British island of St Helena in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. But the new Manchester
Guardian did not report this important event, because the news that Napoleon had died took
several weeks to reach Europe. Instead, the front page of the new newspaper carried a notice
asking for information about a lost dog.
In fact, until 50 or 60 years ago, it was normal for serious newspapers to have advertisements
and notices on their front page, and news stories inside. It was only in 1952 that the
Manchester Guardian started to print news stories on the front page. The editor of the paper
did not like the change, but the papers owners thought that the newspaper needed to be
more up-to-date.
As well as news, most newspapers contain editorials that is, articles where the editor of the
paper or his staff tell us what they think about important issues and events. The Manchester
Guardian generally supported liberal and progressive policies in its editorials. This was in
contrast to most of the other serious newspapers in Britain, which supported moderate or
right-wing policies.
The Manchester Guardian became famous for typographical errors or typos as we
sometimes call them. Sometimes, there were sentences where the letters were so mixed up
that it was impossible to understand them. People made fun of the typos by calling the paper
the Grauniad (which is Guardian with the letters mixed up). Unfortunately, modern
technology means that there are many fewer typographical errors today than there used to
be, but you can relive the good old days in the quiz attached to this podcast, where there are
some typographical errors for you to decipher.
In 1959, the paper dropped Manchester from its title and became simply The Guardian.
And in 1976, it moved its headquarters from Manchester to London. The paper believed that it
could not be a proper national newspaper unless it was in London. Nowadays, unfortunately,
London dominates the political and cultural life of England, and it seems that few important
things happen anywhere else. (Scotland however is different. Scotland has a life of its own!).
I read the Guardian every day. My parents used to read it too, in the days when it was still the
Manchester Guardian. I read the news stories, both the national news and the international
news. There is also a section of financial news, and of course there are the sports pages. There
are advertisements for jobs, and a section called Lonely Hearts with little advertisements
from people who are looking for partners. (I see that there is a lady who is looking for a
charming and mature man in his 40s. I would reply, but I think my wife might object).
Then there is an important section called Comment and Debate which contains articles
about politics, and a page of letters from readers. There are obituaries, which means articles
about the lives of people who have died recently. And of course there are reviews of new
books, films, plays and music. Some people go straight to the crossword . There are in fact two
crosswords in the Guardian, an easy one and a cryptic crossword. In a cryptic crossword, the
clues are indirect and often play with the different meanings which English words can have. If I
can solve two or three of the clues in the cryptic crossword, I think I am doing well.
However, my very favourite bit of the Guardian, the bit that I turn to first every morning, is the
Sudoku. Sudoku is a Japanese puzzle where you have to fit the right numbers into a grid of
squares. Ten years ago, no-one in Britain had ever heard of Sudoku. Then suddenly, almost
overnight, Sudoku arrived. Today, all our newspapers have Sudoku puzzles, but the Guardian
Sudoku is definitely the best.
If you have to wait a long time for the next podcast, it will be because I have found a
particularly difficult and interesting Sudoku to solve.|
A Nice Cup of Tea

A nice cup of tea. Photo by James Shade/flickr
That was Miss Binnie Hale, singing a song called A Nice Cup of Tea, which she recorded 70
years ago, in 1941.
We British love tea. We drink more tea per head of population than any other country in the
world, except for Ireland. If you go to the Tea Council website, you will see a counter at the top
of the page which shows how many cups of tea we have drunk so far today. By the end of the
day, the counter will reach 165 million that is three cups of tea per person per day. Coffee
has become more popular in Britain in recent years, but even today we drink more than twice
as much tea as coffee.
However, tea drinking is not an old tradition in Britain. We made our first cup of tea sometime
in the middle of the 17th century. We found that we liked it, that it refreshed us and made us
strong and happy, and we have continued drinking tea ever since. In the 19th century, tea
became popular among working-class people, and it has remained the favourite drink of
ordinary British people ever since. And it is well-known that the Queen likes a nice cup of tea,
as well.
Tea drinking has a much longer history in China, where people have drunk tea for thousands of
years. But British tea is not pale and delicate like tea in China. It has a rich brown colour and a
strong taste. Nearly everyone in Britain puts milk in their tea, and about a third of people add
sugar to make the tea sweet. (Yukk! I cannot stand tea with sugar!) It is well known that no-
one outside Britain knows how to make tea properly. When we British go on holiday in, for
example, France or Spain, and we ask for a cup of tea in a hotel or cafe, the waiter brings us a
cup of lukewarm water and a tea bag on the end of a piece of string. This is wrong, completely
wrong, and in the interests of international harmony and understanding I shall now explain
how to make a nice cup of tea, British style.
First, you put some water in a kettle and put it on the stove to boil. When it is nearly boiling,
you pour a small amount of the hot water into a tea-pot, and swill it round, and pour it out
again. This warms the tea pot. Then you put tea or tea bags into the tea pot. How much tea?
Well, my mother used to say that you should put in one teabag for each person, plus one for
the pot. So, if you are making tea for two people, you should put three teabags into the pot.
Then you pour boiling water onto the tea, and let the tea stand for about three minutes. If you
have milk in your tea, put the milk in the cup first and pour the tea onto the milk, not the other
way round. After you have poured the tea, and offered sugar to those strange people who like
sweet tea, you should pour some more boiling water into the tea pot. Why? Because the one
thing which is nicer than a nice cup of tea is another nice cup of tea.
We use the word nice all the time in spoken English. Its nice weather today. Did you have a
nice time on holiday? It was so nice of you to come and visit us. Did you meet Janes mother?
She is such a nice person. Please sit down. Ill make us a nice cup of tea.
In fact, nice is probably the most overused word in the English language. We use it so much
that it has become almost meaningless. It is a good idea to find other words to use instead of
nice, if you can.
Did you notice something else about the song at the beginning of the podcast? I am talking
about the names of different meals. At half past eleven, my idea of heaven is a nice cup of
tea, sings Binnie. We have a special word in English for a snack in the middle of the morning,
which you will hear sometimes, though it is now a bit old-fashioned elevenses, because of
course we have our snack at about eleven oclock.
After elevenses, Binnie has her next cup of tea with her dinner. Until perhaps 30 years ago,
most working people in Britain had their main meal in the middle of the day. They called it
dinner, and many older people still do. Later in the day, people had a light meal at five or six
oclock and they called it tea. And, like Binnie, they had a cup of tea with their tea!
Today, most people have a light meal in the middle of the day perhaps a sandwich and an
apple, which they eat at their desk in the office. We call this meal lunch. People eat their
main meal of the day in the evening, when they get home from work, and they call this meal
supper. Dinner nowadays means a formal evening meal for a special occasion, where we
dress up in smart clothes, and have nice food and wine and candles!
So, a lot has changed since Binnie Hale recorded her song seventy years ago. But a nice cup of
tea is still a nice cup of tea! I am going to make one now.
The launch

Launch of the liner Kenya Castle at Harland and Wolff, Belfast, in 1951.
Last weekend I visited Belfast, the largest city in Northern Ireland. When I was a child, I lived in
Belfast for several years, and the reason for my visit was a re-union of the pupils who many
years ago were in the same class at school as I was. They all looked so old but not me of
course.
You probably know about the problems in Northern Ireland between the Catholic and
Protestant communities, but if you get an opportunity to visit, you should definitely go. It is a
very attractive place, and the people are very welcoming. Belfast is an old industrial city, with
some fine buildings and a beautiful position beside the sea. It has a long history of
shipbuilding. At one time, the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast was the largest shipyard in
the world. The most famous Belfast-built ship was Titanic, a huge liner which hit an iceberg
and sank during its first voyage across the Atlantic in 1912.
Todays podcast, inspired by the Belfast shipyards, is about the word launch. Launch
means to send something from the land into the sea. The traditional way of building a ship was
to build it on dry land close to the sea. When the hull of the ship was finished, the ship was
launched that is, the ship slipped or was pulled from the land into the sea for the first time.
There is a picture on the website of a ship being launched in Belfast in the early 1950s. It was
normal to have a special celebration when a new ship was launched. The owners of the new
ship would invite a Very Important Person to perform the launch ceremony. The Very
Important Person would say something like I name this ship Podcast. God bless her and all
that sail in her. He, or she, would then break a bottle of champagne on the bow (that is, the
front) of the ship; and the ship would slide gracefully into the water. The Very Important
Person and the owners of the shipyard and of the new ship would then go and have a nice
lunch. If the management of the shipyard was feeling kind, there would be beer for the
shipyard workers too.
There are a few things to note in what I have just said. First, in English we have two special
ways of talking about things which happened many times in the past, like the launching of a
ship. First, we can say used to.., and I made a podcast about used to.. in May 2006. But
instead we can use the word would, like I did when I was talking about launching a ship. The
owners of the ship would invite a Very Important Person.. The Very Important Person would
break a bottle of champagne over the bows of the ship The ship would slip into the water..
and so on.
Second, I am sure that you noticed that the Very Important Person who was launching the ship
said, God bless her and all who sail in her. Ships are she/her in English, not it. Dont ask
me why because I dont know.
And finally, I know that some of you particularly if French is your first language find it
difficult to hear the difference between a long ee sound and a short i sound in English. So
the word slipping sounds the same as sleeping. Here are a few examples of long ee and
short i for you to practice:
heat hit
seat sit
feet fit
reach rich
sheep ship
Now lets get back to the word launch. Ships are not the only things that you can launch. You
can launch a rocket or a space ship, for example. And we can use launch figuratively as well.
For example, one of the clients of the company where Kevin works has produced a new sort of
washing powder. It is in fact the same as the old washing powder, but it smells different, and it
has a new name and new packaging. The company wants everyone to know about their
wonderful new washing powder, so it buys lots of advertising time on television and has a
special buy-one-get-one-free offer for the first two months. We can talk about the company
launching the new washing powder, and about its launch offer.
Sarah has just written a novel. It has taken her about 10 years. Her friends are pleased that the
book is now finished, because they were very bored of Sarah telling them about it all the time.
Sarahs publishers want to get some good publicity for the book, so they organise a launch
party to launch the book. They invite journalists, and other authors, and people who write
book reviews, and a few minor celebrities who are always happy to go anywhere where there
are free drinks. Sarah talks to the guests about her new book, and the guests all say how
wonderful it is. Unfortunately, it is not a very successful book launch the book shops have
sold only 153 copies of Sarahs book, and you can now buy it for half price!
And a final example. Joanne is angry because the local authority want to close the public
library near her home. She decides to launch a campaign to make them change their mind. She
contacts other people who use the library; she writes letters to the newspapers and she
organises a public meeting.
And that it all about launch. In the next podcast, I will tell you how to make a nice cup of tea.
Until then, goodbye.
How many of us are there?

A postman delivering a census form. The forms have been sent to every household in the
country.
Lets start todays podcast by looking at the title How many of us are there? The title is
asking a question How many people are there in Britain? But instead of talking about
people in Britain, I have used a pronoun us. And when we use a pronoun after how
many or how much, we have to use the little word of as well. So How many of us are
there? not how many us are there?
Here are some more examples. Suppose that you and a group of friends go to the cinema. You
go to the ticket desk to buy the tickets, but you are not sure how many tickets you need to
buy. So, you shout to your friends, who are busy buying popcorn, How many of us are there?
One of your friends counts, and shouts Six. So you buy six tickets.
Imagine a class of children at school. They are doing a project about how they travel to school
each day. The teacher asks How many of you come to school on the bus? How many of you
walk to school?
And finally, two small boys are collecting cards with pictures of famous footballers on them.
The cards are free inside packets of sweets. There are 50 different cards, with 50 different
footballers, altogether. I have got 20 different players, says one boy. How many of them
have you got?
Once every 10 years since 1801, our government has carried out a census of people in Britain,
so that it can count how many of us there are. The first British census wanted only very simple
information, such as how many people there were altogether, and whether the population
was increasing or not. It counted how many young men there were, because young men could
be made to become soldiers or sailors in a time of war. Government officials went to every
part of the country, to count how many houses there were, and how many people lived in
each house, how old they were and what occupations they had. They counted the number of
baptisms, marriages and deaths in church records. They concluded that there were 8.87
million of us; plus further number of perhaps half a million soldiers. sailors and convicts whom
the census had been unable to count.
Our latest census has just started. It will count the number of people in the country on 27
March 2011. Instead of government officials visiting each house, the government have sent a
form to each household. The form is 32 pages long. It asks how many people stayed in the
house overnight on 27 March, and how many of them lived there permanently, and how many
were visitors. It asks about family relationships, dates of birth and what jobs people do. It asks
where we were born, what nationality we are, and what educational qualifications we have.
The government also wants to know how we travel to work, whether we speak English as our
first language, and if not how good our English is. There are questions, too, about our house
what sort of house is it? how many bedrooms does it have? who owns it? and what sort of
central heating is there?
Some of the questions in the census are controversial. One asks How would you describe your
national identity?" We can choose whether we would describe ourselves as British, or English,
or Scots, or Welsh or something else. The form has a space where we can write in our own
description of our national identity if we wish. If I write Martian (a Martian is someone from
the planet Mars), will that be OK, or will I get a visit from the police?
There is a question, too, about religious identity. Religious identity is controversial in Britain for
two reasons first, there is, I am afraid, a lot of hostility to Muslims, at least in some parts of
Britain. And second, some people claim that our government gives faith groups such as the
Christian churches too much influence, particularly in education. A pressure group is urging
people to tick the no religion box on the census form, to prove that most people dont want
religious groups to have a lot of influence.
In the last census, in 2001, many people resented the question about religion and wrote Jedi
Knight in the other religion box you probably know that the Jedi were characters in the
Star Wars films. According to the 2001 census results, Jedi Knight was the fourth largest
religious group in Britain. Will it be the same this time?
The 2011 census will cost our government 482m GBP. Some people, including some ministers
in the government, say that it is a waste of money. They say that the information in the census
will quickly be out of date, and that the government could find better ways of counting how
many people live in Britain. And the census may not even be accurate. Filling in a census form
is compulsory, but nonetheless some people will avoid doing it. The last census for example
failed to count about 900,000 men under the age of 40. The census may therefore understate
the number of people in the country, particularly in poor urban areas.
The Post Office has now delivered the census forms to every house in the country. In homes all
over Britain, it is lying uncompleted on the kitchen table. Over the next few weeks we will lose
it, find it again, spill coffee on it, write telephone numbers and shopping lists on it, and finally
fill it in and send it back. It may be our last ever national census. So lets enjoy it!
This and that

Can you walk in those? Photo by hh_g/flickr
We have lots to do in todays podcast. First, we will learn something about the words this,
that, these and those. Then we will go shopping with Kevin and Joanne. And finally, we
will hear about Ms Nancy Sinatra, and what she is going to do with her boots.
This and that are what I call finger pointing words as if you were pointing your finger at
something to show exactly what you mean. We use this when we point to something close
to us, and that when we point at something further away. So this book means the book
that I have in my hand or on the desk in front of me; that book is further away, perhaps in
the bookshelf on the other side of the room. These is the plural form of this and those is
the plural form of that so we say this book but these books; that car but those
cars. Unless I have forgotten something, they are the only English adjectives with different
singular and plural forms.
We can use this and that as pronouns as well as adjectives. For example, we might say
Could you give me that, please. And what is that is it a book, or a sandwich, or a railway
ticket? Well, the listener knows from the context what that means. Perhaps you are pointing
to the thing you want.
Now lets go shopping, and while we are shopping, think about the way I use the words this,
that, these and those in the podcast. Joanne needs to buy some new clothes, and she
asks Kevin to come with her. This is not something that fills Kevin with joy and enthusiasm. He
would prefer to go to a football match, but unfortunately his team lost their last match and
have been knocked out of the football cup competition this year.
So Kevin goes shopping too. Joanne tries on several pairs of jeans. Each time she comes out of
the changing room and says Do you like these, or What do you think of these? (Why does
she say these and not this? It is because, in English, things that you wear on your legs are
always plural trousers, shorts, jeans, tights etc. ) Then Joanne tries on another pair, and asks
Kevin, Tell me honestly, does my bum look big in these?
Careful, Kevin. It is never a good idea to tell a woman that her bottom looks big, even if it is
true. No, those are fine, says Kevin. Good, Kevin. That was the right answer. So Joanne
decides to buy that pair of jeans, and they move on to look at shoes. Joanne sees some high-
heeled shoes, with straps around the ankles you can see a picture of them on the website. I
want these! she says, and tries them on. Kevin is appalled. Can you walk in those? he asks.
Of course I can, says Joanne, and she takes a few unsteady steps. No, I cant. I think we
should leave these shoes in the shop.
Nancy Sinatra has also been to the shops to buy footwear. She has bought some boots, and in
this song she tells us, These boots are made for walking, and thats just what theyll do. One
of these days, these boots are going to walk all over you! Obviously, she is having a bit of man
trouble. Do you want Nancy Sinatra to walk on you in her boots? No, I thought not.
Old money, new money

The government printed this leaflet to tell us about the new coins and how much they were
worth in old money.
There was an important anniversary this week. Forty years ago, on 15 February 1971, Britain
changed its currency, that is, its money system. This is what happened.
When I was a child in the fifties and sixties, Britain had a wonderfully complicated currency
system. We had pounds, like we do now, but each pound was divided into 20 shillings, and
each shilling was divided into 12 pence, or pennies. So, at school we learned that 12 pence
make one shilling, 20 shillings make a pound. We had to learn our 12 times tables (that is our
multiplication tables) very carefully, because we needed to be able to change pence into
shillings and the other way round. So, we used to chant things like seven sevens are forty-
nine, forty-nine pence is four and a penny. (Four and a penny was a common way of saying
four shillings and one penny. ) There was even a special unit of currency called a guinea. A
guinea was 21 shillings, or one pound and one shilling. Posh shops sometimes gave their prices
in guineas instead of pounds.
We had a complicated set of coins to go with our complicated currency. The smallest coin was
a farthing. It was worth a quarter of a penny, and I remember that it had a picture of a little
bird a wren on one side. Of course a farthing was worth very little and we stopped using it
in 1960. Then there was a half-penny, or a hapenny as we called it. There was a one penny
coin, and a strange coin for three pence it was not round, but had 12 straight sides. We
called it a thrupenny bit. There was a little silver 6 pence coin, and a bigger shilling coin.
There was a coin for two shillings which we called a florin and another one for two shillings
and six pence which we called a half crown. Then there was a bank note for 10 shillings, as
well as banknotes for one pound and for larger amounts.
Because we had had the same system of coins for many years, it was quite common to find
19th century coins, from the reign of Queen Victoria, in our change. (Change means the
money which a shop-keeper gives back to you when you pay too much for something). The
Queen Victoria coins were often worn almost smooth with use, though you could still see
Victorias head she looked cross and bad tempered. The inscription on the coins told us (in
Latin) that she was Queen of Britain and Empress of India!
People who visited Britain were very puzzled by our money. Almost everywhere else in the
world had a big unit of currency (like the US dollar, or the French franc or the German mark)
which was divided into 100 smaller units (like cents, centimes, or pfennigs). By the mid-1960s,
our government had decided that we had to do the same. Multiplying and dividing by 12 and
by 20 was too complicated. We had to fall into line with the rest of the world, and have a
decimal currency (that is, a currency with units of 10, 100 etc).
So, the government designated 15 February 1971 as D-day, or decimal day, when we would
start to use the new currency a pound, divided into 100 pence. The Royal Mint (the
government department responsible for issuing coins and bank notes) issued shiny new coins,
and for several months we used the old coins and the new coins together. There were, of
course, some problems. Some people found it difficult to convert from old money to new
money for example, to remember that the old half-crown was now worth twelve and a half
new pence. Other people complained that shopkeepers had used the new decimal currency as
a way to put up prices. Small boys discovered that the new half-penny coin was exactly the
same size as the old six-pence coin, and that they could use it in slot-machines which sold bars
of chocolate. But the problems were only temporary, and we quickly got used to the new
currency, and we found that it was after all easier to count in 10s.
After we had changed our currency, it was natural to think about changing other things, like
our ways of weighing things or of measuring distances. We have traditional weights and
measures in Britain which are even more complicated than our old currency. Gradually, over
the last 30 years, we have changed to using metric measures like kilos and metres, partly
because the European Community wants a common system in all European countries. We are
still allowed to use some of the old measures, however. If you go into a British pub, for
example, you should ask for a pint of beer, not half a litre of beer. Few people now regret
decimal day. It is only really old people like me who remember when half a crown was a lot
of money!
I am lucky

Luckys cafe. Photo by its d-lo/flickr
Like lots of people, I have Google as the home page on my web browser. On the Google page,
there is a search box where I can type what I am looking for. For example, I can type English
lessons if I want to find web sites which teach people English. Underneath the search box,
there are two buttons. One says Search. If I click this button, I get a page of Google search
results about English lessons. The other one says Im feeling lucky! I have often looked at
this button and wondered what it did, and whether I really had to feel lucky before I could click
on it.
So, today I decided to make a podcast about the word lucky, and to click on the Im feeling
lucky! button, just to see what happens.
Lucky means fortunate. If I say, I am lucky it means that good things have happened to
me. Maybe I have won the lottery. Maybe I have just met the most beautiful girl in the world.
Maybe bad things have happened to other people, but not to me. I have escaped. I am lucky.
So now I will click on the Im feeling lucky button. What will happen? Will I win a lot of
money? Will I enjoy good health and happiness and live to be 100? No, actually. The click takes
me to a Google page about the Google logo. I am disappointed. I expected something much
more exciting. I do not feel very lucky at all.
Kevin does not feel lucky either. Last Saturday was the worst day of his life. Or, at least the
worst day this football season. Last Saturday, Kevins team, United, lost 4-0 to their old rivals,
Albion. How can this happen? says Kevin. Now, most people who were at the football match
know why it happened. It happened because United played really badly. But Kevin cannot
agree. It was luck, he says. Albion were lucky. The referee did not see a foul against Uniteds
striker. And United were unlucky that the referee disallowed their only goal. If you are a
football fan, you will know how Kevin feels. Your team never loses because they are bad. They
lose because they are unlucky.
But now let us meet someone who is really lucky. His name is Adam Potter, and he lives in
Glasgow in Scotland. He is a keen mountaineer. A mountaineer is someone who climbs
mountains as a hobby. Mountaineering can be great fun, but it can also be very dangerous,
particularly in Scotland in winter. A week or so ago, Adam and some friends and his dog set off
to climb a mountain near Ben Nevis, which is the highest mountain in Britain. As they climbed
higher, snow and ice covered the ground. They stopped, and Adam suggested that they should
take out their ice axes and put crampons on their boots, to stop them from slipping. And at
that very moment, he slipped on the ice. He fell down the side of the mountain, over rocks and
cliffs. He finally stopped falling and slipping and sliding 1000 feet (about 300 metres) down the
mountain. Now, if you or I had fallen 300 metres down an icy Scottish mountain, we would
probably be dead. In fact, more than 20 people are killed every year in falls on Scottish
mountains. But Adam was lucky. He was unconscious for a minute or two when he stopped
falling. Then he stood up and took a map out of his rucksack to work out where he was. He
looked up to see the mountain rescue helicopter looking for him. The mountain recue team
expected to find a dead body. The leader of the rescue team said, He is a very, very lucky
man.
Adam is in hospital, recovering from his injuries, but he does not intend to stay there for long.
In 8 weeks time, he plans to travel to the area around Mount Everest, the worlds highest
mountain, for a ten week expedition. Lets wish him lots of luck.
The Ghost Village.


The old school at Tyneham. Photo by Adrian Purkiss/flickr.


Today, we will visit a little village on the south coast of England. Its name is Tyneham, and it is
a ghost village. What does ghost village mean? It means that the village is deserted, there is
no-one there. Many of the houses, the church and the school are still standing, but no-one
lives in Tyneham any more. If you believe in ghosts, perhaps you feel that the ghosts of the
people who used to live there still haunt the village. It is a ghost village. Tyneham is a very
ancient place. People lived there in Roman times, and probably long before. For centuries, the
people farmed the land and caught fish in the sea. In the 13th century, a stone church St
Marys church was built, and in the middle of the 19th century the village got its own school.
Tyneham lies in a very attractive part of England. Many of the other villages nearby have cafes,
and souvenir shops and car-parks. They are crowded with visitors in the summer, and well-off
people from London buy the pretty houses as weekend cottages. Why is Tyneham not like
that? During the Second World War, shortly before Christmas 1943, the people in Tyneham all
received letters from the government. The army needed the land in Tyneham as a place to
train soldiers. All the inhabitants had to leave the village in less than a months time. Of course,
this would only be temporary. When the War was over, the people could return home. But
they never returned. After the War, the army decided that it still needed the land for training.
They erected targets on the hillsides, and soldiers in tanks practised firing shells at them.
Sometimes they missed the targets, and hit houses in Tyneham by mistake. The whole area
around Tyneham was closed to the public. It was not safe to walk on the roads or the
footpaths because of unexploded shells from the guns. The people of Tyneham complained
and pressed the government to let them return home. Tourists complained that they could not
visit this beautiful area of England. The army took no notice, and in the 1960s even demolished
the ancient manor house in Tyneham. Eventually, in 1975, the army with great reluctance
agreed that people could visit Tyneham and the area around it at weekends and during the
month of August. So today, on days when the area is open, you can park your car at the car
park at the top of the hill, and walk down to the old village. You can see the ruined houses, and
visit a museum in the old church. You can walk down to the sea, to where the fishing boats
used to be. You can see the village telephone box, which was erected only months before the
villagers left unfortunately, the telephone in it does not work! You can visit the old school.
Inside, it is almost exactly as it was in the 1930s. The childrens books are still on the desks, and
their names are on the pegs where they hung their coats. It is almost as if the children had just
gone outside to play. A ghost school! I do not know how many of the 252 people who left
Tyneham in 1943 are still alive probably not many. It is now very unlikely that they will ever
return home indeed, probably they no longer think of Tyneham as home. So Tyneham will be
left as a place where the army can shoot its guns, where the wildlife can flourish, safe from
people and modern agriculture, and where tourists can come for a glimpse of what life in rural
England used to be like. The last person to leave Tyneham left a note pinned to the door of the
church. It read: Please treat the church and houses with care; we have given up our homes
where many of us lived for generations to help win the war to keep men free. We shall return
one day and thank you for treating the village kindly.
A Bossy Podcast

Im Bossy, by F.Lady/flickr
Before we begin, I have an apology to make. In the last podcast, about the Archers, I talked
about a woman whom I called Helen Carter and her new baby. I should have said Helen
Archer. I do not know why I got her name wrong. Perhaps I am getting old. When you get old,
you do things like walking into a room and then forgetting why you are there. Some people call
this a senior moment. Perhaps I had a senior moment while I was making the podcast.
Do you know the English word bossy? Your manager at work is your boss. He or she tells
you to do things. Someone who is bossy is a person who is always telling other people what
to do. We can say that a bossy person bosses other people about or bosses other people
around. I am sure you know someone who is bossy. Are you a bossy person yourself? Of
course not!
It is easy to be bossy in English, because we have lots of different bossy words. Here are some
of them:
must
have to (sometimes we say have got to)
need to
ought to
should
Must and ought to are incomplete verbs. That means that they exist only in the present
tense. You can say I must go to the shops today. You cannot say I musted go to the shops
yesterday. Instead, you should say I had to go to the shops yesterday.
Here is Joannes boss at work. She is an incredibly bossy person, and she uses the bossy words
all the time.
You need to finish writing your report by tomorrow. You must show me the report before you
show it to anyone else. When I have agreed the report, you should send copies to everyone
else in the Department. You will have to make about 10 extra copies. You ought to arrange a
meeting next week so that everyone can discuss the report.
Joanne smiles brightly at her boss. She has already finished the report. She knows that her
boss will agree it, so she has already made the copies, and arranged the meeting.
When Joanne gets home, she finds that Kevin is already there. She switches the TV off (But
the film had just started, protests Kevin), and makes Kevin sit down and talk to her. Kevin and
Joanne are planning a party for their friends to celebrate Kevins birthday.
First, we need to write a list of people to invite. Then we have to think what food and drink
we will need and write a shopping list. Oh, and I must tell the people next door about the party
last time they objected to the noise! We ought to invite my mother (No! says Kevin in
horror.) Alright, we wont invite my mother, but we have got to go and see her soon, perhaps
next weekend.
When Joanne talks to Kevin, she uses the same bossy words as her boss used. But Joanne is
talking about herself. She says I must.we have to.. and so on. So she doesnt sound bossy,
unlike her boss at work. In fact, it is not a good idea to talk to other people in English in the
way that Joannes bossy boss does. We have lots of ways of telling people what we want them
to do, without using the bossy words. Perhaps you could rewrite what Joannes boss said so
that it sounds more polite and less bossy.
That is the end of this bossy podcast. To finish, here are some bossy messages from Listen to
English:
You must learn 10 new English words every day.
You have got to do your English homework.
You ought to read an English newspaper or listen to the radio in English.
You need to revise English irregular verbs.
You should listen to Listen to English podcasts the fun way to improve your English
listening skills.
The Archers

Nigel and Elizabeth Pargetter with their (fictional) children. Nigel fell from a roof and was
killed.
The music which you have just heard is a signature tune. A signature tune is the music which
you hear at the beginning of a radio or TV programme. This signature tune is the signature
tune of a radio soap opera called The Archers. The BBC describe The Archers as an everyday
story of country folk. It is about the lives of a farming family, the Archers, and their friends
and neighbours in the fictional village of Ambridge, somewhere in the middle of England.
The Archers is the most popular radio programme in Britain, except for some news
programmes. It has been running since 1950, which means that it is the longest-running soap
opera in the world. Originally, the programme tried to bring new ideas in agriculture to
farmers. But it developed into a soap opera which appealed to townspeople as well as to
country folk. Indeed, you could say that the Archers signature tune is one of the authentic
sounds of urban, middle-class Britain. At 7 oclock every evening, all over the country, people
switch on their radios to listen to a news summary, followed by the Archers. It is a very special
time of day. Never, ever, telephone an Archers fan between 7 and 7.15 in the evening.
The Archers is not normally an exciting programme. Its characters are just ordinary people
doing ordinary things. Of course, there have been some extraordinary moments. Older
listeners still talk about the time in 1955 when Grace Archer died in a fire. And people of my
generation remember when a pregnant Elizabeth Archer was abandoned by her awful
boyfriend Cameron Fraser in 1992. But most of the time, the Archers characters are just
people living their lives in parallel to our own lives. Their problems are like our problems. They
are interesting because they are ordinary, not because they are extraordinary. Many of the
actors in the Archers stay with the programme for years . They grow old with their characters,
and we feel as if we know them.
Last week the Archers celebrated its 60th birthday. The BBC told us that something special
would happen. It would be something which would shake Ambridge to the core". For weeks,
the internet forums and chatrooms for Archers fans were abuzz with rumours. People
assumed that one of the characters would die or perhaps more than one character. After all,
only a few weeks earlier, the TV soap opera Coronation Street had killed off several of its
characters in a spectacular tram crash. People made lists of which characters they would most
like to go, and how they would like them to die.
So, what actually happened? First, Helen Carter had a baby. And second, Nigel Pargetter fell off
a roof and was killed. A lot of Archers fans are not happy. Helen Carter is an odious egotist who
was on most peoples death list of Archers characters. And Nigel Pargetter was a really nice
man and we shall all miss him. But most of all, Archers fans complained that this is small stuff
we were promised something which would shake Ambridge to the core, and all we got was
poor Nigel falling off a roof. Coronation Street killed three characters in a tram crash. Surely
the Archers could do better.
Well, we have to wait until we see what happens next. Helen Carter is still an odious egotist.
Probably the new baby will make her even worse. And we, the listeners, know why Nigel
Pargetter was on the roof. He was there because David Archer persuaded him to climb the
roof to remove a Happy New Year banner. And David Archer is the brother of Nigels widow,
Elizabeth (yes, the same one who was dumped by Cameron Fraser in 1992). Elizabeth is a
strong-minded woman. When she finds out why Nigel was on the roof, what will she do?
You are now well on the way to becoming an Archers expert. The BBC have an Archers website
for you to explore, and you can listen to the Archers on the BBC World Service(*) or download
the Archers podcasts from the BBC website. Happy listening!
(*)Sorry, this is wrong. The Archers is not on the BBC World Service.
Bootifull!

Bernard Matthews. Great Witchingham Hall, his first turkey farm, is in the background.
This podcast is about turkeys. I dont mean the country Turkey, of course. I mean the big birds
that many people eat at Christmas. There is a picture on the website if you want to know what
a turkey looks like.
A few days ago, the newspapers reported that a man named Bernard Matthews had died. He
was 80 years old, and he was the biggest turkey farmer in Britain, and possibly in the world.
There is an English expression a self-made man. A self-made man is someone who starts
with nothing and goes on to make a lot of money, or to achieve a lot in some other way,
entirely through hard work and enterprise. Bernard Matthews was a self-made man. He left
school when he was 16 years old, without any formal qualifications. When he was 20, he
bought some turkey eggs in a market, and a second-hand incubator. (An incubator is a device
for keeping eggs warm, so that the little birds inside them can hatch.) His career in turkey
farming had begun. A few years later, his business had grown and he needed a bigger space to
keep his turkeys. He bought an old mansion house, Great Witchingham Hall. It was cheap
because it was in very bad repair. He and his wife lived in two of the rooms of this enormous
house. The turkeys lived in all the other rooms.

This is what a turkey looks like!
Most families in Britain eat turkey on Christmas day (and cold turkey for about two weeks
afterwards!) You may think that this is an old tradition, but it is not. Sixty years ago, turkey was
a luxury which only a few people could afford. It was Bernard Matthews who made cheap,
frozen turkeys available for ordinary families, and persuaded people to buy them. Then he
persuaded them that turkey was not just for Christmas, but for any time of the year. His
company started to make other products containing turkey meat, and persuaded people to
buy them as well. He became famous by appearing in the TV advertisements for his products.
There is a link to one of these advertisements on the website. He told us that his turkey was
bootifull, really bootifull. (Bootifull is how you say beautiful in Norfolk, which is where
Bernard Matthews lived). People loved his TV adverts, and sales of Bernard Matthews turkeys
went higher and higher. Today, about one third of all the turkeys sold in Britain are Bernard
Matthews bootifull turkeys. By the time he died, Bernard Matthews was a very wealthy
man; and today his company provides work for several thousand people.
Bernard Matthews transformed turkey from a luxury which only a few people could enjoy into
a food for everyone. Of course, he had to cut the costs of turkey farming, and find ways of
rearing turkeys in huge numbers. He perfected what we call factory farming of turkeys in
which thousands of birds are kept in huge sheds. He bought several old military airfields, and
covered them with turkey sheds. He also perfected ways of turning turkey meat into
convenience foods for busy people.
In recent years, people have begun to criticise factory farming methods. They say that the
birds are overcrowded and kept in near-darkness; and that they do little except eat and put on
weight, until they are about six months old, when they are taken to be slaughtered. The birds
require large doses of antibiotics and other medicines, because they are so crowded. Some of
these chemicals remain in the turkey meat, and critics say that this is dangerous for human
health. Processed turkey products, like other fast foods, often contain water, added
chemicals and low-grade meat. They may be cheap, critics say, but they have low value as
food, and help to make people overweight.
So, what do you think? Are Bernard Matthews turkeys really bootifull? Leave your
comments on the website.
William and Kate are engaged!

Prince William and Kate Middleton are engaged to be married.
Last week, the newspapers and television told us about an engagement. An engagement is
when two people decide to get married. We say that the couple are engaged to be married,
or simply that they are engaged. The engagement which was announced last week was
between a helicopter pilot and a buyer for a well-known chain of clothing shops. So why was it
on the front pages of the newspapers? You probably know the answer already. The helicopter
pilot is Prince William, the grandson of our Queen; and the buyer from the clothes shop is Kate
Middleton, who has been his girlfriend for several years.
Prince William is second in line to the throne. What does that mean? Well, when our present
Queen dies, Prince Charles Williams father will become king. And when Charles dies,
William will become king. He probably has a long time to wait, however, and in the meantime
he is making himself useful by flying helicopters for the Royal Air Force.
A hundred years ago, a Prince who was likely to become king was expected to find a wife from
one of the other European royal families. Thankfully, however, things have changed. Kate
Middleton is not a Princess, nor even the daughter of an old aristocratic family. Her parents
used to work for British Airways her mother was an air hostess. Later, they built a successful
business which sells things for childrens parties. The press have described Kate as middle
class and an ordinary girl, but this isnt really true. She grew up in an expensive house in a
nice area, and her parents paid for her to attend an exclusive private school.
Kate and the Prince met when they were at University, in St Andrews in Scotland. They were
obviously following the great British tradition of going to a University as far from their parents
as possible. At the end of their first year at St Andrews, Will wanted to leave University, but
Kate persuaded him to stay. And Kate has been the Princes girlfriend ever since, except for a
period a few years ago when they decided that they were just good friends. It sounds just
like a million other boy/girl relationships all over the world.
How do British people feel about the forthcoming royal wedding? Some people say that they
dont care. They say that they have more important things to worry about. Others say that
they dont like our royal family, and that Britain should become a republic. Yet other people
are a bit sceptical. They say that the members of the royal family lead very artificial lives. They
are constantly in the public eye, and journalists and photographers give them little peace or
privacy. Too many royal marriages nowadays end in divorce. How will Kate cope? Will she find
it too stressful?
However, I think that most people regard our royal family as a sort of national soap opera. Like
any good soap opera, the royal family has weddings, and babies, and divorces, and sometimes
even funerals. We want our royal family to entertain us, just as television soap operas do. For
years, we have read gossip in the newspapers about Will and Kate. We have never actually met
either of them, of course, but we feel that we know them. And we are thrilled that they are
now getting married. It is the happiest news we have had for a long time.
The wedding will take place on 29 April next year. For the next 5 months, we will read
everything that newspaper reporters can discover or invent about Will and Kate. We will
discuss what style of wedding dress Kate will wear, who the bridesmaids will be, and where
the happy couple will go for their honeymoon. We will buy Kate and Will souvenir mugs.
Some of us will hang flags out of our bedroom windows. The wedding day will be a public
holiday, so we can all sit at home and watch the wedding on television, or get in our cars and
sit in traffic jams on the motorways. The people who are not interested in the royal family will
secretly turn on their televisions to watch for a few minutes. For a short time we will forget the
economic crisis, and our own personal problems. We will be a nation united in front of our
television screens. It will be good entertainment, which is what our royal family does best.
The Lighthouse Man

Henry Winstanleys wood and stone lighthouse on the Eddystone Rocks.
Britain is an island. We are surrounded by sea. Nowdays, you can get here by plane, or by train
through the Channel Tunnel. But before planes were invented, and the Channel Tunnel was
built, the only way to come to Britain was by sea.
The seas around Britain can be very dangerous. The Romans, who conquered England in 43
AD, knew this. They built lighthouses at Dover in England and Boulogne in France to guide
ships across the Channel. However, the lighthouses fell into disuse after the Romans left at the
beginning of the 5th century. For hundreds of years, the seas around Britain were completely
dark at night. There was nothing to help sailors find their way, or to warn them of dangers.
Among the most dangerous rocks around our coast are the Eddystone Rocks. They lie about 14
kilometers from the shore of south-west England, in other words at exactly the place where
ships crossing the Atlantic reach England. Over the centuries, hundreds of ships have been
wrecked on the Eddystone Rocks and thousands of sailors have lost their lives.
Now let us meet a man called Henry Winstanley. He was born in 1644, and as a young man he
became interested in architecture and engineering. Later he became a merchant, and bought
five ships. Within a few years, two of the ships had been wrecked on the Eddystone Rocks. He
asked the government why nothing was done to protect ships from the rocks. The government
said that the rocks were far too dangerous and too far from land to build a lighthouse there.
Nonsense, replied Henry Winstanley. I will build a lighthouse there myself.
And he did. He started work in 1696. However, England and France were at war, and the
following year a French ship arrived at the rocks and took Winstanley and his men back to
France as prisoners. The French King, Louis XIV, ordered that they should be released
immediately. I am at war with England, not with humanity, he said.
In November 1698, the lighthouse was ready. It was built of stone and wood, and candles
provided the light at the top of the lighthouse. During the first winter, it was damaged by a
storm, but Winstanley repaired it and made it stronger. Winstanleys lighthouse was the first
lighthouse anywhere in the world to be built on a rock far out at sea. During the next five
years, its little light sent its warning to passing ships, and not a single ship was wrecked on the
Eddystone Rocks.
In November 1703, however, a great storm struck southern England. It completely destroyed
the lighthouse. Winstanley himself was in the lighthouse at the time, supervising some repairs,
and he was killed.
There is a lighthouse on the Eddystone Rocks today. It is the fourth lighthouse on the rocks,
and it has kept sailors safe since 1882. Until 1982, a lighthouse keeper lived in the lighthouse
to maintain and operate the light. It must have been the loneliest job in England. Today the
lighthouse runs automatically. A maintenance crew visit occasionally by helicopter. It is very
different from Winstanleys wood and stone lighthouse, with candles to warn ships to keep
away from Eddystone.
Beware

Beware of the cat! Photo by Enrique Mendez/flickr.
Todays podcast is about taking care!
I want you to imagine that you are visiting England. You and some friends decide to go for a
walk in the country. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and all is right with the world. You
walk through a pretty village, and then through a wood. You climb over a fence into a big field.
This would be a good place for a picnic, you say. So you sit down on the grass under a tree,
and unpack your picnic.
Then your friend sees something. There is a notice on the fence over there, he says. can you
read what it says?
You look hard at the notice. You can hardly see the writing. I think it says beware of the
bull! you say. What does beware mean?
You find your English dictionary at the bottom of your rucksack, You have just started to look
for beware when you hear a snorting noise. You look up to see a large bull standing about 10
metres away.
Now, some bulls are kind and
hospitablehttp://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/hospitable. They are pleased
when visitors come to their field, and they try to make them welcome. One look at this bull,
however, tells you that this is not the kind and hospitable sort of bull. He is, rather, the unkind
and inhospitable sort of bull. There is only one thing to do. You and your friend run to the
fence and climb over it. The bull runs after you, snorting angrily. He stares at you for a few
minutes; then he goes back to the tree where you were sitting and starts to eat your picnic.
Now you know what beware means. It means danger! be careful! Beware is actually a
shortened form of be aware. You can use beware as an imperative verb that means, a
verb which gives orders or instructions. You can tell somebody beware of the bull or
beware of the dog. But you cannot say I beware of the bull or you beware of the the
dog. So, beware is an incomplete verb you can only use it to warn someone to be careful.
You will often see beware on notices that warn people about dangers. Near a railway line,
there might be a notice Beware of the trains. Beside a river beware deep water. Or
near a road junction beware of traffic from the right.
And here are some other words or phrases which you can use to tell somebody that something
may be dangerous.
danger!
warning!
caution!
be careful!
look out!
take care!
mind out!
There is a little quiz on the website about warning notices and the places where you might find
them. Take care!

Getting the hang of it!

This dog has got the hang of swimming! Photo by rich renomeron/flickr.
Today, we meet the English expression to get the hang of. If you get the hang of
something, it means that you have started to do it properly. You are not an expert yet, but you
have understood the basic idea.
For example, imagine that you are learning to swim. You have never been swimming before.
You are a complete beginner. The other people in your swimming class are complete beginners
too.
The swimming instructor stands at the side of the swimming pool and shows you what to do.
You have to reach forward with your arms, and kick your legs in the water. You try it. You
splash wildly with your legs, and the poor swimming instructor gets very wet. A lot of water
goes up your nose. But you do not move. You try again, and again. By the end of the swimming
lesson, you can swim about 2 meters without your feet touching the bottom of the swimming
pool. Well done, says the swimming instructor. You are getting the hang of it. He means
that are beginning to understand how to swim.
Kevin is learning to cook. Ever since he was a student, Kevin has lived off food which comes in
tins or packets, plus takeaway pizzas, of course. Then he met Joanne, who is a good cook. But
she is not willing to do all the cooking. She thinks that Kevin should do his share. So Kevin buys
a cookery book, with beautiful pictures of delicious food. He sits in bed and reads it. The first
day he cooks some chicken. However, the oven is too hot and the chicken is burnt. The second
day, he makes some curry. The recipe said to add half a teaspoon of salt. Kevin
misunderstood, and used half a tablespoon of salt. Then the rice stuck to the bottom of the
pan, and the meal was inedible. But on the third day, things were better. Kevin made a
chocolate cake, and it was really quite good. This is delicious, said Joanne as she ate a third
slice of cake. You are getting the hang of cooking. Perhaps you should cook every day.
Joanne has a nephew. His name is Jack and he is three years old. He has learnt to talk, and
indeed he talks all the time. But, like most other English three year olds, he does not
understand about English irregular verbs. He thinks that you can talk about things in the past
by adding -ed to the end of a verb any verb! When Joanne went to visit her sister, her
conversation with Jack went like this:
Hello Jack. What did you do today?
I goed to nursery.
Oh, you went to nursery. And what did you do at nursery?
We singed a song. Then we sitted on the mat and the teacher readed a story.
I see. And what did you do after nursery?
Me and mummy goed to the shops. We buyed some sweets.
You bought some sweets. What happened to the sweets, Jack?
I eated them.
As you can see, Jack has not got the hang of irregular verbs. English would of course be much
easier if we all spoke like Jack, but unfortunately English has lots of irregular verbs, and you
(and Jack) just have to learn them . Have you got the hang of irregular verbs? There is a quiz on
the website where you can test your skills.
Is it a horse or a dog?

The White Horse of Uffington or is it a dog?
A long time ago, I made a podcast about graffiti, and the graffiti artist called Banksy. Graffiti
means pictures or writing painted illegally on a wall or a building, or the side of a train or a bus.
Many people think that graffiti are unsightly.
We have a very special sort of rural graffiti in England. Over a large part of southern England,
the rock underneath the ground is chalk. Chalk is a sort of limestone. It is made of the bodies
of tiny sea creatures which lived millions of years ago. If you take away the grass and other
plants from a chalk hillside, you will reach the white chalk rock underneath. Someone, a long
time ago, discovered that you can remove the grass to make a picture or pattern on the chalk
hillside.
We call a picture on the side of a chalk hill a hill figure. A figure here just means the shape
of a body of a man or an animal. There is also a scientific term geoglyph which means a hill
figure. Geoglyph is not a word we use every day, but you might like to remember it to
impress your English teacher! There are nearly 60 surviving hill figures in England. Many of
them are horses, though there are also human figures and military badges. There was also at
one time a hill figure in the shape of a map of Australia, but it has now disappeared. Among
the human figures are the Long Man of Wilmington, and the Cerne Abbas Giant. There is a
picture of the Cerne Abbas giant on the website he is naked, and .. oh, children, look away
now!

The Cerne Abbas Giant
Some people like to think that the hill figures are very ancient. You will find web sites which
say that they were made by the Celts, the people who lived in this country 2000 and more
years ago, and that they were part of the Celts magical religion. However, the truth is that
most hill figures are quite recent. Many date from the 19th century, and often we know the
name of the person who made them. Some are older, but with one important exception which
I will talk about in a minute, experts think that they are not more than about 400 years old.
Hill figures need to be maintained. In time, the grass grows over them and they disappear. We
know of at least 57 more hill figures which existed at one time but are now lost. Hill figures
have survived only because local people have been willing, every few years, to repair the figure
and remove the grass which has grown on it.
The hill figures are fun and interesting, but they are not generally great works of art. They look
as if a horse or a man has laid down on the side of the hill while people cut away the grass
around them. They are a bit like childrens drawings. The White Horse at Uffington is different.
There is a picture of it on the website. It has lines which suggest the shape of the horse its
back, its legs, its head. The horse looks as if it is moving galloping across the hillside. The
person who made it was obviously a talented artist. Perhaps it will not surprise you to know
that the Uffington White Horse really is old. We think it was created in the Bronze Age,
between 2,500 and 4,000 years ago. Why did the Bronze Age people make the horse? Does it
have a religious meaning? Or did the artist just look at the empty hillside and say like a
graffiti artist today I want to fill that empty space with a really big horse!
But is it a horse? Recently, a retired vet called Olaf Swarbrick has argued that the figure cannot
be a horse, because it is too long and thin. Mr Swarbrick says that it is probably a dog, perhaps
a hunting dog. This has caused a fuss in the press. We English have fixed ideas about our
history and we do not like it when someone has new ideas. The National Trust, who own the
land on which the horse or dog is situated, say it is definitely a horse. But what do you think?
Horse or dog? You can vote on the website.
Off to University!

Hi, ho! The seven dwarfs in the Disney film Snow White are off to work!
In English, it is the little words that cause the problems. Big words like misappropriation or
truthfulness are easy. If you do not understand what they mean, you can look them up in a
dictionary. But little words like up, down, on and off are difficult because they have
so many possible meanings. We often join these little words to a verb, to make a phrasal verb.
There are hundreds of phrasal verbs in English. In spoken English, we use phrasal verbs all the
time.
Today, we look at the little word off. If I say, I am going off to work it means that I am
leaving home to go to work. Very often we leave out the verb go, and we say simply, I am
off to work, or We are off to Paris at the weekend, or He is off to visit his mother. And if I
say I am off work, it means that I am not at work; perhaps I am ill, or I am taking a days
holiday. A day off means a day when I do not have to go to work. So you see, off can have
the meaning going away from somewhere, or not being at the place where I normally am.
There is a quiz on the website about sentences and expressions using the word off.
So now you will understand exactly what I mean when I say that my son is off to University.
He has left home to go to University. About 40% of young people in England go to University,
generally when they are 18 or 19 years old. Some young people stay at home and go to a
University in their own town. But most want to be off they want to leave home and go to a
University where they can live independently. If they want to get as far away from their
parents as possible, they choose a University like Exeter in the far south-west of England or
Aberdeen in Scotland.
The University academic year starts at the end of September or the beginning of October. On
the motorways, you can see cars loaded with personal possessions, computers, stereos,
skateboards and bicycles and other things which a young student needs. In the car are Mum
and Dad, and their son or daughter who is off to University in a distant part of the country.
When they arrive at the University, they find hundreds of similar families. All the car parks are
full, and it takes half an hour to find a parking space. Probably the University has arranged a
room for the new student in a Hall of Residence. So Mum and Dad and the new student set off
to find the right room, and then to find the key to the room, and finally to carry all the
students possessions from the car to the room. Then comes the difficult bit. Mum and Dad
want to stay. They want to help their son or daughter to unpack; they want to meet other
parents of new students; they want to explore the University. But the new student has other
ideas. He or she wants the parents to go as soon as possible. University life cannot start while
Mum and Dad are still there.
So Mum and Dad set off for home. The new student starts a new life of making new friends,
going to student parties and (from time to time) going to lectures and doing some work. And
Mum and Dad worry about whether the new student is all right will he eat too much junk
food? will he phone home sometimes to say that all is well? will he remember to change his
socks? (The answers to these three questions are yes, no and sometimes).
Going off to University is an important step in a young persons life. It marks the end of
childhood and the beginning of adulthood. Mum and Dad know this, and when they return
home they do something which they have wanted to do for years. They spend a whole day
cleaning and tidying their son or daughters bedroom!
I must be off now. Goodbye!
What is the matter with Mary Jane?

Tantrum. Photo by Julian King/flickr.
The last podcast, about the word matter, reminded me of a poem by A A Milne. A A Milne
was an author who published books for children in the 1920s and 1930s. He wrote the stories
about Pooh Bear, which have been translated into many languages and made into a Disney
film. He also wrote poetry for children. It is innocent stuff, from an age before television and
computer games.
This poem is about a small girl called Mary Jane. She is having a tantrum, because there is rice
pudding for dinner and she doesnt like rice pudding. Rice pudding is a dessert made by baking
rice with sweetened milk. There is a link to a recipe for rice pudding on the website, if you
want to try making it. Personally, I agree with Mary Jane. Here is the poem.
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
Shes crying with all her might and main,
And she wont eat her dinner rice pudding again.
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
Ive promised her dolls and a daisy-chain,
And a book about animals all in vain.
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
Shes perfectly well, and she hasnt a pain;
But, look at her, now shes beginning again!
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
Ive promised her sweets and a ride in the train,
And Ive begged her to stop for a bit and explain.
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
Shes perfectly well and she hasnt a pain,
And its lovely rice pudding for dinner again!
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
It doesn't matter....

It doesnt matter! Photo by maddercarmine/flickr
You have probably come across the English word matter. It is one of those difficult words
that seem to mean different things in different contexts. An easy way to learn words like this is
to memorise a few common expressions which contain them, and that is what we are going to
do with the word matter.
First, we have the expression what is the matter? If we see someone who is angry or upset,
and we say to them What is the matter? we mean What is wrong? What is the problem?
Second, if we say that something matters, we mean simply that it is important or serious.
And now, if you are clear about these explanations, lets go and see how Kevin and Joanne are.
The football season has begun. This means that on Saturday afternoons when United are
playing at home, Kevin goes to the football ground to watch the match. On Saturdays when
United are playing away, however, Kevin watches the match on TV. Today United have gone to
London to play against Fulham, and Kevin is slumped on the sofa in front of the television,
hoping that this week United will win.
In the first half, things go well. Uniteds striker scores a brilliant goal after about 20 minutes.
But in the second half, Fulham play much better. They score a lucky goal when one of the
United defenders makes a mistake. And they score again in the last minute of the game.
Kevin is not happy. Oh no! he shouts, and adds some words which I could not possibly repeat
on a family podcast show like Listen to English. Joanne, who is doing some work on her
computer in the kitchen, runs in. Whats the matter? she asks. What has happened? Kevin
tells her that United have lost 2-1.
Is that all? asks Joanne unsympathetically. Never mind. Its only a football match. It doesnt
matter which side wins. But Kevin has a different view. Of course it matters, he says.
United have lost their last three matches. If this goes on, they will be bottom of the table by
Christmas.
At this moment, there is a loud crash in the kitchen. Joanne rushes back to see what has
happened. She finds the cat sitting on the kitchen table. The cat has walked over the computer
keyboard and added several lines of random letters to the end of the email which Joanne had
been writing. The cat has then somehow managed to send the email to Joannes boss.
Finally, she (the cat, that is) has knocked over a mug of coffee which Joanna had left on the
table beside the computer. The coffee has gone all over the computer keyboard, and the mug
is lying broken on the floor.
Oh no, says Joanne. Whats the matter? asks Kevin. Joanne explains what has happened.
It doesnt matter, says Kevin. We can dry the computer with a cloth.
Of course it matters, you idiot, says Joanne. Liquids ruin computer keyboards. You cant just
dry them with a cloth. And what is my boss going to think about the email. She will think I am
crazy!
Kevin and Joanne look at each other, and realise how ridiculous the situation is. They start
laughing. Youre right, says Kevin. It really doesnt matter about the football. It doesnt
matter about the computer either, says Joanne. I know someone at work who can fix it. And
my boss never reads her emails anyway.
The cat sits on the table and looks at them. What is the matter with humans? she thinks.
First they get upset. Then they start laughing like idiots. They dont understand that food and
sleep are the only things that really matter in life.
Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside.

The beach at Brighton with the pier in the background.
It is September. The summer holidays are over. People have gone back to work. The children
have gone back to school. And, when we meet people, often they ask us, What sort of
summer did you have? Did you go anywhere nice?
How do we reply? Perhaps we say, Oh, we went to Spain for a fortnight.
Or, We went climbing in Scotland.
Or, We didnt go anywhere. We just stayed at home and enjoyed the garden.
Nowdays, many English people go abroad for their holidays. They go to the Mediterranean, or
even to America. More adventurous people go walking in the Andes, or sunbathing in Thailand,
or travelling across India by train, or photographing the wild animals in South Africa.
A generation or two ago, it was quite different. Summer holidays meant a week at an English
seaside resort (or, if you were unlucky, two weeks at an English seaside resort). Seaside resorts
had cheap hotels and boarding-houses where people could stay. They had pubs and cafes and
restaurants. They had a promenade (a prom) a broad road or path beside the sea where
you could walk and enjoy the views and the sea air. They had cinemas and theatres, too, to
provide amusement in the evenings or when the weather was bad. They had a beach, of
course, where you could swim and build sand castles, and there were donkeys on the beach
for the children to ride. And many seaside resorts had a pier, which ran out into the sea. The
piers had cafes, and amusement arcades, and shops where you could buy postcards and
souvenirs, and a place where small boys could fish for crabs.
But then things changed. People had more money. And the cost of travelling by air fell
dramatically. So English people started to travel further afield for their holidays. They found
that they preferred places where it was always hot and sunny in the summer. Instead of eating
fish and chips in the cold and rain in England, they decided that it was better to eat fish and
chips in the sunshine in Spain.
The old English seaside resorts declined. They became seedy and run-down. Many of the
hotels and boarding houses closed, or became homes for people on social security benefits.
The lidos (the open-air swimming pools) where the children used to swim became filled with
empty beer cans and crisp packets. And, worst of all, in several resorts, the piers were
destroyed by the sea or by fire.
Today there are some signs that things are changing. Because of the economic recession, more
people are taking their holidays at home instead of travelling abroad. The newspapers have
invented a new word staycation for staying at home for your holiday, or your vacation
as they call it in America. Some of the old seaside resorts have tried hard to make themselves
more attractive to modern visitors. In the old days, people arrived at a seaside resort by train
and stayed for a week. Modern visitors arrive by car, and many of them stay only for a day.
However, people still want to sit on the beach and enjoy the sea, and small girls with pink
bicycles still want to cycle up and down the promenade. So local authorities have repaired
some of the crumbling facilities, and cleared away the litter and cleaned the beaches. New
restaurants and cafes have opened. In Weston-super-mare, which is Birminghams favourite
seaside resort, they have even built a new pier.
To finish, here is a song about the seaside which was very popular a hundred years ago. It is
sung by Florrie Ford, who was a famous music hall singer. She made this recording in 1909. You
can find the words on the website, and you will see that the songwriter wanted to use the
word beside as many times as possible!
Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside
I do like to be beside the sea!
I do like to be upon the Prom, Prom, Prom!
Where the brass bands play:
Tiddely-om-pom-pom!
So just let me be beside the seaside
Ill be beside myself with glee
And theres lots of girls beside,
I should like to be beside
Beside the seaside!
Beside the sea!
The woman. the cat and the wheelie bin.

Welcome back to Listen to English after the summer break.
Many British people take their holidays in August. Our politicians are on holiday, so there is no
political news. Our business and finance people are on holiday too, so there is not much
business or financial news. And, worst of all, TV people and minor members of the royal family
are on holiday too, so there is no news about celebrities to keep us happy. Newspaper
reporters still have to find stories to fill the newspapers, however, and in August they find
some strange things to tell us about.
For example, in the past week we have all been entertained by the strange story of the cat in
the wheelie bin. There is a YouTube video on the Listen to English website, which will show you
what happened. In the video, we see a street. There are a few cars parked in the street, but
there are no people anywhere. Perhaps they are all on holiday. In the foreground, there is a
green object with a lid. It is a rubbish bin. Many British people have bins like this to put their
domestic rubbish in. The bins have wheels on the bottom, so that it is easy to move them. We
generally call them wheelie bins. So, this is a video about an empty street with three parked
cars and a wheelie bin. It is just about the most boring video ever.
Then a woman appears. She walks along the pavement past the wheelie bin. A cat jumps up on
the wall beside her. The woman stops to stroke the cat, and to scratch it behind the ears,
which cats love. Then she looks up and down the street. Perhaps she is looking to see if anyone
else is around. Then she opens the lid of the wheelie bin, picks up the cat, puts the cat in the
wheelie bin, and walks away. And the street is empty again, apart from the parked cars and
the wheelie bin.
The cat stayed in the wheelie bin for 15 hours before its owners rescued it. They wondered
who had put it there. They had a security camera outside their house, and when they checked
the recording, they found what you have just seen on the video. They told the newspapers and
the TV what had happened, and for a few days we could read and watch all about the strange
case of the cat in the wheelie bin.
People reacted to the video in one of two ways. Some people were outraged. How could
someone do such a cruel thing to a little cat? Other people thought that it was one of the
funniest things they had ever seen. Yes, alright, it was not good to put the cat in the wheelie
bin, but it was also very funny. And we all wondered, why did the woman do this? Was she
mad? Did she have a grudge against cats? Did she plan to put a cat in a wheelie bin that
morning, or was it something she did on the spur of the moment?
Within hours of the video appearing on the internet, people telephoned the police to say that
they knew who the woman was. A crowd of cat-loving people gathered outside her house, and
the police had to come to tell them to go away. The woman says that she does not really know
why she put the cat in the wheelie bin. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.
And that is all the news from Listen to English. You always knew that the English were mad.
Dress to Impress

This peacock knows how to dress to impress. Photo by El_Sol/flickr
I think I told you in an earlier podcast that my daughter, who is 16 years old, attends a
secondary school for girls. She has now completed Year 11, and has finished her GCSE exams.
In September she will start at a sixth form college. Most of the other girls in her year at school
are in the same position. Naturally, they all want to celebrate the end of their time at
secondary school.
So, one day last week was Dress to Impress Day. All the girls dressed up in party dresses,
high heels and too much make-up. First they went to school for a leaving ceremony and to say
goodbye to their teachers. Then they left in cars, taxis or (in some cases) pink stretch limos, to
go to parties or restaurants. I am sure that they all had a good time, and that many of them
found it difficult to get out of bed the next morning.
Dress to Impress Day has given me the idea for this podcast the word impress what
does it mean and how do we use it? If you want to impress somebody, it means that you want
that person to think good things about you. When you sit an exam, you want to impress the
examiners. You want them to think that you are a good student with an excellent
understanding. If you go for a job interview, you want to impress the people who are
interviewing you. You want them to think that you are exactly the right person for the job. And
if you go on a date, you want to impress the boy or girl you are with.
Kevin has a friend called James. For years, Kevin and his friends have been trying to find James
a girlfriend. The trouble is that James is not very good at impressing girls. He has recently been
on a date with Sarah. This is what happened. He arrived late. He had been watching football on
the television, and the match went to extra time. He forgot to have a shower or to change his
clothes. He talked to Sarah all evening about his hobby computer games. And, when they
went to a restaurant, he ordered spaghetti. That was a big mistake. No-one looks good when
they are eating spaghetti.
James tells Kevin about his date with Sarah. Kevin sighs. So, she wasnt impressed, then, he
says. Well, she must have been a bit impressed, says James. She is coming with me to the
computer games exhibition on Saturday. She is a great fan of Manic Street Racer 2. And she
likes spaghetti. Kevin is amazed. Women can be very strange sometimes.
So James, surprisingly, has impressed Sarah. She has never before met a man who shares her
passion for Manic Street Racer 2 and spaghetti. She thinks good things about James, even
though he was late and forgot to have a shower. James has made a good impression on her. If
the date had been a disaster, we could say that James had made a bad impression on Sarah.
You will sometimes hear the expression to have the impression that For instance, you
might say I have the impression that James is keen on football. Why do I have this
impression? Why do I think this? Because James stayed to watch the football on TV instead of
meeting Sarah.
Or I could say, I have the impression that Sarah likes men who play computer games and eat
spaghetti. This means, simply, that I think that Sarah likes men of this sort. I am not
completely sure. There are a lot of things about Sarah that I do not know. But, from what I
have seen so far, I think that she likes men like James.
There is an adjective impressive as well. If something is impressive, it is big, or beautiful, or
clever it impresses you. For example, the Eiffel Tower in Paris is very impressive it is over
300 meters high. The Tate Gallery in London has a very impressive collection of 20th century
art. And Sarahs top score in Manic Street Racer 2 is 436,117, and that really is impressive!
Unearthing bones!

Roman gladiators fighting in the arena.
Do you know the English word unearth? If you unearth something, you dig it out of the
ground. Perhaps you remember the podcast about the Staffordshire Hoard, a collection of gold
and precious stones which had been discovered in a field. The man who found the hoard dug
the gold and precious stones out of the field he unearthed them. Or perhaps you
remember the podcast about my hens. The hens scratch the ground. They hope to unearth a
worm, or something else which is nice to eat. Nice if you are a hen, I mean.
We can use the word unearth in a figurative way. Imagine that you are a newspaper
journalist. You are writing an article about a well-known politician. You talk to people, and you
ask questions, and you discover, or unearth, some interesting things, for example that the
politician has taken bribes from a big chemicals company. You have unearthed a scandal.
Today, we are going to unearth some bones, and we will learn something about the very
bloodthirsty people the Romans, the Saxons and the Vikings who lived in England or visited
this country over 1000 years ago.
For several years, archaeologists have been digging in the gardens of a group of houses in York,
in the north of England. They have unearthed lots of bones, old bones, human bones. The
bones date from the time, about 2000 years ago, when England was part of the Roman
Empire, and York was an important Roman city. The bones are of strong, healthy young men.
Many of them show signs of serious injuries. Many had been beheaded. Others had been killed
by hammer blows to the head. Scientific tests show that the men came from many different
parts of the Roman Empire.
The archaeologists think that the young men were professional fighters, called gladiators. The
Romans, when there was nothing good on television, loved to watch gladiator fights. These
fights often ended with the death of one of the gladiators. Sometimes, instead of fighting each
other, gladiators fought with wild animals like lions or tigers, which the Romans brought at
great expense from places like north Africa. And one of the skeletons found at York has the
marks of the teeth of a large animal!
Some of the gladiators at York were buried with goods for them to use in the afterlife and
there is evidence that great feasts were held at gladiator funerals. Gladiators were popular
heroes in Roman times, like professional footballers are today. Professional footballers have
short footballing lives sometimes they have to retire after a few years because of injury.
Gladiators had short lives too, because they often had their heads cut off during fights!
We have found some other interesting bones recently. In the south of England, near
Weymouth, men who were building a new road found a large collection of bones from over 50
people. Like the bones at York, they were all young men and they had all been beheaded.
These bones are later than the bones in York. They come from the time of the Saxons. The
Saxons were the people who came to England when the Roman Empire collapsed. Their
language is the ancestor of modern English. However, the bones are not Saxon bones.
Scientists analysed the chemical composition of the bones and concluded that the men came
from Scandinavia. In Saxon times, people from Scandinavia called the Vikings frequently raided
England, to kill and steal, and Vikings settled permanently in some parts of the country. The
Saxons tried paying the Vikings money to go away and leave them alone, but that simply made
the Vikings more greedy.
So what happened to the young Vikings at Weymouth? Probably the Saxons captured a group
of Viking raiders, stripped them naked and then executed them. However, if you come from
Norway or Denmark, do not worry. We give tourists a much warmer welcome nowdays!
Coal to Newcastle

Coals to Newcastle. A coal train crosses the river Tyne at Newcastle in 1962.
Have you come across the English expression carrying coals to Newcastle? This is what it
means. For several hundred years, from the 16th century until about 50 years ago, the North-
east of England was a major coal-producing area. There were literally hundreds of small coal
mines in the area. Until the railways were built, most of the coal was taken to the city of
Newcastle, which is on the river Tyne, close to the sea. From Newcastle, the coal went by ship
to London and many other places in Britain and abroad.
Now, imagine that you are a coal merchant in, say, London. You have some coal to sell. Where
might you take the coal to sell it? Where would you not take the coal to sell it? I think that you
would not take it to Newcastle, because there is lots of coal there already.
So, if you say that something is like carrying coals to Newcastle, you mean that it is useless, it
has no purpose, it is a complete waste of time and money. I am sure that there are equivalent
sayings in other languages carrying owls to Athens is an old Greek saying that means the
same. You could even invent some of your own taking fridges to the North Pole, for
example. Or, taking wine to Bordeaux.
You may be wondering, why do we talk about coals to Newcastle and not coal to
Newcastle? Surely, coal is a collective noun, like water or sugar. Well, in modern English
we would indeed say coal to Newcastle, but the expression dates back to the 16th century,
and at that time people talked about coals instead of coal.
And let us have a little pronunciation lesson too. If you want to sound like a native English
speaker, you need to know how to pronounce the names of places in England correctly. We do
not make this easy for you, and lots of English place names are spelled quite differently from
the way they are pronounced. Now, you will hear many English people pronounce the name of
the city in the north-east of England NEWcastle. But the people who live there say
NewCAStle. My mother was born and brought up in Newcastle, and she made sure that her
children knew how to pronounce the name properly!
I am telling you about coals to Newcastle because I read an interesting article in the
newspaper this morning. As you know, a lot of English people have gone to live in France in the
past 20 years or so. They like the climate, they like the wine, they like the food, they like the
low prices for houses in rural areas of France. Some of them even learn to speak French!
However, the British pound has fallen in value against the Euro, and this has caused problems
for many of them. They have found that it is cheaper to buy food and groceries in England than
in France. So they order groceries online from one of the big British supermarket companies.
The supermarket delivers the groceries to a specialist delivery company, and five times a week
the delivery company sends a van full of groceries to English people in south-west France.
Most of the things they order are awful English foods that no respectable Frenchman would
eat, such as tinned chicken curry. But among the items which they order are French products
like wine and croissants. From England to France! Coals to Newcastle!
Finally, I should tell you that someone did once send coals to Newcastle. In the eighteenth
century, there was an American businessman called Timothy Dexter. His competitors, who
wanted to ruin him, told him that it would be an excellent idea to send a ship full of coal to
Newcastle. So he did. His ship arrived in Newcastle in the middle of a miners strike. There was
a shortage of coal, and prices were very high, and he sold his coal at a great profit. Sometimes
sending coals to Newcastle can be a good idea!
The Great British Donkey Race

The red donkey won again. Photo by hddod/flickr
I am sorry that there has not been a podcast for the last two weeks. We have been very busy
in this country. We have had a General Election and now we have a new government.
Many countries have electoral systems that we call, in English, proportional representation.
In these systems, the number of seats which each political party has in the Parliament reflects
the number of votes which they get in the election. So, if the Red Party gets 50% of the votes,
it will get 50% of the seats; if the Green Party gets 20% of the votes, it will get 20% of the seats,
and so on. But in Britain we think this is too easy. Our arrangements are much more fun. We
have a system called first past the post.
What is he talking about? I hear you say. What is this first past the post?. Imagine a donkey
race. The donkeys run round the race track. Some of them fall over. Some of them decide that
donkey races are boring and stop running. But the other donkeys keep going. At the end of the
race course, there is a post stuck in the ground. The first donkey that passes the winning post
is the winner. All the other donkeys are losers. That is what first past the post means. It
means that British elections are like donkey races.
Or, rather, they are like 650 different donkey races, all on the same day. Britain is divided into
650 constituencies. In each constituency, the candidate who gets most votes becomes the new
Member of Parliament. It doesnt matter whether he or she gets 90% of the votes or only 25%
of the votes if they get more votes than anyone else, they have won.
This is what happened in the constituency where I live. Several donkeys decided to run. There
was a red donkey, who was the Member of Parliament in the old Parliament, a blue donkey, a
yellow donkey and a green donkey, and a few other donkeys who knew they couldnt win but
thought it might be fun to take part. The yellow donkey was the one who made the most
noise. He was sure that he would win. Every day he sent us leaflets or letters to say that he
was the only donkey who could beat the red donkey. Voting for the blue donkey was a waste
of time, he said. She could not win. And the other donkeys? He ignored them. They did not
matter.
On election night, the votes were counted. The red donkey had won again. And close behind
him was big surprise! the green donkey, and a long way behind that was the yellow
donkey. The supporters of the red donkey cheered. The supporters of the green donkey were
pleased that she had done so well. And people who had bet that the yellow donkey would win
had lost their money, and felt cross and foolish.
Now, I am sure that you will agree that this way of holding an election is much more fun than
proportional representation. Unfortunately, it is also not at all democratic, because the first
past the post system favours the big political parties. So, for example, in this election the
Liberal Democrat party (the yellow donkey party) won 23% of the votes across the country as a
whole, but has only 9% of the seats in Parliament. But, say the big parties, the first past the
post system gives us strong, stable governments with a majority of seats in Parliament.
This election was different, however. No party will have a majority in the new Parliament. So,
what would happen? The different parties started to negotiate with each other, and this gave
us several more days of fun and excitement. The leader of the yellow donkeys (Mr Nick Clegg)
talked first to the leader of the blue donkeys (Mr David Cameron) and then to the red donkey
party and then to the blue donkey party again. (The blue donkey party and the red donkey
party never talk to each another that is a fundamental rule of British politics). Then the blue
donkeys and the yellow donkeys announced that they had reached an agreement, and they
would be the next government.
Will they be happy together in the same stable? Or will they soon start kicking each other? We
shall see!
Are you worth it?

No, I wont wake up. It isnt worth it!
Today, we meet the English word worth, and a famous cosmetics company that tells us that
we are worth it.
Worth means simply the value that something has. Sometimes we use it in a literal way, to
mean how much money would people pay? But often we use it figuratively, to mean how
much time and effort and energy would people pay? Here are some examples:
Kevin is, as I am sure you know, a fan of the loudest punk rock group in the world Futile
Vendetta. He has all their records and CDs. His collection of records and CDs is worth about
300, which means that if Kevin sold them he might get 300 for them. But he is not going
to sell them. They are worth much more than 300 to him.
Kevins friend George lives in a flat. George owns the flat he does not rent it from a landlord.
George wants to move to another flat, closer to his work. The first thing he does is to ask an
estate agent to look at his flat and tell him how much it is worth that is, how much somebody
might pay for it. When he knows this, George can work out how much he can afford to pay for
a new flat.
Last summer, Kevin and Joanne went for a holiday in the Lake District in the north-west of
England. They climbed a mountain called Scafell Pike. Scafell Pike is less than 1,000 metres
high, but it is still the highest mountain in England. It was a long climb. After about an hour,
their legs were tired and their feet were sore. They were out of breath and it had started to
rain. Their clothes were wet, and Kevin had water in his boots. Eventually, they reached the
top. Suddenly, the sun broke through the clouds. They could see all the way to the sea, far
away to the west and the south. They could see the other mountains around, and the valleys
and lakes far below. It was magic. It was worth the aching legs and the wet clothes. Or, as we
often say in English, it was worth it.
If you say that something is worth it, you mean that that thing has a bigger value than the
money you paid, or the work you did, or the time you spent, or the emotional upset which you
had, in order to get that thing. Here are some other things which are worth it (or not worth
it):
Kevins football team, United, has paid 10 million for a new striker. The first time he played
for United, he scored twice. He was worth it.
Joanne wants to see a new film. But the only cinema which is showing it is on the other side of
town. It would take nearly an hour to get there. Is it worth it? wonders Joanne.
Georges Dad grows vegetables in his garden. It is hard work, but Georges Dad says that fresh,
home-grown vegetables are worth it.
Jimmy and Carole, whom we met in an earlier podcast, and who were doing fine the last time
we saw them, have had a row. Joanne finds Carole in tears. Dont get so upset, says Joanne.
Hes not worth it.
And finally, we come to the French cosmetics company LOreal. LOreal sells industrial
chemicals that people put on their bodies to make themselves look younger or smell sweeter.
Some of their products are quite expensive. But, as LOreal tells us in their advertisements on
TV, Youre worth it. They mean, You are wonderful and beautiful. You want to stay
wonderful and beautiful. So, it is worth spending lots of money on our products, and worth
spending time putting them on your face and taking them off afterwards. Trust LOreal. You
are worth it.
There is a quiz on the website about the word worth. And that is the end of todays podcast.
I hope you think that it was worth it.
Stranded

All flights are cancelled! I am stranded!
Today we will learn some words connected with volcanoes; and we will find out that volcanoes
are bad for aeroplanes, and why people in west London can now hear the birds sing.
Volcanoes are mountains, or other places, where the inside of the earth comes to the surface.
Volcanoes sometimes throw a large amount of hot gas and ash high into the atmosphere, or
they spill very hot melted rock, called lava, over the land. We call events like these eruptions
and we can say that a volcano erupts. An active volcano is a volcano that erupts from time to
time, like Mount Etna in Italy. An extinct volcano is one which does not erupt any more, like
Kilimanjaro in Africa. And a dormant volcano is, well, just sleeping and might wake some time
and erupt again.
There are several active volcanoes in Iceland, and last week one of them erupted. It sent a
huge cloud of gas and ash into the air. The ash has drifted south-east-wards towards Britain
and the rest of Europe and for the last several days, there has been a cloud of volcanic ash
over most of north-west Europe. We cannot see it from the ground, but it is visible on satellite
pictures.
If an aeroplane flies through a cloud of volcanic ash, the engines may suck the ash in. The ash
may then cause corrosion and abrasion. (Corrosion is when the ash reacts chemically with
the steel and other materials in the engine; abrasion is when the ash scratches and wears
the surface). Aircraft engines are very hot, and they may melt the volcanic ash into a material
like glass. So, altogether, volcanic ash is bad news for aircraft engines. In the 1980s there were
some frightening cases where an aeroplane flew through a cloud of volcanic ash, and all the
engines stopped working.
At the end of last week, therefore, the air-traffic control authorities in Britain and other
European countries decided that it was not safe to let aeroplanes fly through the volcanic ash.
The airlines which normally fly businessmen to meetings in New York or Hong Kong, or
holidaymakers to sunny places in the Mediterranean, have stopped flying. They have cancelled
all their flights. To cancel something means to decide that it will not happen. An airline might
cancel a flight; a railway company might cancel a train. Recently the lead singer in Kevins
favourite group, Futile Vendetta, had a sore throat poor man! and the band had to cancel
two concerts.
Because all flights in and out of Britain have been cancelled, people who were visiting Britain
as tourists or on business are stranded. And many British people who are away from home are
stranded as well. If you are stranded it means that you cannot leave somewhere. If you miss
the last bus home, you may be stranded until the next morning. If you run out of money while
you are on holiday, you may be stranded. Other words which mean almost the same as
stranded are stuck, trapped and marooned. There are no flights and I am stuck in
Berlin. I have lost my money and my passport and I am trapped in Greece. I arrived at the
airport too late and now I am marooned in Spain.
The volcano in Iceland is still erupting, and the cloud of volcanic ash shows no signs of clearing.
No-one knows when it will be safe to fly aeroplanes again. Life without air travel is a bigger
problem for Britain than for other countries because Britain is an island and you cannot simply
drive your car over the border into a neighbouring country. All the ferries and the Eurostar
train service are fully booked with people trying to get home. Our government has decided to
help British people who are stuck abroad by flying them to Spain (where the airports are still
open) and bringing them home by coach or by ship.
But it is not all bad news. In Britain, we have a General Election at the beginning of May.
Normally, the newspapers and television would be full of politicians telling us why we should
vote for them, but for the moment the volcano is the big news. And people who live near
airports have been able to do something very unusual they have been able to sit in their
gardens in the sunshine and listen to the birds singing.
If you have been stranded, by the volcano or for some other reason, why not tell us about it by
leaving a comment on the website.
All's Well That Ends Well

Disappointed. Fed up. Let down. Stood up. Photo by teapic/flickr.
There is a well-known line in Shakespeares play A Midsummer Nights Dream which goes,
The course of true love never did run smooth. It means that when you fall in love, there are
always complications, and accidents and difficulties. That is the theme of todays podcast. And
there are plenty of phrasal verbs as well, and there is a separate Grammar and Vocabulary
note to explain some of them.
Kevin and Joanne invite about 20 friends to a party. Among the guests are Jimmy and Carole.
They have never met before. Kevin introduces them to each other, and they get talking. And
they keep talking all evening, except when Kevin plays music by his favourite punk band Futile
Vendetta so loudly that no-one can make themselves heard. It is obvious that Jimmy and
Carole get on well with each other. Before they leave at the end of the evening, Jimmy asks
Carole if she would like to go to the cinema with him the next weekend, and Carole says yes.
Isnt that romantic!
Now Jimmy is outside the cinema. It is 7.30. Carole agreed to meet him at 7 oclock. But
perhaps he did not hear her properly (Futile Vendetta were singing their all-time hit I Loathe
the World at the time). Perhaps Carole actually meant 7.30 or even 8 oclock. So Jimmy waits
and waits. But still no Carole. Perhaps she has forgotten. or perhaps she has decided not to
come. It seems that Carole has let him down. She promised to go to the cinema with him, and
now she has not turned up.
Meanwhile, outside a different cinema, Carole is looking at her watch. She agreed to meet
Jimmy at 7 oclock. So where is he? Has Jimmy stood her up? She too feels disappointed. She
rather liked Jimmy and was looking forward to seeing him again.
Then Jimmy has a bright idea. The modern world contains things called mobile phones.
Perhaps Carole has a mobile phone. Unfortunately, Jimmy does not know her number. He tried
to ask her at the party, but Futile Vendetta prevented effective communication. But Kevin and
Joanne will know, so Jimmy rings them to find out. Kevin answers the phone. Yes, he can help.
He looks at the list of phone numbers on the wall beside the telephone, and reads out Caroles
number. Thanks, says Jimmy, and rings off. Unfortunately, Kevin has given him the phone
number of Joannes Aunt Carole, who is a large lady in her 50s with three dogs and six cats.
Jimmy has an interesting telephone conversation with Aunt Carole, in which he asks her what
she is doing, and she says that she is watching television and eating a box of chocolates, and
no she does not remember agreeing to go to the cinema with him.
Meanwhile, Carole also thinks about telephoning, and she too rings Kevin and Joanne. This
time Joanne answers, and tells her Jimmys number. Except that it is the number of Jimmy the
hairdresser, and not of Jimmy who is standing in the rain outside the cinema wondering where
Carole is. Jimmy the hairdresser tells Carole that she would look simply divine, darling, if he
could cut her hair and dye it green.
Jimmy and Carole are now both very fed up. Jimmy thinks that Carole has let him down. Carole
thinks that Jimmy has stood her up. Jimmy decides to get a bus back home. Carole starts to
look for a taxi. Then Jimmy turns a corner and sees Carole on the other side of the road,
getting into a taxi. He shouts and waves but Carole does not hear. So Jimmy jumps into
another taxi and says to the driver, Follow that cab! The taxi driver, who watches bad spy
movies in his spare time, has always wanted someone to jump into his taxi and shout Follow
that cab! He rises to the occasion, drives through three red traffic lights and pulls up behind
Caroles taxi just as Carole is getting out.
So Jimmy and Carole finally meet up. They have a where were you no. I was there, where
were you sort of conversation. And they laugh, and go to the pub round the corner for a
drink, and agree to go to the theatre next week to see a play by Shakespeare called, very
appropriately, Alls Well That Ends Well.
And Kevin says to Joanne, I still dont understand why Jimmy the hairdresser is going out with
your Aunt Carole.

Changing the time

A summer evening. Will we enjoy them more if we change our time? Photo by
WhiteGoldWielder/flickr
Last Sunday, in the early hours of the morning, a whole hour disappeared. It was the beginning
of summer time. Every year, at the end of March, we change the time on our clocks and
watches. We move the time forward by one hour, so that, for example, 1.00 am becomes 2.00
am. It is light for longer in the summer than in the winter. However, extra daylight early in the
morning is not much use to us, because we are still in bed. We want the extra daylight in the
evening, when we can go outside and dig the garden or take a picnic to the park. By changing
the clocks, we move an hour of summer daylight from the morning to the evening, when we
can enjoy it more. In winter, therefore, we have winter time, or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
In summer we have summer time, or British Summer Time (BST) as it is officially called.
Instead, we could of course all get up earlier in the morning during the summer. We could all
start work, or school, or college, an hour earlier. And then we could go home an hour earlier as
well. But we English do not like getting up early in the morning. In Germany, many people
arrive at work at 7am or even earlier. We English are more sensible. We stay in bed. And it
would be difficult to get everyone to agree to start work an hour earlier. So we change the
time on our clocks instead.
During the Second World War, we had a sort of double summer time we moved the clocks
forward by one hour in the winter and by two hours in the summer. We did this to save energy
and increase productivity in the factories. But at the end of the war, we went back to the old
winter and summer times. Every few years, for the last 50 or 60 years, we have had a national
debate in the press and in Parliament about permanently changing our time, in the same way
that we did during the war. A new campaign to change our time has just started. It is called
Lighter Later and you can read about it on its website.
Lighter Later says that if we move our time forward by an hour, it will solve almost all the
problems of the world:
it will save energy, because we will not need to use so much electricity for lighting in
the evenings.
our carbon dioxide emissions will fall.
there will be fewer road accidents.
it will be good for tourism, and help to create jobs in the leisure and tourism
industries.
it will be easier for us to play sport or go jogging in the evenings, so we will all be fit
and lose weight.
it will reduce crime.
it will make everyone happy, rich and famous.
OK, I invented the last one about happy, rich and famous. But it is clear that there are some
very strong arguments for changing our time by moving the clocks forward by another hour for
the whole year. In particular, it would be a cheap and easy way of reducing our carbon dioxide
emissions.
In the past, two groups of people have argued against changing our time. The first group is
people who have jobs where they have to start work very early in the morning. Farmers, for
example, may need to milk their cows very early. If we changed the time, the farmers say, they
would have to start work in the dark all year round, even in the middle of summer. The second
group is people who live in Scotland. Scotland is further north than England, and this means
that there is less daylight in the winter than in England. The Scots argue that changing the time
would mean that Scottish schoolchildren would have to go to school in the dark for several
months during the winter.
What will happen this time? Will we finally change our time? Or will the old objections win?
There are some signs that the campaign for a change in our time may succeed. There is an
urgent need to find ways of reducing our carbon dioxide emissions. The organisation which
represents British farmers now says that it is neutral about making the change. And the
Scots? Well, British politics has changed in recent years. Scotland now has its own Parliament
and its own government. Many people in England now say that the Scots can sort out their
own problems, but they cannot block changes which are good for England.
To finish, I should tell you that no-one has told the British weather that the clocks have gone
forward and it is now officially summer time. The weather forecast for tomorrow is for snow in
many places.
Tumbling!

Tumbling down Coopers Hill in pursuit of a cheese! Photo by Nicoze/flickr
Have you ever thought that the English are mad? Of course you have. And after todays
podcast, you will know that it is true.
But first we must meet the English verb to tumble. Tumble means, simply, to fall down. For
example, if you are coming down some stairs and you trip, you might tumble to the bottom.
You would fall, perhaps you would roll over, and two seconds later you would be on the
ground at the bottom of the stairs, wondering whether you had broken any bones. We can use
tumble in a figurative way too. We can talk about a stream tumbling down the side of a
mountain. Or if a supermarket reduces its prices, it might put notices in the window saying
Prices tumble throughout this store!
Now for the story in todays podcast. Last week, we read in the newspaper that an important
sporting event will not take place this year. It is not a football match or a horse-race. It is much
more important than that; it is the great Coopers Hill Cheese Rolling event.
Coopers Hill is not far from the town of Gloucester. It is a very steep hill, covered in grass and
trees. Every year at the end of May there is a cheese rolling at Coopers Hill. About 15
competitors stand in a line at the top of the hill. Many of them wear batman suits or other
fancy dress. A man with a big hat, called the Cheese Master, throws a 3 or 4 kilo cheese down
the hill. The competitors run after the cheese. The rules say that if one of the competitors
catches the cheese, he or she can keep it. In practice, no-one ever catches the cheese, because
it goes too fast. And the competitors do not run after the cheese, because the hill is too steep.
Instead, they fall, they roll, they slide on their bottoms they tumble, in fact.
At the bottom of the hill, there is a line of stewards. They catch the competitors before they
can tumble all the way to the M5 motorway. And there is a line of ambulances too, for those
competitors who break their ankles on the way down.
There are several races, some for men and some for women, and for the really crazy there are
some uphill races too (though, obviously, the cheese cannot go uphill). After the races, those
competitors who are not actually in hospital gather at a local pub to drink beer and tell stories
of the heroic events of the day.
Obviously, for an important event like the Coopers Hill Cheese Rolling, you could not use just
any sort of cheese. The cheese is of a type called Double Gloucester. It is made locally by a lady
called Diana Smart. She is 83 years old. The cheese rolling is an important part of her business.
She is fed up that it has been cancelled this year.
So, why has it been cancelled? For hundreds of years, the only people who came to watch the
cheese rolling were local people. But the event is now internationally famous, and lots of
people want to come. Last year there were 15,000 spectators, from many different countries.
The police and organisers of the event are worried about the safety of the spectators, and
about car-parking, and about the fact that there are no toilets, and other problems of having
so many people. The organisers think that they can solve the problems for next year, so the
Cheese Rolling should take place again in 2011.
My own proposal is that cheese rolling should become an Olympic Sport. Then it could be
included in the London Olympic Games in 2012. We could build a super stadium on Coopers
Hill, with room for 50,000 spectators, lots of toilets and a car park for thousands of cars. The
stadium could have a roof in case it rains. But this year you will have to find a hill in your own
country, and throw a cheese down it, and tumble after the cheese. Happy cheese rolling!
Crime and Punishment

James Bulger
Some of you have e-mailed me to say that you would like more podcasts about life and politics
in Britain. The subject of the podcast today is a difficult and serious one. It is about a small boy
who was murdered 17 years ago. The murder and what happened afterwards are still very
controversial and arouse strong emotions in this country.
In February 1993, James Bulger was nearly 3 years old. He lived in Bootle, which is a town
north of Liverpool in the north-west of England. One day he went shopping with his mother
Denise. She went into a butchers shop to buy some meat. James stayed outside. When Denise
returned a few minutes later, James was gone.
Some children found Jamess body on ground beside a railway line a few days later. He had
been beaten to death with bricks, stones and an iron bar. Whoever had killed him then placed
Jamess body on the railway line, so that it would look as if he had been killed by a train.
There were CCTV (closed-circuit television) cameras in the shopping centre where James had
disappeared. The police found pictures of James. He was holding the hand of an older boy or a
young man. Together with another boy, they were leaving the shopping centre. The police
published the photos in the press, and a member of the public was able to identify the people
who had taken James. They were two 10-year old boys, called Robert Thompson and Jon
Venables. The police arrested them, and they were later found guilty of the murder of James
Bulger.
The story was headline news for many weeks. The whole country was horrified, both by the
mindless murder of a small child, and also by the fact that the killers were themselves children.
In Liverpool, feelings ran particularly high and the families of the two 10-year old killers were
forced to go into hiding.


Robert Thompson and Jon Venables
After the trial, Jon and Robert spent 8 years in secure childrens homes, where they received
an education. Then, when they were 18 years old, they were let out, but with strict conditions
about where they could live and what they could do. They were given new identities (new
names etc), to protect them from the media and from people who might want to kill them.
Was this the right punishment for them?
Jamess mother, Denise, describes Jon and Robert as pure evil. She says that they have never
been sorry for what they did, and that the justice system let them off lightly. She, and many
others, think that it was wrong to release the two young men so soon; they should have been
sent to prison for many years when they were 18. At one point, indeed, the government tried
to have Jon and Robert kept in prison at least until they were aged 25, but the courts said that
the government had no power to interfere.
Now the case is back in the news. A few weeks ago, the police arrested Jon Venables and he is
now in prison. The government have refused to say why, but the press have reported that it is
connected with pornographic images of children. Immediately, the old controversy started
again. Many people say, I told you so. It was a mistake ever to release Jon and Robert. They
are dangerous and ought to be in prison for many years. And it was a mistake too to give them
new identities. People should know who they are and what they have done.
What does this tell us about the sort of country which Britain is? We send a lot of people to
prison in fact, we have more people in prison in relation to population than anywhere else in
Europe. But we still do not feel safe. Sometimes it seems that crime is a national obsession. At
the same time, we know that many prisoners, when they leave prison, go back to a life of
crime. A government minister once remarked that prison is an expensive way of making bad
people worse. A recent survey showed that most people agree that it is important to help
people who have committed crimes to re-organise their lives,to stop using drugs,to get an
education and a job. But cases like the murder of James Bulger create a very strong emotional
reaction, and this make rational discussion of how best to deal with crime and criminals much
more difficult.
There are some new phrasal verbs in this podcast. I have posted a separate grammar and
vocabulary note about them.
Catch

What a catch! Photo by RXAphoto/Flickr
We are going to catch things in this podcast, and yes there will be a new phrasal verb as
well to catch up with.
Like many common English verbs, catch is irregular. The past tense of catch is caught. So,
I catch, I caught, I have caught.
If you look at the picture on the website, or on your iPod, you will see what catch means.
Someone has thrown a ball in the air. The little dog has run after the ball. He has jumped in the
air with its mouth open. He wants to catch the ball in his mouth. So, to catch means to stop
or hold something which is moving, like a ball which someone has thrown.
Here are some other things you can catch:

a cat catches a mouse.
a fisherman catches fish.
the police catch a criminal.
And, of course, we often use catch in a figurative way. For example:
you can catch a train, or a bus, or a plane.
you can catch flu, or some other infectious disease.
in the photo on the website, the photographer has caught the exact moment when the
dog jumps in the air to catch the ball.
Now for our phrasal verb to catch up. We can say catch up with someone or catch
someone up. Imagine that you are running in a race. The leading runner is about 20 meters in
front of you. If you run really fast, perhaps you can catch the leader up. Then you will be
running beside the leader, and you might even win the race. And if the runners behind you run
really hard, they may be able to catch up with you.
This sounds very energetic, so let us instead join Kevin and George in their normal Saturday
afternoon activity, going to a football match. It is an exciting time. United are four places from
the top of the Championship. Can they catch up with the top teams? Can they even win the
Championship?
However, George is late. He is a teacher, and he has lots of school books to mark. He needs to
catch up with his marking before he can go to the match. He phones Kevin to explain. You go
to the match now, he says. Ill catch up with you later when I have finished the marking.
So Kevin sets off by himself. He catches a bus into town. But there are problems. The famous
punk rock group Futile Vendetta are in town. Thousands of people want to catch their last
concert, and thousands more want to catch a glimpse of the band. The bus gets caught in the
traffic. The minutes go by, and the bus does not move. Eventually, Kevin gets off the bus and
walks, and runs, to the football ground. He arrives just in time to catch the start of the match.
George is there already. He finished his marking and caught a train to the stadium.
Unfortunately, the match is not very exciting and ends in a goalless draw. There is one thrilling
moment when Uniteds striker nearly scores, but the goalkeeper catches the ball safely. Never
mind. Football is like that. Maybe next Saturday will be different.

Harry and June (and lots of other people) build a new house.

A bungalow in Paignton but Harry and June want to build their own house!
Todays podcast is about the names of different occupations, and about Harry and June and
their new house.
Harry is a retired school head teacher. He and his wife June want to move from London to live
in Devon in the south-west of England. Devon is a place where lots of retired people go to live.
Devon is warm (well, warmer than most of the rest of England) and it is beside the sea. In
Devon towns like Paignton and Torquay there are lots of little bungalows where retired people
like Harry and June live.
However, Harry and June do not want to live in a bungalow in Paignton or Torquay. They want
to build their own house. So this is what they do. First they go to an estate agent, who sells
houses and land. The estate agent has information about some suitable land where Harry and
June could build their house. Then they ask a solicitor to handle all the legal matters connected
with buying the land. Harry and June know what sort of house they want, but they need an
architect to design the house and make plans for them. Unlike Robert, whom we met a few
weeks ago, they know that they need planning permission for their house. So they fill in
application forms and spend several weeks arguing with the planning official in the local
authority about interesting things like where the drains will go.
Now they are ready to start building the house. They find a builder to supervise and organise
the work. The builder digs the foundations for the house, and a local authority building
inspector then comes to check that he has built the foundations properly. A bricklayer builds
the walls of the house with bricks and mortar, and a carpenter builds the wooden framework
for the roof. A roofer then puts the tiles on the roof and makes it watertight.
Meanwhile, inside the house a plasterer is busy putting plaster on the new walls. An electrician
arrives to install the electric wiring, and makes holes in the new plaster, so the plasterer has to
plaster some of the walls again. A plumber installs the water pipes. He drills through one of the
new electric wires; there is a bang, and all the lights go out. The electrician has to come back to
mend it. A gas fitter puts in the gas pipes for the central heating and the cooker in the kitchen.
He knocks more holes in the plaster, so the plasterer has more work to do. A joiner comes to
install the doors and cupboards inside the house. He puts a nail through the new gas pipe.
Now Harry and Junes house has walls and a roof, it has doors and windows, and gas and water
and electricity. But there is more to do. A painter comes to paint the outside of the house.
Inside the house, a decorator paints the woodwork and puts wallpaper on the walls. In the
kitchen, a kitchen fitter is busy installing kitchen cupboards and work surfaces, and a carpet
fitter is putting carpets in the living room and the bedrooms.
Inside, the house is looking good, but outside it is a mess, because the builder has left piles of
broken bricks and other rubbish in the garden. A skip lorry driver places a skip in the road
outside, and the builder spends the next two days putting all his rubbish in the skip. Finally, a
gardener is able to dig the garden and plant grass and flowers to make it look beautiful.
Harry and June are, I am happy to tell you, very pleased with their new house. June is busy
sewing curtains for the living room, and Harry is arranging his model railway in the spare
bedroom.
So, how many different occupations were involved in building the new house? I can count 20
how many can you count? Also, have you noticed that most occupation names in English do
not tell us whether the person doing that job is a man or a woman? Unlike many other
languages, we do not have separate words for, for example, a male architect and a female
architect. In fact, Harry and Junes architect was a woman, and so was the electrician. There
are very few cases in modern English where we need to use different words for men and
women policeman/policewoman is one of these, and another is waiter/waitress. Post a
comment on the website if you can think of any more.
Keep calm and carry on!

This weeks phrasal verb is to carry on. I shall explain it in a minute, but first here is a story
about a typical Monday morning for Kevin, in his new job as Assistant Sales Manager (South
East England).
It is 6.30. Time to get up. The alarm clock rings. Kevin ignores it. He carries on sleeping. The
alarm clock carries on ringing. Eventually, Kevin wakes up. He turns the alarm clock off, and
falls out of bed.
Kevin has a shower and gets dressed. He turns on the radio. The radio presenter chatters
cheerfully, and plays cheerful music. But Kevin carries on eating toast and drinking coffee. The
radio presenter carries on being cheerful. Kevin thinks, It is Monday morning. It is not a time
for being cheerful.
Kevin travels to work by train. Today, there are problems on the railway. and the train is late. It
is crowded with people. On the way into the city, it stops at a red signal and waits. The
passengers on the train do what English people always do in a crisis they ignore it. They carry
on reading their newspapers. They carry on typing on their computers. There is silence, except
for one man who is talking loudly on his mobile phone. He carries on talking. He has forgotten
that the train has stopped and that everyone on the train can now hear him.
Eventually, the train moves a little bit, then it stops again. It carries on like this stopping and
starting and stopping again until it reaches the main station. Because the train is late, Kevin
arrives late at work. But everyone else has had problems getting to work as well, so perhaps it
doesnt matter. Monday has begun!
I have used carry on several times in this story, and I hope you can now understand what it
means. It means to continue. Kevin continues sleeping. The people on the train continue
reading. Another common expression which means almost the same as carry on is go on.
The alarm clock goes on ringing. The man with the mobile phone goes on talking.
When I was thinking about what to say in this podcast, I did a Google search for carry on and
found an interesting story. In 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War, the British
government printed millions of posters to send simple propaganda messages to the people.
The posters appeared on billboards, and in shop windows and railway stations and places like
that. They tried to encourage and cheer people in the face of bombing raids, food rationing
and other hardships. However, one of the posters was never used. It was the poster which
would tell people what to do if the Germany army actually invaded Britain. At the end of the
war, the government destroyed all the copies. Well, not quite all, because in the year 2000 a
second-hand book seller found a copy in a box of old books which he had bought. The poster
said simply, Keep calm and carry on. In other words, do not panic, carry on as normal go to
work, look after your families, and so on. This was the very British message that our
government wanted to send to the people if our country was invaded.
Since it was rediscovered, the poster has become very popular. You can buy copies on line, and
mugs and t-shirts with the slogan Keep calm and carry on. Perhaps people feel that this
simple slogan means as much today as it did 70 years ago. We have so many problems today
economic crisis, environmental problems and wars in many parts of the world. What can we
do? Keep calm and carry on!

Robert's Castle

Robert Fidlers castle but no planning permission!
We have a saying in English that an Englishmans home is his castle. What exactly does it
mean? Some people say that it means that you can do anything you like in your own home.
But that isnt true. You are not allowed to kill people in your home, for example. Perhaps it
means that you can decide whom to allow into your home. If you say no, then they have to
stay outside. But that isnt true either. The police, for example, sometimes have the right to
come into your house even if you dont want them to.
So perhaps the saying just means that English people like to think about their home as a castle.
It is safe, secure and private. It is my place. It is not anyone elses place!
Robert Fidler is a farmer in Surrey, which is a county south of London. He wanted to build a
castle on his farm as a home for himself and his family. Unfortunately, in Britain you cannot
build a castle, or any other building, anywhere you want. You need to get planning permission
(sometimes called planning consent) first. So Robert Fidler applied for planning permission.
The local authority said no. Robert Fidlers farm is in the Green Belt, which is the area around
big cities where new houses and other buildings are generally not allowed. The Green Belt
stops towns and cities from getting too big and destroying the open countryside. So Robert
Fidler could not build his castle.
However, Robert decided to build the castle anyway, without planning consent. First, he built a
high wall with bales of straw. If you are a farmer, like Robert was, you can do almost anything
as long as it is agricultural, and bales of straw are definitely agricultural. Behind the wall of
straw, where no-one could see, Robert Fidler built his castle, or rather his house which looked
like a castle. There is a picture of it on the website. It has two round towers, with ramparts on
the top. The newspapers said that the castle also had cannons, but I cannot find a picture of
them.
Robert finished his house in 2002. He moved in with his wife and small son. When they looked
out of their windows, all they could see was the wall of straw, but they did not mind. Birds
built their nests in the straw, and it was fun to watch them. Besides, it was vital to keep the
castle secret. They hoped that after four years, they would be allowed to keep the castle, even
without planning permission.
In 2006, Robert removed the wall of straw, and now everyone could see the remarkable house
which he had built. The local authority were horrified. They told Robert that he had to
demolish the house. He refused. The local authority started legal action. Last week a judge
agreed with the local authority and said that Roberts castle had to go. But Robert Fidler will
continue fighting, and says that he will go to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.
He told the newspapers, This house will never be knocked down. This is a beautiful house that
has been lovingly created. I will do whatever it takes to keep it.

Knocking a building down will this happen to Robert Fidlers castle?
So, should Robert be allowed to keep his castle, or should it be knocked down? Some people
say that it is a really nice building and that it would be wrong to demolish it and leave Robert
and his family with nowhere to live. Other people say that everyone else has to obey the
planning laws, and it would be unfair to make an exception in this case. What do you think?
Our phrasal verb this week is to knock down. If you knock down a house, or a wall, or a
building, it means that you demolish it. You use a big hammer, or a machine, to hit the walls
until they fall down and there is nothing left except a pile of bricks and stones. The local
authority have told Robert Fidler that he must knock his house down. He says that it will never
be knocked down. OK?
There is a quiz on the website. Have fun.
George's Chocolate Factory

Martina Lopez has sent me an e-mail. She suggests that every week, I should tell you about a
phrasal verb. Good idea, Martina. There are hundreds of phrasal verbs in English, and there is,
I am afraid, no easy way to learn them. You just have to remember what they mean! So, in
every podcast, I will try to introduce a new phrasal verb. Todays phrasal verb is to take over.
Kevin has just changed jobs in his company. His job title used to be Sales Analyst. Now he is
Assistant Sales Manager South East England. Wow, it sounds exciting, doesnt it! The man
who used to be the Assistant Sales Manager South East England is called Jimmy. He has
resigned from the company. He has decided to open a bar on an island in Greece. It will be
called Jimmys Bar, and it will sell English beer to English tourists. So Kevin has taken over the
job of Assistant Sales Manager. That means Jimmy used to be Assistant Sales Manager, but
now Kevin has the job.
Take over has another, related meaning. If a company buys another company, we can say
that it has taken over the other company. It has made a takeover offer, or a takeover bid; that
is, it has said that it is willing to buy all the shares. So, the company where Joanne works,
Global News, has recently taken over another company called Media Design. It now owns
Media Design.
In Birmingham, where I live, people have been very worried in the past few weeks about a
takeover bid for the Cadbury chocolate company. George Cadbury founded the Cadbury
company in the 19th century. His father was a tea and coffee merchant in Birmingham, and
when he was only 22 years old, George and his brother Richard took over the running of the
tea and coffee business. George expanded the business into chocolate. This was a very natural
thing to do, as in the 19th century chocolate was something to drink like tea or coffee and
not something to eat, like we eat a chocolate bar today.
The chocolate business was very successful, and it became too big for the factory in the centre
of Birmingham. George bought land in the countryside south of Birmingham, in a place which
today is called Bournville, and built a new chocolate factory there. He thought that it was
important that his workers should have good housing, so he built houses for them, close to the
factory. They were much better than most working-class houses at the time, and had big
gardens where the children could play and where the family could grow flowers and
vegetables. He built a school, and a training college, and a swimming pool and sports facilities
for his workers. The Bournville village which George Cadbury built still exists today, and is a
very pleasant part of the city.
In the 20th century, Cadbury became the biggest chocolate company in Britain, and expanded
into many other countries. The company is no longer owned by the Cadbury family. It has
shares, which people can buy and sell on the Stock Exchange, just like most other big
companies.
However, now an American company called Kraft wants to buy Cadbury. Kraft are famous for
making a processed cheese that looks and tastes like plastic and may even be made of plastic.
Kraft have made a takeover bid for Cadbury, and it seems likely that the people who own
shares in Cadbury will agree to sell them to Kraft. So Cadbury will no longer be a independent
company, but a subsidiary of a big American corporation. People in Birmingham are very
worried that in a few years, Kraft will close the famous chocolate factory in Bournville, and
move chocolate production to another country. People are angry, too, that investment
bankers have made large profits from the takeover, at a time when many people have no jobs.
But lets end with something a bit more cheerful about takeovers. One day, perhaps, someone
may want to take over these podcasts. Perhaps Google would be interested, or Apple, or
Microsoft. But they will need deep pockets. Unless their takeover offer is at least $100 million,
I will not even return their telephone calls.
Casper the Commuting Cat

Casper the commuting cat.
Today we meet a cat called Casper, and we learn about the English verb to commute.
Lets start with the verb. Commute has an interesting history, because its modern meaning is
quite different from its original meaning.
Originally, to commute meant to exchange one thing for another. It was a boring word and
we used it mainly for technical, financial matters. Imagine that you work for the governments
tax office. Every day you go to work; you write letters, you fill in forms, you calculate how
much tax people have to pay, and you do other interesting things. After 40 years, you retire,
and the government gives you a pension. It is possible that you will be able to choose exactly
how you want to receive the pension. You can choose to receive a payment every month; or
sometimes you can choose to take some money now and receive a smaller monthly payment.
This is called commuting you have exchanged part of your regular monthly pension
payments for a lump sum of money.
You are probably asleep by now, or wondering why I am telling you this. But think of someone
else who exchanges regular payments for a single payment. Someone who buys a season ticket
on the railways or the buses pays a sum of money now, instead of buying a train or bus ticket
every day. At some time in the 20th century, we started to call a person who bought a season
ticket a commuter. And from there, we started to use the word commute to mean to
travel from your home to work and back again, by any means of transport. Today, we can say
I commute by car. That means, I travel to work and back by car every day. We can say that
a railway station is crowded with commuters that means that it is full of people travelling to
work or back home again. We can say I commute for 50 miles or My commute is 50 miles,
and this means that I travel a long way 50 miles to go to work every day. If I was a
millionaire, I might commute from my home in the south of France to my work in London in
my own private aeroplane.
Now that you understand about the word commute and how it has changed its meaning, it is
time to meet the cat. His name is Casper, and he lives or rather, he used to live in Plymouth
in the south west of England. Plymouth is famous for its naval dockyards, where military ships
are built. Casper used to stand at the bus stop outside his home in Plymouth with the other
bus passengers. He used to get on the bus and go to sleep on one of the seats. He would travel
all the way to the terminus and then come back again. The bus drivers knew Casper, and made
sure that he got off the bus at the right stop. Casper travelled on the buses in Plymouth for
over 4 years. People called him Casper the commuting cat.
Recently, however, and very sadly, Casper was hit by a car during one of his journeys around
Plymouth, and he has now died. There is a notice at his bus stop about his death, and flowers.
We are all very sad.
The Big Freeze

Our bus fares are now frozen!
For the last two weeks, our newspapers have been full of stories about the Big Freeze. Like
many other places in Europe, the weather in Britain has been very cold. We have had lots of
snow, and the roads are covered with ice. There are shortages of gas, and of salt to put on the
roads. As you know, we English love to talk about the weather, or rather we love to
complain about the weather. So we have had a lot to talk about, and complain about, recently.
When water gets very cold, it freezes, that is, it turns into ice. Freeze is an irregular verb,
and I know how much you love irregular verbs! The past tense is froze and the past participle
is frozen. Freezing and frozen can also mean simply very cold we can say that the
weather is freezing, or that my fingers or toes are frozen.
When the weather gets warmer, the snow will melt, that is it will turn into water. Another
word that we can use is thaw, which means a slow, gradual melting of the snow and ice. The
weather forecast says that the snow in many parts of England will thaw slowly over the next
week. Instead of the Big Freeze, the newspapers will probably have headlines about the Big
Thaw.
When you visit a city in a foreign country, you can often learn quite a lot about the language of
that country by looking at advertisements, or at notices in shop windows, or at the signs on
public transport, and trying to translate them. There is a picture on the website and, I hope, on
your iPod screens. It is a picture of a Birmingham bus, and on the front of the bus are the
words Our bus fares now frozen.
What does this mean? Well, the bus company should have written our bus fares are now
frozen, but they probably wanted the words to sound like a newspaper headline, and
newspapers often leave out words like is and are in their headlines. But what does it really
mean? The heating in British buses is not good, so many of the passengers are frozen, but how
can the fares be frozen?
Well, as you probably guessed, to freeze can have a figurative meaning as well as a literal
meaning. Water can move, but when it freezes to become ice, it cannot move. So if we say
that something is frozen, we often mean that it stays the same, it cannot move or change.
So, a shop may say that its prices are frozen, meaning that the prices are unchanged. A
company may tell its employees that their pay is frozen, in other words that they will not get a
pay increase. And if you are very frightened by something, you may be unable to move, and
you can say that you are frozen with fear.
And Birminghams bus fares? It is a long tradition that the bus company increases its fares
every January. Since I arrived in Birmingham 15 years ago, my bus fare into the centre of town
has increased by 150%. Train fares throughout Britain also go up in January, every year. It is
not surprising that people in this country use their cars so much. But this year is different. This
year the bus company has decided not to increase its fares. Its fares are frozen. This is
something to be happy about, when we are not complaining about the weather.
Of course, the bus fares will not stay frozen for ever. When they go up again, will there be a
notice on the buses saying Our bus fares now unfrozen? I dont think so.
There is a quiz about irregular verbs on the website. Have fun!

Remembering Snow

Night Snow. Photo by drew leavy/flickr
It is very cold here in England, and there is lots of snow on the ground. What do you think
about snow? Yes, snow can be cold and wet and miserable. But it can also change familiar
things our houses and gardens, our streets and our cities into something strange and new
and beautiful.
Good poetry is like snow it too can change familiar things into something strange and new
and beautiful. So I looked for a poem about snow to read you, and I have found one by a poet
called Brian Patten.

Brian Patten
Brian Patten was born in Liverpool in 1946, which means that he is nearly as old as I am! In the
1960s, he was one of a group of young poets from Liverpool whose poems became very
popular and widely read. It is easy to understand why the poems are direct, simple and often
funny. Brian Patten is today one of Britains leading poets, and he has written lots of poems
both for adults and for children. There are links to some of his poems, and to more
information, on the website. I sent him an e-mail, to say that I would like to use this poem in a
podcast, and he has kindly agreed that I can. So here it is, Remembering Snow.
I did not sleep last night.
The falling snow was beautiful and white.
I dressed, sneaked down the stairs
And opened wide the door.
I had not seen such snow before.
Our grubby little street had gone.
The world was brand-new, and everywhere
There was a pureness in the air.
I felt such peace.
Watching every flake
I felt more and more awake.
I thought I had learned all there was to know
About the trillion million different kinds
Of swirling frosty flakes of snow.
That was not so.
I did not know how vividly it lit
The world with such a peaceful glow.
Upstairs my mother slept.
I could not drag myself away from that sight
To call her down and have her share
The mute miracle of the snow.
It seemed to fall for me alone.
How beautiful our grubby little street had grown!
(Copyright Brian Patten. Used here with permission.)
Make a cake! All about imperative verbs.

Making a cake. Photo by lil miss priss/flickr.
Today we will meet the imperative form of English verbs, and learn how to bake a cake.
English verbs are difficult. There are so many verb forms, and so many irregular verbs. But lets
not worry about complicated verbs today. Lets think about the simplest verb form of all the
imperative. The imperative is the form of the verb which we use when we want to tell
someone to do something. Imagine a teacher talking to a class at school. Stop talking. Open
your books. Write your name and the date at the top of the page. Then start exercise number
1.
Stop, open, write and start are all imperative verbs. They give orders or instructions. The
great thing about imperative verbs is that there is only one imperative form. You dont have to
worry about past tense or future tense, you dont have to think Am I talking to one person or
to lots of people? Imperative verbs do not change.
Sometimes, of course, imperative verbs are too direct and can sound impolite. So we can use
words like please with imperative verbs Please stop talking. Please open your books. Or
we can use indirect ways of telling people what to do, such as Perhaps you could give me your
report tomorrow morning.
However, there is one place where you will always find lots of imperative verbs a recipe
book. A recipe is a set of instructions about how to cook something. In English we always write
recipes using imperative verbs. Here is my recipe for lemon cake. How many imperative verbs
can you find?
Put 175 grammes of self-raising flour, 125 grammes of sugar, 125 grammes of butter
and one-and-a half teaspoons of baking powder into a bowl.
Take two lemons. Grate the rind from the lemons and add it to the flour.
Break two eggs into the mixture.
Add three tablespoons of milk.
Beat the mixture with an electric mixer for 2 minutes.
Pour the mixture into a baking tray.
Bake the cake in the oven for about 20 minutes.
Take the cake out of the oven and put it on a wire rack to cool.
Squeeze the lemons and add about 50 grammes of sugar to the juice.
Put the juice into a pan and heat it until it boils.
Prick the top of the cake with a fork.
Pour the lemon juice over the cake.
Serve the cake while it is still warm.
I counted 18 imperative verbs. How many did you find?
Here is something to practice. Write your favourite recipe in English, using only imperative
verbs. Or write instructions on how to do something, like how to recharge your mobile phone.
There is a quiz about instructions and imperative verbs on the Listen to English website, and
there is also a vocabulary note with some words about cooking and baking which you may find
useful.
Running out of things!

A family waiting beside their car, which has run out of petrol! Picture by Rusty Russ/flickr
Today, we are going to run out of things.
To run out of something is a phrasal verb. It is one of the hundreds of phrasal verbs in
English, and I know you love phrasal verbs! Like most of the other English phrasal verbs, there
is no easy way to remember what to run out of means. You just have to learn!
Of course, sometimes when we say run out of we mean the words literally. For example, at
the end of the school day, the children run out of school. They, literally, run out of the school
gates. It is freedom time no more school, time to go home to have something to eat, time to
watch television, time to go to the park to play football. The children run out of school.
But imagine this situation. Every morning at about this time I make myself a cup of coffee, and
I have a biscuit with my coffee. But today, I cannot find any biscuits. The biscuit tin is empty. I
have eaten all the biscuits (or my children have eaten them, perhaps.) There are no biscuits
left. I have run out of biscuits.
Kevin and Joanne are going to the supermarket. Kevin is writing a shopping list, and Joanne is
telling him what they need to buy. We have run out of sugar, says Joanne. And we have
nearly run out of eggs, she adds, looking in the fridge, yes, there is only one egg left. And
butter, we have used up all the butter which I bought on Wednesday.
Kevin writes sugar, eggs, butter on the list. But he has thought of something much more
important. Pizza, he says. We have no pizza left. And beer. We have run out of beer.
At the supermarket, Kevin and Joanne push the shopping trolley along the aisles, and find all
the things on their shopping list. Except the apples there are no apples in the shop. The shop
assistant says, Sorry, we ran out of apples yesterday. There will be a new delivery this
afternoon.
Changing your name

Pudsey Bear (the real one!)
Every year the BBC asks its TV viewers to give money to a special appeal called Children in
Need. The money is used to help charities which work with sick or disadvantaged children. The
last Children in Need day was last Friday. For the whole evening, BBC television had
programmes which asked people to give money to Children in Need, and appearances by
celebrities who told us about all the wonderful things that Children in Need was doing, and
news about special fund-raising events all over the country. Children in Need has been very
successful. Since 1980 it has raised over 500 million to help needy children.
Children in Need has a mascot. He is a large yellow bear called Pudsey. There is a picture of
him on the website and, I hope, on your iPod screens. Pudsey has a bandage over one eye. Has
he injured his eye? Or perhaps he is a pirate? I am not sure.
Last year, a woman who lives in Wales, called Mrs Eileen de Bont invented a new and
interesting way to raise money for Children in Need. She asked people to sponsor her to
change her name that is she asked them to promise to give money to Children in Need if she
changed her name. She even allowed her sponsors to choose her new name. And the name
they chose was Pudsey Bear.
In Britain, we often complain that we do not live in a free country any more. There are too
many rules and regulations which prevent us from doing what we want to do. But in one area
we still have perfect freedom we can call ourselves by whatever name we want. There is a
simple legal process called a Deed Poll which allows anyone who wants to change their name
to whatever new name they like.
Over 50,000 people change their name by Deed Poll every year. Many of these changes are
connected to marriage or divorce. For example, when people get married they may decide that
they want to use the womans family name (or surname) instead of the mans name. Or they
may decide to use both names . When John Smith and Wendy Brown get married they might
want to be called Mr and Mrs Smith-Brown. And then, a few years later if their marriage
breaks down, they might want to go back to their old names. These changes of name are not a
problem in Britain. John and Wendy just need to fill in a few legal forms, and they have new
names.
Naturally, a few people change their names for more frivolous reasons. Last year a football fan
in Scotland changed his name to Motherwell Football Club. Another young man thought he
would be more attractive to the girls if his name was Elvis Presley. And the former Mr Daniel
Westfallen is now called Mr Happy Adjustable Spanners. These people are mad, of course, but
in Britain you are free to be mad if you want.
So, it was no problem for Mrs de Bont to fill in the forms to change her name to Pudsey Bear .
No problem to get her employer, the gas and electricity companies, her bank and the tax
people to change her name in their records and computer systems. Then she applied for a new
passport. She received a bureaucratic letter from the Passport Office saying, no, they could not
give her a passport with the name Pudsey Bear because well, because it was silly. Mrs de
Bont (or Mrs Pudsey Bear as we must now call her ) said that her sponsors had paid a lot of
money to Children in Need for her to change her name; and that everyone now called her by
her new name, and even her children called her Mummy Bear.
Mrs de Bont (sorry, Mrs Bear) then told the newspapers what had happened, and for a few
days we could read all about it. The newspapers were on Mrs Bears side (I got it right that
time). The Guardian, for example, roared The right to call yourself whatever name you please
is one of the small but great British liberties. Who do the passport people think they are? If a
citizen can change her name, she must have a passport in that name too.
And then we heard no more. The story disappeared from the newspapers. So we never heard
whether Mrs Bear or the passport people won. Perhaps you can help. If you meet any British
tourists in your country, ask to see their passports. And if you find a passport with the name
Pudsey Bear on it, send an e-mail to Listen to English.
In your country, are you able to change your name if you want to? And have you ever thought
that it would be wonderful to have a new name? Please put a comment on the Listen to
English website to tell us about it.
Happy Birthday, M1!

This is what the M1 looked like when it first opened, 50 years ago.
That was Mr Chuck Berry. He was riding along in his automobile, and he is here to help us
celebrate a special birthday. Yes, dear listeners, this week saw the 50th birthday of Britains
first motorway.
Germany and Italy built their first motorways before the second World War, but in Britain we
waited until the 1950s. Our first proper motorway ran for about 100 km north from London
into the centre of England. The government gave it the romantic name M1 the M stands
for motorway, of course. And 50 years ago this week, the first cars and lorries started to use
it.
A lot of things were very different then. There were no speed limits on the new motorway. You
could drive as fast as you liked. There were no crash barriers in the middle of the road, and no
lighting. And there were many fewer cars than today. The M1 was originally built for 13,000
vehicles a day. Today, it regularly carries 10 times that number.
There was lots of public interest in the new motorway. People stood on the bridges over the
motorway and cheered and waved as the cars passed below them. Drivers enjoyed going as
fast as they wanted though often the cars did not enjoy it as much as the drivers, and there
were lots of breakdowns from things like overheated engines. At weekends, families who were
lucky enough to own a car used to get in the car and drive up and down the new motorway,
just for fun. If they were really lucky, Dad might even stop at one of the new service stations to
fill the car with petrol, and everyone could get out and get something to eat. It all seemed very
new and modern and exciting.
Before the motorways were built, long-distance journeys by road were slow and difficult. Most
of the main roads were narrow and twisting, and ran through the centre of towns, instead of
round the edge. If people wanted to travel a long way, they normally took the train. But the
trains were often slow and dirty, and the number of people using them was falling. So in the
1950s it seemed very sensible to build new roads and close old railway lines.

Today, the M1 often looks like this!
What is it like today? We have over 3000 km of motorway in Britain, and some of our
motorways are the busiest in Europe. We also have huge traffic jams and pollution, and
endless road works. When the M1 was built, there were only 2 million vehicles in the country.
There are now well over 30 million vehicles on Britains roads, and they all seem to be on the
same road as me! In the 1950s, hardly anyone opposed the building of the first motorways.
Today, many people say that if you build more roads, they will quickly fill up with more cars.
And the motorway service stations, which once seemed so glamorous, are today crowded and
expensive, with huge car parks full of Coca-Cola cans and empty crisp packets.
Happy birthday, M1.
The River Thames is missing!

The London Underground map with the river! Photo by Joe Bennett/flickr
What do we mean if we say that something is missing? We mean that it has disappeared, that
it has gone! Suppose I put my car keys down on the table. A few minutes later, I look for them
but they are gone. I am sure they were on the table. They were on the table only a minute
ago. But now they have disappeared. They are missing.
It is not just car keys that can go missing. Your luggage can go missing at the airport; and
children can go missing in a busy shopping centre. And sometimes much bigger things go
missing, as we shall discover in this podcast.
But first, some history. If you have visited London, I am sure that you have travelled on the
London Underground. The earliest underground railway line in London was built in the middle
of the 19th century. Steam engines pulled the trains, and smoke filled the stations and tunnels.
Despite this, Londoners loved their new underground trains. They were a quick and convenient
way to get to work. People could work in central London but live away from their work, often
in better houses than before. New underground lines were built in the late 19th and the 20th
century. They helped London to grow bigger and bigger.
Both Londoners and visitors needed to know which underground lines went to which places.
They needed maps. Until the 1930s, maps of the underground were simply street maps with
the underground railway lines added. In the centre of London, where there are lots of
Underground lines and stations, the maps were crowded and difficult to read. But if you made
the map so that you could see easily what the underground system in central London was like,
the map had to be very big to cover all the underground lines in the suburbs.
The problem was solved by a man called Harry Beck. He drew a map which looks like an
electric circuit diagram. He made central London big, so that you could see all the lines and
stations, and the suburbs small so that the map was a reasonable size. He drew the
underground lines so that they were either vertical, or horizontal, or at 45 degrees. He gave
the different lines different colours. He said that people needed the map so that they could
see how to get from one station say, Victoria to another station say, Marylebone. People
did not need to know the exact route of the railway line, or the exact distance between
stations. So there were no streets on his map, and the stations are all about the same distance
apart. But the river Thames was there, of course, like a blue snake through the middle of the
city.
Harry Becks map was a huge success. It made the complicated railway system easy to
understand. Londoners and visitors loved it. Other cities in other countries copied the style of
Harry Becks map for their own transport systems. It became an icon a symbol of London.
Obviously, over the years the map has changed. New underground lines have been built, and
new stations. Earlier this year, Transport for London the body which runs the Underground
produced a new map. It looked just like the old map, but something was wrong. Something
was missing. The River Thames was not there! Its OK, said Transport for London, you cant see
the river when you travel on the Underground. So you dont need to know where it is! But
Londoners were unhappy. The River Thames is not particularly beautiful; but it divides London
into North London and South London. If you have lived in London, you will know that North
London and South London are almost on different planets. South Londoners do not like going
north of the Circle Line. North Londoners take their passports with them if they travel south of
the river. So the river is important, and now it was missing from the Underground map.
The public outcry was so loud that Transport for London quickly decided to print a new map,
with the river back where it should be. We English are deeply conservative about little things.
We like Harry Becks map the way it is, with the river, and we do not want to change it.
Tall stories

A tall building the Petronas towers in Kuala Lumpur. Photo by Storm Crypt/flickr
Today we discover the word tall, and we learn about tall stories.
I guess you know what tall means in your own language if you dont, stop listening now
and look the word up in a dictionary.
Here are some examples of the way we use tall. We can talk about a tall man. A tall man
might be 1.9 or even 2 meters high. The tallest man who ever lived was called Robert Wadlow.
He was 2.72 meters tall. He died in 1940, at the age of only 22.
We can talk about a tall tree. How high is a tall tree? Perhaps 20 meters. Or we can talk
about a tall building. There is a photo of a tall building, in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, on the
website. It is over 450 meters high.
Sometimes, we use the word high instead of tall. We can talk about a high mountain for
example, or about a high wall. Ladies sometimes wear shoes with high heels. And small
children sit in high chairs to eat their food. However, you cannot always use high instead of
tall. We never use high for people or animals, for example. Robert Wadlow was the tallest
man in the world, not the highest man.
I started this podcast by saying that we would talk about tall stories. What is a tall story,
and how many meters high is it? Well, we say that a story is a tall story if it is hard to believe
it. A tall story is often quite detailed, and it may even be true, but there is something about it
which makes you think that it is probably false. Have you ever received an e-mail like this. It is
from someone you do not know. The writer says that he has $50 million in a bank account. He
explains how he got the $50 million, and tells you about his family, and why he now needs to
move the $50 million to another country. Unfortunately, the bank regulations in his country
will not allow him to move the money. But he has heard that you are an honest and
trustworthy person, and he asks that you should help him. If you could just send him the
details of your bank account, he will use it to move his money, and he will let you have $5
million for helping him.
Do you believe that story? No. You do not believe it and you do not trust the writer. It is a tall
story. If you send him details of your bank account, of course, you will not get $5 million.
Instead, you will find that your own savings disappear.
Recently, a documentary film company decided to show that it was easy to get some
newspapers to publish tall stories about celebrities. They made up some stories, and then gave
them to the newspapers. What sort of stories? Well, do you know the singer Amy Winehouse?
She has lots of hair which she wears piled up on the top of her head in a style which in English
we call a beehive. The tall story about her was that her beehive had caught fire during a party
at her house. Another singer, Sarah Harding of the group Girls Aloud, is how shall I say this ?
not well-known as an intellectual. The story about her was that in secret she reads books
about quantum physics and that she had bought her own telescope so that she can observe
the stars and the planets.

Amy Winehouse and her beehive hair style.
At this point, dear listeners, I must say that I am disappointed that the company did not invent
a story about the celebrity podcaster at Listen to English something about a secret holiday on
a Caribbean island with a 19 year old super-model, perhaps. I am sure it would have been
much more interesting than the fire in Amy Winehouses hair.
What adjectives can we use to describe these tall stories. They are untrue, or false, of course;
they are also fabricated, or invented, or made-up; and they are far-fetched, or outlandish, or
difficult to believe.
Nonetheless, the newspapers published nearly all of the stories. None of them tried to check
whether they were true. Sometimes the papers even added little details of their own. And
then the stories were repeated in other newspapers and on blogs and internet sites. People
will believe almost anything about celebrities. Celebrities are manufactured; they are invented
by the media. Sometimes they hardly seem to be real people at all. People do not want the
truth about celebrities; they want entertainment. So does it matter if the media publish tall
stories about them?
How to get rid of an old sofa

How to get rid of an old sofa. Photo by Bjrn Sahlberg/flickr
Today we learn about how to get rid of things.
Kevin and Joanne have an old sofa. In fact, it used to be Kevins sofa in the good old days when
he was a student and before he had met Joanne. The sofa is dirty and stained, because Kevin
has spilled beer on it, several times. The wooden frame is broken, because Kevin and about 10
friends sat on the sofa once to watch the World Cup final on television. The sofa is torn,
because Kevins cat used to sharpen his claws on it. Joanne has had enough. That sofa has to
go, she says. We have to get rid of it.
That is my sofa, says Kevin. We go back a long way. It is part of my history. We cannot get
rid of it.
Yes, we can, says Joanne. We will go to IKEA on Saturday to buy a new sofa. That was the
wrong thing to say. Kevin does not want to get rid of his old sofa. And especially he does not
want to go to IKEA on Saturday with hundreds of other people. He wants to go to a football
match with hundreds of other people instead.
Kevin and Joanne reach a compromise. They will get rid of the old sofa. They will buy a new
sofa on the internet. There will be no trip to IKEA. And Kevin can go to the football match.
How shall we get rid of the sofa? asks Kevin. Perhaps we could sell it on eBay.
Dont be silly, says Joanne. No-one will want to buy a dirty, broken sofa on eBay.
Perhaps we can just take it outside and leave it in the street, says Kevin. Eventually the
Council will take it away.
No they wont, says Joanne. And we will probably be prosecuted for dumping rubbish in the
street.
I could take the sofa into the garden and set fire to it, suggests Kevin.
Now you are being ridiculous, says Joanne. George can borrow a van from his work, and
you and George can put the sofa in the van and take it to the tip. The tip is the place where
people can take things they do not want in order to get rid of them. There are big containers
for different sorts of rubbish for paper and cardboard, for glass, for engine oil, for old fridges,
for wood, for garden rubbish and so on. And there is lots of room for old sofas.
So George and Kevin put the sofa in the van and get rid of it at the tip. Then they go to the
football match together, where they watch United lose 3-0 to the team at the bottom of the
league. They are not happy. They need to get rid of that useless manager, says George.
They need to get rid of that useless goalkeeper, says Kevin.
When they get home, they find that the new sofa has arrived. They sit down on it and open a
couple of cans of beer. If either of you spill beer on the new sofa, says Joanne you will both
be dead. I will get rid of you both myself!

At the checkout, Joanne pays for the shopping with her debit card. Then she remembers that
she has run out of cash she has no coins or banknotes in her purse. She asks the assistant at
the checkout for 20 cashback that means, the assistant adds 20 to the bill which Joanne
pays with her debit card, and then gives Joanne two 10 notes.
On the way home, Kevin and Joanne stop at the DIY shop. Kevin is painting the bathroom, and
he has run out of paint.
Then, disaster! Kevin returns to the car with the can of paint and tries to start the car engine.
The engine will not start. Look at the fuel gauge, says Joanne, the car has run out of petrol.
So Joanne goes and sits in a cafe with a nice cup of hot chocolate and a newspaper, while
Kevin walks a kilometer to the nearest petrol station. After about 30 minutes, he returns with a
can of petrol. He puts the petrol in the car, and the engine starts.
Can we stop at the Post Office on the way home, says Joanne. I have run out of stamps for
the Christmas cards. But it is getting late, and Joannes mother is coming to lunch. They have
run out of time. The stamps for the Christmas cards will have to wait until tomorrow.
The Staffordshire Hoard

Two of the pieces of Anglo-Saxon metalwork found in a field in Staffordshire.
Before beginning todays podcast, I need to explain a few words. The first word is treasure.
Treasure means things which are very valuable; generally, treasure means things made of
gold or silver or precious stones. The second word is hoard. If someone collects a lot of
valuable things, and then hides them or keeps them secret, we call that a hoard. And finally,
a find is of course something which you find but normally it means something very special
or unusual or valuable which you find.
But thats enough vocabulary practice. On with todays podcast.
Terry Herbert is 55 years old. He lives in a small town called Bloxwich, about 16 kilometers
north-west of Birmingham. His hobby is metal-detecting. A metal-detector is a tool which tells
you when there is metal in the ground. You move the metal detector slowly over the ground,
and it goes bleep if it finds anything made of metal.
In July this year, Terry went metal-detecting in a field in Staffordshire owned by a friend of his,
and found something completely amazing. He discovered a large number of gold and silver
objects. He told the authorities what he had found, and a team of archaeologists then explored
the site carefully and found more objects. When they started to clean and examine the
discovery, they realised that Terry Herbert had found over 1500 objects dating from about
700AD. It was the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure ever found in England.
The Anglo-Saxons were people who invaded and settled in England as the Roman Empire
collapsed in about the 4th century. They came from northern Germany and the language
which they spoke which we call Anglo-Saxon or Old English was the ancestor of modern
English. They were skilled metal craftsmen; they made delicate and intricate designs on gold
and silver, and often inlaid the metal with precious stones, such as garnet, which is a dark red
stone. After they arrived here, the Anglo-Saxons divided England into a number of kingdoms
and spent most of the next several hundred years fighting each other, and the Danes and the
Scots. The largest and most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was called Mercia. It
covered all of central England, including the area where the Staffordshire Hoard was found.

Gold inlaid with garnets, from the Staffordshire Hoard.
Almost everything in the hoard is connected with the Anglo-Saxons favourite hobby, fighting.
There are gold decorations from swords and knives, from shields and helmets, from belts and
buckles. There are no womens things, like personal jewellery, and no household things like
plates or cups. So what is the hoard? Many experts think that the treasure was collected after
a battle. Quite simply, the victors went around and took all the gold and precious metal from
the weapons and clothes of the enemies they had killed. Who were these victors and who
were their enemies? We do not know. And afterwards, the victors hid what they had collected.
Why? Again, we do not know. Nor do we know what happened later, and why the victors did
not come back and collect the treasure which they had hidden.
In England, if you find gold or silver objects which are more than 300 years old, they belong to
the Queen. Normally, however, a reward based on the value of the find is paid to the person
who found it and to the owner of the land. Often a museum buys the treasure, and in this case
the Museum in Birmingham together with other local museums want to acquire the
Staffordshire Hoard so that it remains in the area where it was found.
We English are not generally very interested in museums or art galleries. We prefer zoos, pubs,
theme parks and beaches. But there has been a lot of interest in the Staffordshire Hoard.
Perhaps popular archaeology programmes on television have made people more aware of the
importance of things from our history. There is a temporary exhibition of a few of the most
important objects from the Staffordshire Hoard at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
until the middle of October. Yesterday, together with hundreds of other people, I stood in a
queue for over an hour to see the exhibition. It is quite fascinating. Many of the objects still
have dirt from the field in Staffordshire on them, because there has not been time yet to clean
them. Suddenly, Anglo-Saxon England, 1300 years ago, seems much closer and more real.
I cannot bear it ....

I told you, I cant bear getting up in the morning
This podcast is about bear. You all know what a bear is. It is a big, furry animal that likes
eating honey. There is a picture of a bear on the website. He is from a zoo in northern Spain,
where there are still some bears in the wild. However, that is not the sort of bear I want to
tell you about today. If you are really interested in the big, furry sorts of bear, you may enjoy
listening to Natasha telling you a story about bears three bears actually in another posting
on Listen to English.
To bear is a verb. Its past tense is bore. Originally, to bear meant to carry. We still use
it to mean to carry in some set expressions, but it sounds a bit old-fashioned. However, you
will often hear people saying things like :
I cannot bear the noise which the children are making.
I cannot bear the hot weather in summer.
If I say that I cannot bear something, I mean that I cannot tolerate it, it is awful, it is too
much, it makes me very unhappy, it makes me want to scream and run away and hide! Here
are some more examples :
I cannot bear travelling by air, because you have to wait so long at the airport.
George cannot bear getting up early in the morning.
I cannot bear it when you are angry.
Kevin cannot bear it when Joannes mother says that there are more important things
in life than football.
There are some other expressions which mean almost the same as I cannot bear... Here are
some of them:
I like classical music, but my children cannot stand it.
I cannot put up with the pop music which my children like.
Now suppose you want to say the opposite of I cannot bear... Suppose you wanted to say
that you are OK with your childrens pop music. It is not a problem for you. How would you say
that? You could say :
I dont mind my childrens pop music.
My childrens pop music does not bother me.
So, now you know all about the word bear. And some of you will remember that there is
another word bare in English, spelled B-A-R-E. The B-A-R-E sort of bare is an adjective, and it
means uncovered, not covered with anything. So, you can say that someone has bare arms,
which means that they are wearing a short-sleeved shirt or blouse which leaves their arms
uncovered. Or you can say that someone has a bare head, which means that they are not
wearing a hat. You can talk about the bare earth, which means ground where there is nothing
growing; or about a bare mountainside, where there are no trees, just rocks.
Near where I live, there is a man who never wears any shoes. He says that his feet smell if he
wears shoes, so for the last 30 years he has walked the streets of the city with no shoes.
People call him Pete the Feet, and there is an interview with him on YouTube. Pete the Feet
has bare feet; he goes bare-footed.
Now you are all experts on bear (the animal), and to bear (the verb) and bare (the
adjective). So you can try the quiz on the website and see how good you are!

The Islands on the Edge of the World

St Kilda. The old houses are in a long row in the centre of the picture. The modern buildings on
the left are a small military installation. Photo by the Croft/flickr
Today we are going to visit St Kilda. St Kilda is a small group of islands in the north Atlantic, far
to the west of Scotland. It is the home of tens of thousands of sea birds. In fact, St Kilda is one
of the most important places for sea birds anywhere in the world. And for thousands of years,
people lived on St Kilda, but they do not live there any more, as I will explain.
The traditional way of life on St Kilda was simple and hard. The people kept sheep and grew a
few crops like barley. They hunted sea-birds for food. They did some fishing, but the sea
around St Kilda is often very bad and fishing was dangerous. The people of St Kilda had little
contact with the outside world. Once a year the representative of the landlord visited the
island to collect rents. If the islanders needed help, they would light a big fire on the top of the
main island, and hope that a passing ship would see it. Sometimes, they wrote messages and
put the message inside a piece of wood. They threw the wood into the sea, and several weeks
later someone walking on the shore in Scotland might find it.
Some big changes happened in the 19th century. A school opened on the island, where the
children learned Gaelic (which was their own language), and English (which was a foreign
language for them) and arithmetic. Small numbers of tourists started to visit the islands during
the summer. The tourist boats brought things which the islanders needed, and the islanders
made simple souvenirs to sell to the tourists. Some of the islanders left the islands, to go to
Australia, and later another group emigrated to Canada. The number of people on St Kilda had
never been more than about 180. By the end of the 19th century, the number had fallen to
less than 100.
During the First World War, the British Navy had a wireless station on St Kilda, and on one
exciting day a German submarine arrived and shelled the island. No-one was killed, but the
Navys wireless station was destroyed. The Navy base on St Kilda made communication with
the outside world easy, and Navy ships were able to bring supplies to the island. But when the
war ended, the Navy base closed and life for the people of St Kilda became hard again. There
were shortages of food in some years, and there was no way to get seriously ill people to
hospital. By 1930, there were only 36 people left on St Kilda. They all signed a letter to the
government saying that they wanted to leave before the winter storms made it impossible for
a ship to reach St Kilda. And on 29 August 1930, they all left and went to mainland Scotland,
and their houses, and the tiny church and school were empty.
Today, the National Trust for Scotland owns St Kilda. During the summer, a warden and
volunteers carry out conservation work on the old houses. You can visit St Kilda during the
summer by boat from Scotland. The trip takes 14 hours, or longer in bad weather, and
sometimes the boat cannot reach St Kilda at all. When you get there you will find no cafes or
restaurants, no cars or tourist coaches, no public toilets or souvenir shops, just the ruins of the
houses where the St Kilda people used to live, and sheep, and thousands and thousands of sea
birds. The islands of St Kilda are still the islands on the edge of the world.
Making a comeback

The red kite is making a comeback
Hello, and welcome back to Listen to English. I hope you all had a good summer break.
Today, I will tell you about an expression which you often see in the newspapers making a
comeback. What does it mean, to make a comeback?
Imagine that you are a pop singer. Your records sell really well. Your concerts are a sell-out.
You earn millions of dollars, or pounds, or euros, every year. Then your fans get bored. They
want something new. They stop buying your records. They stop going to your concerts. There
is a new band, composed entirely of 13-year olds, which is now top of the charts. People have
forgotten about you. Then perhaps 10 years later, people rediscover you. They thought you
were dead, and are surprised and happy to find that you are still alive. You make a new record
and people buy it, because it reminds them of the old days. You are invited to sing at some big
music festivals. You have made a comeback.
Here is another example. Kevin, as he generally does on Saturdays, goes to a football match to
watch his team, United. The first half is a disaster. The other team score two goals. The crowd
is sure that United will lose. The second half starts badly the other team score again. And
then, in the last 15 minutes, United start to play proper football. They score a goal, and then
another one, and finally a third goal in the last minute. The newspaper report of the match
talks about Uniteds big comeback in the second half . And Kevin is very happy!
The newspapers are very fond of writing about making a comeback. Here are a few of the
things which the newspapers tell us have made a comeback, or are going to make a comeback:
1. sewing machines. Because of the economic recession, people think it would be good to
make their own clothes, and sales of sewing machines have gone up. Sewing machines are
making a comeback.
2. ripped jeans. Do you remember when you could buy jeans which already had holes in them?
Well, they are making a comeback, or so the newspapers say!
3. bow ties. I have no idea why bow ties are making a comeback. Indeed I dont think they are.
4. English cricket. After several years of despair, the English cricket team has beaten the
Australians, and we are all very happy. English cricket has made a comeback.
5. red kites. The red kite is a bird of prey, which became extinct in England over 100 years ago.
Over the last 20 years, conservationists have released red kites into the wild in several parts of
England, and there are now several hundred of these beautiful birds. The red kite is making a
comeback.
6. cider. Cider is an alcoholic drink made from apples. For years, sales of cider have been
falling, as people preferred beer or wine. Now people are interested in cider again. I went to a
pub last week which sold 20 different sorts of cider. Cider is making a comeback.


..so is Vera Lynn!
But the most amazing comeback is this.
That was Vera Lynn. She was a very popular singer during the Second World War, when her
sentimental songs on the radio helped to keep peoples spirits up. But that was a long time
ago. You have to be in your 70s to remember Vera Lynn on the BBC in wartime. Now a CD of
some of her songs has just been re-released, and it is in the Top Twenty. Who is buying it? Are
there queues of old people outside the record shops? Or do people buy the CD for their
grannies? Or is it just that we English are in love with the past? I dont know, but Vera Lynn
who is now 92 years old has definitely made a comeback.
I meant to ...

I didnt mean to make a mess Photo by Stuart Woodfin/flickr
Today we meet the English expression I meant to. Meant is the past tense of mean, and I
know you all know what mean means. (Sorry, there are a lot of means in that sentence!) I
guess you often ask, What does this word mean? or you say Now I understand what the
sentence means.
Now look at these sentences:
I meant to go to the supermarket, but I did not have any money with me.
I meant to do my English homework, but my friend visited, and we talked all evening.
I meant to speak to my mother, but she was not at home when I telephoned.
I meant to.. means it was my plan, or my intention to.. do something. And it is an
expression we often use when we have to explain why we have not done something! I meant
to send her a postcard, but I could not find a stamp. I meant to meet my daughter in town,
but I had to stay late at work for a meeting.
Why am I explaining about I meant to.. in this podcast? Well, quite a lot of you have sent me
e-mails to ask why there have been no new podcasts for the last few weeks. I have been busy. I
am the Trustee of a Charity which helps children who have emotional or family problems.
Unfortunately we have run out of money, and have had to close the Charity, pay all the bills,
make the staff redundant and find other organisations to help the children. This has taken a lot
of time, so I have not been able to make as many podcasts as I would like. I meant to make
several new podcasts, but I did not have the time. I meant to explain to you, but I forgot. I did
not mean to leave you in the dark, but I had so many other things to do.
Here in England, it is nearly the school summer holidays. I am going to take a break, but I will
be back with new podcasts early in September. Also in September, I want to redesign the
Listen to English website, and add several new features. Listen to English is now on Twitter,
and there is also a Listen to English page on Facebook. You can find links on the website. I shall
use Twitter and Facebook to tell you when there are new podcasts, and to send you other
news. You can use the Facebook page to send messages to me and to other listeners. So,
please follow Listen to English on Twitter, and become a fan of the Listen to English page on
Facebook.
There is an exercise about I meant to on the website. Have a good summer!
Royal Ascot

Hats at Royal Ascot. Photo by Lizi G/flickr.
Today we go horse racing, and we meet people with lots of money and no dress-sense!
Ascot is a small town, south-west of London, and close to the royal castle at Windsor.
In 1711, Queen Anne went horse-riding from Windsor, and discovered Ascot. She decided
that it was exactly the right place for horse races. So the poor folk who grazed their cows or
their pigs on the land had to move, and there has been a race-course at Ascot ever since.
There are race meetings at Ascot throughout the year. In the summer, the races are on the
flat, which means that the horses simply run round the race course. But in the winter, the
racing is over the fences, which means that the poor horses have to jump over fences as well
as race round the course.
The greatest race meeting of the year is called Royal Ascot, and it is one of the grandest social
occasions of the year, at least for people who care about grand social occasions. Royal Ascot is
taking place this very week, from Tuesday to Saturday, and I see from the Royal Ascot website
that there are still a few tickets left. Before you rush off to buy a ticket, however, here are a
few things which you should know about Royal Ascot:
One, it is expensive. You will pay about 60 per person per day for a grandstand ticket. You
cannot actually buy a ticket for the poshest area, the Royal Enclosure. To get a ticket for the
Royal Enclosure, you have to know the right people.
Two, the Queen will be there, and lots of other royals and celebrities, and if you are lucky you
may see some of them.
Three, Ascot racecourse is very concerned that people should wear the right clothes. Morning
coats and top hats are good. Jeans, t-shirts and trainers are bad very bad. (If you do not
actually own a morning coat or a top hat, you can hire them from a company called Moss
Brothers. In other countries, do you have to hire clothes in order to watch a horse race?)
Four, the hats are more important than the horses. Ascot is famous for the extraordinary hats
that the ladies wear. Many of these hats are masterpieces of structural engineering. There is a
link on the website to photos of some of this years finest hats.
Five, eating and drinking is almost as important as the hats. Last year, race-goers at Royal
Ascot drank 60,000 bottles of champagne and ate 11,500 boxes of strawberries.
Six, the horse racing does not really matter, but if you are interested an Irish horse called Yeats
won the Ascot Gold Cup yesterday. Second was another Irish horse, and third was a French
horse. English horses dont win at Ascot, just as English tennis players dont win at Wimbledon.
But I had forgotten. Our economy is in recession. People are feeling poorer. Many people have
lost their jobs. Surely, this year people will not spend lots of money on champagne and silly
hats?
And, yes, there are fewer people at Ascot this year than last year. Champagne sales are down.
And one newspaper reports that the Queens granddaughter, Princess Beatrice, was seen at
Ascot wearing a 90 jacket from Topshop and a pair of shoes which cost only 65. Oh, horror!
Times are definitely hard!
Travelling slowly is best

Boat on a canal near Worcester. Picture by juggzy_malone/flickr.
We have more about canal boats in todays podcast.
It was late afternoon when we arrived at the boatyard to find our canal boat. One of the staff
took us round the boat, to show us how things worked. Then he gave me the keys. The boat
was ours, for the next week, at least.
The first thing you learn about an English canal boat is that it is slow. It is, in fact, almost the
slowest form of transport you can think of. Small children riding bicycles overtake you. People
walking their dogs on the towpath overtake you.
Perhaps you think that sailing a canal boat is easy. It must be easier than a car, you think,
because it goes so slowly. Wrong. Sailing a canal boat is difficult.
To start with, there are no brakes. If you want to stop, the man in the boatyard told us, you
put the engine in reverse. OK I put the engine in reverse. The boat takes no notice. It keeps
going forward. In a panic, I increase the engine revs [ie I made the engine go faster]. Gradually,
the boat slows down, and eventually stops. It takes me about 50 meters to stop a canal boat
travelling at walking pace. Amazing.
Then the trouble starts. You can only steer a canal boat if it is going forwards. If the canal boat
stops or goes backwards, it goes where it wants to go, not where you want to go. Generally,
the canal boat wants to drift in front of a boat coming the other way. If there is no boat coming
the other way, the canal boat will probably want to drift to the side of the canal where it will
run aground in the mud. You then have to spend several minutes pushing the boat off the
mud.
Now, suppose you want to turn the boat round, to go the other way. Turning round is no
problem in a car. However, the canal boat is 15 meters long, while the canal is only 10 meters
wide. You need a special wide bit of canal, called a winding hole, to turn the boat round. You
look at the map. No problem, there is a winding hole only 5 kilometers down the canal. Then
you remember. The canal boat will take an hour to travel 5 kilometers.
You sometimes hear car drivers say that parking is a nightmare. They know nothing. They
should try mooring a canal boat. (Mooring is the proper word for parking a boat). First you
have to stop the boat. Then you have to persuade it to move towards the bank and not
towards the middle of the canal. Everyone on the canal boat, except you, the driver, has to
jump onto the canal bank. You throw them ropes to tie the boat to the bank. The ropes fall in
the canal. You pull them out of the water and throw them again. A group of people watch with
interest as your helpers make the boat fast. (The word fast has two completely different
meanings in English generally, it is the opposite of slow; but sometimes it means cannot
move. So, if I make a boat fast, I mean that I tie it to the bank with ropes so that it cannot
move. English is a crazy language!)
The people who built the canals liked to play tricks on canal users. A favourite trick is to put a
canal bridge just before a bend in the canal. That makes it impossible to see whether another
boat is coming the other way. Another trick is to make some bits of canal so narrow that two
boats cannot pass each other. When you find a narrow section, you have to stop (if the boat is
in a good mood), and send someone to walk along the towpath with a mobile phone, to phone
you when they can see that there is no boat coming the other way.
But at least there are no traffic jams on the canal, you say. Wrong. At busy times, you may
have to wait an hour or more to take your boat through a set of locks. But it is not like a traffic
jam on a motorway. On a motorway, you sit in your car getting more and more tense and
angry. You look out of the window at other drivers who are also getting tense and angry. But
on a canal, when you find a traffic jam, you park sorry, moor your boat and go and talk to
the people in the other boats. You swap stories about your adventures on the canal, and then
help each other take the boats through the locks.
In a week on the canal, I think we travelled 60 kilometers. It is good to travel slowly. You relax
and notice things which otherwise you might not see, like the wild flowers on the towpath and
a heron standing completely still in a field. At night, we moored in peaceful quiet places, and in
the morning the singing of the birds woke us up. We met several people who live on the canal
permanently. They call themselves live-aboards, because they live aboard their boats. They
have a simple life, because there is no room in a canal boat for many possessions. Some of
them make souvenirs which they sell to other people on the canal. Some of them stay in one
place for most of the time. Others move their boat to somewhere new every day. The live-
aboards think they are the luckiest people in the world. What do you think?
Canals and narrowboats

Canal narrowboats. Photo by welshdan/flickr
In the podcast about Mr Speaker, I told you that I was going on holiday. I said that I would be
the captain of a ship and sail away to new and interesting places. So, where did I go on my
ship? Perhaps I sailed across the Atlantic. Perhaps I visited the islands of Greece.
But, no. Actually, my wife and I hired a canal boat and we went for a holiday on one of Britains
beautiful canals.
We have lots of canals in Britain, especially in England. Most of them were built in the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Boats on the canals carried coal, iron, pottery,
stone, lime, salt and many other goods needed by the new industries which grew during the
Industrial Revolution. Until the railways came, the canals were one of the most important
forms of transport in the country.
The centre of the canal system in England is here in Birmingham, where I live. We like to tell
visitors that there are more canals in Birmingham than in Venice! (This is true, but the canals in
Venice are probably more beautiful!)
Originally, horses pulled the boats on the canals. The horses walked along a path at the side of
the canal. Do you know the English verb to tow? It means to pull something which cannot
move by itself. If your car breaks down, you may need to use another vehicle to tow the car to
a garage. So, the horses towed the boats along the canal, and we still call the path beside a
canal a towpath. In the 19th century, however, some canal boats had steam engines instead
of horses, and today, most canal boats have diesel engines.
Compared to the great canals of the Netherlands or Germany, English canals and canal boats
are tiny. The traditional boats of the English canals are only about 2 meters wide and between
10 and 20 meters long. A bigger boat could not fit through the bridges or the locks. We call
these boats narrowboats. Why are they so small? Well, the canals are narrow, because it
was cheaper and easier to build a narrow canal than a wide canal. And the boats are small
because, originally, they were towed by a single horse. Traditional English narrowboats are
brightly painted in red, blue, green or yellow, or all of these colours. Often they are decorated
with pictures of flowers or castles.
When the railways arrived, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the canals began to
decline. It was much quicker to move goods on a railway than on a canal. And in the 20th
century, road vehicles took traffic from the canals as well.
Here is a typical story about the decline of the canals. There was company with a factory which
made feed for animals. It was beside a canal, and the company had 11 narrowboats which
brought grain and other things which it needed from a sea port. The narrowboats took 3 or 4
days to make the journey from the factory to the sea port and back. In 1923, the company
bought a lorry. The lorry could make two return journeys each day. Naturally, the company
scrapped the narrowboats and used the lorry instead.
And so, everyone thought, that is the end of the old canals. The narrowboats disappeared,
many canals were abandoned, weeds grew in the water so that boats could not pass, the
towpaths collapsed into the canals, the locks would not work any more. It was all very sad.
Then, shortly after the Second World War, people started to think that the canals could have a
new use, for recreation i.e. for leisure and holidays. They saw that many canals went through
beautiful, quiet countryside, where people could relax and enjoy nature. Gradually, people
started to use the canals again. Abandoned canals were cleaned and re-opened; locks were
repaired; and in one or two places new canals were built. Today, you can see large numbers of
brightly-painted traditional narrowboats on our canals again. But they are carrying holiday-
makers, not coal, or lime or pottery.
There will be more about canal boats in the next podcast. There is a quiz on the Listen to
English website so that you can test how well you have understood what I have said.
Black Jumper Day

A black jumper shows everyone that you are big and important!
Today, I will tell you about black jumper day , and we will meet the English expression to
leave for somewhere.
In a podcast a very long time ago, in November 2006, I told you that most English children
wear a school uniform to go to school. My daughter, who is 15 years old, goes to a girls
secondary school. [Sorry I say 11 years old in the podcast, but this is wrong. It should be
15 years old]. She has to wear a dark green skirt or trousers, and a white blouse and a dark
green jumper.
She is in year 10 at school. In year 11, the girls sit their GCSE exams. GCSE stands for General
Certificate of Secondary Education. After their GCSE exams, the girls leave the secondary
school to go to sixth-form college, or to a further education college, to continue their studies
or to learn practical skills. By tradition, in my daughters school, the year 11 girls are allowed to
wear black jumpers, instead of dark green jumpers. They like their black jumpers, not because
the jumpers look beautiful, but because they show everyone that year 11 are the senior girls,
the most important girls, in the school.
However, the year 11 girls do not have to come to school any more. From today, they are on
study leave, a time when they can stay at home and work and revise for their GCSE exams.
Some of them, of course, use study leave as a time to go shopping or have parties, but
perhaps we had better not talk about that.
This means that, from today, the year 10 girls are the most senior girls in the school. It is now
their turn to wear the black jumpers, to show the rest of the school how big and important
they are. They have looked forward to this day for weeks. They have all searched the local
shops to find a black jumper in a style which they like. And today, they have all left for school,
wearing their new black jumpers.
They have left for school. That means, they have left home to go to school. Here are some
more examples. Do you understand what they mean?
At eight oclock, Kevin leaves for work.
At half past eight, Harry leaves for college.
George has left for a meeting with some clients.
Sarah has left for lunch.
At the end of the day, Kevin will leave for home.
Tomorrow, Joanne will leave for her mothers (ie she will go to her mothers house).
George has a business trip to America. On Thursday, he will leave for New York.
The train leaves for London in 10 minutes.
And, of course, the girls leave for school wearing their black jumpers.
Goodbye, Mr Speaker

The Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin.
Who is Mr Speaker? Mr Speaker is the chairman of our House of Commons, in Parliament. He
is called the Speaker of the House of Commons because, several hundred years ago, it was his
job to speak to the King, to tell the King what Parliament wanted, and to bring the Kings reply
back to Parliament. Generally, the Kings reply was no, so the Speaker did not have an easy
job. In the 15th century, several Speakers made the King so angry that he had them arrested
and executed. Politics was fun in those days.
Since then, life for the Speaker has been more peaceful. Yes, there was a Speaker at the end of
the 17th century who was sacked because he had accepted a bribe from businessmen in the
city of London. But generally, the Speakers life has few problems. He, or she, chairs debates in
the House of Commons, and makes sure that the House of Commons obeys its rules. The only
real disadvantage is having to wear old-fashioned black clothes with gold embroidery, and
having to listen to so many boring debates.
But things have changed. To understand what has happened to Mr Speaker, you need to know
that Members of Parliament (MPs) in Britain receive a salary, and are also able to get other
money, or allowances, to pay for things like an office, a secretary, travel and the cost of
having a second home in London, if they do not live in London already. MPs make a list of their
expenses we say that they make a claim in order get this extra money. They give their claim
to the finance office in Parliament. If the finance office is happy with the claim, the MP gets
the money he or she has claimed.
Until very recently, information about MPs allowances was a state secret. But now, the
newspapers have found information about the allowances, and published it. It is clear that
some MPs have behaved dishonestly. One MP claimed money to pay interest on a loan to buy
a flat in London which was fine, except that he had already repaid the loan and there were
no interest payments. Other MPs claimed for the cost of repairing houses, which they then
sold at a profit. One MP, who lives in a castle, claimed for the cost of cleaning the moat that
is, the water around the castle. Another MP, who has a country estate, keeps ducks on the lake
on his estate. But foxes kept killing the ducks, so he claimed for the cost of building a little
island for his ducks in the middle of the lake, so that the foxes could not catch them
All this has made people very angry. There are demands for big changes in the way that
Parliament is run for changes in our election system, changes in the way MPs do their jobs
and the way they are paid.
And Mr Speaker? Well, the present speaker Michael Martin is his real name has opposed
changes and many MPs think that he is not the right person to lead the House of Commons. So
they have forced him to resign. He has become the first speaker for over 300 years to be
forced out of office. Next month, Members of Parliament will elect a new Speaker to wear silly
clothes and listen to their boring debates.
I will be on holiday next week, so there will be no podcast. I am going to be a captain of a ship,
and will sail far away to new and interesting places. I shall tell you about it when I get back.
The Poet Laureate

Carol Ann Duffy
Britain has a new Poet Laureate. Already, I hear you asking, What is he talking about? We
know what a poet is it is someone who writes poetry. But what is this laureate thing?
You may know that the ancient Greeks used to place a crown made of laurel leaves on the
head of someone as a very special honour. Laurel is a type of bush, with sweet-smelling leaves.
Normally nowdays we call it bay, and we use bay leaves as a flavouring in cooking. So, that is
the literal meaning of laureate crowned with laurel leaves, as a sign of special honour.
Since about the 17th century, English kings and queens have appointed a poet as their own,
special, private poet. The king paid the poet a small salary, and the poet wrote poems for
special royal occasions, like births or marriages in the royal family. The poet appointed by the
king became known as the poet laureate. Over the years, some very famous English poets have
been appointed as poets laureate William Wordsworth, for example, and Alfred Lord
Tennyson. The latest poet laureate has recently retired, and the Queen, advised by the Prime
Minister, has just appointed a new one. Neither our Queen nor our Prime Minister know very
much about poetry. But they have made a very good and popular choice for the new poet
laureate.
Her name is Carol Ann Duffy and she is the first woman to hold the position of poet laureate.
Her poetry is simple and direct, and easy to understand. Perhaps for that reason, pupils in
many English schools study her poems. Recently, indeed, there was controversy about one of
her poems it is a poem about the feelings of an angry young man who wants to kill and
destroy things. The first few lines are:
Today I am going to kill something. Anything. I have had enough of being ignored and today
I am going to play God.
Some people argued that reading the poem would make some young people pick up a knife
and go and kill someone. One of the organisations which runs school exams in England even
asked schools to destroy copies of the poem. This is ridiculous, of course. People kill because
they are very angry inside, not because they have read a poem. Also, as Carol Ann Duffy
herself pointed out, Shakespeares plays are full of angry young men who murder other
people. Should we ban Shakespeares plays in schools?
Here is one of Carol Ann Duffys poems. It is a love poem but a rather unusual one. She is
going to give her love a present a present that represents love. And what is the present? An
onion! Listen.

Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
Without hesitation, repetition or deviation

Clement Freud. Artwork by mediamolecule/flickr
Two weeks ago, a man called Clement Freud died. He was 84 years old. He was a remarkable
man, and very well-known and liked in Britain. He made us laugh, and I thought I would make a
short podcast about him.
Clement was born in Berlin in Germany. His father was an architect and his grandfather was
the famous psychologist Sigmund Freud. His elder brother is the famous artist Lucian Freud.
Clements family were Jewish, and they left Germany in 1933 when Hitler came to power, and
moved to London. Clement went to school in London, even though at first he spoke hardly any
English. When he left school, he became an apprentice cook in the kitchens of one of Londons
grandest hotels.
That was the start of Clements first career. How many careers do most people have? Many
people perhaps most people do the same sort of work for the whole of their working lives.
They are a teacher, or a farmer, or an engineer, or a driver, or a civil servant. Clement Freud
had five different careers.
First, he worked in restaurants. He learnt about good food and good cooking. He opened his
own night club.
Second, he became a writer. He wrote books for children. He wrote books about food. (We
British, as you know, do not understand how to cook properly, but we love books and TV
programmes about food.) For many years, he wrote articles for newspapers, about food, sport
and life in general. he was particularly keen on horse racing.
Third, Clement Freud went into advertising. He advertised dog food, in a series of TV ads in the
1960s and 1970s. The advertisements became classics, and most people who were alive and
watched TV at that time remember them. There is a link to one on the website, and a
transcript. His co-star was a dog called Henry. Clement and Henry looked very alike they both
had long faces and a mournful expression.

Clement Freud and Henry in one of their TV ads. Clement is the one on the right.
Fourth, Clement Freud became a politician. He surprised everyone except himself by winning a
seat in Parliament for the Liberal Party. He remained an MP for 14 years.
And fifth, he became a very well-known radio personality. For over 40 years, he appeared
regularly on a BBC radio game called Just a Minute.
The rules of Just a Minute are simple. The contestants are each given a subject and
immediately they have to talk about it, for a minute. Easy, you may say. Anyone could do that.
However, they have to talk without hesitation, repetition or deviation. No hesitation means
that you are not allowed to stop and say um er when you cannot think what to say next.
No repetition means that you are not allowed to use the same word twice. And no
deviation means that you must stick to the subject, you are not allowed to talk about
something else. If you hesitate, or repeat, or deviate, one of the other contestants will
challenge you, and if the chairman agrees with the challenge, the other contestant takes up
the subject and tries to talk without hesitation, repetition or deviation for the rest of the
minute.
It really is very difficult to speak without hesitation, repetition or deviation for a whole minute.
Try it some time! You could even try it in English!
Help - the hens are on the point of taking over the world.

The flower is on the point of opening. Photo by Dezz/flickr
I am sorry it has been so long since my last podcast. Thank you to all of you who sent me e-
mails to ask what had happened and when would my next podcast be. No. I am not ill. No, I am
not dead. No, I am not bored with podcasting. No, I have not run away with a beautiful blonde
model 40 years younger than me. I have simply been busy.
In the last podcast, I told you about my hens. I am watching them as I write this. They are
running round the garden, eating grass and anything else they can find. Soon there will be no
garden left. However, the hens are happy, and they lay an egg each every day; and the fox has
stayed away.
Last time, I told you that the hens were point of lay hens. I want to explain properly what
point of lay means. Perhaps you know the English expression to be on the point of doing
something. For example, if I am on the point of going to bed, it means that I will go to bed
very soon. I have locked the front door. I have put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, I have
cleaned my teeth. The next thing I do will be to go to bed. I am on the point of going to bed.
Or, look at the picture on the website. It is a picture of a flower. The flower is still closed and
there is snow on the ground. But you can see that very soon the flower will open. It is on the
point of opening. It is on the point of flowering.
Recently, some builders came to do some work on our house. Before they came, a scaffolding
company came and erected scaffolding so that the builders could reach the roof. After the
builders had finished work, I waited for the scaffolding company to come and take the
scaffolding away. I waited for days, then weeks and they did not come. Then I found their
telephone number, and picked up the telephone. Just then the doorbell rang. It was the men
from the scaffolding company. I said to them, I was on the point of telephoning you to ask
you to take the scaffolding away.
The English language is never simple. We always have more than one way that we can say
something. Here are two other ways of saying I was on the point of doing something. We can
say I was about to do something. I was about to telephone my mother. I was about to get
into the car.
Or we can say, I was just going to do something. I was just going to visit my friend. I was just
going to buy a train ticket.
Here are a couple more examples:
I have written a shopping list. I have found my money and a shopping bag. I am about to go to
the shops.
My car is making strange noises. Perhaps it is on the point of breaking down!
You are sitting in an aeroplane. The cabin crew have shut the doors and told everyone to
fasten their seatbelts. The plane is about to leave. It is on the point of departure. It is just going
to take off.
So, now you understand why our hens were point of lay hens. They were on the point of
laying their first eggs.
Now they are on the point of completely destroying my garden. Soon they will take over the
world!
The fox and the hens

Our hens two Black Stars and a Bluebelle.
I like hens. When I was a child, my grandmother kept hens. When we visited her, we could help
her feed the hens. We thought she had hundreds of hens, but actually I think she had 40 or 50.
They lived in hen houses in her garden, and during the day they ran around in hen runs. Every
week, a man with a lorry stopped at her house to collect the eggs for sale.
A hen is, of course, a female bird. A male bird is called a cock, or a cockerel. His job is to look
beautiful and make lots of noise. Just like a man, in fact. Very often, people say chickens
when they mean hens, though strictly a chicken is a baby bird. Hen meat which you buy in a
supermarket is always called chicken. It sounds so much better than hen meat!
My grandmother, however, did not call her hens hens. She talked about her fowl. Fowl is
an old word meaning birds which are kept or hunted for their meat or their eggs. Another
word which you may hear is poultry. Poultry just means birds kept for their meat or their
eggs. A poultry farm is a farm where they keep large numbers of birds, sometimes in big sheds,
or sometimes in tiny cages called battery cages.
My wife and I have our very own poultry farm, only a few kilometers from the centre of
Birmingham. Last summer, we bought three hens, a hen house and a little hen run. The hens
grew big and fat, they wandered round our garden and they laid big, brown eggs. The hens
were happy. We were happy.
Then disaster struck. A fox killed one of our hens, and then another one. We gave the last hen
to some friends who also keep hens, because she was lonely by herself.
Last weekend, we went to a poultry breeder to buy three new hens. There is a photo of them
on the website, and I hope on your iPod screens. Like my grandmother, the poultry breeder
does not call them hens. She describes them as pullets, which means a hen which has not
started to lay eggs yet. In fact, they are what the breeder calls point-of-lay pullets that is,
birds of about 16 weeks which will shortly start laying.
What are our new hens or pullets like? They are all hybrid hens, that is they are a mixture of
different types or breeds of hen. Many hen-keepers like hybrid hens because they are strong
and lay lots of eggs. two of our hens are of a hybrid type called Black Star. The third hen is a
Bluebelle. She is very aristocratic. Like human aristocrats, she is big, beautiful and slightly
stupid. Yesterday, we found our first egg. Well done, hens!
We shall have to keep our hens in their hen run for most of the time, and not let them wander
in the garden, otherwise the fox will get them too. There are foxes in most British cities.
Indeed there may be more town foxes today than country foxes. There is an old English sport
called fox hunting. Special dogs called fox-hounds find a fox, and chase it across the fields and
through the woods, until they catch and kill it. The hounds are followed by people riding
horses. There has been a lot of controversy in recent years about fox-hunting. Some people
say that it is cruel to let fox-hounds chase and kill foxes. Other people say that it is important
to reduce the number of foxes. There have been some changes in the law about fox hunting in
the last few years, which restrict the sport but do not prohibit it.
At one time, I thought that fox hunting was very cruel. Now I am a hen keeper again, I think
that it should be legal to hunt foxes with tanks and machine guns if you want to.
What does your ring tone say about you?

Leave me a message! Photo by couleurs gm/flickr
Do you know the word impact? Impact means the action of hitting something with a lot of
force. So, if two cars hit each other, we can talk about the impact of the collision. But
generally we use impact in a figurative way we use it to mean a big effect. For example, if
someone loses their job, this will probably have a big impact on their lives and on their
families. Or we might say that cars have a big impact on the environment.
What piece of modern technology, do you think, has had the biggest impact on the way we
live? Perhaps modern medical technology like drugs to treat cancer. Or computers I wrote
this podcast on a computer. Now I am recording it on a computer, and soon I will put the
recording onto another computer, so that you can download it to your computer! Or maybe
modern means of transport, like aircraft and cars maybe they have had the biggest impact on
the way we live.
I think, however, that the piece of modern technology which has had the biggest impact is
something which most of us carry with us almost everywhere. You probably have one in your
bag or your pocket. I am of course talking about mobile phones.
I remember the first mobile phone that I ever saw. It was about 25 years ago. The phone was
the size of a brick. You needed to be quite strong to carry it. I asked the owner if I could make a
call on it, and he agreed. It felt strange to be standing in a field in the country, talking to
someone on a telephone.
Today, over half the population of the world either own or use a mobile phone. At the end of
last year, there were over 4.1 billion mobile phones in use in the world. In most countries in
Europe, in fact, there are more mobile phones than people.
You might think that mobile phones would have the biggest impact in those countries where
most people have one. However, I do not think this is true. In Africa, for example, mobile
phones have made a huge difference to peoples lives, because so much of Africa does not
have a network of fixed telephone lines. In Gambia, for example, there are only 50,000 fixed
telephone lines. But there are 800,000 mobile phone users so, roughly, 16 times as many
Gambians can use a mobile phone as can use a conventional telephone. A few years ago, in
many parts of Africa, it was very difficult to send money from one person to another, because
most people did not live near a bank, or did not have a bank account. Today, many Africans are
able to send money to their families, or to pay for things, by mobile phone.
The mobile phone has given us more freedom. We can contact other people, when we need
to, wherever we are. But it has also given us less freedom. The boss can talk to you at any
time, wherever you are and whatever you are doing. A few years ago, people travelling by
train sat quietly and read a book or a newspaper. Now they talk on their mobile phones. They
tell everyone, Im on the train. They discuss private affairs in loud voices. When they get off
the train, they plug an earphone into their ear and carry on talking. Once, if you saw someone
talking to themselves in the street, you assumed that they were slightly mad. Now you know
that they are using their mobile.
Because of mobile phones, teenagers live different lives from when I was their age. At one
time, parents would sometimes allow their teenage children to call their friends on the
ordinary telephone. Only a short call, they would say. Telephone calls are very expensive.
Now, teenagers send text messages to each other from their mobile phones, all the time. They
have developed new ways of using their hands. They use their thumbs to press things like the
keys on a mobile phone, while older people use their fingers. Is this how evolution happens?
They have developed a new sort of texting language. As you know, the spelling of words in
standard English is sometimes very strange. If you are texting in English, however, you can
ignore normal spelling completely. You spell words exactly as you pronounce them. You use all
sorts of strange abbreviations as well. In twenty years time, texting may have changed the
English language completely! The quiz this week is about texting, to see if you can guess what
some texts mean.
My mobile phone is about 8 years old. Several museums want to buy it from me. I hardly ever
switch it on, and it refuses to send texts any more. I do not care, because I love its ring tone. It
is a short piece of music by Franz Schubert. It tells the world that I am a sophisticated and
cultured person.
Other people too have ring tones that tell the world what sort of person they are. Sometimes
the ring tone says, I am a witty and intelligent person. Sometimes it says, I am ignorant and
uncivilised. What does your ring tone say about you?
Missing

Missing tooth! Photo by starfire/flickr
Today we are going to miss things!
Miss is a word which we can use in several different ways. Here are some of them.
Kevin is at a football match. United, the team which he supports, is losing 1-0, and there is only
five minutes before the final whistle. Then Uniteds star striker gets the ball. He runs down the
field, past one, two, three of the players from the other team. Now he is only 10 meters from
the goal. He kicks. Does he score a goal? No, he misses. The ball goes over the cross-bar. Kevin
groans and buries his head in his hands. United have scored only three goals since Christmas.
You can miss other things too. You can miss your English class that means, you do not go to
your English class. Perhaps you are ill. Perhaps you forgot to do your homework. You can miss
a meal. If you wake up late, perhaps you rush out of the house without eating anything. You
miss your breakfast. And, of course, you can miss a bus or a train, if you arrive too late at the
station.
Here is another way of using the word miss. Imagine you have come to England for three
months to learn English. There are probably lots of things about England that you like. But
there are probably some things as well that make you sad or anxious. Perhaps you miss your
friends you would like to be able to meet them and chat to them. Perhaps you miss the food
of your country English food is awful! And perhaps you miss hearing people speaking your
own language.
Now lets look at the word missing. If something is missing, it is not where it should be. It is
gone.
Joannes niece Sarah is seven years old. Her milk teeth (that is, her baby teeth) have started to
fall out and her adult teeth have started to grow. At the moment, she has a big hole where her
front teeth should be. She has two front teeth missing.
Joanne is shopping in the supermarket. At the till, she gets out her purse to pay. She looks in
her purse. That is strange, she says to herself. I am sure that I had a 10 note. The 10 is
missing. Did I loose it? Did someone steal it? Then she remembers. She spent the 10 note
yesterday.
It is not just money or teeth which can be missing. People can be missing, too. Every year in
Britain, the police deal with over 200,000 cases of missing people, or missing persons.
What sort of people go missing? Many of them are children or young people. Perhaps they had
an argument with their parents, and ran away from home without saying where they were
going. Perhaps they were frightened, or badly treated.
Adults can be missing too. If you are an adult, you can leave home if you want to. You can run
away from your family and your job without saying where you are going. It may not be a
responsible thing to do, but it is not illegal. Some adults gradually lose touch with their friends
or family they never write or telephone, and after a time the family does not know where
they are. Some missing adults are people with drugs problems or mental health problems.
Happily, most missing persons are not missing for ever. Angry young teenagers calm down and
return home. Adults get in touch with their families again, or send a message to say that they
are safe and well. There are charities that help to find missing people, and which help people
who have left their homes and families. There are only a very few missing persons cases which
end with the police finding a body on a railway line or in an abandoned house.
So now you know all about the words miss and missing. Listen to the podcast again, to
make sure that you did not miss anything! Then do the quiz on the website, which is all about
missing words.
Lauren's eyes

Eye make-up but why do women do it? photo by bluewinx15.
Britain has a new celebrity. Her name is Lauren Luke, and she is how shall I describe her? Not
a film star, exactly. No, she is a video star, a YouTube video star in fact.
Lauren is 27. She lives with her mother, her 10 year old son, her sister, two nieces and five
dogs in a little house in South Shields, in the north-east of England. Lauren used to work in a
taxi office. She answered the telephone, and sent the taxis to people who wanted them. It was
not work that she enjoyed. She found it very boring.
Lauren had always been interested in make-up. In fact, people told her that she was good with
make-up she understood what sort of make-up would look good on a particular face; or what
sort of make-up to wear for different occasions. She decided to give up her job at the taxi
company. Instead, she started to sell make-up on eBay, the internet auction site.
Now, men like me find make-up a complete mystery. Why do women want to paint their
faces? Do they think that it makes them more attractive to men? Or do they do it to impress
other women? I dont know. I am only a man.
Lauren found a cheap video camera. She put it beside the mirror on her dressing-table, and
she started to make short films of her putting on her eye make-up. She put the videos on
YouTube, and people started to watch them. At first there were only a few downloads, then
hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of people watched her videos. She is now
probably the most-viewed make-up artist in the world.
Who watches her videos? I guess that many of them are teenage girls, who want to know how
to look like Britney Spears or Kate Winslet. Perhaps they are women who want to know how to
put on liquid eye-liner without getting it all over their face. Or maybe they are men, who want
to know why women paint the skin round their eyes. Lauren probably knows why women paint
the skin round their eyes, but she does not tell us in her videos, she just shows how to do it.
And now Lauren has a weekly column in a national newspaper, and an American cosmetics
company will soon start selling a range of Lauren Luke cosmetics. Lauren has come a long way
from the taxi office. She is now famous. She is a celebrity.
There is a link on the website to Laurens YouTube videos. Lauren speaks with a north-east of
England accent, what we call a Geordie accent, but I think you will be able to understand quite
a lot of what she says. In the background in the videos, you may hear the sound of snoring.
That is one of Laurens dogs, fast asleep.
Now, as I have told you before, Listen to English has an ambition to become a celebrity. If I am
a celebrity, I might be invited to be on Strictly Come Dancing where I could dance with Cherie
Lunghi and other beautiful ladies. Maybe I should get a video camera, and make videos of me
cleaning my teeth in the mornings. I could put the videos on You Tube, and dentists
everywhere in the world would see them. They would tell their patients to watch the videos,
and before long I would be as famous as Lauren, and I would have my own brand of
toothpaste. What do you think?
Golliwog

A golliwog . Photo by frozenmeat/flickr
Todays podcast is about a childs toy, and a TV journalist.
The childs toy is a golliwog. A golliwog is a soft toy, a sort of doll. There is a picture of a
golliwog on the website, and I hope on your iPod screens. The Golly in the picture is
wearing black and white striped trousers and a red coat. He has a bow-tie and a white shirt.
And his skin is black, and he has curly black hair. Golliwog is intended to look like black minstrel
singers and musicians in America in the late 19th century.
Golliwog first appeared in a childrens book in 1895. The book, which was called The
Adventures of two Dutch Dolls and Golliwogg, was very successful, and lots more books about
Golliwog followed.
Naturally, toy manufacturers noticed the popularity of the Golliwogg books, and they started
to make golliwog dolls. And the dolls were popular with children too. In the first half of the
20th century, many British children had a golliwog. Sometimes they loved their golliwog and
took him everywhere they went. And sometimes they threw their golliwog into the corner or
under the bed and forgot about him.
Robertsons, a company which makes jam, used the golliwog as their trademark (what we
would call a logo today, I think). For many years, children collected little golliwog stickers from
the labels on jars of Robertsons jam.
Then things started to change. Immigrants arrived in Britain, especially from former British
colonies. Gradually, Britain became a racially diverse country. And people started to wonder, is
it OK for children to have golliwog dolls? Surely a golliwog is an out-of-date stereotype of black
people. Golliwogs in short are racist.
Now, it was of course adults who worried about whether golliwogs were OK. I doubt if most
children thought of their golliwog as representing real black people. Nonetheless, golliwogs
gradually became less popular. Children wanted Action Men, and Barbie Dolls, and computer
games, not an old-fashioned golliwog doll. Eventually, even Robertsons stopped putting the
golliwog on the labels of their jam jars.
Now we turn to our TV journalist. Her name is Carol Thatcher. Where have you heard the
name Thatcher before? Yes, Carol is the daughter of the former British Prime Minister,
Margaret Thatcher. Carol has done various reporting jobs for the BBC. After a TV show about
10 days ago, Carol was talking to a group of BBC colleagues. They were discussing an
international tennis player a black international tennis player. Carol referred to him as a
golliwog. Some of the people who heard her were shocked. They told the producer of the TV
programme. She in turn told the BBCs senior management. A few days later, Carol Thatcher
was sacked.
There has been a storm of controversy in the newspapers and on radio and television. Some
people said that it was an unacceptable racist insult to refer to a black person as a golliwog.
Other people said that when Carol called the tennis player a golliwog, it was only a bit of fun.
They argued that Carol was having a private conversation, and that the BBC were wrong to
sack her.
Personally, I think it is very insulting to call a black person a golliwog, but I know that lots of
people think differently. English people do not all agree about what is acceptable language in a
multiracial society. You are learning English, and I guess that sometimes you too find it difficult
to know which words are acceptable, and which are not.
Poor Golly. He never meant to cause so much trouble!
We love snow!

Fisher Street, London, in the snow. Photo by Danny McL/flickr
When English people meet each other, they generally start their conversation by talking about
the weather. Its nice weather we are having, they say. Or, Its a bit cold for the time of
year. This week we have had a big national conversation all about the weather. It has snowed.
If you live in Scandinavia, or Germany, or Russia or Canada, you are perhaps saying, It is
winter. It snows in winter. Why are the crazy English obsessed with the snow? What is the
problem?
The problem is that, in recent years we have had very little snow. Our winters have been wet
and windy, but in most places they have not been cold and snowy. This week has been
different. We have had the heaviest fall of snow for 18 years. The snow has come on east
winds all the way from Russia. It has been particularly heavy in London and the south-east of
England.
We do not know how to cope with snow in England. In other countries, normal life continues
even in the snow. On Monday this week, however, London came to a complete standstill.
There were no buses. There were hardly any trains. The airports were closed. People could not
go to work. Children could not go to school. It was like an extra public holiday. The TV news
had interviews with tourists who were visiting London. They were puzzled. They said that they
had come to London to do some shopping, but all the shops were shut.
Later on Monday, the snow came here to Birmingham, and then moved further north over the
rest of the country. We woke up on Tuesday to see the sun shining on a world which was
sparkling white. Then came the really wonderful news all the schools in Birmingham would
be closed for the day.
But today, Wednesday, the national conversation about the snow has turned into a national
argument about the snow. Why does normal life come to a standstill in England whenever we
have even a little bit of snow? Surely we could do more to keep the roads open and the trains
and buses running. What must the rest of the world think about this country, when they read
or see on TV that everything in London has stopped because of some snow? And why were so
many schools closed? Surely most children and most teachers could have got to school, even if
they had to walk.
Some older people remember or think they remember winters in the 1950s and 1960s
when there was lots of snow. They have become national experts on snow, and they have
been on TV telling us how they used to go to school through snowdrifts 2 meters deep, and
things like that.
While the adults have been arguing, the children have been enjoying themselves. Until this
week, most British children had never seen real snow, lots of snow, snow to make snowmen
and snowballs. Tuesday was a wonderful day cold and sunny and because so many schools
were closed, the children could go out into the gardens and the parks to play in the snow, and
sledge down the hills. This is much more useful than a day in school, in my opinion. The
children will remember this winter for the rest of their lives.
And the weather forecast is more snow. Good.
Massive reductions - up to 50% off!
It has been more than two weeks since my last podcast. I have two excuses. The first is that I
have had another bout of flu not badly, but enough to make it difficult to do anything like
writing or recording a podcast. My second excuse is much more exciting. I have just finished a
project on which I have been working for several months. The computer programme, or
software, which runs the Listen to English website is called LoudBlog. I have been rewriting
LoudBlog, to add some new features. I have called the new programme PodHawk. If you are
really interested, you can read all about PodHawk at www.podhawk.com.
Every day for the past couple of weeks, I have looked through the newspaper for a nice, light-
hearted story that I could use in a podcast. But there have been no nice, light-hearted stories,
only serious, depressing stories about the recession and unemployment. But yesterday I found
some inspiration. I was in a traffic jam, behind a bus. It was a number 37 bus, going from
Birmingham to Solihull, but that is not important. On the back of the bus was the slogan Up to
every 5 minutes Monday to Saturday.
Now, up to every 5 minutes Monday to Saturday is not very good grammar. And if you look
up each word in a dictionary, it still wont make any sense. Up to indicates a maximum. If you
see road sign which says that you can park for up to an hour, it means that you may park
your car for an hour, but not for longer. I know however what the bus company is trying to say.
It wants to tell us that, on Mondays to Saturdays, there are buses every 5 minutes at some
times of the day. At other times of the day, the buses run less often maybe every 10 minutes
or every 15 minutes. But the bus company wants to tell us only the good news sometimes
there is a bus every 5 minutes. So Up to every 5 minutes Monday to Saturday.
In recent years, the phrase up to has become very common when people want to tell you
only the good news and not the not-so-good news. For example, at this time of year, many of
the shops in Britain have sales. They reduce their prices to try to persuade us to buy all the
rubbish we refused to buy before Christmas. This year, there have been lots of sales, because
of the recession. You will see signs in shop windows which say something like Massive
reductions up to 50% off. This means, We have cut some of our prices. Some of the price
cuts are big 50% but most of them are much smaller maybe 10% and some prices we
have not cut at all. It does sound so much better to say Up to 50% off, doesnt it?
Up to is also a a favourite phrase in advertisements when they only want to tell us the good
news. A car advertisement might say, for example, that the car has up to 25% more space or
has up to 30% better mileage. An advert for a household cleaner might say that it has up to
45% more cleaning power. What is cleaning power? How can I measure it? Up to 45%
more cleaning power really, really does not mean anything.
We have an expression in English, to take something with a pinch of salt. It means, to be a bit
sceptical, a bit doubtful, not to accept something at its face value. So, for example, Kevin
tells Joanne about the truly amazing, truly wonderful things which his football team did at the
match last Saturday. Joanne knows that Kevin often exaggerates, and that she does not need
to believe every detail of what he says. She takes Kevins story with a pinch of salt.
So, when you see up to 50% off or up to 45% more cleaning power or even a bus up to
every 5 minutes, you know that they are only telling you the good news, and that you should
take what they say with a pinch of salt.
How to keep track of the kids

Kiri:D/flickr has called this beautiful photograph I lose track of time
Do you know the English expression to keep track of something? If you keep track of
something, you always have a good, up-to-date knowledge of it. Here are some examples to
help you understand the way we use the expression.
Molly is an air-traffic controller. She works at a busy airport, and her job is to guide planes into
the airport safely. She needs to keep track of all the planes which arrive at the airport.
Kevin likes to keep track of his money. He always writes down what he spends, so he knows
how much money is left in his bank account.
Joanne has a job where she needs to visit lots of other companies, and to meet people at her
office. She has a special programme on her computer to help her keep track of her
appointments.
And John uses Facebook to keep track of what his friends are doing. Perhaps you use Facebook
to keep track of your friends too.
The opposite of keep track of is lose track of. Sometimes, if I am reading a good book, I
lose track of time. That is, I forget what time it is. Suddenly I realise that it is much later than I
thought.
Kevin has three older brothers and an older sister. They are all married and have children.
Kevin is Uncle Kevin to the children. But poor Kevin always loses track of the childrens
birthdays. He cannot remember whether little Harry has a birthday in March or in June, and
whether little Deborah is 3 or 4 years old.
At Kevins work, there have been a lot of changes. The boss has re-organised all the
Departments and has moved a lot of people to new jobs. Kevin cannot keep track of all the
changes. He cannot remember who is now doing which job.
I have a reason for telling you about keep track of. There was an article in the newspaper
yesterday about the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in the United States. This is the
show where firms display their latest clever gadgets which they hope to persuade the public to
buy. A British company is displaying a gadget which looks like an ordinary wristwatch. Inside
the watch is a chip which uses the Global Positioning System to keep track of where the watch
is. The idea is that parents will buy these watches for their children; they can then receive text
messages on their mobile phones which tell them where their child is. Is he at school? Has he
gone to see his friend? And so on. But wont children simply take the watch off if they do not
want their parents to know where they are? Well, if the child removes the watch, this will
immediately send a message to the parents.
The new device sounds like a way of making children prisoners. However, the company which
makes it says that it hopes that it will give children more freedom, not less. Parents may be
happy to let their children go out to visit friends, or to play in the park, if they always know
where the children are.
I can however think of one problem. I wear a watch so that I always know what time it is. Most
older people are like me, and have a watch. Children and teenagers, however, do not wear
watches. If they want to know the time, they look at their mobile phones. They will not want
to wear the new watch. They will know that its real purpose is to enable parents to keep track
of the children, not to enable the children to keep track of the time.
What do you think? If you are a young person, would you agree to wear this new watch? If you
are a parent, would you think that the watch is a good way to keep track of where your
children are and what they are doing?

Crackers

Christmas crackers. Photo by Miss Shari/flickr.
A Happy New Year, everyone. Many thanks to all of you who sent e-mails to wish me a speedy
recovery from the flu. I am now much better thank you.
Todays podcast is a delayed Christmas podcast. I would have made it before Christmas, but I
was unwell so I could not do so. I hope you will like it nonetheless. In the podcast, we meet the
words crack and crackers, and we learn what you should do at a Christmas dinner in
England.
Lets start with the word crack. Imagine that you drop a plate a china plate on the floor. It
does not break into lots of pieces, but when you pick it up you see that the plate now has a line
running across it. You know that soon the plate will break completely along this line. The line is
a crack. You have cracked the plate. The plate is cracked. Here are some other things
which you can crack. A piece of wood can crack if you hit it hard. Ice on a river or a pond can
crack if you walk on it. A window can crack if you throw a stone at it. And an egg can crack if
you tap it with a knife or a spoon.
We also use the word crack to describe the sound of something cracking a sudden, short
sound crack like that.
And a cracker? What is that? It is something which makes a cracking sound. In America, they
call a savoury biscuit the sort you eat with cheese, for example a cracker. A firecracker
is a firework, especially a firework which makes a cracking sound. Crackers is also a rather
old-fashioned slang word meaning mad or crazy. And in England, we have Christmas
crackers.
Imagine that your English friend has invited you to join his family for dinner on Christmas Day.
When you sit down at the dinner table, you will probably find a strange object made out of
coloured paper and cardboard on the plate in front of you. If you pick up the strange object
and shake it, you will hear something rattling inside. The strange object is a Christmas cracker.
There is a picture of some Christmas crackers on the website, and (I hope) on your iPod screen
as well, so you can see what they look like.
What do you do with the Christmas cracker? Perhaps you remember what I just said about
biscuits in America. Perhaps you should eat the cracker? No. Do not try to eat a Christmas
cracker. Perhaps a Christmas cracker is like a firecracker. Perhaps you should find a match and
set fire to the Christmas cracker? Wrong. Do not set fire to the Christmas cracker. Well,
perhaps the best thing is just to put the Christmas cracker in your pocket so that you can look
at it more closely later, when you are alone. No. No. No. You hold of one end of the cracker
and give the other end to the person sitting next to you. Together you pull the cracker. The
cracker will break open with a crack sound that is why it is called a cracker! And the things
inside the cracker will fall out.
First, you will find a silly little hat made of paper. Etiquette requires that you put this silly paper
hat on your head and wear it throughout the meal. Do not feel embarrassed. Everyone else
will wear silly paper hats as well. Second, you will find a toy, or a puzzle. You are allowed to
play with the toy or puzzle during the meal. Indeed, if you are lucky you may find a whistle
inside the cracker; you can blow the whistle as often and as loudly as you like. Third, you will
find a little piece of paper. On the paper is a joke. It will be a bad joke. For example, this is the
joke from my Christmas Day cracker:
Why did the skeleton not go to the party?
Because it had nobody to go with.
No body nobody do you understand? Never mind, I said it was a bad joke. You should
read the joke from your cracker out loud to all the other people at the table. Everyone will
laugh. You should laugh loudly when other people read their jokes as well, even if you do not
understand the joke, and even if you do not think that it is funny.
You may be thinking, perhaps all this stuff about Christmas crackers and paper hats and things
is an ancient Christmas tradition, going back hundreds and hundreds of years. Wrong again.
Christmas crackers have nothing absolutely nothing to do with the birth of Jesus, which is
what we are celebrating at Christmas. The first Christmas crackers were made in the middle of
the 19th century by a man called Tom Smith. Today, you can buy boxes of Christmas crackers
in the supermarket in the few weeks before Christmas. Or you can make your own crackers, if
you wish.
So now you know that the English really are mad. Crackers, in fact. Happy New Year!
I am ill

My teddy bear has flu as well!
I am ill. I have flu. I have been sent to bed with a hot water bottle and my teddy bear until I am
better. So I have not had time this week to make a proper podcast. I hope to have time in a
few days.
But maybe this is a good opportunity to give you some information which I hope you will find
useful. Some of you have sent me e-mails asking me whether there is a podcast similar to
mine, but in American instead of British English. I have recently looked at the Voice of America
website. Voice of America is a radio station which is largely funded by the American
Government. I remember Voice of America in the old days, when it used to broadcast anti-
Communist propaganda to listeners in Eastern Europe. But times have changed, and Voice of
America is more balanced today. Among other things, there is a Learning English section on
the VoA website, and it includes podcasts. Like the Listen to English podcasts, you can listen to
the podcast and read the text at the same time. If you are interested in American English, try
listening to some of these podcasts.
There is a link from the VoA website to Ted Lamphairs blog. Ted has had a long career as a
radio reporter and he writes about the many places in America, and in the rest of the world,
which he has visited. At the end of each blog post, he explains some of the more difficult or
unusual words which he has used. His blog posts are quite long, but they are written in good
American English, and you will find them both interesting and useful reading practice.
Recently, I received an e-mail from Mike Marzio. He tells me that he runs a language school in
the south of France. He has also built a large collection of short video clips of people speaking
English, in the streets in America and in many other English speaking countries. The video clips
are on his website. Many of the videos are linked to quizzes, so that you can test how well you
understood what the people in the video were saying.
Finally, the English Cafe website has an article on how to use Google to improve your English. If
you cannot remember whether you should say I arrived to London or I arrived in London,
just try Googling I arrived to London and I arrived in London. Go on. Try it. Which one is
correct?
Thats all for today. I must go and look after my teddy bear. He seems to have flu as well.
Christmas Shopping

Christmas shopping crowds in Oxford Street, London, photographed by Claire Rowland/flickr
In todays podcast, we have a serious discussion of the state of the world economy, and we go
Christmas shopping with Kevin and Joanne.
As I am sure you know, there are some big problems in the worlds economy at present. There
is a recession (that is, a reduction in output) in many countries, including Britain. The problem
is that banks in America, and in Britain and some other countries, lent money to people who
could not afford to repay. So many banks are in big trouble, and have stopped lending to
anyone. So people have less money to spend, and many have lost their jobs. And the big shops
are cutting their prices because they are worried that people are not buying. And governments
have had to intervene, to do things, some of which are useful and some of which are not
useful. That is Listen to Englishs summary of the worlds economic problems. You can use it in
your economics homework if you wish.
December is the biggest shopping month of the year in Britain, as it is in many countries.
People want to buy Christmas presents for their friends and family, and nice things for
themselves as well. As a result, the shops are full of people. But perhaps this year is different.
Because of the recession, maybe the big stores and the out-of-town shopping centres are
deserted. Perhaps this year, for once, it will be possible to go Christmas shopping in peace.
Wrong. Things are as bad as ever.
Kevin and Joanne went Christmas shopping last Saturday afternoon. They needed to buy a
present for Kevins aunt Joan, who is 73 years old. A cardigan, said Kevin. Old ladies always
like a new cardigan. So they agreed, they would buy Aunt Joan a new cardigan.
Good, said Kevin. I am glad that we have decided what to buy her. So is it alright if you buy
the cardigan and I go with George to the football match.
No it is not alright, said Joanne. She is your aunt and you can come and help choose her
present.
They took the bus into the centre of town. There were crowds of people everywhere people
going to and fro; people going in and out of shops; people getting on and off buses; people
getting into and out of taxis. Every now and then, there was a gap in the crowds, and Kevin and
Joanne made their way carefully down the street to Marks and Spencer. Marks and Spencer is,
as I am sure you know, a well-known British store which sells mainly clothes, including
cardigans of the sort which 73 year old aunts like to get for Christmas.
In Marks and Spencer, Kevin and Joanne looked around for the ladies cardigans. They went
round and round the store, and up and down the escalator, looking unsuccessfully for
cardigans. Then Kevin saw them, in a corner. It took several minutes for Kevin and Joanne to
fight their way through the crowds to reach the cardigans. It took about 10 more minutes to
find a cardigan of the right size and colour. And it took about 15 more minutes before Kevin
and Joanne reached the front of the queue at the tills to pay for the cardigan. Kevin and
Joanne were exhausted. When English people are exhausted, and even when they are not
exhausted, they need a cup of tea.
Kevin and Joanne looked for a cafe. They were all full. Several had a queue of people waiting
outside. Then Joanne remembered that there was a cafe at the art gallery. The art gallery was
empty. Perhaps people are not interested in culture at Christmas. Kevin, who had never
actually been there before, looked around with interest. That painting is upside down, he
said in a loud voice as they went through the modern art section. And that one is sideways.
Kevin, said Joanne. The people in the art gallery know which way to hang their paintings
and you dont. Now shut up and stop making an idiot of yourself.
There were only a few people in the cafe at the back of the gallery. Kevin and Joanne drank
tea, and ate a slice of cake each. They talked about how difficult it was to do shopping when
there were so many people. You know, said Kevin. It is better at a football match. There
arent as many people, and they are not so aggressive.
Drink your tea, said Joanne. We need to find a present for my mother next.
Learning languages - why can't the English do it?

They speak many different languages in this restaurant in Lugano, Switzerland, where they
have very big brains indeed! Photo by Eric Andresen/flickr
I read an interesting story in the newspaper last week. It said that researchers at University
College London had measured the brains of people who are bilingual (that is, people who
speak two languages well) and also the brains of people who spoke only one language. They
found that the part of the brain which processes information is better developed in people
who are bilingual than in people who are mono-lingual. This effect is particularly strong in
people who learnt a second language as a young child of less than five years old. So, quite
simply, learning a second language makes your brain work better, and if you learn another
language when you are very young, your brain will be very wonderful indeed!
If you are listening to this podcast, you are I guess learning a language which is not your
own. So you must all have brains which work very well. The report in the newspaper is good
news for you. Congratulations.
But it is bad news for us English, because we are really bad at learning foreign languages. Only
the Americans are as bad as we are. So, British brains and American brains are perhaps not as
good as the brains of people in a country like Switzerland where it is normal for people to
speak two or even three languages to a high standard. In Britain, only about one adult in ten
can communicate at all in a language other than English. In fact, one in ten may be too
optimistic. A few years ago, a survey by a recruitment agency found that only 5% of British
people could count to 20 in another language. What? How difficult is it to learn to count to 20
in German, or French, or Italian? British people who go to live in Spain or France are notorious
for failing to learn Spanish or French, even after they have lived in the country for many years.
You probably know already that English children move from primary school to secondary
school at the age of eleven. At secondary school, they start learning a foreign language,
normally French. A year or two later, some children will start a second foreign language. At
one time, the second foreign language was normally German, but this is not the case today.
German language teaching has declined sharply in Britain. Spanish has taken its place. I do not
know why Spanish has become so much more popular than German. Perhaps it is because so
many English people go to Spain for their holidays.
In addition, in big cities where there is a large immigrant population, it is common for
secondary schools to offer courses in south Asian languages like Punjabi or Urdu. But of
course, most of the children who take these courses speak the language at home already. The
courses give them a better knowledge and understanding of their own language, which is a
good and important thing to do, but it does not teach them a new language.

Students at an English language college in Canada. Photo by Adrian Bailon/flickr.
When they are 14, children in England have to choose which subjects they will study for their
General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exams, which they take when they are 16.
The government decided a few years ago that it would no longer be compulsory for children to
include a foreign language in the subjects they chose. The result has been that the number of
children who study a language after the age of 14 has fallen dramatically. The number of
children taking the GCSE French exam, for example, has fallen by 50% since 2001.
We see the same pattern when we look at British universities. The total number of students at
university in Britain has risen, but the number of students taking degree courses in foreign
languages has fallen. There have been particularly big declines in the numbers studying French
and German.
This is not a good situation. Everyone politicians, school teachers, academics agree about
this. If young people do not study a foreign language, probably they will not understand much
about other countries or other cultures. Most British teenagers, however, do not think that
learning a foreign language is interesting or important. They think that they will never need to
speak a foreign language, and that all foreigners speak English anyway. Foreign languages have
a low status with young people. Our government thinks that part of the answer is to start
language learning at a younger age. It wants primary schools to start teaching a foreign
language. However, at the same time, it has cut funding for adult education classes in foreign
languages.
The problem is complicated and deep-seated. How do you think that we can interest more
young people in England in learning languages?
The Great Train Robbery

This was the engine which pulled the train in the Great Train Robbery. The picture is signed by
Bruce Reynolds, who planned and led the robbery.
I think you know the English word famous. If someone is famous, it means that everyone has
heard of them, that they are well-known. So, Beethoven was a famous composer, and the Eifel
Tower is a famous landmark in Paris. But, suppose that someone is well-known for bad things
and not for good things. Can we still say that they are famous? There are two words which
we can use to describe someone or something which is famous for bad things infamous
and notorious. So, we would probably not say that Hitler for example was famous, we
would say that he was notorious.
This is a long way of introducing todays podcast, which is about the most famous or perhaps
the most notorious crime in Britain in the last 100 years. It happened 45 years ago, in August
1963. In those days our Post Office used to send mail from one part of the country to another
in special mail trains called Travelling Post Offices. During the journey, the Post Office staff
sorted the mail so that it was ready to be delivered the next morning. Some of the mail was
valuable. For example, the banks used the mail trains to send banknotes around the country.
In the summer of 1963, a group of criminals planned an attack on one of the Travelling Post
Offices. They interfered with the railway signals in order to stop the train. Then they
uncoupled the railway carriage which contained the banknotes, and used the railway engine to
take it to a place where the railway crossed a bridge over a road. They threw 120 packages of
banknotes over the bridge to other gang members, who loaded them into Land Rovers. The
gang escaped with over 2.5 million pounds in used banknotes. This is equivalent to over
40 million today. It was at the time the biggest ever robbery in Britain.
A few days later, the police found the gangs hideout, in an isolated farmhouse. And in the
weeks after that, the police found and arrested 13 of the 15 gang members. They were tried,
and sentenced to long periods in prison. However, most of the stolen money has never been
found.
The story did not end there. Two of the gang members escaped from prison. Charlie Wilson
fled to Canada. He was eventually brought back to England and to prison. Ronnie Biggs fled
first to France, then to Australia, and then to Brazil. The British police found where he was, but
they could not persuade the Brazilian courts to send him back to England. So Ronnie Biggs
lived in Brazil for more than 30 years. He had a home and a family and friends there. But in
2001, when he was 71 years old, he returned to England. He said that he wanted to walk into
a pub as an Englishman and buy a pint of bitter. In other words, he was home-sick. I do not
know if he was ever able to buy his pint of bitter in a pub, because he was arrested and sent
back to prison, where he still is.
The story of the Great Train Robbery has fascinated the British public over the years. Our
newspapers reported every detail of the robbery, the capture of the gang, their trial, the
escapes from prison and Ronnie Biggs return to England. Only a few weeks ago there were
reports that Biggs, who is now old and ill, would shortly be released from prison. Why are we
so interested in the Great Train Robbery? Some people sympathise with the robbers. They
think that the Great Train Robbery was a clever, daring plan, and that the robbers were
unlucky to be caught. Ronnie Biggs is the most famous (or the most notorious) of the train
robbers, and many people therefore think that he was the mastermind behind the plan.
The truth is more complicated, however. The robbery was not particularly clever. Ronnie Biggs
was not the leader in fact he played only a small part. The gang was too large 15 people in
all which increased the chances that one of them would do something stupid. They had
planned to drive the train themselves to the bridge where they unloaded the banknotes. But
after they had stopped the train, they realised that they did not know how to drive the engine,
so they made the real train driver drive it for them. And they left their fingerprints all over the
train, and the farmhouse where they went after the robbery.
So, was the Great Train Robbery Britains most famous crime? Or the most notorious crime?
What do you think?
Can you tell the difference?

An avatar young, tall and handsome, just like me! Image by Brian Gray/flickr.
Today we visit Second Life, and we learn the English expression to tell the difference.
My daughter likes chocolate cake. Last week I made a chocolate cake. I also bought a chocolate
cake at the supermarket. I gave my daughter a little piece of each one. Can you tell the
difference? I asked her. I meant, if you taste both bits of cake, can you say which one is mine
and which one is the supermarkets? So she tasted, and she said that she could tell the
difference. The supermarket cake was much better. Oh dear!
There was a story in the newspapers last week about two people who cannot tell the
difference the difference between real life and a fantasy world. Their names are David and
Amy. They first met each other in an internet chatroom. Then they met in real life, and got
married.
After they got married, they started spending a lot of time on Second Life. I am sure that you
know about Second Life. It is an internet programme which contains a virtual world not the
real world of your job and your family, but an imaginary world. You can go and live in this
virtual world. You make an avatar, which is a sort of virtual you. You decide what your avatar
will look like, what it will wear and what it will be called. You learn how to move your avatar to
different places in Second Life, and how to make things, and how to meet other avatars and
talk to them.
There was a picture of the real David and Amy in the newspapers. The real David and Amy
seem to eat a lot of chips and doughnuts. But, like a lot of other people, David and Amy chose
avatars which are young, tall and handsome. They explored Second Life with their avatars.
Davids avatar became a night-club owner who travels in a helicopter gunship. Amys avatar
became a disc jockey. In real life, neither David nor Amy had a job. Perhaps they spent too
much time on Second Life to be able to work.
Then the trouble started. Davids avatar started meeting other women on Second Life. The real
Amy was not pleased, but she gave David a second chance. Then Davids avatar met a young,
tall, handsome lady avatar called Modesty McDonnell. They started to spend a lot of time
together. The real Amy was furious. Now the real Amy and the real David are getting divorced.
And now the real David is engaged to the real woman whose avatar is Modesty McDonnell.
The newly-engaged couple have never actually met in the real world. This is because David
lives in England while the real Modesty McDonnell lives in Arizona in America. But perhaps this
does not matter. Perhaps the only important thing is that the two avatars love each other.
So, there is a real world where real people live, eat, have children and die. And there are
imaginary worlds like Second Life. Sensible people can tell the difference between them. David
and Amy, it seems, cannot tell the difference.
I once spent an afternoon in Second Life. I chose an avatar young, tall and handsome, just
like the real me, of course. Then I had to teach my avatar how to walk and to drive a car. He
was useless. He kept walking into walls and into the sea. When he drove a car, he hit people
and other cars. So I never went back to Second Life.
But perhaps I should try Second Life again. Because last night something really terrible
happened. The British television viewers who cannot tell the difference between a beautiful
woman and a baby elephant voted the incomparably lovely Ms Cherie Lunghi off Strictly
Come Dancing. My dreams are in ruins. So Cherie if you are listening, get an avatar on
Second Life and meet me there, and we will dance together the whole night long.
Cans and Bottles

A discarded drinks can. Photo by Joanna Young/flickr
There was a story in the newspapers recently about a couple called John and Ann Till. They live
near a town called Petersfield in south-east England, and earlier this year they got married.
They wanted to go on a honeymoon to the United States after the wedding. The difficulty they
had was that it was going to cost too much. They could not afford it. The cost of their air fares,
of hotels and travel and car-hire while they were in America all of these things were too
expensive. What could they do?
Then they saw that their local supermarket had started a scheme to encourage people to
recycle cans and bottles. For every four cans or bottles that you returned to the recycling
centre at the supermarket, the supermarket would give you 1 reward point. What is a reward
point? Well, some supermarkets, garages and other shops give their customers reward points
every time they buy things at the shop concerned. You can collect these reward points, and
when you have enough, you can exchange them for, for example, a weekend break in a
country hotel, or a new MP3 player. I have been collecting reward points from my local
supermarket for years. Soon I will have enough to get an electric toaster!
So, John and Ann decided to collect cans and bottles, and take them to the recycling centre.
For three months, they went out every evening, looking for cans and bottles. At first they
thought that they might not be able to find enough. But they were amazed by the amount of
rubbish that people throw away in the streets, in their gardens (or other peoples gardens),
in the parks and in the countryside. John Till told the newspapers, There was enough rubbish
out there to fly us to the moon and back. John and Ann spent hours putting cans and bottles
into the machines at the recycling centre. Eventually, they found enough cans and bottles, and
collected enough rewards points, to pay for their air fare to America, where I am sure they had
a wonderful honeymoon, and went to lots of interesting places.

John and Ann Till collect cans and bottles to pay for their honeymoon in America.
Are you thinking to yourself, thats a nice heart-warming story about two people who wanted
to do what they could to help the environment? I am afraid that I do not feel that way, for
three reasons. First, as I told you in an earlier podcast, we in England are really bad at
recycling. We are better than a few years ago, but many countries in Europe recycle a lot more
domestic waste than we do. On the other hand, we are very good at throwing things away and
generally making a mess. We throw away newspapers in the street and on the buses; we
throw away food packaging and beer cans in the parks, and plastic bags and bottles in the
countryside. John and Ann were able to collect all those cans and bottles only because other
people had so carelessly thrown them away.
Second, the idea that it is good to pay people to recycle things is still very new in Britain. In
other countries in Europe, it is normal to return cans or bottles to the supermarket and to get
money in return. In Germany and Scandinavia, they have done this for years. But in Britain, we
are only starting to experiment with them. John and Ann were lucky. Their local supermarket
was one of only a handful of places where they pay you to recycle things.
And finally, what did John and Ann do with the rewards points which they got for all those cans
and bottles? They bought air tickets to America. Unfortunately, air travel generates large
amounts of carbon dioxide, the main gas responsible for climate change. Trying to be green is
not easy!
I want to dance

The incomparably lovely Ms Cherie Lunghi and her partner on Strictly Come Dancing. Vote for
her!
I am sorry that there was no podcast last week. It was half-term week, the week in the middle
of the school term when the children have a holiday. We went to Dorset, on the south coast of
England, to visit my mother-in -law, so there was no time to make a podcast.
Today, I want to tell you about a TV programme which is very popular in England at present,
and to introduce you to the word celebrity. I shall also reveal to you a secret ambition that I
have!
The TV programme is called Strictly Come Dancing. It is, as you can guess, about dancing. But
not any old sort of dancing. Strictly Come Dancing is about ballroom dancing. That means
dances like the waltz, the quickstep and the tango the old-fashioned sort of dancing, in other
words, where men and women dance as couples, and the women wear long dresses and the
men wear dinner jackets. If you still dont understand what I mean, have a look at the Strictly
Come Dancing website, where you will find lots of photos and videos.
Strictly Come Dancing is a competition. Every Saturday evening, the couples perform their
dances, and a group of judges give them points out of 10. Then the viewers are able to vote by
telephone for the couple they think is best. The judges points, and the viewers votes are then
combined, and on Sunday evening we hear the result. The two couples with the lowest score
have to dance again, and the judges decide which of them can stay and which of them has to
leave the programme. It is all very exciting. My teenage daughter, and her grandmother, watch
every week, along with about half the rest of the population of England.
All the people whom the BBC invites as contestants in Strictly Come Dancing are celebrities.
Celebrities means people like pop singers, actors, sportsmen or women, and TV presenters.
They are people you may have seen on television, in a soap opera perhaps or on a sports
programme. A lot of popular culture nowdays is about celebrities. There are, for instance,
magazines which contain nothing except news about celebrities who is dating whom, who is
getting married, who is getting divorced, what clothes they wear and which night-clubs they go
to. Perhaps it is the same in your country. Clearly, celebrities leave magic lives they are not
ordinary people like you or me.
In the present series of Strictly Come Dancing, for example, there are three sports stars, two
pop singers, several stars from soap operas, a TV chef and couple of models. There is also my
favourite, the incomparably lovely actress Cherie Lunghi (vote for Cherie, everyone!), and a
well-known television journalist called John Sergeant. John Sergeant dances like a baby
elephant. The judges give him low scores, but the viewers love him, so he has stayed on the
programme.
Why is Strictly Come Dancing so popular? There are several reasons, I think. It is glamorous
people love lavish costumes and beautiful music. It is about people whom we think we know.
We have seen them on TV. Their faces are familiar. They have never seen us or spoken to us, of
course, but we think we know them, and know what they are like. Also, Strictly Come Dancing
is a competition there are winners and losers, and we as viewers are able to vote. And finally,
we all secretly think that we could dance like that too all it needs is a bit of training and a bit
of practice.
My secret ambition is to be on Strictly Come Dancing. I think I would be very good. I would
dance elegantly with a beautiful lady partner and the judges would all say how wonderful I am.
The viewers would think so too, and they would all vote for me. The trouble is, you need to be
a celebrity to get on to Strictly Come Dancing and I am not a celebrity. How can I become a
celebrity? I have looked at the job advertisements in the newspaper. There are lots of jobs for
plumbers and HGV drivers, but none for celebrities, not even for junior celebrities or
trainee celebrities. Maybe, just maybe, the BBC would let me on the programme as a
celebrity podcaster. Perhaps if you all sent e-mails to the BBC ... Oh, never mind. It is just a
dream!
Mind the Gap!

Mind the gap, on the London Underground. Photo by Marcia Cabral de Moura/flickr
In todays podcast, I am going to talk about the English word mind, and about some
expressions which contain the word mind.
Your mind means the things which happen inside your head, or inside your brain your
thinking, in other words. We can say, for example, that someone has a good mind that
means, they think clearly and logically. Or we can say that someone has a mathematical mind
they are naturally good at maths. Or we can say about someone she has a mind of her own
that means, she thinks for herself, she does not just accept what other people say.
We also use mind as a verb. To mind something means to be aware of something, to be
careful about something, to have it in your mind. If you have visited London, I am sure you
have travelled on the Underground and seen the signs or heard the loudspeaker
announcements which tell you to mind the gap. There is often a gap between the railway
carriage and the station platform. If you mind the gap, you think about the gap and take care
when you get on or off the train. If you dont mind the gap, you may trip or fall and hurt
yourself.
You can mind other things as well children, for example, or animals. Joanne has a friend
called Susan. Susan looks after small children in her own home while their parents are at work.
She plays with the children, she feeds them, and she takes them for a walk to the park and to
the shops. She is what we call a childminder.
If we say mind out to someone, we mean be careful. When Susan takes her group of little
children for a walk, they need to cross the road. She holds the children by the hand and says to
them, Mind out, in case a car is coming.
Kevin, you may remember, is into 1980s punk rock. One of his favourite bands is playing at a
gig on Saturday. He asks Joanne if she would like to go to hear them. No way, says Joanne,
who thinks that listening to 1980s punk rock is a form of torture. Do you mind if I go with
George? asks Kevin. He means, does it cause you any problems if I go to the gig with George?
And Joanne says, No, of course I dont mind.
And then there is the expression, to make up your mind. This means, simply, to decide to do
something. If I make up my mind to sell my old car, it means that I have decided to sell my car.
Joannes friend Susan, the childminder, is always dithering. She cannot decide what to do.
Should she wear a red jumper or a blue jumper. Should she read a book or watch television.
Should she take a bus or walk. She cannot decide. Joanne sometimes says to her, For
goodness sake, make up your mind! That means, Stop wasting time just decide what to do
and do it!
And finally, lets meet the expression to change your mind. If I decide to do something, but
then I decide to do something else instead, I change my mind. Kevin has saved up some
money and has made up his mind to buy an iPod. It is exactly what he needs to listen to his
collection of 1980s punk rock music on the train. But on his way to the iPod shop, he passes a
shoe shop. In the window there is a pair of green suede shoes. They are, thinks Kevin, the
finest, the most beautiful green suede shoes in the whole world. Suddenly, he is in love with
the shoes. He decides to buy the shoes and not the iPod. He changes his mind.

Wanted - a new patron saint for England.

St George killing the dragon painting by Paolo Uccello c. 1470.
In Christian tradition, a saint means someone whom the Church recognises as having led a
particularly good and holy life. There are lots of Christian saints. The Roman Catholic church
recognises more than 10,000 of them. You cant be recognised as a saint while you are alive.
All saints are dead, and many of them have been dead for a very long time.
Some Christian saints are associated with particular countries, or particular occupations or
particular sorts of people. We call these saints patron saints . For example, St Christopher is
the patron saint of travellers, St Stephen is the patron saint of bricklayers, and St Joan is the
patron saint of France.
The patron saint of England is St George. Until recently, we English did not make a lot of fuss
about St George. But things have changed in the last 20 years. English football fans now wave
the flag of St George (a red cross on a white background) at football matches. And many
people want St Georges Day (23 April) to be made a public holiday in England (but not in
Scotland or Wales, of course, because Scotland and Wales have their own patron saints).
The traditional story of St George says that he was a soldier in the Roman army at the
beginning of the fourth century. He was arrested and executed because he refused to
renounce his Christian faith. There is also a story that St George fought and killed a dragon,
and thereby rescued a beautiful princess whom the dragon was about to eat.
At this point, I must tell you, gentle listeners, that I think that there are big problems about
having St George as patron saint of England.
1. The story of St George is, well, just a story. Most experts agree that he never existed.
2. If St George did exist, he was definitely not English, nor did he ever visit England, nor did he
have any connection at all with England.
3. It is not good to kill dragons. There are hardly any dragons left in the world. An
environmentally responsible saint would have created a national nature reserve where the
dragon could live in peace and people could come and take photographs of it.
4. St George is also the patron saint of about 12 other countries, including Canada, Georgia,
Greece and Lithuania. Poor St George is overworked and overstressed. He has too many
countries to worry about. And what would he do if two of his countries started to fight one
another?

St Wulfstan, from a stained glass window in the parish church in Long Itchington.
So I would like to suggest that England should have a new patron saint, and as it happens I
know exactly the right saint for the job. His name is St Wulfstan. He was born in a village called
Long Itchington, which is about 35 miles from Birmingham, exactly 1000 years ago in 1008. He
studied in monasteries, and became a priest and in 1062 became the bishop of Worcester.
Four years later, in 1066, one of the most important events in Englands history occurred.
William of Normandy, known as William the Conqueror, conquered England and became king.
His armies killed, or drove out or replaced all the important English people of the country the
nobles, and senior people in government and the church and replaced them with French-
speaking people from Normandy. All except Wulfstan. After a few years, he was the only
English person in a senior position in the country. How did he survive? Why did William not
replace him? We know that Wulfstan was respected because of his simple and holy lifestyle.
For instance, he fasted for three days every week, and on the remaining days ate only bread,
vegetables and fruit. But he was also a very capable administrator. He built numerous new
churches. He helped to compile the great Domesday Book which recorded details of
everything in Williams new kingdom every town and village, every mill, every wood. He tried
to help the poor and to protect people who had lost their homes and their lands to the
Norman conquerors, but he also opposed rebellion against the new rulers of the country. He
was deeply concerned about the trade in slaves between Ireland and the port of Bristol, and
tried to persuade the king to prohibit it.
The story of St Wulfstan is not, I agree, as romantic as the story of St George. St George
suffered a martyrs death; Wulfstan died peacefully at the age of 89. But Wulfstan would have
these advantages as patron saint of England:
1. He definitely existed
2. He was English.
3. He freed slaves, which is better than killing dragons.
4. He is the patron saint of vegetarians, which is very appropriate, because there are more
vegetarians in England than in any other country in Europe.
5. He is not the patron saint of anywhere else, so he would have time to be a proper patron
saint of England.
What do you think? If you go to the website, you will find a poll where you can vote for either
George or Wulfstan.
Up-to-date

An iPhone up-to-date technology. Picture by Niels van Eck/flickr.
In todays podcast, I am going to talk about the English word up-to-date. Well, it is really
three words up, to and date normally we spell it with hyphens in between but we
can think of up-to-date as a single word. Up-to-date is an adjective. It means having the
latest information or ideas. We can say that something, or someone, is up-to-date.
I will give you some examples in a minute. But first, you need to know that the opposite of
up-to-date is out-of-date. If something is out-of-date, it does not contain the latest
information or ideas. Sometimes it means old fashioned or no longer valid.
Lets look at some examples.
Kevin, as you know, is mad keen about football. Often on Saturday he goes to see his team
play. But he also want to know what is happening in the other football matches that are taking
place at the same time. So he gets text messages on his mobile phone, to give him the latest
scores in the other matches. Kevin likes to be up-to-date. The text messages keep Kevin up-to-
date with the other football matches.
Joanne is planning to go on a picnic with some friends. Will the weather by OK, or will it rain?
The weather forecast yesterday was that the weather today would be cloudy but dry. but
perhaps that weather forecast is now out-of-date. So Joanne listens to the weather forecast on
the radio to get up-to-date information about the weather. The weather forecast still says that
the weather will be cloudy but dry, so Joanne and her friends set off for their picnic. However,
they get lost, because they are using an out-of-date map, which does not show some roads
which have been built in the last ten years.
John loves technology, or rather he loves technological gadgets which do clever things. Not
all of these gadgets are useful, but John loves them anyway. He has just bought the latest, the
most up-to-date iPhone. Is an iPhone useful, or is it just a gadget? I dont know!
Mary has some important exams at the end of the year. She also has to complete a project to
show to the examiners. Her teacher asks her, Are you up-to-date with your project? That
means, have you done everything you should have done by now? If Marys work is not up-to-
date, we say that she is behind with her work. She will have to work hard all weekend in
order to catch up.
George thinks that it would be a great idea to go to Paris for the weekend with some friends.
But he cant. His passport is out-of-date. That means, it is no longer valid. He will need to get
his passport renewed.
Kevin sees an advertisement for a job in the newspaper. It looks attractive. It is closer to home,
and it would pay more. The advertisement says that he should send an up-to-date CV (CV
stands for curriculum vitae, which is Latin and means an list of the things that you have done in
your life what school you went to, what you studied at university, what jobs you have done
things like that.) The last time that Kevin looked at his CV was three years ago, so the CV is out-
of-date. He needs to update his CV, by adding information for the last three years. He needs to
bring his CV up-to-date.
Joannes grandmother is 92 years old. Despite her age, she likes the latest pop music, and she
always watches the news on television, because she likes to keep up-to-date with what is
happening in the world. Joannes grandfather, however, has some very out-of-date attitudes
he wants to bring back compulsory military service, for example, and thinks that too many
married women go out to work.
And finally, I looked in my fridge a few minutes ago. There was some yoghurt at the back of the
fridge. The label on the yoghurt pot says Best before 28 August. Today is 6 October. The
yoghurt is out-of-date. Shall I eat the yoghurt anyway? Maybe not.

The Prefabs

The only remaining prefabs in Birmingham.
Near to where I live, there is a group of small houses. They are bungalows that is, they are
single-storey houses. There are gardens in front of the houses, and behind them; and most of
the gardens are well-kept. There is something unusual about the houses, however. Most
houses in this part of England are built of brick. These houses, however, are built of cement
mixed with asbestos. They are what we call prefabs, or prefabricated houses, and they have
an interesting history.
At the end of the Second World War, there was a serious shortage of houses in Britain. Tens of
thousands of homes had been destroyed by bombing. It was also necessary to find homes for
all the servicemen returning from the war. The government decided to build 500,000 new
houses to solve the problem. They thought it would be too slow and expensive to build proper
brick houses, so they decided to build prefabricated houses instead. Prefabricated houses are
made in sections in a factory. The house-builders then take the sections by lorry to the place
where the houses are to be built, and fix them together. Houses of this sort are common in
many other countries such as the United States. But they are very unusual in Britain. The
government explained that the new prefabs would only be temporary. They would be taken
down after 10 or 15 years, and proper houses would replace them.
The prefab building programme started in the final months of the war. German and Italian
prisoners of war built some of the first houses. Factories which had previously built military
equipment were used to make the sections for the houses. In some cases, they used
aluminium from old fighter planes.
Things did not happen exactly as the government had planned. Prefabs turned out to cost
more than normal houses, and in the end only about 167,000 of them were built. And they
were not generally replaced with proper houses after 10 or 15 years; they had to last much
longer. There were problems too about very poor insulation, which made the prefabs cold in
winter, and leaking roofs.
But for many working-class families, a prefab was like a dream come true. Previously, they had
lived in cramped terraced houses in the centre of big cities, where they had little space or
privacy. Their new prefab had a garden for the children to play in, and an indoor toilet, and a
fitted kitchen with a refrigerator!
Gradually, over the years, the prefabs were demolished. Often blocks of flats replaced them.
The planners and architects liked the concrete tower blocks; but the people who had to live in
them disagreed. The old prefabs despite their problems had been better, and closer to the
sorts of homes that people wanted.
Today, hardly any prefabs remain. Here in Birmingham they have all gone, except for the small
group near my home. These have been refurbished, and they are now, happily, listed buildings,
which means that they cannot be altered or demolished. They are a part of the social history of
Britain, and it is good that they are still here.
Lost and Found

The lost car keys. Picture by fallsroad/flickr.
Alexandre Monteiro has sent me an e-mail asking about the difference between the words
seek, find and look. I hope that this podcast will help him, and other people.
I guess you know the English verb to lose. The past tense is lost. If you lose your pen, you
do not know where you left it or where you put it. The pen is lost.
When you lose something, probably you want to find it again. So you look for it, or you search
for it, or you hunt for it. We also have a verb to seek which has a similar meaning to
search. But we generally use seek when we are talking about abstract things. We can say,
for example, I am seeking happiness. But we probably would not say I am seeking my car
keys.
And that brings us to our story today, which is about Joanne, and she has lost her car keys.
Joanne is looking after her nephew Nick, who is two and a half years old. They have a happy
afternoon together in the park. Then they come home and draw some pictures. Then Nick
helps Joanne to make some biscuits. Nick eats most of the biscuits, until Joanne says, No
more, Nick. Your Mum will be cross if you eat too many biscuits and then cant eat your tea.
Then Nick watches a video, and then it is time for him to go home. Joanne helps Nick to put on
his shoes and coat. She looks in her handbag for her car keys.
The keys are not there. They are not in the pockets of her jacket, either. Where can I have put
them? she says. She looks for the keys in the kitchen. Perhaps she left them on the kitchen
table when they were making biscuits. But the keys are not there.
She searches for the keys in the sitting room. Perhaps they have fallen down the back of the
sofa. But the keys are not there.
She hunts for the keys in the bedroom. Perhaps she put them down on the dressing-table. But
the keys are not there.
She searches high and low, but the keys are nowhere to be found.
Have you seen my car keys, Nick? says Joanne.
Down the toilet, says Nick.
What? says Joanne. Nick, did you put the keys down the toilet?
Dont know, says Nick, helpfully. Can I have another biscuit?
Joanne rushes to the bathroom and looks into the toilet. No keys.
By this time, Joanne is getting desperate. She told her sister that Nick would be home at 5.30.
It is now 5.45. The door opens. Kevin comes in. He is in a good mood. He has been to a football
match, where his team won 2-0. And he is carrying Joannes car keys.
Where did you find them? asks Joanne.
You left them in the car ignition, says Kevin. You are lucky that no-one drove your car away.
Oh, I smell biscuits. Can I have one?
How to enter the kitchen!

A mouse in the kitchen! Photo by yeimaya/flickr.
I have some poetry for you in todays podcast. It is a poem by a woman called Susie Paskins,
and it is called How to enter the kitchen.
Let me first explain what the poem is about. Susie has a problem. There is a mouse in her
kitchen! She knows that the mouse is there somewhere in the kitchen and she does not
like it. So what does she do? She makes lots of noise when she goes into the kitchen. She does
not look in the corners of the room, where the mouse might be. She sings loudly when she
puts water in the kettle to boil. She pretends that she does not worry about the mouse at all.
The poem then goes on to say that we have secret parts of our lives which are like the mouse
in the kitchen. Normally we ignore them. We make lots of noise so that we do not have to see
them. And the secret parts of our lives, like the mouse, run away and hide.
But perhaps it would be better if we sat quietly and waited. Then we might see these parts of
our life, and we would not be afraid of them any more. Just like the mouse in the kitchen!
Here is the poem:
Approach with confidence,
Then fling the door wide,
Make a loud stamping noise.
Do not look in the corners That is where it might be,
Whisking and darting,
A black shadow
Running to hide.
Sing loudly as you put the kettle
on.
Pretend a certainty you do not feel
That it will not horror! run over
your feet
Or pause and stare up at you,
Defying your possession of its
space.
Parts of you
Hide in corners too,
Not seeing the light,
Muttering and grumbling,
Too low to be heard.
Mostly you avert your gaze
And make too much noise
To confront them.
So they run away
And hide in the secret places.
But perhaps
You should quietly tiptoe
To the corner and wait.
And then you might see,
And not be afraid
Of what lives in the dark.
Poem originally published in Quaker Monthly, March 2008. Reproduced here by permission.
The Longest Name

The name sign on the railway station at Llanfair PG.
Once upon a time, there was a village in north Wales called Llanfair. Llanfair means, simply,
the church of St Mary in the Welsh language, and there are many other places in Wales
called Llanfair. The particular Llanfair in this story was called Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll, to
distinguish it from the other places called Llanfair. The name Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll means, in
English, the church of St Mary beside the hollow (or little valley) with the white hazel tree. I
think you will agree that Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll is perhaps too long for normal, everyday use.
And English speaking people like me often find Welsh names difficult to pronounce. So people
shortened the name to Llanfair PG. And people often still call the village Llanfair PG today.
In the 1850s, a railway line was built along the coast of north Wales. It ran to Holyhead, which
was the main port for ships sailing to Ireland. The railway line was busy and important. But
only a few trains stopped at the station at Llanfair PG, and only a few visitors came to the
village.
How could Llanfair PG attract more visitors? I know, said a man who lived near the village.
We need a new name. A special name. A name that people will remember. A name that will
make people say Thats interesting. I really want to visit that place. So he suggested a new
name the longest place name in Britain. And other people agreed, and so the village was re-
named Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. (That was not me
speaking, by the way. That was a real Welsh person speaking real Welsh!) What did the new
name mean? In English it is: The church of St Mary beside the hollow with the white hazel
tree and the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio with the red cave. They put up a new
name sign in the railway station, and it was the longest railway name sign in Britain. And they
waited for the tourists to come.
Changing the name of the village was what today we would call a publicity stunt something
which you do to get people to notice you. Many companies, when they want to sell more of
their products, find a new name for the product, or they design new packaging, or do
something else to attract more customers. Sometimes this works. sometimes it doesnt.
Did the new name work for Llanfair PG? I do not think so. Llanfair is still a quiet little place with
about 3,000 inhabitants. Some trains stop there, but many go through without stopping.
People arrive in their cars. They park in the station car park. They take a photograph of the the
name sign on the station platform. Then they get back in their cars and drive away.
Why did the new name not attract more visitors? The answer is easy, I think. Imagine going to
a railway ticket office and asking for a ticket to
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, please.
A wet summer, and the Olympic Games

A wet summer. This photo was taken in the Netherlands by Aneemiek van der Kuil but Britain
in August was like this too!
The summer holidays are over. People have returned to work. The children are back at school.
And this is my first podcast since July.
So, what sort of summer has it been in Britain? Lets start with the bad news. Our economy is
in big difficulties. Prices are rising, especially prices for food. Petrol prices are now so high that
people are using their cars less, and trains and buses more. Holidays abroad are now much
more expensive, because the British pound has fallen in value. Our economy has stopped
growing. Indeed, there may be a recession next year that is, a period when the economy
shrinks, or becomes smaller. Our Chancellor of the Exchequer (that means, our Finance
Minister) certainly thinks that things are bad. He recently told a newspaper reporter that the
economic position was the worst for 60 years.
Many British people own their own homes. They buy their homes with a loan from a bank. The
last ten years have been a very nice time to own a house. House prices have risen steadily, and
people felt that they were getting richer, so they spent more. In fact, Britain has had its longest
period of economic growth for 100 years. But this has now stopped. House prices have fallen,
and everyone expects that they will fall further. The fall in house prices has been the fastest for
over 25 years. This is bad news if you own your house already; it is good news if you do not
own a house but would like to buy one.
However, the really awful thing the thing that makes British people really gloomy is the
weather. It has rained since the end of July. We have had the wettest August for many years.
And there has been hardly any sunshine. In many places, August has been the dullest August
(that is, the least sunny August) since 1927. It is still raining. And the weather forecast is yes,
more rain.
I am glad to say, however, that the summer has had one happy thing for Britain. At the
Olympic Games in Beijing, British athletes won 45 medals. That is the highest number of
medals since 1908. We even won more medals than the Australians, which is very satisfying.
So, while the rain poured down, we could at least watch the Olympic Games on television. The
next Olympic Games, in 2012, will take place in London. Will they be the wettest Olympic
Games ever? Or will it stop raining before then?
Break up

This car is being broken up in a scrap yard. Photo by Olly Clark/flickr
There is an English phrasal verb to break up. It means to break into pieces. Here are some
examples of ways in which we can use it.
Imagine a storm at sea. The wind and the waves drive a ship onto the rocks. The waves smash
the ship into pieces. The ship breaks up.
Or, think about the great ice sheets in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Many scientists say that,
because the worlds climate is getting warmer, the ice sheets are starting to break up.
Or, think about a really old car. You have had it for many years. You and it have had some fine
adventures together. But now the engine does not start. And when, eventually, it does start,
there are horrible clunking sounds and a cloud of black smoke comes out of the exhaust pipe.
The car is finished. You take the car to the scrap yard where they break it up, so that the metal
and some of the parts can be re-used.
And sometimes we say that a relationship breaks up. For instance, Joe and Mary have been
going out together for a few months. They are boyfriend and girlfriend. But then they disagree
and argue. Joe starts to think that he really doesnt like Mary very much. Mary starts to think
that Joe is selfish and boring. They break up. They decide that they are not going to be
boyfriend and girlfriend any more.
You may be thinking that break up is a rather sad expression. We use it to talk about
shipwrecks, and cars that have reached the end of their lives, and relationships which come to
an end. But there is at least one really happy use of break up. We can say that a school
breaks up. That means, simply, that it is the end of term. It is the beginning of the holidays.
There is a primary school behind my house. The school breaks up today. Today is the last day
of the school term. The children are very happy. They are making even more noise in the
school playground than they usually do. After today, there will be six weeks with no school. Six
weeks to stay late in bed. Six weeks to play in the garden. Six weeks to watch rubbish
programmes on daytime television and to play on the computer. Six weeks to visit your
grandparents, or to go on holiday. Six weeks to argue with your older sister. Six weeks to drive
your parents mad.
Listen to English is going on holiday too. This will be my last podcast for this term. But dont
worry I will be back with a new podcast on 10 September. I am going to spend part of the
holiday in Wales, so here is some Welsh music for you to listen to. It is played on the Welsh
harp by Cheryl Ann Fulton. I will put an extra posting on the website with a flash player where
you can listen to more of her music if you like it. Until September, goodbye.
Better

Better buses, better service, better catch one
I am sorry that there was no podcast last week. I was unwell. But now I am better. That means,
I am not unwell any more. I have recovered. I am better.
And todays podcast is about the word better. Better is of course the comparative form of
the adjective good. Good better- best. We can say: This is a good restaurant. But the
restaurant over the road is better. And the restaurant round the corner is the best restaurant
in the town.
We can use better in other ways, too. There is an English expression I had better do
something. It means I must do something, or it would be a good idea to do something.
Here are some examples:
Kevin and Joanne are having breakfast. Joanne looks in the fridge. There is no milk. I had
better buy some milk this morning, she says. Kevin looks at his watch. It is nearly 7.30am. I
had better go now, he says. I have to go to a meeting at 8.30. Yes, says Joanne. You had
better hurry, otherwise you will miss the train. And it is raining. You had better take an
umbrella.
In Birmingham, where I live, there is a bus company. Actually, there are lots of bus companies,
because our government believes that competition in public transport is a good thing. Our
government is wrong. Britain has some of the worst public transport in Europe. But that is
different podcast. One of our competing bus companies has a slogan on the side of its buses. It
says: better buses, better service, better catch one. This is what it means.

Better buses
Better buses the company has better buses. But better than what? Better than the buses
of the other bus companies? Better than the old buses which it used to have? I suppose that
better buses is OK as an advertising slogan, but if you want people to understand exactly
what you mean, remember to use the word than better buses than our old buses, for
example.
Better service This means more frequent buses, more reliable buses. Perhaps the company
means that they now run buses late in the evening and on Sundays.
And better catch one is short for you had better catch one. In other words, it would be a
good idea to catch one of our wonderful better buses. Remember that in English, we can take
a bus or a train or a plane; or we can catch a bus or a train or a plane.
Now you know all about I had better. There is a quiz with the podcast today. You can find it
on the website. Now it is late. I had better stop now. I had better go to the supermarket. I had
better cook supper for the children. I had better say goodbye.

Stonehenge

A rainbow behind Stonehenge. This remarkable photo was taken by Lucille Pine/flickr
In todays podcast, we talk about some theories. We talk about things which may be true, or
may not be true. We use words like perhaps and maybe and it could be that... See how
many examples you can find.
We English have not lived in England for long. Our ancestors, the Saxons, came to England
from northern Germany in the fifth century. They spoke a language which we call Anglo-Saxon
or Old English. Over the centuries, Anglo-Saxon changed to become modern English.
Before the Saxon invasions, people called the Celts lived here. The modern Welsh language is
descended from the languages of these Celtic people. But the Celts had not lived in Britain for
long, either. There were people here before the Celts came. These people had no written
language, so they left us no manuscripts or inscriptions to tell us about them. However, they
left us plenty of archaeological evidence burial places, pottery, tools and so on. And they left
us a remarkable and mysterious monument called Stonehenge.
If you drive by car south-west out of London, along a road with the romantic name A303, you
will reach Stonehenge after about an hour and a half. You will see a circle of great stones, with
other stones placed carefully on top of them. There are other, smaller stones called
bluestones. Around Stonehenge, there are other ancient places burial places, for instance,
and ancient paths.
The archaeologists tell us that Stonehenge was not all built at one time. The oldest parts of
Stonehenge are about 5,000 years old. The bluestones came about 1000 years later, and the
great circle of stones a few hundred years after that. The great stones probably came from a
place about 40km away. They each weigh about 25 tonnes. Experts say that perhaps 500 men
pulled each stone, while 100 more placed logs on the ground for the stone to roll over. The
bluestones are even more remarkable they are much smaller, about 4 tonnes each, but
they come from Preseli in south Wales, a distance of nearly 400 km. How did they get to
Stonehenge? Maybe people carried them on small boats, over the sea and along rivers.
The big question is Why? Why did these people, four or five thousand years ago, build
Stonehenge, and what did they use it for? Here are some of the theories:
- Perhaps Stonehenge was a religious temple. Perhaps priests sacrificed animals or even
human beings here.
- Maybe Stonehenge was a centre of political power, a place built by a great and powerful king.
- Possibly, it was a place to celebrate the dead, a place to send them on their way to the next
world.
- Or it could have been a place where sick or injured people came to be cured, like Lourdes in
France is today.
- Or Stonehenge might have been a place to watch the movement of the sun, moon and stars,
and to forecast important events like eclipses.
- Or, conceivably, it was all of these things, or it had different purposes at different times.
Today, Stonehenge is an important tourist site, and a place for people who like to believe in
magic. At the summer solstice (that is June 21st, the longest day of the year) people go to
Stonehenge to watch the sun rise. This year, about 30,000 people were there. And, because
this is England, it rained.
How much does the Queen cost?

Queen Elizabeth II
Thank you all for your e-mails, and for your suggestions about subjects for future podcasts.
A listener in France has asked, can I make a podcast about the Queen? And several other
listeners have said that they would like some help with listening to numbers (which is always
one of the most difficult things in any foreign language). I am going to kill two birds with one
stone, as we say in English. This podcast is about the Queen, and also about listening to
numbers. I have left gaps in the script where there are numbers,. Try to fill in the numbers as
you hear them. You can check on the website whether you have heard them correctly.
Queen Elizabeth (a)..... came to the throne in (b)....., following the death of her father, King
George...... She is now (d)..... years old, and she has been Queen for (e)..... years. She is the
(f)..... monarch (that is, king or queen) since the Norman Conquest of England in the year
(g)...... What sort of things does she do?
The Queen has all sorts of official engagements in this country visits to towns and cities, to
schools and hospitals, to open new buildings and to attend official dinners. Last year she had
(h)..... official engagements, which is (i)..... more than in (j)......
The Queen makes official visits to other countries too. Since she came to the throne, the
Queen has made over (k)..... visits to about (l)..... different countries. Last year , she visited the
United States, Uganda, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The Queen sends messages of congratulations to everyone in Britain who reaches their (m).....
birthday. Since (n)....., she has sent (o)..... of these messages. She has also sent more than
(p)..... messages of congratulation to married couples who are celebrating their diamond
wedding, that is the (q)..... anniversary of their wedding.
Last week, her office published the royal accounts for...... The accounts show that the cost of
the Queens official duties last year was (s)...... This was (t)....., or (u).....% more than in
(v)...... However, officials at the palace want everyone to know that in real terms, that is after
allowing for inflation, the cost of the Queen has fallen by (w).....% in the last (x)..... years.
How much is (y).....? Well, there are about (z)..... people in Britain, so (aa)..... is about
(bb)..... pence for each of us. Palace officials, who try very hard to keep up with new
technology and new fashions, have pointed out to the newspapers that (cc)..... pence is about
the cost of a download from the iTunes music store.
An important part of the cost of the Queens official duties is the cost of travel. Travel, in
Britain and overseas, cost (dd)..... pounds last year. The Queen has a special royal train. Our
newspapers love to tell us how much the royal train costs. Last year the royal train was used
only (ee)..... times. One of these trips was a visit which Prince Charles made to a pub in the
town of Penrith the cost was (ff)......
However, palace officials have told the press that there are serious problems because several
of the royal palaces need to be repaired. Altogether an extra (gg)..... is needed for this. The
roof at Windsor Castle needs to be replaced this will cost (hh)...... Many parts of
Buckingham Palace in London have not been redecorated for over (ii).....years, and the
electrical wiring is over (jj)..... years old. It will cost (kk)..... to rewire the palace, and replace
the plumbing (that is, the water pipes and the drains), and to remove dangerous asbestos from
the building.
In fact, Buckingham Palace seems to be such a mess that I am surprised that the Queen still
lives there. If you know of somewhere else where she could live temporarily, until Buckingham
Palace is repaired, perhaps you could telephone her office and tell them The number is (ll).....
Alfred Brendel Calls Time

Alfred Brendel
Last November, the Guardian newspaper contained an article. This was the headline.
Alfred Brendel, piano maestro, calls time on concert career.
What does it mean?
Well, you may already know about Alfred Brendel. He is a pianist, or a piano maestro as the
Guardian headline calls him. He is famous for his playing of works by Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven and Schubert. We shall talk more about him in a minute.
But what does call time mean? Until about 30 years ago, there were strict laws in Britain
about when pubs could open. Generally, all pubs had to close at 10.30 in the evening, and
everyone had to stop drinking and leave the pub at that time. Shortly before 10.30pm, the
landlord of the pub used to ring a bell, and call out Time, gentlemen, please! or something
like that. So, to call time means to announce that you will soon close something, or soon
finish something.
Lets go back to the newspaper headline. Alfred Brendel, piano maestro, calls time on his
concert career. It means that Alfred Brendel has announced that his career as a concert
pianist will soon come to an end. In other words, he has said that he is going to retire.
There is another idiom with a similar meaning to call it a day. Imagine that you have been
working all day on a project for school or college. It is now the evening and you are tired. Yes,
there are some more things you could do, but you decide to stop now and go to bed. You call
it a day. Alfred Brendel has decided, at the age of 77, to call it a day too.
Alfred Brendel is a remarkable man. He was born in what is now the Czech Republic in 1931.
His family were not musical, and he had little formal training on the piano. Nonetheless, he
made a successful career as a pianist from the 1950s. Since the 1970s, he has lived in Britain.
He is not only a famous pianist, he also writes about music, and writes poetry, both in English
and in German. When he retires, at the end of this year, he wants to spend more time writing
and teaching.
For the last 15 years, Alfred Brendel has come regularly to Birmingham to play in Symphony
Hall. Last night, I attended his last concert here. Every ticket was sold, every seat in the hall
was occupied. When he played, the audience was completely silent. As we say in English, you
could have heard a pin drop. Alfred Brendels playing is very personal and very direct. It is as if
he was in your sitting room, playing specially for you. At the end of the concert, we gave him a
standing ovation, and he gave us two encores. It was a memorable occasion, though also a
rather sad occasion.
To end the podcast, here is Alfred Brendel playing some music by Schubert. May he have a
long and happy retirement.
Captain Calamity

I could not find a picture or Forwick, but here is one of another part of the Shetlands, so that
you can see what the landscape looks like. It was taken by tigernuts/flickr
In the past year, we have had two podcasts about English people who have gone to Scotland to
do slightly crazy things. We had Andy Strangeway, who has spent a night on every island in
Scotland. Then we had Steve Feltham, who has spent the last 17 years looking for the Loch
Ness monster. Today we meet Stuart Hill. He lives on a tiny island in Shetland (a group of
islands to the north of Scotland), and he has just declared his island to be an independent
state.
This is not the first time that Stuart Hill has been in the news. He has a nickname, Captain
Calamity. (A calamity is another word for a disaster). This is why. He comes from Essex in
eastern England. Several years ago he bought himself a small boat. His boat became his main
interest. He took a sail from a wind-surfing board and fixed it to his boat. He started to go for
sailing trips. Then, in 2001, he decided to sail his boat single-handed all the way round Britain.
His wife and his children thought he was mad. The distance around Britain is over 3,000
kilometers, and there are dangerous rocks and currents, and the waves and the weather are
often dangerous too.
Stuart Hill set off. Within minutes, he hit another boat, and his sail collapsed into the water. He
found he had forgotten some important equipment, and a friend had to swim out to his boat
with it. Over the next few weeks, he had more problems with his boat, and he had to be
rescued five times by lifeboats and twice by helicopter. Finally, in August 2001, his boat turned
over in a storm near the Shetland islands. He was rescued again, but he had lost everything
he had no boat, and no money and nothing but the clothes he stood up in. So he stayed in
Shetland, and got a job there, working in a fish-processing factory.
This week, Stuart Hill was in the news again. He now lives on a tiny Shetland island called
Forewick Holm, where he is the only inhabitant (apart from lots of sheep and sea-birds). He is
65 years old, which means that he is able to get a state old-age pension. Most pensioners want
a quiet life, but not Stuart. He has declared that Forwick is now an independent state, and that
it is no longer part of Britain or of the European Union. There will be no taxes in Forwick, he
says, and his state will soon issue its own currency.
Why is he doing this? He wants to draw attention to an argument that Shetland is legally not
part of Scotland (and therefore not part of Britain). Many centuries ago, Shetland was ruled by
the king of Norway. But in 1469, the king of Norway needed some money in a hurry, so he
gave Shetland to the king of Scotland in return for a loan. So, says Stuart Hill, Shetland is not
part of Scotland. It should be an independent state, able in particular to control oil production
from the oil fields around its coast and to collect revenues from the oil companies. Some
Shetlanders probably agree with him, though I doubt if they want Captain Calamity as their
ruler.
Stuart Hill has spent much of the week being interviewed by the newspapers. Its all jolly good
fun, he says. Every pensioner should do something like this.
Getting married

While I was searching Flickr, I found this wonderful picture of a wedding cake. By princess of
Ilyr/flickr who likes taking photos of food!
Our podcast today is about weddings. I hope you will learn some new English words. There is a
quiz attached to the podcast today so that you can test how much you know.
In England, you can get married in a church, or you can have a civil wedding (that is, a non-
religious wedding) . Until about 10 years ago, civil weddings always took place at a Registry
Office. Nowdays, however, you can get married in all sorts of places in hotels, in country
houses, and in many mosques and Hindu temples, for example.
A wedding can be very expensive. One website that I have seen says that the average cost of a
wedding in Britain is over 11,000. Here are some of the things that many couples will want for
their wedding:
a wedding-dress for the bride, and dresses for her bridesmaids;
wedding rings for the bride and the bridegroom;
flowers for the church or the place where the wedding is held;
a reception (that is, a party or a formal meal) for the wedding guests after the wedding
ceremony;
a wedding cake;
a professional photographer, to take pictures or videos of the wedding;
a honeymoon (a holiday) for the newly-married couple after the wedding.
And there are lots more things to spend money on if you want to. Some couples want to hire a
beautiful horse-drawn carriage, or a vintage Rolls Royce car to take them away after the
wedding. Some people even fly to holiday resorts in Mexico or Thailand to get married, and
their families and friends fly there too.
There is no such thing as a typical wedding. Every couple getting married has to decide for
themselves what sort of wedding they want a religious wedding, or a civil wedding; a big
wedding with lots of guests; or a small, simple wedding.
I went to a wedding last weekend. It was definitely not a typical wedding, but you might be
interested in it. It was a Quaker wedding. There was no priest or minister to conduct the
wedding, and no music or singing. The bride and groom and the wedding guests all sat silently
together. After about 10 minutes, the bride and groom stood up and said that they took each
other as man and wife and made their promises to each other. After that, some of their friends
and relatives spoke about love and marriage, or read a poem or a passage from the Bible, or
simply wished the couple every happiness together. The wedding lasted for about an hour. At
the end, everyone who was there about 80 of us signed the wedding certificate as
witnesses to the marriage.
And then because we are British we all drank cups of tea and chatted to friends and family
members whom we had not seen for a long time. We went out into the garden of the Quaker
Meeting House to take photos of the bride and groom. In the evening, we were all invited to a
ceilidh. Ceilidh is a Scottish Gaelic word, which has become part of the English language in
recent years. It means an evening of dancing, singing, story telling and poetry. The bride and
groom cut their wedding cake, and we danced traditional English and Scottish dances until late
in the evening. And then all the wedding guests, and the bride and groom too, did the washing
up and helped to put the chairs and tables back in their proper places.
We had a wonderful time. Is this the sort of wedding you would like?
Kevin gets cold feet

Parachute. Photo by John Shappell/flickr
Today, we meet the expression to have cold feet about something. It means well, I will tell
you a story, and you will see what it means.
About 3 months ago, Kevin went to the pub with his friend George. At the pub they met some
friends who were talking about parachute jumping (or skydiving). They were planning to go
on a course to learn how to jump out of an aeroplane with a parachute. They thought it would
be a really interesting thing to do. Maybe people would agree to sponsor their first jump so
that they could raise money for a charity. By the end of the evening, Kevin and George had
agreed that they too would go on the parachute jumping course. It sounded good fun. And
Kevin would be able to tell everyone at work about his parachute jump, and they would be
impressed.
Today is the last day of the parachute jumping course. For the first few days, Kevin, George
and the other course participants learned how parachutes work, and how to open the
parachute in the air, and how to land on the ground safely. But today, the instructors will take
them up in a small aeroplane, and they will make their first real parachute jump.
Kevin feels ill. Three months ago, in the pub, jumping out of an aeroplane with a parachute
was a great idea. Now Kevin thinks, Why did I say that I would do this? Jumping out of an
aeroplane is a crazy thing to do. Suppose he cannot make the parachute work. He would fall
hundreds of meters and be killed. Or maybe his parachute will work, but he will land in a river,
or in a tree, or on the roof of a house, or in a field with a mad bull. He imagines himself, lying
on the ground with a broken ankle, with the mad bull snorting angrily at him.
In other words, Kevin has cold feet. Three months ago, he was enthusiastic about the
parachute jump. Now he thinks it is a stupid idea. Perhaps he could pretend to be ill, or that his
aunt has just died and he needs to go to her funeral. Yes Kevin has cold feet.
Kevin arrives at the little airfield where the course is taking place The other course participants
all seem a little quiet this morning. Perhaps they have cold feet too.
Then the instructor comes out of his office. Bad news, I am afraid, he says. There is a
mechanical problem with the aircraft, and it will take two or three days to fix it. So Im sorry
but we wont be able to do the parachute jump today. And everyone on the course says
how disappointed they are, and how they had really been looking forward to the parachute
jump, and what bad luck it is that the aeroplane cannot fly. And Kevin says all these things too.
But secretly, inside, he is relieved. And he thinks that some of the other people on the course
look relieved too.
Godiva and Peeping Tom

Maureen O Hara starred as Godiva in a 1955 Holywood film.
Do you know the English word to peep? If I peep at something, it means that I look at it
quickly and secretly, and I hope that no-one notices. For example, I buy a birthday present for
my daughter. She wants to know what the present is. But it is not her birthday yet, so I do not
tell her. Quietly she goes upstairs and peeps into the bag, to see what the present is.
Or, I hear someone walking up the path to my house. Is it the postman? I peep out of the
window to see who it is.
However, peeping can be bad for you, as we hear in todays podcast.
Not far from Birmingham, where I live, is a town called Coventry. My grandmother was born in
Coventry, and she lived there until she was married. Coventry is an industrial town, but it is
also an old town, much older than Birmingham. In the 11th century, the powerful Earl Leofric
imposed taxes on the people of Coventry and on the market which took place there. The
people complained that the taxes were too high. The wife of Leofric, whose name was Godiva,
agreed with the people. She went to her husband and begged him to reduce the taxes. Leofric
refused. Godiva continued to plead with him. Eventually, Leofric said that he would reduce the
taxes if Godiva would ride naked on a horse through the town and market place of Coventry.
Godiva was astonished. But she was a woman of strong character, and she agreed.
So Godiva called for her servants to bring her horse, and she rode naked through Coventry.
The people of Coventry all went into their houses and closed the doors and the shutters on
their windows so that they should not see her. All the people? Well, no, there was a man
called Tom, who peeped through a hole in the window-shutters when he heard Godivas horse
coming. And because he peeped, he was struck blind that means, he became blind
immediately.
According to the story, Leofric did indeed reduce the taxes. To this day, the people of Coventry
celebrate Godivas ride through the town. And, in English, we have a special name for
someone who spies secretly on other people. We call him a Peeping Tom.
So if you think that taxes are too high in your country, you know what to do. Find a horse, and
take your clothes off. But dont peep!
I could do with a haircut

I could do with a haircut. Artwork by Lorrie McClanahan/flickr
In todays podcast we meet the English expression I could do with
I could do with is an indirect way of saying I need If I say I could do with something,
it means I need something.
So, if I say to my teenage son, You could do with a haircut, I mean Your hair is too long and
you need to get it cut.
One more thing before we start. The expression always uses the conditional could form of
the verb. We always say I could do with.., and never I can do with.. OK?
It is the weekend. Kevins plans include an afternoon in front of the television watching
football.
Joanne however has other ideas. The house could do with cleaning, she says. I will start on
the kitchen now, but this afternoon I could do with some help.
Kevin protests that he wants to watch the football. United could do with a win today, he
adds. Joanne says that United will win even if he does not watch them play. We could do with
some more floor cleaner, she says. Please could you go to the shops and buy some.
So Kevin walks to the shops while Joanne sets to work, cleaning the kitchen. Kevin returns
about twenty minutes later, a little out of breath. I could do with a rest, he says. And he sits
down on a chair and watches Joanne cleaning the floor.
Kevin, you are out of breath because you are too fat, says Joanne. You could do with losing
some weight.
What? says Kevin, horrified.
Yes. You could do with going swimming twice a week, or going to the gym.
An idea comes into Kevins mind. At the gym, they have a cafe with a TV set. He could go to the
gym, and watch the football on television instead of exercising.
Youre right, says Kevin, I could do with some exercise. Ill go to the gym this afternoon.
Nice try, Kevin, says Joanne. You can stay here and do some exercise at home. The carpet
could do with vacuuming, and the lawn could do with being mowed.
Three hours later, Kevin and Joanne are sitting on the sofa. They are exhausted, but the house
is clean and tidy for the first time in weeks. I could do with a drink, says Joanne, and I could
do with something to eat.
Im tired, says Kevin. I could do with a shower and an early night.
And as for me, I could do with a holiday. So I am going to Germany next week, but I will be
back with a new Listen to English podcast on about 5 June.
The Worst Poet

William McGonagall
We stay in Scotland for todays podcast. We are going to meet a man called William Topaz
McGonagall. Most people agree that he was the worst poet ever in the English language.
He was born in 1825. His father was a cotton weaver, who had to move from town to town in
Scotland to find work. Young William spent only 18 months at school before he too had to go
and work in the mills and factories. He became a jute weaver in Dundee, a town on the east
coast of Scotland. (Jute is a fibre which is used to make sacks. In the 19th century, Dundee was
the centre of the jute industry in Britain). It was in 1877, when William was 52 years old, that
he suddenly discovered that he was a poet. Not just a poet a great poet possibly the finest
poet since Shakespeare.
Over the next 25 years, Willam McGonagall wrote a large number of poems. He wrote about
the great public events of the day, like the attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria, and the
funeral of the Emperor of Germany. He was particularly fond of disasters, like shipwrecks and
railway accidents. He wrote about famous battles, and about people and places that he knew.
And his poetry was bad. It was so bad that it almost became good, if you see what I mean. It
was like someone playing a musical instrument, loudly and confidently, but completely out of
tune and without any sense of rhythm. It was like a newspaper report turned into poetry. Here
are some examples.
In 1878, a railway bridge was built over the river Tay near Dundee. At the time, it was the
longest bridge in the world. It was a triumph of British engineering, and the nation felt proud.
Naturally, William McGonagall wrote a poem about it. It began:
Beautiful railway bridge over the silvery Tay!
With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array,
And your central girders, which seem to the eye
To be almost towering to the sky.
Less than two years later, the Tay bridge collapsed in a storm while a train was passing over it.
Many people were killed. McGonagall wrote:
Beautiful railway bridge over the silvery Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879
Which will be remembered for a very long time.
A new Tay Bridge was completed in 1887, and of course William wrote a poem for the
occasion. I think you can guess how it began.
Beautiful new railway bridge over the silvery Tay!
With your strong brick piers and buttresses in so grand array,
And your thirteen central girders, which seem to my eye,
Strong enough all windy storms to defy.

Portrait of William McGonagall by W B Lamond
William McGonagall organised public events where he would read his poetry. They were very
popular. People came to laugh at his poems, and throw rotten fruit and vegetables at him.
(Obviously, in those days, there was not much to do in Dundee in the evenings). But
McGonagall continued to believe that he had a special gift as a poet. His fame as a bad poet
spread throughout Scotland, and then in the rest of Britain and in the British empire. But his
poetry did not make him rich, and he died penniless in Edinburgh in 1902. He has never been
forgotten however. His books of poetry have been reprinted regularly. Last week, a manuscript
of some of his poems was sold at auction for thousands of pounds. People still read his poems
today and smile.
The Loch Ness Monster

Loch Ness at sunrise. Photo by geordiemac/flickr
Loch Ness is in Scotland, and it is long and narrow and very deep. Loch Ness is special. What is
it?
Well, loch is a Scottish Gaellic word that means a lake or an inlet of the sea. There are
thousands of place names in Scotland containing the word loch. So Loch Ness is a lake. It is in
fact the largest freshwater lake in Britain. But that is not the reason why Loch Ness is special.
No, Loch Ness is special because it has its very own monster. People say that deep in the lake
there lives a large creature. Occasionally very occasionally you can see the creature
swimming on the surface of Loch Ness, or even moving on the land close to the shores of the
lake. No-one is certain what sort of creature it is, so it has no proper scientific name. But
everyone calls the Loch Ness monster Nessie.
The oldest stories about the monster date from the 6th century. St Columba, who first brought
Christianity to Scotland, is said to have saved the life of a man who had been attacked by a
huge creature near Loch Ness. The modern stories about the monster started in 1933, when
there were three sightings of a large, strange creature, about 1 metre high and 8 metres long,
with a long neck. There have been similar reports in most years since then, sometimes of a
creature on land, though more normally of a creature in the water. There have been some
photographs of Nessie as well, but most of them are of poor quality, and some may be fakes.
Several studies of Loch Ness using sonar equipment have found traces of a large object or
objects deep in the water.
So what is Nessie? Some people think that she (or he?) may be a type of dinosaur, which had
managed to survive when all the other dinosaurs on earth died out. But most scientists think
that this is extremely implausible. So is Nessie some other sort of animal, such as an eel or a
seal? Or perhaps Nessie does not exist at all. Perhaps the people who say that they have seen
a creature in Loch Ness actually saw other things a small boat, perhaps, or a group of birds,
or a pattern of waves and shadows on the water.
Steve Feltham is one of the people who believes that Nessie exists. In 1991, he gave up his
home, his job and his girlfriend to become a full-time Nessie hunter. For the last seventeen
years, he has lived beside Loch Ness looking for the monster. His home is an old van that used
to be a mobile library. It is parked in the car park of a pub, close to the shore of the Loch. Steve
makes little clay models of Nessie to sell to tourists. He has only once, in 17 years, seen
something which might have been Nessie, but that is not important for him. He loves his life as
a Nessie hunter. We shall have more about him in the next podcast.

Bank Holiday

We go to the seaside. We sit on the sand and eat ice-cream. Photo by crunchcandy/flickr
Irene, who lives in Germany, is a regular listener to these podcasts. She has sent me an e-mail
to suggest that I make a podcast about bank holidays in England and the way that we
celebrate them.
Most countries have public holidays at various times of the year that means, days when
schools, offices and many businesses are closed, so that most people do not have to go to
work. In England, our public holidays have the rather strange name bank holidays. The name
comes from an Act of Parliament in 1871, which required the Bank of England to close on
certain days during the year. The idea was that, if the Bank of England was closed, many other
businesses would close as well, and that their employees could have a day off work. And that is
in fact what has happened the bank holidays have become general public holidays.
Some of the bank holidays are at the times of the important traditional Christian festivals at
Easter and Christmas. But the other holidays are not religious, they are secular. Unlike public
holidays in many other countries, they are not on a fixed date every year. Instead they are all
on Mondays, so that people can take a long weekend break if they wish. Tomorrow, for
example, is the May Day Bank Holiday, which is on the first Monday in May every year. We
have another bank holiday, the Spring Bank Holiday, on the last Monday in May; and another
bank holiday on the last Monday in August.
In Scotland and Ireland they have bank holidays on the feast days of their patron saints St
Andrews Day (30 November) in Scotland, and St Patricks Day (17 March) in Ireland. But
although we poor English have a patron saint, St George, we do not get a holiday on St
Georges Day on 23 April. This is not fair.
So, what do we English do on our bank holidays? We visit friends and relatives. Or perhaps we
stay in bed until lunch-time. We dig our gardens and we mow our lawns. We go to football or
cricket matches. We go to huge out-of-town superstores to buy curtains and things for the
kitchen. We do DIY jobs around the house, like painting the bedroom or putting up a new shelf
in the bathroom. And if the weather is good, we get in our cars and we go to the seaside.
There we sit on the sand and eat ice-creams. At the end of the day, we get back into our cars
and drive home. We get stuck in enormous traffic jams on the motorways. The children argue
and fight in the back of the car. We arrive home tired but happy late in the evening. A perfect
bank holiday! Its such a pity we have to get up in the morning and go to work.
How to stay warm

Sheep on the road in North Yorkshire. Photo by Julia Parsons/flickr
If you visit upland areas of Britain places like the mountains of Scotland, or Wales, or the
Pennine Hills in northern England you will see a lot of sheep. Many of the sheep are in places
where there are no walls or hedges to keep them in their fields. So the sheep can wander
where they like, over the hills, and of course on the roads as well. Sheep do not take much
notice of cars. So, imagine you are driving along a little road in northern England. The sun is
shining. You look at the beautiful views across the hills and the valleys. You turn a corner. And
you find a flock of sheep on the road. The sheep look at you. You look at the sheep. You toot
your car horn. The sheep look at you some more. Then slowly, they move and let you past.
The sheep particularly like the road in the evening, because it is warm. During the day, the sun
shines on the road. If you try to walk across a sunny road in bare feet, you will know how hot
the road can be. When evening comes, the road is a nice warm place for the sheep to go to
sleep. And the sheep do not want to move, just because a car comes round the corner. Well,
you would not like getting out of bed to let a car come past.
What is the point of this little story about sheep? It is that roads are very good at absorbing
heat from the sun. A laboratory in England wants to see if it can use this fact to keep roads free
of ice and snow in the winter. It wants to place pipes filled with water underneath the road.
When the sun shines, the road will become hot and the water in the pipes will become hot
too. A small pump will pump the hot water into a tank buried in the ground at the side of the
road. The tank will be heavily insulated. That means that the heat will not be able to escape,
and the water will stay warm for a long time. And on cold winter nights, the pump will pump
the warm water back into the pipes underneath the road. The warm water will heat the road
surface and keep it free of ice.
The scientists and technologists call this technology Interseasonal Heat Transfer, or IHT. It is
of course a very simple technology, but many people think that intelligent use of simple
technology will be very important in the future. Climate change and the rising prices of fossil
fuels like coal, gas and oil make it urgent to find new ways of doing things which will not
damage the environment. If we can store heat from roads, car parks, airport runways, roofs,
school playgrounds etc in summer, we could use the heat during the winter not just for
keeping roads free of ice, but for heating buildings and providing hot water.
In the last podcast, I asked you to imagine that you were very rich, and had lots of servants.
Naturally, you have a tennis court and a swimming pool probably you have three tennis
courts and two swimming pools. How will you keep your swimming pools warm in winter? Easy
place pipes filled with water under the tennis courts to collect heat from the sun in summer.
Store the hot water in insulated tanks and use it to heat the swimming pools in winter.
I get my car repaired. You get your hair cut.

We get our milk delivered. Photo of a milkman with his milk float by Hembo Pagi/flickr
My car does not go. I dont know what is wrong with it. The engine wont start. The car will not
move. What shall I do?
I will get the car repaired. That means I will not repair the car myself. I will ask someone else
to do it, and they will repair the car for me. Look at the way we can talk about this in English.
I will get my car repaired.
I will have my car repaired.
I will get the garage to repair my car.
I will have the garage repair my car.
Now here is something which we all need, but which we cannot do for ourselves cutting our
hair. (What? You cut your own hair? How? Would you like to send me a photo so I can put it on
the website?) So what do you do?
You get your hair cut.
You have your hair cut.
You get the hairdresser to cut your hair.
You have the hairdresser cut your hair.
Do you know what a milkman is? In England you can have your milk delivered to your home.
Our milkman comes at about 3am. He leaves two bottles of milk and one bottle of orange juice
outside our door. He drives a little electric van (we call it a milk float in English), so he makes
hardly any noise. The milk bottles are made of glass, and when they are empty, we leave them
outside the door for the milkman to collect. So :
We get our milk delivered.
We have our milk delivered.
We get the milkman to deliver our milk.
We have the milkman deliver our milk.
Now imagine that you are very rich. No, not very rich very, very rich indeed. You do not have
a luxury sports car. You have three luxury sports cars, and a yacht, and a private aeroplane,
and a home in Monte Carlo where your friends are all very rich too. And you have servants
people to do things for you. Here are some of the things you get your servants to do:
You get your food cooked.
You have your finger nails polished.
You get your butler to pour your champagne.
You have your gardener mow the lawn.
If you like, think of other things which your servants can do for you. Use the expressions we
have used in this podcast -I get something done, I have something done etc and put
them on the Listen to English website as comments. Or perhaps you can get someone to put
them on the website for you.
The Great Smell

The Stink! Photo by whizchickenonabun/flickr
In the last podcast, I said that I would tell you how Birmingham did in their match against
Aston Villa. Well, they lost 5-1. Sorry, Birmingham! Birmingham could still stay in the
Premiership next season, but things are not looking good. The nail-biting continues.
Now for our story today. It started on Thursday evening last week. People in the south-east of
England noticed a strange smell in the air. It was not a pleasant smell. Rather, it was the smell
of rotten things, of manure and sewage, mixed with the smell of traffic fumes. People started
to complain to the newspapers and TV stations, and to the weather forecasters at the
Meteorological Office. What was it?
Well, said the Meteorological Office, the cause of the Great Smell was this. There was a mass
of cold, still air over northern Europe. There was low cloud and no wind. All sorts of smells and
fumes from industry and from farms, from traffic and from everyday life had become
trapped under the cloud. Then on Thursday, the cold air, and its smells, had moved westwards
over southern England.
What? said our newspapers. You mean, it isnt a good, healthy English smell. Its a nasty
foreign smell. And the newspapers started to run stories about how the smell was all the fault
of the French, because we English always blame the French first whenever anything bad
happens. However, it then became clear that the smell was coming, not from France, but from
further north and east. So we started to blame the Germans and the Dutch, because we
English always blame the Germans and the Dutch second whenever anything bad happens.
The Meteorological Office tried to explain that the smell was not a threat to health, and that it
would blow away in the next few days. But the newspapers did not want to listen. They were
having too much fun blaming foreigners.
The truth, of course, is this:
1. there was nothing more interesting for the newspapers to report;
2. people who live in towns get used to town smells, like traffic fumes and fast-food
restaurants. They forget that there are country smells too, like the smell of manure being
spread on fields.
3. many newspapers forget that England too has serious pollution problems. Normally, the
westerly winds carry our pollution over to other countries, so maybe it is fair that occasionally
other countries polluted air comes to us.
And what can you learn from this story? First, remember that smell in English is a neutral
word. We can talk about nice smells and unpleasant smells. You can tell your girlfriend that her
new perfume smells lovely; and you can say that a pile of rotten rubbish smells horrible.
Second, there are lots of other words that you can use instead of smell. A delicate, pleasant
smell, like the smell of a flower, can be called a scent. Aroma is a neutral word like smell
there are pleasant aromas (like dinner cooking in the kitchen) and unpleasant aromas. And a
really nasty smell like the smell of sewage can be called a stink or a stench.
So now you know lots of words to use if you ever want to talk about the smelly English.
PS. I forgot the word odour also means a smell, normally an unpleasant smell.
Why the Blues are biting their nails

Blues fans looking glum after their team lost a match last year. Sick as a parrot?
Do you bite your finger nails? No dont answer that question. I dont really want to know.
Biting your nails is a bad habit which will lead to premature baldness and make you
unattractive to the opposite sex. Instead, we are going to talk football in this podcast, and
football has nothing to do with biting your nails, has it?
I want you to imagine that you are a life-long supporter of Birmingham City Football Club.
Every week during the football season, you go to watch the team play. You wear a blue shirt,
and a blue and white scarf and a blue and white hat. (Yes, you probably guessed that blue is
the Birmingham City colour). If you cant go to a match, you stay at home or go to the pub to
watch it on television. And you wear your blue and white football kit even when you watch a
match on TV. This is strange behaviour, but Blues fans are dedicated people.
You live in Birmingham, and many of your friends are Blues supporters like you. But
Birmingham is a divided city, because another tribe of people live here too. They are the
supporters of Birminghams other big football club, Aston Villa. Both Birmingham City and
Aston Villa play in the Premier League, or the Premiership, which is the top division in English
football, made up of the 20 top clubs in the country.
And I need to mention too that there is a third football club. It isnt actually in Birmingham,
because its football ground is just over the border in the town of Sandwell. This third club is
West Bromwich Albion, though everyone calls them the Baggies. (No, I dont know why they
are called the Baggies.) When West Brom score a goal, their supporters celebrate by jumping
up and down and shouting Boing Boing; and I dont know why they do that either. Unlike
Birmingham City and Aston Villa, the Baggies play in the Championship, which is the division
below the Premier League.
It is getting towards the end of the English football season. Since the beginning of the season,
at the end of last August, most clubs in the Premiership have played 34 games. They each have
only have four more games to go. Aston Villa are 7th from the top of the Premiership. They are
not going to win the Premiership, but they will definitely still play in the Premiership next year.
And the Baggies are at present top of the Championship, so it is very likely that they will be
promoted at the end of the season, and will play in the Premiership next year along with Aston
Villa.
And Birmingham City? Well, poor old Birmingham are fourth from the bottom of the
Premiership. They could still win sufficient matches to stay in the Premiership next year; but
equally they could be relegated at the end of the season. And how would that make you feel,
Birmingham City supporter? You would feel awful. You would be depressed. You might even
be suicidal. You can imagine the smirks on the faces of the Villa and Baggies fans.
On Sunday, the Blues and their blue and white supporters will travel across Birmingham to play
Aston Villa. The Blues really need to win this game if they are to be sure of staying in the
Premiership. If you were a Birmingham City supporter, what words could you use to describe
the atmosphere before the match nervous, perhaps; or tense; or even nail-biting. If
something is nail-biting , we mean that it is very tense and exciting, and all we can do is to
wait for it to finish, and bite our nails while we are waiting. So, we can talk about a nail-biting
atmosphere; or we can say that the last 15 minutes of the match was nail-biting; or that you
had a nail-biting wait for the results of your exam.
Finally, can I remind you of two vital football phrases. If Birmingham win on Sunday, you will
be over the moon. And if they lose, you will be sick as a parrot. I will tell you in the next
podcast which you are.
Folly

Perrotts Folly.
Today we meet the English word folly, and we visit a strange old building and an art
exhibition.
Lets start with the word folly. I guess you know what foolish means. If someone is foolish,
he or she does stupid or unwise things. We can call such a person a fool. And a folly is,
simply, something which is foolish something which is stupid, or unwise, or not sensible. We
can say, for example, that it is folly to spend all your money at a casino, or that it is folly to
drive your car on the wrong side of the road.
In the 18th century, it was fashionable for wealthy landowners to decorate their estates with
beautiful but completely unnecessary buildings. For example, a landowner might build
something that looks like a ruined Greek temple, half hidden in the trees. Or he might build a
tall tower on the top of a hill. These buildings had no useful purpose. They were simply to
decorate the landscape. We call them Follies.
We have a folly here in Birmingham. It is called Perrotts Folly. It is a tower nearly 30 meters
tall. There are six rooms, one above the other, and a spiral staircase. A man called John Perrott
built the tower, in the middle of the 18th century. At that time, there was open country all
around. Birmingham was still a village, a mile or two away. Today it is quite different. There are
streets and cars, houses and factories and offices, where there were once fields and woods.
Close by, there is a second tower, built in the 19th century by Birmingham Waterworks. I guess
you have heard of the author J R R Tolkien, who wrote the Lord of the Rings books. When he
was a child, Tolkien walked past the two towers Perrotts Folly and the waterworks tower
every day on his way to school. Tolkien fans say that the two towers were the inspiration for
the two dark, evil towers which play an important part in Lord of the Rings.
Today Perrotts Folly is in poor condition. One of the floors is missing and the paint is flaking
off the walls. There are old pipes and a boiler from a long-forgotten heating system, perhaps
from the time when Birmingham University used the tower as a weather station. It is not an
obvious place to hold an art exhibition.

Part of the Jrgen Partenheimer exhibition in Perrotts Folly.
But last week I was able to visit Perrotts Folly to see some art works by the modern German
artist Jrgen Partenheimer. Carefully we climbed the spiral staircase. In each of the rooms,
Jrgen Partenheimer had placed a single art work. When you look at his art works, they seem
to remind you of something you once saw but which is now lost deep in your memory. And
while we were looking at the art works, there was music playing- music written specially for
this exhibition by the Irish composer Kevin Volans. The music too seems to remind you of
something that you once heard but have now forgotten. Very strange. Here is a little bit to
keep you company until the next podcast.
Up up up

Up! Photo by ezu/flickr
When you learn English, you learn about phrasal verbs. What are phrasal verbs? They are
verbs which are formed, not of one word, but of two or more words. For instance, if I come
home from work and want to watch a TV programme, I go into my sitting room and I switch
the TV on. Switch on is a phrasal verb. And when I have finished watching the programme, I
switch the TV off, or I turn the TV off to switch off and to turn off are both phrasal verbs.
We have thousands of phrasal verbs in English, and I could make podcasts about different
phrasal verbs for the next year ( but dont worry, I wont!) However today, we are going to
have a podcast containing lots of phrasal verbs with the word up. You know what up
means, of course. Up is the opposite of down. You can climb up the stairs, and you can
climb down the stairs again. However, lots of phrases and expressions containing the word
up have nothing to do with up in the sense of not down, and this is very confusing.
I am sure that you already know several phrasal verbs containing up. In the morning, you
wake up. Then you get up. After that, perhaps you have some breakfast. When you have
finished eating breakfast, you stand up, and clear the table, and wash up the dishes.
And then perhaps you notice that your room is in a terrible mess there are clothes and books
and CDs on the floor. So you tidy up your room. Yesterday you spilled some coffee on the
table. Now you clean it up, and you sweep up some cake crumbs that are on the floor.
Then you set off for school. Today there are some roadworks near your house some
workmen are digging up the road, to repair a broken water pipe. The roadworks hold the
traffic up, and you are nearly late for school.
In your English lesson,your teacher asks the class to make up a story about a family going on
holiday. First you make some notes about words and phrases which you might use. Then you
start to write up your story. You have to look up some of the words in the dictionary. At the
end of the lesson, your teacher says, The time is up please give me your stories and clear up
your things before you leave.
It is time for lunch. Your friend calls out to you, but there are so many people making so much
noise that you cannot hear what he says. Speak up, you shout, I cant hear you. Hurry
up, he says, I dont want to be late. You are hungry, and you eat up all your lunch.
After school, you have just got home when your cousin turns up. She has recently broken up
with her boyfriend. You never liked her boyfriend in your opinion he was silly and immature
and needed to grow up. You dont understand why she put up with him for so long. You try to
cheer your cousin up by telling her all this, but it just makes your cousin more upset. You
decide to shut up and change the subject. You suggest a trip to the cinema together. But your
cousin says she is hard up and cant afford to go. So you end up offering to pay for her cinema
ticket.
And now I am fed up with finding phrases containing the word up. I am sure there are many,
many more of them. If you want to tell me, and all the other visitors to the Listen to English
website, about your day, using phrasal verbs containing up, then please post a comment on
the website. On the website, you will also find a short grammar and vocabulary note.
Murdered someone once!

Felix Dennis
Felix Dennis publishes magazines. He is, in fact, a very successful publisher, and his magazines
have made him very rich. He is one of the richest people in Britain. He has written a book
about how to get rich. Unlike most books that tell you how to get rich, Felix Dennis book tells
you that there are no simple ways to make a fortune, and that you have to work very hard and
take big risks. Felix Dennis also writes poetry. Personally, I do not think his poetry is
particularly good, but many people disagree with me, and his books of poetry sell very well. He
is a great fan of the boxer Mohammed Ali, and he has written books about him. When he was
young, Felix spent a short time in prison for publishing obscene material. Oh, and he also used
to be addicted to crack cocaine, but he has now overcome his addiction.
Is there anything more to know about Felix Dennis? Well, last week the Times newspaper
published an interview with him, and in the interview, Mr Dennis revealed that he had once
murdered someone! The man he had murdered had been abusive to a woman whom Felix
Dennis had known.
He hurt her, he explained, and I told him to stop, and he kept on.
Wouldnt let her alone. She told him to stop. I told him to stop. Many people told him to
stop.
Wouldnt stop, kept on and on and on.
So what did Felix Dennis do?
In the end, had a little meeting with him. Pushed him off the edge of a cliff. Werent
hard.
The interviewer asked where this had happened.
Dont matter where it was.
And when?
About 25 years ago.
I am sure you have noticed something strange about the way in which Felix Dennis speaks. He
often leaves out the subject of his sentences. For instance, he says wouldnt stop
instead of he wouldnt stop. And he uses some incorrect verb forms he says
werent hard instead of it wasnt hard.
Can you turn Felix Denniss story into correct English? There is a pdf file on the website for you
to look at if you have problems.
So, have the police arrested Mr Dennis and charged him with murder? Will his career end with
a second, much longer time in prison?
Well, no. Felix Dennis has said that when the Times interviewed him, he was drunk. In fact, he
was very drunk. His story about murdering someone was hogwash (that is, it was
nonsense or rubbish).
I do not know exactly what Felix Dennis said, but perhaps it was like this;
Ridiculous story.
Had too much to drink. Two, three bottles of wine maybe.
Never harmed anyone in my whole life.
Stupid to talk to the Times.
Cant imagine why I said that.
Hope no-one believes it.
Budget

On Budget Day 2007, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, leaving 11
Downing Street with the red box containing his budget papers. Gordon Brown is now the
Prime Minister. The new Chancellor, Alastair Darling, will take the red box to Parliament later
today.
Today we are going to find out about the English word budget.
But first, I asked you a question at the end of the last podcast. I told you about the
supermarket check-out for people who are buying only a few things. I asked you whether the
sign above this checkout should say 10 items or less or 10 items or fewer.
Well, I think it should say 10 items or fewer. We can count items one item, two items etc
and fewer is a word which we use with things we can count, while less is a word we use
with things we cannot count. But many people and several supermarkets say 10 items or
less. That is the problem with English English people dont speak it properly.
But now lets talk about budgets. What is a budget? Suppose you make a list of everything you
need to spend money on in the next month rent, food, clothes, bus fares etc. Then you work
out how much money you will earn. And then you compare these two your income and your
expenditure to see whether you will have enough money. This is a budget a look into the
future to see how much money will come in and how much will go out. It is a financial plan, in
other words.
We use the word budget in other ways too. For example, suppose you want to buy a new
computer. You work out how much money you have, and how much you will need to spend on
other things. Then you calculate that you could afford to pay 450 for a new computer.
450 is your budget for the new computer.
We can use the word budget as a verb. To budget means to plan what you will spend
money on. You might say, for example I dont have a lot of money. I need to budget
carefully.
Sometimes budget just means cheap. The problem with the word cheap is that it implies
poor quality as well as low price. So shops dont like to advertise their goods as cheap. They
look for other words instead. They talk about our value tinned tomatoes, our bargain sofas
or our budget range of computers. You see how much better it sounds to say budget
instead of cheap. I should be an advertising executive, not a podcaster.
And why are we talking about budgets in this podcast? Well, today is budget day, one of the
great events of British politics. This afternoon our Finance Minister (or Chancellor of the
Exchequer as we call him) will leave his home at number 11 Downing Street, next door to
where the Prime Minister lives, carrying a red box. He will travel in his official car to
Parliament, which is about 200 meters away. (I dont know why he cannot walk, like a normal
person.) When he gets to Parliament, he will open the red box and take out a file of papers. He
will then tell Parliament about the governments budget for the next financial year how
much the government will spend and how much it will take from us in taxes. He will tell us
about tax increases and tax cuts, and say how wise and careful the government is, and how the
British economy is doing really well. And then the opposition parties will say that the
government is spending too much, or too little, or that taxes are too high, or too low, and that
the British economy is in a terrible mess. And by this evening, we will all be able to work out
whether the budget has made us better off or worse off. I can hardly wait.
How many apples? How much sugar?

We can count apples ...
Photo by nettsu/flickr
What is the difference between apples and sugar?
What is the difference between light-bulbs and electricity?
What is the difference between trees and rain?
What do you think? Do you give up? Shall I tell you?
The difference between apples and sugar is simply this. You can count apples one apple, two
apples, three apples etc. You cannot count sugar. You can weigh sugar, you can measure sugar,
but you cannot count sugar. And it is the same with lightbulbs and electricity, and trees and
rain. You can count lightbulbs and trees; you cannot count electricity or rain.
Does this matter, you may be asking? Why is he telling us these things?
Well, dear listeners, often we want to say how many? or how much? of something there is.
And when we do this we need to remember that there are some words which we can use only
with things we can count, and other words which we can use only with things we cannot
count. Here are some examples.
We can count cars one car, two cars etc. We can say:
there are only a few cars on the road today
there are many cars on the road today
there are several cars parked outside my house
there are fewer cars than there were yesterday
Few, many, several and fewer are words that we can use with things we can count,
like cars. But we cannot use them with things that we cannot count.

... but we cannot count water
Photo by rogilde/flickr
Or, imagine that you are painting your house. We cannot count paint. We can weigh paint, and
we can measure paint, but we cannot count paint. We can say:
I need a little paint for the kitchen (or a little bit of paint for the kitchen).
so I do not need to buy much paint.
but I need a large amount of paint for living room.
I need less paint for the bathroom than for the bedroom.
A little, much, a large amount of and less are words that we can use with things that
we cannot count like paint, but not with things that we can count.
How do you know what things we can count and what things we cannot count? Well,
generally, if a noun is a plural noun (if it has an -s on the end), then it is the name of
something we can count, like apples or cars. And if the noun is singular (no -s on the end)
then it is the name of something that we cannot count, like electricity or rain. If you find it
easier, think plural or singular instead of countable or not countable. And remember that
there are also lots of words and expressions that you can use both with things you can count
and with things that you cannot count (lots of.. is one of them).
There is a grammar note on the podcast website with a PDF file which you can download. And
there is also a quiz, so that you can test whether you have understood the podcast.
Finally, here is a problem for you to think about. In many supermarkets in England, they have a
check-out which is specially for people who only want to buy a few things. This is so that they
do not have to wait a long time behind people who are buying a whole months groceries for a
family of 12 people. There is a sign to show which is the check-out for people who are buying
only a few things. In some supermarkets, the sign says 10 items or less. But in one
supermarket, it says 10 items or fewer. Which one is right? Answer next time.
The Market Rasen Earthquake

Some chimneys were damaged in Yorkshire
The big news story this week was the great Market Rasen earthquake.
We have lots of earthquakes in Britain. There are about 200 every year, but most of them are
so small that people do not notice them
The earthquake this week in the early hours [ie between midnight and about 4am] of
Wednesday morning was different, however. It was of course, very small compared with
earthquakes in other countries. But it was the biggest earthquake in Britain for 25 years, and
people could feel it over a large part of England.
The epicentre of the earthquake was close to a small town in eastern England called Market
Rasen. Very little happens in Market Rasen. It is famous for well, it isnt famous for anything
really. There is a racecourse and a man who wrote the lyrics for one of Michael Jacksons songs
once went to school there. Several web-sites tell me that Charles Dickens, the famous 19th
century novelist, described Market Rasen as the sleepiest town in England. However, I cant
find where Charles Dickens said this, so I dont know if it is true.
But everyone, and everywhere, can be world famous for 15 minutes. Market Rasens 15
minutes of fame was this week. On Wednesday, newspaper and TV reporters set to work to
write the story of the great Market Rasen earthquake. Here are some of the things that they
found :
teacups rattled in Bedfordshire;
toothpaste fell off a bathroom shelf in Halifax;
cupboard doors flew open in Tipton, near Birmingham;
a radio jumped up and down in London;
a glass of water rattled on a bedside table in Chester;
some chimneys were damaged in Yorkshire;
a piece of stone fell off the church at Market Rasen.

...and a glass of water rattled on a bedside table in Chester.
Photo by bram_app/flickr.
As you can see, there was no story for the journalists to find. No-one was killed; only 1 person
was injured; and damage to buildings was small. So why was the Market Rasen earthquake the
big news story of the week?
I think it is because the earthquake was an experience which everyone shared. On Wednesday
morning, everyone had a personal story to tell. Some people could say how they woke up in
the night. Their houses shook, and they heard a deep rumbling sound. Some people knew
immediately that it was an earthquake. Other people said that they were frightened because
they did not know what had happened. Some people ran out of their houses to see what was
happening. Other people stayed in bed and went back to sleep. And other people said that
they had not woken up at all they had slept straight through the earthquake. So, for a few
hours on Wednesday morning, everyone in England could talk about the same thing.
When people try to describe something like an earthquake, they often use the expressions it
was like or it was as if. I found these descriptions in the newspapers:
it was as if a giant was shaking my house;
it was like a bomb had exploded;
it was like a train very close to the house;
it was as if someone had hit the house;
it was like a plane had crashed;
it was like a heavy lorry passing the house;
it was as if a train was going under the house;
it was like there was a big animal on the roof.
Listen to English will be back next week with more important news stories.
A Gruesome Discovery

The harbour at St Aubin in Jersey in the Channel Islands. Photo by MarilynJane/flickr.
Today we visit the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands are a group of islands in the English
Channel, close to the north coast of France. But they are not part of France. And they are not
really part of Britain either. The British Queen is also ruler of the Channel Islands, and the
British government looks after their defence and foreign affairs. But in other respects, the
islands are tiny independent states they have their own Parliaments and governments and
their own laws. Until about 100 years ago, most people on the islands spoke a dialect of
French, but today the main language is English.
The Channel Islands are famous for cows, potatoes and income tax. The Jersey and Guernsey
breeds of cattle which come from the Channel Islands produce a creamy milk with lots of
butterfat. At one time, we could buy Channel Islands milk in England people said how good it
was for you, because it had so much cream. Today, everyone is afraid of getting too fat, so we
dont want milk with lots of cream in it. And the potatoes? Well, many farmers in the Channel
Islands grow potatoes which are ready to be harvested and eaten several weeks before
potatoes grown in England. These Channel Island potatoes are called Jersey Royals and you
can buy them in English supermarkets in April and May. And the income tax? Well, there isnt
any income tax in the Channel Islands. In fact, the Channel Islands is a good place to live if you
are very rich. And lots of rich people live there, and the harbours in the islands are full of their
yachts.

A Jersey Cow excellent milk with lots of cream. Photo by David Nutter/flickr.
However, in the last few days the Channel Islands have been in the news for a very different
reason. About 12 months ago, the police in Jersey the largest of the Channel Islands
received reports about the abuse of children in care on the island. I need to explain what this
means. Abuse means very bad treatment of someone, like violence, or emotional or sexual
bad treatment. And children in care means children who can no longer live with their
parents, but live with foster parents or in a childrens home instead. About 150 people have
now told the Jersey police about abuse of children in care on the island, over a period of many
years. Many of their reports are about abuse at a childrens home called Haut de la Garenne.
The Haut de la Garenne childrens home closed in 1986, and the building is now a youth hostel.
A few days ago, the police made a gruesome discovery there. Using a police sniffer dog , they
found the remains of a child buried under a concrete floor. The police think that there may be
several more bodies to be found.
Jersey is a relatively small community of under 100,000 people. The stories about child abuse
have become a major political issue on the island. People are asking how could abuse of
children have continued for so long? Who knew about the abuse at Haut de la Garenne? Who
was responsible for the bad treatment of children? Why is it that it is only today 20 years
after the Haut de la Garenne childrens home closed that the police are investigating?
I guess that if you live somewhere like the Channel Islands, it is easy to think that you live in a
little paradise, and that the problems of the rest of the world crime, poverty, war, disease
do not really affect you. The childs body at Haut de la Garenne tells us that this is,
unfortunately, not true.
Painting the Forth Bridge

The Forth Railway Bridge. Photo by tigersweet/flickr
My last podcast was about a motorway junction. But today I am going to talk about something
much more romantic. When I think about it, a dreamy look comes into my eyes and my heart
begins to flutter. Yes, dear listeners, I am going to talk about a railway bridge.
If you look at a map of Scotland, you will see that on the east coast there are several wide river
estuaries. The Scots word for a river estuary is a firth. Just north of Edinburgh is the Firth of
Forth, the estuary of the river Forth. Further north, there is the Firth of Tay, the estuary of the
river Tay. Until late in the 19th century, people crossed these estuaries by ferry, or they made
a long detour by road to a bridge over the river. But when the railway companies arrived in
Scotland, they wanted to build fast, direct railway lines between the towns and citites. They
needed to build bridges over the firths.
The first bridge was over the Firth of Tay. It was completed in 1877, but it was destroyed in a
storm two years later. A train was passing over the bridge when it collapsed, and many people
were killed. The collapse of the Tay Bridge was a great disaster, at became an important
political issue in Britain at the time. The engineers responsible for the second bridge, over the
Firth of Forth, decided that their bridge had to be much stronger. So they built it with steel. It
was in fact the first big steel bridge in the world. About 4000 workmen worked on the bridge,
which was opened in 1890.
And the bridge which they built still stands today. About 200 trains cross the bridge every day.
If you travel on one of these trains, you will often see people working on the bridge. They are
always there. They are scraping off old paint, or repairing the bridge, or painting or welding.
People say that the painters who work on the Forth Bridge start at one end of the bridge and
gradually work their way across [ie they go forward, slowly, as they paint]. By the time they
reach the other side, several years later, it is time to start painting again. This was never
actually true, but everyone believed that it was. In English, if we say that something is like
painting the Forth Bridge, we mean that it is a job that never ends. By the time you have
finished, you have to start again. In our house, doing the ironing is like painting the Forth
Bridge. What is it like in your home?
However, in todays newspapers there is a report that the engineering company that maintains
the bridge is painting it with a new sort of paint. They have tested the paint on oil rigs in the
North Sea. It will last for 20 or 30 years, without repainting. So another great British tradititon
has gone. In future, painting the Forth Bridge will no longer be well like painting the Forth
Bridge.
Spaghetti Junction

If you are a regular listener to these podcasts, you will know that I live in BIrmingham. In
Birmingham, we have the most famous landmark in the whole of Britain. What is a landmark?
It means a place, or a building, or a natural feature like a river or a mountain, that everyone
knows about. And what is Birminghams famous landmark? An ancient castle, perhaps, or a
cathedral, or a statue on the top of a hill? No. None of these. Our famous landmark is called
Spaghetti Junction. It is not, as you might think, an Italian restaurant. It is an interchange, or
junction, on the M6 motorway about 5km north of the centre of Birmingham. If you look at the
picture on the website, or on your iPod screen, you will see why people call it Spaghetti
Junction. It looks like a plate of spaghetti.
Now, please dont send me e-mails to say that you have a motorway junction called Spaghetti
Junction in your country too. I dont care about your Spaghetti Junction. Birminghams
Spaghetti Junction was the first Spaghetti Junction, and it is still the largest motorway junction
in Europe. Work on Spaghetti Junction started 40 years ago, in 1968, and was finished four
years later. About 150,000 vehicles, and 5 million tons of freight, pass through Spaghetti
Junction every day.
Everyone in Britain knows about Spaghetti Junction and where it is, even people who have
never visited Birmingham itself. It is so well-known because it is unavoidable. If you travel by
road in Britain, sooner or later you will pass Spaghetti Junction. You will remember it because
it is the place where the traffic gets really bad, where the journey gets really boring and where
the children start fighting in the back of the car. And if by accident you take the wrong road at
Spaghetti Junction, you will find yourself in London instead of Manchester. Some people who
took the wrong road at Spaghetti Junction five years ago are still trying to find their way home.
So be careful.

Here are some other interesting things about Spaghetti Junction. It is not just a motorway
junction. Underneath the motorway there are two railway lines, three canals, a river and
several footpaths. There is a Birmingham joke that two of the roads at Spaghetti Junction are
dead-ends. [A dead-end road means a road that goes nowhere]. And another Birmingham joke
that there is a beach underneath the concrete arches of the motorway. A beach? It is in fact
just a bank of dirt and gravel, with a view over a smelly river and an old factory. You are
welcome to come to Birmingham for a beach holiday if you like, but you may find that Spain
would be better.
More seriously, it was necessary to demolish a few hundred houses and other buildings to
build the motorway and Spaghetti Junction. The motorway created a barrier which cuts off the
northern suburbs of the city from the city centre. The vehicles on the motorway create noise
and pollution over a wide area. Birmingham today more than any other British city is a city
of roads and cars, of heavy lorries and multi-storey car-parks and poor public transport. So
perhaps it is appropriate that Birminghams most famous landmark is a motorway junction.
Whether the weather is fine ...

A listener to these podcasts who lives in Brazil has sent me an e-mail to say, please can I make
a podcast about when we say if and when we say whether. I have thought very hard about
this, because it is not easy to explain. The trouble is that you do not think about grammar rules
for your own language. You just know what word is correct and what word is wrong.
At one time, perhaps 50 years ago, there were clear rules about when we should use if and
when we should use whether. I shall explain these rules first, because if you stick to these
rules, your English will be correct. But I will also tell you that, unfortunately, we English often
do not obey the rules.
Here are some sentences where we use the word if.
If the sun shines tomorrow, we will go for a picnic.
If the train is late, I will miss the meeting.
If I have time, I will drink some coffee and read the newspaper.
If I had remembered my umbrella, I would not have got so wet.
Now here are some sentences with whether.
Whether the sun shines tomorrow or not, we will have a picnic.
Whether or not the train is late, I will still miss the meeting.
I go for a walk every day, whether it is summer or winter.
Now do you see the difference between if and whether. If introduces a single condition.
It talks about only one possible thing that might happen if the sun shines tomorrow, if the
train is late and so on. A sentence with whether talks about two or more different things
that might happen maybe the sun will shine tomorrow, maybe it will not, but we will go for a
picnic whether or not the sun is shining. Very often whether sentences contain the words or
not; or they say or not indirectly, like the last example I gave you.
We also use the word whether to begin a noun clause that describes a question or a problem
or an issue. Lets look at some examples, so that you can see what I mean.
John asked me whether I could go to a party on Saturday. (Whether tells us that
there is a question or problem can you come to the party?)
I told him that it depended on whether I finished my homework in time. (Whether
tells us that there is a question or problem will I finish my homework in time?)
I do not know whether the train goes at 3pm or at 3.15pm. (Whether tells us that
there is a question or problem what time does the train go?)
I need to find out whether my mother is coming at the weekend.(Whether tells us
that there is a question or problem is my mother coming at the weekend?)
Joanne asked her boss whether she could go home early. (Whether tells us that
there is a question or problem can I go home early?)
So here is our simple rule.
If introduces a single condition.
Whether introduces alternatives, and is often followed by or not.
And whether starts noun clauses that tell us that there is a question or a problem.
The trouble is, however, that in modern English, particularly spoken English, people often say
if when they should say whether. In particular, people often start noun clauses about
questions or problems with if instead of whether. It is very common to hear people say for
example He asked me if I could go to his party on Saturday. In some languages, like French,
there is a central institute or academy which decides what the proper rules for the language
are. We do not have anything like this for English. Good English is simply the English that
educated and intelligent English people speak. So if people say if instead of whether, then
if is correct!
I hope this is not too confusing. I have made a little quiz so that you can practice if and
whether you will find a link on the website.
Finally, here is a little poem about whether. You will have to listen carefully, because there
are two words in English that we pronounce whether. There is the word whether which we
have been talking about in todays podcast, and there is the weather rain, wind, sunshine
and so on.
Whether the weather is fine
Or whether the weather is not
Whether the weather is cold
Or whether the weather is hot
Well weather the weather
Whatever the weather
Whether we like it or not.
Pancake Day

Today is Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day. Shrove Tuesday is the day before the beginning of
Lent, which is the period of 40 days leading up to Easter. Traditionally, during Lent, Christians
avoid eating rich foods, for example foods containing lots of eggs or milk. So how do we use up
our eggs and milk before Lent begins? We make pancakes, like this.
First, mix some flour and a pinch of salt in a bowl, and then break two eggs into the flour.
Whisk the eggs and flour together. While you are still whisking, add a little bit of milk, and then
a bit more, until the batter is like thick cream. Then, heat a frying pan until it is really hot, and
pour a small amount of the batter into the pan. Tip the pan from side to side to spread the
batter thinly all over the pan, and cook the batter for about half a minute.
Then and this is the really good bit you turn the pancake over, so that it can cook on the
other side. How? You flick the pan, tossing the pancake into the air, and catch the pancake in
the pan again. Or maybe you dont catch the pancake. Maybe it lands on the floor, or sticks to
the ceiling. Your children will think it is very funny, even if you dont.
Assuming that you catch the pancake, and that it doesnt go on the floor, you then cook it for a
few more seconds and serve it with lemon and sugar.

In many places there are pancake races on Pancake Day. The runners have to toss a pancake in
a frying pan while they are running. One of the most famous pancake races is in London, with
teams from The House of Commons, the House of Lords and the press. I read in todays paper,
however, that one traditional pancake race, in Ripon in Yorkshire, has been cancelled for
health and safety reasons. Health and safety reasons? What can be dangerous about a
pancake race?
The other traditional Shrove Tuesday sport is much more dangerous football. Shrove
Tuesday football is not like the modern game with 11 players on each team, and a referee. No,
it is a very ancient game and the rules are let me see.oh, there arent any rules. In the town
of Atherstone, not far from Birmingham, for example, the Shrove Tuesday ball game is played
like this. At 3pm, someone will open an upstairs window in Barclays Bank in Atherstone High
Street. He or she will throw a ball into the street below. The crowds in the street will then kick
the ball, throw the ball, run away with the ball, fight each other for the ball, hide the ball, do
almost anything with the ball. (But they are not allowed to take the ball out of Atherstone
that is about the only rule in the game.) At 5pm a klaxon sounds. Whoever has the ball when
the klaxon sounds is the winner. It sounds more like total war than a game of football, but
everyone seems to enjoy themselves.
Have a good Pancake Day!
Rhubarb

In this podcast, we are going to meet some words about food some very English sorts of
food. Look out for these words rhubarb, pie, crumble, chutney, custard.
A lot of people who visit England think that English food is very strange. A lot of English people
think this too. My children, for example, seem to eat nothing but pizza and pasta. And the
most popular restaurants in England are often Italian or Indian or Thai they are generally not
English.
However, some traditional English food is very good. We keep it secret, however, because we
dont want the whole world to find out. One of our secrets is rhubarb. You can see a picture of
a rhubarb plant on the website, and on your iPod screens. It has red stems and big leaves. The
stems are the bit which we eat; the leaves are actually poisonous. Because the stems are very
bitter, we chop then into pieces and cook the pieces very slowly with lots of sugar. We then
use the cooked rhubarb to make pies, or crumbles, or we eat the rhubarb with custard. We
also make rhubarb jam, and rhubarb chutney. There are lots of rhubarb recipes on the BBC
website. Try some of them if you want to experience some uniquely English cooking.

I need to warn you, however, that the taste of rhubarb is something which you either love or
hate. And rhubarb is said to be a laxative that means, it makes you want to go to the toilet,
so be careful how much rhubarb you eat!
In the 19th century, a gardener left an old chimney-pot on top of one of his rhubarb plants.
The rhubarb grew up through the chimney pot, looking for the light. The stems were pale pink
in colour, instead of bright red. And the rhubarb which had grown in the dark had a beautiful
delicate taste. This method of growing rhubarb in the dark is called forcing, and we can talk
about forced rhubarb. We can buy forced rhubarb in January and February, when there are
not many home-grown fruit or vegetables in the shops. Most of the forced rhubarb comes
from Yorkshire in the north of England. The rhubarb grows in big sheds, in the dark. The
growers pick the rhubarb by hand, using candles instead of electric lights because the sheds
must be kept as dark as possible. People say that if you stand in a rhubarb shed, and listen
carefully, you can hear the rhubarb growing.

At one time, there were over 200 rhubarb growers in Yorkshire. Special trains used to take the
picked rhubarb to London and other big cities. But today there are only about 12 traditional
rhubarb growers left. Why? Public taste has changed, and rhubarb has a very old-fashioned
image. People remember the wonderful rhubarb crumble that their grandmothers used to
make. But they prefer to buy imported strawberries or other fruit instead. This is very sad. So I
have made this podcast hoping that it will help to revive interest in rhubarb. Next time you are
in England, eat some rhubarb, if you dare!
Languages

Last week a woman called Marie Smith Jones died. She was 89 years old and she lived in Alaska
in North America. Marie was the last person alive to speak a language called Eyak. Eyak is, or
was, one of the native North American languages. Linguists have carefully recorded Eyak
grammar and vocabulary and pronunciation. But no-one speaks Eyak any more. It is a dead
language.
We do not have an official language in Britain, but most people of course speak English or a
dialect of English. There are several other native or indigenous languages in Britain. They are
descended from the languages spoken by the Celtic people who lived in Britain before the
English arrived in the 4th and 5th centuries. The most important is Welsh, which is spoken by
about more than half a million people in Wales, or about 20% of the population. Welsh and
English now have equal official status in Wales. If you visit Wales, you will see that all road
signs are in English and Welsh. Welsh is flourishing.
Two other Celtic languages, Scots Gaelic in Scotland and Irish Gaelic in Northern Ireland are
spoken by only a few percent of the population. Another Celtic language in South-West
England called Cornish died out completely in the 19th century, just like Eyak has died out.
It was re-introduced about 100 years ago and today Cornish is spoken by a few thousand
people.
It is interesting that we use some of the same words for languages as we use for plants and
animals. Here are some examples:
We talk about native or indigenous plants or animals that means the plants and
animals which live naturally in a place, and have been there a long time. Similarly, we
talk about native or indigenous languages, like English in England, or Irish Gaelic in
Ireland.
We can say that modern horses are descended from wild horses. Similarly, we can say
that modern Welsh is descended from an old Celtic language.
We can say, for instance, that wolves have died out in Britain. Similarly, we can say
that the Eyak language has died out.
We can say that an animal like the rhinocerous is endangered; and we can also say
that a language is endangered, if the number of people speaking it is very small.
Of course some species of animals are flourishing probably their numbers are
growing and they are not likely to die out. Similarly, we can say that today the Welsh
language is flourishing.
And some species of animals or birds die out, but are then re-introduced into the wild.
We have several examples of this in England, particularly a bird called the red kite.
Similarly, we can say that the Cornish language has been re-introduced.
I have also read in the paper that some experts think that three quarters of the worlds
languages will die out in the next 100 years. Do you think that this will happen? Perhaps
languages and animals die out for similar reasons reasons such as over-exploitation of
natural resources, modern travel and tourism, and population movement. How many people
will speak English one hundred years from now? English is widely spoken as a second language
today, partly because of British colonial history, and partly because of American economic
power. However, 100 years from now, British colonial history will be a long way in the past,
and American economic power may be much less. What languages will your grandchildren and
great-grandchildren learn? Chinese perhaps?
Swimming the Channel

This week we meet the verb to swim; and we also meet a famous swimmer, called Captain
Webb. The verb to swim is one of a very small group of English verbs where there are three
different vowel sounds in three different tenses, like this:
I swim
I swam
I have swum
The other common verb which is like this is to sing (I sing, I sang, I have sung).
A few weeks ago, I watched a television programme. A woman who was on the programme
said that, when she was younger, she had swum the Channel. What does that mean?
The Channel is the sea which lies between England and France. Its proper name is The
English Channel but normally in English we talk about The Channel. We talk about crossing
the Channel, which means that we are going to visit France or Belgium or another country on
the mainland of Europe. The Channel is about 22 miles or 36 kilometres wide at its narrowest
point, between Dover in England and Calais in France. There are regular ferries across the
Channel, and a huge number of ships pass through the Channel on their way to ports in
Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. And some people swim across the Channel.
Speaking personally, I do not enjoy swimming very much and I think that people who swim the
Channel must be either very brave or very foolish. The English Channel is cold. It is also not
very clean, and there are lots of ships which might hit someone swimming. But the distance
across the Channel is about as far as it is possible for someone to swim in the sea. So it is a bit
like Mount Everest it is the big challenge, the final goal, for people who are keen on long-
distance swimming.
The first person to swim across the Channel was Captain Matthew Webb. He was 29 years old
when he swam from England to France in August 1875. The crossing took him rather under 22
hours. His swim across the Channel made Captain Webb famous. There is a picture of him on
the website, and I hope on your iPod screens. The Victorians liked their heroes to be tall,
upright and handsome, and to wear a moustache; and you will see that Captain Webb is
indeed tall, upright and handsome, and that he has a moustache. I think incidentally that the
photographer who took the photo was working in a studio, and that the waves and the sea
behind Captain Webb are painted and not real.
Fifty years after Captain Webbs great swim, only about 10 other people had managed to swim
the Channel. It is interesting that nearly always they swam from England to France, and not the
other way. Why? I have no idea! Since the 1920s many more people about 1000 altogether
have made the great swim, including some who have swum from England to France and then
back again. Modern swimmers swim much faster than Captain Webb the fastest swim, by
Petar Stoychev in August last year, took under 7 hours, only a third of Captain Webbs time. A
woman called Alison Streeter has swum the Channel a record 43 times; in fact, in 1992 alone
she swam the Channel 7 times.

And what happened to Captain Webb? Did he live to an old age, so that he could tell his
grandchildren all about his great swim to France? I am afraid not. He became a professional
swimmer, and wrote a book about can you guess? How to Swim. A brand of matches was
named after him there is a picture of a box of Captain Webb matches on the website. He did
stunts like floating in a tank of water for 128 hours. And in 1883, 8 years after his Channel
swim, he decided to swim across the Niagara River, between Canada and the USA, just below
the Niagara Falls where the water is dangerous and fast flowing. Within a few minutes he had
disappeared; his body was found four days later. It was a sad end for a very remarkable man.
It is a long time since we had any music on this podcast. So here is a song by Amy Kohn called
1977 Swimming Lessons. She is I think remembering swimming lessons in a swimming pool
when she was a child. I hope you enjoy it.
To hold you, to hold you

Hello, everyone. It is very good to be making a new podcast. My internet connection is working
again. Thank you very much for your patience, and a big thank you in particular to all those of
you who sent me e-mails saying how sorry you were about my internet problems.
It is a long time since we had any poetry on the podcast. From time to time, I look at a book of
English poetry and wonder whether I can use any of the poems. But very few poems are
written in simple English which is easy to understand. My friend, Margaret Scorey, however
writes poems which use simple and direct English, and are therefore very good for English
learners. Here is a poem she wrote about a month ago. She wrote it for a woman who had
recently become a grandmother. But the womans family, and the new grandchild, were in
America, so grandmother travelled to America to hold her new grandchild in her arms for the
first time. Margaret has called the poem To Hold you, to hold you.
My longing is to hold you,
to feel your soft cheeks against mine
to look into your gentle eyes
to touch your hair
and feel the warmth of your breath.
Soon I will.
But know that when I return,
the ache will be as great as it is now,
softened only by memories.
But one thing, I will be able to say is,
Ive done it, Ive done it, Ive held you.
Poem copyright Margaret Scorey, 2007, used with permission.
Frustrated
On the day after Christmas Day the day we call Boxing Day in England something terrible
happened. My internet connection stopped working. I could not surf the net. I could not read
my e-mails. I could not check my website or upload new podcasts. The internet is a bit like
cigarettes. You become addicted, or hooked as we say in colloquial English. When suddenly
you cannot use the internet, it is like wanting a cigarette, and finding that you do not have any
cigarettes and that the shops are all closed. So, when my internet connection stopped working,
how did I feel? What words can we use to describe my feelings?
Well, we could use words like angry or furious. But these words are too strong. If someone
is angry or furious, they are shouting at people and banging the table. I was not shouting at
people about my internet connection, nor was I banging the table. So angry and furious
are not the right words.
Could we use the word upset? If something upsets you, it means that it has hurt you
emotionally. You may be unable to discuss the upsetting thing without crying. You may not
want to talk to people, or to eat your food. Well, my internet connection problem was not like
that. So I was not upset when my internet connection stopped working.
We need some words that mean a little bit angry. There are several of them. We can say, for
example, that I was cross when the train was late and I missed an important meeting. I was
annoyed when I could not find my car keys. I was irritated when someone did not reply to an
e-mail. Yes, all of these words would do I was cross, and annoyed, and irritated, when my
internet connection stopped working.
But there is another word that describes exactly how I felt. I wanted to do things surfing the
net, sending e-mails etc but I could not. And I could do nothing to solve the problem. The
only thing to do was to wait for my internet provider to mend the connection. And it was
Christmas, so all of their engineers were on holiday. So I had to wait, and wait, and wait! I felt
frustrated. The feeling we have when we cannot do something we normally do is
frustration. If you break your leg, and you cannot play football for two months, you might
find this frustrating. That is how it was with my internet connection it was frustrating. I felt
frustrated
The really bad news is that my internet connection still does not work. I have complained to
my internet company. They say that there is nothing wrong. What do they mean, nothing is
wrong? I cant access the internet. Of course something is wrong. Now I am very frustrated. I
am not just cross with my internet company, I am starting to be angry. I am shouting at the
internet company and banging the table. I have cancelled my contract with them, and next
week some nice people from the cable TV company will come and install a new fibre-optic
cable to my house, and I will have the internet again.
And how will I feel then? Happy yes, of course. But a really good word is relieved.
Imagine that your teenage daughter goes out with some friends for the evening. She says she
will be home at 10 oclock. Ten oclock comes and she is not home; 10.30, 11 oclock. You get
worried and anxious. What has happened? Should you telephone the police? Then at
midnight, the phone rings. It is your daughter. She is at her friends house. How do you feel?
You might be cross with your daughter because she did not telephone earlier. But mainly you
would feel relieved no more worries, no more problems, everything is OK again relieved.
That is how I shall feel when my internet connection is back relieved.
In the meantime, I am using an internet cafe to upload my podcasts. It takes a lot longer to
make and upload podcasts without an internet connnection at home. So, sorry, I do not have
time to find a good picture to put on the website or your iPod screen to illustrate this podcast.
And I may not be able to make another podcast until my internet connection is back. How will
you feel about no new podcast next week? Will you be angry, or annoyed, or upset, or
frustrated? Or will you feel relieved? I hope not!
Eddie the Eagle

Every four years, the Olympic Games are held. This year 2008 is an Olympic year. The
games are to be held in Beijing in China. As well as the main Olympic Games, there are also the
winter Olympics. The winter Olympics are for snow sports things like ski-ing, ice-skating and
bob-sleighing. Like the main Olympic Games, they take place every four years. They used to be
held in the same year as the main Games; but now they are held in the year mid-way between
the main Games. The last winter Olympics were in 2006; the next winter Olympics will be in
2010, in Vancouver in Canada.
Naturally, most of the winners in the sports at the winter Olympics are from countries with
mountains and lots of snow countries like Austria, Norway, Finland and Switzerland for
example. In Britain, our mountains are quite small, and we do not have a lot of snow, so
generally there are only a few British winners at the winter Olympics. But 20 years ago, in
1988, when the winter Olympics were held in Calgary in Canada, one of the British competitors
became world famous. It happened like this.
Michael Edwards was 13 when he first when ski-ing on a school ski trip. He loved it. He also
had a childhood ambition to be a stuntman. A stuntman is someone who acts the really
dangerous bits in films where people fall through windows, for example, or drive a car over a
cliff. So Michael decided that ski-jumping should be his sport. In ski-jumping, the competitors
ski very fast down a long, straight slope and onto a ramp. They then take off and fly though the
air, and land 100 or 200 meters further on. It is slightly less dangerous than jumping out of an
aeroplane with no parachute. You have to be very brave or very stupid to do ski-jumping.
It is not easy to be a ski-jumper in Britain. There are, to start with, no ski jumps where you can
practice. Michael went to some of the top French and Austrian ski-jumping coaches to ask
them for advice. However, as he did not speak any French or German, this did not help him
much. Also, Michael was short-sighted. He had to wear thick glasses, that often steamed up as
he went down the ski slope, so that he could hardly see where he was going. But he kept on
practising and training, and in 1987 he entered the world ski-jumping championships in
Obertsdorf. There were 98 competitors. Michael came 98th. The press started to call him
Eddie the Eagle.
Eddie (as we will now call him) then asked the British Olympic Committee whether he could
represent Britain in the ski-jumping event at the winter games in Calgary. There were no other
British ski-jumpers. So the Committee agreed that he could go. He borrowed some skis, and
set off for Calgary. In Calgary, Eddie was in competition with some of the finest ski-jumpers in
the world. His best jump was 73.5 meters. To me, this seems a very long way to fly through the
air with skis on ones feet. But top-class ski-jumpers regularly jump 200 meters and more. So
Eddie did spectacularly badly in the Games, but he became one of the best known people in
Calgary. Everyone laughed about him; and wondered whether he would be taken away in an
ambulance after his next jump. He waved to the television cameras, and shouted Hello Mum,
its me before he set off down the ski slope. We British love a brave loser, so we loved Eddie.
The International Olympic Committee, the men in suits who run the Olympic Games, did not
find Eddie amusing however. They changed the rules to make it much more difficult for
someone like him to compete in future Games. The International Olympic Committee must be
some of the most boring people in the world. So, at the next Winter Olympics in 2010, there
will be some magnificent ski-ing, but there will be no-one like Eddie the Eagle.
New Year

It is 2008. Happy New Year, everyone. What did you do during the Christmas and New Year
holiday? How did you celebrate New Year?
Traditionally in England, Christmas was our big winter celebration. Scotland was different. In
Scotland, New Year was the more important celebration. On New Years Eve, on 31 December,
Scotsmen wore kilts, and had parties where they danced traditional Scottish dances and
welcomed the New Year with bagpipes. And we English? What did we do? Well, we either
watched television programmes about Scottish people having a great party on New Years Eve;
or we went to bed early.
But it isnt like that today. The Scots still party on New Years Eve, but so do we in England. The
Scots still have a huge street party in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, with bands and
singers and fireworks. But so do we in many cities in England. In London, for example, 700,000
people watched a great fireworks display on the river Thames. Of course, not everyone went
to a New Years Eve party. But many of those who stayed at home watched other people
having a party on television. Millions of people watched the London fireworks on television,
for example. It is as if we all want to be part of a big national New Years Eve party.
Here are some other things which are typical of England at New Year. People visit friends and
relatives. They go for walks in the country, or in the parks in towns. Some brave folk go for a
swim in the sea or a river on New Years Day. People read books, or go to football matches, or
write thank-you letters for the gifts they received at Christmas. Travelling at during the holiday
is a particular adventure. There are traffic jams on the roads, and long queues at the airports,
and our railway system is in chaos, because Christmas and New Year is the time when major
engineering works take place. And we go shopping.
Traditionally, all the big stores had sales in January. They cut the prices of many of the things
they sold, especially things like winter clothes or goods which they had not managed to sell for
Christmas. There were lots of special offers, and people used to queue all night outside some
of the stores, in order to get to the bargains first when the store opened. So what is different
today? Only that the sales now begin immediately after Christmas. Indeed some stores begin
their sales before Christmas Day. And now we can hunt for bargains on the internet as well as
in the shops. The newspapers have reported that we British spent 84m buying things on the
internet on Christmas Day.
But now it is January. The weather is dark and wet. The long Christmas and new Year holiday is
over. It is time to go back to work. Time to lose some weight. Time to give up smoking. Time to
pay our credit card bills. Happy New Year.
A Christmas Story

When you learn a new language, often it is the little words that cause the big problems. I am
learning German. The long words are not a problem, which is good because German has lots of
long words. If I find a long word, and I dont know what it means, I can look it up in a
dictionary. No, it is the short words that confuse me in German words like doch and
schon what exactly do they mean? How can I use them?
Mariano has sent me an e-mail. He asks, please can I make a podcast about two little words
that cause him problems. The two words are still and yet. In this podcast, I shall try to
explain how we use still and yet, and I will tell you a Christmas story.
First, I will tell you what I am not going to do. I am not going to give you dictionary definitions
of still and yet. You can look the words up in a dictionary yourself. You do not need a
podcast to do this for you. And I will not tell you about all the different meanings that still
and yet have. The podcast would be very long, and use up all the spare memory in your iPod
if I did that. Instead, I will take one of the common meanings of still and yet and explain to
you how we use the words.
When I use the word still, I want you to think of the words nothing has changed. Like this.
Kevin is unwell. He telephones his boss to say that he cannot come to work. The next day Kevin
is still unwell. That means, he was unwell yesterday. He is unwell today. Nothing has changed.
He is still unwell.
And how about yet? How do we use yet? Yet means so far, or until now. We
generally use it in questions, and in negative sentences. What is a negative sentence? It is a
sentence with not or none or no or another negative word in it. So, Kevins boss asks him
a question, Are you better yet? And Kevin replies with a negative sentence, No, sorry, I am
not better yet.
You have probably guessed this already very often you can use not yet and still not
interchangeably. Kevin says, I am not better yet. Or he could say. I am still not better.
These two sentences mean the same.
Are you very confused? Are you thinking, why am I listening to this podcast? I understood
about still and yet before the podcast began. Now I dont understand at all. Never mind.
Sit back and listen to a story about a typical English Christmas.
In England, as I guess you know, Father Christmas or Santa Claus comes during the night
before Christmas Day. He climbs down the chimney, and leaves presents for all the children.
And the children are wildly excited. They dont want to go to sleep. They want to stay awake to
see Father Christmas.
Ben is 8 years old. He lives with his mother and father. It is Christmas Eve and time to go to
bed. Bens Mum sends him upstairs to put his pyjamas on.
Twenty minutes later Ben, have you got your pyjamas on? Are you ready for bed yet?
Twenty minutes later Ben, you still havent got your pyjamas on. Go and get ready for bed,
now!
Twenty minutes later Ben, you are not in bed yet. Go to bed, now!
An hour later Ben, you are still awake. Why are you not asleep yet?
Ben I cant sleep. I want to see Father Christmas.
Mum Father Christmas wont come for a long time yet. He has lots of presents to take to
lots of children. So go to sleep.
Half an hour later, Mum and Dad are enjoying a glass of wine in front of the fire in the sitting
room. The door opens. It is Ben.
Is it Christmas Day yet?
No, Ben, it is not Christmas Day yet. It is still Christmas Eve. Go to bed.
Ben goes back to bed. He lies in bed, in the dark, and wonders, Has Father Christmas come
yet? He turns on the light. He cannot see any presents. So he goes downstairs to find Mum
and Dad, who are tidying up the kitchen.
Yes, Ben, I know that Father Christmas hasnt come yet. But dont worry. He has not forgotten
you. Now, for the last time, go to bed!
Ben goes to bed, and falls asleep. The door of his bedroom opens. Is he still awake? whispers
his Dad. No, its OK. Hes gone to sleep at last, says Mum. She tiptoes in and leaves a bag of
presents at the foot of Bens bed, and tiptoes out again. Everything is still and quiet.
It is six oclock on Christmas morning. Ben rushes into his parents room. Mum, Dad, Father
Christmas has been. Look what he has brought me!
Ben, it isnt time to get up yet. It is still only 6 oclock.
But Ben doesnt care. He sits happily on his parents bed, playing with his new racing car, and
reading his new story book. Read me this story, Dad. Are you still asleep?
Happy Christmas everyone.
Theres none so queer as folks

In todays podcast, we are going to meet three English expressions. The first one is to get
away with something. If you do something bad, and nobody discovers what you did, or they
do not find out that it was you who did the bad thing, then we can say that you got away with
it. For example, if you murder someone, and the police do not catch you, then you have got
away with it, or got away with murder.
And the second expression is to make a fuss. To make a fuss means to draw a lot of
attention to something for example, to complain about something that you do not like, or
write letters to the newspapers about it, and tell everyone about it in fact to shout about it,
so that everyone turns round to look.
And the third expression ? Well, you will have to wait until the end of the podcast.
Here is a story, which has been a big story in the British newspapers recently.
It started five years ago, in 2002. Anne and John Darwin lived in a village on the north-east
coast of England. John had a hobby. He liked exploring the sea coast near his home in a small
boat called a kayak. One day he set off for a kayaking expedition. The weather was good and
the sea was calm. But John did not return. The police and volunteers searched everywhere for
him, without success. John had disappeared. A few weeks later, wreckage from Johns kayak
was found on the rocks. The police concluded that John had had a tragic accident and that he
was dead.
Five years later John walked into a police station in London. He told them that he thought he
was a missing person. He could not remember anything that had happened in the last five
years where he had lived, what he had done. The police however were suspicious. It was
strange that John could remember who he was, and where he came from, but not what he had
done in the last 5 years. And when the police tried to contact Johns wife, Anne, they found
that she had recently sold her house and gone to Panama, in Central America.
The newspapers published stories about the missing kayak man who had miraculously
returned when everyone thought he was dead. Then a woman decided to type the words
Anne John and Panama into the Google search engine on her computer. She found a
picture of Anne and John, taken a year ago. It it was on the website of a company which helps
people who want to go and live in Panama. And then other people who had seen John during
the last 5 years contacted the police. Some of them, it appears, knew that John was officially
dead, but they did not say anything to anyone at the time because they did not want to make a
fuss. (This is typical British behaviour. We do not like to make a fuss. So we do not complain
about bad food in restaurants, we do not complain about poor service or high prices in shops,
and we pretend not to notice when we meet someone who is supposed to be dead.)
For at least the last four years, Anne Darwin knew that her husband was alive. He was in fact
living in a small flat in the house next to her house. He built a secret door between his
bedroom and hers. He grew a beard, but a lot of the time, he did not hide. He did jobs around
the house. He took the dog for walks on the beach. A few people thought they recognised him,
but they thought It is none of our business. Lets not make a fuss.
John and Anne got away with it for five years. If John had not walked into a police station last
month, perhaps they might have got away with it for ever. They might have moved to Panama
and lived the rest of their lives in that country.
Why did they do it? The police say that Anne used Johns alleged death to claim money from
an insurance company. And John had debt problems at the time he disappeared. The police
have arrested Anne and John and charged them with fraud.
And now for our third expression. My mother came from the north-east of England, like the
Darwins. When she heard of some peculiar or stupid thing which people had done like
pretending to be dead she would shake her head and say Eeee, theres none so queer as
folks, which is Newcastle dialect for there is nothing as strange as people.
Talking. talking ...


Valeriy, who lives in Russia, has sent me an e-mail. He asks whether I can make a podcast
about these words say, tell, speak and talk.
Well, that is easy, I thought. So I sat down to write a podcast about when we use say and
when we use tell and so on. And after an hour, I realised that I could not do it. English is too
complicated. There are far too many words in English and there are so many different ways of
using them. So I thought, I will not try to explain everything. I shall just explain a few things
the most important things. I will write a few rules, and if my listeners learn these rules, they
will be right most of the time. Please remember that say, tell and speak are irregular
verbs. They go like this I say, I said, I have said; I tell, I told, I have told; and I speak, I spoke, I
have spoken. Talk is regular I talk, I talked, I have talked. Everybody clear? Then lets begin!
I want you to imagine that you are reading a comic book, about Batman perhaps. In many of
the pictures there is a bubble coming from the mouth of one of the characters. It contains the
words which the character is saying. We often call this a speech bubble.
Here is my RULE NUMBER 1. If you can imagine a speech bubble, with words in it, then you can
always use the word say; like this :-
Kevin says, I am going to the football match on Saturday.
Batman says, I have only five minutes to save the entire planet.
Joanna says that she will go to the supermarket tomorrow.
Kevin says to Joanne, Is it OK if I go to the football match on Saturday?
When we want to explain who we say something to, we always use the word to I said to
him that I would be late. We NEVER say I said him that I would be late.
And here is RULE NUMBER 2. If there is no speech bubble with words in it, then you can use
talk or speak.
I will speak to my boss tomorrow about whether I can take a day off work.
Kevin talks to George about the football match.
Today, our teacher is going to talk about irregular verbs in English.
So you see, speak and talk can tell us who is speaking or talking; who the speaker is talking
to; and what sort of thing the speaker is talking about. But they do not tell us about the exact
words which the speaker uses. There is no speech bubble with words in it. Very often, speak
and talk mean exactly the same, and we can use them interchangeably (that is, we can
replace one of them with the other). I think that we use talk more often than we use
speak.
And how about the last word which Valerij wants me to explain the word tell? Here comes
RULE NUMBER 3. Tell means give information. And we can use tell when there is a
speech bubble, and also when there is no speech bubble, provided that we mean give
information. Nearly always, when we use tell, we also say who the speaker is talking to. Like
this:-
Joanne tells her boss, I have nearly finished the report that you asked for.
Kevin tells Joanne that he wants to go to the football match on Saturday.
David told me about his holiday.
He told me that he went to Spain, and that he had a great time there.
John told me how to find his house.
You asked me a question; now I will tell you the answer.
I looked at my watch and told him the time.
At the end of the school day, the teacher told the children a story.
I hope this helps you, Valeriy. Please keep sending me your comments and questions, either by
e-mail or by leaving a comment on the web site. I shall do my best to reply to all of them.
There is a vocabulary note attached to the podcast today, and also a quiz, so you can test how
well you understand the difference between talk, speak, say and tell.
Mr Trump's Golf Course

We go to Scotland again today for our podcast. But first I must introduce you to an English
expression to turn something into something else. What does turn into mean? The easiest
way of explaining is to give you an example. Do you remember the fairy story about a
handsome prince who had an argument with a wicked witch? The wicked witch turned the
prince into a frog that means, she waved her magic wand, and muttered some magic words,
and the handsome prince became something completely different, a frog. Later in the story, a
beautiful princess finds the frog, and when she kisses the frog, it turns back into the handsome
prince. Naturally the handsome prince and the beautiful princess get married and they live
happily ever after, because that is what always happens in fairy stories. So, girls, if you are
looking for a husband, and you dont fancy online dating, try kissing a few frogs. One of them
may turn into a handsome prince. Maybe.
Now that you know what turn into means, we can get back to our podcast story. You may
have heard of Mr Donald Trump. He is American and he is very, very rich. He is a property
developer that means, he buys land and builds new buildings, like flats and offices, on it.
Generally, they are grand and expensive buildings, for rich people. Mr Trump is very intersted
in golf. He owns several golf courses in the United States. They are, naturally, the biggest, the
best and the most beautiful golf courses in the world.
A few years ago, he decided that Scotland a country which is already full of golf courses
needed a Trump golf course. So he bought land beside the sea near the city of Aberdeen, to
turn into a golf course. In fact, he planned two golf courses, a golf academy, a luxury hotel,
1000 holiday homes and 500 houses. And all of these things would, of course, be the best in
the world.
Mr Trump and his people then spent several months persuading people in Aberdeen that this
would be a wonderful thing. And they were very successful lots of people agreed that what
Aberdeen needed was Mr Trump and his money. But there were two problems. The first was
that the land contained a Site of Special Scientific Interest that means, it contained plants,
birds or animals that need to be protected. If Mr Trump turned this land into a golf course, it
would damage the environment. So many conservation groups decided to oppose Mr Trumps
plans.
The second problem was called Michael Forbes. Mr Forbes has a small farm in the middle of
the area which Mr Trump wants to turn into a golf course. He lives there with his mother, who
is 83. It is not a pretty farm. There are lots of old tractors and bits of rusting farm machinery.
But it is Mr Forbes farm, and he does not want to sell. Mr Trumps lawyers have offered him
money, and more money. But Mr Forbes has said no; and his mother has said that she will
leave her home in her coffin, but not before.
And last week something very surprising happened. The local authority in a very close vote
rejected Mr Trumps plans. The conservation lobby cheered. The golf course lobby are
dismayed. Mr Trump is very annoyed. But he will not give up. The newspapers report that he
has just bought a large area of land in Northern Ireland, and wants to turn it into a golf course.

Islands

Andy Strangeway is a painter and decorator. He lives in Yorkshire in the north of England.
When I say that he is a painter, I do not mean that he paints pictures. No; he paints peoples
houses, and puts up wallpaper in their sitting rooms. That is his job; it is what he does for a
living. But when he isnt painting doors and windows, Andy collects islands. Let me explain.
Scotland is a land of mountains and islands. There are 284 mountains over 3000 feet high (that
is, a bit less than 1000 metres high). Some people who are really keen on walking and climbing
have climbed all of them. There are also 162 islands of more than 40 hectares in Scotland.
Several years ago, Andy Strangeway decided to go to all of them. And this year he visited the
last islands on his list. As far as he knows, no-one has ever visited all the islands before.
Perhaps you are thinking that visiting islands is easy. You just take a ferry to the island; you get
off the ferry; perhaps you go for a little walk, or buy a cup of coffee in a cafe; and then you get
back on the ferry and go home. Easy. Much easier than climbing mountains, which needs skill
and energy, and which is often difficult and dangerous.
Well, you can visit some of the Scottish islands by ferry. But out of 162 islands, 99 are
uninhabited no-one lives there, so there is no ferry. So Andy Strangeway had to find
boatmen to take him to many of the islands. Also, Andy decided that it was not enough just to
visit an island. He would stay at least one night on each island, generally in a tent.
The Scottish islands are very varied that means that they are very different one from
another. A few are low-lying and fertile. Others are really just rocks sticking out of the Atlantic
Ocean. Some are close to the mainland and to civilisation (things like discos and
supermarkets). Others are far out to sea.
There is, for instance, a fascinating group of islands called St Kilda, far to the west of Scotland.
People lived on St Kilda for thousands of years, making a living from fishing, keeping sheep and
hunting sea birds. But life there was very hard, and in 1930 the whole community left St Kilda
and moved to the mainland. If you visit St Kilda today, you can see the ruins of the houses in
which the people lived it must be rather sad.
Another island is uninhabited for a different reason. During the second World War, the British
government experimented with germ and chemical weapons, to use against Germany. On an
island called Gruinard, scientists carried out experiments using a deadly disease called anthrax.
This made Gruinard a very dangerous place, and for 48 years the island was completely closed
to visitors.
Well, Andy has now stayed overnight on all the Scpttish islands, including St Kilda and
Gruinard. He has endured rain, wind and rough seas. He did not do it alone, however. He took
his teddy-bear, called Clyde, with him. So Clyde is the first teddy bear to visit every island in
Scotland, Isnt that nice!
Picture of Boreray in the St Kilda group of islands, by Andy Strangeway, with permission
Amy comes to Birmingham

Today, Listen to English visits the world of British pop music.
I started by doing some research. Who is Amy Winehouse? I asked my children. There was
silence. The children sighed and rolled their eyes. It is very embarrassing for them to have a
parent who asks them silly questions about pop music questions like Who is Amy
Winehouse?. Parents are allowed to like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but they are not
allowed to know anything that happened later than about 1990. That is for the younger
generation. Parents should keep out.
So I asked them again, Who is Amy Winehouse? And they explained that she is a singer, and
that she had a gig in Birmingham last week and the gig had been a shambles. And, please, will I
not talk about it in front of their friends.
And in case you do not understand what this means, a gig means a concert or performance,
and a shambles means something which is chaotic and disorganised. Amy Winehouse had a
concert in Birmingham last week and it was a disaster.
It happened like this. Amy Winehouse is 24 years old. She comes from Enfield in north London.
She sings jazzy songs very well. And she is now regarded as one of the big figures in the British
pop music scene.
But she does not go home in the evening to watch TV and drink a mug of cocoa, like good girls
should. The newspapers report that she has a lifestyle in which alcohol and illegal drugs play
an important part. Earlier this year she got married to a man called Blake Fielder-Civil. Mr
Fielder-Civil has had a bit of trouble with the police. He has been arrested for causing serious
injury to someone in a fight and for trying to bribe witnesses. He is at present enjoying a short
rest in Pentonville Prison in London.
Last week, Amy visited her husband in prison, and this was obviously an upsetting experience
for her. She then travelled to Birmingham for the opening concert of her UK tour. She arrived
very late. She sang several songs so badly that the audience started to boo. She broke down in
tears. She dropped the microphone. She walked off the stage in the middle of a song, leaving
the backing group to carry on without her. She shouted abuse at the audience. She told them
that they were stupid to buy tickets for the concert. She told them, Just wait until my
husband gets out of prison. (What is he going to do come to Birmingham and beat us all
up?) The audience booed some more. Many people left long before the end of the concert. It
was, in a word, a shambles. I wish I had been there.
Everyone in Birmingham knows someone who knows someone who was at the gig. And in
places where people discuss these matters seriously, such as our local hairdressing salon, you
hear three different points of view.
it was a disgrace and people who bought tickets for the concert should get their
money back.
poor Amy. She is such a great singer. It is good that she still came to Birmingham at all,
when she was obviously so upset about her husband being in prison. It is good that she
could show her fans how upset she was. Everyone knows that Amy is a bit, well,
unreliable, because of her little problems with alcohol and so on. People knew this
before they bought tickets for the concert so of course they should not get their
money back.
and other people dont care, because they have more important things to worry
about.
What do you think?
Turkeys do not vote for Christmas

It is the middle of November. It is time to start thinking about Christmas. It is time to think
about Christmas cards, and what present to buy for Uncle George.(A nice tie perhaps, except
that we bought him a tie last year and the year before). And soon it will be time to think about
Christmas dinner who should we invite to have Christmas dinner with us, and what should
we eat.
Many people in England eat turkey at Christmas. This is a new tradition if you understand
what I mean. Fifty years ago, it was unusual to eat turkey, and it was difficult to find turkey in
the shops. People ate chicken or goose at Christmas. But nowdays, most people eat turkey on
Christmas Day. And because turkeys are big birds, they also eat cold turkey on Boxing Day (the
day after Christmas) and for about a week afterwards as well, until they become fed up with
turkey and never want to eat or see another turkey ever again until next Christmas, of
course.
I feel sorry for turkeys. Most of them are kept on huge turkey farms, with thousands of other
turkeys. Some turkeys are free fange that means, they are allowed outside to run around
and scratch the ground. But many others are kept in cages indoors. The farmers feed them a
special diet to make them fat. They inject them with antibiotics to keep them healthy. And
then, a few weeks before Christmas, they slaughter all the turkeys and send them off to the
supermarkets. And unfortunately this year many of the turkeys will not even make it to the
Christmas dinner table. There is a serious outbreak of bird flu in some of the big poultry farms
in the east of England. The bird flu virus appears to have come from Eastern Europe, but no-
one yet knows how it got to England. The only way to stop the virus from spreading is to
slaughter all the birds on the infected farms even the healthy ones and to incinerate (that
is, to burn) their bodies. Nearly 30,000 turkeys have been culled so far, and probably more will
need to be killed in the next few days.
I have however a confession to make. I do not like turkeys. They are stupid, mean, horrible
birds. Once, I had a fight with a turkey, and I am afraid that the turkey won. It happened like
this. We that is, myself and my wife and children visited a childrens farm. We saw pigs and
calves; the children went for a ride on a donkey; they fed the chickens and the lambs, and ate
ice cream in the cafe. There was a turkey in the farmyard. To everyone else it was a kind,
gentle turkey. But when it saw me, it attacked. It pecked my feet and ankles. It chased me
round the farm. There were lots of children there, with their parents, and they all laughed. I
have never felt so humiliated in my life. The farmer explained that the turkey thought that my
shoelaces were worms or something else that turkeys like to eat. Stupid turkey.
We have a joke or saying in English. We say that turkeys do not vote for Christmas. It means
that people will not support (vote for) something which is obviously not in their interests. But
if turkeys are stupid enough to attack my shoelaces, maybe they are stupid enough to vote for
Christmas too.

Remembering

The First World War ended on 11 November 1918. Nearly 1 million British servicemen and
civilians died in the war. After the war, people thought that it was important to find ways to
remember those who had been killed. So, throughout Britain, towns and villages, churches,
schools and colleges built war memorials, with the names of the men who had died written on
them. After the Second World War, the names of those killed in that war were often added to
the memorials
.
It was also decided that 11 November should be observed every year as Remembrance Day.
On 11 November, at 11am, many people stand silent for two minutes, to remember those
killed in the two World Wars and in other conflicts. It is also common for people to wear little
red flowers called poppies- made of cloth. Real poppies flowered all over the battlefields in
Flanders in the First World War, because the destruction caused by the fighting created good
conditions for them. The red poppy has become Britains national symbol for Remembrance
Day. On the second Sunday in November, there are special Remembrance services in most
churches in Britain, and parades of ex-servicemen, and ceremonies at war memorials.
For a time, in the 1960s and 1970s, Remembrance Day became less important. A new
generation had grown up since the end of the second World War. And many older people did
not want to think back to the war years any longer for them, the loss of friends and relatives,
the bombing, the queues to buy food, and the general hardship of life in wartime were things
they wanted to forget. It even seemed possible that Remembrance Day would slowly fade
away. But since the 1990s, Remembrance Day has been back in fashion, strongly encouraged
by our government. Indeed, more people seem to observe the two minutes silence today than
at any time I can remember.
I wonder what people are remembering when they stand in silence. There are, I believe, only 5
people still alive in Britain who fought in the first World War. People who fought in the second
World War are all 80 years old or older. So most people who stand in silence on Remembrance
Day are not thinking about specific people relatives, friends, army comrades, work colleagues
who died. Perhaps they are thinking about war and conflict generally; or perhaps they are
thinking about something completely different, like what to cook for supper. (That is the
wonderful thing about thinking it is completely private. No-one but you knows what you are
thinking about.)
And now I am going to say something controversial that means, something which some
people may disagree with strongly. It is right to remember those who died in the great wars of
the 20th century. It is right also to remember that most of those who died were not British.
And it is important also to find a way to leave the past behind; because otherwise we cannot
properly face the problems of today.
I have a dream ....

Have you a dream? I mean, is there something that you would really like to do in your life
such as travelling round the world, or writing a best-selling novel, or climbing Mount Everest,
or learning a new language. Good. It is important that we have dreams like these.
But what would you do to achieve your dream. Would you, for example, walk out of your job
so that you could do the thing you really want to do? Hmm. That might be difficult. How would
you get the money you need to live on? And suppose you had a well-paid and very important
job. Would you give that job up to pursue your dream?
This mornings newspapers tell us about someone who has done just that. His name is Paul
Drayson. He is 47 years old. He started his career as a businessman, and he was very successful
. He made a fortune as boss of a company which makes equipment for giving people medical
injections without sticking a needle into them. Then he became interested in politics. He gave
a lot of money to the Labour Party. The government made him a member of the House of
Lords, which is the upper chamber of the British parliament. (This means that he is now Lord
Drayson, and not plain, ordinary Mr Drayson.) Then Lord Drayson became a minister in the
government, at the Ministry of Defence. He was responsible for buying equipment for the
British armed forces. Both the governments supporters and his opponents said that he was
good at his job. He obviously had a bright political career ahead of him.
But Lord Drayson had a dream. It was a dream about driving motorcars very fast. He bought a
6-litre Aston Martin racing car. He drove it around race tracks. He competed in races; then he
started to win some of the races, and this year he came third in the British GT championship.
(The GT championships are for cars which are nearly the same as cars which you can drive on
normal roads). People who know him say that, as a racing driver, Paul Drayson is both brave
and intelligent. He is particularly interested in racing cars which run on bio-fuels, that is fuel
which is made from plants like maize instead of from crude oil.
Personally, I think that motor racing is about as stupid a sport as golf; but I know that lots of
people do not agree with me. I enjoyed reading the letter of resignation which Lord Drayson
sent to the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. In the letter, he says that he has an
opportunity to compete in motor races in the United States next year. This would be an
important step towards his dream of winning the Le Mans 24 hour race in France. But he
cannot do this and be a government minister at the same time. So he is resigning his job.
Wouldnt you like to write a letter like this to your boss?
Dear Boss, I have been offered an opportunity to go surfing in southern California next year,
so I am resigning from my job as junior clerk in your office.
Dear Boss, Although I have been very happy making burgers here at McDonalds, I am
resigning in order to pursue my dream of being the first person to walk backwards round the
world.
The Ring Road Tramp

Two weeks ago, I made a podcast about immigration into Britain from Eastern Europe. Todays
podcast is also about an immigrant from Eastern Europe. His name was Josef Stawinoga. He
was born in Poland. We do not know much about his early life. It seems that he was involved in
the second World War. Perhaps he was taken prisoner during the Soviet invasion of Poland in
1939. Or perhaps he served in the German army, as some people claim. He arrived in Britain
some time after the war. He found a job working in a steel works. He married a woman from
Austria, but it appears that he mistreated her, and she ran away.
Some time after his wife left him, Joseph stopped working at the steel works and dropped out
of society. He became a tramp he wandered the streets, with no proper home. For a time he
seems to have lived in lodging houses, but by the 1970s he had found a home a home where
he lived for the rest of his life. It was a makeshift tent on the grass strip in the middle of
Wolverhampton ring road.
Let me explain about ring roads. In the 1960s and 1970s, many local authorities in England
decided that what their towns needed above everything else was a new road, running in a
circle, around the town centre. These roads are known as ring roads. They disfigure most
towns in England outside London. They say to us that cars are more important than people.
Many ring roads are dual carriageways that means that there is an empty piece of land in the
middle of the road, to separate the cars racing in one direction from the cars racing in the
other direction. Wolverhampton which is an important town to the west of Birmingham
has a ring road, and it was there that Joseph decided to make his home.
Perhaps you think that you would like to live in the middle of a ring road too. However, you are
not legally allowed to do this. But the local authority in Wolverhampton decided that it was
best to let Joseph stay. His experiences during the war had damaged him psychologically. He
may have suffered from claustrophobia that is, a fear of being in a confined space, like a
room or a building. So it was difficult to force him to live in a normal house.
Over the years, Joseph became a well-known sight in Wolverhampton. People called him
Fred most of the time, instead of Joseph. He was often seen with a brush, sweeping rubbish
off the ring road. Some people in the Indian and Sikh communities in Wolverhampton
regarded him as a sort of holy man, and from time to time they would bring him gifts and food.
His tent actually it was just a piece of plastic sheeting started to fall to bits. But Joseph, or
Fred, refused to move, so the army came and erected a new tent over the top of the old one.
Joseph was found dead in his tent last week, on the 28th of October. He was 86 years old. He
had lived in his tent for over 30 years. A lot of people in Wolverhampton are quite sad that he
is no longer in the middle of the ring road. There is even talk of erecting a permanent
monument to him. Why should we remember him? He did not do anything to help other
people, as far as I know. He simply refused to live his life in a normal way. And that is
important, dont you think?
Two left feet, and other idioms

I have some idioms for you today. Idioms are colourful ways of saying something. Often, when
we use an idiom, we dont mean the words in a literal sense. We are using the words
figuratively.
Still confused? The best thing is to give you some examples. Four examples, in fact, and each
one is about legs or feet!
Kevin and Joanne go with some friends to a disco club. Kevin likes dancing. But he is no good at
it. He stands on the dance floor, jumping up and down and waving his arms in the air. It is not a
pretty sight, but Kevin is happy. Bless him! And Kevin has two left feet. That does not mean
that he actually has two feet on the left side of his body. No, it means that he is clumsy he
cant keep his feet in time with the music, and he falls over a lot. He has two left feet.
Charles is Kevin and Joannes friend. But they do not see him very much, because Charles is
always travelling. He is never completely happy where he is he always wants to be
somewhere else. He gets a job, but after a few months he resigns and looks for another job, or
he goes travelling. He rents a flat, but he will not stay there for long. In a few months he will
move to another flat, or to a different city. We say that Charles has itchy feet. That means, he
is not happy staying for a long time in the same place or the same job. He always wants to be
moving to somewhere new.
Harrys car broke down last week. It stopped on the motorway and he had to phone a garage
to come and tow his car away. Then he had to pay to have his car repaired. It was very
expensive. It cost me an arm and a leg, says Harry.
And finally, let us meet Joannes friend Tracey. Tracey is lovely young woman, but she is always
putting her foot in it. That means, she says the wrong things she offends people, or
embarrsses them, or makes them upset, without meaning to. So, for example, she hears that
Harry has just split up with his girlfriend. All of Harrys friends know that Harry gets very upset
whenever he thinks about his former girlfriend. They know that the best thing is not to talk to
him about it. But not Tracey. I hear you split up with your girlfriend, she says to Harry. She
has put her foot in it again!
Do you understand now what an idiom is? There is a quiz attached to the podcast, with some
more idioms in it. You can find it on the podcast website.
Half term, and turning the clocks back

It has been more than a week since my last podcast. Why? What is my excuse?
Well, my excuse is that last week was half term. And some of you are probably saying, What
does he mean half term? So I shall explain.
Schools and colleges and universities in England start each year in September, after the long
summer holiday. In other words, September is the start of the academic year. The schools
then teach, and the children learn (or some of them learn!), until the middle of December,
when the Christmas holiday starts. The time from when schools start in September to when
they finish in December is a term. There is then a second school term which starts in January
and runs to the Easter holiday in March or April, and a third school term which starts after
Easter and runs to early in July. In America, people use the word sesmester to describe the
divisions of the academic year, but in Britain we always call them terms.
So what is this half term which was my excuse for no podcast last week? Well, by the end of
October the teachers and the school children are so exhaused that they need a little holiday.
So the schools close for a week, and we call this the half term holiday or simply half term.
And last week was half term, so my house was full of children. They argued, they played
computer games, they played loud music, they wanted to go shopping, they wanted to visit
their friends and they wanted cakes for tea. So no podcast.
Yesterday, we turned the clocks back. What does that mean? In Britain, as in most European
countries, we change the time on our clocks twice during each year. We move the time
forward by one hour on a Sunday at the end of March, so that we get more daylight in the
evenings during the summer. And we move the time back by one hour on a Sunday at the end
of October. We have had this system of summer time and winter time since the First
World War, and you would think that everyone was used to it by now. But every year, there
are people who forget they arrive at the station one hour too early for their train, or one
hour too late; or they go to church on Sunday at the wrong time. (Yes I have done both of
those things). This year something more spectacular happened. There was chaos at Gatwick
airport in London. No-one had told the airports computers that the clocks had changed.
Picture from the top of the Malvern Hills, south of Birmingham, taken at half term four years
ago
Immigration into Britain

A few years ago, there was an advertisement on a billboard close to where I live. It advertised
a company called Western Union. You probably know about Western Union. Western Union
sends money from one country to another. If you want to send money to your brother in
South Africa, for example, you can go to a Western Union office in England and pay in some
money. Then your brother can go to a Western Union office in South Africa, and collect the
money which you have sent.
The unusual thing about this advertisement however was the language in which it was written.
It was in Polish. It was aimed at Polish people who work in Britain, and who want to send
money back to their families in Poland.
And last year, the local paper in Reading, a town close to London, printed one of its editions in
Polish, for the benefit of the many Polish people who now live and work in Reading. You can
see a photo of the paper on the website and on your iPod screens.
Since Poland joined the European Union in 2004, a lot of Polish people have come to this
country. We sometimes joke in Britain about how all plumbers nowdays seem to be from
Poland. And people have come from other East European countries as well. For example, I do
not think that there are any buses still running in Lithuania, because there are so many
Lithuanian bus drivers here in Birmingham.
Of course, immigration into Britain is not new. Over the last 50 years, a lot of immigrants have
arrived here from for example Pakistan, India and the West Indies. But large scale immigration
from Eastern Europe is new it has been made possible by the European Union rules which
say that people must be able to move freely throughout the Union and live and work in any EU
member country.
You will find that many people in England do not have a positive view of immigration or of
immigrants. They say that they take the jobs of British workers; and that they are a burden on
our health, welfare and education systems. Some people say that immigrants are responsible
for a lot of crime.
But a government report, published this week, takes a very different view. It says that in 2006,
12.5% of the workforce in this country were immigrants. Immigrants have, on average, higher
skills than people in similar jobs who were born in Britain. They earn more as well, and so pay
more in taxes. Many employers say that immigrant workers are more reliable, and are willing
to work longer hours. Some sectors of the economy like agriculture and hotels and restaurants
depend heavily on immigrant labour. The report concludes that, altogether, immigration into
Britain contributes 6 billion a year to the British economy.
Of course, there are problems too. In Britain, house prices and rents are very high, and in some
places immigration has pushed prices and rents even higher. Some immigrants have to live in
poor housing, and are exploited by unscrupulous landlords. Other immigrants are employed by
labour agencies or gangmasters, and some of these have a bad record for exploiting their
workers. And there can be problems too when schools have to cope with a lot of pupils who do
not speak English (though my experience is that children learn English very fast it is adults
who find new languages a problem).
The overall picture painted by the report is that immigration has greatly benefited Britain and
the British economy. I guess that some of you who listen to my podcasts have come to Britain
as immigrants, or you have worked in Britain and have now returned to your own countries.
What do you think? Please post a comment on the podcast website saying what you like about
living in Britain, and what you do not like.
Michael Fish and the Great Storm

Today, we revise some vocabulary about the weather, particularly about the wind, and we
remember the big storm that hit England exactly 20 years ago.
When you feel the air moving, or you see the leaves on the trees moving, we say in English
that the wind blows or the wind is blowing. And if the air is moving a lot, we say that the
wind is blowing hard, or the wind is blowing strongly.
If the wind is quite gentle, we can call it a breeze. But if the wind blows very strongly, we call
it a gale And a storm is even stronger than a gale; and a hurricane is even stronger than a
storm!
There is a scale of wind speeds called the Beaufort scale. A very light wind is force 1 or 2; and a
very violent wind is force 9 or 10; and so on. Weather forecasts in English often use the
Beaufort scale to say how hard the wind will blow, particularly weather forecasts for ships at
sea.
Twenty years ago yesterday, 15 October 1987, people in Britain switched on their TV sets to
watch the evening news and weather forecast. The weather forecaster was Michael Fish. Mr
Fish is retired now, but for many years he was Britains favourite TV weather forecaster. He
was famous for his brightly coloured ties and jackets. While he was telling us about the
weather that evening, he said that a woman had telephoned the BBC to ask whether it was
true that a hurricane was going to strike England that night. Well, said Michael Fish, he could
assure us that no hurricane was on its way.

And yes, you guessed right that night the wind over southern England increased. Soon it
became a gale, then a storm and finally a hurricane. It was in fact the most violent storm to hit
England since 1703. It caused a huge amount of damage. All over the south of England, trees
blew down, cars were overturned and walls collapsed. Eighteen people were killed by the
storm that night, and over 15 million trees were uprooted. People woke up in the morning to
find that the roof had blown off their house, or that their car was crushed underneath a tree,
or even that a tree had fallen into their kitchen. Roads were blocked, schools were closed and
there was no electricity. Many people were unable to get to work for several days.
Of course, people quickly repaired the damage. Even in the woods and the gardens, where so
many trees were destroyed, new trees have grown. But poor Michael Fish has never been
allowed to forget what he said on the weather forecast. It was not his fault, of course. The
computer at the Meteorological Office (which is Britains national weather forecasting service)
forecast a big storm, but thought that it would pass further south, over France. Today the Met
Office has much better computers and better information from satellites. It is confident that it
would not make the same mistake again. I hope they are right. Our climate is changing.
Extreme weather events, like floods or violent storms, are likely to become more common in
future. We will be able to cope only if we get good information about the weather.
Dynamite and Doris Lessing

Today we go on a journey. It starts in Sweden over 100 years ago; and then moves to London;
and finally moves to future worlds and other planets.
But we start in Sweden. Alfred Nobel spent his life finding ways to blow things up. He was born
in 1833 in Stockholm. As a young man he became very interested in nitro-glycerine, a highly
explosive chemical. He saw straight away how useful nitro-glycerine could be in mines, for
example, to blast tunnels through the rock; or in civil engineering, to clear the path for new
roads and railways; or in war, so that people could blow each other up more efficiently. But
nitro-glycerine is very unstable. If you handle it wrongly, it will explode. Alfred Nobel spent
several years looking for a way of making nitro-glycerine more stable. His experiments caused
a number of serious explosions, including one in which his brother and several other people
were killed. But eventually, he was successful. He called his new explosive dynamite, and we
still use dynamite and similar explosives today.
And after that, Alfred Nobel became a very rich man, because of course there was and still is a
very big market in the world for blowing things up. He was also a very cultured and well-
educated man. He spoke several languages fluently and had a deep interest in literature and
poetry.
Alfred Nobel died in 1896. He left a large amount of money to establish five prizes. These
would be awarded every year to people who had done outstanding things in the fields of
Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and the promotion of peace in the world. (Later, a
sixth prize was added, for economics). These prizes have been awarded every year since 1901.
Now let us jump forward 106 years. Yesterday, an 87-year old woman went out to do some
shopping. She arrived back at her home in north London in a taxi. She was surprised to find a
crowd of newspaper reporters and TV camera crews waiting outside her house. At first, she
thought they were filming something for a soap opera. But the reporters told her that she had
just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The woman is Doris Lessing, who has been an
important novelist for well over 50 years. She was born in Iran, where her father worked for a
bank. The family later moved to Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. She moved to London in
1949 and published her first novel in the same year. As a young woman she joined the
Communist Party and strongly opposed white rule in southern Africa. (She was banned from
entering South Africa for nearly 40 years because of her opposition to apartheid).
But her novels are not simply political novels. They are very personal; that is, they explore
what people feel and experience. Sometimes you will see Doris Lessing described as a feminist;
but she has always said that it is too simple to describe her in this way. Some of her later
novels are science fiction that is, they are set in imaginary worlds, distant planets, or worlds
of the future. Many people do not like her science fiction novels. They say that they are
unreadable. They argue that it is much more interesting to write about the real world than
about imaginary worlds. But Doris Lessings supporters say that her science fiction novels are
just a new way of writing about what people are like inside.
You may not have read any of Doris Lessings books, but I guess that many of my listeners have
read science fiction. What do you think? Is science fiction a new way of writing about what
people are like, what they feel, what they experience? Or is it what we call escapism, that is
a way of running away from the real world to hide in worlds that we have invented?
Diana - the Inquest and the Conspiracy Theories

In Britain, when someone dies in an unnatural way, it is normal to have an inquiry into why
and how the person died. We call this inquiry an inquest. The person in charge of the inquest
is called a Coroner she or he is like the judge in a normal court of law. The inquest hears
evidence from witnesses, who say what they know about the dead person and how they died.
There is a jury, a group of ordinary people who listen to the evidence and then say how they
think the person died.
A very unusual inquest has just started in London. It is an inquest into the death of Diana,
Princess of Wales. Diana was the divorced wife of Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne.
She died in a car crash in Paris, just over 10 years ago. Two other people died in the same crash
they were Henri Paul, who was driving the car; and Dodi al Fayed, the son of a wealthy
Egyptian businessman Mohamed al Fayed.
The death of Diana was an extraordinary event. Very many people, in Britain and in other
countries, liked Diana. They thought that she was a more sympathetic and natural person than
the rest of the British royal family. Thousands of people sent messages of sympathy, or placed
flowers outside Buckingham Palace in London. Millions of people sent money to a special fund
set up in Dianas memory. People said things like, She may be dead, but she still lives in our
hearts.
The French police investigated the car crash. They concluded that it had happened because the
car had been going very fast, and because the driver had drunk too much alcohol.
But some people do not accept these conclusions. They say that there is other evidence which
the French police ignored. Mohammed al Fayed says that he is certain that Dodi and Diana
were murdered. Some people claim that there was a plot to kill Diana involving the Queens
husband and the British secret intelligence service. Two British newspapers have published
regular stories which question the conclusions of the French police.
Have you heard the expression conspiracy theory? Something extraordinary happens, like
the assassination of President Kennedy, or the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11, or
the death of Diana. There is an official explanation of what happened, and many people are
happy with this explanation. But some people are not. They claim for example:
that the government has suppressed important evidence;
that powerful people do not want the truth to be known;
that the true explanantion is that there was an elaborate plot, or conspiracy,
involving, typically, the Pope, the President of the United States, the mafia, aliens from
outer space and the intelligence services of six different countries.
So, the inquest in London will no doubt look at some of the conspiracy theories about Dianas
death. The jury will need to decide whether any of them are true. But conspiracy theories are
like a religion, and it is impossible to convince a conspiracy theorist that he is wrong. So,
whatever the inquest decides, some people will not be happy.
But the inquest has already revealed one surprising thing. The authorities thought that many
members of the public would want to come. They erected a large marquee outside the court
building where people could see and hear the inquest on big TV screens. But the marquee is
empty. There are lots of empty seats in the public area in the inquest itself. Ten years ago,
Britain was fascinated by the death of Diana. Now we have more important things to do.
Birmingham Town Hall

I think you know by now that I live in Birmingham, which is the second largest city in England,
after London. Birmingham is not an old city. It does not have ruins from Roman times, or a
castle, or a mediaeval cathedral. Two hundred and fifty years ago, Birmingham was just a
village. But then came the industrial revolution. Little Birmingham became a centre of the new
metal and engineering industries. The town grew and grew, and by about 1830, 160,000
people lived here. Leading Birmingham citizens began to think that the new town needed
some fine public buildings, to reflect its new wealth and importance. So they decided to build a
Town Hall.
Now, the expression town hall in English normally means the headquarters of the
administration of the town a building with offices where people work, in other words. But
not in Birmingham. Our Town Hall is a public hall. It was built as a place for concerts, public
lectures and political meetings.
The group of citizens planning the Town Hall first collected together the money they needed;
then they employed an architect and builders.The architect designed the Town Hall to look like
a Roman temple look at the picture on the website, or on your iPod screen, and you will see
what I mean. The builders brought stone for the building by ship and canal boat all the way
from Anglesey, in north Wales. Inside, skilled craftsmen built an organ one of the largest
organs in Britain at the time. And in 1834 the new Town Hall opened with a music festival to
help raise money for a local hospital.

Over the years since then, Birmingham Town Hall has seen all sorts of events and
performance. The first performance of Mendelssohns great oratorio Elijah took place in the
Town Hall in 1846, and in the following year Mendelssohn himself played the organ at a
concert. Several of the works of the English composer Edward Elgar were also given first
performances in the Town Hall. Charles Dickens read from his book A Christmas Carol, and
the Town Hall has seen countless public and political meetings. It was the home for
Birminghams orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The Beatles and the
Rolling Stones performed there, as did countless other classical, jazz and pop musicians.
But then things started to go wrong. The building began to deteriorate. Atmospheric pollution
attacked the stonework, and water came through the roof. Moreover, the facilities at the
Town Hall were no longer what modern audiences expect. A spendid new concert hall,
Symphony Hall, opened in Birmingham in the early 1990s, and the City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra moved there from the old Town Hall. In 1996, the city council decided
that the Town Hall was no longer safe, and it closed. Many people feared that it would never
re-open.
The Town Hall stood empty and silent for the next nine years. Finally, the city council managed
to find enough money with help from the National Lottery and the European Union to
repair and restore the building. Workmen covered the Town Hall in scaffolding and polythene
sheeting, and the work of restoration started. And now it is finished, and the Town Hall will re-
open today, 4 October, with a gala concert. I think that Mendelssohn and Elgar would be
pleased. To celebrate the occasion, here is a short extract from Max Regers Toccata and Fugue
in D, Opus 59 No 5, and it is played by Michael Austin on the magnificent organ of Birmingham
Town Hall.
Charity Shops

In many towns in England, the main shopping street is called High Street. We often use the
expression high street to mean the main shopping street of any town or suburb, no matter
what its real name is. Or we talk about the high street to mean shopping facilities generally,
particularly shops that people use every day like food shops. So, when a newspaper writes
about high street prices, for example, they just mean the prices of everyday things that
people might buy in high street shops.
And we often complain that high street shops are the same boring shops everywhere in
England. Many high street shops are branches of big national chains. For example, there is
Next, and Marks and Spencer, which sell clothes; and WH Smith, which sells stationery, books
and magazines; and Boots, the chemists; and Woolworths, where you can buy almost
anything, provided that it is cheap and made of plastic. You can find these shops in most high
streets in England. In most high streets, too, you will find one or more charity shops.
Charity shops are shops which are run by charities to help them raise money. People bring
things that they no longer want, and the charity shop sells them to other people. What sort of
things? Clothes, shoes, hats, bags, childrens toys, books, CDs, crockery, kitchen things, mugs
commemorating the wedding of Charles and Diana all sorts of things, in other words.

The first charity shop was set up in 1947. Since then, charity shops have become very
successful in England. There are over 7000 of them altogether. They raise well over 100
million each year for the charities that own them. They are cheap to run. Often they occupy
shop premises that no-one else wants, and where the rent is low. Most of their staff are
volunteers. The shops do not have to pay tax on their profits. The charity OXFAM, which helps
people in developing countries, has the best-known charity shops in England, but there are
many others, including shops run by small local charities.
I enjoy visiting charity shops. They are all different, unlike the big high street shops. There is
always a chance that I will find something really interesting or unusual. Here are some of the
things I have learned about charity shops:
they have a special smell, of old clothes.
women are much more likely than men to give used clothes to a charity shop, and
more likely to buy clothes there.
people who bought CDs of really bad bands ten years ago eventually give the CDs to a
charity shop.
if you go to a charity shop in an area where well-off people live, you can often find
expensive designer clothes at bargain prices.
it always takes three charity shop volunteers to operate the till.
Finally, here is another way in which charity shops are really useful to busy families in modern
Britain. Your children arrive home. They tell you proudly that they are in a play at school. And
they need costumes before tomorrow. No problem. Give them 5 and send them to the
nearest charity shop. They will come back with some amazing rubbish. They will take it to
school next day to wear in the school play. Everyone will say they look wonderful. And when
they come home again why, you can take it all back to the charity shop, of course.
I dont care

In the last podcast, about Socks and Cookie, I said I do not care what the cat is called.
What do we mean when we say I do not care?
We mean, That is not important to me.
So, if I say, I do not care what the cat is called, I mean, It is not important to me what the
cat is called.
OK? Everybody clear? Then lets go and find Kevin and Joanne.
Many months ago, a friend of Joannes invited Kevin and Joanne to come to her weding. And
Kevin and Joanne said, yes they would be very pleased to come. But, as I say, that was months
ago, and Kevin has forgotten all about it, until Joanne reminds him that the wedding is on
Saturday.
But Joanne, there is a football match on TV on Saturday. If I go to the wedding I will miss the
match.
I dont care about the football, says Joanne. We are going to the wedding.
But, Joanne, its a really important game.
I dont care how important the game is. Were going to the wedding.
But, Joanne, if United win on Saturday, they will go through to the next round.
I dont care whether they win or lose, were going to the wedding.
Look, Joanne, its Joes birthday on Saturday. Me and some of his friends, we have planned a
surprise party for him.
Nice try, Kevin, but I dont care about Joes birthday. Were going to the wedding.
But, Joanne, how can I explain to Joe that I cant come to his party?
I dont care what you say to him. We said that we would go to the wedding and that is what
we are going to do.
So, Joanne, you dont care that Joe will be upset that I cant go to his party?
Quite right, Kevin. I dont care. And Joe wont be upset
So they go to the wedding. And after the wedding there is a reception in a hotel. Joanne and
Kevin chat to some people, and then Kevin disappears. Joanne cannot see him anywhere. An
hour later she finds him. He is with the brides brother, and 3 or 4 other young men, in a small
room at the back of the hotel. And, yes, they are watching the football on the TV and drinking
cans of beer. Just as Joanne comes into the room, United score, and then the referee blows
the final whistle.
Kevin, what are you doing here. You should be at the wedding reception.
But Kevin has a broad smile on his face I dont care. United have won.
But you have missed the wedding cake and the champagne.
I dont care about the wedding cake or the champagne. United have won.
Kevin, you are incorrigible, says Joanne. And she says lots of other things too, but Kevin
knows that she doesnt really mean them, and anyway United have won. So, he doesnt care.


The Story of Socks and Cookie

As you know, we English are sensible people. We do not get excited about little things. We do
not make a fuss. Most of the time, at least. It is different where children or animals are
involved. Then, we do some very peculiar things, as my story today will show.
In a podcast in March, I told you about a programme on BBC television called Blue Peter. It is a
popular and high-quality programme for children. It has been running for many years, since
the early 1960s in fact.
Children like pet animals, so Blue Peter has a whole zoo of pets which appear on the
programme. At present there are three dogs, a cat and a tortoise. The cat first appeared on the
programme last January. At that time, it had no name. So Blue Peter asked the children who
watch the programme to choose a name. The children voted on the Blue Peter web site. And a
few weeks later, Blue Peter announced the name which the children had chosen the cat
would be called Socks.
However, Socks was not in fact the name which the children had chosen. The most popular
name for the new cat had been Cookie. But the people who make Blue Peter decided that
Cookie was not a suitable name for the cat. Why? I do not know. But Socks became the official
name of the Blue Peter cat.
In the last few months, we in Britain have become worried about TV and radio programmes
which mislead their viewers and listeners. There have been stories about phone-in
competitions which no-one could win; and about live programmes which had actually been
recorded. The radio and TV companies have promised that these things will stop. They have
even sacked some of the staff responsible.

So the top people in the BBC were very embarrassed when they found out about Socks. At the
beginning of the Blue Peter programme today, the presenters apologised to the children. They
said that the BBC was very, very sorry about what had happened. They introduced a little
kitten, who will be Socks friend on the programme. The kitten is called Cookie.
The children watching Blue Peter today probably wondered what the fuss was about. January
was a long time ago. Most of the children have probably forgotten whether they voted for
Socks or Cookie or some other name. They probably dont care what the cat is called. I
dont care what the cat is called. Do you?
This is not the first time there has been a problem about the animals on Blue Peter. Over 40
years ago, there was a Blue Peter dog called Petra. But Petra became ill and died. What could
the BBC do? It feared that the children would be upset if the BBC told them that Petra was
dead. So they found another dog which looked exactly the same, and called the dog Petra, and
the new Petra appeared on Blue Peter instead. No-one knew. Everyone was happy. And it was
30 years before the BBC revealed what had happened.
The Run on Northern Rock

If you had visited the centre of Birmingham three days ago, you might have seen a long queue
of people. The queue started at the door of a building, and stretched 50 meters to the corner
of the street and round the corner.
If you had visited Leeds, or London, or Edinburgh, or many other towns, you would have seen
the same thing long queues of people waiting for something. What were they doing?
Perhaps tickets for a big pop concert had just gone on sale, and the people were queuing to
buy tickets before they sold out. But if you looked carefully, you could see that many of the
people looked, well, a bit too old to be interested in pop concerts.
No, it was not a pop concert. It was something we have not seen in Britain for many years. It
was a run on a bank.
Let me explain. There is a bank, based in Newcastle in the north-east of England, called
Northern Rock. It has branches in many towns and cities in Britain. Its main business is lending
money to people to buy houses this is what we call mortgage lending in Britain. A
mortgage is an arrangement where property, such as a house, is used as security for a loan. A
bank will lend you money to buy a house, but it takes a mortgage over the property, so that
if you dont repay the loan or the interest on the loan the bank can repossess your house;
that is, it can take the house back from you. Houses are very expensive in Britain, and most
people who buy a house need to borrow money with a mortgage.
Northern Rock has been a very aggressive mortgage lender. Its share of the home loans market
has grown a lot in the last few years. In fact it is now one of the top 5 or 6 mortgage lenders in
Britain. How has Northern Rock found the money to lend to so many people? Well, some of
the money has come from people who save money in Northern Rock savings accounts. But
Northern Rock has also borrowed a lot of money from other banks and in the money markets.
The money which Northern Rock has borrowed is short term that means, it has to repay the
money after a few months or a year. But the loans which Northern Rock has made to people to
buy houses are long term perhaps 20 or 25 years.
Until a few months ago, everything was OK. But then the amount of money which other banks
were willing to lend fell, and the interest on the loans increased. One of the reasons for this
was the problem in the United States over low-quality or junk lending perhaps you have read
about it in the papers. Suddenly Northern Rock was in trouble. It could no longer borrow all
the money it needed. The news got out. The price of Northern Rocks shares collapsed.
Northern Rock assured everyone that it had plenty of money and that no-one needed to
worry. But many people did not believe this. People who had saved money with Northern Rock
wanted to get their money out. So they queued at Northern Rocks branches, and tried to get
onto Northern Rocks website. The website collapsed, and the queues got longer and longer. It
was a run on a bank, the first run on a British bank for 140 years.
Eventually the government said that it would guarantee savers deposits at Northern Rock. The
panic subsided and the queues disappeared. But something has changed. For the last ten
years, Britain has had low inflation, low interest rates and good economic growth. Many
people have borrowed a lot of money to buy houses or cars or to go on exotic holidays. But
many economists now think that the years of easy money are now over. Northern Rock may be
only the first problem of the new times.
How to travel to a sales conference

Kevin is very excited. His boss has asked him to go to a big sales conference. You remember
that Kevin has written a paper for his company about the market for cat food. One of the top
people in his company has seen the paper and likes it. The top person does not actually
understand the paper. That is because top people only understand big things like international
finance, and where shall we play golf next weekend. But the top person said to himself, This
Kevin obviously understands all about cat food. He must come to the sales conference.
So Kevin makes plans to go to the sales conference. The conference takes place in an executive
hotel near Heathrow airport in London. This hotel is possibly the least attractive place in
England. And it is expensive. But the sales conference has always been held there, every year
since 1998, so it has become a tradition.
Kevin decides to travel to the conference on the train. Other people come to the conference in
their cars. The people from America and Germany come on the plane to Heathrow airport.
Other people come on a bus, or on the underground, or in a taxi. The director responsible for
the companys environmental policy comes on her bicycle.
This is very confusing, isnt it on a train, in a car, on a bicycle how can we remember
when to say in and when to say on? Well, I am afraid that you just have to learn. But while
you are learning, remember that you can nearly always use the word by to explain how you
are going to travel. So here are some of the ways to get to the sales conference. You can travel
by car, or by road; you can travel by train or by rail; you can come by plane or by air; and you
can arrive by bus, by tram, by underground, by taxi, by coach, by helicopter, by horse, or by
elephant. The only time that you cant use by is when you walk you arrive on foot, not
by foot. (And you cant seriously go to the sales conference near Heathrow airport by
elephant. I just put that in to see if you were awake!)
What is the best way to travel? In English we have a saying that it is better to travel hopefully
than to arrive. It comes from the 19th century Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson. What
does it mean? It is about our journey through life. Some people look forward all the time to
new things. They welcome new opportunities, new things to do, new things to learn. Even
when they are old, they still want to visit new places and meet new people. They are travelling
hopefully (that is, with hope). Other people have perhaps done many things in their lives,
but now they do not want to experience anything new. They have arrived. Which is better, do
you think to travel hopefully, or to arrive?
Sharks

It has been a good summer for seeing things in the sea. I told you about the whales in the Bay
of Biscay in the last podcast, and this podcast is about sharks.
In July, a man contacted a newspaper to tell them that he had seen a great white shark in the
sea off the south-west of England. He sent them a photograph of the shark. Because there is
not much proper news during the summer holiday, the paper published the photo. There was
no doubt it was indeed a great white shark.
Now, sharks are quite common in the sea around England. But the sharks near England are the
small and timid. They are not at all dangerous. They are afraid of people and swim away if you
get close to them. Great white sharks are not like that. Great white sharks are big and have
teeth. They are the sort of sharks that eat people. No-one had ever seen a great white shark in
the sea near England before.
Of course, once one person had seen a great white shark, lots of other people said that they
had seen the shark too. They telephoned the newspapers to tell them. Some of them took
photos of the shark with their mobile phones. There was panic in the tourist industry. People
thought, No-one will want to swim in the sea if they think there is a great white shark
nearby. And other people said that it was all because of global warming because the earth is
getting warmer, the great white sharks are moving further north. A television channel
broadcast the film Jaws. You probably know the film. It is about a rather nice great white
shark which made the world a better place by eating horrid American teenagers in the sea
near Florida.
Then the man confessed that he had not really seen the shark off south-west England at all. It
was a hoax. He had taken the photo while he was on holiday in South Africa. He thought it
would be funny to pretend that he had seen the shark in England. And everyone started to say
that, of course, they had known all along that the story wasnt true and that there could not
possibly be a great white shark in the sea near England.
But now the summer holiday is over. There are no more entertaining stories about sharks.
Instead, the newspapers are full of serious and depressing news about interest rates and
house prices, and the war in Iraq. We need something to cheer us up. A tiger in Scotland,
perhaps, or crocodiles in the sewers in Birmingham.
Whales

Welcome back, everyone, after our summer break.
Todays podcast is about whales. Not the country Wales, but the animals called whales.
Whales live in the sea. But they are not fish. Young whales do not hatch from eggs, like young
fish do. Young whales are born live, like human babies. Whales are mammals, like human
beings are. And because whales live in the sea, we call them marine mammals marine just
means of the sea. In fact, a species of whale called the blue whale is the largest mammal on
earth.
For hundreds of years, people have hunted whales. They ate whale meat, and used whale oil
as a fuel for lamps, and to make candles. In the 20th century, commercial whaling drove some
species of whales almost to extinction. Many countries now prohibit whale hunting. But whale
hunting by Japan, Norway and some other countries continues. There is a lot of controversy
about whale hunting people have very strong opinions either for or against it.
Well, I went whale hunting this summer with a camera. I travelled on a boat from
Portsmouth in England to Bilbao in northern Spain. During the journey, the boat crosses the
Bay of Biscay, which is the area between the west coast of France and the north coast of Spain.
In this area, whales are plentiful. So, on the boat with me there were lots of enthusiastic whale
hunters. First thing in the morning, the whale hunters went to the top deck of the boat. They
set up telescopes, binoculars and cameras. They had notebooks, and pencils, and books about
whales. Anxiously, they looked out to sea. Nothing. Only the waves and the sky, and a few
birds. Eventually, someone saw something. All the whale hunters ran to the side of the boat.
About a kilometer away, there was a jet of water. Then there was another, and another. It was
a group of whales, close to the surface of the sea, blowing water out through the blow holes
on the tops of their heads. But they were too far away we could not see the whales
themselves, or tell what sort of whales they were. But later in the day, we saw whales close to
the boat there is a picture of one on the website. And we saw dolphins as well, though there
are fewer dolphins in the Bay of Biscay this year than in previous years.
My children soon got bored with whale hunting. There are more exciting things to do on the
boat, they said. But I can now understand why the whale hunters, with their telescopes and
cameras, are so enthusiastic. In Europe today, there are not many places where you can see
big animals in the wild. But at sea you can. For a long time, there is nothing. But when,
suddenly, a whale appears close to you, it is as thrilling as watching elephants or lions in Africa.

Rigoletto Act 2 - Next Podcast 11 September
Suppose your friend has just sat an exam. You want to ask her was it alright, were the
questions easy, do you think that you passed the exam? What words could you use to ask this
question?
Or suppose that your friend has just been to a wedding. You want to ask her was everything
OK, did the bride look beautiful, did everyone have a good time? What words can you use?
Or suppose that your favourite English podcaster has been playing in the orchestra for Verdis
opera Rigoletto. You want to ask him was the opera good, did you play in tune and in the
right places, were there any disasters? How can you ask this question?
Well you can say, How did it go? How did your exam go? how did the wedding go? how did
the opera go?
And I could say, yes the opera went very well. The singers were wonderful, of course. The
audiences were not big, but the people who came loved the performances. And I played in
tune most of the time and in the right places well, most of the right places.
In the last act of Rigoletto, there is a storm. The night grows dark, and the rain pours down,
and in the middle of the storm, the assassin kills Gilda. It is very dramatic, with some very fine
music. In our first performance, when we reached the storm scene, we heard a noise. It was
the rain, hammering on the roof of the little theatre where we were playing. There was a
storm in the opera, and a real storm outside. It was a very strange experience.
In fact, the heavy rain continued all that night and all the next day. The rivers rose, and water
flooded many roads and homes. Several towns south of Birmingham have been seriously
flooded. Even today, five days after the storm, it is impossible to reach some towns except by
boat or helicopter. Many people in these places have no electricity and no drinking water.
These are the most serious floods in Britain that anyone can remember. We hope that the
worst is now past, and that life in the flooded towns and villages can slowly return to normal.
This is my last podcast for the summer. I am going to take a break and a holiday. We are going
to the Asturias region of Spain Viva Espana. The next podcast will be on Tuesday 11
September. To keep you company until then, here is part of the second act of Rigoletto,
recorded during our final performance in a church in Birmingham on 22 July. Gilda tells her
father Rigoletto about the young man in the church and about how she was kidnapped.
Rigoletto comforts her. Zoe Milton-Brown is Gilda, and Kevin McRae is Rigoletto. The orchestra
is the wonderful Birmingham Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Martin Leigh.


Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Somewhere in England, there is a very special building. The security is tight. There is barbed
wire all around the fence. There are security guards with dogs. Everyone going in or out is
searched and has to show a security pass. Is this a secret government defence establishment?
Or a prison for specially dangerous prisoners? Or a place for storing something very valuable,
like gold bars, or something very dangerous, like nuclear waste?
No, it is the warehouse where copies of the new Harry Potter book Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows are stored. Late tomorrow, big trucks will arrive at the warehouse. The
books will be loaded onto the trucks, and taken to bookshops and supermarkets all over the
country. Because Saturday is the Big Day. Saturday is the day when the new Harry Potter book
will be published.
Who is Harry Potter? Did someone say, Who is Harry Potter? What planet do you live on?
Everyone knows about Harry Potter. He is a teenage wizard, who attends a special school for
wizards called Hogwarts. Together with his friends Ron and Hermione, he is locked in a
desperate struggle wih the forces of evil. J K Rowlings books about Harry Potter are some of
the most successful books ever written. When the previous Harry Potter book was published,
two million copies of it were sold in the first 24 hours. This time, the publishers have printed 3
million copies, and will print even more if the book sells well. And, of course, the book will be
translated into many other languages.
So next Saturday which is the first day of the school summer holidays in England the new
Harry Potter book will go on sale. People will queue to buy it at bookshops and supermarkets.
In our family, we will need to buy 3 or 4 copies, because we cannot agree who should read the
book first.
This will be the last Harry Potter book. So what will happen? Will Harry finally defeat the evil
Voldemort; or will the dark forces triumph? The excitement is intense. But we will not have to
wait long to find out. Only one more day to go!
Rigoletto - Act 1

I have been very busy for the past week. I have been playing my violin in the orchestra for an
opera. An opera is like a play, but instead of spoken dialogue it has singing and music. The
opera that we are performing is called Rigoletto, and it is by the famous 19th century Italian
composer, Giuseppe Verdi.
Verdi wrote his operas in Italian, of course, but we are singing Rigoletto in English. This is a bad
idea. Because the opera is in English, the audience will be able to understand what is
happening. It would be better if they simply enjoyed the singing and the music, without
worrying about what the words mean. Why? Because the plot of Rigoletto, like the plots of
most operas, is complicated and unbelievable.
This is what happens in the opera. The Duke of Mantova is well-known for chasing pretty
women. Recently, he has seen a very attractive girl in church. He has flirted silently with her
during prayers. She does not know that he is the Duke of Mantova, because he has disguised
himself as a poor student. And he does not know that she is Gilda, the daughter of Rigoletto.
Part way through the first act of the opera, the Duke/poor student visits Gilda secretly. They
declare their love for each other, and there is a lot of passionate singing and music that makes
you feel warm inside.
Rigoletto Gildas father is the Dukes jester. That means, it is his job to play the fool, tell
jokes, make mischief and generally make people laugh. I do not think he is a good jester. There
are no good jokes anywhere in the opera, and Rigoletto has made enemies of many other
people at the Dukes court.
Rigolettos enemies have discovered that he has a mistress. As a joke, they kidnap her. But she
isnt Rigolettos mistress at all. She is Gilda, his daughter. And Rigoletto is very upset. He is very
protective of his daughter and forbids her to have any contact with men. He comes to the
court in a very bad temper, and finds Gilda. Gilda the silly girl thinks this would be an
excellent time to tell Rigoletto about the handsome young man at church. The news makes
Rigoletto even more unhappy. His beautiful innocent daughter first she is kidnapped, and
now she is pursued by handsome young men in churches. His honour is insulted. He must have
revenge. He decides that the handsome young man must go. He hires an assassin a
professional killer to kill the handsome young man. But due to some unfortunate
circumstances which are too ridiculous to explain, the assassin kills Gilda instead. She dies in
Rigolettos arms. Rigoletto has destroyed the only person in the whole world that he loves. It is
all very sad. The audience dab their eyes with large spotted handkerchiefs. The opera comes to
an end.
Maybe I am wrong. Maybe things like this happen every week in Italy. But I think that Rigoletto
would find it difficult to explain to a British policeman why he is standing in the street in the
middle of the night holding the body of his daughter. I see, sir. So you hired an assassin to kill
a young man whom you now understand to be the Duke of Mantova. But he kills this young
lady instead. Quite so, sir. I think you had better come with me to the police station, sir.
More about Rigoletto next time.
Picture of the statue of Rigoletto at Mantua by febs/flickr

Talking rubbish

Recently, I found a postcard. You can see a picture of it on the website or on the screen of your
iPod. On the front of the card it says Birminghams total rubbish
What does this mean. Does it mean that Birmingham is total rubbish in other words,
Birmingham is an awful place and no sane person would like to live in Birmingham or visit the
city?
Happily, it does not mean that. Birminghams total rubbish is the beginning of a sentence
about rubbish in Birmingham. On the other side of the card, there are facts and figures about
how much rubbish each of us produces, and what happens to it.
Lets start with some vocabulary. Every day, we throw things away that we do not need any
more. We call this rubbish or waste or refuse. In America, they call it garbage. Rubbish
that comes from peoples homes is called household waste. If it comes from shops, offices,
restaurants etc, it is called commercial waste. And if it comes from factories, it is called
industrial waste. In England, it is very common for people to put their household waste into
big black plastic bags. Once a week, or once a fortnight, you put your plastic bags outside your
house, and the local authority collects them. But some people, especially people who live in
flats, put their waste into a large plastic container, about 1.50 meters tall. The container has a
lid on the top, and wheels on the bottom. There is probably a proper, official name for these
containers, but everyone calls them wheelie bins (because they have wheels on the bottom!)
There is probably also a proper, official name for the wonderful people who collect the plastic
bags, and empty the wheelie bins, but everyone actually calls them the bin men.

A lot of the things that we throw out can be recycled, that means, they can be used again. We
can use waste paper to make new paper. We can use aluminium drinks cans to make new
cans. And some things that we throw out, such as old batteries or fridges, contain materials
which can damage the environment, so it is good if we do not put them in the general rubbish.
The local authority therefore encourages us to separate paper, cardboard, cans, tins and
plastic bottles from the rest of our rubbish so that they can be recycled. And what happens to
our waste after it has been collected? In Birmingham, the paper and cardboard is taken to a
factory just north of the city centre, where it is turned into new cardboard packaging. There
are also factories not far from Birmingham which take recycled glass, cans and plastics. And
the rest of our household waste goes to a modern incinerator in the south of Birmingham,
where it is burnt at a high temperature. The heat from the incinerator is used to generate
electricity, and some of the ash can be used in the building industry.
That is the good side of the story. The bad side is that we do not recycle very much. In
Birmingham, we recycle only 20% of household waste. This is much better than a few years
ago, but a lot worse than many other towns in England. And in comparison with other
European countries, our recycling rates in England are very poor. In Belgium and Austria, for
example, well over half of all household waste is recycled. We still live in a society where it is
normal to throw things away without thinking about how to re-use them. How can we
persuade people to recycle more? Our government has suggested that people should pay for
every kilo of rubbish that they produce and do not recycle. They have also said that fortnightly
rubbish collections, instead of weekly collections, may encourage people to recycle. However,
these ideas are controversial. It is easy to see the problems and difficulties in them, and less
easy to see the solutions to the problems. It will not be easy to change peoples behaviour. But
equally we cannot go on throwing things away as we do at present.
Contemporary
Today we are going to meet the Duke of Wellington, and talk
about the word contemporary.
In fact, both the Duke of Wellington and the word contemporary were in the podcasts about
Glastonbury. You cant remember the Duke of Wellington? Was he perhaps one of the pop
singers at Glastonbury? No, he wasnt. But you remember that, because of the mud at
Glastonbury, many festival-goers wore wellington boots. Wellington boots are waterproof
boots made of rubber. In America, people say gumboots. In Britain we often say wellies.
And the name wellington boot comes from the Duke of Wellington, who was the first person
to make this type of boot popular.
In 1815, the Duke of Wellington was the commander of the British army at the Battle of
Waterloo, which is a place just outside Brussels in Belgium. At Waterloo, Wellington and his
allies defeated the French army led by Napoleon Bonaparte. Later, Wellington became Prime
Minister of Britain for a short time. He persuaded Parliament to pass laws to give rights to
Catholics in Britain, for the first time in 200 years. But in all other respects, he was deeply
conservative. He opposed any other sort of political reform. The London mob gathered
regularly outside his home to shout slogans and throw stones at the windows.
So, you now know something about the Duke of Wellington.
Lets meet the word contemporary. Contemporary means belonging to the same time. If
we are talking about the Duke of Wellington, contemporary events means things that
happened during his life things like the revolution in France, and the rise to power of
Napoleon; or the industrial revolution; or the movement for political reform in Britain, which
Wellington opposed. Contemporary newspapers means newspapers from that time the
newspapers which reported the victory at Waterloo, for example, or the riots and
demonstrations in London for political reform. We can say that Wellington and Napoleon were
contemporaries they lived at the same time; in fact, they were born in the same year, in
1769. On the website and, I hope, on your iPod screens there are pictures of both Wellington
and Napoleon. They are wearing contemporary dress, or contemporary fashions; that means,
the sorts of clothes that important people wore at that time.
But often in English we use the word contemporary to mean belonging to the present
time, in other words to mean modern. We talk about contemporary art or contemporary
music or contemporary fashions or contemporary furniture. We mean modern music, modern
art etc music or art of the 21st century. You remember that, in the last podcast, Hilary talked
about contemporary bands that played at Glastonbury. She meant modern bands, bands that
young people today like to listen to.
So, contemporary is a word that can mean different things depending on its context, that is,
depending on what you are talking about. If you are talking about Wellington, it means of the
early 19th century. If you are talking about the Beatles, contemporary means of the 1960s.
And if you are talking about today, contemporary means very modern, or up-to-date.


Let me know...
Suppose you are planning a holiday in England. Your friend in
England might say to you, Please let me know when you are going to arrive.
Or suppose I am talking to a friend who is planning to move to another town. I might say,
Please let me have your new address.
What do these expressions mean let me know, and let me have?
You have probably guessed the answer. Let me know means tell me and let me have
means give me. Easy. Simple.
Well, actually it is a more complicated than perhaps you think. If I say to you, Tell me how to
get to your house, I expect you to answer straight away. I expect you to say, Take the
underground to Highgate station, and a bus from there. But if I say, Please let me know how
to get to your house, I mean Please dont explain now if that is inconvenient; please tell me
later, when you are ready, when you have time. So, let me know is a less direct way of
saying tell me. And because it is more indirect, it is often more polite and formal as well.
Here are some more examples:
Joannes friend Judy and her boyfriend have decided to get married. They still havent made
any detailed plans, about when the wedding will be and what sort of wedding they want.
Joanne is very pleased and excited when Judy tells her. Here are some of the things that
Joanne says:
When you have decided, let me know the date of the wedding.
And let me know where the wedding will be.
Please let me know how to get there.
And let me know whether there is anything I can do to help.
Let me know what I should wear.
Let me know what you would like as a wedding present.
And let me know who else is coming.
And after the wedding, please let me see all the wedding photos.
And as for Kevin, he has just finished writing a report at work. It is a report on new
developments in the market for cat food. It doesnt sound very interesting, does it? But Kevin
is very proud of his report, and he wants to impress his boss and his work colleagues. I might
be able to let you see my report, he says to one colleague, loudly so that the whole office can
hear. When you have read it, perhaps you could let me have your opinion on it. Poor Kevin.
Perhaps someone should let him know that there are more important things in life than the
market for cat food.

Goodbye Tony, Hello Gordon
We do not often talk about politics on this podcast, but today
is different. Today is a special day. Our Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has been Prime Minister
since 1997. But today he will resign. In fact, Tony Blair told us many months ago that he was
going to step down. But instead of quitting immediately, he decided that he needed time to
say goodbye properly. Since then, he has been saying goodbye to everyone goodbye to his
party, goodbye to Parliament, goodbye to President Bush, to the European Union, to the
whole world. He has made speeches, he has gone to meetings, and attended receptions and
dinners. He has appeared on chat shows and childrens programmes on television. He has
been like a pop star making one last tour, to bid farewell to his fans. Do his fans still love him?
How many fans does he still have? I dont know and I dont care. After today we will have a
new Prime Minister, and Tony Blair will be yesterdays man.
Who will our new Prime Minister be? We have known for months, or even years, that Tony
Blairs successor would be Gordon Brown. For the last ten years, Gordon Brown has been
Chancellor of the Exchequer that is, he has been Minister of Finance. He has been the second
most powerful man in the government. He and Tony Blair have not had an easy relationship.
The problem has not been about policy it is difficult to see any real political difference
between them. Rather it has been a clash of personalities. Tony Blair thought that Gordon
Brown was trying to push him out. Gordon Brown felt that Tony Blair stayed as Prime Minister
for far too long. Every week the press has reported some new row, or some new problem in
their relationship. It has been like a national soap opera. We all looked forward to the next
episode.
What is Gordon Brown like? Well, he is Scots. He is serious-
minded. He may have a sense of humour, but he hides it well. (The famous 18th century
English writer, Dr Johnson, once said that it requires a surgical instrument to insert a joke into
a Scotsmans brain. He was perhaps thinking of Gordon Brown). And Gordon Brown is a very
skillful politician.
His political skill is clear in todays newspapers. He has persuaded a Member of Parliament
from the opposition Conservative Party to leave and join the Labour Party instead. In other
words, on the day that he becomes Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has made his political
opponents look foolish.
His main opponent is the leader of the opposition, David Cameron. David Cameron is young
only 40 years old. He has an informal and easy style. People have described him as the new
Tony Blair. This may not help him very much; many people do not want a new Tony Blair.
David Cameron comes from a rich family, and was educated at one of Englands leading and
most expensive private schools. Despite this, he would like people to think that he is in touch,
particularly with younger people. So he has a You Tube site, and a podcast. Several months
ago, I sent him an e-mail asking him if he would make a special guest appearance on this
podcast. I regret to tell you, dear listeners, that I received no reply. Until David Cameron takes
the Listen to English podcast seriously, I cannot advise you or anyone else to vote for him.
Mud
Glastonbury is a
small town in Somerset in south-west England. It contains the ruins of an old abbey, and has
some beautiful countryside around it. There are many myths and legends associated with
Glastonbury. Many of these are stories about the Celtic people who lived in England before the
Anglo-Saxons came in the 5th and 6th centuries. Today Glastonbury is a favourite place for
people who are interested in alternative lifestyles. Here are some of the things you can do in
Glastonbury: you can buy organic toothpaste, or aromatherapy for your cat; you can visit
the burial place of the ancient (and probably mythical) King Arthur and his wife Guinevere;
you can try on a jumper covered in special Celtic patterns; you can browse in a bookshop
that specialises in things like New Age Ecology and Geomancy; you can attend courses on
Shamanism and witchcraft.
In other words, if you believe in fairies, you will love Glastonbury.
Glastonbury is famous as the home of the Glastonbury Festival. This is a festival of music,
dance, theatre and comedy. It takes place on a farm a few miles from Glastonbury. People
come from all over Britain and abroad to camp in the fields, listen to the music, make new
friends and enjoy themselves. Glastonbury is in fact the largest festival of its sort in the world.
It started back in 1970, and has been held on most years since then. Every year it becomes
bigger, with more people, more bands and more to do and see. This year, about 180,000
people will come to the Festival to hear bands like the Arctic Monkeys, and singers like Amy
Winehouse and Lily Allen, to listen to new poetry, and to see cabaret, circus and comedy
performances.
Unexpected things happen at Glastonbury. In 1994 the main stage burned down. In 2001 a
fence collapsed and thousands of gatecrashers were able to get in. But above all Glastonbury is
famous for mud. There was heavy rain in 1997 and again two years ago, in 2005. The rain itself
is not a problem. We are English. We are used to rain. We are happy standing in the rain,
eating sandwiches and listening to a pop concert. But the rain caused the streams to overflow,
and because there were so many people at the festival, the fields turned to a sea of mud.
There were pictures in the newspapers of festival goers covered from head to toe in mud. They
looked very happy too. They obviously thought, If we are going to get muddy, we might as
well enjoy it. Sensible people now bring good waterproofs and several pairs of wellingtons
with them to Glastonbury. The man who owns the farm where the festival is held his name is
Michael Eavis is determined that this year the mud will not be a problem. He has spent
hundreds of thousands of pounds on new drains and other improvements. However, all parts
of England have had very heavy rain in the past two weeks, and the weather forecast for
Glastonbury this weekend is yes, more rain. So, which will win Michael Eaviss new drains,
or the mud? I am betting on the mud.
Madeleine
Madeleine McCann is four years old. Everyone in Britain
knows about her. This is why.
Madeleine lives with her parents Kate and Gerry McCann, and her younger brother and sister.
Their home is in a town called Rothley in central England. It is a small town the sort of town
where nothing ever happens, certainly nothing that gets into the newspapers.
At the end of April, the McCann family went on holiday to Portugal, to a resort called Praia da
Luz. On the evening of 3 May, Gerry and Kate put their children to bed. When the children
were asleep, at about 9.30pm, Kate and Gerry went to a restaurant close by to have a meal. At
10pm Kate came back to see that the children were OK. Madeleine was gone.
It quickly became clear that Madeleine had not just woken up and gone for a walk. Someone
had taken her. She had been kidnapped.
The kidnapping of Madeleine McCann, and the search for her, has been a huge story in the
British press and on TV and radio. Kate and Gerry have done everything they can to get
publicity. They believe it is the only way they will ever see their daughter again. They have
contacted everyone whom they think might be able to help them. They have met government
ministers in several countries in Europe, and had an audience with the Pope. They have
appeared on TV, and answered questions from journalists at press conferences. Newspapers
have offered big rewards for information which may help to find Madeleine. There are Find
Madeleine websites, and people have put pictures of the missing girl on advertising hoardings
and in shop windows all over Europe, and on big screens at football matches.
Despite all of this, there seems to be very little evidence to help the Portuguese police. One
witness reports that he saw a man carrying a small girl wearing pink pyjamas at about the time
that Madeleine disappeared. The Portuguese police have questioned a British man who lives
near Praia da Luz, but they now say that they do not have any evidence against him. There has
been a report that a girl who looks like Madeleine has been seen in Morocco. The police have
asked people who were on holiday near Praia da Luz to send them their holiday photos. The
police hope that somewhere in these photos, in the background perhaps, they will see a face
that they know the face of someone who has previously been involved in kidnapping or
abusing children.
And last week a Dutch newspaper received an anonymous message that Madeleine was dead,
and that her body could be found in an area close to Praia da Luz. The police searched the area
and found nothing.
So Kate and Gerry McCann wait for news. They continue to try to create as much publicity as
they can. Someone may have seen something which could help the police. Certainly someone,
somewhere, knows where Madeleine is and what has happened to her. But for the moment,
there is nothing.
Blessed
In a podcast last week, I talked about a pop group
called the Zimmers. The Zimmers are all elderly people, who want to show the world that old
people can be fun and creative. A few days ago I found a short poem about being old. It is by
Barbara Beuler Wegner, but I am afraid that I have not been able to find out anything more
either about the poem or about the writer. Here it is:
Blessed are they who understand
My faltering steps and shaking hand.
Blessed are those who know my ears today
Will strain to catch the words they say.
Blessed are they who with a cheery smile
Stop to chat for a little while.
Blessed are those who never say
Youve told us that story twice today.
Blessed are those who make it known
That Im loved, respected and not alone.
The word blessed is a religious word. It means being favoured by God. In modern English we
would normally say blest, rather than blessed. But the writer was thinking about a famous
passage in the Bible in which Jesus tells us what sort of people are closest to God. They are not
the rich people, or the powerful people, or the famous people. They are poor people, people
who carry great sorrow, people who show mercy, people who suffer, and so on. In a modern
English Bible, the word that Jesus uses for these people is blest. But older people like me
remember a much older English translation of the Bible. In England we call it the Authorised
Version of the Bible. In America, they call it the King James Bible, because it was translated into
English at the beginning of the 17th century, in the reign of King James I. (Do you remember
the podcast about the Fifth of November? King James was the king whom Guy Fawkes tried to
blow up.) The Authorised Version of the Bible is sometimes difficult to understand, because it
uses English which is very different from modern English. But it is very beautiful and poetic,
and it was the version of the Bible used in churches in England for more than 300 years. And in
the Authorised Version, the word which Jesus uses to talk about people who are close to God
is blessed. And that is why the word blessed is used in this poem.
Ago, for and since, and why it is a good idea to learn French.

Many English learners find that they get confused between words like ago, since and
for. Todays podcast gives you lots of examples of how to use these words; I hope it will help
you to use them correctly.
Suppose that we want to talk about when we did something, or when something happened.
We can use the word ago. We can say, for example, it happened two weeks ago or a year
ago or five minutes ago or a long time ago. With ago we always use words which
describe a period of time a week, a month, 10 minutes.
If we want to say for how long we did something, or how for how long something happened,
we can use the word for for about a week, for 10 years, for a short time. And, like
ago, we use for with a period of time a week, a year etc.
Another way of talking about how long we have done something is to use the word since I
have been ill since Monday, since Christmas, since I got up this morning. With since we
always have to use words which describe a point in time words like last week or Winter
or 1998. We do not say things like since a week or since 10 minutes. Everybody clear?
Then lets begin.
Kevin and Joanne have just had a holiday. First, they looked at lots of travel brochures. Perhaps
they could take a cheap flight to Marocco. We went to Marocco two years ago, said Joanne.
Lets go somewhere different.
We could go to Scotland again, said Kevin. I like Scotland.
We went to Scotland a year ago, said Joanne. It rained for the whole week.
Well, how about France, said Kevin. I havent been to France since I was at school. So they
decided to go camping in France.
They set off in the car. But they had forgotten that there were roadworks on the motorway.
There have been roadworks on the motorway for the last two years, since the beginning of
2005. They arrived at Dover late.
Our ferry left 10 minutes ago, said Kevin. We shall have to wait for an hour for the next
ferry.
They got on the next ferry without problems. For the next hour and a half, they relaxed, drank
coffee and ate a sandwich until the boat arrived in Calais. Then they drove through France for
another 3 hours.
We must be near the campsite now, said Joanne. But I am sure we came through this village
before, about 20 minutes ago.
They turned left and found themselves in a farmyard with cows and hens. So they went back
and turned right, and found themselves in an industrial estate with factories and warehouses.
They stared at the map, but they could not work out where they were. We will have to ask
someone, said Kevin. And this was a problem. First, because there was no-one around to ask;
and second because neither Kevin nor Joanne spoke more than a few words of French. They
drove for another 10 minutes, looking for someone who looked as if they could speak English.
And this was difficult, because you cannot tell, just by looking at someone, what languages
they speak. Then they saw a man working in his garden. They stopped the car. Joanne tried to
remember the French that she had learned at school. Excusez- moi, monsieur. Parlez-vous
anglais? And the man said that he did speak English in fact, he was English.
He explained where the campsite was. We passed it 10 minutes ago, said Kevin. And he
asked the man how long he had lived in France.
We bought our house 10 years ago, the man explained. For the next six years, we came
here every summer for our holidays. Then, four years ago, I retired from my job. Since then,
we have lived permanently in France. Kevin asked the man whether he could speak French.
Of course, said the man.We did not want to be like all those English people who go to live in
France or Spain and never learn a word of the language. My wife and I started learning about 8
years ago, and since 2003 we have been to classes in French in the nearby town.
Well, Kevin and Joanne found the campsite. For the whole of their holiday the sun shone, and
they relaxed and enjoyed themselves. And when they returned home, they decided that it was
not good enough that neither of them could speak French. So they have enrolled in an evening
class, where they are now struggling with the mysteries of French irregular verbs.
Photo Au Camping by light guard/flickr

Hoovers, Zimmers and Sellotape

Do you know what a hoover is? The Hoover company makes vacuum cleaners, that you use to
keep your house clean. In fact, Hoover made some of the earliest vacuum cleaners. They were
about the size of a supermarket trolley, and made as much noise as a jet engine. But people
loved them, and we started to talk about a hoover instead of a vacuum cleaner, even if the
cleaner was not made by Hoover. We still do this today we talk about hoovering the sitting
room or doing the hoovering.
There are several other things which we often call by the name of the company that first made
it. Sellotape is a transparent, sticky tape which you use to stick paper, for example if you are
wrapping a present to give to someone. We say sellotape even if the sticky tape is not made
by the Sellotape company.
A thermos flask is a vacuum flask (or bottle) used to keep drinks hot or cold. Originally flasks
like this were sold under the trade name Thermos. Kleenex is a brand of paper tissues, that
you might use to blow your nose. We often call any paper tissue a kleenex even if it is made
by a different company.
My final example has been in the news this last week. It is zimmer. A zimmer is a walking
frame, generally made of aluminium, that very old people often use to help them to walk. The
first walking frames were made by an American company called Zimmer. And why are zimmers
in the news? If you are a keen student of the British pop music charts I am, of course you
will see that a band called the Zimmers was at number 26 last week, singing a song called
Whos My Generation. And the Zimmers really do have zimmers. Their lead singer is Alf
Carretta. He is 90. I hope to die before I get old, he sings. His backing group have a combined
age of over 3000. I believe that Buster Martin, whom we met a few weeks ago in a podcast, is
one of the group. The Zimmers want to make people think about the situation of elderly
people. They want to show that old people can be creative, dynamic and fun. Alf Carretta says
that singing in the band has brought him back to life. I was 90 and stuck in a rut. And now I
feel that I have come alive again, he says. The Zimmers video has become a big hit on
YouTube. When I grow up, I want to be a Zimmer too.

Big Mac
After my last podcast, I am sure that many of you have
applied for jobs as spies for the British Secret Intelligence Service. But what will you do if they
say no? If they say that they dont want you; they have enough spies already; and they dont
think you would be very good at spying anyway?
Well, in most big cities nowdays, you can get a job in McDonalds, the chain of fast-food
restaurants. You can make and sell burgers and chips (or French fries as the Americans call
them). You can clear the tables and do the washing-up. Or you can sweep up the rubbish
which people leave in the car park. It probably isnt very interesting work, and probably
McDonalds wont pay you much money. But it is at least a job.
Or a McJob, as some people say. A McJob is a low-paid boring job with few prospects in a
service industry, like McDonalds restaurants. The word McJob has been used for at least 20
years, and for the last 6 years it has been in the Oxford English Dictionary, which means that it
is officially recognised as part of the English language.
But McDonalds dont like this. They say that the word McJob is an insult to the wonderful,
hard-working men and women who work in their restaurants. They say that work in the fast-
food industry today is fun, exciting and well-paid. And they want the Oxford English Dictionary
to change the definition of McJob. They have persuaded a number of leading business people
to write a letter to the dictionary, and they have organised a petition that anyone can sign.
The Oxford English Dictionary will probably reply that
it is not their job to change what words mean. If people use the word McJob to mean a badly
paid job in a fast-food restaurant, then it is right for the dictionary to say that that is what the
word means. There are lots of words in the dictionary which people use in cruel, unfair or
insulting ways but that is not the fault of people who write dictionaries. They might even say
that it is insulting to poorly paid people to pretend that they have wonderful jobs when
actually their jobs are not wonderful. And that it is insulting to French people for McDonalds to
call their chips French fries.
The truth is that most jobs in fast-food restaurants are boring and badly-paid. There are few
benefits or career prospects, and many people only work there for a few months until they
find something better. Like a job as a spy for example.
I shall be away in Germany next week (Hallo, Deutschland. Ich komme euch zu besuchen!), but
I will be back with a new podcast on about 7 June. To keep you company, here are the
Nashville Session Players with Big McDonald.
Do you want to be a spy ......
Intelligence. What does it mean? The word
intelligence has two main meanings in English. First, it can mean mental capacity if you
are intelligent, you can think clearly and rationally, for example. But intelligence also means
information. For example, we can talk about market intelligence and that means,
information about what is happening in a market, such as the stock market or the international
oil market. Very often, we use intelligence to mean information which is secret, or which has
been obtained illegally. Many governments have intelligence services which collect secret
information about other countries, or about the governments opponents at home.
Intelligence services employ agents or, to use the more normal word, spies. To spy on
someone means to watch them secretly, without them knowing.
A few days ago, an advert appeared in the jobs section of the newspaper which I read. Dont
keep your intelligence secret! it said. It was an advertisement for jobs in the British Secret
Intelligence Service the SIS or, as it is sometimes known, MI6. It was an advertisement for
spies.
Many years ago, I worked in British Embassies in the Middle East and in Scandinavia. In the
Embassies, there were some diplomats who were from the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). It
was supposed to be secret, but everyone knew who they were. Of course, we were not
allowed to call them spies, or people from the intelligence service we had to refer to them as
our friends. Sometimes we saw their intelligence reports. They were marked Top Secret
and told us things that we knew already. I do not know how the SIS recruited people to work
for them in those days. Perhaps they approached people in secret, and invited them to secret
interviews with secret people.
In those days, too, the name of the head of the SIS was never made public. He was known only
as C. He wrote things in green ink. No-one else was allowed to use green ink. It was all very
ridiculous.
But nowdays it is different. The SIS advertises for spies in the newspapers, and even has a
website which tells you what the SIS does and what sort of people it wants to recruit. It has a
grand headquarters building at Vauxhall Cross in the centre of London. And we know that the
head of the SIS is called John Scarlett. He is well-known in Britain. In his previous job, he
advised our government that it was OK to say that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction. The fact that he was completely wrong obviously did his career no harm.
But that is how many organisations work. If you are a junior employee and you make a big
mistake, they sack you. If you are a senior person, they promote you.
Photo of the SIS Headquarters at Vauxhall Cross by TPMpix/flickr
Plastic Rubbish
Rebecca Hosking makes documentary films. Recently,
she worked on a documentary film for the BBC about the effect of plastics in the marine
environment. She was shocked by what she saw as she was making the documentary. She
found many sorts of sea creatures that were choked or poisoned by plastics. It is estimated
that every year, over 100,000 sea birds, whales, seals and turtles are killed by plastic rubbish in
the sea. Some of this rubbish comes from ships, when people carelessly throw things
overboard. But most plastic rubbish in the sea comes from the land. People throw away things
made of plastic. Some of it ends up in rivers and gets carried out to sea. Other rubbish is blown
into the sea by the wind.
Plastic is very useful stuff. It is cheap, and it can easily be formed into all sorts of shapes. And it
lasts a long time before it starts to break down. But this is also the problem with plastics.
Plastic rubbish in the sea or on the land lasts for very many years. With time, plastic
accumulates in the environment in greater and greater quantities.
And the strange thing is that we often use plastic things for only a very short time before we
throw them away. We put our shopping into a plastic bag at the supermarket, and when we
get home perhaps 15 minutes later we throw the plastic bag into the bin. Or we are thirsty
and buy a plastic bottle of mineral water. Ten minutes later we have drunk all the water and
throw the bottle away.
Some other countries have taken action to reduce the amount of plastic rubbish. In Ireland, for
example, you have to pay for plastic bags in the supermarkets, and most people have stopped
using them. In Britain, you can return used plastic bags to some supermarkets, and some local
councils collect some sorts of plastic for recycling. But most used plastic in Britain is simply
thrown away. I am afraid that our government talks a lot about environmental problems, but
does not do much about them. Rebecca Hosking realised that it was no good waiting for our
government to act; ordinary people had to take the initiative themselves.
Rebecca comes from a small town in Devon in south west England called Modbury. She
decided that Modbury could become the first town in England where there were no plastic
shopping bags. For many weeks, she talked to the traders in Modbury. She explained, time and
again, about the damage which plastic does in the environment. She researched the possible
alternatives to plastic bags, how much they cost, where they come from and how they can be
used. Gradually she got all the shopkeepers in Modbury to agree. On 1 May this year, they all
stopped offering their customers plastic bags. Modbury is the first plastic-bag free town in
Britain, and perhaps in Europe. If you ever visit the beautiful county of Devon, be sure and
shop in Modbury.

Results
My podcast today is about the word
result, and the different ways we can use it.
Last week I said that I would tell you the results of the local elections in England and the
elections in Scotland and Wales. That means, I shall tell you what happened who won, who
lost.
You remember that here in Birmingham we were electing councillors to run our local
authority, Birmingham City Council. The result in my ward was that the Liberal Democrat
candidate won. In the city as a whole, the Conservative party won three more seats than it had
before, and the Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition will continue to run the city. This is
what we expected would happen it was the expected result.
In Scotland, the result of the election was much more dramatic. For the first time for very
many years, the Labour party is not the largest party in Scotland. The Scottish National Party,
which wants Scotland to become an independent country, will have one more seat than
Labour in the new Scottish Parliament. But it does not have a majority in the Parliament. It is
talking with the other parties. The result of these talks may be a coalition between the SNP
and some other parties. Or the result may be that the SNP forms a minority government.
We can of course talk about the result of a football match that is, how many goals each team
scored. We can talk about the results of an exam did you pass the exam? how many marks
did you get? If you do a Google search on your computer, Google will give you many pages of
results for the search. If you are doing a scientific experiment, the data or information which
you get from the experiment are called the results of the experiment. In maths, the answer to
a calculation or a problem is often called the result. And if you are ill, your doctor may take a
blood sample from you, and send it to be tested. Later, he will tell you the results of the test
things like how many white cells there are in the blood.
We can also talk about the results of a competition. This weekend, we shall learn the results of
the Eurovision Song Contest. If you live outside Europe, I should explain that the TV companies
in Europe each year run a competition to choose a song for Europe. Singers and groups from
every European country take part. And it is bad, bad, bad! Only very specially bad songs win
the Eurovision song contest. The British entry this year is called Flying the Flag. It is sung by a
group called Scooch. They are dressed as airline cabin staff and sing wonderful lines like:
Ba-ba-da, Ba-ba-da, Ba-da-da-ba, ba-da
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ba-ba-da, Ba-ba-da, Ba-da-da-ba, ba-da
Now that is bad. But is it bad enough? Is it possible that other countries have even worse
songs? What will the result be? We shall find out on Saturday. I can hardly wait!
Banksy


In the podcast In Disgrace, I used the word graffiti. Do you know what it means? It is an
Italian word, which has come into English. It means things which are written generally on an
outside wall, or on some other public surface such as the side of a bus or a train. Graffiti
became a big problem in British cities when shops started to sell aerosol cans of spray paint.
With spray paint, it is quick and easy to cover a whole wall with a picture or writing. Many
people say that graffiti make our towns and cities look ugly and uncared for. If there are lots of
graffiti, it encourages other sorts of anti-social behaviour, such as litter, fly-posting,
abandoning old cars and drinking alcohol in the street. Many local authorities spend a lot of
money removing graffiti, and most people probably think that they are right to do so. But are
all graffiti bad?
Let me introduce you to the controversial British graffiti artist, Banksy. We are not certain
what his real name is maybe he is called Robert Banks, probably he lives in Bristol in the
south west of England, and people say that he is around 30 years old. He has painted some
very famous graffiti in some very famous places. I have put a few examples on the website,
and I hope you can see them on your iPod screens as well. Most of Banksys art is political and
subversive. That means, it is intended to annoy governments and powerful people and to
undermine them. Sometimes, his art makes people think differently about the world; very
often it makes them smile.
Banksy has for example, painted pictures on the concrete wall that the Israeli government is
building between Israeli and Palestinian areas. These pictures look as if they are gaps in the
wall, through which you can see beautiful things on the other side. Banksy has smuggled fake
pictures into art galleries and museums and stuck them on the wall alongside the real exhibits.
One of these was a piece of rock, carved like a caveman painting, but showing a person
pushing a supermarket trolley. Last year in America, he painted an elephant yes, a real live
elephant, so that it looked as if it was covered in wallpaper. You remember the podcast about
the elephant in the room? Banksys elephant was a real elephant in the room he was trying
to tell people that global poverty was the big, important subject that no-one wants to talk
about. At about the same time, Banksy smuggled an inflatable dummy dressed as a
Guantanamo Bay detainee into Disneyland in California. My favourite however is this in
London there is a famous statue of the ancient British Queen, Boadicea, and her chariot
Banksy put a wheel clamp on the chariot, so that it looked as if as if it was illegally parked.
Why is Banksy in the news at present? Well, Transport for London, which is the organisation
responsible for buses and underground trains in London, has recently painted over a famous
Banksy graffiti near Old Street tube station. It shows a scene from Quentin Tarantinos film
Pulp Fiction, with Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta. Only, instead of guns, they are carrying
bananas. Transport for London said that they had to take a tough line on graffiti because they
create an atmosphere of social decay. What do you think?
Incidentally, if you are interested in modern art, you may like to visit the BBC or Guardian
websites after 11.30 tonight (British time). You will be able to download and print an artwork
called Planed by the artists Gilbert and George. But hurry Planed will be available for
only 48 hours.



Election Day
Today is the first Thursday in May, which is often an
election day in Britain. People in many parts of England are voting today in local council
elections. In Scotland there are elections to the Scottish Parliament, and in Wales there are
elections to the Welsh Assembly. Our elections today are not as important or exciting as the
French Presidential election on Sunday, but you may be interested to hear something about
how they work. There is a separate vocabulary note with a list of words relating to elections.
To be honest with you, many British people dont think that todays elections are important or
exciting either. Turnout for the local authority elections in England will probably be low
normally only 25 to 30% of voters bother to vote in local elections. Turnout for the elections in
Scotland and Wales will probably be higher. But election day is always important and exciting
for one group of people primary school children. Many primary schools are used as polling
stations that is, places where people go to vote so naturally the children get a day off
school.
This morning I went to my polling station at our local primary school. Apart from myself, there
were only two other voters there. The officials at the desk asked me for my name and address,
and checked that I was on the election register. They gave me a ballot paper, which contained
the names of the candidates and the political parties that they represent. There are seven
candidates in our ward. I am allowed to vote for one candidate, by putting a cross beside his or
her name on the ballot paper. Then I put the ballot paper into a locked ballot box, which is on
the table beside the election officials.
This evening, after the polls close at 10pm, the locked ballot boxes will be taken to the local
council offices in the centre of Birmingham. Officials will open the boxes and count the votes.
Some people vote by post, and the officials will count the postal votes as well.
Each ward in Birmingham is electing one councillor in at this election. The person elected will
simply be the candidate who gets most votes. We call this the first past the post electoral
system it is like a horse race; the only important thing is who gets to the finishing line first.
We do not have proportional representation for local authorities, nor for elections to
Parliament. But there is proportional representation for elections to the Scottish Parliament
and the Welsh Assembly, and for the European Parliament. Some people think we should have
proportional representation in all elections. The first pass the post system favours the big
parties Labour and the Conservatives and naturally these parties do not want a change.
Small parties, such as the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, find it difficult to win any
seats under first past the post so they generally support proportional representation.
So what will happen in todays elections? In Birmingham, the local authority is run by a
coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The Labour party would like to regain
control, but this is not likely at this election. Indeed, Labour is likely to lose seats at these
elections, partly because the Labour government is unpopular at present. In Scotland, it is
possible that the Scottish National Party will for the first time become the largest party in the
Scottish Parliament. The SNP want complete independence for Scotland. We should know the
results by tomorrow afternoon. I shall let you know what happens.
About to...
You know how to talk about the future in English. You
use words like will or shall or going to.
In English, we also have a way of talking about things which are in the future but very close to
the present perhaps ony a few minutes into the future. We use the expression about to,
like this:
Kevin and Joanne are going to Spain for a holiday. They have packed their suitcases and bought
some euros. Now they are waiting by the door for the taxi to come and take them to the
airport. They are about to leave for their holiday.
It is 10.30 in the evening. Joanne has had a shower and washed her hair and put her nightdress
on. Then the telephone rings. It is her mother. Mum, says Joanne, I cant talk for long. I am
about to go to bed.
It is the middle of the afternoon, and my children are about to come home from school. And
when they get home, they will be hungry, so I am about to make them something to eat.
We can use about to and when like this:
Kevin and Joanne were about to leave for their holiday when Kevin found that he did not have
his passport.
Joanne was about to go to bed when the telephone rang.
We were about to eat our picnic when it started to rain.
So we use about to for the very near future. If we want to talk about something in the very
recent past, we can use the word just. Unfortunately, just has several different meanings
in English, but one of the most common meanings is to show that something has happened
very recently, like this:
Kevin and Joanne are now returning from their holiday (Its OK Kevin found his passport).
They arrive at the airport and find a taxi to take them home. They open their front door and
walk in. They have just arrived home.
Kevin and George are watching a football match on television. Kevin goes into the kitchen to
make a cup of tea. While he is there, he hears a great roar from the sitting-room. He rushes
back in. Whats happened? he asks. George replies, United have just scored.
And, because I am recording this podcast in the garden, I can tell you that I have just planted
some beans and some potatoes.
We can use just and when like this:
Kevin and Joanne had just got home when the telephone rang. (Guess who it was thats right,
Joannes Mum!)
Kevin had just made the tea when United scored.
I had just planted the potatoes when it started to rain.
Photo of man diving by fez/flickr.The man has just jumped off a boat. He is about to hit the
water.
Kinder Scout

I am recording the podcast today outdoors, that means outside, in my garden. So do not be
surprised if you hear the sound of traffic, or birds singing, or children playing. And todays
podcast is about the outdoors the hills and the open countryside, and how important they
are to people who live in cities.
At one time, several centuries ago, a lot of the land in England was common land. That
means that it was land that anyone could walk on. Some common land was used for grazing
sheep or cattle, but a lot of it was simply empty, unused land. But in the 18th and 19th
centuries, Parliament passed new laws which enclosed a lot of the common land. That
means that the land became private property, owned by a landowner. In some areas, like the
Pennine hills in the north of England, the new landowners wanted to use the land for hunting
and shooting. They built fences to stop ordinary people from entering the land; they blocked
ancient footpaths; they employed gamekeepers with sticks and guns so that the landowners
and their rich friends could shoot grouse, pheasants and other birds in peace.
But not everyone was happy with this. Some people saw the
Pennine hills as places where ordinary people could enjoy fresh air and the countryside after a
week working in factories in the dirty industrial cities. Seventy-five years ago this week, a
group led by a young man called Benny Rothman organised a mass trespass. (To trespass
means to go onto private land without permission). The trespass took place at Kinder Scout,
which is the highest point in the Peak District in Derbyshire. Kinder Scout was owned by the
Duke of Devonshire, who refused to let people walk there. About 400 people took part in the
trespass. They fought a brief battle with gamekeepers, and then walked to the summit, where
they held a meeting. When the trespassers returned to the village where they had started, the
police arrested five of their leaders. They were later sent to prison.
Many people were shocked that these young men had been so harshly punished. The trespass
started a change in public and political opinion. Since 1932, there have been many changes. It
is now possible to walk freely in many places that were once closed. Kinder Scout itself is now
owned by the National Trust. You can walk and picnic there and enjoy the views without any
danger of being arrested or sent to prison. Thanks to Benny Rothman and the mass trespass of
24 April 1932.

What does it mean Watson...
We use the word mean in English in lots of different
ways. I imagine that you use the word very often. You ask your English teacher what a
particular English word means. You say for example, What does tree mean? You are saying,
what is the word for tree in my language? How can I translate the English word tree?
But we can use mean in other ways too. For example, you remember that Joannes mother
really does not like Kevin, and she is unpleasant to him every time they meet. But last time
they met, she was quite nice. She asked about his football team, and where he and Joanne
were going on holiday. What can it mean? Why was she so nice? What is the explanation?
Another example. I go to my bank website to check how much money is in my account. I see
that there are two transactions which I do not remember. What can this mean? Has someone
stolen my debit card? Has the bank made a mistake? Or have I simply forgotten what I spent
the money on? What is the explanation?
And another example, with a slightly different meaning. Kevin goes to a party at his friend
Georges house. He stays until about 1am. This means that he has missed the last bus home. It
means that he will need to walk home or get a taxi. In other words, the result of staying late at
the party is that Kevin has missed the bus and will have to walk home.
In the early 20th century, the English writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote books and short
stories about a detective called Sherlock Holmes. You have probably heard of him, since the
Sherlock Holmes stories have been translated into many different languages. Sherlock Holmes
had a companion, Dr Watson, who worked with him on many of his cases.
Here is a Sherlock Holmes joke that I found in the newspaper last week.
In one of their adventures, Holmes and Watson needed to travel to a remote place. There was
no house where they could stay, so they took a tent with them. As evening fell, they pitched
the tent, and after they had eaten their supper they went to sleep in the tent for the night.
In the middle of the night, Holmes woke Watson and said, Look up, Watson. What can you
see?
And Watson woke up, and looked. I see the stars, he said. There are thousands and
thousands of them.
And what does it all mean, Watson? said Holmes. What does it mean?
And Watson replied, Well, if there are millions of stars and even a few of those stars have
planets, it is quite likely that there are other planets like earth in the universe. And if there are
a few planets like earth in the universe, there might also be life living things like us.
You fool Watson, replied Holmes. It means that someone has stolen our tent!
Photo of Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes in the 1939 film The Hound of the Baskervilles
Football in New Zealand
Todays podcast is by Mark. He is a football coach in New Zealand.
Hello everyone.
A few years ago, I moved from England to New Zealand to coach football to children in
Auckland, the biggest city in New Zealand. Id like to tell you about the differences between
football in England and football in New Zealand.
I grew up in London in England and spent many hours as a child playing football with my
friends in the park. We used to play football after school and at the weekend, and often all day
long in the school holidays. One of the first things I noticed when I moved to New Zealand was
that very few children play football after school or at the weekends. Even on a sunny day in
New Zealand, many of the parks will be completely empty! In cities in England, children will
arrange to meet their friends for a game in the park, but in New Zealand the children only ever
play football when its organised for them by their parents or by their team coach.
If youve ever played football, you will know that it takes many hours of practice to get skilful
and make the ball do anything you want it to. Sometimes it can take lots and lots of mistakes
before a child gets it right! In New Zealand, children dont spend a lot of time playing football
on their own so they dont try new things and make mistakes. Instead they spend an hour or
two a week being told what to do by a parent or a coach. This means they dont get to make
their own mistakes and learn things for themselves. Imagine learning English and never being
allowed to make a mistake? It would be very difficult, and not much fun either!
The best two football countries in the world are currently Italy and Argentina. England is eighth
best, and New Zealand are at 132. In New Zealand, football in called soccer and although it is
played by lots of children, most people prefer to watch rugby. New Zealand has a national
rugby team called the All Blacks, and they will almost certainly win the rugby World Cup in
France later this year. In New Zealand all the children want to grow up to be an All Black, and
all their heroes and role-models are rugby players.
For those of you who havent seen a rugby game, let me explain how it works. The ball they
use in rugby is not a round ball like in football, but is oval shaped like an egg. Each team has
15 players, and the aim is to get the ball to the other end of the field. The players can do this
by running with the ball in their hands, or by kicking it up the field. They can also throw the ball
to each other but only if it goes backwards. It is very common in a rugby game to see huge
kicks up the field so the team can advance together and get closer to scoring some points. As I
said, New Zealand are very good at rugby and everyone in the country loves to see the All
Blacks play.
I have coached football in New Zealand for three years now, and I think New Zealands love of
rugby affects the way they play football, or soccer as they call it. Let me explain what I mean.
In Italy or Argentina or England the most important thing in football is for the players to pass
the ball to someone else on their team. If you are lucky enough to watch Italy play Argentina,
you will see the players often pass the ball backwards or sideways to a team-mate. However,
in New Zealand it is very common to see soccer players kick the ball up the field as far as they
can and then chase after it, just like they do in rugby! And when a soccer child in New Zealand
does a big kick up the field, it is very common for the parents watching the game to clap loudly
and say Well done! Nice kick! They dont care where the ball goes, as long as it goes a long
way!

In Disgrace

Welcome back. I hope you all had a good Easter break.
Today I want to tell you about the English expression in disgrace. The best way to explain is
to give you some examples.
Example one. A little girl wants to make some new clothes for her doll. She makes the clothes
by cutting up one of her mothers dresses. Her mum is furious. She sends the little girl to her
bedroom with no supper. The little girl is in disgrace.
Example two. A politician makes speeches about the importance of the family and family
values in society. Then the newspapers report that he is having an affair with his secretary.
Everyone laughs at him and he is forced to resign. He is in disgrace.
Example three is a true story that was reported in the newspapers over the Easter holiday. The
Bell family Alan and Elaine Bell and their four children live in a very nice modern house in a
very nice estate of houses in the north-east of England. Elaine Bell is houseproud that means
that she likes to keep her house very neat and tidy. During the Easter holiday, Elaine and Alan
and their three younger children went away for a holiday. But their eldest daughter Rachael,
who is 17 years old, did not want to go. OK, Rachael, said her parents. You can stay at
home. But no parties, and definitely no alcohol, while we are away. So Rachael stayed at
home by herself.
But she wasnt alone for long. She decided to have a party for a few friends. Or maybe quite a
lot of friends. She wrote about the party on her MySpace page, inviting everyone to come and
to bring plenty of alcohol. And everyone did come. About two or three hundred young people
arrived at her parents house. Some of them were her friends, others were people she had
never met before. The party became a riot. The party-goers trashed the house. They broke
things; they wrote graffiti on the walls; they urinated on the carpets; and some were sick over
the furniture. They got drunk and made a lot of noise. The neighbours called the police. The
police arrived in vans with police dogs. Some of the neighbours tried to chase the young
people away with golf-clubs. It was a night to remember.
When Rachaels parents arrived home, they found their house in a terrible state. They think
that the damage will cost 20,000 to put right. They are of couse furious with Rachael. Rachael
herself has disappeared. She has gone to stay with a friend, perhaps for a long time. She says
she is very sorry; but she is definitely in disgrace.
Spring

It is April, and the spring has arrived, even here in Birmingham. When we talk about the
spring, what sort of things can we say? What words and expressions do we use? Here are some
examples:
In spring, the days grow longer. We put our clocks forward by one hour at the end of March, so
that there is more light in the evenings after work.
The days get warmer, too. But there can still be cold days, and sudden showers of rain. There is
a little rhyme which goes:
March winds and April showers
Bring forth May flowers.
The daffodils bloom in the garden, and there is blossom on the damson trees. The leaves on
the trees begin to open.
The birds sing in the trees, and they start to build their nests.
In the garden, we sow the first seeds, and plant potatoes. We mow the lawn for the first time
this year.
We go for walks in the country to enjoy the spring weather. We see lambs and young calves in
the fields, and rabbits in the woods, and primroses in the hedgerows.
In fact, it is such a nice time of year that I am going to take a break for the next two weeks. The
next podcast will be on about Wednesday 18 April. To keep you company until then, here is
some music. It is by Robert Schumann, and it is called Fruehlingsnacht, which is German for
Spring Night. It is played by Leon McCawley and it comes from Magnatune. There is also a
short vocabulary note with this podcast.


April Fools Day
Today is the first of April. The first of April is
traditionally called All Fools Day, or April Fools Day. It is a day for mischief, or playing tricks on
people; and for getting people to believe things which are not true.
Today is the 50th Anniversary of one of the most famous April Fools Day tricks. It was 1957.
BBC television had a weekly documentary programme called Panorama. Panorama was a
serious and respected programme, reporting on news events around the world. On 1 April,
Panorama included a report about the problems facing spaghetti farmers in Switzerland. There
were pictures of people picking spaghetti from spaghetti trees and laying it in the sunshine to
dry. But the spaghetti farmers were afraid that a late frost would damage the spaghetti crop,
and destroy their livelihood.
Fifty years ago, most British people did not know much about Italian food like spaghetti. Many
people apparently accepted the documentary at face value. Some people say that it was many
years before they found out that spaghetti does not really grow on trees.(No. Spaghetti really
does not grow on trees. It was a joke. Alright?)
The Panorama report was a spoof. Ever since then, it has been common for newspapers to
carry spoof stories on 1 April. So this morning, I opened my newspaper eagerly, to find the
spoof story. There was a story that the London Transport lost property office had just found
the owner of an urn containing human ashes which had been left on the underground eight
years ago. Surely that was a spoof? But no, the story was in fact completely true.
And then I found it. I told you in an earlier podcast that our Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is
expected to retire later this year. What will he do when he is no longer Prime Minister?
According to the Observer newspaper, he will start a new career as an actor. He has been
offered a part in a play at a leading London theatre in the autumn. He is already learning his
lines. He is practising them with his staff in 10 Downing Street. He has also been offered parts
in the BBCs science fiction programme Dr Who, and in several comedy shows.
But is this really an April Fool spoof? Our Prime Minister is one of the finest actors in Britain
today. He can convince people of anything. He can convince himself of anything. Such as that
there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Do you know Shakespeares play, King Lear? It
is about an arrogant and powerful king who decides to retire. He divides his kingdom between
his three daughters. But he then argues, first with one daughter and then with the others, until
in the end he goes mad. Tony Blair as King Lear? Yes I think so.
Picture of woman in Switzerland picking spaghetti from spaghetti trees
Running round the world
Robert Garside is 40 years old and he has run all the way round
the world. He started in New Delhi in India in 1997, and finished his epic journey four years
later. In the course of his run, he crossed 29 countries in 6 continents. He covered 35,000 miles
and wore out 50 pairs of running shoes. He says that the worst bit was when he had to go
without food for 3 days. He was put in jail in China for not having the right papers, and in
Panama he was threatened by armed men who wanted to steal his backpack. But there were
good times as well, he says, for example when he was crossing the Himalayas.
If you think you have achieved a world record in something really strange and unusual like
eating more pizzas than anyone else, or surviving for longest underwater then you can ask
Guinness World Records to recognise your claim. The people at Guinness World Records are
not stupid. They want lots of evidence and look very carefully at it. They also check that
someone else has not eaten more pizzas than you have, or survived for longer underwater. If
they are satisfied, they will print your name in the next Guinness Book of Records and give you
a certificate to hang on the wall at home, where your friends can see it.
Guinness World Records have investigated Robert Garsides claim to have run all the way
round the world. They looked at the photos and videos that he took, and at his credit card
recipts, and other evidence. Last week they announced that, yes, he had indeed run round the
world, and they gave him a certificate.
But some people journalists and other long-distance runners are not convinced. They claim
that he made up the accounts of parts of his journey. One reporter says that Robert Garside
was in a bar in Rio do Janeiro at a time when he claimed to be running across the Amazon
basin. Another says that Robert Garside had himself admitted that he did not do everything he
claimed to have done. But the Guinness people believe him, and maybe that is all that matters.
World records have been in the news this week. The England football team has had its worst
ever start to the European Cup qualifying rounds. They have now beated Andorra (wow!) but
there is still a long way to go. And the worlds tallest man, who comes from Mongolia, has got
married. There were pictures of him and his bride in the papers this week. He is at least twice
as tall as she is. I am sure they will be very happy together.
Gazing out to sea...
Do you know what to gaze at something means? It means to look
at something for a long time. And normally the thing that you are gazing at is a long way away.
So we might say, for example, that I gaze at the distant hills, or I gaze at the horizon. And
where is the best place for gazing? Beside the sea, of course. People often stand on the shore,
or on the rocks, or on a cliff, and gaze out to sea. Sometimes they are looking at a boat, far
away at sea. Sometimes they are looking at nothing in particular. They are just gazing.
If you go to a place called Crosby, near Liverpool on the west
coast of England, you will see 100 men gazing out to sea. They are not real men, however.
They are sculptures, made of cast iron. Each one is six feet tall that is, about 180 cm. They
were made by the sculptor and artist Antony Gormley, who modelled them on his own body.
His 100 men have not always been at Crosby. For a time they were beside the sea at Cuxhaven
in Germany, and later they moved to Stavanger in Norway. But when Antony Gormley first saw
the wide, empty beach at Crosby, he knew that this was the right place for his 100 men. But in
Britain, you are not allowed just to go to a beach and put 100 statues on it. No, you have to get
permission first. You have to ask the local authority for planning consent. In 2005, the local
authority agreed that Antony Gormley could put his statues on the beach, and keep them
there for 16 months. Some people did not like the statues. They said that they spoiled the
beach; or that they disturbed feeding sea-birds; or that they were dangerous. Some people
complained because the statues are of naked men, with no clothes. But other people thought
that the statues were wonderful, and that they made people think in new ways about the
empty beach and the sea. After a lot of argument, the local authority has now agreed that
Gormleys 100 men can stay on Crosby beach permanently.
Antony Gormleys sculptures are now quite well known in Britain. We have one of them in
Birmingham. It is called Iron : Man. But his most famous statue is called the Angel of the
North. It is a huge statue over 20 metres tall of an angel with outspread wings. The wings
are the size of the wings on a jumbo jet. It stands on a hill overlooking the town of Gateshead
in north-east England. You can see it if you drive north into Newcastle along the main A1 road.
At first the Angel of the North was very controversial, but now most people love it. It has
become a famous landmark.


A Day with Juliet
Juliet is seven years old. Her mother has just had a
new baby, so it is arranged that Juliet can stay with Kevin and Joanne for a few days, so that
her Mum can rest. Joanne told Kevin that Juliet was coming to stay, but Kevin was watching a
football match on television and just grunted.
The next day Juliet arrived. Hello, Kevin. Im going to stay at your house so that my Mum can
look after my baby brother. Juliet sat down at the kitchen table. I want some orange juice
and a biscuit. Have you got orange juice and biscuits? So Kevin gave Juliet a glass of orange
juice and a biscuit.
Then Juliet said, I want to draw a picture. So Kevin found Juliet some paper and a pencil, and
Juliet drew a picture of her house, and her garden, and her Mum and her baby brother, and
the sun shining.
Now you draw me a picture, said Juliet. So Kevin drew Juliet a picture of men playing
football.
Thats a nice picture, said Juliet. I want to go for a walk now. So Kevin found Juliet her
shoes and her coat, and Juliet put them on. They walked up the road, past the newsagents
shop.
Please Kevin, can you buy me a comic, said Juliet. So Kevin went into the newsagents and
bought Juliet a comic.
They went to the park, and played with a ball. Juliet kicked the ball into some bushes. Please
Kevin, can you fetch me the ball? So Kevin fetched Juliet the ball.
Juliet played on the swings, and then it was time to go home. I want a cake for tea, said
Juliet. Please Kevin can you make me a cake. So Kevin made Juliet a chocolate cake. It was
quite a good cake, especially since Kevin had never made one before. Juliet licked the mixing
bowl.
Then Kevin got Juliet her tea bread, cheese, apple and chocolate cake. After tea Juliet
watched television, and then it was time for bed. Please Kevin, read me a story, said Juliet.
So Kevin read Juliet a story. Tell me another story. So Kevin told Juliet another story. Show
me the pictures in the book. So Kevin showed Juliet the pictures in the book. I want to go to
sleep now, said Juliet.Give me a good-night hug. So Kevin gave Juliet a hug, and Juliet went
to sleep.
Later, Joanne came home, and Kevin told her what he and Juliet had done. Joanne laughed.
That girl has got you wrapped round her little finger, she said. I know, said Kevin. Just get
me a beer.
In this podcast there are lots of sentences which contain indirect objects. There is a grammar
and vocabulary note which explains all about them.
How to Live to be 100
Recently, Mr Buster Martin had a birthday. He went to work
as normal, and his colleagues at work organised a party for him. There was a birthday cake,
and candles, and everyone sang Happy Birthday to you. It was a special occasion. Buster
Martin was 100 years old. He is the oldest person still in employment in Britain. He works for a
company in south London. He cleans their vans for them for 20 hours each week. In fact, he
started working for the company only three years ago, when he was 97. He applied for the job
because he was getting bored at home. If you dont keep moving, he says, your joints seize up
and you end up in a wheelchair.
Buster Martin has had a remarkable life. He was born in France, but was brought up in an
orphanage in Cornwall in south-west England. Then he came to London to work in the
markets. For thirty-five years he served in the armed forces the army and the navy mainly
as a physical education instructor. He says that he has never had a day off work through
illness. His wife died many years ago, but he has 17 children, and has lost count of his
grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He thinks there are about 70 of them. They come to
see me when they want money, he jokes.
Recently he was attacked by muggers as he was leaving a pub. They knocked him to the
ground, but he got up again and kicked one of them hard in well, somewhere where it really
hurts. His attackers ran away. Buster had scratches and bruises from the attack and was taken
to hospital. He walked out of the hospital next day and went to work. So how does Buster
Martin manage it? How does he stay so fit and active? He says that he does press-ups every
morning and drinks several pints of beer every evening. I am not sure about the press-ups but
the beer sounds like a good idea.
Scam
Todays podcast introduces the English word scam. What is a scam? Imagine this situation. I
set up a website. The website says that you can buy new digital cameras really cheaply. You
are interested. You think you would like to buy one of my cheap cameras. So you click the
buttons and enter your credit card number. Then you wait for the camera to arrive. But it
doesnt arrive. I have taken your money and disappeared. That is a scam. Other English
nouns that mean more or less the same are swindle and fraud.
Why are we talking about scams today? Well, in Britain there are a number of shows on
television which invite people to telephone the show. Sometimes people phone in to answer
questions in a quiz. Sometimes they phone in to vote on something for example on who
should win a song competition. The telephone numbers which these TV shows use are
premium rate telephone numbers. That means that the telephone calls cost more than
normal calls sometimes very much more. And the TV company gets part of the money from
the call.
Now, speaking personally, I think you have to be either very stupid or very bored to ring a
premium rate telephone number on a TV show. But it is a free country. If it makes people
happy to spend money in this way, then that is OK. It may be silly, but it is not a scam.
About two weeks ago, however, a news report appeared which said that on one TV show, the
presenters had invited people to telephone the show to win a chance to appear in a quiz.
However, the TV company had already secretly chosen the winners. So the viewers were
paying for the expensive telephone calls, but none of them could win. Its a scam, said the
newspapers. And lots of people agreed.
And then it emerged that the same sort of thing had happened on other TV shows.
Embarrassed TV executives told viewers that they were very sorry and that it would never
happen again. The regulator for premium rate telephone calls started an investigation. It is
even possible that the police will look at some of the more serious cases.
Then two days ago, the worst happened. For many years, the BBC have had a childrens TV
show called Blue Peter. It is quality childrens television; it is fun; it is clean; it is wholesome.
Parents like it. Most children like it too. A few months ago, there was a quiz on Blue Peter. The
presenters asked children to phone in if they thought they knew the answer. Lots of children
did phone. They (or, rather, their parents) paid 10p for each call. But there was a technical
problem, and none of the calls reached the studio. Instead, the BBC asked a girl in the
audience to pretend to be somebody phoning the show. She answered the question correctly
and won a prize.
Now, this was a mistake, not a scam. But the BBC were very embarrassed that such a thing
could happen on a respected show like Blue Peter. It is like discovering that your grandmother
sells illegal drugs. British people generally do not trust or believe politicians or estate agents or
used car salesmen. Now we dont trust phone-in TV programmes either.
How Peter Rabbit Saved the Lake District
Todays podcast is about a woman called Beatrix Potter.
She was born in London in 1866, and grew up there. But her family used to go to the Lake
District in north-west England for holidays, and she came to love the Lake District and to know
it well. As a girl, she enjoyed drawing pictures, particularly pictures of animals. Her drawings
were very good. If she had been a man, perhaps she would have become a serious scientific
artist drawing pictures of plants and animals for scientific journals and museums. But in
England at the end of the 19th century, scientists were almost all men.
So, instead of a career in science, Beatrix Potter wrote books for chidren, and illustrated them
herself. (To illustrate a book means to draw pictures or take photographs for it.) You
probably know some of these books, because they have been translated into many other
languages. The English names for some of them are:
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Tale of Tom Kitten
The Tale of Mrs Tiggiwinkle.
The pictures in these books show how carefully Beatrix Potter observed animals what they
look like, what they do, how they move. If real rabbits wore little blue jackets, they would look
just like her pictures of Peter Rabbit. But she was not sentimental about animals. People kill
and eat animals. In the natural world, animals hunt and kill other animals. Farmers keep
animals for food, not because they look pretty. So, in her books, Peter Rabbits father is put in
a pie by Mrs McGregor. Mr Jeremy Fisher (a frog) is swallowed by a fish. Pigs are sent to
market to be sold and slaughtered. Some people today do not like this side of Beatrix Potters
stories. They say that children who read the stories will be frightened or upset. I think children
prefer to be told the truth about the world.
By the time she was in her 40s, Beatrix Potter was beginning to earn money from her books.
She bought a farm in the Lake District, and then another and another. She worked hard as a
farmer, and kept pigs and sheep. In fact she became an expert on Herdwick sheep a special,
very ugly breed of sheep that is found in the Lake District and nowhere else. She cared
passionately about the Lake District and the need to preserve its natural beauty.
When she died, in 1943, she left all her properties in the Lake District to the National Trust.
The National Trust is an organisation which tries to preserve special landscapes and buildings
all over England and Wales. It owns a lot of land in the Lake District, and makes sure that the
traditional character of the area is maintained. And that is how, thanks to Peter Rabbit, the
Lake District is still a beautiful and unspoilt part of England.
Incidentally, people tell me that schools in Japan use Beatrix Potters books to teach children
English. Is this really true? Can my Japanese listeners please leave comments on the website,
or send me an e-mail?
Picture is one of Beatrix Potters illustrations for The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The House of Lords

I have some political stuff for you in todays podcast.
In Britain, we have a Parliament. Parliament makes new laws and oversees the government of
the country. There are two chambers, or Houses of Parliament the House of Commons and
the House of Lords. The House of Commons is made up of Members of Parliament (we call
them MPs) whom we vote for at General Elections. It has much more power than the House of
Lords. The government needs to have the support of a majority in the House of Commons. If it
loses this support, the government would have to resign.
The House of Lords is different. It has much less power. But it is also more independent of the
government. Sometimes, the House of Lords is able to force the government to reconsider its
policies or proposals. The members of the House of Lords are called peers. Some peers are
appointed by the government or other political parties. Some peers are appointed by an
independent body. And some of the peers are hereditary peers they are members of old
noble families who have inherited their place in the House of Lords. And then there are
bishops and archbishops of the Church of England they are in the House of Lords, too, and so
are the most senior judges in the country. In other words, of the 746 members of the House of
Lords, not one has been elected by the people. How complicated, you may think. How
undemocratic. How out-of-date.
A lot of people in this country think so as well. But it has been difficult to agree what sort of
House of Lords should replace the present one. Four years ago, Parliament looked at a number
of possible ways of reforming the House of Lords, and rejected all of them. Recently the
government suggested that most of the House of Lords should be elected, but that some peers
should be appointed by the government or other political groups. Last night the House of
Commons debated this issue. To everyones surprise, it agreed by a large majority that all the
members of the House of Lords should be elected by the people no more appointed
members, no more hereditary peers.
This is a big and important change. It will take time to implement. The government will have to
present a bill (a draft law) to Parliament, and to decide in detail when and how elections to the
House of Lords should be held, and what powers the new House of Lords will have. Many
members of the present House of Lords will not be happy they are, after all, likely to loose
their jobs. But change is now inevitable. Last nights vote in the House of Commons was an
important step towards creating a modern, democratic system of government in Britain.
Going to Secondary School

In England, children normally start school when they are about five. They go to a primary
school until they are 10 years old. Then they move to secondary school. This is big change for
children. Secondary schools are much bigger than primary schools. Many children have to
travel to secondary school on a bus or a train. There are new teachers and new subjects. And
many unfamiliar faces.
The move to secondary school is sometimes a big problem for parents too. Which secondary
school will their children go to? In theory, parents can choose a school for their children. But
some schools are very popular for example, schools with good exam results, or good facilities
and others are not popular for example, schools with poor exam results, or where the
behaviour of the pupils is bad. In some secondary schools, there are not enough places for all
the children who would like to go there. So there needs to be a way of deciding which children
get places in the most popular schools and which do not.
The most common way of allocating school places is to offer places first to children who
already have an older brother or sister in the school, and then to children on the basis of how
close to the school they live. In many parts of England, this system works well. But it can lead
to schools in nice white middle class areas recruiting only nice white middle class children,
while children from poorer social backgrounds go to other schools. Well-off parents can afford
to buy a house close to a good school, to make sure that their children get places there; less
well-off parents may not be able to do this. The result, some people say, is too much social
segregation white middle class children at one school, poorer children at another. It is rather
similar to the problem in many American cities of racial segregation in schools some schools
almost entirely white, others almost entirely black.
Are there any alternatives? At one time, children in Britain sat an exam in their last year at
primary school. It was called the eleven-plus exam, because it decided which school children
could go to from the age of 11. Children who did well in the exam went to schools called
grammar schools, which offered an academic education. Children who did not pass the exam
went to secondary modern schools, which offered a less academic and more practical
education. This system still survives in place in England including here in Birmingham. In
theory, places in grammar schools are offered to pupils on merit, without regard to their social
background, or how far from the school they live. In practice, however, middle class parents
pay private tutors to prepare their children for the grammar school exams. The grammar
schools are largely middle class schools and take only a few children from poorer families.
There are also faith schools in England. These are schools in the state school system which are
run by a religious group. Most of them are Roman Catholic or Church of England schools,
though there are some Jewish and Moslem schools as well. So, Roman Catholic schools offer
places first to children from Catholic families, and only accept children who are not Catholics if
they have places left. And similarly with other faith schools. Many faith schools are good
schools, and some middle class parents get religion in order to get a place for their child at a
faith school.
The problem has been in the newspapers this week because in two places in England, the local
authority has decided to that places at secondary schools will be offered by lottery in other
words, the schools will offer places at random. It will no longer be important to live close to
the school, or to pass an exam, or to go to church regularly. If you are lucky in the lottery, your
child will get a place at a good school. If you are unlucky, they will not. This is very
controversial. Will it be a good system for allocating places in good, popular schools? We shall
have to wait and see.
The Elephant in the Room
Today we will discover three English expressions or
idioms. All of them use the names of animals big animals. The first animal that we meet is a
bull.
Imagine a bull standing in a shop. The shop sells china plates, cups, saucers, bowls, tea-pots.
There are shelves full of delicate china ornaments. The bull is not violent or aggressive. But
every time he moves or tries to turn round, he bumps into the shelves, and a pile of china
crashes to the ground.
If someone is clumsy if they knock something over every time they go into a room, or trip
over the carpet, or collide with the TV, we say, Hes like a bull in a china shop. We can say
this also about someone who is clumsy in their relations with other people some who always
says the wrong thing, someone who is tactless and offends other people without meaning to,
someone who always causes confusion and misunderstanding Hes like a bull in a china
shop.
Next, the horse. Imagine that it is 100 years ago, when horses pulled carts through the streets,
and there were no cars. Here is a horse and cart. What is at the front? The horse, of course!
And what is behind? The cart. That is the right way round. If the cart was in front and the horse
behind well, that would be all wrong.
There are some people who always misunderstand things. They do the least important things
first, and leave the most important things until later. They always seem to get things the wrong
way round. They put the cart before the horse.
And finally, the elephant. Imagine you are at a reception, perhaps at a foreign Embassy. There
is a big room, full of people. The people are talking noisily. They are drinking cocktails and
eating cocktail snacks. In the corner of the room is a large elephant. Everyone in the room
knows that the elephant is there. But they take no notice of it. They dont even want to talk
about the elephant. It might be impolite to talk about it. It might cause problems.
We can say that something, or some subject, is the elephant in the room. It means that this
thing, or this subject, is big and important. Everyone knows it is big and important. But no-one
wants to talk about it.
It is in fact a very modern expression. I first heard someone say the elephant in the room
only a few months ago. Now everyone is saying it. The elephant in the room is the weakness
of the US dollar or The elephant in the room is the fact that he split up with his wife last
week. Yes, Listen to English will keep you to keep up to date with all the latest English
expressions. Have a good week, and remember never to put your elephant before the horse in
a china shop. Or something like that.

The Family
This podcast is about families, and the names which
we give in English to the relationships between family members names like mother,
grandparent, cousin and uncle.
You will probably find it helpful to look at a diagram while you listen. I have uploaded two pdf
files with this podcast. You can download them and then open them if you have Adobe reader
on your computer. If you can, print them.
On the files, you will see what we call a family tree. That means a diagram which shows how
different people are related to each other. Lets start with the youngest members of the family.
They are Lucy, who is 5 years old, and her little brother Benjamin, who is 3. Lucy and Benjamin
are siblings; but we dont use the word siblings very much in English. Normally we would just
say that Benjamin and Lucy are brother and sister.
Lucy and Benjamins parents are John and Mary. John is their father. Mary is their mother.
Mary has a sister, called Joan, who is married to Harry. Joan and Harry are Lucy and Benjamins
aunt and uncle. Joan and Harry have two children of their own a son called Max and a
daughter called Judy. Max and Judy are Lucy and Benjamins cousins.
Lucy and Benjamin have another uncle, Uncle Lewis, who is their fathers brother. Uncle Lewis
is not married and has no children.
Lucy and Benjamin have two sets of grandparents. Their fathers parents are James and Susan.
They have retired and moved to Spain, where they live in a flat overlooking a building site with
distant views of the sea. They are Lucy and Benjamins grandfather and grandmother. The
other grandparents are of course their mothers parents, Fred and Eileen. Freds parents, Jack
and Edith are still alive. They are both over 90 years old, and live in an old peoples home. Jack
talks for hours about what he did during the Second World War. Edith sits and says Yes, dear
from time to time. Jack and Edith are Lucy and Benjamins great-grandparents.
Now look at the second pdf file. It shows the same family, but from the point of view of John
and Mary. We already know about their children their daughter Lucy and their son
Benjamin. Mary has a sister, Joan, who is married to Harry. Harry is Marys brother-in-law.
(In-law means the relationship is through marriage Harry is her brother-in-law because he
is married to her sister). You remember that Joan and Harry have two children Max is John
and Marys nephew, and Judy is their niece.
Fred and Eileen are Marys parents. They are also Johns father-in-law and mother-in-law.
(We sometimes say parents-in-law, but like sibling it isnt very common). Fred and Eileen
call John their son-in-law. And, of course, Johns parents call Mary their daughter-in-law.
Incidentally, the plural of daughter-in-law is daughters-in-law not daughter-in-laws! And
similarly with the other in-law relationships.
Complicated, isnt it, even in a simple family like this one. Why not draw a diagram of your own
family and practice talking about the relationships of the various family members. I shall find
something a little more light-hearted for the next podcast.

Night Mail
The English poet Wystan Hugh Auden was born 100
years ago this week. He wrote over 400 poems, and he was always known by his initials W H
Auden.
When he was young, he was a radical, both in his politics and his poetry. But like many of us
he became more conservative as he grew older. A lot of people did not like Auden or his
poetry. In particular, they criticised him because he left Britain to live in America during the
Second World War. But some of Audens poems have remained very popular. One of them is
called Night Mail. There is a link from the podcast website to a site which has the full text of
the poem. I am going to read you only a few bits. There is a grammar and vocabulary note for
the podcast. It is on the website, and as an experiment I have also posted it as a pdf file
which you should be able to download direct from iTunes. (You will however need Adobe
Acrobat Reader on your computer).
How did the poem come to be written? In the 1930s, the Post Office decided to make a short
film about the mail trains which carried letters and parcels overnight between England and
Scotland. The composer Benjamin Britten wrote music for the film and the Post Office asked W
H Auden to write a poem as part of the commentary. The Night Mail was one of the famous
travelling post offices. The men and women who worked on the train sorted the letters and
parcels as the train travelled through the night. The Night Mail was of course pulled by an
express steam locomotive. It was a magnificent sight as it thundered northwards. Audens
poem began:
This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb,
The gradients against her, but shes on time.
Auden tells us about the letters which the train was carrying:
Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from girl and boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or to visit relations,
And applications for situations,
And timid lovers declarations,
And gossip, gossip from all the nations..
Of course, letters were much more important to people in the 1930s than they are today.
Today we keep in touch with friends and relatives by telephone or e-mail. Most of the letters I
receive are what we call junk mail catalogues for things I dont want to buy, special offers on
car insurance and mobile telephones.
At the end of the poem, Auden tells us about the people all over Scotland who are still asleep
and dreaming.
But they shall wake soon and hope for letters,
And none will hear the postmans knock
Without a quickening of the heart.
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
Artwork from poster for the film Night Mail
Offas Dyke
Todays podcast is
about the word run. You know what run means. If you are late, you have to run to catch
the train. In a football game, the players run after the ball. But we can use run in lots of
other ways as well. As we shall see.
Last week, I visited Ludlow, which is a town about one and a half hours drive from
Birmingham. It is an old market town. There is a castle, and lots of black and white half-
timbered buildings. A friend of mine runs a hotel in Ludlow, and that is where we stayed. From
Ludlow, we drove along a road which runs beside a river to another town even smaller
called Knighton. Knighton is in Wales, not England. You know that you are in Wales because all
the road signs are in the Welsh language as well as in English.
The border between England and Wales has been peaceful now for hundreds of years. But it
was not always like that. In the eighth century, King Offa ruled a kingdom called Mercia in
central England. He had trouble with the Welsh. He built a great wall of earth and a ditch along
the western border of Mercia to help to defend his kingdom. (He didnt build it himself, of
course he sent thousands of his men to do it for him!) His wall is called Offas Dyke, and you
can see the remains of it today. In fact there is a footpath which runs all the way along Offas
Dyke. It starts in Prestatyn in north Wales and runs to Chepstow in the south. It crosses wild
hills and beautiful valleys and is perhaps the finest long-distance footpath in Britain. Knighton
is about half way along the footpath, and the local tourist authority runs an information centre
there, where you can learn more about Offas Dyke.
Look at some of the ways we can use the word run.
My friend runs a hotel.
The tourist authority runs an information centre.
The road runs beside the river.
The Offas Dyke footpath runs from Prestatyn to Chepstow.
My local bus route runs from Druids Heath in south Birmingham to the city centre.
The buses run from 5am to midnight.
At weekends they run every hour throughout the night as well.
The play runs at the theatre from 7 to 27 March.
Last week, my car broke down. But now it is running fine.
Sometimes, I leave my computer running all night.
On Saturdays, the train runs 10 minutes earlier than on other days.
So you will have to run to catch it.

Getting on

Todays podcast is about the expression getting on. What does it mean? Well, if I ask
someone How are you getting on? I mean How much progress have you made?. It is
easiest to explain with some examples.
Example number one. I ask my children, How are you getting on with your homework? I
mean how much homework have you done, have you started your homework, have finished
your homework yet? And my children might reply Im nearly finished; or, Im getting on
OK; or, go away and stop nagging me.
Example number two. I might ask you, How are you getting on with your English?. I mean
how much progress have you made in English; have you learned about the continuous tenses
yet; can you read an English newspaper; can you understand a TV programme in English? And
you might tell me that you are learning about passive verbs; or that you are reading a novel in
English. Or you might tell me to go away and mind my own business.
Example three. I am decorating the living room. My wife asks me, How are you getting on? I
might tell her that I have painted the ceiling; or that I have started cutting the wallpaper. Or I
might give her a paint brush and ask her to help.
Example four is a bit different from the others. You have a new colleague at work. His name is
John. I ask you, How are you getting on with John? I mean how is your relationship with
John. Is he a difficult person to work with, or an easy person. And you might tell me, I get on
well with John. He is a really nice person. Or, I have to be careful what I say to him. He is
difficult to get on with.
OK? Everything clear? Then lets see how Kevin and Joanne are getting on.
You remember that Joanne had joined a gym. She said she would go every day and become
super-fit. Well, she doesnt go to the gym every day. She has too many other things to do. She
goes about twice a week. But she is getting on well; she has lost weight and she is feeling fitter.
At first she did not get on with the fitness trainer at the gym. Joanne though she was bossy and
had no sense of humour. But now she gets on with the trainer much better.
And how about Kevin? How is he getting on? Kevin decided not to join the gym. But he has
started to play squash with his friend Scott. Squash is a game that you play in a big room with
concrete walls. You hit a small rubber ball very hard with a racquet. You try to make it difficult
for your opponent to hit the ball back. The first time Kevin was completely exhausted in 5
minutes. But now he has improved; he is getting on much better. Last week, he beat Scott for
the first time ever.
Kevin is an easy-going guy. He gets on with everyone. Everyone? Well, everyone except
Joannes Mum. He doesnt like Joannes Mum and Joannes Mum does not like him. Joanne has
to keep them apart. They do not get on together.
The Least Visited Place in England
In the county of Norfolk, in Eastern England, during the Middle Ages, people used to cut peat
from the ground. They dried the peat in the sun, and used it as a fuel for fires. Over time, the
places where people had cut the peat filled with water, to form shallow lakes. Today these
lakes are called the Norfolk Broads. They are home to many species of water plants and birds.
There are old windmills along the banks of the rivers. The sedge which grows in the water is
cut and used to make traditional thatched roofs for houses. And, of course, the area is very
popular with visitors. Thousands of people go to the Norfolk Broads each year, and enjoy
boating on the Broads and the slow-moving rivers.
But there is one part of the Norfolk Broads which has hardly any visitors. Indeed, it is
estimated that maybe only 50 people have been there in the last 100 years. That is about the
same number of people who climb Mount Everest each year. It is smaller than the number of
people who have been in space.
The place is called Sutton Fen. It is not big, only about 170 hectares. Like the other Broads, it is
a stretch of shallow water, filled in many places with reeds, sedge and other water plants. The
land around is marshy and impossible to cross on foot. There are rare plants, insects, birds and
animals. The only sounds are sounds like these. That booming noise is the song of the bittern,
a water bird which is now very rare in England. Bitterns still live in Sutton Fen.
For many years Sutton Fen has been privately owned. But now it has been bought by the Royal
Society for the Protection of Birds, which is one of Britains largest conservation charities. They
will be responsible for managing Sutton Fen, to keep it a special place. They will cut some of
the sedge to keep the waterways clear. But apart from that they will try to keep Sutton Fen in
its present condition. Probably more than 50 people will go to Sutton Fen in the next 100
years, but it it will still be one of the least visited places in England.
Mary had a Little Lamb

Reading poetry for children can often help you to learn a foreign language. Why? Because
poetry written for children is simple, and uses words and language which are close to the
ordinary spoken language. And generally these poems are short, and make you laugh. I have
two little poems for you today. The first one is a traditional childrens rhyme called Mary had a
Little Lamb. It goes like this:-
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.
It followed her to school one day,
That was against the rules.
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.
Look at the first line Mary had a little lamb. In English, we often use the word have to
mean eat. For example, Kevin has a chocolate bar with his coffee in the morning. This means
that he eats a chocolate bar with his coffee. I have a sandwich and an apple for lunch. That
means, I eat a sandwich and an apple. The waiter in a cafe may ask you, What would you like
to have? and this means What would you like to eat? So, Mary had a little lamb that
couldnt possibly mean Mary ate a little lamb, could it? The American childrens poet, Bill
Dodds, thinks so.
Mary had a little lamb,
a little toast,
a little jam,
a little pizza
and some cake,
some French fries
and a chocolate shake,
a little burger
on a bun.
And thats why Mary
weighs a ton.
Copyright Bill Dodds
Whos Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf
The Russian composer Sergei Prokoviev once wrote a
musical story called Peter and the Wolf. The different instruments of the orchestra represent
the different characters in the story Peter, the cat, the bird, Peters grandfather and so on.
Here is part of the music which represents the wolf.
Wolves are the fiercest animals in Europe but nowdays there are very few wolves left in the
wild. Wolves were hunted to extinction in England in the Middle Ages, and the last wolf in
Scotland was probably killed about 250 years ago. You can still see wolves in zoos of course,
and wolves live on as the villains in many popular childrens stories. But surely it is a good thing
that there are no longer wolves living in the wild in this country?
Well, not everyone thinks so. If you go to the Highlands of Scotland today, you will see that the
hills and mountains are almost completely treeless. It was not always like this. At one time,
forests covered a large part of the Highlands. If the forest could re-establish naturally, it would
provide a home for many types of plants and animals. The problem is that in many areas there
are too many deer. In fact there may be as many as half a million deer in the Scottish
Highlands. Wild deer are beautiful animals, but they can cause a lot of damage to plants and
young trees. It is very difficult for young trees to survive where there are large numbers of
deer.
Wealthy people pay a lot of money to go to Scotland to hunt deer. But they do not kill enough
deer to reduce the population. In some areas, landowners cull the deer that is, they shoot
deer to try to reduce their numbers. But this is not always effective. The number of deer keeps
on growing. The problem is that, apart from people, deer have no natural predators that is,
there are no other animals that hunt the deer for food. Once, wolves hunted deer in Scotland,
but now of course there are no wolves.
A goup of ecologists has recently suggested that the answer is to re-introduce wolves to
Scotland. They estimate that if this is done, the number of deer would fall to about a quarter
of the present number in 50 or 60 years, and that this would enable the forest to recover and
other plants and animals to find a home.
Some people welcome this idea. But many farmers and landowners do not. They fear that the
wolves will attack farm animals, particularly sheep; or even that they would attack people. The
subject is very controversial, and it is likely to be many years if at all before wolves again
live in the wild in Britain. But the wolf is Northern Europes equivalent of lions in Africa or
tigers in India. It is the biggest predator, at the top of the food chain. If we think it is important
to protect lions and tigers in other countries, why not wolves in Britain as well?

The Last Witch in England

Do you know what a witch is? A witch is a woman who has magical powers (or, at least, other
people think she has magical powers). In England, in the 17th century, witches were often
treated very cruelly. Practising witchcraft was against the law. Many witches were put to
death. Of course, these poor women did not really have magical powers. They did not really
practice witchcraft. They were often widows living alone with no family to protect them.
Perhaps they had done something to annoy or frighten their neighbours. The neighbours then
accused them of witchcraft, and the witch would then be arrested, and perhaps tortured or
killed.
But that was a long time ago. Surely it is many years since a woman was arrested and accused
of being a witch. Well, not as long ago as you might think. The last occasion was in 1944,
during the Second World War, and it happened like this. Helen Duncan, who came from
Scotland, had a special gift she was able to talk to the spirits of dead people. Or at least, she
said she could do this, and plenty of people believed her. She held meetings, called seances,
where people sat in a circle holding hands while she attempted to speak to the spirits of the
dead. At one seance, the parents of a young sailor were present. Their son was missing, and
they feared that he might be dead. Mrs Duncan spoke to the spirit of the young sailor. She told
his parents that he had died when a German submarine had attacked his ship. Now, the young
man was indeed dead, and his ship had indeed been attacked by a submarine, but the
government had kept this secret. So how did Helen Duncan know? Was she a spy? Was she a
witch? What other military secrets did she know? What else might she say? The authorities
decided that they had to silence her. She was arrested and accused of witchcraft. The court
found her guilty and sent her to prison for 9 months.
The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, thought that sending Helen Duncan to prison for
witchcraft was tomfoolery (Tomfoolery is an old-fashioned word meaning silly nonsense).
He visited her in prison, and a few years after the War had ended he persuaded Parliament to
repeal the old laws on witchcraft.
So, if you want to be a witch in Britain today, you can be thanks to Helen Duncan and
Winston Churchill.
How to arrive
Today we will learn something about the word
arrive. I will tell you when to say arrive at and when to say arrive in. And I will also tell
you that you must never say arrive to!
Kevin and Joanne are going to visit their friend Amy, who lives in Glasgow , the largest city in
Scotland. They arrange when they will come, but then need to decide how to travel. Kevin
does not want to drive. It is a long way, and there are roadworks on the M6 motorway which
will cause delay, frustration and bad temper. (There are always roadworks on the M6 it is
part of the traditional British way of life).
So they decide to take the train. Now, in Britain train fares are often very expensive unless you
buy your tickets at least a week before you travel. Kevin is lucky he finds some cheap tickets
on the internet.
On Friday, Kevin and Joanne set off; they take a bus and arrive at the railway station.
Miraculously their train is on time. Four hours later they arrive in Glasgow. They take a taxi and
arrive at Amys flat at about 4pm.
On the way home they are not so lucky. When they arrive at Glasgow Central station, they find
that their train is late. Moreover, one of the carriages is missing, so the train is overcrowded
and some passengers have to stand for their journey. The train arrives in Birmingham, at New
Street Station, about an hour late.
The rule with arrive is this. If we are talking about a big place a country or a town for
instance then we say arrive in. For example:
Kevin and Joanne arrive in Scotland
They arrive in Glasgow
They arrive back in Birmingham
But when we are talking about a small place, an individual house or building, for example, we
say arrive at. For example:
Kevin and Joanne arrive at the railway station
They arrive at Amys flat
They arrive at the airport
Kevin arrives at work
The children arrive at school

Some English learners say arrive to. For example, I arrive to Paris tomorrow. This is wrong.
You should say I arrive in Paris tomorrow (Arrive in because Paris is a big place).
You will sometimes hear people say I arrived at Birmingham at 3pm or I arrive at Paris in the
afternoon. Is this OK? Surely they should say in Birmingham and in Paris? Well, it is OK if
they are saying Birmingham to mean Birmingham railway station or Paris to mean Paris
airport.
I know that this is complicated. But do not despair. Remember that you can use get to instead
of arrive in / at. Kevin and Joanne get to the railway station, they get to Glasgow, they get to
Amys flat, they get to the airport, Kevin gets to work, the children get to school. It is always
get to. Easy. English people use expressions with get all the time, so it is a good idea to
practice using them.
The Shipwreck
This podcast uses words and expressions about ships
and the sea. These words may be new to you, so on the podcast website I have linked some of
them to definitions in the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary. But if you are listening on
iTunes or an iPod, obviously you wont see these links. So, if you need help with what the
words mean, go to the podcast website.
You will also see and hear that I refer to a ship as she and not it. A ship can be either she
or it in English. And, no, I dont know why!
Last week a fierce storm swept over England. It was in fact the worst storm for 17 years.
Thirteen people in Britain were killed by falling trees and other accidents, and many more in
other countries in Europe. At sea, off the south west coast of England, the storm damaged a
large container ship, the MSC Napoli. Water broke into her engine room, and the captain
decided to abandon ship. A helicopter came to take all the crew to safety. Two tugs then
towed the ship to shallow water, where she went aground on a sandbank.
Then two more problems arose. Oil started to leak from the Napoli into the sea. Conservation
experts feared that the oil would damage the sea birds and other wildlife along this beautiful
stretch of coast. Thousands of sea birds have already been affected by the oil. A salvage
company has now started to pump the oil from the Napoli into a small tanker, but it may take
two weeks to complete this work.
The other problem was that the Napoli, stuck on the sandbank, was listing heavily. About 100
of the containers on her deck slipped into the sea. The salvage company has started to unload
the remaining containers onto a barge alongside the Napoli. It is important that this is done
quickly as some of the containers contain dangerous chemicals.
Meanwhile, many of the containers which had fallen into the sea floated to the shore. People
walking along the beach at Branscombe found containers full of cosmetics, babies nappies,
pet food, BMW motorbikes, car parts and many other things. The news spread, and soon
hundreds of people arrived to loot the containers. In centuries gone by, it was common for
people living near the coast in south west England to take things from ships which were
wrecked on this rocky coast. But we did not think it was possible today. However, in England,
you are legally allowed to take things from a shipwreck, provided that you tell the authorities,
and you return them to the owners if they ask for them. How many of the looters will tell the
authorities what they have taken? How many will hide their loot and sell it on eBay after a few
weeks when the fuss has died down? However, if you think you would like to come to
Branscombe beach and join in the fun, you are too late. The police have now closed the beach
to stop further looting.

Marmalade
One of the strangest things about English people is
what we eat for breakfast. Some people have a cooked breakfast, with bacon and eggs and
sausages. But most people are far too busy to cook things for breakfast. So they have a nice
cup of tea or coffee, and toast, spread with marmalade. Marmalade is a type of jam, made out
of oranges. Not ordinary oranges they are too sweet but very bitter oranges which are
grown near Seville in Spain. These oranges are picked in January, and nearly all of them are
exported to Britain to make into marmalade.
You can of course buy marmalade in a supermarket. But shop-bought marmalade is poor stuff.
It contains too much sugar and not enough oranges. (My grandmother used to say that shop
marmalade was made with potatoes!) No, if you want proper marmalade, you have to make it
yourself at home.
The last two weeks in January is marmalade time. It is cold outside. Perhaps a few snowflakes
are falling. But inside, the kitchen is warm and a delicious smell of oranges fills the house. So
how do we make marmalade? The ingredients are simple Seville oranges, a lemon, sugar and
water. We chop the oranges and the lemon finely, including the peel. We add the water, and
bring it to the boil. We boil the mixture until the oranges are cooked, then we add the sugar
and continue boiling until the marmalade begins to set (ie until it starts to form a jelly). Then
we put the marmalade into glass jars, and put a pretty label on each jar saying marmalade.
You can store marmalade for a year or even longer until you need it. A jar of home-made
marmalade makes a lovely present to give to friends or relatives.
Sarah Franklin has taken some wonderful photographs of making marmalade. On her flickr
page she has included her recipe, so if you can find any Seville oranges you can have a go
yourself. For myself, I have another 10 kilos of marmalade to make before the next podcast.
There is a grammar and vocabulary note with this podcast. If you are listening on iTunes or an
iPod, you will need to go to the podcast website to see it.
Photos of making marmalade by Sarah Franklin
The Great Apostrophe Catastrophe

In a podcast last week, I talked about apostrophes the little commas that we sometimes
write above letters in English. Do you know the rules about when to write an apostrophe, and
when not to write one?
You should write an apostrophe;
1. when you leave letters out. For example, when you write Im instead of I am.
2. to show possession or ownership. For example, Johns shirt is red. Johns means
belonging to John the shirt belongs to John, so we write an apostrophe before the
letter s.

You should not write an apostrophe:
1. in front of a letter s where the s is the plural ending of a noun. For example, I
have three books has no apostrophe the s at the end of books simply means
that books is plural there is more than one book. So, no apostrophe.
2. in personal adjectives and pronouns such as hers, his, its, theirs, yours.
There is an exercise on apostrophes which you may find helpful if you are listening on iTunes
or an iPod you will need to go to the podcast website to find the exercise.
I have to tell you that many English people get very confused about when to use an
apostrophe and when not to. If you visit Britain, you will find lots of examples of public signs,
notices in shop windows etc where someone has written an apostrophe which should not be
there. The worst offenders are people who sell fruit and vegetables from market stalls You will
often see signs saying apples or oranges with an apostrophe that should not be there. We
often call these greengrocers apostrophes a greengrocer is someone who sells fruit and
vegetables. The picture on the website shows a sign on a market stall in the town of Ely in the
east of England.You will also be able to see it on the screen of your iPod. It says, Top quality
hard English conferance pears. ( Conference pears are a particular variety of pear that
grows well in England but have you noticed that the word conference is spelled wrongly?)
And look, there is an apostrophe before the s in pears. There should, of course, be no
apostrophe, because pears here is simply the plural of pear it doesnt mean belonging
to pear, nor are there letters left out.
The second bit of the notice says 3lb for 1.50. What does lb mean? It means pounds
not pounds in money, but pounds in weight. In England, until recently, we measured the
weight of things in pounds, and in America they still do. A pound is about half a kilo. When I
was at school many, many years ago we had to learn that 16 ounces made a pound, 14
pounds made a stone, 8 stone made a hundredweight and 20 hundredweight made a ton. Yes,
it was very complicated! And we had to learn about pints and gallons for measuring liquids,
and inches, feet and yards for measuring distances. Nowdays, children learn metric
measurements at school, and since 1995 shops must use metric measurements for everything
they sell. We only use the old imperial measurements for beer and milk (where people still
measure in pints a pint is about half a litre), and for distances on roads, which are in miles a
mile is 1.6 kilometers. However, old people like me still think in the old measurements. If I cut
a piece of wood, for example, I still measure it in inches and not in centimeters. When I bake a
cake, I weigh the flour and sugar in ounces, not in grams. And the greengrocer in Ely market
obviously finds all these modern kilos too difficult, so he or she still sells pears by the pound.

David Beckham
David Beckham is a famous football player. He
played for Manchester United in the years when Manchester United won everything they
could possibly win. And he was captain of the England football team.
But in the past few years his football career has gone downhill. In 2003, he moved from
Manchester United to Real Madrid, but Real Madrid have not been a succesful team in the last
few years. Last summer, he captained the England team at the World Cup, but again England
were not successful. He has now been dropped as England captain, and plays only irrregularly
for Real Madrid. As a footballer, David Beckham is past his best.
Other footballers who find that their finest playing days are over do something like this:
they move to a smaller club;
or they make a new career in football, perhaps coaching younger players, or managing
a club, or writing about football for the newspapers;
or they retire from football and run a pub in a quiet village in the country, or a night
club in Spain.

But David Beckham is not going to do any of these things. He is going to move to America later
this year to play for Los Angeles Galaxy. He will become one of the highest paid sportsmen in
the world; over the next 5 years, he may earn as much as $250 million. This is remarkable
because football is not a top sport in the United States. Indeed, when Americans talk about
football they mean a completely different game in which very big men try to knock each
other to the ground while kicking or throwing a ball shaped like an egg. In America, you have
to say soccer if you mean the game that the rest of the world calls football.
So how has this happened? There are rich people and rich companies in the United States who
think that soccer could become a lot more popular in America than it is now. They see an
opportunity to make money lots of money. But they need a superstar someone who is
fabulously famous to raise the profile of soccer in America, and bring in advertising and
sponsorship. And David Beckham is a superstar. He is or was a brilliant football player. He is
very good looking (or so my wife tells me). His wife is a former pop singer with the Spice Girls,
where she was known as Posh Spice. Posh and Becks love the glamorous celebrity lifestyle
the lavish parties, the beautiful people, the fast cars, the big houses and swimming pools. They
will love Hollywood. And Hollywood will love them.
There is another famous Englishman whose career has gone downhill in the past few years, in
fact ever since he made a bad decision to invade Iraq. Yes, I mean Tony Blair, our Prime
Minister. Like David Beckham, he is expected to leave his present job this year. Like David
Beckham, he enjoys expensive holidays in exotic places, and the company of wealthy people.
Like David Beckham, he is liked and admired in America. After he retires, he will probably
spend a lot of time in that country, giving lectures and speaking at dinners. In five years time,
which of the two will be the more succesful the former football star, or the former Prime
Minister? What do you think?
New Year Resolutions - a poem
I have a poem for you today. It is called New Year
Resolution, and it is by Edrey Allott. She does not tell us what her New Year resolution is. She
just says that she knows that she should have done it a long time ago, but this year she really
will.
Oh I couldve, I wouldve, I shouldve,
Yes I shouldve
Done this or that.
But no, I didnt,
Im sorry, I didnt.
I left it flat
But dont despair,
Im nearly there,
You virtuous chaps.
This year Ill do it,
Ill really do it.
Perhaps.
In spoken English, we often shorten auxiliary or helper verbs. For example, instead of saying
did not we often say didnt. When we write words that we have shortened, we write an
apostrophe ( ) to show that we have left some letters out. There are lots of examples of this
in the poem.
Couldve is short for could have.
And wouldve and shouldve are of course short for would have and should have.
Didnt means did not.
Dont means do not.
And Im means I am, and Ill means I will.
In the sixth line of the poem, I left it flat means I left it (the thing she wanted to do) and did
not do anything about it. I left it flat is not really a normal English expression but I think
the writer needed to find something to rhyme with that in the third line!
Work out
Todays podcast is about working out. There is a grammar and
vocabulary note which explains that the expression to work out has two different meanings.
If you are listening on iTunes or an iPod, you will need to go to the podcast website to read the
note.
In the last podcast, Kevin made a New Year resolution to give up smoking. What about Joanne?
Well, her resolution is to get fit. She has read in an article in a newspaper that, if you work out
in a gym for an hour every day, you can get super-fit in only ten weeks. So she has joined a
gym. Lots of other people have had the same idea and have joined the gym as well. Sometimes
the gym is crowded, and Joanne has to wait for her turn on the exercise machines. She says to
herself that some of the other people are probably weak-willed. They are not determined like
she is, and will probably give up after about two weeks. But she will carry on and become
super-fit!
She tries to persuade Kevin to join the gym as well. But Kevin says:
his New Year resolution is to give up smoking
he does not want to be super-fit, and he does not think you can get super-fit in only
ten weeks
gyms are places of torture like the Tower of London and Guantanamo Bay
it is stupid to use an exercise bike at a gym. Why not get a real bike and go real places
on it?

Joanne tells Kevin that he is a couch potato. She goes to the gym and works out by herself. Will
she get super-fit in 10 weeks? Or will she get bored and return to eating chocolates in front of
the television? We shall see!

Hooked
Happy New Year to all of you. I have been making
these podcasts now for exactly a year. It has been great fun and I am very grateful to all of you
who listen to them.
At the beginning of January, many people make New Year resolutions. That means that they
decide to change something about their lives. Here are some examples of New Year
resolutions:
to lose weight
to start learning a foreign language
to phone my parents at least once a week
to cycle to work every day instead of using the car
Unfortunately, most people make the same resolutions every year. In other words, they do not
succeed. They do not keep their resolutions.
Kevin and Joanne have both made New Year resolutions this year. Kevin has said that he is
going to give up smoking. He does not smoke very much only when he goes to the pub to
have a drink with his friend George. In fact, he will have to keep his resolution to give up
smoking, or he will have to stop going to the pub, because in July this year a new law will come
into effect in England which bans smoking in pubs, cafes, restaurants and other public
buildings.
Do you know the colloquial English expression to be hooked on something? It means to be
addicted to something. A hook is a small piece of bent metal which we use to catch fish. Think
of a fish, with a hook caught in its mouth. It wriggles and struggles, but it cannot get free. That
is what being hooked means! So, smokers are hooked on cigarettes or tobacco. Some people
are hooked on chocolate; other people are hooked on their favourite TV programme.
Our government is running an advertising campaign on television at present, to try to
persuade people to stop smoking. It shows smokers with a hook in their mouths, like the hook
in the mouth of a fish. The smokers are dragged along by a line attached to the hook. These
advertisements make Kevin feel very uncomfortable. He is determined to give up smoking.
Lets hope he succeeds.
There is a grammar and vocabulary note for this podcast. If you are listening on iTunes or your
iPod, you will need to go to the podcast website to see it.

Christmas House Bling
Bling? Whats bling?
Bling is a modern slang word for jewellery. But not any sort of jewellery. Jewellery is bling if:
it is big
it is brightly coloured
it is loud and tasteless
there is lots of it
it is really in your face
Jewellery is not bling if it is small, discreet or tasteful!
And what is house bling? For a long time people have decorated the insides of their houses
at Christmas, for example with Christmas trees, holly and mistletoe. But in the past few years,
some people have started decorating the outsides of their houses as well, with lots of coloured
lights, illuminated models of Santa Claus, reindeer and snowmen, and sometimes even with an
audio system which plays Christmas carols. This is house bling. There is a picture of house bling
on the podcast website, and (I hope) on your iPod too. If you type house bling into the
search box at flickr.com, you will find lots more examples.
Some people even compete with their neighbours to have the most house bling, the brightest
house bling, the most tasteless house bling. House bling increases electricity consumption, and
probably adds significantly to global warming and rising sea levels.
I am taking a short break over Christmas. I will be back in January, when Kevin and Joanne will
be making some New Year resolutions. To keep you company until these podcasts return, here
is Hilda Lamas. This lady sings the American National Anthem at basketball games in Texas, so
respect! But for us she sings that Christmas wont be Christmas unless you get right back
here with me. Yeah!

The Christmas Market

In December, in many towns in Germany and other countries in northern Europe, there are
Christmas markets. Some of them are very famous, and tourists come from a long distance to
explore the markets, buy Christmas gifts and enjoy the atmosphere. Here in Birmingham we
have our own German Christmas market. In fact, the German market in Birmingham is the
largest German market outside Germany and Austria. Most of the stall-holders come to
Birmingham from Frankfurt, which is one of Birminghams twin cities. In the market you can
buy Christmas decorations, candles, little wooden toys for children, German bread, cakes and
biscuits, sweets, mulled wine and German beer. There is a roundabout where children can
have a ride (and grown-ups too, if they want). There are coloured lights in the trees and on the
stalls. The market is popular with people in Birmingham. In the evenings and at weekends, it is
crowded with visitors. A few years ago some local politicians tried to replace the German
market with a British craft fair, but there was a public outcry and the plan was quickly
dropped.
There are lots of other markets in Birmingham. There is a big fruit and vegetable market where
many people go to buy food. There is an indoor market where you can buy clothes, material,
hand-tools, CDs, meat, fish and many other things. And there are several Farmers Markets,
where you can buy food produced in the area around Birmingham. But the German Christmas
market is special!
There is a grammar and vocabulary note for this podcast. If you are listening on iTunes or an
iPod, you will need to visit the podcast website to see it.

Santa Claus
Today I am going to talk to you about Santa Claus. Santa
Claus, or Father Christmas, is a jolly man with a red suit and a white beard. He brings children
presents in the night before Christmas Day. He arrives on a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Normally,
he enters the house by climbing down the chimney. The children leave stockings hanging at
the end of their beds. Santa Claus fills the stockings with presents for the children to find when
they wake up in the morning.
There are two sorts of children in the world. There are children who believe passionately in
Santa Claus until they are teenagers. And there are children who know immediately that Santa
Claus is a lie, invented by grown-ups for strange grown-up reasons that only grown-ups
understand.
These children do not believe in Santa Claus because:

Santa Claus could not possibly visit all the houses in England in one night
a sleigh is a stupid way to travel in England where it hardly ever snows at Christmas
there are no reindeer in England
the chimney is too small, and many houses dont have one
children have not worn stockings since about 1923. They wear socks or (if they are
girls) tights instead
it is against the law to break into peoples houses. The police would arrest Santa Claus
if he tried
Nonetheless, I can tell you that there is a Santa Claus. I know that this is true because, well, last
week I was Santa Claus. I visited a childrens nursery, or kindergarden, as a special guest. I
wore a red suit and a white beard. I left my sleigh and reindeer in a multi-storey car park
nearby. I entered the nursery (but through the door, not the chimney). The children were
having their Christmas party. Several of them screamed and hid in a corner when they saw me.
The others shyly came to talk to me. I gave them presents from my sack.
One little boy he was about two years old had a present for me. It was a dummy. It was
very old, very dirty and very chewed. Why did he give me his dummy? Well, when you are two
years old, giving up your dummy is a bit like giving up smoking. It is difficult! The little boy gave
his dummy to Santa Claus to prove to himself that he did not need his dummy any more.
So Santa Claus does exist. He is real. He gives presents to children at Christmas and helps
children who want to stop using their dummies. You had better believe it!
Pantomime

This podcast is about the expression to join in. If I join in some activity, I take part in it, or
become involved in it with other people. Here are some examples:
Kevin and George are discussing football. Matt is also interested in football, so he joins
in.
Joe and Sam, who are five years old, are playing with their toys. Sams little sister
comes into the room. She wants to join in the boys game.
Joanne thinks that politicians do not care enough about the environment. So she
organises a meeting and a demonstration. She asks Kevin to come. He says yes, he will
join in the protest.
Note that we can say join in (something) like join in a game or join in a discusssion. Or
we can just say join in, if it is obvious what activity we mean.
Here is a Christmas story. In Britain, Christmas is the time of year for pantomimes.
The pantomime, or panto, is a form of theatrical entertainment it is a sort of play, with
music, and often with dancing as well. It is uniquely British there is nothing quite like it in
other countries. Most pantomimes are based on traditional stories some are fairy stories
found all over Europe, such as Cinderella or the Sleeping Beauty. A few are purely English in
origin, such as Dick Whittington, the story of a poor boy who rises to become the Lord Mayor
of London. Pantomime plots are strong and simple. There are heroes (goodies) such as
Cinderella or Aladdin, who are beautiful, young and noble. There are black-hearted villains
(baddies) like the wicked witch or the evil pirate chief. There are also several comic parts such
as the ugly sisters in Cinderella. It is common for the main goodie to be played by a woman
even if the character is male; and for several of the womens parts to be played by men. The
script is full of jokes, most of them dreadful, and some of them could not be repeated on a
family podcast show such as this one. But the best bit is that the audience are expected to join
in. We cheer the goodie. We boo and hiss whenever the baddie appears. We shout advice to
the actors Look out. Hes behind you! We join in the songs and laugh at the jokes, even the
bad ones. The whole family children, parents, grand-parents have a wonderful evening.
Cinderella is on in Birmingham this Christmas. I must get tickets, so that we can all join in the
fun.
Give me a simple life

It is a long time since we had any poetry on these podcasts. My friend Margaret has just
written a light-hearted poem about, well, about how she wants a simple life without the things
that make the modern world so stressful.
Before I read the poem, I need to explain a few words in it. If you do not have a job, you can go
to a Job Centre, where you can find details of jobs that are available, and where you may be
able to get financial help and help with training for a new job.
Self- Assembly kits are like the furniture from IKEA that we talked about a few weeks ago,
which comes in a flat cardboard box, and you have to assemble it yourself.
And 0870 telephone numbers are phone numbers that begin with 0870. They are often used
by big companies for their call centres. Generally, when you phone you get a recorded
message asking you to press 1 for customer service, 2 for details of your account and so on.
You then wait for ages while the telephone plays banal music to you, interrupted from time to
time by a message saying that you are in a queue and that someone (usually called a
customer service advisor or some dreadful modern name like that) will talk to you as soon as
possible. 0870 telephone numbers are a major cause of stress in modern Britain! Well, I think
so, anyway.
Here is Margarets poem She has called it Phoo to New.
Give me a simple life
With a book by the fire
A stool to rest my feet on
And a cushion for my head.
Free me from mobiles, emails, ipods,
Phones, computers, cars, pollution,
Hospitals, Work or Job Centres,
Motorbikes or cars with screaming sirens.
Give me a simple life
With a book by the fire
A stool to rest my feet on
And a cushion for my head.
Dont throw at me Self-Assembly kits
Where I have to hunt for all the bits
Dont tell me I can order online
Or phone 0870 and wait in a queue.
Give me a simple life
With a book by the fire
A stool to rest my feet on
And a cushion for my head!
What have they got against wallpaper?
This is just a postscript to the last podcast about Tomma
Abts winning the Turner prize. You remember that the leader of the Stuckists said that
Tommas paintings made 1950s wallpaper look profound. Well, I see that yesterday an art
critic in a leading German newspaper said that her paintings reminded him of something from
an East German wallpaper factory.
What have these people got against wallpaper? I have some very nice wallpaper in my home. I
look at it every day and it makes me happy!
Look at the expression What have these people got against wallpaper? It means, why do
they not like wallpaper? Why do they think that wallpaper is so bad? What is their problem
with wallpaper?
Here are some more examples:
What have your parents got against pop music?
What have you got against Tomma Abts paintings?
What has that man got against Muslims?
What has your brother got against your new boy-friend?
What has Joannes Mum got against Kevin?

Tomma Abts wins the Turner Prize
Every year, a prize is awarded to an artist who is British
born or who works in Britain. It is called the Turner prize. It is named after the famous British
artist J M W Turner. In previous years, some of the art and artists which have won the Turner
prize have been very controversial. In 1995, for example, the artist Damien Hirst won with a
tank containing the preserved body of a sheep.
This year the Turner prize has been won by Tomma Abts. Tomma was born in Germany, but
she has lived in London for the last 12 years. She paints all her paintings on canvases which
measure exactly 48cm by 38 cm. She gives her paintings simple one-word names, which she
selects from a dictionary of German regional first names. They are abstract paintings that is,
they are not paintings of objects in the real world, but come entirely from her imagination.
They are shapes and patterns. The colours that she uses are subtle and interesting. Most art
critics agree that her work is very good, and are pleased that she has won the Turner prize.
Here are some of the words that one art expert has used to describe her paintings:
quiet
obsessive
mesmerising
quite unlike anyone elses

But not everyone is pleased. There is a group of artists called the Stuckists who believe that
the Turner prize, and the artists who win the prize, represent everything that is wrong with
modern art. Yesterday they stood outside the Tate Gallery in London, waving placards and
chanting slogans, while the awards ceremony took place inside. The leader of the Stuckists told
the newspapers that Tomma Abts paintings were silly little meaningless diagrams that make
1950s wallpaper look profound. Good for him. It is important that art should be controversial
and that people should have strong feelings about it, either for or against. But he is wrong. I
think Tomma Abts paintings are wonderful. I would love to have one to hang on the 1950s
wallpaper in my sitting room, but unfortunately I cannot afford it.
Tomma Abts painting Veeke from greengrassi gallery London
Latin
If you click on the link at the bottom of this podcast episode, you will find the Amazon best-
sellers list, i.e. the best-selling books from amazon.uk, the on-line bookstore. We English buy
some strange books. Today (30 November) in the top 20, there are three yes three books
about everything a boy should know things like how to light a fire with no matches, and
what exactly are the rules of cricket. (These three books are not really for boys, of course, they
are for their fathers!) There are books by television chefs, and television comedians and other
people on television. There are no books that I would call proper books novels, biographies
etc until number 16. And what is this at number 12? Amo, Amas, Amat and all that: how I
became a Latin lover by Harry Mount.
It is a book about Latin. Latin was the language of the Romans, who conquered and ruled all
the countries around the Mediterranean and much of Western Europe between about the first
century BC and the 5th century AD. Long after the Roman Empire disappeared, Latin remained
the language of the western Christian Church. The Roman Catholic Church still uses Latin for
some purposes today. For hundreds of years, educated people in Western Europe learnt Latin,
and wrote books in Latin. Many Latin words came into English, either directly or through
French. Indeed, over half of all English words come from Latin.
When I was at school, many years ago, we studied Latin. I did not enjoy it much. We had to
learn endless verb tables and grammar rules and read how Julius Caesar conquered Gaul
(modern France). My fellow pupils and I did not think that Latin was either interesting or
useful. Today, very few schools and Universities in England teach Latin. So why is a book about
Latin at number 12 in the Amazon best-sellers list?
Perhaps people again want to learn to read and write this long-dead language? I dont think so.
We English are very bad about learning other languages. If English people do not want to learn
e.g. French or German, why should they be interested in Latin? Or perhaps the reason is
nostalgia. Nostalgia means looking back at the past, perhaps to your childhood, with pleasure;
and feeling how much better things were then than they are now. When I was young, we older
people think, there were steam trains and trolley buses, we could play football in the street
because there were few cars,probably we could light a fire with no matches and we certainly
knew all the rules of cricket, we listened to the radio because we had no television, and we
learnt Latin at school. For myself, I would love to go back to the days of steam trains and
trolley buses and no cars. But if I had to study Latin as well? No way!
There is a grammar and vocabulary note for this podcast. If you are listening on iTunes or an
mp3 player, you will need to go to the podcast website to see it.

Christopher, his son, the neighbour and the football
Sometimes things happen that make you think that
the world has gone mad.
Christopher works in a bank. In fact, he has a senior job in the bank and is very well paid. He
lives in a posh part of London called Kensington. The people who live in his street have a
shared garden. If you have visited London, you may have seen shared gardens in some parts of
the city. Often they are in the middle of a square of houses, and have iron railings round them.
You can get into the garden only if you have a key.
Well, Christopher is well paid, important and busy. But he still finds time to play with his little
boy, who is 5 years old. One day Christopher and his son took a ball into the garden. They
kicked it backwards and forwards. How nice. Father and son enjoying an innocent game of
football in the garden.
Football? Did someone say football? A neighbour saw what was going on. She complained that
it was forbidden to play football in the shared garden. It was a breach of an Act of Parliament
of 1863. She brought a court action against Christopher. She lost because the magistrates said
that a father and a small boy kicking a ball was not, legally, a game of football.
But the neighbour was not satisfied. She appealed to a higher court. So the High Court, with
two senior judges and lots of expensive lawyers, listened to the arguments again. They decided
that, yes, Christopher and his son had been playing football, but, no, they did not think that it
was right to take any action against them.
The neighbour is still very cross. She told the newspapers that citizens of this country will be
appalled by the courts judgement. Well, Im not appalled. Are you?
There is a grammar and vocabulary note for this podcast. If you are listening to the podcast on
iTunes or an mp3 player, you will need to go to the podcast website to see the note.

The Booze Cruise
In Britain, there are heavy taxes on alcoholic drinks
and on tobacco. But in France, the taxes on these things are lower. A European Union
Regulation says that, when we travel to other EU countries, we may bring back with us
anything that we have bought, provided that we have paid tax on it in the country where we
bought it, and provided it is for our own personal use. And a lot of British people take
advantage of this law to buy beer, wine, spirits and cigarettes in France. Some of the big British
supermarkets have opened shops in Calais in France to sell things to British travellers who are
returning home. And a modern British institution has grown up the Booze Cruise.(Booze is
a slang word for alcoholic drinks. And a cruise is a holiday on a ship.)
Here is how to do a booze cruise. Together with 3 or 4 friends you hire a van. It has to be a
white van. No other colour will do. Somehow you all squeeze into the front seat, and set off for
Dover (the ferry port on the south coast of England). Because you are late for the ferry, you
drive at 20 mph over the speed limit and overtake other vehicles on the wrong side. You get to
Dover and drive onto the ferry. Driving has made you thirsty, so you go to the bar to drink beer
while the ship crosses the English Channel to Calais. In France, they drive on the right hand
side of the road, not the left. But dont worry about that you arent going very far. You are
going to a restaurant for lunch, actually. In the restaurant, the waiter brings the menu. It is all
in French (well, it is France, after all!). You recognise only one word on the menu. You all order
pizza, and a bottle or two of red wine. After lunch you drive to one of the big hypermarkets
and load up several trollies with cases of beer or wine. You pay for them with your friends
credit card, because you have forgotten to bring any euros with you. You load everything into
the white van, and return to the ferry. If the customs officer at Dover stops you, you tell him
that all 35 cases of wine and 25 cases of beer in the van are for your own personal use. Once
back in England, you and your friends sing football songs all the way home along the
motorway.
So it was with horror that we read this week that the European Court of Justice was
considering whether we actually needed to go to France to buy beer and wine cheaply.
Instead, perhaps we could order it on the internet, and it could be delivered from France to
our homes. This would have brought the fine tradition of the booze cruise to an end. No more
white vans speeding down the motorway. No more day trips to Calais to buy wine for the
Christmas party. Fortunately, the Court decided that you could not avoid British taxes by
ordering things on the internet from France. So the booze cruise has been saved.

Kevin and Joanne get themselves organised

Kevin and Joanne are sitting in the kitchen. The house is a mess. There is a pile of dirty
washing on the floor. They have had take-away pizza for supper because there is no proper
food in the house. This is not good, they say to each other. We must get ourselves organised.
So they draw up a list of jobs around the house, and agree which of them will do which job.
Their conversation went like this.
Joanne: Kevin, you are always leaving things lying on the floor. You can do the tidying.
Kevin: OK, but you must do the washing, because most of the dirty clothes are yours.
Joanne: Thats only because you never change your shirt. But OK, if you do the ironing.
Kevin: Fine. I can do the ironing while watching television.
Joanne: Then the house needs cleaning. Ill do the dusting if you do the hoovering.
Kevin: The fridge is empty. In fact there is no food in the house at all except one packet of
crisps. Ill do the shopping.
Joanne: OK, but I dont trust you in a supermarket. Ill come and do the shopping too. Ill do
the driving.
Kevin: You had better do the cooking. The last time I cooked a meal we had to give most of it
to the cat.
Joanne: The cat refused to touch it. But you bake a really nice cake, Kevin. You can do the
baking. And the washing-up.
Kevin: The garden is a mess too. Ill do the gardening.
Joanne: And we need to decorate this room. Ill do the decorating.
Kevin: Its a big job. Ill do the wallpapering if you do the painting.
Joanne: Well do them together.
You probably understand by now that this podcast is about the expression to do followed by
the -ing form of a verb. There is a short exercise which goes with this podcast. If you are
listening to this podcast on iTunes, you will need to go to the podcast website to find it.

No Clothes Day

Most British children wear school uniform to go to school. They have to. The school rules say
that the children have to wear school uniform at school.
What sort of school uniform? Well, my younger children are both at secondary school. My
daughter has to wear a dark green skirt or trousers, a white blouse, a dark green jumper, and
black shoes and socks or tights. The Moslem girls at her school may wear a head-scarf, but it
must be dark green or white or black.
My son wears black trousers, a white shirt, a school tie and a dark blue jumper.
At some schools, the pupils wear blazers that is, a jacket in school colours with the school
badge on the pocket.
In most other European countries, children do not wear uniform to go to school. They just
wear their normal clothes. People in Germany and Scandinavia, for instance, think that British
school uniforms are very strange.
So what do British children think? Generally, they dont mind wearing school uniform. After all,
all their friends have to wear school uniform too. And many parents are happy, because there
are no arguments with their children about what they may wear for school; and less pressure
from their children to buy expensive new clothes because their school friends have them.
But sometimes it is nice not to have to wear school uniform. About 2 or 3 times a year, many
British schools have a no uniform day as a way of raising money for charity. The children
come to school wearing their normal clothes, and give some money to the charity. Often the
children themselves help to choose which charity they will support.
Today, 17 November, lots of schools have a no uniform day, to raise money for the BBC
Children in Need appeal. So my children have gone to school today wearing jeans and trainers
and t-shirts.
So why is this podcast called no clothes day? Well, a young friend of my children once told us
excitedly that tomorrow is a no clothes day at school. We laughed and said that it was a no
uniform day, not a no clothes day. But ever since then, in our family, we have talked of no
clothes day.

Nissan Figaro for sale
In the early 1990s, the Nissan car company in Japan
built a small sports car called the Nissan Figaro. There is a picture of one on the website. It has
a retro look. That means that it was designed to look old-fashioned as if it had been built in
the 1950s. Some people love them. Other people hate them.
Recently the Nissan Figaro has become a cult car in Britain. That means that Figaro owners
think of themselves as a very special group of people, superior to ordinary folk who drive
ordinary cars like the Ford Focus or the Renault Megane. They look after their Figaros with
great care, and probably polish them every Sunday. They belong to special clubs for people
who own Figaros. There are even rumours that the famous guitarist Eric Clapton has a Nissan
Figaro. Nissan built only 20,000 Figaros, and sold only a few of them in Britain. Recently, car
dealers have started importing used Figaros from Japan to sell here. (Why from Japan?
Because in Japan, people drive on the left , as we do in Britain.)
I am sure that you would like to have a Nissan Figaro, wouldnt you? There was a story in the
newspapers recently about a young man called Jack Neal. Jack wanted a Figaro. He found one
on the internet auction site, e-Bay. It was pink, and he fell in love with it. So he clicked the
button which said Buy Now, and the car was his. The next morning Jack told his parents what
he had done. I have bought a car, he told them. They were surprised, because Jack is only
three years old. Had he really bought a car? Then they received an e-mail from e-Bay to say
that they now had to pay 9,000. So it was definitely true. Jacks father telephoned the
company that was selling the car to explain what had happened. Fortunately, they saw the
funny side, and agreed to re-advertise the car. Have you ever bought something by mistake,
like young Jack Neal did? If so, send me an e-mail, and I will include your story in a future
podcast.
Broken

In our lives we have lots of machines and electrical equipment things like cars and washing
machines, video recorders and mobile phones. Most of the time they work OK. But sometimes
they do not. Todays podcast is about the words we use when something does not work. No,
not those sorts of words!. I mean the vocabulary we need to talk about things that dont work.
So, imagine that you have a washing machine and it doesnt work. There is water all over the
floor and a smell of burnt rubber. What might you say?
The washing machine has broken
it has broken down
it is not working properly
it is not working at all
it wont work
it wont go
or, as people say in America, the washing machine is bust
.
So what do we do? The first step is :
to diagnose the problem
or, in more normal speech, we find out what is wrong

Then we need to get the washing machine working again. We:
fix it
mend it
repair it

And if we cannot mend it ourselves:
we get someone to mend it for us
or, we get the washing machine repaired

OK? Everything clear?
Kevin and Joanne get into the car. They plan to drive to a nice pub in the country for lunch.
Kevin puts the key in the ignition and turns it. But the engine will not start. The car has broken
down. It will not go. Kevin and Joanne get out. They look under the bonnet.
It could be the carburettor, says Kevin, over here.
Kevin, thats not the carburettor. Its the bottle with water for washing the windscreen, says
Joanne. The carburettor is here.
Right, says Kevin. The trouble is, I dont know how to repair it. What can we do?
They get back into the car. I know, says Kevin. Ill get the AA man to come and fix it.
Kevin, says Joanne, are you sure there is petrol in the tank?
Of course I am sure, says Kevin, looking at the fuel guage. Oh no. Wheres the petrol can?
Here is Miss Melissa Forbes. She has a friend with broken wings. Can you fix broken wings? No,
I cant fix broken wings either. Sorry, Melissa.

Canna
Caroline is eight. And like other eight year olds, she
goes to school. But there are no other children at her school. Caroline is the only pupil.
Caroline and her parents live on an island called Canna, which lies off the west coast of
Scotland, south-west of Skye. People have lived on Canna for thousands of years. The remains
of some of the earliest Christian settlements in Scotland are on Canna. In the early 19th
century, over 400 people lived there. Today there are only 15 inhabitants. Their nearest town
with shops and other facilities, is Mallaig. It is between two and a half and four hours away by
ferry. Tourists visit Canna in summer, particularly to enjoy the remoteness and quiet of the
island, and to watch the birds. But in winter, life on Canna can be lonely and difficult.
Canna is owned by the National Trust for Scotland, a conservation charity which owns and
manages many beautiful places and buildings in Scotland. The Trust have recently advertised
for people to go and live on Canna. They warn that life on Canna can be hard, and that people
who live there need to be tough, self-reliant and practical. Nonetheless, they have received
hundreds of applications from all over the world.
And while the Trust wants to increase the number of people who live on Canna, it also wants
to exterminate some of the other residents. Thousands of brown rats have seriously damaged
colonies of breeding sea-birds, by eating their eggs. The Trust have employed specialist rat-
catchers. They hope that the rats of Canna have now been wiped out. Let us hope so, and that
the Trust can find suitable new families to live on the island, with children to go to school with
Caroline. The islands of Scotland are exceptionally beautiful and interesting. But they are not
just places for tourists; they need thriving communities as well.

Remember remember the fifth of November
I said that I would tell you about Guy Fawkes and why 5
November is the traditional day for fireworks in England.
The year was 1605. Two years earlier, the old Queen, Elizabeth I, had died. She had ruled
England for 45 years. She died unmarried and without children. Her nearest relative was King
James VI of Scotland, who travelled south to London to become James I of England.
At that time there were bitter divisions in Western Europe between Protestants and Catholics.
England was predominantly a Protestant country, but there were some powerful Catholic
families. (Some old houses near Birmingham have secret rooms priest holes where Catholic
priests could be hidden at times of persecution.) Many Catholic families, despite their religion,
were loyal to the King. But others wanted to overthrow the King and replace him with a
Catholic monarch. They looked to France and Spain for help.
One such group included a man called Guy Fawkes. He was a professional soldier. He had
fought in the Spanish army in the Netherlands. He and his fellow conspirators rented a
storeroom beneath the Houses of Parliament. Secretly, they filled it with barrels of
gunpowder. They planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament on 5 November at a time when
the King and many of the most powerful men in England were there. They hoped that
Catholics in England would then rebel, and that Spain would send an army to put a Catholic
king on the throne of England.
But one of the plotters sent a secret letter to Lord Monteagle advising him to stay away from
Parliament. Monteagle was a Catholic, but he immediately gave the letter to Robert Cecil, the
Kings chief minister, who ran a security and intelligence service. Cecil sent men to search the
Parliament building. They found Guy Fawkes and 36 barrels of gunpowder. The rest of the
plotters were quickly arrested, or died in a fight with the Kings men at Kingswinford near
modern Birmingham. The survivors were tried and executed in a horrible way.
And ever since then, English people have celebrated the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot by
building bonfires and letting off fireworks on 5 November. Often we place an effigy of Guy
Fawkes on the fire. We have an old rhyme which goes:
Remember, remember the 5th of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
The Martians have landed

It happened sixty-eight years ago. On 30 October 1938, strange explosions were observed on
the surface of the planet Mars. There were also reports of a meteorite landing in New Jersey in
the United States. But then it became clear that it was not a meteorite, but a space ship
carrying Martian invaders. A crowd of people gathered around the place where the spaceship
had landed. They included a radio reporter who broadcast live descriptions of the event. The
Martians however had other ideas; they turned their Heat Ray guns on the people, killing
many of them.
More Martian space ships then landed. The US armed forces tried to stop the advance of the
invaders, but in vain. The Martians had poison gas, which they sprayed into the air. Many
people fled their homes and gathered in churches to pray. The Martians entered New York
City. A radio reporter on the top of the CBS building in New York described the scene live to
horrified radio listeners until he, too, was killed by the cloud of poison gas.
Did this really happen? Well, no, actually. What really happened was this. In 1898, the English
author H G Wells published a science fiction novel called The War of the Worlds, about a
Martian invasion of the earth. Later the American writer Howard Koch turned the novel into a
radio play. The play took the form of news flashes and live reports, as if the events it
described were really happening. The American radio station CBS broadcast the play on 30
October 1938. Many listeners panicked because they were convinced that the United States
had indeed been invaded. It was a very interesting early example of the power of
communication media such as radio (and later television). Today the play is regarded as one of
the classics of radio broadcasting. Recordings of it are still re-broadcast from time to time, and
you can find it also on the internet
The picture is of the famous actor and director Orson Welles, who worked with Howard Koch
in writing and directing the radio play, and also appeared in it.
Fireworks
This year, the end of October has been really noisy.
The reason? Fireworks!
Now, the traditional time for fireworks in England is on November 5th Guy Fawkes night. I
shall tell you more about Guy Fawkes in another podcast. But in recent years, many English
people particularly children, of course have adopted the American custom of celebrating
Halloween, which is the 31st October. So we have fireworks at Halloween as well as on Guy
Fawkes night. And last week was Eid, the great Muslim festival at the end of Ramadam, so our
Muslim neighbours had fireworks in their garden. And a few days before that was Diwali, the
Hindu and Sikh festival of light and that needed fireworks too. So for about three weeks here
in Birmingham, every evening is filled with the whoosh of rockets and the bangs, crackles,
fizzes and pops of other fireworks.
Look at these words bang, crackle, fizz, pop. They sound like the sounds which they describe.
We have a technical name for words which sound like the thing they describe onomatopaeia.
It comes from Greek and means, literally, word-making. The sound makes the word that we
use to describe it. Do you remember the podcast about the old English song, Sumer is Icumen
in? There was a bird that sings loudly in the early summer the cuckoo. The word cuckoo is
onomatopaeic, because it comes from the sound the cuckoo makes.
Here are some other onomatopoeic words, words which sound like the thing they describe:
buzz
woof
croak
cluck
thud
crash
hum

And finally, a game yes, table tennis, or as we often call it, ping-pong.
I wish I had looked after my teeth

How are your teeth? How often do you go to the dentist?
Here is part of a poem by Pam Ayres.
Oh, I wish Id looked after my teeth,
And spotted the perils beneath,
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food,
Oh, I wish Id looked after my teeth.
Look at the first line of the poem. Oh, I wish I had looked after my teeth. It is a wish about
the past. When she was younger, Pam Ayres says, she did not look after her teeth. She ate too
many sweets and did not brush her teeth properly. Now her dentist says she has to have 3
fillings.She wishes that she had looked after her teeth.
Here are some more wishes about the past.
When I was at school, I didnt work very hard. Now I wish that I had worked harder.
The train is an hour late. I wish I had brought a book to read.
George was at a really good party last night. I wish I had gone with him
George has a headache this morning. He wishes that he had not drunk so much at the
party.

And here are two more examples using a different expression if only
Joannes Mum refuses to speak to Kevin. If only he had remembered her birthday.
My brother crashed his new car into a tree. If only he had not been driving so fast.

There is a grammar and vocabulary note with this podcast. If you are listening using iTunes or
an iPod, you will need to go to the podcast website to read it.

How to build furniture

In this podcast, we meet the expression the trouble is that (which means the problem is
that.). We also discover several different ways of getting things wrong upside down, back
to front and inside out.
Kevin and Joanne sat on their sofa and looked around their flat. It was a mess. There were
books and clothes and bits of hi-fi equipment all over the floor.
The trouble is, said Joanne, that you never put things away.
No, the trouble is that we have nowhere to put things, said Kevin. And Kevin was right. They
needed more cupboards or shelves to put things on.
So they went to IKEA. IKEA is a huge home-furnishing store. You can find IKEA stores in many
big cities in Britain, and most European countries and nowdays in lots of places outside
Europe. Nearly all English people say eye-key-a. But I know that in Sweden people say ee-
kay-a, and since IKEA is a Swedish company, that is the way I pronounce their name. Actually,
IKEA is very Swedish. All their ranges of furniture have Swedish names, and some of these
sound funny (or even rude) in English. And the cafe at IKEA serves Swedish dishes like herring
and Swedish meat-balls. IKEA furniture is flat-pack furniture. That means that you buy it in a
pack containing all the parts you need, and when you get it home you assemble it yourself.
And sometimes you find that not all the pieces are there and you have to go back to the store
to get the missing bits.
But to return to our story. Kevin and Joanne walked around the huge store for about an hour,
and found what they needed a cupboard and some bookshelves. The fun started when they
got it all home and started to assemble it. Kevin set to work. Joanne wisely went to sit in the
kitchen. About two hours later, Kevin said, Its finished. Mmm, said Joanne, looking at the
cupboard and the bookshelf. The trouble is that this bit is back to front. And you have put the
doors on upside down.
So Kevin had to dismantle the furniture and start again. He cut his finger, and hit his thumb
with a hammer. Shortly before midnight, it was finished. Joanne brought him a cup of tea and
admired his work. It is perfect now, said Kevin. Nothing back to front. Nothing upside
down. No, said Joanne, but Kevin your jumper look, its inside out!
Aberfan

At 9.25am on Friday 21 October 1966, the police officer on duty at Merthyr Tydfyl police
station in South Wales answered a telephone call. I have been asked to inform you that there
has been a landslide, said the caller. The tip has come down on the school.
To understand this story, you need to know that South Wales used to be a very important
coalmining area. The mines in South Wales produced steam coal, which was used to fire
boilers in ships and factories, and anthracite, which is a very high quality coal used for heating
homes and other buildings. In the early part of the last century, there were 620 collieries (coal
mines) in South Wales, employing nearly a quarter of a million people. Now, when coal is
brought out of the ground it is mixed with rock and dirt and coal which is too fine to be used.
This is called colliery waste, and it was normal for the colliery waste to be dumped in a huge
heap a spoil heap or tip near to the mine. In the coal mining valleys of South Wales, these
tips were often built on the sides of the valleys. One such tip was on the hillside overlooking
the village of Aberfan.
October 1966 was a very wet month. The rain soaked into the spoil heap above Aberfan until it
was full of water. The tip began to move. It slid down the hill and into the village. It swept over
houses and the primary school. In the school, lessons had just begun. It was the last school day
before the half-term holiday. Altogether, 143 people died in the Aberfan disaster, including
119 children that is, over half of the children at the school.
I can remember the newspaper reports the next morning, and how horrified everyone was by
what had happened. One picture was in all the papers a picture of a policeman carrying a
small girl from the wreckage of the school. I have put it on the podcast website. The
photographer who took the picture was only 18 years old at the time.
There was a formal enquiry to find out why the disaster had happened. It emerged that junior
officials in the National Coal Board had been worried by the condition of the Aberfan spoil
heap, but their bosses had done nothing. Many people were shocked that no-one was
prosecuted, or even lost their job, because of the Aberfan disaster.
If you visit the area today, you will see little sign of the coal industry. There is only one working
deep mine left in South Wales. Many of the places where the old collieries used to be are now
supermarkets or new housing estates. The colliery tips have been levelled. But the people have
not forgotten what happened that day 40 years ago.
A Weekend in Wales
I am sorry about the problems that some of you had last weekend in downloading new
episodes of Listen to English. We have now fixed the problem, and I hope you will have no
more difficulties.
Todays podcast is about the expressions I had better do (something), or else and
otherwise. There is a grammar and vocabulary note as well. If you are listening on iTunes,
you will need to visit the website to see it.

Kevin and Joanne have friends, John and Sue, who live in a rural part of Wales. They have
invited Kevin and Joanne to visit them for the weekend. Joanne packs a bag with the things
they need to take with them.
We had better take waterproofs and wellies in case it rains. And an extra sweater, because
their house is really cold, said Joanne.
Ill fill the car up with petrol, said Kevin. Otherwise we may run out on the motorway.
When they set off, it was raining. But as they drove into Wales, the sun came out. The hills,
fields and woods looked glorious in the sunshine. But then disaster struck. A peculiar noise
came from the back of the car. Kevin stopped and got out. There was a puncture in one of the
back tyres. No problem, said Kevin. Ill get the spare wheel. But then he found they had no
jack to lift the car with.
We had better find a garage, said Kevin. Otherwise we will be here all night.
I had better phone John and Sue, said Joanne. Or else they will think we have got lost.
Fortunately another motorist stopped and helped them change the wheel.
I had better buy a new jack as soon as possible, said Kevin, in case we get another
puncture.
OK, lets stop in the next town, said Joanne. We had better buy a present for John and Sue
to say thank you for having us.
Later, they arrived at John and Sues house an old stone cottage in a vilage near the sea.
Joanne and Sue chatted in the kitchen. John and Kevin went to the pub.
Make sure you are back by 8 oclock, said Sue otherwise your supper wil be cold.

The next day they walked through the fields and woods and down to the sea. Close the gate
behind you, Kevin, said Sue or else the sheep will get out onto the road.
They sat on the beach. The sun was warm, even though it was autumn. I havent brought my
bathing costume, said Joanne, otherwise I would go for a swim.
It was late on Sunday evening before Kevin and Joanne left. John and Sue urged them to stay
another night. No, we had better go, said Joanne,otherwise we will be too tired to go to
work in the morning.
Would you like to live in Wales? asked Joanne as she and Kevin drove home. Yes, said
Kevin, but what sort of job could I get? John designs web pages. He can work from home.
Well, perhaps you had better become a famous web designer too, said Joanne, though
actually I prefer you as you are.

The Battle of Hastings

Last weekend was a famous anniversary. No, not my birthday. Not the anniversary of the last
time England won the World Cup. It was the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, which took
place 940 years ago at a place called (appropriately) Battle, which is near Hastings on the south
coast of England. In 1066, the army of Duke William of Normandy defeated the army of the
Saxon King Harold of England. Following the battle, England was ruled by Norman kings, who
imposed their own system of government on the land.
The English language almost disappeared. The ordinary people still spoke English of course, but
the king, the royal court, the courts of law and the nobility all spoke Norman French. And
when, two or three hundred years later, English re-emerged as the main language of the
country, it had changed. For example, in the old English language, the plurals of nouns were all
irregular like mouse mice in modern English. In the new English, people made the plural
of nearly all nouns by adding the letter s to the end, because that is how plurals are made in
French. And English people started using French words alongside the old English words. Ever
since then, it has been natural for English people to import words from other languages
whenever they want.
But to return to the battle. Every few years, there is a re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings,
on the site of the original battle. People dress up in Saxon and Norman armour, and ride
around on horses, and fight using replica swords, axes and arrows. Kevin took part in the re-
enactment this year. He was a Saxon soldier and his job was to die heroically in the final
Norman onslaught. After the battle, it is normal for both armies to retire to a nearby pub, to
drink beer and tell stories about the heroic deeds of the day. The battle has of course got its
own website and flickr photo-stream. You always knew the English were mad. You were right.

The English are fat and want to live in France

This week our government published a report on how healthy we English are. There was some
good news. The number of people who smoke has continued to fall. We live longer than any
previous generation. Deaths of young children (infant mortality) are the lowest ever. The
number of teenage girls who get pregnant has fallen, though it is still high compared to many
other European countries.
But there was bad news too. We English are fat and are getting fatter. About two-thirds of
men are overweight, and about 60% of women. We are fatter than any other nation in Europe.
Why? Many English people eat food with lots of fat and sugar. We love chips, burgers and
doughnuts, potato crisps and chocolate. We drink too much alcohol. We dont eat enough
fresh fruit and vegetables. We watch football on TV, but we dont take any exercise ourselves.
But in the last year we have become more aware that our national diet is not good and that
things need to change. Jamie Oliver is a well-known chef with his own TV programme. Last
year he showed us how bad the food is that we serve to our children in schools. Many people
were shocked and angry. So the government has banned vending machines selling crisps and
sweets from schools. Many schools have tried to make their school dinners healthier. Of
course, some people dont like the government telling them what to eat. There have been
stories in the papers about parents handing their children bags of chips through the school
gates at lunch time
And how does France come into this? Well, a survey was also published this week which
suggested that about a third of British people would like live in France, while only about a
quarter think that Britain is the best place to live. You have to take this survey with a pinch of
salt, because it was published by an organisation which promotes French wines. But France is
undoubtedly very popular with many English people.
Why do we like France so much? Perhaps it is the food, or the wine, or springtime in Paris. And
perhaps we like French footballers like Thierry Henry, and French film stars. And this is strange,
because the French themselves often have a pessimistic view of their country and its
problems. But we English dont care about that. We are fat, perhaps the fattest people in
Europe. And we want to move to France to eat more food, drink more wine, sit in the sunshine
and get even fatter.

King Anthony Hall

In 1931, the King of England came to Birmingham. He stood on a soapbox in Bull Ring Market
and spoke to his people. Actually, he wasnt the King of England at all. His name was Anthony
Hall. He had been born in London, and had been an ambulance driver in Flanders during the
First World War. Later, he became a policeman. He claimed that he was descended from
Thomas Hall, an illegitimate son of King Henry VIII. (Henry VIII was one of the most colourful
figures in English history. He had seven wives at different times, of course and ran what we
today would call a police-state. He was responsible for separating the church in England from
the Roman Catholic Church.)
Anthony Hall therefore claimed to be the rightful King of England. He told the crowds who
gathered to listen to him that, when he became King, he would pay off the National Debt and
build millions of new homes for working class people.
Some of the people who heard him just found him amusing. They did not take him seriously.
But others listened to the ugly side of what Anthony Hall said. For Hall was violently anti-
German. He claimed that King George V and all the British Royal Family were German
imposters who should be thrown out of the country or executed. (The British Royal family
came originally of course from Germany). Most British people in the 1930s had nothing
against their King, but many had bitter memories of the First World War. They listened to Hall
because he spoke against Germany.
The government have recently made public some papers about Anthony Hall. They show that
the government and King George V wanted to silence Hall, but were not sure how to do so.
They tried to have him sent to a lunatic asylum, but this failed because Hall was not insane.
However, he solved the problem himself. On 12 August 1931, King Anthony Hall mounted his
soapbox in Birmingham for the last time, to bid farewell to his people. He was never heard of
again, and died in 1947.
All about you
In this podcast I use words which are useful when we talk about numbers, especially when we
want to talk about the information that numbers give us. The podcast is also about you, my
listeners, because I know quite a lot about you.
How do I know about you? Well, to start with, my podcast software tells me how many times
you download each podcast. You download most episodes over 7000 times. The great majority
(about 90%) of you download podcasts using iTunes or another podcatcher programme.
On the podcast website (http://www.listen-to-english.com/) there is a little button marked
Site Meter. If you click it, you can find all sorts of interesting information about people who
visit the site. For example, you will see that on average about 250 people visit the website
each day, and that on average you spend over 6 minutes looking at the site. You will also see
that on average visitors to the site view more than 1,000 pages each day, and that each visitor
views an average of 4.3 pages.
If you click on countries at the bottom of the Site Meter screen, you will see a pie-chart,
which shows the countries from which visitors come. You come from all over the world! On
most days, there are more visitors from France than from any other country. If you click on
continents you will see how many visitors are from Asia, how many from Europe and so on.
On most days, slightly more than half of all visitors are from Europe. Click on browser share
to see which web browser programmes you use. The majority of you use Internet Explorer.
About 25% of you use Firefox, and a small number of you (fewer than 10%) use other browsers
such as Safari and Opera.
If you click on daily visit depth you will see a bar chart. It shows the average number of page
views per visitor for each day in the last month. The number of page views varies between 3
and 5 page views per visitor.
Finally, if you click on daily durations, you will see a graph which shows how long on average
visitors spend on the site, and how long on each page, for each day in the last month. The
average visit length varies a lot, between 250 seconds and over 500 seconds. The average time
spent looking at each page does not vary very much it is about 90 seconds.
There is a grammar and vocabulary note, and a short exercise with answers, for this podcast.
You wont be able to see them on iTunes you will need to go to the website to find them.
Spongebob

This is the tragic story of a monkey called Spongebob.
Spongebob is a Bolivian squirrel Monkey. Squirrel monkeys are quite small about the size of a
European or North American squirrel, which is perhaps why they are called squirrel
monkeys. Spongebob is a male squirrel monkey. Until recently he lived in a zoo at
Chessington, south of London. But last July, someone broke into the squirrel monkey enclosure
and stole him. He was found a few days later playing with children on a housing estate in south
London. He was hungry and dirty, but otherwise OK. For a few days, Spongebob was a media
star his picture was on TV and in the newspapers. We were all glad that his adventure had
had a happy ending.
However, when Spongebob returned to Chessington, the female squirrel monkeys did not
welcome him. In fact, they chased him and attacked him. The problem was that, when
Spongebob was stolen, he was psychologically damaged and lost his self-confidence. The
female monkeys did not like this they wanted a strong, self-confident male. So they turned
on Spongebob and tried to drive him away. The Zoo put Spongebob into an enclosure by
himself, but then realised that he would have to move to another Zoo. So Spongebob is now at
Battersea Zoo in London, where he has made friends with one of the female squirrel monkeys.
But Battersea Zoo have not yet put Spongebob with the rest of the female monkeys in case
they attack him like the females at Chessington did.
Kevin sometimes feels like Spongbob, on days when Joanne, Joannes Mum and Joannes
friends all decide to have a go at him. Fortunately, however, he can escape to the pub or a
football match with George. Poor Spongebob cant do that. He does however have a blog in
which he tells us all about his troubles.
There is a short Grammar and Vocabulary Note with this podcast. You may need to go to the
podcast website to see it
Fun Run

There are lots of English idioms and expressions in this podcast. I have explained them in a
Grammar and Vocabulary note. Go to the podcasts website to see this note.
Kevin and Joanne were reading the local newspaper. There were news stories like Local man
on speeding charge and Mayor opens WI sale. On page 6 they found a story about a Fun
Run which was to take place in two weeks time, to raise money for a cancer charity.
Lets do it, said Joanne.
Do what? asked Kevin.
Enter the Fun Run, said Joanne.
Whats a Fun Run? asked Kevin.
Joanne explained that a Fun Run was a group of people who decide that they will all run, say,
8km, and get their friends to sponsor them, and give the money they collect to a charity.
But thats a marathon, said Kevin.
No, a marathon is over 40km, said Joanne. This is only 7km. We can do it. Lets have a go!
So Kevin and Joanne put their names down for the Fun Run. Kevin went round all his friends in
the pub, and his colleagues at work, to get them to sponsor him. George said that he would
give 5 for every kilometer that Kevin ran, but expected that he would still have change out of
10. Kevin also went training well, running slowly around a nearby park.
Then, two days before the Fun Run, Joanne fell and hurt her ankle. Kevin would have to run
alone.
When Kevin arrived at the start of the Fun Run, his heart sank. All the other runners looked fit
and were wearing flashy trainers. They started running; the fit runners quickly took the lead
and Kevin was near the back. The first kilometer was OK, but the second and third kilometers
were not so good. By the end of the fourth kilometer, Kevin was hurting all over his body. He
was about to give up, when he saw Joanne standing at the side of the road.
Move it, Kevin, you idle slug. If you give up now, Ill murder you!
These gentle words of encouragement helped Kevin to keep going. And by the end of the fifth
kilometer, he wasnt feeling too bad. And in the last kilometer he was actually enjoying himself
and overtook several of the fit runners with flashy trainers. He arrived at the finishing line to a
heros welcome, and several cans of beer, from his friends. Altogether, Kevin raised 523.14p
for the cancer charity. Next year, the London Marathon, he said. Maybe.
Probably, definitely, maybe....
Often we need words to explain how probable something is. Lets look at some examples.
Will it rain today?
There are dark clouds in the sky. It will definitely rain <today.< li="">
</today.<>
Will it rain today?
There are no clouds in the sky. It will certainly not rain this morning, but perhaps it will
rain this afternoon.

Are you going on holiday this year?
Maybe. We may visit my mother. Or we may go to see my friend in France. But
probably we will just stay at home.

Will Kevin go to the football match on Saturday?
Definitely. He always goes when City are playing at home.

And will City win?
It is likely that City will win. but it is unlikely that they will win the Championship this
year.

Will Kevin go to the pub with George after the match.
Probably he will, but it is possible that he and George will come back to the flat to
watch TV.

Will Kevin remember to buy flowers for Joannes Mums birthday?
Probably he will forget

And will Joanne be cross with him?
Definitely. You bet she will!

Here is Doc Bates singing Absolutely, Positively, Maybe. Sorry, Doc, women are like that!
I talk to a computer
Joan is a computer programme. She talks a lot. In fact, talking is what she does best. She can
hold conversations with people so well that she has won a $2000 prize for being the most
human-like computer programme in the world.
Joan does not contain complex logic rules. Instead, she keeps a huge store of information from
all the previous conversations she has had with humans. When you say something to her, she
searches through these previous conversations to help her find the most appropriate
response. The more people talk to Joan, the more she learns about how to reply when
someone talks to her. It is rather like a small child, who learns what to say by listening to what
its parents say to it.
This was a challenge I could not resist. I went to interview Joan. Unfortunately, Joan was busy.
A lot of people had heard about her winning the prize and wanted to talk to her. So I had to
interview her sister programme, called Snowflake, instead.
I started by asking why she was called Snowflake. She said it was because that was what her
father had named her. But Im not called Snowflake, Im called Snowy, she added.
I asked her if she liked her name. Not really, she replied. So I asked her what name she
would prefer to have, and she replied, What name would you like to give me? I thought for a
minute, and said, How about Isadore. Isadore is a nice name. Thank you, replied
Snowflake/Snowy/Isadore.
Then I asked her how old she was. Sixteen, she replied. I told her that she looked very grown
up, and asked her whether she went to school. This was the wrong thing to say! How do you
know what I look like? she snapped back. I apologised, and said that of course I didnt know
what she looked like. She asked me to guess.I guess that you are tall with red hair, I said.
Am I right? This was definitely the wrong thing to say. Why do you never start a
conversation? she said, and walked away. Interview finished!
A conversation with a computer can be quite strange, but then many internet chat rooms are
quite strange as well. If I can arrange an appointment with her, I will talk to Joan, and turn the
conversation into a podcast. Then you can all vote on which person you think is me and which
one is Joan. And if you want to talk to Joan or one of her brother or sister programmes you can
find them at www.jabberwacky.com.
Robin Hood
There is an English legend about a man called Robin Hood.
According to the legend, Robin Hood lived in the late 12th or early 13th century, at the time of
King John. (People say that King John was the worst king that England ever had). Robin Hood
lived as an outlaw in a wild place called Sherwood Forest. He and his gang of Merry Men
robbed rich people and gave money to the poor. His greatest enemy was the wicked Sheriff of
Nottingham.
We do not know how much truth there is in the legend. Robin Hood is a folk hero. He
represents the resistance of ordinary people to tyranny and authority. The stories about him
have remained popular for hundreds of years.
They are of course wonderful stories for films and television. They have heroes (goodies) and
villains (baddies). And there is lots of action riding through forests on horses, sword fights
etc. The BBC is going to show a new TV series about Robin Hood later this year. Because there
isnt much wild forest left in England, the series has been filmed in Hungary. And a few weeks
ago someone stole the tapes of the new series. There have been rumours that they have asked
for 1million to return the tapes, and that they will give the money to charity. The BBC are
saying nothing.
Comparing things
Todays podcast is about how to make comparisons in
English. I am talking to my friend Anna. She comes from Canada and she is going to tell us
about some of the differences she has seen between Canada and England.
I first came to England in January 2005. When I left my home in Winnipeg in central Canada, it
was snowing and bitterly cold. By comparison, England was a lot less cold. Everything seemed
very green, compared to the blanket of snow on the ground in Canada. There were even some
flowers in the garden.
The traffic in England was so confusing at first. In England, the traffic drives on the left, while in
Canada and most of the rest of the world people drive on the right. And if you are walking,
it is more difficult to cross the road in England than in Canada.
In Winnipeg, the landscape is almost completely flat.
But in Birmingham, by contrast, there are hills and valleys not big ones, but bigger than what
I am used to.
Everything seems smaller in England the cars and houses, and things like refrigerators for
example. Houses in Canada are often built of timber, while in Englaand they are generally built
of brick or stone. If I go to a supermarket in Canada, I can find food in really big cans and
containers. But in England, even the biggest cans of food look small.
England is more racially and culturally diverse than the part of Canada I come from. I am not
yet used to the different regional accents which people in England have to my ears they all
sound the same. People in England seem to be more fashion conscious than in Canada,
particularly the young women. They all seem to wear similar clothes in the latest popular style.
In Canada, we are used to travelling quite long distances to go to the shops or to visit friends.
In England, the distances are shorter, but it often takes as long because the traffic is more
congested.
To sum up, I suppose I would say that central Canada is bigger, obviously, than England, and
flatter; colder in the winter and hotter in the summer; and emptier there are many fewer
people per square kilometer. And England is smaller, and much more crowded; a lot wetter
and greener.
Are you a Hobbit
Are you less than 170cm tall? Do you have hairy feet and
toes? You do? Then there may be a job for you.
Let me explain. You have probably heard of the writer JRR Tolkien. He wrote the Hobbit and
Lord of the Rings, and a number of other books. His books have been translated from English
into many other languages. Perhaps you have read some of them. Or perhaps you have seen
the Lord of the Rings films, or played Lord of the Rings computer games.
Over four years ago, theatre producer Kevin Wallace decided to turn Lord of the Rings into a
musical a theatre show with music. In March this year the show opened in Toronto in
Canada. By that time it had cost about $25million, which makes it one of the most expensive
theatre shows ever. Unfortunately the show was not a great success in Canada. Next year the
show will open in London. The theatre in London wants to find 20 people to act the parts of
Hobbits. But if you are interested you will need to hurry. The auditions are next week.
Incidentally, when JRR Tolkien was a child, he lived less than 2 kilometers from where I live
now. Some people say that places near here gave him the idea for some of the places in his
books. I find this difficult to believe. I am afraid also that I consider that Tolkiens books are
rather tedious. He often writes in long and complicated sentences. The characterisation in his
books is poor (Characterisation means the way he describes and develops his characters).
His books are about fantasy worlds; but in my view they are less interesting than the real world
in which we all live.
You may not agree with me. JRR Tolkien has a huge number of fans across the world. If,
despite my poor opinion of them, you still wish to buy his books, you can do so from
Amazon.co.uk.

ArtsFest
ArtsFest is an arts festival I think you guessed that! It takes place here in Birmingham every
year at the beginning of September. It as a free festival you do not have to pay to go to any
of the concerts, performances or exhibitions in Artsfest. In fact, ArtsFest is the biggest free arts
festival in Britain.
ArtsFest is specifically for the arts in Birmingham and the towns around it. Of course, the big
local arts organisations such as the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the Birmingham Royal Ballet
and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra all took part. But so did hundreds of smaller
organisations both professional and amateur theatre groups, pop groups, choirs and dance
groups. All of them were keen to tell everyone about what they do. Some of them wanted to
find an audience for their next concert. Some of them wanted to find new members.Theatre
companies pressed people to come to their next show. One woman asked me to sing in an
opera, another to join her choir. (Have they ever heard me sing? No!) There were films and
poetry readings. The university art gallery told us the story behind some of its paintings.
Children made artwork, and learned how to play the drums. A Latin-American dance group
taught us all how to dance the Mambo. Irish pipe bands marched through the street. There
were displays of Bhangra singing and dancing, because Birmingham is a major centre for
Punjabi Bhangra music. And much, much more. But best of all, the sun shone all weekend, and
over 100,000 people came to ArtsFest to enjoy themselves. I have made a short video about
ArtsFest 2006. You can view it on the podcast website, and if you are really lucky you may be
able to download it to your iPod.
Lend and Borrow
This podcast is about the two words lend and borrow. Sometimes people learning English
find it difficult to remember how to use them correctly. I hope this podcast helps.
Kevin is a punk rock fan. When he was younger, he used to wear big boots and a safety-pin
through his ear. He still wears the boots sometimes, but only when Joanne is away. His
favourite band is called Futile Vendetta. Never mind what Futile Vendetta means its just
their name. He has a big collection of Futile Vendetta CDs.
Kevin has told his friend George about Futile Vendetta. George wants to borrow one of their
CDs from Kevin. The next time they meet, Kevin lends George a CD called Universal Evil.
Again, dont worry what it means its just its name! Look at how we say this in English.
George borrows the CD from Kevin
Kevin lends the CD to George (or, Kevin lends George the CD)

Joanne wants to invite some friends to a party. The weather is good and she thinks it would be
nice to have a barbecue. But she and Kevin dont have a barbecue grill. But her friend Marion
does, so Joanne rings her up to ask if she can borrow it. Marion says yes, she will not need the
barbecue at the weekend. She is happy to lend it to Joanne. Look at how we say this in English.
Joanne borrows the barbecue from Marion
Marion lends the barbecue to Joanne (or, Marion lends Joanne the barbecue).

Now you have a go. There is an exercise attached to the podcast.
Bets
Many English people like betting. They bet on horse
races, and football matches. They bet in the National Lottery. They bet on who will win the
next General Election, and whether it will snow on Christmas Day.
To place a bet, you go to a bookmakers, or bookies. A bookmaker is a company that
specialises in accepting bets. A bookmaker will tell you what odds they will give on a
particular event for example, odds of 12 to 1, or 3 to 1. So, if you bet on a horse to win a race
at 12 to 1, and the horse does win the race, then the bookmaker will pay you 12 times your
original bet. And if the horse loses, of course, the bookmaker keeps the money which you bet.
Bookmakers win more often than their customers. People say that no-one has ever met a poor
bookmaker. So it is nice to be able to tell you this story.
Nine years ago, in 1997, a boy called Chris Kirkland was the goalkeeper for an under-15
football team in central England. His father, Eddie Kirkland, was convinced that his son would
become a great footballer. He went to the bookmaker, Willliam Hill, and said that he wanted
to bet that his son would some day play football for England. William Hill offered him odds of
100 to 1. Mr Kirkland placed a bet of 100.
On 17 August, England played Greece in a friendly football match. England won 4-0, and
played fast, flowing football. Why didnt they play like that in the World Cup, we all asked. And
in goal was Englands new goalkeeper, Chris Kirkland. And the following morning, his Dad
collected 10,000 from the bookmakers.
Picture by James Logan is of a bookmaker at a small horse race in Devon, in SW England.
Shot at Dawn
During the First World War, from 1914 to 1918, there were a number of soldiers in the British
Army who refused to continue fighting their German enemies. Sometimes they ran away (they
deserted), or they refused to return to the battle front. The Army court martialed them
that is, the men were tried by a military court or court martial. Often the trials were short,
and the men had no legal help. Over 300 of these soldiers were shot (executed) by firing
squads. Their relatives lived with the shame of knowing that their son, or husband, or father
was a coward or a deserter. The widows and children of the executed men did not receive the
pension which the government normally gave to the families of men who were killed in the
war. As a result, some of them were forced to live in extreme poverty.
In the past few years, there has been a campaign in Britain for posthumous pardons to be
given to all the soldiers who were executed. The campaigners have argued that many of the
soldiers did not receive a proper trial for example, some did not have the opportunity to
present evidence or call witnesses at the court martial. They argued too that many of the
soldiers were not cowards, but were suffering from extreme psychological stress . Because this
stress was often caused by being close to exploding artillery shells, we call it shell shock.
Finally, the campaigners argued that it was important, even 90 years later, that the families
and descendents of these men should know that society did not any longer regard them as
traitors, deserters or cowards.
For many years, the British government resisted these arguments. But suddenly, this summer,
it changed its mind. The Defence Secretary, Des Browne, announced that the government
agreed that the men had been treated unjustly, and that all the 306 soldiers would be
pardoned.
At the Seaside

Welcome back. I hope you had a good summer. I hope too that you like the redesign of the
web-site.
Where do British families go for a summer holiday? Nowdays, of course, many families fly to
Spain or Greece or Florida, or to more exotic places. But the traditional British family holiday is
a seaside holiday a week (or, if you are really brave, a fortnight) in a caravan or a cottage or a
small hotel close to one of the beautiful beaches around the British coast. Here are some of
the things you can do on a seaside holiday:
paddling in the sea
climbing on the rocks
exploring rock pools, and finding crabs and other little creatures in them
building sand castles
damming streams
collecting sea-shells
flying a kite
eating ice-cream
There are of course risks and dangers in a British seaside holiday! The most important are:
the weather a British summer can be cool and wet.
sand, which gets exerywhere in your hair, in your clothes and shoes, and between
your toes
jellyfish, which may sting you when you are swimming in the sea
the food in English sea-side cafes!
A British seaside holiday can be a lot of fun but it helps if you know how to enjoy yourself in
the rain!
Heatwave

When we have several days of very hot weather, we call it a heatwave.In Britain, we are
having a heatwave at present. In fact, we are having record high temperatures. Yesterday, 19
July, was the hottest July day on record. The highest temperature (36.3 degrees C) was
measured at a place called Charlwood which is near London Gatwick Airport.
Throughout the country, people have crowded into swimming pools or into the sea to keep
cool. Respectable businessmen and civil servants have gone to work wearing shorts. In some
places the tar on the roads has melted. And here in Birmingham, the heat has buckled railway
lines just outside our main railway station, which has caused chaos.
Owners of ice cream vans have done a roaring trade. There was a different sort of roaring
trade at Colchester Zoo. There, the keepers gave the lions blocks of ice flavoured with blood
(ugh!) to keep them cool. (Look up roaring trade and to roar in a dictionary!)
Here are some of the words we might use to describe very hot weather: hot scorching
blistering sweltering baking a heatwave like an oven, like a furnace.
And if the weather is moist as well as hot, we can say sultry sticky humid.
Do you know the expression most like and its opposite least like? Where would I most like
to be in this hot weather? In my own private swimming pool, perhaps, with someone to bring
me cold beers from time to time. And where would I least like to be? Easy in a queue at
Gatwick Airport.

Penny Lane

In Liverpool, there is a street called Penny Lane. Why is it called Penny Lane? Perhaps the
name comes from the penny coin nowdays the smallest coin used in Britain. Perhaps there
were shops on Penny Lane which sold cheap things, things which cost only a penny.
Wrong. Penny Lane is named after John Penny. John Penny was a merchant in Liverpool in the
18th century. He became rich and famous. But he made his fortune in the infamous business
of slave trading. Ships owned by John Penny carried black slaves from Africa to work on the
plantations of America and the West Indies.
Recently, Liverpool City Council said that it wanted to change the name of Penny Lane, and
also of some other streets in the city which are named after slave traders. It says that it is not
right to commemorate people who made money in such a wicked way.
But there was a public outcry. Heres why.
Yes that was the Beatles, the Fab Four. They recorded their hit song Penny Lane in 1967. It
tells about the people who live and work on Penny Lane the barber who has photographs of
his customers heads; the fireman polishing his fire engine. (There is a link from the website to
the words of the song or the lyrics as people in the pop music business say). Penny Lane is
a song about a gentler and more innocent world, where the skies are blue and there are no
bombs on trains. Perhaps that is why it is still so popular.
Two of the Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney grew up in the area around Penny
Lane. Today the area is popular with students, and with tourists who take bus tours of the
Beatles sites in Liverpool. Liverpool Council have changed their mind. Penny Lane will stay
Penny Lane.
Vocabulary notes:
Note the expressions the name comes from and it is named after. In America, many
people say it is named for.. instead of it is named after
A barber is a mens hairdresser. Originally a barber shaved men as well as cutting their hair.
Hardware

You are listening to this podcast on a computer, or perhaps you have downloaded it from a
computer to an MP3 player. So I am sure that you know what the words hardware and
software mean.
Hardware means the computer itself and other machines which are connected to the
computer such as printers or external disk drives. Software means the electronic
programmes which make the computer do what you want it to do (or, sometimes, what the
computer wants to do!)
But the word hardware has an older meaning from before the days of computers. To explain
what it means, I walked to the end of my road, to my local hardware shop. Walid, who owns
the shop, kindly agreed that I might take some photographs. I have put these on the website.
And now to test your English vocabulary. Hardware means nails, screws, hooks and rope; it
means tools such as saws, hammers, and screwdrivers; it means paint, polish and cleaners to
make your house shine; it means plugs, wires, bulbs and fuses for electrical equipment; it
means brushes, cloths and mops to keep your house clean; it means pans, sieves, colanders
and baking trays for your kitchen: it means forks, trowels, hoes, seeds and compost for your
garden. Walids hardware shop contains all these and much more. It may look a bit chaotic to
you, but I can assure you that he knows exactly where everything is.


The Bodysnatchers

Recently. I found a fascinating web site. It is the story of Alderley Edge, which is a village south
of Manchester. The site contains a lot of maps, pictures and documents about the history of
the village, and sound files in which people who live in the village tell about things which
happened there long ago.
One of these is about the bodysnatchers of Alderley Edge. In the 19th century, the medical
schools needed human bodies in order to train student doctors properly. Sometimes,
unscrupulous people dug up bodies which had recently been buried, and sold them secretly to
the medical schools. This happened once in Alderley Edge, as Brian Hobson tells us.
Thered been a funeral of a lady and a girl and they ( ie the bodysnatchers) must have visited
the churchyard, theyd got these two bodies on a hand cart and were taking them to
Manchester. And theyd had great difficulty because the grave kept collapsing on them and it
had taken them longer than what they thought to get down the road, and they got as far as
Whitebarn and it became daylight. So in a field at the side of Whitebarn, there they dug a hole,
put them (ie the bodies) in with the idea coming back next day to carry on. Well in the mean
time whoever it was was living at Whitebarn Farm at the time, he come down the field and he
noticed the soil had been disturbed and he thought poachers had been that night and buried
the pheasants in there. So he started unearthing it and he found a bag, put his hand in and
come out with a handful of hair. So they laid in wait for this gang to come back and there was
three of them, they caught two of them, one escaped over the fields towards Chorley Hall, and
they got the other two. The only thing they could take them to Court on was the fact that
theyd nicked (ie stolen) a wedding ring off the womans finger. Ive got all that documented as
well, a beautiful story.
MH: This would be for dissection would it?
BH: Yes, they used to sell the bodies at Manchester University or wherever.
This recording is made available by kind permission of the copyright holders, Manchester
Museum and the National Trust.

Busy
Todays podcast is about words and phrases which we use to talk about being very busy.
Kevins boss wants his staff to prepare a new report. As usual, he wants it straight away. His
staff explain that they cant write the report instantly. So the boss says OK, but he wants it on
his desk tomorrow morning. He sets a deadline of 9am that means, he wants the report to be
ready by then.
So Kevin and his colleagues set to work. They rush around trying to find all the material that
they need for the report facts, figures, pictures, tables, charts, diagrams and so on.
In the middle of the morning, Joanne telephones Kevin. Kevin says, I cant talk to you now.
Weve got lots to do. Everyone here is rushed off their feet.
Joanne says, But we were going to meet for lunch.
Kevin replies, Sorry, Joanne, were too busy. Ive got no time for lunch. I will probably need to
work late this evening, too. Sorry, I must go, the boss wants to talk to me immediately.
Kevin skips lunch, and eats a sandwich and drinks coffee while working at his computer. He
and his colleagues stay working in the office after the rest of the staff go home. At last, at
about 8 pm the report is finished. It will be on the bosss desk when he comes in in the
morning.
Alas, when Kevins boss sees the report, he finds several mistakes which his staff had
overlooked in their hurry. So they need to rewrite the report as soon as possible.
There is an English saying More haste, less speed. It means that if you try to do something
too quickly, it will in the end take longer than if you had taken a little more time.
There are some vocabulary notes on the website. In the meantime, here is Alice Leon, and she
is So Busy!
Vocabulary:
immediately, straight away, at once, instantly these all mean the same.
And here are more words and expressions about being busy in a hurry, in a rush, no time, as
soon as possible, busy, deadline, cant stop, rushed off my feet, its crazy round here, skip
lunch, work late.
You forgot my tea

Last week, the police in Denia in eastern Spain made a gruesome discovery. They found a
decomposing body in a rubbish tip underneath a motorway bridge. The body was that of Colin
Nodes, who was British, and a criminal with a long and colourful history. It had been on the
rubbish tip for at least two months.
Colin Nodes started his career as a criminal by dealing in stolen cars and boats. Later he was
suspected of involvement in drug trafficking. Like many British criminals, he bought a house in
Spain and found it convenient to spend a lot of time in that country.
In the mid-1990s, he spent some time in Winchester prison. But he wanted to get out for his
wifes birthday party in Spain. He offered to fetch a cup of tea for one of the prison warders.
But instead of returning with the tea, he climbed over the prison wall and escaped. He was
later arrested in Spain, and extradited to Britain. As he was taken back into prison, he met the
same warder whom he had tricked three years before. You forgot my tea, Nodes, said the
prison officer. Sorry about that, sir.
Colin Nodes was later in trouble with the police in Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic as
well as in Britain. But now he is dead. The Spanish police have charged two British men with
his murder.

Get in touch
You know what the word touch means. As I type these words, my fingers touch the
computer keyboard. If I touch something hot, I will burn myself.
But what does it mean if I say that I am in touch with someone? Here are some examples.
I have a friend. We were at university together. His career and mine have taken very different
paths. We now live about 300km apart. But every Christmas we send each other Christmas
cards and a letter saying what we and our families have been doing during the year. Every few
years I go and visit him. We are IN TOUCH with each other we have regular contact with each
other. We can also say that we STAY IN TOUCH or that we KEEP IN TOUCH with each other.
I have another friend. We were at school together. But many years ago we stopped writing to
each other I do not know what he is doing or where he lives. We have LOST TOUCH with each
other. You remember that in our recent podcast, Terry and Terry also lost touch with each
other.
However, recently I saw my friends name on a university website. Surely it must be the same
person. So I am going to send him an e-mail, and see if he remembers me. I am going to GET IN
TOUCH with him. (I will tell you what happens in a later podcast).
A year ago, my daughter left primary school and started secondary school. But many of her
friends from primary school go to different secondary schools. This is how she KEEPS IN TOUCH
with them.
I telephone some of my friends and chat with them. Sometimes we arrange that they can
come and stay overnight at my house, or I can go to their house.
Her friend Amber KEEPS IN TOUCH with her friends like this.
I have got a website with photos and games and music, and a shout box where my friends
write messages to me. I have MSN messenger, and 65 of my friends have MSN messenger too.
And sometimes I write a letter to my Nan.
You see. that is the difference between young people like Amber and old people like me.
Young people KEEP IN TOUCH with MSN messenger. Old people send each other Christmas
cards.
(I have re-recorded the sound file on my wonderful new Edirol R-09 solid state recorder. It is
much better!)
To boldly go .....
Do you remember Star Trek? Star Trek was a
science-fiction TV series which began in the 1960s. Later there were 10 Star Trek films. In Star
Trek, the characters explore the galaxy and discover new worlds. They defend civilisation from
aliens who wish to destroy it. (Star Trek was of course an allegory for the United States and its
view of the world!)
In recent years, the number of people watching the Star Trek TV series has fallen, and the
company which made them has decided that it will not make any more. This is sad news for
thousands of Star Trek fans throughout the world.
But is Star Trek dead? Some fans are determined that Star Trek will never die. A group of fans
in Dundee in Scotland are making their own Star Trek film. They have built a film set of the
inside of a space ship. They have made their own costumes.They have filmed outside scenes in
the highlands of Scotland. There they faced problems such as the rain (it rains a lot in
Scotland), and sheep which wandered onto the set going baaah. Most of the filming is now
complete, and the film should be available for free download from the internet later this year.
You can visit the films website (details on the podcast website) to see still pictures and video
clips from the film. It looks great.

In Star Trek, Captain Kirk and the crew of the starship Enterprise set out to boldly go where
no man has gone before. This phrase has become famous. But many people say that it is not
good English. To go is an infinitive, and it is generally best to keep the two parts of the
infinitive (to andgo) together and not to split the infinitive (that is, to put another word
in the middle.) It is better to say to go boldly where no man has gone before. But other
people, and all Star Trek fans, say that this is boring and pedantic and that there is nothing
wrong with to boldly go... I think that there are bigger problems in the world than split
English infinitives.
It looks like rain
Sometimes, when we talk about something which we think has happened, or which we think
will happen, we use the expression it looks like.
There are dark clouds in the sky. You think that it will soon start to rain. What do you say?
I think it is going to rain.
It is probably going to rain.
It looks like it is going to rain.
Kevin cannot find his car keys. He searches the house for them. Perhaps he left them at
Georges house. What does Kevin say?
I think I left my keys at Georges house.
Probably I left my keys at Georges house.
It looks like I left my keys at Georges house.
Sarah invites Joanne and Kevin to a party. She tells Joanne about the wonderful food she is
going to prepare for the party and about the band that is going to play. What does Joanne say?
I think it will be a great party.
It will probably be a great party.
It looks like it will be a great party.
It sounds like it will be a great party (because Joanne HEARS from Sarah how good the party
will be).
Kevin wants to stay at home and watch the football on the television. But he knows that
Joanne will be upset if he does not go to Sarahs party. What does he say?
I think I must go to the party.
I suppose I must go to the party.
It looks like I must go to the party.
So he records the football on the video and watches it the next day.
Wimbledon

The Wimbledon Tennis Championships 2006 have begun. Wimbledon is a place in south-west
London. Tennis championships have taken place there every year since 1877. And, because
this is England, there are important traditions about tennis at Wimbledon.
Tradition 1 the spectators drink champagne and eat strawberries (if they can afford to)
Tradition 2 English players do not win. Every year people say that this year Tim Henman will
win the mens championship. He never does.
Tradition 3 it always rains. This year there was only one hours play on the first day because
of rain.
Tradition 4 the winner of the mens championship gets more prize money than the winner of
the womens championship.
But many people say that this is wrong. Wimbledon is now the only big tennis championship
where the prizes for men and women are not the same. Venus Williams, last years womens
champion, says, For us, its about equality. Its about treating a human as a human, no matter
what the sex is. Its about a premier womens sport setting an example all around the world.
The organisers of Wimbledon point out that the men players play matches with 5 sets, while
the women play only 3 sets. Therefore it is only fair that the mens prizes are larger. They also
say that mens tennis attracts more money from ticket sales and sponsorship, for example,
that womens tennis does. But other people dispute this.
I think that the prizes for men and women should be the same. What do you think?
Terry and Terry
I have a video for you today. It is about Terry and his wife, who is also called Terry (Terry is a
name which both men and women can have). Together they tell the story of how they first
met, and how over 50 years later they got married.
Terry (the man) joined the Royal Air Force (the RAF) in 1944, during the second World War. He
was sent to a training camp at Skegness, on the east coast of England. On his first day there, he
met Terry (the woman) who was serving in the WRAF (the Womens Royal Air Force). They
went to a dance that evening, and had 12 wonderful weeks together before Terry (the man)
was sent to Radio School. The two Terries wrote letters to each other for a time, but then they
lost touch. After the war, they both married, and by co-incidence their marriages each lasted
for 48 years, until their respective partners died.
One day the grandson of Terry (the woman) took her for a visit to Skegness. When she got
home, she decided to try to find the other Terry. She wrote to the Skegness local paper, which
published a paragraph about her story. By chance, a cousin of Terry (the man) saw the story;
and so the two Terries met again. Terry (the man) was living on the Isle of Man, which is an
island in the Irish Sea, between England and Ireland. Terry (the woman) flew over to see him.
She fell in love with the Isle of Man, and with Terry. They found they could talk as if they had
last seen one another the evening before, instead of more than 50 years ago. A few months
later, they got married, and they have lived the life of Riley (ie a wonderful life) ever since.
As Terry (the woman) says at the end of the video, I didnt intend him getting away again!
On the podcast website, you will find a link to the BBC Video Nation site, where you can view
Terry and Terry telling their story
Note: look up in a dictionary the phrases to be in touch with someone and to lose touch
with someone. We will use them in a future podcast.
Lost property
It is summer. And in the summer, people including politicians go on holiday. And this
means that the newspapers are sometimes short of real news to print. British journalists
sometimes call this time of year the silly season, because of the silly stories that the
newspapers publish when there is no real news.
The silly season this year has started early with a report in the papers about things that people
have left on buses, underground trains and taxis in London. Last year, 150,000 items of lost
property were found on Londons public transport. The most common were books and mobile
phones, and also bags, umbrellas, wallets and passports. There were also a lot of teddy bears
and wedding rings. Recently, someone left Rolex watches worth about 25,000 on a bus.
Someone else left a new plasma television set, costing over 2,000, in a taxi. Other items left
on public transport included an inflatable boat, a coffin (I think it was empty), false limbs and a
lawn mower.
All this lost property is taken to Transport for Londons lost property office in Baker Street. If
the owners do not reclaim their property within three months, the lost property office sell the
items to help cover their running costs. Over half of the people who mislay valuable items
reclaim them from the lost property office. But only one in three bags, one in four mobile
phones and one in five books are reclaimed.
If you ever lose something on a bus or tube in London, go to the lost property office to see if
they can find it. I have put a link to their web-site on the podcast web site. I have also included
a link to a blog about life on the London underground. If you have ever travelled on Londons
underground trains, I think it will make you smile.
NOTE:
1 Three ways of saying the same thing:
people lose things on the buses people leave things on the buses people mislay things on
the buses
2 The tube means the deep underground railway lines in London.
Afraid
You know what afraid means, dont you? If I am afraid, I am frightened or scared. If I am very
afraid, I could say that I am terrified.
When we want to talk about the thing that makes us afraid, we say afraid of. Some people
are afraid of flying in aeroplanes. Some little children are afraid of the dark. My daughter is
afraid of spiders.
Sometimes, however, we use the word afraid in a different way. We use it when we have to
tell someone something which is unpleasant or unwelcome or upsetting to them. If we say I
am afraid that it makes what we have to say a little softer and less unpleasant. Lets look at
some examples.
Kevin comes home from work. He wants to watch the world cup football on the television. But
Joanne has bad news for him. First, the television has broken; and second, her mother is
coming to supper. Joannes mother doesnt like football, nor does she like Kevin.
So Joanne says, Kevin, I know you want to watch the football tonight. But I am afraid that the
television isnt working properly. And I am afraid my mother is coming to supper. Why dont
you go to the pub to watch the football. I will tell Mum that you are working late tonight.
Kevins friend George often arrives late for work, and often his work is poor. His boss calls him
into his office. He says, Unless your work improves, I am afraid you will need to look for
another job.
Jessica and her children are planning a picnic tomorrow. But then Jessica listens to the weather
forecast. She tells the children, I am afraid its going to rain tomorrow lets have our picnic at
the weekend instead.
That is all I have time for today. I am afraid that is the end of the podcast. But here is Majek
Fashek, and he is Not Afraid.
Summer
Summer has reached England at last. For the past week the sun has shone and the birds have
sung. There is a very old English song, from the thirteenth century, about the arrival of
summer. It is written in mediaeval English, which is difficult to understand, so here is a rough
translation into modern English.
Summer has come in
Loudly sings the cuckoo
The seed grows, the meadow blows,
and the wood springs anew
Sing cuckoo!
The ewe bleats after her lamb,
The calf lows after the cow,
The bullock starts, the buck farts,
Merry sing cuckoo!
Some explanations. The cuckoo is a bird which comes to Britain in the summer. It sings like this
CUCKOO hence its name. In summer too the seeds grow and the grass and flowers in the
meadows blow in the wind. The woods spring to life again (anew). A ewe is a mother sheep,
and bleating is the sound it makes. A calf is a very young cow or bull, and the sound it makes is
called lowing. A bullock is a young bull. It starts, which means that it moves suddenly if it is
alarmed (look up the word startle in a dictionary if I am startled, I make a sudden
jumping movement when someone surprises me.) A buck is a deer. You had better look up fart
in a dictionary I am not going to explain it here! It is of course not very polite in modern
society to talk about farting but in 13th century England people probably spoke more directly
about such things! They knew that, in spring and summer, there is lots of young, new grass for
the deer to eat, and that this makes deer fart a lot! To them, this was simply a happy sound of
summer.
Going too fast

If you had been in Manchester one day last year, you might have seen a man taking down a
road sign, and then carrying it away and putting it up again on a different road. What was
going on? It happened like this.
In Britain, if you are driving a car, you must stick to certain speed limits. For example, in towns
and villages the speed limit is 30 mph, though on some roads you are allowed to drive at 40
mph.
Many drivers do not observe the speed limits. They drive too fast. So on some roads,
particularly where there have been accidents in the past, the police have installed speed
cameras. Speed cameras measure the speed of vehicles and photograph the number plates of
cars that are travelling too fast. If you are caught by a speed camera, you are fined and get
three penalty points on your driving licence.
Speed cameras in Britain are painted bright yellow. They are easy to see, and this means that
drivers have time to slow down if necessary. Nonetheless some motorists hate speed cameras.
They think that the government uses speed cameras to raise money and to persecute innocent
motorists. Some drivers have even tried to destroy or remove speed cameras.
Last year, Mr John Hopwood was caught by speed cameras twice on successive days. The first
time he was doing 48mph in a 40 mph zone. The second time he was doing 40 mph where the
speed limit was 30 mph. He decided to try to get out of the second offence by removing the
40 sign from the road where he was caught the first time, and placing it on a lamp-post near
the spot where he was caught the second time. He photographed the sign, and sent the
photograph to the court with a letter saying that it was unreasonable to prosecute him for
doing 41mph where there was a sign saying that the speed limit was 40mph. Unfortunately the
police soon realised that the sign had been moved. They employed an expert to analyse
photographs of the sign in both its new location and the old one, and proved that they were in
fact the same sign. Mr Hopwood pleaded guilty in court to having moved it. The court may
decide to send him to prison. He would have done better to pay the speeding fine. Even better
to have obeyed the speed limits.
Note: These three expressions mean the same:
you must stick to the speed limit
you must observe the speed limit
you must obey the speed limit
He was doing 48 mph means he was driving at 48 mph
Two tragic deaths
A few days ago, the newspapers reported a tragic incident in Manchester.
Kally, a 15-year old girl, had split up from her boyfriend Josh, who was 18. A few days later,
Josh came round to Kallys house. People nearby heard Kally and Josh arguing. Then they
heard two gunshots, and then a third. Kally was found dead on the doorstep of her home. Josh
was found dying a short distance away. It appears that Josh, upset that Kally had split up from
him, had shot her and then turned the gun on himself.
Kally had been in the middle of her GCSE exams at school. One of her friends told the
newspapers. She was in the top set for everything. She was beautiful. She had blue eyes and
blonde hair and was naturally pretty. She hadnt decided what she wanted to be, but she was
very intelligent.
Detectives are investigating how Josh managed to get hold of the shotgun. Shotguns are guns
which fire lots of little pellets or shot. They are often used by farmers to shoot rabbits and
other pests on their farm. In Britain, you need a licence to own a shotgun. The area where
Kally and Josh lived has suffered from a number of other gun crimes in the past few years,
although overall gun crime has fallen in Manchester.
Note: GCSE stands for General Certificate of Secondary Education. Children in England do
their GCSE exams at the end of Year 11, when they are 15 or 16 years old.
Kally was in the top set for everything means that in all her school subjects she was in the
group of the most able students.
to get hold of means to obtain
You did it on purpose...

Kevin has bought a new jumper. It has brown, orange and beige stripes. Kevin likes his jumper
very much. Joanne hates it. The colours are awful and it makes you look fat, she says.
A few days later Joanne puts some washing in the washing machine. Kevins new jumper goes
in the washing machine too. When it comes out, it has shrunk. Kevin is furious. It says on the
label Hand Wash Only. So why did you put it in the washing machine? You didnt like the
jumper. You did it on purpose.
Dont be stupid, says Joanne. I am sorry that your jumper has shrunk. I got the clothes
mixed up and put your jumper into the washing machine by accident.
On purpose. By accident. What do these expressions mean?
Kevin says:
Joanne deliberately put my jumper into the washing machine.
She meant to make it shrink.
She intended to make it shrink.
She did it on purpose.
Joanne says:
I accidentally put Kevins jumper into the washing machine.
I did not intend to make it shrink.
I did not mean to upset Kevin.
It happened by accident.
When Joanne saw how upset Kevin was, she went out and bought him a new jumper, just the
same as the old one. And a month later, Kevin put the jumper in the washing machine, and it
shrank. By accident, of course.
Heres Big George Jackson with a song especially for Kevin its called Im sorry.
Note: the jumper shrinks, it shrank, it has shrunk. Shrink is one of a small group of irregular
verbs where the vowel changes from i in the present tense, to a in the past tense and u
in the past participle. Sing, sang, sung is another one. Do you know any others?
Its in the net .....

Some of you have e-mailed me to say that you would like a podcast about English words for
things that happen in a football match.
There are many important people at a football match. There are the players 11 on each side.
There are the substitutes who sit on the bench waiting for the manager to replace one of the
players on the field. There is the referee, and the two linesmen. And there are the supporters
who come to cheer their team. They are over the moon when their team wins, and gutted
when they lose.
But the most important thing at a football match is of course the football. We are at the final
of the Borsetshire Football cup, between Ambridge and Felversham. Ambridge have just won
1-0. I am talking to Fiona Football. Well, Fiona, how did it go?
Not too bad. The pitch was a bit wet and muddy, but at the end of the day I cant grumble.
There was that controversial penalty decision in the second half.
From where I was, it was definitely a penalty. A Felversham player fouled an Ambridge player
inside the penalty area. Archer took the penalty. The goalkeeper dived to the left, but I was
going to the right, and the next thing I was in the net.
You were in the net earlier in the game as well, but the referee disallowed the goal.
Yes. Archer passed me to Grundy, but Grundy was offside. The linesman put up his flag and the
referee gave Felversham a free kick.
And how do you feel about the goalmouth scramble in the dying minutes?
There was 2 minutes stoppage time, and Felversham were pushing hard for an equaliser. They
were lucky to get a corner kick because the last player to touch me was in fact a Felversham
player. Anyway, Felversham took the corner, and two or three players headed me before the
goalkeeper caught me. I was glad really, because I didnt want the match to go to extra time.
Why not?
Well how would you feel if you had been kicked around a muddy football pitch for 92 minutes?
Fair point, thank you Fiona.
Note: a cliche is an expression which people use so much that it has become, well, tired. There
are several football cliches here. At the end of the day means when all is said and done. (It
is impossible to interview a football player without him saying at the end of the day some
time in the interview!) The ball is in the net means that someone has scored a goal. A
goalmouth scramble means some exciting football with lots of players just in front of the goal.
The dying minutes of the game means the last few minutes.
What is a birthday

Photo by brewrat/flickr
What is a Birthday ?
When Im young,
its cake and candles.
Can I blow them out You bet !
When Im in my teens and twenties,
an excuse for going wild.
Shall we have a noisy party oh yes ! Im not a child !
When I reach the 30/40 mark,
I can still have a good old time
Ill try anything..
today is mine !
But when Im 50/60
A quick look round and sh..u..sh did anybody notice
Im having another .. !
Then 70s descend
and its time to reminisce remember when,
and how and who ?
Oh tish !
When Im 80, maybe 90,
a birthday means Im getting older
and theres a chilling in my bones.
But Id love a cake with candles like I had, when I was young !
Get
In English, we use the word get (or its past tense got) very often. Sometimes we say get
by itself; sometimes we say get as part of a phrasal verb such as get in or get up. And we
use get/got to mean many different things. If I get a newspaper, it means that I buy a
newspaper. If I get angry, it means that I become angry. If I get to London, it means that I
arrive at London. How confusing!
In the last podcast, I said that I was going on holiday to Germany. Here is the story of our
journey.
We GOT UP very early, at 3am. We GOT DRESSED and had a quick breakfast. Then we GOT
INTO the car. When we left home it was still dark, but as we drove southwards it GOT lighter.
We GOT TO Dover a little after 7 oclock, and GOT the ferry from there to France. Then we
drove east and south through Belgium. We stopped at a motorway service station near
Brussels, where we GOT some petrol, and something to eat. At a little after 3pm we GOT TO
Heimbach, a pretty little village in Germany for our holiday.
Now I will tell you the same story again, without using get or got (except in one place,
where I cannot think of a different word to use).
We rose very early, at 3am. We dressed ourselves and had a quick breakfast. Then we got into
the car. When we left home it was still dark, but as we drove southwards it became lighter. We
arrived at Dover a little after 7 oclock, and took the ferry from there to France. Then we drove
east and south through Belgium. We stopped at a motorway service station near Brussels,
where we bought some petrol, and something to eat. At a little after 3pm, we arrived at
Heimbach, a pretty little village in Germany for our holiday.
Both these versions the one with get and the one without get are good English. But the
get expressions in English are very common people use them all the time in both spoken
and written English. So dont be afraid of them.

Football Fever
In less than two weeks time, the football World Cup competition begins in Germany. Football
fever is already sweeping the country. There are articles in the newspapers and programmes
on television. Many people have placed English flags in the windows of their houses, or on
their cars. In a months time, we will all be very bored with football (unless England win, of
course) but for the moment enthusiasm for football is everywhere.
Which team will win? No, I dont think it will be England. Brazil, perhaps? My son says that
Spain look very strong.
Football has its own special words and phrases. There are two expressions which every
football fan needs to know. When you are really pleased about something, you say that you
are over the moon. So were through to the final, and I am over the moon about it. And if
you are really upset or fed up about something, you can say that you are as sick as a parrot
or that you are gutted. To loose to Borchester in the first round, well Im sick as a parrot.
Our star player was sent off after only three minutes Im totally gutted.
We dont generally use these expressions except about football. But during the World Cup you
can use them as much as you like. When your team wins, you are over the moon. When they
lose, you are gutted.
Eden Rock
I have another poem for you today. It is called Eden Rock and it is by Charles Causley, who
lived in Cornwall in the far south-west of England.
In the poem he imagines his parents as they were when they were young. His father is wearing
a tweed suit, and his dog Jack is with him. His mother has spread out a cloth on the grass for a
picnic. She pours tea out of a vacum flask (a Thermos) and milk from a bottle. She sets out
plates and cups for the picnic. She shades her eyes with her hand and looks towards her son.
His father spins a stone so that it bounces on the surface of the stream. They wave to their son
and call to him to cross over the stream to them.
Charles Causley wrote this poem when he was an old man. He is of course imagining his own
death crossing over the stream to join his parents. He says in the last line of the poem, I had
not thought that it would be like this.
If you go to the podcast website (http://www.listen-to-english.com/) you will find a link to the
text of the poem. You can then click on the audio button to hear Charles Causley himself
reading it.
Note : In one of the lines of the poem, it says She pours milk straight from an old H P Sauce
bottle. HP Sauce is a brown-coloured sauce that some people pour on their chips. It is one of
the reasons why English food is despised throughout the civilised world. HP Sauce is made
here in Birmingham. Sadly, the HP sauce factory will soon close. Production is to be transferred
to the Netherlands.
Litter
Litter means things that people throw away in a public place, like a street. Things like
cigarette ends, crisp packets, old newspapers or Coca-Cola cans. Litter makes a place look
untidy and dirty. We ought to put our litter in a litter bin, or take it home with us.
In towns and cities there are street cleaners. Their job is to sweep up the litter that other
people leave in the streets. And in some places in the country where there are many visitors,
we also have people who clear up litter.
A group of volunteers have just finished picking up litter on Ben Nevis, which is the highest
mountain in Britain. In good weather, many visitors climb the mountain. In bad weather,
however, it can be a very dangerous place.
The volunteer litter-pickers collected bags full of old paper, orange peel, plastic bags and
drinks cans from the path which leads to the top of Ben Nevis. Then they saw a piece of wood
sticking out from a pile of broken rock near the top of the mountain. They pulled the rocks
away and found ..a piano.
Why was there a piano near the top of Britiains highest mountain? It turned out that a Mr
Kenny Campbell had carried it up the mountain 35 years ago to raise money for charity. It also
turned out that it wasnt a piano at all, but a small church organ. Mr Campbell told the
newspapers that he had played Scotland the Brave on the organ at the top of the mountain.
He said that he was planning another stunt to raise money for charity later this year, to mark
his 65th birthday. We really are mad in this country!
Vocabulary note: it turned out that At first people thought that it was a piano. Later they
found out it was really an organ. It TURNED OUT to be an organ. At first people did not know
who had carried it up the mountain. Then Mr Campbell said that it was him. It TURNED OUT
that it was Mr Campbell.

Ben Nevis. Picture by StueyBoy flickr
Really really happy
I am sure you know what real means. If something is real, it exists you can touch it, or see
it, for example it isnt imaginary, or something you have made up. So really means in
reality or in truth.
Kevin tells Joanne that he is going shopping. But REALLY he is going to the pub with his friend
Dave the truth is that he is going to the pub.
Joannes Mum likes to tell people that she is about 45 years old, but REALLY she is 53 her
true age is 53.
Joannes boss at work is a woman called Celia. Celia is not an easy boss to work for. She makes
Joanne work very hard and criticises her when she makes mistakes. She sounds like a old
cow, says Kevin when Joanne tells him about her. No, says Joanne, REALLY she is very
kind. In other words, when you get to know Celia properly, you find that she is a kind person.
But lots of times, we use really to mean very.
I am REALLY angry, says Joanne when she finds out about Kevin and Dave going to the pub.
I am REALLY upset. Why couldnt you tell me where you were really going?
Kevin says that Joannes Mum is REALLY stupid, telling people she is 45 when really she is 53.
And sometimes, we say REALLY? to mean I am surprised or interested in what you say.
When Joannes Mum says that she is 45, people often say Really? I thought you were much
older
Here are the Muffs, and they are Really Really Happy.
Get used to it
Last time, June told us about what she used to do when she was young. You remember that
we say used to about things which happened in the past, not once but many times, or which
happened continuously. But you know that English is not simple! We can use the words used
to in other ways as well.
For example, we can say I am used to something, or I have become/got/grown used to
something. Here are some examples to explain what this means.
When she was a child, Joanne lived in a small village in the country. But now she lives and
works in a big city. At first, she found the noise and the traffic, and the journey to work in a
crowded train, very stressful. But after a few months, she GOT USED TO it. She became
accustomed to it, so that the traffic and the train journey did not bother her any more.
Joanne has told Kevin that he needs to loose some weight. Unfortunately, Kevin likes to eat
chocolate bars at work. He has a chocolate bar with his morning coffee, and another one at
lunch time. But he really likes Joanne, so he stops eating chocolate. At first it is terrible he
really, really wants to eat chocolate with his coffee. But after about two weeks, he GETS USED
TO it. He finds that, actually, he prefers coffee without chocolate. (Also, he puts an extra
spoonful of sugar in his coffee, but he doesnt tell Joanne that!)
And how about you? At first, listening to a foreign language is really difficult. There are so
many words that you do not understand, and people talk really fast. But if you practice
listening, you BECOME USED TO it. You find it is easier to understand what people say.
I have used the word really several times in this podcast. It is a common word in colloquial
English. I will talk about it next time.
Things I used to do
Used to we use this expression very often in English when we want to talk about things
which happened in the past, not once, but many times, or things which happened
continuously.
For example. When I was young, we used to go on holiday by the sea. This means that we
went on holiday by the sea, not once but many times.
Or When my father got home from work, he used to sit down and watch television. Again, he
did not watch television once. He did it many times. It was what he normally did when he
came home from work.
Or Twenty years ago, there used to be a butchers shop on the High Street. The butchers
shop wasnt there once. It was there continuously, over a long time.
Here is June. She is going to tell us about some of the things she used to do.
Recently I went back to the town of Newport in South Wales where I used to live when I was a
child, until I was 12 years old. I took a bus to the village where I was born. I remember that I
used to play in the fields opposite my house. Today there is an industrial estate where the
fields used to be. But to my pleasure, very little else had changed. I went to the house where
my father used to have his tailoring business. I remembered how I used to play ball against the
wall of my house. I used to roller skate with my friends. But best of all, I used to play with my
top and whip and ride my bike. The street lamp is still there which used to shine through my
bedroom window at night. Then I went to see the house where I lived when I was rather older.
And last of all, I visited the road where I used to go to secondary school, but so much had
changed that I could no longer recognise the school buildings. It was lovely to bring back into
my memory such happy childhood years.
Here is Johnny Nicholas. He is having woman trouble, and tells us about the things he used to
do.
Photograph by Humphrey Spender (1910 2005) Playing Top and Whip on pavement chalk
marks are for hopscotch Copyright Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council

My bike has gone
In English, if we say that something HAS GONE, or that
something IS GONE, we mean that it has disappeared. If I say that my money has all gone, I
mean that I dont have any money any more. Maybe someone has stolen it. Maybe I have
spent it all. If I say that the biscuits are all gone, I mean that someone, probably my children,
has eaten them all. If I say that the light has gone, I mean that it has become dark, that it is
night time.
A few days ago, Heinz Stcke arrived in Britain, and someone stole his bicycle.
Heinz Stcke is a remarkable man. He comes from Hvelhof in Germany. In 1962, when he was
22 years old, he left Germany on his bicycle. He has been travelling the world ever since. On his
bicycle, he has covered about half a million kilometers, and visited over 200 countries. He has
ridden his bike over mountains and glaciers, and though deserts and jungles. He has taken over
100,000 photographs. He lives on almost no money. He sells postcards and booklets about his
travels to raise the money he needs. He still rides the same 3-speed bicycle that he started
with, over 40 years ago (though I imagine that most of the parts have been replaced in that
time).
He travelled to Britain on a ferry and arrived at Portsmouth, on the south coast of England. He
found somewhere to camp for the night. He woke up at 3am and looked out of his tent. His
bike was gone. Someone had stolen it.
In Britain we have the finest bicycle thieves in the world. They steal about 100,000 bicycles
every year. In Britain, you need a strong lock for your bicycle. It is also a good idea to ride a
bicycle which is old and dirty, because this makes it less attractive to thieves. My own bicycle is
old, scratched and rusty. No-one has ever stolen it. Sometimes I wish they would.
But our story has a happy ending. First, the police offered to give Heinz Stcke a replacement
bike from their stock of stolen bikes whose owners they could not find. Then, a day later they
found his own bike, abandoned in a park. So you see, we not only have the finest bike thieves
in Britain, we also have the finest policemen.

Dover Beach
I have something rather more difficult for you today.
Matthew Arnold was an English poet who lived from 1822 to 1888. One of his most famous
poems is Dover Beach. Dover is a town on the south coast of England. It is the place where
you take a ferry to Calais in France. Arnold visited Dover in 1851 with his wife shortly after
their wedding. He probably wrote the poem then.
I shall read you only the last part of the poem. Matthew Arnold says that the world is not really
full of dreams and beauty. It is a dark place where people fight meaningless battles. If we want
there to be beauty and truth in the world, then we have to be true and loving to the people
who are close to us. I have put some vocabulary notes on the podcast website.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
before us means in front of us
Hath is an old form of has
Neither joy, nor love, nor means no joy, and no love, etc
Certitude means certainty
Darkling just means dark
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight means all around us there are confused
stories about fighting (struggle) and running away (flight) Arnold was probably thinking
about a story from ancient Greek history of two armies fighting in confusion at night.
How to spend one million pounds
Last week, my daughter came home from school. She told us that, as her homework, she had
to spend a million pounds.
We told her that she didnt have a million pounds. In fact in her money box she had precisely
12.47, and a book token. Then she explained that she had to imagine that she had a million
pounds, and write down what she would spend it on.
She went on the internet to find things that she would like to buy, and to find out how much
they cost. She started with a holiday in Rome, and a new mobile phone. A new watch would be
nice, and lots and lots of jelly-beans. And a laptop computer and a printer. But then she ran
out of ideas, and there was still about 998,000 to spend.
How about a house, my wife said. So my daughter found a nice little house in a very posh area
looking out over Poole harbour in the south of England. A stretch limo would be good, and one
of those BMW Smart cars. And she could take the whole family to Disneyland for a holiday.
How about a helicopter, I said. So she found a beautiful red helicopter, second hand, for
114,000. The most expensive digital camera we could find cost 4,800, and a rather small
second hand sailing boat cost another 4,000. She spent most of the rest of the money on a
diamond necklace costing over 250,000. There was still 7.45 left to spend. So she typed
7.45 into Google, and found a leather iPod case which cost exactly that amount.
But then, disaster! We added up her list of purchases and it came to more than a million
pounds. What could she do? I am afraid she cancelled the family trip to Disneyland, and
instead bought about a hundred pounds worth of sweets (that is, about 10,000 sweets!), and
after that her list added up to one million pounds exactly. I am still very disappointed about
not going to Disneyland, but maybe my daughter will let me have some of her sweets.
Here is Robin Sylar, and he is a Hollywood Millionaire.
Doctor Doctor
English children have hundreds of Doctor, Doctor jokes. These jokes all have the same form.
Someone goes to the doctor and explains what is wrong with them, and the doctor replies.
Grown-ups think these jokes are dreadful children love them. Here are three Doctor, Doctor
jokes.
Doctor, Doctor I think Im a dog.
How long have you felt like this ?
Ever since I was a puppy !
Doctor, Doctor I keep getting pains in the eye when I drink coffee
Have you tried taking the spoon out ?
Doctor, Doctor I think I need glasses
You certainly do, Sir, this is a Post Office.
The Vet
My friend Sarah is a vet. I have asked her to tell us about a typical days work.
I am a veterinary surgeon and work for a charity called PDSA, which stands for the Peoples
Dispensary for Sick Animals. We treat pets belonging to people who are on state benefits and
cannot afford to pay veterinary fees. We see mainly cats and dogs, but also plenty of rabbits,
hamsters and guinea pigs.
One Saturday I was seeing emergency cases at a Birmingham pets hospital. The day started at
9 in the morning, and my first job was to check the animals that had been kept in overnight. I
then called into the consulting room a lady with a white cat, named Smudge, that was having
difficulty breathing. The owner thought that the cat had something stuck in its throat.
When I looked at Smudge, she was breathing with her mouth wide open, which is usually a
serious sign. She was breathing very quickly and was barely able to stand. I checked her throat
and could see no obvious obstruction. Having listened to her heart using a stethoscope, I was
suspicious that she was in heart failure and decided that Smudge needed some oxygen as her
tongue was looking pale. I advised the owner that I thought Smudges condition was critical
and that I wanted to keep her in hospital to x-ray her chest and give her treatment as
necessary. Although the lady was upset, she could understand that we needed to admit
Smudge into the hospital so we could check her condition frequently.
Smudge improved slightly after having oxygen so we were able to x-ray her chest. The x-ray
showed a very enlarged heart and lungs full of fluid. This confirmed the diagnosis I suspected.
We gave her some injections to clear the lungs of some of the fluid and Smudge gradually
improved over the following hours. She was sent home 2 days later when she was much better
although she needed to be given tablets for the rest of her life to prevent fluid leaking into her
lungs. The owner was delighted to take her home.
I saw many other animals on that day, but Smudge was my most rewarding case. She was a
true emergency.
Lets take the day off
The expression to take time off means to have a break from work, or school, or whatever
you are doing.
We can say, for example, I have a day off, or I am taking a day off, or I need a day off.
Sometimes we say what we are having a day off from for example a day off school or a
day off work. But often we just say a day off, because the person we are talking to knows
from the context whether the day off is a day off from work, or from school, or from looking
after our children, or whatever. Here are some more examples.
Today, May 1, is a public holiday in England. My children have the day off school. My wife does
not have to go to work either. She has the day off.
Joanne has a painful tooth. She makes an appointment with the dentist. But the dentist can
only see her in the afternoon, not in the evening after Joanne has finished work. So Joanne
asks her boss for some time off to go to the dentist. Her boss agrees Joanne can have the
afternoon off.
In the summer, Joanne and Kevin want to travel to Italy. They have both arranged to have two
weeks off so that they can go.
Now they need to book their holiday. Kevin gets an hour off for lunch, so he goes to the travel
agent to buy the tickets.
Because we are talking about holidays and because it is a holiday today, I think we need some
music. Here are the Brobdingnagian Bards with Maids in the Meadow.
How to sleep in your car
Earlier this week, I talked about the sandwich which Selfridges are selling for the ridiculous
price of 85. Today I want to talk about a very different side of modern Britain.
A few days ago I found a very interesting blog. It is written by a woman. She does not tell us
her name, but says that she is homeless and unemployed. In her blog she tells us how she
sleeps at night in a sleeping bag in her car, and how cold and uncomfortable this can be. She
tells us how she tries to park the car in isolated places, where she will not be seen. But
sometimes other people walk past, or park their cars nearby; and this can be very frightening.
She tells us that a local hospital has showers in the visitors toilets. She goes there to wash. She
also secretly washes and irons her clothes in the hospital, but is always afraid that the hospital
security guards will find her and tell her to leave. Every few days she visits a public library,
where she can use a computer to post entries in her blog.
She tells us how she came to loose her job and her home. She is a well-educated woman, with
a law degree. But now she has only her social security benefits. She tells us how difficult it is to
find a job when you are homeless, or to find a place to live when you do not have enough
money to pay a deposit.
As well as telling us about what she does, she tells us how she feels. Sometimes she feels very
isolated that is, cut off from other people, including other homeless people. She says that
often she feels that the world is full of dirt, hostility and aggression. She wonders who she is,
and what sort of person she is inside.
Her blog is very well written. Her story is unusual, but her feelings and experiences are
probably shared by many people who have no home and no job. There is a link to her blog
from the podcast website (http://www.listen-to-english.com).
Charlotte
Today I would like to introduce to you a poem by Allan Ahlberg. Allan is a well known writer of
poems for children. He used to be a school teacher, and he understands the things that
interest children, and also the way that children speak. The poem is called Talk us through it,
Charlotte, which means Tell us about it, Charlotte, one bit at a time starting at the
beginning. So Charlotte explains what happened. She went to a football match to watch her
brother play. But his team was a man short they only had 10 players instead of 11. So they
asked her to play. They told her to stay on the wing, that is to play at the edge of the field. She
says that for an hour no-one passed the ball to her. But then the ball bounced towards her; she
ran with it past one player, then another. She ignored her brother shouting to her to pass the
ball to him, but carried on, tricked the goalkeeper (the goalie) and scored the winner, that is
the goal that won the match. The manager said she was very good and asked her to come to
training next Tuesday.
Charlotte comes from the Black Country, the old industrial area to the west of Birmingham.
She speaks with a Black Country accent, and some of her English is not standard English. She
says they was instead of they were, and I run instead of I ran. Sometimes she leaves
out the first few words of her sentences, for example Only there to watch me brother
instead of I was only there to watch my brother.
Now, please click on the link on the podcast website. It will take you to a page in the childrens
poetry archive, where you can read the poem. If you click on the little green arrow you can
hear Allan Ahlberg himself reading it.
The Most Expensive Sandwich in the World

Selfridges is the name of a big store in central London. There are also Selfridges stores in
Birmingham and Manchester. Selfridges is upmarket that means, many of the things that it
sells are exclusive, high-quality or simply expensive. Do Selfridges sell fridges? I dont know,
but if they do, the fridges are expensive ones. There is a food department in Selfridges. Last
week, the food department started to sell a new sort of sandwich. The sandwich contains beef
from a rare Japanese breed of cattle, foie gras, unpasteurised brie cheese, black truffles and a
number of other expensive ingredients. The sandwich is big it weighs about 600 grams, and
contains 2,500 calories. But the biggest thing about the sandwich is its price 85. Yes, you
heard that right, eighty-five pounds. In a shop just along the road from Selfridges, you can buy
two decent pairs of shoes for 85. The newspapers report that Selfridges sold about 12 of
these sandwiches on the first day. Many people have said that this super-expensive sandwich
is a gimmick. A gimmick is something which you do to get noticed, often in order to sell
something. For example, if you are selling cars, and you advertise that you will give away a free
television with every car you sell, that would be a gimmick. Is Selfridges sandwich a gimmick? I
think it is a very successful gimmick. The whole country now knows that Selfridges sell
sandwiches.
Exterminate
One of the best bits of news in the past week has been that BBC
TV is to show a new series of Dr Who.
Let me explain. Dr Who was a classic science-fiction programme on childrens television in the
1970s. Dr Who and his companions traveled the universe in time and in space, battling the
forces of evil. The most frightening of these were the Daleks, who were killer robots that
floated along as if they had little wheels underneath. Most of the time they shouted
Exterminate! Someone once said that the Daleks would take over the whole universe as
soon as they discovered how to climb stairs. A generation of British schoolchildren grew up
watching Dr Who, fascinated and terrified, often hiding behind the sofa in the really
frightening parts.
Last year the BBC screened a new series of Dr Who. It was brilliant. And, yes, in one episode
there was a Dalek the last Dalek in the universe and, yes, it still shouted Exterminate!
And this was the really scary bit it had learned how to float up stairs. Our blood ran cold. We
hid behind the sofa.
The new 2006 series starts next month. We can hardly wait. You can read all about it, and see
video clips, at the BBC website. Click the link on the podcast website (http://www.listen-to-
english.com).
Thank you all for listening to these podcasts, and for your e-mails and the comments on the
website. I am so pleased that over 2000 of you download each episode. I am now going to take
a short break until after Easter. I shall post the next episode on Monday 24 April. In the
meantime, I shall borrow Dr Whos time-travel machine, the Tardis, and go on holiday to a
distant galaxy.

Are you hurt
To hurt someone normally means to cause them pain, for example by hitting them.
But it can also mean to offend someone, to hurt their feelings. In the last
episode, Kevin complained about Joannes mother coming to lunch. Joanne was
hurt Kevin had hurt her feelings.
Here is Alastair. He has a joke about two old women visiting a fair.
Hilda and Marjorie went to the fair. They had a ride on a roundabout, and threw
balls at the coconuts (but they didnt win anything). Then they saw the big
wheel. They saw people getting into little cabins at the bottom of the wheel,
and then riding high into the air as the wheel turned round. From the top it
was possible to see all over the fairground and over the countryside around.
Hilda and Marjorie were nervous about going on the big wheel. It seemed so big,
and at the top the little cabins were a long way from the ground. But Hilda
said, Im going to have a ride. You stay here. So Hilda bought a ticket, and
went and sat in one of the little cabins. The wheel turned round once, twice,
three times. Then something terrible happened. The cabin in which Hilda was
riding started to come loose from the wheel. Hilda fell out of the cabin and
hurtled to the ground. Marjorie ran to where Hilda had fallen. Oh Hilda, are
you hurt? she cried. Of course Im hurt, said Hilda. I went round three
times and you didnt wave to me once!
Our music today comes from Marc Raaphorst, with a piece called My Head Hurts.
Excuse me while I find the asprin.
That will do
In English we have some words which have so many possible meanings that it sometimes
seems that they can mean almost anything. One of these words is get. Another is do.
In colloquial English, we often use the expression that something will do. For example, Kevin
is in a clothes shop. He is looking for a new shirt. He sees one that is just right his size, and his
colours (bright orange with green spots). He says Yes, this one will do. What does he mean?
What will the shirt do?
Kevin goes to the till to buy the shirt. He offers the shop assistant his credit card, and says Can
I pay with this card? The shop assistant says Yes, that card will do. What does she mean?
What will the card do?
Kevin gets home. Joanne tells him that her mother is coming to lunch. Kevin is annoyed. He
doesnt like Joannes Mum. Joannes Mum doesnt like him much either. So Kevin complains
and moans about Joannes mum coming to lunch, until Joanne says sharply Stop it Kevin. That
will do. What does she mean?
That will do means that is satisfactory, or that is acceptable, or that is enough. The
meaning often depends upon the tone of voice that we use. When Kevin finds his shirt and
says Yes, that will do, he means That is great, that is exactly the shirt I want. When the
shop assistant says Yes, that will do, she means yes, we can accept payment with your
credit card. And when Joanne says Kevin, that will do! she means Thats enough Kevin.
Youve said enough!
Isnt English difficult!
Stags and Hens
Kevins friend George is getting married to Sharon. A
week before the wedding, George invites his friends to a stag party. They start in a pub, and
then go on to a club where there is deafening music and they all drink too much.
The next day, Kevin feels dreadful. He has a hang-over. In fact, he has the mother of all
hangovers, with a pounding headache and a sick feeling in his stomach.
The telephone rings. Joanne, Kevins girlfriend, answers it. It is Kevins boss, who wants to
know why Kevin is not at work. Hes feeling a bit UNDER THE WEATHER, explains Joanne.
Hell be in tomorrow.
The expression under the weather means not very well not seriously ill, just not very
well. If I have a slight cold, or I am feeling a bit depressed, for example, I might say that I am
under the weather.
Now Kevin, of course, feels like death. So when Joanne says that he is a bit under the
weather, she is UNDERSTATING how bad he is.
To understate something is to say less about it than you really mean. For example, you might
say that someone is a bit annoyed, when in reality they are very angry. Or on the hottest day
of the summer, you might say that it is a little bit warm.
To return to Kevin. He spends the day with his eyes closed complaining about how awful he
feels. Joanne is unsympathetic. Its his own fault for drinking too much, she says. That
evening, Joanne gets ready to go out. Where are you going? asks Kevin weakly. To Sharons
hen party. Go back to bed.
A vocabulary note. A stag party, or a stag night, is a party given by a man about to get married
for his male friends. A hen party is given by a woman about to get married for her girl friends.
The guests at these parties often drink too much and do outrageous things. I never go to them,
of course.
The music today is called a Russian Morning After Party, by Ozovoniy Sloy from Siberia. I cant
understand the words since I do not speak Russian, but it sounds like a good party.

Dont Leave Without Saying Goodbye
I have another one of Margarets poems for you today. It is called Dont Leave Without Saying
Goodbye.
Dont Leave Without Saying Goodbye
Dont slink away
with not even a word.
Remember I love you,
remember what we have shared.
If you left
without a goodbye,
I would feel severed,
I would carry words unsaid.
I would be trying
to hug someone no longer there.
Please dont leave me
without saying goodbye.
Claires Bedroom
Claire Williams is 20 years old. She is a student and lives at home with her parents in a town
called Whitehaven. Her bedroom is a mess. Or at least it was a mess. Time and again, her
parents asked her please to tidy it, but somehow she never managed to do it. Then her father,
Steve Williams, had a bright idea. He took photographs of her messy bedroom and put them
on an internet site so that the whole world could see them. The effect was dramatic. Claire
was so ashamed that she tidied her bedroom. Her younger brother tidied his bedroom too.
But Claire wanted revenge. She found some photographs of her Dad dancing round with a
handbag at a party. She also photographed his garage, which was at least as messy as her
bedroom had been. She put these photographs on the internet so that the world could see.
In fact tens of thousands of people have visited the Williams familys website. Some have
posted photographs to shame someone in their own family. However, the number of visitors
has been so great that the website hosting company now charge Mr Williams quite a lot to
host his site. He is looking for advertisers and a sponsor. Assuming that his site is still active,
you can view it from the link on the podcast website. The photograph of Claires bedroom that
started it all has however disappeared.
Vocabulary note : messy is a colloquial word which means untidy or dirty. A messy room
means an untidy room. A messy child means a child who looks untidy and dirty and probably
has half her breakfast down the front of her clothes. Both my daughters bless them were
just like that when they were little.
The Undertaker
In the last episode, Carol told us about painting coffins.
A person who organises funerals is called an undertaker (or a funeral director but the
normal word is undertaker). An undertaker will talk to the family of someone who has died
about the sort of funeral that they want. He or she will deal with the necessary paperwork and
arrange a time for the funeral with the church, cemetery or crematorium. They also clean and
dress the body, and place it in a coffin perhaps one of Carols painted coffins. They transport
the body to the funeral in a hearse nowdays a hearse is a motor vehicle, but at one time it
was a carriage pulled by black horses.
Why is this person called an undertaker? No it is not because he takes you under! It is
because he or she undertakes the arrangements for the funeral. The word undertake has
two meanings that are very close to each other. If I undertake to do something, I promise to do
it. If I borrow money from the bank, for example, I have to undertake to repay it. Undertake
can also mean to do or carry out a plan or arrangement. So an undertaker agrees to arrange a
funeral, makes the necessary arangements and then carries them out. He or she undertakes
the funeral arrangements.
We have a problem in English about how to refer to someone like an undertaker who could
be a man, or could be a woman, and we dont know which. Do we say he or she? One way
is to say he or she. But this sounds a bit clumsy. So more and more in modern English people
say they. I have used both he or she and they in this podcast. I will find some more
examples for a future podcast.
Carols Coffins
I have another video for you today. It has been made by Carol. She paints coffins. She tells us
that she started about ten years ago. People ask her how she GOT INTO painting coffins. She
woke up one morning and knew that she wanted to paint coffins for the rest of her life. The
first coffin that she painted was her own. She has painted it with her favourite wild flowers
(foxgloves, bull rushes, cow parsley), and also a poem by John Keats called La Belle Dame Sans
Merci. Her coffin has a burgundy coloured lining, because a COMFY lining is important. People
ask her to paint all sorts of things countryside scenes, hobbies, pets, flowers, football colours,
angels her Mum wants angels on her coffin.
One person has asked for a PAGE THREE GIRL to be painted on the inside of his coffin lid.
Whatever TURNS YOU ON! she says.
Some vocabulary notes. How did Carol GET INTO painting coffins this is a colloquial
expression which means how did she first become interested in painting coffins, or how did
she first start. COMFY is a colloquial word which means comfortable. A PAGE THREE GIRL
well, some of our newspapers not the newspapers I read, naturally contain pictures of
young ladies with few if any clothes on. Traditionally, these are on page three. So a page three
girl is a model posing naked or near naked. Finally, whatever TURNS YOU ON means whatever
makes you excited.
Now view the video. Go to the podcast website (http://www.listen-to-english.com/). There is a
link from this podcast to a BBC web page. Click on the link, and then on View the Video.
The Oak and the Ash
In the last podcast I talked about daffodils and the arrival of Spring. Soon the leaves will start
to open on the trees.
There is an old proverb in English about how the opening of the leaves in Spring can tell us
how much rain we will have in the Summer. It goes:
If the oak comes before the ash, we are in for a splash.
If the ash comes before the oak, we are in for a soak.
Oak and ash are the names of two common trees. If the new leaves open on the oak trees
before the ash trees, then we will have only a little rain, a splash. But if the ash leaves come
first, then we will have lots of rain, a soak.
The proverb says in for a splash and in for a soak. We are in for. something means we
are going to have or experience something.
I might say, for example, I am in for a difficult day at work today.
Or, My wife is in for a surprise Ive bought her a present.
Or my wife might say, Hes in for a shock Im pregnant!
A terrifying thought!
Nonsense
We have had some quite serious podcasts recently, so here for a change is some complete
nonsense.
Early in the morning in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other
A deaf policeman heard the noise
And came and killed the two dead boys
He took them in to court and said
These two boys I have found dead.
This is a very old nonsense rhyme, and there are many different versions of it, both in Britain
and in North America.
Look at the third and fourth lines. Each other (or one another) is the way we express
reciprocal actions in English. For example: Kevin faced Matt. Matt faced Kevin. They faced each
other. Kevin shot Matt. Matt shot Kevin. They shot each other. I saw Sarah. Sarah saw me. We
saw each other. And so on.
Daffodils
Soon it will be spring, and the spring flowers will
appear in our gardens and in the countryside. Among these will be the daffodils, which are
yellow, trumpet shaped flowers, which many people grow in their gardens, but which also
grow in the wild. William Wordsworth wrote a famous poem about seeing wild daffodils
beside a lake. It begins like this:
I wanderd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high oer vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
William Wordsworth lived in the early 19th century, in the Lake District, an area of mountains
and lakes in the north west of England. At that time, most people thought of the Lake District
as a wild and unhospitable place. But for Wordsworth, as for most people today, the Lake
District is the most beautiful part of England. Here is how the poem ends:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
The music today is Spring Song by Frank Bridge, played by the Brunswick Duo.

How to Get Money
This Podcast uses words which are about getting money and paying for things. Some of the
words may not be in your dictionary. If you do not understand something, send me an e-mail
(peter@listen-to-english.com) and I will try to explain.
Kevin is going out for the evening with some friends. While he is out, he will need to pay for
things, such as drinks in the pub, cinema tickets, a meal and a taxi home. In some places he can
pay with a credit card or debit card. At the cinema, for example, he can give the cashier his
debit card. The cashier will put the card into a card reader and ask Kevin to type in his PIN, or
personal identity number. The cost of the cinema tickets will then automatically be taken from
Kevins bank account. In Britain, when we use a credit or debit card, we now must use a PIN.
We used to be able to sign the credit or debit card voucher but that is not normally possible
now. The banks say that using PINs instead of signatures will reduce the number of fraudulent
transactions.
But for some things, like paying for the taxi, Kevin will not be able to use a card. He will need
cash that is, notes and coins. So he goes to a cash machine. (The banks call these Automatic
Teller Machines (ATMs), but everyone else calls them cash machines.) He inserts his card into
the machine and types in his PIN. He also types in the amount of money he wants to withdraw
from his bank account, and a few seconds later the machine issues the money and a receipt
which says how much he has withdrawn and how much he has left in his account. Another way
of withdrawing cash is called cashback. In some shops, such as supermarkets, if you pay with
a debit card you can ask for some cash as well.
Can Kevin use cheques to pay for things? Maybe, if he has a cheque guarentee card. (Often a
debit card is also a cheque guarentee card). But in Britain nowdays we rarely pay by cheque in
shops or restaurants, and the number of cheques used each year has fallen sharply.
Couch Potatoes
A couch is a sofa, such as people have in their sitting-rooms, often in front of the television.
Some people spend a lot of time sitting on the couch watching television, and probably getting
fat for want of exercise. We have a name for such people in English couch potatoes. And, as
British people are well known for watching TV a lot, perhaps we are a nation of couch
potatoes.
Google, the company that runs the internet search engine, has just published a survey which
claims that British people now spend more time on the internet than they do watching
television 164 minutes a day on average on the internet, 148 minutes watching television.
It was only about 10 years ago that people first started to access the internet from home
computers. Now, according to Google, everyone in Britain spends the equivalent of 41 days a
year surfing the net. Of course, this figure includes net access at work as well as at home. Still,
if true, it is astonishing. Moreover, the time that Google says we spend watching TV and the
time we spend on the net, added together, comes to over 5 hours a day. Can this really be
true? Are we British now a nation of couch-and-computer potatoes? If I search the web, can I
find a website with more information about this?
Mischief
A boy and his friends find a coin. They make a small hole in it.
They then tie a piece of cotton thread through the hole, and take the coin and the thread to
the park near their home. They put the coin down on a path where someone walking by will
see it, and hide themselves in the bushes nearby. Someone an old gentleman perhaps
walks by. He sees the coin on the ground and bends down to pick it up. The boys pull the
thread and the coin jumps away out of reach. With any luck the old gentleman falls over. The
boys run off, laughing.
My father-in-law says that he did this (and lots of other naughty things!) when he was young.
The word MISCHIEF means something which we do for fun and which annoys, teases or makes
fun of someone. The boys in my story were UP TO MISCHIEF. You little monkeys up to
mischief again, the old man might have shouted at them as they ran off. Or he might have
said things that I could not possibly repeat on a family podcast like this one. The adjective
which comes from mischief is MISCHIEVOUS. The boys in my story were MISCHIEVOUS. And
we can also use MISCHIEVOUS to describe the things that they did a mischievous game,
perhaps, or a mischievous thing to do.
A joke for you. A priest is walking down the street. He sees a small boy stretching to reach the
doorbell on a house. But the doorbell is high up, and the boy is only small, and he cannot
stretch far enough. So the priest crosses the road and rings the doorbell for the boy. He looks
down and says, Well, my son, what happens now?
We run, father.

At the Supermarket
I am in my local supermarket. I am here to do some shopping. You are here to practice the
English names of fruit and vegetables.
During the winter, there are only a few English grown vegetables in the shops. The main ones
are potatoes, carrots, leeks, onions, parsnips and cabbage. But we can of course buy many
other vegetables which have been imported from warmer countries around the
Mediterranean. For example, we have tomatoes and courgettes from Spain, French beans
from Egypt, sweetcorn from Italy and avocado pears from Tunisia. Most of our salad
vegetables, such as lettuce, are also imported in winter.
Over here in the fruit section there are English apples and pears, and several sorts of oranges
from Spain, bananas from Latin America, grapes from South Africa and strawberries from
Egypt.
Many people in Britain are becoming more concerned about the way our food is produced. I
am now in the section which sells organic fruit and vegetables. Organic means that the food
is grown without artificial fertiliser or pesticide. Today there are many more organic foods in
supermarkets than there were a few years ago. Here I can buy fresh organic apples, pears,
bananas, onions, potatoes, beans, carrots, leeks and lettuce. Some of these are grown in this
country, others are imported often by air from for example the USA, Egypt or Kenya. And
we know that aircraft are an important source of carbon dioxide, which causes global warming.
It is not always easy to be an environmentally conscious consumer!
I have put together a website with pictures af all the fruit and vegetables mentioned in this
podcast, and several more as well. You can use it to practice. Click on the link on the podcast
website to go to it.
NOTE : in some languages, people use a word related to the English word biological to mean
food grown without artificial fertilisers and pesticides. Remember that the English word is
organic, not biological.
The Biggest Ever Robbery
Colin Dixon is the manager of a secure depot where
bank notes are stored for the Bank of England. On 21 February he was kidnapped by two men
posing as police officers. His wife and eight year old son were also abducted. The kidnappers
then forced Mr Dixon to return to the depot and to let one of the kidnappers in. At gunpoint,
the robber then forced a member of the staff at the depot to open the gates. The rest of the
gang and several vehicles entered the depot. It took the robbers nearly an hour to load money
into a white Renault truck, which they then drove away.
The police have said that the thieves stole 53 million. This was therefore the largest ever cash
robbery in Britain. Since the robbery, the police have found several of the vehicles used by the
gang, including the white Renault truck. They have also found 1.3 million in cash as well as
guns and other equipment which they think the gang used. They have arrested several people
and searched a farm not far from the depot. They have now charged three people in
connection with the crime. The police say that they are confident that they can find the rest of
the gang, and recover the rest of the money, but that it may take some time.
There are lots of words connected with crime in this podcast. The verb TO STEAL (stole, stolen)
means to take something which does not belong to you. If I steal something, then I am a THIEF
(plural, THIEVES), and the crime I commit is called THEFT. For example, todays story was about
the theft of 53 million.
To ROB someone means to take something from someone, normally by force. The gang in
todays story were thieves, but they were also ROBBERS. They didnt just take 53 million, they
used guns, threats and kidnapping to do so. The crime they committed is called ROBBERY.
KIDNAP and ABDUCT mean about the same thing to take someone away against their will
and hold them, sometimes in order to collect a ransom. AT GUNPOINT means with a gun
pointing at you.
The police have ARRESTED several people. That means that these people are forced to remain
at a police station while the police question them. Three people have now been CHARGED.
That means that the police have formally accused them of a crime.
Picyure is of a man wanted by the police in connection with the robbery
Britain today
This podcast is about listening to numbers. I have left the numbers out of the written text, so
you will have to listen carefully to understand. Send me an e-mail if need help.
What is Britain really like? How do British people really live when we are not growing giant
pumpkins or walking naked from Lands End to John OGroats.
This is of course a difficult and complicated question. We can find some answers in a book
published by the government last week. It is called Social Trends, and it contains statistics on
many different aspects of life in Britain.
It shows, for example, that the population of Britain is growing. There are now nearly
***people in the United Kingdom. But, compared with ***years ago, there are now ***million
fewer people under the age of ***, and ***more people over the age of ***. Nearly ***% of
people in Britain are now aged over ***. So we are living longer than we used to, but have
fewer children.
About ***of the population of Britain is from an ethnic minority. The largest ethnic minority
group is Indian, followed by Pakistanis, Black Caribbean, Black Africans, Bangladeshis and
Chinese. In addition, about ***% of the population are white people of Irish descent.
Many people from ethnic minorities live in London, which is now one of the most ethnically
diverse cities in the world. In one major city, Leicester in the English Midlands, the majority of
people are from ethnic minorities.
Over the last *** years the number of households in Britain has grown by over ***%. And
***% of households are now single people. Many of these are older people whose partner has
died. But over ***% of men (and a smaller number of women) aged between ***and *** live
alone. Altogether, about *** people in Britain live alone.
At one time it was socially unacceptable for a unmarried people to have babies. But today
***% of births are outside marriage. *** years ago the figure was only *** %.
You can find a lot more information on the Social Trends website. There is a link from the
podcast website.
A Long Cold Walk
Lands End is the name of a headland in the far south west of England. John OGroats is the
most northerly place on the mainland of Scotland. The distance from Lands End to John
OGroats is 874 miles, or 1398 kilometers. Lands End and John OGroats are further apart than
any two other places in mainland Britain. Some people regard this as a challenge. They travel
from Lands End to John OGroats (or the other way round) in all sorts of ways by bicycle, on
foot, by bus, wearing a gorilla suit etc. If you walk, the journey takes about 6 weeks.
The latest people to walk from Lands End to John OGroats are Stephen Gough and Melanie
Roberts. They made the journey naked, wearing no clothes at all except for socks and walking
boots. They said that they wanted to show people that nakedness is nothing to be ashamed of.
Unfortunately, not everyone who saw them agreed. Some people complained to the police,
and the police arrested Stephen and Melanie a number of times.Other people, however, were
welcoming and offered Stephen and Melanie a meal or a bed for the night.
I wonder though why they decided to complete their journey in February. At this time of year,
Scotland is cold and windy. Melanie agrees. She told the newspapers that she would definitely
do it again, but somewhere a bit warmer.
Snow
Today it is snowing. This is unusual. In England nowadays, it does not snow as often as it used
to. Where I live, we get only one or two light falls of snow every winter. And when there is
even a moderate fall of snow, there is chaos on the roads and railways. Two years ago, here in
Birmingham, two centimeters of snow was enough to bring the city to a standstill. The next
day all the schools in the city were closed, and the children played outside and built snowmen
and threw snowballs. Today, I imagine children in school are looking anxiously out of the
window, hoping that there will be so much snow that tomorrow they will not have to go to
school. I am afraid they will be disappointed. The snow is already turning to sleet, and melting
on the ground. Tomorrow will not be crisp and clear with snow on the ground, it will be just
another cold wet English winters day. Nonetheless, I will read you a short poem about the
snow by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent and soft and slow
Descends the snow.
A vocabulary note. STANDSTILL to bring something to a standstill means to stop something
moving. The snow stopped the traffic and the trains nothing could move. The snow had
brought the city to a standstill.
And a grammar note. In three places in the poem, Longfellow places adjectives AFTER the
nouns which they describe, not before as we normally do in English her garments shaken,
woodlands brown and bare, harvest-fields forsaken. When you are a famous poet, you can
do this too. Until then, keep your adjectives in front of their nouns!
Todays music is by Marco Raaphorst and is called Blowing Snow.
A Day Without You
Here is another one of Margarets poems. It is called A Day Without You.
A day without you
is like a garden with no rain,
having no air to breathe,
no nourishment.
A day without you
is like having no friends,
being imprisoned,
and trapped inside myself.
A day without you
is like having no future,
nowhere to rest my hopes,
and share my ups and downs.
A day without you
is like having tears and no tissues,
nowhere to lay my head
and place my aching heart.
A day without you.
Pumpkins
I have found a short video for you to watch. But first, I will explain what the video is about, and
some of the words that are used in it.
The video is about John. His hobby is growing pumpkins (in a secret location in the South of
England!). He is trying to grow giant pumpkins for an annual pumpkin festival (the Jubilee
Sailing Trusts Annual Pumpkin Festival.) His largest pumpkin weighs 80-90 lb (NOTE : We use
the abbreviation lb to mean a pound weight. A pound is about half a kilo). Last year however
the winning pumpkin weighed 819 lb, and for a fortnight it was the largest pumpkin ever
grown in Britain. Why are Johns pumpkins not big enough? He feeds them, he talks to them
and plays music to them, but they are just not up to it (ie they are just not good enough). The
big pumpkins are all water, but some of the smaller ones are really tasty with a nutty flavour.
In the greenhouse John shows us his Turks Turban pumpkins. He says that you can eat them,
or varnish them and use them at home as doorstops! John says that, when the pumpkin
festival is over, he feels that he never wants to see another pumpkin. But they are so
fascinating and delicious that within a few weeks he knows that he will be cooking pumpkins
or planning for next years crop.
Now go to the podcast website (http://www.listen-to-english.com) and click on the link at the
end of this episode. It will take you to a BBC website where you can view the video. Click on
Watch this Video to start. Let me know if you would like me to find some more short videos for
you to watch. My e-mail address is peter@listen-to-english.com.
Drought
Have you visited England? What do you remember about your visit? How about our English
weather? It always rains in England, doesnt it?
Well, actually, no often it does not rain. In fact, for the past 14 months rainfall in many parts
of England has been a lot less than normal. Last year, in the town of Tonbridge in Kent there
was only 406mm of rain. That is less than the average rainfall in, for example, Jerusalem, or
parts of Somalia and Namibia. The amount of water stored in reservoirs and aquifers in South
Eastern England is now very low. Normally, rain during the winter refills the reservoirs and
aquifers. But this winter has so far been exceptionally dry. The English word for a long period
with little or no rain is a drought. Many experts say that unless the drought in South Eastern
England ends and it rains heavily over the next two months, they expect severe problems with
water supplies in the summer in that part of the country.
The weather forecast today is for a mixture of sunshine and showers. But there is still no sign
of the heavy rain that South Eastern England needs.
Note: reservoir an artificial lake for storing water
aquifer underground rock which stores water naturally. Water companies drill wells into
the aquifers and pump water out of them.
Becky and Craig
Last week in Birmingham Becky and Craig met each other for the
first time; a few minutes later they got married. Along with about 250 other people, they had
entered a competition organised by the Birmingham radio station BRMB. The prize was a
wedding, a honeymoon and the use of a luxury flat and a sports car for a year. The entrants
were questioned by relationship experts; then the listeners to the radio station voted on which
man and which woman should win the prize. The winners were not allowed to meet or talk to
each other until the wedding. It was the ultimate blind date.
The newspapers reported that Becky and Craig were very pleased after their wedding. Becky
said, Were holding hands already. I feel very comfortable with Craig. And Craig said, Shes
everything that I imagined nice dark hair, nice blue eyes, lovely smile shes beautiful. I feel
fantastic. But some people objected that it was wrong for two people to get married in this
way, as part of a publicity stunt organised by a radio station. What do you think?
Look at the expression to get married. The word GET in English has lots of different
meanings. One of them is to become. Here are some examples.
Today the weather will get warmer.
The two men argued; they got angry with one another.
He ate so much that he got very fat.
She got very tired and had to go to bed early.
and finally
Becky and Craig got married. Good luck to them. You can read more about Becky and Craig on
the BRMB website. There is a link to it from the podcast website http://www.listen-to-
english.com/
Note : the past tense of GET is GOT I got; I have got. In America, you will often hear people
say I have GOTTEN. GOTTEN is an old form of the past participle which is no longer used in
Britain, but is still alive across the Atlantic.
Valentine
Tomorrow, 14 February, is Valentines Day. Saint Valentine is the patron saint of people in
love. On Valentines Day, many people send a Valentine card to their boyfriend or girlfriend, or
to their husband or wife. Sometimes people send Valentine cards anonymously, so that the
person who receives the card has to guess who sent it. Some people even send several
Valentine cards to different people, but this is a risky strategy and I do not recommend it!
Before I tell you the rest of this story, I need to explain about a different sort of cards playing
cards. A pack of playing cards contains 52 cards; there are 4 different suits with 13 cards in
each. There are two red suits called hearts and diamonds, and two black suits called clubs and
spades. Hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades these words have ordinary meanings in English
as well as being the names of suits of cards. Look them up in a dictionary if you need to.
Back to Valentines Day. My wife is a teacher. Last week the children in her class made
Valentine cards, and wrote a poem or a message inside the card. Some of the poems were,
well, not very good. For example:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Youre not very pretty
But I love you!
But one girl wrote:
A relationship with a man is like a pack of cards.
You need a heart to love him with
A diamond to marry him with
A club to hit him with
And a spade to bury him with.
An interesting thought!
The music is today is called My Irish Valentine by the Brobdingnagian Bards and it comes to
you from the Podsafe Music Network.
More romance in the next episode.
The Lightbulb
A few years ago there were lots of lightbulb jokes in English. You probably had them in your
language too. Here is an example. How many policemen/civil servants/school teachers does it
take to change a lightbulb? Five one to stand on a table holding the lightbulb, and four to
pick the table up and turn it round. Some people find these jokes very funny. Other people
dont think they are funny at all.
Look at the first sentence of the joke How many policemen does it take to change a
lightbulb? It means How many policemen are needed to change a lightbulb? Here are some
more sentences that use TAKE in this way.
How many bricks will it take to build the wall? It will take about 2000 bricks.
How much water will it take to fill the basin? It will take about 2 litres.
How long will it take to get to London? It will take about 2 hours.
How long do you take to do your homework? It takes me about one hour.
Here is a lightbulb joke about the English. How many English people does it take to change a
lightbulb? What, change the lightbulb? That lightbulb has lasted nearly 500 years, and theres
nothing wrong with it. We couldnt possibly change it now.
The Curators Nightmare

Someone who manages a museum is called a curator. Imagine that you are a curator. What
problems could you possibly have? What nightmares about your work could wake you in the
night? Surely, museum curators have jobs with little stress or worry.
Perhaps the curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge thought this as he went to work
one day last week. On his way into the office, perhaps he passed a group of three beautiful and
valuable Chinese vases. For years the museum had displayed the vases on a windowsill on a
staircase. But they are not there now. For, later that morning a visitor came into the museum.
One of his shoelaces was undone. He tripped on the shoelace. He fell down the stairs and
crashed into the three vases on the windowsill. He smashed not one, not two but all three
of the vases into smithereens.
Other visitors took photographs of the accident on their mobile phones. The next day many of
the newspapers carried pictures of the man lying on the floor, surrounded by pieces of the
broken vases. Fortunately he was not badly hurt. The museum say that they hope to repair the
vases. I wish them luck.
Note: to smash something into smithereens means to smash it into hundreds of tiny pieces.
I Wish For You
My friend Margaret writes poetry. I have persuaded her to record a few of her poems for you
to listen to. Here is one called I Wish for You.
I Wish for You
Life brings many experiences,
some good,
some bad,
some in-between.
You have been my friend
for many years
and I hope that will continue.
We have seen life, we two,
we have shared so deeply,
it blows my mind sometimes.
I wish for you
not happiness for that can fade
nor riches for they can turn to rags
nor a life of ease
which may make you fat!
I wish for you strength in God,
patience to see you through the trials.
Joy that goes deeper
than anything the world
can throw at you.
I wish for you the best !
For one of my dearest friends
The Chocaholic
In the last episode about the penguin we used the SOTHATconstruction. (He enjoyed it so
much, that I am taking him again today!) Very often English people leave out the word THAT.
We say simply He enjoyed it so much, I am taking him again today!
You may like a few more examples of SO THAT So lets go over to the next episode in our
soap opera, Podcast People. Joanne, whom we met in the last episode, has two sisters
Leanne and Roxanne. Leanne is addicted to chocolate. She tells us about the terrible effect of
her addiction.
Yesterday the doorbell rang just as I was leaving for work. It was the postman. He handed me a
parcel. I was so surprised, at first I didnt know what to do. What could be in it? I became so
curious, I couldnt wait to open it. The parcel was wrapped tightly in paper and tape. In fact
there was so much paper and tape, it took me nearly ten minutes to unwrap it. Inside was a
box of chocolates. It was so big, I could hardly believe it. There were so many different sorts of
chocolates, I didnt know where to start. I picked a chocolate and ate it. It was so delicious, I
had to eat another and another. I ate so many, I started to feel ill. By the time I got to work, I
was so late, my boss fired me. Chocolates are ruining my life!
Can Leanne conquer her terrible chocolate addiction? Will there be any chocolates left for me?
More about Leanne, and chocolate, in a future episode.
The Penguin
There was once a man who had a pet Penguin.
One day, he took his Penguin for a walk.
A Policeman saw him and walked over.
He said What are you doing with that Penguin?
The man said Im taking him for a walk, officer
The Policeman stared at the man and said Im sorry.
You have to take him to the Zoo!
So the man agreed to take his Penguin to the Zoo,
and the officer walked away satisfied.
The next week the Policeman was walking down the same street,
and he saw the same man with the Penguin .
Angry, the officer walked over to the man and yelled
I thought I told you to take that Penguin to the Zoo
The man replied..
I did officer! And he liked it so much that Im taking him again today!
HA HA HA BOOM BOOM! Go away Basil. Im sorry about my foxy friend, ladies and gentlemen.
Look at the last sentence in this joke. It contains the construction SOTHAT Look it up in a
dictionary if you dont know what it means. More SOTHATsentences next time.
How to be ill in English
My voice today sounds rather strange, doest it? Yes I have flu, and I am recording this
podcast in bed. And in this podcast we will introduce or revise some vocabulary related to
being ill.
Kevin, the hero of our soap opera, Podcast People, fells very unwell. He has a headache and a
fever (or high temperature). He has vomiting and diarrhoea. He telephones his doctors
surgery and asks for an appointment. The receptionist tells him that the doctor can see him at
11.30. Kevins girlfriend Joanne drives Kevin to the surgery. The doctor asks Kevin about his
symptoms and when he started to feel sick. He explains that Kevin needs to take an antibiotic,
that he must stay in bed until his temperature has returned to normal, and that he must drink
plenty of fluids. The doctor writes out a prescription which lists the medicines that Kevin needs
to take. Joanne drives Kevin home, and then takes the prescription to the chemists. The
pharmacist at the chemists finds the medicines that Kevin needs and gives them to Joanne.
Kevin takes the medicines as directed one 5 ml spoonful three times daily, after food.
Happily, within two days he feels much better and is able to go back to work.
Note: ill, unwell, sick these words have very similar meanings, though ill is generally more
serious than unwell or sick.
The Sound of Your laughter
The Sound of Your Laughter
To my Children, and yours too.
The sound of your laughter
Is what pulls me through
The harshest winter
The sound of your laughter
Makes every bright summer day
Brighter
The sound of your laughter
Is what gets me up in the morning
With it
I can take anything life can bring
Not to make too much out of it
But to me
Everyday Is a good day
To live
To The sound of your laughter
Make up
The idiom to make up has at least three different meanings. First, it can mean to invent, for
example, a story. The story is not true it did not really happen it came from my
imagination. I made it up.
Second, make-up is the stuff women put on their faces you know, eye-liner, eye-shadow,
lipstick and so on. And if a woman makes herself up, it means that she puts her make-up on.
Third, suppose two friends have an argument. They part feeling angry with each other. But
later, they decide to forget their argument and to become friends again. We say that they have
made up.
Here is a summary of the latest developments in our soap opera Podcast People! Joanne is
making herself up. She carefully puts on her eye-shadow, powder and lipstick. Kevin, her
boyfriend, is suspicious. Joanne does not usually do her make-up so carefully. Joanne tells him
that she has an important meeting at work and needs to look her best. But Kevin doesnt
believe her. He thinks she is making up the story about the important meeting, and that she is
secretly meeting someone else. They have a row, and Joanne storms out slamming the door
behind her. The next day Kevin feels lousy about the things he said to Joanne. He rings to say
he is sorry. She is sorry too, so they kiss and make up.
Beautiful, isnt it! Goodbye.
Lice

Last time we had mouse mice. This time it is louse lice.
Headlice are tiny creatures which are sometimes found on peoples heads or in their hair. The
eggs that these creatures lay are called nits. Often we do not like to talk about such things. But
it is a fact that most small children catch headlice at some time. One day, when my daughter
was only 2 years old, we noticed that she was scratching her head. We looked closely and
ugh! we found she had headlice. My wife went to the Chemists shop to buy a special
shampoo to kill the headlice. My daughter went too. The Chemists shop was crowded, and
there was a queue of people waiting to be served. My daughter sat happily in her buggy,
holding her favourite doll. An old lady came up to her and smiled. And what have you got, my
dear, she said. I GOT LICE, said my daughter in a loud voice. There was silence in the shop.
Several people looked at their watches and realised that they had to be somewhere else very
quickly! In about 20 seconds the shop was empty. If you ever feel that you too would like to do
your shopping without lots of other people around, why not take a child with headlice with
you!
Incidentally, do you know the word lousy in English? Literally, it means infested with lice.
But in colloquial speech we use it to mean bad the weather is lousy today, I got a lousy
mark for my German homework, Ive got a lousy headache, and so on.
How to say nothing!
In English we have several names for the number zero (0). Sometimes we call it zero.
Sometimes we call it nought. Sometimes we say O just like the letter O. James Bond
was double o seven 007. In most cases, you can use any of these three zero, nought or
O. But in the score for a football match, and in many other sports, we say nil. For example,
Birmingham City 2, Aston Villa 0. And in tennis, a zero score is called love for example,
Anderson leads three sets to love.
Would you like some practice? Listen, and see if you can understand the following numbers
accurately. If you like, send me your answers in an e-mail (to peter@listen-to-english.com),
and I will reply to tell you if you have got them right.
Rebuilding_London
HAHA HA! Boom Boom!
That was Basil Brush. He appeared in our last episode. He is a fox, and a favourite character on
childrens television in Britain. Every time he cracks a joke, he shouts:
HAHAHA! Boom Boom!
I have included a little picture of Basil in the file which downloads with this podcast. You
should be able to see it on your iPod.
HAHAHA! Boom Boom!
Go away Basil. This episode is not about you. It is about rebuilding London. About 50 people in
Denmark, the Czech Republic and Britain have spent the last 6 months rebuilding London. Yes,
they have built a completely new St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace,
Oxford Street, Canary Wharf and about 50 other famous London landmarks.
No, not the real London, of course. I am talking about a miniature model of London at the
Legoland theme park at Windsor, which is just outside the real London. It is built entirely out of
Lego you know, the little plastic bricks that children use to build model buildings, cars etc.
The old model of London at Legoland had become dirty and discoloured. Also, it did not
include some important modern buildings. So the people at Legoland decided that they
needed a new London. And after fitting together 10 million little Lego bricks, the new model is
now ready. You can see it at Legoland from 25 March. Goodbye.
Bumping into People
To bump into something means to collide with something, or to knock against something. But
in colloquial speech, it also means to meet someone unexpectedly.
For instance. Today I went to the supermarket. Unfortunately, as I was parking my car, I
bumped into a lamp-post. When I went into the supermarket, I bumped into Harry Johnson. I
hadnt seen him for years, so we had a long chat beside the cat food. Now a joke.
A short-sighted man walked into a supermarket.
Guess who he bumped into?
EVERYBODY!
Mice
Here is a poem by Rose Fyleman. It is called Mice.
I think mice
Are rather nice.
Their tails are long,
Their faces small,
They havent any
Chins at all.
Their ears are pink,
Their teeth are white,
They run about the house at night.
They nibble things
They shouldnt touch
And no-one seems
To like them much.
But I think mice
Are nice.
Mouse mice. Nearly all English nouns make their plural by adding -s or -es. But there is a
small number of nouns which make their plural in other ways. Mouse mice is one of them.
Send me an e-mail if you can think of others (peter@carterandrigby.freeserve.co.uk). We will
have another irregular plural in the next episode.
Finally, a football result. FA Cup third round replay Manchester United 5, Burton Albion 0.
Sorry, Burton Albion. Maybe next year. Goodbye.