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GENERAL ENGLISH · GENERAL ISSUES · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE MYSTERY OF
THE WASHED-UP
CATS

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1 Warm up

In pairs, discuss the following questions.

1. Do you like going to the beach? When was the last time you went to a beach and where was it?
2. Have you ever found anything interesting while walking along the beach?
3. Where do the things that end up on a beach usually come from?
4. How would you feel if you found a cartoon-themed telephone on the beach? What would you
do?

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2 Focus on keywords
Match the underlined words to the definitions below.

Group 1

1. After a big storm, you notice all the beachcombers who come out looking for little treasures.

2. When I go out at Halloween, I see so many people dressed up in ghoulish costumes.

3. My sister moved to some far-flung place on the other side of the world.

4. I love my new ring; it looks like a little coiled snake wrapped around my finger.

5. His decision to wear the bright pink shirt was definitely a bold one.

a. (adj.) brave and not afraid of what other people think about you

b. (adj.) spooky, scary and often related to ghosts or monsters

c. (adj.) a long distance away

d. (n) people who walk along beaches looking for interesting things

e. (adj.) taking the shape of a ring or spiral

Group 2

1. He discarded most of his old clothes because they didn’t fit him anymore.

2. The feline features of my friend were highlighted by her pointy ears.

3. I had a real problem with bugs in my flat, these little spiders just started popping up out of nowhere.

4. My cat doesn’t like to venture out at night, I think she is afraid of the dark.

5. I found myself perplexed by the instruction manual that came with my new TV.

a. (v) go somewhere that you know might be dangerous

b. (adj.) confused because you are unable to understand something

c. (v) got rid of something that you no longer find useful

d. (adj.) like a cat

e. (phr. v) appear or occur suddenly

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3 Listening for predictions

Part A: The first part of the podcast is going to talk about unusual items that have been found on
beaches. Look at the list of items below and put a tick beside the ones you think will be mentioned
then, listen and see if your predictions were correct.

Coke can School bus

Lost shipwrecks Fly spray

Telephone box Seaweed

Aerosol can Bin

Sea creatures Dead alien

Garfield phone Sonar equipment

Part B: Read the sentences from the script and think about which words from the vocabulary section
could go in the gaps, only five are needed. Afterwards, listen to the podcast again and check your
predictions.

1. From sea creatures to long-lost shipwrecks...

2. ... a little bit more unusual than a bit of seaweed, or a Coke can...

3. ...which destination the washed-up items arrived from...

4. ...the local residents became more and more ...

5. ... and even his cute little face.

4 Listening for details

Listen to the podcast one more time and try to answer the following questions.

1. What did the National Trust publish?

2. Who is Pete?

3. What did the Garfield phone recreate?

4. How long did the Garfield phones keep turning up?

5. What did the local environmental charity start using?

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5 Talking point
Read through the questions then talk about them with your partner.

1. What has surprised you the most in this podcast?

2. Do you know who Garfield is? Have you ever seen any other unusual phones before?
3. Why do you think the local charity started using Garfield as a mascot?
4. In your opinion, where do you think the phones were coming from? How do you think they
continued to appear even after 30 years?

6 Focus on vocabulary
Part A: Match the following vocabulary to the definitions.

1. outlandish (adj.) a. a trick played on someone for humour

2. prank (n) b. pieces of wood, metal, plastic etc. that have been left
after something has been destroyed
3. stranded (v) c. carefully examine the facts of a situation

4. investigate (v) d. left somebody or something in a place they cannot leave

5. debris (n) e. made something aware to somebody

6. stumbled across (phr. v) f. discovered something that you didn’t expect

7. revealed (v) g. strange or really unusual

8. cargo (n) h. move quickly from side to side or top to bottom

9. wiggle (v) i. goods carried in a ship, aircraft, truck etc.

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Part B: Put the vocabulary from Part A into the correct gaps in the following sentences. You may need
to change the form of the word.

1. The left behind by the rough storm had completely blocked the
entire motorway.

2. They loaded the precious onto the boats and hoped that one day
they would see it again.

3. My brother used to always play on me, and he thought they were

hilarious.

4. I had a loose tooth and the dentist had to it until it was ready to
come out.

5. The way the drunk man was acting had started to be frightening
to the children.

6. I was in an old bookshop, and I the first edition of my favourite

book.

7. It was when she’d missed her last bus that she realised she was
with no way to get home.

8. We pulled the big rock away to hundreds of little bugs underneath.

9. Two people came from the gas company to try to where the weird
smell in our kitchen was coming from.

7 Listening for predictions

In this section of the podcast, you will hear theories about where the Garfield phones came from.
Look at the words below and with your partner try to predict what is the connection between each
of the things, then listen to the second section of the podcast and see if your ideas were correct.

shipping container overboard dropped

aeroplane factory local kids

big storm cliffs the tide

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8 Listening for detail

Listen to the second part of the podcast again and decide if the statements are true or false. If they
are false, change them and make them true.

1. It took more than three decades to discover where the phones originated from.

2. The first theory made it obvious why the phones kept turning up for such a long time.

3. One theory suggests that the phones fell out of a helicopter.

4. It was some time before people in the media became interested in the story.

5. A local fisherman knew exactly where the phones were.

6. A huge tidal wave had hit the area and that’s when the phones started showing up.

7. It was impossible to see the container when the tide was in.

8. Some people wondered why the farmer didn’t just tell somebody as soon as he found the phones.

9 Talking point

Look at the questions and discuss them with your partner.

1. What did you think of the second part of the podcast? What was the most surprising theory?
2. Are you surprised that it took them 35 years to figure out the mystery?
3. Why do you think that the farmer took so long to tell anybody?
4. Do you think there are any other issues surrounding a plastic phone floating in the sea for over
30 years? What are they?

10 Vocabulary for conversations

Look at the examples of natural language from the podcast with your partner and from the context
and try to guess the meaning of each one. To help you remember the expressions, have a chat with
your partner and use them to talk about your life.

• ... to be confronted with something that stops you dead in your tracks...
• ... nobody could quite hit the nail on the head in relation to where these retro phones had originated
from...
• ... It took a while before the story started gaining some traction in the French media ...
• ... Many people were happy that this mystery could now be put to bed.

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11 Extension tasks/homework: the mystery arrival

Task A: Look at the questions and discuss them with your partner.

1. Have you ever seen anything on TV that stopped you dead in your tracks?
2. In which type of conversations could you use the expression, "you’ve hit the nail on the head"?
3. Do your bosses ever have ideas that struggle to gain traction?
4. Is there anything you are worried about these days that you would like to put to bed?

Task B: Look at the headline below and imagine that you are a newspaper reporter writing a story
based on it.

"Mystery Beach Arrival has Locals Perplexed"

Write 150-200 words and think about the following things:

• Where does the story occur?
• Who is involved in the story?
• What is the mystery arrival?
• When did it arrive?

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