937. A Birthday Ramble / The Spinning Wheel of Random Questions

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A Cast recommends podcasts we love.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Are you tired of being told to paid down, pet,
calm down, loaf or worst of all, Get a Grip
which just gets a so riled up even thinking about it.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Wow, If you're sick of bite in your tongue, we're
here to help you let it all hang out, to
call out.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
The kios and make some noise. I'm Angela Scanlon and
I'm Vitty Patterson.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Our new podcast is the unapologetic group chat.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
You've always wanted, introducing Get a Grip. So if you
don't be holding back, this is your space listen wherever
you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
A cast is home to the world's best podcasts, including
the David McWilliams podcast, I'm Grandmam and the one you're
listening to right now.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
You're listening to Luke's English podcast. For more information, visit
teacher Luke dot co dot UK. Hello and welcome back
to my podcast. How are you doing today? I hope
you're doing fine, So here we are. We've started. The

(01:11):
English is flowing, the words are happening, They're all going in.
You're listening to them, and if you keep going, if
you listen for the whole episode. Then, oh, it could
be thousands, thousands of words that will have entered your
brain via my mouth and the internet, and then the

(01:32):
headphones or speakers that you're using, and then into your
brain through your ears. You understand the process, don't you.
Of course you do. But anyway, stick with me for
as long as you like, or as long as you can.
And yes, you will find that thousands of English words, phrases,
and sentences will have gone into your head by the

(01:54):
time you stop listening, and that is bound to be
good for your English. This is the idea. A lot
of those words will stick, right, a lot of them
will stick, a lot of them will stay there. And
this is how you keep English. This is part of
how you keep English a living thing, a going concern

(02:16):
with you. Obviously you've got a practice speaking it, using
it too, but a basic base level. Yes, you've got
to feed on the English as much as you can.
And that's kind of what this podcast is all about.
This is here to help you get English into your life,
listening the spoken word spoken English. Yeah, okay, Hi, thanks

(02:39):
for choosing my podcast today. And I'm feeling good today.
It's a good day for me because it's my birthday today, yay.
Pro If I had one of those party blower things,
you know those things that you know exactly what I
mean when it's your birthday, pro, you kind of blow
into this plastic tube which has got a bit of

(02:59):
rolled up paper attached to the end of it. Actually,
I don't really know what that's called. That thing. We
have party poppers. Party poppers, those are the things that
go pop. They've got a little bit of explosive in them.
No gunpowder, No, it's stuff that goes bang. You pull
a little string and it goes bang and lots of

(03:22):
confetti comes out of the end bang. A party popper.
But is that a party tutor, a party blower, a
party horn anyway? You know, it's got a bit of
rolled up a tube of rolled up paper attached to
the end of this little plastic horn and you blow
into it and oh it's so fun, I mean, just

(03:43):
so much fun. The roll of paper unravels and it
kind of sticks out and then it makes a noise
like that. Just so much fun, hilarious stuff. Really, I mean,
who came up with that idea? Just what a crazy
guy or girl whoever it was, who came up with
that idea just crazy. I mean, they're like thinking, I'm

(04:04):
going to change the world with this invention because birthday
pasties previously have been so boring and unhappy, but with
this new thing, everyone's going to have so much fun.
But I don't have one. If I had one, I
would blow one right now. Because that's what you do,
isn't it. It's one of the things you do when
it's your birthday. The other things you do include getting
a year older, and I don't know, like trying to

(04:29):
stay happy. But I've been having a nice day because
I know what you're thinking at this point. Well, you
may be thinking a few things most humans do at
any given time, as you may have noticed lots of
different thoughts going on in your head, but one of
those things might be at this moment, Luke, a happy birthday,
Thank you very much. That's very nice of you to
say that, thanks for being so nice and polite and

(04:52):
wishing me a happy birthday. And you also might be thinking, Luca,
you're having a nice day today, which would be the
other nice thing that you could say when it's someone's birthday.
Oh it's your birthday, Happy birthday. Are you having a
nice day? Yes, actually I am having a lovely day.
It's the afternoon right now. This morning I was teaching

(05:13):
and you know, had some nice lessons you know, at school,
lovely students, and the sun is shining. It is a
beautiful day. I mean, it's for me, perfect weather, blue sky,
a few little bits of cloud in the sky just
to keep things interesting. And the temperature is a lovely
pleasant something like twenty degrees, which is exactly the right

(05:36):
kind of thing. The air is fresh, it's May, it's
the end of May. The birds are singing. It doesn't
get much better than that in terms of weather for me.
And sometimes that's all you need, isn't it. Really? You
just need just the right conditions to give yourself a chance.
And on the way home, I took a bike and
cruised through the streets of Paris to get back to

(05:58):
my podcasting room. Here some lunch, and here I am,
and I've yeah, I'm attempting to stay positive and happy.
You know, I'm determined to have a nice day on
my birthday, and so I am sort of defending the
day as it were, you know, making sure that I

(06:20):
don't have a bad day, because on some days you've
got to do that right, You've got to defend the
day against the things that could come in and put
you in a bad mood or you know, ruin your day.
So I'm trying to keep things at a distance in
terms of stuff like internet distractions, comments on social media

(06:44):
that might irritate me or trigger me or something like that.
I'm trying to keep all of this at a distance today,
maintaining this nice, peaceful birthday space that I've created for
myself here in order to just try and have a
nice day to day, please, And it's going very well

(07:04):
so far. And here I am recording a podcast, which
is one of the things I like to do. I
needed to do one today anyway, but it's a pleasure
to be able to do a podcast on my birthday,
a birthday podcast, So that's nice. You might be thinking, look,
what have you been doing? Although I have just literally
just told you that, So maybe, yeah, it's something you

(07:27):
could ask, are you having a nice day? What have
you been doing? Have you had any presents? It's another
question that you ask people on their birthday did you
get any presents? My wife says that she'll be giving
me presents later this evening, so that's exciting, isn't it.
My daughter gave me a little envelope with some stuff

(07:50):
in it that she prepared, including some pieces of paper
with lovely drawings with what was it? It said, I
love you daddy, Just lovely stuff like that. I'm not
going to share all of that with you, but just
lovely stuff from my daughter, which is nice. My son
is still one year one year old, he's not two yet,

(08:11):
so he doesn't really understand the concept of birthdays. But
you know, he was very cute this morning, very cute.
He didn't try and smack me around the face or
bite my shoulder or anything, so that was nice. So
another thing you might be thinking is, Luke, how old

(08:32):
are you? Which is which is I'm not sure that's
an appropriate question. Really. It's a bit direct, isn't it,
Depending on the relationship you have with the person that
you're talking to. But it's not normal on someone's birthday
to just come straight out with that question and say
how old are you? Unless I mean, actually, it depends,
doesn't it. I think probably when you're a little kid,

(08:55):
that is normal, right, that's a normal question. So it's
like someone's seventh or eighth birthday looks like that, you
would say it's your birthday. Oh, that's fantastic. How old
are you? You're seven years old? Or wow? And maybe
when someone is really old, like when they're really really old,

(09:15):
you can ask them as well, because that's sort of impressive.
How old are you, I'm ninety nine years old? Ninety
nine years old? Wow? Is that is fantastic? That is amazing.
But then in the middle, probably starting maybe even starting
in your twenties and going up until the age when
it's unavoidably sort of impressive how old you are, like, Wow,

(09:42):
you've survived that long, you know, in the middle, it
just seems I don't know why it seems inappropriate to
ask people how old they are. I personally don't mind.
I'm fine with it, but some people don't really like that.
But I will tell you how old I am, but
I won't do it now. I'm going to reveal age
at the end of the episode. You see, So I'm

(10:02):
going to dangle that. I'm going to dangle that all
the way over. At the end of the episode. I
will officially give you my age reveal at the end
of the episode. Now some of you are thinking, it's
all right, Luke, we a. We some of us know
how old you are anyway, because we know because we
know that we've got a file on you, Luke. We've
been keeping tabs on you in the in the agency.

(10:25):
Here in the office, we've got a file on you, Luke,
so we know how old you are. Or maybe you're
thinking it's all right, I don't don't care, to be honest, Luke,
can you just teach me some English for free? Yeah? Okay,
Well anyway, regardless, I will reveal my age at the
end of the episode. So if you really are that interested,
you could skip forward until the end, skip the rest

(10:47):
of the English. The English words that I was talking
about before, you can just skip over that if you're
if you suddenly have you know, reprioritized your life where
you think right, I was listening to Luke's English podcast
because I want to get all those words. I want
to hear all the words. But actually, wait a minute, no, no, no, no,

(11:08):
what's more important is that I find out how old
this person is. I'll let you know at the end
of the episode, which is very exciting, isn't it. But
how old do you? How old do you think I am?
Maybe this is probably a terribly bad idea, but you
could leave your comments. You can leave your guests in
the comments section. How old do you think I am?

(11:29):
That's probably a really bad idea, isn't it. That is
just opening the door to all sorts of stuff. But anyway,
if you wanted to do that, you could, I mean,
if you want, But anyway, Hello, this is a rambling episode.
And if you are one of those listeners who just
likes to who just likes it when I kind of
go off script and chat spontaneously about stuff about anything,

(11:54):
like little anecdotes from my life or just things that
are on my mind or whatever, then this episode is
basically made up only of moments like that. So if
that sounds good to you, this is for you, stick around,
join me for the whole episode. And I promise, I
promise to speak English to you the entire time. I

(12:15):
would speak French to you, but I don't know, I
don't know if anyone would really want to listen to that,
So no, I will speak English to you the entire time.
And there's someone going, oh, please speak French, not Gear
Francis on this podcast. Maybe one day when I feel ready,

(12:37):
but that is not today, not that's not to say
that I don't speak French. I do. I speak French
in my life Geuparl Francis eci gepars Francis La, but
I speak here. I speak there ge pars pa too,
but not on the podcast anyway. So I will be

(12:59):
speaking English to you the episode, rambling about this and that.
I do have a theme for the episode, and the
theme is no theme. That's the theme that there is
no theme, but I do actually, I do have a
concept for the episode. I do have a concept, which
is basically another random question generator. I did one of
those a while ago, just random questions, and that was

(13:23):
an interesting one because I ended up talking about some
There were some nice anecdotes that came out of that
that I didn't expect to be talking about, including that
story about cleaning out a kitchen of a Chinese restaurant
when I was a teenager and the stuff that I
had to clean. Do you remember that anyway? So a

(13:44):
random question generator, the spinning wheel of random questions, that's
the concept, and I will come to that in a moment,
But first I need to do some housekeeping on the podcast,
some general podcast admin, which is normal in a Rambling episode.
So some housekeeping on the podcast. First of all, water, Yes,

(14:05):
I'm trying to make this a tradition to drink water
in thirty minute intervals while I'm doing the podcast, in
order to first of all, make sure I stay hydrated,
but also to satisfy those people who are concerned about
my intake of H two zero. I do get those

(14:25):
comments occasionally, so that's fair. That's a fair concern, and
so in order to deal with that particular concern, I'm
going to make sure I drink water every thirty seconds.
Thirty seconds, no thirty minutes. So I'm setting a thirty
minute time so I have to remember to drink some water.
But also I wanted to deal with some comments about

(14:46):
the way that I drink water on the podcast because
some people have opinions. Some people have opinions about this,
and I thought that I would deal with some of those.
So here are a couple of comments that I received
recently about my drinking of water on the podcast. One
of them and I'm I don't mean to name and shame,
so I'm going to just keep these sort of anonymous basically.

(15:09):
But the one person wrote to me this is actually
quite funny. One person said, don't drink like this take pauses,
because what I've been doing is drinking directly from a
big bottle of water, and some people don't like that.
This person is being a bit humorous about it. I
suppose don't drink like this, luke. Take pauses, referring to

(15:30):
the way that I glug glug glug the water directly
from the bottle, which is, yeah, fair enough. I suppose
I shouldn't be doing that. Is that unhealthy? I was
told it's unhealthy. I checked it out. I didn't actually
receive get any meaningful results from my internet search. Is
about why that's healthy? Unhealthy? But maybe it is unhealthy,
But don't drink like this take pauses. I found that

(15:53):
to be funny because, you know, I just thought, what
shall I do? Or shall I set another timer while
I'm ding to remind me not to drink? So I
set one timer to remind me to drink, and then
while I'm drinking, I have to set another timer to
remind me to take pauses while I'm drinking. Yeah, hilarious,

(16:15):
But thanks for that comment and this one. Here's another
comment I got. It said this, Luke, your bottle of
water is ugly. You want a beautiful one, perhaps glass
base or metal base. I love your stops for water,
but I hate your plastic bottle, no matter how big it's.
That would be, no matter how big it is. Okay,

(16:36):
I understand the intentions behind the message are are good? Right.
I think the intentions are good, which is first of all,
I don't like the way your water bottle looks. Luke.
Just gotta be very frank with you. It's ugly, Luke.
Your water bottle is ugly, and I don't know what like.
Your podcast is beautiful, but your water bottle is ugly.

(17:00):
You want a beautiful one, perhaps glass based or metal based.
I love your stops for water, and I love your kidneys.
I care for your kidneys, but I hate your plastic bottle,
no matter how big it's. No matter how big it is,
the intentions are good. You want me to you want
me to get a different bottle, or you want it
to look nice on the podcast. You like the fact

(17:22):
I stopped for water. The only thing about this is
that when I read this, my first impression was like
I've been slapped in the face twice, once by the
word ugly and once by the word hate. Now, maybe
I'm sensitive, or maybe that's just a normal human reaction
to that kind of language. And as an English teacher,

(17:42):
it is my job, no, it is my duty to
be sensitive to these sorts of things. So I wanted
to just what's the word for it? Rephrase this. So
instead of saying, your bottle of water is ugly, So
instead of using a directly fairly strong negative adjective, which

(18:03):
was in you know, my poor plastic bottle of water
has been insulted, I mean, I get it. It's not
the most attractive thing. Is it a generic plastic water bottle.
It's not that attractive. But instead of using the word ugly,
you could change the negative adjective to a more positive
adjective with negative grammar. So instead of saying your bottle

(18:25):
of water is ugly, you could say your bottle of
water is not very attractive. Now, that is essentially saying
the same thing, but it's slightly nicer. It's a slightly
more what's the word for it, diplomatic way of putting it.
And this is I hope, quite a good lesson for

(18:46):
anyone that you know, changing it, hedging your language slightly
is important because you want the other the person receiving
your message to receive it in the best possible way.
I don't want to give them a sort of slap
in the face in any way. So, Luke, your bottle
of water isn't very attractive or Luke, I love it

(19:10):
when you stop for water, But I think you could
get a bottle which is a bit more attractive than that.
You want a beautiful one, maybe, why don't you get
a beautiful one, perhaps glass based or metal based. I
actually used to have a metal water flask with a

(19:30):
Luke's English podcast logo on it, but I've lost it.
I'm assuming that someone has stolen it, because of course
you would write, I mean it must be very valuable,
an official piece of NEP merchandise like that. I'm sure
someone saw it and just thought, oh, I'll have that.
I'll sell it on eBay for millions of euros. No,

(19:52):
I think I just lost it. So I did have
a metal one, but no, it's a good point. I
love your stops of water, but I hate your plastic bottle,
so that would be I love your stops for water,
but I'm not very keen. I'm not very keen on
your plastic bottle. Now, I'm still going to get the message,
but I'm just going to feel a bit better. Right,
My good day, my nice birthday is going to be

(20:14):
maintained if you just make those little changes. Luke. I
love the way you stop for water breaks, but your
bottle could be a bit more attractive. Why don't you
choose a glass one or metal one? Right? I love
your stops for water, but I'm not very keen on
that those plastic bottles, no matter how big they are.

(20:38):
Fair enough, Okay, I'm going to have to sort that out. Today.
I'm drinking from a mug. Ah. This is a good solution,
isn't it. Instead of lifting up this plastic bottle and
disgusting people on the internet, I'm going to drink in
a much more civilized way from a mug. And it's
not just any mug. It is a Luke's English podcast smug.
Oh yeah, m M lovely h two O. Tastes so

(21:05):
much better from a Luke's English podcast mug, It really does.
It Just tastes so fresh, so revitalizing. Give yourself a chance, listeners,
drink your water and stay hydrated using a Luke's English
Podcast mug. And these mugs are excellent because not only
can they hold water, which is perhaps the best liquid

(21:31):
in the world. Not only can they be used to
hold water, you can also hold other drinks in here,
for example, tea, coffee. Both of those hot drinks are perfect.
And the thing about a Lukes English Podcast mug, similar
to other mugs that you could also buy, is that
there's a handle on the side, and if the drink

(21:51):
is very hot, this handle really helps to sort of
insulate your fingers from the eat of the drink so
you don't burn your fingers. It's amazing engineering, it really is.
Luke's English Podcast mugs available in the l EP Merch
store Teacher Luke dot co dot uk slash merch Get

(22:13):
yours today, folks. Oh yeah, a little ad break there
for myself. I get the point, though whoever it was
who wrote that, I got the point, I just didn't
like the way the point was being made to me.
But I will endeavor to use a different receptacle for
my water in future, and that includes all the other

(22:35):
possible drinks I could drink. I'll try and make sure
I drink in a more attractive and esthetic, aesthetically pleasing
way because I care about your feelings as well as
my kidneys. This one as well. I got this one
another one as well, which was this. This was on
episode what was it? Nine to three to two? Can

(22:57):
I Eat My Cat? Quite a controversial. Sorry if I
offended anybody with the content of that episode, I didn't
mean to. I'm sorry. Some people got really upset about
that episode. They were disgusted by it, like this comment,
this one was so far the most disgusting episode that
you've ever done. Plus every time you drink water sounds

(23:20):
disgusting and unpleasant. But the most important thing is that
I still love you. I just write the things that
I think. Probably I'm wrong, but it is what it is.
I like your attitude are kind of light, your attitude
where you just like I just write stuff. I just
write whatever I'm thinking in the moment. I don't really

(23:41):
think it through. If I have a thought and the
keyboards in front of me, I just write it down.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it is what it is. That's
how I roll. As you blow the dust from your fingers. Yeah,
that Can I Eat My Cat was a bit of
a disgusting one because there was some questions right from

(24:02):
Google that people have asked, and I attempted to answer them,
and there was quite a lot of stuff about bodily functions. Yeah,
so I'm sorry if I offended anyone. But then having
said that, like quite a lot of people really liked
the episode, and I had lots of comments from people
saying it was like the funniest episode they've heard for
a long time. I met a student today. In fact,

(24:23):
I met one of my students today who said to me, oh,
I listened to your podcast. I listened to the one
and I was laughing. I was laughing so much, and
I was like, which episode was it? She said it
was Can I Eat My Cat? And I was like,
oh great, I'm so glad you enjoyed it, because some
people were offended, and she said, yeah, I thought so,
but not me. I really liked it. So you know,
what can you do? But I don't mean to offend people.

(24:44):
It just sort of happens sometimes anyway, every time you
drink water, it sounds disgusting and unpleasant. All right, Sorry,
our attempts to drink water in a much more pleasing
way for you in the future, and that's what I'll
do for you, as well as giving you all these
episodes free free of charge, as well as that I

(25:08):
will drink my water in a much more respectful manner.
But if you could also maybe moderate your language a
little bit. And I'm just saying this for you, just
for you. I know that you just write the things
that you think, but maybe just think twice before you write,
because I don't want you to upset anyone. Will hurt
anyone's feelings, right, not if it's you know, unnecessary. And

(25:36):
then I got another one from Ren learned Spanish. Hi, Luke,
thank you so much for drinking water. This is a
comment from one of my kidneys. I'm a huge fan
of you drinking water. Please drink more and give your
kidneys a chance. I'm crazy about you drinking water. Thanks you,
thank you Reren. Oh okay, Ren, Well, in that case, cheers,

(26:00):
drink some more water. Slurp, he said, slurping in a
disgusting and unpleasant manner. Okay, I'll drink really quietly away
from the mind. I'll mute the microphone on the podcast,
which is like the opposite and what I'm supposed to do.
I will mute the microphone a little moment of silence
for water drinking. Oh, I made a noise. I'm sorry

(26:22):
I swallowed anyway, Moving on a few other bits of podcasts.
Admin all right, Luke's English podcast Premium on Supercast. LP
Premium is now on Supercast. It moved from a cast
to Supercast last month. It works better now on Supercast.
You should check it out LP dot supercast dot com
or teacher Luke dot co dot uk slash Premium. You

(26:45):
can add the show to Spotify now, which is new.
You couldn't do that before, so if you're a Spotify listener,
you can add Premium episodes to Spotify and listen there
if you sign up. Recent episodes. I've done a bunch
of recent episodes about English expressions that come from Shakespeare.
Episode nine to three to three was all about English

(27:07):
expressions from Shakespeare, but I only covered like three expressions
in that one. But I've continued the series and there
are a few other episodes continuing to teach you expressions
from Shakespeare with little extracts from Shakespeare's plays, breaking down
the language and commenting on how these expressions are really
normal parts of modern English today, so you could check

(27:28):
those out. That's P sixty eight the P sixty eight
series check them out on LP Premium, it's much easier
to sign up and to add the show to a
podcast app now you can easily as well. You can
listen easily in a browser on a computer. Right. You know,
if you want to just listen to premium episodes on

(27:50):
your computer, you can do that really easily on they cast.
It wasn't really sort of set up for that, but
Supercast works really well on your computer. Getting the PA
links and video links is easier than ever. Comment sections
on the website. You can leave comments under premium episodes
on the Supercast website. You get email updates from me

(28:11):
so you don't miss new premium episodes. It's coming up
to about two hundred and fifty premium episodes now. In
the archive. There are PDFs for every episode. We're the transcript,
vocap quiz, memory test, discussion questions, video versions and also
add free episodes of the normal podcast are included in
the package. Not bad right, there's an art there's the

(28:33):
option to do ask me episodes where you can ask
me your questions and I'll deal with that. And I'm
doing and ask Me episode soon and more cool and
interesting stuff planned for this year, so check out ne
ep Premium the sort of the engine room of Luke's
English podcast. It is. The premium subscription is what essentially

(28:57):
allows me to keep doing this as a going concern, right,
So check out LP Premium if you'd like to be
a stakeholder in Luke's English podcast. Teacher Luke dot co
dot uk slash premium merch Merchandise. I mentioned the mug before,
but there's I've got some new merch in my stores

(29:17):
and I've come up with a new T shirt design.
And the new T shirt design is a skeleton with
headphones on. Yes, skeleton with headphones on. It's the new design.
So I've gone for a sort of like a kind
of a Japanese design or kind of sort of like
a skateboard graphic Japanese artwork, minimalist kind of graffiti type

(29:42):
thing of a skeleton at a computer with headphones on,
listening to Luke's English podcast. Yes, so if you are
a skeleton with headphones on, then you could get the
skeleton T shirt available in a variety of colors and
styles in both of my merch stores. I've got two.

(30:03):
I've got Tea Public and Red Bubble, and you can
just check to see which one has better shipping costs
to wherever you live. Okay, and yeah, the skeleton with
headphones is now available in a variety of T shirt styles,
including the Premium T shirt, which is a higher quality

(30:25):
cotton m M and I like this design. I've ordered
one for myself, so anyway, you can check it out
at teacher Luke dot co dot uk slash merch. All right,
a bit of promo for myself there. Okay, here are
some thoughts on the most recent content. Thank you so
much for lovely comments on recent episodes, especially the ones

(30:45):
with guests. It's always very nice when I get nice
comments about my guests. There's been There was Chevorn, Alistair, Zdenik,
Sarah my parents are recent guests. That about the recent
AI one with Alistair from last week about using AI
for example chat GPT, but others for improving your English.

(31:06):
One thing one comment was about pronunciation. There was a
couple of people discussing whether or not chat GPT can
be a good way to practice your pronunciation. Now, actually
I think that chat GPT might not be the best
way for working on your pronunciation. This is perhaps a
slight weak point at the moment. These language models they

(31:27):
still work best for written English because, as far as
I can understand, something like chat GPT probably converts your
spoken English, so when it hears you through the microphone,
it converts that into written English. It sort of uses
speech to text software to convert what you're saying into

(31:47):
written English, and then it analyzes that. These language models
at the moment generally deal with written English, and that's
how they analyze and process language. It's the written form.
So it's not necessarily that great at analyzing these specific
sounds you're making, and as a result, I think it's
not that great for pronunciation practice yet, you know, giving

(32:10):
you feedback on your accent and things like that. It
tends to focus on, yeah, like the grammatical accuracy or
certain vocab you're using. It can also help you with
the general tone of what you're saying. For example, if
you write comments that come across as potentially a bit
rude and you want to be more diplomatic if you
want to be, then you could use chat GPT to

(32:32):
help you work on that sort of thing. But you know,
generally it can be great for practicing you're speaking. As
we talked about in the last episode, here is a
little tip for you, right, and I'm talking about chat GPT.
Now this might work with other similar software. But when
you open up chat GPT, click the logo in the
bottom right of the chat box, you know, the little

(32:55):
chat box. Click the logo in the bottom right because
that opens up speaking mode and you can just talk
to chat GBT through the microphone on your computer or
your phone. You can choose different voices or even attitudes
for it to have. The one I choose is a
kind of male voice from England. He's got a London accent,
a bit like the guy from their Headspace app. If

(33:16):
you're familiar, he's like, you know, Hi, how are you doing?
How can I help you today? My name's like I'm
he hasn't actually got a name as far as I
can tell. My name's Bill, and I'm a down to worth,
no nonsense English guy. I'm here to help you. What
can I do for you? He sounds a bit like that, right.

(33:38):
If you push it a bit further, it's Jason Stepham.
But no, this guy's Bill. How you doing today? He
sounds like that. So, and what you do is you
set it up with a prompt like this, You say
to it, Hi, Bill, whatever your name is, I'd like
to practice my English. Can you ask me questions as

(34:00):
if we're in an interview situation. Ask me about my background,
what I do, how I ended up doing it, my career,
and my plans for the future. Ask me questions like that.
After a few minutes, can you give me some feedback
away English and correct some errors I'm making? And Bill
or whatever his name goes, sure, let's get started right away,

(34:20):
and they say something like, so, tell me about I
don't know, something like so, what are you working on
at the moment or something like that, and then you say, well,
I'm making an episode and my podcast at the moment,
and blah blah blah, And then you know, you just
start and you speak, and you listen to the AI

(34:41):
when it talks to you, and answer its questions. And
then after a certain amount of time, it will give
you some feedback and it'll tell you some things like
maybe some grammatical corrections or vocab or whatever. And one
cool thing about this is that when you close the
speaking mode, when you click on the X and close it,
it'll show you the whole conversation you just had. It'll

(35:02):
all be transcribed for you with all the corrections written
out and everything, and that is really useful because it
can be a really good idea to review the written
feedback that it gives you and even check the scripts
of the things that you've said and then correct them again.
So the AI corrected it, you listen to its corrections,

(35:25):
but you can, as a little revision or practice exercise,
go back to the script, look at what you said
and correct it yourself, and then check the feedback from
chat GPT or whatever and see if your corrections were correct,
so then you can correct your corrections, if you know
what I mean. But that is quite a good little
practice exercise. It's a way of doing some mini language practice.

(35:47):
And then also you can copy paste anything from there
into some kind of English learning document, like some sort
of diary or something. You know, if you've got a
document of your English practice, you could copy paste any
or any things or suggestions or useful bits of language
or anything into your diary and review it later, or

(36:07):
just come back to that particular chat in chat GPT
if you want to review what happened in your little
speaking sessions. That can be a good idea. If you
have headphones on and you've got the app on your phone.
You can close your phone, put it in your pocket
and keep chatting as if it's a phone call. You know,
that can be a good thing to do. And the

(36:27):
free version of chat GPT has a limited time for
these voice calls. I think it's about five minutes, which
actually can be quite a good amount of time. If
you do one every day, you can just do five minutes,
you know, until the time runs out. That would be fine.
I have had comments from some people, and we all
know about the sort of more critical side of opinion

(36:53):
on things like this, and I think it's totally fair,
you know, saying what you know, don't give your money
to these tech companies. You should prioritize humans. You know,
you should prioritize human teachers or human contact in any form.
Give your money to a teacher. And that's a very
fair thing to say, you know, that is a very

(37:14):
very fair thing to say. I think there is a
you know, our lives are full of these moral decisions
that we have to make all the time, and I
think that that's a fair point. So you could always
find ways to find teachers. There's various different websites online
that allow you to find one to want teachers or

(37:34):
conversation partners, and make sure that the actual people, normal
humans receive your money instead of necessarily paying you know,
these tech companies to access there. They're very, very addictive
and what's the word for it, their software which finds

(37:56):
its way right into the heart of our lives in
this kind of clever way. Yeah, we do have to
think about all of these things all the time. There
are other things I could talk about. There are other
specific AI apps designed to help you practice your English.
I haven't tested them yet, you know, there are ones

(38:16):
that focus on spoken English. Haven't looked at them yet.
When I get a chance to look at them, I
might make an episode about them. That's something I can do.
In terms of content coming up on the podcast in
the next few weeks, I have more stories in the pipeline,
so don't worry if you're waiting for one. Every now
and then, I'll do an episode that's not a story,

(38:37):
and someone in the comment section rights, please do a
story episode, which is another way of saying I don't
like this, do something else. You know, you know, I
understand why people write that. Please do a story episode,
which is kind of like if you come into my
classroom and I'm teaching something and you put your hand

(38:57):
up and I say yes, and you say we just
can we do something else? It's a bit like saying
this is crap, I don't do this, I want something different.
Might it might be a bit rude. Okay, it is
a bit rude to do that, isn't It feels like it.
Maybe I'm just being either sensitive. Maybe I'm a sensitive snowflake.

(39:18):
I don't know. I don't know, but yes, story episodes
are coming. I've got some really really nice stories coming up. Actually,
I think I've got some really good story content coming,
so rest assured. More are coming, and they are kind
of like two types of story episode that I do
on the podcast. There are the really short stories or

(39:40):
quite short stories, where I can do the story and
then get into every single sentence and analyze all the vocab.
And then there are longer short stories where they're a
bit too long for me to analyze everything, but instead
you just get to enjoy a story and I pause
sometimes to explain what's going on. So I've got both

(40:00):
types coming, so yes, you'll just have the hold on.
I've also got a walk and talk episode video with
an accompanying audio double episode, and it's in London this time.
So I've got a walk and talk episode in London
coming soon. The next episode, next week's episode. The plan
is that it will be a film club episode. Haven't

(40:23):
done a film club episode for a long time, but
I used to do them a lot. Long term listeners
might remember the film club episodes where I just sort
of talk about a particular film for the whole episode.
And the next one it's a film club episode about
Monty Python's Life of Brian. Right, do you know that?

(40:44):
You know Monty Python's Flying Circus British comedy group from
the sixties, seventies eighties, one of their films. It's considered
to be one of the greatest comedy films of all time,
and in fact often voted as one of the most
popular British films of all time, Monty Python's Life of Brian. Now,

(41:05):
I have no idea actually how the episode will be received.
First of all, it's quite a niche appeal thing. You know,
a film, you know, an old classic comedy film, British
comedy film. It's not necessarily the sort of thing that
everyone today is crying out for an episode about that,

(41:27):
so it's kind of a potentially limited appeal, but it's
exactly the sort of thing I used to do a
lot on this podcast, and episodes like that, conversations about
old British comedy films and things, that sort of thing.
Episodes like that are exactly what this podcast was built on,
and so it is exactly the sort of thing I
always used to do. And so I must, you know,

(41:48):
I must, I must have been doing something right in
those days in order to get the podcast to where
it is today. So I'll be going back into that
kind of thing in next week's episode. So it's a
bit niche appear. The other thing I'm slightly concerned about
with the episode is that it deals with some controversial
subject matter, and so naturally I'm slightly concerned about what

(42:13):
the response will be to that. But then at the
same time, you know, you can't please all the people
all the time. As we know, We'll just see. But anyway,
I love the film. I think it's absolutely hilarious and
very clever and brilliant, and I've wanted to do an
episode about it for a long time. I've done lots

(42:34):
of episodes about other Monty Python stuff in the past,
and so it was just time to do this particular
film and anyway, you know, listen to the episode when
it comes out next week. There's an introduction at the beginning.
In the introduction, I say, this film has been a
bit controversial in the past. Some people have found it,

(42:56):
found the themes of the film to be offensive. And
I say, if if you think there's any chance that
you will be offended by the content of what we're
talking about, then don't let that happen. Okay, you don't
have to let that happen. You could always just skip it,
listen to one of the other episodes. There are so
many old episodes that you might not have heard before.

(43:16):
You don't have to listen to that episode if you
think that it's going to annoy you or upset you
because there's like a religious theme to it. I don't
mean to offend people. That's not what I'm trying to do.
So if you think that that might not be your
cup of tea, then you know, don't listen to it.
Listen to something else, and you know you don't have to,
then you don't feel forced to listen to it, and

(43:37):
then write to me and tell me how offended you've
been or whatever. You know, it's just just just not
necessary anyway, Listen to it when it comes out, Listen
to the introduction and decide for yourself. But I know
that a lot of the maybe long term listeners or
listeners who love that sort of thing, I think you'll
really enjoy the episode. I enjoyed doing it. Yes, all right. Finally,

(43:58):
after forty something minute, we get to the concept part
of the episode. So that was the podcast admin. But
it's my birthday, right, you know, forgive me for rambling.
This is a rambling episode after all. But finally we
get to the spinning wheel of random questions. Okay, so
basically what I've got here is I've got a list

(44:20):
of random questions. By the way, I didn't mention this,
there's a transcript for the entire episode available on the PDF.
So if you at any point, if you're thinking, but
I want to be able to see the words you're saying, Luke,
I'm a bit like chat GPT, Luke, I need to
analyze written language. You can just get that oh oh

(44:42):
that's my water break alert. You can get the PDF
and you can see every single word written down for you.
So that you know, you could go back in and
look at that, you know, scan through it, read from it,
whatever you want to do. So there's a transcript available anyway.
The Spinning Wheel of and Questions. I've got a list

(45:03):
of random questions which are designed to generate some spontaneous, reflective,
and hopefully quite amusing rambling. The questions are about a
mix of things, including some about past memories, some about
lifestyle choices, some silly hypothetical situations, and a few gentle
philosophical musings. It's all supposed to help me create a lighthearted,

(45:26):
chatty rambling episode and we'll see what kinds of things
I end up talking about. So just relax with me
again and enjoy some rambling, some more rambling. On my birthday?
Did I tell you it was my birthday? I've put
all of these questions that I've come up with into
an online randomizer that is the Spinning Wheel from Wheel

(45:52):
of Names dot com. Let me just drink some water.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
A cast recommends podcasts we love.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
Are you tired of being told to pay down?

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Pet, calm down, love, or worst of all, get a grip.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
It just gets a sore riled up even thinking about it. Wow,
if you're sick of bite in your tongue. We're here
to help you let it all hang out, to.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
Call out the kios and make some noise. I'm Angelus
Kanlon and I'm Bitty Patterson.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
Our new podcast is the unapologetic group chat you've.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Always wanted, introducing Get a Grip. So if you don't
be holding back, this is your space listen wherever you
get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
A cast is home to the world's best podcasts, including
the David McWilliams podcast, I'm Grandmam, and the one you're
listening to right now.

Speaker 4 (46:45):
Yes, I put all the questions into a randomizer. The
randomizer is called a wheel of names. It's a spinning
wheel and you can input different things into each section
of the wheel. You spin the wheel, we'll stop and
that is the question. Right. You can put anything into
any part of the wheel names. If you want to

(47:07):
randomly choose names, like you know, you've had a baby
and you don't know what to call it, just put
some names in the wheel of names and spin it.
Or in this case, I've got loads of questions, put
them into the wheel. Spin the wheel, answer the question
that comes up. Okay, so I just want to keep
this spontaneous. See what kind of English emerges. I'll point

(47:28):
out and explain some vocabulary as I go. Maybe we'll see.
But generally this can just be a fun listening exercise
for you. As I said full transcript in the show notes,
feel free to use these questions yourself, by the way,
for some speaking practice. You might find that these specific
questions are designed specifically for me because some of them
refer to my podcast or where I live, for example,

(47:50):
but feel free to adapt them as you see fit.
And yeah, to generate the questions, I did initially use
chat GPT, and chat GPT seems to know me quite
well now, which is both helpful and a bit disturbing.
And I went. It gave me quite a long list
of questions I've I had a quick look at them,

(48:12):
cut out some of the ones I didn't want to use,
and put the rest into the wheel of names, and
we'll see what comes up. Right, So this is going
to be spontaneous. Let's go, let's have a look at
wheel of names then, okay, so here here's the wheel
of names. If you're looking at the video version, you'll
see a lovely picture of a Loox English podcast mug
in the middle, just to remind you that they are available.

(48:34):
That photograph was taken quite a long time ago. I
have to say thank you to Philip from Amigos Seeing Gliz.
That is the channel for Spanish people learning English. It's
a YouTube channel and a website, Amigos Ingliz, and they

(48:54):
are a very charming couple who do funny, energetic videos
for learning Englis. Check him out. And Philip is the
one who took that photo and he sent it to me.
Thank you, Philip. After all these years, I'm still using
that photo. Right, Let's click this and see what happens.

(49:15):
Do you ever accidentally go into teacher mode during normal conversations?
Do you ever accidentally go into teacher mode during normal conversations?
So I guess this question means, do I ever just
sort of like become a teacher when I'm having just
a normal conversation. Well, yeah, sort of, I'm afraid, so

(49:35):
I think I do. I mean, I've been a teacher
for twenty something, twenty five years or whatever, and so yeah,
naturally I do slip into teacher mode and maybe I'm
stuck in it permanently now. But also, you know, because
my wife is French. Sometimes I do have to help
her with her English. So she'll just be we'll be
talking about something and I'll just kind of like, even

(49:58):
without realizing it, ill correct her. She says something like,
I don't know what would it be. She just gets
the word stress wrong on a word, and I'll just
repeat the word straight back to her with the right stress,
and she kind of also automatically just kind of like
repeats it again. I know how lucky, how lucky she

(50:18):
is to have the opportunity to be married to me
or not. Maybe that's really annoying. I can imagine that
would be annoying. Talking of being annoying, I mean I
have annoyed my brother before with what he described as

(50:39):
me being a teacher. So we used to live together
in London, and we used to annoy each other quite
a lot, and there were times when he accused me
in moments of anger, in irritation, he said things like
will you stop being a teacher? Stop being a teacher
all the time to really annoy me, you know, because

(51:04):
he was unemployed and so I'm like, you want me
to stop being a teacher, can you start being something?
You know? It's all good for you complaining that I'm
being a teacher, but could you maybe just be something else,
and if you can't be something, maybe clean the kitchen.
And then his reaction to that would be that I'm
being annoying because I'm telling him what to do. I

(51:27):
remember one particular occasion because he never did the washing up,
or at least he didn't do it as much as
I wanted him to do it. So from his point
of view, I was probably annoying and controlling, you know,
and like a teacher. But from my point of view,
he was annoying because he was messy and he didn't
do the washing up when it was his turn to
do it. And I remember trying to tell him how

(51:50):
to do it, you know, because I was I, I'm
quite good at doing the washing up, which makes me
seem like a really annoying work but I thought I
was quite good at doing the washing up, and I
thought he did it in a really inefficient way where
he kind of like take ages, like put some music
on and it would become like a two hour sort

(52:13):
of like a like a whole two hour experience where
there's music going. He' said, maybe having a bit of
toast on the side. He's got a beer going maybe,
and the washing up just takes forever. And I was
like saying, why don't you do this? Why don't you
grab all of the cutlery that you've washed and hold
it in one hand and in the other hand you

(52:34):
have the tea towel and you you can quickly dry
them and slam them into the cutlery draw like that.
It's much quicker. And He's like, can you stop being
a teacher? So yeah, I do accidentally slip into teacher
mode during normal conversations and it's either helpful or just
really annoying. So sorry, sorry for Sorry for that, James.

(52:55):
I think he forgive me, I hope. So next question,
spin the wheel? Okay, okay, have you ever tried to
reinvent yourself? And how did it go? Have you ever
tried to reinvent yourself? So to reinvent yourself? This would
be like where I don't know. So if I'm a teacher,

(53:20):
I'm a tefl teacher English as a Foreign Language, and
I think to myself, I fed up with being a
tefel teacher. I want to become a sort of I
want to become an entrepreneur. I want to become a teentpreneur,
an entrepreneur in the tech industry. I'm going to become
a I'm going to become an exciting, risk taking tech entrepreneur,

(53:47):
and I'm going to work in the city, and I'm
going to wear a I'm going to wear like a
kind of sharp suit, and I'm gonna reinvent myself as
some kind of businessman. All right. That would be to
reinvent yourself, to change who you are, to become a
different person. So no, I've never tried to reinvent myself. Really.
I mean, there was a time when I tried to

(54:09):
grow up, and I tried to go from being a
sort of a student who was a bit of a
waste of space, playing a lot of computer games and
not really applying myself to life in the way I
needed to. So I tried to go from that to
someone a bit more capable and bit more of a responsible,

(54:32):
capable adult. In my twenties, I tried to kind of
reinvent myself in that way where I decided that I
would get rid of, like, you know, I'd clean out
my room at my parents' house where I was living
again after university, when I didn't have a proper job,
and I was living at my parents' house, and I
was back in my room where i'd lived as a teenager,

(54:54):
and it was still decorated as it was when I
was a teenager, with all these mood the music posters
on every inch of the wallpaper in the room, and
all this stuff in there, and all my music cassettes
and all these things which I felt were kind of
like holding me back, holding me down, and keeping me

(55:20):
in that state of arrested development, meaning I wasn't growing up,
wasn't developing. And I thought, right, this all got to go,
everything must go, And on one sort of momentous afternoon,
I pulled all the posters down, pulled everything down, and
even a lot of cassettes. I threw them all in
a bin bag and chucked them away, which I regret

(55:43):
now because a lot of those cassettes were really great mixtapes.
But I threw them away. I had to. I had
to kind of get rid of all that baggage from
my teenage years in order to kind of grow up
a bit, you know. So yeah, I don't know if
I really invented myself, but I've had to change at
times what about you. Remember you can try and answer

(56:06):
these questions right, just try to answer them out loud.
You'll find all the questions on the PDF. Next question,
Here we go, spin the wheel. It's exciting. Oh, what
would your autobiography be called if it had to be
named after a common English phrase? What would my autobiography

(56:30):
be called if it had to be named after a
common English phrase? This is difficult because I think a
lot of the best names for an autobiography for someone
like me have already been taken. So there's I would
call it mind your Language, right, which would potentially be

(56:52):
quite good. I don't know if that's a good name
for an autobiography, but mind your language is quite a
nice expression. But that's already been taken. There was a
TV series in England in the seventies or eighties about
an English teacher teaching a group of people from around
the world, and they're all like really really obvious stereotypes
of different countries. It's kind of like borderline racist by

(57:14):
today's standards, but also quite funny. But that's mind your language,
so I couldn't call it that. The David Crystal, the
David Crystal Memoir is called just a phrase I'm going through,
which I think is a really good title. I've got
it up here. This is it David Crystal's book, Just

(57:35):
a phrase, I'm going through my life in Language, which
is his autobiography. And that's a really clever little play
on words because we do say it's just a phase
I'm going through. If you're going through a phase, it
means you're going through a period in your life. I
covered this expression in Luke's English podcast Premium not long ago.

(57:56):
So Premium listeners, you're thinking, yeah, Luke, we know, we know,
we know you've already taught us this just a phrase,
I'm going through a phase. If you go through a phase,
it means you go through a certain period in your life.
For example, I was going through a difficult phase right
at that time in my life. I was going through
a difficult period. We go through different phases in our life, right,

(58:18):
But a phrase, I see a phrase like in English sentences.
David Crystal is a linguist, and this is exactly what
he does. He goes through phrases and analyzes them, right,
because he's a linguist. So that's clever name for a memoir.
Just a phrase, I'm Going Through My Life in Language

(58:39):
by David Crystal. Interesting book, by the way, worth a read.
So I don't know why I would call it, to
be honest, I might you know I can't use the
word rambling, can I? Because Adam Buxton's book is called
ramble Book, So I couldn't use that. So I don't know. Oh,
I don't know. This is terrible. I can't. I have

(59:01):
to think of an answer. Don't stop me now, No,
that's terrible. What would your autobiography be called if it
had to be named after a common English phrase? All right, well,
I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what I'll do.
Let me just let me have a quick flick through
the Oxford Idioms Dictionary, available from all good bookshops not

(59:23):
sponsored by Oxford. And let's just have a little average
I just have a random look. Well, let's look for
the word. Maybe the word talk talk would be good.
Teach teach, teach, teach an old dog, new tricks. No talk,
we want tail talk talk, all talk and no all

(59:43):
talk and no action. That doesn't sound great, does it?
All talk and no action. That just means someone who
talks a lot, but they ever actually do anything. I
certainly talk a lot, but hopefully I actually do things
as well in my life. To be the talk of
to be the talk of the town, the talk of
the town. That could be good. That sounds like a

(01:00:04):
good idea for like a TV series Talk of the
Town with Luke Thompson, and I'd go to different towns
and talk to people who live there. That could be
quite good. You can talk, Ah, that's pretty good. You
can talk? Or look who's talking? That's it. I'd call
it Luke, who's talking? Huh? Come on, look who's talking?

(01:00:27):
Is what we say when you kind of criticize someone.
For example, someone says, oh, I don't know. Someone criticizes
you like someone is drinking their tea and slurping from
their cup and they say to you, oh, I don't
like the way you eat. It's disgusting. And meanwhile they're

(01:00:49):
slurping their tea and you go, it's disgusting. You can talk,
or you can say, look who's talking? Right? Anyway, I
could call it Luke, who's talking? There? You go. That
was hard work, wasn't it. Next question, Okay, what is

(01:01:10):
a food you loved as a kid but can't stand now?
What's a food? You loved as a kid but can't
stand now. All right, I don't know. I'm trying to
think of a food that I used to love which
I don't love now. Normally it's the other way round.
Normally it's food that you didn't like before but now
you like. For example, I didn't used to like mushrooms,
but nowadays I love mushrooms. But something I used to

(01:01:34):
like as a kid but I don't like now. Probably,
I would say McDonald's basically like McDonald's. When I was
a child, the idea of McDonald's was just the most
amazing thing. Yeah, we could go to McDonald's. Ah, And
I used to get so excited about the prospect of
going to McDonald's. And you know, like the whole the

(01:01:56):
environment of it. I remember all the different seating areas
and the shapes of the seats and the color of
it all were so attractive to me as a child.
It feels like certain things just catch your eye and
are just appealing to you as a child. It's sort
of it's quite weird, really, Like certain colors, certain designs

(01:02:20):
of things, certain environments are just really appealing as a child.
And you know, also other certain environments have the opposite
impression of you as a child. Right. For example, if
I remember as a kid going to the supermarket, you
just go to a supermarket or a shopping center or something.
You kind of scan the area looking for the stuff

(01:02:41):
that's for kids, and you kind of go into that
kid vision mode scanning the area. Boo, scanning the area,
and you see stuff that's like multi colored, looks like
it could be made of plastic, and you go, bam,
that's that's the stuff for me, and you make a
beeline for it. And sure enough, that is the section

(01:03:03):
with all the toys or comics or something, and that's
where you that's what you make as your base for
the twenty minutes that your mum is doing the shopping
or whatever. Right. And so McDonald's was a bit like
that for me as a kid, that something about the
design of the place was just appealing, you know, not
to mention the food and the way the food was

(01:03:24):
presented in these polystyrene boxes. You would the burger would
be given to you in a polystyrene box, and there
was something very wonderful about opening up the box and
there was the burger, and then you'd in the lid
of the box. You would put your fries in there,
slide the fries into the lid of the box, and

(01:03:47):
you could like pour your own drink.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
Ah.

Speaker 4 (01:03:51):
Yeah, that was great. I loved that and I used
to think it was so delicious. But these days, if
I would only go to McDonald's if there's no other
and when I eat it, I'm like, oh god, this,
look at that burger. It's gray. A burger shouldn't be gray.
What is that is that? Even I don't even know
what that is? Well, better eat it? And then you
feel a bit dirty afterwards. So there you go. McDonald's

(01:04:15):
is a food I loved as a kid, but I
can't really stand now. Happy now, And you got the
answer next? What animal would you ride into battle if
you had to lead a charge of English learners? Okay,

(01:04:35):
so I imagine we're in some sort of battle and I'm
in charge of an army of English learners. Yes, what
are we doing battle? Who are we battling against learners
of other languages? There's like a huge army of people
learning Spanish, and like a big army of people learning Arabic,

(01:04:58):
and another army of people learning these are the big
languages of the world, and we're all riding into battle,
the Battle of the four Languages, English, Spanish, Chinese and
Arabic and French as well. Why not the Battle of
the five armies, the five languages, and we're all riding

(01:05:20):
into battle against each other, into some horrendous melee, completely unnecessary,
a completely unnecessary battle. Meanwhile, meanwhile, chat GPT and other
AI generated chatbots are watching the battle and rubbing their hands.

(01:05:45):
But anyway, what animal would I ride into battle? I
think I'd have to ride an elephant for two reasons.
The first reason for its strategic advantage, because obviously you
know who going to mess with you if you're riding
an elephant. So this simply the fact that it's extremely

(01:06:06):
powerful beast that could trample all my enemies underfoot and
whack them with the with their trunk, stab them with
the tusks, very effective. But also because of the symbolic
value of the elephants, because the elephant. You know, elephants

(01:06:28):
never forget, do they, So my learners would never forget.
You know, these are my learners of English, never going
to forget the vocab that they've learned because they're being
led by me on an elephant. And that is how
English is going to end up being triumphant. I don't
know if it is. Who knows? Will English still be

(01:06:49):
an international the international language in twenty thirty, forty fifty years,
God knows. God knows what the world's going to be
like in those days. It'll just be we'll all be
speaking in bleeps, and we'll just be speaking in code
to each other. We'll just go up to each other,
and you know when AI has taken over and AI

(01:07:13):
has decided, no, no, no, no, this the human language
is rubbish. This is the way to communicate in twenty seventy,
much more sophisticated. Anyway, moving on, how many more of
we are we going to do here? How long have
I been going? An hour? An hour and five minutes

(01:07:37):
or something? Okay, next question, what's your mourning routine on
a day when you feel truly relaxed? What's your morning
routine on a day when you feel truly relaxed. That's
quite a nice question to think about on a day
when I feel truly relaxed. If I can just make
up any day and we're going to go into pure
fantasy land at this point, a day when I feel

(01:07:59):
truly I wake up, you know, I've had at least
two hours sleep, longer than normal, so I've had a
reasonable lie in. But I haven't had such a long
lion that I feel guilty about it. Because that's the
thing about having a lie in, isn't it. That's a
lie in. That's where you lie in your bed after

(01:08:22):
you've woken up initially you stay in bed. It's a
lie in, right, not a lion and not involved. I mean,
I wouldn't have a lion for breakfast, it's too big
what anyway? You know, when you have a lion, sometimes
if you're lying goes on too long, you do get

(01:08:43):
that creeping sense of guilt, do you. Maybe you don't,
Maybe you're fine. Maybe it's just me. You're like, why
would you feel guilty about that? I don't know, because
I'm English. Maybe that's it. I don't know, but I
get that creeping sense of guilt of like, oh, I've
stayed in bed too long. I'm wasting the day. I
should be up. I should be up, I should be
doing things with the day. So I wouldn't want my

(01:09:07):
lion to go on too long, but I'd like enough
of a lie in to make me feel like I've
been I've rested, because normally I just I'm far from
that normally. You know, six o'clock six thirty, my little
son wakes up, and I really need another couple of
hours sleep, but I don't get it. You know, I've

(01:09:27):
got to feed him with his milk and then hope
and pray that he will fall asleep again. But often
he doesn't. Like that's it. Six point thirty. That's it.
He's up and he wants to play, and so I
have to drag myself out of bed, or my wife does.
And yeah, so anyway, so the kids would just sleep

(01:09:48):
a couple of extra hours. We'd all get to have
a couple of extra hours of sleep, and then some
delicious breakfast of fresh baguette, fresh bread, maybe a cooked
breadakfast that would be nice, like some eggs and bacon,
maybe some slices of perfect avocado, because avocados are not

(01:10:09):
always perfect, are they. Sometimes you buy one and that
looks great, bring it home, it's all weird inside what
happened to that avocado? So my avocado would be perfect
and lovely. Cups of tea to start the day, and
then maybe spend a little bit of time on the
carpet in the living room, playing with the kids, and

(01:10:31):
the kids, of course, would be perfectly well behaved and
just absolutely adorable. The sun is shining, it's a warm
but cool day, warm day with a little cool breeze
coming through the window. That cool breeze is important. Just
to ah, that sounds nice. That would be a nice
morning routine. I think that'll do. I wouldn't want to

(01:10:54):
set any other expectations. That's probably all I should ask for, right,
moving on, next question, what are we going to get
this time? Okay, next question? You find a hidden trap
door in your flat? Do you open it? Ooh? So
a hidden trap door? A trap door, it's normally a

(01:11:17):
door in the floor, right, So it might be a
door in the floor, like maybe a square section of
the floor, and there are a couple of hinges and
a little hook handle and you open it and h
this door opens and there's a whole other room or
some sort of storage place underneath the floor that you

(01:11:39):
didn't realize was there. So maybe let's say I'm doing
something in the apartment. We've decided to change the carpet.
Let's say, and we rip up the carpet in let's
say the kid's bedroom and wait a minute, what's this.
There's a trap door here? Huh so a hidden trap door?
Do I open it? Yes? Of course, absolutely, the prospect

(01:12:04):
of gaining any more space, any more storage space in
our tiny, miniscule shoe box of a Parisian apartment, any
extra storage pace, split space, any extra storage space, I'm
going for it now. Sure, okay, sure, this might be

(01:12:24):
a trap door to some sort of evil dimension, or
maybe there are skeletons in there. I don't know why
there would be skeletons in there, or like I don't
know what spiders or something. Why would there be or
maybe it's yeah, the portal to another an evil universe.

(01:12:46):
But it's unlikely, isn't it? But why would there be
a trap door in the floor? Secret trap door? I
don't know. I'm definitely opening it again because storage space
is so important. So I don't know. What do you
think would be in there? Maybe imagine if you find
some like several old suitcases and you're like, oh, look,

(01:13:08):
several old suitcases, you open them up, zip and there
is millions of pounds of cash, and maybe there's a
skeleton in there as well. Why not there's a skeleton
in there, and he's got his arms wrapped around the
suitcase or a skeleton in there, and he's like his

(01:13:31):
arms are up like that because he's been trying to
get out. And you think, what happened here? I don't know,
don't tell anyone what should we do with the skeleton?
I don't know. I tell you what you would do
with the skeleton, right? You would attach it to a
metal thing, a metal pole, and just hang it like
that and sell it to a doctor. There sorted, and

(01:13:53):
we keep the money. Not only do we get the money,
we get more money because we sell the skeleton as well.
Some headphones on him, take a few photos, you know,
convert them into posters for podcast listeners. And Bob's your uncle?
What am I talking about? I don't know. It's a
stupid rambling episode. What are you going to do? What

(01:14:14):
would you do if you found a hidden trap door
in your flat? Would you open it? What could be
inside there? Used to be a kid's TV show when
my brother and I were growing up. We absolutely loved it.
It was called The trap Door, and it was this
kind of fantasy, creepy fantasy TV show about a kind

(01:14:35):
of blue creature called Burke, and Burke was the servant
of a horrible monster that lived in a castle. You
never saw this monster, you just heard his voice. He
would go buck feed me like that, and Burke would
run around and trying trying to keep his master happy.

(01:14:56):
And there was a trap door in the middle of
this dungeon where he lived, and he would always every
episode he'd have to open the trap door. But whenever
he opened it's something weird and horrible would come out
of the trapdoor, and he would spend the rest of
the episode trying to deal with whatever problem. It was,
like some creature that was trying to eat him, or

(01:15:16):
some ghosts or something like that. So certainly made for
a good TV show. So I think I would set
up a camera first to capture the moment, and then
I'd open the trap door and then it would You know,
it could be that it could end up being a
really good found footage horror film or something like that
at the very least, right moving on, moving on to

(01:15:41):
more important things. You wake up and you're the king
of a tiny island nation. What is your first law? Okay,
wake up the king of a tiny island nation. My
first law is well, I've dealt with this before. Free
ice cream, free ice cream for every citizen of this
tiny island nation. It so it's a tiny island nation.

(01:16:04):
It's not like everyone's tiny, it's not like tiny little people.
I'm assuming it's just a small island. Let's say there's
what what would be a good number of people living
on the island. Let's say there's about five thousand people,
because anything less than that it's going to be awkward,
isn't it. If you're stuck on the island with them
less than five thousand people, it's going to get going

(01:16:26):
to get a bit awkward because you're just going to
see the same people again and again. You want a
few more people than that, especially if there's interbreeding going on, right,
if there's families, people having children, you want there to
be a larger number of people to increase the gene
pool because otherwise, fairly quickly as your island nation progresses

(01:16:47):
through the generations, the potential is that the gene pool
is going to be very limited, which is not very
not very good recipe for sort of healthy healthy The
race of people is it, You know, you want a
bit more diversity in there, so I'd want more than
let's say, about five thousand people. I've got no idea

(01:17:07):
what I'm talking about. Really, I'm just trying to define
what a tiny island nation is. But let's say, free
ice cream for everyone. I know it's going to ruin
the economy of the country. It's like, your majesty, your
first decree is free ice cream. Yes, free ice cream
for every citizen. I want to show everyone that I

(01:17:27):
am a generous, benevolent king. So free ice cream, your majesty,
you do realize what effect that will have on the economy,
that the the you know, ice cream manufacturers will well,
many of them will be bankrupt. How many ice cream
manufacturers do we have on the island. Well, there's well
there's only one, sir, the Royal ice Cream Company. Well fine,

(01:17:49):
well you know how much do they need? Well, five
thousand people free ice cream, five pounds per ice cream?
Five pounds that's a lot. Well, it's fun premium quality
ice cream, five times five to how much is that
five times twenty five thousand? That's going to break the storry.
It's going to break the bank wall. So worry that

(01:18:11):
the bank of the island will pay for it's the
Royal coffers will pay twenty five that you've only got
twenty thousand. Sorry, the island's going to go bankrupt. And
then the island goes well. I feel like, why do
I feel like we've talked about this before. I'm sure
I've been through this before. That the island goes bankrupt.
Everyone runs out of money after the ice creams run out,

(01:18:33):
all the money's run out, and then you get these
factions on the island where people are surviving, and then
they end up fighting against each other and you end
up with a civil war on the island. The ice
cream wars and explosions go off, and you know, everything
goes horribly wrong. And then, like decades later, some sailors,

(01:18:55):
some explorers come and visit the island. They again, they
just find a bunch of skeletons on the island. What
went wrong here? It's one of the biggest mysteries of
the world. We don't know what happened on ice Cream Island.
The ice Cream Island mystery. That's what I would do.
What about you? What would your first law be? Next question?

(01:19:16):
Let's move things on. I'm going to keep going for
another ten minutes or so. Next question, if your podcast
episodes became sentient, like if they got a mind of
their own, if they became a bit like AI is
probably going to do. It's probably going to become sentient
in well, probably in the next five or six minutes
or something, isn't it. If your podcast episodes became sentient,

(01:19:37):
what sort of personalities would they have? God, I dread
to think. I dread to think that. I think they
would be good natured. I think they'd be good natured,
quite generous, quite kind and patient. But I don't know.

(01:19:58):
They might go on a bit like if you invited
one of them to a party, you know, they probably
outstay their welcome a little bit, wouldn't they should we
you know we're gonna have a party. Shall we invite
Episode nine hundred and thirty three to the party. It's
like yeah, And then like at midnight, Episode nine hundred
and thirty three, still going, still talking. Oh did I

(01:20:20):
tell you about the time I lived in Japan? It's like,
oh God, when's he gonna leave? I'm exhausted. So I
think they'll probably maybe be a bit socially inept, but
kind hearted. Yeah, yeah, all right, fine, there's no right
or wrong answer to this is there not really next question,

(01:20:44):
what's something everyone seems to like? But you just don't
get what's something that everyone seems to like But you
just don't get cold Play. Maybe cold Play not that
everyone likes them, because there's plenty of people who don't
like them. I'm not I'm not going to say I
hate them or anything. I'm just it's not really my
cup of tea, which is perhaps not what you would

(01:21:06):
expect from me. Coldplay right the band maybe you would
expect me to be might seem to be the ideal
candidate for a Coldplay fan. You might think, well, Luke,
you're of the right age kind of yeah, you're of

(01:21:27):
the right age, white middle class English guy. You you
know you should love Coldplay. I mean that you seem
to be right bang in the middle of the demographic
that would like them. But now it's not really my
cup of tea Coldplay. I quite like the first two
singles that they came up with, Yellow and Trouble, They're good.

(01:21:49):
I like those, But I don't know, I don't know
what happened with them, or maybe it's just me. It's
not them. It's me, isn't it? But I find it
to be just doesn't really do it for me. You know,
I quite like them. They seem to be nice enough guys.
I've got nothing against them. I just find the music
to be a little on the bland side, maybe a

(01:22:11):
little insipid, which seems to be very unfair of me.
But I wish them all the best. I know it's
not easy being a band in the music industry today,
and I think what they've achieved is extremely impressive. They've
you know, it's amazing what they've achieved. It's not easy
to do that, and they are still one of the

(01:22:33):
most successful bands in the world. And there are not
many bands left, are there? Have you noticed what happened
to all the bands? He used to be so many
big successful bands everywhere. There's just almost none left, and
Cold plays one of them. So fair play to them.
They've really done, you know, they've really been a huge success.

(01:22:58):
But I don't really choose to to their music myself.
Moving on, next question, what would your wizard name be?
What would your wizard name be if you lived in
the world of Harry Potter? H What would my wizard
name be if I lived in the world of Harry Potter?
If I lived in the world of Harry Potter. Well, Lucius,

(01:23:20):
I think it's got to be Lucius, Lucius something lucious
podcast us, there you go. Next, I'm going to try
and do quick fire. Now, what does your perfect afternoon
look like with no responsibilities? Oh? My perfect afternoon with
no responsibilities? You mean my wife and children? You mean

(01:23:45):
without them in the picture? What am I doing? Well?
I do enjoy just getting on a bike and riding
around Paris, especially if the weather's nice a bit like
this afternoon. To be honest, this is the afternoon I'm
trying to have today, just having a nice lunch somewhere,
riding around on a bike in a care free manner,

(01:24:05):
without feeling the pressure of having to get to work
on time, to be in a classroom, to start a
lesson on time. Without there would be no social media irritations.
And honestly, these days maybe this makes me seem like
a bit of an old fuddy duddy or something, But

(01:24:26):
these days, what really, what is really pleasant, is like
that afternoon I spent a few years ago, and I
talked about on the podcast, where I sat in a
square next to a fountain and read a nice old
book of stories HG. Wells Stories, while the sun came

(01:24:48):
through the trees and glistened off the slightly wet grass
of the park because it had rained that morning, but
the warm sunlight came in and dried up the ground,
and the birds were running around on the gravel in
front of me. And I sat there with my back

(01:25:08):
warmed by the sun, reading this wonderful book, breathing in
the fresh air, listening to the sounds of the city
around me. That was a wonderful moment. And that is
just all I need really these days. You know. In
a way, I feel like all I need these days

(01:25:28):
is to reduce the number of distractions, to take away
the things that are vying for my attention all the time,
you know, to take a break from my phone and
from my devices. I actually do find that if I
can get those things away and just find some peaceful space,

(01:25:49):
that actually lots of nice, good feelings do come flooding
back in. And I think that it's really important to
try and take time to do those things, certainly for me. Anyway,
I find I do end up getting locked into my phone.
I sit there staring at my screen. I get all

(01:26:09):
distracted and worked up about the things that are going
on in that world in there. A lot of that
stuff is taking my attention away from me, from myself
because a lot of the things that we have on
our phone, a lot of the apps and stuff, they

(01:26:29):
are designed to hold our attention, because our attention is
now a commodity which they can monetize. And so a
lot of the stuff that we're doing on our phones
is there to just it's like, stay here, just keep
looking at this. I'll reward you with little bits of
dopamine or whatever. I'll reward you. Just stay here, keep

(01:26:50):
looking at the screen. In fact, they are tracking the
way your eyes look at the screen. They know what
you're looking at, they know what you're doing, and it's
like a little bit of a manipulation that's going on.
I'm not sure or it's that healthy for us. And
so I've found just sitting and reading a book is
a wonderful feeling, and your mind seems to in mine anyway,

(01:27:13):
seems to reward me for that, for not subjecting it
to those sorts of manipulations that you get from all
these apps and whatever. Again, I sound like I'm kind
of old fashioned saying these things, but I think It's
just normal stuff, really, isn't it normal? Reasonable human reactions?
So yeah, my perfect afternoon a bit like the afternoon

(01:27:34):
I had today. Maybe record a podcast. It would be
nice to record a good episode of the podcast, one
that I felt was fun. And that's a quite satisfying feeling.
If I do an episode that I think is going
to be good and I enjoy doing it, and I
feel like good things went into it, like funny moments
or good ideas, or particularly insightful moments, if that's possible.

(01:27:58):
When I feel like I've done that, that can be very
sad is fine feeling because you think, yeah, I've got
something good there. I think they're going to enjoy that.
That's a nice satisfying feeling. So my perfect afternoon with
no responsibilities not too different to this afternoon. Actually, fingers crossed.
As long as people like this episode, then maybe this

(01:28:18):
will be a good afternoon. A perfect afternoon. That might
be a bit too much to expect, but certainly a
good one. Okay, let's do two more. Here we go,
spin the wheel. What's your most irrational daily habit? My
most irrational daily habit, Well, going back to the phone
is probably just like randomly picking up my phone without

(01:28:41):
even thinking about it and going into some app to
look at comments. That is pretty irrational. But also biting
my fingernails, why do I do that? I'm one of
those I don't bite my fingernails. I bite the skin
on the edge of my fingernails. I kind of like
bite it in just a moment. I'm thinking about something else,

(01:29:01):
and I'll bite it off. And you think, why, that's
a weird thing. Isn't it to do to sort of
eat yourself eat parts of your own body for no reason?
There's no nutritional value to that. It doesn't look good,
doesn't feel good. Biting my biting the corners of my
fingers is a pretty irrational daily habit. What about you?
Do you have any irritating little habits like that? Do

(01:29:23):
you pick your fingers, bite your fingernails, or other stuff
like that. It's hard to stop doing those things, isn't it.
For Like, your my fingers always need something to do,
you know, I need to be doing something. I tap
my fingers a lot as well, because I like to
play the drums. But I don't always have a drum
kit in front of me, of course, so I end

(01:29:43):
up tapping my fingers on things. I think I'm thinking
one of those people who needs to be doing something
with his hands Otherwise I end up, like you know,
picking up my fingers or something. That's my irrational daily habit.
It could be worse, couldn't It could be a lot
worse than that. Thankfully, it's not too bad my particular

(01:30:04):
Habit's not too self destructive or anything. Only a little bit,
just the corners of my fingers. What about you? Do
you have any irrational daily habits, compulsive habits like that?
Next question, I'm going to set a little two minute
timer here just to remind me to stop in two minutes. Okay,

(01:30:25):
So this is the last little section of this episode.
If someone looked inside your fridge right now, what assumptions
would they make about you? If someone looked inside my fridge,
what assumptions would they make about you? They would probably
assume that I love dairy because for some reason, there's
a lot of dairy a lot of dairy products in

(01:30:45):
a fridge. Sorry for the vegans listening. And I got
a comment about this as well. Random comment when I
was talking about putting milk in my tea and someone said, oh,
you wouldn't put milk in your tea if you knew
what the poor cows had to go through, which sort
of like it's difficult, isn't it in your daily life

(01:31:08):
to you know, when you know that there are bad
things in the world that even just like your everyday
actions that you don't even think about, you know you're
contributing to the suffering of something or someone somewhere, even
by doing nothing, even by just having a nice attempting
to have a nice birthday and just having a nice day,

(01:31:29):
by not doing something, you're also contributing to a lot
of the bad things in the world. So anyway, how
did I get onto that you'd look into my fridge
and you would you might assume that I don't care
about the well being of animals, because there's quite a
lot of milk in there, milk yogurt. See. The thing
is that my wife, my kids, and I we all

(01:31:49):
eat different types of yogurt. So we've all got our
own different types of yogurt in the fridge. There's milk
for my tea, and then of course there's cheese, because
I live in France and you know you've got to
you don't have to eat cheese here. I know even
some French people who don't like cheese. Can you believe it? Yes,
that person, there are people like that who do exist,

(01:32:10):
non cheese eating French people. I know, it's crazy. I
don't know what other assumptions you'd make about me based
on what you could see in the fridge. You'd have
to look in my fridge. I think. I don't know
if you'll ever get the chance to do that. This
is the last question. Have you ever invented an English

(01:32:31):
word that should exist? I think I have. You know,
I think there have been lots of times on this
podcast where I've accidentally said a word that doesn't exist,
like I've kind of mixed up two words. I just
can't think of an example at this moment in time
of you know, when I've made up a word that
doesn't exist. You know what I mean. If you've been
listening to this podcast for a long time, It's just normal,

(01:32:54):
isn't it. When people talk, they sometimes trip over their
words and say things that be a combination of two
other words, or you kind of you you slip up
and you say something that doesn't actually exist. I've done
that loads of times, and it's been it's ended up
with some funny moments, but I can't, for the life
of me think of any examples of that, So I

(01:33:15):
would say maybe I would have to invent Let's say
I can invent a word. Now, let's call it pod podcrastination, podcrastination,
and pocrastination for me, would be the phenomenon of compulsively

(01:33:38):
making podcast episodes when I should be doing something else
in my life. So making podcast episodes when I should
be focusing on more serious life related things like maybe
ap applying for French citizenship, I should be doing that.
I should be working on my French citizenship application, including

(01:34:03):
passing the French language test and all the other steps
you have to take to get a French passport, which
is something I must do, and it would be dual citizenship.
By the way, I'd keep my British passport and also
get a French one an EU one, because it would
just be safe and a good idea for me to

(01:34:23):
have a French passport. Living in France with a French family,
you never know. You never know what's going to happen,
especially in the current climate. Maybe one day a new
government will come into France and they will look at
me and they'll say you're not French. You can fuck off, mate.
They might say that, they might, And I'm serious. This
sort of thing is happening more and more in the world.

(01:34:45):
You know. It's terrible anyway, So yeah, pocrastination doing episodes
of this podcast when I should be probably working on
other serious things in my life. Yes, I'm going to
do one more because felt negative. I'm going to try
and end on something a bit more fun. Okay, well,

(01:35:05):
this is a very ridiculous question to end with. Would
you rather fight one hundred duck sized horses or one
horse sized duck? Right? Would you rather fight one hundred
duck sized horses or one horse sized duck? This is
a classic would you rather question? Right? This question? This

(01:35:30):
is fairly common, silly would you rather question? That's come
up in lots of would you rather games over the
years in various context, not just me, but lots of people. Anyway,
one hundred duck sized horses, So these are one hundred horses,
but there's the size of ducks, so they're quite small,
like maybe the size of chickens. So one hundred of

(01:35:51):
them little tiny horses or one huge duck, which is
the size of a horse, which to me sounds a
bit like an apornist from Apornis Island, that story that
I in fact read when I was sitting in that
park having a lovely afternoon a couple of years ago,
and then I told the story on the podcast. One

(01:36:14):
duck that's the size of a horse would be a
terrifying thing. And I think if it was a one
to one fight between me and that massive duck, then
the duck is definitely going to win because all it
needs to do is peck me in the head once
and I'm dead, aren't I really, Or flap its wings
and you know, it's just can pect me and grab

(01:36:34):
me with its beak and it'll pull my head off.
So there's no way I could win. But I think
I could probably take one hundred duck sized horses. But
it depends on the conditions, Like what are the conditions
If I would I be able to run faster than

(01:36:56):
a horse that's the size of a duck? Maybe, But
I think if I could run and maybe get them
in a narrow space, so like run down a narrow
alleyway so they can't surround me and run away, and
then as they come towards me. I'd sort of like
kick them all and then run away and then kick

(01:37:17):
a few more and then keep running. I think i'd
have a chance, but I mean, obviously I would rather not,
you know, I would rather not have to fight any
any of these creatures. But if I've got no choice
and I have to, then I would choose to fight
one hundred duck sized horses. And I'd run down some
narrow corridor and get them all in one spot and

(01:37:40):
just kick as many of them as I could and
then run away before they got to climb all over
me or something. What would one hundred duck sized horses do.
They'd climb all on top of me and all kick
me all at the same time. I think that would
be devastating, So it would have to have to keep
on the move and like take them all, take them
out one by one. What a dreadful thought, What an

(01:38:03):
absolutely dreadful thought. What a dreadful way to end this episode.
But luckily it's not happened. It hasn't actually happened. It's
all just in the imagination, So no animal lovers need
to worry about it, because no animals were harmed, and
we can just continue with the love of animals in

(01:38:26):
our hearts and minds and live the rest of our
lives with a clean conscience, knowing that no animals were
harmed in the making of this podcast episode as far
as I'm aware. All Right, hey listeners, you're still there,
are you? You're still there? You're still with me? Are
you still alive? You are excellent? Well done, you made

(01:38:46):
it through to the end of the episode. I am
very proud of you. And it's been fun. I've enjoyed
the episode. Thank you for spending my birthday with me.
And yeah, I said at the beginning that I would
reveal my age at the end of the episode, so
I'm willing to do that. So I was born in

(01:39:08):
nineteen seventy seven, the same year as Star Wars, so
I am as old as Star Wars and some of
them thinking that, well, that's really old, isn't it. So
I'm forty eight years old, forty eight years old today,
And like some people, you know, you get different different

(01:39:29):
attitudes about birthdays and ages, and I'm not one of
those people. Maybe I'm just lucky because I'm I know,
maybe it's different for men or something, because I don't
know whatever, whatever. I'm not one of those people who
gets like upset about getting older, really, I mean, I
don't get upset about my age increasing. Getting older is

(01:39:53):
obviously a different thing in itself, but the number doesn't
really bother me as such. And yeah, the fact that
I'm getting o older. Like you know, some people get
upset about when it's their birthday and they're like, oh
my god, I can't believe I'm forty eight years old.
But for me, I always think, what's the alternative? The
only other alternative to you being forty eight is you

(01:40:15):
being dead, right, I mean, that's it. It's either you're
forty eight years you make it to forty eight years old,
or you don't, you know. So essentially, I'm very happy
to have made it this far. I think that's the
best way to think about it. I'm so happy to
have made it this far. And forty eight is relatively young.

(01:40:35):
I mean I'm talking like, you know, for someone who's
eighty might say they're happy to have made it this far.
But any year you should be glad that you've made it,
you know. So what do you think is is that
young or old? Well, it's middle aged, isn't it. I'm
a middle aged man now, but I wonder if that's
a surprise that you thought I was a lot older
or younger. Normally, when people hear my voice, when people

(01:40:59):
hear my voice, they've listened to my voice for a
long time, and they've never seen me. Often people seem
to be surprised when they see me because they expect
me to look different. They expect me often they expect
me to be larger. They expect me to be maybe larger,
maybe fatter, and older than I am. And then when

(01:41:22):
they actually see me, they're actually they're kind of surprised.
So I seem to have an old, fat voice. Yeah,
all right, thanks for spending my birthday with me. Listeners.
Oh someone's calling me. All right, thanks for spending my
birthday with me. Listeners. It's been lovely, and leave your

(01:41:46):
comments in the comment section. Don't forget you can get
the PDF transcript for the whole episode that could be
useful for you. I will speak to you in the
next episode. I really hope you enjoyed this one, and
that you enjoy all my episodes. That is the idea,
and that you learn from them. Speak to you next time.
But for now, it's time to say goodbye bye bye

(01:42:06):
bor Bor. Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast. For
more information, visit teacher Luke dot com dot UK. If

(01:42:31):
you enjoyed this episode of Luke's English podcast, consider signing
up for Luke's English Podcast Premium. You'll get regular Premium
episodes with stories, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation teaching from me,
and the usual moments of humor and fun. Plus with
your subscription, you will be directly supporting my work and
making this whole podcast project possible. For more information about

(01:42:55):
Luke's English Podcast Premium, go to teacher Luke dot co
dot uk a slash Premium info

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}937. A Birthday Ramble / The Spinning Wheel of Random Questions