940. Our favourite things to do in London 🇬🇧 (Part 2)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to Luke's English podcast. For more information, visit
teacher Lukes dot co dot uk. Hello listeners, welcome back
to the podcast. Now this is part two of a
two part episode. The episode is called Our Favorite Things

(00:26):
to Do in London. And yeah, this is part two
of a two part episode. I recommend that you listen
to part one of this first. It should be the
episode just before this in your episode list Yeah, listen
to part one before you listen to part two. But anyway,
here's a quick recap of what's going on here. So
this week I uploaded a video to YouTube. It's called

(00:49):
Walk and Talk London. Normally, when I do these walk
and talk videos, i'll use the audio track as a
podcast episode, and normally i'll make it in a way
that that actually is possible, and the audio track kind
of works fine as a podcast episode on its own.
But in this particular case, the audio track doesn't really

(01:11):
work because I just ended up talking about things I
could see, and if you just listen to the audio
then it just doesn't really work. The video is available,
you can watch it. You'll find a link in the description.
You can join me as I walk around some parts
of central London, starting on the south bank of the
river and then crossing Westminster Bridge, going past Big Ben,

(01:33):
going along Whitehall, past Downing Street where the Prime Minister lives,
and then going round into Trafalgar Square, past all the
fountains and the statue of Nelson on Nelson's Column, past
the galleries, right the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery,
and then into Covent Garden, through Covent Garden Market and

(01:54):
then to Piccadilly Circus via Leicester Square and then into
the undergrad round to Baker Street station where I stopped
at the statue of Sherlock Holmes. So you can find
a link to that video in the description. But yes,
because I couldn't use the audio for that track, I've
decided to record a completely separate, completely different audio only

(02:18):
episode that would work as a companion to that video,
and this is part two of that. And the concept
here is that I thought that I would talk about
London and talk about things that you can do in
London and describe what it's like in the city. Maybe
you've never been there, maybe you're never going to go
to London, but you might be curious and you might

(02:38):
want to know what it's like, you know, it might
give you an idea, a sort of remote sense of
what the city is like. Or maybe you're planning to
go and this could give you loads of really good
inside tips and ideas of things that you could do
while you're there. Or maybe you spent time in London
in the past and this is like a little trip
down memory lane for you. So I'm going to be

(03:01):
going through some more audio clips, right I asked friends
and family to send me some recordings. I wanted them
to talk for a few minutes in response to a question.
The question is what is your favorite thing to do
in London and why? And I received a total of

(03:21):
eighteen audio clips. We've already heard seven of those. In
part one. We heard from Ambert Martin, my daughter, James Simpson,
Aaron Moz and my mum, and learned some vocab as well.
So we're going to continue. I'll play you some more recordings.
After each recording, I'll briefly summarize what they said and

(03:44):
give some comments and also point out some bits of
vocabulary or maybe other features of language which are worth
pointing out. Okay, there's a PDF for this episode in
which you can find a full episode transcript with every
single word, plus a vocabulary list. And also I'll give
you a list, a sort of summary of all of
the bits of advice that you can get from both

(04:07):
of these parts. It'll be presented to you in a
nice convenient list which you could use if you ever
go to London. You could check items off that list
or use it as inspiration for things to do. Okay,
so let's carry on then, and we're going to continue.
So the last person you heard from in part one
was my mum, so I thought it would be a

(04:29):
good idea to continue with my dad. So you're going
to hear from my dad. Now what is his favorite
thing to do in London? And why? So you know
my dad. He's my dad, and this recording could be
an excerpt from one of his books. Actually, if he
wrote a book about London and then made an audio
book version of it, this could be an extract from it. Okay,

(04:53):
so let's listen to my dad. I'll summarize and give
some vocab and stuff afterwards. But here we go.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
So, Luke, this is your dad. When I think of London,
I always think of the river, the River Thames, which
is always bustling with activity, and one can stand on
one of the bridges and watch things going on forever.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
And of course its history. The history of.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
London is very much based on the river, and there
are classical views of London, the Houses of Parliament, of course,
and the view of the iconic Tower Bridge with its
cantilevered road. There was a famous incident when a red
London bus was on the bridge when it started raising
its Candi leaver, isn't it The driver decided to jump

(05:36):
the gap, which he did successfully. There are thirty five
bridges on the Thames, but not all of them in London,
and the view from Westminster Bridge has been painted by
Turner canaletto Money and London Bridge. Well, London Bridge is
falling down, as a famous rhyme. There have been several

(05:58):
London bridges. The most famous one really, I suppose, was
built in the thirteenth century and had houses or shops
all the way along it, and half of it was
burned in the Great Fire of London, but there was
a gap in the shops and so it didn't reach
the other side of the river the fire, which is
pretty fortunate. And then London Bridge that was replaced by

(06:22):
another bridge in eighteen thirty one, and then when that
one got derelict and had to be replaced, it was
bought by an American called Robert McCullough. People have said
he thought he was buying Tower Bridge, but that's not true.
He knew what he was doing and he bought it
in an auction for four and a half million, no
two and a half million dollars. So the Thames with

(06:45):
its views of the Bridge, Tower of London, Saint Paul's,
the South Bank, theater Land, the Shard with the great
tall spire. I mean, that's what I think of when
I like to be in London, along the.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
River which is so active.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
I could say, though, I like Bobby's on Bicycles two
by two, Westminster Abbey, the Tower Big Ben, the roses,
red cheeks of the little children, but I won't.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Okay, thank you Dad for that little excerpt from Dad's
upcoming book, The Bridges of London Town. That was great,
and that bit at the end where he said, what
did he say? At the end he was quoting lyrics
from a song, the lyrics being Bobby's on Bicycles two
by two, Westminster Abbey, the Tower of Big Ben the

(07:36):
rosy red cheeks of the Little Children. That's actually from
a song called England Swings by an American sort of
country singer from the fifties and sixties called Roger Miller.
And England Swings was a kind of popular song from
the mid sixties, a kind of novelty song by this

(07:58):
American guy singing about going to England, going to London
on holiday and the things that you can see there.
And it sounds like this England Swings like a pendulum,
doo barbiesan bicycles too, by two Westminster Abbey, the Tower,

(08:19):
Big Band, The rosy red cheeks of the little Children. Right,
what about the other things? My dad said, So he
talked about the Thames. Basically, when he thinks of London,
he thinks of the River Thames and the bridges. He says,
it's bustling with activity. Bustling is a nice adjective, right,

(08:46):
It's a nice adjective which means, yeah, if something is bustling,
it means it's just full of activity, full of life.
There's people moving this way and that way, things going
on all the time. You can stand on one of
the bridges, like you know Waterloo Bridge as I said
in Part one, known for its excellent views. But you
can stand on lots of the different bridges and just
have a look down onto the river banks or look

(09:08):
at the river itself. There are all sorts of boats
going up and down the river, people going over the bridge,
there are things going on on the different banks, and
you can just look out to any part of the
city and just see all sorts of things happening everywhere,
big skyscrapers in the distance and so on. So it's
bustling with activity. You mentioned Tower Bridge, which is the

(09:30):
iconic bridge with the towers on it, and it's canto
Leavered Road, Okay, So canti leavd It just means that.
So there's a section in the middle of the bridge,
because it's quite low, there's a section. There's a break
in the middle of the bridge, which means that the
bridge can be raised up to allow boats, certain sort

(09:53):
of boats with I guess tall masts to travel underneath
the bridge without hitting it. It's canti leave it. So
because there's that break in the middle. The rigid body
of the bridge that goes over the water, it extends horizontally,
but it's only supported at one end. That's what cantileverd means.

(10:15):
It's supported at one end, so it's you know, it's
two pieces of road supported on the two ends, but
not supported in the middle. And there's a mechanism which
allows the bridge to rise up. And it's kind of
it's quite a rare thing to see. But if you
do see the bridge actually going up, then you know

(10:37):
that's a special moment. And you see a boat going underneath,
and the traffic has to stop. And he told a
story of apparently a bus driver who wants ended up
driving over the bridge as it was going up, as
it was rising, and he decided to go for it,
and he ended up going over the gap. He jumped
over the gap. I don't know if it was like

(10:57):
that action packed, like a kind of a Tom Cruise
movie or something. I wonder if I can find find
out what happened story of bus going over tower Bridge. Okay, right, look,
I found it. This is from tower bridge dot org
dot UK. Presumably this is the website for tower Bridge

(11:18):
and this is the day a bus jumped Tower Bridge.
You might have heard of the traffic tale involving two
London icons, tower Bridge and a London bus, but do
you know the true story behind the Tower Bridge bus jump?
Read on to find out. So I'm just reading from
the extract. So what happened? On the thirtieth of December
nineteen fifty two, Albert Gunter was happily going about his

(11:42):
day job, driving the number seventy eight bus over Tower
Bridge towards Shoreditch. To his utter surprise, the road in
front of him seemed to drop away. Gunter quickly realized
that the bridge was opening and his bus was on
a rising bascule. Slamming his foot down on the accelerator,
gun to manage to jump the rising bascule. He successfully

(12:05):
reached the north side of Tower Bridge, which had not
yet begun to open, getting all his twenty passengers across safely.
Oh my god, as a precaution, And why didn't he
just stop? I suppose if he'd stopped, the bridge would
have kept rising. And then you know, next thing. You know,
your bus, which should be horizontal, is in a vertical position,

(12:27):
which is not a very good idea, especially when you're
on a bridge. You don't want the bus to topple
over into the water. I don't think that's possible because
the bridge supports would prevent it from happening, but anyway,
he probably had to make a quick decision, and the
decision was I think I can make it over this
gap rather than wait for the bus to be tipped over.

(12:50):
It continues. As a precaution. All the people on board
were taken to hospital. Thankfully, there was only one person injured.
It was going to himself. He broke his leg. Amazingly enough,
the bus, which was only going twelve miles an hour,
was intact, so the bus was not damaged at all,
but poor Gunter broke his leg. Whose fault was it,

(13:13):
I don't know. This is actually a statement from one
of the passengers called Peter Dunn, who wrote this. Before
we knew it. We were going across Tower Bridge, but
just as we'd gone over the first half of the
section that goes up, there was a loud crashing sound
and I was thrown to the floor. The bus came

(13:34):
to a halt and the driver came round to invite
us to have a look at the gap that had
opened on the opposite half. The driver then told us
that he'd started to drive across the opening part of
the bridge. He realized that the side that the bus
was on was going up. He said he could only
think of two options as to what to do. One

(13:55):
was to stop the bus and hope someone would realize
what was happening and stop the bridge, but that left
the possibility of the bus slipping back and perhaps toppling
into the river. The other was to continue driving and
to jump the gap. He said that he'd been a
tank driver during the war and that a tank would
have had no trouble getting onto the other side, and

(14:17):
decided to see if a double decker bus would do
the same thing. So, to his quick thinking, we were
all delivered safe to the other side.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Extraordinary. Why did the bridge lift? Back in the nineteen fifties,
a watchman was supposed to ring a warning bell and
close the gates before Tower Bridge opened, but on that
particular day he somehow forgot to do it. Gunter was
rewarded for this act of bravery and quick thinking. Albert
was awarded a day off work and a reward of

(14:47):
ten pounds, which is about three hundred pounds in today's money.
When asked how he would spend the reward, he replied,
five for me and five for the missus. That's nice,
isn't it. Five for me, five for the missus, so
he shared it with his wife. That is that is
very nice. The bridge has been jumped in popular culture

(15:08):
Spice Girls the movie which was called what Spice World?

Speaker 5 (15:12):
Wasn't that?

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Wasn't that what? It was called the Spice Girl's Movie?
Who could forget that? There was an exciting version of
the bridge jump in Spice Girls, the movie where posh
Spice that's Victoria Beckham drove a double decker bus tour
decorated with the Union Jack over Tower Bridge and jumped
the gap. Although the filming for this was made slightly

(15:34):
easier by using a model bus and a model bridge
instead of the real thing, But to be honest, I
would have I would love to see Victoria Beckham jumping
the gap on Tower Bridge in a double decker bus.
That would be great. Maybe, you know, if Tom Cruise
is going to stop doing the Mission Impossible films, maybe
someone else needs to take his place, and I think

(15:56):
that Victoria Beckham is the ideal candidate. It also happened
in an episode of Pepper Pig. There's a kid's story
a children's book called the Tower Bridge Cat as well,
in which a bus drives over the open bridge, and
I think the cat comes to the rescue somehow. But anyway,
that was a nice tangent. They're exploring the story of

(16:23):
when a bus jumped the tower bridge gap. Brilliant, amazing.
I mean, someone's got to make an action film about this,
you know, someone really should make a feature film about
what was his name, Arthur, Albert Albert Gunter. I think
that would be really good. Sounds like a German name.
I don't know if he was German anyway, right, So

(16:44):
what else? My dad talked about that, and he talked
about the fact thirty five bridges there have been paintings
by famous painters. Turner was mentioned again. London Bridge is
falling down. London Bridge is falling down. That is a
nursery rhyme that my dad mentioned very briefly. He said,
in London Bridge is falling down, London Bridge is falling down,

(17:05):
falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my
fair lady. I think that's how it goes. It's a
children's nursery rhyme and a kind of a famous phrase.
But he then talked about London Bridge and the various
London bridges that we've had over the years. There is
a London Bridge now, not to be confused with Tower Bridge,
which is the iconic one, the one that you know,

(17:28):
you might have seen pictures of or maybe seen in
real life. But London Bridge is another one. There is
a London Bridge now. It's a modern bridge. It's not
particularly exciting except that underneath it you can find Borough Market.
But there have been various London Bridges over the years.
As my dad said, he talked about one in eighteen
thirty one which got derelict derelict. If a building, or

(17:51):
in this case a bridge is derelict, it means it's
in very poor condition and can't be used anymore. So
you might talk about a derelict building, you know, derelict
buildings on the edge of town. What's going to happen
to these derelict buildings. They're going to be knocked down
or they're going to be refurbished and turned into apartments.
But the bridge, London Bridge, I think it was the

(18:13):
second London Bridge got derelict. The first one burned in
the Great Fire. But the second one was built in
eighteen thirty one and got derelict, so in very poor condition.
But it was bought by an American in an auction.
An auction is a form of sort of sales event
selling something where people can bid for the thing being sold,

(18:37):
and so there'll be bidders. It's a bit like the
way it works on eBay right the website. So an
item will be put up for auction and sold and
there's an auction master is that the word for it,
and different people bidding and it's sold to the highest bidder,
and apparently the highest bidder in this case, the one

(18:58):
who bought London Bridge was Robert McCulloch and American, And
it's kind of interesting to know what happened to the bridge.
McCulloch took the bridge and actually transported it all the
way to Arizona in the United States, and that's where
it exists now. It's in Lake Havassou City in Arizona.

(19:20):
This is from Wikipedia. When it was built in the
eighteen thirties, it spanned the River Thames in London. In
nineteen sixty eight, the bridge was purchased from the City
of London by Robert McCulloch. However, McCulloch only had the
exterior granite blocks from the original bridge cut and transported
to the United States for use in the construction of

(19:41):
a new bridge in Lake Havasu City, a planned community
he established in nineteen sixty four on the shore of
Lake Havasu. The only parts of the new London Bridge,
that's the eighteen thirty one one that made it to
Arizona were the exterior masonry. The Arizona Bridge is a
reinform to concrete structure clad in the original masonry of

(20:03):
the eighteen thirties, So he basically took the original sort
of masonry, that's the stones on the outside the surface
of the bridge. So the actual core structure of the
bridge wasn't transported to Arizona, but he took the kind
of the masonry, the stones from the outside of it,
and then they reconstructed another bridge in Arizona and he
stuck all of the masonry stones on the surface of it.

(20:25):
And vohil, there is London Bridge Arizona. Yeah, that's pretty good.
That's pretty interesting. So yes, sold in an auction and
then transported to Arizona. My dad also mentioned a building
called the Shard, which is one of the more recent buildings.

(20:45):
It's a kind of skyscraper and it has a unique
design it's a shard. A shard normally would be a
shard of glass. So imagine if a window gets broken,
the pieces of glass that end up on the floor
could be described as shards of glass, long, sharp pointed pieces.

(21:07):
And the shard is a skyscraper in sort of the
east part of the city, near Liverpool Street, and it
looks like it's made of shards of glass. It's the
best way to put it. It all rises up to
a point. My dad described this as its tall spire.
Normally this a spire is the pointed tower of a church,

(21:31):
but in this case it's the spire of the shard,
which is this. Yeah, this interesting looking building which people
have commented that it looks a bit like the Tower
of barad Dur from the Lord of the Rings films. Anyway,
there you go. England swings like a pendulum. Do barbies

(21:55):
on bicycles too? By two Westminster Abbey, the tower Big
ben rosy red cheeks of the little children. If you
halfn't par Fanny finally saving Argollo the rest of the
song path and you finally so, how does the rest

(22:18):
of that go?

Speaker 6 (22:26):
England swings like a Pendulemond Bobby's own bicycle was too
bad to west, mister Abbey, the Tara big Ben and
the rosy red cheeks of the little shoe man.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
Now, if you haven't both and you finally saving over.

Speaker 6 (22:45):
Money and you take your family.

Speaker 5 (22:46):
On a triple across the sea, take a tip before
you take a triple.

Speaker 6 (22:51):
Lemon turn you where you go.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Go to England.

Speaker 6 (22:54):
England swings like a pend Dude, Bobby's own bicycles too.
That Wes Master and the terrible men in the Rosie.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Said, okay, the lyrics of that England swings like a pendulum.
Do a pendulum is a thing that swings left to right,
like the thing underneath an old clock. Bobbies on bicycles.
This is this sort of old nickname of police officers
in England. They we used to call them bobbies. And

(23:29):
one of the things about police, certainly in the past
in England and in London especially is that they would
be on the beat. That means just that police would
just go around walking around the streets. Okay, they would
be assigned a certain area of the city and they
would just kind of like walk around as a way

(23:50):
to prevent crime, make people feel safe, and they would
ride bicycles and that's a sort of one of those
cliched images of London that Americans have. Bobbies on bicycles,
police on bicycles with their iconic helmets, you know, those
helmets with the sort of domed top two by two.
So often they would go in pairs that usually be

(24:12):
two of them at a time. Westminster Rabbi, the Tower
of Big Ben, you know, tourist attractions, the rosy red
cheeks of the little children. Red cheeks, rosy red cheeks.
You've got fresh face. Maybe if it's a bit cold,
you might have slightly red cheeks. We call those rosy
red cheeks. The rest of the lyrics in the song

(24:33):
in the next verse. In fact, this is the rest
of the lyrics. Go now, if you huff and puff
and you finally save enough money up to take your
family on a trip across the sea, take a tip
before you take your trip, let me tell you where
to go.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
Go to England. So if you.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Huff and puff, huffing and puffing refers to breathing hard,
like hard breathing, huffing and puffing, and it also relates
to making an effort. Right, you can imagine huffing and
puffing because you're making an effort. Maybe you're working hard
and you're saving money. Right, So if you huff and puff,

(25:09):
I mean, if you work hard and finally save enough
money up to take your family on a trip. Across
the seat, take a tip before you take your trip.
Take a tip, meaning take a piece of advice before
you take your trip. Let me tell you where to go?
Go to England? Yeah, all right, charming and funny little
novelty song from the sixties. Right, Let's crack on because

(25:33):
I've got to get going here. We've got more recordings
to here, right, So let's crack on. I've got other
recordings to do. But thanks to Dad. Dad's been on
the podcast plenty of times. If you want to hear
from him again, you know, of course, you know, most
long term listeners will know episodes of the Rick Thompson Report.

(25:55):
Will we ever do any more of those? We'll see
and more recently Dad was on the PO podcast talking
about history his books which deal with history and nature,
the most recent one being episode nine hundred and two
when he talked about his book A Year on the Foss.
Dad's books are all available from all Good UK bookshops

(26:15):
and some global international ones, you know, the kind of
corporate online a certain corporate online bookstore you can get
his books. They're called Park Life and a River Avon
Year and a Year on the foss Or by Rick Thompson.
So that was my dad. Let's move on to the

(26:38):
next person, and you're now going to hear from Anna Brooke.
Anna is an author of children's books and also a
travel writer. She is based in Paris, but she is
from England and knows London really well. Anne has been
on the podcast before talking about her two children's books,
Monster Bogie and Monster Stinky. You might remember her. I'll

(26:59):
remind you again of which episodes they were. But let's
listen to Anna and the specific things that she talks
about enjoying in London.

Speaker 7 (27:10):
Hi, my name is Anna Brook. So what are my
favorite things to do in London? There were so many
things to do in London. I think I've got three
things that I like the most. The first one is
the musicals and the theater. I just think the West
End has like some of the best musicals and theater
in the world. So I always try and go and

(27:31):
see a show, and I usually try and do it
sneakily by going to the Leicester Square box office place
where you can get discount tickets and then you can
do a bit of serendipitous show watching, so you don't
really know what you're going to go and see until
you see what tickets are on sale. Another thing I
love is going to the Saint Martin's in the Field

(27:53):
Church just off Trafalgar Square, because they have a cafe
in the crypt, and ever since I was little, I
always go to this cafe just so. It was great
sitting on tables, sitting at tables that are on gravestones,
so I just so it's very quirky. And they do
these brass rubbings, which is where you have like a

(28:15):
sort of a metal plate that's got lots I got
a picture on it and you put paper over the
top and you rub a crayon over it and you
get an impression of what the what the brass is.
And when I was little, I was used to do it.
It was always used to be nights in shining armor.
So that's another thing that I now like taking my

(28:36):
son to do.

Speaker 5 (28:38):
And the third thing is.

Speaker 7 (28:42):
Because I'm a children's book author, so I love going
around all the bookshops and especially Waterstones. I sort of
go between lots of different Waterstones bookshops. Waterstones is a
book chain, but it's a very nice one that has
a cafe and they very big with lots of different sections,

(29:02):
and so I go and sneakily see if my books
are on the shelves.

Speaker 5 (29:07):
He there you go. If you go to London, I
hope you have a lovely time.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
Thank you, Ana. So let me go through some of
the things that she said. There three things. The first
thing is musicals. Second thing is going to Saint Martin
in the fields the church. They're the cafe in the
crypt in the church. And then third thing is bookshops.
So first of all musicals. So yeah, when we talk
about going to the theater, normally we talk about going

(29:33):
to see a play, right, so Shakespeare plays for example,
these are plays. But then musicals are another sort of
performance you can see in the theater, and obviously they
involve a lot of music and singing. And the West
End of London, which is more or less around Piccadilly Circus,

(29:54):
Shaftsbury Avenue, that's what I think of when I think
of the West End. It's full of theaters that put
on these big well known musicals. Some of the most
famous musicals are Les Miserable, The Lion King, We Will
Rock You, The Queen Musical. There are just so many.
There are so many of them and musicals. So yeah,

(30:17):
this is definitely a big feature of nightlife in London,
going to a theater and seeing a musical in the
West End. And Anna said that she liked to do
it sneakily, which is quite an interesting expression. Okay, if
you're sneaky, it means you do something hmmm, how do
you describe this? Well, normally, if you're sneaky, you're doing

(30:40):
something without people realizing. You're doing it to sneak you know,
if you sneak in to a place, you do it
quietly without anybody realizing, like Ninja would do. To be stealthy,
you would sneak in. For example, if you're going into,
i don't know, steal a diamond from a museum, you

(31:01):
would sneak into the museum to get the diamond, right,
and you would do it sneakily, okay, and you would
be sneaky if you did that. So to sneak in,
to be sneaky, and to do something sneakily, Now, Anna
doesn't mean that she's sneaking into theaters to watch musicals.

(31:22):
What she really means is that she's finding this clever
way to get discounted tickets. So it's kind of like
the smart thing to do if you want to go
and see a musical in London, there is a way
that you can get discounted tickets and get into the
theater without paying the full price. And this is a
good tip, This is a really good tip. So in

(31:44):
Leicester Square there is a box office which sells tickets. Okay,
I think they're still there. There's one in Leicester Square.
I think in the sort of the southern the bottom
of Leicester Square there's a kind of a cabin and
it should have posters of different musicals on it, and
there they sell discounted tickets. I suppose the theaters, if

(32:08):
they feel like they need to quickly sell tickets to
fill the room, they will allow these box offices to
sell the tickets at a discounted price. The thing is
that you don't know exactly which musicals will be will
be discounted, which is quite a fun thing to do
if you're going to London, or if you know at
the weekend you want to see a musical, you're not

(32:30):
sure which one to see because there's so many There
are so many choices. Sometimes the best thing is just
to turn up at this box office, see which tickets
are on offer, and let fate decide. That's a good tip,
she says, to do some serendipitous show watching. So serendipity
is a word that means when things happen by chance. Right,

(32:55):
you could say it's serendipity means it's kind of like
chance or luck or fate which has decided a bit
like if you meet someone. Let's say you just meet
a friend of yours. Let's say you're in London and
you're in a cafe and just by total chance you
meet a friend of yours and it's like good luck.

(33:16):
It's like fate has come in and given you good
luck and put the two of you together. So, by serendipity,
you saw each other and it's obviously good luck has
decided that you need to see each other and spend
good time. So that's an idea of what serendipity is.
Serendipitous would be the adjective, and serendipitous show watching means,

(33:39):
you know, letting fate or luck decide, or letting serendipity
decide which show you go to see. So that's nice,
nice use of language, some serendipitous show watching. Her second
thing is to visit the church at Saint Martin in
the Fields. The church at Saint Martin in the Field,

(34:00):
so this is a church just off Trafalgar Square. As
you go up Trafalgar Square facing the galleries on the right,
there is a church and that church has a garden
with a cafe. The cafe is in the crypt. A
crypt is like an underground room under a church. It's

(34:21):
used as a sort of underground chapel or maybe a
burial place, sort of place that important people might be buried,
or important people for the church might be buried in
the crypt. So it's like an underground room under a church.
So there's a crypt in this church where there is
a cafe. And Anna says she finds the cafe to

(34:43):
be quirky. Right, if something is quirky, it means it's
kind of strange or unexpected or original or interesting, attractive, unique, unconventional.
So the reason that this is quirky, well, first of all,
it's a in a church in an old church crypt.
That's already quite a quirky thing that you can sit

(35:05):
and have a tea or coffee in a place like that.
But also apparently the tables have been made out of
old headstones from graves or old gravestones. So these are
the stone tablets that would have been put in the
ground or sort of presented above graves to mark where
people were buried. And apparently they actually use those as

(35:27):
tables in this crypt. So this is a sort of
quirky interesting thing, she said, sitting at the tables, not
sitting on the tables, because obviously you shouldn't sit on
the table, as and I pointed out, you should sit
at the table. So that's interesting, this quirky cafe. And
also it's a place where you can do brass rubbings.
And brass rubbings is something that takes me back to

(35:48):
my childhood when we would go on holiday in England
to some place, some historical place, and there would be
often activities for kids, and brass rubbing one of those activities.
The reason for that is that I think that it
was a form of entertainment or maybe a form of
art or craft in the when would it have been

(36:11):
I think it's probably in the sixteenth century something like that,
around the time of Henry the Eighth. I seem to
remember that there was a lot of brass rubbing going on.
So Anna did describe it, but I'll describe it again.
So it involves taking a piece of brass, which is
a sort of shiny metal, and that brass will have
an image sort of cut into it, right, so if

(36:35):
you rub your fingers over it, the image has kind
of been cut into it. You get a texture when
you rub your fingers over it. If you put a
piece of paper on top of that brass and then
rub with a wax crayon on the top, you will
reveal a picture. Because of the texture of the impression
on the piece of brass, it reveals a picture. So

(36:57):
it's a kind of I guess, sort of like early
form of YouTube kids, you know, instead of watching something
on YouTube, you just put a piece of paper on
a piece of brass and rub a bit of wax
crayon over the top of it. An image is revealed,
and as Anna said, often this would be a night
on horseback, which makes you think of them like the

(37:19):
medieval times. So they go that's doing brass rubbings a
nice thing to do with kids, and she said that
she brings her some there as well to do that,
which is nice nights in Shining Armor. And her third
thing is to visit bookshops, and I completely agree. This
is one of the things I love to do as well.

(37:39):
And like Anna said, there are loads of really good,
really big bookshops in various parts of London. She said
that she liked to go to Waterstones. The biggest Waterstones
as far as I know, is in Piccadilly. And yeah,
there's like how many floors in this building, something like
six floors, and there are so many different sections. And

(38:02):
again she used that word sneakily because she likes to
sneakily see if her books are on the shelves. So again,
she's an author of children's books. There's Monster Bogie and
Monster Stink, and so she goes up to the children's section,
and I guess sneakily because she doesn't necessarily want people

(38:22):
to know that she's going into check to see if
her own books are there, but she might kind of
like wander over, have a quick look at the bookshelf.
Are my books here? In fact, last time I was
in a Waterstones in London. I went into the children's
book section as well, and I saw her books, and

(38:42):
to be honest, I did actually move them so that
they were more visible, because you know, in bookshops they
just normally put the books in with the spines out,
so you can read the titles of the books on
the spine, and the spines are all pointing outwards in.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
The normal way.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
But then some books will be moved so that they
the face of the book, the cover of the book
is showing, and that's to promote those books, right, they'll
be more visible. And so, to be honest, I did
move one of her books out so that the cover
was showing, just to try and promote Anna's work a
little bit there. So there you go. There were some

(39:20):
things that Anna said, I need to get a move on,
don't I, because I don't know how long I've been
speaking now. It feels like it's been about half an hour.
I'm not sure. Actually I can't keep track of the time,
but I think it's been about twenty five to thirty minutes.
And I've still got quite a lot of recordings left.
But thank you very much to Anna for that recording.
You can hear Anna on this podcast in episodes eight

(39:43):
hundred and eighteen and eight hundred and ninety five talking
about her books and other things including ghosts, ghost sightings,
and how her apartment is haunted and also farts as well.
But the ghost thing is fascinating. I need to get
Anna back on to conclude that story because she talked

(40:04):
about her apartment being haunted and what she thought it
was and what the ghost was and stuff, and I
was sort of saying, well, I'm not sure I believe
in ghosts, but this is still a fascinating story. She
was saying, well that she didn't really believe in ghosts either,
but she didn't know how to explain what had been
going on anyway. You can listen to episode eight nine
to five in the second half of the episode to

(40:26):
hear about her ghost story. And yeah, I need to
get Anna back on to kind of finish that story
because there have been other developments since then. Let's keep moving,
and we're going to move on now to Ian Moore.
I know Ian from doing stand up. He is a
professional stand up comedian who for many years hosted shows

(40:47):
at London's best comedy venue, that's the Comedy Store. In
Leicester Square. It's the best one in my opinion, but
I think it's generally agreed to be the best one
and maybe the most historic one in terms of sort
of modern stand up comedy. So Ian regularly has hosted
comedy shows at the Comedy Store in Leicester Square. These

(41:08):
days he's a writer of crime fiction based in the
French countryside, but for years he would travel into London
and do his shows at the Comedy Store, and he
describes and how he would actually travel to the Comedy Store.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
So this is Ian.

Speaker 8 (41:26):
My favorite thing to do in London, like any great city,
is to walk. London's a great walking city. You don't
have to go on public transport to see all the
main things. Everything is a lot closer than you actually think,
which is why I always try and avoid subways and
two lines in any city, because you just don't get
your bearings. London's a fantastic place to walk around in.

(41:48):
My favorite walk used to be that when I was
hosting at the Comedy Store, which is just off lest Square.
I used to get the train into London from family
where I was staying in Crawley, and I'd walk from
Victoria with one of the major stations, and I'd walk
down Victoria Street towards the Houses of Parliament, and then
i'd turn a sharp left and go back towards Saint

(42:11):
James's Park, past Buckingham Palace. It's slightly out of my way,
but it's all there. And then from Buckingham Palace up
through Green Park along Piccadilly and then into the Comedy Store,
which is, like I said, it's just off Leicester Square.
It's a lovely way to take in a great city
before before I went to.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
Perform Thank you Ian. They're an advocate for walking in
the city, in fact, any major city. I think it's
probably the same thing in a lot of places, but
certainly in London. Yeah, walking is a really good idea
that the underground the tube is of course a fantastic system,

(42:51):
but I guess really the best way, but I guess
really you would, But I guess really the tube is
just convenient. It help so you travel, especially a long distance.
If you're really traveling across the city, then definitely getting
down into the underground is the most efficient way of
doing it. There are buses as well, but buses get
caught in traffic. The advantage with the buses is you know,

(43:14):
you get to look out of the windows, you can
see the world going by, but they get caught in
traffic and everything takes a long time with buses. But anyway,
for convenience of traveling a long distance, yes, the underground,
but yeah, for relatively shorter journeys, going on foot is
definitely a really good idea. So Ian says he likes

(43:35):
to avoid subways and tube lines because you just don't
get your bearings. To get your bearings, okay, and that's
one word bearings b e A rn ges. Remember, if
you're looking for any of the words the spelling of
any words here that I'm talking about, check the pdf.
You'll find a link in the description. Everything's listed there

(43:57):
and there's a full transcript. So if you wanted to,
for example, if you couldn't quite understand every single word,
or you didn't understand Ian or any of the other
guests as much as you want, then you could go
back and check the script for that section. You'll find
it labeled with the person's name. Anyway, so Ian said
that avoiding subways, avoiding tube lines because when you travel

(44:19):
by tube, you don't get your bearings, so to get
your bearings is to get a sense of exactly where you're.
A sense of exactly where you are. Your bearings means
your specific location. But we tend we don't say, oh,
let me give you my bearings, let me share my
bearings with you. No, we'd say, let me give you
my location, let me share my location with you, maybe

(44:41):
on your phone or something. But to get your bearings
is the phrase, and it just means to get a
sense of where you are. And if you walk around
the city, this is a great way to get your bearings,
to understand where you are in relation to other places. Okay,
so there you go. It's a really good way to
get your bearings, to get sense of where you are exactly.

(45:02):
He gave the details of a really good walk walking
from Victoria Station along Victoria Street towards the Houses of Parliament.
Turn left into Saint James's Park, which is a really
good thing to do, a really nice park to visit.
Lots of lovely plants and flowers, and there's water there,
there's BirdLife, there are nice benches, lots of flowers in

(45:24):
flower beds. You've got Buckingham Palace right there. There's the mail.
So anyway into Saint James, Saint James's Park past Buckingham Palace.
Buckingham Palace is pretty good. You've got the Changing of
the Guards, which is a sort of a ceremony that happens.
Is it every day at about eleven o'clock, but you
should be warned that in tourist season it gets very

(45:47):
crowded and you'd be lucky to actually see in detail
what's going on. You get to see all of the
Royal Guards doing a procession. They march into the gates
of Buckingham Palace and then there's this sort of like
traditional changing ceremony where the guards change position and they
do all these walking up down marches and stuff. But

(46:10):
it's so crowded that you've got to get there really
early and then wait for a long time. Just a
word of warning. Anyway, past Buckingham Palace through Green Park,
which is another park right next to Buckingham Palace, another
great spot to go for a walk that will take
you up to Piccadilly. Then you can walk along Piccadilly
which is a road that's where you find Waterstones the Bookshop,

(46:33):
into Piccadilly Circus, which is just next door to Leicester Square,
and that's where the comedy store is. And if you
want to see live stand up comedy, then the comedy
Store on a Thursday evening or Friday evening is a
really good thing to do. Just think twice about sitting
on the front row. It can be one of the
best seats in the house because you're right there in

(46:55):
front of the stage. But the comedians might talk to you,
they might ask you questions, and they might make fun
of you, which is all part of the enjoyment. If
that does happen, you really should just see it as
a bit of fun and don't take it too seriously
because that is not the spirit of a comedy show,

(47:16):
all right. Anyway, that was Ian and his walking, And
that was Ian and his walk from Victoria to the
comedy Store. Let's see who we've got next then, So
next up we have Michelle. I know Michelle from Paris.
She's one of my Paris friends. But she was born

(47:38):
in England and has spent plenty of time there. She
also spent time in the United States growing up, which
is why she has an American accent. But she is
a brit as well. And this is what Michelle has
to say about things she likes to do in London.

Speaker 4 (47:55):
Hi, my name is Michelle. My favorite thing to do
in London is to walk by the South Bank. I
love seeing the river, I love seeing all the buildings,
and I love to walk right up to Tate Modern
and catch whatever show is on and have a glass
of wine at the bar.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Okay, that was Michelle keeping it short and sweet and yeah.
Basically walking along the South Bank, which is clearly a
very popular thing as you can hear, and walking all
the way up to the Tate Modern. So the Tate Modern,
you just have to walk around the South Bank a
little bit further in an easterly direction, and it's a
great spot. It's a great location. It's actually a really
good walk if you start maybe at Big Ben and

(48:37):
go over Westminster Bridge and walk along the South Bank
in an easterly direction past Embankment Bridge, past Waterloo Bridge,
past the National Theater and Royal Festival Hall and all
that stuff, and you keep going round past a couple
of other bridges. You eventually get to the Tate Modern,
which used to be a big power station on the

(48:59):
South Bank and a few decades ago it was converted
and modernized and turned into this fantastic modern art gallery.
You heard Aaron mention this in Part one. One of
the great things about the Tape Modern is that it
has this huge I think it's called the pumping room

(49:19):
or engine room or something like that. I can't remember exactly,
but it's got this huge open space which used to
be where lots of mechanical equipment was based, right and
these days it's this huge open space and they always
have some sort of incredible contemporary art installation in this

(49:41):
massive open space. So again it's free. You can just
pop in and you can see. Michelle said, what kind
of show they're putting on there, and that would mean
whatever kind of extraordinary artistic installation is being put on.
You can also go and see other exhibitions which are
being featured, and there are some, you know, really interesting
works of contemporary art. If that's your kind of thing.

(50:03):
You can go in and stand in front of some
pretty abstract looking work and it's a good talking point.
It's a good thing to go with a friend and
just talk about what you're looking at and what it
means to you. So they go and yes, a nice
tip from Michelle. There is a bar up on one
of the upper floors with a balcony that overlooks the river,

(50:27):
and there's a really great view from that balcony. That
is one of the best sites that you can see.
One of the best views is up from the balcony
of the bar of the Tape Modern and you can
see a fantastic view of Saint Paul's Cathedral, which is
a really magnificent site, I can tell you. And so, yeah,

(50:47):
a glass of wine on the balcony overlooking that view. Yeah,
you can't get much better than that in London.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
Right.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Let's move on then, and next we're going to hear
from Zdenek. Z Denik is a fellow English teacher and
pod caster originally from the Czech Republic who used to
live in London and taught English in a school there
on Oxford Street. So let's hear what Zzenik has to say.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
Zenik from the Czech Republic here.

Speaker 9 (51:13):
It's really hard to pick just one thing to do
in London because there are so many. But I suppose
my favorite thing to do in London would be to
see a Premier League game. The atmosphere in the stadium
is just electric and I simply loved the feeling right

(51:34):
before the game where everyone is so excited, everyone is buzzing,
the crowd is just up for the game, and it's
just this collective feeling of excitement and expectations. Your team
doesn't always win, of course, but the feeling of being

(51:54):
a football fan in London is simply one.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
Of a kind.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
Thank you, Denik and yeah so football. No one else
has mentioned this, s Denik's the only one to mention this,
but it's a big thing of course in London. I
don't know how many football clubs there are. Obviously there
are the famous ones Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, Fulham, Queen's Park, Rangers,

(52:19):
west Ham, Millwall, Brentford. I'm sure I'm missing Crystal Palace,
but there are more than that as well, like lower
league ones as well. I don't think I've forgot anyone.
Maybe I've got a really major one. I don't think so.
But yes, going to see a Premier League football game
if you couldn't get tickets, they can be difficult to get.

(52:41):
But wow, what an experience and what an atmosphere is
Dnix said. The atmosphere is just electric, which is a
nice expression, nice way to describe an exciting atmosphere. Everyone
in the stadium is buzzing. If people are buzzing, it
means they're really excited. They've got there in a kind
of excitable, positive mood, lots of talking, there's a lot

(53:03):
of energy going on, a lot of expectation before the
game begins. I mean, it is an amazing experience, just
like going to see football in any big stadium. When
you go to get your seats initially and you come
out into the stadium, you can hear the atmosphere, you
can hear the people all talking getting ready, there's music playing,
and you see the pitch and it's so green, you know,

(53:26):
it's just so luminous and green, and you think, wow,
this is it. This is like being in the Roman
Coliseum or something. What are we going to see? Just football?
No one's going to get killed by a tiger or anything, hopefully,
So everyone's buzzing and the crowd is up for the game.
To be up for something, to be up for something
means really interested in it, really excited about it, and

(53:50):
just really expecting it and looking forward to it. Everyone's
really up for the game. And yes, going to see
Premier League football in London, the experience is one of
a kind. As Denik said, if something is one of
a kind, it means it's unique, it's a unique experience.
It really is one of a kind. Okay. Now, if
you want to hear more from Zenik about football, you

(54:12):
could listen to his podcast, which combines talking about football
with English teaching. So if you're an English learner and
you love football, you could listen to his show. It's
called the foot Glish Podcast and it's available wherever you
get your podcasts Footglish. You see what he's done, football
and English Footglish. Yes, the Footglish podcast is clever, isn't it.

(54:34):
Z Denik is an Arsenal fan, which connects him to
my next guest, who is also a lifelong fan of
the Gunners. That's the nickname for Arsenal. So who is
that then, Well it's Paul Langton and here he is.

Speaker 10 (54:51):
Well, what's my favorite thing to do in London? Well,
London's a very expensive city, but it's also a very
beautiful city. So one of my favorite things to as
if the weather's nice enough, or if I've got a
decent enough waterproof jacket, of walk in the rain and
i shall walk around some of the best walks by
the River Thames in any direction. Really start by one

(55:13):
of the big bridges like Tower Bridge or London Bridge
or Waterloo Bridge, which has the best view in London
in my opinions, and just walk along the river.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
You'll see a bit of every part of London.

Speaker 10 (55:26):
And every part of our culture as well in different
parts such as the very Portuguese areas in Stockwell. If
you take in from the river and go a little
bit southern, you know, if you're down the east End,
you'll see our big like Bangladeshi community.

Speaker 4 (55:42):
You know.

Speaker 10 (55:43):
If you're heading a bit a bit north from the
river and you see Brick Lane, you know you see
all the different parts of the history of London and
the veritable schmagage board that is London culture. Also walking
down that river you will see every form and walk
of life and you will see Strong's cafes, b shows,
most importantly for me bars, so you can always stop

(56:04):
off for a drink on the way. That's my answer.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Thank you very much, Thank you very much to you Paul,
And let's see, by the way, Paul is another friend
of mine from the stand up comedy world in London,
and Paul is a Londoner born and bred, and he
is that rare thing, someone who actually grew up in
Zone one of central London. And you can hear it

(56:27):
in his accent. He's got that kind of authentic London accent.
It's not exactly a Cockney accent, because, to be specific,
a Cockney accent really is the accent of someone who
was born in a certain district in the east of
London within the sound of the bells of the church
in Bow. Technically speaking, although often in common speaking when

(56:50):
we say a Cockney accent, we mean that sort of
London accent which sounds a bit like like that. And
Paul's got definitely a London accent. And so what did
he say. He basically talked about walking along the river.
And by walking along the river you get to see
all these different things and all these different aspects of
our culture. And if you go from the river and

(57:13):
just go to some districts off the river, if you
walk away from the river in a southerly or northerly direction,
then you will also find different communities. So he says that, yeah,
he just likes to walk. And there are a few
walkers in this part. We've had Ian Moore who loves walking.

(57:33):
There's Paul here who loves walking even on a rainy day.
He says, if you have a decent enough waterproof jacket,
which is a really good point. You know, people do
talk about the rain in London in the summertime. It's
often lovely and sunny, but yeah, it can rain at
any time, so it's always worth having a reasonable waterproof

(57:53):
jacket because really there's no such thing as bad weather.
There is just bad clothing, you know, So if you
are prepared for rain, if you've got a decent enough
waterproof jacket, then you're fine. You can just carry on.
In fact, I quite like that. I do love a
walk in the rain. As long as I'm nice and
dry and cozy under an umbrella or inside some nice

(58:16):
waterproof jacket, then it's fine. And there's a certain atmosphere
and a kind of almost romance to the rainy streets
of London. There's something nice about it. You can stop
off in a pub or cafe, you know, to escape
the worst of the rain, or just shelter somewhere. Anyway,
a decent enough jacket, So if something is decent, it
means it's of good enough quality. Right, If you've got

(58:38):
a decent waterproof jacket, then it's good enough to keep
you dry. Basically, walking along along the river you see
different cultures. Paul mentioned the different communities, the Portuguese community
that you can find in Stockwell. There's the Bangladeshi community
around Brick Lane that we heard from that we heard
about from Amber. In part one of this, Paul mentioned

(59:01):
the veritable smagers board that is London culture. There's a
nice expression, the veritable smagers board of something, or a
smagers board of something. Now, smagers board is actually a
word that comes from Swedish. I wonder if you use
that phrase in your language as well. Has it entered
other languages from Swedish as well, but it's certainly in English.

(59:23):
A smagers board of something means a variety of different things.
So here Paul is talking about the variety of different
cultures that we have in London. It is a veritable
smakers board of different cultures. A smagers board small gus
in Swedish I understand, means sandwich or something like a sandwich,

(59:43):
and smagers board board here would be a table, so
it's kind of like a smaggers board is a sandwich
table or you can imagine a table with lots of
different sandwiches or lots of different types of sandwich or
toasted sandwich on the board, right, So it means a
big variety of things. And we've taken that in English
to refer to a variety of anything. So that is

(01:00:05):
a small gas board. And Paul also said that you
will see every form of life and every walk of life,
which is another nice phrase, every walk of life. So
here we're not actually talking about walking with our feet,
but every walk of life. So when you talk about
walks of life, we are talking about different people in society, okay,

(01:00:27):
So from all walks of life means from all different
types of background or from different professions. So a walk
of life is someone's position in society, especially the type
of job they have. So if you see people from
any walk of life, it means you see people lots
of different types of people, people who do different things.

(01:00:50):
This is all walks of life, all different types of
people basically. And finally Paul said that you know, you
can see all these different things and you can see
bars as well, which is interesting for Paul because he
likes to stop off for a drink. So there's a
phrasal verb not just to stop for a drink, but
stop off for a drink. What's the difference then, between

(01:01:13):
stop for a drink and stop off for a drink?

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Well, stop off.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
For a drink suggests that you are perhaps taking a
brief stop on a journey. So you're on a journey,
you're walking down the river, and if you stop off
for a drink, it means you stop briefly for a
drink and then you can carry on on your walk.
Or you're driving, you might stop off to get some petrol,

(01:01:37):
right stop off for a rest, So it's just like
kind of briefly stop while you're on a journey to
stop off for something. Yes, you can listen to Paul
on the podcast if you're interested, because he's been on
the podcast before. You can listen to him in a
few episodes, but for example, the Drunk episode with Moz
episode one hundred and nine. If my memory serves me well,

(01:01:59):
I think that was one hundred and nine. But also
you could listen to Paul in a funny episode recorded
during the COVID lockdown, that is number six hundred and
sixty seven called four Way Call with Moz. Who you
heard in part one and our friend Alex Love who
didn't send me a recording because he is a dossa
and a dwad and that's a joke for Alan Partridge fans,

(01:02:23):
which Alex is anyway, now moving on to the next
person and we are keeping it in the family now
because you're going to hear from my brother James, and
you know James, he's my brother.

Speaker 11 (01:02:35):
Here he is Hi, my name's James. And my favorite
thing to do in London is not just one thing.
I like to go to an area that I know
and do a lot of things all in one day.
So I might go to Brixton, have a mooch about,
maybe go for a cup of tea and a fry
up somewhere, then maybe go check out a record shop,

(01:03:00):
have a look around there, dig through some of the
final boxes there. Then I might go onto the skate
park have a skate for a few hours, then maybe
visit a local shop, then maybe see some friends and
end up going to the pub. That would be a
good day for me. That's something I like about London
is some of the areas, if you know them well,

(01:03:22):
there's lots of things to do, all in a close,
close proximity, so you can go to treat it like
a little town, a little village, and you don't need
to go on the tube. You just go to one
area that you like and everything's kind of in that area.
So that's a good thing about London. It's like lots
of little villages all joined up. I also like going
to band practice, which I can do in Brixton as well,

(01:03:45):
or drumming practice or something like that, and just practice
studio there.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
So that's what I like to do in London. Bye.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
That was James Thompson, Thank you very much. So James
said that he likes to go to one particular air
and then do lots of different places in that area.
Remembering that London is not really one single city with
a recognizable center, that it is in fact a collection
of towns or villages that are all connected. And this

(01:04:17):
is a thing to understand about London. This is one
of the reasons it's so big, is that actually historically
this is how it was. It was a number of
settlements or a number of towns, the main one being
I guess the City of London, which is now a district.
It's the City of London that's the financial heart of London,

(01:04:37):
and then next to that is the city of Westminster,
which was a different settlement. That's where ultimately the sort
of royal family based itself and the government parliament related
buildings are there. But then there are all these other
districts or towns, and as those towns grew and became
more and more built up, they basically all merged together

(01:05:00):
to create this huge metropolis. But James was talking about
Brixton in the south of London, south of the River,
doing a lot of different things. So he said, going
to Brixton to have a mooch about, to have a
mooch about, mooch mooch and about to have a mooch about.
To mooch about is basically it's an informal British expression

(01:05:24):
meaning to wander around, to walk around in a casual way, right,
to wander around in a not very specific way, just
kind of moving from one place to the next seeing
where you end up, which is a nice relaxing thing
to do where you don't have a specific aim in mind.
You're just going from place to place in a kind
of relaxed or casual way. So go to Brixton, have

(01:05:46):
a mooch about, as James said, and what else, Maybe
go and have a fry up. A fry up this
means a fried breakfast, and the typical English fried breakfast
would be, you know, sausage, bacon, eggs, baked beans, toast,
maybe mushrooms, maybe tomato, maybe even a black pudding. And

(01:06:09):
that is black pudding is from a blood sausage, which
sounds so awful, but it's so good. But most fry
ups don't really have black pudding. That's a bit of
a specialist thing. But yes, certainly bacon, eggs, sausage, beans, toast,
and a nice cup of tea, a nice strong cup

(01:06:30):
of builders tea. That would be a classic fry up.
And you can go and have a fry up in
a cafe somewhere and then visit a record shop or
some record shops, he said, to dig through vinyl boxes.
Dig normally is something you do in the ground, right,
You dig a hole in the ground. I don't know,
if you're planting a tree, you would dig a hole

(01:06:50):
in the ground and then put the tree in and
then fill it in.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
But you can dig through, for example, boxes of records
that would just be going into the boxes and looking
through all of the records. So dig through some vinyl
boxes looking for some records and then go to the
skate park. There is a skate park in Stockwell which
is right next to Brixton more or less the same

(01:07:15):
place really, and there's just a skate park which is
just a really good spot for skaters, a place to
hang out, and yeah, treat it like a little town,
lots of little villages all joined up, which is what
London really is. And then he also mentioned going to
a band practice at practice studios. That's where you can

(01:07:37):
go and practice music with a band or even just
practice playing the drums on your own or guitar or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
So there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
That was James's things that he likes to do in London.
James has appeared many many times on the podcast over
the years. Perhaps you could go back and listen to
one of our music based conversations because James is all
about music, and you could maybe listen to recent ones,
like the conversation we had about Madness, that band from

(01:08:07):
England actually very associated with Camden Town. That was episode
eight eighty four British Music Madness. Episode eight five six
was called music Chat with James. I have to get
James back on the podcast at some point for a
bit of a rample that would be good. And of
course you can check out his music. He spends a

(01:08:27):
lot of time making music. He's really deeply into making
his tunes and you can check out his music at
Jim Thompson dot bandcamp dot com. Go ahead and check
them out. Listen to the tunes. There's some sort of
techno electronics stuff, some ambient stuff. Jim Thompson dot bandcamp

(01:08:48):
dot com to listen to his music. Next up making
her debut appearance on the podcast. It is my brother's girlfriend, Ilana,
who is actually Dutch. Originally, she was born in the Netherlands,
but she's lived in England since she was a child
and has lived in London for nearly twenty years. To

(01:09:08):
be honest, if she'd never told me she was born
in the Netherlands, I would never have guessed because she
sounds like so English. But anyway, this is Ilana and
these are the things she likes to do in London.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
Here we go.

Speaker 12 (01:09:22):
My favorite thing to do in London is to go
out for food. I recently had a baby, so I'm
not doing very much of this at the moment, but
pre baby, me and my friends used to go out
for dinner all the time after work at the weekends,
so many restaurants and food markets and you know, we

(01:09:43):
would see we would just try new ones all the time.
And I think England has not the best reputation for
traditional English dishes. Maybe they're a bit bland compared to
what you can get, you know, around the world these days.

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
But we.

Speaker 12 (01:10:04):
Have got restaurants in London absolutely nailed now. Anything you
want you can get, and you know, I love that
you can go to different areas for different things. You
can get in Chinatown for Chinese food, you can go
to Green Lanes in North London for amazing Turkish food,
you can go to Dlston for Vietnamese food. It goes

(01:10:25):
on and on, and I like nothing better than going
out with my friends for a few hours and just
eating till we rolled home, and you know, the weekends
going to food markets and picking up delicious pastries and
coffees and I just absolutely love it. Yeah, I'm a
big foodie and I miss it a lot. Yeah, so

(01:10:45):
that's my favorite thing to do.

Speaker 5 (01:10:47):
Really.

Speaker 12 (01:10:47):
It's just you know, London, As people say all the time.
But London is an incredible melting pot of different cultures
and therefore cuisines, And yeah, you'd be hard pushed to
find a place that had a better selection of food.
And yeah, and when I can take the little one
out with me, he's hopefully going to be my new

(01:11:09):
restaurant buddy. So I'm going to take enjoy taking him
to all these places so he can discover them for
himself and I can discover them a second time around.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
But yeah, that's it. Thank you Bee, thank you Alana.
And yeah, let me just say congratulations again to James
and Alana. Ilana recently had a baby. They are new
parents dealing with a I guess sort of like six
month old baby boy, and he's a lovely cute little guy.
You can take it from me. But of course they're

(01:11:42):
a bit tired, and as you can hear, Ilana is
looking forward to being able to go out and enjoy
all of the food that she loves so much in
this city. So let me just go through a few things. Yeah,
so Ilana said that she'd recently had a baby, so
she's not doing much of that at the moment, going
out to get food. She's not doing much of it

(01:12:03):
at the moment, but it'll be she'll be able to
do that again before too long.

Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
She said.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
England doesn't have the best reputation for English food or
English dishes. Maybe they're a bit bland compared to some
of the things you can get in other places. So
bland is a word that you could use to describe food.
If food is blanned, it means it's kind of boring
and tasteless, doesn't taste fantastic, it's a bit bland. What
do you think of this soup? A bit bland really,

(01:12:30):
isn't it right? Bland here would be the opposite of tasty.
So if food is blanned, it's boring, doesn't taste of much.
That's the reputation that England has. But then Ilana said,
but we have restaurants absolutely nailed. Now, So if something
is nailed, or if you have something nailed, or if

(01:12:51):
you've nailed something, it means you've done it really well,
you're doing it really well, you're really in control of it,
doing it perfectly. Now example, well done you nailed it
means well done, you did really well. Like you nailed
that presentation means you did it really, really well. We've
got food nailed or we've got restaurants nailed, means that

(01:13:14):
we are doing them really well now. And this is
absolutely true. I mean, you know, the idea that you
can't get good food in London is absolutely ridiculous. The
idea that in England you don't get good food, I mean,
it's just nonsense basically, and it's just a sort of
silly stereotype. You can get all sorts of incredible food now,

(01:13:36):
fair enough. Fair enough that most of the time the
best food is from somewhere else in the world. But
you know what, I don't care no one. It doesn't matter,
does it. Really. The main thing is that you get
to eat something delicious. And yes, different areas for different food.
She mentioned Chinatown where you get your Chinese food. There's

(01:13:59):
Turkish food in a place called Green Lanes, there's Vietnamese
food in a part of London called Dolston, and so
on and so forth.

Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
What else.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
Elana described herself as being a big foodie. If you're
a foodie, it means you're someone who loves food right
as you can hear, you love different types of food,
You love going out and eating and finding new places
and whatever. So she's a foodie fodie. Remember check the

(01:14:30):
PDF for all the vocab and the spelling. And she said,
you would be hard pushed to find a place that
had a better selection of food. If you are hard
pushed to do something, it means it's difficult to do it, right,
So she's basically saying it's difficult or it would be
difficult to find a place that had a better selection

(01:14:53):
of food. You would be hard pushed to do something.
You'd be hard pushed to find a place with the
better selection of food, right. You'd be hard pushed to
find a city with more things to do, although of
course there are plenty of cities in the world with
lots of things to do as well, but anyway, it's
just a nice expression. You'd be hard pushed to find

(01:15:15):
a podcast that provides you with more tips and folkcab
than Luke's English podcast, So you'd be hard pushed to
do something in this case, to find a place with
a better selection of food. Elana referred to her baby
as her little one, and this is really common in

(01:15:36):
English that often we refer to our children as our
little ones, So my little one means her son. She's
hoping that her little one will become her restaurant buddy.
That would be at a little companion who would come
to restaurants with her. And hopefully the little one is

(01:15:57):
going to become a foodie as well. Like Okay, so
that was Ilana. Let's now move on to the next person,
and we're going to hear from Anthony. This is Anthony Ratuno.
Anthony is a fellow English teacher and podcaster who's been
on this podcast plenty of times, most recently in the

(01:16:18):
episode about Life of Brian And guess what, I've never
actually met him in the real world. Anthony and I
have never actually met in the real world, but our
orbits will cross each other soon, I think, and it'll
probably be in London when we're both there at the
same time. It would be great to actually meet up
with him. But I mean, I've known Anthony for a

(01:16:39):
few years now, I've spoken to him lots of times,
we've done lots of podcasts together, but our paths have
never actually crossed in the real world. Anyway. This is
what Anthony has to say. Hello, this is Anthony Ratuno.

Speaker 13 (01:16:54):
I'm a teacher, podcaster and fairly frequent Luke Thompson collaborator.
I lived in London on and off for about five
years in the two thousands, first in Labrat Grove in
West London and Finsbury Park in North London and Hackney
in East London. I was too scared to live in
South London just a joke. I did a lot of

(01:17:17):
the tourist sites when I first got there, such as
Big Bend Tower of London, various galleries and museums, National Gallery,
Tate Modern Science Museum, and there's lots of interesting buildings
and places to go. But now, honestly, my favorite thing
is just walking around the city, observing the people, the

(01:17:37):
various cultures, and just enjoying how large the city is.
In fact, I have a very busy life, and every
few months, maybe three or four times a year, I
go and visit a friend of mine who lives in
the Paddington area for a couple of hours in the morning,
and then I spend the rest of the day just
walking around various places, including the areas I used to live,

(01:17:58):
for a bit of nostalgia. It's quite ironic that in
a big city like London, doing this actually brings a
lot of peace. I feel like these days are a
day off from the world, or at least a day
off from my busy working life.

Speaker 3 (01:18:14):
London, of course, is.

Speaker 13 (01:18:15):
So huge that you never run out of places to go,
even if you don't have a particular destination, or perhaps
especially when you don't. I love the parks, my favorites
probably Hyde Park, the markets, especially Portobello. I still go
to galleries sometimes, but I don't really like queueing and
I like to stay on the move when I'm in London.

(01:18:37):
I do stop off in coffee shops and even the
occasional pubs. Sometimes I sometimes talk to people, but the
great thing about London is the sense that you can
be anonymous if you want to. It feels like everyone
is in their own bubble and people don't really approach
each other without a particular reason. And on these days

(01:18:57):
that works fine for me. But like I say, people
will talk to you if you start a conversation. So
that's my favorite thing to do in London. In short,
London's massive and no one's very friendly.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
Thank you very much. Anthony. Anthony is a fellow Alan
Partridge fan like I am, and he's one of those
people like me where you can't help kind of quoting
Partridge or going into some sort of Partridges. And if
you don't know who Alan Partridge is, I mean sometimes
I mention him in my episodes. I did six. I've

(01:19:34):
done six episodes about Alan Partridge in the past. Just
search the episode archive for Alan. That's probably the key
word you could use to search, you know, do you
command F search or control F Search in my episode
archive for the word Alan, and you'll find six episodes
all about Alan, including lots of listening. Anyway, I'm going

(01:19:54):
I've gone off on an Alan tangent. Although if we're
still sticking, if I'm talking thing about Alan, I might
as well include Alan's words here, because everything that everyone
has said in this episode so far has been just
overwhelmingly positive. But Alan, Who by the way, is a
fictional comedy character from a television series played by actor

(01:20:16):
Steve Coogan. In the show, Alan hates London right because
he associates it with the fact that his career in
television has failed or is on the rocks, and so
he associates London with all sorts of television industry people
who have rejected him, and so he's rejected London as

(01:20:39):
a result. This is what Alan thinks of London.

Speaker 14 (01:20:42):
Go to London. I guarantee you've either be mugged or
not appreciated. Cash the train to London, stopping at rejection, disappointment,
Backstabbing Central and shat and Dreams Parkway.

Speaker 1 (01:20:56):
Go to London, I guarantee you'll either be mugged or
not appreciate. If you get mugged, it means someone stops
you in the street and robs you, like steals your
phone or your wallet or something. Go to London. I
guarantee you'll either be mugged or not appreciated. So Alan
was not appreciated in London. People didn't apparently see his

(01:21:19):
genius as a broadcaster.

Speaker 3 (01:21:21):
And what was it?

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
Take the train to London stopping at stopping at what?

Speaker 14 (01:21:25):
Catch the train to London stopping at rejection, disappointment, Backstabbing
Central and Shatter Dreams Parkway.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
Disappointment. These are like train stations. Catch the train to
London stopping at rejection, disappointment, Backstabbing Central. So backstabbing that's
when someone stabs you in the back, not literally, but
it just when someone betrays you, goes behind your back
and does something that betrays you. Okay, so backstabbing Central

(01:22:00):
sounds like some sort of train station and Shattered Dreams Parkway,
which again, this sounds like another train station. Anyway, I've
ended up in an Alan Partridge tangent. I'm sorry everybody. Anthony, Anthony,
Anthony Ratuno.

Speaker 8 (01:22:15):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:15):
So Anthony was saying that he's been to lots of
different parts of London West Northeast. He was too scared
to live in South London. This is just a joke.
It's kind of traditionally considered. It's kind of South London
is kind of traditionally considered to be a bit rough,
meaning the slightly more dangerous part of the city. Rough

(01:22:38):
is the word that we use to describe parts of
a city or town or something that are perhaps slightly
more dangerous. We tend to say they are rough areas.
That's roug h. But yeah, Anthony is another walker, and
I understand entirely how he feels. It is a great
thing to just walk around the city, always on the move,

(01:23:02):
going from one place to the next, a bit like
in my Walk and Talk video. So he likes to
stay on the move. Right, if you are on the move,
it means you're you know, always moving. So he likes
to stay on the move. He might stop off in
a cafe. There's that phrase or verb again. But you
can be anonymous, you can kind of be in your
own bubble, which can be a really great thing to do.

(01:23:25):
You just stroll around from place to place and it
can be Yeah, it can be a peaceful, almost meditative
thing to do, just to float from one part of
London to the other. Yes, walking it is a fantastic thing.
Very therapeutic as well, they say. Right, So this episode
is becoming an epic marathon of English listening for you.

(01:23:48):
But I just wanted to say you can listen to
Anthony on his podcasts. He's got three podcasts. The first
one is Glass Onion on John Lennon, all about John Lennon,
very fascinating in depth, almost like psychological case study of
John Lennon. Film Gold all about films and life and
life only, all about the search for truth in your life,

(01:24:11):
the inner truth and outer truth in society. All of
them worth and listen.

Speaker 3 (01:24:16):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:24:16):
So that's Anthony. All of those podcasts available wherever you
get your podcasts. This is the penultimate recording and we're
going back to Aaron again, who you heard from in
part one. This is the second part of his recording,
and so let's hear from Aaron again. What are the
other things that he enjoys doing in London?

Speaker 3 (01:24:34):
Here we go? Are the things I like doing.

Speaker 15 (01:24:38):
I love being in Soho, particularly on a Friday or
Saturday evening, just as it's turning from that point where
the shops are closing to people coming out for drinks
and hanging out in the city and.

Speaker 3 (01:24:49):
Having a wild time.

Speaker 15 (01:24:51):
Probably less wild than it used to be, certainly for me,
but I really like the atmosphere that you get as
that kind of you're in that transition period before everyone
gets too you drunk, but just before every you know,
just as everyone's quite merry and having a good time.
I was in Soho a couple of weekends ago and
I felt really invigorated by the energy there. And while
it has changed a lot, I think Soho is still,

(01:25:13):
you know, the soul and the heart and soul of
the center of London. For me, it's a great place.
Something else I like doing record shopping another thing you
can do in Soho. I love visiting record shops. I
love spend spending and afternoon with friends going around various
record shops. A lot of the best record shops or
the best independent record shops have closed, but there are

(01:25:35):
always new ones popping up on the outskirts of London,
and there are always interesting places to go and rifle through,
and you usually find something unexpected, something from your past,
your your formative teenagers, when you really love music. I
still love music very much, and I like to buy
the odd record. I don't go crazy, just maybe one

(01:25:58):
or two every couple of months or so, and I'll
just add them to my collection and listen to them
when I get a moment. Similarly, along the lines of music,
I love going to gigs in London. I went to
see a band recently called Ghost Funk Orchestra in a
small venue on Denmark Street I've forgotten the name. Which's

(01:26:19):
a really good venue with a really good sound, and
I saw a band called Ghost Funk Orchestra.

Speaker 3 (01:26:23):
They were excellent. Recommend them.

Speaker 15 (01:26:26):
Hard to explain the style of music, but there were
a lot of people dancing and it was a really
good time, sort of psychedelic soul, I guess, with like
eight people on stage, a lot of fun. And I'm
actually going to see a band this Sunday. Whatever Sunday,
This is or last Sunday or whatever previous. A previous
Sunday occurred before this podcast is published. I'm going to

(01:26:51):
see a band called Fishbone, who I've loved since I
was a teenager, probably before that first trip to London.
They've been around since the late seventh and they're playing
at Camden Underworld, So a few of us are going
to go along and see some old men in you know,
still jumping around on stage, probably with a lot of energy,
playing some great songs.

Speaker 3 (01:27:11):
It's going to be a lot of fun.

Speaker 15 (01:27:13):
And then away from music, I've recently moved to Chiswick.
It's a beautiful part of London. It really is great.
It has a nice you feel like you're in London,
but it's also quite independent. There's a lot of independent shops,
really nice restaurants here. There's a park. But what I
really like about Chiswick is the markets. They have a
different market each Sunday, so I think it's the country's

(01:27:36):
at last cheese market is in Chisick, and actually Chisick
was named for its annual cheese market, cheese Wick or
cheese Wick I believe became Chiesick. There's also an antiques
market which is great if you like old stuff that's expensive.
And there's a food market and also a flower market

(01:27:57):
if you like plants.

Speaker 3 (01:27:58):
They're all great. They're each Sunday. They're down the high Street.

Speaker 15 (01:28:01):
It's a really nice way to spend a Sunday morning,
you know, buying stuff that you probably don't need, but
stuff that makes you feel happy. I've probably gone way
over time here, but you know, these are just some
of the things I love doing in London. There are
many more, and maybe one day I'll get to tell
you about them.

Speaker 3 (01:28:18):
Who knows. If not, come and visit London, if.

Speaker 15 (01:28:21):
You don't live here, if you lived here before, come
and visit again. Do some of the things you used
to love doing, and find out some new things that
you might love doing.

Speaker 3 (01:28:31):
Highly recommend London.

Speaker 15 (01:28:32):
It's one of the greatest cities on the planet and
I'm very proud to call it my home.

Speaker 1 (01:28:37):
Nice. So that was Aaron there, completing his long rambling comment,
completing and indeed competing with me for the Champion of
the Rambling Champion trophy. Although thanks to all my rambling
between each recording, this episode is getting super long here,

(01:28:59):
isn't it.

Speaker 3 (01:29:00):
But that's all right.

Speaker 1 (01:29:01):
We're nearly at the end now, But you don't mind,
because obviously you're just loving it, aren't you. So you're thinking,
why do you talk like this being a long episode,
Like that's a bad thing. That's just a fantastic thing, Luke.
And you also might be thinking, I'm going to talk
about what Aaron said in a moment and explain some vocab.

Speaker 3 (01:29:19):
Don't worry.

Speaker 1 (01:29:20):
But you might also be thinking, Luke, you sound different, Yes,
because now I'm in a different location. My recording of
this episode has gone on. It's been something like three
days worth, like I started recording these bits and recording
the intro and the other bits to part one, and
then part two started that something like two days ago.

(01:29:42):
And so here I am again. This time it's the
evening and I'm at home, very comfortably installed on the sofa.
I'm sure you're very happy to know that that I'm
extremely comfortable. I might even just have a little sleep
in a moment. But I'm lying on the sofa. It's
probably noisy. There's the windows open right behind me. You

(01:30:05):
might hear the sound of some drunk French people stumbling
down the street making noises like this. Oh, it always
seems to be the noise that everyone makes oooh like that.
I mean they're probably shouting words, but as far as
you can tell from up here, it just sounds like hoo,
which is the noise that french Men make when they've

(01:30:27):
had a few drinks.

Speaker 3 (01:30:29):
Like that.

Speaker 1 (01:30:30):
There's the dishwasher in the background as well. Sorry about
the background noise. So Aaron there talked about being in Soho,
which is for him the heart and soul of the
center of London, and who could disagree with him on
that one? Being in Soho when it's turning from a

(01:30:50):
shopping period into the evening when people are going out
having a few drinks and stuff like that. So that
period in the late afternoon, early evening, late early late evening,
early afternoon, whatever, that type of that time of day.

(01:31:11):
He mentioned people having a wild time. If you have
a wild time, it means you're having a really good
time or having a lot of fun. But yeah, he
talks about that transition period between when people are sort
of ending their shopping and then starting to go out.
He said he was in Soho and he felt really
invigorated by the energy of the place. If you're invigorated

(01:31:34):
by something, it's like you've been given energy by some
sort of experience, right, imagine well, any experience that would
give you energy. It could be even something like going
out on a very cold, windy day. WHOA, this is invigorating,
isn't it. I mean you might disagree, you might think

(01:31:56):
this is horrible. I want to go home. But you know,
if it's like a the air is very fresh and
it really wakes you up, it's really invigorating. Or maybe
being in Soho on a Saturday, late early late evening
and there's a real sense of energy and lots of bustling,

(01:32:17):
a lot of things happening, a lot of people, the
general hustle and bustle of Soho at that time of day. Yes,
it can be very invigorating. Record shopping, he mentioned. He
said he talked about new shops popping up on the
outskirts of the city, popping up. So we had popping
next door, we had popping in, popping out, meaning going

(01:32:39):
to different places quickly or briefly. But here we've got
record shops popping up. We do talk about pop up restaurants,
pop up shops, it's just when they appear quickly and
maybe well, in this case, record shops popping up. It
just means they open new shops opening quickly, is what

(01:33:00):
he's talking about. On the outskirts, on the edges of
the city. The area is further from the center, and
my brother James talked about digging through boxes of records.
Aaron used the expression rifling through some records. That means
looking through things quickly. You might, for example, rifle through

(01:33:22):
your I don't know, what would it be.

Speaker 3 (01:33:25):
What's a good example.

Speaker 1 (01:33:26):
If you really need to get out of town for
some reason, I don't know, Maybe you've committed some terrible
crime and you quickly need to leave the country, you
might rifle through your drawers to find your passport and
a stash of cash and then flee the country. You know,
you know when you have to leave the country really quickly.

(01:33:47):
Of course you don't. That's a joke unless you do.
Maybe you know exactly what that's like. I don't know,
But anyway, rifling through something means looking through it very quickly, right,
So rifling through boxes of record looking for something really good,
rifling through like I would rifle through my sock draw
desperately trying to find two socks that actually match each other,

(01:34:10):
or you would rifle through your handbag to find your
keys or something like that. Aaron likes rifling through records
in record chops. Sometimes you would find a record that
reminds you of your formative years, formative years or your
I guess, like your teenage years, the years you spend
that really make you who you are, The kind of

(01:34:32):
years that Aaron and I spent together, you know, our
formative years. I mean it's thanks to me that he
is the man he is today. Really I've formed him,
you know, I've not literally formed it with my hands.
I'm talking nonsense now, I'm really talking nonsense. But that's
all right. Yeah, So Aaron went to He talks about

(01:34:53):
going to gigs. A gig is a concert, in this
case live music. We also talk about comedy gigs as well.
So a gig is a music or comedy show, and
Aaron talks about going to see a band called Ghost
Funk Orchestra. Kind of difficult to categorize. In a small venue,
a venue would be a place where you would see

(01:35:15):
a show, like a music venue or a comedy venue.
So in this case, it was a small venue on
Denmark Street that would be probably a bar or pub,
that also puts on live music, like a dive bar
or something like that, which would have a stage or

(01:35:36):
maybe a small area in the back with a stage
and space for an audience to dance around. And Denmark
Street is a famous street in London for its music
and its music shops. Unfortunately, there aren't as many music
shops there as there used to be, as the place
has been redeveloped, and you know, they kind of they

(01:35:58):
sort of got rid of a lot of the authentic
music shops and stuff, but there's still some stuff there
and clearly some venues there as well. Still, Aaron talked
about going to see another band called Fishbone. If you're
a fan of Fishbone, leave a comment in the comments
section awesome band, and he's going to see them, or
he went to see them, or he will have seen

(01:36:20):
them on a Sunday at some point. Because Aaron got
a bit lost in a time loop, which is easy
to do in the world of podcasting when you realize that, oh,
I'm talking about the future, but by the time this
goes out, that will be the past. So it's a
sort of timeless zone podcast land, isn't it. Anyway? He
has been In fact, he has been to the show.

(01:36:41):
He is going to the show, and he is also
at that show right now. All of time is occurring
simultaneously in podcast land. Then he talked about moving to Chiswick,
which is a lovely part of London to the west,
very close to where I used to live in Hammersmith.
It's about forty five minutes away from the center and

(01:37:01):
it's not far from the River. Lovely place, really, really
really nice. I'm very happy that Aaron has moved there. Really,
he's really come up in the world. You know, started
out in Chelmsley Wood, the bad lands of Chelmsley Wood,
and the he's ended up in the very affluent area
of Chiswick. He's done very well for himself. But you
know it's all thanks to me. I told you I

(01:37:22):
formed him in those formative years. Anyway, Chiswick, he was
talking about the markets there and various markets, including the
Did he say that it has the country's last cheese market?
What does that actually mean? I mean, that's it like
after this market, there's no the England is not allowed
to have any other cheese markets or is it just

(01:37:44):
the latest cheese market? Does that?

Speaker 6 (01:37:46):
Is that?

Speaker 3 (01:37:46):
What that means?

Speaker 1 (01:37:47):
I don't know I could understand the country's first cheese market.
I'll have to ask him about this. I understand that
the country's first cheese market is a historic market, the
first of so many cheese markets in England. But the
country's last cheese market suggests that that's it. No more
cheese markets after this. Maybe I've misunderstood anyway. Chisick he

(01:38:09):
Aaron started talking about what chisick actually means. Chiz that's cheers,
definitely chis being cheese originally. And wick. Well, I asked
my dad about this, and this is actually written in
one of his books. This is very much my dad's territory,
explaining what the wick in place names means, like for example,

(01:38:32):
Warick Chisick, and I'm sure there's another one Warick, Chisick, Berrick,
Berrick upon Tweed. That's a bit of a random one.
I'm sure there are lots of place names with wick
at the end. Anyway, But according to my dad, a
wick is an Old English word meaning a settlement, So

(01:38:53):
chisick that, according to that logic, means a cheese settlement.
I suppose it must have been a town built on
I mean, not made out of cheese. That would have
been extraordinary. Anyway, it's late, and you can see that
maybe my mind is not in the best condition for
recording podcasts because I end up talking some silly nonsense.

(01:39:15):
Although maybe I should do all my podcasts. At eleven
fifty eight on a Friday evening, Aaron also said, maybe
one day I'll get to tell you all about them
who knows? And I was thinking, was that a subtle
plea to be invited on the podcast for a longer chat?
Is that what that was, Aaron? Or was that just

(01:39:37):
nice conversation, a nice conversational tone for your comment. But
if it was, if that was a subtle suggestion to
be invited on the podcast for a longer chat, Aaron,
then you know we need to talk. And you know,
obviously we need to talk on the podcast, but we
need to talk about talking on the podcast. So you know,
just call me, call me, we'll we'll have a meeting.

(01:39:57):
We'll discuss it, and maybe we'll card the discussion about
you coming on the podcast, and then we'll actually record
a podcast as well. Oh my god, this is going
to end very soon, and then we'll all be able
to go back to our normal lives. But finally, then
it is pod pal Paul Taylor. I said at the
beginning of part one that we would begin with Amber

(01:40:19):
and that we would end with Paul. Here we are
ending with Paul. So finally Paul is the closer for
this double episode frequent podcast guest, world famous stand up
comedy superstar possibly coming to a stage near you soon
to perform in English probably, but also in French. Maybe.

(01:40:39):
Paul lived in London for years as well. Let's hear
what he has to say.

Speaker 16 (01:40:45):
Oh hello Luke Singlish Podcast and all the lebsters out there.

Speaker 5 (01:40:49):
This is Paul Taylor. So Paul is back on the podcast.

Speaker 16 (01:40:53):
Luc has asked me what my favorite thing to do
in London is, and if I have to be honest
with you now that I don't live in London than
anymore or the UK, my favorite thing to do is
to go to a pub. I just love the atmosphere
of pubs in the UK, which you don't really get
anywhere else outside of the country. So yeah, they're just cozy,

(01:41:17):
you know, when it's dark and rainy, you go in
for a nice beer. In London, my favorite pub is
a place called the Porterhouse, which is in the Covent
Garden area. So not only is it in a very
nice area of London which is cute Covent Garden, you
get all the street performers, there's some cool shopping, there's
just a good vibe to Covent Garden in general. And

(01:41:37):
then the Porterhouse is a pub which has like five
different levels to it.

Speaker 5 (01:41:44):
It's almost like you walk into Harry Potter.

Speaker 16 (01:41:46):
And then because it's like balconies looking over the main bar,
it's it's like a maze a little bit.

Speaker 5 (01:41:53):
The Porterhouse it's super cool.

Speaker 16 (01:41:55):
It's got a great selection of beers from all over
the place. So that would be that would probably be
my favorite thing to do in London. I haven't done
it in a long time, unfortunately. But it is also
the pub where me and my wife of sixteen years
we first.

Speaker 3 (01:42:11):
Had our date.

Speaker 16 (01:42:13):
We had our first date at the Porterhouse in London,
so it also has some emotional value.

Speaker 5 (01:42:17):
So it's probably shitped now because this was sixteen.

Speaker 16 (01:42:21):
Years ago, it's probably not as good as it used
to be, but I'm going with that. That's my top
thing to do in London. Love you guys, Lobsters, see
you soon.

Speaker 1 (01:42:31):
Okay, that was Paul Taylor. Then so let me just
briefly go through some of the things he said. So,
like many others before him, Paul says his favorite thing
is to go to a pub, which is totally understandable.
I mean it is extraordinary the number of pubs there are,
and there are way fewer than there used to be.
But you can just walk around London and the pubs

(01:42:53):
are a really lovely feature. I know some of you
listening just it's not your cup of tea or your
pint of beer. Let's say maybe to go to pubs.
You know, you don't drink, but they are lovely buildings.
They've got they look nice, they're full of character, they've
got interesting names. They're comfortable, they're inviting. You know, it's

(01:43:15):
just like the place to go to socialize and to
relax and all that stuff. I did an episode with
my brother all about going to the pub. It's got
everything you need to know about the whole culture of
pubs in the UK and you should listen to it
if you find all this talk of pubs interesting. It's

(01:43:36):
episode one hundred. Anyway, going to a pub is Paul's
favorite thing. He loves the atmosphere. He said, it's cozy,
Cozy is that word that describes that nice, comfortable feeling
when you're indoors, maybe in a nice comfortable enclosed space.
You'd be cozy if you're sitting on a comfortable sofa

(01:43:56):
in front of a nice fire, or you'd be cozy
if you are wrapped up nice and warm with a
hot drink. You know, that's a cozy feeling when it's
dark and rainy outside. His favorite pub is the Porterhouse
in Covent Garden. I know that pub. It's right in
the center kind of part of the building that makes

(01:44:17):
up Covent Garden Market these days. And yes, it's this
maze like pub with all these different floors, and there
are bars in different parts of the pub, and there
are balconies as well that overlook Covent Garden, which is
a really cool spot. You can watch the street performers
doing their things, the street performers, the buskers, five different levels.

Speaker 3 (01:44:40):
Apparently. Oh, let me just interrupt myself.

Speaker 1 (01:44:42):
I've realized that actually I'm talking about a completely different pub.
I've got it all mixed up. So the Porterhouse is
just round the corner from the center of Covent Garden.
The pub I'm thinking of is called the Punch and Judy,
which is the one right in the middle of Covent
Garden with the views over the main square. Punch and
Judy is an interesting spot as well, But now the
porter House is a nicer pub than the Punch and Judy,

(01:45:06):
to be fair. But that's all right, because I mean,
you don't care, really do you? At this point the air,
It's just so many different pubs, Luke, that I'm probably
never going to go to. I mean, who cares the Porterhouse,
the Punch and Judy, the Coach and Horses, the whatever
you know, the Frog and Lettuce, the Goldfish and Monkey,
the ketchup and Mustard dialects, whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:45:26):
We don't care, Luke. Just carry on, okay, I will.

Speaker 1 (01:45:29):
Paul said, it's like you walk into Harry Potter. I
don't really understand how could it be if you I
don't know how Harry Potter would feel about that, if
you walked into him. And I don't understand really how
Harry Potter is like a pub in himself. But I
think I know what Paul means. It's like you walk
into the world of Harry Potter, you know, into some

(01:45:49):
place where there are all these different levels and it's
all wood paneled and all that stuff. And he also
talked about the emotional value, which is lovely, that this
was the place where Paul and his wife went on
a date together, so it has that kind of emotional
He has that emotional attachment to the place as well,
which is lovely. But then he did say that it's
probably shit now because that was sixteen years ago, and

(01:46:12):
you know, nothing stays the same, does it. I don't know.
I haven't actually been to that pub for quite a
long time. I'd have to go back and check it
out anyway. So, ladies and gentlemen, we have finally got
to the end of what has become an epic marathon
of a double episode. You know, it's quite quite appropriately

(01:46:33):
we ended with Paul in this marathon episode, since he
is now all about running marathons and stuff. But here
we are right at the end then, and I just
want to remind you two things.

Speaker 3 (01:46:46):
I'll say.

Speaker 1 (01:46:47):
The first thing is I want to remind you to
have a look at the PDF. You'll find a vocab list,
you'll find a full transcript, and also you will find
a full list of all the recommendations for London that
you have heard. It's all compiled in one list with
all the different locations, all the different things you can
do there. Every bit of advice for visiting London has

(01:47:10):
been compiled together in a list and you'll find that
on the PDF. And it is an awesome list of
so much great advice and would be a very useful companion.
And it's totally free. It's available for you, totally free.
So that's the pdf. Yes, full vocab list, full transcript,
and also full list of recommendations. There are pdf for

(01:47:32):
part one and part two. There you are, You're welcome.
And the other thing I wanted to say is a big,
big thank you to everyone who sent me recordings. Thank
you everyone for taking the time to do that and
to send those things to me, to think, you know
sincerely about what you love doing in London, and to
actually record it and send it to me. Thanks a lot,

(01:47:53):
everyone that really really helped to make this episode quite special.
I think thanks also to you, the dear listener, for
listening all the way up until this point. Leave a
comment in the comment section just to prove that you
are indeed still conscious and that you haven't turned into
a skeleton with a pair of headphones on somewhere in

(01:48:14):
the world. Leave a comment to let us know that
you are still here. What could you possibly say? What
word could you use? Something about cozy atmosphere? You could
write something about a cozy atmosphere. That could be your
phrase to show that you've got to the end of
the episode. But indeed, you could comment on any of

(01:48:35):
the things that have been mentioned here. Have you ever
been to London? What was your experience there? What's your
favorite thing about London? And tell us about your places.
Where do you live? What's it like there and what
are the cool things to do? What are your favorite
things to do where you live? Get in the comment section.
I'd love to read your comments. But that finally is
the end of this episode. Thank you so much for listening.

(01:48:56):
I will speak to you next time, but for now
it is time to say goodbye bye.

Speaker 3 (01:49:02):
Boe boo boo.

Speaker 1 (01:49:07):
Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information,
visit teacher Luke dot com dot UK. If you enjoyed
this episode of Luke's English Podcast, consider signing up for

(01:49:30):
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 Luke's English podcast Premium,

(01:49:53):
go to teacher Luke dot co dot uk slash premium
info

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