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June 23, 2025 126 mins
Learn English with a short story on LEP. In this episode I am reading "The Man Who Could Work Miracles" by HG Wells (adapted into modern English). First you can listen to the story, then I summarise it again in my own words, discuss my interpretations of its meaning, explain how you can use stories like this to improve your English, and teach some vocabulary which came up.📄 Get the PDF with story text, notes and vocabulary list here 👉 https://teacherluke.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/941.-The-Man-Who-Could-Work-Miracles-Learn-English-with-a-Short-Story-PDF.pdf🏆 Sign up to LEP Premium to get all vocabulary explanations for this story in premium series P69 👉 https://www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium🔗 Episode page on my website 👉 https://teacherluke.co.uk/2025/06/23/941-the-man-who-could-work-miracles-learn-english-with-a-short-story/📖 Read the original (unadapted) story text here 👉 https://revistaliterariakatharsis.org/manmiracles.pdf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Twenty three year old Elizabeth Plunkett heads off for a
night away with friends this.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Summer in nineteen seventy six, the best summer weet had
for years.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Just hours later, she is kidnapped by two men in
British Bay.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
These your two career criminals wanted for rape in Britain.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
They are Ireland's first serial killers. While both men confess
to Elizabeth's murder, no one is ever convicted. How could
this happen?

Speaker 3 (00:21):
We've been denied any summer to justice.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Stolen Sister. Listen on ort Radio player and wherever you
get your podcasts.

Speaker 4 (00:30):
A cast recommends podcasts we love.

Speaker 5 (00:33):
Hello, This is Jenny from Redroom, a podcast where we
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we are investigating the world of bad influencers, from digital
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The online world has never been so full of liars.
If you're a fan of true crime, culled, deep dives,
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(00:53):
love the show.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Search for a.

Speaker 5 (00:54):
Redroom, wherever you get your podcasts, and join me down
the rabbit Hole, home to.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
The world's best podcasts. Including the critically acclaimed West Cork
and the one you're listening to right now. You're listening
to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teacher Luke
dot co dot uk. Hello listeners, welcome back to Luke's

(01:28):
English Podcast. How are you doing today? I hope you're
doing fine. So it's time for another story episode. In
this one, I'm going to tell you a story and
help you to use it to learn English. That's the idea. Now,
there are plenty of things that I could say in
the introduction to this episode. I could talk to you
about how you could use this story to improve your English,

(01:51):
and I could teach you some bits of vocabulary that
I feel that you need to know at the beginning
before we get started, and I could say other comments.
But you know what, I'm not going to do any
of those things this time. Instead, I'm going to jump
straight into the story as soon as possible. So what
you could do is you could consider this to be
a sort of mini test of your listening skills. Can

(02:13):
you understand the story? Can you follow it? Can you
deal with those moments when perhaps you don't understand certain
bits of vocabulary? Can you follow it? All? The way
through until the end. I will explain lots of things afterwards,
after I've done the story, I'll explain quite a lot
of stuff. I'll summarize what the story means in my
own words. I'll discuss some of the themes of the story,

(02:37):
and I'll also go through some of the vocabulary. But
let's just get straight into it. One thing I should
say is that, yes, this story was written by HG. Wells.
It was written and published over one hundred years ago.
But if you're worried about learning old fashioned English, don't worry,
because I've adapted the text of this story. I've updated

(02:59):
all of the English, so the details of the story,
the tone of the story is still the same, but
I've changed the English to make it modern, up to
date English, so you can be sure that the English
that you can hear and read in this story is
all the kind of English that we still use today. Okay,
so old story, but modern English. Let's just get started

(03:22):
straight away. You can find the text of this story
everything I'm reading on the PDF for the episode, which
is available in the description right in the episode show
notes just under this episode. Have a look in there.
You'll see a link where you can get the PDF
where you can find the story text. But let's just
go for it. Okay, I'm going to start the story now,

(03:43):
I'll read the whole thing to you. It's about five
thousand words long, so it should take me how long
ten fifteen, twenty minutes to do the story, and then
I'll explain a lot of stuff afterwards. Okay, right, So
this is the man who can work miracles? By H. G. Wells.
Here we go. It's doubtful whether George Fotherington was born

(04:08):
with his special power. Personally, I think it came to
him suddenly. Up until the age of thirty, he didn't
believe in anything supernatural. In fact, he was a total skeptic.
Now's probably the best time to describe him. He was
a short man with bright reddish hair that stood upright,
hot brown eyes, a mustache he liked to twist at

(04:31):
the ends, and a face full of freckles. His name,
George macwhirt of Fotherington, didn't exactly sound like someone destined
for greatness. He worked as a clerk at a shop
called Gombshots, and he absolutely loved arguing and debating, especially
if it meant proving other people wrong. It was actually

(04:54):
during one of those heated debates, while he was loudly
insisting on this particular occasion that miracles were impossible, that
he first realized something strange was going on. The argument
took place in the Long Dragon Pub. His opponent was
Toddy Beamish, who kept responding to Fotherington's long winded claims

(05:17):
with a frustratingly calm so you say, which he did
over and over again. It was enough to push Fotherington
to the edge of his patients. There were a few
others in the bar that evening, a dusty cyclist, the
pub landlord, mister Cox, and Miss Maybridge, the bar maid

(05:37):
who was busy washing glasses with her back to the group.
The others were half listening, half smirking at Fotherington's over
confident tone. Wound up by Beamish's stubborn replies, Fotherington decided
to go all in. Look, Beamish, let's be absolutely clear
about this, all right. A miracle is something that completely

(05:59):
goes against the laws of nature, the laws of science,
and that's just impossible, isn't it. Anyone who knows anything
knows that the only way a miracle could happen is
if someone somehow willed it to happen with their mind.
But obviously no one has the power to do that, right,
it stands to reason, so you say, replied Beamish again,

(06:21):
still calm and annoying. Fotherington turned to the cyclist, who
hadn't said a word so far, and asked for backup.
The cyclist gave a small awkward cough and nodded in agreement.
The landlord refused to get involved, but when Fotherington went
back to Beamish, he was surprised to get a reluctant

(06:43):
All right, maybe to his definition of a miracle. Great,
said Fotherington. Encouraged, he began to illustrate his point, even
though it wasn't really necessary. So here's an example. See
that oil lamp. Naturally it could be hanging upside down
and still working right. Well, you say it couldn't, said Beamish.

(07:06):
Oh come on, said Fotherington. You're not seriously saying it could.
Beamish gave in no, all right, it couldn't. It would
be ridiculous, said Fotherington. Imagine someone walks up to that
lamp like me and says, putting all their willpower into it,
turn upside down without breaking and keep burning steadily like this,

(07:29):
he pointed, And then all of a sudden something incredible happened.
The lamp, the ordinary, very real lamp above the bar
of the Long Dragon, flipped in the air and hung
upside down, still lit, its flame pointing downwards. Everyone in
the room froze. Fotherington stood there, finger raised, eyebrows scrunched,

(07:56):
expecting it to fall and smash. The sight ducked and
leaped across the room. Everyone else jumped in shock. Miss
Maybridge turned around and screamed. The lamp just hung there
for a few seconds, perfectly still. Then Fotherington gasped, I
can't hold it much longer, and stumbled backwards. The lamp

(08:20):
flared up, crashed into the bar, bounced off, shattered on
the floor, and went out. Thankfully the lamp had a
metal base, or the whole place might have gone up
in flames. Mister Cox, the Landlord, was the first to
say anything, and once you stripped away all the swearing,

(08:40):
he basically called Fotherington an idiot. But Fotherington couldn't argue.
He was too stunned. He had no idea how he'd
done it. The others were furious. They all thought he'd
played some stupid trick and smashed a perfectly good lamp
in the process. He was now seen as a clumsy,

(09:01):
irresponsible nuisance. His head spinning, Fotherington left the pub with
no real fight. His collar was rumpled, his face was hot,
his eyes watering from stress, and his ears were burning
with embarrassment. As he walked home, he eyed every street
lamp nervously, half expecting them to flip upside down too.

(09:23):
It wasn't until he was alone in his tiny bedroom
on Church Row that he could start to think clearly.
He took off his coat and boots, sat on the
edge of the bed with his hands in his pockets,
and kept repeating, I didn't mean for the bloody thing
to flip, did I? Then it hit him at the

(09:44):
exact moment he'd said those words to the lamp, he
hadn't just spoken them, he'd actually willed them, and when
the lamp floated, he'd somehow known it depended on him
to keep it there, even though he had no idea how.
Now he wasn't the most deep thinking man, Otherwise he

(10:06):
might have got lost pondering how someone can accidentally will
something to happen. But the thought came to him in
a simple, foggy sort of way, So naturally he decided
to test it. Feeling a bit silly, he pointed at
his candle and focused hard. Lift up into the air,

(10:27):
he said. To his astonishment, the candle rose, hovered for
a second and then dropped, bouncing off his dressing table
and plunging the room into darkness. The only light left
was the last faint glow of the candlewick, dying out.
He sat in the dark, frozen. So it did happen,

(10:48):
he whispered, And I've got no clue how or why.
With a deep sigh, he fumbled in his pockets for
a match. Nothing. He checked his coat, still nothing. Then
he had a thought, if he could work miracles, maybe
he didn't need matches. He held out his hand into

(11:11):
the darkness. Let there be a match in his hand,
he said. He felt something small and light fall into
his palm, a match. He tried a few times to
light it, and then he realized it was a safety match,
the kind that needs a special surface. Annoyed, he tossed

(11:32):
it away. Then it occurred to him he could have
just made it already lit, so he tried again. This time,
he said, let it be burning, and sure enough it
appeared on his table, flaring on the mat. He grabbed
it quickly and it went out, leaving a little black
scorch mark and a thread of smoke curling into the air.

(11:55):
Now fully intrigued, he put the candle back in its holder,
pointed at it and said, you be lit. The flame
came to life instantly. He stared at it, then glanced
at himself in the mirror, eyes wide, mouth open, He
met his own gaze and asked, quietly, still think miracles

(12:19):
are impossible? After that candle trick, Fotherington sat still for
a while, just staring into the flame. His thoughts were
all tangled up. The only thing he could be sure
of was that somehow things happened when he willed them to.
That was the key. But the strangeness of it all

(12:42):
made him nervous. He decided not to try anything too
wild until he'd thought it through a bit more. Still,
he couldn't help experimenting. He pointed at a glass of
water and turned the water pink. Then he turned it green. Then,
with a bit more effort, he created a snail. A
moment later, he panicked and made it disappear again. Then

(13:05):
he made himself a brand new toothbrush, just for fun.
By the early hours of the morning, he'd come to
a conclusion his will power must be something truly rare
and powerful. He'd always had a feeling there was something
unique about him. Now at last he had proof. His
fear and confusion were slowly being replaced by a sense

(13:28):
of pride. He could do something no one else could.
He even started imagining how it might benefit him. Then
the church clock struck one. As impressive as his powers were,
he still had to be at work in the morning, unless,
of course, he could will himself out of it. But

(13:49):
that idea felt a bit much for now. Instead, he
began getting ready for bed. While pulling his shirt over
his head, he had a flash of inspiration. Let me
be in bed, he said, And just like that he
was lying under the covers, undressed, he added quickly, and
then in a nice soft woolen night shirt.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
Ah.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
He stretched, smiled and sighed with contentment. A and now,
he said, let me fall asleep, nice and comfy. The
next morning, Fotherington woke up at his usual time, but
he wasn't his usual self. He sat quietly through breakfast,
wondering if everything he remembered from the night before had

(14:35):
just been a dream. Then he decided to test things carefully.
He had three eggs for breakfast. Two of them came
from his landlady, decent enough, but a bit stale. The third, however,
was different. He willed it into existence himself, a perfectly
fresh goose egg, cooked exactly how he liked it. It

(14:57):
was delicious, and with that he was sure it hadn't
been a dream. He rushed off to Gombshots, trying to
act normal but brimming with quiet excitement. He couldn't concentrate
on his work at all, but it didn't matter. He
simply made up for lost time in the last ten
minutes with another miracle. As the day went on, his

(15:19):
wonder turned into confidence, even joy. That said, he still
cringed at the memory of the whole long dragon lamp incident.
To make things worse, his co workers had heard a
twisted version of the story, and now they were teasing
him about it. Clearly he needed to be more careful.

(15:40):
Lifting things into the air might cause a scene, especially
if they broke, but other kinds of miracles they could
be done discreetly. He began planning little ways to improve
his life. At one point, he conjured up a dazzling
pair of diamond shirt studs. They looked brilliant, but then

(16:00):
young mister Gomshot came over and Fotherington panicked. What if
he asked where they'd come from? He quickly made them disappear.
It was becoming clear that this gift needed caution. It
was like learning to ride a bike. You had to
practice and stay alert. That's probably what pushed him to
go for a quiet walk after dinner, out past the

(16:22):
gas works, where he could try a few more miracles
in private. He didn't have the wildest imagination, and outside
of his miraculous powers, he was still a very ordinary man.
But one image came to mind, a biblical one, Moses
and his rod turning into a snake. By the way,

(16:42):
in the Bible, there is a story in which Moses
turns his rod it's his stick, into a snake, performing
a miracle to impress an emperor. Fotherington considered trying that,
but it was too dark for anything that dramatic, so
instead he remembered a story he'd read about Tannhauser printed

(17:03):
on the back of a concert program. It had something
to do with enchanted flowers, and it seemed harmless enough.
By the way, in the opera, the character's wooden staff
blooms with flowers for some reason. Another miracle in myth
or culture. Fotherington took his walking stick, a nice one
from poona Penang, stuck it upright into the grassy edge

(17:27):
of the path and said bloom. Suddenly the air was
filled with the scent of roses. He struck a match
and held it up to see the stick had indeed
sprouted flowers, bright, beautiful, fragrant roses. He was admiring his
work when he heard footsteps approaching. Worried he might be discovered,

(17:50):
he panicked and said go back. He meant turned back
into a stick, but instead the stick shot backward at
high speed and smacked straight into the legs of the
person coming along the path. Ow who's throwing bushes around you, idiot?
Shouted a voice. That hit me right on the shin.

(18:12):
Oh er, sorry, mate, said Fotherington, flustered and tugging at
his mustache. The voice belonged to Winch, one of the
local police constables. What the hell was that, said Winch,
limping forward. Then he squinted at Fotherington. Wait it's you.
You're the bloke who smashed that lamp at the Long Dragon.

(18:35):
Erm I didn't mean anything by it, said Fotherington, backing away.
Then why do you do it? Eh? Oh oh, come on,
muttered Fotherington. Not again, not again, Winch repeated, you've assaulted
a police officer, you have, That's what this is. Fotherington
couldn't think of a decent excuse. In the end, the

(18:58):
truth came out in a rush. I was working a miracle,
he said. Winch stared at him.

Speaker 5 (19:06):
A what.

Speaker 4 (19:08):
Uh a miracle? Fotherington repeated, trying to sound casual. Winch
gave a loud snort. What a load of rubbish. You
don't even believe in miracles. It's just another one of
your stupid magic tricks. Fotherington realized too late that he'd
just revealed his secret, his incredible power, to someone who

(19:29):
would never understand. Frustrated and angry, he snapped, Oh, I've
had enough of this, he said, Just just go to hell,
and in a blink, Winch was gone. Fotherington stood frozen.
Winch had vanished. He hadn't planned it, not really, he

(19:49):
was just so fed up, and the words slipped out
before he'd thought them through. Oh I didn't mean that much,
he muttered, not really, It's such a powerful gift. I
wonder what hell is actually like. Feeling shaken, he trudged
back to town, keeping his head down. He didn't bother

(20:11):
checking what had happened to the flowering stick. He just
wanted to get home and lie low back in his room.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, he took off
his boots with a sigh. Then a thought struck him.
Maybe he could fix things. Maybe he could send Winch
somewhere else, somewhere less eternal. He quickly transferred the constable

(20:33):
to San Francisco and then went to bed. That night,
he dreamed about an angry Winch, red faced and furious,
trying to find his way back across the ocean. The
next day, Fotherington heard two pieces of news. Someone had
planted a beautiful climbing rose bush against the house of

(20:53):
old mister Gomshot on Lullborough Road, and Constable Winch had
gone missing. They were dragging the river for him. That
weighed heavily on Fotherington's mind all day. He managed to
finish his work on time, miraculously, of course, but he
was completely distracted. His thoughts were all over the place,

(21:15):
buzzing like a swarm of bees. Several people noticed how
quiet and thoughtful he was and made jokes about it,
but he couldn't stop thinking about Winch. That Sunday evening,
he did something unusual for him. He went to chapel.
Mister Maydig, the preacher, a thin, excitable man with a

(21:37):
long neck and wrists, happened to be giving a sermon
about things that aren't lawful, touching on miracles and mysterious powers. Fotherington,
who wasn't normally a chapel goer, sat bolt upright, his
skepticism now seriously shaken. Something about the sermon struck a chord.

(21:57):
He waited until the end, then made up his mind
he'd talk to mister Maydig. Why hadn't he thought of
it earlier. After a few delays and some curious glances
from the congregation, mister Maydig brought him into his study
behind the chapel. A warm fire crackled in the fireplace,
and mister Maydig stood in front of it, casting a

(22:20):
long shadow on the wall as he said, so, mister Fotherington,
what can I do for you? At first, Fotherington was nervous.
You probably won't believe me, he said, but well. He
danced around the subject for a bit, then tried a question.
What's your view on miracles, mister Maydig, well, said the preacher,

(22:43):
adopting a thoughtful tone. Fotherington cut in again. Do you
think it's possible that an ordinary person, someone like me, say,
might have some kind of inner power, something that lets
them do incredible things just by willing them. Well, it's possible,
said mister Maydig cautiously. Something like that might be possible. Well,

(23:06):
then said Fotherington, if you don't mind, I'd like to
show you something, just a small example. He pointed at
a tobacco jar on the table and said, turn into
a bowl of violets. The jar shimmered and turned into
a bowl of fresh violets. Mister Maydig jumped in shock.

(23:27):
H He leaned over, sniffed the flowers, and stared at Fotherington.
How did you do that? Fotherington tugged on his mustache.
Just told it to he said. Is that a miracle
or black magic or something else? Entirely? That's what I
want to know. Mister Maydig was completely speechless, And I

(23:53):
only discovered this a week ago. Fotherington added, it's just
sort of started happening. Must be something strange about my willpower.
Is that the only thing you can do? Asked mister Maydig. Oh, no,
I can do a lot more. Fotherington paused, remembering a
magic show he'd seen once. Watch this, he pointed at

(24:15):
the flowers changed into a bowl of fish. No, I
mean a glass bowl full of water with goldfish swimming
in it. It happened instantly, clear water, golden fish flicking
their tails. I could change it into anything, said mister Fotherington,
Just anything. Here be a pigeon, will you. In another moment,

(24:37):
a blue pigeon was fluttering around the room and making
mister Maydig duck every time it came near him. Stop there,
will you, said mister Fotherington, and the pigeon hung motionless
in the air. I could change it back to a
bowl of flowers, he said, And after replacing the pigeon
on the table, he worked that miracle. See, he said,

(25:00):
And now back into your tobacco jar. Mister Maydig picked
up the jar, carefully turned it in his hands and
placed it back on the table. Well, he said softly,
That's why I came here, said Fotherington, I needed to
talk to someone about it. Then he began telling the

(25:20):
whole story, the lamp at the pub, the candle, the match,
the toothbrush, the snail, and of course Winch. As he spoke,
the sense of mystery and awe in mister Maydig's face
slowly shifted to something more like admiration. By the time
Fotherington mentioned the third egg, Maydig raised a trembling hand.

(25:44):
It is possible, he whispered, incredible, but it fits a gift,
a rare, powerful gift. I always wondered about the miracles
of Mahammet, the Yogi's Madame Blavatski. But yes, yes, this
could be a deeper law, something hidden beneath the surface

(26:06):
of ordinary nature. His eyes sparkled.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Go on.

Speaker 4 (26:12):
Fotherington went on to describe his incident with Winch, how,
in a moment of anger, he'd accidentally banished the constable
to Hell, then, feeling guilty, moved him to San Francisco instead.
And now, said Fotherington, I don't know what to do.
He's probably confused, may be scared out of his mind,

(26:33):
and furious too. I keep having to send him back
every few hours whenever I remember, But of course he
doesn't understand what's going on. He might even think that
he's losing his mind. If he keeps buying train tickets
trying to get here, it's going to cost him a fortune.
He paused, scratching his head. Oh, and I thought afterwards,

(26:56):
what if his clothes got scorched in Hell before I
moved him. If that happened, maybe they arrested him for
public indecency in San Francisco. I gave him a new
suit once I realized. But still I'm in a bit
of a mess. Mister Maydig looked very serious. Yes, yes,
this is getting complicated. He started pacing, waving his arms

(27:19):
as he thought. Let's set aside the winch situation for
a moment. What we're dealing with here isn't evil or
black magic. There's no criminality about it. What you're doing,
it's miracle working, pure and simple, and not just any
miracles topp tier miracles. He stopped and pointed at Fotherington.

(27:40):
My dear mister Fotherington, you are a man of enormous importance.
You could be the key to amazing things. There's so
much good you could do in the world, in society, well,
I've had a few ideas, said Fotherington, although some of
them came out a bit wrong, like that fish bowl earlier.

(28:01):
First it turned into the wrong sort of fish, and
then the wrong sort of bowl. That's why I thought
I ought to ask someone. You were absolutely right to
come to me, said mister Maydig. Completely right. This gift,
it's limitless. Let's test it. Let's really see what you
can do, and so incredible as it may sound. On

(28:22):
the evening of Sunday, the tenth of November eighteen ninety six,
in the small study behind the Congregational Chapel, George Fotherington,
urged on by the wide eyed and excitable mister Maydig,
began performing miracles. At first, they were small ones, the
kind of tricks spiritualists or stage magicians might pretend to do,

(28:44):
turning teacups into flowers, making the fireplace flicker green, floating
sugar bowls. Mister Maydig watched in awe struck silence, occasionally
whispering extraordinary and remarkable. Fotherington wanted to deal with the
winch situation right away, but Maydig stopped him. Let's begin

(29:06):
with the easy stuff, he said. We'll work our way
up As they continued, their confidence grew. Soon they were
chatting excitedly like old friends, planning all the good they
could do. Eventually they moved into the dining room. Dinner
was set, but it was miserable, a cold, dry bit
of meat and a couple of stale biscuits. Mister Maydig sighed,

(29:31):
my housekeeper, missus minchin, he said, isn't exactly a culinary
genius for Fotherington looked at the table. Would you mind?
He said? If I fixed this by all means, what
would you like? Mister Maydig asked for something modest, but
Fotherington went with what he fancied. I'll have a nice

(29:53):
pint of stout and a proper Welsh rare bit. And
just like that, the table transformed a rich so her appeared,
steaming hot stout in a tankered a cheesy rare bit
bubbling on the plate. They sat ate and talked miracles.
After a while, Fotherington looked up and said, you know,

(30:14):
maybe I could help you with the missus minchin. Mister
Maydig looked uncertain. Hm, she's a bit sensitive truth be told.
Doesn't take well to being told what to do. And
it's nearly midnight she'd be asleep by now. Fotherington thought
it over. Hmm, couldn't I just improve her a little

(30:34):
while she sleeps. At first, Maydig resisted the idea. It
felt risky, but eventually he agreed cautiously. Well, okay, I
suppose so. Fotherington whispered the command that Missus Minchin should
become a better, kinder, more thoughtful woman. They returned to

(30:55):
their meal, both a little tense, now listening for any
sign it had worked. Hooked. Then noises from upstairs, voices,
a door opening, glass breaking. Maydig rushed out. Fotherington heard
him calling up to the housekeeper, then soft footsteps on
the stairs. A few minutes later, may Dig returned. His

(31:18):
eyes were wide, his face shone with amazement. She's changed,
he said, truly changed. She woke up and, in tears,
smashed her secret bottle of brandy and confessed everything through
the door. It's the most touching repentance I've ever seen.
He began pacing again, hands raised to the heavens. This

(31:42):
opens a whole new world. If we can do this
with one soul, imagine what we can do for everyone.
The success with Missus Minchin left both men buzzing. With excitement.
If they could reform one person in her sleep, what
else could they achieve? Mister Maydig started reeling off ideas, wild,

(32:05):
enthusiastic plans to change the world for better. He wasn't
just talking about fixing a few local problems. He meant
global reform, a moral revolution, ending vice and misery, uplifting
all of human kind. Fotherington, still chewing on the last
bite of his rare bit, nodded along.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Hump.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
Seems like there's no limit, he said. And about Winch, Yes, yes, yes,
we'll sort Winch out in good time, said Maydig, brushing
the issue aside. He was too excited to focus on
one missing policeman. This is about everything, mister Fotherington, the
whole world. They stayed up well past midnight, performing miracles together,

(32:48):
starting small and getting bolder. Eventually they slipped out into
the quiet streets under a full moon, ready to put
their plans into action. They moved like a pair of
giddy schoolboys, may Dig flapping his arms full of dramatic gestures,
and Fotherington short and bristling with excitement. No longer shy

(33:08):
about his powers, they began with acts of kindness and
reform They instantly sobered up every drunk in the area.
They turned all alcohol into water over Fotherington's objections. He
had a fondness for stout, but Maydig insisted. They improved
the railway lines, fixed potholes, drained the muddy swamp at

(33:31):
Flinders Lane, and made the soil on one Tree Hill
rich and fertile. They cured the vicar's stubborn wart. They
even began discussing what could be done about the collapsing
pier down at south Bridge. The town won't know what's hit, it,
cried may Dig, breathless with joy. Just imagine the surprise,

(33:52):
the gratitude. Just then, the church clock struck three oh no,
said fotheringtondly, worried, three o'clock already. I've got to work
at eight, and missus Whims will be up soon too.
We're only just getting started, said Maydig. There's no rush.
Think of all the good we're doing, Think of all

(34:12):
the lives will change. Fotherington hesitated. Then Maydig stopped walking,
his eyes wide with inspiration. My dear chap, he said,
pointing up at the moon. Do what Joshua did. Joshua
Fotherington blinked in the Bible, said, Maydig. He stopped the

(34:33):
sun in the sky, you can stop the earth freeze time.
That way, we'll have all the time we need to
finish everything. Fotherington looked doubtful. Oh that's a big ask.
Well why not, said Maydig. You won't be doing any harm.
You just stop the rotation of the earth, No big deal.

(34:55):
Fotherington took a deep breath. All right, then, I'll see
what I can do. He pulled his coat tight, straightened
his back, and said, in as firm a voice as
he could manage, stop spinning, will you. He never finished
the sentence. The very next second, he was flying through

(35:15):
the air, head over heels at an unimaginable speed. Everything blurred,
his thoughts barely kept up, but somehow he had time
to think, make it stop, let me land safely, Let
me be all right, no matter what else happens. He
willed it just in time. His clothes were already starting

(35:36):
to singe from the friction as he plummeted. Then thump,
He landed in a heap of soft earth. A second later,
something huge and heavy smashed into the ground nearby, spraying
dirt everywhere. It was the church clock tower or what
was left of it, tumbling apart like a bomb had

(35:56):
gone off. A cow flew part and exploded against the rubble.
The world around him was collapsing. A roar of wind,
dust and destruction echoed in every direction. Lightning cracked overhead.
Trees had been ripped from the ground, Buildings just piles

(36:18):
of splinters and rubble. The viaduct, once solid iron lay
twisted and snapped in a tangle of metal. You see.
When Fotherington stopped the Earth's rotation, he hadn't thought about
what would happen to everything on the surface. The planet
had been spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and

(36:39):
now suddenly it had stopped. Everything and everyone on it
was flung forward as if fired from a cannon. The
result total annihilation. Fotherington didn't understand the physics, but he
could see the aftermath, the destruction, the eerie glow of
the moon still hanging over head in the unmoving sky.

(37:02):
Everything around him was chaos. He groaned, Oh Lord, this
is a disaster. What have I done? He scrambled to
his feet, but was nearly knocked down again by the
violent wind. Where's may dig? What happened to the town
He looked around, terrified. This is a right mess and

(37:22):
I didn't even ask for the wind. That wasn't part
of it. The dust stung his eyes. He dropped to
his knees. Okay, okay, think I've got to fix this.
And then he saw it, a wall of water in
the distance, towering above the ruins, surging toward him like
a vast tidal wave. No, no, no, no, no no,

(37:45):
he shouted, Wait, just stop, just one moment to think.
He held up his hand, shielding his eyes. Right, let's
get this right this time. Fotherington crouched in the dirt,
bracing himself against the roaring wind. The giant wave was
still coming, a wall of water crashing toward him through

(38:07):
the wreckage of the world. He could barely think, barely breathe, right,
he muttered, gritting his teeth. Let's do this properly. He
took a deep breath, planted his hands in the earth
for balance, and shouted into the chaos, even though his
voice was almost drowned by the gale. Let nothing I'm
about to order happen, nothing at all until I say off.

(38:30):
Got that, No changes, no miracles, not until I say so.
The wind howled the sky cracked with thunder, and Fotherington
kept his eyes squeezed shut. Okay, he said, here's what
I want. His voice was shaking, but his words were clear. First,

(38:52):
take away my power, all of it. Let me be
ordinary again. No more miracles. I don't want them anymore.
It's too much, it's too dangerous. He paused, catching his breath. Second,
rewind time. Put everything back the way it was just
before the lamp flipped upside down at the Long Dragon.
Let everything be exactly as it was. No one harmed,

(39:14):
no one dead, nothing destroyed. Another pause, and make sure
I forget all of this. Let me be just exactly
as I was. Let the world be exactly as it was.
He dug his fingers into the dirt ready, then at
the top of his voice off instant stillness, no wind,

(39:38):
no sound, no pressure. Fotherington opened his eyes. He was
back in the bar of the Long Dragon, standing just
as he had been at the beginning of the story.
He was talking to Toddy Beamish. The barmaid was still
washing glasses. The dusty cyclist hadn't moved. The lamp hung
perfectly normal above their heads, and he remembered nothing that

(40:05):
entire wild adventure, the floating lamp, the fish, the roses,
the smashed world. It was all gone from his memory,
wiped clean because Fotherington, now without his miraculous powers, had
restored everything. And so the conversation picked up exactly where
it had left off. I'm telling you, said Fotherington, miracles

(40:27):
are impossible. They can't happen, not properly. And I'll prove
it if you like. Well, that's what you think, said Beamish.
Prove it then, all right, said Fotherington. First, let's be
clear about what a miracle actually is. It's something that
goes against nature, caused purely by willpower. And off he went,

(40:47):
arguing just as assertively as ever, blissfully unaware that for
one extraordinary night he had been the man who could
work miracles, and he'd brought about the total destruction of
the earth and everything on it, including you.

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Speaker 2 (41:37):
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(42:02):
on ord Player.

Speaker 4 (42:09):
Well there you go. That is the story of the
man who could work miracles and actually took a little
bit longer than I thought. I thought it would take
me about fifteen minutes or something, but it was longer
than that. But so you made it. Then you made
it all the way through to the end, and well
what was that? What did you think of the story?

(42:30):
Leave your comments in the comments section. I've got some
questions for you. So first of all, yeah, what did
you think? Do you think the story has a deeper meaning?
Did it end in the way you expected? What did
you think?

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Now?

Speaker 4 (42:45):
I have to just make sure that you've understood that.
Of course, you won't have understood everything you know, depending
on your level of English. Of course, there will definitely
be details that you didn't get, probably specific bits of vocabulary.
But the aim, the idea of this episode really is
just to was to give you something, you know, something

(43:07):
to listen to, to allow you to just practice your
general listening skills. But we can get into some details
in a little bit. First of all, though, I need
to just summarize the story. I think you probably got
most of it, I'm guessing, but here it is anyway
a kind of a summary in my own words. So
it's about this guy called George Fotherington, who was not

(43:30):
especially extraordinary in any way of an ordinary man really.
He worked as a clerk at a shop. That just
means that he was an office worker doing general office work,
nothing in particular really, And he was the sort of

(43:50):
person who liked having debates about things. He liked discussing,
debating and arguing. And also he was a skeptic, right
who didn't believe in supernatural things, or didn't believe in
probably religious things, divine powers, the powers of God, or
the idea or things like miracles. And we meet him

(44:13):
at the beginning of the story. He's in a pub
and he's having a discussion with someone. There's a few
people around, and he's probably I think he's maybe a
slightly stupid character, maybe slightly irritating characters, someone who perhaps
likes the sound of his own voice and is very
sure of his own opinions and likes to debate things,

(44:36):
especially if it gives him a chance to prove other
people wrong. And he is, Yeah, he's a skeptic, right,
And we all know skeptics. You know, some of them
are famous. You know, on YouTube you get people who
are famous skeptics and they get involved in debates and

(44:56):
arguments about things like, you know, the existence of God
and stuff like that. And some of those people, I mean,
maybe they're right, but there's a sense that there's a
bit of arrogance involved in that. It's about being right
and proving other people wrong. Or maybe Fotherington is just
an amateur skeptic and an amateur debater. Anyway, he likes

(45:21):
arguing with people, and he likes to prove other people wrong.
And he begins by discussing miracles. So miracles are extraordinary
things that can't be explained by science or the laws
of nature. Right now, if your first language is based

(45:43):
on Latin, or comes from Latin, or was influenced by Latin,
then you'll have the word miracle in your language. I
suppose in other languages the word will be different, okay,
but a miracle, yeah, Like, for example, Jesus in the
Bible performed various miracles. Right, he turned water into wine,
he was able to walk on water. He fed thousands

(46:07):
of people with just a small amount of food. These
are miracles performed by Jesus in the Bible. So this
is what miracles are, right, amazing things that can't be
explained by science. And at the beginning of the story,
Fotherington is arguing that miracles are impossible, and I don't
really understand the way he's about to prove this, but

(46:29):
he points at a lamp which is hanging in the bar.
Right at a lamp, probably an oil lamp that use
it that burns oil to give light to the room.
Obviously these days we have electric lamps. But he points
at the lamp and he says something like miracles can
only happen if someone wills them to happen. To will

(46:51):
something to happen is to make it happen with the
power of your mind. Your will is your sort of
determination or power of your mind, and we can will
things to happen. Normally we can will ourselves to do
things like, for example, to will yourself to stay awake. If,
for example, you're listening to an episode of a podcast

(47:12):
and you're starting to feel sleepy, you might will yourself
to stay awake. Or if you're in an English lesson
and it's really important that you don't fall asleep, you
have to will yourself. You know, will your eyes to
stay open.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Come on.

Speaker 4 (47:26):
Or you might will your favorite football team to win
the game. You know, come on. Use the power of
your mind to make something happen. Use your willpower to
will something to happen. So he's saying, if you know,
miracles are impossible, they can only happen if someone wills
them to happen. And then he demonstrates how this is

(47:49):
impossible by pretending to do a miracle. But to his surprise,
the miracle actually happens, and the thing he's pretending to
do actually happens, and he discovered that his will power
is incredibly powerful. He has the ability to perform miracles.
Now in the story, this is not explained. We don't
know how he's got this power. It seems to be

(48:11):
completely random, and maybe this is kind of the point
of the story. Is that we're taking this perhaps slightly
arrogant person who's so convinced about rationality and a scientific
view of the world, and we in the story, we're

(48:32):
giving him miraculous powers to see what happens. And I mean,
I'm going to explain the themes of the story in
a moment, but anyway, he gets this miraculous power. The
lamp floats in the air upside down. Everyone's shocked and surprised.
Then he loses control of the lamp and it smashes
on the floor. Luckily it doesn't catch fire, because an

(48:55):
oil lamp like that could catch fire that he could
have burnt the pub down. So everyone's angry with him,
and everyone thinks that he's done some sort of trick
or whatever, and everyone's furious with him, and they think
he's an idiot, and he's embarrassed and humiliated and he
leaves the pub, but he can't comprehend what has happened,

(49:17):
and he goes home and thinks about it and slowly
realizes that he's able to perform miracles, and so he
starts experimenting. And he's because he's not the most imaginative person.
All of the miracles he does are quite small, stupid ones,
like creating a snail and then getting worried and then

(49:39):
making the snail disappear. He's an ordinary, slightly stupid man
who's been given this extraordinary power. We don't know why.
There's no mention of this coming from God. There's no
mention of it being God's work or anything. In fact,
it seems to be completely random. Anyway, he experiments with it,

(50:01):
and he kind of realizes that he can put himself
into bed quickly. All of the miracles he performs are
pretty unimaginative and small scale things. But then the next
day he goes to work and he's distracted by his miracles.
He doesn't really get any work done, but he uses
a miracle to kind of get all of his work
done in the last ten minutes of the day. And

(50:23):
then he decides that he needs to be careful about
his miracles. He can't just be performing them because if
other people notice, they might they might not understand. And
he decides that he needs to keep it secret, and
so he goes out into a little alleyway like a
little side street where he thinks he can practice his

(50:44):
miracles on his own. And because he doesn't really know
what kind of miracle he should perform. He remembers the
story from an opera that he read about once in
which one of the characters performs a miracle by turning
their stick into a flowering tree. And so stick he
puts his stick in the ground and makes it blossom

(51:05):
with roses, you know, and he's kind of amazed by this,
and then he hears someone coming and he tells the
stick to go back, meaning go back to normal, but
he gets it wrong, and the stick goes flying back
and it hits this person who is approaching, hits them
in the legs. It's dark at that time, so you know,

(51:26):
they can't see things, can't see each other very clearly,
but the stick flies quickly and whacks the guy in
the legs. It turns out this is a police officer,
and he's angry. He's saying, you've just assaulted a police officer.
What are you doing? And the police officer realizes that
it's Fotherington and he has heard about what Fotherington did

(51:49):
in the pub, and the police officer is not very
happy with him. And Fotherington isn't really able to think
very quickly, and he gets angry as well, and he
doesn't know what to do, and he just says to
the police officer, oh, go to Hell, which is the
sort of thing you might say meaning, oh, you know,
go away, and he says, go to Hell, and Winch

(52:11):
the police officer disappears, so of course he's just sent
him to Hell. And he goes home worrying about this.
Why doesn't why he doesn't just bring him back, but
he's worried that if he brings him back, then the
policeman is going to be angry with him and he's
going to come looking for him, and he doesn't know

(52:31):
what to do. So he's worried that Winch is in
hell and he doesn't know what that's like and how
that might be, and so he sends him to San Francisco,
which is I suppose somewhere far away. But he's worried.
He doesn't know how to deal with that, and he's
he's worried about Winch, and he thinks that maybe Winch
will be furious and he'll be trying to get back

(52:52):
from San Francisco, so he keeps having to send him
back and then he's thinking, oh God, maybe his clothes
got burnt off when he went to Hell. Well, so
he gives him a new set of clothes and anyway,
he knows that the whole Winch thing is a real problem,
and he's concerned what might be happening, and yeah, what
is happening to Winch? He's suddenly gone to Hell, suddenly
finds himself in San Francisco. Goodness knows what's going on

(53:15):
with him. But anyway, Fotherington is now worried about all
of this and concerned, and he goes to church. He
goes to the chapel, which is not something he normally does,
and by coincidence, the priest the preacher is delivering a
sermon about miracles, and Fotherington is like really gripped by

(53:42):
it and listens to everything and is sort of suddenly
shocked by this and decides that he has to talk
to mister Maydig, the priest, and you know, thinks, why
didn't I think of this earlier? So he talks to
the priest about this, and he shows the priest what
he can do, shows him his power, and the priest,

(54:02):
mister Maydig, is amazed and suddenly inspired by this and
decides that this must be some sort of God given power,
and he quickly decides that Fotherington's power is incredibly significant,
and he gets very carried away by all the possibilities,

(54:23):
all the good things that they could do. And Maydig
is also not the most intelligent character either, and he
just gets very very carried away with the potential for
doing for what he says, what he calls doing good,

(54:45):
and this means reforming everyone's soul, saving everyone in this
sort of like small minded Church of England kind of way,
making them stop drink alcohol or doing other things, improving
the town. So they fix bridge that they they do
lots of little things in the town, slowly performing bigger

(55:07):
and bigger miracles. And then they realize it's three o'clock
in the morning, and Fotherington, still quite small minded, panics
and goes, oh, I've got to be at work in
the morning. He doesn't realize that he could just you know,
he doesn't. He's got power to do absolutely anything, he

(55:28):
doesn't need to go to work anymore, but he's still
worried about getting to work on time the next day.
And may Dig, who perhaps says is slightly more broad
minded or slightly more imaginative, says, oh, well, you could
just you know, you could just stop time. You could,
And he refers to Joshua, I think is another character

(55:48):
in the Bible who I think makes the sun stop
in the sky or something like that. He says, you
could stop time, just stop the earth from spinning and
stop time. Yes, and that's what Fotherington does. But of
course if you stop the earth from spinning, what actually

(56:08):
happens is that everything on the surface of the Earth
is destroyed because the Earth is spinning at a thousand
miles an hour, right, and if you suddenly stop it,
everything would fly forwards. In the same way that if
you're driving in a car at one hundred miles an
hour and bam, you suddenly hit a brick wall and
the car stops instantly, everyone in the car goes flying

(56:31):
through the window. Right. If the Earth is spinning at
a thousand miles an hour and suddenly boot it stops,
then all things on the surface would just go flying forwards,
which is exactly what happens. Everything goes flying forwards, total chaos.
All the trees are uprooted, all the buildings are just

(56:51):
turned into rubble. The clock tower goes flying through the
air somehow in the middle of all of this while
he's flying through the air fothering and manages to will
himself to land safely, and he does, of course, and
there's a huge wind blowing because of course all the

(57:12):
air would be rushing forwards at one thousand miles an
hour as well, and he kind of looks up and
a cow comes flying past him and explodes against the ground.
I think, horrific. And then he sees in the distance
a huge tidal wave, which of course is the ocean

(57:33):
rushing towards him, and he just about has time to
make a couple of final miracles happen, and he sent
essentially he reverses time. He's kind of got the presence
of mind to be able to do that, to reverse time,
go back to where he was before all this happened,

(57:54):
and to forget about it all, and to remove his
miracles because they're too dangerous, and that's why happens, and
everything goes back to where they were at the beginning.
He's in conversation, he's still debating with Toddy Beamish in
the pub, except now he doesn't have his power anymore,

(58:14):
and he doesn't remember anything. And so for just one night,
the world was completely destroyed. Everyone on it was killed
for one night, but of course none of us realize
that that even ever happened. Yeah, so there you go,

(58:36):
that's pretty much what happened. Hello, let me just interrupt
myself here. It's actually the next day at this moment
that I'm recording this part of the episode. It's the
next day, and I've decided to keep recording in order
to add some more stuff to this episode just to
make sure that you're getting all of the added value

(58:57):
that you may have come to expect from episode of
Luke's English Podcast. So I'm going to add some more
stuff in this kind of second part of the episode.
Before I do that, I just want to know, well,
first of all, I want to just check in with you.
How are you doing? Are you doing all right? How's
the episode for you at this point? And I'd like
to encourage you to share your comments in the comment section.

(59:20):
What is your interpretation of this story? Now? Certainly, on
one level, it's just a kind of a fun, humorous,
lighthearted story with a kind of a funny twist at
the end, an unexpected twist at the end. But also
there are deeper meanings and more interpretations that we can

(59:41):
read in this story, what is the author trying to say?
What is it that makes this interesting when I read this?
When I first read this story, and I discovered it
in that book of short stories which I talked about
a couple of years ago. It's a book that I
discovered in a lending library in a supermarket in England.

(01:00:03):
I spotted the book. It was like this very old,
very old, aged looking book on the shelf and I
had a look and it said HG. Wells Short Stories,
and I thought fantastic. I love HG. Wells and I
haven't read his short stories. I'll take that one of
those lending libraries where people just leave books and you
can leave other books and pick up books and whatever.

(01:00:24):
So I got it, had it in my pocket, my
coat pocket for a few weeks. I talked about this
on the podcast a couple of years ago, and one
day at lunchtime, I found myself in that lovely square
in Paris, next to the fountain that I talked about,
and I sat and I read from that book and
I really enjoyed the stories, and this is one of

(01:00:45):
the stories that I discovered in there. Now the original
text might be worth reading actually because you know, the
text I read to you was adapted and modernized. The
original text might be interesting for you to read as
well comparison, so you can compare the old fashioned language,
which is actually more complex but old fashioned, and the

(01:01:08):
version in this story. So that could be kind of
an interesting exercise. But anyway, when I read it, I
was really how do you describe this? I was really
kind of gripped, and it really got my imagination. I
just absolutely loved these stories because they were so kind
of unexpected, but also they felt very fresh.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
HG.

Speaker 4 (01:01:30):
Wells wrote this work over one hundred years ago, but
he's very well known. He's famous.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
HG.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Wells.

Speaker 4 (01:01:37):
He's very famous as an author for being ahead of
his time, and he kind of almost invented the science
fiction genre before it even existed. He was one of
the first people to write this kind of very imaginative work,
and he also wrote other things later in his career.

(01:01:57):
He wrote one book which is full of genuine predictions
about the future of humanity and the future of human society,
and it's really really interesting to read how accurate his
predictions were. So a very interesting writer in the sense
that his imagination was based on a sort of scientific
understanding of the world, and he, using that understanding, was

(01:02:21):
able to see how things might go in the future.
But this story, of course, is a sort of interesting
combination of seeing the world from a rational, scientific point
of view, which is what Fotherington does at the beginning,
and he's a little bit arrogant about that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:02:40):
He loves to argue that superstitious or supernatural thinking or
religious thinking, belief in miracles is obviously untrue, and he's
very sure of his opinion. And then on the other hand,
obviously in the story there's this miraculous element which completely
disproves his worldview. It's an interesting mix of these ideas.

(01:03:02):
But anyway, I'd like to read your comments. I'd like
to know your thoughts, so please do right some things
in the comment section. First of all, what is your
interpretation of this story? Do you think there's any kind
of deeper meaning? Is there any symbolism? What does the
story mean to you? Does it make you think about
the world in any way? Does it make you think
about things like a rational point of view, more superstitious

(01:03:28):
point of view, or about maybe human actions and the
impact that humans might have on the world if given
a lot of power. In this case, it's a miraculous power.
But if human's got sort of incredible power allowing them
to do all sorts of things, what kind of impacts

(01:03:51):
might that have? In fact, what kind of impacts might
that have already had on the world if you consider
things like the technology that we've developed over the life
past hundred years, right, the industrial technology and the impact
that that's had on the world, and now of course
artificial intelligence and the power that is at our fingertips.

(01:04:14):
But what the consequences might be of us using that
in a perhaps unwise kind of way. So anyway, what's
your interpretation of the story? Do you think there's any
kind of deeper meaning or is it just a fun,
lighthearted story? Let us know. Another thing I'd like to
know from you is how do you use an episode
like this or how do you use a story like

(01:04:36):
this to improve your English?

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Now?

Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
Do you just listen to the story and just enjoy it?
Which is fine? So here are some options the things
that you might do. And the good news is that
all of these options are good things to do. So
do you just enjoy the story, just listen to it
or read it once? Or do you listen to it
and then find the PDF and read the story. Well,

(01:05:00):
so you listen and read, do you kind of go
into the text and start to analyze the language in
any way? Do you pick out bits of vocabulary and
research them and maybe use something like chat, GPT or
online dictionaries to you know, make sure you've understood those phrases,
to understand, you know, understand the way that they fit

(01:05:21):
into sentences. Maybe do some practice exercises with them, recall
them in your vocab notebooks and things. Do you know,
do you actively work on your vocab with these stories?
Do you repeat after me, are you doing any kind
of shadowing or anything like that with these stories? Now,
obviously this one was quite long. It took what was
it about thirty minutes forty minutes to read the whole thing,

(01:05:42):
So shadowing all of that will be a difficult thing,
but that's okay. You can just focus on a section
of the story and you know, maybe you speak out
loud after listening to a story like this. You can
do what I did just now, which is to summarize
the story in your own words. All of those things

(01:06:04):
are really good things to do, and so if you
do any of those things, that's great, But anyway, share
your if you have any kind of method, even if
it's just I just listened to the episode, Luke, that's it.
Even if it's just that, let us know in the
comment section. And thirdly, on the subject of vocab, as

(01:06:24):
you listen to this story or maybe read it as
well at the same time, was there a lot of
vocabulary that you didn't know? Did you notice sort of
new words and phrases or were there moments when you
didn't really understand a certain detail because of a certain
word being used? And so was there vocab that you
didn't know? And when you encounter new words or unknown

(01:06:49):
words or phrases, what do you do? So again, some
more options, and again the good news is that all
of these options are good things to do. So do
you when you've come across new words? Do you just
keep going in this case, keep listening to the story
and not get too worried about the bits you don't understand.
Just focus on the bigger picture, just focus on the

(01:07:12):
general understanding, and just keep listening to understand the main story.
Do you do that? Or do you when you encounter
new words and phrases, do you actively try to guess
what they mean by maybe looking at the sentences around
the word, the other words around it, looking at the grammar,
working out the part of speech, trying to quickly make

(01:07:34):
a decision about whether this is, let's say, a good
thing or a bad thing, or what the meaning of
the word or phrase might be. Do you actually actively
guess the meaning of unknown words? Which is a very
good skill to practice and to develop to an extent
you almost you could say that you developed that one
almost subconsciously. It's a natural process when you read and

(01:07:55):
listen a lot. When you come across new language, you
naturally sort of like start to fill in the blanks
and you get a general sense of what a phrase
might mean. But anyway, do you guess new words or
do you check words? So when you come across something new,
do you stop and use a dictionary, for example, an
online dictionary like dictionary dot Cambridge dot org. Do you

(01:08:19):
stop and use a dictionary to check the meaning of
new words? Or do you let most of the words
go but maybe check the ones that seem to be important,
Like if there are words that often come up and
you just sort of stop and think, wait a minute,
what does that word actually mean and then check it.
So what do you do when you come across new words?

(01:08:41):
Just carry on? Do you guess what they mean? Do
you check all of them? Do you just check some
of them? What do you do?

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
So?

Speaker 4 (01:08:50):
Interpretation of the story, how to learn English with these
stories and new vocabulary? These are actually things that I
would like to talk about right now in this part
of the episode. Okay, so we'll start with meanings and
interpretations of the story. What does this story really mean?
Here are my thoughts, Okay, and I'll just run through

(01:09:10):
these reasonably quickly. So this is a satirical fantasy story
exploring what might happen if an ordinary person suddenly gained
godlike powers. So it's a satirical story. It's satire. Satire
is work normally humorous work like stories or comedy shows

(01:09:33):
or films. So this is a satirical satire then, yes, comedy,
let's say, or humorous work which also aims to kind
of criticize something, maybe criticize something in society. Often satire
criticizes politics or politicians. In this case, this story seems

(01:09:55):
to satirize something about human nature or something relating to
something relating to human attitudes towards the world, you know, rationalism,
the scientific view versus a more perhaps supernatural, spiritual view
of the world, you know, and sort of seeing what

(01:10:16):
happens when these things collide with each other, or at
least when a rational person, when a rational person finds
that they have miraculous powers, how their worldview is challenged,
and you know, stuff like that. So, yeah, it's humorous
and light on the surface, but there are deeper meanings

(01:10:37):
as well. I wanted to talk again about H. G. Wells,
the writer, who are just I'm such a huge fan
of his work, as you can probably tell. But I
wonder how Wells came up with this idea. They came
up with the idea for this story. Now bear in
mind that this was decades, maybe a century or something

(01:10:57):
before this kind of story was done by Hollywood, for example,
And we've seen various kinds of films or TV series
that explore similar things, like people gaining incredible powers and
then what happens as a result, you know, like there's
that Jim Carrey film, what's it called, ah God? I

(01:11:18):
can't remember, what's the Jim Carrey film where he gets
the power? It gets god like powers, Okay, that's the one.
It's called Bruce Almighty, So there's that. But there have
been other films and series and stuff. But I'm sure
this is one of the first ever stories where this
kind of thing, these ideas were explored. But how did
he come up with the idea? Maybe he thought something

(01:11:41):
like this, Maybe he just thought, what if a normal,
ordinary person suddenly discovered they had a miraculous power? What
would happen? What logically might happen next from the person
discovering their power to using it, making mistakes, trying to
correct them, and getting more and more ambitious. What would

(01:12:01):
be the logical steps and how long would it take
for things to go profoundly wrong in that situation? And
what does this tell us about humanity? There's a point
I think about the combination of human ignorance and great
power could lead to catastrophe. And this, you have to say,

(01:12:25):
is very profound at the moment, you know, this story
shows us how absolute power in the hands of someone
who lacks wisdom, or lacks imagination, or lacks a sense
of restraint or even a sense of huge knowledge about
the world, giving that person incredible power can lead to

(01:12:49):
disaster in the story Fotherington and also may Dig they
have a limited understanding of how the world works. Fotherington
doesn't really understand basic physics, and as a result, he
doesn't know how to use his power responsibly, and he
brings about the end of the world, or at least
at the end of human civilization, which of course makes

(01:13:11):
me think of that quote from Spider Man. With great
power comes great responsibility, which is what Spider Man's uncle
tells him. It's part of the Spider Man canon, you know,
it's an important moment in the Spider Man story, his

(01:13:32):
uncle telling him this, with great power comes great responsibility,
which is what gives Spider Man that sense of duty,
that public duty that he has to use his powers
for good. But it's a universal truth, isn't it That
you have to have a huge amount of responsibility, But
also you need to have an incredible level of wisdom

(01:13:55):
and knowledge in order to wield massive power in responsible way.
And you know, this makes me think of the dangers
of humans having advanced technology that can profoundly damage life
on Earth. This includes nuclear weapons, but also just industrial
technology that has completely transformed human civilization over the last

(01:14:18):
two hundred years, but which might have seriously affected the
balance of nature on Earth. So humans we have these
incredible powers with the technology that we've developed. If you
think about the things that we have advanced and invented
in a just a very short space of time in
all of human you know, when you consider all of

(01:14:39):
human history, this tiny little millimeter of human history has
seen so much expansion in terms of the power that
we have. But do we have the kind of understanding,
the wisdom, the foresight to be able to use this
kind of technology in a responsible way without it ultimately

(01:15:03):
being destructive. Now it's worth remembering that this story was
written and published in eighteen ninety eight, long before humans
invented weapons that could destroy all life on Earth, and
before we realized how much damage humans could do to
the world, I think, which again impresses me in terms

(01:15:24):
of HG. Wells's vision. We also have AI now, of course,
artificial intelligence, which gives us all a tool that can
do anything we ask it to. I mean to an extent,
to an extent, of course, but you know what I mean, right,
We suddenly now all of us have access to this machine.

(01:15:45):
Let's call it it's software, but you can kind of
ask it to do something and it does it instantly.
Of course I mean writing things, producing work, but also images,
video audio. It's getting to the point where just the
click of your fingers and you can get whatever you

(01:16:06):
want right now. You know, when you it is almost miraculous.
It almost feels like a miraculous power. And I think
we all had that experience when we first used proper AI,
generative AI like something like chat GPT. Our first experience

(01:16:27):
with that, which probably happened within the last couple of
years for most of us, was quite a profound experience. Really.
You know, when you first use software like chat GPT,
it does feel a bit like a miracle machine. And
we have all had that experience of asking it to
do whatever we want and then being stunned when it
does it. And I don't know, and maybe I'm maybe

(01:16:51):
I'm reaching a little bit to make this analogy, but
reading about Fotherington testing out different things in his room,
creating a nail and then making it go away, and
sort of realizing the little things he can do and
starting to cheat at work and stuff like that, it
did remind me or make me feel maybe the closest

(01:17:11):
thing in life that I could compare that to is
just the first time you use chat GPT and you
kind of go, oh my god, this is I could
do anything with this, you know. But even that is
the tip of the iceberg. It's just the tip of
the iceberg in terms of the power of AI and
the ramifications that it will have on society and the

(01:17:35):
way it will affect everything about the way we live.
And that is not an overstatement. That is just, I
think a fairly reasonable statement about the significance of AI
into our society. So do we have the wisdom to
use this incredibly advanced technology? How will it affect civilization

(01:17:59):
now that we've get it out of its box, as
it were? How will this impact the world as we
know it? And that's just not me being paranoid. Experts,
lots of experts are talking about these sorts of things
and giving these kinds of warnings. Experts warn the unleashing
super intelligent AI could lead to catastrophic consequences like loss

(01:18:23):
of human control, societal collapse, or even human extinction if
AI systems act in ways that conflicts with human interests.
And if you want more of that kind of doom
laden podcast content, you could listen to episode number nine
hundred and nine, which is all about the impact of
AI on human civilization episode nine oh nine if you

(01:18:46):
haven't heard it, But basically, the concern is that once
an AI reaches a level of superintelligence, it would be
too late to contain it because it would already think
several steps in advance of us. You know, like in
a game of chess, you know, you've got to think,
You've got to be able to think a number of
steps ahead of your opponent. As soon as an AI

(01:19:07):
reaches a certain level of intelligence, it will quite quickly
be able to think a number of steps before us.
So if you think, for example, don't worry, we'll always
have control over AI, We'll just be able to unplug it. Well,
it will think faster than us, and it will make
sure that that doesn't happen. Anyway, I'm starting to sound paranoid,

(01:19:28):
and I know that whenever I talk about these sorts
of things, people in the comment section go, well, there's
nothing to worry about, Luke, we created AI, therefore we
will always control it. But that's not necessarily what the
experts say, which is a sort of a stunning thing
to think about really. Anyway, how did I reach that
conclusion that Fotherington's miraculous power is like the AI which
we have developed. How did I come to that conclusion? Well,

(01:19:51):
maybe it's just on my mind a lot. And you know,
I'm not the only one, of course, you know, it's
one of the major things of our time, isn't it major?
So objects, But in the story, Fotherington uses his power
unwisely and it has terrible consequences that he didn't anticipate.
And I'm not talking about AI stopping the rotation of

(01:20:11):
the Earth, because obviously I think that's impossible. But AI
presents us with something sort of similar incredible power, but
also potential consequences that are beyond our control or understanding.
Maybe that's one of the things that caught my attention
with this story. I just moved me in a way

(01:20:32):
that you know, I don't always get with just funny
fantasy stories. Catastrophe so terrible thing, a terrible thing happening,
a disaster. Catastrophe is not just caused by people doing
evil things. There's another idea that this story made me think, right, like,

(01:20:55):
the sort of disasters don't always just have because people
are being evil, even attempting to do good things can
have unintended consequences because we don't understand everything, so we
just make mistakes. Fotherington is actually trying to do good
things mostly and may dig, but his well meaning, yet

(01:21:16):
naive attempts to improve the world spiral out of control,
culminating in the destruction of the Earth, or at least
most of life on its surface. Yeah, so, I mean,
what about you if you had Fotherington's power, what would
you do with it? What would be the first thing
you would do? And how far would you go? Would
you start to do really big things, really big ambitious things,

(01:21:43):
and how far would you go? Now, at some point,
I'm sure it would start to get very complicated for you,
if you can imagine, this is what I think anyway,
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but imagine eventually if you
were doing big things, it would get complicated and eventually
be saying You'd probably be saying things like this. You'd
end up saying, Okay, so stop time, but don't let

(01:22:07):
anyone age or remember that time stopped, and don't let
me age either. But also make everyone freeze so they're
not moving, but I can move, but if I touch things,
they don't get affected unless I want them to. You
can see that as you start to use your powers
for bigger things, you'd start to get more things would

(01:22:28):
start to get more and more complex, and you'd have
to think of every possible consequence of your actions and
account for them. So I think it would be a
bit of a nightmare, really. I think the story also
has a sort of these themes of superstitious thinking and rationalism,
and it's a sort of a critique of the two

(01:22:48):
of them to an extent. The story begins with a
debate in a pub about the possibility of miracles. With
Fotherington's argument, Wells criticizes superstitious thinking and blind faith, but
he also invites us to question the arrogance of Fotherington's
scientific beliefs. So he Wells somehow manages to criticize or

(01:23:11):
satirize both viewpoints. Fotherington's skepticism in all things supernatural is
quickly proven wrong when a miracle actually happens. So as
well as criticizing superstitious and religious thinking, the story also
critiques rigid rational thinking. And this reminds me of a
quote from Hamlet. That quote from Hamlet is this, There

(01:23:34):
are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy. So in the play, Hamlet
has been told by the castle guards at the start
that the ghost of his father has appeared to them.
So Hamlet's been told that the ghost of his father
is walking around. Hamlet and his friend Horatio go up

(01:23:56):
to the battlements of the cast and the ghost appears
to them. And Horatio is a practical, rational, down to
earth scholar, he's a sort of scientific thinker, and he
is stunned by the vision of the ghost. He's shocked
by it. He doesn't believe in ghosts, and he says, oh,
day and night, but this is wondrous, strange, so he

(01:24:20):
can't believe his eyes. And Hamlet replies, well, there are
more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt
of in your philosophy. And he's suggesting that human imagination
is limited and that there are many things we don't know,
including things that haven't been discovered and in fact, things
we haven't even dreamt of. So even science or a

(01:24:42):
scientific rational view of the world isn't quite sufficient that
they're actually there is a lot more to the world
than this viewpoint. But anyway, HG. Wells chooses this moment
to prove how the existence of miracles can't actually work
within the rules of world I suppose. Hmmm, so, yeah,

(01:25:05):
the world is mysterious. The presence of Fotherington's miracle powers
has no divine explanation. I mean, maydig says that it's
a gift, but there's no sense to it really, and
Welds doesn't suggest that God has anything to do with it.
It all just seems quite random, suggesting that the universe
is not controlled by divine intervention by the actions of God,

(01:25:28):
but also that there is no rational or logical sense
to the world either. So the world is just a weird,
mysterious place without order, either divine or rational. That's nice
and it it's nice, always nice to remember that. So
those are just some interpretations I had, just some random waffling,
some rambling from me in an attempt to pin down

(01:25:51):
or describe what the story made me think. But sometimes,
you know, it's hard to put into words these feelings
that you get and you, let's say, read read a
story that catches your imagination, or you watch a film
that really kind of grabs you. Sometimes it's just a
sense of wonder and mystery, and it's hard to put

(01:26:14):
it into words, but it's quite fun to try. So
those were my interpretations. You might think differently. Again, if
you have things to add, please put them in the
comments section. So I mentioned before about the question of
using a story like this to improve your English, and
I just wanted to add some things here. So just

(01:26:36):
listening to or reading stories like this is good. It's
really good for your English. So well done. You You
did the right thing by listening to this episode. Reading
or listening to English regularly is a really important thing
to do, as well as doing more deliberate studying, and
stories obviously are a great way to do this because

(01:26:57):
they're usually quite compelling. You want to know what happens next,
they're quite immersive. You get stuck into the story and
you kind of maybe forget about everything else and you
just focus on what's going on in the story. This
is a good state to be in for absorbing English
in a kind of subconscious way. I don't know if

(01:27:20):
that is truly a scientific way of putting it, but
I just mean that. You know, you're probably paying quite
a lot of attention following the story, carefully involved in
the meaning of the story and exactly what's happening, and
as a result, it's just a good way to expose
yourself to English. Now, most people, I think, just don't

(01:27:43):
listen or read enough, and their English suffers as a result.
And I say that as an English teacher having met
thousands of learners of English in my career, and most
of them probably weren't doing a lot of reading or
listening outside the class. They just basically decided, right, I
need to learn English. I'll sign up for an English

(01:28:04):
course and that will be my thirty hours or sixty
hours or ninety hours, and that will be me, you know.
And obviously that time in the classroom with me and
the other students or whoever the teacher was, that's obviously
very valuable and very good. But we all know that
you've got to be in it to win it, and
that means that you've got to immerse yourself in English

(01:28:27):
in a meaningful way, and reading a lot of stories
and listening to a lot of stories like this is
a great thing to do. So keep it up, keep
doing it. You're doing the right thing. One of the
reasons people don't listen or read enough in English is
because they don't understand everything right, and they don't like
the experience of reading or listening to something that they

(01:28:48):
can't completely understand. But being able to tolerate uncertainty or
being able to tolerate not understanding things is an important
skill in learning English. So relax, you won't under stand everything,
but just try to follow what you're hearing or reading,
and doing that is a good exercise and the more
you do it, the more you're able to understand. So again,

(01:29:09):
keep it up, you're doing the right thing. Well done.
You give yourself a good pat on the back for
doing the right thing for your English. Guess meanings of
new words. When you meet vocabulary you don't understand, notice
it and try to make a quick guess of what
it means. I've mentioned before that when you're just listening,
it can be harder to notice new language because it's

(01:29:31):
just sound and it's just words, and you can't once
they've been spoken, they're gone. They're ephemeral, and so it's
harder to notice new words or phrases when you're listening.
So it's a good idea to if you've listened to
a story like in this episode, to go and read
the story again to read it as well as well

(01:29:53):
as listening to it, find the PDF and actually read
the story too, because that can be a good way
of making sure that you're noticing new language, and also
it will reinforce the impact that the English is having
on you. By listening to it first and experiencing it
in the sort of the oral version of English and

(01:30:16):
then reading it afterwards can be a very good thing.
And when you're reading it, you have more time to
stop and notice new language. You can see it. There's
that visual element as well. Combining the oral version of
English with the written version of English is an important
thing to do. You get a more of a rounded

(01:30:38):
view of the language. That way, try to work out
the grammatical part of speech of any new words, is
it a now a verb, adjective, adverb? What function is
it having in the sentence. When you get familiar with
these basic structural ideas, these syntactic sort of block building
blocks of English, when you just understands the grammar of

(01:30:59):
the word or phrase that you're trying to understand, When
you know you get that, then that goes a long
way and helping you to understand how that vocab works.
And also consider the context of the grammar and meaning
around the word, for example, deciding if it's a phrase,
if this word is part of a fixed phrase. Is

(01:31:21):
it a phrase or verb like point out? You know,
something like that. It's not just point it's point out.
So decide if it's a phrase or if the meaning
is generally negative or positive. You know, making these little inferences,
even if you're not completely perfectly guessing the meaning, just
taking these extra steps makes a big difference. So is

(01:31:45):
it a noun, verb, adjective or adverb? Read around the word,
try to decide what is being described, if it's positive
or negative, if you could perhaps use another word there,
and if the sentence will still make sense. By doing
these things, you're just pushing things a bit further, but
applying yourself a bit more, going from passive learning to
a more active learning process. And then when you've got

(01:32:07):
a sense of what the word might mean, you can
then check your guess by looking up the word in
a dictionary, looking at the example sentences, making sure that
you look at the different definitions, because often words have
got a number of different meanings until you find the
one that matches, and then you can be like right,
I thought. So remember that words often have multiple meanings,
so you might need to search for the meaning that

(01:32:28):
fits the way the word is being used here in
the story in this case. And also words often exist
in phrases, so you might need to search for a
phrase rather than an individual word. And when you're using
online dictionaries like dictionary dot Cambridge dot org, often it'll
present the words in it present phrases underneath. You know,
get to know the way that dictionaries organize information. They

(01:32:51):
often are there to you know, they're there to help you,
and they will often provide phrases in neat lists so
you can see, ah, this is not just point this
is point out. For example, point something out means to
identify it or bring someone's attention to it. By the way,
so yeah, is it a phrase or an individual word?

(01:33:12):
Are there prepositions or other nouns attached to it? For example?
What are the collocations? And also always look for more
examples to help consolidate the meaning of new language. Doing
those things can help you to guess words more accurately.
And it's a good idea to do that before, I mean,
make your guesses before you check the actual meaning of
the word. Or phrase in a dictionary. Doing it that

(01:33:32):
way helps to train you how to deal with new
words on your own and will probably result in you
remembering them better as well. If you're using AI tools
like chat GPT or whatever you know. Of course, other
groundbreaking generative AI software is available, of course, but if
you're using something like that, you could paste in the

(01:33:54):
whole paragraph where the new word is or new phrase.
You could take the whole paragraph, paste into chat GPT
and ask what the specific word or phrase means within
that particular context. What does the word point? What does
the phrase what does the word point mean in this paragraph?

(01:34:14):
And it will probably identify that it's not just point,
it's part of a phrase with point out. You know,
that can help you identify the right meaning more quickly.
Instead of searching through dictionaries trying to find the right meaning,
chat GPT will just do it for you. Probably. You
can also ask AI to give you more examples and comments,
and even to test you with little exercises, which again,

(01:34:36):
of course is another important step when you're learning vocabulary.
Understanding the vocab, recording it in some way, and then
remembering recalling so going from not having the word in
your mind to bringing the word back. So you asking
chat GPT to give you little memory prompts or exercises

(01:34:59):
where you have to recall bring back the word into
your memory, and hopefully use it in some way. Actively
collect new words and phrases from stories, collect them and
make a note of them in some sort of diary
or document. Your process could simply be find a new word,
guess what it means, check the meaning, record it, so

(01:35:22):
keep a record of it in your notebook or something.
Then find a way to make yourself remember the word
or phrase, and then practice using it. And that's a
little process that you can do. Learning vocabulary can feel
a little bit overwhelming because there's so much, but you
don't have to learn all the words all the time.
Just somea is fine. Whatever strikes a chord with you, right,

(01:35:47):
So you know, in this story, I highlighted about one
hundred and eighty words in the story, one hundred and
eighty words or phrases, and I've put them all in
a list, by the way, which you'll find on the PDF.
You look at the story text, you'll see some words
or phrases are highlighted in a yellowy orange color. There's
about one hundred and eighty of them. Those are all

(01:36:08):
things that I think that I could teach you, or
things that provide me with a chance to do some
English teaching with those words and phrases. But you don't
have to, you know, you don't have to learn all
one hundred and eighty of them. Just some of them
is fine, whatever kind of feels right to you. But
don't ignore words you don't know as well. So you've

(01:36:29):
got to kind of not ignore words that you so
try not to ignore new words, but at the same time,
don't feel you have to remember all of them. So
it's a balance between tolerating some words you don't understand
and not really worrying about them, and actively taking steps
to work out those new words and then learn or
use them. But again, don't feel you have to learn

(01:36:51):
all the new words you discover, keep some, let others go,
you know, and slowly, but surely, bit by bit, you
start to develop, expand broaden your vocabulary in a way
that's meaningful and effective, in a way that actually allows
you to really learn them, remember them, make personal connections

(01:37:15):
with them all, and then hopefully use them right repeat
some sections of the story after me, meaning just shadowing
or listen and repeat. I know it's a bit long
to do the whole thing, but you could just do
a section and speak, you know, practice spontaneous speaking, summarize
the story in your own words, give your thoughts about
the story out loud. All of those things, All of

(01:37:39):
that stuff that I just mentioned, all of that will
definitely make a difference to your English if you actually
do it. But you have to actually do it or not. Again,
this is the good news. You don't have to do
all of that stuff. I mean, it will help, of course,
but also at a base level, regularly reading regularly, speaking

(01:38:04):
and writing regularly, to practicing the four skills on a
regular basis. This is the most important. So on the
subjects of vocab. I at the end here, so we're
getting to the end of the episode. I just wanted
to spend a few minutes at the end explaining some
vocabulary from the story. I like to do this. I

(01:38:25):
actually really love as an English teacher. I love explaining
vocabulary and I really enjoy it. I enjoy it more
and more. It is the thing in English that I
get a kick out of is explaining words and phrases.
You know, there's lots of things that as a teacher
you have to do. You have to explain, clarify grammar,

(01:38:45):
help people learn it, deal with pronunciation, the phonetics of English,
and the kind of pragmatics of English, the social side,
how we apply language to different social situations. But maybe
one of the things I'm enjoy the most is just
dealing with the meaning of vocabulary and demonstrating and illustrating

(01:39:07):
and giving examples of vocab. I really enjoy doing that.
So there was so much useful vocabulary in this story,
which you can explore in your own time. But yeah,
as I said before, I created a list of the
words and phrases from the story which I highlighted because
I thought they were worth pointing out to you. There's
that phrase, point out. I thought they would be worth

(01:39:28):
pointing out to you and explaining, like, hey, look how
about this word? What about this phrase? Because they might
be difficult to understand, or they might be unknown to
you some of you, and because there are things I
can clarify or teach you here. That's why I highlighted
all those bits of vocab and I've put them in
a list on the PDF. I've just realized or I

(01:39:50):
realized earlier that there are one hundred and eighty things
in the list. You can see a full list below,
and a more detailed version of that list with will
be available for premium subscribers. By the way, So one
hundred and eighty things. I'll do some words from the
story now, So I'm going to go through some of

(01:40:10):
the words from the first part, the first page or
two of the story now, and I'll do the rest
in an upcoming premium episode. So if you want to
get all my vocabulary explanations for the entire story, you'll
need to sign up to LP Premium to get my episode,
which will be available soon if not now, in which
I'll go through the story again and explain the rest

(01:40:32):
of the vocabulary, adding various comments and bits of teaching
wisdom with my particular set of skills. So sign up
to LP Premium Teacher Luke dot co dot uk slash premium.
If you don't know how LP Premium works, it's rather
than me going on about it now, I'll just say
go to my website to get the information Teacher Luke

(01:40:54):
dot co dot uk slash Premium info. But essentially it
gives you access to extra episodes in which I go
further and deeper into actually teaching you English off and
explaining vocabulary, and also providing you with worksheets and PDFs
that give you the exercises to help you memorize and

(01:41:15):
practice using a new language as well. So I kind
of like put it all on a plate for you.
That's LP Premium link in the description. But now let
me go through some of the vocabulary from the story
and I'll continue this as I said in an episode
of LP Premium soon. So let's go back up actually
to the beginning of the story and look at some

(01:41:39):
of the highlighted bits of vocab that I can talk about.
Oh hello, let me just interrupt myself again here, because
I've realized that before I go through some vocab from
the first page of this story, there's a couple of
things that I need to deal with. I don't know.
To be honest, I can't remember if I've explained the
words I'm about to talk about, and that's to will

(01:42:00):
something to happen, and your willpower, plus some other uses
of the word will. But here's a little diversion into
the word will, the word family of the word will.
I don't know if I've explained this, because I've kind
of lost track. This is actually the third day of
recording for this episode now, so maybe I've already touched
on these words a little bit. But anyway, since the

(01:42:23):
words willpower and the verb to will something to happen
are quite central to the story, I thought it was
probably a good idea for me to just make sure
that this is clarified, and there's definitely stuff I can
teach you here. So I'm going to look at the
verb will, and there's actually several verbs, the modal verb

(01:42:44):
will and the regular verb will as well, and then
a couple of nouns. In fact, three nouns will and
will and willpower. And there's also an adjective as well,
which is to be willing to do something. So here's
a little sidetrack into the word family of the word will.
We'll start with the verb and the verb is well,

(01:43:05):
obviously we've got the modal verb will. As you know,
of course, we use it to talk about the future,
usually for example, I will see you tomorrow, or you know,
if you stop the rotation of the earth, everything will
be destroyed, right, So we often use it to talk
about the future, right, but also we've got will, the

(01:43:27):
regular verb, which is used lots of times in the story.
In fact, this verb to will something to happen is
used eight times in the story. And in the story
Fotherington wills things to happen, he also wills things into existence.
There's also a moment when he wonders whether you can

(01:43:48):
actually accidentally will something to happen, and that's will willed willed.
So it's a regular verb with an ed ending on
the past forms. So to will something to happen, just
make basically means to use your mind to make something happen. Right,
So using your mental determination or your desire to make
something happen, or try to make something happen, almost like

(01:44:11):
using the force from Star Wars to make something happen. Okay,
you can imagine kind of closing your eyes and really
focusing and trying to use the power of your mind
to make something happen, you know. So, I mean, obviously
in normal life we don't have magic powers, but we

(01:44:32):
still try to will things to happen. I think the
example I may have already given is when you're watching
a football match and your team you really want your
team to win or you're watching your friend or someone
in your family play a game of tennis or something,
and you really want them to win, and you maybe
close your eyes and kind of furrow your brow and

(01:44:53):
you really will them to win, or you will them
on you kind of like, come on, you can do it.
Use the strength of your mind to kind of will
them to win, you see. Okay, So in the case
of the story, this is obviously used a lot because
Fotherington's power comes from his mind. It comes from his

(01:45:13):
will power, which he uses to make things happen. So
that's to will something to happen, okay, meaning to really
try and use your the strength of your mind, your desire,
your mental determination to make something happen. You can also
will yourself to do something. For example, if you're in

(01:45:34):
an English lesson and you're trying not to fall asleep.
Is that the example I gave before? I think it
might have been yesterday when I recorded the other part
of this seems like such a long time ago now.
But anyway, you're in class and it's like dead boring
because your teachers talking about the word will, and you're like, Oh,
it's easy, isn't it. It's just a modal verbs talk about
the future. Everyone knows that, but you're not paying attention anyway.

(01:45:58):
You're starting to fall as sleep, and you think I
can't fall asleep, and you will yourself not to fall asleep,
or you will yourself to stay awake. You kind of like,
come on, you can do it. You're climbing a mountain.
It's really difficult and your legs are very tired, but
you will yourself to continue. Okay. So there's that. So
that's the verb, the modal verb will, the regular verb will.

(01:46:21):
Then we look at nouns. Okay, And the word will
power is used a lot in the story as well.
It's used about four times. Fotherington talks about there being
something special about his will power, and he uses his
will power to make things happen. So your willpower is
like your kind of the strength of your mind. Right,

(01:46:44):
the power of your mind, let's say, okay, the kind
of fuel or strength to be able to do things right,
your ability to control yourself, your ability to control your actions,
your strength of mind. Okay, for example, you know, in
order to overcome challenges, you need a lot of will power, right,

(01:47:09):
strength of mind. Okay, Then you've got the word will
just the noun will. Your will, okay, is your is
what you want to do or what your desire to
do something. Okay. So, for example, you have the will
to learn English, meaning you really want to. You have

(01:47:32):
the will to reach a proficient level of English means
you really want to do it. This is your intention,
This is your sort of mental choice that you want. Okay.
You have the will to win. You need the will
to win. If you want to be the best, right,
you need the will to win. That's that desire to win.

(01:47:54):
And then the will power is your actual strength of mind,
your ability to use your mind to make that happen.
You see, So your will is like your desire, the
thing you want, and your willpower is your ability to
actually make that happen. So willpower is used in the
story because this is actually talking about Fotherington's strength of

(01:48:17):
mind which he uses to make things happen. Yeah. I
should also point out that adjective, which is to be
willing to do something, right, to be willing to do something?
Are you willing to.

Speaker 1 (01:48:34):
You know?

Speaker 4 (01:48:35):
Are you willing to give me a discount? It's often
used in business English when you're negotiating with people and
if you're willing to do something. It basically means that
you are happy to do it, you're ready to do it,
you want to do it, you have the desire to
do it. And it's very commonly used when you're asking
whether someone is happy to do something or whether someone

(01:48:58):
will do something right, and it's slightly more diplomatic language.
Instead of saying, can you give me a discount? Do
you want to give me a discount or not? Instead
of being that direct, you might say, are you willing
to give me a discount? Or would you be prepared
to give me a discount? Would you be prepared to

(01:49:18):
sign the contract? Would you be willing to do that today?
You see, basically meaning do you want to do it?
So that's the adjective. So we've done to will something
to happen, your willpower, your will to win, let's say.
And also there's a will, which is something relating to
your family and relating to legal things, and that's completely unrelated.

(01:49:45):
Well is it unrelated? I suppose? Basically a will is
a legal document and in the will you write all
the things that you want to happen when you die. Typically,
who is going to inherit your house? Inherit your money
and inherit different things from you when you die. Okay,

(01:50:06):
So you might leave your house to your children in
your will, and when someone dies, you need to check
the will and see what's written in the will, and
then you know you need a lawyer to actually carry
out all those wishes. So I suppose it's similar in
the sense that your will is your desire what you
want to happen, and your will the document, is a

(01:50:26):
written document of what you want to happen when you die.
So anyway that would be. You know it was written
in his will. He left me the house in his will.
You need to read the will. Have you written a
will yet? Okay? Right, good, that's that. Then let's now
go back to yesterday and let me just explain some

(01:50:49):
vocab from the beginning part of the story at the
end of the episode.

Speaker 5 (01:50:53):
Here.

Speaker 4 (01:50:55):
So here we are again at the start of the story.
I'll only do this for a few minutes. Maybe I'll
do the first five, six, seven items of vocab and
I'll leave the rest for LP premium. So The Man
Who Could Work Miracles by H. G. Wells, The story
starts like this. It's doubtful whether George Fotherington was born

(01:51:17):
with his special power. Personally, I think it came to
him suddenly. So it's doubtful whether he was born with
the power doubtful. So if something is doubtful, it just
means it's not sure, like we're not sure about it.
For example, it's doubtful weather. In fact, weather is quite
common after the word doubtful. You could say, if it's

(01:51:39):
doubtful if the match will happen tomorrow, it might be
canceled because of the weather. I am in the rain,
so it's doubtful. So I'm using the word weather weather
here as a conjunction w h E t h e R.
That's whether. The conjunction similar to the word is if

(01:52:00):
it's doubtful whether George was born with his power. That's
whether the conjunction w h E t h e R.
But I've also got another word whether, like rain, sunshine, wind,
that's w e A t h e R. The pronunciation
is the same. Anyway, it's doubtful if George was born

(01:52:21):
with his power, or it's doubtful whether George was born
with his power, But anyway, doubtful, it's not sure. For example,
it's doubtful whether the game will happen tomorrow, it might
be canceled, or it's doubtful whether the meeting is going
to take place. We're not sure. Okay, that's doubtful. And

(01:52:43):
it's worth noticing that the B in that word is silent,
so doubt. You know, you might have a doubt about something, right,
you might be doubtful about something, or something might be doubtful.
But the word doubt, the B is silent, so it's doubt,
and it's not doubt, no doubt, doubt. There's almost a

(01:53:06):
W sound doubt, doubt, doubtful, So don't let that be
influence your pronunciation. It's not doubtful or doubtful, it's doubtful.
You could even replace the B with a W and
you'd be in the right zone. Doubtful. Next, we've got

(01:53:28):
up until the age of thirty, he didn't believe in
anything supernatural. In fact, he was a total skeptic. So
a skeptic is someone who doesn't really believe in something. Okay,
to be a skeptic or to be skeptical about something.
I should point out that the spelling of skeptic in
British English is usually s c e p tic, whereas

(01:53:53):
in American English, you might see it with a K
instead of a C, but the words mean the same
thing and they're pronounced the same way. Sc in British
English usually an sk in American English usually So George
was a total skeptic, meaning he was skeptical about the supernatural.
He didn't believe in supernatural powers. So you can be

(01:54:15):
skeptical about lots of things. It's not just about, you know,
supernatural things. You can be skeptical about all sorts of stuff, like,
for example, I don't know, you might be skeptical about
COVID nineteen. You know, you might be a COVID nineteen skeptic.
You might believe that it wasn't real, that it was

(01:54:36):
all made up by the government as a way of
controlling us, or something like that. You know, so you
might be a COVID skeptic. Let's continue. Now is probably
the best time to describe him. He was a short
man with bright reddish hair that stood upright. So this
is describing his hair. It was bright reddish hair, so

(01:54:58):
describing the color. It wasn't just red but redish. Now,
if we're talking about hair colors, we've got black hair,
brown hair, blonde, hair and also ginger hair, but there
are different sort of different shades of ginger. Many you know,
fifty shades of ginger, let's say, And on one end

(01:55:18):
of the scale you've got like ginger hair, true red hair.
But then some hair is kind of like between being
really ginger, like a kind of Ron Weasley from Harry
Potter that's like full ginger some people, or Ed Sheeran
or Mick Hucknell or something like that. Some people are

(01:55:41):
just sort of on the spectrum. And so if someone's
hair is a bit red, you can say it's reddish.
So that suffix ish. I've talked about this lots of
times on the podcast because it comes up quite a lot.
I don't know if you've noticed that suffix ish, not
just in English, right, but it's what color is. It's
a kind of a bluish green color, right, which means

(01:56:03):
it's kind of blue, sort of blue. We also use
it with times. I'll see you about tennish. The match
begins at about tennish, around about ten o'clock. Okay, Yeah,
So that's I s h. As a suffix, you add
it to the end of words and it means kind

(01:56:23):
of or around about or approximately, often with colors, often
with times. Yeah, he had a he had reddish hair
and a mustache. He liked to twist at the ends.
So he liked to take the ends of his mustache
and twist them between his fingers. So to twist something right,
So turn it between turn it in your fingers. What

(01:56:46):
else do you twist? What else do we twist?

Speaker 3 (01:56:52):
Hmm?

Speaker 4 (01:56:52):
What are things do we twist? Well, if you have
an accident, you might twist your ankle. That's where your foot.
You twist your foot and your you sprain your ankle,
you might end up on crutches. You have to go
to hospital if you twist your ankle. But otherwise you'd
twist lots of other things. He could twist a piece
of string, make it go round. If you make a cocktail,

(01:57:15):
you put a piece of lemon, you'd twist the lemon
before you put it in the glass to squeeze out
some of the juice. Anyway, he liked to twist his
mustache at the ends. So you can imagine the ends
of his mustache kind of going up at the ends
because he's twisted them with his fingers. Quite a cool look,
quite a distinctive look to twist your mustache. Maybe I

(01:57:37):
should start doing that. Maybe I should start twisting up
the ends of my mustache. I had a student once
from Sweden. When I used to teach English in London.
In the summer, we used to get these groups of
journalists from Sweden, the Swedish journalists. We used to get
Norwegian ones as well. Actually funny that we used to
get these sc groups of Scandinavian journalists. And I remember

(01:58:01):
one particular summer there was a student who had this
extraordinary mustache with the ends that were twisted all the
way up and they pointed all the way up towards
the sky, this amazing mustache, and we all asked him
about his mustache, and he told us that he got wax.
He used to put wax in his mustache, which is

(01:58:22):
how he managed to get the ends of the mustache
to point upwards like that. He used to get wax.
And he said that the wax that he used for
his mustache he bought in a specific shop in London,
and he would travel to England, travel to London and
specifically go to this one shop where he could buy

(01:58:43):
this particular mustache wax. And he proudly told me that
he was planning to visit the shop that afternoon in
order to go and get his supply of wax for
his mustache, so he could twist the ends up. But
it was a distinctive look, so reddish hair mustache like

(01:59:04):
to twist up at the ends and a face full
of freckles. So, freckles are things that some people get
on their skin, especially on their face. They're like little
brown dots, and it's normally people who have fair skin
or people who have a fair complexion. Often people with

(01:59:25):
red hair will have a fair complexion, a very light,
pale skin which might be sensitive to sunlight. But often
people with that kind of complexion, when they do get
exposed to sunlight, sometimes the skin comes out in freckles.
They're generally considered to be attractive, but like little brown dots,

(01:59:45):
which is like a reaction of the skin when there's
a certain skin pigment, which is maybe there's like an
excess or too much of a certain pigment in the skin,
it produces these little brown dots which are freckles. Okay,
often on a person's nose, they might get freckles like that.

(02:00:07):
Now they're not spots. Spots are like spots are red
and they can be a bit embarrassing. Some people consider
them to be a bit ugly when you're a teenager.
When we're teenagers, we often get spots on our face
because of all the hormones, and it makes us feel embarrassed.
Those are spots. But freckles are not spots. They're just like, yeah,

(02:00:31):
little brown dots, which are cute generally. Yeah, you know what.
That's all I'm going to do in terms of FOCAB explanation.
I could go on and on and deal with the
rest what I just did one, two, three, four, five things, doubtful, skeptic,
reddish to twist something at the ends, and freckles. I'm

(02:00:53):
not going to do the rest of the one hundred
and seventy five items in the list because there isn't
time now. And yes, if you want more, if you
want more of that kind of thing, if you want
to hear me go through the entire story explaining specific
bits of vocabulary, then you can do that. But you'll
need to sign up to LP premium. Get your premium subscription,

(02:01:14):
you would. The way it works is you sign up
once you've you pay like a fairly small number of
euros every month. It's like you buy me. You could
buy me a bottle of what would it be, I'm
going to say a bottle of beer. You could buy
me a bottle of beer a month, or maybe two
cup two cups of coffee a month. I mean, you know,

(02:01:36):
like the most basic Starbucks, cheapest Starbucks coffee. You could
get me maybe one and a half of them every
month for the price of LP premium. That's the kind
of cost that it is. And when you sign up,
you get access to all the premium episodes I've ever done,
and there's something like two hundred and fifty episodes now,
all dealing with vocab and some grammar, lots of pronunciation

(02:01:59):
practice and stuff. And you can go to LP dot
supercast dot com sign in, you can listen to all
the episodes there. You also get all the free episodes
with no advertising in the episode show notes, you get
links for PDFs and video versions, and you can really
easily add your premium subscription, which is all the free

(02:02:21):
episodes and the premium episodes. You can add that episode
list to whatever podcast app you use on your phone,
like Spotify, Apple Podcasts. You can do that and then
instead of having the free list of LP on your phone.
You've got the premium list on your phone, no advertising
and all the premium content is super convenient. Yeah, you

(02:02:44):
could just go to LP dot supercast dot com or
the same thing is teacher Luke dot co dot uk
slash premium. If you want to continue with the story
and hear the rest of my vocab explanations, so that
more or less the end of this particular episode, I
just would like to end with some more questions, again

(02:03:06):
encouraging you to get in touch and express yourself in
English in the comments section. So here are some other
questions for you to consider. So does the story have
a deeper meaning for you? Did it end in the
way that you expected? Did Fotherington get why did Fotherington
get his power? And does this matter? I mean to
be honest, this is not mentioned in the story, but

(02:03:28):
maybe you've got your own theory. What mistakes did Fotherington make?
And you could say he should have like, he should
have done this, he shouldn't have done that. If you
discovered you had his power, what would you do? Would
you do small things or big things? And what consequences
would your actions have? Possibly does this story teach us

(02:03:49):
a moral lesson. Does it have a moral lesson to
teach us? And what is it? And you know, generally,
what does this story mean to you? Does it make
you think about any of the things I talked about,
super disious beliefs, rational scientific thinking, the dangers of unlimited power,
human ignorance, artificial intelligence, or anything else. Leave your comments

(02:04:10):
in the comments section. Thank you so much for listening
to Luke's English podcast. Tell your friends about the podcast
if you love them. If you don't, really, then just
keep it a secret. Thank you for listening, and I
will speak to you again on the podcast before too long.

(02:04:31):
All right, all right, good, good, nice one. Have a
lovely morning, afternoon, evening or night out there in podcast land.
Whichever part of letland you live in. I hope you have. Yes,
I hope you enjoyed yourself with this episode and learned
a thing or two. Speak to you next time, but
for now it's time to say good bye bye bye boy.

(02:04:58):
Thanks for listening to Lukes English podcast. For more information,
visit Teacher Luke dot co dot uk.

Speaker 5 (02:05:19):
With MasterCard Priceless Experiences, the possibilities are endless.

Speaker 4 (02:05:24):
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If you enjoyed this episode of Luke's English Podcast, consider
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Premium episodes with stories, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation teaching from me,
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