That's English!

View Details

The Story of the Red Telephone Box Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That's English!, the Spanish Ministry of Education's official distance learning English course. To find out more about That's English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages. It is now very common for tourists visiting London to send to their friends and family a 'selfie' inside or next to a red telephone box. Indeed, along with the red double-decker buses, souvenir shops offer all sorts of merchandising, from fridge magnets to T-shirts, with this icon of London's cityscape. However, it is precisely the mobile phone that has condemned the telephone box practically to extinction. According to the telecommunications multinational BT, whose forerunner was the General Post Office, the public corporation responsible for the public telephone service, in 2002 there were 92,000 public phone boxes across the country, whereas now there are only 46,000, of which approximately 10,000 are the traditional red phone boxes. In an attempt to prevent the complete disappearance of this very British symbol, in 2008 BT introduced a scheme called "Adopt a Kiosk", whereby local communities could acquire the telephone boxes that were no longer in use. As a result, many telephone boxes have received a new lease of life. They have been turned into mini libraries or book exchanges, miniature art galleries, souvenir shops, tiny coffee shops and even "office pods" with computer and internet connections. So what is the history of the classic red telephone box? Public telephone boxes were first introduced in Britain in the 1880s although, at the beginning, there was no standard design. They were made of concrete and painted in different colours, depending on the surrounding area. But in 1924, the architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott was invited, along with two other architects, to take part in a competition organised by the Royal Fine Arts Commission, on behalf of the General Post Office, to design a national kiosk, which was to be made out of cast-iron. Scott's design, which was originally presented with a silver outside, was selected. In 1926, some 1,700 K2 telephone boxes, as they were called, were installed in London and other large towns. The K2 was a rectangular box, 9-foot high and 3-foot 4 inches wide, that is just over 2.7 metres high and 1 metre wide, with a domed roof. At the top of each of its four sides, on the pediments, the royal crown was pierced into the iron to provide ventilation, under which there were illuminated signs with the word TELEPHONE. Three of the four sides had eighteen rectangular panes of glass. And, most importantly, it was red. This colour was chosen to ensure that the telephone box could be easily seen. However, the design had a problem - it was too expensive. Other designs were to follow. In 1927, the K4, which was based on the design of the K2, was actually a mini post office. As well as making phone calls, users could also buy postage stamps and post their letters. Unfortunately, the K4 was too big - its nickname was 'The Vermillion Giant' - and far too expensive. In 1934, another design called the K5, which could be taken to pieces and put back together again, was designed for fairs and exhibitions but was also short-lived. It was in 1935, and to celebrate George V's silver jubilee, that the classic red telephone box saw the light. The K6, once again designed by Sir Giles, was very similar to the K2. An important difference was its reduced size - now it was 8-foot high and 3-foot wide, that is 2.4 metres high and 91 cm wide. The royal crown was moulded, not pierced, and even though the eighteen panes of glass remained on three sides, the central pane was much wider to improve visibility from the inside. Most importantly, the K6 was much more cost-effective. According to the-telephone-box.co.uk, the K6 was produced from 1936 until 1968. 60,000 were installed, of which approximately 10,000 remain. In 2016, the K6 celebrated its 80th birthday. Although the General Post Office commissioned a new design in 1962, the K7, the aluminium and glass design could not stand up to the rigours of the British climate. Later came the K8, which was based on the K6, but had large glass windows to replace the paned glass panels, which proved to be too vulnerable to acts of vandalism. Only 11,000 were installed. So our traditional K6 red telephone box has not only outlived rival designs but it is now lending itself to reinvention to move along with the times. So now you know that the next time you take a 'selfie' next to a red telephone box, you are with a true survivor! We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now!

View Details

The story behind a pen name podcast Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That's English!, the Spanish Ministry of Education's official distance learning English course. To find out more about That's English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages. Kate: Hi Drew! Sorry I'm late. Drew: Hi Kate. Don't worry. Was the traffic bad this morning? Kate: Oh, it's been terrible. There's was a 10-mile tailback on the A4 motorway because a lorry had apparently overturned and shed its load. Drew: What a pain! Well, now you're here...Would you like some coffee? Kate: No, thanks. Let's get started. I don't want to keep you waiting any longer. Drew: Right-e-o...Well, while I was waiting for you, I've been reading different articles about famous writers' pen names, or noms de plume, as they are also called, to prepare for our class about why authors use pseudonyms. Kate: What I've learnt is that a lot of them appear to have been women. As Virginia Woolf said: For most of history, Anonymous was a woman. Drew: I think that, in fact, is a misquote. Just a second, I have it here, yes...What she actually wrote was: I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman." Kate: Oh, I didn't know that was a misquote. You can find that quote all over the Internet. Drew: Well, that just goes to show you can't trust everything you read, especially on the Internet. Kate: Indeed. In any case, it's a proven fact that many female authors have adopted male pseudonyms in order to hide their gender and so avoid prejudice when society considered it to be unfeminine for a woman to be a writer. Look at the Brontë sisters, for example. Drew: Yes, that's right. I've discovered that Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë wrote under the names of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Each pseudonym started with the same initial as each of the sisters' real names. Kate: Yes, but it says in an article here that, once their works had started to become well-known, Charlotte and Anne decided to reveal their true identities. Apparently, they found out that some critics actually believed that someone called Currer Bell had written their novels, Jane Eyre and Agnes Grey, as well as their sister Emily's Wuthering Heights. I can imagine that critics and readers alike must have been more than surprised to discover that Mr Currer Bell was a woman, or should I say three women! Drew: Yes, it must have caused quite a stir...But, even today, it would appear that some female authors still have to disguise their gender. Look at J.K. Rowling, for instance. Her publishers felt that her books wouldn't be read by boys if they knew that the author was a woman. So that's why Joanne Rowling signed the Harry Potter series as J.K. Rowling. Kate: And what does the "K" stand for? Drew: For Kathleen, after her grandmother. The publishers thought it sounded more masculine to use two initials. Kate: How sad! Drew: What? Kate: Well, the fact that even today a young lad will find a book unattractive simply because it's written by a woman. Drew: Well, they probably think it'll be too girly. Boys will be boys... Kate: Yes, I suppose so... Drew: I've also found out that Rowling adopted a second pen name, Robert Galbraith, when she published The Cuckoo's Calling in 2013. Apparently, she wanted to have a fresh start and receive "totally unvarnished feedback." But her anonymity didn't last long...probably for financial purposes, and the book is now published under the name of J.K. Rowling. Kate: Another very famous and successful writer who did something similar was Agatha Christie. Drew: Did she use a pen name? I didn't know that. Kate: Oh yes. She published six novels under the pseudonym of Mary Westmacott. Drew: And why did she do that? Kate: Well, because these were romance novels, and she didn't want to disappoint her fans, who considered her the Queen of Crime. Apparently, it took twenty years for Mary Westmacott's true identity to be revealed, and even then, Agatha Christie published two more novels under this pseudonym. Drew: Funny...That reminds of Stephen King. You know he also adopted the nom de plume of Richard Bachman. Kate: Was that also because he wanted to write a different genre, like Agatha Christie? Drew: No. In his case, it was because he is such a prolific writer that he wanted to publish more novels than his publishers recommended. They felt that one book a year was the maximum he should publish if he didn't want to saturate the Stephen King brand. So,he wrote several novels under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. In fact, Bachman became a sort of alter ego, with King faking his pseudonym's biographical details and even publishing a bogus photograph on the cover of one of his novels. Kate: So how was Richard Bachman's true identity revealed? Drew: Well, I've read that a very clever guy, who worked in a bookstore in Washington D.C., noted the similarities in style between King and Bachman. His suspicions led him to check Richard Bachman out in the Library of Congress and there he discovered that the true author of Bachman's books was actually Stephen King. Kate: It sounds like this guy was a real sleuth. So what did Stephen King do? Drew: Well, he decided to kill Richard Bachman off, saying that he had died of "cancer of the pseudonym." Kate: How ingenious! Drew: Absolutely! Kate: Well, another well-known author who I really like and who also published his works using a pseudonym was George Orwell. Drew: You mean the author of Animal Farm and 1984? Kate: Yes, that's right. Orwell's real name was Eric Blair. Drew: Wow! And why did he use a pen name? Kate: Well, it was a decision he made when his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London was published. As the book is an account of his own personal experience living in extreme poverty, he decided to use a pseudonym to avoid his family any embarrassment. Apparently, he chose the name George, after Saint George, patron saint of England and Orwell, after the River Orwell in Suffolk, as it was a place he loved to visit. Drew: How very English! This association with a river reminds me of Mark Twain, which, as you probably know, was also a pseudonym for...Wait a minute...What was Mark Twain's real name?...Oh yeah, Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Wow! My English teacher would be proud of me!...Anyway...The thing is he adopted this pen name from his experience as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River. They used to have to keep measuring the depth of the river to see whether it was safe to navigate and "mark twain" meant "mark number two." That would be two fathoms, or just over three and a half metres, which meant that the river was deep enough to continue sailing. So "mark twain" was meant as a symbol for the life along the Mississippi River that the writer immortalized in his writing. Kate: That is so true. I just loved reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn when I was little. They were two of my favourite books. Well, Drew, I think we've got enough examples to be going on with for our class. What do you think? Drew: More than enough, I'd say! We shouldn't bite off more than we can chew!! Kate: That's right! Enough is as good as a feast! Drew: We hope you have found this podcast interesting. See you later! We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now! Sources: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/the-strange-stories-behind-famous-writers-pen-names/255619/#slide1 http://manybooks.net/articles/10-famous-authors-who-wrote-under-pen-names

View Details

Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That's English!, the Spanish Ministry of Education's official distance learning English course. To find out more about That's English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages Welcome to the second part of this podcast about St. Patrick's Day. Today we are going to talk about St. Patrick's Day traditions and how this festivity is celebrated in Ireland and the United States. One of the most important symbols of St. Patrick's Day is the shamrock, which is a type of clover, and which people wear as a badge on the lapel. St. Patrick used this plant to explain the Holy Trinity and is often represented holding a shamrock. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the shamrock lost its religious significance to become a symbol of good luck and, nowadays, on St. Patrick's Day, people exchange good wish cards with shamrocks. Another tradition of St. Patrick's Day is that everybody wears green. Contrary to popular belief, the colour associated with St. Patrick is in fact blue, as can be seen in several artworks depicting the saint. Indeed, in King Henry VIII's time, the Irish flag was blue with a golden harp. The association of the colour green with Ireland and Irishness developed later and began in 1798 with the Irish Rebellion, which was an uprising against British rule when the shamrock and the colour green became symbols of Irish nationalism. This probably arose from the association with the greenness of the Irish landscape, which gives the country the name of the Emerald Isle. Wearing green on St. Patrick's Day is considered to be a tribute to Ireland and is also a symbol of good luck. For more than fifty years, in the City of Chicago, the river is dyed a bright emerald green in honour of St. Patrick and in Ireland and in the US, anyone who doesn't wear green on the day is likely to end up being pinched. The association of the colour green with Ireland also transformed the garments of the most famous creature in Irish folklore: the leprechaun who, apparently, originally wore red clothes, though other theories say that these little creatures could camouflage themselves in the Irish countryside much better if they wore green. You will see many people wearing leprechaun hats on St. Patrick's Day even though, according to folklore, the true leprechauns are rarely seen. They are said to be very wealthy creatures who hide their pots of gold at the end of a rainbow. So what do people eat on St. Patrick's Day? Well, corned beef and cabbage is the obvious answer. But, in fact, this is an Irish-American tradition. In Ireland itself, people are more likely to eat different kinds of sausage: white pudding made from minced pig's liver, black pudding made from blood, meat, oatmeal and bread and Irish bacon, taken from the back of the pig instead of the belly. As regards cabbage, which the Celts are believed to have introduced into Europe from Asia around 600 BC, it is probably the vegetable Ireland is most famous for, along with potatoes, of course. So what is corned beef and how did it become so popular? When the Irish arrived in New York City they settled on the Lower Side next to the Jewish Quarter where they could buy cheap corned beef made by their Jewish neighbours. The name corned beef comes from the 'corns' or pellets of salt which were used to cure the meat. On St. Patrick's Day, the corned beef is braised in water with sugar, vinegar and salt for 3 hours. The cabbage is boiled in the liquid that is left over after the meat is cooked. Nothing is wasted. The corned beef and the cabbage are then served with Irish soda bread, made with sodium bicarbonate, instead of yeast, to make the bread rise, as yeast was an expensive commodity for the Irish immigrants. Another traditional dish is of course Irish stew, which should be made with lamb chops, potatoes, carrots, onions, thyme and fresh parsley, all of which should be washed down with a pint of beer with green dye in the States or a Guinness, probably the most Irish symbol of all today. In fact, this Irish stout beer, which dates back to the 1750s, is still the most popular alcoholic drink in Ireland. Finally, no St. Patrick's Day celebration would be complete without Irish folk music. Popular Irish songs that you will probably hear are: "Finnegan's Wake", "Whiskey in the Jar", "The Wild Rover" and "Molly Malone", played on the fiddle, the tin whistle, the banjo, the bagpipes, the bodhran and the harp which was adopted as the Irish national symbol when Ireland gained its independence in 1921. So whatever you do on 17th March, Happy St. Patrick's Day or as the Irish would say "Top o’ the mornin’ to ya." We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now! Glossary: leprechaun - an elf-like creature in Irish folklore shamrock - a type of clover fiddle - a violin tin whistle - a small flute-like instrument made from a thin metal tube, with six finger holes of varying size on top and no thumb holes (OED) bodhrán - a shallow one-sided Irish drum played using a short stick (OED)

View Details

Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That's English!, the Spanish Ministry of Education's official distance learning English course. To find out more about That's English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages. Welcome to the first part of this podcast about St. Patrick's Day, where we are going to talk about the background to this universal Irish celebration. St. Patrick's Day has been celebrated on 17th March since the seventh century. St. Patrick is believed to have died on this date in 461 AD, and even though he was never formally canonised, he is viewed by many Catholics as a saint and is one of Ireland's patron saints. It is Ireland's national day and you've probably seen people in parades wearing green, leprechaun hats and shamrocks, which we'll explain later, and drinking beer. If, on any normal day of the year, 5.5 million pints of Guinness are consumed, on St. Patrick's Day, or Paddies Day, as it is also called, this figure skyrockets to 13 million pints. This, however, has not always been the case. For the first 60 years of the twentieth century, Irish law banned the consumption of alcohol on St. Patrick's Day as it was a religious celebration and all pubs had to close. This changed when the festivity was declared a national holiday in 1970 and Guinness could flow freely once again. St. Patrick's Day is as popular in the United States as in Ireland itself and some traditions such as drinking green beer or eating corned beef and cabbage are in fact of Irish-American origin. Indeed, it is said that there are more Irish in the U.S. than in Ireland itself. An estimated 34 million Americans are of Irish descent and some 122 million Americans, 39% of the population, say that they celebrate St. Patrick's Day in some way, making special dinners, wearing green or sending good luck cards with shamrocks. According to history.com in the US nearly 650,000 babies have been given the name of Patrick over the last 100 years and there are over 450 churches consecrated under the name of the saint. Behind these statistics lies the dramatic and often tragic history of Irish emigration to the US: from colonial times when Irish men and women were sent by the British as slaves to work on the plantations to the diaspora of the mid-19th century when approximately one million Irish citizens emigrated to the United States to escape the starvation and the appalling living conditions caused by the Potato Famine. In the 1860s, the German philosopher Frederick Engels, whose wife was Irish, is reported to have said: "If this goes on for another thirty years, there will be Irishmen only in America." In the light of this, it is easy to understand why St. Patrick's Day is such an important celebration in the States. So who was St. Patrick? Maybe one of the most surprising things about him is that he was not Irish at all. St. Patrick was born in 385 AD in Roman Britain. We don't know exactly where he was born - some say it was in what is now Wales and others in Scotland, but he is thought to have come from an aristocratic Christian family. Even though Patrick was to become a saint of the Catholic Church, as a young lad it seems he showed no particular interest in religion. However, when he was sixteen years old he was kidnapped by raiders and taken to Ireland where he was sold as a slave. He spent six years in captivity herding sheep until he managed to escape back to Britain, at the age of twenty two. Once back in Britain, he entered a monastery to study to be a priest and 12 years later he is said to have been visited by an angel who told him to go back to Ireland to work as a missionary. St. Patrick spent the rest of his life working to spread the Christian faith in a country which had a pagan Celtic culture. According to legend, he is reported to have baptised 12,000 people on one day and to have consecrated more than 350 bishops in his lifetime. He is also said to have rid Ireland of snakes by driving them into the sea. However, scientists say that snakes have never lived in the wild in Ireland. There are other islands in the world that don’t have snakes either such as New Zealand, Greenland and Iceland. So it seems that the "snakes" St. Patrick eradicated were, in fact, the pagan beliefs that were common in Ireland at the time. Nevertheless, St. Patrick was respectful of Celtic culture and an example of this is the Celtic Cross: he incorporated the sun, an important feature of Celt culture, onto the cross to create a symbol of Christianity, which would be more familiar for the Irish people. So, if you would like to learn more about St. Patrick's Day, don't miss the second part of this podcast where we will talk about some of the ways St. Patrick's Day is celebrated, particularly in Ireland and the United States. We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now! Glossary: leprechaun - an elf-like creature in Irish folklore shamrock - a type of clover.

View Details

Rhyming slang podcast Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That's English!, the Spanish Ministry of Education's official distance learning English course. To find out more about That's English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages. Kate: Good morning, Drew. How are you today? Drew: I'm fine, thanks, Kate. And you? Kate: Not bad, for a Monday. Drew: Why? Have you had a busy weekend? Kate: Yes. In fact, it has been really busy. My sisters and I organised a family reunion to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. Drew: Oh! That's cool! Did it go well? Kate: Yes, thanks, it did. We had a really nice time. How about you? What did you get up to? Drew: Well, I've also been busy with my family, but in a different way. Kate: Why's that? Drew: Well, I've decided to trace my family tree. Kate: Oh! How interesting! Are you doing it for any particular reason or just out of curiosity? Drew: Well, a couple of weeks ago I was tidying up at home and I came across an old photo album. There was a photo of my great grandparents, from my Mum's side of the family, that I hadn't seen before, or I don't remember having seen, at least. Kate: So the photo sparked off your curiosity. Drew: Well, yeah, you could say that. When I was talking to Mum about it, she told me how part of the family actually came from London. Well, not just that. In fact, it turns out that my great grandfather was a cockney. Kate: You're kidding! So that means you have a true Londoner's blood, in part at least. Drew: So it would seem. I don't remember my grandfather ever talking about his childhood. I knew that his parents weren't very well-off and that he went over to the States when he was in his teens. He never went back to England. I remember him saying that you should always look to the future and not dwell on the past. Kate: So you think he probably had a difficult childhood? Drew: Well, I'm not so sure about that. What I have found out so far is that my grandfather's dad... Kate: Your great grandfather... Drew: Mmm...that's right, well, it turns out that my great grandfather had a vegetable stall on Brick Lane market... Kate: Right in the heart of the East End of London! Do you know if he was born within the sound of Bow Bells? Drew: Why do you say that? Kate: Well, I've always heard that to be a true cockney, you have to be born within the sound of Bow Bells. Drew: And which bells are those? Kate: I think they're the bells of St Mary-le-Bow Church in the East End. Drew: Oh, I see. Well I don't know yet because I'm trying to locate his baptismal certificate. But what my mum did tell me was that she can remember her father saying that in his family they used cockney rhyming slang. Kate: Really? That's amazing. Though come to think of it, they say that rhyming slang was used by market traders to talk among themselves without the customers understanding what they were going on about. That way they could put the prices up and the customers would be none the wiser! And you said that your great grandfather had a market stall, didn't you? Drew: Yes, that's right but I don't know if I like your insinuation that my great grandfather might have used rhyming slang to cheat on his customers. Kate: Okay, okay...No offence intended. I take it back. Drew: OK. I'll forgive you. In fact, I've been doing a bit of research on the origin of rhyming slang an there are several theories: one says it was invented by Irish immigrants who lived in the East End of London and didn't want their English neighbours to understand everything they said. Another theory suggests it was a way for criminals who were in jail to talk to each other from one cell to another without the police or prison wardens knowing what they were saying. Kate: I see...And have you found out how rhyming slang works? When I was little, I remember my mum telling us to go up the "apples and pears" to bed. Drew: Right...the "apple and pears" being the stairs. Was your mum a Londoner, then? Kate: No, she wasn't. But she did use a few expressions from rhyming slang. Another was "plates of meat" for feet, or she would say somebody was "on his Jack Jones", meaning they were alone! Drew: Really? I didn't realise rhyming slang was used in other parts of the UK. Kate: Oh yes. Another very common expression is to say that someone is "Mutt and Jeff" when they are deaf or use "dickie bird" for word. So I could say: The old lady didn't understand a dickie bird about what we were saying because the poor thing was completely Mutt and Jeff. Drew: How funny! I've discovered that there are a lot more expressions than I thought to start off with. And they are more complicated to understand than the ones that your mum used. Kate: In what way? Drew: Well, because a true cockney will not necessarily use the whole rhyme, but may only use the first part that doesn't in fact rhyme with the word they are referring to. Kate: I don't understand what you mean. Drew: Just a second...listen to this example that I've found in Aldertons Rhyming Slang Dictionary. A cockney might say: "Got to my mickey, found me way up the apples, put on my whistle and the bloody dog went. It was me trouble telling me to fetch the teapots." Kate: And on what on earth does that mean? Drew: Well, I'll translate it for you. It means: Got to my mickey, which is short for mickey mouse, that is house, found my way up the apples, that is apples and pears, meaning stairs, was putting on my whistle, that is whistle and flute, meaning suit when the dog, that is dog and bone, meaning phone rang. It was my strife, that is trouble and strife, meaning wife, telling me to get the teapots, that is teapot lids, meaning kids." Kate: Hah! Hah! That's great, though I don't think it's politically correct to use trouble and strife for wife these days. Drew: You're probably right, but at the end of the day, cockney rhyming slang usually has, apart from the rhyme of course, a double meaning and a dose of humour. Kate: Yes, it's a really colourful and amusing way to use English. I love to hear it. Coming back to how only the first part of the rhyme is used, now that I think about it, I use some expressions like that myself. Drew: Such as? Kate: Well, I could say to you, for example: Use your loaf, Drew! and I'd be telling you to think, to use your head, your loaf of bread! Drew: Right... Kate: And when somebody tells a lie about something, I say that they are telling "porkies", which comes from pork pie... Do you think rhyming slang is likely to go out of fashion and disappear? Drew: Well, I wouldn't like to say. New words have been introduced, like Scooby Doo and Britney Spears, for instance. Kate: And what does Scooby Doo mean? Drew: Well, it can mean clue, you know, I haven't gotton a scooby. It is also used for shoe - I can't find my scoobies. And I have seen that it is also used for Subaru, you know, the car. I could say, for example: My neighbour's just bought a scooby doo. Kate: Gosh, that sounds so funny. And Britney Spears? Drew: Well, apparently it can mean beers. You could say: Let's go for a few Britneys after work. Or tears - if someone is crying, you might tell them to dry their Britney Spears. Or even ears! Kate: So the next time I realise that you're not listening to me, I could say: Drew! What's wrong with your Britney Spears? Drew: But I always listen to you, Kate... Kate: Hah! So do you think that the fact that new words are being used is an indication that rhyming slang is alive and kicking? Drew: Well, I wouldn't go as far as to say that. I've read that younger generations don't tend to use it. Some of the expressions have become obsolete and mean nothing to them, and it seems that they are more likely to use a hybrid slang, which mixes up expressions coming from cockney, Jamaican, West Indian, South Asian etc. Kate: What a pity! Well, I suppose it's a good example of how language is a reflection of society. As society changes, so does the way we use language to communicate. Drew: Indeed, it does. Well, I must get going. Kate: Me too. See you, and good luck with your family tree. Drew: Thanks, Kate. Don't worry - I'll keep you posted. Kate: Please do. Bye! We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now!

View Details

Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That's English!, the Spanish Ministry of Education's official distance learning English course. To find out more about That's English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages. The next time you are in London and feel like getting away from the hustle and bustle of the city centre, you might enjoy visiting Hampstead in North London. You can get there by taking the Edgware branch of the Northern Line on the underground. Hampstead tube station is incidentally the deepest station on the London Underground, so keep your fingers crossed that the lifts are working when you go! Hampstead Village with its narrow streets and quaint, oldly worldly shops, and the hilly parkland of Hampstead Heath, with its views from Parliament Hill of the skyline of London, are without doubt among the most charming parts of the city. Hampstead was a quiet rural community until the end of the seventeenth century, when the medicinal attributes of its waters turned it into a popular spa town. However, this popularity was quite short-lived and by the end of the eighteenth century, according to the Burgh House and Hampstead Museum, "its distance from London, competition with other London spas and [ ] rowdy behaviour caused its popularity to decline." Nevertheless, "during this period, Hampstead had undergone substantial development and established its reputation as a healthy and attractive area." The arrival of the railways caused Hampstead to double its population between 1871 and 1891 and the opening of the underground station in 1907 turned it into a popular place for people to live, as they could now commute into central London. Hampstead Village is well known for its cultural and literary associations. This was the place that inspired one the most famous English Romantic poets, John Keats. The beautiful Regency-style house, where the young poet lived and worked, exhibits manuscripts and letters of the author of "Ode to a Nightingale", who was to die of tuberculosis in Rome at the age of 25. In Hampstead you can also visit Sigmund Freud's museum, at 20 Maresfield Gardens. This is the house where the psychoanalyst and his family settled after fleeing from Austria following the Nazi annexation in 1938. The most popular room is, of course, Freud's study, preserved as it was in his lifetime, lined with shelves containing his extensive library and an outstanding collection of Roman, Egyptian and Oriental antiquities. The centrepiece is the couch where Freud's patients would recline during psychoanalytic sessions. For more information, you can visit the museum's website www.freud.org.uk. In the period between the First and Second World Wars, Hampstead attracted many important artists, including the sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, the painter Stanley Spencer, as well as the Dutch abstract artist, Piet Mondrian. In the 1930s, Hampstead also witnessed the birth of modernist architecture with the construction of the Isokon Building on Lawn Road. It was designed by the architect Wells Coates for the furniture designers, Jack and Molly Pritchard, whose aim was to create affordable housing for city dwellers. The Isokon building was, according to the journalist Christopher Beanland, "radically different from what had gone before. It looked like a yacht [and was] made of concrete...the building offered all manner of services, including cooking, housekeeping, shoe-shining, window cleaning and sun decks; in the first Isokon advertisements, the spiel went: 'All you need to bring is a rug, an armchair and a picture.' ” Apart from the Pritchards themselves, famous residents included Agatha Christie and the founder of the Bauhaus School, Walter Gropius. To learn more about the story behind this visionary housing project, based on the modernist philosophy, which was to mark urban architecture for the following 40 years, you can visit the Isokon Gallery. And in Hampstead you will also find, in Willow Road, another modernist building, designed by the Hungarian-born architect, Erno Goldfinger, which triggered the animosity of Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, to the point that he based the villain of the 007 novel of the same name on the architect. Goldfinger made himself unpopular with Fleming and other neighbours when several cottages were demolished to allow for the building of the three terraced modernist houses. Number 2 is the largest of the three and was where Goldfinger lived with his family. Goldfinger, who was an important figure of the British Modern Movement, designed some of London's more controversial high-rise flats, believing this type of architecture to be the solution to the city's post-war housing problems. According to journalist John Ezard, Goldfinger was "a champion of communism, an eccentric [and] a bully." When he found out that the creator of 007 had used his name and some aspects of his character for the villain and title of his new novel, Goldfinger was so furious that he decided to take legal action against the writer. The dispute was finally settled out of court but only after the architect was victim of spoof telephone calls made by Bond fans, who would call him in the middle of the night saying that they were agent 007. The interior design of Goldfinger's house is in a modernist style and contains the architect's impressive modern art collection, with works by artists such as Henry Moore, Max Ernst, Jean Arp or Man Ray. The building now belongs to the National Trust and is open to the public. Heading towards Hampstead Heath, you can visit Kenwood House, an example of 18th century architecture, surrounded by beautiful landscaped gardens. Finally, you can enjoy a walk on Hampstead Heath itself and up to Parliament Hill, which is one of the best places to admire the skyline of London. On a windy day you will find people flying their kites - hence its nickname Kite Hill. Once you have enjoyed the views, you can walk back through the woodland to Spaniards Inn, one of London's oldest pubs. It dates back to the sixteenth century and was immortalised by Charles Dickens in "The Pickwick Papers." It is also said to be where Keats wrote his famous "Ode to a Nightingale." Apart from its interesting historical background, with its garden in the summertime and cosy fires in the winter, the Spaniards Inn is an ideal place at any time of the year to relax and to try out any of the beers on offer, which are matched to different dishes on the menu. Well, we hope you have enjoyed this little tour around Hampstead and we look forward to seeing you there, next time you are here in London. We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now!

View Details

Getting around London podcast Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That's English!, the Spanish Ministry of Education's official distance learning English course. To find out more about That's English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages. Kate: Hi Drew! How are you? I haven't seen you for ages! Drew: Yeah. I've been away on vacation. Kate: Really? Where have you been? Drew: I've been to London. Kate: Was is it your first time there or had you been before? Drew: Well, actually I went on a school trip when I was about fifteen, but I don't remember much from then, so it was really like the first time. Kate: Well, what did you think? Did you have a nice time? Drew: Yeah - it's a great city - there's so much to see and do. I went to the usual sights, you know - Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square. I saw the Changing of the Guard and I went on a boat trip down the Thames to Greenwich... Oh, and I also visited Hampton Court Palace. Kate: Oh, what's that like? I've never been there myself. Drew: Oh, it's really beautiful. It's really like two palaces in one. You have the Tudor palace, from the time of Henry VIII and the 17th century Baroque palace, part of which was designed by Christopher Wren. You know, the architect that built St. Paul's Cathedral. Actually, after I saw the palace I decided to go there, too. Kate: Wow! You've certainly seen loads of things. Where did you stay? Drew: Oh, I stayed with Maria. She's a friend of mine from New York. She's doing a PhD at the London School of Economics. Kate: That's lucky. Hotels in London are so expensive. Drew: That's true. But she doesn't live downtown, of course. I caught the subway into Central London every day. Kate: You must tell me about the best way to get around London. I'm going on holiday there in the summer and I don't know whether it's better to buy an Oyster card or a Travelcard. What did you do? Drew: Well, Maria advised me to get a Visitor's Oyster Card before I left home. Kate: And how did you do that? Drew: I bought it on the Visit Britain website. As I was there for nearly a week, and I knew that I'd be travelling around a lot, I bought a £50 card. In fact, it cost me £53 because, however much credit you put on the card, they always charge you an extra £3 activation fee. In any case, there's this feature on the website where they recommend how much credit you will need, depending on how long you plan to stay and which travel zones you'll be going to... Kate: Oh, that's useful! Drew: Yes, it is. It's great because you can use it on the subway, buses and trains and you get a discount on the river boats. If you run out of credit, you just top it up at the ticket machines in the subway stations. In any case, in Central London you never pay more than £6.60 per day. So it's much cheaper than buying single tickets and you don't have to be queuing all the time. Kate: So, what's the difference between the Oyster card and the Travelcard? Drew: Well, I looked into that, too. The 7 day Travelcard is better value for money if you are staying for a week and you are only going to use it in Central London, in zones 1 and 2. In my case, it was better to get an Oyster card because Maria lives on the outskirts and I was only there for five days. Kate: Oh, I see. Drew: It's also better to avoid travelling during peak times, you know, when people are going to work in the morning or leaving in the afternoon. Kate: And which times are considered peak times? Drew: I think it's from 6.30 to 9.30 in the morning and between 4.00 and 7.00 in the evenings. Oh, and you should also have a look at the London Pass. Kate: Oh, what's that? Drew: Well, you can get it as an app for your cell phone or an actual physical card that you have to pick up from the London Pass office near Leicester Square. You can buy it on the London Pass website for, I think, like one, two, three, six or ten days? Something like that ... Kate: And what are the advantages of it? Drew: Well, it gives you access to over 60 tourist attractions at a reduced rate and to the hop on/hop off sightseeing buses. Kate: Is it really worth it? Drew: Hmmm...Good question. It really depends on how long you are going to stay and how much you want to see? Kate: Why is that? Drew: Well, the longer you stay, the more you save. The problem is that you only really save money if you see at least four tourist attractions a day. So, if you are the sort of person that likes to see things in a leisurely fashion, you simply won't have enough time to really enjoy the benefits it has to offer. You have to remember that most places in London close around 5.00 or 5.30 pm. Kate: Mmm...I see. Drew: But if you are pretty light-footed and well-organised, I think it's worth it. It saves you having to queue for tickets in each place. You also get an online guide and maps and they send you special offers and even free cinema tickets. So it really depends. Just be careful, though, because they count each day as a calendar day, not as a 24-hour period, so to make the most of it, you have to try to get an early start every day. Kate: OK - I get your point. It's not the best option for people who like having a nice, leisurely breakfast or having a mooch around museum shops, like my husband! Yeah, I don't think it's for us. But I am going to recommend it to my sister. She's also going to London later this year with her family, and they love to see as much as possible. Thanks a lot, Drew. Drew: My pleasure, Kate. You 're welcome. Kate: We hope you have found this podcast interesting and useful. We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now!

View Details

Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That's English!, the Spanish Ministry of Education's official distance learning English course. To find out more about That's English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages. Hello! Today we would like to give you some advice on how not to go hungry the next time you visit London. When most people are asked about their trip on returning from the UK, there is a practically unanimous answer when asked the question: what was the food like? Terrible, awful, disgusting and on top of that - expensive! These are the usual answers. It is true that the majority of visitors survive on pasta, pizza, hamburgers or Chinese food. But surely there must be a way to enjoy wholesome, home-made English food? Usually the best place to try traditional and fairly-priced food is in the English pub. Contrary to what many visitors may think, pubs are not simply places to try out the myriad of beers, ales and whiskeys on offer but they also offer a daily menu of traditional English dishes. We should remember that the pub - or public house - has for centuries been a place for social gathering. It seems that the origin of these establishments dates back to Roman times. Tabernae were shops which were built along the Roman roads that sold wine to the legions of the Roman army. With the succession of other invasions - the Angles, the Saxons and the Vikings, these taverns also evolved. Both taverns, which sold wine, and alehouses which sold ale, and later beer, provided food and drink to travellers, while inns provided accommodation. Gradually all of these establishments collectively became known as pubs. Made from malted barley, water and yeast, ale has for centuries formed part of the staple diet in Britain as it was rich in protein and carbohydrates and was a much safer alternative to drinking water. Hops were added around 1400 to add flavour and help to preserve the ale, making a new drink called beer, which was much more bitter. Today you will hear many expressions describing different kinds of beer: lager, bitter, stout and ale, to mention just a few. So coming back to the pub as a good place to eat a tasty traditional meal, let's have a look at what you might expect to find on a pub's menu, often called "pub grub": Shepherd's Pie and Cottage Pie This is a classic winter dish made with minced lamb, onions, carrots with a topping of mashed potato, which is baked in the oven. Cottage Pie is very similar except that minced beef is used instead of lamb. According to the web Culinary Craftiness, there are older references to Cottage Pie, dating back to 1791, than to Shepherd's Pie, recorded in 1870. Now let's talk about the Sunday roast. This meal is traditionally eaten on Sundays, hence the name, Sunday roast, and is perhaps the most popular family meal for special occasions. Different meats can be used and the trimmings, or side dishes, will change accordingly. Perhaps the most classical version is roast beef, which will be accompanied by mashed potato, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, carrots, cabbage and the famous Yorkshire pudding. Made with flour, milk and eggs and baked in the oven in very hot lard (or sunflower oil), Yorkshire pudding is such an intrinsic part of British cooking, that there is even a National Yorkshire Pudding Day, which is celebrated on the first Sunday of February. However, according to an article by Bee Wilson in The Telegraph, "there's a sadness behind Yorkshire pudding. Compared with other local workers, such as weavers or farmers, the miners of Yorkshire were famous for squandering their wages on expensive meals. It was typical for miners to serve three joints of different sorts of meat on the table at one meal. Plus Yorkshire pudding! The reason these miners spent their money so freely was because their work was dangerous and their life expectancy short. By the time they were in their forties, if they were still alive, most of the Yorkshire miners had arthritis and rheumatism, plus silicosis from the dust, and were bent double like old men. In this context, Yorkshire pudding takes on an "eat, drink and be merry" quality. For tomorrow, we die." As it is very filling, Yorkshire pudding has always been a perfect dish when meat is scarce or too expensive and is even eaten as a dessert with jam. Finally, no roast beef would be complete without gravy, a sauce made from the juice of the roasted meat and thickened with flour. When you order this meal, you will find two sauces are placed on the table which are the classic companions of roast beef, English mustard and horseradish sauce. Be careful with both, though, as they can be quite hot. In the case of roast lamb, the trimmings will be similar although, strictly speaking, there should be no Yorkshire pudding. Instead of mustard and horseradish, the lamb will be served with mint sauce. The same applies to roast pork, but in this case, the pork will be served with apple sauce. Another dish is steak and kidney pudding. Like Shepherd's pie, steak and kidney pudding is a perfect meal for the cold weather and has been popular in Britain at least since the middle of the 19th century. The filling is made from steak and lamb kidneys in a suet pastry. Suet is the fat that surrounds the cow's or lamb's kidneys. It's very filling and has lots of calories, so it's not advisable if you are on a diet! Another traditional dish is sausages and mash. Sausages (or bangers as they are also called) and mash is a simple and quite satisfying typical pub meal. Obviously the key is in the quality of the pork sausages. Maybe the best known are Cumberland sausages, which are quite spicy, and Lincolnshire sausages, which are spiked with sage. This dish will usually be served with onion gravy. Considering that Great Britain is an island, there are surprisingly few traditional fish dishes. Apart from the famous fish and chips, made with cod or haddock fried in batter, one of the most popular is scampi and chips. Scampi are fried Norway lobster tails and will often be accompanied with peas and chips and tartar sauce. If you want to learn more about traditional pub food, don't miss the next podcast, where we will also tell you about some of the delicious puddings and desserts. We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now!

View Details

Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That's English!, the Spanish Ministry of Education's official distance learning English course. To find out more about That's English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages. In the previous podcast we talked about traditional pub food, which was perfect for the cold winter weather. If you are visiting the UK during the summer and are wondering if there are any lighter dishes for the warm weather, of course there are a few. A ploughman's lunch is essentially a selection of cheeses with different types of bread and butter and salad - lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, pickled onions and chutney, which is a sauce made of fruits or vegetables with vinegar and sugar, all served on a wooden board. The UK has a great variety of cheeses for you to try. You will also come across Scotch eggs and salad. Scotch eggs are hard-boiled eggs, which are covered in sausage meat and fried in breadcrumbs. And then you have Cornish pasties which are individual meat pies made from short-crust pastry and filled with steak, potato, onion and swede. According to the Cornish Pasty Association, it was "originally a good, calorie-filled, transportable meal for hungry workers – possibly even the first real ‘convenience’ food – [and] would have contained cheap ingredients such as potato, swede and onion without the succulent meat that is included today." Even though the Cornish pasty is thought to date back to the 14th century, it became especially popular in 19th century Cornwall as a staple meal for the tin miners who, according to the association, are thought to have given the pasty "its distinctive D shape [ ] – the crust [becoming] a handle, which was discarded to prevent contaminating the food with grubby, possibly arsenic-ridden hands." Let's now turn our attention to traditional puddings or desserts that you may find on a pub menu. In fact, the difference between pudding and dessert is in itself a source of debate. Pudding is the term we tend to use for more traditional and filling dishes that are often served hot, whereas dessert tends to be used for lighter dishes that are served cold. Maybe one of the most traditional puddings is apple crumble and custard. This is very popular, made with stewed apples and a crumble topping made with butter, flour and sugar. You will also come across blackcurrant, peach, rhubarb, gooseberry and plum crumbles. As is the case with other warm puddings, apple crumble is often served with hot custard, which is a sweet sauce made with milk and eggs. Another favourite is baked or steamed jam roly-poly pudding which is a roll made of a layer of suet pastry covered with jam. Spotted dick is very similar but, instead of jam, the suet pastry is covered with dried fruits. Both will be served with hot custard. Bread and butter pudding is another winter favourite, made with slices of buttered bread sprinkled with raisons, nutmeg and cinnamon over which a mixture of milk, sugar and eggs is poured. It is then baked in the oven. Trifle is perhaps the most traditional dessert in English cuisine and even though it is served cold, is likely to be found on menus all year round. References to this dish can be traced back to Elizabethan times, although it seems that it became especially popular in Victorian times. There are many ways to make trifle but the basic ingredients include a layer of sponge cake soaked in sherry, or sometimes brandy, which is covered with strawberry of raspberry jam followed by a layer of cold custard. Fresh fruit, such as raspberries or strawberries, is then added, although in winter, canned fruit is also used. Finally, the trifle is finished off with a whipped cream topping. Another dessert you will come across in the summer months is Eton Mess, which is a mixture of broken meringue, strawberries and whipped cream. According to writer Nicola Cornick, there are many legends about the origin of this dish: "One story suggests that it is the dessert traditionally served at the Eton versus Winchester cricket match, the first of which took place in 1796. Another story [ ] is that the dish was created one Eton Open Day when an over-eager Labrador dog sat on someone's picnic basket and squashed the strawberry pavlova." Whatever the origin it is a very appetising way to finish your meal. So here we come to the end of this description of traditional English food that you can find in a typical English pub, in the hope that the next time you come back from a trip to the UK and are asked the question: "What was the food like?" you will say "It was delicious!" If you have found this podcast interesting and helpful, please recommend this app to other people who are learning English. We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now!

View Details

That's English! - Cultural curiosities: Recent Episodes