939. Our favourite things to do in London 🇬🇧 (Part 1)
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You're listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teachaluke.co.uk. Hello, listeners, and welcome back to the podcast. This episode is called Our Favourite Things to Do in London...

and it's an audio-only episode this time, just audio for this one. As you probably know, I usually record video as well as audio for each episode, and you end up with more or less exactly the same thing in both versions. What you can see in the video each time is usually just me, maybe with some text on the screen, how exciting.

But the content is basically the same as in the audio version. But yes, this episode is just audio this time, no video, which is actually a nice relief to be talking to you like this without a camera in my face. It's a bit of a relief, I have to say. I can relax a little bit more. But why is this episode audio only? Well, I am publishing something on YouTube today. It's a walk and talk video filmed in London.

In the video, you can join me as I walk around some parts of the centre of the city, talking as I go, and you can see some famous sites on the way, including the south bank of the River Thames, where I started,

Then the London Eye, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Whitehall, Downing Street, Horse Guards Parade, the Mall. There's a brief glimpse of Buckingham Palace, then Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus. And then I ended up at the Sherlock Holmes statue just outside Baker Street Underground Station. So that is this week's video episode on YouTube. There's a link in the description if you would like to watch it.

But the audio track from that video doesn't really work as a podcast episode on its own. You need the visuals, really, because I talk mostly about things that were in front of me. And if you just listen to the audio on its own, it wouldn't really work.

So without being able to upload the audio from that video as a podcast episode, I've decided to record a whole other audio episode here just for you, the audio listeners in audio land. And that's what you're listening to right now. It's completely different to the Walk & Talk London video. So what about this audio episode then that you're listening to now? What's going to happen?

So I wanted to do something about London so that it would work as a kind of companion to today's video episode. But instead of just rambling about this city on my own for the entire episode, and I will do a bit of that, but...

I thought that I could get contributions from other people I know. So I asked some of my friends and family to send me recordings of themselves talking for a couple of minutes about their favourite things to do in London, and that's what you'll get in this episode. You'll be able to hear from some people who live or have lived in this city and what they love doing there. Maybe you're planning to visit London like so many millions of other tourists every year, and you're looking for some tips.

or you've been to London before at some point and this could be a nice trip down memory lane for you.

Or perhaps you've never been to London at all and you're just curious. Well, this episode and the Walk & Talk video on YouTube should give you a good idea of the place and some of the things you can do while you're there. Now, we will get to the recordings of my friends in just a few moments, but first I wanted to just give you a bit of information about London. So, London is a capital city, of course, but it's the capital of what exactly?

Is it the capital of England? The capital of Britain? The capital of the United Kingdom? Well, it's the capital of both England and the United Kingdom or the UK. It's the capital city of both of those things.

But it's not really the capital of Britain because the word Britain is actually a geographical term and not a political one. So it can't have a capital city, if you see what I mean. England is one of the four countries within the United Kingdom and London is its capital city. The United Kingdom is a sovereign state and it's made up of four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

And London serves as the capital of the entire United Kingdom, hosting the UK Parliament, the monarch's main residence, that's Buckingham Palace, and the central government. So London is the capital of England and also the United Kingdom, which does tell you something about why some people in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland might feel a bit unhappy about the whole arrangement. But anyway, here's a very short history of London.

Let me give you a very brief history of the city because I think it helps to put everything in context. And I wouldn't want to get straight to the point too quickly, would I? So I'm going to give you a short history of London. I suppose part of the energy of the place...

comes from the fact that when you're there, you know that under your feet there are the traces of many generations of extraordinary lives which have lived there for centuries upon centuries. I suppose it's like that in most places, but it's definitely the case in London. It's a sort of concentrated...

where there are layers of history and all these complex, extraordinary lives that have been lived on the very ground where you walk around, in the homes, in the buildings all around you. It does have that incredible sense of history and energy to it. So London began as a Roman settlement,

called Londinium, established around AD 47, the year AD 47, on the River Thames, not technically not on it, I mean right next to it, chosen for its strategic location and ability to support trade and transport. You might have heard my dad talking about this in episode 902. Britain used to be populated by Celtic tribes,

But it has been invaded a few times over the years, and each invasion is a key moment in the history of the place.

The Romans colonized Britain, mostly England, from around the year AD 43 and stayed until about the year 410. Londinium was the Roman capital for most of that time. And you can still see some remains of that Roman period when you visit London, if you look carefully, including sections of the wall which were built to defend the city. There are some areas you can go to and you can actually see the original Roman remains.

Londinium flourished as a Roman city until the fall of the Roman Empire, after which it declined, but was later revived by the Anglo-Saxons, who were the next people to arrive in England from what is now Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

The city grew steadily through the Middle Ages, surviving Viking raids and the Norman conquest of 1066, another huge moment that brought the French language to England.

Eventually, London became a centre of politics, trade and culture. By the 16th century, under the Tudors, including King Henry VIII and his daughter Queen Elizabeth I, London was the bustling heart of the English Renaissance and maritime expansion.

In the centuries that followed, London faced several catastrophes, including the Great Plague in 1665 and the Great Fire of 1666, but it was rebuilt quickly, entering the modern era as the capital of a growing empire.

During the 19th century, it became the largest city in the world and a symbol of the British Empire's global influence, which was also reflected in its mix of different cultures from around the world. Despite heavy bombing in World War II...

and significant post-war rebuilding, London has remained a major global city, known today for its rich history, pop culture, multiculturalism, finance sector, and political power. Let me give you a little bit of personal history. So I grew up living in Ealing in West London until the age of nine. This was in the 1980s.

So there I was, going around on a BMX probably, playing with Star Wars figures and being blissfully unaware of things like the internet and smartphones. Ealing is about 45 minutes from the centre of the city. I didn't go into central London very often as a child. I have vague memories of occasionally going there, often on the Tube. That's the nickname for the London Underground.

The underground train system, we call it the underground or the nickname the tube. Unlike in other places like New York where it's the subway and Paris where it's the metro. Le metro. So in London it's the tube or the underground train.

I remember the district line in the 1980s as a little kid. I remember the springy seats with interesting patterns on the covers, ashtrays in the armrests because people smoked on the tube in those days and they had little ashtrays where people could tap their ash into. And there were these black rubber balls on springs that hung down

for people to hold on to, and they looked like something I could swing from, but they were always so far out of my reach. So I remember certain things like the underground. Sometimes my parents would take James, that's my brother, and me to one of the museums in South Kensington. The Natural History Museum was a memorable one because of the dinosaur skeletons.

We went to the theatre in central London a few times too. I remember the atmosphere of places like the Barbican or the National Theatre maybe, or one of the many other theatres you can find in the West End. Although I don't really remember what we saw, perhaps a Christmas pantomime or something like that.

As a small child, London was huge, busy, noisy, hot, full of black taxis and red buses. And I never really got a chance to understand it or get a sense of the whole thing because we left when I was nine and moved to a place on the edge of the countryside in the Midlands near Birmingham because my dad got a new job. And so I lived there, not in London. I lived...

I lived in the Midlands with my parents until I was about 19 years old when I went to university in Liverpool, which is a whole other story. But I returned to London properly after I'd finished my studies and also after I'd gone to live in Japan for a couple of years. Did I ever mention that I used to live in Japan? Did I ever mention that? After all of that, I went back to London finally, living in Ealing first, then in Hammersmith, which is also in West London, but closer to the centre.

In my flat in Hammersmith, I was lucky to live on the ninth floor and I had an amazing view of London, which I would often stare at sometimes while recording early episodes of this podcast. Super duper long term listeners might remember if I had the windows open, you could hear the sounds of police sirens and things like that.

I moved back to London then when I was in my 20s and stayed there until I moved to Paris in my late 30s. Living in London in my 20s was amazing. The city is full of life, full of history and has a really strong identity. It is steeped in history. For example, you can just walk through the city and find yourself in places that have fascinating stories attached to them.

For example, one of the Beatles lived here, or this is where the Great Fire of London started, or this is where Jack the Ripper murdered one of his victims, or this is where the gas hydrogen was first identified by scientist Henry Cavendish.

Or this here is where the earliest form of computer was first invented by Charles Babbage. And this is where Ada Lovelace wrote the first ever computer algorithm in the mid-19th century. London is full of that kind of thing. Also, it's cool, vibrant, has a progressive feel to it, meaning that despite all of the history, it is sort of futuristic too.

There's mystery in the dark streets. There's charm in a lot of the old pubs. There are so many places for shopping, eating, clubbing, doing sport and pretty much everything else.

When the weather is good, it has to be one of the best cities in the world. It's just a pity that it is so expensive to live there. The parks are fantastic and there are loads of them. Lots of large green spaces. London has over 8.4 million trees, nearly one for every resident of the city. Around 21% of the city's land is covered in tree canopy.

And that's why organisations like Treeconomics, the Greater London Authority and National Park City Foundation refer to London as an urban forest, which is sort of nice. Although most Londoners don't say that, to be fair. We don't talk about London as a forest. But it's still nice, isn't it? I mean, it is very green. The green space is a part of London's charm. It's not all dark, foggy back streets, you know.

So, yes, as you can probably tell, I absolutely love London and I miss it. It's much more than the touristy areas which you can see in my walk and talk video. And that's not to say that I don't love Paris. I love Paris as well. It's fantastic, but it's different.

And I should say also that there are plenty of districts outside the centre that are full of interesting, charming and inspiring places. When I lived in Hammersmith, for example, which is maybe 30 minutes from the centre of the city, my flat was just five minutes from the river. And so I could just wander down there and walk or cycle on the river path, which is covered by trees. Or I could sit and read on a bench overlooking the river or go to one of the lovely pubs down there.

Anyway, I had wonderful years living in London, socialising, exploring, trying not to spend too much money and soaking up the atmosphere. I had a lot of great experiences and also very formative experiences as a teacher, working in a few language schools and also doing some freelance one-to-one teaching in companies and homes in different spots, which made me explore the city going from place to place.

Now, I could go on about this all a lot longer, but those old stories will have to wait for other episodes in the future, maybe. I need to get to the recordings. That's what was advertised in the title of the episode. So let's do that. So I asked some friends and family who live or have lived in London to send me a recording in which they answered this question. What's your favourite thing to do in London and why?

I asked them to speak at normal speed and not to think about it too much. This is because I wanted some natural, authentic samples of spoken English, and that's what I got. I just want to say thanks, first of all, to everyone who took part in this for taking the time to do it and send me their recordings. I'm certain that everyone listening, everyone in the audience listening, appreciates the chance to hear the voices of those people who sent messages to me, so thank you to...

Just thanks to everyone. I'll play you each recording and then I'll explain one or two bits of vocabulary that they used. OK, you can find a transcript for this entire episode, including each recording and my comments. Again, there's a link for that in the description.

So as we go through this, watch out for various people that you might already know from previous appearances on this podcast. And to kick this all off, the first person is Amber Minogue, pod pal from so many episodes.

Amber from Amber and Paul episodes. That's right. She's the first person. We are kicking off with Amber and we will end, in fact, with Paul. He's going to be the last recording that you'll hear. But the first one is Amber. So you're about to hear the lovely, lovely voice of Amber Minogue. I met Amber in Paris, but she lived in London before living here and she knows the city really well. So let's listen to what Amber has to

has to say.

And if I was feeling especially motivated, I might go and see the Wallace collection because it's got some great paintings, including The Swing by Fragonard, which I absolutely love.

And after all that art, I think I might want to go get some fresh air. And although London's expensive, you can actually do loads of stuff for free. So I think I'd go for a walk on Hampstead Heath, especially if it was spring or autumn. And after a long day at looking at art, of course, I'm going to treat myself to a curry on Brick Lane because that's the best. Or maybe a comedy show at Angel. So that would be a pretty good day for me in London.

Okay, so that was Amber there describing a pretty good day for her in London. So just to sum up, yes, she loves museums, especially the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery, both of which can be found in Trafalgar Square, right next door to each other, both completely free. Incredible paintings and works of art that you can see there. And...

One bit of vocab, she said that she couldn't resist popping next door. So she'd go to the, I think she said she'd go to the National Portrait Gallery.

And she couldn't resist popping next door, meaning that she would not be able to resist the temptation to pop next door. So if you can't resist doing something, it just means that something seems so appealing to you, you really want to do it, and so you have to do it, right? It's a bit like if you walk past a shop selling ice cream, and it's a really hot day, and you see the lovely ice cream there, and you think, oh, I'd love an ice cream, and it's like...

You think, oh, I shouldn't really. You're trying to resist. No, I shouldn't. And then, oh, it's just, yeah, okay, I'll have an ice cream, please. Yes, one huge ice cream. So I just, you're eating ice cream. I thought you were on a, oh, I couldn't resist. I just couldn't resist.

Having an ice cream on a day like this. So I can't resist having an ice cream Amber was saying if I went to the National Portrait Gallery, I probably couldn't resist popping next door to pop somewhere Means to just go in quickly make a quick visit Okay, so in this case she's popping next door. You would you could pop in to the National Gallery, right? pop in to see your friend and

or something like that. Amber also enjoys the Wallace collection, especially a painting called The Swing by Fragonard. And I had a quick look at it and it is quite an extraordinary picture. She also would probably go for a walk somewhere like Hampstead Heath, which is a large sort of green area in the north of the city, especially in spring or autumn. And she would end the day by treating herself

to a curry. If you treat yourself to something, it's like you kind of

um, hmm, something you really like, right? Now, a treat could be something that you give to someone, including yourself, if you feel like you deserve it, if you feel like you've done something where you deserve it. Let's say, for example, if your dog does a really good trick, if you say, you know, sit, roll over, and the dog rolls over, you would give the dog a treat, which would be like a little thing to eat, right?

Similarly, if your children, not that they are like dogs, although they kind of are in a way because you have to train them as much as possible. If your children do something good, for example, if they perform really well at school, they got really good marks or something, or if they've just been very well behaved recently, you could give them a treat and give them an ice cream.

So to treat them to an ice cream, you know, like, you know, the kids were so good today. I'm treating them to an ice cream. But you also we say that we treat ourselves to something as well. So I'm going to treat myself to a curry, for example. So a curry is delicious. And there are so many really good curry restaurants in London. Brick Lane is an example of a part of London where there's a big Bangladeshi community. And yes, there are lots of curry restaurants where you can go.

and get a Bangladeshi curry. There are Indian restaurants and stuff as well. So Amber would treat herself to a curry on Brick Lane or a comedy show at Angel. Angel is another part of London in the north, and there are comedy shows you can go to see, for example, at a place like the Bill Murray in Angel. So that was Amber. Thank you to Amber. Let's move on to the next person, person number two. And this is Martin.

Martin and I met each other while teaching English together in London. So we are kind of comrades, colleagues from the teacher's room together. You might recognize Martin's voice because he has been on the podcast. He was in episode 896 last year.

So this is Martin and I'll let you listen to his recording now. So here we go. So there are many great things to do in London. The museums and galleries are free is amazing. And it means you could often just pop into one for 10 minutes if you have some time to kill. And I really like that. It takes the pressure off thinking you have to spend a decent amount of time if you've paid for a ticket.

But if I'm being honest, the thing I probably most enjoy is going to some of London's oldest pubs. Often when I've had friends visiting, I'll take them to a mini pub crawl around three pubs in Holborn. And your listeners should know that it's spelt Holborn, but pronounced Holborn.

Each one of these pubs, I think, claims to be the oldest pub in London and maybe in England. I usually start at the City of York. The building is only 100 years old or so, but there's been a pub on that site since 1430. So they claim to be the oldest for that reason. And then next, a short walk away, is the Seven Stars pub.

which is tucked away down a little street just behind the great law courts. And it survived the Great Fire of London in 1666, and so it claims to be the only pub in the city of London that existed before then. But one word of warning, if you visit, the toilets are upstairs and up an extremely narrow, rickety, medieval staircase. And as I get older and fatter, I find it increasingly difficult to get up and down those stairs. But anyway...

Finally, I usually go on to the Old Cheshire Cheese, which is another great, very old pub. Lots of dark wood, little nooks and crannies. And you can go down two floors of cellar where the beer barrels used to be kept. It's very atmospheric. So that's my recommendation. And I think next time you're in London, Luke, we should go and do those three pubs.

Oh, that does sound good, doesn't it? I would love to do that. I would absolutely love to do that. So Martin there enthusiastically describing three of his favourite pubs, all of which apparently claim to be the oldest in London. So a couple of bits of vocab. Again, Martin said pop in. So Amber said to pop next door. And Martin said to pop in to certain museums and galleries. I think he was talking about the same places as Amber.

But the fact that they're free takes the pressure off, right? It takes the pressure off visiting. You don't feel that you have to visit for a long time, which is why you can pop in briefly. Just have a look round. Have a look at a few paintings, right? Maybe you leave a donation. That's kind of what a lot of people do. There are ways that you can just drop a few pounds into a box or something. But anyway, that's nice. Pop in. It takes the pressure off visiting.

And then he talks about these different pubs. He said that one of them was tucked away down a little side street Tucked away down a little street if something is tucked away It's kind of like positioned in a certain way if it's tucked away It's positioned in a certain place where it's not easy to see so it might be for example round a little corner or down a back street where it's just not easy to find and

So if something's tucked away somewhere, it's just in a location where it's not easy to find, almost hidden. Okay, that's tucked away down a little street near the law courts. And this is actually a good tip from me to you if you're visiting London as a tourist. Now, what can happen, just like in so many cities, is you end up walking down the main streets. But if you just try and go down some of the streets,

side streets, you might find yourself in much more interesting territory. And there are these places called the Inns of Court. So London has its kind of legal area where there are law courts and also sort of very old traditional offices, which are now used by the courts or by specialist lawyers as

And these are really great places to go and visit. There are some very historical places, very interesting spots to wander around and some green areas, you know, more green areas. There's an old hall which was used in the filming of one of the Harry Potter films.

And very interesting places. These are the inns of court and you should explore the side streets between Hoburn Station and Chancery Lane Station, either going sort of one way or the other way in either direction off the main street there. You can find some very interesting spots. Martin also mentioned another pub, the Seven Stars, where the toilet is up a staircase and he described the staircase as extremely narrow,

So it's not very wide, so you have to hold your arms in or maybe sort of hold your shoulders in in order to get up the staircase because it's so narrow, which is the opposite of wide, and rickety. The staircase is rickety. Now, it's made of wood and it's old, so that probably means that it moves a bit and it's not completely stable. Maybe it moves around. You can imagine it creaks and makes noises as you go up the steps.

So it's not for the faint of heart or certainly, you know, you've got to be prepared to climb up this narrow, rickety staircase if you need to use the toilet. The third pub he mentioned was called the Old Cheshire Cheese. And he described that as having lots of dark wood. So it will be wood panelled with dark wood and lots of nooks and crannies, nooks and crannies,

In the same way that we have the word tucked in, so the pub itself might be tucked into a back street behind another building or something, nooks and crannies in a room would be like little corners or maybe little alcoves where you can, again, sort of hide away, little private spots.

Little holes in the wall or little corners that are slightly hidden. These could be described as nooks and crannies. Maybe very small places that you could even just put objects or maybe a tiny space big enough for a small table where you could sit with a friend and enjoy a drink in relative privacy. So that would be the Old Cheshire Cheese Pub full of dark wood and nooks and crannies and two floors of cellar. Cellar in English means

The cellar in England is the room beneath the ground, so the basement-level rooms. We call them...

And if there are two floors of cellar, that obviously means that there's several floors. So you can go down a ladder to the first underground floor, the first cellar, and then down another staircase or ladder to the second underground cellar. And there are beer barrels and things like that. It sounds like it's got a great atmosphere, this pub. And I would love to visit next time I'm in London. That would be a great thing to do, Martin. So let's do it. Okay, who's the next person?

on the list here. Oh, okay. By the way, yeah, you can listen to, if you want to hear more from Martin, you could listen to my full conversation with him in episode 896, which is called A Rambling Chat with Martin Aaron.

And Martin talks about being an English teacher, traveling to different places and his experiences at boarding school, which was fascinating to listen to. Let's move on to the next person. And this is child one, my daughter. I decided that I would interview her or at least get her thoughts. So my daughter was born in France.

But she is also English and we go to the UK as often as we can. And that means arriving in London on the Eurostar. She has family connections in London, including my brother, James, who recently became a dad for the first time, by the way, everyone. So congratulations to James and his girlfriend, Ilana, who have a young baby in their home. So that is my daughter's cousin.

And my nephew, of course. Wow. So anyway, this is my daughter, seven years old, talking about what she likes to do when she visits London. Here we go.

So I'm here with child one and you're going to speak nice and clearly and you go to London sometimes. Yeah. So what's your favourite thing to do in London? First, it's to go to see my uncle and aunt with my baby cousin because I don't really get to see them a lot and I love them. And the second thing is to go to Borough Market. What's Borough Market? It's a place where there's

So much food and it's really exciting because there's the train tracks just on top with the train going and I ate

A sausage roll. Sausage roll, yes. And tell us about the sausage roll, because you know what? Some people listening to this might think, oh, English food, it's not very good, is it? It's disgusting, English food. Sausage roll, no thanks. But what was it actually like? It's some bread with a sausage in it and sauce. Pastry. Yeah. It's sausage surrounded by pastry. Yeah. Baked in the oven. Yeah.

with some sort of sauce but the sausage, the sausage meat... It's amazing! Right. So these are the famous sausage rolls that you get in Borough Market. The famous sausage rolls! Okay, so is that it? Is that all you have to say about your favourite things to do in London? No! Well, what else?

to go to a big hotel. It's like a huge hotel. It's an art hotel and you get to sleep there and like there's a spa, there's a swimming pool and the swimming pool it's inside and it's so good because it's like there's blue lights going into it and you can splash in it. Oh.

Okay. There's no signs you're not allowed to splash in it. It doesn't say that you're not allowed to splash, so you can splash as much as you want. Fantastic. You can jump in it. So that was child one. And it's quite deep, but merely goes to my chin. Okay, so you're okay. Yeah. Okay, thank you very much for your answer. You're welcome. You're welcome. I believe.

Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. OK, so that was my daughter recorded in the street. Sorry about the background noise. What did she talk about? Well, first of all, it was it was adorable. She talked about seeing her cousin, her uncle and aunt, which is lovely. And then she talked about eating a sausage roll in Borough Market. So Borough Market is definitely a great place to visit.

And you can get there from which station? You can get there from London Bridge Station. And yeah, it's just it's a fantastic food market, which is open at the weekends. And just like my daughter said, there are lots of different food stalls selling food from all around the world. Lots of really good street food. And yeah, there is a stall that sells these sausage rolls there.

And sausage rolls are sort of like an institution in terms of British food. You know, you can get sausage rolls in lots of places, including, you know, a high street shop like Gregg's, for example, will sell sausage rolls. Pastry...

wrapped around a sausage. And they can be delicious, they can be not so delicious, but the ones at Borough Market are definitely in the very delicious category. And yeah, it's mainly the sausage meat. It's just absolutely fantastic. The pastry is really tasty and has a nice texture to it. So yeah, sausage rolls from Borough Market. Borough Market is an interesting spot because it is underneath train tracks.

So there are sort of kind of bridges above you, above your head, where trains pass over each other. But it gives it a kind of characteristic atmospheric feeling.

And it's a nice place to wander around and pick up some delicious food and just generally sort of people watch and stuff like that. So, yes, a good recommendation. And then the other one is a hotel that she likes to stay in. And we've stayed there once. The last time we all went as a family and stayed in London, we stayed in this hotel in Shoreditch in East London. It's called the Art Hotel. And, yes, so my daughter...

is very excited about this place because you get to sleep there and there's this amazing swimming pool with blue lights and you can jump in and you can splash and you're allowed to as well. There are no rules, no signs that say you can't splash so you can definitely splash and also it's not too deep so the water is not too deep.

um and she said yes the water goes up to her chin which for a seven-year-old girl who's still not that confident at swimming yet is a big deal because if the water's too deep you can get a bit scared but it's not too deep for her so deep is the adjective there to describe water we talk about the depth of the water if the water's too deep you can't stand up in it the opposite of deep is shallow

So often swimming pools have two ends. They have the shallow end and the deep end. Right. So, all right, there you go. That was my daughter. And who is next? Well, next it's my friend James Simpson. I know James from the Paris comedy scene. So a bit like Amber and Paul.

I met James in Paris. James is part of the social circle I have, which includes Amber and Paul and Sarah Donnelly and Sebastian Marx and other people. So I met him in Paris. But James is originally from Winchester, which is just a short train ride into London. So you can imagine James traveling into London on the train from Winchester for a day trip. And this is an idea of what he might do on that day.

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Stop by a Warby Parker store near you. So my train arrives at London Waterloo and I go for a little walk along the South Bank, possibly up to the National Theatre, see a show, the Royal Festival Hall, some classical music. Then across Waterloo Bridge, beautiful view of Houses of Parliament and the river, St Paul's. And then you can just walk across to Trafalgar Square and

and maybe take a right turn, go to Covent Garden, see some buskers, like a live show that's free. There's a lot of free things in London, the galleries, but, you know, if it's sunny, you can sit outside and watch a show. I often get asked to be part of the show, just, you know...

one of those things. And then, you know, obviously, you've got to go inside to a pub at some point, have a fish and chips, and, uh...

Some live music, some live comedy. These are other things I kind of associate with London. And yeah, that's a great day. That is indeed a great day and some great suggestions there. So Waterloo Station, which is just to the south of the river. And James talked about walking along the South Bank. And there you can actually find several interesting venues there.

There's the National Theatre, a theatre venue where you can go and see live theatre, which is this sort of iconic concrete building. If you go down to the South Bank, if you cross over Waterloo Bridge from north to south, then it's a definite feature of that area. You'll see the theatre if you go there. And yes, this concrete building, it's a kind of...

It's a good example of brutalist architecture, kind of mid-20th century architecture, which is in contrast to some of the older buildings in that area, in fact, in the whole city. It's made out of raw, unfinished concrete, and it's made up of various square or cubic shapes and kind of flat surfaces. It's a very bold, uncompromising design.

But it is a place where you can go and see plays. And also there's the Royal Festival Hall, this huge venue that puts on all sorts of different events, including classical music, as James said. Walking across Waterloo Bridge is a very good idea. In my Walk & Talk video right at the beginning, you can see me cycling across the bridge. And it is...

said to have the best views of London. On one side, you can look east and you can see lots of iconic buildings, including St. Paul's Cathedral, which is this famous cathedral with its domed roof. And on the other side, if you look west, you can get great views of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. And so James talked about going to Trafalgar Square and also to Covent Garden

which is a place that you can see lots of street performers or buskers, as they are known. So buskers are people performing in the street. Busking is the act of performing in the street. So it's the sort of thing where you see this in lots of different cities, of course, lots of public spaces. Someone will maybe put a little bag down on the floor or a hat or something on the floor for you to put money in. And then these people put on clothes

quite extravagant and extraordinary shows. They are brilliant. I mean, it's not just someone playing the guitar and you can see, you know, different sort of small street performances going on in lots of the central parts of the city. But the ones in Covent Garden really put on a big show. They do these sort of elaborate, uh,

20 minute magic shows or they do escape acts where they are tied up in knots with chains and things and they miraculously manage to escape there's a lot of comedy involved in these things so Busker's street performers in Covent Garden which is a good thing to look out for and as James said he said he's often asked to be part of the show and

which does happen with these buskers. A crowd of people gathers around the person doing the performance and the busker will involve different people in the show in various ways. It's actually really good fun if you can spare a moment to stand and watch the whole show.

and then, you know, spare a few pounds, put some money in the bag. You might even be brought into the show in some way, and it's always very good that the buskers are really, like, top level there. And, of course, other things that James mentioned, fairly sort of iconic, classic things like going to a pub and eating, of course, fish and chips.

Of course, England is known for fish and chips and London is no exception. Of course, you can get lots of fish and chips all over the city in lots of different pubs. And why not? You know, why not try it? I think personally, the best fish and chips you can get. I would go back to Borough Market again. Last time I was there, I had fish and chips from one of the stands and it was really good. And it's normal to eat your fish and chips there.

out of the paper wrapping that it's been presented to you in, or these days it would probably be presented in a kind of cardboard box. It's like street food, you know? Or you can sit down in a pub and get a plate of fish and chips with peas. You've got to get mushy peas as well. These are green peas that have been mashed up. Sometimes other things are added, like a bit of mint or something like that. But yeah, plate of fish and chips,

with a little bowl of mushy peas and a pint of London Pride beer, maybe? That would be a good idea. Yes. I just wanted to add here, I'm kind of going through bits of vocabulary, right? So just there we had things like buskers and busking and to busk and mushy peas. These are peas which have been mashed and then they are kind of all soft.

You could put your spoon in and get some of it out and eat it. Yum, yum, yum. Mushy peas, soft and squashy, soft and squashed, almost like a kind of puree, but not that mushy.

not that thoroughly mashed up, just kind of like squashed really, and they're mushy. So we've got words like mushy to describe the soft texture of something, and then, yeah, busking, something that people sometimes do in the street. All these bits of vocabulary, you know, you might not know if you're just listening to this, you might not know how to spell these things.

So if you really want to get into the vocab and really want to learn the vocab, then you should check the PDF for this episode. It's completely free. I'm not saying that because I'm trying to sell it to you or anything, you know, although feel free to make a donation to Luke's English Podcast if you want to or become a premium subscriber to support the show. But anyway, you can get the PDF and you'll find a vocab list there. You'll also find a full transcript for the entire episode. Right.

If you'd like to hear more from James Simpson, he has been on the podcast several times before. You have to be a very long term listener to remember his first appearance, which was in episode 165, which was all about English Premier League football. James is a football fan. So we talked about football in episode 165.

And also episode 354, which is called Would You Rather with Amber and Paul and James. And this one is where we ask each other ridiculous would you rather questions. And we end up discussing things like having accordions for legs and being stuck in a lift with a pair of wet dogs and living on a desert island with a mermaid or merman.

So if that sounds appealing, go back to episode 354 to hear that sort of nonsense. Right. So next up, we have my friend Aaron. And I've known Aaron since I was about 16 years old. So he's one of my oldest friends. And we met each other at sixth form college.

near Birmingham. So this is when I lived in the Midlands when I was a teenager. Aaron and I first used to hang around with each other in the Midlands near Birmingham. And Aaron is also a good friend of my brother's.

But both of us lived in London as well for years and we used to hang out a lot together there and we played in a band together and all sorts of other things. Aaron works in TV, he works in television, but he loves art and music and he's a painter and he plays the bass guitar. Aaron is originally from Chelmsley Wood in Birmingham.

Despite living away from his hometown for quite a long time now, you can still hear his Brummie accent, which is great. You might be able to identify that. I'll point out a couple of little features of it.

But anyway, let's hear now what Aaron has to say about London. I have to say, this is very nice for me to be able to hear the voices of my friends and family in this episode and let you listen to them too. It really reminds me of these people. So let's hear what Aaron has to say about London. Hello, my name's Aaron. I've been asked by Luke from Luke's English podcast to tell you a little bit about some of the things I like doing in London.

I'll start by talking about how long I've been in London. It's about 23 or 24 years now. I've lost track a little bit. When I was thinking about the things that I like doing in London, I thought a little bit about the things I first liked doing in London and the things I like doing now. I also thought about my first ever trip to London, which was in 1992, maybe 1993.

And what I found interesting was that some of the things I like doing now, all these years later, are some of the things that I did on my first ever trip to London. I came to London with our sixth form college, the same sixth form college that Luke was at.

Although I didn't come with Luke because Luke did different courses to me. I came with my art class and we went to the Tate Britain for the first time. This is long before Tate Modern was built. And probably the main gallery, apart from the portrait gallery that people would visit in London. We came down on a coach and we went to Tate Britain in Pimlico.

But more importantly for me, we went to the Clore Gallery, which is the gallery next to Tate Britain, which is home still to much of Turner's work, the great landscape painter, probably the greatest painter in our country, if not the world has ever produced. Wonderful art. If you do find yourself in London, I definitely recommend a trip to the Clore Gallery. And I still like going to the Clore Gallery. It's a wonderful place to spend an afternoon.

The other thing that we did on that visit to London, that first visit to London, what I did, I went on a rowing boat on the Serpentine with my then girlfriend, my sixth form sweetheart. We went on a rowing trip. We just rowed around in circles on the Serpentine, which was really nice and felt very romantic for a teenage couple to be doing.

Interestingly, one of the things I did recently that I also really enjoyed was I went on a boat on the Thames, which isn't a serpentine. It was a bigger boat and it's a river, but it was a boat party for somebody's 45th birthday. And it was a great party. There was lots of dancing, lots of drinking, singing. There was a band. It was really good fun. So that was great.

Okay, I'm just going to pause here because Aaron does continue and he says other things, but we're going to pause here and we'll come back to Aaron later on in the episode at some point, probably in part two of this, because I've got a feeling this is going to be a two part episode because I've got enough recordings for me to make two parts of this episode.

We'll come back to Aaron and hear the other things he's got to say later on. But at this point, I just wanted to go through some of the things that Aaron said and point out some features of his accent, right? Because as I said before, he's originally from the Birmingham area. And so you can hear a bit of a Brummie accent, basically. And

A note about accents in the UK. As you may know, there's a lot of accent diversity across the United Kingdom. And, you know, even just in England, there are loads of different accents. It's extremely diverse. And generally speaking, I think this is

a great thing about English culture that we still have quite a lot of accent diversity. There is some complex cultural stuff relating to accents and what kind of associations we have with them. I won't go into all that stuff now. I've dealt with that sort of thing in the past. What I will say is that for me, accent diversity, and I think for most people,

Different accents are a wonderful thing. And personally, I love different accents in English. And I'm particularly fond of accents from the Midlands, having lived there for quite a long time. I don't really have much of a Midlands accent myself, especially not these days, as it's kind of become more and more neutral over the years. But there was a time probably when I'd been living in the Midlands for a while that I had a bit of it in my voice already.

But Aaron has retained his kind of Chelmsley Wood Birmingham accent, which is a lovely thing. I just wanted to point out certain things he said. So he said, I've been asked by Luke. He said, I've been asked by Luke. So this is an example of that difference between, let's say, how people generally in the southeast of England probably will say words like ask, laugh, path, grass with that R sound and

But as you go north in England, and this certainly starts in the Midlands, you might hear people saying ask, like ask and grass and path and laugh. OK, so Aaron said, I've been asked by Luke.

Also, the way that Aaron pronounces G sounds or G sounds at the ends of words, especially words with I-N-G, which is obviously a very common sort of word ending in English. Lots of I-N-G words. Now, I'd say things, things, which has got that sound. It's not a full G. It's not a full kind of, is that a plosive sound? No.

Yes, it is a plosive sound. It is a voiced velar plosive, to use the technical term. Voiced just means that the vocal cords vibrate when producing the sound. That's g-g-g-g-g, compared to the unvoiced equivalent, which is c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c

Right. Which is associated with like the letter K maybe. So voiced is g, g, g. Right. And vela. This means that the sound is made with the back of the tongue touching the soft part of the roof of the mouth. And that soft part at the roof of the mouth is called the velum. So that's where the sound, the g sound is made back there, back of the tongue and the velum.

And the plosive part is basically when sound is produced by completely stopping the airflow in the mouth and then suddenly releasing it like a little explosion. Normally, plosives are at the front, like p-p-p-p, right? These are labial plosives using the lips, p.

But g-g-g there at the back, that is a velaplosive, voiced velaplosive to be specific, the g sounds. So I would say things, but Aaron actually does a kind of a g sound with those ing words. And that's quite a common thing in Birmingham. You also hear it in other places, like, for example, in Liverpool. So things, thing, he might say thing. So he says...

Things I like doing in London. Doing in London. So there's the G at the end of doing. I would say things I like doing in London. He's saying things I like doing in London. So you can hear the G part. Some of the things I like doing in London. Doing in London. I'll start by talking about how long I've been in London. Talking about, and it was a great party. There was lots of dancing, lots of drinking, singing. There was a band. It was really good fun.

drinking, singing. Also, the way he pronounces the word like, which is basically in my kind of, let's call it a standard RP accent. I pronounce it with an I sound, I, like, but in Aaron's accent, it's more like loik, loik, a bit. I mean, it's not that strong. It's very subtle, really. But things I like doing, like.

rather than things I like doing. Like in my accent, his is more like like, things I like doing in London. Also in 1992, the year, that's got the same sound. I, I would say 1992, he says something more like 1992.

Okay. Now, it's not that exaggerated. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit just to demonstrate the point. But he's not like, you know, like full-on brummie. I've been living in Birmingham since 1992 and I haven't picked up the accent at all.

Okay, just a few features of his accent. So he talks about going to London and visiting art galleries, which, as you've heard from other people, is a definite feature of London. Aaron talked about Tate Britain in Pimlico and also the Clore Gallery, where you can see works of art by Turner. One of, yeah, certainly Britain's greatest painters, and Turner was...

Turner painted incredible pictures of the sky and pictures of the sea and landscapes and buildings and incredible level of skill on display in his work. Incredibly atmospheric paintings. And he also talked about going on a rowing boat.

on the Serpentine. So the Serpentine is a lake, actually, you know, relatively small lake, but a lake in Hyde Park.

Hyde Park is really big, actually, a really big green space just to the west of central London. Really big place where you can spend a lot of time walking around. You can go and have a picnic or whatever. And yes, there is a kind of a lake in the middle and you can rent rowing boats and you can row around the lake, which is a lovely thing to do.

rowing boats, obviously boats where you have oars that go into the water and you sit and you pull the oars and you kind of row around the lake. A lovely thing to do on a nice sunny day. Aaron also mentioned going on a boat on the River Thames.

For him, it was a birthday party, was it? I think it was. There was live music and people partying. But boat trips on the Thames, another great thing that you can do if you have a chance to take a boat trip. And in fact, there's the kind of river. Is it the river bus? River taxis? There is public transport on boats on the river. So it's a good idea to take a boat trip.

up the river in central London it's a great way to see the sights from a different perspective so there you go art galleries in Pimlico take Britain the claw gallery for the works of Turner a rowing boat on the serpentine especially if you are a teenager and you're there with your your girlfriend having a lovely time that can be a fun romantic thing to do and

and taking a boat trip on the River Thames. You'll hear more from Aaron later in the episode, in part two probably, but if you want to hear more from him, you can hear him in a very early episode called Weird or Just Different, where we talked about cultural differences around the world.

That was episode 93 with my brother, Weird or Just Different. He's also in episode 134, which is called The Story of Salvo, which is all about the band that we used to be in.

Has he been in other episodes? I'm not sure. Those are the two main ones that spring to mind. We'll hear more from Aaron later on. Now, let's move on to person number six. And this is Moz, otherwise known as Michael from the Murder Mile True Crime podcast.

Moz is a friend of mine from doing stand-up comedy in London. And as I've just mentioned, he's also a podcaster. He does the Murder Mile true crime podcast full of interesting and slightly spooky dark stories of murders which have been committed, a lot of them in London. And

Moz used to do walking tours in the city and he's got lots of knowledge about different parts of the city. So this is what Moz has to say about what he likes to do in London. And it's not murdering anyone or even solving murders. There's no murder involved. It's something much more wholesome than that. Anyway, I'll stop talking. This is Moz. Here we go.

Hmm. What is my favorite thing about London and why? Hmm.

It would have to be all the pubs. Of course, all the pubs. The great thing about London is you can navigate your way across the city just using pubs. You don't need to need to use street names. You can literally go, there's a 10 bells. There's the dog and duck. There's the frog and lettuce. There's the blah, blah, blah. And you can navigate your way across the city. And the great thing is that all absolutely entirely different. What I really love is

There's one pub that I particularly like in Soho, and it's called The Coaching Horses. Most pubs in the United Kingdom are either called The Red Lion, I think is the favourite one, or The Coaching Horses.

Cochrane Horses is great. It's been there since the 17th century, well, 18th century. You walk in there, it's got the tiny doors that you can barely get through, that people kind of of our era can't get through, because obviously in the olden days they were shorter and thinner. And you walk in and the floor is sticky, because it's had like hundreds of years of beer on the floor. And you walk along and your feet go...

and you look at the ceiling and the ceiling back in the days when you could still smoke has had 300 years worth of people smoking so it's thick with tar and you go in there and there's no fancy kind of stuff in there you go in there and you ask for like a

there's local beers that you go in there and there's always kind of the old boys in the corner who've been sitting there forever. Like it's their pub, it's their boozer. They sit there, they sit in their regular seat. They have their newspaper, they have the routine, they know the bar staff and they love it. And nothing has changed.

And recently, Fuller's, one of the big kind of brewing brands, was taking over the pub and we were absolutely gutted. We were, oh, we were incensed because it was like suddenly our favorite pub was going to change and Fuller's were going to come in and we thought they'll turn it into a gastropub.

And it'll be full of poncy, pretentious food where people are kind of going, oh, look, it's a micro burger the size of a fingernail. Oh, well, that'll cost 30 quid. Thank you very much. And one chip, but one chip that's been cooked by a Michelin starred chef. And we just thought, oh, it's going to be horrible. And they closed it down. They reopened it. We walked in on day one.

And they'd clean the floor. They'd put in a proper cash register, kind of a till, so that worked. Everything was as it was, and they'd fix the toilets. Fix the toilets! They used to be at the urinals.

You used to, as you were urinating, as you were having a little boy tinkle, you'd look in front of you and the panel would be missing and you'd see all the pipes, all the water pipes, and they were all fuzzed over and horrible. And it was like looking into the devil's anus. It was horrible. Not that I've ever looked at the devil's anus, but I can imagine what it looks like. And they'd fixed it. The whole pub was beautiful. So that's what I love about London is every pub is different. Every pub has history.

It's like a history lesson on every street. The only difference is you can get pissed there. Brilliant. Okay, that was Moz talking about pubs, of course, and very entertaining that was too. Let me just go through some of the things that Moz said there, bits of vocab and stuff like that. So he started by talking about, was it the Coach and Horses pub? Yeah.

because it has these tiny doors and you can barely get through them. So tiny doors because the pub was built, you know, hundreds of years ago when people were shorter. These days people are much taller on average and so it's difficult for most people to get through the doors. So they have these tiny doors you can barely get through.

If you can barely do something, it means you can do it, but it's really difficult and you can almost not do it. Right. I could barely understand what he was saying, for example, means I could only just understand. Right. So if you can barely do something, you can do it, but it's really difficult and you almost can't do it. I could barely understand. We could barely squeeze through the door.

The floor in the pub is sticky. So if something is sticky, it describes the fact that maybe it's dirty with something, maybe some sort of like a sweet, I don't know, like a sweet liquid, or in this case, beer has been spilled on it and it's dried up a bit, but it's...

A bit like if you spill orange juice on the table, you leave it for a day and then you touch it, it'll be sticky, right? Your fingers will stick to it. Yes, the floor in this pub is sticky because it's had hundreds of years of beer spilt on it. Um...

You look at the ceiling. Now, there was a little trace of a Midlands accent there because Moz originally comes from the Midlands as well. So he talked about the floor, the walls. Did he mention the walls? I don't know. But he did mention the ceiling or the ceiling accent.

So that little g sound, little telltale sign there that Moz has his roots in the Midlands as well. The ceiling, he said it's thick with tar. Tar is that kind of black, oily substance which comes from cigarettes. It comes from the smoke in cigarettes. You know, if someone smokes a cigarette...

The filter of the cigarette goes yellow. It goes a yellow colour because it's been stained by tar. And this is one of the reasons why smoking is so unhealthy, that there is tar in the smoke and it sticks to the lungs. It's a black, oily, carcinogenic substance. But the ceiling of the pub is thick with tar, so it's stained with the tar.

residue of tar from so many cigarettes from all the years. These days, it's illegal to smoke indoors in a pub in England. Um...

He talked about the old boys, the old men who are regulars in this pub. He said, it's their boozer. It's their boozer. A boozer is a kind of colloquial word for a pub, right? Booze means alcoholic drinks and a boozer is a pub. Commonly used slang word. He mentioned the fact that... Was it talking about the coaching horses? I think so. Still talking about that. He said that fullers...

had taken over the pub. Now, Fullers is the name of a brewery based in London. I think they're based in Chiswick or nearby in West London. So it's a brewery, a company that brews beer, a beer company, which also owns lots of pubs. It's a big company. It's a big company. They own a lot of the pubs in London. And because it's a big company,

What Moz and his friends were worried about was that they would take away all of the original, authentic, local character, the individual character of this pub, when they took it over, that they would clean it up and turn it into something different. And Moz said, when Fuller's, one of the bigger brewing brands, it's taken over the pub and we were all, we were gutted.

We were incensed. So gutted means just really disappointed. Another slang word, typical British English. We were really disappointed. We were absolutely gutted. Oh, no, I can't believe it. We were incensed. If you're incensed, it means you're very angry. Lovely word, that one. Absolutely incensed. We were gutted. We were incensed.

Meaning really angry. Oh, no, I can't believe they've turned... Fullers! Oh, for God's sake, they're going to ruin it. We were incensed. We were gutted. They're going to turn it into a gastropub. A gastropub is a sort of, I guess, fairly recent, relatively speaking, invention. It's maybe something that's sort of become popular in the last 20 years or so, I suppose. A gastropub. Gastro, not gastroenteritis, but gastronomic gastro.

Gastronomic food. Gastronomic food is kind of very, let's say, artistic, high-end food. OK. You think of gastronomic restaurants are ones where, yeah, exactly. The chef is highly trained and specialised and maybe has a Michelin star and, you know,

The food that you get in gastronomic restaurants is very artistic, but also very expensive and very small portions. It's very carefully made and prepared to the highest standards. And it's all about the presentation and it's all about subtle flavours and textures. But it's arguably very pretentious food.

And poncy, which is the word that Moz used, which is just a, again, a sort of more slang word, more informal word that basically means pretentious. Again, very much a British word there. But actually, when...

When they discovered what Fuller's had done to the pub, they were pleasantly surprised and relieved that they hadn't really changed it that much. They'd just cleaned it up and fixed certain things, and that actually they'd left it more or less exactly the same, which was a big relief. And they'd improved it. They installed a proper cash register, or till. So this is the thing that the staff use when you pay for your drinks, and

The money goes into the till or it goes into the cash register. Cha-ching! You know, that's the sound it makes when it opens. And in the toilet, in the men's toilets, right? In the men's toilets. So in toilets, right? In public toilets or toilets in pubs or restaurants, you have, you know, typically you would have the sink where you can wash your hands, which, you know, hopefully you do every time you leave the toilet. Right?

But you also have cubicles, which are the little places where there's a toilet and you can lock the door. So there are individual cubicles which might be occupied or available. Right. But also in men's toilets, there are urinals.

which are things on the wall. You can have individual urinals, or you might have a kind of a long urinal, which is like a sort of a long, let's say, trough thing with a draining system. And men can stand at the urinal in order to urinate, or as Moz said, to have a little boy tinkle, which is sort of like baby language for describing doing a pee, doing a wee-wee.

So there you go. That's just some of the language that Moz used in his very descriptive and humorous recording there. You also may have heard the sound of geese. These are birds, you know, large birds with long necks that live on or near water. You heard a group of geese apparently flying past, doing their call.

That was on the recording. That wasn't in your life. Don't worry, I don't think there are any geese marching through your home or anything like that. So if you heard the sound of geese, that's because Moz lives on a canal boat on the water and he is often surrounded by ducks and geese and other bird life like that. So, yeah. So the sound of geese in the background is a normal thing in the world of Moz. Okay.

Actually, this is another thing I could mention as an interesting feature of London, and that is the various waterways that you can find in the city. It's not just the River Thames, but there's also quite an extensive canal system across parts of, mostly parts of the north of London, and that includes central London.

And the canals obviously are a kind of leftover from the industrial period when the canals were used for transporting lots of goods and materials in and out of the city. But the canals are still there and they are really interesting place to visit, the sort of thing that you might not consider.

London's canals offer a really charming and lesser known way to explore the city. They're often quieter than the streets and they are packed with interesting spots. There are ways to go from place to place via the canals, which is a really good idea if you want to have a nice walk or even a bike ride. I'm going to tell you about three main spots first.

for accessing the canals or three places where the canals are surrounded by other interesting things. So you've got Little Venice, which is near Paddington Station.

And this is actually a kind of very nice spot, a beautiful, peaceful basin, which is where several canals meet. It's where the Grand Union Canal and Regent's Canal meet each other. And you will see lots of very colourful narrowboats. Narrowboats are these long boats which go on the canals. Floating cafes.

You know, cafes on boats. There's the Canal Boat Theatre and other interesting things. You can get there from Warwick Avenue Underground Station or Paddington Station. And it's a good starting point for a walk in an easterly direction along Regent's Canal, which is the next thing I can tell you about. So there's Regent's Canal,

can take you to Regent's Park and London Zoo. So you walk east from Little Venice towards Camden Town.

along regents canal and um it kind of takes you across the northern edge of regents park which is another large green space and it passes through the back of london zoo in fact you can see some of the animal enclosures from the towpath of the canal if that's your cup of tea i know some people don't like zoos which i kind of understand um

But it's a very peaceful stretch through some elegant houses, tree-lined paths. There's a bit more nature. You will see ducks and geese and swans, possibly. And it's just a lovely thing. You can also see some interesting bits of graffiti, and that's a good idea. And then if you keep going, you can make your way all the way to Camden Lock.

which is part of Camden Market in Camden Town. And this is a really cool spot, definitely worth a visit. It's a really sort of busy, bustling area. At the weekend, you will see food stalls, markets, street performers, boat rides on the canal. And you can look for, you can notice the lock mechanisms in action because canals have locks, right?

which work as the water management system. They control the flow of the water and essentially allow canals to go up and down hills, which is a really kind of interesting bit of engineering. So you can see the locks in action. There's live music often and other cool things that you can do, eat, listen to, drink and so on.

so on. You can get there from Camden Town Underground Station or Chalk Farm Underground Station, or just walk straight into the lock through Regent's Canal. And one more thing, King's Cross Station. So round the back of King's Cross and round the back of St Pancras Station, there is a fairly newly developed area, which is called Granary Square.

and this is a continuation of Regent's Canal east from Camden all the way through to the King's Cross area. It's a new development.

It's kind of stylish. There are fountains for kids to play with, you know, those fountains in the ground that shoot jets of water up. There are lots of restaurants. There's lots of places to sit next to the canal and have a coffee or something. So have a look at that as well if you're in town. I mean, some of you, most of you probably are kind of like far from London, not going to be going there in the near future, but still, you know,

Hopefully it's interesting to hear about these places and to get a sense, even a remote sense, of what the capital city is actually like.

Now, Moz has been on Luke's English podcast lots of times, most recently in episode 770, in which he talked about living on a boat and told some stories of murders which happened in London. So if you'd like to hear more, you could listen to episode 770. But there's been lots of appearances from Moz over the years. He was also in the infamous drunk episode number 109. So that was Moz. Moving on now, who is next?

Well, actually, this is going to be the last person in part one here. And yes, I'm going to divide this episode into two parts. So this is going to be the last person in part one. And who is it? Well, it is my mum. And yeah, you know, my mum, because she's my mum. So let's hear what she has to say about favourite things to do in London then. Hello, Luke. This is your mum.

London, as you know, is an amazing city with loads of places to go and things to do. But on top of my list are visiting art galleries and to go to the theatre. And there are many chances to do both of those things. My favourite art gallery is the National Portrait Gallery. Unfortunately, I haven't been there for years and they recently reopened after a refurbishment. It's apparently better now than ever, so I must try to get there before too much longer.

I've been to the theatre in London many times, having particularly enjoyed productions at the National Theatre on the South Bank, the Royal Court on Sloane Square and Shakespeare's Globe.

Lovely. Thanks very much to Mum for sending that recording in and taking the time to do it. So, yes, galleries and theatres. And another vote for the National Portrait Gallery, which has been mentioned several times now. But, yeah, it is one of the highlights, for sure, the National Portrait Gallery. Again, that's in Trafalgar Square, right next to the National Gallery. And remember, that's a place that you can just pop in because it's free of charge. Absolutely.

And so you can just pop in and have a look around. And as my mum said, it's recently reopened. It's reopened, opened again after a refurbishment. That means they've done work probably on the inside of the building, although you can refurbish the outside of a building as well. But if it's been refurbished, that means that they have probably repaired or fixed certain things that needed to be repaired or fixed.

And they've redecorated. So they've maybe given it some new paint or basically made it look all new and clean and nice and generally have refreshed the place. So if a place has been refurbished, it means it's been repaired, redecorated, refreshed, refurbished.

So it all probably looks wonderful. So that's certainly a thing that people like to do is to pop into the National Portrait Gallery, see some wonderful pictures of famous people through the years, including some significant historical figures. She said that she particularly enjoyed productions at the National Theatre. And I just wanted to point out that use of English, particularly enjoy, to particularly enjoy something.

So you might enjoy lots of things, but if there's one thing that you enjoyed more than the others, you could say that you particularly enjoyed that one. And can you say that? I particularly enjoyed productions at the National Theatre.

So another mention there of the National Theatre, that is that modern looking, well I say modern, sort of mid-century building theatre on the South Bank. That concrete building there, which is that iconic building on the South Bank. And Mum also mentioned Shakespeare's Globe, of course, which is a fantastic thing.

It's a very faithful reproduction of the original Globe Theatre that was there, which I think burned down in the Great Fire of London. Hold on, I need to fact check that one. Okay, so apparently, according to Shakespeare's globe.com, that's their official website, it didn't burn down during the Great Fire. It burned down earlier than that in 1613 during a performance, actually, during a performance of Henry VIII.

a misfired prop cannon so that would be a prop like a kind of a thing used an object used during a play in this case it was a cannon which was not like a large gun you know a thing that would fire cannonballs explosives inside and you'd light the fuse and bang a

The explosives go off and a big metal cannonball goes flying out the end. So a misfired prop cannon. So it misfired. Something went wrong when it was fired. This caused the thatched roof to catch fire. The roof is thatched or it is thatched. The new version is thatched as well, but the old version was certainly thatched. A thatched roof is a roof made of lots of sticks or lots of pieces of hay that

Right. Normally roofs are covered in tiles. Right. That's the surface of the roof. But a thatched roof is covered in sticks or hay. Quite a common form of roof in the past in England. And the Globe Theatre had a thatched roof. So, yes, this misfired prop cannon probably sent fire.

a spark or a burning piece of material up into the roof, into the thatch, and it caused it to catch fire. And the entire theatre burnt down within two hours.

according to eyewitness reports, and miraculously no one was killed. But still, wow, what a dramatic moment, and the end of the original Globe Theatre. But it was recreated a few years ago, and it's a really interesting spot. And if I've never actually seen a play there, I would love to, but it must be a lovely experience. It's an open-air theatre as well, so it's kind of like, it's circular, it's round, and in the middle, it's open.

So it must be a very interesting thing to do, to go and see a play there. If you've ever been there, let us know in the comments section what was it actually like. So that was my mum, and she is going to be the last person in this episode. I really hope you've been enjoying this. I've really been enjoying this because it's lovely to be able to listen to the voices of these people who I know so well. And, you know, when you just hear their voices, it really kind of...

Makes you think of them and their character, their personality. It's been very nice for me. Thanks again to everyone for sending in those recordings. So yes, there's been quite a lot of vocab throughout that I've been pointing out.

You'll find a list of the vocab on the PDF for this episode. Let me just remind you of some of the things. So we had to pop somewhere, right, to pop next door to the other gallery or to pop in or pop out, pop to the shops, pop to your friend's place, right? To take the pressure off doing something. Like the fact that the gallery is free really takes the pressure off feeling. So it's take the pressure off feeling.

It takes the pressure off feeling like you have to stay there for ages. You can just pop in to be tucked away. Something can be tucked away somewhere, meaning in a location that's perhaps difficult to see or difficult to notice. But it's it's got a nice feel to it. A narrow staircase.

If you remember, narrow, the opposite of wide. A narrow street, a narrow staircase, a narrow corridor, a rickety staircase. Rickety, a rickety staircase, a rickety chair, a rickety old bicycle. Not completely stable, could fall apart.

Nooks and crannies, these are little places in a, maybe in a room or in a home, little corners, little shelves, little alcoves, small spaces. They could be small spaces where you can put objects or small spaces where you could perhaps position yourself, like sit in a little corner. So a pub, I can't remember which pub it is now, but it was full of nooks and crannies.

The same pub had two floors of cellar, so cellars, rooms below ground. Buskers and busking, if you remember, buskers, street performers. What do they do? They busk. So you can see people busking in the street. A rowing boat on the Serpentine, a rowing boat where you can row. How do you row? What do you hold onto with your hands? They are oars.

If there is a narrow doorway, it's difficult to get through. You might need to squeeze it through and you might say that you can barely get through, right? If you remember, you can barely get through. You can barely hear something. You can barely understand someone, meaning you cannot. You can pretty much hear, understand and get through, but almost not.

Sticky. If you remember the word sticky, the floor in the Coaching Horses pub was sticky. The ceiling right over your head, the ceiling was stained. Stained with what? Stained with tar from cigarette smoke. What's another word for a for a pub? A sort of slang word for a pub. It's a boozer. This is where you can go to buy booze. What do you call a company that makes beer, that produces beer?

Like Fuller's, for example, based in Chiswick, the ones who brew London Pride and other beers, that is a brewery, a brewery, right? And...

What's the word that means to take control of a business? Like, for example, when one large company takes control of a smaller company, like, for example, a brewery like Fuller's buys a small independent pub. Well, they take over that pub. So we do talk about takeovers, right? A corporate takeover. Merchandising.

mergers acquisitions takeovers an acquisition and a takeover are basically the same thing and the phrasal verb is to take over something how did Moz feel when he heard that Fullers were going to take over his favorite pub he felt gutted which is a slang word meaning very disappointed and angry what was the word he used he was incensed which is extremely angry

And he was concerned that they were going to turn it into a certain type of pub, if you remember, a gastropub, which would serve kind of pretentious food or poncy food, as he described it.

But they didn't do that. They just sort of refurbished it, in fact, and in a very tasteful way. They kept it almost exactly the same, but they cleaned it up, refurbished it very nicely, installed a new... What's that machine in shops, in restaurants, where the money goes? It's a ch-ching, if you remember, a cash register or till machine.

They fixed the toilet. Apparently in the toilet there was a place where you could see the pipes, but they fixed all that. Do you remember some of the words for things in the toilet? What do you call those places with doors where you can lock the door? Right, that's a cubicle. And in men's toilets they have these things on the wall which allow men to urinate directly into them. They're called urinals or urinals, two different pronunciations.

Moz lives on a boat, and in the background you can hear noises. You could hear animals. What were those animals? They were geese. So that's the plural of goose. One goose, two geese. What do geese do? They honk, actually. And they make that kind of honk, honk, honk kind of sound. That's honking. Same word that we use for goose.

The sound of beeping your car horn. That's also known as honking a horn on your car. And what else? My mum said that the National Portrait Gallery had been refurbished and she particularly enjoyed productions at the National Theatre. There was also the thatched roof of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre as well. And thatch, yes, to thatch a roof, a thatched roof.

And a Thatcher is traditionally a person who would make roofs like that. Margaret Thatcher, that's where her name comes from. It's kind of a traditional name. That's what a Thatcher is, someone who makes thatched roofs. Not that she ever did that. Obviously, she, that's another story for another time. She was a chemist, actually, before she became a politician. Anyway, that's a fun fact for you.

Right, that's the end of this episode. I'm going to stop now because this is going on too long. This has been the length of a football match with a little bit of additional time for injuries at the end here. So I'm going to stop here. Leave your comments in the comments section. I'm always interested in hearing from you, reading your thoughts and stuff. But we will continue in part two. When will that be available? I'm not sure it might be available right away. Maybe I'll publish the two episodes at exactly the same time. But check your episode list.

Part two might be available for you already. Yes, PDF for this episode as well. You'll find a link in the description. It'll be vocab list and a full transcript for every single word. So if you want to check in there, if you want to search for words, if you'd like to read this as well, that can be a very good thing to do to reinforce the things you've heard is to actually see the words written down.

that's an important step. If you want to take that step, if you want to push your English further, if you want to take the time to do that, or if there was a word or something that you didn't, you're like, what was that, Luke? You didn't explain that thing. Or what did that person say exactly? Check out the PDF transcript and you can see every single word and that can be a good idea. But that's the end of this part and I will speak to you again in part two, which will be available for you very soon, if not immediately. But

But for now, I will just say goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teachaluke.co.uk.

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