941. The Man Who Could Work Miracles ✨ (Learn English with a Short Story)
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Hello listeners, welcome back to Luke's English Podcast. How are you doing today? I hope you're doing fine. So it's time for another story episode. In this one, I'm going to tell you a story and help you to use it

to learn English. That's the idea. Now, there are plenty of things that I could say in the introduction to this episode. I could talk to you about how you could use this story to improve your English. And I could teach you some bits of vocabulary that I feel that you need to know at the beginning before we get started. And I could say other comments and things. But you know what? I'm not going to do any of those things this time.

Instead, I'm going to jump straight into the story as soon as possible. So what you could do is you could consider this to be a sort of

mini test of your listening skills. Can you understand the story? Can you follow it? Can you deal with those moments when perhaps you don't understand certain bits of vocabulary? Can you follow it all the way through until the end? I will explain lots of things afterwards. After I've done the story, I'll explain quite a lot of stuff. I'll summarise what the story means in my own words. I'll discuss some of the themes of the story and I'll also go through some of the vocabulary

But let's just get straight into it. One thing I should say is that, yes, this story was written by HG Wells. It was written and published over 100 years ago. But if you're worried about learning old-fashioned English, don't worry, because I've adapted the text of this story. I've updated all of the English. So the details of the story, the tone of the story is still the same.

but I've changed the English to make it modern, up-to-date English, so you can be sure that the English that you can hear and read in this story is all the kind of English that we still use today. Okay, so old story, but modern English. Let's just get started straight away. You can find the text of this story, everything I'm reading, on the PDF for the episode, which is available in the description, right in the episode show notes.

just under this episode. Have a look in there. You'll see a link where you can get the PDF, where you can find the story text. But let's just go for it, okay? I'm going to start the story now. I'll read the whole thing to you. It's about 5,000 words long, so it should take me how long? 10, 15, 20 minutes to do the story, and then I'll explain a lot of stuff afterwards, okay? Right, so this is The Man Who Could Work Miracles...

by HG Wells. Here we go. It's doubtful whether George Fotherington was born with his special power. Personally, I think it came to him suddenly. Up until the age of 30, he didn't believe in anything supernatural. In fact, he was a total sceptic.

Now's probably the best time to describe him. He was a short man with bright reddish hair that stood upright, hot brown eyes, a moustache he liked to twist at the ends and a face full of freckles. His name, George McWhirter Fotherington, didn't exactly sound like someone destined for greatness.

He worked as a clerk at a shop called Gomshots, and he absolutely loved arguing and debating, especially if it meant proving other people wrong. It was actually during one of those heated debates, while he was loudly insisting on this particular occasion that miracles were impossible, that he first realised something strange was going on.

The argument took place in the Long Dragon pub. His opponent was Toddy Beamish, who kept responding to Fotherington's long-winded claims with a frustratingly calm, so you say, which he did over and over again. It was enough to push Fotherington to the edge of his patience.

There were a few others in the bar that evening, a dusty cyclist, the pub landlord Mr Cox, and Miss Maybridge, the barmaid, who was busy washing glasses with her back to the group. The others were half listening, half smirking at Fotherington's overconfident tone. Wound up by Beamish's stubborn replies, Fotherington decided to go all in.

"'Look, Beamish, let's be absolutely clear about this, all right? "'A miracle is something that completely goes against the laws of nature, "'the laws of science, and that's just impossible, isn't it? "'Anyone who knows anything knows that. "'The only way a miracle could happen "'is if someone somehow willed it to happen with their mind. "'But obviously no one has the power to do that, right? "'It stands to reason.' "'So you say,' replied Beamish again, still calm and annoying.

Fotherington turned to the cyclist, who hadn't said a word so far, and asked for backup. The cyclist gave a small awkward cough and nodded in agreement. The landlord refused to get involved. But when Fotherington went back to Beamish, he was surprised to get a reluctant, alright maybe, to his definition of a miracle.

'Great!' said Fotherington, encouraged. He began to illustrate his point, even though it wasn't really necessary. 'So here's an example. See that oil lamp? Naturally it couldn't be hanging upside down and still working, right?' 'Well, you say it couldn't,' said Beamish. 'Oh, come on,' said Fotherington. 'You're not seriously saying it could?' Beamish gave in.

"'No, all right, it couldn't.' "'It would be ridiculous,' said Fotherington. "'Imagine someone walks up to that lamp, like me, "'and says, putting all their willpower into it, "'turn upside down without breaking "'and keep burning steadily like this.' "'He pointed.'

And then, all of a sudden, something incredible happened. The lamp, the ordinary, very real lamp, above the bar of the long dragon, flipped in the air and hung upside down, still lit, its flame pointing downwards. Everyone in the room froze. Fotherington stood there, finger raised, eyebrows scrunched, expecting it to fall and smash.

The cyclist ducked and leapt across the room. Everyone else jumped in shock. Miss Maybridge turned around and screamed. The lamp just hung there for a few seconds, perfectly still. Then Fotherington gasped, I can't hold it much longer, and stumbled backwards. The lamp flared up, crashed into the bar, bounced off, shattered on the floor and went out.

Thankfully, the lamp had a metal base, or the whole place might have gone up in flames. Mr Cox, the landlord, was the first to say anything, and once you stripped away all the swearing, he basically called Fotherington an idiot. But Fotherington couldn't argue. He was too stunned. He had no idea how he'd done it. The others were furious. They all thought he'd played some stupid trick and smashed a perfectly good lamp in the process.

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

It wasn't until he was alone in his tiny bedroom on Church Row that he could start to think clearly. He took off his coat and boots, sat on the edge of the bed with his hands in his pockets and kept repeating, I didn't mean for the bloody thing to flip, did I? Then it hit him. At the exact moment he'd said those words to the lamp, he hadn't just spoken them, he'd actually willed them.

And when the lamp floated, he'd somehow known it depended on him to keep it there, even though he had no idea how. He wasn't the most deep-thinking man. Otherwise, he might have got lost pondering how someone can accidentally will something to happen. But the thought came to him in a simple, foggy sort of way. So, naturally, he decided to test it.

Feeling a bit silly, he pointed at his candle and focused hard. Lift up into the air, he said. To his astonishment, the candle rose, hovered for a second and then dropped, bouncing off his dressing table and plunging the room into darkness. The only light left was the last faint glow of the candle wick dying out. He sat in the dark, frozen. So it did happen, he whispered.

and I've got no clue how or why. With a deep sigh, he fumbled in his pockets for a match. Nothing. He checked his coat. Still nothing. Then he had a thought. If he could work miracles, maybe he didn't need matches. He held out his hand into the darkness. Let there be a match in this hand, he said. He felt something small and light fall into his palm. A match.

He tried a few times to light it, and then he realised it was a safety match, the kind that needs a special surface. Annoyed, he tossed it away. Then it occurred to him. He could have just made it already lit. So he tried again. This time he said, let it be burning, and sure enough, it appeared on his table, flaring on the mat.

He grabbed it quickly and it went out, leaving a little black scorch mark and a thread of smoke curling into the air. Now fully intrigued, he put the candle back in its holder, pointed at it and said, "You, be lit!" The flame came to life instantly. He stared at it, then glanced at himself in the mirror, eyes wide, mouth open. He met his own gaze and asked quietly,

Still think miracles are impossible? After that candle trick, Fotherington sat still for a while, just staring into the flame. His thoughts were all tangled up. The only thing he could be sure of was that somehow things happened when he willed them to. That was the key. But the strangeness of it all made him nervous. He decided not to try anything too wild until he'd thought it through a bit more.

Still, he couldn't help experimenting. He pointed at a glass of water and turned the water pink. Then he turned it green. Then, with a bit more effort, he created a snail. A moment later, he panicked and made it disappear again. Then he made himself a brand new toothbrush, just for fun.

By the early hours of the morning, he'd come to a conclusion. His willpower must be something truly rare and powerful. He'd always had a feeling there was something unique about him. Now, at last, he had proof. His fear and confusion were slowly being replaced by a sense of pride. He could do something no one else could. He even started imagining how it might benefit him. Then the church clock struck one.

As impressive as his powers were, he still had to be at work in the morning. Unless, of course, he could will himself out of it. But that idea felt a bit much for now. Instead, he began getting ready for bed. While pulling his shirt over his head, he had a flash of inspiration. "Let me be in bed," he said. And just like that, he was lying under the covers. "Undressed," he added quickly. And then, "in a nice soft woolen nightshirt."

He stretched, smiled and sighed with contentment. And now, he said, let me fall asleep, nice and comfy. The next morning, Fotherington woke up at his usual time. But he wasn't his usual self. He sat quietly through breakfast, wondering if everything he remembered from the night before had just been a dream. Then he decided to test things carefully.

He had three eggs for breakfast. Two of them came from his landlady, decent enough but a bit stale. The third, however, was different. He willed it into existence himself. A perfectly fresh goose egg, cooked exactly how he liked it. It was delicious. And with that, he was sure it hadn't been a dream. He rushed off to Gomshot's, trying to act normal but brimming with quiet excitement.

He couldn't concentrate on his work at all, but it didn't matter. He simply made up for lost time in the last ten minutes with another miracle. As the day went on, his wonder turned into confidence, even joy. That said, he still cringed at the memory of the whole Long Dragon Lamp incident. To make things worse, his co-workers had heard a twisted version of the story, and now they were teasing him about it.

Clearly, he needed to be more careful. Lifting things into the air might cause a scene, especially if they broke. But other kinds of miracles? They could be done discreetly. He began planning little ways to improve his life. At one point, he conjured up a dazzling pair of diamond shirt studs. They looked brilliant. But then young Mr. Gomshot came over and Fotherington panicked. What if he asked where they'd come from? He quickly made them disappear.

It was becoming clear that this gift needed caution. It was like learning to ride a bike. You had to practice and stay alert. That's probably what pushed him to go for a quiet walk after dinner out past the gasworks, where he could try a few more miracles in private. He didn't have the wildest imagination.

and outside of his miraculous powers he was still a very ordinary man. But one image came to mind, a biblical one: Moses and his rod turning into a snake. By the way, in the Bible there is a story in which Moses turns his rod, that is his stick, into a snake, performing a miracle to impress an emperor.

Fotherington considered trying that, but it was too dark for anything that dramatic. So instead, he remembered a story he'd read about Tannhauser, printed on the back of a concert programme. It had something to do with enchanted flowers, and it seemed harmless enough. By the way, in the opera, the character's wooden staff blooms with flowers, for some reason, another miracle in myth or culture.

Fotherington took his walking stick, a nice one from Puna, Penang, stuck it upright into the grassy edge of the path and said, Suddenly the air was filled with the scent of roses. He struck a match and held it up to see. The stick had indeed sprouted flowers, bright, beautiful, fragrant roses. He was admiring his work when he heard footsteps approaching.

Worried he might be discovered, he panicked and said, ''Go back!'' He meant, ''Turn back into a stick,'' but instead the stick shot backward at high speed and smacked straight into the legs of the person coming along the path. ''Ow! Who's throwing bushes around, you idiot?'' shouted a voice. ''That hit me right on the shin!'' ''Oh, er, sorry, mate,'' said Fotherington, flustered and tugging at his moustache.

The voice belonged to Winch, one of the local police constables. "'What the hell was that?' said Winch, limping forward. Then he squinted at Fotherington. "'Wait, it's you! You're the bloke who smashed that lamp at the Long Dragon!' "'Erm, I didn't mean anything by it,' said Fotherington, backing away. "'Then why'd you do it, eh? Oh, oh, come on!'

muttered Fotherington. Not again. Not again, Winch repeated. You've assaulted a police officer, you have. That's what this is. Fotherington couldn't think of a decent excuse. In the end, the truth came out in a rush. Um, I was working a miracle, he said. Winch stared at him. A what? A miracle, Fotherington repeated, trying to sound casual. Winch gave a loud snort. Oh,

"What a load of rubbish! You don't even believe in miracles! It's just another one of your stupid magic tricks!" Fotherington realised too late that he'd just revealed his secret, his incredible power, to someone who would never understand. Frustrated and angry, he snapped. "Oh, I've had enough of this," he said. "Just go to hell!" And in a blink, Winch was gone. Fotherington stood frozen. Winch had vanished.

He hadn't planned it, not really. He was just so fed up, and the words slipped out before he'd thought them through. 'I didn't mean that much,' he muttered. 'Not really. It's such a powerful gift. I wonder what hell is actually like.' Feeling shaken, he trudged back to town, keeping his head down. He didn't bother checking what had happened to the flowering stick. He just wanted to get home and lie low.

Back in his room, sitting on the edge of his bed, he took off his boots with a sigh. Then a thought struck him. Maybe he could fix things. Maybe he could send Winch somewhere else, somewhere less eternal. He quickly transferred the constable to San Francisco and then went to bed. That night, he dreamed about an angry Winch, red-faced and furious, trying to find his way back across the ocean.

The next day, Fotherington heard two pieces of news. Someone had planted a beautiful climbing rose bush against the house of old Mr. Gomshot on Lullaburra Road, and Constable Winch had gone missing. They were dragging the river for him. That weighed heavily on Fotherington's mind all day. He managed to finish his work on time, miraculously, of course, but he was completely distracted.

His thoughts were all over the place, buzzing like a swarm of bees. Several people noticed how quiet and thoughtful he was and made jokes about it. But he couldn't stop thinking about Winch. That Sunday evening, he did something unusual for him. He went to chapel.

Mr Maydig, the preacher, a thin, excitable man with a long neck and wrists, happened to be giving a sermon about things that aren't lawful, touching on miracles and mysterious powers. Fotherington, who wasn't normally a chapel-goer, sat bolt upright, his scepticism now seriously shaken. Something about the sermon struck a chord.

He waited until the end, then made up his mind. He'd talk to Mr. Maydig. Why hadn't he thought of it earlier? After a few delays and some curious glances from the congregation, Mr. Maydig brought him into his study behind the chapel. A warm fire crackled in the fireplace and Mr. Maydig stood in front of it, casting a long shadow on the wall as he said, So, Mr. Fotherington, what can I do for you?

At first, Fotherington was nervous. You probably won't believe me, he said. Well, he danced around the subject for a bit, then tried a question. What's your view on miracles, Mr Maydig? Well, said the preacher, adopting a thoughtful tone.

"'Fotherington cut in again. "'Do you think it's possible that an ordinary person, "'someone like me, say, might have some kind of inner power, "'something that lets them do incredible things just by willing them?' "'It's possible,' said Mr Maydig cautiously. "'Something like that might be possible.' "'Well then,' said Fotherington, "'if you don't mind, I'd like to show you something, just a small example.'

He pointed at a tobacco jar on the table and said, Turn into a bowl of violets. The jar shimmered and turned into a bowl of fresh violets. Mr Maidig jumped in shock. He leaned over, sniffed the flowers and stared at Fotherington. How did you do that? Fotherington tugged on his moustache. Just told it to, he said.

"'Is that a miracle, or black magic, or something else entirely? That's what I want to know.' Mr. Maidig was completely speechless. "'And I only discovered this a week ago,' Fotherington added. "'It's just sort of started happening. Must be something strange about my willpower.' "'Is that the only thing you can do?' asked Mr. Maidig. "'Oh no, I can do a lot more.' Fotherington paused, remembering a magic show he'd seen once.'

"'Watch this!' he pointed at the flowers. "'Changed into a bowl of fish. "'No, I mean a glass bowl full of water with goldfish swimming in it. "'It happened instantly. "'Clear water, golden fish flicking their tails. "'I could change it into anything,' said Mr Fotherington. "'Just anything. Here, be a pigeon, will you?' "'In another moment, a blue pigeon was fluttering around the room "'and making Mr Maydig duck every time it came near him.'

"'Stop there, will you?' said Mr Fotherington, and the pigeon hung motionless in the air. "'I could change it back to a bowl of flowers,' he said, and after replacing the pigeon on the table, he worked that miracle. "'See?' he said. "'And now, back into your tobacco jar.' Mr Maydig picked up the jar carefully, turned it in his hands, and placed it back on the table. "'Well,' he said softly."

"'That's why I came here,' said Fotherington. "'I needed to talk to someone about it.' Then he began telling the whole story, the lamp at the pub, the candle, the match, the toothbrush, the snail, and, of course, Winch. As he spoke, the sense of mystery and awe in Mr. Madig's face slowly shifted to something more like admiration.'

By the time Fotherington mentioned the third egg, Maidig raised a trembling hand. "'It is possible,' he whispered. "'Incredible! But it fits! A gift! A rare, powerful gift! I always wondered about the miracles of Muhammad, the yogis, Madame Blavatsky. But yes, yes, this could be a deeper lore, something hidden beneath the surface of ordinary nature.' His eyes sparkled.

"'Go on.' Fotherington went on to describe his incident with Winch, how, in a moment of anger, he'd accidentally banished the constable to hell, then, feeling guilty, moved him to San Francisco instead. "'And now,' said Fotherington, "'I don't know what to do. He's probably confused, maybe scared out of his mind, and furious too. I keep having to send him back every few hours, whenever I remember.'

But of course, he doesn't understand what's going on. He might even think that he's losing his mind. If he keeps buying train tickets trying to get here, it's going to cost him a fortune. He paused, scratching his head. Oh, and I thought afterwards, what if his clothes got scorched in hell before I moved him? If that happened, maybe they arrested him for public indecency in San Francisco. I gave him a new suit once I realised, but still, I'm in a bit of a mess.'

Mr Maidig looked very serious. ''Yes, yes, this is getting complicated.'' He started pacing, waving his arms as he thought. ''Let's set aside the winch situation for a moment. What we're dealing with here isn't evil or black magic. There's no criminality about it. What you're doing, it's miracle-working, pure and simple. And not just any miracles, top-tier miracles.''

He stopped and pointed at Fotherington. "'My dear Mr Fotherington, you are a man of enormous importance. You could be the key to amazing things. There's so much good you could do in the world, in society.'

Well, I've had a few ideas, said Fotherington, although some of them came out a bit wrong. Like that fishbowl earlier. First it turned into the wrong sort of fish and then the wrong sort of bowl. That's why I thought I ought to ask someone. You were absolutely right to come to me, said Mr Maydig. Completely right. This gift, it's limitless. Let's test it. Let's really see what you can do.

And so, incredible as it may sound, on the evening of Sunday 10th November 1896, in the small study behind the Congregational Chapel, George Fotherington, urged on by the wide-eyed and excitable Mr. Maidig, began performing miracles.

At first, they were small ones, the kind of tricks spiritualists or stage magicians might pretend to do, turning teacups into flowers, making the fireplace flicker green, floating sugar bowls. Mr. Maidig watched in awestruck silence, occasionally whispering extraordinary and remarkable things.

Fatherington wanted to deal with the winch situation right away, but Maidig stopped him. 'Let's begin with the easy stuff,' he said. 'We'll work our way up.' As they continued, their confidence grew. Soon they were chatting excitedly like old friends, planning all the good they could do. Eventually they moved into the dining room. Dinner was set, but it was miserable: a cold, dry bit of meat and a couple of stale biscuits. Mr Maidig sighed.

my housekeeper mrs minchin he said isn't exactly a culinary genius fotherington looked at the table would you mind he said if i fixed this by all means what would you like mr maydick asked for something modest but fotherington went with what he fancied

"'I'll have a nice pint of stout and a proper Welsh rarebit.' And just like that, the table transformed. A rich supper appeared, steaming hot. Stout in a tankard, a cheesy rarebit bubbling on the plate. They sat, ate and talked miracles. After a while, Fotherington looked up and said, "'You know, maybe I could help you with Mrs Minchin.' Mr Maidick looked uncertain.'

"'She's a bit sensitive, truth be told. Doesn't take well to being told what to do. And it's nearly midnight. She'd be asleep by now.' Fotherington thought it over. "'Couldn't I just improve her a little while she sleeps?' At first, Maidig resisted the idea. It felt risky. But eventually he agreed cautiously. "'Well, OK. I suppose so.'

Fotherington whispered the command, that Mrs Minchin should become a better, kinder, more thoughtful woman. They returned to their meal, both a little tense now, listening for any sign it had worked. Then, noises from upstairs. Voices, a door opening, glass breaking. Maydig rushed out. Fotherington heard him calling up to the housekeeper, then soft footsteps on the stairs.

A few minutes later, Maidig returned. His eyes were wide. His face shone with amazement. "'She's changed,' he said. "'Truly changed.' She woke up and, in tears, smashed her secret bottle of brandy and confessed everything through the door. "'It's the most touching repentance I've ever seen.'

He began pacing again, hands raised to the heavens. This opens a whole new world. If we can do this with one soul, imagine what we can do for everyone. The success with Mrs Minchin left both men buzzing with excitement. If they could reform one person in her sleep, what else could they achieve? Mr Maydig started reeling off ideas, wild, enthusiastic plans to change the world for better.

He wasn't just talking about fixing a few local problems. He meant global reform, a moral revolution, ending vice and misery, uplifting all of humankind. Fotherington, still chewing on the last bite of his rare bit, nodded along. Seems like there's no limit, he said. And about winch. Yes, yes, yes, we'll sort winch out in good time, said Maydig, brushing the issue aside. He was too excited to focus on one missing policeman.

this is about everything mr fotherington the whole world they stayed up well past midnight performing miracles together starting small and getting bolder eventually they slipped out into the quiet streets under a full moon ready to put their plans into action

They moved like a pair of giddy schoolboys, Maydick flapping his arms, full of dramatic gestures, and Fotherington short and bristling with excitement, no longer shy about his powers. They began with acts of kindness and reform. They instantly sobered up every drunk in the area. They turned all alcohol into water. Over Fotherington's objections, he had a fondness for stout, but Maydick insisted.

They improved the railway lines, fixed potholes, drained the muddy swamp at Flinders Lane and made the soil on One Tree Hill rich and fertile. They cured the vicar's stubborn wart. They even began discussing what could be done about the collapsing pier down at South Bridge. "'The town won't know what's hit it,' cried Maydig, breathless with joy. "'Just imagine the surprise, the gratitude!'

Just then the church clock struck three. Oh no, said Fotherington, suddenly worried. Three o'clock already. I've got to work at eight and Mrs Wimms will be up soon too. We're only just getting started, said Maydig. There's no rush. Think of all the good we're doing. Think of all the lives we'll change.

Fotherington hesitated. Then Maidig stopped walking, his eyes wide with inspiration. "'My dear chap,' he said, pointing up at the moon. "'Do what Joshua did.' "'Joshua?' Fotherington blinked. "'In the Bible,' said Maidig. "'He stopped the sun in the sky. "'You can stop the earth. Freeze time. "'That way we'll have all the time we need to finish everything.' Fotherington looked doubtful.

"'Oh, that's a big ask.' "'Well, why not?' said Maydig. "'You won't be doing any harm. You just stop the rotation of the earth. No big deal.' Fotherington took a deep breath. "'All right, then. I'll see what I can do.' He pulled his coat tight, straightened his back, and said in as firm a voice as he could manage, "'Stop spinning, will you?'

He never finished the sentence. The very next second, he was flying through the air, head over heels, at an unimaginable speed. Everything blurred. His thoughts barely kept up, but somehow he had time to think. Make it stop. Let me land safely. Let me be all right, no matter what else happens.

He willed it just in time. His clothes were already starting to singe from the friction as he plummeted. Then, thump, he landed in a heap of soft earth. A second later, something huge and heavy smashed into the ground nearby, spraying dirt everywhere. It was the church clock tower, or what was left of it, tumbling apart like a bomb had gone off.

A cow flew past and exploded against the rubble. The world around him was collapsing. A roar of wind, dust and destruction echoed in every direction. Lightning cracked overhead. Trees had been ripped from the ground. Buildings just piles of splinters and rubble. The viaduct, once solid iron, lay twisted and snapped in a tangle of metal. You see...

When Fotherington stopped the Earth's rotation, he hadn't thought about what would happen to everything on the surface. The planet had been spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and now, suddenly, it had stopped. Everything and everyone on it was flung forward as if fired from a cannon. The result? Total annihilation.

Fotherington didn't understand the physics, but he could see the aftermath. The destruction. The eerie glow of the moon still hanging overhead in the unmoving sky. Everything around him was chaos. He groaned. Oh, Lord, this is a disaster. What have I done? He scrambled to his feet, but was nearly knocked down again by the violent wind. Where's Maydig? What happened to the town? He looked around, terrified.

This is a right mess, and I didn't even ask for the wind. That wasn't part of it. The dust stung his eyes. He dropped to his knees. Okay, okay, think. I've got to fix this. And then he saw it, a wall of water in the distance, towering above the ruins, surging toward him like a vast tidal wave. No, no, no, no, no, no! He shouted. Wait! Just stop! Just one moment to think!

He held up his hand, shielding his eyes. Right, let's get this right this time. Fotherington crouched in the dirt, bracing himself against the roaring wind. The giant wave was still coming, a wall of water crashing toward him through the wreckage of the world. He could barely think, barely breathe. Right, he muttered, gritting his teeth. Let's do this properly. He took a deep breath and

"'planted his hands in the earth for balance "'and shouted into the chaos, "'even though his voice was almost drowned by the gale. "'Let nothing I'm about to order happen, "'nothing at all, until I say off. "'Got that? "'No changes, no miracles, not until I say so.' "'The wind howled, the sky cracked with thunder, "'and Fotherington kept his eyes squeezed shut. "'Okay,' he said, "'here's what I want.'

His voice was shaking, but his words were clear. "'First, take away my power, all of it. Let me be ordinary again. No more miracles. I don't want them anymore. It's too much. It's too dangerous.' He paused, catching his breath. "'Second, rewind time. Put everything back the way it was, just before the lamp flipped upside down at the long dragon. Let everything be exactly as it was. No one harmed, no one dead, nothing destroyed.'

another pause and make sure i forget all of this let me be just exactly as i was let the world be exactly as it was he dug his fingers into the dirt ready then at the top of his voice instant stillness no wind no sound no pressure

Fotherington opened his eyes. He was back in the bar of the Long Dragon, standing just as he had been at the beginning of the story. He was talking to Toddy Beamish. The barmaid was still washing glasses. The dusty cyclist hadn't moved. The lamp hung, perfectly normal, above their heads. And he remembered nothing.

That entire wild adventure, the floating lamp, the fish, the roses, the smashed world, it was all gone from his memory, wiped clean. Because Fotherington, now without his miraculous powers, had restored everything. And so the conversation picked up exactly where it had left off. I'm telling you, said Fotherington, miracles are impossible. They can't happen, not properly, and I'll prove it if you like. Well...

"'That's what you think,' said Beamish. "'Prove it, then.' "'All right,' said Fotherington. "'First, let's be clear about what a miracle actually is. "'It's something that goes against nature, "'caused purely by willpower.'

And off he went, arguing just as assertively as ever, blissfully unaware that for one extraordinary night he had been the man who could work miracles, and he'd brought about the total destruction of the earth and everything on it, including you. The end.

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Benefits, features and or devices vary by plant area limitation and exclusions apply. Well, there you go. That is the story of the man who could work miracles. It actually took a little bit longer than I thought. I thought it would take me about 15 minutes or something, but it was longer than that. But so you made it then you made it all the way through to the end. And well, what was that? What did you think of the story? Leave your comments in the comments section. I've got some questions for you.

So first of all, yeah, what did you think? Do you think the story has a deeper meaning? Did it end in the way you expected? What did you think? Now, I have to just make sure that you've understood that. Of course, you won't have understood everything, you know, depending on your level of English, of course. There will definitely be details that you didn't get, probably specific bits of vocabulary. But the aim, the idea of this episode really is just to, was to give you a

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

extraordinary in any way, an ordinary man, really. He worked as a clerk at a shop. That just means that he was an office worker doing general office work, nothing in particular, really. And he was the sort of person who liked having debates about things. He liked discussing, debating and arguing. And also he was a sceptic.

right? Someone who didn't believe in supernatural things or didn't believe in probably religious things, divine powers, the powers of God or things like miracles. And we meet him at the beginning of the story. He's in a pub and he's having a discussion with someone. There's a few people around and he's probably, I think he's maybe a slightly stupid character, maybe slightly irritating character, someone who

perhaps likes the sound of his own voice and is very sure of his own opinions and likes to debate things, especially if it gives him a chance to prove other people wrong. And he's, yeah, he's a, he's a skeptic, right? And we all know skeptics, you know, some of them are famous, you know, on YouTube, you get people who are famous skeptics and they get involved in, you

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

prove other people wrong. And he begins by discussing miracles. So miracles are extraordinary things that can't be explained by science or the laws of nature, right? Now, if your first language is based on Latin or comes from Latin or was influenced by Latin, then you'll have the word miracle in your language, I suppose. In other languages, the word will be different. Okay, but a miracle, yeah, it's...

Like, for example, Jesus in the Bible performed various miracles, right? He turned water into wine. He was able to walk on water. He fed thousands of people with just a small amount of food.

These are miracles performed by Jesus in the Bible. So this is what miracles are, right? Amazing things that can't be explained by science. And at the beginning of the story, Fotherington is arguing that miracles are impossible. And I don't really understand the way he's about to prove this, but he points at a lamp which is hanging in the bar, right? A lamp, probably an oil lamp that...

that burns oil to give light to the room. Obviously these days we have electric lamps

But he points at the lamp and he says something like, miracles can only happen if someone wills them to happen. To will something to happen is to make it happen with the power of your mind. Your will is your sort of determination or power of your mind. And we can will things to happen. Normally, we can will ourselves to do things like, for example, to will yourself to stay awake. If, for example, you're listening to an episode of a podcast and you're starting to feel sleepy.

You might will yourself to stay awake. Or if you're in an English lesson and it's really important that you don't fall asleep, you have to will yourself, you know, will your eyes to stay open. Come on! Or you might will your favourite football team to win the game. You know, come on! Use the power of your mind to make something happen. Use your willpower to will something to happen. So he's saying if miracles are impossible, they can only happen if someone wills them to happen.

And then he demonstrates how this is impossible by pretending to do a miracle. But to his surprise, the miracle actually happens. And the thing he's pretending to do actually happens. And he discovers that his willpower is incredibly powerful. He has the ability to perform miracles. Now, in the story, this is not explained. We don't know how he's got this power. It seems to be completely random.

And maybe this is kind of the point of the story is that we're taking this

perhaps slightly arrogant person who's so convinced about rationality and a scientific view of the world. And we, in the story, we're giving him miraculous powers to see what happens. And I mean, I'm going to explain the themes of the story in a moment, but anyway, he gets this miraculous power. The lamp floats in the air upside down. Everyone's shocked and surprised and

Then he loses control of the lamp and it smashes on the floor. Luckily, it doesn't catch fire because an oil lamp like that could catch fire that he could have burnt the pub down. So everyone's angry with him and everyone thinks that he's done some sort of trick or whatever. And everyone's furious with him and they think he's an idiot and he's embarrassed and humiliated and he leaves.

But he can't comprehend what has happened. And he goes home and thinks about it and slowly realizes that he's able to perform miracles. And so he starts experimenting. And because he's not the most imaginative person, all of the miracles he does are quite small, stupid ones, like creating a snail and then getting worried and then making the snail disappear forever.

um he's an ordinary slightly stupid man who's been given this extraordinary power we don't know why there's no mention of this coming from god there's no mention of it being god's work or anything in fact it's it seems to be completely random anyway um

He experiments with it and he kind of realises that he can put himself into bed quickly. All of the miracles he performs are pretty unimaginative and small scale things. But then the next day he goes to work and he's distracted by his miracles. He doesn't really get any work done, but he uses a miracle to kind of get all his work done in the last 10 minutes of the day. And then he decides that he's

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

practice his miracles on his own. And because he doesn't really know what kind of miracle he should perform, he remembers the story from an opera that he read about once in which one of the characters performs a miracle by turning their stick into a flowering tree. And so he puts his stick in the ground and makes it blossom with roses, you know, and he's kind of amazed by this. And then he hears someone coming

And he tells the stick to go back, meaning go back to normal. But he gets it wrong and the stick goes flying back and it hits this person who is approaching, hits them in the legs. It's dark at that time. So, you know, they can't see each other very clearly. But the stick flies quickly and whacks the guy in the legs. It turns out this is a police officer.

And he's angry. He's saying, you've just assaulted a police officer. What are you doing? And the police officer realises that it's Fotherington. And he has heard about what Fotherington did in the pub. And the police officer is not very happy with him. And Fotherington isn't really able to think very quickly. And he gets angry as well. And he doesn't know what to do. And he just says to the police officer, oh, go to hell.

Which is the sort of thing you might say, meaning, oh, you know, go away. And he says, go to hell and winch. The police officer disappears. So, of course, he's just sent him to hell and he goes home worrying about this. Why doesn't why? Why he doesn't just bring him back alive.

But he's worried that if he brings him back, then the policeman is going to be angry with him and he's going to come looking for him and he doesn't know what to do. So he's worried that Winch is in hell and he doesn't know what that's like and how that might be. And so he sends him to San Francisco, which is, I suppose, somewhere far away.

But he's worried he doesn't know how to deal with that. And he's worried about Winch. And he thinks that maybe Winch will be furious and he'll be trying to get back from San Francisco. So he keeps having to send him back.

And then he's thinking, oh, God, maybe his clothes got burnt off when he went to hell. So he gives him a new set of clothes. And anyway, he knows that the whole winch thing is a real problem and he's concerned what might be happening. And yeah, what is happening to winch? He's suddenly gone to hell, suddenly finds himself in San Francisco. Goodness knows what's going on with him.

But anyway, Fotherington is now worried about all of this and concerned, and he goes to church. He goes to the chapel, which is not something he normally does. And by coincidence, the priest, the preacher, is delivering a sermon about miracles. And Fotherington is like, um,

really gripped by it and listens to everything and is sort of suddenly shocked by this and decides that he has to talk to Mr. Maydig, the priest, and thinks, why didn't I think of this earlier? So he talks to the priest about this and he shows the priest what he can do, shows him his power, and the priest, Mr. Maydig,

um, is, uh, amazed and suddenly inspired by this and decides that this must be some sort of God given power. And he quickly decides that Fotherington's power is incredibly significant and he gets very carried away by all the possibilities, all the good things that they could do. And Maydig is also not the most intelligent character either. Um,

And he just gets very, very carried away with the potential for doing, for what he says, what he calls doing good.

And this means reforming everyone's soul, saving everyone in this sort of like a small minded church of England kind of way, making them stop drink alcohol or doing other things, improving the town. So they fix a bridge. They, they, uh, um, they do lots of little things in the town, slowly performing bigger and bigger miracles. Um, and then, uh,

They realise it's three o'clock in the morning and Fotherington, still quite small-minded, panics and goes, oh, I've got to be at work in the morning. He doesn't realise that he could just, you know, he's got power to do absolutely anything. He doesn't need to go to work anymore. But he's still worried about getting to work on time the next day. And Maydig, who perhaps is slightly more broad-minded or slightly more imaginative,

says, oh, well, you could just, you know, you could just stop time. You could, and he refers to Joshua, I think is another character in the Bible who I think makes the sun stop in the sky or something like that. He says, you could stop time, just stop the earth from spinning and stop time. Yes, and that's what Fotherington does. But of course, if you stop the earth from spinning, what actually happens is that

Everything on the surface of the earth is destroyed because the earth is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, right? And if you suddenly stop it, everything would fly forwards in the same way that if you're driving in a car at a hundred miles an hour and bam, you suddenly hit a brick wall and the car stops instantly. Everyone in the car goes flying through the window, right? Yes.

If the Earth is spinning at a thousand miles an hour and suddenly it stops, then all things on the surface would just go flying forwards, which is exactly what happens.

Everything goes flying forwards, total chaos. All the trees are uprooted, all the buildings are just turned into rubble. The clock tower goes flying through the air. Somehow, in the middle of all of this, while he's flying through the air, Fotherington manages to will himself to land safely. And he does, of course, and there's a huge wind blowing, um...

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

he just about has time to make a couple of final miracles happen. And he sent, essentially he,

He reverses time. He's kind of got the presence of mind to be able to do that, to reverse time, go back to where he was before all this happened and to forget about it all and to remove his miracles because they're too dangerous. And that's what happens. And everything goes back to where they were at the beginning. He's in conversation. He's still debating with Toddy Beamish in the pub.

Except now he doesn't have his power anymore and he doesn't remember anything. And so for just one night, the world was completely destroyed. Everyone on it was killed for one night. But of course, none of us realise that that even ever happened. Yeah, so there you go. That's pretty much what happened. MUSIC

Hello, let me just interrupt myself here. It's actually the next day at this moment that I'm recording this part of the episode. It's the next day and I've decided to keep recording in order to add some more stuff to this episode, just to make sure that you're getting all of the added value that you may have come to expect from episodes of Luke's English Podcast. So I'm going to add some more stuff in.

in this kind of second part of the episode. Before I do that, I just want to know...

Well, first of all, I want to just check in with you. How are you doing? Are you doing all right? How's the episode for you at this point? And I'd like to encourage you to share your comments in the comment section. What is your interpretation of this story? Now, certainly on one level, it's just a kind of a fun, humorous, lighthearted story with a kind of a funny twist at the end, an unexpected twist at the end. But also, there are deeper meanings and

more interpretations that we can read in this story. What is the author trying to say? What is it that makes this interesting? When I read this, when I first read this story and I discovered it in that book of short stories, which I talked about a couple of years ago, it's a book that I discovered in a lending library in a supermarket in England. I spotted the book. It was like this very old book

uh, very old aged looking book on the shelf. And I had a look and it said HG Wells short stories. And I thought, fantastic. I love HG Wells and I haven't read his short stories. I'll take that. One of those lending libraries where people just leave books and you can leave other books and pick up books and whatever. So I got it, had it in my pocket, my coat pocket for a few weeks. I talked about this on the podcast a couple of years ago. Uh, and, uh,

One day at lunchtime, I found myself in that lovely square in Paris next to the fountain that I talked about. And I sat and I read from that book and I really enjoyed the stories. And this is one of the stories that I discovered in there. Now, the original text might be worth reading, actually, because, you know, the text I read to you.

was adapted and modernized. The original text might be interesting for you to read as well, just as a comparison. So you can compare the old fashioned language, which is actually more complex, but old fashioned, and the version in this story. So that could be kind of an interesting exercise. But anyway, when I read it, I was really...

how do you describe this? I was really kind of gripped and it really got my imagination. I just absolutely loved these stories because they were so kind of unexpected, but also they felt very fresh. HG Wells wrote this work over a hundred years ago, but he's very well known. He's famous, HG Wells. He's very famous as an author for being ahead of his time. And he kind of

almost invented the science fiction genre before it even existed. He was one of the first people to write this kind of very imaginative work. And he also wrote other things later in his career. He wrote one book which is full of genuine predictions about the future of humanity and the future of human society. And it's really, really...

interesting to read how accurate his predictions were. So a very interesting writer in the sense that his imagination was based on a sort of scientific understanding of the world. And he, using that understanding, was able to see how things might go in the future. But this story, of course, is a sort of interesting combination of

seeing the world from a rational scientific point of view, which is what Fotherington does at the beginning. And he's a little bit arrogant about that. You know, he loves to argue that the superstitious or supernatural thinking or religious thinking, belief in miracles is obviously untrue. And he's very sure of his opinion. And then on the other hand, obviously in the story, there's this miraculous element, which completely disproves,

his worldview. So it's an interesting mix of these ideas. But anyway, I'd like to read your comments. I'd like to know your thoughts. So please do write some things in the comment section. First of all, what is your interpretation of this story? Do you think there's any kind of deeper meaning? Is there any symbolism? What does the story mean to you? Does it make you think about the world in any way? Does it make you think about things like...

a rational point of view, a more superstitious point of view, or about maybe human actions and the impact that humans might have on the world if given a lot of power.

In this case, it's a miraculous power. But if humans got a sort of incredible power allowing them to do all sorts of things, what kind of impacts might that have? In fact, what kind of impacts might that have already had on the world? If you consider things like the technology that we've developed over the last hundred years.

Right, the industrial technology and the impact that that's had on the world. And now, of course, artificial intelligence and the power that is at our fingertips...

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

Now, do you just listen to the story and just enjoy it, which is fine? So here are some options of things that you might do. And the good news is that all of these options are good things to do. So do you just enjoy the story, just listen to it or read it once? Or do you listen to it and then find the PDF and read the story as well? So you listen and read.

Do you kind of go into the text and start to analyze the language in any way? Do you pick out bits of vocabulary and research them and maybe use something like ChatGPT or online dictionaries to make sure you've understood those phrases, to understand the way that they fit into sentences, maybe do some practice exercises with them, recall them in your vocab notebooks and things. Do you actively work on your vocab with these stories?

Do you repeat after me? Are you doing any kind of shadowing or anything like that with these stories? Now, obviously, this one was quite long. It took, what was it, about 30 minutes, 40 minutes to read the whole thing. So shadowing all of that will be a difficult thing. But that's OK. You can just focus on a section of the story. And, you know, maybe you speak out loud sometimes.

After listening to a story like this, you can do what I did just now, which is to summarize the story in your own words. All of those things are really good things to do. And so if you do any of those things, that's great. But anyway, share your... If you have any kind of method, even if it's just, I'll just listen to the episode, Luke. That's it. Even if it's just that, let us know in the comments section.

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

And when you encounter new words or unknown words or phrases, what do you do? So again, some more options. And again, the good news is that all of these options are good things to do. So do you A,

When you've come across new words, do you just keep going? In this case, keep listening to the story and not get too worried about the bits you don't understand. Just focus on the bigger picture. Just focus on the general understanding and just keep listening to understand the main story. Do you do that? Or do you when you encounter new words and phrases, do you actively try to guess what they mean?

by maybe looking at the sentences around the word, the other words around it, looking at the grammar, working out the part of speech, trying to quickly make a decision about whether this is, let's say, a good thing or a bad thing, or what the meaning of the word or phrase might be. Do you actually actively guess the meaning of unknown words, which is a very good skill to practice and to develop,

To an extent, you almost, you could say that you develop that one almost subconsciously. It's a natural process when you read and listen a lot. When you come across new language, you naturally sort of like start to fill in the blanks and you get a general sense of what a phrase might mean. But anyway, do you guess new words or do you check words? So when you come across something new, do you stop and use a dictionary or

For example, an online dictionary like dictionary.cambridge.org. Do you stop and use a dictionary to check the meaning of new words? Or do you let most of the words go, but maybe check the ones that seem to be important? Like if there are words that often come up and you just sort of stop and think, wait a minute, what does that word actually mean? And then check it. So what do you do when you come across new words? Just carry on?

Do you guess what they mean? Do you check all of them? Do you just check some of them? What do you do? So, interpretation of the story, how to learn English with these stories.

and new vocabulary. These are actually things that I would like to talk about right now in this part of the episode, okay? So we'll start with meanings and interpretations of the story. What does this story really mean? Here are my thoughts, okay? And I'll just run through these reasonably quickly. So this is a satirical fantasy story about

exploring what might happen if an ordinary person suddenly gained godlike powers. So it's a satirical story. It's satire. Satire is work, normally humorous work, like stories or comedy shows or films. So this is a satirical story. Satire then, yes. Uh,

comedy, let's say, or humorous work, which also aims to kind of criticize something, maybe criticize something in society.

Often satire criticizes politics or politicians. In this case, this story seems to satirize something about human nature or something relating to human attitudes towards the world. You know, rationalism, the scientific view versus a more perhaps supernatural spiritual view of the world.

you know, and sort of seeing what happens when these things collide with each other, or at least when a rational person finds that they have miraculous powers, how their worldview is challenged.

And, you know, stuff like that. So, yeah, it's humorous and light on the surface, but there are deeper meanings as well. I wanted to talk again about HG Wells, the writer, who I just I'm such a huge fan of his work, as you can probably tell. But I wonder how Wells came up with this idea that came up with the idea for this story. Now, bear in mind that this was decades ago.

maybe a century or something before, this kind of story was done by Hollywood, for example. And we've seen various kinds of films or TV series that explore similar things, like people gaining incredible powers and then what happens as a result. You know, like there's that Jim Carrey film. What's it called? Oh, God, I can't remember.

What's the Jim Carrey film where he gets godlike powers? Okay, that's the one. It's called Bruce Almighty. So there's that. But there have been other films and series and stuff, but I'm sure this is one of the first ever stories where these ideas were explored.

But how did he come up with the idea? Maybe he thought something like this. Maybe he just thought, what if a normal, ordinary person suddenly discovered they had a miraculous power? What would happen? What logically might happen next?

From the person discovering their power to using it, making mistakes, trying to correct them and getting more and more ambitious. What would be the logical steps and how long would it take for things to go profoundly wrong in that situation? And what does this tell us about humanity? There's a point, I think, about the combination of human ignorance and great power

could lead to catastrophe. And this, you have to say, is very profound at the moment. You know, this story shows us how absolute power in the hands of someone who lacks wisdom or lacks imagination or lacks a sense of restraint or even a sense of huge knowledge about the world, giving that person incredible power can lead to disaster.

In the story, Fotherington and also Maydig, they have a limited understanding of how the world works. Fotherington doesn't really understand basic physics, and as a result, he doesn't know how to use his power responsibly, and he brings about the end of the world, or at least at the end of human civilization, which, of course, makes me think of that quote from Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility.

which is what Spider-Man's uncle tells him. It's part of the Spider-Man canon, you know. It's an important moment in the Spider-Man story, his uncle telling him this, with great power comes great responsibility, which is what gives Spider-Man that sense of duty, that public duty, that he has to use his powers for good. But it's a universal truth, isn't it?

You have to have a huge amount of responsibility, but also you need to have an incredible level of wisdom and knowledge in order to wield massive power in a responsible way.

And, you know, this makes me think of the dangers of humans having advanced technology that can profoundly damage life on Earth. This includes nuclear weapons, but also just industrial technology that has completely transformed human civilization over the last 200 years, but which might have seriously affected the balance of nature on Earth. So humans, we have these incredible powers.

With the technology that we've developed, if you think about the things that we have advanced and invented in just a very short space of time, when you consider all of human history, this tiny little millimetre of human history has seen so much expansion in terms of the power that we have. But do we have the kind of understanding, the wisdom, the foresight,

to be able to use this kind of technology in a responsible way without it ultimately being destructive. Now, it's worth remembering that this story was written and published in 1898, long before humans invented weapons that could destroy all life on Earth, and before we realised how much damage humans could do to the world, I think, which again impresses me in terms of HG Wells' vision.

We also have AI now, of course, artificial intelligence, which gives us all a tool that can do anything we ask it to. I mean, to an extent, to an extent, of course. But you know what I mean, right? We suddenly now, all of us, have access to this machine, let's call it. It's software, but you can kind of ask it to do something and it does it instantly automatically.

Of course I mean writing things, producing work, but also images, video, audio. It's getting to the point where just a click of your fingers and you can get whatever you want. It is almost miraculous. It almost feels like a miraculous power.

And I think we all had that experience when we first used proper AI, generative AI, like something like ChatGPT, our first experience with that, which probably happened within the last couple of years for most of us.

was quite a profound experience, really. You know, when you first use software like ChatGPT, it does feel a bit like a miracle machine. And we have all had that experience of asking it to do whatever we want and then being stunned when it does it. And I don't know, maybe I'm reaching a little bit to make this analogy, but reading about Fotherington testing out different things in his room

a snail and then making it go away and sort of realizing the little things he can do and starting to cheat at work and stuff like that. It did remind me or make me feel maybe the closest thing in life that I could compare that to is just the first time you use chat GPT and you kind of go, oh my God, this is, this is, I could do anything with this, you know?

But even that is the tip of the iceberg. It's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the power of AI and the ramifications that it will have on society and the way it will affect everything about the way we live. And that is not an overstatement. That is just, I think, a fairly reasonable statement about the...

the significance of AI into our society. So do we have the wisdom to use this incredibly advanced technology? How will it affect civilization now that we've let it out of its box, as it were? How will this impact the world as we know it? And that's just not me being paranoid. Experts

Lots of experts are talking about these sorts of things and giving these kinds of warnings. Experts warn that unleashing super intelligent AI could lead to catastrophic consequences like loss of human control, societal collapse, or even human extinction if AI systems act in ways that conflict with human interests. And if you want more of that kind of

Doom-laden podcast content, you could listen to episode number 909, which is all about the impact of AI on human civilization. Episode 909, if you haven't heard it. But basically, the concern is that once an AI reaches a level of superintelligence, it would be too late to contain it because it would already think several steps in advance of us.

You know, like in a game of chess, you know, you've got to think you've got to be able to think a number of steps ahead of your opponent. As soon as an AI reaches a certain level of intelligence, it will quite quickly be able to think a number of steps before us. So if you think, for example, don't worry, we'll always have control over AI. We'll just be able to unplug it. Well, it will think faster than us and it will make sure that that doesn't happen.

Anyway, I'm starting to sound paranoid. And I know that whenever I talk about these sorts of things, people in the comments section go, well, there's nothing to worry about, Luke. We created AI. Therefore, we will always control it. But that's not necessarily what the experts say, which is a sort of a stunning thing to think about, really. Anyway, how did I reach that conclusion that Fotherington's miraculous power is like the AI which we have developed? How did I come to that conclusion? Well, maybe it's just on my mind a lot.

And, you know, I'm not the only one, of course. You know, it's one of the major things of our time, isn't it? Major subjects. But in the story, Fotherington uses his power unwisely and it has terrible consequences that he didn't anticipate. And I'm not talking about AI stopping the rotation of the Earth, because obviously I think that's impossible. But AI presents us with something sort of similar. Incredible power, but

but also potential consequences that are beyond our control or understanding. Maybe that's one of the things that caught my attention with this story. I just felt it moved me in a way that, you know,

I don't always get with just funny fantasy stories. Catastrophe, so a terrible thing happening, a disaster. Catastrophe is not just caused by people doing evil things. There's another idea that this story made me think, right? Disasters don't always just happen because people are being evil, right?

Even attempting to do good things can have unintended consequences because we don't understand everything. So we just make mistakes. Fotherington is actually trying to do good things, mostly, and may dig, but his well-meaning yet naive attempts to improve the world spiral out of control, culminating in the destruction of the earth, or at least most of life on its surface. Yeah, so, I mean, what about you? If you had Fotherington's power, what would you do with it?

what would be the first thing you would do? And how far would you go? Would you start to do really big things, really big ambitious things? And how far would you go? Now, at some point, I'm sure it would start to get very complicated for you, if you can imagine. This is what I think anyway. Maybe I'm just a pessimist. But imagine...

Eventually, if you were doing big things, it would get complicated. And eventually, you'd probably be saying things like this. You'd end up saying, okay, so stop time, but don't let anyone age or remember that time stopped. And don't let me age either, but also make everyone freeze so they're not moving. But I can move. But if I touch things, they don't get affected unless I want them to.

You can see that as you start to use your powers for bigger things, you'd start to get more... Things would start to get more and more complex, and you'd have to think of every possible consequence of your actions and account for them. So I think it would be a bit of a nightmare, really. I think the story also has these themes of superstitious thinking and rationalism, and it's a sort of a critique of the two of them, to an extent.

The story begins with a debate in a pub about the possibility of miracles. With Fotherington's argument, Wells criticises superstitious thinking and blind faith, but he also invites us to question the arrogance of Fotherington's scientific beliefs. So he...

Wells somehow manages to criticise or satirise both viewpoints. Fotherington's scepticism in all things supernatural is quickly proven wrong when a miracle actually happens. So as well as criticising superstitious and religious thinking, the story also critiques rigid, rational thinking. And this reminds me of a quote from Hamlet.

That quote from Hamlet is this. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. So in the play, Hamlet has been told by the castle guards at the start that the ghost of his father has appeared to them. So Hamlet's been told that the ghost of his father is walking around. Hamlet and his friend Horatio go up to the battlements of the castle

and the ghost appears to them. And Horatio is a practical, rational, down-to-earth scholar. He's a sort of scientific thinker, and he is stunned by the vision of the ghost. He's shocked by it. He doesn't believe in ghosts. And he says, oh, day and night, but this is wondrous strange. So he can't believe his eyes. And Hamlet replies, well, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than I dreamt of in your philosophy.

And he's suggesting that human imagination is limited and that there are many things we don't know, including things that haven't been discovered and, in fact, things we haven't even dreamt of. So even science or a scientific rational view of the world isn't quite sufficient, that actually there is a lot more to the world than this viewpoint is.

But anyway, HG Wells chooses this moment to prove how the existence of miracles can't actually work within the rules of our world, I suppose. Hmm.

So, yeah, the world is mysterious. The presence of Fotherington's miracle powers has no divine explanation. I mean, Maydig says that it's a gift, but there's no sense to it, really. And Wells doesn't suggest that God has anything to do with it. It all just seems quite random, suggesting that the universe is not controlled by divine intervention, by the...

by the actions of God, but also that there is no rational or logical sense to the world either. So the world is just a weird, mysterious place without order, either divine or rational. That's nice, isn't it? It's always nice to remember that. So those are just some interpretations I had, just some random waffling, some rambling from me in an attempt to pin down or describe what

what the story made me think. But sometimes, you know, it's hard to put into words these feelings that you get when you, let's say, read a story that catches your imagination or you watch a film that really kind of grabs you. Sometimes it's just a sense of wonder and mystery and it's hard to put it into words, but it's quite fun to try.

So, those were my interpretations. You might think differently. Again, if you have things to add, please put them in the comments section. So, I mentioned before about the question of using a story like this to improve your English.

I just wanted to add some things here. So just listening to or reading stories like this is good. It's really good for your English. So well done you. You did the right thing by listening to this episode. Reading or listening to English regularly is a really important thing to do, as well as doing more deliberate studying and stories regularly.

obviously are a great way to do this because they're usually quite compelling you want to know what happens next they're quite immersive you get stuck into the story and you kind of maybe forget about everything else and you just focus on what's going on in the story this is a good state to be in for absorbing English in a kind of subconscious way I don't know if that is

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

just don't listen or read enough and their English suffers as a result. And I say that as an English teacher, having met thousands of learners of English in my career, and most of them probably weren't doing a lot of reading or listening outside the class. They just basically decided, right, I need to learn English. I'll sign up for an English course and that will be my 30 hours or 60 hours or 90 hours. And that will be me.

And obviously that time in the classroom with me and the other students or whoever the teacher was, that's obviously very valuable and very good. But we all know that you've got to be in it to win it. And that means that you've got to

immerse yourself in English in a meaningful way and reading a lot of stories and listening to a lot of stories like this is a great thing to do. So keep it up, keep doing it. You're doing the right thing. One of the reasons people don't listen or read enough in English is because they don't understand everything.

Right? And they don't like the experience of reading or listening to something that they can't completely understand. But being able to tolerate uncertainty or being able to tolerate not understanding things is an important skill in learning English. So relax. You won't understand everything, but just try to follow what you're hearing or reading. And doing that is a good exercise. And the more you do it, the more you're able to understand. So again, keep it up. You're doing the right thing. Well done. You give yourself...

A good pat on the back for doing the right thing for your English. Guess meanings of new words. When you meet vocabulary you don't understand, notice it and try to make a quick guess of what it means. I've mentioned before that when you're just listening, it can be harder to notice new language because it's just sound and it's just words and you can't... Once they've been spoken, they're gone. They're ephemeral.

And so it's harder to notice new words or phrases when you're listening. So it's a good idea to, if you've listened to a story like in this episode, to go and read the story again, to read it as well, as well as listening to it, find the PDF and actually read the story too, because that can be...

a good way of making sure that you're noticing new language. And also, it will reinforce the impact that the English is having on you by listening to it first, experiencing it in the sort of the oral version of English, and then reading it afterwards can be a very good thing. And when you're reading it, you have more time to stop and notice new language. You can see it. There's that visual element as well.

So combining the oral version of English with the written version of English is an important thing to do. You get more of a rounded...

view of the language that way. Try to work out the grammatical part of speech of any new words. Is it a noun, a verb, adjective, adverb? What function is it having in the sentence? When you get familiar with these basic structural ideas, the syntactic sort of building blocks of English, when you just understand the grammar of the word or phrase that you're trying to understand,

when you get that, then that goes a long way in helping you to understand how that vocab works. And also consider the context of the grammar and meaning around the word. For example, deciding if it's a phrase, if this word is part of a fixed phrase, is it a phrasal verb like point out, you know, something like that. It's not just point, it's point out.

So decide if it's a phrase or if the meaning is generally negative or positive. You know, making these little inferences, even if you're not completely perfectly guessing the meaning, just taking these extra steps makes a big difference. So is it noun, verb, adjective or adverb? Read around the word, try to decide what is being described, if it's positive or negative, if you could perhaps use another word there and if the sentence will still make sense.

By doing these things, you're just pushing things a bit further, applying yourself a bit more, going from passive learning to a more active learning process. And then when you've got a sense of what the word might mean, you can then check your guess by looking up the word in a dictionary, looking at the example sentences, making sure that you look at the different definitions, because often words have got a number of different meanings, until you find the one that matches. And then you can be like, right, I thought so.

Remember that words often have multiple meanings, so you might need to search for the meaning that fits the way the word is being used here in the story, in this case. And also, words often exist in phrases, so you might need to search for a phrase rather than an individual word. And when you're using online dictionaries like dictionary.cambridge.org, often it'll present the

The words in it present phrases underneath, you know, get to know the way that dictionaries organize information. They often are there to, you know, they're there to help you and they will often provide phrases in neat lists. So you can see, ah, this is not just point. This is point out, for example. Point something out means to identify it or bring someone's attention to it.

So, yeah, is it a phrase or an individual word? Are there prepositions or other nouns attached to it, for example? What are the collocations? And also, always look for more examples to help consolidate the meaning of new language.

Doing those things can help you to guess words more accurately and it's a good idea to do that before you check the actual meaning of the word or phrase in a dictionary. Doing it that way helps to train you how to deal with new words on your own and will probably result in you remembering them better as well.

If you're using AI tools like ChatGPT or whatever, you know, of course, other groundbreaking generative AI software is available, of course. But if you're using something like that, you could paste in the whole paragraph where the new word is or new phrase. You could take the whole paragraph, paste it into ChatGPT and ask what the specific word or phrase means within that particular context. What does the word point? What does the phrase? What does the word point mean?

mean in this paragraph? And it will probably identify that it's not just point, it's part of a phrase with point out.

You know, that can help you identify the right meaning more quickly instead of searching through dictionaries trying to find the right meaning. ChatGPT will just do it for you, probably. You can also ask AI to give you more examples and comments and even to test you with little exercises, which again, of course, is another important step when you're learning vocabulary, understanding the vocab, recording it in some way, and then remembering, recalling.

So going from not having the word in your mind to bringing the word back. So you asking ChatGPT to give you little memory prompts or exercises where you have to recall, bring back the word into your memory and hopefully use it in some way. Actively collect new words and phrases from stories. Collect them and make a note of them in some sort of diary or document.

And your process could simply be find a new word, guess what it means, check the meaning, record it, so keep a record of it in your notebook or something, then find a way to

Make yourself remember the word or phrase and then practice using it. And that's a little process that you can do. Learning vocabulary can feel a little bit overwhelming because there's so much, but you don't have to learn all the words all the time. Just some is fine. Whatever strikes a chord with you.

Right, so, you know, in this story I highlighted about 180 words in the story, 180 words or phrases, and I've put them all in a list, by the way, which you'll find on the PDF. If you look at the story text, you'll see some words or phrases are highlighted in a yellowy-orange colour. There's about 180 of them. Those are all things that I think that I could teach you, or things that provide me with a chance to do some English teaching with those words and phrases.

But you don't have to, you know, you don't have to learn all 180 of them. Just some of them is fine. Whatever kind of feels right to you. But don't ignore words you don't know as well. So you've got to kind of not ignore words that you, so try not to ignore new words, but at the same time, don't feel you have to remember all of them.

So it's a balance between tolerating some words you don't understand and not really worrying about them and actively taking steps to work out those new words and then learn or use them.

But again, don't feel you have to learn all the new words you discover. Keep some, let others go, you know? And slowly but surely, bit by bit, you start to develop, expand, broaden your vocabulary in a way that's meaningful and effective, in a way that actually allows you to really learn them, remember them, make personal connections with them all, and then hopefully use them

Right. Repeat some sections of the story after me, meaning just shadowing or listen and repeat. I know it's a bit long to do the whole thing, but you could just do a section and speak, you know, practice spontaneous speaking, summarise the story in your own words, give your thoughts about the story out loud. All of those things, all of that stuff that I just mentioned, all of that will definitely make a difference to your English if you actually do it. But you have to actually do it.

or not. Again, this is the good news. You don't have to do all of that stuff. I mean, it will help, of course, but also at a base level, listening regularly, reading regularly, speaking and writing regularly too, practicing the four skills on a regular basis. This is the most important. So on the subject of vocab, I, at the end here,

So we're getting to the end of the episode. I just wanted to spend a few minutes at the end explaining some vocabulary from the story. I like to do this. I actually really love, as an English teacher, I love explaining vocabulary and I really enjoy it. I enjoy it more and more. It is the thing in English that I get a kick out of is explaining words and phrases more

You know, there's lots of things that as a teacher you have to do. You have to explain, clarify grammar, help people learn it, deal with pronunciation, the phonetics of English and the kind of pragmatics of English, the social side, how we apply language to different social situations. But maybe one of the things I enjoy the most is just learning.

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

I thought they would be worth pointing out to you and explaining. Like, hey, look, how about this word? What about this phrase? Because they might be difficult to understand or they might be unknown to you, some of you. And because there are things I can clarify or teach you here, that's why I highlighted all those bits of vocab and I've put them in a list on the PDF. I've just realised, or I realised earlier, that there are 180 things in the list here.

You can see a full list below, and a more detailed version of that list will be available for premium subscribers, by the way. So, 180 things. I'll do some words from the story now. So...

I'm going to go through some of the words from the first part, the first page or two of the story now, and I'll do the rest in an upcoming premium episode. So if you want to get all my vocabulary explanations for the entire story, you'll need to sign up to LEP Premium to get my episode, which will be available soon, if not now.

in which I'll go through the story again and explain the rest of the vocabulary, adding various comments and bits of teaching wisdom with my particular set of skills. So sign up to LEP Premium, teacherluke.co.uk slash premium. If you don't know how LEP Premium works, rather than me going on about it now, I'll just say go to my website to get the information, teacherluke.co.uk slash premiuminfo.

But essentially, it gives you access to extra episodes in which I go further and deeper into actually teaching you English, often explaining vocabulary, and also providing you with worksheets and PDFs that give you the exercises to help you memorise and practise using new language as well. So I kind of like put it all on a plate for you.

That's LEP Premium. Link in the description. But now let me go through some of the vocabulary from the story and I'll continue this, as I said, in an episode of LEP Premium soon. So let's go back up actually to the beginning of the story and look at some of the highlighted bits of vocab that I can talk about. ♪

Oh, hello. Let me just interrupt myself again here because I've realised that before I go through some vocab from the first page of this story, there's a couple of things that I need to deal with. I don't know, to be honest, I can't remember if I've explained...

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

The words willpower and the verb to will something to happen are quite central to the story. I thought it was probably a good idea for me to just make sure that this is clarified. And there's definitely stuff I can teach you here. So I'm going to look at the verb will, and there's actually several verbs, the modal verb will and the regular verb will as well. And then a couple of nouns, in fact, three nouns, will and will and willpower.

And there's also an adjective as well, which is to be willing to do something.

So here's a little sidetrack into the word family of the word 'will'. We'll start with the verb and the verb is... Well, obviously we've got the modal verb 'will', as you know, of course, we use it to talk about the future usually. For example, 'I will see you tomorrow' or, you know, 'if you stop the rotation of the earth, everything will be destroyed', right? So we often use it to talk about the future, right?

But also we've got will the regular verb, which is used lots of times in the story. In fact, this verb to will something to happen is used eight times in the story. And in the story, Fotherington wills things to happen. He also wills things into existence. There's also a moment when he

wonders whether you can actually accidentally will something to happen. And that's will, willed, willed. So it's a regular verb with an ed ending on the past forms. So to will something to happen just basically means to use your mind to make something happen. Right, so using your mental determination or your desire to make something happen or try to make something happen. Almost like using the force from Star Wars to...

to make something happen. Okay? You can imagine kind of closing your eyes and really focusing and trying to use the power of your mind to make something happen. You know? So...

I mean, obviously, in normal life, we don't have magic powers, but we still try to will things to happen. I think the example I may have already given is when you're watching a football match and your team, you really want your team to win or you're watching your friend or someone in your family play a game of tennis or something and you really want them to win and you maybe close your eyes and

furrow your brow and you really will them to win or you will them on. You kind of like, come on, you can do it. Use the strength of your mind to kind of will them to win. You see? Okay. So in the case of the story, this is obviously used a lot because Fotherington's power comes from his mind. It comes from his willpower.

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

in an English lesson and you're trying not to fall asleep. Is that the example I gave before? I think it might have been. Yesterday, when I recorded the other part of this, seems like such a long time ago now. But anyway, you're in class and it's like dead boring because your teacher's talking about the word will and you're like, oh, it's easy, isn't it? It's just a modal verb to talk about the future. Everyone knows that, but you're not paying attention. Anyway, you're starting to fall asleep and you think, I can't fall asleep and you will yourself fall

not to fall asleep or you will yourself to stay awake you're kind of like come on you can do it

You're climbing a mountain, it's really difficult and your legs are very tired, but you will yourself to continue. Okay, so there's that. So that's the verb, the modal verb will, the regular verb will. Then we look at nouns, okay? And the word willpower is used a lot in the story as well. It's used about four times. Fotherington talks about there being something special about his willpower.

And he uses his willpower to make things happen. So your willpower is like the strength of your mind, right? The power of your mind, let's say. Okay? The kind of fuel or strength to be able to do things. Okay?

Right. Your ability to control yourself, your ability to control your actions, your strength of mind. OK, for example, you know, in order to overcome challenges, you need a lot of willpower. Right. Strength of mind.

Okay. Then you've got the word will, just the noun will. Your will, okay, is what you want to do or your desire to do something. Okay. So, for example, you have the will to learn English, meaning you really want to. You have the will to reach a proficient level of English, means you really want to do it. This is your intention. Okay.

This is your sort of mental choice that you want. Okay. You have the will to win. You need the will to win. If you want to be the best, right, you need the will to win. That's that desire to win. And then the willpower is your actual strength of mind, your ability to use your mind to make that happen. You see? So your will is like your desire, the thing you want. And the willpower is your ability to actually make that happen. Um,

So willpower is used in the story because this is actually talking about Fotherington's strength of mind, which he uses to make things happen. Yeah, I should also point out that adjective, which is to be willing to do something, right? To be willing to do something. Are you willing to...

you know, are you willing to give me a discount? It's often used in business English when you're negotiating with people. And if you're willing to do something, it basically means that you are happy to do it, you're ready to do it, you want to do it, you have the desire to do it. And it's very commonly used when you're asking whether someone is happy to do something or whether someone will do something, right? And it's slightly more diplomatic language. Instead of saying,

Can you give me a discount? Do you want to give me a discount or not? Instead of being that direct, you might say, are you willing to give me a discount or would you be prepared to give me a discount? Would you be prepared to sign the contract? Would you be willing to do that today? You see, basically meaning, do you want to do it? So that's the adjective.

So we've done to will something to happen, your willpower, your will to win, let's say. And also there's a will, which is something relating to your family and relating to legal things. And that's completely unrelated. Well, is it unrelated? I suppose basically a will is a legal document.

And in the will, you write all the things that you want to happen when you die. Typically, who is going to inherit your house, inherit your money and inherit different things from you when you die. OK, so you might leave your house to your children in your will. And when when someone dies, you need to check the will.

and see what's written in the will, and then you need a lawyer to actually carry out all those wishes. So I suppose it's similar in the sense that your will is your desire, what you want to happen, and your will, the document, is a written document of what you want to happen when you die. So anyway, that would be, you know, it was written in his will, he left me the house in his will, you need to read the will, have you written a will yet?

OK, right. Good. That's that then. Let's now go back to yesterday and let me just explain some vocab from the beginning part of the story at the end of the episode here. So here we are again at the start of the story. I'll only do this for a few minutes. Maybe I'll do the first five, six, seven items of vocab.

And I'll leave the rest for LEP Premium. So, The Man Who Could Work Miracles by HG Wells. The story starts like this. It's doubtful whether George Fotherington was born with his special power. Personally, I think it came to him suddenly. So it's doubtful whether he was born with the power. Doubtful. So if something is doubtful, it just means it's not sure.

Like, we're not sure about it. For example, it's doubtful whether... In fact, whether is quite common after the word doubtful. You could say if it's doubtful if the match will happen tomorrow, it might be cancelled because of the weather. I mean the rain. So it's doubtful. So I'm using the word weather here.

Weather here is a conjunction, W-H-E-T-H-E-R. That's weather, the conjunction, similar to the word if. It's doubtful whether George was born with his power. That's weather, the conjunction, W-H-E-T-H-E-R. But we've also got another word, weather, like rain, sunshine, wind. That's W-E-A-T-H-E-R. The pronunciation is the same.

Anyway, it's doubtful if George was born with his power or it's doubtful whether George was born with his power. But anyway, doubtful, it's not sure. For example, it's doubtful whether the game will happen tomorrow. It might be cancelled or it's doubtful whether the meeting is going to take place tomorrow.

We're not sure. Okay, that's doubtful. And it's worth noticing that the B in that word is silent. So doubt, you know, you might have a doubt about something, right? You might be doubtful about something or something might be doubtful. But the word doubt, the B is silent. So it's doubt and it's not doubt. No, doubt, doubt. There's almost a sound doubt, doubt.

doubtful. So don't let that B influence your pronunciation. It's not doubtful or doubtful. It's doubtful. You could even replace the B with a W and you'd be in the right zone. Doubtful. Next, we've got up until the age of 30, he didn't believe in anything supernatural. In fact, he was a total skeptic. So a skeptic is someone who doesn't really believe in something.

OK, to be a sceptic or to be sceptical about something. I should point out that the spelling of sceptic in British English is usually S-C-E-P-T-I-C, whereas in American English you might see it with a K instead of a C.

but the words mean the same thing and they're pronounced the same way. S-C in British English usually and S-K in American English usually. So George was a total sceptic, meaning he was sceptical about the supernatural. He didn't believe in supernatural powers. So you can be sceptical about lots of things. It's not just about supernatural things. You can be sceptical about all sorts of stuff, like, for example...

I don't know, you might be sceptical about COVID-19, you know. You might be a COVID-19 sceptic. You might believe that it wasn't real, that it was all made up by the government as a way of controlling us or something like that, you know. So you might be a COVID sceptic.

Let's continue. Now's probably the best time to describe him. He was a short man with bright reddish hair that stood upright. So this is describing his hair. It was bright reddish hair. So describing the colour, it wasn't just red, but reddish.

Now, if we're talking about hair colours, we've got black hair, brown hair, blonde hair, and also ginger hair. But there are different shades of ginger, 50 shades of ginger, let's say. And on one end of the scale, you've got ginger hair, true red hair.

But then some hair is kind of like between being really ginger, like a kind of Ron Weasley from Harry Potter. That's like full ginger. Some people or Ed Sheeran or Mick Hucknall or something like that. Some people are just sort of on the spectrum. And so if someone's hair is a bit red, you could say it's reddish. So that suffix ish. I've talked about this lots of times on the podcast because it comes up quite a lot.

I don't know if you've noticed that suffix "-ish", not just in English, right? But it's... What colour is it? It's a kind of a bluish-green colour, right? Which means it's kind of blue, sort of blue. We also use it with times. I'll see you about ten-ish. The match begins at about ten-ish, around about ten o'clock, okay? Yeah.

So that's I-S-H as a suffix. You add it to the end of words and it means kind of or around about or approximately. Often with colours, often with times. Yeah. He had reddish hair and a moustache he liked to twist at the ends. So he liked to take the ends of his moustache and twist them between his fingers. So to twist something, right? So turn it between, turn it in your fingers. What else do you twist? What else do we twist?

What things do we twist? Well, if you have an accident, you might twist your ankle. That's where you twist your foot and you sprain your ankle. You might end up on crutches. You don't have to go to a hospital if you twist your ankle. But otherwise, you twist lots of other things. You could twist a piece of string, make it go round. If you make a cocktail...

You'd put a piece of lemon, you'd twist the lemon before you put it in the glass to squeeze out some of the juice. Anyway, he liked to twist his moustache at the ends. So you can imagine the ends of his moustache kind of going up at the ends because he's twisted them with his fingers. Quite a cool look, quite a distinctive look to twist your moustache. Maybe I should start doing that. Maybe I should start twisting up the ends of my moustache. I had a student once from Sweden.

When I used to teach English in London in the summer, we used to get these groups of journalists from Sweden, the Swedish journalists. We used to get Norwegian ones as well, actually. Funny that we used to get these Scandinavian groups of Scandinavian journalists come. And I remember one particular summer there was a student who had this extraordinary moustache with the ends that were twisted all the way up and they pointed all the way up.

towards the sky, this amazing moustache. And we all asked him about his moustache and he told us that he got wax. He used to put wax in his moustache, which is how he managed to get the ends of the moustache to point upwards like that. He used to get wax and he said that the wax that he used for his moustache, he bought in a specific shop in London and he would travel to England and

travel to London and specifically go to this one shop where he, where he could buy this, uh, this particular mustache wax. And he proudly told me that he was planning to visit the shop that afternoon in order to go and get his supply of wax for his mustache. So he could twist the ends up, but it was a distinctive look. Um,

So reddish hair, moustache you like to twist up at the ends, and a face full of freckles. So freckles are things that some people get on their skin, especially on their face. They're like little brown dots, and it's normally people who have fair skin, or people who have a fair complexion. Often people with red hair will have a fair complexion, a very light, pale skin, which might be sensitive to sunlight.

But often people with that kind of complexion, when they do get exposed to sunlight, sometimes the skin comes out in freckles. They're generally considered to be attractive skin.

But like little brown dots, which is like a reaction of the skin when there's a certain skin pigment, which is maybe there's like an excess or too much of a certain pigment in the skin. It produces these little brown dots, which are freckles. Okay.

Often on the on person's nose they might get freckles like that now They're not spots spots are like up spots are red and they can be a bit embarrassing Some people consider them to be a bit ugly when you're a teenager when we're teenagers We often get spots on our face because of all the hormones and it makes us feel Embarrassed those are spots

But freckles are not spots. They're just like little brown dots, which are cute generally.

Yeah. You know what? That's all I'm going to do in terms of vocab explanation. I could go on and on and deal with the rest. I just did one, two, three, four, five things. Doubtful, sceptic, reddish, to twist something at the ends, and freckles. I'm not going to do the rest of the 175 items in the list today.

Because there isn't time now. And yes, if you want more, if you want more of that kind of thing, if you want to hear me go through the entire story explaining specific bits of vocabulary, then you can do that. But you'll need to sign up to LEP Premium. Get your premium subscription. The way it works is you sign up. You pay a fairly small number of euros every month. It's like you buy me...

You could buy me a bottle of, what would it be? I was going to say a bottle of beer. You could buy me a bottle of beer a month or maybe two cups of coffee a month. I mean, you know, like the most basic Starbucks, cheapest Starbucks coffee. You could get me maybe one and a half of them.

every month for the price of LEP Premium. That's the kind of cost that it is. And when you sign up, you get access to all the premium episodes I've ever done. And there's something like 250 episodes now, all dealing with vocab and some grammar, lots of pronunciation practice and stuff. And you can go to lep.supercast.com, sign in. You can listen to all the episodes there. You also get all the free episodes with no advertising.

In the episode show notes you get links for PDFs and video versions and you can really easily add

your premium subscription, which is all the free episodes and the premium episodes, you can add that episode list to whatever podcast app you use on your phone, like Spotify, Apple Podcasts. You can do that. And then instead of having the free list of LEP on your phone, you've got the premium list on your phone, no advertising, and all the premium content. It's super convenient. Yeah, you could just go to lep.supercast.com.

Or the same thing is teacherluke.co.uk slash premium if you want to continue with the story and hear the rest of my vocab explanations. So...

That's more or less the end of this particular episode. I just would like to end with some more questions, again, encouraging you to get in touch and express yourself in English in the comments section. So here are some other questions for you to consider. So does the story have a deeper meaning for you? Did it end in the way that you expected? Why did Fotherington get his power?

And does this matter? I mean, to be honest, this is not mentioned in the story, but maybe you've got your own theory. What mistakes did Fotherington make? And you could say he should have like he should have done this. He shouldn't have done that. If you discovered you had his power, what would you do? Would you do small things or big things? And what consequences would your actions have possibly? Does this story teach us a moral lesson? Does it have a moral lesson to teach us? And what is it?

And, you know, generally, what does this story mean to you? Does it make you think about any of the things I talked about? Superstitious beliefs, rational scientific thinking, the dangers of unlimited power, human ignorance, artificial intelligence or anything else? Leave your comments in the comments section. Thank you so much for listening to Luke's English podcast. Tell your friends about the podcast if you if you love them.

If you don't really, then just keep it a secret. Thank you for listening. And I will speak to you again on the podcast before too long. All right. All right. Good. Good. Nice one. Have a lovely morning, afternoon, evening or night out there in podcast land, whichever part of Lepland you live in. I hope you have. Yes, I hope you enjoyed yourself with this episode and learned a thing or two.

Speak to you next time. But for now, it's time to say goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teachaluke.co.uk.

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