<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/DTDs/Podcast-1.0.dtd"><channel><itunes:author>MacAndrew</itunes:author><title><![CDATA[Listen to English]]></title><link>http://www.listen-to-english.com/index.php?cat=podcasts</link><language>es-ES</language><description><![CDATA[The podcast website for people learning English
On this page - podcasts to help you improve your listening skills ]]></description><generator>iVoox</generator><image><url>http://www.ivoox.com/canales/Listen_to_Englishg.jpg</url><title><![CDATA[Listen to English]]></title>	<link>http://www.ivoox.com/</link></image><item><title><![CDATA[Tumbling!]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/tumbling-audios-mp3_rf_237323_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/tumbling_mf_237323_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[Tumbling down Coopers Hill in pursuit of a cheese! Photo by Nicoze/flickr

	Have you ever thought that the English are mad? Of course you have. And after today's podcast, you will know that it is true.

	But first we must meet the English verb &ldquo;to tumble&rdquo;. &ldquo;Tumble&rdquo; means, simply, to fall down. For example, if you are coming down some stairs and you trip, you might tumble to the bottom. You would fall, perhaps you would roll over, and two seconds later you would be on the ground at the bottom of the stairs, wondering whether you had broken any bones. We can use &ldquo;tumble&rdquo; in a figurative way too. We can talk about a stream tumbling down the side of a mountain. Or if a supermarket reduces its prices, it might put notices in the window saying &ldquo;Prices tumble throughout this store!&rdquo;

	Now for the story in today's podcast. Last week, we read in the newspaper that an important sporting event will not take place this year. It is not a football match or a horse-race. It is much more important than that; it is the great Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling event. 

	Cooper's Hill is not far from the town of Gloucester. It is a very steep hill, covered in grass and trees. Every year at the end of May there is a cheese rolling at Cooper's Hill. About 15 competitors stand in a line at the top of the hill. Many of them wear batman suits or other fancy dress. A man with a big hat, called the Cheese Master, throws a 3 or 4 kilo cheese down the hill. The competitors run after the cheese. The rules say that if one of the competitors catches the cheese, he or she can keep it. In practice, no-one ever catches the cheese, because it goes too fast. And the competitors do not run after the cheese, because the hill is too steep. Instead, they fall, they roll, they slide on their bottoms &ndash; they tumble, in fact.

	At the bottom of the hill, there is a line of stewards. They catch the competitors before they can tumble all the way to the M5 motorway. And there is a line of ambulances too, for those competitors who break their ankles on the way down.

	There are several races, some for men and some for women, and for the really crazy there are some uphill races too (though, obviously, the cheese cannot go uphill). After the races, those competitors who are not actually in hospital gather at a local pub to drink beer and tell stories of the heroic events of the day.

	Obviously, for an important event like the Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling, you could not use just any sort of cheese. The cheese is of a type called Double Gloucester. It is made locally by a lady called Diana Smart. She is 83 years old. The cheese rolling is an important part of her business. She is fed up that it has been cancelled this year.

	So, why has it been cancelled? For hundreds of years, the only people who came to watch the cheese rolling were local people. But the event is now internationally famous, and lots of people want to come. Last year there were 15,000 spectators, from many different countries. The police and organisers of the event are worried about the safety of the spectators, and about car-parking, and about the fact that there are no toilets, and other problems of having so many people. The organisers think that they can solve the problems for next year, so the Cheese Rolling should take place again in 2011. 

	My own proposal is that cheese rolling should become an Olympic Sport. Then it could be included in the London Olympic Games in 2012. We could build a super stadium on Coopers Hill, with room for 50,000 spectators, lots of toilets and a car park for thousands of cars. The stadium could have a roof in case it rains. But this year you will have to find a hill in your own country, and throw a cheese down it, and tumble after the cheese. Happy cheese rolling!
	
		BBC News Report. :: 
		More news about cheese rolling. :: 
		The official cheese rolling website. :: 
		
	File download (5:41 mins | 3 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 19 Mar 10 13:23:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[Crime and Punishment]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/crime-and-punishment-audios-mp3_rf_232020_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/crime-and-punishment_mf_232020_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[James Bulger

	Some of you have e-mailed me to say that you would like more podcasts about life and politics in Britain. The subject of the podcast today is a difficult and serious one. It is about a small boy who was murdered 17 years ago.  The murder and what happened afterwards are still very controversial and arouse strong emotions in this country.

	In February 1993, James Bulger was nearly 3 years old. He lived in Bootle, which is a town north of Liverpool in the north-west of England. One day he went shopping with his mother Denise. She went into a butcher's shop to buy some meat. James stayed outside. When Denise returned a few minutes later, James was gone.

	Some children found James's body on ground beside a railway line a few days later. He had been beaten to death with bricks, stones and an iron bar. Whoever had killed him then placed James's body on the railway line, so that it would look as if he had been killed by a train. 

	There were CCTV (closed-circuit television) cameras in the shopping centre where James had disappeared. The police found pictures of James. He was holding the hand of an older boy or a young man. Together with another boy, they were leaving the shopping centre. The police published the photos in the press, and a member of the public was able to identify the people who had taken James. They were two 10-year old boys, called Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. The police arrested them, and they were later found guilty of the murder of James Bulger. 

	The story was headline news for many weeks. The whole country was horrified, both by the mindless murder of a small child, and also by the fact that the killers were themselves children. In Liverpool, feelings ran particularly high and the families of the two 10-year old killers were forced to go into hiding.


Robert Thompson and Jon Venables

	After the trial, Jon and Robert spent 8 years in secure children's homes, where they received an education. Then, when they were 18 years old, they were let out, but with strict conditions about where they could live and what they could do. They were given new identities (new names etc), to protect them from the media and from people who might want to kill them. Was this the right punishment for them?

	James's mother, Denise, describes Jon and Robert as pure evil. She says that they have never been sorry for what they did, and that the justice system let them off lightly. She, and many others, think that it was wrong to release the two young men so soon; they should have been sent to prison for many years when they were 18. At one point, indeed, the government tried to have Jon and Robert kept in prison at least until they were aged 25, but the courts said that the government had no power to interfere. 

	Now the case is back in the news. A few weeks ago, the police arrested Jon Venables and he is now in prison. The government have refused to say why, but the press have reported that it is connected with pornographic images of children. Immediately, the old controversy started again. Many people say, &ldquo;I told you so. It was a mistake ever to release Jon and Robert. They are dangerous and ought to be in prison for many years. And it was a mistake too to give them new identities. People should know who they are and what they have done.&rdquo;

	What does this tell us about the sort of  country which Britain is? We send a lot of people to prison &ndash; in fact, we have more people in prison in relation to population than anywhere else in Europe. But we still do not feel safe. Sometimes it seems that crime is a national obsession. At the same time, we know that many prisoners, when they leave prison, go back to a life of crime. A  government minister once remarked that prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse. A recent survey showed that most people agree that it is important to help people who have committed crimes to re-organise their lives,to stop using drugs,to get an education and a job. But cases like the murder of James Bulger create a very strong emotional reaction, and this make rational discussion of how best to deal with crime and criminals much more difficult.

	There are some new phrasal verbs in this podcast. I have posted a separate grammar and vocabulary note about them.
	
		Grammar and vocabulary note :: 
		
	File download (6:24 mins | 3 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 11 Mar 10 14:38:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[Catch]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/catch-audios-mp3_rf_224741_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/catch_mf_224741_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[What a catch! Photo by RXAphoto/Flickr

	We are going to catch things in this podcast, and &ndash; yes &ndash; there will be a new phrasal verb as well &ndash; &ldquo;to catch up with&rdquo;.

	Like many common English verbs, &ldquo;catch&rdquo; is irregular. The past tense of &ldquo;catch&rdquo; is &ldquo;caught&rdquo;. So, I catch, I caught, I have caught.

	If you look at the picture on the website, or on your iPod, you will see what &ldquo;catch&rdquo; means. Someone has thrown a ball in the air. The little dog has run after the ball. He has jumped in the air with its mouth open. He wants to catch the ball in his mouth. So, &ldquo;to catch&rdquo; means to stop or hold something which is moving, like a ball which someone has thrown.

	Here are some other things you can catch:


a cat catches a mouse.a fisherman catches fish.the police catch a criminal.And, of course, we often use &ldquo;catch&rdquo; in a figurative way. For example:you can catch a train, or a bus, or a plane.you can catch flu, or some other infectious disease.in the photo on the website, the photographer has caught the exact moment when the dog jumps in the air to catch the ball.

	Now for our phrasal verb &ndash; &ldquo;to catch up&rdquo;. We can say &ldquo;catch up with someone&rdquo; or &ldquo;catch someone up&rdquo;. Imagine that you are running in a race. The leading runner is about 20 meters in front of you. If you run really fast, perhaps you can catch the leader up. Then you will be running beside the leader, and you might even win the race. And if the runners behind you run really hard, they may be able to catch up with you.

	This sounds very energetic, so let us instead join Kevin and George in their normal Saturday afternoon activity, going to a football match. It is an exciting time. United are four places from the top of the Championship. Can they catch up with the top teams? Can they even win the Championship?

	However, George is late. He is a teacher, and he has lots of school books to mark. He needs to catch up with his marking before he can go to the match. He phones Kevin to explain. &ldquo;You go to the match now,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I'll catch up with you later when I have finished the marking&rdquo;. 

	So Kevin sets off by himself. He catches a bus into town. But there are problems. The famous punk rock group Futile Vendetta are in town. Thousands of people want to catch their last concert, and thousands more want to catch a glimse of the band. The bus gets caught in the traffic. The minutes go by, and the bus does not move. Eventually, Kevin gets off the bus and walks, and runs, to the football ground. He arrives just in time to catch the start of the match. George is there already. He finished his marking and caught a train to the stadium.

	Unfortunately, the match is not very exciting and ends in a goalless draw. There is one thrilling moment when United's striker nearly scores, but the goalkeeper catches the ball safely. Never mind. Football is like that. Maybe next Saturday will be different.
	
		Quiz - all about the verb "to catch". :: 
		
	File download (4:43 mins | 2 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 02 Mar 10 14:08:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[Harry and June (and lots of other people) build a new house.]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/harry-and-june-and-lots-of-other-people-audios-mp3_rf_216311_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/harry-and-june-and-lots-of-other-people_mf_216311_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[A bungalow in Paignton &ndash; but Harry and June want to build their own house!

	Today's podcast is about the names of different occupations, and about Harry and June and their new house.

	Harry is a retired school head teacher. He and his wife June want to move from London to live in Devon in the south-west of England. Devon is a place where lots of retired people go to live. Devon is warm (well, warmer than most of the rest of England) and it is beside the sea. In Devon towns like Paignton and Torquay there are lots of little bungalows where retired people like Harry and June live.

	However, Harry and June do not want to live in a bungalow in Paignton or Torquay. They want to build their own house. So this is what they do. First they go to an estate agent, who sells houses and land. The estate agent has information about some suitable land where Harry and June could build their house. Then they ask a solicitor to handle all the legal matters connected with buying the land. Harry and June know what sort of house they want, but they need an architect to design the house and make plans for them. Unlike Robert, whom we met a few weeks ago, they know that they need planning permission for their house. So they fill in application forms and spend several weeks arguing with the planning official in the local authority about interesting things like where the drains will go. 

	Now they are ready to start building the house. They find a builder to supervise and organise the work. The builder digs the foundations for the house, and a local authority building inspector then comes to check that he has built the foundations properly. A bricklayer builds the walls of the house with bricks and mortar, and a carpenter builds the wooden framework for the roof. A roofer then puts the tiles on the roof and makes it watertight.

	Meanwhile, inside the house a plasterer is busy putting plaster on the new walls. An electrician arrives to install the electric wiring, and makes holes in the new plaster, so the plasterer has to plaster some of the walls again. A plumber installs the water pipes. He drills through one of the new electric wires; there is a bang, and all the lights go out. The electrician has to come back to mend it. A gas fitter puts in the gas pipes for the central heating and the cooker in the kitchen. He knocks more holes in the plaster, so the plasterer has more work to do. A joiner comes to install the doors and cupboards inside the house. He puts a nail through the new gas pipe.

	Now Harry and June's house has walls and a roof, it has doors and windows, and gas and water and electricity. But there is more to do. A painter comes to paint the outside of the house. Inside the house, a decorator paints the woodwork and puts wallpaper on the walls. In the kitchen, a kitchen fitter is busy installing kitchen cupboards and work surfaces, and a carpet fitter is putting carpets in the living room and the bedrooms. 

	Inside, the house is looking good, but outside it is a mess, because the builder has left piles of broken bricks and other rubbish in the garden. A skip lorry driver places a skip in the road outside, and the builder spends the next two days putting all his rubbish in the skip. Finally, a gardener is able to dig the garden and plant grass and flowers to make it look beautiful.

	Harry and June are, I am happy to tell you, very pleased with their new house. June is busy sewing curtains for the living room, and Harry is arranging his model railway in the spare bedroom.

	So, how many different occupations were involved in building the new house? I can count 20 &ndash; how many can you count? Also, have you noticed that most occupation names in English do not tell us whether the person doing that job is a man or a woman? Unlike many other languages, we do not have separate words for, for example, a male architect and a female architect. In fact, Harry and June's architect was a woman, and so was the electrician. There are very few cases in modern English where we need to use different words for men and women &ndash; policeman/policewoman is one of these, and another is waiter/waitress. Post a comment on the website if you can think of any more.
	
		Quiz - how many occupation names do you know? :: 
		
	File download (6:12 mins | 3 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 22 Feb 10 14:12:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[Keep calm and carry on!]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/keep-calm-and-carry-on-audios-mp3_rf_211644_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/keep-calm-and-carry-on_mf_211644_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[

	This week's phrasal verb is &ldquo;to carry on&rdquo;. I shall explain it in a minute, but first here is a story about a typical Monday morning for Kevin, in his new job as Assistant Sales Manager (South East England). 

	It is 6.30. Time to get up. The alarm clock rings. Kevin ignores it. He carries on sleeping. The alarm clock carries on ringing. Eventually, Kevin wakes up. He turns the alarm clock off, and falls out of bed. 

	Kevin has a shower and gets dressed. He turns on the radio. The radio presenter chatters cheerfully, and plays cheerful music. But Kevin carries on eating toast and drinking coffee. The radio presenter carries on being cheerful. Kevin thinks, &ldquo;It is Monday morning. It is not a time for being cheerful.&rdquo;

	Kevin travels to work by train. Today, there are problems on the railway. and the train is late. It is crowded with people. On the way into the city, it stops at a red signal and waits. The passengers on the train do what English people always do in a crisis &ndash; they ignore it. They carry on reading their newspapers. They carry on typing on their computers. There is silence, except for one man who is talking loudly on his mobile phone. He carries on talking. He has forgotten that the train has stopped and that everyone on the train can now hear him. 

	Eventually, the train moves a little bit, then it stops again. It carries on like this &ndash; stopping and starting and stopping again &ndash; until it reaches the main station. Because the train is late, Kevin arrives late at work. But everyone else has had problems getting to work as well, so perhaps it doesn't matter. Monday has begun!

	I have used &ldquo;carry on&rdquo; several times in this story, and I hope you can now understand what it means. It means &ldquo;to continue&rdquo;. Kevin continues sleeping. The people on the train continue reading. Another common expression which means almost the same as &ldquo;carry on&rdquo; is &ldquo;go on&rdquo;. The alarm clock goes on ringing. The man with the mobile phone goes on talking.

	When I was thinking about what to say in this podcast, I did a Google search for &ldquo;carry on&rdquo; and found an interesting story. In 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War, the British government printed millions of posters to send simple propaganda messages to the people. The posters appeared on billboards, and in shop windows and railway stations and places like that. They  tried to encourage and cheer people in the face of bombing raids, food rationing and other hardships. However, one of the posters was never used. It was the poster which would tell people what to do if the Germany army actually invaded Britain. At the end of the war, the government destroyed all the copies. Well, not quite all, because in the year 2000 a second-hand book seller found a copy in a box of old books which he had bought. The poster said simply, &ldquo;Keep calm and carry on&rdquo;.  In other words, do not panic, carry on as normal &ndash; go to work, look after your families, and so on. This was the very British message that our government wanted to send to the people if our country was invaded.

	Since it was rediscovered, the poster has become very popular. You can buy copies on line, and mugs and t-shirts with the slogan &ldquo;Keep calm and carry on&rdquo;.  Perhaps people feel that this simple slogan means as much today as it did 70 years ago. We have so many problems today &ndash; economic crisis, environmental problems and wars in many parts of the world. What can we do? Keep calm and carry on!
	
		
	File download (5:34 mins | 3 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 15 Feb 10 14:02:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[Robert's Castle]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/robert-s-castle-audios-mp3_rf_207100_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/robert-s-castle_mf_207100_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[Robert's Castle]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 10 10:54:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[George's Chocolate Factory]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/george-s-chocolate-factory-audios-mp3_rf_199475_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/george-s-chocolate-factory_mf_199475_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[

	Martina Lopez has sent me an e-mail. She suggests that every week, I should tell you about a phrasal verb. Good idea, Martina. There are hundreds of phrasal verbs in English, and there is, I am afraid, no easy way to learn them. You just have to remember what they mean! So, in every podcast, I will try to introduce a new phrasal verb. Today's phrasal verb is &ldquo;to take over&rdquo;.

	Kevin has just changed jobs in his company. His job title used to be &ldquo;Sales Analyst&rdquo;. Now he is &ldquo;Assistant Sales Manager &ndash; South East England&rdquo;. Wow, it sounds exciting, doesn't it! The man who used to be the &ldquo;Assistant Sales Manager &ndash; South East England&rdquo; is called Jimmy. He has resigned from the company. He has decided to open a bar on an island in Greece. It will be called &ldquo;Jimmy's Bar&rdquo;, and it will sell English beer to English tourists. So Kevin has taken over the job of Assistant Sales Manager. That means &ndash; Jimmy used to be Assistant Sales Manager, but now Kevin has the job.

	&ldquo;Take over&rdquo; has another, related meaning. If a company buys another company, we can say that it has taken over the other company. It has made a takeover offer, or a takeover bid; that is, it has said that it is willing to buy all the shares. So, the company where Joanne works, Global News, has recently taken over another company called Media Design. It now owns Media Design. 

	In Birmingham, where I live, people have been very worried in the past few weeks about a takeover bid for the Cadbury chocolate company. George Cadbury founded the Cadbury company in the 19th century. His father was a tea and coffee merchant in Birmingham, and when he was only 22 years old, George and his brother Richard took over the running of the tea and coffee business. George expanded the business into chocolate. This was a very natural thing to do, as in the 19th century chocolate was something to drink &ndash; like tea or coffee &ndash; and not something to eat, like we eat a chocolate bar today.

	The chocolate business was very successful, and it became too big for the factory in the centre of Birmingham. George bought land in the countryside south of Birmingham, in a place which today is called Bournville, and built a new chocolate factory there. He thought that it was important that his workers should have good housing, so he built houses for them, close to the factory. They were much better than most working-class houses at the time, and had big gardens where the children could play and where the family could grow flowers and vegetables. He built a school, and a training college, and a swimming pool and sports facilities for his workers. The Bournville village which George Cadbury built still exists today, and is a very pleasant part of the city.

	In the 20th century, Cadbury became the biggest chocolate company in Britain, and expanded into many other countries. The company is no longer owned by the Cadbury family. It has shares, which people can buy and sell on the Stock Exchange, just like most other big companies.

	However, now an American company called Kraft wants to buy Cadbury. Kraft are famous for making a processed cheese that looks and tastes like plastic and may even be made of plastic. Kraft have made a takeover bid for Cadbury, and it seems likely that the people who own shares in Cadbury will agree to sell them to Kraft. So Cadbury will no longer be a independent company, but a subsidiary of a big American corporation. People in Birmingham are very worried that in a few years, Kraft will close the famous chocolate factory in Bournville, and move chocolate production to another country. People are angry, too, that investment bankers have made large profits from the takeover, at a time when many people have no jobs.

	But lets end with something a bit more cheerful about takeovers. One day, perhaps, someone may want to take over these podcasts. Perhaps Google would be interested, or Apple, or Microsoft. But they will need deep pockets. Unless their takeover offer is at least $100 million, I will not even return their telephone calls.
	
		Cadbury website. :: 
		Visit Cadbury World! :: 
		BBC news item about the Kraft takeover of Cadbury :: 
		
	File download (6:15 mins | 3 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 28 Jan 10 14:21:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[Casper the Commuting Cat]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/casper-the-commuting-cat-audios-mp3_rf_192949_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/casper-the-commuting-cat_mf_192949_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[Casper the commuting cat.

	Today we meet a cat called Casper, and we learn about the English verb &ldquo;to commute&rdquo;.

	Let's start with the verb. &ldquo;Commute&rdquo; has an interesting history, because its modern meaning is quite different from its original meaning.

	Originally, to &ldquo;commute&rdquo; meant to exchange one thing for another. It was a boring word and we used it mainly for technical, financial matters. Imagine that you work for the government's tax office. Every day you go to work; you write letters, you fill in forms, you calculate how much tax people have to pay, and you do other interesting things. After 40 years, you retire, and the government gives you a pension. It is possible that you will be able to choose exactly how you want to receive the pension. You can choose to receive a payment every month; or sometimes you can choose to take some money now and receive a smaller monthly payment. This is called &ldquo;commuting&rdquo; &ndash; you have exchanged part of your regular monthly pension payments for a lump sum of money.

	You are probably asleep by now, or wondering why I am telling you this. But think of someone else who exchanges regular payments for a single payment. Someone who buys a season ticket on the railways or the buses pays a sum of money now, instead of buying a train or bus ticket every day. At some time in the 20th century, we started to call a person who bought a season ticket a &ldquo;commuter&rdquo;. And from there, we started to use the word &ldquo;commute&rdquo; to mean to travel from your home to work and back again, by any means of transport. Today, we can say &ldquo;I commute by car&rdquo;. That means, &ldquo;I travel to work and back by car every day&rdquo;. We can say that a railway station is crowded with commuters &ndash; that means that it is full of people travelling to work or back home again. We can say &ldquo;I commute for 50 miles&rdquo; or  &ldquo;My commute is 50 miles&rdquo;, and this means that I travel a long way &ndash; 50 miles &ndash; to go to work every day. If I was a millionaire, I might commute from my home in the south of France to my work in London in my own private aeroplane.

	Now that you understand about the word &ldquo;commute&rdquo; and how it has changed its meaning, it is time to meet the cat. His name is Casper, and he lives &ndash; or rather, he used to live &ndash; in Plymouth in the south west of England. Plymouth is famous for its naval dockyards, where military ships are built. Casper used to stand at the bus stop outside his home in Plymouth with the other bus passengers. He used to get on the bus and go to sleep on one of the seats. He would travel all the way to the terminus and then come back again. The bus drivers knew Casper, and made sure that he got off the bus at the right stop. Casper travelled on the buses in Plymouth for over 4 years. People called him &ldquo;Casper the commuting cat&rdquo;.

	Recently, however, and very sadly, Casper was hit by a car during one of his journeys around Plymouth, and he has now died. There is a notice at his bus stop about his death, and flowers. We are all very sad.
	
		Report about Casper from the Plymouth Herald :: 
		The tragic story of Casper&#039;s death :: 
		
	File download (4:38 mins | 2 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 18 Jan 10 17:58:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Big Freeze]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/the-big-freeze-audios-mp3_rf_187964_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/the-big-freeze_mf_187964_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[Our bus fares are now frozen!

	For the last two weeks, our newspapers have been full of stories about &ldquo;the Big Freeze&rdquo;. Like many other places in Europe, the weather in Britain has been very cold. We have had lots of snow, and the roads are covered with ice. There are shortages of gas, and of salt to put on the roads. As you know, we English love to talk about the weather, or &ndash; rather &ndash; we love to complain about the weather. So we have had a lot to talk about, and complain about, recently.

	When water gets very cold, it &ldquo;freezes&rdquo;, that is, it turns into ice. &ldquo;Freeze&rdquo; is an irregular verb, and I know how much you love irregular verbs! The past tense is &ldquo;froze&rdquo; and the past participle is &ldquo;frozen&rdquo;.  &ldquo;Freezing&rdquo; and &ldquo;frozen&rdquo; can also mean simply &ldquo;very cold&rdquo; &ndash; we can say that the weather is freezing, or that my fingers or toes are frozen.

	When the weather gets warmer, the snow will melt, that is it will turn into water. Another word that we can use is &ldquo;thaw&rdquo;, which means a slow, gradual melting of the snow and ice. The weather forecast says that the snow in many parts of England will thaw slowly over the next week. Instead of the &ldquo;Big Freeze&rdquo;, the newspapers will probably have headlines about the &ldquo;Big Thaw&rdquo;.

	When you visit a city in a foreign country, you can often learn quite a lot about the language of that country by looking at advertisements, or at notices in shop windows, or at the signs on public transport, and trying to translate them. There is a picture on the website and, I hope, on your iPod screens. It is a picture of a Birmingham bus, and on the front of the bus are the words &ldquo;Our bus fares now frozen&rdquo;.

	What does this mean? Well, the bus company should have written &ldquo;our bus fares are now frozen&rdquo;, but they probably wanted the words to sound like a newspaper headline, and newspapers often leave out words like &ldquo;is&rdquo; and &ldquo;are&rdquo; in their headlines. But what does it really mean? The heating in British buses is not good, so many of the passengers are frozen, but how can the fares be &ldquo;frozen&rdquo;?

	Well, as you probably guessed, &ldquo;to freeze&rdquo; can have a figurative meaning as well as a literal meaning. Water can move, but when it freezes to become ice, it cannot move. So if we say that something is &ldquo;frozen&rdquo;, we often mean that it stays the same, it cannot move or change. So, a shop may say that its prices are frozen, meaning that the prices are unchanged. A company may tell its employees that their pay is frozen, in other words that they will not get a pay increase. And if you are very frightened by something, you may be unable to move, and you can say that you are &ldquo;frozen with fear&rdquo;.

	And Birmingham's bus fares? It is a long tradition that the bus company increases its fares every January. Since I arrived in Birmingham 15 years ago, my bus fare into the centre of town has increased by 150%. Train fares throughout Britain also go up in January, every year. It is not surprising that people in this country use their cars so much. But this year is different. This year the bus company has decided not to increase its fares. Its fares are frozen. This is something to be happy about, when we are not complaining about the weather.

	Of course, the bus fares will not stay frozen for ever. When they go up again, will there be a notice on the buses saying &ldquo;Our bus fares now unfrozen&rdquo;? I don't think so. 

	There is a quiz about irregular verbs on the website. Have fun!
	
		Quiz about irrregular verbs. :: 
		
	File download (5:19 mins | 2 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 12 Jan 10 10:29:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[Remembering Snow]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/remembering-snow-audios-mp3_rf_185934_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/remembering-snow_mf_185934_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[Night Snow. Photo by drew leavy/flickr

	It is very cold here in England, and there is lots of snow on the ground. What do you think about snow? Yes, snow can be cold and wet and miserable. But it can also can change familiar things &ndash; our houses and gardens, our streets and our cities &ndash; into something strange and new and beautiful.

	Good poetry is like snow &ndash; it too can change familiar things into something strange and new and beautiful. So I looked for a poem about snow to read you, and I have found one by a poet called Brian Patten. 

Brian Patten

	Brian Patten was born in Liverpool in 1946, which means that he is nearly as old as I am! In the 1960s, he was one of a group of young poets from Liverpool whose poems became very popular and widely read. It is easy to understand why &ndash; the poems are direct, simple and often funny. Brian Patten is today one of Britain's leading poets, and he has written lots of poems both for adults and for children. There are links to some of his poems, and to more information, on the website. I sent him an e-mail, to say that I would like to use this poem in a podcast, and he has kindly agreed that I can. So here it is, Remembering Snow.

	I did not sleep last night.
The falling snow was beautiful and white.
I dressed, sneaked down the stairs
And opened wide the door.
I had not seen such snow before.
Our grubby little street had gone.
The world was brand-new, and everywhere
There was a pureness in the air.
I felt such peace.
Watching every flake
I felt more and more awake.
I thought I had learned all there was to know
About the trillion million different kinds
Of swirling frosty flakes of snow.
That was not so.
I did not know how vividly it lit
The world with such a peaceful glow.
Upstairs my mother slept.
I could not drag myself away from that sight
To call her down and have her share
The mute miracle of the snow.
It seemed to fall for me alone.
How beautiful our grubby little street had grown!

	(Copyright Brian Patten. Used here with permission.)
	
		Brian Patten&#039;s website :: 
		Brian Patten reading his poem &#039;A Blade of Grass&#039; :: 
		More poems by Brian Patten :: 
		Books by Brian Patten on Amazon :: 
		
	File download (3:19 mins | 2 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Jan 10 14:22:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[Make a cake! All about imperative verbs.]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/make-a-cake-all-about-imperative-verbs-audios-mp3_rf_184391_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/make-a-cake-all-about-imperative-verbs_mf_184391_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[Making a cake. Photo by lil miss priss/flickr.

	Today we will meet the imperative form of English verbs, and learn how to bake a cake.

	English verbs are difficult. There are so many verb forms, and so many irregular verbs. But let's not worry about complicated verbs today. Let's think about the simplest verb form of all &ndash; the imperative. The imperative is the form of the verb which we use when we want to tell someone to do something. Imagine a teacher talking to a class at school. &ldquo;Stop talking. Open your books. Write your name and the date at the top of the page. Then start exercise number 1.&rdquo;

	&lsquo;Stop', &lsquo;open', &lsquo;write' and &lsquo;start' are all imperative verbs. They give orders or instructions. The great thing about imperative verbs is that there is only one imperative form. You don't have to worry about past tense or future tense, you don't have to think &ldquo;Am I talking to one person or to lots of people?&rdquo; Imperative verbs do not change.

	Sometimes, of course, imperative verbs are too direct and can sound impolite. So we can use words like &ldquo;please&rdquo; with imperative verbs &ndash; &ldquo;Please stop talking. Please open your books.&rdquo; Or we can use indirect ways of telling people what to do, such as &ldquo;Perhaps you could give me your report tomorrow morning&rdquo;. 

	However, there is one place where you will always find lots of imperative verbs &ndash; a recipe book. A recipe is a set of instructions about how to cook something. In English we always write recipes using imperative verbs. Here is my recipe for lemon cake. How many imperative verbs can you find?

	
		Put 175 grammes of self-raising flour, 125 grammes of sugar, 125 grammes of butter and one-and-a half teaspoons of baking powder into a bowl.
		Take two lemons. Grate the rind from the lemons and add it to the flour.
		Break two eggs into the mixture.
		Add three tablespoons of milk.
		Beat the mixture with an electric mixer for 2 minutes.
		Pour the mixture into a baking tray.
		Bake the cake in the oven for about 20 minutes.
		Take the cake out of the oven and put it on a wire rack to cool.
		Squeeze the lemons and add about 50 grammes of sugar to the juice.
		Put the juice into a pan and heat it until it boils.
		Prick the top of the cake with a fork.
		Pour the lemon juice over the cake.
		Serve the cake while it is still warm.
	

	I counted 18 imperative verbs. How many did you find?

	Here is something to practice. Write your favourite recipe in English, using only imperative verbs. Or write instructions on how to do something, like how to recharge your mobile phone. There is a quiz about instructions and imperative verbs on the Listen to English website, and there is also a vocabulary note with some words about cooking and baking which you may find useful.
	
		Quiz - giving instructions with imperative verbs. :: A drag and drop exercise.
		Making a cake - vocabulary note. :: 
		
	File download (4:37 mins | 2 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 05 Jan 10 14:53:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[Running out of things!]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/running-out-of-things-audios-mp3_rf_171269_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/running-out-of-things_mf_171269_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[A family waiting beside their car, which has run out of petrol! Picture by Rusty Russ/flickr

	Today, we are going to run out of things.

	“To run out of” something is a phrasal verb. It is one of the hundreds of phrasal verbs in English, and I know you love phrasal verbs! Like most of the other English phrasal verbs, there is no easy way to remember what “to run out of” means. You just have to learn!

	Of course, sometimes when we say “run out of” we mean the words literally. For example, at the end of the school day, the children run out of school. They, literally, run out of the school gates. It is freedom time – no more school, time to go home to have something to eat, time to watch television, time to go to the park to play football. The children run out of school.

	But imagine this situation. Every morning at about this time I make myself a cup of coffee, and I have a biscuit with my coffee. But today, I cannot find any biscuits. The biscuit tin is empty. I have eaten all the biscuits (or my children have eaten them, perhaps.) There are no biscuits left. I have run out of biscuits.

	Kevin and Joanne are going to the supermarket. Kevin is writing a shopping list, and Joanne is telling him what they need to buy. “We have run out of sugar,” says Joanne. “And we have nearly run out of eggs,” she adds, looking in the fridge, “yes, there is only one egg left. And butter, we have used up all the butter which I bought on Wednesday.”

	Kevin writes “sugar, eggs, butter” on the list. But he has thought of something much more important. “Pizza,” he says. “We have no pizza left. And beer. We have run out of beer.”

	At the supermarket, Kevin and Joanne push the shopping trolley along the aisles, and find all the things on their shopping list. Except the apples – there are no apples in the shop. The shop assistant says, “Sorry, we ran out of apples yesterday. There will be a new delivery this afternoon.”

	At the checkout, Joanne pays for the shopping with her debit card. Then she remembers that she has run out of cash – she has no coins or banknotes in her purse. She asks the assistant at the checkout for £20 cashback – that means, the assistant adds £20 to the bill which Joanne pays with her debit card, and then gives Joanne two £10 notes. 

	On the way home, Kevin and Joanne stop at the DIY shop. Kevin is painting the bathroom, and he has run out of paint.

	Then, disaster! Kevin returns to the car with the can of paint and tries to start the car engine. The engine will not start. “Look at the fuel gauge,” says Joanne, “the car has run out of petrol.”

	So Joanne goes and sits in a cafe with a nice cup of hot chocolate and a newspaper, while Kevin walks a kilometer to the nearest petrol station. After about 30 minutes, he returns with a can of petrol. He puts the petrol in the car, and the engine starts.

	“Can we stop at the Post Office on the way home”, says Joanne. “I have run out of stamps for the Christmas cards.” But it is getting late, and Joanne's mother is coming to lunch. They have run out of time. The stamps for the Christmas cards will have to wait until tomorrow.
	
		Quiz : how well do you know your phrasal verbs? :: 
		
	File download (4:40 mins | 2 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 12 Dec 09 12:39:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[Changing your name]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/changing-your-name-audios-mp3_rf_160519_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/changing-your-name_mf_160519_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[Pudsey Bear (the real one!)

	Every year the BBC asks its TV viewers to give money to a special appeal called Children in Need. The money is used to help charities which work with sick or disadvantaged children. The last Children in Need day was last Friday. For the whole evening, BBC television had programmes which asked people to give money to Children in Need, and appearances by celebrities who told us about all the wonderful things that Children in Need was doing, and news about special fund-raising events all over the country. Children in Need has been very successful. Since 1980 it has raised over &pound;500 million to help needy children.

	Children in Need has a mascot. He is a large yellow bear called Pudsey. There is a picture of him on the website and, I hope, on your iPod screens. Pudsey has a bandage over one eye. Has he injured his eye? Or perhaps he is a pirate? I am not sure.

	Last year, a woman who lives in Wales, called Mrs Eileen de Bont invented a new and interesting way to raise money for Children in Need. She asked people to sponsor her to change her name &ndash; that is she asked them to promise to give money to Children in Need if she changed her name. She even allowed her sponsors to choose her new name. And the name they chose was &ndash; Pudsey Bear.

	In Britain, we often complain that we do not live in a free country any more. There are too many rules and regulations which prevent us from doing what we want to do. But in one area we still have perfect freedom &ndash; we can call ourselves by whatever name we want. There is a  simple legal process called a Deed Poll which allows anyone who wants to change their name to whatever new name they like.

	Over 50,000 people change their name by Deed Poll every year. Many of these changes are connected to marriage or divorce. For example, when people get married they may decide that they want to use the woman's family name (or surname) instead of the man's name. Or they may decide to use both names . When John Smith and Wendy Brown get married they might want to be called Mr and Mrs Smith-Brown. And then, a few years later if their marriage breaks down, they might want to go back to their old names. These changes of name are not a problem in Britain. John and Wendy just need to fill in a few legal forms, and they have new names.

	Naturally, a few people change their names for more frivolous reasons. Last year a football fan in Scotland changed his name to Motherwell Football Club. Another young man thought he would be more attractive to the girls if his name was Elvis Presley. And the former Mr  Daniel Westfallen is now called Mr Happy Adjustable Spanners. These people are mad, of course, but in Britain you are free to be mad if you want.

	So, it was no problem for Mrs de Bont to fill in the forms to change her name to Pudsey Bear . No problem to get her employer, the gas and electricity companies, her bank and the tax people to change her name in their records and computer systems. Then she applied for a new passport. She received a bureaucratic letter from the Passport Office saying, no, they could not give her a passport with the name Pudsey Bear because &hellip;well, because it was silly. Mrs de Bont (or Mrs Pudsey Bear as we must now call her ) said that her sponsors had paid a lot of money to Children in Need for her to change her name; and that everyone now called her by her new name, and even her children called her Mummy Bear. 

	Mrs de Bont (sorry, Mrs Bear) then told the newspapers what had happened, and for a few days we could read all about it. The newspapers were on Mrs Bear's side (I got it right that time). The Guardian, for example, roared  &ldquo;The right to call yourself whatever name you please is one of the small but great British liberties. Who do the passport people think they are? If a citizen can change her name, she must have a passport in that name too.&rdquo;

	And then we heard no more. The story disappeared from the newspapers. So we never heard whether Mrs Bear or the passport people won. Perhaps you can help. If you meet any British tourists in your country, ask to see their passports.  And if you find a passport with the name Pudsey Bear on it, send an e-mail to Listen to English.

	In your country, are you able to change your name if you want to? And have you ever thought that it would be wonderful to have a new name? Please put a comment on the Listen to English website to tell us about it.
	
		Quiz - how well did you understand the podcast? :: 
		
	File download (6:38 mins | 3 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 24 Nov 09 17:53:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[Happy Birthday, M1!]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/happy-birthday-m1-audios-mp3_rf_148932_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/happy-birthday-m1_mf_148932_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[This is what the M1 looked like when it first opened, 50 years ago.

	That was Mr Chuck Berry. He was riding along in his automobile, and he is here to help us celebrate a special birthday.  Yes, dear listeners, this week saw the 50th birthday of Britain's first motorway.

	Germany and Italy built their first motorways before the second World War, but in Britain we waited until the 1950's.  Our first proper motorway ran for about 100 km north from London into the centre of England. The government gave it the romantic name &ldquo;M1&rdquo; &ndash; the &ldquo;M&rdquo; stands for &ldquo;motorway&rdquo;, of course. And 50 years ago this week, the first cars and lorries started to use it. 

	A lot of things were very different then. There were no speed limits on the new motorway. You could drive as fast as you liked. There were no crash barriers in the middle of the road, and no lighting. And there were many fewer cars than today. The M1 was originally built for 13,000 vehicles a day. Today, it regularly carries 10 times that number. 

	There was lots of public interest in the new motorway. People stood on the bridges over the motorway and cheered and waved as the cars passed below them. Drivers enjoyed going as fast as they wanted &ndash; though often the cars did not enjoy it as much as the drivers, and there were lots of breakdowns from things like overheated engines. At weekends, families who were lucky enough to own a car used to get in the car and drive up and down the new motorway, just for fun. If they were really lucky, Dad might even stop at one of the new service stations to fill the car with petrol, and everyone could get out and get something to eat. It all seemed very new and modern and exciting.

	Before the motorways were built, long-distance journeys by road were slow and difficult. Most of the main roads were narrow and twisting, and ran through the centre of towns, instead of round the edge. If people wanted to travel a long way, they normally took the train. But the trains were often slow and dirty, and the number of people using them was falling. So in the 1950's it seemed very sensible to build new roads and close old railway lines.

Today, the M1 often looks like this!

	What is it like today? We have over 3000 km of motorway in Britain, and some of our motorways are the busiest in Europe.  We also have huge traffic jams and pollution, and endless road works. When the M1 was built, there were only 2 million vehicles in the country. There are now well over 30 million vehicles on Britain's roads, and they all seem to be on the same road as me!  In the 1950's, hardly anyone opposed the building of the first motorways. Today, many people say that if you build more roads, they will quickly fill up with more cars. And the motorway service stations, which once seemed so glamorous, are today crowded and expensive, with huge car parks full of Coca-Cola cans and empty crisp packets. 

	Happy birthday, M1.
	
		
	File download (4:24 mins | 2 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 05 Nov 09 16:19:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[The River Thames is missing!]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/the-river-thames-is-missing-audios-mp3_rf_140903_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/the-river-thames-is-missing_mf_140903_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[The London Underground map &ndash; with the river! Photo by Joe Bennett/flickr

	What do we mean if we say that something is missing? We mean that it has disappeared, that it has gone! Suppose I put my car keys down on the table. A few minutes later, I look for them &ndash; but they are gone. I am sure they were on the table. They were on the table only a minute ago. But now they have disappeared. They are missing.

	It is not just car keys that can go missing. Your luggage can go missing at the airport; and children can go missing in a busy shopping centre. And sometimes much bigger things go missing, as we shall discover in this podcast.

	But first, some history. If you have visited London, I am sure that you have travelled on the London Underground. The earliest underground railway line in London was built in the middle of the 19th century. Steam engines pulled the trains, and smoke filled the stations and tunnels. Despite this, Londoners loved their new underground trains. They were a quick and convenient way to get to work. People could work in central London but live away from their work, often in better houses than before. New underground lines were built in the late 19th and the 20th century. They helped London to grow bigger and bigger.

	Both Londoners and visitors needed to know which underground lines went to which places. They needed maps. Until the 1930s, maps of the underground were simply street maps with the underground railway lines added. In the centre of London, where there are lots of Underground lines and stations, the maps were crowded and difficult to read. But if you made the map so that you could see easily what the underground system in central London was like, the map had to be very big to cover all the underground lines in the suburbs.

	The problem was solved by a man called Harry Beck. He drew a map which looks like an electric circuit diagram. He made central London big, so that you could see all the lines and stations, and the suburbs small so that the map was a reasonable size. He drew the underground lines so that they were either vertical, or horizontal, or at 45 degrees. He gave the different lines different colours. He said that people needed the map so that they could see how to get from one station &ndash; say, Victoria &ndash; to another station &ndash; say, Marylebone. People did not need to know the exact route of the railway line, or the exact distance between stations.  So there were no streets on his map, and the stations are all about the same distance apart. But the river Thames was there, of course, like a blue snake through the middle of the city.

	Harry Beck's map was a huge success. It made the complicated railway system easy to understand. Londoners and visitors loved it. Other cities in other countries copied the style of Harry Beck's map for their own transport systems. It became an icon &ndash; a symbol &ndash; of London.

	Obviously, over the years the map has changed. New underground lines have been built, and new stations. Earlier this year, Transport for London &ndash; the body which runs the Underground &ndash;  produced a new map. It looked just like the old map, but something was wrong. Something was missing. The River Thames was not there! It's OK, said Transport for London, you can't see the river when you travel on the Underground. So you don't need to know where it is! But Londoners were unhappy. The River Thames is not particularly beautiful; but it divides London into North London and South London. If you have lived in London, you will know that North London and South London are almost on different planets. South Londoners do not like going north of the Circle Line. North Londoners take their passports with them if they travel south of the river.  So the river is important, and now it was missing from the Underground map. 

	The public outcry was so loud that Transport for London quickly decided to print a new map, with the river back where it should be. We English are deeply conservative about little things. We like Harry Beck's map the way it is, with the river, and we do not want to change it.
	
		BBC News Report :: 
		
	File download (5:58 mins | 3 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 22 Oct 09 15:23:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tall stories]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/tall-stories-audios-mp3_rf_139953_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/tall-stories_mf_139953_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[A tall building &ndash; the Petronas towers in Kuala Lumpur. Photo by Storm Crypt/flickr

	Today we discover the word &ldquo;tall&rdquo;, and we learn about &ldquo;tall stories&rdquo;.

	I guess you know what &ldquo;tall&rdquo; means in your own language &ndash; if you don't, stop listening now and look the word up in a dictionary.

	Here are some examples of the way we use &ldquo;tall&rdquo;. We can talk about a &ldquo;tall man&rdquo;. A tall man might be 1.9 or even 2 meters high. The tallest man who ever lived was called Robert Wadlow. He was 2.72 meters tall. He died in 1940, at the age of only 22.

	We can talk about a &ldquo;tall tree&rdquo;. How high is a tall tree? Perhaps 20 meters. Or we can talk about a tall building. There is a photo of a tall building, in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, on the website. It is over 450 meters high. 

	Sometimes, we use the word &ldquo;high&rdquo; instead of &ldquo;tall&rdquo;. We can talk about a &ldquo;high mountain&rdquo; for example, or about a &ldquo;high wall&rdquo;. Ladies sometimes wear shoes with high heels. And small children sit in high chairs to eat their food. However, you cannot always use &ldquo;high&rdquo; instead of &ldquo;tall&rdquo;. We never use &ldquo;high&rdquo; for people or animals, for example. Robert Wadlow was the tallest man in the world, not the highest man.

	I started this podcast by saying that we would talk about &ldquo;tall stories&rdquo;. What is a &ldquo;tall story&rdquo;, and how many meters high is it? Well, we say that a story is a &ldquo;tall story&rdquo; if it is hard to believe it. A tall story is often quite detailed, and it may even be true, but there is something about it which makes you think that it is probably false. Have you ever received an e-mail like this. It is from someone you do not know. The writer says that he has $50 million in a bank account. He explains how he got the $50 million, and tells you about his family, and why he now needs to move the $50 million to another country. Unfortunately, the bank regulations in his country will not allow him to move the money. But he has heard that you are an honest and trustworthy person, and he asks that you should help him. If you could just send him the details of your bank account, he will use it to move his money, and he will let you have $5 million for helping him.

	Do you believe that story? No. You do not believe it and you do not trust the writer. It is a &ldquo;tall story&rdquo;. If you send him details of your bank account, of course, you will not get $5 million. Instead, you will find that your own savings disappear.

	Recently, a documentary film company decided to show that it was easy to get some newspapers to publish tall stories about celebrities. They made up some stories, and then gave them to the newspapers. What sort of stories? Well, do you know the singer Amy Winehouse? She has lots of hair which she wears piled up on the top of her head in a style which in English we call a beehive. The tall story about her was that her beehive had caught fire during a party at her house. Another singer, Sarah Harding of the group Girls Aloud, is &ndash; how shall I say this ? &ndash; not well-known as an intellectual. The story about her was that in secret she reads books about quantum physics and that she had bought her own telescope so that she can observe the stars and the planets.

Amy Winehouse and her beehive hair style.

	At this point, dear listeners, I must say that I am disappointed that the company did not invent a story about the celebrity podcaster at Listen to English &ndash; something about a secret holiday on a Caribbean island with a 19 year old super-model, perhaps. I am sure it would have been much more interesting than the fire in Amy Winehouse's hair.

	What adjectives can we use to describe these tall stories. They are untrue, or false, of course; they are also fabricated, or invented, or made-up; and they are far-fetched, or outlandish, or difficult to believe.

	Nonetheless, the newspapers published nearly all of the stories. None of them tried to check whether they were true. Sometimes the papers even added little details of their own. And then the stories were repeated in other newspapers and on blogs and internet sites. People will believe almost anything about celebrities. Celebrities are manufactured; they are invented by the media. Sometimes they hardly seem to be real people at all. People do not want the truth about celebrities; they want entertainment. So does it matter if the media publish tall stories about them?
	
		
	File download (6:44 mins | 3 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 20 Oct 09 15:41:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[How to get rid of an old sofa]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/how-to-get-rid-of-an-old-sofa-audios-mp3_rf_137925_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/how-to-get-rid-of-an-old-sofa_mf_137925_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[How to get rid of an old sofa. Photo by Bj&ouml;rn Sahlberg/flickr

	Today we learn about how to get rid of things.  

	Kevin and Joanne have an old sofa. In fact, it used to be Kevin's sofa in the good old days when he was a student and before he had met Joanne. The sofa is dirty and stained, because Kevin has spilled beer on it, several times. The wooden frame is broken, because Kevin and about 10 friends sat on the sofa once to watch the World Cup final on television. The sofa is torn, because Kevin's cat used to sharpen his claws on it. Joanne has had enough. &ldquo;That sofa has to go,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;We have to get rid of it.&rdquo;

	&ldquo;That is my sofa&rdquo;, says Kevin. &ldquo;We go back a long way. It is part of my history. We cannot get rid of it.&rdquo;

	&ldquo;Yes, we can,&rdquo; says Joanne. &ldquo;We will go to IKEA on Saturday to buy a new sofa.&rdquo; That was the wrong thing to say. Kevin does not want to get rid of his old sofa. And especially he does not want to go to IKEA on Saturday with hundreds of other people. He wants to go to a football match with hundreds of other people instead.

	Kevin and Joanne reach a compromise. They will get rid of the old sofa. They will buy a new sofa on the internet. There will be no trip to IKEA. And Kevin can go to the football match.

	&ldquo;How shall we get rid of the sofa?&rdquo; asks Kevin. &ldquo;Perhaps we could sell it on eBay.&rdquo;

	&ldquo;Don't be silly,&rdquo; says Joanne. &ldquo;No-one will want to buy a dirty, broken sofa on eBay.&rdquo;

	&ldquo;Perhaps we can just take it outside and leave it in the street,&rdquo; says Kevin. &ldquo;Eventually the Council will take it away.&rdquo;

	&ldquo;No they won't,&rdquo; says Joanne. &ldquo;And we will probably be prosecuted for dumping rubbish in the street.&rdquo;

	&ldquo;I could take the sofa into the garden and set fire to it,&rdquo; suggests Kevin.

	&ldquo;Now you are being ridiculous,&rdquo; says Joanne. &ldquo;George can borrow a van from his work, and you and George can put the sofa in the van and take it to the tip.&rdquo; The &ldquo;tip&rdquo; is the place where people can take things they do not want in order to get rid of them. There are big containers for different sorts of rubbish &ndash; for paper and cardboard, for glass, for engine oil, for old fridges, for wood, for garden rubbish and so on. And there is lots of room for old sofas. 

	So George and Kevin put the sofa in the van and get rid of it at the tip. Then they go to the football match together, where they watch United lose 3-0 to the team at the bottom of the league. They are not happy. &ldquo;They need to get rid of that useless manager,&rdquo; says George. &ldquo;They need to get rid of that useless goalkeeper,&rdquo; says Kevin. 

	When they get home, they find that the new sofa has arrived. They sit down on it and open a couple of cans of beer. &ldquo;If either of you spill beer on the new sofa,&rdquo; says Joanne &ldquo;you will both be dead. I will get rid of you both myself!&rdquo; 
	
		Quiz - how to get rid of things. :: 
		
	File download (4:02 mins | 2 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 07 Oct 09 10:31:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Staffordshire Hoard]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/the-staffordshire-hoard-audios-mp3_rf_137926_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/the-staffordshire-hoard_mf_137926_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[Two of the pieces of Anglo-Saxon metalwork found in a field in Staffordshire.

	Before beginning today's podcast, I need to explain a few words. The first word is &ldquo;treasure&rdquo;. Treasure means things which are very valuable; generally, &ldquo;treasure&rdquo; means things made of gold or silver or precious stones. The second word is &ldquo;hoard&rdquo;. If someone collects a lot of valuable things, and then hides them or keeps them secret, we call that a &ldquo;hoard&rdquo;. And finally, a &ldquo;find&rdquo; is of course something which you find &ndash; but normally it means something very special or unusual or valuable which you find.

	But that's enough vocabulary practice. On with today's podcast. 

	Terry Herbert is 55 years old. He lives in a small town called Bloxwich, about 16 kilometers north-west of Birmingham. His hobby is metal-detecting. A metal-detector is a tool which tells you when there is metal in the ground. You move the metal detector slowly over the ground, and it goes &lsquo;bleep' if it finds anything made of metal.

	In July this year, Terry went metal-detecting in a field in Staffordshire owned by a friend of his, and found something completely amazing. He discovered a large number of  gold and silver objects. He told the authorities what he had found, and a team of archaeologists then explored the site carefully and found more objects. When they started to clean and examine the discovery, they realised that Terry Herbert had found over 1500 objects dating from about 700AD. It was the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure ever found in England.

	The Anglo-Saxons were people who invaded and settled in England as the Roman Empire collapsed in about the 4th century. They came from northern Germany and the language which they spoke &ndash; which we call Anglo-Saxon or Old English &ndash; was the ancestor of modern English. They were skilled metal craftsmen; they made delicate and intricate designs on gold and silver, and often inlaid the metal with precious stones, such as garnet, which is a dark red stone. After they arrived here, the Anglo-Saxons divided England into a number of kingdoms and spent most of the next several hundred years fighting each other, and the Danes and the Scots. The largest and most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was called Mercia. It covered all of central England, including the area where the Staffordshire Hoard was found.

Gold inlaid with garnets, from the Staffordshire Hoard.

	Almost everything in the hoard is connected with the Anglo-Saxons' favourite hobby, fighting. There are gold decorations from swords and knives, from shields and helmets, from belts and buckles. There are no &ldquo;women's things&rdquo;, like personal jewellery, and no household things like plates or cups. So what is the hoard? Many experts think that the treasure was collected after a battle. Quite simply, the victors went around and took all the gold and precious metal from the weapons and clothes of the enemies they had killed. Who were these victors and who were their enemies? We do not know. And afterwards, the victors hid what they had collected. Why? Again, we do not know. Nor do we know what happened later, and why the victors did not come back and collect the treasure which they had hidden. 

	In England, if you find gold or silver objects which are more than 300 years old, they belong to the Queen. Normally, however, a reward based on the value of the find is paid to the person who found it and to the owner of the land. Often a museum buys the treasure, and in this case the Museum in Birmingham together with other local museums want to acquire the Staffordshire Hoard so that it remains in the area where it was found. 

	We English are not generally very interested in museums or art galleries. We prefer zoos, pubs, theme parks and beaches. But there has been a lot of interest in the Staffordshire Hoard. Perhaps popular archaeology programmes on television have made people more aware of the importance of things from our history. There is a temporary exhibition of a few of the most important objects from the Staffordshire Hoard at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery until the middle of October. Yesterday, together with hundreds of other people, I stood in a queue for over an hour to see the exhibition. It is quite fascinating. Many of the objects still have dirt from the field in Staffordshire on them, because there has not been time yet to clean them. Suddenly, Anglo-Saxon England, 1300 years ago, seems much closer and more real.
	
		The Staffordshire Hoard website :: 
		
	File download (6:50 mins | 3 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 29 Sep 09 15:24:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[I cannot bear it ....]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/i-cannot-bear-it-audios-mp3_rf_137927_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/i-cannot-bear-it_mf_137927_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[I told you, I can't bear getting up in the morning&hellip;

	This podcast is about &ldquo;bear&rdquo;. You all know what a bear is. It is a big, furry animal that likes eating honey. There is a picture of a bear on the website. He is from a zoo in northern Spain, where there are still some bears in the wild. However, that is not the sort of &ldquo;bear&rdquo; I want to tell you about today. If you are really interested in the big, furry sorts of bear, you may enjoy listening to Natasha telling you a story about bears &ndash; three bears actually &ndash; in another posting on Listen to English.

	&ldquo;To bear&rdquo; is a verb. Its past tense is &ldquo;bore&rdquo;. Originally, &ldquo;to bear&rdquo; meant &ldquo;to carry&rdquo;. We still use it to mean &ldquo;to carry&rdquo; in some set expressions, but it sounds a bit old-fashioned.  However, you will often hear people saying things like :I cannot bear the noise which the children are making.I cannot bear the hot weather in summer.If I say that &ldquo;I cannot bear&rdquo; something, I mean that I cannot tolerate it, it is awful, it is too much, it makes me very unhappy, it makes me want to scream and run away and hide! Here are some more examples :I cannot bear travelling by air, because you have to wait so long at the airport.George cannot bear getting up early in the morning.I cannot bear it when you are angry.Kevin cannot bear it when Joanne's mother says that there are more important things in life than football.There are some other expressions which mean almost the same as &ldquo;I cannot bear..&rdquo;. Here are some of them:I like classical music, but my children cannot stand it.I cannot put up with the pop music which my children like.Now suppose you want to say the opposite of &ldquo;I cannot bear..&rdquo;. Suppose you wanted to say that you are OK with your children's pop music. It is not a problem for you. How would you say that? You could say :I don't mind my children's pop music.My children's pop music does not bother me.So, now you know all about the word &ldquo;bear&rdquo;. And some of you will remember that there is another word &ldquo;bare&rdquo; in English, spelled B-A-R-E. The B-A-R-E sort of bare is an adjective, and it means uncovered, not covered with anything. So, you can say that someone has bare arms, which means that they are wearing a short-sleeved shirt or blouse which leaves their arms uncovered. Or you can say that someone has a bare head, which means that they are not wearing a hat. You can talk about the bare earth, which means ground where there is nothing growing; or about a bare mountainside, where there are no trees, just rocks.

	Near where I live, there is a man who never wears any shoes. He says that his feet smell if he wears shoes, so for the last 30 years he has walked the streets of the city with no shoes. People call him Pete the Feet, and there is an interview with him on YouTube.  Pete the Feet has bare feet; he goes bare-footed. 

	Now you are all experts on &ldquo;bear&rdquo; (the animal), and &ldquo;to bear&rdquo; (the verb) and &ldquo;bare&rdquo; (the adjective). So you can try the quiz on the website and see how good you are!
	
		Quiz - if you can bear it! :: 
		
	File download (4:59 mins | 2 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 23 Sep 09 15:39:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Islands on the Edge of the World]]></title><link>http://www.ivoox.com/the-islands-on-the-edge-of-the-world-audios-mp3_rf_137928_1.html</link><enclosure url="http://www.ivoox.com/the-islands-on-the-edge-of-the-world_mf_137928_1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" /><description><![CDATA[St Kilda. The old houses are in a long row in the centre of the picture. The modern buildings on the left are a small military installation. Photo by the Croft/flickr

	Today we are going to visit St Kilda. St Kilda is a small group of islands in the north Atlantic, far to the west of Scotland. It is the home of tens of thousands of sea birds. In fact, St Kilda is one of the most important places for sea birds anywhere in the world. And for thousands of years, people lived on St Kilda, but they do not live there any more, as I will explain.

	The traditional way of life on St Kilda was simple and hard. The people kept sheep and grew a few crops like barley. They hunted sea-birds for food. They did some fishing, but the sea around St Kilda is often very bad and fishing was dangerous. The people of St Kilda had little contact with the outside world. Once a year the representative of the landlord visited the island to collect rents. If the islanders needed help, they would  light a big fire on the top of the main island, and hope that a passing ship would see it. Sometimes, they wrote messages and put the message inside a piece of wood. They threw the wood into the sea, and several weeks later someone walking on the shore in Scotland might find it. 

	Some big changes happened in the 19th century. A school opened on the island, where the children learned Gaelic (which was their own language), and English (which was a foreign language for them) and arithmetic. Small numbers of tourists started to visit the islands during the summer. The tourist boats brought things which the islanders needed, and the islanders made simple souvenirs to sell to the tourists. Some of the islanders left the islands, to go to Australia, and later another group emigrated to Canada. The number of people on St Kilda had never been more than about 180. By the end of the 19th century, the number had fallen to less than 100.

	During the First World War, the British Navy had a wireless station on St Kilda, and on one exciting day a German submarine arrived and shelled the island. No-one was killed, but the Navy's wireless station was destroyed. The Navy base on St Kilda made communication with the outside world easy, and Navy ships were able to bring supplies to the island. But when the war ended, the Navy base closed and life for the people of St Kilda became hard again. There were shortages of food in some years, and there was no way to get seriously ill people to hospital. By 1930, there were only 36 people left on St Kilda. They all signed a letter to the government saying that they wanted to leave before the winter storms made it impossible for a ship to reach St Kilda. And on 29 August 1930, they all left and went to mainland Scotland, and their houses, and the tiny church and school were empty. 

	Today, the National Trust for Scotland owns St Kilda. During the summer, a warden and volunteers carry out conservation work on the old houses. You can visit St Kilda during the summer by boat from Scotland. The trip takes 14 hours, or longer in bad weather, and sometimes the boat cannot reach St Kilda at all. When you get there you will find no cafes or restaurants, no cars or tourist coaches, no public toilets or souvenir shops, just the ruins of the houses where the St Kilda people used to live, and sheep, and thousands and thousands of sea birds. The islands of St Kilda are still the islands on the edge of the world.
	
		Quiz - how well did you understand the podcast? :: 
		More about St Kilda :: 
		Pictures of St Kilda :: 
		
	File download (5:11 mins | 3 MB)


     
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 15 Sep 09 14:19:00 +0200</pubDate><itunes:keywords><![CDATA[]]></itunes:keywords></item></channel></rss>
