A special steam train at Farringdon station, to celebrate 150 years of the London Underground. Photo by diamond geezer/flickr. Here in Britain, we have been celebrating a birthday. Not the birthday of a person, however, but the birthday of a railway. One hundred and fifty years ago, in January 1863, the first underground railway in the world carried its first passengers. It ran for 6 kilometres from Paddington in London to a place close to the City, which is the name we call London’s main business district. The new railway was controversial and unpopular with many people. The men building …
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Older Episodes
We hit a mid-life crisis and buy a sports car and learn to dance Gangnam Style.
Some bones are found under a car park in Leicester. Are they those of King Richard III?
We learn about school dinners and own goals, and how to make an idiot of yourself by trying to stop a 9 year old from writing a blog.
Dull, twinned with Boring Do you know the English word “dull”? “Dull” is the opposite of “bright”. Often it means “uninteresting”. We can talk about dull weather, which means cloudy weather, probably some rain and certainly no sunshine. We can talk about a dull book or a dull lesson. And …
In search of new and interesting things to do, we visit Dull in Scotland and Boring in Oregon.
A poster advertising Titanic. The 14th of April 2012 was the centenary – the 100th anniversary – of the sinking of the passenger ship Titanic in the north Atlantic. This podcast is about Titanic. I hope it will help you to learn some new words and expressions about ships and …
We take a coach trip round the M25 motorway, and learn some new words about motoring.
A traffic jam on the M25 motorway. Are you planning a visit to England? Are you thinking to yourself, “What shall we do in England? Are there any really special places that we must go to when we are there?” You are? Good, then this podcast is for you. When …
We learn the English expression "going to the dogs" and pay a visit to Crufts, the largest dog show in the world.
Elizabeth, the Lhasa Apso dog which won the Best in Show award at Crufts 2012. Photograph copyright onEdition, used here with permission. We have an expression in English “going to the dogs”. If something is “going to the dogs”, it means that everything seems to be getting worse and worse. …
We meet Lord Lucan, who could not cope with foreign languages or foreign food.
We meet Lord Lucan, who could not cope with foreign languages or foreign food.
Lord Lucan. Have you seen this man? He cannot cope with life abroad. Today I am going to tell you about Lord Lucan. But first we need to talk about the verb “to cope”. Helen has three children. They are all less than five years old, which means that none …
This young lady is singing in the rain, and dancing in the rain, and splashing in the puddles in the rain. Photo by James White/flickr. If you are as old as I am, you probably remember a Hollywood film called Singing in the Rain. That was Gene Kelly singing a …
We go Singing in the Rain with Gene Kelly, and learn all the things you can do with words that end in -ING!
A famous photograph of Scott, writing in his journal, at the expedition base camp. Do you know what “centenary” means? It means the 100-year anniversary of something. This week is the centenary of the arrival at the South Pole of the first British explorers , led by Captain Robert Scott. …
We celebrate the centenary of Scott's arrival at the South Pole, and reflect on how we love heroes who fail, in this podcast for English learners.
One of the new pandas at Edinburgh Zoo, enjoying a snack of bamboo shoots. This is a new Listen to English podcast, the first for a very long time. No, I am not dead, as some of you seem to think. Nor am I ill, nor have I run away …