English Addict Ep 364 - 🔴LIVE stream / Wednesday 7th MAY 2025 / Join the LIVE Chat & Learn English

We have a beautiful day.

It is absolutely gorgeous.

And yes, you can see now we have a lot of the beautiful blooms coming out

on not only the flowers and the plants, but also the trees as well.

It is so nice to be back with you once more.

This is English addict coming to you live and direct from the birthplace of the English language.

We all know where it is, Mr. Duncan.

Come on, for goodness sake, get on with it.

Doo doo doooo.

We are indeed back together again.

It is so lovely to have you here as well. Hi, everybody. This is Mr.

Duncan in England. How are you today? Are you okay?

I hope so.

Are you happy?

Do you have one of these on your face? I hope you are smiling right now.

If there is something in your life that is making you smile, something that is making you feel happy, please let me know.

I do need cheering up.

For those who are not aware, I have been ill, very ill last week with the dreaded Covid.

I am now getting over it.

My voice is not great.

You may have already noticed it's not great, but I will try my best to continue.

As Mr Steve said last Sunday, I am a trooper.

A person who is described as a trooper is the person who pushes forward.

They are the marching soldier. There you go. Onwards.

No matter what is in front of them.

So thank you for those who have said, Mr.

Duncan, it's so nice to have you here again, despite the fact that you are completely sick

and it's true.

I had a a temperature last week of 102.

Apparently, if your temperature goes up to 104,

you have to be taken in an ambulance to the nearest hospital straight away.

So I was just two degrees

off from having to go to hospital.

And to be honest with you, I don't want that at the moment.

Although although just.

Listen to my idea

that I've just had in my brain doing a live stream from a hospital bed.

Oh, oh, maybe one day.

Not yet.

Not at the moment, please.

I don't want it to happen just yet, but perhaps one day I could do a live stream from my hospital bed.

Who knows?

We will see what happens.

We will see what fate has in store,

as we all do. We all must wait and see.

Lovely to be here.

Wednesday has returned again.

Already we are approaching, I suppose.

No, no, Mr. Duncan, you're wrong.

We are not approaching halfway through May.

In fact, we are just one week into May.

How has May been for you so far?

I hope it has been a good one so far.

I know for some people not very good. Some people

disastrous

and for others not too bad.

So if there is something making you smile today besides me, I know a lot of you will say, oh, Mr.

Duncan, Mr. Duncan, you cheer, is it?

You make us feel so happy.

But if there's something else besides me that's making you smile today, please let me know.

And who knows, maybe I need you to make me smile today.

So please join in, because it is for everyone.

This is English addict with myself, Mr. Duncan. That's me, by the way.

And we are talking about English.

Lots of things going on at the moment around the world.

As I just mentioned, some of them not so good and some of them are even worse.

Dare I say.

Outside the window looks very nice at the moment.

You can see, as I showed you at the start of today's live stream, if you are wondering what that yellow flower is hanging from the tree,

that particular type of tree is called a laburnum.

Laburnum.

It is a beautiful tree.

It comes out in flower once a year for a very short period of time,

but when it does come out it looks amazing with its lovely yellow flowers.

The other thing to mention about this particular tree is the seeds from this tree are highly poisonous.

You dear.

So at least I've warned you about it.

Just in case you decide to go out and start eating the landscape around you.

Oh, something else I want to show you very quickly.

I have

a new camera now, I'm not going to explain everything about this, but let's just say someone was very kind.

A person who is no longer here in this realm of existence.

And I have a new camera.

That's all I'm saying.

Would you like to see my new camera?

Well, you can actually see the image that my new camera is making.

And there is the beautiful image looking out the back of the garden.

So the first camera is the front and that is the back.

I think I will call this camera the ITV camera,

for reasons that I'm sure some of you know is not lovely.

So we have the most spectacular weather today.

A really nice day and I

am inside the studio in the dark.

But I suppose in a way it is for the best.

Or by the way, on Monday we had a public holiday, so Mr.

Steve and myself, we decided to go out for a walk because I was trying to to give myself some strength,

some energy, because I haven't been very well.

Did I mention it?

Have I mentioned that I wasn't very well last week?

I think I may have mentioned it a couple of times.

Well, I mentioned any hitting can,

so we had a lovely walk.

Unfortunately it did tire me out and I was not feeling very well.

On Tuesday, I was really under the weather on Tuesday did not feel well at all.

So I'm I'm trying my best to to put myself

back where I should be.

I am trying my best to put myself back.

To normal.

Whatever normal happens to be.

There is an interesting phrase that we often use in English.

We can often say that a person is on course.

So this is a phrase we often use in English when we are going in the right direction.

If you are heading in the right direction, we will often say that you are on course, you are on the right path,

you are steady and controlled.

So in that sense, and we often use it when we are talking about ships or boats, they are on course.

They are on the right path, they are steady and controlled.

So you might describe a person, we can use it figurative in many ways.

A person can also be on course.

It means they are heading in the right direction, maybe in their lives,

maybe in a certain pursuit, something that you are trying to achieve in your life.

You are on course.

And of course there is the opposite.

We can say that a person is off course, they are on the wrong path

or maybe they are unsteady and out of control.

They are not going the right way.

Instead of going that way, they are going that way instead all over the place.

They are off course.

They are going in the wrong direction.

So I always think these are very interesting phrases because they don't just refer to ships or anything that sails on the sea.

We can also

use them in our own lives to show that our life is going in the right direction, and everything is under control.

Or of course, quite often, like last week, my life went off course because

sadly, I became ill.

Did I mention that? Have I mentioned that I have not been very well?

Did I mention it quite so.

I was off course last week.

My boat or ship was

going all over the place.

I did not know where I was and if you are on course you are going in the right direction.

Everything is under control. So that is what I am trying to do this week.

I am trying to get myself back on course with my work, my life, my health, everything.

In fact,

I'm trying to to put everything back together.

How it was before I got the dreaded Covid.

There is something I haven't mentioned yet.

Oh yes, I know what it is.

I haven't mentioned you out there in YouTube land.

Hello to the live chat.

I suppose I should say hello to you because it would not be English addict without you being out there in YouTube land.

Hello to. Oh, very nice, very nice.

You know why I'm giving you the big clap?

You are first once again on the live chat.

And in second place, a very excited Beatrice.

I know why you are excited.

I know why you are feeling so full of beans.

Because we will be meeting up in about

three weeks from now.

Is it really three weeks before we meet up in Paris?

I can't believe it.

Goodness me.

I am looking forward to it though.

As we all are,

I just hope I am much better by then.

I hope I have recovered from my horrible Luigi by then, I really do.

We also have Palmira as well and he is here.

He is back talking good friends.

It is our own toasty warm baguette himself.

Luis Mendes

is here today.

Hello, Louis.

Nice to see you here as well.

I hope you are feeling better than me at the moment.

I would imagine most people at the moment are feeling better than me right now.

Who else is here? A couple of more hellos.

Hello, Christina.

I know you are very excited as well. Zeinab.

Hello, Zeinab, nice to see you here today as well on the live chat.

So many people are here.

Hello to Claudia.

Hello to Claudia.

It's nice to see you here again.

Eight year, eight year. Ramon is here as well.

Hello to you.

Thank you for joining English Addict on this Wednesday.

Your voice is clear.

I suppose you are feeling better. Well, I will say one thing.

This morning when I woke up,

I could hardly use my voice.

It was really hard to speak.

So at the moment my voice is not great,

but it's not terrible.

It is somewhere in between.

So that is one of the things I am trying to get back on course is my voice.

Because without my voice, to be honest with you, I know it sounds obvious, but without my voice I can't do anything.

I'm completely helpless.

I can't do anything at all. Hello, Kevin.

Kevin de asset.

It's nice to see you here as well.

It's so good to be with you.

Hello, Mr. Duncan, I hope everything is going well.

It is. It's going okay. I suppose.

Hello, Nico.

Nico, I like your name, by the way.

I used to know someone called Nico.

It was short for Nicholas.

There's no answer to that.

Thank you very much for joining me today. We have a lot to talk about.

We are looking at an interesting subject, by the way.

Originality.

It is something we often hear people talk about these days for one big reason.

There is a fear.

There is a worry that originality will slowly fade away.

It will slowly disappear.

Originality.

Things that have been created that have never been seen, something that's never been done

or tried or created, ever

originality.

And because, of course, we have now this emergence of artificial intelligence, many people are worried.

They are afraid that originality will slowly fade away because of artificial intelligence.

And we will have to wait and see.

I cannot see the future.

I will be honest with you. I cannot see into the future.

I wish I could,

because then I would know what next Saturday's lottery numbers would be.

But but I can't, so I don't.

Which is the reason why I'm here now.

Standing in front of a camera, talking to myself.

That is the reason why. Hamed. Hello? Hamed.

It's nice to see you here today.

By the way, we have a special anniversary today.

On this day in history, we.

On this day in 1824, the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony took place in Vienna.

Apparently, he was going to perform the premiere

in Berlin because he really thought that everyone now hated him.

So he wanted to have the premiere.

Someone somewhere else.

In fact, I think this was the first public performance by Beethoven since 1812.

So it was a long time before he stood up in front of an audience.

I imagine that. Can you imagine

getting tickets?

To see Beethoven

conduct one of his own pieces of music?

Not only that, but also the premiere as well.

The first time it was ever performed.

Of course, it is a very familiar piece of music.

It is widely recognised as one of the most popular and identify viable pieces of classical music.

You know which one it is?

Da da da da da da da da da da da da

da da do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do.

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

That one.

A lovely piece of classical music.

And it is the anniversary.

And I suppose next year it will be the the.

Well, I was going to say the hundredth anniversary, but it won't be.

It won't be next. Oh, no, not next year.

I beg your pardon. Ignore me.

Last year it was the hundredth anniversary.

Yes, this year it's the 101st anniversary.

So there you can see there is a very good example of my brain not working as well as it should.

You see, not working as it should.

Anyway, happy birthday to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

And apparently he wasn't that friendly to his audience, which I always find quite amazing.

So apparently Beethoven was quite unfriendly to his audience.

He would never look directly at the audience, and it was on this occasion at the end, I think it was

at the end of this performance that the lead soprano actually

took hold of Beethoven and turned him around physically to face the audience.

That's how the story goes, anyway, whether it is true or not

is open for debate, but it is a wonderful piece of music.

It has lots of movements, some beautiful choral

movements as well, which I'm sure Mr.

Steve would be telling me all about if he was here, but sadly he's not.

But I love classical music. I have to say,

when I was young I was really lucky because at school we had a music teacher

and she would always play lots of different pieces of music in the classroom.

So sometimes in the class we would just sit and listen to music.

So she wasn't actually teaching us anything about the music or the composer.

Sometimes we would just have a music class and she would bring the record player into the classroom,

put a record on, and we would sit and listen to it, and I have to say, I fell in love with with all sorts of music.

I suppose you might say that music has been part of my life since I was a child,

because I love music and I have a feeling maybe the same thing concerns you as well.

Perhaps you also feel the same way.

I'm going to have a quick break and then we are looking at something rather unusual, something I hope is interesting.

A subject that we often talk about when we are discussing art, music

or any type of expression that is done in that particular way using creativity.

We are looking at originality. I mentioned earlier

my new camera and last night we had a lovely moment of time.

A big hot air balloon came over the house last night, so I went outside and I decided to film some sequences.

And here is the result.

And after this we have today's topic, which is being original

and originality.

That was something I filmed last night in the garden.

We have quite often balloons flying over the house.

In this area, there are many people who love balloons.

And by that I mean hot air balloons.

And there was a very good example of one that came over last night.

I'm not sure if I would ever go up in a hot air balloon.

I've said this before, it always seems very precarious when you are sitting in that little basket underneath

a very fragile structure.

I saw the the footage of the Hindenburg.

I saw what happened to that.

And whenever I see a hot air balloon, I always think of the same thing.

I think of two things. One,

maybe it's not a good idea to go up there, and two, I can always hear someone say, all of humanity.

So I would prefer to stay on the ground even though they are the most beautiful things.

When you see a hot air balloon going by, it looks so graceful and elegant as it floats by.

Hello to the live chat! Live chat.

Very busy talking about some very interesting subjects.

Something I have to say.

You may have noticed a few changes recently with my YouTube channel.

Not big changes, but there are things that I'm having to do.

Things that I must do to carry on doing this.

Because this, all of this

takes time and a lot of patience.

And don't forget, I do all of this on my own. I don't have a team of people.

I don't have people working for me. The only person who works here is me.

I do everything I film, I record, I edit, I design everything.

You see, I have to write all the scripts, I have to do everything, and I do everything because I love doing it.

But of course, doing this takes a lot of time and money and sometimes you have to

try to get a little return.

When I say little, I mean

little.

But I try my best.

That is all you can do.

A lot of people these days are worried.

Why are they worried? Mr. Duncan, please tell us why are they worried?

I will tell you why they are worried.

They are worried about losing something that a lot of people see as very valuable.

Maybe even an important part of human interaction.

And that is originality.

We talk about originality, things that have been created, things that have been

brought into the world that did not exist before.

I suppose you could also talk about inventions, things that have been created to make our lives easier.

So originality can be anything that has been created that did not exist before.

And that is what we are going to look at today.

Originality refers to the instance of a unique moment or action, something that is unique

is something that will never happen again, or maybe something that didn't happen before.

But now it does.

Perhaps it's something that only happens for a short period of time and then it is gone.

Originality.

The instance of a unique moment or action, a thing never done before.

A unique thought or idea that manifests as a creation.

For example, in art.

So earlier we were talking about

Beethoven and his beautiful ninth Symphony.

Of course, he wrote that by himself.

He created that piece of work.

Not only that, he had at that time become almost completely deaf.

Think of that for a moment.

You are composing music for people to listen to,

but you are composing music that you yourself cannot hear.

That is skill, dedication.

And I suppose the other word would be perseverance.

It always reminds me a bit of Monet when he lost his sight, and yet he carried on painting.

He painted as much as he could, despite the fact that his eyesight was starting to fade away.

He had I think it was cataracts.

I, I think he was suffering from cataracts.

And at that time it was possible to get treatment for cataracts, but it was not very pleasant treatment.

So I suppose you might say people like Beethoven or Monet,

they had to suffer for their art and their unique creations.

I have to say.

So. A thing never done before, a unique thought or idea

that manifests as part of a creation or as a creation.

Something manifests.

It appears it is there.

You can see it for all

to look at and admire.

Hopefully sometimes they don't admire it.

A thing created from one's own thought and ideas will contain originality.

We often state something as being an original idea, something you've never seen before,

something that is done in a very interesting way or an unusual way.

It shows originality.

It is something that is unique.

In writing, originality refers to the creation of a story.

Or the use of words in a sentence never done before.

Something that has never been composed in that particular way.

So in writing, we often talk about originality in storytelling or story writing.

So I suppose if you think of recent times, there are many stories that have been written, characters that have been created,

that are unique, they don't exist anywhere else.

So that basically is what originality is.

We often think of it in writing, the creation of a story, or the use of words in a sentence never done before.

Poetry is another word, using words to create a feeling, to bring out an emotion.

A story or a poem composed by an individual is original.

It expresses something with originality.

So once again, we are talking about the creation of things that are unique,

something that never occurred before, something that never happened.

But now it exists. It has happened.

Something that is

unique,

a joke that has never been told before, is fresh and new.

It has originality in the way it was thought up, and I think it is a hard thing to do these days because when you think about it,

I would imagine there are so many jokes, so many funny stories floating around these days.

I would imagine it's very hard to come up with something new or something original.

In fact, it always amazes me when a person does that.

When a person is able to think of something new that never existed before, I always find that quite fascinating,

and there are still many talented people around who are able to do that.

So originality is what we are talking about today.

We are looking at the actions or the state of something being original.

An ability to think independently or with creativity is originality.

We often think of people certain people, and I don't know how this happens, but some people are very creative.

How do they do that?

Some people are incredibly creative songwriters, artists,

musicians.

They are able to write and compose music, and then they perform their own music.

And I'm sure you can think of many, many popular composers for the last 40 or 50 years.

There must be many, many, in fact, writers, authors,

composers, many different types of creativity and all of these people are unique for some reason.

They have the ability to do that in their brain.

Their brain is able to produce things

almost as if by magic.

The songs, the words, they are all in there, driving around and around.

And I would imagine it's one of the things, one of the many things about the brain that we still don't fully understand.

We really don't understand what creativity is. We don't know

how the brain is able

to be creative.

We still don't understand it.

It is there.

Some people have more creativity than others.

Now, I know this sounds a little bit old fashioned, but I believe everyone has creativity.

I think everyone has something.

Some part of their character, some part of their imagination is their

making things happen or occur or exist.

The only difference is they keep it to themselves.

They don't tell other people about it.

And I think that is the difference between those who create and those who don't create.

I think everyone has something to offer.

We all have a story to tell, but not everyone does it.

Most people keep it private unto themselves.

So a person with an independent mind, or with their own

original ideas we often describe as creative.

They will often produce things that are original.

We can use words as well.

We can use ingenuity.

Ingenuity just means inventiveness.

You are able to create things that did not exist before.

Again, this refers quite strongly to originality.

Once again, I know I've talked about this already.

Creativity, the ability to create things from nothing.

A person who can invent a machine,

or maybe they can create a piece of music that then lasts forever.

It stays with us forever and ever.

Then we have inventiveness.

Inventiveness, I suppose, is very similar to ingenuity.

We often think of famous inventors.

There are many people over the years who have given part of their own wisdom or their own ideas,

and they have helped humanity move forward.

It is a wonderful thing to be able to do.

An individual thought.

Now in this situation, when I say individual thought, what I I'm actually saying is unique thought,

an idea that no one has ever thought of before.

Something is unique.

The opposite of originality is unoriginal.

Something is unoriginal.

That thing has been done before, and quite often much better.

We do see this quite often nowadays.

I've noticed in the entertainment business

there is a lot of repeating of the same thing

with movies, modern music.

These things all seem very familiar.

It's almost as if no one has any original ideas.

Everything we see nowadays is always a remake or something

that's been taken and recreated in some way.

I don't know, maybe that's just my opinion, but of course,

we all know these days fewer and fewer people are watching movies.

Not many people now spend their money.

And let's face it, one person to go to the cinema nowadays is around about £20.

So if you are taking your kids

to the pictures, to the cinema to see the latest movie,

you might be spending nearly £100 just to go and see a movie,

which to me.

Is expensive.

Is it just my imagination or is that expensive?

I would rather stay at home and watch something on my streaming service, to be honest with you, I think so.

So something that's been done before and quite often much better.

An original can be described as old hat,

something that is old hat is

an original.

It has been done many times before.

We have seen it.

Before time and time again.

Something is old hat.

We can describe something as stale.

Yeah, stale means something that is no longer good.

Something that cannot be used anymore,

such as a piece of bread.

When a piece of bread goes stale, you can't eat it.

It is disgusting.

It is something you don't want to eat or even look at.

Something stale

can be something that is an original.

A thing can also be out of date as well.

Out of date.

A thing that has been done so many times before.

It feels as if it's from the past.

It feels as if it's come from another time in the past.

It is so out of date.

It really is.

And then we can say that something has been done before that thing has been done before.

It is not original,

it's been done before.

It is not an original thing at all.

A person can create something original.

It is their own idea or thought.

They came up with the idea to come up with something is to think of that thing.

So you might come up with an idea.

To come up with an idea is to think and then express

that thought.

I've just thought of a new idea.

I have come up with a new idea to come up with, a new idea to think of something new and hopefully exciting.

They created the idea, and because of that, they also own it.

So this is an interesting area.

And this goes back to what I was talking about earlier as well with artificial intelligence.

Many people these days are afraid that artificial intelligence will take away originality.

We will not be able to express our own ideas because machines will be doing it instead.

And I always think that creativity is part of humanity.

It is part of being a human being the way we think the way we feel, the way we express ourselves.

So I think the last thing anyone wants

is a machine doing it for us.

They created the idea and because of that, they also own it.

We often use the term intellectual property.

It's a very long sentence.

Intellectual property is the thing created by a certain person.

That thing is their property.

It belongs to them because they created it.

So we often use the term intellectual property

to describe that sort of thing.

Intellectual property.

Intellectual property, basically a created work or idea which belongs to one person or a group of people.

So intellectual property can belong to one person or maybe a group of people.

So maybe they all worked together to create that thing.

So that particular

idea or thing belongs to them.

We often refer to it as intellectual property.

The owner

has the right to copy and use their own creation.

This is known as copyright, something I am very aware of being here on YouTube.

If anyone here uses YouTube for uploading their videos, or maybe sometimes they like to put music on their videos

and then put them on YouTube, you will quickly realise how important copyright is.

It can be

a pain in the neck.

I know from my own experience over the years I've had many situations where I've.

I've actually argued and had battles with other people over copyright, sometimes with my own videos,

sometimes videos that have me in them.

And I have to fight to keep the copyright of that particular video.

So it does happen sometimes, even for me.

I sometimes have very long battles.

Copyright is something that

can make being a publisher on YouTube very unpleasant,

and the original thing is termed as individual.

So we often view something that is original or something that has originality as being individual.

It is one unique thing.

It is something that is unique compared to everything else around it.

It is something that is unique.

It is individual.

We can also say that something is a one off.

A thing that is a one off is something that is individually made.

It is a unique thing.

It doesn't exist anywhere else.

It is a one off.

You might describe an original piece of art, a piece of artwork.

You might describe as a one off.

You can describe a person with a certain personality, the way they behave or the way they look.

You can describe a person as a one off.

There is no one else like that person in the world.

Why are you looking at me?

Is there any reason why you're looking at me?

What? You, Mr.

Duncan, you. You are a one off.

Thank you very much.

One of a kind.

Something that is one of a kind is a unique thing.

Maybe a work of art.

Maybe a beautiful vase.

There is only one

of that thing left in the world.

It is one of a kind.

Something also might be described as unrepeatable.

You can't do it again. You can only do it once.

Perhaps you are a stunt performer and you perform the most amazing stunt.

But because it's very dangerous to do, you only do it once.

That particular thing is unique.

It is very original.

Also, it is dangerous,

so quite often it will be unrepeatable.

You can only do that thing once because it is dangerous.

And that, as they say, is

that for today's big subject, we often think of originality in many ways.

I suppose these days, because of artificial intelligence,

and because many people now can create their own art very quickly using AI.

I think there is a situation eventually, maybe in the future, we might all stop using our own imaginations.

We will get machines to do it for us. I hope that isn't true.

I wish and I hope

that in the future we can still use our own imagination.

We can still use our own brains

to create things that have never been seen or done before.

I hope so,

I will be going in a few moments because if you haven't already heard,

I haven't been very well.

I've been a poorly Mr.

Duncan over the past few days, but I will be back with you on Sunday.

Sunday I am with you.

And of course Mr.

Steve will be here as well on Sunday, joining us as well.

Live from 2 p.m. UK time.

As we get halfway through.

We are approaching halfway through May.

Next Sunday

we will be moving ever nearer to that big event.

And you know what I'm talking about. You know the event I'm talking about.

It is, of course, the Paris Rendezvous, which is coming up on the 1st of June.

I cannot wait to meet you in Paris.

If you are meeting up with us, then I hope we can all have a little bit of fun together.

That is almost it for me.

For today we will have one last look outside because the weather at the moment is glorious.

There is the back garden, the view looking outside you can see all of the blossom on the trees.

It is so beautiful out there.

Even though I have noticed the flies have started coming out.

The flies are really annoying.

That is the one thing I don't like about

summertime.

The problem is we get flies everywhere

and there is the front.

You can see the colour, the majesty of this beautiful season that we call springtime.

Summertime.

Although I think it is safe to say now, it is definitely summer.

Don't anyone, please don't let anyone tell you that it is still spring in England because it isn't.

It's summer. It's official.

I will see you on Sunday.

Take care of yourselves and have a good Wednesday.

Enjoy the rest of your day and have a good week as well.

I am going to try and make some new lessons now.

Yesterday I did post a new lesson on my YouTube channel, although I have to say that one was made a few days ago,

so. So I was able to

post a new lesson yesterday all about agreeing

and disagreeing.

If you haven't seen it yet, it is available on my YouTube channel.

Don't also forget

or should I say also don't forget to subscribe as well.

If you like what you see on my YouTube channel, please give me a lovely subscription and even a lovely thumbs up under this video.

It will help me a lot.

Thank you very very much for your company.

I can already feel my voice starting to disappear so I am going to go now.

This is Mr.

Duncan in the birthplace of English saying thank you for watching.

See you later.

And of course, until the next time we meet here, you know what's coming next. Yes, you do

enjoy the rest of your day.

I'm going now.

Ta ta for now.