English Addict - 🎆 HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🎇- 2025 is here! - 🔴LIVE stream / Come and join the LIVE CHAT

What can I say?

Except. Hello and welcome.

Happy New Year, everyone.

We are with you once again. Live from the birthplace of the English language.

You know where it is? I know where it is.

We all know where it is.

It is, of course, England live in 2025.

Here we go.

Are you ready?

Are you ready for some of this? Hi, everybody.

This is Mr. Duncan in England. How are you today? Are you okay? I hope so.

Are you feeling good on this superduper New Year's Day?

We have a new year. Everyone, welcome. 2025 is here.

It is official.

We are now in a new year.

Baby.

Dooby dooby dooby doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

I hope 2025 has been a good one so far.

And yes, as I said, 2025 has arrived.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Of course it is not just me

because that would be quite dull to be honest.

Just me on the live stream because we have the one, the only.

He has decided to give up his free time today.

Just first.

It is the one, the only.

Ladies and gentlemen, on this New Year's Day.

Come on, Mr. Duncan, get on with it.

It's Mr. Steve's.

Hello, everybody, and happy New Year.

Oh, I've been reading the the live chat, Mr. Duncan.

Lots of lovely comments from our friends who were on there this morning all saying, happy New Year to each other

and, wishing them everybody success, happiness in the new Year.

I'm going to pick out one comment here. Faribault said

that they were feeding a brilliant ooh,

a billionth, happy, and because they want to start a clean slate for 2025.

Boolean. There's a word you don't see very often used in popular English.

But it just means sort of happy, doesn't it? Upbeat.

Now I'm almost.

I'm almost tempted to say that that particular word might be seen by some as a little bit archaic.

We often describe words in English that are not used very often, or maybe they've just fallen out of use as archaic.

Something archaic is from the past, or maybe it is seen as no longer needed or used or obsolete.

So you might say that that is a type of word that you don't.

You're right Steve, though what you say is right. We don't use it very often, don't use it very often.

But it's nice to use words that, you know, from the dictionary that we don't often use booleans.

Yeah. I haven't heard that word used for quite some time.

And it's it's nice to, it's nice to have it used because it's, it's got a certain ring to it.

And, we want to expand our vocabulary here on Mr.

Duncan's, English Channel.

English addict. So thank you for that.

And thank you for everybody's wishes as well.

And it's so nice to have this. I say this every time.

This company, group of friends that Mr.

Duncan has created, that we have met some of you as well.

And, we can all have a nice time here, like a community of friends.

Community. I wish we could see you.

There was also a nice comment from, Jarvie.

Vale and Tam. I know I pronounce it incorrectly.

You look very cool in your sunglasses.

I can just see very small at the edge.

Your is at the handle.

Do you call it Mr.

Duncan? Yes. The icon.

The icon. I can just make out some sunglasses.

So you look very cool in those from the New Year.

But, yeah. It's great to be here, Mr. Duncan.

It's.

It's good to be here with a new year, a fresh start.

A lot of people say that down there.

They often say that that the new year is is a chance to to start a new.

You start a new, which means you are starting from afresh point.

So the new year, a lot of people see it as a chance to maybe start a new A and E W.

So it is one word.

You start a new clean slate.

Yeah, it's that's a good way of putting it is what Faribault said.

Yes, a clean slate.

So what you're saying that what you're saying is that whatever happened in 2024,

it could have been bad.

Some of it would have been good, some of it would have been bad.

But maybe it wasn't a good year for you. Maybe you.

Didn't do things that you were happy with.

And you want January the 1st to be this Cut-Off point

where you say goodbye to the previous year and say, right, this year I'm going to be better.

This year I'm going to do this, this and this. We forget about the past.

We move into the future and, with success and, trying to achieve things.

So that's a good way to put it. Yes.

Well, another thing to mention, of course, is when the new year arrives and we will be talking a lot about the new year

during the next hour, to be honest with you, including the celebrations last night, all of that later.

But what I notice about this particular period of time, Steve, is people start to also become a little reflective.

And when I say that, I mean they they start to think of the past.

They might become a little bit nostalgic.

And I think it's very hard to avoid that.

It's the new year comes around.

It's very hard not to become a little bit nostalgic.

Yes, your mind will begin to wonder.

And of course, a lot of people are free at the moment on holiday. Yes.

So when you are free, when you are in a state of maybe resting and relaxation, you might also start to think about other things.

To be nostalgic, I have to say, you and I have spent the entire Christmas period being rather nostalgic.

I thought you're going to say drunk?

No. Nostalgic?

Yes, because we've been watching owned television programs in the 1970s.

So program that were on many years ago, 50 years ago.

Can you believe the mid 1970s is now 50 years ago?

And we were watching

very popular British television programs and these programs, one of the things to remember

about TV shows years ago, especially during the 1970s, they used to get huge audiences.

And these TV shows that we've been watching old TV shows, they used to get huge viewing figures.

22 million people would watch one TV show.

They were enormously popular.

And of course, nowadays if a TV show, Steve gets 2

or 3 million views when it's broadcast on television, they see that as a success.

They think that is a good thing. What we're really doing well,

we've only got a

very small fraction of the country watching these programmes, but nowadays we think that is a success.

So it's it's quite amazing when you think about it almost.

Well, almost everyone, certainly every household or many of them in the UK would be watching the same thing on television.

But I suppose it's worth mentioning, isn't it? Steve, that

there were only three TV channels back then?

Yes. So there wasn't a lot of choice.

So if you,

yeah, you then you got three channels to choose from.

And usually the quality was quite good.

So, yeah.

When, when you think of a programme getting 20 million viewers, that was probably half the population

of the country at the time, would have been watching one programme.

I don't know how many.

They did announce what was the most popular TV show on Christmas Day in the UK?

Yeah, it was a programme called Gavin and Stacey, I believe, a BBC programme.

So the BBC this year were feeling very smug and quite confident

that they had won the, the ratings war of of who would watch their, their shows the most.

And yes, it was a special Christmas episode of a programme I've never really watched.

And there's one reason

it has James Corden

in the show that for me is

no thank you.

Well it was I don't know how many viewers it got, but it was very popular, that we didn't watch it.

We were watching something from the 1970s.

We were watching old TV shows, one in particular, involving a married couple called George and Mildred,

a very popular TV show from the mid 1970s.

And there are episodes on YouTube.

I'm not supposed to say you this, by the way,

but there are episodes George and Mildred put it in and there are lots of episodes.

Very funny. It is about a married couple.

The wife always tries to make her life better, but unfortunately her husband is.

I suppose you would describe him as, the lazy

maybe.

Yeah, yeah, he was a bit, Yeah, he he was, he was a bit lazy.

I didn't he didn't like to work. And he liked his wife to cook all his meals for him.

And he was very traditional and very, not very open to new ideas and new things, which,

you know, I can relate to that with, with, with people that I used to know, that sort of age.

Life was very back then, you grew up, people grew up then in the war time with very, very fixed ideas and,

about a lot of things, the way society worked, the way you should dress, the way you should do things.

And,

it would have been like that for many, many years. It's probably coming out of the war time.

And, yeah, people are resistant to change.

So I remember my parents always saying that they didn't like the Beatles.

I mean, you know, I was born in 61, and my parents really probably should have been.

They were probably just a bit too old.

Born in sort of 1930, 1931.

They were probably a bit too old for the 60s revolution anyway.

And they they looked at it with disdain where drifting very far away from what we're talking about, which is TV

programmes, one particular TV show about a husband and wife, and there is an interesting word that you used.

And then I remembered the word after you used it the other night.

The word is henpecked, henpecked?

Isn't that a great word?

Henpecked husband.

If ever there was a word that quite cleverly describes

a certain situation, a husband who has to always obey his wife, whatever she says, well,

at least it means that the wife is always sort of getting at the husband to do things. Yes.

Which,

I don't think is uncommon even today.

No. Well, I think it is. Well, we've seen it.

We've seen it.

So this TV show, even though it's a comedy and even though it was written

to be performed on television in a comedy, it does have elements of reality and truth.

And you're right, Steve, we have I don't know, even if we should say this, but we're going to.

It's new Year's Day. Everyone's everyone's doing something else.

We've met a lot of people we know in marriages, and quite often the husband is rather henpecked.

Would you say, Steve?

Yes.

Yeah. So they, Yeah.

I mean, the thing is, you can you can see it two ways, can't you?

You can't you can say that the that the wife is sort of, getting, trying to get the husband

that what the, what the wife wants is a nice home and the children should be brought up correctly.

A nice, tidy once everything to to run the home to run. Well.

And, the man often maybe wants to watch sports on T.V..

Go. Might want to go and play golf, go out with his friends to the pub.

But of course that isn't what gets a successful home.

No, or a well run home.

So exactly.

You know, the wife sometimes has to in I mean, these days things are different.

I'm talking sort of in the days when the wife stayed at home and the man went out to work.

Yes, but isn't it? What I brought was I was brought up with.

But that arrangement hasn't changed because even though the wife has become more independent, you still see that element of the husband

always wanting to please the wife and the wife knowing that the husband is in that position.

And so it it does seem to be something that is kind of fixed in that type of relationship.

Well, Mr. Duncan, we know you know, we know what, that is.

You know, what's going on there

that way, Mr.

Duncan?

Because you know, what is, what is a man want with a woman, anyway? Quite often.

So I won't, you know, don't worry, Mr.

Duncan.

And, so in order to, you know, get that sometimes, you know, there's a little bit of, I think we get, let's say, give and take.

We can talk about the nuptials. Yes, but it's a great.

That's another good word.

We are coming up with some good words today. Nuptials.

That's it. And a hen is a chicken.

So, is a is a in this context, referring to a female chicken to,

and quite often, which is the hen.

But this is also based on nature, because in nature hens will often be quite aggressive to each other, but also to the male as well.

So hens can can be quite aggressive.

They are quite aggressive animals, hens there.

And, and I suppose that particular phrase has grown from that action

of the wife appearing to always peck at the husband.

So yes, telling him what to do, what to wear.

Yes. Palmira, it is referring to a hen.

Female chicken.

Yeah. It's, sort of do this, do that. We've got to be careful what we say here.

No, we don't set anyone. Well, we're not we're not setting.

I don't think we're trying to upset anyone, but it is.

It is a thing.

If you wives didn't get your husbands to do things that probably just sit in front of the telly with with beer all day.

And of course, things need to be done around the house.

Yes. So, you know, you need to, motivate your husband into doing things, because otherwise, you know what?

You know what a man's probably more likely to do, given lots.

I mean, a man that lives by himself, is probably going to watch TV and eat pizza and drink beer.

I mean, that's I'm stereotyping there, but, you know, he's not going to be helping with the washing out,

you know, painting, the painting, decorating a room.

You know, these are things that quite often men don't want to do. No.

And they've got to be sort of pushed into it.

So that you have a nice home, nice comfortable.

You know, you need to go out and buy a new settee or something, you know.

Well, the average man is not going to be bothered with that.

What's wrong with this one?

That's, you know, but maybe if you're having guests around, you want it to look nice.

So it's, a marriage is a partnership. It's.

Yeah, it's, you know.

Well, something I've said before about any relationship, whatever it is, if it's family relationships or marriage,

I think I think the people involved in that relationship do need space.

They need to have some time apart where they are doing their own things.

So sometimes I think it is possible.

This is one of the reasons why I'm always surprised that there is still henpecked husbands now,

because you would think both parties in the relationship would be getting the things they wanted anyway.

Maybe that maybe that maybe they, I don't know, what it's like there, really.

I mean, we're talking our experience here as of people around our age or slightly older that live around here.

But we always see the same.

If we ever see a married couple out.

The husband is always very quiet,

and the wife is the one sort of saying everything.

And then occasionally the husband might just look and say something and then but it's it's very much on that particular side.

It's not being sexist, by the way, because men can be just as bad when they are with other men.

They have to be they they say things and do things.

So it's not just in the relationship I'm talking about.

I must be pestering their wives.

Yes. For, you know, relations and, you know,

if you want that, you've got to do something around the house first.

Definitely a little bit of bribery, a little bit of, blackmail, baby.

You know, and that's not, Yeah.

That's just that's just the way the world, but, Yeah.

Anyway. Yeah. And that's, I'm just going to point out what, somebody said here,

about what?

Yes. Andrew says that,

of course, back in the day, before television was on demand, as it is now, you only got one chance to watch a TV programme.

Exactly.

And if you missed it, which is probably why there were so many viewers all at once watching on Christmas Day night.

They. Whatever.

The Christmas Day show was the peak show that all the channels were competing with each other to get the most viewers.

You only got that one chance to see it at that time.

And, when it wasn't on you know, if you if you missed it, that was it.

There's no chance to watch it again until they've maybe repeated it the following year.

The other thing nowadays is you can watch a whole series or season.

People say season in the United States.

In the UK we say series s, but you can watch a whole season of a TV show in one night.

Whereas when we were growing up, you would have to wait a whole week,

so you would watch your favourite TV show

and then the ending, and there would always be something at the end to to make you watch more,

and then you would have to wait a whole week to find out what happened, and then you would only get one chance to see it.

Yeah. And if you missed it, I remember I was watching a TV.

I'd watched them all the way through, I can't remember. It was cool. I think it was children of the Stone or something like that.

And, I wanted to watch the last episode, and I couldn't because my parents were going out and they couldn't leave me on my own.

And I missed it.

And I always remember to this day being so upset about missing.

I'd watched all the all of them and probably ten of them ten weeks.

And then you missed the last one, and I've never seen it to this day.

But but there you go. That's what, but then now

you don't get

so much anticipation when you're watching a show because there isn't that.

Oh, and everyone's talking about it at school or work.

Did you see that programme?

Oh, now you can watch the whole series in one night. Yes.

And some people do sit there, you know, all night and I watch, you know, 8 or 10

in a row of, of that particular series of programmes.

They call it binge watching, binge binge watching to binge means you do one thing.

You do it, I suppose, excessively.

You do it too much, you binge something, you maybe you eat all of the chocolates in the box.

You consume everything very fast.

You binge watch, so you watch an entire show maybe in one night, which a lot of people do now,

then becomes quite disposable because you watch it or when when you don't.

I've noticed when we've watched programmes like that, you don't get that enjoyment that can go over a long period of time,

of waiting a week to watch a programme, and then you sort of develop this almost relationship with this programme.

You become very bought into it and very almost consumed by it and the characters, because when you watch one programme,

say, an hour long programme of, of a series of a maybe a drama, then, you know, you pay more attention to it.

And you tend to remember the characters more and remember what's going on

now when you watch one after the other, it's sort of you almost don't really concentrate as much.

I don't think you get as much enjoyment out of it.

No, or lasting enjoyment.

It just becomes very disposable. You're wrong because there are so many programmes being made.

Yes, that are that are put onto all the channels that we now have, that you just finish that series.

Now, the next day you watch another series, probably taken them a year to make it.

Well, this is the this is one of the problems now with the way we consume everything and films,

movies, TV shows, you can stream all of these things and you can watch them very quickly.

So these are the companies that make these shows have to keep pumping out more and more content.

But of course, when that happens, there are lots of things you can miss very easily.

And they are spending millions and millions of dollars on these shows.

And it's a bit like you and I really

we we don't really watch much

current TV, but when we do watch our programmes in the 1970s, or

if we, we find a, a series that we like to watch of a particular programme,

that like say, for example, Breaking Bad, which is a popular game.

We didn't watch that until after it was broadcasted, we would say, and but we wouldn't watch six at once.

We don't. We'd restrict ourselves to maybe 1 or 2 a night.

So that at least it's got time to breathe in your mind a bit sinking.

I do remember as one night bingeing on about four episodes did we.

Yeah I think we were still, we were still awake at about 3:00 in the morning because we couldn't stop watching.

So it is that is a very good example of the type of show that you you have to keep watching.

You want to see what happens next.

And it is all because of the writing, the way the show is being produced.

It's it's it's very clever, in fact.

So the programmes we've been watching, if you want to find these on YouTube, you can.

It's very British humour, very British George and Mildred.

The other one of course, is man About the House, which we have been watching as well,

and that that particular show came before the other one.

So the two shows are actually connected together and they are both very funny programmes.

And I have to say,

one of the funny things about watching something that is being streamed through one of these streaming services is quite often

they will edit parts of the show out because they think it might be offensive.

But what what happens is then you try to find the uncensored version on the internet.

So then you go to try and find which bits, which parts of that TV show did they cut out.

Now I have to try and find them.

Yeah, that's what I was doing.

We were watching the show and then the next day I was going on to the internet to find the

the show full width and find out what what had been censored.

Yeah.

Because here in the UK, I don't know whether you get this in your country here in the UK now

they take shows from the 70s for example, like we're talking about, and we show them, but they think that due to political correctness,

that we thought we can't possibly cope

with the language that was used or some of the jokes which these days might seem politically incorrect.

So they censors and basically, yeah, that's like the thought police telling us,

that we mustn't enjoy these jokes anymore because they could be racist or sexist or something, or homophobic.

Yeah.

Which they often aren't, but it's other people telling us that we, we mustn't be allowed to see this and, you know, programmes,

very gentle humour programmes that we've been watching from the 1970s really wouldn't offend anybody because if you watch it, you.

Well that isn't you know, that's in the context of the time when it was written. Yeah.

And then we've gone on to the internet and watched the uncut versions, and there's been jokes about gay people in there. Yes.

And the phrases I don't want to mention specific thing, but at the moment we just thought, well, that's not offensive now.

So to us it's it's just it's just other people saying, what we will be offended by.

And I always find that very, very strange, a very strange way of thinking when you think we ought to complain when, when in fact

everything

and I mean everything has an opportunity to be offensive.

When you think about it, this, this live stream to some people might be offensive in some way.

They might go, oh, oh, oh.

I go, oh, I can't believe, I can't believe that guy with the glasses just said that.

Oh, I'm clicking away.

Oh. Old guy.

Wow. Fancy, fancy calling me a henpecked.

Wife. Fancy.

Fancy has been saying that women, are henpecked in their husbands.

Are that stereotyping that that, in fact, could be offensive. But you can't be.

You can't go through life worrying. Especially here.

Because we are, I suppose, really, we have quite a responsibility when you think about it, Steve, because we are here

on the internet, going out,

but we don't really know who is watching.

We know some of our viewers, but we don't really know where this thing is actually landing and whose mobile device it is appearing on.

So they might have completely different tastes, but we certainly hope we're not offending you.

By the way, we've got somebody on here who hasn't been on here, haven't seen a great friend of ours who hasn't been on here for a long time.

Sue Cat, 77, who is with us today.

Lovely to see you here again on New Year's Day.

And, Sue Cat is saying that they used to like watching vicious with Ian McKellen.

Yes. That's a comedy programme.

We love that programme too. It was really funny. Yes.

Two with two classical, British, Shakespearean actors on there playing comedy.

And it was it was very good.

They were playing an elderly couple.

Yes. So two, two men living together.

And the other one, of course, was Derek Jacoby.

Yes. Derek Jacoby and Ian McKellen.

Two huge stars of the stage. Yes.

But doing something on TV in a situation comedy very different from what they normally do.

Yeah, they're normally Shakespearean. Actor serious.

He's normally playing a wizard.

Yes, something like that.

Well that's it.

They start off making their names in theatre. They used to anyway, doing Shakespeare.

And then of course they get into TV and films and then they, they get into comedy later on.

It's quite a, it's quite a common sort of, way of, of a career, of a famous actor.

It is amazing how many actors start out in theatre and slowly they find their way into movies or quite often TV.

So it isn't an unusual thing.

It it is certainly a good way of being spotted or found.

And of course, TV and films is where the money is.

If you want to earn a lot of money, then it must be very tempting if you're if somebody spots you as being a very good actor

or actress, but we don't say an actor or actress now.

We just say actor that covers both, genders or all genders.

Should I say, and, yeah, it must be very tempting if you somebody spots you as being a very good actor, of Shakespeare or in a play.

Some writers are. Will you appear in my film?

And they might say, no, I'm not going to appear in films.

That's that's beneath me. Well, how about how about £500,000? All right, then.

I mean, it must be very tempting if you are offered a large sum of money to appear in a film, it must be very tempting to do this.

And it's, you know, TV series is regular work, isn't it?

And so when you think of certain actors or actresses, they their background is more theatre, I suppose.

Maggie Smith, Dame Maggie Smith, who sadly passed away in 2020 for her background.

Her basic background was theatre and stage,

even though nowadays and I remember after she died, everyone was saying Harry Potter actress

yeah.

Can I just say when when a wonderful established actor dies

and they say Harry Potter actor or Harry Potter actress,

I don't know why.

I always feel slightly annoyed, especially when you know that their background goes way, way, way back.

Movies, TV, theatre.

They have this huge career behind them, but they will forever be remembered as the Harry Potter actor or actress.

It's a bit annoying, actually.

It must be a little TV.

I had a wonderful time today. Is this an appropriate time to mention it?

What I was doing this morning at 1015? Yes.

Well, what I'm about to mention is what we do on New Year's.

So a lot of people, of course, have what we call traditions, New Year traditions.

So as the new year arrives, there are often things that people do.

Maybe they go out for a walk, maybe they do something as midnight arrives.

A lot of people last night were celebrating in London and all the other capitals around the world,

even though some of our firework displays, especially in Scotland, were all cancelled for the first time in many, many years.

It hasn't happened for a very long time, but there are many things.

We used to run out of the house when midnight came. Steve.

We used to run out of the house and go round twice.

First fitting.

Have you heard of that? No, they call it first fitting.

And what you do is you go outside quite often.

Well, another one is you would carry a piece of hot coal.

Not in your hand, of course, but you would carry it

maybe in a bucket, and you would walk around twice for good luck and then take it back into the house.

Right. And that was called first footing.

Oh no, we didn't used.

You used to do that when you were a child.

Yes, yes. It's very strange.

We should all go out the house and go round, round twice and then go back into the house.

What are the neighbours doing it as well?

We didn't see anyone doing it, but they might have been going another way.

You see, they might have been going anti-clockwise.

I think we went, I think we went clockwise and they went anti-clockwise.

Were you in your garden or in the street? In the street.

So you didn't see anybody else doing it. No, not really. So it sounds like it was just you.

Look at that look.

It must have been a, it must have been a Duncan's family tradition. Yes, maybe it was.

Of course you'd have had to have a coal fire.

It is a real thing though. First.

First fitting. I hope. The YouTube.

I hope the YouTube subtitles get that right.

And of course, another tradition involves this particular thing, the Wrekin, right next to our house.

A lot of people will go up there on New Year's Day and normally there will be crowds of people on the first day of the year,

and they will all be at the top of that particular hill that we can see from our studio window.

And as Mr.

Steve wants to mention right now, there is another tradition which is broadcast on television, not only across Europe

but many parts of the world as well.

A traditional thing that's been going on for many, many years.

What is it, Mr.. Steve?

Yes, it's the is the Vienna New Year concert, which always happens on the morning of New Year's Day every, every year.

And it's been I think they've been doing it since about 1950, something like that.

They've been doing it for a long time.

And it's traditionally the the music of the Strauss family.

And, and other sort of composers of the time with similar type of music, sort of lively,

waltzes and pokers and marches, polkas rather than Oktoberfest.

There's a difference there.

And, I like to watch it.

It's broadcast live on New Year's Day, so it's a live broadcast, although they do have the concert,

on the 30th and 31st of December as well.

The same concert, but that's not broadcast live.

But on New Year's Day, I like to sit there.

It's 2.5 hours, and watch it and have.

Did any of you watch that this morning or have you watched it in the past?

It's.

Do Viennese music, popular Viennese music of the time.

So we're looking at the sort of 19th century Johann Strauss,

the first and the second, and other members of the family who wrote these,

this very it was popular music of the day, a bit like.

And they wrote popular, light operetta you would call operetta light opera.

I displayed a mouse Gypsy Baron equivalent to, in this country, a Gilbert and Sullivan type of music.

Pop it it's like pop music of the day.

And it was by the big orchestras like the, the Vienna Philharmonic, who,

of course, are the main orchestra that play this, music for the New Year concert.

At the time, it wasn't played by

the famous

orchestras of the day because it was seen as sort of below them, because it was popular music.

It was music for the masses.

Whereas in in those days, in sort of 1850, 18,

you know, in that in that period of time of 1832 to the end of that century,

when that music was being produced, more music for the for the masses, for popular tunes,

then the orchestras were sort of playing Mozart, Beethoven, and more sort of serious music.

And they didn't want to play this.

It was too it was too sort of almost common. Yes.

And it wasn't until the sort of 1920s, 1930s that they started taking that music seriously and applying it in concerts.

And, you know, it's unusual for us to think of that

as the pop music of the day, but it's sort of was well, a lot of people say about, certain composers.

If Mozart had been around in the 1970s, he would have been a rock star producing that music.

So you're not talking about the actual music being rock n roll, but certainly the perception of those composers as in the type of music.

But you're right, Steve, there was a lot of snobbery

as as there still is around Gilbert and Sullivan.

It's not regarded as sort of top classical music by classical aficionados.

Aficionados? It's experts in that music.

They don't regard it as, as the top class classical music and regarded sort of it's music.

It's classical music for the masses. It's what it was seen as at the time.

All art, all art has a certain type of snobbery or a certain type of attitude.

Some things are seen as cool or acceptable and then other things are not.

But I did love and I always love it.

Every year they have the New Year's Day concert from Vienna and I love the music,

even though today I had to miss most of it because I was preparing this live stream.

But you have things like Blue Danube, Blue and New.

That's the famous one.

And of course, Strauss is it.

Strauss junior with the reject scheme? March. Now that was Strauss senior.

So it's the other way around. I think,

Johann Strauss the first.

He was the one that wrote the reject skate reject, reject scheme.

March. Because that was a commemoration.

I think it was 1840 something that was a commemoration of a battle that was won by the vendors against the Italians.

So he wrote that to celebrate the, the winning of that particular battle war, I don't there's just the battle or the war.

And The Blue Danube was written by his son won I think.

I think I've got that right. But we don't need to know those data.

What I love about the concert is, of course, it's lively music.

That's the type of music I prefer.

Is that more sort of,

that that type of music. Lively classical music.

But it's interspersed with, ballet, by the, the, the Viennese, ballet, forgotten what they're called now.

And this year, so. Yeah.

So you've watched the music and then you've got ballet dancers doing what they do.

Along to the music. And it's just lovely to watch.

And, this, this year it was, Ricardo.

Muti, who is a famous Italian conductor.

I thought for a moment, you know, for a moment I thought you were going to say Ricardo Montebello.

I couldn't he said that? Yeah.

So he's a famous conductor, Italian. And he's done it. Lots of.

So what they do these concerts, they get a they get a famous, well known composer every year to conduct it.

And he's done it about eight times, I think. So he's a composer as well.

Conductor.

Oh, I see, they got a conductor to come in every year.

Did I say composer?

I meant conductor to to to do it because it draws the crowds in.

And it's broadcast to about 90 different countries. Now it's become more and more popular.

But if you want to go there, la if you want to gather and watch it,

it's virtually impossible because the tickets well, one, they're very expensive and two, that goes into a lottery.

You apparently it's I think it's February.

You, you you request that you want to go and then your names are drawn out out of thousands and thousands of people.

I don't know how many people that can get into the hall, but it's not many.

And, so you could try every year, and you may never get to go to the concert.

Yes. It is, it is a it is quite a it really does feel as if New Year's Day has arrived as well.

When you watch it with all of that, Blue Danube.

Doo doo doo doo doo doo.

Oh, Giovanni watched it. Oh, I'm just doing a song here, Steve. Okay.

And then you have the to do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do did.

Did. It's great music.

Sorry, Steve.

I'm not surprised.

Giovanni, was watching it, but that was with, with, Muti.

They're conducting Italian.

Famous Italian, conductor.

He's got that.

He's got that sort of floppy mass of hair.

I'm very jealous. He looks like a conductor.

He looks like a conductor because he's got lots of hair and he's, he's going got a bit grey, of course, but,

I'm very jealous that he's got this main, conductors always seem to have a lot of hair, don't they?

And it's because they shake their heads around a lot. I think that's it. So they want to be seen.

So it was it was wonderful to watch that. This one.

You just feel it just cheers you up.

You just feel cheerful after you've watched it. You feel like dancing around.

You feel like dancing, getting up and dancing when it's on.

And so it's great.

My, my mother always used to watch it. She loved it.

So, I do, so. Yeah.

Anybody so there's two of us, but at least three of us, at least two of us watched it.

Yeah, my myself and Giovanni.

Anybody else watch it? Well, I, I think a lot of people might watch it later as well. So.

So not everyone watches it at the same time.

I think it's rebroadcast in some countries as well at different times.

So it's not always carried live. Steve.

Yeah, I've just kind of move on a bit because we are running out of time. Are we are, yes.

I want to say hello to your sister.

Oh, yes. Okay. If you're watching,

I don't think you are, which is nothing.

Do you have something else to think about today?

Happy birthday to your sister.

Yes. Sister has a birthday on New Year's Day.

She does? Yes.

My mother's was on the 28th of December, so I had a lot of gifts to buy at this time of the year.

It was actually quite good in a way, because you couldn't possibly forget, my mother's birthday, Christmas day.

Obviously, you get presents for get. We get presents for my mom and my dad and my sister.

And then, I knew it was 28th, was my mum's birthday, so I had to get the present for her

before Christmas because all the shops would have been shut and I wouldn't go.

So I had to think about that. I also had to think about getting a present for my sister on the 1st of January. Yeah.

So I had to all at that time, the all I had to worry about then in family was my father in September and everyone else was done.

And then it was quite convenient, really.

Then, of course, yours follows not long after.

Yes, but I don't have to get a present for myself. No, I just had for

you. Kind of.

If you want, Beatrice is going to watch the the concert later.

Yeah. Of course. That's it. Now you can watch it later because it's repeated. I actually found her.

Do you know, for years I've watched it and I've wondered.

Sorry, Mr. Duncan, you see the ballet sequences and they're dancing to the music.

I for years I've tried to work out how do they coordinate that?

Because the the ballerinas, the ballet dancers are in a different location

to the the famous golden hole where they conduct where the orchestra and I could never work out how they timed it.

Well, apparently they.

Oh, that's recorded separately.

Yeah. And they sort of blend it in and you don't know it's happening.

The people in the hall are getting the music live, but we're getting a recorded version.

And they sort of blend it all in and you can't tell. Let's see. Right. I'll move on, Mr. Duncan. Good.

We have an I haven't said hello to the live chat today.

I suddenly feel very guilty because I haven't even mentioned the live chat.

So I'm going to quickly say hello to some of you because you have given up part of your New Year's Day celebrations.

So can I say hello to Giovanni? Hello, Giovanni.

Beatrice, it's nice to see you here, sir. Torino.

Alexander.

Very Boulez Scott, who we mentioned earlier.

Vitesse is here today as well. Irene.

My goodness, so many here today also we have who else is here.

It bills.

I'm not sure if I pronounce your name right there.

I think it might be French. It might be bills. You

and also we have a couple of more Florence and Palmira.

Oh my goodness, there are so many people here today. Thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you, Florence and who else?

I will mention a couple of more.

I don't like leaving people out.

I always feel guilty afterwards if I forget someone.

So if I have forgotten you, please let me know.

Please say, Mr. Duncan, you've forgotten my name. I'm coming round now to sort you out.

Because, yes, my sister just missed the New Year.

I think my mother was in hospital.

I think that my sister arrived at 3:00 in the morning on New Year's Day.

I seem to remember, my mother telling me, So.

Yeah, my mother was the one that, I suppose she really did celebrate the New Year with a new baby.

That must have been quite something at the time. Yes. Celebrate it with a with a little pop.

But she just reminded me. I've just remembered.

I've got a friend, who are. Well, who who?

Work friend of my work colleague I've known for many years.

I'm going to put this piece of paper on the floor to remind me. Okay. So later.

It's her birthday today as well.

That's another 40s of the show.

So naughty.

One of the things I should be doing, you see, this year, because we are now in a new year, brand new.

There are things we want to change.

Of course, there might be things, Steve, that you don't want to change.

Maybe there are things that you are perfectly satisfied with, you are perfectly happy with.

So maybe there are things in 2025 that you don't want to change.

We often think of changing things, but what about things that you don't want to change very much?

Are there any things that you can think? Steve? What don't I want to change?

I don't want to change my car.

Okay?

You mean, Well, I don't want to change

my exercise routine.

Yeah. Good one.

So I'm quite happy with that.

I don't want to change that.

I don't want to change what I said, don't.

I want to change,

just the way I eat.

There's lots of things I want to change. Yeah, yeah, that's a good.

That's a good point, Mr. Duncan, because there may be things.

Just because it's New Year doesn't mean you've got to change everything.

There might be things you want to reinforce. Something part of you, for example. Here's mine.

Something I don't want to change is being here live twice a week.

So this is something that I will continue doing during 2025.

It has been and I'm going to say this, you know me, I will say it.

If I feel it, I will say it.

It hasn't been the easiest couple of years for me professionally here on YouTube.

I've had a lot of battles, a lot of things that I've had to sort out, things to overcome, to push forward with

all of those things happening behind the scenes that you don't know about.

And I never talk about them, but I'm mentioning them today because I want to carry on doing this.

I want to be here twice a week.

We love English, I love teaching English.

I love talking to you as well, sharing our experiences.

That's the reason why I love English so much, because it is a great chance for us to communicate wherever you are in the world.

So the one thing I want to carry on doing, the one thing I don't want to change, is this doing this with you.

And needless to say, there will be lots of new English lessons.

In fact, I put one on yesterday, didn't I? Steve? I, I actually put a new lesson on yesterday.

I was in the garden and the wind was whistling around and the weather was absolutely awful yesterday.

And also last night as the new year came in that we had wind and rain, but people were still trying to to set off their fireworks.

And in Scotland, of course, they had this, this famous

Scottish, probably world famous for their New Year celebrations, the hog Hogmanay, as they call it.

I don't know if I pronounce that correctly.

Hogmanay.

They, they do really celebrate this.

It really is a big tradition in Scotland and they do it in a big way.

And they weren't able to do it this year in Edinburgh they have the fireworks.

And that was all cancelled because of the wind.

But which is very unusual.

I don't I don't think it's ever been cancelled before.

They've been doing it for many, many. I don't know how long. Probably a hundred years. I don't know, a long time.

And it's never been. Well, not probably not had fireworks for hundred years.

But it's all been cancelled.

It was very windy here. Having said that, we went outside, as we always do,

two minutes to midnight

because we can see into the distance and people always set off fireworks.

And there were still people setting off fireworks. So it was still people were still celebrating.

Yes. Even though it was windy and rainy last night, it was amazing.

But it was it was not the most pleasant of evenings.

And I don't know if you caught the London firework display.

It seemed to go on forever and ever.

We didn't work, we didn't watch it live, but we did watch the recording of it later and it it went on for about 12

or 13 minutes of just continuous fireworks going off.

It was quite amazing.

I think I always like the one in Australia.

I'm going to be honest with you,

that I have no bias towards anything or any country, but I do like the one that they have on Sydney Harbour Bridge.

It always looks so spectacular and and they always seem to get some good angles when they are filming it as well.

The one now you said this, Steve, the one in London looks a bit bland and flat because it's always in the same place

and you can't really have any interesting angles, so the view is always from the same point.

However, the one in Australia, and I suppose I should also mention the one in Dubai as well.

Yeah, pretty pretty good.

Magnificent would be the word I would use.

But there are of course every country, every major city.

As the new year crosses the Earth in the different time zones

eight, eight city is trying to to win the competition of who has the best fireworks.

I don't know who.

I don't know who was and whether anyone was declared the winner from last night.

But certainly I it was almost we watched it the, we watched it about half an hour later on the television and the, the London fireworks.

It was almost too much.

And so I was I so switched off halfway through because it just became too much of this was just too much. Yes.

A great word. You could use repetitive.

Yes. It

that the same fireworks were going off in the same place and you just thought, okay, okay.

And then sometimes the colours would be different, but for most of the time you were just seeing the same things happening.

And after a while you're right Steve.

Yes it did. It did become a little bit monotonous.

The same thing happening again and again. Maybe, maybe we're just getting too old now.

And I'm sure if I was 30 years younger, I would have screamed.

Yeah, the excitement of seeing it. But you might.

Lewis has thrown his family out so that he can come back and watch us.

So we'll have to stay on for a bit longer. Really.

I'm joking that they were probably leaving anyway, but I'm going to assume that Lewis has said to them that you've got to leave now.

I'm. Because I'm watching. Mr. Duncan, I think that's it. No. That's fair.

I think that's a fair thing to say.

So, yes, if you have your annoying relatives and all of your family around, you have to tell them.

You have to say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You have to leave now.

I have to watch Mr. Duncan on the internet.

Or maybe that maybe, Lewis was watching us, and they thought, well, he's not taking any notice of us.

We're just going to leave. Yes.

We're joking, we're joking.

It's a joke. But, yeah, it's nice to have you back.

Yes. Pressure. Now we'll have to stay for a bit longer, Mr. Duncan.

Because, you know, if Lewis is thrown his family out to watch us, we can't just say we're going now.

Maybe. But go and get them back quickly. Say it's finished. It's ending now.

Go and get them back. They can come back and stay for a bit longer. We will go in a couple of minutes.

I'm joking and I'm joking. Steve.

We were talking about things that you don't want to change.

Of course there are things that we want to change. We did briefly mention this last week,

New Year's resolutions, so we will often have some sort of plan.

The popular ones at this time of year.

Lose weight?

Yeah, because everyone has eaten too much food during Christmas, so they've probably put on weight anyway.

And maybe they've put on too much weight, or maybe they've become too overweight and they want to lose some weight.

They want to get fit, take up exercise.

So I think that is a very common New Year's resolution, where a person

wants to change an aspect of themselves they want to get, they want to lose weight, maybe get more exercise.

Another another popular one is that people think about their careers and, what they're doing in life.

And maybe they want to, want to change jobs, do something different, have another career.

They might be bored of their career, but certainly health things are very popular.

And, I think we we did say this one.

Yeah, we, we sort of talked about how long people tend to keep up New Year's resolutions.

I don't think it's very long.

But at least we're making an effort.

We, we're making an effort. And what. But what tends to happen is I've found this a lot.

You have this time off between Christmas and you year, as you say, when you you start to reflect on your life

and, you so I, you know, that went well. I wish I hadn't done that.

I've always wanted to do this.

And then you you you're not working anymore.

Your mind sort of goes into a kind of a freefall.

It sort of is.

You can sort of think about your life a bit more, because when you're working, bringing up a family,

seeing friends, socialising, you haven't got much time to think about the direction that you want to take your life in.

No. That's it.

And then you go back to work. You think, oh, I want to do this, I'm going to do this. I'm going to change my career.

I've always wanted to do this,

and or I'm going to exercise three times a day.

Three times a week.

Maybe you go to the gym and then you go back to work and

life sort of takes over, doesn't it?

Particularly if you're bringing up a family.

Time for all these things.

Work routine.

Start back again, and before you know it, you're just back on the same sort of treadmill.

Yeah. Not literally, because that would be exercise.

Yes. And think, yes, that's okay.

I don't mean literally an exercise. I think the treadmill is where you want to be, isn't it?

I'm using it as a metaphor for for life, being constantly on doing things and involved in social media.

There's so much of our time is taken up now.

We don't have much time to think about that, and that's a good one.

By the way, you just mentioned something very good there, cut down on the brain rot.

I want and this is something, I know I do it,

we all do it.

We waste time on the internet looking at things, watching things,

just wasting time looking for information on pointless things that mean nothing.

But somehow you become incredibly interested in a particular thing, a particular place or a person.

You want to know if they're still alive, and then you want to find out what they've done with their life.

Suddenly you you've spent an hour of your life looking for something that has no purpose, and that that's what we call brain rot.

A lot of people are doing that.

That's actually the word of the year is just the year.

Yeah.

I think things that do things that your future are passively taking in information, watching a TV programme, watching stuff on the internet.

Careful what I say here.

And, yeah, not really learning anything, you know, to if you want to engage your brain a bit more, you maybe need to read a book.

Think about what what what what you what you're doing. Maybe write things down.

Yeah. Things that are a bit more interactive that involve your brain more.

I mean, I want to I want to commit to,

calming down a bit

with, with meditation that that's going to be one of my main themes for this year.

I mean, I've already sort of started, but I want to, to learn to sort of reduce stress,

mental stress a bit by sort of just not always thinking all the time.

Yeah, about things and just allowing myself to calm down.

That's it.

And of course, we have plans for this year, plans involving this and also

hopefully you as well because we will be meeting up in around April,

April or maybe late April, I mean, or early June, June.

We said don't panic Steve. We said June.

Yes. Anyway.

So Steve, but it's the second week of June.

I just want your diary,

okay? I just want to get this information out quickly.

We are planning something in.

Yes. Okay. Beginning of June, early June.

We are hoping to to meet up and we are going to Paris.

So that is the place. We haven't got the dates yet, but we are having

the Paris rendezvous will be back.

Because we did it way back in 2023.

We are doing it in 2025, and there might even be an extra place

that we are going to visit, so there might be another opportunity, but we just have to make those arrangements.

So you might say that that is one of our New Year's resolutions. Steve. Yes.

To sort out the the big English adage early as possible before you book your holidays,

the the big English and addict rendezvous.

We are to commit to a date.

We ought to say that by a certain date we will have sorted this out.

Are you willing to commit to a date, Mr. Duncan?

Well, I'm not committing to a date here. Now, on the internet,

not live.

You know what? You know what happens when that that occurs.

So we are going to sort out the dates.

We will be in Paris and hopefully somewhere else as well.

We have sort of given some clues away as to where it might be, but we do feel as if it would be nice to go to more than one place.

Hopefully.

Although all we have to do now,

I've got to save it.

My my YouTube money.

It might be another three years in that case.

Well, I have to say I am so pleased to see so many of you today joining us on what is, for most of you, a holiday.

I would imagine most people are actually off

from work, even though it is midweek, because I keep forgetting it's Wednesday.

You see, it doesn't feel like Wednesday, does it?

No, it feels like Sunday or something. It feels like the weekend.

Yes. In fact, I kept thinking I was doing the Sunday live stream, but I'm not.

However,

we will be back with you on Sunday.

Yes, we will continue.

We will do it.

We will think ahead and we will be with you on Sunday and Wednesday during 2025.

As long as we stay healthy and alive,

I will try my best anyway.

I really will.

Thank you for your company today.

Have you enjoyed it, Mr. Steve?

Yes, I know you had a busy day because you were watching the the that concert.

By the way, the concert from Vienna is very long, isn't it.

It's. Yes, it's 2.5 hours.

They have a bit of a break.

In fact, they had a space theme to it this year.

Oh, because, of course, 2001, the music to that was, was that Strauss music?

I think it was there was well, that Blue Danube.

The Blue Danube. Yes. Was was of course, in 2001, A Space Odyssey.

And they had

I didn't quite understand what was going on.

Maybe Giovanni, if he was watching it, can explain it.

But they had Strauss music playing, and they had a sort of a spaceship that looked like the one in the film,

with somebody who I think was a descendant

or were they were saying he was a descendant of somebody in the Strauss family that wrote the music,

and he was using the spaceship, I think, to to go back in time to, to, to view.

He came to Earth in the spaceship as, as a, as a, as a, a future, as a, as a descendant, of maybe the Strauss family.

Yeah.

And he was looking at the music over the years. So this was a performance. This was a performance.

I. Yes.

You had this one person on his own in a spaceship,

and then he was sort of dialling in different dates, and, looking at the music, and he was getting tearful at the end.

I did not see that. So that that is

giving me an idea.

I want to watch that.

You see, I will watch it on the BBC iPlayer and, and hopefully enjoy that as well.

I didn't quite understand what was going on, whether he was time travelling.

I think it was time travelling him in his big spaceship.

He was probably looking at significant points of time.

I think that's what it was, of the music in the 1800s of the Strauss music, which was sort of went on almost 100 years,

sort of started around sort of 18, sort of 1820s, right up to, the, the not, you know, the early 1900s,

so, yeah, it was, it was quite interesting montage, I suppose you could call it,

but but yeah, lovely concerts put me in a good mood and, I hope it has that.

That's the idea behind it.

And if you want to be in a good mood, if you like classical music, I would say that is a pretty good thing

to have, maybe playing in the background, because it's the sort of performance, it's the sort of thing

you can have on, but you have it playing in the background, a bit like my live streams.

A lot of people say that.

They say, Mr. Duncan, quite often we will just put you a live stream on

quite often on the television.

Can you imagine watching me on the big TV?

I wonder what my face looks like on a 50 inch television.

And it must be quite, quite scary, in fact. So?

So a lot of people do watch us, but they just listen with us playing in the background.

And I would say to any of you, even if you're not fans of classical music,

I think you would anyone would find this

uplifting, lively music to put you in a good mood, if you haven't watched it.

Vienna. Nearly a concert. I'm sure it's all over the internet now. It would just.

You don't have to watch all of it. But, it would cheer you up. Yeah.

And set you on a course for a wonderful 2025.

Let us.

Let us all hope, because already I was.

I made the mistake of clicking on the internet

just before starting my live stream, and I did see some breaking news coming through from the United States.

I think there's been some sort of terrorist attack there.

So that's I haven't got all the details,

but I have just quickly, I saw this come up as breaking news, so I'm not sure what that is about, but I can only assume,

it is not a good thing. Not a good way to start the new year.

Yeah.

So go and watch the V, the Vienna New Year concert, and, take your mind off all the troubles of the world.

Sounds like a good idea. Thank you, Mr. Steve. Thank you, Mr. Duncan.

I look forward to seeing you. On Sunday, all of you.

And it's been lovely to be here.

And again, I wish you all a happy New Year.

And, well, you know, you can let us know what you've been doing.

On Sunday, if you started any New Year resolutions, have they been successful?

Have you managed to, to, to pull it through, to call it through? Yeah.

Is that the phrase I'm looking for the, Yes. To to to fulfil it. Yes.

Have you pulled it off? Yes. Oh,

but that could be a number of things.

Right. I can put the kettle on to you Sunday.

Bye bye.

That, as they say, is that for Mr.

Steve?

I hope you've enjoyed today's live stream. It's been different. Something different for New Year's Day.

We don't always appear on the first day of the year,

but because it's Wednesday and because I'm normally here, I couldn't resist joining you live.

So I hope you've enjoyed today's live stream.

The sunset is coming now here in the UK.

The sun is now going down on the first day of January 2025.

I hope you've enjoyed today's live stream.

I'm back with you on.

Well, I will be back for you on Sunday.

I keep getting all of the days confused.

So next Sunday I'm back with you 2 p.m. UK time.

And of course there will be lots of video lessons as well. Posted.

All of that will continue.

Thank you very much for watching.

See you later.

This is Mr.

Duncan on this very special day, the first day of January 2025, saying, take care of yourselves.

Have a great New year.

I hope all your dreams come true.

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

Yes, you do.

Enjoy the rest of your festive holiday and

ta ta for now.

See you on Sunday! Happy New Year!