My Lessons are 'ON THE HOUSE' / English Addict live chat & learning / Sunday 22nd MAY 2022

Look at that.

You can see the view outside right now, outside my studio window.

Everything is looking rather windy today.

We have a little bit of wind in the air, and I'm not talking about Mr.

Steve's stomach. Here we go again.

Yes, it is another edition of English Addict

coming to you live from the birthplace of English.

Yes, it is.

Oh. Oh, my goodness.

Quick, call my auntie.

It's England.

Hi, everybody.

This is Mr. Duncan.

That's me, by the way, in England.

How are you today? Are you okay?

I hope so.

Are you feeling happy?

I really, really hope so.

Here we go again. We are back. Yes.

Live from, as I said,

the birthplace of the English language, which is England.

It is English addict with myself, Mr.

Duncan.

You might describe me as one of those.

But there

I am an English addict, and I have a feeling

that you might be one of those as well, because we are all here together again,

joining hands across the world.

I know a lot of the news at

the moment is negative and rather gloomy,

but we are here to prove that not everything is bad.

Not everything is gloomy.

Sometimes it is possible to have a little bit of fun

and maybe occasionally

smile as Charlie Chaplin once

said, Smile when your heart is aching,

even though it is breaking.

I know I got it wrong, but there you go.

What can you do?

So here we are.

And yes, we have made it all the way to the end of another week

and also the end almost.

Not quite of another weekend.

Yes. It's Sunday

Can you give me a wave if you are happy?

I hope you are today. Here we go.

We are back together again.

And I hope you are feeling good.

Do you know what I miss?

There is something that I've been trying to find.

Something that was around in the early 1980s.

Who remembers

the little dancing flowers?

You could get them there were.

There were toys, there weren't real flowers.

But they were amazing. And they would.

They were like little toy flowers and they would dance

when you played music.

And I'm trying to find one of those, although I can't.

Unfortunately.

Sadly, I can't find one.

Now there are some that are available to buy, but they are, they look rubbish.

They don't look as good as the ones that you could get

in the 1980s and the late 1970s.

And what they would do, you could switch them on

and they operated with a battery and then when you played music

or if you talked to them, they would, they would dance like this.

So I do miss those.

I hope one day someone begins to manufacture

those dancing flowers again because I really miss them.

Did you miss me?

That is the big question.

Well, did you miss me?

I hope so.

Here we are again.

Yes. Episode 202. Wow.

I still can't believe it, to be honest.

I can't believe we have done already 201 of these.

And this is the 202nd

English addict Hello.

Also to the live chat.

Yes, we have a busy one today.

Lots of things to talk about.

We are talking about

this might

make a few people angry.

I'm not sure.

We are talking about being selfish.

Selfish.

I think it is a word that we do use quite often.

But sometimes I think it is wrong

to call people selfish.

I think so.

And and a little bit later on, I'm going to tell you why.

It's just my thought, my opinion.

Of course, your opinion might be different from mine, but it doesn't matter.

That's the reason why we are here. You see,

to share everything together.

And I hope we will have a chance to do that today.

So we are looking at selfishness being selfish.

Also, we are looking at words and phrases

connected to buildings.

And also the phrase building as well.

You might be surprised to find out how many ways we can use that.

We can use building and things connected

to houses and different types of building.

A little bit later on, all of that still to come.

And we have Mr. Steve.

Can you believe it?

Yes, With more of his wonderful moments of time,

including the one you are about to see.

Yes, Mr.

Steve will be here a little bit later on.

But, you know, you coming up later on, Mr.

Steve will be here.

And of course, we have a new feature that we started last week.

What's cooking Claudia.

So, Claudia, if you are there, please

prepare to tell us a little bit later on.

Not yet.

We are going to ask Claudia later

on what she is cooking.

All of that coming up a little bit later on.

And of course, we have the view outside looking rather nice today,

even though we've had some some rather miserable weather this week.

We've had a lot of rain.

But today, well, first of all,

you will notice it's very colourful.

We have a lot of colour in the garden.

You can see there is some lovely pink blossom in the corner.

And also in the distance, you can see there is some yellow as well.

That particular thing is for La Burnham Tree.

La Burnham, a few people asked last week

if I could repeat that word.

La Burnham.

And there it is, the beautiful the Burnham Tree that my neighbour has.

So this is not even our tree, but we can enjoy it.

One of the wonderful things about having a neighbour

who likes growing trees is,

well, you can enjoy their trees.

So this tree does not belong to us,

although we can enjoy it

and it looks lovely at this time of year.

I have to say, I think it looks rather nice.

So there it is the weather outside at the moment.

Calm a little cool as well, I would say,

but not too bad.

At least it's not rain ing.

Talking of the garden, would you like to have a look at something rather nice?

I decided to go outside yesterday.

Into the garden to film

the beautiful rhododendron, another flower.

In fact, I showed you this last week.

So yesterday I went outside and I decided to do a little bit

of professional filming of the beautiful pink.

Some might say red

rhododendron.

And I have to say, it is looking rather lovely. Hmm.

I don't know about you, but that really did relax.

Me quite a lot. In fact, I almost.

I almost swooned.

That's a great word. Smooth.

I hope you enjoyed that.

The beautiful rhododendron is now in full bloom

in the garden,

and it looks rather nice.

I hope you will agree with that.

Something I filmed yesterday whilst the weather was really, really nice.

Do you ever use translation services?

This is something I've become quite interested in over the past

couple of months because I've discovered lots of different types of software

that you can use now to translate and buy.

By that, I'm not just talking about translating things into English.

I'm talking about translating anything,

any language, something written down.

And there are some amazing softwares at the moment that you can buy.

And there are things now where you can actually take a photograph

of text

in another language, and then you can actually take that

and translate it into your language.

It will even speak to you in your own language.

So there are many different types of software.

I know that they've been around for

a long time, but it's only over the past couple of years

that they've become more sophisticated and advanced.

So what about you?

Do you ever use software

or maybe your computer or your phone?

Of course, if you walk around the streets and you see something written on a poster

or something written down, you can actually take a photograph of it

and your phone will convert it into text.

And then you have the opportunity

to translate that into your language.

So I'm interested to find out if you do that.

I sometimes find it very interesting

especially when I see something

written in my comment section on my YouTube channel.

So sometimes I see something in another language and very quickly,

within just a few seconds, I can translate that into English.

So it's a great way of not just understand thing,

but also a way of listening to what you are saying out there,

your thoughts and feelings about what I do

or general opinions about things.

So I love it.

I have to say,

and a lot of people a few years ago said to me, they said, Mr.

Duncan, do you realise in the future there will be all sorts of software

and it will be able to translate

any language into anything else

and you will have no job

Do I feel afraid of translation software?

No, I don't actually.

Because you can't, you can't reproduce this.

You can't reproduce the spontaneous use of language.

And that's one of the reasons why I enjoy doing these live streams.

I like doing this because it gives you a chance to listen

to English being used spontaneously.

And there is no better way of doing that than doing it

live, even though sometimes

I feel like

I might have a panic attack whilst

I'm doing it because it is very stressful doing this live.

I have to say,

ooh, I haven't said hello to the live chat yet.

I haven't said hello.

So that's the question to start off with today.

Before Mr.

Steve arrives, do you ever use translation

software or devices or something?

There's even a device now you can carry around

and you can talk into it, and then you offer the device to another person.

And it will speak to them in their own language.

So very useful if you are going abroad on tour, if you are visiting a country

and maybe your understanding of

the local language is not very good,

it can happen.

In fact, it might happen more often than we realise.

So what about you?

Do you use translation services or software

or something to chat about in a few moments?

Of course we have the live chat.

Talking of which, can I say a big hello to

Vitesse? Oh,

Vitesse.

Guess what?

You are first on today's live chat.

Congratulations to you.

Well done, Vitesse.

You are first once again.

Also, Beatrice is here.

Very nice to see you on the live chat as well.

Mosen.

Hello to Mosen.

It's nice to see you back here right now.

Oh, we also have Louise Mendez is here today.

Hello, Louise.

I hope everything is super duper where you are.

Hello, Paolo.

We also have Valentin.

Olga is here as well.

Thank you for joining me today.

Unique Life.

Hello from Diana.

Hello to Diana.

Has there ever been a song called Diana?

I don't think there has.

I think there should be.

Hello to Diana.

It's so nice to see you.

Your name is like a princess.

A famous princess.

And I think you know who I'm talking about.

Maria Wah is here as well.

Oh, ma, ma, ma.

Ah. Well,

it's so nice to see you here again.

Yadi, yadi, yadi.

Do you know us is here as well?

Thank you for joining me today.

We also have Sandra Gonzalez.

My roots is here.

Wow. Can I just say it's a busy one already?

It's very busy on the livestream today.

Hello.

Also to new in new wynn hwa,

who I think is watching in Vietnam.

Hello, Edith. Hello, Edith.

It seems like a very long time since I've seen you here.

A lot of people joining after a long break, so eat it.

It's nice to see you back here as well.

Hello, CJC.

Hello, to you.

Where are you watching in the world.

Don't be a sha.

Don't be shy. Don't worry. You can tell me.

It's fine. I don't bite

hard.

Hello all, so to speak.

Yes. Lots of people already joining in Oh,

some people are mentioning

my appearance for some reason. Why?

Why are you talking about my appearance?

Nothing has changed.

Well, okay. Maybe a little bit. Yes.

If you were watching last week, you would.

You would have seen the early stages,

the early growth of my moustache and my little beard.

Yes. I have decided to make a little change to my appearance.

Why not?

Why not?

Sometimes changing part of your appearance

can make you feel good or better about yourself.

So I just wanted to experiment.

I wanted to try something.

And this is.

This is the result.

This is what it looks like.

The thought I had last week about growing a moustache

and maybe a beard as well, but not a full one.

You will notice that my beard is not full.

Just a little

goatee on my chin.

Hello.

Also, Fernando. Fernando is here as well.

Thank you very much for your lovely comments about the garden.

Yes, we have been rather busy over the past

couple of weeks making some changes in the garden.

But you will also notice that lots of things have now

come out into bloom looking rather nice.

Indeed.

Hello, one Dobby.

Nice to see you back as well.

Sandra says I love your look,

your appearance, so we can talk about the

the look of someone, how they appear, their appearance,

so a person's appearance can be how they look.

How they appear to other people.

So we often describe it as a person's look.

It is describing how they appear.

So a lot of people saying, Oh, Mr.

Duncan, we like your new look.

Thank you very much.

That's very kind of you to say hello.

Also, Yardi.

Oh, Yardi.

I think Yardi is trying to test my translation service.

I think so.

We also have

Oh, hello. Hi.

Hi. Somare Villa.

Hello. Somare Villa.

Is that where you are?

Is or is that your name?

I'm not too sure. Mr.

Steve will be with us in a few moments,

but don't worry,

I will be here as well.

A couple of nights ago, I decided to go out for a very nice walk.

And this is something that we can do at this time of year.

Because now, of course, we are approaching summer here in England.

So the other night I decided to go out for a lovely walk

and needless to say,

I also decided to do a little bit of filming as well.

After this, Mr.

Steve will be here

to A lot of people

love the cowls so I couldn't resist showing that.

Yes, this is English at eight.

Don't worry, your screen is about to light up because Mr.

Steve is on his way

Hmm. Are you ready

Hello?

Hello, Mr. Duncan.

Hello.

What a wonderful place to be today.

Out in the garden.

Not here. No,

Yes. Well, Mr.

Duncan, I just saw that clip about the cows.

Those were probably a couple of years ago.

Yes, I think two years ago there were some baby cows.

Well, I was going to say, the new ones that we have this year are very risky.

Risky That means they're lively

and they're quite young, and they sort of chase you about.

But I had a I've had a few

sort of one or two close encounters where I felt a bit frightened.

Mr. Duncan came chasing after me, rearing up.

The strange thing is these cows and bulls

and I've noticed what the farmer has done.

He's he has not only lady cows,

but also male bulls.

And those bulls, as we've noticed,

are very frisky, very fastidious walking around.

If you if you get my meaning

it's when they see they see me, you see Mr.

Duncan, and they immediately get very excited.

In fact, we saw them chasing people some walkers going up the hill.

There were two sets of walkers, and they were chasing.

They were looking at running around the field.

And it was getting the males so excited that,

well, let's just say we could tell they were male.

Let's just say he was he was there in all his glory,

just getting so young and excited.

Do you remember what it feels like, Mr.

Duncan, to be young and excited and frisky?

I can't remember any of those things.

I'm I'm just I'm just glad that I have the strength

to open my eyes in the morning to the word frisky.

Are you feeling frisky? Frisky.

It means that you're what it usually means.

You're feeling sort of excited sexually. Yes.

Well, not necessarily.

Lively. Lively? Yes. Yes.

It's used Excitable.

A person who feels excited.

They want to show how excited they are.

And by having sex with you.

Oh, Steve.

It's OK, Steve. Oh, dear.

What's the matter? Nothing.

Can't I say that any more?

Am I being censored already, Mr. Dunn? Well, I.

I'm not censoring you.

Well, you can't say that.

Well, you have to be careful what you say now, because words are flagged.

This is the problem with doing YouTube these days.

Is so difficult because you might find.

So this happened last week.

I haven't told you this story yet, Steve.

I actually was.

Was preparing my live stream for last Wednesday,

and I put a word in the title, and.

Can you believe it?

YouTube blocked the live stream and I had to go back and change the title,

and then I had to wait for about 20 minutes.

And then the block on my live stream was removed.

So it does happen. You have to be very careful.

Sometimes you can say a very innocent word.

Maybe my next door neighbour has a cat

and I went round

and I saw it in the garden and I decided to stroke

my neighbour's cat.

However,

if I were to say something else word that in a different way

and use a different word instead of cat, I would get blocked

I would get flagged, I would get all sorts of things

happen to me and most of them would be bad.

So you do have to be careful what you're saying nowadays.

Sorry about Frisky is all right.

I'm not frisky.

Yes, Frisky is OK.

Palmyra says beware of the frisky bulls. Yes.

I wouldn't want to be mounted by one of those bulls, I can tell you.

I have to say I would be in hospital.

I would be glad of any attention at the moment,

even if it was a giant bull leaping on top of me.

You know, to be honest with you today, Steve, we.

Oh, by the way, can I say hello to edit hello?

Edit ead it has some good news.

Finally.

And I have a feeling that you've been waiting for this for a long time.

He did.

Has the chance, the opportunity to go to Australia,

which of course is interesting because over the weekend we had the election.

They don't call it general election.

They call it something else.

They give it another name, but I will call it the general election.

So they have a new government.

So their old government has gone now

and there is a new, new group of people stepping in.

But eat it.

I bet I have a feeling you are pretty excited about that.

Maybe even a little frisky.

Yes, over it.

So whereabouts are you going?

I know you're going to Sydney, but I'm just wondering if you're going

anywhere else

The reason is I have one of my friends from China is Sydney, a friend of edit?

Maybe I have a friend

in China, a friend from

whatever I was going to say.

Then it's gone.

I have a friend from China who I used to help

with his English, and now he lives in Australia.

Here in Melbourne.

So great.

So I hope you have a super time.

Send me a postcard or maybe a photograph

from your travels in Australia.

Thank you for your comment, Eric, about my appearance.

Apparently I'm like a fine wine.

I get better every year and in fact a bit of wine coloured top on. Hmm.

Who say this was not, I don't know, Beaujolais or something like that.

Wine coloured.

Whenever I think of you, Steve, I always think of the word wine

because quite often you,

you like to whine about things which is of course

a different spelling of the word wri and E is the drink.

But a person who complains

all the time or moans a lot,

we could say that they wine, which is w,

h, i and e wine,

I like to wine you do to moan and groan and to whine

about things that are happening usually about my job.

Yes. Sorry, I was going to say I think sometimes, Steve,

I agree with you when you whine about things.

I think I spent Fitz spend 50% of my day

speaking to other colleagues whining about the job. Yes.

But I suppose we all have something.

Something that we whine about, something that we complain about.

Quite a lot.

Can I just say, Steve, today we are looking at words

and phrases, idioms connected to buildings.

And that's why the thumbnail on today's livestream is Mr Steve and myself waving.

They look, we are looking out of a of a window in our imaginary house.

So that's what we're doing today.

Also something we are about to talk about

selfishness.

Oh, I think now we do hear this quite a lot,

especially when we're talking about people who may appear to have more than us,

or maybe a person who seems to regard themselves

as being someone who, who owns lots of things

or wants lots of things for themselves.

So we often describe that person as selfish.

And I think that's an interesting word because it is used a lot.

And I wonder sometimes if the word selfish

is used in the right way, because I think

and this is just, again, my opinion

I think we are all capable of being selfish.

I think we can whatever you have.

So if you are a person who lives in a house, if you have a roof

above your head and you are warm and comfortable,

we might say that that is

a selfish behaviour because you are protecting yourself.

Self-preservation is selfishness it is taking care of yourself,

making sure you have what you need, making sure you are safe and secure.

So quite often I think selfishness is something

that runs not just through the human race.

I think it's also it also runs through nature as well.

So I don't know what you think Steve.

Well, I think that if you are just looking after yourself, it's not necessarily

selfishness unless you're doing it at the expense of somebody else.

So if you're doing something to protect yourself,

buying all the food, going to the shop and buying all the toilet rolls.

Yeah, you only need, you know, one pack will last you a month, say,

but you can buy five packs that could be described with selfish behaviour.

And of course we saw that in the early days of the pandemic.

Yes, well people are apparently because of the threat of world

food shortages are starting to stockpile things in their homes,

which they think may well start to go up in price.

Various commodities

they seem to be talking a lot about wheat.

Apparently we only have eight weeks.

I think it's eight weeks of wheat in the whole world

for humanity, for human beings to use.

That's a little bit disturbing.

I'll have to eat something else instead.

Maybe more rice

or of course, grow your own grow your own wheat.

Well, great.

You you don't have to have wheat.

You can you can replace it with something else.

Grow some vegetables, have have something else, a different type of food.

So it's interesting.

But I think I think everyone is capable of being selfish.

I think we all have it in in inside us.

It is I think I would say it

dates back to the early days of humanity

when human beings had to hunt to survive.

They had to protect themselves.

So I think that selfishness

is actually built in to every person.

But I think what Steve said

is the modern equivalent of selfishness

where a person is disregarding other people completely

or even doing things that might cause damage to other people.

Hence going to the supermarket and clearing the shelves

of all of the toilet paper and everyone else

has to use well anything they can find.

Yeah. I think if you do something and it

it's at the expense of somebody else

and I mean at the expense of it means it

has a detrimental effect on somebody else.

I don't know.

For example, you know, you might have a neighbour, for example,

that is doing something that really annoys you.

Maybe they have a dog that keeps barking. Yes.

Maybe they have sort of noisy equipment that they use it inappropriate times

or light fires in inappropriate times they want to do something, but

they're not taking into account the effect it's having on other people around them.

So you could therefore describe that as selfish behaviour

so their needs are to them more important

than the inconvenience

or the disturbance or the annoyance that they might cause.

Exactly.

So I think that is a very good example of selfish behaviour in the modern sense,

but from my point of view I think, I think being selfish is something

that is there anyway.

It's in all of us because we all need to eat,

we all need to stay warm, we all need to survive.

So I think there is, there is a thread of selfishness

that goes through all of us and I see this all the time with animals.

As you know, I love watching the birds in the garden

and quite often you will see birds

being incredibly selfish,

especially at this time of year because they are raising their young

so you often see one bird fly

into the garden to scare off another bird

because that particular bird wants the food.

But the other bird wants the food as well.

So there is a kind of selfishness taking place there in nature.

I think we see it all the time.

In fact, I think it was Richard Dawkins who wrote an interesting book

all about it, all about genetics and the fact that selfishness,

selfishness, exists everywhere in nature.

So I think that's quite interesting.

But with animals, you see, that's the thing.

You see, we look at animals and then we try to we try to impose

our standards and our emotions onto animals.

So an animal to us, you could describe that as selfish,

but they don't know what they're doing, they're just trying to survive.

But with human beings,

if you are at a table with people,

maybe there's a buffet and you grab all the food

or most of the food for yourself. Yes.

And you don't allow everybody else to have their share,

then you would be described as a selfish person because

unlike the animals that don't know any difference,

we know that instinctively

in a community, if you want to a nice, harmonious

community, everyone's got to work together and help each other.

And so grabbing all the resources for yourself would be and hoarding it

would be it would be selfish.

And of course, people do that in a very irrational way.

I mean, there never was going to be

a shortage of toilet paper, but everybody went out there.

Their primitive brains kicked in like the animals and said,

I've got to grab that over myself because there won't be any left.

And of course, it's very rare that you get

well, not in the West.

No, not, not, not in a lot of Western countries

where you get true shortages of anything that's really serious, like food.

I mean, blimey, you go to some countries, they're starving.

Well,

then you know that it's

absolutely tragic and that's almost like the other end of the spectrum.

So selfishness is survival, but then you have all of the things

that you have to fight against.

And quite often most of those things are natural things.

So I think I think there is a difference between selfishness and greed.

I think selfishness is just your fight for survival.

However, we have things like Steve said, greed, and you do see this quite a lot.

You do see this very often.

People are greedy and they want more than they need

they don't just want to eat three meals a day.

They also want to keep lots of food in their cupboards.

They like that.

They want to have more, much more than they need

to survive.

Well, it's, it's all it's all different levels, isn't it?

I mean,

you talk to sort of millionaires apparently you

some for example, if you had sort of £5 million in the bank,

you would think, you know, a raise or even £1,000,000.

The idea, the average person

would think that's more money, that's enough money, isn't it?

That's a lot of money.

But then if you start to go into social circles where you meet other people

that have got maybe £2 million, or maybe somebody got 10 million

or a hundred million or a billion, you'll start to feel inadequate.

Maybe and you and apparently this is what a lot of these businessmen do.

They're already rich and successful far beyond

anything they could ever, ever possibly use.

And yet they're they're always competing with people

who maybe got, you know, 100 million more than them or it's, you know, it's

even on Musk and and competing with people that own, you know, Microsoft and

Steve Jobs when he was around

that all all these top they're all they're competing with each other

but you know it's it's on a different level.

You know they've already gotten more than enough

I'm not sure thanks to some of that give it to us

I'm not sure if that's selfishness though it might be greed

might be going on the greed side of things but I think I think it is possible

it doesn't matter where you are in the world if you are a person

and you are alive right now standing on this planet,

you are probably going to do something selfish today.

But most of those selfish things will be as a means

of surviving in the world.

And I think that is that is the difference.

Some of the interesting phrases we can use, by the way, Steve,

Steve always puts the iPad right in front of my monitor.

So I can't see it.

I can't see it.

OK, well,

now I'm being selfish.

Very important that I see the live chat.

Mr. Duncan, am I being selfish or is Mr.

Steve being selfish? I don't know.

But yes, a person who is selfish, we might describe them as self-centred.

So to be selfish is to be self-centred.

So I think, again, in that typical situation,

you might find a person who is wanting more than they need

to be self-centred you believe that the world

has to give you everything because you are such a special person

and there are many people around who are self-centred and they believe that

everything around them exists just for them.

They have a we call it an inflated sense

of self-entitlement, which is a great phrase.

And you see this a lot in restaurants

where someone demands the service and they are always complaining.

So a person might be self-centred.

Another one, Steve, you might be always looking out for number one.

And I like that phrase.

It's a good phrase that if you are looking out for number one,

it means you are always thinking of yourself as the most important thing

and not really thinking about the needs of other people.

Like the neighbour thing that you talked about

that's a very good example.

If your neighbour is doing something annoying,

maybe they don't realise, or maybe they do realise and they just don't care hmm.

I think that's often the case.

They are looking out for number one.

They only care about their own needs and wants

in a few moments.

By the way Steve, we have our special feature

that we started last week and a lot of people left it.

What's cooking Claudia coming up in a moment.

So if you are there, Claudia, are you there?

I think I've seen I think I saw Claudia on the live chat.

Claudia please tell us in a few moments.

Not yet.

What is cooking in your kitchen or as

Claudia calls this, have on the live chat byelorussia.

That's it.

So if people want to know that, OK,

drink hands out Belarus.

Here is a Claudia Rosa.

I've never seen drunk hands.

I don't what people are talking about there.

No, tell me.

I was talking about stolen monkeys.

Well, there's a new disease in town.

Isn't that a lot to be scared about?

Can we just not mention this is an interesting article?

Yes, well, maybe, but I am I'm already sick and tired of this.

Damn, is Mother Nature watching?

At the moment, we've been talking about nature.

Mother Nature if you are listening, can you please just stop it?

Just give us a rest. We've just.

We've just had two years of a worldwide

pandemic that we are now slowly coming out of.

I believe we already can say what we're talking about.

Please, can we be not have monkey pox?

Monkey

pox is all over the news here in the UK.

I don't know why, but it always makes me laugh.

It's yet the name does not suggest it's a serious disease.

It sounds, it sounds like flim flam, flimflam flam flim

and they're talking about it over here as though we're all going to die from it.

And of course we're not.

I looked it up.

Apparently it's quite a mild disease and you most people get over it quite quickly,

but you would you know, they're always trying to scare us in the media.

Are they trying to scare us, distract us away from what's really happening

by making everybody think about monkeypox? Yes.

So that's and and making it sound

and describe it as being more serious than it actually is.

So they're talking a lot about it.

Are they talking about it in your country?

Well, they've had cases now around the world.

Have you if you heard the latest news yes.

But I want to know if if people are, you know, have seen it on their news channel,

I would imagine, because now the United States has cases popping up

and just like the little spots that pop up.

Yes. Eventually.

So what you first get is tiredness, fever.

It's a little bit like having a cold.

And then afterwards you get little spots,

little boils on your face and on your arms.

But normally they're not very serious.

Although I have noticed that the newspapers and the television, Steve,

like you said, have been using very dramatic pictures.

Yes. And I think I think a lot of this is just scaring people unnecessarily,

because if you've got certain problems, maybe your immune system isn't working

very well, then you might get a more serious

outcome from the disease.

But I think from what I've read on the NHS website this morning, it's

nothing to be worried about, really just, you know, just get over it naturally.

There's no treatment for it.

I think you just have to get over it naturally.

I think it's a bit like

some of the childhood diseases people are describing it as it may be

a bit like shingles or chicken pox, but but probably a little more serious.

I think shingles is quite horrible, isn't it?

Shingles isn't very nice.

Things can be very painful.

Yes, but yes, I think it's more akin

or similar to shingles or chicken pox.

So that's the new one.

I mean, don't quote me on that, but that's from what I've read.

Oh, and they're trying to suggest that it spread.

Can I say the word, Mr.

Jenkins?

Just say physically or with close contact?

Well, I can't even say.

Well, that's it. Well, that's that's mainly what it is.

OK, then.

Yeah, yeah. Well, close contact.

If people are close to each other in any situation,

and I'm sure you can imagine any situation that people might be in

where they're close to each other, apparently that's how you get it.

But it's monkeypox and it sounds ridiculous.

Please call it something else.

Don't eat bushmeat.

Apparently, you can catch it from bushmeat.

It's been a long time

since I've eaten anything from the bush when I say bushmeat, that's

any sort of wild animal caught out in forest and things like that.

OK, out in the wild,

squirrels apparently can spread it.

And rats, squirrels, of course, some people think the squirrels look

like rats with tails

but yes, apparently squirrel meat

got to be careful with that, even touching it.

Apparently, you can pick it up that way.

Who is touching a squirrel?

And what are you doing with those squirrels?

But they might be other animals, you know?

Please stop it. Please stop.

I think, you know, it's spread from the animals to the humans.

And here we go.

There's going to be obviously some big worldwide outbreak

and we're all going to be talking about it for a long time.

Monkeypox, please call it something else, though.

Please give it a different name because I don't know why.

Whenever I hear anyone on the news, on the television say it,

I just have a little a little titter to myself, you know?

He said monkey pox.

Well, Claudia isn't cooking anything at the moment.

Oh, okay.

Oh, well, that's that's not feature finish, then.

It's still not cooking.

But you will leave some minutes to cook fish and chips.

Something about fish and chips.

I'm not sure

whether that's your not cooking today, but you're going out for fish and chips.

I'm not sure that's what you mean.

I think that's a reply to another person on the live chat.

OK, so.

So, Claudia, we're going to have it anyway because we're coming up to 3:00.

Claudia,

here is the question that we asked last week

for the first time and a lot of people seem to like it.

A lot of people seem to enjoy it.

The question is what's cooking?

Claudia, what have you got in the pot what's cooking?

Claudia, is it something spicy and hot?

Is it something salty or not?

Well, Claudia,

what is in the pot

and if it's not in the pot, what will be in the pot?

So, Claudia, just tell us what you might be cooking.

Claudia, what is in your pot today?

What are you cooking?

Claudia, is it something tasty?

We had something nice last night.

Now, I took some photographs, Steve, but I forgot to load them into the computer.

But we had the most amazing food, and this is something

a lot of people are talking about at the moment.

Is it because the cost of living?

Have you noticed it's going up,

it's going higher, and things are becoming more expensive.

So we found a lovely meal quite cheap to make

right. OK.

Using just lentils.

Oh, yes.

We're using our slow cooker as we're using more and more

now because we can just check everything and walk out and come back 3 hours later.

We've got a ready meal. Hmm.

Yes. And I love lentils.

You like lentils?

It's lentil daal.

I think we've mentioned it before, D.H.

El, but the ingredient in the ingredients is so simple.

Just chuck in a chopped up onion, wash, the lentils,

vegetable stock cube,

some garlic, some ginger cup,

a teaspoons of curry powder, some carrots, Cuban.

And if you can throw any old vegetable in there,

I'll put some carrots and some peppers in there last night.

What else?

Some olive oil.

But you could use any oil in there.

Kind of chopped up tomatoes

and about

three quarters of a litre of, as I said, stock, you know, stock, stock.

I mean, I used vegetable stock, but you could you've used I don't.

Chicken. Hmm.

Put it all in there.

Mix it up. Took 10 minutes to prepare.

We went out, came back 3 hours later.

And it was ready.

So, so we, we went out for a walk.

We came back and there was a beautiful aroma

in the kitchen as this meal was slowly cooking and also very cheap to make.

And I think that's the important part.

The important part is people now start thinking about food

that they can buy and cook.

It won't cost so much, especially if there is going

to be a shortage of certain types of food and

if the news is is anything to go

by, I think there might be a few shortages in the future.

So we will see what happens. But excellent.

I was impressed, Olga says,

if you asked me what I was cooking, OK,

I would answer that I'm cooking milk, rice porridge with fruit.

Nearly every lesson.

I'm cooking something as well. Oh,

so we've got two people that are cooking maybe I can say maybe I can do this.

Then instead, what's cooking?

Oh, God, what if you got in the pot?

What's cooking?

Old is it something spicy in hummus?

Is it something salty or not?

Oh, God.

What is in the palm?

Oh, it's better.

Easy, by the way, Tiki, you're cooking.

So, Claudia,

fish with Roquefort cheese.

OK, that sounds very posh. Hmm.

So, yes, and I'll get comments that

that better.

Is is cooking very fancy food? Yes.

So Claudia is cooking fish today.

So now we have the answer.

Claudia is cooking fish,

and it sounds rather nice.

It does.

And there's nothing else on here at the moment for me to comment on.

Oh, okay. So fast. Good.

So what happens?

We just stand here and stare at the camera

says yes.

Yeah. Mm.

Yes. Somebody says, what's the difference between

how you the o'hanlan says, what's the difference?

Between selfish and selfless?

Oh, well, to be selfish means to think about yourself.

To be selfless is to just think about others.

It's the opposite, really, above yourself.

So your your own needs always come second to everyone else.

So you want being selfless a person who who will put themselves forward

to help other people instead of themself.

Maybe you're working at a food bank. Yes.

And some other charity.

And you're helping others

and putting other people's needs before yourself.

Then you would say that you are selfless hmm.

And not many people around like that.

No, I don't think I think it I think everyone does something selfless Leigh.

I think we can be selfish. But also.

Well, this look at this.

Now, we are doing this for free.

It costs nothing.

So I don't have to be here now.

I could be sitting in the garden

or having a lovely walk in the countryside listening to the birds.

But instead we are here doing this.

So we are giving up part of our day only when you think about it.

So you might say that this is a selfless act because we are doing this.

We're not getting paid well, no one's sending me a salary,

no one's sending a huge pile of money.

I'm not earning anything from this.

And some people might say, Mr.

Duncan, what about YouTube?

And my ID,

my answer would be, what about it?

So this is selfless.

I like to think I like to think that this is something we are giving.

We don't always expect something in return.

We are doing it selfless.

See, that brings up another point.

Is anything really selfless?

I mean, it does it it might appear, for example,

that you are helping people,

that you are a virtuous person who is always doing

charity work and whatever, but are you getting something back from it?

Anyway?

So are you getting some kind of satisfaction, some kind of

building up of your self-worth by helping other people? Yes.

So you know, is anything ever truly selfless?

Maybe if you're a martyr

and you give up your life for a cause

that could be that could be fairly selfless.

Maybe.

I think it's the ultimate, isn't it?

Yes. But I mean, it's often said that, you know,

is anything really, truly

selfless.

Yes, but not obviously selfish.

But you are probably always going to get something in return.

But it's not obvious, you know?

You know, it's a hoarding thing.

You know.

You know, I always think religious people are incredibly selfish

because they they are always trying to do some.

I didn't say that.

Well, no. Well, I'm going to say it.

Well, it's true.

You just tell me.

Well, I wouldn't do that very often.

OK, that's gone.

Whatever I was saying there, that's gone.

Well, carry on.

You lost the train of thought.

Well,

I think I think religious people can be quite selfish

because if you are doing good deeds for other people,

but the only reason why you're doing it is because you want to get into heaven

and have God give you a big hug.

That's a good example.

Yeah. I mean, is anything truly selfless?

Yes. Well, that's why I mentioned it. Yeah.

So I think it's actually quite, quite an interesting point.

So if you are religious and you go to church and you pray all

the time and you, you have a chat with God and you do good things,

you're only doing it because you want to have your reward at the end.

It's selfish. So there is no true.

And I think the word you are looking for, what you are questioning

there, Steve, is altruism. Yes.

The, the, the giving without expecting anything in return.

So I love that word. Altruism.

We often think of a selfless act, something given

without wanting anything in return as ultra stick.

Great word. Lovely word.

So if a person has altruism,

if they are doing good things without expecting anything back

then that is true selflessness.

I think so.

Kristina, by the way, says

if anyone's interested

she has cooked rice, chicken and potatoes.

Who is this?

Christina?

Christina.

OK, so that's that's let's ask Christina.

What's cooking?

Christina, what have you got in your pocket?

What's cooking?

Christina?

Is it something spicy and hot?

Is it something salty or not?

Oh, Christina, what is it?

The poor.

Are you ready to sing again?

Century? No,

so you you give

this might take up the rest of the lesson.

Century No. Is cooking

penne alla generous, say,

ice cream and white wine for Langley, NFL.

And, you know, it sounds very nice.

Whatever it is, it's always sounds food

always sounds very posh in a foreign language.

So I'm sure if we were to say fish and chips

in French, it would

probably sound very posh. Yes.

And probably simple meals that in your country,

if we say them in English, they probably sound very posh to you.

Just fish and chips and posh to you.

We say fish and chips.

Posh Pumphrey to fish.

Is that is that fish and chips it could well be.

That's chips and fish

oh yes.

I think it is.

Is it Peche Peche Avec Pomfret?

It's fish and chips.

Yeah, I'm sure it is.

I'm sure Louis or Tatiana for my terrible, terrible

memory of learning French at school.

So I don't know. Why should we go?

Should we go to Christina and fish and chips?

Should we go to

Claudia for.

Yeah, for the cheese.

Where should we go to Claudia?

Is doing the fish, I think. Yes, yes.

With with some some cheese as well.

Is it rugged reggae? Reggae?

I can't say it. I'm sorry.

I can't say whatever that was.

You know, I can't say it.

Have we got time to fly over and sample some of these meals?

We've often said that we'd like to do this

often Sylvia says, I don't cook.

Hello, Sylvia.

People are asking you about the Sylvia's from Brazil.

Sylvia has been watching you for a long time.

Hello, Sylvia.

So I suppose I should say what's cooking?

Sylvia, what have you got in the pot?

Well, actually, so Sylvia's cooking sandwiches. Yes.

You don't have to you don't have to put your sandwiches

in the pot, do

no. What are we having tonight, then?

What are we going to eat tonight, Mr. Jenkins?

I have no idea.

I think I'm going to use a pasta sauce.

Put some tuna in it.

And some spinach, and cook it with some rice.

And I think we'll have that tonight.

Some tomato

tomato with fish and we'll have it with rice.

It's a nice, quick and easy meal.

Good.

Is that it?

And I'm doing it, so that makes me a selfless person.

Oh, OK. So virtuous sounds.

That also means we won't be eating it till about 8:10 tonight because we're Mr.

Steve Cooks.

It seems to take forever for Mr.

Steve to cook. Simple man.

You send Mr.

Steve into the kitchen to boil an egg, and then 2 hours later, is still

is he still standing there with the eggs in his kidneys?

That's the complete opposite of me.

I'm incredibly efficient

when I say just because it's light, I you're the one that makes the cover.

You're describing yourself, Mr. Duncan.

I know when I make a cup of tea,

sometimes when I make a cup of tea, it takes me about 2 hours to make it.

But that's because I'm such a busy person.

I don't just do this.

I don't just do this.

I have a busy life.

I approach cooking like a military exercise.

So you do.

It's in there's normally at least one explosion in the kitchen.

Yes, I do it very, very efficiently and quickly.

It may be late because I didn't start it till late.

Yes, it will be done very quickly.

Whereas, Mr.

Duncan, we like to have a cup of coffee is 11:00.

And I hear that sort of.

I know it will never come at 11 because I hear the kettle going on

and I think that is really mean and the kettle will have

at least twice as much water in it than is required for two cups.

That's got nothing to do with wasting electricity. Yes.

And then on, hey, the kettle boil and then

nothing happens for 10 minutes.

OK, and then I had the cattle boil again and I hear some clanking of cups and then

nothing for another 10 minutes.

OK, this is great. This is almost in real time.

And then eventually I hear that maybe the third or fourth time

the kettle is re boiled, thus wasting more electricity.

OK, I hear the sounds of sort of something being made

and eventually it will wind its way upstairs to my office.

Yes, but quite often it's 11:00 when I bring it up.

So I don't know what you're talking about.

So you must start. It is about 10:00 maybe.

But the reason is I don't like eating too late

because I get indigestion in my tummy and then I can't get to sleep.

So that's the reason why maybe I'm being selfish.

Oh, did you see what I did?

I missed the Steve and Sylvia.

We haven't been to Brazil, but we would love to go

because we've

got lots of friends in Brazil, you included.

When I say lots of friends, I mean only from watching Mrs.

Duncan's channel we don't have any other friends apart from that.

Viewers and yours.

Pedro being another one is on today.

OK, so hello, Pedro.

Yes, we've got lots of people watching in Brazil.

I know, and all around the world.

So. Yeah, be careful of those monkeys in the forest.

Yes. Why? Because they might have pox.

Monkey pox.

I suppose it depends what you're doing with them.

What are you doing with those men? That's what I mean.

Be careful.

Don't get too close to them all.

Or get amorous.

Would you like to see something really weird

that I spied in the garden this week? Here.

Here is a blackbird.

But the blackbird is doing something very strange.

What is this blackbird doing?

It looks like it's being hypnotised.

Is it thinking it is blinking?

You can see its little eyelid going over.

So there it is.

There is a little blackbird, male blackbird

and this blackbird seems to be doing something really strange.

Well, last week we had some lovely sunny weather.

And sometimes you will see birds

you will see birds doing this in the garden.

And what they are doing, they are actually using the sun

to clean their feathers

because birds have lots of little insects

and little mites crawling around in their feathers.

They can't help it. It's not their fault.

But what they do to help them get rid of them or to keep them away,

they sit in the bright sunlight and it helps to clean their feathers.

So this particular black bird

is sending itself.

It is sitting in the sun and you can see now it is preening itself.

The other strange thing is it keeps its beak open as well.

So it is taking deep breaths and the reason

why it does that is so that it doesn't overheat.

So it's breathing in.

It shouldn't sit in the sun then. Well,

it's joke

that it's sitting in the sun because it is cleaning its feathers.

So that's what it's doing.

I love watching the birds do this.

You don't see it very often.

I think it's it's really strange.

So that's not a photograph you're looking at now.

There's actually a video,

but it looks almost as if the blackbird

as has been hypnotised.

It's very strange.

So it was like that Mr.

Steve something different.

Yes. Yes.

It's not that you should be asking.

It should be your virus.

Did you like it?

Did you enjoy watching the blackbirds sun

his feathers to keep himself nice and clean?

Hailer or Hallah has cooked couscous in

I don't think you'd like that.

Would you use it?

I don't mind it.

Couscous is OK, but it depends how it's cooked and what it is served.

With.

So I'm not a big fan, but certain types of dish

that has other things besides couscous

Olga says the conversation's making me hungry.

Yes, we often have this. Thank you, Louis.

Portuguese Laurel.

See how how lovely viewers remember what we talk about from one week to the next.

So last week I was talking about replacing our bushes that we had to have

cut down our our conifer hedges

with maybe Portuguese laurels.

And so we now know it's called oleander. Hmm.

So thank you for that. I have looked it up,

and you can get all sorts of different sizes, so.

Yeah, we're considering that then.

Yeah, we're considering that along with one or two

other plants, but I think we'll end up with the Portuguese laurels.

So we haven't decided yet what to plant where the trees were.

And fortunately, we had to chop them down because they were dead.

So now we have to replace them with something else.

We have a topic coming up, Steve, because of course it's not just us.

It's not just all beautiful, handsome faces.

We also have a little bit of English as well to look at and talk about.

So that is coming up in a few moments.

We'll have a quick break

and then we will be back with our subject today, which is all about

word and phrases connected to buildings

there

we were on the beach and we are hoping maybe in a few weeks from now

that we will be able to visit the beach again.

And have some fun and games

hmm. English addicts, English addict.

It is English addict to live from the birthplace of the English language.

Talking of lovely food.

France.

Oh, yes, I know. Has lovely food.

And the question about whether we're going to France

this year has come up in the live chat

from a certain person whose name begins with T.

OK, yes, we are still considering that

I don't think unless you've had all your vaccines,

you can actually go to France yet.

Yeah.

Now some countries have relaxed that they have Spain.

Good news we can actually go to Spain now if we want.

So Spain has now relaxed all of the laws for people going into that country.

Yes, I don't think France

has relaxed that because you haven't had your booster, have you?

Well, mind you, you've had the disease so that anyone can to the booster

unique life design. Hello.

Is making homemade Bulgarian yoghurt.

Oh, that sounds nice. I love yoghurt.

I have a big bowl of it every day.

I have to be in the mood for yoghurt.

I don't always fancy yoghurt so creamy of the better,

and I chop up

prunes in it.

I put prunes in it. I won't tell you why.

You know, if you know what, if you've got a particular condition,

you know what prunes helped to relieve

with that?

With some homemade jam.

And I have it every day at lunchtime along with other things as well.

But yes, I would like to try Bulgarian yoghurt.

I bet it's very thick and full fact.

I like Greek yoghurt.

Yeah, Greek yoghurt is very creamy as well.

Is this similar to Greek yoghurt? Bulgarian yoghurt?

Please tell us.

Unique life design. Hmm.

So everyone's cooking.

I include.

She has gone now because she's got to

put herself in the oven or whatever.

She's going to do it I sometimes feel as if I'm selling my soul

doing doing this on YouTube.

I I'm feeling hungry now.

It's almost like all this talk of food.

It's we are going to do a live stream

or maybe a recorded lesson

that we can insert into a live stream with us cooking in the kitchen

because we haven't done it for such a long time.

We haven't cooked in the kitchen for a long time.

So we might do that maybe next week or the week after.

We might have a little bit of fun in the kitchen, either

cooking some chilli con con or maybe Mr.

Steve's special lentil,

slow cooked doll.

Oh, I like the sound of that.

Anyway, we have something else to do now.

We are moving on and we are going to take a look

at today's word, today's topic.

Some people might say they might say that building

words and phrases, there are many ways of using certain

phrases, certain words that are connected to building.

You build something.

Of course, building can be used in more than one way.

You can use it as a noun.

So a thing that has been built is a building,

and that can be anything it is a very generic word.

You can have a large building used

for offices, a large building used

for accommodation, apartments, or maybe a house.

Even a small house can be described as a building

so normally some sort of structure, the name of it.

So that is used as a noun.

But of course if you are doing that thing,

if you are constructing something,

you are building it to increase

something or to increase the size

or shape of something you are building.

Quite often it is referred to the height of something

as something becomes higher you are building on that thing.

It doesn't necessarily mean you're building somewhere.

You know, house

could be anything, you could be, you could be, you could be building,

you know, a structure in the garden made of wood

to be decorative.

If you are constructing something, you're building something

by the way, I've roar.

Is there anyone watching us today

that isn't cooking is what I want to know.

I have a feeling we might we might be the only people

in the world at the moment not cooking something.

But if Laura

Steve says I'm cooking and listening to you and your videos,

obviously it's the thing to do when you're watching

Mr Duncan and Mr Stevens too is to cook

at the same time multitasking.

A lot of people do listen

instead of watching because then they don't have to look at our faces.

They can just hear our lovely, delicious

voices.

Lewis has made a very interesting observation

that we have discussed ourselves about the Prime Minister's father

having obtained French nationality. Yes,

Stanley

Johnson is the father of Boris Johnson.

They are all millionaires, multimillionaires.

But Stanley Johnson wanted

to move to France and get citizenship.

But of course his son, he is is well known for

being the Prime Minister and also he is against Europe

which is a little awkward when your father wants to go and move

to a European country that is situated in the EU.

But last week it was announced that he's got it, he's

got his citizenship finally after going through a very expensive court procedure.

So France originally said no or not,

but he took them to court.

And of course, he's a multimillionaire, so he can buy all the expensive lawyers.

And last week, France said we

you may enter Stanley.

I can't say that we feel,

you know, I mean, it's the irony is not lost on us

that, you know,

probably himself and certainly his son

wanted to come out of Europe and

and now his father wanted to get French citizenship.

I mean, you know, these people have no limits

to the sort of awful things that they will do.

You know, they say one thing for everybody else and another thing for themselves.

In fairness to kind of just say, in fairness, Stanley Johnson was

pro-Europe was a but then I

you know what I'm going to say when his son started

running the leaving the EU, Brexit

is, as many people call it, suddenly Stanley Johnson became anti-European.

Isn't that strange?

But now he he wants citizenship of France.

It's very strange.

I presume he's going to spend lots of money in France, but

he already has probably be quite pleased to.

Yeah, he's got property.

He's got millions of pounds worth of property in France. Yes.

And so he wants to to become a resident there.

Anyway, back to building, this is on the screen for those wondering what it is.

This is today's topic, by the way.

And we are looking at words connected to building.

So it can be a noun or a verb.

It is a thing that's built or a thing you are constructing.

You are building it.

We can use build in some interesting

ways, figuratively, without an object.

So this is not connected to an object.

This is building or build your confidence

so what you are doing here is increasing.

So in this sense, we are using the word build to me

increase to make something larger

or to to build something

that is an attribute of your character.

So in this particular sense, we are saying build your confidence

or you are building your confidence.

Sometimes we all need this, don't we? Yes.

I mean, if you're starting something new, maybe, I don't know.

You want to you want to do some public speaking

or you start in a new job and you've got to learn some new skills.

Well, you need experience.

You need to actually do something.

And as you gain experience, your confidence will build.

There confidence is just a mental state, isn't it?

It's it's a mental state.

If you feel confident

in doing something, it's it's a mental state.

I mean, some people are always confident,

no matter what they tackle, no matter what they do,

they always have a mental amount of self confidence.

And successful people often have this.

They believe in themselves.

They don't have any self doubt

so but experience builds your confidence and doesn't it?

Because if you do like I do singing, then

on top of that, more and more of that, I do the more confident

I feel next time I come to perform that I'll be able to do that.

So the the stress levels reduce a bit

and that's quite a good point.

So building your confidence is actually also reducing

the stress caused by doing something.

So it's strange you might say that it's two things happening at the same time.

Your confidence goes up and your anxiety or fear reduces.

It never goes away.

It never, ever goes away.

I always remember someone talking about this.

They they had been performing for years and years and years and they said,

Do you know, I still get I still feel afraid

I still feel scared and nervous.

But that nervousness is is low.

It isn't very high.

It doesn't affect me too much.

But it is there.

And I think you always need a little bit of fear, a little bit of anxiety.

It always has to be there because that energy

can be just as useful as confidence, I think.

So that's what I think.

Anyway, what a winner.

We can also, if you are learning English,

I suppose you can also build your vocabulary.

Yes, you are building your word power just like bricks in a building. Yes.

Yes. This break, you could say is a word and you you're adding

to your knowledge into

your your vocabulary the number of words that you have at your disposal.

And this is what I talk about sentences.

This is what I talk about when we are discussing learning the English language.

When you are learning English, you have to build your confidence,

but also you have to build your vocabulary, your word power.

So without the words you have nothing.

You have nothing there.

So you need words to to actually express yourself.

And that is how you slowly learn the differences between words used

in your language and words used in English.

It is about building.

You learn and you build at the same time.

The two things quite often go together

here's another one.

So we're looking at some phrases now, Steve,

when we talk about bricks and mortar

bricks and mortar so this, I suppose is a general term.

You can use it as a general term for a house

or a building so

any building, anything that's been constructed quite often

using those two things, bricks and mortar

so if you're talking about owning property, would you say

yes if yes, if you talk about bricks when somebody said bricks and mortar.

Yeah, you mean houses of buildings. Yes.

Sometimes it's an investment.

You know, people talk about I want to invest in bricks and mortar

is a phrase you hear people say it just means or in America,

they would probably say real estate

bricks and mortar.

It just means physical things,

you know, physical things and actual building.

I'm going to invest in bricks and mortar.

It probably means you're you're going to invest

on the stock market, for example.

But in something linked to

as I say, in America, real estate.

So it could be maybe construction. Yes.

So construction is the creation of bricks and mortar,

which then become houses or any building.

So bricks and mortar is a phrase we often use when we are talking generally

about a house or building something maybe you own as well.

You can say I own.

I have some bricks and mortar.

I own that house.

That property is another one.

It's usually usually sorry, this is because that phrase is used

when when we are about investments

you know, probably the financial world

to have a roof over your head.

I think this is one that is quite topical as a lot of people are talking

about having difficulty paying their rent or affording to buy a house.

A lot of people say that one of the most important things

to have in life besides your health is a place to live.

And I think quite often we take this for granted

when you can go home and open your front door and lock it

and you are safe in the house, you are warm and secure.

We can generally say that you have a roof over your head

to have access to shelter and accommodation.

So I suppose it is the dream of everyone, isn't it,

to have a roof over their head?

Yes, somebody to live

it's that's been in the news a lot as well recently, apparently, because there's

a lot of rental property out there now

and a lot of people in the UK experience the problem with landlords

putting up the price of the rent,

that's happening a lot because of inflation and mortgage rates

going up and everything.

It's, it's starting to have a significant effect and also because the

that the price of bricks and mortar

is now seen to be at an all time high

like a bubble you could say

it's a phrase after news in financial markets.

So a lot of people who and they think that that's going to drop

so a lot of people are trying to sell their houses

now while they are at the peak of the housing bubble

trying to get out of bricks and mortar as you would say

and realise the the money that's tied up in it

yeah.

So they began have you got a roof over your head is a phrase

you can ask or you can say,

well I've hardly got enough money to pay for the roof over my head.

So we often use it is in a sense of desperation.

Sometimes maybe you need, you

need a roof over your head, you are looking for a place to live.

I'm desperate.

I really do need to find a roof over my head to have one.

I have a place to live, a place to call home.

Yes, it's a phrase that sort of is quite impressionable.

It's quite an impressionable phrase.

Instead of just saying I want a flat or I want a house, a roof over

my head, you know, it paints a different picture in your mind.

We talked about this last week.

It makes it seem more real, that it's something that you really

need to have that particular phrase.

It's like saying, I've, you know, I need a place to live, a roof over my head.

It gives you know, it makes it

what am I trying to say, Mr.

Bennett? You see, it makes it seem more real.

Yes. Tangible, more. Yes.

Something you can you can quite important that you want that thing yes.

So everyone I suppose it's fair to say everyone needs a roof over their head.

Here we go to have a strong foundation.

And this actually ties in quite nicely to learning English

because as I said earlier, if you want to learn

English, you have to have words.

You have to understand those words,

and then you have to know how to put those words into sentences.

You have to know how to translate normally in your head as you're speaking.

And then eventually as your confidence grows and you develop

your your level of English

you build on that original foundation.

So to have a strong foundation emphasises the importance of having a strong base

or support for something, and it can be anything.

So it doesn't have to be physical, it can be something

that you are doing an activity you build on something.

So learning words, learning how to be confident, learning

how words are used in sentences, using grammar,

all of that is your foundation.

It is the base of what you will then build on.

Yes, you could say, for example, in a sentence, you could say

going for

further education gives you a strong foundation

for success in life.

It's often a phrase that people, people, people use.

So construction yeah.

So a strong foundation in construction is, is the base.

So quite often they will dig or they will go into the ground and to the ground.

So that foundation quite often cannot be seen.

It can be not you can't just go and see the foundation.

You can see it when the building is being constructed.

But after it's finished, the the foundation is under the ground.

So in that sense, it is hidden.

But in learning or discovering a new skill,

the foundation is the basics, the basics of that particular subject.

Yes. Going you could say, like people who become successful in comedy, for example,

they might say that working in the clubs

for many nights and many years gave me a strong foundation

for launching a successful TV career.

For example, would be another example.

So I suppose anything you want to do? Yes.

Giving you. Yes.

Something firm, something you can, as you say, build on Hmm.

Here's another one.

We are looking at building words and phrases today,

all connected to buildings, making buildings

building buildings, even

a window of opportunity.

Of course, you need windows in your house.

If you want to let the lovely light in

and you can even open the windows.

I think it was Mao Tse tung once said

opening the windows

will let in the fresh air, but it will also let in the flies.

Isn't that lovely?

I hope you enjoy that.

A window of opportunity is the chance or the time to do something.

So maybe that chance comes along

and perhaps it's only available for a short time.

So maybe it is limited to the amount of time

we say there is a window of opportunity.

Can you think of a good example of that?

Yes. You might say

the window of opportunity for obtaining

well-priced property has long passed

the implication being that if you wanted to get property at a cheap price,

you probably should have purchased it maybe five years ago

or well, even three years ago, just before the pandemic

or just after the pandemic would have been a very good point to buy

all sorts of fine land financial assets because they've all gone up in price. OK,

the window of opportunity.

Well, you can say that if you're getting too old and you can't do anything.

So you might say, say you want to do something very physical.

Say you want to go on a on a on a round the world trip

and it's very physical and you've got too old.

You might say, well, the window of opportunity for that has passed.

You might also be offered something

offered something for a short period of time.

Maybe the local shop, maybe the local shop

has a special sale on and everything is half price.

And you might see that as a window

of opportunity to buy that thing that you've always wanted.

So I can go to the shop next week and buy that new chair

or that new television

or that new phone that I've wanted because it will be half price,

but that sale is only lasting for two or three days.

So that is the window of opportunity

my chance or time to time and limited

opportunities.

What that means, you could say time, limited opportunity.

There might be somebody that you quite like the look of.

You're attracted to them, but you keep leaving it and leaving it and leaving it.

And the longer you leave it, they might risk them finding another partner.

So you might say that there's a window of opportunity.

A friend might say to you, Well, you better, you better ask them out soon,

because that window of opportunity will soon be going

because they might be meeting somebody else.

We can say that it closes, so it opens

and it is available but of course, that window can also close.

And then the opportunity or the chance has gone.

Yes, Lewis, you can say that window of opportunity to launch a satellite.

Good one to Venus.

That's good,

because when you launch these satellites, they or the planets have to be lined up.

They have to

there's only certain times that you can you can launch these satellites

or these spacecraft because it's got to link in

with all sorts of other things that are going on

in the, you know, in space.

Yeah.

And if you miss it, then it might not come again.

This is a good run from to make

a pillar.

Yes. Well, a pillar is a support.

Yes. Slide offer made of concrete or reinforced concrete.

Something very tough.

Yeah. Something very dependable.

So some, something normally it's upright

and it goes up and it supports it is often

used as a support old buildings.

You can, you can see lots of pillars if you go to Greece so you can see

lots of old monuments and buildings and many of them have pillars.

So it is one of the strongest forms of support

and in constructing construction, they use concrete and quite often

it is reinforced inside with with metal

or their normal gold rebar.

So that's something that's that's very dependable.

And so the phrase you can use that in is that a particular person

could be described as a pillar of the community,

somebody who is upright, reliable

and tough, trustworthy, trustworthy, you know, you can because that

a pillar that supports a building, you trust that absolutely.

To keep that building supported, not to be confused with pillow

no pillow is something soft.

And quite

often you will lay your head on the pillow.

So pillar and pillow

they are different words

another one for that, another one coming up.

Oh, this is a good one.

Again, about life.

It's strange how many of these refer to events that might take place in your life.

As one door closes, another one opens.

Life is like that.

If you have experience, if you've got to

a certain point in your life, Steve,

you will find quite often

as one door closes, another one opens.

It is weird.

It is strange how that happens sometimes I think I think as well, say,

for example, you're in a job and you lose your job.

But I think when you

then you suddenly other opportunities then become available.

Those opportunities were always there.

But because you were in that job, you never really noticed them.

So I think quite often these other opportunities are always there.

But because you're not fixated on or you do one job

for a long period of time, you're just not looking.

But then

when you stop that job, you have to look for another job.

And then all these opportunities, opportunities are there.

They always were there.

But we can use that phrase as one door closes, another one opens.

It's a phrase of hope. Yes,

to give you hope for the future.

It might not be jobs, it could be relationships, it could be anything.

And we've heard and we see many people describe how their lives change

and some disaster befalls them

or something bad happens to them.

But then other opportunities come along

because it's in this sort of lively, vibrant world.

If you're looking and you've got an open mind that probably

we are always opportunities out there.

So easier said than done.

Of course, very similar to the window.

I suppose your window can open and close, but in this sense

we are saying that something comes to an end, something ends.

So the door closing is something ending or finishing

but quite often you will find maybe

after a short time or sometimes a long period of time,

another door will open so it's not always a bad thing.

Losing something, losing your job,

a change of career.

Quite often you will find that there are other things available

that you didn't realise, just like Mr Steve said.

So the sequence of moving on in life

Beatrice said she uses that phrase a lot.

It's a good one.

It's a phrase of wisdom. Hmm.

I like that one. Yes, I like it.

As one door closes, another one will open.

There is always an opportunity, even when things seem bleak.

Here's another one

I like this one.

This is one of my favourite ones

to have something on the house.

This is a phrase that we often use I think it's used mostly in British English.

I will be honest with you, it is often used in British English,

although you might hear it used in American English as well.

Because there is a lot of influence in what what

people term as American English, which is just the variations

between the spelling and sometimes the use of words

to have something on the house, to be given something for free.

No charge is made it is on the house.

Yes, you might have a meal,

a lovely meal at a restaurant.

And, and then along comes the

the owner or one of the waiters and brings you

a nice little glass of some nice liqueur

or maybe maybe a little bowl of ice cream maybe.

And you say, Oh, well, I didn't order that.

And the waiter says, it's on the house.

We're giving it to you for free.

So in that sense, House refers to the owner

or the people running the business.

So quite often having something on the house means

you are having it without any charge being put forward.

You get it for free.

You might say that this this live stream

is on the house.

It doesn't cost anything.

We are doing this but it doesn't cost anything.

You are getting it for free.

Unless, of course, you want to make a donation, which you can if you want

to be given something for free.

Maybe you go into a pub, into the pub,

the public house or a bar,

and you happen to know the landlord,

the guy running the pub, or the lady

who is in charge and hello or haven't seen you for a long time.

And the landlord or the barman says, Have a drink.

You can have it on the house.

It's free.

Yes, you might have done something to to make somebody

want to be generous like that towards you.

So yes, this is often used in both British and quite often in American English

as well because of all of the influence of the language.

So one of my favourite ones as well

to be in the planning stage.

So if you are arranging something, Steve, maybe if you are preparing

to do something in the future, maybe you have a goal in your life

that you want to do,

you quite often plan that thing.

You are not actually doing it the early process of an idea

is to be in the planning stage.

So you are trying to decide what to do, how to do it,

what you need to do, that thing

you are making plans and I'm pretty sure, especially when you get to a certain age,

you might find that you have to make some plans for your future.

Yes, you might want to decorate a room for example,

a little project you've got going on at home.

And some of you might say, well, how is it going

with with, with that declaration of that office?

And you might say it's still in the planning stage.

The indication being you haven't started yet.

You can often use that to indicate that you haven't started doing anything yet.

You are still trying to decide

it's still in the planning stage.

So the planning for a house, of course, or a building

is when you decide what it will look like, what the shape will be,

how tall it will be to be in the planning stage.

Here's another one.

You might refer to something as a blueprint,

and we do use this phrase a lot

when we're talking generally about things maybe something

in its earliest form

or something in its most basic form.

The blueprint

and quite often when you're designing something, you will see a blueprint.

It is an overlay

or it is something you can look at and you know, what that thing looks like.

There is a plan,

a scheme,

or I suppose you can also describe it as a schematic as well.

I like that word schematic.

I think, you know, back in the day,

if you were planning to construct a building,

then there's certain types of paper that they use which is blue in colour

and I think that's where the phrase comes from when it's printed out,

it's got a particular I don't know whether they still use that.

You know, the reason why they do that because quite often

the blueprint will be looked at over a strong light

so they normally put it so that the paper will be blue

and then the plan itself would be written or shown in white,

and then you put that on a light surface and then the blueprint goes dark.

But the, the lines are all very bright, so you can see it very clearly. I

they probably don't use them anymore.

It's probably all on, on, on a computer.

Yes, I would imagine.

But yes, you can use a phrase, you can use the phrase, in other words,

like, you know, what was the blueprint for success?

You know, it's referring to plans, isn't it?

Maybe a process that is that has been proven

to be successful can also be the blueprint for something.

So if you repeat that process,

you will have a certain amount of success.

Something will be successful we say that that is the blueprint for that thing.

Following that particular formula or process, then that has been proved to work

good.

We have I think we have just one more, which is pretty good because we are coming

towards the end as well.

And words

connected basically or generally

to to ownership of a building.

So quite often we use the word sell.

You sell something, you can sell anything, I suppose you can put anything

on the Internet, maybe on eBay, and many of these other sites that exist,

but you sell a property or you sell a house,

you pass ownership

onto someone else for a price.

So if you own the house, that means the house belongs to you.

It is yours.

And then maybe you decide to sell that house,

you actually pass ownership to another person.

So quite often there are lots of documents or

I suppose the word is deed

deeds to that house

and to pass the ownership

to another person is to sell a house or sell a building.

And then of course you can let something or lease

which is to rent out so you don't own the property,

you live in the property or you use the property

but you pay a monthly fee, you let

or lease the house or of course rent

so you can rent something out.

And also you can rent a property from someone.

So that can be used both ways.

It doesn't just go one way, it can go both ways.

You can sell something to another person,

you can rent something to another person,

you rent a house or you sell a house.

Become much more popular now in the UK,

when Margaret Thatcher

was Prime Minister, she she very much encouraged in the 1980s

house people to buy their own houses

and that's pretty much been the case.

I mean people were always buying their houses but

compared to somewhere like France who I believe where

and lots of places in Europe where a lot of people

don't necessarily aspire to buying a house, renting

it is probably more the norm in

the UK, people always want to buy their houses.

That's always the aspiration.

But of course since the price of houses has gone up

and gone up and gone up compared to the sort of average

national wage, they've become out of reach particularly for younger people.

And so young people often now rent somewhere because they can't afford

to save up to get a mortgage, to buy a house anymore.

And we've often discussed this.

I remember when I first when I bought my first flat when I was working,

I think I was probably about 2322, 23, something like that.

And the price of that property

was about double the price of my annual wage

so this is back in the late sort of middle 1980s.

But now to buy, to buy a property

now it's probably four times your annual wage

so you have to save a lot more to get it a mortgage.

So a lot of people rent now and then of course you're then at the

mercy of the landlord

or landlady

who could

tell you that put the rent up whenever they like

or they can ask you to leave to vacate the property.

In fact

one of my sister's children OK has just

had his rent go up by 10% which is an awful lot.

But this is happening everywhere now.

Yes this is it.

So if you are, if you are owning a property

you might be in a slightly more comfortable position

unless of course you are paying a mortgage.

So maybe you are still paying money to the bank

who you actually technically the bank owns the house

until you pay the full amount or of course you rent from someone.

So you pay a small amount but all of those things are liable

or they will increase over the next year.

You're always at risk, as a lot of cases

have been in the news recently, where people land, people

that own the houses, that rent them out, giving people notice.

So you could have been living in this house of this flat for ten years.

And suddenly the landlord or the landlady says,

Sorry, you've got to go in two months.

I'm selling it.

And it's really it must be very upsetting

if you've been similar or they've just decided, and particularly

at the moment, with house prices being probably at their peak,

a lot of people who buy to let

you buy houses to specifically to let them out are probably thinking,

I'd rather sell that now and get the money out of the property.

Anyway, we straight, straight a bit off that.

It's all about building.

But yes, I suppose it's safe to say that the price of everything,

whatever it is, food property,

fuel, whatever it is, inflation,

I think it's, it's safe to say that it's all going to go up.

Hello, Colonel.

Hello, Colonel.

Thank you for joining us

at the end of today's live stream.

But don't worry, you can watch it again.

It's all available later on my YouTube channel.

By the way, my channel is now slowly approaching

1 million subscribers.

We are around I think it's around about five,

five and a half thousand

subscribers away from 1 million

you've been steadily building on your subscriber base.

Very steady.

Yes. For 15 years.

Thank you, Colonel, for joining us.

We are we are about to go right again.

Put the kettle on, Leslie, to be here.

Yes. Great to have you and see what again next week.

Hopefully all being well, as we say, all being well.

And I shall leave Mr.

Duncan to to wrap up for you so see you all next week.

Mr. Steve is now

going to say goodbye

Mr. Steve will be back

next Sunday once again joining us live.

And I hope you will also be joining us live as well.

Of course, we are back on Wednesday.

I will be with you on Wednesday.

English addict extra coming up on Wednesday

and I hope you will join me for that if you can.

And if you can't, don't worry.

It's all right because

I will be here on Wednesday

and you can watch it again on well,

on any device that you have nearby, it's time to say goodbye.

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

Thank you very much for your company.

Thank you very much for joining in if you have taken part.

Thank you very much.

Without you, there would be none of this.

And don't forget, if you like this, please give me a lovely thumb

to show you care and YouTube really dislike it

when you give me a thumbs up because that shows that you

are a fan of what I do.

See you on Wednesday.

I will be back with you on Wednesday from 2 p.m.

UK. Time is when I'm back with you.

We have talked about a lot of things today.

We've talked about being selfish.

We've talked about idioms and expressions connected to buildings

And you can watch all of it as many times as you want on my YouTube channel.

See you on Wednesday. Thank you very much.

This is Mr.

Duncan in England saying

Thank you very much for being here with me.

I do appreciate it.

And of course, until the next time we meet hopefully on Wednesday,

if not next Sunday, 2 p.m.

U.K. time.

You know what's coming next?

Yes, you do...

ta ta for now.