Learn English with a Short Story: In a World of Our Own - British English Podcast

Hello and welcome to the English Like a Native Podcast.

I'm your very ordinary English girl, Anna, and I'm gonna be giving you some

very ordinary English, peppered with some interesting words and phrases.

Okay, so this is the kind of English that you'll hear spoken in the UK.

So forget the grammar rules, forget the textbooks.

Just listen and enjoy.

Now, if you are watching this on YouTube, then read along with me and

try to pay attention to the words and phrases that I've highlighted for you.

You can access the complete vocabulary list and transcript.

I'll tell you more about that in the description.

So are you ready?

Let's get started.

I came in for a coffee.

If you are having a coffee, then you are not expected to be doing anything else.

So I suppose what I really came in for was just that.

To be not doing anything.

It was both a part of the daily grind as well as an escape from it.

I always came to the En Route cafe.

How ironic.

'En route' to where exactly?

Every day I saw the same sign over the cake counter there, "Serve

yourself - it's a piece of cake."

I couldn't avoid looking at it, and I always felt disappointed

that it was still there.

The first time I noticed the sign wasn't the first time I came in,

but ever since then, it's been right there in my eyeline like a sty.

I was in the doldrums for sure.

Catch 22.

Exhausted by routine and therefore too tired to do anything but follow it.

One of those people who are aware that there is a problem,

but never dare to change because it's better the devil you know.

Perhaps that's why I always fixed my eyes on that stupid sign.

Comforting familiarity.

Still, familiarity breeds contempt, they say.

There was a silver lining to this cloud, though.

The coffee.

Especially the espressos, small, strong shots, large, mild

ones, you name it, they do it.

Expensive as they are, they're about the only thing that I'm

willing to walk for these days.

Chained to a desk normally.

True enough, I bring my laptop with me, but I never take it out unless I

see someone else from the office here.

The baristas were busy as ever.

Behind another sign, "Wake up and smell the coffee, then buy one."

At least the signs were handmade and not just lifted down from the piles

in those cavernous shops where you seem to feel so guilty about going in

that you have to buy approximately 15 unnecessary items to prove to yourself

that you really needed to be there.

I found myself smiling at the idea of someone making

a sign reading, 'Sign here'.

But I knew that it wasn't really funny.

At least I felt in a better mood, like that laughter therapy that I

heard about where people feel better by forcing themselves to laugh.

Typical of me, that I could only muster a smile, no sound.

Easier said than done.

It was time to get up and go, although that was something that I truly lacked.

Get up and go.

"A penny for your thoughts."

Though seemingly distant, I became aware that these words were

actually being addressed to me.

There was someone I didn't know from Adam sitting at my

table now trying to engage me.

I wiggled my hand in his general direction and shook my head as if it weren't

correctly positioned above my shoulders, and I needed to settle it into place and

got out of there like a bat out of hell.

I always pay when I order, so to my relief I didn't have to interact

with anyone else before leaving.

Huh.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, I realised as I was heading back to work...

work!

Christ on a bike, my laptop in the cafe, I would have to go back.

Why didn't Mr.

Nosy Parker tell me?

Perhaps it was a trick to scare me away so he could steal it.

It was the anger about the possibility of being fooled rather than any

concern about losing property that made me turn on my heel and come

hurtling back in through the door.

My attempted interlocutor was nowhere to be seen, but Lady Luck

was smiling on me and the laptop was still there on the seat.

At least the case was, I picked it up and felt the reassuring solidity within.

Yes, lucky me!

But there was a badge pinned through the zip pull "In a World of Our Own" it read.

I went up to the counter and asked if anyone had seen the person who

had sat at my table and spoken to me.

Turns out he spends his time interviewing people on their own and uploads

the videos online, didn't I know?

"He's often in here.

Easy targets, people in their own worlds in public.

Never any problems.

Leave him to it.

Don't want any bad publicity."

Was I going to be on his channel then?

How could he have filmed me?

I didn't see any camera or mobile, but maybe there were accomplices.

I felt as sick as a dog right then and there at the mere thought of it.

And yet, of course, just like with the cake sign at En Route, I wanted to look.

The channel was blocked at work, but I took my laptop out of its

case and started to tether it to my mobile, except it wasn't my laptop.

He must have switched it in En Route.

Time seemed to stand still as I opened it.

Power on straight away, connected, no password required.

I felt like a fish out of water as it opened to his channel, but

there was no video of me though.

I looked through the playlists.

The most recent uploads, nothing.

I suppose that our encounter, if you could call it that, was not

entertaining enough, even though I saw that the standard wasn't exactly high.

I watched the ordinary people assenting to the intrusion and began to feel

pangs of jealousy then horror.

They were chatting along happily enough to a complete stranger, and

I had been so startled that I'd run away and almost lost my computer.

I thought about writing to Mr "In a World of Our Own" and asking him to come

and interview me and saying that I was sorry that I had bolted, but I had just

remembered an important appointment.

Then we could do the interview, but surely I should ask him why he switched laptops.

I sent a message to his account immediately.

"You, you know who I am.

En Route.

Why have you taken my laptop?"

People say that everything happens for a reason.

You have to just look for it.

At the end of the day, though, I can't accept this.

If things happen for a reason, then things would also have to not happen for a

reason and you could end up spending your whole life trying to explain that too.

No, things happen because of everything, not just one reason.

Everything that has happened up to that point.

Mr.

"In a World of Our Own" wasted no time in getting back to me.

"That was fast", he wrote.

"I'm glad.

Sorry about all this.

It's all a bit illegal, not to mention immoral.

The thing is, I've seen you day after day in that coffee shop, and I'm sure

you didn't recognise me when I came up to you just now in a world of your own.

You are not alone, mate.

You've seen that from the videos on my channel.

Fancy a chat?

You'll get your laptop back.

Promise."

What could I do?

What would you do?

He was right.

I'd never noticed him before.

The baristas said that he was there all the time.

So was I.

No connection.

I closed the unfamiliar laptop and slid it back into the case.

I had to go back to the coffee shop.

If we were going to meet, it would be there in person, not online, En Route.

Now I was on my way, and this time I would be the interviewer.

Nothing to lose now.

It was like getting a free shot.

Well, that's the end of today's episode.

I hope you found it intriguing and full of interesting words and phrases.

Until next time, take very good care and goodbye.