Improve your English Vocabulary by reading an article with me

hello this is jill at ingvid and today we have a  lesson which focuses on an article which i'm going  

to be reading to you and showing you on the screen  okay so this is from uh the bbc website um it's a  

different one from uh some of the other articles  we're looking at this one is called bbc future  

and it's a series of articles from different parts  of the uk so this is a rather interesting one um  

that is all about some wartime bombs from the  second world war which ended in night in the 1940s  

and there are still some bombs from the second  world war that uh as this says the bombs that  

lurk off the uk coast so these are  bombs that are sort of in the sea  

they're under the water but they could explode at  any moment so um it's of course it could cause a  

lot of damage if some bombs suddenly started  exploding so this article is all about that  

okay so on this picture you can see  a mast sticking up out of the water  

and that's a ship that sank in the second world  war and on that ship were a lot of explosives and  

nobody has been able to do anything about it  because it's so dangerous and you can see this  

big yellow um thing floating in the water with  the danger sign on it to tell ships not to come  

too close um so okay so let's have a look  at this title here this uh explanation so  

um as it says the world war ii era ss richard  montgomery so that's the name of the ship sits  

just 1.5 miles one and a half miles from  shore and locals fear that it's 1400 tons  

of potent explosives could go off  at any time so the the journalist  

john excel investigates okay so i'm just going  to increase the size here for the main text  

and just close that at the bottom okay so let's  have a look so i'll just read this first paragraph  

okay so here we go take a trip to the seaside  town of chianese on kent's isle of sheppy  

and a curious sight awaits you a giant  mural featuring a miserable looking mermaid  

this is her just below here

hand on tnt detonation plunger poised to  obliterate a shipwreck in the sea behind her  

welcome to sheerness you'll have a  blast reads the accompanying sign  

so this is uh kent in the southeast of england and  it's just to the east of london so if you think  

of london with the river thames flowing through  it kent is the area just to the east of london  

going towards the english channel on the  other side of the sea from from france  

so the water here it's partly sea but it's also  partly the river thames flowing out to the sea  

so that if that helps you to visualize  where it is okay so kent is on the south  

side of uh the river thames and and the sea  to the south of it so um this ship you can see  

the masts sticking up on this picture here  um that's where all the explosives are  

under the water okay and here's the mermaid  not looking very pleased not surprisingly um  

so there we are that's the sign  that welcomes visitors to the town  

okay so let me just go back because there are a  few words to explain so first of all in the main  

title uh the this word lurk may be a word that you  may not be familiar with so the bombs that lurk  

off the uk coast uh to lurk is kind of to hide so  the bombs are hiding because they're underwater  

you can't see them and also lurking it has a  rather negative meaning you know sort of hiding  

waiting to come out and grab you or something  so it's that idea the bombs are hidden but they  

could cause a lot of trouble if they go off so  they're lurking and it's a sort of threatening  

idea you know something bad could happen so that's  work okay and people can lurk as well you know  

hiding behind a curtain or whatever  ready to jump out things like that  

okay so and then some words in this um second  heading uh i think maybe this word potent meaning  

powerful potent explosives i mean explosives  usually are potent or powerful or strong  

that's what it means and to go off also means to  explode so there's a phrasal verb to go off it can  

be when something explodes to um it's a different  word for that okay so and then i think there are  

some words in this first paragraph as well uh  so the mermaid is poised that means she's ready  

with her hand on the handle there to push  it down and detonate the the bombs poised to  

obliterate and obliterate means to destroy okay  a shipwreck that's the ship there in the water  

and then there's a joke here um you'll have a  blast usually when people say oh we had a blast  

it means we had a really good time  fantastic time we were laughing and joking  

but of course in this context here the  blast uh is about the blast of an explosion  

so there's a double meaning there  so it's what you would call a pun  

or a play on words or word play or double meaning  that um it's um it has a funny it makes you laugh  

because of the double meaning in the language  so you'll have a blast has two meanings there  

having a good time or witnessing an explosion  so that's the joke in in this poster here

okay so let's move on and read the next sentence  so to visitors unfamiliar with the hazard  

lurking in the waters just beyond the  town sea wall a terrorist mermaid is an  

undeniably bizarre piece of public art so um  the hazard another another word for danger  

lurking we've got lurking again hiding away just  it's just beyond just near the town of shianess  

in kent beyond the town sea wall a terrorist  mermaid is an undeniably meaning you can't deny  

that bizarre or strange it's a very strange piece  of public art because it's on display in public  

in the open air for people to see uh it does  look quite strange um so bizarre means strange

okay then next sentence but to locals she's a  chilling reminder of the wartime relic that some  

believe threatens the town and the lives of  its inhabitants the wreck of world war ii era  

ammunitionship the ss richard montgomery so a  chilling reminder chill means cold so it makes  

you feel cold to think of um the war itself but  also the possible threat that's that's still there  

the threat the danger that the this uh these  explosives could go off and cause some damage  

and the wreck the shipwreck the sunken ship  that's sort of broken up under the water  

and the ammunition the the explosives the weapons  that were on that are on the ship okay so the next  

paragraph tells us a bit more the ship lies just  1.5 miles 2.4 kilometers from shore in the mouth  

of the bustling thames estuary bustling means  busy you get a lot of ships coming and going  

up and down the thames into london out again um  clearly visible from the land it's rusting masts  

rising ominously from the water the  sunken vessel contains disturbing cargo  

1400 tons of high explosives which many fear could  go off at any time potentially causing one of the  

most devastating non-nuclear peacetime explosions  ever seen so all these years since the 1940s  

these bombs have been just there under  the water they could go off at any time  

so rusting masts that's when anything metal starts  to to go brown and disintegrate a little bit um  

so that the masts are sticking up ominously  that means you know they look dangerous um  

and these are all the explosives that a lot of  people many fear means many people fear could go  

off could explode at any time and devastating  means it could cause a lot of damage okay so  

here's a picture of the ship before it sank  ss richard montgomery arrived in august 1944

okay so next paragraph known semi affectionately  to locals as the monty from montgomery uh the  

441 foot long 134 meter vessel was a u.s liberty  ship a type of cargo ship used during world war ii  

so us from the usa from america it arrived off  britain's coast in august 1944 carrying munitions  

weapons to help the war effort on the 20th of  august while waiting to join a convoy across  

the channel to france harsh weather caused the  ship to drag anchor and found her on a sand bank  

so the ship was waiting to join a convoy a group  of other ships to all go across the english  

channel to france to taking the weapons  with them but bad weather harsh weather  

um meant the ship uh it its anchor dragged on the  bed of the sea and then the ship got caught up  

on a sand bank um a sort of raised bit  of sand under the water it got stuck  

and it couldn't get off again it just got  completely stuck there okay so as the tide receded  

the vessel was left stranded stuck the hulls  welded plates began to crack and buckle under the  

weight of the explosives on board so the hull is  the body of the ship and the welded plates are the  

metal plates that are um joined together and they  started cracking and buckled they sort of bending  

under the weight of all the explosives so um  the shape of the ship changed and meant it  

it was just impossible to bring it back up to to  float and to sail again okay so local dock workers  

hurriedly mounted a salvage operation they  managed to empty the rear half of the ship  

before finally abandoning it on the 25th of  september when the forward section flooded  

and the vessel snapped in half so the local  dock workers mounted means they just organized  

a salvage operation meaning to save as much of  the contents of the ship as they could and they  

did empty part of it that the rear half the back  part of the ship they got some of the weapons off  

of the ammunition but then they had to give  up they had to abandon it just leave it  

they couldn't do any more the forward part  flooded filled with water and then the ship  

snapped in half it broke in half okay  so there's a picture from that time  

um where they're they're out having a look  but they can't really do very much about it  

so since then no one has been aboard the ship at  least not officially and without any surviving  

records of what actually was removed in 1944  it's impossible to say precisely what cargo  

remains so that people don't even know  how much ammunition is still on there

okay however estimates paint a worrying picture  according to a survey carried out in 2000  

by the uk government's maritime and coast guard  agency the ship likely contains a staggering  

assortment of more than 9 000 us-made explosives  so estimates pain to worrying picture that's a an  

idiom um a metaphor uh the estimates the figures  um give people a picture in their mind of um  

lots and lots of weapons on the ship okay and the  staggering assortment of explosives staggering uh  

is usually when people stagger they're sort  of not being they're not able to walk very  

easily you might be staggering if you're carrying  something heavy for example so staggering is the  

effect it has on you when you think about it oh  my goodness all those weapons oh my goodness what  

would they do so that's a staggering assortment it  sort of makes you think oh gosh this is terrible  

okay so i'm just going to skip a little bit here  but um um i'd like you to read it yourselves in  

in your own time especially if you're doing  the quiz that comes at the end of this lesson  

um because there will be some questions  based on the parts that i'm not reading okay  

so just to move on um so there's another  picture of the ship with the masts sticking up  

um so let's just read this paragraph um this  one is quite important so most agree that most  

people agree that the bombs are relatively safe  as long as they aren't exposed to sudden shock  

friction or heat but recent mca surveys confirm  the wreck is gradually disintegrating its  

deterioration could lead to a sudden collapse that  triggers the sympathetic detonation of some if not  

all of the remaining explosives so disintegrating  and deterioration i mean the same thing really  

the the ship is just sort of  falling apart under the water  

and if things start moving and collapsing it could  cause an explosion if two things knock against  

each other perhaps there could be a an explosion  which could make the whole thing explode not just  

one bomb exploding but it could trigger meaning  have a you know continuous effect on on the other  

um explosives as well so that's the  worst thing i think that could happen  

um so some people are saying uh for example if we  look at this bit it could hurl a column of debris  

up to 1.8 miles or three kilometers into  the air so it could go upwards into the air  

and send a tsunami barreling up the thames  so a big wave going all the way up the thames  

towards london and cause a shock wave  that would damage buildings for miles  

around including the liquid gas containers on the  nearby isle of grain so if you think liquid gas  

if that was x if that was going to explode as well  it could be a disaster uh so some people find it  

very worrying so it's a scenario that keeps many  including local historian colin harvey awake at  

night and he says the remit area for the explosion  would be from margate to the center of london it  

would level sheerness it would just level you  know devastate and a 30 or 40 foot wave would  

breach or break through sea defenses shepy's got a  population of 25 000 people where would they go um  

so this is the worst thing that some people  think could happen but then not everyone  

shares this apocalyptic view this sort of end  of the world type of view for the local area

so let's just skip that paragraph and this other  person says the idea that if one item goes bang  

then everything will is i think pretty unlikely  unless you've got intimate contact between two  

munitions two weapons subsurface under the water  you'll rarely cause the other to detonate because  

water is a very good mitigator the water actually  stops some of the explosives from exploding okay  

so we'll just move on from there this is an aerial  view of sheerness and i think that there is the  

yellow um danger sign so i can't see the masts in  the water but i think that's possibly the yellow  

sign near the wreck and this is the town of  shianess itself um okay um so we'll just skip  

a little bit there so that's for you to read in  your own time especially if you're doing the quiz

so another thing is that passing ships  have to be careful um one concern  

is that the vessel could be struck by one of  the many boats that pass close by every day  

um and from here there are concerns that it's  not as well protected as the authorities claim  

um there have been at least 22 near misses over  the last few decades so some ships have almost  

hit they've only just missed it over the last few  decades the last few 10 years 20 years 30 years  

in one particularly dicey incident  dicey that means sort of difficult or  

tricky a danish fuel tanker strayed off course in  poor weather and had to take last minute evasive  

action to avoid hitting the wreck so a fuel tanker  a danish ship carrying oil probably went the wrong  

way they couldn't see probably where they were  going in in bad weather and then suddenly had to  

go the other way to get away from hitting the ship

and then more recently a paddle boarder this is  a person on a little little paddle boat i think  

um provoked an outcry caused a lot of concern  when he posted a photo of himself on facebook  

leaning against one of the vessels masts so  somebody actually went right out to the wreck  

and got onto it presumably and was leaning against  

one of the masts this one of these masks here  so that was a very uh dangerous thing to do  

okay so we'll just move down i think to this  paragraph here so let me read this one so  

one thing that might hasten a solution  would be a major infrastructure project  

like london mayor boris johnson's proposal  for a new airport in the thames estuary  

now boris johnson is not the mayor of  london anymore as you probably know  

at the time i'm filming this video boris  johnson is the prime minister of the uk  

um but he was the mayor of london at one  time at the time this article was written  

and he did have this crazy scheme for an  airport in or on the thames on the river thames  

but nothing came of it it never happened so um  i suppose they would have had to clear this ship  

away if they'd done that but i mean there's  already a city airport to the east of london  

i think it was a bit too much to expect to build  another airport so near um and people there are a  

lot of people who don't want more airports now  because of global warming and so on uh climate  

change so anyway yes uh the airport commission  said that before it could be built the wreck  

would have to be moved but with boris island as it  was being called looking increasingly unlikely at  

least for now we could be in for a long wait  we could have to wait a long time that means  

and most most people seem to agree that the  longer the vessel is left the harder it will  

be to deal with which i'm sure is true it will  just be breaking up into pieces more and more

and as this guy says we can't continue just  leaving the wreck to fall apart somebody at  

some point in the next five to ten years is  going to have a very difficult decision to make  

and i would say the sooner it's made the  easier and cheaper it will be as a solution  

okay and so let's carry on we're  nearly at the end of the article  

it's hard to predict what will happen next to  the ss richard montgomery it's possible that  

nothing will happen that the speculation  will continue and that today's generation  

will pass this volatile baton onto the next  relieve that it hasn't blown up on their watch  

so just to explain a few words here speculation  that's just people talking about it and not  

doing anything and today's generation will pass  well volatile means something that could explode  

but to pass the baton means to hand something  on to another person uh it comes from i think  

relay racing in athletics where they pass  an actual baton or stick to another runner  

um one person's running along they they're holding  a stick and they pass it into someone else's hand  

and then they carry on running with the baton  so it's the idea of one generation passing  

the problem onto the next generation  and relieved that it hasn't blown up  

on their watch meaning relieved it hasn't  blown up when it was their responsibility  

so um but that's been going on for  years now um and then the final sentence  

um but for the people of sheerness there is always  the terrifying possibility however remote that one  

day soon decades of inaction will come back to  haunt us so the possibility which is terrifying  

even if it's remote meaning it might never  happen but one day decades of inaction  

10 20 30 40 years of doing nothing more than  40 years really will come back to haunt us  

to haunt is that's what ghosts do if you  believe in ghosts um ghosts haunt buildings  

and they haunt people so it's something from  the past that's a bit frightening um so this  

is also something from the past that that's  a bit frightening when you think about it  

if that explosion ever happens in the  thames off the coast of kent it will  

well it'll feel worse than being haunted probably  people will then say why didn't anybody ever do  

anything about this you know but we can see what  a difficult situation um it's been over the years  

okay so i hope that's been an interesting  article for you and i do rec uh recommend this  

bbc um website it's a particular  one called bbc.com forward slash  

future which looks at um it gives you  stories from different parts of the uk

so i do recommend it and recommend  that you do read articles  

um good quality articles like this one  help to helping to increase your vocabulary  

and and if you can read aloud as well  that's always good practice too okay so um  

if you'd like to go to uh the quiz um and answer  some questions on this article do read the whole  

article in full first um because there could  be questions on some of the sections i haven't  

covered so i know you all like to get 10 out of  10. so um you know make sure you get the best  

chance of doing that okay all right so that's  it for today i hope you found it interesting  

uh please subscribe if you haven't already  and see you again soon okay bye for now bye