922\. Words of the Year 📖 (with Amber)
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You're listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teachaluke.co.uk. Hello, listeners. Welcome back to Luke's English Podcast. This is episode number 922, and it's called Words of the Year. And you're going to hear me in conversation with Amber, and we're talking about the Oxford Dictionary Words of the Year for 2024.

We recorded this conversation right at the beginning of 2025, just after Oxford published their short list of words. But yes, the words refer to trends from 2024. I'm going to explain everything for you, but basically every year Oxford Dictionary, published by Oxford University Press, publishes a list of their words of the year. And what Oxford does when they update their dictionary...

In fact, they are always observing the English language, always recording as much of the usage of English as they possibly can in order to observe it so that they can keep their dictionaries fully up to date. And in their observations of the way that English is used, they often notice certain trends.

And then, it's quite interesting, at the end of the year, they publish a list of words which they think are significant for the year. Either these are words which have been just used a lot or words which seem to represent significant cultural trends of the moment, okay? They might be new words which need to be added to the dictionary or they might be existing words which have been used in a slightly different and new way and so they need to update those listings. But basically, these are words which...

have been used a lot this year. And why have they been used so much? It's probably because they represent certain cultural moments or cultural trends of our time. Okay. So, um,

You're going to hear Amber and I discussing all sorts of things, including the effect of social media on our mental health and the effect of smartphones and screen time. Talking about the Oasis reunion, that's Oasis, the band from Manchester in England. They reunited last year and announced various concerts. And there was a scandal around the way that they sold their concert tickets online.

I don't know if you're aware of that. Oasis might not be something you're aware of, but I know that they're a famous band around the world, but I wonder if you know about them. But anyway, we talk about Oasis and their concerts and their reunion. We talk about trends in fiction, in literature, and also...

AI, the effects of artificial intelligence and the future of AI, and lots of other things as well in this conversation. I really hope you enjoy it. There is a PDF with various notes that we used while recording the episode. That could be a good thing to check to help you identify words and phrases and information from the episode. You can download the PDF from the website page for this episode or from the show notes.

We're ready to begin in just a moment. I just wanted to say hello to premium subscribers. Hello, premium subscribers. Have you noticed that there is a full four-part premium series available for you now? I published it over the last two weeks. So that's P66, parts one, two, three, and four, available now for premium subscribers. You just need to check your premium episode list and you will see them. Parts one and two were published last week.

between episodes 920 and 921.

And then I published parts three and four just yesterday as I record this. I'm recording this on Friday, the 14th of February, Valentine's Day. How romantic of me to be recording a podcast on this day. Anyway, I hope you've been having a nice Valentine's Day. So anyway, parts one, two, three and four, P66. And it's all about the fascinating subject of phrasal verbs and their compound noun equivalents.

because a lot of phrasal verbs can also be transformed into nouns, which is really fascinating. It's actually very useful. You know, we talk about things like to drop out of school or to be a dropout or to back up your files or to do a backup, right? Other things like there was a bit of a mix-up. He mixed up the reservations and we're going to have a get-together. We're

So this is really useful language. It's also something worth noticing. There are other aspects to it, like the way that the pronunciation is different between the noun form and the phrasal verb form and lots of other stuff. I have fun in the episode with film titles because there are lots of film titles that include these nouns derived from phrasal verbs because they have a sort of dynamic structure.

punchy quality to them. So there's lots of fun with film titles and describing films with this vocab, full explanations of the language for you to learn, a list of target vocabulary, plus pronunciation practice with sentences so you can practice the difference in word stress, and also a story that contains a lot of these phrases and a chance for you to repeat the lines of the story after me, focusing on pausing and repeating

sentence stress and word stress. So a whole bunch of stuff for you to work with.

P66 parts one to four available now for premium subscribers. If you are a premium subscriber, check your premium episode list and you should find them. If you still don't know what you're doing with LEP Premium, sign into your account at teacherluke.co.uk slash account and then add the show to a podcast app on your phone. Just click listen in podcast app and follow the steps. You will need to have a normal

podcast app on your phone. I recommend Pocket Casts, but Apple Podcasts will work as well. You can listen to LEP Premium on your computer if you want to. You just need to add LEP Premium to YouTube Music, which is a free service that you should be able to use freely. Go to my website if you want any information about this, teacherluke.co.uk slash premium info. And that's how you also get the information about LEP Premium if you'd like to sign up.

All right, that's enough of that. Let's get into the episode then. Let's talk to Amber about words of the year. And here we go. Hello, Amber. How are you doing today? Hello, Luke. I'm doing good. Yeah? Yeah. All right, great. Are you ready for this episode? I'm excited. Do you know what to expect? No, because I deliberately didn't look up the words. So I'm going to discover them in real time. You are, aren't you? Okay, that's good. I've probably overprepared.

Surprise. That's unlike you. Really? Well, it depends. No, not at all. You always have loads of stuff prepared. Oh, right. Okay. We normally have stuff prepared, which then gets thrown out of the window. But we're going to try to stick with the plan this time. So I've prepared quite a lot, but you are completely fresh to this.

You haven't even seen the words that we're going to be dealing with. Not seen the words. I might not know the words. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's all part of the fun. Exactly. We'll see. So look at this. Look how organized I am. I've even defined my aims for the episode. Love it. So the aims of this episode are to look at some trending words, talk about their meanings and how they're used, to give some examples...

and generally to help my listeners to develop their vocabulary and cultural knowledge. All right. And also to take these words as the starting point for some general chit chat and discussion about current cultural trends. Okay. So what do you know, Amber, about the Oxford words of the year? Do you know about the whole idea of this thing? Not really. Don't they just add new words every year for the dictionary? Yes, they do. A bit better than the French. Well,

What, they don't do that? Their dictionaries are slow. Right. Because they're change-averse. It's all about protecting the language rather than embracing the way that it's being innovated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that there's loads of dictionaries, of course. There's Oxford's, Cambridge one's, Collins and others like website-based dictionaries like dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster and stuff.

A lot of them publish these lists of words of the year. We're going to deal with the Oxford ones this time. Previously, we've done Collins, but we're just looking at Oxford words here. They do add new words to the dictionary each year, but the words of the year is a kind of short list of words that they publish on their website and their social media.

These are just interesting ones which seem to reflect trends in the world over the last 12 months. It's a short list of maybe the ones that have been used the most. Actually, this is a quote from Oxford University Press' website. They say, "...we analyse data and trends to identify new and emerging words and expressions which our lexicographers think of as a single unit..."

So it could be, you know, even double words, but they're considered to be a single meaningful unit. And examine the shifts in how more established language is being used. The team also considers suggestions from our colleagues and the public and look back at the world's most influential moments of the year to inform their shortlist, culminating in a word or expression of cultural significance. Does that make sense to you? Yes.

So to break that down, that means basically they choose words which have been used a lot this year, often with a large spike in their use. And then words which represent influential cultural moments. That's based on what their expert colleagues have been saying and what members of the public have suggested. So these are not necessarily brand new words, but they're often old words that have been repurposed or used in a slightly different way. They might be portmanteau words.

which are combination words, you know, like the word podcast, or just old words, as I said, which have been repurposed or suddenly used again with more specific meaning. So these are words that catch the cultural zeitgeist.

or capture cultural movements at the moment. They tell us something about the world today. Amber, to what extent are you in touch with the cultural zeitgeist? Do you have your finger on the pulse? Are you down with the kids? I'm going to say yes and no. A little bit because I have kids. Yes. But they're speaking in French. So like whatever they're... They're a bit young still. Yeah.

out and about in the world. Your son is 11? 11. And your daughter is 4 or 5? Just about turned 5, yeah. Yeah, so they haven't quite got into that. They're not quite on it. I think probably in terms of cultural trends and stuff, a lot of it comes from kids who are a bit older than that, right? Teenagers, young adults. Absolutely. Yeah. I do watch a lot of social media. Like I do like TikTok. Yes. But TikTok is an algorithm. Yeah.

And so it's giving me content that I want, which is obviously targeted for my age. So not...

Not zeitgeisty. Not young. Well, there's different types, isn't there, right? I mean, yeah, maybe we are not part of the kind of younger sort of cultural group, that kind of cohort of late teens, early 20s or whatever. But we're part of our own cultural group and we have our own sort of zeitgeist as well, don't we? It's such a complicated landscape culturally these days. It is. But I mean, I think it's also important that we...

have our own language you know I don't

There was a lot of talk a while ago about like Gen Alpha slang, you know, skibbity toilet and all that. Gen Alpha? Gen Alpha. So Gen X, fine, millennial, yes. Gen Z? Gen Z is like the 20s. And now Gen Alpha, which is... Those teens, those like younger teens. Yes. And so there's like a lot of talk about that Gen Alpha slang and it's kind of quite impenetrable. And I love that. I love everyone having...

Yeah.

Like I was teaching yesterday and I had the kids running down the hall. So one of them had gone to the loo and was running down the hall and I could hear him shouting, bits and bobs, bits and bobs. And that's me. I say that. And I thought that's very funny to hear a sort of little five-year-old shouting bits and bobs as they're naughtily running through the corridors. They shouldn't be doing that. But like, yeah, everyone should have their...

Different people have their different slangs. And that's good. And I mean, you shouldn't try and... Not shouldn't, but there's no space for me. It sounds weird if you try and be like, I'm going to be like Gen Alpha. No. Yeah. If we started using sort of slang that is used by people in their teens, that's just going to be a bit weird, isn't it? Absolutely. But I love that they... I like a strong...

linguistic identity. Like it's great that this sort of feeling of like this gen alpha linguistic identity is there. It's cool. I mean, I love it. It's brilliant. Just thinking about learners of English now, because we're talking about staying within your, uh, cultural group linguistically, uh, and, uh,

enjoying the fact that there are different cultural groups with their own vocabulary, but perhaps you have to know your place. But for learners of English, they are attempting to acquire this language. How do they navigate that? I think that's an incredibly difficult space. You know how sometimes, and I know I've done it myself, I learned French, and sometimes I'd be like, this isn't the right... I've learned this word from being in bars, but

It's bar French. It's not formal French, but I don't have any other word. I'm going to have to use this word because I don't know what the other one is. And all learners, we've done it wrong. You've used a sort of maybe too casual word or you've heard people speaking English and you hear, okay, they've obviously, that's what their friends say. And it just feels a little bit off, you know? I think as a rule of thumb for me as a language learner, I try to avoid saying,

overly slangy slang. I think it often sounds a bit wrong. I just try and, I suppose I try to stay quite neutral in my French. And there's some very confident that it's sort of, so everyone uses it all the time. I might use it. Yeah. Like I understand a lot of their long, which is like a slang in French. I mean, it's old now, but I don't use it.

Yeah. Sound weird for me. That's a good point, though. It's good to be aware of the language that you're using and aware of, for example, who it's associated with and whether it's formal, informal, very colloquial, old fashioned, very trendy or not. You know, you've got to know all the baggage that words carry with them. Yeah. And, you know, you've got to know the cultural context of words. Yeah.

But I think exploring the words of the year for my listeners is probably very interesting because it does allow us to explore all that cultural context around these words. So they can learn some new words and also learn a lot about the culture of those words, which hopefully helps them to make better decisions about using it and recognizing it and all that stuff. So some of these things are obviously just passing trends or words that just people have talked about because of some specific context.

little trend that year. But then other things are obviously part of much bigger, more significant things which definitely stand the test of time. So we talk about things like the word post-truth, the word gaslighting. We talked about gaslighting a long time ago and it actually comes from a very old

um film and play and it's just and it's become i remember when we talked about it i remember seeing this word and being like oh that's a really interesting word but it has become very current

even though it's been around for a long time. And it is a great word. It does express a very specific idea, which actually you realise is happening all the time. Yeah, and it's so handy to be able to put a word to it. I mean, in English, I don't know if it's just me, but I mean, you know, you often say, oh, there must be a German word for that, because Germans are really good at like...

Giving a word to a feeling or an idea, but then suddenly when there is a word for it, somehow it is a lot easier to express it or even understand it.

Do you see what I mean? Yeah, I do. And gaslighting is that particular, is great for that. You know, it was happening all the time, but having a real sort of word for it is like, oh yeah, this is, it makes it somehow more real. Yeah. And by the way, if you're not sure what gaslighting is, I mean, you can go back to the episodes where we discussed that. It was years ago. It was years ago. So we have done episodes like this before where we've talked about the words of the year.

We did it for the 2015 words, the 2017 words, and the 2018 words. That's episodes 310 to 312 for the 2015 words.

And then episodes 561 to 566 for the 2017 and 2018 words. So in 2015, and again, listen to those episodes if you want to hear the full details about this. In 2015, it was you and Paul and me. And we talked about binge watching, clean eating, contactless payments.

which were a fairly new thing at the time. Corbinomics, that's about Jeremy Corbyn, British politician. Dad bod, which is what happens to a man's body when he's middle-aged and he's got kids and he's not necessarily going to the gym all the time. Just a man bod, really, it should be called. I suppose so. Ghosting.

Basically just ignoring someone that you don't want to see. Yeah. You know, on sort of online or message, not replying to people's messages, just ignoring them completely. Manspreading. Shaming. Swipe, swipe left, swipe right. Transgender. So interesting. Yeah. It feels so...

dated almost like well that's 10 years ago yeah it is fascinating these were these sort of new words binge watching it's so interesting seeing them actually yeah 2017 it was just me I did a few episodes

Talking about fake news, Antifa, Corbyn mania. Again, Jeremy Corbyn, cuffing, cuffing season, um, echo chamber, fidget spinner, gender fluid, gig economy, uh,

Insta for Instagram. Blimey. And Unicorn as well. And then in 2018, which was just the two of us, we talked about single use, like single use plastic bags and things. Backstop, which is part of the Brexit negotiations, the Northern Ireland backstop. The Floss, the dance. Gammon. Love that. I think we should use it more. Gaslighting. Me Too.

VAR from football. Video assistant referee. Yeah, that's right. Vegan and whitewash. And then it's quite interesting to look at the past, look at previous winners of the Oxford Words of the Year, which have stood the test of time. 2005, podcast was their word of the year. 2005, that's early. 2007, carbon footprint.

credit crunch. Do you remember the credit crunch? I mean, yeah, of course you do, but I mean, never really went away, but that's, yeah, whoops. That's the result of the, uh, 2008 financial crisis, which meant that suddenly there was no credit anymore. Uh,

We've never really recovered from that. I think a lot of the stuff that's going on today is a result of all of the fallout of that financial crisis. Selfie in 2013, vape in 2014, 2016, post-truth, 2019, climate emergency, and 2021, vax. Makes sense. For obvious reasons. By the way, listeners, you'll be able to read all this stuff that I'm reading from, all my notes.

I'll publish it for you. If you want to check these words and things, just check the episode description for this episode. You'll find a link where you can get these notes as well. Okay. So, words of the year 2024. You ready?

I'm excited. Bring it on. So the first word, this is the word of the year, Amber. Oh, okay. The word is brain rot. Brain rot. Brain rot. Okay. So two words, it's considered to be a single item. Brain rot. Do you know what brain rot is? I suppose it's when you're not using your brain. You're just on the sofa swiping and just rotting away. Exactly. Yeah. That's basically what it is. Brain, we understand rot. Yeah.

What else can rot? Fruit can rot. Food can rot. What happens when fruit rots? Anything organic. Organic matter can rot. So, for example, if you've left an apple... It goes bad and it shrivels and becomes covered in mould and insects eat it. That's rot. You've left an apple out for three weeks and you go to eat it and it's gone all brown and soft and disgusting. Yes. That apple is rotting. So that's rot. Yeah.

In this case, it's a noun, right? To have brain rot, to suffer from brain rot. So according, do you want to read out the, this is from the Oxford University Press website for their words of the year. This is their definition of brain rot.

Okay, brain rot, noun, supposes deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material, now particularly online content, considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration.

Okay, so it's a deterioration of your mental or intellectual state because of... Brain rot. Yeah, well, because of... Well, just because you're not using your brain. I think there's this sort of rabid feeling that people are not reading books or not engaging themselves intellectually and they're just...

watching Netflix or whatever platform, or looking at TikTok or looking at social media and not using their brain. Because they're not using their brain, their brain is rotting away. Yeah, that's right. They've said why it's in their shortlist. This is again from the Oxford University Press website. Although it's not a new or recent concept, brain rot has been widely used on social media this year,

particularly on TikTok. And the term has become more prominent, increasing by 250% in frequency per million words between 2023 and 2024 in our corpus. A corpus is like a database of language. Yeah. Okay. I mean, it's... What do you think? Formal? Informal?

I mean, it's pretty informal, isn't it? Definitely. Yeah. Can you imagine when people would actually use it? Can you think of situations where people actually would say brain rot? Well, I mean, I think you can use it in a sort of self, you know, when you're kind of feeling a bit...

Oh, just brain rot. Like, oh, I can't remember that. Oh, brain rot. In a sort of self-deprecating way. Yeah, absolutely. To talk about how your mental state is not very good at the moment. But I mean, I think also people accuse, especially younger people of, I mean, younger people are always being accused of not being...

Enough or clever enough or working hard enough or ever has it been thus I mean see Aristotle I mean like so

Yeah, I think people might accuse younger people of it as well. Right. I mean, we've got things like it's often used in relation to excessive consumption of media, right? The negative effects of binge watching TV shows, as you said. For example, I've been on TikTok for hours and I can feel the brain rot setting in. Yeah. Right. I mean, do you ever... You are self-confessed. I don't know if that's the right word. You...

say that you use TikTok. How do you feel it affects your mental state? Does it give you brain rot? I love TikTok. I think it's absolutely fantastic. And I think anyone that criticizes it should take a good long look at themselves. It's going to be banned in some countries. On the 19th. In France? In America. In America? Yeah. But do you know why, though?

Because of big power. Privacy issues. Whatever. People are concerned that... They're not. The government... It's because people are talking. They're upset because of everyone's sharing the information. Get out of town. I love TikTok so much. They're not worried that people are sharing information. It's because they are concerned about data privacy. The data is... Red note. Where does the data go?

Yeah, but there are other apps. There are other Chinese apps available, which are just completely... Yeah, but they're not as big as TikTok, though, are they? But they will be when they take TikTok away. Yeah. So what do they do? It's flimsy. They ban TikTok, or they ban all... It seems like a much bigger sweeping sort of decision to ban all Chinese apps. You can imagine that it would be less diplomatically problematic to just do TikTok, no? Hmm.

You're looking at me like I'm a conspiracy theorist. I don't know. I mean, I think there's valid. I think there is valid arguments there, but it is very murky. And I would wonder why like TikTok is a platform where a lot of people, I think this is the thing about social media. I think that what's so interesting about it is it gives a voice and space to people who wouldn't have voices and spaces. Otherwise, if you look at like,

I love talk radio. I listen to the BBC a lot. I used to listen to Radio 4 all the time. But it's a very particular voice. It's my voice, isn't it? It's sort of like RP voice, but it's also middle class. It's everything that kind of goes with it. Whereas I feel that platforms like TikTok and social media and television as well. I like television. I like the radio. I like talk radio. I like podcasts. But what we find with podcasts and with social media is that it opens up

the airwaves to people who wouldn't have a platform. And it's been fascinating to see who has moved forward and who has come into the spotlight. Um, and it's, and it's really, and it's really powerful. I mean, I think we had that effect with music. I listened to something and it was talking about how, why hip hop became popular. And when it sort of became to be like, it wasn't the DJs who chose, but the people who chose. So you're talking about the democratization of, of, uh, online spaces and, um,

in a way. Yeah, I totally understand that. But I think that there are other things going on as well in the sense that, you know, that's not... I mean, maybe that's what the American government is worried about, that there is, you know, they want to reduce the level of diversity in...

representation. I don't know, but I think they're probably more concerned about just the fact that TikTok is being used to harvest data from American society and that data is going to not America. It's going to somewhere else. So it's like, you know,

That's probably what they're more worried about. Didn't TikTok, didn't they have a whole... And to be fair, I really don't know much about this. So, I mean, you have a very valid point. That is their point. Wasn't there a whole inquest about where the data was being held and how they were sort of organizing it? And that rather embarrassing, I'm from Singapore...

Does that mean you're Chinese? Well, there's... No. There's... Yeah. It is... I think the headquarters of TikTok are in Singapore. But I think that there are complicated arrangements. And I don't know the full details. But I think I've heard... Some people... I've looked at...

people's conversations about this. Some people say, no, no, it's nothing to be worried. It's not China. It's based in Singapore. And then other people are saying, yeah, but actually the company is still connected to a Chinese entity. And so the data does ultimately go to the Chinese government. It is very complicated. I mean, why?

One could argue that is American data safe in American hands? I mean, what are they doing with it? Hello, Mr. Zuckerberg. What's happening? I agree. He's gone rogue. I agree. Maybe he was always rogue. I mean, they're all so awful. Anyway, point being, brain rot. Do I feel brain rot when I'm enjoying TikTok? Yeah.

Um, yes and no. I mean, it's like, um, I do find that I've learned an awful lot on TikTok and I think it's really fascinating. It's entertaining. I'm amazed constantly by just how funny and insightful and curious, like, I think it's such a great platform. So I really enjoy it. Sometimes I can use it too much. Like there's danger zones, bedtime,

go to bed. But then there are times you're feeling so tired. Like my brain has been rotted because I've got a hangover. I can't move. TikTok is saving me. I myself rotted my own brain with a cocktail before. So is that TikTok? That's me. I wonder also if, um, if it makes a difference what age you are that I worry that if young people grow up

completely absorbed by that kind of, and I'm going to call it manipulative software-based entertainment, which is very, it's really capitalizing on low attention spans and all these sorts of things.

that that might affect their brain development. And there's probably evidence, I mean, I'm speculating, but I think there are bits of evidence to suggest that that's not very good for your brain development. And kids don't, you know, they grow up ill-equipped to deal with other challenges. But for you, your brain has already been developed. And you also, I mean, when I saw you earlier on in the cafe, you had a book and you were reading a book and stuff. So you don't, you know, you're...

also reading and doing other things. I wonder how it affects if brain rot is perhaps more serious in younger people who spend all their time on it and don't let their brains develop in other ways which are really important. You know what I mean? I do know what you mean, but I think that there was a time when novels were considered dangerous.

And the idea that reading a book would be sort of morally disrupting. Yeah. And young women were not allowed to sort of pop upstairs and read a book. And reading a book, how inappropriate. And it was very much something that had to be done with the family. Like, you know, when you first got a computer and you had the family computer downstairs. Yeah. There'd be a novel, but you'd read it as a family downstairs. But I'm not talking about a moral issue. No, but what I'm saying is that like this idea of brain rot is,

I don't think it is social media as such. I think it is more like, why won't, you know, it's like it is about school and rigorous schooling and the opportunities to learn and the opportunities to also do sport and the opportunities to also play.

interesting movies that you might not necessarily choose yourself or do things which challenge you. And that comes around from parents and schools and society. So I think everyone can enjoy social media and have a good time. Attention span is changing. So what? Yeah.

how we access information is changing. You used to have to like, Oh, I wonder what this is. I'll go to the library. I'll get on my bike. I'm cycling to the lab. Oh, hello. Do you have the encyclopedia? I'm looking for M. I'm looking it up. You know, that's how we found information. I don't need to do that. I can find it in a moment. So our attention spans changing. How we live is changing. Um,

But it's like, how do we create a society where people have access to fair things? I would argue that the brain rot is not TikTok. It's the inequality within society. It means that some children go to schools where the teachers do not have enough supplies and resources to take them out and do fun, cool things with them. Like no one should be in front of a screen all day. Agree. A hundred percent. Yeah.

But that's not TikTok. But I think there's... I think that inequality in society is a huge problem. But I think also there's a mental health crisis in younger people, which could be a result of the way that, you know, like mobile phones are bad for their brains. You know, I think that they're two things and you can try and solve both, you know, rather than...

I think they're not mutually exclusive problems. I think you've got both. I don't know. I've just read reports that have looked at mental health problems in younger people and correlated them very closely with the introduction of mobile phones and how...

on phones results in mental health issues down the line. You know, that's what I've read. Possibly, but correlation and causation, it's very nuanced. It's pretty close. It's a pretty clear, close one. Arguably, but, you know, I'd also say it's the same with everything. If your parents are busy and they're working or they don't have time or money to take you out,

you're more likely to be on the phone. Is that the phone or is that a lack of structure? You know, when we were kids, let's say our parents were not so available, you turn on the TV, it was often rubbish. And so you turn it off because you're like, I can't, this is so rubbish. You know, you were forced to play with your Lego or whatever. In my experience, no.

If my parents are too busy and, you know, if it was like the Saturday morning or something and they're just, they want a lion or whatever. Yeah. And my brother and I would go down and switch on the TV and we had four channels. Yeah. Because I'm old. Same. And there were four channels. And, you know, you'd flick through the four channels and you realise there's nothing to watch. And like, it's the open university. Yeah. BBC Two hasn't started yet. Yes. And then there's like...

horse racing or something else that's completely boring. Um,

So, yeah, we just didn't have... So you end up switching it off and playing with your toys instead, which is, I think, probably a much healthier thing to do. Anyway, anyway. All I'm saying is that, yes, it's complex. It is. It is. Yeah. And something that we're both aware of. I mean, I try really hard to not have my children on screens all the time. Yeah, me too. Because they would just live on them. It's a struggle. I don't know if by limiting, for example, my daughter's screen time, if I'm setting her up for...

you know, binge watching in the future when she decides, when she's old enough to choose for herself that she will just do nothing but watch screens because she'd been, she's, hasn't been allowed to do it for so many years or whether I should let her watch a bit

I don't know. It's very complicated. It's hard. Okay. Anyway, brain rot is associated with excessive consumption of media, especially poor quality media, a deterioration of critical thinking. It's also used in a sense of playful self-deprecation, making fun of yourself, you know, saying things like, you know, this series I'm watching is pure brain rot, but I love it, you know, and

Also, it's in relation to exposure to harmful ideas or misinformation. Spending too much time in certain internet spaces will give you brain rot because that's where people are just sharing things which are not true and sending you down the wrong direction.

All right. I was going to ask, actually, do you ever make a conscious effort to do healthier and more productive things in the evenings? Obviously, for you, TikTok saves you from brain rot, it seems. But do you ever try to find ways to do more wholesome, more productive or perhaps healthier things? Do you try and get off...

your device at times or not. You don't do. Why would I do that? No, I mean, like I like reading, like I enjoy reading. So,

I go to bed quite early and I do try and put my phone away because I've got a whole pile of Agatha Christie books for Christmas that I want to get through and I really enjoy reading them. So I do like reading before I go to bed. But the evening is very much like I'm making dinner, three different dinners for everyone and cleaning up and getting people to bed and reading bedtime stories and doing stuff like that. So I'm pretty like done. Yeah.

By the time that's done. Yeah. So I normally just want to read, read a book. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I find myself just on YouTube and I think it's not very good for me.

It depends what I watch. Some of the content is better, like stuff that's based in the countryside and things like that. I like that kind of thing. Like crafts? Crafts, dog shows. That's not in the countryside. That's in some convention center in Birmingham or something. What am I trying to say? Anyway, sometimes I do make an effort to get off my...

To get away from screens, I think staring at the light in the evening is not very good. So I do just try to do something else. Reading books, I think, is much better. I generally feel better if I...

read a book in the evening and have an early night, I feel so much better the next day than if I'm absorbed by something on the screen or if I'm working, if I'm doing podcast editing or something, that's the worst editing video, just like, it can give me a bad headache. So I do try, I do try to read as much as I can. Um,

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Are you aware of this word being used a lot this year? Absolutely. Ah, okay. Of course I am. Okay. This was a TikTok trend. Right. I was wondering if you would know this. So, let's just look at the meaning of the word demure. So, I should say, first of all, this one is a word that's been around for a long time. Most of these words have been around for many, many years. But this one is... Why is this trending?

This was trending because there was a TikTok creator, Jules... Jules Lebron. Lebron, that was it. Jules Lebron. And so I think they used... They, them? I don't know. They did. They made a funny little video in their car saying, you know, this is... And they were looking really nice. She was looking really nice, you know, her hair and makeup and everything. And she's like, you know, this is how...

If I go to the interview, this is how I go to the job. Very demure, very mindful. And it really took off. Demure, mindful. And it's particularly pleasant because demure is, it sounds nice. It's a nice word to say, demure. It's a word that exists. It's a really old-fashioned word to mean sort of

and respectful, you know, and you use it for women, you know, she's very demure, you know. So it's this sort of very, very old-fashioned word. And of course, she's using it in this more modern way. And it was very funny. And people just used it for everything. And it was so funny. And everyone used it. And it flew into parlance and disappeared. You can't say it anymore. This accounts for why that word has... So if we're looking at data, just the number of times a word has appeared...

then obviously this one is going to be very high on the list. So, the meaning again, it's an adjective to describe a person. If someone is demure, it means they are reserved or restrained in their appearance or their behavior, right? Clothing, demure clothing is not showy,

So we're talking about muted colors. It's not ostentatious. It's not very revealing sexually. So it's kind of conservative, modest, moderate clothing and similar kind of thing for a person's behavior. There's a contrast between demure and another sort of trend, which is basically the opposite, which is being a lot more brash and ostentatious

And that is associated with brat. Do you know about that? Of course. You do? Because I just found out about this. Tell me about the word brat. Brat was Charlie XCX and she had the brat summer and it was all about...

She is a musician of what music? I do not know. I do not know her album. I don't really, as you know, know much about music. Yeah, you don't do music, do you? Not really a big fan of music. But she just kind of has these bright colors and sort of there was a whole Brat Summer and it was about being sort of, yeah, the opposite of demure. But they're not... Mutually exclusive. Yes, absolutely. You can have both. Exactly. Exactly.

At the same time? Well, I mean, in this space, demure is a TikTok trend and so was Bratz Summer. And so they sort of share a sort of energy in some ways, if you know what I mean, even though they are very different. So Bratz Summer and like Bratz being Bratz seems to be very like loud and confident and

standing out and who you want to be. That's what I got from it. That's what being a, that's what brat is all about. Loud, confident, really applying yourself. Yeah. Whereas demure is the opposite. But I guess these are like two modes that you can operate within, right? You can like, for example, Jules Lebrun talking about going to a job interview, you would be demure. You'd be restrained. You'd be mindful, mindful.

Which is that sort of like Zen, like meditative sort of self-awareness. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, just mindful, just like conscious. Yes. You know, making conscious choices. Aware of what you're doing and the impact you're having around on the situation around you. Yeah. Whereas if you're going out, you know, on Saturday night, then... You can be brat. Right. But brat is also a word. Brat is also a word. A brat is a type of person. It's like a...

A badly behaved, spoiled, rich kid. Yeah. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Yes. Okay. Demure. The earliest use of demure in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1377, referring to the sea being calm. Oh. The sea is demure.

So it's 1377. Can you read this bit? The OED sense of a person and their bearing, speech, etc., sober, grave, serious, reserved or composed in demeanour.

Yeah, it's an old word. Really old word. This is Oxford University Press saying that...

As you said, LeBron's use of the phrase very demure, very mindful to refer to her clothing and makeup choices was picked up and widely repeated by users on the platform and in the media. Some commentators saw the trend as a reaction to the idea of a brat summer popularized in the wake of Charlie XCX's album Brat. While Brat was widely associated with impulsive, hedonistic and self-confident behavior and outlook, demure is linked to an idea of personal reserve and careful self-presentation.

Interesting stuff. What do you think this trend towards using the word demure, what does this tell us about society today, Amber? What do you reckon? Well, it wasn't really a trend in the true meaning. Like no one was really using it to be...

demure no one was saying oh i'm really appreciating the way people are dressing so demurely like i people should be i don't no one got onto that trend and said i think people should be more demure or i'm not loving the way people are really out there shouting people started using it for everything see the way i'm chopping these vegetables very demure very mindful it

it became something completely different. It wasn't in any way used. And I think because of who Jules LeBron is, it wasn't used in this way to be like society should be less brat. It was just like, we love this word and everything we do is going to be demure and mindful because we want to say it. See the way I'm podcasting, thinking about how I'm going to do it for you. Very demure, very mindful, you know. So it just became a catchphrase. It became a catchphrase. It became really, really fun. And it was just sort of like,

it was just fun and it was funny. Um, and it wasn't in any way saying talk less, dress less slutty. Nuh uh.

It was just enjoying saying the word. Yeah. Like, oh, thanks for that glass of water. Very mindful. You know, and you could respond very demure. You know, those things. That's just a meme. That is just, that's a meme. It's like a little joke which gets repeated and people enjoy the act of repeating it. Yes. It's finished now, is it? It's done. It's been done a long time. Okay. So that's going to be one of those words that we look back. We're going to think, remember 2024, very demure, very mindful. Do you remember that? Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting. I was going to ask you, Amber, what style you lean towards. So going back to just the unironic use of the word, let's say, do you lean towards a demure style or something more ostentatious? Well, I'm currently wearing a full-length brown dress. I mean, with a pair of bloodstone boots. I'm feeling very demure. Very mindful. It's pretty cold outside, though. But yeah.

What about mindfulness?

No, no mind. You don't? I can't. Well, it's been worn away by TikTok. It's been rotted away. All TikTok has rotted my brain away. I've got none left. I've got no mind. Fair enough. The next word is... Dynamic pricing. Dynamic pricing. What do you understand by dynamic pricing? It's pricing that reacts to the demand. Yeah. You know, it's like, oh, you want this? It's more expensive now. Right.

When do we come across dynamic pricing? Oh, there's been a massive, there's been a lot of inflation and all sorts of pricing and everyone's complaining about how expensive it is because everything is so expensive. Um, so I think it's about that. I mean, even just like groceries and regular stuff like that. Is it that? It's more specific than that. It's, it's like certain, um, online purchases. Hmm.

using certain online platforms might be subject to dynamic pricing. So, for example, if you're trying to buy tickets to see Oasis in concert, and this is maybe the reason why it's been trending this year is because of the Oasis ticket market.

I remember that now. So just to be clear about what dynamic pricing is, I think you find it when you buy airline tickets as well, flight tickets and some other things like that, that the price just mysteriously changes. You might go online to buy your tickets and then you're in a little waiting room with a bar open.

that a little progress bar that you know is not a real progress bar. You know those fake progress bars where it's like, that's not a real one. A real one is when you're downloading something from the internet and you know that that's the bit rate and, you know, so it's real. But then there's fake ones that are, you know, meant to just keep you waiting. So you end up in a waiting room with a fake...

progress bar. That's just crunching. That's the fact that there's millions of people all trying to buy the same stuff at the same time. There's algorithms going on that are recalculating the price of the ticket based on how many people are trying to get it. It's an automatic system that increases the price. They know that because there's all these people trying to buy it that

This is the price at which we can raise the ticket. So in the end, you thought the tickets would be £150. But when you finish being in the waiting room after three hours of keeping your computer alive in the room, you finally find out the tickets are £350 because they are subject to dynamic pricing because...

I don't know, 5 million people are trying to buy 500 tickets or something. And so, you know, this automatic system makes them more expensive. So the practice of varying the price of a product or service to reflect changing market conditions, in particular, the charging of a higher price at a time of greater demand. It's like Uber. Is it? Is it like Uber? We know it rains.

When it rains. They get more expensive. Really? Yeah. Right. Well, that's dynamic pricing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So did you hear about the Oasis concert ticket fiasco? Yes, I did. What do you remember about that? Well... Oasis. First of all, we should explain what that is. Oasis. Brit pop heavy hitter. A band. Music band. Band. Brothers. Liam and Noel Gallagher. Yeah. Oasis. Hits like Wonderwall.

Champagne supernova. Yeah. I was at university and so were you, I'd imagine. And there was the blur oasis. I wasn't quite university. Me neither. I was working at Sainsbury's.

Because I remember when Blur won. Well, they won the battle. They won the battle. They won the battle. But they didn't win the war. Didn't they? No, they didn't. I think they did. No, Oasis are bigger than Blur. I think Damon Albarn is... Get out of town. Come on, then. No. Oasis are much bigger than Blur. There's no question. Absolutely no question. They are the worst, though. Yeah.

They're the worst. In what way? They're awful. Their behavior. Their behavior. Right. Yeah. Come on. No. Yeah. Of course. No, I like Damon Albarn. I like the gorillas and all that stuff. OSS or Blur? Depends. Some of the Blur stuff. I wasn't really... I didn't really buy into the whole it's one or the other thing because that was a manufactured load of nonsense done by the press. But some of the Blur stuff I liked, like the...

I didn't really like all that house in the country, part life stuff. Part life's an all right song, but it's, it's, it's bollocks as well. All that confidence is a preference for the habitual fuck off. Um, but then I liked some of their, uh, late nineties stuff like, um, beetle bum and, um,

When they were depressed, that was good. Oasis, I mean, you can't deny that the songs are solid. Sound a bit like the Beatles. Oh, yeah. That's why you love them so much. No, no, no, no, no. No, when I was... At the time, I had contempt for them for exactly that reason. Did you? Because they're just copying the Beatles and doing a really bad job of it. And I used to hate them. But...

In retrospect, listening to the songs, I think they're actually good songs. They're great. And it's not because they're ripping off... The ones where they're ripping off the Beatles, that's their worst stuff. Oh, really? Their better stuff is a lot more sort of sincere than that, I think. Like Noel Gallagher wrote some epic songs. Really. Agree. I think they did have some great songs. And Liam's voice, absolutely outstanding. Yeah. Not anymore, I think. But at the time...

They also had a good vibe. I mean, in terms of like making money, it is good to have a face off and you had like, you know, Blur and Oasis and like it was nice and they were the sort of cheeky northern lads. Yeah. Blur with the sort of posh.

Southern art school kids. Yeah, absolutely. It's good for sales. I mean, it's not bad marketing. That was great for sales. Yeah, and that's why it all happened. But there was no... I don't think either you liked Oasis or you liked Blur. No, you liked them both because they're both really good. Yeah. And they were all part of that Britpop thing. Anyway, so that's Oasis. And then Noel and Liam had a falling out and sort of...

were not seeing each other and there's all sorts of drama and you know um yeah and then they got back together very recently and decided to do a tour it's surprising because when you looked at the way that they they fell out with each other and the words that they exchanged and the bad blood that there was between them you just thought this is horrible yeah there's no way they're ever going to get back together when when liam is on twitter insulting noel's children

And, you know, saying nasty things about his wife and his kids. You just think this is not even really entertaining anymore. This is just nasty. Why did they fall out? I mean, I never followed it. That's a really complicated question. Let's not go there. Let's probably not go there. So they fell out and then they get back together and they're going to do a tour. And a lot of Oasis fans passed and knew. Well, like how exciting. And it was obviously, not obviously for money, but I mean...

Well, Noel, maybe one of the reasons that it happened, and I'm sort of speculating here, but also not maybe, I don't know, is that Noel...

Like, Noel's wife was one of the main reasons why it was never going to happen. Because his wife, I think, absolutely hated Liam for understandable reasons. Sure. Then Noel gets divorced from his wife. And so, A, there isn't that barrier between him and Liam anymore. And B, he needs some money now. They need the money, yeah. So...

That might be it. Well, it was very exciting. The tickets go on sale and then there was this, yeah, the tickets were just becoming so expensive and they were sort of like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Cashing in. Yeah, cashing in and just really reveling. And then I think other artists came out saying that that was just not...

Not cool. Not fair. Because fans were locked into this waiting room I mentioned. They were locked in there for hours, like hours and hours all day, you know, more or less. And expecting to get tickets that were going to be 150 quid, waiting all day at their computers. And then a lot of them just

The result was, sorry, not possible. They just were chucked out of the room. But the ones who finally did get to the actual purchasing part of it, the tickets had gone up and they were 350 quid. And after investing however many hours of your time waiting for the ticket to become available, a lot of people probably bought those tickets, even though they're far too expensive. This is a cost of living crisis. It just seemed...

to be pretty insulting to the fans. Yeah, absolutely. You know? Absolutely. Yeah. It's not even necessary. They could have gone with a different system, but they chose to go with that. The band say that it wasn't them and they weren't really aware of it, but I wonder, I wonder about that. Yeah. Not cool. Yeah.

Anyway, I'm curious to see what happens with the reunion. I'm curious to see if Liam can actually sing the songs anymore. I'm curious to see if they've managed to maintain their relationship because they've added dates. They're going to be doing dates in Europe and stuff.

Will it all fall apart? I wonder. They've recorded an album. They've done a new album as well. So I'm quite curious to see what that will be like. So anyway, that was dynamic pricing. So the next word is, Amber, what? Lore.

We should note the spelling of this word law. That's L-O-R-E. And it sounds exactly like L-A-W, which is law, like law and order, the police and courts and judges and stuff. That's law, L-A-W. This is law, L-O-R-E. So, law. Yeah. This is one of the words. Yes. But

How is this one of the words? This is just a word. This is just a word. And we like this. This is just a word you use. Like, I don't understand. It doesn't... Why has this become...

A word. Well, this is one of those ones that has already been used for a long time. Yeah, we use this word all the time. It's kind of... Okay, so basically the distinction, the reason why this is now a trending word is because people are using the word law to refer to pop culture stuff and personal stuff. But we need to explain to everyone what the word means first. So the law of...

Lord of the Rings or the lore of, I don't know, like medieval England, for example. But now we also have the lore of this computer game franchise that you play or your own personal lore, the lore of like your own personal story is your lore or the lore of Luke's English podcast or something like that. Yeah.

So, do you want to read the definition? Sure. Noun. A body of supposed facts, background information and anecdotes relating to someone or something regarded as knowledge required for full understanding or informed discussion of the subject in question. Okay.

Yeah. A body of facts, information, anecdotes relating to someone or something. All the knowledge required for a full understanding or informed discussion of the subject in question. So we talk about like you could talk about Oasis law. Yeah.

this is all the stuff that maybe some of my listeners don't know, but we're, we know all about it. So that's like the blur versus Oasis, um, um, battle from the nineties, the, the relationships between the two brain brothers, the kind of music they did, the fact they kind of copy the Beatles and some other bands, um, all those things, their bad behavior, the fact they split up with each other, the fact they're from Manchester, all of this is the law of, of Oasis. Um,

So, the traditional meaning then, Amber, is that this refers to the body of traditional facts, anecdotes or beliefs relating to a particular subject. And these subjects would be quite traditional things, historical things maybe, or...

maybe forms of fantasy literature. Well, it's like whole worlds. So you said Lord of the Rings. And so Lord of the Rings has got a massive cult following. It's a huge book, but it's sort of a universe. And so it has its law because it has created what I think of it as like folklore. Yeah. You know, and so it's like, this is the sort of the rules and the traditions of, um,

a people and it might not necessarily be something which is written down you know it's not a codified thing but it's like you know in this you know like in Lord of the Rings in the lore of Lord of the Rings you know elves

are like this and you know they don't fraternize with uh dwarves yeah exactly it's just the law you know this is this in it's this world order right you know that's kind of what law is um and any sort of like niche or unique universe or world so it could be

you know, fashion people or nerdy people or, you know, these kind of every sort of like little community kind of creates its own law. And it's sort of the traditions and acceptable behavior and yeah, the beefs and stories and everything that goes with them. I think that the traditional meaning of the use of the word law has referred to older, more established things from history or maybe from,

the scientific world, animal law, bird law, but also the law of ancient people or history. But these days, apparently it's being used a lot more to talk about the knowledge base of animals

Pop culture stuff. So according to Oxford University Press, in recent years, people have been using law in different ways and in new contexts. For example, they might now talk about the law surrounding a particular celebrity, like we were talking about Oasis, or a particular character in a book or film, or even refer to their own personal history as their law.

Online cultures and social media have seen the emergence of new kinds of celebrities and highly engaged fandoms, and the word has been applied much more widely. It's often a sign of gatekeeping behavior. Do you know what that means? Yeah.

Good for you. Could you try and explain what that means? Gatekeeping is like not letting people in. You know, you want to keep the information for yourself. It's like, oh, well, you think you know about Oasis, but do you really know their law? Like, do you know what this is? And so if you don't know that, then you're not part of our gang. You can't kind of come in. Gatekeeping is keeping people out. It's standing at a sort of metaphorical gate.

and guarding it i suppose so if you don't know all of the history and stuff then you're not welcome you can imagine that in a comment section of some community somewhere or maybe some sort of youtube videos where people are yeah gatekeeping the comment section showing that they know all of the history of this particular thing um

Yes, gatekeeping behavior in which some fans lay claim to a superior knowledge as a means of asserting themselves over other fans who they claim do not know the law as well as them. You see this in Beatles fandom a lot. Yes, yes. There's the people who are like, well, actually, you know, I've read all of these Beatle books, so I actually know the real story behind yesterday. So, yeah.

You know, that sort of thing. There's loads of examples. Pop media from computer games, internet and memes, history and folklore, branding and marketing, fashion and subculture, technology and AI. I was going to say, why do I find this a bit annoying? I don't know why I find that annoying, using the word law to talk about... I think it's because of the things we've just said about the gatekeeping culture. People sort of asserting their dominance by sort of showing that they know more about...

this probably not very important subject. Well, because it's going to bring about anyone who starts a sentence with actually. Actually, well, you know, or even using the word actually, you know, you don't really know all the lore of, you know, the legend of Zelda. So, yeah, I just find that a bit annoying. But what is the lore surrounding Poltergeist?

Paul Taylor or Luke's English podcast, Do We Have Law? What about... Absolutely. Yeah? Yeah. I mean, with Paul, it would be, you know, his early videos, you know, it'd be, you saw his Bizu video, you know, you're one of the dickheads, you know, you kind of know the language. Yeah. You know, if Paul called you a dickhead, it's a sort of compliment from Paul. Yeah. It's not from me, you know. Yeah.

So, like, it's understanding his journey. And even though it's very public, it's now been a minute that he's been on this journey. So, Law would be, you know, understanding that journey, how he left Apple and why and, you know, the language that he uses. And so, it's the jokes that we often accuse him of, you know, of like not knowing any words or, you know, stuff like that. Yeah, the people who really know the lore of Paul Taylor have to know that his origin story is based...

in this podcast. I have to say, Paul's entire career is basically a spinoff from Luke's English podcast. It's not. It's not me. But the thing about the Luke's English podcast law is it's so deep because you have so much content. The more the content, the more the law, the greater capacity there is. So even though I've been on the podcast a lot and I've known you quite a long time,

I don't even feel very confident in the lore of Luke's English Podcast. I mean, of course, you've got the ninjas, you've got, you know, your family and all the different sort of things that you do and the stuff that we tease you about. But, you know, I've listened to quite a few episodes that I've not been on, but I mean, I've not by any means listened to all of them and certainly not the very early episodes. So the Luke's English Podcast lore is, you know, the whole, it's understanding the whole back catalogue. Yeah.

Can I have a moment of self-indulgence at this point? Please do. I wanted to kind of go through a list of the law of Luke's English podcast very quickly. Yes, please. Some bits of LEP law. And actually, to save time, yesterday at about 11 p.m., I asked ChatGPT,

I said, can you just give me a list of the lore of Luke's English podcast? I was quite surprised with what it came up with. A lot of it was like, shit, how does it know that? And then other things was like, no, no, you're completely wrong about that. But I mean, we could talk about the things that got wrong because they're quite amusing. I'd love to hear that too. Maybe we can look at that. But then so I cherry picked the things that got right.

And then added some of my own things as well that I thought that it should have known or could have known. So all the things that it got, I've added a little asterisk. So the Amber and Paul episodes were mentioned by ChatGPT. And you and Paul have your own lore on this podcast. We do. Including the lying game. Yes, we do. Which ChatGPT noticed. Rambling on Luke's English podcast. Rambling was noticed by ChatGPT. Long episodes. My French wife.

Unnamed. The Pink Gorilla Story was mentioned by ChatGPT. The Russian Joke was included in there. Doing Impressions and Accents was mentioned by ChatGPT. Learn English with a Short Story, like using short stories. Family Members on the podcast. LEP Ninjas were mentioned. LEP Meetups, which have not happened as much as they used to, probably since COVID. Stereo.

singing a song, musical moments, the ends of episodes sometimes. That was mentioned by ChatGPT. And the fact I've got a global audience was also mentioned. It's nailed it. It's pretty much... That's good. Pretty good. There's some other things it missed. Definitely. Skeletons with headphones on.

You don't know what that one is? I don't know what that is, no. That's normally probably because I mentioned that near the ends of episodes. Basically, I say, you know, I imagine... If one's dead, they've been listening so long. Yeah, are you still alive? I'm imagining that there are lots of skeletons with headphones on who have just died while listening to the episode because it was so long. Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog.

which I say every time I do these joke episodes where I go through lists of jokes and then I explain them. And I have to say, explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You can learn something from it, but the frog dies in the process. Yes. So like explaining a joke, the joke, you can learn, you know, all the vocab and stuff, but the joke is gone. Yeah. Um,

I used to live in Japan. I say that quite a lot. Yep. And there's a story about how I got sick in Japan, which I've told on the podcast a few times. And, you know, other than that, like the fact I say goodbye, bye, bye, bye at the end of episodes and have a good morning, evening, afternoon, night, you know, because I... People are listening at all different times. Exactly. Yeah.

That's pretty good. There you go. I want to listen to how many of those things you were aware of. And there's probably a lot of other things you could listen as you can mention them in the comments if you thought I missed something. Let's move on to the next word. And we've got one, two other words left in the list. Okay, Amber? Okay. All right. So what's the next word then? Romanticy.

So what's a romantic? It's a noun. It's a, which one would you read the definition? Yeah, go on. Okay. Now a genre of fiction, combining elements of romantic fiction and fantasy, typically featuring themes of magic, the supernatural or adventure alongside a central romantic storyline. So it's a genre of fiction.

So, of books. Elements of romantic fiction and fantasy fiction. Twilight, I suppose. Something like that. Yeah, I reckon. Yeah, that probably qualifies. What I've read, that wasn't listed as one of the sort of main examples of romantasy. Okay. But Harry Potter was mentioned.

Really? Yes. Romanticy? It was mentioned in the context of it being... Fanfic, maybe? Well, no, I mean the people who are really into romanticy are the ones who probably grew up with Harry Potter. Ah, okay. That Harry Potter might be your entry drug into this kind of thing. But Harry Potter is not the...

main example of what a romanticist is. No. But it's like Harry Potter fans... It's what started you off. Exactly. It's like the gateway to romanticism. Yes, I see that. And Twilight might be a similar thing. Some people... Obviously, because everyone reads Harry Potter and Twilight and...

So that might be the entry port to other things. Twilight is a romantic scene. Uh-huh. Because it's fantasy with a very strong love story. Harry Potter's a bit like that now, isn't he? Have you read Harry Potter? Yeah, fantasy. There's a bit of love in there, isn't there? Yeah, but I mean, Twilight is all about teen, like, is she going to shag the vampire or the werewolf? I mean, that's the whole story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, you're right. It's a much clearer example. Yeah.

It is just sort of, yeah. Whereas, I mean, Harry Potter, I mean, less so. Yeah, you're right. Twilight is basically just two colors, isn't it? Romance, fantasy. Yeah. And that's it. That's a really good point. So, romanticism then. So, why is this word being used so much this year? Do you know? I suppose it might have been a new book, a new, I don't know. I've absolutely no idea. I've not come across it.

Basically, so in 2000, this is from Wikipedia, in 2023 and 2024, romantic fantasy novels termed romantically became a social media trend. So, you know, obviously a lot of this stuff, a lot of these things, the reason why the words get used so much and the reason why Oxford University Press records so many cases of the word being used, I suppose it's because they use internet data to

to form their corpus. It's much easier to collect data from the internet trends. You can't just go around recording what everyone in the world is saying in their conversations. So instead, a lot of it is based on frequency of use on the internet. And so you end up with the words of the year reflecting social media trends more than actual conversational trends, I think. A lot of people recording podcasts...

True, true. But I don't know if they're able to scan the audio of podcasts. Maybe if those podcasts publish transcripts, they could scan the transcripts. But it's going to be like Twitter or X.com will be loaded into it. Instagram will be loaded into it and stuff like that. So these lists do tend to reflect social media trends, which are not necessarily the same as...

the way that people are actually speaking English in the real world, I think. But anyway, social media trend around Romantasy. Sales of the books, these Romantasy books, have been widely driven by promotion on social media, particularly the part of TikTok known as BookTok. Do you know about BookTok? It's a serious question. Of course I know about BookTok. What's BookTok?

It's just creators who promote books. You know, they might be writers or readers. You know, there's some people who are like, I've read a hundred books and these ones I like. Or sometimes they work in bookshops and they're just like, you know, these are our staff picks. Or, you know, it's just people who like books. Every talk is just people creating things. And most people have a niche. So you can have, you know, food talk, book talk, clothes talk. You know, it doesn't matter. Cat talk. Talk talk. It's all talk talk. Right.

The Economist notes that the genre has particular appeal to those who grew up reading young adult fantasies such as Harry Potter and Twilight, I suppose, and are now interested in similar themes but with adult themes of sex and romance.

Popular authors in the genre include Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yaros, whose Fourth Wing and Iron Flame have both broken sales records and are due to be made into a TV series. Authors of novels labelled as Romantici are largely women, as is the market, and the novels are known for representing minorities.

All right. Does this tell us anything about the world today, Amber, do you think? The rise of the popularity of these sorts of stories? No. No? I just enjoy it.

shagging vampires, I suppose. It's a universal ageless. I mean, look at Dracula. They've just remade Nosferatu. What is that if not a romantic? Yeah. It's just, it was written by a man, so it has to be a bit more serious, but it's just a romantic, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's Dracula all about then?

It's about the original one, the Bram Stoker's one. Yeah. Well, you know, Dracula is sort of sucking the blood of Lucy, isn't he? Slowly. And she loves it. But some other guys don't like it though, do they? She's looking pale. She's wrinkled to the dark side. Yes, but then there are some other guys...

Who don't really like what Dracula's doing. Well, they're after Dracula. They're going to chop off his head, aren't they? Stick a big phallic spike into his chest. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good book, though. Oh, I love it. Yeah. It is nice. I love all those... Gothic. Those Gothic stories. Yeah. Yeah, it's great stuff, isn't it? Absolutely. But yeah, there's, of course, lots of fascinating, probably Freudian interpretations you could...

do of that for sure. I want to see Nosferatu. I don't know. I've seen some pretty and funny TikToks about it. Yeah. I bet you have. I've been avoiding the stuff, you know, because I like, is his name Joel Eggers? I think that's the name of the director. He did some other films that I've really liked. Yeah. Did you see The Witch?

Black and white film with Anna Taylor Joy. That's her name, isn't it? And it's about a family of Puritans in the 17th century on the East coast of the United States. You know, the early settlers of,

And they get shunned by their community and their community is already like super small, small, full of extreme sort of religious zealots. Yeah. And they get shunned for some reason and they go off and live on their own. And, uh, the family is deeply, deeply, uh, superstitious and stuff. And then, and,

There might be a witch in the forest next to where they're living. Yeah. Or probably not. And well, that's what you think. But in this story, what I love about this film is that, you know, it plays with that of like, is there a witch or are they just imagining it? Or is there something else going on? And then it's like, no, no, there is a witch. Well, this fits into the idea of law because every film creates a universe and in that universe is law. So,

in our world, there are no witches. It doesn't exist. This is not a real thing. But, you know, when you watch a film, it has a certain element where you're like, okay, in this film, witches could exist. It's a possibility. That's the law of that film. And so you can accept it that in this world, a real witch could really exist. Sounds good. But it's really good because, yeah, you're not sure. There's quite a lot of

going on and a lot of horror and it's very scary and no you've got to watch it it's really good and there's a goat a goat a really scary goat goats are scary yeah this is a really good one really scary one he's called Black Phillip that's his name yeah yeah

Okay. You'll like it. I'll give it a watch. Okay. He did that. He did the Northman. He did the lighthouse. And he did Nosferatu. And he's done Nosferatu now. Yes. Okay. Long fingers. I'd like to see it. And I've been avoiding all of the sort of spoiler videos and video reviews of it and stuff on YouTube because I don't.

Want to see them. I just want to see the film. The film. Okay. Fair enough. Give it a watch. Yeah. Cause I like that sort of thing, you know? Um, so romantic. Okay. Is this our last word now? Um, this is the last word moving on to the final word, which is the word slop. Slop. S L O P slop, uh, which is a noun and slop refers to art writing or other content generated using artificial intelligence, uh,

shared and distributed online in an indiscriminate or intrusive way and characterized as being of low quality, inauthentic or inaccurate. So it's poor quality AI crap, which is shoved down our throat on the internet. Have you come across any of this kind of slop content?

I've seen some really interesting articles about it. Not using the word slop, although that is quite a nice term. Very handy to have a term for it. Slop already existed, but it's quite a nice use. I've seen people talking about it and saying there was all these...

floods happening in Spain. And there was this particular AI generated image of a sort of little girl clutching her puppy. And it was very sort of moving and people were like, but look at these weird aliens. Like it was not real. The aliens, you're talking about the fact that whenever AI generates an image, it's

There's always strange details in the background, which are very odd. Yeah, I've explored that on the podcast where I've asked it to generate images and then pointed out the weird things. So, you know, things like that, which are being used and just like this increased awareness of

AI and the space between... So this woman was talking about her mum's shared video with her of all these poodles doing yoga. And she was like, oh my gosh, look at all these poodles doing yoga. Dogs, yeah. Dogs, yeah. And she... So she was a young, I'd say, Gen X woman or maybe younger millennial. And she was just like, it's AI. It's not real. And her mother wouldn't have it. You know, her sort of...

She wouldn't accept that it was... No, it's real. They've trained them. And she's like, it's not real. It's AI, you know. And this quite frightening feeling of as AI becomes more sophisticated, just our ability to notice that it's not real. Did you see... Sorry, this is not exactly the same thing, but there was this rather sad but funny situation in France where that woman got catfished by Brad Pitt.

Oh, yeah. My wife told me about this last night. So, wait a minute. You need to explain what catfished means. So, catfished is when you fall for a scam. You know, someone sort of on the internet is like, I'm a Nigerian prince. Yeah, like we get those scam emails all the time. So, I'm a Nigerian prince and I've got 60 million pounds that I need to just keep in your bank account, you know. You just need to send me a thousand euros and it's yours. And your name, address, passport, number, date of birth, and...

And if you actually go, oh, well, this Nigerian prince would like me to look after his money for a while. He says he's going to give me a million pounds if I do it. And so I've got to send. And if you actually get caught by the scam, then you've been catfished. Yeah. I didn't know that.

Fishing. Fishing scam. Fishing, yeah. Fishing scam. Is catfishing particularly with love, though, I wonder? Oh, is it really? Maybe. We should check. I don't know, actually. So you're suggesting that there are certain types of scam which prey upon single people and the scam is that...

the scammer persuades them that there's a love, a loving relationship that's developing. Yes. But it's a scam and they want to get their money. And there's at some point the, the, this distant person who's apparently is in love with the, the, the, the one being scammed will ask for money. And then the person sends money and then that's it. The scam has been completed. So that kind of romantic scam is,

Could be catfishing. I think maybe catfishing is specific to romantic scams. I'm not sure though, and I've got no idea why. We'll just check. Catfishing. Catfishing, according to

esafety.gov.au which is an australian government website catfishing means someone is using a fake identity to trick you into believing you're in a real online friendship or romance yes okay so you're right so um so this poor woman was catfished using ai and um

It is very hard to swallow. Sorry, the scam was that Brad Pitt was in touch with her. Yes. Brad Pitt was contacting her directly. Yes. And saying that he was ill and that he needed her help. Well, first they fall in love. Of course. Yes. So Brad Pitt... Actually, first Brad Pitt's mum contacted her via Instagram. Do you know the nature of the first contact? I think Brad Pitt's mum had said, oh...

My son, Brad Pitt, is looking for... You look like exactly the kind of person that my son Brad Pitt would like to go out with. I'm going to introduce you. And she was like, okay. And then lo and behold, Brad Pitt, A-list celebrity himself, got in contact with her and was just like...

My mum has introduced me. I mean, of course, I'm surrounded by other A-list celebrities and wannabes. But you look like exactly the sort of person I'd like to talk to because all those other celebrities are all so famous and boring. Yeah, and all those wannabe actresses and producers and film people. God, they're so boring. What I'm looking for is a middle-aged French woman, um,

I think we could have something. So she's like fantastic. She divorces her husband. They have an online relationship for a year. And then sadly, Brad Pitt is ill. He's ill. He needs a kidney transplant. And would you know it, he's got no money.

got no money because his accounts have been frozen because as you know he's breaking up with his wife Angelina okay um and despite having I'd imagine savings or assets and certainly friends millionaires billionaires he'd like no I can't ask them so he asks his love of course yeah who wouldn't you

you know, rely on those that they love to help him out with the kidney transplant costs and send money, which she does. And it's a lot. A lot of money. Hundreds of thousands. Isn't it? 800,000 euros. Absolutely right. Yes. She sends that money. And you see some of the pictures that she's seen and it is, you know, a very Brad Pitt looking AI. But you instantly can identify that it's AI. Yeah.

I didn't look at the detailed pictures, but I mean, I wouldn't need... I mean, of course, it was Brad Pitt. Of course.

You know, but the heart wants what the heart wants. And regardless, I mean, of course, and then everyone was like laughing at her and it got really embarrassing. They had to actually pull the clips off of TV because everyone was finding it so hilarious. Oh, no, that's sad though, isn't it? It is very sad. Of course, it's very sad. It's devastating. But it is also like, girl, get a grip. I mean, seriously. Can I ask how old she was? 53. She's 53? Okay. Ah, dear. Yeah.

There's no excuse, genuinely, I mean. What, there's no excuse for falling for it? Falling for a catfish, people do all the time. But she's a victim here, though, isn't she? She absolutely is a victim. It's just, it's hard to... Accept that she could fall for it. For Brad Pitt. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, there's always going to be one. There's always going to be one naive person who falls for it. And the scammers probably did this with loads of people. You know, they've probably got loads of these scams all at the same time with all these women. And then there's just all they need is just one of them to fall for it. Absolutely. And of course, the thing is, if she had been...

She's looking at pictures and she thinks this is real. And she's just so naive when it comes to AI that she was able to be fooled. Whereas someone younger might have looked at that and thought this could be AI. It's not on her radar, I think. But I think it's still possible to look at an image differently.

I mean, maybe not, maybe not. But I think it's still largely possible to look at an image or a video, certainly a video, but an image and sort of be able to tell that it's AI. But actually, I say that, but I'm sure I could be fooled. I'm sure I could. I think I can be definitely fooled. But it's like this woman with the yoga, the yoga dogs. It looked very real, but you intellectually...

dogs don't do yoga. Like I know that this is not likely. What is more likely that they taught all these dogs to do yoga or that it's AI? It's AI. But for her mother, it's just not on her radar as something that's possible. It's very, very, very concerning and worrying and disturbing. I have to say, I'm worried about AI and how it's going to be used. And there will be winners and there will be losers. The winners will be the super duper rich people and

And there'll be a lot of people who don't do very well out of the whole situation, I think. It's very interesting where it might go and what it will change. And I think for the first time, that was one of the concerns, that it will come after the sort of white-collar jobs and it will change radically, possibly, how we live. I think every single aspect of our lives will be affected by it. I think so too. I mean, I'm very curious to see where we'll be in...

Someone was saying like AI now is like the nineties, like nineties internet. So where will we be in 20 or 30 years with AI? Think about where we were even five years ago. Yeah. Right. And I mean, uh,

And where we are now, the things they can do now. I mean, maybe a year ago, I saw my first AI generated video and it was horrendous. This is a year ago. It was an advert for pizza. Yeah.

And it was some people in a party sharing pizza. And it was like something from a nightmare. It was horrendous. It was terrifying. Because there's like, as one person's picking up a slice of pizza, their face is mutating into someone else's face. And then the pizza, the cheese running off the pizza becomes someone's finger as they hand it over to someone else. And it's like, oh my God, I can't look at that for too long.

because it makes me feel like I'm losing my mind. That's horrible. It's like one of my worst dreams. Yeah. Just the weird, creepy atmosphere of it and the way that reality was bending and twisting. It was just absolutely disgusting and horrible. But when I see videos that are made with AI now, I kind of like...

I don't get the same feeling. There's still that underlying sense of this is disturbing in a very weird, creepy, subliminal way, but it's not as overt.

And that's just in a year. Yeah, absolutely. And the technology is exponentially developing. So in five years, yeah, it might be really impossible to identify. There is an AI which can take text, so long, maybe complicated or not so interesting articles and turn it into a podcast. Yeah. Two people talking. Google's Notebook LM. And...

It's very fascinating. I really don't remember who he is, but I was reading about it in The Guardian and it's one of the sort of, I know, AI creator dudes. And he was basically saying, AI is going to be the end of all of us. I mean, there's a lot of Doom casting, isn't there? There was that Newsnight interview with a guy who used to work for Google. He's known as the...

grandfather of AI or something like that. He won a Nobel Prize for his work in AI and he was making all these extremely pessimistic predictions about a number of different areas. Its use in the military. Yes. The effect it'll have on jobs. Yes. And all sorts of other things. Yeah.

But there's, I mean, part of the reason they were saying it's so scary and this is what's so awful is that it's just, we are the model on which it's based. Yeah. But people are awful. But so we are, we're the model on which it's based. Yeah, exactly. And it'll become the kind of, uh, the sum of all,

all of humanity, which is quite a terrifying thing in one single entity. But then there's another thing, which is that... So at the moment, AI is fueled by all of human language. Like we're just talking about language models. It's fueled by human-produced language. But as the internet gets filled up with AI-produced slop, then the later versions of AI will be fed on AI-produced

So it will end up going off on this odd feedback loop where the nature of our reality will more and more be defined by this other entity, which is feeding itself. It's really crazy, isn't it? It is a little bit. You talk about those automatically generated podcasts. Now I've noticed, going back to the word slop, which is kind of...

AI content, which is everywhere. Yeah. I've noticed that certainly in podcasting, in English language podcasting on YouTube. Yeah. There is a slew of AI generated podcasts for learners of English and they're all kind of the same. Really? Yeah. And it's all done with that. I think it's Gemini software, that Gemini AI software.

They all have the same kind of voices. Who are they for? Learners of English. And what's their kind of content like? Have you listened? I can't bear to listen to it for longer than a couple of minutes. Yeah. But it's stuff about...

you know, improving your fluency, developing your vocab, things like that. I mean, it could be good, but as far as I can tell, there are no, none of those channels that are producing that stuff have really managed to get a big audience. There's a lot of them and all their videos get just a few hundred views. But I mean, who knows in a couple of years, maybe,

It'll be some AI generated podcast that will just completely dominate the podcast world. And that'll be it for Luke's English podcast. Or maybe it'll be really, really, maybe I will create my own AI model and all I need to do is just sit back and drink tea and eat cake and just click a button, you know, and the AI will create the podcast for me in my voice with all those

I just stick in the law of Luke's English podcast into the machine. It'll do it automatically. All my listeners will be able to do it. I don't know. I suppose the thing is, it's like, why do we do anything? It's because we find it fulfilling and we need to make money. You've got to pay your rent, but you also want to do things. AI kind of sort of takes away... I mean, even learning language. My partner, they went to Taiwan and they were just using an online...

No one spoke English. And so they were using like an online translator. Your husband, your partner, husband, Paxi, Pac-Man. Pac-Man, yeah. All right. And your son, they went to Taiwan and they communicated with their phone. Yeah. Using translation, direct translation software, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Well, that's amazing. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. But it's also...

I don't know. I mean, if your job becomes superfluous, if an AI can do your job better, so you don't need to work. Yeah, that could be good. But also could be terrible. How are you going to make your money? No, that would be awful. I mean, if suddenly I wasn't really... If there was no demand for me to do this anymore, because all of my audience are basically happily listening to their own AI-generated podcasts that...

you know, are exactly the right length that they want with exactly the right stuff, exactly this, that, and they can define it down to the finest detail. They can even use my voice on it if that's what they want or someone else's voice or my voice, but in an American accent. I do get that in my comment section sometimes. Does anyone know if there's a podcast like this, but in American English?

You know, I'm like, don't think so, actually. So, you know, they'd be able to turn it into American English or whatever. And so maybe one day all my audience will be choosing that instead. And whenever I say this on the podcast, people always say, don't worry, no, we would never choose AI over you.

Because we like the human element. But then to that, I think, well, that's lovely, first of all. But secondly, I kind of think, well, in five years, you really might not be able to tell. And you might not mind either. You might, you know, in three years, there'll be a new thing. It'll be listen to this...

this AI podcast and your first impression will be like, nah, nah, AI podcast, nah, it's not real, is it? But then you'll listen to it and then you'll realise, oh, wait a minute, this is one of the best things I've ever heard. It makes me laugh. It makes me have emotions and it actually works. It really helps me with my English and it's the length I want it to be. Yeah. Then, yeah, you might just choose that over the stuff I produce. So, yeah, it's worrying. We will see. It's incredible how quickly it's going. Yeah.

Yeah, it is, isn't it? By the time we do the next word of the year, who knows? What will the next word of the year be? What will they be? I don't know. Will they all be AI words? I don't know. Yeah. Who knows? Well, anyway, I thought that, I mean, just final thing. Yeah. In terms of AI slop, yeah.

In terms of not slop or non-slop, what is your favourite wholesome human-generated online content? Can you recommend a nice podcast, series, YouTube account or something else that makes you feel good about the world? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I listen to a lot of podcasts and audio content. So I do like the BBC. I love Radio 4. Hold on. I'm going to get out my phone. I'm listening to a good podcast series recently called Legacy.

And it looks at the legacy of famous people. So they just did one on Dickens, which was really interesting because I really, really like Dickens. And every Christmas I reread The Christmas Carol. Absolute must. First of December, books out. That has to happen in my house. But he's a problematic... Well, he's a man for a start. I mean, that just in itself is problematic. Famous man, problematic.

Did he turn into an arsehole? Yes, he did. But he's fascinating, like such an interesting person. So really, really like Legacy. And now they're doing Marie Antoinette, so loving that. They've also done Cleopatra, Napoleon, Margaret Thatcher. Really, really interesting. So really like that. Legacy, and that's a BBC Radio 4 podcast. Yes.

There's one called Pan Am podcast. It's going to be coming out soon with more episodes because unlike Luke's English podcast, it's very, very slow. I listen to quite a lot of history podcasts, like things like Gone Medieval. I really like and not only the Tudors. Fantastic content. Okay. On History Hit. They've got loads of great podcasts. True Crime. Love that as well. And something that always makes me laugh. And if your listeners are interested in accents and language,

Shagged, Married, Annoyed. I love it. There's very few comedy podcasts I listen to, but I really like that one. Shagged, Married, Annoyed. Shagged, Married, Annoyed. Why the accents? Because they're from? Newcastle. Oh, yeah. They're Geordie. Ah. And... How we a man. Yes.

really, really, they've got, it's a couple. So it's Chris and Rosie Ramsey. They've got a really lovely dynamic. They're very funny. I mean, he's a comedian. He's really funny. Um, just a really fun podcast. Really, really upbeat, really fun, but like great accents. English from Newcastle up in the Northeast. Um,

Brilliant. Yeah. Okay. So good. So yeah, I mean. Interesting that you went for audio podcasts there as your go-to place for a concept that makes you feel good. Yeah. That's interesting, isn't it? What do you mean? Well, the audio podcasts are, I think the medium of audio podcasts is inherently or innately pleasing, intimate, comforting and pleasant compared to podcasts.

uh, screen based stuff, which apparently gives us brain rot, but no one ever says brain rot in relation to audio podcasts. Well,

I always find, I don't know about you, but like, I mean, I listen to quite a lot of true crime as well. So I don't know it's that cozy and comforting, although I do like to listen to it. I don't know. Weirdly, there is something cozy and comforting about listening to the stories of horrendous crimes. That's what I like to listen to. I don't know why, but sometimes it's just what I need to listen to. The story of someone who's killed a bunch of people. Do you listen to true crime? Yeah.

Yeah. I'll dip into a bit of true crime sometimes. What is it though? What true crime do I listen to? I'm just trying to think. Flipping heck. I don't know. Netflix documentaries about true crime. And what I often do is, with my Bluetooth headphones on, put on the Netflix documentary and I'll actually go and do the washing up in the kitchen, listening to the audio of the documentary. So I heard...

The one about those two brothers who killed their parents. Oh, yeah. The Min...

I can't remember. Not the Mendes, the... Something like that. Yes, I've not listened to that. Just a horrendous, horrendous, horrible story. Great to listen to while you're doing the washing up. Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. And then there was another documentary about a girl who had her parents killed. You know that one? Those are my favourites. I don't know why I'm interested in listening to stories of people who killed their parents. It's just those two documentaries, to be fair. But yeah, I just... There's just something...

extremely captivating about these stories and it's like how you sort of think how could anyone do that yeah what what's what's going on but it's not just the how do they do that I mean for me I don't want to dwell on the gore I like the unravelling

I love the... The way the story unfolds, the way there's suddenly there's new information and then you see more context. The picture reveals itself. I like to, I particularly like a sort of cold-blooded killer. I don't want a sort of frenzied attack. You want someone who's premeditated it. 100%. I want someone who's really thought about it. They've put in the time and the effort. They've called the police. You hear the call. Ah!

My wife, she's fallen on the stairs. You always hear that call to the police. They always manage to get the recording. I was just outside cutting my toenails. I don't know how it happened. And then I looked up, I noticed a bird flying past at exactly 12 minutes past. Then I came and you're like, suspicious amount of detail here in this phone call to 911. So I really like, I like to see, it's the satisfaction of like someone being caught, right?

in their lies and you know and cold-blooded murders are also more satisfying because you know you are it is the husband the children the neighbor the the lover that have done it and they've thought about it and they've lived side by side with that person you know marking out on maps where they're going to push them off the

The ridge. And then the police, like, gather the information. Like, nice, good police work. Slowly gathering the information.

Until we know there's no way out, sir. You're a monster. And we've got you banged to rights. Yeah, it's especially satisfying when the person gets caught and punished at the end. But there are some of them where there's never a solution. Well, I just listened to this story. I mean, this guy, he goes out, he comes back in and he's like, my girlfriend has committed suicide by stabbing herself in the back of the head.

And it was like...

I'm sorry, what? The police work was so shoddy, he was never... Really? Yes. And you think... Tragic. I mean, people do do curious things to themselves. Very sad. Very, you know, and if anyone's dealing with that, get some help. But not, you know, you just think, come on, this is very obvious. Something is afoot. And why wasn't it done? Why wasn't justice seen? You know, it's poor policing in the beginning. Yeah.

Did you see Making a Murderer? No. It's a bit of an old one now on Netflix. But it's fascinating. It's about a murder and...

The way the documentary presents it is that the person who gets convicted and sentenced to long-term in prison is actually innocent. Yeah. And that it was just a conspiracy by the local constabulary, the local police force in that part of Minnesota or wherever it is. Yeah. That they all...

faked the evidence in a very obvious way and stitched him up basically but then I heard podcasts about that where there are people who really know what they're talking about saying no no no he definitely did it the people who know the case so yeah it's a bit tragic and unsettling when you don't get a clear resolution at the end and

But anyway, we need to have a clear resolution to the end of this episode right now, Amber. Okay. Thank you very much for your time. Were you going to tell us your favourite podcast? Oh, well, I was going to mention the Adam Buxton podcast. See it there. It is a great podcast. We both listen to that. We do.

And I've been a fan of Adam's for many years. Since the 90s. Since Adam and Joe. Since he first appeared on television. Absolutely. And I've always been a fan of his. And I always kind of think to myself, should I try to find a way to get him on my podcast? A hundred percent. But then I kind of, I start to think about it and go, yeah, that would be great.

putting to one side the fact that it's probably impossible to get to him because I think I expect everyone tries to get him first Jarvis there's another one I just kind of feel like if I did manage to line it up if I managed to get Adam Buxton on the podcast or Jarvis or Jarvis Cocker or someone else I'd mess it up and I'd just I don't know just feel like I'd screw it up and I'd sort of get it all wrong and I'd

he wouldn't enjoy it or something. He'd love it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. So maybe I should get in touch. My dad, every time I see my dad, he's like, when are you going to get Paul McCartney on your podcast then? I'm like, I'm not going to get Paul McCartney. That's the next level. I'm not sure about Paul McCartney. He's serious as well. He's serious. He really thinks that I should be getting Paul McCartney. Geo Wizard is the YouTube channel that I like.

Talking about YouTube videos set in the countryside, he does these adventures where he'll try and cross a country in a straight line. Right? Which, you know, is a bit ridiculous, but also really interesting to watch. So imagine someone trying to cross Wales in a straight line. So it's a lot of geography. There's a lot of...

interesting stuff that happens. You've got to plot the right line. You've got to find the right line. He does a lot of research in advance to work out where the best line would be. And then he has to walk in a, you know, a perfectly straight line, more or less, give or take a few yards, like maybe 10, 20 meters, um,

But then he has to deal with lots of hedges and fences, lots of farmers' fields. And there are farmers that don't want him to be in the field. So he has to run away from angry farmers chasing after him. Farmers are an angry bunch. Yeah. And then there are houses and he has to sneak around them. So there's stealth work involved in sneaking around these through people's gardens. Yeah.

And rivers where he nearly drowns, climbing over a broken branch over a river, and cliffs and mountains and things. It's really, really entertaining. And he's a brummie, and he's got a real way with words. He's very good at doing the commentary track. So I highly recommend Geo Wizard for his adventures. Yeah, all right. All right, then.

Wow. That was good, wasn't it? I think so. Thank you very much for that, Amber. Thank you. And everybody for listening. If there are any of them out there still, there's probably some skeletons with headphones on. Probably by this stage. Yeah. All right, everyone. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. And speak to you next time. For now, it's just time to say goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast.

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