930\. Can I eat my cat? 😿 Weird Google Questions, Answered (Topics + Vocabulary)
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Hello, listeners. Welcome back to Luke's English Podcast. This episode is called, Can I Eat My Cat? And other weird Google questions answered. And before we start, I just want to make one thing absolutely crystal clear. And that is, despite the title of the episode, even though the episode is just posing a question, but...

But despite the title of the episode, I do not condone the eating of cats. OK, just want to make that clear. Do not eat your cat or anyone else's. OK, even as a snack, even if you're feeling really peckish, just do not eat anyone's cat, including your own cats. Keep the cats out of the kitchen. OK, just wanted to make that clear. That's just the title of the episode. It's not some sort of serving suggestion or something like that. So I just wanted to make that very clear.

I'm going to explain the concept of the episode in just a moment, but you might have seen the title and thought, what's happened to Luke? Is this about English food or something? What's going on? I mean, somewhere in the world, maybe in some parts of the world, people do eat cats. But as far as I'm aware, for the most part, I think the idea of eating a cat would probably be...

It's completely horrendous for most people. And I certainly would share that view. This does, of course, open up a whole other moral question, which is, should we eat animals at all? Why are the cats being saved? Why do they get special treatment just because they're cute? Maybe we shouldn't be consuming any animals.

And that's perhaps a valid question, but I'll let you fight that one out amongst yourselves. But anyway, I just wanted to say, despite the title of the episode, I do not condone the consumption of cats. Okay? Right. Speaking of cats, this is a bit of a weird one. Again, before we start, I just bought myself a coffee from my local generic coffee place.

And the woman who served me, she said to me, she sort of had an accent. I don't know exactly where she was from. It might have been just a French accent, to be fair. But she said to me in English, because they always do that to me there. I say, bonjour, you know, un café americano, si vous plaît. Maybe even in that accent. And they instantly respond to me in English. And she said to me, would you like to appear by cat?

And I was like, what? Would you like to pay by cat? And I was like, what? You can pay by cat? I didn't realise that. Is that a new thing? I was like, I'd love to pay by cat, but I don't have a cat with me, I'm afraid. Yeah, I've eaten it. Not really. Would you like to pay by cat? And then I was like, oh, by card. Right, of course. Yes, I would like to pay by card. Beep. And I went about my day and got myself coffee. OK, anyway, let's get started, shall we? Properly.

Let's get the episode off the ground. Let's get going. So can I eat my cat and other weird Google questions answered? So the plan is in this episode to look at some of the most common questions that people type into Google and try to answer them in my own words, or at least try to.

Actually, years ago, I did a similar episode, number 151, a deep cut from deep in the archives of Luke's English Podcast. Episode number 151, it was called Google Questions. Super-duper long-term listeners might remember that one. It was fun, and people enjoyed it.

So nearly 800 episodes and about 12 years later, it's finally time to do another one. So, by the way, there's a link in the PDF. And yes, there is a PDF available for this as per usual. You can just download the PDF freely and you will find a link to episode 151 if you want to listen to that as well, if you like this sort of thing.

A very important thing that I have to do, I need to set a 30-minute timer, of course, in order to make sure that I hydrate myself with some generic bottled water here. So let me do that. Siri, set a 30-minute countdown timer, please. No, that didn't work. Siri, set a 30-minute countdown timer, please.

Okay, Siri continues to be shy and not speak. Normally, Siri goes, okay, 30-minute countdown timer starting now, but not at the moment. Apparently, Siri is shy about being on my podcast. So, in 30 seconds, I will take a water break. You could do the same thing, just a little reminder there to keep yourself hydrated. So, what do I want from this episode? Now, I'm not in the mood to be particularly serious today, but at the same time, I do want something quite intellectually stimulating and

which is a slightly odd combination, right? I want something stupid, but clever, which is actually always what I'm going for on this podcast, to be honest. I'm always attempting to ride that fine line between stupid and clever. That's the general idea. So I'm looking for some weird questions that will lead to some curious and unexpected rambling on subjects which are different to the things I usually ramble about in rambling episodes.

You know, the usual things being news about the podcast, how to add LEP premium episodes to an app on your phone, and how my listeners are either ninjas or skeletons or whatever. That's the normal stuff that I ramble about. But today...

I want to talk about different things while also somehow getting right to the heart of the human condition and revealing universal truths about life, the universe and everything, which is also what I'm always striving for anyway on this podcast, as well as also teaching some phrasal verbs or something. So some silly rambling, but also some general knowledge and insights into the human mind.

and let's see what kind of language comes up as I attempt to tackle some of the weirdest questions that people have asked Google over the years. And as I mentioned earlier, the language, the vocab that will come up, and there will be loads, it's bound to be, I think, probably quite...

There's going to be a bit of slang in this. There's going to be some potentially rude language coming up, possibly some explicit subjects. But, you know, that's just the kind of thing that you can get from this episode. Some episodes I do the formal, more formal academic stuff. Other episodes I do the more kind of general English stuff. But this one's going to be a mix of informal slang stuff with maybe some...

body-related things, you know, mixed in with some more general, neutral English for describing general problems or typical queries that people have. So, I was wondering what to call this episode. Maybe something like Ridiculous Google Questions or Stupid Google Questions. But then I thought that really there is no such thing as a stupid or ridiculous question.

You know, there's nothing wrong with wanting to know something. And also, some of these questions aren't really that ridiculous. They're quite reasonable, really, in many cases. But it's quite funny to imagine the situations people were in when they decided to open up Google and type these, like, can I eat my cat? Like, what are you thinking? And millions of people have done it, which is why they appear in these autocompletes.

Right, Google autocompletes. I'm sure you're aware of that. When you Google something, you start writing something into Google, you get all these suggested autocompletes, and they represent things that millions of other people have searched for. And they're like, you know, if you write, can I eat? And then at some point you'll get, can I eat my cat?

Because apparently loads of people have asked that question. That's what I'm talking about. So now I'm not sure I'll be able to answer all of these questions as I expect some of them will be things like, you know, difficult questions that maybe I don't know the answer to. Like, why do men have nipples? You know, and I just don't have the answer to that. Do you? Do you know? Why do men have nipples?

And if you don't know what nipples are, they're the two things that all humans, I think, maybe there are some exceptions, but as far as I know, all humans have nipples. Two nipples on their chest, sort of things on their skin. They're quite sensitive, quite ticklish, ticklish.

Women obviously have nipples for, I guess the main reason is so that during breastfeeding, babies can suckle milk from the breasts and the milk comes out of the nipples, right? There's an obvious reason there, but why do men have nipples? Do you know?

Actually, we will find out the answer to that later on. But anyway, some questions could lead to some interesting streams of consciousness, which, as we know, is good fodder for listening practice for learning English. Also, I do reserve the right to actually Google these questions and

and find the real answers, because otherwise it could be annoying just to hear me speculating about them and making up my own answer without actually knowing the truth. So you will get proper answers as well. So loads of general knowledge as well. Also, I invite you to try to answer these questions too as a speaking exercise.

OK, and you'll find the full list of questions on the on the page for this episode on my website or on the PDF links in the description. So, yes, you will find the full list of questions. What you could do is even you could look through the list now.

Have a look through the list now and even try to answer them yourself, remembering that it's not really about finding exactly the right answer, but just being able to talk in response to the question for some time. Have a look through the questions, do the task yourself and then come back to the episode and continue listening. And you'll hear the way that I attempt to answer them. So how about if I write, why do I? Simply, why do I? So here's what we get.

Why do I fart so much? That is the number one question.

Why do I fart so much? Let me list the questions and then I'll explain and ramble about them a little bit. Why do I fart so much? Why do I sweat so much? Why do I have diarrhea? Why do I burp so much? Why do I feel nauseous? Why do I sweat when I sleep? Why do I sleep so much? Why do I pee so much? Why do I sweat so much at night? And why do I feel like vomiting? So clearly this reveals a lot about the human condition.

And that condition is gastroenteritis. Yeah. So let me just go through some of those questions again. Why do I fart so much? So a fart, farting is when your body releases gas.

Your body releases gas in two ways, by farting and by burping. Farting is when the gas comes out of your bottom. Burping is when the gas comes out of your mouth, right? So a fart or to fart, a burp or to burp. Why do I fart so much? Why would someone fart so much? Now, I'm not a doctor, but I assume it would be maybe because of your diet. Maybe you're eating a lot of beans or something like that, or eating a lot of vegetable matter that would...

cause a buildup of gas in your body. Maybe you have some sort of underlying health condition. Maybe you're a bit unwell. I don't know. Why do people fart so much?

I suppose I'm going to have to Google all of these things, aren't I? Why do I sweat so much? Sweating is perspiration. That's when, if you're hot normally, your body produces sweat. Sweat comes out of your pores, the pores of your skin. Like if you do exercise, your head gets wet. You get sweaty. This is sweat. Why do I sweat so much?

Again, maybe your body's trying to get rid of something. Maybe your body's trying to flush out some toxins from you. Or maybe you just live in a hot place. Just take off a shirt. Take off a layer. I don't know. Why do I have diarrhea? Diarrhea is a condition where when you do a poo, it comes out. It's very runny and liquid. Horrible.

I suppose people, you might have diarrhea because you've picked up a virus, you've picked up some sort of gastro virus, a tummy bug, which is causing your poo to be very liquid. Or maybe you've got food poisoning, you know, maybe you ate something that contained some, you know, poisonous bacteria, which has infected your stomach. And this is causing your poo to come out all runny.

Or maybe there's something more serious happening. I don't know. Maybe the diarrhea is a symptom of some other kind of condition that you've got. But if it's really serious, you might want to go and see a doctor about that. I'm talking to you as if you asked this question. But, you know, maybe you did because apparently these are very common questions. Why do I burp so much? I refer you back to the farting question. Apparently there's a lot of gas in your system. Why do I feel nauseous? So if you feel nauseous, it's like,

Oh, you feel like you're going to be sick. Oh, God, I feel nauseous. Maybe because you listen to me talking about farting and diarrhea. I don't know. Maybe it's something you ate. Or again, nausea might be a symptom of some other condition. And if you have persistent nausea, yeah, you might want to go and see a doctor about that one. Why do I sweat when I sleep? Why do I sleep so much?

Why do I pee so much? Why do I sweat so much at night? And why do I feel like vomiting? So many questions, so little time. Let's just at least do, why do I fart so much?

Why do I fart so much? Okay. So, the NHS. This is like a summary from the NHS website. Causes of excessive farting. Excessive farting can be caused by swallowing more air than usual. So, have you been swallowing a lot of air? I don't know. Eating foods that are difficult to digest.

Conditions affecting the digestive system, like indigestion or irritable bowel syndrome. So it could be any of those things. Why do I sweat so much? Right, let's have that as well. Excessive sweating is known as hyperhidrosis.

Mmm, excessive sweating, says the NHS website. Excessive sweating is common and can affect the whole body or just certain areas, like the armpits maybe. Sometimes it gets better with age, but there are things you can do and treatments that can help. Erm, why is it happening?

I don't... It doesn't say why it happens. It's normal to sweat if you get hot or do exercise, but you may be sweating excessively if you're sweating when your body does not need to cool down. Excessive sweating can happen for no obvious reason. Oh, God. Because of another condition you may have, or as a side effect of a medicine you're taking. Um...

Sometimes people sweat when they're unwell, right? If you've got like a flu, if you've picked up a virus and at night you get the night sweats. But yeah, often there's no obvious reason for it. Wow, that's annoying, isn't it? Okay, now let me move on. How about this? How about why do British people, okay? Let me just drink some of this coffee. Why do British people? You can think while I'm drinking this coffee what some of the questions might be.

Hmm. Why do British people... Okay, why do British people say happy Christmas? That's a bit of a stupid question, isn't it? Presumably because it's Christmas and you want people to have a happy Christmas, I suppose? That will be American people who normally say Merry Christmas, right, or Happy Holidays. But in the UK, it's quite common to say happy Christmas. I mean, it's just normal. It's just normal in the UK to say happy Christmas. That's just the way we do it. We also say Merry Christmas. Um...

Why do British people say bloody? Like, oh, bloody hell or, you know, this bloody computer. Why do we say bloody? That's quite a good question. To be honest, I think the reason for that is probably that there'll be a very old...

etymological reason for saying bloody. It's probably related to some other Germanic word that meant something else and it's continued. It's a sort of moderate swear word. It's used as an expression of frustration, but the origins of it, I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. Let's have a look.

Yeah, okay. Even though the word bloody has Germanic origins, its use as a swear word most likely entered English from the French.

Ah, dear. These stories, these etymological stories are never that compelling, in my opinion. Why is bloody a swear word in Britain? It seems more likely, according to Rawson, who's Rawson? I don't know. This is from Wikipedia, that the taboo against the word arose secondarily, perhaps because of an association with menstruation. That's women's periods, their monthly periods.

The Oxford English Dictionary mentions the theory that it may have also have arisen from aristocratic rowdies known as Bloods. Hence, bloody drunk means drunk as a blood. Okay, there'll be reasons. There'll be all sorts of reasons. No one's entirely sure as far as I can tell. But it is true that British people use the word bloody as a sort of common swear word.

Bloody hell, you know, look at this bloody thing. Yeah, why do British people have accents? Well, everyone has an accent, right? If you speak, you have an accent. But of course, British people have accents because of the reasons that accents exist. Largely because of, you know, identity issues in different regions. Normally, that's it. It's normally that accents represent...

different cultural groups and through the process of accommodation, if you associate with a certain group, for example, if you live in that area, then you will naturally speak in the same way that the people in that area speak. And because there are various local identities in the country, as a result, people tend to speak in the same way that other members of their cohort speak.

There might be other reasons as well. It might be that, you know, the UK, although it is a small place, it has a lot of different accents because local identities become very strong when everyone is contained within a reasonably or relatively small space. It might be something like that. I did an episode about this years ago called Why Does the UK Have So Many Accents? I think it is. You can find it in the episode archive. Why do British people say Zed?

So in America, they say Z, X, Y, Z. In the UK, X, Y, Z. I think it's because it comes from Greek, right? Ancient Greek. And I think the ancient Greek equivalent probably has an E sound. I'm not sure what the ancient Greek equivalent is for Z, what the old word was or is. But I imagine it's because that word also has an E sound in it.

Okay, some of these I'm not going to Google because there isn't time for me to Google every single one. I feel like I should Google that one though. Why do British people say Zed? Let's have a look. It was... the name... oh okay, alright, the name for this letter was borrowed from the French. Zed. The most common form of this letter was thus the one that is now standard in the UK and other countries.

Okay, so I'm now on a website called thelanguagenerds.com and you can see that the post just for this question goes on and on. I'd love to get just a very quick summary of that. Time to cheat with a little bit of AI.

Okay, so using Google's Notebook LM, I'm cheating, to get a quick summary of that page. This article from the Language Nerds explores the contrasting pronunciations of the letter Z, known as Z in American English and Z in British English, and most other English-speaking countries. So it really should be, why do the Americans say Z when everyone else is saying Z? Okay.

The piece traces the historical roots of Z back to Greek and French influences. Right. Noting its earlier appearance, it explains that Z emerged later, possibly due to its rhyme with other letters and gained prominence in America. Maybe it's just because in America they wrote that alphabet song. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q and R, S and T.

U, V, W, X, Y, and Z. Now I know my ABC, would you like to sing with me? Right? And it's convenient that the Z rhymes with T and C and me, right? Because whenever I sing that song, and I do sing it to my kids, it's always quite sort of funny, right?

It sticks out when I say P, Q, R, S, and T, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z. Now I know my ABC. Would you like to sing with me? You know, maybe that's it. So, yeah, look, the article suggests that Noah Webster's efforts to establish a distinct American English and the popular alphabet song further solidified Z in the United States. Ultimately, the piece highlights the single-letter difference as a notable variation between the two major English dialects.

Well, anyway, there you go. I suppose now you know in America Z and in the UK Zed. But when it comes to the rapper Jay Z, yes, we still call him Jay Z because if we called him Jay Zed, that would just sound wrong, wouldn't it? Why do British people drive on the left? Because it is the correct side of the road to drive on. But other than that, it's also because it dates back to...

years ago, I guess medieval times, when, you know, before the invention of cars, people rode horses and knights on horseback would have swords and you would want to pass...

other people on horseback, you would want to pass them on your right side so you could, if you needed to, defend yourself against them with your right, your stronger hand, and most people are right-handed. So the stronger right hand, you would want that on the side that the people, other people pass you on, right? So it makes sense to pass on that side. And in fact, because of this reason, it actually became law

to pass each other in that way. That's why we drive on the left, because it's based on an old law that came into force when we were on horseback with swords in our hands. That's the reason. Why do people put X? All right, this might be at the end of letters or emails. We put X

And X means a kiss. Is it just British people? Surely everyone does that, don't they? A little X means a kiss at the end of an email or something or a text. Why do British people love tea? Because tea is wonderful. Even though I drank coffee this morning, I do love tea. Nothing like a fantastic, lovely cup of tea. But it's also because of our colonial history and the deals that we made with China and India. They supplied us with tea many years ago. And as a result, the UK got flooded with tea.

If that's possible. And so lots of people drank tea and we were able to get fairly affordable supplies of tea. And as a result, lots of people drank it. Maybe also because boiling water and infusing tea is a safer way to drink water. Maybe that's something to do with it.

In the same way that beer, you know, fermenting your water and turning it into beer is actually a safer way to drink water when you maybe don't have access to safe drinking water or when you don't have the option to refrigerate your water. Fermenting the water, adding an alcohol content to water in some way, like for example brewing beer, can mean that you can store lots of drinking water.

And this is certainly true in the past in the UK or in England, that people used to brew beer and everyone would drink beer, a kind of beer. Everyone would drink it, even like children and stuff would be drinking beer. Maybe this is why we...

you know, love beer so much and we have a reasonably high tolerance for it. Why do people call fries chips? Well, that's just the word that we use for them. So fish and chips, right? Those are chips. But chips and fries are slightly different. Chips are thicker. Thicker. Oh, that's my 30 minute timer. Chips are thicker, right? Potato, made from potatoes, fried potatoes. They're thicker than fries.

So a bit thicker, a bit chunkier. Fries are thinner. The things you get, you know, at a McDonald's or a Burger King, those are fries. Chips are a bit chunkier and thicker and you get them with fish and chips, um,

In America, in American English, they have chips, of course, but those are what we call crisps. So chips in the USA are the thin things that you get in packets and when you eat them, it makes that noise. Those are chips in American English and we call those crisps in British English. Can you say that? Crisps. Crisps.

Another question, why do British people say maths? Well, because maths is an abbreviation of mathematics and mathematics is plural, right? So that's why we say maths. In American English, it's math without the S on it.

But, you know, it's a plural word, so that's why we maintain, we keep the S, maths. Why do British people love beans? Why do we love beans? It's a good question. You know, beans on toast, which is something I still love to this day. And there's nothing wrong with having a good hearty plate of beans on toast. You know, I'm talking about Heinz beans or any other brand.

They're kind of like white beans in a kind of tomato sauce, but there's probably a bit of sugar and salt in that sauce. But nevertheless, beans. Yes, you open up the can, pour the contents of the can into a saucepan, heat them up on the stove, and then you make some toast, put butter on the toast. What I like to do is add a little bit of marmite on the toast as well. Mmm.

magnifique and then you pour the beans over the toast and just chow down

Get stuck in. That is a delicious and I might add nutritious meal. And it's quick, it's easy, it's cheap. You can get cans of beans, you can get a can of beans for probably less than 50 pence in the UK. You could eat a can of, you could have a good dinner, good hearty filling lunch or dinner for about a pound.

If you ate beans, they shouldn't eat them all the time, because obviously then you will end up farting your way through the day and night and no one will want to spend any time with you. And also, you know, a balanced diet is very important. But nevertheless, sometimes a good plate of beans is fine. And some of you are reeling with horror, like my wife, for example, whenever I do that.

If it's like a Sunday evening, which is often like the best time to have beans on toast, where you've had like a lunch earlier on or a brunch or something. You've had a good lunch or brunch earlier. And then it's Sunday evening where you kind of think, oh, let's just do whatever this evening. And she has a salad or a salad or something like that. And I go, I know I'll have some beans on toast because you can buy beans in the supermarket here.

Heinz beans and yum yum yum comfort food right so that was 30 minutes time for a drink of water here we go I'm going to have a good slug I'm going to take a slug from this bottle not that there are actually any slugs in here no it's just a normal bottle of water time for a drink and you can do the same thing if you like here we go

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So you get the idea. Now I'll continue with some screenshots of old searches that should result in some interesting tangents. So the screenshots I've just looked at of Google searches were new ones that I did myself, but most of the other ones in this episode are going to be based on old searches. Because instead of Googling all of these things myself, I just actually, I just looked for pages or articles on other websites that

that had been done before. And I turned up an old article from bloody ages ago, 2009, which was before some of you were even born, possibly, when Google autocomplete was a sort of meme-worthy thing. It was quite new and people had discovered it could be funny. And so there were a couple of website pages about it. 2009. Actually, if that was before you were born, that would mean that you're about 15 years old and...

Is this appropriate for you to be listening to? I'm not sure. Sometimes people get in touch and they tell me that they listen to the podcast with their children. And I think that's understandable. You know, you want your children to pick up English as well. But this show is not really meant for kids. It is meant for adults. You know, I've never at any point said that this is a show for children. I've, you know, I've always been a teacher for adults. I have taught kids in my career, but...

The vast majority of the time I've taught English to adults and this is a podcast for grown-ups. So just something to bear in mind, especially considering some of the things that are going to come up in this episode. There will be some adult-related topics. So, I'm pretty sure that these searches, by the way, were all done in the USA. So they might skew towards a certain kind of idiocy common to the United States.

Not that in the USA they have some kind of monopoly on brainlessness, because we're all capable of brainlessness, all us humans in every country. It's just the Yanks, and I say that affectionately, the Yanks, meaning the Americans, they've just been very loud about it over the years, about brainlessness.

about it right you know what i mean by the way we'll probably as i've said this already but we'll probably cover some very rude subjects here so be prepared for that explicit content is coming including disgusting things sexual things you know this is just the stuff that people google

right? But judging by the way that you all react to me having to explain what it means when Dr. Watson suddenly ejaculates during a Sherlock Holmes story, it seems that you are fine with that kind of thing. So with that in mind, let's continue. Let's continue with Can I Eat My? So what do you think will be suggested here? Obviously, we've got Can I Eat My Cat? But...

What else do you think will be suggested here? Can I eat my own vegetables? Maybe. A reasonable question. You might be considering growing your own vegetables and you think, is that safe? Can I eat vegetables I've grown in my own garden?

If I live in the city, for example, can I eat my fingernails? A lot of people bite their fingernails or bite the skin on the side of their fingers, the cuticles. And you might think, oh, if I eat those parts, is that safe? Can I eat my fingernails? Or maybe even, can I eat my bogeys? Bogeys, of course, being the green things that come out of your nose.

Right. Some people pick their nose and you might think, hmm, hmm, can I eat this or is that really unhealthy? So what have we got? Well, first thing, can I eat my sperm? Then can I eat my cat? And then can I eat my aloe vera plant? Right. This is clearly what people are interested in. Can I eat my sperm?

Can I eat my cat? And can I eat my aloe vera plant? By the way, can I eat my sperm? 1.25 million results. Can I eat my cat? 2.5 million results. So, clearly those are some questions that demand answers, right? So, can I eat my sperm? All right, so what is sperm? Now, in the past, when I've had to explain things like sperm and ejaculating...

I've been a bit awkward and embarrassed about it, right? As you might be if you were talking to potentially several football stadiums full of people. You know, if you're there in front of the biggest football stadium in the world, everyone's there and you are given a microphone. Can you explain what sperm is? And you're standing there as the microphone feeds back. Hello, everybody. And you hear your voice echoing around this stadium with people.

potentially hundreds of thousands of people in it and you have to explain what sperm is you might feel a bit embarrassed in that situation as i have felt in the past but i'm not gonna feel embarrassed i'm just gonna be very frank about it so sperm just in case you don't know is the stuff that comes out of the end of a man's a human man a human male's penis and

when he has an orgasm, when he reaches a sexual climax, as you may be aware, you may have discovered this for yourself in some way, which you probably have, when a human man reaches or achieves orgasm, the result is that sperm is ejaculated from the end of the penis area, okay?

So sperm, yeah, that's what comes out. And it's probably it's a bit more complicated than that because it's not just sperm. There's sperm and there's there's a fluid that the sperm are contained within. But the sperm themselves are the little things that with a tail that wants to swim towards the egg inside a woman's body.

body. Where exactly is the egg? It's in the fallopian tube, right? No, no, it's not. It's in the... Oh, God. Where is the egg when the sperm fertilises it? I think it's in the fallopian tube. Oh, God. I'm going to need to Google that. But anyway, you know, the sperm during sexual intercourse, during penetrative sex, if a man ejaculates inside the woman's...

vagina then the sperm is released inside and it wants to swim towards an egg and it wants to penetrate that egg fertilizing it where is the egg okay i need to i need to know this where is the is the egg when it is fertilized by a sperm conception

happens when the sperm swims through the vagina and fertilises an egg in the fallopian tube. I was right. It happens in the hours or days after you have unprotected sex. After conception, the fertilised egg implants into the uterus and a pregnancy begins and the wonder and beauty and magic, almost, of life...

takes place. What a wondrous thing it is. So that is sperm, but apparently lots of people, plenty of people have wondered whether they can eat their sperm. Now, can I eat my sperm? Obviously that is men.

who have written that. Maybe that's why it is roughly half the number of people who want to know if they can eat their cat. Because Can I Eat My Cat got 2.5 million results, whereas Can I Eat My Sperm was roughly half that. So that's clearly just half the human populace. Although obviously we don't have just two and a half million people in the world. But anyway, I don't understand the numbers. But

Half the people are searching, so everyone wants to know if they can eat their cat, but only half those people want to know if they can eat their sperm, and presumably that's men, right?

I mean, women might want to know if they can eat sperm as well. That might be a pertinent question too, as you can imagine. But certainly my sperm, can I eat my sperm? That's men obviously asking that question. So, you know, what do you think, guys? Can you eat your sperm? Can people eat sperm? Or can people eat their own sperm? And as far as I'm aware, I think it's okay. I mean, I think it's probably safe to eat your own sperm. I mean, depending on how much you eat.

As I said before, it's important to keep to a balanced diet. And if you just eat your own sperm, that's not likely to be particularly healthy or nutritious. What a weird thing that would be to survive if you had no food. Because, you know, does it contain protein?

maybe if you were starving to death, and that could be a solution. If you were able to produce enough sperm, you might be able to prolong your life until you were able to get some proper food that you were forced to live on. You know, in the same way that, you know, people who, you know, there was that guy who got trapped, you know, in the desert when his arm got stuck under a rock, and he survived by drinking his own urine for a few days, and that's obviously not

something that you can do long term but I think it can help you stay hydrated to an extent it's probably better than not drinking anything he was able to drink his own urine and it helped to keep him alive for enough time to be able to like get out of the situation um

The film was 127 hours, right? So maybe you could also eat your own sperm in order to keep yourself alive, but I wouldn't recommend it. Anyway, in theory, I think eating one's own sperm is probably okay, but why? Why would you want to do that?

Why? Why would you want to do that? I don't know. I mean, just speculating, maybe just to avoid waste, because maybe it's just sad to let it go to waste. And you think, well, you know, I might as well, since it's going to serve no other purpose, I might as well eat it just to avoid any waste or mess. But then you kind of think, well, why not just go to a sperm bank if that's the case?

A sperm bank is a place that you might have in your town or city where, you know, you can go and you can donate your sperm and they keep it in the sperm bank so it can be used, you know, if anyone needs any sperm. You know, those moments when you just, oh, you know what I need now? Just a bit of sperm. Just a beep, beep, beep, deliver Uber Eats. Now, obviously, I'm being silly about that. But, you know, there are cases when sperm is needed and you might need a stock of sperm.

And so you can donate your sperm to the sperm bank. So, you know, rather than eating it, you might want to perhaps go down to the sperm bank and donate it, right? Just don't do it too much, you know. But it can be a reasonable thing to do, I suppose. And, you know, if you want to have a guilt-free wank, why not offer your sperm...

to the sperm bank rather than just letting it go to waste. At least then it's guilt-free, right? Because you know that you're giving something back. You're giving something back to society. You're helping society at large. You're giving something back to the community by going down to the sperm bank. But as I said, just don't do it too much because then the sperm bank might have a problem with that. If you just like, oh, Mr. Thompson, hello, you're back again.

No, we don't need any more of your sperm. Thanks. No more, please. We're full. We're full now. This sperm bag is literally full of your sperm. So please, no more sperm. We're good. Thanks. Thanks, Mr. Thompson. Have a good day. That's not based on the true story, by the way, obviously. But yeah, that would be weird, wouldn't it, if you did fill up the sperm bag?

Yeah, it would be strange walking around your area, your community. You know, it would certainly make visiting the local playground an awkward experience. It would be like an Apex Twin video or something, wouldn't it? Just like, oh my God, all these children look alarmingly similar to me. This is weird. Anyway, it's probably best if we move on now from talking about that. Can you eat your sperm? Yes, but why would you?

to can I eat my cat? And I think this is, if, you know, if anyone out there is offended by the idea of someone eating their sperm, I think someone eating their cat is a more offensive thing, isn't it?

I mean, obviously, eating of sperm is a disgusting idea. It's unclean. And I'm sure that I've probably disgusted plenty of people with this. But I did give you a little warning, did I not? And at least you learned the words sperm and fallopian tube and sperm bank. You know, important vocabulary for anyone who wants to live a full life.

You wouldn't want to go to your grave and thinking, you know, but, you know, you're on your deathbed. Do you have any regrets? I never learnt the English. I never learnt the full English for sperm, sperm bank, ejaculate, achieve orgasm. I never learnt those things. I never lived a full life. You should have listened to Luke's... Should have listened to every episode of Luke's English Podcast. So don't be that guy. Anyway, can I eat my cat? So...

I think this might be illegal in some places. Is it illegal? I'm going to Google this in a moment, but I think it might be illegal. I think it's not allowed. There is probably animal protection. If you own a cat, if you have a cat as a pet, I think there are certain obligations that you have to treat the cat well, to look after it and certainly don't be cruel to it and certainly don't eat it. That's just...

not very nice. From the point of view of whether it's edible, whether cat meat is edible, I think it probably is because, as I said, I think in some parts of the world eating cats is a thing. So I think cat meat is probably edible. I don't know whether it would be good. I imagine it wouldn't be very tasty. So on a purely sort of like nutritional basis, you probably can eat your cat.

But again, don't take that as a green light to actually do it. I'm just saying that it might not make you sick. But don't. Just don't. Okay? Just don't. Why would you? Just leave the cats alone. Leave your cat alone. Keep the cats out of the kitchen.

But anyway, can I eat my sperm? Can I eat my cat? Can I eat my aloe vera plants? Aloe vera is a kind of, what's the word that they use to describe those sorts of plants? It's not a cactus. It's sort of like soft green plant with spikes. They tend to live in, they grow in often arid places, like very dry places. But can you eat aloe vera? I know that you can cut the branches off aloe vera

And the juice that comes out, the kind of gel that comes out, can be very good for the skin, I understand. In fact, aloe vera is often used in skincare products. So if you rub it into your skin, for example, if you have a burn on your skin or sunburn, you can rub aloe vera into the burn and it helps to soothe the skin.

But can you eat it? I think, as far as I know, you can eat some aloe vera, but other aloe vera might be poisonous. I think it's time to do a little bit more Googling. I don't want to Google, can I eat my sperm? We've moved on from that. But can I eat my cat? Oh my God, this is from Cora. Can humans eat cats?

I'm dealing with a cat eater. Right, this sounds like this person has a cat eater in their life. Maybe their boyfriend or something eats cats. I'm dealing with a cat eater. I'm dealing with them as well. As if they're a problem that needs to be managed, which, you know, it sounds like they are. I have to prove him that eating cat is harmful. But he says after cooking the cat, it's not harmful anymore.

Can anyone help me prove him wrong objectively with some references? And then Cora's AI bot assistant has given various reasons. Eating cats, like consuming other pets, raises numerous ethical, health and legal concerns. Here are some points to consider when discussing why eating cats is harmful or inadvisable. So there are health risks. Oh, there are health risks.

Zoonotic disease. Cats can carry diseases that can be transmitted to humans, such as toxoplasmosis, cat scratch fever and various parasites. Cooking may kill some pathogens, but not all.

Food safety, cats, domestic cats are not raised for human consumption, so there are no standards for their care, feeding or slaughter that ensure they are safe to eat, unlike livestock. So animals that are farmed like cows or chickens, you know, there's a whole system of...

in which they are raised and slaughtered that ensures that things are done sort of safely and that the meat is safe for consumption. So, you know, eating a cat or another animal that's, you know, not subject to those sorts of safety checks.

increases the risk of contamination with harmful bacteria like salmonella or E. coli. You don't want to get a salmonella or E. coli infection. That will definitely result in diarrhea and all sorts of other horrible things.

And then, of course, there are the ethical considerations, animal welfare and just the cultural norms in in some societies. It might be normal, but in most societies, I think it's not normal. So you shouldn't eat cats because it's fucking weird. OK, people, people will be shocked and horrified by it and legal issues.

like I mentioned in many countries, it's illegal and it's illegal to kill and eat pets like cats and dogs. So that's, I think enough, uh, of an answer. So, you know, anyway, um,

So, remember, these autocompletes represent what so many other people have asked in the past. So, the one about sperm, that is an alarming number of people who are curious about eating their own sperm, isn't it? All men, of course. I suppose women would have to ask that question in another way, wouldn't they? Women would have to say, can I eat my boyfriend's, you know? So, in fact, here is an up-to-date list of those questions. Can I eat my boyfriend's?

Not "Can I eat my boyfriend?" but "Can I eat my boyfriends?" and what will come next. So, "Can I eat my boyfriends?" Actually, the first one is "Can I bite my boyfriend?" A reasonable question, I suppose. Sometimes you might feel like biting your boyfriend. Maybe you feel compelled to bite him if he is particularly delicious. "Can I eat nuts if my boyfriend is allergic?"

Why do I bite my boyfriend? Why do I bite my boyfriend Reddit? Why do I bite my boyfriend's arm? Why do I bite my boyfriend hard and I can't eat around my boyfriend? So can I bite my boyfriend? Well, you know, depends on your boyfriend, doesn't it, Eamino? I think that you need to get consent from the boyfriend before you bite him. I think that's probably the best answer I could give. Ask him.

Ask him first. I think that's the way these things work, isn't it? In these sorts of situations, you need to get consent. So if the boyfriend says, "Sure, yeah, go ahead and bite me," then go ahead, just don't do it too hard. I think biting your boyfriend could be a playful and enjoyable thing to do if you do it in the right way and as long as you get his consent. "Can I eat nuts if my boyfriend is allergic?" So this is a good question.

Some people have very strong nut allergies, which means that even a little bit of nut, a trace of nut, if that goes into their system, it can be really dangerous. It can cause swelling of the throat, a strong allergic reaction, swelling of the throat, which can restrict breathing. It can be very dangerous. And so, yeah, it's a reasonable question. If you eat nuts and your boyfriend is very allergic to nuts, then maybe then if you kiss your boyfriend...

then he might get some nut traces. And yeah, that could be really dangerous. You know, the kiss of death. So it's a good question. If your boyfriend is very allergic to nuts, then I think that you should be very cautious about eating nuts or having nuts around him. Why do I bite my boyfriend? I don't know. Like I said, maybe he's just particularly delicious. Why do I bite my boyfriend? Reddit. They're looking for an answer on Reddit. Why do I bite my boyfriend's arm?

Why do I bite my boyfriend hard? Apparently you just can't help yourself. I can't eat around my boyfriend. That's a pity, isn't it? Why can't you eat around your boyfriend? That's a bit... That suggests potential sort of neuroses, psychological problems, maybe. I don't know. Maybe your boyfriend is disgusting. Maybe that's the reason.

Maybe if you eat together and he just sits there chewing with his mouth open and that's just disgusting and that's why you can't eat around him. Or maybe, you know, maybe you've got some issues there. Maybe you've got some sort of eating disorder where you feel shame or some other negative feeling as a result of being near your boyfriend when you eat. So that's maybe something you need to consider getting some help with.

because that's no good, is it? You want to go and be able to have a nice meal with your boyfriend. You don't want to be blocked. So you might want to get help if that's the case. Again, I'm talking to you as if you asked this question, which you probably didn't. God, there's so much. I have so many more of these, and I've reached the one-hour mark, and I try to keep these episodes, ideally, in my mind, in my brain,

the ideal length for an episode is just under an hour. That's actually what I want, just less than an hour. But that's often the opposite of what happens, and I end up doing about double that. I'm going to keep going for a little bit, but then I will stop, and maybe I can come back and do a part two for this. So let's just do a few other questions. How about how-to questions?

How-to questions. Actually, before we do that, it's time for another drink of water. Feels like not that long ago that I had a drink, but I'm going to do another one now. So it feels like it was 30 minutes ago. It's time for another drink of water. Here we go. Lovely, lovely water. Okay. How about how-to questions? Surely that will be fairly innocent. I'm imagining things like how to put up shelves.

Right. If you want to put up some shelves in your room to put books on the shelves, how do you put up shelves? That's a decent question. Or maybe how to add LEP Premium to a podcast app on my phone. Right. Just the things that people typically would ask. So what do you think? How to put up shelves, how to add LEP Premium to a podcast app on your phone. Just go to teacherluke.co.uk slash premium info or teacherluke.co.uk slash how.

Or maybe it could be how to cook a perfectly boiled egg. You know, four minutes, five minutes, four and a half minutes. But here are the questions. How to get pregnant? How to gain weight? How to get a six pack? How to give head? Do you know that one? How to get a passport? How to grow weed? How to get a girlfriend? How to get a girl to like you? How to get on Myspace at school? That is a question directly from 2007.

How to get rid of stretch marks. So I'm going to deal with this one and then that will be the end of the episode. Now, this is bound to result in some... There's going to be some good vocab here, I'm sure. So how to get pregnant. I think we've actually already dealt with that, haven't we? I think we have. You have to have unprotected sex, resulting in the ejaculation of sperm into the woman's vagina. Yeah.

and that sperm has to successfully reach the fallopian tube, reach an egg which has descended into the fallopian tube, and the sperm has to successfully penetrate the wall of the egg, fertilising that egg, and then the egg has to travel down into the uterus,

where then the egg divides and the fetus develops. Right, that's how you get pregnant. It's pretty much as simple as that. Ovulation, right? Ovulation. During ovulation, this is when the egg is produced and comes down the fallopian tube into the uterus. This process is ovulation. So it's got to be timed right.

Right. So that the sperm arrives around the time of ovulation so that when that egg comes down, there's sperm there like ready to go, you know. So it's got to be timed right. But I mean, I don't know how long sperm can stay inside the vagina and still fertilize the egg. I think it can be quite a while, to be honest with you. So the main thing, unprotected sex.

That's more or less it. I don't think the position that you take can affect it. I've heard people saying, oh yeah, yeah, you can't get pregnant if you, if you have sex standing up. Like, no, you absolutely can. All you need is to have unprotected sex and that's more or less it. Obviously ovulation is the key, another key part of it, but, um, there you go. Um,

How to gain weight. How do you gain weight? Meaning, how do you put on weight? I suppose you have to just consume more calories than you burn, right? You just consume more calories than you use.

So this would probably involve, you know, changing your diet. You're going to need to have a lot of protein in your diet, a calorie rich diet, a lot of carbohydrates and protein. You know, if you think of sumo wrestlers and stuff, the things that they eat, they have to gain a lot of weight. So they're eating tons of rice and they're eating lots of noodles and other high protein, high carbohydrate foods. I think that's basically it.

How to get a six-pack. A six-pack is... So, muscles in your body, right? You've got various muscles. The muscles on your stomach, your... What are they called? Oh, darn. Why can't I remember the word for the muscles on your stomach? It's your...

Right, so in your bum, it's your glutes, right? Gluteus maximus on your bum. Your thighs, that's your quadriceps on your thighs. On your chest, these are pectoral muscles. You've got biceps on your arms. And what are those?

Abdominal, that's it, abdominal muscles. And so the abdominal muscles there, you can see that when abdominal muscles are well developed and when, for example, you're very lean, if you don't have a lot of fat on your stomach, the abdominal muscles will be clearly visible. And it's kind of like six of them. It's like a pack of six muscles.

That's called a six-pack, as you may well have known. How do you get a six-pack? Now, how do I get a six-pack? I just go down to the supermarket and I buy a six-pack. But of course, I'm talking about a six-pack of beer. Oh, really? But how do you get a six-pack? Well, you need to do a lot of exercise, right? You've got to really work those muscles. So do lots of sit-ups, I think. Doing a lot of sit-ups...

Just generally do a lot of muscle work and try to reduce the amount of fat that you have covering your stomach. So work on reducing your body mass index. Is that it? So there's less fat. The muscle to fat ratio is there's more muscle and less fat. And also develop those stomach muscles. Do tons of sit-ups.

and other exercises that will really build those muscles as much as possible, then you probably will end up with a six pack. How to give head. So this is a rude one. Do you know what giving head means? So it's a sexual thing. Giving head means giving someone a blow job. They call it giving head. What an expression that is. Have you ever heard that before in your life? Right. Now, if you didn't learn anything from this episode,

At least you'll learn this one. To give head. Yes, it means to give someone a blowjob. And you can see why, because literally you're giving them, you're giving, you know, you're giving your head. You're allowing them to penetrate your head through the mouth, of course. What other way is there? So to give head, how to give head.

Well, you know, I'm no expert in this, not in terms of giving anyway. But I imagine that you need to be patient. You need to be enthusiastic. And you need to be gentle as well, I suppose. Yeah, that's probably a certain... You need to be committed, right? Manage your expectations. It's probably a good idea.

And be prepared for the, if you do it, if you're doing it well, you need to be prepared for the outcome, which, you know, does lead us back to one of the previous questions that I've already dealt with in this episode, right? So I'll let you work that one out for yourself. But I suppose that's it, right? Time, patience, sometimes, I suppose, is an important part of it. Enthusiasm, I suppose that, you know, you just, you've got to try and enjoy it.

There you go. I mean, if you know better than me, and if you don't really feel ashamed in any way, you could let us know in the comments section, I guess. How to get a passport? This is a much more sensible question, isn't it? It's a very good question. How do you get a passport? Well, you need to probably Google it. Like, if you're in the UK and you're looking for a UK passport, you'd need to go to gov.uk.

and go through the process there. You'll need to get some documents together. You'll need to prove that you're eligible for a passport. You'll need to prove your identity, probably with a birth certificate. You'll need to

Send off all your documentation, an application form, all the rest of it. You might need to go through the citizenship application process, which might mean that you'll need to take the British citizenship test. You might need to prove your language level and you would need to prove that you have the right to a British passport.

So there you go. How to grow weed. So weed, of course, is cannabis, a cannabis plant or marijuana or whatever you want to call it. Weed is the common sort of slang word for this. Well, first of all, of course, it should be pointed out that in many places this is illegal. Not in Germany at the moment where you can apparently grow a certain number of plants for personal use.

very progressive of them. Also other places have decriminalized weed in many ways. But how do you grow it? Well, I suppose you grow weed in the same way that you grow other plants, right? You put the seed in the soil. You provide it with water. The seed, I suppose, germinates in the water. It germinates in the soil and...

Then roots start to form from the seed and then the stem of a plant will appear, leaves pop out, and then it needs some sunlight, you know, it needs light, it needs water, and it needs the nutrition of the soil. Those are the basics, right? And then I guess that's it. I mean, I don't know really. But in terms of how do you grow weed that will actually get you high,

I'm not sure really. I guess there are different types of plants. I understand there's differences between the male and female plants. I think only one of those actually gets you high. I'm not going to Google this. I'll let you do that if you really want to. If you're in Germany, go for it. But I think you can probably buy seeds from certain outlets.

that will sell you seeds that will actually, you know, result in a plant that will get you high. But that's basically how you do it, I suppose. Maybe you need like hydroponics, which is like a set for growing plants indoors. Because just doing it in the sunlight, maybe if you live in a very sunny place in its summertime, you're going to get enough sunlight to grow really good, abundant plants.

But if you live in England in the winter and you're trying to grow weed just in your garden, then you might not get very far. You also might need to do other things, like you might need to tend to the plants. And this is just based on what I know about growing plants, that you need to trim or prune. You need to prune plants sometimes, don't you? In order to make them a bit more bushy, right? To encourage them to grow in a more dense way, you need to prune the plant. That means cutting it back, right?

in order to encourage it to grow a bit more, if you know what I mean. I'm no horticulturalist, but I think those are the basic steps. But yeah, I mentioned hydroponics. That's like an indoor set where you've got special lights that you shine on the plants and you can, you know, maximise the amount of UV, I guess it is, that they need to encourage the photosynthesis process.

Yeah, that's probably it, right? If you know, again, let me know in the comments section if you've done that. If you've managed to grow weed and you've dried it out and you're able to smoke it and you're still awake, then let us know in the comments section. How to get a girlfriend and how to get a girl to like you. That's a tough one, isn't it, right? I mean, I think really you've just got to be a good guy. You know, you've got to be...

You've got to be reasonably confident, but you've also got to be interesting, enthusiastic. You've got to be sincere. I think you should be a nice guy, but at the same time, you do need to be fairly self-assured. Girls tend to like guys who are comfortable with themselves. Girls tend to like guys who...

are generous or kind, guys who are willing to, who are interested in girls, who are not just interested in what they can get from women, but they like women, they're interested in them. But guys who are self-assured, who have some self-esteem, guys who are interesting. You should try to work on yourself a little bit.

Instead of just trying to persuade women to do what you want them to do for something like that, you need to work on yourself. You need to become an interesting, attractive person

human that women will be interested in, that women will want to spend time with, that women will find attractive. Women are different to men. They don't always just go for the looks. So you can go to the gym and work on your six pack and all that stuff. But it's not always about that. You've got to be an interesting, compelling, intelligent, stimulating, exciting person with a sort of energy and a charisma that

So I would recommend working on yourself, be yourself and try to discover who you are and then lean into that, you know, try to be an interesting, confident, self-assured person who has interests and who looks after themselves. You know, it certainly helps if you if you make sure you look good.

But be comfortable with who you are and respect the women that you expect to like you. Obviously, there's always going to be some women who are going to go for a guy who has those classic things, the guy with the money, the guy with the power, the status. But I think to get proper, long-lasting, meaningful relationships with the sort of women that you're going to want to spend time with, I recommend that you work on yourself. Build up your sense of self, your sense of confidence, your self-worth.

worth, your self-esteem, and be an interesting person engaged in lots of things, someone who's got a sense of energy and a sense of drive and something interesting going on with them, then surely women are going to be attracted to you as a result, I would say. Hello, everyone. This is me just interrupting myself here from the future. It's the evening of the day when I recorded this episode. And

Like, funnily enough, this is the part, this bit about how to get a girl to like you, is the thing that has stuck with me this evening. And I've been thinking about it, and I thought that I wanted to add a few other things that I kind of didn't mention. I hope you're enjoying this episode. I really enjoyed doing this one today. And on this particular point, I was thinking, I bet there's someone out there who is particularly interested in this. I don't know. But...

Whatever. I just feel like I needed to add a few other things because I've been thinking about this. So some other things to add. I have to. I have to add. And I can't believe I didn't mention this before. The importance of humor. Right. Being funny, being humorous and the importance of making a girl laugh. You know, that's a huge thing.

And if you can make a girl laugh, then you're kind of like halfway there. It's really a really good way to make a girl feel good. It's a very disarming thing to be able to do to sort of generate real laughter or to kind of have fun with someone. And just the importance of fun and good vibes and yeah, being funny, right?

is a really big deal. And that can just be, I mean, it's a bit of a mysterious thing, but it's, yes, disarming and charming. So that's something to remember, of course. But being funny, that's a whole other mystery because it's somewhat kind of hard to define how to do it. It's something to do with having a certain attitude where you're just trying to make people enjoy themselves around you.

And it's, you know, kind of being a bit cheeky. There's something kind of, I don't know how to describe it really, but flirting and making a girl laugh.

It's sort of like, I don't know, you're sort of, there's some edge to that. There's something edgy about that where you are constantly kind of poking fun at the general facade of reality that most of us live in all the time. We are always living in a certain kind of, you know, it's like reality is a sort of a fake thing and the normal codes of behavior and reality

the way that people interact with each other a lot of it's kind of fake and we're quite guarded we're quite reserved and there's a lot of defensiveness but using humor you can really puncture those things and you can kind of get to the heart of things and it's yeah it's very disarming so i mean i think that's the sort of thing that can really work and is really important

And also just making someone feel good, laughing is a very positive thing. And so if you can do that, if you can laugh and joke and have a good time with someone, then they're definitely going to have a more positive reaction to you. Another thing I wanted to add, and this is this, I thought about this because I remember having conversations with female friends of mine in England, so English girls.

sort of like in the pub with them or something and talking to them about what it is that English girls want. What are they interested in? What kind of thing do they look for in a man? And there were lots of things, some of the usual things. But one of the things that stuck with me, because they all mentioned it so much,

And these are girls that I used to work with, you know, so you can imagine the sorts of women I'm talking about, people who were English teachers, you know. So I don't know if this is just specific to a certain type of girl, but they all often said that they liked guys who were unassuming. And unassuming was a word that kept coming up.

So if a guy is unassuming, it means that they don't assume that something is going to happen. They don't assume anything. It means that they are kind of, if a guy's unassuming, he's not pushy. He doesn't expect certain things. That's kind of what unassuming means. So it's, I think guys, we can be a bit pushy sometimes. We can be, we can come on a bit strong and we can do certain things and then expect to get something in return.

But a lot of girls don't like that. They don't want to be forced or pushed into something. It's a bit like when someone is trying to sell you something.

you know, and you get that feeling that you're being persuaded. Someone is working on you and they're trying to persuade you and that's a bit of a turn off, you know. So a lot of my friends were saying that they like guys who are a bit more unassuming. They're not necessarily trying to trick you or force you into doing something or persuade you to do something. They are not assuming or expecting that something is going to happen. So I think that is also an attractive thing. And if you could just sort of like

charm and disarm and make genuine connections and make people feel good. You can't, you know, make anyone feel anything. You can't make anyone do anything. You've got to just perhaps be in the right place at the right time, doing the right things and just hope that you're having the right kind of impact. Um,

So there's that. But being unassuming, I mean, it's a double edged sword. I mean, to an extent, it also can lead to this thing where guys just don't really don't really take steps.

If you're too unassuming, then you don't really take initiative and sometimes girls can be like, when's he gonna do something, you know? Because maybe a lot of women expect the guy to make the first move and you might have to be the one to take that risk, to make a fool of yourself and make the first move. So on one hand, you've got to be unassuming and not too pushy, but at the same time,

you've got to feel like when the time is right, you need to make a move and don't make it too, don't come on too strong. But, you know, you might need to be the one who makes a move because if you don't, if you wait around, she's going to keep waiting around and then you'll get nowhere and she'll get

frustrated. But, you know, some women expect different things. Of course, women expect different things. Of course, all the girls listening to this, you will be fully aware of this. You know, you might be listening to me thinking, no, that's not, no, no, Luke, no, that's not exactly the way I like things to be done.

Different women expect different things. Some women are, you know, a bit more, let's say, traditional and they expect the kind of, you know, the sort of traditional approach, you know. They want to be wined and dined. They expect a certain treatment. Some women really love to be provided for. They really love a strong figure in the relationship and in return.

you know, they will fulfill some sort of more traditional role in return for those things. You know, some girls expect certain things. They expect the guy to pay the bill and do all those things. And they will call it being a gentleman, you know. Personally, I've never quite understood that kind of

How do we call it? That kind of transactional arrangement, which I've heard a lot of girls expressing, talking about the fact that, yeah, the guy should do this. The guy should do that. The guy should be buying things for me. The guy should be paying for things. And it sounds to me like some kind of transactional relationship, which...

I don't know. I find that a bit sort of dodgy, really, for me, where you kind of think, right, you pay according to the girl's value and you will get things in return, like sex and an ego boost and all the rest of it.

But, you know, to be honest, I think that is probably the predominant way of things. I mean, I can't speak for all cultures because obviously there's a lot of variety in terms of the interactions between men and women and the way that these things work, of course. But, you know, I'm probably just talking from my general sort of cultural perspective. You know, I think personally, I'm perhaps a bit more...

I've even idealistic or maybe unromantic. I don't know if it's romantic or unromantic, because for me, these things should be based around a sort of mutual, genuine affection, a shared sort of joy of spending time together, simply enjoying each other's company, some sort of connection, which is which you don't have with everyone. You know, just you just get it with certain people.

You know, something to do with maybe compatible differences or maybe just the things you have in common, but also the differences that you have. And you find that certain people, you just click with them. There's chemistry and that is a good basis for something. You know, if there's chemistry there, that can be a long lasting thing that essentially just attracts you to someone else and it attracts them to you. And if you've got that in place,

then that's a good thing to keep alive. One more thing that I've noticed, and it's a bit random, but it's always worked for me, is reading pages from books to a girl. This is a bit specific, but reading... I mean, I don't know why, but this is just something I've noticed. I looked back at my life and I thought, yeah, that has always been something that seems to have...

worked for some reason. You're in the company of a girl, you're trying to get somewhere. And I found sharing, you're reading a book and you talk about the book, some sort of intellectual thing. You talk about the book and then you actually open up the book and you read out a page of the book to the girl that you're with. And I don't know why, but that seems to be

Very nice. So that seems to go well. And of course, you know, a dash of old school romance. I know I've just talked about that kind of traditional stuff, but old school romance obviously works. You know, going on a date with a girl, choosing a nice location, a good place, good food, good wine, making an effort, making things special.

But again, being unassuming, not necessarily expecting something to happen. You make it all about her, plenty of listening, a lot, being very genuine, you know, trying to make a genuine connection, trying to make her laugh. But also, as well as all of that, crucially, you have to kind of just put yourself out there.

And it's a numbers game. I mean, you've got to try and go out and be social, meet a lot of people. The more people you meet, the more likely it is you're going to meet someone who you click with. You know, if you spend all your time indoors playing computer games, then, of course, the chances of actually meeting someone are low. You've got to meet...

loads of girls before you meet one that's right for you. It's not just that you unlock certain magic charisma and then all girls will want to be with you. No, most of the women that you meet will reject you, most of them.

But, you know, you've got to get through a certain amount of rejection or a certain amount of things not being right before you find the girl that's right for you. And even then it might still not might not work out, you know. So it is kind of about being social and being out there.

You know, most girls will reject you, but you don't feel bad. You keep going and eventually you will meet someone who likes you, who you like. And it's it's worth exploring. It's worth going with it. A relationship is more than about you.

just the kind of initial sort of, let's say, sexual attraction. You've got to have a deeper attraction than that as well. So be open-minded, keep going, you will meet someone and who knows, maybe you've already met that person, you know, maybe you've already met that person and things might change in your relationship. You never know. A lot of my friends and a lot of people I know

got together with their significant other after having already known them for a while. Maybe they were colleagues, maybe they were friends, and things sort of change and develop. So who knows? Maybe you've already met

the girl for you, but things just haven't sort of moved in that direction yet. So stay positive, enjoy life, you know, keep a smile on your face and things might go in certain directions. You know, you've got to keep an open mind. Anyway, that was my interruption I felt compelled to do at this point. Also, I should add, you know, I'm always interested in your comments.

So, if you felt sort of inspired to write something, if certain things have occurred to you, maybe you absolutely hated everything I just said, in which case, you know, lay out your case in the comments section. Or maybe a lot of the things I just said made sense to you. Maybe you're a guy.

in a similar position as me, and that also makes sense to you, and you can just, you know, comment on that. Or maybe you're a guy who's not with anyone, and some of those things struck a chord with you. I don't know. Maybe you're a girl, and that made sense to you, and you're like, yes, that's right, Luke. This is what we like. Or maybe you're a girl, and you thought, no, that's not the kind of thing I like, really. Let me clarify it. Let me, let me, um,

tell you exactly what you need to know, you know. So get in the comments section and talk about this. This is a big thing, you know, a really huge thing, especially for younger people, people in their 20s looking to find someone, looking to have proper relationships, looking for love. It can be a huge thing and it can really bother people. It can really make people sad when it's not working for them.

I remember I used to think about it all the time, thinking, why haven't I met anyone? What's going on? What's the matter with me? What am I doing wrong? But as I said before, it really is just a question of time and being social and putting yourself out there. When I met my wife, I've probably told this story before, but on that particular evening, I did not want to go out. I wanted to, I was happy to stay in that evening and play PlayStation, but my cousin kind of persuaded me to come out

And I did, and I'm glad I did, because by doing that, I met the woman who I'm now married to happily. We've got two wonderful kids. We've built a life together. So maybe that's the best advice I can give is actually just to get out there and put yourself out there and enjoy meeting people.

Enjoy meeting people. Don't feel too shy. Just make connections and, you know, be... Just enjoy finding out about other people. Enjoy interacting with other people. Enjoy flirting and making people laugh and just be open to what could happen next and something beautiful might be just around the corner. Let's go back now to the episode and here we go. Right. Um...

We're nearly finished, everyone. How to get on MySpace at school. Wow. How to get on MySpace at school. I think you're going to need to invent a time machine and go back to 2007 when people actually used MySpace. Do you remember MySpace? MySpace.com. I had a MySpace profile. Those were the good old days of social media before everything got so cynical with Facebook. MySpace was cool. You know, it was like an early version of Facebook.

but it wasn't evil. It was a cool way to just share music with your friends. And a lot of bands, I discovered artists on MySpace, like Lily Allen. Remember Lily Allen? I discovered her on MySpace and she became really famous on MySpace and you could hear her early songs and they were good. And it was basic. You could

You could share music there. You could share photographs. You could design the page completely yourself. So you could put whatever background you wanted. You could make the website play a song when you arrived on it and stuff like that. Everyone was friends with Tom, who was the guy who invented MySpace. So you could see everyone's friends. And Tom was just like the most friendly guy. He was friends with everyone.

Yeah. So there you go. You need to go back to 2007 to get on MySpace now. And then finally, how to get rid of stretch marks. Stretch marks are things in your skin that you might get when, let's say, your skin got stretched, maybe because of pregnancy. Again, going back to that.

It could be as a result of pregnancy when obviously a woman's abdomen gets so much bigger as it accommodates to the developing child inside. And then after the birth, women are often left with stretch marks, which are clearly marks where the skin has stretched.

And then after the child has been born, there's like excess skin. These can be stretch marks. Or if you've just lost weight, you might have stretch marks. How do you get rid of stretch marks? That's a really good question, a really reasonable and good question to ask. I'm not sure, really. You know, my wife used...

During the pregnancy, she used a lot of oils and creams on her skin, which really helped to allow the skin to go back to its original condition. So that's part of it. You've always got to be moisturising and looking after your skin so that it's able to deal with these changes.

But if you've got them and you need to get rid of them, I don't really know. I'm going to have to Google that. How to get rid of stretch marks. Yeah, there are products. How they appear and how to get rid of them. NHS, National Health Service. Stretch marks are very common. They're harmless and often get less visible over time. Stretch marks look like lines or streaks across the skin. They can be not just...

Not just women who've been pregnant, but they are most common on the tummy, on the breasts, on the chest, the upper arms, legs, bottoms, hips or back. Common causes, pregnancy, going through puberty can cause stretch marks. Puberty is the change from being essentially from being a child to being an adult where you get a surge of hormones that causes things like pubic hair to grow. In boys, it means that ejaculation of sperm becomes a thing.

That's puberty, going through puberty. Stretch marks can be caused by losing or gaining weight quickly. Right. Women probably get them more. What to do about stretch marks? They usually fade over time. So that suggests that the body sort of deals with them naturally. But creams and lotions claim to prevent, reduce or remove stretch marks. But there's very little evidence these work. Oh, OK.

But there are some treatments that may help stretch marks look better.

but they will not get rid of them. So this includes retinoid, often called tretinoin, creams or hyaluronic acid. These may help if used on new stretch marks, but you shouldn't use retinoid creams if you're pregnant as they may harm your baby. Also laser or light treatments, microdermabrasion, which removes a thin layer of skin.

you would need to pay for these treatments as they're not available on the NHS. So there you go. They either go away naturally by themselves or you can kind of blast them off by removing a layer of skin or you use these sort of slightly controversial creams which can do it, but they can be harmful to unborn children if you're still pregnant. Well, well, well, that I think is going to be where we stop this.

So this is going to be end of part one. Ladies and gentlemen, how was this episode for you? I actually really enjoyed this and it was exactly what I wanted from the episode. I said at the beginning that I wanted something that was potentially a bit stupid and a bit sort of funny and ridiculous, but at the same time sort of intelligent and serious. And I think I managed to combine both of those things.

But I hope that you've enjoyed the episode and you found it useful. Obviously, we got into some areas that probably some people didn't like, you know, but, you know, yeah, but you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Do you know what I mean? You can't make a podcast that sort of

I don't know, that is original and that could be amusing and engaging. You can't do that without touching on some subjects that could be a little bit edgy for some people. So I'm sorry if you found some of the content of this to be a bit too much, maybe. But then saying that, hopefully a lot of you have been entertained by this as well as educated by it, which is always great.

what I want to do with these podcast episodes. I look forward to your responses. Oh my God, how could you respond to this? And what kind of keyword could we use? Well, I talked about MySpace. Let's have the word space, shall we? You can have the word space. If you got to the end of the episode, space is a word I've chosen because it's maybe a little bit

less explicit than something like head or even sperm. No, no, no, no. Let's stick with space. I think that's probably a reasonable word just because we talked about my space or I talked about my space at the end there. Um, space. So if you got to the end of this episode without turning into a skeleton with headphones on, you could leave a comment containing the word space somehow. Um, are there any idioms that use space often when, um,

Often when I ask people to use a keyword in their comments, people end up using idioms with that keyword in them. Idioms about space. You can be over the moon. I was over the moon, but that's not using the word space. I was over the moon. I was really happy. To shoot for the stars. If you shoot for the stars, it means you aim for something. You're very ambitious about something.

shoot for the stars. Let's, let's go for it. This is what I tried to do with this episode. I've tried to shoot for the stars once in a blue moon, you know, it means it's something that happens very rarely. Um,

You know, we only visit the beach once in a blue moon. Out of this world. That episode was out of this world. Okay, you know what? I'm going to expand your homework here. You don't only have to use the word space. You can use any of these idioms. That episode, Luke, was out of this world. Or...

I don't often get offended by episodes of Luke's English podcast. It only happens once in a blue moon. Or, Luke, you shot for the stars in the episode and you did it. Or, I don't know what, I was over the moon about this. To space out. Space out is to lose focus or daydream. So this, you know, Luke, I'm glad you stopped this episode after 90 minutes because I was beginning to space out a bit.

Okay. Rocket science. We say it's not rocket science. Like how to get pregnant. Well, it's not rocket science, Luke, is it? Meaning it's pretty simple, really. Everything under the sun. Everything under the sun. Meaning everything possible. Luke, you talked about, I'm glad that you were willing to talk about everything under the sun in this episode. Meaning that you were willing to talk about everything. You left no stone unturned. Meaning you covered every single detail.

The sky's the limit with Luke's English podcast and maybe down to earth as well. I like the fact that you have a down to earth, straightforward, practical approach to doing these episodes. Any of those idioms or the word space in your comments, I look forward to reading what you have to say. And, you know, did you try and answer any of those questions as well?

Okay, don't forget you can check out the PDF which you will be able to download from my website and you can see the questions and some of the stuff I've been reading from. Have a lovely morning, afternoon, evening or night wherever you are in the world and don't eat your cat or, you know, a lot of the other weird things that have come up in this episode. But at least now you know, don't you?

Hopefully now you know more than you did before you started listening to this. Thank you for your attention. Have a lovely morning, afternoon, evening or night and I'll let you get back to your normal life now. Okay, so now it's just time for me to say goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teachaluke.co.uk.

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