Good news! With Charlie from the British English Podcast.

0:01 Hi, this is Stephen. Today I'm releasing an episode of a different podcast on which I was a guest recently. The podcast is called the British English Podcast and the host, Charlie Baxter, helps you to improve your English while also learning about British culture, history, news and other interesting topics.

0:23 In this episode, Charlie and I talk about some good news reports that have come out over the last year. and also some funny and silly stories that I have found. If you like this episode, then I highly recommend that you search in your podcast app or YouTube for the British English Podcast. I feel like I haven't spoken to you for such a long time, but you're looking fresh as ever.

0:48 Thank you. Thank you. Well, you've had a child, haven't you?

0:51 That's why it feels like such a long time, because today I have selected... A bunch of some good, some funny, just some kind of weird stories for us to talk about.

1:02 So the first one, Count Binface.

1:04 Is a guy who dresses as some kind of spaceman, but with a bin on his head. And he is Count Binface. And he is a joke. And he thinks of himself as a joke. But Count Binface is actually the number two most likely person to win in this election.

1:22 Global Hunger.

1:23 People often think that the world is getting worse in that way, but it's not. In the last three years, 43 million people have been taken out of a situation of hunger, which is about the population of Argentina.

1:37 Hello, and welcome back to the British English Podcast. Today, I'm joined by Stephen Devinchensky, the man behind Simple English News Daily, or Send7, a podcast with a brilliantly simple idea seven minutes of global news delivered in clear, accessible English. And the aim is to give you a quick snapshot of what's happening around the world without taking up half your morning. And importantly, without telling you what to think about it. Just clear, concise and balanced news. But today, we're doing something a little different. Rather than focusing on wars, political chaos, disasters and all the other things that tend to dominate the headlines, Steve and I are looking back over roughly the last 12 months and picking out some

2:25 of the positive news stories you might have missed. Scientific breakthroughs, environmental wins, improvements in people's lives, and hopefully a few stories that remind us that despite what your news might suggest, not everything in the world is getting worse. So let's get into it. Okay, Stephen, thank you very much for coming back on. It's been too long. It's been too long.

2:54 It has been too long. I feel the same way. I was just thinking, I feel like I haven't spoken to you for such a long time, but you're looking fresh as ever.

3:03 Thank you. Thank you. Well, you've had a child in the last time, since we last spoke.

3:09 That's why it feels like such a long time because it's been a fantastic, very enjoyable 16 months, but also so much work that, yeah, it's been a long 16 months as also being a fantastic 16 months.

3:27 Okay. Long, but amazing. Yes, exactly. Okay. And you've managed to keep the podcast going? Somehow. Yeah.

3:36 Yeah. With a little help from my colleagues. Yeah.

3:41 It's going well. It's going strong. Yeah. Send7.

3:45 Simple English News Daily is making an episode five days a week, seven minutes of world news every day. And yeah, it's going really well.

3:55 Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. So, the news that we're going to talk about is slightly different. How is that? Yeah. So.

4:04 One thing that I tend to find happens in the news in general is that the news is often bad news. And the reason for that is, I think, relatively simple. It's because bad news happens quickly, right? You know, there's an earthquake, lots of people die, that makes the news. Or there's, you know, a train crash and that's in the news. It happens quickly. But generally, good things that happen take a long time. So, you know, there's some scientific innovation which improves people's lives. That happens slowly. You know, there's some medical advancement or, you know, less people are dying of a disease or something like that. This isn't something that happens on one particular day. It's a slow burning thing, which is why sometimes it's more difficult to

4:56 put it into the news. In Simple English News Daily, we always have some kind of, light story at the end, which I, uh, uh, choose every day. Um, but, uh, yeah, that's the general explanation for, for why, um, uh, you often get bad news compared to good news. But today I have selected a bunch of some good, some funny, just some kind of weird stories for us to talk about.

5:22 Fantastic. Okay. So the first one I've, I've got count bin face. on my screen. You want to talk about Count Binface?

5:31 This is the perfect time to talk about Count Binface because this is a by-election, and I'll explain what that is in a second, which is happening right now, right now as we are recording on the 13th of August, 2026. So, You've heard of Count Binface, right, Charlie?

5:50 I have, I have, but not endlessly. I've just heard in the pub when people were just trying to mock the government, mock politics in the UK at the moment, that's when Count Binface emerges. He or she has not been around for that long, have they?

6:09 I don't think so. There's a bit of a novelty here. in British politics. I don't think that this happens in other countries, whereby basically, if you want to run in an election, if you want to be a candidate, you can. All you have to do is pay 500 pounds and you can have your name on the ballot paper. And so in an election, and this is a national election, so it's for one particular place, but it's to have a seat in parliament for the winner.

6:41 Right. So he's not running for prime minister?

6:46 Not now, but I mean, I suppose he could do. That's a bit of a longer story, but we could go there. Anyway, anybody has the opportunity to be a candidate. So Charlie can say, I want to be a candidate, even though this election is happening in a place called Clacton. I want to be on the ballot paper and you can be. Anyway, so a few months ago, maybe one month ago, the MP for this place called Clacton, whose name is Nigel Farage, and he's quite famous for being the leader of this far-right nationalist party reform. He's had some problems, some dodgy dealings, and he was given £ 5 million by a crypto billionaire, and he was being investigated by Parliament. And he said, I'm going to let the people of Clacton decide whether or not I am good

7:41 or bad or whether I should continue as a politician, as a member of parliament. And so he resigned his seat in order to create this, what we call by-election, which is when there's just one little election in one place. And all of the other parties, all of the main parties, Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, et cetera, they said, we're not taking part in this. We're not taking part in this. We don't want to be part of this by-election because it's like something that he's organised himself.

8:10 And they don't have to agree to it.

8:14 Well, the election happens.

8:17 It has to happen.

8:18 But they don't have to put forward a candidate. They can say, no, we're not going to send anybody at all.

8:25 So does that mean that if he won, then they would lose a seat in parliament?

8:31 Not exactly, because he already had that seat anyway.

8:34 So it was his seat before and before.

8:39 Honestly, probably by the end of today or tomorrow, it will be his seat again. But yeah, probably. You're counting Count Binface out. Well, that is the interesting thing about this by-election. The only, or not say only, there's a few other candidates, all independent people, not very well known. But the person who is most well known is a guy called Count Binface, who is a guy who dresses...

9:07 as some kind of spaceman, but with a bin on his head. He's like a cartoon character come to life. And he is known for running in these elections. I can't remember exactly who he's run against before. I think Prime Minister Boris Johnson or possibly Theresa May. Sometimes you'll see a photo of all of the candidates together. And you'll have suddenly this guy wearing a big black space suit with a bin on his head. And he is Count Binface. And he is a joke. And he thinks of himself as a joke. But because none of the other parties have put up candidates in this election, Count Binface is actually the number two most likely person to win in this election. And there have been a few people saying, yeah, I'm gonna vote for bin face uh

9:57 in clacton he's probably not gonna win by the time this episode comes out you'll be able to see uh but um it's just quite funny that the the uh most probable other person other than nigel farage to win this election is count bin.

10:10 Face it's amazing and do we think so the guy is apparently called jonathan david harvey a british writer who contests elections as the novelty candidate known as Count Binface. So do you think he thought he could get to the point where he would actually win?

10:28 I don't think so, no. I've actually heard an interview with him recently where somebody said, do you think you're going to win? And he goes, probably not. But I think he just does it as a bit of a joke and he likes to make fun of the whole political system. And there is a bit of a history of different people doing this in elections in the UK.

10:47 So yeah, there's been an Elmo, the Sesame Street character, who's been a candidate in one election. There was another guy called Lord Buckethead who had like a bucket on his head as well. Quite similar to Count Binface, actually.

11:01 Yeah, that came up in my Google search.

11:03 Yeah, there you go. And there's been a few other ones as well. There's one party that's been going since the 70s, I think, called the Monster Raving Loony Party. And, uh, they often put forward candidates for elections and they have, um, they have funny, uh, campaign, uh, reasons to vote for them. Like that they're going to make a 99 P coin because lots of things cost 99 P in the UK.

11:27 So having a 99 P coin would be very useful.

11:31 Um, anyway, does count bin face have any, um, like things that he wants to get past and believes in desperately?

11:40 Um, the only ones I remember are that he was going to make another 99 thing. Actually there's this ice cream, you know, the ice cream called a 99 flake.

11:49 Oh yeah.

11:50 Yeah. So it's a whippy ice cream. When you go to an ice cream man, they make you this whippy ice cream and they put a chocolate flake in it. Um, and he's said that that is going to be capped at 99 P.

12:02 Um, that is probably, uh, what? 30%? No, what is it? 300% cheaper? It's now over £ 4. I've seen a £ 4. 20. That is large with toppings. But yeah, they used to be known as a 99p flake because they cost 99p, right?

12:22 I suppose so, yeah. Although I definitely can't remember it ever costing 99p, but anyway, that's one of his things. Yeah, I can't remember any other ones that he said. He had some that were like digs at Nigel Farage, like I will not accept 5 million pound donations and stuff like that. Yeah.

12:43 So he is doing it to completely antagonize Nigel Farage. Yeah.

12:49 I think so. But he has also been a candidate in many other elections in the past. He just didn't have as much fame before because, you know, he was never expected to come second and be the main challenger to the, to the prime candidate.

13:06 So, There you go.

13:08 That's the thing.

13:09 Interesting times we live in to it. Let's keep going with the official news of the year. So let's go to the world is getting better category. Global hunger. That's hopeful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.

13:23 So, I mean, people often would hear about famines and starvation and things like that and think that the world is getting worse in that way.

13:31 But it's not.

13:32 Global hunger is falling both as a percentage of And in the total number of people, hunger has generally been falling throughout history. It went up a little bit during COVID, but in the last three years, it's fallen from 8.6% to 7.8%, which sounds really small, but that's actually 43 million people who have been taken out of a situation of hunger in the last three years, which is about the population of Argentina. So that's pretty good.

14:05 That is very good. Okay. So percentage and amount, right? So even if our population globally is increasing, it's still in relation, like it's getting bigger.

14:18 Spot on. Yeah.

14:20 Exactly.

14:20 Despite the fact that our population has grown, the number of people who are living with hunger has still come down.

14:26 So there you go. That's a good thing. Yeah, that's very good.

14:29 Yeah.

14:30 Nice. Okay. Is that like, just generally around the world, or is it specific continents that are being more relieved than others? Do you know about that?

14:40 Yeah, it is some continents more than others. It's mostly in Asia and Latin America, I think, where they've had the biggest drops, and in other places it's been more stagnant. Right.

14:51 Yeah. Okay. Okay.

14:53 Good.

14:53 Good for South America and Asia. Very nice.

14:58 Yeah.

14:58 Okay. So then we've got another section from the tabloids. We've got the beginning of a line. Is this where you want me to guess what it will be? That's right. Yeah.

15:09 I think maybe we should explain what a tabloid is first. Do you want to do that?

15:15 So a tabloid, from my understanding, is a... No, that's a broadsheet. I'm thinking of the very large newspaper. A tabloid is traditionally just the newspaper, right?

15:25 Kind of. But yeah, as you mentioned there, newspapers have generally been separated into broadsheets, and tabloids in the uk right and that is because in the past broadsheets were these really massive uh newspapers that you had to open out completely like this if you're sitting next to someone on the train the person both sides of you can't see um or.

15:49 They can start reading your news or they could start reading your news that is true yeah yeah that's true um and the tabloids were generally smaller ones uh like the kind of size that we generally have today but uh the broadsheets were known for being kind of a higher quality journalism, just sticking to what's generally politics, world news.

16:10 So that would be The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, some other ones like that. And then the tabloids are things like The Sun, The Daily Star, The Daily Mail. And they were known for having a bit of kind of common news, but kind of mixed in with celebrities, gossip, the royal family, and also just these kind of funny, random, strange stories, such as the ones that I've chosen for you to try to guess the end of today.

16:42 Right, okay. So they were the TikToks of their era. Getting the every person into news whilst entertaining them, especially on page three. Okay, so this one is woman mortified as groomers... Dot, dot, dot. That's right. Woman, woman mortified as groomers. Dot, dot, dot. So mortified me meaning horrified or like upset, negative, definitely very negative. A woman is, is negatively impacted as groomers. Now groomers, I assume we're meaning the meaning of somebody who, um, gets somebody ready to sort of be, um, sort of sexually dominating. Is that what you mean? No, no, no.

17:32 I'm going to give you a, I'm going to give you a hint to take you away from that completely wrong direction you were going in there.

17:38 So more like a hairstyle, a hair barber. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

17:43 And I'll give you another hint as well. It's specifically for pets.

17:46 This one. Woman mortified as groomers dot, dot, dot. Okay. Groomers shave her dog bald. Not bad. Not bad.

17:57 Okay. I'm going to tell you it is Woman mortified as groomers give dog haircut so bad she's convinced it's not her dog.

18:07 Oh, right. She doesn't understand that that is the dog behind the curtain or under the fur. That's right.

18:15 So she said that the haircut was so bad that she couldn't even recognize her dog anymore. And she said at the beginning, no, it's not my dog.

18:23 That's not my dog.

18:24 Why are you trying to give me this other dog?

18:26 It's not mine.

18:27 Until eventually she was convinced, oh yeah, actually it is my dog. It's just got a horrible haircut.

18:32 Yeah, right. Okay. Do we know the breed of this dog? I don't know. I didn't see that, I'm afraid. I'm imagining maybe a poodle or a shih tzu. I'm not sure. But some that could get very long and then they can really do quite creative things to them.

18:51 Yeah.

18:52 Okay. Okay. So she, I guess she had to foot the bill. She had to pay. Didn't she?

18:58 Yeah, I suppose so.

18:59 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

19:02 She's probably not going to be going back there anytime soon.

19:05 Yeah. So that's a little less positive than the global hunger decreasing.

19:11 That's true.

19:12 That's a nice mix we've got. So let's go to another funny and random one. Naughtiest child ever. Yeah, yeah.

19:19 So this happened just a few days ago, in fact. Right. A plane in Canada... was cancelled.

19:27 Did you hear about this? I did. You did. Oh God. Tell yourself. Uh, you could probably do it better, but I'll say the headline, um, airplane in Canada cancelled due to child. Miss, uh, cooperating, not cooperating with flight attendant. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

19:45 He refused to sit down and put his seatbelt on for the takeoff. And, uh, after trying for such a long time, they said, well, this just isn't going to work. And so they had to actually take him and his family off of the flight. But by the time they did that, the plane had missed its slot in the queue to go. And then it's one of these airports, which is, you know, it's not 24 hours like Heathrow or something. It actually has a cutoff point and they had to wait until the next day. So all of the people on that plane had to get off and wait until the following day.

20:17 So everyone was with them after the incident? I don't know whether they actually ended up getting on the same plane. Hopefully they didn't because I think there were quite a lot of angry people. Yeah, they would have been in the terminal afterwards.

20:32 I think they took the family off first and tried to get the plane to go again. uh then it was it was too late and then they had to get everybody off so uh yeah that's uh an embarrassing one from the family's perspective.

20:45 I've heard of horror stories with it it being similar to like the airport being closed and the amount of time that a pilot or crew member is allowed to be like functioning or like working like uh when they would go to another airport because of some error in the, in the aircraft or something. So they don't get to the destination. Then they're on the tarmac after circling for ages, then they get down and then they're waiting for the new part. The new part comes in and then just as they're about to take off, the amount of time that the pilot is maxed on goes over. So then they have to wait for another pilot and the whole people in the plane stay in the, in the whole airplane the whole time. Oh, be terrible. That kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.

21:35 Really difficult. And imagine if it was a child just not cooperating because of that, that would be horrendous. Totally.

21:43 Yeah. So one horror story to think of as a, as a recent parent.

21:48 Yes. Yes. Are you, um, are you trying to raise, I mean, it's a bit early trying to raise your child in a way that they're not spoiled.

21:57 Yeah. Just, just from now on, I'm just going to make sure that he always sits down and put his, uh, puts his belt on in an aeroplane situation.

22:06 Went on the sofa watching TV, put your belt on! Exactly. Prepare them. Is there any reason why you think we have had this in our generation and it's never happened before?

22:20 I don't know. I mean, if you're asking me whether children are worse behaved today than they ever have been, I mean, there is a bit of a generational thing to always say that, isn't there? of people always thinking, oh, back in my day, everything was fine. So I don't really know whether children genuinely are worse behaved today than they used to be.

22:43 I would argue that, um, life has gotten better every generation, right? In most societies, life is easing or we're just having a more comfortable lifestyle. And there's a, there's a nice quote that I'll try to not butcher, which is, um, Bad times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create bad times.

23:13 So it's kind of this cyclical, what's the word?

23:17 Yeah, cycle.

23:19 Cycle, let's say cycle, of going through these iterations of like societal growth. And even though I'm contradicting myself, by saying that I think it's constantly getting better, but let's, let's separate those two thoughts for a second and appreciate that if that is true, then maybe we're at this time where we've, we've gotten so comfortable. We're not able to provide the younger generations what we need in order for them to be strong. Yeah. I see what you mean.

23:53 I mean, I suppose that's possible. Um, I, I wasn't alive, you know, uh, I wasn't an adult 30 years ago and 60 years ago and 90 years ago to really be able to compare. But I'm sure there have always been children, you know, throwing their vegetables out of their plates and throwing their toys out of the pram and being naughty in some way.

24:17 Yeah. Yeah. What about the fact that they were raised, children are not heard unless spoken to? Yeah. Something like that.

24:27 Yeah, yeah, that's true.

24:28 Yeah, yeah.

24:29 That's definitely not a phrase that you hear these days, is it?

24:33 No, never.

24:35 But I do remember hearing that as a child. I think it even still sounded a bit old fashioned when I was a child.

24:41 Exactly. Yeah.

24:42 Yeah.

24:43 So, yeah, I might be further in the camp of thinking that we are in the spoiled generation. But who knows? Let's try and change it.

24:54 Yeah, yeah, totally.

24:55 Totally.

24:56 Yeah. I mean, one thing that we are doing is that we are doing a no screens policy for, I don't know, forever, basically, like until he's, you know, a teenager or something. Because I just find it really kind of sad seeing like, seeing children, you know, two or three years old, being pushed along in a pram, you know, in a park, and they're looking at a phone or a tablet or something. I just think, God, There's some ducks over there. You're not looking at them because you're looking at ducks on a screen. Come on.

25:29 There's some ducks over there. Yeah. It's a complicated one, isn't it? Because, yeah, it's such an easy distraction. But I imagine it's doing no good for the development of the brain. Yeah, that's it. But yeah, lots to talk about there. But let's keep going. Yeah, let's go. So the world is getting better. Electric tuk-tuks.

25:50 Yeah, tuk-tuks.

25:51 Tuk-tuks.

25:52 Yeah. Otherwise known as rickshaws.

25:54 Yeah.

25:55 So, I mean, you've probably been on one of these somewhere in all of your travels, I'm sure. Three-wheeled vehicles, one on the front, two at the back. They're often taxis. Most of the time they're taxis. Have you been on a tuk-tuk slash rickshaw somewhere?

26:08 I have, yeah. I was taken to a tailor in Thailand without being told that I was going to a tailor.

26:15 Taken to a tailor in Thailand without being told, I see. Making a tongue twister there by accident.

26:23 I'm not going to repeat that. Yeah, exactly that. And he was just saying, you want to have a good day? Okay, I'll take you to a good couple of places. And before I knew it, I was being measured up for a tailor suit. that I didn't plan on buying. Yes, I've been in a tuk-tuk.

26:42 Did you give him any instructions before you got in his tuk-tuk?

26:46 I think I said, I want to explore the city for a day. I'd like to see some of the, I think there was a safari, not a safari, like a zoo. Right. But I didn't really have many thoughts as to where I wanted to go. I said, you decide, you decide. You're the perfect candidate to be sold a suit then. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, okay.

27:07 Anyway, this is in India, and this is just basically, it's just this boom of electric tuk-tuks slash rickshaws. Same thing. So India is quite well-known, or how do we say? What's the bad version of well-known?

27:30 Notorious?

27:31 Notorious, that's one. Thank you. It's notorious for having... poor air quality in many cities, right? Particularly Delhi. And in Delhi, in fact, in India as a whole, I think, two thirds of new tuk-tuks being sold now are electric.

27:52 Two thirds.

27:53 And it was only 20% back in 2020. So this is a really quick rise. And in Delhi city, so in the capital, there's a complete ban on the sale of petrol or diesel anything except electric tuk-tuks starting in January and on scooters and motorbikes in 2028 so this is going to completely change the atmosphere literally the atmosphere of Delhi city and other cities in India as well as we go by but it's just how fast this has been taken up which is really important because in if you've ever been to Delhi or many Indian cities they are of tuk-tuks like they're so so common um and to have these becoming uh electric instead of uh petrol diesel is going to make a radical difference to pollution to air quality.

28:47 That is huge and might i say thank god for consumerism because back in the day when things lasted a long time it would have probably taken a lot more many more years for them to take this up but if your engine is dying within three years or something, then you're going to get a new one and replace it with a battery. That's it. That, that, that's very good. Yeah. Yeah.

29:12 I like that a lot. I suppose a lot of people sort of say, well, we're just replacing one thing with another, but have we got any stats to significantly prove that, you know, going electric is by far, by far way better for the, for the global kind of consumption of resources?

29:32 I wish I could pull something out and say, it's this, but no, no, I don't know that exactly.

29:38 Okay.

29:40 Think, you know, I suppose some people could say, oh, sometimes the electricity which is being used is originally being produced using fossil fuels or something like that. But really, in the end, you know, we're trying to make that renewable as well. So the idea is to have it all being renewable. Yes. And in Norway, I think virtually all, like more than 90%, almost 100% of cars being sold today are electric.

30:08 I think I saw something about that. Yeah, it is virtually all of them.

30:11 And you can really feel it as well. Like I went to Oslo, I think it was at the beginning of last year or the end of the 2024 or something. And you can just notice that it feels cleaner. I mean, it feels cleaner because it's a lovely place anyway. But you're still in the city centre and every now and then you hear a petrol car going by and you notice it because all of the other cars.

30:37 Are electric.

30:37 So when you actually hear a petrol car, you go, I mean, that's loud, isn't it? You know?

30:41 Yeah.

30:41 It's like, I'm just letting out all of this horrible, horrible petrol fumes. Of course, that's what it's like when you're in a city where virtually all of the cars are electric. And I'm afraid to see here at home, I'm still driving a petrol car. Right.

30:55 Yeah. Same. Yeah. But I actually noticed that even with London needing to improve, the low emissions thing that they did, that removed a lot of petrol engines and diesel engines, I think, from entering the city centre. And I lived there for two years in the last three or four years. And I noticed when I went to Porto that there was a significant difference difference in the air quality yeah and it was mainly when i was cycling and the buses and the heavier vehicles were going past i was like coughing like yeah i couldn't believe how different a diesel or petrol engine is in comparison to these electric buses that are going past and it actually made me think okay it is mostly upsetting to most people about

31:47 like the charges being made but it is actually improving the air quality significantly Totally, totally. Yeah.

31:53 And really, even if we just cut it in half, you know, just had all of those vehicles, just half of them suddenly becoming electric would be a massive difference. And I mean, which is why for a place like Delhi, it would just be absolutely huge. Like I used to, I spent six months living in Underbad, which is the kind of the biggest city in India, which is not very well known. It's like the fourth or fifth biggest city, but it's not very famous. And it's the same, just like so much traffic, so polluted. When I think about how different it would be for those tuk-tuks to be electric, I think, great.

32:28 Yeah.

32:29 Bring it on.

32:29 Yeah. Bring it on. Absolutely. Electric tuk-tuks all the way. Okay. So we're going to go back to the tabloids now. From the tabloids, I want to change my name, but I'm worried my choice will stop getting a.

32:43 Stop me getting a.

32:45 Oh, stop me.

32:46 Yes.

32:46 Yeah. I... Didn't see the me. My choice will stop me getting a something. Okay. I want to change my name, but I'm worried my choice will stop me getting a job. It is job. Well done, Charlie. Yeah, you got it. You got it. Yeah, that's right.

33:05 This was in the Daily Mirror a few weeks ago.

33:07 Okay.

33:08 And I tell you what, I've got another question for you. So the name that she wants to change her name to is summer can you guess what her surname is her oh.

33:22 Her surname summer times that would be good as well but no go on no the other way around yeah.

33:34 Yeah show her first name that she's thinking about changing her name to is summer what's her surname is.

33:40 In a season is it a season summer winter It is Summer Winter. That's exactly right. Oh, come on. Why does she want to change her name to Summer? Do you know her first name already? No, I can't remember. No, no, no.

33:52 But yeah, that's it. She was thinking about changing her name to Summer Winter. But she thought maybe that jobs might not take her seriously after she did that. But apparently she's already actually been calling herself Summer for a few years. She just hasn't done it officially.

34:07 Yeah.

34:08 Not sure whether I would recommend her to do that or not.

34:11 It would be a good stage name.

34:13 Yeah.

34:14 Yeah, would be. And here comes summer winter. That's right.

34:17 Although actually, Kanye West named his daughter North. You see, so Northwest is already a person out there somewhere.

34:27 Northwest. Yeah.

34:29 Summer winter.

34:30 Northwest. Yeah. We are heading Northwest. Northwest. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. OK, cool. All right. Anti-clockwise bias. This is in the funny and random section. Anti-clockwise bias. Let me try and guess this. So people like to turn left as in like anti-clockwise more. So businesses are adapting to it.

35:01 Do you know what? There isn't even a second part, but you are more or less right on the first bit. So some scientists, researchers in Spain and Japan came together and said, I think they did it in both those countries because they're quite different cultures and they wanted to compare them. But the same thing was happening. They measured people or watched people from above. So they put them in a square or in a circle or something and just said, walk. And they just watched what people did.

35:29 And there was a bias. So more people generally choosing to walk anti-clockwise instead of clockwise. So going slightly to the left rather than slightly to the right. And that was the same in Japan and in Spain. And they did it over loads of different studies. I think that, honestly, they probably did this just out of the general interest of just seeing, you know.

35:52 What would be the answer?

35:53 Because it's actually the opposite of what I would have thought would have been the answer. I would have thought people probably would have gone more clockwise. But anyway, that's not it.

36:01 I wonder if it's to do with the driving side. Does Japan drive on the left or the right?

36:06 I think Japan is one of the only places which is like us in the UK driving on the left side. I think, yeah, I think they're one of the only ones actually.

36:20 Are you checking? Yeah, I just checked. You're right. It is, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah.

36:24 I think it's one of the only places that does.

36:26 Um, so no, Australia is the same. Yeah.

36:28 Australia is the same, but yeah, Spain is, is on the right. Uh, so no, it's not that I, but the, uh, researchers said that this might be useful for trying to think about, um, creating pathways and, you know, for building sites, uh, building things to kind of, um, choose how people are going to walk and things like that i don't know whether there's any real point behind that but.

36:53 No i think there's i think there's a lot of energy spent in this kind of research for supermarket layouts because a lot of them have to choose where to put their like the what they're called lost leaders like the banana the banana is known to be the lost leader of every supermarket apparently so they get you in with a very cheap banana And then they hike up the price for the chicken or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

37:21 Milk is one that's normally a loss leader in the UK, isn't it?

37:24 Is it?

37:24 It's sold really quite cheap. Yeah.

37:28 And we go for the milk, don't we? Oh, I need to go to the supermarket for some milk. Yeah. Oh, I'll get some chocolate as well. Exactly. Yeah. Toffee crisp. Yeah, okay. Okay, so anti-clockwise bias. We tend to move or like to turn to the left. Yeah, that's it. Okay, cool. Good to know. Glad we've uncovered that truth. That's it. Now moving on to some hopeful stuff. The world is getting better.

37:57 Education up. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

38:00 So not only are we less hungry as a people overall, but also more people are completing education than ever. So since the year 2000, the number of children who complete primary school has gone up from just 77% to 88%. So that's in 20, this was from last year, so 25 years, it's gone up from 77% to 78%. And in secondary school, it's absolutely flown up. So the number of children completing secondary school in the year 2000 was only 37%. So just over one in three. It's really, really low. So I think that that's measured to the children who get to 16 still in education. So it was only 37%, and that's gone up to 61%, so almost two-thirds. Sorry, is that global or national?

38:53 Yeah, global. Wow! Yeah, in the world.

38:57 And as a real number, that's actually more than double the amount of children who are finishing secondary school. So even though it doesn't sound like it because it's 37% to 61%, because of the population increase of the world over that time, the actual number of children... finishing secondary school has more than doubled uh since uh the year 2000 that's it.

39:19 And that's and that's including the blip of covid.

39:23 Including the blip of covid yeah because this was measured last year so yeah i think during covid it was the same as hunger so it went down a little bit, or in the case of hunger, up a little bit. And then, yeah, it's got better since then. Yeah, and now it's the best it's ever been. I wonder what the percentage of school in the UK is. It's got to be like 90-something percent, right?

39:43 Oh, yeah, absolutely.

39:45 Yeah, yeah, I don't know exactly, but I would think that for the UK... if it's just measured to 16, then yeah, it would be, you know, 98% or something like that.

39:53 Probably. Yeah.

39:55 Yeah. Cause even the, most of the children that drop out that can't do their GCSEs or something like that, they'll probably end up going to some other kind of institution that would still count as being like in education. Yeah. Something like that.

40:10 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Fantastic news. So we're getting more food and more education. That's it. Yeah. I like it. I like it a lot.

40:19 Do you feel like the world's getting better after, after hearing these statistics?

40:23 So I really liked the book. Uh, is it Steven Pinkner in enlightenment now? Yeah.

40:30 Yeah. Yeah.

40:31 I haven't read that one.

40:32 I read the previous one, uh, which had a similar theme, the better angels of our nature.

40:36 Yeah.

40:36 Which is, um, yeah.

40:37 Steven Pinker. Yeah, totally.

40:39 He, he talks about this stuff quite a lot.

40:41 He does. So that was, I think that was over a decade ago that I read that or maybe, seven or eight years ago. So I had this sort of understanding that despite the tabloids, um, peppering us with bad news, the world is generally getting better. Um, but I'd say probably since COVID I've had a little bit of a more negative lens on, I feel like the, the, the middle-class financial situation is getting pretty bad or has gotten worse in the last five years. So I've, I've started to question whether it's all getting better constantly. So this is a very nice, timely message to hear.

41:20 Yeah, I think Steven Pinker would say it's not always getting better constantly. There's always going to be like ups and downs, ups and downs, ups and downs. But the general trajectory of the world is getting better overall. But yeah, I share your concerns completely about the middle class and particularly the in lots of parts of the world it's getting more difficult in many ways um but it's kind of how do i say this without uh offending people it's not quite as important as people being starving yeah of course so like we're we're not starving you know okay yeah we we can um well our lives are like maybe slightly more difficult than they would have been five years ago and hopefully in five years they'll be

42:06 better again but yeah considering like a you know, the population of Argentina, 43 million people are not hungry today that were just three years ago. That's a much more kind of significant factor and the same for education.

42:24 Yeah. And just to state to the audience, that's talking about the scale of impact, not Argentina. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

42:33 That was my comparable country, 43 million. I think that could also be somewhere like, What else has got 43 million people? Iraq or something.

42:41 Have we got 60 something or way more?

42:44 Yeah, we've got 65, I think, in the UK. Yeah.

42:48 Okay.

42:49 About the same as France. I think Spain's got about 55 or something like that.

42:54 Yeah.

42:54 Do you do many pub quizzes? I used to two or three years ago. If you're thinking I'd be good at it, I'm not that good. I'm good at the geography stuff. And then, and, um, you know, a bit of the history stuff, but then when there's other things come up, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah.

43:15 Fair enough. Yeah. We went to a wedding in New York last week and actually it was only two days ago that I came back. I feel a little bit jet lagged still. And, uh, I was, uh, I was marrying the couple. So I got a license to marry somebody or two people in New York. Wow. That was quite cool. That's incredible.

43:35 That is incredible.

43:36 Yeah, and in the sort of day, they had planned a pub trivia game. They wanted to make it like a festival kind of wedding. And so we had a pub trivia and the guy doing it, I thought he was hired by them to run this pub trivia. And he asked the question, what is the word that Brits use for a modern dwelling inside of a bigger housing?

44:05 that Americans use for a different word. And we came to the conclusion it was flat. Like they mean a flat tire. Like I've got a flat.

44:17 Right.

44:17 They've got a puncture in their tire. And we say a flat, like apartment. But he said, no, it was puncture. The word was puncture. So I got quite annoyed. And I said, I was a bit drunk. So I said... Read that again. Read that question again. And he said it and he didn't end with the right bit that he meant. So it sounded like I was right. So I said, see, see, you're wrong. And it went down terribly.

44:45 Apparently he told the bride because she said, how was it? Did it go well? And he was like, well, yes, but your officiant was very rude, very, very rude. And I didn't realize that it was actually the groom's mum's partner. Oh, no way. Yeah. I thought he was paid to be there, but he was just volunteering his two cents on how to host a pub trivia. Well, to be fair, he was wrong. I'm going to leave it like that.

45:19 Yes. Yeah.

45:19 Just to stir the pot even more. Hopefully he's not listening. Sorry. Yeah. Hopefully not. He'll probably search, search me though. Efficient. No. Actually, I had to tell him that I did a podcast and I did a pub trivia one. Oh, there we go. Yeah. But yeah, I was trying to bond with him, but it didn't work.

45:36 Well, I've got a question for you then. Not a pub trivia question, but how do you become an efficient to marry people in the United States? I mean, is it something that you just have to apply for and anybody can do it or?

45:50 Yeah.

45:50 Yeah.

45:50 It's, uh, it's a grueling process. You've got to, uh, go to the town council and say, can I marry somebody? And they say it's $ 25 and then you pay $ 25 and you sign a piece of paper. And that was it. Wow.

46:05 I don't expect that it would be anything like that in, uh, in the UK or any other country.

46:11 Right. That is a really American thing, right?

46:13 Yeah.

46:14 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My, uh, my mum, sort of led the blessing of our wedding in England. And we say those words because legally you cannot do that. You've got to be an officiant legally through the, yeah, I don't know what it is, but you've got to do a lot of training for it.

46:32 Right, right.

46:33 Have official certificates. Yeah.

46:36 Did you get a feeling for it? Did you have lots of desire to marry more people now that you've done one?

46:45 Well, I did ask, does that certificate allow me to marry more people within 24 hours? Like, can I just grab another couple and do another wedding? But they said, no, it's specifically those two people. I enjoyed it. I did enjoy it. It was lovely because I knew the people. So I'd be happy to marry more friends. Right, right.

47:06 And it's also fun leading up to it to say, I'm marrying Katie in the summer. Nice, nice. Yeah.

47:13 But.

47:15 yeah i think it helped that i teach english because i was able to go quite slow yeah be mindful with the vocabulary versus our friend who was the best man comedian he was very very quick and like fast going through his speech so yeah yeah um but yeah so yeah that was that was fun but anyway back to the news um where are we so we've got education is up And then another from the tabloids, shoppers complain, dot, dot, dot.

47:47 Could be anything, couldn't it? Yeah. Shoppers complain that Primark is no longer the cheapest shop on the high street.

48:02 Good idea, but it's not that. Shall I give you a clue?

48:05 Yes. Okay.

48:06 It's shoppers complain about something. In August.

48:13 In August. Oh, about the heat? No. Good try. Not that. About... I don't know, Stephen.

48:25 I'll give you a longer clue. I'll leave you just the one tiny bit. Shoppers complain about Morrisons stocking something in August.

48:37 Oh, stocking something related to Christmas. Hey! Oh my goodness me, in August. Well done, well done. That's right.

48:44 Shoppers complain about Morrisons stocking Christmas items in August. That is the headline. Look, you're shaking your head there. You agree with the shoppers. You're saying that's terrible.

48:55 Yeah, surely Count Binface would agree with us there. That is terrible.

49:00 When Binface is Prime Minister, he's going to ban Christmas items being sold in supermarkets. In August, that's right. I mean, people do say, oh, it gets earlier every year, don't they? That's kind of a traditional thing to say. And yeah, well, in August, especially during a heat wave, uh i can understand.

49:21 August is unacceptable i've heard of october and that is just too far but what happened to september at least bleed into that first that is totally that is going way too far ahead Yeah, I.

49:34 Mean, imagine buying a chocolate Father Christmas and going home with it, and it's just all completely melted by the time you even bring it into your 32-degree house.

49:44 Yeah, bad Santa. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, what are you buying? Crackers? Yeah, I don't know. Christmas lights? What would they be stocking? I don't know. Yeah, Christmas stocking.

50:00 From what I saw... in this, uh, again, daily mirror article, it was literally what you think of as these kind of things that you could just buy a couple of days before Christmas, you know, like little chocolates and, um, you know.

50:14 Uh, stocking fillers, stocking fillers. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

50:18 That's it.

50:19 Okay. Wow. That's crazy.

50:21 All right. Um, speaking of the heat wave, should we go to the heat wave advice?

50:25 Yes. Yeah.

50:27 So this, this was something that I noticed in, in many different newspapers had, because we've, we're on our fourth or fifth heat wave of the year now in the UK. I'm even recording today with a fan on and with the door open. I would never normally do this. But it's, it's in Canterbury where I live, it's 32 degrees today, which used to be uncommon and is, progressively becoming more common.

50:53 Lots of newspapers have had little articles where they're just giving advice on how to live through the heat wave and what to do. What do you think that they might have had in their advice sections? Well, I'm doing one right now and it's called the Egyptian method.

51:10 Do you know of this one?

51:11 No, I don't know that.

51:12 I'm going to show you. Is that a towel? It's a towel, a wet towel that is on my lap. And I've got a fan blowing against it. I don't know if the fan's any good because it's just hot air, but it's quite cooling to have a wet towel. Normally you'd like sleep with it on you. Egyptians apparently used to do this. But I've taken it to the next level by putting it on my lap like an old lady whilst doing a podcast. Great, great. Yeah, well. It kind of feels like I've soiled myself at the same time. Um, but yeah, actually I, I always get confused. I think of soiled myself as being urine, but it's apparently poo, isn't it?

51:58 I actually did think it was the latter.

52:01 Yeah. The number two. Yeah. Yes.

52:03 Yes.

52:04 I think it is that. So it doesn't feel like I've soiled myself. It feels like I've whacked myself. Whacked myself. Yeah.

52:09 Yeah.

52:09 Okay. Just to get some dignity back. And, uh, just to add to the ideas that they might be floating about, um, There's one that's going around that's a bit of a scam where it's like NASA engineered materials cooling your bedroom with five pounds worth of plastic. And it's just like you put water in the fan and then it blows air.

52:34 It's like an air cooler, I guess. But it really does nothing. And my mum bought one and she is convinced that it is amazing. Right.

52:44 Well, if NASA invented it, then it must be good, right? Yeah.

52:48 Yeah. Supposedly. But they didn't, right? No, they didn't. Yeah.

52:53 Yeah.

52:53 But it was quite funny because I saw that article and then I came to my parents' house and it was there. How's that? Okay.

53:01 You've seen that advert as well.

53:02 Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I guess that didn't, that isn't what you're looking at.

53:08 No, but you've already hit a couple that are kind of similar actually. So, Um, so as far as like your, your, um, uh, towel on the legs thing, like one, one thing is just putting water on you in general. So putting, pouring water on your head is apparently quite a good way to just cool down instantly.

53:28 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense.

53:29 Like you, you might think about that if you're ever doing a sport or something, you have a bit of a drink and you like pour a bit on you, that kind of thing. We kind of naturally do that. It's a kind of, um, you don't, uh, it's giving yourself cause the sensation of, uh, sweating, uh, you know, to make your skin feel a bit cooler from the evaporation.

53:48 So it's kind of allowing yourself to do that without actually having to sweat. And you are doing that on your legs.

53:56 Yes, I am. Yeah. But you might have to phone the MacBook genie if you're just happily pouring water over your head whilst you're typing. Yeah.

54:05 Maybe don't do it indoors and definitely don't do it over your laptop. But in general, in general, Yeah, and apparently the same for your feet. Like you can just put your feet, like just before you go to bed, just putting your feet in some water or something like that before you get into bed. When I was, again, living in India, in Ahmedabad, there was a period of time, a long period of time, two or three months, where it was 40 degrees during the day and 30 degrees at night. It was just awful. And I just couldn't sleep at all, didn't have any air conditioning or anything.

54:36 So I actually did like several times during the night go into the shower, just get myself completely soaking wet and just get back into bed like that.

54:45 Yeah.

54:46 Yeah.

54:46 That makes sense. It did work. Yeah.

54:48 Yeah. Yeah.

54:49 And your bed, your bed got rather wet. Yeah. Yeah, it did.

54:53 But it was so hot.

54:54 You wanted that. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. That's true. I think, I think it is terrible when it's the evenings that it stays around. Like if it drops off in the morning and the evening, then that's more bearable. But yeah, when it's 30 degrees going to bed, oh, Yeah, totally. Yeah.

55:12 I'll just run through some of the other ones quickly. So drinking little and often rather than all at once is a good thing. Eating lighter and later, so a little bit less and eating later rather than during the middle of the day apparently is a good one.

55:27 Yeah.

55:28 And one thing which is kind of the opposite of what English people think, which is rather than when it gets really hot, just taking all of your clothes off, which is the kind of a standard British way.

55:38 Yeah.

55:40 You even see that in the high street sometimes. It's actually to wear light, loose, but covering clothes, which is actually generally what you see in hotter countries, really, isn't it? Especially in Asia, where people are generally wearing clothes that really cover them.

55:59 Does it matter about the colour of the clothing? Do you know what?

56:04 I didn't see that in any of these articles, but I know that black is more of an insulator. So that's probably a bad idea. And white reflects the light. So that's probably a good idea. But that's just off of the top of my head. Some cultures have very bright robes or clothes. And then some have very dark clothes that are covering. And I'm like, well, surely it'd be better if.

56:29 They were light. Yeah. Yeah.

56:31 And then in the Mediterranean, they generally have all of their buildings just being white, don't they, to reflect the heat as well. So I would expect it to be light. It reminds me of when I was in a strawberry farm. I was working on a strawberry farm in Australia for a couple of months, about 10 years ago. And it was, again, boiling hot during the day, no clouds, just full on sun.

56:57 And The people that worked there, they were like half backpackers like me who were just staying there for a couple of months and make some strawberry money and then go off. And then the other half were Vietnamese people who just came with a six-month visa, worked on the strawberry farm, and then went back to Vietnam. And you could see the difference of how people dressed. It was just amazing. The hotter it was, all the backpackers were just like shirts off, working with nothing, maybe just a hat and some glasses and stuff. And then all of the Vietnamese people were covered head to toe. Just like every part of their body was completely covered, which in retrospect, they were right.

57:37 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That does make sense. Okay. So that's heat wave advice. We haven't got any more tips there.

57:44 Just going out early and late. So skipping the hottest part of the day. Oh, and actually one thing which I actually learned relatively recently, which is that when it's really, really hot, you know, it's natural for people generally would close their curtains to stop the light coming in. I think most people have kind of got used to that kind of idea. In the middle of the day, you close your curtains, but also even closing the windows themselves.

58:11 So the glass part as well, because, you know, I would have thought having a bit of an airflow going through the house would be a good idea. But actually, if the temperature outside is hotter than it is in your house, It's actually better to leave the windows closed as well. And I've started doing that recently. And yeah, I think that's a good idea too. My mother-in-law from Spain, she has always done that. And yeah, she's right.

58:41 It is better. Yeah, it's so counter to what I think of, like get a breeze. Because even, I don't know, is hot air moving nicer than still air? just slightly less hot air?

58:56 I think if the only thing that you care about is keeping the temperature down, then yeah, it's better to keep the windows closed during the day. And then when the temperature drops in the, in the evening and then in the early morning then open everything.

59:12 Up yeah yeah yeah i saw something about putting your fan out the window when it's dropped and um like turning it towards the window right so you're pushing the air out of your room I did that for a while and my wife thought I was crazy, but I proved her wrong because it dropped by 0.5%. So yeah. Yes. Great. Yeah.

59:35 Well done. There we go. Okay. So let's, let's get the last few. We've got road accidents, which is in the world is getting better category. That's promising. Yeah.

59:48 Well, it's, you could probably guess this one. It's literally just that, uh, Well, the same as hunger being better, the same as education being better. There are just less people being killed and injured on the roads.

1:00:02 In the world overall.

1:00:04 So the number of deaths since 2011 has dropped by 21% despite the fact that there are more than a billion more vehicles on the road since 2011. So there's a billion more vehicles on the road since 2011 But still, the number of people who have died on the road overall since 2011 has dropped by 21%, which is quite an amazing statistic, really. You'd think it must have gone up, but it hasn't.

1:00:36 It's gone down. I don't know if you've gone any deeper, but why? That is such a significant amount. What could have changed in the last... Is it electric, robotic, self-driving cars? No, that can't be it, because that's not.

1:00:53 I saw that on, on, in one place suggesting that it was that, but I think it can't be that the, the other ideas that I saw, uh, seem more convincing to me because I think the number of, of actually self-driving cars must be tiny in the world compared to, you know, the billion new cars there are. But, uh, no, I, I think it is, uh, because of safer roads in general.

1:01:15 So they're just being built better. Right. So when you, the better the infrastructure is all around the world, uh, you know, a quality road is going to have less accidents on it than a poorly built road. Yeah. So that's one thing. There's also more speed limits and more enforcement of speed limits. So if there are more places where people know I have to stick to this speed and if I don't stick to this speed, I'm going to get in trouble. Then that actually lowers the amount of accidents that there are. And also just the vehicles themselves are safer. So the quality of the vehicles that are being built today and even being sold in most parts of the world are going to be safer than vehicles that were built 20 years ago, 40 years ago,

1:02:04 60 years ago. So that combination of things together, I think, is what's making less road accidents.

1:02:11 Apologies, but. can you repeat when you're comparing the 20%? Is it a year ago? 10 years ago?

1:02:17 How long ago?

1:02:19 15 years ago. Okay. 15 years ago. That makes sense.

1:02:22 Yeah.

1:02:22 Better roads, better cars. Yeah. And the other third one that I can't remember. Yeah.

1:02:27 Safer vehicles.

1:02:29 Oh yeah.

1:02:29 Safer vehicles, more speed limits and enforcement speed limits.

1:02:32 Yeah. Yeah. And safer roads. Yeah. That's it. Should we hit the tabloids? Yeah. I just wanted to add that. I remember the biggest cause of, injury or death in vehicles at the beginning when cars came into play, um, was actually just from like stop starting or like dodgy movements on the road, like a stone or something. And then, um, hitting the wooden dashboard, like instant death, cranium breaking.

1:03:02 Yeah.

1:03:03 Yeah.

1:03:04 I can't remember what the statistics for this are, but there was a time like when, um, seatbelts were first not just put into cars, but being enforced of people having to use them. The number of people that died fell really dramatically from people wearing seatbelts as well. This is one of the things which is just like so clear, so clearly made a big difference. And it's just, as you say, like if you just had a really hard stop, you could bash your head on whatever's in front of you from the dashboard.

1:03:36 Yeah. And thinking about the road quality back then, It was just like a horse trail kind of. Yeah. Yeah. So we've come a long way, just as Steven Pinker says. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

1:03:50 I mean, the fact that you can have a billion more vehicles and still have a fifth less accidents.

1:03:56 That's incredible.

1:03:57 Yeah.

1:03:58 That is incredible. Yeah. Okay. So we've got from the tabloids. Post office tells people to stop using dot, dot, dot. Stamps.

1:04:12 Good idea, but it's not stamps.

1:04:14 Post office tells people to stop using the post office. Could be, yeah, yeah. Royal Mail.

1:04:24 No. It's something about writing the address. What should people not do when they're writing the address on a letter?

1:04:31 Using ink? Using the handwriting? No. Good idea. Stop using... Postcodes? No.

1:04:42 Good idea, but no. I'm going to tell you because it's quite a difficult one, actually. It is punctuation. So apparently people don't know how to write addresses anymore because they just don't use them enough because they don't write them enough. And people have started putting in commas and full stops and things like that within the address itself.

1:05:02 And so the post office is saying, please don't do that. You don't need to do that. You just put the person's name first. And then the first line of their address and then the second line of their address and then the postcode. And if you're sending it internationally, you put a country as well.

1:05:15 That's it. Yeah.

1:05:16 No, no dots, no dashes, nothing like that.

1:05:19 I actually learned something from you there. I thought I was going to hear you say people are using exclamation marks or question marks. Like I think it's, um, but I, I, I have been, uh, partial to a comma occasionally, maybe, uh, maybe a comma.

1:05:38 Yeah where would you put a comma if there's.

1:05:41 Like two lines of the address i might i might put it in between like is it at the end of one line well.

1:05:48 The post office is telling you not to so you've got to stop stop with the commas charlie confusing them they were writing it for you yeah i don't see.

1:05:56 That being too confusing for them why is that so bad I don't know.

1:06:00 I don't know whether it's something that they, you know, they think it takes them an extra, you know, or might sometimes take someone an extra millisecond to realise, is that a comma or is that supposed to be a, I don't know, what can you confuse a comma for? A one or a two or something?

1:06:16 I don't know. And they think get very carried away with a comma could be a tale of something.

1:06:23 Yeah, something like that.

1:06:24 It sounds like the tabloids need more news though.

1:06:28 Yeah, I did choose the ones that I thought were the most, you know, strange and random. The next one's good, actually.

1:06:37 Okay, next one. I sent work email. I sent work email.

1:06:41 Oh, I see.

1:06:42 I sent work email to wrong people by accident and got dot, dot, dot. Can I add an article? I sent a work email, right?

1:06:52 Yeah.

1:06:52 Or just loads of work emails. I sent a work email to the wrong people. This is called Journalist English, right? Totally, totally.

1:07:03 The way that, like, for some reason, particularly in tabloids, they shorten things. They take away articles so that it ends up with something which is grammatically incorrect, but it's a headline. So it's just the title of the news article. You wouldn't get this within the actual story. It's just the headline. So this is actually the headline. I sent work email to wrong people by accident and got... But yeah, if it was grammatically correct, then it would be, I sent a work email to the wrong people by accident and I got.

1:07:42 Something. And I got a raise. Wow, you actually got it. I was expecting you. Yeah, it is. It is, yeah. It is.

1:07:53 In fact, it's promoted, but same thing.

1:07:56 Yeah, a raise.

1:07:57 The title is, I sent work email to wrong people by accident and got promoted.

1:08:03 That's right.

1:08:03 I was expecting you to say fired there, actually, Chuck.

1:08:06 Yeah, most people would. Yeah, I should have. Yeah. And I've just actually maybe realized why. Maybe they got a good client from that email.

1:08:15 No, it wasn't that, actually. What happened was he sent an email to somebody who's just like supposed to be a little bit above him, like his supervisor or something. that was supposed to be like a really mundane, typical, like, everything's fine, I'm just doing blah, blah, blah. But for some reason, in the way that he wrote it, it sounded a bit like he was planning to leave his job, right?

1:08:41 And at the same time, instead of clicking to send it to his supervisor, he accidentally sent it to everyone in the company. A few hundred people, including the bosses higher up in the company. So they thought, uh, they were talking to themselves and saying, oh, it seems like he isn't happy. He's, he's going to leave or something like that. Uh, and so one of them called him into their, uh, their office and said, ah, okay, I've got your email this morning. It seems like you're, you're planning to leave. Let's have a little talk about, um, what conditions we can make, uh, for you to stay.

1:09:19 We'd like to offer you a little raise. And he took it.

1:09:23 There you go. Oh, my God. But now he's come out and said what happened. They must be mortified. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know whether the.

1:09:33 In fact, in the article, they didn't mention this person's name. So maybe he's gone to the tabloid newspaper and got this story in without people knowing, but it was actually from... him so his bosses wouldn't be able to actually see it but.

1:09:51 Yeah business a very specific situation that's it i if i had promoted someone from an email a mass email and then seen that in the news i'd be like oh yeah that was him yeah you're fired yeah get the hell out of here that's interesting okay well there we go so if you're feeling hard done by at work then you know pop an email out to the masses at the company and see what happens tomorrow. Just make sure that you're indispensable, I would imagine. Yeah, exactly. Otherwise, you might need a new job. Fantastic. Thank you so much for those news articles or news stories that we've just gone through. So that all kind of came up from the last 12-ish months, would you say?

1:10:40 Yeah, less than that. Most of it is stuff that I've seen over the last three months ish, I think, uh, maybe some, some of the good news, uh, excuse me, some of the, um, the, the world, uh, is getting better news. Is it slightly older, but that's maybe from last year. The rest of it is, is, uh, yeah, it's very recent. Um, in fact, the electric tuk-tuks, uh, hasn't even completely happened yet. So it's in January that Delhi is banning new, uh, new petrol and diesel tuk-tuks.

1:11:12 Yeah. Okay. So yeah, we've got less hunger, uh, Less fumes in specifically in India, more education and less road accidents. That is something to celebrate. Thank you very much for bringing that to the attention of the listeners of the British English podcast. Thank you, Stephen. For anybody who hasn't listened to Stephen's show, it is Send7, simple English news daily done in seven minutes. in a very non-biased way, covering all parts of the globe, helping you keep up to date with the news without taking your whole morning up.

1:11:51 It's very useful, very friendly, even to native speakers like myself. I like to tune into it. And you can just tell your Alexa to do that. Alexa, latest episode of Send7. It's very useful while you're cooking or anything like that. But yeah, thank you very much, Stephen. I'll put your links in the show notes of the YouTube and podcast.

1:12:11 But yeah, maybe this time next year, we'll get you back on.

1:12:15 Thank you so much, Charlie. I couldn't have said it better myself.

1:12:18 Yeah, absolutely.

1:12:19 Yeah. If you want to listen to the podcast, just look in your podcast app for Simple English News Daily. We've also got a newsletter now as well, which comes out every Friday, which is the same kind of thing. So it's combining a bit of the world's news with a few little English exercises as well. So that comes out every Friday and you can see that at send7. org slash newsletter. But yeah, thank you so much, Charlie. And it's been a pleasure to be on and to talk to you about how the world's getting better and about some of the funny little random things that I don't get to talk about the rest.

1:12:54 Of the time. Absolutely. Yeah, I suppose woman mortified as groomers dot dot dot doesn't quite make it in the seven minutes of global news.

1:13:04 Somehow a dog's haircut doesn't quite cut it.

1:13:08 Very nice. yeah fantastic thank you so much Stephen until next time have a lovely

1:13:14 Time thank you Charlie have a great day bye guys