[bad word]  [bad word] englistening

Hello everybody, [bad word] to Luke’s English Podcast. It’s actually 5 November here and I’m just going to tell you some things about Halloween in this podcast. So I’ll be talking about, you know, Halloween and what people usually do at Halloweenm and some of the story behind the Halloween festival and exactly what it is. I’ll also be talking about 5 November which is also an important day in the calendar here, in England. We celebrate Guy Fawkes Night on 5 November. And there is an interesting story behind that as well. So I’ll tell you about that too. Also in this podcast we are going to listen to a bit of stand [bad word] and you’re going to learn some interesting expressions using the word “up” and the word “down”. So cultural information, bit of entertainment and some genuine language learning opportunities for you. Isn’t that fantastic? Yes it is. Ladies and gentlemen, yes it is.

So Halloween. Now, as you know probably, Halloween falls on 31 October every year. And it’s a kind of traditional festival, which is celebrated in many different countries around the world. We celebrate it here, but it’s not quite as important a day here, in England as it is in America. In fact many British people think that Halloween really is more of an American invention or an American festival. We tend to celebrate 5 November, I’ll talk about that a bit later.

But what’s Halloween all about? Well, we do do it here, we do celebrate it. And, let’s see… well it’s [bad word]  because there is a bit of history to it. Basically, before I go into the history, Halloween is a kind of, generally something that children enjoy in Britain. And it’s a kind of a chance for kids to go out and, sort of, celebrate basically the end of summer and the beginning of winter. They do it by using bits of, kind of, horror imagery symbols that represents, kind of, scary things.

So you got lots of pumpkins with scary faces, spiders, skeletons, you know, demons, dracula that kind of thing. And kids have little parties where they dress up in different costumes, like horrible costumes of ghosts and skeletons. And typically will go in their neighbourhood and they would knock on people’s doors and go “Trick or treating”, which is basically a way for them to just kind of knock on the door of a neighbour and they say “Trick or treat”. And the neighbour has two options: either they can give the child or children a treat, which is typically some sweats, you know. Or they choose trick and in that case the children then play a trick on that person in some way. And often it would involve some kind of practical joke like maybe spraying them with the some silly spray or I don’t know playing another trick on them, you know, doing something like splashing water or them or something like that, usually quite mild tricks. So that’s “Trick or treating”. So that’s it, but…

Some of the background information. I’m just going to read some things to you from wikipedia, the slightly unreliable online encyclopedia. Basically Halloween, as it says here, it’s an annual holiday observed on 31 October. Yeah, 31 October, if you say it properly like that. And it has its root in Celtic festival of Samhain, I think, and the Christian holiday All Saint’s Day. But these days it’s largely a secular celebration. So, not really a religious holiday. But it has its roots in, kind of, religious festivals. [bad word] Halloween activities include “Trick or treating”, wearing costumes, attending costume parties, carving jack-o’-lantern. In America they call them jack-o’-lanterns, in here we just call them Halloween pumpkins. Ghost tours, bonfires. bonfire is like a large fire that you’d have in your garden or in a park. Apple bobbing – that is like a little game, where you put apples in a big ball of water and you have to try catch the apples with your teeth and pull them out. And the person who gets most number of apples is the winner, and telling ghosts stories and watching horror films.

So, some of the history to Halloween. Let’s see… Basically, I think [bad word] from ancient Celts. Well, the Celts were a kind of race of people who lived in Great Britain and Ireland, probably more Ireland, I think, certainly after, you know, Britain was invaded by people like Normans and Vikings and so on. But the ancient Celts basically believed that they were two halfs of the year: the light half and the dark half. Basically, kind of summertime and wintertime. Right? Now they believe that it’s on the border between the light half and the dark half of the year, which falls around at the end of October, the beginning of November. At that time the kind of border between this world and the spirit world [bad word] very thin. Right? And it allows spirits both harmless like playful harmless spirits, but also harmful scary spirits to pass through. So it’s kind of when we get close to the spirit world and some of the [bad word] through into our world. Right? Now basically, traditionally, this was a time where families’ ancestors, so sort of spirits of dead relatives were invited into the house and [bad word]  But the dangerous harmful spirits were kind of warded off or scared away. Right?

People believe that originally people started to wear scary costumes and masks as a way of trying to scare off the harmful spirits. Ok? So, as well as that, as well as kind of wearing these masks and using symbols to frighten away the scary spirits, people had these big bonfires, which kind of represented some act of cleansing using fire to kind of cleanse the evil spirits away. Then I guess more and more, as that festival was celebrated, it’s [bad word] kind [bad word] really. You know these days, particularly in America, that’s what a lot of people say, it’s [bad word] 

So you see all the shops are filled with you know toys and masks and costumes and pumpkins and things like that. “Trick or treating” is something that I used to do, when I was a kid. It was quite fun really. We’d get dressed up in different costumes, wearing our masks. And then we’d go walking… go walking around the neighbourhood. Knocking on doors, saying “Trick or treat” and of course people would generally give us some sweets and things and actually if you think about it. It’s quite a… It’s really a great day to be a kid, because suddenly all the people in your neighbourhood are willing to just give you free sweets and free candy. And so it’s quite an amazing day, really. So that’s pretty much it. Like I said it’s not such a big festival here in the UK. It’s more of a big deal in America. And here we tend to celebrate 5 November actually around this time of year.

And 5 November is also called Guy Fawkes Night. Basically on 5 November we celebrate the death of a man called Guy Fawkes. And he wasn’t a hero here. He was actually a bad guy. He basically tried to kill the Royal Family and the Prime Minister of Britain by blowing up the Houses of Parliament. There was a plot, which is called Gunpowder Plot, where Guy Fawkes and his men planned to use dynamite to blow up Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in order to kill the Royal Family. Now the reason they did that because they were Catholics and at that time there was a lot of conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants in Britain. And we had a Protestant Royal Family and [the] Guy Fawkes, who was a Catholic terrorist actually, decided that he wanted to have them killed.

So, now I’m just having a look at it on Wikipedia actually right now and I’m going to tell you some details of the story. So here we go. Guy Fawkes Night which is also known as Bonfire Night is an annual celebration held primarily in Great Britain on or around the evening of 5th November. Festivities are centred of the use of fireworks and the lighting of bonfires. Some formal British colonies also celebrate the date. Historically the celebrations mark the anniversary of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 5th November 1605. The date was originally made a public holiday in England by the anti-Catholic thanksgiving act of 1605, which was later repealed in 1859. So, basically Guy Fawkes Night originates from the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, which was a failed conspiracy by a group of provincial English Catholics to assassinate the Protestant King James I of England and James VI of Scotland and replace him with a Catholic head of state. The survival of the King was first celebrated on 5 November after Guy Fawkes left in charge of the Gunpowder placed underneath the House of Lords was discovered and arrested.

So ever since that day we’ve celebrated the capture of Guy Fawkes and actually when he was caught, he was punished, because [bad word] one of the greatest crimes that you [bad word] here, which is attempting to kill the monarch or the king or queen. And back in 1605 it was quite a [bad word]