Dead Air

The patron Saint of England, although he was not an English man and it

Saint Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, although he was not Irish. He is celebrated on March 17th , known as Saint Patrick's Day, which has become a worldwide celebration of Irish culture and heritage.

Learn more about the life and works of Saint Patrick, the slave who became a saint and is now the global patron of excessive drinking! 

The celebration of his feast day has become so synonymous with partying that it has become a global phenomenon, but you may be surprised as to what you discover about festivities on this day around the world. Read more in our associated article here. 

Find the original script article here. 

Get the B2 Saint Patrick's Day teaching worksheet here. 

"Hello again word lovers!"  

A finale to our first series of Interesting Etymologies as Charly dives  into a hotch-potch, a mish-mash of his favourite etymologies.   Join us for a last short journey before we prepare for series two.  Knotts, Clue, Fiesty, Glamour, loss of S on words, Sly, Tawdry, Canary Islands  and Halycon  

The associated article on our website is available here

Our programme is also available on Youtube here. 

Short story The Bet, part of our Soundbook collection.   

The tale sees a banker recalling a dinner party some 15 years previous  in which he entered into an extraordinary bet with a young lawyer. After  a passionate conversation on capital punishment the lawyer concludes he  would prefer life imprisonment to death. The banker offered him 2  million Roubles if he could withstand 15 years of such isolation.  

A B2 worksheet to accompany this story is available on our website here 

An accompanying article including the full text in downloadable PDF is  available on our website here

A biography of Chekhov can be found on our website here

Music: Autumn Leaves by Maarten Schellekens

"Hello again word lovers!"  Some interesting examples of curious opposites in English in this penultimate episode of series one of Interesting Etymologies.  

The associated article on our website is available here  

Our programs are also available on our Youtube channel here

"Hello again Word Lovers!"

In this episode we examine some words that have come into English from African. This is not as distinct from PIE roots as you mat first think.

We have many examples of animal and vegetable/fruit names but some words that have made their way into English via the slave trade which have significant influence on music. 

Associated episodes include Ebonics and The Jazz Age to discover more on some of these words.

An associated article is available on our website here and all episodes are also available on YouTube

A short story by Jack London published in 1902 explores the protagonist and how he is consumed with his irrational hatred of another man, John Claverhouse. His hatred drives him to increasingly horrendous actions to force suffering on the cheerful neighbour. When Claverhouse seems unfazed by the relentless misfortune that is wrought upon him, the narrator makes the decision to kill him.   

You can learn more about Jack London in the article about him on our website   

 A downloadable PDF of the story, the cover artwork and a brief summary of the story are available here

Introduction and end music : Another Autumn in Despair by techtheist

Dead Air - Strange Christmas Traditions

We return at Christmas time to look at some strange traditions across the world. We discover what the Japanese eat for Christmas dinner, what Ukrainians decorate their Christmas tree with, why Spanish culture seems so obsessed with Christmas scatology and what the original Black Friday was with many more traditions to unpack. 

There is an accompanying article on the dark culture of Black Friday in the UK on our website here. It has been observed that the British media have rebranded this as Mad Friday this year. 

Our podcast on the history of Saint Nicholas and his transformation into Father Christmas with details on the Krampus era as well, is available on our playlist. The accompanying article is on our website here.  

"Hello again word lovers!"

As we near the end of the Interesting Etymology series Charly takes a whirlwind tour of Scottish words that have transferred into English

The associated article is available here.

This programme is also available on YouTube here.

"Hello again Word Lovers!"

In this episode we are going to look at the names of flowers. There are different categories to consider, with words that come to English unchanged, words that have religious meanings or connected to the properties of the plant and the names of those who discovered or classified the plant. 

The associated article for this episode is available on our website here. 

This series is also available as a YouTube video here.