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Have you ever thought that the English are mad? Of course you have. And after today's podcast, you will know that it is true.

But first we must meet the English verb “to tumble”. “Tumble” means, simply, to fall down. For example, if you are coming down some stairs and you trip, you might tumble to the bottom. You would fall, perhaps you would roll over, and two seconds later you would be on the ground at the bottom of the stairs, wondering whether you had broken any bones. We can use “tumble” in a figurative way too. We can talk about a stream tumbling down the side of a mountain. Or if a supermarket reduces its prices, it might put notices in the window saying “Prices tumble throughout this store!”

Now for the story in today's podcast. Last week, we read in the newspaper that an important sporting event will not take place this year. It is not a football match or a horse-race. It is much more important than that; it is the great Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling event.

Cooper's Hill is not far from the town of Gloucester. It is a very steep hill, covered in grass and trees. Every year at the end of May there is a cheese rolling at Cooper's Hill. About 15 competitors stand in a line at the top of the hill. Many of them wear batman suits or other fancy dress. A man with a big hat, called the Cheese Master, throws a 3 or 4 kilo cheese down the hill. The competitors run after the cheese. The rules say that if one of the competitors catches the cheese, he or she can keep it. In practice, no-one ever catches the cheese, because it goes too fast. And the competitors do not run after the cheese, because the hill is too steep. Instead, they fall, they roll, they slide on their bottoms – they tumble, in fact.

At the bottom of the hill, there is a line of stewards. They catch the competitors before they can tumble all the way to the M5 motorway. And there is a line of ambulances too, for those competitors who break their ankles on the way down.

There are several races, some for men and some for women, and for the really crazy there are some uphill races too (though, obviously, the cheese cannot go uphill). After the races, those competitors who are not actually in hospital gather at a local pub to drink beer and tell stories of the heroic events of the day.

Obviously, for an important event like the Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling, you could not use just any sort of cheese. The cheese is of a type called Double Gloucester. It is made locally by a lady called Diana Smart. She is 83 years old. The cheese rolling is an important part of her business. She is fed up that it has been cancelled this year.

So, why has it been cancelled? For hundreds of years, the only people who came to watch the cheese rolling were local people. But the event is now internationally famous, and lots of people want to come. Last year there were 15,000 spectators, from many different countries. The police and organisers of the event are worried about the safety of the spectators, and about car-parking, and about the fact that there are no toilets, and other problems of having so many people. The organisers think that they can solve the problems for next year, so the Cheese Rolling should take place again in 2011.

My own proposal is that cheese rolling should become an Olympic Sport. Then it could be included in the London Olympic Games in 2012. We could build a super stadium on Coopers Hill, with room for 50,000 spectators, lots of toilets and a car park for thousands of cars. The stadium could have a roof in case it rains. But this year you will have to find a hill in your own country, and throw a cheese down it, and tumble after the cheese. Happy cheese rolling!

• BBC News Report. ::
• More news about cheese rolling. ::
• The official cheese rolling website. ::

File download (5:41 mins | 3 MB)

Some of you have e-mailed me to say that you would like more podcasts about life and politics in Britain. The subject of the podcast today is a difficult and serious one. It is about a small boy who was murdered 17 years ago. The murder and what happened afterwards are still very controversial and arouse strong emotions in this country.

In February 1993, James Bulger was nearly 3 years old. He lived in Bootle, which is a town north of Liverpool in the north-west of England. One day he went shopping with his mother Denise. She went into a butcher's shop to buy some meat. James stayed outside. When Denise returned a few minutes later, James was gone.

Some children found James's body on ground beside a railway line a few days later. He had been beaten to death with bricks, stones and an iron bar. Whoever had killed him then placed James's body on the railway line, so that it would look as if he had been killed by a train.

There were CCTV (closed-circuit television) cameras in the shopping centre where James had disappeared. The police found pictures of James. He was holding the hand of an older boy or a young man. Together with another boy, they were leaving the shopping centre. The police published the photos in the press, and a member of the public was able to identify the people who had taken James. They were two 10-year old boys, called Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. The police arrested them, and they were later found guilty of the murder of James Bulger.

The story was headline news for many weeks. The whole country was horrified, both by the mindless murder of a small child, and also by the fact that the killers were themselves children. In Liverpool, feelings ran particularly high and the families of the two 10-year old killers were forced to go into hiding.

After the trial, Jon and Robert spent 8 years in secure children's homes, where they received an education. Then, when they were 18 years old, they were let out, but with strict conditions about where they could live and what they could do. They were given new identities (new names etc), to protect them from the media and from people who might want to kill them. Was this the right punishment for them?

James's mother, Denise, describes Jon and Robert as pure evil. She says that they have never been sorry for what they did, and that the justice system let them off lightly. She, and many others, think that it was wrong to release the two young men so soon; they should have been sent to prison for many years when they were 18. At one point, indeed, the government tried to have Jon and Robert kept in prison at least until they were aged 25, but the courts said that the government had no power to interfere.

Now the case is back in the news. A few weeks ago, the police arrested Jon Venables and he is now in prison. The government have refused to say why, but the press have reported that it is connected with pornographic images of children. Immediately, the old controversy started again. Many people say, “I told you so. It was a mistake ever to release Jon and Robert. They are dangerous and ought to be in prison for many years. And it was a mistake too to give them new identities. People should know who they are and what they have done.”

What does this tell us about the sort of country which Britain is? We send a lot of people to prison – in fact, we have more people in prison in relation to population than anywhere else in Europe. But we still do not feel safe. Sometimes it seems that crime is a national obsession. At the same time, we know that many prisoners, when they leave prison, go back to a life of crime. A government minister once remarked that prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse. A recent survey showed that most people agree that it is important to help people who have committed crimes to re-organise their lives,to stop using drugs,to get an education and a job. But cases like the murder of James Bulger create a very strong emotional reaction, and this make rational discussion of how best to deal with crime and criminals much more difficult.

There are some new phrasal verbs in this podcast. I have posted a separate grammar and vocabulary note about them.

• Grammar and vocabulary note ::

File download (6:24 mins | 3 MB)

We are going to catch things in this podcast, and – yes – there will be a new phrasal verb as well – “to catch up with”.

Like many common English verbs, “catch” is irregular. The past tense of “catch” is “caught”. So, I catch, I caught, I have caught.

If you look at the picture on the website, or on your iPod, you will see what “catch” means. Someone has thrown a ball in the air. The little dog has run after the ball. He has jumped in the air with its mouth open. He wants to catch the ball in his mouth. So, “to catch” means to stop or hold something which is moving, like a ball which someone has thrown.

Here are some other things you can catch:

• a cat catches a mouse.
• a fisherman catches fish.
• the police catch a criminal.

And, of course, we often use “catch” in a figurative way. For example:

• you can catch a train, or a bus, or a plane.
• you can catch flu, or some other infectious disease.
• in the photo on the website, the photographer has caught the exact moment when the dog jumps in the air to catch the ball.

Now for our phrasal verb – “to catch up”. We can say “catch up with someone” or “catch someone up”. Imagine that you are running in a race. The leading runner is about 20 meters in front of you. If you run really fast, perhaps you can catch the leader up. Then you will be running beside the leader, and you might even win the race. And if the runners behind you run really hard, they may be able to catch up with you.

This sounds very energetic, so let us instead join Kevin and George in their normal Saturday afternoon activity, going to a football match. It is an exciting time. United are four places from the top of the Championship. Can they catch up with the top teams? Can they even win the Championship?

However, George is late. He is a teacher, and he has lots of school books to mark. He needs to catch up with his marking before he can go to the match. He phones Kevin to explain. “You go to the match now,” he says. “I'll catch up with you later when I have finished the marking”.

So Kevin sets off by himself. He catches a bus into town. But there are problems. The famous punk rock group Futile Vendetta are in town. Thousands of people want to catch their last concert, and thousands more want to catch a glimpse of the band. The bus gets caught in the traffic. The minutes go by, and the bus does not move. Eventually, Kevin gets off the bus and walks, and runs, to the football ground. He arrives just in time to catch the start of the match. George is there already. He finished his marking and caught a train to the stadium.

Unfortunately, the match is not very exciting and ends in a goalless draw. There is one thrilling moment when United's striker nearly scores, but the goalkeeper catches the ball safely. Never mind. Football is like that. Maybe next Saturday will be different.

• Quiz - all about the verb "to catch". ::

File download (4:43 mins | 2 MB)

Today's podcast is about the names of different occupations, and about Harry and June and their new house.

Harry is a retired school head teacher. He and his wife June want to move from London to live in Devon in the south-west of England. Devon is a place where lots of retired people go to live. Devon is warm (well, warmer than most of the rest of England) and it is beside the sea. In Devon towns like Paignton and Torquay there are lots of little bungalows where retired people like Harry and June live.

However, Harry and June do not want to live in a bungalow in Paignton or Torquay. They want to build their own house. So this is what they do. First they go to an estate agent, who sells houses and land. The estate agent has information about some suitable land where Harry and June could build their house. Then they ask a solicitor to handle all the legal matters connected with buying the land. Harry and June know what sort of house they want, but they need an architect to design the house and make plans for them. Unlike Robert, whom we met a few weeks ago, they know that they need planning permission for their house. So they fill in application forms and spend several weeks arguing with the planning official in the local authority about interesting things like where the drains will go.

Now they are ready to start building the house. They find a builder to supervise and organise the work. The builder digs the foundations for the house, and a local authority building inspector then comes to check that he has built the foundations properly. A bricklayer builds the walls of the house with bricks and mortar, and a carpenter builds the wooden framework for the roof. A roofer then puts the tiles on the roof and makes it watertight.

Meanwhile, inside the house a plasterer is busy putting plaster on the new walls. An electrician arrives to install the electric wiring, and makes holes in the new plaster, so the plasterer has to plaster some of the walls again. A plumber installs the water pipes. He drills through one of the new electric wires; there is a bang, and all the lights go out. The electrician has to come back to mend it. A gas fitter puts in the gas pipes for the central heating and the cooker in the kitchen. He knocks more holes in the plaster, so the plasterer has more work to do. A joiner comes to install the doors and cupboards inside the house. He puts a nail through the new gas pipe.

Now Harry and June's house has walls and a roof, it has doors and windows, and gas and water and electricity. But there is more to do. A painter comes to paint the outside of the house. Inside the house, a decorator paints the woodwork and puts wallpaper on the walls. In the kitchen, a kitchen fitter is busy installing kitchen cupboards and work surfaces, and a carpet fitter is putting carpets in the living room and the bedrooms.

Inside, the house is looking good, but outside it is a mess, because the builder has left piles of broken bricks and other rubbish in the garden. A skip lorry driver places a skip in the road outside, and the builder spends the next two days putting all his rubbish in the skip. Finally, a gardener is able to dig the garden and plant grass and flowers to make it look beautiful.

Harry and June are, I am happy to tell you, very pleased with their new house. June is busy sewing curtains for the living room, and Harry is arranging his model railway in the spare bedroom.

So, how many different occupations were involved in building the new house? I can count 20 – how many can you count? Also, have you noticed that most occupation names in English do not tell us whether the person doing that job is a man or a woman? Unlike many other languages, we do not have separate words for, for example, a male architect and a female architect. In fact, Harry and June's architect was a woman, and so was the electrician. There are very few cases in modern English where we need to use different words for men and women – policeman/policewoman is one of these, and another is waiter/waitress. Post a comment on the website if you can think of any more.

• Quiz - how many occupation names do you know? ::

File download (6:12 mins | 3 MB)

This week's phrasal verb is “to carry on”. I shall explain it in a minute, but first here is a story about a typical Monday morning for Kevin, in his new job as Assistant Sales Manager (South East England).

It is 6.30. Time to get up. The alarm clock rings. Kevin ignores it. He carries on sleeping. The alarm clock carries on ringing. Eventually, Kevin wakes up. He turns the alarm clock off, and falls out of bed.

Kevin has a shower and gets dressed. He turns on the radio. The radio presenter chatters cheerfully, and plays cheerful music. But Kevin carries on eating toast and drinking coffee. The radio presenter carries on being cheerful. Kevin thinks, “It is Monday morning. It is not a time for being cheerful.”

Kevin travels to work by train. Today, there are problems on the railway. and the train is late. It is crowded with people. On the way into the city, it stops at a red signal and waits. The passengers on the train do what English people always do in a crisis – they ignore it. They carry on reading their newspapers. They carry on typing on their computers. There is silence, except for one man who is talking loudly on his mobile phone. He carries on talking. He has forgotten that the train has stopped and that everyone on the train can now hear him.

Eventually, the train moves a little bit, then it stops again. It carries on like this – stopping and starting and stopping again – until it reaches the main station. Because the train is late, Kevin arrives late at work. But everyone else has had problems getting to work as well, so perhaps it doesn't matter. Monday has begun!

I have used “carry on” several times in this story, and I hope you can now understand what it means. It means “to continue”. Kevin continues sleeping. The people on the train continue reading. Another common expression which means almost the same as “carry on” is “go on”. The alarm clock goes on ringing. The man with the mobile phone goes on talking.

When I was thinking about what to say in this podcast, I did a Google search for “carry on” and found an interesting story. In 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War, the British government printed millions of posters to send simple propaganda messages to the people. The posters appeared on billboards, and in shop windows and railway stations and places like that. They tried to encourage and cheer people in the face of bombing raids, food rationing and other hardships. However, one of the posters was never used. It was the poster which would tell people what to do if the Germany army actually invaded Britain. At the end of the war, the government destroyed all the copies. Well, not quite all, because in the year 2000 a second-hand book seller found a copy in a box of old books which he had bought. The poster said simply, “Keep calm and carry on”. In other words, do not panic, carry on as normal – go to work, look after your families, and so on. This was the very British message that our government wanted to send to the people if our country was invaded.

Since it was rediscovered, the poster has become very popular. You can buy copies on line, and mugs and t-shirts with the slogan “Keep calm and carry on”. Perhaps people feel that this simple slogan means as much today as it did 70 years ago. We have so many problems today – economic crisis, environmental problems and wars in many parts of the world. What can we do? Keep calm and carry on!

File download (5:34 mins | 3 MB)

We have a saying in English that an Englishman's home is his castle. What exactly does it mean? Some people say that it means that you can do anything you like in your own home. But that isn't true. You are not allowed to kill people in your home, for example. Perhaps it means that you can decide whom to allow into your home. If you say no, then they have to stay outside. But that isn't true either. The police, for example, sometimes have the right to come into your house even if you don't want them to.

So perhaps the saying just means that English people like to think about their home as a castle. It is safe, secure and private. It is my place. It is not anyone else's place!

Robert Fidler is a farmer in Surrey, which is a county south of London. He wanted to build a castle on his farm as a home for himself and his family. Unfortunately, in Britain you cannot build a castle, or any other building, anywhere you want. You need to get planning permission (sometimes called planning consent) first. So Robert Fidler applied for planning permission. The local authority said no. Robert Fidler's farm is in the Green Belt, which is the area around big cities where new houses and other buildings are generally not allowed. The Green Belt stops towns and cities from getting too big and destroying the open countryside. So Robert Fidler could not build his castle.

However, Robert decided to build the castle anyway, without planning consent. First, he built a high wall with bales of straw. If you are a farmer, like Robert was, you can do almost anything as long as it is agricultural, and bales of straw are definitely agricultural. Behind the wall of straw, where no-one could see, Robert Fidler built his castle, or rather his house which looked like a castle. There is a picture of it on the website. It has two round towers, with ramparts on the top. The newspapers said that the castle also had cannons, but I cannot find a picture of them.

Robert finished his house in 2002. He moved in with his wife and small son. When they looked out of their windows, all they could see was the wall of straw, but they did not mind. Birds built their nests in the straw, and it was fun to watch them. Besides, it was vital to keep the castle secret. They hoped that after four years, they would be allowed to keep the castle, even without planning permission.

In 2006, Robert removed the wall of straw, and now everyone could see the remarkable house which he had built. The local authority were horrified. They told Robert that he had to demolish the house. He refused. The local authority started legal action. Last week a judge agreed with the local authority and said that Robert's castle had to go. But Robert Fidler will continue fighting, and says that he will go to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary. He told the newspapers, “This house will never be knocked down. This is a beautiful house that has been lovingly created. I will do whatever it takes to keep it.”

So, should Robert be allowed to keep his castle, or should it be knocked down? Some people say that it is a really nice building and that it would be wrong to demolish it and leave Robert and his family with nowhere to live. Other people say that everyone else has to obey the planning laws, and it would be unfair to make an exception in this case. What do you think?

Our phrasal verb this week is “to knock down”. If you knock down a house, or a wall, or a building, it means that you demolish it. You use a big hammer, or a machine, to hit the walls until they fall down and there is nothing left except a pile of bricks and stones. The local authority have told Robert Fidler that he must knock his house down. He says that it will never be knocked down. OK?

There is a quiz on the website. Have fun.

• Quiz - how well did you understand the podcast? ::

File download (6:01 mins | 3 MB)

Martina Lopez has sent me an e-mail. She suggests that every week, I should tell you about a phrasal verb. Good idea, Martina. There are hundreds of phrasal verbs in English, and there is, I am afraid, no easy way to learn them. You just have to remember what they mean! So, in every podcast, I will try to introduce a new phrasal verb. Today's phrasal verb is “to take over”.

Kevin has just changed jobs in his company. His job title used to be “Sales Analyst”. Now he is “Assistant Sales Manager – South East England”. Wow, it sounds exciting, doesn't it! The man who used to be the “Assistant Sales Manager – South East England” is called Jimmy. He has resigned from the company. He has decided to open a bar on an island in Greece. It will be called “Jimmy's Bar”, and it will sell English beer to English tourists. So Kevin has taken over the job of Assistant Sales Manager. That means – Jimmy used to be Assistant Sales Manager, but now Kevin has the job.

“Take over” has another, related meaning. If a company buys another company, we can say that it has taken over the other company. It has made a takeover offer, or a takeover bid; that is, it has said that it is willing to buy all the shares. So, the company where Joanne works, Global News, has recently taken over another company called Media Design. It now owns Media Design.

In Birmingham, where I live, people have been very worried in the past few weeks about a takeover bid for the Cadbury chocolate company. George Cadbury founded the Cadbury company in the 19th century. His father was a tea and coffee merchant in Birmingham, and when he was only 22 years old, George and his brother Richard took over the running of the tea and coffee business. George expanded the business into chocolate. This was a very natural thing to do, as in the 19th century chocolate was something to drink – like tea or coffee – and not something to eat, like we eat a chocolate bar today.

The chocolate business was very successful, and it became too big for the factory in the centre of Birmingham. George bought land in the countryside south of Birmingham, in a place which today is called Bournville, and built a new chocolate factory there. He thought that it was important that his workers should have good housing, so he built houses for them, close to the factory. They were much better than most working-class houses at the time, and had big gardens where the children could play and where the family could grow flowers and vegetables. He built a school, and a training college, and a swimming pool and sports facilities for his workers. The Bournville village which George Cadbury built still exists today, and is a very pleasant part of the city.

In the 20th century, Cadbury became the biggest chocolate company in Britain, and expanded into many other countries. The company is no longer owned by the Cadbury family. It has shares, which people can buy and sell on the Stock Exchange, just like most other big companies.

However, now an American company called Kraft wants to buy Cadbury. Kraft are famous for making a processed cheese that looks and tastes like plastic and may even be made of plastic. Kraft have made a takeover bid for Cadbury, and it seems likely that the people who own shares in Cadbury will agree to sell them to Kraft. So Cadbury will no longer be a independent company, but a subsidiary of a big American corporation. People in Birmingham are very worried that in a few years, Kraft will close the famous chocolate factory in Bournville, and move chocolate production to another country. People are angry, too, that investment bankers have made large profits from the takeover, at a time when many people have no jobs.

But lets end with something a bit more cheerful about takeovers. One day, perhaps, someone may want to take over these podcasts. Perhaps Google would be interested, or Apple, or Microsoft. But they will need deep pockets. Unless their takeover offer is at least 0 million, I will not even return their telephone calls.

• Cadbury website. ::
• Visit Cadbury World! ::
• BBC news item about the Kraft takeover of Cadbury ::

File download (6:15 mins | 3 MB)

Today we meet a cat called Casper, and we learn about the English verb “to commute”.

Let's start with the verb. “Commute” has an interesting history, because its modern meaning is quite different from its original meaning.

Originally, to “commute” meant to exchange one thing for another. It was a boring word and we used it mainly for technical, financial matters. Imagine that you work for the government's tax office. Every day you go to work; you write letters, you fill in forms, you calculate how much tax people have to pay, and you do other interesting things. After 40 years, you retire, and the government gives you a pension. It is possible that you will be able to choose exactly how you want to receive the pension. You can choose to receive a payment every month; or sometimes you can choose to take some money now and receive a smaller monthly payment. This is called “commuting” – you have exchanged part of your regular monthly pension payments for a lump sum of money.

You are probably asleep by now, or wondering why I am telling you this. But think of someone else who exchanges regular payments for a single payment. Someone who buys a season ticket on the railways or the buses pays a sum of money now, instead of buying a train or bus ticket every day. At some time in the 20th century, we started to call a person who bought a season ticket a “commuter”. And from there, we started to use the word “commute” to mean to travel from your home to work and back again, by any means of transport. Today, we can say “I commute by car”. That means, “I travel to work and back by car every day”. We can say that a railway station is crowded with commuters – that means that it is full of people travelling to work or back home again. We can say “I commute for 50 miles” or “My commute is 50 miles”, and this means that I travel a long way – 50 miles – to go to work every day. If I was a millionaire, I might commute from my home in the south of France to my work in London in my own private aeroplane.

Now that you understand about the word “commute” and how it has changed its meaning, it is time to meet the cat. His name is Casper, and he lives – or rather, he used to live – in Plymouth in the south west of England. Plymouth is famous for its naval dockyards, where military ships are built. Casper used to stand at the bus stop outside his home in Plymouth with the other bus passengers. He used to get on the bus and go to sleep on one of the seats. He would travel all the way to the terminus and then come back again. The bus drivers knew Casper, and made sure that he got off the bus at the right stop. Casper travelled on the buses in Plymouth for over 4 years. People called him “Casper the commuting cat”.

Recently, however, and very sadly, Casper was hit by a car during one of his journeys around Plymouth, and he has now died. There is a notice at his bus stop about his death, and flowers. We are all very sad.

• Report about Casper from the Plymouth Herald ::
• The tragic story of Casper's death ::

File download (4:38 mins | 2 MB)

For the last two weeks, our newspapers have been full of stories about “the Big Freeze”. Like many other places in Europe, the weather in Britain has been very cold. We have had lots of snow, and the roads are covered with ice. There are shortages of gas, and of salt to put on the roads. As you know, we English love to talk about the weather, or – rather – we love to complain about the weather. So we have had a lot to talk about, and complain about, recently.

When water gets very cold, it “freezes”, that is, it turns into ice. “Freeze” is an irregular verb, and I know how much you love irregular verbs! The past tense is “froze” and the past participle is “frozen”. “Freezing” and “frozen” can also mean simply “very cold” – we can say that the weather is freezing, or that my fingers or toes are frozen.

When the weather gets warmer, the snow will melt, that is it will turn into water. Another word that we can use is “thaw”, which means a slow, gradual melting of the snow and ice. The weather forecast says that the snow in many parts of England will thaw slowly over the next week. Instead of the “Big Freeze”, the newspapers will probably have headlines about the “Big Thaw”.

When you visit a city in a foreign country, you can often learn quite a lot about the language of that country by looking at advertisements, or at notices in shop windows, or at the signs on public transport, and trying to translate them. There is a picture on the website and, I hope, on your iPod screens. It is a picture of a Birmingham bus, and on the front of the bus are the words “Our bus fares now frozen”.

What does this mean? Well, the bus company should have written “our bus fares are now frozen”, but they probably wanted the words to sound like a newspaper headline, and newspapers often leave out words like “is” and “are” in their headlines. But what does it really mean? The heating in British buses is not good, so many of the passengers are frozen, but how can the fares be “frozen”?

Well, as you probably guessed, “to freeze” can have a figurative meaning as well as a literal meaning. Water can move, but when it freezes to become ice, it cannot move. So if we say that something is “frozen”, we often mean that it stays the same, it cannot move or change. So, a shop may say that its prices are frozen, meaning that the prices are unchanged. A company may tell its employees that their pay is frozen, in other words that they will not get a pay increase. And if you are very frightened by something, you may be unable to move, and you can say that you are “frozen with fear”.

And Birmingham's bus fares? It is a long tradition that the bus company increases its fares every January. Since I arrived in Birmingham 15 years ago, my bus fare into the centre of town has increased by 150%. Train fares throughout Britain also go up in January, every year. It is not surprising that people in this country use their cars so much. But this year is different. This year the bus company has decided not to increase its fares. Its fares are frozen. This is something to be happy about, when we are not complaining about the weather.

Of course, the bus fares will not stay frozen for ever. When they go up again, will there be a notice on the buses saying “Our bus fares now unfrozen”? I don't think so.

There is a quiz about irregular verbs on the website. Have fun!

• Quiz about irrregular verbs. ::

File download (5:19 mins | 2 MB)

It is very cold here in England, and there is lots of snow on the ground. What do you think about snow? Yes, snow can be cold and wet and miserable. But it can also can change familiar things – our houses and gardens, our streets and our cities – into something strange and new and beautiful.

Good poetry is like snow – it too can change familiar things into something strange and new and beautiful. So I looked for a poem about snow to read you, and I have found one by a poet called Brian Patten.

Brian Patten was born in Liverpool in 1946, which means that he is nearly as old as I am! In the 1960s, he was one of a group of young poets from Liverpool whose poems became very popular and widely read. It is easy to understand why – the poems are direct, simple and often funny. Brian Patten is today one of Britain's leading poets, and he has written lots of poems both for adults and for children. There are links to some of his poems, and to more information, on the website. I sent him an e-mail, to say that I would like to use this poem in a podcast, and he has kindly agreed that I can. So here it is, Remembering Snow.

I did not sleep last night.
The falling snow was beautiful and white.
I dressed, sneaked down the stairs
And opened wide the door.
I had not seen such snow before.
Our grubby little street had gone.
The world was brand-new, and everywhere
There was a pureness in the air.
I felt such peace.
Watching every flake
I felt more and more awake.
I thought I had learned all there was to know
About the trillion million different kinds
Of swirling frosty flakes of snow.
That was not so.
I did not know how vividly it lit
The world with such a peaceful glow.
Upstairs my mother slept.
I could not drag myself away from that sight
To call her down and have her share
The mute miracle of the snow.
It seemed to fall for me alone.
How beautiful our grubby little street had grown!

(Copyright Brian Patten. Used here with permission.)

• Brian Patten's website ::
• Brian Patten reading his poem 'A Blade of Grass' ::
• More poems by Brian Patten ::
• Books by Brian Patten on Amazon ::

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