From lavatorial thefts to lost sheep – a lot of strange things have happened this year.
In this episode, we look at some of the most unusual British news stories of 2023.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about the news from 2023.
[00:00:27] In this episode, we’ll come across lavatorial thefts, kings, lost sheep, beer goggles and a very unexpected top-rated tourist attraction.
[00:00:38] We made one of these episodes last year, and it was a really popular one so here you go, by popular demand, the Very Unusual British News of 2023.
[00:00:50] Blenheim Palace is a huge stately home just north of Oxford.
[00:00:56] It was the birthplace and ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill, it’s over 300 years old and has 187 rooms.
[00:01:06] In fact, it’s now open to the public, and you can tour the house and the over 8 kilometre square of gardens that it sits in. I’ve been. It’s wonderful, and if you ever find yourself in the Oxford area, you should go.
[00:01:23] But in the early hours of the 14th of September 2019, there was a break-in at the palace, there was a robbery.
[00:01:32] A group of thieves broke into the premises in a carefully targeted raid.
[00:01:40] The object they were after?
[00:01:42] Not a fine painting or gold necklace.
[00:01:45] It was, in fact, a toilet, a working toilet that was used by visitors of the palace.
[00:01:53] But this was no ordinary toilet. It was a toilet worth a reported $6 million. Not because it had some great historical significance or had a wonderful painting. It was because it was made entirely from solid gold.
[00:02:14] Now, this wasn’t some ostentatious display by British aristocrats, showing that they had so much money that their lavatories were literally made from gold.
[00:02:25] It was a piece of art by an Italian artist called Maurizio Cattelan.
[00:02:31] It was not being guarded, with the founder of the Blenheim Art Foundation telling a newspaper “Firstly, it’s plumbed in; and secondly, a potential thief will have no idea who last used the toilet or what they ate. So no, I don’t plan to be guarding it.”
[00:02:48] Clearly, that was a mistake, as the thieves were able to rip the entire toilet out.
[00:02:56] And when the security guards arrived in the morning, back in September of 2019, they were met by an unpleasant surprise.
[00:03:04] There was water all over the floor, because the toilet that had actually been attached to the mains plumbing. It was a working toilet, remember.
[00:03:13] It was quite the mess to clear up, but the more pressing issue was that the 103 kilogram gold toilet had disappeared into thin air.
[00:03:25] A hefty reward was issued, but it wasn’t until this year, on November the 6th of 2023, that there was some good news.
[00:03:37] A group of four men were charged with the theft, but, as of the time of recording at least, there is no sign of the toilet itself.
[00:03:47] And police investigators fear the worst.
[00:03:51] The second-hand market for a solid gold toilet is quite limited but the second-hand market for 103 kg of 18-carat gold is, well, it’s enormous.
[00:04:05] So the prevailing belief is that the toilet was quickly melted down after it was stolen, and it is now most likely in necklaces and rings and earrings, all over the world, far removed from its original purpose as a toilet.
[00:04:21] Now, our second unusual piece of news relates to something very unusual in that it hasn’t happened in Britain since June 2nd of 1953.
[00:04:33] There are no gold toilets in this news story, but there was plenty of gold.
[00:04:38] If you haven’t guessed what I’m talking about yet, it was the coronation of King Charles III, which happened on the 6th of May 2023
[00:04:48] Now, I’d be pretty confident that you knew something about this already, but let me share with you some unusual facts about this most unusual of British events.
[00:04:59] Firstly, the actual process of the coronation has hardly changed in 1,000 years. There are six phases: recognition, the oath, the anointing, the investiture [which includes the crowning], something called the enthronement and then the homage, and these have been the same since William the Conqueror in 1066.
[00:05:25] The second unusual element about the coronation is something that happens in the third phase of it, "the anointing”, which involves using a 12th century silver spoon to drip oil on the king.
[00:05:39] But the unusual fact to mention about this holy oil is that King Charles did modernise the recipe, he updated the ingredients of the oil.
[00:05:50] Previously, this holy oil included a mixture of sesame seed and olive oil, rose, jasmine, cinnamon, an array of other unusual oils, as well as amber and orange blossom.
[00:06:05] But King Charles requested that the holy oil didn’t include something called ambergris, which is an expensive substance found in whale intestines. He is known for his support of animal welfare, and he decided that it would be a bit excessive for a whale to be killed so that a tiny bit of its oil could be spread on his head.
[00:06:28] So, there you go, that’s one modernisation of a very unmodern tradition.
[00:06:35] And our third unusual element to mention about the coronation is to do with a particularly unlikely food that many British people would have made while watching the coronation on TV.
[00:06:48] This is something called “coronation chicken”, which might sound a little disgusting when I describe it to you, but it is about as traditionally British as food can get.
[00:07:00] It is a cold cooked chicken marinated in sour cream, mayonnaise, chutney and curry powder, and served with dried apricots, red onions and toasted almonds.
[00:07:16] It’s an unusual yellow colour, which comes from the curry powder, but in my opinion at least, it is remarkably tasty.
[00:07:25] It was invented for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation back in 1953, and has remained popular ever since. Although I should add that it isn’t popular with the King, who opted for a vegetation quiche at his post-coronation banquet instead.
[00:07:43] Now, moving on to another unusual piece of British news from 2023, this one comes from right at the north of Scotland, above Inverness.
[00:07:55] A lady was out kayaking a few years ago when she paddled past a sheep on a remote beach at the bottom of a cliff.
[00:08:02] Nothing particularly unusual about that; the area is full of sheep farms, and the lady presumed that the sheep had just got separated from its flock and would make its way back shortly afterwards.
[00:08:13] But, in October this year, two years after first seeing this sheep, the kayaker returned to the area and saw the sheep in the same place.
[00:08:25] The sheep’s fleece had grown so long that it was touching the ground. As the kayak went past, the sheep followed it along, jumping from rock to rock and bleating, making noises, as if it were calling out for help.
[00:08:43] She thought the sheep must have got stuck at the bottom of the cliff, separated from the rest of its flock.
[00:08:50] When she returned home, the kayaker called out to various animal rescue services, but was told that there was no case for saving the sheep. After all, it seemed happy and healthy and was in no danger, it was just isolated and on its own.
[00:09:10] What happened next was nothing less than a media frenzy. The story was picked up by national newspapers, it was on the BBC, and journalists descended on the area, keen to catch a glimpse of an animal that was being dubbed “The loneliest sheep in Britain”.
[00:09:28] It took a few weeks, but a rescue team was assembled, and a group of men went down the cliff to rescue “Fiona”, as she'd been called.
[00:09:40] They managed to drag her up, which was quite the task, given that she had grown very fat and had a 10kg fleece, but eventually she was saved, much to the relief of armchair watchers across the country.
[00:09:55] She has even been rehoused at an animal welfare farm, and after a serious haircut she is now accepting visits from members of the public. Although she is now completely indistinguishable from any other sheep, so if you make a trip expecting to see something other than a very normal-looking sheep, well you’ll be a little disappointed.
[00:10:19] Now, moving on, our penultimate piece of very unusual news was a research paper released in September this year about what are colloquially called “beer goggles”.
[00:10:32] “Goggles” are the kind of glasses, the eye protectors, that you wear if you go underwater, and “beer goggles” is an expression used in English to describe the phenomenon where you perceive someone as more attractive after you have drunk alcohol.
[00:10:49] Perhaps this is a phenomenon you have experienced yourself, perhaps it isn’t, but it is a fairly widespread term in English. You can say that someone had their beer goggles on, or you were looking through your beer goggles.
[00:11:05] Scientists have done quite a lot of research into this, for example giving alcohol to animals to see if that affects their mating habits, but there was an important paper published in September this year that suggested that “beer goggles”, in the traditional sense of the term, simply don’t exist.
[00:11:27] In this paper, which was published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, the authors suggested that alcohol doesn’t change how attractive we perceive people to be; it only lowers your inhibitions, meaning that you are more likely to go up to someone you were already attracted to and try to start a conversation than you would be if you hadn’t drunk any alcohol.
[00:11:51] In other words, alcohol doesn’t make you attracted to people you would otherwise not be attracted to, it only reduces your inhibitions and can amplify your preexisting attraction to someone.
[00:12:05] And if you are wondering how this study was completed, it was actually done in a very professional manner; 36 young adults were given drinks, and not told whether they contained alcohol or not, and then re asked to rate different people in terms of their attractiveness and the levels of proximity they felt to them.
[00:12:27] What the study found was that people’s ratings of how attractive people were didn’t change depending on their alcoholic consumption; the only thing that changed was that the more alcohol a person had consumed, the more likely they were to say that they would approach one of the more attractive people.
[00:12:45] So, alcohol doesn’t give you “beer goggles”, but instead “liquid courage”, to use the colloquial term, courage that is brought on by alcohol.
[00:12:57] Now, our final “unusual British news from 2023” is about one of the top-rated tourist attractions in the entire country, but one that I would be very confident that you have never been to, and I think it’s very unlikely you have even heard of it.
[00:13:14] It’s something called the “Bude Tunnel”, and it is a plastic tunnel in the car park of a Sainsbury’s supermarket in a town in Cornwall called Bude, it is nothing other than a plastic shelter protecting shoppers from the rain.
[00:13:33] And the reason I mention it in this episode is because it was in the news as a prime example of British humour.
[00:13:42] You probably know that TripAdvisor is a popular website where you can review restaurants, hotels and tourist attractions. And it has an algorithm that bumps up attractions with good reviews. You know, if you own a hotel or restaurant, having a bunch of good reviews on TripAdvisor is important for your business.
[00:14:03] But British people have a tendency to club together and manipulate things like votes and search rankings, especially when the results can be humorous.
[00:14:16] For example, back in 2016 there was a poll where members of the public could vote on the name for an important research boat, and there was a huge campaign so that the comic name “Boaty McBoatface” ended up winning.
[00:14:35] Anyway, manipulating the democratic process, or manipulating an algorithm for humorous effect has become something of a British tradition, and in October of 2023 residents of the small town of Bude came together to flood TripAdvisor with reviews of this supermarket plastic tunnel, turning it into one of the top-rated tourist attractions in the region.
[00:15:01] So, if you were in Cornwall and you opened up your TripAdvisor app to look at “things to do” in the area, you might have seen museums, lovely beaches and theatres, and then this plastic tunnel in a Sainsbury’s supermarket.
[00:15:17] In fact, if you search “Bude tunnel” on TripAdvisor you can see all of these for yourself, but let me read you out now some of the almost 1,500 reviews of this tunnel:
[00:15:30] Daniel W said, “We went with high expectations and I'm pleased to say that the Bude Tunnel met all of them! Every individual will find something unique to admire and be inspired by. For me it was the beautiful stained glass that took my breath away and left me wanting more. We will be returning as will our children and their children's children.”
[00:15:53] Then user Chris4u111 added, “Well, what can I say? We have held back from visiting this iconic eighth wonder of the world until today. We are still coming down from the elation and euphoria of the genuinely breathtaking experience. Life will never quite be the same but we shall visit again and again.”
[00:16:14] And what is perhaps even better than reading the clearly ironic 5* reviews from thousands of British pranksters is reading the 1* reviews from people who have fallen for it, have travelled there, only to be slightly disappointed.
[00:16:30] Or, as user Debs B put it, in her 1 star review, “I thought this would be something special when I was searching for things to see in and around Bude…. How wrong I was ! Its a Perspex tunnel which was very dirty . It did get me from Sainsbury’s car park to the entrance of Sainsbury’s though, without getting wet. So one star for that . Don’t bother coming to look , there’s nothing here.”
[00:16:54] And then she added, “Ps what happened to all the pretty lights as in the pictures ?“
[00:17:00] So, there you have it, five unusual very lighthearted British news stories from 2023.
[00:17:08] From stolen golden toilets to lost sheep, coronation chicken to silver spoons, beer goggles and supermarket tunnels
[00:17:17] But if there's one thing I hope you take away from all of this, it’s that if you are visiting Britain and you like to use TripAdvisor, it’s best to remember the Russian proverb. “Doveryay, no proveryay, “trust but verify”.
[00:17:32] If not, you might find yourself slightly disappointed.
[00:17:39] OK then, that is it for today's lighthearted episode on Unusual British News from 2023.
[00:17:45] I hope it was a fun one, and you learned about a few things I guess wouldn’t have made it into the news in your country.
[00:17:52] This episode is actually set to be released on Boxing Day, December 26th, so if you are listening on the day it is released, I hope you are having a wonderful day, whatever that might be and wherever you might be.
[00:18:04] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:18:09] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about the news from 2023.
[00:00:27] In this episode, we’ll come across lavatorial thefts, kings, lost sheep, beer goggles and a very unexpected top-rated tourist attraction.
[00:00:38] We made one of these episodes last year, and it was a really popular one so here you go, by popular demand, the Very Unusual British News of 2023.
[00:00:50] Blenheim Palace is a huge stately home just north of Oxford.
[00:00:56] It was the birthplace and ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill, it’s over 300 years old and has 187 rooms.
[00:01:06] In fact, it’s now open to the public, and you can tour the house and the over 8 kilometre square of gardens that it sits in. I’ve been. It’s wonderful, and if you ever find yourself in the Oxford area, you should go.
[00:01:23] But in the early hours of the 14th of September 2019, there was a break-in at the palace, there was a robbery.
[00:01:32] A group of thieves broke into the premises in a carefully targeted raid.
[00:01:40] The object they were after?
[00:01:42] Not a fine painting or gold necklace.
[00:01:45] It was, in fact, a toilet, a working toilet that was used by visitors of the palace.
[00:01:53] But this was no ordinary toilet. It was a toilet worth a reported $6 million. Not because it had some great historical significance or had a wonderful painting. It was because it was made entirely from solid gold.
[00:02:14] Now, this wasn’t some ostentatious display by British aristocrats, showing that they had so much money that their lavatories were literally made from gold.
[00:02:25] It was a piece of art by an Italian artist called Maurizio Cattelan.
[00:02:31] It was not being guarded, with the founder of the Blenheim Art Foundation telling a newspaper “Firstly, it’s plumbed in; and secondly, a potential thief will have no idea who last used the toilet or what they ate. So no, I don’t plan to be guarding it.”
[00:02:48] Clearly, that was a mistake, as the thieves were able to rip the entire toilet out.
[00:02:56] And when the security guards arrived in the morning, back in September of 2019, they were met by an unpleasant surprise.
[00:03:04] There was water all over the floor, because the toilet that had actually been attached to the mains plumbing. It was a working toilet, remember.
[00:03:13] It was quite the mess to clear up, but the more pressing issue was that the 103 kilogram gold toilet had disappeared into thin air.
[00:03:25] A hefty reward was issued, but it wasn’t until this year, on November the 6th of 2023, that there was some good news.
[00:03:37] A group of four men were charged with the theft, but, as of the time of recording at least, there is no sign of the toilet itself.
[00:03:47] And police investigators fear the worst.
[00:03:51] The second-hand market for a solid gold toilet is quite limited but the second-hand market for 103 kg of 18-carat gold is, well, it’s enormous.
[00:04:05] So the prevailing belief is that the toilet was quickly melted down after it was stolen, and it is now most likely in necklaces and rings and earrings, all over the world, far removed from its original purpose as a toilet.
[00:04:21] Now, our second unusual piece of news relates to something very unusual in that it hasn’t happened in Britain since June 2nd of 1953.
[00:04:33] There are no gold toilets in this news story, but there was plenty of gold.
[00:04:38] If you haven’t guessed what I’m talking about yet, it was the coronation of King Charles III, which happened on the 6th of May 2023
[00:04:48] Now, I’d be pretty confident that you knew something about this already, but let me share with you some unusual facts about this most unusual of British events.
[00:04:59] Firstly, the actual process of the coronation has hardly changed in 1,000 years. There are six phases: recognition, the oath, the anointing, the investiture [which includes the crowning], something called the enthronement and then the homage, and these have been the same since William the Conqueror in 1066.
[00:05:25] The second unusual element about the coronation is something that happens in the third phase of it, "the anointing”, which involves using a 12th century silver spoon to drip oil on the king.
[00:05:39] But the unusual fact to mention about this holy oil is that King Charles did modernise the recipe, he updated the ingredients of the oil.
[00:05:50] Previously, this holy oil included a mixture of sesame seed and olive oil, rose, jasmine, cinnamon, an array of other unusual oils, as well as amber and orange blossom.
[00:06:05] But King Charles requested that the holy oil didn’t include something called ambergris, which is an expensive substance found in whale intestines. He is known for his support of animal welfare, and he decided that it would be a bit excessive for a whale to be killed so that a tiny bit of its oil could be spread on his head.
[00:06:28] So, there you go, that’s one modernisation of a very unmodern tradition.
[00:06:35] And our third unusual element to mention about the coronation is to do with a particularly unlikely food that many British people would have made while watching the coronation on TV.
[00:06:48] This is something called “coronation chicken”, which might sound a little disgusting when I describe it to you, but it is about as traditionally British as food can get.
[00:07:00] It is a cold cooked chicken marinated in sour cream, mayonnaise, chutney and curry powder, and served with dried apricots, red onions and toasted almonds.
[00:07:16] It’s an unusual yellow colour, which comes from the curry powder, but in my opinion at least, it is remarkably tasty.
[00:07:25] It was invented for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation back in 1953, and has remained popular ever since. Although I should add that it isn’t popular with the King, who opted for a vegetation quiche at his post-coronation banquet instead.
[00:07:43] Now, moving on to another unusual piece of British news from 2023, this one comes from right at the north of Scotland, above Inverness.
[00:07:55] A lady was out kayaking a few years ago when she paddled past a sheep on a remote beach at the bottom of a cliff.
[00:08:02] Nothing particularly unusual about that; the area is full of sheep farms, and the lady presumed that the sheep had just got separated from its flock and would make its way back shortly afterwards.
[00:08:13] But, in October this year, two years after first seeing this sheep, the kayaker returned to the area and saw the sheep in the same place.
[00:08:25] The sheep’s fleece had grown so long that it was touching the ground. As the kayak went past, the sheep followed it along, jumping from rock to rock and bleating, making noises, as if it were calling out for help.
[00:08:43] She thought the sheep must have got stuck at the bottom of the cliff, separated from the rest of its flock.
[00:08:50] When she returned home, the kayaker called out to various animal rescue services, but was told that there was no case for saving the sheep. After all, it seemed happy and healthy and was in no danger, it was just isolated and on its own.
[00:09:10] What happened next was nothing less than a media frenzy. The story was picked up by national newspapers, it was on the BBC, and journalists descended on the area, keen to catch a glimpse of an animal that was being dubbed “The loneliest sheep in Britain”.
[00:09:28] It took a few weeks, but a rescue team was assembled, and a group of men went down the cliff to rescue “Fiona”, as she'd been called.
[00:09:40] They managed to drag her up, which was quite the task, given that she had grown very fat and had a 10kg fleece, but eventually she was saved, much to the relief of armchair watchers across the country.
[00:09:55] She has even been rehoused at an animal welfare farm, and after a serious haircut she is now accepting visits from members of the public. Although she is now completely indistinguishable from any other sheep, so if you make a trip expecting to see something other than a very normal-looking sheep, well you’ll be a little disappointed.
[00:10:19] Now, moving on, our penultimate piece of very unusual news was a research paper released in September this year about what are colloquially called “beer goggles”.
[00:10:32] “Goggles” are the kind of glasses, the eye protectors, that you wear if you go underwater, and “beer goggles” is an expression used in English to describe the phenomenon where you perceive someone as more attractive after you have drunk alcohol.
[00:10:49] Perhaps this is a phenomenon you have experienced yourself, perhaps it isn’t, but it is a fairly widespread term in English. You can say that someone had their beer goggles on, or you were looking through your beer goggles.
[00:11:05] Scientists have done quite a lot of research into this, for example giving alcohol to animals to see if that affects their mating habits, but there was an important paper published in September this year that suggested that “beer goggles”, in the traditional sense of the term, simply don’t exist.
[00:11:27] In this paper, which was published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, the authors suggested that alcohol doesn’t change how attractive we perceive people to be; it only lowers your inhibitions, meaning that you are more likely to go up to someone you were already attracted to and try to start a conversation than you would be if you hadn’t drunk any alcohol.
[00:11:51] In other words, alcohol doesn’t make you attracted to people you would otherwise not be attracted to, it only reduces your inhibitions and can amplify your preexisting attraction to someone.
[00:12:05] And if you are wondering how this study was completed, it was actually done in a very professional manner; 36 young adults were given drinks, and not told whether they contained alcohol or not, and then re asked to rate different people in terms of their attractiveness and the levels of proximity they felt to them.
[00:12:27] What the study found was that people’s ratings of how attractive people were didn’t change depending on their alcoholic consumption; the only thing that changed was that the more alcohol a person had consumed, the more likely they were to say that they would approach one of the more attractive people.
[00:12:45] So, alcohol doesn’t give you “beer goggles”, but instead “liquid courage”, to use the colloquial term, courage that is brought on by alcohol.
[00:12:57] Now, our final “unusual British news from 2023” is about one of the top-rated tourist attractions in the entire country, but one that I would be very confident that you have never been to, and I think it’s very unlikely you have even heard of it.
[00:13:14] It’s something called the “Bude Tunnel”, and it is a plastic tunnel in the car park of a Sainsbury’s supermarket in a town in Cornwall called Bude, it is nothing other than a plastic shelter protecting shoppers from the rain.
[00:13:33] And the reason I mention it in this episode is because it was in the news as a prime example of British humour.
[00:13:42] You probably know that TripAdvisor is a popular website where you can review restaurants, hotels and tourist attractions. And it has an algorithm that bumps up attractions with good reviews. You know, if you own a hotel or restaurant, having a bunch of good reviews on TripAdvisor is important for your business.
[00:14:03] But British people have a tendency to club together and manipulate things like votes and search rankings, especially when the results can be humorous.
[00:14:16] For example, back in 2016 there was a poll where members of the public could vote on the name for an important research boat, and there was a huge campaign so that the comic name “Boaty McBoatface” ended up winning.
[00:14:35] Anyway, manipulating the democratic process, or manipulating an algorithm for humorous effect has become something of a British tradition, and in October of 2023 residents of the small town of Bude came together to flood TripAdvisor with reviews of this supermarket plastic tunnel, turning it into one of the top-rated tourist attractions in the region.
[00:15:01] So, if you were in Cornwall and you opened up your TripAdvisor app to look at “things to do” in the area, you might have seen museums, lovely beaches and theatres, and then this plastic tunnel in a Sainsbury’s supermarket.
[00:15:17] In fact, if you search “Bude tunnel” on TripAdvisor you can see all of these for yourself, but let me read you out now some of the almost 1,500 reviews of this tunnel:
[00:15:30] Daniel W said, “We went with high expectations and I'm pleased to say that the Bude Tunnel met all of them! Every individual will find something unique to admire and be inspired by. For me it was the beautiful stained glass that took my breath away and left me wanting more. We will be returning as will our children and their children's children.”
[00:15:53] Then user Chris4u111 added, “Well, what can I say? We have held back from visiting this iconic eighth wonder of the world until today. We are still coming down from the elation and euphoria of the genuinely breathtaking experience. Life will never quite be the same but we shall visit again and again.”
[00:16:14] And what is perhaps even better than reading the clearly ironic 5* reviews from thousands of British pranksters is reading the 1* reviews from people who have fallen for it, have travelled there, only to be slightly disappointed.
[00:16:30] Or, as user Debs B put it, in her 1 star review, “I thought this would be something special when I was searching for things to see in and around Bude…. How wrong I was ! Its a Perspex tunnel which was very dirty . It did get me from Sainsbury’s car park to the entrance of Sainsbury’s though, without getting wet. So one star for that . Don’t bother coming to look , there’s nothing here.”
[00:16:54] And then she added, “Ps what happened to all the pretty lights as in the pictures ?“
[00:17:00] So, there you have it, five unusual very lighthearted British news stories from 2023.
[00:17:08] From stolen golden toilets to lost sheep, coronation chicken to silver spoons, beer goggles and supermarket tunnels
[00:17:17] But if there's one thing I hope you take away from all of this, it’s that if you are visiting Britain and you like to use TripAdvisor, it’s best to remember the Russian proverb. “Doveryay, no proveryay, “trust but verify”.
[00:17:32] If not, you might find yourself slightly disappointed.
[00:17:39] OK then, that is it for today's lighthearted episode on Unusual British News from 2023.
[00:17:45] I hope it was a fun one, and you learned about a few things I guess wouldn’t have made it into the news in your country.
[00:17:52] This episode is actually set to be released on Boxing Day, December 26th, so if you are listening on the day it is released, I hope you are having a wonderful day, whatever that might be and wherever you might be.
[00:18:04] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:18:09] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about the news from 2023.
[00:00:27] In this episode, we’ll come across lavatorial thefts, kings, lost sheep, beer goggles and a very unexpected top-rated tourist attraction.
[00:00:38] We made one of these episodes last year, and it was a really popular one so here you go, by popular demand, the Very Unusual British News of 2023.
[00:00:50] Blenheim Palace is a huge stately home just north of Oxford.
[00:00:56] It was the birthplace and ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill, it’s over 300 years old and has 187 rooms.
[00:01:06] In fact, it’s now open to the public, and you can tour the house and the over 8 kilometre square of gardens that it sits in. I’ve been. It’s wonderful, and if you ever find yourself in the Oxford area, you should go.
[00:01:23] But in the early hours of the 14th of September 2019, there was a break-in at the palace, there was a robbery.
[00:01:32] A group of thieves broke into the premises in a carefully targeted raid.
[00:01:40] The object they were after?
[00:01:42] Not a fine painting or gold necklace.
[00:01:45] It was, in fact, a toilet, a working toilet that was used by visitors of the palace.
[00:01:53] But this was no ordinary toilet. It was a toilet worth a reported $6 million. Not because it had some great historical significance or had a wonderful painting. It was because it was made entirely from solid gold.
[00:02:14] Now, this wasn’t some ostentatious display by British aristocrats, showing that they had so much money that their lavatories were literally made from gold.
[00:02:25] It was a piece of art by an Italian artist called Maurizio Cattelan.
[00:02:31] It was not being guarded, with the founder of the Blenheim Art Foundation telling a newspaper “Firstly, it’s plumbed in; and secondly, a potential thief will have no idea who last used the toilet or what they ate. So no, I don’t plan to be guarding it.”
[00:02:48] Clearly, that was a mistake, as the thieves were able to rip the entire toilet out.
[00:02:56] And when the security guards arrived in the morning, back in September of 2019, they were met by an unpleasant surprise.
[00:03:04] There was water all over the floor, because the toilet that had actually been attached to the mains plumbing. It was a working toilet, remember.
[00:03:13] It was quite the mess to clear up, but the more pressing issue was that the 103 kilogram gold toilet had disappeared into thin air.
[00:03:25] A hefty reward was issued, but it wasn’t until this year, on November the 6th of 2023, that there was some good news.
[00:03:37] A group of four men were charged with the theft, but, as of the time of recording at least, there is no sign of the toilet itself.
[00:03:47] And police investigators fear the worst.
[00:03:51] The second-hand market for a solid gold toilet is quite limited but the second-hand market for 103 kg of 18-carat gold is, well, it’s enormous.
[00:04:05] So the prevailing belief is that the toilet was quickly melted down after it was stolen, and it is now most likely in necklaces and rings and earrings, all over the world, far removed from its original purpose as a toilet.
[00:04:21] Now, our second unusual piece of news relates to something very unusual in that it hasn’t happened in Britain since June 2nd of 1953.
[00:04:33] There are no gold toilets in this news story, but there was plenty of gold.
[00:04:38] If you haven’t guessed what I’m talking about yet, it was the coronation of King Charles III, which happened on the 6th of May 2023
[00:04:48] Now, I’d be pretty confident that you knew something about this already, but let me share with you some unusual facts about this most unusual of British events.
[00:04:59] Firstly, the actual process of the coronation has hardly changed in 1,000 years. There are six phases: recognition, the oath, the anointing, the investiture [which includes the crowning], something called the enthronement and then the homage, and these have been the same since William the Conqueror in 1066.
[00:05:25] The second unusual element about the coronation is something that happens in the third phase of it, "the anointing”, which involves using a 12th century silver spoon to drip oil on the king.
[00:05:39] But the unusual fact to mention about this holy oil is that King Charles did modernise the recipe, he updated the ingredients of the oil.
[00:05:50] Previously, this holy oil included a mixture of sesame seed and olive oil, rose, jasmine, cinnamon, an array of other unusual oils, as well as amber and orange blossom.
[00:06:05] But King Charles requested that the holy oil didn’t include something called ambergris, which is an expensive substance found in whale intestines. He is known for his support of animal welfare, and he decided that it would be a bit excessive for a whale to be killed so that a tiny bit of its oil could be spread on his head.
[00:06:28] So, there you go, that’s one modernisation of a very unmodern tradition.
[00:06:35] And our third unusual element to mention about the coronation is to do with a particularly unlikely food that many British people would have made while watching the coronation on TV.
[00:06:48] This is something called “coronation chicken”, which might sound a little disgusting when I describe it to you, but it is about as traditionally British as food can get.
[00:07:00] It is a cold cooked chicken marinated in sour cream, mayonnaise, chutney and curry powder, and served with dried apricots, red onions and toasted almonds.
[00:07:16] It’s an unusual yellow colour, which comes from the curry powder, but in my opinion at least, it is remarkably tasty.
[00:07:25] It was invented for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation back in 1953, and has remained popular ever since. Although I should add that it isn’t popular with the King, who opted for a vegetation quiche at his post-coronation banquet instead.
[00:07:43] Now, moving on to another unusual piece of British news from 2023, this one comes from right at the north of Scotland, above Inverness.
[00:07:55] A lady was out kayaking a few years ago when she paddled past a sheep on a remote beach at the bottom of a cliff.
[00:08:02] Nothing particularly unusual about that; the area is full of sheep farms, and the lady presumed that the sheep had just got separated from its flock and would make its way back shortly afterwards.
[00:08:13] But, in October this year, two years after first seeing this sheep, the kayaker returned to the area and saw the sheep in the same place.
[00:08:25] The sheep’s fleece had grown so long that it was touching the ground. As the kayak went past, the sheep followed it along, jumping from rock to rock and bleating, making noises, as if it were calling out for help.
[00:08:43] She thought the sheep must have got stuck at the bottom of the cliff, separated from the rest of its flock.
[00:08:50] When she returned home, the kayaker called out to various animal rescue services, but was told that there was no case for saving the sheep. After all, it seemed happy and healthy and was in no danger, it was just isolated and on its own.
[00:09:10] What happened next was nothing less than a media frenzy. The story was picked up by national newspapers, it was on the BBC, and journalists descended on the area, keen to catch a glimpse of an animal that was being dubbed “The loneliest sheep in Britain”.
[00:09:28] It took a few weeks, but a rescue team was assembled, and a group of men went down the cliff to rescue “Fiona”, as she'd been called.
[00:09:40] They managed to drag her up, which was quite the task, given that she had grown very fat and had a 10kg fleece, but eventually she was saved, much to the relief of armchair watchers across the country.
[00:09:55] She has even been rehoused at an animal welfare farm, and after a serious haircut she is now accepting visits from members of the public. Although she is now completely indistinguishable from any other sheep, so if you make a trip expecting to see something other than a very normal-looking sheep, well you’ll be a little disappointed.
[00:10:19] Now, moving on, our penultimate piece of very unusual news was a research paper released in September this year about what are colloquially called “beer goggles”.
[00:10:32] “Goggles” are the kind of glasses, the eye protectors, that you wear if you go underwater, and “beer goggles” is an expression used in English to describe the phenomenon where you perceive someone as more attractive after you have drunk alcohol.
[00:10:49] Perhaps this is a phenomenon you have experienced yourself, perhaps it isn’t, but it is a fairly widespread term in English. You can say that someone had their beer goggles on, or you were looking through your beer goggles.
[00:11:05] Scientists have done quite a lot of research into this, for example giving alcohol to animals to see if that affects their mating habits, but there was an important paper published in September this year that suggested that “beer goggles”, in the traditional sense of the term, simply don’t exist.
[00:11:27] In this paper, which was published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, the authors suggested that alcohol doesn’t change how attractive we perceive people to be; it only lowers your inhibitions, meaning that you are more likely to go up to someone you were already attracted to and try to start a conversation than you would be if you hadn’t drunk any alcohol.
[00:11:51] In other words, alcohol doesn’t make you attracted to people you would otherwise not be attracted to, it only reduces your inhibitions and can amplify your preexisting attraction to someone.
[00:12:05] And if you are wondering how this study was completed, it was actually done in a very professional manner; 36 young adults were given drinks, and not told whether they contained alcohol or not, and then re asked to rate different people in terms of their attractiveness and the levels of proximity they felt to them.
[00:12:27] What the study found was that people’s ratings of how attractive people were didn’t change depending on their alcoholic consumption; the only thing that changed was that the more alcohol a person had consumed, the more likely they were to say that they would approach one of the more attractive people.
[00:12:45] So, alcohol doesn’t give you “beer goggles”, but instead “liquid courage”, to use the colloquial term, courage that is brought on by alcohol.
[00:12:57] Now, our final “unusual British news from 2023” is about one of the top-rated tourist attractions in the entire country, but one that I would be very confident that you have never been to, and I think it’s very unlikely you have even heard of it.
[00:13:14] It’s something called the “Bude Tunnel”, and it is a plastic tunnel in the car park of a Sainsbury’s supermarket in a town in Cornwall called Bude, it is nothing other than a plastic shelter protecting shoppers from the rain.
[00:13:33] And the reason I mention it in this episode is because it was in the news as a prime example of British humour.
[00:13:42] You probably know that TripAdvisor is a popular website where you can review restaurants, hotels and tourist attractions. And it has an algorithm that bumps up attractions with good reviews. You know, if you own a hotel or restaurant, having a bunch of good reviews on TripAdvisor is important for your business.
[00:14:03] But British people have a tendency to club together and manipulate things like votes and search rankings, especially when the results can be humorous.
[00:14:16] For example, back in 2016 there was a poll where members of the public could vote on the name for an important research boat, and there was a huge campaign so that the comic name “Boaty McBoatface” ended up winning.
[00:14:35] Anyway, manipulating the democratic process, or manipulating an algorithm for humorous effect has become something of a British tradition, and in October of 2023 residents of the small town of Bude came together to flood TripAdvisor with reviews of this supermarket plastic tunnel, turning it into one of the top-rated tourist attractions in the region.
[00:15:01] So, if you were in Cornwall and you opened up your TripAdvisor app to look at “things to do” in the area, you might have seen museums, lovely beaches and theatres, and then this plastic tunnel in a Sainsbury’s supermarket.
[00:15:17] In fact, if you search “Bude tunnel” on TripAdvisor you can see all of these for yourself, but let me read you out now some of the almost 1,500 reviews of this tunnel:
[00:15:30] Daniel W said, “We went with high expectations and I'm pleased to say that the Bude Tunnel met all of them! Every individual will find something unique to admire and be inspired by. For me it was the beautiful stained glass that took my breath away and left me wanting more. We will be returning as will our children and their children's children.”
[00:15:53] Then user Chris4u111 added, “Well, what can I say? We have held back from visiting this iconic eighth wonder of the world until today. We are still coming down from the elation and euphoria of the genuinely breathtaking experience. Life will never quite be the same but we shall visit again and again.”
[00:16:14] And what is perhaps even better than reading the clearly ironic 5* reviews from thousands of British pranksters is reading the 1* reviews from people who have fallen for it, have travelled there, only to be slightly disappointed.
[00:16:30] Or, as user Debs B put it, in her 1 star review, “I thought this would be something special when I was searching for things to see in and around Bude…. How wrong I was ! Its a Perspex tunnel which was very dirty . It did get me from Sainsbury’s car park to the entrance of Sainsbury’s though, without getting wet. So one star for that . Don’t bother coming to look , there’s nothing here.”
[00:16:54] And then she added, “Ps what happened to all the pretty lights as in the pictures ?“
[00:17:00] So, there you have it, five unusual very lighthearted British news stories from 2023.
[00:17:08] From stolen golden toilets to lost sheep, coronation chicken to silver spoons, beer goggles and supermarket tunnels
[00:17:17] But if there's one thing I hope you take away from all of this, it’s that if you are visiting Britain and you like to use TripAdvisor, it’s best to remember the Russian proverb. “Doveryay, no proveryay, “trust but verify”.
[00:17:32] If not, you might find yourself slightly disappointed.
[00:17:39] OK then, that is it for today's lighthearted episode on Unusual British News from 2023.
[00:17:45] I hope it was a fun one, and you learned about a few things I guess wouldn’t have made it into the news in your country.
[00:17:52] This episode is actually set to be released on Boxing Day, December 26th, so if you are listening on the day it is released, I hope you are having a wonderful day, whatever that might be and wherever you might be.
[00:18:04] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:18:09] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
