可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】Hi 安澜. Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone. So, the topic I'm going to propose today, well, I say “I propose” is actually from one of our fans. Oh, brilliant. So she proposed this topic, because she was recently hired by this company, and she's dealing with all these social insurance tax deduction “五险一金” thing. Okay. Oh, dear. I can imagine that's very complicated. And she wanted us to talk about what it's like in the UK. Okay. But first things first, 安澜, you know the idea of “五险一金”, right? Well, to be perfectly honest, I probably understand the Chinese system more than I do the British system. Of course. Because fair enough, you have been working in China for all these years. Yeah, exactly. You have to pay all of those as well. Yes. But for those of you who are still students or you don't really know that much about 五险一金, let me give you a very quick crash course. 咱们说的五险一金包括五险是养老保险, This is like the pension, 医疗保险, medical insurance, 失业保险, unemployment insurance, 工伤保险, work-related injury insurance and生育保险, maternity insurance. 一金就是住房公积金housing fund. Yes. 安澜, you don't have housing fund, do you? No. I don't have housing fund. I don't think I actually have to pay housing fund because as a foreigner. You don’t have access. I don't have access. Okay. So that's a little bit of introduction to our 五险一金. Now before we get into the UK system, I assume that the basic concept is the same, like pay, there's the idea of gross pay. And there’s the idea of net pay也有这种税前税后的概念. Yeah. So gross pay is your full pay before tax and that's normally what is advertised when you apply for a job. That's normally what's written on your contract. Your net pay is your take-home pay. Oh, you call it take-home pay.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hello again欢迎来到Happy Hour英文小酒馆。关注公众号璐璐的英文小酒馆，加入我们的酒馆社群，邂逅更精彩更广阔的世界 In olden times, when if you made a wish, it would always come true, there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun itself, which has seen so much, was astonished whenever it shone in her face. Close by the king’s castle lay a great dark forest, and under an old tree in the forest was a well. When the day was very warm, the king’s child went out into the forest and sat down by the side of the cool fountain, and when she was bored, she took a golden ball, and threw it up on high and caught it, and this ball was her favourite toy. Now it so happened that the princess’ golden ball fell on to the ground beyond and rolled straight into the well. The king’s daughter followed it with her eyes, but it vanished, and the well was deep - so deep that the bottom could not be seen. She began to cry and cried louder and louder. As she was complaining, someone said to her, “Why are you so upset, king’s daughter?” She looked around to the side from where the voice came, and saw a frog stretching forth its thick, ugly head from the water. “Ah! Is it you who just spoke to me?” Said she. “I am crying because my golden ball has fallen into the well.” “Do not cry,” answered the frog, “I can help you, but what will you give me if I bring your golden ball back?” “Whatever you will have, dear frog,” said she. "My clothes, my pearls and jewels, and even my golden crown." The frog answered, “I do not care for your clothes, your pearls and jewels, or your golden crown, but if you will love me and let me be your friend, and sit with you, and eat with you, and play with you. If you promise me this, I will go down below, and bring you back your golden ball.” “Oh yes,” said she, “I promise, if you will bring me my ball back again.” She however, thought, “How silly this frog is! He lives in the water with the other frogs, and can’t spend time with humans!” But the frog, when he had heard this promise, put his head into the water and sank down, and in a short while came swimming up again with the ball in his mouth, and threw it on the grass. The king’s daughter was delighted to see her pretty toy once more, picked it up, and ran away with it. “Wait, wait,” said the frog. “Take me with you. I can’t run as fast as you.” But all he could do was croak loudly. She did not listen to it, but ran home and soon forgot the poor frog, who was forced to go back into his well again. The next day when she sat herself down for dinner with the king and all the courtiers, and as she was eating from her golden plate, something came creeping splish splash, splish splash, up the marble staircase, and when it had got to the top, it knocked at the door and cried, “Princess, open the door for me.” She ran to see who was outside, but when she opened the door, there sat the frog in front of it. Then she quickly slammed the door and sat down to dinner again, and was quite frightened. The king saw that she was absolutely terrified and said, “My child, what are you scared of? Is there some monster outside who wants to carry you away?” “Ah, no,” replied she. “It is no monster but a disgusting frog.” “What does a frog want with you?” “Ah, father, yesterday as I was in the forest sitting by the well, playing, my golden ball fell into the water. And because I cried so much, the frog brought it out again for me, and I promised him he should be my companion, but I never thought he would be able to come out of his water! And now he is outside there, and wants to come in.” In the meantime, it knocked a second time, and cried, “Princess! Open the door for me! You promised me!”

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Britain under the microscope.欢迎回来【闲话英伦】Hi, 安澜。 Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone. Now let's use a magnifying glass and go into these stately homes or manor houses and look at the rooms and also look at the servants. Absolutely. So, what is a typical country house? All that I know it’s huge. Yes. There will be lots of bedrooms. There will probably be a drawing room. Hang on a minute. I always wondered this, what is a drawing room? It's not for people to actually draw there. No, no. In ordinary houses, it's like a living room. But a drawing room is probably a little bit more formal, so you'd have living rooms or drawing rooms. So, some would be for guests, some would just be for the family themselves. I don't know if I remember this correctly, when I first visited Buckingham Palace, there's a drawing room there. Yeah. So that is a very typical thing for those huge like palaces or huge houses. Exactly. So you have different types of drawing rooms. So, some were more formal, some were a little bit less formal. But it's the living space. It's the living space. 就跟我们的客厅一样, 只不过是 much much bigger. Yeah. In big houses, in the UK now, you might see we don't call them drawing rooms anymore, but you might see there's like a guest living room where if people come to visit your home, you might entertain them in there. But normally at the back or in another room, there’s a room where you would spend time just as a family. I see. I see. I'm sure there's like the normal the usual dining room. Dining room, libraries, studies, a gallery for art as well. Yes, because they would collect pieces, wouldn’t they? Yeah. Of course, there will be servant quarters as well. Servant quarters which is usually the downstairs part. Yeah. It's the bedrooms for the servants. Umm, 就这种upstairs, downstairs. Exactly. 我们之前聊到过的就是在英国那种老的大宅子里面, 等级森严的, 有所谓的楼上楼下upstairs, downstairs, upstairs for the lord and lady. And downstairs for the servants. Apart from that there would normally be huge gardens, land for farming, as well as conservatories and something called an orangery. Actually, just put orangery aside, which is a word I've never heard until this topic. Even conservatories, I think it's difficult for a lot of people to understand, or I don't think they've heard about this before. I only got to know the word conservatory when I was looking at the house listing, the real estate listings in the UK. Conservatory, 如果你是在英国租房或者买房的话, 你就会经常看到这个词, 就what is a conservatory? A conservatory is almost like a type of greenhouse. It's a room that is part of the garden. So, it's normally mostly glass. People would have plants in there, people would sit in there, particularly if it's not a very nice day. So it's like being in the garden, but without being cold and wet. 所以就有点像半温室, 但有点半阳光房的那种感觉。 There are places for people who sit and enjoy the garden。 Exactly, when it's a bit too cold to enjoy the garden. Yeah. What is an orangery? Is not a place just for oranges, is it? It is. Okay. Well. Oranges and lemons. So, you have to think in the 17th 18th century oranges, pineapples, lemons were incredibly expensive. So some rich people, what they used to do was create an orangery. So, they could grow this type of fruit that comes from Italy and other hotter places. So they need a greenhouse for that sort of thing. Yeah. Exactly. And it used to be part of the decoration. Interesting, little bit of the tropical paradise that you guys were like aspiring to have. Exactly. You have to think that most of these rich people, they would travel to Italy and France when they were young, and they used to bring things back. Yeah, I can totally see the charm of that. So that's about the anatomy of the house itself. Now let's talk about the servant quarter....

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Britain under the microscope.欢迎回来【闲话英伦】Hi, 安澜。 Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone. Hi everyone. You sound a bit nasal. I've got a little bit of a cold. Okay. I suppose it adds a different type of charm. Yeah. And it's a good thing. It's audio, I don't look that great at the moment. All right. So, chitchat aside, let us get into today's topic. You know, when a lot of Chinese people when they think about British or English drama就很多人看英剧的时候, I think they start with, you know, what you call it? Big houses, servants, lords, ladies… Yeah. Kind of like sort of period drama. 对, 你们管那个叫period drama, 有点时代剧那个意思。 So for example when I was watching Downtown Abbey. Yes. 唐顿庄园. And also some episodes of Miss Marple like Agatha Christie's, 阿婆的一些都是这种大庄园里面。 Yes. So it’s that time, it's the early 20th century. It's the era of the manor house. I thought today let's focus on that. What did you say? You called them Manor houses. Well. There's lots of different names for them. You can call the manor houses, country houses or stately homes. Manor is m-a-n-o-r. Yeah. What does that mean “Manor”? Well. The manor was basically the big house and the land around it. 就是一个像庄园这种感觉。对吧 Yeah. So, we would still say, for example, the lord or lady of the manor. By the way, statistically and realistically, how many British people still live or still own that type of manor houses? Very very very very few. It's not just, I mean just being rich, is not enough, is it? No. 据我所知, 他好像是要有什么原来的那种贵族aristocrats。 Well. You get some rich people that they do buy these big houses, they probably don't own much of the land around them. But the thing is - incredibly expensive to keep. And normally if you're looking at more of a traditional manor house, it comes with a lot of responsibilities. Responsibilities? I thought that's just a private home, you just take care of it like we do to our houses or flats. No, traditionally being the lord of the manor means that you have very close ties to the village, because the land is so big or it was so big that they would have its own little industries, it would have its own farms. And, it comes with a lot of responsibilities for the villagers, the people who live nearby. Oh, that's why. I'm sure a lot of you when you are watching TV shows like Downtown Abbey think about Lord Grantham.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to our new segment. It means what？ Yeah. OK, your YEAH is getting less passionate. Anyhow欢迎回来我们的新板块词源考古研究所. Hi, 安澜. Hi, 璐璐. Hi, everyone. So let me propose the word of the day. Okay. This is a word that - well basically will bring up some painful memory of the past 3 years. Okay. So, you know it has something to do with pandemic. Yeah. Is this something we probably all got? And that is the word vaccine. Oh yes. Vaccine or vaccination. 就是接种疫苗, 对吧？疫苗. I'm pretty sure you all got vaccinated. Well, for COVID. Oh, yeah, yeah, I got vaccinated quite a few times, actually I think now. Me too, me too. But I've always wondered, although we've talked about vaccination and all the relevant words and expressions in other episodes. But where does this word even come from? Vaccine? Is it medically originated? No, it's actually a Latin word and it comes from the word for cow. Cow like mooooooo, cow. Moo, cow. Vacca. 所以是拉丁文的牛的意思. I fail to see the connection between modern medicine or medical treatment and moo cows. Well, we just call them cows in English. If you call them moo cows, it sounds a little bit stupid. Okay, thank you. That's alright. But I'm pretty sure there's interesting background story. Well yeah. And it all comes from when vaccines were first invented. So, this was in the 18th century and a British scientist named Edward Jenner. Now Edward Jenner was a doctor as well as a scientist. And he noticed something quite strange. That June that time, when smallpox was everywhere.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Welcome back to geek time. We're gonna be talking about cryptocurrency for the advanced lesson. Hey, what's going on? Lulu? Well, I'm prepared to be even more confused. Hahaha. Don't worry. I think this might be easier. Yeah, in the previous episode, we were talking about how cryptocurrency has no central authority or central regulatory bodies to really oversee it. For me, that just sounds like a problem waiting to happen, really sounds like troubles. Because definitely, some people are gonna use it for criminal activities, you know. Exactly. That's one of the things that a lot of people talk about cryptocurrency is the fact that it's connected to crime, which is - you can say that for just about any currency, but cryptocurrency is like the major tool for criminals who are online. Because there's no regulatory body. There's anonymity. Just really a hotbed for a crime. Right. You've like - we've talked about the Silk Road before. Emm. Dark web. Yeah. Using the dark web that are connected to buy and sell goods. All those goods are sold or bought with cryptocurrencies. Because it's much harder to track and to trace. Yeah. It's nowadays the markets are trying to get people to have their name connected to their wallet, but not every market requires that. And so, there is a bunch of people out there that have cryptocurrencies that have just a wallet with no name attached to it. Yeah. Because that was the original aim, that was the original meaning of cryptocurrency, right? They don't want a centralized authority to control all these money transfers. Would there be a lot of money laundering in cryptocurrency? Yeah. Like cryptocurrency, just in like 2021 alone, there was something like $8.6 billion of money laundered using cryptocurrency. That's not even the beginning, like every year that happens, there is other issues involved with cryptocurrency. When you have so much crypto, you can actually use that to affect or inflate the market. You have people that have large sums of cryptocurrency, not only are they using it to launder money, but they are actually able to increase the value of the currency they have, by just selling it to each other for the same amount of money, which increases the amount of trades, which makes people think that it's worth more, and then people buy it for more. Oh, okay. I think I've heard of this. This is called wash trades, right? Right. It happens on the stock market too, gold markets, but it's rampant and in some markets with like cryptocurrency. Yeah. So, it's the whole idea is I have some cryptocurrency, I just sell it to you, you sell it back to me, I sell it to you, you sell it back to me. And so, by doing that we're trying to make it seem that large amount of this cryptocurrency is traded on the market, therefore inflating the value of it. Right. I think the other problem with cryptocurrency is a lot of people obviously use it for speculation. So, like really really - like gambling. Right. Just like buying stock, you want the value to go up. People are investing money in the cryptocurrencies. And when you see like the increase in like the value of Bitcoin over the years, went from something that was worth pennies to being worth thousands of dollars. I think it's worth $30,000 now, and it’s worth $60,000 I think at the beginning of the year something around there. And so, people can take a small investment and make their investment increase 10 times or maybe even a hundred times their original investment. It's a market for gamblers. However, like we talked about last time, most of these cryptocurrency, they do not really have the staying power. They will not be able to really maintain that high value over long term or keep growing. It's very volatile to go up and down fluctuate wildly. Mhm. Yeah, when we look at just like we mentioned Dogecoin earlier, but you could have like five Dogecoin for a penny in 2020. But ...

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to geek time. Hi, Brad. Hi, Lulu. So what is our topic for today? We're gonna be talking about cryptocurrency. We kind of talked about NFTs before. And NFTs kind of share a basic background with cryptocurrency, but we haven't really gotten into cryptocurrency before. So I think this is where we can kind of get into it. Yeah. This is where everything started basically. First of all, cryptocurrency在中文叫加密货币. I think many people think of cryptocurrency, they think of Bitcoin 比特币 or even Dogecoin 狗狗币. But what exactly is cryptocurrency? Oh, cryptocurrency is just a currency that doesn't have a central government or authority controlling it. So when you have your dollar, your Renminbi, someone had to print that or control the amount of it. And rather than that, It’s usually the central bank, isn't it? Like the central bank. But rather than that, this is something that's online. And there's like a digital ledger that has a list of everyone who has bought or sold the currency. And so they know who has what and this can be like anonymous. And that's why a lot of people really wanted it. But nowadays a lot of the exchanges are kind of starting to collect your personal data for tax purposes and things like that. I see. so let me slow this down a little bit. There's no central authority. 一般来说我们生活中接触的货币, 不管是人民币或者说美金日元, 它都是由central bank一般都是央行来发行的, but cryptocurrency essentially there is no authority, no central authority, no government involved, and no regulatory bodies, 没有这种监管的机构. So It's just everything stored in a ledger. You said像一个账本, a digital ledger. Right. And some people can be anonymous. They can - you don't know who they are. They're just an account number, but others might have to register. They might have to have their personal data there. Yeah, so oftentimes if you're looking at the blockchain, you may not be able to know who the person is. But if you go to like, for example, the government will know who this person is because they've signed up for an exchange and that exchange has tied their account number to their name I see and you mentioned blockchain. This was one of the hottest buzzwords a few years back, blockchain, 区块链. Till this day I still don't know exactly what blockchain is, but I know this is the technology behind cryptocurrency, right? Blockchain made cryptocurrency possible. Yeah, it is basically just all the data. Blockchain is the ledger. You have to decrypt and encrypt all the data. So whenever someone buys or sells something using the cryptocurrency or whenever cryptocurrency is traded, it has to go through authorization and they have to run the blockchain. In order to do this, they're using hundreds of computers or thousands of computers and they go through a process that's referred to as mining. So sounds you're like mining for gold. And essentially, that's what you're doing by using your computer to help the blockchain process. You're going to get some sort of payment. Let me stop you there. So mining here就是挖矿. It's like you are mining for gold or mining for diamonds. And this is a way to make money in this cryptocurrency world? Yeah. because rather than have - like a government doing all the mining or regulation, everyone is pitching in to do the regulation or to do the mining to move the data or to move the currency from one person to another. Oh, I see it's like a community thing almost. I've heard of people doing the mining, 其实我自己朋友圈里面也有人去参与这种cryptocurrency的挖矿.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Once upon a time, in the medieval city of Coventry in England, there lived a kind and compassionate woman named Lady Godiva. She was the wife of Lord Leofric, a powerful and wealthy nobleman. Lady Godiva was known for her generosity and love for the people of Coventry, but her husband, Lord Leofric, was a stern ruler who declared heavy taxes on the citizens. The people of Coventry suffered under the burden of these taxes, and their pleas to reduce taxes were ignored by the greedy ruler. Lady Godiva, however, felt sorry for all the struggles of the common people. Lady Godiva argued and argued with her husband from dawn to night, trying to persuade him to reduce taxes for the people of Coventry. Lady Godiva thought of new ways to raise money and even said she would write to the king. Unfortunately, Lord Leofric was stubborn and refused to reduce taxes. In the end, Lady Godiva lost her patience and she made a bold and strange proposal to her husband. She said that she would ride through the streets of Coventry, completely naked, if he would reduce taxes and help end the suffering of the people. Lord Leofric was shocked that she would even suggest this but eventually agreed to her terms. Leofric knew how shy his wife was so he was confident that she would never go through with riding naked through the city. The people of Coventry soon heard about Lady Godiva's promise which spread like wildfire through the city. The citizens were grateful for any hope of relief from their taxes and they waited for the day of her ride. Lady Godiva, determined to fulfill her promise and alleviate the suffering of the people, prepared for the ride.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi everyone and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】. Hi, 安澜. Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone. Let me propose a topic today. Okay. You know, all my time dealing with you. Thank you. And other British people in general. Yeah. Again, I’m not trying to stereotype. And with all due respect. Okay. I do feel like British people have this tendency to be quite sarcastic in their speech. Emm, would you agree? I would say yes, to a certain extent. 对。就是，英国人说话的时候很喜欢反讽,就很喜欢说一些反话。安澜，你知道中文里管这个叫什么吗？ 不是阴阳吗？ 对，就是，你还知道阴阳啊，这个不错。我们有时候开玩笑就说：“老阴阳人了”。 Really. See， there we go. Okay. You can't even control it. So, I thought in today's episode, let us do a few phrases that British people would usually say, but they don't mean what they seem to mean. Okay. I think we did something quite similar in one of our live streaming episodes. Yeah. We actually did an entire life streaming like a pop quiz thing of you quizzing me on all these read between the lines, the hidden meaning of British sarcasm. Ok. So, today we give this quiz to you. So, see if you can understand the hidden meaning behind the sarcasm. So, let's begin. Okay. Well. Let's start, first of all, with requests. Now we all know that British people they tend to make requests very very overly polite. So, … Like this “could you…I was wondering if you could…” Would you most awfully be able, you know, that type of thing, really really exaggerated. So, if your boss says to you “could you do this for me when you have a minute?” What does that mean？ Could you do this for me when you have a minute？Although it sounds polite, what do you think it means？Three, two, one? I think it actually means “Do it now.” Yes. When someone says to you in English, when you have a minute, the implication is that it's only gonna take you a minute you need to do it now. Emm, I see. The request is a bit of a tricky one. Because sometimes people might actually be very polite in this situation or they're being polite. But it could also be they are just trying to hide what they truly mean behind the politeness. Exactly. We would also use it if we try to make a point that this person is probably not the best at time management. Mhm. I remember there's also a lot of sarcasm around, not sarcasm, but hidden meaning about good or bad when you say is good or quite good, it's not good or what was that about？ For example, what does it mean if I say “ it's quite good”? It's quite good. I think when you say it's quite good, that means it's not really that good? Actually, means very good. Then why can't you just say it's very good？ Well. We just don't like to say something is very, we don't like to use the word very. Because it's, it's a bit too strong. Okay. So, if you hear very from a British person, chances are they are being sarcastic. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You also say “not bad”, right？ Yeah, that film’s not bad, that's generally means also good. 嗯，跟中文的“不错”差不多 Yeah, a little bit, but “不错” normally means it's very good, while in English is normally means it's good. It's not too exaggerated. I keep hearing you say things like not too bad actually. So, if I ask “how was your day, 安澜, and you say "not too bad actually". What does that mean？

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to one of your favorite segments, The Sound of Musicals. 欢迎回来【曲外之音】. Hi, Oliver. Hello, everyone, hello, Lulu. So we're gonna continue with Mamma Mia, the jukebox musical. Yeah. one of… maybe the first or one of the first jukebox musicals I can think of anyway, yeah. There's so many more now. They are everywhere. There seems to be one every few years somebody changes or adds the music from a popular band or singer and they're everywhere. Yeah. Okay. So, in the previous episode, we were talking about the background. We also walked everyone through the story, which is a fun light-hearted story really, they were lots of like little twists, little plots, but the whole idea is pretty simple. Right? It's just a girl who is about to get married. She wants to find out who her father is. And then the whole story unravels. So Oliver, what do you think are some of the themes in this particular story or in the musical? Well. I'm gonna be honest, I've watched it a few times and I struggle to see any major themes if I'm being quite honest, it feels too light-hearted to have anything really deeper than that. On the surface. It just like, it's just a feel good, happy ending musical. Yeah. It feels like something you go out, you forget about the world for a little bit, and not really think about any major issues or anything life important. But interestingly, there are some deeper or bigger themes hidden underneath all these song and dance. First of all, surprisingly is feminism. Really, feminism. Think about the entire setting, think about the main character is a girl. And the main relationship is actually the relationship between her and her mother, and how they had misunderstandings, and then eventually they reconciliated. And also, the mom is a single mother, although we talk about who was she with, but the fact is she wasn't like so hopelessly in love or groveling at any of these men's feet. She was enjoying her life. She was enjoying her friendship with her best friends. They're all women. If you think about it, it’s a huge group of women, it's like a support group almost. That's true. I do remember the songs where they were singing and dancing and enjoying themselves and talking about the worries and everything together and doesn't Donna, the mother, doesn't she own the tavern on the island. Exactly. Where they all are. Yes, yes, there's no men involved there. It's all female owners and management and such. Yeah. Yeah, and there's nothing like this whole toxic competition between women. It's more like they're very supportive of one another, if you think about it to have a kid out of wedlock, not knowing who the father is even nowadays is still problematic. Right? So back in the days, there was probably more social stigma or supposed to be more social stigma. Yet with the support of her friends, nobody was, for lack of a better word, slut shaming her. No, you don't get that feeling at all throughout the show. You're right. Yeah, there was nothing... There's confusion over who the father is, but there's no judgment on anyone, which is quite nice. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. And the other thing is, the only one that actually judged her a little bit was her daughter. Her daughter originally was saying that “no, I don't want to be like you. When I have a kid, I want to know who the father is. I don't want to be like you”. But eventually they also reconciliated. And the mom, Donna, the character is not just, you know, when you see single mother character, the stereotypical single mother is always like toiling away, suffering, being very lonely, being very just like hard done by that sort of imagery. However, in this single parent household, they enjoy songs and dance and love and sunshine, happiness. I think that is also like a more of a positive take on what a single parent household could be.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Jack saw that the giant was asleep, he crept out of the box. Suddenly, he caught up the hen, ran out of the room, opened the door of the castle, which the giant had left open, and descended the beanstalk as fast as he could. His mother was glad to see him again, and surprised at seeing the hen, which laid them three gold eggs every day. Jack’s mother took them to the next town and sold them, and soon became extremely rich. Some time afterwards, Jack made another journey up the beanstalk to the giant’s castle; but first he dyed his hair and disguised himself. The old giantess did not recognise him, and dragged him in as she had done before to eat him; but once more she heard her husband coming and hid him in the box, not thinking that it was the same boy who had stolen the hen. She put him into the same box, and told him stay there, or the giant would eat him. Then the giant came in, saying: “Fee, fa, fie, fo, fum, I smell the breath of an Englishman.” “Oh!” said his wife, “it is only the farmer, who has just been here. We cannot spare him for your dinner.” Then the giant sat down, and when he had eaten half an ox, he told his wife to bring his moneybags to him. She instantly went and fetched two large bags full of gold; and then left him to go about her usual housework. The Ogre counted out the gold twice, and then put it into the bags and tied them up. In a few minutes, Jack heard him snore. He escaped the box, seized the bags, and hurrying out of the castle, safely carried them home.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi everyone, and welcome back to one of your favorite segments, The Sound of Musicals. 欢迎回来大家最喜欢的板块之一【曲外之音】. And it has been a long time, Oliver. Hello, it has been a very long time, yes. But I'm very happy to be back. It's nice to be back. So what is the first musical we're gonna talk about now that you're back？ I thought because it's been such a long time, maybe you would like to choose something for today. Okay. I was hoping you would ask that. Before I say the name of the musical, I want you to listen to this music. (Music) Does it sound familiar to you？ It does. I think I recognize the band who made those songs. Okay, so you know which musical we're gonna talk about today. I can take a very good guess, yes. And it is ? I’m guessing it's going to be Mamma Mia, the musical made around the music of ABBA, the songs we just heard. Yeah, I mean, I sort of got the feeling that Mamma Mia wouldn't be your top picks. It's not in my top ten, no. Yeah, because it's so lighthearted. It's such a fun musical and you like the heavier stuff like you want it miserable instead of lighthearted. It is more my style is the heavier hitting musicals with deeper messages, but I do enjoy a nice, lighthearted musical as well sometimes. There's a place for them, definitely there is . Yeah, I mean musical theater is supposed to be more lighthearted, right? Especially compared to things like opera. Oh, definitely so. Compared to opera and the standard plays, in many cases, musicals are the the lighthearted, forget the world for one evening and jump into a story with good music. You can dance and sing to later, things like that, musicals are a good escape. Okay, so Oliver, since you know a lot about musicals, even the ones that you don't particularly favor, can you give us a little bit of the background like when was the premiere and just a general background? Okay, yeah. So the musical first of all, it came out in 1999 in London. So that was when it premiered in London. And a year later in 2000, it made the trip over to the US, it has been all around the world since then. It is popular in many places, more than 50 countries and it's been on all of the continents. So it's a very, very popular musical. Yeah. It is very popular and has been on Broadway in West End, in London for so many years. So this musical is called a jukebox musical点唱机音乐剧jukebox is, you know the olden days when you go to a bar there is like a jukebox where you can put in a coin and you can choose the music you wanted to play. So why is it called jukebox musical? It's actually a really popular thing nowadays. Lots of bands are getting their own musicals. ABBA was one of the first, but since then there have been lots of them. They're called jukebox musicals because they use music that wasn't designed for the musical. It was released by a band. You could buy it in a shop or nowadays you can download it and listen to it online, but it's not connected to the musical. People have used that and made the musical around it, rather than the other way, which is more common. Yeah, it's basically, the traditional musicals, they are completely like original songs. They were written for this particular musical. But a jukebox musical is, first of all, there is a very popular singer or very popular band. And then because their albums or their songs are so popular, people... the producers decided to make a whole musical based on their existing music. That's exactly yeah. They're kind of using the popularity of the music that's already there to create a musical. So they make a story to fit the music rather than in the traditional way they make the music to fit the story. So it's kind of a reverse, but it does mean they're really popular with audiences because everybody knows the songs, everybody can sing along. So they're really popular. Especially if you're a fan of the band or the singer. Definitely yeah.