The Pronunciation Episode

You're listening to SmashCast.

It's just a bit weird.

Welcome back, SmashCast listeners.

Smashalicious.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Welcome to SmashCast.

It's only me.

Me, continuing the SmashCast mission

to waste as much of your time as possible

and in the process,

wasting as much of my time as possible.

But how are we going to do that this time?

Well, I'm going to tell you about me sending myself to Mars.

We visit the Czech Republic with Adrian, George and Philip.

We've got the world's most smashful...

cricket commentator.

And we talk about sleep.

We also hear from one of our expat exports from Australia.

We have the history of my house in a hundred objects,

Minty's review, Oscar's been feeling better,

groinal sugar and awful pronunciation.

So where do we start?

I am going to Mars.

This is the Intercontinental Corridor, can I help you?

Oh, yes. Well, my name is, at the very least...

Hi, darling. How you doing?

Hey, baby. Were you sleeping?

Oh, I'm sorry, but I've been really missing you.

You see, thanks to some tweet surfing on Twitter,

I stumbled across...

the information that NASA were placing a microchip

filled with people's names

on board their new Mars Science Laboratory rover thingy

for later this year.

One of those remote control buggy things, I think.

Well, I hope it's not buggy.

Software developers, you know what I'm talking about.

I'm not ashamed to say...

I don't badly need a friend

Or it's the end

Now, when I look at the clouds across the moon

Here in the night, I just hope and pray that soon

Oh, baby

You'll hurry home to me

Anyway, all you had to do was submit your name and postcode

and that meant...

that you were on the craft

Hey, baby

Off to Mars later in the year

So, there I am.

I even have a certificate to prove it.

Admittedly, it's a certificate downloaded from the internet,

but it's from NASA's site, so surely that counts for something.

I know someone who became a vicar by downloading a certificate from the internet.

She carried out a wedding last year as well.

Her name's Adriana.

It might sound like a storyline from Friends,

but it happened.

Talking of Adrians,

I went with a Mr. Bradley

to the Czech Republic a couple of weekends ago

to visit our Czech friends, George and Fennel.

And the first thing we did, of course,

was buy a pretzel and a beer.

It's literally the saltiest thing I've ever eaten.

But you didn't insist upon it.

Well...

I didn't know it was going to be quite as salty.

I mean...

To be fair to you,

you did say, look, it's covered in salt.

And the salt granules are the size of a very expensive diamond.

It's encrusted, like a Fabergé egg.

It's encrusted with diamonds.

It's encrusted with salt.

But still, I like salty things.

But man, this is salty.

I'm glad I'm not trying them out of beer.

Anyway.

What are your first impressions?

It's very much like...

an airport.

Mm-hmm.

With Czech writing.

That's true.

We nearly made our first faux pas of the weekend.

Saw a queue.

The Pavlovian queuing reflex kicked in.

We'd just disembarked.

And nearly boarded a flight to Caracas.

The only thing that stopped us

was the fact that they were scanning our luggage.

Mm.

We are walking down a pedestrian street

which affords...

magnificent panorama

encompassing the whole of the city of Prague.

The river and the bridges on the left.

The steeples and spires and domes of the various churches

come increasingly into view.

You can see that the city is set more or less in a...

in a valley or...

what do you call it?

And, yes, it's just...

quite an inspiring sight.

Not my face!

I love Radio 4.

And I love my digital radio.

I love my radio, my DJ's radio.

Through which I can quickly rewind something I'm listening to live

and then press record to record it on a little SD card

that I can then put into a Smashcast for your...

for your...

pleasure.

So, here's a smash you may have heard

on Radio 4 recently.

And I promise, I haven't added any sound effects.

I love my radio, my DJ's radio.

Lots of reaction to our cricket commentary.

Just in case you missed it,

to set the scene, the BBC's Edward Bevan

was commentating on Glamorgan when this happened.

As Robert Croft, his attack, lining that attack on...

around middle of the leg, comes in now

and Bo Strigo comes down and hits it up to...

towards us.

And is it going to hit us?

The ball has just come right through our window here.

And Edward's had a blow in the back, I'm afraid.

Well, they did a bit of digging after hearing that recording

and discovered this, which was from six years ago.

In comes Rog again.

And Boulders in this time is hit over.

Low arm, that's coming up towards us here.

Right.

It's gone through the commentary.

It's gone through the commentary box here.

You've probably heard that.

Well, I should have caught that one, shouldn't I?

That's straight down my throat.

But he's certainly made a mess in the ball, that one.

He's certainly made a mess of our whistle.

That's a little bit...

Well, now, that was six years ago.

It's not another one.

No, no, I mean, Edward, I can also reveal

that it has happened on a third occasion.

It certainly has.

Now, Courtney Walsh, the famous West Indies bowler,

was renowned, you know, terrific bowler.

But he was batting at Cardiff

against a Glamorgan bollock called John Derrick.

Exactly the same thing happened.

That was the first time.

So it's three times now.

I don't know if anybody's gunning for me out there.

Have you ever thought of getting bulletproof glass in your windows?

Or a helmet.

What the hell?

Oh, Radio 4.

I sometimes have the privilege

of the company of the people I claim to be friends.

And I'm confident.

That those friends will vouch for the fact

that I like sleep.

Now, sleep is one of the most important needs a human has.

And I'm not ashamed to promote this fact.

By demonstration, if I have to.

So imagine my joy when I came across this.

Sleep.

Here's Charlotte Green.

I felt very, very tired.

It has felt like wading thigh high through treacle at times.

Occasional today programs, I've really struggled.

But I've never actually fallen asleep.

There's a very, very...

a very very famous cutting outtake of a sports presenter and it's wonderful to hear because he

starts reading some results and sleep just it's almost like an anesthetic effect you can hear

almost tangible sleep just completely overtaking him clark has a one-shot lead going into today's

third round of the pga championship at wentworth he's on 10 under par here's our correspondents

like a small child 12 he's like a dog he has to sleep about 20 hours a day yeah he's like a dog

he's like a small child yeah this is dr will sweetman i'm a senior lecturer

i'm a senior lecturer i'm a senior lecturer i'm a senior lecturer i'm a senior lecturer

in asian religions at the university of otago in new zealand but you're listening to the smash cast

making my love to you

you

meanwhile back in czech with adrian and our young hosts george and philip so day one

about three o'clock is it half three oh god half four and we are in rakovnik

yeah that's right in the grounds of a castle about 40 kilometers

from prague and how much do you know of this place i know it very well actually

about history are you talking about history i am talking about the history of this place so

the history is it came from 19 uh no no he hasn't got a clue 13th century 13th century

13th century is more plausible and he lived really rich yeah he was three was there a princess involved

somewhere

and a donkey dragon george and philip there philip in the background helpfully suggesting that

once upon a time a very rich man lived in that castle later on and back in the city

i can't believe a woman has just walked past with a what was that a

jaguar yeah yeah jaguar i think

or lynx the lynx maybe yeah

me

i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know

is that a normal sort of pet to have

i kid you not a woman did actually walk past us in the middle of this major european city

walking a big cat as if it were a dog later on i asked adrian about his impression of the city's

underground see if you can spot the moment when as we ascended the escalator a pigeon's carcass

slowly passed us by on the sloped central partition bit

between the escalators

so uh your thoughts on the uh czech underground

um i quite liked it actually i like that sort of sensation of the station we got on it it was

like being inside a golf ball you know with the little dimples i do i do that was good

i haven't had that before that's not an experience one can often generate for oneself

indeed um

other than that i thought it was i thought it was absolutely fine

as dead pigeon which i haven't someone should move probably

smash cast guys smash cast

hello my name's pete i'm cooking the bloody barbecue again

i'm a fireman and uh i wish you would stop harassing me about this bloody podcast

smash cast

whatever you want to call it

whatever it is

now if you want to snag bugger off

favorite australian phrase number one

pigs ass

i'll put it into context

jeez i look hot in these short pants

pigs ass you do

ruby ruby ruby ruby

do you do you do you do you

do you do you do you do you do you

you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you

over here in australia um it's called rpm um and it's basically a spinning class static bikes

so picture this dark room neon lighting loud music lots of flashing lights uh lots of lycra

clad buttocks um if you're lucky enough to be at the back of the room obviously you see all of the

lycra clad buttocks in front of you um small stage small man on a static bike um cycling an

awful lot and shouting at you a lot um so basically it's cycling to music i don't really understand

what the um you know what the fuss is all about and now with the time approaching 5 p.m it's time

for the camp forecast who get you cyclonic three or four hark at her becoming outrageous

southwesterly five liza minnelli daniel corbett

eurovision song contest moderate three or four i wouldn't touch you with hers ducky south by

southwest by sondheim danny minogue cyclonic becoming rough later the history of my house

in a hundred objects from the windowsill of my front window from where it has rested for

a few years i have in my hand a stone

approximately cuboid it fits comfortably in my hand and has on one side a very smooth polished

surface it's dark in color with variations of brown and reddish brown throughout through the

polished surface you can clearly see the differing layers of rock within it and has to be a very old

stone ornamental certainly pointless sincerely so given to me by my mother after her father's

death some eight years ago it used to sit in his house somewhere and was passed on to me

as a memento of him he was the sort of cheeky monkey type bloke who'd go absent without leave

to get married a lifelong smoker he always chose the brand craven a one of my favorite stories

of his was the one where he claimed that smoking saved his life he was in a foxhole somewhere

during the war with a few of his troop buddies when word got out that the supplies van had turned

up behind the lines and if anyone wanted to buy anything from it to stock up on chocolate and

cigarettes and the like there now was their chance pop for that is what his grandchildren have always

known him as checked his pocket for his cigarettes and there they were plenty of craven a

waiting for him to pluck them from the papery packet in his shirt pocket so he'd

just throw them away in a bin and they wouldn't even make him a little longer

and he didn't need to go he stayed while the others went to the truck to buy their own

they didn't return as the truck was shelled by the germans and pop was always to remain grateful

for his craving for craven a ever since the history of my house

in a hundred objects

It's Minty's Review

Yeah

Minty's Review

Cadbury's Crunchy Biscuits

Describe the packaging

Just in

It's got

Rusty wrapper on the outside

I can't remember how much it costs now

And inside you get

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Chocolate covered discs

They're about

What, an inch and a half in diameter

And I just thought

They were going to be chocolate

Round

Crunchies

Because they're called Crunchy Biscuits

But they're not

They've got biscuity bits

And bits of crunchy in them

It looks to me like they've got a biscuit base

And then

Sort of the centre of it

Has the crunchy stuff

Niblets

The honeycomb stuff

And then it's just encased in chocolate

Yeah

Take a bite

What does that taste like?

Do you want me to eat it with my mouth open?

Well, it is very sweet

It's a nice texture

Not quite as brittle as a crunchy

It is very sweet though

Yeah, it's OK

It's all right

Out of ten?

Well, you know, innovation

With my marketing hat on

6, 7?

Well, that's not bad

They're basically just chocolate biscuits, aren't they?

That remind you of crunchies

I think they're chocolate

Yeah, that's right

Yeah, they're chocolate biscuits

With quite a lot of

Large crunchy niblets in them

Would you buy them again?

Not personally, no

But I know how fond you are of a crunchy

Which is why we bought them

Minty, thank you very much

For your Minty's Review

Hello?

Minty's Review

Back in Czech

Our young hosts, George and Philip

Take us out for the night

To enjoy an evening of museums and galleries

But on the way into Prague

We stop off for them to show off

Something they called

The Turkey Project

Now, the Turkey Project

Turned out to be

A small gathering of residents

Enjoying a barbecue with each other

In the grounds of their small apartment block

And George's mum, apparently

Owned the building

So here's this small gathering

Of friendly residents

Enjoying some soup and beer

With a turkey turning on a spit

Over a fire pit

When suddenly the landlord's son

Turns up with two foreigners in tow

To eat their food

And drink their beer

There was a distinct understandable whiff

Of hospitality

Through gritted teeth

I'm just trying to explain to the listener

Levels of awkwardness

Could you elaborate?

Off the subject?

Scale

We've had to rebase

Our scale of awkwardness

To accommodate this new event

Things are reaching now

A climax of discomfort

And we're now having pictures taken

In front of the bloody turkey

I'm weeping so hard

I'm definitely getting egg ache in the morning

And we're being looked at

So are we welcome or not here?

So George, explain what this is all about

Why are we here?

Why?

Yeah

For the turkey project

Why not?

Because they're

Are these your friends?

Or your mum's friends?

Or yeah

No, we're hungry

And they've got their food

Yeah

It's as simple as that

Okay

So us just strolling in

And having their food

Yeah

And drinking

And then leaving

That's alright

That's my house

Right

That's my house

So you're like

I shouldn't be here

You're playing the landlord

I'm boss

I'm boss of this company

Oh, okay

So I don't care about you

So they

I tell you what

Let's collect the rent now

And we'll have some spending

Give them the good news

The rent's going up

Rent day's early

This month

Yeah

Come on

Cash

10,000 crowns

Everyone hands in pockets

No

Otherwise

Party time tonight

It's a party tax

Put a fire out

Put the fire out with their beer

Yeah

Let's roll the conversation

Here's my godson

And action

Tell us about the ladybird

I want to pick him up

What's his name?

Uncle's best

Okay

How many spots has he got?

One, two, three, four

Okay

And what's your name?

Oscar

And where are we?

In a pub

In Oscar's garden

We are in Oscar's garden

And what's the weather like?

Um sunny

And how are you feeling today?

Um

A bit better

Oh a bit better

Have you been a bit ill?

Yes

Uh what happened when you were ill?

Um I've been sick

Tell us about that

Um I've been sick and noobly

And in um bed

And was it very messy?

Yes

And it was very squidgy

That's all the news for now

Let's pick up the ladybird

Shall we?

Na na na na na

Na na na na na na

Remember Canada Chris?

Well he's finally moved back to the UK

And I went out with him recently

And we got completely tired and emotional

As is the tradition we went for a fry up the next morning

To a cafe somewhere in St. Albans

Check the smashcast.com if you want more specific details of course

And well there I recorded this

It's time to go

it's not a cafe i'm likely to return to this is the sound of a cafe it's the h and h cafe

just getting our toast

one slice each i'm here with i'm here with canada chris who's no longer canada chris

he's nottingham chris but we've uh we first of all ordered our mug of tea and our coffee

and i needed sugar and um the very kind cafe owner delved into his groin pocket and dug out

three portions of sugar three sachets of sugar there is no sugar on the tables here

it's all maintained solely in the groin pocket of the cafe owner anyway out and about out and about

na-na-na-na-na

smash cast

yes

w w w dot

let's

smash

going to prague there's so much to see uh especially if you have as good a pair of hosts

as i had um one of these myriad sites is the charles bridge lined with statues of saints

it joins one side of the city to the other and it has its own particular story

so we're coming to the end of the charles bridge

uh we're going to the charles bridge now and uh we have crossed charles bridge and the smash cast has just discovered that this bridge was built using eggs

yes

using eggs to bind the

everybody knows that

so they so what the the uh people of chet did was send in their eggs

yes

so that the eggs could be used to bind the cement

maybe

you cheks are crazy

Essentially a cake.

I just walked across a bridge made of cake.

Say it again.

But you're listening to the Smashcast.

Do you remember when Frasier was on?

On Friday nights, Channel 4.

It used to be a programme that I enjoyed rather a lot.

I thought it was very good.

But there was one thing that it was bloody awful at.

And that was the British accents.

Apart from, what's her name?

She was British.

Supposed to be from Manchester.

I can't remember her name.

I'm going to have to Google her.

You're like Manchester.

You've got strange ways.

But you've got style too.

And I miss you while I'm away.

You're as pretty as that city in autumn too.

And you're like Manchester.

Because I love you.

You're like Manchester.

You've got strange ways.

You are my queen.

And like a certain town will always rain.

You're as pretty as that city in autumn too.

And you're like Manchester.

Because I love you.

Jane Leaves.

That's right.

She was the one who played Daphne from Manchester.

But disappointingly, however,

I discover she's actually from Milford in Essex.

Or Manchester at all.

Anyway, let's leave Jane Leaves.

We're not interested in her anyway.

Or fraud.

But if you're like Manchester,

don't you cheat on me.

If I rush home to find you've been in Wally's range,

I won't be pleased.

My belle view of the world

will become a fallow field.

But I know I can't trust you.

I can't trust you.

You're like Manchester.

And I can't trust you.

So, apart from Jane Leaves'

fraudulent mank accent,

accent convincing though it was to a southerner like me clearly the rest of the show was really

quite bad at british accents and i think i found their onset accent trainer now listen carefully

everyone you might learn something now let's practice the short o and again i'll give you

words and sentences i'll say them standard american first followed up with the british

dialect hot hot coffee coffee fought fought bobby bobby fond fond now some sentences

ron opted to ignore dot ron opted to ignore dot

ron opted to ignore dot

lost coffee is not to be fought over lost coffee is not to be fought over

the dog was lost in the fog the dog was lost in the fog

the loft smelled like strong coffee the loft smelled like strong coffee where on earth has

she been to pick up that accent certainly nowhere

nowhere

nowhere where i've ever been in the uk sounds more like she's having a stroke

anyway i'm now gonna go and have a coffee uh and i might take it up to the loft uh later on

though before i get too cocky while in the czech republic we managed to workshop a few

language issues ourselves especially pronunciation

we did a what they call it intercambio so you teach someone english and

they're going to teach you a language and you're going to teach them a language and

they teach you spanish so we'll go together and have lunch and then we'll just like talk for half an hour in english and half an hour in spanish and she couldn't say would so like would you know um would you would yes would you or you can't see the wood for the trees yeah she couldn't she couldn't say would she'd just say good she kept saying good i said no no it's wood and she went good

she just total blind spot

you helped me out of here

she was uh she was seven years old

Crips

crips

what was it Chris, was it Lich?

yeah

Tuchomneritsa

what?

Tuchomneritsa

Tuchomeritsa

This is where we are now?

Yeah.

Kiri.

Ksivokla.

Krivokla.

Ksivokla.

Ksiv.

Don't monkey around with me.

You've got to speak properly, man.

Kri.

Pss.

Kri.

Pss.

Crisp.

It's like crisp.

Crisp.

Tucho.

You can say just Tucho.

It's Tucho.

Tucho.

Mierice.

Tucho Mierice.

Mierice.

I think Tucho is enough.

Yeah.

You've had enough.

Yeah, I understand.

If you say Tucho, I know what it means.

I know what it means.

Okay.

We so badly need a magic tree in this garden.

Okay, five.

Five.

Spieki.

Spieklama.

Spieki.

Blah, blah, blah.

Knedlama.

Knedla, blah, blah.

Knedla.

I'm not sure.

Knedla, blah, blah, blah.

Ksivoglad.

Glad.

Ksivoglad.

Getting further away.

Ksivoglad.

Every single attempt gets further away.

Ksivoglad.

Yeah, that's right.

Ksivoglad.

This is painful.

It's like watching an animal trying to gnaw its leg off to escape from a trap.

Is it? Is that what it's like?

It's exactly what it's like.

Watching your...

Yes, I know, you had enough about ten minutes ago, if not before.

So, thank you to the very handsome and welcoming George and Philip from the Czech Republic.

Thank you also to Julia Anderson.

And thank you to Minty, to Little Oscar, and to Not-So-Canada Chris.

And thank you, Mr. Bradley, for inviting me along as your travel companion.

That's it.

It's a mistake.

You're not going to be making it again.

You can visit the Smashcast at thesmashcast.com.

And you can also follow the Smashcast at Smashcast on Twitter, if you like.

And why not be one of the first people to like the Smashcast Facebook page, if you can be asked.

And it doesn't matter if you don't, because I'm going to Mars!

Smashcast is a production of the U.S. Department of State.

No part of this recording may be reproduced without Mooji Media Ltd.'s express consent.