Friday, February 08, 2008

Show 636 Friday 8 February


Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi I’m Sarah. Welcome to The Daily English Show.

Today I’m going to talk about a song by Flight of the Conchords.
Flight of the Conchords are a folk, pop, and comedy band, it says in Wikipedia, made up of two Kiwi guys. Apparently, they first teamed up in 1998 at Victoria University of Wellington - which is where I also happened to be in 1998. Oh yes, claim to fame.

Anyway, they’ve been playing together as a band for a while and then last year they starred in an American sitcom called Flight of the Conchords which portrays a fictionalized version of the real-life duo ... who play themselves.
It was broadcast on a channel in the US called HBO. And apparently it’s been on TV in other countries too like Canada, New Zealand, the UK, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Norway.

I checked out a few clips of the show a while back after reading something about them online and then the other day they won a Grammy award. So I looked them up again and I’ve just watched a whole lot of their clips from their live performances, and from the show. And I haven’t laughed so much in ages. They are so funny.

It was hard to choose which song to talk about because I like a lot of them. But anyway, finally I chose the song called Jenny.

* Watch a clip of FOTC performing the song Jenny live here.

This song is about that situation when you run into someone and they remember you, but you don’t remember them, but you don’t want to admit not remembering them. So you just don’t admit to it and you hope that as the conversation progresses you’ll remember how you know them. And during that period of not remembering you have to try and keep the conversation general so you don’t give away the fact that you don’t remember, so you say stuff like: How’s work? And just hope they’re not unemployed I guess.

I’ve had times like that where I’ve remembered half way through who the person is and how I know them. And other times when I’ve had the whole conversation and then walked away and thought: “Who was that person?”

Anyway, this song takes that situation to the kind of ridiculous, comical extreme. Everything the guy in the song says he gets wrong, but he keeps trying to act like he remembers and he keeps getting it wrong.

Here are some of my favourite lines:

Bret, the guy playing Jenny says they met at a party and the other guy, Jermaine, says:
That's right! Wasn't it one of those boring work parties?
Bret: No.
Jemaine: That's why I said wasn't it.

That’s funny. He’s trying to recover from his mistake ... but of course it doesn’t make sense.

Later on Bret is reminding him what they did when they met. And he says:
We went for a walk.
Jemaine: On our feet if I remember correctly.

Of course they walked on their feet, but Jemaine’s been getting everything wrong, so he’s trying to say something that he can’t possibly get wrong.

Finally, another line I like is when Bret says: Do you remember what you said to me? And Jermaine answers: Not word for word actually Jenny, but I remember there was some verbs.

Word for word means exactly.
And of course there were verbs, because it’s hard to have a conversation without verbs. Although I guess it is possible.



STICK NEWS

Kia Ora, in Stick News today a British travel company has paid over a million dollars for a domain name.

A travel company in Britain already owned the domain name cruise.co.uk. But they also wanted cruises.co.uk.
So they bought it from a German travel company for $1.3 million dollars.
Reuters reported this is the most money ever paid for a .co.uk address.
A spokesperson for the company said:
“'Cruises' is consistently ranked first on Google, with 'cruise' just behind.
We wanted the top positions so that when internet users are searching for deals ... we are the first port of call.”

And that was Stick News for Friday the 8th of February.
Kia Ora




THE SNOW REPORT
at Loaf Lounge

with Mikey

Where are you from?
I’m from the east coast in America.

How long have you been in Niseko?
Oh, about ... I’ve come here 12 years in the wintertime. This is my 12th winter season.

Do you ski or snowboard?
Snowboard.

Isn’t there really good snow in America? Why do you come to Japan?
Oh, cause my girlfriend at the time in Hawaii said that her boyfriend in high school could climb up to the second story window in snow. And I said, “bullshit”. Then I got here and she wasn’t lying.

How have the conditions been recently?
The last two days sucked. No snow. You know we have a rule, it has to be this much or you don’t go.



friday joke

Q. What did the paper clip say to the magnet?

A. "I find you very attractive."



conversations with sarah
#388 You’re looking good.

Step 1: Repeat Bret’s lines.
Step 2: Read Bret’s lines and talk to Jermaine.

Bret How you doing?

Jermaine Mmm good thanks.

Bret You’re looking good.

Jermaine Pardon?

Bret I said you're looking good.

Jermaine Fair enough.

Bret Jenny.

Jermaine Pardon?

Bret Jenny.

Jermaine No I am sorry I think you've mistaken me for somebody else.

Bret No, it's me, I'm Jenny, my name is Jenny.

Jermaine Oh you're, oh, ha ha ha ha. Oh, I thought' oh ... what a hilarious misunderstanding. Nice to meet you Jenny.

Bret We've met before - quite a few times actually.

Jermaine Yes, of course we have. I meant it was nice to meet you the time that I met you. Where was it that we met that time that I met you when I met you?


Posted by tdes at Friday, February 08, 2008
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