English File third edition Intermediate SB
File 9 Listening scripts
5.2
The ticket inspector touched my arm. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘when we get to Peterborough station, run as fast as you can to Platform 1. The Leeds train will be there.’
I looked at him, without really understanding what he had said. ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘Is the train late or something?’ ‘No, it’s not late,’ the ticket inspector said. ‘I’ve just radioed Peterborough station. The train is going to wait for you. As soon as you get on, it’ll leave. The passengers will complain, but let’s not worry about that. You’ll get home, and that’s the main thing.’ And he walked away.
I suddenly realised what an amazing thing he had done. I got up and went after him. I wanted to give him everything I had, all the money in my wallet – but I knew he would be offended. I grabbed his arm. ‘I, er, just wanted to…’ but I couldn’t continue.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘No problem.’
‘I wish I had a way to thank you,’ I said. ‘I really appreciate what you’ve done.’
‘No problem,’ he said again. ‘Listen, if you want to thank me, the next time you see someone in trouble, help them. That will pay me back. And tell them to do the same to someone else. It’ll make the world a better place.’
When the train stopped, I rushed to Platform 1 and sure enough the Leeds train was there waiting, and a few hours later I was with my Mum in hospital.
Even now, years later, whenever I think of her, I remember the Good Ticket Inspector on that late-night train to Peterborough. It changed me from a young man who was nearly a criminal into a decent human being. I’ve been trying to pay him back ever since then.
5.6
Apart from the hockey players, he also gives the examples of the Beatles, the most famous rock band of all time and Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. The Beatles were really lucky to be invited to play in Hamburg in 1960. The club owner who invited them normally only invited bands from London, but on one trip to the UK he met an entrepreneur from Liverpool who told him that there were some really good bands in that city. When the Beatles arrived in Hamburg, they had to work incredibly hard. They had to play for up to eight hours a night in the club seven nights a week. As John Lennon said later, ‘We got better and we got more confidence. We couldn’t help it, with all the experience we got from playing all night long in the club.’ By 1964, when they became really successful, the Beatles had been to Hamburg four times, and had already performed live an estimated 1,200 times, far more than many bands today perform in their entire careers.
Bill Gates’s huge stroke of good luck came in 1968, when the high school he was at decided to spend some money they’d been given on a computer. This computer was kept in a little room that then became the computer club. In 1968, most universities didn’t have a computer club, let alone schools. From that time on Gates spent most of his time in the computer room, as he and his friends taught themselves how to use it. ‘It was my obsession,’ Gates says of those early high school years. ‘I skipped athletics. I went up there at night. We were programming at weekends. It would be a rare week that we wouldn’t get 20 or 30 hours in.’ So Gates was unbelievably lucky to have access to a computer, but of course he also put in all those hours of practice too.
Talent, Gladwell concludes, is obviously important, but there are many talented people out there. What makes just a few of them special is that they are lucky, and that they put in far more hours of practice than the rest.
5.19
Part 1
Presenter And now it’s time for our book of the week, which is The Winter of our Disconnect by Susan Maushart. Jenny, to start with, it’s a good title, isn’t it?
Jenny Yes, brilliant. And it was a fascinating experiment and a good read.
Presenter Tell us about it.
Jenny Well, Susan Maushart is a journalist who’s bringing up three teenage children. She decided to do the experiment after reaching a point where she felt that the whole family, especially her children, were all living in their own little worlds, with headphones on, plugged into their laptops or their iPods or their smart phones and that they weren't relating to the other people in the family.
Andrew So it wasn't just her children who were permanently plugged into an electrical device?
Jenny Well, she admits that she herself was quite addicted to her phone and to her iPod and her laptop and that she was constantly reading news sites and googling information, but it was really her children who were totally dependent on new technology. In the book she makes the interesting distinction between ‘digital immigrants’ and ‘digital natives’.
Nick What does that mean?
Jenny She describes herself as a digital immigrant, that's to say someone who didn’t grow up with digital technology, which is really anyone who was born before 1980. Her children are digital natives, which means that they were born after computers and the internet were already part of life.
Nick Well, that’s me then.
Jenny Yes, well, the main difference, she says, is that digital immigrants use the technology, to find information or to listen to music, but digital natives live and breathe the technology. So for them living without it is like living without water, without electricity…in the dark ages.
Nick What were the rules of the experiment?
Jenny The family had to live for six months without using any electrical gadgets in the house with a screen. So no smartphones, no TVs, no laptops or computers, no video consoles and no iPods. They were allowed to use technology at school or at friends’ houses, or in internet cafés, and they were allowed to use landline phones. But everything else was switched off for the whole six months.
Sally Six months? How on earth did she get the children to agree?
Jenny She bribed them. She told them she was going to write a book about the experiment, and that they would share in any profits that she made from the book!
Sally Wow, that was very clever of her…
5.20
Part 2
Presenter So what were the results? Was it a positive experience?
Jenny At the end of the book Susan says that it was a positive experience in every way. At first, of course, the kids complained bitterly, they kept saying they were bored. But then they started to talk to each other again, to go and sit in each other’s rooms and chat. They got interested in cooking and reading, they went to the cinema together. They played CDs on the CD player and they actually sat and listened to the music instead of just having music on their headphones all the time as background music. And Susan's 15-year-old son started playing the saxophone again. He’d stopped playing a few years before, but then he started having lessons again and even started giving concerts… Oh, and the children said that they slept better!
Sally Oh, well that’s good, yeah. What about the children’s' schoolwork? I mean nowadays we sort of assume that everyone needs the internet to do research for homework and so on.
Jenny In fact, the children’s school reports showed that they all improved. When they needed the internet they used the computers at school or at university (the eldest daughter was at university), or they went to friends' houses. But when they did their homework they did it better than before because they weren’t multi-tasking – they weren’t doing homework and listening to music and sending messages all at the same time. So they concentrated better, and their schoolwork improved.
Andrew What about, Susan, the mother? Did she find it difficult to live without modern technology?
Jenny What she found most difficult was writing her weekly article for the newspaper because she had to do it by hand, and not on her laptop. She says that at the beginning her hand used to really ache, she just wasn’t used to writing by hand anymore. But that was just a small problem.
Nick Any other negatives?
Jenny Well, of course the phone bill for their landline was enormous!
Nick Has the experiment had a lasting effect?
Jenny Susan says that it has. She thinks that they all get on much better as a family, her son is still playing the saxophone and he sold his video console. They’ve all realised that we live in a digital world, but that we need to disconnect from time to time and to re-connect to the people around us. So they have new rules in the house, like no TVs in bedrooms and no TV in the kitchen where they eat. And no wasted hours on the internet.
Sally Sounds great. That would be a good rule for me too!
5.21
Part 3
Presenter OK, so imagine you all did the experiment. What would you miss the most? Sally?
Sally Well, I already live without the internet many weekends because we have a house in the country in the middle of nowhere where there’s no internet coverage. So I know that what I would miss most is being able to google information, like the phone number of a restaurant, or what time a film starts. Or even, dare I say it, the football results. I don't have a TV, so I wouldn't miss that, but I would miss not having the internet.
Presenter Andrew?
Andrew Well, I simply couldn’t live without a computer or a laptop because I work from home, so I don’t have an office to go to, and I absolutely need the internet too. I couldn’t do the experiment – I just wouldn’t be prepared to go to an internet café all day to work. Susan, the journalist who did the experiment, only had to write one column a week, but I work from home eight hours a day.
Presenter Jenny.
Jenny I think I could do it, I think I could easily live without any of these electrical gadgets at home. I mean, I have my office so I could use the internet there. I don’t use an iPod, I still prefer to listen to CDs.
Nick (interrupts her) You old dinosaur.
Jenny Yes, yes I know…and I don’t watch much TV. I am quite attached to my Blackberry, but I wouldn’t mind using a normal phone for six months. I don’t think there’s anything I’d miss too much.
Presenter And finally Nick, our only digital native.
Nick Well, I’m sorry, but I just wouldn’t be prepared to even try the experiment, not even for a week let alone six months. I wouldn't be prepared to live without my phone. I use it for everything, phoning, music, the internet. So, no, I wouldn't do it.
Presenter Not even if you were offered money?
Nick It would have to be a huge amount of money. No, I’m definitely not going to do it!
5.22
Paul Yeah?
Jenny Hi there. It’s me. Should I come up?
Jenny Paul!
Paul That’s right.
Jenny Er... hi.
Paul Hi. Are you OK?
Jenny Yes, fine. Thanks. It’s just that I erm...
Paul What?
Jenny I wasn’t expecting to see you.
Paul Really? Well, as you can see, I’m still here. It seems Rob just can’t live without me.
Paul Yeah, he’s going to miss me when I’m gone. But not for long. We’ll meet up again when he goes back to London.
Jenny Goes back...?
Paul Yeah, he told me last night that he was planning to leave New York pretty soon.
Jenny He what?
Rob Hi Jenny. Do you want some breakfast? I’ve got bagels.
Jenny No thank you, Rob. Why don’t you two enjoy them?!
Rob What’s wrong?
Paul No idea. I just said you were planning to leave New York soon and she...
Rob You what? I didn’t say that!
Paul You didn’t have to. This New York life isn’t you Rob and you know it.
Rob No, I don’t! I like New York and Jenny’s here.
Paul Oh come on! What’s the big deal? It’s not like you want to marry her.
Rob Well...
Paul What? You do?!
Rob Look Paul. I’m serious about New York and I’m serious about Jenny. And I want you to leave. Today.
Paul ...
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